Celestia moved at a brisk walk toward the Labyrinth Maze, studiously avoiding breaking into either a canter or trot. Princesses were expected to move only at a walk everywhere. If she even hinted at running, the panic…
Flying was out as well. She could teleport, but with the Guard on active alert and search, the danger to other ponies was increased. Teleport bubbles looked ethereal, but at the edge of their invocation before the transport, the bubble was unbelievably hard. And as it grew out before disappearing, they were moving at a fair clip.
The bubble had two purposes. Keeping things in; and keeping things out. Both were important. In meant the pony or ponies inside had a few moments to get out of trouble if the user missed a target, and ended up inside, say, a live volcano. Out meant the infrequently fatal things outside a miss didn’t get in just long enough for a caster to escape. Most Master Mages, teaching the spell, avoided proximity with their pupils assiduously, to avoid being knocked out by the bubble.
Celestia herself had a fairly good knot raised on her jaw once, when Sunset Shimmer cast an unusually large one, although Celestia was suspicious that it had been intentional.
She nodded at the ponies along her path that curtsied or bowed; Celestia maintaining the ruse of a kindly Princess out for a little constitutional, not a ruling Diarchic Arch Mage demigoddess with terror for herself, her Sister, and the ponies of Equestria all being in mortal danger. She noted that there were much fewer than usual, as her orders were being complied with concerning evacuation.
The Doctor would be running, she thought. Lucky him, not having to set an example everywhere he went.
She arrived at the alcove, after warily watching for any sign of the Angel. Rather than knocking, she pulled open the door and went inside.
“OI!” cried ‘John’, upset that somepony decided to just jump into his blue box without permission, as he ran out from under the platform. When he saw who it was, the upset was rapidly replaced with confusion.
“Princess Celestia? What…?” he started to say.
“Doctor, we have no time for pleasantries. My Guards are reporting to me that there is an Angel on the loose,” she said candidly.
“WHAT?? No! Impossible! There’s no way…” he started to say.
“Two ponies are already unaccounted for. They were apparently attacked right at the entrance to the Labyrinth. On my way here, I watched for any hint of it, but didn’t see it.” She glanced around apprehensively. “My subjects…”
“Oi, right…we need to save them, but we have to move from here. Have someplace safe we can go?” The Doctor asked.
Celestia snorted. “Relatively safe. The Throne Room. We have a specific spot just big enough for the TARDIS along the East Wall, twenty-five feet from the edge of the throne dais. Its kept clear at all times. I don’t have my coordinate notes…”
“That was enough, Majesty. I can put us right there, just you watch! DERPY!” he bellowed.
“I’m right here, clever boy,” she said decisively, swinging up onto the ramp next to them. “I heard. Majesty…?” she started to say…
“At the Guest Quarters, along with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I put a platoon on alert right there. Dinky is relatively safe at the moment,” Celestia said, anticipating her question.
“Too much ‘relative’ Majesty. I need a bit more pro-active,” said Derpy.
“I agree. Luna will attend them shortly. Can you get the Equestrian Heroines here?” Celestia asked.
“I can…” started The Doctor.
“No. We need a bolt-hole for the moment, both Luna and I, in case it gets wind of us and decides to hunt us down. Only the TARDIS can keep us out of reach. And we still have to coordinate evacuation of Canterlot as well as see to the safety of our subjects.” Celestia said worriedly.
“I’ve got this, Princess,” Derpy said, saluting as if the Wonderbolt flight suit was still on her, not in a closet at her home. “Estimated time; thirty minutes. Twenty-three minutes flight time. Seven minutes to assemble the team and teleport. Designated arrival target?” she said, fully into her former Flight Leader mode.
Celestia thought for a moment. Where would everypony be best unobserved…?
“Tell Twilight to use my target from the Manehattan trip we made,” Celestia said, loathe to let that little secret out, but what else to do? “Keep it tight, and in the center of the room.”
“Wilco.” She saluted again, turned toward the other pony. “‘John’, find a way. Save my little girl. Save us.” She marched down the ramp, opened the door with a squeek.
And launched herself like a rocket out of it. Both ‘John’ and Celestia stared as the door squeeked closed.
