Doctor Hooves: An Unusual Filly

by Anime PJ

Chapter 4: The City of Chaos

After two hours of walking darkness fell over the four travellers, Doctor Hooves couldn't believe how late in the day it had been when they landed bloody controls have always been fidgety he thought. They were on their way to Canterlot in an effort to both convince Big Mac of the truth; Cheerilee was already convinced, and to see first hand what the darkest and most violent period in Equestria's history was like. They were particularly interested in seeing how Discord ran Canterlot during his time as ruler of Equestria and the creation of Nightmare Moon which happened shortly afterwards.

"We'll set up camp for the night here" declared Doctor Hooves and for the first time in a long time nobody argued with him. "Big Macintosh you seem capable, could you go and collect some firewood?"

"Eeyup" Big Macintosh answered, he had gone back to his usual quiet self since they'd left the TARDIS. due to having calmed down he didn't feel the need to speak so much. He went off into the woods and came back with a mouth full of wood, Doctor Hooves was impressed. He didn't know another pony who could fit that much wood in their mouth.

Once everyone was settled Doctor Hooves did the calculations in his head "We should arrive in Canterlot at around midday tomorrow if we leave at dawn," he announced I assume we won't all be awake that early though so it should be more around two thirty give or take.

"It should be an interesting experience, oh and maybe we can see if the history books are accurate!" Cheerilee said excitedly. She was quite pleased to be in the past because it meant that she could update the books she kept in her classroom to suit what actually happened. It was too late to change her current classes view on it all but when her next group of students arrived she could start teaching the truth.

"Indeed," Doctor Hooves acknowledged "but I must warn you now, DO NOT under any circumstances attempt to interfere with past events. I know it's tempting but you must be careful in these situations or else you may inadvertently cause the end of the universe." he informed them. Cheerilee had only now noticed his cutie mark, it was probably the most appropriate cutie mark she'd ever seen. His cutie mark had the appearance of an hour glass funny how much we could have told about this stallion from the beginning, she let out a quiet chuckle and they kept chatting as the night went on.
***

It had taken about as long as Doctor Hooves expected but as the great city of Canterlot came into view Big Mac and Cheerilee both froze. They had never been there in their own time period but they were pretty sure it didn't look like this, from what Applejack and her friends had said Big Mac was expecting it to be beautiful. The first thing they noticed was that the city was the only place in the area that was covered by storm clouds, lightening going off every few seconds and that all of the rain looked like chocolate. They all remembered that, when Discord arose again he made cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain but these clouds were nowhere near as sweet looking. They were black as black can be and were full of the aforementioned lightening.

The buildings were also unlike what they'd heard, they were mostly normal buildings except that most of them had been burned to a crisp at some point or another and the streets were absolutely full of horrified ponies. The royal guard were pushing them around, not that you could recognise them as the royal guard, they had all had the colour seemingly sucked out of them leaving only grey and their slick golden armour had been replaced with a threatening black armour. One thing that stood out though was their eyes, completely blank except for a mesmerized pupil right in the centre, almost as if they had been hypnotised.

"By the Alicorns!" Cheerilee managed to breath out "What the heck happened to this place?"

"Discord happened to this place, I did tell you which time period we're in didn't I?" Doctor Hooves said, slightly irritated. She's the one who wouldn't shut up about seeing what really happened he shrugged it off, remembering that the mind of a pony could only take in so much. "We'd better get a move on, the sooner we see Discord's handy work up close the sooner we can leave."

As they walked towards the hideous sight of a city all of them; with the exception of Doctor Hooves, were rather nervous. Not only were they in a time period in which one of the most powerful evil entities in the world was very much alive but they were actually walking into a city controlled directly by him. Seems like a suicide run Cheerilee thought to herself, she was normally an optimist but in a situation like this she had to see the facts of the situation along with everyone else.

As they arrived at the gates of Canterlot Doctor Hooves stopped everyone "Alright," he whispered "once we go inside keep your heads low and just act like all the other terrified ponies, we don't want to attract any unwanted attention." The others nodded in agreement and they entered the city only to be greeted by one of the hypnotised guards.

"State your business." he said in a voice blank of emotion.

"We only wish to stay in the inn before continuing on our travels." Doctor Hooves replied, having predicted a question like this before they arrived.

The guard pony nodded "You may proceed, but be warned that if you cause trouble you will be gutted and hung outside the city walls."

Most of them gulped at that but carried on into the city anyway "Right, now all we need to do is head to Canterlot Castle, most of the vile things Discord did happened inside or just outside of that place."

Walking through the streets of Canterlot was much more difficult than any of them could have predicted, homeless ponies begging for bits at every turn, ponies being mugged by large groups in alleyways. "Just keep walking" Doctor Hooves had told them, he didn't want to interfere any more than he had to.

"But grandfather... it's awful, we must do something" Sugar had pleaded with him.

He just kept a stern look and said "Discord's rule ends in about two days anyway, the princesses of the sun and moon are planning to head into the Everfree Forest as we speak." He seemed quite sure of the fact, after all the TARDIS may have glitchy controls but the readings never lied.

Apparently he was right about the castle being the centre of all of the chaos, the closer they got the more death and decay they saw. There also seemed to be a substantial amount of guards for a being who had the power to bend reality to his will, it was almost as if he was preparing for something. They could see the castle up ahead now and it looked... strange to say the least.

It was painted in a mixture of pink and blue and all of the windows had a stained glass image of a creature the grey head of a pony; and a rather unusual pony at that, the antler of a dear on the left side of his head and the blue horn of a goat on the right side of his head. Despite the bushy white goat beard and the right red eye pupil being smaller than his left the thing that stood out the most on this creature was the single long fang protruding from the left side of his mouth.

Everyone's mouths hung open with shock as one, two syllabled word escaped from their mouths with a gasp "Discord!"

Comments

[Anime PJ]

Actually, the Thals original story in Doctor Who had them being farmers so wouldn't Earth Ponies make more sense?

[Random Dude]

Doctor Hooves was impressed. He didn't know another pony who could fit that much wood in their mouth.

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