Torchwood: Equestria- Parallel Loose Ends

A wall. All Jack, Ruby, and Wing saw was a wall. The newly named members of Torchwood stood at the bottom of the grand staircase in Twilight’s castle, and Twilight walked up to a space on the wall, just behind the steps.

She pressed her hoof against it, and a portion lit up, then slid inwards, followed by a three pony-wide section of wall sliding in and shifting to the right, revealing another staircase. This staircase didn’t have the glamour of the castle’s stairs, rather, it was a simple set of metal steps.

“I’ll magically code the door for all your hooves,” Twilight said. “I’m still working on how a pony got through this lock.” She proceeded down the stairs, and everyone else followed.

The stairway was small, and led to what was more obviously a door than the previous entrance, thick metal with a small, square window, and a hoof-sized panel next to it. Twilight once again brought up her front hoof, and the second door slid open. She stood by the door and motioned for everyone else to go in first.

“This castle grew magically out of an ancient artifact,” Twilight mentioned. “But what you’re about to see was added afterwards with the decision to move the vault here. Celestia hired a skilled team of construction ponies, then I cast a memory spell on them so they wouldn’t remember being here.”

“First thing we should do is probably look at pictures of the construction ponies, see if any look like the prisoner,” Ruby said, her eyes widening as she entered the room.

“Good thinking,” Jack said. He stopped by Twilight before going in. “So, did you pay the construction ponies for the job they can’t remember?” He grinned coyly.

Twilight nodded. “Of course, Captain Harkness,” she replied.

“Please, call me Jack,” Jack told her. Twilight’s cheeks turned pink, and she turned her head away, placing a hoof in front of her face.

“Am I the only pony you can’t get with that?” Ruby asked, having turned to see if the others still followed her.

“Yes,” Jack said, moving to enter the vault. “It’s very unsettling.”

Jack stopped talking as he entered the vault. All the walls were white, and the room was more spacious than he expected. In the center of the room lay books, charts, and various drawings. The items along the walls were the real surprise. All sorts of alien technology, from small weaponry to large, bulky devices that Jack had no thoughts on how they might function. Some devices looked complete, while others appeared broken or fragmented. A bent, blue rod with lights on either end, a shiny sheet of steel that might be part of a space ship.

As much as Jack couldn’t believe his eyes, Wing had much more on his mind. Everything in here was evidence that the creatures living on this planet were not alone. How had so many encounters with aliens been kept secret? In the past, Wing always laughed at ponies who babbled on about government conspiracy theories. Now, though most of the things those ponies said were still outrageous, such as princess Luna sending herself to the moon for her own purposes, they got one thing right. Aliens visited.

“I’m sorry for the mess, until now only Celestia and I could come down here,” Twilight said. “I’ll get this cleaned up before bed tonight.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle that,” Ruby said from the far end of the room. “This technology is old, but not all of it’s unfamiliar. I recognize some things that a pony would call ancient in my time. And I think I can use my knowledge on tech to figure out a lot of the things I don’t know. I was an engineering officer before I made captain.” Ruby walked to the pile of books and loose sheets of parchment in the center of the room. “Are these yours, princess?”

“Yes, it’s all the notes that Celestia or I have taken when looking at these devices,” Twilight replied. “You might be able to get something out of our findings.”

“These are great, I’ll take a look at them.” Ruby nodded in thanks.

Jack liked the room, but felt like there wasn’t much space to work in with all the technology piled up. “Do you think we could get a bit more construction done?” Jack asked. He made note of the high ceiling. “Like some stairs that lead up to some offices, the ceiling is high enough for it. We don’t need an entire second floor, just a bit of walk space and some rooms made inside the walls.”

“With some strong earth ponies, talented unicorns, and my memory spells, a job like that could be done in just a couple of days. Celestia said any resource is at your disposal, so I can make that happen.”

