Chapters Celestia waited in the throne room of the castle. It was 1:35 am, and she was beginning to get doubtful that he would arrive. There was no pony with her, except for her personal body guard. The dark halls of the castle gave her an ominous feeling, like that of a bottomless pit before her.
Maybe I didn't try hard enough; maybe if I cast the spell again, he will come.
Celestia had been sending a beacon of light into the night sky regularly every thirty minutes. She started about six hours ago. She sent them as a signal, only to be used in desperation, and she was beyond desperation. She needed his help, because only he had the power to set things straight. Though he vowed never to return to that desolate place, she needed him to make one last trip.
Or, perhaps, he knows what I ask of him and refuses to break his vow. He knows a great deal of things. I should have never asked so much of him. It caused him great pain to do so in the past, and I imagine it will now. Oh Doctor, I am sorry, but I ask this of you one last time.
Just then, as if to answer her prayers, she hears it: that beautiful noise, that noise of wonder and mystery, of age and experience, of solitude and of everywhere; the sound of the universe. A blue box, labeled only as "Police Public Call Box", appeared before her.
A brown stallion emerged from the box. The Princess' guard pointed his spear at him menacingly. The stranger didn't flinch.
"It's all right, high alert. He's the one I've been calling for," she said calmly.
"And plus," the mysterious stallion said, "You aren't the most intimidating stallion I've seen around. Remember that one from 655 Princess? Yowza, he was mean."
"Doctor, I'm glad you're here-" she started.
"And then there was that minion of Sombra's, he was rather aggressive," he interrupted.
"Quite," she replied, "but I need you now do-"
"And there was that bouncier at that night club in 1345. Oh wait, you weren't there..."
"Doctor!" she shouted.
He widened his eyes at her, surprised at her sudden change in tone.
"I need you now more than I needed you when we first met! This concerns Luna!"
His expression changed into a serious one. "What is the year?"
"990," she replied with a sigh.
"You know I swore to never to return to her until the thousandth year of being on the moon. I cannot return there," the Doctor said.
"She has ten more years until you return her. I fear that she will resent us and still want revenge. I need her exile to end early, or else risking her wreaking havoc on Equestria," she said solemnly.
"And what, pray tell, do you want me to do with her when I take her with me?" he asked. "The risk would be the same if brought her back here and now."
Celestia had expected him to bring this up. She had a plan. "Take her with you. Take her from the moon. Return her to her formal self."
The Doctor raised a doubtful eyebrow. “I don't think that taking her through a crashing TARDIS ride to here-"
"Do it like you did back in the old days."
She walked over to a window and looked at the moon. "I can still feel Luna up there, but she isn't complete. Nightmare Moon is still within her. She needs you, and your adventures to bring her back. Make her complete."
He understood, and nodded. He walked back to his box. He turned and said, "Remember how I had to take her on your behalf? I could have given you all the time you needed to talk to her, but you chose banishment instead. That's why neither you nor her have traveled with me since."
"I... I was young then."
"And being you makes up for centuries of banishment, how?"
She couldn't answer. He sighed and entered the police box. The box faded away with the same noise it had as when it came.
Celestia dismissed her guard to the barracks, and when she was alone, began to cry.
Luna was looking up at the sky. She could see Equestria from where she was standing. She had been staring at the same place for many years, never blinking. It was the one place she wanted to be most; home.
She remembered what had transpired all of those years ago. She could never forget the feeling of regret she had ever since she was banished here, but at the same time she felt a seething anger for the two who had betrayed her: Celestia and the Doctor. She wanted them to forgive her, but at the same time she cursed them for what they had done to her. She felt split, right down the middle.
She could never forget the adventures that she had with the Doctor and her sister. She remembered a lot of things that she wanted to forget. She remembered when she had met the Doctor. She remembered his eyes.
Those ancient eyes...
She blinked for the first time in twenty years. She both hated and loved those eyes.
She lowered her head in solemn manner, wanting her punishment to end. She wanted to run into her sister’s arms again. She wanted to cry, but she had forgotten how.
When she began to walk back to her spot where she often slept, a small bed like place that she made when she was first sent to the moon, she heard a sound; the sound that had haunted her every day since her banishment.
The Doctor had returned.
He stepped out of his newly materialized box and gazed at her.
"You came back," she said.
"That I did," he responded calmly.
"I thought you swore to never return."
"I did."
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm here for you of course," he said smiling.
This made her angry. She shouted at him in her equestrian voice. "Do you think that you can just leave me here for almost one thousand years and expect me just to go with you again, like it's no big deal!?!?"
She began to change into Nightmare Moon. She walked up to him until she was looking down on him intimidatingly.
He didn't lose his cool.
"I came here to apologize," he said.
She was shocked. She looked down at the small (in comparison) brown stallion. He lowered his head.
"I am sorry."
She shook and faded back into Luna again. She collapsed on him and remembered how to cry.
"It's okay. Ssshhhh. It'll be alright," he said in a parental way, tears flowing on him. "Let's get you inside."
He led her into the box. It began to fade from the desolate wasteland that was the moon. It slowly blinked away.
She looked about the TARDIS. It was the same as she remembered it being; just as beautiful, just as impossible. He led her to a chair by the console in the center. She sat down on it. The Doctor, after giving her a hug, walked about the console. He pressed a few buttons and flipped a few switches. Luna instinctually pushed a red button on the side of the console. The Doctor always forgot to press that one.
