The Cold of Winter

by Fedora

The Battle for Coltchester

The early winter darkness brought with it a feeling of anxiety throughout the horde. Some had seen their own King weeding out traitors earlier. All were worried about the capabilities of the Cyberponies. Would they be able to slow them down, let alone halt their advance? Were they stock that the Cyberponies were ultimately after, or were they all disposable?

The Doctor, Medley and Lyra sat inside the general store, now empty as the supplies had been distributed among the Changelings. Even the register had been cleared out, in the hopes that the gold bits could be broken up into small bits and clog up some Cyberpony’s respiratory system.

“He’s going to try to off us before the Cyberponies arrive.” The Doctor said, staring at the wall.

“Why?”

He shook his head.

“I imagine he thinks I’m going to sabotage his effort and get the two aries to destroy each other.”

“Isn’t that what the Wolf was trying to do?” Lyra piped up from her spot on the floor. The Doctor nodded.

The doors to the empty store swung open, as six guards entered the room. Three stood on either side of the entryway as the Princess entered the store.

“Oh, hello!” the Doctor said, standing up and offering a hoof shake, “I don’t believe we’ve met. You see, I’m the Doctor and this is-”

“You will be silent.”

Princess Chrysalis ignored the outstretched hoof, and stood before the Doctor and the other two ponies.

“I come in my father’s place,” she said. Her voice had a reverberating quality to it, giving off vibrations that could be felt by all in the room.

“Isn’t he feeling well?” the Doctor suggested.

“YOU WILL BE SILENT!”

“Doctor- shut up.” whispered Medley.

Chrysalis began walking the length of the empty store, looking at the deconstructed shelves lying on the floor and the smashed holiday-themed decorations. She pivoted once reaching the end and looked back to where the Doctor was, meeting his gaze with lowered eyelids.

“I need you to activate the force field.” she stated.

The Doctor had constructed a holding field emitter around the shed containing the portal. It wouldn’t keep the Cyberponies inside indefinitely once they started to arrive, but it would hold for a few minutes.

“Why do you need me?” asked the Doctor.

Chrysalis bobbed her body as she walked back to the front of the store, not breaking eye contact once. She came to stand right in front of the Doctor, eyes locked into his eyes. Their faces were inches apart. When she spoke she spoke quietly, but the vibrations in her voice remained.

“Don’t play games with me.”

Lyra shuddered. She was standing a meter away, but every time the changeling Princess spoke she felt herself involuntarily shudder. It was a downright unnerving sensation to be able to feel sompepony’s voice.

The Doctor kept his eyes open, not even blinking. He stared into the green, slit-pupil abyss of Chrysalis’ eyes, and they stared right back into him. She was uncomfortably close, and he could feel the heat of her breath on his face.

It was a challenge. Even as the words ‘don’t play games with me’ left her mouth she was toying with the Doctor, daring him to blink or falter. The two remained locked in this tense position until the Doctor broke it. Without blinking or diverting his gaze from the twin slits he spoke.

“Insurance.” he said.

Chrysalis blinked first. She moved her head back, away from the Doctor’s and adopted a tall stance, looking down on him. It was an attempt at being intimidating, but after losing the battle of gazes she wasn’t quite as impressive as she had been before.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Simple,” said the Doctor with a cheeky grin, “It’s insurance that you let us live. You need us to enter the combination, and I won’t do it unless you give me your word that we’ll be released.”

Chrysalis gave a very slight nod of her head, and on that signal the three guards positioned on the left side of the door swooped down and hoisted Lyra up on her hind legs. One had a craggy horn jabbed under her chin, the other restrained her and kept her standing in an awkward position.

“Give me the combination or your friend dies.” Chrysalis said.

The Doctor was silent.

“You can’t!” shouted Lyra, only to have the horn jabbed tighter into the soft tissue of her chin.

“Shut up, filly.” snapped Chrysalis, “Speak another word and I’ll order them to kill you now.”

“No, but you can’t,” Medley interjected, “because you need her. You need all three of us.”

Chrysalis blinked.

“We all have a different segment of the combination,” the Doctor explained, “Killing any one of us destroys your chance of getting the forcefield working.”

This time, it was the Doctor who made an advance on Chrysalis. He took a step forward, meeting her passive gaze with a piercing one of his own.

“Is that understood? Either you release us, or your forcefield won’t work.”

They were silent. Chrysalis disengaged the Doctor’s attempt at another staring match, and turned to the other guards.

