Doctor Whooves - The Series: Episode Two - Game of Stones

by Loyal2Luna

Ch. 6: A Quarry Evening

Chapter 6: A Quarry Evening

Underground chamber, Denarius Quarry
Outskirts of Roan
26th of Summer, 1491 A.R., 4:50 p.m.

“Ah’m so sorry, Rainbow...”

In the dimly lit cavern below the bedrock of Denarius Quarry, the strong, stubborn, hardworking earth pony known as Applejack fought back a torrent of tears as she looked at the frozen form of her best friend standing before her.

“It’s all mah fault. Ah brought ya here…”

“Is she... your friend?” a sympathetic, slightly trembling voice came from beside her, though Applejack could hardly hear it over the pounding of her heart in her ears.

When the orange mare didn't answer, Oreo shrank back. Finding himself unable to dredge up any words of comfort, he instead took to looking about the chamber at the various statues. Certainly, there were more than a few of the quarry workers here, one or two of which he knew on sight from past dealings. Some were frozen in expressions of shock, while others seemed completely unaware of whatever had come upon them. But far more troubling among this macabre collection were the mares and stallions, fillies and colts, frozen mid-action as they appeared snatched from their everyday lives.

Licking his dry lips nervously, the Phrench pony did what he could to steel himself, nudging Applejack’s shoulder as his eyes scanned in the moonlight-like illumination for any sign of what might have done this.

“Applejack, we need to get away from this place and find help,” Oreo urged her, keeping his voice down as he attempted to nudge her from her spot next to the pegasus statue.

“Ah can’t leave her here…” Applejack replied, still aware enough to keep her tone hushed.

“We have to go before whatever did this comes back!” Oreo implored her, feeling the danger growing every passing second.

“Ah ain't gonna leave her here!” The farm pony stomped a hoof stubbornly as her shock faded, replaced by an outrage that began to override her caution. “Whatever did this is somethin’ Ah’m gonna be havin’ more ‘n a few words with when it comes back ‘round here!”

“I somehow doubt that whatever did this will want to talk,” Oreo tried to reason, his nervous discomfort more than apparent in his voice and demeanor.

“Who said Ah was gonna talk? Any words Ah have fer it’ll be spelled out with these, right here,” she implied dangerously, lifting each of her hind legs slightly and letting them clop to the stone floor to emphasize her intent. The action caused a moment of panic for Oreo as the clipping sound echoed across the cavern and down the shafts on either side of the rounded room.

However, rather than die down, the sound kept going. A sharp, familiar clipping of hoofsteps echoed through the circular room after the clop from Applejack’s hooves had faded, soft at first, but growing stronger as it sounded crisply through the cavern. The two ponies fell silent yet again, heads turning slowly towards the entryway to note the faint, moon-like illumination giving way to a more intense, orange light that cut into the space, drowning out the softer glow.

As the light and sound grew closer, Applejack snorted angrily and started to charge forward, intent on stampeding whatever was down that hallway. But as much as he admired her fiery disposition, Oreo was also a practical pony, catching her tail in his teeth before she had made it two steps and straining with difficulty to hold the mare back.

“Hey!” Applejack fought to keep her voice down, stifling a slight yelp at the pain that ran up the base of her spine from the tug and stopping her in her tracks.

“You can’t help her if you join her,” Oreo whispered fervently, trying to ignore the fact that his action had nearly dislocated his jaw.

“Well, what do y'all suggest?” Applejack’s tone, while agitated and rushed, was still quiet as it became clear that whatever was coming was going to be upon them at any moment.

Caught slightly off-guard by the question, Oreo looked around as the soft phosphorescent light faded before the oncoming illumination, plunging them into darkness among the statues. The edge of the glowing light began to turn the corner, causing the shadow cast off by the pony statue in the hallway to dance across the floor as the two earth ponies' window of opportunity swiftly drew closed.

————————
Back alley, Lower District
The Pony City-state of Roan
At that exact moment

“HEAVE!”

*CRACK*

A set of reigns cracked forcefully as a heavy steel chain was pulled taut, the sounds of grunting and straining filling the alleyway as a full team of draftsponies pulled for all they were worth against the obstacle.

Used to dragging along enormous boulders and pulling trees right from the ground, roots and all, the team’s Forepony was growing more concerned by the moment as the eight muscled beasts of burden strained. A concern further compounded by his embarrassment, as what looked like half of the Guard of Roan stood by on either side of the team or hovering slightly above, watching with an ever-growing impatience.

At the opposite end of the taut chain, a thick steel strap had been run behind two thin metal handles on the front of a tall blue box that he had failed to notice until the Guard had directly pointed it out to him. By his reckoning, the doors to the box should have been pulled apart with only a slight tug, and yet they still held firm. At the very least, he had thought they would have been able to drag the box itself along the stone streets and bring it out into the open, where more drastic measures might be taken. And yet, thus far, they had managed to do nothing except strain the chain and the workponies nearly to their breaking points.

But while the Forepony, whose job it was to move troublesome objects from place to place, found this impressive on a professional level, the Commander of the Guard that had summoned him and his team seemed far from amused.

“What is taking so long?” Kickback, the Commander of the Royal District’s security and the head of Roan’s Unicorn Guard, barked impatiently, clearly unimpressed with the sheer pulling power of the draft team. “I thought you said that it was a light wood… that this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“It… Um…” The Forepony tried to hide his intimidation as the armored unicorn bore down on him, quickly resorting to the old standby of his profession: When in doubt, throw more ponypower at the problem. “It… must be fastened with greater measures than we supposed, Commander. I shall… hitch up another team. Yes, that should take care of it.”

“It had better,” Kickback replied dangerously, causing the earth pony to draw back and move quickly in an attempt to address the issue.

And although the Forepony didn’t realize it, he was not the only one feeling the pressure in all of this.

Kickback didn’t know the details, nor did he care, but his impression had been that the brown earth pony and the trouble-making unicorn artist, DiHoovsie, along with another cohort that he had yet to find, had made a foal of the Duke’s son in his own studio, causing all sorts of damage in the process. Lord Graphis Denarius had made it clear in no uncertain terms that he wanted these particular criminals brought to a swift and precise justice, and that he was going to hold the Guard Commander personally responsible for any failure to do so. And while he normally had no qualm with the lower art pony’s occasional favors, the longtime Guard Commander had no intention of allowing some lunatics’ antics to unseat him from his comfortable position in Roan.

But now, having tracked down this so-called "Doctor Right," Leonard, and a fourth apparent conspirator, the Commander had been flummoxed by some new trickery.

“Commander!” a voice came from slightly above as a junior-grade Pegasus Guard came down from on high, a flick of his wings serving to soften his landing before saluting sharply with one hoof.

“Report, Lieutenant.”

“The inventor’s workshop has been secured… or what’s left of it, rather. The building looks like a hydra rampaged through it. No witnesses have come forward, though I would like to know what happened in there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kickback responded, not looking away as the Forepony managed to maneuver a few more burly earth ponies into line, hitching their harnesses to the long chain. “Our orders are clear. Anything and everything of value in that shack is to be immediately transported to the Studio de Eterna Magnificenza.”

“Is that proper procedure, sir?” the pegasus asked hesitantly, uncertain of himself.

“Of course it is. Maestro Denarius says that the upstart has been pilfering his work and material stores for some time now, taking advantage of his Academia friendship of the Maestro to steal from him. And while he has put up with it for years, the noble Maestro has had enough, and demands proper restitution in the wake of the blatant act of vandalism upon his property,” Kickback explained at length. He didn’t believe a word of it, himself, but that was hardly his concern.

“Yes, sir. Although, there has been a bit of an… altercation with the inn’s owner, Miss Keeper. What should we do?”

“Earth pony?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Noble?”

“No, sir.”

Kickback snorted in annoyance. The sheer amount of disrespect displayed towards the Guard was wearing ever thin on his nerves as the day went on. “Oh, I don’t care. Arrest her. Have her cool her haunches in the jails for a few days.”

“Commander, I’m not sure if that would be…” the pegasus started, only to receive a cold, hard glare, the snap-turn of his officer's head almost perfectly coinciding with the crack of the reigns as sixteen draftsponies, strapped into two rows of eight, moved forward and strained against the door of the blue box.

“It was not a suggestion, Lieutenant,” Kickback sneered harshly.

“Yes, sir!” The pegasus nodded, saluting again before pushing himself skyward.

Kickback rolled his eyes. He knew he shouldn’t expect more in the way of proper thinking from a featherbrain, but he had far more pressing concerns.

*Snap*

Like the fact that sixteen ponies were suddenly rushing forward and crashing into one another, barreling into the nearest unicorn guards in an uncontrolled heap as the metal strap that had been hammered into place around the blue box’s handles broke under the strain.

————————
Inside the TARDIS

Inside the blue box, the brown stallion smirked as he watched the chaos unfold on the scanner display.

“Well, I'll be. That went better than I thought it would. That last tug actually registered on the sensors for a fraction of a second, there. Now, if I was a betting pony, I would put my wager on them trying a battering ram next. What do you think, Twilight?”

The Doctor ducked his head around the time machine's control console, a large smile on his face as he looked around for the purple unicorn. His smile faded a moment later, as he noted that he had been paid no mind, the two unicorn ponies laying down on their legs at the bottom of the stairway that lead up to the TARDIS’ corridors.

