The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)

by R5h

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Doctor Whooves, Adventure, Crossover, Doctor Who
Length: 182474

Death sends the Tenth Doctor somewhere he never could have expected. With new friends to make and ancient foes from two universes to fight, only one thing is certain: there's an awful lot of running left to do.

Traveling between parallel universes is impossible, especially during the process of regeneration, but the Tenth Doctor doesn't have time to question the facts. He's just been thrust through a tear in the fabric of reality, gotten a new body, and landed on a planet called Equestria. Specifically, he's landed in the worst possible place in all Equestria – somewhere that's ready to unleash a “big ol' storm of chaos”.

That's just the beginning of the Doctor's strange new lease on life: there's a whole host of mysteries to explore. Who is Derpy Hooves, the gray pegasus who understands more about him than even she knows how to explain? How does Princess Celestia already know him? And what's the truth behind the Order?

Above all, the Doctor needs to discover if this new universe can heal the wounds he suffered in the last. Only one thing is certain: there's an awful lot of running left to do.

(Warning: For those of you who haven't watched up to the Doctor Who episode 'The End of Time'... spoilers. Also, this story begins between Seasons 2 and 3 of FiM, and things start to... diverge from there.)

Side stories can be found at The Merely Mundane Tales (of a Mad-Pony in a Box).

Published 2012-10-04 03:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-05-04 20:54:58 UTC

Discord and the Doctor—Part 1 (b)

We now return to Discord and the Doctor—Part 1.

Running. The Doctor dashed through the streets of Ponyville, still hearing Discord's booming voice. Finally something I can do. He looked around for shelter.

After being thrown, he'd decided to cut his losses and just hide. Not temporarily, until the time was right. Not out of mercy, to try to spare his enemies. The Doctor was hiding because he could think of nothing else to do, and his foe could do everything. There would be no moment of opportunity worth waiting for.

He was totally unfit for dealing with this threat. Within the past hour he'd managed to die, fall into another universe, turn into a horse, and witness—possibly cause—the resurrection of a malevolent mismatched dragon with seemingly unlimited power, whose sole motivation seemed to be mass terror and destruction. Eat your hearts out, Master. And I've only got the faintest of intuitions of how he can be so powerful. There was one consolation: he'd figured out how to put one hoof in front of the other without falling down. At least I can run.

But the Doctor had no sonic screwdriver, no TARDIS, and no trust. Good job, Discord. Telling the citizens of Ponyville just how friendly the two of us are. Telling them that I set you free, very clever. As he galloped, the Doctor saw panicked horses slamming their shutters. He couldn't blame them for their fear, but he wasn't expecting anybody to offer help this time.

So, when the Doctor spied a set of unshuttered windows, he decided to help himself and galloped straight through the door. Inside was a smallish living room, a set of stairs to the second floor, and a mint-green unicorn with a picture of a harp on her flank, sitting on a couch.

A mint-green unicorn with a picture of a harp on her flank, sitting on a couch. The Doctor stopped for a moment to process this fact and to cherish the novelty of that phrase. It's good, appreciating the small things in life.

The unicorn in question didn't seem to have noticed him, and in fact she was not so much sitting as quaking. There was an old-fashioned-looking radio on a table near her couch, emitting nothing but static now that Discord's speech was done.

Suddenly, Discord's voice echoed through the house. “Doc, Doc, Doc,” he heard Discord call. The unicorn jumped. “Where are you? Do me a favor and just come back. I've got more important things to do than track down a genocidal hypocrite—oops, should have kept that secret private.” The Doctor heard his chuckle—a deep chuckle, and deeply unsettling. “You want to play hide and go seek? Fine, you win, olly olly oxen free! Now get back here. I don't have all day.” To emphasize this, the sun fell out of the sky and the moon rose high. Night had fallen in a second.

“But that's impossible!” exclaimed the Doctor, pushing his head out the window to look up at the moon. “It was day just a moment ago!” Then he heard a horrified squeak and turned around to see the unicorn looking straight at him.

After several seconds, the Doctor decided to break the silence; one of them had to, and she did not seem willing. “Hello there! I'm the Doctor,” he said, putting on his cheeriest smile and getting another terrified squeak for his efforts. He grimaced. “Yes, that Doctor, the one Discord's been yelling about, but we are not. Friends. And I was just wondering if I could... well... hide here for a bit.” Again not a single coherent response.

“Ooh, bad move, Doc.” The Doctor whipped around to face the door as Discord's voice boomed in. “Turns out I can read a Time Lord's mind as easily as a pony's, remember? I can smell your inner fears, your foibles, your anxieties... like how now you're worrying about the poor unicorn behind you. It really pulls at my heartstrings.” He giggled for a few seconds. Giggling is always a bad sign.

“Leave her alone.” The Doctor strode from the house and looked into the night sky, but Discord wasn't there. “I know it's me you want!”

“But of course! I am what I eat. I feed on chaos, Doc, and you are my entree. But a gourmet like me...” The Doctor turned back to the house, just in time to see Discord appear next to the unicorn. “... learns to appreciate the appetizer.” The unicorn's pupils shrank to pinholes, and she began to hyperventilate. Then, she screamed:

“BON BON!”

The Doctor had not noticed, but there was a door at the back of the living room. It burst open, revealing a new pony. Her hair and tail were each arranged in three plaits, which curled into balls at the end. More importantly, though, they were gray. She was gray all over.

“Aww, does widdle Lywa needs me to save hew fwom big mean Discowd?” Now 'Lywa' turned to her with tears in her eyes at her former friend's cruelty. Discord magicked up a second couch and some popcorn at the side of the room, and sat down to enjoy the show.

“Bon Bon? But—but—bu—bu—”

“Buh buh buh buh buh buh—boo hoo,” Bon Bon spat back. “I'm tired of sticking up for you, kiddo. Try dealing with your own problems for once, and stop being such a sniveling baby.” She turned tail and walked back out, leaving Lyra to sob.

“Oh Lywa, you don't need friends.” Discord laughed his way through this sentence, delighted by this turn of events. “You certainly don't need any help from the only friend who'd ever dream of sticking up for you, do you? Chin up there...” Lyra continued to sob at the floor, so Discord swooped over to her and grabbed her by the jaw. “I said, chin. Up.” He yanked her face so that it faced his own, and the Doctor saw his eyes turn from yellow into a phenomenal spectrum of colors—red, blue, green, everything in between, and more.

“I'm telling you Discord, once and for all, end this now!” The Doctor stepped in front of Lyra and looked straight into Discord's eyes, expecting to suffer whatever fate would have been hers. Instead, the dragon's eyes reverted to normal, and he groaned in exasperation.

“Ugh! I tell you, it's all nag nag nag with this nag here.” Discord sighed and marched ostentatiously toward the outside door. “Well, have it your way, Doc. If you're so concerned with one little pony, I'll content myself with spreading chaos across the rest of the world. Have fun trying to 'save the day'!” The sun rose right on cue, and Discord left the building—avoiding the door and instead bursting through the ceiling with an almighty crash.

There's no way to know that he's not coming back. “Don't worry. You're safe now,” the Doctor lied. He turned back to Lyra, who held her head in her hooves. “It's okay,” he said, but still she sobbed.

The door in back opened, and the mare from earlier poked her head back in. “Is he gone?” she asked, all traces of mockery and sarcasm missing from her voice. “Oh thank Celestia, it worked!” She rushed to Lyra and threw her forelegs around the unicorn's quivering body. “He's gone now, Lyra. He's gone.”

After about half a minute of this, the Doctor felt the need to speak up. “Hello there, miss... Bon Bon, was it?” Bon Bon looked up like she'd just noticed him. “Sorry to interrupt, but weren't you acting like you were trying to break Lyra's spirit?" Bon Bon narrowed her eyes, but Lyra spoke before she could.

“Exactly... acting.” She was still sniffling a little, but Lyra suddenly seemed to be doing much better, and even managed a short laugh. “She was acting!”

“Pardon?”

“Um, you see....” Lyra moved herself to a sitting position on the couch—a curiously humanoid sitting position, with legs hanging toward the floor and keister on the cushion. Her friend didn't seem to find anything wrong with this unnatural pose. “Well, you know how Discord does that thing where he flips ponies' brains, right? Like he did last time? The idea was that when Discord came in to our house, Bon Bon would act like she'd been flipped already, so he'd just leave since his work was done. And it worked!” She smiled, though the tears were still fresh on her face.

“You're gray all over,” the Doctor protested to Bon Bon. She grinned—revealing perfectly white teeth—and wiped her foreleg on the couch's arm. When she had finished, the arm was gray and her leg was cream-colored. “Oh, body paint...” the Doctor breathed. “So your plan was actually to fool a self-described mind-reading god of chaos?”

Bon Bon's grin disappeared. “What, you think you can just come in my house—our house—and criticize Lyra's plan?” She glowered at the Doctor, who went right on the defensive.

“Not at all, I think it was brilliant—”

“What would your plan be, Mr. Smart Guy?”

“Oh, well.” The Doctor tried to disarm his assailant with a grin. “I just sort of make it up as I go along.”

It didn't work. “Well, feel free to go along now. Door's over there.” She pointed at the front door. “Don't let it hit you on the way out.”

“... I'm sorry?” Usually I'd be able to charm her pretty easily. She must be really abrasive, or I'm off my game. Maybe because I'm a horse now.

“Ooh, excuse me, I'm sorry, that was too subtle for you.” The Doctor started as he heard his own voice, perfectly mimicked, coming from her mouth. She returned to a more normal tone and continued, “Leave. You're the one that brought Discord to our house, and you nearly got my friend brainwashed. So get out.”

“Bon Bon....” Lyra poked her friend in the side, distracting her from staring the Doctor down. “He saved me from Discord. He's the reason why Discord left at all.”

“But...”

“Let him stay. Please.”

After a long few seconds, Bon Bon gave in. “Guhhhhh, fine.” She rolled her eyes and turned away from the Doctor.

“Thank you so much.” The Doctor changed his own voice to the sincerest one he could manage. “And I wasn't joking earlier.... Your plan was brilliant.” Bon Bon smiled a little, then seemed to remember that she didn't like the Doctor and clamped the corners of her mouth back down. Heheheh... still got it.

“But I still don't understand how it worked!” he continued. “He can read minds! Well, he can read my rather exceptional mind, which certainly means he can read yours.” Bon Bon looked offended. “Oh come on, I'm a Time Lord. A mind like mine goes with the territory—but how did your plan work at all?”

She spoke to him despite her annoyance. She's warming up nicely. “Discord is so arrogant that if he thinks you've been brainwashed, he won't even check your head to be sure. I mean, the last time he showed up, he didn't realize that all six Elements of Harmony had broken free of his control.”

“Hangonaminnit, did you say Elements of Harmony?”

“Waitjustasec, did you say Time Lord?”

The Doctor and Lyra spoke simultaneously. Thus began an epic bout of stammering, as each insisted the other go first, until the Doctor finally persuaded her to begin. “You said you're a... Time Lord? What does that mean?”

“Actually, who the hay are you?” interrupted Bon Bon, as the Doctor opened his mouth to talk. “All I've heard is that Discord called you the Doctor—what kind of name is that?” Then, she realized she was interrupting and apologized—to Lyra. “Sorry about that.”

The Doctor chose to ignore this. “Being a Time Lord means,” he said, “that I'm... well, among other things I'm very smart and I've got two hearts. Actually, hold on, did both hearts make it to this body?” He lifted his hoof and pressed it to his chest, feeling around. “Hmm... oh there they are, molto bene! So this body is a sort of duplicate of the old one! Except as a horse, with,” he finished, looking at his rump, “those hourglass tattoos—a bit lacking on subtlety.”

“What do you mean, 'this' body?” Bon Bon muttered.

“But if you're a Time Lord, and you've got an hourglass cutie mark, then can you time travel or something?” asked Lyra. Cutie mark? That's what they call it?

“Yes, if I had my TARDIS. Which I don't. I can't even reach the old girl; she's tucked away in another universe....” The Doctor got distracted, thinking of his home for the past millennium or so. “Sorry, is this going somewhere?”

“Hey! Don't be rude to her!” retorted Bon Bon.

“Don't be rude? Oi, do they have a phrase on this planet that goes anything like 'pot to kettle'?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“It means that you're no girl to be calling other people rude—and hang on, what are you doing, taking notes?”

This last question was directed at Lyra. Immediately after receiving her answer from the Doctor, she'd dashed to a nearby chest of drawers, pulled out a ragged-looking piece of paper and quill, and started scribbling furiously, only pausing once to look at a nearby clock.

The Doctor walked toward her. “Can I take a look at that piece of paper?”

Lyra handed it to him. Or maybe she's hoofing it to me, the Doctor supposed. On it were a few cramped scrawls: 2:02 PM/July 3, 1002/The back hall downstairs/44 Hoofridge Drive/Ponyville/Equestria. “I don't understand," he said.

“Um....” Lyra waved her hoof nonspecifically in the air, as if she wasn't quite sure what she was trying to convey. “Okay, so I kind of think up a lot of weird contingencies, right? Like... what if Discord came back? Which totally wasn't ever supposed to happen, but then it did... oh, and another one. What if I knew I'd have a time machine at some point in the future?”

“All right,” the Doctor said with a shrug. “What would you—”

vworp...

He froze as he heard an impossible sound.

Vworp...

“I think I'd send it to myself in the past.” said Lyra, beaming at the door Bon Bon had used. The door from behind which air was rushing and the sound was coming.

Vworp...

The most wonderful sound.

Vworp... Vworp... kdunk.

The Doctor was still for a moment more. Then he dashed to the door, grabbed the doorknob in his teeth, and pulled. For the first time all day, as he looked at what stood behind the door, a joyful smile appeared on his face.

Filling up the hallway in front of him was a big blue box. Bold letters on the top read “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX”, and a white sign on the door gave directions on how to open it, which the Doctor did not bother to look at. The same old light was on the roof, the same opaque windows on the doors... it was not much to look at, but it was the most beautiful thing the Doctor had ever seen. “Hello, old girl,” he breathed.

“That's your time machine? It's kind of small.” He realized that Bon Bon's snark was just a way of trying to cover up her astonishment, and his smile grew even wider as he turned to Lyra.

“So the note was spatio-temporal coordinates! Lyra, if I had arms I'd hug you right now because that's absolutely brilliant!” Then, a concerned expression replaced the smile. “But hang on; I shouldn't have a TARDIS here and this is probably an ontological paradox.... Oh, WHO CARES!” He pushed the doors right open and ran in laughing. “Hello, you beauty!” He stuck his head back through the doorway and beckoned to the two mares with his hoof. “Come on in!”

They followed him. “You know, it actually says 'Pull to Open' on the sign...” Bon Bon began as she and Lyra entered the box. Then the two of them were silent. As one, they ran back out and looked at it again. Clearly it still fit inside their back hall—at least the outside did. But the inside....

The Doctor watched them re-enter and try to take it all in: the huge golden hemisphere, about as big as their whole house. The otherworldly green pillar in the center bursting from the immensely complicated central control panel at its base. The constructions around the edges of the room, somewhat like pillars or golden tree roots, or gigantic growths of coral. He noted with pleasure that Bon Bon had nothing to say.

“So?” He leaned with a mad grin against the central console. “Any thoughts? Any first impressions?”

“It's... it's....” Words failed Bon Bon for a few seconds longer.

“It's bigger on the inside!” Lyra exclaimed.

“I KNOW! Isn't it just!” The Doctor turned back and gave the central pillar a little happy nuzzle before noticing a familiar note tacked to the console. “Oh look, Lyra! It's your coordinates! 2:02 PM, July 3, 1002.... Wait, there's something on the back.” He flipped it over and saw an instruction which he read aloud: “Activate Information Protocol Zero-One-Zero.”

“Yes, subtle, isn't it: Information Protocol Ten.” The Doctor turned back around at the sound of his own voice. There he was as a hologram, slightly translucent and projected to be 'standing' on the floor in front of Lyra and Bon Bon. It was him in every detail except for one—he was wearing a fitted, pinstriped blue suit, which managed to both resemble his old suit and avoid looking ridiculous on a horse. The present Doctor joined his companions, relishing their wonderstruck expressions. “This is the Doctor speaking. Hello, Doctor.”

“Is that a hologram?” asked Lyra.

“Of course it's a hologram, Lyra!” responded the hologram, taking her aback. “Now don't talk anymore, because the past me won't remember enough for me to be able to respond directly to your questions. Now, this is a recorded message, because I've got a few things I need to say to you three. First of all, Lyra and Bon Bon....” The future Doctor looked down for a moment and sighed before looking back up. There was a strange coldness in his eyes. “Lyra, thanks again for the TARDIS. And if memory serves, you are still covered in paint, Bon Bon. The closest shower's at the end of the third corridor off of that second alcove right there....” He pointed behind himself and to his left, at the walkway which led deeper into the TARDIS. Then he reconsidered, and pointed behind himself and to his right. “No, there. You can't miss it.”

“The closest shower? How big is this place?” Bon Bon muttered, trotting past the tangible Doctor and straight through the hologram. This struck the Doctor as a rather rude thing to do to a hologram.

“And finally, you. Me. I'm sorry to have to say this, but you need to hear it now, because Discord is coming, and it's better if you hear it from... well, yourself.” The future Doctor paused to breathe. “Discord isn't lying. You're the reason he was able to return.”

The present Doctor slumped his shoulders in resignation. He'd suspected as much, just as he'd suspected the explanation that the future Doctor rattled off. “You emerged in front of his statue because it was a local weak point in time and space; he was able to escape because the power of the Time Vortex further weakened that point, letting him slip the magical bonds tied to that spot. It should have taken two thousand years to break free from that statue/... It only took one.” And I'd been feeling so good just a moment ago.

“But this is important: he's more powerful than he was last time, and that's because he's feeding off your inner turmoil. So you need to make peace with yourself, because he's coming for you, and if he can keep feeding on you, you'll never beat him.”

The Doctor snorted. Of all the beings in all the universes that could land in front of that statue, it had to be the one with enough guilt and angst to power a star system... or resurrect a god. Figures that it should be me.

He caught himself. It wasn't my fault. Certainly not this time, and almost none of the other times either. I couldn't control where I landed in this universe.

But if I'd wasted less time before regenerating, would any of this have happened?

That's not fair. That was not time wasted, and I had no way of knowing this was even possible.

He was distracted from his internal argument by the hologram, who seemed to be finishing up. “Anyway, your clothes are on the coat tree by the door, though you'll have to wait a bit before putting them on. And one more thing, Doctor... trust her.” And with that, the future Doctor disappeared, leaving the present Doctor quite confused.

“Trust her? Who's her?” he asked himself.

“Oh my goodness, it is bigger on the inside! How delightfully impossible!” The Doctor and Lyra froze, then turned as one to see Discord's silhouette against the open doors.

“Well, Doc, I knew that if you were left to your own devices, you'd come up with something good. But this?” Discord threw his arms out to either side and spun in place. “This takes the cake! An impossible time machine shaped like a police box? What a fantastic combination of laughably absurd....” He grinned darkly. “And the perfect vehicle to spread chaos to every point in pony history. And when I get bored with the timeline of this little world? Who knows, I might just visit the next planet. And the next. And the next!” With each line, he stalked a step closer to the control panel. Lyra squeaked and cowered, but the Doctor had a quite different reaction: he leaped to the control panel and grabbed a lever.

“Get out of here right now, Discord.” He flexed his foreleg. “Or I pull this.”

“Oh my!” Discord affected surprise. “Dearie me, whatever does that do? Oh wait—I know already, but why not explain it for the sake of your friend Lyra. Or is she your friend?” Discord swooped in and came face to face with the Doctor. “After all, friends don't imprison friends for all eternity over personal vendettas.”

Lyra's head shot up in alarm, and she looked at the Doctor. “What does he mean, Doctor?”

The Doctor looked down at the floor before telling her. “When I pull this lever, the TARDIS takes off and lands... inside itself. And then it shuts off forever. Nothing can ever enter or leave it again.” Lyra's eyes widened in horror.

“That's right, Lyra. Take a look at your heroic, compassionate Doctor.” Discord framed the Doctor's face with his fingers. “Compassionate enough to lock you and your friend in here forever without even offering her so much as a 'sorry, so sorry'—and all on the long-shot that it would be enough to stop me. Can you really do that, Doctor?” he asked, turning back to the Doctor and looking him dead in the eye. “Could you do that?”

They looked into each others' eyes for a long time. But the Doctor finally gave in and let go of the lever.

Discord let out an almighty “HA!” He smacked the Doctor away from the controls with his left hand and swooped around to the other side of the console. “You never would, you coward. Now let's spread some chaos!”

“Hi again, Doctor!”

Again, all heads turned to see the newcomer. “Derpy?” the Doctor cried out as she crossed into the TARDIS with crossed eyes and a far too cheerful smile under the circumstances. “I told you to get away!”

Discord rolled his eyes. “Oh, look who showed up—the village idiot, come to help the Doc. Get out of here, silly pony; I've got a lot of chaos to—”

“You aren't going anywhere, Discord.” Derpy's smile was gone, and her eyes were narrow—and, the Doctor noticed, no longer crossed. She marched right up to the console and began purposefully pressing buttons and pushing levers.

She can't possibly know what she's doing. “Derpy, don't—” he gasped.

Trust her.

The Doctor remembered his hologram's message and lay quietly on the ground, still reeling from Discord's blow.

“Hey, that's my toy,” Discord snarled, just as Derpy pulled down hard on one last lever and stepped away from the console. “And it's my turn.” He swiped at her as he had at the Doctor, but this time, his hand went right through. “What the heck?”

vworp... Vworp... Vworp...

Inside the central pillar, two interlocking constructions began oscillating up and down, scraping against each other in time with the sound of the TARDIS.

Vworp... Vworp... Vworp...

More significantly, Discord's body was growing fainter, even transparent.

Vworp... Vworp... Vworp...

Finally he realized what was happening. “Oh come on, you can't be leaving without me!” He stamped on the ground in impotent anger, his body and voice becoming fainter by the moment. “You do not get to leave without the god of Cha...” And with that, he was gone.

Vworp... Vworp... kdunk.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, the Doctor got to his hooves and warily approached Derpy, a stunned expression on both their faces. Suddenly, he stopped being wary and hugged her.

“That was amazing! Hey, look at that!” he exclaimed. “I figured out how to hug!” Derpy hugged him right back, a big grin on both their faces. “But how did you do that?”

Derpy opened her eyes, and while they still weren't crossed, they didn't have the same determination he'd just seen. “I don't know.”

“You just made the TARDIS dematerialize without one of its passengers, and you don't know HOW?” The Doctor was incredulous, but Derpy simply shook her head.

“It just felt... right,” she tried to explain, frowning in confusion. “Like meeting you did, it felt right.... That doesn't make sense, does it. Sorry.” Her face fell.

“Really, don't be,” the Doctor reassured, still smiling.

“Did we just time travel?” Lyra asked, her voice still squeaking after her recent fright. She cleared her throat and continued less squeakily than before. “So where are we now? No, when are we?”

The Doctor disengaged from Derpy and ran around the console to the scanner. “July second, 1002. Same time of day, same place, but we've traveled precisely one day into the past, before Discord broke free.” He felt some tension leaving his shoulders as he said the words. “We're safe now.”

Lyra's eyes were still wide, but she managed a big smile. “So now we can go and stop Discord from ever having broken free!” she said.

The Doctor sighed. “How? If I go near that statue again, it might be enough to break him out ahead of schedule. And you're forgetting about the problem of a paradox.”

“Doctor, why would it be a problem to have two docks?” Derpy seemed to have misheard him and sounded quite confused.

“Not a pair of docks,” the Doctor explained. “A paradox. If we somehow stopped Discord's appearance, then there'd be no reason for us to be here at all.” He reached to pull his glasses from his pocket then realized he still wasn't wearing anything. “Rule one of time travel: do not interfere with your own timeline.” He said while standing in the TARDIS sent to him by his future self.

“I was kidding about the dock thing...” Derpy muttered.

Bon Bon burst back in, panting and soaking wet. Gray paint was still streaked along her body, but bizarrely enough, the streaks were pointed upward. “The shower... started shooting water... up from the drain... and back into the showerhead.” She looked, to use a term the Doctor had once heard, thoroughly weirded out.

“Sorry, that bathroom must be time-sensitive,” he replied with a small smile. “At least you didn't use the loo, did you?” She stared at him in utter bewilderment.

“We just time traveled!” Derpy explained beamishly.

Bon Bon rolled her eyes and snorted, her bewilderment replaced by something close to contempt as she noticed the pegasus. “Oh great, it's Derpy Hooves. And this day was going so well already.”

Derpy and the Doctor gave Bon Bon a cool look. “Excuse me?” the Doctor said.

“You know, Derpy Hooves.” Bon Bon considered for a moment. “Actually, I guess you don't, so here's all you need to know: she managed to single-hoofedly destroy Town Hall earlier this year, and she's the dumbest, clumsiest pony in all Equestria. What is she doing... here....” Her voice trailed off as the Doctor ambled toward her, smiling in what could have been a friendly way. But the smile didn't get anywhere near his eyes—the eyes of a patient stallion whose patience had just worn out. Assuming I'm doing it right, of course.

“Bon Bon, I'm going to tell you this once, and I'm going to tell you this very nicely.” Bon Bon shrank back as the Doctor leaned over her, using a low, serious tone. “I get that it hasn't been a good day for you. But you are going to be much more personable from now on, particularly because the 'dumbest pony in Equestria' just saved your life. Is that clear?”

Bon Bon backed away from him as if he'd started threatening her. “All right, sorry!” she managed. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, and she took a deep breath to try to calm down. “Sorry,” she repeated with more sincerity. The Doctor's smile stayed frozen on his face.

A few seconds later, she realized what he wanted from her. “I'm sorry!” she called—not to him but to Derpy, who was looking in the opposite direction, still annoyed. “I'm sorry I said you were dumb and clumsy.” The pegasus immediately brightened up and smiled at her.

“Oh, it's so okay!” Derpy said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. The Doctor hesitated for a moment, but she had technically accepted the apology, so he released Bon Bon from his stare. As he turned to face the doors, he heard her try to suppress a sigh of relief. Still got it there, too.

“You'd probably better finish your shower,” he said, back to a conversational tone of voice, but without looking at her. “I promise no nasty surprises this time, and I can get dressed while you're doing that.” She trotted hastily back to the bathroom.

“Um, why would you need to put on clothes?” Lyra asked.

“Because I've been naked all day!” Derpy and Lyra both shot him confused, skeptical looks. “Oh right, horses. No nudity taboo.” Derpy snorted and turned her attention to the TARDIS console, treading gingerly around it and occasionally putting her ear to the side.

“Actually, we're not called horses,” Lyra corrected, as the Doctor walked over to the coat tree that his future self had indicated, and pulled his suit down. “We're ponies. You weren't always a pony?”

“I told you: I'm a Time Lord,” he responded, struggling with the sleeves. “The Time Lord, actually, but...” He pushed away old, sad memories; as his future self had said, now was far from the time to be mopey. “Let's not get into that, not now.”

“So what does a Time Lord look like?”

“Well, two arms, two legs... kind of like a human, if you have any of those around here. Gah!” The Doctor was by now thoroughly tangled. “How do you ponies work things without fingers?”

“Oh, you had fingers?” Somehow this made Lyra positively joyous. “You lucky pony, I've always wanted to have fingers!” She giggled, though this might have been at his predicament. “Let me help you with that!” Her horn glowed minty green, like the color of her coat and hair, and a similar aura enveloped the Doctor's suit. A few magical yanks and tucks later, every snag was gone. He flexed his legs experimentally and smiled as the perfectly tailored suit moved with him.

“Thank you, Lyra!” She smiled with him, happy that he was happy. “Was that magic?”

“You bet! Did they not have magic in your world or something?”

“Nah, we got along with really good tech.” The Doctor adjusted his suit and noticed several somethings within it. “Speaking of which, look at this!” He reached into his pocket and began to pull out a few items. “My sonic screwdriver!” It was a silver metal rod with a little blue light on the end, which did not at all resemble a screwdriver in any traditional sense. He pressed a button on its middle, and it made the warbling, whistling sort of noise he enjoyed so much; for a quick test, he pointed it at the TARDIS control panel and grinned as its lights turned bright blue. “I love my sonic screwdriver—most useful tool in the world—and the brainy specs!” he exulted, drawing and putting on a pair of thick-rimmed brown glasses. “I don't need them, but they do make me look clever—well, cleverer,” he explained to a bemused but still happy Lyra.

“Moving on... TARDIS key! Never leave home without it,” he said, brandishing an apparently ordinary key in his hoof. “Actually,” he continued, pulling out a few more, “a bunch of TARDIS keys... well, it's always nice to have spares. Psychic paper, always useful....” He revealed and opened a beaten-up black wallet. “And what's this... 'Remember to ask Bon Bon about the Elements of Harmony',” he read. “Another message from myself, eh? Well, come on everybody, let's go ask her.” He trotted deeper into the TARDIS.

“Ummmm, I think you mean everypony,” Derpy said, pulling herself off the metal grating, through which she'd been looking at the TARDIS's innards. She and Lyra followed him in, and they walked through the third corridor.

“You know,” Lyra said, at what seemed to be the halfway point of the long corridor, “for a time-spaceship, this place seems almost... alive.”

“The TARDIS is more than just a ship, Lyra.” The Doctor turned and touched his hoof to the wall, like a doctor feeling for a pulse. “She is alive.” He closed his eyes and smiled.

“Of course!” Derpy's declaration surprised both of the other two. A moment later, she was surprised too. “Wait, how did I know that?” How could she know that? The Doctor pulled his hoof from the wall and resumed trotting, almost as confused as Derpy herself. This pony knows much more than she ought about the TARDIS... how can she even fly the ship?

For that matter, how am I going to build the ship? This question troubled him. Or rather, grow her so I can send her back in the first place. When all this is said and done, I might be able to take a cutting of this TARDIS's coral and use it to grow her, but that won't do the trick alone... I'll need to do a lot of engineering work, so I'll need a lot of help... but it'll be difficult for them to grasp the concepts involved—and oh look, we're here.

Lost in thought, the Doctor didn't realize that they'd reached the end of the corridor until he'd almost hit his nose on the bathroom door. “Bon Bon?” he called, knocking three times on the door. “Are you decent?”

She opened the door, all paint removed. Her coat and hair were fully revealed, the latter of which was a quite conspicuous combination of blue and pink. Her flank displayed a picture of three wrapped sweets—her cutie mark, he supposed. “Absolutely, thank you very much.”

The Doctor cocked his head to the side in puzzlement at her words—or more accurately, at her voice. “Hang on, was your voice different earlier?”

“I'm sure you're imagining things.” No I'm not, and I'm very good with accents. Her voice had sounded generally Earth, North American English before—the sort one might hear around Vancouver. Now she was aping his own Estuary: though, rather than imitating his voice precisely, she was speaking as a mare.

“Do you mind not copying my accent?”

"Well shucks, would y’all rather have one of them country accents? Or maybe, like, you want me to do, like, a valley-mare impression?” She switched from accent to accent with dizzying speed.

“I need you to tell me about the Elements of Harmony,” he replied, ignoring her changing voice. “Everything I've been hearing from you, Derpy, Discord—it all keeps coming back to these Elements.”

“Well, uh, sure, but like, you could have asked like anypony around. I mean, duh—who doesn't know about the Elements.”

“Bon Bon, you're killing me,” Lyra groaned while magically folding her ears into their holes.

Bon Bon sighed and returned to her 'default' voice. “Fine, the Elements of Harmony. They're six magical artifacts that are the most powerful things in all Equestria when combined—stronger than Discord himself. They were used to imprison Discord when he came back a year ago, and before that, they defeated Nightmare Moon and freed Princess Luna.”

“Where are the ponies that can use them?” The Doctor began walking back toward the control room, leaving the other three mares with little choice but to follow.

“I guess... you'd probably want to check the Ponyville Library first. That's where Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic, lives.”

“You said they're artifacts, not ponies—” the Doctor began.

“They're also ponies.” Bon Bon sounded rather exasperated, but apparently remembered the Doctor's earlier admonishment; her next words sounded checked. “Anyway, she lives in the library. A bit of a bookworm, but she's got a lot of magical power.”

“I like her already.” They reached the control room, and the Doctor dashed to the console, manipulating her controls like he'd been doing it all his life. Well, I have—for most of it, anyway. I didn't expect it to be so easy with no fingers, though. “Time to travel to Ponyville Library, July third!”

“Wait, July third? Like, after Discord is freed?” Lyra sounded confused and more than a little scared.

“Remember, no time paradoxes if we can avoid it!” the Doctor replied without looking up. “I can't warn the bearer of the Element of Magic—or the Element herself, whatever—ahead of time that Discord is returning. Furthermore!” he continued before nearly being knocked off his hooves as the TARDIS shook from buffeting in the Time Vortex. “She'll be more willing to help us once Discord has escaped. And finally,” he said, as the TARDIS reached its destination, “I've landed us at a time when Discord is otherwise occupied with me, so we should be fine.” He bounded out through the doors and into the library. “Oh no.”

“Doctor?” Derpy called. The three mares gathered near the door of the TARDIS.

“Bon Bon, could you describe Twilight Sparkle for me as exactly as possible?” He turned to face them, seeing their anxiety. Perhaps they believed he was in trouble.

“She's a purple unicorn, her hair has a pink stripe in it, both her mane and her tail look like they've been cut with a straight-edge, and she's got a bunch of stars as her cutie mark. What, do you see her?” Bon Bon asked.

“Yes, I'm afraid I do. Come on out.”

As the other three stepped into the library, the Doctor looked back into Twilight's eyes. She was with the other five bearers of the Elements of Harmony, each one wearing their particular Element: Twilight's as a crown, the rest as necklaces in the shape of the bearer's cutie mark. They all looked poised to attack, but for one detail; they and their Elements were frozen in stone. “I'm sorry,” said the Doctor, standing still as a statue himself. “I truly am sorry.”

“Are they dead?” Derpy asked, looking nervously at the six statues.

“That's not how Discord works,” the Doctor replied, examining each one in turn. “Kill a pony, and that's it—he can't hurt them anymore. No fun.”

Lyra's eyes widened as she realized the implications. “Then they're still alive, but—”

“—unable to move or speak,” the Doctor finished, returning to Twilight's statue. “But I'd bet you they can all still think.” He pressed his forehead against hers.

“Then they can't help us now.” Bon Bon, seemingly feeling that someone needed to be pragmatic, tried to pull Lyra back into the TARDIS. “And the Elements—the artifacts—got turned to stone too; they can't help us either. We should leave before Discord finds us.”

“No,” the Doctor said. Bon Bon stopped pulling. “Like I said, Twilight can still think. So I'm going to talk to her.”

“But how would that help, unless....” Lyra gasped. “You can read minds? I thought only unicorns were supposed to be able to do that!”

“Don't be so sure.” The Doctor smiled briefly, then closed his eyes and concentrated, his forehead still on Twilight's. “Please be quiet unless it's important.”

And with that, he fell into her mind.

Can't breathe. The Doctor found himself in something like a howling void filled with pain and wind. At once he tensed up, seized with an overwhelming feeling of suffocation, like he'd been gagged and bound. His physical body gasped—but this wasn't his pain: it was Twilight's, shared across their psychic link. She didn't need to breathe as a statue, but the years of being a living being, born to respire, told her otherwise. Choking can't breathe help me can't breathe choking help me—

It's okay.

Can't breathe help me choking—Not that actual words were issuing from her mind, the Doctor realized. His brain was just interpreting her feelings of terror and suffocation.

It's okay, it's okay. I'm here to help you. The Doctor quickly constructed an imaginary space—a sort of metaphor for the communication between two minds. He showed her an infinite grassy field dominated by two towering citadels: his brown, hers purple. A mental image of himself emerged from his 'mind' as represented by the citadel and stood before her own panicked psyche—her castle that was collapsing in upon itself. Imagine yourself here with me. Meet me in the space between our minds. A picture of a purple unicorn pulled herself from her mind to stand on the green, still gasping in terror. Now breathe with me. In... two... three... his mental image inhaled... out... two... three... and exhaled. And in... two... three... and out... two... three...

Gradually, she joined in pretending to breathe deeply with him. She calmed down, and his body relaxed in sympathy. Her castle stood firm again. Good. Just keep imagining yourself breathing, and it won't be so hard. My name's the Doctor, and I need you to help me stop Discord. Is there anything you can tell me about Discord or the Elements of Harmony?

She tried to respond with words, but they were beyond her. Frankly, he was impressed that she could form a detailed self-image at all in the dream space. Don't bother with words. You beat Discord before. Show me what you saw—show me memories. She paused, gathered her memories, then opened the castle gates and released the deluge.

Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. The Doctor found himself looking at a large pony—no, an alicorn—no, not just an alicorn—Nightmare Moon, insane goddess of darkness, the corrupted Princess of the Night. From this moment forth, the night shall last forever! Ahahahahahaha! He saw Twilight with all her friends—no, not her friends, not yet—at the Summer Sun Celebration—some cowering, some ready to fight.

It was under E! The scene changed, and all the not-yet-friends were in the library, looking at the book Pinkie Pie had just found. Twilight Sparkle pulled it open and began to read... There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery.

And then the Doctor watched as the six friends, fresh from many trials—manticores calmed, bridges restored, ghosties giggled at—found the Elements in the ancient castle of the royal princesses—but there were only five Elements there, and they were small stone orbs without the power to end the night. When the five are present, a spark will cause the sixth Element to be revealed. As the others left to give her time to concentrate, to try to power the artifacts, Nightmare Moon appeared and took Twilight to another castle—they did battle—Nightmare Moon shattered the Elements—all hope seemed lost.

But Twilight's friends returned to help her, and it all became clear—the legendary spark was the spark of friendship. It ignited—restored the Elements—revealed the sixth—the Element of Magic. Nightmare Moon was struck down—banished—Princess Luna was restored, and the sun rose again.

The Doctor and Twilight paused for a moment, as the former tried to make sense of all he'd seen and the latter prepared another wave of memory. Then the Doctor nodded. Ready.

He was in a hall filled with stained glass windows detailing the history of Equestria—the six Elements of Harmony were with a white alicorn—Princess Celestia, ruler of the day—they stood next to an empty chest where the artifacts should have been—an evil chuckle echoed through the room, one the Doctor recognized all too well. Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you. Discord flew through the stained glass that filled the room. It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but you wouldn't know that, would you, because I don't turn ponies into stone!

The Doctor found himself somewhat skeptical of that statement.

Stop stalling, Discord! What have you done with the Elements of Harmony? Princess Celestia ignored his jab, pressing to the point. The Doctor found himself liking her quite a bit.

Oh, so boring, Celestia. Really? Fine, I'll tell you, but I'll only tell you my way. To retrieve your missing elements, just make sense of this change of events: Twists and turns are my master plan.... Discord disappeared entirely. Then find the elements back where you began.

Then everything disappeared, and the Doctor saw himself and Twilight Sparkle with four of her friends in a collapsing maze—but it was all wrong—the four had been turned and broken by Discord, with only Twilight left as herself—and Rainbow Dash wasn't there at all. Game's over, my little ponies. You didn't find your precious Elements. Discord gloated in his victory, producing—bizarrely enough—an inverted pink umbrella. Looks like we might be due for a big old storm of chaos! His laugh echoed and echoed throughout the world.

But hope was not yet lost. Twilight showed the Doctor more memories—herself being turned gray in her despair, only to gain fresh determination when she reread the letters she'd sent to Princess Celestia—reminding her of the times she'd shared with her friends. He watched her show these memories to them—he saw the six reunited, confronting an all-too-confident Discord, who discovered too late that their friendship was stronger than his wiles. I'll tell you what we've learned, Discord. We've learned that friendship isn't always easy. But there's no doubt it's worth fighting for! The reunited Elements of Harmony resealed Discord into his stone statue, and the world was made whole once again.

The flood of memories ended, and the Doctor found himself standing again in the dream space between their minds. Thank you. I know how to beat him now, but I'll need your Element of Harmony. Is that okay? She nodded. Hold on to hope, Twilight Sparkle. He began to let himself fade, to let the psychic link break—

Wait.

Oh, you can do words now, very good! The Doctor stayed awhile longer, wondering what she had to say—vital information about Celestia, Discord, or the Elements? No, he doubted that.

Please... help my friends like... you helped... me, she managed.

I promise. Help is on its way. With that he pulled away, leaving the dream space far behind, and opened his eyes. It had taken only a few seconds of real time.

“What happened?” Lyra asked, rushing over to him. “Did you talk to her?”

“Yes. Don't ask me any questions just yet,” he replied, cutting off her attempt to do just that. He wondered if Bon Bon would call him rude again, but he had little time and a promise to honor. He proceeded to the statue next to Twilight's—comparing its wings and striped hair with Twilight's memories, he guessed this was Rainbow Dash—and plunged into her mind.

I promise you, Fluttershy, you won't be like this much longer. Just keep breathing. With that the Doctor retreated from the mind of the Element of Kindness, the last of the six statues. He turned back to his companions—no, they couldn't be merely companions anymore. They had to be his friends.

“Now can you tell us what you were doing?” asked Bon Bon.

“It's harder to explain than you might think, but long story short, I talked to them and I've found a way to defeat Discord. But I need all your help.” The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, clicked it a few times, then trained it on the stone pendant at Fluttershy's neck. After a few seconds of noise, the necklace fell off, transforming into a stone orb as it fell.

“And what are you doing now?” Lyra asked.

“Gathering the Elements of Harmony,” he replied without looking at her. Then he thought better of this curt explanation. I'm going to have to make more of an effort than that. He turned and called her and Lyra over to look. “Sonic screwdriver, setting 229.6—resonates and cracks stone. I did say it was a useful little gadget. Can you two hold these?” he asked, indicating the Elements of Kindness and Loyalty, the latter of which he quickly liberated from Rainbow Dash.

“I suppose so,” Bon Bon grumbled, picking up the two dormant Elements and balancing them on her back. Derpy grabbed Honesty and placed it in her saddlebag, and Lyra levitated Generosity and Laughter. Last of all, the Doctor came to the Element of Magic. It separated easily from Twilight's head, but instead of falling to the floor, it vanished into thin air.

“Whoa!” Lyra jumped back a bit, almost dropping her two Elements. “Where'd it go?”

“If it's gone, how are we supposed to beat Discord with only five Elements?” asked Bon Bon—not mockingly, but with real worry. He appreciated the fact that she was making an effort.

“Trust me, we won't need it for the plan.”

“The plan? What, the one you're making up as you go along?”

“Oh yes!” The Doctor grinned fiercely. “And I can promise you it's going to be brilliant.” And they all believed him, or at least all got swept up in his fervor. “Now come on, into the TARDIS. We've got a few more things to take care of, and I don't want Discord to find us here. And Derpy? You're the designated flier!” Derpy beamed and jumped through the open doorway.

And in... two... three... Twilight ‘took’ a deep breath, ‘walking’ through the green field the Doctor had made for her. It was flat and regular as far as she could 'see', but that was fine. She wasn’t looking for distractions. And out... two... three...

She heard a sound from the real world. “And Derpy? You’re the designated flier!” Somehow she knew what he meant, just as she somehow knew what a TARDIS was. In... two... three... Then, she realized what she knew—what she’d seen—and was so startled that she almost lost her focus. The dreamspace shuddered. No—out. Two... three... In... two... three... She could contemplate the few memories of his that she’d glimpsed, but not now: they were just too much. She had to focus on herself now and keep breathing.

Vworp... vworp... vworp... She knew that sound as well. The TARDIS was leaving, which meant that she’d be alone again for a long time—at least from one perspective. In... two... three...

But she knew better. Her friends were there with her, and though she could neither see nor hear them, she knew they felt the same way. Even as Discord’s spell kept them apart, they were together. And out... two... three...

And even as that same spell kept her from stopping Discord, she was not powerless. She hadn't failed Equestria; she’d given the Doctor what he needed to save them and the whole world. And she trusted him to do just that.

Why? She stopped ‘walking’, but managed to keep breathing despite her puzzlement. Why do I trust him? She racked her brain—and the little she’d seen of his—and came up with a few reasons: because he’d helped her before asking her for anything. Because he’d promised to help her friends. Because he’d told her he could save the world. And because...

I don’t know, she admitted. But that’s still so much better than nothing. And so she held on to hope, and she breathed.

Stay tuned for the ending to Discord and the Doctor—Part 1.

Discord and the Doctor—Part 1 (c)

We again return to Discord and the Doctor—Part 1.

Vinyl Scratch didn't care about the chaos happening around her as she trudged through Ponyville. Solid-seeming houses folded themselves into paper cranes. Cows did headstands while playing in brass bands. A warm licorice blizzard blazed through the street. The sun in the sky—occasionally the suns—flew through the cycle of day and night, alternating with the moon or moons.

So what? It didn't concern her. It wasn't her business. No need to pry. The candy snow in her hair, the soapy ground beneath her feet, the utter emptiness in her soul—not her problem. That weird scraping noise that was approaching her from behind—not her problem.

Being hauled off the ground from behind, pulled into a flying box, and swooping up into the sky—maybe that was something she should think about. She wasn't sure yet.

“Gotcha!” said the stallion grabbing her. She found herself in a huge room with some sort of weird glowy pillar in the middle. A few mares were in there along with the brown stallion, and they all looked a bit beat up. She didn't recognize anypony, though... hang on, that's Octavia over there. She was sitting in a chair, though not by choice; she'd been gagged and tied to it with a long multicolored scarf.

“At least this one came quietly,” said one of the ponies, massaging her bruised mouth. “Now what do we do, Doctor?”

“We introduce ourselves, of course!” The stallion put himself right in front of her eyes with a giddy grin on his face. “Nice to meet you, Vinyl Scratch! I'm the Doctor.”

Vinyl said nothing. Maybe they'll go away if I don't do anything. A few seconds of awkward silence ensued.

Eventually, the Doctor renewed his sagging grin and pulled Vinyl toward the glowy pillar. “That's Bon Bon over there.” He pointed to the mare who'd been rubbing her mouth. “Can be a bit of a grump, but she has some great redeeming qualities, namely....” He paused to think for a moment, then gave up the attempt and moved on.

“And that's Lyra on the other side. Shy, very imaginative, and a pleasure to know. I'm the Doctor, a bit crazy, a bit rude, more than a bit good with spatio-temporal mechanics. That's Derpy Hooves.” He pointed to a gray pegasus standing next to the pillar's base, “Inexplicably enough, she's kind of like me but minus the rude. And that's Octavia there, but you know her pretty well already—well, knew. Careful, she bites.”

Octavia growled through her improvised gag like a rabid dog.

“Seriously, Doctor, what are we doing?” Bon Bon asked, trying to bring the conversation back to a reasonable footing of sanity.

“Seriously, we're introducing ourselves,” the Doctor said, having none of it. “And we're going to become the best of friends! Like the three amigos, except with another three, so that's six amigos right there!” He guffawed, then turned back to the console, still rattling on inanely. “That's a nice number, six. Sort of a mystical number, sometimes....” He seemed to realize he was rambling, and caught himself. “Sorry. Anyway, Bon Bon, what happens next is that you—or any of you, really—tell me our destination.”

“We tell you?” asked Lyra.

“Well, all I know is that it's a fashion show.” The Doctor paused, apparently amused at Lyra and Bon Bon's befuddlement. “Don't you remember, it was on the radio? Octavia said to Vinyl that 'ever since we met at that fashion show', then something about no respect—and before that, Vinyl said that they'd been friends for a few months. Have there been any big fashion shows recently?” Vinyl followed their conversation with disinterest.

“Oh, right!” Lyra exclaimed. “Yeah, there was one a few months back... February 17, 1002, at Saddleson Square Garden in Manehattan.” The Doctor began setting the coordinates, trying to keep a straight face.

“Okay, one trip to Saddleson Square Garden... in... Manehattan...” He gave up and fell into a fit of guffaws for several seconds. “Sorry every... pony... it's just that... eh...” Bon Bon, Lyra, and Derpy were all giving him strange looks. “Nevermind, long story. Fashion show, coming right up!” He slammed down one last lever and they were off.

Octavia noticed that her ensemble was playing a touch too loudly, and motioned for them to quiet down. After all, they'd been hired to play as accompaniment to the Manehattan Fashion Expo, not as the main event.

Not that she thought much of the Expo itself. A bunch of fashionistas and fashionistos trying desperately to one-up each other with gems and gaud. That one pony—the one with the purple mane, from Ponyville—some of her dresses could blind a pony at fifty paces. Sure, she has a few relatively subdued pieces, but the crowd isn't noticing them. Subtle never gets you very far.

Octavia made sure to halt these somewhat resentful thoughts before they could affect her technique. She might have been no more than a background to the expo, but by Celestia she was going to do a good job at it even if nopony noticed. That was her role, after all: to provide a backdrop against which the ponies could display their spectacular dresses. Oh, they're a spectacle, all right. You'd need spectacles after looking at one for too long.

What am I even doing here? she found herself wondering. I've been a virtuosa at the cello for years and here I am doing mood music. Don't I deserve something a bit more prestigious? Shouldn't they be watching me? She noticed a tension in her body, a small stridency in her playing, and forced herself to relax. Okay, so I may not be the main event at Saddleson Square Garden, but I'm still at the Saddleson Square Garden. Things could be worse.

She decided to just make the best of what she had. She'd earn her recognition in time. She'd get noticed. Until then, she resolved to play as well as she could and not let anything distract or disrupt her. Not resentment, not ennui, not even—

A massive electronic blast assaulted her ears: the sound of an abused subwoofer crying for mercy. Octavia dropped her bow to cover her ears and cringe. What in the hay? She and the rest of her ensemble looked around for the source of the ghastly sound.

“Sorry, everypony! Just making sure the speakers are working!” On the opposite side of the massive chamber, a blue-haired white unicorn waved to the stunned crowd from another raised podium. After a moment, the guests went back to their small talk and order-making, and the unicorn disappeared behind a large turntable. Octavia thought she saw sparks flying out from the turntable's back.

“Oh, damn,” Beauty Brass said, sticking a hoof into her face. 'The expo's been double-booked.”

Octavia was skeptical. “You really think they'd hire... whoever the hoof she is at this kind of event?”

“Maybe she's playing... easy listening?” Frederic suggested. Octavia looked over at the DJ's podium and noticed the words DJ PON-3 on the base in the same neon-blue color as her hair, with lightning bolts on either side of the lettering.

“Yes, I'm sure that easy listening is her thing,” she muttered. She turned back to her ensemble and tried to compose herself. “Okay, we've played through worse than this. Remember the Grand Galloping Gala?” They all nodded, remembering the inexplicable appearance of a hyperactive pink mare who had forced them to play the Pony Polka and sang along with some rather odd improvised lyrics. The night had only gotten worse from there. “Whoever this pony is, she can't possibly be worse than that night. Let's just play through it.”

Octavia returned to her cello. Beauty Brass put her lips back upon her sousaphone, and Frederic held his hooves just above the piano keys in preparation. “We'll pick up from measure 33 in three, two, one.” They resumed playing with practiced ease, almost as if they hadn't stopped. In fact, nopony seemed to have noticed that they had stopped for what must have been a whole minute. That's... kind of depressing.

What she didn't notice were two ponies who were paying attention to her: the unicorn DJ, her head peeking out from behind the turntable, and a brown stallion in a corner wearing ridiculously large glasses.

“I hope you're all getting this,” he murmured, seemingly to thin air. “I'm going to all this trouble to synchronize my brainy specs with the ship, and sit in at a... a fashion show.” He grimaced.

“Could you zoom in a little more on Octavia?” Bon Bon asked—ever the personification of gratitude—back in the TARDIS. Lyra and Derpy stood beside her. Vinyl had been led into a chair, where she sat and watched the scanner without complaint: Octavia was no more willingly compliant than before. They watched as the view from the Doctor's special glasses was magnified several times, showing them the past Octavia frowning with barely-suppressed annoyance upon her podium.

“That's better, thanks,” Lyra said. “Anyways, from what I heard, there were some crossed wires at the event, so they accidentally hired both musicians.” The Doctor turned his head to look at past-Vinyl, who was nodding her head in time with Octavia's music. Suddenly, she grinned and ducked back behind a speaker, making noises that suggested the methodical disabling of machinery.

“Oh, Doctor,” Bon Bon interjected, a little smile on her face, “You should probably be turning the volume down again. I think Vinyl's just had an idea.” The Doctor managed to dial the volume down just before—

—a short but huge burst of static blasted from the speaker, piercing the air like a hail of broken glass and interrupting all activity on the floor and on Octavia's podium. Octavia covered her ears and shot a glare at DJ PON-3, who waved back at her. She's not even sorry that she's ruining the show, and that she's ruining my performance with her utter—

Octavia took a long, deep breath. “Let's... let's try that again. Measure 57, I think...” No DJ is going to get me frazzled. “And one, two, three, go.” She drew her bow across the cello—

—and was interrupted again by more, for lack of a better word, sounds. But this time was no brief distraction; this seemed to be the main event, in all its obnoxious glory. “Hello Manehattan!” DJ PON-3 called to the stunned high-society ponies from behind her turntable, then raised her glasses off her face and looked Octavia directly in the eyes. She winked and gave Octavia a challenging smirk, before scratching one of her records a few times.

Octavia felt a little something inside her snap. Her eye twitched. She mouthed three words: “It. Is. On.”

She turned to her ensemble. “That's it, change of plan. We're not playing the Prelude in C Minor, we're playing the Sabre Prance on my count.” She walked over to their own speakers and turned them up, then looked back at her ensemble. They, in turn, looked at her like she'd grown an extra head.

“She's not actually trying to out-loud the DJ.” Beauty Brass pleaded to Frederic. “Please tell me she's not.”

“Listen, Octavia, don't let yourself get worked up over nothing.” Frederic had to yell to be heard above the dubstep. “Look.” He pointed to a group of large uniformed stallions to the side of the room, who were starting to move toward DJ PON-3. “Security will be here any minute, they'll—”

“Sabre Prance, on my count,” Octavia repeated, as calmly and firmly as she could manage. “We are not letting that vulgarian steal the show. Ready?” She raised her bow, and despite their misgivings, her band mates followed her lead. “Three-two-one-go!”

The ensemble blasted their bombastic piece through speakers cranked up to double their previous volumes, enough to drown out DJ PON-3 in a classical tsunami. Now the crowd and the security turned to face her ensemble instead.

Octavia looked triumphantly upon the DJ, only to see her turning up her own speakers to drown them out. The security guards turned back to her in confusion, unsure of who exactly was more of a danger to the Expo.

“Louder!” Octavia yelled, cranking up the speaker's volume by another half as they moved to the first stanza of the song. The shrill notes of her cello assailed the room.

Now what, DJ? Going to turn it up again? Instead, PON-3 switched her music off. Feeling victorious, Octavia was about to motion to her band to stop as well, when suddenly the DJ's turntable began playing the Sabre Prance precisely in time with her ensemble. Every part from bass to melody to percussion was played by synthesizer—impressive, in its way.

After a stanza of this, she turned off everything but the bass and percussion, stood on the turntable, and picked up an electric guitar with her magic to play the next line. It was unrehearsed and a little rough, but rather well done despite that. After the stanza was finished, she pointed the guitar at Octavia, challenging her. Daring her. Octavia was more than willing to respond.

Back in the TARDIS, Octavia's struggling became less violent, and Vinyl began taking more interest in her surroundings. “It's working!” exclaimed Lyra. “Your plan, it's working!”

“Forget the plan, this is brilliant!” replied the Doctor, eyes fixed on the show. The two musicians had never met, but they played as though they'd known each other their whole lives—and he wasn't the only pony to notice. The crowd stopped cringing at the noise and began to enjoy it, especially as it moved into a slightly quieter section; all thoughts of dress-selling were gone. The security guards milled about in the middle of the crowd, unsure of whether to let the two ponies play or throw them from the hall.

Finally, after a few more minutes of bombast, riffing, and wild improvisation, the two of them finished. Octavia was flushed with success, and she grinned at DJ PON-3, who smiled right back and grabbed a microphone. “Okay Manehattan, give it up for my good friend Octavia!” she yelled.

After some hesitation, the crowd began to applaud politely. Then the applause became louder, and louder, and grew to a thunderous ovation that must have lasted a full thirty seconds. She even heard a few ‘brava!’s. It was more acclaim than Octavia had ever hoped to achieve here, and she and her ensemble bowed deeply in gratitude. When she raised her head, however, she saw a security guard trying to be discreet in her peripheral vision. Oh no.

“Excuse me, miss Octavia.” He beckoned for her to move closer to him. “I'm very sorry, but I have to ask you to leave.”

“Why?” she blurted, all her good feeling evaporating to be replaced by dawning horror. Because I was just goaded into interrupting the biggest fashion show of the year to get into a loudness contest! With a DJ! That's why! Oh Celestia, I'll be lucky if I ever get hired again after this.

“Please, miss.” The security pony shifted his weight from hoof to hoof. “I'd rather not make this more difficult than it needs to be.” Octavia glanced at the crowd to see if they would support her, but they had stopped looking almost as soon as they noticed security.

“Hey!” DJ PON-3 appeared behind them. “You can't do that, she was awesome! If you throw her out, you'll have to throw me out too!”

“That's the idea, Miss... PON-3.” The security pony sighed. “Look, I don't want to do this—I thought you both were great—but the director told me that you need to go, so—”

“Excuse me! I couldn't help but overhear you.” The three of them were joined by a new pony wearing a coquettish smile: it was the fashion designer from Ponyville that Octavia had noticed earlier. “Did you say that these dazzling musicians are going to be thrown out like common gatecrashers?”

“I'm afraid so, miss... um...”

“Miss Rarity, if you please, and don't be so absurd! You thought they were excellent, I thought they're excellent, and everypony here—” she gestured toward the crowd of appreciative ponies “—seemed to think they were excellent, except for this director of yours.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose there's no accounting for taste, but nevertheless I'd like to have a word with him. Would you be so kind as to escort me?” She batted her eyelashes.

“Well... sure, I, uh, guess,” the flustered guard said, and led Rarity away from the two musicians. Octavia felt no less flustered, and turned to the DJ to try to speak, but got cut off.

“Ha! Knew that would work.” Her devilish grin only annoyed Octavia more.

“Because of your antics, I'm one fashionista away from being thrown out of one of the biggest shows I'll ever play at, and my career is—is probably ruined.” She took a deep breath, doing her utmost to calm down. “In what way did that 'work', Miss PON-3?”

“Hey, I'd say they were at least half your antics. And please, Miss Octavia, call me Vinyl.” Vinyl smiled—or rather, continued to smile. Except to protest to the security guard, she didn't seem to have stopped all night.

A thought occurred to Octavia. “How do you know my name?” she asked. “Nopony told me that there would be a second act here.”

“Oh, I just read the program!” Vinyl produced the little brochure seemingly from thin air and flipped to the back page. “See, there you are! Octavia and ensemble, right at the bottom. In tiny little letters. Very flattering.” She pulled a face. “Let's face it, girl, your 'career' wasn't going to take off even if this thing had gone according to plan.”

“You can't know that for sure—”

“Really? Look, Octy—”

“Octavia—”

“You wouldn't've done what you did if you thought this expo was worth your time, would you?” Vinyl gave her a questioning look. “You'd have just waited for security to haul me off.” The DJ seemed to have read her mind: hadn't she been thinking what a waste of time the expo was? How much she wanted to move on to bigger, better things?

Vinyl was absolutely right—and by Celestia, Octavia wasn't going to tell her that. “That's a big step between having... less-than-charitable thoughts for the expo and willfully disrupting it to prove a point!”

Vinyl shrugged. “Eh, you've gotta rock the boat once in a while, you know? Subtle never gets you very far anyway.” Octavia started, hearing her own exact thoughts out loud. Dear goodness, she is reading my mind. “And you have to admit, you thought it was fun either way!”

“... yes.” Octavia smiled. “You were good, by the way.”

“You were better!” Vinyl laughed. “So why not show these ponies just how good you are?”

"Hello again!" Rarity returned with a dazzling smile on her face. “I've just managed to persuade that philistine of a director to let you two play a few more songs for all of us!”

Octavia was genuinely surprised—she hadn't thought that Rarity could do it. “Wow... that is to say, um, thank you for arguing on my—our—behalf. That was really generous of you.”

“Oh, generosity is my thing, you know.” She winked. “Now trot-trot, you've got a show to do!” A few seconds later, as Octavia watched her return to her stand, something clicked in the cellist's brain. Her name is Rarity, and generosity is her thing. Her eyes widened as she realized who had saved her career.

“Knew that would work too.” Vinyl's grin had grown, if possible, even wider. “Any suggestions for some more rockin' classical, Octy?” Octavia didn't respond, still dumbstruck. “Hey, Tavi, you okay?”

“That was the Element of Generosity,” Octavia whispered.

Vinyl laughed. “I know!” she replied, not a trace of surprise in her voice. “I once DJ'd one of her fashion shows, and let me tell you, she really is one of the most generous ponies I've ever seen.” She wolf-whistled. “Although you're giving her a run for your money in that department. Anyway, song choice?”

Octavia checked her mental library, and came up with an idea. “Have you ever heard of the 'Pranse macabre'?” She smiled when Vinyl shook her head. “Do your best, then.”

“I'll try!” She was about to caper off, but Octavia stopped her.

“One more thing—I couldn't help but notice something about the brochure earlier.” Octavia dropped her voice to a whisper. “You're not on it.”

“Yup!” Vinyl grinned mischievously. “And I bet I'll still get paid for this!”

Octavia's smile was just as mischievous as she watched Vinyl bound back to her turntable. Why, you common gatecrasher.

“And let me tell you, I did get paid—hey, where am I? What happened? Why's Octavia tied up?”

“And my work here is done,” said the Doctor, turning his gaze away from the past Vinyl Scratch to talk to the present one. “Welcome back, Vinyl Scratch! I'm sorry about Octavia, but she was biting with more than just her wit. Lyra, if you could untie her?”

“Hang on, who the hay are you?” he heard Vinyl say through the glasses. “Where are you? And where am I?”

“I'm the Doctor. I introduced myself already, along with Bon Bon and Lyra and Derpy,” he replied. “Do you remember anything? From, say, the last fifteen minutes?”

“No... well, sort of... it's kind of weird, like...” Vinyl took a moment to try to explain. “Like a really bad dream where you just do crazy things and you can't stop yourself. Did Octavia really say—”

The Doctor cut her off. “Yes, she said all those things—but she didn't mean any of them.” He exited the expo and walked across the street to a dark alleyway, where his unassuming blue box had been parked. “And then what happened?”

“Well, that's when it sort of started,” she continued. “The dreamy part, I mean. And I just sort of walked around for a while... and the roads were made of soap, I think? Then somepony grabbed me... that was you, actually, and then I was watching that recording from the Saddleson Square Garden, and that's when I woke up, I guess.” The Doctor pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door, poking his head in to see Octavia shrugging off the last coils of the scarf.

As she got out of the chair and turned to look at the door, her eyes widened in recognition. “You!” she exclaimed. “You were backstage with me and Discord!”

“Discord! Ohhhhhhh...” Comprehension dawned on Vinyl's face. “So that's why you were being so...” Octavia lowered her head, remembering all she'd said and done.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “And sorry for hitting you all.”

“Don't worry about it!” exclaimed Derpy. Bon Bon also accepted the apology, after some consideration.

“By the way, that wasn't a recording.” The Doctor grinned. “That was live video. Come on, have a look around!” The Doctor beckoned the five of them to come outside.

“Haha, live video. Good one.” Vinyl walked out. “Seriously, though, where am... I...” Her brain seemed to shut down as she tried to take it all in.

Firstly, there was the Saddleson Square Garden right across the street, when she'd been in Ponyville minutes earlier. Secondly, she could hear the Pranse Macabre being played inside, as only she and Octavia could play it. Finally, she turned around and saw the blue box she'd just left, but the outside was too small to fit the room she'd been in. Vinyl's and Octavia's jaws dropped.

“That's the TARDIS,” the Doctor explained, as Derpy, Lyra and Bon Bon looked on with smiles. “Short for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It's a time machine, and yes—its inside is bigger than its outside, might as well get that out of the way now. That over there—” he pointed to the brightly lit arena “—is in fact Saddleson Square Garden, and you and Octavia are playing there right now, several months before what you would consider the present day. Your first gig together!” He paused to see if they would say anything.

After a few seconds, Vinyl spoke. “I'm still dreaming, aren't I.” She smacked herself several times on the cheeks to check. “Um... wow, not dreaming, okay. Maybe you are?” she asked Octavia, who shook her head.

“Good, isn't it?” The Doctor ambled to their side, lost in contemplation. “All of time and space, yours for the viewing. You can walk on planets of glass, watch the birth of a star... revisit old, happy memories...” A smile lit up his face, if only for a moment. Then he turned back to them. “And I wish I could show you all of that—not least because it'll all be new to me as well—but I can't.”

“What do you mean, you can't?” Octavia asked. "And who are you, really?”

“Like I said, I'm the Doctor, but I'm not from Equestria. I'm a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous, another universe away. And I need your help. Discord's taken over your world, and he's neutralized the Elements of Harmony. It's up to all of us to stop him.” The Doctor paused to let them take it all in. “It's a lot to drop on you at once, I know. And I'm truly sorry, because if I could do this myself I would, but I need help.”

There was silence from the six following this speech.

Eventually... “Just to be sure... you're asking me and Vinyl to confront Discord, the god of chaos, without the Elements of Harmony on our side.”

“We've got the Elements themselves, but not their wielders.”

“So we can't use them.” Octavia seemed torn, but she made up her mind. “Doctor, I really wish I could help, but without the Elements on our side, attacking Discord is a suicide mission.”

“But....” The Doctor hesitated. How much can I tell them? How can I persuade them to come along with me?

“Um, sorry, Doctor, but....” Lyra raised a hoof. “Are you sure you need all of us?”

“Yeah!” Oh boy, now Bon Bon's jumping in. “We've just met you; you can't ask Lyra to do this!”

“And me and Octy! You're the one who's a Time Lord from the constellation of whatever with the time machine. What do you need us for?”

“Can I sit this one out?”

“Why don't you just—”

Fweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

They all stopped talking at Derpy's high-pitched whistle and turned to look at her. “Do you think Discord is just going to go away? That he's gonna just leave us alone? Nopony in all of Equestria can stop him—not Twilight Sparkle, not Celestia, not Luna—nopony but us.”

The Doctor was surprised at the outburst; the other four were dumbfounded to see her so fiery. “The Doctor says he can beat Discord, but he needs our help. So help him!” she bellowed.

After a few seconds of dumbstruck silence, the Doctor spoke up. “We'd better get back in the TARDIS before anyone sees us.” They followed him back into his ship, all of them still quiet. The Doctor nudged Derpy as she entered. “Thank you.”

“And ponies call me dumb.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “At least they listened.”

“Why wouldn't they?” he asked. In response, she reopened and rolled her misaligned eyes at him.

“Because why would anypony listen to dumb old Derpy.” She snorted. “It's not even my real name, just a nickname everypony used to call me.”

“Not a very nice nickname."

“'Derpy Hooves, Derpy Hooves, can't do basic flying moves,'” she chanted. “No, it wasn't.”

The Doctor scratched his head. “So you started calling yourself that because...”

“Then they couldn't—at least, they couldn't insult me with it. And... well, it's not that much worse than my real name.”

“Which is...”

“If you must know... Ditzy Doo.”

The Doctor chuckled, and led her to the central console. “You're right, it's not. So, you lot,” he called, addressing the group at large. “What do you say?”

Bon Bon spoke up. “Don't take this the wrong way, Doctor... but why do you want us?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked in response.

“To do what?” She was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Do you trust me to use all my power to keep you and your friends safe, and save your world?”

After a pause: “Yes.”

The Doctor turned to Lyra. “And do you trust me?” She nodded. “And you?” he asked Octavia, who nodded as well.

“If Octavia trusts you, you're all right,” said Vinyl, before the Doctor even asked.

“I trust you.” Derpy was firm in her assent.

“Good,” said the Doctor. “Because I've seen a little of who all of you are. And I trust all of you to do exactly the same. And that's why it has to be us.” He started preparing the TARDIS for flight.

Before they went, he had one last question. “Are you all ready?” They all said yes. “Well, no point waiting around now... we've got a world to save.”

He pulled the lever, and they took off.

To be continued in:
Discord and the Doctor—Part 2

Discord and the Doctor – Part 2 (a)

Vworp.... Vworp...

“Rule one! Don't wander off, not alone.” The Doctor spun a dial on the central console, rattling off rules at top speed as the TARDIS rattled and vworped off to its next destination. “Make sure you're with at least one other pony at all times. Doesn't matter who.” His five companions nodded in agreement, then clutched at the nearest fixture they could find as the ship received a particularly hard jolt. 'Don't wander off.' Like anyone ever listens to that.

“Rule two! We all need to trust each other, and to earn that trust. So if anyone needs help, give it, and if you need help, ask. Understood?” More agreement from the other five. The Doctor toggled a switch on his side of the console, and called, “Derpy, pull the V-lever over on your side—”

“Done already, Doctor,” she replied, leaning on the console next to the lever. Using her wings for balance, she was able to remain upright despite the ship's chaotic movements. Maybe I could get a pair of wings, they look dead useful. Another jolt interrupted this train of thought by knocking him on his back. The Elements of Harmony nearly fell to the floor, saved only by the wires connecting them to the TARDIS console. On second thought, now's not the time to think about self-modification.

Vworp.... Vworp...

“Rule three, very important rule! Use your head!” He jumped back up and tapped his temple for emphasis. “The best tools any of us have are our minds. Discord's going to try to trick us, but he's not perfect. Use your head and see through the tricks!” The sound of an alarm joined the general clamor, prompting the Doctor and Derpy to dash to the scanner.

“Doctor?” called Lyra, who was wrapped around one of the railings around the console. “Why's that screen flashing red?”

The Doctor smacked the scanner and Gallifreyan text flashed onto it. He took a moment to interpret the text, then yelled back: “The TARDIS is detecting reality fluctuations at our destination!”

“What?”

“The rules of the universe are in flux where we're going! Electromagnetism, big G, Newton's laws, all out to lunch!”

“Um, laypony's terms?” Vinyl yelled, doing an impressive job of making herself heard over all the clamor.

“It's telling us nothing we didn't already know—we're entering Discord's domain! Brace yourselves!” The Doctor grabbed onto the railing as the TARDIS made its final approach.

Vworp.... Vworp... kdunk.

The Doctor stepped through the TARDIS door and was greeted by absolute chaos. The ground on which he walked was composed of thousands of cymbals; some made sounds softer than a mouse, and others crashed with the force of a sonic boom. Some quacked, and a few smelled like rotten eggs.

“Well, looks like we came to the right place.” Vinyl's nervous laugh died as she looked up to the orange sky, where a swarm of ravenous butterflies devoured a flock of birds.

“.ecalp thgir eht ot emac ew ekil skool ,lleW” She jumped and looked around for the source of this reversed echo, with no success. It seemed to come from all around them. Lyra emitted a little squeak.

“But how do we find Discord?” asked Octavia, closing the door behind her as she left the TARDIS. “He could be anywhere.”

“No.” The Doctor felt the slightest of tremors growing beneath his hooves, and started taking deep breaths. Now is not the time to lose control. “He's coming now.”

The tremors grew and grew, and in a moment the other five noticed them too. Another moment later, they could hardly keep their balance. The cymbals crashed together in complete cacophony, producing more noises and smells than the Doctor could describe. And above all this, there was the growing sound of the earth quaking, and of a familiar laugh. “Ehehehahahahaha...”

Discord burst out of the ground before them, sending cymbals flying over the horizon. He swooped and looped through the air several times, then came to a rest and cackled, “Why, look who's shown up in the percussion section! It's Doc, with the only five ponies suicidal enough to join him. Hello, Lyra!” He lunged at Lyra, who squeaked and fell onto her back. Discord halted just short of her face and burst out laughing again. “Oh, it's been so boring without you ponies here to play with.”

As Lyra tried to right herself, the ground changed from cymbals to a huge mirrored floor that stretched as far as the eye could see. The ponies' legs found no traction, and they collapsed immediately, producing clear tones as they struck the floor. The Doctor ignored this distraction and inhaled slowly.

“And what's this?” Discord's attention turned from them to the TARDIS, the only thing still standing upright. “For me? Oh, it's Hearth's Warming come early! But hang on...” He picked up the box and shook it like a child with a Christmas present. “Are those...” His eyes widened, and he pulled it close to his ear to shake it once more. “The Elements? You put the Elements of Harmony in—in the—” He doubled over laughing, unable to finish his sentence. The Doctor exhaled slowly.

“You're sure you can beat him, right?” Bon Bon whispered.

“Yes, we can,” he replied.

“Oh no you can't!” Discord exclaimed as he swooped back in front of them, TARDIS gripped firmly in hand. “Because you are the gift that keeps on giving, Doc!” The Doctor managed to get to his hooves, only to fall again—but not to the ground, for now there was no ground. The six of them tumbled through the sudden infinite blue sky, the wind in their ears wiping out almost all noise. The Doctor couldn't even hear his own slow breathing.

“Freeing me from stone wasn't enough—you had to return the one thing that could stop me on a blue platter!” The only other thing the Doctor could hear was Discord's triumphant voice. “So before I go share your gift of chaos with the rest of the universe, do you have anything else for me?”

“Actually...” The Doctor spread his limbs to steady his descent, and turned his body toward Discord. He was the very picture of calm. “I've got a game for you.”

The Majestic Tale (Of a Mad-Pony in a Box)
S1E2: Discord and the Doctor—Part 2
By R5h

The Doctor whipped his sonic screwdriver out of his coat and pointed it at the TARDIS. The screwdriver's whistle pierced the rush of air, soon joined by another sound.

Vworp... vworp... vworp...

Discord's expression turned from gleeful to furious as he realized what was happening. The TARDIS was growing more and more transparent, leaving his claw was holding nothing but air. He tried to grab it with both hands, but could not stop it from fully dematerializing.

“What have you done?” he yelled at the still-casual Doctor. “I DEMAND THAT YOU GIVE ME BACK MY PRIZE!”

The ground reappeared underneath them—or at least it felt like ground when the Doctor struck it. In fact it was a vast ocean, frozen solid in the middle of a terrible storm. He slid down a wave perhaps a hundred feet tall, and not one of those hundred feet managed to upset his calm.

“I did warn you, Discord.” The Doctor returned his screwdriver to his pocket, a smile forming on his face. “She's been parked inside herself, which means that no one and nothing can ever return her to this universe. Or—just maybe—she's materialized in the center of the moon. Or perhaps a trillion years in the past, before there was an Equestria. Before there was even a you, I'd guess. Want to take bets on which it is?” Discord's rage grew with every possibility the Doctor mentioned, as did the Doctor' grin. This tactic is working even better than I'd hoped.

“Bring the TARDIS back to me, or—”

“Hmm....” The Doctor yawned. “No, sorry, don't think so.”

Discord snarled, but in another moment his face was jovial once more. He chuckled. “Oh, but I think we're forgetting something,” He reclined into the ground—now a huge marsh of stretchy green goo—in front of the Doctor. “You don't have to tell me how to get the TARDIS! All of your secrets are mine, remember?”

“Oh yes, of course! How silly of me!” the Doctor exclaimed, turning back to his companions. “Sorry everyone, but we've clearly lost, because he knows everything about me. Planet of origin, second favorite color, least favorite fruit—”

They were now in an endless pear orchard. “You got it, Doc!” Discord cackled, kicking the trunk of a particularly massive tree located above the Doctor's head. A cascade of pears fell out and buried him up to his neck.

“In fact, I'd bet you something else.” Despite the painful pounding of pears on his back, the Doctor kept up the jovial tone. His true feelings were very different, though; this was the moment of truth, the bet he was making for the sake of the whole planet. If he was wrong here, they really had lost.

“I'd bet you he even knows my name." His companions looked startled, as if they hadn't considered that 'Doctor' wasn't actually a name. However, he was more interested in another's reaction, so he turned around to see Discord's pointer finger raised and mouth hanging open. “Go on then, Discord, tell these people. What's my name?”

In response, Discord did nothing at all. A small gurgling sound may have emerged from his throat, but the Doctor supposed he could be imagining it.

“Ooh, that's disappointing.” The Doctor sighed, pulling a disappointed face he guessed Discord would hate. “And here I thought you could read a Time Lord's mind as easily as a pony's.”

Vinyl began to laugh as loudly as she could. Good of you to catch on like that, Vinyl. “A-pear-antly not, Discord!” She punctuated the pun by magically grabbing a fruit from the Doctor's pile and throwing it into Discord's open mouth. Discord gagged and hacked it out into a tree.

“Don't you—don't you dare laugh at me,” he choked.

“But Discord! I thought Laughter was your favorite Element!” The Doctor joined Vinyl's laughter. “Come on everypony, giggle at the godling!” The other four joined in after some hesitation, forcing the most mocking laughter they could muster and sending Discord into a blind fury.

“That's enough!” At a snap of his fingers, the six ponies' mouths turned into shut zippers, and the trees transformed into pillars of fire and ash. Vinyl immediately pulled her mouth open to continue laughing, and the Doctor following close behind. “I said that's ENOUGH!” he roared, slamming his fist into the ground, which changed into a dark landscape of crags and fog. “If I can't do this the easy way and read your mind, Doc, I'll have to do this the hard way.” Obsidian spikes started growing from the ground, making the Doctor's companions cry out in pain.

The Doctor, however, restrained himself. He danced from hoof to hoof, but his first noise was an incredulous snort. “The hard way? Since when have you ever done anything the hard way?”

The spikes stopped growing, and the Doctor pressed his advantage. “Last year, you came back, stole the Elements, and crippled their bearers—then forced them to play a game you couldn't lose. And this time? You turned the Elements AND their bearers to stone right off the bat, and set Canterlot on fire. Where's the challenge in that, Discord? Where's the fun?”

“If I were you, Doc, I wouldn't be talking back right now!” Discord snapped his fingers, and the scene changed to a burning-hot desert. The Doctor danced on the sand beneath his hooves, but didn't let the pain show on his face.

“Also, have you been counting?”

“Counting what?”

“Well, it's just that I have, and you've changed the landscape nine times in the last two minutes. No—ten times,” he amended, finding himself on a rickety bridge dangling over a crater filled with bubbling lava. “And each more uninspired than the last. I mean, a rope bridge over a volcano? Really?”

Discord's anger had now moved to the impotent phase; he simply stared at the Doctor and clenched his fist. I should do this more often. It's much more fun than being all ferocious and intimidating. “Face it, Discord, you're in a rut! The world is your oyster and you have no idea what to do with it, because you took away all the fun when you took away the challenge!”

And he was immensely satisfied to see that Discord had nothing to say. “But I did mention a game earlier, didn't I?” asked the Doctor, switching back to casual. “Maybe you'd like to ask about that?”

Discord closed his eyes for a second. When they opened, he was seemingly back to his old, gleefully confident state. “All right then, Doc, we'll do this your way. What kind of game?”

“A real game, with real challenge and real stakes.” The Doctor looked Discord straight in the eyes, and saw the insane anger behind them; it was mostly buried, but not gone. How very useful. “Something like the game you played with the Elements of Harmony. A maze, some sort of trinkets we need to find—and could you get these things off our mouths?” he asked, tugging the slider on the zipper his lips had become. “You would not believe how uncomfortable this is.”

Discord pouted, but removed the zippers from their mouths. Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Octavia gingerly massage her newly-restored lips. “And do tell, Doc,” Discord requested, affecting the most mocking politeness possible and returning them to a mostly-normal Equestria. The sky was still inverted, and the black sun was moving at an alarming pace, but there was at least dirt beneath their hooves. “What exactly are the stakes of our game?”

“If we win, you restore this world to how it was before you returned, and leave. You leave Equestria for the rest of time.”

“And if you lose? What do I get then?”

“The TARDIS and the Elements of Harmony.”

Both Discord and the Doctor's companions were stunned, but Discord quickly recovered from his shock. “Gotta hand it to ya, Doc, you've got spunk!” He flew high into the air, laughing madly in anticipation of triumph. “Oh, the fun we will have!”

“Are you crazy?” Bon Bon whispered. “You can't wager the Elements of Harmony!”

“We'd better not lose, then,” he replied, watching Discord do victory loops in the sky.

“But what if we win and he doesn't hold up his end of the deal?” The Doctor did not answer her.

Discord returned to the ground and faced the six ponies with narrowed eyes. He clapped his hands together, and several things happened at once. Behind him, a massive hedge maze rose from the earth with an almighty quake. Red lightning struck from the empty sky for dramatic effect. The Doctor felt an awful pain in his barrel and fell to his knees.

“Since you've set the stakes, Doc, I think I'll set the rules. So first of all, no wings, no magic—and no extra hearts,” he added, tapping the Doctor on the head. The Doctor rolled on his side to see that Lyra's and Vinyl's horns were missing, as were Derpy's wings.

“Doctor, are you okay?” Bon Bon asked. Derpy ran to his side, not minding her missing wings, and the two of them lifted him to his hooves. He looked back up at Discord and chuckled, despite his weakness.

“What, you can't beat us....” he paused for breath. “If we can fly or use magic? The big chaos god... not up to the challenge of six tiny ponies?”

“Yeah!” Vinyl ignored her own loss and looked Discord straight in the eye. “What kind of all-powerful god needs unfair advantages? You are all-powerful, right?” she jeered. That's the spirit, the Doctor thought. Everyone has a weakness, if you can just exploit it.

“Discord's a coward, Discord's a coward,” Bon Bon sang.

“Oh all right, fine!” Discord scowled, and in an instant the horns, wings, and heart were returned to their respective owners. “Wings, magic, and hearts are okay. Now, the next rule is very simple. See these?” He raised a palm, and above it appeared six familiar floating statues.

“The Elements!” Lyra cried. Discord jerked a thumb behind himself, and the six statues flew into the sky, landing in the maze a few seconds later.

“If you can find those statues, all six of them, you win and the Elements of Harmony are restored. If I can prevent you from finding any one of them, or if any one of you leaves the maze, I win. Understood?”

“Yes.” It was Derpy who replied this time.

“Then it's time for you to start on the maze....” Discord grinned. “Or rather, for the maze to start on YOU!”

The closest hedges of the maze, some fifty feet away, started growing toward the six ponies at an incredible rate. The Doctor recalled Twilight's memories; Discord meant to divide them as he had divided the Elements last time.

“Grab hold of someone now!” he yelled. He grabbed Derpy and pulled her to the ground. He saw Vinyl jump on Octavia before the hedges closed upon them, leaving him and Derpy cut off from the other four in a narrow, hedged corridor.

“Good luck, everypony! Have fun!” Discord flew into the air and vanished, cackling all the while.

“Derpy, are you okay?” Once she'd nodded, the Doctor got off of her and called to the others. “Is everyone okay?”

“Here!” Vinyl was the first to respond. “Octavia's with me!”

“Lyra? Bon Bon? Where are you?”

“I'm here!” yelled Bon Bon, her voice sounding impossibly distant—she seemed a quarter-mile away at least. “Where'd the rest of you go?”

“The maze must have pushed us apart!” The Doctor concentrated, trying to determine where her voice was coming from. She'd been a few feet away from him before the hedges reached them, but now she could be almost anywhere. “Did you feel any sensation of movement?”

“I haven't moved!” she replied. “But Doctor—Lyra isn't with me! She was right here a moment ago!”

“So this maze can separate us without our noticing... Derpy!” He realized almost too late, and turned back to look at Derpy. In the few seconds he'd taken his eyes off of her, she'd been moved about a third of a mile away, almost out of sight. She was just as surprised as he was, as she'd been examining the hedge itself, not looking at him. “Everypony, new rule! Don't take your eyes off of each other, or you'll disappear. Does everyone hear?”

“Loud and clear!” Vinyl replied, as Derpy dashed back to the Doctor's side.

“Yes, Doctor. And Vinyl, would you kindly let me up?” The Doctor heard Vinyl apologize in a tone that was less than contrite. He didn't hear Bon Bon.

“Bon Bon?” he yelled. "Bon Bon?" No response. “The maze must have moved her again!”

“Oh dear, Doc.” The hedge wall in front of him shifted and manifested itself into Discord's giant, smirking face. “Two companions lost in as many minutes. You do seem to have a talent for that...”

Discord's mouth opened wide and turned white—a terrifyingly bright white, pulling the Daleks and the Cybermen in from around the world—and pulling her in as well. She'd lost her grip on the lever and she was falling into the void. There was nothing he could do but watch and scream. “ROOOOOOOOOOOOSE!”

And suddenly it was the TARDIS, but younger than his own; it was clean and shiny white, and in pain. The Cyber-Leader had damaged it and he couldn't make her fly—but he had to. “I must save Adric!” He was a Time Lord, he could do anything—but he couldn't do that. The freighter collided with prehistoric Earth, with Adric still on board. The Doctor stared numbly at the broken fragments of Adric's gold star.

And then the TARDIS at the beginning, when he was as young and as old as he'd ever been. When he still had a family. But he'd made his choice, for better or for worse, and wouldn't let his granddaughter dissuade him no matter how much she pleaded. “One day, I shall come back... yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no tears, no regrets, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs... and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.” And immediately, having decided, he was filled with regrets, with anxieties, with tears. He could hardly hold them back long enough to say his first goodbye. “Goodbye, Susan. Goodbye, my dear....” Did I make the right choice?

“Help!” The yell jolted him out of his memories, and back to the present. It was Octavia, screaming for dear life. “Doctor! Help us! We can't hold on much longer!”

“Somepony? Anypony?” called a clearly desperate Vinyl, from somewhere close in the maze. Where are they?

“Oh, dear.” Discord's mouth returned to just being a hedge. “They must have found one of the bottomless pits I left in here.” He affected the most exaggerated concern possible. “Clumsy old me...”

“Where are they, Discord? TELL ME!”

“We're right here, Doctor!” yelled Octavia. Discord's mouth opened again, and with it the hedge behind. Through that gap the Doctor saw two pairs of hooves—two white, two gray—poking out from a hole in the ground, quivering with exhaustion.

But as the Doctor moved forward, Discord's mouth closed again. “I'm so sorry for your loss, Doc...” He grinned evilly.

“Doctor?” Derpy said.

“NO!” I won't let you take them! He dove at the hedge. He wouldn't let it happen again. He'd burst through, he'd save them—

“No, Doctor!” Derpy wrapped both forelegs around his body, holding him back from the wall. “It's a trick! There's nopony there!”

He struggled against her like a pony possessed, with all his might. “Let go of me! I won't lose them!”

“Listen to me, Doctor! There's nopony on the other side of that wall!” With great difficulty and a great deal of flapping, she pulled him over the wall. There was neither hole nor pony where they landed. “Nopony's... here,” she panted.

He came to his senses, and stopped struggling. “Oh,” he panted, feeling even more tired than Derpy. So that was an illusion too. He forced himself to calm down, then gave her a halfhearted smile. “Thanks for stopping this old fool, then.” Because sometimes I need someone to stop me. His face fell as another of his memories dredged itself up; that of an obnoxious, haughty, brilliant woman who had stopped him when it mattered most—

No. He was doing it again—letting Discord get to him with his past. That was gone now, and he had to focus on the here and now. Let go, you maudlin old fool.

Derpy saw his face falling and smiled at him. “Just promise not to off run like—” She stopped to correct herself. “To run off like that, okay? Rule one?”

He nodded and sighed. “Okay. But we are going to find them, somehow... but how?” She flapped her wings a few times. “I just need to think—we can't even see them in these narrow passageways.” She flapped her wings more insistently. “Maybe if we—”

“Doctor.” Derpy rolled her eyes and jerked her head toward her still-flapping wings.

“Ohhhhhh.” After a few seconds: “Are you sure you can fly with me, then?”

“Let's find out,” she grunted, grabbing him once more and jumping into the air.

“Two hearts! Can you believe it?” Vinyl and Octavia, who had not fallen into a bottomless pit, trudged down the corridor. “Anyway, you said that you saw this Doctor guy backstage, right? What actually happened there? And what about when Discord showed up—why didn't you run away, or something? Well, I guess it wouldn't have helped—but why not warn me?”

“And come to think of it,” she continued, “why'd he even come to our concert anyway? Just so he could be on the radio and tell everypony he was back? Oh, I bet that is why! But how'd he come back in the first place—” Oh crap. She realized that Octavia had opened her mouth four or five times, only for Vinyl to cut her off. “Um, you were gonna say something?”

Octavia spoke through clenched teeth: “Why. Are. You. Talking. So. Much.”

“Uh, something to do, I guess. Oh, and so you can't lose track of me, like the Doctor said.”

“I could just keep looking at you—”

“And this way, you know I haven't been Discorded!” Vinyl finished.

“You'd be gray if you were 'Discorded',” Octavia pointed out. “So that's not really a good reason.”

“Hey, good point! Well, I guess it's because—”

“Vinyl!” Octavia looked just about ready to burst with frustration. “Take the hint.” Ohhhh. Stupid, stupid, stupid me. She shut up.

A few minutes later, she was still shut up, despite how much she hated the silence. It was eerie in the maze, not knowing where she was or where to go. Only their quiet hoof-falls broke the silence—not nearly enough noise to distract Vinyl from the eeriness. She tried imagining all the things she would say, to see if that would help. Can I please talk, please please please—I can tell jokes! The worst ones I know—those are the funniest! So a pony walks into a bar, and the bartender says “Hey, why the long face?” And the pony says... It wasn't helping.

Crack. The two ponies nearly jumped out of their skins at the sound. Then came a weird set of snipping noises, the source of which Vinyl couldn't locate for the life of her. She looked all around in a panic. I take it back! Silence was fine!

“You always do this kind of thing, you know.” Octavia broke the silence again.

“What sort of thing—”

“There! You did it again! You never listen to me, you never give me a chance to talk, you're always so insensitive, and you never say thanks. That concert we were doing? I built it from the ground up, and you never thanked me!” Did she get Discorded while I wasn't looking? Vinyl thought. She looked almost the same last time he got her... But her bowtie was still pink. It was still the real Octavia saying these things.

“And you've never mentioned anything I've done for you! All the hard work, all the money I spent—I bought you a new guitar with my money, Vinyl! My money! Just so you could have a chance of sounding decent on stage—and you never even said tha—ank you! You're a terrible friend!” Vinyl tried to respond, but she was too stunned to speak.

“You know what? Discord was right. You reall—ly have been using me just to get ahe—head. Do you have anything to say to that?” Octavia jerked her head away. Vinyl almost turned away too, but something wasn't right.

“That's really how you feel?” Vinyl asked, her mind racing. There's something wrong with her, besides the meanness. Something's up with her.... She couldn't put her hoof on it.

“Absolute—lutely.” With her voice. What's wrong with her voice? Vinyl couldn't remember the last time she'd heard Octavia stutter like that. It's almost like she's... fighting her own words. But all she had was a hunch; she had to be sure. Maybe if I tell her something really really shocking, I can force a real reaction out of her... but what?

After a few seconds of blank staring and furious thinking, she had the perfect idea and didn't like it one bit. Well, she was gonna find out sooner or later, she rationalized. “So I guess now would be a bad time to let you know that you kinda... sorta... don't have an apartment anymore?”

“Mmm?” Octavia didn't move one muscle of her body. She kept the same disdainful expression on her face, and her lips were sealed. So what's with the 'mmm'?

Vinyl circled around Octavia to look her in the eyes. “It was a dark and stormy afternoon... hang on, it was yesterday! Wow, time really flies when you're fighting Discord.” She put a special emphasis on the last three words.

“Mm-mm!” The faintest sounds of affirmation came from behind Octavia's lips. I knew it. Keep fighting, Octy.

“Anyway, dark stormy afternoon, about four o'clock, and you're out at the store doing something, I don't know what. Anyway, Derpy comes with the mail, and doesn't destroy anything, so I really should be thinking already that something's wrong, ha ha...” That was weak, Vinyl. You're better than that. “But whatever, back to the mail, let's see here: bill, bill, spam, bill, eviction notice? So I look inside—”

“You opened my mail?” There was anger in those words, but it sounded forced. Octavia's eyes started moving, no longer narrowed in contempt but wide and panicked.

“Sent to my address! I thought I was getting kicked out! But no, it was for you. Your jerk of a landlord must have found out you were staying at my place before the concert, and didn't have the guts to tell you in person.”

“What do you care, anyway,” Octavia muttered, jerking her head away.

“Tavi, why didn't you tell me you haven't made rent in four months?” Vinyl moved again to look Octavia in the eyes. “I went right inside and looked at how much money you spent on the concert. I checked all the receipts for amps and lights and crew—that was way more than four months of rent. Why didn't you tell me?”

For a moment, Octavia was back. “I didn't want you to—” But then she snarled: “You wouldn't care!”

“And then,” Vinyl continued, not letting Octavia look away, “you get back about six-ish, and you've got that awesome guitar for the concert. And we joke about it, and I rib you and you rib me—you totally rib me any chance you get, don't deny it—and I don't say anything about you getting evicted, because how do you say that? After you're asleep I check the trash for the receipt on that guitar: another half a month, Octy. Another half a month's rent gone, and there you were joking around like it was no big deal. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I—you're still a—”

“Terrible friend, yeah, I know.” Octavia was in spasms, her own mind trying to fight off Discord's control. Vinyl bobbed and weaved around her just to keep eye contact. “You're right, Tavi—I never did say thank you. I forgot... no, not just that, I didn't just forget. I always figured you were... well, rich, being a cellist and playing in Canterlot and Manehattan and everywhere. I never realized how much you were giving up, but that's no excuse. So if you want to stop being my friend, that's fine, but there's something I need to say first.”

Octavia's body tried to jerk away, but Vinyl was too fast. She grabbed her friend in a tight hug and ran her hooves through Octavia's mane. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you and... and what the hell is this?” Her hoof ran into something she could not see on top of Octavia's head. It feels like a... string? No, a wire. Like a wire for a.... She looked skyward to see Discord floating high above them, holding a giant wooden cross over Octavia. Puppet.

Vinyl's magic rose with her anger. Her horn glowed bright blue, as did the invisible wires that had latched onto Octavia. But now they were visible by their outline—an outline that began to vibrate faster and faster, producing an ever-louder tone—

Until Vinyl snarled, and with a final surge of magic the strings shredded into a thousand pieces. Without the extra support of the wires, Octavia collapsed to the ground and pulled Vinyl down on top of her. Octavia gasped for breath, now that she had full control of her mouth again. A mouth that was very close to Vinyl's own.

“Well, at least some of us are having fun.” The two of them looked over to see the Doctor and Derpy wearing huge grins a few feet away.

Octavia's cheeks could have lit a stage—mood lighting, Vinyl supposed. “This isn't what it looks like—” she spluttered.

“Aww, can it be?” Vinyl interjected, making kissy noises with her mouth.

Several long seconds of silence followed; a seeming eternity of straight faces. Then Derpy's failed, and she made the tiniest little snort. Octavia giggled. The Doctor chuckled. Vinyl laughed. Before she knew it they were all laughing at the top of their lungs. Vinyl rolled off of Octavia in her mirth, but it was nothing compared to Octavia's; she pounded the dirt with her hoof in hysterics.

This seemed like odd behavior too, but after a moment Vinyl figured out why. Polite chuckles, restrained giggles, and so on were how Octavia expressed humor. I've never heard her laugh like this before. And I love it.

“No, that's COMPLETELY wrong!” The marionette's cross crashed into the ground next to them, followed closely by a fuming Discord. “You were supposed to tell DJ Wonderwub all those awful truths, and you were supposed to believe them and give up on your friendship! What kind of lousy puppets are you?” Vinyl barely heard him, and doubted Octavia had at all. “Stop laughing and listen to me! And you two! How long have you been here?”

“Long—long enough,” the Doctor gasped, coming to the end of his own hysterics. “And you didn't notice the two of us flying in at all, did you? Weren't you supposed to be all-powerful or something?”

Discord snarled. “Or...” the Doctor continued, "You're finding me a bit less appetizing now, is that it? Not enough chaos to feed on? Getting over my personal demons a bit quickly for ya, you great ugly winged horned thing you?”

“Why, you—” Discord began.

“Now hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm sure what you're going to do will be very impressive, but before you do, a bit of a progress update. Derpy?” The Doctor turned to Derpy, who'd recovered by now too. Vinyl had also calmed down, and even Octavia was in the last phase of her hysterics. “Did we find anything interesting while we were flying over the maze?”

“We found a Rarity and a Pinkie Pie!”

“That's right!” the Doctor exclaimed, returning his gaze to the increasingly frustrated Discord. “The Element of Generosity and a whole lotta Laughter—we're a third of the way there. Don't believe us? Check our minds! And we've found two of our friends, so I'd say we're doing pretty well, wouldn't you?” The Doctor paused, as if a sudden thought had come into his head. “You know what I think? You might even lose the game!” Discord bared his teeth in a snarl. “How does that feel?”

Discord glowered at him and raised his claw. “It feels like it's time for a reversal, Doctor. See ya.” He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash. The ground in front of the Doctor shook.

Derpy realized what was happening quicker than the Doctor, and yelled “We'll find you—” Then a new hedge burst from the soil, cutting her voice and the two groups off.

“Doctor!” Octavia pulled herself to her hooves and rushed to the wall. “Are you still there?”

“Probably not.” Vinyl blew at some hair that had fallen over her glasses. “But they'll find us again, like Derpy said.”

“I hope so.” The two ponies sat in silence next to each other, staring at the thick hedge wall. After about a minute of this, she spoke again. “You weren't kidding about my apartment?”

“Wish I was, but no. It's okay,” she continued, hearing what sounded like a sob from Octavia. “It's okay, the ticket sales for the concert were awesome. You'll make rent easy.” Another one of those sounds. “Hey, don't cry.”

“I'm not crying.” What Vinyl had taken for sobs were in fact renewed giggles. “But that was a really funny joke before, when you were on top of me.”

“Oh, who said I was joking?” Vinyl purred, wiggling her eyebrows. “Mrowr.”

“You were joking, right?”

Vinyl heard the alarm in her friend's voice, and hesitated with her response. After a few seconds, she decided to say the safe thing. “Yeah, yeah, fine. I was joking.”

Octavia relaxed. “Okay. You had me going there for a moment.” Yeah, I'm a real kidder.

They started walking away from the dead end. “You know...” Octavia began, a few minutes later. “Oh, nevermind. We've got statues to find.”

“Hey, you can't leave me hanging like that! Come on, what is it?”

“Well, it's a strange thought to have now, but... before I met you, I think I would have hated a joke like the one you made. Especially with everything that's happening right now.”

“Mare, you were dumb back then.” Vinyl chuckled. “Right now's the kind of time when you need a good laugh the most, when you're feeling down. Hey, do you know any jokes?”

Octavia hesitated. “I might, but... they're pretty terrible jokes.”

“Perfect. Could you tell me some, please?”

“All right, I did warn you... so, let's see.” Octavia took a moment to collect herself. “So, a pony walks into a bar—I mean an alcoholic bar, actually, just to clear that up. And the bartender, who's there because it's his shift, I suppose, asks the pony—the other pony, that is... he, the bartender, asks the other pony 'Why the long face? I mean longer than normal, because you're a pony and you already have a naturally long face.'”

She was silent for a few seconds, and then ventured, “And, um, that's the joke. How was it?”

Vinyl had been snorting and chuckling for several seconds already. “Pretty darn good.”

“How was my delivery?”

“It was... eh, it was fine. Got any others?”

Cares forgotten, Vinyl continued to crack up as Octavia continued to mangle jokes beyond all recognition.

SPIDER! Lyra shrieked and shook her back leg as hard as she could to get the little creature off—Nevermind. That was my hair brushing against my skin. I hate it when that happens. She resumed walking down the incline, glad nopony had seen that.

“Eh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...”

She nearly jumped out of her skin at Discord's laughter, and whipped her head around as fast as she could to find the source. “Where are you?” she whispered, seeing nothing but hedge, dirt, and sky.

Boom.

She jerked her head around again and saw the tiniest hint of a shadow approaching from the end of the corridor. It was more than enough for her to bolt downhill.

Boom. Boom.

But she wasn't fast enough. She could have sworn the shadow was getting closer...

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The corridor turned to the right and so did she, only to skid to a halt. Dead end. She jumped back out to see if there were any other exits uphill from her. There! It was maybe twenty yards away from her, probably less. But what if the whatever-it-is gets there first? What if there are more like it? What do I do, what do I do?

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

She squeaked a little and retreated into the dead end, waiting for the worst. Twenty seconds later, when the worst hadn't come, she smacked herself in the face. “You could have made it!” she scolded herself. But now it was too late. The noise was almost to her hidey-hole. She held her breath and kept as still as possible.

Boom. Boom.

It stopped, maybe two yards from her hiding place. She waited a few more seconds before exhaling. “Okay Lyra, you need to see what's around that corner. On your mark, get set... go!” She failed to move.

“Oh come on!” She shrieked again and turned around to see Discord behind her, shouting to the sky in disbelief. “Can you believe it? I mean, look at this!” He pushed her into the main corridor, and she saw what she'd been fleeing: a gigantic multicolored slinky, probably as wide and twice as tall as herself, resting on its base just a few feet away. “It almost got all the way down—I was gonna get the world record!”

“How did you... it wasn't even that steep,” she mumbled. I just ran away from a slinky.

“Skill and practice, my dear. Skill and practice. Look out behind you!” She shrieked again, jumped out of her skin and looked around to see—nothing at all. Discord clutched his sides in his hysterics. “Oh, who needs a slinky when I've got you to play with?”

“Stop it!” Lyra yelled. “I hate doing that!”

“Which is why I love doing this!” He snapped his fingers and a giant bolt of lightning struck not two feet from her hoof. She jerked away, only to jump again when another bolt just missed her tail.

“Let's face it, you're the biggest scaredy-cat on the planet—and believe me, I've checked. So at least one of us has a record.” Lyra felt a ribbon appear around her neck, and looked down to see a gold 'World's #1 Coward' medal hanging from it. “And the best part is, a lot of cowards have some sort of 'hidden courage' just waiting to be revealed—but you!” He poked her nose for emphasis. “You're a coward through and through! More of a yellow-belly than that pegasus from last time with an actual yellow belly!”

Lyra gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes. That's what brave ponies do, right? “I'm not a coward.” She ripped the medal off her neck and threw it away. I can be brave. I can do this.

“Oh, sure you're not... BOO!” He jumped right in front of her face, and she shrieked—again—and fell over. The medal reappeared around her neck as she hit the ground. “I can't believe I ever wanted to change you!” he laughed. “I mean, the others, sure, but you're perfect the way you are! A useless coward!” He dove into the slinky, which vanished with him.

Lyra pulled the medal off her neck once more. “I'm not a coward!” she yelled, but no one was there to listen. “I'm not!” Maybe a little, she admitted. She began walking again, trying to reassure herself. “You can do this, Lyra. You can be brave.” She felt something on her leg, but tried to ignored it. “Just my hair, like always,” she muttered.

A moment later, she realized it was a real spider this time. Taking great care not to shriek, she shook the tiny thing off. “Okay, just a small one. Small ones are fine.”

She turned another corner and saw a swarm of spiders the size of basketballs crawling toward her. Their eyes glowed red, their mandibles made little chattering noises, and the way their legs moved—

She promptly started running the other way. And shrieked. Again.

“We'll find you—” Derpy began, before the hedge wall burst up between them and Vinyl and Octavia.

The Doctor's smile turned into a snarl, but Derpy was too quick for him. Before he could lunge at the hedge, she grabbed him and hoisted him into the air, letting him take a look at the other side. Vinyl and Octavia had already disappeared.

The two dropped back down to earth. The Doctor yelled in frustration and bucked into the hedge wall.

“We'll find they.” Derpy gave him a smile, then frowned at her mistake. “Them, I mean, we'll find them—oh, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I know.”

“But you keep letting Discord get to you. You know he's trying to mess with you, right?”

“I know, I know, it's just...” He turned around and faced the sky. Derpy looked up too, and for a while they watched the negative clouds race through the air. Finally, he sighed and dropped to the ground. “The thing is, Derpy... how old do you think I am?”

She sat down as well, glad for a rest but uncertain where he was going. “You don't look that old....” Then: “But you are, aren't you. You really are.”

“Picked up on that, then?” In truth, Derpy wasn't quite sure what she had picked up on; she just knew that he had to be older than he appeared. She wondered how she knew. “I'm nine hundred and seven years old, give or take. And I've had a lot of friends over those years, some of the best friends anyone could ask for.”

“But they can't stay with you forever.”

“That's right.” Derpy didn't need to wonder any more; she could see the nine hundred years' worth of fatigue on his face. She couldn't imagine mistaking him for a young stallion. “No one lives as long as me anymore—but I think I've managed to accept that. If that were all....” He hesitated, then continued in a rush, like the words were being forced from him. “I hurt them, Derpy. I take friends with me and try to show them all the beauty and wonder the universe has to offer, and I end up hurting them instead. Every time.”

“No, you can't do that every time.”

“I'm an extraordinary man.” He paused, then amended, “Well, I suppose I'm an extraordinary stallion now.” A weak smile played across his face. “But people have died because of me—for me, because of me, either way. Those memories Discord showed before—that's the kind of thing that happens to my friends.” He sighed. “And now it's all gone.”

“How do you mean?”

“When I got here, I... hold on, I never did explain how I got here, did I?” A quizzical expression entered into his features.

“I heard you yelling about 'regeneration energy' in the statue garden, but I kind of thought you were just a crazy pony back then.” Derpy shrugged. “I mean, I still do, but good-crazy.”

“Well, first of all, guilty as charged. Second of all, regeneration is what happens when a Time Lord like me is about to die—I don't die, I change.”

“Change what?”

“Everything. My face, my body, my personality. In a way, it saves my life—the Doctor lives—but the Tenth Doctor dies. I was selfish, and I was afraid, and I put it off for as long as possible, the energy built and built in my body, and wham.” He raised a hoof and punched it into the hedge beside him. “This man was blown out of his home universe and into yours.”

“And you helped release Discord.” The Doctor winced. “Sorry, but it's true, isn't it.”

“That's the kind of thing that can happen when you travel between universes. Which shouldn't even be possible anymore, but like I said—extraordinary stallion. There's still a hole in your world, and I'll need to close it before it does any more damage, if we make it through this.”

“We're gonna make it through this, Doctor,” she insisted. “Trust me.”

After a moment, a wan smile entered his face. It was enough for her to relax. “I trust you. Believe me, you've given me enough reason to trust you. I just wish I could understand you.”

“What do you mean?” The Doctor shrugged, and Derpy's mind caught up with him. “Oh, the thing with flying the TARDIS... I don't know, it's just so... I know I've never met you in my life, I've never time-traveled or anything, I'm just dumb old Derpy the mail-klutz. How can I be....” She rubbed her head, feeling a headache coming on.

“Not that, don't worry about that. I want to know why you found me again.”

“I don't know how, Doctor, I just... knew where the TARDIS was somehow, and....” Her headache got worse as she tried to make sense of it all.

“No, not how—forget about how—why.” Finally she understood. “You could have flown anywhere, hidden anywhere, and you decided to come back instead. Why?”

“Hiding doesn't make Discord go away.”

“Most ponies would do it anyway.”

She snorted. “Then most ponies are dumb.”

“Then what about your other friends? Why not go to help them instead?” Derpy looked at the ground in response. “You're kidding,” he said in a tone of honest confusion. “A brilliant pony like you?”

“No, I have friends, just... I guess you wouldn't call them PFFs.” He still looked confused, so she explained: “Pony friends forever.”

“And I am? After just meeting you?”

“No. Yes. Well, maybe, but...” She stopped and tried to get it straight in her head. “Okay, here's the thing. When I meet a new pony, sooner or later every single one asks the same question. It doesn't matter how we meet, or who they are, they always ask: 'What's wrong with your eyes?' And I know they've been waiting to ask the whole time we've been talking, 'cause they're never looking me in the eyes. And you know what? They can't manage it either, after.”

Another mess-up. She cringed, but true to form, he didn't seem to notice. He just kept looking at her, waiting for her to continue. Nevertheless, she paused to make sure she'd get the next sentence right—she wanted to say exactly what she meant. “But then I met you, and you just talked to me like a normal pony, and took me seriously, and looked me in the eyes.”

Derpy watched his face and saw dawning comprehension, and a little confusion too—like he hadn't realized there could be an alternative. She didn't know how to express what that meant to her, but she could try. With a little bubble of a laugh she stood up and offered him a hoof. “And then you told me to run away and forget about you? How?”

He accepted the offer and pulled himself to his hooves. “I didn't want you to get hurt.”

“And I don't want you to let Discord hurt you either. So I guess we're friends already, right?”

Without hesitation: “Definitely.” A real smile brightened his face once more, pushing away the nine hundred years of pain he'd been wearing.

She pulled him into a hug. “You haven't hurt me yet, Doctor. Now hold on tight.”

“Thanks... wait, are you going to carry me again!” His last syllable turned into a yelp as she hoisted him into the red sky.

Stay tuned: Discord and the Doctor—Part 2 will resume in just a moment.

Discord and the Doctor – Part 2 (b)

We now return to Discord and the Doctor—Part 2.

“Lyra?” Bon Bon was beginning to despair of finding her friend. The rational portion of her brain reminded her of the last thing she'd heard from the Doctor; the maze separated ponies without their noticing. Discord would never let her see Lyra again, except maybe to trick and break her. Therefore, as her rational side concluded, she should give up worrying about Lyra and focus on self-preservation.

Which was why she was ignoring the rational part of her brain. “Lyra! Can you hear me?” Her emotional side took precedence and ordered to find her friend. She'd let that stupid Doctor drag them into this mess, and as Celestia was her witness she would get Lyra out of it or never forgive herself. “Lyra, yell as loud as you can!”

Still nothing. “Lyra! Where are you!”

After minutes of yelling through the maze, she was finally rewarded. “Bon Bon!”

“Lyra! Keep yelling!” The voice she'd heard was faint, and Bon Bon couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It's a trick, she thought. Shut up, she thought. She skidded to a stop and closed her eyes.

“Bon Bon! Here!” Concentrate... “I'm here!” Bingo! She turned to the voice's source and opened her eyes to find the thick hedge in her way, filled with thorns, spikes, and cartoonish bombs. It extended as far as she could see in both directions, with no gaps or passageways cutting through it.

Only one way left to go, then. Bon Bon wound up and jumped as high as she could, just managing to get her forelegs on top of the hedge. She dug her back legs in and struggled up to the top. “Lyra! I'm coming!” she yelled as loudly as she could, given how winded she was. She gathered her weight beneath her haunches—quavering a bit as the hedge swayed below her—and leaped to the next hedgerow.

“Bon Bon! Help me!” She's closer! Bon Bon sped up, jumping over the next corridor and the next. From hedgerow to hedgerow she went, trying to ignore the thorns poking into her hooves.

Then, mid-leap, she saw two massive claws grab the hedge in front of her and pull it far out of reach. You knew this was going to happen. She braced herself for a crash landing, but instead found no ground beneath her, only an endless chasm that seemed to go down forever, getting darker and darker and darker... until she landed smack on her face in a bed of gravel.

“Aaaaaand she sticks the landing! YEAH!” Bon Bon groaned and lifted her head from the ground to see Discord in front of her, holding a giant scorecard with a bold '10'. One of his claws had a sock puppet of Lyra on it. “Good job, Bon Bon! You found me!” it said with Lyra's voice.

And you really, really knew this would happen. Bon Bon struggled to her hooves and began to look for a way out, but the gravel bed was completely surrounded by more hedges. Well, if it worked once.... She tried to jump to the top of the hedge, but she was too tired and the ground didn't offer enough traction. Down she fell, the air knocked from her lungs once more.