“...and the other one.”

Medley found herself hoisted into an uncomfortable position by two changelings. She writhed and wriggled trying to fight them off, until a horn found its way right beneath her chin and she stood still.

“You overestimate the importance of the forcefield to us, Doctor.” said Chrysalis, “Either the three of you activate it and I may continue to let you live, or I’ll have your friends executed here and now. Your choice.”

The Doctor looked from Lyra’s widened eyes to Medley’s, and lowered his head. He grabbed at his polka-dotted cravat and dabbed a bead of sweat from his brow.

“Alright,” he said, “We’ll input the codes.”

****

The snow was packed down solid all around the squat wooden shed. Lines of identical changeling drones stood on either side, necks erect. The only movement displayed was the occasional swivel of a ragged ear, following a noise.

The King stood between the sets of lines, at the threshold to the shed housing a link through time and space. Before him was the Doctor, clad in his garish patchwork, and two young pony mares. Something seemed amiss to him, but it couldn’t be placed. In light of preparations that had to be made, it was probably insignificant.

“Doctor, I trust my daughter has instructed you in what you must do for us.” he said. Metamorphosis lacked the eerie reverberations of Chrysalis’ voice, but it had strong timbre.

“Quite implicitly, yes,” said the Doctor.

“Explicitly, you mean.”

“Er, yes.” the Doctor corrected, “explicitly. If I may put forward a final plea, however…”

His voice trailed off. King Metamorphosis adjusted his stance.

“... whatever happens, please spare these two mares.”

Medley began to protest, but the Doctor signaled for her to stop. Metamorphosis turned his back on the three.

“We shall see.” he said. “It would be best for you to set the forcefield up now. Time is running thin.”

“Well technically time can’t be stre-”

“Get to work!” Chrysalis hissed from behind the Doctor, pushing him to the ground.

Regaining his composure, the Doctor went to one side of the shed, with Medley and Lyra going to other spots. In front of each pony was a small cube seemingly made of junk and spare electrical bits, with a series of wires and a focusing lens protruding from the top. Crude input devices had been constructed from typewriters. The three devices were positioned around the shed at equilateral distances from each other.

Lyra went first. Hers was the first number in the startup sequence. She pressed the edge of her hooves onto the large, clunky buttons of the typewriter and input her number.

8888

Medley heard the muffled clicking, and the moment it stopped she knew it was her turn to input her code. Like Lyra had done, she used her front hooves on the rusty typewriter keys.

8888

It was The Doctor’s turn now. Like the others, he input his 4-digit code.

8888

The forcefield hummed to life. A bright beam of light jumped from each lens, meeting the other two in a single point above the shed. A second, more powerful beam was emitted from the sides at ground level, physically cutting through the floor of the shed in order to connect to a matching beam being emitted from the other devices. The six beams of light formed the vertices of a pyramid with a base of an equilateral triangle, trapping the shed within.

They couldn’t have done so a minute later, for at that precise moment the walls of the shed crumbled. The remains of trashed garden tools and summer supplies lay among a swirling vortex, through which stomped an entire squad of Cyberponies three wide and three deep.

The first squad gave way to a second, and then a third before the pyramid grew too cramped. One Cyberpony attempted to fire upon the walls of the forcefield, only for its blast to be absorbed.

“Alright troops!” the King barked, “Positions! Doctor, you and the mares- get behind our lines. I’ll deal with you later!”

The Doctor, Lyra and Medley fell back behind stacks of crates and hurtled themselves over a wall of packed snow reinforced with wood.

Orderly obedience of the King’s orders gave way to a frenzied chaos as the soldiers, workers and commanders alike scrambled to find their defensive positions. In the pandemonium nobody was paying very close attention to the Medley, the Doctor or Lyra, allowing them to slip out of sight around a one-story cottage.

“What’s the plan, Doc?” Medley asked quietly.

“How many times! I don’t like being called ‘Doc’,” he protested. The group huddled close, conversing in hushed voices.

“The large disc I was working on earlier- it’s crucial that we get to that as soon as possible.”

The other nodded.

“I’ll need your assistance moving it into place,” he continued, “With that many Cyberponies that forcefield won’t hold up very long, we’ve got to get going.”

The three broke their huddle and took off single file, weaving through open houses and through side-streets to avoid detection.