“Perfect.” Jack felt pleased. Everything was coming together; a new team, a new goal, and new people to protect. Something bothered him, however. He couldn’t quite put his hoof on what was missing, but something. “Oh!” Jack turned to Ruby and pointed at her bandages. “We need a doctor on the team permanently,” Jack said. “We can’t rely on hospitals all the time if one of us or someone else gets injured from some sort of alien technology. Too many loose ends.”

Ruby had been sitting down, moving the bent blue rod back and forth in her hooves, reviewing its condition. At Jack’s comment she stood up, and spoke before Twilight had a chance to begin talking about searching for candidates, interviewing them, checking their backgrounds, and finding just the right doctor to be both on this team and cleared to know about the vault. “I know the perfect candidate,” she said. “Princess, if you disapprove, you can just erase this doctor’s memory, right?”

Twilight hesitated before responding, but if Ruby already knew a candidate, she trusted the unicorn. Even though Twilight had known about the vault since shortly after she became a princess, the workings of the contents inside were beyond her capability. At some point, she’d have to leave manners in the hooves of the ponies around her, and she decided to just start now. “I can, but you have to know if you truly want this doctor shortly after revealing anything,” she said.

“I’ll get on it tomorrow,” Ruby replied.

“It is getting late,” Jack mentioned. “The culprit from today all locked up?”

“Yes, behind a different secret panel,” Twilight replied. “I gave him dinner before you arrived. I can fashion some of the smaller rooms on the castle’s top floor to be guest rooms, if you give me a little while. Just need to get some mattresses, and the rooms have no doors, but that’s a quick wood crafting spell and a few nails.”

“That would be great, thanks,” Jack said. “Let’s turn in for now, then. For tomorrow, Ruby, go get your checkup, and I’ll interview our friend from today.”

***

Dr. Cazan offered to help around the hospital during his stay in Ponyville. Though he only had one patient actually assigned to him, he preferred not to just sit around in his hotel room until his appointments with her. He aided other doctors in seeing to patients, checking on medicine supplies, and filling out paperwork. Even at home he enjoyed keeping himself busy, either with leftover hospital work, cooking, cleaning, or a good book.

The griffon had eaten a light breakfast in the cafeteria, talked to some of the doctors about how things were in this hospital, covered for a doctor running late, and was working on taking inventory of some supplies when a nurse tracked him down and informed him that his patient was here. Cazan nodded and told the nurse he’d be up in a few minutes. He finished his current inventory, then left the supply room and worked his way up to the second floor, down a narrow hallway, past a counter where receptionists and nurses conversed, and further down another hallway to the same room he’d met his patient in yesterday.

Ruby was already sitting up in bed, and she smiled and waved with a hoof. “Hello, Dr. Cazan,” she greeted.

“Please, just Cazan is fine,” he replied. “Let me see a hoof please.” Ruby reached out a hoof, and Cazan gently gripped it with a claw to measure her pulse. “I just wanted you to come back today to see if there was any problems with the bandages or pain. How’s the medication?”

“Works great,” Ruby said. “I can’t say my brain is a hundred percent here right now, that’s some strong meds, but no pain. The bandages are fine too.”

“Good to hear.” Cazan let go of Ruby’s hoof and checked on the bandages, making sure they were all still firmly in place. “Well, like I said yesterday, avoid as much physical activity as possible. Luckily you’re a unicorn, so there are quite a few things you can do without moving at all.”

“I won’t go too crazy,” Ruby promised. She looked down for a moment in pause, then looked up again. “Say, Cazan,” she began, which caught Cazan’s attention. “Would you like it if you could go back to your old job?”

Cazan shrugged. “Well, it certainly was exciting, but like I said yesterday, even though I stay in shape still they reserve the job for younger griffons. I enjoy being a doctor very much, so it doesn’t bother me.”

“What if you could combine your old job with your new job?”

This question left Cazan puzzled. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well,” Ruby leaned in towards Cazan and lowered her voice. “Finish up here, and later this afternoon come on over to princess Twilight’s castle. I can’t explain more now, but trust me, knowing what you used to do, you’ll be interested.”

