Adventures in the TARDIS

As Daring's vision clears, she is surprised to discover that the “real world” leans closer to morning now. The sun has not risen yet, but the sky is bright gray. Not only that, but it turns out she really is outside of the main village and next to a pond with a waterfall pouring into it. That would mean that she wandered into this area during the ceremony. In essence, she sleep walked (or flew) into this area while she had a skewed perspective of reality. That seems really dangerous to her.

Amazingly, by the sounds of it, the music of the ceremony is still pressing on. It's only a guess, for her, that the activity level has dropped now compared to last night.

As a test, Daring Do lifts both of her wings in preparation to fly back into the village's center, but as she mostly expected, the muscles of her wings are sore, especially at the base. For that matter, many parts of her body are sore too, but honestly less than she expected.

After considering it further, she recalled that, in this time and place, everyone heals faster. What is left of the drug in her system might be masking some of the pain as well, or potentially even accelerating her healing faster still.

This isn't too much of a bother to her. She's accustomed to dealing with exhaustion, strain, frustration and pain in many of her past adventures. The good ones have a tendency to push her limits.

While that may be true for her, though, the rest of her party may not have as much endurance or tenacity. If they are achy too, it might be a greater hindrance for them today. She hopes that won't be a severe detriment this morning, but unfortunately, she doesn't see any nearby wood to knock on. Her past adventures occasionally have an uncanny knack for springing nasty surprises at the worst possible time. That's just how life goes sometimes, but at least it makes for a good story to write about later if she survives and there isn't a secret involved that is too sensitive.

Just before she springs off into the air, though, a glint of something reflective catches her eye. Curious, she looks down and notices a pair of red feathers on the ground that are about six inches long each. The edges of each of these feathers almost appear metallic considering its prismatic gleam.

Appropriately enough, she scoops them both up with her right wing then draws it near her muzzle for a closer look at it. In doing so, she soon identifies these two feathers as feathers from a phoenix. After all, she had something like this before but it wasn't as shiny back then.

Twisting the feathers back and forth a little, she notices that the prismatic colors at the edges of both of these items shift depending on their angle to the light.

While staring at them, Daring Do unknowingly falls into a bit of a trance while a message feels downloaded into her soul. She gains a “knowing” that both of these feathers are a gift for her and one other pony. They are enchanted too. If used as a quill, they will never run out of ink, nor blot on the page, and the ink will dry in seconds. Not only that, but the user can choose the color of the ink even while in mid-stroke of the quills. Finally, if these quills are ever lost or stolen from their chosen users, then fate will orchestrate their eventual return somehow.

Daring can almost feel the gratitude of the father of the phoenix who originally presented her a gift like this as well as some frustration that it was eventually stolen by an unworthy rival author. Because of that, these ones are enchanted to stubbornly return to their chosen users in time as long as both the items and users continue to long for each other. As for the colorful ink, buried within the enchantment of these quills is the hope that the users of these quills will receive awesome inspiration as brilliant as the most radiant rainbows. May such important potential ever be a bottomless well.

Daring Do cracks a smile as she gazes at the pair of feathers with so much gratitude welling in her that her eyes become misty. She closes her eyes, bows her head, hugs the gifts to her chest using both wings this time then thinks of a silent prayer to return her affection and gratitude for these gifts. After that, she opens her eyes, lifts her head, and tucks the gifts further into her wings where they end up getting a bit concealed.

There is no question, in her mind, to whom the second quill belongs to. “Feather” is literally in his name and he used to be known as Quill Scroll.

With that, Daring flies back to the center of camp.

Daring is surprised and alarmed to notice how most of the village is suddenly packing up and retreating from the center of camp around the time Daring arrives. For a brief moment she suspects that she is the cause for some reason.

However, the moment she lands, several empathic senses assail her. Chief among them is the feeling of approaching and imminent danger. From what or where she does not know, but it is soon and it feels severe enough to warrant strong caution. She also gets the feeling that the others here sense it too, particularly any pony who took the drug last night and participated in the ceremony. Apparently a lingering side effect of it is heightened psychic senses, at least temporarily.

Looking more carefully, Daring soon notices that there is a pattern to those who are fleeing and those who are staying. Without exception that she can see, those who are fleeing are the most defenseless and innocent members of the village. Conversely, those who are remaining feel some confidence in their ability to defend themselves or others somehow.

