Four Ponies & A Time Machine

by SkelePone

Chapter XXIV: Her Majesty Queen Derpy I

“Learn from the past, but don’t live in the past.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Time Turner shook his head in exasperation.

Carnegie Porter was the only pony he knew who would play poker with his captors. The three ponies sat together in a large cage. They were surrounded by guards, most of whom were somber and silent. Two, however, sat with Carnegie, letting the Earth pony reach through the bars to toss in poker chips and look at his dealt cards.

Occasionally, Carnegie would bark at one of the two to grab more alcohol from his satchel. They were drinking heavily; cackling madly as they played their card game. Many times Time Turner considered joining them, but his worry for Derpy was a little more intense than his simple considerations to join in on the small party at the edge of the cage. Roseluck lay asleep. After spending so many long hours panicking over where Porter was, she was finally able to get some shut-eye.

The Illumarenati had confiscated the time machine, and had it hidden somewhere in their cavernous tunnels.Time Turner did not know what they were doing with it, but he assumed it was nothing good. Carnegie had told him about their plans through world domination, using the time machine to alter history and destroy the future.

They were doomed.

Time Turner had spent about an hour thinking up various escape plans. Many of them could barely even begin to be enacted. The cage was surrounded, the guards watching them intently. They had distracted the most chaotic and destructive of them with a simple card game and liquor. The Illumarenati had them trapped. And in a few moment's time, they would be slinging Derpy into the cage with them.

The Doctor shuddered as he thought about what would happen after that. He suddenly had flashbacks, images from Sombra's nightmare struck his brain like bolts of lightning. He saw Carnegie dead, Rose dead, Derpy dead. Everypony dead. If they couldn't get back to the TROTIS, they were all going to die, and the Equestria he knew in the future would be destroyed.

"Ahahahaa! Lookit 'ere, royal flush! Read 'em an' weep, gentlecolts." Time Turner heard Carnegie's thunderous laughter and the clicking of poker chips.

They were doomed.

---

Derpy shimmied her way down the narrow tunnel.

Every so often she would pause in terror, waiting for a voice in the distance to approach her. The voices would never approach, but she was on pins and needles anyways. She could see a dim lantern light at the end of the tunnel. Whatever was down there was surrounded by several milling ponies. Chatter echoed down the hall, showering over Derpy. The words were too jumbled and shaken to make any sort of sense out of them.

As she approached, she heard their voices clear up.
And she did not like what she heard.

"So what do we do when we find the pegasus? Kill her? Put in the cage with the other three?"
Other three. That must be Carnegie, Doc, and Rose. Derpy breathed a sigh of relief. They were alive.
"I dunno. I guess we just have to find her. The brown Earth pony told High Priestess that she was the pilot. We probably need her alive to teach us how to drive the stupid carriage."
"You think they're really time travelers?"
"Hell naw. High Priestess is just kooky. Don't tell her I said that, though."

Derpy was right at the doorway to the lit room. A pair of hooded ponies began to walk out of the room through one of two wooden doors, still chattering. Derpy slunk into the now empty room and opened the other wooden door. It was a storage closet. Derpy groaned but caught herself midway. There were cloaks and hoods hung from hooks all over the closet.

Seconds later, Derpy was wandering about the maze of tunnels, bumping about. She could barely see out of the hood. She wondered if the Illumarenati members had some sort of spell to see out of their disguises. Just then she bumped into somepony.

"Oops! Sorry."
"Don't worry about it. Also, your hood is on backwards."
Oh.

Derpy rapidly spun around her hood, careful to avoid showing her face. The stallion chuckled.
"Better?"
"Well at least now I can see."
"So where are you trying to get to?"
"Umm... The new prisoners. I think."
"Cool. Follow me."

She shuffled along behind the stallion, who wore deep black robes. She did not know what that meant, but it probably meant he was somepony important.

"So my name's Star Chaser, if you were wondering. I've been looking around the observatory recently. Somepony's been stealing parts to the telescopes! Can you believe it? The nerve of some ponies."
"Well... um... shouldn't you tell somepony?"
"Who? High Priestess? Unless it involves the Order taking control of another social office, she could care less."
"Why do you even have an observatory...?"
"I dunno. Why do we control the Zebrican government? We just do. We can, so we will."