****

Nine Cyberponies concentrated their fire on the small corner of one of the devices that was within the forcefield. Being made of junk, the device was unable to withstand that kind of firepower, and exploded in a shower of sparks. The shimmering vertices of the force-field pyramid faded into nothingness.

There was nothing stopping the Cyberponies now. A fourth squad tromped its way through the vortex, then a fifth and a sixth. An entire army of metallic warriors marched into the occupied village.

A solitary Cyberpony marched through, accompanied by a squad of its own acting as an elite guard. This Cyber unit had black bars on each side of its head, designating it as the Cyberleader of this particular invasion force.

“Search each of the households for compatible equinoids. Each individual equinoid is to be escorted by no less than three Cyber units back to the rift to be taken back for conversion.”

Blasts of green magic rained down from above. One Cyberpony was struck just below the neck by the projectile changeling magic and collapsed to the ground momentarily. It twitched, and sluggishly got back onto all four metal hooves and caught up with its squad.

Other Cyberponies were hit by similar attacks and the effects were the same; they’d take a fall and seize up briefly, only to get back up again.

Through the veil of the darkness bright red bursts of cyber weaponry cut their way to the horned changelings firing. The shots were accurate, and deadly. Around the rooftops and in the yards they started to drop like flies caught in a bug zapper.

“The indigenous equines have set up a snow barrier. Break it down and continue to the residences.” ordered the Cyberleader.

Two squads approached one of the snow-and-wood barriers constructed by the Changelings. Upon trying to smash it down with strong metal limbs they struck boulders buried within the mounds, denting the armor.

Over the top of the wall heavy objects were flung at the assembled squads. Chairs, iceboxes, sinks and bathtubs. Even a piano was hoisted up and toppled down onto the attacking Cyber forces.

The physical blows were not always successful , but out of a squad of nine Cyberponies two or three on average were incapacitated. The remaining members of a squad regrouped and unloaded their weaponry on the barriers, breaking the boulders into smaller chunks and melting the snow around them.

Some of the changelings tried imitating Cyber form. It was a totally alien physiology, and ultimately the disguise was imperfect and disfigured to the point of uselessness. Reverting to their regular forms, the first layer of the Changeling defense resorted to their magic and physical blows to engage the Cybers.

It did not bode well.

****

“Watch it!”

Medley strained under the heft of her side of the massive dish. The three time travelers were opposite each other on the bottom of the dish.

It was twice as heavy as it had been earlier. During the afternoon a bit of snow had fallen, and collected in the center of the dish.

Lyra sputtered as well, dropping her end and panting.

“It’s too heavy.” she said, “All the slush at the center is sliding toward my end.”

Medley pushed her side up as much as she could, tipping the dish slightly. The Doctor left his side, letting it drop to the ground. Together, he and Medley dumped the accumulated snow from the center.

“Come on,” he urged, “We’ve got to get a move on.”

Lyra rejoined the effort to move the disc, and slowly it made its way out of the backyard. They carried it through the narrows, away from the nearing sounds of battle.

****

In the center of the street, the mighty King of the Changelings knelt. War raged across the village as bright death rays shot by the Cybers at their moving Changeling targets clashed with the most potent magic spells the drones could conjure.

The Changelings were on the losing side. Their lines were constantly falling further backwards, and attempts to rally and push back were unsuccessful.

The Cyber leader now stood before Metamorphosis.

“Our records indicate that this region of Earth is populated almost exclusively by Equines.” it said in a monotonous voice, “The prevalence of Changelings in this town is incorrect. Why is this?”

The King was silent. His gaze remained transfixed on a stone jutting out of the trampled-down snow.

“Changelings are partially compatible as servants of the cyber-kind, but they are not compatible as fully-fledged cyber units. What has happened to the Equinoids in this region?”

No response.

“Your lack of response indicates that you are unwilling to respond. Therefore, you serve no purpose.” The Cyber leader said, “Kill him.”

One of the two Cyberponies on either side of King Metamorphosis leveled its device. An arc of electric energy appeared and struck the King’s body at random points with an audible crack. The amperage increased exponentially, with more arcs connecting at different points on his body. His face contorted, and his cold heart exploded.

Within a fraction of a second Metamorphosis collapsed, crackling with the force of over three thousand milliamperes. An acrid smell filled the air that none of the Cybers could perceive and wisps of smoke rose from the fried corpse of the Changeling King.

“We have taken 63% of the village,” a nearby Cyberpony reported to the leader, “Our forces have sustained less than 10% casualties.”