His amusement sufficiently punctured for the moment with nobody to share it with, the Doctor shook his head and moved around the console, returning to the various tasks he had set for himself before the sensors had distracted him, dividing his attention between them and the two ponies talking a few feet away.

Judging from what he heard, Leonard seemed to be taking things quite well.

“…A thing… that looks like a box… standing in an alley… that’s bigger on the inside…” Leonard’s tone was heavy with breathless disbelief as he tried to wrap his mind around what Twilight was telling him. “…and it can go anywhere on Equis… Anywhere in the world…”

“Well, yes.” Twilight cringed slightly at his tone. “I know it’s a lot to take in, Leonard, but it’s all true.”

“And you’re not from Prance at all… are you?” Leonard continued.

“No. I’m from a place called Equestria.” Twilight tried to ease into the next bit, fearing where it could lead. “In what you would call… the future.” Leonard’s eye twitched exactly once. “Yeah, eh-heh… The TARDIS also… kinda sorta… travels through space and time.”

Leo’s breath caught in his throat for a moment and he found it fortunate he was sitting down, as he likely would have collapsed if he was standing.

“Are you okay?” Twilight asked, clearly worried as the stallion looked around.

“Okay… Am I okay…? This is…”

Twilight, unsure what to say, lifted one hoof, hesitating as she wondered if it would be proper of her to comfort him. After all, she had pretty much just obliterated everything that a pony of his age knew to be true about magic and the nature of existence itself.

“…FANTASTIC!”

Twilight pulled back in shock as the blonde-maned artist grinned widely, and his eyes misted over as he brought himself up with a start.

“Oh, so many questions! How does it work? When was this sort of magic developed, or when will it be developed, rather? Why is it a box? Do all of the ponies in the future have these sorts of boxes? Is this how you spend your leisure time? Like a vacation? Is this how you get your kicks? Coming back to simpler days… Oh, wait! ‘Police Box’! Are you some sort of investigators, then? Like the Guard, except for time? Is that why you’re here? How do--”

The tan unicorn stopped abruptly, his lungs emptied of air, as he took a large, gasping breath.

“Whoa! Leo, Leo… Breathe… Breathe…” Twilight moved up beside the artist, who was talking at a mile a minute.

“Yes, breathing is good,” the Doctor called out, smirking slightly to himself at Leonard’s reaction as he dug out a small dish from some compartment and set something grey inside of it. It always made things so much easier when guests were able to accept it with an open mind.

Leonard took a moment to collect himself, his chest heaving almost to the point of hyperventilating as his lungs burned for lack of breath. However, this did little to stem the artist’s enthusiasm.

“Uh, Doctor?” Twilight looked up to the Time Pony for guidance, drawing his attention from whatever he was looking over at the time. The Doctor nodded, understanding without needing the question.

“About the TARDIS, yourself, and why we’re here? Sure. About the future and himself? No.”

“But… well, kinda late for that, isn’t it? I mean, the bag is particularly devoid of cats at this point. Why can’t I just--”

“Twilight, you’re a smart girl.” The Doctor’s tone was measured and clipped as he stressed his point. “You already know the answer.”

Although she wanted to object, the unicorn sighed, nodding in understanding.

“The answer to what?” Leonard asked, still panting as he managed to curb his excitement momentarily.

With a slight, steadying huff, Twilight turned her attention back to him, leading him towards the center console as he continued to recover from having his mind blown wide open.

“Let’s just start with what you already asked, Leo. As far as I know, the TARDIS is one of a kind, and it didn’t come from Equis,” she answered him. “I don’t really know how it works, because it belongs to the Doctor. Applejack, Rainbow Dash and I… Well, we just started traveling with him. And we’re here… because something is wrong. We’re not any sort of official Time Police, or anything, the TARDIS just looks like that because…” Twilight paused as she suddenly found herself walking off a verbal cliff. “Actually, that's a good question. Why is it a blue box, Doctor? And what is a Police Public Call Box in the first place?”

“Oh…” The Doctor again looked up from a tray that Twilight could now see was filled with a small piece of stone, smiling as he readied another well-rehearsed explanation of his time machine's quirks. “A Police Public Call Box is a special sort of telephone box used on a planet called Earth in 1963... which doesn’t mean anything to you really, don’t know why I mentioned it… I spent quite a bit of time there back when I was first starting out. Now, the TARDIS is equipped with a special device called a chameleon circuit. Whenever she lands somewhere, in the first nanosecond of arrival, faster than a living thing can even blink, she scans every structure within a thousand miles, creating a detailed map of the area to cross reference with cultural commonalities that allows her to pick out the perfect disguise in order to blend seamlessly into the new environment.”

The Doctor’s expression fell slightly as he seemed to deflate.

“And then she appears as a big blue police box from 1963 Earth.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Well, as it would happen, the first time the TARDIS took on this shape, the chameleon circuit ended up shorting out, and the police box motif stuck for a good long while. I eventually got around to fixing it, but by then, I had grown rather fond of her being this way. And I'm pretty sure she feels the same, if what happened after I fixed the circuit is any indication.” The Doctor shook his head, remembering all too well how silly it felt as he and Peri walked out of a flowery pillar and an antique pipe-organ; forms that he was now certain the TARDIS had taken simply to spite him. “But, that is not the really interesting question. You both seem to be missing the really interesting question.”

The Hourglass Stallion moved back around the console, using one hoof to kick open a small panel on its side and sticking his head inside as if he were looking around for something.

“What is a ‘telephone’?” Leonard asked, looking over the control console.

“No, that’s not it either. Twilight?” The Doctor waved a hoof somewhat dismissively as he continued to look for something, leaning almost up to his shoulders as he searched. For what, exactly, neither unicorn could tell.

“Twilight, what? I don’t know what a telephone is, either.” Twilight pulled herself up on the console to try and look over at what the Doctor was doing, setting one leg into her flank with an air of indignation that he had tried to pawn off such an explanation on her. Leo, meanwhile, moved up to the Doctor’s side, looking up at the glass tube set into the center of the console with a muted wonder.

“What? Really? Oh! Oh, right… Sorry, most of my companions have tended to be from twenty to twenty-first century Earth. Have to keep reminding myself that that is no longer the case. Alright then, a telephone is a device that uses electrical current to transfer sound-waves across…” The Doctor paused for a moment, ceasing his movements and search as something he hadn't considered came to mind. “…Aaaand that’s enough of a preview for you two, seeing as how you are both smart enough to probably try to build one yourselves when you get home.”

“What does this do?” Leonard spoke up, interrupting the Time Pony as he pulled himself up to the console and pressed a hoof to a large lever.

Just as he prepared to push it down, the Doctor pulled his head from the open panel, a strange oblong device in his mouth for a moment before he spat it aside, sending it clattering to the floor before bolting straight up to his hooves. With a speed borne of panicked desperation, the Doctor threw one hoof under Leonard’s and pushed it up before the blonde inventor could throw the switch, his sudden, urgent motion being more than enough to catch Leonard’s attention.

“That…” the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief as he explained. “…is the horizontal inertia manipulator. Push that lever and the TARDIS will go careening to the side along its currently set ‘bottom’ plane, which, in our situation, would send us barreling through the walls of the buildings adjacent to the alley and crashing through anything in the way.”

“Oh…” Leonard nodded sheepishly as he pulled his hoof away. “And that is a bad thing?”

“Yes, that would be a very bad thing,” the Doctor scolded. “I know it probably goes against everything that you’re feeling right now, but please… don’t touch the buttons.”

“But--”

“Or the levers.”

“But--”

“Or the pulley switches.”

“What about--”

“Actually, Leonard, how about you just do me a favor and not touch anything connected to this console?”

*THUMP*

The dull sound of impact brought the Doctor’s attention lazily away from Leonard, who continued to look over the complicated console, filled with shining buttons and switches and dials that all begged to be touched and pressed.

“Yep, battering ram. They always try the battering ram second.” The Doctor shook his head, clearly unconcerned.

Casually, he reached a hoof over and flicked a small tab seemingly at random, before returning to the task at hoof. As another thump impacted the door, there was a distinct lack of sound, muffled to the point of being nearly inaudible as the Doctor moved over to the floor where he had dropped the device he had retrieved earlier, which Twilight could now see was made of a brown, dull metal with blue glass on the underside, etched with silver lines.

“Alright! Twilight, Leonard, the interesting question is this: When is a statue… not a statue?”

“What?” Twilight tilted her head again as the Doctor moved around them, to the portion of the console where the tray and piece of stone sat, while holding the mysterious object in one of his hooves. With his tongue pulled back over the corner of his lips as he strained, the brown stallion managed to shift the device’s weight, pulling his hoof back as he used his foreleg to cradle it and pressing a small button along the edge of the contraption.

“Oh, how I miss my fingers… Ah! There we go. The answer is…” The device pinged suddenly, the Doctor’s expression turning sour as he seemed to read off something on the screen that neither unicorn could see. “...when the statue is not made of stone at all.”

“Doctor, what are you talking about?” The chestnut pony now held Leonard's complete attention with his demonstration.

“This…” The Doctor set the device down on the floor and motioned to the dish, which Leo and Twilight could now see held several thin strands of rock that held rigidly in a slight curl. “…is a souvenir I picked up at Graphis’ studio. A piece of one of his extravagant, famously hoof-chiseled and elegantly designed statues. The cornerstone of his business and his claim to fame. Do you know what this is?”

“A broken piece of rock?” Twilight raised an eyebrow again, not sure where the Doctor was going with it.