One interesting thing after another piled up for Cazan due to this incident. Celestia never asked him to personally attend to a patient outside of Canterlot, until now. And just after that happens, his patient seems to be offering him a job as both a spy and a doctor. “Well, I’d have to speak with princess Celestia-“

“She’ll approve. And if you still want to talk to her, she hasn’t left Ponyville yet, so she’ll be at the castle too.”

After another moment’s thought, Cazan nodded. “Alright then, Ruby. I will see you in a few hours.”

***

Conversation was casual at breakfast. Jack and Wing both met Spike, a baby dragon who lived with Twilight, and helped her around the castle. Both greatly enjoyed Spike’s cooking, and thanked him for the meal. After a small conversation with Jack about the dangers of time travel before sitting down to eat, Wing didn’t mention anything about the pictures he’d seen of the fully grown Spike the Dragon from his own time.

After breakfast, Wing stayed back to help Spike clean up all the dishes, while Twilight took Jack with her to engage in a more serious conversation. Once again they trotted down the spiraling steps leading to the base of the castle, and Twilight moved to a different secret panel, this one not designed for hiding secret alien technology, but for prisoners.

Twilight actually felt very strange as she opened the hidden doorway. She was the princess of friendship. Her main job was to spread the magic within friendship to all of Equestria, and show ponies just how powerful it was. Now, a prisoner slept inside her castle. She never even thought about having to do things like this when she became a princess, but she knew that Cadance, Celestia and Luna all shared the same secret burdens. Ruling came with duties that they didn’t want to think about too often.

Jack followed Twilight down the steps, and he felt glad that this time he wasn’t headed down here for his own imprisonment. When he reached the bottom, he saw similar cells to the ones in Cadance’s castle. Walls and a bed, and not much else.

“He’s in the last one,” Twilight said, continuing on. Twilight walked ahead of Jack, and reached the cell first. “Huh, still sleeping,” she commented.

Jack arrived at the outside of the cell, and looked at the yellow pegasus that shot him yesterday. Twilight was right; the stallion laid in bed, eyes closed, despite the late hour. At first, Jack just figured that the stallion had nothing better to do. Why not stay in bed if your only other option is ten feet away from it? Something felt off to Jack, however.

“Wake up, sir,” Twilight said, loudly tapping a hoof on the bars of the door. The sound echoed down the narrow hallway and rang in Jack’s ears, but the prisoner didn’t move. Twilight tilted her head, confused. “Strange, he’s rather still… I could see his chest moving last time…”

Twilight shrugged, and repeated the process, this time even louder, and the odd hunch grew in Jack’s mind. “Open the door,” he said.

Twilight nodded, and used her magic to undo the lock. Jack slid the door open, once again causing rattling noises to echo through the hall, and walked up to the prisoners bed. Praying he wasn’t right, Jack gently placed a hoof on the stallion’s neck, then his head sank.

“He’s dead.”

No sound came from Twilight, she simply blinked at first. “B-but, that’s not possible…”she stammered. “I used three different detection spells to make sure he had nothing on him when he went into the cell… I checked on him last night… I checked on him just a couple hours ago and he was still breathing!”

Jack placed his hoof back on the ground. “If you’re around Torchwood, you’ll find out our job is investigating the impossible,” he said. He turned to look at the princess. “But now we have no suspect to help us with that.”

***

The late morning hours passed slowly after the shock of their one connection to the most recent happenings was found dead in his cell. Construction workers arrived and began working according to Jack’s requests. Twilight supervised the construction, Celestia caught up on letters forwarded to her from Canterlot, and Jack and Wing helped Twilight’s baby dragon get some cleaning done around the castle.

Jack knew creating Torchwood here would still help Equestria, but he felt that the incident today had more to it. He didn’t believe a single pegasus could break into such a secure, secretive vault without help. He wanted to investigate further, but had no other clues to work with.

