Doctor Hooves: An Unusual Filly

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Offer of Company
Chapter 2: Enter Doctor Hooves
Chapter 3: A Thousand Years in the Past
Chapter 4: The City of Chaos
Chapter 5: The Master of Chaos
Chapter 6: Held Captive by Chaos
Chapter 7: Escape From Chaos
Chapter 8: Aiding the Alicorns
Chapter 9: Journey Into Everfree
Chapter 10: The Shadow Ponies
Chapter 11: The Empire of Crystal
Chapter 12: The Fall of a King
Chapter 13: An Unlikely Alliance
Chapter 14: Planning the War
Chapter 16: The Curse Becomes a Reality
Chapter 17: Nightmare's Fall
Chapter 18: Leaving
Chapter 15: The Siege of Canterlot

Chapter 1: The Offer of Company

It was a sunny day in the magical land of Equestria, sunny but still cold for the ponies who are used to warm weather. The pegasi were preparing for winter and all of the ponies were going about their business. In the small country town of Ponyville everyone was busy, the Apple family were collecting the freshly ripe apples on their farm, all the stores on Sugar Cube Corner were busy and all of the colts and filly's were in school. Teaching all of these young ponies was a pretty Earth Pony with a purple coat, a golden mane and tail and a cutie mark of three smiling flowers plastered on her flank. "Okay class, that's all for today. Goodbye everyone."

Cheerilee sighed with relief as all of the energetic young ponies left her classroom, she loved them all to bits but sometimes she just needed a rest. She noticed a solitary filly still sat at the back of the room, still at her desk and absorbed in a book, not surprising at all she thought. This girl was always lonely and Cheerilee didn't quite know why, she was one of the sweetest pupils in the class so there was no way she couldn't make friends if she wanted to.

Cheerilee went over to her pupil, a filly with a lovely purple coat, bright green mane and a moon and stars cutie mark and said "Good afternoon Sugar, how are you today?".

Sugar Hooves looked up from her book and said in a soft but nevertheless fairly loud voice "Oh good afternoon Miss Cheerilee, I'm perfectly alright thank you." The soft tone of the young pony calmed Cheerilee right down after her long day of work,

"Glad to hear it, what are you reading?"

"The History of Canterlot, it's fascinating", Cheerilee was quite surprised that such a young pony would take an interest in such a book. Her curiosity was beginning to grow.

Just then they both heard a voice at the classroom door "Howdy there Cheerilee, are ya ready to g..." they both turned around to see a fairly large stallion with a red coat, a blonde tail and mane and a big green apple for a cutie mark. Big Macintosh had stopped when he saw Sugar as he didn't feel like bothering the young earth pony with his private life.

"Oh, hello there Macintosh."

"Well howdy there Cheerilee and uh..." he hadn't heard the filly's name before and probably wouldn't have remembered it anyway given how he rarely interacted with any of the young pony's other than his younger sister and her two friends.

Cheerilee helped him out though "Oh, this is Sugar Hooves, I was actually about to ask her if we could walk her home." Big Mac nodded, thinking darn now I have to remember her name but kept a smile on the outside that said yeah sure.

Sugar had been putting her book in her bag during this exchange and when she heard what Cheerilee said she froze and said "No thank you Miss Cheerilee, that won't be necessary." Cheerilee was even more shocked now than before, not only had the filly been surprised at the gesture, she was rushing her speech as if she was actually trying to avoid the idea all together. She wasn't going to give up though. Since joining the class two months ago this girl has done nothing but make her curious, maybe it she got her talking on the way home she could figure out why Sugar was so unusual.

"Are you sure Sugar? It's awfully cold out."

"Yes, I'm sure" Sugar replied "my grandfather doesn't like strangers."

That was not only strange for a pony living in Ponyville but it was even stranger considering the man's job. Cheerilee wanted to call her out right there But you said he was a doctor, not liking strangers makes no sense but she held in her thoughts and just smiled "Okay then, if you're sure have a lovely evening."

Content with the results Sugar replies "I certainly will try Miss, goodbye" and then she was out of the door without giving her teacher a second glance.
***

"So... tell me why we're followin' you student home again." Big Mac said. They had left the classroom a little behind Sugar Hooves and had been following her, which wasn't as easy as it probably should have been. She was being insanely careful for someone was only taking a casual stroll home. She stopped at every corner and looked behind her, leading Cheerilee and Big Mac to have to hide behind buildings regularly. That only fuelled Cheerilee's curiosity and created some inside Big Mac.

"Well" Cheerilee whispered "Sugar came into my class two months ago and since the moment she stepped into the classroom she's been... well, for lack of a better word odd. She's known things that no other pony in the class had any idea of but she lacks the basic knowledge of how our money works. She said she thought we had a smaller currency that makes up a bit. Can you believe that?"

Big Mac was now as unsure as Cheerily on what to make of the filly. From the sounds of it she was incredibly good at difficult tasks but also painfully bad at simple things that most ponies just take as a minor task.

After following Sugar for a few more minutes they turned a corner and... she was gone. All they found around that corner was a big blue box made out of wood...

Author's Note

This serves as the introduction to a story based on Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child. I hope that once I finish this one I have enough of a following to make a series out of it.

I would like to tell you right now that after this there will be very little resemblance to the original Doctor Who serial as I don't think going back to when the ponies were primitive would be a very interesting plot.

Please comment and tell me what I can do to improve my writing and keep an eye out for the second chapter...

Enter Doctor Hooves

Chapter 2: Enter Doctor Hooves

Big Mac sniffed the blue wooden thing they had found in the corner of Ponyville. It was a big box with a door that had a white sign on it, a sign telling them about something called 'police'. They assumed it was probably a fancy word for the guards, at the top of the box there was a black sign with white words on it 'Police Public Call Box'. They spent a lot of time contemplating what it was supposed to mean before Cheerilee snapped back to what they were there for in the first place "Damn" she said in frustration, how could she let herself be distracted so easily "where did Sugar go?"

Big Mac let out a confused "Hm" as he remembered the filly who's strange behaviour had lead them here. They both stood confused thinking about it "Maybe she saw an' ran." Big Mac suggested. Just then they heard a familiar voice.

"Who's there?" coming from... they couldn't tell, the voice of Sugar had been so quiet compared to usual that they didn't even know where it was coming from. The thought crossed their minds at the same time by Celestia she's in the box.

Footsteps were approaching, calm, slow footsteps which startled them as much as the box had. They hid behind a hedge and waited for the stranger to pass. Out next to the box stepped a tall, grey maned stallion with a slightly darker coat and a black hat, what sort of hat they couldn't tell. They saw a glow from under the hat as a key emerged from the fur of his well kept tail and they realised he was also a Unicorn and he had a key for the blue box. Big Mac got up, having apparently shared the same thoughts as Cheerilee once again and walked out addressing the man with "You there, what in tarnation is goin' on here?"

The old pony jumped, dropping his key and turned to Big Mac and Cheerilee in anger " What, who are you? And you're asking me what's going on, how about telling me what you were doing hiding away next to my property?" Both Big Mac and Cheerilee walked towards him wanting answers.

"We heard a voice" said Cheerilee "coming from inside your big blue box, care to explain that?" She was surprise with herself, she never new she could get so aggressive but then again was one of her students and se would do anything to protect her.

This stallion proved to be an angry one though "My dear young mare if there was anypony in there don't you think they would still be..."

"Oh is that you at last grandfather?" came the voice again, very clear this time. Big Mac had all of the proof he needed and so he walked around the door, raised his legs.

"What the hell do you think you're..." and kicked the door open despite the obvious protests of the old stallion. It opened easily enough, the old madman had probably unlocked it before he dropped his key. Big Mac turned around and as he saw Sugar Hooves in the centre of the huge roo...

Oh my gosh Big Mac thought as he stared into the heart of the small and yet huge structure. It was a round room, all white with glowing circles on the wall. In the centre of the room there was... something, it was round like the rest of the room but it was covered in stuff. That was the only way he could think to explain it, he'd never seen anything like this in his life.

He was followed suite by Cheerilee and the grumpy old stallion they'd met outside. Sugar was stood next to the round thing in the middle of the room, shocked and worried expression fell across her face "Oh goodness grandfather I'm so sorry."

"And so you bloody well should be, leading strangers to the TARDIS. I told you to be careful!" Sugar looked down, ashamed as her grandfather, Doctor Hooves, turned to face the two intruders "And is it normal for two adults who obviously have matters of their own to deal with to stalk children home?"

"We weren't stalking her." said Cheerilee defensively.

Doctor Hooves went over to the round thing and using his horn twisted one of the things that was on it "No grandfather, no!" Sugar screamed,

"They've seen the ship you foolish girl, I don't want them telling anypony that they've seen a couple of aliens and been inside a ship that's bigger on the inside. It's too early in their history."

"I've had 'bout 'nough of this" said Big Mac but as he turned to leave he noticed that the door was closed. "What the heck, why can't we leave?"

"You've seen us, it's only a matter of time before you tell somepony about us, about this ship."

"Ship?" Big Mac questioned "This ain't no ship, the Apple family had ships when we went an' brought apples to Equestria and this ain't one of 'em."

"A ship that travels between worlds." Doctor Hooves said, irritated.

Big Mac froze "That's a load of BS" he said quickly.

"How do you know?" asked a voice from the side. Cheerilee had been watching and listening in fascination and was finally ready to join the discussion "It seems fairly legitimate to me."

"C'mon Cheerily, there ain't nothin' in this world like that"

"We're not of this world." Doctor Hooves stated bluntly.

There was silence for a short while "Run that by me again." Big Mac finally said.

"We are not of your world, we are Time Ponies. We can look like any kind of pony but don't be fooled, we are not the same."

Big Mac wasn't convinced, Sugar saw the unbelieving look in his eye and said "It's true, every word of it."

"Now don't go bein' silly little girl, I though Cheerilee taught you well." The entire time this conversation had been going on Doctor Hooves had been working his magic on the bits and bobs in the centre of the room and the room began to shake wildly. Cheerilee and Big Mac were struggling to keep their balance in the midst of the earthquake-like rumble and eventually Big Mac lost balance and fell unconscious upon hitting the floor and shortly thereafter so did Cheerilee.

Author's Note

I feel like I must inform you that regeneration will happen at some point so that Doctor Hooves looks like the show's version.

Chapter 3: A Thousand Years in the Past

It had been a little while since Cheerilee and Big Mac had been knocked unconscious inside the strange room that it's two inhabitants Doctor and Sugar Hooves had called the TARDIS. Big Mac blinked a few times and rose to see Cheerilee had already awoken and that Doctor Hooves and Sugar had gotten through the shaking of the room unharmed. "Wha... ow" he let out when he stood, his head was aching up a storm "What just happened?"

"We travelled through time." Doctor Hooves responded simply. "Roughly a thousand years back if I got the calculations correct."

Big Mac was left stunned by this, not from belief but from the fact that this pony actually thought time travel was possible I've gotta set this fella straight he thought. "Listen here you! I may not know much but I sure do know that time isn't somthin' you can just hop on an' off of whenever you want and if you believe this crap is possible then you need serious help fella'." That should do it he said in his head.

Instead of settling down and accepting Big Mac's logic Doctor Hooves just stood their and laughed "Oh how ignorant they are at this point, it's simply hilarious watching these ponies chase their tails trying to look for explanations that lay within their understanding. Almost sad, wouldn't you say Sugar?" He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at his granddaughter.

"Well... actually I quite like them in this period grandfather, it was their least violent time after all." she said to he grandfather, never taking her eyes off of her teacher why did she have to follow me, he won't let them go until he's satisfied now she worried. Cheerilee saw the worrying expression and shuddered.

Eventually she spoke up "So, if this is a thousand years ago then does that mean..."

Big Mac sighed, he couldn't believe she even considered any of this to be real "I don't except a word of this fella's explanation until he gives us some proof." To his surprise Doctor Hooves chuckled again. He hadn't been expecting that, he was expecting the old stallion to start panicking, to attempt to make his lie seem plausible. But instead he started laughing!

"Sugar, be a dear and turn on the viewing screen would you?" Hooves said, still smiling. Obeying quickly, Sugar went over to the thing in the middle of the room. Doctor Hooves saw the puzzled expressions on both Big Mac and Cheerilee and explained "That is the console, it has all of the controls that make the ship work. Oh and the ship is called a TARDIS, that's Time And Relative Dimension In Space." Enlightenment dawned on their faces, they still didn't know what was happening but it was nice to know something about this place.

Light that wasn't there before poured in "Viewing screen activated grandfather." she said. Outside there was nothing but countryside, smoke in the distance but otherwise just countryside.

"That's impossible," Big Mac gasped "we've moved"

"No we haven't" Doctor Hooves grinned "we're in exactly the same spot just in a different time period, right now a creature named Discord is running Equestria and Princess Luna is on the verge of becoming Nightmare Moon. A rather dark period in your history but it was the best choice to prove to you that this is in fact possible."

