The Beat to My Heart (The Fall of Queen Celestia Book 1)

by Sylpheed Dashstep

Act II; Scene IV: To Kill a Tyrant

The only thing worse than living no life is dying pathetically. I walked into Canterlot and made my way towards the castle, thinking about every moment in my life that I had lost somepony, allowing that to fuel my rage as I tore through the guards, that mysterious force invading me again and allowing me to crush anypony who got in my way. I arrived at the gates to the castle and found them raised, archers set up at the top of the walls with their bows drawn.

"We'll give you one chance to leave, courtesy of Celestia herself," a stallion said, the one who I saw as the leader of this troop.

"Well I'm giving you one chance to let me in here and maybe after Celestia is dead then I'll let you keep your life," I replied. "How could you work for her still, after all that's happened, after all the innocents she had you kill?"

The guard didn't reply, only turning as his troops knocked their arrows and pulled them back. I didn't wait for them to release them, taking the two swords I had picked up along the way and running, leaping off the edge and across the gap, sinking the swords into the wood of the bridge, suddenly glad that the guards who had wielded them had added hoof-straps on the hilts, allowing me to keep a grip on them as I slowly made my way up the bridge, pulling one sword out and sinking it in the bridge a few inches up, pulling myself up like that. I made it about halfway up the bridge before they got the idea to use a rope to lean out an archer, leaving his hooves free as he was dangled in the harness. An arrow embedded itself a few inches to my right and I gave a curse, scuttling up faster than before as the sight of the arrow pumped a bit more adrenaline through my veins. I heard him loading another arrow into the bow, but the action was paused as the rope gave a groan and snapped.

There was a short shout before the sound of something wet hitting the concrete, then silence as the rest of the guards took in what had just happened. Using their pause I made my way up and over the bridge, dropping down into the receiving hall of the castle. Surprisingly there were no guards to receive my intrusion and I found out why after a few minutes of wandering down the hall, arriving at the throne room to find Celestia sitting at her throne with the doors wide open.

"Ahh, so you're the one killing all of my guards, are you, a bit younger than I'd have thought," she admitted as I walked in.

"CELESTIA, I'VE COME TO CHALLENGE YOU TO A ONE ON ONE DUEL, NO MAGIC, ONLY HOOF-TO-HOOF COMBAT," I shouted at her.

"And tell me, why should I oblige your request," she asked with an amused look on her face.

"That way I don't have to tell everybody you were completely horrible after you're dead," I said, waiting for an answer and knowing that if she wanted to, she could simply crush me right now.

"You know, it's funny," she said, "I still can't get my head around the fact that they sent a colt to kill me."

"Who," I asked, completely oblivious to who she was referring. She began laughing maniacally and I shouted out my question again.

Her laughter cut off and she got deadly serious, narrowing her eyes at me as she said, "You know who boy, don't patronize me."

I shook my head and said, "You're a lot further gone than I thought," before rushing at her. I noticed her horn start to glow and I threw my swords at her as my body froze up, giving a curse as she managed to stop both of them before they connected with her throat.

She paused for a second and took another look at me before saying, "Wait, you really weren't sent by the rebels?"

"How the hell could I be sent by them, you killed them all," I hissed at her. "You've killed every single pony who dared to go against your will. Those ponies were my friends and you took them away from me, and for that, I've made a pact that I would kill you."

"So, you're the last rebel, are you," she said. "Why not join my side," she cooed as she brought me closer, "we could be co-rulers, you could be my equal and have a say in the future of Equestria. Help me fix my errors."

Her voice was pleading by now and for a moment I actually considered joining her, perhaps helping Equestria rise again to its glory, but then the thought that I would only be replacing Luna crossed my mind and I felt my anger flare up again.

"How dare you...HOW DARE YOU TRY TO REPLACE LUNA," I shouted right into her face.

"You want to know what's the worst part of this entire ordeal? The fact that I was forced to kill my own sister who turned on me," she said, her eyes looking like she was about to cry. "I had to kill MY OWN SISTER. Do you think this was easy for me? The only reason that I'm doing this is to protect...nevermind, you wouldn't understand."

"Protect who," I asked. "Maybe if you told me who was worth killing an entire kingdom for then I would understand."

"It's not a who, it's a what," she said.

I wanted to ask what she was talking about but a noise caught both of our attention. The world took on a slightly blue tint that got darker for a second before fading again, along with a grinding noise.

WAIT, ELI, IT'S THE FUCKING DOCTOR.

"No, no, no, no, that's not possible, why would she choose to save you," Celestia said, directing the comment at nopony in particular.

WAIT, she knows about the TARDIS, what the hell's going on here?

I hardly understood what was happening anymore, just that Celestia's voice was growing fainter and walls were becoming more solid around me, as well as a catwalk under my feet.

"Alex, there's a button, tha-" Celestia began, the sound of her voice being cut off entirely, as well as her magical hold on me, as the walls became fully solid.

I found myself in what appeared to be a central control room, the walls gray with blonde highlights around the many lights sunk into the wall. There was a central control console in the middle of the room with the same color scheme as the wall and there was a dark blue doorway behind me.

"Alright who's messing with the bloody controls this time," a voice said from a doorway opposite the control panel.

I peered around it and spotted a light brown stallion with a dark brown mane standing in the doorway expectantly. He started to step into the room and stopped as he spotted me. We both stood where we were for a few minutes, neither of us moving because we weren't entirely sure what to do next. Luckily for us, a mare walked into the room and broke the silence.

"Doc, who the hell's messin with the..." she began, trailing off as she caught sight of me.

It took me a few seconds to recognize who the mare was because she had grown a few years older than since I'd last seen her, but there was no mistaking that white coat and electric blue mane.

"VINYL," I shouted, running over to her and tackling her in a hug.

"Woah-oh-oh, hey there kid," she said, wrapping her hooves around me.

"Vinyl, do you know him," the stallion asked.

"Well yeah, he's only my best friend," Vinyl replied.

"Wait, I recognize you," I said, gazing at the stallion once more. "Yeah, I saw you and Vinyl at my school before all of this happened!"

"You...saw us where," she asked.

"That was probably future us," the stallion said.

"But why would future us be at past him's school," Vinyl asked.

"I don't know," the stallion replied, "seems like we've got another mystery to figure out."

"I swear there are enough mysteries here to be able to play Jenga with," Vinyl replied.

Suddenly I remembered where we were and I took a nervous glance around as I said, "Umm, how exactly did I get here, I mean I was must in Celestia's throne room."

The stallion's eyes grew wide and he said, "We're WHERE?!"

Without another word he moved over to the control panel and began to flip some switches, the grinding noise starting up again and some pipes in the center of the console began moving. After a few moments the grinding stopped and the stallion released a sigh of relief.

"So, umm, Vinyl, who exactly is this stallion," I asked.

"This, is the Doctor," she replied.

"Doctor...what," I asked.

The Doctor gave a sigh and facehoofed as he said, "Just the Doctor."

Suddenly something somepony had said to me a year ago struck me and I found myself staring at the Doctor with a little more than curiosity. One could almost call it suspicion.

The words were-

When you meet a stallion named the Doctor, trust him with your life.

Author's Note:

And there you go, the story of how Alex came so close to killing Celestia only to be saved by the Doctor. Don't worry, I know there's a lot of confusion about what exactly everypony is talking about, but things will be mostly clear by the time Celestia...bites the dust.