He turned to her, seemingly unaware of the small correction she had made. "Okay, where do you want to go first?" he asked with a small fire in his eyes.
She looked up at him. "Why are taking me with you once again? I thought the last time I'd be in here was when you would take me back to Equestria."
The fire in his eyes dyed.
"Well... Tia has been feeling horrible about what she did and made me do, so she wanted to try to apologize. This was her way of saying sorry."
Anger built up in her again. She stood up and said "If she wanted to say sorry, she could have come here herself instead of sending you!" She stomped her right fore hoof.
The Doctor paused for a moment. "I know just where we're going first."
He quickly flipped more switches on the console and put his hoof on the main lever.
"If you think anything you show me is going to make up for-"
"Just give it a chance." With that, he threw the lever.
The whole room shook as the TARDIS attempted to land wherever he set it to go.
When the shaking stopped, he eagerly trotted to the door. He opened it. "After you," he said.
She walked over to him. She gave him a furious look, and stepped outside. He smiled and followed her out.
She looked about. It was a hilly field, nothing special. The sun was rising. It seemed so familiar. The cool breeze blew the soft grass against her hooves. It tickled her. The field was a part of an immensely large clearing in what appeared to be the woods. On the opposite side of the clearing, she saw something blue tucked behind a tree, and three figures standing near the blue thing. It looked like the TARDIS, but that couldn't be. It was just behind her. All of the ponies looked familiar, even thought they were to far away to see clearly. One of the figures was white, a unicorn with a colorful mane and a bit taller than the rest. The smallest was also a unicorn and was dark blue. The medium size figure was brown and an earth pony.
Luna couldn't figure out who they were. This whole place looked familiar. It looked like a place she used to play with her sister at when-
She suddenly realized who they were. That was her when she was a filly. That was Celestia. That was the Doctor. This was a place he had taken them to play. This was her best memory with the Doctor: a day of playing with her big sister, back when they traveled together. Luna's eyes began to water.
"This is the forest of Anaxon. This was you, when we first met. This was the field you played with your sister, Celestia with. This is the day you two decided to come with me. This was the first night you saw the universe."
Luna saw herself run around her older sister. She was so young. "But," Luna said, "What if they see us? Wouldn't that cause a paradox?"
"I've already taken care of that little detail," he said, gesturing to a small notebook in his hoof.
That, Luna knew, was the psychic paper. She looked at the younger Doctor. He pulled out his psychic paper and looked at it. "What does it say?" Luna asked.
"It says 'Don't be alarmed and don't look about fifty-six degrees to your right'."
Just then, the younger Doctor pivoted his head and looked right at them. He gave a small nod and went back to younger Celestia and Luna.
"You were happier then, understandably of course," he said. "Wouldn't it be great to feel alive again? To know that you're still happy somewhere; and to bring that happiness into your heart adn soul again?" She looked at him, unsure of what he meant. "Hrm, maybe you don't yet. But you will. Stay here and see what I mean."
Then he simply walked away, leaving here there still confused of what he meant. She tried to follow him with her eyes, but somehow he vanished into the forest. After continuing to look about the wooded area around her for about a minute, she directed her attention to her younger self. She watched herself skip and play with her older sister. They seemed so happy then.
As the day rolled on, the Doctor had gotten out from inside the TARDIS a blue ball for which Luna and Celestia to play with. This had made Luna very happy. She tossed the ball high into the sky while humming: "A big blue ball bouncing beside me. I am but bemused because this big blue ball beside me is but my best ball." Each time the ball came down, she bounced it higher and higher until it finally bounced into the forest. "I'll get it!" she cried. The Doctor and Celestia shook their heads and smiled.
Luna made her way to the edge of the forest. She looked up at the trees which towered over her. They scarred her a bit. "Do you want me to get it?" Celestia called out to her. "No! I've got it Tia!" Luna responded. Luna mustered up all of her courage that she could, and stepped into the forest.
Luna watched as the blue ball bounced up and down next to her younger self. She remembered the small alliterative poem she came up with. She hummed it quietly to herself. "A big blue ball bouncing beside me. Heh, alliteration is so scarce so I shouldn't start it again." She chuckled to herself.
She watched herself bounce the ball higher and higher, until it bounced into the forest, not too far away from where she was. Luna turned to go get it without thinking. She reached the ball and picked it up, and she realized what she had done: she would see herself and it would be all over. She had to find somewhere to hide before she could be seen; but it was too late. She heard a small filly approach her.
"Excuse me but, um, who are you?"
Young Luna wandered around the forest looking for her ball. She imagined the Doctor becoming angry if she had lost it, so she was determined to find it wherever it was hiding. "Gotta find it, gotta find it," she said to herself.
She rounded a tree and saw somepony standing there. Who could it be, she thought. It doesn't look like Tia or the Doctor, so who could it be? She decided to ask; after all, that was the polite thing to do.
"Excuse me but, um, who are you?"
The pony she was talking to turned and faced her. She was tall and appeared to be an alicorn like her. She seemed familiar to Luna; that purple coat and that sparkling midnight mane. Wait, Luna thought, she looks just like me.
"Oh, ah, here's your ball. I should be on my way now," the mare said as she set the ball down and began to walk away.
"Wait," Luna called out, "Why do you look like me?"
