Fluttershy had run from Sweet Apple Acres, across Ponyville to the Everfree Forest, jumping at every shadow as the sun went down. As she neared her cottage, she slowed to a walk, listening for anything unusual. A rustle in some bushes made her shriek; she chastised herself when a baby squirrel darted out.
“Fluttershy,” she told herself, “You need to stop being such a filly. You just have to get one of those notes and get back to the… tardess? TARDIS, that’s it. And besides, the Doctor said it probably wasn’t anything.”
-----------
“So Doctor,” began Kiwi, watching the door Fluttershy had recently exited. “This event, us being here, Fluttershy’s notes, her being scared; if it probably isn’t anything, does that mean it’s almost certainly fine? Is it safe?”
“Oh, no it’s definitely dangerous.” The Doctor murmured from the other side of the console.
“But you said it’s probably nothing!” Pistachio said worriedly. “Why would you say that?”
“The Doctor lies.”
Fluttershy walked up the path to her front door and tried to stifled her fear at what she saw.
A new note.
It’s fine, the timid pegasus thought. It’s just a note. Completely fine. In fact, I’ll just take this one right back to the Doctor.
She picked up the note, chuckling to herself, “See? It’s just a note. And I’ll be nice and safe once I get back to-”
A twig snapped.
Fluttershy dropped the slip of paper, turning just in time to see a dark shape come flying into her vision. It thudded into her head and she fell like a stone, not even able to call out ‘who’s there.’
“Why would you lie to Fluttershy?” Kiwi demanded.
“To make her feel better,” the Doctor said defensively. “She’s a worrier, and we don’t need to worry her any more than is necessary. We don’t just want to scare her for nothing.”
“Sure, but now she’s alone out there with something potentially very dangerous!” Exclaimed Pistachio. “One of us should have gone with her.”
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed with concern. He hit his forehead with a hoof. “How did I not think of that?” He looked at the mares. “If, you give me a tic, we’ll be off to Fluttershy’s now.”
He quickly hit a few buttons and the TARDIS began to disappear. Soon there was nothing in the East Orchard but apple trees and darkness.
~wwrrt wwrrt wwrrt~
The blue box materialized on the ground, a few yards away from Fluttershy’s cottage. The door swung open as the three ponies burst out.
“Fluttershy!” Pistachio was yelling. “Are you okay?” But there was no reply; Fluttershy was long gone.
“Damn it,” swore the Doctor. “Where is she?”
The three friends scattered, looking in vain for the missing pony. Pistachio ran up to the door of the cottage. “Maybe she’s inside? FLUTTERSHY! Are you here?” She turned to the others. “Maybe we should go in.”
“No need,” the Doctor said slowly. “She never made it inside.”
Kiwi stopped prodding a bush to look at him. “How do you know?”
“Well for starters, the most recent foot prints-”
“Hoof prints,” Pistachio interrupted.
“Whatever. The most recent hoof prints are definitely these,” the Doctor indicated some light prints in the dirt. And they only come this far up the path; not reaching the door.” He gestured to the door, inches away.
“That’s maybe three inches off,” judged Kiwi, squinting to see the hoof print in the moon light. “She could have easily just continued on inside.”
The stallion shook his head. “Nope, th-”
“Chuck Testa.”
The Doctor glared at the blue mare for a moment then continued.
“As I was saying, Fluttershy couldn’t have gone inside because this print,” he pointed to the one nearest the door, “is the only one of its stride, meaning that if our pegasus friend continued on inside, there would be three other hoof prints around this one.”
“Right!” yelled Kiwi, kicking at the ground. “If she’s not inside, she must be in the forest! Let’s go find her!”
“But why would she leave?” mused Pistachio. “Was she being chased or something?”
“She didn’t go willingly,” murmured the Doctor, inspecting the ground off to the side of the path.
“Oh dear,” whispered Pistachio, eyes wide as she and Kiwi went to where the brown pony was frowning at the earth below him.
“This big indent,” he patted it, “could easily have been formed by a body hitting the ground here. And then this trail,” he pointed to a trail of broken and flattened grass, “could be the result of someone dragging something, possibly a pony, in that direction,” he nodded to the Everfree forest.