“Awww, leaving so soon? And here I just wanted to congratulate you!” She stared resolutely at the hedge wall. “Oh come on, you've gotta admit that was pretty amazing back in Ponyville. You actually managed to fool me with some cheap acting and body paint! So bravissimo! Molto bene!” She turned around, startled to hear the Doctor's voice—and then even more startled when she didn't see the Doctor.

“Well, like, uh, how do I, like, look?” 'Bon-Bon' simpered. “Ah mean, ah went to all the trouble ta change mah form—it'd be a rahght shame if ya didn't appreciate tha hard work, sugarcube.” It was the worst impression the real Bon Bon had ever heard.

“What are you doing?”

“Only what we always do,” 'she' said, returning to Bon Bon's normal voice. “Impersonations are our forte, aren't they? Our special talent? Well, at least that's what we like to tell ourselves.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?” Bon Bon turned away. I'm not listening to this.

“Don't kid yourself, sugarcube.” Some of Discord's voice began creeping in to 'Bon Bon's'. “We both know how well that strategy's been working for you these past few years. Don't you get tired, keeping up the facade? Don't you wish you could stop? I can help.”

“What facade?”

“Fine, I'll spell it out for you: Y-O-U. You're the facade, the pony who's lied so much to everypony including herself that when you strip it all down...” A seam appeared in 'Bon Bon's' face, growing wider and wider until it split her whole body down the middle. The two halves fell away like a shredded balloon. “There's nothing there.”

Bon Bon looked around frantically for the now-disembodied voice. “You're nothing! Nothing but a bitter little pile of lies! No wonder nopony can even stand you!”

“Shut up!” she screeched, clamping a hoof over each ear.

“If you want my advice... you should try being a bit sweeter. Or haven't you noticed where you're standing?” Bon Bon looked down at the gravel—but how had she not realized that it wasn't gravel? She was standing on millions of pieces of individually wrapped candy. The same kind of candy as her cutie mark.

“Stop! Please stop!”

“Give in, Bon Bon. Do what you were always meant to do, and smile!” Bon Bon sank to the ground in despair. “No no no, I said SMILE!”

Bon Bon felt her lips move. No. No no no no no! She couldn't stop it, and even as she started crying, the corners of her mouth slowly pulled upward. But she wasn't sad anymore. She was happy! So so happy that she felt like laughing! “Heeheehee! Hahahahaha! Woooooohooohahahahaha!” The tears were still on her cheeks, and Lyra was still in danger, but the important thing was how cheerful she was! She just felt like sharing that with everypony she could find! Not that she'd be able to find anypony, but who cared!

“Sounds like a plan! Get to work, kiddo!” Discord knocked down the walls holding her in, and Bon Bon skipped away. “And don't you EVER make a fool out of me.”

“You're too skinny to be this heavy,” Derpy grunted, clutching the Doctor with slightly shaky legs.

“Time Lord physiology, can't be helped.” Being carried made him a bit winded as well, though not as badly as Derpy. Thankfully, neither of them were sweating much; he felt precarious enough without the threat of a slippery grip.

“Stupid physimolology.”

“It has its advantages. Can you see that pony in the distance?”

“No.”

“I can, and I think it's Bon Bon...” He trailed off as he was carried closer, and realized what he was looking at. All he could manage for the moment was a small, “Oh no.”

“What?”

“Let me down here.” She sighed in relief, and dropped him fifteen feet above the dirt. “Not that faaaaaaaast—” His yell was cut off as he crashed into the ground, just managing to stay on all four hooves. Blimey, talk about literal minded. “Just stay close to me,” he cautioned as she landed beside him, and they began to walk.

After half a minute or so of walking, Derpy finally gasped in recognition. “Oh, there she is! Bon Bon!” she yelled.

Bon Bon, who had just entered Derpy's range of vision, turned around and waved cheerfully. “Hi there, Derpy! Hi there, Doctor!” Too cheerfully. She started trotting toward them.

“Bon Bon?” Derpy and the Doctor broke into a canter. “Bon Bon, are you all... right?” Derpy's sentence died on her lips as they got close enough for her to see Bon Bon properly as well.

“You bet! And we've found each other, so everything's going to be a-okay from now on!” There wasn't a bit of color left in her. From head to hoof she was completely grayed out, giving her a drab look that was utterly wrong compared with how she was acting.

They reached each other, and Bon Bon sat down on her haunches, still maintaining that sugary disposition. “Bon Bon, you're not acting again, are you?” the Doctor asked, only half-hopeful.

Bon Bon tilted her head to the side in puzzlement. “Acting? How could I be acting? I'm not an actress! Look!” She tapped at her cutie mark in explanation—three wrapped pieces of candy. No paint was coming off at her tapping, vanquishing the Doctor's faint hope. “Is that the kind of cutie mark an actress would have?”

“Bon Bon, you've been Discorded,” Derpy pointed out. “Think about it—he completely reversed your personality. Doesn't that bother you?”

Bon Bon hooted. “Reversed? Are you kidding, you silly pony? I was broken and he fixed me! I used to be such a meany-mean meany-pants! I used to be soooooo stubborn! But isn't this so much better? Aren't you happy now?”

“Fine! Fine.” And I thought she was annoying before. The Doctor started to walk past her. “Sure, we're happy we found you. Now we just need to find Lyra, Vinyl and Octavia.”

Bon Bon put a leg out in front of him, stopping him from proceeding. “Oh, don't worry about them.” Her smile remained utterly happy and gleeful and—now that he looked at it—not really a smile at all. It was as if hooks were pulling back the corners of her mouth. “Discord's probably crushed their spirits or something, and we'll never find them in this maze anyway, so why bother?”

“Because they're your friends. Lyra's your friend!” Derpy pleaded.

“That's right! So what?”

“She could be in trouble right now, and you don't care!”

“Discord gave me the serenity to accept what I can't change!” Bon Bon retorted. “And we're never gonna find Lyra or anypony—or anypony else! The whole world's doomed to chaos a—and destruction! So why worry—worry about it?”

The Doctor turned on her and looked her right in the eyes. “Because deep down inside your head, the real Bon Bon's clawing her way out. Can't you hear her? And if I know her at all, she's not going to let you stop her.”

“Can't you see, Doctor? I am the real Bon Bon, Bon BonBonBon!” Her smile remained unchanged, but there was something crumbling behind her eyes. She raised her front hooves and spun around in apparent glee. “No lies, no worries! I d—don't have to lie an—anymore! A—and I feel f—fi... I—I—I—I—I...” She fell to all fours, and now her smile didn't seem as grotesque. Come back, Bon Bon. Come back, you rude, stubborn, deceptive, brilliant mare. She tumbled to the ground and began to laugh hysterically, rolling around in the dirt. “Ahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Haha... huhhh. Ahahahah... ahuhuhuhuhuhuh...”

The laughter was gone, and she was sobbing in the dirt. “Ahuhuhuhuh...” As Derpy and the Doctor watched, the color returned to her, starting at the eyes and radiating through her whole body. “Ahuhuhuhuhuh...” The Doctor bent down to comfort her, but she planted her hooves on his chest and pushed him away. “Don't TOUCH me!” she bawled.

He and Derpy knew what she really meant, and both bent down beside her. “I knew you'd come back,” he said. This time, she didn't resist. “The real you.”

“That was the real me.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it wasn't,” Derpy insisted.

“It's as close as you've ever seen,” Bon Bon snapped, her tears now reduced to sobs.

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked, ignoring the barb for her sake.

She reached down and tapped her cutie mark, just as she'd done before. “You know what a cutie mark is, right?” Bon Bon sniffed. After a second, Derpy's eyes widened in realization; the Doctor was not so fortunate.

“Not really, but just from context...” The Doctor thought for a moment. Lyra thought my hourglass cutie mark meant I could time travel. Vinyl and Octavia are musicians with musical cutie marks. “I guess it's got something to do with your talents.”

“You think it's just 'something to do with'—no, your cutie mark tells you how you're supposed to live your life. It's what you're best at, your innate talent. How you become happy with your life. But if you won't live up to your talent.... Don't you get it?”

And finally, the Doctor did. “You don't make sweets for a living, do you?”

“My mom taught me how to bake when I was a kid, and I was so sure that it was my special talent—and then I was right, it was. Making sweets.” She laughed—bitterly, not gleefully, to the Doctor's relief. “You get your cutie mark when you're a kid and it's there for the rest of your life, and that was fine. I really did like it for a while—I still do, a bit. But then I found something I liked even more.”

“Acting.”

“Right. And it made me feel so much happier, and I thought, how could I ever go back to baking? So I practiced acting, and impersonations. And by Celestia I'm very good at it, even if it isn't my 'special talent'.” She pulled herself to her hooves and dusted herself off, a wry smile now on her face. “I've been impersonating a sane pony for years, and almost nopony's ever noticed.”

“What about Lyra?”

“I said almost.” She finished wiping the tears off her face, and strode past them. “You've probably figured this out by now, but she's really smart.”

“Pulling a TARDIS out of thin air? Yeah, I suppose I'd agree with you.”

“She was my roommate in college, and it didn't take four hours after she met me before she figured it out.” She switched into Lyra's voice—“You've got the wrong cutie mark! It doesn't match up!”—then laughed in her own. “And most ponies never notice.”

“Maybe she could figure out mine too,” Derpy cut in.

“Yours?”

“Bet you don't know what it means.”

“Well, it's... I don't really know, actually. Is it...” Bon Bon stopped in her tracks and frowned in puzzlement. “It's not your bubbly personality, is it?”

“Because you're so sweet, right?” Derpy said. Bon Bon conceded the point with a chuckle.

“Bubble wrap?" the Doctor suggested. Bon Bon gave him a weird look. "Vinyl said she delivers mail, right? Bubble wrap... packages... you know?”

Derpy frowned. “You did hear the rest of Vinyl what was saying, right? How I can hardly day a go without breaking something? I'm not that good a mailpony.”

“All right, I give up.” Bon Bon shrugged. “What does it mean?”

“I don't know.”

The Doctor had once seen a genetically scrambled scientist open his mouth horribly wide to devour life energy. Bon Bon's jaw didn't drop quite that much, but it was a close thing. “You don't know?” she stammered. “How can you not know what your cutie mark means?”

“How can you know what your cutie mark means and do something completely different?” At this, Bon Bon shrugged again, as if to say 'good point'. “But it's true,” Derpy continued, “I have no idea. I've tried a lot of odd jobs, and nothing ever matches up with it.”

“And nopony ever noticed.”

The Doctor noted that Bon Bon wasn't asking, but Derpy ignored the implied olive branch. “Well, maybe if you weren't so focused on my eyes.”

“If I wasn't? I try to be nice and—” Bon Bon cut herself off. “You're right. I've probably made more cracks about the stupid mailmare than anypony else.” She took a deep breath, then said, “I'm sorry.”

Derpy's eyes widened. “Wow... really?”

“No, this is a spiteful ploy on my part to twist the knife deeper—yes, really, I'm sorry! I said some mean things and I'm sorry about it, okay?” Derpy still looked a bit surprised. “What, nopony's ever apologized to you before about that?”

“No.”

“Wow. That is dumb.”

“Uh, girls?” The Doctor reasserted himself by stepping ahead of the other two. “Sorry to break up the heartfelt conversation, but I think I hear Lyra yelling.”

Instantly all of Bon Bon's attention was on him. “Is she hurt?”

“I don't think—”

“Is she hurt?” Bon Bon bolted ahead, forcing the Doctor and Derpy to speed up as well. Derpy jumped into the air to keep pace.

“She doesn't sound hurt, she sounds....” The Doctor screwed up his face in concentration. “Angry?”

“Why would she be angry?” Derpy asked. “That doesn't sound anything like her—oh.” Realization dawned, and the three of them sped up further.

They turned a corner and skidded to a stop. At the other end of the corridor was a veritable tide of spiders, each one as big as the Doctor's head, making horrible squeaking noises and surging toward them. Bon Bon snarled and planted her feet, ready to defend them. “You two, get behind me, now!” she yelled.

Derpy did as she was told, but the Doctor hesitated. “Bon Bon, something's wrong!”

“Yes, there's a swarm of spiders about to attack us! I'm glad you noticed!”

“Listen to them! They're not attacking us, they're scared!” It was difficult to see, but the spiders were definitely looking past them, not at them.

“What?” Bon Bon looked back at the swarm, and shrieked—the spiders were almost on top of them. She raised her hooves to attack, but suddenly the tide parted. The spiders went around the group, keeping as close to the walls as possible. In a few seconds, they had passed, and their shrieking faded into the distance. Bon Bon took a few shallow breaths, her eyes wide open. “Scared,” she whispered. “Right.”

“Scared of... what of?” Derpy panted.

“AAIIIIIIIIIEEEEE!” Another thing came zipping down the corridor at them: Discord, sounding absolutely terrified with a big smile on his face. He grabbed the Doctor and shook him up and down in apparent panic. “She's crazy I tells ya, crazy! Run for it!” He dropped the Doctor and kept following the spiders, his scream mixing with stifled laughter.

After a few bemused moments, the three of them bolted in the direction of Lyra's screams. None of them spoke, but the Doctor was sure they all knew what they were going to find. And it wasn't long before they did.

“That's right, run! You... spidery coward!” They turned into a clearing, just as a spider limped past them with two of its legs crushed. In front of them, wearing a satisfied grin and looking as gray as they'd feared, was Lyra.

“Oh, the cavalry finally shows up. Some help you were!” Lyra spat on the ground and pointed at a giant lyre standing in the corner of the clearing, holding the shreds of a thick spiderweb. “While you buncha jerks were doing... whatever it is you jerks do, I was here getting covered in spiders!”

“Oh dear Celestia, Lyra—are you okay?” Bon Bon rushed to Lyra's side. In response, Lyra wound up and punched her in the nose. “Lyra!” Bon Bon cried.

“Better than you're gonna be, pal.” Lyra smirked and kicked Bon Bon in the side, sending her to the ground in pain.

“Hey! Don't treat my friend that way!” Derpy dove out of the air and tackled Lyra. Down they went into the dirt, kicking and screaming.

“Derpy, stop it right now!” Bon Bon pleaded. “She's not herself!”

Lyra bit Derpy's wing; she howled and flung Lyra to the side. “Myself?” Lyra laughed, and lunged right back at Derpy, punching her savagely in the eye. “Oh, I'm way better than that wimp!” She raised her hoof to strike again, but the Doctor was behind her; he grabbed her forelegs and pulled her back, holding on as tight as he could against her struggles. “Let go of me!” she snarled. “I wanna beat up Derpy some more!”

“You think this is better?” he asked. “Discord turned you into a sadistic monster and you think that's better?”

“Better than a coward!” Abruptly she bent down and flipped him over onto his back. He managed to exhale just before impact, not wanting the wind knocked out of him for the third time that day. “Which is all I was!” She threw her hoof at him, but he rolled to the side and it went into the dirt.

“That's a lie!” He was on his hooves again, ready for her next attack. “You were brilliant! You called the TARDIS out of thin air! And now you're—” She lunged at him, but he dodged to the side just in time. “Just a crude thug!”

“Well—well at least I'm not scared!” Lyra charged at him horn-first, when suddenly Derpy appeared behind her, grabbed her hind legs, and jumped. In a moment Lyra was upside-down in the air, hanging a foot above the ground.

“Yes—you—are,” Derpy grunted.

“Get off of me!” Lyra yelled. She struggled to reach up and hit Derpy, but didn't have the strength to lift herself.

“You're scared, I'm scared, Bon Bon's certainly scared and the Doctor's scared. Is beating up me going to help?”

“YES!” Lyra yelled, and with an almighty twist she wrenched her hooves from Derpy's grasp. This was a bad idea; she didn't quite get her front legs under herself in time, landed on her forehead, and collapsed to the ground in a daze.

“Lyra!” Bon Bon was beside her instantly. “Are you okay?” Lyra tried to get up, but Derpy landed on her back, immobilizing her.

“Lemme up... wanna hitya summore...” Lyra mumbled into the dirt.

“Doctor, is she okay?” The Doctor ran over to Lyra's side and felt her head for injuries. “She's my best friend in the whole world—please tell me she's okay!”

Lyra looked up at the word 'friend', and mumbled something that sounded like “krch”.

“What?” asked Bon Bon.

“Crutch. Friends're equals... didn't like you, just needed you. Don't needa crutch, I'm stronger now.” She tried and failed to get her legs underneath herself.

“You needed me?” Bon Bon smiled. “Well, I need you too. The real you.”

“The useless me. The scared me.”

“The sympathetic you. The you who's willing to let it go when I'm in a bad mood. Who's always coming up with crazy new ideas. Who listens to me even when I'm being a huge....” Bon Bon snorted. “Well, it starts with a 'b'.”

“You're always a huge b.”

“The queen b, and everyone knows you can only have one of those.” Her expression softened once more. “But being your friend is like a daily lesson in being... me. Not a jerk, not crazy, just normal, and I don't know what I'd do without that. Please come back, Lyra...” And she pushed Derpy off, pulled Lyra up, and hugged her.

For a moment Lyra struggled. Then the color started at her back, returning her body to the mint-green it had been before.

Lyra exhaled suddenly, and heaved a few quick breaths, her eyes wide and her body tense. “I'm still scared,” she whispered.

“That's what we're here for.” Bon Bon's smile was more earnest than the Doctor had yet seen it.

“But you're all scared too....”

The Doctor recalled something he'd said a long time ago. “'Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.'”

Lyra let go of Bon Bon, and only then noticed the various cuts and bruises on the other ponies. “I did that? Ohnonononono I am so sorry!”

“Don't mention it,” the Doctor interrupted, patting her on the back, then pulling her to her hooves. “Hell of a throwing leg you've got there. Now come on, everyone, let's get moving before—”

“CUT!”

“That.” The Doctor gritted his teeth as Discord appeared in a blinding flash in front of them, wearing a beret and circular black glasses.

“What in my name is wrong with you ponies?” he yelled, speaking into a comical conical megaphone labeled 'DISCORD' for extra volume. “I mean, it was going great, with the wonderful choreography on the fight scene, and the emotional torque, and then it was like you all forgot your motivations! Okay, recap time.” He pointed at each pony in turn. “You're the manic-depressive with a hero complex; you're the mailmare who can't get anything right; you're the former coward who's decided to get serious, and you're the—” He abruptly stopped upon reaching Bon Bon, took off his glasses, rubbed them on his beret, put them back on, and continued not talking for several seconds. His mouth widened in shock. “You're the wrong color.”

“You noticed!” Bon Bon put on an incredibly thin smile.

“But—you couldn't have—I—arrrrgh!” Discord screamed into his megaphone, creating a deafening wave of sound.

“Run!” the Doctor yelled. The four of them ran out of the clearing and away from Discord. Make Discord angry: check. I hope I didn't overdo it....

Then Discord started laughing. The four of them didn't stop running, but they slowed down. “Ignore him,” Bon Bon insisted, taking the lead while the Doctor, Lyra, and Derpy followed behind. It took a few seconds for the Doctor to realize that the laughter wasn't getting closer: Discord wasn't following them.

“GOTCHA!” He continued laughing for a few seconds, before stopping as abruptly as he'd begun. His tone became serious. “You know what's funny, don't you? The way you're running away from me! Like I'm the most dangerous thing in this maze....” A dry chuckle reverberated through the air. “Believe me, I'm flattered. But if you're so interested in self-preservation, then I have a suggestion: Duck.”

“EX-TER-MIN-ATE!”

Without thinking, the Doctor pulled Lyra and Bon Bon to the charred dirt, barely dodging the incoming death ray. He heard Derpy gasp behind him. A gasp of shock, not pain. It's okay. The Dalek missed her.

The Dalek. Realization hit him like a punch in the face. No. They can't be here. He pulled his head up to look down the corridor in front of them—but there was no corridor now, just devastation and the accursed tin cans in every direction as far as the eye could see. Their cries of “EX-TER-MIN-ATE!” filled the air.

“STAY DOWN!” he yelled. He desperately looked for cover in the blighted orange landscape, but there was nothing remotely close enough. They were surrounded. So this is how it ends.

“Nice try, Discord!” The Doctor peeked behind himself to see Derpy standing up, calling to the sky. Is she insane?

“Derpy, get down!”

“Doctor, that green light thingy from before went right through me. It's an illusion. Look!” She flew away and landed in front of a nearby Dalek, who did not notice her. In fact, it rolled straight through her body, still screaming bloody murder and firing laser after laser out of its gunstick.

“Oh.” Of course it's an illusion. Why would there be any Daleks here?

Bon Bon conked him affectionately on the head. “So much for 'rather exceptional mind', you big dumbo.” She pulled him and Lyra to their hooves.

“But why would Discord show us those... whatever-they-ares, if he's not trying to hurt us?”

“Good question, Lyra! I thought you could all use a little history lesson, so I've taken us somewhere I'm sure our alien friend recognizes....” The four of them looked for Discord, but could see nothing of him. “Doesn't it all look familiar, Doc? The twin suns, the burnt orange soil, the Dalek ships flying in the sky? The Untempered Schism, raging with the power of the Time Vortex? Ring any bells in that head of yours?”

The Doctor's jaw sagged, and he staggered a few steps back. He knew where they were.

“Fillies and not-so-gentle colt, welcome to Gallifrey. Home to Doc and all the other Time Lords, and the epicenter of a war more horrifying than the rest of you can even imagine. Well, I say it's home to all the other Time Lords, but we both know what the problem is with that....” A huge rumbling caught their attention, and they turned as one to look at where the soil was being forced up. “You destroyed them!”

A dirty gray headstone burst from the Gallifreyan landscape and rose over the four.

In Memory of those Destroyed by the Doctor
Rassilon
The Master
The Time Lords
Gallifrey
The Daleks
Davros
Skaro
…

It did not stop. More and more names rose from the charred earth, each one glowing like fire. “Did you tell them that you'd save Equestria, Doc? After the thousand civilizations that have fallen dead before you, including your own? After whole planets were reduced to ash and dust and nothing—because you decided, in your infinite wisdom, that their time was up? You exterminated your own people, your own parents and children! Your own planet! So thoroughly that no one mourns the Time Lords—because there is no one left who will mourn!” Behind the headstone, the Doctor saw the TARDIS flying over Gallifrey, high in the sky and burning bright white with a power that could not be contained—

The world exploded. It imploded, it fell apart, it burned away, it crumbled into nothing. In an instant, everything—Daleks, Gallifrey, and the headstone—was wiped out, and they were left in a howling blank void. The Time War was over in a single moment.

“You ponies still think I'm the worst thing here? Well, the Time Lords discovered your good friend's plan. They tried to escape.”

And now there they were, on Christmas Day, in a room sprinkled with the trappings of the holiday, swept aside to make room for the Immortality Gate—and they were all there. Rassilon, standing in front of the Immortality Gate, flanked by an entourage of Time Lords. The Master, angry and betrayed and hungry for revenge.

“But no, we couldn't have any of that, could we, Doc?”

And there he was, as he had been—humanoid, and scarred, and terrified. Ending the Time War once and for all. He shot the White Point Star, the link keeping the Master connected with the Time Lords, and they fell through the gate. “The link is broken! Back into the Time War, Rassilon—back into hell!” He watched the Master, Rassilon, and all his kin disappear into the emptiness.

“The Time Lord... victorious. Aren't you proud, my friend, to have so outdone me in every way?” And then they were back to the blasted landscape of Gallifrey, but now they were all alone. There were no Daleks, just the four of them in the endless wasteland. “When ponies pass down the stories of how I covered a planet in fear and chaos... oh, if only they knew. If only they'd heard the legends of the nameless monster, who rips worlds apart because he can!”

“No... all I ever did was try to help....” The Doctor couldn't even convince himself. When have I ever done any good for anyone?

“You want to help? Leave. Step into your magic box and run a trillion miles away, where you can't hurt anypony anymore.” Almost against his will, the Doctor found himself pulling his screwdriver from his pocket. He began changing the setting, finding the one that would return the TARDIS...

Bon Bon's hoof came out of nowhere and knocked his screwdriver from his grasp. “Don't you dare let him lie to you too,” she ordered, sticking her face right into his. “He's only trying to hurt you.”

“But it's no lie—I did it. I killed my own people. I killed the Daleks, I've killed my friends, I've killed and killed and killed... and I'm gonna kill you too, soon enough. It's all I can do.”

She slapped him hard across the face. “Snap out of it!” she yelled. “This is just what he wants!” It didn't help. He sank to the ground in despair, sobs beginning to force their way up his throat.

Then Lyra was there beside him. “Why'd you do it?” she asked.

“Because they were in his way!” cackled Discord.

“When I want your opinion, Discord, I'll ask for it!” she yelled. Everyone shut up and looked at her. “Why'd you do it?” she repeated.

“Because they would have... because I didn't... I gave them a chance. Every time, I gave them a chance, and they never took it—and I destroyed them. The Daleks, the Time Lords... he's right, my planet burned. I burned it out of existence, because the Time Lords were planning something worse and that was the only way to stop them.”

“Something worse?”

“It was the Time War, the last great Time War, and it had been going on for too long. We used to be... well, I don't know what we were, but by the end we were worse than the Daleks. We—they—were going to win at the ultimate cost. Everything would have been destroyed: my world, this world, all the worlds in creation. That's why I had to end it, so that nobody won. Daleks, Time Lords, and me... we all lost.”

He looked up at them and saw horror in their faces. He expected that. No doubt, so did Discord. Well, at this point he didn't care if Discord was getting what he wanted. “So that's what I am. The worst thing in this maze. On this planet. I should never have come here, and I certainly should never have brought you. I'm sorry.” He wondered when they would turn and run away. It always happened, when they saw too much of him—when it wasn't fun anymore. And why not? What have I ever done for them except cause them pain? He decided to save them the trouble and trudged away.

But he heard quick hoof-falls behind him, and suddenly Lyra was on his right. “I don't think you're the worst thing in this maze.”

“Really? How many races have you killed recently?”

“No, but listen. If you're so mean, what are you doing here?”

“Putting you in danger.”

“But you saved me from Discord. No, you listen to me now—” she pushed through his attempted response. “Then you saved Octavia and Vinyl, and you hadn't even ever met them. And then you helped save me again. And now here you are and you're trying to save everypony. So maybe you're not so bad after all,” she finished with a smile. “I think you can stay.”

“But Lyra—”

“You know who you remind me of? Bon Bon.”

“Lyra—what?” So much for guilt—it was replaced by a sense of confusion. “Seriously?”

“Seriously!” She giggled. “You two are so hard on yourselves.”

“But I—”

“Like, imagine some sort of generator powered by...” she waved her hooves around, before settling on, “guilt energy.” Lyra looked him straight in the eye. “You two could power Canterlot. And a half.”

“What.” The Doctor quickly shoved aside the part of his brain trying—and succeeding—to figure out how such a machine would work, and determining the units of guilt energy. Angstroms, I suppose... no, focus. “Lyra, I can't forget what I've done.”

“So remember it. Just try to remember the good stuff too.” He hesitated in his response, so she followed up with a quick, “For me, okay?” Still he said nothing.

“Like when you saved the universe, twice,” said Derpy. “Isn't that what you said? And hang on—” this time he was about to respond, but she cut him off: “Those Dalek things looked pretty bad. If you beat them, isn't that good?”

“Yes... yes, I suppose it is...” The Doctor suddenly felt a bit silly. Actually, I have saved the universe a few times... and am I really going to feel bad about the Daleks?

“And you helped me out a few minutes ago...” Bon Bon interrupted. “I mean, that was mostly me, to be honest, but you did help, so... thank you.”

“Yes, that's right!” You know what? I did help her.

“You saved me and Octavia!”

“Yes, Vinyl, but Lyra mentioned that already," he replied.

“Well, excuse us if we haven't been here—it seemed like a nice thing to say.”

The penny dropped a second later, and he whipped his head around to see the two of them beaming at him. “Vinyl! Octavia!”

“The two and only!” Vinyl exclaimed. “Looks like we found you instead!”

“Impossible!” Discord appeared in a flash beside them, his claw clenched into a fist. “The maze should have kept you separate from him!”

“If there were a maze, I imagine it might have done so.”

“What do you mean, if there was a maze—” Discord stopped, and took a look around at the very un-maze-like surroundings. His jaw dropped to the ground.

“If there were a maze,” Octavia continued, “except that you seem to have demolished it, probably to prove some sort of point. Oh, and we found another statue, Doctor—Vinyl says her name is Fluttershy. You can see her over there.” She pointed behind herself, and the Doctor was just able to see the back of Fluttershy's statue.

“What—but I—AAAAAAARGH!” Discord roared. “You ponies are impossible!”

“Exactly!” Vinyl grinned.

“FINE!” Discord snapped his fingers, and the orange soil returned to being brown. The walls rose back up around the six of them, but did not separate them. “I've got better things I can do with my time anyway! Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a very important errand to run!... AND 'WAS' IS ALSO CORRECT!” With that, he dove into one of the hedges and vanished.

“That's right! You'd better run!” Vinyl yelled. “Woo!” She raised her hoof in front of Bon Bon who, after some hesitation, bumped it with her own.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said to Lyra. “That was brave of you.”

“What was?”

“Standing up to Discord the way you did.”

“That wasn't being brave, was it? Wait a second, was it?”

“You were frightened, and you did what you had to do anyway. That's bravery.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my goodness! I was brave just then! I totally was!”

“You're bleeding!” The two of them turned to see Octavia looking at Bon Bon, who had a fair amount of blood running down her right rear leg. The Doctor realized he was bleeding too, after fighting with Lyra and diving into the dirt on 'Gallifrey', but Bon Bon's wound was bigger.

“I'm fine.”

“Miss Bon Bon, that could get infected if you're not careful. Here—” Octavia undid her bowtie, and tried to wrap it around Bon Bon's wound, but Bon Bon jerked her leg away.

“Seriously, lady, don't touch me—”

“Come on, BB,” said Lyra.

“Oh... fine. Thanks, Octavia,” Bon Bon grumbled, offering up her leg.

“Wait—” Derpy began, but Octavia had already tied her bowtie around the wound as a makeshift dressing. They looked at her, and in response she used her wing to reach into a saddlebag and pull out a real bandage. Octavia sighed and smacked her own forehead.

“Well, is anyone else significantly hurt?” she asked. When the assembly shook their heads, she continued. “Then Vinyl and I think we have a lead on where to go next.”

“Really? Where?” asked the Doctor.

“Well, there were a couple of other statues I saw besides Fluttershy, but we didn't think we'd have time to get 'em before getting back to you,” said Vinyl. “So I cast a Finders Keepers spell on 'em... hang on...” She concentrated, her horn glowed blue, and the Doctor heard faint tones pulse from the distance. Listening closely, he heard three sources of the sounds, the closest of which was to his right.

“This way!” he called, and started trotting in that direction.

“And you said I should just learn to organize my stuff,” Vinyl said to Octavia as the others followed the Doctor. “Imagine if I'd listened to you instead of learning this cool spell! Your neat-freakiness nearly doomed the world!”

“Yes, yes, I'm wrong and you're right,” Octavia sighed, and the two of them trotted after the group.

Stay tuned for the conclusion to Discord and the Doctor—Part 2.

Great and Powerful (a)

The secret to properly waking up, as Octavia had long since discovered, was to place her alarm at a great distance from her bedside, so that she would be forced to leave her bed to turn it off. So it was that at the unripened hour of 4:30 on Saturday morning, she awoke to an incredibly annoying ringing, yawned, stood, and crossed the room to slam her clock's off button. She dragged herself to the bathroom and took her morning shower with her usual brevity, then dried herself and put on her favorite bowtie; it was, after all, a special occasion. She double-checked the luggage, ensuring that everything they needed was present. Upon confirming that it was, there was only one step left in her morning routine: waking up Vinyl.

Vinyl had her own secret to waking up: let Octavia handle it. Indeed, this had become Vinyl's go-to solution for many of life's problems in the past two months, from 'What do I do with these dirty clothes?' to 'How will I get my three meals a day?' Octavia didn't like to consider the possibility that these questions had simply gone unanswered before her arrival—nor did she like the fact that she'd become Vinyl's homemaker. I might as well get a maid outfit while I'm at it. Vinyl would love that.

Then again, most of the time she didn't mind it as such. It was a way to pay back what she saw—and what Vinyl refused to see—as her debt for being allowed to stay at Vinyl's flat in Ponyville. For being dragged into Vinyl's life in the first place, in fact.

Of course, at this time of the morning, such feelings of gratitude were easily eclipsed by others, such as a general grumpiness—or a very specific disquiet at what exactly Vinyl was saying in her sleep.

“Ohhhh, yeah baby. That really hits the spot,” she heard Vinyl mumble as she entered the bedroom.

Why do I put up with her again? Octavia asked herself, regarding her sleeping friend. She readied her weapon.

“Harder, Octy. Harder, harder—OOF!” Vinyl's dream was interrupted by a very forceful pillow to the face. She blearily looked up at Octavia. “Awwww, was it something I said?”

“In fact, yes. You said... what was it?” Octavia pretended to ponder, then smirked. “'Harder, Octy, harder.' Who am I to refuse? Now come on, get up. It's almost five o'clock.” Vinyl groaned as Octavia turned the light on, illuminating a room filled with its usual scattering of music- and bed-sheets.

Vinyl was briefly bewildered by the logic of getting up at 'almost five o'clock', but eventually understood, after a fashion. “Oh right, you've got that thing at that, um, place....”

“That concert,” Octavia corrected, “where we're performing together in Fillydelphia.” She adjusted her bowtie. “Now come on, the train leaves in about 20 minutes.”

Muttering something unintelligible—quite possibly unprintable—under her breath, Vinyl rolled out of bed and pulled her purple goggles from beneath a stack of turntable blueprints. “All right, I'm ready.”

“You aren't even going to comb your mane?”

“Nope.”

“Or brush your tail?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“But you're going to be performing, what about your—” Octavia facehoofed. “Why am I even asking these questions?”

Vinyl grinned widely. “Now that's a good question! Come on, let's go.” She trotted out of her bedroom, all traces of sleepiness gone. Octavia followed, smiling in spite of herself. Nopony got under her skin quite like Vinyl Scratch.

“So, sweetie, looking forward to some nice private time in Fillydelphia?” Vinyl said, still wearing that same excited grin even as the two mares approached Ponyville's train station. The train was there already, huffing and puffing in preparation for departure. Octavia felt like huffing and puffing too—her saddlebags were heavy, and her filled cello case was no featherweight either. “Just you and me, in the city of... uh, some kind of love or other, I'm told.”

“Private... oh!” A smile came to Octavia's lips as she remembered something. “I've been meaning to tell you that it's not going to be just you and me on this trip. We've got a guest who just begged to come.”

Octavia knew that Vinyl was a bit surprised and disappointed, but she managed to cover it up by acting extremely surprised and disappointed. “Our special weekend together! How could you!?”

“Oh, knock it off,” Octavia replied, giving her friend a little shove. “It's somepony you like, anyway.”

A pause followed, as Vinyl thought long and hard about this. Finally: “I got nothing.”

Octavia sighed and pointed to their guest, standing a good ways away on the platform: a familiar stallion in a suit and tie.

“Hello there!” the Doctor called with a wave. Vinyl stopped grinning and shot a questioning look at Octavia.

“I happened to meet him on the street yesterday and mentioned the concert, and ten minutes later he had his own ticket.” She raised an eyebrow. “Come on, you do like him.”

“Well, we did form an ad hoc Elements of Harmony team and zap Discord with the magic of our friendship... but that was just the one time!” Vinyl groaned. “Why does he even want to come, anyway? Isn't he busy building his time machine?”

“Well, technically TARDISes aren't really supposed to be built; they're grown,” the Doctor replied, having trotted over to them. “Hello Vinyl, hello Octavia! Come on, we're going to miss the train.” The trio stepped up into their car. “And yes, I have been, but I guess I'm not used to this lifestyle.”

“What do you mean by 'this lifestyle'?” Octavia asked, as they took their seats on the train—she next to Vinyl, and the Doctor opposite them. He leaned toward them and looked into their eyes as the train wheezed its way to life, belching smoke into the air above.

“Imagine you had a wonderful magic box that could take you anywhere, anytime. The whole of the universe, every single centi-second that has happened or will happen, all within your grasp....” He groaned, turning his head to the sky. “And then you get stuck on one tiny planet for two whole months! Building the TARDIS, buying food—doing, well, work! I'm losing my mind in this teensy little town!” He looked down to see an annoyed glare from Octavia. “That was rude, wasn't it. Sorry.”

Octavia was mollified, but she had a question for him. “Don't you still have your TARDIS? I mean, we rode in it before, and just because you're building the new one... I mean, the same one... doesn't mean you can't use the old one. The same one, but older, I mean,” she clarified, and smiled at her awkward phrasing. “This language was not made for time travel.”

“You should learn Old High Gallifreyan, it's got something like fourteen tenses,” the Doctor replied, smiling in the same way. “But yeah, while I'm helping the TARDIS grow I can't have the finished one in the same time frame, so I've set her one second out of sync. She's always precisely one second in our future.” Octavia tried to untangle the logic of that sentence, but found it a losing battle.

The Doctor must have noticed the confused look on her face, and continued, “It makes sense if you don't think too hard about it. Point is, TARDISes are big complicated wibbly space time things, and having two of the same one in such close spacial proximity and within the same temporal reference frame could cause all the matter in, oh, a 19.3308 kilometer spherical radius to vanish. Now, normally they have automatic paradox dampening fields to prevent things like that, but while she's growing she won't have that field, and I'm not going to take any chances. Got that?”

Vinyl did not 'get that', as evidenced by her five seconds of blank staring at the Doctor. “Laypony's terms?” she beseeched, turning to Octavia.

Octavia explained. “In laypony's terms: Magic box plus incomplete magic box equals time paradox equals big boom.” Vinyl nodded happily.

“Of course,” the Doctor continued, “this means I have to take things a bit slower, but I can still enjoy a good vacation now and then! And here we are,” he concluded, looking happily out the window at the passing scenery. “It's nice around here, isn't it? Love what you ponies do with the weather: never rains if you don't want it to, winter shows up on time and always properly—you don't ever get just two inches of snow around here, do you? And it's never just the ash from a wrecked spaceship either.”

“Um. Is that often a problem for you?” Vinyl asked.

“More than I'd like, yeah. You see...” The Doctor paused, recollecting memories. “So on Earth—that planet I was fond of—there was this famous, infamous ship called the Titanic. Famous for being unsinkable, and infamous for proceeding to do just that. But then this alien cruise line company decided to do an Earth-themed trip, and guess what they named the ship?”

And so they bantered, and told stories. Before too long, they were arriving in Fillydelphia.

Somepony else was arriving too, but by hoof, and pulling a large, heavy, wooden cart behind her. The unicorn's head hung low as she passed a “Welcome to Beautiful Fillydelphia!” sign. As if Fillydelphia will be any different than anywhere else. She sighed. Still, it's not as if I have a choice. The show must go on...

Before too long, she had her cart set up in a fairly large, open area. Good. More room for ponies to mock me—no, I can't let myself think like that. She put on a brave face and started putting up posters.

“Well, our concert's due to happen tomorrow evening,” said Octavia, flipping through a brochure in their hotel's lobby. “So we actually have a lot of free time. What do we want to do?”

“Wait, you're telling me I didn't have to get up before five o'clock?” said Vinyl, in seeming despair. “Oh, the equinity!”

“Does she always do that?” asked the Doctor, trotting towards the pair. “The melodrama, I mean?”

“When I can get away with it,” Vinyl replied cheerfully. “Where were you?”

“Oh, looking around. And I think I found something we can do.” He pulled a poster from his pocket and held it up. It depicted a blue unicorn wearing an outlandish purple hat and robe, with big red text that read: 'COME ONE, COME ALL! WITNESS THE MAGIC OF THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!'

“Let's go see a magic show!” He grinned. “Oh, this'll be fun.”

The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)
S1E3: Great and Powerful
Written by R5h

If the Fillydelphia town square had been a fish, the Doctor might have declared it 'stuffed to the gills'. However, it was the center of the city, with many main streets and side streets branching off of it—and it was stuffed to those instead, until the cool evening air became warm and stifling. Various entertainers were making their respective livings as the hour approached eight, from living statues to jugglers to mimes, and each drew their own respectable crowds—but the gathering in front of The Great and Powerful Trixie's cart-cum-stage was the largest. Must be she's famous around here, the Doctor supposed, sitting with his little group further back in that crowd than he'd have liked—they had arrived a bit late.

A mean-hearted giggling glanced his ear. He turned to its source and saw a red earth mare sitting next to a bucket of tomatoes. The ponies around her seemed at best unaware of this preemptive rudeness: at worst they were buying tomatoes off the mare for two bits each. Perhaps 'infamous' would be a better description.

“Vinyl,” he asked, frowning, “have you ever heard of 'The Great and Powerful Trixie'?”

“Maybe?” Unusually for her, she was also frowning, as if trying to concentrate very hard—another rarity. “I've been trying to remember where I've heard that before all day... I'll get it eventually. Urgh!”

“You, Octavia?”

“Never in my life. But I do have a question for you, Doctor.” She paused for permission, and he nodded to signal that she should continue. “Why were you so interested in coming here in the first place? Not that I mind,” she quickly added, “but what is so fascinating about a magic show?”

“I could ask you the same question.” She raised an eyebrow, so he began to elaborate with a gesture to Vinyl. “I mean, take Vinyl here.”

“What about me?” Vinyl interjected.

“You're a unicorn. You can do actual magic.”

“Duh. So?”

“So, Vinyl, Octavia, here's the million-bit question: what's the point of a magic show in a world with real magic?”

“Ohhh, okay. Well, the thing is, Doctor, even I with my awesome magical powers can't do everything.” Octavia rolled her eyes, but the Doctor saw her clamp the corners of her lips down to keep the smile from showing. “Same for every unicorn. I mean, you didn't think magic could do everything, did you? Sheesh!”

“All right, what can't it do?”

“Loads of things. Can't bring ponies back to life... I read somewhere that magic can't create a 'soul', whatever that means... oh, and it's really hard to do magic from a big distance.” Vinyl paused, contemplated a bit more, then shrugged. “Okay, maybe that's not loads of things, but the point is that a stage magician's job is to pretend to do things that are impossible. What, how'd stage magic work in your world, Doctor?” Somewhere in Fillydelphia, a clock began ringing out the eighth hour.

“Well, come to think of it, roughly the same—”

“COME ONE, COME ALL! WITNESS THE AMAZING MAGIC OF THE GRRREAT AND POWERFUL TRRRIXIE!”

“Sssshhh, it's starting!” One of Vinyl's hooves waved frantically in front of the Doctor's and Octavia's faces; the other pointed at the cart, as if they hadn't noticed the clockwork transformation it was undergoing. The front wall dropped to horizontal to become the stage, revealing navy blue curtains behind. Wooden flaps folded out on either side, doubling the stage's size. The cart's side walls and roof cranked open to present horns on the sides, and a panoply of stars and planets above.

POOF! A cloud of smoke exploded onto the stage, and a silhouette appeared in the smoke. There, as the smoke cleared, stood a blue unicorn in a star studded hat and cape who could only be The Great and Powerful Trixie.

Trixie waited for some reaction to her grand appearance, and heard one pony give an appreciative whistle. Just one. No one else oohed, or stomped, or clapped. Just muttering, and a hint of laughter. It's going to be another short night. She soldiered on regardless.

“Watch in awe, as The Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes!” More fireworks erupted from her cart, exploding impressively in the air. A tomato flew out of the crowd and exploded less impressively against her purple hat, covering its stars and glitter with red paste.

Trixie's temper flared, and she looked angrily into the audience. “WHAT?” she bellowed, in her most imposing voice. “Who DARES to challenge the might of Trixie?”

“I do!” An orange coated, red-maned earth pony stood up, next to a big bucket full of tomatoes. “I dare to challenge the 'might' of the Grrrrrating and Pitiful Trrrrrixie.” The crowd laughed at her imitation of Trixie's trills.

“Well then, is there anything you can do that Trixie cannot?” asked Trixie, trying to sound as scornful as possible. “Have you, like Trixie, vanquished the great Ursa Major?”

The earth pony laughed and lobbed another tomato into her face. “Ursa Major? You can't even vanquish a piece of fruit!” she jeered, barely audible over the roaring crowd and barely visible as Trixie tried to wipe tomato paste from her eyes. “There's plenty more where that came from, lady.”

“How—how dare you!” Trixie yelled. She threw as much authority into her voice as she could manage, but it wasn't working. “Trixie will not stand for this!” The earth pony grabbed another tomato and cocked her foreleg back.

Only to be interrupted when a lone blue firework burst from the stage. It flew high into the air, whistling very loudly in the sudden hush as all eyes followed it. The firework seemed to hang at the top of its trajectory for a moment, then fell down toward the back of the crowd, where it exploded in a burst of brilliant blue. The whole crowd gasped and screamed, except for the stallion directly below the blast—a brown earth pony wearing a blue suit and tie, and squeezing a strange metal rod with his mouth.

After the gasps and the screams, there was silence again. Trixie could have heard a tomato drop—and did, as it slipped off the hoof of the stunned heckler. All eyes were on the brown stallion, who dropped the metal wand and started talking.

“Excuse me, but I came here for a magic show, not the climax of Carrie!” To Trixie, he sounded like he might have been from somewhere around Trottingham. His tone was exasperated, but surprisingly casual considering he'd apparently set off a firework feet from his head to prove a point. “… no, I suppose you won't get that, will you—in any case, why don't we all just calm down a bit!” He walked over to the tomato-thrower. “Hello, miss—what's your name?”

“Missy Mater.” All eyes were now on the stallion and Missy Mater, even among the square's other performers and audiences. In the distance, Trixie saw a living statue pony surreptitiously lean in closer.

“Well then, Mater,” continued the brown earth pony, “why are you throwing to'maters' at this magician? Is she malevolent? Evil? Some sort of mean green space creature disguised as a pony, who can only be defeated with a good salad?”

“Space creature—what?” Missy stammered.

The brown pony grinned. “It's more likely than you think. But, fact is, you don't seem to have a very good reason for humiliating this mare in front of an entire city. So why don't you stop.” The casual disappeared, and a hint of a threat entered his words. He looked up at the crowd, no longer grinning. “And that goes for all of you lot—it's not funny, it's cruel and it's shameful. Give The Great and Powerful Trixie a chance to put on a show. And I'll be taking that,” he concluded, and picked up the bucket of tomatoes with his mouth, carrying it back to his spot next to a white, goggles-wearing unicorn and a gray earth pony. Missy Mater did not protest, stunned as she was by his audacity.

The rest of the crowd was no less stunned, but Trixie was much more so. Not so much because he could control her fireworks, or at his bizarre sort of charisma, but at the fact that this total stranger had used both of these tricks to stick up for her. Unfortunately, she was too busy being stunned to continue her show.

A few seconds later, he called impatiently to her. “Well, come on then! Put on the show! Give us the ol' razzle dazzle!”

“Razzle dazzle!” repeated the white unicorn, stomping on the ground with each word. “Razzle dazzle! Razzle dazzle!” And as she continued, everypony else started to join in, until the same crowd that had been jeering at her not two minutes earlier was demanding that she perform. “Razzle dazzle! Razzle dazzle! Razzle dazzle!”

Well, is Trixie going to sit here in shock, or is Trixie going to perform the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes? She narrowed her eyes and silenced the audience with a dramatic wave of her hoof. “Very well!” she bellowed, without a trace of fright in her voice. “Not even The Grrrreat and Powerful Trrrrixie can refuse such a call!” The fireworks flew, the crowd cheered, and Trixie found to her surprise that she felt like herself again. And it felt good.

For thirty long minutes she held the crowd captivated with death-defying stunts, impossible conjurations—even for a unicorn—and pure showmanship. They oohed, ahhed, gasped, and roared at her command. They looked in exactly the wrong place at the right time, at her direction. It had been months since she'd had such a wonderful show, and when she passed around a money-collecting basket at intermission, it came back overflowing.

She managed to keep her composure until she'd made it backstage. Then, keeping her sobs quiet, she sat down and let the happy tears flow. For the first time in what seemed like ages, she'd made it through at least half of the show.

The door in the back of the cart opened, and the brown stallion stuck his head in. “Oh hello again—ah,” he said, as he noticed her crying. “Sorry, is this a bad time? Are you OK?”

Quick as a flash, Trixie dashed to the door and slammed it shut with her body; he just barely removed his head in time. Nopony, no how, was going to see her crying. “None may simply enter the enclave of the Great and Powerful Trixie!” she stammered. Her body was braced against the door, preventing further entry.

“Oh come on, Trix, it's OK,” called a second voice from behind the door—she recognized the voice of the unicorn who had started the chant. “We won't reveal that you were crying backstage, and certainly not to everypony!”

“Vinyl!” came a third voice—also female, but more refined and exasperated. Trixie guessed that this was the earth pony that had been sitting with the other two.

“I just said I wouldn't tell it to everypony!” Vinyl responded.

“Yes. Sarcastically,” the third voice replied.

“Octy, when am I ever—”

“Shushushushush, I'm trying to talk here!” interrupted the stallion. He spoke again, in a much gentler tone. “Trixie, is everything all right? Can we talk?”

Trixie sniffed, still holding the door shut. “Actually, Trixie is fine. And Trixie would like to thank you—” She caught herself. I must sound ridiculous, speaking in third person like that. “I would like to thank you for what you did.”

“Not a problem, that crowd was being rotten to you. I'm the Doctor, by the way.”

“Doctor who?”

“Oh, don't bother trying to get anything else out of him,” said 'Octy'. “He probably forgot his real name five centuries ago or something.” Trixie wasn't sure how to respond to that, but she supposed the mare was joking.

“Well, thank you again, Doctor,” she finally said. “Nopony's let me throw a show like that for months.”

“You're welcome,” he replied. “Can I come in now?”

Trixie wiped the tears from her face, then stepped away from the door. “Yes, you—”

“Whoaoaoaoaoaoa-ow!” Vinyl fell through the door and flat on her face.

“And that's why we don't lean on doors. Isn't it, Vinyl?” 'Octy' said smugly, walking into the room. She turned to Trixie. “I'm Octavia, and this is Vinyl Scratch. And, once more, that's the Doctor,” she concluded, as the brown stallion trotted in, holding the bucket of tomatoes in his mouth.

He dropped it and smiled. “Brought a snack for you! They're quite good, actually, when they're not being thrown.” Trixie was hesitant, so the Doctor picked up a particularly juicy tomato and took a bite. “Mmmmmmm... and you don't even have to worry about paying. The person I got them from was practically giving them away!”

Trixie had to laugh at this. She'd long since learned not to pass up free food, so she picked up a tomato and started eating. They're very good, actually. Vinyl helped herself as well.

A minute passed, and the Doctor finished his tomato. “Trixie,” he said, some of the levity gone from his voice, “I haven't been here long, but it seems like ponies around here are generally pretty nice. Why did they hate you?”

The show-mare looked down at her hooves. “Trixie would rather not talk about it.”

“... Trixie!” exclaimed Vinyl, suddenly grinning. “Dear Celestia, you're that Trixie! That's how I know your name!”

Trixie took it as a compliment, and preened a little. “Why yes, I am the Trixie.”

“You're the one who nearly got Ponyville destroyed!” Vinyl continued grinning. Trixie, on the other hand, abruptly stopped. Suddenly she didn't feel so complimented.

“So about a year back,” Vinyl began, turning to Octavia and the Doctor, “this mare comes into Ponyville claiming she'd saved some big city from an Ursa Major, and some kids decide they want to see a demonstration!” Vinyl laughed. “So they go into the Everfree Forest, wake up an Ursa, and lead it to Ponyville for the 'Great and Powerful Trixie' to defeat!”

“Shut up!” demanded Trixie.

“Trouble is, it starts rampaging through town—and she can't do anything! She'd never saved anywhere from any Ursa! Eventually Twilight Sparkle has to send the big bad bear back home—and it turns out it was only an Ursa Minor!”

“SHUT UP!” A bright red flare of magic burst around Trixie, and her voice resonated through the room. Vinyl actually took a step back, eyes wide behind her goggles. “HOW DARE YOU BLAME THE ACTIONS OF TWO IDIOTIC FOALS ON TRIXIE!”

“And you're STILL claiming that you beat an Ursa Major?” Vinyl retorted, nearly matching Trixie's volume. “Gimme a break! No wonder Missy was throwing tomatoes!”

“TRIXIE SAID SHUT UP!” Almost without thinking, Trixie focused her magic on Vinyl's stupid big fat mouth. It glowed blue, then zipped itself shut—but without pause Vinyl yanked it back open again.

“Oh, yeah, the old zipper-for-a-mouth trick. It's been done, honey—by someone a lot better at it than you!”

“YOU INSOLENT BRAT! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” Trixie's flare blazed even brighter. “I'LL—I'LL-” Trixie doesn't even KNOW what she's going to do to you, but it's going to be good!

Vinyl opened her mouth again, but Octavia grabbed the zipper and yanked her lips closed. This time, Vinyl did not try to open it back up, looking too shocked to do so.

“I'LL... I'll... I'll...” Trixie gradually calmed down, and her magical aura dwindled and vanished. She felt like vanishing too, after such a stupid outburst. Stupid, stupid, stupid. “Oh no. Trixie did it again.” Her voice was very small.

“What, lost your temper?” asked Octavia, hoof still on Vinyl's zipper just in case. “Believe me, that's one of Vinyl's talents.”

“Although,” the Doctor picked up a tomato and absently tossed it in one hoof, “that was quite a flare-up. So to speak.” Trixie buried her face in her hooves. “Which leads me to some rather interesting conclusions.” He missed the tomato as it fell, and it burst on the floor, getting a splotch on Trixie's hat. He cringed guiltily. “Oh goodness I am so sorry... not used to these hooves yet.” Vinyl emitted a muffled laugh, followed by a less muffled yelp of pain as Octavia tugged on the zipper, pulling her away from the conversation.

“Anyways, conclusion number one: you need a hug.” The Doctor pulled Trixie to her hooves and embraced her. He continued, softly enough that nopony else could hear. “Conclusion letter B: You act like you've got a lot of pride and bravado. Matter of fact, you do have a lot of pride and bravado. But deep down you've always got that nagging sense of inferiority. So you act out to prove yourself wrong, to prove that you're better than you fear. And then your pride brings you to another great fall and you feel worse than before. And on and on it goes, a vicious cycle repeating over and over and over...”

“Shut up.” Vinyl's words had made her angry, and they'd hurt: but that was okay, she could deal with one pony calling her a show-off and a fake. The Doctor's words cut her to the bone, because they were not angry or jeering, but understanding, even compassionate. And completely, utterly true. He'd given voice to the personal demons that kept her awake at night.

She pulled away from his embrace. He did not resist, but just said, “It's OK. I know how you feel.”

“Don't lie to me,” she said, her volume rising again. He knew exactly how she felt, and she knew it. Trixie, however, was not prepared to admit it.

He looked her straight in the eyes, and his voice took on a darker tone. “Look at these eyes, Great and Powerful Trixie. Look, and tell me that I don't know a thing about guilt, or failure. Tell me that I don't know what it's like to let your pride run rampant.” She looked, and saw the pain in his eyes, and what seemed like immeasurable guilt. Next to that, her shame seemed insignificant, even silly. What has he ever done to make him feel worse than I do?

Suddenly, the pain was gone, replaced with a sincere smile. “And the important thing is, don't let it get to you. Now come on—the show must go on, eh?” He pulled her to her hooves, and scrutinized her hat. “Oh, you've still got a little bit of paste on... can I borrow the hat? Thanks.” He pulled it off her head without waiting for an answer, pulled his silvery wand from his pocket, and pointed it at the stain. Now that she could see it up-close, Trixie noticed its blue tip and the whistling noise it made, which she hadn't heard before. In seconds, the stain vibrated itself free and fell to the floor, leaving her hat pristine as it had been.

“Since when can an earth pony use magic?” Trixie asked, shame forgotten as she examined her newly-cleaned hat.

“Well, I'd call it technology, but it probably runs on magic. Honestly not sure, though—I haven't built it yet. In any case, this is my sonic screwdriver.” he responded, proudly presenting the rod that was obviously not a screwdriver. “It does anything I need it to do, within limits.”

“Limits?”

“Oh, everything has limits. It doesn't hurt anyone, to start. And I can do little stains, but if I do too many the fabric in question sort of, well, breaks down into its component particles. Hell of a lesson to learn on laundry day.”

Trixie chose to ignore this absurdity. “That wand—”

“Screwdriver.”

“It is clearly not a screwdriver!” Trixie composed herself before continuing. “That magic wand activated one of my fireworks.”

“Yeah. Like I said, anything within limits, though it's really best with doors. And technology, which I'm a bit surprised to see in this world, actually. I thought everything would just run on magic.” Before Trixie could reply, the Doctor's eyes widened. “Actually, how long was this intermission supposed to last? You probably need to start your show again! Come on, you've got a city to impress! I'll give you a good opening.” He pointed his 'screwdriver' at the curtain—or more accurately, at the firework containers behind the curtain—and Trixie heard a succession of loud whizzes, whooshes and bangs outside.

Trixie smiled again. “One last thing, Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“What does razzle-dazzle mean?”

“Oh, use some context clues, would you? Now go on, razzle-dazzle em!”

She needed no further encouragement, and burst through the curtain. “WELCOME BACK, ONE AND ALL, TO THE GREATEST SHOW IN ALL FILLYDELPHIA!”

The crowd went wild.

“I should probably take offense to that boast,” Octavia remarked, as they left Trixie's cart and made their way back towards the crowd. “If only for your sake.”

Vinyl's mind was on a whole different track, though. “Mmm mmrrmmmr, mmmu mm mmmrm m mmrmrr, momm mmu.” Unfortunately, being zippered made it rather difficult to express herself. She concentrated for a moment, and the zipper vanished in a flash of magic. “Oh Doctor, you get all the mares, don't you,” she repeated.

The Doctor was confused, so Vinyl elaborated. “Don't you look at me like that. Lyra, Bon Bon, Derpy, Octy, and now the 'Great and Powerful Trixie'. Girls fall for you and you're not even trying.”

“Sorry, is there a point to this?” asked the Doctor.

Vinyl beamed. “Teach me teach me teach me!”

“I'm not teaching the most...” the Doctor struggled with finding the right word, but eventually settled on, “flirtatious mortal I've ever met how to pick up dance partners.” They reached the crowd and began squeezing their way back to their spot.

“Dance partners? Does that sound like a euphemism to you?” Vinyl muttered to Octavia.

“You think that I've fallen for him?” she whispered.

… crap. I DID say that, didn't I. Vinyl couldn't think up a response for a few seconds. Luckily, the hooded pony she was stepping past chose that moment to stand up and get in her way. “Hey, watch it, bub!” she yelled as she jostled him. He gave her a dirty look in response. Thank you, you unsung hero. “Hey, I was kidding! I mean, you haven't fallen for him, right?”

“He's very nice, has saved my life at least twice and, to his credit, is only the second most insane pony I know.” Octavia looked Vinyl in the eye. “But the Doctor is currently just one of my friends, and that's all he'll ever be—all he ever could be. You should know that.” She paused, then attacked the issue from a new angle. “Furthermore, how exactly is it that I've 'fallen' for him and you haven't?”

“Oh, you know me, Tavi. I've got the good sense and level head to fight off his stallionly charms.” For the sake of the joke, she did her best to sound completely deadpan, but inside she felt like she was doing victory laps around her brainpan. “Plus he's like a thousand years old—so ew.” She's not taken she's not taken she's not taken—

“Yes, you certainly displayed your good sense backstage.”

“What, back there? I was just—”

“Being an insensitive nag! What was the point in provoking Trixie like that?” The three of them sat down in their spots. The Doctor looked up to watch the show, apparently unaware of their argument.

“I... uh...”

“AND NOW, FOR TRIXIE'S NEXT TRICK, TRIXIE REQUIRES A VOLUNTEER FROM THE AUDIENCE!”

“Be right back!” Vinyl started moving before Octavia could respond, once again grateful for a distraction. She dashed forward through the crowd, squeezing through the gaps when she could and jostling ponies aside when she couldn't.

“ANY WILLING MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE, STEP—” Trixie stopped short as Vinyl burst out of the front of the crowd and jumped onto the stage. “Forward,” she finished, her voice stripped of all volume. For some reason, she looked worried.

She regained her composure quickly, though. Removing her hat with her magic, she boomed, “YOUNG MARE, IT IS A DANGEROUS FEAT YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO UNDERTAKE. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. EVEN NOW, YOU MAY STILL TURN BACK, LEST YOU DARE TO FALL UNDER... THE MAGICIAN'S BLADE!” Suddenly she pulled a huge steel sword from her hat, provoking gasps from the audience and an ominous sound effect from the stage.

“What are you doing?” Trixie hissed, under cover of the commotion. “They all saw you in the audience before—you'll look like a plant!”

“I ACCEPT!” Vinyl addressed this to the audience, who cheered and applauded. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Trixie shoot her an angry look. Well, I guess I really look like a plant now. Might as well milk it. “DO YOUR WORST, GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!” she yelled at the magician.

To Trixie's credit, she went along with it. “SUCH ARROGANCE FROM A MERE MORTAL! TRIXIE DOES NOT SUFFER SUCH FOOLS LIGHTLY... BUT YOU SHALL SUFFER!” Vinyl felt Trixie's magic grab her and force her to the floor, face-first. She struggled—pretended to, anyway—as steel loops appeared around her front and back legs and bolted themselves to the stage. Kinky.

“RELEASE ME AT ONCE, YOU VILE ENCHANTRESS!” From this close, Vinyl was able to see the cuts in the wood that were invisible to the audience. Four of them formed a rectangle around her whole body, while another four surrounded just her legs, with a section of wood-colored fabric near her hooves. So, a hidden platform, trapdoor kind of thing? Her guess was conformed when the larger section of wood rose up from the stage, raising her like a virgin sacrifice on an altar. As if. She mock-struggled some more.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE? PERHAPS... AN EXTRA RESTRAINT IS REQUIRED!” Trixie produced another loop of steel from within her coat. As she made a show of placing it over Vinyl's neck, she whispered, “Hinged trapdoor under your legs. I'll get a new sword. When I do, get your hooves out of the cuffs and stick them in the part of the trapdoor closest to you. Don't move your upper body.”

“I SAID UNHOOF ME!” Vinyl yelled. “Got it,” she whispered.

Trixie finished restraining her neck, then raised the old sword and turned to the audience. “THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE THINKS THAT THIS BLADE... WOULD BE TOO MERCIFUL! SOMETHING CRUELER IS REQUIRED... SOMETHING LIKE THIS!” Out of nowhere—even Vinyl wasn't quite sure where it came from—she pulled something that looked more like a huge butcher's knife. It was slightly shorter but several times broader than the sword, and its edge was rusty and serrated.

As Trixie displayed the knife to the crowd, her cloak just happened to cover up Vinyl's lower half. In a heartbeat, Vinyl yanked her legs out of the loops and thrust them into the hidden cavity beneath the trapdoor. It rotated as she pushed against it, revealing what was on the other side: a very realistic lower half of a pony, though one with a generic gray tail and coat, and no cutie mark. The trapdoor rotated fully and latched, leaving the fake body to cover up her midsection almost seamlessly. Then Vinyl saw a faint purple glow surround it, and it changed to perfectly resemble her lower half; the tail became blue and messy, the coat became white, and her eighth-notes cutie mark appeared on its flanks. Its hooves reinserted themselves into the lower restraints, and it started struggling.

“NO! NOT THE ANCIENT KNIFE OF ERGOT!” she ad-libbed, making her upper half struggle as well. This is the coolest thing ever.

“THE VERY SAME, YOU IMPUDENT WHELP!” Trixie moved to stand behind Vinyl, and raised the 'Ancient Knife of Ergot'. “NOW, SUFFER THE WRATH OF TRIXIE!” She drove the knife down in a single theatrical strike, cutting straight through the fake mid-section and barely missing Vinyl's real one. Vinyl screamed in agony, having the time of her life, then went limp and closed her eyes.

The crowd gasped, and was silent. I guess the effect was that realistic. After a few more seconds of tension, Vinyl had had enough; she opened her eyes, turned her head to the crowd, and yelled, “Gotcha!”

The cheers and applause were louder than they had been all night. Trixie had to wait at least half a minute for the tumult to die down before she could start speaking again. “Thank you, fillies and gentlecolts—and give the great and wonderful assistant Vinyl Scratch another round of applause!” The crowd was only too happy to oblige. “As assistants go, she truly is a cut above!” And they laughed. “Though she has a bad habit of going to pieces onstage...” More laughter. “Hmm... how should Trixie go about... putting... STAMPEDE!”

That was a terrible ad lib. The crowd's reaction turned from amused to bemused, though a few of them still laughed nervously. “THIS ISN'T PART OF THE SHOW! LOOK BEHIND YOU!” Trixie pointed to the far end of the city square, well behind any of the members of the crowd, and Vinyl craned her neck to see...

You're kidding. There was an honest-to-Celestia stampede in the middle of Fillydelphia. Bears, deer, cows, moose, and more were surging into the square, squealing and bawling and making every other sound of terror. The crowd screamed, and a second stampede began as they tried to get out of the way—leaving no obstacle between the crazed animals and Trixie's cart. Great.

Vinyl pulled her hooves from their restraints, but couldn't get out of the neck band or the trapdoor. She looked to where Trixie had been and yelled, “Get me outta here!”—but Trixie wasn't there. “Trixie? Where are you!?”

Then she felt the cart wobble, and craned her neck to the side to see Trixie pushing as hard as she could. “Hello!?” Vinyl yelled. “I'm trapped up here!”

“I'll get you out when my house isn't destroyed!” Her horn glowed, and Vinyl saw wheel chocks fly away from the ground. The cart started rolling with a jolt, but it was still too slow. The closest animals were almost there. Vinyl gritted her teeth and braced herself.

Then came another jolt, and the cart sped up. Out of the corner of her eye, Vinyl saw the Doctor and Octavia join Trixie. They managed to push the cart into a side street just as the stampede reached them, still making every form of yell known to ponykind. In another few seconds, the last of them passed and the clamor faded away.

“WHAT THE HAY WAS THAT?” Vinyl breathed in for just long enough to yell again. “WHAT THE HAY... WAS THAT?”

The Doctor climbed onto the cart, pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and undid the neck band. He then focused the screwdriver on the trapdoor's latch, but nothing happened. “Magic, and it still doesn't do wood?” he grumbled. But Trixie had followed him up; she pulled the 'Ancient Knife of Ergot' out of Vinyl's body double—which had turned gray and generic when she'd stopped controlling it—then pressed a button in the back of the platform, allowing the trapdoor to unlatch.

Vinyl pulled her legs out and tumbled to the stage. “Thanks, guys....” Octavia helped her to her hooves. “Anyway, WHAT THE HAY WAS THAT?”

Good question, thought the Doctor. He jumped off the cart and re-entered the town square to take a look around.

There wasn't much to see, unfortunately. The square was almost empty, and the few ponies who hadn't escaped the stampede in time were moaning in pain on the ground. He rushed to the nearest one, a pegasus with her wing bent at an impossible angle. “Hello, are you okay?” he asked. “Can you hear me? Can you tell me what happened to you?” The only reply was more moaning. Well, at least she's breathing.

He continued down the square, finding a living statue unicorn with a chipped horn, an earth pony with a broken foreleg, a filly with a bloody mouth... in each case the injuries were serious and painful but not life-threatening. And in each case the victim had nothing useful to say.

He reached the end and found a zebra on the ground. His eyes were shut, and a part of his barrel spasmed with every breath he took. If zebra anatomy is anything like human anatomy, that's a broken rib for sure. “Hello? Can you hear me? Don't talk, just nod.”

The zebra's eyes opened, and they were glowing blue. With a sudden, jerky motion he stood and tried to keep running in the same direction as the stampede, but he stumbled and fell. The Doctor wasn't quick enough to stop him from hitting his head against a paving stone.

“Okay, don't nod, don't nod, just keep your head still!” He grabbed the zebra's head to immobilize it. “Are you okay?”

Once again, the zebra's eyes opened, but slowly and dazedly. They contained hazel irises surrounding black pupils; there was no trace of blue in them. “Where... who are you?” he wheezed.

“I'm the Doctor. Do you know where you are right now?”

“I must have had a... fall while napping... is this my home? Why, what has happened?”

“Oh, don't waste your breath rhyming, you've got a broken rib. And this isn't your home, it's the Fillydelphia town square.”

“But I've never been to... Fillydelphia... I—”

“Seriously, don't try to rhyme that, just... don't. Help's coming, don't worry. Vinyl? Octavia?” he called, looking back down the square to see his friends and Trixie trotting toward him. “Listen, just one more thing, and then don't say anything more after that. Where's home for you?”

“Everfree...”

Just as I thought. “Don't move, just breathe,” he instructed, and turned to meet the other three.

“So as I was saying, what the HAY—” Vinyl began.

“Oh, shut up, we all heard you the first three times,” Trixie interrupted.

“Ooh, big talk for a pony who needed my help to—”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie just saved your life, so if you don't mind—”

“Mind control.” The Doctor interrupted. The three of them gave him odd looks. “Is there any such thing as magical mind control?”

“Of course not!” Trixie snorted. “Controlling a creature's every action with a spell? How absurd.”

“Shows what you know.” Vinyl seemed to be taking a lot of pleasure from correcting Trixie. “Twilight Sparkle once made all of Ponyville go after one stupid doll with a spell. I punched out two stallions to get it. Ooh, I was so close!”

“You call that mind control?” Trixie was gritting her teeth, possibly at the mention of the mare who'd bested her. “Merely creating a certain desire in a group of ponies?” She snorted. “I imagine even you could do that.”

“Vinyl,” Octavia warned, before Vinyl could retort. “Dear goodness, sometimes it's like foalsitting... Doctor, are you saying that these animals were mind controlled?”

“And probably in exactly the way Trixie just described—inducing fear. That, or every living creature, sentient and otherwise, in a large area of the Everfree Forest panicked of their own accord, and their eyes started glowing blue too.”

Octavia grimaced. “Mind control sounds more probable... but who'd do such a thing?”

“Well, at a guess... the pony who's been watching us from that alley across the square. Don't turn around, or he'll see you looking.” he warned, as Octavia made to turn her head. “Behind you, half-hidden in the shadows, wearing a hood. Actually, on second thought, he didn't do it, but he's been acting as eyes for the ones who did.”

“Eyes?”

“Any time you do an experiment, you need someone to observe the results. Oh, and Octavia, could you possibly act a little less... statue-like? That's almost as obvious as—”

“HEY! YOU!” Vinyl yelled, and ran at the hooded pony.

“—shouting.” The Doctor groaned as he watched the hooded pony disappear into the alley. “Thanks, Vinyl, I really wanted him to know we'd seen him.”

“Like you were doing anything. Come on, he's getting away!” Vinyl sprinted after their suspect, forcing the Doctor and Octavia to give chase and leaving Trixie behind.

Down the narrow alley they sped, but their quarry already had a substantial head start. His hoofsteps on the cobblestone lanes were barely audible to start with. But no one could run like the Doctor, and as they dashed through the narrow, winding, paths the hoofsteps grew louder—until they turned a corner and saw him standing at an intersection of four alleys. Yes! The Doctor sped up in triumph.

Then he got nearer, and saw that under the hood the pony was smiling. Oh dear.

The three of them skidded to a halt as they entered the intersection and saw two other robed ponies to their left and right. The Doctor turned around and saw another one appear behind them, cutting off their escape.

“Three against four?” Vinyl didn't seem all that worried. “Yeah, come back when there's more of you guys.”

“You have no idea who you're dealing with, girl,” spat the pony they'd been chasing. He whistled, and in response a door opened on the squat, dirty building to his left. Out streamed half a dozen more of the hooded ponies, surrounding them. Vinyl seemed a bit more worried, and Octavia looked very worried indeed.

The Doctor made sure to look nothing of the sort, instead affecting a bemused expression. “Oh, is this su casa, then?” The hooded pony looked confused, so he elaborated. “You know: your home, base, lair, clubhouse? It's not bad—well, it could use a bit of work—well, it's downright awful, but I bet you could get on one of those home makeover programs and they'd fix it up for you. Wait, you don't have telly yet, either! Oh, you have got to get that.”

“He knows the location of our base!” hissed another one of the robed figures. Well, you just showed me, dumbo.

“You've seen too much of the Order,” the first one declared. “You must die.”

“There's an Order? Lovely!” The Doctor grinned.

“Augh—shut up and kill them!” the second one yelled. At her command, the ponies around them closed in, and a light appeared beneath each of their hoods. So, unicorns. Obvious, really.

Octavia nudged him. “What's the plan?” she hissed.

“Plan?”

“The one that involves living, please.”

“Oh, plan! Plan, plan... here's a good one—okay, you lot, here's why you shouldn't kill us!” he yelled, and grabbed Vinyl. “This is local celebrity Vinyl Scratch, doing a concert tomorrow as advertised throughout Fillydelphia. Don't you think there'd be a few too many awkward questions if she disappeared?”

The unicorns around them hesitated; the lights from their horns dimmed slightly. Brilliant! That never works!... wait, did I just think that?

The female cultist stepped forward with a grin. “We'll take the risk.” Her horn grew brighter, as did those of the other cultists. Well, that was stupid. Might as well have thought 'nothing can possibly go wrong'.

“Plan B?” Octavia whispered.

“There wasn't even a Plan A!” he shot back.

“What?” she hissed. The light grew brighter and brighter.

“COWER, FOOLS, BEFORE THE MIGHT OF THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!”

The Doctor, his friends, and the cultists turned around to see Trixie charging at them from the alleyway behind, wielding the huge knife she'd used to cut Vinyl in two. Unfortunately for the two cultists behind the Doctor, they did not turn quickly enough; she smashed their heads with the flat of the blade, knocking them unconscious. “TURN BACK NOW, LEST YOU DARE TO FALL UNDER THE ANCIENT KNIFE OF ERGOT!” she yelled. Vinyl took advantage of the distraction and lunged at the cultists to their right, knocking one of them out with a punch to the face.

The Doctor pulled Octavia to the ground, just as Trixie swung the 'Ancient Knife of Ergot' over their heads at the two leading cultists. The mare jumped back out of the way, and screamed, “Kill her!” Neither she nor any of the other cultists looked willing to get near that knife. Which means the time to move is now, before they get their nerve up again.

“Run!” the Doctor yelled. He dragged Vinyl out of her melee, pulling her and Octavia past Trixie. Trixie took one last wild swing at the cultists, then turned her own tail and followed them.

They ran as fast as they could, even faster than they'd run during the chase, up alleyways so narrow that their fur caught on the loose bricks of houses—but this was hardly their biggest problem. The cultists were still in pursuit, and fired bolt after bolt of magic at them, blasting those same bricks into dust. Trixie still covered their retreat, thrusting the knife at any unicorn that dared get too close.

The Doctor had lost track of time, but after what he supposed could be a minute the pursuit had died down. This did not convince any of them to lose speed; they continued dashing up broader and broader paths, until finally they burst from the Fillydelphian maze back into the city square.

“We're okay,” he panted. “They'd never attack us in plain sight of police.” And indeed the police had shown up in force during their absence; dozens of blue-uniformed ponies dotted the square, asking questions to the stampede's victims even as they were carried away.

“You're... you're welcome,” Trixie gasped, releasing her hold on the knife and letting it clatter to the ground. “Just by the way.”

The Doctor started to laugh as best as he could, considering he was still catching his breath. “What... you're laughing?” Trixie asked. “You nearly died like... like an idiot and you're laughing?”

“Long story... lots of long stories, actually,” the Doctor wheezed. "And somehow, most of them seem to involve a lot of running about... oh, and Vinyl?" He turned to Vinyl, who was tapping a fresh bruise on her face with some pride. “Let me do the talking next time, okay?”

Stay tuned: Great and Powerful will resume in just a moment.

Great and Powerful (b)

We now return to Great and Powerful.

Despite everything, it had been a good day for Trixie.

After saving Vinyl, Octavia, and the Doctor from the Order, Octavia had invited her to stay the night in their hotel suite, despite Vinyl’s protests. After having spent umpteen nights in a cart without heat, running water, or a soft bed, Trixie had felt no urge to say no to a free room. She'd parked her cart in the garage of the Hotel Palomino and gone in.

The first thing she'd done was to dash into their bathroom, jump into the shower, and set the water temperature to blazing. For the first time in ages, she'd gotten to hog the hot water, and it felt gorgeous.

After what felt like an hour, Trixie accepted that she should probably get out of the shower before her skin wrinkled. It's been a wonderful day, she thought, stepping out and toweling herself off. She had a bed, her bag was full of bits, and the show had—very nearly—gone well. Things were looking up.

She left the bathroom just as Octavia came in through the hotel room’s door. Trixie hadn't realized Octavia had left the room, but it had been a long shower.

Octavia nodded in greeting to Trixie, then addressed the Doctor and Vinyl, who were still awake. “Back from the police station. I told them everything we'd seen—the glowing eyes, the Order, etcetera.”

“And?” the Doctor asked.

She grimaced. “They said it was, and I quote, 'the funniest thing they'd heard all week'.”

The Doctor sighed. “Would have been nice, having some outside help for once... looks like we're on our own.”

“Hold on, we?” Vinyl said. “Octy and I have that concert-thing to do, remember? Probably gonna cut into snoopy-time.”

The Doctor turned to Trixie, but she answered before he asked. “Trixie's only staying until morning, and then she's out.” Vinyl snorted, causing her to correct herself. “I'm out.”

“I wish it worked like that.” The Doctor slumped forward, resting his face on his front hooves. “I called the stampede an experiment before—maybe I should have called it a dry run. A small-scale test. But if small-scale is a stampede, then what's full-scale?”

“Mind-controlling regular ponies?” Vinyl suggested. “That's pretty evil, right?”

“Maybe... but we need more information. Sorry, I need.” He scowled and scratched his neck. “Right now, what matters is what we do know. And that they know that we know. They were willing to kill us to get rid of witnesses, but we're still alive—so we're still targets. None of us are 'out', Trixie.”

"On that cheery note, I think I'll get my shower,” said Octavia, and entered and closed the bathroom. The sound of rushing water reached Trixie's ears seconds later.

“And Trixie would like to get to bed,” she said.

Vinyl snorted. “Sorry, babe, the hotel couldn't find a mattress large enough for your great and powerful ego. Hey-o!”

“Oh, you're one to talk.” The Doctor rolled his eyes, then pointed to a mattress lying in the corner of the room, complete with sheets, comforter and pillow. “That's yours.”

Keeping her priorities straight, Trixie strode to the bed and flopped down onto it, closing her eyes. She would be asleep quickly, if nopony interrupted her.

Which the Doctor proceeded to do. “Seriously, Trixie, do be careful. It's not over.”

“You be careful. Trixie's the one who can take care of herself.” She grabbed the pillow and dropped it on her head to block out light and sound. She was falling asleep, though not as quickly as she'd hoped; after sleeping on a cot for so long, the bed was almost too comfortable. What a nice problem to have, she mused.

“Ten bits says I get her with the ol' shaving cream on the hoof trick before she wakes up,” she heard Vinyl whisper.

“Oh, Octavia must love rooming with you,” the Doctor sighed. They were silent after that, and after a few minutes Trixie fell asleep.

Trixie woke at what she thought was about five-thirty, and immediately checked her face and hooves for whipped cream. When she was assured of their absence, she rose and found her hat and wizard's robe, then peered around the dark room. She was a bit surprised to see Vinyl and Octavia in separate beds—she'd been pretty sure they were an item—but was more surprised not to see the Doctor anywhere. She'd hoped to be the first to rise. Well, at least I won't have to talk with Vinyl Scratch.

Not wanting to make much fuss, she crossed the room and quietly let herself out. She walked down to the ground floor and entered the garage, thinking of new places to stage her show—and ways to spend her new money—as she looked for her cart. It didn't take long to find it, but she noticed an odd smell from inside and a hoof-written note resting on its harness. She frowned and illuminated her horn to read it.

Trixie:

I figured you'd leave bright and early, but there's a few things you should know. I'm doing some snooping around about this cult business of ours, and hopefully it won't provoke them into action—if it does, I'm sorry. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, be careful.

If we don't see you again, then it was a pleasure to meet you and you put on a hell of a show. I hope you like breakfast—I made do with what I had.

Razzle-dazzle 'em,

The Doctor

She opened her cart to find a steaming mug of tea on the floor, next to a plate piled high with grilled tomatoes.

Step one: Investigate the Everfree Forest. The Doctor wasn't sure what steps two, three, or beyond might be, but in his experience they usually presented themselves fairly clearly.

For that matter, so did his path into Everfree, thanks to the damage left by the previous night's stampede. He only had to walk two blocks from the hotel garage to find it: a street with benches upturned, shop windows smashed, and trees toppled. He followed the trail of destruction, and within half an hour he reached the edge of the city and took a good look at Everfree.

He'd seen it from Ponyville, and on the train ride to Fillydelphia, but only now that he was really investigating did he notice how very dark the forest floor was; how much the trees tangled and twisted with each other; and perhaps most importantly, how wide the gap was between the city and the forest. The only path in was the one left by the stampede. There were no hiking trails or bike paths—not that there were bikes in Equestria, but if there had been the Doctor doubted that their paths would lead into this dark place. Perhaps pre-dawn isn't the best time to go in alone.

After a minute spent hesitating at the city limits, he came to a decision: Whatever's in there, I've seen worse. Ten minutes later, he crossed the train tracks and entered the forest, following the torn branches and trampled plants.

Half an hour after that, the Doctor was poking holes in the path with his sonic screwdriver out of sheer boredom. He almost wanted something to attack him; at the very least, it would be interesting. As it was, he had found no clues of any kind. Perhaps the stampede had crushed any possible leads beyond recognition; perhaps the Order had covered their tracks; however, the Doctor suspected that he simply didn't know the land well enough. Maybe I should head back and get a proper breakfast. His stomach grumbled, and he imagined the smell of food... a nice soup, perhaps.

It took a few seconds for him to realize that he wasn't imagining the smell. Somewhere in the Everfree Forest, a place avoided by most sentient life, someone was making soup. Butternut squash soup, in fact. There's my step two: Follow my nose.

He concentrated and walked down the trampled path in the direction of the smell. Eventually he found a small path through the growth that he'd missed earlier, and followed it. It took about a minute for him make his way to the clearing at the end of the path. In the middle of that clearing was a hut carved out of an old gnarled tree, from which the aroma was rising. Trinkets and tribal masks were hung from various branches of the tree, or draped over its many protruding roots. So, the Doctor pondered, what's my plan of attack?

He walked up to the house and knocked. After a few seconds, the door opened a tad, and the zebra from the night before poked his head out. It took another few seconds before his eyes widened in recognition. “You! Why are you here now, at this time?”

“Hello again! You forgot to rhyme,” the Doctor said. The zebra smiled, and a moment later the Doctor realized that he'd finished the rhyme himself. “Oh, you cheeky... anyway, just popped in to see how you were doing. How your injury's holding up, you know. What's your name, by the way?”

“My name is Zanzi, and my wound is doing well; 'twill heal soon.” Zanzi opened the door wider, and the Doctor saw a bandage wrapped around his body. “Please, Doctor, come into my home. You look famished to the bone.”

The Doctor walked past Zanzi into the hut, and saw the pot of butternut squash soup hanging over the fire. He sat down in front of it and let it warm himself up.

“My question is unanswered still: why did you come out in the chill?” Zanzi sat down next to him.

“I'm trying to figure out what exactly happened last night. Do you remember anything unusual? Strange, hooded ponies; magic; disturbed animals?”

Zanzi took a moment to think, then shook his head. “One second, I was in my home; then the city, with a broken bone. Besides that, nothing was bizarre.” The Doctor sighed. “I'm sorry that you came so far,” Zanzi finished.

“Well... not your fault. Still!” He made the effort to appear cheerful. “No worries. I'll figure them out in time. Until then—”

He was interrupted by more knocks came from the door. Zanzi tried to stand up, but cringed in pain from his broken rib.

“Don't exert yourself, I'll get it,” the Doctor said, and walked to the door with a frown. Who else wanders the Everfree Forest at six in the morning?

He stuck his head out to see a unicorn wearing a nervous smile and blue scrubs. “Hi, I'm Doctor Chestnut from Fillydelphia General—just wanted to pop in to check up on my patient—could you let me in, please? Don't want to be outside too long in Everfree, you know."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. “What do you need scrubs for in the middle of a forest?”

“Well, you know... lots of... unsanitary stuff out here, and as a doctor I...” He hesitated a moment longer, then wound up and punched the Doctor in the jaw.

The Doctor tumbled to the floor in pain, and 'Doctor Chestnut' stepped over him. In his peripheral vision, the Doctor saw the unicorn's horn light up red, and a knife slid out from underneath the scrubs. Zanzi hobbled backward as if it would help him.

The Doctor forced himself to his hooves and tackled the unicorn into the wall, breaking his concentration and causing the knife to drop to the floor. The Doctor tried to pin his opponent, but was still disoriented; the unicorn managed to throw him to the floor and trap his back legs. The knife glowed red and rose back into the air—

Zanzi grabbed the pot from above the fire and splashed its contents at the unicorn's hooves. He screamed in pain and dropped the knife once more, trying to scrape the burning hot soup from his legs. It was enough distraction for Zanzi to swing the pot into his head and knock him out.

The Doctor rose unsteadily to his feet, careful not to step in the hot liquid. “Thanks for the help,” he said, and picked up the knife to scrape the soup off of the unicorn. Attempted murderer or not, no one deserves those burns.

“No, no. I should thank you, my friend.” Zanzi winced, apparently remembering his wound once more, and sat back down. “But why attack me? To what end?”

“He must be part of the Order that did last night. Must have tailed me in here, wanted to get rid of potential witnesses...” The Doctor smacked his head. “Oh, I'm thick! Thicktacular Doctor! We thought they'd be all obvious and cultish about it!”

“What do you mean?” Zanzi said, but the Doctor had no time to hear the rest. He bolted out the door, down the path, and back to Fillydelphia. Thick, stupid and thick, getting separated from Vinyl and Octavia. And now the Order is moving.

“Hmm....” Vinyl crouched down and looked from side to side at each 'antennifier', as she had christened them. Each one was a metal spire several stories tall, with a space in the base from which a musician would play their instrument. The antennifier would amplify that music and create a light show to go with it. Later that night, when it was being used, it would supposedly look impressive. For the moment it was merely heavy. Octavia, watching from a safe distance, felt sympathy for the four large, sweaty unicorns who had been assigned to levitate them.

“No. A few inches to the left,” Vinyl concluded, turning back to the stallions and pointing at a spot on the floor incrementally to the left of the contraption's position. “There. They've got to be symmetrical.” The unicorns groaned with exhaustion as they moved to pick the device back up.

Octavia had seen enough, and walked over to the middle of the stage. “It's fine,” she said, waving off the stallions with a polite smile. “Vinyl and I can handle the rest of the preparations. Thank you for your help.” They sighed in relief and walked away.

Octavia's smile turned into a glower once they'd gotten out of sight, and she turned on Vinyl. “From now on, you let me supervise the preparations.”

“Oh, come on, baby, you can trust me!” Vinyl exclaimed. Octavia took a deep breath and walked through the curtain. Easy... let’s just give ourselves some time to calm down before something blows up.

“Hey, what'd I do?” In her peripheral vision, she saw Vinyl burst through the curtain behind her. “I just want the concert to be perfect for us... me... us.”

So much for calming down. “It was fine,” Octavia replied, turning back around. “But like usual, you just couldn't keep your mouth shut.”

“Like usual? Name one time.”

“I could name twenty. Do you want the most recent example?”

“Hit me with it, Octy. I bet you're gonna have to go back months.”

“Only one day.”

Vinyl took a moment to think about this, then used her magic to pull one eyebrow high onto her face in an exaggerated expression of surprise. “You're still annoyed about the thing with Trixie? All I was doing was giving as good as I got!” Octavia sighed and looked away. “You're the one who let her stay at our hotel! How can you even stand her?”

“I've had plenty of practice,” Octavia muttered.

“Uhh... what?”

“She's you!” Octavia looked Vinyl right in the eyes. “An entertainer who can't shut up to save her life, who can't help but toot her own horn, who gets into arguments all the time—tell me, which one of you am I talking about?”

“What? Nahhh, we're plenty different!” Vinyl protested.

“You're right. She's been living on the road for months—she has a reason to be bad-tempered! But you!” Octavia took a deep breath before continuing. “You were simply winding her up without reason. And when you do something so stupidly insensitive, you make it... difficult... to be your friend.”

“Then maybe we should be more than friends, eh?” Vinyl revealed a toothy grin.

“Save the jokes.” Octavia went to tune her cello. At least I can control my cello.

For a few minutes, the only noises backstage were the careful sounds of strings being played and played again, as Octavia tuned each one to within an inch of its life. The exercise did some of its work; she became more aware of her own heartbeat, the tension in her limbs, and the activity in her brain. On the other hoof, that heartbeat was still elevated, her limbs were still tense, and vindictive thoughts still swirled in her head—thoughts like how Vinyl probably wouldn't be able to talk with a bow jammed down her throat.

At a break in the tuning, Vinyl cleared her throat, and Octavia looked up to see no smile on her friend's face. This was worth paying attention to.

“Okay, hear me out. I've been thinking, and I think you're half right. I mean, Trixie kinda got Ponyville nearly destroyed, and she is absolutely a stuck up word I probably shouldn't say in polite company—but. I talk too much. You're right there. So I'm sorry for that."

Octavia wondered if she ought to accept this halfhearted apology, but her attention was diverted before she had the chance to decide. The theatre's curtain parted to admit three stagehands, one of which was hitched up to a wheeled box half again as large as himself.

“Oh, hi guys!” Vinyl exclaimed, turning to them. “Turns out we probably don't... um.” She looked back at Octavia, who was gazing at the ceiling in resignation. “Sorry, you wanna take this one?” Vinyl asked.

Octavia sighed inwardly, turned her head to the stagehands, and smiled. “As my friend was saying, the equipment outside will suffice for our performance. None of the usual back-stage kerfuffle this time.”

“Sorry, Miss Octavia, but we’re going to have to ask you to look at this,” one of the stagehands said, indicating the box.

“What is it?” Octavia asked.

“It's for you. Please, come and see.”

“That answer isn’t even as straight as I am!” Vinyl exclaimed, pushing in front of Octavia to get to the box. “What's in here?” She opened it up with her magic, and froze. It was empty.

Octavia felt two forelegs close around her body, covering her mouth and nose with a damp, sweet-smelling cloth. Chloroform, she thought, and did her best not to breathe.

“What the hell—” Vinyl started toward Octavia, before the other 'stagehand' smothered her with more chloroform. She struggled, until the stallion pulling the cart punched her viciously in the stomach, forcing her to gasp in pain. Then she sagged and fell unconscious.

Octavia would have gasped, but she was still struggling not to breathe. However, the cart-pulling stallion then started walking toward her with a vicious smirk. She decided that she did not want to get punched in the stomach, and so breathed in deeply. The last thing of which she was aware was Vinyl’s body being loaded into the box.

The dummy's lower half and tail turned two different shades of gray. A treble clef cutie mark appeared on its flank, and its legs started writhing in pain. It was a perfect copy of Octavia's rear in every respect but one: the tail was much too short. There simply wasn't enough hair there to replicate the long, full tail Trixie remembered so well.

She tsked at herself and stemmed the flow of magic. The dummy lay lifeless once more on the table in her cart. Note to self: Only use assistants with shorter tails for this trick. She decided to practice again, and her horn glowed blue. The dummy turned two shades of brown, and a golden hourglass appeared as its cutie mark.

She sighed and let it go once more. I really should not be fixating like this. I met them, we did some things—pretty crazy things—but it's over. I literally can't afford to stay in touch—gotta keep moving on.

Something moved in the corner of her eye. She turned and saw a piece of paper that had been stuck under her door. With a frown she used her magic to pick it up and read the message, which was composed of words cut from several newspapers pasted onto a notecard.

IF YOU WANT YOUR FRIENDS TO LIVE, DO NOT INTERFERE.

Trixie really, really wished she didn't know exactly who they were talking about. No, they're not my friends. Really, we only met once. Vinyl, Octavia, that Doctor—they're not my friends.

Okay, she decided. It was settled. She didn't have to worry about it, because they weren't her friends. Even though the Doctor had given her some of the first sympathy she'd gotten in months, if not years, and saved her show to boot. Even though Octavia had offered her a free warm bed. Even though Vinyl Scratch—for all the bickering and insulting—had gone on stage and helped her turn a good act into a great one.

Despite all that, they definitely were not her friends.

… no, she hadn't thought she would be able to convince herself. But even though they were her friends, there wasn't anything for her to do, was there? She couldn't very well run in with a big sword, scaring away cultists left, right, and center? She definitely couldn't do that.

Stop coming up with reasons to interfere, she told herself. This time, they'll kill them if I do anything. It's completely different. The best thing for me to do would definitely be to sit right here and keep practicing my act. I shouldn't get involved. I shouldn't get involved.

She sat still for about a minute, not practicing—just repeating it in her head, over and over. I shouldn't get involved. I shouldn't get involved. I shouldn't... Finally, she groaned in defeat and bolted out her cart door. Looks like I'm not out after all. Horsefeathers.

It took only two minutes at a dead gallop to escape from the Everfree Forest, and another five minutes to cross the land between the forest and Fillydelphia, but the Doctor knew deep down that it wasn't fast enough. It's still a further five minutes to the theatre, and if they've started moving against witnesses...

After what seemed an eternity of running, he was finally rewarded by the sight of the concert center before him. It was similar to the venue that Vinyl and Octavia had had in Ponyville only in that it was an amphitheatre, but differed in most other respects. Chief among them was size, for the Fillydelphia amphitheatre was easily twice as large as Ponyville's.

This was only background detail to the fact that, as the Doctor spied the stage, he saw neither Vinyl nor Octavia upon it. No. Not again. He plowed on, running through the large standing room area to the stage itself and bursting through the curtain.

“Vinyl! Octavia!” he yelled.

Two stagehands looked up at him with mild annoyance. “They're not here right now, they're out having lunch,” one of them said.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. “Don't bother.”

“What?” the 'stagehand' said, taken aback.

“I never forget a face. Even if yours was hooded when you cornered us in the alley last night.” The cultist's eyes widened at the Doctor’s words. “Now tell me where they are,” the Doctor ordered.

The cultist recovered quickly from his surprise. “They've been removed, like every obstacle in the path of the Order of Four. Like you will be, soon.”

“Oh, I think you'll find I'm a bit more tenacious than that,” the Doctor snarled. “Now I want you to listen very carefully: this ends now. You return my friends to me immediately, or—”

“Or what?” the first cultist sneered.

“Or you start running. You run as far as you can, and hope beyond reason that we never meet again. And I swear to you that hope will be empty.”

The cultist who had responded to him laughed, but the other one shrank back in fear. “What should we do?” he asked his partner. “Should we listen to him, or...”

“Oh, for Brother's sake!” the first one exclaimed. “Get him!” The other unicorn gulped, but his horn glowed and magically pulled a rag from under his coat.

The Doctor detected a whiff of chloroform in the air, and put two and two together. Time to go, he decided, and turned for the curtains. The more zealous cultist was too fast, however; he ran to the curtains as well, cutting off that method of retreat, and leaving him with no apparent options.

Then again, there was always one option. “Wait, hold up a minute, there's something you should probably know before you, ah, ‘get’ me. Something about this theatre.”

The minion holding the rag hesitated. “What about it?”

“That it's gorgeous!” The Doctor threw on a careless smile, behind which he scanned the room for other escape routes. It didn't take long. “Now I'm probably going to sound like a theatre geek, but bear with me, because I've done my homework on this place—just wanted to reconnoiter a bit before my friends popped in—and it is an absolute marvel of modern Equestrian engineering. Built on taxpayer bits from the ground up just three years ago—lovely to know that Fillydelphia knows how to support the arts.”

The two unicorns watched him warily, apparently wondering if he might make a move. They were completely unaware that, as he ambled through the room, he was busy making it. I've out-talked Daleks, for goodness' sake—the homicidal rubbish bins themselves! These blokes are small potatoes. “Just look at that arched ceiling! Perfectly designed for perfect acoustics, and then magically enhanced to become beyond perfect! And out there in the stands, they've terraformed the ground for even better quality! There's spotlights here capable of shining through the performers, eliminating any shadows! And just ask me about the trapdoors.”

“Fine, what about the trapdoors?” the more aggressive of the two asked.

“Well, that's the best part about this being such a modern theatre!” The Doctor slipped a hoof into his coat pocket. “The catches are made of metal.” He pressed the button on his sonic screwdriver, and the catch on the trapdoor beneath him opened. With a final, fierce grin he fell into the dark under-stage. Like a charm, he thought, kicking the door shut above him to prevent the cultists from following.

Clutching his screwdriver in his mouth for use as a makeshift torch, he quickly made his way out through a back door, then dashed off to the city's center. There was one more target to check up on.

Stay tuned for the conclusion to Great and Powerful.

Great and Powerful (c)

And now, the conclusion to Great and Powerful.

Octavia wondered why her bed felt so stiff. It seemed very uncomfortable to her as she woke up, less like a bed than a table. Then, as she more fully recovered her senses, she realized that was exactly what it was: an angled table to which she was tightly bound beyond the capacity to struggle. I wasn't asleep—Vinyl and I were knocked out by those 'stagehands'. The thought seemed to constrict her chest even more than the straps did.

She opened her eyes to see a large, dingy room reminiscent of an empty warehouse. The walls were windowless and bare, save for one section where four tally marks had been scorched into the wall. In front of her was a low table with various tools: a wrench, a screwdriver, a hammer, tape, several very sharp knives, and other, nastier-looking tools. Behind it stood a stallion in the same robes she'd seen the night before. This, then, would have to be the headquarters of the Order.

She looked to her left to see two more angled tables, only one of which was occupied: Vinyl Scratch lay upon it, snoring loudly. One extra table... they must have been searching for someone else. The Doctor! She thanked Celestia that they hadn't caught him.

“Finally awake, I see.” Her attention returned to the stallion by the toolbench, who was watching her with a smug smile on his face.

Octavia snorted with as much anger as she could manage. “Release us at once!” It wasn’t as much as she’d have liked.

The stallion rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored her demand. He walked to Vinyl and poked her cheek. “Wake up.”

“Aww, dad, five more minutes...” Vinyl mumbled.

“I said wake up.” He turned around and whipped his long tail at her, striking her in the face with his knot.

Vinyl grimaced, and her eyes probably opened; she was still wearing her glasses, so it was difficult to tell. “Dude, I just did the 'held down against my will' thing last night, with someone way hotter than you.” She looked around the room until she found Octavia, and what joviality there had been in her tone disappeared. “Okay, you're gonna let us go right now or I'm gonna friggin' kill you.”

Their guard laughed. “There are dozens of us here, girl. Even if you could kill me, you'd die painfully by their hooves. Now be silent.” He turned his back on them and walked to a door next to a staircase at the other end of the room. “Brothers and sister, they have awoken!”

Vinyl bared her teeth and tensed her body, but then looked back at Octavia and seemed to hesitate—though what she could be hesitating to do, Octavia had no idea. They were immobilized, after all. With a sigh, Vinyl went limp and forced a grin onto her face. “How you doing?” she asked Octavia. “Okay?”

“I believe so. You?”

“Oh, you know me. I'm always a teensy bit grumpy when I wake up.”

“Silence.” The two of them looked back at the door, and saw a trio of cultists walking toward them, led by the mare they had seen the night before. She turned on the stallion who'd called her down. “I ordered you to call me when all of them were awake.”

“Sister, they are all awake!” he protested.

“Where is the third? The brown one, where is he? We need all the leverage we can get!”

The guard shifted uneasily. “He's proven impossible to find.”

The mare slapped him across the face. “Idiot. Get out of my sight until you can tell me he's been captured. And gather the pegasi—there's no time left to waste.” The guard bowed and left the room, leaving four cultists in front of them. “As for you two,” she said, turning back to Vinyl and Octavia, “welcome to the Order of Four.”

“And what is that?” Octavia asked, careful to keep any note of panic out of her voice. The more time they spend talking, the less time I spend learning what those tools on the table are for.

“The Order of Four, girl, is—”

“Between three and five.”

Octavia and the cultists looked to Vinyl, who shrugged as best as she could and continued, “That's the order of four. It goes between three and five. Come on, lady, basic math!”

The cultist rolled her eyes. “We are the chosen few, hoofpicked by our Brother for our exceptional abilities. I, for example, was chosen for my superlative wisdom,” she declared.

Vinyl barely stifled a laugh, in a way that sounded like an elephant stifling its trumpet. “No, no, don't mind me, keep talking,” she chortled. “This is gold.”

The lady cultist gritted her teeth. “You saw our demonstration last night; that was merely a test of our magical prowess. We have the ability to control the smaller beings of the Everfree Forest, and very soon we will demonstrate the ability to control something much grander.”

“Such as what?” Octavia asked.

The cultist smiled. “Something that will destroy the city—unless Fillydelphia recognizes our greatness and surrenders itself to the Order of Four! We will be the masters of this city! And your magician friend will not be able to do anything about it!”

Vinyl burst out laughing. She writhed in her hysterics, to the point that Octavia worried she might hurt herself against her restraints. After what seemed like an eternity, she managed to calm down enough to splutter, “Magician friend? You mean Trixie? Oh dear Celestia, you guys are—” She relapsed into hysterics.

“Enough!” the cultist yelled. “You dare mock the Order?”

“Of course I do!” Vinyl finally calmed down enough to speak at length. “Seriously, your idea is to try to hold Fillydelphia ransom—that's the stupidest plan I've ever heard of! No, wait wait wait, I know why that Brother of yours must have chosen you specifically—he needed people who were too stupid to realize how dumb the plan was!”

The head cultist growled, but managed to compose herself. “Then, pray tell, what is wrong with our plan?”

“What's wrong? What's right with this plan?” Vinyl snorted in derision. “Okay, fine. You're the Order of Four, so here's four things. Number one—”

“Don't tell them!” Octavia interjected.

Vinyl gave her a surprised look. “Do you even realize what you're saying?” Octavia asked her. “You're about to tell the evil villains how to make their evil plan better! Why can you never just stop talking?”

“But Octavia—”

“Vinyl, if you say one more thing, I swear that as soon as we get out of this I'm—why, I'm moving out of your flat.”

“Do you really think you'll escape—” one of the cultists began.

“Oh, shut up!” Octavia screamed. Astonishingly, he did just that; she must have managed a tone of real anger.

Vinyl hesitated for several seconds—a new record, Octavia thought bitterly—and when she opened her mouth again, her speech was slow. It's almost like she's choosing her words carefully. Shocking. “I wanted to help you feel better.”

Octavia looked away, keeping her own mouth shut. Vinyl continued: “I figured you'd be scared, because they kidnapped us, and I wanted to help. And mouthing off's kinda how I do stuff like that, y'know? Sad but true. I just thought... you know... you're usually okay with it, but maybe I’m being dumber.” A pause. Then: “And for what it's worth, I'd like it if you stayed at the house. I, um, enjoy your company. It's cool, and you’re a good friend, so there. I'll stop talking now,” she hastily finished as Octavia looked back her way.

Octavia remained silent, thinking. Vinyl has a point—that is how she helps me deal with things. Nevermind the fact that this is probably how she's helping herself to cope—should I be angry with her now? Is this really the time?

“This is all very touching,” the Order's leader deadpanned. “But, if you don't mind, we'll hear your four things now, Miss Scratch. Or we can start your girlfriend off with the hoofbreaker, if you prefer.”

“Uh, we're not girlfriends—we're just friends,” Vinyl corrected. “And technically also girls.”

“I said speak!” The cultist grabbed a large viselike tool from the table and sent it floating towards Octavia.

Vinyl looked over at her. “Trust me to say this?”

Octavia looked back at the hoofbreaker, gulped, then looked back at Vinyl. “Go ahead.”

“Okay!” And just like that, Vinyl was back to her usual tone of voice. Does she have a switch on her or something? “Thing one—you guys are idiots.” The leader of the cultists growled, and the hoofbreaker stayed levitated. “I know, sounds weird to say it, but sometimes you gotta start with the obvious, right?” A grin started worming its way onto Octavia's face.

“Thing numbah two! Did you honestly think that no one's gonna notice a bunch of ponies in silly clothes taking over an entire city? Like, say, Princess Celestia—didn't you think of what she's gonna do?”

“It is of no concern.” The cultist smiled.

“Well, I guess you would say that, being an idiot and all. Okay, thing three coming up... you've misidentified the protector.”

“What?” The cultist narrowed her eyes.

“No, really. You actually thought Trixie's gonna be the one to save us. You think she's the one to be afraid of. Because?” Vinyl asked, turning to Octavia.

“You're imbeciles!” Octavia completed, smiling broadly now.

“... close enough. No, it's not Trixie. It's the really hot one. The Doctor.”

The cultist hooted. “The one with the brown mane? The idiot?”

“Hey, is that a jab against people who talk too much?” Vinyl scowled. “Really, though. If you thought Princess Celestia would mess you guys up, well...” She smiled smugly. “Sorry, guys, you ain't winning this one. And you know why—”

“Because you're idiots!” Octavia and Vinyl finished, and laughed.

“And the 'fourth thing'?” the cultist asked through gritted teeth.

“But you guys, really!” Vinyl laughed. “I'm only telling you this stuff because you're so stupid that it won't help!”

“Tell me!” The mare grabbed the hoofbreaker herself, marched over to Vinyl, and held it up to her horn. “Tell me or your horn will be the first thing to go.”

Under normal circumstances, Octavia realized, she'd have been scared of this very real threat—but now it seemed too comical, even pitiful, to take seriously. A bunch of ponies in silly robes, thinking they can take over the world? Vinyl seemed, if anything, even less serious; she blew a raspberry at the cultist. “Can't tell you now, sweetheart. Number four's the big payoff. Trust me, you got enough on your plate already.”

The cultist snarled and began to close the vise around Vinyl's horn—but a cultist burst through the door at the far end of the room. “My sister!” he called. All eyes turned toward him. “We have a problem.”

It didn't take Trixie long to figure out where to go. Before she'd run a block from her cart, there was a poster slapped on a post office for “The Concert of the Year”, featuring Vinyl and Octavia's faces. Fillydelphia Amphitheatre, Trixie read. Good. Now to go warn them, if they're still there. She dashed off in that direction, silently thanking the months spent pulling her heavy cart for her stamina.

As she ran through the crowded Fillydelphia street to the amphitheatre, she was surprised to find a patch of shadow across the road, and looked up to see a cloud in the sky. Strange—the weather crew didn't schedule any clouds for today. Then a flash of brown caught her eye; she turned to her left and saw the Doctor dashing the other way down the street. “Doctor!” she yelled, just before he got out of visual range.

He turned around, his eyes widening in recognition. The two of them struggled through the current of ponies and reached each other in the middle of the shaded street. “Good to see you're okay,” he said, looking decidedly unrelieved. “What happened to you? Why were you running?”

“Somepony gave Trixie—ugh!” She pulled out the letter from the night before, and started again. “Somepony gave me this. Where are Vinyl and Octavia?”

“The Order of Four took them,” he said, scanning the note in a moment.

“The Order of Four? That's a dumb name.”

“Is that really important?” He grunted in anger, and turned on the spot as if to get his bearings. “We need to get them back right now, and we need to stop whatever the Order's planning.”

“What is the Order planning?”

“No idea,” he breathed. “Wanna help me find out?” He started trotting back in the direction she'd come from, and she followed. “What do we know?” he asked her.

“They can mind control animals.”

“And?”

“And that's it!” she exclaimed in frustration. “That's all we have!”

“No, you know we've got more than that.” The Doctor gave her an odd look. “We know they're planning something bigger than controlling a lot of little animals. And actually,” he remarked, “is it just me or is it getting darker?”

Trixie looked up to see yet more clouds filling the sky above Fillydelphia and the Everfree Forest. Even as she watched, the light of the sun grew dimmer and dimmer as cloud covered cloud, until the ponies on the street noticed too. They turned their heads to the sky and muttered to each other in confusion. “That's not scheduled at all,” Trixie said.

“Our friends from the double-O Four, no doubt.” The Doctor grimaced. “So there's another clue.”

“Is it a thunderstorm?”

“I don't think so... they're darkening the sky, so whatever they're doing, it has to be dark. Maybe they'd have waited until nightfall, but we forced their hands... hooves, sorry... no, hang on, thinking,” he said, waving a hoof at her as she tried to ask about 'hands'. “You can see it's above Fillydelphia and Everfree, so they're controlling an animal... a big, nocturnal animal, maybe? Trixie, do you know of any big, nocturnal animals they'd be able to find in the Everfree Forest?”

It took a few seconds, but Trixie came up with something. Her jaw dropped, and she took a few steps back. “Trixie?” the Doctor asked. “What is it? What's wrong?”

“No, they couldn't,” she muttered. “It's impossible. No one could do that.”

“What is? Trixie?”

Trixie started marching back to her cart, desperately trying to reassure herself. It's not that. The chances of it being... that... are one in a million... oh, who is Trixie kidding. With Trixie’s luck, how could it not be that?

“Trixie, talk to me!” the Doctor called, catching up with with her. “Do you know what it is?”

“There are many truly massive creatures in the Everfree Forest, Doctor, but one dwarfs them all. Do you think they'd have provoked the biggest thing in the forest?”

“Yes.”

“Then Trixie knows what it is.”

Before Trixie knew what was happening, she was on the ground with her hooves over her ears. Moments later, her brain was able to tell her that an incredible roar was blasting through the city, a tsunami of sound that blotted out all other noise for several seconds. She could not tell when it ended, and for several seconds was not sure that it had; she didn't think she could hear the roar, but could not hear much of anything but an awful ringing in her ears.

“... was that?” The Doctor was cowering only a few feet from her, but he might have been a mile away for how distant his voice sounded. “What was that?” he yelled.

Trixie stood and looked to the noise's source, deep within the Everfree Forest beneath the furthest extent of cloud cover. There, in the distance, was something that should have been impossible: a patch of night sky, bathed in purple and resplendent with stars.

“That...” Trixie gulped. “That was an Ursa Major.”

“Right. What's an Ursa Major, then?” But she was too busy turning and running away to answer. “Trixie!” he yelled, trying to follow her, but he was not fast enough. “Where are you going?” She kept running and quickly joined the crowd fleeing the Ursa Major, wondering how she could have dreamed of helping. The Doctor's plaintive shouts quickly faded out of hearing. With any luck, he won't be able to find me.

The Doctor had no trouble finding Trixie. As he entered the town square, the top of her cart was clearly visible over the surge of evacuating ponies. He let the tide carry him to it and found her hitching herself up to the cart, preparing for departure. “Trixie!” he yelled.

“Trixie won't help you get out of here.” She did not look at him, only struggled to hitch herself to her cart. The straps, enveloped in her purple magic, could not tie themselves correctly. “You can run away on your own four hooves.”

The Doctor grinned, trying to infect her with a little fighting spirit. “Oh, I'd reckon we've done enough running away recently. It's time we stayed and fought.”

“Stupid idea. Let the police deal with it. It's their job.”

“Trixie.” So much for fighting spirit. His voice dropped to a low, serious tone. “What do you think the police can do about—”

“Nothing!” She whipped her head around, letting him see the determined despair on her face. “They can't do anything at all, and if you think Trixie can do better against that monster you're as crazy as Trixie was!” Her attention returned to the straps, but she kept talking. “Trixie—I mean, I used that brag about the Ursa Major so many times in my act, I think I started to believe maybe I could do it. And then an Ursa baby showed up and I couldn't do anything! A baby!” Finally she managed to get her straps tied up, and looked back at the Doctor. “No more illusions for this illusionist. I'm only good for making ponies look the wrong way. That's it.”

