Chapter Five
The Fall of Torchwood
Telltail Twirler edged forward, slowly and uneasily. The small colt glanced this way and that, desperately hoping to catch sight of somepony that could help him.
It felt like a nightmare. The kind where he was lost in an unfamiliar place with feelings of hopelessness and insecurity consuming him…
Pretty much that nightmare exactly.
Every now and then he got a chilling feeling on the back of his neck, a tingle that made him shiver. As if he was being followed.
But every time he looked back there was nothing there.
Maybe he was going insane.
He came to a halt in front of a tall, oak door left ajar.
“Help. Anypony…please…” he whimpered timidly.
He could have sworn he heard the sound of wings flapping. He jerked his head to the right, but the sound already vanished.
Warily, he began to turn back to his original path, but stopped when he noticed something shining underneath the big oak door.
It was a light. A muted, lime green light that was the same color as his magic.
To Telltail, it was the answer to his prayers; some kind of sign. There had to be ponies down there.
With a mighty heave that utilized every ounce of his foalish weight, he opened the door. It revealed a dimly lit staircase, leading down into darkness so thick it hid the bottom.
The only thing he could see was the tiny, pulsing, green light. He moved towards it, like a moth drawn to a flame.
“H-hello?” he called, making his way down the stairs.
The light moved.
“Hello. I-I’m lost!” he called again. “What is this place-”
He ran into something cold and hard. After his head realed back from the impact, he took a step back to see what it was.
He squinted, looking up and down, and his eyes grew wide as it dawned on him. It was a cage with steel bars.
These were the dungeons!
He started to backpedal urgently.
“Telltail…Twirler…” spoke a raspy, tired voice.
He froze.
“How do you know my name?” asked the colt, ducking down in fear.
“Come here,” said the voice, calling from the light. “I know you’re afraid…I know you’re frightened. But there’s something I must tell you…”
“What?” asked Telltail, trying to make himself look small as he inched towards the light.
As he got closer he found himself looking at a ragged stallion. The green light emanated from his horn, growing and ebbing like it was gentle heartbeat. But even with the magic’s light, his face was kept in the shadow of his messy, dirt-coated mane.
The stallion looked up slightly, but not enough for Telltail to see his face.
“You came to me…you were curious about what I had to say?”
Telltail nodded. The stallion’s lips twitched into a smile. It was hard to tell, but he looked proud.
“That’s good…even though you were afraid, you went forward to find answers. Tell me…what are you afraid of, Telltail?”
“What I’m afraid of?” Telltail asked nervously.
The stallion nodded gently.
Telltail looked down and thought for a moment. “The dark…I’m afraid of the dark.”
The stallion in the cage gave a wheezy chuckle. “Nothing to be ashamed of. I am too. What else?”
“Spiders. Their legs are too spindly to be natural. A-and asteroids. They told us in school what happens if one crashed into Equestria.”
“But that’s not all, is it?”
Telltail scraped his hoof on the dirty ground. “No…”
“Telltail, please tell me. It’s okay.”
“I’m…I’m afraid of ponies.”
“Like me?”
“No…you’re dark and mysterious. I’m not supposed to understand you. But, somehow, I’m supposed to understand other ponies, and talk to them as if I do…my dad says I shouldn’t be afraid of them, and I won’t be a colt for much longer. I-i started taking notes, on the ponies around me, so I could try to understand. And I told him I’d try to make some new friends…but, I don’t know…”
“That’s alright. You can still be afraid, Telltail, every single pony has things they’re afraid of. Even Princess Celestia. But if you do want to understand, then you have to be greater than those fears, just like how you were greater than the dark when you came here.”
The stallion sighed sorrowfully.
“I want you to know, Telltail Twirler, that you will be very brave. Sometimes, you’d surprise even me with how brave you were. You will learn so much and do great things. You will fight monsters and feel the love of a princess who you will come to know as the wisest, most beautiful, and wonderful pony in all the world. Sometimes, you might even understand her. Just know that. Please…remember that…”
Telltail looked confused. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I can’t keep my eyes open for much longer.”
The Weeping Angel behind Telltail made its move.
In the blink of an eye, the colt was gone.
And yet he was found, over one thousand years ago.
The destitute and homeless colt would have to survive on his wit and magic alone in the ancient city of Rheostallion. That is until, one day, his youthful skill would be noticed by one Princess Celestia when he teleported to escape a particularly angry fruit vendor.
A single tear trickled down the stallion’s smiling face. “You didn’t do half bad…Telltail Twirler.”
He glanced back at his flank to his partially covered cutie mark: two intertwined quills. The same as Telltail Twirler’s.