“So there is something else here,” breathed Pistachio.
“Well now we know where they went,” prompted Kiwi. “So let’s go! We might be able to catch up with them if we go now.” She turned to the trail, preparing to charge into the woods.
“No. They’re long gone,” the Doctor said. “We’d never catch them.”
Kiwi huffed and turned back to the others. “So they’re fast?”
“Well faster than a pony certainly,” the Doctor said. “If you drag something slowly, it creates a huge and obvious track. But this one is small and disappears in a few places, like the object hit a bump and left the ground momentarily.”
“That means, whatever we’re dealing with, it’s strong,” reasoned Kiwi. “If it can drag a pony at such speeds that the pony goes in the air at times, this thing must be really strong. Even a cut marshmallow pony is still a pony, thus weighing so,” she finished with a yawn.
“Right, good thinking, nodded the Doctor. “So can we now all agree that Fluttershy and her assailants are long gone? We’re not going to catch them tonight, right?”
“Sure.”
“Yep.”
“I’m glad we’re all agreed,” smiled the Doctor. “Now’s there’s nothing else to be done tonight, so you two, get in the TARDIS and go to bed. Now.”
“But,” Pistachio began to protest, eyes drooping.
“No,” the Doctor cut her off. “This has been an enormously gigantic and excruciatingly exciting day for you two. But you need some sleep. I promise we’ll help Fluttershy first thing tomorrow, but for now, go.”
“Okay,” the unicorn and earthpony mumbled as they obediently walked back to the TARDIS. Once inside, Pistachio curled up in the big armchair and Kiwi sprawled (in a rather un-pony way) out on the couch.
“Big day, huh?” mumbled Kiwi.
“Oh yea. And another, bigger one tomorrow.” Pistachio sleepily replied.
“Goodnight,” Kiwi said, closing her eyes. Hearing no response, she opened an eye to glance at the pink pony, who was already sound asleep. The blue unicorn chuckled and closed her eyes again, falling asleep almost instantly.
Kiwi’s eyes fluttered open as a wonderful aroma entered her nose. She smiled to herself.
Coffee: the lifeblood of man-kind.
She shook herself and got up, wobbly on two hind legs. Her front legs flailed out in front of her as she fell back on the couch. She lifted her blue hooves, inspecting them for a moment.
What the hell?
And then the previous day’s events came rushing back to her. She blinked, standing again, only this time on all four legs.
Right, I’m a pony now, she thought. So I guess it did all happen… The crash, the CMC, the pocket and… And Fluttershy has been abducted.
“You getting used to it again too?”
Kiwi turned to see Pistachio coming out of a nearby hallway, carrying a tray with a pot of coffee, two cups, and a ton of creamer.
“Yeah,” the blue mare returned. “Waking up a pony will take some getting used to, but waking up on the TARDIS seems normal now, so it shouldn’t be too hard to adjust. Hey, bring that coffee over here.”
“That’s just what I was doing,” the earthpony smiled. “I finally found the kitchen and you would not believe how many types of coffee creamer the Doctor has. Here, hazelnut?” she offered as she reached the couch.
“No thanks,” But I’m feeling some good vibes from that French Vanilla.” Using her magic, she picked up a mug and filled it with coffee and creamer. Smiling, she took a sip.
“Now that’s some good coffee,” she browsed among the other creamers. “He has an impressive collection for a guy, correction, a pony who doesn’t even drink coffee.”
“Yea, well in my defense, the stuff is horrid,” the Doctor said as he entered the TARDIS.
“That’s what the creamer is for,” Pistachio said.
“Oh I know, that’s why I have so much,” the brown pony said as he came to stand by the two mares. “I just haven’t found one that I like yet.”
Kiwi levitated one of the flavors in front of the Doctor. “Apple Spice Creamer? Were you desperate?”
“Yes,” the Doctor said defensively. “Although that one actually wasn’t that bad.”
Pistachio rolled her eyes. “Weren’t we gonna rescue Fluttershy today?”