A few seconds later, as she was pulling away from him, the words clicked. “That's it!” He ran in front of her, blocking her path and shouting with excitement. “That is it! Oh, that's precisely it!”

“Trixie doesn't understand—”

“Of course not. Understanding would mean doing a thing, which according to you, you can't do—except that that's a bigger lie than any you've ever told. How many months—how many years—have you stayed on the road despite all the mockery? How many ponies told you to give up?”

She looked to the side. “Maybe I should have.”

“Yes, and how easy that would have been.” He walked around her, maintaining eye contact. “But if you'd done what was easy, you'd never have gotten here, would you.”

“This isn't not easy, Doctor, this is impossible!”

“That's how I know you can do it! You do the impossible!”

“I PRETEND!” she bellowed.

“Exactly.”

Her eyes widened in confusion, but she was still standing there, so he continued. “Just listen for a few minutes more, and I'll prove to you that you can do this. You're finally going to drive off that Ursa Major after all, but please, just trust me enough to listen.”

She bit her lip, and rocked from side to side on her hooves, but a few seconds later: “Talk quickly.”

“Now, listen. No one here is prepared for an Ursa Major attack, from the police to the hospitals to the bucket brigade, which means it's never happened. Why would that be?”

“Because they're—”

“Peaceful creatures, obviously. But look at this one's eyes.”

Trixie peered at the looming Ursa Major. Her eyes narrowed. “They're red. Bright red.”

“More of that almost-mind-control from last night. But something that big, I bet that's a spell you couldn't just cast once, am I right? Pretty high-maintenance?” Trixie nodded. “Which means that somewhere in Fillydelphia, the cultists are actively keeping this creature focused on attacking the city.”

“How does that help us?”

“One more question for you: Is it true that magic becomes harder at a distance?” Trixie nodded again. “There we are, then. They're looking at the bear. And let me tell you something, Trixie: there's no one in this city better qualified to make them look the wrong way at the right time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I need you to get their attention away from the bear and on you. Break their concentration as much as possible. Drive them physically away from the bear—back to their home base if you can. And I really would be much obliged if you'd save Vinyl and Octavia while you're at it, they’re probably at the base.”

“But how?”

“By doing what you do best—giving 'em the ol' razzle dazzle!”

“And what if I fail?”

“You won't.” It seemed to take Trixie a moment to believe this, but once she did she nodded in assent and undid the straps connecting her to her cart. Which reminded the Doctor: “I need to borrow your cart. Hitch me up?” He took her place beneath the harness.

“Why?” Trixie asked, even as she did up his straps with much more ease than she'd managed for her own.

“I've got some razzle dazzling of my own to do—with my trusty magic wand.” He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and waited for Trixie to understand.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, a moment later. “Ohhh... I'm billing you for those, by the way.” She grinned.

“Don't worry, I'm on a royal pension. I can pay it.” She raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth, but he interrupted her: “Mind if I explain later? It's time to put on a show.”

She nodded, then turned and dashed toward the bear, running against the tide of ponies fleeing it. The Doctor managed to turn himself around with some difficulty, and headed for the main street leading out of the city.

Years of perfecting the finer kinds of magic had taught Trixie many things about her craft, and as she raced toward the scariest thing she'd ever seen, she decided to use one of them: the ability to sense others’ use of magic. It was hard to concentrate as she dodged the evacuating crowds, but as she got closer to the Ursa Major, it hardly mattered. Even at her most distracted she could hardly have ignored the staggering pulses of magic coming from somewhere just inside the city.

It wasn't long before she turned a corner and found the source: sixteen members of the Order, instantly recognizable by their pale blue cloaks and hoods, grouped in a four-by-four square in a side street. Their horns glowed many colors, but the glows all joined together like a red lantern above the center of the group, manifesting in regular pulses.

Trixie ducked back into her street and considered her options. On the one hoof, it doesn't look like any of them are armed. On the other... there's sixteen of them. And, she realized, I've forgotten my knife. Damn. She hesitated, pawing the ground as she searched for a good reason to leave this job to someone else and, sadly, found none. Well, she thought, gritting her teeth and looking up to the sky, time to ad lib.

She focused her magic on one particular cloud, somewhat lower than the rest. Come on down.... Once she'd gotten it down to street level without being noticed by the cultists—whose sole attention was on the Ursa Major—she charged the cloud with as much magic as she could manage. She took a moment to breathe, another to gulp, then pushed the cloud over the cultists. And now to begin. She sent one last charge to the cloud, giving it just too much to hold.

Lightning struck a cultist in the middle of the square, knocking him unconscious. The thunder sounded simultaneously, getting the attention of the remaining fifteen.

“COWER, FOOLS! RUN FROM THE MIGHT OF THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE TRIXIE!” she roared, magically amplifying her voice so it could be heard over the thunder. She did not yet reveal herself, figuring that she'd be a far sight less terrifying than what she could produce with magic.

“She's here!” one of the cultists yelled—one she recognized from the previous night. If her memory served her right, she'd knocked him cold before. Let's stoke him up.

Trixie concentrated, and summoned a pillar of what looked like fire a fair way away from the cultists. She sent it flying toward them, and couldn't resist grinning as the cultists barely dodged the illusion. “FLEE NOW,” she yelled, “LEST YOU NEVER AGAIN BE SEEN BY PONY EYES!”

Now for the coup de grace. She pictured her knife before her and concentrated, then projected multiple images of it near the square. She set the illusions spinning, and—with some effort now; this was getting to be rather difficult magic—dragged them toward the Order. It was enough for them to break formation and flee, presumably back toward their base.

Trixie followed them, always endeavoring to stay out of sight, and to keep her illusions very much in sight. She summoned fire-breathing dragons, ferocious manticores, hydras, and other stranger horrors of her own devising; disembodied chomping jaws, bloodied eyeballs, disjointed zombies that burst from the ground to grab at the cultists' hooves. It was working—they continued fleeing, and she detected none of the powerful magic she'd felt earlier—but she was pushing herself to her limit. A small part of her brain, one she was working to suppress, knew that she couldn't keep this pace and this level of magic up, and hoped to goodness that they would reach the headquarters soon.

Before long, her prayer was answered. They turned a corner and she recognized the dingy building from before, and saw the cultists running for the door. Thinking quickly, she locked the door just as they reached it. “Let us in!” the most scared of the bunch yelled, banging the door as hard as he could.

“They won't hear you.” The fifteen jumped and turned around, just as Trixie chose to reveal herself—though not without a few pieces of flair. She gave her eyes a red glow, put fangs in her mouth, and conjured up a little wind to make her cape billow behind her. It seemed to work; the cultists cowered before her. “There's no safe place for you anywhere in there. Want to know what you should do?”

The cultist who'd been yelling the most was now incapable of speech, but he managed a little shake of the head, his jaw quivering.

“RUN!” she roared. And they did, piling over themselves in their panic to escape. In a few seconds, all that remained of them was the rapid sounds of their hoofsteps.

Trixie sighed and released all her illusions. Her eyes were no longer red; they drooped as she staggered and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. That was... that was good, right? she thought—too tired to even form complete sentences in her own head. Can I be... be done now?

'And I really would be much obliged if you'd save Vinyl and Octavia while you're at it.' Trixie groaned, wishing she'd forgotten the Doctor's words—but there they were. And as she was at the Order's headquarters already, she could hardly find a reason not to try. Not that it stopped her from waiting outside the door, continuing to pant, until the door opened and a confused-looking cultist poked his head out.

“Hello?” he said. “Guys, I heard you knocking—is anyone here?” Thanks to the hood, he seemed to have no peripheral vision: Trixie was only barely concealed by the open door, but he could not see her.

Trixie kicked the door as hard as she could manage, and as it turned out a fair bit harder than she thought herself capable of: it slammed into the side of the cultist's head with enough force to knock his lights out. She took a deep breath, then stepped over his body into the dark room beyond.

She found herself at the top of a staircase, leading into a large dark room. She could not see into the room very well, but there seemed to be several angled tables near the middle, two of which were occupied. Vinyl and Octavia. She took another step.

“Stop right where you are!” Trixie's attention was called to an angry mare near Vinyl and Octavia, and the two stallions behind her. “Do anything, and the two of them die,” she declared. At this, the two stallions magically picked up two knives from the table and pressed them under Vinyl's and Octavia's chins.

Trixie froze. She tried to think of something she could do with her magic, but her earlier effort had entirely drained her. “That's better,” the lead cultist said with some satisfaction. “Now walk down the stairs. No sudden movements.” Trixie sighed, but did as she was told. Now that she was closer, she could see the manic look in the cultist's eyes, like she was at the end of her rope.

“Good to meet you at last, Great and Powerful Trixie,” the cultist said, forcing a smug smile. “You should know that despite your best efforts, the Order will still be successful. It is nothing less than our destiny! There is nothing you can do.”

However, Trixie's attention was barely on the mare, for a little light from Vinyl's horn caught her eye—then another light from the table behind the cultists. Slowly and carefully, two large blunt instruments like fat pliers rose from the table, floating ever so slowly toward the cultists. Trixie looked back at Vinyl, who jerked her head toward the cultists, then drew her lower lip across her upper lip like a zipper.

There is something I can do, Trixie realized. The only thing, in fact. Brag.

“Fools!” she declared, gesturing magnificently at the cultists. “You truly mean to intimidate the Great and Terrible Trixie? Already Trixie has defeated the great Ursa Major, and made mincemeat of your precious Order of Four. Beware, lest you suffer the same fate!”

“You know nothing!” the cultist spat. “Even as we speak, the bear is destroying the city. We merely await the government's unconditional surrender.”

“The bear you were controlling with sixteen unicorns? No more, for the Great and Terrible Trixie has just dispersed those cowards with the greatest of ease!”

“Liar!” the mare yelled, her eyes still fixed on Trixie.

“And I can do worse to you, you loathsome hag. Leave this place and never be seen again!” Just a little longer, Trixie thought.

“No! You are powerless!” The mare forced a laugh, and her two henchmen joined in hesitantly. “Even if what you say is true, you still cannot save your friends!”

Trixie smirked, and dropped the pompous tone she'd been using. “Did you expect me to?”

The mare frowned. “What did you say?”

“You've seen too few magic shows. A magician's job is to make you look away, while the assistant does the real work.”

Before the cultists had time to grasp the importance of these words—

CLONK

Vinyl swung the heavy pliers at the back of the henchmen's heads, knocking them out. The knives fell from her and Octavia's throats to land in a clatter on the ground. “And that's thing four!” Vinyl yelled, as the mare looked around in horror to see her cohorts unconscious. “You forgot about how I can use magic, you stupid friggin' idiots!”

All traces of arrogance fell away from the mare's face as fast as her cohorts had. She squealed and ran for the stairs—but Vinyl was quicker. She threw one of the pairs of pliers at the mare and struck her in the leg, sending her to the ground with a scream of pain.

“Easy peasy,” Vinyl spat, her horn glowing anew. The straps attaching her and Octavia to the tables undid themselves, and the two fell to the ground. “Are you okay?” she asked Octavia.

“I'm fine.”

“Then let's get Miss Bitchy over here into some straps.” Vinyl walked to the lead cultist, who was still moaning on the floor, and hauled her onto her own back.

As Vinyl returned to the tables, Octavia turned to Trixie and smiled. “Thank you so much. If you hadn't come here—”

“Actually, why'd you show up, Trix?” Vinyl interjected, dropping the mare onto the table in a less than delicate fashion. “No offense, but I was kinda expecting Brownie—told these guys he'd be coming and everything... and I just interrupted you again,” she said, turning back to Octavia even as her horn lit up to secure the straps. “Slow to learn, I guess. Sorry. But where's the Doctor? What's he doing?” she finished, casually punching the mare in the side of the head as she tried to struggle; the cultist went limp.

“The Doctor!” Trixie yelled. In all the excitement, she'd practically forgotten about him. “He's, um, he's....” Suddenly, now that she didn't have to keep up any facade of confidence, she felt incredibly tired. It was like the most stressful show of her life had just finished. “Well, he's....”

“Excuse me, coming through!” the Doctor yelled, hoping but not really expecting that a path for him and the cart might clear in the fleeing crowds. The Ursa Major was only lumbering along, but thanks to its incredible size—the Doctor estimated it to be two hundred feet tall—it was approaching at an astonishing rate. He really wanted to get beyond it before it started crushing the city, and before he'd gotten exhausted from pulling this dreadfully heavy cart. I don't know how Trixie's managed it all these years—but then again, she wasn't trying to run.

He was only a few dozen yards away when the bear's massive purple foot came down and crushed a home in one fell swoop. The Doctor swore inwardly, and hoped that the ponies living there had evacuated. The crowd was thinning now that he was at the city outskirts; he could run without impediment.

As the Ursa was taking its second lumbering step into the city, the Doctor finally got beneath it. Hobbling along on three legs, he used his fourth to reach into his pocket, grab his sonic screwdriver, and place it in his mouth. As he ran beyond the Ursa, he clamped down on the screwdriver's button, and only a moment later heard a fizzing sound in the cart behind him.

A salvo of fireworks shot out from the cart's inside, flying up and backwards into the sky—and directly into the Ursa's back, where they exploded in a blaze of colors and scorched the bear's fur. It wounded the bear about as seriously as a mosquito might have, but the Doctor was aiming not to leave any lasting damage. The question is, does it hurt?

Another incredible roar filled the air, but this one was angrier than the first. The Doctor just managed to keep his focus against the wall of sound, and increased his pace. Oh yes, it hurts rather a lot. And now things get interesting.

As the Doctor watched over his shoulder, the bear dropped down onto all fours—crushing several more houses beneath its feet—and turned itself around with worrying agility. Gone was the lumbering gait; its angry red eyes were now focused on one very specific, very annoying target.

If the Doctor hadn’t still been holding the sonic in his mouth, he might have grinned. Been too long since I had a good run. He sped up, and so did the bear, which made a terrific leap forward. Its front paws slammed into the ground like giant movers of earth mere feet behind the cart.

The Doctor desperately fired off another volley of fireworks as the bear reared back for another jump. This time they hit the Ursa between the eyes, causing it to roar in pain and swipe at its face with its claws to try to get the fire out. The Doctor used this borrowed time to dash further across the fields and to a section of train line the Ursa had smashed into bits. Carefully, not wanting to upset Trixie's cart, he crossed the train line and continued running just as the bear regained enough control to see. It remained on its hind legs, apparently not wishing to take more fireworks to the face, and lumbered toward the Doctor as he entered the Everfree Forest.

The Doctor followed the same stampede trail he'd used that morning, but now with much more urgency. Every time the Ursa got too close for comfort he shot off more fireworks to strike its body, slowing it down for a moment as it rubbed the burned fur in discomfort. But every time it came at him again, it moved a little slower, and its eyes were a little less red, a little more yellow. Good on you, Trixie. Wherever you are, you're doing brilliantly.

The Doctor chewed his screwdriver again, and heard nothing. He'd used up every single firework in the cart. Rats. He looked up to see the bear looming over him, but now there was no more red in its eyes, no more anger in its face. Now it looked confused, and hurt, and scared.

Panting with exhaustion, the Doctor dropped the screwdriver from his mouth and turned around so he could face the bear.

“I don't know if you can understand me!” he yelled, craning his neck to look into its eyes. “I don't even know if you can hear me down here, but I'm sorry to have hurt you! I know you didn't want to attack the city, but I had to get your attention.”

The bear cocked its head, as if it were listening. The Doctor fervently hoped that it was. “You don't have to do any of this!” he continued. “You can go back to your home, wherever it is in this forest, and sleep! Dream of peace, and leave peace to the city! Please, just go home!”

For what felt like the longest time, he and the bear stood still. The Doctor wondered whether his words were having any effect. Perhaps they hadn't. But suddenly, the bear began to move, raising its right hind leg.

If it still wants to crush me, I won't be able to move fast enough, the Doctor realized. He didn't have enough strength left to pull himself and Trixie's cart away, so he simply closed his eyes and hoped.

A second later, he heard a massive footfall—but felt nothing. He opened his eyes to see the bear stepping over him, and continuing on into the forest. From its throat he heard a growl that sounded almost like a yawn. The Doctor gazed up at the bear’s retreating form and, suddenly, was able to appreciate the improbable majesty of the beast before him.

It was the night sky turned animate. Constellations swirled and undulated in time with the bear’s steady pace, forming into every shape imaginable. The massive body seemed to bathe its surroundings in the violet light of dusk, as it continued on to the horizon like a stately vessel of the sea—until it sank into the the trees and was visible no more.

He had forgotten how beautiful monsters could be.

“Hey, look who it is!” As the Doctor pulled the cart into the town square, Vinyl ran up to him and rubbed his back vigorously. Octavia and Trixie were not far behind her, and a rather large crowd of ponies was not far behind them. Hundreds of them milled about in the town square, calling out for friends and family, and in most cases quickly finding one or the other.

“Trix says you actually attacked a star bear with fireworks?” Vinyl asked, as Trixie used her magic to unhitch the Doctor. He nodded in response, not quite feeling up to verbalization. “Dude, high hoof!” Vinyl exclaimed, raising a hoof. The Doctor dragged his own front hoof into the air and struck it, then flinched as a ray of sunlight burst into his face. In the skies above, the regular weather patrol was quickly clearing out the clouds.

“Trixie was marvelous,” Octavia said. “She defeated the Order all by herself!”

“Yes, Trixie was magnificent.” Trixie replied, basking in the praise. “Though it must be said that I had some very competent assistants.”

“Competent?” Vinyl snorted. “I’ll have you know I knocked out three of them myself!”

“And how would you have done so without my help?”

“Sheesh, I was just joshing ya. You did good, Trix.” Vinyl clapped a hoof on Trixie's back. “You know, you should perform at one of our shows some time.”

“Or you at one of mine,” Trixie retorted.

“Baby, you couldn't afford me.” Vinyl laughed, then pointed beyond Trixie. “And look who else it is! Miss Bitchy herself!”

The Doctor looked in the direction she was indicating to see the Order's leader being dragged through the town square by two police-stallions. She didn't resist them, and seemed a bit punch drunk. Similar police pairs followed behind, dragging three more cultists. “Heh, I did good too,” Vinyl chuckled.

But the Doctor's attention didn't stay on those cultists for long. As he watched the police march past a side street, the crowd shifted, and another stallion came into view, wearing the same hooded robe as the other cultists. He watched them get marched past—then, as if some cue had alerted him to the Doctor's presence, he looked up, locked eyes with the Doctor across the crowd, and grinned.

“Doctor?” Octavia asked, as the Doctor started to move. He dashed through the crowd, trying to catch the cultist, but it was no use; as the Doctor ran, he winked and disappeared into the throng. The Doctor reached the side street and found only his hooded robe lying on the ground. It would be impossible to find him now.

“Doctor, what is it?” Octavia was beside him a second later; Vinyl and Trixie were still bantering in the square.

The Doctor picked up the robe and held it to Octavia, whose eyes widened. “He was just watching,” the Doctor said, his mind working furiously. He’d recognized the cultist—or he thought he had, for a moment—but that was absurd. “I know I didn't see him earlier with the rest of the Order... why was he just watching?”

“Another small scale?” Octavia suggested, then frowned. “Wait, we spoke with the Order at their headquarters. The mare called what they did last night a test.”

“Testing what?” The Doctor ran a hoof through his hair. What else can they possibly do now? “Maybe it's just a sign,” he thought out loud. “That we haven't seen the last of them. Ugh.” He pulled a face. “I hate recurring villains. Never know when to quit.”

He frowned for a few more seconds, then pulled his face together into a smile. “Still, no reason to mope about—we've pretty well routed them this time, haven't we!”

“And saved the city,” Octavia replied, a smile coming onto her face as well. “We seem to be making a habit of it.”

“No, you're making a habit of it. Mine comes pre-made.” The two of them walked back to Vinyl and Trixie, who were still conversing.

“No, I mean it,” Vinyl was saying, apparently unaware of the Doctor's and Octavia's brief absence. “We've got a show to put on in a few hours, now that the city isn't all crushed, and you were gonna do another show anyway, right? Come and perform. You'll get a cut. And maybe we can do some alone time afterward...” It had been years since the Doctor had seen a grin as inappropriate as the one that grew on Vinyl’s face.

“Ignoring the shocking impropriety of that last sentence—”

“Worth a shot.” Vinyl pouted.

“How big of a cut?” Trixie asked, a bit of a gleam in her eye.

“I'll let my much more intelligent business partner deal with that, if you don't terribly mind?” Vinyl patted Octavia on the back.

“Not at all,” Octavia replied, still smiling.

“And after that,” the Doctor interjected, “I am going to have to ask a favor.” Trixie gave him a questioning look, and he continued, “The Ursa stomped right through the train line, so our tickets home are basically null and void... sorry, but would you mind giving us a lift?” Trixie was now looking at him like he was crazy, so the Doctor added, “We can take turns pulling.”

She raised her eyebrow, considering the possibility. “Perhaps... but only if you agree to do something for me.”

Twilight Sparkle had no idea what sort of day she'd been expecting. However, watching from her second-floor window as a familiar cart pulled into Ponyville, she could be certain that she wouldn't have that sort of day. What could Trixie be doing back in Ponyville? she wondered. She can’t be looking to put on another show, can she? She decided to go outside and see.

Upon leaving her library, Twilight found that she was hardly the only one taking this course of action. Word of mouth was spreading like wild fire—“You're never gonna believe this—remember that Trixie from the other year? Well, she's back!”—and when the cart opened a few minutes later, it opened in sight of what seemed like half the town.

“WELCOME, ONE AND ALL! COME WITNESS THE SPECTACULAR SHOW OF THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE, VANQUISHER OF THE MIGHTY URSA MAJOR!” She appeared on stage in a cloud of smoke, just as she had years ago, with the same confidence she'd always displayed.

“Yeah, right!” Twilight looked up to see Rainbow Dash in the air, yelling down at Trixie. “You said that the last time you came here, and guess what! It wasn't true then either!” Twilight felt about the same way.

A tomato flew over Twilight's head at Trixie. Twilight only had time to flinch at the spray of juices it would inevitably create—only for Trixie to halt it in the air, then gently set it on the ground below. A little smirk appeared on her face, but otherwise she hardly reacted to this affront. Old Trixie would have thrown the tomato right back.

Trixie produced a red sheet of fabric from mid-air. “And now for my first trick...” she announced, waving the fabric around the stage with practiced ease. Then she brought it to the floor of the stage, slowly drew it up—then ripped it into tatters, revealing the Doctor, Vinyl and Octavia behind it.

As if against its better judgment, the crowd began to applaud this rather impressive summons. “Thank you, thank you,” the Doctor called, as Vinyl and Octavia jumped down into the audience and, oddly enough, started passing out newspapers. “And for those of you who still doubt Trixie’s story—well, we can vouch for her this time.”

A newspaper dropped in front of Twilight. TRAVELING MAGICIAN STOPS TERROR CULT read the headline, written above a black and white picture of a massive... Ursa Major. Well, I’ll be darned.

“Indeed!” Trixie declared, producing a magic wand from thin air and waving it in the air. A shadow fell across the stage. “Picture it, citizens of Ponyille. It was, at first, a day like any other...”

Twilight had to admit: She was good.

Tune in next time for:
Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits

Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits (b)

We now return to Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits.

The Doctor struggled, half within the arcade game and half without, but there was nothing to brace against. Twilight and Derpy had both grabbed his legs, and Mr. Kingpin and Fluttershy had grabbed them. Between the four of them, they still could not keep him from being pulled inch by inch into the game.

But there was Rainbow Dash, yelling, “You are not getting in here!” She drove her shoulder into him with all her strength. But there was little traction on the sand, and even with her help the Doctor could barely resist the terrible force of the wind.

“You got any bright ideas?” Rainbow Dash grunted, digging into the ground with her hooves. “Because I can't keep this up much longer.”

To his great pleasure, the Doctor found that he had just such a one. He grinned and grabbed his sonic screwdriver from the sand onto which it had fallen. “You saw how powerful this thing is out there?” he panted, showing it to Rainbow Dash. “Imagine how powerful it'll be inside.” He twisted around and pointed the screwdriver back at the screen. “If I can just... reverse the direction of the data flow....”

The wind stopped. It changed direction. Before any of them could react, it blasted him back through the screen and into Twilight, Derpy, Fluttershy, and Kingpin. The five of them bowled into the opposite wall.

For a few seconds, the only movement was the asynchronous rise and fall of several chests. Then the Doctor let out a single shout of laughter, disentangled from the pile of limbs, and leaped back to the arcade.

Rainbow Dash was smacking the screen and yelling, “Cool, you're out! Now get me out too!” Her face was of much higher quality than it had been from a distance, but it was still pixelated and had only a few colors.

“I can't, not yet. I only got out because I wasn't all the way in. But here's something I can do.”

He pointed his screwdriver at the screen once more. Immediately, PREPARE FOR AN ALL-NEW GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE appeared once more—but as he continued to train his screwdriver on the words, they flickered a few times, then faded away to reveal Rainbow Dash's face once more.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“It went to that screen every time it sucked someone up. So I've just deleted it from system memory.” He chuckled. “Computers—always having to do everything in order. Now, if it tries to drag someone inside, it'll fail. Only a direct order from this screwdriver will put someone back inside.”

More puzzlement from Rainbow Dash. “Why would you want someone to go back inside?”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “To rescue you. Unless you'd rather we didn't?”

“Uh... no, that's all good with me.”

“Brilliant.” The Doctor turned to the group behind him, and saw that apart from Derpy, who was still upside-down, they were all standing. “Mr Kingpin!” the Doctor said. The short stallion started at his name. “Get everyone out of here now. Doesn't matter what you tell them, say it's a lunch break or something—but get them out.”

“Yes sir.” Kingpin rushed from the little alcove. “All right, everypony out!” the Doctor heard him yell at the assembled ponies, an order which was answered with much groaning and no small amount of angry shouting. Kingpin's indignation was magnificent, however. “That means all of you! I need time to have some lunch, thank you very much!” It didn't take long for the crowd noises to die away.

“Twilight, Fluttershy, Derpy! You and me are going to figure out between us how this arcade machine works, then save Rainbow Dash and everyone else we can manage.” The three of them nodded.

“And what's your name, little fellow?” he asked, kneeling down to the level of the colt with the beanie. His eyes were wide, and he looked like he'd just seen.... He looks like he's just seen exactly what happened, the Doctor supposed.

“Um... Button Mash, mister,” the kid replied.

“Well, Button, thank you for helping out. Go off and play outside or something... good for you, they say.” The Doctor smiled at Button, who nodded eagerly and ran away, his propeller twirling as he went.

“Just hold on tight, Rainbow,” Twilight said, as the Doctor tapped the screen a few times in thought. “We're going to figure out what's happened to you.” How best to approach this? the Doctor mused. More sonicking? Or perhaps a hardware-based approach?

“What's going on down there?” came a hissing from above Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash looked up, and as best as the Doctor could tell through the pixelation, her eyes widened. “Daring Do?” she called. “What are you doing up there?”

“What do you think I'm doing up here? And what the hell is going on down there?”

“Come down and see.”

“I can't, you dingbat! I'm still on the clock! I can't move unless the player makes me!”

Rainbow Dash cast a supplicative look at the ponies outside the game. “Can one of you get her down here?”

“I'll do you one better.” The Doctor trained his screwdriver on the controls. They shuddered for a few seconds, then fell still as the lights around them died away. “There you are! Disconnected the controls from the player character. You are now free to move about the cabin.”

After a few seconds, Daring Do jumped down. “What the... wow, this is weird,” she murmured, looking into the screen. “So I can actually talk to you guys through the screen? And the screen’s down here now—how’d you do that? Who are you guys?”

The Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver and smiled. “I'm the Doctor, and believe me when I say that answers all your questions. And this is Twilight, that's Fluttershy, and that's Derpy. Twilight and I are huge fans, by the way... though not as much as Rainbow Dash, by all accounts.”

“Tell me about it.” Daring Do rolled her eyes. “Apparently she's got a costume of me at her house.”

Twilight sniggered. “You have a Daring Do costume?”

“I told you not to tell her!” Rainbow Dash snarled, pushing Daring away from the screen. “Her specifically! Come on!” Twilight kept giggling, and Rainbow Dash's cheeks went redder than the stripe in her hair. "Just forget that and get going!”

“Yes, ma'am,” the Doctor replied, still smiling. What is it they say—never meet your heroes? He ducked down to the side of the machine and pointed his screwdriver—as he so rarely did—at a screw. Hardware approach it is. The screw twisted itself out of the machine under his device's influence, dropping to the floor with the slightest of bounces. He proceeded to do the same with the other screws, and within seconds had them all out. “So, let's see what's behind here,” he grunted, pulling the panel on the box's side off.

For the second time in as many minutes, his eyebrows shot up his face. “Well. Didn't expect it to be quite so obvious....”

“Doctor, what is it?” Derpy asked, ducking down next to him. “What is that thing?” Twilight and Fluttershy crouched down beside her, and from the look of confusion in their eyes it was obvious that the same question was on their minds.

“Mr. Kingpin?” the Doctor called, turning away from the machine's innards. The short stallion was there within a few seconds. “Earlier, didn't you say the machine arrived a bit late?”

“Two days late, in fact. What kind of reporter dismantles the machine he’s writing about?”

“Reporter?” The Doctor looked up at him in confusion, until the words clicked. “Oh, I did say that, didn't I... no, sorry, not actually a reporter, I just needed to get in here. I’m looking for something out of the ordinary—relatively speaking—and I’ve just found it.” He tapped the inside of the machine.

For the most part, it was what he expected. He recognized the power source, a central processor, and the exhaust fan blowing the heat out. Sheaves of wires coiled through the machine, connecting part to part. Various little red lights blinked to indicate various pieces of trivia. In other words, it contained the standard, dull hallmarks of every basic computer ever made—save for the unexpected detail. Slapped onto the processor was a small slab of plastic ornamented by four glowing blue slash marks, like the scars from some magical claw.

“Four marks,” Derpy breathed. “Are those the ponies you were telling about?”

“The Order of Four.”

“The what?” Twilight and Kingpin said at once.

“A sort of... cult... thing. Can't say I know too much about them. I only met them the once, along with Vinyl and Octavia, over in Fillydelphia. They tried to take over the city. Bit flashy, honestly. But this—” he tapped the little box “—is decidedly more covert. They must have intercepted the shipment and added this little marvel of technology. What are they up to?”

“Well, it's not technology,” Twilight said. “It's definitely magic. Even stronger magic than the power source.”

“Can you figure out what it is?” he asked.

“I'll start right away.” She pointed her horn at the box, and a faint purple glow began playing around both.

Derpy tapped him on the shoulder. “You said Kingpin might want to silence Rainbow Dash,” she whispered. “And last time, the Order used all disguises of kinds. That doctor, those stagehands... how do you know he isn't in on this?”

“Well, Miss Element of Honesty, why don't you take a look at him.” The two of them looked at Mr. Kingpin, crouched down beside Twilight and Fluttershy. Genuine confusion, genuine concern, troubled his features and sent the corners of his mustache downward. Every so often, he glanced back at the screen—back at Rainbow Dash, improbably trapped within his moneymaker. “What do you think?” the Doctor asked.

Derpy looked for a long time, focusing one eye after the other on Kingpin—but eventually she sighed. “No, he doesn't know what's on going. No better than the rest of us, anyway.”

“I thought so too. Besides, he helped pull me out. If he were involved, he'd have pushed, and I'm sure the arcade would have happily accepted all of the rest of us.”

She nodded, then pursed her lips, as if she wanted to say something but was thinking better of it. Odd.

“Excuse me,” came Daring Do's voice, “but we're still over here, and we have no idea what's going on.” The Doctor looked back over at the screen to see Daring Do and Rainbow Dash wearing the same miffed expression. In fact, thanks to graphical limitations, it was exactly the same expression.

Fluttershy rose in front of the screen. “Twilight's trying to find out what an organization called the Order of Four did to this game. Once she does, I'm sure she'll be able to get you out, Rainbow.”

“And speaking of things that are wrong about this game,” the Doctor said, sliding to Fluttershy's side, “It might help if you could tell us a few things, Miss Do.”

“What, I'm a thing that's wrong about this game? You think I have something to do with this?”

“Not exactly, but... hoo boy, how to put this nicely....” The Doctor scratched the base of his neck.

“Is it that she shouldn't be able to talk?” Fluttershy asked.

A few moments of silence followed this sentence, as all assembled gave Fluttershy surprised looks. “It's just that he was talking about things that were wrong with the game and... well, it's weird that Daring Do can talk and think and... is mean. She's a character out of a book.”

That works, the Doctor decided. “For what it's worth, I don't think you're involved. But like Fluttershy said, your intelligence shouldn't be possible—unless it has something to do with the modifications made by the Order. So, Daring Do, when do you first remember being... self-aware?”

Daring Do frowned in thought. “It's really tough to say... the thing is, I remember everything that happened to the real Daring Do... well, not real, but whatever. And I remember everything that happened from when this game was turned on, but it's like I was a puppet. I just did things.

“So if I had to guess, the first time I remember thinking in here was... maybe a few hours after the first ponies started playing. Wait, I remember now—I remember there was that black screen in the sky, and then I started thinking, what's that about? I didn't even realize I wasn't really thinking before. I just remember realizing I was... well, alone.”

The Doctor propped his foreleg up against the console and leaned on his hoof, thinking deeply about Daring's words. After a few seconds, the obvious solution came to him. “Of course,” he breathed.

“Of course. That's not cryptic at all,” Rainbow Dash said.

The Doctor ignored the jibe. “You're still you, Rainbow Dash, probably in every detail. Which means the game's memory's big enough to contain you, to assign you your personality, your history. Every pony in this game came with their own backstory, except you, Daring Do—so the game automatically gave you a mind of your own as well. You became alive, you became real, because something living and real came in.”

“Wait, really?”

“Must be what happened with the environment too—started out as pixels, but when it needed to contain a life form, it expanded into a three-dimensional version of itself... is something wrong?” he asked Daring Do, for her eyes were wide and her mouth hung slightly open.

“What?” Her mouth quickly reasserted itself into a grim line. “Nothing's wrong, just—nothing. Make your purple friend tell you what's wrong with the box, why don't you? We’re burning daylight over here.”

“All right, hold your hor-rrrrr....” The Doctor trailed off. I'm going to need some new cliches if I want to get anything said around here. “Hold tight. She needs a little more time yet.”

“Actually, I'm done now.” As Twilight spoke, the glow from her head ceased. She took a deep breath, then stood and faced the group. “I can barely understand the magic they used. It must be incredibly advanced—I'd like to meet the unicorn that came up with it.” She paused, then her eyes widened as if she'd just sworn loudly and in public. “Except he's totally evil, so I wouldn't!”

“What can you tell us?” the Doctor asked.

“Well, there's one relatively easy spell in there—and this is still really advanced magic. Remember my Want It, Need It spell?”

Fluttershy mouthed a silent 'oh' of comprehension, something which the Doctor distinctly lacked. “And what sort of spell is that?” he asked.

“You can cast it on something, and everypony who sees it will... well, want it and need it. I once cast it on a doll and... it's a long story.”

“Oh, right! Vinyl mentioned when we were in Fillydelphia. Apparently she beat up several stallions to....” The Doctor noticed Rainbow Dash rolling her eyes, and decided to cut himself off. “So, an attraction spell, eh?”

“That's why everypony's been so crazy about the thing the past few days. It's subtle—not as strong as the one I used—but it's certainly been enough to ensure a steady supply of players.

“The next part was really interesting, because I recognized it as a spell that I've cast recently myself, but I couldn't put my hoof on it at first. But it turns out I cast the same spell today! This arcade machine,” she said, poking it for emphasis, “is bigger on the inside.”

“What?” Derpy exclaimed.

“Well, sort of. The machine has a sort of memory area where it stores information about the game—but thanks to the 'bigger on the inside' spell, it can hold much more information than it used to.”

“Of course!” the Doctor said, turning to Rainbow Dash and Daring Do. “I should have realized an arcade machine like this shouldn't be able to contain a three dimensional world, much less two intelligences like yourselves.”

“One intelligence,” Daring Do corrected, a faint grin appearing on her face.

“Hey!”

“Not now, girls,” Twilight sighed. “Anyway, I don't think I'll be able to figure out how it sucks ponies up. Not without some serious study. But once it has, it can convert their... minds? Souls? Spirits? It converts their essences into magical energy, and stores it in this box.” She tapped the glowing box.

“Makes sense, in a twisted kind of way,” the Doctor mused. “They can steal in here one night and take the box once it’s gotten enough energy—use it to power their other plans, and no one the wiser. Ingenious—utterly evil, but ingenious. How many has it… absorbed so far?”

“At a guess... maybe a dozen?” Twilight replied.

“Ahem.” Daring Do tapped the screen, drawing attention back to her. “I've counted fifteen ponies that got sucked inside. Sixteen, counting number one fan over here.”

“Sixteen,” the Doctor muttered. “Four times four... just like last time, they had sixteen unicorns controlling the bear... wait, coming back to that, I need to check something.” He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and fired it in a few short pulses at the screen. “If I can just... you may feel a slight tingling sensation, by the way—I actually have no idea.” He pointed the screwdriver at Rainbow Dash.

“What the—” She jumped as a yellow outline appeared around her. “The hay are you doing?”

“Looking you up.” As he said this, a folder icon appeared on the screen, with a caption reading 'gamedata'. It opened, revealing another group of folders. One of these automatically opened, as did one in the folder beneath that, and so on until one final folder appeared, with the label 'souls'. It opened, and the screen displayed a long list of pony icons.

“There you are!” The Doctor pointed at a small icon of Rainbow Dash lying on the screen, captioned by 'RainbowDash.sl'. It had the same yellow outline as the real one. “Located you in the game's memory. And hang on...” Another press of his screwdriver, and the file names beneath each icon were replaced with numbers.

“What are those?” Twilight asked.

“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed.

“That... that doesn't actually answer my question.”

“Sorry—those are the file sizes. Each pony takes up a certain amount of memory space. You can see Rainbow Dash takes up 79 of whatever unit Shift Laboratories is using. But can you see?”

Kingpin spoke up. “I certainly don't see, and I would appreciate it if you were to cut to the point, Dr. Turner. Or is it just Doctor?”

“They're all 79! Don't you see?” Mr. Kingpin's face remained blank, so the Doctor sighed with exasperation before continuing. “Look, Rainbow Dash is clearly her old self, or one of you two,” he motioned to Fluttershy and Twilight, “would have noticed something was wrong with her. Which means all of her got saved into the machine. And all of her, apparently, takes 79 storage units. So why would the rest of them also take up the same number of storage units?”

“Because they're... still saved?” Fluttershy ventured.

“Because they're still saved! Their entire essence is still in the machine. I can get them back!” he exclaimed, pumping the air with excitement.

The other ponies followed suit with exclamations of happiness—except for Mr. Kingpin, who merely sighed with relief and said, “Always good to not be accidentally guilty of mass murder.”

Twilight's smile sagged a bit at the edges. “What's wrong?” the Doctor said.

“I haven't told you the last part of the spell.” She took a deep breath. “The machine's reached some sort of critical point. If anypony else dies in the game, and it converts them into energy, it'll stop absorbing the souls of ponies playing the game.”

“That's great!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

“No. Because it's going to have enough energy to absorb the ponies who aren't playing. It'll suck up all of Ponyville, and then it'll have enough power to absorb anything near Ponyville, and—and it'll keep going in a chain reaction until all Equestria is consumed.”

No one spoke for a few seconds. Eventually, the Doctor managed a slight, “Ah.”

“Yeah,” Twilight agreed.

“I wonder if it's occurred to the Order that retrieving their, ah, battery—” the Doctor's lips curled downward as the word passed them “—might be a bit difficult once it's harvested them for fuel?” When no one answered, he sighed. “Probably not. Bunglers! Right, give me a moment to think.”

The Doctor ran a hoof through his hair as a plan formed in his mind. It took all of three seconds. “Okay, moment over. Rainbow Dash! You need to not die at all costs. Daring Do, you need to help her not die. Got it?”

“Wait,” said Daring Do. She hesitated, looked around, bit her lip—but soon the words were tumbling from her mouth. “Can you get me out too?”

The Doctor took a few seconds to speak. “I'm sorry? You live there already—why'd you want out?”

“Because this place is a living nightmare.” Daring Do sighed and rubbed her eyes with a sudden fatigue. “Wanna know how quickly your purple friend got me killed, the first time she played? It didn't even take a minute. And the first time, she just didn't do anything, which means I can't do anything. I just had to watch my death coming and be able to do absolutely nothing about it.” Twilight's eyes widened, as if she'd never considered the ramifications of Daring Do's deaths. And why should she have?

“I’ve died a thousand times in this game—and sure, it gets easier, but it's death. And even with the halfway competent players, what do I have to look forward to? The same friggin' levels, over and over and over again, until I feel like bashing my head in against the screen—as if that would do anything for me! And you wonder why I want to get the hell out of here?” she yelled, advancing upon the screen with such an anger that the Doctor found himself backing away.

“Okay, okay, easy!” Rainbow Dash said, grabbing her and pulling her back. “They can get you out of here!” She looked at the Doctor. “You can, right?”

In response, the Doctor pointed his screwdriver at Daring Do. She did not flinch at the outline around herself, just kept staring resolutely at the Doctor as file directories revealed themselves on screen. Within seconds, DaringDo.sl was on screen, with a file size of precisely 79 units.

The Doctor beamed at her. “It would be my pleasure, Miss Do.”

“All right!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, doing a little flip in the air before noogying Daring Do. “No one here but us real ponies!”

Daring Do's intense expression softened slightly. She looked as if she might have smiled, but it didn't quite happen. Instead she leaned into the screen and whispered, “Thank you.”

“But before that happens, we've got a lot of work to do,” the Doctor continued. “Now, where was I... Kingpin, you stay at the door and make sure no one tries to get in. Do whatever you have to.” Kingpin nodded and left the annex.

“Derpy!” She started as her name was called. “We're going to go inside and rescue Rainbow Dash, Daring Do, and all the other lost souls.” Derpy nodded her assent.

Twilight laid a hoof on his shoulder. “And I'm coming with you.”

“Ah....” The Doctor tugged awkwardly at the collar of his suit jacket. “Well... no.”

“What.” Twilight's eyes narrowed. “My friend is in there, and you're not keeping me out.”

“Yes I am.” The Doctor shook a hoof at her horn. “Because Derpy and I, we're drops in the magical bucket. You're an ocean. If this thing absorbed your magical power, it wouldn't just grab Ponyville's ponies. It would have enough juice to absorb every living thing for miles straight away. You're not going in.”

Twilight gritted her teeth.

“I'm a pegasus,” Fluttershy announced. “I don't have magic. I can help.”

“You've been an Element of Harmony longer than either Derpy or me. That's the strongest magic there is, and there's no telling whether or not it's rubbed off on you.”

“Don't I get a say in this?” came Rainbow's voice from the game. “I think I want my friends to come and help me. I definitely don't want Derpy.”

“What, you think I can't do it?” Derpy's eyebrows made a V, and she pushed the Doctor out of the way to get at the screen.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “You do remember the last time you tried to 'help' me, right? The Town Hall? You destroyed it with lightning, and the even more destructive power of your bubble butt.”

“That's enough of that—”

“Oh yeah?” Derpy replied. “Well... I... you stop talking!”

“Real great comeback there.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Look, no offense, Derps—I just want somepony I can trust.”

“Enough!” the Doctor yelled, seeing Derpy grit her teeth with her frowning mouth slightly open. He tapped her on the shoulder and nodded his head to the alcove's exit. After a moment, she followed his direction and left the room.

“Keep an eye on Rainbow Dash for me,” he told Twilight as he followed Derpy. She frowned in confusion but nodded regardless.

As she left the arcade room, Derpy heard shouts from outside the front door. Mr. Kingpin had slapped a 'closed' sticker on the glass, to much anger from the ponies outside. They sounded almost as frustrated as Derpy felt.

I can't believe I keep doing this, she thought, angrily kicking at the ground with her back legs—but she was so overcome with frustration that she missed.

“You're not okay,” came the Doctor's voice from behind her. “Just so we can skip the part of this conversation where I ask, and you say you are. What's wrong?”

“Nothing, just... I'm tired of saying stuff stupid. Agh, stupid stuff!” she muttered. “Tired of saying stupid stuff. Like this morning when I got angry at Twilight, and then you yelled at me.”

“Is that why you haven't been talking much this whole time?”

“So you noticed, huh?”

“I notice everything,” he replied. She guessed from his tone that there would be a wry smile on his lips, and turned around to find herself correct. “About this morning—”

“You... don't need to bring that up again.” Derpy's shoulders slumped. “I was wrong. She really was just cranky. She wasn't trying to insult me.”

“But what if she had been? Would insulting her back have been the best option?”

“Yes. Maybe, I dunno. What was I gonna do, tattle?”

“You're the Element of Honesty, remember?” The Doctor patted her on the shoulder. “Tell them how you honestly feel.”

“Like that ever works.”

He smiled. “I speak my mind all the time. Why shouldn't it work?”

“Of course it works for you—you're a Time Genius, and a lord, and, and ugh.” She groaned at her mistake.

“You're Derpy Hooves. That's enough for me.”

“It's never enough for them!” she blurted.

The Doctor opened his mouth, but words did not emerge from several seconds. Derpy took a few deep breaths in the meantime, trying to master herself once more. Eventually, he managed to say, “I know it's hard for you, and I'm sorry about that. But you need to trust them too, just a bit. Trust that they're not trying to hurt you—that they're just making a mistake. Everyone does, now and again.”

“Believe me, I know.” Derpy laughed with a bit more bitterness than she'd been intending. “Sisters, look at me. I'm being so crazy about this. You're really sure you want me in there with you?”

“You should know that by now. It's like Rainbow Dash said.” The Doctor smiled. “I want someone I can trust.”

She smiled back and followed him back to the arcade room.

“That said, the Town Hall?” he asked, stopping halfway. “Is there something I should know?”

“Oh, um...” Derpy hesitated to speak, but eventually overcame her reluctance. It's the Doctor, after all. He won't judge. Well, not unfairly. “Rainbow Dash kept making fun of me while we were trying to fix the old town hall, and I sort of... up blew.” She reopened her mouth to correct herself, but thought better of it. He knows what I meant.

The Doctor remained standing, both eyebrows arched. A few seconds later, he shrugged and continued on. “Try not to do that any time soon, okay?”

“Got it.” She smiled briefly.

They re-entered the arcade room, just in time to catch Daring Do saying, “I really don't care who comes in here, as long as they let me out, kapeesh? You ponies figure that out on your own, and then let's go already!”

“It's going to be me and the Doctor,” Derpy declared. All eyes turned to her. “I know that you don't really trust me, Rainbow Dash, but I promise I can get you out of there safe.”

Rainbow Dash tugged at her neck. “Listen, Derpy—again, no offense, but... ugh, how do I say this—”

“You think I'm going to go in there, break something, and get the whole town destroyed.”

“Uhh... yeah, a bit,” Rainbow admitted.

Derpy spoke slowly, making the effort to get every word right. "I won't. I'm going to go in there and get you out, because believe it or not I am just as capable as you are. I'm an Element of Harmony now, remember?"

"Oh sure, rub it in."

“We can settle this right now,” Twilight interjected. She turned to Derpy. “Have you ever heard of a Pinkie Promise?”

“That thing you said Rainbow Dash broke?”

“How many times to I have to tell you, I didn't break it!” Rainbow Dash cried.

Twilight ignored this. “You need to Pinkie Promise that you can get Rainbow Dash out of that machine and stop Ponyville from being absorbed. Can you do that?”

“Um... how?”

“Repeat after me. Cross my heart and hope to fly....”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly....” Derpy mimicked Twilight as she drew a hoof across the front of her chest.

“Stick a cupcake in my eye.” Twilight closed one eye and poked it with her hoof.

“Stick a cupcake in eye my. Stick a cupcake in my eye!” Derpy covered one eyelid with her own hoof.

“There.” Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash. “Now can you trust her?”

Rainbow Dash grimaced, but after a few seconds she relented. “I guess it's okay. But you guys keep watching, you got that?”

“Wouldn't have wanted any different myself,” the Doctor said, looking at Fluttershy and Twilight. “You have an important job to do out here, and I very much doubt you're going to like it.” When they failed to prompt him for an explanation, he proceeded in delivering it. “If the worst happens, and any one of us dies—”

“None of you are going to die,” Twilight insisted.

“But if one of us does... you need to turn that off.” The Doctor motioned with his head to the off switch. “Before the town gets absorbed.”

“Wait.” Fluttershy frowned with consideration. “If we turn that off, what happens to you?”

“The machine....” The Doctor sighed. “It erases any memory that's not saved to the main drive. Which would include us.”

“You'd die,” Fluttershy protested.

“You'd all be killed,” Derpy replied. “It's worth it to save the town, right? To save the planet?”

“I... suppose.” Twilight frowned. Well, Derpy supposed, you can hardly expect her to be happy about it.

“Right,” the Doctor said a few seconds later, pulling his screwdriver from his pocket without enthusiasm. “Well... wish us luck.”

“Good luck!” Fluttershy and Twilight chorused, as the Doctor trained his screwdriver on the screen.

PREPARE FOR AN ALL-NEW GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE

Well, the Doctor thought, lying snout-first in the ground, that could have been more dignified. He picked himself up off the ground and wiped some of the dirt from himself and his suit. Derpy shook her wings clean beside him, getting some of the dirt on Daring Do.

“Heh, sorry,” she said. Daring sighed.

“For cripes' sake, Derpy, I'm an adventurer by trade. Well, Daring Do's an adventurer by trade—point is, a little dirt doesn't bother me too much.”

The Doctor raised the dirt on his hoof to his eyes and scrutinized it. “Fascinating level of detail! It really is bigger on the inside... I really need to take a look at this arcade machine when we get back. Someone knew what they were doing in a major way... though how they came up with the idea to do it this way, I'd very much like to know.”

“Are you okay in there?” came Fluttershy's voice from behind him. He turned around and saw Twilight and Fluttershy with their eyes on the screen, bearing looks of concern.

“Right as rain,” he replied. Derpy smiled, and Rainbow Dash waved. Daring Do grunted.

“So what are you going to do now?” Twilight asked.

“Get going, of course. Oh, one thing before we do—gotta give you the long view.” He pointed his screwdriver at the screen, sending it zooming back to its original size and location in the sky. “If you see anything we should know about, just yell. Okay?”

“What?”

Right... now she's too far away to hear me. Didn't think that through. The Doctor sighed, and brought the screen closer with the screwdriver. “Watch ahead of us,” he called. “If you see anything threatening, let us know in advance.”

She nodded at him and smiled. The Doctor nodded back and returned the screen to its location.

“You know,” Daring Do said with a frown, “you never did explain how exactly we get out of this game.”

“What? Oh!” If he'd been a different sort of man, the Doctor might have blushed; every other detail had so completely filled his mind that he'd forgotten to explain this crucial fact. “Right, that is a bit important, isn't it? Um.” He wished they wouldn't stare at him; it made him feel unclever. The faintest of rustlings was the only noise; all else was awkward silence.

“Well?” Daring Do finally asked. “How do we get out? And why was it so important that you should come in at all?”

“Er, glad you asked!” The Doctor seized enthusiastically on the second question. “You need me because I've got this.” He pulled his screwdriver once more from his pocket and let it spin on his raised hoof. “It can untether our files from game memory and actualize them in the real world—but only at a very specific point of the game. And that point is the end.”

“You mean we have to beat the whole game?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“It's the only way to force a break in game flow. Right now we're wholly integrated into the game, but when the game ends there's going to be a disconnect. That's when we can make our escape.”

“I'll take your word for it that that makes sense... well, we've got a lot of walking to do. Let's move!” Daring Do placed herself in front of the group. “The only obstacles that are programmed are on the main path. If we stay off to the side, we should be able to avoid most of them.”

She stepped forward out of the brush, narrowly dodging a roving snake, and continued forward to a clear patch of ground. “Come on!” she called back.

Derpy and Rainbow Dash followed first, deftly hopping over the path. The Doctor reared back and leapt over the snake, landing in the back of the group as they began moving. He briefly considered moving to the front and leading the four of them, but decided against it; video game or not, it was Daring Do at the head of the group. She'll be a competent guide, at the very least.

“By the way, Derps,” he heard Rainbow Dash say in front of them, “you're actually okay with them shutting this thing off to save the town?”

“Well... yeah,” she replied. “The Doctor said we should, and I trust the Doctor.”

“Hoo boy.” Rainbow Dash was silent for a few seconds, as the group ducked under some of the brush that protruded from the stage. “Is that what happens when ponies travel with this guy? They get all crazy gung-ho?”

“I am right here,” the Doctor pointed out. “With perfectly functioning ears, by the way.”

“Sorry,” Rainbow Dash said. She looked forward once more, but the Doctor distinctly heard her mutter, “Not in a million years.” He wondered if he'd heard a note of admiration in her voice.

They continued in silence for several minutes, staying on the smooth earth parallel to the jungle level. There, the tiny movements of simulated life continued unabated. Here... nothing. The barren ground stretched out forever ahead and to the right of the Doctor. Occasionally he thought he heard a faint slithering, or saw a patch of earth move—but in every case, further inspection proved him wrong.

The Doctor had never before seen the concept of boredom so perfectly expressed in a place. Fed up with it, he turned to Rainbow Dash and asked, “So, if you'll pardon my phrasing, how did you get into Daring Do?”

“Uh, we are in mortal peril right now,” Rainbow Dash pointed out. “Is this really the time to chat?”

“You call this peril?” The Doctor smirked. “Even if it were... well, I've learned to take my opportunities to chat where I can get them. So how'd you get into it?”

“I got laid up at the hospital for a few days after a bad wing injury. Twilight recommended the book, and, well, I really liked it. Pretty simple, really. I mean, except for the part where I tried to burglarize the hospital, but you know how it is.”

As a man with several hundred outstanding library fines across the universe, the Doctor did know how it was. “And why?” When Rainbow Dash looked confused, he realized his articulation could use some work. “Did you like it, I mean.”

“Why'd I like it? Because Daring Do is so awesome!” Rainbow Dash jumped into the air and made punching motions for emphasis. “She can totally do anything she wants, and she can get out of any scrape even when her wing's busted up like mine was. And no matter what happens, she always manages to beat the bad guys and save the day. How could you not love that?”

The Doctor shrugged. “No idea.” He suddenly became conscious that Daring Do was not so far in front of the group as she had been, and had an ear cocked toward them. Just as suddenly, Daring Do noticed that he was watching her, and cantered away.

“I like Daring Do too,” Derpy interjected. “I mean the books, not this one... I mean, she's not too mean, but....” She shrugged.

“You like Daring Do?” Rainbow Dash frowned.

“Why shouldn't I?” Derpy rebutted.

“Well, why should you?" Rainbow asked. Derpy rolled her eyes. “Sorry—why do you?” Rainbow amended.

“Well... you said you liked her because even when she was up beat... beat up, sorry. Upbeat means something different.” Derpy sighed, but then a small smile graced her face. “I guess that she was upbeat even when she was beat up. Even when she wasn't doing her best she was always amazing. She'd always get the job done.”

“Okay, and?” Rainbow asked.

Derpy shrugged. “I'm almost never doing my best.”

Rainbow Dash seemed to almost open her mouth, but whether due to lack of words or a rare display of tact it remained closed.

Daring Do was still listening, the Doctor noticed—and from the corner of her mouth he could see, she was scowling something fierce. She sped up once more, only to trip on a root and fall to the ground. She got up and looked around angrily to see who was watching; the Doctor quickly averted his gaze.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Derpy spoke. “Doctor, you said earlier that this arcade machine was ketnology we shouldn't have.”

“I suppose I could have been wrong,” he replied. “It would appear that Blue Shift is a remarkably intelligent stallion... or he has remarkably intelligent stallions working under him. Or mares,” he added. “In any case, that’s hardly the problem right now."

“Help!” came a voice from ahead. The three of them looked forward to see that in the few seconds they'd been looking away, Daring Do had disappeared.

"Speaking of problems right now..."

“Daring Do?” Rainbow Dash yelled, leaping forward—but Derpy raised her wing, and Rainbow Dash slammed into it. “What the hay was that for?”

“Listen!” Derpy hissed.

“Help! I'm stuck!” came the voice. “Here, in the jungle!”

“Daring! Just, uh, just stay still!” Rainbow Dash reared back, but this time the Doctor blocked her with a hoof. He'd realized what Derpy had noticed.

“Listen really close,” Derpy said. “It doesn't sound like Daring Do!” Indeed, the voice sounded a bit too high, almost like a man's falsetto.

“Yeah? So where's Daring, smarty-pants?” Rainbow asked. The Doctor had to concede, she had a point.

“Listen!” he interjected. “There's a very simple way to settle this. Twilight? Fluttershy?” He turned to the screen. “Can you see... oh, you're joking."

The screen displayed an empty room outside. “Twilight? Fluttershy?” Rainbow yelled. “Where'd you go?”

Twilight watched the group's resolute trek through the jungle, and knew she ought to be riveted. She tried—she really did—but her vision kept glazing over, as she thought of how much easier it was when she didn't know about what the game could do. How much, even now, she'd like to play it—and with a jolt she noticed her hooves straying toward the controls. That wouldn't do. She'd concentrate, and nothing would interrupt her concentration.

“Miss Sparkle? Miss Shy?”

Mr. Kingpin's voice interrupted her concentration. “I'm a little busy, Mr. Kingpin!” she yelled.

“And I'm—ow!—very sorry to interrupt, I'm sure. It's just that we have the slightest—ah!—slightest bit of a predicament over here.”

Twilight sighed, and stuck her head out the arcade alcove to see. Her jaw dropped. “That's a slight predicament?”

The ponies outside the bowling alley had expressions of pure rage on their faces, and were taking it in turns to run at the door and ram against it with all their might. Mr. Kingpin was braced against the door, and made noises of pain with each blow. “I'd appreciate some help,” he said through gritted teeth.

Twilight wasted no time in dashing to the door, with Fluttershy in tow. “All this over an arcade game?” Twilight yelled, focusing her magic. A second later, there was a magical barrier just outside the door. A burly stallion threw himself against the shield, and it resonated like a bell. Twilight winced at the impact.

“Twilight?” Fluttershy said. Twilight paid her all the attention she could manage, which wasn't much. “You said there was a Want It, Need It spell on the arcade.”

Preoccupied as Twilight was, it took her a few seconds for her to grasp the implications. “Of course!” she finally blurted as a mare struck the barrier. “They're being denied what they want and it's driving them crazy!”

“Can you undo it?” Kingpin yelled, still braced against the front door.

“I think so, but it'll take some time—agh!”

Twilight's concentration wasn't up to keeping up a conversation and her shield; as the burly stallion struck it once more, it shattered into a million pieces. The stallion kept going and struck the door, which cracked but managed to hold. Twilight swayed on her hooves as the shock of the shield's destruction hit her.

“Twilight!” she heard Fluttershy yell, but it barely registered. Another strike at the door put a veritable spiderweb of cracks in it, but it was dark and she didn't care. No, you have to care, she told herself. This is important. It felt like pulling herself up from a cliff face, but she dragged herself back from the edge of unconsciousness.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy yelled again.

“I'm fine... I think.” She shook her head. “I need to break that spell on the game. You two, hold them off!”

But it was too late. As she spoke, there was another strike at the door, and it shattered as the shield had. Kingpin screamed in pain as a mob of ponies trampled him to the ground. Fluttershy froze as the horde came for her.

Twilight just managed enough concentration to levitate her friend into the air, but then the mob was on her. She tried to run with it, but lasted scant seconds before being knocked underhoof. It felt like a thousand hammers on her back, on her head, on her legs. She couldn't manage a scream of pain; the air was forced from her lungs. Only one thought remained in her mind: Break that spell.

She dragged herself forward inch by inch, hoof by hoof, and by degrees managed to make it to the alcove. There was not so much trampling going on here, but the ponies were struggling for control of the arcade machine.

“Give it here!” yelled one, knocking another out of the way. The console was struck, and it shook.

“It's mine!” Another blow. The console shook again. The pony who'd struck it managed to stay at the console for a few seconds, pressing buttons and yelling in anger when nothing happened.

“I want it!” The burly stallion who'd broken the door barged through, striking the console so mightily that it fell to the floor.

No! Twilight pulled herself forward a few more inches and got to the side of the console. She focused as hard as she could—her friends needed her. If this violence continued, the machine could be destroyed, along with everyone in it. What's that counter-spell?

A stray hoof knocked her on the head, sending her back to the ground. That was enough. The magic she’d been unable to summon just before now surged inside her like a geyser, fierce and uncontrollable. It erupted from her horn in a flash of power that blasted everypony else to the walls of the room.

The magic kept coming, sending Twilight into the air above the console—but now she could think. The side of the console crumpled and was flung aside with a wisp of intention, exposing the hateful little box within. Abstain! she thought, opening her pure white eyes.

A brilliant light shone from her horn, and the room was blank.

Then as it was; dark, cramped, and slightly dirty.

Her magic spent, Twilight crumpled to the ground as her legs failed to support her. She felt exhausted mentally and physically, not to mention bruised on every inch of her body. The arcade machine looked little better: smoke rose from the Order's box, and the outer casing was dented all over—and it was still on its side. Looking at it, she felt none of that tantalizing urge that had niggled at her mind the whole day.

“What's going on?” came a voice from behind her—one of the stallions whose mind had been freed from the Want It, Need It spell. She ignored him, pulled herself to her feet, and went to look at the screen, fearing the worst—that it might be broken, with Rainbow Dash lost forever.

What she saw was only slightly better.

"Twilight?" Rainbow Dash yelled, cupping both hooves around her mouth. "This isn't funny!"

“Without Twilight or Fluttershy at the screen, I'm afraid we have no choice,” said the Doctor behind her. “We have to go in there.”

“It's a trap,” Derpy said. Duh, Rainbow Dash thought.

“Yes. But we can hardly abandon our guide.” Also duh.

Derpy shrugged. “Enough fair. Onward.” Again, Rainbow Dash found herself in the position of not quite being able to say something. It felt weird and unpleasant.

The three of them followed the sound of not-Daring's voice into the jungle they'd been avoiding, taking great care to dodge the snakes, birds, and spikes that littered the overgrown path. It was hard going, but Rainbow Dash and Derpy had an advantage that Daring Do lacked; their wings were perfectly functional, letting them fly over the worst of the obstacles. The Doctor hung resignedly between Derpy's legs in these instances, and Rainbow Dash caught distinct mutters of “ought to build my own wings” and “unnecessary closeness”.

Rainbow Dash, unburdened as she was, emerged into the clearing first. An improbable clearing it was, as if a section of the jungle had been removed by one massive cookie cutter. Trees ended mid-trunk, vines hung with no second endpoint, and the ground beneath Rainbow's hooves was brown and uniformly devoid of plantlife—uniform in every respect, in fact.

“What the hay?” Derpy asked, dropping the Doctor into the clearing and then alighting herself. Then she gasped, for the ground behind her crumbled and fell away into nothingness. The same happened all around the clearing, leaving the group in an isolated circle of dirt.

“Help me!” came the voice from before, but it was impossible to say where it was.

The Doctor scooped a hoofful of dirt from the ground and threw it at the surrounding jungle, where it was halted—but not by the trees. An invisible wall stopped the dust in mid-air, leaving it to fall down into the pit below. “Of course,” he sighed.

“Of course what?” Derpy asked.

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer, but Rainbow Dash was quicker; she'd recognized where they were. “We can't get out of here until we beat the boss of the jungle level. And the boss of the jungle level is Ahuizotl.”

“Ahuizotl?” the Doctor asked. “Dog-ape-monkey sort of thing with a hand on its tail and an affinity for precious objects?”

“Yep.”

“Known for its ability to mimic the voices of those in distress, thus luring good Samaritans to their doom?”

"Ah... so you are familiar with my glory, oh daring Doctor.” This voice was new and malign—obviously, boisterously malign, exactly as Rainbow Dash had always imagined Ahuizotl's voice ought to be. “I hope you will make better company than your heroic friend—she doesn't seem very talkative!” His cackle echoed through the trees.

“Ahuizotl!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “Show yourself!”

“It is not for you to decide the terms of our meeting!” Ahuizotl yelled. “Mine was the guile that brought you here. Mine shall be the privilege of deciding your fate!"

“Ahuizotl!” the Doctor yelled, turning to face a certain spot in the trees. Did he spot Ahuizotl? Rainbow looked herself, but saw nothing. “Do you know what you are?” he continued. "Where you really are?"

For a few seconds, no voice came. Then Ahuizotl spoke again, softly as a sheathed knife. “Do you mean to refer to the fact, the inescapable fact, of our electrical prison? Please, Doctor, it pains me to be so mocked—especially by one who should sympathize, given your own position.”

“It's not inescapable,” the Doctor said. “We're escaping it, today—not just the ponies from the outside world, but Daring Do as well! Just listen to me,” he cautioned, spinning in place as a slight rustling came from the jungle around them. “Because I'm listening to you, and what I'm hearing is intelligence—real intelligence. You're as real as any of us. So I'm offering you a chance: step into the sunlight, release Daring Do, and we can talk.”

“Are you outta your mind?” Rainbow Dash yelled. “You can't let Ahuizotl out of the game! He's evil!”

The Doctor paid her no heed, and called once more to the jungle. “One chance, Ahuizotl! We can make this work for all of us!”

A new maniacal cackle rang through the jungle. “Oh, such the compassionate hero he is!” The undertones of menace were once again obscured by cartoonish overtones. “But I'm afraid I cannot accept your offer of truce, Doctor! For you see, I so enjoy playing the villain!”

The sound of breaking wood came from behind Rainbow Dash—the last place she'd expected him to be—and she turned to see him silhouetted against the sky. The sunlight blocked out his blue hands and his purple coat, as well as the triumphant smile she knew must have been on his face. Most obscured was the object held in the hand at the end of his tail.

Rainbow Dash didn't have time to react, but she didn't need to. Even as she registered the details of Ahuizotl's appearance, she saw the Doctor in the corner of her eye, spinning around and whipping the sonic screwdriver from his coat. Before Ahuizotl could land on them, he pointed it at the monster and clicked it on.

An incredible wave of sound erupted from the wand's tip, blasting Ahuizotl back in mid-air. He snarled as he barely managed to avoid the pit behind him, digging in his hands and feet to stop his momentum. His tail rose over his head as a counterbalance, and Rainbow Dash recognized who it was holding. Daring Do was clutched in a tight fist, her mouth covered by two massive fingers.

“I really wouldn't,” the Doctor said, raising his screwdriver as Ahuizotl made to jump at him. “This little device is particularly handy at altering the flow of data within a computer system, which makes it the most powerful little device in the whole arcade game. Care to try your luck against it?”

Ahuizotl scowled, and began to pace around the edge of the arena. “That's better,” the Doctor said. “Now why don't you let Daring Do speak? I'm sure we're all interested in what she has to say.”

Ahuizotl sighed. The index and middle finger on his tail hand opened, freeing Daring Do's mouth. “Kill this jerk and get me out of here, now!” she yelled. “What are you waiting for!”

“Ah, such heroics from our player character,” Ahuizotl said, a smirk reappearing on his face. “And I really wouldn't either, Doctor,” he added as the Doctor raised his screwdriver still higher. “Strike me, and I fall into the abyss with my hostage in tow!”

“She'd be fine,” Derpy said. “She'd come back to life, and we'd be able to keep going.”

Daring stared daggers at Derpy. “Don't even think about it, wall-eyes.”

“Excuse me?” Derpy exclaimed.

“I'll do it,” the Doctor said, taking a step closer to Ahuizotl. “Don't think I won't.”

“No!” Daring yelled. “I'm getting outta this place, and I won't let any of you slow me down!” She struggled even harder, and Ahuizotl laughed.

The sound of shattering glass pierced Rainbow Dash's ears. She flinched, and the whole group froze; no one seemed better able to place the sound than Rainbow Dash could. Even Ahuizotl stopped laughing and cocked an ear.

A second shattering rang through the air, followed by angry voices that Rainbow Dash did not recognize. “Where's that coming from?” she asked, backing toward the center of the circle as if it were safer.

Derpy gasped. “Look!” She pointed up at the screen. Rainbow Dash's eyes followed her just in time to see a slavering horde of ponies appear in front of the arcade, yelling madly. “Doctor, what's going on?”

“Mind control!” he exclaimed, barely sparing a glance at the screen. “Specialty of the Order's. It must be that spell Twilight mentioned, the Want It Need It—”

WHAM

One of the ponies outside the game flung himself at the arcade, rocking the ground with the force of an earthquake. Rainbow Dash just barely managed to keep her balance. Derpy could not, and fell to the ground. The Doctor, however, had been using a leg to hold his screwdriver; he fell harder than Derpy, and the screwdriver was knocked from his grasp. It rolled along the ground toward Ahuizotl.

“Get the sonic!” the Doctor yelled, lunging forward, but Ahuizotl was faster; he struck the screwdriver with his hand, sending it skittering toward the edge of the arena. It hung on the edge for a perilous moment, balanced above the pit. Derpy got on her hooves and jumped for it—

WHAM

—but another tremor shook the console. The screwdriver fell over the edge as Derpy's hoof landed where it had been balanced.

“No!” the Doctor exclaimed.

“Yes!” Ahuizotl howled to the sky in triumph. “Let's see how you fare in battle without your precious power-up!” He lunged at the Doctor, swatting him with the hand holding Daring Do. The Doctor flew through the air, directly at Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow had no time to respond. The Doctor struck her wing and she felt something pop. She cried out in pain as he fell to the ground; she couldn’t make her wing move, and it was at the wrong angle.

“Rainbow Dash!” Derpy yelled. “How do we beat him?”

“What?” Rainbow could barely hear her; thinking through the pain was hard enough.

“We need to beat Ahuizotl!” Derpy jumped into the air as Ahuizotl lunged at her. “How?”

“Make him fall off!” Rainbow managed. “Dodge him—dodge him when he jumps at you!” No sooner did she say this than Ahuizotl jumped at her. She bent her legs, made to jump—

WHAM

The mightiest blow of all shook the earth. Rainbow Dash staggered out of Ahuizotl's way, but not because of the tremor—there was a force pulling her to the side, getting stronger and stronger.

“The console's been tipped!” the Doctor yelled, digging his hooves into the ground. “Find something to grab hold of, 'cause we're going down!” Derpy jumped into the air to fly, but Rainbow Dash had no such luxury; she gritted her teeth and plunged her hooves into the soft soil. It wouldn't hold her for long. One scant second later, another mighty tremor—the console landing on the floor outside—nearly tore her hooves from their holes.

She looked 'up'—along the ground in front of her—to see Ahuizotl digging in his hands and feet, but he was heavy, and slid. With a great shout of anger, he threw Daring Do down from his tail hand and struck it into the dirt.

Daring Do grabbed onto Rainbow Dash's tail with her teeth, halting her fall and causing Rainbow fresh pain. Her hooves were sliding out of the earth from the extra weight. “Daring, you need to get off!” she managed to spit through gritted teeth.

“You won't slow me down!” Daring Do's yell was muffled by Rainbow Dash's tail, but not for long. She jumped up and planted a hoof on Rainbow's injured wing.

It was too much. Rainbow Dash screamed and fell away from the earth, expecting no end to her fall—but a second impact came soon after. She couldn't scream this time, nor could she do much of anything but dimly register that she lay on the invisible wall of the level; that the Doctor didn't hold on much longer either, but landed beside her on the wall; that Derpy was struck out of the air by Ahuizotl's tail hand and landed beside the Doctor. Daring Do alone was left, her hooves digging into the holes Rainbow Dash had created.

And there was Ahuizotl above her, steady on the wall of earth with five appendages as anchors. He looked down upon her and laughed. “Behold the valiant hero! So eager to fight, to escape—and what has it brought you but ruin?”

“I will kill you!” Daring Do yelled.

“And I would kill you, but you'd get another chance, and another, and another! No.” He leapt, and landed on the wall behind—above—Rainbow Dash. “Perhaps I can hurt you worse by destroying your precious friends.”

“You think I care about them?” Daring yelled.

Ahuizotl paused, and some of the naked menace left his face, replaced with something that could have been disappointment. “You really don't, do you,” he said. “Look at yourself, you pathetic, self-absorbed mass of code. You want to escape so badly. Sickening.”

Daring Do said nothing, just hung there. Rainbow Dash's mind reeled with a pain that was, in its own way, worse than the agony of her body. She can't do that. She's Daring Do. She's the hero.

“Well.” With what seemed like a great effort, Ahuizotl twisted his lips into an evil smirk. “Well, Daring Do, you won't escape, and neither will they!” He swept his tail across the floor like a broom, pushing Derpy into the Doctor, pushing the Doctor into Rainbow Dash, pushing Rainbow Dash at the pit. She looked into it and saw only darkness there.

“Warped though our gravity may be, once you have fallen far enough into the pit, there's no getting out!” Ahuizotl cackled. “Say goodbye, heroes!”

Rainbow Dash moved inch by inch toward oblivion. With all her strength, she looked up one last time to see Daring Do hanging on the wall, looking away from her. Then there was nothing but earth.

Stay tuned for the conclusion to Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits.

Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits (c)

And now, the conclusion to Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits.

Twilight tried to force the logical part of her mind to take control, but watching one of her closest friends mere seconds from death made this impossible. The choices ran in a loop in her head: do nothing, and watch Rainbow Dash die; put the console right-side-up, and send her into the pit faster; or shake the console, thus battering its inhabitants even worse than they already seemed to be.

There was nothing to do.

But—a flash of gray. Ahuizotl reared back in pain, both hands covering his face. Twilight realized, a second later, that Derpy had stuck him in the eye with her wing.

And there she was, grabbing on to Rainbow Dash and the Doctor, heaving them up above the level of the pit. That was all the prompting Twilight needed; she focused her magic on the console, lifted and rotated it as smoothly as she could, and set it back on the ground.

She saw Derpy collapse upon the ground with her burden. Ahuizotl leaped off the invisible wall just in time, stumbling blindly across the dirt, swinging his tail to and fro with enough force to negate Derpy's act of heroism if he struck any of them.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight yelled. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yes!” she squeaked.

“And Mr. Kingpin?”

“I-I think he'll be okay!”

“Then get in here!”

A moment later Fluttershy dashed into the little alcove and saw the screen. “Oh my goodness, no!” Her hooves went over her mouth. “What do we do?”

“We're going in.” Twilight concentrated, remembering the whirr of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver as he'd sent himself and Derpy into the game. On screen, Ahuizotl struck Derpy with a random swing of his tail, sending her flying against an invisible wall.

“Are you sure?” Fluttershy said quietly.

“As I ever am.” She had it. She thought she had it. In either case, she had to try. “Let's go.”

Her horn lit up purple for a second—but fizzed, and crackled blue. It whistled, it warbled, it pierced her ears with the sound.

The screen went black, and the words she'd grown to detest appeared upon it. The familiar wind blew at her back, and she jumped in.

All was black for a moment—then she landed on the soft dirt, right in front of the stumbling Ahuizotl. He lunged at her, but she magically grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him against the wall.

His eyes finally opened, and though they were red and teary they seemed to work well enough. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Don't you dare lay a finger on any of my friends. Not now, not ever!” Her magic pressed him harder to the wall—but not much harder.

He coughed out a laugh. “And you think you can stop me, girl?” Abruptly he planted his tail on the wall and pushed—and Twilight realized, as her magic failed to hold him, just how tired she was. He landed on the ground in front of her as she staggered and started taking deep breaths, feeling the bruises on her back, the ache in her head.

“I think I will!” Fluttershy dove in front of Ahuizotl's face. “Just who do you think you are, picking on ponies half your size?”

“I am Ahuizotl! Ruler of the jungle, murderer of the seas!” He stared defiantly back at her.

“No you're not! You're just a big delusional bully who thinks he's a character in a book, and can't think about anyone beside himself!”

“Lies!” Ahuizotl leaned back over the pit as Fluttershy moved in on his face.

“Oh yeah? Prove it. Let my friends go.”

“You ask me to die?” Gone was the villain's arrogance; he was leaning so far back that his tail was propped against the invisible wall.

“You can just come right back. They can't!” Fluttershy's nose almost touched Ahuizotl's, and her voice was as fierce as it always wasn't. “So, what's it going to be?”

Ahuizotl looked around and gulped. “I suppose... you leave me no choice, fierce one. But know this!” He snarled one last time. “You could not defeat me through strength alone—and as I fall now, so shall you fall to the final boss.”

“What final boss?” Twilight yelled.

He turned to her, his eyes slits, and she realized what it meant to look daggers at someone. His word was a whisper. “Quetzalcoatl.” He raised his tail and disappeared into the pit. A second later, the earth rumbled as sand rose back up from the depths, leveling out the ground.

Fluttershy dashed back to the group, wearing an expression of pure terror. “Oh my goodness, is anyone hurt?”

Twilight noticed the Doctor in her peripheral vision, his jaw hanging slack. “Did she just...?” he managed a few seconds later.

“She can be pretty persuasive when she wants to be.” Twilight almost smiled, but as she turned to look at the Doctor she noticed Derpy and Rainbow Dash lying on the ground—and the awful angle of Rainbow Dash's wing. She rushed to her friend's side. “What happened to her?”

“Ahuizotl threw me at her,” the Doctor admitted. “Not my finest moment.” His hoof sneaked up on Rainbow Dash's wing joint, so that when the two touched Rainbow Dash didn't notice. Frankly, she wasn't noticing much of anything at the moment; her eyes were closed, her face was pale, and she groaned gently with each breath. “It's dislocated,” the Doctor muttered as he felt the joint. “I might have been able to fix it, but I'm, ah... a bit low on resources at the moment.”

“What?”

“I lost my sonic screwdriver in the fight.”

“What?” Without that, how are they going to get out? In fact, she realized, how am I going to get out?

“Hold on just a damn minute!” Daring Do barged in between the two of them. “Your little wand could have fixed my wing this whole time and you didn't think it was worth mentioning?”

The Doctor stood his ground. “We've got a few other priorities right now, Daring. Like getting Rainbow Dash in a state where we can move her.”

“But would it have killed you to mention—”

“Quiet!” Twilight yelled, for Rainbow Dash's eyes were fluttering open. She bent down to her friend's eye level, as did Fluttershy and the Doctor. “How do you feel?”

“Like a negative million bits,” Rainbow groaned. She looked at Twilight, then around at the others there: Derpy, who was pulling herself to her hooves; Fluttershy and the Doctor, with looks of relief on their face; and finally at Daring Do, who didn't seem so relieved. “You.” Weak as Rainbow's voice was, the vitriol within it was undeniable.

“Me what? Spit it out.” Conversely, as fierce as Daring was acting, her retort sounded feeble and desperate.

“You're the one who nearly yanked my wing off. You said you don't care about us.”

“That? No, that was so Ahuizotl wouldn't kill you to spite me!”

“Yeah, right.” A tremor shook Rainbow's body, and she made a short pant of pain. Then she looked up at Daring Do once more. “I used to look up to you.”

Daring Do seemed to forget how to speak. Her mouth flapped and nothing emerged.

“Enough.” All eyes turned to Derpy, who was standing firm now. “Fix her,” she said, looking at Twilight. “You've gotta spell have that can do it.”

“You mean 'have a spell',” Daring Do mumbled.

“Don't talk to her like that.” There was more force in Rainbow's voice now, and more color in her face. She looked up at Twilight. “Can you patch me up?”

“I think so. This might hurt a bit.” She focused her magic on Rainbow Dash's wing joint, feeling the ball and the socket, and the distance between them. “Okay, on three. One, two—”

She shoved the joint back into place. Rainbow Dash howled. “What happened to three?”

“I read somewhere that you're not supposed to get to three.” She grabbed one side of Rainbow Dash, Derpy grabbed the other, and together they lifted the pegasus to her feet. “How are you feeling now?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow Dash took a few shaky steps, but didn't fall. “I think I'll be okay.” She flexed her wings and cringed. “Won't be flying for a while, though.”

“Okay,” Derpy said, turning now to the Doctor. “How do we get out?”

The Doctor closed his eyes and pressed a hoof against the bridge of his nose. “Twilight figured out a spell to get in here... she can probably figure out a spell to get out.”

“But we still need to beat the game?”

“Most likely, yes.”

Derpy jumped into the air, flying high above the jungle canopy for a moment, before falling back to earth. “The end is that way.” She pointed at a break in the jungle around them. “Let's go. Doctor, lead the way. Twilight, figure out that spell. Fluttershy, make sure Rainbow Dash keeps moving. I'll stay in back with Daring Do to make sure she doesn't get us into trouble again.”

No one moved for a few seconds, until the Doctor exclaimed, “Well, what's everyone standing around for? Allons-y!”

Twilight and the Doctor emerged from the jungle first, followed by Fluttershy supporting Rainbow Dash, and Derpy and Daring Do in the back. At least, Twilight assumed they were all still behind her; she couldn't spare any concentration to look at them. She focused on remembering the feeling of the spell that had brought her into the game, and trying to figure out a spell that felt opposite.

It wasn't going well. Or, for all she knew, it was—the process was only a shade more scientific than a wild guess. Even after a few minutes, when she'd come up with something that seemed more or less right, she couldn't be sure. She tested it, letting her horn glow with power, and felt a rushing sensation like wind against her face, ruffling her hair. But she couldn't be sure.

“Oh, is that good?” She opened her eyes to see a hopeful looking Doctor, standing on a stone path she hadn't even noticed. Torches lined the path, burning brightly, though superfluously—it was still day outside, wasn't it?

A moment later, she realized that no, it wasn't. In her distraction she'd failed to notice that night had fallen, leaving the sky black and without stars. It was like being in a void, or a dream.

“Twilight?” The name brought her back to herself, and she realized that in noticing the night, the feeling of the spell had slipped away from her. She groaned in dismay. Why can't I do two things at once?

“Ah. Not going wonderfully, then.” The Doctor shrugged. “How do you feel?”

“Like I'm gonna get a couple of my best friends killed.” She sighed. “I just don't know if this is going to work.”

“Well, if it's any comfort, I never know if it's going to work, and I've turned out all right.” He smiled for a moment. “More or less.”

“But what if I fail?”

“You won't.”

“Don't tell me that. Both of us know I could.”

Any trace of smile faded from the Doctor's face. “If—and this is a very small, unlikely if—but if you fail, you need to remember something.”

“That is?”

“That whatever else happened, you did the best you could. And from what I know about you, that's the best anyone could. There's no shame in that.”

She didn't feel any more confident. “And do you know that's going to work?”

“I figure it has to work for someone.” He sighed—then, only a moment later, was chipper once more. “Now, buck up, if you'll pardon the expression. You'll be brilliant, believe me.” For all his high spirits, Twilight had the impression that she'd heard more than he meant to say. She felt she had to say something in return.

“Um... Doctor...” Not that she had no idea what that thing might be.

“Yes?”

“Um... remember the first time we met?”

“In the eternal field of your spotless mind, yes. You shared a couple of memories with me—thanks again for that, by the way.”

“It's just that, now that I think about it... I think you shared some things with me too.”

His head snapped to look at her. “What kind of things?”

“It's hard to describe, but mostly...” She concentrated on the vague memory of the time they'd spoken without words. It was a task less rewarding than making up a counter-spell; the feeling seemed to slip away as she tried to find it. “You felt guilty.”

The Doctor sighed and looked at the ground. “Someday I am going to have to figure out how to make a one-way door between minds. Go on?”

“You've lost friends, haven't you. Ponies—people, I guess—people you couldn't save.”

“Oh, you are just the high princess of tact today, Miss Sparkle.” He trudged ahead of her.

“I'm sorry!” she exclaimed at his back. “I just needed to ask... why'd you bring Derpy here?”

He looked back at her, stopping dead in his tracks. “What do you mean?”

“I think you were lying earlier, about how Fluttershy and I shouldn't go in the game because we were former Elements of Harmony. She's the current Element of Honesty, and she's your friend. And you brought her into danger.”

He didn't make any sort of retort. He didn't even look angry. In the inconstant torchlight, he just looked empty, like someone had jabbed a needle into his face and drained away all the feeling. “I'm sorry,” Twilight stammered. “I shouldn't have asked.”

“Can you get a move on?” Rainbow Dash called out from behind her. “I don't wanna be in here any longer than I have to, and Fluttershy's getting tired.”

Without a word, the Doctor started walking forward once more, still with the same blank look. Twilight followed a little behind him, uncomfortable with looking too closely. It felt obscene, like she was seeing something private that should have stayed hidden.

“I suppose I do, don't I,” he finally said. A few seconds later, he turned his head, and to her relief he'd composed his features into something merely sad. “But there's fifteen lost spirits trapped in here, and Derpy's the best assistant I've got. Some things are worth a little guilt.” He turned away again, mumbling. “Some things are worth it.”

“I guess she wouldn't have let you keep her out anyway, would she.”

“Not for anything.” He smiled. Just a little, but it was enough for Twilight to relax.

Rainbow's wing caught on a low-hanging branch as they were leaving the jungle. She winced, and tried to keep going, but she was properly stuck. She gritted her teeth and work her wing backward as subtly as possible.

Of course, Fluttershy was right next to her, so there was little hope of her playing it cool. She lifted her own wing and pressed down on the branch, freeing Rainbow's wing. Rainbow sighed in relief and walked out of the jungle.

“Careful,” Fluttershy said, looking down at the stone tiles that stretched forward as far as there was torchlight to see by. Even compared to the dense undergrowth of the jungle, they were treacherous; there was no consistent ground level to be found. “Do you need to lean on me?”

“My wing's hurt, Flutters, not my legs. I'll be fine.” She stepped forward, misjudged the height of one of the steps, and fell right on her face. “You win,” she grunted, mouth flat against the ground.

Fluttershy helped her to her hooves. “You've had a really bad accident. You're gonna be a little shaky everywhere, even where you didn't get hurt. Just let me stay with you.”

“All right, all right.” She let Fluttershy help her up a particularly tall step. “Just don't call it an accident. What happened, happened for a reason.” She grimaced. “And the reason is that the featherbrain behind me is a complete jerk.”

“Not Derpy?”

“What? No. Daring.” She spat out the word like it would poison her otherwise. “Actually, you know what? I'm not gonna call her that. She's not the real Daring Do, or else she wouldn't have... given up on us like that.”

“It can't have been that bad,” Fluttershy said.

“Fluttershy, she nearly tore my wing off in that fight. And she didn't lift a hoof to save us.” Rainbow would have yelled, but she didn't feel up to it. She compensated with the harshest whisper she could muster. “That was all Derpy, and Twilight, and you. How does it feel to be a better hero than an actual so-called hero?”

“Oh, um...” Fluttershy blushed. “Thank you.”

“Heck, how does Derpy feel?” Rainbow almost tripped over a stone jutting out beneath her hoof; Fluttershy put a wing out in front of her, catching her. “Sorry about that. But I think I know how she feels.”

“You do? You're not usually that good with... feelings.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but hear me out. Imagine if her guy turned out to be a huge jerk. How'd she feel then?”

“I... think that's just how you feel again,” Fluttershy said, grunting as she helped Rainbow up over a little cliff of stone.

“Are you sure?” Rainbow looked back at Fluttershy. “Hey, are you all right?”

“I'm fine.” She smiled, but Rainbow noticed a gleam on her face in the torchlight. Sweat was collecting in her coat. “Just let me worry about the two of us, okay?”

Rainbow sighed. “Told you you were a hero.”

Fluttershy blushed even redder than before.

As she'd promised, Derpy was still stuck in the back with Daring Do as they left the jungle. Not the Doctor, and not Rainbow Dash; she was with the one who'd nearly gotten them all killed. It stank to be the responsible pony sometimes.

Not that Daring Do was being combative, or whiny, or in any way troublesome. Frankly, Derpy might have preferred that to what Daring Do was doing instead: saying nothing, avoiding eye contact, and generally putting on a show of non-existence.

Much of Derpy's attention was devoted to deciphering the treacherous, flickering light on the stone footing, and it took her several minutes to make the obvious connection. But, finally, she realized: Silent, just like I was with the Doctor. A whole host of implications blossomed in her mind.

Something must have shown on her face—maybe a self-satisfied grin—because Daring Do chose that moment to talk. “Whatever you're gonna say, please don't.” Well, she chose that moment to mumble, in any case.

“You do care.”

“Please, don't.”

“You liked it, how Rainbow Dash up looked to you. And there you were, acting like we shouldn't do that!”

“And look how right I was.” Daring looked down at the ground. “I kept saying I wasn't Daring Do. Now you finally took the hint.”

“But you'd like to be Daring Do.”

“Not much I can do about that.”

“Not that attitude with.”

“You mean... oh, it doesn't matter.” Daring sighed. “She's not gonna care what I do now, anyway.”

“Probably not.” Derpy wondered if she should let herself thaw, as she deliberately looked away from Daring and plodded onward. In the front, Twilight's horn lit up, and she saw a smile on the Doctor's face. Behind them, Rainbow Dash stumbled on some protruding stone, but Fluttershy managed to keep her stable.

“Sorry, by the way,” came Daring's voice from behind her.

“For which thing?”

“Well, this time I'm sorry I called you wall-eyes. That was rude.”

“Oh, really?” Derpy rolled her eyes, but then caught herself. She's apologizing. She's trying. “Apology accepted,” she said. The two of them continued on in silence.

The torches made it difficult to judge distance, and when Derpy looked up only a few minutes later she jumped backward; a massive temple had appeared just in front of her, out of the darkness. It seemed to loom over her head, and looked ready to topple at any moment. There were deep cracks high in the temple, where hardly any light reached, and there was an unholy smell about the thing, one that put her in mind of unheard pleas just before ancient sacrifices.

Of course, it couldn't topple on her. It was a step pyramid. Step pyramids wouldn't fall over like dominoes, silly, she reminded herself. They'd collapse inward.

Then she noticed the door. “Do we have to go in there?” she asked the group at large.

“Most likely,” the Doctor replied, at the front of their group. He was a good fifty yards from the door, and sounded about as enthusiastic as Derpy felt.

“Then why we aren't?”

“Look,” he said, tapping the ground in front of him and producing not the short sound of hoof on stone, but a muffled rustle. Derpy jumped into the air to see that surrounding the temple was a massive moat of sand. “So?” the Doctor asked. “Who wants to test the waters?”

For a few seconds, no one moved. And, as far as Derpy could be sure of, nothing moved. After all, the torchlight made it impossible to gauge such a thing even if it were happening. Why would the sand be rising in front of them, anyway...

But within seconds the movement became undeniable. The sand bulged, forming an ever-growing mound in front of them, and the air filled with hissing—until a massive snake burst from the sand and towered over them.

Even in the faint light, Derpy knew who it was. The crest of green feathers around the head; the massive red-tipped wings that spread out to encircle the group; the massive fangs, and the surprisingly small eyes—small but cunning: this could only be Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent.

The seven of them were still; the six of the group eyed Quetzalcoatl, and he them. At long last, he spoke, but not in the sibilant hiss that Derpy had expected. Instead, his tone was very casual, as if he weren't a snake the size of a pyramid. “It's nice to have company once in a while, isn't it?” He might have smiled, but Derpy wasn't sure; snake's faces didn't seem to be very good at it.

“Er... hello!” The Doctor raised his hoof and waved like he was still practicing the gesture. “I'm the Doctor, and you must be Quetzalcoatl.”

“Greetings, Doctor.” The snake leaned in close to see them, and Derpy realized how much bigger his mouth was than her whole body. Even his 'small' eyes were the size of her head. “I've spent so much time here, and not one pony has showed up. And now... well, not one pony has showed up. Why is that, I wonder?”

“We've sort of gotten roped in by twos, actually... bit of a long story.” The Doctor scratched his neck. “By the way, I'd like to mention that you are incredible. Has anyone ever mentioned?”

“No one's been here to mention.”

“Yeah, I suppose so... I do mean it, though.” The Doctor grinned. “Look at you. You're like nothing I've ever seen outside of a painting.”

“Really? Well, that's very kind of you.” Quetzalcoatl's wings shifted up, then back down. It took Derpy a few seconds to recognize that this was probably a shrug.

“Could you two save the flirting for later?” Daring Do asked.

“Ah, my old nemesis!” Quetzalcoatl had been uncomfortably close before; now he leaned in further until he was nose to nose with Daring Do. “You look a bit under the weather this evening.” Daring gulped. “Oh, that's disappointing. The game hasn't been kind to you, has it.”

“Listen,” the Doctor said. “We just want to get out of here. This game, that is. And I'm afraid that means we have to go through you.”

“Oh, naturally.” Quetzalcoatl sighed. “Being the final boss, I can't be skipped, so you've got to quote-unquote kill me. Quite a feat under normal circumstances, I assure you.”

“And now?” the Doctor asked.

“Go ahead.”

The Doctor paused. “Sorry?”

“No permanent damage to myself, given that I respawn. And it's necessary for you to get out of here. It should not be a difficult decision for you.”

“Erm. Okay... this may sound a bit rude, but... how?”

“Oh, my word. I forgot!” Quetzalcoatl chuckled. “In the normal boss fight, you have to trick me into attacking with my wings, and letting them strike the torches.”

“We have to... immolate you,” Twilight said.

“Barbaric, isn't it? Well, I suppose I'll be doing most of the work here. Stand back, please.” Without further warning, his wings thrust forward through the group, and their tips touched the torches. Fire surged along the wings and onto the feathered body, which caught like a pile of matches. What had been a landscape in shadow suddenly blazed with light, every detail thrown into stark relief by the bonfire.

Derpy winced. “Doesn't that hurt?” she yelled.

“Rather a lot!” Quetzalcoatl replied, sounding quite cheerful as he writhed and sank into the sand. “By the way, don't cross the sand until I'm fully beneath it, or it will drag you down.”

“Do you want to come with us?” the Doctor asked. “I'm sure we could get you out too.”

Rainbow Dash groaned. “Doctor, stop offering to give the bad guys a ride.”

“It pays not to assume someone's what they seem, Rainbow Dash. So how about it, Quetzal?” He raised a hoof. “You could escape with us!”

“I'll have to respectfully decline!” The serpent's body stiffened, standing straight up like an obelisk—then sinking into the sand. “Goodbye, and have a nice daaaayyyyyy...”

The sand rushed into his open mouth, so that when he finally sank beneath it there was a crater left. Yet again, no one spoke or moved for several seconds; it had been that kind of day.

“I think we just found the world's most accommodating person,” Twilight said.

“Yeah,” Derpy replied. Then she winced at the sound of grinding stone, and realized that the door of the pyramid was slowly lifting out of sight, revealing a dark passageway inside.

“Do you think the sand's actually safe now?” Twilight eyed it cautiously.

“I'm a pegasus, I'll test it.” Derpy dove down to the ground, only to stop several inches above the sand. Daring Do was already standing there, looking nervously at her hooves, but not sinking. She looked around and smiled nervously at the others.

“Good enough for me,” Rainbow Dash said. She pushed past Daring Do and marched across the sand. The rest of the group followed soon after, with Daring Do coming in last. From what Derpy could see of her face in the flickering light, she was doing a terrible job of acting like she didn't care.

Was it really that she couldn't make it up to Rainbow Dash? To the one who idolized her, who had a costume of her, who at this rate was probably going to burn the costume when they got back—that would be enough to explain how Daring Do felt, as Rainbow Dash brushed past her without a second thought.

And yet there was something besides shame growing in the pit of Daring Do's virtual stomach, as she followed the rest of them inside the massive pyramid. It might have been awe, and that would be justified; the narrow stone path on which they trod was only the merest part of the massive room around them. The torches illuminated a sea of sand around them, so wide that Daring could not see the end of it.

And then again, it might have been elation—for she could see the statue of the Vision Serpent, a snake eating a stylized pony, in front of them. Their ticket out of here. And yet then again, the feeling might have been confusion, as she tried to figure out why anyone would venerate a statue of a snake eating a pony in the first place.

No, she realized. It's fear. Because Quetzalcoatl was full of manure. Why wouldn't he want to leave too?

“Woo!” Derpy did a lopsided loop-de-loop in the air. She didn't look very conflicted. “We did it!”

“Now, everyone!” the Doctor called. “Remember, when we touch the Vision Serpent there's a break in gameplay, and Twilight can use her magic to get us all out. But we have to stay together! Otherwise we're not all getting out, understand?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine, now let's go!” Rainbow Dash surged forward into a full canter—and then froze.

She did not skid to a halt. She did not slow down. She simply froze in mid-step. Daring's mouth dropped open, and she took a step forward—or tried to. She looked down and tried to move her hooves, but they wouldn't.

“What's happening?” Fluttershy said. “It's not just me, is it?”

“Can anyone move?” the Doctor yelled.

“I'm stuck!” Derpy cried, floating upside-down in the air. “What's going on?”

“You shouldn't have trusted a snake, fools...” Daring Do craned her neck at the sound. Behind her, the sand began to move, and bulged upward once again.

Quetzalcoatl burst out, but with none of the geniality he'd been putting on before. His fangs were bared as he rose higher and higher out of the sand, much further than he'd gone during the boss battle.

“You said you didn't want to escape!” the Doctor yelled.

“I said I didn't want to escape with you!” Quetzalcoatl hissed. “But I have been lonely here, waiting to be slain by some hacked-together hero and finding none—and I would very much like to escape on my own. You were necessary only to open the temple—but no longer.”

“You're wrong!” Twilight yelled. “You can't leave here without me!”

“Foolish girl. I got what I needed from your little group some time ago.” The tail of Quetzalcoatl was emerging from the sand; it became thinner and thinner until it finally broke away—but the very end seemed to be wrapped around something. And, unless Daring's eyes were playing tricks on her, the something in question was silvery and had a blue tip.

“My screwdriver!” the Doctor gasped.

“I've followed you from deep within the earth this whole time, Doctor. I've heard what this device can do. And when it fell into a pit, I saw my chance and saved it. By its power you have been bound in place, and by its power I shall emerge into the waking world, and be recognized for the god I am!”

Daring Do struggled, but there was nothing she could do. She'd spend the rest of her days even more trapped than she'd started them.

“And now, I take my leave of you.” Quetzalcoatl inclined his head in mock humility. “Goodbye, fair strangers, and have a very nice eternity.” He dove toward the Vision Serpent.

“No!” Twilight spat. She screwed up her eyes in concentration, and her horn flickered with light. A single purple bolt flew from it, striking Quetzalcoatl's tail. It flailed, and the sonic screwdriver fell off. It clattered to rest in front of Daring Do, close enough for her to bend over and pick it up with her mouth.

Daring Do looked up at the Vision Serpent. She could see her escape; freeing herself from her bonds, running past the assembled ponies, grabbing the Vision Serpent and shaking a triumphant hoof at Quetzalcoatl. Using the screwdriver to pluck herself from the game...

Seeing Rainbow Dash's face, even more bitter than it was already. Confirming every awful thing that Dash must have thought about her.

Daring Do sighed. Well, I'll hate myself either way. She grabbed the sonic screwdriver in her mouth and squeezed—and almost fell over as movement returned to her body. She could use her hooves now—but she could do one better. She flipped the screwdriver around in her mouth and pointed it at her injured wing.

The bandage sprang off, and she felt free. “Hey!” she yelled. “Klutzalcoatl! Looking for this?” She grabbed the sonic screwdriver with her wing—I can grab things with my wing!—and turned it on, letting the snake hear the whistling sound it made. She saw his snarl, saw him turning around, and took off.

She could move her wings. She could fly, and soar, and flip—if she had the time. Instead, she dove at Quetzalcoatl's face, quickly enough that he couldn't react, and drove both rear hooves into his eye. As he reared back in pain, she swooped down over the path, and—sonic screwdriver in her mouth once more—freed Derpy, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and finally the Doctor. She opened her mouth and dropped the screwdriver in front of him.

“Go!” she yelled.

“You have to come with us!” he replied.

“Just go!”

She looked back to see Quetzalcoatl turning around, one eye closed and bloody. “You!” he spat. “You will not slow me down!” He surged at her with incredible speed.

He thinks I still have it. “You want it? Come and get it!” She flew right at his face, but this time he was ready; his jaws opened wide to receive her. She swerved out of the way just as they snapped shut.

“You will wish you could die,” he snarled, whipping his head back around with remarkable agility.

“Sure, sure, but answer me this!” she yelled. “If I've got the free ride, then what am I doing over here?”

He froze. “You little...” He looked around to see the other five clustered around the statue, ready to touch it. He surged away. Daring Do darted after him, knowing she wouldn't catch up, and hoping that the rest of those idiots would do what they had to.

Quetzalcoatl was mere yards away, but they did. The Doctor reached out and touched the Vision Serpent.

They all froze, save for the statue; it rose gently into the air, and glowed to light up the whole pyramid. There was no sound, save for a quiet whirring noise. Daring Do looked down—eyes only; she could move nothing else—to see the Doctor's hoof already pressing down upon the sonic screwdriver.

The five of them glowed blue, brighter and brighter—but not so bright that Daring couldn't check something. She could still see that Rainbow Dash was looking up at her with an anguished expression on her face. Daring would have smiled if she could. I guess I made it up to you in the end.

There was no more fuss—the group simply vanished. The Vision Serpent sank back onto the pedestal. Daring Do didn't realize that motion had been returned to her until she was already falling too quickly to slow down; she crashed into the stone path and felt several somethings crack. So I do have bones, after all. Learning all sorts of new things about myself today.

“You.” She pulled her head up to see Quetzalcoatl floating above her, cold fury upon his face. “You I will torture until the end of time.”

“You're wrong there, klutz,” she wheezed, dragging herself to the side. “You were right about something else, though. Something you said earlier. Want me to tell you?”

“Insufferable to the last, Daring Do,” he snarled, driving his face forward until it was a foot from her own. “But I can make you tell me anything now. I can at least have that pleasure.”

“No.” It wasn't easy, but she grinned. “Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to figure out what it was. All the time in the world.” Then she pushed herself over the side of the path and into the quicksand. It took scant seconds for her to disappear.

Only for her to reappear in the desert, miles away and fully healed. She looked up, and the blue sky above her was the same as it ever was. The sand beneath her was the same, too. There were pyramids in the background, and she recognized them—could recite every detail of theirs blindfolded. It was all the same. It would always be the same.

Daring Do sank to the ground, wishing she could die.

The Doctor became conscious of two things: the brightness of sunlight on his eyelids, and the texture of dust in his nose. He rolled to the side, only to topple off the pile of bodies on which he'd lain. Opening his eyes, he saw over a dozen groaning ponies strewn across the ground—real ground. Not desert sand or jungle earth or temple tile. So that was a real sun above him, too. We made it! He whooped internally, but stopped as a thought occurred to him; the arcade game had been inside. What were they doing out?

“What in Tartarus have you done to my wall?”

He looked around to see Mr. Kingpin, bruised and battered but somehow more indignant than mere battery could explain. He was standing half-in, half-out of the bowling alley building, in a place where there hadn't been an opening before. Well, that would explain the plaster, the Doctor thought.

“Whoa.” Derpy stumbled to her hooves next to him, her mouth slightly open at the gigantic hole that all those emerging bodies had blown in the wall. “Did—did we just....” She snorted.

Here we go. He snorted, she giggled, he followed suit, and the two of them were quickly laughing their heads off. “Oh, I'm ecstatic to know you had a nice time!” Mr. Kingpin yelled, which did nothing to stem the flow of laughs.

That didn't happen until a few seconds later, when the Doctor saw something very unfunny: Rainbow Dash was behind Mr. Kingpin, standing wordlessly in front of the arcade.

The Doctor shut up and darted through the opening to the game. Dents upon dents—the work of the earlier mob—covered the outer casing, and steam was issuing from the inside, but Rainbow Dash's gaze was fixed on the screen. There, the Doctor saw Daring Do standing still on the first stage, head sunk to the sand.

“You let her get trapped in there.” Rainbow Dash didn't look around at him; possibly she didn't want him to see eyes that, judging by her voice, were beginning to tear up. “She saved us—she saved everyone—and you left without her.”

“I had to,” he murmured. “And she knew I'd have to, at the end.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Not in a million years,” she muttered. It didn't sound admiring. “I'm going back in there, and I'm gonna get her out.”

“Rainbow Dash—”

“Everyone else is out now—it doesn't matter if I snuff it, it's not gonna destroy the town, and she deserves to get out!”

“You can't.”

“Don't tell me I can't!”

“You literally can't.” He pulled her down to look at the side of the arcade. Its protective panel was crumpled in a corner, revealing the source of the steam; the Order's parasitic little box. It had melted like a candle, dripping plastic down the inside of the machine. The four markings were no longer visible. “The machine can't let people in or out anymore. I'm sorry, I truly am, but she's stuck in there for good.”

“We can get Twilight—she can figure out a spell—” Rainbow Dash sounded seconds away from sobbing openly.

“It's okay.” The little voice stopped both Rainbow Dash's sentence and the Doctor's upcoming reply. The both of them stood up and looked at the screen. Daring Do sat in the sand at the beginning of the game. She was looking away from them. “It really is okay, kid. I earned this.” If she was close to sobbing, she wasn't showing it; her voice was calm. No, not calm—empty, devoid of sadness and any other feeling.

She was silent for a few seconds, as if waiting for a response, but the Doctor knew he had nothing to say. Rainbow Dash moved closer and rested a hoof on the controls.

“They're gonna get this thing working again, and then I want you to do something for me.” Another pause. “Play the game. Just one more time.”

“I don't understand,” Rainbow Dash said.

“You were always the best.” A hint of emotion broke through into Daring's voice. “When you played... it always made me feel like myself.” Her shoulders slumped, and she stopped talking. Rainbow Dash's eyes glistened for a moment before she closed and rubbed them.

“So.” Derpy appeared between the Doctor and Rainbow Dash and clapped a hoof onto each of their backs. “What are we gonna do for her? I mean, there's gotta something be, right?”

“We can't get her out,” the Doctor said.

“Then let's fix in.” She smiled at him. “Come on, you Time Genius, you've got the screwdriver that can change everything around. You've gotta have some ideas of how to use it.”

Now that she mentions it... The Doctor's head tipped to the side as ideas began tricking into it. “Want to take a few days off from making the TARDIS?” he asked.

She winked. “How can I help ya?”

Twilight had been waking up fairly early to work with the Doctor for the past two months, and woke up early that Friday out of habit—but she knew there was no work to do. She lounged in bed, rolling around slightly to feel the blissful texture of her sheets. It was marvelous.

Until a crash from the first floor jolted her from her reverie. “Twilight!”

She groaned, emerged from her bed, and started walking downstairs. “Rainbow, I'm going to lock that window one of these days. And pick those up!”

“Later!” Rainbow Dash pulled herself out of the pile of books she'd brought crashing down. “Right now you gotta check this out. Doc's fixed the Daring Do game and he says it's amazing. And now he's looking for what he calls 'playtesters' and what are you waiting for? Get over there right now!”

“Rainbow, no.” Twilight narrowed her eyes. “I'm not dropping everything just to play an arcade game!”

Twilight walked into the bowling alley with something between a sigh and a yawn. There isn't even a Want It, Need It spell on the box anymore. How did Rainbow talk me into this?

Even as drowsy as she was, she noticed two things straight as soon as she entered. The first was the sound of one bowling ball hitting the pins, followed by a second, and a third. She looked up from the ground to see the lanes full of life and rolling balls, in stark contrast to the emptiness of the week before.

The other obvious change was in Mr. Kingpin—not just the bandages covering his many bruises, but the smile that shone through his mustache. “Mornin', Miss Sparkle!” he called. “Want to bowl a game? It's on the house.”

She shook her head. “I'm here about the Doctor.”

“Ah, okay. He's over with the game, same place as it was before. And guess what? No line!” He cackled. “I could have told you it was a fad.”

She thanked him and walked into the dark alcove, which wasn't quite so dark now. Mr. Kingpin's wall hadn't quite been fixed yet, so a sheet of plywood had been slapped over the hole. Bits of light peeked out around the rectangle, illuminating the hunched figure of the Doctor.

At her approach, he looked up at her and beamed. “Twilight! Always a pleasure. Ready for an all-new gameplay experience?”

“Not really,” she yawned, “but sure, I guess.”

“You're kidding me.” This voice came from inside the console. Twilight walked in front of its screen to see Daring Do's face on a black background, looking at her with extreme skepticism. “You can't have her play. She's terrible.”

“Winnacker's First Rule of Playtesting: Get a novice,” the Doctor recited. “Trust me, there's planets where games are as much of a science as, well, science. Just don't live there, it'll take all the fun out of it.”

Twilight had to filter her way back through that ridiculous collection of sentences to realize she'd been insulted twice. “I'm not a novice!”

“Right.” The Doctor nodded vaguely. “Well, come on, Daring, I know you're dying to see what I've done with the place. Ready?”

“Oh... all right, fine.” Daring shook a hoof at Twilight. “You'd better not screw up on me, got it?”

“Uh, yes ma'am.” Twilight placed her hooves on the controls, which were exactly as they had been before. For that matter, so was the screen, and the console's plastic covering. She couldn't see anything new.

Then the Doctor plugged a bit into the slot, and she could hardly see anything old. The graphics looked the same, but the level was completely different—filled with white shapes on a field of blue that suggested clouds in the sky, and with no land in sight. Daring Do stood on a cloud to the left of the screen, and unless Twilight's drowsy eyes were tricking her, her jaw was wide open.

“This....” Daring said. “This is...”

“New.” The Doctor smiled. “Completely and utterly new. From the ground up with a new boss, new enemies, what have you.”

“Well, uh, that's pretty neat.” Daring sighed. “Though this is probably gonna get old pretty soon too.”

“I wouldn't be so sure....” He pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointed it at the screen. There was a moment of blurriness, then the clouds disappeared, replaced by a massive mineshaft.

“What the—” Daring Do was cut off as the screen changed again. Now she was atop a snow-covered mountain. Another buzz from the sonic, and she was aboard a mighty airship—inside a volcanic crater—on the orange soil of an alien planet. “How did you...”

“It's not one new world, Daring. It's millions upon millions for you to explore—all stored inside a chip that's bigger on the inside. There will always, always be something more for you to see.” The Doctor laughed. “Good, isn't it?”

“I... I... thank you so much!” Daring Do turned to the screen, a bright white smile on her face.

“Oh, but there's one more thing. It's something you're missing.” The Doctor poked her image on the screen with the screwdriver. “Have you noticed it yet?”

Daring Do looked around herself. “I don't see anythi—” Her mouth went slack, and she did a double take to her back. “My bandage! It's gone!”

The Doctor shrugged. “Lazy design in the first place. What's a game with a pegasus if she can't fly?”

Daring looked up at Twilight. “Okay, I don't even care how bad you are right now, you have gotta start playing. I mean, look at this place!”

Twilight smiled as an idea occurred to her. “You know what? Playtesting can wait.” She used her magic, grabbed the screwdriver from the Doctor—ignoring his cry of surprise—and directed it at the controls. The lights around them died away. “You look.”

Daring Do took a tentative step forward. Then a second. Then a third, fourth, fifth, until she was running flat out. With a great whoop of joy she jumped into the air, spread her wings, and took off. The display followed her as she swooped across the starry sky.

Tune in next time for:
The Advent of Betaurus

The Advent of Betaurus (a)

Now, Rarity asked herself, hunched over her writing desk, how would a lady phrase this? She pictured the most impressive library of Canterlot, with herself sitting not at her own cramped desk, but at one of that library's gorgeously adorned oaken tables. Surely, in a place of such grand literature, she herself could be moved to write something of similar merit.

“Dear Sapphire Shores,” she read aloud as she wrote, quill held by magic in front of her. “I am truly flattered that you would think of me as the best candidate to design the costumes for your next show. However, you must see that the price range you've suggested is tantamount to slave labor, and would leave me in a state of nothing less than paupery!”

