Applejack squinted. “What in tarnation…”
“Are those fireworks?” her cousin asked, incredulous.
“No,” Colgate replied, “too focused. I think that’s some kind of signal flare!”
Applejack turned to Colgate, hope sparkling in her eyes. “Can you do that?” she asked.
“Yeah. Really basic spell, you just have to focus your magic and shoot.” She paused and rubbed the magic blocker on her horn. "It's low-power enough to get through this, I think."
“Right. Jes’ signal ‘em over, an’ that oughta do us jes’ fine. We’re home ‘n’ away!”
Colgate screwed up her face tight and golden sparks shot from the tip of her horn, fizzling like shooting stars. In the flat plane, such a signal could be seen for miles and miles around. The difficulty, of course, with such signals, is that one can’t really control who sees it. From places where they had lain dormant for— well. Time has no meaning in the interstitial space, or at least none that we comprehend. Let us say, therefore, that from where they had stayed, frozen for lifetimes, white robots turned to stare at the two showers of sparks. Then, with creaking joints and slow, deliberate movements, they turned and walked toward the source.
***
The Doctor let out a whoop of joy as the golden sparks shot up into the air from several miles away. “We got ‘em!” he crowed, cantering toward the signal. “Oh, well done, Rarity! Come on, let’s go meet them in the middle.”
Rarity trotted after the Time Lord, but Calco hung back, glancing over his shoulder with an expression of deepest concern. “Perhaps I should stay here, to watch over the portal,” he suggested.
The Doctor glanced back. “Well. Could do, yeah. Or, you could just close it up and rip open a new one once we get there.”
“Er,” Calco muttered. “I guess I could…”
“Well, come on then, let’s get on with it!” the Doctor concluded, turning back and trotting toward the distant sparks once more.
Calco turned and concentrated on the portal, eyes darting and mouth drawn. Slowly, the gate back to the real world shrunk away, fading into whiteness. Just before it faded into nothingness, it slowed, hesitating. A bead of sweat condensed on the Tharil’s nose, and the last vestiges of Gaea faded away. Above him, white; below him, white; white before and behind him, white to either side.
There is a condition deep-sea divers often get. They panic, believing suddenly that the ocean is all there is, that they will never see the land or sky again. The sea is a terrifying place, massive to the point of seeming endlessness and filled with strange and unusual creatures who might not understand you, or even wish you harm. The sea is not unique in any of this.
Filled with trepidation and a growing, unnamed terror, Calco turned to stumble after the others— the last glimmers of normalcy and a comprehensible world in this infinite whiteness.
***
Miles and miles away, Caramel was also feeling a little less than courageous. The hairs at the back of his neck prickled, as though feeling the gaze from unseen eyes. His own eyes darted left and right to the point that it seemed as though he were watching a game of tennis. A cold sweat drizzled down his spine with all the speed and energy of molasses. “I really don’t like this,” he muttered.
Applejack stopped midstride and turned to face her cousin. “That’s th’ third time y’all said that in the last ten minutes. We get it already, but we’re stuck here, so quit yer bellyachin’.”
“But it’s creepy!” Caramel whined.
His cousin raised an eyebrow. “An’ is complainin’ gonna make it any better?”
The candymaker lowered his gaze. “...No,” he sighed.
Applejack nodded in satisfaction and turned back to the shower of blue sparks visible on the horizon. Then, frowning, she looked behind her. “Where’s Colgate?”
“Uh?” Caramel gaped, glancing around. “She was here a second ago!”
“Consarnit, she can’t’ve jest disappeared!” Applejack scowled, scanning the horizon. “An’ it ain’t like she can hide, either.”
Caramel’s eyes widened. “AJ? Colgate was our signal flare.”
Applejack’s scowl tightened as his words sunk in. “Well, we can still see the others, Ah reckon, so we still got that goin’ for us.”
No reply. Applejack turned to look at her cousin, but there was nopony there. Her eyebrows shot up. “Aw, shoot,” she muttered, glancing around her.
Before, she hadn’t quite seen what Caramel meant about the ‘creepy’ aspect of the void. To her mind, ‘creepy’ was a word reserved for Nightmare Night, and maybe Changelings. ‘Creepy’ implied some kind of impending scare, a sense of anticipation. This place was just plain ol’ boring. There hadn’t been much impending anything here. But now that she was all alone? Standing in an empty, white vacuum? Yeah. She could see how this might be considered creepy. As a matter of fact, she was beginning to border on the out-and-out spooked.