Daring notices Doctor Kelly approach her so Daring focuses her attention on that white coated mare.

“I swear I didn't use my magic, or technology, to sober you all up,” Doctor Kelly promises upon arrival. “Yet all of you seem suddenly alert and awake pretty much at the same time. Can you tell me anything about what's going on and how do you feel?”

“Achey, but that's to be expected after dancing all or most of the night,” Daring Do answers. “As for what is going on, I sense imminent danger soon approaching and I'm guessing everypony else who participated in the ceremony senses the same.”

“So it causes heightened intuition? How fascinating!” Doctor Kelly marvels.

Daring blinks at Doctor Kelly in surprise then asks, “That is what you're latching on to? I would have thought the approaching danger might nab your attention more.”

Doctor Kelly just shrugs. Then, while she speaks, Daring notices Stern Wing approaching the two of them. Doctor Kelly says, “Be that as it may, a heightened alert system of some kind certainly can provide an evolutionary advantage. After all, it is only the survivors that have the ability to pass on their genes.”

“The non-combatants seem to have cleared out,” Stern Wing announces very seriously to Daring upon arrival. “That'll make my job easier. Now all I have to do is defeat, or at least withhold, whatever threat it is that's approaching us.”

“So you sense it too?” Daring double checks with Stern Wing.

“Aye,” Stern Wing verifies with a nod. “Now I have some idea how Vision usually feels.”

Daring winces slightly as she asks, “That's the little blind filly you all left in Ponyville, right?”

In answer, Stern Wing simply nods again while giving a vigilant scan of her local vicinity. She does not spot the threat yet, but she does notice other warriors and hunters remaining here in a semi-circle and also scanning for danger. Stern catches the eye of a few of them who, in turn, nod back to her in acknowledgement and respect.

“Let's take to the air and do a brief perimeter sweep,” suggests Daring Do. “But keep the search pattern pretty tight. Whatever this thing is, it'll arrive soon so it must be close.”

Stern Wing asks with a glance at Daring Do, “You search the south and I'll search the north?”

“Nevermind that,” interjects Doctor Kelly who draws the attention of the other two mares beside her. With it, Doctor Kelly nods to the north-east side of the village. The other two follow her gaze and notice a black creature crawl up and over one of the larger and more sturdy tents of the village.

They are not the only ones to spot it either. Several other warriors and hunters also spot it and they, in turn, whistle then point the way for the others using a spear, tip of an arrow, or their own hoof.

This creature is a languid black fur creature which briefly reminds them of a panther, but the limbs of this creature are significantly longer. The limbs are about six foot long tentacles each except they end in claws that look dirty as if caked with tar. A piece of spiky bone juts back at the main bending point of each of its clawed fingers so it can slash with its claws when it swings either way. The neck and tail of this creature is also like a six foot long tentacle. The tail looks the most benign of all of its limbs. As for its head, it has a long bird-like beak on its face that bends down the last few inches and vaguely resembles a vulture. There are obviously no bones in any of its limbs so they can easily bend in any direction with liquid smooth motion. As for its torso, it is a round oval shape like a black, sideways jelly bean.

Cresting the top of the tent, the creature crouches a bit and does a scan of its own. It appears somewhat delighted upon noticing how many ponies chose to stand their ground and fight it.

It takes Daring a moment to realize that her perception of this creature goes beyond just a visual scan. She can sense the emotions of this creature too. Because of that, she soon realizes that this creature is not hungry yet it is hostile anyway. She senses vicious delight from this creature which means it actually is attacking merely for fun.

Beyond that, she notices how this creature analytically scans each of its potential opponents and sizes them up. Despite that, however, Daring senses it isn't really much more intelligent than an average beast. That means it can't talk, craft complex tools or wield them, but it is amazingly tactical for a beast, or “monster” might be a more fitting term.

Stern Wing boldly steps closer to the base of the tent and waves her wings about in order to purposefully cease its attention, and it works. The gaze of this creature instantly snaps at Stern Wing the moment it notices her approaching it. It then lowers its neck to have its beak almost directly in front of Stern Wing's face. While suspending its head at that level, it eerily keeps crawling the rest of its body down from the tent while holding its head perfectly steady at eye level with Stern Wing. Even as its body twists while lowering itself to the ground, its head remains perfectly steady.

Daring senses alarm, almost to the point of panic, from someone else here. That draws her attention to it. To her right, she notices Feather Wind gazing at Stern Wing and the monster very nervously.