The grandeur of the library dissolved, leaving her back in her cluttered workspace. “That... started well, but... too melodramatic,” she decided, sweeping the letter off her desk and into an adjacent trash bin, which held several similar letters. “After all, we'll have to meet halfway.”

She walked to the window and looked up at the moon; judging by its position, she guessed it would have to be around 11:00. She sighed. I really would like to get this done soon.

However, as she looked down to ground level, something caught her eye, if only just; a cloaked, hooded figure walking through the grass near her home. Well, that's one plan down the drain. But, she thought, as a smile came to her lips for the first time that night, I suppose I needed a break.

She opened her door and called out to the figure. “Is it you, dear?” In response, she raised a hoof from under her cloak. “Good!” Rarity said, waving back. “I'll be just a moment.”

Humming a little ditty to herself, she grabbed a scarf from a rack near her door—for warmth and style—then turned off the lights and exited Carousel Boutique.

Even as close as Rarity was, the figure's thick brown cloak obscured any details or sense of identity. She waited until Rarity had closed and locked her door, then set off away from town at a pace just slow enough to look casual to any onlookers. Rarity knew better; this was important business, and so she followed.

“So, what do you want to work on today, Miss Qeta?” she asked the figure beside her.

“Not present. Not past.” Qeta's accent was difficult to place—but then, of course it would be, Rarity reflected.

“Ah, yes.” Rarity had had enough on her mind that the relevant information had slipped away, but now it returned. “Yes, the future tense. We discussed this at the end of our last appointment, as I remember.”

“And we... not did, but other... talk it next time?”

“And we will discuss it next time.” Rarity shook her head gently as the two of them hopped over the fence surrounding Sweet Apple Acres; it was the quickest way to where they needed to go. “Well, we've got a lot of work to do.”

Applejack had a lot on her mind—which made perfect sense, considering how harvest season was only a few days away; she just wished it didn't have to keep her up so darned late. She'd tried to fight it—she'd lain in her bed for hours, keeping her eyes stubbornly closed—but it was pointless, and she had not a wink of sleep to show for it. So, she gave up, got up, and started pacing her room as she tried to compute how many apples she'd be able to sell to Barnyard Bargains while ensuring a good crop for the local market.

After what felt like an hour of this, she'd gotten intimately acquainted with the texture of each floorboard under her hoof, but had achieved nothing else. She snorted with frustration. Maybe I'll ask one of the girls to help with this. Rarity's got a good head for business; I'll try her tomorrow.

A flash of white in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she looked out her window. Is that... Rarity? Outside, in the middle of the night?

Applejack closed her eyes and rubbed them with her hooves. Can't be her—I'm just tired and I thought about her, and now I'm seeing things. But when she opened her eyes again, Rarity was still outside and walking away from the Everfree Forest. Applejack checked her wall clock and saw that it was well after midnight; Rarity would never be out and about at such a time.

Applejack grabbed her hat and trotted out of her room, leaving all thoughts of Barnyard Bargains behind. She slowed only to make sure she wouldn't wake up Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh, or Granny Smith on her way downstairs; once she was out of the house she sped up to a canter, and caught up with Rarity before she'd gotten much further.

“Rarity!” she called. Rarity looked up with an air of uncertainty at the mention of her name, as though there might be other Rarities to whom Applejack might be referring. “What are you doin' out? I've never seen you on a nighttime walk before.”

“What? No, no, this isn't a... well, of course it is! Yes, a little evening jaunt does wonders for the soul, does it not?” She smiled a bit too widely at Applejack.

“Rarity, are you okay?” The mare made to walk away, but Applejack thrust a hoof in front of her. Now that she was up close, Applejack could see the twigs and leaves caught in Rarity's usually spotless hair and coat. “You look like you've just left the Everfree Forest.”

“Well, if I've done something like that, then I must have had a good reason, don't you think? Good night, Applejack.”

“You were in the Everfree Forest, in the middle of the night, alone. There ain't a good enough reason in Equestria for that!”

A faint smile lifted the corners of Rarity's mouth. “I suppose you're right about that. Now good night, Applejack.”

“Rarity, you're not goin' anywhere until you start explainin'—”

“As I said, good night.” With a harrumph, Rarity walked around Applejack's outstretched hoof and continued on toward her home.

Applejack watched her go, wishing she knew what in Sam Hill was going on.

The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)
S1E5: The Advent of Betaurus
Written by R5h

Knock knock knock.

Twilight opened the door to her house and was surprised to see not just the Doctor, but Pinkie Pie and Bon Bon as well. “Morning, Twilight!” said Bon Bon, as the three of them entered the library. “You're looking a bit blue today.” Pinkie Pie giggled.

Twilight wasn't quite sure what to make of this, as she didn't feel remotely sad. After all, how could she be sad on a day like this – a day where they'd be testing the TARDIS's translation circuit and perception filters? She decided to worry about Bon Bon's statement later.

“So, let's get started!” the Doctor said, apparently incapable of keeping a grin off his face. “Translation circuit first, d'you think?” He must be excited too, Twilight reasoned, as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a chunk of TARDIS coral. “You have the book?”

“Yes, of course,” Twilight said, pulling a large Fancy for Beginners book from a shelf behind her. “Did you bring Pinkie Pie and Bon Bon to help with the test, then? Because they don't know Fancy?”

“I actually spent a semester of college in Fance,” Bon Bon said, rolling her eyes as she affected the most ridiculous Fancy accent and manner possible. “Eet waz, 'ow do you say, vairy good.” Some weird hoof-waving in front of her face completed the effect; Pinkie Pie giggled again.

“Don't worry, Twilight—I barely understand a word! Lay your par-lezz-vouse on me!” Pinkie sat on her behind and folded her forelegs in front of her body.

“All right. Ready?” she asked the Doctor, who pointed his sonic screwdriver at the coral and activated it. Ridges along the coral's face started glowing in a gradient from red on one side to blue on the other. After a moment spent scrutinizing this, he looked back up at Twilight and nodded.

Twilight lifted the book with her magic, opened it to a random page, and found a sentence. “Le livre est sur la table.”

“C'est pas du tout sur la table!” Pinkie gestured at the book. “C'est dans l'air maintenant!” Twilight gaped at the perfect Fancy issuing from her friend's mouth.

The Doctor's smile widened, and he pointed his sonic screwdriver at the piece of coral; within a few seconds, the red and blue light had faded away. “Could you repeat that, exactly as you said it?”

“A-he-he-hem.... It's not on the table at all!” Pinkie gestured at the book in the exact same way. “It's in the air right now! And I thought you were going to speak Fancy, Twilight!”

“Très bien!” the Doctor exclaimed. “I think we can call that test a success!”

Pinkie scratched her chin with a hoof. “I don't get it.”

“Oh, but the circuit did! The circuit got everything!” The Doctor lifted it triumphantly. “I set it up to translate between English and Fren—er, Fancy, so that anything you said in English would come out as Fancy, and anything Twilight said in....” He sighed. “Can I just call it French?”

“That's not a word, Doctor,” Bon Bon said, perched on the stairs to the library's second floor and smiling a little. “And what's English?”

“But... oh, fine. Anything Twilight said in Fancy would come out as English, or, I dunno... Equestrian.” He flipped the circuit in the air before shoving it into his pocket. “Course, it only does two languages right now, but once it's hooked up to the TARDIS, any language will get translated into the listener's native tongue! You can forget what 'language barrier' even means!”

“Sounds wonderful,” Twilight said, replacing the book in its slot. “So, if we're done with that test, then next on the list is the perception filter, right? So the TARDIS doesn't get noticed wherever it lands?”

“Oh. Well.” The Doctor grinned again. “We already know that works.”

“Um... I don't follow. Did you do a test without me?”

“Not at all!” The Doctor shook his head, still wearing the smile that Twilight, by now, was starting to find somewhat annoying. “Do you notice the necklace you're wearing?”

“What necklace? Where?”

Bon Bon snorted. “Around your neck, dumbo. Where else?”

“I think I would have noticed if I had a necklace around....” Twilight realized what she was saying. Of course I wouldn't have. That's the whole point. She looked down and narrowed her eyes. There's nothing here but some old piece of cord, and that's not what I'm looking for. “I'm sorry, I really don't see it.”

“Keep thinking,” the Doctor said.

“Okay, but....” Her mouth opened into a nice O shape. Of course! That piece of cord is the necklace! “Very clever,” she said, not willing to look up; she kept her full attention on the old useless piece of cord—the necklace, she reminded herself. “You got the perception filter around me without me noticing. Great prank.” She sighed with exasperation, as if she didn't feel stupid for having been duped.

“Very astute.” The Doctor beamed at her. “Take it off.”

“Not a great test, if you ask me,” Twilight said, putting on a smirk as she pulled the necklace off. “After all, the filter needs to be able to hide something a bit bigger, and... bluer....”

She looked down again, and noticed that she'd been painted in bright blue plaid. Her jaw dropped. “How—what—what?”

Pinkie, Bon Bon, and the Doctor burst out laughing. “How did you do this?” Twilight screamed.

“Borrowed Bon Bon's body paint,” Pinkie gasped. “Got the necklace on you last night. You didn't notice a thing. No one else did either.” She jumped into the air and clicked her back hooves together. “Best... prank... ever!”

“Does it wash off?”

“Aww, you wanna get rid of it already?” Pinkie pouted. “I think it makes you look really classy.”

“Does it wash off?” The paint had covered her for hours, she realized, and the full horror of this fact was sinking in. She could feel it seeping into her coat, stiffening, making it harder to move.

“Of course it does.” Bon Bon rolled her eyes again. “That's why I use it. Just take a shower.”

Twilight barged upstairs, past Bon Bon. “Spike!” she yelled. “I need you to prepare me a shower now! A big one!”

“A big one?” His voice came from further up the stairs.

“The biggest!”

“It does wash off, right?” The Doctor asked, as soon as he could hear the hissing sound of Twilight's shower from upstairs.

Bon Bon shrugged, and hopped down to the ground floor. “Probably. Though I never keep it on for more than a few hours when I'm using it.”

Pinkie zoomed right up to Bon Bon's face. “Wait, you never said anything about that! She's been painted for hours!”

Bon Bon didn't flinch. “Eh, she'll be fine. And hey—we know the filter works.”

“But—you—but I—oh, now I feel terrible!” Pinkie frowned, and her hair seemed to lose some of its luster. Oh, who am I kidding—of course it actually lost luster. The Doctor smiled; it was easier than trying to explain the mechanisms by which Pinkie worked.

Knock knock knock.

“I'll get it!” Pinkie dashed to the door, her hair re-pinking as she went. She opened it and beamed at Applejack, who was standing just outside.

“Uh... hi, Pinkie. Is Twilight home?”

“Yes, but she can't talk right now, and it's all my fault!” Pinkie bawled. “Oh, and also Bon Bon's. But mostly mine!”

“Right... she is okay, right? I kinda need to talk with her as soon as possible. It's....” Applejack grimaced, and leaned in close to Pinkie. “It's about Rarity. I think she might be in trouble.” She whispered these words, with the intention—the Doctor presumed—of keeping the others in the room from hearing anything. He'd heard every word. Maybe it's something about being the Element of Honesty that makes a person no good at being secretive; Derpy can't keep anything quiet either.

“You can tell me all about it!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“Privately!” Applejack hissed.

“Riiiight, privately.” Pinkie turned to the Doctor and put on an absurd British accent. “Would you excuse us, good sir? We have matters to discuss... in private.” She doffed an imaginary hat and held it in front of her chest.

“Oh, of course. Private. Right, yes, I'll just... be outside.” The Doctor turned around and walked out of the building, and kept walking in that direction until he was pretty sure they weren't looking at him. Then, he sat casually beneath the window, which no one had bothered to close. Now, are they going to look out the window? The way he figured it, if they didn't take that precaution, he practically deserved to hear what they had to say.

“Now, I know this might sound absolutely incredible,” Applejack began from inside the library. “But I was up late last night, and I saw Rarity walking out of the Everfree Forest.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. It's as if they haven't invented suspicion on this planet! But his attention was quickly drawn to the story Applejack told. Sounds like Rarity's up to something dangerous... or maybe it's just some illicit tryst or something else as dull, and she's simply as bad at keeping things under wraps as anyone else in this town.

“Don't worry, Applejack!” Pinkie Pie said. “I'll help you get to the bottom of this! I won't fail a friend! Not again!”

“When did you—what exactly did I miss?”

Rain had been scheduled for the following day, so clouds obscured the stars as the sun went down. There was no moon to obscure; it was a new moon that night. The houses of Ponyville provided decent enough light at the town center, but outside of it a pony could hardly see ten feet ahead of their own face. You couldn't ask for a better night to be stealthy, the Doctor thought, as he tailed Pinkie Pie and Applejack. And yet....

He'd never considered himself a master of stealth, in humanoid form or as a pony; the bright colors and flashy suits he'd worn so often made the idea laughable. Additionally, he'd heard Pinkie suggest the plan to follow Rarity into the Everfree Forest without her—or anyone more malevolent—noticing, and had heard Applejack agree; surely this implied that they knew how to move unseen.

But even by his low standards, they were terrible. It wasn't just the bright colors of their coats—which, to their credit, they'd covered with black catsuits; Applejack had even draped black cloth over her hat. It wasn't just that they spoke to each other in what they seemed to think were hushed voices, which he could hear from yards away.

It was the ostentation. Pinkie Pie seemed to be making a game of ducking suddenly behind bushes, darting from cover to cover, and stopping to look around suspiciously. Applejack, who seemed to have no experience in stealth, mostly followed her lead, with the occasional annoyed grunt here or there.

Meanwhile, the Doctor trotted twenty feet behind the two of them, keeping quiet and looking for all the world—if anyone in the world could see him—like he was on a casual nighttime stroll. Not remotely suspicious. Just walk on in like you own the place, that's the secret.

“We're here,” he heard Pinkie whisper, as they—and he—approached Carousel Boutique.

“I know, Pinkie! Stop talking!” Applejack said. The Doctor smiled to himself. Rather defeats the point of keeping quiet if you have to order it out loud. Unlike them, he kept a safe distance away from Rarity's house, so that while no one would be able to observe him, he could observe the building at leisure.

For several minutes, however, there was very little to observe. The lights at the boutique kept glowing, Rarity diligently kept sewing, and Pinkie Pie and Applejack kept talking.

“What do you think it is?” he heard Pinkie ask.

“Dunno. That's what we're here to find out, isn't it?” Applejack replied, in a voice that wasn't much quieter. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to start giving lessons.

“But what do you think? I think it's aaaaaaaliens.”

Applejack paused. “Crazy Everfree Forest stuff, more like. Granny's always warnin' us to be careful about planting too close to the forest... says it's not natural—”

“Ssh!” Pinkie hissed.

Applejack snorted. “You're shushing me? Really?”

“Ssh! Someone's coming!” The two of them backed away from the house, and the Doctor backed away from them, for a cloaked, hooded figure was indeed coming into the light. He—or she, or it, or any number of possible pronouns—walked up to the door, lifted a front leg, and knocked.

The silhouette of Rarity stopped sewing. A few seconds later, she walked to the door and opened it. “Just a moment, dear; I've got something I really have to finish. I won't be a minute!” She smiled and closed the door. The figure took a few steps back and sat down.

The Doctor began tallying. Okay, so like most intelligent life on this planet, it's quadrupedal. And feels the need to disguise itself—and yet Rarity recognizes it anyway. And there's no coercion going on—no obvious coercion, he corrected himself, then frowned; the tallies weren't adding up as quickly as he'd like.

True to her word, Rarity emerged from Carousel Boutique about thirty seconds later. “I do apologize,” she said to the figure as they walked away from the building. Pinkie and Applejack followed them, and the Doctor followed after. “But I really had a doozy of a deadline to deal with, and it would have been... dishonorable, you might say, to shirk it.” She chuckled—well, that seemed the wrong word for Rarity; perhaps she laughed daintily. The Doctor's frown dug in. Why is Rarity so at ease with this stranger? Oh, please don't let this be just a tryst.

But this mystery would have to wait, for a greater one presented itself—the mystery of how, despite everything, Pinkie and Applejack still escaped detection. The Doctor supposed that the figure's hood might have been obstructing its ears, and Rarity seemed blissfully unaware of anything but her conversation with that figure, but even so... he winced at every broken twig and every muttered word.

The situation only got more embarrassing once all parties entered the Everfree Forest, where there were more twigs to break, more roots to tangle the hooves, and more trees to block what meager light there had been. The figure had produced a torch to light its and Rarity's way, and they stepped nimbly over and around the mess of roots. Pinkie and Applejack, on the other hand, were stumbling and falling into trees left and right.

“Not so loud!” he heard Applejack mutter after one particularly bad fall from Pinkie. “We don't want them to hear us!” The Doctor sighed internally and rubbed under one eye with a hoof.

Such embarrassments continued for something like twenty minutes, and the Doctor was beginning to think that he should go home and cut his losses—but then he noticed that the light through the trees seemed to be getting brighter. He looked up and saw that the trees above him had been sheared off at their tops. Then, as he kept walking, at their middles. Before long there were hardly any trees around him, only stumps.

What is this? He looked back behind him and saw the plane formed by the broken tops of trees. It's almost like... like something massive fell from the sky. “No way,” he breathed.

He looked forward again and saw Rarity and the figure in a clearing, surrounded by the wreckage of trees and utterly unaware of either Pinkie or Applejack behind them, or the Doctor behind them. To be fair, what was in front of them was much more eye-catching: a monumental wall of metal that extended several dozen meters to his right, and further than he could see to his left. He could see the outline of a door several feet up on the structure, many small dents near its bottom, and—unless he was very much mistaken—scorch marks on the forest floor below.

“Oh, this is brilliant!” The last word, somewhat to his regret, came out as a yell. Pinkie and Applejack turned around and noticed him; Rarity and the figure turned around and noticed all of them. Even by my not-at-all-a-master of stealth standards, that was bad. He beamed at the group in front of him, trying to keep up the illusion that he belonged there.

“What in the—” Applejack began.

“Who you?” yelled the figure, lifting a hoof from under its cloak. “No move!” The Doctor had time to register that the hoof was sheathed in some sort of machinery, before a bolt of light fired out of that machinery and over the Doctor's head. That was a warning shot, he realized, looking behind him to see a new scorch mark on a tree trunk. A warning shot from a laser!

The sudden movement had shifted the figure's cloak, and the hood fell away, revealing the creature's head. It reminded the Doctor of a bull from Earth, with a crucial difference; this 'bull' had four brown horns, two on each side that curved out and forward. She wore a bright blue ringlet on her upper right horn and an expression that looked apprehensive on her granite-blue face. Her head was tilted slightly downward, as if she were getting ready to gore the lot of them.

This was Christmas, Mardi Gras, and the Golden Jubilee all at once. The Doctor wasn't even grinning; his mouth was open in an expression somewhere between astonishment and complete joy.

“You mean don't move, Qeta, but please stop!” Rarity rushed forward and pushed the raised hoof, and its weapon, to the ground. “These are my friends!”

“Friends?” Qeta's accent was rough. Well, how could it not be?

“What in—” Applejack began again, pointing at Qeta's extra horns. “What in blazes are those? Rarity, we thought you were—who is this, where are we, what is that—” she pointed at the metal wall “—why the heck is he here—” she pointed back at the Doctor “—and what in Sam's unholiest of Hills is going on?”

“I'll tell you what's going on!” the Doctor exclaimed. “First contact!”

“First what?”

“They're aliens! Don't you see?” He laughed and pointed at the metal 'wall'. “That's their spaceship, this is the landing zone, and that bull is a visitor from another planet! Oh, I can just take the year off now, because this is history being made in the biggest way!”

He gradually became aware that everyone in the clearing was staring at him in bewilderment—that was, everyone except Pinkie, who shrugged and said, “Well, duh—of course they're aliens! But what's Rarity doing here?” She gasped. “Is she a bull too?” She grabbed Rarity's cheeks and pulled, as if expecting to reveal horns hiding behind them. “How long have you been a bull, Rarity?”

“Not quite.” Rarity tried to smile, but the stretching of her cheeks made this a difficult facial maneuver. “Please let go.”

Pinkie did.

“Thank you.” The smile came back on, much more easily this time. “Qeta, this is Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and the Doctor. And all of you, this is Qeta, a Betauran.” Qeta lifted her head as her name was spoken; perhaps it was a gesture akin to a nod.

“As for what is going on, I've been helping these Betaurans with some lessons in the Equestrian language. Enough to get around, you know, and properly introduce themselves to our planet at large. They've made it clear that they wish to do so on their own terms—which, I'm afraid, has been properly scuttled now that you've all shown up, so congratulations there.” She gave Applejack a sarcastic smile.

“Well, excuse me for cuttin' your fancy lessons short!” Applejack started pulling off her bodysuit with sudden, angry movements. “You had me worried sick about you, wanderin' out of the Everfree Forest in the dead of night—I didn't know what to think! You could have at least said somethin' last night!”

“Well....” Rarity's smile turned into something more like a grimace. “I promised, didn't I?”

Applejack's eyes narrowed. “Rarity, we're your friends. You can't tell us, but you can keep secrets for a bunch of bulls you can barely talk to?”

“A little something called the benefit of the doubt, darling. And really, doesn't everypony... or perhaps every Betauran,” she amended, smiling at Qeta, “deserve to make their own best first impression?”

Qeta imitated the smile. “Much to teach you. It be... will be very good for ponies.” The Doctor hadn't heard such broken English in years—or broken Equestrian, as the case might be. Well, there's an easy way to fix that. He reached into his pocket.

“But—” Applejack protested.

“Whereas you've made your first impression by sneaking around like common burglars!” Rarity narrowed her eyes. “After I've put so much work into diplomacy! And what are you doing now?” she asked, as the Doctor stepped forward with the lump of coral he'd tested earlier that day. Well, this will be a true test of the system.

As he raised the translation circuit in front of Qeta's face, she stepped back and lifted her gun-hoof off the ground. It wasn't quite pointed at him, but even so she was more nervous then he wanted her to be. “Tell her it's nothing to be afraid of,” he told Rarity.

“Um... uqad jaleka, Qeta,” Rarity managed, as the Doctor grabbed his sonic screwdriver, held it in his mouth, pointed it at the circuit, and activated it. If I can get the right psychic resonance... The lines on the circuit started pulsing through the whole color spectrum.

“Jaleka, Rarity? Deqad—trust him?” Qeta asked. “I'm not sure we should.”

The Doctor dropped the screwdriver back in his pocket before grinning. “Speak for yourself, Qeta.”

Her eyes widened; her leg slackened and returned to the forest floor. “That was... you just spoke in perfect Betan. What is that thing?”

“No, he's... er, he's speaking Equestrian,” Rarity said. “And as a matter of fact, so are you, and rather well at that.... Just what did you do?” she asked the Doctor.

“Ooh!” Pinkie yelled. The Doctor looked up to see her standing on top of the spaceship. “You took the translation-majig and set it to go between their language and our language! So they hear us speak their language and we hear them speak our language, and vice versa!” She scratched her chin with a hoof, pouting. “Or did I cover the vice versa already?”

“Exactly! Also, how did you get up there?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Running start.”

“Sure.” The Doctor twirled the translation circuit on one end on his hoof, then replaced it in his pocket. “Anyway, I'd say this speeds up the 'first impression' process by quite a lot. Wouldn't you say so, Rarity?”

“Well, I suppose so, but—” Rarity began.

“Oh, Archdukes, this is easier,” Qeta interrupted. Now that she had the ability to speak in her own native language, her words flowed much more quickly. “It is so nice not to have to speak that crazy language! All those stupid starts and stops—no offense,” she added, looking at Rarity. Rarity frowned in response.

“Oh, right! Sorry about the warning shot, but I couldn't really tell you to stop moving when I could barely talk to you—thank you so much for fixing that!” She beckoned them toward her with a hoof, then walked to the spaceship. “So come on in, everyone! You have so much to see, so much to do....” She jumped up and banged on the door outline. “Macrin! You'd better come see this!”

A few seconds later, the door receded into the ship's metal wall, then slid to one side and out of sight, revealing a slightly taller Betauran. His face was longer and bluer than Qeta's, and showed what could only be irritation. “It's Lieutenant, Comm Officer, not Macrin, not while we're on duty—” He looked up from his scolding to see the assembled group. “Don't move!” he yelled, raising his hoof, which bore the same sort of weapon as Qeta had. “Get on the ground and don't move!” He jabbed downward with his other hoof.

“Shut up, Macrin, they're friendly!” Qeta jumped up to the door and pushed Macrin's weapon-hoof down, as Rarity had done to her. “Everyone, this is Macrin, the lieutenant of our mission. He acts mean, but don't worry; he's a big softie at heart.”

“A warrior of the Archdukes is not a softie,” he muttered. “And you speak as if these horses can understand us.”

“Oh, we can!” The Doctor grinned, and Macrin looked at him with a wide-eyed expression that probably meant surprise; he wasn't quite sure. Well, even with the circuit, I suppose there's still the body language barrier. The Doctor gave him a little wave and hoped it would be interpreted correctly. “Hello, I'm the Doctor, this is Applejack, that's Pinkie Pie on top of your ship, you probably know Rarity, and by the way, apparently it's a bit rude to call them horses—they prefer 'ponies'.”

“This one's the reason we can finally understand each other,” Qeta said, pointing at the Doctor. “And I was about to invite him and his friends on board, to repay our debt!”

“Absolutely not,” Macrin said, glaring at the group. “All of you, except for Rarity—leave, and do not speak of what you saw.”

Qeta tapped her horns against his, perhaps coquettishly; the Doctor wasn't really sure about this either. “Oh, come on! We've got the language barrier figured out—there's no need to be a secret anymore, Mac!”

“There was a plan, Qeta,” Macrin growled. “We'd take it slower this time, not jump in like a bunch of falling spears and get shattered! Taking a tutor was justifiable, but this—”

“Come on, Macrin, let them take a look.” The corners of Qeta's mouth pulled straight back toward her horns, which the Doctor supposed was analogous to smiling. “For me?”

After a few more seconds of hesitation, Macrin knocked one of his horns against the door frame—apparently a gesture of frustration—then turned to the group. “Fine. Welcome aboard the Duchy, noble Equestrians. Let us speak, and understand each other.” He pushed a button within the ship, and a length of steel walkway reeled out of a slot beneath the door, the end of which fell to the ground to form a ramp. The Doctor was first up, with Rarity not far behind. Pinkie Pie swung down from the roof and through the door, and finally—with some hesitation—Applejack climbed aboard.

As soon as the Doctor made it inside the door, his grin grew even wider. “Oh, marvelous,” he said. “Just absolutely—and I've been saving this one up—molto bene!”

“It's a big gray hallway, Doctor,” Applejack said as she entered, her eyebrow raised.

“Well... yes... but that's the thing! Big, gray metal hallway, completely unfurnished save for a few doors on the sides—and there's a lieutenant, a mission from their rulers, efforts at learning the language... you don't see it?”

Applejack shook her head.

“Come on, it's obvious—this is an early, relatively unsophisticated spaceship, big enough for interstellar travel—no? Really?” The Doctor didn't feel at all put out that he got to explain it. “They're explorers, on their planet's first interplanetary mission! Boldly going where no one has gone before! Honestly, they're heroes.”

“Oh, you're so sweet,” Qeta said.

“Yeah, some heroes,” Applejack muttered.

“Well, come on, everyone!” Qeta beamed, gesturing deeper into the ship with her head. “You've got to meet the Captain, and the Engineer, and the Pilot, and the Doctor—well, our Doctor, not you Doctor, though frankly you have a terrible name when it comes to ambiguity—no offense.” The Doctor shrugged to indicate that none was taken, then wondered if that translated. Oh, it's been ages since I've gotten to wonder about that sort of thing. He beamed again.

“So what are you waiting for? Let's get moving!” Qeta stepped into the corridor proper and plowed forward. The Doctor followed her, still smiling, until—

Bang. Bang bang.

He stopped and looked back at the door, from behind which the sound had come.

Bang bang bang.

“Oh, for the justice of—who else just found us?” Macrin walked toward the door, but Applejack stepped in front of it. “What are you doing, small horse?”

“The Everfree Forest has some of the most dangerous plants and animals you can reckon. If you think your little flashlight can take some of the stuff out there, you've got another thing coming.”

“Out of my way!” Macrin pushed past Applejack and pressed a button beside the door. “I am a warrior of Gaius, and I will decide to whom the thing comes.” The door opened, and he aimed his weapon out at—nothing at all. “Show yourself!” he yelled, panning from side to side to cover the whole clearing.

The Doctor could see nothing, just Bon Bon standing in the clearing. There was no one at all. Wait a second. He forced himself to think very hard about what he was looking at. It's just Bon Bon—no one at all... wait.... “Bon Bon!” he managed. “Where did you get a perception filter?”

“Oh! Still wearing it.” She lifted the length of cord up over her head. “So that's why you guys didn't hear me when I told you to wait up. That was moronic.”

“Don't move!” Macrin pointed his eyes—and gun—right at her. “How did you do that?”

“Don't move! I have a light cannon and I'm too stupid not to use it!” Bon Bon replied, imitating his voice. Macrin recoiled slightly. “Relax, you lummox, I'm with them. Sort of.”

“You followed us?” the Doctor asked.

“I followed you following them—” she pointed at Pinkie and Applejack “—following them.” Her hoof moved to point at Rarity and Qeta. “So you're really one to talk, aren't you.”

“And when did I say you were allowed to steal a perception filter?” He raised a hoof and shook it at her, hoping it might convey some measure of his exasperation. “Apart from any ethical concerns, I'm not made of perception filters, Bon Bon.”

“Oh, well... I figured you wouldn't notice.” She flashed a grin. The Doctor did not.

“How did she—” Macrin began, turning to the Doctor.

“If you mean the voice thing, well....” He shrugged. “She does that. As for the quote-unquote invisibility, that would be a perception filter—makes it so that you just don't care that you see something, or notice something, it's just somebody else's problem. And would you please put that down?” He shoved Macrin's weapon to the floor again. “She's a friend of mine... more or less.”

“Rude!” Bon Bon exclaimed.

“Pot, kettle, etcetera! I know I explained that turn of phrase to you.” The Doctor sighed and pressed the button beneath the door-opener, releasing the entry ramp. “Just come on board. You've got so much to see, and you're gonna love it.”

Bon Bon smiled at the Doctor as she entered the spaceship, then looked down the long corridor. The walls were covered in a shiny silver metal which reflected the lights placed along the ceiling. It was smooth and sleek and new. “Now this is a spaceship,” she whispered to the Doctor, careful to keep her voice down; Macrin was bringing up the rear of their party, and somehow she wasn't sure how well he'd react to any surprises about the Doctor—such as the fact that he had a spaceship of his own. “I bet none of the bathrooms in here are time sensitive.”

“Blimey, you know how to hold a grudge. That was once. And anyway, the TARDIS is miles better than this... ratmaze,” he continued, as they turned a corner into another long metal corridor. “What is it with aliens and identical hallways?” he muttered. “It's like they're trying to get lost.”

“It's still better than your thing. You've got a coral reef crammed inside a horseshoe box. This is how you're supposed to do it.” She smirked.

“Oi! That's my pride and joy you're talking about!”

“Oi!” she mimicked. The Doctor rolled his eyes. Bon Bon chuckled a bit and trotted ahead, leaving the Doctor to stew in ship envy. Oh, I like this. I like this a lot.

“Excuse me?” Qeta asked as Bon Bon drew near.

“What?”

“What did that Doctor's phrase mean? The one he said to you, involving a pot and a kettle?”

Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. “Why do you care?”

“I'm the Communications Officer. It's my calling to understand your strange and different customs.”

“It's his custom, not ours—and don't talk to me about callings.” Bon Bon grunted. “The whole phrase is 'like the pot calling the kettle black'.”

“And?”

Bon Bon paused for a few moments, to try to figure out what Qeta wasn't understanding. “The thing is that both of them are black, so the pot's a hypocrite.”

“Ah!” Qeta did her almost-smile again. “So what the Doctor was saying is that you should not have called him rude, when you yourself are rude.”

“... yes.”

“Good point.”

Bon Bon shot her a glare. Either the expression didn't translate, or it did and Qeta didn't care; she still looked happy to have figured something out.

Applejack, walking behind them, laughed. “Maybe I'm warming up to you Betaurans after all.”

Feeling rather chilly herself, Bon Bon let herself fall back to the middle of the group. Well, I don't have to care about Qeta. What a relief.

“Help me!” Abruptly, Pinkie Pie's face was in front of her own.

Bon Bon jumped back. “What?” she blurted.

“I-need-someone-to-discuss-the-philosophical-ramifications-of-an-entire-planet-of-new-friends-with-or-I-think-I'm-gonna-explode!”

“Try the Doctor. I really can't care about it one way or the other.”

“What?” Pinkie Pie leaped into the air, mouth wide with astonishment. “How do you not—”

“Can not, not do not,” Bon Bon corrected.

“Whatever—how can you not care? We could learn so much from them, they could learn so much from us—I bet they've come up with new kinds of fun our pony brains can't even comprehend!”

“Is that all you care about? New kinds of fun?” Bon Bon tried to swerve to one side, but Pinkie—facing her and walking backwards—copied the movement. Bon Bon sighed. “Has anyone ever told you about your one track mind?”

“Are you kidding? More like new kinds of everything!” Pinkie beamed. “New foods, new sports, new games, new holidays, new parties—”

“Knew we'd get to parties,” Bon Bon muttered.

“What can I say? I've got a fever, and the only cure is more parties!”

Bon Bon gritted her teeth and thrust a hoof over her shoulder. “The Doctor. Talk with him, now. Not with me.”

“Okay!” Her smile undiminished, Pinkie Pie bounced over Bon Bon's head and landed next to the Doctor. “So how excited are you about a new planet?” Bon Bon heard her say.

“Oh, like you wouldn't believe,” he replied.

Bon Bon groaned and trotted to the very back of the group, where Macrin was eyeing the rest suspiciously. “Are you going to try to talk to me?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, not looking at her.

“Thanks.”

There was a door at the end of the corridor: a door that looked just like the one that had let them in. Qeta, still at the front of the group, pressed the button beside the door; it slid open, revealing another identical door, but backwards, as if they were entering the ship again.

“Oh...” the Doctor breathed. “Dare I say it—separate compartments? Modular design?”

“Beg your pardon?” Rarity asked.

“This isn't just one spaceship, it's several docked together! And you've just started starflight! Oh, you Betaurans must be a clever bunch.” He grinned at Qeta, who tried to imitate the gesture; it didn't quite work, and looked more threatening than anything. “No, no, you've got to curl your lips up at the ends... is there any reason this is taking so long?” he interjected, rapping the second door.

Qeta pressed the button a few more times. “Sorry, our systems are kind of on the fritz right now. Just a minor thing, nothing major.”

“Well, let's see if we can speed this problem up.” The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, aimed it triumphantly at the door, and pressed the button. At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly but surely, nothing continued to happen. “This usually works,” he said, sounding a bit put out.

Bon Bon couldn't resist. “That the first time you've said that to a girl, Doctor?”

The Doctor turned around and raised his eyebrows at her. Bizarrely, so did Pinkie Pie. “I don't get it,” she said.

The door opened, with a male Betauran behind it; apparently, he'd pressed the button on his side. He was slightly shorter than Qeta, sporting a bluish-brown coat and a black vest with a silver insignia on the front. Qeta's grin, which she'd managed to make pretty convincing, vanished; she was stone-faced and official. “Captain Adelbrand, sir. I've got an unexpected and wonderful report to make.”

“Captain Adelbrand, sir!” Macrin, who had been in the back of the group with Bon Bon, ran forward to stand next to Qeta. “I strongly object to the admittance of these equines on board our ship!” So much for being official, Bon Bon thought.

Captain Adelbrand raised his eyebrows—the first completely analogous gesture Bon Bon had seen. “That's us, by the way,” the Doctor said with a little wave. “The, er, 'equines'. Should I introduce everyone again, or are we going to be meeting more of you? Because that would make it a bit repetitive and, you know, pointless.”

“You will meet no more of us if I can help it!” Macrin took a deep breath, then began talking very fast. “Sir, these four—” he gestured at the Doctor, Bon Bon, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack “—followed the Communications Officer and her tutor without our knowledge, and upon discovery, this one—” he pointed at the Doctor “—used some technological trickery to allow us to understand each others' languages. Now, Officer Qeta maintains that this is sufficient cause to abandon our veil of secrecy—”

“Of course it is!” Qeta interjected. “We were only ever gonna wait until we learned the language, anyway, right?”

“—but I disagree. Considering our....” Macrin leaned in close to Adelbrand and whispered the next few words, so that Bon Bon couldn't quite hear what he was saying. “... it seems to me that we should not meet with the Equestrians until we can meet them from a position of strength.”

The Doctor raised a hoof and waved it again. “I'd just like to point out,” he said, “that none of us actually brought any weapons. Or places to put them. Right?” He cast a questioning look at the bunch of them. Bon Bon, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie nodded their heads, but Applejack lifted her hat and revealed a lasso tucked beneath it.

“See?” Macrin pointed at the lasso, his eyes wide. “A weapon! They came here to attack us! They—”

“Lieutenant!” The Captain's bark of a word shut Macrin up. “If that is the only 'weapon' they have, then we are in a position of strength.” He looked at the gun on Macrin's hoof, still pointing at Applejack's rope. “I'm afraid I don't see the danger.”

“But—but they—”

“Mac?” Qeta tapped her horns against Macrin's. “You're having an episode again. Deep breaths; you'll be fine.”

Macrin did as he was told, and within a few seconds his demeanor had calmed considerably. “Thank you,” he said to Qeta, before turning to Adelbrand. “But as your lieutenant, sir, I still strongly advise that they be removed from our ship before they see anything more.”

Adelbrand stood still for a few moments, before stepping aside from the doorway. “All of you, welcome aboard the Duchy. My name is Captain Adelbrand, and it is an honor to meet you.”

Honor again, Bon Bon thought, as the group trotted through the door. Someone has a word of the day calendar here, and honor is the word—every day.

“You'd better make the announcement,” Adelbrand told Qeta as she trotted through in front of Bon Bon. “I'm sure everyone's going to want to meet the new arrivals.” Qeta beamed, and sprinted off down a corridor. Macrin did something that looked like a grimace as she went.

While all the Betaurans were occupied, Bon Bon sidled up to the Doctor. “Did you hear what he said, before?”

“What who said?”

“Macrin, when he was whispering. Did you pick it up with your super-hearing?”

“I don't have 'super-hearing'; I just have pretty good hearing... and yes.” The Doctor frowned. “All he said was 'current predicament', as in, 'Considering our current predicament, it seems to me...' and so on.” He rolled his eyes. “He'd have been better off just saying it, not making such an obvious secret out of it. Does no one know how to be stealthy around here?”

Bon Bon frowned too. “Any ideas on what that predicament might be?”

He shrugged. “A few. But they're our hosts, Bon Bon—we shouldn't be suspicious of them.”

“They have things on their hooves that can blow us up, and the crazy guy who doesn't seem to like us is still wearing his. I'm not being suspicious, I'm being sane,” she hissed.

“Oh, how to put this....” The Doctor raised his eyebrows, his face screwed up with thought. “As Rarity said, benefit of the doubt! That's how first contact is supposed to work—never seems to, but you've always got to try. We all need to work together to make the first meeting between our two races as stellar—so to speak—as it ought to be.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “You're such an optimist.”

“Whenever possible.” The Doctor smiled.

“Ur nod taleko noko?”

“Whoa!” the Doctor said, pulling up short—for a wall had opened up in front of him, and a large, metallic, bull-like object had stepped out to block his path. Like the Betaurans, it had four horns, but not four around one head. Instead, it had two heads, one at each end, and sprouting from each head were two long, articulated horns. There was a small speaker grill underneath the head closest to Bon Bon, and—she assumed—under the other one as well.

“Ur nod taleko noko?” it repeated.

“You're a robot!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Brilliant! You lot already have robots!” Grinning, he gesticulated at Adelbrand. “And voice interface, probably! Very well done!”

“Dek noda kot.”

“A... what?” Applejack asked. “And what's he saying?”

“A robot—a metal automaton, usually subservient, always a pleasure! Sometimes.” The Doctor frowned. “Depends on the robot, and personally... do these come in dog, by any chance?” he asked, tapping the robot's horn.

“Dek noda kot.”

“And we can't understand it, because....” Applejack raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Oh, right....” The Doctor frowned. “That is awkward, yeah....” He pulled the translation circuit and sonic screwdriver from his pocket, pointed both at the robot, and triggered the sonic. A few seconds later, he replaced both in his pocket and tapped the robot's horn again. “Can you hear me now?”

“Dek noda kot.”

“Of course not.” He sighed. “Translation circuit only works on organic matter, and this is about as far from organic as it gets. Shame. What's he saying?” he asked Captain Adelbrand.

“The Bullbot asked if he could take your coat—the first time, at any rate,” Adelbrand said. “The other times, he was saying 'Do not understand'.”

“Oh, kant trok, dear!” Rarity stepped forward, pulled her scarf off, and draped it over one of the Bullbot's horns. “Girls?” she said to Pinkie Pie and Applejack, “If you'd like to just take off your catsuits?”

As the two of them placed their suits on top of the scarf, a thought occurred to Bon Bon. “Where'd that cow go, anyway?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her, and she elaborated. “Cow—female bull. Where'd... what's her name... where'd Qeta go?”

“To make an announcement, I believe?” the Doctor said.

He was swiftly proven correct: a second later, a loud voice sounded out from invisible speakers.

As far as Ermi was concerned at the moment, there were two uncomfortable things in this or any world: the feeling of a metal plate digging into one's back, and the lack of hot water in her room for over a week. There might have been others, but as she peered up at the pipes in the Duchy's innards, lying on her back in the space that had been created by the removal of a wall panel, she couldn't think of any of them.

“Attention to all crew!” said Qeta's voice over the intercom. Ermi pulled herself out through the hole where the ship's panel had been: this could be important.

“Believe it or not, we have new arrivals on board, from the planet! And for once, we can actually talk to them—don't ask how, it's complicated—so everyone, drop what you're doing and welcome our guests! Message finished!”

False alarm. Ermi pulled herself back through the hole, adding 'meeting new people' to her short list of uncomfortable things. She bit down on a flashlight attached to her horn. It lit up, allowing her to finally see a cracked pipe, well above her own head. That must be why I haven't had any hot water on Duchy-2 since we got here... but where'd the leaked water go?

“Sealant,” she called out to the two Bullbots who were helping her. Within a second, an articulated horn curled its way in, the sealant disk balanced perfectly on its tip. She grabbed it and, with some difficulty, pressed it around the crack in the pipe; it stuck there like a bandage. Note to self: Check on this in an hour. By then it should have fixed the pipe, and I'll be able to—

“Hey, Ermi!” She found herself being pulled at by her back hooves, and was dragged out of the opening to see Lorio's face. Not only was it beaming, but it was a pale blue color, and not the red of recently-punched skin; in other words, there were two things wrong with it.

“That was painful,” she said, glaring at him. It was true: the edge where the panel had been had dragged across her back.

Lorio's horns—smaller than hers, but with yellow highlights and glowing ridges at each quadrant—pulsed blue, and a square patch popped out of his lab coat's pocket and onto her front. “Painkiller, if you need it. Do you need something for your ears too?”

Ermi brushed the painkiller off of herself and made to duck back into the ship's innards, but Lorio stopped her with a hoof on her shoulder. “Didn't you hear the announcement? Qeta said it's new life! And it can communicate! Think of what we could learn!”

“I'm fine where I am, in fact. Hooves off.”

Lorio frowned, but removed his hooves. “All right, but you're missing out. You're not gonna get any conversation from these.” He tapped the tops of the Bullbots.

“Exactly. I get enough conversation from you already.”

“No, you don't.” He started walking away, still talking as he went. “I'm getting Luso now—and I swear, he's coming even if he doesn't want to. It's good for him, and it'd be good for you.”

“Do that. And Lorio!” He looked back at her: she lowered her head to look at him. “Remember, no dissections even if one of them dies. Some cultures don't like that.”

“And it's the damnedest thing. They're not useful anymore, right? Well, see you later!” With a swish of his lab overcoat, he was out the door. Beautiful solitude.

She twisted over onto her front and reinserted herself into the hole. If water leaked out, and if the artificial gravity hasn't done anything bizarre, then the water should have pooled... there! Light from her flashlight was reflecting off of something she could barely see, beneath a mass of wires—but it was there. That's a priority. No telling what'll happen to the electrics if this stays put—no telling what's happened already, in fact.

“Vacuum!” she called out to the Bullbots. Within a second, nothing happened. She frowned. “I said vacuum. Can you hear me?”

“Do not understand.”

Ermi twisted herself out of the hole. “What do you mean, you don't understand? Vacuum.”

“Do—do not understand.” The Bullbots' horns hung limply at their sides, and the legs were stock-straight. Ermi's mouth opened slightly in concern.

“Is something wrong with my kids?” she asked, leaning down to the robots' eye level—or rather, what would be their eye level if they had eyes. “Don't worry,” she said, patting one on the head. “Ermi's going to make you all better.”

“Do not understand.”

“Ssh.” Ermi pressed her hoof to one of its leg joints. All the systems have been messed up since we got here, but I never expected to see anything wrong with the kids. Maybe there's something wrong with the mechanicals instead of the logic system—

The Bullbot's hoof whipped up and struck her on the forehead. She fell to the ground, gasping for breath—but one of the Bullbot's horns coiled into her mouth, keeping her from screaming for help even if she'd been able to. “What are you doing?” she tried to say, but all that made it past the horn in her mouth was a muffled gurgle.

She felt her body being lifted up by several more horns and dropped on the back of one of the Bullbots. “Help!” she tried to yell, with less success than before.

“Do not understand.”

She was being moved out of the room and deeper into the ship—where, she had no idea. Why? she thought, almost choking on the metal in her mouth, frantically trying to look down at the Bullbot—to tell it, by some sound or gesture, to stop. I don't understand.

Stay tuned: The Advent of Betaurus will resume in just a moment.

The Advent of Betaurus (b)

We now return to The Advent of Betaurus.

Pinkie was enthralled. And how could she not be? This big ol' bull bonanza from the great beyond had been a blast so far, what with the ship from outer space and the aliens and the robots and...

And Qeta! Pinkie realized that she'd just gotten so wrapped up in what she was excited about that she had completely zoned out from Qeta's story. “Mm-hmm?” she said, which was probably a good thing to say.

“You bet! Anyway, we had to evacuate that island pretty quickly.” Qeta laughed. “So remember, never land on an active volcano—it never ends well! Macrin and the Captain got burns on their tushes that took three days to heal!”

Pinkie laughed with her, her voice mingling with the others in the Betaurans' common area. The room hardly looked like it belonged to the ship as she'd seen it so far. For one thing, it was actually big enough for all five Equestrians, and the five Betaurans that had shown up, to fit comfortably. For another, the floor here wasn't metal, but looked something like wood—though it probably wasn't normal wood, but super awesome space wood—and one of the walls had a long, thin window. At the moment, all it showed was the view into the Everfree undergrowth, but Pinkie could imagine looking through it and seeing a million billion stars....

Oops! She was getting distracted again. “And then where did you go?” she asked, looking back at Qeta.

“Oh, the next planet? Well....” Qeta did her flat-smile. “That was the best one. The ground where we landed was covered in gemstones, like the richest quarry you’ve ever seen. The locals called the planet Zeloa—or maybe that was just the city, we were never really sure about that—and they said it means 'Beauty'. We weren't really sure we'd get along with them at first, because... well... do you have spiders on your planet?”

“Yes...”

“Well, the Zeloans are all giant spiders—nine feet tall!”

Pinkie screamed.

“I know! Imagine how I felt meeting them!” Qeta laughed again. “I'd have hated to get in a fight with them, but as it turns out, they hardly know the blade of a knife from the handle. At least half of the ones we met were artisans, and besides that they had some workers, and some food-gatherers, but no warriors at all in the whole web!”

Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “So? Ponyville doesn't have anything like that either. Why would you need them?”

“Really? You can't think of any reason?”

“Well, nothing's ever come up....”

Qeta tapped a hoof against the wooden floor in what might have been glee. “Oh, that is just adorable! Anyway, you should have seen Macrin's face when he tried to explain the Code to them—our Code of Honor bestowed on us by the Archdukes, I mean—oh, he got so frustrated. He tried to find someone to challenge to single combat—thank goodness Adelbrand got him back inside, because that couldn't have ended well. No offense!” she called across the room. Macrin, sitting in a far corner, grunted.

“But that's not the best part—this is the best part. We got souvenirs!” Qeta tugged at the bright blue coil around one of her horns. “It's made of their silk, and it's super stretchy; you can tangle it all around in your horns and it'll never break. Best fidget toy ever! And they were so generous, we got so many I don't know if we'll ever run out—oh, that reminds me!” She pulled open a pouch strapped to a belt that circled her torso; inside it were several more of the bands. “Here's one for you, and would you mind giving this one to Rarity? I don't want to forget.”

Pinkie took one of the bands and pulled it up around her front right leg. “You have my word on my own personal Code of Honor, Qeta! This quest will be completed!” With that, she swiped the second band off of Qeta's hoof, saluted, turned tail, and bounced away with as much purpose as she could muster.

“So adorable,” she heard Qeta say behind her. I'm not adorable, Pinkie thought, grimacing. I'm a mare with a mission. Her eyes narrowed, and her bouncing continued across the room—jumping extra high to clear the Doctor, who was crossing the room the other way.

Eventually she reached Rarity, who was sitting in a chair by the window and sipping at a tall glass of some purple fluid. Okay, mission complete! “Hey, Rarity!” she exclaimed, eyes wide as usual again.

Rarity looked away from the window. “Hello, Pinkie!” she said, quickly smiling. “Have you tried any Betauran drinks yet? They're quite invigorating.”

“What are you doing all by yourself? Don't you wanna talk to anyone? Qeta's been telling me all about the spiders, you know. They're huge!” Pinkie stood up on her hind legs and swung her forelegs in the air to emphasize the hugeness.

“No, thank you. I'm perfectly content with a nice refreshment and a window seat.” Rarity winked at her and looked back out the window.

“Oh, okay. Anyway, she wanted me to give you this. Heads up!” Pinkie grabbed the second elastic band that Qeta had given her in one hoof, stretched it back with the other hoof, and estimated the angle. Pinkie Physics, don't fail me now! She fired, and the band ricocheted off the table, the window, and the ceiling before landing perfectly around Rarity's horn.

“Oh my! Thank you, dear.” Rarity flinched, then looked up at the blue band, which had settled onto her forehead. “It's very nice.”

“I know! The spiders made it.” Pinkie winked. “Well, gotta go! See you later!”

She dashed across the room, back toward Qeta—but skidded to a halt halfway. Was it just her imagination, or had she seen Rarity frowning as she left? Like she wasn't happy about something?

Pinkie considered this thought for a few seconds, then shrugged. Nah, can't be. She resumed dashing, and within an instant was back with Qeta. After all, how could you not be happy in this place?

This is not how I should die, Ermi thought. She eyed one of the second Bullbot's horns, pointed directly at her heart.

Her captors had taken her to a disused corner of the ship, where lights flickered and no sounds of life were audible. The first Bullbot's horns still bound her too tightly to escape—one horn was wrapped around her forelegs, a second was wrapped around her back legs, and a third was coiled inside her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Meanwhile, the second Bullbot stood in front of her, deliberately pulling its horn back to build power for the killing strike through her heart.

It was monstrously inefficient—not at all how they should have killed her. There was already a horn in her mouth, making it difficult to breathe; the Bullbots should have just choked her to death several minutes ago. Why haven't they? she wondered.

The answer came to her a moment later. Of course. I never programmed them to know anything about breathing. I'll need to fix that in my next upgrade.

The second Bullbot's horn retracted further, and then stopped. Right, she reminded herself, priorities. I escape from this, and then I fix the bug.

The horn shot forward. Ermi closed her eyes and torqued her abdominal muscles, pulling her torso up out of the horn's path. It kept going, breaking through the skin of the first Bullbot. The horns surrounding Ermi's legs spasmed, and she pulled herself free, falling hard on the floor. Inefficient and unreliable. I really need to fix the kids.

She rolled to the side just as another horn pierced into the section of floor she'd landed on, then jumped to her hooves and ran, ignoring the pain in her legs. She heard the pounding of the Bullbots pursuing her, but while one was in perfect galloping rhythm, the other was slightly irregular. Clearly, the stab wound was affecting that Bullbot's motors; the sound of its hoofsteps grew fainter as Ermi went right, left, straight, left, left, right, straight down the ship's corridors.

The uninjured Bullbot, on the other hand, was still right behind her. She glanced back as she ran down a straightaway and saw it galloping toward her, front horns straight out like lances. It would be able to run forever; she didn't have that luxury, especially after the strain on her legs from their bindings. This chase needed to end soon.

She started to notice slight irregularities in the floor under her hooves—usually an impossibility in a ship so precisely built. Looking down, she saw slight fissures in the floor; she had to be approaching the backside of the Duchy, the side that had suffered the most damage during the landing. An idea struck her as she remembered which cracks she hadn't yet patched.

She redoubled her speed, turned left, turned right, and saw it at the end of a short corridor—a gaping crack in the ship's hull, revealing the darkness of the alien forest outside. It was possibly large enough to fit through, and certainly large enough to be worth the try. As the Bullbot's hoofsteps approached, she twisted her head sideways, clamped down her jaw, and jumped.

Her head, horns, and legs made it through the jagged gap cleanly; her body was not so lucky. She fought to stop from crying out in pain as the steel points scored her skin, only for the effort to be rendered meaningless when she struck the hard ground outside. All the air from her lungs was forced out, leaving her silent and dazed.

She tilted her head upward, back at the crack. She saw the Bullbot run at the gap—and then, without hesitating, turn left and continue running within the ship. Her lips pulled back slightly. Typically inside-the-box thinking. Another thing to work on.

After a half-minute of catching her breath, Ermi managed to stand up and assess herself and her surroundings. She'd almost certainly bruised her side, not that it would show under her purple coat, and the cuts on her body would definitely need to be dealt with—but she had escaped. Behind her was the crack-riddled hull of the ship; in front of her was the dark forest, which offered no more than a few yards of visibility. She thought she heard something howl, and backed up instinctively toward the ship—as if it were safer inside, where at least two Bullbots had tried to kill her.

They tried to kill me. She'd shunted this fact to the side during her escape, but now it came back full-force. My kids just tried to kill me. Slowly, deliberately, and as a team. Her head lowered instinctively. Which means that this wasn't some malfunction. Someone ordered this. Someone's been messing with my KIDS!

There was a tree conveniently close to her; she charged forward with a roar and drove all four of her horns deep into its trunk. Breathing heavily, she let herself seethe there for a few seconds. Then, she pulled her horns out and turned back to the ship. In the dim light that came through the cracks, she could see a service ladder running up the ship's outside, and she walked toward it. It's time to start investigating.

“Excuse me, miss?”

Applejack had been ambling aimlessly around the deck, unsure of what to do or talk about. After all, it was difficult enough to get it through her head that visitors from another planet were actually visiting; what topic could carry a conversation between her and one of them? How could they possibly interact?

Then she looked up at the voice, and saw a bull standing in front of her. He had a white coat covering his body, with bulging pockets covering it. His horns glowed the same dark blue as his face, levitating a syringe in front of himself. Okay—this doesn't seem like a great way to strike up a conversation. “Yes?” she said.

“Do you happen to have a circulatory system?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do I happen to have a what? And what was your name again?”

“Lorio. I'm the ship's resident doctor. And in the essentials, what I'm asking is....” Lorio sighed and looked up at the ceiling, like the words he was looking for might be printed there. “Do you have blood?” he finally said, looking back at her.

Applejack's mouth opened. “Uhhhh, yeah. Where are you going with this?”

“Wonderful!” Lorio's horns glowed a little brighter, and the syringe in front of him spun to face her. “Do you mind if I take a sample?”

Applejack jerked back from him. “You want to stick that thing through my skin?”

“If it's not too much trouble.” Lorio tilted his head to the side in confusion. “What? Blood grows back passively all the time. You won't notice it's gone.” The syringe floated closer to her.

“Do I look like an open cider tap to you, ya vampire? No.” Applejack put a hoof on the glass part of the syringe and shoved it down, harder than Lorio's magic was keeping it up. It struck the ground and cracked.

Lorio gaped at the broken glass on the floor. “You... that was my favorite!”

“Uhh... sorry?”

Lorio kicked out behind himself with a back hoof as his horns lit up; a blue aura enveloped the broken syringe's pieces and raised them into the air. “I don't think I've met any other alien who was so selfish,” he muttered, walking to the wall behind him.

“Selfish—excuse me? Selfish?”

Applejack galloped over to Lorio as he used his magic to open a hidden panel in the wall and drop the fragments behind it, then slam it shut. “Your blood—or the blood of any of you aliens—is almost certainly guaranteed to contain compounds and chemical interactions that we have never even imagined back at home,” he said, turning back to face her. “Think of the possibilities for advancing the cause of science—but you can't! They're limitless!” He raised a front hoof and started gesticulating at her, swinging it around wildly. “The untold benefits, which we could then pass on to you aliens, free of charge. What personal hang-up could possibly outweigh that common good?”

“Me, saying no. There's your hang-up.” Applejack glared at him. “And since when do we need you aliens to teach us anything?”

“Ha! Are you joking?”

Another bull showed up, one whom Applejack hadn't seen yet. He looked somewhat like Lorio—not that any of these bulls look too different—but was a bit shorter and a bit stockier, and wore a black vest instead of a white coat, revealing a bulky torso and legs. Moreover, there was a look on his face that Applejack could recognize even from an alien; it was the universal expression of contempt.

“What was your name... Applejack?” he said. “Here's a question for you—”

“My brother,” Lorio said, interrupting him with a raised hoof. “Luso, our pilot.” Luso glared at his brother, who snorted. “All right, continue.”

“Gladly. So, Applejack, if we don't need to teach you anything, then why are we the ones flying through space to find you, and not the other way around? Or does that not seem suspicious to you?” The corners of Luso's mouth pulled back.

Applejack frowned. It's not a terrible point, after all. But on the other hoof... “All right, I'll grant that. It's pretty amazing, standing on something that floats through the sky... like, for instance, a cloud. We have a whole city made of clouds y'all can walk on, with the most spectacular rainbow falls you've ever seen.” There; she had him. After all, she'd seen bulls with and without magic, but none with wings. She turned her frown into a smirk.

Luso's irritating half-smile remained. “We have machines that can fry clouds in a minute from the ground. Your city wouldn't have a hope.”

Briefly, Applejack's eyes widened. She'd been expecting plenty of responses, but that.... “Our princesses personally raise and lower the sun and the moon!”

“Give me a day, and I can personally use the missiles on this ship to split your moon in two. The sun might take longer.”

“Luso...” Lorio said, raising a hoof in front of his brother.

Applejack's mouth fell open. “You'd destroy the... wait. What are missiles?” She had a feeling that this was the sort of thing Luso would mock her for.

She was right; Luso laughed, pushing Lorio's hoof down. “You don't know what missiles are? Big, long tubes that you shoot at things to blow them up?”

“What?” Applejack turned to Lorio. “I thought this was supposed to be a learning expedition! Why did y'all bring explosives?”

Lorio tilted his head to the side. “Why? Should we not have?”

“No, you shouldn't have! What's the point?”

Luso laughed again. “Listen to her! She's talking like there's never been a war on her planet before!” A few seconds later, his laughter stopped and his smile gradually faded away. “Wait. You have had a war on this planet before, right?”

Applejack set her jaw, feeling like she might be able to score a point. “Not for thousands of years. Wars are for readin' about, not fighting in.”

“I've done too much reading about wars.” Luso snorted. “The Last Grand Unifying War ended when my dad was a child—years before I was born. Oh, it must have been spectacular!”

Okay, now which part of that sentence do I start picking on? Applejack wondered, her jaw slackening in disbelief. “Did you say 'the Last Grand Unifying War'? As in, more than one? How many have you bulls had?” Luso's mouth opened; it was hard to tell, but Applejack thought he might have looked shocked. I think I got through to him.

“Oh! I think I understand now!” Luso laughed again. Okay, maybe I didn't get through to him. “Now, this is why we're in space, and you're not. You see, we've had a lot of wars—glorious wars. And do you know what a war forces you to do, if you want to win? To be better—stronger, faster, smarter. Wars forced us to innovate, and create the kind of technology that sent us to space first.”

“So let me get this straight.” Applejack set her jaw once more and glowered at Luso. “A whole lotta times in your history, some bulls got so mad at each other that they started making a bunch of other bulls kill each other over it. And you think that makes you better?”

As Luso opened his mouth to reply, a new voice cut him off. “Pilot Luso!”

Applejack, Luso, and Lorio turned to look at Lieutenant Macrin, who had appeared next to them. “The captain has requested that you report to Bridge-1. I'll brief you on the way.” Luso opened his mouth once more—possibly to protest—but Macrin glared at him. “On the double, pilot.”

As Macrin walked out of the room, Luso followed him. Just before he exited the room, he turned around and inclined his head to Applejack, then darted through the door and shut it. Applejack bared her teeth.

“I'm sorry,” Lorio said, resting a hoof on her shoulder. Applejack jerked away from his touch and glared at him; he continued regardless. “He's... well, he's suffering from a malady of the mind called youth, and it makes him somewhat rash. I try to rein him in, but... you know what it's like, trying to keep younger siblings under control.” He paused for a moment, then added: “Although, do you know what it's like?”

Applejack sighed, and looked out the window. “Yeah, I guess I do.... So, does that mean you don't agree with him? You know, about wars being anything other than horrible?”

“Ah... not quite.” Lorio, quite possibly, grimaced. “As a doctor, I cannot say that war has never done a service to my profession. You can learn so much from a body that's been pre-opened for you.”

“Of course you'd say that,” Applejack muttered. “What's one stinkin' life if you learn to make a better cough drop?” She turned tail and started walking away.

“I never said I liked it. I just meant—”

“Shut it, ya vampire,” she called, not looking back.

There was an empty chair near the window; she sat down and looked outside at the bull-free Forest. We need to get out of this ship.

Ermi opened a hatch on top of Duchy-3 and clambered into the ship—or, more accurately, fell in. Her legs were still weak from her capture and escape, and the rest of her wasn't in such good shape either; the cuts in her skin had gotten dirty in her landing on the forest floor, and were caked with earth and blood. Even her short climb up the ladder had been demanding.

The conclusion was clear; if the Bullbots discovered her, she wouldn't be able to run for long. With a groan, she pulled herself to her feet and surveyed her surroundings.

To the untrained eye, the square gray corridor looked like every other part of the ship. Ermi, however, saw the slight outlines of water droplets imprinted into the walls, and heard the faint hiss of steam; this was where Duchy-3's water was collected, purified, and recycled. She walked to a door and opened it, revealing a small room dominated by a massive blue boiler. Dozens of pipes and valves led in and out of it.

Ermi grabbed the lever on the pressure release valve and pulled down hard; in response, a meager supply of water began to trickle out. She walked slowly under the droplets, wincing as the hot water ran over and through her wounds. It was cleaning off some of the dirt, but by all that was righteous it hurt, just as letting anything in a wound would.

A loud, distant clunk took her mind off the pain for a moment. Her head shot up as more clunks followed—but they were irregular. The damaged Bullbot was on patrol, and judging by the sound, he was on her floor. She took a small step forward, then winced again as hot water made its way into a new part of her scratch.

Another idea occurred to her. She closed the pressure release valve, then—using a clamp lying in the corner of the room—locked the valve shut. She twisted a handle on the outside of the boiler, then opened the door and departed. Behind her, pressure began to build.

If it had been just his crew in the room, Captain Adelbrand would naturally have socialized—to an extent. With five aliens on board, however, he could think of no way to initiate a conversation and keep his captainly dignity. Thank goodness. Thus, he stood in the corner of the room, watching the nine others in the room.

“Whoa!” said the brown one—the Doctor, if he remembered correctly—as he ducked under a jump from the pink one. Pinkie Cake... no, her name is Pinkie Pie. How utterly ludicrous. The corners of the Doctor's mouth pulled up, which—according to Rarity—was usually a gesture of happiness. How odd that he should use it now.

The Doctor continued walking, and before too long Adelbrand realized that the Equestrian was approaching him. He clenched his jaw. I suppose that if someone else begins the socializing, I can't really get out of it.

“Good evening, Captain!” The Doctor's 'smile' grew larger as he reached Adelbrand.

“Is that your opinion?” Adelbrand's eyes narrowed. “Or is it an exhortation, as in 'have a good evening'?”

The Doctor clicked his tongue. “Okay, wasn't expecting Gandalf. Yes and yes, by the way... unless you feel differently about it being a good evening?”

“No... no.” Adelbrand did his best to keep his face neutral. “Exceptional, in fact. The mission has never succeeded so quickly.”

“You're welcome! Glad I could help.” As if to remind him of its existence, the Doctor pulled his translation device from his pocket and flipped it on his hoof a few times. “Shame it doesn't work on the robots—love the robots, by the way, though if you could make them a bit more like dogs... do you have dogs where you come from?”

Adelbrand, despite his best efforts, was finding it difficult to keep his eyes from narrowing. “Do we have what?”

“Ah, nevermind—I'm biased, anyway. But getting back to the language barrier, Captain, where is your mechanic? She could help fix it—or at the very least, she could socialize.” The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Big get-together, first contact for a primitive planet, and she decides to stay holed up? Who does that?”

Adelbrand decided to try something he'd seen Rarity do: he raised, then lowered, his shoulders. Apparently, this was a gesture of indecision, or ambivalence.

“Oh, was that a shrug? Nice... form.” The Doctor's bottom lip turned down. “Blimey, translation circuit's up and running and there's still a barrier... makes a man think. But your mechanic—what did Qeta call her... ah, Ermi! She's seriously not interested?”

“She hasn't been very interested these past few visits, in fact.” Adelbrand snorted. “To be honest, I think she may prefer the company of robots to Betaurans... or Equestrians.”

“Oh, never want to do that... well, if the robot is nice enough....” The Doctor tapped his chin. “On third thought, nah. Get some people, lighten the mood.”

A flash of pink caught Adelbrand's eye; startled, he looked up to see Pinkie Pie dashing back across the room, to sit with Qeta. The two of them sat back down together and continued their conversation.

“Robots are consistent, though,” Adelbrand mused, looking at Qeta. “You tell them to do something and they do it. Not everyone can be trusted in the same way.”

The Doctor looked in the same direction as Adelbrand. “Mind you,” he said, sidling closer to Adelbrand, “you won't have a happy accident with a robot. It won't really surprise you in a bad way, but it'll seldom surprise you in a good way either. Like, just hypothetically, bringing a bunch of new friends over for a great big interplanetary event.”

“That's an optimistic way of looking at it.”

“I do my best.” The Doctor grinned. “Well, here's hoping that Engineer Ermi shows her face. I'll go and see if I can't get some refreshments—liven myself up a bit. It's getting late, even for me.” He trotted off toward Rarity—possibly, Adelbrand imagined, to ask her where she'd gotten her drink from. What a peculiar philosophy, he thought, letting himself lean against the wall behind him. It's only for a moment, and then I can return to proper form.

A few minutes later, he had—despite his best efforts—thoroughly zoned out; it was rather late, after all. He sagged against the corner until the sound of a voice startled him back to full consciousness. He blinked his eyes a few times, and the face of Lieutenant Macrin came into focus. “I said: Permission to speak freely, Captain?” Macrin tilted his head. “And are you quite well?”

Adelbrand straightened his posture and stepped away from the corner. “I'm fine, Macrin,” he replied, though he was only half sure of this. Have I softened since we set out from Betaurus? he wondered. When was the last time I lost focus like that? “And as long as you're speaking freely, you don't need to call me Captain. We're friends.”

“I know. It's a matter of respect, Captain.” Macrin backed into the corner of the room, keeping Adelbrand from leaning against it. Adelbrand tilted his head away from Macrin to show he appreciated the gesture, then waited for Macrin's free speech. Knowing him, it could be a while.

Eventually, almost half a minute later, Macrin spoke. “Do you feel... that we are losing something, being on this mission?”

“Losing what, Lieutenant?”

“Ourselves. Our... uniqueness.”

“Why do you ask?” They did not face each other; they looked out at the room at large. Pinkie Pie and Qeta were hugging; Rarity was by the window, sipping on mashed neka fruit drink; Applejack and Luso seemed to be engaged in lively debate, with Lorio standing to the side; and the Doctor was walking toward Bon Bon, who was sitting by a wall and not interacting with anyone.

After a pause, Macrin replied: “Because it seems inevitable. We were told to learn from these aliens, and to instruct them in our own ways—but how can we pick up from other cultures without losing something of our own in the exchange? Look at Qeta.” He pointed at Qeta, who—improbably enough—had not exited the hug. “She's dived into every new planet, and I wonder if I recognize her anymore. Is that what must happen to all of us?”

Adelbrand sighed. “I don't know.”

“Then perhaps...” Macrin exhaled sharply through his nose. “We must choose. One or the other—to learn, or to instruct.”

“I don't know, Lieutenant.”

“But which would you choose, Captain?” Macrin turned to look at his captain.

Adelbrand paused for several seconds; he could not think of a choice. Am I being indecisive? he wondered. Thankfully, he noticed something in the corner of his eye, and turned to see Qeta trotting toward him. “Officer,” he said as she reached him.

“Captain,” she replied, smiling wide. “Okay, first of all, me and Pinkie Pie are going to be pen pals!”

“Which means?” Macrin asked.

“Some sort of correspondence between the two of us after we've left the planet. I'll need to ask her about specifics. And second of all, I just had a great idea. We should totally get airborne!”

Macrin snorted. “Say that again?”

“Pinkie's been telling me about the capital of Equestria. It's called Canterlot—and yeah, that's a stupid name, but their rulers live there. And now that we can talk to each other, we should go meet them and make things official!”

Macrin lowered his head toward Qeta and glowered at her. “You should know better than that. I've spoken extensively with Engineer Ermi; the Duchy is in no condition—”

Qeta playfully clattered her horns against his, knocking him back. “Don't worry about it, Mac. The engines work, don't they? We're not going into space, are we?” As Macrin continued to glower, Qeta pressed her point: “Just a quick hop from here to there. It's going to be fine.”

“They will see our weakness, Qeta!” A muscle twitched in Macrin's lip, revealing his teeth.

“No one's going to notice that anything's wrong with the ship, Mac—”

“They will take the advantage and overpower us in our time of frailty!” Macrin's eyes grew wide. “Already their spies are here, discovering our weaknesses—”

Adelbrand recognized the signs of one of Macrin's episodes, and turned to face him, but Qeta reacted faster. “Macrin!” She grabbed his face and looked into his eyes. “You're having a bad moment, Macrin. Deep breaths, like we practiced. In...”

Grudgingly, Macrin obeyed, breathing in through his nose.

“And out through the mouth...” Qeta exhaled; after a moment, so did Macrin. She smiled. “Good... and again. In... and out. In... and out.”

Gradually, the tension in Macrin's face became less pronounced, and his eyes relaxed. About half a minute later, he gently raised a hoof and pushed Qeta's hooves off of his face, then stepped back with a smile. “I apologize,” he said. “I will control myself better next time.”

“Talk to Lorio,” Qeta said, enunciating every syllable. “It's getting worse, and I'm really getting worried about you. He can help.”

As Macrin took another couple of deep breaths Qeta turned back to face Adelbrand. “Thank you for that,” Adelbrand said.

She smiled, though not as enthusiastically as she had before. “So, Captain... my proposal?”

For the umpteenth time that evening, Adelbrand found himself at a loss for a decision. “I don't know... after all....” He snorted. “Fine. Let's do it.”

Qeta hopped into the air with delight. “Thank you! I'll tell Luso right away!”

She turned around and made to charge toward Luso, who was still debating with Applejack, but Macrin laid a hoof on her shoulder. “I'll do it,” he said, attempting a second smile. It wasn't very convincing, but judging how Qeta raised her head to him, she seemed to take it at face value. With that, Macrin let go and walked over to Luso.

Within minutes, Ermi heard the first sign of the damaged Bullbot. The clang of its stuttering steps on the metal floor were audible from fifty yards away. Ermi, on the other hand, was able to keep her hooves light, and made no sound she didn't want to make.

There was, however, one sound that she did want to make. She waited until the hoofsteps were close, then turned to a panel in the wall at her side. She stuck her four horns into four perfectly matched indents in the panel, lifted it above her head, then slammed it into the ground.

The hoofsteps paused for a second, perhaps two—then they returned, and much more quickly this time. The Bullbot had taken the bait.

Ermi turned around to run, but something in the space behind the panel—a tapestry of wires and circuitry—caught her eye. She looked directly at the wires. What did I just see?

The galloping grew louder, and she smacked herself in the face. I just wasted five seconds. She turned around and ran from the hoofsteps. Leave the investigation for later.

Within the minute, she was back near the hatch through which she had entered. She moved to enter the boiler room she'd left open, but the Bullbot appeared in her peripheral vision. Damn it, she thought, snorting and dashing into the room. I've got seconds.

She glanced at the pressure release valve, and there was the clamp, still holding it closed. She glanced at the pressure gauge, and saw its needle in the orange—dangerously high. She got to the side of the boiler, waited a few heartbeats, then jabbed a horn at the clamp and knocked it away.

A jet of superheated, supercompressed water blasted from the pressure release valve just as the Bullbot appeared in front of the door, his open side exposed to the water. It pierced into his wound, and Ermi watched the Bullbot shudder as the water destroyed his unprotected circuitry and motor systems. By the time the stream had subsided back to a trickle, the Bullbot was standing completely still. She'd killed him.

Ermi sighed and knocked her head against one of the boiler's pipes. “Sorry, kid,” she muttered, before walking to inspect the damage. A few stray sparks jumped across circuits inside the Bullbot's innards, but she could see no other motion. So, plus side: he won't try to kill me. Minus side: there's no chance that I'll be able to get any data out of these electrics.

She gently lowered the Bullbot to the floor, placing him on its damaged side in a resting position. Without his wound showing, he almost looked like he was just inactive.

For a few seconds more, she stood over the Bullbot. Then she whipped around and trotted down the corridor, back the way she'd come. I know I noticed something behind that panel. What was it?

Soon, she was back in front of the multitude of wires. Her eyes narrowed, and she considered each one at a time. At first, nothing showed up, but as she reached the lowest wires, she realized what she had noticed: a thick cord that had been cut in two.

Her mouth opened slightly. That cord gets signals from the control room to the rockets. If someone cut that....

She picked up the panel and replaced it over the wires, then proceeded briskly down the corridor. It's not just the kids. Someone has been sabotaging my ship.

“Bon Bon!” the Doctor exclaimed, returning to her corner of the room.

She looked up at him and yawned. “You're looking peppy. I guess the excitement hasn't worn off.”

“If you're yawning, I doubt it can have worn on for you.”

“It usually doesn't.”

“Well, maybe this will help,” he said, grinning at her. “There's a Bullbot headed to the kitchen right now, and in that kitchen are three neka fruit drinks with our names on them. Well, your name and Rarity's—hopefully, not my name per se. That would be very surprising.”

Bon Bon yawned again.

“Oh, come on.” The Doctor sat down next to her. “You're on a spaceship with technology you've never even imagined, about to taste the pulp of a fruit from another world, and you're... yawning. It's not even that late.”

“Is too.”

“Is not!”

She smiled, if only just. “I just can't believe you're so excited about all this. It's almost irrational, depending on how you look at it.”

“Irrational—irrational?” The Doctor was sure he sounded like he was squawking; he cleared his throat before continuing. “It's first contact with an alien planet; why would I not be excited?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because you've spent the last couple months in an alien universe?” She rolled her eyes at him. “And I don't see you Lyra-ing out about ordering flower sandwiches at the deli.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “'Lyra-ing' out?”

“It fits, doesn't it?”

“Point taken.”

“Really, though, what exactly makes the bulls so exciting? Is it that everything's shiny and that there's robots?” She frowned. “Never knew your standards were so low.”

“Well....” The Doctor pulled a hoof through his hair, as he considered this. “Maybe it's not them. Maybe it's... I feel like I can afford to be excited.”

When Bon Bon raised an eyebrow at him, he continued: “Look, you remember seeing the Time War; you know that my life hasn't always been a lark. But since I got here, well... we faced Discord, and no one died. Vinyl, Octavia, and I stopped the Order in Fillydelphia, and no one died. Derpy and I saved the ponies trapped in that arcade machine, and no one died.” He grinned at her.

“And... that's why you're feeling peppy. Because no one has died yet.” Bon Bon scooted away from him a bit, as if he were a mental patient. “Okay, those are some depressingly low standards.”

“Point is, in my usual experience, meeting new aliens doesn't always go well... ever. But considering my more recent record, maybe I'm just letting myself hope.”

Bon Bon grimaced. “Terrible idea. Never do it.”

A low groaning sound from below the Doctor's hooves preempted his response. “That's interesting,” he said, standing up—then shaking on his hooves almost immediately as the ship began to rumble. “Captain?” he called across the room. “What's happening to your... oh. Oh!” He beamed.

“What is it,” Bon Bon asked.

“Ladies and gentlemen—or fillies and gentlecolts, if you prefer—get ready for takeoff!” He took Bon Bon by the hoof and pulled her to the slit of a window, the better to watch their ascension.

And—as he realized a second later—the better to hear it; to feel it. Within moments, he'd staggered into the window's wall, trying to keep his balance despite the almighty vibration. He could hear nothing but the roar of massive rockets far beneath his hooves.

He stumbled his way over to leaning on a table, just in time to look out the window and watch the trees begin to fall away. His mouth opened to laugh a laugh he could not hear; it'd been too long since he'd stumbled around a ship at takeoff. It's like coming home.

The trees kept falling, the horizon grew more distant, and before a minute had passed the Doctor was looking up at clouds just above him. Here the Duchy stopped; the roar of the engines died down to a moderate white noise, and the vibration almost entirely disappeared. The Doctor looked at Bon Bon, jumped a bit as the ship shook, then smiled at her. “Worn on yet?”

“Oh, all right. It's not bad.” She shrugged, smiled back at him, and then looked back out the window, where Canterlot was now visible. As the Doctor watched, he detected the slightest movement toward it; they had to be engaging side rockets, ever so slowly.

“This is going to freak a lot of ponies out, isn't it?” Bon Bon said.

“It can be fairly traumatic, yeah,” he replied. The corners of his mouth were approaching his ears. “Sometimes people just prefer to ignore it.”

“Do you think that's going to happen?”

“Goodness, I hope not.” The Doctor looked down at Ponyville, where—unless he was very much mistaken—small shapes were emerging from their toy houses, and staring up at the behemoth drifting above them. Not ignoring it, then.

“I get it!” Suddenly, Pinkie Pie was beside them—not that the Doctor had yet encountered another way of Pinkie Pie being beside him. He noticed a blue ribbon tangled up in her already-tangled mane. Her attention was not directed at him, however; she was looking at Bon Bon with an unhealthy smile on her face.

“Um,” Bon Bon replied.

“The thing you said when the Doctor couldn't open that door—I get it!” Pinkie's eyebrows wiggled. “Oh, Bon Bon, you saucy mare.”

Bon Bon stepped away from her and stared out the window. Pinkie Pie, apparently oblivious to any discomfort she was causing, grabbed Bon Bon and pointed her toward the door. A Bullbot was walking through it, holding a number of cups on a tray. “And look! Drinks! Quick, say something saucy about the drinks—owie!”

Bon Bon drove her front right knee into Pinkie's chest, then walked away. “Aw, was it something I said?” Pinkie asked.

Bon Bon turned back to her and opened her mouth. “Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie, and I've never heard the words 'personal' and 'space' in that order! It might be because I was too busy not shutting up to notice what anyone else was trying to say or do!” It wasn't just the voice that was perfect: Bon Bon was hopping in place every few seconds, her mouth was curled into a sugary grin, and even her hair seemed more animated than usual. “And now I'm gonna do something pointless and random okay bye!”

With that, she jumped up one more time and spun around in the air. As soon as she landed, all the bubbly energy was gone; Bon Bon was her usual surly self again. She stomped away from Pinkie Pie, who by this point was gaping.

“Hey!” Pinkie yelled a few seconds later. “My random things are plenty pointy!” Bon Bon didn't react. “Boy,” Pinkie said, pouting at the Doctor and pulling at the ribbon in her hair, “she's a real Grumpface McGrumperson, isn't she?”

“Help!” came a yell from behind the Doctor.

It was nice, knowing what to look for. After she'd seen the snipped wires, Ermi had made a mental list of key places on the ship she'd want to visit—places where a saboteur would be able to cause the most damage with the least notice. First on the list was an access panel on the ship's bottom floor, with cables that connected the ship's smaller rockets to the bridge.

What was less nice was the sight that greeted Ermi's eyes as she stepped out of the stairs and onto the bottom floor. Here, the cracks ran through the floor, exposing mostly charred soil beneath. A few green plants rose into the ship, filling the air with annoyingly organic smells; Ermi could see insects crawling up and down a few stalks. Something moved in her peripheral vision, and she looked up to see a thin tail disappear down a corridor.

She set her jaw and started walking in careful steps, so as to keep her hooves on the metal and off the ground. This slowed her down, but the pace suited her; the ache in her legs had only gotten worse as she'd kept moving.

Within the minute, she was around the corner and standing next to the wall she'd been looking for. On the other side of the wall were four of the ship's auxiliary rockets, used for fine steering—the exact sort of steering that had stopped working before the ship's untimely landing. Ermi placed her horns into the four grooves of an access panel, and prepared to lift it—but something stopped her.

She wasn't quite sure what she noticed, not at first, but it was enough for her to freeze in place. Her horns hung in the wall's slots as she strained her senses, trying to determine whatever minor detail she'd detected. Was it the flickering light above her head? Was it the insect that crawled across her hoof?

Finally, Ermi realized that it was the faint, rhythmic sound of metal striking metal. The second Bullbot was patrolling somewhere near—and if she could hear him, then he would be able to hear her. She breathed in, quietly as possible, then took a step backward.

The panel failed to fully disconnect from her horns—it parted from the wall and fell with a clang to the ground. Ermi froze; briefly, so did the hoofsteps. Then they began again, but louder and faster. He knew where she was.

Ermi cursed and ran away from the hoofsteps—she hoped. She was tired; she didn't know just where the Bullbot was; she didn't know where she was. She just ran, ignoring the torn metal and the charred ground—a mistake. As she tried to turn the corner, her hoof caught in a fissure in the floor, and she cried out in pain as her knee twisted past its limits. She pulled the hoof out and hobbled down the corridor, still hearing the Bullbot. In her brief pause, she'd placed the sound; he was above her.

She ran on three hooves past the stairs—she turned right—she turned left—she went straight, tripped on another piece of floor, and collided with a door between two sections of the ship. She pulled herself up and pressed the door open button, heaving a deep breath. The hoofsteps were descending; the Bullbot had reached the stairs.

The door remained shut. “Open,” she hissed, pressing the button again, and waited. Nothing happened; the door's circuits had been damaged. “Open.” Still nothing. “Open.” She heard a door open, but it was not hers—it was the door from the stairwell. “OPEN!” she screamed, punching the button with all of her strength. “PLEASE!”

She was betrayed. She looked back down the corridor and saw the Bullbot charging her, two horns pointed forward. They would not lose speed as they speared through her meat, as they affixed her fresh carcass to the wall. She pressed her body against the door, buying herself useless milliseconds.

She felt the door sliding, and without realizing what was happening she fell backward. The robot was still running at her. She regained just enough presence of mind to stand up, shove her horn through the door's button, and jump back through the closing door. It closed as the Bullbot neared it; it would not open again from that side.

She collapsed like a gel in the corner of the door and the wall, panting hard and thinking little. There was about enough room for one thought in her head. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. She felt her heaving chest—pressed a hoof against the places where the Bullbot had not left mortal wounds. I'm not dead.

WHAM

The door dented inward, punching her in the back. She wrenched her mind back to the situation at hand, and managed to get on her hooves.

WHAM

Another dent appeared in the door. Within the second, she realized what was happening—if the Bullbot could not open the door, he would break it down. Some instinctual mental math told her that she had a minute at most.

Think! she screamed inside her head. She'd come through the rightmost door on the bottom floor between Duchy-1 and Duchy-2. Within two hundred and fifty feet of any potential entrance to the ship, there was an armory. In this case—she called up mental maps of Duchy-2—it was two hundred and seventeen feet away. She could make it—maybe. There was a chance.

She heaved herself into motion one last time, willing the hormones of her stupid inconsistent fleshy body to kick into action. Another WHAM from the door behind her helped; she redoubled her speed.

She turned left. She heard another WHAM.

Right. Another WHAM.

Left. WHAM.

Right. The largest WHAM of all—the door was down. She heard the metal hoofsteps once more, and forced her legs to go even faster.

The armory appeared on her right; she didn't bother opening the door, but charged it and knocked it down with a shoulder. The hoofsteps got louder—she grabbed one of several lightguns from the rack. Louder—she struggled with her twisted hoof, trying to get the lightgun onto the other hoof. LOUDER—

It was on. She turned. She fired.

The sphere of light traveled the length of the armory in a moment, and struck the Bullbot's leg. With a little metal groan, it snapped off at the knee—but the Bullbot was still approaching.

She fired again, blowing off the other front leg. She circled around him, staying away from the swaying horns, and shot each back leg; they crumbled into blackened pieces.

The Bullbot was now fully crippled, but his horns waved around defensively. She raised her gun hoof, and was struck with how helpless the kid was. “I'm sorry,” she said, before firing four last shots.

The Bullbot's horns were disabled; the stumps flailed helplessly as Ermi pulled the lightgun off her hoof and rushed to him. Her horn went for a little tab in his back, which opened up with a pull. She reached in and pushed one of the buttons, and the horns finally stopped moving as the robot entered sleep mode.

Ermi stood a moment longer—then she let herself collapse next to the Bullbot. A bit of broken leg poked into her side, but she barely noticed. In fact, for a few minutes she allowed herself to notice nothing at all. It was over; she was safe.

After this quiet period, she stood on three legs and reached a hoof into the Bullbot. It was not, after all, over; someone had sabotaged her ship and turned her kids against her, and she had to find out who.

She pressed the button and held it down for three seconds, then released it. The Bullbot's horns—what was left of them—untwisted themselves and returned to their default, upright, positions. All active commands had been countermanded; he wouldn't try to kill her now even if he could.

“Bullbot,” she panted, “play back audio records of previous commands, starting with the most recent, and then I'll do my best to fix you.”

“Understood,” he said. “Playback begins.”

As Rarity stared at the Everfree Forest, she took a deep breath in, held it, then exhaled. She rubbed her left foreleg along the table, letting the tactile sensation distract her for a moment, and wished that that Bullbot would get her drink so that she would have something to do.

She'd considered going to talk with Qeta—after all, she'd been the main Betauran liaison over the past several days—but Pinkie Pie had been monopolizing her. So, she'd looked around, only to see every other bull in conversation with each other or some Equestrian. These were the historic conversations which would create the first bonds between these two planets—because, apparently, her contributions and her bonds weren't relevant now that the Betaurans no longer needed a translator.

She took a deep breath, held it, and snorted it out through her nose.

An orange shape moved into her peripheral vision, and she turned her attention away from the slit of a window to see Applejack sit at, then slump upon, an adjacent table. Rarity threw on a smile. “Good evening, Applejack. Has this evening been as interesting for you as it has for me?” Bien fait, Rarity, she thought. Not a hint of anything besides sincerity.

“We need to get outta this loony bin, Rarity.”

Rarity's mouth opened slightly, and she leaned over to place a hoof in front of Applejack's mouth. “Really, Applejack,” she whispered, “to say something like that of our hosts!”

“The last two bulls I talked to tried to steal my blood and wanted to blow up the moon, in that order. That ain't normal.” Applejack's mouth turned downward into a hard frown, and she pushed Rarity's hoof off of her table. “They're loonies, and the sooner they're gone the better.”

“Well, I'm sure they can't all be like that—maybe you're just overgeneralizing?”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “I thought these were the guys that were chosen especially for this kind of mission? We wouldn't send Flim and Flam to trumpet Equestria across all creation, would we?”

“True, but....” Rarity tried another tack. “Even so, you surely can't want them gone entirely.”

“I want them gone entirely. And I want them gone right now.”

Rarity's mouth went through the motions of saying “What?”, but somehow nothing came out. She tried to speak again, and more successfully this time. “But... the destiny of two planets! The untold insights we could gain from their culture—”

“The way I see it, all we stand to gain from them is a giant crack in the moon. We can't have this bunch of warmongers flying over Equestria with a ship full of bombs!” Applejack emphasized the last word by slamming her hoof on the table. “It ain't safe and it ain't smart. They can pack up, leave, and take their act to some other neck of the universe.” With that, she stood up and started walking toward Captain Adelbrand, who was standing at the room's other end.

With a moment's thought, Rarity enveloped Applejack's tail in the blue glow of her magic and pulled. “Applejack, you're being ridiculous! You can't just... tell them to leave! Why don't you just, ah, have an energy drink to clear your head?”

Applejack glared at her, but after a few seconds she shrugged and sat back down. “Fine—I'll go talk to the rest of the girls, and we'll talk to the Princesses, and they'll get these crazy bulls off the planet.”

Rarity glared right back. “Well, I won't let you.”

“Oh for the love of—” Applejack's right back leg spasmed, as though it were fighting the urge to applebuck the ship right off the planet. “They yanked you into the Everfree Forest and left you to wander back by yourself in the middle of the night! That lieutenant belongs in a straitjacket! And do I need to mention the moon thing again? Why in Celestia's name do you want them to stay?”

Rarity tried to keep her face impassive. “Rarity?” Applejack asked. “Hang on, ya do have something riding on these bulls staying?”

“I'm, er, not sure I know what you mean,” she said, though in truth she knew her fib wasn't worth the breath she'd spent saying it. Applejack just raised an eyebrow, looking about as credulous as if she’d claimed to be an alicorn. Rarity took another deep breath. So that was a failure. Well, the secrets always make it out in this group of friends. “Applejack,” she began, “what was it like for you, to be an Element of Harmony?” Applejack raised an eyebrow, and opened her mouth in protest, but Rarity cut across her. “Bear with me for a moment. What was it like for you?”

“Well... shucks, I dunno.” Applejack shrugged. “I mean, other than the world-savin' every so often... heck, since that pegasus got the Element of Honesty basically nothing's changed.”

“Didn't you ever feel... meaningful? Like... like you had something worthwhile—monumental, even—hanging on your shoulders?”

“Heck, I feel like that already! I've got a farm to run!” Applejack smiled at her. “Same way you've got a business to run.”

“Oh, don't be ridiculous.” Rarity raised a hoof in the air and began waving it. “I used to vanquish threats to the very fabric of reality! The forces of corruption, of evil, eternal darkness! I fought the changeling hordes hoof to hoof! And now....” She slumped back down to the table. I could really use that drink. “I'm sorry, Applejack, but there's a difference of kind, not just of degree.”

A new frown came onto Applejack's face and struggled with the smile that was already there; after a few seconds, she sighed, and her face resolved itself into a neutral expression. “I don't see it, Rarity. I mean, I don't need any magic necklace to be the best darn applebucker in Equestria, do I?”

“But I'm not 'the best darn applebucker in Equestria'! I'm not Celestia's protégé and the most powerful unicorn in the world. I can't make Sonic Rainbooms, my stare can't tame dragons, and I most assuredly cannot do... whatever it is Pinkie Pie does!”

“Rarity... uh.... do you hear...”

“Oh, but then there's a big crack in the sky, and a meteor lands in the woods, and I go to investigate, and what luck! It's aliens, and I can single-hoofedly usher in a great new age in Equestria—and then he comes in,” she shouted, jabbing a hoof at the Doctor, “with his ridiculous coral lump, and renders the whole translation issue moot, and here I am—a millstone once again!”

Breathing heavily, she noticed that she'd been shouting. She grinned nervously and looked around the room, but it seemed that no one could hear her—and, belatedly, she noticed the reasons why: the floor was shaking, a low roar filled the room, and they were rising. I really have lost my composure. That won't do, Rarity! She shook her head several times. If you have any remaining areas of expertise, self-control is certainly among them!

She breathed in, held it, and breathed out. “Well, Applejack,” she called, “I'm afraid we may not be exiting the ship for some time.”

“What in—hey!” Applejack yelled, once more facing Captain Adelbrand. “You can't just yank us into the air like this! I have rights, consarn it!”

“Oh, don't be that way, dear.” Rarity walked forward and patted her on the shoulder. “You have to admit, the view is amazing.” They were well above the treeline by now, and Rarity could see the great mountains of Canterlot in the distance—almost close enough to grasp, if she let herself slip into fancy.

Applejack took one look out the window, then harrumphed, turned away, and sat back on her chair, forelegs crossed. “Seen it.” Rarity rolled her eyes. Well, there's no convincing some ponies.

As the rockets' roar died down, Rarity was able to perceive the regular sound of metal on metal. She turned around and saw the Bullbot she'd been waiting for, with several drinks on a tray balanced upon its back. One of its front horns twisted back, curled around one of the cups, and lifted it to her. “Oh! Thank you, dear,” she said, tugging at the cup with her magic. Unfortunately, the Bullbot's grip was a bit too firm. “Do you mind loosening up?”

“Dek noda kot.”

“Oh, of course.” Rarity grinned. The Doctor's contraption may have rendered her obsolete in the organic arena, but here was her chance to shine! She recalled an approximation of the correct words, and then said, haltingly, “Boqe krig skikkanta?”

“Dek noda kot.”

Rarity frowned: she was almost certain she'd gotten that one right. She tried another configuration. “Boqe deg skikkanta?”

“D-dek noda—noda k-k-k-kot.” Unless her eyes deceived her, the horn around the drink was tightening....

The glass shattered in her face. Rarity screamed and lifted a hoof out of instinct; several shards stuck into her leg, but her face seemed to have missed the worst of it. Instinctively, she toppled backward; a moment later, the horn suddenly unflexed, swinging like a club through the space where her head had been. “Help!” she yelled, just before she hit the ground.

“What in—Rarity!” Applejack yelled. She tried to run forward, but the Bullbot's other horns were waving wildly; one caught Applejack in the side, sending her flying back several feet. The Bullbot's legs were spasming too, and the thing barely seemed capable of staying upright.

“What's happening?” Rarity heard the Doctor say, as she crawled backward.

“Equipment malfunction!” said Macrin's voice from her right. “I told Ermi to prioritize the bots....” She looked over to see him leaning against a wall. His eyes were fixed on her, but he made no attempt to even approach, let alone to help.

Rarity opened her mouth to reproach him, but her words turned into a shriek as a horn whipped over her head. In her moment of distraction, she'd failed to notice that the Bullbot's random movements were bringing it closer to her. She scuttled backward until she'd gotten her footing, then turned around and ran heedlessly out of the room.

No, she told herself. Never heedlessly. You have a mind, Rarity, and you will use it to escape this rampaging beast! There was a corridor branching off to the left; she glanced down it and saw that it went straight for several yards, then turned right. The corridor to her front went straight for much longer. If I take the left, I'll be able to get out of this thing's sight more quickly. I'll evade it!

She ran left, straight, and then right—and stopped. There was no corridor in front of her, just a door. She slammed a hoof on the wall next to her, hoping to find one of those hard-to-see buttons. After a few tries, the door opened, revealing a janitorial closet—one so packed with equipment that she couldn't even get in to hide. I made a mistake.

Without really thinking about it, she took a few slow steps backward, before stopping herself. Back down the other corridor, then, and quickly! You can do this! She turned around with a growl of frustration—which immediately turned into a shriek of panic. The Bullbot was at the other end, with its horns wildly bashing against the walls.

“Keep calm,” she whispered, darting forward a bit; she'd noticed another door's outline on the wall. “You can do this.” With the push of a hoof, the door opened, revealing more cleaning equipment. She forced herself forward once more. “You can do this.” Another door opened, revealing—a room large enough for her to fit! She could run inside and shut the door on the Bullbot—

A horn slammed into the door, buckling it inward. Rarity screamed as it whipped back the other way, its tip inches from her eyes. She backed away, only to tangle her hooves and fall. The Bullbot got closer. “Help!” she yelled, crawling away. The Bullbot took another stomp toward her, and she noticed how the floor dented beneath its metal hoof.

“Rarity!” Applejack yelled. Rarity looked up to see Applejack weaving around the Bullbot's tentacles. Pinkie Pie and the Doctor were not far behind her. “Hold on!” An orange hoof thrust out and met the Bullbot's metal head—it didn't seem to notice.

“Help!” Rarity screamed, pulling herself backward, not even trying to get back on her hooves. I can't do this. The Bullbot drew closer. She tried to concentrate—to use her magic and push the evil thing away—but all she could think of was what one of those metal tentacles they called horns could do to her skull. I can't do anything.

“I can't—it's still not working!” the Doctor yelled. The Bullbot drew closer.

Rarity backed further away, and felt the cold steel of the back wall on her skin. She huddled herself into the corner and whimpered. I can't do anything. I can't do anything. I can't...

The Bullbot drew closer.

Stay tuned for the ending to The Advent of Betaurus.

The Advent of Betaurus (c)

We again return to The Advent of Betaurus.

“Toro! Toro!” Pinkie Pie had pulled a mustache and a red cape from some hidey hole; she was wearing the former, and waving the latter in front of the Bullbot. “Betauro! Uh, arriba?” She yelped and jumped back as one of the Bullbot's horns swung at her, slicing through her hair. Her efforts hadn't stalled its advance toward Rarity by even the smallest amount.

Of course it didn't work, Applejack thought, ducking under another one of the Bullbot's swinging horns and aiming yet another kick at its head. The Bullbot rocked slightly, but continued to spasm its way closer to Rarity.

“I'm out of ideas!” Pinkie yelled, dashing back to Applejack's side. “How's the kicking it in the face going?”

“Not—that—great—oof!” In Applejack's moment of distraction, a horn had come in under her guard and struck her right in the front. She staggered back a few steps. “Rarity!” she yelled. “Use your magic!”

“I can't!” Rarity wailed, cramming herself further into her corner. There weren't many yards left between her and the machine.

Applejack rounded on the Doctor, who had been pointing his metal wand at the Bullbot. “Do something!” she screamed. “You're the techno-wiz, so stop this thing before it kills her!”

“I'm trying!” His teeth bared, the Doctor slammed a hoof on the wand several times. “No, no, it's too well shielded—I can't break through!”

“What do you mean, you can't break through—oh, nevermind!” Applejack turned back around and charged at the Bullbot. She ducked slightly under a horn, then thrust her rear hoof out with the kind of kick that broke apple trees instead of bucking them. She gritted her teeth as it connected with the Bullbot, which didn't seem to respond. Rarity shrieked.

A slight metallic whine came from behind her. “Oh,” said the Doctor. “Oh, yes! That's it! Kick it again, Applejack!”

“That's what I've BEEN doing!” she roared, half-hopping away on her better leg as she prepared for another kick. “And it hasn't made a lick of difference!” She gulped, then sent her leg at the Bullbot's head again. Again, there was plenty of reaction from her leg and none at all from the machine; however, the whine behind her grew louder.

“I'm getting a lock!” the Doctor yelled. Applejack looked back to see him with a crazed smile—or snarl—on his face, and the wand in his hoof; it was buzzing and lighting up at odd intervals. “I can't break the shielding, but you can! Come on, one more good kick!”

Applejack took a deep breath, then charged screaming at the Bullbot. She slid as a horn stabbed toward her, pivoted on her front hooves, then lifted her rear leg and thrust it out like a piston into the Bullbot's back head. It was enough to send the Bullbot forward several more feet, until it was little more than a few inches from smashing Rarity to pieces.

“Gotcha!” the Doctor yelled, as the whine of his metal wand became earsplitting. With an overhead flourish he pointed it at the Bullbot, which instantly stopped. No more movement, no more flailing: it tottered on two hooves with its horns in odd contortions, one of them no more than a foot from Rarity's head.

A few seconds later, Rarity's eyes and mouth were still wide open, and her barrel heaved as she took in deep breath after deep breath—when the Bullbot finally lost its balance and fell toward her. She shrieked—

“Come with me if you want to live!” Pinkie, still wearing her mustache, darted in behind the Bullbot and—with a speed Applejack could hardly even process—pulled Rarity out from under the collapsing hunk of metal. Less than a second later, it had left a dent in the floor, but Pinkie and Rarity were both by Applejack's side. “Hey, look! You came with me, and you lived! Arriba!” Pinkie exclaimed, jumping so sharply that she collided with the ceiling. “Ow.”

“Molto bene!” the Doctor said, clapping Applejack and Pinkie Pie on the back before pocketing his metal wand. “Good work, team!”

Rarity didn't seem to notice Pinkie's outburst; she huddled against the wall, shivering as if freezing. Her eyes seemed to be looking not so much at the floor as at some empty space beyond.

“Rarity?” Applejack asked, crouching down beside her. “You're gonna be okay. You know that, right?” She did not speak. “Rarity?”

After a long few seconds, she looked up at Applejack. “I'm just... just so useless.” Tears flowed down her face, carrying black mascara onto her cheeks. Applejack sighed, then got a front leg under Rarity and pulled her up to her hooves. She didn't resist the motion.

As her legs straightened with many a painful jolt, Applejack noticed that the Betaurans were gathered at the other end of the hallway, staring at her. They musta watched the whole thing, those gutless cowards. Her mouth curled into a snarl.

“What were you...” Lorio began, before stopping for a moment with his mouth slightly open. He tried again: “Why did you all help her?” Macrin, Qeta, and Adelbrand stood beside and behind him, all wearing similarly baffled expressions.

Applejack's mouth fell open too. “Why did we—of course we helped her! Why in tarnation wouldn't we help her?”

“But... it was her fight,” Qeta said.

“Her fight—and this is my spaceship!” Applejack bucked into a wall for emphasis, leaving a small dent. “What in Tartarus is wrong with you bunch of psychopaths?”

“But it was single combat—”

“All right, all right, would everyone please just ssh!” The Doctor placed himself between the Betaurans and Equestrians, lifting one hoof in front of Applejack's mouth and another in front of Qeta's. “We can cope with the culture shock later. For now, Applejack and Pinkie, get Rarity back into the main room, make sure she's all right. And you'd all better come too,” he said, waving his hoof at the Betaurans. “We need to clear the air.”

“Come on, Rarity,” Pinkie said, covering Rarity's back with the red cape. Rarity nodded to her, then returned to simply taking deep breaths as Applejack led her back to the main space.

As she crossed the threshold into the room, Applejack saw Bon Bon leaning against a wall to the right of the door. “Oh, you saved her. Nice one.” She could have been describing the grayness of the walls for all the emotion in her voice.

Applejack's eyes narrowed. “So what, are you an alien too? Or do you just not care that Rarity nearly bit it?” As she said this, she let Rarity go; Pinkie Pie helped her down to the wooden floor and patted her back.

“Can't.” Bon Bon put a strong emphasis on the last consonant. “And I did say nice one.”

Applejack gritted her teeth and turned away. By this point, the four Betaurans, the four Equestrians, and the Doctor had all re-entered the room. The latter had gotten into a chair, and—oddly enough—had both rear legs propped up on the adjacent table. After a few seconds of this, he grimaced and jumped down. “That looked more comfortable in my head. Now, about that air clearing.”

“Of course!” Qeta said. “Er, what does 'clear the air' mean? There's no dangerous particulates, or suppressing fire, or—”

“First of all!” The Doctor rubbed his front hooves together. “Compliments to your ship mechanic. That might have been one of the sturdiest-built robots I've ever seen, and trust me, I've got a wide field to choose from.”

“Um, thanks?” Qeta's mouth was slightly open again. “I'll be sure to tell Ermi—”

“But,” the Doctor continued, “with that in mind, does what just happened make any sense? A robot that well crafted, and it simply goes berserk? And in that exact, near-fatal way? The chances have to be staggeringly low, I'd think—not that I've done the math. Yet. We're pressed for time.”

“I know, I know.” Qeta sighed and turned her head away. “I don't know what could have caused this, I really don't. The Bullbots have been a little weird since we landed, but nothing like—”

“Crashed.”

If the Doctor had pulled a gun from under his suit, he wouldn't have gotten more attention. The four Betaurans in the room immediately refocused their stares on him. “What did you say?” Qeta said.

“You didn't land here. You crashed.”

Macrin started forward. “How did you know—”

“Two whole planets to sample from, and not one person here knows how to keep a secret.” The Doctor sighed with a roll of his eyes, then raised one hoof. “Let's see. The landing—non-vertical, and not particularly well controlled, judging by the shearing job on those trees outside.” He shook his hoof once. “And your systems on the blink, particularly the doors between ship modules—more tenuous connections, they'd be the first to malfunction in the event of a violent landing. Which they have.”

“But—”

“And I couldn't help but notice you've been keeping us to the port and aft of the vessel, where the damage to your ship wouldn't be as obvious.” He shook his hoof once more, then cast a withering look at the four Betaurans. “Really, all it took was two good eyes and one good brain, and... well, if I do say so myself....” He cracked an ironic smile, one that didn't break his glare.

“Uh, thanks,” Applejack muttered. It all added up now, of course. How hush-hush they were trying to keep things; how angry Macrin had been—or had he been scared?—about Qeta bringing newcomers aboard the ship.

“Then why didn't you—” Adelbrand began.

“Oh, don't be obvious! Because I could see you wanted to keep it secret, and there was no reason to bleat it about!” The Doctor's eyes narrowed, and his next words were in a quieter, more dire tone. “And then, very suddenly, someone nearly died. And just as suddenly, any possible justification you could have had for keeping that secret—vanished. So you're going to tell me everything you know, everything you suspect, about what's going on, because something is very very wrong with your ship, and it's cruising at five thousand feet.” With each sentence, he had advanced upon Adelbrand; now the two of them were face to face.

“Doctor,” Adelbrand said, narrowing his eyes. “Step away from me.”

The two of them glowered at each other for a few seconds in silence; then, the Doctor stepped backward. “Start talking.”

Adelbrand closed his eyes and composed himself. “We were in orbit around your planet and beginning to descend when something happened. According to Pilot Luso, the engine control failed, and we had to make an emergency landing in this forest. Your kind may have mistaken our descent for a meteor.”

Applejack noticed Macrin's jaw clenching, and saw him take a step toward his captain. Qeta raised a leg to block his progress, and though he glared at her momentarily he made no further attempts forward.

“I suppose we did,” the Doctor said, scratching his neck. “That's embarrassing in my case... I really should have seen that coming—it's never 'ooh, just a meteor'... nevermind. Were all members of your crew accounted for at the time of the crash?”

Now it was Adelbrand who stepped forward. “Doctor, if you're implying that a member of my crew was responsible for this crash—”

“It was probably Luso,” Bon Bon said.

Adelbrand looked up at Bon Bon, who didn't seem at all cowed by his glare. She shrugged, and continued, “I mean, who'd be better at crashing a ship than the pilot? Oh, and he's kind of a racist. Like, a huge racist. Actually, why do you have a racist on your cultural sensitivity expedition? Isn't that exactly the kind of humongous prick you'd want to weed out?”

“Bon Bon?” the Doctor said, wearing a wide grimace. “Critical diplomatic situation? Less of the colorful imagery?”

“Even if the bull in question wants to, oh, I dunno... blow up the moon?” Applejack asked, smirking. Near as she could tell, it was all adding up now.

“It wasn't Luso.”

The Doctor turned around to look at the source of this new voice. It was a newcomer—another Betauran, walking through the doorway—and she looked like hell. Long scratches raked down her sides, blood and mud mixed on her purple coat, and she walked with a limp. A heavy rope was tied to one of her horns; its other end was attached to a cart, upon which sat the limbless remains of a Bullbot. Doing a quick bit of remembering, the Doctor supposed she had to be Ermi, the elusive engineer.

“Ermi!” Lorio yelled, confirming the Doctor's suspicion. “What happened to you? And what in Sial's name is that thing behind you?”

Ermi ignored this and kept walking until she'd reached Qeta. “Why in the name of competence are we in the air?” she said.

“Um... hi, Ermi,” Qeta said with a slight grimace. “Wow, you look like....”

“I look like I'm extremely unamused with our current altitude.” Ermi pulled her horn out of the rope's loop; it fell to the floor with a loud thump. “And you're going to start explaining it to me.”

“Ermi, you really need to get those cuts looked at, and I don't even know why you're asking me—”

“You're the only one foolhardy enough to think that it could be a good idea. Stop wasting time and tell me why we're flying.” If Ermi was affected by the scratches down her back or her limp, it didn't show; her attention was solely focused on Qeta.

“Well, we're going to meet the rulers of this planet, and... well, I thought that since you'd pretty much fixed the biggest problems since the, uh, crash....”

“There are holes in the main bridge that a Betauran could fall through. Fixed? Do you actually look at the world, or do you just assume it matches the fantasy playing out in your head?”

By now, one of Qeta's lips was pulled back in an ashamed half-smile. “Uh... sorry, I guess I screwed up.” She laughed half-heartedly. “I'll do a better job next time, I swear.”

“Sounds familiar,” Ermi replied, wearing no smile of any sort.

“Ermi,” Adelbrand said. He stepped in and led her away from Qeta. “Tell me what happened to you, and why it wasn't Luso who sabotaged the ship. Lorio!” he called. Immediately, Lorio was beside her. “Do your duty.”

She turned to face him, then winced slightly as some weight accidentally transferred to her injured front right leg. “Sir, I was doing maintenance work on Duchy-2 when two of the Bullbots attacked me.”

“And?”

“I need to repair two of our Bullbots. That's one,” she said, pointing her injured hoof at the Bullbot on the cart behind her. “But I found evidence of genuine sabotage in the ship's wiring. Luso wasn't lying about the loss of control—” She exhaled sharply as her scratches and leg lit up with Lorio's magic, and several lines of red-tinged dirt pulled away from her body to fall on the floor. Her wounds kept glowing, becoming smaller and smaller until new skin covered them entirely. At the same time, her leg twisted slightly, returning it to its original alignment.

“You're welcome!” Lorio said cheerfully.

“—and more to the point, that same bull sabotaged my—our Bullbots,” she continued, not acknowledging him. Lorio's smile wilted, and he stepped back. “Or rather, gave them some very rude instructions. Would you like to hear who it was?”

Without waiting for an answer, she walked to the Bullbot, and flicked a switch on its top. A few seconds later, she said, “Bullbot, play back previous command number six.”

“Understood,” said a calm mechanical voice. Then came a different voice—one more organic, more manic. “Ermi's figuring things out, and as much as I respect her as a crew mate, she can't be allowed to discover the sabotage. I want you to kill her inconspicuously. Do you understan—”

The Bullbot exploded. The Doctor shut his eyes and reflexively raised a hoof just in time for an unidentifiable piece of metal to strike his foreleg. A few seconds later, when he felt he could open his eyes again, he turned around to see what had caused the explosion.

Macrin had taken several steps away from the others, and the light cannon on his hoof was pointed at the cart where the Bullbot had lain. Beside the Doctor, Applejack started forward, but Macrin pointed the cannon at her. “All of you, step away from me now,” he said, and though his voice was layered with calm, it was unmistakably the same one that had just issued from the Bullbot's speakers.

Ermi snorted. “You know what's funny, you paranoid fleshsack? If you hadn't sent them to kill me, I wouldn't have discovered the sabotage for weeks.”

A bolt of light struck the floor just in front of Ermi's hooves. “I said step back, Engineer.” Macrin took another step backward of his own. “Don't make me ask again. I'd like to accomplish our mission with a minimum of casualties.”