“Wow. I knew she was fast in her time…but that looked like she hasn’t lost a wingbeat,” Celestia said in awe. “I wonder if Rainbow Dash has been tutoring her…”
“All right, Doctor…get us into that Throne Room,” she ordered.
“At once, Majesty,” The Doctor said in reply.
Derpy snap-rolled one quarter turn left, tore through the sky as she changed direction toward Ponyville, wingtips vertical in a high-speed turn. The wingtips formed vapor vortices as the air burbled on the tips. She snapped horizontal, vectored straight at Ponyville at the correct moment.
“Hey, Derps…!”
Derpy glanced over, as Spitfire joined up.
“What’s the deal?” Spitfire said laconically.
“GET YOUR CROUP BACK ON ORBIT, SPITS!! YOU’RE ON COMBAT AIR SUPPORT!!!” Derpy roared furiously. Astounded, Spitfire immediately rolled one-quarter right, pulled through hard to get back on her imaginary racetrack. The vapor trail also obediently followed her wingtips.
“If we get through this alive, I swear to Luna, I’m going to tear that girl a new one,” Derpy growled frighteningly to herself. She winged on more speed.
Manure! Spitfire thought heatedly.
I RUN the WONDERBOLTS! Spitfire mentally grumbled as she rolled into the pattern. Yet with ONE bellow from HER, I STILL act like I’m a cadet on a short leash…she thought, as she resumed the upwind leg of the racetrack.
She’s right, though, Spitfire added a moment later, chastised. She was ALWAYS right…
Damn it!!
“Okay, Spits…by the book, like Derps always did it,” she said, adjusting her goggles…
“Doctor…could Pegasi fly away from Angels?” Celestia asked, as he set the machine. The past few minutes had been spent with The Doctor bringing her fully up to speed on Weeping Angels.
He stopped and thoughtfully considered the question, then continued preparations.
“I’ve no idea, Princess. Since nopony has ever seen one move,” he said, having now fully adopted the speech mannerisms of Equestria’s inhabitants, rather than saying ‘no one’, “…hard to deduce that. Erring on the side of caution, and considering the swiftness they exhibit, I’d support that the wings aren’t just for decoration, myself.” He twirled a couple of knobs, gave the bicycle pump three full strokes.
“I am seriously going to consider some type of unbreakable mirror, should we somehow get out of this,” Celestia fumed, more than a little angry.
“My bipedal counterpart once considered spectacles or a sort of helm, actually. Rather brilliant, if I do say so myself, if continuous, uninterruptible internal self illumination were a part of it. He hadn’t thought that part out at the time. Not currently useful at the moment for us, though.”
“I’ve got a spell for that,” Celestia remarked slyly.
“Well, then! Problem solved for any in the future. Luna was absolutely right. Magic does have its uses, eh?” he said cheekily, as he set the TARDIS into motion…
Derpy swiftly flew into Ponyville, deciding to touch down on Twilight’s balcony rather than the front door. She trotted inside anxiously.
“Twilight?” she called. A voice sounded from the bedroom.
“Derpy? I didn’t hear the door. What…?”
“No time, Princess. Locate and assemble the Mane Six. Discord, too. Be ready to teleport,” she said as she glanced at Twilight’s cuckoo clock. Wow. Twenty minutes enroute. Pretty good. “…in ten minutes with everypony. The Manehattan trip target in Canterlot, whatever that means. Anything I can do to help?” she said tersely.
Twilight looked at her worried face, choked off the questions. “Get Rainbow Dash. She’ll be somewhere around here, usually at Sweet Apple Acres on a tree branch, or on a cloud between here and Cloudsdale. I’ll get everypony else. How bad?” she finally asked.
“Extremely bad. A Weeping Angel.”
Derpy was shocked at the rude words pretty, sophisticated, intelligent Twilight knew. And she was definitely sure at least one of the statements was physiologically impossible to perform. As Twilight teleported for Fluttershy’s, Derpy tore off for altitude and finding Rainbow Dash.
Twilight popped into the living room at Fluttershy’s house, as two heads lifted in surprise.
“Twilight?” Discord started to say…
Twilight suddenly had a brain wave. “Discord…can you find and teleport all of us Six, yourself, and Derpy?”
Twilight had discovered during her dabbling in Chaos Magic that Discord could do certain things with his skills that she couldn’t. To make it work required unusual mind sets. The chocolate milk thing in particular had revealed a great deal.