She cleared her throat. It felt as dry as the buffalo lands west of Appaloosa. “Now listen here,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster. “Ah recognize that mah friends ‘n’ Ah might be trespassin’ on your property, or summatlike. Ah’m right sorry ‘bout that, but we don’t want no trouble. We jes’ want t’ get home. So, iffin y’all could be so neighborly enough to let mah friends go-”
Applejack blinked. For a moment, she thought something had moved, but there was still nothing but empty whiteness. There was, however, an unexpected draft on her head. Her hat was gone. In the vast expanse of white, there was another flicker of motion, as quick as a rattlesnake. Applejack, however, was quicker. She turned tail and galloped toward the blue signal flare as fast as her legs would carry her. She had to get away, had to warn the others. That whatever-it-was may have had stealth, but she was confident that she could outpace it. She risked a glance back. Nothing. She turned forward once more, just in time to see a flicker of motion just ahead of her. Then, everything went black.
***
The Doctor frowned. “The sparks have gone,” he said.
Rarity scanned the horizon. “Are you sure? Perhaps you’re just not looking the right way,” she suggested.
“No. No, they’re definitely gone,” the Doctor said, a note of concern creeping into his voice.
“Perhaps Dr. Colgate couldn’t maintain the spell?” Calco suggested from his position directly behind the Doctor.
“What, a little spell like this? That hardly seems likely,” Rarity sniffed.
Calco shook his head. “She had a magic-blocker on so that. Er."
The Doctor frowned. "Er?"
"So that she... wouldn't... fight back when I had to hypnotize her."
The Doctor stopped dead. "Excuse me?"
"We've been over it already," Rarity said. "Believe me, I intend to make my feelings fully known once everypony is safe and sound at home."
The Doctor scowled at Calco, who looked resolutely away. "I'm surprised she was able to shoot sparks at all," he said.
Rarity’s eyebrows knit. “Well, regardless of the explanation, it is undeniable that they are not signaling, and thus we have no heading.”
“True,” the Doctor agreed. “We should probably stay here. We wouldn’t want to start walking away from them, after all.”
“I remember from which direction their signal came,” Calco said. “I can lead the way.”
“Sure, yeah, let's follow the hypnotist lion who dumped out friends into the void."
Calco winced.
"Doctor," Rarity said warningly.
"Anyway, there’s really no rush,” the Doctor continued with a shrug. “Which is nice, actually. There’s usually a lot more running involved in these situations. ‘Course, I expect we’ve all had enough of that for today, eh, Rarit- Rarity?”
The Doctor turned around. There was a distinct lack of unicorn in the area. “Where’d she go?” he asked, perplexed.
Calco inhaled sharply. “The tales are true, then,” he whispered, glancing around warily. “The voidmen— they’re real!”
The Doctor frowned. “Hold on. The what?”
Calco’s eyes darted. “Voidmen. Invisible beings that live in the space between worlds. They kidnap unwary travellers and turn them into more voidmen!”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? How do you know that?”
Calco stared. “Once they’re kidnapped, they’re never seen again.”
“Hm.” The Doctor glanced about thoughtfully. “Very interesting. You know, that sounds quite familiar— some story I heard once, or something. Perhaps… yes, it might just be helpful if I were to shed a little light on the subject.”
So saying, he whipped out his sonic and pointed it directly behind Calco. The blue-green light played over a metal chestplate, tube-like arms, and a head that resembled something between a microwave oven and a cardboard box. It was a robot, painted completely white so as to blend in with its surroundings. The Doctor blinked, lowering the screwdriver. “Well. I wasn’t expecting that,” he said. A moment later, he was grabbed from behind and hauled into the air.
***
Rarity was dumped unceremoniously to what shall be for convenience’s sake referred to as the ground. It was much harder than what one would expect, almost like a stage. Of course, one would hardly expect a void to have any kind of ground at all, so the point was perhaps moot. She glared up at her almost invisible captor. “Ruffian!” she spat.
The kidnapper did not reply. “It’s no good,” a voice said glumly. “They don’t talk.”
Rarity turned in surprise. “Caramel?” she asked. “Where are you?”
“Oh, sorry,” the stallion replied, stepping out of what appeared to be empty space. “These guys are everywhere.” He tapped a robotic leg directly to his left. “It really doesn’t help that you can’t see them.”
