Torchwood: Equestria- Parallel Loose Ends

To get more comfortable, the Torchwood team walked up to the higher level of Twilight's castle, sitting down with princess Luna in the room the elements of harmony usually sat. The team hoped to get some insight from Luna on how Ayumu might go about accomplishing his goal.

“What is it about dreams that you would like to know?” Luna asked. “My typical night's work is helping with young ponies' nightmares, soothing them, but there are much more to dreams than that.”

“Princess, it seems like the pony we're trying to stop wants to somehow bring back the events that happened before time reset, to make the destruction of all reality actually happen,” Jack explained. “He's clearly done a lot of research on dreams. Is it true that dreams connect the universes? And can he reach his goal through dreams?”

“Dreams do connect the universes, yes,” Luna began. “Think back to whenever you've had a strange dream, one with all sorts of weird things happening. Perhaps, you had a normal dream about some life event, but this event never actually happened. You are glimpsing at both parallel universes, and time events that changed.”

Each Torchwood member nodded, thinking this over. Jack already knew that time was in flux, and with the exception of fixed points, your very memories could potentially change if time shifted. He felt glad that one version of him or another got to live out some of the dreams he'd experienced.

“As to your second question...” Luna paused, appearing troubled. She closed her eyes, shaking her head for a moment, before moving on. “Yes. There is ancient, dark magic that could allow somepony to pull back events removed from time, and make them reality again.”

“So he could really do it? Destroy the universes through dreams?” Wing said.

“Not directly,” Luna replied. “The problem that powerful unicorns in the past faced when attempting this dark magic was that more often than not, the events would be pulled back, then removed again. If this Ayumu unicorn brought back the events of Chaos, the Doctor would stop him again.”

Jack looked at Luna. “Unless he stopped the Doctor...”

“Exactly,” Luna replied. She shifted in her seat, seeming uncomfortable. “Once, I almost did what he was trying to do. I planned to return to the past and stop myself from becoming Nightmare Moon. I realized the repercussions would be too great, and that the past had to remain in the past. It seems that Ayumu has not accepted that yet.”

**

The Crystal Empire

With a pop and a flash, Tim Star appeared deep within the crystal castle at the heart of the Crystal Empire. Knowing his time was short, he silently rushed over to his target. He admired the beauty of the mirror for a moment, wondering just how much power it took the creator to make. Quite a gift for just one pony to use.

Entering the mirror was not his plan, however, nor was stealing the entire mirror. He looked at the gems lining the edge, comparing size, shape, glow. He needed a good one, and after a few moments, he chose one of the gems near the bottom right corner. The last piece to his puzzle.

**

Ponyville

“What does Ayumu need to carry out his plan?” Ruby asked.

“Several pieces are required,” Luna explained. “First, he'd need the magical capability to enter and manipulate dreams, which he clearly has already. Next, to complete the spell that dark unicorns made so long ago, he would need blood. Blood of ponies can provide magical qualities. Of course, use of such a tool was banned ages ago.”

“He's got blood,” Jack replied. Several ponies in Manehattan died for that component.

“Lastly, a certain type of crystal, which there is very little of in existence. Some of it was used to create the mirror through which you entered our universe, Capatain Harkness.”

Luna's last comment made Jack's eyes widen, and Luna also realized the urgency of their situation. The mirror through which Jack entered sat in Cadance's castle, relatively unprotected, for no one else knew of the need. With the ability to teleport through time and space, royal guards meant nothing. Luna stood up, her horn beginning to glow, brighter and brighter, until no one in the room could see.

With a powerful zap of magic, everyone in the room teleported to the Crystal Castle, the home of the mirror that granted access between universes if used properly. Luna collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Twilight wasn't surprised at Luna passing out, more so at the fact that she was able to pull off a teleport that great of a distance. The power to do so must have drained her completely.

“Follow me, now!”

Twilight took a moment to register Jack's words, but the members of Torchwood responded instantly, used to taking split second commands that sometimes meant the difference between life and death. Jack tore through the castle, digging into his memory of the time he was here, but luckily, Twilight spread her wings and flew into the lead, having a better idea of where to go.

They hurried through the castle, the guards making a path form them after recognizing princess Twilight, until they reached the room that held the magical mirror. Twilight blasted through the door with her body, and Jack skidded to a halt inside, his heart dropping when he ran his eyes along the edge of the mirror, finding one of the stones missing.

“He's got everything he needs,” Jack panted.

**

Nicole felt a bit better every time she traveled using the vortex manipulator. She zapped from her time back into the time her captain ended up in, surprised to find no one to greet her.

