While Tenth closed the doors behind him, Eleventh ran past the girls. Reaching the console, he spun around and jutted a hoof on Twilight’s direction, stopping just in front of her muzzle. “This is your last chance. What we’re doing is practically suicide and is likely to get us killed unless I can think of something clever.”
Twilight just smiled and moved his hoof down with her own. “Then you better get thinking,” she said determinedly. “Because we need to save my planet.”
“Atta girl, Twilight!” cheered Tenth, dashing past her. “Ditzy, hop on the other end of the console would you. I’ll need you to aim.” He turned to his other self. “Doctor, are you ready.”
Eleventh smirked at his companion and stood next to him by the console. The second he touched the controls, the console sparked and fizzled. The normally chrome looking surroundings flashed and became the same hole filled walls that his past self had.
Tenth looked around curiously. He nudged his partner and grinned. “Look,” he chuckled, “it’s the round things, remember those?”
Eleventh also looked up in excitement. “Love the round things.”
“What are the round things?” he wondered.
“No idea…” There was another spark from the console and Derpy yelped in shock. Eleventh snapped out of his reverie and began flipping switches and pressing buttons. “But no time to figure that out now. The desktop is glitching, the universe is shrinking and worse of all, there two of Doctors in one TARDIS.” The Doctor stopped and began looking for a particular switch. “Frankly this is the worst case scenario. Let me just locate the friction contrafibulator,” he grunted, reaching under the console.
With a tug of the hidden lever, the desktop setting of the walls returned to their usual chrome appearance. Tenth looked around with a blank expression. “I never noticed but you changed things quite a bit in here… I don’t like it.”
The grey stallion just gave him a shocked look. Before he could retort, Derpy followed with, “I liked the old brown color. This just feels too... Cyberpony-ish.”
Eleventh turned to her with an even bigger shocked reaction, jaw rolling away somewhere.
Seeking validation, The Doctor turned to face Twilight, who had looked away with a shamed look on her face. “I didn’t want to say anything but…”
An explosion rocked the TARDIS, reminding everypony of what was at stake.
Eleventh ran over and took back his position with himself. He looked at Twilight and pointed a hoof to the other side of the console. “Twilight, please assist Ms. Doo.”
“Umm, sure.” Twilight ran over to Derpy’s side, only to see the mare pushing buttons at a fast pace, a look of intense concentration covering her wall eyed face. Twilight stared in awe. “He taught you how to pilot the TARDIS?!” she asked.
Derpy gave her a sheepish grin. “Well… he didn’t teach me… so much as I learned. Having the entire time vortex rattling around in your skull for a bit tends to have a few side effects.”
“YOU HAD THE WHAT IN YOUR WHERE?!” Twilight nearly screamed.
At that moment Tenth slammed a lever down. “Here we go!” The engines shot up and the ever so familiar rumbling of the TARDIS signaled the machine’s burst through space, reappearing above the planet.
When it stopped, Eleventh pulled the monitor over to him and looked out at the scene behind the doors. Instantly all of the armada’s ships ceased attacking the planet and turned towards him.
“They’ve noticed us! Time to do what we do best!” Eleventh announced.
Both he and his past self took hold of a wide red lever in front of them. They glanced at one another and nodded. Pulling the lever, both Doctors called out their signature phrase.
“Allons-Y”
“Geronimo!”
With another rumble the time machine shot through space as fast as it could, leading just about every enemy ship after it. Quickly the group began ducking and weaving around as the armada shot at the ship with everything they had. The box spun around, just barely dodging a ray from the Cyberponies.
The inside began shaking, the gravitational stabilizers being pushed to their absolute limit.
Twilight turned to her doctor, eyes wide and panicked. “Alright, Equestria’s safe, what do we do now?”
“Working on it!” Eleventh called back. He and his counterpart frantically rushed around the console, often bumping into one another in the process.
“This is usually the part where they come up with something to fix this,” Derpy observed, giving Twilight a nervous, twitching grin.
“Can’t we just travel through time and escape?” offered Twilight. “Or we could just turn invisible right?”
Eleventh stopped to point towards her, a wide smile on his face. “That’s my Sparkle! Always thinking of a solution!” he praised.
“Except we can’t do either of those things while they’re shooting at us,” answered Tenth. “They’re locked onto the TARDIS’ unique energy signature so invisibility won’t work. And time travel is dangerous for a number of different reasons.”
Stopping his fumbling on the console, The Doctor began counting off on his hooves. “We could get shot while entering the vortex, the armada could return to Equestria, The Daleks could use an emergency time shift to try to follow us. There are two of us in one TARDIS, and let’s not forget that time is shrinking around us so we might just end up in the exact same spot.”
“We get it!” yelled Twilight, riding out the shockwave of another near miss.
Derpy grabbed the monitor and ventured a look outside. Immediately, she gave a sharp gasp. “Fly down!” she yelled
“What?” yelled Eleven, turning to face her. Unlike him, however, Tenth grabbed a lever and let the TARDIS lurch downward, throwing the group into the air for a second.