He decided until something else came up, just forgetting about it was the best thing to do. Worrying wouldn’t solve anything. He continued his work in the castle’s library, putting books back in their proper place. No one asked Wing or Jack to help, the two just helped anyways, looking for something to do.

After another hour, Ruby returned to the castle with a couple bags of food. All of them were given bits the night before for some personal spending money, and Ruby decided to buy things to fix up lunch and dinner for everyone in the castle that day.

The sun rose higher in the sky as late morning transitioned into afternoon. Twilight sent out all the construction workers for an hour lunch break, then joined everyone else for sandwiches that Ruby put together.

“Is your doctor coming?” Jack asked Ruby a little ways into the meal.

“He should, a couple more hours or so,” Ruby replied.

“Which doctor do you speak of?” Celestia asked.

“Oh, Jack made a good point that this team needs a resident doctor, so we always have one and never have to explain any strange happenings to hospital staff. I think my doctor is perfect for the job.”

Celestia nodded. “Oh, Doctor Cazan,” she said. “I’m glad you’re liking him. Many would miss him in Canterlot, but this is important work that you’re doing here. I’ll talk to him when he comes.”

Everyone finished their meal, then returned to other duties. Twilight welcomed back the construction workers and continued to supervise, Wing and Spike cleaned up all the lunch dishes, and Jack and Wing went to the library to finish organizing books. Ruby found the work relaxing, and thanks to her magic, didn’t have to move much as she shuffled books past her eyes, looking at the title and sending it to the right shelf.

“So, how big is your ship?” Jack asked Ruby, rolling in another cart of books.

“On the smaller side, I volunteered for the assignment,” Ruby replied. “Crew of five. It’s really nice, because I got to know my entire crew very quickly. Daniel, Luke, Rufus, Nicole… they’ve all done some great work. If I have anything to say about it, they’ll all make captain one day.”

A book on plant life in Southern Equestria floated in front of its spot on the shelf, not moving. A biography of a politician hovered in front of Ruby’s face. Her rhythm of putting books away fluctuated for a moment as her thoughts once again wandered to her crew. “Do you think they’re alright?”

“Yes,” Jack answered immediately. “I’m sure they’re keeping a much more careful eye out for ponies boarding their ship. Plus, I promised you I’d get you and Wing back to your own time as soon as I could. When that happens, it’ll be like you barely left.”

The books sat still for another few seconds, then Ruby sighed, and at last the plant life book was shelved, the biography moving up to its own spot. “You’re right. Thanks.”

“And besides,” Jack added. “In the meantime, you get to be part of a new team. I’m fun.”

The unicorn chuckled, and rolled her eyes. “I’ve noticed.”

Jack asked more questions about Ruby’s ship just to pass the time, learning all sorts of things about it. Her and her crew had managed the ship for two and a half years now. The ship was small to match the crew size, and mostly performed scouting and cargo missions.

“Since she’s small, the ship is fast too,” Ruby continued. “We can also act as first responders to an emergency situation. Like the time that…”

Jack eventually looked up after Ruby went a few seconds without speaking. “Like what time?”

Ruby felt shaken up. She shivered, but didn’t know why. “Nevermind,” she said. “I can’t remember.” She shivered again. Had the library gotten colder? Once more, Ruby felt lost about the strange feelings arising in her mind. First when she saw the planet they orbited, then when she encountered the stallion on her ship, then whenever she thought back to his comment. Now, she had no idea why she started to share a story that never happened, or that she couldn’t remember at least.

After that moment, the two finished shelving books in silence, and discovered Twilight on her way up to them when they walked out of the library. “Dr. Cazan is here,” she announced. “He’s at the top off the stairway.”

“Thanks, I’ll talk to him,” Ruby replied. She moved to step forward until Jack swung his foreleg out to block her.

“Wait, before you talk, we need him to look at something,” Jack said. “Twilight, can you open the prison for us?”

Twilight nodded, liking the plan. “Sure, I’ll take all three of you now.”

