Today seemed different. An old traveller comes into town, seeking to expand his knowledge of the world. The elements of harmony have been called to the palace to deal with a rising threat. An army grows in the distance and the entire guard is dispatched to fight it. Yet, things don't quite fit together. The only pony who notices this is a brilliant brown stallion, trying his hardest to solve his own mysteries. The mystery of a long metal tube and broken down watch. Yep, today was certainly going to be different.
(First fan-fiction, so feel free leave a comment or something.)
There are many places in Equestria that have been forgotten by time, left to slowly waste away until all evidence of their existence has been wiped away from the land. Few ponies even remember how to get to them and even less bother to brave the dangers required to visit them. Not that any of this mattered to the strange group of beings that had made this place their home.
Two of the creatures argued with each other, while a third buried its head in a large, metal machine which occupied the centre of the room. The machine was about three pony's high, and two across. To some, it may have resembled a large empty box made of steel, but to one in the know, it was much more. What little light managed to stab through the darkness reflected off of the device, causing the large metal disk bolted to the floor to stick out from the rest. Hundreds of multicoloured wires raced between the box and the circle, tying the two together in an unbreakable union. Despite the polished metal though, smoke bustled out of one of the pipes on the top of the machine and several panels lay scattered on the ground, showcasing the light show caused by the third creature. Creaking was heard as another panel fell form the top of the machine, showering the arguing creatures in loose sparks. Both turned angrily towards the contraption and called out to their friend. "Arghh. Can't you work any faster, useless worm?" howled the larger of the two, "Our time is nearly exhausted." The one near the machine pulled its head out and yelled back, "Do you want this thing to explode and take us with it? No? Then perhaps you should stop arguing and come help instead!" "Hive Mind is correct, worm. We have little time before He arrives, and we would prefer to be ready for him when he does. So quit complaining and get back to work!" barked the second monster. The third one simply snorted, and turned his head back towards the machine.
Several minutes passed slowly, with the occasional snort from the monster near the machine and the continuous dripping of water being the only sound that echoed through the room. The largest beast, Hive Mind, paced around the room, trying to avoid looking back to the person fixing the machine. The second monster was standing near the large stone doors, keeping an eye out for anyone approaching. Several more minutes passed before Hive Mind called out sympathetically to the others in the lodging. "Listen, worm. About before..." Before he could continue, The beast working on the box cut him off, replying confidently, "Don't worry about it, we're all stressed and running out of time, I'd get angry too." "So how much longer, worm?" "I HAVE a name you know! I'd prefer you use it. To answer the question, only a little longer. The central feed is still dangerously unstable. It'll take a few more minutes before I can get it working safely." responded the being near the box. From the door, an ear curling screech broke out. "We'll use your name when you're proven you can be of use to us, now fix the machine!" "Fine! I'll do my job and you do yours!" He screamed back.
Barely any time had passed since the two argued before a strange noise began to bounce around the room. The one near the door poked it's head out and nearly screamed from fright. A large blue box, with the words "Police Box" written across the top of the door and a blue light, flashing like a siren, resting upon the top was materializing out of the air with a loud, continuous 'Vworrp' sound. The creature quickly spun back around to face the others and asked fearfully, "It's him! Is the machine ready, worm? Or have you failed us?" The mechanic's face turned pale and he called back, "He's here already? No, no, I need more time! Distract him or something! I need more time!" "Relax, stay hidden and keep working, if he sees you this will all be for naught." Hive Mind said, "We'll try to distract him as long as possible." The worker simply nodded and disappeared behind the large box. "Now open the door for our 'guest'." The heavy stone doors slowly swung open, pulled by a mechanism hidden in the walls, and standing in the doorway was a brown pony, holding a small metal tube with a blue light attached to the end, with it's teeth. His mane cut backwards across his head like a buzz saw and his nose was scrunched up from determination.
"Ohh, you obened the door," the pony said, his words slightly muffled by the device in his mouth. He turned to the person near the door and asked quietly, "Woub you take this please? It makes it rather hard to balk." The creature reached out with it's hand, and the pony spat the tube out of its mouth. "Sorry about that, I'm still getting used to not having pockets. I liked pockets." Hive Mind shambled over to the door and, with fake concern, addressed the visitor, "Are you the one who received our distress signal?" "Yes, right, the signal." The pony said absent mindedly. He turned his head upwards and looked around, taking in the surroundings. "Why is it so dark in here?" He asked, changing the subject. "It's a shame, we were unable to fix the lighting when we arrived, and have spent the last few days in darkness. Not that it concerns us," said Hive Mind. The brown pony looked at the ceiling again, before replying, "Well, that's easy, if we run a pulse through the outer layer we'll have the lights running in no time; then I can get a better look at you." The pony whipped his head back down and faced the creature holding his tube. "If you would, could you point the sonic screwdriver at the lights for me?" "No! Why should we trust you? You haven't answered Hive Mind's question and we don't even know your name!" The pony simply nodded, "Well, bit of a temper on him, ah? Got a point though. I'm the Doctor." He said, gesturing to himself with one of his hooves. "I am Hive Mind." The leader said honestly, while turning to his friend, "Do what the good doctor says." The monster holding the screwdriver begrudgingly pointed it towards the roof, a quick buzzing sound emitted from the top of the device and the whole room was suddenly covered in light.
The room itself was mostly round, except for large pillars that went up alongside the walls and into the roof. Moss crept along the floor and a pool of water gathered on the far end of the room. The Doctors attention, however, was quickly pulled to the machine in the middle. He galloped over to it and started investigating the many pipes connecting the plate to the box. "Is this your ship?" He wondered, before cutting off Hive Mind's answer, "No it couldn't be. You've got an extraction beam connected to a purifier and a chameleon arch. So what does that make you, machine?" He glanced back at the two creatures near the door and shouted back to them with a smile, "Could you bring my screwdriver over here please, and yes, I picked up your signal while flying over the Daydra galaxy. Nice galaxy, used to have a race of sentient cacti living in it. Amazing creatures, shame about what happened to them. After receiving his screwdriver back, Doctor turned his attention back to the box. Pointing his device at it, a high pitched buzzing was heard again, and the top of the screwdriver popped open. The Doctor placed it on the ground and took a long look into it before facing the leader again.
"Hive Mind, two questions, two very, important questions, how did your ship crash? And are we the only ones who know you're here?" "We do not know what happened to the ship, it simply stopped working while we were observing the creatures of this world. As for your second question, only my college and I know about the ship." Hive Mind said quietly. The Doctor looked back at the machine, speaking just loud enough for the others to hear, "Well, that's interesting then, because your device here has an unstable central feed. Something like that needs someone to maintain it, else, it'd explode and kill us all." He wandered closer to the machine, basically pushing his nose into it, before saying. "You don't mind if I take a look, do you?" "Of course we would! Get away from our machine!" The second creature yelled. Too late, as the Doctor was already working his way around the box. "Hive Mind, if you need my help, I need you to tell me the truth. What was this machine used for? At most, all it would do is grind flour, why bring it?" He said fearfully. "Truthfully Doctor, we had planned to use it on you; we need the help of a time lord to complete our plan." Hive Mind replied. The Doctor spun around and started walking back towards the front of the machine, unfazed by this truth. "Well, I was afraid you might say that, however, there was one thing you forgot while setting up this trap." The Doctor said, nonchalantly. Hive Mind replied, confused, "And what would that be Doctor?" "This!" The Doctor shouted, slamming his hoof onto the bottom of his screwdriver, sending it flying upwards into his mouth. Spinning around, he pointed the screwdriver at the machine and turned it on.
An explosion rocked through the room, and the Doctor was blown backwards, holding what remained of his sonic screwdriver in his mouth. Smoke drifted out of the hole at the tip, joining the smoke that was already in the room. The smaller of the two creatures walked over to the Doctor. "As you can see, 'Doctor', we have prepared for all possible outcomes." He said with contempt. "WORM! Place him on the machine." The Doctor struggled to find the energy to talk, pleading weakly, "You don't....need....to do this. I can.....help. "Oh Doctor," The second one sneered, watching the Doctor as he got pulled onto the metal plate, "You're already helping more than you know."
Nearby, a lonely zebra was gathering herbs late at night, lamenting her life and wondering why the ground was shaking slightly. She said nothing as she worked, instead taking in the darkened surroundings of her home, before wandering back to her shack in the woods. A strange sound managed to collide with her ears, a sound that wasn't of the forest. If the zebra were more gullible, she might have confused it for screaming. That was impossible, of course. After all, she was the only pony in the whole Everfree.
Today seemed different. Maybe there was something in the air, maybe the sun seemed to shine a little brighter, maybe the birds sang a little louder, the day just seemed different. Flying through town, Ditzy seemed to be the only one who noticed this. Most ponies just went through their daily tasks, completely oblivious to whatever had changed. Ditzy probably would have slowed down at that point to wonder what exactly had changed, but that thought was far from her mind. She was late, and had to focus. Speeding just above the ponies in the street, Ditzy arrived at the small building that was the Ponyville post office. Pulling down and landing with a crash, she took a moment to gather her bearings before pushing open the door and entering. She worried slightly that someone might notice the dirt marks covering her grey coat, or the clumps of mud stuck in her blonde mane, before shrugging the thought off.
Ditzy ducked her head quickly, barely avoiding a collision with another pegasus who managed to squeeze out the door before it closed. She looked through the room, searching for her mail bag. Two large tables with matching chairs sat to her left, and a small wooden door stuck out of the wall across the room, leading to her bosses office. A desk was set up to her right, for the purpose of accepting letters. Thankfully, no one was sitting behind it at the moment. Her mail bag was sitting on a table across the room, next to a vase of flowers and the door to the office. She glanced around to see if anyone else was in the room before sneaking forward. She reached out and grabbed her bag, attaching it to her side. She spun around and headed back towards the door. If she could just get out before... "DITZY!" Ditzy flew upwards in shock, banging her head against the roof and falling back to the ground, landing on her head in an incredible display of acrobatics. A familiar pain began to spread outwards from her collision, but she fought it down. She looked up at her boss, a dark brown pegasus with a faded yellow mane and cutie mark of a large cardboard box, and mumbled weakly "Oh, hello sir, how was your day?" Her boss looked down disapprovingly, and replied sternly, "Ditzy, this is the third time in a row you're been late, you can't keep doing this." "I know but...." Ditzy replied weakly, getting cut off by her boss. "And I've already got complaints about that accident last week." "But that wasn't my fault! The bowling balls just slipped!" Ditzy said. "I'm not blaming you, just be glad nopony was hurt." He said, helping Ditzy get off the floor, "But Ditzy, it's becoming an increasing risk to keep you on staff. If you don't focus up and start paying attention, I may be forced to, uhh, let you go." Ditzy took a step back, "But what about my daughters? I have a family to support!" "Don't panic, just step up your game and we'll both get through this. I don't want to fire anypony, remember?" Walking towards the door, Ditzy looked back, "Right, sorry. You just see, though, I'm gonna be the most focused mail pony this town has ever seen. Yep, dependable, focused Ditzy." Her boss yelled back sharply, "Umm Ditzy, watch out for the....." He ended his sentence as Ditzy wandered into the wall next to the door, smacking the side of her head against it. She simply looked back sheepishly and muttered to herself, "Doors over there, gotta remember." Ditzy's boss sat there and watched as she pushed the door open and flew out. Turning back to his office, he said to no one in particular, "Poor girl, amazing she can even fly with eyes like that."
More ponies had worked their way into the street by now. Ditzy huddled up next to the post office and started searching through her bag, learning who needed deliveries. "Let's see." she remarked, shuffling through the envelopes. "R.D, P.P, L, and T.S." Ditzy cheered up a bit. Even though there were less people than last time, that meant she could finish faster. Placing the letters back into her bag, she flapped her wings and ascended into the sky. Staring around, Ditzy saw Rainbow Dash's house floating over an empty plain outside Ponyville. Ditzy started to glide over to it, muttering to herself, "Focus Ditzy, don't get distracted. Stay focused, and keep an eye on Rainbow's house. Keep focused Ditzy." One of her eyes rolled downwards, it's attention caught by something shiny. Ditzy snapped her eyes forward again, and closed them so she couldn't be distracted. She started chanting to herself again. "Stay focused, don't get distracted. You can investigate later, just focus." Another pair of wings started to emerge against her words. Ditzy kept her eyes closed and kept flying, knowing if she opened them she would get distracted again. The crowd beneath her began to shout and Ditzy fought the urge to open her eyes and see what the problem was. Nothing was going to distract her today. More ponies started shouting and Ditzy responded by speaking to herself louder. The noise beneath her increased and she couldn't help it anymore. Ditzy's eyes sprung open, giving her about three seconds before she crashed into another pony flying towards her.
The two ponies tumbled out of the air, nearly crashing into one of the ponies in the street. The letters exploded out of Ditzy's bag, mingling with the contents of the other ponies bag. Letters and personal belongings littered the streets. Some nearby ponies started to gather up the items as Ditzy pulled herself up onto her hooves. She turned to the pony she had crashed into and prepared to apologize. The pony herself was a dark red colour, with a plain orange mane. She was wearing a hood which ran down her back and covered her flank and cutie mark. Due to being smaller than her, Ditzy felt slightly intimidated, but pushed through this to apologize. "Oh, are you ok? I'm so so so so sorry! Please don't be hurt. Here, have a muffin." Ditzy grabbed a muffin off of the ground near her and offered it to the pony. The pegasus responded by putting the muffin into one of the pockets in her hood and greeting Ditzy. "We're fine, thank you very much for the muffin. But are you sure you're ok? Your eyes seem a little.....disfigured." "What, these things?" Ditzy remarked, gesturing to her eyes. "They've always been like that, you don't need to panic. I'm real sorry for crashing into you Miss....? "Cinder. And the accident was totally our fault. We should have been looking where we were flying, instead of focusing on...other business." Cinder said, lowering her voice to whisper near the end. Ditzy looked shocked, "No, it was all my fault, I was flying with my eyes closed. Again" "Why in Equestria would anypony do that?" "It's embarrassing now that I think about it." Ditzy said shyly. "Come on, tell us!" Cinder responded. "No, I really don't want to." "TELL US PONY!" Cinder snapped. Ditzy jumped backwards in fright and started explaining. "Well, I need to stay focused today and I figured that if I didn't see anything, than nothing would be able to distract me. So I closed my eyes and blindly flew forwards." Cinder cocked her head to the side and tried to process this logic. She sat there for a few minutes before pulling her head straight and replying. "Well, we guess that makes sense, though we probably would have just stared at the sky or something instead." "Can I ask you a question, Cinder?" Ditzy said, "Why do you keep talking as if there's more than one of you?" Cinder stared at Ditzy, thinking deeply, before replying, "It's tradition to use the royal we when speaking to commoners. That should explain, correct?" The two ponies conversation was interrupted when a light blue unicorn with a multicoloured mane interjected, "Excuse me, Cinder, was it? I believe we have some of your things." She said, before placing them in a neat pile in front of Cinder, "Here." Cinder carefully placed the pile of junk into separate pockets and thanked the pony. She flapped her wings and started to take off, when Ditzy yelled out. "Bye Cinder, We should get muffins sometime." Cinder looked back down and responded sadly, "We'd like that..." "Ditzy Doo!" She answered. "Well, Ditzy Doo, here's to hoping we meet again!" She said, flying off. The unicorn holding the letters put them back into Ditzy's mail bag. Ditzy gave a small smile before flying off hurriedly, to make up for the time she lost. Unnoticed, a small item slipped through the letters and settled comfortably on the bottom of her bag.
After delivering an expensive Wonderbolt poster to Rainbow Dash, and listening to her repeat the phrase, "So awesome" for several minutes, Ditzy took off and headed towards Sugercube Corner to deliver the next letter. The mare stopped for a moment and looked through the clean shop window. An impressive display of delicious looking treats lined the other side of the glass. Ditzy tried to pull away, but was too entranced by the sight. Cupcakes of every size and colour sat wedged between piles of candy, cakes and most deliciously, muffins. She made a mental note to buy some of those after she delivered the mail. Entering the shop, the smell of fresh bread hit Ditzy's nose. She took a deep breath of the pleasant smell and headed towards the counter. Mrs Cake, a turquoise coloured pony with a light pink mane, called out to her. "Hello, Dearie, what can I get you?" "A muffin.....No wait, I just need to deliver this letter to Pinkie." Ditzy replied. "Well, she should be around here somewhere, try checking the kitchen." "Okay, Mrs Cake." Walking past the counter, Ditzy gave Mrs Cake a little nod and wandered into the kitchen. The sight caused her to gasp in shock. Flour covered nearly every inch of the counter, a pile of eggshells sat in the corner of the room and a thick puddle of melted chocolate slowly dripped off the table and ran across the floor. Bouncing near the sink, seemingly unconcerned with the mess she was making, was a bright pink mare. Her mane and tail were a darker shade of pink and puffed up like cotton candy. Ditzy called out from the other side of the room. "Pinkie, Mail." Pinkie spun around and, seeing Ditzy, gasped deeply. She hopped backwards and disappeared behind the table. Ditzy took a few steps forwards, trying to avoid the chocolate while she went. Pinkie's head appeared again, poking out of Ditzy's mail bag. In her mouth was the letter Ditzy was trying to deliver. Before she could process what was happening, Pinkie dived back into the bag, and walked out from behind the table, the letter firmly grasped in her mouth. Ditzy tried to form words, but only managed to muster a weak "What?" before raising her hoof to her head and sighing sadly. Pinkie didn't notice Ditzy's confused state and proceeded to open the letter right there. A pile of multicoloured beans flowed out of the envelope and Pinkie said, "Oh, just what I needed, BEANS! Why didn't I think of it before? I've already tried salt, cinnamon, ice-cream and don't even get me started on oatmeal! BEANS, It's so obvious. This is going to be the best cake EVER!" Turning her back to Ditzy, she poured the beans into a bowl that was in front of her and started bouncing again. Ditzy rubbed her a eyes a little before walking out of the kitchen, passing Mrs Cake on her way. "Are you all right, Dearie? You look a little frazzled." "Pinkie Pie's so random." Ditzy replied, leaving the shop.
Soaring over Ponyville, Ditzy spotted the next person on her mail list. Pulling down, she prepared to land comfortably on the dusty ground. However, she misjudged the distance and another painful crash told her she'd missed, rolling to a stop in front of a mint coloured unicorn and a cream coloured earth pony. Ditzy stood up quickly and nearly fell over as the world kept spinning. She called out weakly, "Hey L, catch......Kira yet?" The world started to spin faster and Ditzy fell over sideways. "No; I...Wait who?" Lyra said, looking over to Bon Bon, concerned. Ditzy shook her head from side to side quickly, before responding, "Who what? Oh, I have mail for you." Ditzy spun her head over to her bag and whipped the envelope out. A soft glow surrounded it and Lyra pulled it over to her, holding it above her head. "Thanks Ditzy. Good luck with the rest." Ditzy nodded, "Okay, shouldn't be to hard. Only Twilights next." Bon Bon spoke up at the mention of Twilight's name. "Oh, be careful. I heard she has a guest today. You'll want to make a good impression." "Thanks for the tip Bon. Well, I better fly off. The sooner the better." Ditzy announced. "You two be alright, ok?" "Oh, we will Ditzy." Lyra replied. Ditzy took this moment to fly away, leaving the two ponies alone. Lyra turned and stared at Bon Bon, giving her a sly wink. Bon Bon responded by shuffling uncomfortably and staring at the ground.
Ditzy floated forward lazily. With only one person left she was free to slow down and relax. Her mind drifted to earlier, when she first felt something was different. Try as she might though, she couldn't place her hoof on it. It sat just out of reach, teasingly close but just out of reach. She thought harder to herself, "Everything's the same, isn't it? Wake up, eat breakfast, drop Dinky off at school, go to work." Ditzy pulled her hooves to her head, "So what's changed?"
The Ponyville library came into view and Ditzy landed carefully, making sure not to crash. She gave a hard knock against the wood and waited again for someone to answer. A purple glow surrounded the door as hoofsteps moved closer, signalling the person behind it. With a rusty creak, the door swung open quickly. Twilight was standing in the doorway, an embarrassed look on her face. Behind her, Spike and another pony were talking to each other, too entrapped in their conversation to notice the mares at the door. "Hello Twilight! How are you today?" "Busy. Again. There's a new pony here, visiting, and Pinkie won't stop trying to throw him a party. Sometimes I wish she would take a break but, she is Pinkie." Twilight looked back at the pony and asked Ditzy, "Do you have a moment? I could introduce you to him." Ditzy thought for a moment before replying enthusiastically, "Sure, I have time." "Well, come in then, apparently it's rude to keep people waiting."