He had woken up in the dungeons three days ago. At first he thought that he’d died. That he had been killed by The Great Intelligence, over a thousand years ago. But then he remembered the stallion in the cage, and he realized his destiny.
Shakily, he got to his hooves. He had not eaten or drunk in three days, and no one had noticed him. It was only through sheer willpower he was able to stand.
The Weeping Angel had its sights set on him now, oblivious to the paradox. It wanted to eat him once again. But Telltail Twirler had other plans.
The cage was built to suppress magic, to hold it in and ensure that no unicorn, no matter how powerful could escape. Every flare of his magic poured more and more power into the air around him, and the cage did it’s job, the raw energy became more compressed every minute. The air crackled, as if it was alive with electricity. All it needed was a single spark…
“I didn’t do half bad…”
He closed his eyes.
He could hear the Weeping Angel as it took the steel bars and tore them off the door.
He grimaced, pushing one last surge of magic through his horn.
The dungeons were suddenly filled with sparkling light, and the Weeping Angel was consumed, atom by atom. The light was like fire burning away at tree.
The magic took nearly all of the Unicorn’s life force, but the sudden burst purged the Quantum Lock, and then stripped the stone, layer by layer, until there was nothing left but dust.
Telltail knew destiny was a funny thing, but it was excellent at managing long term goals.
As soon as his magic was done, he fell back to the floor, exhausted and immobile. But, unexpectedly, still alive.
Perhaps his destiny wasn’t over yet…
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Big Macintosh was left staring at the metal floor.
He could hear the urgent clatter of hooves everywhere around him. All the Princess’s ponies were preparing to fight. Torchwood was going to face the enemy at its gate.
And Big Macintosh stood still in the center of it all.
“Nnope,” he whispered.
He didn’t understand how the Sergeant could be dead. Her manic smile and fearless eyes were gone for good.
He slowly lifted his face up to see Lyra. She paused in the middle of loading an energy pack into a blue laser rifle.
“Give me a gun,” he said.
“You’re not authorized to access firearms, alien or otherwise,” she said. She didn’t look away from him, expecting some kind of rebuff.
“Give him a gun, Lyra,” said Captain Jack, behind her. She turned around to face him.
“Give him the biggest gun we have.”
She glanced back to Mac thoughtfully. “Yes sir,” she said after a moment. She went off to carry out the order and bring up the biggest piece of firepower they had in the armory.
Big Mac trotted towards Jack carefully, wondering what was going on behind his partner’s empty expression.
“Jack. Are we going to survive this?”
He gave a small smile at that. “Well, it’s unlikely. But anything can happen.”
“Captain!” said a stallion standing at attention. His eyes were bloodshot from crying. The Private. “I would like permission to use Torchwood weaponry as well…I…I want to kill those alien sons of bitches.”
Jack didn’t hesitate or bat an eye. “Permission granted.”
The Private nodded, and then bounded after Lyra.
Big Macintosh sighed. “I think the Sergeant was the only thing holding that colt together…”
“She still is,” replied Jack.
Luna made her way through the mass of hurrying ponies, up to the two stallions, a grave seriousness about her. “It is time,” she said simply.
They nodded.
When it was all set, there were fifty ponies, all armed to the teeth with anything from machine guns to grenade launchers to magic slingshots. Big Macintosh himself had a small canon strapped to his shoulder, and the Private had taken up a shotgun. They stood at attention in the hall, by the elevator. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood before them.
“Well then, my brave little ponies…it appears that our worst nightmares have been realized. An enemy of incredible power and infinite evil has come. Torchwood was never supposed to be an army, and you all were never supposed to be soldiers. I know that before me I see a few who do think themselves soldiers, but that was never my intention. When I founded this institute, so long ago, I had hope that you would lead us into a bright, golden future. Instead, we have been cornered and transformed into the final line of defense. But defend we must. For though today, we may all be only soldiers, we are soldiers because we are also friends, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, brothers…and sisters.” She paused, and looked to Luna. “And we find it in our hearts that our responsibilities and our love held within those titles are as infinite as the evil we face, and the power that comes from them may also be incredible.”
She looked over the Torchwood ponies.
Captain Jack Harkness. Lyra Heartstrings. Big Macintosh. Donut Joe. The Private. And all the others. They all stood resolute, despite their fear.
She swallowed. “Captain Harkness, are we prepared?”
“Yes, Princess,” said Jack, his coat discarded, and a machine gun tucked under his wing.
“Then we shall fight. We shall defend.” With her magic, she pressed the elevator button.
The doors opened slowly behind her, standing between it and her small army, prepared to lead them into battle.
