• Published 9th Sep 2012
  • 7,030 Views, 2,698 Comments

Pony POV Series Season Six: Dark World/Shining Armor - Alex Warlorn



Twilight tries to remember herself after 1K years of chaos/Shining Armor awakes on his promotion day

  • ...
34
 2,698
 7,030

PreviousChapters Next
Episode 122: (Shining Armor) SemiT malC-Calm Times Part 2

Pony POV Series
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic
Shining Armor 14 Part 2
semiT malC-Calm Times
By LZ and Kendell2
Editted by Alexwarlorn and Louis

I was discussing the planned schedule with Cadence and the Hoofmaidens, having just arrived in the Embassy in Zebrat, when Gag brought the letter.

"And so the doctor gives him a medicine to deal with his sore throat, and warns him this one has a side effec-"

"It's stomachache, isn't it?"

"Aw, you've heard it."

"Let's just deliver the letter to the Princess, Running..."

"And try to tell shorter jok-Oh! Hello, Princess!"

Cadence had already walked over to the door and opened it as Garnet finished her sentence.

"Letter for you from Canterlot, Your Highness," Gag reported.

"Oh, this is Auntie's seal! Thank you, Private."

I was aware that the Hoofmaidens seemed to be whispering things amongst themselves. I was a little too far off. Gag and Garnet were closer, so presumably they overheard whatever caused them to both blush a little.

"I've told you, girls, we're just friends..." Garnet protested.

"'Just friends?' You're that far already?" Minuette questioned.

"Oh come on! A blind pony could see you two are in the 'feeling out if we can be more' stage! You're only one or two stages behind the Princess and the Captain!" Twinkle Shine said.

"I'd say the Princess and the Captain are one or two stages BEHIND Garnet and Running Gag," Minuette added.

"Teasing them isn't helpful," I interjected. Nor was teasing us.

The two 'just friends' soon left, as Cadence sighed.

"...I wish Auntie wouldn't magically seal them so tightly. Honestly, she uses scroll-strength seals on normal letters. And for the record I think they obviously like each other and just need a push or two..."

"...It's actually obvious, I just think it's funny to see them blush to be honest," I admitted.

The Hoofmaidens gave me amused and somewhat worryingly delighted looks.

"So, Captain, you'd agree that if it's obvious that maybe two ponies that like each other, they should be given a little push like the Princess says?" Minuette said, grinning mischievously.

"Well, I..." I began, but Cadence thankfully opened the letter.

"Got it! 'Dear Niece, I was glad to hear your diplomatic missions are continuing to go well and you are enjoying yourself. I am also glad to hear that Shining Armor is finally taking time to relax after what you told me in your earlier letters."

I sighed at the look I received as she read. "Haha, very funny."

(Interviewer's Notes (Pegasus): Looking over your shoulder is an improvement?)

Haha, no. You think she'd only sent one letter to her aunt this entire time?

"I also hope that future visits will go perfectly as well. Your Aunt Luna is adjusting well to the present (minus a small incident with a microwave) and cannot wait to see you in person. However, there's also a pressing matter I require of you."

Blinks abounded.

"Pressing matter?" I asked. I had a feeling this was going to be weird.

"A friend of mine will be meeting with you shortly. He's a scientist who has heard of strange stories from Zebrafrica and wishes to meet with you to speak with you and check if you know anything, and perhaps receive assistance in investigating these strange happenings. His name is Doctor Livingstone. He should be difficult to miss, he's a brown furred Earth pony stallion with a dark brown mane with an hourglass Cutie Mark. Be advised, he's a tad eccentric."

"Well...that doesn't sound like this is going to be strange at all..."

"No tempting fate, Shining."

"Why? It's going to mess with me anyway."

I didn't know what else to expect except one thing: if the Princess called anypony eccentric, then they were going to downright crazy!


If we cannot reach him now, we never will... Not quietly. Not without incident.

"I still feel it's dangerous to be so direct," My comrade reminds me.

"The Great Deer says time runs low. He grows too close to lands the Supreme Marshal holds. Having him present like this will complicate matters. We have waited too long for this for things to be ruined by a loose element like him. It's for the Greater Good... We fail now and more drastic options are all we have left."

We have to stop him.

And then my heart stops as we near the embassy gates. We have encountered Him before...

"...Not Him. Not now," I curse.

"We have to abort. If He is near, He'll meddle. He always meddles..."

"Agreed. We must retreat."

Not for the first time in my life, I curse The Doctor and his habit of being in the right places at the wrong times...


Meeting him face to face, he pretty much looked as I'd expected. He'd simply arrived at the embassy the day we expected him (Minuette had done some scheduling to free up the day to try help him out) as I was going down to advise the ponies at the gate to expect him. (Pegasus Guards, by the way, if you're keeping track).