Ditzy entered the gigantic tree. Rows of books lined the walls and a large table, made out of a tree stump, stood in the middle of the room. A wooden staircase was built out of the tree on the other side of the room, leading to the second story of the house. Near the stairs, two creatures stood. One was a small purple dragon Ditzy recognized as Spike, and the other was a light brown pony, with a dark brown mane that spiked backwards and ran down the back of his head. Ditzy could see his cutie mark was a painters brush next to an old, cracked vase. Nervously, Ditzy approached the pair, "Hello, my name is Di..." "Not now, I'm busy." The pony said, not bothering to look at Ditzy, "How could I be wrong about this, I MET the dragon!" He practically shouted at Spike. "And I AM a dragon! And I just know this. I mean, what dragon wouldn't?" Spike retorted. "Race is not a substitute for knowledge. I've spent many months researching this, I'm not wrong." "Well, I'm not wrong." An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Twilight tried to summon up the courage to break the silence, but failed, and moved over to a teapot on the other side of the room. A minute passed with no one speaking, before Ditzy decided now would be a good time to introduce herself. She placed herself between the two debaters and said clearly. "Hey, I'm Ditzy Doo. Umm, why are you two arguing? Maybe I can help." The pony replied to Ditzy's question, "Well, Miss Doo, I am Mr Diamond Polish, esteemed archaeologist and traveler of Equestria, and HE," He pointed at Spike, "is an ignorant hatchling who doesn't know his history." Spike threw his hands up in the air and wandered over to one of the bookshelves, shouting back, "Fine, we'll look this up and then you'll see I'm right." "Umm, you still haven't said what the problem is." Ditzy said nervously. Diamond took a step back, a look of exaggerated shock on his face, "Of course, forgive me. Mr Diamond Breath over there thinks that the oldest dragon in existence is two thousand, six hundred and fifty seven years old. I, on the other hoof, argued that such a dragon would cover half the sky, and would have had to survive both the founding of Equestria AND the rule of Discord. Which is simply impossible. Recent evidence suggests that one thousand, five hundred, would be the ABSOLUTE age that a dragon could survive too. Besides, it's common knowledge to those of HIGHER stature, that the oldest dragon is currently living well beyond Equestria's borders." Ditzy raised a hoof up to her head, and thought for a moment, "Well, that's silly, everypony knows the dragon saint of muffins is the oldest dragon, at one thousand, seven hundred and thirty six. Or was it forty six? I can't be sure." Ditzy said, as if quoting an encyclopedia. Diamond placed his hooves on his head and shook his head from side to side. "There IS no saint of muffins."
At that moment, Twilight Sparkle stepped forward, floating a tray of tea in front of her. "Let's just talk about something different. Want some tea?" She asked. "Mmm yes." Diamond said, grabbing a cup of tea and placing it on the ground. "So, Ditzy was it? Have you considered seeing a doctor yet?" "What for?" She asked confusedly "Your eyes, dear, surely such a display can't be a good sign for your mental health." "Just what is that supposed to mean?" Ditzy snapped. "Despite his brashness, he does have point," Twilight said, sipping her tea, "What did happen to your eyes? You've never told me. If it's personal I can understand, but still..." Ditzy shuffled nervously, "Well, you see, the thing is..." A loud crash ran through the room and everyone gathered quickly turned their attention to the source of the noise. A large pile of books clumped together on the floor in front of an empty bookcase. A small dragon poked his head out of the pile, and pulled himself out, causing several books fall out of the pile. He grasped a thick book in one of his hands and purposely made his way over to the group of ponies. Flicking through the pages of the book, he stopped when he found what he was looking for. "Right here, Smart Guy. Page 394, paragraph 3, 'The oldest recorded dragon is the Dragon saint of Plenty, who, at the time of writing, is currently one thousand, seven hundred and thirty one years old.' You were way off." Spike jeered. "What? Let me see that!" Diamond snatched the book out from Spikes hands and slowly scanned it. His face gradually dropped as the realization hit him. He was wrong. "Well Spike, I guess you win. Or at least, lose less. Congratulations." "Let it never be in doubt." He said smugly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go restock books before Twi has another one of her breakdowns." As Spike headed back to pile of books, which had seemingly grown bigger since they talked, Diamond apologized to Ditzy, "Ditzy, It appears I owe you an apology too. You're smarter than you look and I shouldn't have made assumptions based on your looks." Ditzy cheered up slightly, "Don't feel bad, I'm used to it by now." She faced Twilight, "By the way, I've got a letter for you." Ditzy pulled the letter out of her bag, and motioned to Twilight, who took it with her magic. Before she could open it, Ditzy reached back into her bag and pulled out a strange device. She simply starred at it, confused. There was no mailing address and no signs about who had mailed it in the first place. "I must have missed this, Twilight, is this yours?" Twilight took it with her magic and brought it closer to inspect it. The machine resembled a long metal pen, with a small blue tip. Several buttons poked out the side and the whole thing was unlike anything Twilight had seen before. "No, it's not mine. I'll hold onto it for you, though. Would that be any trouble?" "Don't worry, I'll just take it back to the post office and we'll figure out where it belongs."
Diamond Polish stared at the machine as Twilight slowly spun it around in front of them. He felt something build up inside him, something bigger than himself. He fought to keep it down and nearly succeeded, before it exploded out of him, "Actually, it's mine," he shouted. Twilight looked at him, astonished. "Are you sure?" She said, passing it over to him. Diamond quickly responded, "Wait sorry, I've never seen this before. I must have mistook it for something else." He stopped for a moment to stare at the device. "I would like to study it further, though. Usually I specialize in the old, but I may make an exception for this." "Well, I can't just give it to you. But come by the office and I'll see if we can find the owner for you!" Ditzy said. "If you need help I'll show you the way to post office tomorrow." Twilight interjected, taking another sip of tea and opening the envelope. "Thank you Twilight, it would be mo..." Diamond remarked, stopping suddenly as he was showered by hot, brown droplets.
After the pain subsided, Twilight gave a quick apology before rushing past him to talk with Spike. "SPIKE!" Twilight shouted, "Are you feeling alright? Do you feel sick? Tired? Don't bother with the books, go take a nap." "Relax Twi, I'm fine. What's got you so worried?" "This letter's from Princess Celestia and if she didn't send it by fire, something must be wrong!" "Maybe she's just having horn troubles? Have you read it yet?" Spike inquired. Twilight's face turned a slight shade of pink. "Well, no." Diamond walked up to Twilight while drying himself with a towel he found. "So, what's so important about the letter that it was worth drowning me in tea?" Twilight ignored him, ripping the envelope open and lifting the letter out of it. She held it out in front of her and started to read.
"My Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle
It is with a heavy heart that I must request your presence at the palace as soon as possible. A terrible threat has revealed its face and is making its way towards us as I write. I have dispatched the royal guards, but I fear they won't be enough. Bring the other wielders of the elements of harmony. Time is of the essence, so I will allow you one day to gather your friends before I send a chariot for you. I trust you will come prepared for this matter and I pray that you and your friends won't be needed for this most dangerous task.
Princess Celestia."
Twilight placed the letter carefully on the ground. She lifted her head and looked over to Diamond and Ditzy. "Well, it seems I have work to do. Sorry I couldn't be a better host, Mr Polish." She said clearly. "Nonsense, you were wonderful. I'll let myself out, I wouldn't want to slow you down." With that, Diamond trotted over to the door and pushed it open, walking out onto the street. Ditzy walked over to the door too. "I should probably go too. Dinky will be coming home soon." She mumbled, flying out the door. She held the metal tube in her mouth as she left. Twilight took a look at Spike, then back to the pile of books. Letting out a sigh, she trotted towards the door as well, "Come on Spike. Lets go tell everypony. And don't think you've gotten out of cleaning this mess." Spike's response was a quiet groan.
The sun started to peek over the horizon, sending soft golden rays over the land. A few managed to creep through an open window and landed on a tired, grey pegasus' face. Ditzy rolled around in her bed uncomfortably, before rolling too far and falling off. She landed with a crash, and quickly jumped onto her feet, looking around for whoever pushed her off the bed. Upon seeing the empty room, Ditzy rubbed her eyes and decided to go downstairs. On her way there, she passed a small door. Pushing it open silently, she checked inside to see if her daughters were awake yet. Even though it was still dark inside the room, Ditzy could clearly see a small grey bundle lying in one of the beds. She let herself give a small smile. Dinky always looked so cute when she slept. The other bed in the room was empty though. Ditzy closed the door and made her way downstairs again.
Working her way down the stairs, Ditzy started to hear a faint humming coming from the kitchen. Poking her head around the corner, she could see that there was a light purple unicorn with a dark purple and light pink mane, cooking eggs over the stove. Moving out from behind the corner, the unicorn quickly noticed her and greeted, "Hey, mum. I woke up early, so I decided to cook some eggs. Want any?" "Not today Sweetie, I'm going to get into work early today." Ditzy replied. "Can you get Muffin to school?" Sparkler looked over to the eggs and sadly responded, "I guess." Ditzy leaned over and gave Sparkler a quick kiss on the cheek and her mood seemed to improve slightly. "Thanks Sweetie, tell Muffin I love her, and when I get back we'll all go out for dinner. Alright?" "Alright mum." Sparkler said, letting out a silly smile. Ditzy worked her way over to the door, turning back to get one last look at her daughter, "And smile more, it makes you look pretty." She said quickly, walking out the door before Sparkler could respond. Sparkler chuckled, and turned back to the stove, waiting for Dinky to come down the stairs.
Wandering her way into the post office, Ditzy let out a yawn and walked over to where her bag usually was. Unlike yesterday, several different mail bags were lined up on the table. She sifted through them, searching for hers. Eventually, she reached the end of the line, despite not finding her bag. She went back along the table to double check, making sure she didn't miss it. Upon reaching the end again, she realized her mail bag wasn't there. Ditzy remained calm, remembering the last time this happened. Taking in a deep breath, Ditzy opened the door to her boss' office.
A large wooden desk took up most of the space on the opposite side of the room. Pictures of previous bosses or outstanding workers hung on the walls and the entire room smelt dusty. Ditzy figured this was because her boss never closed his window, allowing dust to float in and settle easily. On one side of the desk sat Ditzy's boss, looking the same as he did the day before. On the other side, obviously frustrated, sat Diamond Polish. Ditzy called out from the doorway to her boss, "Um sir, if it isn't a bad time, I was wondering if you knew where my bag was?" Her boss pulled his attention away from Diamond and motioned for Ditzy to enter the room. "Ah Ditzy, I didn't expect you to be here so early. Come in, there are some things we need to talk about." Ditzy hesitantly entered the office, taking a seat next to the brown pony opposite her boss. Diamond turned to her and said happily, trying to mask his frustration, "Hello Ditzy, how have you been?" "Not much has changed since we met yesterday." Ditzy answered. Diamond responded bitterly, "I was being polite." Ditzy's boss shuffled his legs slightly to make himself more comfortable before pointing one of his hooves at Ditzy. "Firstly Ditzy, we received a call yesterday from a Mrs Cinder, does this name ring any bells for you?" The pegasus quickly broke eye contact and started to stare at the desk in front of her. "She was not happy, to say the least. Apparently, that tube you 'found' yesterday belongs to her. She claims you stole it after you crashed into her and requests we return it immediately. She also wants you to be the one deliver it and for you to give a formal apology for stealing from her." Ditzy looked back up quickly, "But it was an accident! I didn't steal anything." Her boss placed a hoof on her shoulder, "I know Ditzy, you wouldn't hurt a fly, much less steal something but, Cinder has made herself clear. Today, you will go to Canterlot and return her 'magic wand' as she called it, back to her. I've placed the wand in a box and written directions to her house on it. I trust you will stay on track this time?" Ditzy gave a quick nod before stepping off the chair. She was immediately stop by her boss, who told her to sit back down. "I'm not done yet, Ditzy." He pointed his hoof over to Diamond, catching his attention, "Secondly, Polish, it's against the law for me to tell you where the owner of this 'magic wand' lives, understand?" Diamond nodded his head slowly, a quiet yes escaping his lips. "However," Diamond's ears perked up, "If you were to, say, follow Ditzy as she delivers it, there would be nothing I can do to stop you. Got it?" The large pony remarked, winking. "Are we done yet sir?" Ditzy asked, eyeing the door. Ditzy's boss responded by swinging his hoof back to Ditzy. "And thirdly," He smirked, "try not to crash into any more ponies Ditzy. Oh and don't worry about your regular mail route, I've handled it." Ditzy gave a sigh of relief and headed towards the door, "Thank you, sir." Ditzy said, slipping out the door. Before Diamond could exit though, Ditzy's boss called out to him. "Diamond, before you go, you're from Canterlot, correct? If you could try to keep her out of trouble, she doesn't always make the wisest decisions." Diamond spun around and responded with a smile, "Don't worry, Canterlot isn't as bad as some ponies say. Nevertheless, I shall keep a close eye on her." He then spun back around and pushed through the door, stopping Ditzy's boss from responding.
Diamond fumbled out onto the street, narrowly avoiding crashing into a cream coloured pony. Looking around, he saw Ditzy standing in the middle of the street, a small brown box tied to her back. He worked his way through the crowd and stood in front of her. "So how do you plan to get to Canterlot?" he questioned. Ditzy gave it little thought before replying, "Well, I had planned to fly, but if you're coming, than I guess that's not an option." She started to push through the crowd, "Come on, if we hurry we can get there before it gets dark." Diamonds mouth dropped open in shock, "What? We're really going to walk there? It'll take hours." "I know, so I suggest you start walking." Ditzy replied crossly. Diamond ran up to her and walk alongside, "But isn't there a faster way?" The mail pony stopped and let out a quick sigh, "Unless you can come up with one before we leave town, I don't think so." Diamond resigned to walking silently, thinking through all his options. Suddenly, inspiration struck while he was sorting through his memories of the day before. "What about that librarian? Didn't that letter say a chariot was going to pick her up and take her to Canterlot? Maybe she'll give us a lift." Ditzy stopped again. On one hand, she didn't want to walk all the way to Canterlot and back, but on the other hand, she couldn't bother a friend for something like this, the letter did seem important and she didn't want to slow anypony down. Eventually though, through much prodding from Diamond, Ditzy found herself walking towards the town square; the most likely place for a chariot to land.
By the time they got there, the chariot had already arrived. The main body of the chariot consisted of a large, golden egg shaped passenger area. The wheels were fixed with intricate patterns running through them and the two back wheels were noticeably larger. Connected to the front of the seating area was a long pole with a harness attached to the end, intended to be used by whoever was pulling the machine. For now, only one of the two harnesses was being used. Sitting in the back were five different coloured mares. Ditzy recognized them as Twilight and her friends, excluding Pinkie Pie, who wasn't there for whatever reason Pinkie Pie does things. Twilight was the first one to notice her. "Oh, hi Ditzy. Shouldn't you be out delivering mail by now?" She asked the mail mare. "Actually, I've only got one delivery today, isn't that great?" Ditzy replied, lowering her head, "The only problem is the delivery's in Canterlot." She pulled her head back up and looked at the ponies in the chariot, "So I was wondering, if you have room, maybe you could give Diamond and I a quick lift?" Twilight looked back to her friends, searching for their opinions. "S'all right with me, Sugercube. Canterlot's ah long walk from 'ere." "I could not imagine forcing someone to endure that pile of rocks and twigs they call a road to Canterlot. The least we can do is spare them from that terrible walk." "I...I..don't mind." "Uh, I say let them walk, more room for me." Twilight turned back to face Ditzy. "Sure Ditzy, wouldn't be a problem. However, you may need to talk with the driver first." Twilight gestured towards the front of chariot, pointing to the armoured pony attached to the pole. Ditzy's eyes followed her hoof and rested on both of the ponies at the front, sharing a deep laugh. "I think Diamond's already taken care of that." "Well then, climb in Ditzy, there's plenty of room. We're just waiting for Pinkie to arrive before we go." "Thank you, everypony." Ditzy said happily.
Before Ditzy knew it, they were flying over the land at an incredible speed, The magic of the chariot pulling them faster than a normal pegasus could. She sat quietly and listened to Diamond rabble on about the guard pulling the machine, nodding slightly when appropriate. Her eyes started to drift apart and Ditzy let herself relax, with the cool air rushing through her mane. That was, until Applejack started talking. "So why do ya think tha princess called us up 'ere? Must be mighty important to interrupt the harvest." "Twilight mentioned danger, do you think Discord's out or something? Not that I couldn't take him again." Rainbow Dash responded. Pinkie Pie gasped deeply. "Guys, what if it's a monster that ONLY EATS CUPCAKES! There wouldn't be any left for the rest of us." Pinkie gasped again, "And then we'd have to live without them. Though I guess we'd still be left with other sweets, like lollipops and gumdrops and strawberries and chocolate and waffles and pancakes and pie and....." Pinkie stopped to take in a deep breath, but was stopped by Rarity before she could continue her list. "Pinkie, darling, I'm sure that whatever the problem is, it won't be anything we can't handle." "Rarity's right girls, as long as we stick together, there's nothing we can't overcome." Twilight assured, putting any doubts to rest. Diamond spun around, facing the outside of the ride. The world raced into the horizon beneath him as he simply waited, gears and metal winding together in his mind.
Arriving at the palace, the chariot was placed onto a small outcropping jutting out the side of the building. The ponies without wings started to climb out of the chariot, while those that did simply flew up and out. Ditzy landed in front of Twilight and started to thank her for the help. Diamond, however, walked over to the front of the machine and helped the pegasus there take the harness off. "So, Solar Flare." Diamond said, catching the attention of the pony. "You're part of the guard, how worried should I be about this threat?" "I don't know, they only told those that left what was going on. The rest of us are just left sitting the dark, metaphorically." "So how worried are you?" Diamond asked, loosening one of the straps around Solar's neck. "Personally? I know the guys they sent out, they'll be back by lunch. Odds are, we won't even need the elements." Solar removed the final straps around his legs as Diamond responded, "Well, it's always good to have some backup, right?" The guard gave a quick smile and chuckled back, "Sure is, sir, sure is." With that, Solar flew over to a door connecting the landing pad to the rest of the palace and pushed it open, wincing slightly as a spark of electricity jumped from the door to his hooves, allowing the group of ponies to enter the extravagant building.
"Hey Rain, open the door for a minute, I got to get these ponies out." Solar called out to another guard standing near the exit to the palace. Twilight and her friends had left for the their meeting with the princess nearly as soon as they arrived. Somehow, Diamond had convinced their driver to escort them out of the palace, claiming, "I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag." "I can't. Princess said no pony enters or leaves, other than the elements. Then something about privacy. I kind of blanked out after that." Solar shook his head sadly, "Good to see you're still as perceptive as ever, Rain." The pegasus turned back to the ponies he was escorting, "It seems you're going to have to wait until the princess is done before you can leave. Sorry for the inconvenience." "Don't worry, I can wait." Ditzy said, readjusting the box on her back. "Stay out of trouble then. I need to return to my post before someone notices I'm back from Ponyville. Alright?"
Ditzy and Diamond wandered around the palace for a while, chatting to each other about nothing in particular. Eventually though, the talking stopped and boredom began to settle in. They walked until the stained windows and the white walls combined into an indistinguishable blur. Everything seemed the same in the palace, there was no variety; just white and gold walls as far as the ponies traveled. Eventually though, the two came upon a familiar face. An armoured blue pegasus was standing at attention in front of a huge golden door, which was engraved with many intricate patterns. Diamond attempted to open the door, but Solar extended a pale blue wing quickly to block him off. "Can't go in there, ponies. That's where the princess is." "Ah, I was wondering where she was. How much longer until we get to leave?" Diamond said. Solar continued to look straight ahead and responded, "When Her Majesty is finished." Diamond spun around to face his partner and said, "Ditzy, my hooves are sore. Lets take a break here. At least this way we'll know when everypony's done." Ditzy moved her wings upward in a way that resembled a shrug and replied, "Okay."
More time passed and Diamond found it harder to stay awake. His eyelids kept drooping down and he fought to keep them open. Ditzy had decided to pass the time by copying Solar, standing in front of him and mimicking his movements, or lack thereof. Eventually though, Ditzy got tired and leaned against the wall in an effort to be more comfortable. "What could possibly take this long? We should have finished ages ago." Diamond turned to her and gave a nod in agreement. Suddenly, he had an idea. "What if we found out?" he asked. "Found out what?" Ditzy said, confused. Diamond pulled himself off the ground and walked towards Ditzy. "Whatever they're talking about in there is probably important to the whole of Equestria. Celestia wouldn't keep something that big a secret to everypony, so how about we hear about it a little earlier than everyone else?" Ditzy put on a look of shock, "Diamond, we can't eavesdrop on an important military decision. That's crazy." Diamond looked back over to Ditzy, "Come on Ditzy, I'm an archaeologist. One of the biggest decisions of our time is going on in there, and I'm stuck waiting for it to pass me by. Do you have any idea how that feels? Besides, they won't even notice we're there. So what do you say?" Ditzy took one look at the golden doors before pointing out the flaw in Diamonds plan. "And how do you suggest we get in unnoticed?" Diamond sat back down and thought about getting in. Another idea crept into his head and he jumped upwards quickly. "Solar, is there an entrance for servants? That no one uses?" Solar kept his eyes straight ahead and responded, "I'm not allowed to convey that information to non palace personnel. Especially not non palace personnel that openly admitted to wanting to use it to eavesdrop on the princess." "Come on, no pony has to know. History is happening now man. Do you want me to miss it?" Diamond asked, creating his best attempt at a puppy dog face he could. Solar broke down and sighed. Pointing to a catwalk attached to the ceiling, he said quietly, "Few rules, if you do get caught, I had nothing to do with this; I worked hard to get this job and I'm not losing it over something like this. I'm also giving you ten minutes. If you're not out by then, I'm coming up to get you out. By any means necessary. Finally, when you get back, tell me what I'm missing out on, ok?" Diamond wasted no time, quickly searching for a way to get onto the catwalk. "Lets go Ditzy, I want to see what's so dangerous." Ditzy flew up to the platform and waited for Diamond to arrive, "This is a bad idea." She thought to herself.