“Oh, right, yes,” the Doctor grew serious. “I kept looking around after I sent you two inside and found this.” He showed them a small piece of paper. “I’m guessing this is one of the notes Fluttershy was receiving. But even considering our yellow friend kept getting these notes repeatedly, I can’t see why she was so frightened by them. Maybe you two with your,” he raised an eyebrow (like Fluttershy!) at them, “content knowledge of this place could figure out what about these notes scared her.” He handed (hoofed?) over the note.
Pistachio and Kiwi’s eyes widened as they looked at the note.
PLEASE HELP ME.
A RECENT MUDSLIDE COLLAPSED THE ENTRANCE TO A RABBIT FAMILY’S HOME.
SOME ARE STUCK INSIDE. I CAN’T MOVE THE ROCKS MYSELF.
PLEASE COME HELP ME.
(30, 105, 417) 224
“Well for starters, it’s typed,” Kiwi stated. “Ponies don’t have sophisticated computers. Fluttershy’s probably never seen anything typed before.”
“Oh,” said the Doctor. “I suppose I just over estimated their civilization’s advancity.”
“That’s okay,” said Pistachio, “But what are these numbers? Are they-”
“Coordinates? Yes I think so. At least the first three are,” confirmed the Doctor. “Pistachio, cold you put that into the navigatory plotter? See, I’m guessing whatever we’re dealing with tried to lure Fluttershy by giving her an incentive and coordinates to find where to go, but I guess they also over-estimated these tiny equines. But this note also gives us two vital pieces of information. First: thanks to these coordinates, we know generally where they are, or where they wanted Fluttershy to be. Second: the Coordinates simply being there tells us that whatever it is, it’s fairly sophisticated.”
“Uh, Doctor,” Pistachio called from the console. “The coordinates leave us in dead space; there’s nothing here.”
“Oh, we dimension hopped didn’t we? Right,” the Doctor glanced back down at the note. “Pistachio,” he called. “At the corner of the navigatory plotter, it should say 107. Change that to 224, and that should get us onto the right plane.”
The pink pony hit a few buttons and, checking the output monitor, declared, “Yep, we’ve got a point on a planet now.”
Kiwi trotted up to her friend. “Can you also display our current location? I want to see just how far we’ll be traveling. Are we even staying on this planet?”
Pistachio flipped a switch and another point appeared, inches away on the monitor from the other. “Wherever we’re going, it’s pretty close. Maybe they have a base here or something.”
“Probably,” the Doctor contemplated. “The coordinates should get us close. I suggest we-”
There came a series of thumps on the door. “Oh now what?” the Doctor complained. He walked to the door of the TARDIS and, opening it, looked out. Not seeing anyone (anypony seems rather subjective), he turned back.
“There’s no- OW!” he exclaimed, looking down to see a very impatient rabbit. “That… angry bunny just stomped on my foot!” he cried indignantly.
“Hoof,” corrected Pistachio, coming to the door, followed by Kiwi.
“Shut up!”
“Touchy, touchy,” the blue unicorn shook her head as she passed the Doctor. She stooped down to the rabbit. “Why hello there! I bet you’re Angel.”
THUMP
The rabbit had promptly turned and kicked the unicorn in the face.
“Oh my, ow… SHIT!”
“Yep, that’s definitely Angel Bunny,” smirked Pistachio.
Angel scowled at each of them then held up another note in one paw. The Doctor took it and, reading it, walked towards the cottage, talking to the bunny. “Another note. Different story about the animals, same coordinates. Are there more notes inside?” Angel nodded, hopping in the front door. The Doctor nodded to Kiwi and Pistachio, motioning for them to follow.
They entered Fluttershy’s cottage and followed Angel to a stack of notes and papers. The rabbit laid out before them an array of notes, notices, pamphlets and fliers. The Doctor wandered off to look around another room, as Kiwi and Pistachio studied the papers.
“What are these, Angel?” the earthpony asked the irritable rodent, who, in return, continued to glare at her and raised an eyebrow (must be where Fluttershy got it!).
“Well you don’t have to be rude…” Kiwi muttered. “Where did you get these?”