Derpy willed herself to look up into the stallion's face. His face was tan, his coat the same color as Carnegie's. The resemblance stopped there. Where Carnegie was thick and bushy, Star Chaser was thin and gangly. What little of his mane peeked through his hood was brown, the same shad as his eyes. He had stubble around his mouth. He was smiling. At least until he saw her eyes.

"You wanna know something funny?" He whispered, now glaring directly at her. Derpy felt her stomach drop.
"Um... heh heh... maybe...?"
"The pegasus we're looking for. You know tha main thing they told us about her?"
"Oh. Um. Maybe it was about her sparkling personality?" Derpy felt herself squee as she tried to smile at what had seemed to be a friendly stallion. He did not return her smile.

"Her eyes are supposedly crossed. How peculiar is that?"
"Oh I dunno, it's pretty common to have crossed eyes."
"But one more thing, fellow member."
"Um... yes?"
"None of the Order has crossed eyes."
Derpy gulped as he leaned in to whisper into her ear. She felt herself start to shake.

"If I were you, I'd start running."

---

Time Turner looked up at the open doorway in alarm. A commotion of rattling and shouting echoed down the hall. Everypony in the prison chamber, even the silent guards, gasped as a familiar grey pegasus streaked down the large tunnels, followed by several armed, hooded ponies. Their captors abandoned their posts to help, as soon as they rounded the corner, TIme Turner nodded towards Carnegie.

Porter smiled wickedly before spinning around to buck down the iron door of their cage. It swung open and they bolted out, Carnegie grabbing his satchel. The brewer took a moment to look over his abandoned poker table, looking under it, he gasped.

"Oye, they were hidin' aces!"

Carnegie Porter sat fuming for a moment before Roseluck grabbed his ear with her teeth and dragged him away into the hall. They ran, not quite knowing where they were going. Every so often, a group of guards would find them and they would have to go down a new hallway or backtrack. Time Turner was desperately looking about. He had his ears set on locating his marefriend.

"Oye, she's over 'ere, Doc!" He heard Carnegie shout. Time Turner galloped full speed after the two other Earth ponies. There, they saw Derpy with another mare. A mare with a blood-red mane and a light blue coat. She had a crazed look in her eye as she levitated a blade directly at Derpy's throat. Time Turner gasped.

"Don' worry, Derps. We'll save ya!" Carnegie snarled, glaring at the unicorn. Time Turner scanned the scenario. Levitation magic varied in speed depending on a unicorn's skill. He let himself study her cutie mark. It was the Illumarenati symbol. She was obviously this 'High Priestess' character he had heard so much about. Why she was unrobed, Time Turner did not know. But he did not like her sudden reveal of identity.

"Now, how are we going to do this... DOCTOR?" The red unicorn hissed. "Are you going to take me with you to the future, or are you going to let your little friend here DIE?!" Time Turner looked up in horror as Derpy strained to keep her throat away from the floating dagger. He did not know anything about High Priestess. There were too many variables, too many random triggers. He couldn't even begin to try and predict the outcome, even if he agreed to her terms. Suddenly, variables no longer mattered as a pony smashed a rock over High Priestess' head.

The tan pony waved a hoof down at them, and Derpy fluttered down, landing weakly at Time Turner's hooves. After a quick kiss and a short embrace, Derpy nodded up at the unicorn stallion above them.

"Thank you, Star Chaser."
"No prob. Now get out of here, before they catch you. I'll tell them that you killed her. I'll finish her off once you leave. Your time machine is down that hall-" he nodded at said hall, "-and to the right. Now get outta here before I change my mind."

They didn't hesitate to follow his orders.

Author's Note:

Star Chaser is the first OC that doesn't belong to me to be written into Four Ponies. He will not be appearing again in the storyline.

Comments

[Lambda Fan]

That was great! I'm glad the character was more cañon fodder for the others to get away and is most likely dead now, just as it should be. The interactions between Derpy were quite fun too. Keep up the good work sir