“White marble?” Leonard identified to color and texture, hardly his choice of material, but even so.

“This, my friends, is petrified organic matter.”

Twilight and Leonard both looked to one another in shock, then back to the piece of rock. As the Doctor suspected, both were able to draw the correct conclusion from that.

“My sonic screwdriver hinted at it, and the matter categorizer I keep in the cupboard there just confirmed it, but I’m still not sure as to the exact method. My first thought was petrifold regression, but that’s too slow-acting. Then there is the Shriker Effect, used on some planets to encase air-sensitive perishables in a hardened shell, but that’s--”

“Cockatrice,” Leonard and Twilight said together.

“Oh, well… You know, mythical animal was going to be my next guess.”

“Mythical?” Leonard inquired.

“Said the Doctor to two unicorns… Point taken.” The Doctor shrugged sheepishly.

“Cockatrices are very real, Doctor,” Twilight assured him, now looking to the stone lock of hair with a new degree of sympathy. “Rare, but real. I had a run-in with one myself about a year ago in the Everfree Forest.”

“And they can actually turn living things to stone?”

“Yeah, firsthoof experience with that, too…” the purple unicorn replied grumpily.

Leonard leaned forward slightly, his eyes now widened with awe as the situation presented itself to him. “You were petrified? How did you escape? I thought there was no cure. Or do they come up with a cure in the future?”

“No. Short of a blessing from the Princess herself, there’s usually no way to break the spell. But a friend of mine, Fluttershy, ‘convinced’ the cockatrice to undo it. I woke up with the worst kind of headache, but at least it worked.”

“But, wait… This doesn’t make any sense,” Leonard spoke up, now looking to the piece of marble with both interest and disgust. “Don’t cockatrices petrify their victims by looking into their eyes?”

“Well, I think--” the Doctor started before Twilight spoke again, cutting him off.

“Yeah, you're right. And take it from somepony who knows, you can’t exactly hold a pose when you see those big red eyes. Besides, they don’t live this far north; they live in forests and swamps. And from what I’ve read on them, they only turn their victims into granite stone, not marble.”

“Alright then, what about other options? How about a basilisk?”

“I read about those. Giant serpents, hatched under a toad, and they're big… Like the thing that attacked your shop last night!” Twilight clopped two hooves together in frustration. “But, wait, aren’t they supposed to be extinct?”

“It is possible that--” the Doctor tried again, only to be cut off by Leonard this time.

“Rumors arise every now and then from the Wild Frontier of any number of new or ancient beasts. Perhaps Denarius had one shipped here. He certainly has the money and influence to…" Leonard drew back in sudden repulsion. “Astrolia help us… The Lost… All these years... If Graphis has been doing this the whole time, then there are hundreds of petrified ponies that have been crated up and sold off as pieces of art. I knew he had grown arrogant and brash… but this is just… just…”

“Monstrous…” Twilight finished for him.

“It all makes sense now.” Leonard shook his head, his outrage growing. “The speed of his work, the regularity of quality, the missing ponies… the disappearance of anypony that asks too many questions or makes too much noise.”

“But you can’t just ‘tame’ a basilisk. Anypony they look at turns to stone, whether you see them or not.”

“Unless…” Leonard set a hoof to his close-trimmed beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps Graphis found some way around it; some spell or charm to protect himself. Although that still doesn’t explain some of the poses. It is not as if you can convince a pony to hold a specific position for when you release the cockatrice or basilisk or whatever. And it still doesn’t explain how the creature has gone unnoticed for so long.”

“You’re right. Whatever attacked you last night disappeared almost right before our eyes. But regardless of what it is, we have to find some way to stop this, Doctor… Doctor?”

Twilight paused, looking around and realizing that, at some point between the back and forth between the two unicorns, the brown earth pony had slipped away. Looking over to one side, the pair saw the Doctor now pressing several switches on the control console, looking up as he seemed to sense their attention.

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just fine listening. You two are doing a brilliant job as it is, so I thought I would work on trying to find Rainbow Dash and Applejack.”

“Any luck?” Twilight asked quickly, reminded of her friends' predicament.

“Not yet. They must be out of range of the scanner. I should be able to get a fix on their location, but we have to try and get the TARDIS closer.”

“But how?” Leonard asked. “Regardless of how remarkable this machine is, we are still stuck in here and still surrounded. It is not as if we can just hitch it to a cart and move it off.”

At this, the Doctor smiled, moving his gaze down from the horseshoe-shaped indicator lights to again look at the monitor showing the scene outside the TARDIS.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

————————
Underground chamber, Denarius Quarry
Outskirts of Roan
5:03 p.m.

The cavern echoed loudly as a set of hooves moved calmly through the threshold leading to the outside. A bright orange ball of light hung just over the pony’s head like a balloon made of sunlight as it continued without even pausing to look over the statues.

The stranger did not notice a pair of new figures that had been apparently added to the collection, laying down towards the far side of the wall and both trying very hard not to breathe too loudly.

Keeping her head upright, her hat set back behind her, Applejack tried to remain perfectly still as her eyes adjusted to the brighter glow, allowing her to see what they had gone to hide from. From what she could tell, it was an average-sized pony, wrapped in an unassuming brown cloak that covered him from head to hoof. A basket was held in its mouth as it moved along the outer wall to a broken crop of rocks that had been flattened on the top.

Though Applejack had the strongest urge to dive forward and give this pony a taste of her back hoof, a mix of curiosity and caution at the situation tempered that drive.

The figure, unaware that it was being watched, set the basket down on its own time as it looked from side to side, its features obscured save for the end of its snout.

“Are you there?” came a soft voice, immediately identifying the pony as a stallion. “Can you hear me?”

There was slow and shallow echoing, the stallion speaking now as if he was concerned about waking the statues from their slumber.

“I know I’m early, darling, but I’m afraid that there have been some complications, and I feared I would not be able to see you tonight if I did not slip away when I did.”

Again, the stallion’s voice was met only with the sound of his own echo, waiting for the silence before he looked quickly over the line of statues. Applejack and Oreo held their breath.

“Some new additions… I see… Very nice. This should do the trick for a while.” The soft tone took on a slight air of smugness as he turned, regarding the upraised statue of Rainbow in her armor, and Applejack could imagine in stark detail the disgusting grin on his obscured features.

There was a rush of anger in her chest as her heart sped up at the thought. Whoever this pony was… he was encouraging this nightmare!?

“You are… probably still asleep, so I won’t disturb you,” the stranger stated, the two hidden earth ponies taking note of a sudden, relaxed sense to his tone and posture, as if this was a great relief to him. “I brought your favorites, though. I hope you enjoy them. And the latest demands...”

The mysterious pony waited a moment, turning his head this way and that as if listening for any sound of response from the cavern. His gaze lingered on another tunnel that the two ponies had only barely noticed before, a tunnel that seemed to lead even deeper into the dark cave.

“I’ll be going now. I’m sorry, but it may be a few nights before I can come back. There are just so many things going on up there… But fear not, I shall return and we can go over your latest pieces before we put them on the block.”

On the block... An auction block? Applejack recoiled in repulsion as she imagined it.

Rainbow, frozen in stone and completely helpless, being auctioned off by some fast-talking colt to an overweight, foreign noblepony for a few bits, just to stand in some garden for other ponies to gawk at. Forever.

Her caution sufficiently overridden, Applejack started to scramble to her hooves as the figure turned away, apparently content that whatever he was there to talk to was either not home, or didn’t wish to speak to him. She didn’t care who he thought he was, she was going to buck him into next week for this.

As she prepared to charge forward through the rows of statues, Applejack was unable to suppress a slight yelp as she felt something grab hold of her tail again, breaking her momentum and sending another jolt of pain up her spine. The pain didn’t stop as Oreo pulled her back sharply, pushing her backside down on the ground with a hoof and kicking her hind legs out from under her.

In that instant, she wanted nothing more than to buck back and kick Oreo square in the jaw, but as she was forced down, the sound of her sharp, pained cry echoing off the walls, the cloaked figure turned with a startled jerk.

“Marr, is that you?” the pony inquired calmly, looking almost directly in the direction of the pair of earth ponies. Pulling his hood back, the orange ball of light illuminated his features for the first time.

He was a grey unicorn with a darker-looking needle mustache and pointed beard, a shimmering crystal pendant hanging off his neck glittering beautifully in the golden light that remained hovering over him. Without warning, his horn began to glow vibrantly as three statues lifted effortlessly out of his way, allowing him to move forwards and bringing the two hidden ponies closer to the edge of the sphere's ring of illumination.

In spite of herself, Applejack’s rage turned to ice in her chest and the dull ache at the base of her spine suddenly became a reassurance that she wasn’t moving forward. She had seen unicorn magic at work before, but she had never seen anypony so easily lift such obviously heavy pieces of stone. Even Twilight, the most powerful unicorn mare she had ever known, strained when it came to heavy lifting.

Oreo had been right: They were in way over their heads. Whoever this pony was, he was more than powerful enough to keep her from even getting close.

The two remained as still as they could be, caught in an awkward position as the unicorn scanned the rows of statues for whatever was out of place. Applejack’s hooves trembled with her pulse as the ring of orange light illuminated the floor in front of her, growing closer as she realized something terrifying.

All of these statues where either white or grey. Her fur was orange. She would stick out like a green pear in a basket of red galas.