When Daring sees that, several things occur to her. For one thing, she reminds herself that Feather is the youngest member of her party. For two, he was raised among the aristocracy so it makes sense why he wouldn't be used to stress like this yet. For three, he's very unnerved by this encounter because it strongly resembles the last chaos beast they encountered, and he remembers how Stern Wing got injured towards the end of that fight. Not only does he fear seeing her in pain again, but he also fears himself as well because the last time this happened, he snapped for a short while. He lost control of himself and almost threw in all of his effort without restraint, and if that happened, he might accidentally hurt his friends or other innocent bystanders here, not to mention he doesn't really want to hurt any creature. Not even the opponent.

Finally, he's also nervous that his friends might sense him nervous and thus think that maybe they can't depend on him.

A moment later, Daring grows startled to realize that Feather has sensed her empathic scan of him. Realizing that made him feel suddenly really exposed. After that he cringes and gives an apologetic look over the mere fact that he is afraid of this situation at all and got caught in it.

There is a brief flare of embarrassment from Daring Do because she feels like she accidentally peered into something very private. At the same time she's fascinated to realize how sensitive and accurate their empathic senses are right now. Their emotions are like a newspaper for everyone to read.

But then it occurs to her that, just as she can sense his emotions, he can do the same right now and she can use that to her advantage. When that realization fully sinks in, she digs up the wellspring of inner strength and confidence and purposefully projects it at Feather Wind. He should instantly be able to tell that these feelings are coming from her, but that still exposes him to it just as it would to feel the sun on his hide after stepping out of the shadows. She also wills for him to absorb these feelings and let them become a part of him. If he accepts, he'll start to gain some of her inner strength and it won't even cost her her own.

Daring can feel that Feather instantly realizes what she's trying to do. As such, he cooperates with her plan and willingly absorbs some of her courage. He smiles at her gratefully then projects an assurance that, even while he was afraid, he would not have run away. Not while his friends and other innocents here are in danger.

Daring smiles and nods at him proudly for that before focusing back on the present danger. When she does, she notices how the creature is slowly stalking closer to Stern Wing and sometimes screeches or gives snapping motion towards her. The creature wants Stern Wing to be afraid of it and it is growing frustrated, and a tad concerned, at how resistant to fear Stern Wing is. After all, her confidence might be an indication that she has a plan to defeat it.

That isn't true, though. Stern is merely stalling it, but she already considers that leaning towards victory for her. For every second she delays this creature, the non-combatants can fortify their positions and her combat allies can get more solidly into place.

Even while staring at Stern Wing, the creature remains aware of the other ponies around it. For some reason it wants the others to attack it. Noticing this causes Daring to squint in confusion. Why would this creature actually want to be attacked by the others?

Well, regardless of the creature's motives, it does eventually get its wish. A dozen arrows and javelins get chucked and shot at the creature. The timing of these attacks is very precise, too, because each attacker can sense his or her other allies and, as a result, they can perform wordless communication and instinctually seamless teamwork. What comes at the creature is more like an net of an attack. It just can't dodge all of those attacks because the area is too wide and the attack is too synchronized. Some of those attacks are just guaranteed to miss as some are guaranteed to hit unless this creature has some very unusual means of defense.

But lo and behold, that's exactly what happens. A brief spring of glee ignites the soul of this creature when it notices the projectiles coming. It makes no effort at all to dodge them. Instead of that, it just stands there and seemingly accepts the hits.

Alarmingly for Daring's allies, what ends up happening instead is the projectiles slow to an eventual stop when it approaches within about four feet of the creature. The closer the projectiles get, the slower they crawl.

Then, a moment later, something weird happens. It looks like after-shadow images of the projectiles continue their trajectory towards the creature and get harmlessly absorbed. No pony here who witnessed that consciously realizes what that could mean.

A moment later, though, an explosion of danger instinct ran through them all before the creature suddenly burst into explosive motion. It launches itself at Stern Wing who also seems to slow down in time when she is closer to the creature or vice versa. With Stern Wing slowed down and the creature suddenly moving super fast, Stern might as well have been frozen in time. That made her almost utterly defenseless against its attacks. Specifically, she could not dodge or parry any of its blows. If she was wearing heavy armor at that moment then that might have successfully defended her from its claws, but it was moving so fast, it had time to aim its blows with precision so that armor would have to cover literally every inch of her body to be effective and it also has to be durable.