Discord invoked chocolate milk because that’s what clouds rained down in his mind. He could exclude any other type of precipitation because his perceptions of proper clouds didn’t allow for snow, rain, or fog. It allowed chocolate milk. So that was what came down.
And that was why Twilight couldn’t manage much more than that dark, bitter spray she conjured up. Her mind wouldn’t make the leap. She couldn’t believe well enough to create the perfect concoction. Her realism kept getting in her way.
She could find all of them, one after another, if given enough time. And with enough energy, gather the group together. Even teleport them all. But the energy consumed was vast, and she’d be worn out before she even got to Canterlot.
“Of course. Why?” Discord asked, perplexed.
“Just take us to the Canterlot Throne Room. Derpy says there’s an Angel loose.” Twilight replied with trepidation.
Discord snapped his fingers at once…
And all of them appeared in the Canterlot Throne Room with a poof.
Derpy immediately snapped into a left hooved chandelle, wings again vertical, missing the throne room wall by scant inches, bleeding energy as fast as she could in the turn. In this case, Rainbow Dash had it worse, falling ten feet from her former sleeping perch on an apple tree limb to the floor with a noticeable thump. The imprecations she spat out as she rubbed variously insulted body parts from the impact were even more noticeable.
Twilight decided not to intervene in the swearing. Celestia may actually be a polyamorous bisexual, but that was her business. Anything she might let slip correcting Dash wasn’t for her to decide.
Besides, Twilight was blushing. And Rainbow Dash certainly wouldn’t resist for a second probing around for embarrassing tidbits when she saw that...
Just as an peculiar ‘vvorp’ing sound started to build up in the room…and an odd blue box started to materialize, spot on top of a set of darker colored tiles along one wall…
Luna had barely glanced up from the throne dais, her red framed reading glasses perched perfectly on her nose. She dropped the small sheaf of patrol reports she had been reading as the Throne Room suddenly became a tiny bit crowded. She didn’t even have time to say anything as Twilight beat her to it.
“Girls, form a circle with Discord in the middle. Derpy, RD, pair up together. Keep watch for a pony-sized statue. Everypony, keep your eyes moving, keep looking for it. If you see it, sound off, and keep staring at it.”
“Twilight?” Luna said, just as the TARDIS door popped open, and ‘John’ and Celestia joined the throng.
“Luny! Thank Goodness!” Celestia said, rushing up and hugging her younger sister, who stared in shock.
Celestia took charge immediately. “Doctor, stay here with your machine, prepare to take us inside for refuge should it become needed. None of us have the ability to operate it.” She turned to the others in the room as she sat down on the dais. “Everypony! We believe a Weeping Angel may be present on Equestria. Some individuals already appear to be missing. Luna, you need to see to the children after we talk. We need to…”
A horn blasted and held its note, as everypony turned toward the sound. Celestia’s eyes narrowed.
Their clock was suddenly out of time.
“Everypony, stay here,” she commanded. She drove herself to her feet and with a brief wing flap, galloped toward the sound, dread clutching at her heart. The alert had sounded from the inner courtyard.
Celestia lifted the Shaft of Light with her aura as she ran past the museum armory, teleported it to her side with a flicker of thought. Just as the Steward had said; for almost a thousand years, her weapon that she used against Sombra when she fought him had sat within its ornamental rack in the museum, only taken off by the EUP Guard to be cleaned, dusted, and lightly oiled every few months against corrosion.
She had hoped it would stay there until it fell apart from old age. To have to use it…
She couched the Halberd tightly along her right side as she ran for the inner courtyard. Suddenly, a deep blue flash joined up on her left. She frowned deeply.
“Luna…I told you to stay away,” she panted. “I…am doing this.”
The horn was suddenly stilled. Celestia’s eyes widened further in dismay.
“So shall I,” Princess Luna said. From her left, a very wicked looking pole arm being carried horizontally raised into view. Celestia viewed it with foreboding.
“Luna; that’s…the Nightmare Night…runic scythe.” Trepidation clutched at Celestia, her pace breaking slightly before she re-established her stride. The sinister runic scythe of Nightmare Night, taken from Sombra himself, then possessed and enchanted further by the Nightmare, who had eschewed Luna’s sword to seal his defeat…once more held in the aura of her dear sister…it was supposed to be locked away forever, never to be seen again, while she researched how best to destroy it. How did she know where Celestia had hidden it?