Big Mac's mouth hung open in shock, he couldn't believe this was happening but here it was right in front of him. Cheerilee was a lot more accepting to the ideas being placed before her, she was a teacher after all and she liked to think her students teach her at least as much as she teaches them and not to mention the visual proof they had put in front of her. "If that's were we are" she said "then isn't it dangerous for us to be here?"

She was quite right to ask that but Doctor Hooves thought he should probably sugar coat it to keep everyone from panicking "No, we're quite alright as long as nobody does anything to make either of the two evil ones angry." he said, which he knew wasn't true in Discord's case, that man would probably mess with them a lot if he saw them but there was one thing that was certain. They had to stay away from the Crystal Empire or Sombra would just kill them.

"So are we going out then grandfather?" Sugar asked, which surprisingly enough was greeted by a warm smile.

"Yes, and never fear I will take you two home eventually so for now let's go and have a look around shall we?"

Chapter 4: The City of Chaos

After two hours of walking darkness fell over the four travellers, Doctor Hooves couldn't believe how late in the day it had been when they landed bloody controls have always been fidgety he thought. They were on their way to Canterlot in an effort to both convince Big Mac of the truth; Cheerilee was already convinced, and to see first hand what the darkest and most violent period in Equestria's history was like. They were particularly interested in seeing how Discord ran Canterlot during his time as ruler of Equestria and the creation of Nightmare Moon which happened shortly afterwards.

"We'll set up camp for the night here" declared Doctor Hooves and for the first time in a long time nobody argued with him. "Big Macintosh you seem capable, could you go and collect some firewood?"

"Eeyup" Big Macintosh answered, he had gone back to his usual quiet self since they'd left the TARDIS. due to having calmed down he didn't feel the need to speak so much. He went off into the woods and came back with a mouth full of wood, Doctor Hooves was impressed. He didn't know another pony who could fit that much wood in their mouth.

Once everyone was settled Doctor Hooves did the calculations in his head "We should arrive in Canterlot at around midday tomorrow if we leave at dawn," he announced I assume we won't all be awake that early though so it should be more around two thirty give or take.

"It should be an interesting experience, oh and maybe we can see if the history books are accurate!" Cheerilee said excitedly. She was quite pleased to be in the past because it meant that she could update the books she kept in her classroom to suit what actually happened. It was too late to change her current classes view on it all but when her next group of students arrived she could start teaching the truth.

"Indeed," Doctor Hooves acknowledged "but I must warn you now, DO NOT under any circumstances attempt to interfere with past events. I know it's tempting but you must be careful in these situations or else you may inadvertently cause the end of the universe." he informed them. Cheerilee had only now noticed his cutie mark, it was probably the most appropriate cutie mark she'd ever seen. His cutie mark had the appearance of an hour glass funny how much we could have told about this stallion from the beginning, she let out a quiet chuckle and they kept chatting as the night went on.
***

It had taken about as long as Doctor Hooves expected but as the great city of Canterlot came into view Big Mac and Cheerilee both froze. They had never been there in their own time period but they were pretty sure it didn't look like this, from what Applejack and her friends had said Big Mac was expecting it to be beautiful. The first thing they noticed was that the city was the only place in the area that was covered by storm clouds, lightening going off every few seconds and that all of the rain looked like chocolate. They all remembered that, when Discord arose again he made cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain but these clouds were nowhere near as sweet looking. They were black as black can be and were full of the aforementioned lightening.

The buildings were also unlike what they'd heard, they were mostly normal buildings except that most of them had been burned to a crisp at some point or another and the streets were absolutely full of horrified ponies. The royal guard were pushing them around, not that you could recognise them as the royal guard, they had all had the colour seemingly sucked out of them leaving only grey and their slick golden armour had been replaced with a threatening black armour. One thing that stood out though was their eyes, completely blank except for a mesmerized pupil right in the centre, almost as if they had been hypnotised.

"By the Alicorns!" Cheerilee managed to breath out "What the heck happened to this place?"

"Discord happened to this place, I did tell you which time period we're in didn't I?" Doctor Hooves said, slightly irritated. She's the one who wouldn't shut up about seeing what really happened he shrugged it off, remembering that the mind of a pony could only take in so much. "We'd better get a move on, the sooner we see Discord's handy work up close the sooner we can leave."

As they walked towards the hideous sight of a city all of them; with the exception of Doctor Hooves, were rather nervous. Not only were they in a time period in which one of the most powerful evil entities in the world was very much alive but they were actually walking into a city controlled directly by him. Seems like a suicide run Cheerilee thought to herself, she was normally an optimist but in a situation like this she had to see the facts of the situation along with everyone else.

As they arrived at the gates of Canterlot Doctor Hooves stopped everyone "Alright," he whispered "once we go inside keep your heads low and just act like all the other terrified ponies, we don't want to attract any unwanted attention." The others nodded in agreement and they entered the city only to be greeted by one of the hypnotised guards.

"State your business." he said in a voice blank of emotion.

"We only wish to stay in the inn before continuing on our travels." Doctor Hooves replied, having predicted a question like this before they arrived.

The guard pony nodded "You may proceed, but be warned that if you cause trouble you will be gutted and hung outside the city walls."

Most of them gulped at that but carried on into the city anyway "Right, now all we need to do is head to Canterlot Castle, most of the vile things Discord did happened inside or just outside of that place."

Walking through the streets of Canterlot was much more difficult than any of them could have predicted, homeless ponies begging for bits at every turn, ponies being mugged by large groups in alleyways. "Just keep walking" Doctor Hooves had told them, he didn't want to interfere any more than he had to.

"But grandfather... it's awful, we must do something" Sugar had pleaded with him.

He just kept a stern look and said "Discord's rule ends in about two days anyway, the princesses of the sun and moon are planning to head into the Everfree Forest as we speak." He seemed quite sure of the fact, after all the TARDIS may have glitchy controls but the readings never lied.

Apparently he was right about the castle being the centre of all of the chaos, the closer they got the more death and decay they saw. There also seemed to be a substantial amount of guards for a being who had the power to bend reality to his will, it was almost as if he was preparing for something. They could see the castle up ahead now and it looked... strange to say the least.

It was painted in a mixture of pink and blue and all of the windows had a stained glass image of a creature the grey head of a pony; and a rather unusual pony at that, the antler of a dear on the left side of his head and the blue horn of a goat on the right side of his head. Despite the bushy white goat beard and the right red eye pupil being smaller than his left the thing that stood out the most on this creature was the single long fang protruding from the left side of his mouth.

Everyone's mouths hung open with shock as one, two syllabled word escaped from their mouths with a gasp "Discord!"

Chapter 5: The Master of Chaos

They all stared in awe at the clown like colourful castle, walking forwards towards the door which was also in the shape of Discord's hideous, multi-creature head Doctor Hooves was stopped by Big Mac "I think you've made yer point, d' we have to go in there?" the muscular red pony whispered shakily. Even one as big as Big Mac was scared of Discord, especially after what he put Ponyville through during his escape.

"Yes, it just so happens that I'm curious to see how Discord will react to us. If we walk in through the front door and start looking around he's bound to notice us sooner or later, and maybe he might be able tell where we came from. There's an awful lot you can find out in these situations and I, much like Cheerilee, want to study this period and add it into my journal." stated Doctor Hooves bluntly, he was almost a hundred years old and had stopped caring about the feelings of anyone other than his family years ago.

Big Mac was too disoriented with the current situation to argue with him beyond that, but he was almightily pissed of at this 'Doctor' for being so inconsiderate of what the others wanted. Cheerilee sensed his discomfort and nuzzled against him "It's okay" she muttered "I'm sure he's just still irritated by us sneaking around and following Sugar." It didn't seem likely looking at the expression Doctor Hooves had on him; being incredibly stern and uncaring, but he was glad that Cheerilee was there with him.

They entered into the gaping mouth that was the door and inside the castle was no better or worse than the outside, there were flags everywhere with Discord's face on them and all of the walls and carpets were either bright blue or bright pink. That was the only change they noticed, it was hard to tell what the natural colours of these features were because of the fact that they kept shifting colours between the blue and the pink!

In the colour changing rooms of the castle it was hard not to see all of the guard, their black armour contrasting completely with the colourful atmosphere in which they walked. The group had been spotted immediately but for some reason the guards didn't seem at all bothered by the intruders, it was almost as if they were expecting something more dangerous to come along and that a few ordinary ponies wondering around in the castle was no threat to their master at all. The travellers simply walked around freely but were always being watched, they may not be perceived as a threat now but it was obvious that they had been ordered to keep an eye on anyone new who came in.

Nevertheless it did not stop the time travellers from discussing the matter of why they were not being seized. "Why do you think they're not after us?" queried Cheerilee.

"These fella's obviously don't see us as any kind o' threat or they'd have taken us down by now" Big Mac said, troubled "or maybe their expecting somethin' bigger."

"What do you think grandfather?" Sugar asked, eyebrow raised in curiosity.

"Big Macintosh is most certainly right" Doctor Hooves replied, rather cocky about how much he knew "this is nearing the end of the two week period in which Discord knew that Princesses Celestia and Luna were coming for him, what he didn't know however is that they'd have the Elements of Harmony when they did."

As they kept walking they got an uneasy feeling, the further they went the more guards there were and he worst part was that an awful lot of these guards had started following them. "I gotta bad feelin' 'bout this." Big Mac said shakily.

They heard a laugh, a maniacal laugh that seemed to be coming from all around them "And so you should have my future dwelling friend, now tell me tell me, what's it like in a thousand years?" the voice spoke. Soon everyone was blinded by smoke and as it cleared they saw a creature with the head they had seen on all of the windows, it had grey fur, the right wing of a bat, the left wing of a Pegasus, the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard and the left leg of a goat. As he moved around taunting them his body moved almost snake-like, slithering around sometimes but other times walking like any other... no not like any other pony, this creature walked on two legs, this creature was Discord.

"C'mon, sit down, have some tea," he said producing a table, chairs and cups of steaming hot tea from seemingly thin air "I'm sure if you cooperate and tell me about the future I won't have to torment you as much as I do these other pathetic ponies."

"If y'all can tell we're from the future how can ya not know?" Big Mac challenged, his body trembling. He was terrified but didn't want to look it in front of the others, he would have to face this monster bravely.

"Oh my dear ignorant little pony, such a stupid stallion you are. Everypony, hell every creature knows that the only future anyone can see is through visions and I haven't been graced by one of those in a long time, besides visions only show the inevitable anyway. As for how I know you're from the future" he sniffed the air around them "peeyeew you stink of Celestia forsaken time travel."

"Grandfather..." Sugar whimpered, Doctor Hooves formed a plan.

"I've made a tactical decision that alters our earlier intensions," he said, Discord laughing at him the whole way through "we're going to run away."

And with that all four of the travellers leapt into an almost insane sprint, Big Mac taking the lead, charging through the legion of guards that had gathered behind them at that point. Sugar jumped safely onto her grandfather's back and hung on for dear life as the spry old man was running almost at the same pace as Big Mac, they ran for ages and ages and then Big Mac stopped "Wait a sec, this was to easy." he panted. They were right by the door to the main room now and there was no sign of Discord or any of his guards, it looked like a clean break for safety so why did Big Mac feel so uneasy about this?

They decided that they'd risk it and they walked cautiously through the door and... what looked like every single guard in the entire castle was gathered, defending the door. There was another poof of smoke and Discord appeared before them "Well, well it seems that I'll be forced to resort to torture. Ooh this should be fun. Take them to the dungeon!" he ordered to his guards.

At that exact moment all of the emotionless guards charged forwards, no battle cry at all, just their blank stares as they charged forwards and restrained the group. Doctor Hooves letting out an enraged growl and struggling to get free when they grabbed Sugar off of his back. "Let go of her you f..." his curse was cut off when one of the guards hit him hard on the back of the head and he fell, unconscious onto the colour-changing carpet.

"Swearing isn't very polite." Discord said to him before he passed out completely.
***

Doctor Hooves' eyes fluttered open to see his granddaughter and their two new friends shackled in a bipedal position onto the dirty walls of this basement they called the dungeon. The poof of smoke happened once again and Discord reappeared in front of them again, the mocking grin still on his face "So here we are at last, about time we got some alone time wouldn't you say?" he said "After all, over the next few days I'm gonna mess with you so bad that you'll be singing the information I want, you'd better be good singers because if you sound like a dying giraffe then we have a problem."

He vanished again in the same poof of smoke before his voice rang through the dungeon "I look forward to our little chats, I'll bring the tea, you bring the biscuits." he laughed maniacally one last time before leaving them down below.

Chapter 6: Held Captive by Chaos

Laughter was all that rung into Discord's ears as his torture of the delicate teacher pony commenced, the twelve giant feathers he had tickling her were almost certainly not going to get any information out of her Oh well it'll be fun for me anyway he thought to himself. Cheerilee was in hysterics, not because it was funny but because the feathers were getting her in all of her most sensitive spots, one of them began brushing against her neck and her laughter grew louder. "Tell me what I want to know and the tickling will stop." Discord told her in an almost comforting voice.