She'd teleported to Torchwood headquarters, so she left the underground area and walked upstairs, calling out as she went.

“Hello?”

Her voice echoed through the castle, with no response. She ascended more steps, up into the main portion of the castle, and still nothing. The team must have gone somewhere.

Nicole took this time alone to admire princess Twilight's castle. Its beauty baffled her. This was the time of the royal sisters, but not only that, two other alicorn princesses were present. Everypony knew this part of Equestria's history. In her time, ponies reached their influence across the universe, and the few alicorn princesses were spread out much more, their power less prominent in everyday life. Now that she thought about it, Nicole had never been inside one of the castles of her own time. This was a first.

“Um, hi.”

Nicole jumped at an unfamiliar voice, relaxing when she saw it belonged to a small, purple baby dragon. “Hello, who are you?” Nicole asked. “I'm looking for...” she wasn't sure how much this dragon knew, or how much he was allowed to know. “...my friends. They've been living here for a while.”

“Oh, those guys,” the dragon replied. “I'm Spike, by the way. I don't know where they went either. They were all talking with Twilight and Luna, then I heard a super loud zapping noise. I ran into the room, and they were all gone.”

“You don't know where they went?”

“Nope, sorry,” Spike replied. “I'm sure they'll be back though. They might still be in the castle, I think they all teleported somewhere.”

**

After all the ruckus, princess Cadance swiftly found the group who'd come inside all the way from Ponyville. She summoned guards to tend to princess Luna, who started to come to, and Jack left the castle with the rest of the Torchwood team. He let Twilight know that Cadance didn't recognize him when they met sixty years from now. Twilight explained the situation to Cadance, and her heart dropped.

“I'm so sorry Twilight,” Cadance said. “If I'd known-”

“There's no way you would have known,” Twilight replied. “We only just found out.”

“Did you fly here?”

“No, princess Luna teleported us from Ponyville.” Twilight looked back at Luna, who had royal guards holding her up and giving her water. “I didn't know anypony could use the teleport spell for that great a distance, but clearly it took everything Luna had.”

“Well, if he needs anything else from this castle, he's not getting it,” Cadance assured her. “I'll double the number of guards here until we know everything is safe.”

That was Twilight's next problem to solve. Ayumu was clearly almost ready to move on with his plan, but she didn't know how to counter it. Luna drained herself after using the teleport spell, she'd be no help until she recovered. Twilight didn't have the time to learn the magic of dreams Luna manipulated, if she could copy what Luna did at all.

Then none of her worries mattered, because she no longer stood in the Crystal Empire. She was back in Ponyville, sitting in her castle, reading a book, with no recollection of anything known as Torchwood.

**

Jack's Universe
49th Century

Jack gripped River Song's shoulder as he walked onto the bridge of her archaeology ship. “Good morning,” he said, shooting her a smile.

Jack met River at a bar a couple months ago. She said she was taken, but was so fun that Jack didn't care. He needed something else to do with his neverending life, so he accepted the offer to join up with her on an archaeology team. The two grew rather close, even to the point that Jack revealed his strange ability, yet even so, neither mentioned their shared knowledge of the Doctor to the other. Both wanted to protect him, and so unless the topic was necessary, they usually didn't speak of him.

“Hello, handsome,” River replied, smiling in return. She returned to the new readings that caught her attention, and looked outside the ship. “I might have a job for you right now. There's some sort of temporal storm outside our ship, think you could hop in the shuttle and get some readings up close?”

“Sure thing,” Jack said. He turned to leave the bridge, but stopped when River gripped her arm.

“Hold on.”

River checked and double checked her system. She looked back and forth between her readings and the storm's location. Or rather, former location. The storm no longer raged anywhere near the ship.

“It's just gone.”

“What?” Jack looked outside the ship, and sure enough, the sparking clouds he glimpsed just moments ago were nowhere to be seen.

“Well, that's odd...”

“Oh well, gonna grab some coffee,” Jack said, deciding to still leave the bridge. “Probably would've been dangerous to check it out anyways. That's why you sent the man who can't die out in a shuttle.”

“That does prove useful,” River called out with a laugh. “But you're right about the danger, temporal storms are nasty things. You could have ended up anywhere, maybe even a different universe.”

“I know, right?”

**

The Pony Universe
Earth
Canterlot

Luna snapped up from her pillow, panting for breath. She'd only been asleep for a couple hours, but she shouldn't have been sleeping anyways. She shouldn't be here, in Canterlot right now. She'd gone to the Crystal Empire, in hopes of stopping what she clearly failed to stop. Her dreams became reality, and reality became her dreams.

Time was back to before the end of Chaos.