As soon as he did a ear splittingly large screech hit their ears, forcing everyone to cover their ears in pain. It lasted less than a minute but for them it felt much longer.
“What is that!” screamed Twilight. Bring her hooves up to her face she found that she could not stop shaking, either that or her vision was affected by the noise.
Derpy tried to stand but immediately fell on her face. Unable to balance herself the resigned herself to staying low.
The Doctors, taking the noise better than their pony companions, quickly got back to the controls.
Tenth shook his head and pushed another button. “Side effect. Judging by the frequency of the sound the Judoon must have just taken a shot at us. Luckily Derpy saw it coming… how did you see that coming?” he asked, glancing back at her. “The Judoon’s Compression Cannon is almost invisible to the eye. An instant kill for runaways.”
Blushing, Derpy struggled not to meet his gaze; though it was tough with her particular vision problem. “I… I saw a version of us in front of the ship on the monitor explode.”
Tenth opened his mouth to chide her when his counterpart came over and threw a hoof around his shoulder. “Well it’s a good thing she did because then we just be stuff and bits in space!”
“Wait!” called out Twilight. There was a moment of silence as she looked up and around. “What happened to the turbulence?”
Both Doctors immediately ran to look into the console. “It was a trap!” announced Tenth. “We ran right into the Daleks repulsor ray…” Tenth turned to look at the mars, fear in his eyes. “They’ve caught us
Eleventh sighed and trotted around the console, brow furrowed.
Derpy whimpered, her eyes tearing up. “I… I’m sorry. If I hadn’t told you to move down we would…”
Tenth ran over and comforted her. “No, nooo,” he urged, bringing her up into a hug and patting her back. “This was inevitable. They were going to catch us anyway,” he soothed.
“I thought I’d at least come up with a proper plan before they did,” Eleventh muttered.
Twilight ran up in front of him and interrupted his pacing. “You still don’t have a plan?!”
Eleventh shrunk back slightly. “Well I almost had one but the bit of noise induced brain scrambling a little while ago knocked it out of me!”
After making sure that Derpy was alright, Tenth sighed. “Well considering the fact that we aren't being annihilated at the moment, I’m guessing they’re being stereotypical villains and want to watch us die in person. Maybe we can use this to our advantan—”
There was a blue flash and an influx of, searing pain. Derpy and Twilight both let out a scream and all four of them fell to the ground.
Once the pain subsided into a less thought shattering amount, Tenth opened his eyes to see himself and the group surrounded by just about every enemy, both past and future. There were the Judoon—the ones who weren't employed by the Shadow Proclamation anyway—the Racnoss, the Daleks, Cyberponies and others. In front of each group stood one specimen that, The Doctor assumed, were the respective leaders or representatives.
His feebly tried to get up, but found himself almost glued to the ground.
Despite his incapacitation, Tenth still managed a cheeky grin. “Oh, look at you all, nice and organized by species. I don’t know whether to comment about racial separation or to thank you for not flaring my OCD.”
Over next to her respective Doctor, Twilight groaned, her face still flat on the ground. “Doctor… shut up,” she mumbled. Concentrating, she slowly began to gather power in her horn.
“Caution! Magic detected!” alerted the Cyberleader. At his call just about every enemy readied a form of weapon, all of which were directed at Twilight.
One of the Sontarans took an angry step forward. “Girl, cease your magic this moment or I will break your horn off and forcibly reattach it backwards!” With an eep, Twilight ceased her spell. The Sontaran nodded towards his leader.
“Doctor!” screamed the lead Sontaran. “Reverse your effect on the universe now and you will only suffer a mildly painful death!”
“Please!” yelled Eleventh, struggling to stand. “We aren't the ones doing this. Let us go and we’ll find whoever really is doing it.”
“It has been confirmed!” droned the Cyberleader. “The Doctor’s TARDIS surrounds the universe. They are unreachable.”
“Then why would we be here then?” asked Tenth. Like his other self, he too struggled against his gravity bonds to stand. “If there’s something preventing you all from reaching the edges of the universe the why would we be here, well within reach.”
“KO! SCO BO TRO NO FLO KO TO TO!” bellowed the largest rhino-looking pony warrior, the clear leader of the Judoon.
“Wh- what did they say?” muttered Derpy, still stuck to the ground.
“They don’t care about our motives or why we’re here,” whispered Eleventh. “Do you think killing us will even stop it?” he proclaimed.
“Extermination of The Doctor is only the second course of action!” answered the lead Dalek.
Tenth’s eyes went wide. “What?” Now that both he and his future self were standing both stared up at the armada. “What do you mean?”
“Oh no,” muttered the Eleventh. “Not again…” Arching his head, he struggled to look behind them.
Tenth stared at him in confusion before following his gaze. “What? What do you… Oh no…”
Turning their heads along the ground, both Derpy and Twilight turned to find a large monitor open behind them. The vision activated to reveal the outside of the ship, and the TARDIS floating idly in the tractor beam. Behind it, the rest of the armada’s ships had surrounded it. Slowly, the outside of the box began to light up a variety of colours and the hum of energy began building in everyone’s ears.