"Ne... he... ver" he said struggling to speak through the tickling, she was starting to wonder if he was willing to hurt anyone at all.

Her thoughts were interrupted with "There's worse to come you know. Well worse for you but more fun for me, you can hold out as long as you want but eventually I'll have to pull off the feathers and bring on the pain." he said, more viciously this time.

"No." she told him, still laughing.

"As you wish" he said, speeding up the feathers.
***

After a full two hours of being tickled Cheerilee was returned to the dungeon and re-shackled to the wall with the others, Discord's voice came ringing all around them "Bring me the big red one next, oh I'm gonna have some fun with you." it mocked.

The guards unshackled Big Mac with keys that had been attached to their hooves and the moment he was free, Big Mac violently swayed his head at one of the guards and buck kicked the other, knocking them both out in an instant. If it weren't for the fact that Discord was watching they probably would have escaped but he magically bound Big Mac's hooves together and let out three long tuts before appearing. "Now now, you're not a very polite guest are you? Just for that I'm going to torture you good and proper, and who knows maybe if you tell me the truth I'll make you a funny hat!" he said cackling all the time.

He telekinetically lifted Big Mac and carried him upstairs and dropped him on the carpet of the main hall "Tell me," he said "how resistant are you to pain?" As if on cue a group of at least a dozen guard ponies walked into the room and surrounded Big Mac. "Because you're going to be feeling a lot of it in a moment." he smiled, and evil smile, he was definitely going to enjoy what he watched.

Before Big Mac could so much as curse at Discord all of the guard ponies in the room began pummelling him, over and over they head-butted, bucked, hit and all over his body he felt overwhelming waves of pain as the guards laid into him as if they were making an attempt to beat him to death.

At the end of the beating all of the guard ponies left the room and Big Mac had the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, he had to broken ribs and he was bruised so badly that he looked as if he was a tint away from being completely purple. Discord hopped towards him, clearly having a good time he said "Now I'm going to ask you a question, what happens to me in the future? Because if I'm defeated by something I'm going to be in a rather unpleasant mood and that'll mean I'll be wanting more fun with you. So go on, out with it." Big Mac shook his head slowly.

"Very well then, oh by the way what exactly does your family do?" Discord smirked, suddenly Big Mac felt another stab of pain coming from the back of his head. He turned around to see who had thrown what at him and he saw around thirty apples floating in a circular formation, another of the fruits came flying towards him and because he was too weak to dodge it hit him clean in the jaw and soon all of the others followed. Discord was laughing crazily throughout all of it, the irony of the situation was not lost on him.

Once there were no more apples to throw Discord slithered over to Big Mac once again and asked the same question "I haven't got all day, as much as I wish I did I have to ask you now. What happens in the future? Eventually I'll break one of you and who knows, maybe I'll track down this time travel contraption to go and look for myself, leaving you behind to be slaughtered by my guards. That is if you don't answer my question of course."

Big Mac wasn't going to give in to this monster, he weakly lifted his head and raspily said the words "Screw you." as Discord chuckled again.

"Maybe the third time will be the charm then, about time for some psychological torture wouldn't you agree?" he said as a cloud of smoke enveloped Big Mac.

Big Mac looked around dazed and confused until the smoke cleared and... he was on Sweet Apple Acres. He could see across to the orchard where Applejack and Apple Bloom were bucking apples, well it was more like Applejack was bucking and Apple Bloom was moving buckets to where Applejack needed them. A smile spread across Big Mac's face as he walked over towards them.

As he got close however their expressions turned to that of terror and their eyes widened in shock, Big Mac turned around to see what they were gazing at and was greeted by the site of the farm house up in flames. He could hear Granny Smith's terrified screams as Big Mac's blood turned to ice, then something caught his eye; a grey pony with black armour looks like one of Discords guards he thought wait a minute, Discord's guards couldn't be here in this time period, this is all in my head.

Once the thought occurred to him it was impossible to shake, he knew this was an illusion now and we was turning around to tell his fake family he knew they weren't real, hoping that it would make this horrible illusion end, when he turned around he saw Applejack was impaled on the end of a Unicorn pony's horn. The streams of blood gushing from his sister's neck was enough to send the shock he'd gotten from Granny Smith into overdrive "No!" he screamed through streams of tears "This ain't real, none of this is real!"

As the fake Apple Bloom tried to run away a Pegasus flew down and snatched her up, her screams getting more and more distant as she was carried up to just below the clouds and dropped. Big Mac saw his little sister's terrified form hit the floor and explode into rivers of blood and flesh, the sight of his entire family, fake or not being butchered like this caused him to crouch down and continue denying it to himself "It's not real," he whimpered "none of this is real."

With that the smoke wall reappeared and he was back in the colour changing hall of Canterlot Castle, and he was greeted by the view of Discord still standing and still smiling exactly how he was before. "You know the question, give some answers." Discord said, getting bored of Big Mac now.

"No, y'all can show me as many of those damn illusions as you want and I still won't tell y'all wanna know." Big Mac said sternly, Discord had really pissed him off now but in with that anger there was still the pain in his heart inflicted by what he'd witnessed.

As if they'd been called in the guards marched and surrounded Big Mac "Take him to the dungeon and bring me the girl next, she'll break easy and I'm growing impatient." Discord growled at them.

They vanished into the dungeon and re-emerged carrying Sugar Hooves by her hooves, they dropped her down and left the room, knowing that Discord would want to be alone to do this. "Ah, well well well, if it isn't the little brat with the brains of an Alicorn. I'm sure you can tell me what I'm looking for." he said in a very calm, soothing voice. When she shook her head, too terrified to speak his face grew dark "Now see here, I'm normally fun to be around but since you and your friends aren't telling me what I want I'm starting to assume there's something that I ought to hear about and I'm also assuming it has something to do with me, am I right?"

Sugar remained completely silent.

Discord smiled once again okay he thought I know how to put a good scare into naughty children. "You know what I'm gonna do don't you? I'm gonna take your big red friend and break every single bone in his body, I'm gonna take that lady you're travelling with and I'm going to get my guards to do things to her that her boyfriend hasn't even done to her yet and as for your grand daddy..." she looked disturbed, he noticed but nowhere near breaking "I'm gonna snap his neck and fling his body out of the window to show everyone and while I'm doing this little one, I'm going to make you watch."

As Discord looked to see the results of his torment he heard a chuckle and a small, soft voice "Even if you do all of that, including killing grandfather I can guarantee you'll still lose." Sugar said, still chuckling.

Discord fumed, children were always scared by threats to their friends and family, why wasn't she? No matter he thought "Take the brat back to the dungeon" he commanded as his guards re-entered the room "I'll see to the old man later, they've angered me enough for now."
***

Back in the dungeon, all four of them sighing and Doctor Hooves had to admit that for simple ponies they could really hold out against Discord's attempts at torture.

"We need to escape some how," Cheerilee said to them "because he will get the information out of one of us sooner or later and I'd rather be out of here before then."

"I can help you with that," came a voice from the shadows. Out of the darkness stepped a young blue Uni... no she had wings to, it was an Alicorn, an Alicorn with a moon surrounded by black for her cutie mark. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Princess Luna and I am here to help you all escape..."

Chapter 7: Escape From Chaos

Princess Luna's horn glowed a dark purple and suddenly they all fell to the stone floor of the dungeon, the spell Luna casted having freed them from their shackles. "Come on," she whispered "we must go before Discord awakens." Her horn began to glow again, they waited in anticipation for what happened when it stopped but in the moment that she stopped casting her spell, nothing happened. She noted the confused looks on their faces "It is an invisibility spell, no one can see or hear us in this state.

"But we can see each other?" Doctor Hooves inquired, wanting to be sure.

"Yes," Luna assured him "now come, we must hurry or the spell will wear off."

She lead them all out of the dungeon and into the carpet covered halls of the castle, they followed her as she walked towards a large door which lead into a corridor. A question formed inside of Cheerilee's mind that she had to ask "Excuse me, but why are you helping us?"

Luna said, without turning to them "My sister wishes to speak with you, getting Discord's personal interest makes you an interest to her."

"How long does this here spell last?" Big Mac said, understandably worried.

"We have fifthteen minutes" Luna replied

The came to the door to the main entrance and to their surprise the found it wide open, when they stepped into the hall however they found the overly large door closed and surrounded by guards. "Damn," Luna said "there are too many to not notice us opening the door!"

"We could always try the back way." Doctor Hooves said.

Luna nodded, not saying anything and lead the way out, the others trailing close behind. The walls and carpet changing colour was distracting, it made them stagger due to the headaches it was giving them, Luna being the only one who didn't seem to mind it. She groaned "We must take haste" she said "the spell is weakening, I fear we have little more than five minutes left."

They started running, ruffling the carpets as they went and not caring, there were no guards around there at that moment and no one would notice it until they had escaped. They carried on running through the castle until they entered into the room in which the back exit door was and... there were guards stationed there too. The spell wore off and the were totally exposed, the guards noticing them quickly and charging.

Princess Luna's horn glowed a dark purple once again, she had a bemused expression on her face. With an explosion of light from her horn all of the guards were blasted backwards, knocking them unconscious.

"Come," she said "once we get outside I shall be able to teleport."

They left the castle through the door and Luna's horn glowed again, a massive orb of light encased them all as they teleported away from Canterlot.
***

A few hours had passed and Discord stirred in his sleep, hearing the emotionless voice from one of his guards "This had better be important, I need to rest my powers." he grumbled.

"I understand my lord, but I must inform you of our prisoners escape, they were aided by an Alicorn in knocking out the guards stationed at the back door." the guard said.

Fumes began to rise from Discord's ears and the guard pony burst into flames, his ashes falling onto the carpet "Now they've made me angry. I'll capture them, get the information I need and then I'll kill them, all of them. Those damn Alicorns had better just keep the sun and moon working and stay out of my way!"

Author's Note

My apologies on this chapter being so short, I just figured that the escape scene would need its own chapter.

Chapter 8: Aiding the Alicorns

Darkness. A never ending darkness. Cheerilee could see nothing, just the eternal darkness of where she was.

There were things. Ponies, creatures and gravestones. The TARDIS was there, making it's grinding noise as if it were taking off.

The voice whispered in her ear "Death, the companion of Doctor Hooves."

An explosion happened in the distance, its light was blinding. The flames got closer and closer until...
***

...she woke up.

She sat up with a start thank god it's just a dream she thought, relieved. She lay her head back on the pillow but found herself unable of getting to sleep. Frustrated, she thought about what had happened that night in an attempt to stop herself from dying of fright.
*** Earlier

They had arrived in a daze, Sugar almost entirely falling over "I apologise for the sick feeling" Luna had said to them "but I had to get you away from that madman as quickly as possible."

Before they could respond another Alicorn walked over to them, this one with a pure white coat with a dark pink and blue mane, her horn was the longest any of them had ever seen, her cutie mark was a beautiful image of the sun. This Alicorn introduced herself "Greetings, I am Celestia the princess of the sun."

All four of the time travellers bowed "Princess Celestia, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Doctor Hooves and this is my granddaughter Sugar." Doctor Hooves said, surprisingly politely.

"It's... nice to meet you... your majesty." Sugar said nervously.

"And I am Cheerilee, teacher to the little darling. It's such an honour to meet you ma'am." Cheerilee said, rather excitedly.

"Howdy there Princess, I'm Big Macintosh but most folks just call me Big Mac." The other three gave him a glare that said be respectful, this is royalty.

But Princess Celestia just smiled and said "Well, I know that you'll all be wanting to discuss why I had Luna bring you here but first you should all go and catch some rest, a tent has been prepared already." They had all wondered who'd prepared it at first but then then noticed the guards behind the princesses, some were white and some were brown but thankfully none of the were grey and they were all wearing the traditional golden armour.

One of these guards stepped forward and showed them to their tent, once inside a question that had formed on Cheerilee's mind was let out "So how come they weren't speaking in... well... old speak?"

"What in Equestria do you mean by old speak?" Doctor Hooves asked.

"You know, thee, thy, thou, why aren't they speaking like that, Luna at least should be doing it, and what about the 'royal tone of voice' Luna freaked everyone out with?"

Doctor Hooves chuckled "Oh, that my dear is the TARDIS translator circuit, it takes what people in the past, future or other worlds are trying to say and translates it into a form the listener will understand. As for the royal tone of voice, well would you do that if you were trying to hide from Discord?"