Angel sighed exasperatedly, facepaw’d and picked up a pamphlet. He then thrust it out to the two confused ponies. They read it, finally beginning to understand. The front flap of the pamphlet read:
Canterlot Fashion Industry:
In Peril
Many of the big names in Canterlot fashion have not been meeting the public’s expectations of late. Canterlot needs new and innovative ideas for fashion, and we, the Canterlot Society of Fashionable Clothing, think YOU may be the solution to this problem. In two weeks, there will be a major fashion show just outside of Canterlot. We would love for you to attend. Read on to find out more about this amazing opportunity!
“Woah,” Pistachio murmured, opening the pamphlet. “This sounds majorly like a ploy.” Angel Bunny rolled his eyes.
“Yeah? Listen to this.” Kiwi began reading aloud bits of the inside of the pamphlet. “We will provide lodging and materials… you need only bring yourself… One mile out from Canterlot… Thirty, one oh five, four seventeen… it’s the same coordinates!”
“Rarity had to have seen this!” exclaimed Pistachio. “Why else would something like this end up in Ponyville? It’s like Fluttershy’s note! It had to be-”
“A lure,” the Doctor finished, head poking into the room. He walked fully in. “See, that makes sense. Fluttershy said her friends were also missing, so one could assume they each had some sort of lure.” He addressed Angel, “Where did you find each of these?”
Pistachio smirked as the little rodent began squeaking to the Doctor. She muttered to Kiwi, “Like that’s gonna work.” The brown stallion glanced at them, and then back to Angel, occasionally nodding. When the rabbit was done, the Doctor looked up at Kiwi and Pistachio.
“He says they were all found in the homes belonging to ponies named Rarity, Twilight, Apple Jack, Rainbow Dash and… Pinkie Pie. I’m assuming you two know of them. All of the notes have these same coordinates, and we can have all of them.”
Kiwi smiled, rolling her eyes. “He speaks rabbit. Should’ve guessed that.”
Pistachio chuckled, saying, “Do we really need all those papers? We already have the coordinates, so I say we should just go.”
“Right. You too, in the TARDIS, let’s go right now.” He turned to the little white rabbit. “And thanks for your help, Daemon Fire, we’ll soon find Fluttershy.” The Doctor then turned and shepherded the two mares out the door and back to the TARDIS, glared at all the way by the rabbit.
Once back in the big blue box, the Doctor skipped (as well as a pony can skip) up to the console and flicked switches, smiling in anticipation. His hoof rested on a large lever, “Are you two ready? We may be attacked the second we arrive.”
Kiwi and Pistachio looked at each other, both steeled for their mission.
“We’re ready,” Kiwi growled.
“Alright then, let’s go find some ponies,” the Doctor pulled the lever. The TARDIS rocked back and began to disappear.
~wwrrt wwrrt wwrrt~
The TARDIS materialized in the midst of some large trees, near a mountain outcrop covered in bushes. The blue box fully appeared and sat quietly in the forest. “Here we are. Bit of a walk there, I’m guessing,” he smiled at the other two ponies. He leaped down to the main floor, stopping by them on his way to the door.
“Are you two sure you’re ready? I’m not sure what’s out there. It may be dangerous.”
“It’s alright Doctor,” Pistachio assured.
“Yeah, we can manage,” agreed Kiwi.
The Doctor looked at her sharply. “You don’t know that. You never actually fought anyone, and you may find yourself fighting for your life and I don’t want to be responsible for… We’re wasting time, come on then.” And with that, he quietly opened the door and walked outside.
Kiwi glanced at Pistachio, murmuring, “Ever since that incident with the lock, he seems to always be impatient with me…”
Pistachio nuzzled her friend, trying to cheer her up. “Yea, I’ve noticed a bit, but he might not even realize he’s doing it,” she offered. “You know he stresses the small stuff a lot, but he still shouldn’t take it out on you. C’mon, he’ll be waiting outside.” Pistachio nudged Kiwi, and they started towards the door.
The unicorn sighed. “I- I just feel like I’m letting him down. He has no sonic, so I’m supposedly the next best thing… But I just don’t know how to do the sonic screwdriver-y stuff…”
“Letting the Doctor down,” Pistachio chuckled, reaching the door. “Celestia forbid.” She turned to Kiwi. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Now shh, let’s go kick some alien butt.”