Her heart thumping furiously in her chest as she and Oreo tried to remain still, the edge of light moved closer as two more statues were hoisted up to join the first three, allowing the unicorn to move closer. At any moment, she knew, the jig would be up, as the edge of light moved right to the edges of her hooves.

She held her breath… for all the good it would do her.

And then the light began to retreat, as the unicorn’s face, now easily visible at his current range, took on a bored expression and he began to back-step, carefully setting the statues back down into the row.

“Blasted quarry rats…” the unicorn grumbled under his breath. “I’ll have to speak with the Foreponies about that.”

Applejack dared not release her breath as the unicorn replaced each statue with the same ease as he had lifted them, the dull grey aura fading as he set them down and used his hooves to push the hood back over his head. She still did not release her breath as he moved back to the exit with a more lively step, the ball of sunlight remaining fixed over him while he moved. And although her chest burned with need, she held her breath as the light moved away and down the corridor, plunging the room of statues back into the complete darkness that they had experienced as the light had approached.

Finally, unable to hold any longer, Applejack gasped loudly, panting for air, as Oreo, who had obviously been doing the same, followed her example.

Like a colt and filly that had tried to outlast each other in a breath-holding contest, the two had no words, panting and gasping for air as their shot nerves trembled. Ever so slowly, their eyes began to again adjust to the darkness, before the soft glow of the surrounding rocks began to increase. Even as their eyes adjusted to the light, they both waited until they had calmed down before moving from where they sat.

“Who in the wide world of Equis was that?” Applejack managed as she tried to push herself to her hooves.

“That…” Oreo did the same, rubbing his jaw with a wince as he regretted, for the second time that day, grabbing the mare’s tail when she was intent on charging forward at full gallop. “…was Graphis Denarius, the quarry’s owner. What the hay was he doing down here?”

“Denarius… Hold on, that’s the pony Leo was talkin’ ‘bout last night before the monster attacked.”

“Leo?” Oreo shook his head in disbelief. “Monster?”

“Yeah.” Applejack nodded, moving forward and maneuvering around the statues with care, now that they knew what they truly were. “Didn’t Ah tell y'all ‘bout that?”

“No!” Oreo shook his head once, now quite concerned with what he had gotten himself wrapped up in.

“Oh, shoot… Mighty sorry ‘bout that, but ya know, this might not be the best place to talk about it.” The cowpony cringed with a bit of regret in her voice. It hadn’t been her intent to drag Oreo into anything, but to be fair, she had told him that he didn’t have to follow.

She was very, very glad that he had now, of course, but she still had given him the option.

“Applejack, the exit is that way,” Oreo suggested tensely as he moved clear of the rows of statues, while his companion forged ahead in a different direction. “We need to go to the Guard, or… Where are you going?”

“Ah gotta see what he brought in here.”

“You’re worried about a basket?” Oreo sighed.

“No, Ah'm worried 'bout what's in the basket,” Applejack told him shortly, moving carefully so that her hooves didn’t clop against the stone floor as she edged over towards the package. Her imagination was already running wild as she dearly hoped the darker things that might be inside were missing.

Gingerly taking the cloth cover in her teeth, the farm pony tugged it loose, allowing it to fall to the floor. Underneath, sparkling in the dim, moon-like glow, over a dozen large gemstones shone, their glitter only barely dampened by a small stack of papers that sat atop them.

“Whoa… Mighty glad Rarity ain’t here. She’d be all over these bad boys.”

“What bad bo-- Whoa!” The dappled pony took a step back as he came into view of the precious stones, his eyes widening to the size of dinner plates.

“Whatcha gawkin’ fer, Oreo? Don’t y'all work in a quarry? Ya gotta see this sorta thing all the time,” the mare chided him playfully.

“This is a rock quarry, not a gem field. As far as I know, you can’t even find stones like this around here,” Oreo explained while leaning in.

Much to Applejack’s surprise, rather than his hoof coming back with a sparkling jewel, he pulled up the papers that had been laid on top, flipping through them quickly.

“What’s all that, then?” Applejack asked curiously.

“Sketches. Forms and poses. Illustrations. Hardly Roan Academia quality. I’m not even a unicorn and even I could draw better than this.” Oreo shook his head, looking over the pages with a critical eye before passing them to Applejack. Everything was starting to become quite clear to him. “Whatever beast Lord Denarius was talking to, he left these for it… That noble brat is having common ponies picked off the streets at random and turned to stone by some monster, just for his... art business.”

Applejack looked over the pages in the dim light, her eyes immediately narrowing at the top page. It seemed very specific, depicting a stallion form with a one-leg-up pose, in a front-enclosing vest with a bow-tie. Accompanying the pony was a large sketch of a specific cutie mark.

An hourglass cutie mark.

“Not at random…” Applejack realized, turning the next page and seeing another badly drawn, but sufficient enough sketch to identify the mare with the rainbow-colored mane encased in armor. “These ain’t sketches… they’re bounties.”

————————
Back alley, Lower District
The Pony City-state of Roan
At that exact moment

To say that Commander Kickback was growing impatient would have been the understatement of Astrolia’s Reign.

Already, three separate draftspony teams, a heavy-weighted steel-capped battering ram, multiple attempts at magic, applications of fire, and even an expert locksmith had all failed. In the course of the last hour, nothing the Guard had managed to throw at the box had put even the slightest dent into the painted blue wood, or move it even a hair from where it sat.

What manner of sorcery is this!?

So agitated and snappishly at the end of his rope was the Commander, that many of the Guard that remained stationed around the blue box were beginning to become concerned.

"Blasting powder, sir?” the unfortunate, olive-colored young pegasus that had been lassoed into taking a new request asked in an honest lack of understanding at the Commander’s latest idea.

“Yes! Blasting powder! Go to the quarry and requisition everything they have! If they have a problem with it, tell them they can take it up with Lord Denarius himself!” Kickback barked harshly, looming over the smaller pony before the pegasus put up his hoof in a salute and kicked off the ground, glad to be on with the assignment and away from the rampaging Commander.

“Incompetence… Do I have to think of everything!?” Kickback snarled under his breath, moving towards the doors of the blue box and looking up at it for a moment before turning and bucking the door hard with one hoof out of sheer aggravation.

“Commander Kickback?” a new voice came as a more heavily built, broad-shouldered pegasus in full armor dropped down before him.

“What do you want?” the Commander sneered cruelly. Although, unlike the younger, inexperienced pegasus he had sent away only a few moments before, this stallion did not draw back.

“Castagno sent me to find out what is taking so long, sir.”

The Commander went over some choice words in his head that he would've liked to have with the uppity eggheaded Critique that seemed to think that his position as Graphis Denarius’ lackey meant he had the Guard at his beck and call. Unfortunately, while the Critique were not themselves nobles in title, they did wield a significant amount of pull with any number of the Noble Houses that all attributed to his own commission.

With a huff, the unicorn managed to swallow his irritation and respond in a more relaxed, fluid manner. “Tell the Critique that the transgressors are cornered, but it seems we are having some difficulty in flushing them out of their current hiding place. If he is so concerned, he is more than welcome to come down here himself to assess the situation.”

“I will pass it along, Commander,” the pegasus said, nodding slightly and without any real care for whatever might have really been going on. He was a soldier, merely following orders.

“We have them surrounded.” Kickback rolled his eyes, aiming to reassure the less-than-enthusiastic messenger. “It’s not as if they are going to vanish into thin air.”

Before the pegasus messenger even had time to salute, there was a sudden sound: a deep, bass "thump" that caused the Commander’s ears to perk up. And then... a soft, lyrical sound… almost like a warping and gasping of the air.

As the courier’s bored expression changed to one of disbelief, his eyes going wide and his jaw slack, the Commander found the presence of mind to turn around, just in time to see the blue box utterly fading from view.

As the sound faded and the box disappeared entirely, every guard that had been standing on duty stared at the now empty space. As for Commander Kickback, his eye twitched as he too stood gaping in silence.

Licking his lips, the courier hesitated before asking, “Would you… still like me to deliver that message, Commander?”

————————
The TARDIS
-In Transit-

"Doctor!” Twilight protested as the brown stallion moved around the console, with Leonard watching as he pulled on handles and pressed buttons in an almost random manner. “We can’t just leave!”

“Sure we can. In fact, we just did.”

“Um, I hate to point out that we haven’t actually gone anywhere yet,” Leonard interrupted, though nopony seemed to hear him.

“But what about witnesses? There were, what, twenty, thirty guards sitting outside? I thought we were supposed to be keeping a low profile.”

“Oh, my dear Twilight…” The Doctor grinned, pulling a lever and coming to a stop at her side. “You still have so much to learn.”

Drawing a grumpy scowl from the purple unicorn, the Doctor merely moved again towards the door.

“There are two kinds of thinking beings in the multiverse, Twilight Sparkle,” the stallion explained. “Those who resist the impossible and those who embrace it. Now, ponies, like humans and most other species in the vast reaches of reality, usually fall into about a ninety-eight to two percent split along those lines. When faced with something that is beyond their comprehension, the vast majority of reasonable, thinking beings will deny it, run away from it, or all too often simply forget about it. They'll do everything they can to just go on with their lives.”

“So, what? You’re saying everypony else is stupid?” Leonard asked, his own scowl matching Twilight’s as the Doctor beckoned the two of them over towards the doorway.

“Oh, no. Quite the contrary: That is the reasonable, logical, and safe thing to do. After all, it’s a scary and infinite reality out there… so much larger than any single pony or person or thing. You would have to be mad to want to jump out onto that thin wire over the bottomless pit where anything is possible, and risk the dangers that are associated with the unknown and unexplored.”