Diamond silently pushed the door open, and wandered onto a raised platform overlooking the rest of the room. A set of stairs sat in front of him, leading down to the ground floor. Diamond poked his head over the edge and took in the scene. A long red carpet had been rolled down the middle of the room, leading to a, now open, door that had the symbol of the sun on it. Stained glass windows lined the walls, depicting moments of notable history. In the middle of the room, a brilliant white mare, significantly larger than any other pony, stood facing a group of multicoloured ponies, each wearing a piece of jewellery that resembled their cutie marks. The large, white pony had both a horn and wings, and her mane flowed through the air like the wind. Ditzy looked over the edge too and silently observed the gathering. ".....are advancing as we speak. They are a war like race, never giving in to failure or loss. They do, however, have one weakness. Twilight, our student, if you would look at this." Celestia said, pulling a long piece of paper out from behind her. Twilight took it with her magic and unrolled it so everyone could see. Her face slowly dropped as she looked over its contents. "Celestia, this isn't possible, The amount of magic needed is incredible. Not even you could do this." Celestia calmly replied, "That is why we called you here. You are to use the elements to create the power needed, then we will stop the Sontaran rabble one and for all." "Now 'ang on minute, if these Sontaren fellows are such a threat, 'ow come we haven't heard about 'em before?" The princess looked at Applejack and retorted, "And when was the last time you read a history book?" Applejack lowered her head and mumbled something incomprehensible. "I'm not so sure about this, Princess. It seems dangerous. Isn't there another way? Twilight asked. "When there are Sontarans involved, there is only one way. But if you are still concerned, we promise not a single Sontaran will be injured by your actions." "I say we let them have it," Rainbow blurted, "Teach them not to mess with us." "Very good, Rainbow Mane. Now Twilight, with your permission, we would like to teleport you and your friends to the machine." Twilight shook her head from side to side, "What do you girls think?" There were no objections, so Twilight faced her mentor again and answered her question. "Okay, lets do this." "Very good, our ponies. You will be doing Equestria a great service." Celestia horn lit up, a strange dark green for some reason. Energy began to gather in the tip, before shooting out and striking the confused ponies, causing them to disappear in a flash of light.
Ditzy closed her eyes to guard against the light, but it was useless. The bright flash caused Ditzy to lose her balance, and she fell from the perch, flapping weakly in an attempt to avoid crashing into the ground. The box on her back dislodged and hit the ground seconds before she did. She landed in front of Celestia, who took a step backwards in shock, before stepping back in anger. "Who are you? Why are you here? How much do you know? Quickly pony." "I'm so sorry princess. Please don't be mad." Ditzy begged. Celestias faced curdled into a sneer. "We don't have time for this now, we'll deal with you later." she barked, lifting Ditzy above her head and throwing her violently into the door behind her, closing it as she did. A distinct click went through the room as the door was locked. Diamond came barreling down the stairs, stopping just short of running into the princess. He could feel a fire in his blood, and for a moment he nearly forgot he was facing one of most powerful beings in the universe. He stared deep into her eyes before saying, "Let her out, NOW!" Celestia jumped back in shock, "DOCTOR! How are you here?" Diamond felt a shot of nervousness run through him, this wasn't how he expected it to go. Nevertheless he replied in full force. "I'm not a doctor, I am Diamond Polish. Now let Ditzy out." "What game are you playing at Doctor? We are not convinced." Celestia said. "There is no game, and I'm not a doctor. Now let my friend out." Celestia stepped forward, forcing Diamond to walk backwards out of her way. "How are you here, Doctor? We tire of this charade." "What charade? My name is Diamond, stop calling me Doctor." Diamond responded, his original confidence fading. "Enough of this witless banter, Doctor, tell me your plan." Celestia said, energy gathering in her horn. "Stop calling me Doctor!" Diamond snapped. "Doctor, answer me now or die." Celestia said. Her voice was calm, almost impossibly so. "I'M NOT A DOCTOR." Diamond shouted, backing himself against the wall. "ANSWER US!" Celestia shouted back, the power in her horn darkening. "I'm not a doctor." Diamond said quietly, "I'm not a doctor, I'm not the Doctor." Diamond shook his head violently, and clutched it with his hooves. Thoughts were rushing into his head, thoughts of heroic victory's and crushing defeats, of trustworthy friends and despicable enemies. Diamond started to shout to himself in an attempt to clear his mind. "I'm not the Doctor. I am Diamond Polish. I'm not...the Doctor. I'm...I'm the...Doctor."
Diamond stood back up, a new confidence running through him. He immediately put one hoof in the air, and hastily called out. "Alright, alright, I'll tell you, don't shoot. Or, cast, maybe? I'm not sure what the proper word is." Celestia lowered her head, letting the magic escape into the ground. "Good to see you've dropped the charade Doctor. Now why are you here? "That's the question isn't it, why am I here? An infinite amount of time and space and I wind up in this particular place at this particular moment. Why, is a very good question indeed." The Doctor said, walking away from the wall towards the center of the room. "For example, why, would you lie about Sontarans?" Celestia stepped forward in anger, "That wasn't a lie." A call rang out from the side of the room behind Celestia, temporarily halting the conversation. "Diamond, are you out there? Could you please convince Celestia to open the door?" Both aliens decided to ignore the cries. "Really? Because I've met Sontarans, and they don't fight like this." The Doctor jumped onto the red carpet and started to walk along it. "You're technologically inferior beings, they wouldn't waste time fighting the army. They would take out important figures first. Demoralize the populace. Bomb from orbit a bit. Then, they would attack. So why the lie?" "You're not in a position to ask questions, Doctor." Celestia growled, a green light rising from her horn again. "Maybe not, but that's never stopped me before. Another thing, why keep me alive? I assume it was you, of course. I was at your mercy, totally helpless. So why are we speaking now? By all logic, I shouldn't be here." Doctor said, bending his head down towards a small box in front of him. "You were a back up, kept in case something went wrong." Celestia replied. "Back up, for who?" The Doctor asked, opening the box carefully with his mouth. "For the prin...." Celestia began, before she was cut off. Celestia and the Doctor turned their heads towards the noise, and noticed a blue pegasus standing near the servants entrance. The pony jumped off the side, using his wings to direct himself towards the Doctor. He closed his eyes and rammed into the Doctor, the weight of his armour pushing both of them across the floor. He flapped his wings again to pull himself up and pinned the Doctor on the floor. "This pony bothering you ma'am?" Celestia let the power in her horn dissipate, before replying smugly, "Yes, take him to the dungeon." Solar lent in close to the Doctor, and whispered to him. "I give you ten minutes and you think it's a good idea to annoy the Princess? How stupid are you?" The Doctor pushed the metal tube he held in his mouth to one side to respond, "Smarter than you think." The Doctor bit down on the screwdriver and a loud buzzing filled the room. Celestia started to scream as an ear splitting crack filled the room. Her wings melted and fell into her body, and her horn shriveled and collapsed upon itself. As Celestia got smaller, tentacles began to drop beneath her and her body took on a green tone. Solar jumped back in fear as his Princess melted into what could only be described a dark green, floating jellyfish.
The Doctor took this moment to pull himself off the ground, and took his position back on the red carpet. The creature convulsed, forming a gaping hole in it's face. Out of it, a harsh male voice came out. "What have you done, Pony?" The thing wailed. "Don't get me wrong, it was a very, very good disguise, you even got the wings right and everything. The only problem was, of course, magic. You don't have a single drop of magic in your entire being, don't you, you big flying fish?" Another shout went through the room, originating from the doors across the room. "What's happening out there? I think I heard something break." Ditzy was once again ignored, as the two aliens faced each other across the room. The thing raised one of its tentacles towards the Doctor, "I don't need magic to kill someone, Doctor." The Doctor continued, unabated, "So you fix up a rudimentary teleporter and an anti gravity tube, brilliant job by the way, and attempt to pass that off as magic." "You were needed before Doctor, but I have no qualms with killing you." The Doctor stepped off the carpet and walked towards Solar, who was standing there with his mouth open staring at the jellyfish. "What...What is that thing?" "That, Solar, is a Rutan. They come from the planet Ruta III in the Rumanda galaxy and possess the ability to impersonate any pony they've met." The Doctor said, matter of factly, "Could you lift one of your hooves please?" Solar was too shocked to think deeply and blindly complied. The Doctor slipped one of his metal shoes off his foot and stood back up. Solar called out to the Doctor, "Wait, that's...that's an alien? Then where's the Princess?" The Doctor quickly spun back towards the Rutan, but Solar was sure he could see a face full of deep regret before he did. "Are you ready to die, Doctor?" The alien said, raising one of its tentacles to the height of the Doctors head. "Alright, but before you do, do you know what happens when you run an electrified sonic pulse through a circular container of super-conductive metal? Let's find out."
The Doctor placed the guard's shoe on the ground and pointed at it with his screwdriver. The trademark buzzing of the screwdriver ran through the room and arcs of lightening bounced between the Rutan's tentacle and the shoe. The Rutan screamed in shock and pulled back, but not before the inside of the shoe started to glow white and shoot out small spikes of electricity. There was a short silence while the Doctor picked the electrified shoe up off the floor and held it in his hooves. Looking over to him, the Doctor noticed the Rutan was floating dangerously close to the floor. The energy transfer had left him weakened. "What's your name?" The Doctor asked. "We Rutan do not have names, we are all connected and an individual is useless to the goals of the hive." "Well, that's stupid. I can't go around calling you 'The giant flying green thing'. You must have a name or identification or a galactic number or something to differentiate yourself." "Hive Mind has called me, Sole Drone, on occasion." The Doctor faced the Rutan and spun the shoe so that the open end was facing the green mass. "Well then, Drone, this shoe is currently charged with 3000 volts of pure electricity. You're going to answer my questions or I won't hesitate to use them. Understood?" The Rutan struggled to raise a tentacle to strike the Doctor but dropped it as soon as it realized it was too weak. "Fine." It whispered. "What are the Rutan doing in Equestra?" "We were sent here to find a place free of the Sontaran rabble. A place we could multiply in to support the war, without fear of counter attack. When a break in reality was discovered, we agreed that we would have to explore it. We traveled through the gap in dimensions before finally coming out here. The perfect place." "So why wait? Why isn't there hundreds of Rutan, Rutans, Ruti?" The Doctor stopped for a bit, looking over at Solar to see if he knew the proper plural. Obviously he didn't, so the Doctor faced the alien again, continuing, "Why isn't there hundreds of Rutan here now?" "We need power. The electricity here is different. It hurts us, a feeling we've never experienced before." Drone said, struggling to float a little higher off the ground. The Doctor leaned in closer to Drone, "Where's my TaRDiS?" "Now that Doctor, we can't reveal." The Doctor opened his mouth to talk, before getting pushed to the ground by Solar. "What have you done with Celestia? I demand you return her immediately." He shouted, pulling a sword out of a sheath on his side. The Rutan replied, contempt dripping in his words. "Your foolish princess is no more. You ponies waste your lives on this planet, never considering the power you hold in your hooves. If only a hoof full of you would study war, you could be one of the strongest races in existence, but instead you waste away your time, never realizing you do so until it's to late. This planet could be so much more, in the tentacles of someone who knows what they're doing. Someone like the Rutan. Someone. Like. US!"
Drone lunged forward, attempting to electrocute the helpless pony in front of him. The Doctor reacted faster, firing the bolt of electricity quickly. The energy hit it in the side, causing the Rutan to collapse and twitch slightly. Solar lowered his weapon and walked closer to get a better look. "Is it dead?" he asked. The Doctor wasted no time, running across the room as fast as he could, "No, only knocked out. We need to get out of here quickly." He pointed the screwdriver at the large stone door in front of him, using it to turn the locks. The doors swung open in a wide arc, and Ditzy came tumbling out, landing uncomfortably. She looked upwards, one eye focusing on the Doctor and the other focusing on the giant green mass in the middle of the room. "Diamond! I'm so glad to see you. It's dark in there." The Doctor quickly pulled Ditzy to her feet. "Ditzy, now isn't the best time for reunions. We need to get out of here." "Why? What's the problem? Is the beach ball deflated? Why's there a beach ball here anyway?" Walking across the room, the Doctor called out to Solar, who was holding a sword in his mouth, preparing to bring it down on the helpless alien. "I wouldn't do that. Rutan are charged with electricity, it's literately how they live. If you stab him, the electricity will just run up the metal and give you a hell of a shock." Solar lowered the weapon and put it back in his sheath. "So what do we do with it?" "Get out of here and warn ponies. Whatever they're planing, it's going to be big. The more prepared ponies are, the better." The Doctor spun around, facing Ditzy, "Ditzy, how quickly can you get from here to Ponyville?" Ditzy inched her way around the alien, careful not to step on one of it's many tentacles. "It should take me a few hours. Why?" "You need to tell the everypony to stay inside for as long as it takes for us to fix this." The Doctor said, pushing the doors blocking the exit in front of him. Solar's voice echoed through the room. "You might want to hold off on that, Diamond." The Doctor spun around, his jaw dropping in shock as he did. The Rutan was glowing green, and the burn mark left on it's skin was starting to disappear. More tentacles dropped from it's bottom as it slowly rose into the air. Small bolts of lightning flew off it's body and the room seemed to darken within the mere presence of it's rage.
The Doctor calmly bent down and picked up his screwdriver, holding it tightly in his mouth. "Solar, Ditzy, now would be a good time to run. A quick trot will do, but I won't blame you if you feel the need to gallop." With that, The Doctor sprinted out the door, Ditzy and Solar quickly followed him. A large explosion rocked the room they were just in, causing a shock wave that shattered most of the windows in the palace. Flying out of the explosion in a flash of lightning was the alien, a trail of smoke tailing behind it. It turned, searching for it's targets and, upon seeing them, followed in pursuit. The chase dragged on, and the ponies were starting to show signs of exhaustion. Sole Drone showed none, chasing them with the same speed and drive as when he started. The palace was built like a maze, with many corridors twisting through it's midst. This had allowed them to outrun the Rutan, but the Doctor knew their luck couldn't hold out. An unholy scream followed them through the corridors and the group turned a corner, coming face to face with a dead end. Probably the only unbroken window in the palace stood in front of them, dwarfing the small group in it's size. Solar flew around the air above them, shouting in joy, "Perfect! We can fly out and finally lose this thing. Come on." The Doctor gave a quick cough, nearly dropping his screwdriver, and pointed out his lack of wings. Solar landed next to him, and faced the other pegasus in front of him, "Ditzy, help me lift Diamond, we've got to get out of here." Solar grabbed the Doctor with his front hooves, using his wings to float just above the ground. Ditzy took position on the other side and did the same. With a heave, they pulled up, lifting the Doctor of his feet. "Now...let's...go." Solar gasped. The two pegasi flew towards the window, crashing through it. The sound of the broken glass echoed through the palace, catching the attention of their pursuer. They immediately felt the pull of gravity, attempting to suck all three of them towards the ground. Ditzy called out painfully, "I can't do this. You're slipping." Examining the looks of his two companions, the Doctor was struck with an idea. "Ponies, we need to get back to the throne room. I have an idea." Solar looked at him confused. "You want us to go BACK to that monster? Are you crazy?" "Trust me. We both know you can't outrun Drone while carrying me. If this works, you won't need to worry about him." "If this works?" "It will work, just, trust me." Solar let out a desperate sigh, "Ditzy, hang on tight." he called out, before swerving quickly, racing along side the outside of the palace. Ditzy struggled to hang on, flying quickly to keep her grip. An open window appeared next to them and they took the chance to enter. Gliding in, Ditzy pulled down rapidly, causing all three to crash in a tangled heap. The Doctor pulled himself out, shaking his head to remove the stars orbiting his head. He turned on the sonic screwdriver and started spinning around the room randomly, stopping occasionally to look at the numbers on his device. "Diamond, we need to leave, what if the beach ball comes back?" Ditzy exclaimed, looking behind herself nervously. A flash of lightening engulfed the room, and Drone appeared in the doorway. "Yes, 'Diamond' what if we come back? We must thank you for returning to us, makes our job easier." The Doctor turned off the screwdriver for a moment and faced the Rutan, "You don't need to do this Drone, return my TaRDiS and I can find you and Hive a planet to survive on, away from these ponies." Energy began to gather in the room, arcing between anything made out of metal. Solar winced as his armour slowly became charged with power. Drone focused the electricity into a central point, seemingly sucking the electricity out of the air. Raising one of his tentacles, he prepared to strike. "We thank you once again for the offer Doctor, but we've come too far to give up now." The Doctor let out a sigh as he turned towards his companions, "Ditzy Doo, Solar Flare, I'm sorry I dragged you into this." Solar simply snorted, "I probably would have gotten involved anyway. I just wish we could spent a little more time with my wife." "I can't die, who'll look after Muffin?" Ditzy said, panic rising in her voice. The Doctor moved towards them, placing himself between the two. He started to fiddle with the screwdriver in his mouth. "We're not going to die, if I can just retrace the teleporter data....." The Doctor stopped and pointed his screwdriver at the ceiling. Drone finished gathering power, launching a huge lightening bolt at the group. At the same time, The Doctor turned on the screwdriver. A buzzing filled the room and The Doctor looked at the mailmare, "and Ditzy, name's the Doctor." With that, the group dissolved into the air, leaving an empty space for the lightening bolt to land in.
Diamond was awoken by a sharp pain jabbing into his side. He clenched his eyes shut harder and rolled over, hoping the pain would go away. He was tired and whatever he was laying on was soft, creating a comfortable bed for him to sleep on. The pain continued to persist however and he slowly heard a voice pierce the silence of his rest. It sounded panicked. "Doctor Diamond, please wake up. The beach ball is gone but now things are a little weird. Wake up." Diamond rolled back over, not even bothering to open his eyes, a hazy memory of a blue box outlined his thoughts. "Ditzy, five more minutes, I'm really tired right now." A louder voice went through the room, waking Diamond up fully, "Diamond, you will wake up right now, and explain just what is going on!" The brown pony opened his eyes quickly. The first thing he noticed was what he was lying on. It was a kind of thick slime, which appeared to glow light blue, but was actually dark green. The slime had the texture of a cloud and rippled slightly as Diamond jumped up onto his feet, wiping furiously to get any that had stuck to his face. Glancing around, he determined that he was in a tunnel of some kind. One side of the tunnel ran around a corner further into the cave, while the other side was blocked by a large, fleshy door of some kind. Mushrooms grew in several dark corners and ooze hung down from the ceiling, causing small puddles to form under them. Diamond then took note of the other ponies there with him, a fish-eyed grey pegasus and a blue pegasus wearing a full suit of royal guard armour, save for one of his shoes. Diamond rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't dreaming, before cautiously asking, "Where are we? How'd we get here? Solar looked at him as if he was an idiot. "That's what we wanted to ask you, seeing as you're the one who brought us here." Diamond stepped sideways slowly, trying not to step in any of the slime accumulated on the floor, "I did?" Solar tried to respond, but Ditzy stopped him by speaking first, "Well, yea. You did a thing with the magic wand and saved us from the beach ball!" "Wait what? What's so dangerous about a beach ball?" Diamond asked, eyeing the roof cautiously. "Diamond, don't you remember? You turned Celestia into an alien and teleported us here using Celestia knows what." Diamond scratched the back of his head. "Is this some kind of joke? I'm sure I would remember something like that." "Doctor Diamond, don't you remember? The running and the lightning and all the broken windows?" Ditzy said, her concern growing. More memories fell into place at the mention of the Doctor. "Ditzy, all I remember is Celestia throwing you in that tiny closet. Then I came down and confronted her. After that, she started to think I was a doctor, and all these thoughts flowed into my head. It was like a dream, an endless dream full of danger and adventure. I think I may have passed out halfway through it all." Diamond said, annoyed, "And I'd really like to know which way the exit is, so I can get out of here!" "Well you won't be getting any help from us until you answer some questions." Solar said. "Who are you? Are you Doctor or Diamond?" Diamond stepped back as more thoughts flooded his mind, "I'm Diamond. I grew up here in Canterlot. I lived on Horseshoe road. I'm fully Diamond and always have been." He said, attempting to stem the flow of memories. Solar continued, "What is this 'magic wand' and how did it take us here?" Diamond walked over to it, and carefully pulled it out of the pile of sludge it was resting in. Placing it on one of the drier places, Diamond examined it. "Don't quote me on this, cause frankly I have no idea what this thing is, but, assuming that these numbers mean X,Y and Z co-ordinates, I guess we followed the elements to whatever this machine Celestia asked them to power up is. As for what this is, I still can't answer that." Solar glanced at the screen, before looking back up at Diamond. "What machine?" "Oh, Celestia said something about a machine before that green thing showed up. It was out of power." Ditzy said helpfully. "When we arrived, Celestia was talking about a machine to defeat an army called the Sontarans. However, without the elements, the machine wouldn't have enough magical energy to function." Diamond elaborated. Solar stood in silence for a while, connecting two and two together. "But that wasn't Celestia." Solar drew his sword and advanced towards the obstruction in the tunnel. "You two stay here, I don't care if you somehow manage to help. I'm trained for this and you two are still just civilians. Whatever that thing was planning, I don't think it's going to be good. So I'm off to find the elements and warn them of this potential trap. Don't. Move. " With that, Solar stabbed his sword into the door, causing it to slid into the floor. He stepped through the opening and gave the duo a quick glance before the door closed again, cutting him off from the others.