Satisfied, Cheerilee went to sleep "Goodnight everyone." she said before dozing off.
***Now

It's been a hell of a day Cheerilee thought. Then she realised that she didn't remember why she'd woken up feeling so scared in the first place. She vaguely remembered the word death but other than that she couldn't remember her dream. Oh well she thought better catch some sleep before the end of the night.
***

She woke up later than everypony else in the morning because of her period of non-sleep that she couldn't think of a reason for. She shrugged it off and went outside, breakfast had been made for them already by one of the workers dressed as guards (she doubted they were actual guards, more than likely they volunteered for the job out of hatred for Discord), they had three muffins each with a side of hay. She sat next to Big Mac "I'm really glad Derpy isn't here, she'd go nuts for these muffins even with all of the danger going on." she joked, it got a laugh out of Big Mac but Doctor Hooves and Sugar shrugged, they didn't have a clue who Derpy was.

"Princess Celestia said that she and Luna would join us shortly." Doctor Hooves told them.

Surely enough after they'd eaten some more, Celestia and Luna emerged from their respective tents having brushed their manes to look more presentable to their guests. "Good morning everyone." Celestia greeted with a warm smile "I hope you slept well."

They all nodded in union, the face of Celestia becoming stern "Down to business then, I know you're from the future."

This revelation didn't surprise them, they figured that since Discord could sense that they were time travellers then the Princesses probably could to. "I asked my sister to rescue you from Discord and bring you here because we are in desperate need of your help. Have any of you heard of the Tree of Harmony?"

Doctor and Sugar Hooves nodded while Cheerilee and Big Mac just looked oblivious, Doctor Hooves noticed this and said "The Tree of Harmony is an especially magical tree located in the Everfree Forest, the magic it possesses controls of the plants and creatures found in the forest."

Princess Celestia nodded "A fine explanation," she complimented "but there is more, There are six images on the tree, on each of it's five interconnected branches and one at the very centre of the tree itself. These images represent the Elements of Harmony and they are what gives the tree its magical prowess."

Cheerilee and Big Mac were surprised, they obviously knew of the Elements of Harmony; Big Mac's sister Applejack and her five friends represented them, but the fact that they originated in a place as unnatural as the Everfree Forest was news to them.

"You need us to help extract them don't you?" Doctor Hooves asked.

"Yes," Celestia confirmed "your knowledge of what happened in what is the past for you could help us to discern any dangers there might be, we also may not be able to handle Discord's corrupted creatures alone. We will bear no ill will against you if you feel you have to refuse. Will you help us?"

Doctor Hooves called for a huddle of the four "I'm normally used to making the decisions when it comes to my travels but this is risking all of our lives, what do you want to do?" he asked.

"Well I'm definitely helpin' " Big Mac said "after he made me watch a vision of mah family dyin' I ain't gonna let that monster get off easy."

"I agree," Cheerilee said "if Big Mac wants to then I will to."

"What about you Sugar?" Doctor Hooves asked, gently.

"I'm going to help stop Discord. He threatened you all and I won't allow that." she said, surprisingly bluntly.

They turned around and told the princesses their decision, Celestia smiled and said "It's decided then, we shall prepare and go into Everfree tomorrow at dawn."
***

Discord had three of his most powerful guard ponies in a line, a Unicorn, a Pegasus and an Earth Pony. He reached a hand out towards them and they all writhed in pain, their features becoming distorted in darkness, their bodies growing larger, their eyes growing red. The three guards stood up, they were completely black now, their newly red eyes glowing, their abilities significantly stronger. "Go out, find the future dwellers." Discord ordered "Kill them if you must, provided you bring me back at least one of them alive, I still have questions they need to answer. Oh and the ones you do kill, make it as painful as possible."

Chapter 9: Journey Into Everfree

Cheerilee woke with a start "Just another nightmare." she told herself. She got up and went outside to find all of the guards running around camp gathering spears, hitting dummies and dodging each others bow fire. She could see that they were training, that made her nervous, she knew that the Everfree Forest was dangerous and that it would now be especially dangerous due to Discord's corruption but the fact that they were taking the royal guard as protection still put her off. The others arose from their tent and Princess Celestia walked over to speak with them.

"Just a spot of training before your journey through the forest." she confirmed.

"Good, I'd imagine they'll need it," Doctor Hooves responded "but what do you mean our journey, you will be accompanying us won't you?"

"I'm afraid not, Luna and I shall make full use of our teleporting abilities to reach the tree but due to Discord's corruption of the forest we cannot take any of you, you'll act as our protection while we concentrate on removing the elements from the tree."

That troubled even Doctor Hooves, he'd expected that they'd just have to act as informants and that the princesses would deal with the danger. Still though he thought we had a deal. "Very well, I'm glad we have all the details." he said.

"Excellent, we shall leave you in an hour at which point you and the guards will begin the journey into the forest."
***

The princesses vanished in a ball of blinding light, leaving the four travellers with a small group of eight guards in order for them to be adequately protected from any of the creatures that might be lurking in the forest. They set off into the dark place full of dying trees, living plants and Celestia knows what else, this Tree of Harmony was supposed to spread its good magic to the rest of the forest but because of Discord's corruption of the delicately magical area the Everfree Forest was now an evil place.

"Come on, the quicker we move through here the quicker we get Discord off of the throne." Doctor Hooves encouraged them.

"Yeah, I can't wait to give that bastard a nice big surprise overthrowing." one of the guards said.

They didn't bother asking the names of any of the guards, they would leave here as soon as they were able so it didn't seem worth getting overly friendly with anyone. It was a nice walk to begin with, peaceful even but they all knew that the further in they went the more danger they were in.

Sugar was sat on Doctor Hooves' back as they walked, her mood uneasy. Growls came from behind the trees to their left and then more to their right. Whatever they were hearing it had them surrounded.

Two lights, extremely close together could be seen in the bushes, it didn't take long for them to realise that they were the eyes of some sort of creature. Big Mac thought he knew "Timber Wolves." he said

Almost immediately five absolutely huge wooden wolves burst from both sides of their surroundings and began circling them, sniffing and growling the entire time. The guards began scraping the floor with their hooves warningly, trying to scare off the savage beasts that had found them and seemed intent on having them for dinner. It was no good however and one of the Timber Wolves let out a roar that turned blood to ice as they charged in intent on having full stomachs by the days end.

An Earth Pony guard with a grey coat was the first to react as he attempted to kick one of the lunging beasts, he released a scream of pain as a fountain of blood erupted from his leg and he was being chewed on by two of the Timber Wolves. The seven remaining guards took similar actions except they had their aim right and kicked the two Timber Wolves that charged at Cheerilee who was cowering behind Big Mac, who himself was considering joining the fighting. After some consideration he charged at the last remaining Timber Wolf, whom he assumed was the leader of the pack.

He charged in with a head-butt which hurt like all hell but it caught the Pack Leader off guard and it was dazed long enough for Big Mac to spin around and follow up with a buck kick directly to the monsters head. Being as strong as he was the kick that Big Mac delivered was so devastating to the Pack Leader that half of his head split in half and the fragments shattered everywhere. The Pack Leader tried to let out a cry of pain but having lost half of its head all it could manage was a small whimper.

Feeling that he had done enough, Big Mac ran over to help the guards with the two Timber Wolves they were fighting off, he found that a Unicorn guard had lifted up one of the Timber Wolves and was smashing it against the trees. The other guards were bucking the last of the beasts and all Big Mac could see was dust and splinters, when the dust cloud cleared the Timber Wolf was nothing more than a few pieces of wood and some splinters on the floor. Big Mac heard a cry from behind "Look out" cried the voice of Cheerilee as Big Mac felt a slashing pain on his back, he fell to the ground, looked up and saw the half-face of the Pack Leader about to finish him off.

Just as Big Mac was preparing for the end the Unicorn guard charged into the Pack Leader, impaling the Timber Wolf through its artificial heart with his horn and killing the beast instantly. The two remaining Timber Wolves growled, waking their unconscious friend whom the Unicorn had left alone and ran into the forest, followed suite by their now limping friend.

Big Mac could feel the thin streaks of blood trickling down his side as he panted, he had been so afraid during those few seconds, he thought that after all of this his family would never see him again. He brushed those thoughts aside, "Thank you" he breathed heavily.

"No problem, just following orders." the Unicorn replied.

Big Mac smiled at him but the silence was broken when they heard a cough to the side of them. Doctor Hooves was waiting patiently, obviously trying to hide the fear that had previously inhabited his face "That's all very well but we do need to keep moving." he said.

The guards looked over at their fallen comrade, sadness washing over their faces. Doctor Hooves was not unsympathetic but they had a job to do "We can mourn him when Equestria is safe, for now we move on." he said softly.

The guards all nodded, they wanted to bury their friend but they did not want to put a mission given to them by Princess Celestia herself in jeporady because they let their emotions get the better of them.
***

They had been walking through the forest for a while now, no one had spoken since the incident with the Timber Wolves. It had hit them all incredibly hard, Cheerilee was clinging to Big Mac the whole way. she was the first to speak, whispering to Big Mac. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

"Eeyup," he replied "it was just a scratch, no need t' worry y'rself Cheerilee."

"But you know I worry Macintosh, worrying when bad things happen kind of comes with the relationship."

That earned a chuckle out of him "I know," he said "but believe me when I say that I'm fine."

She nuzzled him lovingly and they continued on their journey.

It wasn't long before they heard Doctor Hooves' voice "Stop," he ordered "it's a Ponyeater Plant." He was facing a huge plant, closely resembling a red Venus Fly Trap that was moving around, seeking the source of the voice it had just picked up.

"I think I know how we can slip past without wasting any time with finding an alternative route but first I'm going to need insects, a lot of insects."

He began using his magic to fiddle around with the leaves from the trees "What are you doin'?" Big Mac asked.

"Shh" Doctor Hooves hushed him, he continued messing with the leaves and tying them together until he lifted up what he had made. The others smiled as they realised what it was. Doctor Hooves had made a net.

"Now," he said "there is a large concentration of insect activity over there," he gestured to their right with his hoof "so if you would kindly go and catch some of them in this and close the lid I crafted onto it, this net should be thick enough for number one: the insects to stay inside and number two: for that plant to mistake it for food." he gave the net to the Unicorn guard.

Following the orders of Doctor Hooves the Unicorn went over to the area specified and caught as many insects as he could "Why will it eat this again?" he asked.

"Because with the insects inside buzzing around it'll eat the source of the noise." Doctor Hooves replied. "Now throw it to the plant and when it picks it up run like hell."

The Unicorn once again obeyed and threw the insect-filled net to the plant which then scooped it up in its mouth and began chewing, with this distraction they all ran safely past it. "See," Doctor Hooves said "those degrees I got for science in the University of Gallimane weren't given for nothing."

"Grandfather," Sugar said "if we extract the Elements of Harmony from the tree won't that mean the forest will stay like this even when Discord is gone?"

Doctor Hooves sighed and nodded "When the Tree of Harmony loses its power source it will be virtually impossible to come into the Everfree Forest without encountering some sort of danger." he said.

"Enough chit-chat, we've got a job to do." an Earth Pony guard told them.

"Right, best carry on then." Doctor Hooves said, wanting to change the subject. "Discord's defeat waits for no pony."

Chapter 10: The Shadow Ponies

After the unpleasant encounters they had on their journey both the guards and the group of travellers were looking forward to the moment when they could use the Elements of Harmony to beat Discord and everyone could just go home and relax for a few days. Unfortunately for the moment they were still in the Everfree Forest on a quest to find the most powerful sources of magic in not just Equestria but the entire world. They had no idea how their journey would turn out but they were all certain that by the end of it the princesses would pull through and they would be rid of Discord by the end of the year.

Cheerilee let out a giggle, Doctor Hooves turned to her curiously "Is there something funny about the situation?" he asked.

"Not the situation," she said "you. It's just that you acted so grumpy when we first met you but as it turns out you're just an old softy aren't you?"

He scowled at that "Young Cheerilee, look at the first part of my name. Doctor. Now why do you think I'm called that if it's not a job title?"

She thought for a moment "I'm not sure."

"It's a metaphor for the kind of person I try to be. A doctor makes people better. I wish to go into bad situations and make them better, just like a doctor. The cold reception I gave you when we first met was because I was worried about you finding out about time travel before the correct point in time, I wasn't intentionally being cruel I was just trying to prevent a situation that could change the course of history."

"And then you kidnapped us so that we wouldn't tell." she finished for him.

"Precisely, I had hoped that the experience would deter you from telling others. The plan was to drop you off back in Ponyville during your time period when I was absolutely sure that you would keep quiet about all of this."

They continued walking for quite a while longer until the silence was once again broken, this time by one of the guards "I've got a bad feeling about this."

No one paid him any heed but then they heard a growl, if they could read each others minds they would all hear Oh damn more Timber Wolves from everyone. They were all wrong. Out of the bushes leapt a creature that they assumed was a lion at first but then they saw that it couldn't possibly be an ordinary lion, for a start it was absolutely massive, towering over even the Timber Wolves. The other two features that gave it away were its scorpion tale, full of poison just like the ordinary one and then there was the fact that it had wings, it was too big for these wings to lift it up but it had them and they bore an uncanny resemblance to the wings of a dragon.