Strangely enough, though, the creature only settled for one claw swipe at Stern Wing then it sprang away. It easily could have showered Stern with a rain of blows that she would have no way to defend herself against, but it feels confident that only one blow against her is necessary.

The creature sprints halfway towards the next combatant before it slows down back to normal speed. At that point the creature once again pauses and assesses the rest of its opponents.

Looking back at Stern Wing, Daring notices that Stern is still slowed in time until the creature leaves her vicinity and about further two seconds passes. Then, after that, Stern suddenly spins in the air then tumbles onto the ground. Just before that happens, the others could already see her leaning in that direction and about to get launched away but the majority of the kinetic force of the blow was delayed for two seconds. Then, all of the sudden, time resumes its normal flow and she's burst sailing away.

“Well. These are very interesting creatures,” Doctor Kelly muses as she tabs a hoof to her chin with a thoughtful pose. “Apparently every single one of them can have dramatically different abilities. That forces the rest of us to be highly analytical and adaptable.”

“Look after Stern Wing,” Daring Do commands Doctor Kelly. “Be especially careful of her wound. The creature feels oddly confident that one strike is sufficient to deal with her. Find out why, and fast.”

“On it,” Doctor Kelly accepts, then moves closer to Stern Wing but keeps a cautious eye on the creature during her approach. The creature, too, snaps its gaze at Doctor Kelly because she's the only one moving at the moment, but she isn't advancing directly towards it so it’s not assaulting her yet.

As for Stern Wing, at first she attempts to stand back up. She is wincing in pain but it isn't more than she can handle. A few seconds later, though, the pain of her one scratch starts to burn far more than it should. Her pain seems oddly heightened. Within seconds it feels severe enough to force her back down to the ground. During that time, black tar-like substance seems to visibly bubble and fester from her wound.

Alarm and sympathy is ignited in Derpy's soul when she sees this, but she reacts in an odd way. Instead of panicking or springing recklessly towards Stern Wing, Derpy closes her eyes and starts a soothing song. Moments after her song begins, a wave of calm descends upon them all and the pain of Stern's wound ebbs some.

Daring finds that very noteworthy and vows to inquire more about that later.

The creature notices that every pony around it starts to calm back down. That, in turn, unnerves the creature. It hears the music too but it isn't smart enough to realize that the song is the reason for the change in reaction of its targets. So, instead, it just ends up getting confused and nervous about this change.

While the warriors and hunters are calmer, they are still uncertain about how to deal with this creature. After all, they saw how their projectiles were not only nullified as they approached the creature, but it somehow seemed to absorb the kinetic energy the projectiles would have done. As a result, it may have been responsible for the creature’s brief and sudden burst of speed. It seems to have the ability to absorb, store, then use the speed that attempts to approach the creature. By the looks of things, that probably would include the kinetic motion of living creatures too.

So, in other words, there is no way to approach the creature without slowing down in time and also giving the creature the ability to briefly burst into a sudden explosion of speed.

“Feather Wind, fire a hornbeam at it,” Daring Do commands him without looking away from this dangerous creature.

“I will not kill it,” Feather Wind insists. “But I can fire a stun beam at it. That costs me less energy anyway.”

“Fine then. Do it,” Daring accepts.

Daring watches the results carefully to see if pure energy has a different effect if it travels towards and through this creature's protective temporal aura. When she observes the results, she frowns when, sure enough, the laser beam slows to a crawl near the creature. Just like before, after-shadows of the energy beam get absorbed into the creature. In fact, a great deal of it. After all, a hornbeam travels at the speed of light. That's much faster than arrows and javelins.

The creature is gleeful at the opportunity to absorb this energy, but it is also confused because it does not recognize this type of attack. Apparently it is not accustomed to spell casters or any kind of technology that can emit an equivalent kind of attack.

“Oh Sweet Celestia!” Daring exclaims under her breath.

Just like before, the creature suddenly bursts into an explosion of speed but this time it zips through the battlefield faster than the eye can see. Since the hornbeam was much faster, absorbing its kinetic energy made it much faster in turn.

Every pony barely has any time to realize what happened until some observe seven ponies seem nearly frozen in time before bursting away in a spin. They all land on the ground with exactly one claw scratch for each victim.

“Caution. The wounds are infected with some kind of disease,” Doctor Kelly warns after examining Stern Wing for a while. “A pretty nasty one too.”