Twilight and Leonard looked to one another as the Doctor moved to the door, and a slight click of a latch brought Leo to a startling realization. “Doctor, no! The guards--”

Then the blonde stallion stopped as the Doctor pulled the doors inward, and both Twilight and Leonard gasped audibly.

“But then, there is the minority… The two percent,” the Doctor said, taking a step back and out of the way. “Those that see something strange, unexplainable, impossible… and have to look closer. They are the explorers and the pioneers. The visionaries and the travelers.”

Outside the doors of the TARDIS, the sun was sitting heavy in the sky, behind snow-capped mountains that were graced with large, fluffy and solid white clouds the likes of which Twilight had never seen before. Wild clouds that glowed with oranges and purples as the glowing sphere dipped into the west along the mountainous chain. A chilly wind blew into the console room as Leonard moved forward, the unicorn artist unable to resist the need to confirm what he believed.

Upon reaching the threshold, he looked down, seeing patchy clouds obscuring the ground far below as Roan sat behind a solid wall of stone. That same wall rose to encompass the entire area of the city, obscuring the horizon and those breathtaking mountains from the safe, secure ponies living below, who would probably never get the chance to see what the inventor could behold at this very moment.

“And to those few, the world is filled with dangers and wonders that most can never dream of. Incredible, impossible things that boggle the mind and still the heart.”

Twilight smiled at the wonder on Leonard’s face as he settled himself, looking out to see the subtle curvature of the planet itself while shallow tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

“Doctor?” Twilight asked. She too found the scene beautiful and touching, but having seen the Doctor show off before, and still filled with concern for her friends, she was better able to control herself.

“We’ve moved in space about fifteen thousand feet above the spot we were sitting, well out of range of Pegasus Guards watching for us. Now all we have to do is move around until the TARDIS can get a bead on our friends.”

“But if the problem is getting close, won’t we be too far away at this height?”

“No, not really. They obviously can't be at this height, so it’s an easy matter to turn the focus of the proximity detector into a single beam, like a spotlight going straight down to the ground. We’ll pass over the area and drop in altitude if we have to, watch for the signs, and as soon as we get a trace, we can drop down further and hone in on their location.”

“That… makes sense…” Twilight cocked her head slightly to one side, trying to make sure that what she had been told did actually sound reasonable. “I think.”

“I suppose I should mention that there’s one little problem.”

“What's that?”

“Flight mode tends to… really drain the power. Chances are, after this, we might have enough fuel for one or two more moves in space. After that, we have to get you girls home and the TARDIS back to its static anchor.”

Twilight thought about this for a moment. “What happens if we don't?”

“Do you want the truth?”

“Of course.”

“If we don’t… the TARDIS' fuel cells run completely dry. She’ll starve to death and we’ll be stuck here for the rest of our natural lives.”

“But... it’s a time machine," the lavender mare pointed out, unsure how the Doctor could've missed that gap in his logic. "Couldn’t we recharge, then come right back here to save Applejack and Rainbow Dash? I mean, like, come back a few seconds after we left?”

“No, Twilight. We are already part of events now, and you surely remember how hard it was to nail the correct decade, let alone this specific time and place. If you and I left, we could try to come back to this point and miss it by days… or months… or years. And once we do, we've established that we didn’t come back until that much later.”

“Then... we couldn’t go back because as far as the rest of the world is concerned, we didn’t show up until we first showed up by our perspective,” Twilight followed, her head hurting.

The Doctor nodded approvingly at her deduction. “Now you’re getting it.”

“I am?”

“No, it’s actually a great deal more complicated than that. But let’s go with what you said because that's more reasonable than anything I could come up with,” the Doctor said quickly, drawing a glare from the unicorn, who couldn’t tell if the Time Pony was being serious or not.

“What do you need me to do?” Twilight asked with a slight huff.

“You see the horseshoe there on the console? That’s the proximity detector.”

“Why is the purple light already glowing? Wait, is the TARDIS tracking me?”

“Hey, it was her idea. Each of you have a light so that if you get lost, I can find you. As you can see, it has its uses. She obviously doesn’t want to lose anybo-- anypony!”

“Now you’re getting it,” Twilight commented, shooting the Time Pony a sly smirk.

“I am?”

“No, you still sound like a complete foal.”

The Doctor couldn’t help but share her smirk. “She’s already in a flight pattern, searching. Just watch the lights for me, would you?”

Twilight nodded, moving towards the control console as the Doctor turned his attention to the inventor who was leaning halfway out the door.

“We’re… flying…” Leonard gasped, his first words since the doors opened, having stayed silent while the other two occupants had their little discussion. “We’re flying… in a box… In a blue box... in the sky…”

“You get an A plus for observation,” the Doctor remarked nonchalantly. "So, you’re alright with all this?”

“This is… Wow… This is just… impossible. This machine of yours, Doctor.”

“Impossible things happen every day, Leonard. The question is, which side of the ratio do you fall into?” The Doctor nodded to the console while the tan unicorn leaned over to look down from the door of the TARDIS to the ground far below, to a great gaping chasm in the slate grey ground.

“Doctor, the lights!” Twilight called out.

With a slight smile, the Hourglass Stallion turned his head to see what Twilight was pointing out, as the orange and blue lights on the console had begun to glow.

“If you take nothing else from this meeting, Leonard, take this…” The Time Pony set a hoof over Leonard’s shoulder. “Absolutely nothing is impossible.”

————————
Underground chamber, Denarius Quarry
Outskirts of Roan
5:55 p.m.

Applejack stood in the cavern next to her friend, the now-petrified statue of Rainbow Dash, and glared at the tunnel in the far wall as she had for some time now. Oreo had eventually agreed that to leave right away would likely get them caught by the influential noblepony who just recently left.

She had considered simply dragging Rainbow along with them, but without anything to hitch her up to and no way to carry her, she feared that she could easily drop her friend, and the stone could break off anywhere, causing the pegasus an injury that she would never forgive the farm pony for.

As for what they could possibly do next, the answer to at least some of their questions likely lay down that tunnel.

“Applejack, I’m sure he’s gone from the quarry by now. Likely back to Roan after this much time. Astrolia help us… after this much time, the sun’s probably gone down. If we are going to do anything for your friend, we have got to go and get help. The Guard could--”

“The Guard… That same Guard that y'all said were in that monster pony’s pocket?” Applejack replied with a flat bluntness.

“Somepony will have to listen.”

“We won’t have no proof, Oreo. And even if we did go right up and start talkin', what’s ta keep Denarius from jus’ comin’ down here wit' pictures a' us fer his pet whatever-it-is?”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Oreo asked the same question she had some time earlier when she had prepared to rush headlong to face the unicorn that had been moving down the corridor.

“We go in there… an’ find out what we’re dealin’ with.”

“Right. That doesn’t sound at all reckless or dangerous.”

“Never said it was safe.” Applejack smirked to try and ease the tension, something that rather hit on Oreo’s already frayed nerves.

“...Are you enjoying yourself?” the Phrench-accented stallion accused of her.

He regretted it the moment the words escaped his lips, which was about the amount of time it took for Applejack to bolt right up into his face, pressing their snouts together as her eyes narrowed angrily.

“Enjoyin’ mahself!? Mah best friend’s done been turned ta stone and Ah don’t know why or even how ta save ‘er! Look around this here room and ask yerself if any goodhearted pony should be enjoyin’ herself when she sees somethin’ like this!” Applejack made no attempt to keep her voice down now, the question having pushed her into a place she didn’t care to be. “These’re ponies! Maybe not all friends or even ponies Ah know, but ponies all the same. An' if we don’t do nuthin’ 'bout it, they’re gonna be sold off like so much apple cider on a hot day so that grey, pampered, brute can swim in his ill-gotten bits!”

Oreo held his ground, not budging an inch as he stood nose to nose with Applejack. “Then think about it, Applejack! How is joining them in here going to help? We can’t just rush into something we don't understand. We have got to be smarter than that. We need somepony that can help. We need--”

“The Doctor...” Applejack pulled back a bit, her anger dissipating as she came to a realization.

Oreo was right. He had been right all along. They needed help.

And she had been so bull-headed and stubborn about not leaving Rainbow behind… feeling so guilty about what had happened, that she felt like she had to solve it right then and there. She had forgotten that it wasn’t just Rainbow Dash and Twilight that she had come here with… There was also the Time Pony.

If he was really all that he set himself up to be, he should be able to fix this... right?

“A doctor?” Oreo asked, tilting his head. “You think a doctor can do any good here?”

“Not a doctor, Oreo… the Doctor,” Applejack corrected him, nodding slightly. “Yeah… yer right, we gotta--”

*clip-clop-clip-clop*

Both earth ponies went silent in an instant as the echoing noise of multiple hooves came from the far-side corridor. Too many to be just one other pony. Something was coming from deeper in the cavern, and it made Applejack realize that perhaps she had been too loud in her moment of agitation and revelation.

As the echoing increased, it seemed, so did the pace. So many hooves clipping and echoing, now at a full gallop towards them, yet with no light dimming the path as it had with Graphis.

For a moment, Applejack and Oreo looked at one another, then to the exit corridor. They would never make it in time.

Her heart speeding up again as the realization came to her, Applejack dug a hoof into the stone and snorted. When running wasn’t an option, there was one thing that a farm pony was always ready to do.