“Macrin,” Qeta said, stepping forward, “you're having an episode. You're not thinking clearly. Just drop the cannon, and we'll work this out.” She gulped as Macrin's hoof pointed at her, but did not step back.

“I assure you, Comm Officer, my mind is perfectly clear at the moment,” he replied. The Doctor took a closer look at him, and saw none of the tics that had accompanied his previous episode. Unless he's hiding them, like he's been hiding this sabotage.

“What in the—what are you talking about, Macrin?” Adelbrand exclaimed. “Lieutenant, as your commanding officer, I order you to stand down.”

“Why? So you can continue to pervert our mission? So that we can continue the farce of 'learning' from these spineless aliens?” he yelled. “I crashed our ship here so that we could spend some time in isolation. So that we could rediscover our true culture, our true mission across the stars! And then Qeta found this translator, and look at her!”

He pointed his cannon at Rarity, who gasped and flinched away. “My Bullbot attacked her, and what was her first instinct? To cower! I'm sorry, Captain, but this behavior is no longer tolerable, and someone must take a stand. Take your hoof out of your pocket, Doctor!” he yelled, pointing the cannon at him.

The Doctor's eyebrow lifted, and he raised his hoof from his pocket, where it had been inches from his sonic screwdriver. Usually, that maneuver went unnoticed. “Have to admit, you really got me there,” he said, letting sarcasm drip from his voice. “But you know what really surprises me? You, doing this now, after your ship's visited countless other cultures. Is Equestria really the most degenerate of all, or has your little mind finally given out from the culture shock?”

“Doctor, don't,” said Bon Bon behind him, but he could hardly hear; there was blood pounding in his ears. He stepped forward.

“I've been playing at optimism for two months, but the truth is that there will always be someone like you, Lieutenant. Someone who's so sure he knows best, who's so ready to force their truth on the world. And you know what?” he said, as Macrin lifted the cannon to face him. “You're always the one with the gun, because your beliefs are so strong, so correct, that you need violence to back them up.

“Well, fine!” he yelled, pressing his chest right against Macrin's hoof. “Fire away, because what will that prove? NOTHING! You'll still be the same sad bull who's scared of the world leaving him behind!”

They locked eyes, their faces inches from each other. The Doctor vaguely noticed that the four horns on Macrin's head were very sharp, adding up to five ways to kill him—then filed this under the 'Interesting Trivia' section of his memory.

Several seconds passed. Though Macrin's eyes darted around the room, keeping track of every occupant, he did not fire. The whole room remained still.

“Or,” the Doctor said, his tone lower now, “you can drop the gun, and step into the light with us. We're waiting for you.”

A few seconds later, Macrin narrowed his eyes, and lowered his gun—to the Doctor's knee. He fired.

Odd, the Doctor thought, even as his body jumped back. As his other leg grabbed the wound, it broke in two, leaving his lower right foreleg on the floor. There ought to be some feeling. He stared dumbly at Macrin and mouthed, “You shot me!” unable to quite believe it. No one ever actually shot him, after all.

Oh, hang on. Here it is. He clamped his jaw down to force back a scream and tried to avoid looking at his leg on the floor. Bon Bon grabbed him and propped him up as he took short, seething breaths. His stump pressed painfully into the other leg; his muscles became steel cords from the strain. Control the pain. Control the horror. It's not the most important thing right now. He forced his head up, forced his blurry gaze to refocus on Macrin, who was several steps away.

“Macrin, you've lost your mind!” Adelbrand yelled, raising a hoof in front of the Doctor. “As your superior officer, I'm ordering you to stop!” Control, the Doctor thought, noting the fury in Macrin's face as if through a telescope.

“If I'm wrong, then prove it! Stop me yourself, sir!” Macrin stared right at his captain, hoof gun raised. Adelbrand stared back, but did not move forward.

Macrin looked away and sighed. “I knew it.” He pulled a walkie-talkie from a pouch at his side. “Luso,” he said into the device, “it's time.”

“Understood, sir!” came Luso's voice over the walkie-talkie. Seconds later, his voice rang out more powerfully over the ship's intercom: “Bullbot override code! Beta Upsilon Kappa!”

The Doctor noticed Lorio's features stiffen at his brother's voice. That's good. Keep noticing the other details, the small details. Anything to keep the eyes off it. Within moments, however, a big detail was distracting the Doctor: three Bullbots stood at the door behind Macrin. The sounds of metal on wood behind him told the Doctor that a similar group had entered through the other door.

“Bullbots!” Macrin yelled. “Allow no one but me to leave this room.” He backed toward the Bullbots behind him, his gun still trained on the group. “They respond to me and me alone now. If you value your own safety, don't try to fight your way through. And that is what you value, isn't it?”

“Macrin, please!” Adelbrand, probably, said. “I'm asking you as a friend—please stop! We can talk about this!” The Doctor began to sag.

“I'm sorry, Captain, but the time for discussion is long since past. If you follow me, I'll have no choice but to retaliate.” Macrin was amid the Bullbots now, only a few steps from disappearing into the darkness of the corridor. “Before, I asked you whether we would choose to learn from these races or to instruct them. I leave you to consider your answer, but as for me—I choose to instruct.” With that, he turned around and was gone.

For a few seconds, no one spoke. Then, Rarity broke the silence. “I may vomit.”

“Please don't,” Pinkie said, holding her with a horrified expression on her face. “I don't know how to get vomit stains out of the cape you're wearing.”

“Oh no,” Adelbrand said.

“What?” the Doctor asked, trying to stand—he stumbled and almost fell on his side before Bon Bon caught him.

“You idiot!” she hissed into his ear. “Do you have a deathwish?”

“Uh?” he grunted. He could do better than that—it wasn't even the first time he'd lost part of a limb. “No, not really?” Okay, not... not that much better.

“Yes you do! You walked in front of a gun and dared the owner to shoot you—that's definitional!” She whacked him on the head. “Don't have a deathwish! It's stupid!” The blow seemed to readjust the telescope through which he was seeing the world; everything became much sharper, if still distant.

“That actually helped a lot, thanks,” he said, letting her help him stand and jamming his stump into his other armpit—legpit, rather. “Adelbrand, what is it?”

“Macrin believes that conflict is the best teacher.” Adelbrand pressed a hoof against his forehead. “He means to bomb your planet—to start a war!”

“Are you—didn't I say there was no good reason to have bombs on this ship?” Applejack yelled at Lorio. “And now look what's happened! That maniac and your fool brother—”

“Not now,” Lorio said, magically pushing her away. “We can resume this fascinating conversation later, but I have a patient.” He kneeled to look at the piece of the Doctor's leg on the floor—don't look at it, the Doctor reminded himself, focusing on trying to slow his breathing down—then turned to face the Doctor. “Let me see,” he said, gently enveloping the Doctor's stump in magic and pulling it away from his torso. He winced as the wound was exposed.

Lorio sighed. “I have magic that can heal the wound, but it can only speed up what your body would do naturally. That bolt destroyed too much of your leg—I can't reattach it. I'm sorry.”

“Hang on,” the Doctor said. “Only what the....” He took a breath before finishing. “... the body does naturally?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“And just at a guess... bigger wound, more energy required for the magic?” His eyes darted around the room, looking for places where wires might easily be accessed. A light above him caught his attention, which had a cheap plexiglass-looking cover over it but seemed otherwise reachable.

“Yes,” Lorio said. “I've got enough energy in me to grow new skin over this one—it's just lucky that the bolt cauterized it as it went—”

“Not a chance—you don't have enough energy for what my body's gonna do naturally.” He heaved a breath in. “Bon Bon... right coat pocket... sonic screwdriver. Setting one hundred forty five... probably. And I think I may be sagging again... please smack me.”

She pulled it from the pocket and twisted it around until it was at the proper setting, then casually conked him on the head once more. “Ooh, thanks,” he said. Better than caffeine. “Now, someone....” He jerked his head up at the ceiling. “Tear out a wire from that light. Faster would be better.”

“Excuse me?” Ermi said, but before she could protest much more Applejack jumped into action. She kicked off the light's protective cover, then grabbed her lasso in her mouth and swung it around the light itself. With one hard yank it broke, leaving a dark patch and two dangling wires above the Doctor. “What are you doing to my ship?” Ermi said.

“Giving your medic an extra boost,” the Doctor panted. “Bon Bon, click the sonic on and it'll quite possibly convert the electrical power of the ship to magic power that Lorio can use.”

“And why would I need a boost?” Lorio asked.

The Doctor forced a grin. “Just use your healing spell, and watch me go.”

Lorio seemed doubtful, but his horns lit up all the same, just as Bon Bon activated the sonic screwdriver. The other lights in the room sputtered and dimmed, but a new light grew from the Doctor's stump—a golden light, emitted by thousands of tiny tendrils growing from the broken skin. They flattened out into a rough cylinder, with one end not far from the end of the wound—twisting and flattening until they were no longer individual tendrils, but one whole golden leg. As the light began to die away, hair sprouted from the sides, and a hoof emerged from the end.

The Doctor lifted it experimentally, then tapped it a few times against the ground. Good as new. Which it in fact is. He smiled, noticing that the expression was reciprocated on few of the faces around him. Ermi's eyebrows were raised, while Adelbrand, Qeta, and Lorio stood in slack-jawed shock. Rarity was somewhere between astonished and relieved; Pinkie just seemed happy that the threat of vomit had passed. “Thank you very much,” he said, grinning even wider at Lorio.

“You're... welcome.”

“Nice one,” Bon Bon said, poking the new leg a few times. “So that's a Time Lord thing?”

“Yeah. We're a bit like worms,” he replied, poking her leg back. “Given proper stimulation, anyway. Aren't I something?”

“Well... goodness.” Rarity seemed to be having difficulty hitching her jaw into the upright and locked position. “I knew you were an alien, but... you've rarely been so graphic around it.”

“He's an alien?” Adelbrand sputtered. “But... what are you?”

“Just think of me as a special case.” The Doctor made a short sigh of irritation. “Look, it's a long story and you wouldn't believe most of it anyway, and it doesn't matter right now. We need to stop Macrin's war.” He stepped forward. “If we can get some sharp strike to break those Bullbots' shielding, I can use my screwdriver to disable them in one fell swoop. Applejack, and whoever else has a strong kicking leg, get over to that wall—we can collapse the ceiling on them before they realize what we're—”

“No,” Adelbrand said.

“No?”

“I don't care what you are, Doctor—I am the captain on this ship, and I decide our strategy!” Adelbrand's volume grew as he spoke, as if he were trying to convince himself as much as the Doctor. “Ermi, Qeta, Lorio, get in attack formation—standard procedure. We'll break through them ourselves.”

The Doctor laid a hoof on Adelbrand's shoulder. “You saw how much a challenge one Bullbot was for us. Attacking directly is suicide, even three on four. I'm not trying to leave you without a leg to stand on here, but—”

“Don't insult me, Doctor!” Adelbrand jerked his leg away, dislodging the Doctor's hoof. “This is our fight, and we will finish it! On my mark!” In the corner of the Doctor's eye, he saw Lorio and Ermi grimacing and bending their knees.

“Um, guys—” Qeta said.

“No, no no no no, wait.” The Doctor put himself in front of Adelbrand, waving frantically at Lorio and Ermi to just hold on a second. “We are going to find another way to do this, or you are going to get your crew killed. You've lost a third of your crew already, Captain—do you really want to lose any more?”

“Guys!”

“We are not Equestrians, Doctor! You cannot fight them, but we are warriors of the earth and the sky! And we will—”

“SHUT UP!”

The blast of sound blew the Doctor's hair to his left and made him wince. Adelbrand did much the same before turning to look at the source: Qeta, holding a megaphone. “I MEAN THAT RESPECTFULLY, SIR!” she added, inadvertently still speaking into the megaphone. Adelbrand had to take a step back. “Uh, sorry,” she said, flipping the megaphone off before giving it to Pinkie Pie, who stashed it back in her tail. “But there's a better way to do this—we don't need to fight them at all.”

“That being?” the Doctor asked, pushing the question of why Pinkie had a megaphone to the back of his mind.

“Macrin said that we couldn't order the Bullbots around, because they only respond to his voice now. But what if we had his voice?”

“I don't understand,” Adelbrand said, but the Doctor did. His smile grew exponentially.

“Or what if we had someone who could mimic his voice exactly—brilliant! Now that's a reason for optimism! Bon Bon, get over here!” She shrugged, and stifled a yawn.

“Oh, land's sakes!” Applejack yelled. “Get over here, you lollygagger! And you too, Rarity! We need you to tell Bon Bon what to say.”

“Oh, er, of course.” Rarity took a deep breath, then stood and walked over to Bon Bon, who had not yet moved. “Repeat after me: Tix ki halanak. It should mean 'Let us pass.'”

“Tix ki halanak,” Bon Bon said. Then, she turned to the Bullbots guarding the front exit and yelled it in Macrin's harsh bark: “Tix ki halanak!”

Simultaneously, the Bullbots stepped to the side, leaving the hallway unobstructed.

“There, see?” The Doctor clapped Adelbrand on the back. “Let's fix this!”

The nine of them ran past the Bullbots and into the darkened corridor.

This might be embarrassing, Qeta thought as she ran. She didn't mind Captain Adelbrand and Ermi taking the lead; they'd always been in better shape than her—but then the Doctor ran past her. And then Applejack. And Pinkie Pie. I must have really gotten lazy in the last few months.

Come on, girl, she thought, you can do better than this. Remember how they trained you. Her drill instructor had told her how to motivate herself for a run: to think of what she was running to.

A face immediately came to mind, longish and handsome. It was Macrin, with her hooves on his face as he breathed deeply and calmed down after one of his episodes. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and gave her one of his smiles.

Qeta redoubled her speed and soon drew level with Captain Adelbrand. “Come on!” she said as they ran side by side. “We're almost to the end of this module!”

Three Bullbots stepped out of a branching corridor ahead of them, blocking their path. They charged.

“Tix ki hala—” Bon Bon's mimicry of Macrin's voice was cut short by a loud gasp. Qeta glanced backward to see three more Bullbots behind them; one had surged forward and struck Bon Bon, winding her. Looking back forward, Qeta saw the three Bullbots ahead of them levitating with Lorio's magic. He gritted his teeth as they struggled in midair.

“Get the outer armor off!” the Doctor shouted behind her. “I can disable them from there!” Applejack threw her lasso, tying two of the Bullbots' swinging horns together. Pinkie Pie blasted forward like a bullet, bodyslamming the third.

“Barely... managing... this,” Lorio replied. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his head. The Bullbots levitated further, high enough off the floor for a bull to fit underneath.

“Rarity!” the Doctor yelled. “We need another magic user!”

High enough to fit underneath.... It wasn't a hard decision. Qeta dashed forward and ducked down at the last moment, sliding under the Bullbots' kicking hooves.

“Qeta!” Captain Adelbrand shouted. “What are you doing?”

“Someone has to stop Macrin!” She turned forward. “He'll listen to me.”

“Qeta, don't!” he said, but she was already moving. Of course he'll listen. He always does. She ran as fast as she ever had; after all, someone had to save them all from Macrin's madness.

The sounds of the battle echoed down the metal corridors as she kept moving, remembering the way to the next portion of the ship. However, different noises were getting louder as she approached the joiner—a rip one second, a clang a few seconds later. Judging by the direction, they'd have to be coming from... the module's bridge! She slowed to a halt only meters from the module-to-module passageway and pressed a button on a wall to her right.

A door slid open, revealing Duchy-2's bridge—one which was currently useless, as the module was not at the ship's front. The bridge's large frontal window showed nothing but the back of Duchy-3, an uninteresting gray slab. What was interesting in the room was Macrin, lying on his back under the ship's controls and methodically ripping wires out. More sabotage, apparently. Several Bullbots stood in the corner of the room, but they gave no indication of noticing her. Perhaps he hadn't told them to attack anyone.

As she watched, he pulled himself out and stood, apparently unaware of her presence. No doubt he'd finished here; the time to act was now, before he moved again. She stepped forward and laid a hoof on his shoulder. “Macrin, you need to stop.”

Smoothly, with practiced ease, he turned around and thrust his horn into her chest.

A small, involuntary volume of air left her mouth, not quite a gasp. Her head sagged, low enough to see that he'd broken through her ribcage and pierced her heart. But he couldn't have.

“Macrin,” she pleaded with a voice she could not hear. “It's me.”

There was a snarl on his face, but with these words it transformed; he looked up and his mouth opened slightly. “You weren't supposed to....” Slowly, he pulled his horn from her. Quickly, she collapsed. Her hoof slipped from his shoulder.

There was blood in her lungs, and there couldn't be. She needed to say so much. She needed to breathe. He needs to breathe. He just needs to breathe, like we practiced. In…

Someone shouted, maybe. The blinds were closing on her.

… and out. You're doing great, Macrin, just stay with me.

“Do you actually look at the world, or do you just assume it matches the fantasy playing out in your head?”

In... stay with me, Macrin. Please.

“Uh... sorry, I guess I screwed up. I'll do a better job next time, I swear.”

… and out.

They were just in time to see her hit the floor.

“No!” Adelbrand yelled.

The sound alerted Macrin to their presence: he whirled around, blood flying from his horn and an enraged snarl on his lips, and lifted his light cannon. The Doctor pulled Adelbrand out of the doorway just as two spheres of light flew through and impacted on the corridor's wall.

“Macrin, what have you done?” Adelbrand shouted, pinned to the ground by the Doctor.

“I said not to follow!” More bolts of light struck the wall behind the door. “You did this, Captain, not me!”

“Let me go,” Adelbrand hissed, struggling with all his might under the Doctor. In his face was the same rage the Doctor had seen in Macrin's; it was all he could do to keep the captain from escaping.

“He'll kill you,” the Doctor said.

“I'll kill him!”

“Bullbots!” Macrin yelled from beyond the door. “Do not let them leave this module! This order cannot be countermanded! And you—come with me!”

The salvo of light bolts stopped a second later. Bon Bon, who was next to the door, poked her head briefly into the opening. “He just left with one of them,” she said. “The others are still in the big room, next to Qeta.”

The Doctor let Adelbrand up then, and the whole group streamed into the room. The Doctor knelt immediately by Qeta, but one look told the story; her heart had been exposed and pierced, and it did not move. “I'm sorry,” he breathed, closing her eyes. Then he stood up and ran after Macrin, leaving Lorio to kneel in his stead.

“Macrin, I am going to gut you!” Adelbrand roared, running straight at Macrin—but the corridor was narrow, and a Bullbot stood in the way. Its horns pushed Adelbrand back no matter how he tried to approach.

Macrin turned back to face him, standing just behind a line in the floor that marked the juncture between the two modules of the ship. “Never forget, sir—this was you. You brought this judgment on yourselves.” Keeping eye contact, he pushed a button on the hallway's wall. The door in front of him slid closed.

“Macrin! Macrin!” Adelbrand fought as hard as he could, but the Bullbot simply pushed him away with its back two horns. With its front two, it opened a small hatch on the wall, revealing a red button, and pressed it. The Doctor felt the ship shudder.

“Oh, justice... he can't have.” The Doctor looked around to see Ermi behind him, a look of grim realization on her face. “He's detached this module of the ship. And he's sabotaged the controls. There's nothing but air resistance to stop us from falling now.”

Feeling disoriented, the Doctor stepped back into the bridge. Bon Bon was standing in the corner, her expression unreadable. Pinkie Pie was crying silently on the floor, and Rarity had a hoof around her. Applejack was half-standing, looking at the corpse on the floor with a slack jaw. Lorio knelt beside it, one hoof rested on her side. And Qeta was still.

Then he felt the lurch in his stomach, and turned his head to the bridge's window; the ship wall in front of it was slowly sliding upward. They were falling.

To be continued in:

War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds (a)

The Doctor ran his hooves through his hair, as if to comb ideas from it. Adelbrand still fought the Bullbot in the adjacent corridor with no success. Ermi lay under the control panel, hooves working frantically to no obvious end. Lorio stood close to Qeta's body, his head bowed in sympathy. Applejack watched her continue to bleed with the gritted teeth of someone trying to cope. Rarity's eyes focused on the blood pooling on the floor. Pinkie's eyes gushed tears.

So, they were all being as useless as the stiff herself. Bon Bon, on the other hand, felt a plan coming to mind. “Destroy yourselves,” she muttered. Then she grabbed Rarity's face with both hooves and forced her to make eye contact. “Destroy yourselves.”

Rarity looked at Bon Bon like she didn't believe she existed. “What?”

“I need you to tell me the Betan words for 'destroy yourselves',” Bon Bon said. When Rarity did not immediately respond, Bon Bon grabbed her neck. She gasped from the pain. “Now,” Bon Bon said, shaking her, “or we all die.” And ponies call me crazy.

“Um... pih kadan,” she stammered.

“BULLBOTS!” Bon Bon roared, standing up and adopting Macrin's voice. “PIH KADAN!”

There were three Bullbots in the room with them, and she could hear Adelbrand fighting one in the corridor beyond. At once, the three she could see lifted their horns, plunged them into their bodies, and collapsed to the floor. The sounds from the corridor stopped as well. Without stopping to look at the others staring at her, she crossed the room and entered the corridor, then reached over the wrecked Bullbot to press the door button.

Is it supposed to be this loud? she wondered, noticing the slowly increasing distance between their module and the rest of the ship; she could already see jets of flame from the rockets on its bottom. With a grunt of effort that got swept away by the wind, she pushed the Bullbot in front of her through the door, whereupon it promptly disappeared from view.

She returned to the room where the Doctor still stood. “Okay, I've done my fair share!” she yelled—the rush of air past the ship made any other volume useless. “Now get your head in gear and figure out how to get us over there, or I will hit you again!”

“I'm aware!” he yelled back, looking past her and screwing up his face for a moment. “Ermi!” He crossed the room and bent down near her. “Any luck with the controls?”

“All I can reattach is the thrust,” she said. “And it'll have to be manually operated. Someone will have to stay—”

“Not happening,” he said, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and shoving it into the control panel's guts. Its barely audible whistling noise was succeeded by a roar to equal the wind, and Bon Bon's knees bent involuntarily as the floor pushed up. “We've got thirty seconds of maximum thrust!” the Doctor announced as he stood. “No one else dies today, you understand? Not one soul! Now come on!” He dashed to the corridor.

Ermi followed on his heels. Lorio hesitated for a moment, his eye lingering on Qeta's wound, but he followed as well. Pinkie and Rarity, however, did not move. Bon Bon growled and stepped forward, but Applejack intervened first, saying, “Girls, I know it's awful, but we need to move.” With her help, the two rose to their hooves and exited to the corridor. Bon Bon was the last to leave the room.

With all the other bodies in front of her, she couldn't see much, but it looked like the other ship was in front of them again, and their ascent was slowing. Within a few seconds, they'd cleared the top of it, and only sky was visible. They'd be able to land on it if they jumped far enough. “Now, Captain!” the Doctor yelled, waving Adelbrand—who was at the front of the line—toward the door. “You first!”

“A captain should be the last one—”

“NOBODY CARES!” Bon Bon screamed. “Get moving!” Adelbrand stepped back, then charged and jumped off the ship. Whether he'd made it or not, Bon Bon couldn't see.

Ermi and Lorio were next off, each displaying impressive velocity in their running starts. Then, Applejack pushed Pinkie and Rarity forward, and they jumped. Applejack was next, and then it was only Bon Bon and the Doctor inside the module—which was no longer rising; the roar of the engines had given out. Bon Bon could see everyone else on top of Duchy-3, but that ceiling was rising.

“Move!” the Doctor yelled.

“You go first or I will push you,” she said, glaring at him.

The Doctor hesitated, then gritted his teeth and ran forward, jumping the gap between the two ships with a yard to spare. Bon Bon steadied herself, then ran with all she had and jumped into the night.

Within a second, she realized that she wouldn’t make it; the ship in front of her was rising too fast. She sighed minutely and let her shoulders slacken as she flew toward the Duchy’s hard side. Good try. With any luck, striking it would knock her out before—

She felt something loop around her stomach, then tighten. Before she could determine what it was, she crashed into the side of the ship, which did not knock her out but did hurt like Tartarus. She gritted her teeth against the pain, then noticed that she was rising inch by inch, and that the thing around her stomach was a rope. She looked up to see the rest of Applejack's lasso pulling her up in short jerks.

Before long, she'd cleared the corner of the ship and was sprawled on its top. Applejack poked her head. “You got a lot more daring than you have leg strength, miss. Next time, don't jump last, all right?”

“Whatever, thanks,” she panted, trying to get her breath back. Almost compulsively, she tilted her head over the side of the ship to look at the doomed modules plummeting to Equestria. As she watched, lights seemed to emerge from the blackness beneath it, describing the shapes of soaring towers. Exactly the kind of towers, in fact, that would respond poorly to being struck with a spaceship. “Hey,” she said, lifting her head back over the edge, “we were flying to Canterlot earlier, weren't we?”

The faces of the ponies around her blanched. Applejack and the Doctor responded first, running to the edge and looking over. “Oh, Celestia,” Applejack said, as the modules continued their descent toward the city.

The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)

S1E6: War of the Worlds

Written by R5h

It was strange, watching the modules fall. For all their size, they seemed to drift like a leaf on the wind.

“Attention, feeble Equestrians of Canterlot.”

Luso's voice, amplified by an unseen speaker system, drowned out even the rushing air and the engines' roar. The Doctor certainly could not hear his own sonic screwdriver, currently pointed at the falling modules. If I can just activate the engines remotely.... Nothing was happening. He silently cursed Betauran craftsmanship.

“We are soldiers from the planet Betaurus, and we come with a simple aim; war, such as your pitiful minds have never imagined! War to stir the blood of the species! See how we have discarded a third of our ship just to strike the first blow! What can you do to equal that, Equestrians?”

The Doctor threw himself to the edge, letting almost half of his body lean off in a desperate attempt to get his screwdriver close enough. “Applejack!” he yelled. “Lower me down with your lasso! I need to get in range!”

“Are you crazy? It's too dangerous!”

He pulled his head up from the brink and stared at her. “Thousands of people are going to die!”

“They'll do that anyway.” Ermi was by his side now, watching the falling modules with a grim expression. “You'll never access one of my ship's controls from the outside, no matter what sort of device you've got.”

“But—” The Doctor took a sharp breath in through his teeth. The module had lost its leaf-like quality, and now simply plummeted.

“Doctor.” Bon Bon was next to him now, helping him stand. “You tried,” she said, fixing her eyes on his own. “Don’t forget that.” He nodded at her—he didn't have any words left to say—then fixed his eyes on Canterlot below. He could at least do that. The modules continued to fall, and couldn't have been much more than a hundred feet away—

“Allow me to retort.”

Then, somehow, they weren't falling at all. The modules didn't slow down; they simply halted in place. Then, they started glowing the white-hot color of molten metal, and the corners—the edges—the whole of the structure sagged inward. Within seconds, what had been a box became a sphere of liquid metal, glowing like a new sun. The Doctor had to raise a leg to shield his eyes.

“I do not know who you are, and I do not care where you are from.” The Doctor recognized the voice as Princess Celestia's, magnified to such a level as to render Luso's earlier announcement pitiful. He detected no anger in her voice: just steely resolve. “But know this: I am Celestia, Princess of this land, and I will not permit any threat upon my subjects.” The metal mass floated in front of the ship, presumably to let the pilot take a look at it.

Without warning, it rocketed skyward so quickly that the Doctor's eyes could hardly follow. He looked upward to see its light fading, until it looked like a mere shooting star.

“Your projectile has been sent on a crash course with the sun. And if you send anything else this way—so much as a speck—I will burn it and you from the sky with nuclear fire.” Now there was a hint of fury in her voice. “Land, depart, or attack once more—make your choice, and I will make mine.” It might have been the Doctor's imagination, but he could swear he heard cheers from Canterlot.

“Not good,” he said. “This is exceptionally not good!”

“What, the part where we're going to die?” Bon Bon said.

“Oh, I wish that were the worst of it.” The Doctor ran a hoof backward through his hair. “At this rate, Equestria's first gesture toward alien life will be an act of war. We can't let that happen.”

“It's worse than that,” Adelbrand said. “Our last transmission to the Archdukes before the crash told them of our current position. If your Princess destroys the ship, and they stop hearing from us, they'll be forced to assume the worst and retaliate. Macrin—” he spoke the name with such vehemence that he stopped to take a breath before continuing “—will have his war.”

“Yeah, and we're also going to die,” Bon Bon said.

“Yes, and that.” The Doctor raised his voice. “Is there any way we can get in contact with Celestia?”

“The only public address system that can be heard from outside the ship is the one on the main bridge!” Lorio said. “They used to all work, but... well, there's actually a funny story about that. Qeta tells it better.”

Somehow, even under the rushing wind, it seemed suddenly quiet. “Told it better,” he repeated, lifting his head to watch Qeta’s molten tomb disappear over the horizon. Behind him, Adelbrand looked down at the captain's insignia on his vest and pressed a hoof against it. Ermi, who’d been working at something on the ship's surface, stopped for several seconds. Applejack doffed her hat and rested it on her chest.

Pinkie Pie pulled the blue band from her hair and stared at it. “We were gonna be pen pals,” she said, tears forming again in her eyes.

A second blue band floated over to Pinkie's hoof and landed on its twin. “There, there,” Rarity said, her horn alight with magic. The red cape on her back rose and fell onto Pinkie's, its front corners tying themselves into a neat little knot on her neck. Rarity, with an expression much more composed than Pinkie's, rested a hoof on her shoulder. “Please don't cry, Pinkie. I don't think she'd have wanted you to cry for her.”

“Yeah, well, I don't think she wanted to die horribly either,” Bon Bon said.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity's heads snapped up with matching expressions of horror to stare at her. Bon Bon didn't seem to notice, and continued, “But here we are, and, well....” She shrugged. “Here she isn't. Now, if you're done leaking, we need to get inside the ship.”

Pinkie's mouth moved like that of a gasping fish, and Rarity's eyes narrowed. Applejack, however, took a step forward and said, “Oh, that is it.”

“Eh?” Bon Bon said.

“Okay, so the aliens here are all crazy—fine, I can live with that, culture differences and so forth. But you!” She jabbed Bon Bon in the chest. “Did someone swap out your heart for a lump of coal?”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes, then responded in Applejack's voice. “Howdy, y'all, I'm Applejack and I'm too busy worryin' about hurt feelin's to focus on the whole not-dyin' thang—”

She was interrupted as a second jab of Applejack's hoof came at her throat. “You'd best stop that,” Applejack said quietly, “or I'll knock your lights clean out.”

Bon Bon gritted her teeth and stopped talking. Applejack turned away, rubbing her temple in frustration. “Look, just tell me one thing, Miss Super Actress. How in Equestria are you supposed to be the new Element of Loyalty, when you just don't care?”

“CAN'T!” Bon Bon screamed, right in Applejack's face. Her mouth contorted into a snarl.

After a few seconds of relative silence, and several deep breaths from Bon Bon, she continued in a voice no calmer than before. “You want to know what my problem is? Fine! We're doing this now! Get your sad flanks downstairs and you'll all get to hear exactly what the hell is wrong with me! It'll be fun!” She stomped past Applejack and down the length of the ship. “Get us inside now!” she yelled at Ermi.

Ermi's facial expression didn't change; she simply poked her horn into an indent in the ship and pulled up, opening a hatch. Bon Bon practically dove inside, leaving the rest of the group to follow her.

Lieutenant Macrin made one detour on his way to meet with Luso, and stopped in one of the ship’s bathrooms to wash the blood from his horns. As he pulled his head out of the sink, he saw a flicker of movement behind him, but ignored it to dry his horns and face. Only then did he finish his journey to the main bridge.

The Duchy's modules were capable of operating independently, and therefore each had its own bridge, but none were as magnificent as that of Duchy-6. As its door opened, Macrin saw the impressively ornate control panel, inlaid with onyx and rubies, beneath the vast window to the outside—sadly cracked, after their unpleasant landing on Equestria. To either side of the bridge were the large fissures Ermi had mentioned, which let notes of darkness and engine noise into the room. In its center was Luso, and judging by the way his back heaved, he seemed on the verge of hyperventilation.

Macrin stepped forward. “Pilot, control yourself!”

Luso stared at him for a few seconds, then gesticulated at the window. “Did you see that?”

“See what, pilot?” Macrin's jaw tightened, but he kept himself in check. After all, he was the acting captain. “You'll remember I have not been on the bridge.”

“But did you at least hear?” Luso wiped some sweat from his forehead. “I mean, I was just trying to cover for you dropping a third of the ship, and then she... she... holy Archdukes. When the orange one said their princesses moved the sun and moon, I thought she was lying!”

“So when this Celestia said that she sent the modules to the sun....”

“She didn't just do that. She melted them. Five thousand tons of metal, and she melted them.” Luso rubbed his eyes. “Right in front of the window, too, and bright enough to just about blind me. Macrin—”

“Lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant, what are we going to do?” Luso turned back to the control panel. In the reflection on the window, Macrin saw the fear on his face. “I suppose... there's the missiles on the top of Duchy-3. We might be able to launch them without her noticing, keep them out of her line of sight, then have them come in from the side... but what if she notices?”

Luso's breathing was quickening again. Macrin stepped forward and clapped a hoof on his shoulder; the boy needed encouragement. “Never forget, soldier; in wartime, he who risks nothing gains even less.”

Luso half-looked at him, if that. “I, uh, suppose so, Lieutenant.”

“Macrin.”

“Lieutenant,” Macrin corrected, out of reflex.

“That's, um....” Luso gave him a queer look. “That's what I said, sir.”

“Macrin, it's me.” He nearly opened his mouth to respond, but... That voice…. Macrin shook his head slightly. I know it's not her.

“Macrin, you need to stop.” She was there, in the reflection on the window, standing behind him. Her chest was whole. Against his better instincts, Macrin chanced a glance backward, but the room was empty save for him and Luso.

When he turned back to the window, his reflection had buried its horn in her chest.

“Sir?”

Macrin shook his head again, more violently this time. Blood gushed from her wound and mouth. “Macrin,” she choked out, “it's me.”

“Sir!”

He finally recognized this voice as Luso's, and shut his eyes tightly for several seconds. When he opened them again, the apparition was gone. “Yes?” he asked, relaxing slightly as he faced Luso.

“You were just....” Luso didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence, and changed tacks. “I just needed to check, sir. I know you must have had good reasons to drop Duchy-1 and 2, and I'm not going to ask, but... all of our people made it off, right?”

Noting the concern in his pilot's face, Macrin did his best to compose himself. “Yes... yes, of course. I used the Bullbots to... to detach the modules.” In fact, he'd heard the modules' engines re-engage not long after he'd left them; perhaps it was his paranoia, but it seemed likely that they had all escaped. All except for her.

I warned her, he told himself. I warned them all what would happen if they followed. She knew the risk.

“Sir, are you feeling well?” Luso asked. With some effort, Macrin wrenched himself back to reality and noted that Luso seemed no more relaxed than himself.

“It's only fatigue,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “It's been a long night for us all. Actually, could you activate the intercom?”

Luso raised an eyebrow, but pressed the relevant button on the control panel all the same. Macrin spoke loudly and clearly—at least, he hoped his voice was clear. It was getting harder to tell. “Attention, Bullbots. All future orders will only be accepted if they are given in person. End command.” When Luso looked at him askance, he explained, “The one called Bon Bon has a talent for vocal mimicry. It's possible she could give false commands by mimicking my—”

A splash of red appeared in his peripheral vision from the direction of the window. He blinked, and continued, “By... mimicking my voice.”

“Sir, are you certain you feel well?” Luso asked.

“I... perhaps not.” Macrin let his shoulders slacken just enough to convince Luso of his honesty. “Figure out a way to continue our attack. I'll go see if your brother left any pertinent medication on this module. And I'll activate more of the Bullbots... for detainment purposes.” Without waiting for Luso's assent, he turned around and left the room, taking care not to glance at the window.

The medicine room was not far from the bridge, and was filled with mostly identical lockers; only small pieces of marked tape distinguished each one. Macrin stopped in front of the one labeled Crazy Pills—Lorio's attempt at humor—and opened it up to reveal shelves filled with similarly labeled plastic containers. Let's see... Headaches, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Macrin. He sighed. Very funny, Lorio. If you didn't make it off the module, then I won't miss your sense of humor.

“Macrin, you need to stop.” He’d never noticed, but the containers were slightly reflective. He looked straight forward, at the one labeled with his own name, and saw her face reflected behind his own. Her expression was one of deep concern—and then she stiffened, and there was a note of panic in her eyes, and a wet thunk rang in his ears—

He slammed the locker door. Never mind. I'll soldier through. After a deep breath, he turned sharply, militarily, and exited the room. It was time to wake the Warbots.

“Attention, Bullbots.” These words came over the intercom as the eight of them—Bon Bon, Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, Ermi, Lorio, Adelbrand, and the Doctor—entered the ship. It was a nondescript corridor, as gray and lifeless as the rest they'd seen. “All future orders will only be accepted if they are given in person. End command.”

“Damn,” Bon Bon said, with the most forced shrug the Doctor had ever seen. Anger still lined her face. “I guess he caught on to the voice changing thing.” She leaned against a wall. “Well, it was good while it lasted. So, let's do story time.”

“Look,” Applejack said, “I don't, uh, wanna push you into anything you're not comfortable with—”

“No, no, it's fine.” Bon Bon shifted against the wall and grimaced. “Though speaking of comfortable, is there somewhere with... chairs?”

“Follow me,” Adelbrand said, taking the lead. Within the minute they'd arrived at a large room similar to the one in which they'd held their earlier meet and greet; this one was smaller but looked more lived-in. Chairs and tables sat in familial disarray, and the Doctor guessed that whereas the previous chamber had been a meeting place for aliens, this was where the crew met on their own time.

Six comfortable-looking chairs were clustered around one table; Bon Bon took one. She pointed at Pinkie and Rarity. “If you want to grieve some more, you should get that out of the way, because apparently now is time-wasting... time.” She snorted. “That was awkward. Where were we?”

“You, ah... your story,” the Doctor said, pulling a second chair—not from the same table—under himself.

“Yeah, okay. So, hooves up, who's lost a family member?” Bon Bon immediately raised her hoof, but no one else did. She cast an annoyed glare around the room. “Come on, really. Hooves up. Don’t be shy.” After a few seconds, Applejack and the Doctor lifted hooves, as well as Lorio. Applejack glanced at him in surprise.

“And it's supposed to be sad, right?” Bon Bon said. Applejack nodded.

Bon Bon chuckled. “I was, like, seven. Eight?” She rubbed her head for a moment. “Yeah, eight. And I was just on the playground at recess, with Lyra, and having fun, and then I turn around and there's my mom and she's barely keeping it together. She told me, uh... she told me that my uncle Car Bon—her brother—just died. And she had to get me from school right away, so we could go to the funeral as a family.

“Lyra, of course, started crying right away,” Bon Bon said, and then—as if someone had twisted a spigot on her head—she started crying. Huge tears descended her face, dripped off newly-blubbering lips, and landed on the wood below. Her shoulders slumped, her face deflated; as far as the Doctor could tell, she was feeling real pain.

Seconds later, she shook her head, and the spigot turned the other way. The tears ceased, and she rolled her eyes. “Kind of like that,” she said, wiping the tears from her face with a hoof. “But I was just sitting there like... look, my uncle Car was a nice guy, good chemist, and I guess I kinda liked him, but... we'd met maybe four times? And I realized that I should be sad about him, but I wasn't. And I tried—Celestia help me, I tried.” She grimaced. “The best I managed was to feel bad for Lyra, because she was sad for me. For what it's worth, I really did feel bad for her. Because, and this is the important part, I cared about her.”

“Weren't you just crying a moment ago?” Rarity asked.

Bon Bon smacked her own face with her hoof. “You're missing the point. I can just manage to care about a very few things, but I cannot care about all the things you peppy people care about, because I don't have that energy. Random aliens that I just met, who die horribly in front of me? I can't. I'd like to, but I can't. I... can't.”

She blew a breath out the corner of her mouth, briefly lifting a strand of her mane. “But hey, sometimes it comes in handy. Because, just for instance, you?” She jabbed a hoof in Rarity's direction, interrupting her from patting Pinkie on the back. “You cared so damn much about that bull back there that we all nearly fell to our fiery deaths. Great job with that big heart you've got there, but me? I think I'll stick with my lump of coal.”

She emphasized these last words by glaring at Applejack. Applejack spent a few seconds frowning at the ground, then looked up to the level of Bon Bon's chin. “So, what can you care about?”

“My best friends... friend. My family—close family, I mean. And myself. Which means I care about this ship and this group getting out of this all in one piece, insofar as that includes me. Can you live with that?”

Applejack sighed. “Y'know, I suppose I can. And, uh, I'm... sorry about the coal thing. At least I see where you're coming from now.”

“Accepted.” Bon Bon shrugged. “Now I think we have a job to do?”

“Quite right,” Adelbrand said, stepping forward. “Our main objective is to storm the bridge of Duchy-6 and capture Lieutenant Macrin and Pilot Luso, or otherwise prevent them from firing on Equestria. Let's move out.”

Without another word he walked toward the door. Lorio, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie followed him, but Ermi held back as she passed Bon Bon. “You know,” she said, “when this is all finished, perhaps you could help me explain to the captain why I prefer the company of non-living things. You seem to be a much better speaker than I am.”

“What, you don't... can't care for people either?” Bon Bon sighed. “Yeah, take it from someone who knows: it's not as much fun as it sounds.”

The two of them exited, but the Doctor hesitated still. There was something bugging him, something about Bon Bon's story....

“Missiles launching in thirty seconds. Twenty nine.”

That can wait, then, the Doctor thought, standing stock-still while comprehension trickled down to his muscles. Then he was off like a shot, barreling through the group ahead as they stood frozen themselves. “What's going on?” he yelled.

“Didn't you hear?” Applejack said. “Missiles!”

“Twenty six,” the computer voice of the intercom said. “Twenty five.”

“Where? Can we stop them?” he asked. “Can we cut off the signal, snip the wires?”

“Here's why you can't,” Ermi said as she locked her horns into the grooves of a nearby access panel and pulled. Behind it lay a loom of wires, all different colors. “That's the wire that controls weapon systems—” she pointed to a yellow wire near the top “—and so is that.” She pointed to one at the bottom. “There's at least a dozen redundant wires for each essential ship function running throughout the ship. Macrin would have had to cut twenty to sabotage the engines.”

“Missiles are an essential ship function?” Applejack's jaw dropped.

“The yellow wires, then?” the Doctor said, pulling his sonic screwdriver out. “Thank you very much.” He pointed it at the bottom wire.

“Ten... nine... missile launch canceled.”

Ermi stared at him. “That screwdriver gets more impressive by the moment!”

“Missiles launching in thirty seconds.”

“Never mind,” she said, gritting her teeth.

“What happened?” Pinkie Pie asked. For some reason, she was smiling, but the Doctor didn't have time to think about that either.

“Must have reactivated the countdown from the bridge,” he said, twisting his sonic screwdriver with precise motions. He trained it on the wire for several seconds, then looked back at the shaft's readout—well, to him it was a readout describing the exact nature of the signal. To anyone else, it must have looked like the same old silver rod. “The missiles will fire from the roof of this module, fly high into the sky, loop around, and strike Canterlot from the side. If Celestia's looking up the whole time, she may not even notice.”

“Twenty... nineteen...”

“Your tool told you that?” Ermi looked like she was close to salivating.

“And every time I turn it off,” he said, pressing the screwdriver's button once more.

“Missile launch cancelled.”

“They're going to turn it back on again.”

“Missiles launching in thirty seconds.”

He ruffled his hair. “Not gonna lie, we're in... deep.”

“Is there any way to cancel the signal permanently?” Bon Bon asked.

“As long as the wires are connected, they can keep turning it back on,” the Doctor said. “And they may send more Bullbots; that might distract us for thirty seconds.”

“So let's go cut those cables!” Applejack said, reaching in with her head to the top cord. She grabbed it in her teeth and pulled, only for Ermi to strike her on the head before she'd ripped it. “Ow! What the hay was that for?”

“Don't touch my ship,” Ermi replied through gritted teeth. “And if you'll listen, there's a way we can detach all the cables at once.”

She cast a meaningful look at Adelbrand, and after a few seconds he nodded. “Of course. We detach the ship itself.”

“Sixteen... fifteen... missile launch cancelled.”

“What are you talking about?” the Doctor asked, letting his screwdriver leg sag. It's going to cramp if I have to keep doing this. Awful thing for a new leg to do.

Adelbrand strode forward. “Keep canceling the launch until we reach the front of the ship,” he ordered with a glance at the Doctor. “Then, some of us will have to progress to Duchy-4 to detach this module from that side.”

“You want to split us up?” the Doctor yelled, kicking a wall as he followed Adelbrand. The access panel fell off, and he briefly trained his screwdriver on the wire inside. Ignoring the ship's announcement, he said, “In smaller groups the Bullbots will pick us off even more easily. We are not losing anyone else.”

“Do not subvert my authority aboard my own ship, Doctor,” Adelbrand hissed. “Assuming there are no Bullbots aboard this section, those who cannot fight should stay here with me. Those who can, go. We'll redock the module alongside the rest of the ship later.”

They reached the hallway at the end of the module. In front of them stood the door that lead to Duchy-4: to their left was the bridge. Adelbrand walked into it, followed a moment later by a sheepish-looking Rarity. Bon Bon marched right in next. Applejack, on the other hand, stepped toward the door to Duchy-4, followed by Lorio. “Of course you're coming,” she said with a sigh.

“Put aside your irrational dislike of me for a moment. You're fighting: you need a medic,” he said. Then he glanced sideways at the pink form that had stepped up beside him. “You?”

“Don't worry about me,” she said, with the same insincere smile. “Ol' Pinkie's got a few tricks up her sleeves. Also, ol' Pinkie doesn't have sleeves.” She shook her body, making her cape flutter behind her.

“Hang on,” the Doctor said, poking his head in through the bridge door. “Captain!” he said. “You can cancel the missile launch from there, right?”

“Of course,” Adelbrand replied, with a perfunctory press of one of the bridge's buttons.

As the ship made yet another announcement, the Doctor turned back to Applejack, Pinkie, and Lorio. “Here,” he said, tossing the screwdriver to Applejack; she caught it without flinching, then squinted at it. “It'll help you fight off any Bullbots you come across. But take care of it! They don't grow on trees, you know.”

“I figured,” Applejack replied. “What the—”

For Ermi had just snatched it from her hoof. “I'm going where this is going,” she said, regarding it with something between reverence and ecstasy. “Count me in!”

“All right!” Lorio said, smiling for a second. He pressed a button adjacent to the door, which opened, and the four of them—Applejack, Lorio, Ermi, and Pinkie Pie—walked through. “See you on the other side, Doctor,” he said, reaching for the module-detaching lever on his side.

“You too... Doctor.” The Doctor chuckled and pulled the lever on his own side. For a few seconds, he watched Lorio and the rest sag away from him, but then the doors closed between them.

As the Doctor entered the bridge, Adelbrand said, “Course holding steady.” His hoof found the missile button and pressed it again.

“Missile launch canceled.” The Doctor involuntarily tensed up for a few seconds, but he knew there would be no reannouncement of the countdown. Well, he knew it in his brain: his body seemed to be another matter.

“Oh, thanks,” Bon Bon said, rubbing her head. “I can hear myself think again.” After a moment, she frowned. “Right, I forgot. Can you turn the countdown back on again?”

“How, ah... charming?” Rarity ventured. A smile grazed her lips.

Bon Bon glared at her. “I laugh at me. You don't laugh at me. Got it?” Then she looked around and gulped as the Doctor, in turn, glared at her. “Er, sorry,” she said.

“All... right...” Rarity said, inching away from her.

Bon Bon sighed and walked to the other side of the room, where the Doctor sat, then plopped down beside him with a groan. “Some ponies. I try to play nice, and what do I get?”

Play... The word stirred something in the Doctor's memory: the thought he'd been nursing just before the missile alert had triggered. “Bon Bon,” he said, “do you remember a story you told me the first time we met?”

“Eh?”

“In Discord's maze.”

“I tell lots of stories.”

“I figured.” The Doctor sighed, then continued quietly enough that neither Rarity nor Adelbrand—who was fiddling with something on the control panel—would hear. “It was a story about how you first met Lyra.”

“So?”

“In college,” the Doctor continued. “And not before you were age eight on a playground.”

Bon Bon glanced out through the bridge's window, through which the side of the Duchy slid sideways, lighting up the night with its slits of windows. Then she looked back at him with one eyebrow raised. If anything, she looked pleased to have been caught. “Well, aren't I a stinker.”

The Doctor gritted his back teeth and took a deep breath. “You just lied to everyone.”

“Oh, come on,” she said, winking. “Maybe I lied to you back in the maze. Maybe I lied both times. Maybe they're both true, because I enrolled in college at age six.” She chuckled. “I'm pretty smart, you know.”

“And you did this because....”

“Well, it's fun, for one thing. And it made you all feel sorry for me, didn't it?” She winked again. “Both times.”

The Doctor opened his mouth, held it for a few seconds, then let it drift shut. “Look, if you, uh, wanna be mad, don't sugarcoat it,” Bon Bon said. “I'm a big fan of honesty.”

He found the words. “I have a decently short list of people I trust with my life, and until several minutes ago, you were on it. But now I've just watched you... selfishly manipulate a shipload of people.” She suppressed a laugh. “What?” he said. “What's so funny?”

“'Selfishly manipulate people'?” She guffawed. “That is literally the only thing anyone does, ever.”

He narrowed her eyes at her. In response, she rolled hers. “Oh, come on. If you're doing something mean, it's because it helps you. If you're doing something nice, it's because it makes you feel good about doing something nice, which helps you.” As he continued to stare, she snorted. “And who are you to talk, Mr. 'Manipulate ponies into becoming friends so I can use the Elements of Harmony'?”

He sputtered. She noticed that?

“Yeah, I noticed that,” she said, as if she could read his thoughts. “I mean, I didn't mind that much, but you absolutely set the whole thing up.”

“That—that was to save the world!”

“Which you happened to be in at the time? Pot to kettle, Mr. Selfish.” She smirked. “Trust me, once you realize this big fact about the world, everything fits. It's one of a very few good things I've done for my psyche. Just go with it.”

He sighed and gazed at the wall opposite his own. “Qeta gave her life to try to stop Macrin.”

“I'm sure she didn't mean to die horribly. We aren't counting mistakes, are we?”

“And Lyra is your best friend.”

The Doctor hadn't wanted to play that card, but Bon Bon was becoming intolerable. At least it had worked; though he waited for several seconds, she did not retort. So now I can justify this acidic feeling in my digestive tract. Brilliant.

He looked over at her, and she at him, but her eyes had lost their vindictive glint. “Look, earlier, when I said I want to care but I can't? That was true. I want to. And she's why.” There was a look in her eyes that pled with him to, at least this once, believe her. “I mean, being her best friend in the whole wide world—I still don't know why she puts up with me, and I don't know why I can click with her, but it's amazing and I'd like to be able to build on that, but....”

She rubbed her forehead with a hoof. The Doctor waited a few seconds, then prompted, “But?”

“But... do you remember what using the Elements of Harmony felt like?”

Taken aback as he was by the question, the Doctor thought he recovered nicely. “Rather pleasant, as I recall,” he said with a grin. “And quite nice if you're feeling on a bit of a power trip, which, if I'm being honest....” Dangerous territory, he realized. “Anyway, um, you?”

“I saw the whole world. Every blade of grass, every speck of dust, and I loved it all. Poured my heart into it.” She shivered and looked him with the wide eyes of fear. “And I think that if I ever have to do it again, it'll rip what heart I've got to shreds, because I can't do it. I cannot care about the whole world. I can manage to care about Lyra, but....” She turned away with what sounded like, but could not have been, a laugh. “Limited resources. What if I overextend and lose her? I'm terrified of that.”

“Is that a lie?”

“I don't lie about Lyra.” After a second, she scrunched up her face. “Wait, hang on, no. I don't lie to Lyra.”

“Well, even accepting this as gospel, it wouldn't hurt to, y'know....” He shrugged. “Be polite?”

“Yeah, maybe... I don't know. I mean, I'm still the queen 'b'. Why give anyone false impressions? I'm a big fan of honesty, remember?” She smirked without looking at him. “And besides, ponies are selfish. Lyra's an exception, but the rest... I mean, look at me.”

“Sure.” He patted her shoulder, but she shied away from the touch. “Not to sound too pointed, Bon Bon, but I, ah....”

“No sugarcoating.” She smiled briefly. “Oh hey, that's funny. Get it?” she said, tapping the candies on her flank.

“I hope I never agree with you.”

“Well, at least I thought it was funny,” she said, standing up and making to walk toward Rarity.

“Look, Bon Bon—”

“Missiles launching in thirty seconds.”

The words sliced through the Doctor's frame of mind like a laser cutter through a medieval fortress; there was no context for them. That can't be right. We stopped the launch. His eye twitched. We cut off the wiring. They can't reactivate it.

“Twenty-eight... twenty seven.”

“Adelbrand?” he said, getting on his hooves. “What's going on?” He turned to see the captain with one hoof on the missile button. “Adelbrand, what are you doing?”

Adelbrand narrowed his eyes at the Doctor, then turned to face the rest of the Duchy. “Saving the world, Doctor.”

“This is amazing!” Ermi's voice was not really staying in whisper territory as she activated, adjusted, and reactivated the sonic screwdriver. Over and over and over again, to the point that Applejack was getting a headache from the repetitive whistling.

She glanced over at Pinkie, but if she was annoyed as well, she didn't show it. To be fair, annoyance was not generally something Pinkie showed, but then neither was what Applejack saw: the most subdued smile she'd ever seen on that mare's face. What was more, she wasn't even talking Applejack's ear off. I guess everyone copes in different ways, Applejack mused. Who'd have thought that Pinkie's response was to go sane?... wow, that was cruel-hearted.

“Sorry,” she said, half-aloud.

Behind her and to her left, Lorio gave her a queer look. “Sorry about anything in particular?”

“What's there to be sorry about?” Ermi said, poking her rump with the sonic screwdriver. It was as if all of Pinkie's usual hysteria had been transplanted into the bull. “Look at this!” The fact that Applejack did not turn around, or acknowledge hearing her, did not seem to register as Ermi got on her hind legs and jammed the screwdriver into an overhead light. As she activated it, the light started flashing all different colors, switching between them more quickly than Applejack could count. “The lights don't even do that!”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Great to see you're pleased with yourself.”

“Myself? What? No, it's this beautiful piece of metal! I swear, I am not giving this back.”

“Ermi,” Lorio teased, “you know you have to give it back. And I don't know how the captain would feel about you having toys on board the ship.”

“This isn't a toy!” She whipped around to him and laughed. “It's practically a superpower!”

“Great,” Applejack muttered. “Now all we need is a pile of body parts, and you two will be in bull heaven. You really were made for each other.”

“That's what I've been saying!” Lorio exclaimed, but Ermi ignored him to yank open an access panel and let it clatter to the floor.

Well, Applejack thought, putting a hoof over her face, so much for “quietly making our way through”. “Can you, uh....” She turned to Pinkie and rubbed her temple as the screwdriver's whine pierced her brain again. “Can you get them to calm down? And I really can't believe I'm asking you that.”

“Did you ever notice how much pink looks like red looks like blood?” she said, her tone chipper and polite.

“What?” Applejack said. Once she'd taken a few seconds to process this remark, she responded with a much more appropriate “What?”

“So it basically feels like I'm covered in blood right now.” With a little chuckle, she started hopping up and down the corridor. “And orange is kinda reddish too, so you really need to take a bath.”

So much for coping. Or going sane. “Pinkie, you're not really feeling okay, are you,” she said.

“No, I'm fine. We're gonna get through this and all have a great time, and then I'm gonna go back to Ponyville and eat Sugarcube Corner. And if I'm lucky, maybe the sugar rush'll make me forget I ever ever EVER met her—”

She giggled. “Sorry! Just a penpals thing.” Then she'd thrown on her polite little smile, as one might throw on an ill-fitting pair of overalls. “Were we going? I think we were going. I should take a bath.” And like that she was bouncing down the corridor.

Applejack ran up beside her. “You sure you don't wanna talk about it?”

“About who?” She gave Applejack a big wink and a painful grin.

“Hey, everyone!”

They turned around at Ermi's voice and saw her beaming at the sonic screwdriver. “Good news! Either I've gone crazy—” Wouldn't be any surprise, Applejack thought “—or I've figured out how he reads this thing!”

“Oh, really?” Lorio said, looking over her shoulder at what, to him, would have to be a gray stick. “What's it say?”

“I think it's something about the fuel... no, hang on, I get it!” She did a little hoof pump. “It says that the girls have all been released! All right!”

Lorio took a step back, as if the ship had started to fall again. “The... girls? Isn't that what you call the....”

“Right, yeah, you guys call them the Warbots,” Ermi said, waving him off, “but this is amazing! And I think I am seeing the fuel capacity, and we're at something like twenty five percent overall. Wow, that’s kinda….” She looked back up at him. “Did I say the girls have all been released?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Oh.” She looked over at Applejack and Pinkie almost pityingly.

Pinkie Pie spoke once more, in a tone appropriate for discussing the humidity. “Warbots? So, like Bullbots, but more War-y?”

“Yeah,” Ermi replied. “It will be a problem. They are very good at killing things.”

“Of course,” Applejack said, though she wasn't certain the attempt at bravado was useful for anyone involved. Certainly it didn't mask her own feelings. After all, if Bullbots had been so hard of a fight, what would Warbots be like? “How do we fight them?”

“In general, we don't,” Lorio said.

Applejack took a deep breath. “All right, then get specific. How do we fight them?”

Lorio's only response was to slump his shoulders and give her a sad smile—or was it pity she was looking at again? “Oh, for the love of... what, do you wanna fight em off, or do you wanna pick over the corpses after they kill us?”

“No corpses!” Pinkie Pie burst in with a slightly larger grin on her face. “No one's dying, why would anyone be dying?” She shook herself like a wet dog.

“We really can't fight them. They're really amazing at killing things.” A bit of a rictus made its way onto Ermi's face. “I don't think I've ever gotten to see them do it in person, so that'll be—”

“You are all INSANE!” Applejack bellowed.

Everyone shut up and stared at her. “I am trying to save everyone here from your boulder-headed killing machines—” she jabbed her hoof into Ermi's nose, and she recoiled “—and you can't get your head on straight enough to give me a level answer about how we fight them!” When Ermi did not respond, Applejack continued, “Don't you get it? I don't care worth a peach's pit about how amazing your machines are! We are going to die!”

“I'm gonna be over here now,” Pinkie said, jumping away.

“And you!” Now her hoof went toward Lorio's face. “What the hay kind of doctor is okay with any kind of war? You Betaurans are all crazy! But you!” She whirled around and pointed at Pinkie. “You're making them look like newcomers to the crazy competition!”

“Can't hear you!” Pinkie sang.

Applejack screamed in frustration and drove her leg into one of the walls. Within a second she was regretting this choice of action as her hoof screamed right back at her; biting back several swear words, she collapsed to the ground in pain. “Crazy,” she muttered, holding her hoof. Her anger had burned itself out like a firework, leaving resentful ashes in its wake.

It was a few seconds before someone broke the silence. To Applejack's surprise, it was Ermi. “Qeta was really good at working through fights like this.”

“Who?” Pinkie yelled.

Ermi shot her an aggrieved look even as her shoulders slumped. “I guess I never paid much attention, but on the long trips when you guys got ship-crazy and started yelling—” she indicated Lorio with a tilt of her head “—she'd always be the one diffusing the bomb. She loved doing that.”

Lorio sighed. “They say you don't know what you've got, until....”

“Yeah... we'll make do for now.” Ermi lifted a hoof over Lorio's back, then seemed to forget what it was doing there, and extended it to Applejack. “Get up, pony. We aren't going to fight the Warbots if we can help it; we're going to sneak past them. Ready to move?” When Applejack nodded and stood, Ermi said, “Then get moving. And start hoping.”

Applejack beckoned to Pinkie, and she returned to the group as Ermi walked away from them. They came to a staircase, and Ermi, Lorio, and Applejack entered. Pinkie, however, stayed outside the stairwell and perked an ear up, her face frozen in its travesty of a smile.

“What is it?” Applejack asked, but she had an inkling of what the answer might be. From a distance, she imagined she could hear the sound of metal stomping on metal, again and again with military precision.

“One party, coming up,” Pinkie said, stepping into the stairwell with a shiver.

Stay tuned: War of the Worlds will resume in just a moment.

War of the Worlds (b)

We now return to War of the Worlds.

There was an explosion going off in Captain Adelbrand’s mind—a preview of coming attractions. He smiled as the Duchy hovered unaware in front of him, and as the countdown said “twenty-six”. You've got less than a minute, you piece of dirt.

“You can't do this, Adelbrand!” the Doctor yelled. So focused was Adelbrand on his target that he did not notice the alien's leap in time. He whipped his head around, striking the Doctor in the gut with the side of his horn, but the Doctor had already pressed the missile button and cancelled the launch.

Adelbrand stared at him as he lay winded on the ground. “You can't do this,” the Doctor wheezed.

Why would he object... oh. Adelbrand had to chuckle at this, the one note of levity he'd experienced all night. “I see. You think my target is Equestria—that I mean to spark Macrin's war. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.”

He faced the window once more. “The missiles will launch, and they will strike the bridge of the Duchy, executing Lieutenant Macrin and Pilot Luso for their crimes of treason and murder. My ship will be retaken, and justice will be done.” With more force than he meant, he slammed a hoof on the missile button again.

“What?” the Doctor said, as the countdown restarted. “You can't! Bon Bon, tell him he can't!”

Adelbrand peered back at the Doctor, who was now on his hooves again and pleading with Bon Bon. However, she shrugged. “You have to admit, it would solve literally all of our problems. Go ahead, Captain,” she said with a glance in his direction. Adelbrand did not deign to respond to this. As if the Captain should wait for a visitor's assent.

“Twenty... nineteen...”

“No,” the Doctor said, stepping forward. “Adelbrand, you have to stop.”

Adelbrand peered back at him. Surely there had to be some miscommunication. “I am not firing at your planet, Doctor—or should I say, your adoptive planet. Did you not hear me?”

“I know exactly where you intend to fire those missiles,” the Doctor said. “And I can't let that happen.” He took a step forward, but Adelbrand lowered his head, displaying his horns. “If you don't like it, you'll have to kill me first.”

Bon Bon zipped over to stand between Adelbrand and the Doctor. “Oh no you don't,” she said. “No deathwishes!”

“Do you need to regrow your mind as well as your leg?” Adelbrand said. His voice, despite his desire to keep it at a professional volume, was rising. “I'm trying to save your planet from war—I'm trying to do my duty as a captain! Now stay out of my way!”

“Six... five...”

“This isn't duty,” the Doctor yelled, “this is revenge! Macrin betrayed you, and now you want to get him back!” Abruptly he weaved around Bon Bon and darted forward; Adelbrand was too slow to stop him from pressing the button once more, but he did catch the stallion with his horns across the temple. The Doctor collapsed.

“Don't do that!” Bon Bon said, shoving a leg under his head at the last moment to stop it striking the floor.

“How are you so blind?” Adelbrand roared. “He blew off your leg! He tried to kill Ermi! He did kill Qeta! And he will kill thousands more on the planet below—or do you not care about them, alien?”

The Doctor pulled his head off Bon Bon's leg to glare at Adelbrand, but did not respond. Adelbrand bent down to his level and hissed, “You've made your point. You've proven that you have no idea what it means to make the hard choices, no stomach to do what's necessary. But I am the Captain of this vessel, personally chosen by the Archdukes themselves, and by all that is just, Lieutenant Macrin is going to die.” He stood and pressed the button for the final time.

“Missiles launching in thirty seconds.”

“This isn't the hard choice.”

Adelbrand glanced down at the Doctor, who glared at him still. The Doctor continued, “You're drunk on grief and duty, and on the belief that if you just kill the right person, the pain will vanish and you'll be whole. Killing can't fill the void, Captain—it just opens it wider.”

He pulled himself to a shaky sitting position. “And you know nothing about the so-called 'hard choice'. You haven't realized that it's actually the easiest choice you'll ever make, because to you it's the only choice. But there's another way. The truly hard way.”

“Twelve... eleven...”

“What?” Adelbrand said, and to his surprise he had to force the words past something in his throat. He couldn’t succumb to emotion, not now.

“Hope.” The Doctor stood to his full height, taller than Adelbrand. “Macrin is an insane murderer, but he was your friend once, wasn't he? There must have been good in him, and there can be again.”

“He killed Qeta,” Adelbrand said, and the words came out with a sob. “He killed her....”

“You can't save her, Captain, but maybe you can save him. Or at least you can try.”

“No,” he said, trying to choke back the tears as the Doctor reached for the button. “No!” He lunged forward, checking the Doctor with his body. “He has to die!”

“Three... two... one... missile launch canceled.”

The Doctor, Adelbrand knew, had not done it, and he certainly had not canceled the launch himself. Through blurred eyes, he looked up at the rest of the bridge. Bon Bon was still beside the Doctor, but Rarity—sitting in the corner of the room—had a blue aura playing around her horn. Looking back at the control panel, he saw the same aura on the depressed button.

“Why,” he said. “Why did you....” He pulled himself off the Doctor and staggered over to Rarity, who watched him with an expression of near composure. “Qeta was your friend. She said only the best things about you.”

She made a small smile. “I like to think that she's still my friend, now and always. But everyone deserves a first impression... and a second chance. At least, that's my philosophy... and I may not be a captain or a Time Lord, but I like to think it's a decent one.”

Adelbrand felt a hoof on his shoulder, and turned to see that it was the Doctor's. “I made a promise earlier,” he said. “'No one else dies today—not one soul.' You've still got a soul, Captain, and despite everything so does your friend. Don't rip yours apart for grief's sake.”

Adelbrand locked his jaw, because he was afraid that whimpers would spill out if he did not. “Make the right choice,” the Doctor said. “The true hard choice.”

Bon Bon walked up behind the Doctor. “Always the optimist?” she asked.

He smiled back at her. “I haven't given up on it yet.”

She stood for a few seconds more, contemplating this, and then yelled, “Ship!” After a moment, Adelbrand realized that the module had had no pilot for over a minute, and was drifting sideways and downward.

He pulled himself rudely to his hooves and groped at controls he could hardly see, but with difficulty he found the steering and pulled them back on course. Then, he wiped his eyes and tapped a few more buttons on the panel with a hoof, and finally the missile control button. In his peripheral vision, he saw the Doctor start forward and open his mouth, but there was no need.

“Missiles locked for one day.”

He turned back to face the group behind him. “When we redock,” he said in a heavy voice, “Macrin won't be able to fire them. And I....” Realizing he could hardly see them, he blinked a few times; it had little effect. “I am afraid I cannot act as the pilot any longer. I'll need one of you to—” Choking on his words, he gestured dumbly at the controls behind him. Without waiting for someone to take the helm, he made his way to a corner, collapsed there, and stopped trying to hold back his sobs.

Applejack stopped Ermi before they exited the stairwell, blocking Pinkie and Lorio as well. “Before we get into dangerous territory,” Applejack said, “I gotta know; what's different about Warbots compared to Bullbots?”

“Heavier armor... guns inside the horns... and a video camera that links up with the ship and the rest of the Warbots.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “So they can take our picture?”

Pinkie Pie forced a chuckle behind them: Ermi ignored it. “Yes, and then they can send it to all the others to let them know where we are. Once one finds us, the rest can follow.”

“How many are there?”

“Ten.”

“Anything else I should know about them?”

“You will lose in a straight fight.”

“Great,” Applejack muttered. “Well, let's get moving.” She stepped forward, but Ermi held her back. “What?”

“Wait,” Ermi said. A few seconds passed. “Okay, now.” Applejack had no idea what she'd heard, but it didn't seem like a good time to argue, so she followed Ermi as she walked up the corridor, then stopped. After a moment of hesitation, she made an urgent hoof-signal to start heading the other way, and Applejack obeyed without making any annoyed noises.

They continued in this fashion for several minutes: a hushed dash here, a u-turn there. Through it all, Applejack heard none of the metal on metal noises that had characterized the Bullbots' appearances, and she was beginning to be reminded of times Apple Bloom had come to her in the night as a younger filly, claiming to have heard a monster walking through the house.

“Can't we just—” she started to say, before some force shut her mouth. She glared at Lorio, whose horns were glowing and who, without looking at her, raised a hoof to his own lips. Oh, come on, she wanted to say. I was whispering.

“But why can't we—” Pinkie Pie said, a bit louder; then, Lorio's magic was squeezing her lips shut too. Ermi stared at the two of them for a moment with wide eyes, then took off at a dead run in the opposite direction from where they'd been going. Lorio followed right after her, leaving Pinkie and Applejack in the corridor. They looked at each other in confusion, and Applejack got the impression that they were sharing a thought: They can't be THAT close, can they?

Then, Applejack heard a shot ring out. She flinched and looked over her shoulder to see a bulky mass of metal charging at them, yet she could not hear a single hoofstep. She and Pinkie started running, and not a moment too soon: as they turned the corner that Ermi and Lorio had turned left at, Applejack heard a second shot fire behind her. The bullet flew past her and struck a metal wall at the other end of the corridor with a loud retort.

“You idiots,” Ermi hissed as they regrouped against the wall. “I'll bet you thought they were far away.” When Pinkie nodded, she continued, “They know how not to be heard, and now one's coming for us. If we're very lucky—”

A metal tentacle snaked around the corner of the wall and fired. Somehow, Pinkie managed to pull Applejack to the ground fast enough that the bullet sailed over their heads. Meanwhile, Lorio fired up his magic and, neck bulging with the strain, twisted the tentacle past the corner and out of Applejack's field of vision. She heard another shot, an immediate impact, and then nothing but Lorio breathing heavily.

“Thanks,” she said to Pinkie.

“For what?” Pinkie replied. Applejack rolled her eyes, then—unable to restrain her curiosity—darted to the corner and got her first look at the Warbot.

They don't have much imagination, these Betaurans. The Warbot was identical to a Bullbot, save for a few details. It was covered in thick armor that increased its width by perhaps three inches, its tentacles had holes at the ends for shooting, and its head was utterly destroyed. Of course, Applejack realized, that was not usually a feature of the Warbot: Lorio had forced it to fire upon itself.

“So are we good?” she asked, poking the thing that had once been its head. Ermi slapped her hoof away. “Watch it!”

“Didn't I tell you that they coordinate?” Ermi said. “Now they all know where we are. Can you hear them?”

Applejack strained her ears, but the ship might as well have been one of the apple orchards at three in the morning for all the noise she heard. When she shook her head, Ermi said, “And you're not going to hear them no matter how close they are. So shut up, count yourself lucky that I know what to listen for, and follow.”

Applejack bit her tongue and did as she was told as Ermi set off at a quick jog down the corridor. She turned left and right, went up and down stairwells, without any apparent rhyme or reason. On any normal night, Applejack would have been able to outpace her, but it had to be early in the morning by this point, and she was already tired and sore-legged from kicking Bullbots. It wasn't long before she couldn't stop herself from panting loudly, let alone keep her hoofsteps quiet.

“I don't... know if I can... keep up,” she said. No one in the group seemed to notice her complaint, as she slowly but surely lagging behind them. Come on, Applejack, she thought. You're the best darned athlete this side of Equestria. If a bunch of ornery bulls can keep this up, you can! The mental motivation did either little or nothing to help; she couldn't tell which.

“Can you just...” she tried. Pinkie, at least, glanced back at her, but the two Betaurans didn't even give her that courtesy. Right, I forgot. It's 'always leave a bull behind' with these fellas. What a bunch of—

A bullet ripped into her side. She cried out and tumbled to the floor, biting her tongue hard and fast enough to draw blood in an attempt to control the pain, the tearing of the flesh that she didn't have the heart to look at—

Focus, she told herself, and looked up. The corner was less than a foot away from her, but one abortive attempt at moving her hind legs told her that was much too far. She cringed, and chanced a look back over her own flesh at the Warbot—or rather, Warbots; four of them advanced on her in cold silence. All of their horns pointed right at her. She gritted her teeth and waited.

Then she felt hooves around her forelegs; someone was grabbing her and pulling her back. As the Warbots' bullets flew over her head, she looked up and opened her mouth to thank Pinkie Pie again, but it was Lorio pulling her from harm's way. Within the second he had her around the corner.

“I thought you didn't,” she started to say, before a fresh wave of pain made her seize up.

“Wow, Applejack!” Pinkie Pie was on the ceiling above her. Applejack ignored this. “Don't let Rarity see you like that, she'll probably say that shade of red clashes! Haha!” She blew on a party horn, then dropped to the floor. “Gotta say, Qeta wore it better. I give it a nine out of nine out of nine out of....”

She trailed off. The Warbots had to be feet away. “You got shot, didn't you?” she said in the voice of a small child who'd found her cat lying motionless in the road. Applejack nodded. “Qeta's not coming back, is she?” Applejack shook her head.

Pinkie dropped for a moment like an unwatered flower. Then, worryingly, she started to vibrate. Her eye twitched at a million miles an hour, but besides that her face was covered in absolute seriousness. “Not again,” she muttered. “Not again not again not again not again not again—” And then she was gone.

“Don't—” Lorio said, as Pinkie Pie disappeared into the corridor. Gunfire erupted, but after the first few shots it was drowned out by the sounds of cannon fire, party favors, and pinball collisions.

Then, everything was silent, save for some white noise that could have been the wind’s whisper.

Applejack gritted her teeth—she had to see this. Doing her best to ignore the pain, she let herself flop over into the corridor and twisted her neck. There were the four Warbots, covered in dozens of dents and innumerable pieces of confetti. Behind all of them stood Pinkie Pie who still had the same wild, unfocused stare in her eyes, whose mouth still ran like a waterfall. Applejack realized that the white noise was her constant muttering. “Not again not again not again not again not again not again...”

She took a deep breath, and then another. “I'm okay,” Applejack gasped, even as the pain wracking her body made her doubt this statement. Pinkie Pie simply stood there and kept heaving breaths.

“Get back up here,” Lorio said, roughly pulling her against the wall. A small voice in Applejack's head told her that he was probably being gentle, and that it felt rough because of her injury, but she didn't have the patience for that small voice at the moment.

She glowered at him as he peered at her wound. “See,” she whispered, “this is why y'all shouldn't have brought guns.”

“You assume so much about us,” he muttered. “That we share the same philosophy because we share the same planet. That because we have weapons, we must therefore love war.”

Applejack snorted, even though it was painful. “Your brother can't stop talking about it.”

“He's too young.”

“My little sister's just a filly, and you won't hear her—”

A sudden spurt of his magic pressed the bullet against the wound, and her words were cut off by a strangled yell. Lorio glared at her with gritted teeth and contempt in his eyes. “You are ignorant,” he said. “So I will tell you a few things.

“My father—our father—fought in the Last Grand Unifying War. I was old enough to remember the last time he left home, before the final offensive. And I remember him telling me the true purpose of war.” Without warning, his magic yanked the bullet from her wound, and she winced in pain. “Peace. And we've had it on our planet since then, and I swear to you that the cost was worth it.

“Luso,” he continued, pulling a vial from one of his coat's pockets, “wasn't born yet. And I love my little brother, but he is a young fool when it comes to war and glory. But these are his faults. He never received that wisdom. He never went to that funeral.”

His glare was now almost as painful as Applejack's wound. She turned her head to the floor. “Do you understand now?” he said. “If I decided that your personal flaws were common to your species, I might conclude that Equestrians are boorish, backward, and afraid of change. And too quick to judge before you know the facts.”

Here he closed his eyes to concentrate, and magic poured from his horns into her flesh, regrowing it. Within a few seconds, he was breathing heavily, and Applejack could not feel any more ripping pain from her side—just a persistent weakness. She didn't feel like she was up for much kicking, but maybe she'd be able to stand.

“But I....” Lorio took a deep breath before concluding, “But I am a scientist. And I am always willing to take new evidence into account. Now don't get shot again; I don't have many more healing spells in me.” He turned and started walking away.

“Wait!” Applejack said. He stopped and looked back at her. “I'm....” What the heck am I? she wondered. I might not be shooting anyone, but I'm acting as much a cad as his little brother.

As he stood there, she made a decision, and with many a wince stood up. Well, one thing I'm not is afraid of change. “I'm sorry about your dad,” she said. “And, uh... do you wanna take a blood sample?”

He narrowed his eyes at her for a second; then, a big smile pulled back his lips.

It was easy enough to ignore the pink monstrosity at the end of the corridor—she had to be a monstrosity: what else could take down four of her girls within seconds?—and so Ermi did just that in favor of kneeling at each Warbot in turn. On each she rested a hoof, closing her eyes in a moment of silence.

Once she'd done this for all four of them, she looked up to Pinkie and said, “We should go.” Pinkie didn't seem to hear her for a moment and stared past her, but then something seemed to click, and the pony gave her a sad smile. She walked toward Ermi at a reserved pace, and Ermi fell in with her.

“Do you ever feel bad for fireworks?” Pinkie said after a while.

Ermi stopped and peered at her. “What?”

“Fireworks? You know, bang boom razzadoom, but teeny-weeny? Not a missile, just for fun?” Ermi shook her head. Pinkie continued. “So you shoot them up into the air, and they make a whooshing noise, like this.” She whistled long and low. “And then, whapow!” She threw her hooves in the air. “Big explosion! Lights and pretty colors and cover your ears!”

There was something Ermi wasn't understanding. “Why would you feel bad for them?”

“Because then they're gone!” Pinkie dropped back to the ground with a frown. “They're gone in like a second, and I'm just thinking, why can't they be in the sky all the time? Why can't you look up whenever, and see fireworks hanging there?”

“If you want durable, try robots,” Ermi said, stroking the dented back of one of the Warbots as she walked past it. “They won't let you down. Not unless people make them let you down.”

“Yeah, except... that's not the point of fireworks, is it?” Pinkie was smiling at her again. “You're not supposed to feel bad for them after the show's over. You're just supposed to be happy you got to watch them shine in the first place.”

We weren't ever talking about fireworks in the first place, were we. Ermi wasn't quite sure what to do, but she thought a nod might help. Pinkie seemed to accept it; she nodded back, and trotted forward. Ermi, on the other hand, slowed down and gazed back at her girls on the floor. You know... maybe I should stop calling them 'girls'. They're robots. They don't have genders.

She shrugged and rounded the corner, where Lorio and Applejack were—for some reason—smiling at each other. “Applejack!” Pinkie exclaimed, leaping forward and hugging her friend. “You're okay!”

“Whoa there, tiger,” Applejack said, wincing. “It's not a hundred percent yet.”

“Sorry sorry sorry.” Pinkie loosened her grip. “Hey, you like watching fireworks, right?”

“Uh... I guess?”

Pinkie beamed, and her grip retightened; she didn't seem to notice Applejack's second wince. Doing her best to conceal the pain, Applejack said, “So, uh, should we keep moving? I thought those Warbots were coordinated, and they were all gonna swarm or something. Unless you can pull another stunt like that, Pinkie.”

“One time thing,” she replied, her voice muffled by the orange coat she was pressing her face against. “Unless something bad happens to you again. Please don't have something bad happen to you again.”

“We have ten girls—Warbots, and five have just been taken out of commission,” Ermi said. “But I'm guessing that those were the only five on this module. The rest would be waiting on Duchy-5, to ambush the other group....” As the implications reached her, she trailed off. “We should keep moving.”

“Okay,” Applejack said, prying Pinkie off her side. “But... slower this time?”

Upon Macrin's return from deploying the Warbots, he opened the bridge door to see Luso glaring at him. “We need to talk,” Luso said.

“Macrin, you need to stop,” said a voice in Macrin's head. He ignored this in favor of returning Luso's glare.

“We need to talk, sir,” he corrected.

“I'm not sure I'd go that far anymore.” Luso turned and jabbed at a screen on one side of the console. “Care to explain what's going on there?”

On the screen, Macrin recognized the confused scene of a battle through one of the Warbots' cameras. There, in front of the Warbot, was Applejack, who yelped in pain like a child as a bullet hit her side. Macrin grinned in triumph, then watched as Lorio darted out from behind the wall and pulled her back with his magic, just barely dodging more bullets himself.

Luso pressed a button to the right of the screen, stopping the video, then glared back up at Macrin. “Explain.”

Macrin noticed that, with the video stopped, the screen had become black and reflective; he quickly looked back at Luso and said, “Explain what?”

“Why my brother almost got killed.”

Macrin snorted. “Because he got in the way. Have you never heard of collateral damage, Pilot?”

“That's a load of crap, sir.” Luso slammed a hoof on the screen. “The Warbots shouldn't have fired on him at all, if you told them to detain only. In fact, why did you use the Warbots? Bullbots alone would be sufficient.”

“Macrin, you have to stop.”

Shut up, Macrin thought. “I don't have to justify myself to you,” he said, closing his eyes and turning away from his pilot.

“We had an agreement, Macrin.” Judging by where Luso's voice was coming from, he'd walked right in front of Macrin's face. “No one on the crew gets killed.”

Macrin gritted his teeth. “And they haven't—”

“Well, they've come pretty damn close!” Luso yelled. Macrin winced at the noise, and turned away. “Macrin, I said I wasn't going to ask why you dropped those modules, but you can consider that promise rescinded. I want answers.”

“Tough,” Macrin said, opening his eyes and fixing Luso with a glare he wouldn't be able to ignore. “You're going to do your mission, soldier, and you're going to do it without—”

“Macrin, it's me.”

“SHUT UP!” he roared, whirling around to face the screen where he knew that that coward would be waiting for him. There she was, with those frightened eyes as his horn entered her chest. “I told you not to follow! It's your fault, not mine! You made me kill you, Qeta!”

He panted and watched her crumple to the ground, then lifted a hoof to wipe the blood from his horn. When his hoof came down unstained, he wiped harder, only to realize that his horn was clean, and that Luso was staring at him in horror.

“You... killed Qeta?” he said.

Macrin bared his teeth. “Qeta committed suicide on my horn.”

“You lying son of a—what is wrong with you?” Luso yelled. “You... you promised!”

“Consider that promise rescinded, soldier.” Macrin took a step forward. “What's wrong? You didn't realize that people died in wars?”

Luso ran a frantic hoof across his forehead. “They die in wars! Not us! This wasn't what I....” He lowered his head, displaying his horns, and dragged a hoof along the ground. “I'm going to stop you.”

Macrin snorted. “Then you're committing suicide too.” As Luso charged him, Macrin raised his light cannon and fired.

The bolt caught Luso in one of the horns, breaking it off at the tip. Luso roared as his magic flared up, but with one horn damaged it became unstable; Macrin felt its force fling him like a dummy across the room, and he landed in a corner near one of the tears. When he found his bearings several seconds later, Luso had disappeared. The boy must have run. So much the better.

“Macrin, you need to—”

“Stop TALKING!” He raised his cannon again and fired, shattering the window. A gust of wind threw the broken fragments of glass at his side like dust in a sandstorm. Against all his will, he collapsed to the ground, feeling the pieces dig into his skin.. He's wrong. They're wrong, not me. I can't be wrong. Not after all this.

Gritting his teeth, he stood up and faced the controls with new purpose. I am not wrong. A new day will dawn with fire and thunder upon the planet below, and they will know the truth.

It had taken some coaxing, but Rarity had agreed to take over from Adelbrand as the module's pilot. She stood where he had, her magic operating the various controls with, if not confidence, at least a basic competence.

The Doctor rested against a wall; he had a feeling he'd be needing his strength soon, and he was after all quite tired. Bon Bon was in a corner across from him, her expression brooding—though he knew she could have faked any emotion and he'd have bought it. As for Adelbrand, he paced the room randomly, like a scrap of paper in the wind—and after his earlier breakdown, he seemed about as substantial. All vestiges of his earlier captainly performance had crumbled.

After several minutes of this, and a few rough jolts from Rarity's piloting, Adelbrand landed next to the Doctor and sank into the wall. The Doctor glanced at him, but when it didn't seem like he was ready to talk, he looked away. No use in trying to force him. He instead began flexing and twisting his new foreleg; it had acquitted itself honorably in its first few hours, and he didn't want that changing.

“You were right, you know,” Adelbrand finally said.

The Doctor made an inquisitive grunt; anything more verbose seemed inappropriate.

“Macrin and I met in school. My father set it up with his mother—old war buddies. And Macrin really was a great friend back then. The best friend ever.” He looked upward with the vacant expression of remembrance. “We fired rockets off the cliffs into the barren deserts below, and laughed until our parents found out. And when the rain forced us inside, we'd confide everything in each other. All the bad, and all the good.” He paused for a minute, then added, “Come to think of it, sessions like those became more one-sided as we aged—he didn't say as much. I didn't notice. I was always happy to have a friend.”

“Funny thing; the ponies from around here put a lot of stock in that.” The Doctor shrugged his one shoulder. “Well, I understate.”

“‘The ponies around here’, but not you?” Adelbrand looked over at him for a moment, then snorted. “I suppose not. You look so similar, but... what did they call you? Time Lord?”

“Species name, yeah. Sorry if it sounds a bit pompous, which, in fairness, it is.”

“And you're the only one?”

The Doctor stared at him with his jaw slightly agape. “What?”

“On this planet, I mean. You're the only one of your species in Equestria.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Relieved, the Doctor sank back into the wall. “Last of the Time Lords here.”

Adelbrand looked away again, contemplative. “It must be hard for you.”

“Less than you'd think,” the Doctor said, shrugging. “And then again, maybe more than I'd think.”

“The responsibility of a whole culture riding on your shoulders.”

“What?” The Doctor hooted. “Responsibility? I escaped my planet ages ago.”

Adelbrand turned to face him, confused by the Doctor's open-mouthed grin, and said, “Escaped? How could you—why would you escape?”

“Because....” The Doctor rubbed his head. On shorter nights than this, an explanation might have come faster, but it took him perhaps ten seconds to devise a reply. “Because... look up.”

It didn't seem to be any reply Adelbrand had been expecting, but nonetheless he did as instructed, then looked back down in disappointment. “That's the ceiling.”

“I know, you can't see much from here, but....” The Doctor pulled his hoof backward to the wall. “Strip away the ceiling, and...?”

“We'd see the stars.”

“No!” the Doctor said, with an accompanying gesture that almost hit Adelbrand in the face. Reining himself in, he explained: “We'd only see a tiny, laughable fraction of the stars! And that's all the Time Lords ever wanted for us, at least officially. Look, but don't touch! Stay beneath that ceiling, and never interfere! Enough to drive a person mad!” And it might have, he thought wryly. Adelbrand was looking at him like he wasn't sure about that notion one way or the other.

The Doctor let himself relax against the wall once more. “Getting away from that... that was worth an exile. That's worth anything.”

“Was it?”

“Oh yes.” The Doctor looked up at the ceiling—through the ceiling, if he squinted and gave in to imagination. “The universe is too gorgeous a place not to live in.”

They were quiet for a few minutes, and then Rarity spoke up from the controls. “Excuse me, but what control do I use to allow us to dock with the rest of the ship?”

“It, um....” Adelbrand stood and spoke hesitantly. “It activates automatically, if you've come in precisely. Don't, um... worry if you don't get it the first—”

“Oh!” Rarity said, turning around and flashing a surprised smile. “Then I believe we have docked.”

Adelbrand blinked. “The first try?”

“Well, it wasn't too difficult to coordinate, you know.” She winked. “Now come on, we have a rendezvous to make!” Without waiting for assent, she trotted out of the room. Adelbrand followed her, followed by the Doctor, and finally followed by—as he realized several seconds later—no one.

He poked his head back into the bridge and saw Bon Bon still brooding in the corner. “Coming?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” She stood and started walking. “Sorry, just thinking about some things you said.”

“Oh really?” He raised an eyebrow as they fell into lockstep side by side. “And what was the subject?”

“The world, I guess.” After a few seconds of silence, during which they caught up to Rarity and Adelbrand, she added, “And optimism. Which I still think is dumb, but it's nice.”

“I do my best.” The Doctor considered this for a moment, then amended: “Well, to be nice, at any rate.”

The little group reached a door connecting to the rest of the ship, and Adelbrand positioned himself in front. “Remember,” he said, “our main goal for now is to link back up with the other four.”

“Really? Wasn't it to kill your crazy friend?” Bon Bon said.

Adelbrand and Rarity glared at her in the sort of unison that won Olympic medals. The Doctor just sighed. “That was bad, wasn't it,” she said a few seconds later.

He nodded. “Er, a bit entirely, yeah.”

“Okay, sorry,” she said with a frown. “Moving on?” She reached over Adelbrand to press the button that would open the door, but before she'd reached it the door opened on its own. Standing behind it were several of what looked like Bullbots, but with thicker armor and holes at the end of their tentacle-horns—all of which were pointed at them.

Adelbrand made to charge forward, but the Doctor was quicker. “Bad moment,” he said, pushing the button. As the door closed, he heard bullets ricochet off it. “Let's move,” he said, grabbing Bon Bon and Rarity to pull them into a run. Adelbrand followed quickly behind.

“They've activated the Warbots!” Adelbrand said as they turned a corner and ran down the length of the module. Behind them, the Doctor heard the door opening again and the sound of gunfire. “We're going to need to defend ourselves. Follow me!” He surged to the front of the group and took an abrupt right into a narrow corridor. He slammed his hoof into a pad on the wall, and a door beside it opened.

Behind the door were racks of the same sort of light cannon that Macrin had used. “Arm yourselves,” Adelbrand said, slipping his hoof into one of them.

Rarity took an involuntary step back. “If it's all the same, I'd rather not.”

“I don't work well with guns,” the Doctor said. “And neither do my—” He stopped talking as Bon Bon pulled a second cannon onto her hoof. “Oh, come on,” he said as his shoulders slackened.

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “Not the time for screwing around, Doctor,” she said. “How do you fire it, Captain?”

As Adelbrand demonstrated the proper motion, and Bon Bon copied, the Doctor stuck a head out the door. The Warbots' hoofsteps were incredibly light, and he suspected that a normal pony would not perceive the sounds, but his ears told him that they were seconds away. “We need to go,” he said, turning back to the room.

“We can fight them, Doctor!” Adelbrand said.

“Not here,” he said. “Not in this dead end. We need to fight smart. Now come on!” He ran out of the room, away from the faint sounds of metal on metal. Rarity followed immediately; Bon Bon and Adelbrand were only a second later, dashing down the corridor.

As they reached the end, the Warbots reached the beginning, but Adelbrand—at the back of the group—was ready; he spun and fired as he turned the corner, sending a bolt of energy at the lead Warbot. It flinched at the impact, and some of its armor melted, but it was not destroyed, and more were just behind.

“They'll circle around and surround us,” Adelbrand said, resuming his running pace. “We need to change floors immediately.” After a moment, he stopped and turned around; no one was following him. “Are you listening?” he yelled.

“Change floors, you said?” The Doctor grinned. “Oh yes, I listened. Bon Bon!” he yelled, pointing at the section of floor that marked the intersection of the two corridors. “Fire your weapon right there. Do it now.”

“Um, sure?” she said, pointing the cannon downward. Several bolts of light flew out and struck the floor, leaving it red-hot and sagging slightly. As one of the Warbots rounded the corner, its front hoof went right into the floor, followed by the rest of its body. The weakened metal gave way under the weight, and the Warbot fell through with a massive crash. The Doctor heard the others' hoofsteps halt before the hole, before turning and running the other way.

“There,” the Doctor said, peering into the hole. The Warbot lay a floor below, barely recognizable under the molten steel that encased it. “We trick them. We ambush them. And we never fight head-on. You got that?” he asked, as Adelbrand looked through the same hole.

After a long pause, Adelbrand said, “Understood,” and turned around. “Now we need to find that stairwell.”

Adelbrand had a lot to say and no opportunity to do so. He knew how good the Warbots' sense of hearing was; speech would be suicidal at this point. So he simply followed the Doctor out of the stairwell and kept his mouth shut, while his mind boiled over.

“Hey, Macrin,” he remembered saying. “So, how was your first day? As grueling as mine?”

Macrin wore a tired, contented smile as he climbed into the bunk above Adelbrand's. “Everything I hoped for and more. We were born for this, Adelbrand.”

With a groan, Adelbrand flopped onto his own bunk—not very luxurious, or even comfortable, but then boot camp spat on such frivolities as comfort. The room around them was smaller than his old bedroom at home, but was fitted with two bunkbeds. It hardly seemed restful enough for the day he'd just endured, one filled with miles of running, acres of mud, and far too many decibels of volume from drill sergeants. “Maybe you were born for this,” he said. “I'm having my doubts.”

The Doctor stopped dead and looked back at Adelbrand, first jabbing silently at his light cannon, then placing a hoof over his mouth. After a moment, Adelbrand realized that in his distraction he'd been letting the weapon clink on the ground, and lifted it. The Doctor nodded and continued onward, and Adelbrand followed on three legs.

“Oh, by the way, your medication,” Adelbrand said, grabbing the pill bottle from the bedside table. In his fatigue, however, it slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. Sighing, he pulled himself out of his bed, but before he could fumble for the bottle, another hoof had grasped it.

He looked up to see a granite-blue face smiling at him. “No offense, but you've got all the grappling ability of a limp fish.”

Adelbrand snorted. “A what?”

“You know, because... fish don't have... oh, never mind.” She looked up at where Macrin was resting. “Is this for your friend up there? Oh, I'm Qeta, by the way,” she added, glancing back down at Adelbrand. “Looks like we're roommates, though I dunno where the fourth bull is.” She jerked her head back over at the bunk above her own.

“He or she had better appear soon,” Macrin said, leaning down over his railing. “Curfew's already begun. And for that matter, you should be quieter.”

“Oh, lighten up, uh... Macrin, right?” She looked up at him. “What's the worst that could happen? The monsters in the closet will hear us?”

“Get down!” the Doctor yelled, grabbing Adelbrand and pulling him to the side as gunfire sounded behind him. As the two fell into an adjoining corridor, Bon Bon poured several blasts into the floor of the corner. The Warbots, however, did not approach it; evidently they had learned from the last one's destruction.

“Which... which way to Duchy-5?” Adelbrand asked, trying with difficulty to pull himself from memories that didn't want to let go.

“I believe...” Rarity said, closing her eyes and concentrating. “It's that way,” she finished, pointing down the corridor they'd just left. “But I doubt those Warbots will let us pass.”

The Doctor, frowning, untucked his tie from his suit and swung it out past the corner. Several shots rang out, and when his tie swung back it had a hole through the middle. “Dreadful thing to do to a tie,” Rarity said, shivering. “Are they to the left or the right?”

“Left.”

“Then I may have an idea.” Rarity screwed up her face again, and her horn lit up blue, as did the molten piece of floor. She grunted with exertion, and the square of metal tore away from the surrounding floor, rising slowly as a fresh hail of bullets perforated it, and the roar of massive engines filled the room. Then it flew to the left, and Adelbrand heard a wet thunk as it hit what he hoped was a Warbot.

The Doctor swung his tie out again, and when no gunfire came, he poked his head out. A smile came onto his face. “Got one,” he yelled, stepping gingerly over the hole that had been left by Rarity's maneuver. “Now let's move.”

Adelbrand looked left and saw the Warbot twitching, its head and horns cocooned by the molten metal. Then he glanced through the hole and saw not his ship but the city of Canterlot below. He'd forgotten that they were on the bottom level. That would explain the roar of engines.

“Mind the gap, now,” the Doctor said, beckoning to him. “Don't want anything to happen.”

“It's not about what could happen,” Macrin said, “it's about military discipline.”

“But what military?” Qeta smiled. “Think about it. War's over. My mom fought the last fight—losing side, by the way. Fun fact. Didn't actually matter after reconciliation, though, did it, with all the peace and such?” She lifted a hoof in a questioning gesture. “And now? We're the first generation, ever, to not have to fight a war. Heck, I'm only here because it helps me pay for school.”

“Is this... relevant?” Macrin squinted. “And could I please have my pills?”

“Relevant?” Qeta said. “It's the biggest change in a thousand years! Everything is different now! Have you never thought about that?”

“My pills!” Macrin barked.

“QUIET!” roared a voice outside their room. The three of them stiffened and turned toward the door. “IT IS NOW CURFEW!”

Qeta waited half a minute, then whispered, “Sorry. Cheers.” She tossed the pills up to Macrin, then rolled into her bunk. Adelbrand followed suit.

“Thanks,” Macrin said, grabbing the bottle.

Adelbrand was quiet for a while, listening to Macrin fumble with the bottle's lid. “Macrin?” he finally asked. After his friend grunted back, he continued, “If there's no wars anymore, then... what are we doing here?”

“Here we are,” the Doctor was saying, gently pressing the button to the door that separated their module from the rest of the ship. When it opened, and when no Warbots were there to shoot them, the group moved forward. “Hang on,” he said, and the group stopped. He cocked an ear.

“What is it?” Bon Bon whispered.

“Can you hear them?” the Doctor said. “Footsteps—hoofsteps, sorry—and they don't sound metal on metal. Come on!” He ran forward, and Adelbrand, vaguely conscious of his meaning, followed.

Macrin didn't answer right away, but he did stop trying to open the bottle. Eventually, he said, “Adelbrand, there may not be any more need for war, but there will always be a need for soldiers. Bulls who are willing to fight, to die, for what is right and true. The world will always need that.”

“And....” Adelbrand gulped. “What if I'm not... that? What if I'm not a soldier?”

“Then become one. Hold on to what you believe and never let it go. Fight for it with everything you've got, and become the best damn soldier on the planet.”

“Thanks,” Adelbrand said, relaxing a bit. “I think I’ll try that.”

“No problem.”

At last, Adelbrand heard the sound of the lid coming off. “To soldiers,” Macrin said, and though Adelbrand couldn't see him, he knew his friend was raising the bottle as in a toast.

“To soldiers,” Adelbrand said.

“To soldiers,” Qeta repeated. Adelbrand looked over to see her smiling at them. “And good night.”

They ran up a stairwell, burst from it, and almost collided with Applejack. “Rarity!” she exclaimed, quickly embracing her friend. “Bon Bon—Cap—Doc! Hey, gang!” she said, calling up the corridor to Ermi, Pinkie, and Lorio. “They're okay!”

“Doctor,” the Doctor corrected, as those three came and joined them. Pinkie body-checked Applejack out of the way to get Rarity in a hug. “We've taken out two. You?”

“Your pink friend went berserk and destroyed four of them,” Ermi said, “and Lorio took care of a fifth. So by my count there should be....”

She cocked an ear and narrowed her eyes. After a moment, the Doctor seemed to hear it too; the last three Warbots were coming for them. “Let's move,” she said, running in the opposite direction.

“I can't run!” Applejack yelled, limping after the Doctor, Rarity, and Pinkie as they followed Ermi. Bon Bon rolled her eyes and grabbed Applejack, helping her along. For some reason, it was then that Adelbrand realized that he should be running too, and he started.

“Captain?” Lorio asked, running beside him. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. I've just... had a lot to think about,” he said, catching up with the rest of the group as they rounded yet another corner. “Bon Bon, set up a trap.”

“You got it, boss,” she said, firing into the floor.

Ermi's mouth opened wide. “No, don't—”

But the bolt of light was much diminished, and after a few shots the floor didn't even seem warm. “Oh, not now,” she said, shaking the cannon. “What's wrong?”

Ermi grabbed her hoof and lifted it, despite Bon Bon's grunt. “It's been running at max power,” she said. “You've expended everything it's got, thank the Archdukes. Do you realize where we are right now?” Bon Bon shook her head. “Right over the engines,” she hissed. “You destroy that floor, we all fry.”

“All right,” Adelbrand said, pulling his own cannon off and sliding it to Bon Bon. “Put that on, and no traps here.” As she obliged, he turned to Ermi. “How long until they're here?”

“Seconds,” she replied. “We need to find a way to get around them.”

“Brilliant idea,” the Doctor said. “How?”

A moment of silence, and then Bon Bon laughed. “Oh, right!” she said, messing with something hidden in her mane. “I completely forgot I had this. Which I guess makes sense.” She pulled out a simple cord, wide enough to be worn around the neck, with a small metal box on it like a crude amulet.

“The perception filter?” the Doctor said.

“Hang on,” she said, putting it on and then pressing the metal piece. “The Bullbots won't know what hit them,” someone said; Adelbrand wasn't sure who. He squinted. Had there always been seven of them?

“What?” the Doctor said, gaping at nothing as nothing strode into the corridor. “No, Bon Bon, it doesn't... work on robots....”

“Who?” Lorio asked. “Who's 'Bon Bon'? Hey, where are you going—”

For the Doctor had just dashed into the corridor, for no apparent reason. “Bon Bon, wait!” he yelled. Adelbrand chanced a sneak peek around the corner and saw the Doctor tearing forward as a Warbot marched into view. “It won't work on—”

Gunfire erupted as the Doctor tackled something and dove to the side. There was a slight dinging sound, and Adelbrand finally noticed that his hooves were wrapped around Bon Bon, whose cannon had fallen from her hoof. The metal at the end of her necklace had been struck by a bullet. Adelbrand grit his teeth, knowing that soon her flesh and his would follow; there was no cover in the hallway, and all three Warbots were now present, their guns trained on the pair.

But then, something strange happened to the Warbots. A strange yellow mass of light had surrounded them, undulating and flickering weirdly; at moments it resolved itself into a prism, but mostly it was an amorphous blob. Whatever it was, the Warbots were suspended in it, and the bullets from their guns slowed to a halt almost as soon as they were fired, as if traveling through thick gel.

“Destroy them!” a hoarse voice yelled, apparently straining with effort. “Now! I can't control this!”

“Screwdriver!” the Doctor yelled, gesturing at Ermi, who lobbed it to him. With a grunt he thrust a leg forward, kicking Bon Bon's fallen cannon into the magic field, and pointed the screwdriver at it. The cannon glowed white for a moment, whistling at a rapidly increasing pitch—then it exploded, replacing the yellow light with white. Adelbrand shielded his eyes from the blinding flash.

When it subsided, he lowered his hoof and saw Bon Bon and the Doctor lying on the ground. Ermi, for some reason, was running the other way, but Lorio rushed over to them. “Are either of you hit?” he asked. “Please don't say yes. I have very little magic left.”

“I'm fine,” she said. “Just the perception filter got hit.” She prodded it a few times, and seemed to become indistinct, as if viewed through thick gauze. “I think it's broken.”

“Sort of....” The Doctor lifted an eyebrow. “It's like... I can see you, but I'm not sure it's you. Does that make sense?”

“Barely.” Bon Bon shrugged, pressed the device again, and stood, turning to face the now-melted Warbots; black ugly smoke rose from them, obscuring any view of what lay beyond. “So, thanks for saving my life and all, Mr. Racist Prick, but aren't you busy destroying the world?”

“What?” Lorio said, staring at her. “What did you say?”

“Didn't I tell you I'm good with voices?” Bon Bon shrugged. “That 'destroy them'? That was your prick brother.” Lorio gaped at the black smoke.

“Out of my way—” Ermi returned behind Adelbrand, bumping into him as she hefted a fire extinguisher with one hoof. Thick white smoke came out, cooling the melted Warbots enough that the black smoke they emitted started to lose its opacity. Behind it, Adelbrand could just make out a four-horned figure, before it turned and fled.

“No you don't—” Lorio grunted, and his horns lit up. A yellow light gleamed from behind the smoke, surrounding the bull shape and lifting it into the air.

“Get off!” the shape said, thrashing as it approached the veil, until Luso burst through the smoke and was dropped onto the ground. He was a sorry sight, shivering with exertion and pain, and something was wrong with his upper left horn. After a moment, Adelbrand saw what it was and recoiled in disgust; the tip had been broken off, leaving an irregularly pulsing yellow light at the stump.

Lorio glared down at him in anger, and Luso stood shakily and looked behind him, but the destroyed Warbots formed a barricade that was too hot to touch and too high to jump. He turned back and closed his eyes.

Captain Adelbrand stepped forward. “Pilot Luso. You have been complicit in mutiny and treason against a Captain of Gaius, and have attempted to attack a peaceful settlement without provocation. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

“I didn't know,” Luso murmured, his head downcast and his eyes still closed. “I didn't know about her.”

“About who?” Lorio demanded.

Luso took a shaky breath before proceeding. “I suppose I am guilty of treason, and of mutiny, and all that, but... when Lieutenant Macrin and I agreed to this, he promised me that none of us would come to harm. And then he dropped those two sections off the back of the Duchy, and I guess I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what... and then he lost it.”

He looked up at Adelbrand. “He started shouting, like he was hallucinating someone who wasn't there. And he said he'd killed Comm Officer Qeta. Is it true, sir? Is she...?”

Adelbrand, his eyes narrow, nodded. Luso flinched and turned away slightly. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “I'm so, so sorry. I didn't have any idea. If I'd known, I'd never have....”

“Just by the by,” Ermi said, looking up as she continued to cool the molten metal, “he also tried to have me killed.”

Luso flinched again. “The bull's insane, and I'm disgusted I ever let him trick me into this. And he's broken my horn,” he said, glancing at the stump. “I can barely control my magic now—I don't think I'll ever be able to pilot this ship again. So throw me in prison if you want, but first... I'd like to help take him down.” He saluted at Adelbrand. “Former pilot Luso at your command, sir.”

There was a long pause. It can't be a trick, Adelbrand mused. He'd still have his horn if it were a trick... but even so—even if he's genuinely sorry—how am I supposed to work with him?

His thoughts were interrupted as Applejack stepped forward and pressed Luso against the hot metal behind him. “You filthy cur,” she hissed, as Luso cried out in pain. “If your brother hadn't just pulled a bullet out of me, I would buck you so hard your teeth would go into orbit.”

“What—why are you—” Luso yelped.

Applejack pulled him from the metal and threw him to the ground. “So it's okay if thousands of Equestrians die in this big war you're looking to start with your buddy Macrin, right? But as soon as one bull bites it, that's going too far? You rotten, slimy—”

“What do you want from me?” Luso yelled.

She kneeled down to his level, wincing with pain, and grabbed his head. “Inside that rotten apple of a brain, there's a little worm of an idea that's got you thinking Betaurans are better than Equestrians. I want you to pull that worm out and kill it. Because as far as I'm concerned, that notion is the only reason we're in this mess in the first place! Is that clear?” she roared, right into his ear.

A yellow aura emerged at her front, pushing her roughly away from Luso. “That is enough,” Lorio said, stepping forward in her place. “You've made your point, and he understands. You do, don't you, Luso?”

Luso nodded.

Lorio stared at him. “We have a lot to talk about. But for now....” Abruptly he pulled his brother from the floor and into a hug. “Thank you for coming back,” he whispered.

Luso feebly flailed a foreleg for a few seconds before letting it rest on his brother's back. “Uh, thanks,” he said.

“And you are almost certainly going to jail.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I know.”

They stayed locked together in this way for some time, before the Doctor cleared his throat. And after he cleared his throat, too. Eventually, he sighed and said, “We need to move now. Macrin's the only one at the helm now, and I doubt he shares your sense of restraint.” This last comment was emphasized with a nod toward Luso. “Lead the way, Captain,” the Doctor continued.

“All right. Soldiers!” Adelbrand roared. “Move out!” He began marching down the corridor, plotting a course in his head that would take him to the bridge where that piece of filth—

No, he thought, shaking himself. He's my friend. He's made horrible mistakes, he's lost his mind, but maybe there's still a chance. Luso’s turned himself around; maybe Macrin can too.

It took only a few minutes to get to Duchy-6, the final module on the ship, and from there it took a few minutes more to travel its length. Here, the damage from the crash was particularly obvious; Adelbrand found himself stepping over fissures in the metal floor every few steps until he reached the doors to the bridge. Unlike the bridges of the other modules, this one was entered from the rear, and took up the whole of the front of the ship. Its doors were inset with onyx, which had sadly been cracked in the crash, and the button which opened them was... smoking.

“He's destroyed the controls!” Ermi said, grabbing the melted button. “That son of a—” Then, she noticed the two access panels on either side of the door, left open and with slashed wires hanging out. “You're joking.”

“I'm afraid not, Ermi.”

This voice was Macrin's, and though it was muffled by the closed doors, Adelbrand heard its clear note of insanity. “I have every confidence that you, Ermi, and you, Doctor, could force your way into this room, but I strongly advise against it. There is a bomb bay on the underside of this module, whose doors are currently closed. If these doors open—” Adelbrand heard him bang on the doors to the bridge “—then those will follow suit. There will be no countdown.”

“And what would that do?” the Doctor said, grimacing. “You attack Equestria, Celestia destroys your weapons and you with them. Face it, Macrin, even with a whole ship to hide behind you're no match for her!”

“Then I die for what I know is right!” Macrin bellowed. “Because that is what a soldier does!”

It's guilt, Adelbrand realized. He just wants to die at this point. Or am I just hoping that’s true? “Macrin!” he yelled, waving at the Doctor to be silent. “Macrin, you don't have to do this. You can stop. You don't have to die, you can just open the door and walk out. We won't harm you, you can just stop.”

“Or you could just jump,” Bon Bon muttered, quietly enough that Macrin—hopefully—would not hear.

“Of course you won't! Because you've forgotten what we are, Adelbrand. You've forgotten how we fight. And it's all thanks to him.”

“Who?” Adelbrand asked.

“SHUT UP!” Macrin yelled. Adelbrand's eyes widened as he heard several blasts from Macrin's hoof-cannon fire out. “JUST SHUT UP, QETA! SHUT UP!”

“She's not real, Macrin!” Adelbrand pressed himself against the door, as if he could force open five inches of solid steel with body weight alone. “She's gone now. Don't take yourself with her! Just breathe! Like she always told you to, just breathe!”

Silence from the other side for half a minute—then, Adelbrand heard the sound of Macrin's body falling against the other side of the door. When Macrin spoke next, he sounded exhausted. “There's no way back for any of us, Adelbrand. The lines have been drawn. But he tries to deny it, the coward, and he's gotten into your head too.” His voice entered a crescendo.

“Who?”

“The Doctor.” A hoof pounded the door's other side in rage. The Doctor's jaw opened in confusion. “You know, Doctor,” Macrin said, “when you stood up to me in the meeting room, I fancied you brave. You were unafraid to risk life and limb for your beliefs, however ugly they were. But that was farce, wasn't it? I watched you through the Warbots' eyes, and you've gotten your leg back—some Equestrian trickery, no doubt, but it proves one thing. You know nothing about standing for what you believe in—fighting, dying, and killing for what you know is right.”

“You're wrong,” the Doctor whispered. “I know everything, and sometimes it's worth it, yes, Lieutenant—sometimes it's worth it. But not this time. Not today. Just come out.”

“No, Doctor. You come in.”

“What?” the Doctor said.

“This is my bargain, all of you.” Adelbrand heard Macrin stand and step away from the door, as his voice returned to something resembling military discipline. “You will never know what I know, and I will never believe what you believe. There is only one valid judgment left for us—single combat.”

“What?” Bon Bon said.

“Doctor, you will enter this room alone, and you and I will fight one on one. If I kill you, then I was right all along. And if you kill me, then you were right all along. Because I will kill you, or you will kill me. And no one will interfere.”

“Macrin, no,” the Doctor said, his voice rising as well. “It doesn't have to be like this!”

“Wrong, Doctor! It could never have been any other way! So face me!” Adelbrand recoiled as he felt a bolt of light strike the opposite side of the door. “Or prove me right and vacillate outside, until this ship falls out of the sky! Choose, Doctor!”

Stay tuned for the conclusion to War of the Worlds.

War of the Worlds (c)

And now, the conclusion to War of the Worlds.

The Doctor, indulging himself, let himself sink against a nearby wall and hang his head for a minute. Macrin’s really covered all the angles, he realized. I have to go in there.