"What does the doctor look like, Sir?" One asked.

They'd been very careful on gates lately. Two pictures pinned to a noticeboard behind them reminded me why, but that was water well under the bridge. In the past...I hoped.

"Well, he..."

"He looks like me, actually!"

I looked over to see a brown-coated and darker brown-maned Earth pony, with an hourglass cutie-mark, wearing some saddlebags and an enthusiastic sort of expression.

"Doctor Livingstone, I presume?"

"Yes! Brilliant, somepony said it right away! I hadn't expected it to work that fast!"

"...Pardon?"

"Oh, sorry, you wouldn't get the reference, of course, sorry. Yes, I'm The Doctor. And I assume you're Captain Sparkle?"

"That's correct. Do you have any identification?"

He produced a small brown wallet, and held it up.

"...That's blank."

"Is it? Oh, sorry, wrong one..."

A near-identical wallet came out. This one was better.

"Good, okay. Er, I suppose you need to check my saddlebags?"

"I'm afraid so, Doctor. Rules, you see."

I quickly scanned them. They seemed oddly full until I realized why.

"Enchanted saddlebags to carry more? Those can be rather expensive to maintain..."

"I know a fellow who's pretty good at it, does it nice and cheap. Very useful to have a bag that's bigger on the inside all around. Or smaller on the outside, as a companion of mine so cleverly put it!"

"Well, please follow me. The Princess is looking forward to meeting you."

"As am I, Captain. Though, if I'm honest, I was actually a little more interested to meet you, yourself..."

I expected it to be like every other time. Somepony or some zebra recognized the name Sparkle and asked about Twilight.

"...Your uncle, Cool Sun Sparkle, I met him a few times. He was a good stallion. And I've met your sister too, she's very talented..."

He then winced.

"Afraid I've met your mother too, actually. She's nice, but I can't say much about her novels. That one with the spaceship that's getting popular is okay, but some of the others..."

"Er, I have to agree there, and... Wait, did you say it's getting popular?!"


He clearly must have known Celestia quite well. He didn't have much regard for protocol, either, as shown when he simply walked up to Cadence's door and knocked.

"Hell...o..." Minuette said as she opened the door, suddenly looking oddly shocked.

"Hello, I'm The Doctor!"

I sighed as he made his way in and greeted Cadence in a similarly enthusiastic manner as he had at the gate. However, I noticed Minuette seemed very alarmed.

"...Are you okay?"

"I... I'm okay, Captain, I..."

"...Say you've got something you need to go do, I'll come speak to you in the hall in a moment." I whispered.

Thankfully she seemed to realize why I was paranoid, and did so.

"Er, Princess, I'm afraid I need to go do something quickly, can I..."

"Go ahead, Minny."

I waited then made my own excuse to go fetch something (a map of the country that I had accidentally left in my room anyway). Minuette was fortunately near my quarters anyway.

"What's up?"

"The... The Doctor, I just feel I've seen him before. I've got a bad feeling about him..."

"Well, he seems alright to me. I'll keep an eye on him though. Can you remember where you saw him or why it's such a bad feeling?"

She shook her head.

"No, it's just... I don't really feel all that well now."

"Maybe you should see Garnet, or take a lie down. I'll tell Her Highness you're not doing so good."

"T-thanks, Captain... Please tell her not to worry, though."

However, I did notice one thing that I found confusing. Minuette and the Doctor's Cutie Marks were identical. You hear about that kind of thing, but you never see it. I will admit, that qualified as 'strange occurrences that keep following me.' And since Minuette knew about that weird cheese loving tribe at Dr. Audience's dig without knowing how, I couldn't exactly discard that fact.

I fetched my map and returned. The only two in the room not apparently enjoying themselves were Newcastle and Bendis, standing watch.

"...So basically I was wanting to take a look there as well, it's about forty or fifty miles west of the Embassy. I've got a map somewhere..."

"I've got mine, Doctor," I said.

"Oh, yes, that's brilliant! Very helpful."

"Princess, I'm afraid Minuette's not feeling too well. She's probably going to have to take a rest."

"...That's strange, she seemed fine earlier. Any idea what's wrong?"

"I think maybe she's just overworking with schedules and it caught up on her. She says not to worry though."

(Interviewer's Notes (Pegasus): You believe that, or another lie to your own CO?)

It was what I wanted to believe.

"Easier said than done, Shining," The Princess of Harmony sighed.

"Preaching to the choir. Anyway, what did I miss?"

"Well, Doctor Livingstone has been looking into the strange events quite a bit it seems. Apparently he's seen a few of them before."