The mare stopped and slowly turned to face her. "Well, um... you see... I'm... oh this is complicated... I'm you from the future."
This made sense to Luna. After all, she did look just like her and their voices souded a bit alike (even though the mare's was a bit deeper). "Oh, okay," Luna said as she picked up the ball, "Thank you me. I'll just get back to our sister. Tell her I said hi by the way." Luna began to walk off.
"Wait!" older Luna called.
"Yeah?"
"Can you do me a favor?"
"Yeah, anything for myself." She giggled.
"Well, don't tell the doctor about this okay?"
"Why not? This seems like something he'd be interested in."
"Well, if you do it could bring about the end of the universe as we know it."
"I see."
"And plus, I didn't tell the Doctor when I was you, so therefore you shouldn't."
"That seems reasonable. Okay, I'll see you later when I look in the mirror." She giggled again.
She began to walk off towards the tree line, but stopped and looked at older Luna.
"Can I ask you something?"
Older Luna didn't see any harm as long as she was careful.
"Will I have a good time with the Doctor?"
Luna thought on this a moment. She had to admit to herself that she did have a good time with the Doctor, then a sudden realization hit her: she knew what the doctor meant earlier about being happy again.
She walked up to her younger self and said to her, "You are going to have the best of times with that old stallion. Don't ever think twice about it. It will all be worth it in the end, believe me."
"Okay."
"Luna! Where are you?" they heard Celestia call in the distance.
Filly Luna looked towards the tree line, and back at her bigger self. "It was nice meeting you. I'll see you around." With that, she ran off toward where her sister was calling from, ball with her.
Luna watched herself run through the forest, when a voice came from behind her. "Well, do you see now?"
She looked behind her and saw the Doctor standing there with the TARDIS right behind him. "Yes, I had forgotten what it was like to have a sense of happiness inside of me. I'll come with you."
The Doctor smiled a wicked smile again. "Okay, now as I've said before, where do you want to go first?"
Luna thought for a moment, and then said, "How about somewhere beautiful and dangerous, exiting and wonderful, strange and... well... timey-wimey."
The Doctor turned and walked back to the TARDIS. "Thanks for narrowing it down for me," he said sarcastically.
Luna chuckled and followed him into the TARDIS. It began to fade, leaving behind the sound of the universe behind it.
To be continued in part two.
Luna crept through the innermost bowels of the TARDIS, a small device in her ear. The Doctor had called it an earpeice, which seemed appropriate. It had a little microphone that extended to her mouth. With the speaker in her ear, he could give her instructions from... wherever he was. Luna didn't acctually know with him. He was supposed to stay in the console room, but, by the sound of it, he had made his way to the kitchen, food being a weakness of his. "Okay, *Slurpe* according to this *Crunch* yurn ne tuhn turn reft *gulp* right about here."
Varrious cables were dangling from the celing, and there was a faint smell of singed rubber in the air as Luna turned left down a new coridor. It was the same as the one before. It seemed almost depressing to see the interior of the TARDIS like this. The magical vessel had been with her through some tough times and seeing it in it's shotty condition almost disillusioned her.
She shook the feeling off and pushed forward. At the end of the hallway there was a door, which was not unlike the others in appearence except for one small detail. It was lightly, but noticebly covered in a silky material. "Doctor," Luna said, "I think I am getting close to their nest."
He sounded audibly surprized. "*Gulp* Yeah, you are. It says right here that you aren't more than twenty relative meters from it."
Luna became cunfused. "Relative meters?"
"M-hm. The TARDIS exists in multiple places simultaniously, so you are kinda right on top of it and about ninety kilometers away. Although, from your perspective, it's only about twenty meters. By the way, how did you know that you were there?"
"Well," she began, matter-of-fact-ly, "I've just found a door covered with"-she gave it a curious look- "web. I had assumed that since these things looked spider, they would make webs, but these are... stange and off-color."
"Luna, I don't know what those things are or even how they made this web that you're describing to me, so be careful. The scanner isn't penatrating the metal skin of... the spider. Let's just call them spiders, for the sake of ease. There's a small sample on the tail-ends of these that we disabled, but it will take some time to analyse, so move with caution."
She nodded and pushed forward through the door, careful not to touch the the silky strands. When she reached the other side, she gasped. The new hallway, much shorter than the last, emmited an erie, green glow. There were two doors on the left, a door on the right, and one at the end of the hall. Each of the doors were different, being that they appeared to be from different time periods. There was webbing everywhere; it was in the corners where the floor and celing met the walls. There were even more bundles of wires and exposed panels than before, and those too were covered in the webbing.
She gulped. It was creepy forn her seeing the TARDIS like this, even more so than before. Careful not to snag herself, Luna pressed forward. "Okay Doctor," she said timmidly, her voice ehoing down the many inner coridoors, "Where do I go now?"
There was a loud burst of static that came from the speaker in Luna's ear. "Just down the h- *ccchhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* and trun left."
"Doctor!" she yeled, her voice echoing louder, "Are you okay?" She backed towards the door that she had just came from. "Can you hear me?!?!?!"There was a moment of silence aand Luna hed her breath. There was then a groaning sound coming from the other end.
"Owwww, not so loud Luna."
She smiled and exhaled. "I'm sorry," she breathed, "You were breaking up there for a second."
"Funny," he said, a little distortion in his voice, "you sounded perfectly clear to me. Something must be going on with my end."