They all walked back to find Cazan standing where Twilight said he was. Jack moved up first, holding out a hoof in greeting. “Captain Jack Harkness, I’m with Torchwood,” he said.

Cazan gently grabbed Jack’s hoof with a claw and shook it. He felt odd looking at Jack. Having seen many patients in his time as a doctor, when he looked at the stallion he appeared to have the eyes of someone who’d lived for quite a while, but showed no such thing physically. “And I’m Dr. Cazan, hello. Ruby asked me to come here to learn about some rather interesting opportunity. I can’t say I’ve heard of Torchwood.”

“If what Ruby says of you is true, you’ll be on it,” Jack replied. “But first, I need a favor of you. There’s a dead prisoner downstairs and we have no idea how he got that way. Think you could take a look?”

This was not the first thing Cazan expected to do after talking to Ruby, however, his curiosity fueled him. “My job is typically to work with those who haven’t died yet and keep them that way, but I can take a look.”

***

Down in the prison, Cazan entered the cell and pulled the blankets all the way off the bed. He rolled the dead stallion on to his back, laying all four hooves down so they weren’t blocking anything.

The doctor carefully examined the prisoner, starting with the head, then moving down to the neck, chest, abdomen, and legs.

“Aside from some bruises, I see nothing external, no signs of a heart attack, choking, or anything like that,” Cazan observed. He opened the pony’s mouth. “No sign of ingesting a poison to kill himself, there’d be some traces… I would need to run some tests using medical equipment to determine any further detail, you say he didn’t appear sick at all?”

“No, he seemed perfectly fine, in fact I saw him alive just a couple hours before we came down and discovered him dead,” Twilight replied.

“And you found him in the bed?”

“Yes.”

Cazan backed away from the prisoner, and shook his head. “Well, if I can bring some equipment in, I can give you more information. For now though, it looks like he just died in his sleep. But, I believe that this prisoner likely has something to do with Ruby’s offer?”

Ruby nodded her head. “We need a doctor on our team, Cazan, for things like this. There’s a lot to catch you up on. How about I fill you in upstairs, where there’s no dead bodies?”

***

Location unknown
Several hours earlier

Brendan sat in a chair, with nothing around him but four walls and a door. He scratched nervously, yellow hairs from his coat falling onto the carpet of the room. He expected the worst for his failure, and fear swelled in his body as the door to the room opened.

A male, orange unicorn entered the room. His mane was short and dark red, and he was taller and more muscular than most. He perused about the room as if floating, moving with impeccable grace. When he started speaking, his voice carried a deep, throaty tone, yet still flowed smoothly.

“What were you doing?” the orange stallion asked. He showed no sign of emotion in his voice or body movement. He didn’t even look at Brendan, he simply continued pacing along the wall, as if admiring art that only he could see.

Brendan trembled in his chair. “I… I was causing chaos. Like you wanted us to. I found a way into a secret vault, used up the situational spell one of our unicorns put in me.”

“Yes, that part was good,” the orange stallion replied. “But because of you, that vault you found will be inaccessible a second time, and now there is likely an investigation towards us.” His voice still came out monotone, but he now looked towards Brendan in the center of the room, making the pegasus tremble even more. “I did not mean to ask what you were doing causing chaos, I meant what were you doing getting caught?”

“Well… this stallion came out of nowhere… and… I tried to fight…”

“Not good enough.” The stallion approached Brendan, and he leaned back, nearly falling out of his chair.

“Please, no… I’m with you… I want to see the end…”

“Oh, don’t worry, the end will come,” the stallion said. He reached out a hoof, taking Brendan’s chin in it and looking into the yellow pegasus’ eyes. “And we will all die. But you’re going to die sooner. You won’t be waking up from this dream.”

Brendan tried to speak, but found no words. The orange unicorn turned and left the room, closing the door gently behind him. Brendan sat, paralyzed, his eyes slowly closing, and before he could wake up to the sight of prison walls once more, his life ended in timing with his dream.