"Yep, the UFO things, I've seen that around before. Last time it was grey diamonds actually, nothing to worry about though, just mana-mirages and leylines. It quite often is, unless it's just ghosts or something. Mystic forces, leylines, elder gods buried beneath the gates to a dark universe, nanomachines, the sun, all sorts of perfectly mundane explanations," The Doctor said. I honestly don't think he stopped to breathe as he spoke.

"...Sorry, what was that last one?" Twinkle Shine wondered.

"Nanomachines? Sun? You'd be surprised how much that can explain. Anyway, it's definitely not aliens. Just plain old mirages. The rest, however, is a bit of a puzzle."

"And that's where you hopefully come in?"

"Hopefully! Now, the first incident that saw dig items go missing, happened in North Triana. A camp was attacked by six ponies with guns..."

"Could have been one pony with six guns," Sunset noted.

"...True. Actually, that's probably what really happened! Because the researchers took cover, the guards went out to search, and found nothing. But then they came back to check things over, looked in at the finds, and big fireball burning through the chest containing them! You see, they'd found some very odd things... Bottles made of odd materials, a glove that seemed built for a minotaur with an extra finger... All of it lost. And it had all been so well preserved apparently. Almost brand new..."

"Doctor, what was used to start the fire?" I wondered.

"It sounded a lot like therm... something I heard about called thermite. It's a chemical mix, actually good for welding, they invented it in Germany..."

"...Germaney? That might explain it, they're good at alchemy. Wouldn't surprise me if some trick they use hasn't spread out if it's welding... Unicorn magic gets used for that mostly. I should check with Ellis, see if he's heard about it. Imagine he hasn't..." I replied.

"Yes. Anyway, next incident, strange box found, and it sounds a lot like... Well, have either of you ever seen Canterlot Museum? There's a box there they dug up near Manehattan, this strange box apparently seemed to be an intact version of that..." The Doctor said, as he rummaged in his saddlebags.

"...The one nopony has any clue what it was for? Made of the odd material and with all the bits inside they think were metal?" Audience chimed in.

"Uh, I have no idea what one that is," Twinkle Shine frowned.

"...Ah, here it is. Yes, somepony managed to take a sketch of it. Here's a photo of the one in Canterlot. Very similar! Look, the Canterlot one has this panel missing, and the scratch here leaves just 'yer' on the Canterlot example, but in the same spot on the sketch the word 'player' exists!"

The Doctor went on to describe many other such incidents, though many forgot what had been recovered. The last incident had been quite recent, but there seemed to be three patterns. Either there was a fire, there was a large break-in, or a gang of armed thugs directly tried to steal the items by force. The clash was in Zebrawa, where a break-in and the fire had collided, leaving four dead.

"So you're saying we have THREE groups of thieves out there and two of them bumped into each other in Zebrawa?" Cadence interjected.

"Would be the logical explanation, another is simply two groups of thieves using three different methods, or one group using three different methods and infighting broke out. Never assume the obvious solution is the right one."

The Doctor then explained various magic surges, noting again the return of Princess Luna explained some increased mana and leyline activity - but not all.

"In fact, there hasn't been a set of surges this big since twenty-five years ago..."

"Er, sorry about that..." Cadence looked a little embarrassed.

"Oh, no, it was bigger than that, Princess. Your birth happened alongside something else big..."

"Chernobull?" I wondered.

"Well, nopony's really confirmed if there was an accident there or not. There certainly was another oddity back then that no one's quite traced yet," He said, looking right at me...

...And I could swear that for a split second, his enthusiastic and wondrous sort of expression held everywhere except his eyes. They seemed to be... harsh. Like he was telling me he knew something about me...

Then he blinked and everything seemed fine.

"Few more odd mini-surges went on for years after, actually, bit like aftershocks from earthquakes. Very good for plant growth in Equrope and Neighsia actually, especially near Deer lands. Surges, that is, not earthquakes, they flatten plants. Anyway, now, I've tracked all the surges and the like as well, and I've noted that it seems the streams all have a surge shortly before the odd items are dug up-"

"Wait," I interjected. "There just happened to be archeologists already working where these surges occurred?"

"Not entirely impossible, ancient cities were often built on manastreams, it boosts magic after all so it makes perfect sense. So it's not entirely unlikely a dig site would match up. But back on topic, my theory is, the manastream might actually be bringing them over when these surges happen!"

"What, like from another world or another time?" Sunset said.

"...You really remind me of somepony. Lots of someponies actually." He replied, looking a little sad and wistful. But again, in the blink of an eye he was back to being a cheerful picture. "But yes, possibly."

"Wait...she might be right?" I asked. Yes, my life was weird, but time travel? It seemed crazy even to me! And from the look of it, everypony in the room.