"It looks like we'll be offline for awhile," Luna remarked grimly.
"It seems so." There was a pause. "Well, if that's the case and I can't restore the com, then I'll give you instructions."
Suddenly, there was a loud boom coming from the direction Luna needed to be headed. She swiveled her head in alarm. From the door at the end of the hall, which was finely carved wood with an ornate, golden knob, there rose a small pillar of smoke throug the keyhole. She stared at it, fearing what could've caused it. The pillar was increasing in speed and the smoke was accumalating on the celing. Soon, in a few minutes, the room woud be coated with the thin, whispy smoke.
"Okay," the Doctor began, unaware of what was going on, "Your first step will be to locate the nest. If these mechanical things lay eggs, they'll have to be the first ones to go. Don't feel bad about it, they are just robots. Once that's done, their queen should get pretty mad and chase after you. The important thing to remember is don't let her-" The door burst open and fell from its hinges to the floor.
On the other side was at least twenty of the spiders that she had fought before. Luna, panicked, darted her eyes around the room, in search of an escape. Desparate, she dove for the nearest door on the left, which appeared like an old shack door like the ones in that first village so long ago. It swung open and she fell inside. Luna quickly turned and shut it before those spiders could get in. Luckily, she had closed it in time. The spiders were banging on it from the other side, trying to get at her. Thanks to an old failsafe the Doctor must've installed, the door must not open for anything other than a living organism Luna figured.
She took a deep breath, glad that she was out of the way of those things. It was then she noticed a static sound coming from her earpiece. "Oh great," she mumbled to herself.
She waited a moment, hoping that the doctor would fix it soon, A minute passed. She turned it off, not wanting to hear it anymore.
She took a moment to survey the room she had just entered. She couldn't see much. It was a tall room; Luna couldn't even see the celing. It just faded into nothing. There was a soft, blue glow coming from the center of the room, which was the only light source. It came from a small obelysk in the center of the room; only the very tip of it was lit though, or rather, it was from the tip where the light came. There was some sort of small, blue sphere hovering above it. There was a console in front of Luna, just in front of the pillar as well.
She approached the console. It was only a small keyboard, one of those infernal contraptions that she didn't know how the Doctor operated. She gave another galnce around the room, somewhat disappointed. Suddenly, a soft voice emminated from the center of the room. "Help," it said, echoing around the walls, making it seem to Luna that it came from all around her. Her eyes darted around the room, frightened. The voice was so... terrifying. But it was gentle. It was just about as impossible as the Doctor. Her eyes fell on the keyboard. Maybe the voice wanted her to type the word "help"? Or, perhaps, it was a trick. Maybe it was those evil spiders playing on her mind. She shook her head. It was most likely the TARDIS offering it's help to her. But then again...
Against her better jugement, she carefully put a hoof to the keys.
H-E-L-P
There was a sudden rumbling, like an earthquake, comeing from beneath her hooves. She feared that she had made a mistake. The shaking grew worse and worse, making Luna fall to the ground. She covered her head with her hooves.
Then, just as quickly as it had started, the shaking stopped. Slowly, Luna opened her eyes. The room remained the same. She stood up and looked all around her. What had just happened?
From the other side of the room, another blue glow lit up a portion of the wall. It seemed to come from nowhere. A simple, metal door was illuminated by the unknown light. Luna walked over to it suspiciously. She eyed it carefully, making sure it wasn't a trick, and then put her hoof to it and pushed the metal door open. She stepped inside.
The new room was very much different than the last. It looked very much like an assembly line from one of the factory planets she had been to. In the middle of the room, with conveyer belts on either side, stood a pedastal, which displayed something odd.
Atop it was... well, it looked like it was supposed to be a dog. It was a small, metal box with it's bottom being longer than the top, and underneath the base were little wheels. It had a little tail coming out the back, and on the other end it had a head, which looked a little too big for it's body. For ears, it had little radar dishes, a little round-looking thing for a nose, and three red bars for eyes, with a small suction sup in the middle. Around the neck, seemingly out of place, was a plad dog-collar. Luna would've thought it might've been cute, if it were functioning. She sighed, is this the help the TARDIS was providing? In the light, she didn't see it at first, but on the side were red, futuristic characters that read "K-9".
Suddenly, the eyes of the machine lit up. It raised its head up and a robotic voice said, "Systems initializing." Its eyes flashed a few times and mechanical sounds could be heard. It turned it's head towards Luna. It's voice came up again. "Do you require assastance, mistress?"
~
"And, Luna, once we finish we can all go out for bagels."
Silence.
"Helo? Luna?"
More Silence.
"Uh-oh."
He turned to the monitor in the kitchen. There was a map of the TARDIS on it and he saw Luna's blinking life-sign. So she was okay. Still, he didn't like her silence, that meant noone to listen to him. If only K-9 were still around...
~
"So, you used to be an assistant of the Doctor's?"
"Afirmative."
"And now you've come back?"
"At your request, mistress. I've downloaded all of the data from the relative time since I've been away up until this moment into my data banks and I'm ready to fuction. You are Princess Lunaris Artemis Eclipse of the planet Equestria."
Luna lowered her brow. She hated when ponies used her full name. "Just call me Luna," she said flatly. She turned her head in the direction of the door. Those spiders were probably still out there. "Do have defence systems?" she asked, concerned.
