//------------------------------//
// Part 4: In Which Some Ponies Come to Unfortunate Conlusions 
// Story: Doctor Whooves and the Auton Invasion of Equestria 
// by The Minister of Scones 
//------------------------------//

“Um… Doctor?” Pinkie was frozen to the spot, her eyes wide and mouth open.
“Right.” The Doctor spoke slowly, carefully, knowing full well that Pinkie's next move could be her last. The Auton stood motionless, surveying the scene. “It's obviously not under direct control or it would have recognised me and attacked.”
“What does that mean?”
“That it'll be a bit… well, for want of a better word, thick. It's completely autonomous at the moment. If it were being controlled be a Nestene, we'd be a couple of piles of ashes. Well, corpses, anyway.” Pinkie's mane began to droop. “No, don't worry! It probably won't even notice us unless we move, and it won't want to waste energy by missing us. Just stand terribly still. All right?”
Pinkie's left eye began to twitch nervously. Standing still? That was probably her least favouritest thing in the world! The dummy began advancing down the mound. However, as it was keeping its gun-leg stiffly out in front of it, it made slow progress, edging down the grassy slope little-by-little, pausing here and there to regain its balance.
“Doctor?” whispered Pinkie, as loud as she dared.
“Yes, my dear?”
“How's it going to reach us at that speed? It's going super-slow!”
“Oh… ah! Right! Yes! It can't run with its gun out! We can run, and should. Forgot about that, sorry.”
“Don't worry!” A smile began to creep back onto Pinkie's face. “I forget things like all the time! Like, this one time, I forgot to sleep for three whole days! Then I thought, hey, why not solve the problem and have fun at the same time? So I had a giant slumber party, but I...” Unthinkingly, Pinkie allowed herself a single excited jump into the air. “T-chok!” Another blast from the mannequin, which was almost at the base of the mound now, sliced over her head, narrowly missing her hair. She let out a shriek, and dashed into the trees, the Doctor hot on her heels.
He had been quite right. The Auton simply couldn't keep up. As they galloped, they could hear the sounds of its shots glancing off trees fading away into the distance. As soon as he was sure they were safe, the Doctor collapsed into a wheezing heap at the foot* of a tree.
“I… can't run… another step...” he gasped. Pinkie, who had long since given up running in favour of her usual four-hooved springing, looked surprised.
“Aw, c'mon, Doc! I'm just warming up!” She continued bouncing, now in a circle round the exhausted Doctor and his tree.
“I've only just regenerated, you know.” The Doctor began to grumble. “I haven't had a chance to build up any strength. This sort of thing takes a while at my age.”
“Your… age?” Pinkie stopped bouncing (thank goodness, the Doctor was beginning to get dizzy), and screwed her face into a confused knot. “You can't be much older than me. Hey, when is your birthday? Ooh, I get another birthday to plan for! And I'll have to throw you a welcome party!”
“I can assure you, I am a great deal older than I appear. Now, let's have an end to this foalish nonsense!” The Doctor stood up, dusting himself off. “We need to get back and warn your friends. The Autons are active. It might only be a few days before they're ready.”
“Ready to… attack?”
“Exactly.”