“Can you cure it?” Daring Do checks with Doctor Kelly without tearing her eyes away from the creature for even a second.

“I think I can slow and ease its effects with my magic right now,” Doctor Kelly answers. “I'll need more time to analyze it before I can fully remove it effectively. The good news is I only need to do that once, though, if it's the same disease for each victim.”

All of a sudden Daring can feel the eyes and attention of Margret on her. Along with that look is a question. A dilemma, really. Margret does have some advanced technology with her which she might be able to use against this creature, but she is surrounded by ponies who consider that taboo and she just participated in a ceremony to join this tribe. If she uses that tech now, it might cost at least her, if not them all, the trust and bond they've accumulated so far.

To answer that question, Daring flashes Margret a sharp-eyed look and gives a calming wave of a wing towards Margret and thus non-verbally indicating, “Hold off on that option for now. Let me see if I can deal with it some other way. I promise you, however, I won't forget your offer.”

Margret nods in acceptance then gives a worried look back at the creature.

“Somepony fetch me my bags,” Daring orders as she peers sharply back at the creature. While she does that, she's almost startled by how fast she got a useful response. It's as if some pony was already on standby and waiting for her to make that specific request. The moment she did, her saddlebags end up getting tossed at her by a foal with not nearly enough strength to sail an object that awkward and heavy all the way to Daring Do.

Where the foal failed, however, Feather Wind catches it with his magic and even causes a brief gust of wind to sail her bags all the rest of the way to her.

Meanwhile everyone else is on pause as if waiting for someone else to react, including the creature. It doesn't seem to like taking the initiative itself, but it probably could if it wanted to. By all observations made so far, any object, spell, or creature traveling towards it or it traveling to others causes them to not only slow down in time, but it absorbs the target's speed as well. The faster they move, though, the more speed it can absorb. That's probably why it tends to have a more reactionary response in combat. Anyone or any object that is not moving is the least enticing target for this creature.

“HEY!” Daring Do cries out boldly to the creature. In the process she waves a forehoof and both of her wings to gather its attention, which she does. It seems to be super sensitive and alert for any motion around it. Daring has been learning this across the duration of this battle and now she finally feels ready to act.

Having successfully gathered its attention, she turns around, flicks a tail tauntingly at it, then cries out, “COME AND GET ME!” before sprinting away as fast as she can gallop on sand. Seeing that seems to cause an irresistible urge for this creature to give chase.

“There you go. That's the best I can do for you for now,” Doctor Kelly says to Stern Wing as the doctor stands up and offers a hoof down to Stern. “Can you stand up?”

“I believe I can,” Stern replies with much greater ease, but she still accepts the Doctor's offered hoof who almost isn't strong enough to help lift the large mare. Doctor Kelly had to lean away from Stern and use her magic to help Stern Wing rise.

The creature notices this motion too which briefly nabs its attention. It is also confused, but delighted, that Stern Wing is back on her hooves again. That means it can enjoy tearing her right back down.

It also gains an instinct that Doctor Kelly is somehow responsible for this miracle. Because of that, the Doctor has suddenly become the creature's last priority target. After all, it wants her to heal the others as much as she can so it can enjoy their suffering longer.

Every pony here who participated in the ceremony senses that from the creature. The majority of their reaction is a mixture of surprise and disgust.

“Why isn't Trouble here to taunt us again?” Stern Wing asks with a sneer of disgust.

“Maybe she feels we don't need the warning,” Feather Wind suggests. “We got a lot of extra assistance this time.” He then focuses on Stern Wing as he asks her in concern, “You alright, Stern?”

“Yeah. I'll live,” Stern assures then looks at Daring questioningly. “What is she up to?”

Stern's question seems answered a moment later when Daring pulls out a stick of dynamite and simultaneously ignites it by scraping the cap off the wick. Meanwhile she does her best to stay ahead of the creature, at least by four feet. Until then, the creature is moving at its normal speed. That's still fast enough for Daring to struggle to keep ahead, but unlike the creature, she can fly. Sometimes she double backs and arcs right over the creature in order to retreat in the other direction. This strategy is especially common if she was running in a direction that was about to run out of room to maintain her maximum speed.

While staying ahead of the creature, she keeps swiveling an ear back behind her to gauge just how far the creature is from her. She's also paying close attention to her own sizzling wick. After all, she knows she needs to time this just right.