It was time to get dirty.

As the echoing grew into a loud clamor, multiple hoofbeats echoing off the walls almost loud enough to make the statues shake, Applejack reared back, whinnying in defiance as she charged forward. She attempted to time it perfectly while Oreo, a few seconds behind, followed in her wake.

The two came charging towards the threshold of the cavern as a glob of shadow turned the corner, Applejack slipping around in a familiar fashion as she dug in her front hooves to bring her back legs around, not unlike Applebuck Season, where precision and strength were everything.

"Look out!"

*Vrrrrm*

"Wah-ah!"

*Thump*
*CRASH*

Everything was happening too fast to keep track of, but the first thing that came to Applejack's mind was the fact that she had stopped moving completely. In fact, she appeared to be paralyzed. Had she been turned to stone like the others? Unlikely, since her eyes still worked and she could move her head around, at least.

Turning a bit, Applejack tried to take in the scene and was shocked by the purple aura that had surrounded her body. As her eyes followed her still-extended hind legs, she noticed her hooves only an inch away from a now-familiar brown snout attached to a stallion that looked like he had ground to a halt just in time to avoid having his head bashed in.

Turning her head to the other side, she noted that Oreo, who seemed to have attempted to imitate her maneuver, had gone skidding across the stone floor and barreled into another pony, tangling the two in a heap. This one she had also become familiar with, given his his fancy red beret, which now lay on the floor, and the cape that wrapped itself around his back.

“Oh! Hello, AJ,” came a familiar, somewhat startled tone as the cowpony's unicorn friend moved up beside her, her horn glowing.

“Hiya, Twi… Uh, can ya let me go now?”

“Applejack, when was the last time you had your horseshoes changed? These things look like they’ve been through the ringer, and walking around on all this hard stone can't possibly be good for your legs,” the Doctor commented, and Applejack found herself smiling with relief, in spite of his dry wit.

————————

“…an’ then he just up and left like it was no big deal,” Applejack finished, the two groups having traded apologies, introductions, and stories quickly while the Doctor looked over Rainbow Dash with a serious expression. All through their conversation, the sound of his sonic screwdriver whirring resounded off the cavern walls nonstop. “But how did y'all get inside here? The only exit's that-a-ways.”

“The TARDIS was able to find you, but when we noticed all the guards around the quarry itself, the Doctor thought it would be best to sneak in," Twilight explained. "So we, uhhh…”

“Materialized is the word you’re looking for, Twilight,” the Doctor said, still distracted by Rainbow.

“Yeah, ‘materialized’ in the mine. It took us some time to figure out where you were, though. It’s like a labyrinth down there. But then you started yelling and… well…”

Applejack nodded, now grateful for her friends’ timing and feeling more relaxed with Twilight there. If there was danger to be faced, she would rather face it with a long-time friend at her side, no offense to Oreo.

“I never thought that Graphis could stoop to something like this…” Leonard shook his head, looking over the chamber of frozen ponies in disgust. “In spite of everything else he’s done and all of the misery he’s caused, one would think it stopped at the end of the business day. But this... This is above and beyond my worst nightmares.”

“Doctor…” Applejack started, noting the sour expression on the Time Pony’s face. “About Rainbow… Ah’m sorry… Ah couldn’t...”

“It’s not your fault, Applejack,” the Doctor told her sadly. “...It’s mine. We never should have split up. She wanted to do something daring and courageous and I should have known better than to let her go off on her own.”

“...Is she going to be okay, Doctor?” Twilight asked with cautious hope.

“Well, she’s certainly alive.” The chestnut pony nodded, turning his hoof about and casting the glow from his screwdriver across the collection of imprisoned ponies. “They all are. They’re just in some sort of suspended animation.”

Applejack tilted her head. "Say what, now?"

"A... really deep sleep. So deep they don't need to breathe, or eat, or anything like that."

"Ah... Gotcha."

“Well, that’s two theories shot down,” Twilight sighed.

“I don’t understand…” Oreo looked to the purple unicorn quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“The two most likely suspects for this sort of thing are a cockatrice and a basilisk," Leonard spoke up to alleviate the Phrench pony's confusion. "Two monsters that turn ponies to stone with a glare.”

“But cockatrices only turn living things to grey granite stone, and basilisks turn living things to marble,” followed Twilight.

“So?” Applejack inquired.

“So… if they do that to living things and only to living things…” the Doctor finished. “...then how was Rainbow’s armor turned to stone as well? It’s made of metal.”

Applejack looked again and realized that, like Rainbow herself, the encasing body armor she wore was indeed a solid piece of stone that fit snugly over her petrified form.

“It’s not just her, either, Doctor,” Leonard noted, looking around the room in the dim moon-like light. “Look: most of these ponies are clothed. Wool, cotton, felt, tweed, burlap, even jewelry and accessories. All of them… stone.”

“Not quite everything,” the Doctor said, though before anypony could ask him to elaborate, the brown pony stepped down on his "magic device" -- as he had described it to Oreo -- sliding it into the catch on his hoof-band, and pulled himself up on his back hooves, putting a hoof on either side of the Rainbow statue’s head.

“Doctor, what are you--”

“Hush now, Twilight.” The Doctor closed his eyes, pressing the edges of his hooves to the space in front of Rainbow’s ears. “I need to know what she saw in Graphis’ office... Shhh... It’s alright, Rainbow. You’re safe. Your friends are here… I know you’re scared, but everything is going to be alright...”

As the Doctor began to mutter under his breath, Oreo turned to Leonard, apparently the most sane of the ponies gathered. “Is he… some sort of nut?”

“Absolutely,” Leonard agreed, a sense of mild admiration apparent in his tone.

“Are they?” Oreo motioned to the two mares.

“I would think so.”

“Are you?” he inquired, now suspicious of the blonde unicorn as well.

“One can only hope…”

“Merveilleux…” Oreo rolled his eyes. “I should have just taken the day off work.”

“Poetry? Yes, I can see it’s bad, Rainbow. But what happened after that?” the Doctor uttered.

“Uh, Twi? What’s he doin’?” Applejack asked, poking a hoof in the Time Pony's direction.

“It looks like a memory link,” Twilight answered, observing his behavior with studious interest. "It’s possible with magic, but very difficult. It’s a way to allow two ponies to see through each other's eyes and relive their memories.”

“And it’s quite difficult when one of the participants is unconscious, Twilight. So, if you wouldn’t mind, a bit of tranquility would… Wait… what is that doing there?” the Doctor said without opening his eyes, getting his call for silence granted as the four ponies watched him.

He then shuddered violently as if a cold chill had shot up his spine, and pulled back, turning suddenly towards the group as his eyes snapped open, slightly out of breath.

“That’s it…” the stallion remarked under his breath. “That’s the connection…”

“Doctor? What’s wrong? What did you find out?” Twilight asked eagerly.

“We’ve got it all wrong. The entire time we’ve been assuming…” The Doctor trailed off, looking around. “…But that’s not what it’s after. It doesn’t care about that…”

“Doctor?” Leonard tried, getting nowhere as well as the brown pony started to pace back and forth, talking to himself.

“But, why? What would it do then? It can’t be a coincidence… unless… Unless there’s something else to it. Another piece to the puzzle…”

“Oh, fer Celestia’s sake, spit it out! What didja find!?” Applejack stomped at the ground impatiently.

“Twilight!” The Doctor seemed to pull himself out of his momentary haze, shouting in the unicorn's direction and causing her to draw back.

“What!?”

“Help Applejack move Rainbow.” The Doctor flicked his hoof forward, pointing it along the pegasus’ stone flank as his device whirred away. With a reverberating crack, the petrified suit of Phrench armor broke off like the shell of a hard-boiled egg and crumbled to the ground, revealing Rainbow's body and cutie mark and causing Oreo to turn away with a huge red blush across his dappled black and white face. “This should lighten the load. Get her, Leonard, and… I’m sorry, what was your name, again?”

“Oreo… Francio Oreo.” The Phrench pony nodded, still trying not to look at the now indecent statue of Applejack’s mare friend.

“Oreo, do me two favors. One: get over it. They walk around in the fur all the time, it’s nothing to get embarrassed about. Two: if you ever have a daughter, name her Milk Ann. Alright?”

“‘Milk Ann’? Whatever for?”

“Just do it. And while you’re pondering that, follow these fillies, they’ll get you out of here.”

His instructions duly given, the Doctor started away towards the tunnel that led deeper into the mine.

“Doctor, where are you going?” Twilight called after him, but the Hourglass Stallion kept going, pausing only to talk over his shoulder.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No!” Applejack admitted brashly.

“Well, if Graphis can talk to it, then so can I.”

“Doctor!?” Twilight moved up slightly as he continued to walk away. “Are you crazy!?”

“That's debatable. Next question?”

“But… what’s going to keep it from doing this to you!?” Twilight motioned to Rainbow, who, while now free from the armor, remained still as stone.

“Sonic screwdriver, moral certainty, foreknowledge of what I’m dealing with, centuries of experience, and boundless confidence,” the Doctor listed off without worry.

“But, Doctor…!”

“Twilight, Rule Number Three.” The Doctor didn’t stop, moving now at a faster trot as he disappeared into the corridor, his hoofbeats echoing in the cavern.

Twilight and Applejack deflated a bit as they watched him go, while Leonard and Oreo looked to the two mares curiously.