"It's a possibility, actually. I know it sounds odd, but we don't understand everything about the manastreams, so who knows? Now where was I? Oh yes, the trouble is, the surge location isn't too precise. I need to get close, and it seems to be happening this evening. I've gone to other places where these surges have occurred, and apparently someone beat me and any archeologists to them! So I'm kind of trying to figure out how to get there before it happens..."

"Wait, so the surges happen at predictable times? What's the pattern? How long are they apart?" I asked, confused by this.

"Not so much predictable as with the correct equipment you can detect the rumbles preceding them...I just so happen to have it."

"Doctor, how do you plan to find this... Thing you're looking for?" Cadence wondered.

"Well, it gives off some special waves that I can detect to within a few meters, with things like this thing!" He said, pulling out something from his saddlebag that looked like it was about to explode.

"...And how does it work?"

"Well, when there's stuff it goes ding, and..."

"...It goes boom when there's too much stuff, perhaps?" I noted, and wished I'd predicted the explosion out loud. And that it hadn't exploded pointed at me

"Uh, yes. Except not normally when it's pointed at a pony, except that pink one in Ponyville for some reason. And not normally when it's not on. Again except for... Look, thanks for throwing up those shields so fast. I know it wasn't a big explosion but still, I've had to regenerate from less..."

"No problem." I had no idea what he meant, but I waved Bendis and Newcastle back to their posts all the same.

"...Actually, that complicates things, I kind of needed that to get the precise location early. I didn't bring my... Well, point is, I'd need an airship or something to land close and use my other devices. That one had the longest range. Only problem is the surge will cause airships to lose power, and Pegasi will have their flying disrupted for a few seconds as well."

"Sorry, it was probably my fault, I tend to be attract weird happenings. It's annoying."

"Could say the same, actually. All things considered I tend to attract a lot more strange situations than I probably should...Ever been attacked by a small army just for stepping hoof in the wrong place?"

"...Officially, no..."

"Officially, me neither."

Oh boy...

"Oh no, now we've got two weirdness magnets..." muttered Twinkle Shine.

"I'll alert Shepard..." Newcastle muttered.

"...Doctor, maybe if I were to go with you we could use our airships? I know the Guard aren't allowed to escort you or help you directly, but they can help me."

The Hoofmaidens both looked at me.

"...Actually, since all the attacks happened awhile after the items were first found, I would imagine if anything going in with obvious force would deter anypony from attacking us there and then. Plus the more help the Doctor has, the more likely he can find if his theory is true by having us search."

"What, really? You're not arguing about security or being worried someone will try to get us?" Cadence looked stunned.

"Princess Celestia did ask us to help Doctor Livingstone. I presume..."

"Yes, you did it again! I'm starting to like you, Captain! And you offered right away! Fancy that! Normally it takes the ship becoming self aware or something for the military to take me seriously!"

"...she'd be okay with us doing this. But maybe to be sure we should try check with her as quickly as we can?"

"Er, okay. I'll say it's my idea though just in case," Cadence noted.

Plus, with my luck, I'd probably end up caught up in the situation anyway, so might as well be proactive. Worst that could happen is we get sucked into another world or time period...and for some reason me having a perfectly rational reason to say that sentence doesn't surprise me.


As it happened, Celestia was fine with it - she sounded amused we'd double-checked, actually.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a conundrum. On one hoof, I expected that a show of force would scare off bandits. On the other, it was hard to justify full combat gear and let the local government allow us to fly around cheerfully. In the end I decided that gold barding was better, but had the troopers try to carry extra gear.

I found The Doctor chatting with Audience not long after I'd asked the Lance-Corporal to check the equipment we'd need, and Thunderchild was briefing the platoon on the task. He seemed to be wondering about how we'd be going out.

"Well, we'll be in two T-5 Firefly shuttles. They're unarmed, carry twenty ponies or so normally. I'm planning to have them no more than half full counting crew so we can overload one if there's a problem with another. As for defending ourselves, well, we can only really assume dangerous animals."

"That might be tricky. The local wildlife pretty much amounts to Rainbow Needlemice and Squinting Fluffies. Not dangerous at all. Except to each other during mating season. Wherehyenas pop over from Bulungi but they're just like dogs wanting to play hide and seek... Hello, Captain," The Doctor said as I neared.

"Pretty much the best I can do is let a few troopers bring crossbows and blades, plus stinkbombs, smokebombs, and Ellis will have his demolitions kit just in case. We'll have a few other tools, lights, shovels, the like."

"No guns?" The Doctor said.

"No, we don't really use guns in the Guard...." I said, letting Audience take over.

"Guns are generally expensive and cumbersome to use properly. They've got uses, but for us Equestrians, they're a liability. Too dangerous, and they're really quite hard to aim properly, even for me..."