Diamond sat against the wall, trying to ignore the feeling of liquid running down his back. He looked up at Ditzy, who was playing around with one of the mushrooms growing in the corner. He noticed the mushroom got brighter the closer she moved to it, which had succeeded to amuse Ditzy for the time being. He wasn't sure how long had passed since Solar left to warn the others, though he wasn't really keeping track in the first place. He decided to take this opportunity to ask Ditzy a question that was still floating through his mind. "Ditzy," He asked. Ditzy stopped messing around with the mushrooms and turned to face him, the tunnel growing darker as she did. "Who am I?" Ditzy didn't hesitate, "Diamond Polish, silly." Diamond quickly retorted, "Then what happened in the palace? Why did I ask you to call me The....well, you know? And why won't these darn thoughts leave my head?" He grabbed his head with his hooves. Ditzy opened her mouth to respond, but Diamond continued, "And this magic wand, how did I know what to do? I mean, I know I'm Diamond, but these thoughts, they're so vivid. I close my eyes sometimes and HE'S there, a brilliant mastermind fighting the odds, but always coming out on top, and he's beckoning me to remember. But remember what? What if I actually am this Doc..Doc..Pony. Would I be a lie, would anything I do or did matter, or is my entire existence just a transport for this...this...thing?" Diamond lowered his hooves and stared at the ceiling, tears running down his face. Ditzy walked up to him and placed her hoof on his face, wiping away the salty water. "Diamond, I don't know the answer to those questions. Hell, sometimes I forget the answer to everyday questions, like, what time is it or how are you, but I know one thing for sure. Even if you are this Doctor, you are still Diamond. You are the colt who traveled all the way to Canterlot, befriended a royal guard, snuck into an important military meeting and stood up to the Princess Celestia of all ponies, all because you wanted to learn more about a piece of metal with a shiny rock on the tip. Even if you turn out to be The Doctor, you will still be Diamond, because YOU were the one who made those choices, YOU were the one that I traveled to Canterlot with and YOU are the pony sitting in the corner crying over little things that he can neither control nor stop, because only Diamond would make the decisions that led you here." Ditzy removed her hoof and walked back to mushrooms, the tunnel glowing a little brighter, "And that is how I know who you are, Diamond. And when you're ready, we are going to travel deeper into this cave and discover who you truly are. Diamond Polish, the brave and confused pony who traveled great distances to sate his curiosity and who won't let a little thing like this stop him, or The Doctor; the mysterious and dangerous colt who stands up to giant beach balls and any other monster that dares to show its face outside of whatever hole in the ground it lives in." Diamond breathed in, trying to soothe his nerves. With a great smile, he lunged to his feet. "Thank you Ditzy. You truly are smarter than you look." Diamond looked around, seeing if there was any switches or buttons for the giant door. Seeing none, he spun around to face the turn in the tunnel. "And as Diamond, I declare that we will discover who I am. Ditzy, lets go." Diamond sprinted around the corner with an unstoppable enthusiasm, not even bothering to see if the mail pony was behind him. Galloping down the tunnel, mushrooms lit up on his left and right, showing the way forward. Diamond headed down the tunnel, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Diamond and Ditzy trotted carefully through the tunnels. They had already met with several dead ends, along with many rooms filled with dark blue crystals. One or two would occasionally shot a bolt of lightening into the air, but they didn't seem to pose any danger. At the moment, the duo had reached another dead end. Another large door stood in their way, mocking them with its presence. Ditzy lowered her head sadly, "Another door, let's head back, I think I saw another tunnel about three turns ago." "No wait," was Diamonds response, "There's something here. I need to know what it is." Diamond walked towards the door, pushing against it with his hoof to test its strength. With a smile, he spun around and delivered a powerful kick with his back legs. His feet sunk into the door, and he pulled them out with a loud sucking sound. He kicked the door again, harder. With a shudder, the wall of flesh sunk into the ground, opening the way for the two ponies. Diamond was disappointed when he saw what was on the other side of the door. A normal wall, similar to the ones around him, was now in front of him. Looking around frantically, his eyes caught onto something a different colour from the rest of the cave. Suspended in the middle of the wall was a dark blue door, with the words 'Police Box' painted across the top. Diamond walked over to it and placed his front hooves on the door. For some reason he felt immensely happy. It showed as he let out a cry of pure joy, even though he didn't know why. Pushing the door open, Diamond rushed in, stopping as soon as he noticed two very important things. The box was bigger on the inside. That was the first thing he noticed. Diamond took a step out of the box and examined it's side, checking to see if there was any kind of secret passage that could allow this. Upon wasting several minutes with this, he decided that some things weren't important at the moment and wandered back in. The second thing he noticed brought him to his knees. "It's not right!" Ditzy carefully flew into the room, apparently unsurprised by the change in dimensions. Landing next to Diamond, she asked. "What's wrong Diamond, what is this?" "Look around Ditzy, what do you see?" Ditzy took that moment to examine her surroundings. She appeared to be in a circular room and dark red light shined out of every available surface. A metal grate connected the door with a large metal cage in the middle of the room. On the other side of the room, Ditzy could see another grate heading deeper into the machine. She pulled her attention to the engine in the middle of the room. Through the bars, Ditzy could see a control panel of some kind. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of levers and buttons spread across the surface of the machine. A glass display extended into the ceiling and she could see some kind intricate glass structure in the middle of it. Vines also spread across the panel, connecting all the controls together and wrapping themselves around the glass tube. Taking another glance around the room, she noticed that the vines weren't restricted to just the middle of the room, as they also wrapped around the pillars placed strategically around the room. Besides the vines though, Ditzy couldn't see anything that appeared to be wrong with the machine. "I give, What's the problem?" Diamond pulled himself to his feet and snapped angrily, "Everything! None of this should exist! How can you not see this? This entire place is a paradox waiting to happen. It hurts my eyes just looking at it." Ditzy replied slowly. "Well, I guess, maybe." "I'm sorry Ditzy, I don't know what came over me. Let's just leave. Wherever we are, I don't like it, and I fear if we stay any longer I may get angry again." Ditzy wasted no time flying out, leaving Diamond alone in the TaRDiS. Before he traveled through the doors, he felt something well up inside him again, and released it carefully, with hesitation. "Don't worry, Sexy. Doctor's here now." With that, Diamond jumped through the door, the new words weighing heavily on his mind.
Wandering aimlessly back through the cave, the two ponies made several bad decisions before Ditzy started to notice something. "Diamond, it's changing. The floor is different." "Huh." Diamond looked down and confirmed that the ground had changed. Instead of a squishy green substance, patches of hard metal had begun popping up, creating temporary havens against the slime. "Maybe we're getting closer to the exit?" Ditzy said hopefully. "Or maybe we're just walking deeper into the belly of the beast." As they continued, the ground changed more. Before long, they noticed that the ground was more metal than ooze, and the walls had begun to take on a more metallic look. A minute passed in silence, until they were confronted by another door, different from the others. This door was smaller, just large enough to fit two ponies standing side to side. A hole in the wall sat next to it, flashing lights surrounding it. Diamond pushed against the door, attempting to force it open. After several tries, he redirected his attention to the hole. The hole was large enough for a pony to fit their hoof in, if they wanted, and appeared to wrap around the door into the room beyond. Diamond was cautious about putting anything in the hole, but, seeing no other alternative, he decided to stick his hoof in. He felt a sharp electric shock, and jumped backwards, shaking his front hoof rapidly. "You won't get in like that." A voice called out from behind him. Diamond turned quickly. His smile vanished as he saw the speaker. A dark red pegasus with an orange mane was standing in front of him, standing on her back legs. In her front legs, she held Ditzy, holding one of her hooves in her mouth to stop her from talking. Her other hoof was shoved roughly into Ditzy's side, and occasionally glowed with unused power. "Dmmmnd" Ditzy tried to call out, her voice muffled by her captives hoof. "Put her down." Diamond said calmly. "That's it, Doctor? No questions? Demands? Final requests? That's a shame, we wished to know you a little more before the end. Still, let's cherish what little time you have. We are Cinder, also known among the Rutan as the Hive Mind." "What do you want?" Diamond asked, his patience sinking. "There's the Doctor we know. We just want you to listen. We need your help." Cinder said, extending her wings to balance herself. "I refuse. From what I've seen, you Rutan aren't the most friendly of people." "Careful Doctor, let's remember who's holding the cards here." She said, pushing her hoof into Ditzy harder. "Despite our methods, we don't want anyone to be harmed. Once we are done, I promise we will leave this planet to whatever inhabitants survive. Their sacrifice is tragic, yes, but needed. But you could save many with your knowledge." "So what? I help you and ponies still die? Where's the point in helping at all?" Cinder stepped forward, pulling Ditzy along with her. "Let us finish. As you know, this land is governed by two sisters of immense power. Currently, we are using one to finish construction of the machine. If she is not replaced soon, the sheer power of the knowledge she possesses will destroy her from the inside. You are the only one who can replace her in time. Would you doom the survivors to live in a land of darkness for the rest of their lives, because you were too selfish to save them?" "There shouldn't be survivors in the first place! How can you go through with whatever you're doing knowing you'll hurt so many?" "Because we must Doctor. The hive commands it. Even if we cannot hear it." Cinder shuddered, a shock running through her body. Slowly, she released Ditzy, letting her fall to the ground in front of her. Walking towards the hole in the door, Cinder ignored the two ponies currently embracing each other, and placed her front hoof into the hole. There was a large crackling sound, and the door was pulled into the ceiling. "Before you go and make your decision Doctor, we would advise you come listen to our tale. Perhaps then you will be more adamant to our plight. Doctor." With the mention of the Doctors name again, Diamond collapsed, new memories flowing into his head. He'd been fighting the effects since the start of the conversation, finally failing at the last moment. "No, not now." He thought, rapidly losing conciousness. He blacked out, only to quickly wake up again. "Right, of course," said the Doctor.
The Doctor and Ditzy followed Cinder into the newly opened room, Ditzy nearly tripping as the floor became full metal. This room featured a huge open window, sitting in front of various more holes built into a metal stand. The metal stand was thoroughly broken though, with many wires sticking out the bottom. A kind of rounded chair sat near it, bolted into the floor. Through the window, all they could see was dark brown dirt, confirming their suspicions that they were underground. More blue crystals lines the walls, glowing brightly and illuminating the entire room. A strange green pod was built into the wall, probably for the purpose of helping Rutan's fall asleep. Cinder stopped in front of the window and turned to face her guests. "We will assume by now, you already know the reason we are here. To create an army, completely untouchable by our enemies. The sole Drone and myself were chosen for this task. The original plan was simple, we would absorb the thunderclouds of this world, using their energy to split ourselves repeatedly, creating this army." The Doctor looked around the room. There was something off about, but he couldn't quite see it. "However, things didn't go that way. Upon arriving in this world, our connections to the Host were severed. We had no guidance, no leader to tell us what to do, no idea about where to go or what to do. In desperation, we clung to our plan like drowning mice cling to a straw, crash landing on this planet. But even this was doomed to fail, as the electricity of this world is different, and hurt us. At that moment, something amazing happened, Doctor, we thought." Cinder smiled happily, laying her eyes on each of the crystals laying on the walls. "Without the orders of the host, our minds were free to do what no other Rutan mind had done. We asked, why? Why go through with the mission, if it will just fail without connection to the host? It was then we decided two things, I would become the new Host, Hive Mind, and that we would find another way create this army. If we followed the original plan at this point, our duplicates would also have the ability to think, and ordering them as one would become impossible. A way was found eventually, at the cost of this planets inhabitants." The Doctor stomped his hoof, "And then what? You and all your Rutan buddies just float through space forever. Searching for an enemy that doesn't exist." "Let me finish. As we went through the steps needed to bring our plan to fruition, we found ourselves impersonating the wife of one of the royal guards. One day, he wanted me to go outside and experience some kind of festival with him. We declined, but he was incessant. Apparently he had been planning it for weeks. Eventually we were forced to accept. At this festival, we found ourselves fascinated by this planets culture, with all it's colours and music. We experienced new feelings, happiness, joy, fun and finally, guilt. We thought deeper then. Why follow the plan at all? Our scans showed no sign of Sontarans in this universe, and an army was no use to us if there was no one to fight." The Doctor took a step back, surprised. "So you're against this? Then why do it? Accept my offer, let me take you away from here." "By the time we realized this, it was already too late. You were on you're way to the chameleon arch, and when you arrived, we would finish the final stage of the plan." "But you can stop this! Tell Drone the plan's over and let me help you. You don't need to do this." "This choice is not yours to make, Doctor, nor even ours, This decision shall fall to the inhabitants of this planet." Cinder faced Ditzy, and stared deep into one of her eyes. "Tell us, Derp eyed Ditzy, if you were the last of your kind in the universe, and were given a chance to save your race, would you seize it?" Ditzy shuffled uncomfortably, but still replied honestly, "I would." "What if you had to commit acts others would consider evil? Would you still take it?" "I would." Ditzy said, surprising those gathered. "What if you had to sacrifice your friends for this chance? Your family? Maybe even your life. Would you still take this chance?" Ditzy took in a deep breath and responded. "There is not a power on this planet, or any other, that would make me betray my friends. Even if all became darkness and all hope was lost, NOTHING, will make me turn my back on my family. I would rather fade away and disappear than be remembered as the one who saved her race, if betraying my friends was what was needed." Cinder stepped back, taking in all of what Ditzy said, before responding gladly. "Thank you Pony. We know what must be done." She turned to the Doctor. "Doctor, we accept your offer. There is much to be done beforehand though, starting with stopping this plan and returning your watch. After all, can't have you change back to Diamond halfway through our flight."
"So tell me, what was this plan I've heard so much about?" The Doctor asked, curious. "Deeper in this ship is a room, similar to this one. Inside, is a rudimentary time machine we built using a combination of your memories and Princess Celestia's input. After the elements powered it up with their magic, we would turn on the paradox machine made out of your ship, and pull our past selves into the present. The huge number of Rutan would descend on this planet, taking the form of whoever they could find. This would allow them to utilize the electricity of this world and duplicate, doubling our numbers until we were ready to defeat the Sontarans." Cinder said, walking across the room. "Hang on, you built a time machine? From scratch?" The Doctor asked. "We had help, of course, your memories, trapped inside a pocket watch." The Doctor shook his head, "But that's impossible. You can't just build a time machine. If you could, many races would have figured it out years ago. Even if you did know how, it would still be impossible. Where would you even get the parts? You need an eye of harmony, and I know for a fact that you can't pull a star from the heavens." "That is why we needed your help. To make sure the machine worked. We were just building from vague descriptions. The Doctor opened his mouth, but decided against arguing and walked back to Ditzy. "Now sit still, communicating with Drone can get...difficult...at times. But, as the Hive Mind, he must follow my orders." Cinder sat down and raised her front hooves to her head, a green electricity radiating outwards from her forehead. Inside their minds, Ditzy and the Doctor could hear the conversation clear as day. "Drone, send the elements home. We don't need them anymore." "Why," was the response, echoing inside their heads. "It's over, Drone. The Doctor has convinced us not to go through with this. There are no sontarans in this world, and no need for an army. So take the elements to the telepad, take the watch off of Celestia and meet us outside the paradox machine." "No." "What was that?" "The Doctor is an enemy, any words he says are surely lies. We said no." "Drone, the Doctor is a friend, come talk to him and we'll see. This world is worth saving, we can't just destroy it to advance our own devices!" "No. We've seen how this world truly works. The shady underside beneath its surface. This world is not worth saving. The plan will continue." "As the Hive Mind, we command you to follow orders." "You were right, Hive Mind, I should do this thinking thing more often. I think I'll start by referring to myself as an individual and finishing our plan. Good bye, Hive Mind." The conversation disappeared and The Doctor shook his head to clear his mind. "Well, that could have gone better." He said. Cinder looked crushed. "We...Us...I don't understand. How did he defy my command?" The Doctor looked around frantically, trying to catch whatever was annoying him about this room. With a jolt, he realized what it was. "I think I know." Cinder looked up at him, her mane standing up from her short conversation. "What?" The Doctor looked around confirming his suspicions, "Tell me, you said you came here with Drone." "Yes." She said. "So why, is there only one of everything?" "Huh?" "Because, if I was going to send two aliens through a gap in space, and I might have at some point, I would at least make sure both participants were comfortable. So why is there only one of everything?" The Doctor said, examining the metal stand. "One steering wheel, one bed, one place to sit. Doesn't seem like this place would fit two people at all. Why only one?" Ditzy walked up behind Cinder, and placed a hoof on her head to calm her down. "I know why. They only sent one Rutan in the first place. This Rutan, upon losing connection to the host, went insane from the sudden loneliness. In desperation, It duplicates itself, draining what little energy it has. The two Rutan then keep each other company while they attempt to create an army, and the entire affair is forgotten in the moment. And both of them assume they were the original, never questioning the orders of the other." The Doctor lowered himself down to Cinder's level, and looked her in the eye. "Drone can disobey your orders, because Sole Drone is you. Or at least enough of you to develop a consciousness separate from your own." Cinder closed her eyes. "I need to rest a moment, Doctor. We can't handle this right now." Ditzy removed her hoof, "We can't rest now, the mean beach ball is doing something evil!" Cinder stood up, drawing energy from the urgency of the mission. "You're right. Drone must be stopped. Doctor, down the halls and a couple of lefts you'll see the door to time machine. If you can stop the elements from powering up the machine, Drone will be powerless, and I can deliver the final blow. Here, you'll need this." Cinder walked across the room and pulled a small metal tube out of one of the holes in the wall. Passing it to the Doctor, she remarked. "It teleported in here around the same time you did. Keep a closer eye on it this time." "Brilliant." The Doctor said, making his way towards the door. When a new voice echoed through the room.
"What did I tell you two? STAY. HERE. So what do you do? Go and wander deeper into this place, completely oblivious to the danger." Solar walked into the room, his armour dirty from walking around out in the slime. "Who know's what could be in here? The air could be poisonous for all you know, what in Celestia's name were you....." Solar stopped talking, and noticed the dark red mare in the room with them. "Cinder?" He asked nervously. "I'm sorry, Solar," She whimpered out. Solar walked closer, confused, "Cinder, Honey, What are you doing here? How did you even get here?" "I'm so sorry," she said quietly. Ditzy put the dots together quickly, and let out a nearly silent, "Oh no." "Honey, we need to get you out of here. Diamond, Ditzy, you too. I found an exit a while back. Didn't find the elements though, guess they must be deeper inside." Solar reached out his hoof and attempted to grab Cinders. "Solar no. You don't understand," she said, pulling her hoof away. Solar looked around, hoping one of the other ponies in the room could help him understand. But the Doctor and Ditzy kept silent. With a feeling of rising dread, he asked nervously. "Cinder, you're acting weird. Please tell me, are you.....are you one of them?" Cinder could only nod her head. Solar felt anger well up inside, but kept his cool. "Where's my wife? Where's Cinder? "Rutan must kill to impersonate." Solar sat in silence, and no one dared break it. Finally he asked, "How long has she been dead? HOW LONG?" "Two months." "So it was actually you at the sun festival? Me and Cinder planned that day for weeks, and you just came along and killed her! THEN, you went a step further, and stole her entire life." Solar yelled. With a furious spin, Solar raised his back legs and delivered a powerful kick into Cinder's side. "I didn't even get to say goodbye." He said softly. Solar felt his anger returning, and didn't even try to stop it. Tears sprang up in eye's, obscuring his vision. Drawing his sword, he lunged at the fallen pony. "I'll kill you. "Solar, no!" The Doctor screamed, running forward in an attempt to stop him, but everyone could see it was a futile effort. With one quick movement, Solar buried his sword into Cinder's side, causing a large charge of electricity to run up the blade, blasting Solar away in a large explosion. Cinder's disguise failed as she lay there. The transformation was quick, and a large green blob sat in the room by the time the Doctor reached Cinder. "Nooooooo. Don't worry, Hive. I can fix this." The Doctor said, reaching for the sword poking awkwardly out of Hive Mind. "Don't, Doctor. There's too much power. Touching the weapon will only end in your demise." Ditzy wandered over to Hive Mind, "Oh no, The good beach ball's injured." Hive Mind moved slightly, and one could only assume it was looking at Ditzy. "Ditzy, with mane of yellow, it's too late for me. But I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for what you have done for me. I can die happy, something which is new to me, because I know that ponies like you are going to lead this civilization to be one of the greatest in all the universes. But that can only happen if you leave now, and stop Drone before it's too late. I won't be able to tell you this later and it's important, so listen, there is something I was saving behind the console for when we this was over. Take it, I won't be needing it." The Doctor trotted over to Solar, and begrudgingly checked his life signs. He was fine, if a little burnt. "Solar, when you wake up, you and I are going to have a VERY serious talk about what you've done." The Doctor picked up his screwdriver and walked towards the door. "Coming Ditzy? We've got a meeting with the elements of harmony." Ditzy sat over Hive's body, still uneasy about what to do. With a heavy heart, Ditzy flew over to the console, searching for whatever Hive had meant. One of her eyes spotted a pile of cloth, and Ditzy recognized it as the hood Cinder was wearing when they first met. Reaching into one of it's pockets, she pulled out the muffin she had given her yesterday, along with a scrap of paper. Opening it, Ditzy read. "Dear Ditzy Doo, Even though we know now might not be the best time, with the rumours of strange green monsters on the towns outskirts and whatnot, but we were hoping, maybe you would like to meet up later? We heard about this great new bakery that's opening up here in Canterlot, and maybe you would like to visit it with us? You can even bring your kids along, I'll bring my husband, it'll be a fun little thing.
Dearly
Cinder." Ditzy put the letter back down slowly, and carefully trotted over to the Doctor. There was one thought on Ditzy's mind, blocking out all the others. "Sole Drone will pay. And Solar had better start running while he had the chance."
Upon leaving the room, the Doctor collapsed again, the memories of Diamond filling him once more. Standing back up, he asked Ditzy, "What'd I miss this time? Anything important?" Ditzy glared at him. "Cinder said we need to stop Drone before he kills everypony. Also Cinder's on our side and also can't help us. She also said we need to stop the elements before they power up a time machine." "Wait, why can't she help us?" Diamond asked. "I'll tell you when on the way. At the moment, we don't a minute to lose." Ditzy said, ending the conversation by moving deeper into the cave. "Alright then," he responded, catching up to her.