“… and when we went to summon him, as you ordered, m'lady, we found his tent empty.” Princess Luna, now accompanied by the recently teleported Professor Crater Mass, was being lead down a tent-corridor by Captain Arrowfeathers: a loyal member of the Night Watch, if a little over-zealous when it came to security.
“Well, thank you for alerting me, Captain. Do you have any idea how he left?”
“The guard on the interior door fell asleep, for a start. But Private Proudhoof and Private Precious were patrolling outside, and they've not reported for duty since. Besides, his tent was cut open. With respect, I think the whole story was made up in order to gain access to our camp. He's probably a spy of some sort. With your permission, your majesty, I can order a two-hundred-pony-strong sweep of the surrounding area, and…”
“That won't be necessary, thank you, Captain.” Luna smiled wearily.
“But, highness! The danger of spies cannot be understated, and I...” The party halted at the entrance to the waiting-tent.
“Captain, this is, I believe, the seventy-ninth time this year that you have alerted me to the dangers of spies?”
The captain nodded, dumbly.
“You may now consider me fully alerted. Dismissed, Captain.”
“But...”
“Dismissed.”
The captain turned and angrily stumped off down the corridor, muttering about the threat of espionage in today's military, and about a princess he had once heard of who had ignored the advice  of her subordinates and whose secret diary had gone missing. Luna, meanwhile, turned her attention towards more important matters. She didn't have time to listen to a paranoid soldier's ramblings, and besides, she knew perfectly well that it was Celestia who had stolen the diary.
“Professor? If you would?” The professor snapped out of his day-dream, and leapt forward to open the tent flap for the princess, apologising profusely. Luna allowed herself a smile. Crater Mass's determination to be both a scientist and a gentlecolt was often entertaining, and usually disastrous.
Together, they examined the tent in which Sam had been kept. It was smallish and round, no more than a couple of yards across. The bench on which Sam had been seated had been knocked over. The back wall of the tent had been slit open, leaving a hole easily large enough for a pony to climb through. Aside from these, there were no clues as to Sam's whereabouts.
Professor Crater Mass stroked his chin, thoughtfully. “This is just as I thought,” he said finally.
“What is?” Luna looked surprised – she certainly had no idea what had happened.
“That I would have no idea what happened.”
“Well, now,” said Luna, tentatively, “just look at how the canvas has retracted. I believe… oh, goodness. This tent was torn open from the outside.”
“You mean that Sam didn't try to escape, but that...”
“Somebody or something came in to get him. And the guards, probably. But why did I not hear it? I have the area under a blanket listening spell.”
“It seems that whatever or whoever it was was able to cancel your spell, at least in this area.”
“Which means that it has powers rivalling alicorn magic.”
“With respect, majesty, I feel we have no option but to inform your sister, guests or not.”
“NO!” The bellowed reply caught Crater Mass off-guard, and he was knocked back by the sheer force… right into what looked like a small pile of ashes, next to the upturned bench. Forgetting Celestia for the moment, he stood up and poked them.
“What in Equestria is this doing here?”
Luna levitated a small portion of the ashes, and quickly cast a scanning spell. “Oh my stars...”
“Princess? What's wrong?”
“These are no ashes. This is Sam.”
“I… what?” The Professor turned an exquisite shade of green.
“All the moisture in his body has been removed, and the remains super-compressed.”
“Who could…?”
“I shudder to think. Nopony would create a spell that could do that. I know. I've seen everypony's darkest dreams.”
“Then we have to inform your sister. I'm sorry, your highness, but...”
“Absolutely not. I forbid it.”
“But why?”
“I… have my reasons. You will not question me!” Luna was shouting, now. “The perception disruption spell I have most graciously placed on thy body should prevent ponies from recognising thee as the bungling pony who came close upon the evaporation of an island! What if I were to remove this spell, hmm?”
“I… I...”
“BE THOU THEN SILENT!”
“Princess… I hate to be frank, but… well, all in all, you're not acting like yourself.”
“Do you doubt that I have any but the best intentions?” Luna spoke more softly, but still with a tinge of ire at the back of her voice.
“I...” Crater Mass wrestled with his conscience. On the one hoof, Luna was talking like a different pony altogether. Perhaps she was ill, and needed help. On the other, Luna was the pony who had been prepared to give him a second chance, almost to sweep the past under a rug, and had offered him the position of her personal scientific advisor, as well as the head of half-a-dozen of her research departments. His loyalty, unsurprisingly, ran deep. “Of course not, princess.”