“Continue the engagement.” ordered the Cyber leader, “Once the Changelings have been driven from this village we will ascertain the location of compatible equines.”

****

The Doctor, and Lyra set the oversized disc down on the top of the broken remains of a fountain in the center of the road. The stone sculpture had been broken apart and used as ammunition against the Cyberponies, to little effect.

By this point the battle was imminent, just on the other side of the nearest stack of houses.

“We can’t afford to wait any longer!” Medley shouted down from the sky, “They’re practically here!”

They had to shout. Screeching war cries and the never ending barrage of weapons discharge filled the night.

“This isn’t good enough!” cried the Doctor, “We need a wider radius of clear space!”

“We’re not gonna get a wider radius, Doc!” yelled Medley, swooping back down to Earth, “It’s now or never!”

The Doctor held a set of cables. On the very bottom of the disc sat another mish-mash of components taken from devices within the TARDIS itself. The power packs would last for three seconds once he connected the two ends of the cable and completed the circuit.

“STAND BACK!”

He jammed the two ends together and dove for cover, eating a faceful of snow. Medley zoomed off and and hid behind the bulky walls of what used to be a cottage. Lyra ducked and covered.

The dish hummed to life. A gargantuan column of bright light shot upwards into the heavens. An ear-splitting noise filled the air. Throughout the entire village things were as bright as broad daylight, and snow laying on the ground was whisked into the sky in a swirling vortex around the neverending column of light.

It vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The snow continued to swirl, falling back down to earth with the ferocity of a blizzard. The beam had punched a hole through the dark clouds, and through this hole a small blue box plummeted down.

The box was on fire, leaving a scorched streak through the sky as it plunged down on a collision course for the town square. The sounds of its groaning, wheezing engine mixed with the tired cadence of war. A thatched rooftop and stone walls shattered, and the box lay on its side in the wreckage of a cottage.

The door fell open, and a figure rolled out. A column of dark smoke escaped from the open door, and this figure coughed and sputtered. He was gray, and clad in a tattered black overcoat.

Another dark figure appeared from the sky, lingering in the shadows of the smoke before becoming solid to the hacking stallion on the floor of somepony’s living room.

Chrysalis landed in front of the stallion, towering over him. He looked up at her, and her pupils constricted. She recognized who he was, and what he had done.

“You!” she hissed. Hatred and anger coursed through her being. Her heart pumped faster, circulating her poison. The venom coursed through her fangs and infected the flesh of the stallion she had sunk her fangs into.

The wolf’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed once more.

“Your majesty, STOP!” a voice cried out.

She withdrew her fangs from the neck of the stallion and snapped to attention, body tensed and adrenaline circulating.

The patchwork fool stood before her, speaking some unintelligible gibberish she could not understand. She hated him too. She hated all of them… all of the backstabbing fools in their little blue boxes. She hated their guts.

Her red vision subsided slightly, and she found herself pinning the Doctor underneath her body, teeth bared and snarling.

“I’m sorry!” he said, words finally getting through to her, “Really, I am. I wish there was something I could do for your father but I can’t. Look at the Wolf.”

A gelatinous, faintly glowing glob dripped from his mouth, landing on the tarnished wood floor of the living room and scooting away. As it left the body of the stallion his color returned to a vibrant blue, and his mane faded to a healthier brownish tint. The parasitic creature was injured, not capable of taking flight, and it was sliding across the floor as fast as it could from its dying host.

“That little blob is the Wolf, not the stallion.”

“What?!” cried Chrysalis, “You lie! You only want to save him!”

“I do want to save him! The stallion, at least. He’s the only one who can help us- you. And you’re the only one that can help him.”

Chrysalis was still. Silently, the mental parasite glided over the floor and toward the broken frame of the door, between Chrysalis’ hooves. She lifted one and slammed it into the ground, squashing the thing and the last remnants of its life.

Whatever it was that had created the Wolf in the first place was now dead.

A blast of Cyber weapons fire shocked the new Queen back into reality. Her brood was in danger, and it was her duty to save them from being annihilated.

A greenish glow engulfed the Ninth Doctor’s body. Slowly, a dribble of toxic fluid flowed out from the puncture wound in his neck. It dripped harmlessly onto the floor.

His eyes opened. A dilated, quarter-sized pupil constricted, and began swiveling about in its socket, taking in the surroundings.