A slight squeaking noise was heard through-out the cave as the two rushed through it, determined to reach the elements before it was too late. Turning another corner quickly, they were faced with a door. Diamond wasted no time, kicking it open with ease. Once it was open, they could hear muffled voices. They listened while they waited for their eyes to adjust to the light. "This is soooooo disgusting, why did Celestia have to build this thing in the middle of a dank, smelly cave?" "Quit complaining. You 'aven't touched the ground since we got 'ere. Besides, it ain't so bad." "Applejack's got a point Rarity. And I don't think Rainbow and Fluttershy can carry you forever." "I could carry Rarity twenty times longer than Fluttershy." "I...I just want to go home." "Why? This place is super duper fun, I mean, the mushrooms glow here! I hope we never leave. Though I suppose we would have to some point." Ditzy smiled with delight, "That's them, we're not to late. Hurry Diamond." Diamond and Ditzy entered the room, jumping suddenly as they heard a voice closer to them. The voice traveled around the room, and neither of the ponies could figure where it came from. "No, no, no, no, no. It's like a banana, kind of curved. Except not like at that all and in a straight line." Ditzy gathered her courage and called out, not realizing that this was probably a bad idea. "Is anypony there? We don't want to hurt you, we're just passing through." "No, no, yes. Guests? I like guests. No, wait, guests are bad. Or was it good? Doesn't matter, go away, wait, come closer. Look at this." Diamond walked into the room first. It was mainly circular, like the others, except this room had a large table positioned against the wall. Along with this, the walls were covered in white chalk, spelling out several advanced theories on time travel. Sitting at the desk, writing furiously on a scrap of paper, sat a mare, shrouded in darkness. "Um, who are you?" Diamond inquired. The mare sat there quietly, before responding. "I'm the Doctor! No wait, not the Doctor. The other one, The Master? No he's evil. The Monk! No, he's missing." The pony shuffled uncomfortably. "You know, that pony. That important one, L..L.. Luna? No, her sister. What's her name? Celestia, that's it! Princess Doctor Celestia. Except without the Doctor part. Ditzy moved closer, the room becoming brighter as she did. "Are you alright, Princess? You sound weird." Celestia spun around, knocking over the desk as she did, and the problem became apparent. Tied around her neck was an open watch, and running up from it into her eyes was a brilliant gold light. Tendrils of the light would occasionally break of into the air, but rejoined with the glowing mass quickly. This obviously hurt, as Celestia's mouth as stuck in a permanent grimace. "Never worse! Or better. Wait, no. Opposite that. In danger, there's the word. Did you know 90% of all unicorns rely on their horns for basic tasks? I do. Or did, maybe. Not that it's relevant." Ditzy looked at Diamond nervously, and asked, "Should we remove the watch? Is that's what's causing this?" Diamond tried to shrug, "I don't know, but if what you told me is true, we don't have time to waste standing around like this." The both glanced at Celestia again, trying to reach a decision, "Remove it. Wait, don't remove it. Wait, do remove it. Is this a game? Don't remove it." Ditzy looked back Celestia. "I'm going to at least close it for her." Ditzy flew up to Celestia's neck, and carefully nudged the watch with her hoof. The lid of the watch swung close and the light was contained back in it. Celestia collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath. Taking his chance, Diamond pulled the watch off of her, and held it in his hoof. He could a feel a power contained in it it, burning both his hoof and his mind. "Hive Mind said something about a watch, would opening this turn me into the Doctor? Do I even want to be The Doctor?" he asked no one in particular. It was a hollow question. He already knew exactly what would happen if he opened the watch. Ditzy motioned to a door on the other side of the room. "Come on Diamond. I'm sure she'll be fine. Come on." Diamond placed the watch around his neck, "Right, of course. Let's go."
Twilight examined the strange machine in front of her. It resembled a large black box, with silver lines running down the sides. Twilight couldn't see any kind of wires or buttons anywhere on the machine. It just sat there, looking ominous. Rainbow Dash was the one who spoke first, "This is it? It looks like it could fall apart at any moment." "I think this is it. The map led us right here. Plus it matches the picture." Twilight said, spinning the scrap of paper in front of her around so she could see the illustration on the front. "I guess I just expected something, cooler, you know?" Rarity spoke next, her high pitched voice grating against the ponies ears. "Let us be done with this then, and leave this horrible place." "Careful, Sugercube, we need ta be sure this here's the right machine. Right Twi?" Applejack said, shooting a glance at Rarity. "Applejack's right. We should wait until Princess Celestia get's here before we do anything." "Okey Dokey Lokey." Pinkie Pie said, while contemplating whether the slime falling from the roof was edible. The group could hear hoofsteps behind them, and turned to see Celestia emerging from the tunnel. A green glow escaped from her horn as she entered the room, causing a large door to pull upwards from the floor, closing the entrance to the tunnel behind her. "What seems to be the problem, Twilight? Why isn't the machine ready?" Twilight responded nervously, "We weren't sure whether this was it." Of course this is it. Didn't you see the picture?" Celestia responded, a sharp undertone in her voice. "Once you're done, I'll take you home and you can leave the rest to me." "Thank you Celestia." Twilight gave each of her friends a stern look. "Ready girls?" They all nodded their heads in unison, so Twilight began the spell. Energy spread forth from her horn, rebounding between each of the necklaces of her friends. A white light surrounded the group and Twilight closed her eyes to concentrate more. The six mares started rise into the air, when the door to the room started to rattle. It sounded like someone was kicking the other side, trying to get in. Twilight stopped the spell suddenly, dropping the six of them harshly. "What's that noise?" She asked. Celestia shuffled nervously, before suddenly jumping over to the door. She pushed against it with her body, attempting to keep whoever was on the other side out. "It must be the Sontarans! Quickly, Twilight, finish the spell!" Twilight spun back towards the machine and, despite Fluttershy curling into a scared ball and Rainbow continually glancing back to the door, recast the spell. Energy spread out from her horn again, slightly less than before. The light surrounding them spread outwards, and they started to float back into the air. Twilight closed her eyes again, and when she opened them, they were glowing with the same light as the one around them. Focusing her magic, she released it upwards in a giant rainbow, which started to fall towards the machine. At that moment, the door collapsed into the ground, and Celestia fell onto her side. A pegasus flew into the room, and attempted to tackle the nearest pony, who was Rarity. The light stopped her though, and sent her flying back towards the wall. The pony hit the wall with a painful crack and fell to the ground, unmoving. Another pony entered the room. This one was dark brown. He just watched in horror as the rainbow descended on the black box. "Noooooooooo" He cried out. With a flash, the rainbow hit the machine, and was quickly sucked in. The six ponies fought against the pull of the machine, falling to the ground when the device was finished. With a loud grinding noise, the box began to function. It sent a wide beam of green light into the air, through the cave roof, high into the sky.
Far away from all this, a military encampment was resting. Guards were set up along the outskirts of the tents to warn of any possible attack. Two ponies sat in the middle of the camp, laying on their backs, staring at the empty sky. Though both wore the armour of the royal guards, one could clearly see they were different. One was a bright yellow, with a blue mane. The other was a light green, his mane cut nearly bald as to hid the colour. "Sir, why are we here?" The yellow one asked. "It's one of life's great mysteries isn't it, private; why are we here? Are we just the product of some cosmic coincidence or is there some sort of god beyond the Princess, who put us here with a purpose to fulfill? I sure don't know. Make's you think though." "Wait what? No, I meant out here. It's been nearly a week and we haven't seen any sign at all that there are other ponies here. It's just been us, on a large open plain, all alone, for a week. Where are these Sontarans we were warned about?" "Oh, I thought you meant....Anyway, I probably shouldn't tell you this, since you're just a private and all, but I don't see any harm in you knowing. Me and the other higher ups have decided that if we don't find evidence to prove there are other things here, we're gonna pack up and head home. Tell the Princess she was wrong." "Can you do that? Tell her she made a mistake?" "Yea, I do it all the time. Well some of the time. She's usually right." "Won't she, like, send you to the moon or something?" "Nah, everybody makes mistakes. She's just making sure nopony gets hurt. She doesn't usually mobilize the army though." "You know what the funny thing is? Solar, Rain, Shock and the others are sitting back at the palace, wishing they could be here with us defending the kingdom. Knowing the palace, nothing interesting has happened for the last week, and everypony's just sitting around bored, imagining all of us fighting for our lives." Their conversation was cut short as a large explosion rocked through the camp. Jumping to their feet, they noticed something strange. Above the field, hundreds, maybe thousands of large green jellyfish were appearing out of thin air. A couple had appeared right above the camp, and started to blast it with lightning from one of their tentacles. The sergeant faced his soldier. He spoke bravely, trying to make the fear in his voice, "I'm not certain, but I think you might have just jinxed us, private."
Celestia let out a powerful laugh, one that could only be found from intense relief. Twilight pulled herself onto her feet, and searched through the room carefully. Her eyes came to rest on a small grey bundle lying near the wall. Ignoring the other ponies in the room, Twilight rushed over to Ditzy, and carefully inspected her. "Ditzy! Are you alright? Speak to me!" Ditzy removed her hooves from her face, but kept her eyes closed. "Hurts." She said softly. Twilight's horn shined a deep purple, and a faint glow covered Ditzy's wings. Twilight slowly went over the wing, searching for any breakages or twists. She stopped when she found none, and moved onto Ditzy's legs. "Celestia, come help. I think she's hurt." Celestia ignored Twilight's pleas, instead focusing on the brown stallion in front of her. "Well, Doctor. It would appear you've arrived to late. It's a shame, I had heard so many stories about you. Maybe I'll talk to myself about you when you're gone. After all, I have plenty of me's." Diamond looked her in the eye. "Turn it off. You turn that machine off right now!" Rainbow Dash appeared next to her, "Turn it off? Why? In case you haven't noticed, this machine is the only thing keeping the Sontarans away. We just saved everypony." Diamond directed his attention to Rainbow. "No! You don't understand, this was a trap. There are no Sontarans, the whole thing was a plan for world domination created by two flying jellyfish who live off of electricity. The machine is actually a time machine that duplicates the jellyfish so that thousands are created. And the pony in front of me is actually one of them in disguise." Rarity silently trotted up to Celestia's other side, "Do you honestly expect us to believe that? I may be a bit dramatic, but I am not stupid." "Maybe, he's a spy!" Rainbow shouted. Celestia tried her best to hide a smile, this was going better than expected. "A spy ah? Well, there's only one thing to do with spies. Execution." Rarity cut in, "Execution? That seems a bit harsh, I was thinking more of simple imprisonment." "No, wait, Ditzy knows, she can back up my claim." Diamond shouted over to the group of ponies against the wall. "Ditzy, Tell them about the aliens!" Ditzy rocked back and forth uncomfortably. "Noooooo. I've had enough muffins for today." Fluttershy placed a hoof across Ditzy's mouth. "Shhhh, Nurse Fluttershy's here now. Where does it hurt?" "Errr, back front sideways hooves." Ditzy said slowly. "I don't know what that means." Twilight exclaimed, panic on her voice, "And I'm worried she might have hurt her head." Pinkie Pie pushed Twilight out of the way, working quickly. She lifted one of Ditzy's legs and twisted it backwards, shoving it back into place while she did. Ditzy let out a painful scream. "It's simple, back meant left, front meant back and sideways meant her leg was undergoing a slow dislocation from the thigh. Learn your medical language some time." Twilight just sat there with her mouth hanging open. Back across the room, Celestia was gathering power in her horn. "Rerity, sometimes sacrifices have to be made." "Wait, say my name again." "Rerity, surely you don't believe this nonsense." Rarity pointed at her accusingly, "You are a monster. That explains the strange magic, the fact that you can't remember our names and this absolutely dreadful place. What have you done with the real Celestia?" Celestia redirected her horn towards Rarity and released the power, striking Rarity in the face. With a squeal, Rarity went flying across the room. Celestia turned her back to Diamond and shouted at Rarity. "It's about time you stupid ponies figured it out. I don't know how much longer I could do this 'lovey-dovey look at me I care about ponies' act. With an attitude like that, it's no wonder she fell so easily."
"Fell so easily huh?" A confident voice called out teasingly from behind Celestia. Celestia turned to face the new opponent. She was prepared to use full power against ponies, no holding back. She lost her focus slightly as she saw who she was against. Standing in the doorway, looking beat up and tired, stood a bright white alicorn. Despite how ruffeled her wings were and the fact that she was having trouble keeping her eyes open, she still stood proudly. She tauntingly called out to the imposter. "What's wrong, Monster? Surprised to see me? I know I am." Drone, his act now shattered, lunged at one last chance to redeem himself. "Imposter! How dare you impersonate me, the Princess!" He was quickly shut up by a kick to face, delivered by a cyan pegasus. "Shut up." She grunted, landing on the ground next to Rarity. "I saw you attack Rarity, how stupid are you that you think that would work?" If Drone could sweat, he was sure that a line of water would have started to form on his head. Clearly, he would have to try a different tactic. "Fine, so you got me. Strike me down! Turn me to stone! Erase my existence, I DARE you." Celestia took a step back, trying to hide a look of worry on her face. Drone continued, "But you can't, can't you. I can see it in your eyes, you don't have the power. Memory reconstruction take too much out of you? It shows." Drone walked backwards, placing himself in front of his time machine. "You can't protect anyone, there's nothing stopping me from ending it right now, isn't there?" Celestia pulled herself forward, focusing magic into a white light on her horn. Drone continued unfazed. "I've already won, Celestia. The machine is on. Nothing you do will stop it. You can't save anyone, because I've already won." Drone let out a horrendous laugh, his mocking tone clearly carrying over. Celestia focused her magic more. She could feel it's pull and every one of her muscles strained to control it. She faced her horn skyward, and let out a barbaric scream. From far behind her, a rumbling was heard. It grew louder as it came closer, drowning out all other sound. With a powerful crack, a sliver of light raced into the room, spreading larger as the top of the room opened up. Sunlight charged into the room, aiding to Celestias power. Diamond jumped out of the way as she released the power. A concentrated beam of heat raced through the room at the speed of light, striking Drone in the chest. The sheer heat and force of the attack caused Drone to explode. The ponies in the room covered their faces as burning chunks of alien fell into the room. Fluttershy buried her head into her chest and refused to come out at the sight of it. Celestia collapsed to the ground again, exhausted. "I've heard enough of that." She said weakly.
Twilight abandoned Ditzy to the care of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie while she raced to her mentors side. "Celestia! You did it. You saved us!" Celestia waved her hoof, "Not yet, my student. I'm afraid it's too late." "What do you mean? We're safe, you defeated the monster." Celestia looked at her with eyes full of regret. "Twilight, my student, I'm afraid of haven't noticed it yet." Twilight looked around, confused. "Noticed what?" Celestia sat there in silence, but managed to point towards the sky, clearly visible since the roof opened. Twilight followed her mentors gaze into the air, and saw the problem. Above them, dozens of green jellyfish floated through the air quickly, fighting a rag-tag group of pegasi that had assembled to fight the threat. Celestia lowered her head sadly, "Even though the original is defeated, thousands more still roam the skies. I simply came to late." Twilight asked, panic clear in her voice, "But you're the Princess! Isn't there something you can do?" Celestia could clearly see their only hope at surviving the situation and, as much as hated it, she admitted he was the only one who could save them. "Bring the Doctor to me." She grumbled. "Who?" Twilight responded. "The brown pony. Bring him here." Celestia responded, slightly impatiently. Twilight spun around, searching for Diamond. She saw him quickly, examining one of the chunks that had landed near him. Twilight approached him, "Diamond. Celestia has some things to say to you." "I see. I guess I have some questions for her too." Twilight then rushed over to Rarity, who was crying over the fact that her mane was now singed and covered in alien. An annoyed Applejack sat near her, trying her make her stop whining. Diamond walked over to Princess Celestia, who had found the strength to stand back up. They both faced each other in wordless silence, until Celestia spoke first. "Doctor, I don't know what you've done this time, but I expect you to fix it now." Diamond responded "What can I do? I didn't have anything to do with this." Celestia let out a small laugh, despite the grim nature of the situation. "That's what you said last time, and remember how that ended?" "No?" Diamond said uncertainly. "Doctor, enough of this. I demand you fix this problem." Diamond snorted, "Fine, I'll take a look at the mindbogglingly advanced time machine and just make everything better. Because why not?" Diamond spun around and walked towards the machine, careful to avoid getting his hooves dirtier than they already were. Standing in front of the machine, he searched for some kind of switch, or button, or controls of any kind. There were none. Diamond could feel Celestia's cold glare bore into the back of his head, so he kept searching. Applejack walked up to him as he did. "Howdy? You mind telling me what's going on round here, I kinda of lost track after tha second Princess." "Not now Applejack, I need to figure out how this machine works." Diamond replied roughly. Applejack looked over the machine. "Ya know, back on the farm, if ah machine don't work like it's suppose to, a quick buck'll usually set it straight." Diamond gave her a hard stare. "Are you implying that kicking this highly sensitive machine as hard as we can, will cause it to suddenly work?" "Well, 'ow do you know if ya don't try it?" Diamond raised his hoof to deliver a witty retort, but dropped it when he realised the pony had a point. With a disgruntled sigh, Diamond kindly asked her to kick the time machine. "Can do!" AppleJack yelled, smashing the machine with her back legs. The force of the kick caused a small panel to fall off, reviling a collection of coloured buttons. "See? Good as new." Applejack announced, grinning. Diamond looked over the controls. Each button seemed to have no purpose. Each one looked the same as the one's next to it and Diamond felt his hope leaving. "I don't know what any of this does." He said. Celestia crawled over to him. "Well use the screwdriver than! Reverse the polarity or something." Diamond responded angrily, "I keep telling people. I'm. Not. The. Doctor!" Celestia stared at him, her confusion melting into gradual understanding. "You haven't opened the watch yet." "NO! I refuse too. I'm going to stay Diamond, screw the Doctor." He turned and walked towards the exit of the room. "And I give up. Find someone else to fix your stupid problems because I have no idea. Come on, Ditzy. We're leaving." All attention was directed to the grey mailmare sitting in the corner. Everypony in the room waited with baited breath for her response. Taking in a quick breath, Ditzy quietly declared, "No, Diamond." The brown pony stopped. "What was that?" Ditzy flapped her wings, pulling herself into the air. With a grunt, she made her way across the room to Diamond. "I know you're scared Diamond. No one should have to give up who they are, and no one can force you to. But you can't just walk away from something like this. There are thousands, maybe millions of ponies out there. My family's out there, YOUR family is out there. If you leave now, there's no guarantee that we will be able to save them. I saw what this Doctor can do. He was willing to help the Rutans, despite their flaws. If he were here now, I know for a fact that he wouldn't even think of leaving this room until everypony was safe. You're the only one who can help us. Don't just turn your back on this!" Diamond broke eye contact from Ditzy quickly, "I can't do this, Ditzy, I just can't. And you don't seem to get it, I don't HAVE a family; the entire reason I'm here is to help him. And I won't do that while I live." Diamond walked forward again, pulling the watch from his neck while he did. "Here, Take this, maybe it'll come in handy." He added, throwing the small device over to Ditzy. He pushed forward, walking past Twilight, "Diamond, You know more than all of us combined, you can't just abandon us." Rainbow Dash, "So what? You're just gonna let them win? What kind of pony are you?" Rarity, "Darling, Get back here NOW! Come back and stop these monsters. Applejack, "If ya can't handle this right now, ah understand. But only ah coward runs from 'is problems." Fluttershy, "Are you leaving? o..okay." and Pinkie Pie. "You've gotta stop him, Brown Pony, If you don't there won't be any parties any more. Life will be dull and grey!" Diamond stood in the exit to the room. Before leaving he let out one last remark. "I'm sorry, everypony. But.. I'm sorry." His words echoed through the room, playing out a single note of despair before dying out. Silently, he left, leaving the room full of ponies to their own devices.
Diamond wandered lost through the maze like cave, desperately searching for an exit. Maybe he could find Solar; Ditzy mentioned he knew the way out. He also had time to think while walking, he did it mostly to avoid that terrible feeling growing in his gut. Why did this cave's roof open up? Why is everything covered in green? Where the hell is Solar? Who's the Doctor? Diamond shook his head at the last one, trying to change his train of thought. He suddenly felt extremely tired for some reason. He fell down onto his back and stared up at the sky, and also the two races fighting each other. "Enjoying this, Diamond?" A voice in his head said. Diamond was too tired to bother moving now, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, things were different. He was floating in an endless expense of white. He couldn't see anything no matter which direction he looked. From the void, something appeared on the horizon. A small black dot. Diamond decided to walk towards it. As he got closer, he could see it was another pony, also walking towards him. Straining his eyes, he decided that the pony in the distance was brown, like him, but walked with far more confidence. He walked closer. The pony gave a friendly wave as he did. Diamond tried to wave back, but ended up falling on his face. The two walked closer, they were close enough that Diamond could see the other pony's cutie mark, an hourglass, and his mane, which was styled in the same way his was. Eventually, he reached an impasse, A huge glass wall separated the two ponies from each other. Diamond sat on one side of the wall and watched the pony walk closer. The other pony took his position on the other side of the wall and the two sat opposite each other. It was then that he realized this pony, if not for his cutie mark, would look exactly the same as he did. Diamond was slightly unnerved by this fact. He decided to start the conversation before his opponent could, "So, this is weird, right?" "I've had worse, though I will admit it gets rather lonely here." "So who are you? And where are we?" "I'm the Doctor. And this is inside your head." Diamond responded by turning and kicking the glass wall as hard as he could. It bent, but ultimately deflected the blow. Diamonds anger melted away as quickly as it came, and he fought to keep tears out of his eyes. "Why me?" "Bit of a temper. Do I have temper now? I hope not, that would be terrible." "I'm not ready to die. There's still so much I need to do. Locate the ruby armour, explore the ruins of South Island, fall in love. Why am I the one that has to leave?" If he could, the Doctor would have torn down this barrier and comforted the weeping pony in person, but it was impossible, so he simply said, "I'm not here to force you to do anything." Diamond let out a nervous whimper. "I know what you're going through, I've felt it before. And I'm not here to take over our body or force you into silence. I couldn't if I wanted. I'm just here to listen, and answer." Diamond felt slightly better. "But why me?" "There is no reason. The chameleon arch removed my memories and replaced them with yours. Simple as that." "So I'm a mistake? I didn't even exist until you came along. My entire life has been one giant useless lie." "Tell me, Diamond. How much do you know about cutie marks?" "Only that they reflect a ponies special talent." "So ask yourself. If your life is pointless, why do you have a different cutie mark? If you are just a carriage for my conciseness, wouldn't we have the same talent?" "I guess." Diamond said quietly. "You are a pony, just like anypony else. Never think differently." "Yea, but..." "No. None of that. Now tell me, do you really want to abandon those ponies, abandon Ditzy?" "No! But what can I do? I don't know how the machine works, what could I possibly do?" "Be there." The Doctor said simply. "Can't you save them? Can't you do something?" "I can." "Then why don't you?" "Because I can't force you to make a choice, Diamond. The watch is already closed, If I take control now, there's no telling whether you will come back. You'll just be stuck here, alone, for all eternity." Diamond felt light headed and sat down. He sat there in silence for a while, before whispering, "Do it." The Doctor walked closer the wall, "Are you sure, Diamond? There's no turning back." "Do it." He replied. The Doctor placed his hooves on the wall and pushed. He began to sink into it, like jello. As he did, Diamond felt a pull on his body, and was dragged towards the wall. The Doctor pushed harder, eventually pushing his front hooves through. He stepped through the wall, and Diamond was pulled through to the other side. The Doctor saw a darkness creep into the edges of his vision. He collapsed to the ground and struggled to stay awake. Before he passed out, he heard Diamond call out to him, a call of uncertainty in the face of danger. "Doctor. If you somehow manage to fix this, tell Ditzy that...tell her that.....tell her she's a fantastic mare and that she deserves so much more than working in a post office." With that, The Doctor passed out.