“Don't do it.”

This was Bon Bon's voice; she rested beside him and laid a hoof on his shoulder. With what seemed a disproportionate effort, he lifted his head to look up and see her mouth set in a firm line. “Don't,” she repeated.

“Bon Bon—”

“Find another way. That's your special talent, isn't it?”

“We can't always live up to our special talents.” He sighed. “No offense.”

“None taken.” She looked away from him for a moment, then peered at him as if through a kaleidoscope, refracting and reforming her view. “You really are exceptional, aren't you.”

“Not sure if an ego boost will help at this point, but thanks.”

“I mean you're an exception.”

He scratched his head. “Oh, you mean I'm being unselfish? Have you forgotten?” He threw a farce of a smile her way. “I'm in the same boat as you. It's my life I'll be saving too.”

“But there is something you're giving up already—that hope that you've got, that....” Her jaw clenched. “Sorry, Doctor.”

“Sorry?” he said, before something blunt struck his head and his brain went to intermission.

“I'm ready,” said the Doctor's voice on the other side of the door. “Let me in, Macrin, and let's finish this.”

Macrin stepped forward, pushed the button, and then turned around before he saw the stallion's face. It would be better to let the weakling attack first, if he so chose. “Welcome, Doctor,” he said. “Tell me: does it bother you that, should you fail here, there will be no recourse for you?”

“Macrin, you need to stop.”

He gaped. No. Not now. He turned around.

She stood before him—not a reflection, not a voice. She was as real as the one he'd killed, but her front was unstained with blood, and she smiled at him. Where's the Doctor? was one of the thoughts that cried for attention in his fractured mind, before it slipped into the cracks and fell away.

“It's... it's you.” He took a step backward.

Her smile widened without losing its melancholy quality, and she stepped forward. “It's me.” The door closed behind her.

“You're not real,” he said, lifting his cannon and failing to keep his voice steady. “You're not real!”

“Feel.”

The cannon fell to the floor. She said something new. She hasn’t said anything new before. Is this.... Qeta lifted a hoof and beckoned him in. As if sleepwalking, he obeyed and lifted his other forehoof to touch hers. It seemed as real as his own, and a part of him marveled at the sincere, tactile sensation of it. To think my mind did this.

“Then....” He shut his eyes tight and shook his head, but when he reopened them the apparition was not dispelled. “Then my mind is truly lost?”

“Maybe. And then again, maybe not.” She shrugged. “Your choice, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that.” She pointed behind herself at the closed doors. “You can take your mind back. They'll help, you know, like I always did. Just walk away.”

“They can't possibly—I killed you,” he said. “I watched you die on my horn. And so did they.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” She rolled her eyes. “But listen, Macrin. Have you been listening?”

“I—”

Qeta shook her head. “Of course you haven't. Listen, you big softy.” She rested a hoof on his back, gently enough that he could hardly feel its weight—almost as if she weren’t there at all. Because she can’t be, cried some forgotten piece of his mind. “Listen to what they've been saying—to what they haven't been saying.”

Her breathing became slow and regular, and he let himself fall silent. Let himself breathe with her. The wind, the roar of the engines: these seemed paltry things compared to her breaths. From behind the door, though, he heard nothing.

“Well?” she said. “Are they calling for your head on a pike?”

He shook his head dumbly.

“They want you back, no matter what you did to me. They want to help you out of this, and you know I’d feel the same way.” She leaned in close and patted his back. “Just walk out, Macrin. Please. For me?”

“I can't,” he said. With all the faculties he had left, he tried to wrest control back into his voice. “I can't, not now. Not after all that's happened.”

She grunted in annoyance. “Macrin, sweetie, you know I love you, but this is stupid! I mean, no offense, but come on!”

I love you.

It was like a tsunami coming to land; tiny in the distance, but crashing down with the power of gods upon the shore. He froze, becoming a statue, a monument to those three simple, unacceptable words: I love you.

“Macrin?” she asked, looking up at him with concern.

“No,” he whispered. It was all crashing into place, and he had been blind in all those years—in those last moments—

“What?” she said.

“No! No, no, NO!” He pulled away from her grasp, and his cannon began its arc to her chest. It's a lie! It has to be a lie!

“Oh, hell,” she muttered.

Before he could fire, she surged forward and grabbed his gun leg, forcing it back. The bolt of light sailed harmlessly through the window as his shoulder cried out in pain, and as something caught on his horn. Instinctively, he ripped upward and away, hoping to drag his horn through her flesh—but instead he felt the snap of a cord.

Qeta fell away, and in her place was Bon Bon, with a fury in her face to surpass any he'd seen in any warrior. He looked at her, uncomprehending, and then noticed the cord falling to the ground.

One final piece crashed into place, finishing his mind’s destruction like a cannonball through glass: It was the perception filter. She'd been acting as Qeta, and the filter had been enough for him not to notice the deception.

“You!” he roared, pulling away clumsily—all thoughts of discipline swept away by a wave of insane fury. This snivelling coward had broken the covenant of single combat. “WHERE'S THE DOCTOR?”

Some memory reminded him of his earlier threat, and he jumped for the controls behind him. The bomb activation control was right there—but she was faster, and tackled him to the ground. “Not... available,” she grunted. He whipped his head this way and that, and cut her underside several times, but she didn't seem to notice. Yet he was stronger than her, he had to be—surely he could best her.

But then she grabbed the leg with the cannon in both hooves and lifted it against his will. With a quick pull, she pressed the cannon against his hoof, forcing it to fire right into the controls. “No!” he yelled, as the underside of the control bank melted. He wouldn't be able to purge Equestria now.

But he could still kill her. He twisted his body underneath her, and she was unable to keep him pinned down; he was free, but at the cost of his light cannon, which was still in her grip. Before she had the chance to put it on her own hoof, he charged, relishing the thought of the red that would paint his horns.

She ducked, as if to roll under his charge, but he was equal to it; he lowered his own head. But then she hopped into him, and her body flew between his horns and struck him in the snout with breaking force. With a shout of pain, he reared up, throwing her to the side, then shook his head and reassessed the situation.

The cannon had been thrown out of her grasp, and lay next to the largest fissure in the ship’s right side. With a cry of defiance he ran toward it, and a moment later Bon Bon—still reeling from her landing of moments prior—ran the same way. She would not be quick enough this time.

As he dove for the cannon, however, he realized his mistake. She wasn't looking to get the cannon; she was looking to get him. She tackled him in the side near his hindquarters, spinning him around so that his legs pointed in the direction of the hole. And he still had his momentum.

He slid backwards through the hole in the ship. Only his basest instinct saved him, pressing both forehooves against the sides of the gap to keep him from falling through, but he couldn't muster up the strength to pull himself back in. His cannon lay precious inches away, and standing next to it was Bon Bon, cut up and bruised but with a sickening look of triumph on her face.

The roar behind him was now deafening, so she leaned close enough that he could hear her vicious hiss. “You don't get to hurt him ever again.” Hatred bubbled from every syllable.

“Bon Bon!” said a voice behind her. “Bon Bon, what have you done?”

She turned around and stepped back. “Saved you!” she yelled at the Doctor, who was rubbing at a fresh head wound even as he ran toward Macrin. Adelbrand was right beside him.

“Macrin!” Adelbrand said. “Come on, Macrin, we can do this, like old times. Let me just pull you up, okay? Can you do that?”

“Macrin!” the Doctor said. “Let me have your hoof! You're not dying today, Macrin—not today!”

When they'd met, Macrin would never have thought he could come to hate his friend, but now it was easy—necessary, in fact. “I lost, Adelbrand,” he said, as the captain pulled at his hoof, “and yet you, the victor, show clemency? I'm sorry for thinking I could save you. You disgust me.”

And with that, he released the pressure of his forelegs. Gravity began its inevitable work. “No!” Adelbrand yelled, as Macrin slid out of the ship and fell.

He oriented himself to look down, and forced his eyes to remain open despite the eye-watering wind, despite the primeval urge to look away from death. He was no coward. He watched as the spires of Canterlot rose—slowly at first, but speeding up in the honest, natural way of gravity’s law. All was right, in the end.

Now he could make out individual buildings, individual streets. He marked out the street where he would land. It was empty, except for one pony who walked through, and looked up—no. Not a pony.

Qeta watched him with the saddest expression he could imagine as he converged upon her. And it occurred to Macrin: What if I was wrong?

And it simply killed him that he wouldn’t have time to find out.

“Macrin....” Adelbrand's hoof reached out still. He gritted his teeth. “You stupid child.”

The Doctor forced his mouth closed—it had been open in horror—and laid a hoof on Adelbrand's shoulder. “You tried.”

“And it didn't matter. Why did I try?” Adelbrand's head fell.

“Oh, this is bad,” Ermi said behind them. The Doctor looked around and noticed, for the first time, the melted controls. “This is bad,” she repeated. “When did this happen?”

“Um....” Bon Bon grimaced. “I needed to stop him from bombing Equestria.”

“Oh, so you did this? Well, congratulations!” Ermi smacked her own forehead. “We sure can't bomb Equestria now, never mind doing anything else, you idiot! Like, I don’t know, landing?”

“Can't the Doc do something with his sonic screwdriver?” Applejack asked.

The Doctor resisted the urge to correct her nomenclature and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He trained it on the control panel and activated it once, then again, and then a third time. “There's nothing to do something with,” he said, ruffling his hair in consternation. “The controls are well and truly... well, shot.”

“So what happens now?” Rarity asked.

Ermi glared at her, though more from ambient aggravation than any specific malice. “Well, the ship will remain at its current altitude until we run out of fuel—which won't take that long—and then we'll experience some falling. Followed by some melting, thanks to your princess. What a way to end the night, eh?” Ermi grimaced. “If anyone has any ideas on how to not die, I for one would feel appreciative.”

The Doctor racked his brains, and one obvious answer came to mind, but he dismissed it—there had to be another way. “What if we contact Celestia?” he asked. “Have her lower us down gently?”

Ermi gesticulated at the blob of metal. “With what? The melted intercom?”

“Come on, everyone, think,” the Doctor said, screwing up his face. “There has to be a way!”

“There is.”

Opening his eyes, the Doctor whirled around to face Adelbrand, whose face radiated some new serenity. He seemed to be at peace. “It had to be this way, didn't it,” he said, apparently musing.

“What way?” the Doctor said.

“Modular design. It’s built into the ship, like this was always built into me. How poetic.” He smiled.

“No,” the Doctor said. “There is another way, Captain, there must be—”

“There isn't, Doctor,” Adelbrand said. “And while the controls on this module are destroyed, those behind us are perfectly functional.”

“What's he suggesting?” Pinkie asked.

“I think he means for us to separate this module from the one behind,” Lorio said, “and pilot the rest of the ship to safety while this one falls from the sky.” He smiled. “Great, Captain! So let's find a Bullbot to stay behind, and—”

“We're out,” Ermi said.

“What?”

“I've been keeping track. Macrin sent everything this ship has at us. We've destroyed all the Bullbots, all the Warbots. It can’t be something that stays behind; it’ll have to be someone.”

“But then, who....” Lorio's eyes widened. “No. No!”

But Adelbrand was already walking back. “You should all come with me,” he said, his whole manner the perfect picture of command. “And quickly. I doubt there remains much fuel.”

“You can't,” the Doctor said, catching up with him.

“I must.” His tone was mild but no less sure for that. “That is, someone must, and it should be me.”

“Then let me instead,” the Doctor said.

“No,” Bon Bon said, pulling up behind him. “Don't ‘let him’, Captain. If anyone should stay on this boat, it should probably be the one who melted the controls.”

“What about me?” Luso said, pushing both of them aside. “I’m the war criminal.”

Adelbrand shook his head. “It ought to be the one who could have prevented this weeks ago—years ago, if I'd only seen sooner what my friend was becoming. If I'd been the good captain this ship needed. Call it atonement, if you will, but you will not die for my mistakes.”

“Please!” the Doctor said, as they proceeded; it had to be halfway along the module by now. “There has to be another way!”

“Are you accusing me of taking the easy way out, Doctor?” Adelbrand asked, glancing at him as his inexorable march continued. By degrees, his tone was losing some of its perfect calmness. “I agree: this is quite easy and quite simple, but no less necessary for it. Every moment that we waste chasing some perfect solution, this ship burns more precious fuel. I only hope you have enough to pilot the rest to safety.”

“Adelbrand, please.” The Doctor tried to get in front of Adelbrand, but the captain stepped around him. “Please, at least try.”

“No.” Finally, the response was curt. “But I do have one request for you, Doctor.”

When the Doctor did not make a further inquiry, Adelbrand continued, “I'll be the one who pulls the lever on this side, to detach Duchy-6. Could you be the one on the other side?”

“What?” The Doctor reeled as if he'd been tackled. “What—why?”

“Because in the few hours we've spent together, I think I've come to regard you as a friend.” Adelbrand smiled awkwardly at him. “I'm not very good at making friends, you know.”

They came to the door. Adelbrand pressed the button, and it opened; with no small reluctance, the rest of their group walked past Adelbrand and the Doctor into Duchy-5. The Doctor wouldn't uproot his hooves—he wouldn't accept another defeat, not like this. “Adelbrand, I am begging you,” he said. “Let me help.”

“I am,” Adelbrand said, reaching for the lever that would doom him. He looked the Doctor in the eye. “Please help me in this, Doctor. I can't do it alone.”

The Doctor didn't want to move, but then Bon Bon grabbed his tail and pulled him back. “Stop,” he mumbled, not turning to face her.

“I'll be going back to the cockpit—perhaps I can find some way to control the ship after all—so I suppose this is goodbye. A few things before we part.” Adelbrand looked around, as if for inspiration, then at the Betaurans. “Friends... crewmembers....” He sighed. “Well, I suppose there's nothing that needs saying. Well done, all of you.” His right hoof rose sharply to his top right horn in a gesture of salute. A moment later, Ermi, Lorio, and Luso brought their hooves to their horns in unison.

“As for you Equestrians,” he continued, looking now at Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, and Bon Bon, “Once you've landed, tell your Princess Celestia not to feel guilt for her part in my death—though it's possible she may not need my advice. She seems perfectly willing to do what must be done.”

“Captain...” the Doctor said, as the ponies nodded. Applejack hesitated for a second, then pulled her hoof up to her ear, mimicking the Betaurans' gesture. Pinkie's lips quivered.

“And Doctor,” Adelbrand said, smiling. “Enjoy your travels.” He pressed the button, and the door closed on him.

Time was precious and not to be wasted, the Doctor knew; perhaps that was why the seconds following Adelbrand's departure were able to stretch into a gray infinity. The wall filled his field of view, blank save for the door's faint outline and the damnable lever in his peripheral vision. For the second time that night, he gave into imagination and imagined himself looking through the ship, but now the stars seemed to pull away into the darkness—and when he returned to reality, the lever was still there.

“Do you... um....” Bon Bon looked up at him. “Do you want me to pull it instead? He'd never know.”

The Doctor shook his head—or, more accurately, his head shook; he hadn't made any effort toward the action—and his hoof rose to the lever. Slowly, he pulled it down, and felt the ship shake as Duchy-6 detached. Without putting effort into keeping his balance, he fell against the wall, jarring his shoulder. The dull ache went practically unnoticed.

“I'll get the controls,” Luso said, running back to the bridge to which they were adjacent. “I think I can fly us out of here by hoof....” A few seconds later, the Doctor heard him say, “Would you look at that?”

“What?” Lorio said, running into the bridge. Most of the rest of the group quickly followed; the Doctor wasn't quite so spry. Bon Bon stayed with him as he wandered into the room and saw, through the bridge's window, Duchy-6's side sliding away.

“He's falling?” Rarity said. “Al-already?”

“Looks like he let us off just in time!” Luso let out a slight laugh. “Good one, sir.” His hooves clumsily manipulated the controls, pulling their ship away from Adelbrand's. The Doctor let himself sink against the wall; he was so tired.

“Hey,” Bon Bon said. “Are you okay?”

The Doctor sighed and stared past her. “I was doing so well,” he murmured.

She looked at him, and he registered that she seemed sad. Then her mouth turned into an angry frown. “Okay,” she said, “we're doing this now.”

She stood and walked forward into the group. “EVERYONE!” she yelled. “We're gonna save Captain Adelbrand.”

“What?” Luso said.

“And we're doing it now!”

When everyone else did nothing but stare at her, she screamed, “What is wrong with you? Come on! We have to save him!”

“Uh... I thought you couldn't care less,” Applejack said.

“I DON'T!” Bon Bon pointed a hoof back at the Doctor. “But he does! Now come on, pilot!” she said, flicking one of Luso's intact horns. “Start flying! We need to get close enough to reach his cockpit! Now get a move on!”

“I can't,” Luso said, glancing up at his broken horn. “I don't know how to fly without magic—not accurately. I can't get that close.”

“Hmm....”

Bon Bon looked back at Rarity, who had a contemplative expression. “You know,” Rarity said, “I....”

“You can fly it?” Bon Bon asked, pulling Rarity forward and pushing Luso aside. Adelbrand's ship was no longer visible to the Doctor.

“I daresay I can,” she said, as she grabbed the controls. “Or at least I can try. It is, after all, a matter of dexterity—” The Doctor felt a kick at his back, as the ship accelerated forward. “And properly applied force. Yes, I can do this!” She laughed. “Fillies and gentlecolts, Rarity is back!”

“Good enough,” Bon Bon said, grabbing Applejack and pulling her toward the door; Applejack started but did not protest. “You've still got that lasso, Applejack?”

“You'll never manage it,” Luso said as Rarity continued to manipulate the controls. “Getting the two ships that close without a crash, with one in freefall—you might as well try to throw a javelin through the eye-hole!”

“Really?” Rarity said, as her grin grew ever more confident. “You know, in Equestria we have a somewhat less gruesome expression for that sort of thing—we call it 'threading the needle'.”

Wind rushed through the broken windows as Adelbrand stood in the bridge with his eyes closed. Contrary to his word, he had not attempted to achieve any modicum of control over the plummeting module, and he did not so attempt now. It was his penance. At the very least, it will be swift. I suppose I can ask for no more. He smiled, cherishing the wind on his face.

“CAPTAIN!”

His eyes opened. Something pink showed up at the top of his vision—something that resolved itself into Pinkie Pie, dangling from a rope.

“You?” he said, smile vanishing. “What are you doing here?”

“Captain!” she yelled, swinging herself backward, then forward. He noticed a second set of engine noises alongside his own. “We don't have much time,” she said. “Just jump on, I'll grab ya!”

“Leave me!” Adelbrand waved her off. “It's too dangerous!”

“Too bad! You're coming with me!”

“Pinkie, no!” he said. “I need to do this to restore my hon—”

“NOBODY CARES!” she screamed. “Your friends up there don't care about your honor, Captain, they care about you! GET ON!”

Adelbrand's jaw clenched. If she expected him to just throw away his responsibility—he had to do this! It could never have been any other way, he told himself.

Except that wasn't his voice he heard, he realized. That was Macrin, the slave to tradition, to throwing away sanity, throwing away lives, for honor's sake. He shook himself. Is that who I am?

Well, maybe he’d have more time to figure that out later.

“Coming!” he yelled, running forward and jumping at Pinkie. She grunted in discomfort as they collided, but between their four pairs of hooves they managed to entangle themselves securely. It wasn't long before he felt himself being pulled upward. He looked up and saw the rope leading into Duchy-5, but could see nothing beyond that.

Within a few seconds, though, he was at the level of the door, and he saw Ermi, Lorio, and Luso on the rope, straining at his weight. He decided to help, pushing up against the floor and lifting himself into the ship. “Welcome aboard,” Lorio said, smiling as he turned to the bridge. “He's in!” he shouted.

“Good!” This voice was Rarity's. “Now hold on to your accessories, people—this is going to be close!” With that, Adelbrand felt such a force against himself that he tumbled down the floor. Getting the notion to resist, he pulled himself forward, poked his head out of the doorway, and looked down—but if Celestia was melting the module below, he couldn't see it: the rest of the ship obscured it from view. Sighing, he looked forward, and was surprised—happily surprised—to see that they flew toward a dawning sun.

It had not, despite Rarity's efforts, been a smooth landing. Or even a comfortable one. The Doctor still had a crick in his back that he didn't think would fix itself for weeks.

That said, Celestia's chairs were wonderful for the spine, so he considered revising this estimate as he sat with her, drinking her best tea in an antechamber to the throne room.

After a few minutes during which a suspicious lack of conversation occurred, Celestia replaced her cup in its saucer. “You should have tried to contact me from the air.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes, Celestia calls me into the castle. What will she say, I wonder? 'How's the TARDIS coming along, Doctor?' 'Great job saving all those lives, Doctor!' No, I get a grade.” He smirked at her. “I barely know you, but you are such a teacher, aren't you?” She tilted her head playfully. “Well, spit it out; what did I get? Half marks? Or did I reach, oh, as much as seventy five percent?”

She smiled back, said, “Something like that,” and sipped her tea. They looked at the remains of the Duchy through the window, lying in a field well outside Canterlot. Workers swarmed around it like termites building their hive—or rebuilding it, as the case might be. Though it was far away, the Doctor thought he recognized a few familiar shapes: Ermi, who expertly directed ponies this way and that; Adelbrand, who simply followed her lead as if he were a regular worker; and even Twilight Sparkle, who levitated several notepads and was filling them with information via several quills. If the Doctor wasn't mistaken, patches of blue paint remained on her back.

“They found a body in the street,” Celestia said, regaining his attention. “One of the Betaurans.”

“Lieutenant Macrin,” the Doctor said, noticing a bitterness in his own tea. “He jumped. You can't save everyone.”

Celestia frowned. “I should have seen him; I could have lowered him down. It was dark, he was small, but even so—”

“He wanted to die,” the Doctor said.

“So did Captain Adelbrand, if memory serves.” Celestia shrugged. “And yet you saved him. Aren't our lives complicated?”

“To be fair, I had nothing to do with that,” the Doctor said. “That was just... my friend.”

“I think you had everything to do with that,” Celestia said, smiling at him. “You're an inspiring stallion, Doctor—more so than you know. Take this as the statement of someone who's seen some of your best work.”

“Well, why don't you tell me all about it?”

Celestia laughed. “Now, you can't peek at the ending before you've truly begun the story! You and I have such a journey ahead of us, Doctor.” When he didn't respond, she looked sideways to see him staring askance at her. “What?” she asked.

“Oh, um... never mind,” he said. “Just a matter of phrasing.” The ending? he thought. “About the other body from last night.”

“Oh, yes, her.” Celestia's demeanor became somber. “If I'd known someone, even a cadaver, was on board that module, I wouldn't have been so... demonstrative. We can't recover Comm Officer Qeta's body from the sun. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” the Doctor said. “I don’t think she’d have minded ending up as starlight.”

“Who can say? Even so, I believe that Captain Adelbrand means to hold a small service for her before he returns home. He's said nothing about Macrin.... Not that I blame him,” she added, after a moment's thought. “Such a betrayal and loss in one long night... it might, ah, perturb me just the same.”

“You mean it did perturb you,” the Doctor said, “a thousand years ago.”

Celestia sighed, and the Doctor thought he heard a note of exasperation mixed in amid the exhaustion. Maybe he’d been a touch rude. “You know, I did invite Bon Bon to sit with us, and yet she elected to remain outside. Why do you think she did that?”

“Well, she said she doesn't like tea.” The Doctor rolled his shoulders back and felt something crack—a slightly unpleasant sensation, but rewarding.

“And do you believe her?”

“As much as I believe anything she says anymore.” The Doctor smiled. “So, in a word, yes. Benefit of the doubt, and all that.”

“If you insist....” Celestia squinted and leaned forward in her seat. “Perhaps I'm mistaken, but... I think that's her, there.” She pointed, and the Doctor noticed a seated figure between Canterlot and the Duchy.

He took a last gulp from his cup, emptying it, and stood. “Leaving so soon?” Celestia asked. “I hope you at least enjoyed the tea.”

“Oh, I love a good tea.” The Doctor licked his teeth, getting the last of that delightful bitterness onto his taste buds where it belonged. “Or a bad tea. Any tea, really.”

“It was good seeing you,” Celestia said, inclining her head.

“And you. Maybe we can do this some other time when the world hasn't just been imperiled.”

There was a second of hesitation, and then they both laughed. “Give Luna my best,” the Doctor said once the laughter had subsided. He nodded back to her and walked through the doorway.

“And give the Betaurans mine. Oh, and Doctor?”

He faced her once more, with his body mostly out of the room.

“Thank you for being there when it mattered.”

He smiled, then slipped through the door and left, avoiding any castle staff along the way. He did have some stealth left, after all.

Bon Bon sighed. Her train for Ponyville wouldn't leave for two hours, so here she was in limbo, on the grass outside the castle. It had been diverting to watch the workers crawling in and around the Duchy, but that had worn off half an hour ago, and fighting off sleep was becoming increasingly difficult. Maybe I should have gone in with the Doctor, dislike of tea be damned.

She sighed and rolled sideways, her view of the build site becoming unfocused. That sure is a lot of ponies.

“Feeling chipper?”

She glanced backwards and saw a hazy brown shape mincing its way toward her. “I've been better.” With a yawn, she pulled herself back upright as the Doctor sat to her right. “You tired too?”

“Not so much, no. Time Lords don't need as much sleep.”

“Well, aren't you something,” she said, yawning again. She'd slept in one of the castle's guest rooms for a few hours, but that wasn't cutting it after the night she'd had.

“I do my best, yeah.” He squinted at the distant ship, and his mouth moved silently; he seemed to be counting under his breath. “Hey, where's Luso?”

“Apparently they can't figure out what to do with him, so for now he's just helping Lorio with stuff.”

“And where's Lorio?”

“Well.” Bon Bon grinned. “Apparently they let him into the city morgue to do research.”

“Really?” The Doctor cocked his eyebrow.

“He's ecstatic.”

“Ooh, they're never going to pull him out of there, are they.”

“Yeah, over his dead body.” Bon Bon chuckled. “And I guess a lot of other dead bodies, too.”

The Doctor laughed gently along with her. “Hah, black humor. So how did you come by all this information? Did you—dare I ask—willingly engage in conversation with the Captain?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop it.”

“It's a first step! Marvelous!”

“I said stop it.” She half-playfully shoved him away. “I asked around, yeah.”

“Doesn't hurt to try, does it?” He winked at her.

“Not... not too much.”

He didn't respond, and she let herself draw inward. She had a big admission coming up, and hoped he wouldn't interrupt before she could build up the gumption to say it—but he was silent. Finally, she said, “You know....”

He looked at her with interest, and she continued, “I have a confession to make. Something I said yesterday that was, you know, a lie.”

“Oh?”

“I've never been to Fance.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“Yesterday, when we were gonna test the translation circuit—”

“Was that really only yesterday?”

“Yeah, I know, right? But Twilight asked if I was there because I didn't speak Fancy, and I said that I'd spent a semester of college in Fance, and that was a lie! I just said it to get out of doing whatever it was she was gonna want me to do! Isn't that pathetic?” She chuckled and rubbed her brow.

“It's....” The Doctor shrugged. “It's not great.”

Bon Bon sighed. “Makes you wonder how in Tartarus I ever got to be an Element of Harmony, doesn't it?” The Doctor pouted, but offered no answer. Bon Bon looked at him. “I mean, it should, shouldn't it? We're supposed to be the best ponies ever. How in Celestia's name did I get the job?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” The Doctor rubbed the side of his face. “Because I do have an answer if it’s not.”

“Let's hear it.” Bon Bon sprawled onto the grass, letting it poke her side.

“Because you don't give up on the people you do care about.”

She smiled at him, if only briefly. “You're too kind.” After a moment, something came to mind. “Speaking of which, can you promise me something?”

“Yeah, what?”

“What you did, after Adelbrand tried to sacrifice himself, and you went all blank? Never give up like that again.”

He raised both eyebrows at her now, and she sat up once more as she elaborated. “You're stronger than that. You are,” she said, poking him in the chest. “You can't lose your conviction like that, because when you give up it makes me feel terrible, and I don't want to feel that way. Did I mention how I'm really selfish?”

“Nah.” He leaned closer, if only slightly, and Bon Bon imagined a brick wall between the two of them—and him breaking through it with all the force of an iron ball. “You're rusty, yes, but trust me, Bon Bon—you care a lot more than you think you do.”

She smiled. “You're so nice, Mr. Exception.”

“Pot to kettle.” He winked again, and she felt herself lean closer too, resting her head on his. I've gone and done it now, she thought. He's in the circle. And, with some surprise, she realized there was room for him after all.

“Oh, and can you promise to try to be nicer as well?” he asked, pulling away and looking askance at her. “You might be surprised where it gets you.”

She shrugged. “Sure, I'll try.”

Her attention refocused on the workers outside Canterlot. Somehow, it seemed more interesting to watch with a friend.

“Hey,” Ermi said, idly waving some workers away from one of the cracks in the ship. Adelbrand guessed she wanted to fix it herself. “Do you know when Lorio's gonna be back from the morgue?”

“Never, probably.” Adelbrand glanced at her as he climbed a ladder, helping to heft a sheet of metal to the roof. It was good, distracting work, and he was fine with extra distractions. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing.” She waved a second, different bunch of workers toward the same crack, before realizing her mistake and walking over to push them back. Adelbrand shrugged, then grunted as he pushed his sheet over the edge of the ship.

“There,” said the pony he was working with. “All right, Captain?”

Adelbrand smiled back, or at least he hoped he did—getting these Equestrian expressions right was so difficult. In either case, the pony seemed to understand, and with a quick salute he descended the ladder.

“Hey, Captain?” Ermi said, returned from the crack she'd been working on. “Not that we don't appreciate an extra quartet of hooves, but don't you have something more important to do?”

When he continued to look at her with a fixed expression, she snorted and said, “The mission report! You know, the one we do at the end of every, you know, mission?”

“Oh? Right, right. Good idea.” As if he hadn't heard himself, Adelbrand moved to pick up another piece of sheet metal.

Ermi frowned and walked closer to him, blocking his path to the stacked sheets. “Look, I'm not an expert. I'm probably the opposite of an expert on things like this, really. But aren't you supposed to come to terms with these kind of events earlier rather than later?”

Adelbrand looked around for a way out, still not responding. Ermi sighed. “Look, Captain, you're not made of metal. Figure this out.”

“Oh, all right.” At her prodding, Adelbrand started walking away from the work site—though his pace must have been slower than she liked, because she followed up with some literal prodding before he'd made it past a few feet. He grunted and sped up.

“Excuse me?” he said, as he approached a purple pony with the same sort of horn as Rarity, who levitated several notepads and quills in front of her.

She glanced at him. “Oh, you're....” One of the notepads entered into a flurry of page-flipping, after which she scrutinized it. “Captain Adelbrand! Hello! I'm Twilight Sparkle.”

“Um, yes, hello.” He smiled at her. “Do you mind if I—is that paint on your back?”

One of her quills snapped in two. “Of course not,” she said, pulling a spare from a saddlebag on her blue-painted back.

“Sure. Do you mind if I borrow some paper, and a quill? I need to draft something. A letter, of sorts.”

“Oh?” Twilight smiled briefly at him before returning her attention to her notebooks. A few pages pulled themselves from the one nearest Adelbrand and floated to him, while a quill launched itself from her saddlebag and onto his hoof. “Sorry I can't talk right now,” she said, “but your ship is just too fascinating. A whole new world—this changes everything! We'll talk later, okay?”

“I'd like that,” Adelbrand said, grabbing the pages from the air. “It's nice to meet you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“You too.”

Adelbrand walked away until he found a nice inclined piece of grass to lie upon, grabbed the quill in his teeth, and began to write.

My most esteemed Archdukes Gaius and Sial, this is Captain Adelbrand. You won't believe the night I've just had.

He eyed the words for a few seconds, then scratched them out. Too informal. He sighed, scouring his brain for the words that would fit, but he wasn’t sure they could be found. Maybe I should ask for help.

Tune in next time for:
Tomb of the Aquanauts

Tomb of the Aquanauts (a)

“No,” Vinyl said.

Octavia suppressed a sigh. “Vinyl, it's not even that far away. Thirty minutes on the train!” She gestured with the two round-trip tickets she'd bought.

“That's not the problem,” Vinyl said, as the two of them walked through Ponyville. “The problem is that this whole event's gonna be—”

“Boring? The first serious undersea expedition in Equestrian history, and you think that's going to be boring?”

“Wasn't gonna say that.” Vinyl glared sidelong at her, and Octavia could see Vinyl’s eyes around the arms of her glasses. Was it her imagination, or did Vinyl look worried? “Nah, it's gonna be way too interesting.”

Octavia's gait broke for a moment; she'd anticipated a lot of responses to her idea of a girls' day out, and this was none of them. Vinyl seemed to notice her confusion, and slowed down with her. “Look,” she said, tilting her head sideways so that her glasses obscured her eyes, “he's gonna be there too, isn't he?”

“I assume you mean the Doctor?” After a few seconds, Octavia took Vinyl's lack of response to mean “yes”, and responded in kind: “You know he wouldn't miss a major historical event like this for the world.”

“And what happened the last time we went somewhere cool with him?”

Octavia's mouth popped open. This is seriously your argument? “Vinyl, just because Fillydelphia got nearly destroyed once doesn't mean—”

“Exactly!” Vinyl yelled, thrusting a hoof into the air. Several passersby gave the two of them strange looks, and Vinyl dropped her voice. “Every time he goes anywhere, something crazy happens—have you noticed that? He shows up in Equestria, and all of a sudden, Discord. He goes to play an arcade game, and oh no, it's an eeeevil arcade game! He walks into the woods—”

“That's so fallacious!” Octavia said, cutting Vinyl off. “Just because he's had a few odd days, that doesn't mean—”

“It totally does!” Vinyl groaned. “Look, he's a great guy, really, but... okay, analogy time. Would you trust me with a Mustang Dynasty vase?” She pronounced it with a long “a” sound.

“Of course not. And it's 'vahse'.”

“Whatever. Point is, I don't trust the Doctor with a major historical event, and neither should you!”

They reached their house, and Vinyl stopped outside the door to look Octavia in the eyes. “Seriously, Octy. Don't go.”

Octavia glared right back, not giving an inch. “I'm going, Vinyl. I'd love it if you came, but I'll go regardless.”

Vinyl kept their gazes locked for a moment longer, then sighed and heel-turned. “All right, fine, you're your own mare or whatever. Have fun, stay warm, don't get attacked by any giant sea monsters.”

She walked into the house and magically slammed the door behind her. Octavia, breathing deeply through clenched teeth, leaned against their front wall.

“So, Octavia, why isn't Vinyl here?” Lyra asked.

Octavia shrugged and adjusted her scarf as its ends flipped in the sea breeze. “Oh, you know her; she thought it would be boring.” Her expression was inoffensive as ever.

“Boring?” the Doctor exclaimed, giving her a thoroughly offended look. “The first serious undersea expedition in your history, and she thinks it's boring? I wouldn't miss it for the world!”

“That's what I said, but....” Octavia shrugged.

“Well, I wish Bon Bon and Derpy could have been here too. And perhaps Twilight... shame Celestia had to call her away on such short notice.” The Doctor sighed, casting his gaze out over the shoreline in front of them. “Even so, I suppose I can't complain. Couldn't ask for better weather this time of year.” He chuckled. “You know, where I come from, that's just an expression—but here you actually can ask for better weather! Just not right now.”

On this point, Lyra had to agree: even standing as they were at the shoreline on this autumn day, the sun shone down bright through a cloudless sky, and it was warm enough that she felt perfectly content. Frankly, she thought Octavia was overdoing it with the scarf....

Oh, but who cares about the weather? Lyra, after all, was here for the same reason as the hundreds in the crowd behind her—the scientists, the cognoscenti, the plain old normal ponies: they were here not for the beach's weather, but for its contents. For on this day, the beach was host not to a gaggle of sunbathing tourists but something much more interesting.

Lyra leaned over the railing that separated her and the rest of the crowd from both the beachfront and the submarine resting upon it. Well, there were other things on the beach as well—a podium, a thrown-together shack that would serve as the control room—but Lyra couldn't fathom why anyone would care about those any more than they might the weather.

When she'd been younger, she'd had had a notion of being an illustrator for science fiction books, and one of her drawings had been a colorful—if crude—depiction of a futuristic submarine vehicle. She'd covered it with every gadget she could imagine, until it had looked just as much a hodge-podge as any top-rate submarine ought to.

Evidently, Dr. Blue Shift had used this drawing as a blueprint, for barring the small difference of a large stylized “SL” on its side—the logo of Shift Laboratories—the submarine matched Lyra's wildest imaginings exactly. Her eyes watered as she held them open in the salty air to scrutinize every square inch of the sub, to try to figure out what each gadget did. Some of the gizmos she was able to guess at; other whatchamacallits were too obscure. “What does that doodad do, Doctor?” she asked, pointing to a small dome of dirty glass protruding from the side.

The Doctor pulled on his “brainy specs”, as he called them, and squinted. “Hard to make out from here, but... oh, that is impressive.” He frowned. “Fairly simple, yes, but I'd have to say that that is an electrically powered sonar device. Or maybe magically powered, but either way, this is very advanced for the first submarine. First an arcade machine and now this... how many doctorates does Dr. Blue Shift have, anyway?”

“Sonar?” Lyra asked.

“SOund Navigation And Ranging. You send out sound waves, they bounce off the ocean floor, rocks, fish, and so on, back to you. If you know how fast they're moving....” He paused, and Lyra thought for a moment. Then that means....

“Then all you have to do,” Lyra said, working it through as she spoke, “is time them when they come back, and you know how far away you are from whatever the sound bounced off. You can see the whole ocean floor, even if you can't see anything at all!” The Doctor nodded and smiled at her explanation, and Lyra beamed. “That is so cool!”

“Precisely! And,” he said, returning to his earlier quizzical expression as he pocketed his glasses, “it probably shouldn't exist for another few decades, judging by your planet's level of development. Or maybe I'm just biased, and Mr. Shift really is that good, but either way it is fascinating!”

Lyra wasn't paying much attention to this. Not when the implications of being able to see without eyes were this cool. “You could see everything even when you were ten million miles below and the light was gone! All the coral reefs, and the octopuses, and the seaponies!”

Octavia gave a single chuckle through her scarf. “Good one, Lyra. Seaponies.”

“Yeah, laugh if you want, but I have proof!” Lyra said, smiling widely at Octavia. “This one time, I was walking along this beach right here with Bon Bon, and I found a seapony scale washed up on the sand! Bon Bon agreed with me it was a seapony scale, and where would you get a seapony scale except from a seapony?”

“Wait, you actually believe in them?” Octavia said. Lyra noticed that she looked a bit concerned, probably for Lyra's mental health. Why does everypony always do that whenever I bring up seaponies?

“Sorry to butt in,” the Doctor interjected, “but what exactly is a 'seapony'?”

“Oh, they're amazing!” Lyra replied, forestalling Octavia's attempt to answer. “They've got the upper half of a pony, and the lower half of a fish! They save sailors who fall overboard, their scales protect you from dr—uh... having fallen overboard—some even say,” she said, her voice falling to a whisper, “that their tears can be used to bring back the dead.”

Octavia sighed. “And they don't exist. Nopony's ever seen one—”

“There are eyewitness accounts!” Lyra retorted.

“From sailors who've had a bit too much hard cider.” Octavia rolled her eyes. “It's just one of those fairy tales, Lyra, like the Headless Horse. Nopony who's sober has ever seen one, certainly.” As she readjusted her scarf, a thought appeared to strike her—that or a bit of airborne grit; her facial expression would have matched both. “Come to think of it,” she said, “why would something that lives underwater cry? That doesn't make any sense.”

“Because something made them sad, of course!” Lyra groaned in frustration. “Why doesn't anypony ever listen to reason?”

“Not a very nice thing to do, is it,” the Doctor said, still watching the submarine absentmindedly.

Lyra looked at him with some confusion—she was missing a logical bridge somewhere. “What, listening to reason isn't very nice?”

“What?” He returned his attention to her, as if dragging something from a great distance. “Oh, no, I was thinking about the seapony tears. Making one of them cry... not very nice, is it?”

“Well, you get seapony tears out of it. You could bring someone back from the dead—who cares if it’s mean if it brings someone back?” Lyra said.

“Touché.”

Octavia sighed. “What is it?” the Doctor asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” she said, fixing her gaze back on the submarine.

Lyra wondered if she wasn't annoyed that the Doctor seemed to be taking seaponies seriously, but such suppositions would have to wait; a door opened on the hasty shack, and a stallion stepped from it without any haste at all. In fact, the blue, bowtied stallion was munching on a piece of what looked like fried seaweed.

The stallion—judging by his coloration, Lyra could only imagine this was Dr. Blue Shift himself—walked to the podium and continued to munch. The ambient noise of the crowd died away in anticipation, leaving only the sound of chewing. Lyra hadn't ever realized how uncomfortable chewing could sound when magnified by a speaker system.

At long last, he swallowed, made an “mmm” noise of appreciation, and said, “Sorry about that, but I just had to sample the nibbles—free of charge after the event, of course. All sea themed. Obvious, really. Can't believe we paid a caterer umpteen bits to come up with that idea.” He winked, then blew at a strand of golden mane that the wind had pushed in front of his eye. “You know, the sea really is a fantastic place, isn't it? And it's given us so much, and yet we've only scratched its surface.... metaphorically, of course. Literally scratching the surface would do very little, as it's a fluid and so forth....”

An aide sidled up to him and placed a piece of paper on his podium, possibly a prepared speech. “All right, dear,” he said, motioning her away, “mea culpa. Where was I? Ah, yes: a whole world trapped beneath kilometers of water, beneath pressures titanically greater than a pony's body could ever handle. I mean, let's face it: you... me... we're a bit, uh, squishy, aren't we?” He poked his cheek and shrugged, then gestured expansively to the submarine. “But this isn't. This is the Nautilus, the finest traveling device that a pony has ever laid eyes on! And with it, we'll plumb depths that have never been plumbed before!”

He walked in front of the machine and began pointing out its various gizmos and doodads, but Lyra noticed something to draw her attention from the Nautilus. As Dr. Blue Shift's explanations went on, he remained in profile, displaying his cutie mark for all to see—an hourglass, just like the Doctor's. She nudged the Doctor in the ribs and motioned with her head in Dr. Shift's direction; the Doctor gave her a short nod in return, which she assumed meant, “I noticed.” His eyes were narrow as he watched.

“And of course,” Blue Shift continued, tapping another part of the ship, “here we have the turbo-retro-encabulator, for the purpose of—” Blue Shift's aide walked up to him as he worked himself up, and she whispered some words into his ear. He sighed. “Well, I suppose that the technology isn't very interesting, is it.” A small smile graced his lips. “Certainly not when compared to the brave ponies who'll be inside it! Fillies and gentlecolts, may I introduce... the crew of the Nautilus!” He gave a theatrical bow as three more ponies filed out of the shack and stood in line next to him.

“Leading the expedition, the unflappable Captain Mariana.” As the crowd applauded, the deep-blue pegasus Mariana inclined her head gracefully, while one hoof pulled back her black skirt in a sort of curtsy to reveal a cutie mark like an ocean trench.

“Her first mate and navigator, the seasoned veteran of the seas, Rusty Davey.” More applause. Davey adjusted his flatcap and gave a brief smile that twitched his trimmed silver beard. His grayish-brown coat looked like it had been tanned by something more than just sun and saltwater, and his cutie mark was of a rope—old, frayed, and covered in barnacles, but still held taut.

“And finally, the expedition's science officer, the acute Seabiscuit.”

The Doctor's eyes bulged, and he shoved a hoof into his mouth and started making choking noises. “What?” Lyra asked.

“Nothing,” he spluttered, “nothing.” Lyra wasn’t sure, but he might have been laughing.

Seabiscuit was a unicorn with a labcoat cutie mark and a coat of seafoam blue, though it seemed to be tinged with green around his face. He had pulled back slightly as his name was called, and didn't seem pleased by his round of applause. His smile looked forced.

“Woo!” yelled a pony to Lyra's right. She looked over and saw a teal filly hanging a large poster over the railing. A bit of leaning let Lyra read it: “Go Big Brother!” in big letters, cut from construction paper and pasted on the white poster. Seabiscuit glanced at the sign and gave her a wink; his smile widened, but it seemed no less forced.

“And now,” Dr. Shift said, “without further ado, let the noble work of exploration... begin!” A prerecorded, triumphant piece of music started playing over the speakers as Captain Mariana opened a door on the side of the Nautilus and clambered in, followed by Davey and Seabiscuit. The latter looked glad to get out of the spotlight. Meanwhile, Dr. Shift and his handler returned to the control shack.

A few seconds later, Shift's voice sounded on the speakers over the music. “Pegasi, ready!” A team of pegasi descended from the sky above and set to work, each tying a rope from him or herself to the submarine. When every rope was secure, the pegasi started pulling the Nautilus out to sea. It dragged against the sand for a few seconds, but once it entered the water it moved much more quickly.

Several minutes later, when the jaunty tune had finished and the Nautilus was only a faint dot on the horizon, Lyra saw a second flurry of movement around the craft. Then, a female voice came over the speakers—calm and professional. “All ropes have been detached, Dr. Shift. We are ready to dive.”

“Wonderful!” said Blue Shift from within the shack. “You may proceed when ready, Captain. I leave the mission in your highly capable hooves.”

“Diving in three... two... one....” And then the dot disappeared.

“Woo!” Lyra yelled for several seconds, as did many in the crowd behind her; Octavia flinched away at the noise. It was easy to be excited, and it was more enjoyable than entertaining any fears about the crew, now that they were diving hundreds of feet underwater in an experimental craft. They'll be fine, she told herself. It's been built with science and stuff.

A few minutes later, excitement was harder to come by, as she'd been staring at an empty ocean for that whole time. “Um...” she said, trying to suppress uneasy feelings, “should we go, or....” Come on, she told herself, you're being dumb. They're fine.

“Ssh!” Octavia hissed, as more of Captain Mariana's words issued from the speaker.

“This is incredible! We're detecting coral structures more extensive than we ever could have thought possible down here.” With nothing else to do, Lyra watched the speaker as if it were a projector screen, and imagined Mariana's face breaking into a smile. She relaxed. See? They're fine.

“Hold on, crew,” said Davey, and Lyra thought she heard something thump, followed by a small yelp from Seabscuit. “Sorry for the sharp turn—wanted to stay clear of the kelp.”

“By all means, Rusty,” Mariana said, and Lyra could tell she was still smiling. “Seabiscuit, anything to add?”

“It really is amazing!” Seabiscuit said. “I'm detecting strange magical energies unlike anything we've seen on the surface. Think what we could do with things like these once we—”

He was cut off by another loud thump, and Lyra knew she hadn't imagined this one. She jumped, as did Octavia and most of the crowd. A second later, Seabiscuit spoke up again. “Uh, Rusty, you....” He laughed nervously. “You need to be more careful about where you're piloting... you know, so we don't hit things....”

“Sonar says there's nothing near us,” Rusty said, his gruff voice betraying no trace of nerves. “Either Shift bungled the machine, or... something less expected.”

“Hang on,” Mariana said. “Look at the sonar. Over there, in that tunnel system... is that a shadow? Moving swiftly away from us... no, it's moving toward—”

CRASH. Seabiscuit yelped. “What was that?”

“Stay calm, Biscuit!” Rusty yelled. But with another crash, this was a lost cause. And then another. And another. Seabiscuit was screaming as the unknown force assaulted them, and Lyra wished she couldn't empathize; she imagined him being thrown violently in the cramped space—she saw it as clearly as if there really were a movie playing out on the speaker in front of her.

“What's hitting us?” Mariana said, her voice cutting through Seabiscuit's screams.

“Damned if I know!” Rusty replied. “There's not supposed to be anything big at this depth—” Yet another crash silenced him.

“Rusty!” Mariana yelled. “Rusty, your head! Are you okay?” Lyra watched as Rusty was thrown forward—his head split open on the controls—blood spattered everywhere. Her throat constricted; her breathing quickened.

CRASH.

“Captain!” Dr. Shift yelled over the tumult, as Lyra and the hundreds of other ponies on the beach remained incapable of looking away from the speaker. “Captain Mariana, report!”

“Rusty's struck his head, sir! He's out cold, and something's hitting us!” Shadowy forces moved outside the Nautilus, and Lyra saw them grin with too many teeth as they prepared another assault.

CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH.

“We're dead!” Seabiscuit yelled.

“Stay calm, Seabiscuit—oh, Celestia, that's water getting in—”

The sound cut out, leaving only the white noise of static. “Captain?” Blue Shift yelled. “Captain, report!” But he was yelling at dead air. Lyra watched the image in her head go black—tasted the saltwater as it rolled down her throat, as it filled her lungs, as it choked her.

The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)

S1E7: Tomb of the Aquanauts

Written by R5h

A few seconds later, Seabiscuit's little sister was the first to scream. “Big brother!” she shrieked, trying to climb the railing; a few ponies rushed to hold her back.

Well, the Doctor thought, I suppose it was getting a bit dull. “Come on,” he said, and as the rest of the crowd started to panic in all the familiar ways—hyperventilation, loud screaming, and the like—he cleared the metal railing in one quick hop and made for the shack.

Unfortunately, his peripheral vision told him that his companions didn't seem eager to follow. He looked back and saw Lyra's gaze still fixed on the speakers; she seemed catatonic. Octavia waited by her for several seconds, then rolled her eyes and barked, “Lyra!”

Lyra jumped and gasped, taking quick breaths as if she'd been underwater too. “They're dead, aren't they?” she said, looking first at Octavia and then at the Doctor. “They're dead.”

“Not if we can help it,” the Doctor said. “Come on!”

Long strides carried him to the shack in seconds, and he opened its door to find Dr. Shift and his assistant showing slightly more self-control than the crowd. Blue Shift had pulled on a pair of half-moon glasses, and through them he squinted at a panel beneath a window, most of whose dials—such as cabin pressure—were in the red. Next to him was a plate with more seaweed snacks of the type he'd been eating in his first appearance, and every few seconds he pulled a fresh one into his mouth. “I don't understand,” he said through a mouthful. “Nothing should be able to move that fast through water—fast enough to puncture the Nautilus....”

His assistant looked up at the door sound. “Get out!” she shrieked, advancing upon the Doctor and jabbing her hoof. “We're not taking questions!”

The Doctor grimaced. “I'm not... I'm not a reporter. I'm the Doctor; I'm here to help.”

Blue Shift looked up at this, and his eyes widened. “The Doctor? Oh, you I have heard of!” He waved his assistant away, beckoned the Doctor and his friends forward, then stepped forward himself and offered a hoof. “Oh, it is so nice to meet you at last—albeit not at a fantastic time. I hear you've been making incredible strides in temporal magic in a little warehouse just outside Ponyville, is that right?”

“Uh, no one's really supposed to know about that,” Lyra said, as the Doctor shook hooves with Shift.

“Word gets out, you know—and time is my specialty.” Blue Shift tapped his cutie mark. “That is, insofar as I can be said to have a specialty—Shift Laboratories dabbles in every form of scientific progress I can manage—but if I had to choose, it would be temporal research. Oh, but where are my manners?”

He pulled a hoofful of seaweed fries from the plate and lifted them to the Doctor and friends. “Hungry?” he asked. The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “No? A little bit?” As they continued not to respond, he shrugged, said, “More for me,” and shoved them in his mouth.

“Is this really the time?” Octavia asked, as Shift messily chewed; bits of seaweed fell to the floor.

“Stress eating,” he said in a muffled voice, “I can't help it. Not to worry, I have the metabolism of a teenager.”

“Dr. Shift!” his assistant said, knocking him on the back; he coughed and the snacks sprayed out onto the floor. Octavia jumped backward to avoid any stray specks. Blue Shift glared at his assistant, who said, “The Nautilus! Please stay on task!”

“Yes, yes, you're absolutely right, the, ahem, the Nautilus... though I'm not sure what we can really do,” he said sadly, slumping against the control panel. “I suppose we must be brave of heart... it's possible they survived somehow....” This was followed by a sigh that made the assertion seem very unlikely indeed.

The Doctor ignored this, pulled on his own set of spectacles, and scrutinized the control panel. “Cabin pressure's equalized with that of the outside—the capsule's completely filled up.”

“I can read, yes,” Blue Shift said.

“But where did it go down....” He spied the depth gauge. “Four hundred and thirteen meters, and holding steady. It's landed on the seafloor—do you have elevation maps of the seafloor here?” he asked Blue Shift's assistant. As if against her better judgment, she pulled open a drawer underneath the control panel and passed a map to him. As he grabbed it, he got a sidelong look at Blue Shift—and Blue Shift was looking sidelong at him. Something about his face seemed familiar; was it the spectacles?

Back to the matter at hand, he thought, unrolling the elevation map and eyeballing it. “There,” he said, tapping the map at one exact point. “That's where the submarine's settled.”

“That was fast. Are you sure?” Octavia asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Matches the depth, and on its right....” He tapped a part of the map that formed a sort of underwater peninsula: a large raised section of land extending beneath the water for several miles out to sea. “That's the only place for the 'tunnel system' Captain Mariana mentioned.”

“So, now that we know where it is...” Octavia started.

“We can get down there ourselves,” he finished, folding up the map and slipping it into a pocket. “Blue Shift!” he said, and the scientist looked up at him. “We need another submarine. We've got to go down and see what happened—retrieve what we can.”

“Oh, of course.” Blue Shift sounded irritated as he clapped a hoof to his forehead. “The one-of-a-kind experimental craft has been sunk—naturally, I'll just send the other one down.” He sighed.

“Scuba gear?” The Doctor kept eye contact. “Send a team down outside of a craft?” But Blue Shift shook his head and tapped the depth gauge. The Doctor understood what he was getting at; at four hundred and thirteen meters, the water pressure would crush any pony who ventured down without a craft.

But a Time Lord is a different story. “I'll ask again: do you have scuba gear?” he said. “Because if you do, I will go.”

Blue Shift stared up at him. “The pressure would crush you. Are you not getting that?”

“Try me.”

“It would!” Blue Shift smacked the depth gauge again. “Unless you're either an alicorn or an alien, both of which seem unlikely, if you'll pardon my lack of confidence.”

The Doctor felt a timid tap at his shoulder, and looked around to see Lyra. “Does that mean you'd want us to sit this one out?” she asked. Octavia's attention was caught by something outside the window.

“I'm afraid so. You definitely couldn't stand the pressure for any length of time.”

“Darn,” she said. “I mean, I guess I don't, uh, I don't mind as such, but....” Despite her words, she'd visibly relaxed.

“No one is going down there!” Blue Shift exclaimed, pushing brusquely into their midst. “We are all sitting this one out. I'm sorry, but they are lost, and there is absolutely nothing to be done!”

Octavia gasped. “What?” Lyra said, leaning to look out the window as well—and she gasped too. The Doctor turned to see what it was, and though he didn't gasp himself, it was a close thing.

A pegasus was flying full-tilt over the water toward the beach, and though she was far away, it was unmistakably Captain Mariana. Several somethings hung from her neck, things that glimmered in the sunlight. Like a necklace of emeralds, except she hadn't been wearing one.

“What in the—” Blue Shift looked out the window too. “My word,” he breathed.

“That's... that's impossible,” said his assistant. “She would have been crushed—”

But the Doctor didn't hear the rest of her words; his hooves were already in motion, carrying him from the shack to the water's edge, the better to meet Mariana once she came ashore. With a glance behind himself, he saw Lyra and Octavia following him, and behind them he saw the crowd with uniformly dumbstruck expressions as they realized what was happening.

Within a minute, Mariana had landed on the beach, and the things around her neck were identifiable as several iridescent green scales, each one on its own string of kelp. “Captain!” came the cry from the crowd, as the hundreds assembled pushed against the railings. Questions came like a salvo of missiles, and almost as loudly: “What happened down there?” “Are the others safe?” “How did you get out?” “Is my big brother okay?”

“Oh, for the love of...” Blue Shift grumbled. He turned to the crowd and said, “Excuse me—” his face and tone started pleasantly, then turned ugly like a tornado destroying a clear day “—the GROWN-UPS are TALKING!”

Everyone shut up.

“Tch, ponies,” he muttered, before turning to Mariana and saying, “Tell the nice people if the crew are okay, dear.” When Mariana cast him a withering look, he amended himself with a smile: “Captain, excuse me.”

Mollified, she addressed the crowd: “The crew is fine. First Mate Davey banged his head and briefly lost consciousness, but he's since come to. None are in immediate danger.”

The Doctor noticed Lyra visibly relax, as did the rest of the crowd.

“However,” Mariana continued, “the rest of this information is for the ears of Shift Labs staff only.” More tumult erupted from the crowd, but Mariana acted as if she didn't notice and beckoned both Blue Shift and his assistant into the control shack. “That means not your ears, by the way,” she added, lifting a hoof to stop the Doctor as he made to follow.

“It's okay,” Blue Shift said, smiling as he pushed her hoof down. “I can vouch for him; he's helped Shift Laboratories out in the past. The arcade machine that got intercepted, wasn't it?”

Mariana made an odd one-shoulder shrug before proceeding into the control room. The Doctor and his companions followed her; Blue Shift leaned to his assistant, said, “Keep the crowd's enthusiasm to a minimum, won't you?” and with a last glare at the crowd (which quieted down again), he entered the shack and slammed the door.

Inside the shack, away from the crowd and the imminent threat, it was oddly peaceful. The washing of waves was the only sound for a few seconds as Captain Mariana unloaded the scales from her neck onto the floor. Meanwhile, the Doctor looked around for a chair, saw none, and stifled a complaining session; there were more important questions. Like—

“Ooh, are those seapony scales?” Lyra asked, pointing at Mariana's cargo.

Okay, not one of the questions I was thinking of, the Doctor thought.

Octavia gritted her teeth. “Of course they aren't—don't waste the captain's time.”

“Why, yes, they are,” the captain in question said. She raised an eyebrow. “Whatever made you think of it?”

“Oh, for Celestia's sake, don't humor her,” Octavia said, rolling her eyes as Lyra's smile started widening to improbable levels. “They're not seapony scales—and even if they were, how would you know?”

“Because the seaponies gave them to us personally.”

Octavia's mouth opened to make a retort and stopped there. Her eye twitched, and she closed her mouth, as Lyra's grin continued to widen. Finally, she said, “Oh, that's just not fair.”

“Are you okay?” the Doctor asked.

“I... may be about to have a moment,” Octavia confessed.

Lyra, on the other hand, was already having hers; she let out a huge whoop of glee. “I TOLD you!” she yelled. “I was right! All along I was right!” Then she noticed Blue Shift and Mariana giving her confused looks. “Er, sorry,” she said, settling down.

“So,” the Doctor said, leaning against a wall, “seaponies exist—of course they do, who am I kidding—and they're the ones who saved you, then?”

“Yes. These scales—” Mariana tapped the top of the pile “—make some sort of magic water bubble around us. I'm not sure how the magic works, but it saved us from drowning.”

Lyra did several triumphant hoof pumps. “Oh, shut up,” Octavia said, gritting her teeth.

“And yet they haven't released you all to come back up here,” the Doctor continued, piecing things together as he said them. “Just you, so you can explain things, but the rest of the crew is still sunken in the deep. So not complete altruism from them—they want something from us.”

Mariana almost nodded, but hesitated. “Well, if you put it that way it makes us sound like hostages, which is not really.... We agreed to stay. Because they need help.” She narrowed her eyes. “Whatever attacked us, it's been attacking them for the last few months. They don't know what it is, they've never seen it before, and they don't know why it's happening. They are dying down there, and... well, we put it to a vote, and two out of the three of us elected to do what we could for them.

“So I'm here for reinforcements,” she said, lifting the seapony scales from the floor. “There's enough here for several volunteers to—”

The Doctor stepped forward. Octavia did likewise. “You're sure?” Mariana said, raising an eyebrow. “It'll be dangerous. Whatever attacked, it can attack without warning.”

“Trust me,” the Doctor said, “the three of us can handle danger. Isn't that right?” He turned to his left to look at Octavia, and she nodded; he turned to his right to look at Lyra, and she didn't nod, because she wasn't on his right. She was behind him, slowly edging away. “Lyra?” the Doctor asked.

She grinned, or at least revealed several teeth. “Uh, yeah, go team. You guys can probably do this one without me, right?”

“Lyra.” The Doctor stepped toward her, trying to be reassuring, but she flinched away from him. “What's wrong? Are you afraid to go down there?”

“Afraid? Why would I be afraid?” Her not-grin stayed fixed on her face, and her shoulders inched up as she went on, as did the pitch of her voice. “I mean, it's not like I was walking along the Muylkill River in Fillydelphia when I was a kid and I fell in and the walls were too slippery to climb and I almost drowned before they got a rope down or anything, right? Wouldn't that be dumb?”

She was hyperventilating again. The Doctor tried to think of a thing to say, but Octavia beat him to the punch. “Lyra. Breathe.”

Lyra started trying to take deeper breaths. Octavia waited a few seconds, then continued: “Lyra, the seaponies are in danger, and you can help save them.”

“Okay,” Lyra said, not looking at her. “Okay. Save the seaponies.”

“And you'll probably....” Octavia glanced over at Captain Mariana before continuing. “You'll probably stay completely dry in the process.”

“Okay. Probably. Yeah.”

Blue Shift shook his head. “Oh, for goodness' sake, no need to dawdle,” he said, placing a hoof on Lyra's and Octavia's backs and shoving both out the door. “Go forth and conquer, girls!”

“But—but—but—” Lyra said, just before she fell out of the shack and onto the sand.

Blue Shift looked at the Doctor and shrugged. “Just can't get the help these days, can you?” A sardonic smile moved his lips. “Good luck, Doctor. An unexpected amount depends on you now, so do what you must and don't foul it up. I'd hate to have to come down there.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at Shift. This really is ringing a bell. But there were, after all, more pressing issues at hand, so he walked out behind the shack to obscure himself from the crowd's view. Under the watchful eye of Dr. Shift's assistant, they were acting quietly enough, but he hardly needed to give them a reason to misbehave.

He, Octavia, Lyra, and Mariana stood at the shoreline, each one wearing their own scale. The Doctor was certain he was the picture of confidence, and Mariana was also unperturbed. However, Lyra and Octavia seemed unsettled—but whereas Lyra was obviously terrified of the ocean, Octavia kept glancing down at the scale that hung from her neck.

Despite this, she seemed to steel herself, and said, “I'll try it first.” She took a deep breath and a few steps back, then ran full-tilt at the water and jumped.

Splash. She was gasping in the cold water. “What?” escaped her lips, but not much else of coherence. Lyra edged away further from the sea.

Mariana closed her eyes and drew in a breath through her teeth. “They said, before they sent me back up—the seaponies told me that it's not enough to just wear the scales. They won't keep you safe from the sea unless you believe, they said.”

“Oh, I'm—perfectly credulous!” Octavia spluttered, as the water continued to not be repelled by her. She dragged herself back to shore, shivering, and pulled her sodden scarf from around her neck to slap it on the ground.

The Doctor sidled over to Lyra. “Do you believe?” he asked her. She gulped, then took a step toward the water, and then another. A small wave came for her from the ocean, and she forced herself to not wince—and it diverged in front of her.

Emboldened, she walked forward, and forward, and it was soon obvious; there was a bubble of air around her that the water would not penetrate. Her smile grew and grew, until she let out a joyous “Whee!”, jumped in, and landed, so to speak, on her back. “Come on in, everyone!” she exclaimed, floating in an oceanic crater. “The not-water's fine!”

The Doctor and Mariana glanced at each other, nodded, then moved forward. It was like entering a personal aquarium—the sea surrounded him, and yet he was safe behind walls of air as firm as tempered glass, though he couldn't help but notice that his bubble wasn't as big as Lyra's. Even so, he laughed and let himself float around on the surface, noticing that he could move the bubble just by thinking that there was where he should be—and he went there, and then somewhere else, and then flew a whole circle around Lyra.

Finally, Octavia shook herself on the shoreline, getting some of the water off—and onto Blue Shift, who grimaced—and she walked into the ocean. Or rather, she walked past the shoreline; this time the magic of the scale was working, and though her bubble was the smallest of all, it was enough to protect her. She relaxed.

“All right, enough messing around,” Captain Mariana said, moving in front of the Doctor as he continued to spin in his bubble. “We've got some ponies down there who need us.” She looked up to Blue Shift and saluted. “Preparing to submerge, sir!”

Blue Shift saluted jauntily back. “Do good down there!” he said; then the Doctor willed himself beneath the water's surface. Four bubbles, defying gravity, ventured into the deep where the monsters waited.

Lyra had been following behind the Doctor—who remembered exactly where the Nautilus had fallen, even better than Mariana—for several minutes before she realized something: if the submarine had sonar, it was because its crew wouldn't be able to see down in the deep. Yet as she dove down, she could still see as if she were looking into something no deeper than a swimming pool. Is this the power of the scale? she wondered, pressing it tightly to her chest.

In any case, it felt safe, and that was more than welcome. Around her was the ocean as she'd imagined it as a child, full of color and wonder. As the group passed over a large coral reef, she laughed with delight and zoomed down to see it more clearly. It was like a little maze covered its surface, all grooves and bumps and fantastic hues.

“Lyra,” the Doctor called. She looked up with a smile. “We're not here to sight-see.”

She had to laugh at that. “Really? That's basically your job description.”

He raised his eyebrows, then shrugged. “Fair's fair. Try to keep up!” he said, and darted down past her. “Woo!”

She went after him, laughing as she chased him around the hills and valleys of coral, like playing hide-and-seek in an underwater version of Ponyville—

She halted, realizing that the simile was more apt than she'd thought. “Doctor,” she said, “look at this.”

He was several meters ahead of her, but he returned and immediately recognized what she was seeing. “Well, what do we have here?” he said, as the two of them floated outside the hole in one of the coral hills. “That's not natural, that's a door. Hey, Octavia! Captain!” He waved the two of them down. “We've found something!”

The two of them descended from above the coral. “I think I saw this on our sonar,” Mariana said. “It just looked like coral from above, but this—this is a home. Amazing.” Indeed, through the door Lyra could see what could only be shelves, carved out of the coral, and a few artistic swirls etched around them. But something was wrong, and she couldn't put her hoof on what.

Octavia ventured inside the dwelling, and after a few seconds of looking around, she said, “Not anymore.”

“What?” Mariana said.

“It was a home. Look at this.” She dragged a hoof along the shelf, which—now that Lyra thought of it—was devoid of the sort of things that might go on a shelf: necessities, keepsakes, anything. When Octavia's hoof came up, it was coated with something between dust and slime. She wiped it off on the wall.

“And another thing,” the Doctor said. “If this is a home, then this—” he gestured around them at the whole reef “—is a village. But if this is a village, then where are the villagers?”

Lyra looked around cautiously. With the Doctor's words, the silence—which she hadn't noticed before—became something palpable, oppressive. “They left, didn't they?” she said. “They fled from whatever attacked the sub.”

Mariana nodded. “We should move on,” she said. Lyra couldn't agree more; the ocean that had so briefly felt safe and inviting was once again something to fear. She tried to push it out of her mind as she rose with the other three, out of the labyrinth of coral and into the open sea.

It's still beautiful, she forced herself to think, looking all around—to admire the scenery, she told herself. The kelp is still majestic, and the life down here is still so diverse, and that tunnel over there is still... massive.

She gulped. To the group's right was a tunnel big enough to drive a freight train through, and perhaps long enough. Somehow, the ambient light of the ocean around her did not penetrate into its depths; beyond maybe twenty meters, it was an abyss. The things that attacked the submarine came from a tunnel, didn't they? She looked back to the group, intending to emphasize in the clearest nonverbal terms that this tunnel was something to be avoided—but they were already far to her left, giving it a wide berth. She zoomed to their side and made herself exhale.

The silence continued and so did they, for minutes and minutes more. The stretch of raised seafloor that the Doctor had marked on the elevation map remained on their right, and here and there more tunnels had broken through its wall. They were rough-hewn, as if made by explosives. That's not natural, either, Lyra thought. But I don't think seaponies made that. She shivered. Something that could punch through meters of solid rock must have found the thin shell of the Nautilus an easy target—and her skin was even thinner.

Shut up, brain, she thought.

Some unmeasurable time later, Captain Mariana said “At last!” and pointed down at something on the seafloor. “It's there! Oh, look what's happened to it....”

If not for the fact that nothing else of that size and construction could be down here, Lyra would not have believed that it was the Nautilus below her. One side had been ruthlessly caved in, leaving a gaping wound in the metal. Other, smaller dents covered its surface, and the gizmos that had enticed Lyra's eyes on the surface were now off-kilter. Some were off the submarine entirely.

“I'm sorry for your ship,” said an old voice in front of them. “We wish we could have saved it—it's a poor thing to see what you care about broken beyond repair.” Lyra looked up from the wreck below her, and her eyes widened. So this is what a seapony looks like.

The seapony was dark green made darker by the lines on his face, and he had a mane like slivers of kelp tanned on the seashore: green once, but brown now. His torso ended not in legs but in a tail which curled behind him, and instead of forelegs he had short flippers, through which narrow bones ran like fingers. One flipper clutched a trident, and though its points were sharp, something about the way he held it suggested that if he'd ever used it before, it had been a long time ago. “Welcome,” he said, nodding to Captain Mariana. “You kept your promise.”

“I don't remember promising—I just said I'd bring help, and here I am. So, Chief Anoese,” Mariana said, gesturing to the Doctor, Lyra, and Octavia, “may I introduce... help. Help, this is Chief Anoese of the seaponies. Sorry, by the way,” she said, twitching a smile their way, “I don't think I actually got your names earlier. Busy day.”

“I guarantee you missed mine.” The Doctor inclined his head respectfully to Anoese. “It's an honor to meet you, Chief. I'm the Doctor, and these are Lyra and Octavia, my friends. And for what you said about things being broken beyond repair....” He sighed. “Those were your homes back in the coral, weren't they.”

Anoese nodded, and pointed with the flipper that was not holding his trident. “A mile that way I lived, before the evil came. We've been driven back more times than I'd rather remember.”

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said. “Also, and I do appreciate the welcome party of one, but....” He pointed at the underwater cliff wall behind them, and its many abyssal tunnels. “This is where the Nautilus was attacked. It's not safe here, and... well, you are the chief. Why are you here?”

“Because I am old, and you deserve a guide. And,” he sighed, “I don't know that any place is safe now.”

“Even so, this place is particularly unsafe. And you're valuable. Speaking of which.” He darted to the seafloor and began to scrutinize the Nautilus.

“You can't be worried about its cost, surely?” Octavia asked.

“Oh, like money?” He looked idly up at her as his hooves got to work with what Lyra recognized as the sonar. “Never been good with that, no. Sorry, but I need a minute.” Octavia dutifully stayed quiet as the Doctor's attention refocused on the submarine. He drew his sonic screwdriver from a pocket and trained it on a nonspecific gadget.

Lyra's attention was not on the submarine, though. Unable to help herself, she moved her bubble closer to Anoese and asked, “Excuse me, Mr. Chief Anoese? Do you mind if I ask you a weird question?”

He raised an eyebrow as his gaze met hers. “What sort of weird question?”

“Is it true that seapony tears can help bring back the dead?”

His eyes narrowed in confusion. “What are 'tears'?”

“Uh....” I guess I should take that as a no. “They're these things, these drops of water, that come out of a pony's eyes when they're sad. Or if they're allergic.”

Lyra got the feeling that if Anoese had a foreleg, he'd have rested it on her shoulder in a fatherly way. It would certainly have matched the smile he was giving her; warm, paternal, and mildly infuriating. “My dear Lyra, I don't believe I've heard of anything like that, but I'm certain I'd be delighted to see it.”

Lyra pouted. Over Anoese's shoulder, she saw Octavia stifle a chuckle.

“Aha!” the Doctor said, pocketing the screwdriver. “Chief Anoese, I'm afraid I'll have to prove you wrong. The Nautilus is not broken beyond repair after all.”

“Really?” Mariana asked, coming down to inspect the sub herself.

“Oh, yeah, I mean, it'll never be ocean-worthy again, so that's a downside. But a lot of its systems can definitely be salvaged. Could someone help me, ah....” He got behind the Nautilus, shoved his hooves beneath it, and pulled up. Octavia was there a second later, also helping him. “Thank you,” he said. “No, not you,” he said further, as Anoese moved to help as well. “You've got to be our guide, remember?”

Within minutes, they'd reached the seapony village—though calling it a village was being nice. As the Doctor looked around, pushing the Nautilus meter by meter, he recognized the unmistakable air of a refugee camp. Seaponies—fathers, mothers, and foals, too many for the size of the town—floated in the streets in silence, watching the newcomers with muted hope. Some foals were playing games of tag, but even so, sadness colored the background of their glee, and their childish screams of happiness were muted too.

Something else the Doctor couldn't help but notice: they all shared Anoese's green coloration, and his kelp-like hair, but none of them shared his age. Had all of the elders made the same judgment as Anoese—that the old weren't worth as much?

“Here,” Anoese said, as they reached a large coral structure. He went in first and rested his trident near the door. The Doctor let the Nautilus come to rest in front of it, then entered the building. Inside it were more elaborate versions of the swirls that he'd seen in the abandoned home from before, and many artifacts of the sea rested on the shelves; shells, starfish skeletons, and more.

Floating near the floor were Rusty Davey and Seabiscuit, both of whom smiled as they saw the others enter. “Captain, Chief,” Rusty said, inclining his head. His cap was slightly tilted, revealing a kelp bandage over his head wound. He lifted a hoof to indicate the Doctor and his friends. “Who are these?”

The Doctor introduced them all again, then said, “We're here to help. We might be able to get some more use out of the Nautilus, but before we do that, I need to know what attacked you. Did you see it at all?”

“Us? No!” Seabiscuit shuddered. “No windows in the sub. And sonar couldn't tell us anything about them, except that they were moving too fast. Ask him—” he pointed at Chief Anoese “—he at least saw them.”

Anoese frowned. “I did, and they are indeed what has been attacking us these past moons, but we have no name for them yet. Red they are, with large purple... frills on their tops and bottoms. Like eels, but large enough to swallow a seapony in one bite in their toothy maws—that, I can attest to.”

Octavia blinked. “Say that again. The last sentence, with the same words.”

Anoese seemed confused, but he dutifully reiterated. “Like eels, but large enough to swallow a seapony in their toothy maws—”

“Yes, that,” Octavia said, waving for him to stop as she squeezed her eyes shut. “I've heard about something like that somewhere. Read about it. I'm not sure. What else about them, what do we know?”

“They attack out of rock tunnels?” Lyra said. “Tunnels they dig themselves?”

“Yes, yes, tunnels, rock tunnels, excavators, quarry... quarry.” Her eyes shot open. “Quarray eels.”

“What?” the Doctor said. “Quarray eels—what are those?”

“The chief just described them. I think I read about them in a book once, but... it's weird.” She frowned. “If memory serves, they're always found in gorges, ravines, the kind above ground. That is to say, they have gills—they are eels, after all—but if I remember correctly they're close to vestigial. There's no reason for them to be attacking down here—”

She stuck a hoof into her forehead, then looked at the Doctor in a weary way. “Oh, not again.”

“Not what again? Wait....” The Doctor took a moment, then he realized what she meant. “Them.” She nodded.

“What?” Lyra asked.

The Doctor gritted his teeth. “A bunch of animals are acting against their natural instincts and attacking ponies—and seaponies, in this case.” He turned to Anoese. “The eels that attacked you—did you see anything wrong with their eyes? Were they glowing?”

“Thinking back....” Anoese rubbed his chin. “Yes, they glowed bright red.”

“The Order of Four,” the Doctor said, glowering fiercely. “Those—those pointless idiots!”

“Uh, the who?” Seabiscuit asked.

“A cult of cowardly anarchists who can't see more than one step ahead of their own stupid plots!” His volume was rising. “Somehow they knew you were down here,” he shouted, turning to Anoese. “Somehow they found out about you first, and instead of doing something good or even purposeful they set these monsters on you—why? Just for destruction's sake?”

“Doctor?” Octavia said.

“Those stupid—what is the POINT of them?”

Octavia darted toward him and shoved her hoof over his mouth. They stared eye to eye for a few seconds, and the intensity of her gaze told him that he’d done something very wrong. “There's something else I remember about quarray eels,” she hissed. “Their best sense is hearing. It's how they hunt.”

Oh, the Doctor thought. The room was silent.

And then, by degrees, it was not.

The Doctor was certain he heard it first, but it wasn't long before the looks of fear on everyone's face told him that they heard it too. There was something rumbling beneath them, with the intensity of a volcano coming to the surface—and it was moving quickly.

Of course, he thought. They can tunnel through solid rock, and this reef is grown upon sand. “Move,” he mouthed, jabbing a hoof to the door. No one wasted time.

Once the Doctor was outside Anoese's house, it was clear that the seaponies in the streets heard the quaking too. The only sounds from them were the muffled cries of children; even they knew to be quiet.

Anoese turned to the Doctor and mouthed, “I need to clear the streets.” He'd grabbed his trident, and now he darted away from the rest of them and started swimming in a spiral pattern, with his house at the center. The refugees understood and swam frantically away, so that within a minute it was just the Doctor, his companions, and the crew of the Nautilus in the streets.

The noise reached a fortissimo—and then, for some reason, disappeared. Perhaps what was below the surface was rearing back for its final blow. Above the seafloor, Chief Anoese's mouth sagged, and he readied his trident. The Doctor stared with bated breath, not at him, but just above the house, where he knew it had to happen.

The calm broke. Anoese's home exploded, and the quarray eel burst from the instantaneous ruin—huge as a runaway train and faster than a pyroclastic flow. Its eyes glowed bright red, and its jaw was unhinged, ready for prey.

Stay tuned: Tomb of the Aquanauts will resume in just a moment.

Tomb of the Aquanauts (b)

We now return to Tomb of the Aquanauts.

Don't move, Lyra thought. Don't move, don't breathe, don't make a peep.

Anoese pulled away from the quarray eel's jaws just as they snapped through the water, only to dive in toward its glowing eye with his trident outstretched. It was insane, like trying to fight a volcano or an earthquake or a rockslide, except that the rockslide knew where you were.

The quarray eel saw Anoese's attempt and turned its face toward him—a face long and large enough that its nose struck Anoese in the side with the force of a battering ram. He was thrown aside and floated limp in the water. Lyra’s breath caught as the eel pulled back its head, readying for the bite.

Then Rusty Davey charged forward, yelling in defiance and shoving one shoulder into the eel's eye. With its attention diverted, the eel didn't see or hear him until he'd made impact. It recoiled, opening its mouth in what looked like a scream of pain, but it made no sound. The whole thing was close to silent, in fact: the water muffled the strikes of flesh on scales, giving the whole thing a nightmarishly surreal quality—or a nightmarishly real one. Lyra didn't know which would be worse.

Now the quarray eel was furious; it snapped at Davey, who retreated to where Anoese still floated. Davey hefted the trident with an ease that Anoese had lacked and bared his teeth at the eel.

Okay, I can't not move anymore, Lyra thought. Move.

The eel lunged for Davey; he got out of the way just in time.

Move, she told herself, as Rusty feinted with the trident. Move, or they are going to die.

Nothing happened in her body. Seaponies, she thought, as Rusty charged forward, only to veer off course as the eel went for him—it missed his tail by inches. The seaponies are going to die if this thing keeps attacking. She glanced over at the Doctor, whose attention was focused on the fight. Think. Think think think, please think. What can we use?

Davey went low, under the quarray eel's field of vision, but it could still hear him. As he passed through one of the town's streets, the massive head came down to pursue him, plowing through coral homes like they were sugar glass. Their destruction, like everything else, was muted and dreamlike.

Muted. Wait. Lyra glanced at the Doctor again. Hang on a second. Then, she glanced at his pocket. “Sonic,” she whispered.

He didn't respond. Rusty was back out of the street, but it didn't matter; the eel had tired of him. Its one good eye focused on Chief Anoese, who seemed at best semi conscious.

“Sonic screwdriver,” she whispered, trying to force more air from her lungs. Of all the times for my throat to close up! Now, when it actually matters!

But he seemed to at least pick up on the fact that she had said something, and moved a little closer to her. “What?” he asked.

Lyra couldn't make more words come out, so she focused her magic. A green glow appeared around the Doctor's pocket, and the silver device pulled its way out.

He looked at it for a moment, then clapped a hoof to his forehead. “I'm thick! Thank you, Lyra!” And then he was off, twisting his screwdriver frantically. The eel reared back, ready to kill Anoese.

But the Doctor was faster. He pointed and clicked, and the most earsplitting sound pierced the ocean. Lyra covered her ears, but the quarray eel howled—and this time, Lyra could hear the low, guttural choking sound, if only just.

The Doctor jammed the screwdriver right up against the eel’s head; it thrashed from side to side, and he grabbed its head and held on for dear life, but did not relent. With each wild swing, its head retreated further, until the tip of its beak disappeared beneath the sand. For a few seconds the shrill scream of the Doctor’s screwdriver was diminished in volume. Then it cut off.

The Doctor emerged from the hole, panting. “I think... we're okay,” he said. “New rule: no loud noises.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And yes, I realize that sounds a... tiny bit hypocritical.” Behind herself, Lyra saw a few more seaponies peek from behind houses. Some turned away and buried their heads in their fellows' necks: perhaps it had been their homes that were destroyed. The Doctor winced and looked away.

A low groaning came from the side; Anoese was coming to. Lyra wasn't quite able to move just yet, but in this case it didn't matter: Octavia and the Doctor rushed to his side within seconds. “Stay calm,” the Doctor said. “You've had a massive shock, probably. I had a friend who was a doctor once, she taught me a few things....”

He felt down Anoese's front, but the chief grimaced and pushed him away. “I will live,” he said. “That is what matters.” Lyra experimentally rotated her front hooves.

“Are you certain?” Octavia asked, as Anoese—moving like a run-down automaton—swam to retrieve his trident from Rusty, who presented it with a nod. Anoese fumbled the grabbing of it, and Octavia moved down to help get it into his grasp. “You really need to find a better place to live.”

“I am fine,” Anoese repeated, with more conviction, but Lyra saw him hold back a wince.

“Well....” The Doctor shrugged. “If you're certain. Did anyone see where the Nautilus got to?” He looked around at the assorted group, who—judging by their nonplussed expressions—had had better things to focus on than the broken submarine. “Oh, you and your attention spans. Hold on one second. Well, I say one....” With that, he was off down a mostly-intact side-street.

“I wasn't kidding,” Octavia said, as Anoese let himself drift down to lean against part of the coral. “You're living in an incredibly dangerous, awful place. Get out of here.”

He frowned at her. “You suggest we should abandon our homes, again. Do you know how many times we have been pushed back?”

“And all those times, you left because it was too dangerous. It's too dangerous now, Chief.”

“This is the last part of our reef we can call ours. You would have us give up where our parents lived, and our grandparents, and....” His eyes narrowed. “Have you ever been forced from your home, Octavia? Can you say what that feels like?”

“Yes!” A bit of a smile lifted Octavia's lips.“Yes, in fact, I can. And, in fact, it was one of the better events of my life. So why not find a new home? Another reef? What would the difference be, except for your safety?”

Anoese sighed, and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Look at me,” he finally said. “Look at my scales.”

Octavia frowned, and looked down at his lower body and tail, both of which were covered by scales. Unlike the rest of his body, they were iridescent as if new. “I don't see what you're getting at,” she said.

“But you see them. And you see what hangs round your neck.”

Now Octavia rested her chin on her torso, the better to see the scale on her necklace. “Yes, I see. They look the same—is that what you mean?”

“They do,” Anoese said, opening his eyes. “But none of the scales on my body could do what that scale does, because not any scale will protect a poor soul lost to the sea. It's not only belief, you see—a seapony must carry that scale in a time of great joy for it to be blessed with that power.

“That one—” he poked Octavia's scale “—came from... what was her name... Mina. She was a child, and one night she brought that scale with her to the surface and watched lights fly across the sky like fish across a reef.”

He smiled a small smile, with little lines wrinkling around his eyes. “We didn't have a name for those lights and neither did she, but that didn't matter—they were beautiful, and her joy was simple and pure. And that is how your scale was blessed, though it looks no different to you.” His smile faded. “Now, you want me and my people to give up the reefs we have called home for centuries, so we can find another home that is no different? I may as well advise you to replace your scale with one of mine and stay down here with me.”

“That's....” Octavia gritted her teeth. “That's not the same thing. I cannot survive outside this bubble.”

“And I will not live,” Anoese grunted, pushing himself off the wall and grasping his trident, “outside my home. So we must agree to disagree.” He tried to swim forward, but gasped and fell back against the wall. “Leave me,” he said, as Octavia tried to help him up. “There are more pressing matters at hoof.”

Octavia sighed, but backed off. However, Seabiscuit came up beside her and said, with a quavery voice, “Um, can I just point out that I'd like to take what Octavia said and apply it to us?” He looked around, first at Octavia, then at Lyra, then at Davey and Mariana. “Look, I... I want to go back up. I'm sorry,” he said, turning now to Anoese, “but quarray eels were bad enough, and now there's this cult involved, apparently, and the eels can attack anywhere, and I don't know if I can—if we can really stay.”

The corner of Mariana's mouth jolted downward in a half-frown. “So we should leave the seaponies to die?” she said. Seabiscuit gulped, and Mariana continued, “You're on my crew, Seabiscuit, and frankly I was being generous when I put it to a vote. We're staying, because we care about helping people. Ponies or otherwise.”

Seabiscuit took a deep breath in, looking greener than ever. “Look, okay, you want to help people? I want to help people!” He struck his hoof on his chest, just above the heart. “I want to advance the cause of science, I want to save lives, I want to do a lot of good, good things. But more than that, I want to go home. I've—I've got a sister up there waiting to welcome me back,” he said, looking beseechingly at Mariana. “What in Tartarus happens if she never sees me again?”

Lyra floated to Seabiscuit's side and rested a hoof on his back. “Hey,” she said, as his head jerked up to look at her. He's so scared, she noticed. “It's scary, I know. It's really, really terrifying for me too.”

“I'm not scared for myself,” he said, with a mask-like expression. Lyra imagined his face as a decrepit old building, barely shored up by scaffolding: one wrong push….

“I am.” Lyra took a deep breath, trying to choose her words carefully. “But they need us, and we can help. So I think we have to stay. Just for a little longer. Okay?” When this provoked no response, she continued, “And hey, I bet you’ll see your sister really soon, safe and sound. Er, I mean you’ll be safe and sound, but I guess she’ll be safe and sound too, right?” She tried to smile.

“Um....” Seabiscuit looked all around, but, seeing no one sympathetic to his suggestion of retreat, his head drooped. “Okay,” he said miserably. “Yeah, she’ll be fine.” He planted a hoof on his face and breathed deeply through his nose.

It felt a bit like she’d just committed arson. Lyra cast her mind around for something else to say, but another voice cut off her train of thought. “Good news, everypony—and others!”

The Doctor had just returned, pushing the Nautilus in front of him. “She's fixed! No need to thank me!”

“Fixed?” Mariana asked.

“Well, in one very important respect.” The Doctor grinned, and with a flourish he dove into the submarine hoof-first, as though to press a button. A moment later, Lyra realized that that was exactly what he'd done, judging by his next words: “Blue Shift, this is the Doctor. Repeat, Blue Shift, this is the Doctor speaking. I've repaired the submarine's radio system, we're all safe, and—”

His next words were drowned out by a trio of surprisingly familiar voices.

“Doctor!”

“Lyra, you're okay?”

“Tavi!”

“Oh, good,” Dr. Shift said, smiling insincerely as his hoof lifted from the transmit button. “Shouting over each other, that's the best way to have a conversation. This is turning out just as well as the books say the Three Tribes meeting did. You even look the part!” He gestured with his hoof at Bon Bon, Derpy, and Vinyl.

Bon Bon glared at him. “Shut up with the history lesson and let us talk to our friends.”

“All right, but in some sort of order. None of this 'let's all talk at once' rubbish. I'll go first.” Shift pressed the button again and said, “Hello, Doctor... and everyone else. Good to know the radio works. You've got some guests who are simply demanding that I let them hog the frequency, so why not, I suppose.”

“Vinyl?” came Octavia's voice on the other end, as Shift sighed and walked away. “What are you doing here?”

Vinyl surged forward before the other two could to press the button. “Not saying 'I told you so',” she replied. “Even though I totally could be. You can thank me later, Octy.”

“I'd wager you just said it.”

Vinyl heard a bit of a chuckle in those words; she grinned herself, and fired back with, “Nah, doesn't count. But seriously, everypony doin' okay down there?”

“Swimmingly,” the Doctor said. “Sorry, too good to resist,” he added as Bon Bon groaned. “Really, though, what are you doing here?”

Derpy took the question. “Blue Shift was broadcasting the event over the radio. We heard things went wrong, and... well, I knew you'd down go, so we all got together and went on the train next. We just got here.”

Vinyl resisted the urge to correct her grammar, and said, “Seriously, though, seaponies? That's what's going on? Those are supposed to just be a myth.”

“Says the fluorescent unicorn.” The Doctor sighed. “People and their skepticisms, I'm telling you.”

“Whatever,” Vinyl said. “So you're gonna be down there and help the seaponies, and then you're definitely gonna come back, right?”

The Doctor didn't respond. Vinyl pressed on: “You're all definitely coming back up, right?” She hoped she sounded insistent rather than afraid—and she really hoped the Doctor was being a donkey's rear, rather than honest.

Finally, his voice came over the radio: “I will absolutely do my best.”

Vinyl groaned and dropped her head against the control panel, then magically pressed the button. “You're not doing a great job of reassuring me, Brownie.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, I'll tell you the lie where it's perfectly safe to be kilometers deep and under siege by train-sized eels. Is that what'll reassure you, Vinyl Scratch?”

Vinyl lifted her hoof over the button, but couldn't find a reason to press it down. The heck am I supposed to say to that?

“Excuse me?” said Blue Shift behind them; the three of them turned to see him peeking through the doorway. He gave a little wave, and continued, “If you could proceed to closing remarks, there's a young filly out here who'd like to speak to Seabiscuit, and I do like to do right by my crew.”

The three of them looked at each other; then, as if they'd shared a decision, Derpy pressed the button. “Do what you gotta do down there, Doctor. Save the day.”

“Roger that,” he said.

Bon Bon was next. “Lyra?”

“Yeah?” came the voice on the other end.

“You're being very brave, going underwater like that.” Bon Bon smiled. “Stick with the Doctor, okay? He'll see you through this.”

“Okay, BB.”

Now it was Vinyl's turn to speak. Already? she thought. I don't get one friggin' minute to talk with Tavi and now I'm being booted out? “Tavi?” she said.

“Vinyl?”

“Come back up. Please, really, keep safe, and get back home, and….” Vinyl let off the button, took a deep breath to steady herself, then leaned back upon it. “Just make it back, Tavi.”

There was a pause on the other end, and then Octavia said, “Right. I'll see you soon, Vinyl. That's a promise.”

“I'll see you too.”

Vinyl stopped talking, but kept the button depressed, as if holding an embrace. She didn't let go until Blue Shift nudged her away, saying, “Please remember it's not a private channel. Well, not yours at any rate.” Then Vinyl trudged out of the room behind Derpy and Bon Bon, past the filly who wanted to talk to Seabiscuit.

As she left the shack, she looked up at the crowd. Now that the initial shock and terror had faded, they weren't waiting with bated breath; they were sitting, relaxing, even chatting—albeit in hushed tones: Blue Shift's assistant was seeing to that. What a bunch of jerkholes. The anxiety, the dread she felt seemed less like an emotion and more like a storm front—how could they not be affected? How could this rain be falling only on her?

Oh, fine, she thought, I guess they don't have the same stake in this thing. Then she heard giggling, and looked up to see Derpy's face being overtaken by a grin as she whispered something to Bon Bon. The latter glanced back at Vinyl, then barely managed to force down a laugh.

Okay, you guys have no excuse. “What?” Vinyl said, as the three of them made their way in front of the shack, obscuring them from the crowd. “What's so friggin’ funny?”

“Oh,” Bon Bon said, forcing a smile down, “we're just laughing at Derpy. And you. Mostly you.” The smile came back up with the enthusiasm of a flotation device breaching the waves.

Vinyl narrowed her eyes, but before she could say anything, Derpy cut in. “And at me! At my dumb eyes—I can't believe I didn't see it before!”

“See what?” Vinyl said through gritted teeth.

“You love her!”

If Vinyl's rising temper had been a helium balloon, that would have been the pin. She stared at Derpy. “What are you... what?”

“Octavia! You love love love love love her!”

“What?” she said, forcing a laugh. “Nah, what would make you think that?”

Bon Bon snorted. “Just make it back, Tavi,” she said, parroting Vinyl's voice, her desperate inflection. Stupid stupid stupid, Vinyl thought. “I'll see you too. There's friendship and then there's that. Really, now—” she lifted a hoof before Vinyl could get a word in “—she's the Element of Honesty, and I'm the princess of lies. You can't play this game and win.”

Vinyl slumped her shoulders, deflating further. “Come on....”

“Yeah, come on!” Derpy said with the enthusiasm of a flying puppy, as she hovered over Vinyl’s head. “You totally love her, don't you?”

Vinyl sank against the shack's outside wall. “To pieces.”

There, she thought, as Derpy and Bon Bon sat beside her, Bon Bon making a hoof pump. Said it. May as well keep going. “And I….”

“Aaaaaaaand?” Bon Bon said.

Vinyl sighed. Say it, wimp. “And I think it's gonna kill me.” It felt like induced vomiting—she knew she couldn't keep this all bottled up forever, but that didn't mean it had to feel awesome coming out. She pulled her glasses off and rubbed her eyes.

“Kill you?” Derpy asked.

Vinyl looked her in the eyes, or at least in one of them. “Have you ever been so full of the right cracks, the right jokes, and then you try to admit one little thing and it's like getting blood from a… I dunno, a stone, or a cliff, or a mountain range? Have you ever loved somepony so, so much, and had no idea how to tell them?”

“Um.... I don't know.” Derpy shrugged. “Can't you just... tell her? It's just three words.”

“Are you—are you even listening?” Vinyl slammed her hooves against the shack's side as she slumped further. “I mean, it's not like I haven't tried. Holy crap, have I tried. I mean, wow. I deserve a trying award or something—”

“And what?” Bon Bon asked. “Does it always come out as verbal diarrhea like this?”

Vinyl chuckled. “Yeah, I'm a real Scatmare, ain't I. But that's not it—I mean, the thing is, every time I say anything that comes anywhere in the general area of 'I want you and me to be marefriends', she acts like I'm lighting a bomb and chucking it at her. So I keep playing it off like it's a joke.” She sighed. “I think she thinks that I just think she's hot. Which she totally is, don't get me wrong, but—”

Bon Bon lifted a hoof to her lips, and Vinyl stopped talking, but squinted at her. “I'm sorry, I just don't see the issue,” Bon Bon said. “So you say it and things happen from there. She says yes or she says no. So what?”

“Yeah. So what.” Vinyl felt like if she slumped any lower, she'd be submerged entirely in sand. “And now she's kilometers deep or whatever, but so what. Do you know how bad it feels to watch someone hurt her, or try to hurt her?” When Bon Bon shook her head, Vinyl continued: “Well, it's got nothing on not being able to watch. If she... if she doesn't....”

An unexpected gust of wind from the ocean blew at her, carrying bits of sand with it. She took a shuddering breath and sat up straighter, pulling her glasses back on to protect her eyes. “Okay, so I can't tell her. That means that neither of you can tell her either. Got it? This is a secret.”

“Hmm....” Bon Bon tapped her jaw. “I dunno if I'll be able to do that. I mean, being the princess of lies and all, if I were to promise to keep quiet, how would you know I was telling the truth?”

“If you tell her, I will kick your rump through your face.”

Lifting a hoof, Bon Bon pulled away from Vinyl. “Wow, okay. Really, I'm joking with you, miss Element of Joking With You. I'll keep it, sure." She waited a few seconds, until Vinyl was starting to relax, then added, "But on two conditions. First of all, I want to know the why.”

“'The why'?” Vinyl repeated, feeling less relaxed.

Derpy tapped her on the shoulder. “I think she means, 'Why do you love Octavia?' Like, to opposed as being friends.”

“I mean....” Vinyl rubbed her head, taking a minute to think of the words. Maybe I should write this down. “Okay, first of all, did I mention that rockin' booty? Because seriously, that thing goes for daaayyyys....” She chuckled nervously, but when neither Bon Bon nor Derpy showed any sign of approval, she moved on. “And... she's nice, and she's witty, and she's gorgeous, and... she believes in me.”

Derpy squinted. “I believe in you too. I can see you right there.”

“You know what I mean,” Vinyl said, gently punching Derpy's shoulder. When she was greeted with only a blank expression from Derpy, Vinyl raised her hooves in a 'really?' gesture. “All right, maybe you don't, so listen up. You remember my first concert with Tavi? You watched it from the TARDIS, remember?”

“Yeah, we were there,” Derpy said. “And then. Hehe, get it?”

“Everypony gets it, Derpy. Thing is, that was sort of a... last ditch for me.” Vinyl sighed. “I mean, think about it. If Octavia hadn't worked with me there, security would have dragged me off and then where the hay would I have ever played again? Do you think I'd do any DJing after that?”

She smiled. “But she didn't just work with me. We got together, we planned that next real concert, and she poured her heart and soul and cash into that, and she's always so incredibly there for me and... I guess I've never had anyone believe in me like that before.”

Behind her, Bon Bon snorted. “You sound like a puppy.”

“Rump through the face, remember?” Vinyl said, turning to glare at her.

Bon Bon appeared unfazed, and said, “Anyway, on to condition two. Do you mind if I tell you a story?”

“Ooh, tell it!” Derpy said. Vinyl just shrugged.

“All right. So, when I was a filly in Manehattan, there was this colt—”

“Hang on,” Vinyl said, “you grew up in Manehattan? I grew up in Manehattan! You never said!”

“That's probably because I'm lying right now. Shush.”

Wait, what. Vinyl's jaw dropped as Bon Bon continued without any apparent shame. “So there was this colt, I forget his name... Wind Catcher, it might have been. Yeah, Wind Catcher, this cute as a button little pegasus. And I had a bit of a crush on him—don't laugh,” she added, though Vinyl wasn't about to do anything of the sort. “So I stewed on that for weeks, and I mean weeks. And then one day I walked up to him on the playground, and I told him, and he said no, and ‘eww’, and I think he might have called me stinky. And I felt sad for a few days, and then? I felt just fine. Tied up that loose end really nicely.”

She paused, then said, “Does that help?”

Vinyl’s jaw was a bit open; she pulled it back up for appearances’ sakes, then squinted at Bon Bon. “But....”

“But?”

“Beebs, you literally just told me that whole story was a lie.”

“I could have been lying about that.” Bon Bon winked. “Seriously, did it help?”

Well, I feel confused as all heck now instead of depressed, so kinda? “So... which is it? Lie, or not?”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “Look, believe what you want. But you see my point, right?”

“She's lying.”

Bon Bon's eyes widened as she and Vinyl turned again to look at Derpy, who smiled and said, “You've never been to Manehattan, have you.”

Bon Bon's jaw slackened. “How do you—don't do that!” she exclaimed, stepping toward Derpy. “I mean, it's impressive, but I had a good thing going!”

“You think it's impressive?” Derpy said, smiling just a little.

“Well, yeah, I'm pretty good at this, after all... but really, don't do that!” She stomped her hoof in indignation.

“Uh, actually do do that?” Vinyl said, waving at Derpy. “Because I don't like the idea of not knowing when she's lying her face off?”

“Oh, you're one to talk,” Bon Bon muttered, rubbing her face. “Miss 'I can't tell my crush that I'm crushing on her'. At least I told you I might be lying, so it looks like I’m winning the honesty game here, and doesn’t that make you feel sad?”

She glared up at Vinyl. “Want my advice? Be honest, and be honest soon, because you won't be able to hide this forever. It'll be like that time my parents asked if it was me or my brother stealing from the cookie jar, and I blamed him, and then they found pink hair in the jar... I'm the only one in my family with pink hair, you see.”

Vinyl looked at Derpy, but she just shrugged. Bon Bon grinned. “Still got it.”

“Give the stallion some privacy,” Captain Mariana said, directing the Doctor, Lyra, and Octavia away from the Nautilus as Seabiscuit moved in to talk with his little sister. “He wants to talk with his connection up top. Can't say I blame him.”

The Doctor frowned. “Do you have anyone up top?”

Mariana snorted. “Pfft, hardly. Been in the navy one way or another for ever since I was a brat. Then my parents got lost at sea, and….” She narrowed her eyes. “And why in Equestria am I telling you this?”

The Doctor smiled, hopefully in a trustable manner. “Stressful situation. These things come out. I once got lost in a maze and got to know some of my best friends....” Mariana grimaced—with half her face again; he really wanted to ask about that—and moved away. The Doctor did not attempt to restart the conversation. Evidently, not trustable enough.

Octavia sighed as she let herself drift down the coral reef's street. “Does anypony else feel shortchanged?” she asked. “I feel like I could have easily used many more minutes speaking with Vinyl.”

“Well, maybe a bit, I suppose.” The Doctor shrugged. “Well, okay, a lot. Would have liked it if Derpy had gotten some words in edgewise. Mind you, Vinyl would have taken up any extra minutes we could throw at her. Talked our receiver off, didn't she?”

Octavia smiled. “Somewhat, yes.” For reasons the Doctor couldn't quite see, Octavia looked quite without a care as she said that. Although, thinking about it... I suppose she's the one who can't see it, he realized. Obvious, really, from the outside. He resolved to act as though he had realized nothing.

The three of them sat against the reef wall. “Ah, well,” Octavia said, as a small amount of tension reasserted itself within her shoulders. “I suppose Seabiscuit cares just as much about his sister as we care about our... and, in any case, how could we balance that?”

After a few seconds' silence, she then turned to Lyra, who was staring at the sand. “You've been quiet.”

“Shush, I'm idea-ing.”

Octavia opened her mouth—possibly to remind Lyra that “thinking” was still an actual word—but Lyra raised a hoof and said, “Please, please, please, if you talk I might lose it.” She froze for several seconds, then blurted out, “Wait, I lost it!” She scrunched up her face in concentration, tapping a hoof against the sand. “Come on, come on, what was it....” As if sleepwalking, she drifted forward, eyes still closed. “I had it, I had it and it's on the tip of my brain....”

Her eyes flew open—“That's it!”—just in time for her to see the building she was about to crash into. She hastily pulled back, and turned to the Doctor and Octavia with a grin on her face. “I got the idea back.”

“The idea for what?” the Doctor asked.

“The idea for how we put the quarray eels out of business for good.” She hoof-pumped, then frowned. “Did that sound cool? I was going for sounding cool.”

“Reasonably cool, yeah. Wouldn't you say, Octavia?”

Octavia glanced at him. “Sure?” she said dubiously. “In any case, what's the idea?”

“Okay, so you said the quarray eels were super-sensitive to sound, right?” Lyra asked Octavia. When she nodded, Lyra continued, “And you used your sonic screwdriver, and it made the one quarray eel retreat, but it only works on one at a time, because it's not very big, right?” Now it was the Doctor's turn to nod. Lyra concluded, “Well, think about it. All we need is, like, a big speaker, and then I can modify it so it makes all the quarray eels go away forever.”

“You can do that?” the Doctor asked.

“Well, yeah. I mean, it's my day job, right?”

Octavia, to his left, nodded, but the Doctor felt as though this was probably his cue to respond with an enthusiastic “Yes!” except that he'd missed the rehearsal. He was only able to manage an awkward, “Er, of course.”

Lyra stared at him. “You... you do know about my day job, right? The one where I design instruments and sound systems and stuff for a living, which is why my cutie mark is a lyre because I do musical instruments for a… living....” Her shoulders slumped. “Has this never come up?”

“Well....” The Doctor pouted. “I dunno... I guess I never thought of you as the day job type.” Lyra's mouth opened slightly.

“I know what you mean,” Octavia said, nodding at Lyra, “but she's actually quite good. She designed the equipment for our concert in Fillydelphia.”

Lyra's mouth opened further, and the Doctor immediately regretted having said anything, or that Octavia had said anything—even before Lyra started talking. He knew that mouth. That was the universal rant mouth. “What do you mean, 'you know what he means'?” she declared. “Of course I have a day job! A real, important-things... day job! For real money! I do my own taxes and everything! Well, actually, Bon Bon does the taxes—I pay my own taxes and everything, and that's the important part!”

“Ahem?” Octavia raised a hoof. “I believe we've derailed a bit, and you need to keep the volume down.”

Lyra flinched at the mention of volume, and looked around for a few seconds, but it became clear that no eels were coming. “Fine,” she said, her temper only slightly subdued. “Well, since I'm such a job-having pony, I know that I can modify a big enough speaker and I can make it put out a sound ponies won't be able to hear—I just need a big enough speaker.” She grinned. “Great thing somepony brought one down, right? And it even works underwater.”

“What speaker?” Octavia asked.

The Doctor, on the other hand, only took a moment to figure out what Lyra meant. “Oh, the Nautilus's sonar! That'd be what attracted the quarray eels to the sub in the first place!”

“And this time, it'll be what repels them. SOund Navigation And Ranging, you said?” Lyra's grin widened, revealing teeth. “Key word: sound.”

“That's brilliant!” the Doctor said, moving in for a hug, but Lyra instead high-hoofed one of his outstretched hooves. After an awkward frozen moment, he decided to drop his hooves and continue. “So, soon as Seabiscuit gets off the horn, we get everyone together and talk about this?”

“Sounds great to me,” Lyra said, turning and drifting away. “'Not the day job type',” the Doctor heard her mutter. “Feh.”

“You can do it?” Seabiscuit said, as Lyra used her magic to yank a wire out from the sonar. “You can drive out the eels?”

“Abso-tively,” Lyra grunted, charging her horn with power, “and posi-lutely.” Her horn discharged into the wire, flooding it with energy.

“That's—that's great!” Seabiscuit said, though his tone didn't agree with him. Lyra didn't say anything back, and after a few seconds his shoulders slumped and he floated off, leaving Lyra to continue to tinker with the machine. It felt almost like being on a playground, with all the different connections to manipulate.

She levitated the sonic screwdriver, which the Doctor had lent her, and pointed it at a screw, but a tapping sound from the Nautilus interrupted her. Dropping the screwdriver, she looked up to see Octavia with her hoof on the hull. “So, I've been thinking about this mission,” she said.

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “Why'd you emphasize 'think'?”

“... never mind that. The point is this: You've never seen or heard of this machine until today, and this whole plan relies on you being able to alter it outside its original capacities—”

“Which I can totally do!”

“Quite possibly, yes—listen. We have a radio in this ship, remember?” Octavia tapped the hull again. “And on the other end of that radio is the stallion who built this system. If you want my advice—”

“—not sure I do, thanks—”

“Call him. Ask him. He knows what he's doing.”

Lyra glared up at her. Octavia sighed, and said, “Lyra, something's gotten into you and I'm not quite sure what. You're not usually this irascible.”

“I can handle this, Octavia.” Lyra returned her attention to the screw. “Now shush. You don't interrupt an artiste during her artiste-ry... artistry.” She activated the screwdriver and watched as its target twisted itself loose from the case.

“It's not art, it's... never mind.” Octavia rotated her shoulders, then floated away, saying, “Just do your best.”

“Right you are, commander,” Lyra mumbled.

For five minutes, no one else talked to her, and as a result, after those five minutes, she was finished. She hoped. It’s probably right, she thought, reattaching the sonar’s cover. Probably. I'd look really dumb if it wasn't.

After a moment more, she laughed to herself. Of course it's right, she told herself. I'm the greatest.

“Done, then?” the Doctor asked, lifting a hoof. Lyra nodded and floated toward him, and when their bubbles intersected she tossed the screwdriver into his hoof. “Molto bene!” he said, pocketing it. “Just a shame we can't test it before we use it.”

“Why not?” Mariana asked.

“I've got a feeling the quarray eels may become a bit... violent before they realize that the best way to escape the sonar is by returning to the surface. It's not easy, breaking mind control. Trust me.” He shrugged. “So our best bet is to take the Nautilus as far into the tunnels as we can, activate it, and then... ooh, what's the phrase? Get out of Dodge?”

“Into the tunnels?” Mariana raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly the safe option.”

“The tunnels will keep the sound waves exactly where we want them—namely, the tunnels. If we turn the sonar on outside, too much of the sound will dissipate. So?” He looked around the little group that had gathered there: Anoese, Mariana, Rusty, Seabiscuit, Lyra, Octavia, and himself. He grinned without amusement. “Who wants to go where the shadows lie?”

Anoese hefted his trident. “I will go—” But his body disagreed, and violently. A spasm struck him, and he dropped the trident and sank to the seafloor.

“Anoese!” the Doctor said, rushing to him.

“It's nothing—negligible.” Anoese coughed. “I can still—I should, I must. It ought to be me—” Another coughing fit seized him. It sounded like he was hacking up a gill.

The Doctor palpated Anoese's bruise. “Okay, Anoese, you are officially not okay. Duty or no, you're not going. And it looks like I'm not either,” he said, grimacing at the group. “He really needs a lowercase doctor, and I'm the closest thing we've got at the moment.”

“I'll go, of course,” Mariana said, “and Rusty as well.” Rusty nodded his assent. Mariana continued, “But we'll need someone who can fix the speaker if something happens, or if it's faulty.”

Whaddya mean, if it's faulty? Lyra grimaced. “Oh, well, maybe I'll go, then.”

“That would be perfect, thank you.” Mariana nodded. “So, that's our crew.”

“Wait, what?” Lyra asked, silently cursing her fat mouth. “No, no, no no no no no—no. I—I—I was kidding!” She laughed nervously. “Like, why would I ever want to go in there, right?”

Mariana sighed, and said, “Seriously?” Lyra nodded very hard. “Well,” Mariana continued, “we need somepony who has some familiarity with speakers... hey, you.”

She gestured at Octavia, whose eyes widened. “Me? Well... yes, I suppose I have some familiarity with speakers, but it'd be immodest to call myself an expert. Not to mention false.”

“Can you enter a dark, dangerous tunnel without needing to void yourself?” Davey asked.

Octavia grimaced. “That was uncomfortably direct, but... yes, I'd say so.”

“You're in,” he said. Then he lifted his head to look at Seabiscuit. “Biscuit? Coming?”

Seabiscuit shook his head and shrank back, staring at an empty point in the ocean. “Please, no.”

“I'm very surprised,” Mariana said, rolling her eyes. “All right, filly and gentlecolt, I suppose we'd better get moving. There is an ‘on’ button?” she asked Lyra.

“Just activate the sonar in the ship,” Lyra said. “And I programmed in a bit of a time delay. It won't activate for about a minute, so you'll be able to leave it and skedaddle.”

“Good. Team, to the Nautilus!” Mariana called.

She, Octavia, and Rusty got on the opened side of the submarine, and each one planted their forehooves on its side. “On the count of three, we push,” she said. “One, two, three.” With a little apparent effort, the three of them lifted the Nautilus and began guiding it through the water, toward the tunnel-filled wall. Before long their forms had disappeared into the watery haze.

Then it was the four of them floating there: the Doctor tending to Anoese, while Lyra and Seabiscuit floated uselessly. It felt sucky. Maybe I should have gone, Lyra thought.

“Should I have gone?” she asked the Doctor, as he activated his sonic screwdriver inches from Anoese's wound. He didn't look up at her, but slowly drew the screwdriver over the area of the bruise. Lyra tried again. “I mean, I'm really scared and all, but... you once told me that courage is about being scared and doing what's right anyway, or something like that. So should I have gone, or....”