“If I am to die…I will die on my feet…fighting with all I have…” Luna panted as well, the highly polished, metallic blue-black colored arm with the mirror-like silver crescent-moon edges and flat, deeply cut argent sigils in its surface sliding back below view; it’s startling beauty only unmatched by its terrifying import.
She was risking all, including her very existence and spirit. All to fight alongside Celestia for ponies and Equestria. Celestia wished she had somepony to pray to, to beseech for Luna’s protection and redemption. Failing that, she shouldered the burden once more upon her own back.
“Together, then,” Celestia said, with the firmament of the heavens in her voice, as she bent her will to the task soon at hoof.
They broke into the deserted, abandoned inner courtyard, save one solitary item. The Angel, in the center. Its hooves were away from its face.
“Its hunting,” Celestia breathed. The wings were frozen in lifting, but not extended. Every instinct in Celestia was rebelling, screaming at her to run, to get away as quickly as possible. She slowed to a walk, as Luna did the same.
She strode toward the statue, un-couching the halberd, readying for the first strike. As she passed its side, she gave it a test clout at the barrel with the reinforced base of the pommel. There was a heavy “clank”, with no apparent damage to either the halberd or the Angel. She smiled grimly. It wasn’t as if she was expecting anything different, especially at this point, but the test had to be taken.
She walked around to the front of the Angel, careful to avoid its eyes, as she had learned from The Doctor. Staring at its upper body, she addressed it.
“Angel…we ask thee to forgive my affront to thy person; I was unforgivably clumsy, and stumbled. We are the Princess Diarchy of Equestria. I am Princess Celestia, and she is Princess Luna, the rulers of this world.”
Luna’s ears pricked up. Old Equestrian. Formal. Delicately expressed. She listened carefully.
“We art well aware of thy behaviors and the predilections of thine species. Contact between us is not compatible with our linear existence. We ask that thou quit our planet forthwith, and leave our presence.”
Luna stared in surprise. Celestia was using The Royal Canterlot Voice, but quietly and with amazing subtlety and control. She was trying to compel the Angel to leave the planet.
“Please, leave us.”
Nothing was happening.
Celestia raised her volume. “We direct thou to leave immediately, and not to return amongst us forever!”
Luna looked at the statue being. It remained.
Celestia decided to go all in. “LEAVE!! NOW!!”
Still no movement. Celestia sighed.
“Celestia, isn’t it locked here because we are staring at it?” Luna asked.
Celestia shook her head. “Possibly, but The Doctor was under the impression it could displace from this linear timeline unilaterally without requiring it to be unobserved. Not that I expected it to. In any case, the formalities have been assuaged.”
Suddenly, the halberd spun, then thrust forward, the heavy pommel striking the Angel precisely on the chin. Celestia launched a magic bolt with her aura at the same place.
Both were ineffective.
“Very well, then…” she said, crouching slightly.
Celestia leaped into a multiple attack sequence, halberd thrusts and strikes, magic bolts, forehoof kicks, and a spinning flying camel kick against the Angel. She surveyed for damage as she spun to a stop, panting slightly
None was apparent.
“Luna…” said Celestia, staring at the thing balefully as she tried to catch her breath.
Luna’s attack was even more energetic, as the younger Alicorn demonstrated her considerable skill and training. She had determined early on that her relative youth and spell-casting abilities would be better suited for close in individual combat when compared to Celestia. The Sun Princess was a ‘tank’ in gaming language, better suited for dealing with en masse formations of enemies, while Luna acted more as a precision weapon against individual entities.
Luna was fully demonstrating that ability now. Conjured swords. Thaumaturgy. She Invoked Magic Enchantment Circles of Power and Speed, which she then moved the conjured swords and the Runic Scythe through. They enhanced her already impressive abilities, becoming even more blindingly fast. The attacks were chipping small areas on the surface of the Angel as the strikes went home. Not much, but some.