The Ninth Doctor tried to stand, but it sent a horrible pain shooting through his extremities.

“Don’t move!” Chrysalis snapped, “I haven’t extracted all of the poison yet.”

He lay back on the ground, breathing slower and blinking his eyes.

“I had the most horrible dream.” he said quietly, “and I remember it all vividly.”

“Do you remember the override for the portal?” asked the Sixth Doctor, “This is extremely urgent.”

“I think so.”

The last of the poison seeped out. When the Doctor tried to stand, he was met with a much less serious pang.

“Right.” he said, “Where were we?”

“The portal.” Chrysalis said, “You must shut it down.”

“Done!” he cried, just a little bit too loudly. Both the Sixth Doctor and Chryalis clapped hooves to their ears a little bit too late. The Doctor ducked and rolled back into his sideways TARDIS, pulling the door shut behind him.

The crashed ship wheezed, and gradually faded from view.

Chrysalis grabbed the Sixth Doctor by his question-mark collar, and pulled him in close.

“Where did he go?!” she snarled, “Bring him back!”

“He’s gone to shut the portal off, trust him!”

****

In a darkened corridor, a squad of Cyberponies surrounded a generator supplying power to the portal. In the distance, a rumbling announced the departure of the Synax from the planet. The Cybers had no desire to stop them. Synax were ultimately unsuitable for Cyber conversion, and swelling their ranks was the topmost priority.

Their brethren were fighting across time and space, on a small world populated by Ponies, the ideal type to convert to a Cyber being. Soon, they would receive word back from the assault force and the conversion factories would come online, ready to roll out an entire army of new Cyberponies.

A groaning noise filled the hall, and the darkness was puncture by a bright light atop a materializing blue police box. The forces guarding the generator leveled their weapons.

“Don’t shoot!” said a voice. A blue stallion stepped out, pulling a loose leather jacket back over his shoulders.

“Don’t shoot, I came to deliver a message.”

“What is the nature of this message?” inquired the squad leader.

“Oh, just send a message to the Cyber leader, that’s all.” the Doctor said, “You can communicate with it in real time, correct? The delay doesn’t affect your lines of communication.”

“That is correct.”

“Wonderful.” the Doctor said with a smile, “That’s great news, yeah. Really fantastic... Tell the Cyber leader this, and tell it it’s from The Doctor. The generator is about to go critical, and the assault forces need to get back through the portal before it closes. Can you do that favor for me?”

“That statement is incorrect,” the squad leader replied in the usual mechanical monotone, “We guard the generator. It is in no danger of ‘going critical’.”

“Mmmm. Yeah. About that.”

The Doctor opened the door of the TARDIS, and stepped backwards. He held a device out, and wiggled it for the Cyberponies to see.

“I’ve got the remote control!”

The TARDIS doors slammed shut. The entire squad unloaded their weapons into the blue sides of the box, but to no effect.

****

“Cyber Leader!” reported the communications unit on its chest plate “The portal generator has started a detonation countdown. We have no way of stopping it. Currently 30 seconds to detonation.”

The Cyber Leader was motionless. Could it feel emotion anger, surprise, and fear would all have been coursing through its mind, but all that the wire-strung mind of the highest ranking Cyber could do was calculate the logical course of action.

“All units, return to the portal immediately.” it ordered, “Those who do not make it within 30 seconds will be trapped in Equestria and abandoned.”

A mass exodus occurred in the next 30 seconds. Cyberponies dropped everything they were doing and bolted for the portal at top speed, filing through one after another after another and leaving the town empty save for the surviving members of the Changeling horde and the wreckage they had created.

The portal collapsed in on itself in a brilliant flash, and a very loud bang resounded through the forests and up the mountain. Birds flew from their perch in excitement.

****

On the horizon, just behind the distant mountains, Celestia’s sun began to poke its orange face out. The sky had started to redden and the night was being quietly ushered out.

Coltchester was a pile of rubble. Few buildings remained unscathed. Many were partially collapsed or burning. The dead, Cyberpony and Changeling alike were dragged to a spot outside of town. The survivors contemplated their next actions.

The Sixth Doctor, Medley, Lyra and Queen Chrysalis stood in the center of town. The familiar groaning of the TARDIS filled the air, and not far away the blue box materialized. A stallion clad in a big leather jacket and an even bigger grin stepped out.

Lyra pounced on him, embracing him with a tight hug and burying her face in his shoulder.