“Plot. Some alien plot,” Kiwi chuckled as they exited the TARDIS and made their way through the foliage. After a few minutes of walking, they caught up to the Doctor, who was crouching in the bushes at an outcrop, looking into the small valley below. He put a hoof to his mouth, indicating that they should be silent. Waving them over, he waited until they were far enough into the bush, then pointed into the valley.
Kiwi stifled a gasp, Pistachio bit her lip. “That’s worse than I was expecting,” the pink pony whispered.
The Doctor nodded silently, studying the structure below. There was a huge metal dome about three hundred yards in diameter, with a large satellite reaching from the center.
“What is it?” whispered Kiwi.
“That, I’m only guessing of course, would be their base,” murmured the Doctor. “See, if you look down there,” he pointed, squinting, to an opening on the side of the dome. “That appears to be an entrance, well, or an exit because something just came out.”
All three ponies in the bush looked down to see a large creature step out from a door-like opening in the dome. Its head and upper body glinted in the sunlight, making it hard to discern what the alien fully looked like.
“Doctor, why is its head all shiny?” Pistachio hissed.
“It’s wearing a helmet, and some sort of armor,” the Doctor whispered in reply.
“Well then those things sure have a lot of armor,” muttered Kiwi. “But what are they?”
“I can’t really tell from here, but they appear to have 2 arms, 2 legs and a tail. That really narrows it down…” the Doctor said sarcastically. “I need to get a closer look to decide what to do next. C’mon now, let’s get out of this bush and go take a peek at those things,” he said, wriggling backwards out of the bush. Kiwi and Pistachio followed, blinking in the bright sunlight as they emerged. As the three ponies stood, they were simultaneously hit in the back of the head. They all were knocked back to the ground and, as their vision began to blur, a large, sinister, reptilian creature in full body armor approached, with many more around it.
“Time travelers,” the creature hissed. “You are surrounded. Sleep now.”
The other reptile-like aliens all pulled out small canisters, each with a nozzle. Pointing them at the ponies, the aliens clicked a button and a sickly sweet gas slipped out towards them.
Eyes closing, Kiwi rasped out “oh shit” before slipping into oblivion.
Pistachio’s nose itched. She reached up a hoof to scratch it—but couldn’t. Her eyes snapped open, she was alert at once. She tried yanking her hooves outward, but found that they were clamped to a metal surface above her head. She attempted to kick her back legs, but they were clamped down too. She struggled to turn her head, but it too was immobile. Thankfully, there was also a thick metal clamp around midsection which kept all her weight off her front hooves. She struggled and writhed against her confinements more, but finally gave up, panting.
“Don’t bother strugglin’ there, sugar cube. Only makes it hurt more.” a tired voice came from her side. She couldn’t see who was addressing her (due to the lack of head movement), but she instead looked straight ahead, surveying the room. It was circular, with a large pulsing tank of what looked like shimmery water. Connecting to the floor was a metal contraption, with a complex computer and a few slots. Where the tank met the ceiling, smaller tubes snaked from the ceiling to the walls, where each tube went into the large slate of metal. And manacled to each of those slates was a pony.
Pistachio’s eyes widened in horror and fangirlness –don’t judge— as she recognized the ponies. The room held nine ponies in all. Clockwise from Pistachio were; the Doctor (who was grunting and beginning to come to), Rainbow Dash (asleep), a silently weeping Fluttershy, Twilight (pale and unmoving), a half-dead and limp Rarity, Kiwi (who was unconscious but panting and sweating, as though in a nightmare), a smiling Pinkie Pie, staring straight ahead, and Apple Jack.
“Apple Jack?” That you? Where are we?” the petite pink pony croaked through a rough, dry throat.
“Pardon? How do you know mah name?” the orange earth pony inquired. “No matter. We’re basically in a room where they suck the magic out of us. See that tank in th’ middle o’ the room? It’s full o’ pure magic.”
Pistachio looked carefully at the shimmering substance again, “Magic? But how do they extract it? And we’re earth ponies, we don’t have any magic.”