It let out a blood curdling raw as the poisoned sharp end of its tail flew towards the Unicorn guard that had saved Big Mac from the Pack Leader. The Unicorn attempted to dodge out of the way but the creature had the reflexes of the lion that was part of its body and it managed to move the sting on his tail to where the Unicorn attempted to dodge and stung him on the back of his neck. The Unicorn let out a cry of pain as the poison took affect, burning his insides as it made him feel the agony of a thousand knives digging into your body all at once.

While the monster was distracted by the Unicorn the others hid in the shrubbery around them, hoping that the creature had not seen. "What in Celestia's name is that thing?" an Earth Pony guard asked.

"That creature is a Manticore," Doctor Hooves explained "not normally that nasty as long as you don't threaten it, I wonder why it chose to attack."

"Maybe its food left the forest because of the corruption grandfather." Sugar suggested, still clinging to her grandfather's back. She was terrified.

Doctor Hooves turned his head and nuzzled her comfortingly "That's my clever girl." he said. "Now then," he turned back to the others "I have a plan but we need that thing to not notice me for a few minutes, do you fine fellows think you could distract it for a while?"

"How in the hell do you expect us to live through distracting that thing?" a guard asked.

"All of you do it at once, it isn't that smart so you should be able to aggravate it so that it doesn't know who to attack." he turned back to Sugar "You stay here."

She nodded, appearing grateful to not have to face that Manticore again. Doctor Hooves turned back to the guards again "Now." he said.

With that everyone other than Doctor Hooves and Sugar burst out of the bushes and began taunting the Manticore, shouting at it and kicking things towards it. It had the desired effect, the Manticore was constantly turning around and roaring at them, not knowing which of them it should attack. While all of this was going on Doctor Hooves was using his magic to gather vines off of the trees

This went on for quite a while before Doctor Hooves burst out from behind the bushes and shouted "Here kitty, kitty," he produced a huge ball of vines resembling a ball of yarn. The Manticore immediately changed its tone, now it had its tongue sticking out and it was staring at the ball. Doctor Hooves then threw the ball into the direction that they had come from and shouted "Go get the ball."

The Manticore then ran off immediately into the forest and they quickly ran in the direction specified by Princess Celestia, they were close to the Tree of Harmony now.
***

It took them longer than expected but with no more danger along the way the last part of the walk seemed to fly by compared to the rest of it. They found themselves fighting to get through some especially thick bushes, they were all tired and irritated by the long journey. "We'd better be real close." Big Mac said.

Doctor Hooves sighed, he was tired of the complaining "If my history is right then the tree should be just through these bushes, now shut up and keep pushing."

Big Mac scowled at him but was obedient, they kept pushing and pushing and pushing until the they had torn right through the bush. What they were greeted by on the other side was a welcome sight, the princesses were already there as they said they would be but the tree itself was beautiful. It was glowing a glorious blue, it's five branches showing pictures of a gem, an apple, a lightening bolt, a butterfly and a balloon.

The stand out was at the centre, the picture that glowed brightest was that of a star. They all noticed something else that stood out to them, at the bottom of this marvellous tree were two images, one of the sun and one of the moon, the images at the bottom of the tree showed the cutie marks of both princesses.

They all looked at the princesses, wondering if they knew what this meant, Celestia and Luna looked at each other with expressions that told everyone that they were equally confused. Cheerilee noticed that Doctor Hooves was the only one to keep the same facial expression, she came to the conclusion that he knew what was going on and decided to ask about it later. For now they had work to do.

"Okay," Princess Celestia sighed, deciding to figure it out later "now all we need to do is extract the elements. You see those images, those are the Elements of Harmony. It's going to take the combined strength of me and Luna to extract them, we cannot be disturbed so you shall have to protect us if danger arises."

Her six remaining guards saluted with their hooves and they set about walking around the area to set up a perimeter, the horns of both Celestia and Luna began to glow with power and magical beams shot out towards the tree and splitting to cover all of the elements. They appeared to be in a trance during all of this and it became clear why they could not defend themselves. Doctor Hooves turned around when he heard a rather peculiar sound, it was like steam coming off of a burning hot object that had been dropped into water that bubbling up.

He turned to where this sound was coming from and what he saw was strange, it appeared that there was a black bubbling liquid coming from the ground, curious he thought. Out of the black liquid rose a pony, an Earth Pony to be exact, its coat was as black as the night sky and its eyes were glowing a bright green. This Shadow Earth Pony looked at them for a while and then there was a ball of dark energy to its left.

When this dark energy was gone in its place was a similarly black Unicorn with eyes that glowed a bright blue instead of the green eyes sported by its brother. Finally out of the sky dropped a black Pegasus with glowing red eyes, it took its place to the right of its Shadow Pony brethren. They all stood staring a moment more, they seemed placid enough but the guards weren't taking chances and were prepared to attack at a moments notice, unbeknownst to them the Shadow Ponies were analysing the situation and were forming a battle plan telepathically with each other.

The three Shadow Ponies separated, the Shadow Earth Pony heading towards Big Mac, the Shadow Pegasus flapping its wings and flying towards the guards and the Shadow Unicorn stalking towards Doctor Hooves. Doctor Hooves puts Sugar down and gestures for Cheerilee to come to him "You two hide," he told them "I'll be fine, go behind the bushes." Sugar was resistant but ultimately went with Cheerilee to hide.

The Shadow Unicorn just slowly walked forwards, not caring for those two by the time we're done master Discord will want to play with them anyway it thought.

Meanwhile Big Mac was fighting off the Shadow Earth Pony, it had charged him and they were now locked head to head, each one trying to knock the other down. The Shadow Earth Pony managed to use its front legs to hit Big Mac in the nose, he clutched at his nose as blood began to trickle from it and the Shadow Earth Pony turned around and bucked Big Mac in the chest, sending him flying onto his back.

Doctor Hooves was still face to face with the stalking Shadow Unicorn as they both thought of how to outsmart each other, Doctor Hooves noticed that the Unicorn was using the same tactic and he decided to take action. He removed his hat; which had miraculously stayed on his head throughout all of this, and dropped it on the floor. The Shadow Unicorn had sensed he was a Unicorn before this and was not surprised in the slightest, only curious as to what in the world he was doing.

Doctor Hooves' horn began to glow, and it glowed brightly. The Shadow Unicorn saw this and at first was amused, thinking what the heck is this old bat doing I'm too powerful for his tricks and he stood his ground and watched, just what Doctor Hooves wanted. A blast came out of Doctor Hooves' horn but not an ordinary blast of magic, it was a blast of pure light aimed at a creature that was made of shadows. The Shadow Unicorn was too late to react by the time it realised what was happening and the blast of light hit it on its side sending it flying backwards and falling down.

Seeing for sure that its weakness is the light, Doctor Hooves looks up and sees that they were completely engulfed in shadow because all of the trees had leaves over the top of them, letting in very little light. A problem easily remedied he thought, his horn glowed again, this time not glowing so brightly and he aimed it at the leaves directly above the Shadow Unicorn which was struggling to stand now. He sent a blast of magic at the leaves and light poured in onto the Unicorn and it began to writhe in pain, its skin beginning to glow a bright flame-like yellow as it began to grow smaller, disintegrating until there was nothing left but ashes.

Big Mac stood up and began the head to head confrontation again, after a while it became apparent to him that this wasn't working and then he saw what Doctor Hooves had done from the corner of his eye. With all his strength he managed to get his hoof up and hit the Shadow Earth Pony directly in the eye. The Shadow Earth Pony reached its hooves up to cover its eye and Big Mac turned around, buck kicking it into the beam of light which Doctor Hooves had created, with exactly the same results, leaving only ashes.

Their eyes meet, Doctor Hooves and Big Mac nod at each other and then rush off to help the guards with the Shadow Pegasus. When they get over to where the guards are they see that the Pegasus has not killed any of them, in fact it doesn't appear even remotely fazed by the guards' attacks, it just flew around them and looked amused. Big Mac used the shrubbery, snuck up behind it and jumped at it, knocking it into the beam of light coming through the trees...

... nothing happened.

There was a moment of confusion which was broken when the princesses snapped back into reality, a necklace on each of them and a new crown on Celestia, Luna's necklace had the symbols of the apple, the lightening bolt and the balloon. Celestia had the symbols of the butterfly and the gem, her crown held the shining image of the star. These features vanished quickly but everyone could tell that their presence was still there.

Before anyone could react there was a flash of light and Discord appeared before them, this didn't last long as Discord clicked his fingers, there was a second flash of light and everyone except for Discord and the Shadow Pegasus vanished. Discord laughed maniacally, he was pleased that they didn't realise the Shadow Pegasus' immortality and he was also pleased about sending those meddlers to his old friend King Sombra.

Chapter 11: The Empire of Crystal

Sugar's eyes opened with a few blinks, when she managed to keep them open her vision was incredibly blurry damn forced teleportation she thought as she sat up. She could see that the others were already awake but none of them said a word to her, they all just stood there with troubled expressions on their faces, even her grandfather. She got up and walked over to them "What's the problem?" she asked.

They turned towards her and looked at each other, with a sigh Doctor Hooves walked over to his granddaughter and whispered "Sugar, I'm afraid that Discord has sent us all the way to the Crystal Empire." She understood at that point why he had whispered, none of the guards nor the princesses even knew this place existed until they were sent here and Doctor Hooves had to be cautious about giving away that they knew of places under such tyrannical rule in Equestria.

Doctor Hooves turns back to everyone and says "I think we'd best leave this place now, the sooner we get back to end Discord's rule the better."

Everyone looked at him, the princesses looking confused "Why are you so eager to leave, should we not help put things right for this place?" Princess Luna asked, noting how he had gotten surprisingly jumpy when he saw the city before them. Its buildings were dark and dusty, almost falling apart and they could sense that there was incredibly strong dark magic at work here. They would have to enter the city to see the damage that it had done to the population. One thing that stood out to everyone though was the fact that the palace at the centre of the city (and possibly the buildings) was made of pure crystal.

"We are going in to assess the situation." Princess Celestia announced.

Doctor Hooves and Sugar looked at each other worriedly, Doctor Hooves then let Sugar climb onto his back "It'll be alright," he said "just as long as we stick together we should be able to escape if things go wrong." Sugar smiled at him and he turned his head around and began to walk off with the others.
***

When they got to the front of this 'crystal city' they were only half surprised to find no pony there. They began to walk through the streets, determined to find and help the ponies of this city to end whatever plight they found themselves in. After a while of walking they were about to give up, they couldn't see any way in which the city could be this empty unless it was completely unpopulated, then they came to the palace. It looked like everypony in the city had gathered outside that one huge building, the travellers were shocked to see that they were all in shackles. They appeared to be carting around huge chunks of metal, someone had them working on something but the ponies themselves didn't look to happy to be doing this work.

They were all dirty to the point where it was impossible to tell what the natural colour of their coats were, they had the most depressing looks on their faces that any of them had ever seen and they were shaking from all of the work. They were all so transfixed on the scene in front of them that no one, not even the princesses noticed a guard sneaking off to the side to get a better look, after a while they all ducked behind a nearby building. They didn't know why but they felt that they needed to stay out of sight.

They looked out upon the slaves for a few moments more before they heard a deafening roar coming from the top of the crystal palace, there was a ball of dark magic in the middle of the town and the slaves stopped work, clearly nervous. When the dark magic vanished a unicorn stepped forward, a large male unicorn with a coat as black as the insides of tartarus itself, he had a set of thick metal armour and his horn matched his eyes... red as blood. He wore a snarl on his face as he clearly knew something was wrong in his city and he was going to take care of it.

He began teleporting around the area, thankfully not noticing any of the group peaking out from behind a building and screaming at his slaves "Where are they!? I can sense them in here, where are the intruders!?"

He would always be responded to by his slaves with "No King Sombra, I'm sorry King Sombra." as they cowered in fear of him.

He was seriously angry with this, intruders meant somebody had found him "Intruders are not tolerated in the Crystal Empire, surrender yourselves now and you will be spared." he shouted.

It was at this point that the guard that had sneaked off for a closer look tried to sneak back, unluckily for him it was at the same moment that Sombra turned towards him. With another ball of dark magic Sombra teleported towards him, his red horn glowing fiercely and sent a red beam of magic into the guard. They could hear the guards screams as he was reduced to nothing but dust "Clean him up!" Sombra shouted to his slaves.

After about ten more minutes of searching with no luck Sombra shouted again "I will find you! Discord let me have this city and I intend to take the rest of Equestria. I will find you and you will die unless you surrender now."

Hearing his plans the travellers decided right then and there that Discord could wait, they had a king with plans of conquering the country to deal with first.

Princess Celestia whispered to them "We have to stop him but the Elements of Harmony are a last resort, understood?" They all nodded, none of them were going to argue about this. "Good, then we'd better start planning hadn't we?"