“Easy, easy!” he cried in alarm.

“I thought you were lost forever to that… that… whatever that was!”

The Doctor returned the embrace, and then held Lyra by the shoulders before him.

“So did I…” he said, “Are you alright?”

She nodded.

Chrysalis stepped in, her reverberating voice causing Lyra to recoil. The Doctor went to stand by his other incarnation, side by side in opposition to the Changeling Queen. Now that the battle with the Cyberponies had subsided, it was their duty to prevent another one from breaking out.

“This township is still under the control of the Changelings,” she stated, “The four of your lives will be spared for your assistance in stopping the Cyberponies, and a place of comfort will be afforded for you in the New Changeling Empire.”

“Changeling Empire?” Medley groused, “What?”

“We will gather reinforcements and launch the attack on Canterlot, just as my father intended.” Chrysalis continued, “You’d do best to not interfere, Doctors, or you will lose my good favor.”

“You still plan on attacking Canterlot?” asked the Ninth Doctor.

“Even after what happened last night?” continued the Sixth Doctor, “You haven’t the numbers to manage a maneuver on that scale!”

“You are mistaken, Doctors!” Chrysalis exclaimed. She let loose a miniature cackle, letting it subside into a laugh. She still hurt deeply from the loss of her father, but she had to admit enjoying the absolute authority of the throne.

“Within the week Canterlot will fall!” she called out, eliciting a cheer from her brood members, “And after Canterlot… all of Equestria!”

“Not on my watch!”

The voice didn’t belong to either of the Doctors. It was a new voice, a female one from the sky. The heads of the time travelers, the Changeling drones and the Queen herself craned upwards.

An elegant white alicorn swooped down for a landing, escorted by an entire team of armored guards and a little grey cross-eyed pegasus. Behind them flew another swarm of Royal guards, landing about the remnants of the Changeling horde and surrounding them in little clusters throughout the village.

Derpy swooped down and tackled her Doctor, grinning wildly. She gave him a sudden kiss and held him in a tight hug like Lyra had done. His eyes went wide with surprise. She broke the kiss and shouted out in joy.

“Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh Doctor! You’re back!”

“Relax! You’re crushing my chest, Derpy!” he choked.

She let him go, and stood by to watch the confrontation between monarchs unfold.

“Why… Princess Celestia!” gulped Chrysalis, “What a surprise!”

“The citizens of Coltchester fled from the threat of a deadly airborne disease.” Celestia said, landing on the ground and squaring off with the Changeling Queen. “It’s been abandoned and under quarantine until we could determine whether or not the threat was real. Now what in Equestria has been going on here.”

“Cyberponies, madam.” The Sixth Doctor piped up, “There was a portal here. This town was laid out as a trap by this being…”

“The Wolf.” stated the Ninth Doctor. “The Wolf wanted to destroy both the Changelings and the Cyberponies alike, so he engineered a situation in which they would be fighting over the same turf and take them out.”

Celestia frowned.

“What about the deadly disease?” she asked of the Doctors.

“That was me,” the Sixth Doctor admitted, “I’m sorry I didn’t inform you, but I only thought of it about an hour ago. I went back and spread the rumor of the disease so that the village would be empty.”

“Something the Wolf didn’t consider.” the other Doctor said, “He never accounts for innocent bystanders.”

Celestia overlooked the wreckage of the town, the smouldering remains of the buildings.

“What happened to this ‘Wolf’? Is he still at large?”

“No your majesty,” Lyra said with a reverent bow, “The Wolf died in the battle last night.”

“Very well…” Celestia murmured, her voice trailing off. Her gaze met Chrysalis’ and they glared at one another. What followed was inevitable.

“As for you,” said the Equine Princess, “You and the rest of the Changelings are banished from Equestria for the next century. I don’t want to see you step a hoof outside of the badlands, or wherever you choose to set up your next hive. Is that understood?”

Chrysalis held her chin aloft with an air of defiance.

“You’ll be sorry.” she muttered, “You may be powerful now Celestia, but mark my words, you’ll be sorry one day.”

****

It was noontime. Cleanup was underway. The Changeling had vacated the area and were being escorted to the borders by a legion of the Royal Guards. Celestia had thanked Derpy Hooves for sounding the alarm to her during the night, and The Doctors, Lyra and Medley for their role in the Battle of Coltchester.

The time had come for the two TARDIS crews to take their leave.