Luna then saw an opportunity. She set the weapon and locked it in the joint of the body and wing of the statue with her aura, either to drive the Angel to the ground, or shatter the statue’s wing joint. Sweating with the effort, Luna threw all her power, everything, into the rune scythe that she had; years of training, exercises, and her mental discipline. Her eyes bulged as she stepped beyond what would constitute the norm in such a fight, and added in the authority she used in moving a celestial body.
There was a creaking. Luna felt the ground underneath her beginning to loosen with her effort, as her hooves began to sink. Now dripping with sweat from the force she was employing, the droplets running into her eyes, she increased…
There was a loud “snap”, as the scythe came apart; shattering to pieces, with a startling purple-violet aura release that dissipated instantly in the waning sunlight.
Luna buckled, crashed to her knees.
Celestia saw her fall from the corner of her eye. Not like the now heavily nicked and blunted halberd was doing any more good against the creature. Strikes weren’t damaging it enough, as far as she could see, nor was her magic, from compulsion by The Royal Canterlot Voice to the energy of her magic missiles. Hoof-to-Hoof was proving equally as useless. And she was tiring, tiring quickly.
One thing left to attempt. She spun back to the front, jammed the pommel of her halberd into the ground. Once stuck there, Celestia charged her aura, felt the ley line junction under her as she tapped the energy; and tried to teleport the Angel. Straight into her Sun.
The bubble formed around it, as the displacement spell started…and the Angel, with the surrounding spell, slowly lifted off the ground. The instantaneous flash of transport was missing, but the Angel was moving…
Celestia suddenly felt the weight of her star envelop her as the statue rose. The ground around her began to depress and sink under the crushing gravity, as science and magic fought each other for dominance. She fed more energy into the spell, was rewarded with the Angel lifting more…and her sinking farther.
She realized suddenly it wouldn’t work. The more energy she put into the spell, the higher it lifted into the air, but the Angel was preventing the teleport itself. She was getting into exponential energy transmission for miniscule effect, the bubble raising slightly higher with every thaumatic transfer, but the more pronounced the gravitational effect became. She felt that she was lifting mass far beyond the size of her Sun now.
She let it go. The Angel crashed to the ground a short distance away, as Celestial pulled herself loose from the hyper-gravity well. Exhausted, she fell to first her knees, then her belly. She continued to stare as best she could through the haze in her vision at the malevolent thing.
They were exhausted. Strike after strike, kick after kick, energy blast after energy blast, hardly nothing. Celestia stared at it, trying not to blink, but she was SO tired…Luna had fallen during her match close by, and had managed to drag herself alongside Celestia, staring as well. Her head drooped.
“Sister…stay with me, please,” she said pleadingly, frightened. She tried to raise her head again, but she was far too worn out.
“I love you, Luna,” Celestia whispered, a wing stretching to reach her beloved sister. "I have always loved you."
Two entities elsewhere in the castle had felt the magic battle, the energy of the ley line junction being tapped.
“Discord?” Princess Twilight Sparkle asked. He nodded.
“That way,” he said with certainty, pointing a paw.
“Take us there,” Twilight said, as she readied herself…
There was a sound…a poof…just as Celestia fell unconsciousness, her wing over an equally oblivious Luna.
Twilight and the Heroines surrounded the stone shape, forming a rough six-pointed star. It stood unmoving in the center. Derpy hovered gently just above Twilight, and Discord stood behind Applejack opposite her.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, aghast, saw the two unmoving forms of the Diarchy, as her heart sank. Unconsciously, she picked the two Alicorns up gently with her aura, and with reverence moved them to a spot outside of the group. They nestled back down together as she set them down with infinite care. She prayed it wasn’t to bury them later. She then brusquely thrust the thought from her mind.
“Uh, Twi…” Rainbow Dash started to say.
Derpy spoke first. “Quiet, RD. Everypony, listen carefully. DO NOT look the Angel in the eyes, it can evoke another Angel from that. Evoke it out of you. Stare at the body. As long as we do not all blink together, which is very unlikely mathematically, it can’t move. Staring at an Angel freezes the form. It’s called quantum locking, according to ‘John’.”
“Oh, dear…does this mean we somehow always have to have a group stare at it from now on?” asked Rarity
Twilight spoke up. “No. We just have to stop it from moving ever again. First things first…Discord?”
“Right here, Twilight.”