Chapter 12: The Fall of a King

The four travellers, two princesses and five remaining guards sat in the dark cave they had found just outside the city, they were thinking, planning. Plotting a way to defeat King Sombra and free the ponies of the Crystal Empire but only using the Elements of Harmony as a last resort. Doctor Hooves knew that there was no other way but he wasn't going to argue with a direct order from the princess of the sun herself.

Princess Celestia sighed, it had been a long day and at one moment she thought they were getting close to defeating Discord and they ended up here with another problem to take care of. No one could think of anything that didn't involve the Elements of Harmony in some way and the princesses didn't want it to come to that so they all just sat there, thinking until their brains hurt. In the end Princess Celestia stood up and said "We shall go back into the Crystal Empire tomorrow night and ask the enslaved ponies if they have any idea of how to defeat King Sombra or how he subdued them, maybe we'll get a clue from that."

No pony argued, it was as good a plan as any.
***

Just as planned once night set in they left for the city, the princesses staying behind. They were worried that the powerful magic they held was what alerted King Sombra to their presence before and they were not willing to take the risk of getting their loyal guards or the four time travellers killed. Sugar also stayed behind under her grandfather's orders in order to keep safe. "Here's the plan," Doctor Hooves said as they were about to enter the city "we each take a different street and ask about how Sombra took over and if they know how to get rid of him."

Big Mac came forward "But if these here ponies know how t' get rid of that there Unicorn then why haven't they gone an' done it already?"

Doctor Hooves contemplated this "We'll just have to hope that they know and are just too scared to try." he said.

Big Mac shrugged still better than nothing he thought as they re-entered the city. More and more of them split from the group at every turn off, each going down a different street until it was only Doctor Hooves and Big Mac left, eventually they split from each other down different streets.

Doctor Hooves knocked on his first door. Out came a rather frightened looking young pony who cowered, only showing her face at the door and stuttered "Y - y - yes?"

"Good evening madam, I am Doctor Hooves. I have a few questions if you don't mind." Doctor Hooves said, politely.

The young mare calmed down when listening to his polite demeanour, not completely but she did look a lot less scared now. She nodded as if to say go ahead.

"How did this 'King Sombra' manage all of this?"

She shuddered at the mention of that name but nevertheless answered "He's been practicing magic ever since he was small. Apparently he wasn't very good and he was ridiculed for it, he swore that he would practice every day until he was the most powerful Unicorn in Equestria. Unfortunately he dabbled in dark magic and it made him even more hateful and violent. It also made him powerful enough to enslave the whole Crystal Empire."

Doctor Hooves made a mental note of this, hoping it would come in use later. "Do you know of any possible way of defeating him or at least weakening him?"

The young mare shook her head.

"Very well, good night."

She closed the door. Unfortunately none of the other ponies he visited that night knew a thing about beating Sombra either.
***

"Did any of you find out anything?" Celestia asked, she sounded disappointed but then again. So were they.

"None of us could get a thing out of those ponies except the fact that Sombra has been doing magic for a damn long time." Doctor Hooves said.

Princess Celestia sighed and here I thought this would be simple she thought. She began pacing and muttering to herself, desperately trying to figure out what they were going to do.

"Excuse me," Sugar said softly. Too softly as it appeared Celestia didn't hear her, she spoke louder this time "Excuse me,"

This time the princess turned to her "When I need to figure something out I go to the library, maybe we should try that." Sugar suggested.

Celestia's eyes widened as she wondered why only the little girl had thought of that. "Doctor Hooves," she said. Doctor Hooves turned his head towards her "you take Miss Cheerilee and your granddaughter to that library, you'll be able to get the information faster than any of the guards."

"Yes, your majesty." Doctor Hooves replied. He looked out of the cave, it was still night, by his gathering they should still have another few hours of night ahead of them. "We shall leave at once, Sugar. Cheerilee. Come on."

Sugar jumped onto her grandfathers back and off they set on the short journey back to the Crystal Empire.
***

They had just arrived at the entrance to the library when Doctor Hooves ordered them to stop rather abruptly. "Cheerilee, I must ask you not to turn any books that may lead to weakening Sombra's powers into the princesses. I know that may not sound like a good idea but you must believe me, anything short of using the Elements of Harmony may prevent one of Equestria's defenders from learning a lesson that eventually led to the first Alicorn transformation in over two thousand years."

Cheerilee just nodded, she didn't really know what he'd just said. It didn't matter, he assumed that there wouldn't be any books in there that did that anyway because otherwise Twilight Sparkle and her friends would have surely found them during their visit to the Crystal Empire around a thousand years later. He pushed open the large door and stepped inside.

There was no one there, of course why would there be? It was the middle of the night and everyone was getting rest after Sombra had made them work all day and possibly for a long time before that. "Just look through the books and see if you can find anything that might help us." Doctor Hooves ordered "Better yet find the book that details the Crystal Heart on the back page."

Looking at all of the books that were there made them think that it would take an incredibly long time to find any book with helpful information, let alone a specific book. As it turned out it didn't take that long at all as Cheerilee flipped through her fifth book and saw the details about and artefact called the 'Crystal Heart' right at the back.

She showed Doctor Hooves "Perfect." he said. He then proceeded to tear the back page from the book and put it in the pocket he had on his black jacket. "Sugar, come over here. We are leaving." Sugar obeyed and they left the library to walk back to the cave where the princesses were anxiously awaiting them.
***

It was only after receiving the information on the paper and asking around the empire one more time that the princesses came to a conclusion. They must use the Elements of Harmony. They had heard from the 'Crystal Ponies' that the Crystal Heart had been taken by Sombra and hidden away in his palace, since the only way to get to the heart was through Sombra they only saw one alternative which they were not thrilled about but it had to be done.

It was because of these events that the group were now walking towards the Crystal Palace where King Sombra would no doubt be at this time in the day. They had stopped to get rest after asking around about the Crystal Heart and learning nothing, they were all determined that despite this setback they would defeat King Sombra and free the Crystal Empire from his tyranny. They marched towards that palace with a purpose, a purpose that would be fulfilled by the days end.

They got there and the guards forced the gates of the palace open, stepping inside they saw King Sombra in the centre of the room. He looked bored, bored of waiting for them maybe but still as dangerous as they had always suspected.

Upon their entering he appeared to smile, the sun reflecting off of his red eyes and his horn beginning to glow. "Welcome," he snarled at them "I suppose you're the ones I sensed arriving yesterday. The ones in charge of the pathetic waste that I vaporised." His smile grew as he saw the intent in their eyes "You're here to kill me aren't you? Good luck with that."

His horn, which had been glowing increasingly brighter during the conversation and it erupted with light aimed directly at the two Alicorns at the head of the group. He saw them as his biggest threat. Celestia and Luna sent beams of their magic right back, the three beams of magic collided in the middle of the room and a brighter light was created where they met and Sombra's magic began to overpower that of the Alicorn's and worked its way towards them.

"See you in the afterlife." Sombra goaded, his grin growing ever wider.

"Now." Celestia ordered. Her crown and her and Luna's necklaces began to glow, very brightly. Their magic now pushed back Sombra's and that cocky look in his eye was now replaced with alarm, he didn't know how this was happening but he knew this couldn't be natural and so he tried to fight it. These attempts proved futile.

The magic created by the Alicorns reached Sombra and he was thrown backwards, he saw that there was no way he was going to win this now so all he could do was give them one final misery. His horn glowed again, this time faintly as he aimed it at Luna "On the day of battle all filled with woe, your sister you shall overthrow." A beam of magic so faint hit Luna that even she didn't notice it at the time and Sombra began to speak again "If I should lose, for a thousand years this city shall disappear."

Celestia was confused by these phrases so she ignored him "In light of your deeds you evil creature, you shall be turned to shadow and banished to the icy planes of the arctic." Both her and Luna's horns glowed again as they hit Sombra with harmony induced magic and he vanished.

To their shock though, when he vanished so did the city. They found themselves standing in the centre of a field and none of them but Doctor Hooves knew what had happened. The future had been set into play.

Chapter 13: An Unlikely Alliance

"Is everypony alright back there?" Celestia shouted back to the other ponies.

They had been travelling for at least six hours since leaving the Crystal Empire (or rather the area it used to be in) and everyone except for the two Alicorn princesses were exhausted. "With all due respect your majesty," one of the guards sighed "I think you two would fare better teleporting now that you have the Elements of Harmony."

Luna turned to face them "We simply refuse to leave our faithful subjects behind." she yelled. They were really far behind the princesses.

Celestia and Luna stopped and waited for the ponies behind them to catch up, it had been a long day but it was nothing the two princesses couldn't handle. They were more worried about their followers.

Doctor Hooves dawdled at the back of the group, I'm too old for this rubbish he thought to himself, he almost wished that he'd just left Cheerilee and Big Mac to tell the others in Ponyville. Then again, if he'd done that then the guards with Celestia and Luna now would never have survived the trek through the Everfree Forest. He sighed, only now seeing how unavoidable the situation had been from the very beginning.

"Maybe we should rest for a while." Celestia said. It sounded like a suggestion but they knew they had no choice in the matter either way. They also knew that if it had been a choice they probably would have chosen to rest anyway.

They all sat down, some tried going to sleep while the others just sat, there were no trees in sight so it wasn't like they could make a fire. They were just sat there quietly, no one tried to speak up, they were all quite worried about what exactly had happened to the Crystal Ponies after the empire vanished. It was troubling, they could only wonder what he did to Luna. Four of them knew, the time travellers knew how this had to go and it was upsetting.

The unease in the air only made the silence that much more unsettling, they could faintly hear rustling in the grass over to the left of them. They dismissed it as just being the wind and sat there relaxing. Then they heard a voice.

"Heh... hello," the voice said. It was the voice of a mare as far as they could tell, when they turned to it they saw that they were right. She was completely blonde, a heart for a cutie mark, other than that nothing to out of the ordinary.

"Who are you?" Luna asked gently.

"Please..." the blonde mare whimpered "my family are in trouble." They could see she was on the verge of tears, they felt sorry for her.

"Where are they?" Celestia asked, her tone a soft one.

"I... I'll take you there." the blonde mare said, brightening up a little "Please follow me."

They followed her through the grassy fields, the grass brushing up against their stomachs as they walked. It had never occurred to them that she might have avoided telling them her name for some other reason other than her fear. If any of them were stood in front or next to her they would be able to see quite clearly that all of the sadness and fear had left her eyes.

They came across a rather unusual patch of land after a while, one that the blonde mare simply wondered into. The thing that made this area so unusual is that it was the first area with trees they had seen in the entire field, what was even more unusual was that the trees in the area were in a perfect circle. Almost like some sort of hiding place.

There was rustling in both the trees and the grass as they entered but they once again dismissed it as being nothing but the blowing of the wind. They entered into the circle of trees with mild curiosity, why had the trees grown in such an unusual pattern? And, once they entered another question formed in all of their heads. Where were this mares family? This clearing was completely empty.

"Where are this family of yours?" Celestia asked, if she raised her voice any higher it would have sounded more like a demand.

The blonde mare giggled "They are all around you princess. Can you not see them?" her voice had changed. It was not so sweet and innocent sounding anymore but then again, it wasn't exactly threatening either.

She began to transform, she began to grow taller until she was on level with the princesses. Her eyes became green, her coat became black and her mane and tale became blue. She grew a pair of fangs and a horn, a twisted, hole covered horn, she grew wings as well, insect like with sharp tips and also full of holes. Holes developed in her legs, her cutie mark vanished and a small black crown with small blue orbs on the top appeared on her head. All that was left was the tall, slender figure of the queen of the Changelings. Queen Chrysalis.

Remembering what she had said before they all looked around and saw Changelings coming out of the long grass and climbing down from the trees. The small creatures were pitch black with green eyes, small horns and small fangs. The travellers had set out to help a mare in need and had been deceived by the queen of the Changelings herself and now that had been surrounded by her children.

They stood, waiting for the inevitable attack which they would need to fight off, when no attack came they looked curiously over at Chrysalis who was smiling. Not a happy smile, a smile that was put on only so that she looked confident, they could tell she wasn't enjoying whatever she was doing.

"Down to business then, oh ignore them they're just my security." she said "I wish to help you."

The idea of what she just said baffled everyone, especially the princesses, they had opposed Chrysalis at every twist and turn so far and now she said that she wanted to help them.

Chrysalis saw the shock on their expressions and smiled wider "Indeed it was unexpected for me as well, I had never expected that I might one day offer help to our dinner but here we are."

"Why?" Princess Celestia asked, confused.

"Discord's cruelty has left the land of Equestria full of fear and hate, there's hardly any love around anymore for us to feast upon so he's not only ruining your people. He's starving mine. And while we're on the subject please note that the alliance I propose today is not a permanent one princesses, my people need to feed just like any other species. We will begin to feast once more when all of the love returns."

Celestia thought this over, as much as she hated to admit it Chrysalis had a point. Discord was a common enemy. "Your offer is not unreasonable." she said.

"Sister what are you doing? You know what the Changelings are like, they'll betray us the first chance they get."