“Well, ah don’t know what part of Equestria yer from, but we earth ponies still have magic. We just can’t manipulate it as abstractly as unicorns or pegusi. Our magic is more basic; it keeps us healthy and strong. Anyway, see these metal clamps keepin’ us in place? Ah reckon they’re suckin’ the magic right outta us. But then of course they always come and drain us too,”
“Drain you?” the small pony asked.
“Yep,” sighed AJ. “Drain us. They come every day, at least ah think every day, ah can’t tell if it’s night or day, and stick big needles into us and draw out a lot o’ blood. They take so much that we pass out and then they come again the next day. They take as much as they can while keeping us alive, so we can keep givin’ em more. But ah know ah have never have enough in me at one time, so ah always feel pretty sick. But poor Twa’light an’ Rarity. Once they got blood drawn, neither has woken up…”
The Doctor, fully awake now, entered the conversation. “The, ah, aliens who draw the blood from you, what do they look like and do you know what they call themselves?”
“Sure,” replied Apple Jack. “The first day Twi and ah were here, they told us they’re called the Komadar. They’re big, almost dragon-like fellah’s, they have big heads with scary teeth, always wearin’ armor and they have these big metal tails that can probably do a lot of damage with. And along with that, they have these really thick bodies and short arms. They’re legs are pretty short to but those things look strong. Bet they could buck more’n a few apples.”
“Ah, the Komadar,” said the Doctor,” I haven’t heard much from them in a couple centuries, I guess they’ve grown more advanced. But why are they here?
“Well they’re harvesting the magic,” AJ said matter-of-factly. “They keep talking ‘bout how they need more energy, but we’re too weak, although if ya ask me, I think we’d be a lot stronger if they fed us more than some water every day. But hush now, he’s comin’.”
Heavy footsteps fell; steadily coming nearer to the room.
“Who’s he?” Pistachio hissed.
“The one who takes our blood,” Apple Jack whispered. “Now shush!’
All were silent as a metal door between Rarity and Kiwi slid open and an armored Komadar in dark green scrubs walked slowly into the room, the door sliding shut behind it.
The Komadar pulled on some plastic surgical gloves while visually inspecting an unconscious Kiwi.
“This is a weak pony, “it muttered to itself. “Has not yet lost blood, but is still asleep.” It turned to the Doctor and Pistachio. “But these two are awake. Hello travelers, I am called Medidar 107.”
“Now that’s not really very gender specific, now is it?” smirked the Doctor.
“You know our race. It tells enough, Doctor.”
The brown pony raised an eyebrow.
The pink pony gasped.
The orange pony looked confused.
The other pink pony blinked and continued smiling.
The Medidar shook his head, smiling. “But of course, Doctor. Two hearts is a rather hard thing to miss in an x-ray. Fortunately, the inner linings of those hearts contain more pure energy than any of these ponies here. And you really only need one of those hearts to pump your precious life-blood. So unfortunately, for you, we will be “borrowing” one. And looking on the bright side, if you go and die on me, that’s always just another heart towards solving the problem.”
The Doctor frowned slightly. “Well that’s a bit worse than I expected…”
“A bit worse? Are you crazy!?” Pistachio said, voice shaking in horror. “He’s freaking going to CUT OUT ONE OF YOUR HEARTS!”
“Yea, well one is better than none,” the brown pony reasoned.
“Are you out of your mind? How are you so calm!?”
The Doctor smiled sadly, looking across the room at the unconscious Kiwi, and said quietly to the pink pony beside him, “Maybe I’m buying time, maybe I just like to talk, but maybe…” He paused. “Maybe it’s just important to put on a brave face when you’re fighting a losing battle.”
“I-I… I’m so sorry, Doctor,” whispered Fluttershy from the other side of the room. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into this…” The yellow pegasus’ body shook under the weight of silent tears.
“You don’t need to apologize, Fluttershy,” he tried to smile. “I’m just sorry I—”
“Silence Doctor,” interrupted the Komadar., who had finished gathering an array of scary-looking pokey things. “Soon, it begins!”
*author note* thanks for sticking around thus far. I know the beginning was weird, but now the story actually picks up some momentum in the next chapter, if I do say so myself... more action. sooooo, thanks -mindboggled