He said he'd been a little disappointed to finally fire a real gun. The bullet flew too fast to guide it, and the smoke half-blinded him for a minute. He'd expected it all, but he was a little sad to discover that for Equestrians, there really was almost no real use for gunpowder small-arms. Griffins liked the noise and smoke of their blunderbusses when charging, and the mass volleys of muskets gave smokescreens for Prench musketeers, but for us? No guns, please. We're Equestrian.

Plus they stank worse than a Trottenham shirt. Musketeers in Equorpe often carry rations of garlic or onions around their necks to try and mask the smell to themselves. Except the Prench, oddly, they apparently just use nose plugs. C'est la vie, I guess.

"Good. I don't really like guns. Not that crossbows are much better but you're all skilled marksponies I bet. You only kill if you have to?"

"Yes, Sir. That's actually the protocol."

"Um, Captive, please don't call me 'sir'."

"Oh. Sorry, Doctor."

"Thank goodness, ponies that get it at last... I've got a pretty good feeling about this one," he said, and wandered off.

Audience looked puzzled.

"Sir... Have you ever ran into him before? It's just he seems to know my dad, and... Well, I don't think I've ever met him."

"Captive, I'll be honest. I'm not quite sure what to make of the Doctor. But he doesn't seem dangerous to me, and Princess Celestia trusts him. Cadence seems to trust him too and she's good with figuring ponies out."

"I see... Be careful, then?"

"It doesn't hurt to be prepared for the worst as best you can, does it?" I mused. "And since he and I apparently both attract weird situations, it's a good idea regardless."


It was dusk as we were landing two miles or so from where The Doctor thought our surge would happen. The epicenter was at the base of the mountains, and from the look of it, in a rocky clearing. The Doctor didn't trust the airships systems not to be damaged so close to it - and the only other clearing amongst the woodland was a fair walk away.

Apart from Misfit Actual, we'd brought Misfit One-One and One-Two. One-Three waited with the ships as backup and to watch them. We left Misfit Two-One and Two-Two back at the embassy, given the thieves had already infiltrated one embassy to get to these finds, we weren't going to risk it happening again.

Foaley's section had a nice mix of talents. Ranger could go up and give us eyes in the sky (we'd secured him a parachute in case a surge happened while he was in the air - he should have been able to glide back down, but just in case...) with his talent for, well, Pegasus ranging and scanning spells. Jenkins could use her speed to run messages if our radios broke. Ramirez and Soap were good all-rounders, and decent shots with Crossbows. Corporal Dunn had talent with heat sensitivity spells: The Doctor had said the magic surges could show up as warm spots, plus he gave another bow.

Foaley and Lance-Corporal Ray Pony could both use Earth Pony magic to help detect surges if our machines broke down. Finally, Baldrick was a fast thinker, and I felt a cunning plan at the right moment could come in handy. Plus our medic (Garnet), Democolt (Ellis), Shield Guy (Hi), our scout sniper team (Gag and Audience), and Thunderchild, we were pretty well balance if there was a problem, as well as for helping The Doctor out.

"Okay, Gag, Audience, you two go on point and scout ahead if it looks safe, keep in radio contact with us as long as you can. When the surge happens they'll probably be frazzled, hopefully the backups work with that protective sheet the Doctor gave us."

(Interviewer's Notes (Pegasus): Protective sheet?)

It was like... paper metal. Some sort of tinny foil...

"Everypony else, we'll cover the Princess, Hoofmaidens, and The Doctor. No pegasi other than Ranger in the air if we can help it. Ranger, go up and scan for a couple minutes then come back down."

Only Sunset and Twinkle Shine came with us. Minuette had still felt ill. Cadence had taken our advice though and so she and the Hoofmaidens were wearing barding that would provide some protection (Twinkle Shine had quickly managed to paint them to be more fashionable). The Doctor declined the offer.

(Interviewer's Notes (Pegasus): Ok, look, I get Sunset's fast and could carry messages quick if needed, but what was Twinkle Shine doing there when you thought this could be dangerous?)

If we were there after dark, she was our best light spell user, plus she insisted to be there if Sunset was going. I think Twinkle Shine felt protective of her and Minuette.

Sunset gave her coltfriend a quick nuzzle for good luck as he took off to fly overwatch for a few moments.

"Well, that all seems in order, Captain. Shall we start walk-I mean trotting?" The Doctor urged, then gave a chuckle when he corrected himself.

"Certainly."

"Then Allons-y!"

We cantered for about five minutes, then Ranger landed, reporting he saw no issues. Gag and Audience were radioing all-clear for the rest of the walk until they told us they were there.

"Alright, what does it look like?" The Doctor said into his own radio.

"It looks a bit like a quarry, Doctor..." Gag noted.

"...This is brilliant, you ponies really seem to get everything right first time or very quickly. I'm really enjoying myself."