"What if we tried calling back the royal guard?" Rainbow pitched to the rest of the group. "It would take too long for them to even get here, plus I'm nearly certain that there are Rutan in the place Drone sent them." Celestia replied. "Yea, but can't your magic like, teleport them or something?" Rainbow pushed. "No, it cannot." The Princess said. Rainbow shut up and went back to flying around the room anxiously. Twilight shouted out next, "Maybe we should check the machine again. We might have missed something." Celestia replied, "We've already checked the machine, half of the buttons don't seem to do anything, and the ones that do just electrocute the presser." Ditzy raised her hoof halfheartedly, "Maybe we should just get out while we can, like Diamond. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do." Celestia replied calmly to Ditzy's question, "If you wish to leave, no one will stop you. But I refuse to flee while my ponies suffer." She lowered her head sadly, "I just don't know what to do. We can't just sit here though, we need to do something!" A confident voice echoed through the room, "That's the spirit, Celestia." All heads turned towards the door, where a brown colt was running into the room. "Diamond! You came back!" Ditzy cried. The Doctor stopped next to her, "Not Diamond. I'm the Doctor. Now, Celestia, what do we know?" Celestia answered without hesitation, "There are probably thousands of Rutans flying around as we speak. The royal guard is several weeks away from Canterlot and no one here has any idea how to stop the Rutans." "What about the time machine?" "It's broken, half the buttons are broken and the other half shoot out lightning." The Doctor walked over to the machine, taking out his screwdriver as he did. He fiddled with some of the buttons on the side before pointing it at the machine. "Let's take a look at it then." The screwdriver buzzed as it scanned the machine. The top of the device popped open and the Doctor laid it on the ground. He stared at it as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. "But, but that's impossible! Ditzy walked up to him, one eyed focused on the machine and the other on the Doctor, "What, what's impossible?" "This machine, It's not connected to the time vortex. It's just a regular box." An idea hit him. "Unless...." The Doctor fiddled with his screwdriver again and soniced the machine. The top of the screwdriver popped open again and the Doctor looked at it with a smile. "Hive Mind, you brilliant alien." He whispered to himself. Ditzy looked at him strangely, "Why are you smiling?" "I've just figured out what I can do." The Doctor said, running over to the controls for the machine. With haste, he mashed the buttons on the keyboard, jumping slightly every time they gave him a shock. He started to explain while he did so. "Imagine a line, well its not really a line but imagine one anyway. This line is your timeline. All of time is playing out on it as we speak, and by travelling across it, we can time travel. Now imagine a dot on that line, that's us right now. However! Imagine a second line not connected to the first one, and imagine a dot on that one. That dot is this time machine. This machine isn't connected to your timeline, it's still connected to the one from my universe. I can use that." He stopped for a moment and spun his screwdriver around randomly, waiting for the top to open. "If I can lock onto the Rutan psychic field and feed it through the machine, it'll become confused. Nothing can be in two places at once without consequences. In order to 'fix' itself, it'll pull all creatures from my universe back to where we came from, thinking they're part of the machine. However, I can't guarantee that all of them will survive." The top of the Doctors device opened and he plugged the screwdriver into an opening that had appeared in the side of the machine. The machine beeped a few times, and one of the buttons lit up a bright red. "Got all that? Couldn't be simpler." He asked. He was met with mostly blank stares, Celestia being the only one who seemed to understand. Ditzy spoke, a look of concern growing on her face. "But aren't you a creature from your universe? Won't you be pulled back too?" The Doctor gave a wink, "I believe it does. Still, no pain, no gain." With a cry of "Allonsy" The Doctor brought his hoof down on the button.
A bright light shot out of the top of the machine. It flew high into the sky, before twisting like a snake and vanishing into the air. All the ponies looked up at the light slowly disappear, and Rainbow Dash exclaimed, "Is that it? I expected more explosions." The Doctor was too busy looking over the machine, waving his sonic all over it frantically. Eventually, his screwdriver rested on a section of the machine near the top. It had been struck by Celestia's magic, and was still hot from the attack. "No, no, no, no, NO." He whispered as he tried sonic-ing again. It rested on the same spot again. Celestia called out to him, "What seems to be the problem, Doctor?" The Doctor turned to her. "The time piece melted somehow. I've got no way to transmit the signal to all the Rutan." "Can't you fix it?" Pinkie Pie said. "I'll throw you a 'fixed the machine' party." "Not unless any of you happen to have a container that can hold several thousands watts of electricity." The Doctor sat down sadly. "I need more time." A shy voice called out from the darkness, rolling her head out of her chest. "Clouds." Fluttershy said slowly. "What?" "Clouds could hold that electricity. If we make one big enough." Fluttershy said, blushing as everypony in the room paid attention to her. The Doctor thought about this for a moment, before pointing out another flaw. "Even if it did work, The paradox machine is still running. Without a stable time piece, every living thing in one hundred miles will be obliterated." The room went quiet as each pony realized what this meant. They exchanged worried glances, unsure of what to say next. With a sigh, Twilight stood up from where she was sitting. "If friendship has taught me anything, it's sacrifice. This one just happens to be a bit larger than usual." Applejack walked over next to her, "If this is tha only way ta save Apple Acres and ma family, then ah'll gladly do it." Rarity walked up to Twilight and took a position on her other side, "I've always wanted to go out beautiful, but I guess now I'll have to make an exception." Rainbow Dash appeared in the air behind the three and practically shouted, "I'm sure we'll be fine. It'll take more than a little explosion to take down the elements of harmony!" Pinkie Pie was next, doing a running slide to lie in front of Twilight. "We can't die! We have to much plot immunity." A shy yellow pegasis was last, nearly invisible behind Applejack. "I'll...I'll stay." Celestia looked at the group of ponies, and a smile grew on her face. She looked at the Doctor from across the room and silently nodded. With that, The Doctor turned to Ditzy. "Ditzy, you could still get out here if you hurried. Stay with your family in case this doesn't work." Ditzy just stared at him. "Doctor, I'm staying too. Someone needs to take care of you in case you change back to Diamond." The Doctor quickly turned away from her and faced the rest of the ponies. "All right. Rainbow, Fluttershy, Celestia, Ditzy. We need you to get up there and gather as much clouds as you can. Try to avoid any Rutan, they'll most likely try to stop you. Twilight, Rarity, use any magic you can to try and help the pegasi. Make water droplets, summon mist, anything you can do. Applejack and Pinkie Pie, Come up here and give me hand, hoof, setting the machine back up. Got it?" All the ponies nodded. "Good." The group of pegasi flapped their wings and ascended into the sky as quickly as they could.
As they rose up, Ditzy took a glance back down at the place they came from and suppressed a gasp of surprise as she saw that it wasn't a cave, but a space ship, buried in the ground. She was snapped back to attention as a bolt of lightning came flying down from above her. She dived to the side quickly to avoid getting hit. Looking up, the Rutan had gathered above them, intent to stop the ponies from gathering clouds. Celestia took control of the situation. "Alright, my ponies. I'll attempt to distract the Rutan while you gather the clouds. If anything happens to me I want you to continue gathering, I'm sure I've been through worse." Ending her sentence Celestia flew directly towards a group of the green jellyfish, deflecting their attacks with her magic. The other pegasi took the opportunity they gave her. Rainbow wizzed of to go grab some of the clouds in the horizon, while Fluttershy focused on the ones closer to the machine. With a sigh, Ditzy decided to focus on the middle clouds. Working quickly and dodging the occasional attack, the group worked together to amass a large clump of clouds. Twilight and Rarity would occasionally help with their magic, but everyone stopped what they were doing when a loud scream went out through the battlefield. Ditzy let go of the white blob she was carrying and turned to it's source to see Celestia falling from the sky, a group of Rutan looking down proudly. Rainbow Dash flew by Ditzy quickly, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. She grabbed Celestia's side and pulled up, attempting to stop her from crashing into the ground. It didn't work, and Rainbow ended up pinned under the princess. Ditzy spun back to the cloud she was carrying, and examined the cloud she was carrying it to. It was already large, by pegasus standards and jiggled dangerously, as if it could explode at any moment. "Di..Ditzy. I'm not sure it should be...be doing that." Fluttershy said, moving up to Ditzy's level. Rainbow Dash struggled to get up, but couldn't push Celestia off. Instead, she called out, "Well Duh. It looks unstable. We've gotta get another cloud on there to balance it out before it explodes!" Ditzy looked down at the cloud in her hooves, then back up at the main cloud, then back down to her hooves, then back up to the Rutans that had started to come between the two. Then it finally clicked, "Fluttershy! Can you keep those guys of me?" Ditzy asked. "I..I don't think I can." Fluttershy stuttered out. "Then take the cloud, I'll protect you." Ditzy said, pushing the cloud in her direction. Fluttershy withdrew backwards to avoid it. "I can't. I just can't. Rainbow and Celestia might be hurt. I'm going to go help them. Yes, that's what I'll do." Fluttershy flew off mumbling to herself, leaving Ditzy along with the cloud. "Fluttershy! Come back!" Ditzy shouted. Fluttershy just seemed to ignore her as she made her way to the ground. Ditzy sighed again, "Well, No time to waste. Let's focus Ditzy." The Rutans gathered around in a small groups, and Ditzy flew upwards. An alien flew down to greet her, but Ditzy dived to the left, and passed by it. A bolt of lighting shot out at her, and she dodged it just in time. Another bolt came, and Ditzy avoided it, flying right into another Rutan. It swiped down at her with it's tentacles, but stopped suddenly as it was covered in purple light. Ditzy flew past it. She could see the main cloud closer now. It was larger than she remembered. Two lighting charged balls flew out at her. She ducked quickly and flapped harder. A tentacle came swinging on her left, missing her by an inch. Ditzy looked up again. The Rutan's had formed a wall, stopping anything from getting through. "Focus, Ditzy." She thought. She rose upwards, falling into a groove as more attacks came. Dodge, duck, stop, go right, go left, fly higher, They all mashed together into perfect harmony. One of the jellyfish was surrounded by a white glow and moved out of line. Ditzy seized the chance and flew past the line, taking a hit to the wing. Ditzy fought back the pain and pushed the cloud into the mass. It tried to reject it at first. "FOCUS DITZY!" She pushed harder, forcing the cloud into the bunch. The main cloud stopped wobbling and sat in a peaceful state, ready to take the power. She spun around, "Doctor, We're ready, Start the machiARGGHH." Ditzy jumped as 10 000 volts went through her back. She spun around in time to see a Rutan descending from inside the cloud. She felt her eyes growing heavy and closed them. Her wings were also tired suddenly, so she stopped flapping them. She fell out of the air silently. The enemy didn't even bother to attack her again.
The Doctor dropped his screwdriver, shocked. "DITZY!" He looked around, the same shock was portrayed on Applejack's face as well. He watched as Ditzy fell down, landing harshly just outside the boundaries of the ship. He spun back around to the time machine and buzzed it. An arc of lightning ran across the perimeter of the machine before settling in on of the buttons, causing it glow red. The Doctor looked over it nervously. "Are you sure you want to do this, Girls?" Twilight looked at him. "It's a little late to turn back now. Push the button, Doctor." The Doctor stared back down at the button and raised his hoof. He yelled out "Allonsy" once again, and slammed his hoof down on the button. A beam of light shot into the air, separating the group of Rutan. It hit the cloud before it could disappear like before though, and the cloud turned a dark purple. It shot out bolts of power into any cloud close to it, turning them purple too. These clouds did the same, and the sky was filled with a purple glow. The clouds then turned on the Rutan. Power shot out to each of them, covering them and compressing them into a small ball. A bolt of lightning shot down into the space ship and hit the Doctor in the chest. The machine let out a rattle, and launched a brilliant white light into the room. It spread outwards, covering everything in, about, 100 miles. Until eventually, it exploded, cracking at the seams.
Far away, the sergeant was growing tired. They had already lost half their men when the attack began by using metal weaponry, and only ones like him were still on the field. He turned to another pegasus flying near him. The pony was a dark grey, with a black mane. "We can't keep this up much longer." He said. The grey pegasus dodged an attack, and brought his stone hammer down on the attacker. "If we die, I want you know. I blame you for this." The sergeant chuckled, "I'll gladly take that blame." Suddenly, the fighting stopped. A purple light was connecting all the monsters together, and they seemed to be getting smaller as the duo watched. They took any break they could get. "Soldier, get down on the ground and help the injured. I'll finish of anything that happens to escape." The soldier nodded and descended to the ground. Looking out over the horizon. He could see a large white orb rising out from the land. With a choking cry, he said to himself. "I sincerely hope that was our side."
"Argh, everything hurts. Maybe no one will notice if I just lay here for a while." Solar rolled onto his stomach, wincing as a sharp pain went through his head. "Why does my head hurt?" He thought. Rubbing his face, he forced his eyes open. "I can't sleep now, I've got work in the morning." Solar removed his hooves, and stared at the ceiling. "That's not my roof." Swinging his head around, he took in his surroundings. "Where am I?" His head ached again as he remembered what happened. He squeezed his eyes shut. His head felt like it was going to explode all over the room. Eventually he opened his eyes again. Pushing through the pain, he lifted himself to his feet. The room looked different, instead of a hard metal shine, the room more resembled the cave outside. Ooze covered the walls and a strange transparent liquid covered the ground. Solar poked it with his hoof, jumping back when it gave him a hard electric shock. His eyes followed the trail of liquid to it's source, a giant green bag that moved slightly as it took in painful breaths. Solar recognized what it was. "So, you're still alive, huh? Just sit still for a minute while I finish the job." He shouted. "With what? Touch your weapon and you die with me, and I don't see any more weapons on you." Solar walked closer. In his rage, he realized that the alien was right. "I can still you watch you die though." Hive Mind shuddered painfully. "True, but I'm glad you're awake to see it." Solar stopped walking. "What?" "I wanted to thank you, not for killing me, of course, but for showing me this world. Though I know you can't forgive me for what I've done, I'm so sorry you had to go through this." Hive Mind said honestly. Solar walked closer, the electric gel becoming thicker. "You should be! Cinder was the one thing I had to look forward to each day, and you removed that. Now....Now I don't even know what to do with my life." Solar said sadly. "If I could go back, to change things, I wouldn't even bother. I would leave this planet, knowing I would never see it again. I would find a way back to my world, and become one of the hive again, losing all I am, just to keep this place safe from myself. She was a good mare, you know?" Solar changed the subject quickly, not ready to face this subject. "So where's Diamond and Ditzy? I thought they'd stay here and look after me or something." "They left about a minute ago, they had to stop Drone before he destroyed this world. The Doctor is the only one who can do it." "The Doctor?" Solar asked. Walking up to Hive and sitting down. "You mean Diamond's alter ego?" Hive Mind took in another breath, followed by a wheezing cough. "The Doctor is no ego. He is powerful, more so than anyone one of us realize. If there is a way to save everypony, the Doctor will surely find it." Solar moved his hooves closer to his body to avoid the gel creeping up to him. "I need to go help them then! A guards duty is to follow the strong and protect the weak." "Then won't you protect me?" Hive Mind said. "Before you rush into danger, I need to know you forgive yourself for my mistakes. Cinder was a brilliant pony. Smart, strong, brave, She left before it was her time, because of ME, not you. There was nothing you could do to stop this. So don't place blame upon yourself." Solar flapped his wings and rose into the air as the gel overtook the place he was sitting. "I could of saved her though. That's what I believe." Hive Mind coughed again. "Then believe this. I know how this is going to end. I built the machine, built Drone, I know how our plan will go and I know what will happen. There is one fatal flaw in the machine, but the Doctor can not exploit it while the paradox machine is running. If you truly want to help, go down these tunnels until you find a blue box, go inside and force it to shut down." "How do I know I can trust you?" Solar replied bitterly. "Because Cinder did, the first time we met. Much to my regret." Solar's face turned into a snarl, and he said, "I still blame you for this. When you die, I hope Cinder's waiting to give you a kick in the face." After that, Solar flew out the door and headed down the tunnels, searching for a blue box. Hive Mind smiled, or tried to as much as a creature without a face can. Moving painfully, he pulled himself up to the metal stand behind him. Slowly pulling one his tentacles up, he stuck it into one of the holes. "Solar will complete his part. And I, mine." Hive felt the electricity of his body leave as it was poured into the device. A sharp cracking sound was heard as the roof above Hive opened up. The opening ran along the roof, into the cave and chased it's way through into it's dark depths, letting sunlight shine into the dark cave. Hive lay there, content, as he finally passed.
Solar made a sharp turn, nearly crashing into the wall. There was no sign of this blue box Hive Mind was talking about, and Solar had just about given up. He thought to himself, "One more turn, then I start looking for the others." Taking another turn, he was faced with a dead end. Stopping, he turned back around, before something caught his eye. A box was embedded in the wall, it's blue shine acting as a beacon against the dark green of the cave. Solar stared at it. "This isn't what I expected." He landed on the ground and corrected his thoughts. "Though I guess I didn't know what to expect other than 'Blue Box'." Solar walked up to the box and read the sign attached to the door. "The hells a police box?" Solar kept reading, stopping on the final line. "Pull to open? Alright." Solar grabbed the door awkwardly with his hooves, and pulled the door open. A bright red light immediately hit him in the face, causing him to shut his eyes quickly. He opened them slowly and walked into the box. While walking to the cage in the middle, he caught himself wondering what kind magic could make something bigger on the inside. Solar faced the cage containing the controls for the machine. He tried to shove his hoof through the bars, but pulled back when it proved futile. Next he walked around the machine, searching for an opening, or a weak point. As far as he could tell, there was none. He placed his hoof on the bottom of his head and thought of a way to access the controls. A plan came to him out of the blue. Solar bent his legs until he was nearly laying on the ground, and grabbed the bottom of the cage with his hooves. With a powerful thrust of his wings, he pulled upward, attempting to lift the cage free. As the cage was slowly forced up, the vines tied around the controls began to sever, and steam shot out of several holes above Solar's head. With a final push, Solar lifted the cage clear into the air, and carefully tied it into place with one of the snapped vines. Grinning, he moved closer to the device. "Now what am I suppose to do?" He poked one of the levers in front of him. A blast of steam was released from the roof, nearly taking is head off. "Not that." He looked over the controls, careful not to accidentally nudge something. "This wouldn't be a problem if anypony told me what's going on." Solar looked back over at the buttons, each one seemed to taunt him as they flashed randomly. Solar sat down, feeling crushed. "Who am I kidding? I have no clue what I'm doing. I'm a soldier for crying out loud, not a mechanic. I should just leave now, maybe I can catch up to the elements before the battle starts." Solar didn't move though, he couldn't find the strength or motivation. "It's already over though. Celestia's dead, Cinder's dead, the elements are likely dead, Ditzy and Diamond have wandered into the heart of the beast and all the army is off fighting who knows what in the middle of who knows where!" Solar cried, the tears flowing freely. "It wasn't suppose to go like this! We're suppose to protect ponies! But what happens? I end up stranded in a strange cave, far away from anypony, with absolutely no way to make any kind of meaningful difference." A large explosion was heard through the cave, "That would be the elements, guess they're not dead yet." A moment passed in silence, before the machine Solar was sitting in gave a sudden jolt. The glass pillar in the middle of the room started to move, releasing a pained 'Vroom' sound. Steam shot out of every available opening and the constant shaking tore many vines loose from their hangings. Solar swiftly realized what was happening. He felt his anger build up inside him again. "So you want to kill me too, huh? Well bring it! Solar leapt to his feet and rushed into the middle of the room, ignoring the shaking of the room. Pulling himself to the front console, he placed his hoof onto one of the buttons that was brighter than the rest, "Let's see how you like THIS! He shouted, pushing the button dramatically. The machine let out a high pitched whine, but Solar continued, grabbing the only glowing lever. "Or how about THIS! He pulled the lever down, causing another whine out of the machine. A series of buttons began to flash, and Solar pushed them in the order they lit up. More steam shot out of the walls and Solar started to feel the heat. He started to feel light headed and his vision faded. A final button lit up, and Solar lunged at it, "Or how...about...this?" He said weakly. The machine stopped flooding steam into the room, and the red light dimmed into a healthy glow. A white light radiated from the glass pillar and Solar passed out as the light surrounded him.