"Affirmative, Mistress Luna," he squeaked, "But they greatly drain my batteries."
Luna hummed in thought. Either they stay in there and get nothing done, or they go out there with the potential to get killed. What would the Doctor do...
Without hesitation, she said, "Let's go, K-9. We've a job to do."
"Affirmative."
~
The Doctor was crawling through a service tuunel. There were many of these scattered about the TARDIS, and though he usually used them for fun and most times getting lost, he was now using them for a purpose. He was on his way to the section of the TARDIS where Luna was at. She didn't hear the rest of his instructions, so he needed to remove whatever it was that caused it.
... He was also lost.
His injured leg was stiff as he drug it along with him. Every little bumb impeded him.
He had gotten used to the four legs in the few years he had been in... he stoped. "I haven't given this universe a name yet? Hrm, perhaps George?" He hadn't noticed that the conduit that he was in was shaking beneath him.
He fell through to the floor beneath him, in doing so landed on top of one of the spiders he had seen earlier. They were clawing at a shack door, trying to enter. He didn' care though, he was too focused on naming the universe that he was in. The spiders, for there part, had noticed this new intruder, mumbling to himself in deep thought. One of them turned to another as if to say, "What are we going to do with him?"
The other turned back to his friend, as if to say, "I dunno."
"Aha!" The Doctor turned his head up and the spiders turned to him. "How about: the Equest-verse!" His eyes lit up as he looked about at the spiders. His face fell.
"Bollocks."
~
Luna and K-9 approached the shack door, his little wheels making a small whirring noise. She turned to the robot dog. "Do you read any life signs? Or better yet, any sign of those spiders?"
K-9 clicked for a second, then replied, "There is no present data that can suggest any form of detecting mothods. I cannot scan for them without a functioning refrence."
She sighed. "Well, keep me posted if you find anything." She lifted a hoof to the door hadle. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"Affirmative," he said, extending his nose, where Luna had learned that K-9 held his lazer.
The hallway was empty, save for a single spider writhing on the ground. It looked as if though it had been crushed from above. Upon inspection of the room, something had fallen from above through on of the may conduits that layered the TARDIS. Cautiously, Luna approached the dammaged spider. It seemed to be only somewhat broken. Much of it's body and all but one of its legs were crushed, but its lights were still on and it was trying to limp away with it's one leg, even more desparately once Luna came close.
She turned to K-9. "Can you get any sort of readings from it now?"
The little mechanical dog wheeled up. There were more clicking and whirring sounds. After a moment, K-9 said, "Affirmative. There appears to be a damping field surrounding the creatures. I cannot see what is inside, but I can calibrate my sensors to detect the field."
"Do it," Luna commanded. She was begining to like K-9; he wasn't nearly as difficult to deal with as the Doctor was. She was about to set off for the door from which the group had come from earlier, but then she had a thought cross her mind. "K-9, is there anything special about the field?"
More of his scanning noises. "The field has similar properties to those used by Salarian agents to hide bio-signs."
Luna's eyes widened. "The Salarians? Last time we saw them, they tried to sabotage to TARDIS. What are their damping fields doing inside here?" Luna thought for a moment. "K-9, can you use your lazer to make an incision into these spiders?"
"Affirmative."
"Do it," she ordered.
There was a pause, and then K-9's nose extended and aimed itself at the spider. A small line of red light came from it and hit the spider right on the midsection. The beam slowly rotated in a circle, and eventually a peice, big enough to fit a hoof in, could be removed. The lazer retreated back to the robot dog.
Luna removed the piece, letting it hit the floor with a small pang. On the other side, there were thick windings of various power cables and wires, all of which were some dark shade of grey, matching the exterior of the hull.
Pushing these away, Luna dug deeper into the body of it. She made progress when she came across some sort of soft, slimey substance. She prodded it with her hoof, and in doing so caused the spider to... wince, almost as if it were in pain.
Luna pried more of the hull open with her magic. Shoving more cables out of the way, she gasped. Beneath all of the mechanisms and wires was a living being. Its flesh was a pale pink with little fur coming out of it, like the fuzz on a peach. It was shaped like the heart of a pony, but she could see more of it going off into the legs. She felt a great deal of sympathy and pity for this creature, being crushed in the way it was. There was no visible face, but she could tell that it was scared by the way it trembled.
"Oh my," she breathed.
~
Atop a wave of mechanical spiders sat the Doctor, defenceless to whatever kind of torture or interogation they might subject him to. He was also more than a little irritated.
"Hey! Watch where your going! I nearly hit my head on that last pipe!"
The place that they were going through was like the hallway that he had been captured in, only worse. Webbing coated every substance and the thick, green glow made it somewhat hard to breathe. They spared no time in making the TARDIS their home.
The group of spiders went through many twists and turns before coming to an antechamber, one that the Doctor hadn't recognized as a part of his TARDIS. "Hey," he said curriously, "This wasn't here bef-" Before he could finish his thought, the spiders dumped him on the ground. "Ow! Not nice guys, and I thought we were just getting along!"
The antechamber stood high, perhaps about fifteen meters tall, maybe twenty. The room, despite the rest of the TARDIS, was made of stone. It seemed almost ancient, the way the large wooden set of double doors seemed to give an ominous feeling of great and terrible grandness, almost as if some great and terrible grand thing grand thing lay beyond, like a king of sorts. On either end of the room, to the Doctor's left and right, were two machines. They hummed and sizzled in quiet function, their tall pillars of metal rising up and down. The Doctor noticed that one looked rather damaged, with a small line of smoke rising from it's back.