We came upon the scene ourselves soon enough. As described, it really did look like a quarry, a hole cut into the ground. Just a lot of rocky patches, a few trees and bushes, but otherwise very quarry-like terrain. The Doctor soon found his spot, and put down one of his odd machines as Gag and Ranger landed.

"Yep, this is it! This annoyingly featureless patch of sand and gravel. Not even a particularly big pebble. Typical. Well, there's that tree all alone and those bushes over there, but... Oh well. At least there's nothing a Dalek can hide behind..."

"So, Doctor, what should we expect from the surge?" Cadence asked.

"If I'm right, it'll be a flash of light, a ding noise, and that machine I put down over there will explode. Then something should show up. Hopefully, it happens before sunset..."

"Well, we can wait it out. Sunset's in about fifteen minutes anyway..."

"No she's not, she's over there," Gag said, clearly unable to resist.

"Wait, will the surge affect our flashlights?" Garnet realised.

"...Good point, I'll wrap them in tinfoil. Might as well wrap all the radios too. Now, any other questions?"

"Yes; why do your machines keep exploding?" I asked, finding that a rather impractical design choice.

"You know, I've often wondered that exact same thing.The only danger from them is supposed to be to hens, and I thought I worked that glitch out while staying in Ponyville."

"Wait, Ponyville?"

It happened three minutes before the sun completely set. Of course, we'd also brought a few sources of light that would be unaffected by the surge: Lanterns with glowing mushrooms, and regular old flame torches. Us unicorns could use horn magic when the magic pulse faded and shine our own lights.

The flash and the ding came. The Doctor's machine exploded on cue. And from nowhere it seemed, a black bag landed. It didn't seem like a saddlebag. It looked like the Minotaur's messenger bags, worn with a shoulder strap.

"Oh, that's not so bad, its aboveground..." The Doctor noted.

It landed, and then began to sink down.

"...Well, that explains how they were DUG up."

Some digging later, we found it about eight feet down. Fortunately, one of the Doctor's non-exploded machines somehow could track where it was precisely, so we pretty much just had to have us unicorns dig a hole with our magic and some shovels. Ranger was now taking off to watch over us with his scans.

The Doctor spread out a sheet and had a few glow-shroom lanterns put on it for light. They all stood back at the Doctor's request, Cadence and I nearby protected by my shields.

"Let's see, what's in this bag that's so strange... Oh."

He produced a small black rectangle, like a mirror. "That's something I've not seen in awhile..."

He seemed to stare at it a few seconds, before Cadence spoke.

"Doctor, can I look at the items too?"

"Oh, yes, yes, but please be careful, not sure what to expect.."

Cadence took out what looked like a small bundle of cards held together with a rubber band. She peeled one off.

"The writing is in Low Equestrian...Molly Williams, Special Agent, Naval Criminal Investigative Service? And what's a Washington?"

I took one from the pile. It made no sense to me, but the Doctor seemed very surprised when he took one for himself.

"Molly Williams? Really? Of all the possibilities... Not sure it's the same one, never seemed like one to go into police work seemed more like Danny's field, maybe another world, stranger things have happened, but... Princess, Captain, you two please check the rest, I think I need to examine the, er, thing we found first..."

"Okay, Doctor..." I said.

Cadence was still puzzled by the cards.

"E-Mail... What the heck is an email? And why is this A inside a circle? Wait, isn't that an accounting symbol..."

The Doctor then produced an odd stick that seemed to buzz. Probably another scanning machine. Meanwhile, Cadence removed another black rectangle that seemed to have a circular protrusion.

"A camera?" I realized. It seemed very much like a camera to me, just very small.

I pulled out a small black and yellow object. It seemed to have a couple of metal prongs inside a half-moon shape at the front, and a few warnings about voltage.

"...What the heck is this thing supposed to be?" I had our resident expert on all things electric based come look it over.

"Heck if I know, sir," said Thunderchild, looking it over. Pressed it with his hoof and electricity pulsed between the circular part...which had been touching his other hoof. "Youch!...I think it's some kind of nonlethal weapon, sir," he said, his mane standing a bit on end. Though from the looks of it, even without a pegasi's natural electrical resistance, it wouldn't have been lethal or even particularly dangerous, just hurt.

Running just chuckled. "At least for once it wasn't me."

The last items produced were a bottle of dark liquid and what looked like a couple chocolate bars... but all three were strange. The bottle was made of some soft material, and had a very strange cap - like a jar lid but miniature, labeled "root beer". The chocolate also seemed to be wrapped in a strange metallic paper. One was labeled 'Mars Bar' and the other 'Milky Way.'

"Mars? Milky Way?" asked Running Gag, blinking. "Sounds like Mares and Milky Neigh..."