“I know what she's planning,” Feather announces in realization.

“Care to fill the rest of us in?” Stern Wing prompts.

Feather shakes his head then nods towards Daring as he proposes, “Just watch. She'll do it soon.”

Sure enough, Daring changes her strategy by simply dropping the dynamite on the ground and running past it. Since the creature is still following directly behind her, it catches up to the dynamite of its own accord. Since the dynamite isn't being tossed at the creature this time, there isn't as much motion for it to absorb or even detect.

The plan seems to go great at first but then the creature does something that Daring did not expect, and that is to stop chasing Daring and focus all of its attention on the dropped dynamite instead. It drew close enough for the dynamite to be in the magical aura of the creature too. At that point the wick starts to slow down its sizzle, but by then it was nearly at the dynamite itself. Every pony here can suddenly feel strong curiosity from this creature towards the very unfamiliar, sizzling object on the ground.

“NO! CHASE ME, BIRD BRAIN!” Daring Do complains at the creature, but it actually ignores her this time. That sizzling stick of dynamite is just so much more fascinating to it right now. It nears its beak towards it and takes a curious sniff.

Then, all of a sudden, something unusual happens. The portion of the explosion that escapes the creature’s slow aura field resumes its normal speed two seconds later, but the portion of the explosion that remained within the aura slows down even further. The closer it gets, the more that explosion slows. Every pony there, plus the creature, can visibly see the spinning shrapnel that is part of the dynamite spinning in the air. For the first time, they can even see the shockwave of the explosion eventually slowed to a near stop. It kind of resembles a desert mirage. Wiggling air that gets suspended in mid-motion.

Daring Do growls spitefully at the creature then widens her eyes in alarm when she notices after-shadows of the explosion itself getting absorbed into the creature. Maybe it won't use it right away, but it has now stored the kinetic energy of the explosion, or about sixty-percent of it, anyway. Watching that feels akin to knowing that a spring is pulled back and ready to burst forward.

“Okay. Plan B,” Daring decides then trots closer to Doctor Kelly. She doesn't make sudden moves this time because she doesn't feel ready to gather this creature's attention yet. For the moment, it is fortunately still too distracted watching this explosion in slow motion. Once Daring arrives near Doctor Kelly, she pulls out another stick of dynamite and, this time, offers it to the Doctor.

“What are you-” Doctor Kelly begins to ask but gets interrupted by Daring.

“This is getting stupid,” Daring complains. “So let's nullify some of the physics factors here.” Daring narrows her eyes in rage as she orders, “I want you to use your magic to teleport this stick of dynamite directly inside the creature's body after I ignite it.”

“What?!” Feather exclaims. “But she can't! No pony would have line-of-sight inside a creature unless they have x-ray vision. Failing that, there is no way to visualize the target destination for the teleported object.”

“Actually, I can do it,” Doctor Kelly corrects Feather Wind as she looks back at him.

“What?!” Feather Wind exclaims questioningly again.

Meanwhile, the creature playfully bats a claw at the edges of the near frozen explosion to test what it feels like.

“Line of sight isn't my only option,” Doctor Kelly announces to Feather Wind. “I can also calculate the course a teleported object can go. As long as I get my mathematical figures correct, I can decide where and when in space an object, or creature, shall appear.”

“Just like the Doctor does with the TARDIS?” Feather Wind guesses with fascination and curiosity.

“Something like that, I suspect,” Doctor Kelly replies then looks at Daring. “But there is one other problem with your request, and that is the vow I have taken. As a Doctor, I shall not willingly and knowingly take a life, nor shall I inflict harm.”

“I urge you to make an exception here,” Daring urges. “If you do not, that creature will willingly harm all the rest of us. Please do this for us. I'm running out of options with this frustratingly unique opponent of mine.”

Doctor Kelly reaches forward with her right hoof. At first Daring, and a few others, thought that meant she would accept the offered dynamite after all, but instead Doctor Kelly uses that touch to thrust the dynamite further away from her as she insists, “The answer is no.”

Daring Do widens her eyes in horror at that declaration.

“Besides, I have another option,” Doctor Kelly continues, then nods towards the creature. “Keep it busy for just a little longer. If you do, I'll finish it off in a way that bends, but does not break, my vows.”

Still confused, Daring waves the dynamite one more time as she asks, “Are you sure?”

“Just keep it busy,” Doctor Kelly reminds again before teleporting away somewhere.