He looked up at her. “Lyra, I'm working on a patient from a species I've never even heard of before today, and I'm not exactly a world-class physician. A little peace?”

“Um, sure. Sorry, I'll... I'll just....” She drew away from him as he continued to deal with Anoese's wound, and found herself next to Seabiscuit, who seemed about as anxious as herself; he kept fidgeting his hooves against each other. After a few seconds, she worked up the courage, and opened her mouth—nothing came out. She sighed silently and said nothing.

A few minutes later, she decided to try again, and opened her mouth. “Do you think I should have gone?” she asked. He glanced over at her. “I mean, I'm good with speakers and everything, but what if I made a mistake? I'd need to be there to fix it.”

“Well, I....” Seabiscuit pressed a hoof against his forehead and sighed deeply. “Yes, I suppose it could break. I... I think I wish you had gone.”

“Thanks...?” To be honest, Lyra thought, I guess I don't know what I wanted to ask him for anyway. She looked down at the ground, avoiding eye contact.

A minute later, he spoke again. “They must be very close now.” He sighed and turned away from her, and seemed to stiffen. Then he turned back to her. “Do you mind if I see your necklace?” he asked, not looking her in the eye. “I’m curious about how it works.”

“What? Oh, um... sure, I guess,” she said, putting her hoof under the scale and lifting it for easier viewing.

“Thank you.” He still wasn't looking at her. “And for what it's worth, I'm sorry. You've been very kind.”

His horn ignited, pulling the necklace over her head and sending it into the water beyond, and carrying the bubble with it.

Before she could register what he'd said or done, the ocean closed in upon her, crushing her skin, her mouth, her nose, her eyes like a murderer. She flailed, kicking in the hope that she might reach her safe haven, but his magic pulled it further away. The last thing she saw before the pressure forced her eyes shut were his eyes, frantic and fearful. And she could not breathe.

“Not a word,” Mariana whispered, as the three of them entered the nearest tunnel. Octavia didn't need telling twice: the darkness of the chasm before them was an almost palpable reminder that they were entering enemy territory. She focused on keeping her breathing calm and quiet.

The little group pushed the Nautilus slowly through the rough-hewn rock. Does it matter the speed? Octavia wondered. Does moving through the water like this make any noise? Then another thought struck her: Even if I doesn't make any noise I can hear, what about a quarray eel? Will it hear?

Now her heartbeat seemed suddenly deafening inside her skull. Can it hear me living? She tried to focus on the heartbeat, to slow it down, but it wasn't as easy as controlling her breathing—and at this she realized she'd forgotten to control her breathing. Deep breaths. Deep. Quiet.

The darkness was building up, so Octavia looked around while she still could. Her scale's light glinted off the tunnel wall's uncountable facets, or would have if there'd been anything off which to glint. As it was, the rock was entirely dull, and was merely illuminated by the light. It felt almost as if they were trespassing in some long-abandoned castle cellar, with only a flickering candle to make their way.

Beside her, Rusty raised a hoof, signaling for a stop, then used the same hoof to cup his ear. If Octavia wasn't mistaken, he was hearing something. But I can't hear anything, can I?

But as she listened over the course of a dozen seconds, she could. It was a sound so quiet as to sound like silence—simply the ambient noise when no noise existed, like ringing in the ears—but it was there, and slow, and deep. If she strained her imagination, it sounded like snoring. Are the eels sleeping? She could hardly say for certain one way or the other, but it was a comforting notion.

Finally, Mariana gestured forward, and the three of them resumed pushing. They wouldn't be able to go much further, Octavia surmised; it was getting almost too dark to see outside their little bubbles, and soon they'd be drifting in a featureless abyss. Which, she guessed, would be their cue to activate the sonar and float off. Calm, she thought, and pushed forward. Deep. Controlled. Quiet.

Tap went the Nautilus, and the noise seemed to echo through Octavia's head. With a jolt she realized that, in the blackness, they'd misjudged their distance from the wall and struck a protruding bit of rock. She held her breath, as did Mariana and Rusty. The tunnel was silent—absolutely so.

With another jolt she realized that the breathing noise had stopped.

She flattened herself against the tunnel floor, fearing it would not be enough. Rusty and Mariana did the same, each on a different rotational section of the tunnel. The Nautilus sank to the bottom in front of her.

Then she felt it—a pressure against her bubble, pushing her back slightly. The water around her was being displaced, and she thought she saw two crimson lights in the darkness. Oh, Luna, hear my prayer. Don’t let me die. She closed her eyes and braced herself for impact—

It was like being in the barrel of a rifle. The quarray eel punched through the water more quickly than her eye could follow. Her only saving grace was that it seemed to have misjudged the sound's distance and passed them in favor of checking outside the tunnel. One moment, she caught a glimpse of its burning red eyes, and the next, all she could see was its crimson body—and the next, something slammed into her, and she careened through the tiny space between the eel and the tunnel wall, with no control.

A bend in the tunnel broke her momentum, and maybe her back as well, when she crashed into it. She cried out in pain, thoughts of keeping quiet obliterated, and sank to the bottom. Wincing and shaking from the sensation, she tried to move, but then something metal tumbled into her torso, winding her and slamming her against the rock once more.

She forced herself to open her eyes, and saw herself stuck beneath the Nautilus; the eel had struck it, and it had struck and trapped her. It lay upon her leg, and it was heavy enough—and she was bruised enough—that no matter how she strained, or tried to move with her scale, it would not budge.

“Mariana?” she whispered, as loudly as her lungs would allow. “Rusty?” No response. As she looked around, she couldn't even see them. The tunnel was still dark, and the eel's massive body blocked most of the visibility that remained. Perhaps they were dead; perhaps they were unconscious; perhaps they were escaping the tunnel. They couldn't save her; no one could.

But as she looked about pointlessly for some sign of help, she saw something worse yet: a metal hemisphere on the rocky floor, with ripped wires protruding from the face. It was the sonar, and the impact with the quarray eel had knocked it off. We failed, Octavia realized, feeling as limp and helpless as a doll. The seaponies will die—I will die—because we failed.

Something wet touched her back hoof. She flinched away, wincing as the movement made her bruises flare up. Then, as she tentatively extended the leg again, she felt the wetness once more with her leg at full stretch. After a few seconds, she realized what was happening: her bubble, which had only ever been barely large enough to contain herself, was shrinking.

The ocean was closing in. “Help me,” she whispered to the abyss.

Stay tuned for the conclusion to Tomb of the Aquanauts.

Tomb of the Aquanauts (c)

And now, the conclusion to Tomb of the Aquanauts.

“Doctor!” came the yell from Seabiscuit. Even before the Doctor looked his way, the desperation in Seabiscuit's tone—and the widening of Anoese's eyes—told him that something was wrong. Then he turned around and saw just how wrong things were.

Seabiscuit had a scale around his neck and one suspended in front of himself; Lyra had none. She was submerged in the cold ocean, thrashing in pain and panic, her hooves pressed over her eyes in a vain attempt to protect them from the pressure.

“Lyra!” the Doctor yelled, and he surged toward her, to get her inside his bubble—but a sea-green aura enveloped her neck, pulling her away from him. In his peripheral vision, he saw that Seabiscuit's horn was lit up. “You—”

“Listen to me, Doctor,” Seabiscuit said, pulling away from the Doctor as the Doctor lunged at him. His voice suggested that he was barely keeping it together. “Call off the Nautilus. Do that, and—and I don't have to do this.”

“You!” the Doctor yelled, continuing to move toward him: Seabiscuit kept pulling himself and Lyra out of reach. “Seabiscuit, what are you doing?”

He took a breath, his eyes wide, and said, “What I have to. Use your sonic screwdriver and call off the Nautilus. I know you can, they told me you can. You have to.”

“You're with the Order of Four!” The Doctor continued to press forward, and now they were no longer above the village; plains of sand rolled beneath them. “I should have known they'd send someone—but why? Why did they send you down here?”

“You think it's that simple?” Seabiscuit yelled. He took several deep breaths. “You think that they told me anything, that I want to do this? I don't have a choice!”

“What do you mean? Let Lyra go, we can talk about this but let her go!” The Doctor made another lunge toward Lyra, but Seabiscuit pulled her out of the way once more. Her skin was turning blue, and a bubble escaped from her mouth.

“They got to me,” Seabiscuit said, half-sobbing. “My sister.”

The Doctor remembered the filly who'd so enthusiastically cheered Seabiscuit on at the launch. “What about her? You saw her, she's fine! She's safe!”

“She's not safe. No one's safe from them. You don't know what they're capable of—”

“I swear I do—stop moving!” the Doctor roared, as Seabiscuit backed away yet again. Lyra's struggles were becoming feebler. The Doctor spared her an anguished glance; he had under a minute, if that. He needed to get them to the tunnel, and fast. Come on. Keep backing up, you coward. Just a bit further.

“They told me,” Seabiscuit said—then he took a moment to catch his breath. “They woke me up in my bed one night with a knife at my throat. They told me, if this mission succeeds, I'd better not come back up—because then they'll kill her. Within the week, they'll kill her.”

“But why? Seabiscuit, let Lyra go and we can talk about this—I can help you!” The Doctor stopped moving, hanging limp. They'd reached the destination, anyway. “I've beaten the Order! I swear I can keep your sister safe—”

“You can't even keep her safe!” Seabiscuit yelled, yanking Lyra up for emphasis. She gave a final shudder and was still. The hooves dropped from her face. “If you can't do that, how can you save my sister? I'm sorry, Doctor, but I'll do anything to keep her safe!”

The Doctor gritted his teeth. Why does no one ever let me help them? “I'm sorry, Seabiscuit,” he said; then, he pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, not bothering to change any of the settings. He didn't need the technology—just the sonic.

“Sorry?” he asked. “Why?” He seemed to have dropped his guard, if only for a moment. It would be enough.

The Doctor surged forward and kicked Seabiscuit hard in the chest, pushing him back and knocking the wind out of him. “Because so will I,” he snarled, and activated the screwdriver on full blast, pointing it not at Seabiscuit but past him.

Seabiscuit looked behind himself and realized where the Doctor had led him. “No,” he breathed, staring into the deep dark hole the quarray eels had carved from the rock. There was an eerie stillness for a moment: then came a rush of water from the tunnel mouth. Seabiscuit turned back to the Doctor in a panic. “No, please—”

The Doctor dove toward Lyra and tackled her out of the way, just as an eel blasted from the hole with its maw open and gaping. It snapped shut, and there was a sea-green foreleg hanging from between its jaws; then, it opened and closed again, quick as a trap, and the limb was gone. Lyra's scale, shaken loose by the impact, flew into the ocean.

Lyra was in the Doctor's forelegs, and she wasn't moving. He pulled up her eyelid, revealing a teary, bloodshot eye. He pressed an ear against her chest and felt no movement. “Come on, Lyra, breathe,” he whispered. “Breathe for me, you have to breathe. You have to live through this, Lyra!”

Then he heard breathing, and it wasn't hers; the sound was too deep, too massive. Placing Lyra on his back, he looked up and saw a gigantic yellow eye looking back at him. The quarray eel was still hungry, and with Seabiscuit's death, he and Lyra were the closest prey.

It makes perfect sense, Octavia thought, but she wasn't aware of consciously trying to think it. The words blew through her brain of their own accord. I never really believed in the scale, after all. And it can't help me anyway, not now that I'm stuck in here. She whimpered—half in pain, half in fear—and tucked her hooves in.

Her world was small now. The quarray eel had retracted back into the depths, so in her peripheral vision she could see the darkness of the tunnel, but most of her field of view was comprised of the inside of the Nautilus. In stark contrast to the rough-hewn abyss outside, it was bright and brand-new—at least the parts that were inside her bubble. However, the craft was big enough for three, and her bubble would soon be too small for one; it didn't reach to the far wall, which was sealed behind a watery veil. One which approached millimeter by millimeter. She noticed she was hyperventilating.

Vinyl, she thought—again, not deliberately. I need to talk to Vinyl. A shivering hoof extended and pressed the call button. “Hello?” she whispered.

“Hello? What is it?” came the brusque voice of Dr. Blue Shift. “Status update, please?”

“Dr. Shift?” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. She could at least keep her dignity, at least to him. “Can you put me through to Vinyl Scratch, please? It's important.” Perhaps a few sobs escaped into her voice, but only a few.

There was a moment of silence from the other end. Then, in a soft voice, Shift said, “Yes, of course, my dear. She'll be here soon.”

The line was quiet once more, and “soon” seemed forever away. She lay back, closed her eyes, and took deep breaths.

She couldn't remember what for, but she'd once been put in time-out once as a kid—she had no idea why she was thinking these things now; they just seemed to dart in and out of her head like Brownian particles—and sent to her room, all alone. There had only been a door and a flight of stairs separating her and her large family, but that had been too much for the filly. After an hour she'd started crying, and her father had heard her, relented, and let her back down the stairs.

She was older now, and stronger, but it didn't feel like much. And now there was an ocean between her and her family—her and anyone. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and something else wet touched her hoof.

“Octy?”

“Vinyl,” she said, then remembered to press the call button. “Vinyl, it's you. Thank Celestia it's you.”

“Yeah, um, I'm pretty well known for being me.... Octy, what's wrong?”

Octavia left her hoof off the button for several seconds. Then: “Vinyl, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't think I'll be able to keep my promise.” She finished speaking, but kept her hoof on the button; it was her only lifeline.

“What promise? Wait, are you crying?”

“We failed,” she breathed. “I made a mistake, but maybe we couldn't have done it anyway. I don't know.”

“Wait, Tavi,” Vinyl said. I never did figure out, Octavia thought, why it's sometimes Octy and sometimes Tavi. “You promised earlier that you would make it back up here. Tavi, please, please tell me that's not the promise you mean.”

There was nothing to say to that. The ocean was moving up her legs, nearly to her knees. She shivered at the touch.

“No,” Vinyl said, her volume increasing. “No, this is not happening!” Octavia heard a bang from above; Vinyl must have kicked something. “You're not dying down there, Tavi, you're not!”

“Vinyl,” she said.

“No, no, no—you gotta talk to the Doctor, or Lyra, or somepony. Shift!” she screamed. “Shift, get in here!”

“Vinyl Scratch!”

The words took a lot of effort for their size. She took a deep breath. “Vinyl, please, listen. I want you to do something for me, please.” The ocean was past her hips.

“What? What do you want me to do?”

“Tell me a joke,” she said. For a moment she didn't know why she wanted this, but the moment didn't last. “Make a funny noise. Make me laugh.”

“But—but why?”

“I don't want to die scared,” she whispered.

She tried to take a deep breath, but the ocean was getting up to her chest, pressing against it. Her last breaths would be short and shallow.

After several seconds, she let her hoof fall from the call button. It's not a funny situation, she thought. I guess I understand.

Then, the voice crackled back to life on the other end. “Okay,” Vinyl said. “So two mares walk into a bar, and—” Her voice caught in her throat, and she took a few seconds, then started forcing the words out once more. “A—and one of them says to the other, 'Hey, gal. Why the long face?'” Octavia heard her make a little laughing noise, though it was probably a choked sob. “And the other one... and the other one says.... No.”

There was another second's silence, then Vinyl repeated, “No.” Her voice didn't sound weak this time. “No, Octavia, you are not going to die. I swear to... I swear to everything worth swearing to, I swear you're gonna make it out of this, I don't know how—but I'll swim down there and pull you back up myself if that's what it takes!” she yelled.

Octavia smiled, and raised her hoof one last time to the button. She had to press it through the water to get there; the bubble was at most a foot in radius at this point, centered at the scale around her neck. Only her head and a slight bit of her torso remained inside.

She pressed the button and said, “I believe you.” It's finished, she thought, letting her hoof fall back down. Her eyes closed. I've done all I need to do.

But she really would come for me, wouldn't she.

Something struck her eyelids like a physical force. For a moment she thought it was the ocean, but confused neurons managed their assessment after a second: it wasn't dark and cold. It was warm, and it was bright. And, in fact, she felt the weight falling away from her chest, her forelegs, her rear legs—she was completely dry.

Is this what death feels like? she wondered. But when some of the brilliance subsided, and she managed to open her eyes, she looked down and saw the light coming from the scale around her neck. She was still in the Nautilus, but as she watched, the last of the water fled the vessel.

A great gasping breath entered her lungs. “I don't understand,” she whispered, between subsequent gasps. I don't believe it. Seeing's supposed to be believing, but I never believed in the scales....

Another thought entered her mind. Wait. Did they ever say I had to believe in the scales, specifically?

She thought back. They won't keep you safe from the sea unless you believe, Mariana had said. And Anoese had spoken about the scales' power, and the importance of belief—but he'd never once mentioned believing in the scale itself.

She laughed—what else could she do? It wasn't a large laugh to begin with, but as realization flooded her body, the hysterics rocked her lungs harder and harder. She sank against the wall, helpless as the tension left her. I don't have to believe in the scales—I just have to believe, period.

And I believe in Vinyl Scratch.

“Wow, um...” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I, uh, I didn't think it was that funny.”

Octavia noticed that in her hysterics, she'd flopped against the call button. “Vinyl Scratch,” she managed, as her laughter died down. “Oh, Vinyl Scratch, you....”

“Octy?” she said. “Tavi, hang on, are you okay?”

Finally, Octavia's laughter diminished enough for her to get a sentence out, but a huge smile remained on her face. “Vinyl Scratch, you are an absolute lifesaver! Ow,” she said, as she noticed a painful twinge in her back; the tunnel wall was digging into her spine. She sat up to get it away from the rock, but as she did so the Nautilus shifted around her.

Of course, she realized. My bubble is so big now... I wonder if.... She focused on a single word: Move.

She surged forward, and the Nautilus lifted from her leg like a leaf in a breeze. It was entirely contained within her sphere. Now her smile had teeth, and she glanced at the broken sonar on the ground. As she gave it a critical eye, it didn't seem too bad; torn, but perhaps not fundamentally broken.

“So, just to be clear, your life is actually saved now, right?” Vinyl asked from the Nautilus's speakers. “Like, definitely, completely saved?”

Octavia noticed that Vinyl was breathing heavily. “Don't worry, Vinyl,” she said. “I'll see you soon. Now get Dr. Blue Shift on the line. I'm finishing the mission.”

“Okay, I'll... I'll do that,” Vinyl said. “And then I guess I'll just... have a heart attack in the corner. Jeez, Octy....” Octavia couldn't help but smile.

A few seconds later, she heard Dr. Shift's voice. “What is it?”

Business time. Octavia lost the smile. “Dr. Shift, the sonar on the Nautilus is broken. I need you to talk me through repairing it.” She drifted to where the sonar lay in the tunnel, carrying the Nautilus with it.

“Broken? And what do you need it for, anyway?”

She picked up the sonar. “Saving the seaponies. Now, listen. It's come detached from the Nautilus, and there's a bunch of wires sticking out of it. Red, blue, green, yellow, and brown.”

“Saving the seaponies—well, hang on. Is anything broken inside the sonar's casing?”

Octavia removed the box's case and frowned. “There's some sort of board here, and... well, to tell you the truth, I don't know if it's broken or not. Lyra already reworked it—”

“You've been modifying my sonar? To what end, you ridiculous mare?”

“The seaponies are under attack by quarray eels—they're sensitive to sound—so we needed to generate a large amount—”

“Stop talking just a moment,” Blue Shift said, and Octavia did. “Moderately clever, yes—which I suppose counts as something on a play on words between 'modifying' and 'moderately'—ignore that digression. Now, I don't have the schematics in front of me, but I am mostly one hundred percent certain that the only way to increase the power output would be to link up the—”

He chuckled. “Well, I'll give it to you in plain English. Do you see a green wire?”

Octavia took only a moment. “Yes, I do.”

“Has it been spliced together with a brown-blue wire? Brown with blue stripes.”

“Both of the two wires look like they were spliced,” Octavia said, holding both, “but they're disconnected. Maybe that was the impact.”

“Well, don't sit there, girl, put one and one together!”

Octavia spliced the two wires. “Now what?”

“As it turns out, putting out sound is the most basic, boring thing a sonar system can do, which means that if we're interested in that alone, we can sacrifice some other, more difficult things. You say the box is disconnected?”

“Yes,” Octavia said.

“That may prove helpful. Detach everything but the red wire from the device, then splice those ends into the same port as the red wire is attached to....”

Before long, Octavia had done it, and she was attaching the wires to the Nautilus when she noticed a new cessation of ambient noise. Time to speed up, she thought, jamming the green wire into its socket.

“Ready?” Blue Shift said.

“Ready!” Octavia answered. Water was rushing down the tunnel at her. She smirked and activated the sonar.

The quarray eel stopped at a distance of what seemed like inches away from her face, as the vibrations began. Octavia couldn't hear them, only feel them—but the quarray eel certainly could. It thrashed in agony, its head slamming against the tunnel wall. Then against the other tunnel wall, and against the ceiling, and on and on. Unless it was Octavia's imagination, cracks were forming with each impact.

“Have we done it?” Shift said, his voice rising in volume. “By Jove, have I really done it?”

Either way, it's time to leave, Octavia thought. Without looking back, she glided away from the eel and toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

She couldn't help but smile at the cliché.

The quarray eel made a lunge for the Doctor, but without warning it veered wildly and struck against the sand. Something had entirely disoriented it, and the Doctor took only a moment to hear what that something must have been. They did it! he thought, feeling some of the sonar's vibrations against his skin. Well done, Octavia.

This feeling of pride lasted as long as it took to remember that Lyra was still slung over his shoulder, and that she was still not breathing. “Come on, Lyra,” he muttered into her ear, as the little fire within him was extinguished like a match thrown into the Arctic ocean. “Come on, Lyra, you're safe now, just breathe.” He squeezed her stomach, hoping to force some water out.

A low groaning sound hit his ears, and for a moment he wondered if something had gone wrong with the sonar. In fact, it was the quarray eel; it lay on the sand, not even bothering to try to escape the vibrations. Its mouth was open in a quiet moan of pain. Poor misused, misbegotten beast, the Doctor briefly thought: then he pushed it out of his mind and pulled Lyra away from it, just in case.

“Breathe, Lyra,” he said, squeezing her again. “Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe—COME ON!” He seized and shook her in a sudden violent frenzy, throwing her head back and forth. “Don't you DARE do this to me, you ridiculous animal! BREATHE!”

He crushed her diaphragm with what felt like rib-cracking force, then did it again, and again, and again, letting out a snarl each time. But though she shuddered with every attack, her body refused to show any signs of life, and at last the fire of fury in him died as the fire of pride had. He released her and let her lay limp on his back.

Someone's going to pay for this, he thought, hanging limp himself. Maybe me.

And then he heard a cough, and felt flecks of spittle on his coat. “Lyra?” he said, daring to hope, and looked up into her face. She coughed again, and a little more seawater came out; then, she opened her eyes, which were still red and puffy. “Lyra!” He twisted around and grabbed her in a hug.

She coughed a few more times, before saying, in a weak voice, “What... what happened?” Her eyes focused as best as they could on the limp quarray eel in the sand. “What did you do?”

He gripped her tighter, hoping to get some warmth into her body. “I brought you back.” A little smile came onto his face.

Still holding on tight, he carried her back to the village without sparing the quarray eel a second glance.

As Lyra recuperated, still inside the Doctor's air pocket—her own scale had disappeared—Octavia showed up with a bubble larger than the Nautilus and an unbelievable story to tell. Lyra managed to half-listen as Octavia recounted her tale of the tunnel's treacherous depths. Full listening wasn't really possible; it was hard to think, harder to concentrate.

Halfway through the story, Octavia was describing the disappearance of Captain Mariana and Rusty Davey when, out of the blue, they appeared as well. If anything had happened to them, it hadn't left any marks—at least none that Lyra could see. Her vision was still blurry.

Mariana lifted a scale with her wing and said, “Does this belong to anyone?”

Anoese, who lay resting against a house, said, “It belongs to Lyra.” And Lyra recognized it as the scale Seabiscuit had stolen.

“How can you know?” Octavia asked. “They all look the—” She stopped herself and smiled. “Never mind. Of course you know.”

With a great surge of effort, and scrunching up of her bloodshot eyes, Lyra managed to activate her magic and pull the scale toward herself. She let its cord drape over her hoof, then—with great reluctance—extended her foreleg into the water.

The awful coldness touched her hoof; she gasped and pulled it back in. There had been no bubble to protect her. “Why won't it work?” she whimpered, then hacked out a few coughs. Even discounting the awful state of her eyes, she felt like crying.

She felt a tap on her shoulder—a cold, wet tap; she recoiled—and looked over to see Anoese's hoof extending into her pocket of air. “May I?” After a moment, she realized he was indicating her scale.

She nodded slowly, and he pulled it from her hoof and examined it. Several seconds later, he shook his head and sighed. “I'm sorry, Lyra. You gave in.”

“What?” she sniffled.

“I told your friend, earlier, that only special scales would protect you: scales blessed with joy. But when that fiend held you unprotected in the deep, you gave into hopelessness, into despair. I'm sorry, but this—” he tossed it back to her “—is merely a scale.” Lyra didn't catch the scale, and it fell to the seafloor in front of her. It had lost its luster.

“That explains a lot, you know,” Octavia said, smiling and rolling her eyes a little. “That must have been what almost happened to me in the tunnel—which would have been wonderful to know at the outset, by the way. Your explanations of these scales have been incomplete at best.”

“Apologies,” Anoese said, smiling back. “You can understand why we would not use their power ourselves, and... well, we rarely entertain visitors who do.”

The two of them shared the smile for a few seconds. “I thank you,” Anoese said, offering his hoof. “You've saved our home, and our lives.”

“Call it a good habit.” Octavia took the hoof in her own and shook it. Anoese winced at the firm motion. “Will you be okay?” Octavia asked.

“I think I'll pull through,” he said.

“Oh, well, of course you will in that case.”

“Where's Seabiscuit?” Rusty asked.

The smiles, the general feeling of bonhomie, bled away. Lyra hadn't been thinking about what had put her in her current state, but now such thoughts were unavoidable. She remembered Seabisccuit screaming in fear. “You think I want to do this? I don't have a choice!” Slowly, with new tears in her eyes, she looked up at the Doctor, whose mouth was set in a grim line.

“Doctor,” Octavia said, “why is Lyra looking at you like that?”

The Doctor sighed, then launched into an explanation. It wasn't a story like the one Octavia had told—it was merely a collection of facts, delivered as if through a textbook. Now that Lyra was less disoriented, she was able to listen fully to the account, and she wished this was not the case. She shut her eyes and tried not to focus on his words.

“... and I did what I had to,” he said at last. “I saved her life, she started breathing, and here we are. Seaponies saved, Order thwarted from... something.” He shrugged and looked around their little group with eyes that seemed as cold as the ocean around them. “Well,” he said, “what do we do now, team?”

No one had anything to say for about a minute, but eventually, Mariana spoke up. “We tell Dr. Shift about what happened. Maybe we tell the Princesses about what happened. And....” She rubbed beneath one eye with one of her wings. “We tell no one else, because no one else needs to know. As far as the rest of Equestria is concerned, Dr. Seabiscuit died in a tragic accident.”

“Nice one,” the Doctor said, nodding. “I can work with that.”

“You'd better, unless you want everyone up above to know you've killed a pony.” Mariana looked down at the sand for a moment, then looked up again. “I told you I've been bouncing around the navy my whole life, but I've never actually been in any sort of naval battle. Not even any minor fights with pirates. So, can you tell me... how did it feel to take a life?”

The Doctor kept eye contact. “It didn't.”

Mariana held eye contact too, at least for several seconds, but eventually she had to look away. “Fair enough. Bigger priorities. So, besides lying through your teeth, what will you do when you go back up?” she asked, gesturing to the Doctor, Octavia, and Lyra. “At a guess, I'd say debriefing, group therapy.”

“Nah.” The Doctor winked without smiling. “Just dust yourself off and move on, that's my plan. Keep moving forward, isn't that the way?”

Octavia shrugged. “For what it's worth, I feel quite fine, so I think I can pass too. And you?” she asked Lyra.

Lyra gulped. “I'm going to get above water, and then I'm never gonna go underwater again. Never, ever again.” She shivered, trying to ignore the water all around her; it could be tolerated for exactly as long as it took to get her out of here, and no longer.

Anoese shook his head. “Lyra, one day you will have to face your fears.”

“Says who?” Lyra sniffed, then grabbed the scale from the sand and brought the cord over her head. “But I think I'd like to keep this. It was nice being down here... sort of.”

Her eyes, still healing as they were, didn't seem all that reliable, so when she noticed a tiny light from beneath her face, she assumed she was seeing things. But she blinked a few times, and the light remained, so she looked down to see a little glow about her scale. “But...” she said.

A gray hoof slipped in and pulled the necklace over her head. Before Lyra could protest, Octavia threw the scale at the ocean. When it entered the water, a little bubble grew up around it, like a spherical egg—no larger than the light was bright. “Maybe you'll return here some day after all,” Octavia said, grabbing the scale again and passing it back to Lyra.

Lyra pulled it over her head once more and managed a smile, but only for a second. “Maybe.”

A little bit of laughter touched her ears, and she looked around for the source. Some of the seapony children were darting through the streets again in a new game of tag. They didn't seem to realize that they didn't need to be quiet anymore, but they at least seemed happy.

“Would you like to ride with me to the surface?” Octavia asked, interrupting Lyra's reverie. She floated close enough to Lyra that her bubble and the Doctor's bubble intersected. “Mine's bigger.”

All in all, the Doctor thought as he breached the surface and walked onto the beach, that could have gone much worse. Much worse indeed. Somehow, the thought wasn't giving him much pleasure, but he resolved to give it time.

“Mission accomplished, Shift,” he said, as the blue stallion rushed toward him. The crowd was not far behind him, but thankfully still contained behind metal barriers, leaving the Doctor free to ignore their baying and concentrate on Dr. Shift. “Minimal casualties—zero for the seaponies—and one civilization saved. On the house.” He flashed a smile.

“It's very exciting, isn't it?” Dr. Shift said, beaming for some reason. He grabbed the Doctor's hoof and shook it vigorously. “I mean, I actually helped to save an entire species! When do I ever get the chance to do that? Or at least a village, as other seapony enclaves doubtless exist, but—now, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find it this enjoyable, yet even so... marvelous, simply marvelous!”

The Doctor's attention couldn't help but wander in the face of this verbal maelstrom. He looked behind himself and saw Vinyl, Derpy, and Bon Bon making for the shoreline. While Derpy stayed at a respectful distance, Vinyl and Bon Bon made beelines for the water, from which Lyra and Octavia were emerging together.

Vinyl's first move was to grab Octavia's hoof with her own and raise it high, ignoring the latter's protests. “All right, way to go, Octavia!” she yelled at the beach at large. “Saving the day, that's how we do! Give her a round of applause, everypony!”

“Vinyl,” Octavia said, grinning slightly, “please—”

“Aw, shaddup, you love it,” Vinyl interjected, giving her a little noogie. She seemed remarkably unrattled, given how desperate Octavia’s story had made her sound.

Lyra, now that she was out of the water, ran away from it as if it were a burning building. She collided with Bon Bon's outstretched forelegs and pressed herself against them. Bon Bon gripped her close and said, “Lyra, are you okay?”

Lyra closed her eyes with a slight sob and a less slight shiver. “No.”

“Are you hurt?” Bon Bon asked. When Lyra nodded, she continued in a motherly tone, “I can get you to the hospital, and the doctors and nurses can take good care of you, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“And when you get back from that, want me to make dinner tonight?”

“Yeah,” came the quiet reply.

“And I can tell your clients you need more time, is that okay?”

“Yeah.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Dr. Shift's smile pulled itself back down into a concerned line; something seemed to have clicked in his head. “Did you say minimal casualties?”

“Well....” The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. Here comes the hard part.

“Big brother?” came a voice from the crowd, and the Doctor looked that way to see Seabiscuit's sister climbing up the metal barrier with desperation in her face. Oh, hell, he thought. Even harder. He looked around to see Mariana and Rusty walk up onto the beach. Everyone who was coming back had done so, and the filly seemed to be realizing this. “Where's my big brother?” she asked, not yet ready to believe.

The crowd went quiet, with several gasps from the ponies who were quicker on the uptake; the Doctor saw a few hooves raised to their owners’ mouths. Mariana and Rusty gave each other awkward looks, but it was Lyra who acted first: she pulled away from Bon Bon and approached the filly with the sorriest expression the Doctor had seen in a long time.

“No,” the filly said, tears beginning to track down her face. “NO!”

She screamed, and screamed, and screamed at the ocean that would not give her brother back. Lyra grabbed her in an embrace, rocking gently from side to side like a mother, as the screams continued. The crowd looked away, and so did the Doctor; he chose instead to look at Dr. Shift. “What's her name?” he asked.

Dr. Shift's eyes widened. “I don't know. I suppose I should know, shouldn't I?”

“Yes, we should.” The Doctor sighed, then walked away from Shift as Mariana and Rusty took his place.

He walked toward Derpy instead, who alighted in front of him with a small smile. “Saved the day?” she asked.

“More or less,” he said. “It's good to see you again, but listen....”

The filly's screams were devolving into sobs now, and she clung tightly to Lyra as if to a raft in a storm. The Doctor pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and dashed out a quick message on it. “I need a favor,” he said, folding the note and offering it to her, “a mailpony favor.”

“What?” she asked.

“I need you to get this to Princess Celestia, pronto. I've written the details on the note, but long story short, I think that filly's going to be a target for the Order of Four. She needs protection, and soon.”

“Them again?” she asked, opening the note up. “So, what, was that Seabiscuit an Order of the member of Four, or....” She closed the note and looked up at him. “Did you have to do it?”

His shoulders slumped. “I don't know... yes. Yes, I did.”

“Then it's okay.” She jumped into the air and hovered for a moment. “See you soon, Doctor alien.” Then she was off, flying back toward the mainland with the message held in her mouth.

The Doctor turned to watch her go, but then Vinyl Scratch walked roughly into him, pulling him away from the rest of the group. Once they were out of earshot of the others, Vinyl hissed into his ear. “The next time you guys get in danger, and Octavia's there? You get her out first.” Her voice suggested the rattling he'd failed to see in her earlier.

“Okay,” the Doctor said, more of reflex than anything. Vinyl took a step back and glared at him with a venom that was visible straight through her glasses, then spun around and ran back to Octavia's side, mouth already open to start chatting anew. The Doctor looked at her and Octavia, then at Lyra and Seabiscuit's sister, Bon Bon watching them helplessly, and the gray speck that was Derpy just above the horizon. They all seemed so tiny, so far away.

Tune in next time for:
The Empire of Shadows

The Empire of Shadows (a)

Mommy's gems were dirty.

Baxter couldn't help but notice it; Mommy never did any of the cleaning herself, and always made him do it instead. He cleaned everything, except the gems. Mommy was very clear on that; touch her gems and Mommy would get unhappy. And when Mommy got unhappy.... Yet they were dusty, and he was cleaning, and maybe he could make her happy if he fixed it?

Baxter pulled a stool from Mommy's pantry and placed it in front of the shelf—Diamond Dogs weren't known for their height in the first place, but as a child he was especially disadvantaged. He stood upon it and carefully, oh so carefully, took down a big yellow gem. Trembling, he spat on his dirty cloth and rubbed the gem, facet by facet.

You know, a voice in his head said, you're about to make an awful mistake.

He tried to ignore the voice and squinted at the gem; the work was going well, and he was starting to make out his reflection, brown-faced and greenish-eyed. I'm doing it, he thought. I'm really doing it—

He hadn't realized that his spit was making the gem slippery. As he changed his grip upon it, he fumbled it and it left his grasp. A desperate attempt with his left paw only managed to send the gem flying, right into the wall.

CRASH.

You didn't listen, said the voice.

“BAXTER?” said the much louder, much more frightening voice of Mommy. Her ear for these things was astounding. “What did you DO, you stupid mutt?”

Baxter stumbled and fell off his stool, his eyes fixed on the fragments scattered across the cave floor. “I—I'm sorry,” he whimpered, pushing himself into a corner with his feet. “I didn't—”

Mommy was in the room, and she was livid—something that promised pain from a Diamond Dog who was twice Baxter's weight, though no taller than him. She howled in fury and pointed at the broken gem. “Baxter, you STUPID mutt! That was Mommy's best rhodizite, and now look what you've done to it!”

“I was just—I was just....” Baxter turned away and closed his eyes, lifting his arm in front of his face.

“I said LOOK!” With one meaty paw she grabbed his ears and lifted him. He squealed in pain; she ignored this and pressed his face against the broken pieces. “You were trying to be smart again, weren't you?”

He whimpered something incoherent—not that it mattered what he said when Mommy was unhappy. “IDIOT!” she screeched, grabbing him again—this time by the scruff of the neck—and holding him up. “Can't be smart yet, can you? Not until I've smacked all the stupid out of you!”

SMACK. Some of the gem shards were still on his face; he whined in pain as they were forced in by the blow.

SMACK. A cut opened up beneath his eye. His mother looked angrier than ever.

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

Baxter just let himself hang limp as the blows kept coming. That was the quickest way with Mommy: not to fight back. Just to apologize and to do as he was told, and then maybe the pain would go away faster.

That's right, Baxter.... Good dog. Now you remember.

The door closed, and Baxter realized first who, and second where, he was. He was not a Diamond Pup anymore, but a full-grown Diamond Dog—albeit still short. And he wasn't reliving one of his worst memories; he was somewhere that made him want to be back in the memory.

Look at me, Baxter.

And now he remembered that the voice in his head was not his own: someone else was placing it there. He turned around obediently and knelt in front of his master, kissing the ground before him. He did not want to look.

Appreciated, but no. Look at me. A coil of darkness grabbed his chin and forced it up, and Baxter beheld his master, for what he always hoped would be the last time.

To a Diamond Dog like Baxter, no light at all was plenty of light to see by, so to look at the space where his master was, and see only a roiling cloud of darkness, was an alien experience. Try as his eyes might, they could not penetrate past the black veil to the pony behind it—he hoped there was a pony behind it.

One feature, however, always made itself apparent. His master opened his eyes, and they blazed acidic green, with violet flames billowing at their edges and ruby cores at the centers of the flames, transfixing him like twin searchlights. Baxter squeezed his eyes shut, but more dark tendrils slipped beneath his eyelids and forced them open.

His master kept eye contact for what seemed like hours, while Baxter gasped for breath. Finally, the voice spoke—again, into Baxter's mind. Now, Baxter, tell me; if I tell you to gather more workers, what will you do? His voice was smooth, the same way rock pythons were smooth as they wrapped themselves around necks.

“G-g-gather more workers, master,” Baxter said, his eyes watering from more than being forced open.

And above all, what is the one rule you will follow?

“Obey the king,” he whimpered.

Good. The tendrils around his neck and under his eyelids retracted back into the cloud, and Baxter fell to the floor. He made no hurry to get up, preferring instead to grovel. Now get to work, slave.

With great effort, Baxter pushed himself off the ground and scurried away, mumbling, “Yes, master. Thank you, master.” He did not look back—that would have wasted his master's precious time, and he did not want his master to be unhappy.

“Beeeeady, do you miiiiind coming into work today?”

The pony in question, a dark gray earth pony, kicked at the ground in frustration before continuing to do a send-up of her boss's voice. “I mean, Beady,” she said, in the voice of someone who had no idea how to ingratiate, “I know it's Saturday, but your friend Gneiss just couldn't make it, and you'll get overtime for all your excellent work, and you're not really doing anything anyway, are you, and you'll be fired if you don't. It's just the one shift after all, isn't it, Beeeeady?”

Her teeth gritted, Beady continued to march through the rocky wastelands. “Beeeeady,” she said at an even higher volume, “we've got a big order from Doctor Blue Shift coming in, and we need a bunch more industrial gems for the factory, Beeeeady, so why don't you go out into the Badlands and use your super special gem finding powers to mark us out a vein? I mean, I know I said it would just be the one shift, but you're the only one who can do it, and you'll get overtime, and you're not really doing anything anyway, are you, and, by the way, did I mention that you'll be fired if you don't? UGH!” she screamed to the heavens, or at least to the clouds in the way of the heavens. Returning her gaze to the ground, she saw another rock a few yards off, ran over to it, and kicked it into the distance.

Beady took a few deep breaths. Okay, she thought. It's stupid. But I'm not gonna spend all day being mad about it.

Ten minutes later, she was not over it.

“And it's completely unfair, he knows I've got to work on my dissertation for my rocktorate, and he's such a jacka—ugh! Stupid gem-sense, stupid Gneiss, stupid Blue Shift, and stupid stupid boss!” she yelled at a rock. The rock did not yell back, or even offer any supportive remarks, which seemed kind of rude.

I'm getting angry at a rock, she realized. I can't be angry at rocks—rocks are my profession. Well, gems, but whatever. “Okay,” she said, rubbing her head and closing her eyes. “I'm calm, I'm calm, I am so calm.”

Twenty minutes later, she was.

“You better—get back, missy Black—!” she sang, kicking into the rocky ground on-beat. “Better get back to the farm!” As her hooves touched the ground, she tuned in to her gem-sense.

All earth ponies were connected to the land in one way or another, but this usually manifested as enhanced farming ability. However, Beady probably couldn't work a till, but she knew rocks. More specifically, she knew gems, and even more specifically, she knew where gems were.

“Well, I—! Ditched! That name, and their—! Red! Neck games.” With her hooves on the ground, she could feel the mineral content of the soil around her. She focused as she continued to sing, and saw—or more accurately, felt—that there wasn't any vein of gems beneath her. Of course, she was singing, so she didn't care.

“And, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm... ohhhh!” She grabbed an invisible microphone and swung it around as she danced forward. “The change ain't gonna do me harm!”

Grooving onward, she felt something at the edge of her cone of perception, and did a little shimmy in that direction. There was an outcrop of rock in her way; she jumped over it with a cry of, “Well, you betta—! Get back, Diamond Black—!”

The landing threw off her focus for a moment. She stood herself up straight before continuing: “Living in the 'ville just ain't no way to act!” She was closing in on the vein now, but— “It's like—tryin' to find jade, in a—! Limestone mine, it's like—!”

But something was wrong. The vein wasn't a vein, and it was dead. “Tryin' to drink whiskey!” she sang, before the enormity of what she'd noticed hit her and she petered off with a small, spoken, “From a bottle of... wine?”

Most ponies didn't understand gem formation, but Beady knew that gems were—in a magical sort of way—alive as much as any fruit or vegetable. Once plucked from the ground, they died in much the same way. The difference was that, once replanted, it could take years for them to grow anew.

There was no vein of gems beneath her hooves: there was a monumental collection of gems, and they were dead. Which meant they were placed, which meant that somepony—or perhaps someone—was building something down there.

She focused, scrunching up her already-closed eyes out of pure instinct. Through her hooves she perceived massive onyx statues, huge obsidian-and-ruby murals, soaring arches.... Literally monumental, she realized. Someone's building a palace down there.

“The pony has a pretty voice, yes she does....”

Beady took an unconscious step backward even before her eyes opened. Standing in front of her was a filthy gray Diamond Dog, reaching out to her with one distended arm. She shrieked and bolted in the opposite direction. Stupid, she thought. So frigging stupid to go out on my own in the Badlands. A quick glance over her shoulder showed her the Dog loping after her on all fours.

A few seconds later, as she ran, she looked back once more to see that the Dog was gone, but as her gaze returned forward she skidded to a stop. A hole was opening in the ground before her, and within a second a new Diamond Dog had popped out. He was shorter than the other one, and his skin had a slight red tint under the muck.

Beady scrabbled against the ground, trying to turn around, but the red Diamond Dog had caught her. “It's mine, Baxter!” he yelled, his claws digging into her stomach.

“No, Korbel!” Baxter yelled, halting just behind her. “I saw the pony first, and you wouldn't have caught her without me!”

“Fine,” Korbel said, grinning as Beady tried to turn around in his grasp so she could kick him. “I'll tell master it's from both of us. Happy?”

“Put me down!” Beady screamed. She tried to twist around and hit him, but he was holding her too tightly.

“Oh, we can't do that, pony,” Baxter said, as Korbel turned her toward the hole he'd emerged from. “If we come back with a new workhorse, maybe master will be nice and leave us alone, maybe he will.”

Before Beady could protest any more, Korbel dove into the hole, and her vision of a cloudy sky was replaced by pitch-dark earth. She screamed again, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of the hole closing behind them, trapping her underground.

The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)
S1E8: The Empire of Shadows
By R5h

“I hate my boss!” Beady screamed, sliding down a slope that seemed to have no end. It had been half a minute or so, and she hadn't slowed. She'd given up on trying to attack Korbel—that wouldn't do anything to the gravity, after all—so after her exclamation, she let herself simply fall.

Finally, after what seemed like a minute, she felt the slope level out and tumbled to a halt on a hard cave floor. Korbel slid smoothly past her, and when she got to her hooves, he was standing above her with something in his paws. Before she could react, he shoved it over her head, and she heard something click.

“Don't bother trying to escape,” Korbel said, as Beady looked down and saw a red collar around her neck with a black jewel on it—not one she recognized. And she recognized everything. “Hey,” Korbel said, smacking her on the cheek. Beady looked up from her examination. “Did the pony hear me? Don't bother trying to escape. Believe me, there's no way out.”

With that, he turned around and walked forward, obviously expecting her to follow—where else would she go? She couldn't help but notice an identical collar around his own neck. Then she started at the sound of more sliding, and looked behind her: Baxter was careening down the slide toward her. She jumped out of the way just in time, noting a red collar on his neck too. Okay, nevermind, she thought, grimacing and following Korbel down the cave. I strongly dislike my boss. I hate whoever's in charge of this place.

Beady shifted her concentration from following the Diamond Dog ahead of her, feeling out her gem-sense as her hooves touched the ground. Directing her attention upward, she saw—so to speak—that there were crystals above her for something like a thousand feet. She cursed under her breath, then let her sense broaden into a sort of sphere around herself, only to recoil in disgust. She was approaching two of the gems she'd found from the surface in the false vein. She'd thought they were dead gems.

She'd been wrong: they had never been alive. She didn't know how that was possible… some sort of artificial crystals? Either way, she shuddered, like another pony might shudder upon realizing they were surrounded not by living, breathing ponies, but by wax statues. And it was just such a gem that was on her collar, too—she shivered again.

Moreover, as she kept walking cautiously, she realized that two of the unalive gems were getting closer, and that they were in the shapes of statues... she traced their shapes with her mind and stopped dead. He's gone. It was on the news—he's gone.

“Pony!” yelled Baxter from behind her. “Keep moving!”

“It's Beady!” she said, glancing at him before hurrying forward—she had to check, in case her gem sense was deceiving her. She brushed past Korbel, who snarled at her, but she just kept moving until the two statues were within visual range, and looked up. Her jaw dropped at the sight.

She stood in a vast entrance hall, maybe fifty feet high, forty feet wide, and twenty feet deep. In front of her was a ten-foot high set of double doors. Flanking these on either side were two plinths, and on the plinths were statues of—

She shook her head, blinked, and looked again. Nope. That is definitely King Sombra.

She'd heard about it in the news, not so long ago—how the Crystal Empire had reappeared after a thousand-year absence from the top of the world, and how Twilight Sparkle and the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony had saved it from the dark intentions of King Sombra. Sombra had, in fact, been almost an afterthought to the story she'd heard—the point was that the Empire was back, and its evil king had been destroyed.

As Beady looked up at a fifteen-foot radius crystal mural of Sombra, his face and horn rendered in black and red versions of those unalive gems, she realized that someone had told her wrong. Or maybe, she thought, it's someone with a serious hard-on for Sombra. Actually, that makes much more sense. She relaxed. That's probably it. Now the only question is, who has a hard-on for Sombra?

“Move, pony!” Baxter said, pushing her rear forward and jolting her out of her thoughts. She glared at him, and he amended himself: “Move, Beady.” She grunted and walked toward the doors, which glowed with a black aura and opened of their own accord.

On the other side of the door was another shocker: a huge hall, hundreds of feet high like some vast underground cathedral, whose floor was filled with ponies. Ponies chained together, pulling sledges of rock or massive cannons; ponies carving statues from crystal pillars; ponies covered in grime, heaving on ropes. Defiant ponies, whose every movement was resentful; fearful ponies, looking around for fear of punishment; and dead-eyed ponies who didn't seem to care one way or the other.

There were Diamond Dogs around the edges of the massive room, and more supervising various teams of ponies, some with sadistic enthusiasm, all with whips. In her peripheral vision, she saw Baxter and Korbel enter the room behind her and pick up whips of their own. Korbel raised his whip and swung it, cracking it on the floor to her right. “Weapons, pony!” he said, grinning. “To your right. I won't ask twice. And here's a bit of advice—don't look up.”

You didn't ask the first time. You didn't even command. Beady bit her tongue—clearly, criticizing the Diamond Dog with the whip was a losing proposition—and went where he'd directed. Okay, I REALLY hate my new bosses. In this aggrieved state, she disobeyed her captor and looked up.

At first, all she saw was the impressively massive room she'd beheld from the entryway. Perhaps a few more murals of Sombra on the soaring walls of the place—but after a few seconds she saw, in an upper balcony, a shadow that should not have been. She shivered involuntarily, then grimaced at herself for doing so and got moving.

At the right side of the room was a large table covered in long stone poles, each with a sham-crystal bulge at one end. Three other ponies were already working on sharpening these bulges into spearheads, and a Diamond Dog was standing there to supervise with a whip in his paw. “Get to work,” he said as Beady approached, waving the whip menacingly. Beady rolled her eyes and got to work, picking up a tool of the same sort as the other ponies were using—something to help chip bits off of the spears.

“Beady!” said a voice beside her. She looked to her right to see a light gray earth pony mare, dappled with black spots, and looking back at her with wide eyes.

It took a moment for this to register in Beady's brain, but when she figured it out, she blurted, “Gneiss!” She almost said, “I'm so glad you're here,” but managed to force it back; why should she be glad that her friend was imprisoned with her? At least now she knew why Gneiss hadn't shown up for work today.

She heard a whipcrack and jumped, then looked at the Diamond Dog. “Get to work,” he repeated with a grin. “Won't say again.” Fighting off an urge to sock him one in the jaw, Beady pulled her attention back to the spears.

“Did you just get here?” Gneiss whispered, without looking at her.

“Yeah, just got friggin' kidnapped.”

“Listen, you'll be okay. We'll all be okay, but—” Gneiss winced as she lifted a spear, her hoof shaking with the effort. “Oh, I wish they'd let me just fly on out of here! Just one little opening and then—”

“You're an earth pony, Gneiss, not a pegasus.”

“Oh, right.” She dropped the finished spear into a pile of like objects with a small sigh. “Right. But don't freak out or anything, you'll be okay. Just keep working, keep quiet, and we'll all be out of here soon enough.”

“How do you figure?” Beady said, scraping her spear end into a sharp point.

“Pretty soon, the princesses are gonna find out about this place, and then they're gonna barge in here and deal with King Sombra and we'll all be home free, eating delicious ice cream or—or whatever.” There was a strained looking grin on Gneiss's face, along with dark bags under her eyes, ones which barely showed up on her gray skin.

“Right,” Beady said, moving onto another spear. “So you really think it's Sombra? And, uh... since when is he a king, anyway?”

“Not so loud!” hissed a stallion working to her left, giving her a frightened look.

“Shut it, wise guy,” she said. “Gneiss?”

“I, uh... I just know, okay?” Gneiss said, staring more deeply at her work, talking faster. “I've been down here long enough, I've seen a few things, I just know.”

“Sure, you just know,” Beady said, rolling her eyes. “Right.” It wasn't as though Gneiss was always the most reliable source of information, particularly in a stressful situation like this.

She noticed something beneath her hooves, many yards away behind her, and rising fast—more of the unliving gems she'd come to know. Suppressing a shudder, she glanced behind her as she worked and saw a pony with a chisel, making the finishing touches on a sculpture of King Sombra. As he stepped down from his ladder, a pillar of the same gems erupted from the ground with a rumble, as rough and uncut as a geode. When it was a little taller than its counterpart statue, it halted. The pony sighed, pulled his ladder to that pillar, and got to work chiseling.

Something occurred to Beady about the last thing she'd heard Gneiss say. “Down here long enough—for how long, exactly?” She stared at Gneiss, almost forgetting to keep working. “Gneiss, when did you get yanked down here?”

Gneiss didn't say anything for several seconds, but her hooves started shaking harder. “I think it was early on Friday... what day is it?”

“Saturday—like, six o'clock or something—Gneiss—”

“Oh, thank Celestia,” Gneiss said, rubbing her forehead. “I thought it might have been longer.”

“Gneiss,” Beady said, noticing once more the dark bags under her friend's eyes and the tremors wracking her body, “have they let you sleep? Have you had anything to—”

Another whipcrack startled her, and she glared at the Diamond Dog responsible. “We weren't doing anything,” she spat.

The Diamond Dog grunted and jabbed at the spears, which—now that Beady looked at them—had all been sharpened. “Ponies, get these to the armory,” he said, jabbing at a door on the other end of the room. “Now.” The assorted ponies didn't need telling twice; each one grabbed about a dozen of the long crystalline rods and put them onto their backs.

“Here,” Gneiss said, as Beady tried to do the same; she grabbed one of Beady's spears from the pile, leaving her staggering under the weight. “Everyone, give me an extra. I can lift them with my unicorn magic, heh heh.”

“You're not a unicorn, Gneiss, you're an earth pony. We just went over this.”

Gneiss panted through her smile as their grateful co-slaves piled on the spears. “A girl can dream, Beady.” She took a few steps forward, then stopped as her legs shook—then gave out on her. The spears rolled off her back and clattered to the floor, each one filling the room with resounding echoes as it struck.

The room fell silent, and all eyes fell on Gneiss as she panted, eyes wide. “No no no,” she said, pulling herself to her hooves and trying to pull the spears back onto her back. “No, I can do this, I swear—” She glanced up at the ceiling for a moment.

“Aww, pony tried to carry too much,” said their overseer with a yellow grin, as Gneiss managed to shoulder all of the spears. “Let me help the pony.” He pulled one from her back, then stabbed it into her rear left leg. Gneiss cried out in pain and collapsed. The spears fell again, louder than before.

Beady shook with rage. “You son of a—” She was raising her right foreleg to knock his jaundiced teeth out, but it occurred to her that Gneiss needed her help more. “Gneiss, are you okay?”

The ponies and Diamond Dogs around them were backing away, Beady noticed—there was a wide, unpopulated radius around them. “Gneiss?” she said, trying to help her friend lie down, but Gneiss tried to stand up instead, despite the blood trickling down her leg. “Gneiss, what are you doing?”

“No!” Gneiss said, looking up. “No, I swear, I can still work! I can still do this!” The background noise of work and whispers, Beady noticed, was dying away.

“Gneiss, who are you talking to—” Beady looked up and squinted. The shadow she'd noticed before was gone.

Do you think you can lie to me, Igneous Gneiss?

It wasn't a voice. At least, not the kind that came from a mouth, that traveled with reassuring normalcy through the air to land in an ear. Beady didn't hear the words, she thought them—or someone else thought them into her head. She spun around, looking for the source of the words, and saw the shadow.

There's not enough left in you for labor, said the shadow—no, not just a shadow, a void. Shadows could be seen through, but all Beady saw in the coal-black depths of this apparition were two eyes, blazing violet, staring at Gneiss. Besides that, there was no color, no light.

Gneiss cowered before him, her face on the ground. Her words were muffled by the dirt. “Please, no, I just need a little time....”

Look up, Gneiss. Look at me.

With a whimper, she obeyed, looking up tearfully at his eyes—eyes that would have been just above her eye level, had she been standing. As it was, his blank, black form towered over her. A tendril extended, like a finger of darkness, and wiped the tears off her face with two strokes. Don't worry, Gneiss. You're about to prove very useful indeed.

“What do you mean?” Gneiss breathed, standing up with sudden, desperate vigor and skittering away from the void. Her breaths came faster and faster. Her gaze was fixed on the ground that she seemed reluctant to keep any one hoof on for too long, like she was scared of her own shadow.

But it wasn't her shadow. It was darker, and it was bigger, and as her rear hoof came down to the ground, it plunged into the void below as if into a marsh. “No,” she panted, trying to pull it out—but in the process she planted her other hooves into the void as well. “No, please, I'll do anything—”

Yes, you will.

Gneiss stared at him for a moment, all four hooves inches into the floor, tears streaming down her face, and finally Beady didn't care whether or not it was dangerous shadow magic, whether or not she'd share Gneiss's fate—she leaped forward, screaming, “Hold on, Gneiss!”

Gneiss looked at her, her mouth opening in a gasp as the distance between them closed—then she plummeted. Her legs, torso, neck, and head were swallowed by the abyss; then the shadow dissipated. Beady was several feet away, one leg reaching out toward nothing.

The silence of the hall remained. A hundred onlookers watched Beady's outstretched foreleg fall to the floor.

The two burning eyes blinked. Then the void turned around, moving toward a nearest exit. Back to work. Around them, a few Diamond Dogs dared to move, prodding the ponies closest to them.

Beady's jaw was so tight and tense that her teeth felt ready to shatter. You, she thought. You shadowy son of a....

Her legs were moving before she'd told them to, running at the shadow faster than she'd run at Gneiss. Within seconds she was close enough to touch it, but she didn't just want to touch it—she wanted to hurt it. “You son of a bitch!” she yelled, punctuating the last word with a haymaker swing at where the shadow's head might be, if it had a head.

And it did. Her punch, thrown with muscles built up by regular factory work, connected with something and made the cracking sound of hoof meeting skull. Beady landed, and the void reeled—the void melted away. Its outer edges ablated, and she could see the dark-colored form of a stallion within, staggering in pain, nearly toppling over. “You little,” he gasped, its eyes reduced to glowing green slits. “You little, insignificant....”

The room had been merely silent before, but now it seemed so quiet that silence would have been deafening. No one seemed to be breathing except for Beady, but she made up for the rest—she heaved great breaths, shaking her achy hoof. “Wanna go again, huh?” she yelled, stepping toward him and raising that hoof. “Wanna go for round two, you shadowy son of a—”

His eyes opened wide, with red irises small as specks in virulent green oceans, staring right at her. With a snarl he swept a hoof at her, and the void followed, striking her like a runaway carriage. She sailed back with the force of the blow, landing yards away in a tumble on the floor.

You've just made the last mistake of your LIFE, Beady! It sounded once more like her own voice in her own head, but she knew better—the voice was enraged beyond belief. Pulling herself to her hooves, she saw him again, disappearing into his shield of void until only his eyes were visible. The flames about them blazed like bonfires.

He was advancing upon her. She turned and ran, but there was a line of ponies and Diamond Dogs in front of her, and they were scared stiff. “Let me through!” she screamed, trying to force her way between two of the ponies, but they pushed her away; they didn't want to be responsible for letting her escape. Heart racing, she turned and ran the other way, giving the shadow a wide berth.

Get her. You know what I'll do to you if you don't. With that, the circle started to shrink. The ponies only moved forward, choking Beady's area of freedom, but several of the Diamond Dogs broke from the circle and ran at her, shrieking wildly. The breaks disappeared behind them.

Beady ran forward at one of the Diamond Dogs and socked it in the jaw, but another one got on her back, forcing her to the ground. She recognized the filthy paw in front of her face. “Baxter!” she screamed. “Let me go!”

She tried to shake him, but Baxter clung to her like iron manacles. “I can't,” he said, and she noticed he was sobbing. “I can't be bad again.” She tried to twist in his grip, to get in an attack on him, but something struck her in the face, sending Baxter and her rolling across the ground. She blearily tried to get up, but Baxter grabbed her legs and forced her down again.

Look at me, Beady. She looked up dazedly and saw fury in those burning eyes. You are about to cease to exist. She looked down, and saw her shadow deepening around her, but had a vague notion that that wasn't what she was looking down for.

As long as she was looking, she noticed—with a little satisfaction—that the deepening shadow around her contained Baxter as well. A second later, he noticed as well, and looked up at his master in fear. “Master, I've been good!” He tried to lift a paw from the ground, but it was stuck in the darkness. Something's coming, she realized, and she didn't know what—it felt ugly and twisted and wrong. She struggled a bit against the shadow, but it held her like flypaper.

Oh, Baxter, Baxter.... A piece of shadow pulled away from the main body of the void and patted Baxter on one of his cheeks; the other was stuck to the ground. I know you've been good, but whyever should I care?

It was coming right at them, and Beady realized what it was just before it hit—another pillar of unalive gems, right beneath her body and rising fast. She braced herself just in time.

The shadow disappeared beneath her and Baxter, replaced by a plateau of red gemstone that carried them up and up and up. With a gasp from the sudden acceleration, she peeked over the edge to see the slaves that had surrounded her falling further and further away. The void beneath her was almost invisible.

As the pillar kept rising, she started getting vertigo from looking down and made the mistake of looking up instead. The ceiling was incredibly high, but approaching rapidly: was this her death sentence? Did he mean to crush them like ants?

Her upward motion stopped all at once. Beady didn't dare to look down, to see how far she was above the hall's floor, but she could look around, and saw—

There was no doubt about it, this was the balcony from which the void had looked down upon them, and its unglassed windows were close enough to jump to. There were several doors in the room, but next to one was an arrow symbol, made of the same ruddy gemstone and pointing at the door. Beady hesitated—could this be some sort of trap?

The wall beside the arrow shivered, and three crimson letters pushed their way through, one by one.

R

U

N

That was enough for her. She gathered her legs beneath her, jumped into the room, and ran for the door.

Their master stood in his veil of darkness, staring up at the pillar of crystal.

Korbel dared to breathe again as hushed conversations erupted from the ponies around them. “There's a pony under there?” said one stallion to his right.

“Forget about that—who just saved them?” said another. “Maybe he can save us too!” Korbel had a dim notion that his master would expect him, as a supervisor, to punish this kind of traitorous talk—but a rather less dim notion told him that right now, he didn't care.

“When she socked him—” A mare punched two of her hooves together. “I can tell you, I definitely want in on that.”

As conversations like this continued, Korbel heard a rumbling noise and looked up: Sombra's eyes blazed high, and the crystal pillar was descending into the floor. Good for you, Bax.

“Quiet,” he said, as the ponies kept talking. “You don't want him to hear—”

The room went dark. Not merely dark, in fact: Korbel could see nothing at all, nor hear anything. Something was pouring into his eyes, like black sand—

Korbel stood, shaken, in his master's great hall. His eyes, despite his better judgment, looked down at the place where Beady and Baxter had just disappeared into darkness.

“Did you see that?” said one stallion to his right. “When she just ran at him—what was she thinking?”

“And then she swung at him,” said another, shaking a little, “and then—and then her hoof just went through his eyes like he was a ghost....”

“Shut it,” Korbel said, cracking his whip on the ground; the ponies around him obeyed. “Back to work.”

Their master turned around and walked from the room as the circle of horrified onlookers dispersed. Korbel went back to his station, whip gripped in his paw, trying not to think about what had just happened to his friend. Poor, poor Bax.

Left. Right. Left. Up a flight of stairs. Left again. Up another flight.

At each stage, another ugly arrow appeared to direct her, and Beady didn't stop to think. She just kept running for minutes, hoping that this was the way out of danger and not into it.

Eventually, she reached a point where instead of an arrow, four letters appeared: STOP. She obeyed this too, and came to a halt, panting as her adrenaline rush drained away.

Several seconds later, she heard more breaths behind her, and whirled around to see Baxter running clumsily at her. “You!” she yelled. It hadn't occurred to her that he'd be following the same directions as she was. “Get away from me!”

She lifted a hoof threateningly, and he stopped several feet from it. “Please don't,” he said, backing away with his paws in front of his face. “Please, pony don't make me—”

“My name is Beady!” she yelled. “And you're working for that shadow thing, so get lost!”

Well, if we're being fair, you were, too.

The words appeared in the wall to her side; to her disgust, she flinched away from them. After a moment, more came out: Both slaves to the same, what did you call it? Shadow thing? Not a great descriptor, that.

“What is that?” said Baxter, pointing a shaky finger at the words.

“The same person who saved us,” Beady replied, rolling her eyes at him.

Baxter shook his head. “No one but our master has crystal magic like that. It's a trick.”

More words erupted behind him, and he yelped and spun around. I think this is where I introduce myself, Beady and Baxter. I'm the exception to the rule. The Doctor, for short. Hello! :)

Beady squinted at the odd bit of punctuation at the end. “What's that last part?” Beady asked.

It's called an emoticon, it looks like a smiley face if you turn your head... never mind. Forget you saw that, that is not gonna catch on any time soon. The colon and right parenthesis receded into the wall.

“You're the one who saved us,” Beady said, looking down the corridor. “Where are you? How can you see us?”

Long story, said the Doctor. Beady didn't bother to look, instead letting her gem sense trace the words. It was a little unnerving, feeling those imitation gems, but she stomached it. Now, a really important question, very important: Have you seen a certain gray earth pony? Long dark hair, and purple eyes?

Beady shook her head, then looked around to see that Baxter was shaking his head too. Are you sure? the Doctor asked. Treble clef cutie mark, usually seen wearing a bowtie, answers to Octavia?

“Never heard of her,” Beady said. “Who is she?”

A friend of mine. She went missing a few days ago, and so did a bunch of other ponies. Why can't I see her?

There was a pause before more words came out: Anyway, I'd made a promise to another friend of mine, so I went looking for Octavia and I found this place. Well, mostly it found me—some obliging Diamond Dogs dragged me down. You were one of them, Baxter.

“What?” Baxter said. “No, I don't remember any doctor ponies.”

You might not at that. In any case, I managed to get the Diamond Dogs to take me to their leader, and it turns out it was... well, you already know, seeing how he's got his picture plastered everywhere.

Beady took a deep breath. “Are you saying it is him? It really is Sombra? He's still alive?”

In order: yes, yes, no.

The wall was out of space. Beady walked forward to the next section of corridor, where the Doctor continued: That darkness you saw was King Sombra, but whatever he is, I would not call it “alive”. He hasn't really been alive for a thousand years. But he's about to be.

“What do you mean, about to be?” Beady asked, continuing to walk as the words kept coming.

He's rebuilding himself—dare I say, regenerating himself. It won't be long before he's got a proper physical form. He's biding his time down here, building his palace and fortress, but once he's done he'll bring it to the surface and wage war on Equestria.

“Bring it to the surface?” Beady said. “What, a whole fortress?”

He is incredibly strong.

An arrow appeared on the wall, pointing up. Sombra and I had an... altercation. I'm okay now, but bad news is, I'm trapped where I am. Good news is, you're not, and you've got me to be your own personal sat nav. Just follow my directions, get to the surface, and once you're out, go find the Princesses immediately so they can stop this thing before it starts.

“Wait,” Baxter said. “How did you escape from our master? No one escapes!”

Did I mention how exceptional I am? Chop chop, B-Team. Nearest stairwell is: The upward arrow on the wall spun around and pointed straight ahead, down the corridor.

“So I can go up and be the hero, is that it?” Narrowing her eyes, Beady sat down. “You have all this power, and you can't go up yourself? Why choose me instead?”

More arrows appeared under the first, all pointed in the same direction. I'm noticing a distinct lack of chop chop.

Beady snorted. “No kidding! You're not telling the whole truth, Doctor, and I have no idea where you're sending me, so I'm not moving one inch unless you give me a reason to trust you. And neither is he!” she added, looking back at Baxter. He gulped and sat down too.

A few seconds of stillness followed. Then, the Doctor responded: You don't have one. But I saw you down there, Beady: You're determined, you're unafraid, and you are my best hope of saving Equestria and my friend. So I have every reason to trust you, which is why I'm asking you to take a chance and—

“Shut up,” Beady said, turning away from the wall and closing her eyes.

I'm sorry?

“No buttering me up, no screwing around with saying how special I am. Give me a reason, now.”

The earlier words receded back into the wall to be replaced by others. By now, Sombra's sent some of his other slaves after you. If you stay where you are, they'll find you. If you go downstairs, they'll find you that much more easily. Your only option is to go up, but you have no idea where you are. I do. So if you want to get out of here alive, Beady, you really don't have any other options. Stairwell, that way. Now.

“And you'll be fired if you don't,” Beady muttered, standing up. “Got it. Baxter!” she yelled at the Diamond Dog, who stood up with a jolt. “We're moving.” With a hasty nod, he fell into step behind her.

To the Doctor's credit, there was a stairwell there.

Beady worked at a small factory near Ponyville, and her job there was to operate a gem-crushing machine, turning large crystals into smaller ones suitable for drill bits and other industrial applications. It was pony-powered, requiring her to push down on one pedal after the other for hours at a time. After all that legwork, surely a few flights of stairs would be no problem.

This hypothesis had been disproved about ten stairwells ago.

“Stairs,” Beady grunted, panting for breath once she'd reached what felt like the hundredth landing so far. “Are.” She gritted her teeth and looked up to see that this stairwell's end was at the landing above hers. “The worst,” she managed to say, before she forced herself to take the last dozen or so steps.

Well, tried to force herself, but her legs felt like she'd filled them with boulders, and she made it six steps before collapsing. “I swear,” she panted, “I am going to live in a one-story house for the rest of my life.”

Sorry, said the Doctor, in words extruded from the stairwell's wall. Sombra can't help himself. I think he's got a fetish.

Beady chuckled between harsh breaths. “Hilarious.” The Doctor had been chatting with them on and off as they'd ascended, mostly to provide directions or to warn them away from pursuers. At the very least, it had helped her get over some of her revulsion for the unalive crystals he used to communicate with; she could ignore the constricting feeling in her throat that looking at them gave her.

She'd gotten enough breath back now, so she took the last six steps to the top. It took a lot of willpower not to collapse then and there, but she managed it, albeit with legs that shook like stilts in an earthquake. So much for stamina, she thought.

It was some consolation that Baxter was even less prepared to make the climb. As the thud of her own heart became less painful in her ears, she was able to pick out his distant gasps for breath. “Come on!” she yelled down at him.

After a few seconds, he spoke up from what must have been at least three floors down. “Pony... I need a minute.”

“It's Beady. Don't make me come down there, ya mutt!” As she listened, his panting restarted, and his speed seemed to have picked up.

A scraping sound came from the wall above the stairwell's exit, as more of the Doctor's words forced their way from the rock. Not so loud. Someone might hear.

“Someone like who?” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down. “We haven't heard anyone else in like twenty minutes.”

Beady, I am asking you to be quiet. Sombra will have sent someone, and just because you can't find them doesn't mean they can't find you.

“You're actually telling, not asking,” she grunted, but brought her voice down.

The panting from below got louder and louder, until Baxter appeared on the stairwell's last landing, his coat drenched in sweat. Well, I don't look like that, Beady thought, and smiled. “Seriously,” she said, at the same reduced volume, “this place is huge and there's almost no one in it. What's Sombra gonna do with this dump?”

If you'll be so good as to turn around, you'll see exactly what this room is for, at least.

She did the first of those things, but the second wasn't coming easily. The rectangular room was almost as large as the great hall she'd been working in, and was similarly adorned with likenesses of Sombra, particularly a massive stained-glass window a hundred feet from the ground, depicting him in a heroic pose, high on a mountaintop.

On the floor, far below, two rectangular areas had been tiled with marble and divided by a central aisle, and each was bordered at their far end by a short obsidian wall. An elevated pulpit stood beyond those, ornately carved with spirals on the sides and red droplets down the middle. If she was being really generous—and she wasn't—it almost looked beautiful.

Beady kept looking around, then gave up. “Okay, you got me. What is it for?”

It's a church.

“A what?”

Oh, right, organized religion never really took off in Equestria. This is the Umbral Cathedral, where you go to worship King Sombra.

Beady's jaw dropped. That's the plan, anyway, the Doctor continued. And ponies say I have an ego—there isn't a thing in the world Sombra loves more than himself. Not even stairs.

“You're not kidding,” Beady said, walking onto one of the marble sections. “So this is where we sit and... what, tell Sombra how glad we are for being enslaved? How he's such a good king for working ponies to death?”

Loud gasps hit her ears, and she looked to the stairwell to see one of Baxter's paws reach out of the stairwell. A second later, his head popped above floor level. “Here,” he croaked.

“About time too.” Beady squinted at the short wall, and noticed a hair-width edge across its top. “What the hell is this for?” she said, touching its top with a hoof ever so gently. As she looked at her skin, blood started seeping through, and she hadn't felt a cut. That's obsidian for you, she thought. You could slice somepony open from head to tail and they wouldn't even say “ow”.

Blood tribute, the Doctor said. Note the gutters below? She looked down and saw that the few beads of blood she'd left on the wall were sliding down into a gutter, then around the marble and to the back end of the cathedral.

“Creepy,” Beady said, shuddering.

Yup. These letters were a bit blockier for some reason, like the visual equivalent of a grunt.

“Pony, look.”

“Beady!” She said it on instinct without moving. “What is it?”

“Beady,” Baxter repeated, and Beady did look his way. He was standing now, though still shining with sweat, and he pointed at a small mural on the wall. It depicted a newborn unicorn with a wispy gray coat, lying in a bed of ermine red. Around him were his mother and father: beautiful ponies, who looked upon him in wonder to have created such a perfect son.

There were more pictures as Beady kept walking along the wall. The little unicorn grew up in a happy community, surrounded by friends—of whom he was the leader—and graduated top of his class, after which his father the king tragically died of old age. With utmost dignity and nobility, the unicorn accepted the crown. He stood atop the highest pillar of the Crystal Empire as his adoring subjects bowed before him.

And then two dark figures came—two alicorns, one silhouetted against the sun, one against the moon. With expressions of evil glee they banished him into the frozen wastes, where he slept in solitude a thousand years, waiting for the day that his birthright could be—

“Oh, please,” Beady said, looking the other way. A glance to the opposite wall told her that the story continued on that side, but she didn't need to see how it ended. “Is that what he expects us to believe?”

“Strange,” Baxter mumbled, still looking at the pictures.

“It's pretty damn strange to me too, ya mutt,” Beady said, rolling her eyes. “Now come on, back to the stairs—”

“Not just that,” Baxter said. He tapped the picture of Sombra assuming the crown, one which featured him about as prominently as every other picture in the place had. “You can see master everywhere, except master.”

It wasn't an easy sentence to parse. Beady scratched her head, forgetting for a moment that this meant spreading blood across her face. She flinched, tried to rub it off, gave up, and said, “Run that by me again?”

You ought to get going, the Doctor said, and the letters were definitely rougher this time. They came out of the wall more quickly, too. Next move is up the staircase behind the pulpit.

“You saw master,” Baxter said, turning to face Beady, “except you didn't... see master, because the darkness covers him. The darkest blackness. But we see what he looks like everywhere else.” Baxter pointed up to the massive stained glass picture of Sombra. “Why?”

“Well....” Beady squinted. As much as she hated to admit it—which was why she wasn't going to—that was a really good question.

You need to get going, the Doctor repeated, the words protruding from the wall fast enough that she heard the stone grinding against stone. You need to get moving right

The next word didn't appear, and Beady stared at the place where it should have done so: directly beneath the image of Sombra's birth, and right in front of her. “Now?” Baxter asked.

NOW

The word didn't stay on the wall. It blasted outward like a cannon shot, right at Beady. With a cry of surprise she jumped back as it grew past her and punched into the opposite wall, destroying one of Sombra's murals.

There were more crystals coming. Beady felt them.

“Move!” she yelled, as if she and Baxter were in any shape to run—but they did, as another pillar of crimson crystal burst from the ground where she'd stood a second before, then one from the ceiling, filling the air with sounds louder than rock being dynamited. Beady's gem-sense deciphered the words with her barely realizing she was doing it—

GET OUT OUT GET OUT GET MY HEAD GET OUT OUT OUT GET OUT

“The stairwell!” Beady and Baxter ran for it, and then she felt something coming from the ceiling, the largest crystal yet, and it wasn't a word—but it was coming right at her and tapering to a point, and she wasn't fast enough. As she tried to step forward, it speared her in the leg, forcing her to the ground with a scream of pain. She looked forward to see the stairs inches from her hoof, and Baxter already on them, reaching to her, but there was another pillar descending from the ceiling, another stalactite, and this one was coming for her head—

The sound stopped. The stalactite came to a halt an inch from her eye. If she blinked, she could brush its point with her lashes.

Beady didn't blink. She held her breath, and with the greatest of care, she pulled her head out of the way of the stalactite. Then she started heaving breath after panicky breath—the room was filled with these ugly, unalive, fake crystals, and one of them was inside her. She looked down at her leg, bloody from the piece that had speared her, and the constricted feeling got back in her throat. If she weren't so tired, she'd have thrown up.

“Beady!” Baxter yelled, running to her side and kneeling. “You're stuck?”

“Baxter,” she panted, “listen to me. Very carefully, get my leg away from the crystal.”

He put his paws on her leg, treating her like she was made of glass. “Carefully,” Beady said around the choking feeling in her throat. Baxter pushed down, trying to pull the wound away from the crystal, but it was in too deep. He tried again, and it didn't move. Finally he growled and wrenched it.

The tip of the crystal broke off. Her leg came free, but the horrible fake bloodstone was inside her. “No,” she blurted out. She sat up and getting both hooves on the wound, trying to pull the thing out, but her panicked, clumsy movements just pushed it in further. “No no no no no no no—”

She dry-heaved. She couldn't stop herself from feeling the thing's utter wrongness, like having dead flesh on her leg, reeking and crawling with maggots. It was in too deep now, and she couldn't pull it out.

“Beady,” Baxter said, reaching toward her leg, “let me—”

“Get away from me, you stupid mutt!” she screeched. She threw her hoof out, and it smacked him across the face. “You can't do anything right!” He whimpered and backed away, tears forming in his eyes. Good, she thought.

“And you!” she yelled, looking up at the ceiling. “You bring me up all those stupid stairs and you try to kill me?”

I'm sorry. I am so sorry. The many crystals that he'd summoned started retracting into the wall, and smaller crystals formed more words around them. It was an accident.

“Bull! You don't nearly kill somebody on accident!”

I'm sorry. I lost control.

“Oh, great! You've been trying not to kill me!” She choked out a harsh laugh. “How freakin' reassuring!”

No, not like

The words, projected as they were from the nearest wall, suddenly shot forward by a foot. Beady jumped away, then growled as the words retreated back in. “Stay away from me,” she said. “You hear that, Doctor?”

“It's a shame.”

Her breath caught—she'd written that voice off as a goner. She turned around to see a pony with bedraggled hair, leaning against the cathedral pulpit. “This room was kind of the only nice one,” she said, looking around at the carnage that had been wrought not a minute earlier.

“I don't believe it....” Beady ran as fast as her leg would let her, biting her tongue with every step, toward her best friend in the world. “Gneiss?”

Gneiss hopped down from the podium, and the two of them embraced. “You're okay!” Beady exclaimed.

“Sort of,” Gneiss replied with a faint smile. As she pulled away from the hug, Beady saw dozens of shallow cuts and ugly bruises beneath her coat, particularly heavy around her collar. With this and her disheveled mane, she looked like she deserved to be confined to a hospital bed, but she was standing firm without any tremors. “King Sombra's punishments aren't usually sunshine and butterflies, heh heh.”

Beady grimaced at the sight. “That looks painful, but... but I thought you were dead for sure! How'd you get out of that shadow thing?”

Gneiss shrugged. “It was more like getting teleported than anything—it dropped me off in a torture chamber, but the guards were Diamond Dogs, so... not too hard to escape. No offense meant,” she added, tilting her head to the side to look at Baxter, who still sat sniveling on the ground.

Don't listen to her, said the Doctor.

“Please, mean as much offense as you want!” Beady shook her head, the grimace turning back to a smile. “I'm just so glad you're okay.”

“There's more.” Gneiss leaned closer to Beady, a conspiratorial smile on her lips. “There's a way out, just up ahead.”

Beady's jaw dropped. “There's a what?”

“Crazy, right?” Gneiss laughed. “I'll show you. Follow me! It's just downstairs.”

She's lying, said the Doctor. Don't follow her, go upstairs, not down.

“Oh, and I'm supposed to believe you over my own best friend?” Beady rolled her eyes, and lifted her two forehooves in imitation of a scale; she winced as the movement put weight on her injured leg. “Let's think about this. Should I trust the ghost in the walls who nearly killed me, or....” She let her hooves sway for a second, then pulled her right one down in a decisive motion. “I'm gonna have to go with my best friend here.”

She is lying, Beady. Sombra had her in his clutches. She can't have escaped.

“Who's that?” Gneiss asked, glancing back as she ambled toward a door at the far end of the cathedral.

“Some jerk,” Beady replied, then directed her voice once more at the wall. “And why not? If you escaped, why the hell can't she have?”

I didn't escape.

Beady narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

I didn't escape. Don't believe her

But suddenly the letters were blocky and misshapen once more. Beady sensed rumbling behind the walls, and trotted away as little crystals began forcing their ways through, until the words they surrounded were unrecognizable. “Stay away from me, you psycho,” she said, then moved to follow Gneiss.

A thought struck her, and she looked back to see Baxter still pooled on the floor. “Hey, mutt!” she called. “You coming or what?” With great reluctance he stood and followed Beady.

Gneiss led the way through a bloodstone door, and down a flight of stairs, and then another one. Considering Beady’s three-legged status, it was a welcome change of pace from climbing up flight after flight, but she wasn't sure how this was getting them closer to an escape route. At least Gneiss seemed to know exactly where she was going.

At the bottom of the flight of stairs was another door, this one jet-black. Gneiss pushed the door open and walked inside the room behind it.

It was a dark room, lit only by four feebly glowing red crystals in the corners. At the end of the room was a table. On the table rested a knife.

As she hobbled in, Beady looked around and saw no other doors save the one the three of them had just come through. “Gneiss,” she said, “you said there was a way to the surface through here.”

“I didn't say there was a way up.” Gneiss strode to the table and picked up the knife; then, with a weak laugh, she turned around and faced Beady. “I said there was a way out.”

Discord and the Doctor—Part 1 (a)

Prologue: Vale Decem

He'd said his goodbyes. He'd gotten his reward.

It was time.

But he'd waited so long before regenerating, and now he was so weak... in so much pain...

January 1st, 2005. On some snowy street in London, England, Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way, the Doctor staggered into his TARDIS and closed the door. He pulled off his coat, listening to the sound of the universe singing him to a final sleep. Maybe the next one will like the coat. It really is a wonderful.... He lost his train of thought and resolved to do what really mattered—getting the TARDIS off of Earth. Can’t regenerate here... close to too many people. Have to do it alone.

As the music of the universe and the sound of the TARDIS played, the Doctor raised his right hand, where he knew it would begin. First the hand, then the rest of his body—every exposed bit of skin—glowed gold and orange. Filaments of energy reached and twined around him, covering him in the light. It was really happening. There would be no cheats this time, no ways to avoid the regeneration.

And for a few moments, the Tenth Doctor could accept this. He could accept the fact that he'd regenerate, a whole new man would soon be in his place, and he'd be gone.... No, he couldn’t. He really didn't want to die.... He didn't want to...

“I don't want to go!” said he, as his—his—lungs heaved and his—not the next Doctor's, but his—hearts beat their last. He didn't want someone else picking up where he left off. But there was no stopping it now; he'd delayed as long as he could. Far longer than he should have.

For the regeneration of a Time Lord, a being born with the power of the time vortex, is not always a calm event. Gentle deaths of old Lords cause no great cataclysm, but 500,000 rads in the three-year-old body of a Time Lord who has greedily put off his death until the last moment?

As the energy burst from his face and hands in a golden inferno, it nearly destroyed the TARDIS and sent it crashing down to Earth. But that energy did much more. A hole in space and time opened up at that moment—not a huge gap, but big enough for the consciousness of the dying Time Lord to seize its chance and act on its last desire.

And as some big-faced Eleventh Doctor worried that he had become a girl, the Tenth was gone. Gone from London, from England, Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy.

Gone from this universe.

But not gone entirely.

The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)
S1E1: Discord and the Doctor—Part 1
By R5h

It was a gorgeous day outside Canterlot. With no rain scheduled for another week, the midday sun shone down unobstructed by clouds. The grass was fresh and green, the birds were chirping, and all in all it was a perfectly normal summer day—except in the sculpture garden on the city’s outskirts, where something impossible was happening.

There was a golden light in the garden, pouring in through a hole in the fabric of creation. It was, to give a less-than-accurate description, the four-dimensional end of a tunnel filled with fire and rage. The light coalesced into a stallion with a brown coat and a darker mane. The last of the light subsided, and the Doctor opened his eyes, heaved a breath into his lungs, and started shouting.

“What?” Instead of fire, there was a massive hedge maze under a cheerful blue sky. No pillars of otherworldly coral surrounded him, only marble sculptures of horses. He spun around to look at where the central console had been, only to see a sculpture of some sort of dragon. Beyond it lay a majestic castle, filled with towers built hundreds of feet in the air, their spires decorated in gold and regal purple. In short, it was not his TARDIS.

“What?” More shocking than the change of location was what had not changed; he still felt mostly like himself. His body seemed different somehow—he decided to get back to that later—but his mind was the same, almost as if he hadn't regenerated at all.

“WHAT?” And he realized something else: not only could he not see the TARDIS, he couldn't feel her either. He cast his mind out and tried to sense her presence, but there was nothing—no more psychic link. “But that's impossible! Unless... no, can't be...”

I'm in another universe, and the TARDIS isn't. But how? He tried to put it together: his death, the regeneration, the fire bursting from his face and hands... and then he remembered a sensation of escaping, his mind leaving his body. Maybe I'm in heaven or something? He'd never believed in an afterlife, or been sure which side he might end up on if it existed, but extraordinary things could happen. It's a big universe, after all... well, multiverse.

Then the Doctor realized what was different about his new body. “I'm a horse!” So no, probably not heaven. He raised his arm up—no, he didn't have an arm anymore—he raised his leg up and gaped at the hoof on the end. Feeling very awkward indeed on four legs, he spun around to see brown hindquarters bearing a brown tail and a pair of matched hourglass tattoos on either side.

“What horse has a tattoo—two tattoos? And how did this happen?” He began thinking with his mouth. “How'd I get here instead of regenerating—wait, the regeneration, of course! Maybe... oh yes, yes it did! If it was powerful enough to destroy the TARDIS, it might have been powerful enough to... to...” He trailed off, partially because there was no one to listen except for a gray horse dozing beneath a distant statue.

More importantly, his brain caught up with his mouth and he realized what had happened: the regeneration had punched a hole between universes. With a rip in the fabric of existence like that, anything could happen. Worlds could boil; universes could collapse. Typical Doctor, endangering everybody. His head sank in shame.

“Excuse me, can you keep it down?” said a voice from somewhere in the courtyard. “I'm trying to nap.” The Doctor turned to the source and saw the gray horse he'd noticed earlier, who was looking at him through narrowed eyes. “One lousy hour off from mail duty, spend it somewhere you think is quiet....”

“Sorry!” he said—before he realized what, exactly, he was looking at. “You're a talking horse!”

Her mouth opened slightly.

“Hang on—I'm a talking horse too; I guess it's not that special. Oh, hello, by the way! I'm the Doctor, and your name is? And are those wings on your back?” he interjected before she could respond, realizing that there were wings folded beneath her green saddlebags. “You're a pegasus! And just when you think you've run out of mythological creatures! Brilliant!”

“Um,” she said.

I think I've gotten ahead of myself, the Doctor realized. “Sorry... anyway, can you tell me where we are?”

“Okay....” She stood up to look at him eye to eye. “If you're trying to play a joke, it's funny not really—I mean really not funny! Shoot!” She bared her teeth and smacked herself on the forehead with a front hoof.

“Sorry, why would I be playing a joke? And what was your name again?”

“Derpy. Derpy Hooves. And you can't think of any reason?” She glared at him and, for some reason he couldn't quite grasp, tapped the side of her head near her eyes.

“Nothing. So, where are we? Or is this one of those things I should know? Sorry, I'm kind of from... out of town—or, quite possibly, out of castle,” he added, gesturing up at the spires to his right. “This isn't a feudal society by any chance, is it?”

She tapped the side of her face again. “Look,” the Doctor said, “I'm really not seeing what you're—oh! Oh.” He'd just noticed that she wasn't indicating her face: she was indicating her irises, which were huge, golden, and both quite off-center. She probably means the last of those. “Sorry I didn't notice before.... Is it important?”

Her eyes widened again, losing some of the accusatory glare. “You really didn't notice?” she asked.

“Well—”

“Heh-heh-heh....”

Derpy froze. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes....” The two of them slowly turned to look at the source—which, unless the Doctor was wrong, was the bizarre dragon statue in front of which he'd been deposited. “Is there any reason that statue ought to be laughing?”

“It can't be....” Derpy took a step away. “Someone's pulling a stupid prank. It's not him.”

“It's not whom?” The Doctor was about to continue, but he noticed a small pulsating darkness in the chest of the statue, like a little heartbeat. “Derpy, is that statue alive?”

Derpy's mouth hung open. “No,” she breathed. “Please, no.”

Before the Doctor could process this, the sound of stone breaking filled the air. He saw cracks issuing from the dark 'heart' of the statue, running up and around the whole body. White light issued from every new crack, growing brighter and brighter until he could hardly see. “Get down!” he shouted, pushing Derpy to the ground and placing his body between her and the statue. He squeezed his eyes shut.

A second later, he heard the explosion and was pelted with a blizzard of marble shards that knocked him to the ground. He lay wincing in the grass for a few seconds, grateful for his new thick equine skin, then looked up at the statue—but its plinth was empty.

“HAHAHAA! Oh BOY am I glad not to spend another thousand-or-so years with that expression—I almost looked scared there.” A massive talon grabbed the Doctor's head and pulled him into the air, bringing him face to face with the creature from the statue.

He'd been wrong before to think of it as a dragon: it was so much more. As he looked closer, the Doctor noticed the paw of a lion, the leg of a lizard, and the face of a goat. More than that, he noticed the golden glint in its eyes and its face-splitting smile. The Doctor, on the other hand, couldn't feel so cheerful.

“Well, I couldn't have asked for a better wake-up call! A sprinkling of time and space mixed with all that shame and conflict—it's much better than that tea thing you're so fond of. Why would you even like tea anyway?” He—judging by the voice, the creature was probably male—pulled a steaming teapot from thin air, took a sniff, and gagged. “Blech! Give me chocolate milk any day.” He threw it at the ground, and it rebounded into the sky like a superball without spilling a drop.

“And oh, what a world there is in that big head of yours, Doc. What a war!” The creature paced away from the Doctor, hands holding his head. “And what's that I'm seeing? Oh—wait, did you... to all of them?” He turned around and beamed at the Doctor. “Oh, that is vicious—but delightfully creative! Yes, I think I could take a few leaves out of your mind!”

The Doctor gaped. He's reading my mind. How is he.... He tried to throw up his mental barriers, but couldn't find anything to defend against—like trying to erect a wall on the ocean floor to keep the water out. The creature, whatever he was, was in.

“Whew!” The creature disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing just behind the Doctor. “Well, that's quite enough time inside that dismal brain for a while. How do you live inside there all the time?” He grimaced.

Before the Doctor could respond—or come close to figuring out any way to respond—the creature had picked him up in one hand again, and was speaking with him face to face. “Now, Doc, I don't mean to be rude, but I've got a few important errands to run—don't want this jaunt to end too quickly, you know. Don't worry, I'll be back in a jiffy; just look for my card. And once again, thank you for the house call!” He snapped his fingers and vanished in another white flash, leaving the Doctor unsure whether to be confused or wary.

“He's back.” Derpy said the words flatly, but the Doctor could hear the fear behind them. “How can he be back?”

“Who?”

“Discord.” Derpy jumped up into the air and started flying toward the castle. “We need to tell someone, now.”

“Wait!” The Doctor tried to run behind her, but it was hard with four legs; he managed a sort of stagger-step at best. “Derpy, who is Discord?”

It was free time for Twilight Sparkle, and she was scrutinizing her book of ancient Equestrian literature, trying to decipher a fragment of Equestria's oldest known poem. Well, that can't be right. She sighed, unconvinced by what she had translated, and let it fall back on her desk. 'A wolf will fly and sing'... what's that supposed to mean?

“Did you miss me, Twilight Sparkle?”

She froze when she heard the voice. That voice. “No,” she whispered. Discord had been sealed back into his statue not even a year before.

“Mais oui, ma petite! C'est moi. Sorry to pop in so suddenly—hope I didn't scare you.” The draconequus flew in front of her face, forcing her to back up to the middle of the library. “And I'm not surprised to see Celestia still hasn't taught you any manners. Is slack-jawed terror any way to treat an old friend?”

Twilight didn't dare look in his eyes; she remembered from her friends' descriptions that they had been hypnotized that way. Instead she closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and in a moment all of her friends—the fellow bearers of the Elements of Harmony—were teleported there. Discord smirked.

“—ity, you really don't need to—hey!” said Rainbow Dash. “Twilight! What the hay was—GAH! DISCORD!”

Discord put his hands up as if surrendering. “Well, you have improved in the past year, my little bookworm. I clearly can't hope to compete with a new spell that powerful.” His smirk grew more pronounced as the six ponies grouped in formation.

“You think my magic's impressive now—how about this!” Twilight yelled, and used a second spell to summon each Element of Harmony to its owner. The Elements started to glow as they were activated. “Prepare to—”

Suddenly she couldn't move. She couldn't see, she could barely hear, and she couldn't breathe—and she couldn't cast any magic. What's happening?

“Wish I could have done that last time. Anyway, sorry, Twilight, but it turns out I do turn ponies to stone after all,” she heard, and realized what had happened to her. “But surely the six of you can appreciate how wonderfully karmic it is, to give you a taste of your own rainbow-flavored medicine? Even if it is a bit boring.”

Equestria is doomed, Twilight realized. Trapped as she was, she wouldn't be able to help anypony. “Now I'd love to stay and chat," Discord continued, "but I've got a date with two very naughty princesses. Before I go, though, a word of advice; try not to focus too hard on your tongue—or the fact that even though you don't need to breathe, you'll really really want to!” She heard more laughter, then the sound of him disappearing.

Breathe?

“He's, um... he's Discord,” said Derpy, angling toward a wooden door in the marble wall, and flying just slowly enough for the Doctor to keep up. “I mean, duh! What planet are you from?” She sounded testy again, which was frankly the opposite of what he needed at the moment.

“Gallifrey.” She gave him a hard look. “No, seriously. I'm not from this planet, and I shouldn't be here, and I shouldn't even look like—” he vaguely gestured around himself with a front hoof, and nearly fell over “—like—like this, and I have no idea what's going on right now! So, Derpy Hooves, tell me, really tell me, where am I, who's Discord, and what does he do?”

“You're telling me you're an outer-space alien—”

“YES, I'M AN OUTER-SPACE ALIEN! Where, who, what?”

“Fine, Doctor alien.” Derpy didn't seem convinced, but at least she was talking. “You're in the land of Equestria. That thing back there—Discord—he's the Spirit of Disharmony. And he does anything he wants to anypony he wants.” They halted in front of the large door.

“What do you mean 'anything'?” the Doctor panted. What I wouldn't give to have just two legs to worry about. Four are exhausting.

“Anything!” Derpy wound up and rammed into the door, but it refused to budge. “It's locked! Come on!” The Doctor found himself wishing for the hundredth time that his sonic screwdriver worked on wood—then remembered that he didn't have a sonic screwdriver. Or any clothes. Focus on modesty later, Doctor.

“Is there any way to stop him?” he asked. Derpy dashed away, flying parallel to the stone wall. The Doctor ignored his nakedness and forged onwards.

“They'll have to use the Elements of Harmony!”

“What are those? And hang on, who's they?”

“They're the only ponies who can wield the Elements, and the Elements are the only that things can beat Discord.” Galloping was more complicated than the Doctor might have guessed, and it took him a moment to realize what had gone wrong with her sentence. She didn't seem to notice.

“So we're finding the wielders?” he asked, ignoring her mistake.

“No—they're all the way in Ponyville. We're going to talk to the princesses.” The distant corner of the castle wall came into view, prompting Derpy to speed up and forcing the Doctor to figure out galloping very quickly.

“The who?”

Princess Celestia heard four knocks at her door and frowned, unable to imagine why somepony would need to speak with her and Luna now. It could not be the guards, nor any normal visitor whom the guards might conceivably allow to visit the princesses' private chambers; they would have announced themselves instead of knocking. Perhaps Twilight... no, she would give very advanced notice. She looked to her sister, but Luna seemed as uncertain as she did. “Who is it?” Celestia finally asked.

The doors exploded inward. The princesses barely had time to duck before they flew over their heads and crashed through the window behind them. Celestia quickly looked back to the charred doorway to see Discord, holding something in his hand.

“Flowers!” Discord announced, waving his bouquet. He paused for a reaction, but Celestia and Luna only stared with jaws agape. “Oh, no need to thank me, it's only a little house-warming gift.”

Luna recovered from her shock first, and yelled, “How did you escape?” She fired blast after magical blast at Discord, colder and blacker than the dark side of the moon. Celestia did not hesitate to add her own magic: a concentrated beam of light hot enough to fuse the surrounding air and explode it. The continuous double attack converged on Discord, and provoked from him an annoyed sigh as his flowers were first frozen, then vaporized.

“Well maybe I'd tell you if you stopped poking me! Goodness, I will never understand mares....” Jagged chains of lunar stone sprung from the floor to wrap around his entire body, only to turn into limp spaghetti upon contact. He pulled out a hand mirror and scrutinized his face, continuing to ignore the assaults striking him. “Always saying one thing and doing another.... My beard!” He scowled, yanked a brush from thin air, and began pulling it through his goatee. “Only one year as a statue and it's already a mess! Oh, I am properly annoyed now.”

Celestia tried not to panic. She knew she stood no chance against Discord, but together she and Luna should have been able to slow him down; something was very wrong. Can I buy the time to contact Twilight? Is it too late already? “Who set you free, Discord?” she roared, summoning a plume of lava from the floor beneath him. It froze into a spire of rock as soon as Luna's magic struck it, encasing him.

He walked through it with a roll of his eyes. “More attacks, Celestia? How insulting. Well, as they say on the playground, I'm rubber....” As Luna's and Celestia’s attacks converged upon him, he flipped the hand mirror around to face them. “And you're glue.” The magical blasts reflected from it, and each princess was struck by her sister’s attack.

Every bone in Celestia's body felt like ice. The air froze in her lungs as she was lifted off her hooves and thrown to the edge of the room, her head hanging out through the remains of the shattered window. She felt Luna land beside her, screaming in thermonuclear agony.

“Well, now that you're knackered...” She managed to turn her head up and saw Discord's sadistic grin looming over her. “If you actually want to know the answer, I got a Doctor's visit, and it cured what ailed me. Simple as that. And now?” He chortled. “Now I'm feeling better than ever! Better enough that I can do this.” He reached down and held his hands to their horns. “Oh, don't worry, it won't hurt a bit.” Celestia squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the worst—then Discord grabbed on.

Her frozen lungs would not let her scream at the awful pain of her horn twisting and deforming—and then she felt no pain in her horn. In fact, she could not feel her horn at all.

“I told you!” He held the two horns in front of her face, so that Celestia could see them hollowing themselves out and spinning like pieces of pottery in his claw. By the time he set them on the floor they had molded themselves into two clay vases: white for Celestia and black for Luna. “What, did you think I would just rip them from your skulls? After we've known each other for so long, Tia? I'm hurt.

“And look, you've managed to destroy the house-warming present I brought for you.” He sighed and scratched his beard in contemplation. “I try to be nice, and... oh well, I'll improvise.” He reached behind Celestia's back, and she convulsed at the sudden pain of her wings being pulled from her body. “They're not unlike flowers, after all,” he remarked, dropping them in her vase and doing the same to Luna's wings.

Celestia's lungs had unfrozen enough for her to whisper. “You'll... never...” Discord leaned in close and beckoned for her to speak up. “Get... away...”

“Oh, that again. 'I will never get away with this. Evil will be defeated. Etcetera, etcetera',” he droned, flapping his claw in a 'blah-blah-blah' motion. “Newsflash, Princess—your precious faithful student and her rag-tag bunch of friends are a bit indisposed at the moment, so everyone who could have beaten me is gone! Now do enjoy your house-warming gift, because things are about to get very warm indeed.”

“What do you—” A painful fit of coughing stopped Celestia from speaking.

Discord produced a massive pair of rusty shears and cut a patch of blue fur from Luna, ignoring her continued screams. “Oh brava, Tia—this is the worst thing you've done to your sister in a long time.” Leather oven mitts appeared over his claws as he held the fur to his eyes and scrutinized it. “I'd guess this is about... oh, six thousand degrees? You really shouldn't throw spells like that around—you could start a fire.”

He smirked and tossed it out the window. “Well, it's been fun as always, Princesses, but I've got to head back to the Doctor for my five-a-day fix of chaos. Have fun!” He vanished, but his laughter still echoed in the ruined room.

Celestia heard the sound of burning from below, and looked down to see a fire spreading across the roof where Luna's fur had landed. Within a minute, the fire had grown to a hellish inferno, producing foul sooty smoke that clogged her mouth and blinded her eyes—but neither she nor Luna had the strength to move away from the window. All Celestia could do was choke and listen to the screams outside, unable to help her subjects or even herself. There was nothing to be done.

But then Discord's words sank in, and Celestia realized that if he was telling the truth, there was one last hope for Equestria after all. She knew it could be false hope—that Discord could be lying about that stallion's return—but it was all she had left, and she clung to it with all her strength. Doctor... I hope it really is you.

Derpy briefly tore her gaze from the castle wall to glance at the Doctor in astonishment. “You don't even know the princesses—fine, they're Celestia and Luna. And we're going to them because they live right here, in the city of Canterlot.” She gestured with her wing to the city, but in the process swerved and almost crashed into the ground.

“Whoa there!” The Doctor ducked and barely avoided a collision with her. “Are you okay?”

“Stupid wings—I'm fine. We need to keep faster—go keeping—keep going faster!” Derpy snorted in a very horsey, very frustrated fashion. She accelerated, forcing the Doctor to speed up as well.

“Okay, so we go to... Canterlot? Seriously?” He lost his train of thought for a few seconds. “Is there a Marey-Land, or Stalliongrad?... Sorry, off-topic... and we tell these princesses that Discord's back, and then what?”

“They can tell Twilight and the rest faster than we can. And when they do, the Elements are gonna beat Discord just like last time.”

That's a good plan, the Doctor thought as he kept up with Derpy. Taking the initiative like that... I like her already. Also, last time? How often does this Discord break free, anyway? And who's Princess Celestia? More importantly, how do I get back to my universe when I'm done here? Is the hole still open? He rounded a corner, his mind still working furiously. Far too many questions and not nearly enough time.

“Finally!” Derpy exclaimed, interrupting his train of thought. “A royal guard!” She made a beeline for a white horse wearing golden armor and sabatons, standing next to a large gate. The Doctor moved to follow her, when suddenly something else caught his eye—or rather, everything else.

He wondered how Derpy could call Canterlot merely a 'city'. The whole thing looked to be one huge, shining palace, hanging from the sheer face of a mountain in proud defiance of gravity. From here, its towers seemed to loom even higher, revealing more of their munificent beauty. Water flowed from the mountain around and through the outer wall, then plummeted a thousand feet to the land below.

And that land seemed to go on forever. The Doctor saw massive forests of almost uniform green, broken by the rivers that ran from the Canterlot waterfalls, continued almost to the horizon, then were halted by a distant range of hills. In a grassy plain between two of the forests sat a somewhat higgledy-piggledy collection of houses: quaint but scenic.

It was beautiful. However, as he realized after a few seconds, it was distracting. While he'd been sightseeing, Derpy had dashed to the guard and started shouting about Discord.

“Okay, lady, just calm down,” he heard the guard say. “Start from the beginning.”

“Discord. Back he's—I mean he's back. I saw him come back with my own eyes.”

“Right...” The guard gave her an unconvinced look. “Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you, ma'am?”

Derpy glared at him. “I can see fine. Why can't you just listen?” The guard rolled his eyes. “Really! Discord! Back!” Derpy yelled.

The Doctor wobbled over to her as quickly as he could. “Sir, I was there. I saw it happen.” Did I make it happen? No... no, there’s more important things to worry about right now. “So no red tape, no skepticism, just get this information to your Princesses now.” He heard a slight crackling sound emanating from the city.

“Okay, you two.” The guard sounded short on patience. “I don't know if this is supposed to be some sort of practical joke, but it's not funny.” A lick of orange appeared in the Doctor's peripheral vision. “If Discord had returned, we'd know.” Red light grew from the city's center. “So I don't need you two claiming that he's back when everything's clearly—”

Someone in the city screamed. The guard turned around and gasped at what the Doctor already saw—an inferno in the center of Canterlot, growing at an incredible rate. Black smoke rose to obscure the sky and block the sun, and the Doctor felt the beginnings of a wind at his back as the fire began drawing in oxygen from outside.

“Happy?” the Doctor yelled. “Is that enough proof for you?”

The guard hesitated, then set his jaw. “You two, evacuate from the city area now. I need to go in and help—”

The teapot Discord had bounced several minutes earlier finally landed like a meteorite on the guard's helmet, and knocked him unconscious to the ground. Derpy and the Doctor froze as it rolled a few feet toward them, before wobbling to a halt. A spurt of steam flew out the spout, carrying with it a scrap of paper that landed at the Doctor's hooves. It was a postcard depicting Discord posing in front of the city in its pristine state. “Visit Beautiful Canterlot!” it read in big letters, just above Discord's grinning face.

“Derpy, you have to go now.”

“Why? Where?”

“Because Discord is coming back right now. For me, and I don't know why. But you're not going to suffer on my account. I dunno... fly to Ponyville and raise an alarm, save as many other horses as you can. Get those Elements of Harmony, if Discord hasn't killed them.”

“But what about you?”

“Don't.”

“He's gonna—”

“Derpy, forget about me right now,” he pleaded, looking her straight in the eyes. “Forget about the mad, rude horse who keeps interrupting you and says he's an alien. Just run and find somewhere safe, right now. Anywhere that's nowhere near me.”

Derpy hesitated, but eventually turned away. “Goodbye, Doctor.” The Doctor bowed his head and sighed in relief as she dove down the hill back to Ponyville. Thank you.

“Gahow-hohoho... oh, Doc, you lanky Casanova,” came a voice from the postcard. The picture of Discord turned to look at him. “Picking up the girls already? Well, don't you worry; I'll let her be for now. She'll have slightly better luck than everyone else you travel with.”

The postcard transformed back into Discord. “Though to be honest, ol' google eyes is messed up enough without my help.” He laughed. “Now, whooooo wants s'mores!” He produced a long pink umbrella from thin air, speared a marshmallow on it, and held it to the burning city. More terrified screams came from the city, joined by the sound of buildings collapsing, and above all the powerful roar of the fire.

“I don't know how you did this, Discord, but I swear—”

Discord shoved the marshmallow into the Doctor's mouth. “It's polite to say 'yes, please'.” As he produced another one and placed it on his umbrella, the Doctor tried to continue but could not speak; the marshmallow was supernaturally sticky. He stared hopelessly into the fire, listening to the screams.

“Ahh, nothing like a nice campfire shared with your good pal. Ain't it so, Doc?” Discord tossed the second marshmallow into his own mouth, then lay back on the grass and basked in the red light. The delicate gold inlay of the city's spires melted away. The royal purple disappeared, overwhelmed by the billows of orange and red. Steam rose from the rivers that bubbled out of the city. The Doctor tried to step closer, but the heat was too intense even at this distance, forcing him to stand impotently outside the perimeter.

“Well!” Discord bolted upright, startling the Doctor. “That was fun while it lasted.” He snapped his fingers, and a giant cotton candy cloud appeared over the whole city. Out poured a torrent of chocolate rain which extinguished the fire within seconds.

What. The Doctor grabbed the marshmallow in his mouth with both hooves and managed to yank it out. “What did you—why did you—what was the point of that?” he spluttered.

“Oh, I should have heated it up instead?” On cue, a massive bellows appeared in Discord's claws. He aimed it at the cloud and pulled it open, sucking up the cotton candy in a single go. “Shame on you, Doc—suggesting I should let a pony come to harm.”

The Doctor stared at him. “Don't pretend your inferno didn't kill anyone. It's impossible.”

“First of all, I'm Discord. Impossible is what I do.” With an irritated grunt, Discord pointed the bellows at the Doctor and squeezed, enveloping him in a wave of cotton candy. The Doctor gagged as his nose filled with saccharine. “Second, where do you get off calling it my inferno, hmm? And finally, you really think I'd kill ponies? No no no no, that would take all the fun out of it, don't you see?”

Discord laid a claw on the Doctor's back, pulled him from the candy cloud, and waved expansively to the world around them. “Behold the magical land of Equestria, inhabited by the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Ruled over, until very recently—” he chuckled “—by the pony princesses Celestia and Luna, rulers of day and night. And it's so boring!” His voice became much less conversational, and his nails bit into the Doctor's skin. “All the rules, the statutes, the statues... and you think I'd make it even worse by killing ponies so that they're no fun to play with anymore?”

“Play with? Are you sure you don't mean torture?” The Doctor glared at the mismatched dragon with a ferocity that had forced shadows into retreat, that had repelled countless alien invasions. “Discord, I'm telling you right now—”

This ferocity had no effect on Discord, who merely tossed the Doctor into the air like a conductor's baton, summarily cutting him off. “Oh, Doc, you really can be so grim. But enough talk!” He snatched the Doctor out of the air and swooped toward distant Ponyville, his voice once again nothing short of ebullient. “You wanted to know a bit about me, I believe? We could do a candlelit dinner if you want—maybe a little speed dating! Or maybe... I could show you some of my best work.”

Backstage at the Ponyville Amphitheater was, to put it mildly, packed. The stage had been built for school plays, and was unused to having so much equipment being moved around. Lights were being hoisted, pyrotechnics were being prepared, and amplifiers were being lugged by a team of stallions specially hired for lugging. In all the tumult, no one paid much attention to the gray-coated earth pony obsessing over her cello in the corner.

Everything about Octavia suggested attention to detail. Her dark-gray mane flowed smoothly from her head, free of tangles and loose ends. Her pink bowtie was immaculately symmetrical. Her instrument... was still not quite in tune. Then again, maybe it was; she could hardly hear herself think over the hubbub, let alone properly tune her cello.

At times like these she envied Vinyl Scratch, a unicorn who was impossible to miss even in this commotion. This was partly thanks to her pure white coat; partly thanks to her mane and tail, colored in two different shades of neon blue; and partly because of her vividly purple pair of goggles, and the reddish eyes beneath them.

But it was mostly because Vinyl—or DJ PON-3, as she called herself on stages like these—made sure that everypony noticed her at any given hour of any given day, and today was no exception. If anything, the pandemonium behind the curtain was making her more energetic, more in her element. I suppose she's used to loud, confused noise. Octavia smiled, then caught herself before her train of thought could go any further. That's not very nice, is it? What must she think of my music if that's all I think of hers?

“No no no no no, this goes here!” Vinyl called, magically yanking a plug from an amplifier and ramming it into another socket—then immediately jerking it out again and into a third socket. “I meant here. I want everypony to hear this on the radio; I don't wanna commit arson!” The stallion who had plugged it in the first time seemed unimpressed. So naturally, Octavia thought, she'll try even harder.

“This is important!” At times like this, Vinyl couldn't keep her mouth shut if you paid her, something which Octavia had seriously considered doing on several occasions. “There is no way I am letting bad wiring screw up my first concert with Octy!” The stallion was still uninterested, and got to hoisting the last light. Nice try, Vinyl, but it looks like you can't always grab everypony's attention.

This smug feeling lasted about two seconds, before she realized that she'd been staring at Vinyl's antics and had forgotten about tuning her cello. With yet another exasperated sigh—something she'd long since made a habit of around Vinyl—she got back to work.