Celestia woke abruptly when a brilliant white light exploded into her face. Something was poking into her side, and she stood up to remove it. She was surprised when it stuck to the ground and didn't follow her up. Looking over it, she immediately recognized who it was. Rainbow Dash was lying on the ground where Celestia had slept, and was obviously in pain. With a groan, Rainbow pulled herself to her hooves. The wing that was pressed against the ground stuck out at an odd angle, and the rest of her body was covered in bruises. Celestia looked around in confusion. The sky was unusually clear, there was not a cloud as far as the eye could see, and her sisters moon was just beginning to rise over the horizon. On the other side of a large chasm in the ground, Celestia could see Fluttershy, huddling over a rock. Celestia glanced around again to try and piece together what happened. She closed her eyes, there was...lightning, and monsters, and time-travel. It all came back to her quickly. She carefully walked over to where Rainbow was standing, and asked her. "Are you alright, Rainbow Dash?" Rainbow Dash looked down from the empty space she was staring at, "Yea, never better!" Rainbow winced as she tucked her wing against her body, "But that explosion! That was what I was expecting." Celestia smiled, "I'd give it a six. Now let us gather together and return home." Rainbow nodded, and the Celestia rose into the air. Rainbow tried, but ended up crashing back into the ground as the pain in her wing brought her down. She blushed, and said shyly, "Um, maybe we could walk there? Exercise the hooves, that's what the doctors say." Celestia sighed and, instead of landing, simply lifted Rainbow with her magic. Rainbow sat there quietly as they moved, thinking about how strange it was to fly without moving her wings. The two glided across the cavern, and Celestia noticed the ponies inside had gathered into a circle, staring at something in the middle of them. Whatever it was though, it was hidden from Celestia's view. With a graceful slide, she landed on the other side and walked towards Fluttershy, dropping Rainbow as she did. As she walked closer, she heard that Fluttershy was crying, and realized that the 'rock' actually had fur. She quickened her pace. She trotted up next to Fluttershy and placed her wing over her, in an attempt to comfort her. She examined the mound in front of her, and sadly recognized who it was. Fluttershy attempted to wipe her eyes and looked up at Celestia. "Is she going to be okay? I tried to catch her as she fell but..." Celestia inspected Ditzy wounds. Most of the fur on her back was burnt black, her mane was nearly non-existent, both her wings bent at awkward angles, at least one of her legs was certainly broken and tears rang down her face every time she breathed. Celestia lit up her horn, and a soft glow surrounded Ditzy. Slowly, her breath came in and out rhythmically and she stopped crying. If it wasn't for the obvious wounds, one could mistake her for sleeping. Celestia spun her head down to face the yellow pegasis. "I have done the best I can. She will need more help than I can provide, and even then..." Celestia couldn't finish her sentence. Even the thought of losing one of her ponies filled her with dread. She lifted Ditzy into the air and turned towards the space ship. "We must gather everyone quickly before we can leave. Hurry." The ponies wasted no time to follow her.
Back in the space ship, Twilight was trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Diamond was lying in the middle of the circle, clearly unharmed, but refusing to wake up. Twilight decided a quick recap was in order to ensure everyone was on the same page. "Alright, so after the light faded, we all turned to inspect the machine. The Doctor was there, unconscious. Applejack remembers seeing him get hit by one of the bolts of lightning that stopped the Rutan, maybe that's why he's asleep. That still wouldn't explain why he's still here, since he said that he would go with the Rutan. It also doesn't explain why we're still here, since according to him, that light should have wiped us out." Rarity threw her two bits in, "Maybe he was lying about all that. Or didn't know what would happen." Applejack responded to her, "Ah know when someone lying and this Doctor was telling the truth." Twilight also added, "Plus he seemed pretty confident about that machine, I don't think he would have made a mistake." "Maybe we just got super lucky?" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. Twilight shot down that theory too. "It just seems a little TOO lucky that no pony was hurt in the explosion." The four ponies stared at the pony in the middle of the circle, wondering what was going on. The brown pony sat their silently, until he let out a groan. Pinkie lay down next to him and stared at his face, "What do you think he's dreaming about?" Pinkie questioned. Twilight would have shrugged, but couldn't, so she simply bobbed her head in a confused manner.
Diamond stared through the huge glass wall, wondering for the fiftieth time whether he had made the right decision. A dot appeared on the horizon, and Diamond stood up quickly to see what it was. Even at a distance, he could easily recognize what it was. A near mirror reflection of himself was walking towards, a little faster than what was necessary. Diamond called out to him from his side of the wall. "Doctor! You came back!" The Doctor responded with silence, and picked up his pace to get there faster. Diamond tried calling out again. "Did it work? Is everypony safe?" The Doctor finally reached the wall, and stopped in front of it. With a sigh, he faced Diamond. "Well. Most of them are safe." Diamond jumped into the air a little with joy, "That's great news. So why are you back? Have you come to let me out?" "I suppose so. I mostly came to say goodbye." The Doctor said cheerlessly. Diamond stopped jumping, "Goodbye? Where are you going?" The Doctor attempted to shrug, "Who knows? Maybe I'll be fine, maybe I won't, but I need you to do something in my absence." Diamond listened intently. "Look after those ponies for me. They just might be worth it. Oh, and lock the TaRDiS for me. The last thing we need is some other alien getting his hands on it and messing with their time stream. And don't eat any pears, you'll thank me later. And live a good life, that's the most important. Remember." The Doctor turned around and started to walk away. A tear ran down his face as walked, ignoring Diamonds cries. Eventually, he became another dot on the horizon. Even that dot disappeared as Diamond watched, wondering what to do next. Diamond sat down. "So now what? I just sit here for the rest of my life? That's not very interesting." The brown pony heard a loud crack, and felt something hit him in the back. He turned around and noticed it was a small shard of glass. With another, louder crack, the entire wall split into two. The two halves then split more, turning into tiny little fragments against the blaring contrast of white. Diamond closed his mouth before a sharp piece of glass managed to find it's way into it. Being careful not to step on any broken glass, he walked through the place where the wall once stood. He felt a cloud descend on his mind, and decided to rush out of the minefield of glass. Once he was safe, he took a moment to rest. The cloud in his head caused his eyelids to grow heavy, so he lay down for a moment. He closed his eyes and immediately woke up again. He looked up at the four ponies that had gathered around where he lay. He let out a cough, and asked, "Did we win?"
Twilight let out a relieved sigh, and answered, "From what I can tell, yes we did." Diamond coughed, and he felt a slight aching in his chest. "Is everypony alright? Anypony injured?" Rarity stepped forward, and extended a hoof out to Diamond. "Twilight and I may need a few days rest after a magic display such as that, but no pony is injured too badly." "That's great news! So where are the others?" Diamond said, grabbing Rarity's hoof and pulling himself up. A shadow fell over the room, and Celestia descended into it. Fluttershy flew in behind her, carrying Rainbow on her back. Celestia looked at the group with a look of sadness on her face. Everypony paid her their attention. She carefully lowered the grey bundle she was carrying onto the ground and started speaking, "My little ponies. As you have no doubt noticed, the battle is over. The Rutan have been sent back home, Equestria is safe and I owe you all my thanks for what you have done, especially you Doctor. However, all is not well. This great deed today could not have been accomplished without the brave sacrifice of Ditzy Doo. I fear she will pass soon, so I beg all of you to make her final moments comfortable." An uncomfortable silence filled the room, only broken when Ditzy let out a pained groan. Twilight walked over to the bundle and whispered some words to her, before walking back to the main group. Fluttershy dropped Rainbow Dash on the floor and went over to Ditzy, sitting down next to her. The ponies slowly made their way closer, offering their thoughts and condolences to the pained mare. The only one who didn't though, was Diamond. He sat perfectly still, the information still not making the proper connections in his mind. Rushing forward quickly, he grabbed Celestia. "Can't you do something? You're the Princess! You can't just sit here!" He practically shouted into her face. The princess replied calmly, a hint of despair in her voice. "If there was anything I could do, I would have done so. We all must die some day, and not even I can prevent that." Diamond lowered his hooves and turned to the elements of harmony. "What about you? You're the most powerful ponies in existence at the moment, can't you whip up some of your harmony magic?" Twilight broke eye contact from him. "We could, but we can't be sure about what will happen. She could turn to stone for all we know." Diamond fought back the tears growing in his eyes. "WHAT GOOD ARE YOU THEN? How can you call yourselves the elements if you can't even save a single pony? You're not even trying!" Diamond felt the tears run down his face and continued, "Why can't you at least try? You're all just sitting around here worthlessly. You'd be more help on the surface of the moon! What good are you?" His voice rang out through the room, escaping into the open air. Rarity and Fluttershy shuffled uncomfortably, and none dared speak a word. That is, except for the injured. With a hoarse croak, Ditzy Doo called out, "Diamond. Come...come here." Diamond felt his anger melting as he heard her voice. Silently, he walked over to her, and crouched down. They stared into each others eyes, and Ditzy spoke. "Diamond, don't be angry. It was...was my fault. Blaming these ponies won't...won't solve anything." "But, you could be better than this! You're smart, you could be anything." Diamond whispered. Ditzy gave a painful smile, "Yet here I am." Diamond pushed on. "What about the people who'll miss you? Your family! Your friends! Me." The smile ran away from Ditzy's face, "I guess it is a shame that they'll be left alone, but what can I do?" Diamond closed his eyes. "But you can't leave." Something poked him in the head, and he opened his eyes to see Ditzy holding an old watch in her mouth. The brown pony recognized it, and took it in his hooves. Ditzy sucked in some air, shuddering as she did, and said to Diamond, "I think this belongs you. At the very least it can be something to remember this day by." Diamond stood back up, and Ditzy closed her eyes, her breathing speeding up.
Diamond walked towards the large machine against the back of the room. He stared down at the device in his hoof, and felt all the eyes in the room focus on him. A heat radiated from the watch, and he could feel it searing his mind. With a shout, he threw it on ground and stomped on it. When he removed his hoof, the watch was unharmed by the attack. He fell to his knees and stared up at the sky, screaming into it. "Damn you, Doctor!" Celestia took a step back from the outburst, but remained silent. "You planned this, didn't you? Celestia damn you to the moon! You planned this out. I was finally free! I could leave you behind and live my life, a true life. But you come and throw something like this at me? Just who do you think you are? What kind of pony forces somepony to make this decision? Save Ditzy or save myself." Diamond picked up the watch. He stared at it, observing the patterns engraved on it's surface. There was still so much more he could do, yet here he was. "Celestia, I expect you to punish the Doctor for this!" He said, holding the watch. Before he opened the watch, he took a moment to reflect on his life. All the choices he had made, all the ponies he's met. Some would miss him, some wouldn't even notice he was gone. Some hadn't even existed at all. Diamond's decisions had led him here, and led him to his death. With a final curse, he flicked the watch open. Golden light spewed out and surrounded him. Memories started to come back, and as they did, Diamond slowly vanished. A spark of light struck his cutie mark, and it slowly changed. The painters brush and vase combined together, and melted down in liquid gold to form an hourglass. His mane stuck up a little taller, and his fur turned slightly darker. When the light receded, a different pony was standing in it's place. One who was looking around very confused.
"What?" He searched through the faces of each of the ponies in room, hoping one could explain what had happened to him. All he saw was looks of abstract horror. He scanned through the room again. A large black box was behind him, several light blue crystals illuminated the dark corners of the room, and a small bundle of fur and feathers rested uneasily on the ground. "What?" The Doctor repeated. The Doctor glanced down at his hooves, and noticed a small watch. He picked it up and flicked it open. The time was about 7:30, and there was no sign of any gold light. The Doctor realized what happened quickly. "THE WATCH! Diamond, why? Why open it? You could have let it be, and lived your life." The Doctor turned to the ponies. He asked hastily. "Diamond opened the watch, there must be a reason. What caused this to happen?" Celestia motioned to the pony on the ground, and the Doctor walked over to it. A gasp escaped his lips and he said to Ditzy, "Ditzy! Are you alright?" The Doctor kicked himself for that question, of course she was injured. None of these ponies could do anything to help, so Diamond had opened the watch, hoping that he would know what to do. The Doctor looked back down at Ditzy, "Don't worry, the Doctor's here." The Doctor spun around to face the worried group, "Alright ponies, Ditzy's not going to last long, so I need to know everything we have that could possibly be the slightest help." Twilight stepped forward, "We could use the elements, but we have no way of knowing what could happen!" The Doctor picked his screwdriver off of the ground, "Ok, let's make that plan B then. Celestia, anything you can do?" "I have already done all I can. There is nothing more I can do." Celestia replied. "Don't speak like that, there's always more to do." The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at Celestia, and fired. The room buzzed in sync with the device, and the top opened. The Doctor took a look at it and grinned thoughtfully. Next, he pointed his screwdriver at everything in the room, trying to find anything that could be helpful. He scanned over the elements, their holders, the crystals in the walls, the box and finally, Ditzy. The Doctor placed the device on the ground and thought. He screamed out in frustration, "I'm missing something. What? It's big, obvious and staring me in the face, but what is it?" He searched through the room, the green ooze gathering in puddles, the injured pegasis sitting in the centre, the multicoloured ponies staring at him, and each other, the blue gems in the walls. He stopped, blue. It dawned on him, and he smiled. "The paradox machine is broken! Yes, perfect." He leapt to his feet and started giving orders. "Alright, ponies, how quickly can you power up the elements?" Rainbow Dash kicked in, "10 seconds flat!" Twilight stared at her disapprovingly. "Perfect, Celestia, this will sound weird, but I need one of your feathers." The brown pony said, nervously. "What?" was Celestia's reply. "Hurry, we don't have time." He shouted, scanning Ditzy with the sonic again. The shiny bit opened up and the Doctor placed the device at his feet. Carefully, he reached his neck out and plucked a feather from Ditzy's wing. Ditzy winced, "What ar..." "Shhh, just watch." The Doctor walked over to the princess, who was carrying one of her white feathers with her magic. The Doctor paid no attention to her and simply threw Ditzy's feather at her. "Hold this." He walked over the machine, and kicked the side down. He stared at the wires inside, and pulled them out. Some he soniced and put back, some he left out and some he placed back in. He disappeared behind the machine for a moment, and a flash of light shot out from where he was hiding. Walking back to the front, he placed one of the panels of the machine back over the opening and placed his hooves on the edge of the 'keyboard'. He turned towards the group. "Celestia, before I continue, I need to know, how immortal are you?" The Princess blushed, "I'd prefer to keep that secret." Fluttershy yelled out to her, "Um, princess, I don't think Ditzy can last much longer." Celestia sighed, and answered the question. Despite surprising most of the ponies gathered, the Doctor simply smiled and announced his plan. "Listen up, because once we start this we need to follow through to the end. I've modified this machine to act as a slingshot between dimensions, as opposed to simply a machine linked between two dimensions. I've also set it to affect anyone with Ditzy's mental wavelength. Try to think of it as a planet, and Ditzy as a comet. She flies towards my universe, gets pulled in a circle by its gravity, and makes it safely back to this world. When you power up the machine using your 'friendship beam' I'll fuse Ditzy's wavelength with Celestia's. This means that Ditzy will hopefully be healed as she flies through the gap in dimensions. Assuming all goes to plan, we should have a unharmed Ditzy standing in the middle of the room. Understand?" Applejack closed her mouth and shook her head, "Ah didn't catch any of that." A voice chipped up from behind her, "It's simple silly, The machine will pull Ditzy into the Rutan's world, fix her up, and spit her back out in this world." Eight pairs of eyes looked at Pinkie Pie, astonished. The Doctor cleared his thought, and added, "Well, yes basically." "Are you sure this is safe, Doctor?" Celestia asked worriedly. The Doctor hesitated, "We don't have much of a choice at this point," he simply said. Twilight and the other elements took their positions around each other, and Twilight closed her eyes. The Doctor moved out of the way that the beam would travel, and stood nearby, holding his screwdriver and both the feathers. Celestia looked onward nervously, hoping she had done the right thing. Ditzy sat in the middle of the room, watching the scene unfold. With a nearly silent whisper, she managed to choke out, "Let's do this."
Twilight clenched her eyes closed and focused. She felt the presence of her friends around her and reached out to them, uniting each of their powers into a single force. With a wordless sigh, she added her own power and opened her eyes. Light surrounded the group, so bright it hurt to look at. Twilight stared at the machine, and directed the energy of the six towards it. A brilliant rainbow shot out of her horn, and spiraled upwards. It reached its apex and came crashing down on the machine. With a mechanical crash, the machine started to move again. It hungrily sucked in the rainbow, and each of the ponies could feel it's pull. Eventually, the rainbow stopped, and the elements were dropped roughly on the ground. Recovering quickly, each of the ponies turned their eyes towards Ditzy. She was still sitting there, occasionally whimpering in pain. "NO, no, no!" The Doctor said, turning back to the machine. He was interrupted when Rainbow Dash called out to him. "Hey Doc, you might wanna see this." The Doctor turned around quickly, just in time to see Ditzy floating into the air. She let out a horrified scream as a purple bolt of lightning shot out of the machine into her, causing her to shrink. With a pop, she disappeared, leaving a blinding white flash in her wake. The group searched through the room desperately, trying to guess where she vanished to. Everyone except for the Doctor. He had placed the two feathers on the ground, one on top of the other, and stared at them intently. Holding his screwdriver out in front of him, he scanned over the tiny pile. The top of the device opened yet again and he ran over to the machine, which was spitting black smoke out from within. He plugged his screwdriver into a hole near the keyboard, and turned it on. The machine sputtered, and shot out more black smoke. With that done, The Doctor turned and waited to see what would happen next. A minute passed. Two. Three. Some of the ponies started to look around uncomfortably. Four. Five. Ten. At this point, everyone but the Doctor was looking around, but no pony dared move until the Doctor did. Another five minutes passed, and the Doctor stepped forward. The other ponies collapsed to the ground, not realizing how much standing still had strained them. He didn't cry, but merely looked down sadly. Princess Celestia walked over to him, and placed her wing over him. "Sometimes, Doctor. It just doesn't work out. You yourself told me that, remember? I think it fits now more than ever." The Doctor stared at the ground, determined not to let himself cry. "Gather round ponies, and we shall leave this place. We can honour Ditzy better in the palace." Celestia shouted. The ponies jumped to their hooves and walked over to the two ponies. "Ah just don't know what ta say Doctor." Applejack said apologetically. "She was pretty smart, wasn't she?" Twilight added. "And there was always a place in the party for her." Pinkie announced, surprisingly out of character. "She was one of the best pegasi out there." Rainbow said. "I..I..She'll be missed." Fluttershy croaked out. The Doctor said something into the ground, only heard by Celestia. "I could have done better." When the ponies had gathered around the white mare, she began to cast the spell to remove them, but her focus was cut off from a call echoing down the empty hallways. Celestia stopped the spell, and the Doctor moved forward anxiously. It couldn't be. She had been gone too long. Never the less, the Doctor called out, hope beaming through his words. "Ditzy?" The familiar sound of a flying pegasus was heard, and a pony flew into the room. He landed harshly on the slimy green floor and yelled at the Doctor. "You better have some good news, Doctor. I've been through some messed up stuff today." The Doctor felt crushed, his hope had been dashed completely and utterly. He made his slow way back to the Princess. Solar shouted in his ear all the way, and popped the question, "...and where's the derpy pony? I liked her, what was her name? Dotzy? Herpy?" "Ditzy." The Doctor said.
"Yes, Doctor?" A confident voice rang out. The Doctor dropped his screwdriver and spun around dangerously fast. Standing in front of him was a grey pegasus. The same grey pegasus with crazy eyes and a knack for causing accidents. The Doctor ran towards her, and she did the same. The two collided with each other, and embraced. It was only for a few seconds, but it felt like hours to the Doctor. Eventually, they pulled away from each other. Each gave a quick nod, and they headed back towards the huddled group of ponies. As he was walking, he took one last time to search around the room. The crystals seemed to shine a little brighter, the ground was softer, and the machine was spurting out black smoke. The Doctor slowed as the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He slowed down and eventually stopped. Ignoring Ditzy, he addressed Celestia, "I appreciate the gesture, Princess. But I would prefer to make my own way back. My TaRDiS is just a little walk back through the cave, shouldn't take long." The Princess nodded, "I understand Doctor, I hope you will at least grant me the pleasure of appearing back at the palace." She turned her head towards the other pony in front of her, "Come on Ditzy." Ditzy shuffled nervously, "I would prefer to stay with the Doctor, for now." "I really think you should go, Ditzy. I can handle the rest." Ditzy shook her head, "I'm staying, Doctor." The Doctor glanced around worriedly, then let out a sigh, "Fine, but be careful. You may still be injured." The two turned their backs to Celestia and the elements and walked forward. They passed through the door together and paused for a moment, listening to the sound of Celestia casting her spell. With a flash, the group was gone, and the Doctor and Ditzy moved forward again.
"Umm, Doctor, I think the TaRDiS was actually a few turns back to the left." Ditzy said, nearly tripping over her feet. The Doctor sped up, "I'm not looking for the TaRDiS yet. There are still some questions that need answers. This is the way to find them." "What questions?" "When I was captured, before all this happened, they knew that I specifically would be coming. Tricking me is not an easy task, I want to know how they did it." The Doctor exclaimed. "Furthermore. There were three." Ditzy stretched her wings as she walked, "Three what?" She asked, absentmindedly. "There were three Rutan. Sole Drone, who greeted me at the door, Hive Mind, who was against the whole plan, and another. Somepony who knows a lot more about me than he should. Somepony who can both build and maintain a chameleon arch, and knows how to use one on a time lord. I need to know who he is." They turned a corner, and stopped walking, "So where are we going then?" The Doctor stared at the metal door facing them, it was hanging open and a clear liquid was spilling outwards from inside. "The ship must have kept logs, in case something went wrong. We're just going to take a little peek." The Doctor poked the liquid with his hoof and, besides from a mild electric shock, decided it was safe to walk in. Ditzy decided to fly over the the goo, determined not to get any on her hooves. The Doctor waded through the goo, and tried his hardest to avoid looking at the body of Hive Mind, propped up against the metal pole in the middle of the room. Walking past it, the Doctor took his screwdriver out and pointed it at the empty window in front of him. With a click, the view outside the window was blocked by a clear green screen. The Doctor faced it and shouted determinedly, "Show ships log from 1 day ago." The screen changed, showing several lines of writing projected onto it. The Doctor started from the top and read down.