The Doctor started snickering at that for some reason.

"Cards, a camera, some kind of drink, chocolate, and... we're still not sure what the other two things are. Doctor, is anything happening with your item?"

"Almost... Oops..."

The item then lit up when his buzzing device touched it.

"...You seem to know what you're doing."

"Not really, I had no idea that would happen..."

He poked a small picture that had appeared with the stick. The lights moved and a different set of pictures appeared.

"Now, this is very odd, isn't it... This isn't something from here, is it?"

"...Doctor? Are you saying this thing really is from another place?"

"Looks like it might be. I don't like being right sometimes... It's all wrong, it's not even our universe..."

Any questions we had were silenced as he managed to make a list appear.

"Interesting list... Abby, Boss, Danny, Ducky, Megan, Mom..."

"Are those names?" I wondered.

"Perhaps. I think... I think we need to get these items to safety and I need to consult somepony a bit wiser than all of us... I think Princess Celestia might know something somehow."

"Makes sense to me."

"I agree, if anypony would have any idea, it's Auntie," Cadence nodded.

"Well, that went well I suppose. Fairly painless and..."

The device The Doctor had examined then began making a noise.

"...It plays music?"

The song it played was in Neighponese. "Ore no kiba wa yagate subete no mono o, kui tsukusu tame daka sonzai shite iru..."

"Uh, Gag, got a translation?"

"Yeah. The lyrics are 'In no time, everything will come under my fangs, for they exist solely for me to feast on.'"

"Okay... Doctor, turn it off please."

"Wellll, er, I'm not really sure how I turned it on in the first place..."

I sighed.

"As long as Gag stops translating... and as long as the songs are all in Neighponese... Still, can't get worse."

"Misfit Overwatch to Misfit Actual... Captain, I've got something inbound on our position. Fifteen miles, looks like they were using the mountains as cover..."

"...I'm going to shut up now."

We'd checked before we left, no one was supposed to be here at this time according to the locals. It couldn't be some kind of exercise, and if they were using cover, then it couldn't be civilians taking a flight...

"Er, Captain, you kind of need to give orders and stuff."

"Alright, alright... Firefly Base, this is Misfit Actual, come in."

"Prrftafkskzlym?"

I fought the urge to swear.

"Interference on the radios. Brilliant... Jenkins! Head back to the shuttles, have them come in ASAP! Surge risk or not, we need the shuttles here pronto rather than all of us running in the dark. Everypony else, we need to prepare in case we're attacked. Civilians by me, and if anypony has any ideas... "

Baldrick nodded.

"I have a cunning plan, but I need to ask Corporal Apple if it would work..."

Ellis nodded as Baldrick whispered.

"...Sir, Ah'm gonna need you to lecture about something. Anything."

"What? Ellis, I do not lecture! I'm your commanding officer, and you should show me some more respect! The code of conduct says that..."

"Thanks, Sir, this'll do nicely," He said, yanking the soapbox from below me, and began breaking it up.

"...What?"

"Gonna use 'em and some PEC4, make it look like a WP rocket or something. Ain't perfect but gonna improvise, scare 'em off if we gotta. Oh, one or two more'd be good... Can somepony get me a few tree branches, wet or damp wood'l burn a little smokier!"

"Ellis, I am not some sort of soapbox dispenser! Can't you figure out some other way instead of relying on oh Celestia darn it!"

"Thanks, Sir!"

"...Everypony else know what to do?" I asked.

"Yes, Sir, we do," Foaley noted.

"We're good, Captain," Thunderchild nodded.

"Good, get to it..."

"RAMIREZ! Get up on those rocks there with Lance-Corporal Audience and help him out if we gotta shoot!"

"Shoot?! What's shooting who?! Are there monsters?!" Sunset cried out, Twinkle Shine actually seemed to be taking a protective stance over the other maiden this time.

"Something flying towards us a few miles out, probably mercenaries," Somepony told her.

I shielded my ears as she shrieked. Cadence quickly stopped her bolting off and began trying to calm her. I couldn't blame the poor girl, given last time a military conflict had happened involving us she'd ended up hanging with her wings bound from an airship. Most pegasi would have a panic attack at the prospect of that happening AGAIN.

"Civilians near me, I can shield you.... Overwatch, how are we doing?"

"They're ten miles out, skimming treetops. Small shapes, not airships. I can't tell in the light but it looks like Griffins."

"Alright. If they seem to be heading for you, just dive down here right away. Don't be a hero, Ranger..." I instructed, giving Sunset a quick glance.

"Yes, Sir."

"Princess, is Sunset okay?"

Cadence had taken both hoofmaidens literally under her wings. Sun Set was trembling, Twinkle Shine seemed to be focusing more on guarding her friend than herself, but was still trembling.