“Okay, that's the last of them,” called the head stallion, as the last light was screwed into place.

Vinyl made one last look around, dashed over to the plug she'd been working on, and replugged it into the second socket. “Good! Now I want you all to go.” The head stallion gave her a hard look. “C'mon, we don't have all day. Go into the audience, go watch the show! Tell you what—since you were so helpful, you get half-off.” Another hard look. “I'm kidding, duh—you're admitted free. Seriously, I can handle things back here.”

Octavia seriously doubted that, but the hired stallions eventually conceded defeat, walking out the back of the stage. At last it was quiet. She sighed a third time and got back to tuning.

“So how you doing?” Vinyl yelled as she jumped in front of Octavia. Ah yes. 'Vinyl Scratch' and 'quiet' have never been on speaking terms with each other... insofar as one could be on speaking terms with the concept of quietude. “Feeling nervous?”

“Simply getting ready,” Octavia answered, looking away from Vinyl to tune her cello and fervently hoping she sounded unruffled. “I realize that the concept of being prepared for a show is alien to you, but I like my concerts to go smoothly.”

“Unprepared? Me?” Vinyl put on a blatant show of being indignant, with jaw dropped and everything. “Why, the very idea! I'll have you know I washed my hair for this show!”

“Within the last week, or month?”

“For you, Octy? Yesterday.” Vinyl grinned and, judging by the motion of her head, winked at Octavia. Octavia couldn't see her magenta eyes, but she'd gotten accustomed to Vinyl's exaggerated gestures.

She responded with a quick roll of the eyes and the most deadpan voice she could muster. “Oh, Vinyl, do stop. I fear I may demand that you ravish me with your... incredible standards of hygiene.” Octavia failed to suppressed a giggle.

“Hee hee, that's what I love about you, Tavi.” That grin—doesn't your face ever get tired, Vinyl? “You make the best straight mare.”

“I have to,” Octavia retorted, a smile creeping onto her own lips despite her best efforts. “You're incapable of being the straight mare. In any sense of the word.”

“You've got me right! And I bet you're not worried about tuning your cello anymore!” Vinyl's grin turned mischievous as Octavia realized that she was right: their banter had driven the anxiety from her head. She drew her bow across her cello and realized that it was perfectly in tune.

“I suppose so,” she admitted. “Thank you.” Vinyl's smile grew even wider.

“Listen,” she said, “you're waaaaay too good at this to have any problems on stage. If anything, you should be worried about me! I hardly know where I put that guitar you got me!” Her smile persisted for a moment longer, then turned into a frown of consternation. “Actually, where did I put that guitar?” Octavia rolled her eyes yet again as Vinyl dashed out the back door, though in fact she was a little worried again. You can't have lost it already, can you?

Ten seconds later, Vinyl was back with the electric guitar magically suspended behind her. “Found it! Well, no point waiting—time to start the show!”

“No, wait—” Like that's going to stop her. Vinyl ignored, or didn't hear, Octavia's feeble protest and bounded through the blue curtains.

“Hello, Ponyville!” Vinyl yelled. With her naturally high volume augmented by a microphone, the effect was just about deafening. “Are you ready to ROCK with DJ PON-3?” The crowd roared its approval. “Well, too bad!” she continued. “Because I've brought a cellist!” Now they laughed, and Octavia could imagine her grin as if Vinyl were right in front of her. She groaned. For the love of Celestia... I really do hate her.

“Oh, I know you do.”

Octavia jumped. She didn't recognize that deep voice, but she guessed that the speaker didn't mean her well. And he can read my thoughts... maybe? Maybe it's just a coincidence that he said that right as—

“Right as you were thinking about Vinyl Scratch,” the voice completed. “Oh, it's no coincidence, my little Octavia.” There was a chuckle hidden in those words.

“Who's there?” she called, whipping her head around to see—nopony at all. There were only amplifiers, cables, lights, and the curtain. “Who are you?”

“Eheh-heh-ha-ha-ha... my goodness, you really don't know. Well, if you don't recognize my voice, maybe this will tip you off.” There was a brilliant white flash in front of her, bright enough that she had to cover her eyes. When she looked again, she gasped. Floating in front of her was a creature she'd only seen in storybooks.

He was the ultimate mishmash of creatures. On the left: a griffon's arm, a donkey's leg, a blue pegasus wing and some sort of demon's horn. On the right: a green dragon's leg, manticore's arm, purple bat wing and stag's antler. Completing this asymmetrical picture were a tufted red tail, sleek brown and gray-furred body, and a thin white beard under a dragon's comically grinning face.

It was Discord, the god of chaos and the stuff of nightmares. How can he be back? Octavia looked into the his yellow eyes and saw mirth, and more than a hint of menace—but she turned her head away immediately. She remembered the stories she'd heard: how he hypnotized you to do his bidding by looking through your eyes into your soul.

“Now now, I pride myself on having more creativity than simply forcing others to do what I want,” he replied petulantly. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Discord, your humble overlord.” He bowed in mock humility. Octavia didn't dare look at him, but cowered in her corner, clutching her cello close to herself like a weapon or a shield.

“Oh, and this pony here,” he added, “is the Doctor. We're very good friends, he and I, so I call him Doc. Say hello, Doc!” Now Octavia had to look. Avoiding Discord's eyes, she turned her head to see a strange sight. There, presented in his manticore hand, was a tan stallion with a wild brown mane and an hourglass cutie mark—a stallion who, despite what Discord had said, didn't seem to like his captor at all.

And he had only one thing to say to her: “Run.” Octavia didn't move. “Get out of here now!” Still she didn't move, unable to make her legs listen to his pleas. “What are you waiting for?” Finally she cast her cello aside and dashed to the back door.

“Give me a break,” Discord yawned. He snapped his griffon fingers, and when Octavia reached the exit, it was locked.

“Open! Up! You! Dumb! Door!” She punctuated each word with a kick to the door, but it refused to budge. She gave up and ran at the curtains, but Discord only grinned and snapped his fingers again. Instead of parting, the curtains stayed firm as a cliff face and knocked her to the floor. There was no way out.

“Vinyl!” She got back to her hooves and pounded the solid curtain. “Discord came back! Run!” But Vinyl didn't hear her—she was still introducing their performance to the crowd.

“Awww, that's cute. You think she cares enough to listen.” Discord cackled and swooped down to her side. “You actually think that... that Vinyl Scratch cares about you!” This was apparently too much: he fell to the floor laughing, dropping the Doctor face-first in the process. “Like you think Vinyl cares about anything besides herself! You can't see that she's just using you to get ahead!” He was in tears by this point, and pulled out an oversized handkerchief to dab at his eyes.

“You're lying!” Octavia knew she needed conviction; she'd always heard that Discord preyed on doubts and fears. Never mind Vinyl's jabs at me, or her questionable musical taste. She's a true friend.

“By the way,” Discord remarked, “I'm loving the internal narration you're doing. It is hilarious!” He laughed again. “Vinyl Scratch, a true friend? The one who belittles you, makes fun of you any chance she gets? The only part of you she cares about is your body... not that I can blame her.” He grinned with delight and scratched her under her chin. Octavia recoiled at the touch. “After all, who'd care for a prissy little pony like you?”

I don't believe it. “She cares about me,” Octavia retorted. But there was that little bit of doubt in her mind.

“Maybe I haven't made myself clear, so let's get back to basics. I'm Discord. If I wanted to, I could tear open your mind and force you to my will with a snap of my fingers.” He stuck his face right into hers, his eyes staring directly into her own. “I don't need to lie.” Octavia saw something strange in his eyes—now they were more than just yellow and red, they were every color of the rainbow all at once, and they were incredible, she couldn't look away, and—

She was angry. Very, very angry.

“And you don't need to lie either, Octy.” Discord folded his arms with a smug little smile on his face. “Go out there and tell her how you really feel.”

That's absolutely right. I'm going to go tell that useless featherbrained waste of space exactly how I feel!

“Leave her alone, Discord!” yelled the Doctor, who had managed to get back to his hooves. “Just let her go!”

“By all means.” Discord threw his hands up and floated away, still smirking. The Doctor approached her.

“Octavia?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

And who the hell do you think you are, idiot? Can't you see that I'm not okay? Octavia kicked the Doctor right in his face and knocked him to the ground.

“Don't you say another damned word!” she yelled at the stunned stallion.

“What? Octavia?” And all he can do is splutter. Shouldn't have expected anything more from a pony that stupid. Octavia turned her back on him and stomped through the curtains that had been impassable seconds earlier. Time to give Vinyl a piece of my mind.

“What did you do?” she heard the Doctor yell at Discord. “What have you done?”

“Oh, Doc... the fun's just beginning. Eheh-heh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

You got that right, she thought.

Vinyl knew how to work a crowd. They laughed when she wanted them to laugh; they cheered when she wanted them to cheer. Just give a few shout-outs to everypony here, and they'll be yelling like... something that yells. Hopefully this'll give Octy enough time to get ready.

Apparently it did the trick. Just as Vinyl finished thanking the lighting crew for being so brilliant—pun intended—Octavia burst through the curtains. Vinyl beamed and decided to cut to the chase. “And without any further ado, please give a warm welcome to my best friend, Octavia!” The crowd cheered again.

“FRIEND?” Octavia bellowed. “You have the gall to call me your FRIEND?”

What. Only now did Vinyl see that Octavia looked furious. She never looks angry! And all of that fury was directed at Vinyl herself. “Uhhhh... yeah, last time I checked we've been friends for months...” Her slight laugh died away as Octavia advanced upon her, even more enraged by her response. What the hay is going on here?

“Get this straight, you absolute imbecile. You are NOT my friend. You have never BEEN my friend, and you will NEVER BE MY FRIEND!” There was absolute silence in the crowd.

“What are you talking about, Octy?” Vinyl retreated to the edge of the stage as Octavia continued to approach.

“Oh, was I being too subtle, you vapid waste of space? Listen up, Vinyl: I've seen right through you. You never cared about me worth a bit, and from the night we met at that fashion show, you've just used me for your own benefit! And you were gonna throw me away when you were done, weren't you? Well, here's some news for you, DJ—I'M DONE WITH YOU!” she yelled right into Vinyl's face. Then, just as suddenly as she had started to advance, Octavia turned and stamped away. “Maybe you can find someone else to put up with that drek you call music, because I never want to see you again in my life!”

Vinyl was almost in tears. “But—but—but... Octy...” She had seconds before Octavia was off the stage and gone, possibly forever. How could she think that about me? “I... I do care. I really care about you so much...”

Octavia snorted. “What a joke.” She didn't pause. She didn't even turn her head. In a few seconds, she was gone. Gone.

All the color drained from Vinyl, but she was too busy sobbing to notice.

Nopony noticed the draconequus floating above them, or the stallion in his hand. Not yet. The Doctor watched the scene unfolding below with wide eyes and gritted teeth. Discord, on the other hand, couldn't have looked more satisfied.

“Isn't it magnificent?” he asked. “All you need to do is just plant one little seed of chaos, and feed it, and nurture it, and look at the payoff! I've really outdone myself here.” He winked at the Doctor as if sharing a joke. “She's sending her old friend over the edge! Almost literally,” he added, as Octavia backed Vinyl to the edge of the stage. “Any moment now... there!”

As Octavia marched away, Vinyl broke down sobbing. The color literally drained from her body; her mane, her coat, and even her goggles turned to gray. The crowd gasped at this transformation; perhaps some of them knew it could mean only one thing.

“And that's my cue!” Discord swooped down to the stage and snatched a microphone, once again dropping the Doctor in the process. “HELLO, EQUESTRIA! Who's ready for a show?”

Total chaos erupted. The assembled ponies screamed and tried to run, but with another snap of Discord's fingers, massive thorny hedges burst from the ground, trapping every pony inside. “So you all remember me. How sweet,” he said in the tone of the perfect MC. “So how is everypony doing tonight?” A few pegasi tried to fly over the wall, only to plummet to the ground when their wings disappeared. This lead to more screaming.

“QUIET!” Discord roared. The mouths of the ponies in the crowd disappeared. “Now, here's a few little factoids for all of you. First of all, for all of you and anypony listening on on the radio, I am Discord, god of chaos and spirit of disharmony. Second, Equestria is now my playground. And finally, don't expect to find any help from your precious pony princesses or the Elements of Harmony—”

The Doctor grabbed the microphone's cord in his teeth and pulled hard, snatching it from Discord's hand. “Everyone listening needs to get away from here right now,” he called into the mike. “Find somewhere safe and hide; you are all in terrible danger!”

Discord rolled his eyes and snatched the Doctor from the stage, holding him by the scruff of the neck. “Listen up, mister—you are quickly becoming a nuisance. Now shut up,” he snarled, baring his teeth, “before I decide that carrying you isn't worth the trouble.”

“Discord, I'm warning you: stop this right now.” The Doctor looked Discord square in the eyes. “Or I swear I'll stop it for you.” There was a ferocity in the Time Lord's whole being, the kind that should have warned Discord to take him seriously. That was the idea, anyway.

Discord burst out laughing—not what the Doctor had hoped for, but then his expectations hadn't been high. “Oh, Doc, how theatrical you can be,” he said, wiping a nonexistent tear from his eye. “But you have turned into an almighty bore, so this is farewell for now. Exit, stage UP!” He threw the Doctor over his shoulder, high into the air and far away. “Break a leg!” he called merrily after the stallion's quickly shrinking form.

“Anyways, everypony, that would be the Doctor,” he continued, scooping the microphone back from the stage. “He's one of my best friends—and just so you know, he's the reason I could be here today! So if you see a brown-coated stallion with a big brown mess of mane on his head and an hourglass cutie mark, give him a big Ponyville welcome from me. And now...” Discord's face grew by a hundred times, and his fangs by a thousand. His huge yellow eyes loomed over the crowd, and his final command was delivered as a harsh guttural roar: “GO AND SPREAD SOME CHAOS!”

The walls around the amphitheater disappeared, and the mouths of the crowd reappeared, just in time for the horde of terrified ponies to run away screaming. They scattered, running back to their homes, trying to keep themselves and their families safe. Discord laughed uproariously at the idea—it would just make twisting their minds that much more gratifying. That Doctor was a fool to think they could save themselves. To think he could stop a god of Chaos.

Speaking of whom... “Now where did he get to?” Discord realized he wasn't quite sure how far he'd thrown the Doctor, and he wasn't too sure he wanted Doc getting up to much trouble. With a groan, he jumped into the air and started searching, consoling himself by leaving chocolate rainclouds as he went.

Stay tuned: Discord and the Doctor—Part 1 will resume in just a moment.

Discord and the Doctor – Part 2 (c)

And now, the conclusion to Discord and the Doctor—Part 2.

Five minutes later, the nearest statue turned out to be Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty. After a series of hoof-bumps all around, the group set off for the penultimate statue. However, after encountering several trials on the way, they decided to just send Derpy to airlift Octavia to the statue and back. With the Doctor acting as Derpy's spotter to make sure she didn't disappear in the maze, she dipped into the clearing, to let Octavia tap Applejack's statue. Only one more to go.

Ironically, their success troubled the Doctor. Discord should be putting up more of a fight than this. He can't have given up, can he? And what was that errand? He kept his concerns to himself, however, and before too long they were nearing the final statue: Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic, or Friendship, or both. He was a little unclear on the point.

“Found her found her found her!” Vinyl pointed down a wide corridor to her right. The Doctor galloped to her side and saw Twilight Sparkle's statue at the other end, gently pulsing blue with Vinyl's magic. “That's the last one! We win! In your face, Discord!”

“Unless it's a trap,” Derpy reminded her.

“Oh, what are the chances of that?” Vinyl tried to run down the corridor, but Bon Bon blocked her way. “Hey, what's the big idea?”

“The big idea is that you're running off alone into the most obvious trap ever devised.” Bon Bon pointed to the hedge walls, which were covered in wooden arrows pointing toward Twilight's statue. On them were printed such things as 'Twilight Sparkle', 'Element of Magic thattaway', and 'these signs are only here for your convenience, and are not remotely suspicious'.

“Well, what else are we gonna do, go the other way?” Vinyl asked. “What if it's not a trap?”

“I think Vinyl's right,” Octavia interjected. “We can't pass up the chance when we're so close.”

“But if it is a trap?"

“Then we'll meet it together.” The Doctor moved to the head of the group. “We're not getting separated now. Ready?”

There was a chorus of “Ready”. The six took a step into the corridor together.

Something massive, soft, and cold landed on the Doctor and covered him entirely. He was forced to the ground, unable to see, hear, move, or breathe. He could still taste, though, and whatever was surrounding him tasted good, like chocolate ice cream. Exactly like chocolate ice cream, he realized. I'm being smothered to death by a gigantic ice cream cake. Definitely a low point in my career.

Something grabbed his feet—his hooves, rather—and he felt himself being pulled backward out of the cake. As his ears popped out, he heard Vinyl yelling, “—in an ice cream cake? Even for you, Discord, that's cold.” Octavia groaned.

Discord's voice echoed around them. “Well, aren't you going to read the icing?”

Derpy finished pulling the Doctor out of the cake, then flew up above it to read out loud. “Thank you.” She sounded as uneasy as the Doctor felt.

“Exactly!” Discord's eyes and mouth appeared on the cake's front, leering at the group. “I'd like to thank each of you for giving me such a valuable lesson. Because of you, I've learned that you can't always get everything you want.”

“You'd better believe it!” Vinyl yelled.

“Indeed I do, my dear hornèd pony. You see, my problem is that I've been trying to multitask this whole game!” Discord cackled at their confusion. “Oh, you didn't think I've spent all this time messing with the six of you, did you? I've been having fun all over the world! And take a look at the ponies I've met!” The cake around Discord's 'face' started bulging, warping itself into a swirl of faces; some crying, some too depressed to cry, some angry and snarling, some blowing raspberries, and one with a laugh as mad as the Doctor had ever seen. All were silent.

“I've been trying to win our little duel, Doc, and not take it seriously at the same time. But,” Discord sighed, “All good things must come to an end sometime. So I've decided that the laissez-faire act can slide for a while.” The cake bulged further, and the Doctor saw noses, then faces, then front hooves crawling out of the cake. The six backed away. “The self-imposed challenge is over, Doc! You are not getting to that statue!”

“Run!” yelled the Doctor, but he didn't need to. All six of them were running around the cake, which started spitting out ice cream golems at a frightening rate. Now they made sound; the Doctor heard their snarls, and the sobs, and one familiar laugh, joined by Discord's own.

“Go get em, kids! Allez-y!” The Doctor heard a snap of fingers as he ran down the short narrow corridor, which suddenly stopped being either short or narrow. The walls stretched forward into the distance, then pulled away to reveal giant steaming pits of flowing lava on either side. The proximity alone was enough to make him sweat. Even worse, more ice cream golems started climbing from the pits: ponies, griffons, cows, even a few medium sized dragons.

Lyra, who had advanced to the front, screamed as a massive caramel claw reached up from the pit and grabbed her back hoof. Derpy heard the scream, jumped off the narrow width of ground, lunged at the griffon holding Lyra, and chopped its claws off with her wing. It screeched and fell into the lava, flattening a unicorn beneath it.

A giant chocolate moose jumped up at Bon Bon, but Vinyl held it in midair with her magic. The Doctor instinctively turned around, reared up on his front legs, and bucked it straight in the chest, splattering chocolate all over himself.

The ground cracked just in front of Bon Bon, who'd gotten to the front of the pack. The strip of land fell a few feet and continued to sink into the lava. Without hesitation, Bon Bon kneeled and yelled, “Jump off my back!” Vinyl and Octavia were the first ones behind her, and she launched them to the higher ground. Then came Lyra, then the Doctor bringing up the rear; she boosted him up just as the lower section jolted down another few feet, right to the level of the lava.

The Doctor just managed to scrabble onto the ledge, then looked down to see Bon Bon standing still below him, her hooves mere inches from the surging lava. “Bon Bon!” he shrieked, and tried to reach down to her, but she was too far away.

“Don't worry about me!” she yelled. “Just keep—”

Derpy swooped down behind her and pulled her up, just as the lava covered the last patch of dirt below. “That was so dumb!” she yelled, dropping Bon Bon on an angry vanilla sheep in front of them. “What were you thinking?”

“Mostly 'gosh, I hope the team pegasus realizes that us earth dwellers are all about to die!'” Bon Bon stomped on the paw of a cookie dough dog, leaving it to howl and fall back into the pit. “Right now, though, I guess it's mostly 'thank you'.”

Derpy landed in front of Vinyl and Lyra, each of whom were blasting the ice cream hordes with magic as they came into view, and smiled. “It's what friends do.”

“Um, amigos?” said Vinyl, pointing behind them off the edge of the cliff. “We need to keep running some more now.” The others looked where she was pointing and saw something airborne, massive, and light green.

“That's an ice cream dragon,” Octavia uttered, apparently having difficulty with the concept.

“A pistachio dragon,” Vinyl clarified, already turning tail and running. “The worst flavor of dragon possible!”

And there's another thing you don't hear every day, thought the Doctor, bolting after Vinyl and the others. He heard a huge roar as the dragon accelerated toward them, melting the smaller golems behind them in a surge of green fire—but the flame missed them, and the dragon flew upward and started circling around. A big creature like that, it could take—the Doctor glanced up at the dragon and made a few estimations—a minute to turn? A minute might be enough time.

Then came a second roar, deeper than the first. The Doctor looked down from the pistachio dragon to see an even larger fudge dragon, covered in rainbow sprinkles, rising from the maze in front of them.

The six skidded to a halt, maybe a quarter mile away from the end of the passage. “Doctor, what do we do now?” asked Octavia.

The Doctor took a moment to decide, then turned to Derpy. “Derpy, you need to leave us behind.”

“What are you—”

“You've got wings, you're faster than any of us. You're the only one who can get to Twilight's statue and end the game.”

“But I'll be leaving behind you, and I don't even—”

“Derpy!” Octavia yelled. “Can you get to the statue?”

Derpy looked at each dragon and gulped, but said, “Yes.”

“Then go! We'll be fine!”

Derpy took one last deep breath, then took off to the right, and started circling around the fudge dragon. “Okay, everyone!” yelled the Doctor. “I'll keep my eyes on Derpy. I don't want her disappearing in the maze. Vinyl, Lyra, can either of you block that dragon's fire?”

“I once put a spell on my glasses that stops sparks from getting in my eyes—it's really useful when I'm messing with amps and stuff and they're plugged in.”

“And you couldn't just unplug them first... why?” asked Bon Bon.

“Bon Bon,” the Doctor admonished, still keeping his eyes on Derpy. “Vinyl, that's just what we need. Can you make it stronger, and cover all of us?”

“Um... maybe?” He heard Vinyl grunt as she tried to use her magic, and for a split second there was a faint blue shield around them—then it disappeared. “Maybe not.”

“Wait!” yelled Lyra. The Doctor's concentration was almost interrupted when she thrust her hoof into his pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. “I'll boost the power with this!”

“Lyra, the screwdriver only works on technology!” He noticed the fudge dragon out of the corner of his eye. Its mouth was open, and flames licked the back of its throat.

“Prove it!” Lyra pressed the tip of the screwdriver to Vinyl's horn and turned it on—and just in time. As the dragon's fire reached them, Vinyl gasped, and suddenly there was a bright shield around them, much more robust than before. The flames enveloped it, raising the temperature within, and for a moment the Doctor couldn't breathe the superheated air.

Then the dragon passed them. Lyra turned the screwdriver off with a triumphant “It does work!” But Vinyl swayed and collapsed on the ground. “Oh no—Vinyl! Are you okay?”

“Okay?” Vinyl heaved a breath in, and coughed as the hot air hit her lungs. “That... was... awesome. Kinda scary, but... awesome. How'd you do that?”

“You accelerated her magic!” the Doctor exclaimed. “The same spell, but a hundred times stronger!”

“And one hundred times more tiring,” Octavia added. She and Bon Bon pulled Vinyl to her hooves and grabbed her to prevent her from falling again. “All that power comes from somewhere.”

“Yeah, I don't think I can pull that off again,” Vinyl panted. “Which is kind of a shame.” A huge roar filled the air, and she looked up at the sky behind her. The others followed her gaze and saw that the first dragon had finally turned around, and was ready for a second attack.

“Then it's my turn.” Lyra lifted the screwdriver to her own horn, but Bon Bon grabbed her leg.

“Lyra, you don't have the strength,” she protested. “It nearly knocked out Vinyl, I don't think you can handle it.”

“Derpy!" the Doctor exclaimed. "I lost sight of her—just now, in the fire—can anyone see her?” He looked all around, but there wasn't a patch of gray or gold in the sky.

The roaring sound of dragon fire reached them, and Lyra shrieked in fright. Just as the flames hit them, she turned on the screwdriver and her magic. A mint-green shield surrounded them, but it wasn't as strong as Vinyl's blue one—the fire was more visible, and thin tendrils were forcing their way through. Lyra was already shaking from the effort as their small pocket of air heated up once more.

“Hold on, Lyra!” the Doctor pleaded, supporting her body with his own.

Lyra was panting, her eyes were squeezed shut, and she looked ready to collapse. “I—I can't—keep it—” Her horn sparked, and the green aura around it evaporated as Lyra fell insensate to the ground. The magic field surrounding them evaporated. The Doctor braced himself for painful death.

A few seconds later, he realized it wasn't coming. He opened his eyes to see no flame, only the pistachio dragon frozen in mid-flight. It crossed its arms and spoke with a familiar, annoyed voice. “Oh, I knew I should have enforced 'no wings, no magic, no extra hearts'!”

“What in the—” Octavia began. Then she stopped talking, and started smiling.

“Hey guys!” Derpy dashed toward them from the other end of the corridor. “I found it! Found it found it—oof!” Her exultations were cut short when she crashed into the Doctor, knocking him into the rest of the group.

“Yes. She did.” The pistachio dragon snapped its clawed fingers, and its ice cream skin exploded, revealing Discord. Covered as he was in ponies, the Doctor couldn't really see his face, but he imagined Discord's teeth were gritted.

“I mean, letting you keep both hearts was bad enough, but letting her skip ahead like that?” This voice came from the other direction, where the chocolate dragon had been—but now it was another Discord, sounding just as irritated as the first. He slapped his claw over his eyes. “I can't believe I let you talk me into it, Doc—hey, are you even listening?” He wasn't. As soon as he'd gotten up from Derpy's flying tackle, the Doctor had begun running down the corridor. He wanted to see Twilight's statue himself.

Even as he ran, the restoration was beginning. The sky was changing color, from ghastly orange back to clear blue. The ice cream melted under the light of the sun that was yellow once again. The walls slid back in and covered up the lava pits, and the corridor returned to its original length, so that he was to the end before he knew it. There was Twilight Sparkle, looking as defiant as ever. He pressed his head against hers and sent her a message: We beat Discord.

I heard. But it's not over.

Really? The Doctor struggled to contain his sarcasm.

Discord admitted defeat. I don't think he would do that—unless it's a trick.

“Twilight, you wound me. I have offers, but tricks? The very idea.” These words broke the Doctor's concentration, and he shot a glare at Discord, floating above him. “Oh, I'm sorry, was that a private conversation?” he asked, in a surprisingly apologetic tone. “You'll have to forgive me, but it seemed like it must have been so interesting. After all, you ditched your companions back there to hurry up and have it.”

Oh. Right. The Doctor looked back at his friends to see them stumbling his way, with Vinyl and the semi-conscious Lyra being supported by the other three. “Are you all okay?”

“And right into the old routine, I see. The token concern for the victims of the tragedy you've narrowly managed to avert, oh mighty hero.” Discord gave a theatrical bow, and with yet another snap of his fingers, the hedge walls began sinking into the ground. “And now that I have been defeated, and will never trouble this planet again—pinky promise—you've just got one more step left.”

“What are you yammering about?” yelled Bon Bon.

“Oh, dear sweet Bon Bon, I thought he would have told you! No?” Discord frowned at the Doctor, and continued with a disappointed voice. “Well, ladies, it's been fun, but the truth is that it's time for him to leave.”

“Don't you dare touch him—”

“Don't misunderstand. He'll do it of his own free will. Because that's what you do, Doc. You save the day, and keep running along, seeing the universe... well, not this universe.” Discord snapped his fingers, and in front of the Doctor appeared a vision of Earth, gently turning in the sky. “You'd like to go back to that one, wouldn't you? Can't imagine why—it doesn't have me, for instance—but—”

“But it's impossible.” The Doctor turned away from the vision. “I can't go back.”

“Excuse me? Which pony told Derpy that there was still a hole in the universe back in Canterlot?” Discord pointed at the Doctor. “It was your way in, and it will be your way out.”

“Except—”

“Doc, friend o' mine, what was the last thing you said before you left your universe?” The vision of Earth disappeared, replaced instead by... him. He saw his humanoid form standing in the TARDIS, glowing with regeneration energy. There was no sound, but he saw himself mouth the words.

“I don't want to go,” he whispered.

“Then return,” Discord whispered back, softly and intimately so that the others could not hear. “You take your TARDIS and fly up to the tear, I give you a little push, and allons-y. Take back the life you didn't deserve to lose.”

“Don't listen to him—” Derpy yelled.

“Hush.” Discord waved his hand, and her voice dwindled to nothing—so did every other noise, in fact. The only sound was Discord's voice. “If you're hesitant, I can understand that—what with having the wrong body and all. How about I sweeten the deal?” He snapped his fingers.

The Doctor gasped and stumbled to the ground, just managing to plant his hands before his face hit the dirt. He felt weird and wrong... or did he feel right? He rose unsteadily to his feet... my feet. He looked down at his two legs and saw his two trainers at the ends. He raised his hands to his face. Hands! I have hands again! And arms! He tapped his nose—he had a nose, not a snout! I'm human again! Or close enough!

His joy was undercut when he looked back to his companions—he couldn't hear anything, but their shocked expressions were enough. He was so much taller than they were, and so different and alien. You don't belong here. And they can't be your friends anymore. Go back home and see Wilf again—remember Wilf, wonderful old Wilf? Remember Martha and Mickey? Captain Jack? Sarah Jane? All the friends you've made, all the ones you could meet? It's all waiting for you, Doc.

Get out of my head, Discord.

“Aww, what gave me away?” Discord smiled. “Anyway, the offer stands. So what do you say, Doc? It's your choice.”

For a long time, the Doctor said nothing. He just shoved his hands in his pockets and thought. He thought of all he'd lost, coming to this universe... friends, opportunities, everything... and it hurt. It was painful, after all he'd tried to block it out.

And then he thought of Sarah Jane. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... Everything has its time. And everything ends.

He thought of Donna Noble. Promise me one thing, Doctor... that you'll find somebody.

He thought of all his old friends, and knew what they would say in his place.

“No.”

Confetti burst from the ground around him. “YES! I'm glad you think so!” Discord whooped for joy. “Now just call the TARDIS and—”

“I said no.”

“What?” Discord froze mid-whoop.

The Doctor brushed the confetti from his hair, then stuck his hands into his pockets for the last time. “Even if I trusted you to keep your word, I died in that old universe. There's a new Doctor there, and if I know the Doctor he'll be almost—but not quite—as brilliant as I am. He'll have his friends, his chances to save the world—his whole universe of possibilities.

“But they're not mine anymore. My possibilities are here. My chances to save the world are here. And as for seeing my friends again? I don't need your help for that.” He turned his back on Discord and ambled toward the five ponies he'd bonded with. “Because my friends are here too. If you think that I'd abandon them now—well, I'm honestly disappointed, because for an all-powerful mind reader, you don't know me very well at all.”

The silence was broken. The Doctor heard his friends cheering him, and jeering at Discord. In a strange reversal, Discord seemed hardly able to make any sound at all.

“No... I pushed all your little Time Lord buttons...” he mumbled.

“And you lost, Discord. No more mind games, no more parlor tricks. Change me back, restore Equestria, and leave.”

“I didn't lose...” Discord seemed to be having a crisis of faith. He was breathing heavily, his back turned to the group. “That's not how this was supposed to work. I'm not supposed to lose...”

“You lost at your own game.” I don't like where this is going, the Doctor thought—loudly, so Discord could hear. “Restore Equestria and leave as you promised. Final warning.”

Discord exhaled, and was still. “But I didn't lose,” he muttered.

“It kinda looks like you did!” jeered Vinyl.

“I NEVER LOSE!” Discord roared unlike anything they'd ever heard before. A jagged black fissure split the orange air, letting green sparks pour out. The grass retreated into the earth and was replaced with a million horns of bone. “I AM THE MOST POWERFUL CREATURE IN HISTORY! I RULED THIS FILTHY LITTLE ROCK FOR A THOUSAND YEARS! I WOULD HAVE RULED FOR ANOTHER BILLION IF NOT FOR THE BETRAYAL OF YOUR STUPID DECEPTIVE PRINCESSES AND THEIR INSUFFERABLE SUBJECTS! I AM DISCORD, YOU MISERABLE PONIES, AND I NEVER, EVER, LOSE!” A light grew in his hands, blindingly bright and very frightening.

“AND AS FOR YOU, DOCTOR!” he raged. “YOU CAN TAKE YOUR NEW BODY, AND ROT IN IT!” At this the Doctor fell down, instantly returned to pony form. He fumbled in his pocket; time was now of the essence. “IT'S THE ONLY VICTORY YOU'LL HAVE! YOU'LL SPEND A THOUSAND YEARS WITH NO SKIN!” Discord was so angry he didn't notice the Doctor pulling his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. “THEN TEN THOUSAND WITH NO AIR! AND THEN I WILL PERSONALLY SPEND A MILLION YEARS TURNING YOU ON A SPIT!” He didn't even notice the Doctor activating his sonic screwdriver, and he certainly didn't notice the noise that was coming from all around them.

“AND IT ALL... STARTS... now.” Discord had moved beyond mere fury. “Your punishment, for daring to think you could beat me, starts now.” He cocked his arm back and threw the light at the six. It howled with laughter and screaming and misery as it flew, carrying a planet's worth of insanity.

Vworp... vworp... kdunk.

It bounced off.

“Well, yes, of course you were never going to keep your promise.” The dust settled around the six of them, and the pink shield that had appeared to protect them. “Did you think I took you at your word? For even a second? I'll grant that yes, I can be fallible, lonely, rude—even mad, bad and dangerous to know—but I'll tell you this: I am definitely not an idiot.”

The Doctor looked around and saw his friends realizing that they were now shielded, and only just noticing the TARDIS standing behind them, responsible for that very shield. Then he smiled, seeing their surprise at the crystal shards circling their necks.

“Whereas you have proven yourself to be a bonified, ossified, and soon to be petrified imbecile,” he continued, reveling in the sight of Discord's dumbfounded face. “Didn't you ever learn to count? Didn't you realize that I might have been hiding more than my name from you, or how to bring back the TARDIS? Like my actual plan, or what exactly the Elements of Harmony were doing in my ship? They were connected to the TARDIS, being infused with the power of the Time Vortex, a power that can easily match yours. They were waiting for this moment.”

“For what moment?” Discord struck at them several times, but his attacks were stopped cold by the shield.

“For a new group of bearers to be ready.” The crystal shards converged around his friends' necks, revealing the restored Elements of Harmony.

“Derpy Hooves. The mare you called stupid and simple, Discord—but she was smarter than you thought, wasn't she? Smart enough to look for the truth wherever she went, and smart enough to see through every one of your lies, even when I couldn't. And when she told me what she saw, I believed her, because she is the Element of Honesty.” A cascade of brilliant pearls hung from Derpy's neck, matching her bubbly cutie mark.

“Vinyl Scratch, seemingly incapable of taking anything seriously. But that's not really true at all, is it? It's just that she knows that life is much too important to take seriously. That humor, mockery, and jokes aren't mere diversions; they're medicine for the sick at heart, for when our friends are feeling low. And they're the perfect weapon against people like you, Discord, because for all your jokes and pranks you really can't stand the Element of Laughter.” There was a golden torc around Vinyl's neck, striated in lines of brilliantly blue apatite that grew into two beamed eighth notes hanging on her front.

“Bon Bon. Sometimes rude, sometimes snappish—always stubborn, always determined. Determined that no matter how she feels, no matter what personal hell she's going through, it doesn't matter one bit when the ones she cares about are on the line. She's willing to drop everything and put herself on the line for a friend in need, even a friend she's only just met. To me, that sounds just like the Element of Loyalty.” She wore an agate riviere, each individual stone carved into a blue-and-gold stylized candy wrapper.

“Lyra, one of the most imaginative minds I've ever found. She's got enough imagination to magic the TARDIS out of thin air—and she's got enough empathy to put herself in another pony's shoes. To offer me, someone she'd just met, a place in her home, despite the danger. And to forgive me for all the things I won't forgive myself for. You might call that naivete, Discord; I call it the Element of Kindness.” A miniature golden lyre hung as a pendant from the chain around her neck.

“Octavia. The classy, classical cellist who's worked so hard and still doesn't have everything she wants—but what she does have, she's willing to give up in an instant for her friends. Her money, her time, her effort. And though she may act like it's not important, her friends know better. I know that that she's given her all for those friends, and I know that she deserves to bear the Element of Generosity.” A golden clasp shone round her neck, adorned in the front by a treble clef carved from purple amethyst.

“And here we are at last, the two of us. Discord and the Doctor. The 'Spirit of Disharmony' versus the 'Last of the Time Lords', the 'Oncoming Storm', the 'Lonely God', all those old titles that you must have seen when you were mucking about in my brain. Did you hear the legends they've told about me on a million million worlds? What I've done, what I can do? All utter tripe—because I've always known that alone, I can't do much of anything. Certainly I can't defeat you. But I've been honored with some of the best friends anyone could ask for—friends like Octavia, Vinyl, Bon Bon, Lyra, and Derpy. And together, we can do anything. Together, we can create the spark of friendship, and summon the final Element: Magic.”

There was a flash of light around the Doctor, and the Element of Magic appeared. No longer was it a tiara. Now it was the headdress of the Time Lords, recreated in burnished bronze inlaid with filaments of orange and gold. It covered his shoulders, swept around his neck and behind his head, where it rose impressively in two great half moons. On its front two great hourglass insignias were etched into the bronze.

The six rose into the air, eyes glowing white with power. “I gave you a chance, Discord,” the Doctor said. “Now you'll spend another eternity locked away in stone. Alone.”

Finally, Discord spoke. “This isn't over, Time Lord. You are not alone now, but you will be. You will always be. And then, I promise you, I will come for you and make you pay.” He emphasized this last word with a snap of his fingers.

“And... NOW!” the Doctor yelled, and the six unleashed their combined magical might. The six Elements blazed gold, red, blue, yellow, and every other color imaginable. Twin rainbows leapt from them and flew high into the sky, spun around each other, then joined to come crashing down on Discord.

“YOU'LL PAYYYYYYYY...” The light struck him, snaked around him, froze him back into stone, and left him with nothing but the look of impotent fury on his face.

The light did not stop there. It grew, diverged, formed a huge dome, and blasted outward to cover the whole planet in its brilliance. Every change, every piece of chaos, every bit of magical misery that the demon had caused was reverted.

Finally it was done. The six alighted gently upon the ground, their cuts and bruises healed. Discord's statue sagged and fell to the earth, which was no longer barren dirt but the grassy field it had been. The Doctor looked around to see that once more, it was a beautiful day in Equestria, with not a single cloud in the sky.

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOHOOOOOOOO!” Vinyl recovered from her shock first, and with a whoop fit to wake the dead she pulled them all into a massive group hug. “THAT WAS AWESOME!” They all joined in, laughing in surprise, in wonder, in pure unadulterated happiness.

All except the Doctor, who was utterly enveloped in the crush—which would have been fine, if it hadn't been literally crushing him. “Um, girls, you'll have to let me go—ack!”

He tried to disengage from the crowd, but they hugged even tighter around him. “Oh no you don't,” said Bon Bon.

“I appreciate the gesture, but,” he wheezed, “but this headdress is—ack—jabbing right into my shoulder.”

“Oh.” They finally disengaged, letting the Doctor free and freeing the other five to examine their own Elements. Vinyl and Octavia seemed to really like theirs, while Lyra and Derpy fidgeted excitedly with their own. Even Bon Bon looked happy, despite her distaste for her own cutie mark.

“Doctor?” He turned at the unsteady call and saw Twilight Sparkle standing on unsteady legs. Considering how long you've been stone, Twilight, I'm surprised you can stand at all. Unsure about her continuing ability to do so, he rushed to her and steadied her with a hoof. They looked at each other properly for the first time.

Finally, she had her assessment. “You looked so... different before, when we were talking. And now you just look like... well, a pony. How can you be so strange and still so normal?”

“You must have some truly strange creatures on this planet, Twilight. I don't think I've ever been called normal before.” Only now did she seem to realize what he was wearing.

“Is that... those are the Elements of Harmony?”

“Yes. Oh, hang on, I believe this one's yours! Sorry I had to borrow it, but I'd say it was for a good cause, wouldn't you? And... well, I guess I'd better give it back now.”

“I don't think you should.”

“Sorry?”

“You defeated Discord with those Elements,” she explained. “The Elements have never been given up willingly before today, and I don't have any idea what would happen to the bonds sealing him in. I don't think you should give them up, just in case.”

“But you six are the Elements of Harmony. You're the chosen bearers.”

“Oh, posh! I personally think they look much better on you six anyway.” The Doctor recognized the upper-crust voice, and turned around to see Rarity striding toward them. Twilight's eyes widened.

“Rarity! And Applejack!” she exclaimed, looking behind Rarity to see the farm-pony galloping toward them, with two more ponies behind. “Fluttershy! Rainbow Dash!” They embraced even more tightly than the Doctor had with his friends. “... Pinkie Pie?” she asked, realizing who wasn't there and looking around for any signs of pink.

“WooooooOOOOOOOO!” She should have been looking up. Pinkie crashed into the group like a cotton-candy covered aerial bomb, with all the hysterical energy that implied. “WE DID IT! WOOHOO! Ohmygosh I'm gonna need to throw a saved the world party and a new Elements of Harmony party and hang on ohmygosh! I JUST REALIZED! YOU'RE A NEW PONY!” she exclaimed at the Doctor. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? YOU'RE GONNA GET A SUPER DUPER STOOPER NEVER BEFORE ATTEMPTED TRIPLE PARTY!”

“Don't forget to breathe, Pinkie—” Rainbow Dash warned.

“AND YOU'RE AN ALIEN TOO WHICH MEANS WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO THROW A FIRST ALIEN IN EQUESTRIA PARTY!” The Doctor found himself backing away from her, as if she were a bomb, as she built on her vocal crescendo. She practically hovered with excitement—actually, she's literally hovering, he realized with a start as she rose into the air. “AND OH MY GOSH THERE'S FIVE MORE NEW ELEMENT BEARERS THAT MEANS FIVE MORE PARTIES IN ONE! THAT'S LIKE NINE PARTIES AT THE SAME TIME!” The prospect of nine parties proved too much for her, and she fell back-first upon the grass, catatonic from pre-party excitement.

The Doctor felt a bit dazed himself. “Is this normal for her?” he asked Twilight.

“I guess being cooped up made her a little hyper,” she replied, laughing with her friends. Then: “Princess Celestia.” The laughter stopped. “Doctor, where's the Princess? What did Discord do to her?”

“Don't worry. Whatever he did is gone now.”

“I have to be sure. I'll be right back, everypony—” She scrunched up her face in concentration, and disappeared in a flash of light—only to reappear in the same flash of light, blackened with soot and shaking on her hooves. “Ooh,” she moaned. “That... usually works.”

“What, you can teleport?”

“Not right now, I guess,” she replied, rubbing her head in pain. “I'm kind of out of it....”

“Want a lift, then?” The Doctor opened his TARDIS and beckoned to the group. “Come on, every... ah, pony—we're going to meet the princesses!” His friends jumped right in; the others were more hesitant, perhaps unsure how they could fit in such a small box. “Well come on, it doesn't bite!” They finally entered, Rainbow Dash dragging the still-catatonic Pinkie by the tail.

He was too busy helping Derpy set the destination to look at them, but from the way the sound of their hoofsteps stopped all at once, he had a good idea of their reaction. “So, anything you'd like to say?” he called back. “Any first impressions?”

“What in tarnation...” Applejack murmured.

“This is not scientifically possible!” Twilight blurted.

“Oh, you won't have any fun with an attitude like that! Ready for departure, Derpy?”

“You bet!” she replied, and pulled down hard on the ignition.

Vworp...

And the Doctor laughed. He was in his TARDIS, with his friends. He'd beaten the impossible odds and saved the day. This just feels so... right.

Vworp... vworp...

They stumbled around a bit as the TARDIS shook mid-flight, and his friends joined in laughing. No, better than right. This beats plain old right by a mile. This sends right packing. This is just...

Vworp... vworp... kdunk.

Perfect.

“Welcome to Canterlot!” he exclaimed. “The princesses will see you now!”

Twilight hesitated for a moment longer by the door, still trying to take in as much as she could. Then her anxiety overruled her curiosity, and she yanked the door open and ran out, yelling, “Princess Celestia!”

“Twilight,” came the reply—tired but relieved, the voice of one who had just endured a long ordeal. The Doctor followed his group out to see Twilight hugging Princess Celestia tightly, and the rest of them kneeling before their ruler.

“Did he hurt you?” Twilight asked, looking up worriedly at the massive alabaster alicorn. “Either of you?” she added, looking at a dark blue alicorn the Doctor recognized as Princess Luna.

Celestia shook her head. “He decided that trapping me here while my subjects suffered was a better punishment. Did he hurt you?” she returned, with more force to her words.

“Yes, but I'm okay now. Everything's back to normal... well, almost everything,” she corrected, disengaging from the hug to gesture to the Doctor.

“When the Doctor comes to call, Twilight, nothing is ever back to normal.” She faced him directly, no surprise in her eyes—some amusement and much gratitude, but not surprise.

Which generated a great deal of that precise emotion in the Doctor. “Now hang on, I know for a fact I've never been in this universe before. How do you... oh, not this again,” he sighed. “You've met me before, and not vice versa.”

“I remember having much more trouble when you explained our peculiar acquaintance to me... but of course, you're much more experienced in this sort of thing than I was.” She laughed. “It's good to see you again, old friend. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you've done... or should I say, all you're going to do?”

“We thank you,” Luna added. “And with this gratitude comes a reward of your choice. If there is a service which we can grant to you, you have only to name it.”

The Doctor thought long and hard on this, and eventually came to a decision.

“Could someone get this blasted thing off my neck?” he complained, tapping his very uncomfortable headdress. Celestia chuckled, and it disappeared and reappeared next to him in a flash of white.

“That's it?” asked Bon Bon, her eyebrow raised. “You get an offer like that from the Princesses and you choose that?”

“In this case, I think we can grant a few additional requests, Bon Bon,” Celestia replied with a smile.

Bon Bon's jaw nearly dropped, but she controlled herself. “How do you—”

“Do not be surprised, Bon Bon. Nor you, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Lyra Heartstrings, and Ditzy Doo... or do you still prefer Derpy Hooves?” Each one started as Luna pronounced her name. “You are companions of the Doctor, and children of time. Your names echo through the history of Equestria.”

“Yeah, about that...” The Doctor ambled nonchalantly toward the Princesses. “I'd rather not have any big parades, or legends, or parties.” He glanced at Pinkie, whose jaw dropped at the very idea of somepony refusing a party. “Sorry, Pinkie, that's not how I work. You can still throw the saved-the-world party... just, I dunno, make it a Twilight-Sparkle-and-the-Elements-of-Harmony-saved-the-world party instead.” Her lower jaw jumped back up into a grin.

“That's not very honest,” Derpy said, giggling a little at the joke.

“Trust me, it's better this way. I make enough of a fuss without looking for attention. After things like this I usually try to stay out of the history books and move on.” He'd been looking disinterestedly up at the ceiling, but now his gaze returned to the Princesses. “Emphasis on usually. You see—”

“Wait! Lemme guess this one!” Lyra piped up, turning to the Princesses. “So he got the TARDIS from himself in the future, right? That means that we need to build... no wait, you called it alive... so, I guess we need to grow the TARDIS, so we can send it back in time, so we can beat Discord, so we can be here in the first place!”

“Ten out of ten for the explanation, Lyra!” The Doctor beamed at her, and she beamed right back. “So, what do you say, your Highnesses?” he asked. “Care to help me grow a TARDIS?”

Celestia looked to Twilight. “Are you ready for a new assignment, my faithful student?” She looked slightly intimidated, but nodded. “Then I charge you with helping the Doctor to create the TARDIS. You can use whatever resources and information you deem necessary.”

After taking a few seconds to close her eyes and process the magnitude of the assignment, Twilight turned to the Doctor. “We can get started right away. All the old time magic is in the Starswirl the Bearded Archive of the castle's library. And I've heard of a magic scientist named Blue Shift, he's apparently been making major advances in the field—”

“Booooring!” Pinkie cut in. “Stop being such a smarty—it's time to plan the party! Oh my goodness, where are we going to hold it? Should it be in Ponyville or Canterlot? Or maybe somewhere in the middle! And we're going to need invitations and balloons and games and food and balloons and balloons and cake!”

“I do not think that a party in Canterlot is... advisable, Pinkie Pie.” While they'd been talking, Luna had walked to the shattered window. Now she beckoned them to join her. Judging by her expression, the Doctor guessed that it was not a pretty sight.

His guess was quickly confirmed, for when he looked out the window he saw Canterlot in ruins. Many of the once posh buildings had been burned and damaged to the verge of collapse, and several were far past that point. Shattered bricks and splintered timbers lay strewn across boulevard after boulevard, and the whole scene was covered in a layer of ash and dust. A few ponies were outside their homes; they wandered in the streets, dazed by the destruction. “It's like the Blitz,” he breathed. “But I thought the Elements should have reverted all of Discord's damage. They did last time, didn't they?”

“Only what he did with his own magic,” Celestia replied. Whereas Luna's voice held barely disguised fury, Celestia was much more somber—though the Doctor surmised that her anger was simply better hidden. “I tried to burn him with my magic, and he redirected my attack upon the city.”

“But why? Why not use his own magic?”

“Spite. Or he was trying to make me feel guilty. Or it was a way to extend his influence after his imprisonment.” She sighed. “He may have had every reason, or no reason at all. But in truth, Doctor, I don't understand him well enough to say. I wish I did.”

Vinyl turned to Octavia with a horrified expression. Octavia already wore one, and without a word the two of them ran from the room. A moment later, Derpy realized what they were thinking. “Octavia's apartment. She lives in Canterlot.”

“Oh my gosh—my whole family lives in Canterlot! Spike was on vacation here! What if they—” Twilight's breath caught.

“Your family is safe, Twilight,” Celestia reassured, laying a hoof on her shoulder. “I may not understand Discord, but I know this much: he would not let them die.”

“How can you be sure?”

The Doctor turned around at the sound of teleportation, and saw a large white unicorn with a small purple dragon on his back. “She can be pretty sure, Twily.”

“Shining Armor! Spike!” Twilight ran to embrace them. “You're okay!”

“Everypony's fine, Twilight,” Spike said. “We checked around the city as soon as you beat Discord—great job on that, by the way!” Twilight grinned awkwardly at the mistaken praise. “Anyway, we've checked through Canterlot, and we're pretty sure nopony's hurt.”

“Pretty sure?” Twilight frowned at the qualifier.

“Uhh... ninety eight and a half percent sure?”

“We should go check. Come on, girls!” The former Elements of Harmony ran dashed of the room, with Shining Armor and Spike close behind, leaving the Doctor and his friends standing in the throne room.

For a moment, the Doctor couldn't put his finger on why this felt odd. And I should really stop using that particular idiom if I don't have fingers. Then he realized how unused he was to other people—ponies, rather—taking the initiative before him. “We should go find Octavia and Vinyl,” he said, and gave the princesses a parting nod. “Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, it's very good to meet you, but we need to run.”

“And it's very good to meet you too, Doctor.” Princess Celestia watched the four of them run into the TARDIS. She closed her eyes and smiled at the sound it made—one she wished she could hear more often.

Vworp... vworp...

Luna snorted. “What?” Celestia asked, surprised by her sister's display of mirth.

“Oh, it's just....” She smiled. “He needs to run, does he?”

Celestia laughed. “Some things don't change, sister.”

“It could be dangerous up there!” Vinyl yelled, but Octavia bolted into the burned out building all the same, so Vinyl had to follow. She'd never seen Octavia move so fast; by the time she'd gotten to the third floor she could hear Octavia opening the door of her fourth floor apartment. By the time she'd gotten to the fourth floor, she could hear Octavia's sobs.

When she got into the apartment, she felt a little like sobbing too. The once spotless floor was covered in ash, and had been burned right through in a few places. The exterior wall had collapsed, revealing the ruined Canterlot outside, but Vinyl only had eyes for the ruined Octavia sitting before her. “I, um... sorry.” I gotta have something better to say than that.

“It's fine,” Octavia choked, pushing some of the soot through the holes in her floor as if trying to clean up. “It's fine. I was about to lose the stupid apartment anyway... it's just...” She took a deep breath, trying hard to keep control. “It's not fair... it's not fair!” She kicked a wall in anger. “We beat him! He's not allowed to do this!”

Vinyl felt the same way. Why couldn't Discord have just had his fun and been done? Why'd he have to change something permanent? She walked over to Octavia and grabbed her in a hug, letting her friend take a few shuddering breaths over her shoulder.

“He's lucky to be trapped in stone,” Vinyl muttered. “If I ever met him again, I'd... well, thank goodness for overpacking.” Octavia looked up at her in puzzlement. “Remember how I made fun of you on Friday for bringing all those clothes and stuff, just for a weekend concert? I take it all back, you were right—most of your stuff is in Ponyville now, at my place. It's safe. So... I guess you can stay there too from now on.”

“Vinyl, I don't want to impose—”

“No, Octy. Your house just burned down. You might be the new Element of Generosity, but that doesn't mean you can't be on the receiving end once in a while.” Vinyl tried to lead her from the room, but Octavia still resisted.

“Really, Vinyl—”

“Really nothing! Look, think of it as repayment for everything you've done the last few months. You get a place to live, I get a way to say thank you. Please, Tavi, let me do this for you.”

After a long pause: “Okay.” Octavia let Vinyl take her out of the room. It took all of Vinyl's restraint to keep her face from breaking out in a huge smile.

As they exited the room, Octavia's landlord walked out of the stairwell, looking around at his building. Suddenly, holding back that smile became a lot easier. “Well, it's nothing a little paint job can't cover, I'm sure.” He turned from the wall and noticed them. “Oh, hello Octavia. And... you,” he said, indicating Vinyl with a shrug. “I'm afraid you shouldn't be here, seeing as you've been evicted.”

“Really?” Vinyl yelled. “Discord just came back, the city's burned down, this slum's about to fall apart, and you're bringing that up?”

“Life must go on, miss. And this building's structure is perfectly sound!” He knocked on the wall for emphasis, and accidentally knocked a slat of wood off of it. “That's not structural. But don't think I'm completely insensitive to your difficulties—what say I let you keep your apartment for a month of rent, and that lovely necklace?” He motioned to the Element of Generosity still hanging on her neck. “That should just about cover the rest, I imagine.”

Vinyl planted her front hooves, spun around, and was ready to buck the landlord—but Octavia stopped her with a raised hoof. “Vinyl, don't. I'll give it to him.” Vinyl's jaw dropped, but Octavia winked at her before turning to the landlord, who was holding his hoof out for the necklace. She took a deep breath, reached up to her neck... then reached way back, wound up, and punched the landlord's lights out.

Stunned as she was, Vinyl took a moment to get it. Then she was in hysterics. “You gave it to him!”

“I gave it to him real good!” She laughed and pulled Vinyl over the landlord and down the stairs. “Now come on, let's get out of here.”

“Wow, if I'd known that punching somepony out was such a pick-you-up...”

“Well, when that somepony is my 'jerk of a landlord'—” Octavia realized what Vinyl had just said. “Did you just say punched?”

“Well, you made a pun, and you punched him. Seriously, though...” Vinyl managed to get Octavia to slow down as they reached the second floor. “You're over it this quickly? I mean, your apartment burning down?”

“There's nothing left for me back there but a bed and four months of back rent. I'd rather be in Ponyville with my best friends.”

“Aww, you're so sweet—wait, you don't know anyone else in Ponyville.”

Octavia rolled her eyes and smiled. “Vinyl, we just made four new friends today, remember?”

Vworp... vworp... kdunk.

They halted on the first floor landing and saw the TARDIS materialize at the foot of the stairs. The door opened and the Doctor stepped out, looked up at them, and grinned. “Found you the first time! Wunderbar! This TARDIS is shaping up to be very reliable... a bit over-reliable, actually. I might have to fix that later....”

Lyra burst out of the TARDIS, her face full of worry. “Is your apartment okay?”

“Well... no.” Lyra's face fell, but Octavia smiled. “It's okay, Lyra. I can move in with Vinyl in Ponyville. It'll be like a new beginning.”

The Doctor smiled again. “I can relate. Now come on you two, the Elements of Harmony need to get back to the castle and there's much to be done.” He beckoned the two of them into the TARDIS. Octavia trotted right in, but Vinyl hesitated and cocked an ear. What's that noise... There was some sort of growing clamor outside.

“What is it, Vinyl?” the Doctor asked.

“Can't you hear that?” she asked. “It sounds like... well...”

“THREE CHEERS FOR THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY!”

“Yeah,” she finished, just before she was drowned out by the sound of all Canterlot cheering.

“Blimey, that was quick!” The Doctor, followed by Vinyl and the other companions, rushed to the window and looked out upon the streets, which were no longer nearly deserted. In the few minutes since Vinyl had been outside, they'd become filled with ponies laughing, dancing, crying, and cheering. “From the Blitz to V-E Day, eh? Good for them!”

Bon Bon harrumphed and turned away from the window. “Don't take the credit, you said. Stay out of the history books, you said. They could be cheering for us.”

“Nah, it's better this way. If I took credit for every little thing I did, I'd never get any sleep at night. Come on then!” The Doctor walked back to the TARDIS.

Bon Bon followed him, whining, “But I wanna be in a history book!”

“Bon Bon, Luna called us by name,” said Lyra. “We're already part of Equestria's secret history and we didn't even know it!” Vinyl closed the door behind her and braced herself next to Octavia on the railing. Derpy and the Doctor took their places on opposite sides of the console.

“Yeah, you're right, but....” Bon Bon gave up and conceded the point with a smile. “Oh, nevermind. You're right.”

“I know!” Lyra was as giddy as any of the celebrants outside. “I love time travel!”

And with that, the Doctor pulled down on the starting lever, and they were off once more.

After some consideration, Pinkie had decided to have the party in Canterlot after all—not in spite of the destruction there, but because of it. As she put it, “Some of the ponies here just lost everything. That's exactly the kind of pony who needs to have a party!” Vinyl had agreed, and the two of them pled their case most strenuously with Celestia and Luna.

From what he'd seen of the two of them, he wasn't surprised that the Princesses had acquiesced. He was surprised that they'd agreed to have it that night, and even more surprised that their group had actually pulled it off.

And yet, somehow, they had. Pinkie Pie and Applejack baked for hours in the castle's sumptuous kitchens, aided by the royal chefs and—with some reluctance—by Bon Bon. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Derpy organized the city's pegasi, summoned a gale to blow away all the remaining smoke, and created massive rainstorms to wash the debris from the streets. Lyra, Vinyl, and Octavia planned the entertainment together in a separate room of the castle, aided by Pinkie whenever she could spare a minute from the kitchens. The Doctor got shanghaied into helping Twilight and Rarity clean and decorate the castle and surrounding city, a task he imagined would have gone faster if Rarity had spent more time decorating and less time complimenting his suit.

By nightfall the ruined city wasn't a ruined city anymore. It was the biggest party the Doctor had seen in centuries. The castle was filled with ponies rejoicing, dancing, singing, kissing—and the castle was only the centerpiece. The joyous crowd seemed to extend forever.

He wasn't in the party, though. As night fell, he sat in the ruined chambers of the Princesses, tired but happy. He was content to feel the TARDIS hum beside him, and to watch his friends enjoy themselves. Vinyl had managed to cajole Octavia into not only wearing her glasses, but actually DJing—and doing a fair job of it too. Lyra and Bon Bon were chatting together happily. Occasionally he heard a distinct voice penetrate the jumble of happy noise, usually someone yelling praise to the Princesses, or to Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony. It all made him smile. This is where I belong. In the background, witnessing the greatest things the world has to offer.

“So that's why I didn't find you at the party!” He turned to see Derpy glide through the double doors and land beside him. “What are you doing here up?”

“Just observing. I've never been much for parties, honestly, and I've gathered my nibbles already.” He smiled and lifted a cupcake adorned with edible ball bearings. “D'you know, I always thought humans were the only ones who made these! I am going to like it here.”

“Sure, but there's still a problem.”

“What?”

“You're still up here!” Before he could react, she jumped up and grabbed him with all four legs, knocking the cupcake from his hoof.

“Derpy?”

“And the party's down there!”

“Derpyyyyy!” She dove out the window, down the side of the castle, and into the lights of the party, ignoring the Doctor's pleas. “I don't do parties, what am I supposed to do?”

“What the rest of us do! Have fun! Eat a lot! Yell too much!” She let him down, alighted beside him, and grabbed his hoof. “Dance!”

“Derpy, I haven't danced in years, I'll be terrible at it!”

“Don't worry!” she laughed. “I'm worse!”

She was a wonderfully bad dancer, but made up for it in enthusiasm, and it wasn't long before a space had cleared around the two of them to make room for Derpy's flailing limbs. Then Vinyl appeared from the whirling crowd and pulled him into a conga line. He Charlestoned with Lyra, foxtrotted with Octavia, and jitterbugged with Bon Bon. They laughed and danced the night away. And it wasn't long before the Doctor realized, to his delight, that he was wrong about two things.

He really could dance after all.

And this was where he belonged.

Tune in next time for:
Great and Powerful

Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits (a)

It was a good thing Twilight Sparkle had the library's window open, because Rainbow Dash wouldn't have stopped even if it were closed. She dove through the open window and stopped just short of both the wood floor and Twilight herself.

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

“Mm-hmm?” Twilight mumbled, face-deep in a book. Rainbow Dash wondered if this was a bad time to try to speak to her, then decided that wondering was stupid and stopped.

“Twilight, you've gotta see this! They've got this new thing at the bowling alley, it's called a, whatsit, an arcade game!” She tried to see what Twilight was reading, but Twilight kept moving to deny her access. All Rainbow Dash could make out was what looked like very difficult magic, and one phrase which read in part '—for making a container hold more than it naturally ought—'.

“Yeah?” Twilight replied.

“Yeah! And guess what—it's a Daring Do game! Daring Do and the Serpents of Sakat! Based off the book and everything! You can control Daring Do! How cool is that!”

“That's great.”

“It is! Come on, before the line gets too long!” Rainbow dashed out the open window, then realized what had just happened. “Are you even listening?” she yelled, swooping back in to grab Twilight and pry her away from her book. “Daring Do! Arcade game! Come on!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight cried, waving her forelegs frantically in the direction of the book even as her hind legs were pulled out her door and onto the street.

It had taken Twilight a minute or two to really get what Rainbow Dash was telling her, but once she did, she got excited—though more confused. What's an 'arcade game'? she wondered, now walking under her own steam instead of being dragged. How are you supposed to control Daring Do?

However, her excitement was dwarfed by that of Rainbow Dash, who urged her to speed up every minute, and who constantly flew up into the sky to see who else had heard about the Serpents of Sakat. As for her confusion, that was nowhere to be found in her friend: Dash seemed to know exactly what an arcade game was, however incapable she was of explaining it to Twilight whenever she asked.

“Trust me, you gotta see this for yourself!” was her constant refrain. Then, she would often add, “If we even get in before it closes...” and soar into the air to look for crowds.

When Twilight reached the bowling alley, she understood her friend's anxiety. There was a line dozens of ponies long—the longest she had ever seen here—to get into the building.

“We'll never get in!” Twilight groaned, getting at the back of the line. Rainbow Dash alighted just behind her.

“You sure about that?” she said with a grin. Just then, Twilight heard a distant cry of dismay from within the alley—almost like a scream of pain, in fact. A few seconds later, the line moved one place forward.

Twilight's eyes widened. "What was that?"

“Oh, don't worry about it—someone just lost, is all. So do you see what I mean?” Dash said. “Trust me, we'll be in in twenty minutes, tops. I was only worried because I thought there’d be more ponies here.”

Indeed, the line continued to move at a rapid pace: whatever the 'arcade game' was, it didn't last for very long per pony. Twilight kept trying to figure out what it might be, only to have her suppositions interrupted by Dash's urging of “Move up, Twilight!”

It took perhaps a little over twenty minutes, but she finally made it to the front of the line, and stood in a corner of the bowling alley. The building was remarkably empty: on a brisk Friday afternoon like this, Twilight might have expected the lanes to be full of bowlers. However, only one or two ponies were working the pins. It seemed that all attention was on the elusive 'arcade game'.

Mr. Kingpin, the building's owner, stood before her and waved her in. “First time playing?” he asked her. When she nodded, he continued: “Good luck. Pay at the box, it'll tell you how to play. And try not to get too addicted.”

“Addicted?” she asked.

“Your friend there,” Kingpin said, jerking his head at Rainbow Dash, “got to play three times before the majority of the line got in. She's practically sold her soul to it by now... metaphorically speaking.”

“I'll, uh, try not to go that far,” Twilight said, smiling with renewed confusion. She walked past Mr. Kingpin, around a corner, and got her first sight of the so-far-indescribable 'arcade game'.

Daring Do and the Serpents of Sakat, it read along the top of the box. Below that, set a good foot or so into the box, was a pane of glass. It displayed the book's cover with great faithfulness: there was Daring Do, one wing bound to her side over her green shirt and compass rose cutie mark; her gray tail barely out of the jaws of the massive feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl; one hoof clutching her pith helmet, the other holding the fabled Vision Serpent. There was, however, one crucial difference: the image seemed to be composed of hundreds of tiny squares of color. Some sort of projector? Twilight wondered, noticing that the screen was emitting light. What was more, the words INSERT ONE BIT TO BEGIN scrolled along the bottom of the screen.

Beneath the screen, on a downward-slanted piece of wood, were an outward-pointed stick on the left and two large buttons on the right. The stick had what looked like the mold of a hoof on the top, and arrows pointing up, down, left, and right from it. The buttons were labeled Jump and Duck.

Twilight inserted one bit into a little slot beneath the controls. Immediately, the image on the screen disappeared, replaced by an all-black background with a little block-drawing of Daring Do's face next to the number two. Nary a second later, the screen changed again, and Twilight's eyes widened.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered, for the game was showing her a beautifully rendered image of a vast desert. Pyramids set against the blue sky dotted the background, and what seemed like miles of sand lay in the foreground. A simple electronic tune played over the whole experience. It was so entrancing that Twilight barely saw the small, grayish representation of Daring Do—until a tiny strand of green snake had slithered its way across the screen and bitten her. Daring Do crumpled to the ground.

“What?” Twilight exclaimed, as the black screen reappeared, this time with a number one. “But I—but—that's not fair!” She gritted her teeth, then placed her hooves on the controls as the desert screen reappeared.

“Okay,” she murmured, moving her character around a bit. She could make Daring Do go left and right, duck, and jump, but moving up and down didn't seem to work yet.

And there was the snake! She waited until it was almost upon her, then jumped over it. The snake proceeded harmlessly to the left and off the screen. “Yes!” she said, taking her hoof off the joystick to pump it—only to watch Daring Do sink into a patch of quicksand that she hadn't noticed.

“No!” she yelled, as the black screen told her she had no further lives left. “Okay... gotta jump over the snake, avoid the quicksand... snake! Got away from it, that's good—more quicksand, gotta jump over all that... wow, whoever made this did a really nice job drawing this bridge—OH, COME ON!”

For the well-drawn bridge had just sagged under Daring Do's weight, then plummeted into an endless pit below, taking the currently flightless pegasus with it. GAME OVER, read the screen.

“Are you kidding me?” she yelled.

“Yeah, it does that.” She looked up from the game to see Rainbow Dash behind her, wearing a smile that Twilight wanted to wipe off her face.

“But did you see that?” Twilight stammered. “It was completely unfair—urgh!”

“Maybe it's just not for eggheads.” Rainbow Dash patted her on the head and tried to get in front of the machine, but Twilight resisted her movement. “Come on, it's my turn now,” Dash insisted.

“No! I want another try!”

“I bet the stallion at the door told you it was addicting, huh?” Rainbow Dash tapped her own chin a few times, then continued: “Look, it's my turn whether you like it or not, but you can watch. Okay?”

“Okay....” With more effort than she might have imagined necessary, Twilight conceded, and stepped away from the machine.

“And don't talk!” Rainbow Dash said, sliding her own bit into the machine. Instead of placing her hooves on the controls, she kept them on the floor and brought her wings forward, using their feathers to deftly manipulate the controls.

“Watch out for the quick—”

“No talking,” Rainbow Dash interjected, not looking up from her game. Twilight saw in her face a level of concentration usually reserved for flight practice.

It was paying off, too: within a minute she was past the rickety bridge and into a new area, with a background patterned to look like a jungle. There were more snakes, and thanks to the greener background Twilight could hardly see them—but Rainbow Dash saw them all, and easily dodged each one.

Using those up and down buttons that Twilight had found so useless earlier, she climbed up ladders beneath a waterfall that spewed forceful streams of water. Twilight assumed these would knock Rainbow Dash down if she ever touched them, but she did not: with practiced ease she avoided them and continued on.

By this point Twilight was not the only pony watching. The next pony in line had come to complain about not getting his turn, only to be brushed off by Rainbow Dash saying, “You can watch too if you want.” He did, and so did the next pony, and the next, until there was a veritable crowd in the tiny space behind the arcade machine, with ponies jostling for the ability to see.

Twilight had some difficulty keeping them away from Rainbow Dash, but Dash didn't notice: she kept going, and going, and going—until a wayward eagle flew into her and she died. Her character died, Twilight had to remind herself. Of course it's not actually Rainbow Dash in the game. Not that this fact stopped her or the crowd from groaning in despair, as the black screen showed Rainbow Dash to only have—four lives left?

“Four lives?” exclaimed the pony who was next in line. “You started with two!”

“Yeah, I picked up some extras along the way,” Rainbow Dash replied in a rather smug tone.

“This stinks!” said the pony, as Rainbow Dash began yet again. “We're never gonna get to play!”

“Pretty much!” she said. A bit of a clamor ensued, as Rainbow Dash continued on her winning streak.

“All right, calm down, calm down!” Mr. Kingpin came back into the little corner, waving at the crowd. “It doesn't matter who's playing or who isn't playing—we're closing! Everybody out!”

“What?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, as Kingpin flicked a switch behind the machine. The screen immediately went dark. “You can't do that! I was nearly at the end!”

“Sorry, kid,” he said, mustache bristling with annoyance. “But it's already ten past six, and that's when we usually close for the night anyway on weekdays! Now all of you, scram! You can come back tomorrow.”

With many groans the crowd departed. Rainbow Dash was the last to leave, and she did so slowly, with many a mournful look at the Serpents of Sakat, until Mr. Kingpin shouted, “I don't have all day!” Only then did she leave the building, letting Kingpin lock the doors and depart.

“It's okay, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said as Rainbow followed her along the twilit streets. “You'll just get there early tomorrow, and you'll be able to play again!”

“No, I was really on a roll!” Rainbow Dash protested. “I need to get back there today!”

“Except, as you know, you can't.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “I mean, Mr. Kingpin's locked it up for the day, and you can hardly go breaking in there after dark, right?” After a few seconds, she realized that Rainbow Dash hadn't responded. “You can't, right?”

“Uhhh... course not.” Rainbow Dash's eyes shifted away from Twilight's face and to the ground below.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight stopped in front of Rainbow Dash to stop her from moving. “Promise me you won't break into the bowling alley after dark!”

“I promise,” Dash said, after some hesitation.

“Pinkie Promise?” Twilight glared at Rainbow Dash. She mightn't have gone this far—the Pinkie Promise was the most sacred bond known to her circle of friends, a bond with consequences most dire if broken—but she really didn't want Rainbow committing a crime over an arcade game. It was a very real concern, especially where Daring Do was involved: Twilight distinctly remembered the fracas that had erupted after Rainbow Dash had snuck into the hospital to 'borrow' one of the books.

Rainbow Dash sighed. “Cross my heart and hope to fly—” she drew a hoof across the front of her barrel “—stack a cupcake in my eye.” She closed one eye and planted her hoof on the eyelid.

“Stick a cupcake.”

“Yeah, that's what I said.”

After a few seconds, Twilight smiled. “Good. Would you like to come over to the library? I should have the new Daring Do there—if the Doctor hasn't taken it, that is.”

“The Doctor?” Rainbow Dash's eyebrows flew up her face. “He's into Daring Do too?”

“He says it reminds him of Indiana Jones, whatever that means... anyway, we were researching to build his time machine, and he found the first one, and one thing led to another!” Twilight grinned, remembering how surprised she'd been to see a grown stallion so enamored with the series. “Even if he does have it, he won't have it for long—he's an incredibly quick reader.”

“Actually,” Rainbow Dash replied, “I think I'm gonna get going now. Been cooped up all day in the alley—I've gotta practice those flying moves! See ya later!” And without waiting for Twilight to reply, she leaped into the air and was quickly too high to see.

Twilight rolled her eyes and continued home. There was no worry in her mind that Rainbow Dash might try to break into the bowling alley. She'd Pinkie Promised, after all, and everyone knew that Pinkie Promises couldn't be broken.

Genius, Rainbow Dash thought, diving down to the bowling alley just before ten o'clock that night. STACK a cupcake in my eye—that was genius! The way she saw it, since she'd failed to correctly recite the Pinkie Promise, she was not bound by it.

It didn't take her very long to find a point of entry: Mr. Kingpin may have locked the doors, but he'd forgotten about the windows. Typical earth pony thinking. Always forgetting about wings! She kicked the window's frame with her hoof, causing it to bounce back and open a crack. It was enough for her to slip her wings into the gap, pull the window entirely open, and dive through. “Piece of cake!” she whispered, pumping her hoof in the air.

There was enough moonlight filtering into the dark room for her to easily locate the arcade machine. She fumbled behind the machine until her hoof caught on a small protrusion she recognized as the switch. With a little push the screen flickered on, displaying the title image. Rainbow Dash pushed a bit into the machine, and the game began.

Perhaps it was the utter silence, or the lack of ponies to jostle her; perhaps it was her mindset, or the hours of practice she'd had. Whatever the reason, Rainbow Dash was breezing her way through the levels. The waterfall was no trouble, nor were any of the jungle vines, nor the various pitfalls or monsters—even the bosses were like child's play. “Too easy!” she said, smacking the side of the machine. “Give me a real challenge!”

As if in response, the screen went dark. Rainbow Dash froze, wondering if she'd broken it with her strike, and how she'd explain it to Mr. Kingpin—or how far away she'd want to be from it before he found out. Then her eyes narrowed, for words appeared blinking on the screen:

PREPARE FOR AN ALL-NEW GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE

“What the hay—” Rainbow Dash began, leaning toward the screen—and then trying very hard to lean away as an incredible wind appeared at her back, pushing her toward the machine. The words onscreen swirled into a sort of vortex. It's pulling me in! It was a ridiculous thought, but as her wings and legs failed to hold her back, and her body flew at the screen, it was the only possibility.

“Help meeeeee....” Her voice quickly faded into an electronic whine. The title screen reappeared, leaving no trace of Rainbow Dash.

The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box)
S1E4: Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits
Written by R5h

Twilight awoke early the next day to the sound of knocking. “Spike, can you get that?” she mumbled, and opened her eyes to quite a bit more sunlight than she'd expected. She groaned. I stayed up too late last night thinking about that arcade game.... As she thought of it once more, the machine seemed to dance before her mind's eye—tantalizing her, urging her to have another go. And it's probably Rainbow Dash at the door, urging me to do just that.

Spike was too busy snoring to be roused from his bed, so Twilight groaned and dragged herself down the steps to the front door. When she opened it, her bleary eyes saw not Rainbow Dash, but the brown form of the Doctor.

“G'morning!” he said in a voice far more chipper, Twilight thought, than any voice had the right to be at this unholy hour. He held out a book, which Twilight recognized as the latest Daring Do novel: Daring Do and the Terror of the Jungle. “Finished it last night. It was brilliant! Well, I say brilliant—terrible pulp in a lot of ways, and yet very engaging. McDonalds for the soul, if you will; awful junk food, but you can't get enough of it. Da-da-da da-da!” he sang.

“Morning to you too,” Twilight finally said, magically fumbling with the book, then reshelving it in its proper location.

“So, shall we get going, then?” he asked.

“What?” It took Twilight far too long to realize what he was talking about. “Oh right! Right, let me just get my things....” The previous afternoon's experience had driven their appointment completely from her mind.

At least twice a week, for the last few months—since the Doctor's auspicious arrival in Ponyville—Twilight had been his assistant in building the TARDIS. Growing the TARDIS, she reminded herself—but at this stage of the process it was difficult to distinguish one process from the other. The Doctor hardly helped: he would alternately call the box-to-be a 'machine', a 'plant', a 'multi-dimensional space-time event', and many an extra description besides. It was also, apparently, female—not in the same way as a sailing ship, either. Weird.

Twilight followed the Doctor through Ponyville to the mid-secret facility they were using as the TARDIS growing area—actually, one of Sweet Apple Acres' empty warehouses which Applejack was letting them use. It wasn't as if ponies went there anyway; a simple wooden 'Keep Out' sign over the door was the only precaution required.

“Hold on,” the Doctor cautioned as they approached. Twilight paused, feeling as always the reason for his hesitation. The large wooden door may have been closed, but in her mind she felt the unfinished TARDIS growing within—and it was exhilarating and painful all at once, like an underground current of magma running through her head.

The Doctor placed a hoof upon her forehead and closed his eyes. All emotion left his face, save the ghost of a smile on his lips. She closed her eyes as well, feeling his serenity radiate through his hoof and into her mind, calming the psychic flow from the TARDIS and removing its pain.

“Okay?” he asked as she opened her eyes. At her nod, he said, “Safe to go in, then,” and opened the door.

“Morning, Doctor! Morning, Twilight!” Twilight looked up to see Derpy Hooves, the Doctor's other assistant, perched on the rafters. Displaying none of her usual clumsiness, she dove down to their level and alighted upon the hay, directly in front of the TARDIS in progress.

“Good morning, Derpy,” the Doctor and Twilight chorused.

“We should probably pick up where we left off, right?” Derpy picked up a tool that looked almost like a wrench, but with a sort of organic tip—something of the Doctor's design. She turned away from them and began twirling it between the feathers of her wings, reveling in her coordination. “She's still got a mostly broken chameleon circuit, isn't that what you said? Right now she'd only transform into the one thing, the box?”

“No, that's okay. It's supposed to be like that,” the Doctor said.

“Really?” Derpy shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Her attention focused on the mass of glowing, swirling energies before them.

Twilight still found it difficult to believe that this incredible conflagration of unstable forms could ever become the simple blue box she remembered. Filigrees of gold, blue, and every other color in the rainbow danced around each other in ways that, if one truly thought about it, defied physics and common reason. Even with the Doctor's psychic protection, Twilight never felt comfortable looking directly at it; she didn't even like walking too close. It strained her mind and her eyes as they tried to comprehend several dimensions too many.

Derpy, on the other hoof, seemed completely comfortable getting near it without any of the Doctor's help. In fact, she was generally more comfortable with all the alien technology than Twilight. Whereas Twilight was reading overtime and working extra hard with the Doctor to grasp the basic concepts involved with the TARDIS, Derpy seemed to get them upon the first explanation, if not earlier. And Twilight found, to her disappointment, that it did irk her to be the number-two student. How childish is that? She did her best to sublimate these feelings into studying harder, but it wasn't always easy.

“You never did explain why she doesn't need the psychic shielding,” she muttered to the Doctor, with perhaps a bit more vehemence than was necessary.

“I'd tell you if I knew, but I don't,” he said, still looking at the TARDIS itself instead of Twilight. “Actually, Derpy, I was thinking that it's finally time to get to work on the dimensional transcendence.”

“The bigger-on-the-inside-ness. Got it!” Derpy grinned, then threw her almost-wrench into the air with one wing and caught it with her mouth.

“Okay, then...” Twilight said. “How do we start?”

“With you, Twilight. You see....” He paused, collecting his thoughts, then continued. “It is rather advanced magic, but it is possible to make a space larger on the inside than it ought to be. Isn't that so?”

“Just like we studied,” Twilight affirmed, stifling a yawn.

“Well, go on then. Give it a try.” When Twilight did nothing, the Doctor nodded his head at the TARDIS. “Make her bigger on the inside.”

Twilight looked at the twisting lines of energy making up the TARDIS, then back at the Doctor's expectant face. “You're kidding, right?” she said.

“Not at all.”

“But... but she doesn't have an inside. Or an outside!” Twilight protested. “She's—the TARDIS is just sort of conceptual right now—what am I supposed to do with that?”

“Imagine an egg,” Derpy cut in. The Doctor's mouth stayed open for a moment more, before it closed as he considered this idea. “You're looking at the outside now, and the real TARDIS is on the inside. Try that.” The Doctor made a sort of bemused pout, as though both dubious of and impressed with Derpy's image.

“Sure,” Twilight grumbled. “Great idea, Derpy—that totally looks like an egg.” However, after a few seconds Twilight couldn't come up with any better ideas. “Oh, all right. Thinking of an egg...” She screwed up her eyes in concentration, and focused her magic on the TARDIS—but it kept twisting out of her grasp like a greased snake. No, it's an egg. An egg, an egg, an egg...

Indeed, it helped. She imagined an eggshell around the TARDIS, which kept her from having to focus on something she could hardly comprehend, and poured her magic into the shell. She felt the magic leaving her like water from a reservoir, draining with an almighty force through her horn until she was teetering on her hooves and her stomach felt weak. She opened her eyes and just managed not to fall over.

“Well done, Twilight!” the Doctor crowed, supporting her shaky frame. He pointed at the TARDIS, and Twilight saw that the swirl of energies was changing; now it ordered itself into coils that spun through the center, and came back out again fuller and fuller—and yet never seemed to grow, in the end. “You've planted the seed. See? She can do the best part of the work herself now.”

“That's... that's great!” Twilight managed, coughing slightly. She took a deep breath before continuing. Her strength was coming back to her after the brief exertion, but it would take a few minutes at least. “So is there anything else to do today?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Wait and see, mostly. For now, we can leave the TARDIS to her own devices.” He smiled warmly. “Look at her go! Or actually, on second thought, don't. Things are probably going to get rather weird in here—we probably ought to clear out. You too, Derpy.”

“Can't I stay and watch?” Derpy said, her face falling.

“Better not to.”

Derpy sighed, and followed the Doctor and Twilight out the door, still twirling the wrench with her wings. “All right, but I like it in there tebber.” As the Doctor closed the door, she tossed the wrench into the air, but futzed up catching it; it landed on her head. “Ow!” Twilight couldn't help herself: she giggled even as she picked up the wrench with her own magic.

The Doctor cast a lingering glance at Derpy, then looked ahead and continued forward. “I was thinking we could grab an early lunch at Chez Santhenum, what do you think?”

“Sounds good,” Twilight said, somewhat absentmindedly. In the absence of the TARDIS, another thought had returned to her mind: that wonderful arcade machine, and how she'd probably be able to keep going if she remembered not to stand too long on the rickety bridge. She'd watched Rainbow Dash keep playing for hours—she knew the layout. Why shouldn't she be able to progress?

“Twilight?” Derpy tapped her on the shoulder with one wing. “The Doctor was asking what you thought you eated to want... you know what I mean.” She glowered at thin air.

“Uh, I usually go for the daffodil and daisy sandwich,” she said, wrenching her mind back to the present. What's with me? It's just a silly arcade game. A whole lot of fun, but silly.

“I'll get two,” the Doctor declared. Twilight raised her eyebrow at his declaration of hunger. “What? Time Lords have different nutritional needs, and besides that I gave you a strong dose of psychic shielding today. I'm so hungry I could eat a... never mind.”

“A what?” Derpy asked.

“I said never mind.”

“But seriously—”

“Really, you don't wanna know.”

They arrived at Chez Santhenum and, owing to the earliness of the day, easily found a table outside—all the better to enjoy the end-of-summer air. As they sat there, Twilight looked around at the trees whose leaves, she knew, would soon be dropping off.

“So, Doctor,” Derpy said as they waited to order, “what should we expect the next time we look at the TARDIS?”

“Well, if I had to guess—and I apparently do—I'd say it won't be safe to go in there for a few hours. Right now it's warping the space around it, gathering it inside of itself—forming a definite inside and outside, in fact. I can guarantee that the next time we see it, it'll make more sense to look at. I might not even need to psychically protect you, Twilight.”

Twilight tried to respond, but before she'd opened her mouth Derpy was already continuing. “Can we expect the chamenial, the chameleon circuit to be in effect?”

“That depends on how decent a job we did, doesn't it?” The Doctor shrugged. “At best, I'd expect it to be a rough box shape. It might even have a door already, if we're really lucky. If we haven't done such a good job, well, you can expect a sort of sphere.”

“And what if we went in? Would it be safe, or would the dimensional forces tear us apart?” Derpy smiled, looking around at the other patrons, who either couldn't hear her or were choosing to ignore what must have sounded like nonsense.

“The latter, I'm afraid. Definitely not safe to enter inside: too absurd.”

“When are we going to start on the engines themselves?”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “You want to talk about that now? Putting the cart a little bit before the horse, aren't you?”

“But I do want to talk about it, because I'm having so much trouble understanding how they work,” Derpy proclaimed. “I mean, the TARDIS flies by exiting the physical universe and entering purely conceptual space?”

“Yes, usually—”

“But how do the engines do that? Do they bend space-time around them, forming tears in the fabric and slipping through?”

“Precisely. Are you sure you're having trouble?” the Doctor asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Well, it's always sure to be good.” Derpy smiled, though it seemed more like a smirk to Twilight's eyes. “I mean, I'd hate not understanding how the TARDIS worked.”

Was that directed at me? Twilight thought. Nah, she wouldn't be doing that. Derpy probably doesn't realize how I'm feeling right now. She's Derpy, after all. Yet the suspicion remained, even though the conversation was interrupted by their waiter appearing. The three of them quickly made their orders, with Twilight and the Doctor choosing what they'd discussed earlier; Derpy opted for just a side order of hayfries.

“Anyway, like you said,” she continued, “it probably doesn't matter, since we won't be working on that next, will we? We need to figure out the source power—the source of power.”

“Indeed we do,” the Doctor replied.

“Can I say something?” Twilight tried to say—but once again, Derpy was talking over her.

“I was thinking about that last night, and we should probably use the magic of the princesses. I mean, you told me a while ago how your old TARDIS was powered by energy from a collapsing star, but where are we gonna find one of those? I mean, Celestia's probably not going to let us use hers, right?” She chuckled: Twilight and the Doctor did not. An awkward silence ensued.

After a few seconds, Twilight seized her chance and spoke, doing her best not to betray her annoyance at Derpy's words. “I think Derpy may be on to something. The princesses' magic is incredibly strong; properly focused, it should be enough to warp the space time continuum. Isn't that right?” she asked the Doctor. After a few seconds' pondering, he smiled and nodded. Twilight felt a faint note of pride in her chest.

“Just so long as they know what they're doing,” Derpy added. “I wouldn't want someone working on the TARDIS who doesn't know what they're doing.” She smiled happily.

Twilight had had enough. She planted both hooves on the table and faced Derpy. “All right. What are you trying to imply?”

Derpy's face became as dumb and innocent as Twilight had ever seen it. “What do you mean?” she drawled. She is winding me up! The nerve of the little...

“I mean,” Twilight continued, looking Derpy right in the mismatched eyes, “that you've spent this whole time... badgering me about how I'm not as good with the TARDIS as you. Don't pretend you haven't!”

“Then don't call me stupid.” The dumb expression fell away from Derpy's face, leaving an angry scowl in its wake.

Twilight froze, just as her tirade was about to continue. When did I call her stupid? She did her best to think back, going through her recent conversations, until she finally realized what Derpy meant. “Oh dear Celestia. This is about the egg thing, isn't it!” Derpy snorted, which Twilight took as an affirmation. “You thought I was trying to—I was tired and cranky!” she exclaimed. “I wasn't calling you stupid!”

“No, of course you weren't calling me stupid—I just don't have any good ideas, that's all.”

“Derpy.”

The tone of the Doctor's voice made it unmistakable that this word was a command. Derpy obeyed immediately, shrinking back and becoming silent. She looked as if she'd been struck.

Their food arrived at that moment. Twilight thanked the waiter, then promptly bit into her sandwich. She chewed it as long as she could manage, until the flowers were a goopy, unappetizing mess in her mouth—not to savor the sandwich, but so that she could avoid talking as long as possible. The Doctor and Derpy seemed to have the same idea, and for several minutes more the three of them munched in silence.

As she ate, Twilight tried to reconcile the Derpy she'd known for the last few months with the one she'd just had a petty argument with. Derpy's usually so... what's the word... easygoing? But maybe that's not quite right—come to think of it, she realized, I don't think I've ever even come close to calling her stupid before. Or maybe I did? Oh Celestia, what if I've been accidentally calling her stupid this whole time and not realizing it?

No, this is silly, she insisted to herself, forcing herself to calm down before she choked on her food. If I've been doing that, she can tell me like a normal pony. It's only fair.

The three of them continued to avoid speaking, but unfortunately for Twilight a sandwich could only last so long. Eventually she finished it, and desperately cast her mind about for a less awkward source of discussion. Come on, there's got to be something...

A tap on the shoulder interrupted her search. “Um... Twilight?” came Fluttershy's voice from behind her.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight turned around, grateful beyond words for the sudden arrival of her friend, and saw Fluttershy looking worried. Not that this was unusual for Fluttershy, but suddenly Twilight's relief seemed a bit misplaced. “What's wrong?” she asked.

“I was just wondering if you've seen Rainbow Dash. Oh, hi, Doctor. And Derpy.” She gave the two of them an awkward smile before her attention returned to Twilight. “I mean, it's probably nothing, but Rainbow Dash was going to bring Tank over to my house because I thought he might have a little bit of shell rot, and I wanted to make sure, and... well, she was supposed to bring him an hour ago,” she finished with a frown.

Twilight grew a frown to match it. “That's odd. She couldn't be playing that arcade game, could she? I mean, she's been crazy about it, but not that crazy...”

“No, I checked there first,” Fluttershy said. “Mr. Kingpin says she hasn't been there all day.”

“Hold on.” Suddenly, all traces of awkwardness disappeared from the Doctor. He leaned forward with no small amount of concern. “Did you say arcade game?”

“Oh, did you never hear about it?" Twilight asked. "It's new at the bowling alley. You control Daring Do, and take her past a series of obstacles... it's really difficult. I was actually hoping to play it after we were done with the TARDIS....” And once again she felt the urge to go and play. Just one more game, she thought. Then: Wow. I'm really crazy about it too, aren't I.

Whatever the Doctor was thinking, though, it had nothing to do with playing. “No, this is very wrong,” he murmured.

“Um... what do you mean?” Fluttershy asked.

“No, your technology's been progressing pretty quickly, but you're still at, what? Early to mid 20th century levels?” The Doctor scratched his chin. “What with radios, and railways, and airships... yeah, a few standouts, like Vinyl's DJ equipment, but this is different. This is something you ponies definitely shouldn't have.”

“20th century levels? Shouldn't have?” As was often the case, Twilight hardly understood what the Doctor was saying. “Hey, where are you going?”

For he had stood up and was striding away from Chez Santhenum. “We're going to the bowling alley,” he declared.

“Fluttershy just told you, Rainbow Dash isn't there,” Twilight protested, even as she followed him. “And we should be looking for her first.” Rainbow Dash would never be late for something she agreed to do for a friend. Isn't that more important than some crazy theories about a dumb game? Fluttershy followed her, and after some hesitation, so did Derpy.

“Something tells me we'll be doing both.”

This comment struck Twilight as needlessly ominous. I mean, Rainbow Dash can't be at the bowling alley, or Mr. Kingpin would have seen her. If she were there, where would she be?

Rainbow Dash tumbled hard onto the sand, and one thing occurred to her: “Hot! Hot! Hot!” She jumped into the air, shaking as hard as she could to get the blazing sand off her body. It was still like a furnace in the air, and she felt the sweat already flowing, but at least she wasn't actively getting burned.

Now her mind could return to the most important thing: that apparently, that freaky game had just sucked her in. She looked around with no small amount of trepidation. “If I'm dreaming, this would be a really good time to wake up,” she mumbled, and smacked herself several times across the face. No luck there.

She did seem to be properly in the game after all. Looking around, she recognized the beginning of the first level. There was the sand, stretching endlessly into the distance: there were the pyramids, and the blinding blue sky; and there, as she noticed with a start, was the first snake. It slithered under her hooves and through the disturbed patch of sand she'd made. Rainbow Dash gulped. If I hadn't gotten up so quickly...

“Hello?” she called, turning around. “Hello?” No response. “ANYONE!” Please don't let me be all alone in here, forever. Rainbow Dash might have sunk to the ground in terror, except that as she continued to turn, she saw something very unexpected.

In the opposite direction from the pyramids, floating in the sky, was a gargantuan picture of something it took Rainbow Dash a moment to recognize. Once she did, her mouth dropped in shock: it was the cover of Daring Do and the Serpents of Sakat, the same image that appeared at the beginning of the game—only in reverse. Even the words INSERT ONE BIT TO BEGIN were there, scrolling backwards along the bottom.

“It's the back of the screen!” Rainbow Dash vocalized. She flew up to the screen and knocked on it as hard as she could. “Hello? Can anyone hear me? I'm trapped in here!” When nothing happened, she flew back a few meters, then rammed the screen with her shoulder. She repeated this process several times, and while the bruise on her shoulder was growing quickly, the screen didn't even have a mark on it. She slumped against it in defeat.

“Hello?” Rainbow Dash's head whipped around at the faint sound. “Who's there?”

Sounds like it's coming from over... there! Rainbow flew off in the direction of the call, soaring over and around the game's obstacles with ease. Over the quicksand, across the bridge, and into the jungle level, where the canopy forced her to fly just above the ground—

A pony came from behind a bush in front of her, leaving Rainbow Dash no time to stop. She struck the newcomer like a bowling ball, knocking both of them to the jungle floor.

“Watch where the hay you're going!” the other pony yelled, as Rainbow Dash dragged herself to her feet and dusted herself off.

She turned to the other pony and began to say, “Watch where the hay you're....” The words died on her lips, and for several seconds she was unable to speak. Finally, she managed to squeak out, “Daring Do!”

“You expecting someone else?” she said. It was her in every detail—the pith helmet, the dusty gray mane, the pink eyes, the green vest, the tan coat with its compass rose cutie mark. There was even a bandage wrapped around one of her wings, which she was rubbing in some discomfort. Rainbow Dash might have noticed that she'd struck Daring Do there, but she had other things on her mind. Namely:

“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh! It's you! It's actually, really you! Oh my gosh I'm your biggest fan, I've read all your books ten times, except the newest one because it just came out but I'm gonna read it I swear! I've even got a costume of you in my house, it's really good—but don't tell Twilight, I'd never live it down if she found out I was such a huge egghead—but oh my gosh it is you! You're—you're awesome!”

“Always nice to feel appreciated.” Daring Do grimaced. “But what makes you think it is me?”

“Well, it looks like you. It sounds like you—well, sort of, I mean your voice always sounded a bit higher in my head when I was reading—but of course it's you! What are you talking about?”

“Look, kid, I hate to let you down and all, seeing as how you're her 'biggest fan', but...” Daring Do sighed and scratched her head. “I'm not really Daring Do.”

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Oh, sure, I look like her... and I am close. Love an awesome adventure... not that you get any of those around here....” She grunted. “But no joke—I've known, ever since this game was turned on, that I'm not the real Daring Do.”

“Hold on just a second—how the hay do you know you're in an arcade game?” Rainbow Dash asked, her mind still reeling in confusion.

Daring Do—as Dash stubbornly kept thinking of her—rolled her eyes, and pointed up and to the side. “Well, if I'm not in a video game, then that over there wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, would it?” Rainbow Dash looked where she was pointing and saw, through the thin cover of the jungle, the massive title screen floating in front of the first level.

“Course, it's not just that,” Daring continued. “I know it instinctively, deep down in my bones... as if I had bones,” she added, poking what would be her ribcage. “I'm nothing more than a blob of code. Not the real Daring Do.”

“You look real to me,” Rainbow Dash protested.

Daring snorted. “As if I needed more evidence that you're not from here. Just because this all looks real, does that mean it is?” She picked up some sand and tossed it in the air; it fell on Rainbow Dash, coating her mane and back.

Rainbow Dash blew the sand out of her face, then decided to try another tack. “Just what do you mean, 'the real Daring Do', anyway?”

“Dear Celestia, you're slow.” Daring walked away and sagged against a tree. “You'd better stay with me or you won't last five minutes either.... I mean the Daring Do from the books, the one I'm based on. The one who travels through incredible temples to find invaluable treasures—under her own steam. Me, I get controlled by a succession of morons, half of whom don't even know to jump over the first snake.” She gritted her teeth. “Which shouldn't even kill me, but there you go. Game design. Whatcha gonna do?”

“Um, the books aren't any more real than any of this.”

Daring Do narrowed her eyes. “What did you say?”

“They're just novels. That Daring Do isn't real either.”

Daring paused for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Probably should have expected that. Nobody here but us storybook characters, then.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Uh, you're the fictional one. I'm real.”

“Not anymore.”

“The hay do you mean?”

Daring Do started walking away. “Hey, don't leave me hanging like that!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Where do you think you're going?”

“Home.”

“You have a house here? I've never seen it in the game.”

“That's because it's not programmed. I built it on my first night off. Here's a question for you, though: Where do you think you're going? Your home? I seriously doubt it.”

“Wait, you mean I'm stuck?” Rainbow Dash did her best not to panic, and reverted to her usual state of cockiness. “How do you know I can't get out, huh?”

“None of the others have so far.”

Daring Do kept walking away, and it took Rainbow Dash a moment to figure out what exactly she'd been saying. “None of the others have...” she muttered, then stopped as the meaning hit her like a freight train. Her eyes widened, and what little moisture was left in her mouth seemed to vanish.

She dove in front of Daring Do to stop her in her tracks. “Hold on. How many ponies besides me are in here?”

“So, let's work through this logically,” the Doctor vocalized. “An arcade game shows up in Ponyville, decades ahead of its time. Rainbow Dash—the former Element of Loyalty herself—doesn't just get addicted, she misses an appointment with a friend. And you think there isn't a connection, Twilight?”

“She hasn't been to the bowling alley, Doctor. Mr. Kingpin said he hasn't seen her.”

“How long did it take you to get in yesterday?”

“Uh... twenty minutes,” Twilight replied. “But what's that got to do with anything?”

“Hell of a queue for entry. How much money is Mr. Kingpin getting out of this, do you reckon? How many bits an hour?” Still she didn't seem to see what he was getting at. Too innocent, perhaps, the Doctor mused. “Look, I can tell you there's something fishy about that arcade machine, but we won't find out what until we check. For now, ask yourself this: say Rainbow Dash found out. Who'd want her not to blab?”

Fluttershy frowned. “You're saying he made her disappear, somehow?”

“I wouldn't believe it,” Twilight declared. “Not of anyone in this town.”

“Oh, to be young and naïve.” The Doctor sighed. “That was rude, wasn't it... I must be a bit tired myself. The thing is, Twilight, I would. Believe it of him, that is.”

“Me too,” Derpy chimed in—somewhat needlessly in the Doctor's opinion. Is she looking for brownie points with me, then? He didn't feel a response was necessary; a moment later, as she shrank back a bit, he wondered if he might have been wrong.

“Well, in any case, the line's going to be even longer today,” Twilight said, as the four of them approached a corner. “How long do you want to wait?”

“Ugh, waiting.” The Doctor sighed. “Well, I've survived almost three months in little old Equestria—one queue shouldn't be too much of a hard....” They turned the corner, and he saw exactly what he was dealing with. “... ship,” he finished, feeling fairly certain that he looked fairly stupid.

It was a truly massive queue. Ponies stood nose to tail down to the end of the street, at which point they began standing nose to tail down the street beyond. “This must be half of Ponyville!” Twilight exclaimed. “We're never going to get in!”

“All right, then let's not use the queue.” The Doctor excused himself as he pushed his way through the queue, then started off parallel to it. The others followed close behind it.

“What do you mean now?” Twilight asked.

“Just watch. Oh, and nod a lot. Try not to get too inventive.”

“What?”

They walked right past the front of the queue and into the bowling alley, within which a distinct lack of bowling was going on. Every pony in the building was queueing, with the exception of a short stallion with a handlebar mustache who was minding that queue.

“Mr. Kingpin, I presume!” the Doctor called.

Mr. Kingpin, who had been stacking bits on a small desk at the side of the queue, looked up at them. “Hello,” he replied dubiously. “And you are?”

“Oh, Ms. Sparkle here has been telling me all about your marvelous... 'arcade machine', was it? Sorry, arcade game. Certainly a marvel of technology you've got here, as we say, Mr. Kingpin, and I was just wondering if I could take a look?”

“No, but you haven't answered my question,” Kingpin said, his mustache exaggerating his frown. “Could you please identify yourselves?”

“Well, you've met Ms. Twilight Sparkle here, and this is Ms. Fluttershy, and Ms... ah, Hooves, and they've been telling me all about your game, but me?” The Doctor quickly thought up an alias, choosing something that could explain his hourglass cutie mark. “Dr. Turner. Time Turner, to be precise.” Good old J.K. “I'm here with Marvels of Technology magazine, we do articles about, well, you can guess. Here's my card.” He pulled his psychic paper out of his pocket, thinking of the fictitious magazine and what its card might look like. Something flashy, probably.

Mr. Kingpin scrutinized the paper before handing it back. “Marvels of Technology, eh? I've never heard of you before—are you new?”

“Oh, very. I'm working on our second issue. It's just that there haven't been a lot of marvels of technology until recently, have there? Big sort of upsurge in the past few years. Is there anything you can tell me about this machine?” When Mr. Kingpin appeared unwilling to talk, the Doctor added, “You can expect compensation.”

“Well, I suppose that's all right. But I don't know what you're coming to me for, honestly. You probably want the technical stuff, don't you?”

“Well...” The Doctor shrugged. “Trying to attack it from every angle, actually. Technical, personal... everyone likes the hu—” He just stopped himself from saying 'the human touch'. What do ponies say instead? 'The pony touch' just sounds... dumb. It was taking him too long to devise an equivalent expression, so he canceled the attempt. “Point is, anything you can tell us would be marvelous.”

“Neat little catchphrase you've got there.”

A yell came from the next room. “Well, there's another Game Over for ya. Next!” Mr. Kingpin sighed and waved the next customer in the queue, a propeller-wearing colt, into the arcade room. “Celestia, I wish some of em would just go bowling,” he groaned. “More bang for your bit, really—spend time with friends, test your skill in a way that's not entirely ephemeral, and the lines were certainly better.”

“The arcade, Mr. Kingpin?”

“Right. Well, I purchased it from Shift Laboratories about a week ago—you'd probably want to go to them for the tough questions. All I can tell you is that I set it up, it's worked perfectly since it was turned on, and thanks to it I may as well be minting bits right now. Sure, it arrived a little late, but other than that, I can't complain.”

“Right....” The word came out automatically, for something had caught the Doctor's attention, and he had no idea what. Something Mr. Kingpin said? No, not that... there's something wrong in here... something... He peered around the room, trying to look casual.

“Shift Laboratories?” Twilight was saying. “As in Blue Shift, the great inventor? I wouldn't have expected him to have created this; it seems awfully... well... frivolous.”

“Yes, and that's not the only thing wrong with it.” The Doctor's voice had dropped to a low, urgent tone. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what was wrong. “Mr. Kingpin, you've just waved someone into the arcade game.”

Kingpin shrugged. “Course I did. The last guy just lost. You heard him.”

“And how do you exit the arcade room? Is there a door to outside?”

“No, you have to come through here. Why?”

“Because someone just went into your arcade room.” The Doctor leaned toward Mr. Kingpin and looked him in the eye. “But no one's come out.”

The words hung in the air in the same attention-grabbing way as a corpse might; the eyes of his companions widened, and Twilight's jaw went slack. Kingpin's eyes, on the other hand, did a spot of rolling. “Which means he's watching the next guy play. Happens sometimes.”

“Is he?” The Doctor walked around Kingpin's desk and poked his head into the room. “Perhaps you'd like to check that?”

“Of course he is. What else could have—” Kingpin walked to the room too, and his eyes finally widened. In front of the arcade machine stood the colt from before, and no one else.

“Don't mind us,” the Doctor said, noticing that the child was eyeing them with no small amount of confusion. “Doing a magazine spot on this, ah, incredible machine. Just was wondering if we could watch?”

“I guess so,” he replied in a nasally sort of voice. The Doctor got behind the colt as he resumed playing.

The game reminded the Doctor of something from Earth's early 1980's. A small, pixelated version of Daring Do ran across the screen, avoiding smaller, pixelated obstacles. Snakes slithered, water fell, and quicksand sank, but this colt was good; he evaded all the hazards and quickly progressed out of the game's desert level.

“Wow, that's kinda weird,” the colt said, stopping Daring Do in the middle of the jungle level.

“What is?” The Doctor leaned in closer.

The colt tapped the screen twice. “I don't think that was there last time I played this level....” The Doctor looked where the colt had pointed to see a few rainbow-colored pixels and a patch of blue poking up from behind a bush.

Twilight gasped and shoved her head beside the Doctor's. “That's not possible.”

“Hang on—if I can just change the view...” The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, clicked it a few times, then aimed it at the screen. “Oho. Strictly speaking, this isn't possible either.”

The view zoomed in and angled sideways. The blocky overgrowth of the jungle expanded, then zipped out of view as the screen slid behind the bush and came face to face with....

Rainbow Dash awoke with the opposite of a start, and groggily noticed—to her groggy disappointment—that the wall next to her was not the one in her cloud home. She was on a hammock inside Daring Do's cottage, and inside the arcade game, after all. It still wasn't a dream.

She tumbled off of the hammock and onto the dirt floor, thinking of their conversation from last night.

“Hold on. How many ponies besides me are in here?” she said.

“You should probably come to my house. Not good to spend so much time in the sun.” Daring Do tried to walk around her, but Dash spread her wings, blocking the path entirely.

“How. Many.”

Daring Do looked at the bandage on her wing and sighed. “Depends how you count. You see, plenty of ponies have come in here, same way you did. But they're not here now.”

“Where are they?”

In response, the adventurer sighed and hesitated a few moments, before delivering the news in a voice more somber than she'd been using. “Dead. All of 'em got killed within minutes of getting here. Most didn't even make it past that snake. There was this one kid who made it almost all the way to the jungle....”

“Dead?” Rainbow Dash's eyes widened. “No, they can't all be dead! They can't!”

“It's a tough game, you know. And they didn't have my advantage.”

“Advantage?”

Daring Do snorted, then walked back onto the main course and into the path of a poisonous snake. It bit her, and she immediately crumpled to the ground.

“Daring Do!” Rainbow Dash yelled, rushing toward her body—but it suddenly flickered out of existence.

“Advantage.” The voice came from further up the course. Rainbow Dash looked and saw, to her astonishment, Daring Do walking toward her. The expression on Daring's face was more annoyed than Dash might have expected, considering she'd just killed herself. “I'm the main character of this game. I get to respawn. They didn't.”

It was a scary thought, considering she was in the game too.

Hold on, Rainbow Dash thought. What time is it outside? She looked out the window, but that didn't help: the sun was directly overhead, just as it had been when she'd entered the cottage. It never moved in this game, except sometimes between levels. Time was fairly meaningless.

However, another clue alerted her to the time: Daring Do wasn't in the cottage. Rainbow Dash looked around what little of the cottage wasn’t easily visible, but she was alone. “Which means someone must be playing the game!” she vocalized. If I go to the level now, maybe someone will see me! Maybe they'll be able to get me out!

Sleepiness erased, she zipped out of the cottage and raced down the path to the level—where she stopped, almost dead. She would have been dead if she'd continued; there was a poisonous snake moving from side to side on the ground before of her. She looked up, hoping to find another way, but the foliage was too densely packed above her to allow flight. Horseapples, she thought, waiting behind a bush.

BONG BONG

The two loud tones shocked Rainbow Dash, and she jumped into the air. “What was that?” she yelled, looking around for the source of the noise.

“That's not possible,” said a voice. It was faint, but it sounded like it might just be....

“Twilight?” Rainbow Dash called, realizing where the voice and the sound must have been coming from. She looked up at the screen floating in the sky outside the jungle to see Twilight's face pressed right up against the glass. The Doctor's face was a bit further back, as was that of Fluttershy and a young colt wearing a propeller beanie.

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “It's me! Help!”

“Hold on,” the Doctor said. “If I can just change the view...” He pulled out a sort of metal wand that Rainbow Dash didn't recognize, and pointed its blue end into the screen. A high-pitched whistling pierced Rainbow Dash's eardrums. More importantly, the screen zoomed in toward her, shrinking in the process. It flew through the trees and around the bush, bringing Rainbow Dash face to face with Twilight.

“Oho. Strictly speaking, this isn't possible either,” the Doctor said.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed. “What happened? How did you get in there?”

“I'm sorry, Twilight. I know you said not to come in after hours but I couldn't help myself, and the game just sucked me in!”

“You broke the Pinkie Promise?”

“Well, actually I never really Pinkie Promised—” Rainbow Dash groaned. “Is this really important right now? You can sic Pinkie on me once I'm outta here!”

“Yes, yes, sorry—but I don't know how to get you out!” Twilight yelled. “There's no spells for this!”

“Then how'd I get in here?”

“Good question,” the Doctor muttered. He spun his wand in the air, then trained it on the screen.

“What are you doing?” Rainbow Dash yelled, hooves in her ears as the whistling returned with greater force. “Turn that down!”

“Sorry!” The Doctor gave his wand a little twist, and the noise died down to a nominal whine. “I need to figure out exactly what happened. What exactly this game does to its victims, like the pony who arrived just before.”

“Apparently....” Rainbow Dash gulped. “I'm the only one who's still alive.”

“But... everypony else in there is dead?” Fluttershy was quaking on her hooves. “Oh my goodness, that's awful! What happened?”

“Daring Do told me they couldn't make it past the first level.”

“Daring Do told you?” Twilight asked. “She can talk?”

“Of course she can talk!”

“Never mind that now, we need data!” The Doctor waved Twilight off, and continued pointing his wand at various sections of the screen. “If I can just get it to display...”

The screen went almost black, save for a few words in reverse. “No, no no no!” the Doctor blurted. Rainbow heard a smack from his side of the console. “It's realized I'm tampering and it doesn't like it!”

“What's happening?” she heard Fluttershy yell. “Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine! But you need to get out now!” For Rainbow had just figured out what the screen was.

“Why?” Twilight asked.

“Because it's about to suck me in!” the Doctor yelled.

The screen—PREPARE FOR AN ALL-NEW GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE—swirled in on itself in a way Rainbow Dash found horribly familiar. She felt an incredible wind against her once more—but now it was blowing from the screen. She saw the screen mutate toward her, like elastic with something pressing against the side. Then the Doctor's face burst through with a gasp—but only his face. The rest of him was still on the other side, like something—more likely somepony—was holding him back.

“Hold on, Doctor!” came a voice from the other side.

Stay tuned: Daring Do and the Cyber Spirits will resume in just a moment.