“For princess and country!” shouted the Private.
“For princess and country!” exclaimed the other ponies, in agreement.
Celestia allowed a tiny smile to slip into her lips.
But it didn’t last long. She disappeared, revealing the Weeping Angel in the elevator that had taken her.
“Sister!” shouted Luna in shock.
In an instant Lyra’s horn pulsed with magic, and she tried to close the doors, but the Angel’s hoof was in the way.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
A cacophony of explosions and gunfire burst against the single exposed hoof, blowing it to smithereens.
“Stop!” ordered Lyra. “I activated the time lock. There isn’t a molecule that can move in that elevator shaft. It’s trapped.”
As soon as she had spoken, something crashed into the elevator doors, denting it outward. She gulped.
“The Angel’s too powerful now! And for all we know it could be feeding off the time radiators that we used to make the lock,” said Jack, standing onto two hooves and taking up the machine gun.
“WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR POWER! THEY SHALL BE DESTROYED!” bellowed Luna in her Royal Canterlot voice, her horn glowed furiously.
“Wait!” shouted Jack. But it was too late. A beam of her magic blew through the reinforced elevator doors. For a moment everything was obscured, but when her light abated, all three angels were clawing their way out of doorway.
Without order, every single armed pony opened fire. The air was filled with fire, lasers and bullets.
When the smoke lifted, twelve ponies had disappeared. Six had their necks broken. The Angel that took Celestia struck to kill, as was evident by the snapped neck of a scientist between its hooves.
“Everypony get out of here, retreat to the Donut Shop!” ordered Jack, dropping his gun. Big Macintosh shrugged the canon off his shoulder, his spent canon ball lodged in one of the angels’ chest. Jack turned to Luna, whose eyes were ablaze with dark Alicorn magic. “Luna, you have to get out!”
His words fell on deaf ears.
The private too, refused to move, and had resorted to beating the angel over the head with his gun. He had a manic glint to his eyes and didn’t notice the Angel’s hoof pointing towards the overhead lights…
With a single flicker of the electric bulbs, the Private and Luna were gone.
Lyra, Jack, and Mac were the last ones left in the hall. They backed towards the Hub slowly.
The Angels grew closer and closer with every flicker of the lights, and regenerated with the energy, taken from the lives of the two immortals.
“We should try to reason with them,” suggested Lyra.
“What?!” exclaimed Big Mac.
“How?” asked Jack.
“They’re obviously sapient, and I doubt they know what will happen if they open the rift. Maybe if we tell them they won’t do it.”
Big Macintosh wiped the sweat off his forehead. He really didn’t like that plan.
“Do it,” said Jack.
Lyra took a deep breath. “Listen, you lot. I know you think that ripping open the rift will give you great power and all, but if you do, you unleash something that will destroy us all, you three included. Can’t you feel it? That insidious force in the darkness, just behind the current of power you want to feast on. It will kill us, and it will kill you.”
The angels seemed to pause, standing still for a flicker of darkness. But on the very next flicker they leaped forward, a single touch causing Lyra to disappear.
Big Macintosh and Captain Jack now stood in the Hub, the only thing between the rift and the Angels.
“Jack… you said we needed the Doctor. That’s what you said.”
“He’s not coming,” replied Jack simply, still backing up, cocking his revolver.
“But-”
“You’re right, he’s the only one who can save us now. But he’s not coming.”
BANG!
BANG!
He got off two shots before the lights flickered once again, and the angels snapped his neck.
Tick
Tick
Tick
Big Macintosh flicked his ears back and forth, picking up the sound of…a watch ticking. And the sound kept getting louder.
Tick
Tick
Tick
His tail was now pressed against the red column. If the Angels got past him, it would be all over. He strained to keep his eyes open. But his vision began to grow dark around the edges, and it wasn’t because of the lights.
His body suddenly felt so tired, as if he hadn’t slept for days. His eyelids were so heavy and begging for reprieve.
“I have to keep looking at them. I have to!” he said to himself through clenched teeth. His body felt sleepier by the second.
The lights flickered. Their hooves were only inches away.
Tick
Tick
Tick
He clamped his jaw down tighter. “What’s that…damn…noise…” he said, just before he collapsed, his eyes barely able to stay open.
Over the unbearable noise of the ticking watch, a voice spoke in a Trottingham accent. A voice that Big Mac had never heard before, but that sounded oddly familiar.
“Sorry I’m late... But what do you say we changes things up a bit?”
Big Macintosh’s ears drooped, his mind uncertain about what was happening. The strange voice, and the sound of fluttering Angel wings were the last things he heard before he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Tick
Tick
Tick…