Two of the spiders which had carried the Doctor to the antechamber entered the room beyond. They only opened the door slightly, so the Doctor couldn't get a good view of the inside. There were a few moments of silence while he and his mechanical captors waited for the outcome of what would almost certainly, in the Doctor's mind, be a bad thing. The quiet was broken after a few minutes when the two spiders that had left the room had momentarily re-entered. They gave a signal to the others, who then started to poke and prod the Doctor, making him advance forward. He didn't like this treatment; they ordered him around too much. Begrudgingly, he followed them. The massive doors swung open at their approach, almost, it seemed, on their own.
This room, which he guessed, was the main chamber. There were four pillars racing high beyond the Doctor's sight. At the other end of the room, there stood an equally tall arch. At either end of the room were more of the machines that he had seen in the antechamber, humming as the metal rods rose up and down.
As his eyes grew used to the low-light, he saw what appeared to be little, slimey hearts with legs. They were in small groups; huddled together in apperant families. Though he could see no face, the Doctor could tell that they were looking at him. "Aaahhh, so their suits of armour, not robots. How was I not able to detect that?"
Another cursory look around the room indicated that it was a very busy place. Spiders, in their metal suits, raced around the room to the different family groups huddled around the room, carrying with them jars of green ooze. He watched one in particular bring it to one of the families, one of aout six spiders. It gave it to them, and as soon as they got it within their reach, they dumped it onto the floor and began to roll around in it.
"Hm, so that's how they eat. Interesting..."
Suddenly, there was a great rumbling in the room. All turned to the empty archway. The green glow that illuminated the room grew brighter around the archway, as if all of the light from the rest of the room was being sucked towards it. The light formed a wall, like a window in the archway. Through the wall of light, stepped one large spider leg. And then another. And another. Soon eight legs pulled through a body, much like the others and much larger.
At the appearence of the super-spider, all of the rest around the room began to hammar their legs to the floor, making a fast, steady beat. The beast rose to full hight, and a great voice of a woman came from it.
"Let the trial begin!"
Sighing, the Doctor shook his head from where he stood across the room. "It just isn't my day, is it?"
~
The intruder pulsed slowly. It levated towards a console. A small arm began to protrude from its seemless exterior. Systematicly, it began to program a flight course.
Author's Note
I'm back! ... Again! ... Yeah. Let's-let's try this again, shall we?
New chapter next week. The exciting conclution to The Web! What will happen at the Doctor's trial? Why do the spiders have rare cloaking tech? How are they going to get rid of the intruder?
“No.”
“But I-“
“No.”
“But you-“
“No, Doctor! I said no! We are not going back to Weeb-Am-Nah Four!”
“Buuuut it has an amazing sunset!” the Doctor whined.
“We nearly died!” Luna retorted, flabbergasted (flab-er-gast-ed).
“But do you remember the sunset?”
Luna growled. “Of course I do!” she screamed. She remembered the way the green sky was lit by the deep blue sun, and the beautiful stars that followed; but what she had forgotten was the way she felt about it. Well, at least until she yelled at him. She thought back to the event, and how her emotions melded with her eyes in order to process the beauty that she was seeing.
Luna had drifted from the conversation. The Doctor knew that she was going to need some work before she was ready to go back to Equestria. This was not the first mission that he had been sent on, but he preferred to travel freely, which is why he wanted to waste no time in getting Luna back to her former self. He wanted to travel with her again, the true Luna.
“Well…?” he asked.
Luna shot back to reality and glared at him in the eyes. “No, Doctor,” she said calmly, “I want to see something new.”
He smiled. “That’s all you had to say.”
There was a calm moment between them before he shot to the console and began to hit buttons and flip levers at random. Luna came to the areas where he had already been and fixed the mistakes he made as he went; he made quite a few.
They were plotting a random course without thinking when a violent quake erupted from the center of the console. Bothe Luna and the Doctor noticed that this sudden shake was not the usual flying-through-time shake that they normally experienced. They gave each other quizzical looks when a bright, with lite emitted from the central pillar, blinding the two pilots and simultaneously knocking them to the floor.
Before either of them could react to the new addition to the TARDIS interior, a voice seemed to emanate from it: “LET THE TRIAL OF STRENGTH BEGIN!” Another white flash filled the room, this one coming from the sphere itself, though not nearly as bright. When the light died away, the Doctor, with a stern look on his face, walked up to the sphere and began to argue at it.
“What do you think you’re doing in my TARDIS? You’re making flashes of light, shaking everything and making a booming voice that has given me a headache! Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“You’re ignoring me eh? Well that’s not going to work! It never works! I usually annoy those who ignore me!... and those who don’t for that matter.”
No response.
“HELLO! Are you even listening to me?” With that, the Doctor reached out a hoof at the sphere and poked at it. This was a bad idea, both ponies realized, for the Doctor, after poking the intruder, was thrown back against the console in a cone of electricity.
Luna was flooded with panic when she ran to the Doctor’s side as his mane sizzled. She put her hooves on his shoulders and shook him, in an attempt to wake him. “Doctor!”