"Only if you provoke us to." Chrysalis proclaimed, still smirking.

Celestia ignored the comment and spoke to Luna "They are not wrong Luna, Discord is a common enemy to both of our peoples. And even if he wasn't we need all of the help we can get to make it past his army."

Luna sighed "Very well, not that I can ever dissuade you anyway sister." she huffed.

Celestia turned back to Chrysalis "Very well, we accept your proposal of an alliance. Are your people ready to march to Canterlot?"

Chrysalis nodded, waving her head to the left to indicate to her children that they were moving out. The group left with Changelings in tow to get back to Canterlot and end Discord's rule for good.

Chapter 14: Planning the War

Three days had passed since their encounter with the Changelings and the travellers grew weary, the Changelings were not the most friendly creatures even when working with others. Every time they had stopped to rest along the way the Changelings had sat away from the main group and only searched for their own food, even Changelings had to eat something other than love to keep them going. It appeared that after these three days of trekking along a field, to a forest and back onto another field they were finally nearing the camp that they had left behind a week ago. They were glad to be back.

They approached the camp and saw that all of the guards that were stationed there were gone, it was strange at first but after a while they all saw the logic. They had been gone for a week after all.

They sat down around the remains of a camp fire that had clearly gone out over night, they sat there awaiting the guards' return so that they could finally talk about what they were going to do when they besieged Canterlot. Doctor Hooves sighed when he sat down, he was so glad to be off of his feet and now he could stay there for a prolonged period of time thank Celestia we're finally here he thought to himself as he relaxed. They heard hooves moving along the dirt to the far left of them and turned to see the guards that were stationed here returning, the guards jumped in shock when they saw the ponies sat around the fire but once they had relaxed they began to smile.

"Princesses," one of them began, looking wearily at the Changelings "it's so good to see you're alright. May I ask what happened to you?"

Princess Celestia explained to them the battle that took place by the Tree of Harmony, the incident in the Crystal Empire and Luna explains their arrangement with the Changelings. The guard nodded, he turned to his men and saw them nod to him to show that they had listened and understood everything the sun princess had said.

"You shall meet us in our tent later with Doctor Hooves and his companions to discuss a battle plan. We have a way to defeat Discord."

The guard smiled, a smile of relief and said "Understood, you majesty."

Celestia nodded back at him as if to say dismissed and turned to the time travellers "You may rest in your tent until you are called in," she said "we have big things to discuss."

Doctor Hooves looked at the others, they smiled back at him and he said, rather confidently "Understood, we'll be there you majesty."
***

A few hours later they were all in the tent of the princesses, they had gotten a few winks of sleep while they were in their tent and they all felt refreshed for the planning. Even Sugar was there, of course it took Doctor Hooves some convincing to let her in on it. She had bugged him about ten times more to let her accompany them into the Everfree Forest and once again she had talked her way into a place that she really had no business in. He hated getting her involved in war.

"Right, now that you're all here we can get down to business." Celestia said, she looked curiously at Sugar. She wondered why a filly was interested in battle planning. She chose to ignore it and just carried on. "We need to form a battle plan for the upcoming attack we will be launching on Discord."

"There are a number of variables to consider to turn the tide of this battle to our favour. We must go over all of our forces and decide where in the attack force they will be standing. In our forces are: Unicorns, Pegasi, Changelings and Earth Ponies. First of all I recommend that our four friends here act as advisers and observe the battle." Luna suggested. She had a knack for battle and was the more action-oriented of the two sisters, making her ideal for approving of certain tactical decisions.

Doctor Hooves spoke up "Well I suggest that the Unicorns remain at the back of the attack force, they may be good support units with their magic but they don't have the best combat capability."

"Agreed." Luna approved.

"That's you four and the Unicorns out of the way, what about the Pegasi?" Celestia asked, marking the Unicorns and travellers from her checklist.

"I think the Pegasi should be at the front, they would work as a good distraction while the Earth Ponies charged from behind them." Doctor Hooves suggested.

"No," Luna disagreed. "the Pegasi would be better swooping down from above while the Earth Ponies attack in the front. That way we have our two strongest attack forces already fighting when we send the Changelings in."

Doctor Hooves thought for a moment yes that does sound logical, he nodded to show his agreement.

"No doubt Discord will be at the castle and will be expecting an attack once he discovers our defeating of King Sombra, the biggest concentration of guards will be there." Celestia said, marking off more on her checklist "We need to avoid killing his guards as much as possible, they don't know what they're doing. I know we can't help that once the battle begins but he need to spare the ones not protecting the castle."

"Agreed," Luna said "there is no need for wasteful bloodshed. Only kill when necessary. After our initial attack, I and Celestia shall enter with the Elements of Harmony, by then Discord will have been forced to join the fight and his defeat should be relatively quick."

Celestia nodded "Inform everyone outside of the plan, send messages to our other camps and get all of the soldiers over here, we attack in three days."

"It will be done sister." Luna said. She left the tent to inform all of the guards of their plan.

"I assume you all understand." Celestia said, they all nodded and she smiled. "Good, because there is no turning back now."

Chapter 16: The Curse Becomes a Reality

The crowd of ponies goes silent as everyone notices the purple energy radiating from Luna's body, whispers rise in the crowd as everypony wonders what is going on. The ponies who survived the trip into the Crystal Empire guessed that it had something to do with what Sombra had said during the last moments of his time as ruler of the Crystal Empire, they were both horrified and curious as to what was going to happen. The four ponies from the future had a huge sense of dread come over them, from the look of this the last big event they had been waiting for was about to begin.

To everypony's surprise a patch of black appeared on Luna's dark blue coat, now like a virus that patch of black began to spread and spread until Luna's blue coat had vanished completely and now she was a complete contrast to Celestia's white. Her eyes changed too, although no one could really see any difference. The just knew something was off about them. Luna's fearful expression had been replaced by a look of pure pleasure, her grin went from ear to ear and she began laughing maniacally.

More dark energy flowed, this time around her rather than radiating off of her. The energy cleared quickly this time and was replaced by a bright blue armour encasing her torso and the top of her head. Her laughter grew louder and everypony's fear grew stronger, there was something obviously sinister going on here and it appeared to have taken their moon princess away from them.

Darkness suddenly covered everypony... but it was still the middle of the day. Cheerilee spoke up "Look up." she said to them and in doing what she said they all saw that the moon had replaced the sun in the sky. Panic spread and shouts rose in the crowd of ponies surrounding the area.

"Silence!" Luna boomed in the royal Canterlot tone, she sounded mightily pissed off. "You ponies can cower in front of me and beg me all you want but you will never see your precious sun again. You've never appreciated the work I've done to make your nights peaceful. Oh no, you sleep through it instead and now you'll be stuck with the night forever!"

"Luna...?" Celestia gasped. This new Luna turned to her and smiled.

"Yes sister it is me, although, I don't think Luna is an appropriate name for me now. How does Nightmare Moon sound to you. I wouldn't want to change my name without the'better' sister's permission."

"Wha...? I never considered myself better than you." Celestia argued "What has happened to my sister?"

Nightmare Moon let out a crazed howl of laughter "I am your sister. The sister whom no one appreciates, the sister whose deserved attention goes to the sun goddess and the sister who will put up with it no longer."

Dark energy engulfed Celestia now too but unlike what had happened to Luna nothing about her changed, the dark energy vanished and as everyone looked they realised that so had Celestia.

Roars arose from the guards they had brought with them "What have you done to the princess?"

Nightmare Moon let out another laugh "Don't worry she's still alive. How could I kill her when I haven't even destroyed her precious Equestria yet? She's somewhere she can see nature crumble around her and she has a bed. She's going to need some rest over the next few weeks.' she let out a small chuckle "And with three Elements of Harmony around my..." Nightmare Moon looked down at where her necklace should be and gasped. The elements were gone.

She began frantically searching around but found nothing. The guards and the time travellers began smiling, Celestia had taken the Elements of Harmony from literally under Nightmare Moon's nose. The crowd departed, feeling that they'd seen enough. Doctor Hooves stopped his companions "Come on" he said "we've got to get back to camp." It was up to them to find Celestia, the Changelings had left and the guards were scared to go against an Alicorn so they were the only ones who were willing to try..

This had to end soon or everything in the world would die.

Chapter 17: Nightmare's Fall

Doctor Hooves and his companions had returned to camp while Nightmare Moon panicked about the Elements of Harmony, from what the demonic Alicorn said it was obvious that Celestia was here. It was close enough to nature to see it die and she had a bed to sleep in. It was the perfect way to torment her.

She was crying when they found her. All of the Elements of Harmony were around her neck just as they had suspected, she had what she needed to defeat Nightmare Moon but as Doctor Hooves mentioned it she just shook her head and wept. "How could I? She's my sister!" Celestia cried out to the alien doctor. But he knew she would have to.

"If you don't do this then all of the world will pay for it." Doctor Hooves said bluntly "The plants will die, then the vegetarians will die and then finally the carnivores will die. That will be on you Celestia."

All the princess did was continue to shake her head and weep. They would have to try and convince her.
***

It had been two days, well that was what they assumed and some of the smaller plants had begun to wilt. Celestia spent her days pacing, contemplating, thinking. She spent her nights crying herself to sleep as the realisation began to dawn on her as to exactly what she would have to do in order to keep the entire world safe but she also knew that she would never be able to do it, her courage would fail her as she had no idea if Luna would survive the process or not.

The travellers were having trouble getting to sleep again, I'm not even tired Sugar thought are we sure it's that late?. Big Mac and Cheerilee lay awake, silently wishing they could just go home but they knew that Doctor Hooves would not leave until he had seen Equestria saved. They started to worry if he was going to get them killed.

Doctor Hooves himself had spent the last two days trying to convince Celestia that she must use the Elements of Harmony and that when the time came she would have the strength to use them. She had thanked him every time for his confidence in her but thought it was misplaced. He was beginning to wonder if he should just leave her to figure things out for herself. No he thought as he lay in bed get that crap out of your head because she definitely needs your help, he hated the thought of running from something this important and was ashamed for it to have even crossed his mind.

It was a problem that wasn't going away any time soon.
***

A week after the rise of Nightmare Moon and the small plants were all but dead, they had spread their seeds but it was quite obvious that without the sun these new plants would never grow to replace the old ones. Celestia was pacing again, they hated seeing her like this and were counting on Doctor Hooves to do something. He had been trying and trying all week but she wasn't listening, but he was willing to try again.

"Princess," he said as she was pacing "I know this must be hard to accept but that creature isn't your sister any more. It is your duty to safeguard Equestria against these threats and you must do so. I am truly sorry but it is a cold truth that must be accepted here and now before every creature dies a slow death by starvation. I know your..."

"You're right"

Doctor Hooves stopped his speech immediately and listened to the rough voice the princess had gained during her long nights weeping.

"While I still believe my sister can be saved I have a duty to my people I must fullfill. Very well Doctor, I will use the Elements of Harmony but first answer me this and please do not lie. Will this kill Luna? Seeing as you're from the future you should be capable of answering."

Doctor Hooves smiled at her "The elements will not kill her, she will be out of the way for quite some time though. And, if I might add, without these events coming into play the future will be forever lost. Six of the most significant ponies to ever exist will never be born and that will cause a paradox that could potentially end all life in the universe. No pressure."

Celestia giggled at that last part, a sad, dry giggle. "Then we should be going then. You four accompany me to Canterlot, it's time we had a chat with my sister."
***

They trotted through Canterlot with a purpose, Celestia had a stern look on her face but the red around her eyes clearly showed everypony they passed that she had been crying. They moved closer and closer to the centre of the city, abandoned guard armour became more common as they got closer to the castle. Celestia couldn't blame the guards, they just didn't have it in them to fight against the princess it had once been their job to protect.

They turned the corner to the palace and saw that Nightmare Moon had been standing outside the castle. She had clearly been expecting them to attempt to save everypony from her eternal night, she could not allow that to happen.

Nightmare Moon let out a chuckle "Well, well, well. I was wondering what had taken you so long," she said "when the Elements of Harmony vanished I thought you would have been back here immediately. Apparently you're not as strong willed as I once thought you were and that, my dear sister, is why the Elements of Harmony will not hurt me while in your possession." The black Alicorn's wings began to flap as she took to the air "Come now. Let us end this!"

Celestia's horn began to glow, as did Nightmare Moon's. Celestia's horn glowed a bright blue while her evil sister's glowed a dark purple. Doctor Hooves immediately noticed that Celestia was not using the Elements of Harmony. She was still holding back.

A beam of dark magic erupted from Nightmare Moon's horn and met with the beam of blue that Celestia's horn had now produced, At first Nightmare Moon's was pushed back but as she steadied herself in the air it became clear who's magic was stronger now as the beam of purple energy began to close the distance between it and Celestia.

"Princess," Doctor Hooves began "you must use the Elements of Harmony now!"

"Not... if there's even... the slightest chance... of saving... Luna." Celestia said intensely, this battle was clearly taking its tole on her.