Twilight was poring through a hefty tome entitled “Museums Through the Ages”. It was one of her absolute favourites, a tenth birthday present from Princess Celestia. The book was magically condensed, in order that it could contain an enormous appendix: an exhaustive list of every museum exhibit ever displayed on record.
“Here!” she squealed, “I knew I'd seen something like this before!” Her friends had all long since departed: Rainbow to her cloud clearing, Rarity to her new dummies, Applejack to her chores, and Fluttershy to her as-yet unfed animals.
“What is it?” Spike wandered through from the next room, apron skewed and duster jauntily akimbo.
“I realised I'd seen something like that 'energy unit' the Doctor mentioned before. I was right!” She galloped over to Spike, thrusting the open book into his face.
“Whoa, Twilight, slow down!”
“Look, there was an exhibition of the unexplained about forty years ago. One of the exhibits was a sphere, exactly like the one the Doctor described. And look here! It actually went missing, and was found in a corner, having apparently rolled there of its own volition!” Twilight's eyes clouded over. “I've just got to examine one of these...” At that moment, the door to the castle library was flung open. A pink blur whizzed into the room and knocked Twilight onto her back, and was closely followed by a perturbed – and tired-looking – Doctor.
“Twilight!” screamed Pinkie, her muzzle pressed against Twilight's, “there's a horrible nasty thing in the forest that's messing up pony's manes and burning down trees! We urgently need a supply of wigs and acorns!”
“Pinkie… what?”
“Princess Sparkle,” announced the Doctor, “it gives me great pleasure to present to you: a Nestene energy unit.”
Twilight's wings fluffed up in her excitement, and she dashed over to the Doctor.
Nothing happened.
The Doctor coughed. “Um, Miss Pie?”
“Oh, yeah!” Pinkie giggled. She reached into her mane, and pulled out the still pulsing sphere. It was accompanied by a shower of wrapped sweets, lollipops and an entire chocolate cake. She handed it to Twilight.
“Now then, will you accept that I was telling the truth?” A touch of smugness crept into the Doctor's voice.
“Well… maybe. But I'd like to run one or two tests, first.”
“Be my guest, your majesty.”
“Please, Doctor, there's no need to be so formal.”
“I beg to differ.”
“I...” Twilight couldn't really think of a reply to this. Instead, she decided to try and put her mind at rest. “Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“There's no immediate threat, is there?”
The Doctor smiled reassuringly. “Not really. I've set my sonic screwdriver to scan for Nestene energy output, so we'll know when they've reached full power. Besides, they don't know I'm here. They won't hurry, so why should we? All the same,” he continued, “I'm a little surprised at how calmly you're handling this situation.”
“Well, to be honest, this is just the sort of everyday thing we deal with here. We're all just sort of used to it, I guess.” She glanced over at Pinkie, who was trying to persuade Spike that the best way of doing housework was making a bigger mess to begin with. “Everypony is behaving perfectly normally,” she chuckled.
“You suddenly seem abnormally inclined to believe me.”
“Let's just say some research has shed some light on the matter.” 
“This sort of thing happens a lot, you say?” Twilight nodded. “You know, I think I might enjoy it here after all.”
The princess smiled. “I hope so. I'm always happy to welcome new subjects.” She turned to face her friends. “Pinkie, Spike, could you tell the others to meet me in the town square in an hour? I may have to make an announcement.”
“Right-away, Twilight!”
“Okie dokie lokie!”
“In the meantime,” the Doctor said, “I'll need some rest.” He was right. He was clearly still a little out of breath. “I'll head back to Fluttershy's cottage, I think.”
“Then there's no danger?”
“Oh no. I'd say they can't have more than there or four energy units yet.”




The Doctor was wrong, of course. The Nestenes were completely aware of his presence. They also needed only one more energy unit, which the Nestene Invasion Director had every intention of retrieving. “Units Four and Six, you will collect the final unit!” The two mannequins nodded their understanding, and left. The Nestene turned its attention once again to its subordinate. “You know the next stage of the plan?”
“Of, course, director,” she nodded.
“Excellent. Then you will carry it out immediately.”
“I shall. I am worried, however, that I may be suspected. Some of the ponies are questioning me.”
“It matters little. Soon this pathetic planet, and all the miserable little ponies on it, will be no more.”



	*The Equestrian word 'foot' (meaning a tree's protruding roots and base) is of extremely obscure origin. There are some who hold that it comes from the word 'fute', as in refute, and stems from the alleged story of the Great Pony, Doctor Saddle Johnson, disproving the argument that the whole universe was merely an illusion by kicking at the base of a tree and crying “I refute it thus!”. Others hold that it is a reversed spelling of 'toof', although these ponies tend to clam up when someone thinks to ask what 'toof' actually means. A few even insist that it drifted through from a parallel universe, where a 'foot' is a term for some revolting body part of a horribly disfigured species. Being a pony is far more complicated than a few simple-minded human observers might imagine.