He sat up abruptly, his eyes wide and his mane frazzled. The suddenness made Luna pull back from him. “Well,” he breathed, “Now we know something about it: don’t poke. They should really put that in big, red letters on it.” He shakily pulled himself up to the console and pulled the screen into his view. Luna put her hoof on him. He shook her off. “I’m fine. I just need to see what our visitor what talking about when he said the thing about the ‘strength trail’, or what have you.”
Luna saw that her friend was unwell. He was obviously injured from the blast. She decided to do something that she knew the Doctor wouldn’t like, and she was determined to fulfill her decision. “No,” she spoke firmly, “I am taking you to the medical quarters.”
He gave her a confused look. “There’s a med bay?” he asked. Luna nodded. “Hrmf. Well, I’m not going, and nothing you say can change tha- PUT ME DOWN!” Luna had expected him to be unreasonable, so she cast a levitation spell to cease any sort of resistance that he might give. He did not like her methods.
As he continued yelling at her to put him down, she made a beeline to the door leading into the inner depths of the TARDIS, making sure to avoid the silver sphere that had injured her friend.
~
She set her struggling friend down on a bed after making her way through the twists and turns of the confusing TARDIS interior. Though she had put down the Doctor, she did not release her magic; he was still trying to break her hold, but to no avail. She sighed as she looked at him. One who didn’t know him might have taken him for being stupid and childish. She decided to give him more of a hint than just her looks and her sighs. She spoke frankly. “Look,” she began, “I’m not releasing you until you settle down and stay put until I can fix you up. Understood?”
He eyed her, in a childish anger, and then relaxed.
She took this as a sign of his compliance. She released her friend from the dark blue aura that surrounded him. He laid there, hooves crossed and making a pout. She rolled her eyes as she inspected him. There were definitely burns at the points where the electricity hit him. She began to work some magic on his maladies.
After patching up the Doctor, she noticed him looking about the room. He seemed to have never been in here before. Knowing his stubbornness, she was not surprised. She stepped back from him, signifying to him that she was done. He took notice of this and looked at her. He gave a thankful smile at her. She smiled back. His gaze shifted to behind her and his eyes got big. Luna shot him a quizzical look and turned to see what he was looking at. There, in front of her, were four metal spiders, roughly the size of a large dog. They clicked at her menacingly, almost as if they were challenging her. She around the room
~
After a short scuffle involving Luna levitating the bed onto three of the spiders and the fourth being deactivated by the Doctor wielding the sonic screwdriver, the two ponies made their way through the twists and turns of the TARDIS interior, trying to make their way to the console room. They came across the door leading to their destination being blocked by two more of the mechanical arachnids.
The two equines were ready for the attack created by their foes. Luna, after dodging the spiders that leapt at her, blasted one with a dark blue energy from her horn. The second spider took to chasing the Doctor around the hallway. They were surprisingly quick for their size. He eventually led it into the console room where he was able to disable it by running around the console and waiting for it to make the turn to face him with the sonic in hand. One press of the button was all it took for the spider to fall to the floor lifelessly.
Once Luna had entered the console room and the Doctor caught his breath, they took time to study their disabled foe. The Doctor began to sonic the spider from all angles. “Well,” he stated while stopping his scanning, defeated, “I’ve never quite seen anything like it. It has no real origin. It is, quite literally, without any sort of aging at all. Something that cannot age can only be made in the TARDIS, but that’s impossible. I don’t build spiders in my free time.”
Luna gave a sideward glance to the sphere, which was still in the same spot as they had left it. “Do you think that those… things, came from the sphere?” she asked him nervously.
He shrugged and craned his head towards it. “It’s entirely within the scope of reason. It came here, and not ten minutes later, there they are.” He chuckled. “That sphere reminds me of a Void-Ship, but it does exist here, so I guess it must be able to move somehow.”
He pointed the sonic at it and pressed the button. This caused the sphere to lower noticeably, causing both ponies’ eyes to go wide. The Doctor ran over to the view-screen and began typing something on the console. Luna, exited to see what her friends had discovered, hurried to the screen as well.
“Aha!” the Doctor proclaimed, in a state of having an epiphany, “Why didn’t I see it before?” He turned to Luna, his excitement growing. “That… for the sake of identity let’s call it the Intruder, is broadcasting a signal to the spiders on a frequency that the sonic can disable! The Intruder also functions on that same signal! We can knock it out with the sonic!”
“That’s great!” Luna agreed, feeling pumped. Finally, things were going to be simple, she thought.
“There’s just one problem though,” he said, his face dropping.
Never mind.
“The sonic” he began, waving it in front of her face, “isn’t powerful enough to disable it alone. We need something that will focus its energy onto the Intruder. Normally, I could focus it right here using the console but…” He trailed off.
“But… what?”
He sighed. “The only place that has the kind of tech that we need is run by a pony whom I’ve had a quarrel with.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “What did you do?” she asked like a mother would a foal.
“I…” he began, rubbing the back of his head, “May have killed his dog and set his money on fire.”
“WHAT?” Luna asked, surprisingly surprised, which surprised herself.
“Hey! It was a necessary accident!” he defended.
Luna shook her head while holding the bridge of her nose in her hoof. “Just… just go,” she said, annoyed.
The Doctor hung his head low as he reached for the lever. He put his hoof on it and gave a pathetic, big-eyed face to Luna, like a foal who didn’t want to eat their vegetables.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Now,” she said flatly.