“Can you somehow probe this thing and figure out how it does what it does?” Twilight Sparkle asked. Her own instincts told her she wouldn’t be able to, but maybe the Lord of Chaos could…
“I’m afraid not, my dear Twilight. While it’s in this locked phase, it’s exactly what it appears it is…a stone statue. However, somehow, I get the impression I wouldn’t be able to budge it an inch using my magic. Even if I could one way or another send it to the other side of the universe, it would by some means find its way back here to hunt me, as well as all the Alicorns and Time’s Champion. And it would probably do it in an even more sneaky fashion than it already has. I’d much rather have it trying to terrify me right to my face now, than open the refrigerator at night looking for my slippers and find it inside.”
“I agree. It’s as frightening as can be right now, but it is controlled. Pinkie, I want to try something. Remember your little stunt with me against the Changeling army?”
“Sure do. You wanna try that? You said if I ever did that again, you’d use Cranky Doodle as your party planner like, FOREVER…” Pinkie said, confused, as Twilight interrupted.
“I didn’t think at the time we would be facing a stone superbeing that attacks when you blink or look away, either. Let’s do it.” Twilight said determinedly.
Pinkie Pie reached around in front of Twilight’s shoulders, turned her even with the ground; Twilights legs holding her up, as Pinkie supported the front part of Twilight’s body with a foreleg. She reached back and grabbed Twilight’s tail…
Pinkie cranked Twilight Sparkle’s appendage…
Twilight suddenly turned into a rapid-fire spell caster, as magic missile bolt after magic missile bolt fired from her horn. Pinkie continued to crank Twilights tail like a trigger, launching the spells like a military automatic weapon.
Bolt after bolt struck the statue with precision; head, forelegs, barrel, flank, rear legs, punishing up and down the body, one after the other. None had any apparent effect.
Twilight stopped it after a minute or so, stood up. “Well, it was worth trying,” she said, disappointed.
“That was interestingly random,” said Discord admiringly.
“Not now, Discord. Anypony else?” Twilight asked sullenly.
“I got nuthin’,” said Rainbow Dash. “If I could pick it up and fly it away, the first time I tried looking away to see where I was going…”
“If I can’t look at its eyes, The Stare won’t work,” said Fluttershy.
“I could set one of my shop mirrors in front of it…as long as no pony ever moved either of them. As a guarantee, that might prove far too thin…” said Rarity.
“And mirrors get dirty, or break,” said Twilight.
Applejack walked up to it, spun around, and launched a tremendous bucking kick, one of her best. The statue was unaffected, as Applejack stumbled and fell to the ground. Twilight realized the danger first.
“KEEP STARING!!” she bellowed, as two pairs of eyes looked at Applejack to see if she was okay, and others started to. Fortunately, everyone’s eyes snapped back onto the statue, except for Applejack, who was now limping.
“Shoot,” said Applejack contritely, as she worked at walking off the numbing pain in her right rear leg. She looked at Twilight.
“Next time, warn ponies,” Twilight said sternly.
“Sorry, Twi. Shoulda said sumpthin’. Looks like buckin’ it ain’t a solution, neither. And it’s far heavier than it looks, too. Even if I didn’t break it, it shoulda been knocked over, at least.”
“it’s okay, AJ, it was worth a shot. Pinkie, could the Cannon do something?”
“Nope. She’s too light in the breech and the barrel, since I have to do my ‘thing’ to carry it. Not a big problem with confetti for a party. Heavier stuff would overpressure; make it blow up. We don’t even have shot, chain, grapeshot, or canister, either. We could scrape up junk for langrage, metal pieces, nails, stuff like that, but we’d still have to load light on powder; probably too light for that thing.”
Twilight was totally taken aback that Pinkie Pie sounded like a proficient cannoneer, artillerypony, or gunnery monkey, but then again, it was Pinkie Pie. And she wisely decided to drop asking about the ‘thing’ for the time being, though it did sound suspiciously like Pinkie controlled her own sort of ‘Earth Pony Magic’ of some type; something Twilight had suspected for years. If they managed to get away alive and together in the right spot in time, she made a note to find out, without hiding behind bushes.
Derpy suddenly had an idea.
“Discord, could you blow it up? Like the mailbox?”