"As okay as she can be... I know you and your troopers can protect us if you have to, Shining. Just don't take risks..."

"The best fight to win is the fight you can avoid entirely." I agreed

Everything seemed to be in order, the troops were all moving to positions, and there was nothing to do but wait.

Or vent.

"Ugh, great. We're under attack...AGAIN!" I whispered, slamming my head into a tree...or rather THE tree, since only one was around. "Why does stuff like this always happen to me?"

"Well, it very well could be me they're after," the Doctor whispered back.

"No, I'm pretty sure they're after me, because I have a psychopathic stag out for my blood with a habit of hiring mercs."

"Ha! Do you have any idea how many enemies are out for mine?"

"You have no idea how much weird stuff has happened to me these past few weeks! You coming to me for this mission didn't even surprise me anymore!"

"Well I-"

"We're under attack! Argue over who has the weirder life later!" Cadence warned, leveling us a glare.

"Yes Princess..."

"Sir, Ah can fire a decoy anytime. Should slow them down..." Ellis shouted over.

"Alright, wait until they're five miles out for a warning shot."

We waited, hoping the shuttles would come first...

"...Sir, there's more coming in. Helicopters, fifteen miles. I can't see any sign of our shuttles taking off yet. I don't want to send Horse Code pulses, they'll know what I'm saying..."

"...Helicopters. Brilliant, it's the Hooviets. Can you see Jenkins at all?"

"No, Sir, seems to be a lot of mana interference in that direction actually. The way to the bad guys looks clearer..."

The Doctor produced another odd machine, which exploded and was discarded casually.

"He's right. Looks like things went perfectly for them..."

That somehow didn't seem a surprise. Makarov got what he wanted most of the time... Was he coming to get us?

"...Sir, I have an idea. Can we try see if we can find their radio frequencies?" Gag said.

"Give me a radio and a couple of seconds and maybe..." The Doctor used his buzzing stick on a radio. It began speaking in Roedinian right away.

"Okay... Here goes..."

Gag then began speaking into it, barking in a harsh Hooviet accent.

"What are you idiots doing? You are flying the wrong way! The Equestrian dogs are to the southeast, you are going west!"

"...Who is this?"

"Who is this?! WHO IS THIS?! YOU DARE NOT RECOGNIZE THE SUPREME MARSHAL WHEN HE IS TALKING TO YOU, MERCENARY DOG?!"

"...We did not know you were overseeing the operation, Glorious One!"

"Holy horseapples, it's working..." Cadence whispered.

"You fool, I oversee all! Proceed Southeast if you value your genitals, vermin!"

"Y-Yes, Supreme One!"

We waited, and then...

"Sir, they're turning off, heading southeast.... And I can see the shuttles coming in. Five minutes..." Ranger reported.

"...All those attempts at voice-mimicking jokes finally paid off..." Gag noted as we let it sink in.

"Paid off?! Darn right they paid off!" Garnet whooped, grabbing her 'just friend, honest' and giving him a rather big kiss...

"Yeah, sorry, I'm not doing that to you, Lance-Corporal. But congratulations on both your promotions," Cadence said a second later.

"...Buh?"

The shuttles then swooped in, and we had to almost drag a now-bewildered (and promoted) Lance-Corporal Gag onto the nearest one. Ranger landed in one, giving Gag a quick grin even as his own marefriend gave him a hug.

And then we promptly got the buck out of there before the Mercenaries realized what they'd done wrong. Maybe they'd run for the hills rather than face Makarov for failing, but sorry, I honestly don't care.

We had managed to get ourselves out of danger, pretty much all thanks to Gag's idea. The Doctor declined any credit, noting we were only there at his request...

"Besides, isn't it just nice that one of the little ponies gets to save the day for once?" He mused, almost wistfully, when I pressed the matter. "And everypony lived! Haha! I love being able to say that!"

"...Now do you think you can try get that music thingy to stop playing? It doesn't seem to be picking very nice songs," I asked.

"Oh, er... right... I'll try..."

"...I hear they're getting closer, their howls are sending chills down my spine. And time is running out now, they're coming down the hills from behind..."

Seems even music players from other universes hate me.

Author's Note:

LZ's Soundtrack suggestions:

Shining’s Alarm
I Am The Doctor, Jon Pertwee, Doctor Who.
”Switch the phone off, Doctor”
"Double Action- Gaoh Form" , Hiroyuki Watanabe,Kamen Rider Den-O: I’m Born! Soundtrack.
Planning for the Mercenaries
It’s The Harrier!, Harry Gregson-Williams & Norihiko Hibino, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
”Not Very Nice Music
"The Howling" , Within Temptation, The Heart of Everything

PreviousChapters Next