Daring Do sighs then tucks the dynamite away somewhere within her right wing. She looks back at the creature and notices that its fascination with the frozen explosion is beginning to ebb. After that, Daring looks at Feather Wind and orders, “In that case, Feather, encase the creature within a large ball of mist.”

“You got it,” Feather complies then relays that request to invisible air elementals all around them.

“Trying to blind it?” Stern Wing guesses.

“I'm trying to distract and delay it,” Daring says. “Mist slowed down in time still conceals everything beyond it,” Daring announces. “It won't give this creature that much motion to absorb either.”

“Maybe we should enter the mist too,” Stern Wing proposes.

“Stern Wing, no!” Feather complains. “I won't let you.”

Because of that insistent demand, Stern silently admonishes Feather with a sudden and sharp snapping look of disapproval to him that causes him to shrivel. There is just no way his will can survive her onslaught yet.

“Choose your words more carefully next time,” Stern Wing chasties. “I don't deny you your freedom, so don't you dare ever try to impinge mine again.”

Her “look” cooling off, she redirects it at Daring as she goes on to say, “The important thing here is to keep the creature in the mist. If the cat has a mouse to toy with, it might be more inclined to remain there. Doctor Kelly could always just heal us later.”

The creature springs out of the mist after hopping out of it from a sprung hop, but Feather Wind simply expands the mist to include its new position. Now the others here can feel the creature's confusion and disorientation. It has no idea how to tackle a challenge like this.

“If I may, I got a better idea, I think,” Feather Wind announces then uses his magic to create a force field bubble around the mist with the creature within it. Daring Do and Stern Wing both lift their eyebrows at this, both equally impressed. Feather goes on to say, “I think a force field slowed down in time remains just as solid. Even if it absorbs some of the kinetic energy of the force field somehow, it is still trapped inside.”

“You really think you can hold it?” Stern checks with Feather. “That is an awfully big force field you have there.”

“I only have to delay it till Doctor Kelly is ready,” Feather reminds. “I think I got this.”

Daring Do gives a shrewd look at the forcefield before announcing, “Feather Wind, suck out the oxygen in that force field. Let's let this thing suffocate slowly within that bubble.”

“Oh! Um . . .” Feather Wind pauses and hesitates. Stern, Daring, and many others can feel Feather's discomfort in being openly hostile with his powers. He didn't give a vow of pacifism like Doctor Kelly did, but he's still uncomfortable with this option.

The only one who did not sense this is Derpy because she's too busy concentrating on her song and thus reducing the pain of every other pony who got inflicted with a viciously diseased scratch from the creature earlier.

“Okay. You can drop the forcefield and mist now,” Doctor Kelly announces casually as she trots back into the area while sucking on a lollipop. “The creature is defeated.”

“Really?” Stern asks in disbelief.

“No! She's right!” Daring announces in surprise. “I don't feel the creature anymore.” She looks back at Feather. “Do as she says. Drop the forcefield and disperse the mist.”

“Ah . . . okay,” Feather says with a blink of surprise then cooperates. The white forcefield drops and the mist disperses. When that happens, they can gradually see the creature sleeping on the ground.

“What did you do?!” Stern Wing asks in shock.

“Probably giving the creature a royal high right now,” Doctor Kelly announces casually. “I just teleported a great deal of the drug inside its system that you all ingested earlier, only it received a much higher dosage.”

Stunned silence lingers in the camp for nine seconds before broken by Daring Do's giggle which soon erupts into roaring laughter. Several other ponies soon join in because they don't have to ask why this is so funny.

“Now I'll need some time to more closely analyze the infected wounds,” Doctor Kelly announces calmly then points at herself. “I guess I'll be the M-V-P of this encounter, but I thank you all anyway. You all chipped in.”

Almost suddenly, this encounter is interrupted by another. A ship made of force fields quickly zooms in from beyond the horizon then suddenly stops above the village. A red beam shoots down from it which envelopes the creature. As a result, this shrinks to a pinprick size while floating up to the ship.

Daring snaps her gaze at Margret and complains, “You said you didn't contact the Commander!”

“I didn't!” Margret insists. Normally Daring might be more doubtful, but the lingering effects of last night's drug helps her to sense that Margret is telling the truth.

After drawing up the creature, a portal opens nearby the group and Commander Viraxis steps out.
“We need to talk . . . now,” the Commander announces insistently.