Discord grinned evilly, snapped his fingers…
A tremendous “BANG!” sounded in the courtyard…and a sooty statue still stood in the center.
Discord frowned mightily. “Seems like the answer to that is ‘no’,” he said quietly.
Derpy called to Twilight.”Twi, can you still Rapidash?”
“What?” she asked back.
“That flaming pony thing you do on occasion. Can you still do it?”
“If I’m angry enough, yes. What do you have in mind?”
“Discord,” Derpy said, looking at the draconequus, “How good are you at extreme cold?”
“Exceptional. One of my favorites I use frequently. Why?” he asked, intrigued.
“Twilight, can you do heat by shooting it, like you do the magic bolts with Pinkie?”
“I’ll try.” Twi looked at Pinkie. “Set me up.”
Pinkie grabbed her like before, pointed her horn at the statue. “Ready?” she asked Twilight.
“I hope this works…go,” Twilight said.
Pinkie began pumping her tail again…
Twi started firing from her horn once more; this time bolts of fiery heat. Again, Pinkie swept the statue top to bottom.
Derpy did a shot in the dark estimate of the thermodynamic calorimetrics Twilight was dumping into the statue, and another scientific wild-assumptive guess at the point of pryoplasticity of the figure.
“Twi, how are you holding up?” asked Derpy.
“Okay,” she said, though she was tiring, and sweating profusely from the effort and the heat. Pinkie was grimacing with her exertion as well, holding Twilight with one forehoof as she drove her tail with the other.
“Twi…I’m looking for thermal stressing. Go as long as you can, then holler at me. Discord has the next part,” said Derpy.
Twi didn’t look up from her work.
“Discord…Get ready. I need as intense a blast of cold as you can make, directed right at the center of that thing. Everything you’ve got, friend,” she said hopefully.
He nodded, stared at the center of the statue intensely.
“Let loose when Twilight stops.”
A minute or two later…“Derpy…” Twilight panted.
“Get ready, Discord,” Derpy said.
His paw came up…
“Uhh,” Twilight said as she collapsed, taking her and Pinkie to the ground. Probably a good thing, if this worked.
“NOW, Discord!!” she shouted. She hoped Twilight had heated it up enough; there wouldn’t be any more…
As much as Twilight’s blasts had heated the statue to red hot, Discord’s dropped it to icy stillness as the blast hit it right in the center…
There was a loud ‘CRACK’…
Derpy peered at it intently. Two good cracks…
“Applejack!! Buck it!” she yelled, slightly panicked.
AJ launched herself at it, spun, and kicked hard again.
An odd kritch sound came from it, and several more extensive small cracks appeared, but nothing else…
“Disassociated…broken; not killed…wounded…” Derpy mused. They may only have a few minutes before it healed…
“Discord!’ she shouted. He turned to look at her.
“We’ve only got a few moments. Get the Princesses, and the Equestrian Heroines, and get them into the TARDIS!” she ordered.
“HOW?” he shouted back.
She pulled her key free from her mane, tossed it at the draconequus. “Don’t use your magic; the Angel might sense it and come there after you. We need to run for it, or fly the best all of us can. Make sure to get you and the Princesses in there NOW! The TARDIS is protected from the time displacements the Angel uses. It’s the safest spot in all realities for all of you. If it captures you or them, it will gain power enough to conquer all of Equestria easily. If all of you should fall…”
“And Time’s Champion? Perhaps I can…”he started to say.
“No! Get all of you to safety! I’ll talk with ‘John’. Maybe the two of us can clever science our way out of this. Put yourselves out of reach of it. NOW!” she shouted, as she took off, winging her way back toward the Palace Throne Room.
Derpy had bolted for the TARDIS. She had the start of a crazy idea…one ‘John’ would probably admire, once he finished shouting at her for jeopardizing everypony’s safety.
Discord uneasily watched her go. He then stared at the small key in his paw.
“She’s right, you know,” said Twilight Sparkle. She lifted the unconscious Celestia with her magical aura, as Rarity did for Luna. And was relieved as she watched the two Alicorns breathe.
“I realize that. You know, Twilight, I’m beginning to dislike your being correct so frequently,” he said sorrowfully, as they started to sprint for the Palace Throne Room.
“A little news flash for you, Discord. So am I,” she said, smiling grimly, running for their lives.