He hung his head low and pulled the lever…
… and nothing happened.
The Doctor gave a worried look at the console and continuously flipped the lever back and forth. Luna took this as stalling. “Look at it this way: the sooner you start, the sooner you finish.”
The Doctor shot her a peeved look. “What? You think I’m doing this intentional-“
“Yes,” she said plainly.
He was taken aback in surprise. “Well… I’m not. There’s something preventing the TARDIS from moving. It’s like something’s is anchoring us here.” He walked about pressing buttons. “Maybe I can decrease the area of time that the TARDIS is taking to shake it.”
Luna followed him and, confused, asked, “Decrease the area of time?”
“Yes,” said he, focused in his work. “Imagine if you were holding a ring with a two-inch diameter along a ruler. You would occupy more than just one point, right? Well, the Timelords who built this model TARDIS used the same Idea to get to locations more quickly. The ring is the area of time and the ruler is time itself. If the area was to shrink and the anchor was to be outside of it, it might release us.” He pressed a few last buttons and returned to the lever. He looked at Luna, determined. “Okay,” he said in a breath, “here we go.”
He flipped the lever. All hell broke loose.
~
Luna awoke on the floor of the console room with a headache.
She looked around. The room was dark and the central column was glowing blue. All around there were bits of machine and electronics scattered about. Luna found herself resting on some of the railing. She gathered her strength and tried to stand, but found that the room was tilted. She had to catch herself on the same rail that she had awoken upon. Her weakened state in addition to the new angle of the room had left Luna disoriented and dizzy.
Her mind was reeling. She tried to remember what had happened; only it was as if a haze had dropped over her mind. She could only think of one thing to do.
“Find the Doctor,” she said, dazed.
Luna looked about the messy room. She slowly started to move while holding her balance on whatever she could get her hooves on. There were ropes of wires hanging from the ceiling and bits of metal were scattered about the floor. Her eyes scanned, unfocused, around the console. Something was wrong. Her vision was blurry, so she couldn’t quite make out what it was. On the console there were some devices that had come loose, or off, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. She starred hard and tried to make her eyes focus. Her sight began to clear and she realized what was wrong:
The Doctor was cut in half. All she could see were his hind legs waving about in the air. His front half had disappeared into the floor. Luna’s eyes went wide as she suddenly found enough strength to run a triathlon. She ran over to him, and as she did she slowly regained her senses. The primary thing she noticed as this happened, was a noise. It was not just any noise, but, rather, it belonged to the Doctor in pain.
His wasn’t a particularly clear voice; in fact, it was rather muffled. It wasn’t on the fault of Luna’s hearing, for she could hear the groaning TARDIS and some sparks shooting off just fine. It was because, as she realized when she arrived at his side, the Doctor’s front half was stuck into the floor. He was shouting, not just in pain, but in annoyance as well.
Luna approached the situation cautiously, making sure no to harm herself or make herself a victim as well. “Lna! Lna! Get mh ou of ere!” she hear him yelling. He apparently was thrown through a grate on the top of the staircase. Looking over him quickly, Luna began her attempts to free him. She tried to levitate him out, but the grates would scrape him too deep for her liking. When she stopped, she heard him say, “Dmph pl mho u!” From what she could tell, he had said: ‘Pull me out!’
So, as much as she didn’t want to, she began to tug harder and harder with her magic, all the while he was shouting. She figured that he was shouting words of encouragement to her. It looked as if he wasn’t going to come free. She thought about giving up. “No!” she said aloud. She prepared for one final pull, and yelled, “For the Doctor!” With that, she pulled as hard as she could. He started to slowly come out, the metal sinking into his skin and drawing blood at many points. It was slow progress until, suddenly, he popped free.
He was levitating in Luna’s aura and gave a loud scream. He glared at her seriously. “OW!!!” Luna, taken aback, slowly lowered him to the ground. It took him a second to balance himself; he extended a hoof to some nearby railing. He looked at the ground, panting. After a few seconds, he slowly raised his head and wearily said, “I said ‘Don’t just pull me out.’”
He locked with her sorry eyes, until he cringed with pain. “You need to go back to the Med Bay.”
“No,” he said, hurriedly. He walked slowly to the console. “That can wait. We need to get out of here and someplace safe. Then, we might worry about my injuries.” Luna began to protest, but he silenced her with a hoof. “Don’t argue with me.”
Luna never liked seeing this side of him. She looked at his deep wounds. They were still bleeding slightly. She bit her lip. She dare not trifle with him when he’s in this state. She slowly made her way next to him. The Doctor was typing on the typewriter that was attached and brought the view screen over. “Well?” Luna asked.
“Well,” he began, focused. “We seem to have shaken the anchor, for the most part. But there is still something preventing us from going anywhere. Hmmmm…” He starred into the screen. Luna looked at it from behind him, but she barely got a glimpse before he threw his hooves into the air. “I’ve got it!” He turned to her. “Remember those spiders? Well it appears that they have made a nest.”
The Doctor just rolled his eyes. “My goodness, Luna. Don’t be a species-ist. Just because they are mechanical in nature doesn’t mean that they can’t build a home. It just means that we have to destroy it.”
To be continued...
Author's Note
Sorry about the wait. Now that school has started once again, I'll be able to write more. My current goal is to publish a chapter of this every two weeks.
Thanks for reading.