"She'll kill you before you get the chance and even if she doesn't, you're liable to kill her if you keep this up!"

Celestia looked at him for a moment and saw that he was right, she would have to use the elements or risk the life of her sister. She closed her eyes and concentrated, never letting her magic down.

Nightmare Moon laughed maniacally "Fools, do you really think she was the will to use those things against her sister? I'll kill her because she is weak and there is nothing anypony can do about it!"

The Elements of Harmony began to glow, brighter than the horn of any Unicorn or even any Alicorn's horn. Nightmare Moon froze with horror, the elements are working, how are the elements working for this weak willed pathetic waste of Alicorn flesh. She let her beam of magic down and felt a surge of pain all over as Celestia's still active beam of magic smacked her out of the air.

The grounded black Alicorn was now terrified, what was Celestia going to do with the elements?

Celestia's voice went into the Royal Canterlot Tone "Nightmare Moon, you are hereby accused of attempting to use the moon to plunge Equestria into eternal night. You are found guilty and sentenced to life on the moon you hold so dear. Prepare yourself."

The power of the elements left them and found a new home in Celestia's horn, she then opened her eyes and a rainbow coloured beam of powerful magic shot out towards Nightmare Moon at lightening speed. Nightmare Moon struggled with the power of the magic and began screaming, begging for mercy. The rainbow closed around her and then flew up into the night sky, carrying her with it.

The crowd of bystanders that had gathered by this point looked in awe up at the sky as a shape appeared on the moon. The dark shape of an Alicorn's face stared down at them from where Nightmare Moon was now imprisoned.

Celestia thought the time was about right and her horn began to glow once again, the moon began to lower. The evil Alicorn's face disappeared over the horizon and where they saw it go down the great ball of fire that is the sun began to rise in its place.

Cheers went out from the crowd as the sun once again took its place in the sky, Celestia's horn stopped glowing and she turned her head towards the time travellers and smiled for the first time in seven days.

Chapter 18: Leaving

"I can't tell you how sorry we are over the whole incident princess," Cheerilee said "you have our deepest sympathies over everything that's happened." The group were currently stood outside the TARDIS, Celestia had insisted on saying goodbye before they departed as a way of thanking them for opening her eyes on what she had to do to save everypony.

Princess Celestia smiled at the purple pony whom she had barely any time to speak to, if these four were anything to go by then the future would be bright indeed. "Thank you," she said "for everything. Not just my sister but also your guidance through the Everfree Forest, if it weren't for you all of my guards would have died in that place and those Shadow Ponies which Discord created would have prevented me and Luna..." she let out a sigh "... from gaining the Elements of Harmony. I am deeply indebted to you."

Doctor Hooves spoke up "I do have one more thing to say thought princess, everything will be okay. I know that sounds like a fool trying to offer false hope but believe me when I say that you will see your sister again. I can tell you that in a thousand years time the alignment of the stars will aid in the escape of Nightmare Moon. Do not fear however, if you put your trust in a very lonely pony studying under you at the time you will have your sister back, this I promise."

Celestia smiled "Isn't it wrong to tell us about events from the future?" she asked.

"They say it was prophesied anyway so I just thought, why shouldn't it be me who gives that prophecy? And I hate to leave a pony in a bad mood."

Celestia laughed, a full, joyous laugh for the first time since Luna's rise as Nightmare Moon "Thank you Doctor Hooves, farewell to all of you. I get the feeling you probably want to get home as soon as possible."

Cheerilee and Big Mac nodded, the group of travellers offered one large "Goodbye!" before entering the strange blue box that was bigger on the inside.

The big white room was a welcoming sight even to the ponies who had technically been kidnapped in this strange machine, Doctor Hooves walked towards the console and his horn lit up. Some of the contraptions on the console moved around with a magical aura around them and soon the TARDIS was shaking everywhere, the familiar roar of the engines as they grinded was more comforting than the annoyance it had been the first time. Eventually the noise from the machine stopped and Doctor Hooves looked down at a screen in confusion.

"Oh dear," he said "remember how I said the TARDIS isn't the best when it comes to its controls? Well it's taken us to a completely different planet from where we want to be."

"What planet would that be, grandfather?" Sugar asked nervously.

Doctor Hooves hummed, he had never heard of this planet before "According to the TARDIS this planet is called Skaro..."

Author's Note

And that was my very first entry into the Doctor Hooves series. I really hope you liked it and don't hesitate to tell me how I can improve in the future.

Chapter 15: The Siege of Canterlot

Three days after the plan was made all of the soldiers from all of the other camps the princesses said they had all over Equestria had arrived, there were so many of them that it looked like an entire army up close and with the addition of the Changeling swarm it was an entire army. They had conversed with all of the different ponies to instruct them on what to do during the attack, they had instructed the Changelings to do whatever they could to help in the attack; they didn't really know what the Changelings could do in terms of fighting without the love they need to survive.

The captains of the pony factions all walked over to Princess Celestia "All of our troops are ready to move out your majesty." the captain of the Pegasi said.

"We shall move out as soon as you give us notice, ma'am." the Earth Pony captain said.

Celestia nodded "Good, we shall move out soon. We must begin the process of defeating Discord as soon as possible. Tell your men to get ready to move out."

"They are all ready now your majesty," the Unicorn captain said "we can move out immediately."

"Inform Queen Chrysalis that we are leaving." Celestia ordered. All three gave a hoof salute and walked towards the area of camp the Changelings had made their home.
***

The army marched towards the gates of Canterlot, Earth Ponies up front, Pegasi behind them, the Changelings second to last and the Unicorns ready to give magical support at the back. Behind all of them walked Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Queen Chrysalis and the four time travellers. No one could escape the feeling of dread that had come over them, they were going to war with arguably the most powerful entity in the world that was not locked in Tartarus. They didn't want to admit it but they were scared.

They arrived at the gate and because of how many of them there were it didn't take long for a guard to show his face and ask them what they wanted, once he saw the army he froze. Just as he was about to run he was given a buck from an Earth Pony, as he was passing Doctor Hooves deduced that he would be out for at least a few hours just enough time he thought.

They continued to march through the city, knocking out any of the guards they come across. The citizens stared at them in awe as they went, no one could believe that someone was actually about to march into Discord's castle and try to take this city from him. It was unheard of before this.

After a few more minutes of marching towards the centre of the city they reached the corner beyond which was Canterlot Castle. The first of the soldiers turned the corner and saw immediately why they had encountered so few guards in their trek to the centre of the city, hundreds of Discord's guards were outside the castle. They had been expecting a fight.

Discord was stood on a balcony at the top of the highest tower on the castle, they assumed that it was his sleeping quarters but they were unsettled by one fact. He was smiling at them. Discord was stood on a balcony at the top of the castle, knowing fully well that they must have defeated Sombra to get there and yet he was still smiling at them. Confidence will be your downfall Celestia thought to herself.

Discord just continued smiling and staring but after a while that grin of his faded into an annoyed frown "Kill 'em!" boomed his voice and his army of black-armoured guards charged.

The Earth Ponies at the front of the army prepared for the charge of Discord's men and as the black-armoured ponies clashed with the forces of the Alicorns the Earth Ponies butted their heads up and the initial attackers were thrown off balance by the head butts. After they had knocked their enemies off balance the Earth Ponies charged forwards, hitting, kicking, sometimes even biting but they kept attacking in every way they knew how. It wasn't long before the Pegasi left the ground and were in the air dive-bombing Discord's army and assisting the Earth Ponies in trying not to die.

Discord's guards were being knocked all over the place by the Pegasi and Earth Ponies but for every one they knocked out or killed it seemed that two more would soon be moving in on them with murderous intentions. Chrysalis stood waiting patiently until she could see that the current forces were becoming insufficient and she yelled at her children "Time to skin those bastards alive kids!" and the Changeling hoard rushed forwards and began tearing throats with their fangs. Chrysalis watched her children work with a sadistic pleasure rising inside of her.

The Unicorns on the other hand had gotten to work even before Chrysalis, they had begun casting their magic shortly after the Pegasi started charging Discord's forces from the sky. They were using fire magic to keep the opposition as far away as possible, casting healing spells to keep the infantry troops as well kept as possible and were using magic blocking spells to keep the other army's Unicorns from aiding their own soldiers. The trouble was that the other army's Unicorns were doing the exact same thing.

Doctor Hooves and his three companions were watching silently from behind a building, it was far too dangerous for any of them to get involved. Not even Big Mac had been permitted to take part in the fight because while he may be strong he had no actual combat training so most of the kicks he used were only for using on apple trees. None of them liked the amount of death they were seeing but they had come to see history play out so that was what they were doing.

Even with the growing sadness within them as they were seeing so much death, they had an odd sense of enjoyment about the entire situation. They didn't enjoy all of the death, they enjoyed the adventure they had been on and for some strange reason they found themselves craving more; it honestly confused them. Doctor Hooves' interest was purely scientific and historical though, he had enjoyed this but he had thought that enjoyment came from the reliving of history and the scientific discoveries that might me made if they carried on to other places. The possibilities that ran through his mind were endless.

The battle continued playing out, Celestia and Luna watched sadly as so many hypnotised souls were slaughtered by their soldiers. They could also see that they were clearly winning and with that came a sense of hope which eventually replaced the sadness, they might actually pull this off. Discord was already looking aggravated by the scene which played out before him, he was losing. He didn't like losing.

"Shadow Pegasus," he said angrily. The shadowy pony stepped out from behind him and spread its wings, looking forward to whatever orders its master might give. When Discord spoke again he sent a wave of surprise through the otherwise emotionless Shadow Pegasus "go out their and let down your invincibility. I want to get their hopes up." While the Shadow Pegasus was shocked by this command he had no way of disobeying it, he flapped his wings and took to the sky, intent on soaring onto the battlefield and dying for his master.

He did exactly that. He did a loop in mid-air and swooped onto the battlefield, knocking down at least a dozen of the enemies guards in the process. It then did as Discord said and deactivated its own immortality and carried on fighting with the soldiers that had been brought there by the princesses who so foolishly thought they could defeat Discord. Despite getting rid of his immortality he kept his immunity to sunlight, he didn't want to make it too easy after all. That would make the plan too obvious. Although if he was being honest with himself, he wasn't even sure what the plan was. What would him dying actually accomplish? It seemed like an act of desperation.

The Shadow Pegasus kept flying around, landing and beating up on some of the soldiers and then flying around the battlefield again, he was wondering if he had made it too hard for them.

The Unicorns were trying desperately to make sure none of the main fighters died and when one of them saw the Shadow Pegasus he also saw how many of their stallions it was killing. In retaliation the Unicorn flared his horn with an orange light which erupted into flame, he let the flame fly towards the Shadow Pegasus and when the flame hit home the Shadow Pegasus went down like a sack of apples, landing on the floor next to a group of soldiers he had knocked down and were now getting back up. Once they had regained their senses they noticed the Shadow Pegasus slowly trying to rise. They looked down on him angrily and moved forwards, Discord could sense his minion's pain as the Shadow Pegasus was beaten to death.

Right then Discord thought, smiling now that I've got them overly confident it's time for me to join the fight. He let out a chuckle "This should be fun." he said to himself.

Before anyone was prepared Discord appeared on the battlefield in a puff of smoke, he mentally grabbed several guards and made a crushing gesture with his hand and the heads of the guards he was holding exploded in a shower of blood and brains. He did this to several more groups before Celestia and Luna walked through the carnage of the battle towards him, he smiled and bowed to welcome them. "I knew you would come back," he said "and I knew you would beat Sombra. The son of a bitch was plotting against me, all he wanted was power. I kinda liked him." Discord let out a chuckle "And now here you two are, you'll regret ever getting involved in my affairs Alicorns."

With that he threw a fireball that just appeared in his hand at them, he was determined to kill them and anyone else who wanted to oppose him. Celestia and Luna dodged his fireball and he threw several more at both of them, they dodged out of the way of every single one of them but Discord was still too confident to realise that they now had him cornered between the both of them. The necklaces they wore began to glow along with Celestia's new crown, Discord didn't know what it meant so all he could gather was that they were going to attack him. He laughed at them and stood there waiting for the attack to come, if he had realised what was happening he probably would have killed them both in a fair fight.

Beams of magic erupted from the necklaces and the crown and they hit Discord directly, he screamed with pain as he realised that this was no ordinary magic. He tried to run but his movements were sluggish, he looked down and saw his features turning grey, not just grey but to stone. He screamed in both pain and fear as his entire body was engulfed in stone and he froze in place with a look of sheer terror on his face.

In the moment when Discord became completely covered in stone all of his remaining soldiers passed out, upon closer inspection none of them were dead, just unconscious. Once everyone figured out what had happened there were cheers ringing up from all over the castle grounds, citizens from the rest of the city came out to see why there was cheering and when they saw they all joined in. Everyone was happy, but something was wrong with Luna.

As Celestia looked closer at her sister she saw the purple energy of dark magic radiating from her sister...