“What is Rule Number Three?” Leonard asked as Twilight’s horn glowed slightly, straining to lift Rainbow’s heavier stone figure a few inches off the ground so that Applejack could push it.

“Trust him…” Twilight started, walking off to the side while she kept Rainbow firmly in her line of sight.

“...he’s the Doctor,” Applejack finished, setting her shoulder against Rainbow’s hind leg with a controlled shove to move the statue along the floor.

The ponies made it to the entrance of the tunnel, the slight light from Twilight’s magical aura causing the ambient phosphorescence to fade somewhat. The only sounds to be heard were the light steps of their hooves, and the grinding sound of Twilight’s teeth.

“Hey… Leo?”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“Do you remember the way to the TARDIS?”

“Of course I do. Why?”

“Would you mind taking this over for me? It’s just a Feather-Weight spell.”

“Oh… Of course.” Leonard lowered his head forwards, his horn glowing a soft yellow as the aura along Rainbow’s form changed to match.

“Okay." The lavender unicorn nodded appreciatively. "Get them to the TARDIS and stay there.”

Much to Applejack’s shock, Twilight suddenly surged ahead while Leo strained to hold the spell as Twilight had.

“Twi! What’re y'all--”

“I have no idea, but I can’t let him do it alone,” Twilight called back. “Don't come after me. They need you, AJ… and he needs me.”

Without another word back, and still unclear as to what was driving her forward, Twilight took the next turn in the cavern at a quick and steady pace, disappearing from view.

————————

“Brilliant plan, Twilight…” the purple unicorn found herself saying all but ten minutes later, her quickened step to find the Doctor slowed as she strained her eyes in the dimness. “Go charging after him… without realizing which way he went. Great. Pinkie couldn’t have done it better herself... Actually, knowing Pinkie, she probably would've found him faster than you can say 'twitchy tail.' Oh, what were you thinking?”

To be fair, she had started out with a plan, intending to track his movements by patterns of hoofprints in the dust that was sure to be along the mineshaft floors.

Except that there wasn’t any. Along with the irregularly smooth walls, there was a complete lack of anything that one would attribute to a normal mine. No wooden struts or supports of any kind held up the tunnels, which were almost perfectly rounded and large enough for a small herd of ponies to easily move through. And it was clean. So completely clean that it was simply unnatural. Not a trace of stone dust or debris lay on the tunnel floor, and aside from the occasional turn, she could make out no distinguishing marks of any kind along the tunnel.

Whatever had done this, she was sure of one thing: This mine had certainly not been carved by ponies.

After another five minutes or so of trotting in almost complete silence, Twilight Sparkle started to notice the walls growing wider, and dared to hope…

Yes!

As she turned another corner, Twilight found herself in another cavern, this one much larger than the first one where the statues had been kept, and, while rounded like the one before, looked to be far more cave-like. Large stalagmites were arranged around the floor, stalactites arranged in a mirror fashion on the ceiling, with soft drips of water echoing in an almost musical fashion as the tiny streams running through the area seemed to converge on a small underground lake. This was the only moisture in the cavern however, which, like the rest of the tunnels, seemed almost too clean, the walls smooth and shining.

Then, she saw it.

“Sweet Celestia…” Twilight’s heart dropped as she suddenly rushed forward.

Laying at the base of one of the stalagmites was a pony laying on her side, a mare by the look of it, her body draped along the dry side of a large rock. Fearing the worst, Twilight rushed over towards her, looking her over.

She was about Twilight’s age from the look of it, her coat a stale grey with long, coarse hair that curled at the ends in a shimmering style, as if bits of dust had been caught up in her mane. Much to Twilight’s relief, her chest was rising and falling with her breath as she stirred slightly in her sleep, one hoof and leg tucked under her head while the other was set along the edge of the stalagmite.

“Hey… Hey, there...” Twilight knelt down a bit, nudging the mare lightly with one hoof. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Ungh… What...?” The pony stirred, blinking away her drowsiness as she lifted her head up.

“It’sss alright… you’re sssafe now.” Twilight looked back and around for any sign of movement or danger before turning back to the pony as she seemed to shrug off her sleepiness. So immediate was her concern for the grey filly, she failed to notice the slight lisp that had sneaked into her speech.

“I am…?” The new mare sounded a bit disoriented. “And... you are...?”

“My name’s Twilight Sssparkle. It’sss okay, I’ll get you out of here. I should be able to trace my sssteps back.” Twilight took another look around, her mind racing.

A survivor! She definitely hadn’t expected this. Maybe she had managed to escape… or she had somehow ended up down here after an accident in Roan.

“I sssee...” The pony nodded as she pushed herself up to her hooves. She opened her mouth to yawn loudly while Twilight paced around the stalagmite. “I’m sssorry, have we met? Who did you sssay you are, again?”

“Twilight Sssparkle. I’m… well, I'm here to help. That should be enough. What’sss your name?”

“My name?” The mare sounded a bit surprised as a lock of her rough-textured mane fell in front of her eyes. “It'sss... Marr Bell.”

“Well, Marr Bell, I don’t want to alarm you…” Twilight tried to break it to the mare gently, fearing what might happen if she reacted loudly in this very echo-friendly environment. “…but there’s sssome sssort of monssster loossse down here.”

There was a moment of silence as Marr gave Twilight a sideways look. Her green eyes shimmered in the faint light as she brought one of her front hooves up to her face in shock. “You don’t sssay…”

“It'sss true. And it’sss turning ponies to ssstone.”

“Really?” Marr moved her hoof to her cheek and tapped it thoughtfully. “You know, I think we have met before… Where was it?”

Twilight paused to consider this pony's odd, calm demeanor. Was she simply not getting the urgency of the situation? “Look, Marr, I need you to trussst me. There is a pony here that can help. The Doctor. He’sss…” Twilight stopped abruptly as she felt her tongue rattle against her teeth.

That was weird… What was she doing that for? Come to think of it, she'd been lightly straining her "s" sounds for quite a while, but only just now realizing it.

“Oh, that'sss right... Twilight… I remember now…” Marr suddenly perked up, using both forehooves to illustrate a sudden flailing of limbs.

What Twilight heard next was absolutely shocking.

“WATCH THE TAIL! TWILIGHT! ZAP IT! TURN IT INTO A MOUSSSE! SSSOMETHING!”

Twilight drew back a full step as the filly's shrill voice peaked, and echoed painfully throughout the cavern. But it wasn't the change in volume that stunned her. It was the fact that those very words were shouted by Rainbow Dash exactly one day earlier... during the attack on Leonard's workshop.

Wait... Something else came to Twilight's attention just then. Now standing face to face, she took a moment to examine the mare more closely.

Her eyes were noticeably larger than most ponies'; a large green iris centered with a narrow slit. And somehow, she was managing to keep her body level despite the fact that both of her forelegs were up in the air. Actually, they had been for quite some time, and yet, she had never "stood up." She had remained at the same shoulder height as when she had them on the floor.

Twilight pulled her head ever so slightly to the side, looking down along the mare’s body, and gasping at what she found.

There were no back legs. Her body seemed to just keep going… and going… and…

Her concentration was broken when the stalagmite to the side of them shifted suddenly, uncurling…

No… Uncoiling.

“That'sss right…” Marr Bell smirked, pulling her hooves up against her chest in a fashion reminiscent of a preying mantis. Then she leaned forward slightly, a long, round, forked tongue slipping out between her lips to brush lightly along Twilight’s nose as she stood in total shock.

Gaping mutely as her eyes followed, Twilight couldn’t quite wrap her mind around what she was seeing. Marr’s body effortlessly lifted up off the floor, more than a story upwards towards the ceiling of the cavern, and showed the fur of her lower torso giving way to rough, craggy stone skin.

“You sssee, Twilight Sssparkle…” Marr hissed as she looked down, her tongue curling out of her mouth with the rolling "s". “I'm not the one you should be worried about...”

In spite of her sudden, intense desire to flee, Twilight's stiff legs refused to move, as from under Marr’s mane and around the back of her head, two large flaps of skin opened up, forming a triangular hood.

“Hissssssssss...”

Then she dove forward, bearing down on the unicorn.

Comments

[Loyal2Luna]

*whew* made the second deadline. Sorry to make you all wait so long.
*customary brace position for initial reaction*

[DiStort]

HOLY PONY GORGONS, BATMARE!

[Sonicbrony66]

I have just made a completely undescribable sound of awe and a little bit of horror.

[Frerichs0]

Brilliant!

[Figments]

Great! Loved it! I recall laughing at a few parts, whether you intentionally made it comedic or not.

Hey, if you can, read my *AHEM* incomplete story: An Author's Creations: Uprising. It drives me when I don't get alot of readers. So thanks for a great story!

[smashbrawlguy]

Time to open up a can of Sparkle-grade whoopass.

fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/255/e/3/twilight_state_by_theparagon-d49obmy.png

[PrinceLexmarkThePrinted]

Good Lord, this was epic! A great read, a truely Doctor-Worthy feel to it. I hope to see more of you soon. Why the hell did Twilight do the one thing they ALWAYS do? I would just LOVE to see an Episode of Doctor Who where somone actually takes this whole DON'T WANDER OFF-thing to heart...

Oh, and I absolutely hate you for those cliffhangers... Now I will be on edge again until the next chapter is out.

[ianmoone]

So its 'Mare'dusa?

Said it first.

[Balancer]

Every time AJ says doctar I think empra

[Bual]

Another great chapter! It is awesome how you continually deliver quality installments on a routine basis, and for that you have my respect and gratitude.