"Log 56. The Doctor! That brilliant doctor has somehow found his way into Ponyville, even met with the leader of the elements of harmony no less! There's no way of telling whether he's still changed though. Drone says we need to speed the plan up quickly before the Doctor comes and screws it up for us. It looks like we might need to hold off connecting it to the appropriate timeline though. We sent the request to the elements as soon as possible. And we've made our decision. If the Doctor is indeed here, then we will help him as much as we can, though we have our doubts. If he doesn't appear, the plan will continue. On a side note, we can't seem to find Virus. We think he's just playing it safe until the Doctor leaves. Or maybe it was always his plan to escape before the action.
Rutan Hive Mind"
The Doctor zeroed in on the the mysterious aliens name. "Virus? Lovely. I sure hope he didn't name himself that, can you imagine?" The Doctor shuffled his feet to try to get them out of the electric gel. Seeing how it was futile, he continued talking. "Show ships log from 3 days ago." The screen flickered, and threatened to turn black, but eventually spouted out the appropriate sheet.
"Log 53 Not much to report today. Virus says the time machine is nearly ready, just need to install the time piece and set it to this universe. This wonderful universe. Sometimes we wonder whether we should stop this plan, and live in peace. These ponies aren't harming anyone. Maybe we should do a quick scan to see if any Sontarans even exist here!"
Rutan Hive Mind"
"Show ships log from one week ago." The Doctor shouted. The screen flickered and changed it's contents.
"Log 49 Our head is buzzing. We can't believe what we just thought. Go AGAINST the plan? It's inconceivable. Yet, many things were like that before we got here. A Rutan thinking, a worker becoming a hive mind, meeting a time traveler, spending a day among the inhabitants. Is this really so far fetched? We need to think about this more. Virus says he's working on the time machine for his plan, and has outlined plans for the distribution of energy among all the Rutans who will appear, but without somebody who knows more about time it will be impossible to finish. We wonder if there might be a way to combine the Doctor's memories with this immortal goddess. We can't help but think he has another motive though. No non Rutan just randomly decides to help commit genocide like he did.
Rutan Hive Mind"
The Doctor stepped back, covering his back legs in goo. "Another time traveler? But, that's impossible." Ditzy chirped in, adding, "And you were wrong, he wasn't a Rutan, he was something else!" "Yes Ditzy." The Doctor turned back to the screen. "Show ships log from two weeks ago." The words changed, and the Doctor read them.
"Log 42 I..We..we..We don't even know what to say. Lets head from the top. This pony we're impersonating apparently, is married! Hold your shock, more than that, the two of them had been planing a date for some festival today. We tried refusing, but the pony was insistent, and we had to go to avoid suspicion. And something happened. This planet, this culture. It's like none we've ever seen before! They're were working in perfect harmony, despite lacking a commanding hive mind. They were making great art, the likes of which were never found back on our planet. And the laughter. They smiled constantly! It was like nothing bad ever happened here. They were just so happy. Maybe we could think of another plan. We find ourselves liking these creatures. We would feel the very....what's that word they use? Sad, to see them go. The least we can do is convince Drone to hold off on impersonating the princess. But Virus say's we need to keep pushing forward. We think he's been drawing up some crazy new plan in that room of his.
Rutan Hive Mind"
The Doctor smiled, "Good old emotions, they also push through in the end." "But we need to go deeper, Doctor." The Doctors smile dropped, "Show ships log from three weeks ago." The machine sputtered, and turned black for a moment, before turning back on.
"Log 35 It seems that the original plan won't work, the lightning of this universe hurts us. It seems we will have to fall back on Virus' offer. While I was hoping to avoid killing more than necessary, it seems we might have too. We'll admit, we were more than a little sceptical when he showed up offering his help, looking back, it seems kind of stupid that we refused him. We have also decided that we should replace the Hive Mind, since they clearly have no clue about this universe.
Rutan Hive Mind"
"We're nearly there Doctor, just a bit further." The Doctor nodded and spoke clearly. "Show ships log from four weeks ago." The screen crackled and turned off. The two stared at the brown dirt beyond before it suddenly sprung back to life, showing them the information they needed.
"Log 28 We met someone today. Or is it somepony? He certainly was a pony. This one was different though, he saw right through our disguise. Along with that, he was pitch black, except for his mane, which seemed to basically GLOW grey, and we don't think he showed any emotion during our entire talk. He offered us a deal. Claimed our plan would fail. We listened though, he mostly spat of drivel about time travel and paradoxes. We don't think he will show up again. The Rutan plan is foul proof, if it is going to fail, that would mean the Hive was wrong, and the Hive is all we have to hang onto recently.
Rutan Drone 163542"
The screen sputtered, and turned off. The Doctor tried to fix it with his sonic, but it was too far gone. The thick smoke from the broken screen floated lazily into the air, and the Doctor turned around uneasily. "Well, that was interesting. Time travelling ponies, Rutan aliens, inter-dimensional travel. You must be exhausted Ditzy. Let's get you home." With that, the Doctor walked out of the room, sighing contently when his hooves stopped being electrocuted. The duo made their way through the ship, eventually stopping in front of a large blue box. The Doctor walked forward and stroked it lovingly, "Hello Sexy. Did you miss me?" Pushing the door open, he walked inside, Ditzy followed him. This time, she was surprised when she saw the inside. The Doctor smiled and walked over to the controls. They had changed with him when he turned into a pony. There was noticeably more button than before, and everything was larger to accommodate for his lack of fingers. Placing his hooves on the nearest lever, he spun his head around to look at Ditzy. "So Ditzy, would you like to stop off at home, or work?" Ditzy thought for a moment, and finally responded, "I think I should sign out of work before I do anything else." "Alright then, Allonsy." He shouted, pulling the lever down. The entire machine made a strange sound, and the Doctor worked hastily. It was all over quickly. "We're here." The Doctor announced. "What? We hardly moved!" Ditzy exclaimed. The Doctor grinned, "Go take a look outside," he said.
Ditzy pushed the door open, and walked out, gasping as she recognized where she was. The TaRDiS had materialized inside her bosses office, and was now taking up a large portion of the room. She searched around for her boss, but the room was empty. The Doctor walked out of the box behind her, and breathed deeply. "Why is this room always so dusty?" Ditzy spun around quickly, trying to take it all in. Eventually, she worked her way over the door. Opening it slowly, she glanced into the next room. It showed signs of a struggle, and the vase of flowers was cracked on the ground. One of the tables was propped against the door and deep black scorch marks dotted the floor. Standing near the door, peeking out awkwardly, was a pony Ditzy recognized. Ditzy didn't know what to say in response to what happened, so she simply said what she always said when she finished a delivery. "Sir, I'm back. The letters have been delivered, the packages secured and the muffins thoroughly eaten!" Her boss turned quickly, a look of fear passing on his face. When he saw it was Ditzy, he smiled. "DITZY! You're alright! I thought those..those things had hurt you." He said quickly. He quickly gained his composure again and continued. "How did you get back in here? I thought I had plugged it up good." Ditzy shook her head, and realised something. Dropping her head sadly, she said, "Never mind that, I didn't get the time to deliver the package. I know how you hate when I screw up like this." Ditzy's boss looked at her stupidly, before replying, "Forget the package, I'm just glad you're safe. Hell, you shouldn't be wasting time here with me, you should be comforting your family. I assume you didn't miss what happened today?" Shaking her head, Ditzy just smiled knowingly. Her boss walked towards the table blocking the door, and carefully threw it away, "Then go, Ditzy! Don't wait around here." Ditzy gave a thankful nod to her boss and hurried out the door. Her boss sat around the door watching her leave, before hearing hoofsteps appear behind him. Turning, he was met with the Doctor. "Alright, I could understand Ditzy somehow getting in here, but you, Diamond?" He asked. The Doctor coughed, "Well, you know what they say about doors." The older pegasus gave a confused nod, and questioned the Doctor, "So, was she any hassle, Diamond? She's still here so you must have done something to keep her safe. And for that I thank you." "Ah, it was nothing, she did most of it herself. Now if you would excuse me, a reunion is happening! I love reunions." The Doctor ended on that note and dashed out the door, leaving the pegasus alone to clean up the building.
Ditzy glided to the fence in front of her house, and crashed painfully. As soon as she what had happened to her house, she froze. "Come on, Ditzy, Move. Just take a few steps forward." She thought to herself. However, she stood perfectly still. She was simply to worried, she wondered whether her daughters would have managed to get out in time. She was still like this when the Doctor came forward, taking special note of the house in front of him. The garden was a complete wreck, filled with craters and remains of flowers. A section of the roof had caved in, all the windows were broken, smoke billowed out of the second floor and the front door swung dangerously on a single hinge. The Doctor grabbed Ditzy, and pulled her forward. "Come on, Ditzy. Staying outside won't help anypony." Ditzy fought to stay where she was. "But what if one of them is injured. Or worse? WHAT IF BOTH ARE? I can't handle this. Not now." The Doctor kept pulling. "Ditzy, I know the feeling. It's better to go in now and know for sure than it is to sit out here worrying. Besides, I'll be here every step of the way." Ditzy took a step forward hesitantly. And another. Before she knew it, she was charging through the door. However, she tripped on the door frame, and came rolling in. She was immediately tackled from the side by something half her size. Looking down, her fears were put to rest, and she beamed happily. "Mommy!" The small grey unicorn burying itself into her side exclaimed happily. "Muffin!" Ditzy replied, tears of joy filling her eyes. "Mommy, you won't believe what happened today! Me and Sparkler were waiting for you to get home, when these pretty balloons appeared all over town. They shot out beams of pretty light, but then Sparkler said I had to get under the table, which made me sad because I wanted to watch the balloons more, then there was a loud bang and the roof came down, then lots of bangs and the garden disappeared, then they stopped and the balloons were gone. Could you see them from over in Canterlot?" Dinky said rapidly, taking in a huge breath when she was finished. Ditzy looked around for her other daughter, and she walked out of the shadows of her house. "Hey mom, it's really nice to see you're okay." She said, fighting back tears. "Come here you." Ditzy replied simply. She and Dinky were nearly knocked over when Sparkler jumped towards them. The three of them embraced, and time seemed to lose meaning. It was just the three of them, in perfect happiness. It felt like hours, maybe days, but eventually the Doctor had to break the moment. "Ditzy....Ditzy, we really need to go soon." Dinky looked up at him with puppy dog eyes and the Doctor recoiled from the sheer cute. "But..But.. She just got here." Ditzy looked at him too. "Why, Doctor? Aren't we done?" The Doctor turned away from the pile of ponies, "Well, not yet. The princess is still waiting for us up at the palace. It would be rude to keep her waiting any longer." Ditzy pulled herself away from the pile, much to the displeasure of the two in it. She dried her tears and walked towards the door. "You're right Doctor. Lets go." Before the two left, Ditzy turned back to the unicorns. "Sparkler, you're in charge until I get home. Keep Dinky out of trouble. We'll all go out for muffins when I get back." Ditzy turned to leave, but felt something grab her leg. She looked down, and Dinky asked, "Are you going to visit the princess? Can I come? Please?" Ditzy turned to the Doctor and, upon seeing his attempt at a shrug, replied honestly. "Fine. But you have to behave this time. Sparkler, are you coming too?" Sparkler laughed, and responded, "There's too much cleaning to do here to waste time. I know you two won't do it, so that leaves me. Enjoy your royal visit. I'll take care of things around here." After that, the three ponies made their way back to the post office, with Dinky riding on her mothers back the whole way.
With a proud 'Vroom,' the TaRDiS materialized into the center of the room. Poking his head out, the Doctor took in the scene. The first thing he noticed was the excessive use of streamers that hung from every possible place on the ceiling. This, combined with the fact that several balloons were floating around aimlessly, gave the room a whole party vibe. The second thing he noticed was all the ponies who had gathered. Dozens, maybe hundreds of them were standing off to the side, staring at the blue box that had appeared in the middle of the room. Following the ponies to the edge of the room, he saw some familiar faces, standing on a large stone throne. Twilight and the elements had changed into some fancier clothes. Celestia was sitting at the top of the throne, unsurprised by the Doctor's appearance. The Doctor stepped out of his time machine and glanced around the room. "Well, this is a bit fancier than I was expecting. Not that it's bad, I love a good party." Ditzy and her daughter walked out of the machine behind him. The two of them stood around awkwardly, not sure how to respond. Eventually, Celestia put them out of their misery, by calling the three ponies to the her stand. They responded quickly. Celestia seemed larger than usual on her throne, and she shouted out to the ponies gathered using the traditional Canterlot voice. "Ponies! We are here today to honour both the Doctor and Ditzy Doo, for thou efforts in helping stop the Rutan invasion. For Ditzy's brave sacrifice and determination in the face of danger, I present thou with one of the highest honours Equestria has." Finishing her sentence, Celestia turned away from the group, and pulled an intricate metal sword into the air using her magic. The sword glowed a brilliant white, and seemed to shine with all the colours of the rainbows. Ditzy took a step back, but Twilight assured her everything would be fine. Celestia carefully placed the sword on the inside of Ditzy's ear. "Ditzy Doo, By the powers given to me since I was created, I knight thou. Stand, Madam Ditzy Doo." Celesia moved the sword across Ditzy's head, resting it on the inside of her other ear. The sword was lifted into the air again, and Celestia turned to the Doctor. "For the Doctor's quick thinking, and brilliant planing in the field of battle, I give him the second highest honour he can recieve." Celestia placed the sword on the Doctors head. "By the powers given to me since I was created, I hearby absolve the Doctor from his exile in Equestria. He is now free to live in Equestria, and make a living in any way he sees fit." Although he could barely be heard against the roar of the crowd below, he voiced his confusion to the Princess anyway. "Hang on, did you just say I was exiled?" The Princess hid a look of shock, "Of course Doctor. Don't you remember? You were exiled from my kingdom 600 years ago, after a certain 'accident' happened. I figured this would be the best way to repay you. Of course, it hasn't done much to keep you out of the kingdom anyway, but at least now you might need to run a little less." "Right, of course, silly me, totally forgot that for a minute." The Doctor lied. The Princess faced away from him, and raised her voice over the crowd again. "Silence. Silence now. I'm not done yet. Despite the victory we have had here today, we can't forget the sacrifices made to make it possible. It is with a heavy heart that I mourn the loss of Diamond Polish, who gave his life to defeat the Rutans. Without his sacrifice, it may have been impossible to stop the Rutan. By the powers I possess, I knight him. May he be remembered as Sir Diamond Polish." The room went silent as everyone sat around quietly. Eventually, Celestia spoke again. "Ditzy, Doctor. Please enjoy yourselves at the party Miss Pinkie has somehow provided." With a nod, the two descended back down to the ground floor. The Doctor turned to Ditzy and asked, "Ditzy, could you help me as I move the TaRDiS out of the way?" Ditzy placed Dinky on the ground, and replied. "Sure, happy to help, but we need to get back here as quickly as possible." Before they entered though, a certain pony caught the Doctors eye. He walked away from his box to comfort him. "Solar, I'm sorry." Solar shook his head, and flapped his wings uncertainly. "It's just.....I can't believe she's gone." "If it makes you feel any better, I've lost friends too. It doesn't get easier, no matter how many times it happens. All I can do is offer my apologies." Solar looked at the Doctor, "Thanks, I think I'm gonna be fine, even though I think the worst hasn't hit me yet." The Doctor moved away from him, and rushed over to Ditzy. The two entered the machine, and it disappeared hastily, leaving empty space in it's place.
Somewhere in the garden, the TaRDiS reappeared. It sat there quietly for a moment, before the door swung open. Ditzy stepped out, glancing at the party going on inside the palace. She turned around to see whether the Doctor was following her. He wasn't. The Doctor was standing in the doorway of his machine, leaning against the side confidently. "Come on, Doctor. The party's waiting." Ditzy said energetically. The Doctor coughed, and responded, "Actually, I don't think I'll stay. Never been a fan of parties. Besides, there's much to do, many places to be. Can't slow down for a second." Ditzy looked down sadly. "So you're leaving? Will I see you again?" "Well, maybe, small universe and all." The Doctor said, looking around the gardens. "Unless of course, you want to come." Ditzy looked up quickly, "What?" "One trip. To make up for the trouble you had to go through because of me." Ditzy sat down, and thought deeply. She wanted to accept his offer, but she realized there was just to much standing in her way. "Sorry Doctor, I just can't. Dinky's waiting for me back in the palace, plus my boss isn't known for giving out free day's of work." The Doctor grinned, "There are two immortal goddesses in there, along with the six most powerful ponies of this time period. I think Dinky will be safe enough. And I'm sure I could convince your boss to let you take a break, just this once." Ditzy shook her head. "Good point, but will there be any more of those Rutan?" "Well, no. Those were the only ones in existence. Not to mention what I did would have sucked any that were hiding back to my universe." "Can you promise me, I'll be safe?" Ditzy asked. The Doctor hesitated, and glanced around nervously, "I promise that no harm will come to you while I'm around." Ditzy let out a relieved sigh, and started to walk towards the TaRDiS. The Doctor held the door open for her, but she stopped just before entering. She backtracked to where she was standing, and looked at the Doctor. "I'm sorry, but I can't just leave Dinky alone in there." The Doctor turned so he was facing the interior of his TaRDiS. "I understand. Go be with your foal." Ditzy flapped her wings and rose into the sky, as the TaRDiS dematerialized behind her. She began to make her slow way back party. Flying backwards in case the Doctor appeared again. She was so engrossed she didn't hear it appear in her path, and she crashed into it painfully. The Doctor opened the door again, and saw Ditzy lying on the ground, "Sorry about that, Ditzy. But did I mention it's a time machine?" Ditzy just stared at him blankly. The Doctor elaborated, "That means we could spend several weeks away if we wanted, and I could still just drop you off in five minutes when we're done." Ditzy smiled, "So why didn't you say that? That makes everything so much easier." The Doctor held the door open for Ditzy, and she walked in. There was a chair near one of the railings in the middle of the room, and Ditzy sat down. The Doctor moved forward and sat down next to her. "So Ditzy. All of time and space at your hooves, thousands of planets, millions of ponies, all the time in the world. Where do you want to go first?" Ditzy thought hard about where to go, and her eyes drifted together as she thought. "Can we see what happens to Dinky in the future?" She asked. The Doctors smile dropped. "I would prefer we stayed away from family on the first trip. It just makes things easier." Ditzy raised a hoof to her head and thought again. "Oh, I know the perfect place then!" She said. The doors of the TaRDiS swung closed. The blue box slowly disappeared from the garden. To anyone who heard it leave, they assumed their ears were playing tricks on them and resolved to stay away from the punch for the rest of the party. It wasn't until the party was nearly over that ponies noticed the two had left.
Dinky looked around confused. She couldn't see mommy anywhere. She wandered around aimlessly, occasionally asking some of the fancy looking unicorns whether they had seen mommy. They barely paid her any attention. She wandered around more, eventually settling in a dark corner away from the loud music and ponies. Somepony came out of the crowd, and stared at her. Ponies paid no attention to this pony either. Dinky squealed as one of the unicorns walked directly into the pony, passing through him harmlessly. He walked closer, and Dinky curled into a ball. The pony came closer, and placed a hoof on Dinky's back. "Are you alright, little pony?" Dinky poked her head out of her chest and looked up at him. He was faded blue, almost white from the amount of colour lost, and his grey mane curled in every direction. Dinky sniffled, "Wha...What's wrong wi...with your voice?" "It was an accident from a long time ago. I ask again, are you alright?" Dinky tried to dry her eyes. Mommy had told her not to trust strangers, but she was scared, "Yes, No, No. I can't find my mommy, and then it got loud, and then bright, then music started playing, and no pony will listen to me and your voice is scary and now I'm alone!" The pony attempted what Dinky assumed was a smile, but came of as more of a grimace. "Don't be sad, people don't usually notice me too. How about I leave you in the care of one of the princesses? Then we can help track down your mother." Dinky smiled, "Really?" "Sure, come on. The sooner we move the sooner we can find your mum." The black pony moved away from Dinky, and she got up to follow him. The two ventured deeper into the palace, and Dinky noticed that they had climbed a lot of stairs. Eventually, they stopped in front of a large wooden door. It swung open as they moved closer, and standing in the doorway was Princess Luna. She was a dark purple alicorn and her mane mimicked the night sky as it flowed through the air. She faced Dinky's escort, and asked him, "Is this her? Dinky?" "Yes." Luna sighed, and motioned for the filly to enter the room. Dinky did so quickly, leaving the two ponies at the door. Luna spoke first, "Virus, tou don't need to do this. I beg you, stop now while you can." Virus let out a chuckle, "One day, Luna, you will see that what I'm doing is for the greater good. And when you do, things will become a lot easier for me." Virus walked away before the Princess could respond. His hooves tapped lightly against the stone, growing quiet as he walked further away. When he decided that he was far enough away, he closed his eyes. He could see the time vortex in front of him. Twisting and turning, breaking apart and repairing itself, splitting and falling apart as he watched. He saw the familiar blue box whiz through it, and followed it, leaving a cold wind in his wake.
Inside the TaRDiS, Ditzy was being tossed around by the sudden shaking. "Doctor, What's going on?" The Doctor released the larger smile Ditzy had ever seen. "I have no idea Ditzy. Lets find out together." The Doctor quickly ran around the console and pushed down a single button dramatically. The machine lurched as the Doctor cried out, "ALLONSY!"