“Doctor,” muttered Derpy, her voice quivering with fear. “What’s happening? What are they going to do?”
Eleventh practically fell over turning back around. “Please! Don’t! We aren't the ones, you have to believe us!” he pleaded.
The ships on the other side of the box began charging their own weapons.
Tenth followed suit. “If you destroy the TARDIS like this you’ll kill us all! Then nothing will be able to stop whomever is actually doing this!”
Even Twilight chipped in. Pushing herself to her limit, she too stood up event though though her wings were still forced to the ground. “Y-you’re making a mistake!”
“Rule one!” proclaimed the Cyberleader.
The ships around the TARDIS all primed their weapons and the tractor beam disappeared from around the ship.
“The Doctor lies!” finished the Daleks.
“NO!” screamed the earth ponies. Both turned around just in time to see just about every ship fire on his simultaneously. The blue boxed rocked back and forth under the hail of fire. They all watched as the windows cracked, the wood break and the outside start to disintegrate. The hail of energy beams continued to bombard the poor girl. Slowly, the box began to spark, the outside began glowing a deadly red colour, and smoke began spewing from the cracks.
Acting on instinct, Twilight’s horn lit up just as the TARDIS exploded, blowing each and every thing away and completely incinerating the surrounding ships.
Opening her eyes, Derpy glanced around to make sure that she was alive.The first thing she saw in front of her was a violet coloured bubble. Flickering pitifully, the cracked shield floated aimlessly among the scattered debris of countless enemy ships.
“Wha… what?” she jittered, looking around. Eventually she turned to see both Doctors tending to Twilight who was unconscious between them. The first thing she noticed was that her horn was smoking and her nose was practically running with blood. “On my Celestia, what happened!”
Tenth, finished checking her pulse and head. “She shielded us from the blast with all her might. Most likely blew a blood vessel and emptied her magical reserves making the bubble sustainable. Fantastic,” he whispered, smiling.
Eleventh meanwhile, was cradling her head in his hooves, a proud but sad smile on his face. “Element of Magic indeed. An exploding TARDIS is akin to a star blowing up.” He sighed. “Oh Twilight…”
Derpy frantically looked around, her anxiety making her eyes misalign even worse than usual. She spied the eye stalk of a Dalek float on by outside of the bubble. “Wh-what do we do now?” she stuttered.
Tenth sighed and looked around. “I… I don’t know. This bubble won’t last long. And even if it does the air definately wont. The TARDIS is likely destroyed and every ship that they had is likely destroyed.” The Doctor gingerly touched the bubble surrounding them. At his touch the bubble rippled and quivered dangerously, prompting him to quickly remove his hoof.
“Our only option is to use the wreckage to salvage a way back to Equestria but we can’t do that without breaking the bubble that’s keeping us alive.”
“So…? Think of something! You’re the Doctors?” whimpered Derpy, looking between the two of them. Eleventh met her gaze for a second before turning away.
Carefully, Tenth moved over and sat a hoof around her. Derpy looked up at him, eyes watering. Her Doctor looked directly into them for a few seconds before even he was forced to close his and bring her into a hug. “Oh Ditzy, I want to say ‘of course there’s a way’. But I think... this might be it.”
Gasping, Derpy leaned into his grip and resigned herself to her fate. Eleventh looked down at Twilight for a moment before closing his eyes as well.
For a time, the group sat in silence, the bubble around them flickering more and more.
Vworrrp Vworrrrp
Then, a familiar sound filled everyone’s ears. Head’s snapped up in shock as something formed around the bubble.
“No…” breath the Doctors. Slowly, phasing in and out, were the familiar chrome walls of his TARDIS.
Soon enough the machine fully appeared around them. The inside of the box was very well worse for wear. Lights flickered, the console sparked, the room was half dark, and the two rotating wheels above the console had been knocked askew, causing them to rotate up against each other producing a light screech while the engine whined down.
“How?” whispered Tenth, looking around.
“You never did know how to use a TARDIS, Doctor.” The Doctors’ respective heads snapped towards the dark half of the console to see a figure hunched over the controls. It was then that the Time Lords could make out the sound of laboured breathing coming from the figure.
An odd feeling washed over the Doctors. “You…?” muttered Tenth.
“Impossible…” said the other one. Derpy looked between them curiously, still trying to catch up.
Limping over to the Doctors the sight of another earth pony exited the darkness, revealing his light blue coat and blond mane. A mild smirk was on his face, exposing a few sharp fangs that were hidden behind his lips. Once in the light, Derpy saw his familiar cutie mark. An hourglass alongside a drum.
“Yes, it’s me,” the stallion muttered, walking up to them. “But… you know, Doctors, both of you owe me now.”
Chuckling gleefully, he reared up and leaned both of his hooves and his face on the bubble. “Feel free to tell me which one of those scares you more.”