“I don’t suppose I’ll remember this,” the Sixth Doctor said, standing outside his version of the TARDIS.

“No. You’ll still be at that incident with the Silurians.”

The two shook hooves.

“Snap!” they both cried simultaneously, slapping each other on the back.

Lyra, Derpy and Medley were in a group hug. When it ended, Medley went to take off in the direction of the Sixth Doctor’s TARDIS.

“Look me up sometime,” she said, “Hopefully I’m still alive in your time!”

“I should hope so!” Lyra called back, “Thanks for everything!”

Derpy beamed, waving back wildly. Medley disappeared into the TARDIS.

The Sixth Doctor went to enter his time machine , but Nine stopped him briefly.

“One more thing,” he said, “I just… I have to say it; I think rainbow doesn’t really suit you that well. Why don’t you try… I dunno, blue or something. Anything!”

The Sixth Doctor puffed out his chest indignantly.

“I’ll have you know that this is the height of sartorial elegance! Maybe in my future generations my eyes have lost the color receptors capable of distinguishing true taste!”

“I’m only joking, I’m only joking.” Nine said. He patted the side of the TARDIS.

“You take care of the old girl, you hear?”

The Sixth Doctor smiled. With a final wave, he disappeared into his TARDIS as it dematerialized.

Derpy, Lyra and the Doctor entered their own TARDIS. It took a minute for Lyra and Derpy both to adjust to the massive bronze cavern, having grown used to the polished white walls.

“What I don’t understand,” Derpy spoke, “is what the Wolf was. Was it the Valeyard like the other Doctor guessed?”

The Doctor shook his head.

“I thought so before it… er… before it got complete control. Not anymore. I’m not entirely sure it was the Matrix either.”

“What do you mean?” Derpy asked, “What else could it have been?”

“A psychic parasite,” the Doctor said, leaning on the console and pushing a little screen over for Derpy to see. Displayed there was a diagram of a little creature capable of floating and sustaining mental control over the afflicted being.

Lyra looked over Derpy’s shoulder. It looked like a stronger version of the blobbish thing that had oozed out of the Doctor’s mouth after he had been poisoned. It made sense to her- poison the body and the parasite leaves in search of a new host.

“That’s not what I meant though.” Derpy protested, “I meant the part about the Matrix.”

“Oh.” The Doctor said, frowning. “I honestly don’t know. It could have been any kind of simulation chamber. It could have actually been the Matrix too. Who knows.”

He pulled the screen back, and flipped a series of switches on the console.

“We’re in flight now.” he said. The two ponies looked at him for a minute, and he grinned back at them. It was silent for a moment.

“Well, what is it, what?”

Derpy and Lyra dove for the Doctor simultaneously again, giving him yet another bearhug.

“OK! OK!” he shouted, “I get it! Enough! Uncle!”

They let him go.

“It’s me.” he said, “I’m all here. You don’t need to go squeezing every five minutes to make sure.”

“Doesn’t seem like he’s the huggy type, Derpy.” Lyra muttered. Derpy rolled her eyes.

The Doctor paced around the console, trying to think of a destination.

“Would you both say that you’re fried?” he finally said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Fried,” he repeated, “You know, frazzled. Spent all your energy. Enough excitement for one day.”

Both ponies nodded. Someplace relaxing sounded like a good idea.

“I know a place called Delphon. The natives there communicate by wiggling their eyebrows like this…”

He demonstrated by moving each eyebrow around independently of each other in a series of odd twitching movements.

“What did you say?” asked Derpy.

“I’m hungry, let’s grab some grub.” he said. “Wait, that gives me an idea! Florana!”

“Florana?”

“Yes! There’s a region in the northeast hemisphere carpeted by perfumed flowers, seas of effervescent water and sand as soft as swan's down. How does that sound to you?”

“But… what does that have to do with grub?” Lyra asked.

“Nothing!”

“Florana sounds good to me.” Derpy said, “It sounds pretty relaxing.”

Lyra nodded.

“Fantastic!” the Doctor exclaimed, “Florana it is!”

He slammed a switch upwards on the console and the ship’s engines roared to life, hurtling the TARDIS along the vortex toward a destination. It wasn’t clear whether or not it’d be the right one, but spirits were so high that it really didn’t matter.

Comments

[CaptainSanchez]

That was absolutely fantastic!

[TRUSTeT34M]

Yay
Happy ending
I am also kinda hoping for another story since these are so short