[Loyal2Luna]

216425

TECHNICALLY she didn't wander off... she followed him...or tried to. But she may have taken a wrong turn. THe only one guilty of wandering off thus far is Applejack.
But hey, if the Doctor's Companions 'always' did what they were told, he wouldn't have lasted past his first regeneration.

215903

One thing you have to love about British style Humor... the jokes can be so subtle.. makes it fun to put out without filling it with gags and such.

Also, will take a look, although my time is limited between work, writing, and Reading... But don't forget to give it time. No story is popular right off the bat.

216865

Marr: "Excussse me... I need to go hunt down a Brony." *slithers off*

Heh, actually, that was a working name for her first incarnation, but I felt it was too... pun-ish. So she went from Mare'dusa to Stone Heart (Rejected when I realized it sounded like a Care Bear Villian) to Marr Bell.

216934
Oh great, now I will to... THANKS

217115

[Fallen Prime]

Wow. I should've thought anything I tried to put forward would be too easy. A cockatrice would've been too obvious, and a basilisk wouldn't have been much better. Looks like I was either spot-on or really damn close with a Gorgon, though (though I DID narrow it down to Medusa).

Oh. Oh god. If that's exactly it, then... Medusa was the only mortal one among her sisters. If this is their version of Euryale or Stheino... well, I'd have said they were screwed, but is the Doctor ever truly, permanently screwed?

[kirbuu]

This story is one of the few that makes me hum "I Am The Doctor". Please continue to be awesome, it is appreciated.

[MrGazzer]

Holy Buck.

[SteampunkBrony]

mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2080-13258119447882.png

this just got interesting....

[Loyal2Luna]

225270
Heh, only Just?

[SteampunkBrony]

225398

trust me, i'm the KING of understatements. me and a friend were holding our base in paintball and suddenly the whole other team comes rushing out of the bushes, my response during his colorful swearing session:

"Well... this just got interesting."

we proceeded to take down all but one of that 12 man team. the last guy ran like a bat from hell.

[The Maelstrom]

So. Marr Bell (I can see what you did there) is a Pony Medusa?

*fistpump* Intriguing...

[Loyal2Luna]

233149 I play this myself

[CvBrony]

I just had to comment and say that I *love* this series. I always play the Doctor Who soundtrack (Series 5) while reading it. I can't wait for more, it feels like a real episode of Doctor Who and the characterizations are all spot-on PERFECT. I pretty much registered for the sole purpose of being able to track this story so I know when I get more. Keep up the fantastic work, I can't wait to read more!

[Loyal2Luna]

239371 Comments like this are what really make my day. fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/021/8/1/fluttershy_obama_poster_by_snakeman1992-d4n5y6t.png

Also: Next Chapter shall be due... let's be safe and say by or Before Thursday March 1st. I hope to have it up sooner, but putting that as my fallback so I don't 'miss' a deadline again. As the Climax rolls closer, we can rest assured that the chapters leading ot the conclusion of the tale will come with greater speed.

Also: For all who bother to read these, a question: Do my fans think it is a good idea for me to put links to musical accompaniment DIRECTLY into the chapters so that I can share what is going though my head as I plot out the story? Or is that too much? Please let me know what you think.

[derpyvio]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

No new chapter for a while now D:
Anyway story is brilliant I very much enjoy it cant wait for more

That picture of Marr Bell is amazing the artist is very talented

One question though is The Doctor based on the 10th Doctor?

btw whens the new chapter coming out? I know i should'nt rush but i feel better if i at least have a day on whens it coming out

[Loyal2Luna]

251928
Thank you and I am glad you enjoy to answer in order both questions:

-My Doctor is the 12th Doctor... and as such he is his own character, but has been all of the previous doctors before him... although I am writing him as a personality combination of 10 and 11... with alot of my own little quirks being thrown in to give him his own character. If there is some confusion on this, please don't forget to read Number 12 and Traveler by Squeak-Anon, which set the foundations for my series.
- I have already announced the next date in the comments, the comment RIGHT above yours as a matter of fact. I interact with my audience in said comments, so please do read up to keep up with announcements of that sort.

[derpyvio]

252163
Wow now i feel like an idiot for not looking at your comment above (I should realy pay more attention)

And I did read Number 12 and Traveler (the story is still not finnished though D:)
Anyway when i read yours and Sqeaks stories i just imagine the 10th Doctor voice
I do like Matt Smith hes pretty good and his catchphrases are realy funny (bowties are cool and fezes too XD)

You probably know this already but Luna is gonna be in third season i cant wait

[Balancer]

(looks at tracking list, story updated but no new chapter) What is going on here

[WorldWalker128]

Another day, another chapter that I find that I've missed since trying to figure out since the new layout was put in place (Not understanding makes for pressing the wrong button and marking EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIST as 'Read'.
Well, it seems that Twilight is about to get 'stoned'.
Twilight:

[BaelkazPony]

That part where the Doctor was trying to explain, then keeps getting interrupted, and ends up going, "Oh, don't mind me, I'm just listening, you two are doing so well!"
I lol'd.

[Annaila]

Battering ram? AWESOME! And given how smart twi and leo are, they are going to invent the telephone. With electricity and sound waves to go by :D

[Attraten]

“Oreo… do me two favors… One: get over it. They walk around in the fur all the time, it’s nothing to get embarrassed about… Two… if you ever have a daughter… name her Milk Ann… Alright?”

milk ann oreo..... classic Doctor.

[ManWithThePan]

I'm guessing Marr Bell is simply Maredusa.

[Crack-Fic Casey]

To say that Commander Kickback was growing impatient would have been the understatement of Astrolia’s Reign.

Already, three separate draftspony teams, a heavy-weighted steel-capped battering ram, multiple attempts at magic, applications of fire, and even an expert locksmith had all failed. In the course of the last hour, nothing the Guard had managed to throw at the box had put even the slightest dent into the painted blue wood, or move it even a hair from where it sat.

What manner of sorcery is this!?

So agitated and snappishly at the end of his rope was the Commander, that many of the Guard that remained stationed around the blue box were beginning to become concerned.

"Blasting powder, sir?” the unfortunate, olive-colored young pegasus that had been lassoed into taking a new request asked in an honest lack of understanding at the Commander’s latest idea.

“YES! Blasting powder! Go to the quarry and requisition everything they have! If they have a problem with it, tell them they can take it up with Lord Denarius himself!” Kickback barked harshly, looming over the smaller pony before the pegasus put up his hoof in a salute and kicked off the ground, glad to be on with the assignment and away from the rampaging Commander.

“Incompetence… Do I have to think of everything!?” Kickback snarled under his breath, moving towards the doors of the blue box and looking up at it for a moment before turning and bucking the door hard with one hoof out of sheer aggravation.

“Commander Kickback?” a new voice came as a more heavily-built, broad-shouldered pegasus in full armor dropped down before him.

“What do you want?” the Commander sneered cruelly. Although, unlike the younger, inexperienced pegasus he had sent away only a few moments before, this stallion did not draw back.

“Castagno sent me to find out what is taking so long, sir.”

The Commander went over some choice words in his head that he would've liked to have with the uppity eggheaded Critique that seemed to think that his position as Graphis Denarius’ lackey meant he had the Guard at his beck and call. Unfortunately, while the Critique were not themselves nobles in title, they did wield a significant amount of pull with any number of the Noble Houses that all attributed to his own commission.

With a huff, the unicorn managed to swallow his irritation and respond in a more relaxed, fluid manner.

“Tell the Critique that the transgressors are cornered, but it seems we are having some difficulty in flushing them out of their current hiding place. If he is so concerned, he is more than welcome to come down here himself to assess the situation.”

“I will pass it along, Commander,” the pegasus said, nodding slightly and without any real care for whatever might have really been going on. He was a soldier, merely following orders.

“We have them surrounded…” Kickback rolled his eyes, aiming to reassure the less-than-enthusiastic messenger. “It’s not as if they are going to vanish into thin air.”

Before the pegasus messenger even had time to salute, there was a sudden sound: a deep, bass "thump" that caused the Commander’s ears to perk up. And then... a soft, lyrical sound… almost like a warping and gasping of the air.

As the courier’s bored expression changed to one of disbelief, his eyes going wide and his jaw slack, the Commander found the presence of mind to turn around, just in time to see the blue box utterly fading from view.

As the sound faded and the box disappeared entirely, every guard that had been standing on duty stared at the now empty space. As for Commander Kickback, his eye twitched as he too stood gaping in silence.

Licking his lips, the courier hesitated before asking: “Would you… still like me to deliver that message, Commander?”

Ah, i love the smell of destroyed ego's in the morning... smells like victory

[SelfLoathingChimera]

“Of course it is. Maestro Denarius says that the upstart has been pilfering his work and material stores for some time now, taking advantage of his Academia friendship of the Maestro to steal from him. And while he has put up with it for years, the noble Maestro has had enough, and demands proper restitution in the wake of the blatant act of vandalism upon his property,”

Aw hell no. Not only is he a jerk, a thief, and an overall terrible person but he's also a hypocrite?!

[PinkFluffyAlex]

Ahhh, so a gorgon. Neat, I totally forgot about gorgons when I was looking through my collection of mythological beings that petrify.

[DerpTape]

I haven't seen anypony else say it, so I guess I have to:

"What a great party, everypony is either Plastered or Stoned."