Rarity peered a little closer. She could just barely see the vague outline of a bipedal figure. “What are they? Minotaurs? Dressed in armor, perhaps?”
The confectioner shrugged helplessly. “I wish I knew. They got Colgate and Applejack, too, but both of them had to be knocked out.”
Rarity frowned. “Well. The Doctor and Calco are still out there,” she began, but was interrupted by another two bodies crashing to the ground.
“Ow,” the Doctor complained. “These fellows have terrible manners.”
Rarity sighed. “I stand corrected.”
The Doctor glanced up and beamed. “Ah, good! We’re all together then, I presume?”
“For all the good it does, yes,” Caramel agreed flatly.
The Time Lord beamed, apparently oblivious to the sarcasm. “Then as soon as our friend here wakes up, we can be on our merry way, can’t we?”
Rarity nodded slowly. “The idea does have merit,” she allowed. “But regrettably, Colgate and Applejack are also unconscious.”
The Doctor shrugged. “They’ll wake up soon, I expect. Anyway, we can just drag ‘em through the portal after us.”
“That is true,” Rarity agreed, brightening somewhat.
Caramel stared. “...Huh?” he managed.
“Explanations later,” the Doctor replied. “Right now, we’ve got these chaps to worry about.” He waved a hoof in the air, vaguely indicating the camouflaged robots.
“They don’t seem particularly inclined to harm us,” Rarity said doubtfully.
“Well, no,” the Doctor allowed. “That’s true. But I’ve crossed paths with them before, they’re generally working for some sort of greater power. The Master of Fiction, the Cybermen, a boy named Jason… long story, that one. Anyway, let’s just say that their presence generally doesn’t mean anything good.”
“How not good?” Caramel asked, nervously glancing at where he supposed a robot might be hiding.
The Doctor shrugged. “Depends. They might convert us into Cybermen, shoot us with lasers, put us in a book and close the cover, anything. For now, though, they seem content merely to keep us imprisoned, so I presume that they’re waiting for their boss to show up.”
Rarity nodded. “So we shouldn’t be too unduly concerned.”
“I shouldn’t say so.”
“How ‘bout being duly concerned?” Caramel asked, voice still strained. “Can we do that?”
The Doctor gave him a long, searching look. Then, he frowned. “What’s that on your leg?”
Caramel looked down in surprise. “This? It’s just something I found in one of Colgate’s back rooms. Why?”
The Doctor grabbed Caramel’s leg and held it closer to his eyes. His mouth fell open and his eyes went wide. “That’s a vortex manipulator,” he said.
“A… what?”
“Cheap and shoddy sort of time machine. I mean, it works, but if you compare the TARDIS to, let’s say, a steam locomotive, this is a… a space hopper in a catapult.”
“A time machine?” Caramel asked, staring at the device. “How does it work?”
“Well, you plug in the coordinates here, then hit the big button here. Though—” he broke off, peering closer. “This one’s got several sets of coordinates programmed into it already.”
Rarity stared at the band. “And… can it carry multiple passengers?”
“Well, I… suppose… Yes, it probably could. Never seen more than two at a time, but there’s no real reason it couldn’t be more. I might need to modify its stability just a tad. But everypony’s going to have to hold on to Caramel.” He pulled out his sonic and began to fiddle with the controls. Caramel, for his part, just stood awkwardly with one hoof in the air.
“Whazzat then?” a muzzy, dazed voice asked. “What’s goin’ on?”
Rarity smiled as an orange head topped with a now rather dishevelled blonde mane poked out of empty space. “Glad to see you’re awake at last, Applejack. Could you be a dear and drag Colgate over? We all need to touch your cousin.”
The earth pony frowned muzzily. “Ah don’t swing that way, an' Ah'm taken anyhow. ‘Sides, he’s mah cousin!”
The unicorn turned red. “Not like that,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Really, Applejack, get your mind out of the gutter!”
The farmer smirked. “Jes’ funnin’ with ya,” she replied, ducking back behind the camouflaged wall.
“Really, that mare…” Rarity fumed. Then, she paused. “What do you mean, you're taken?”
There was a pause so pregnant that it was already in the delivery room, suffering terrible contractions and swearing a blue streak. “Uh. Jes’ a minnit,” Applejack muttered.
A few moments later, the orange mare reappeared, pulling Colgate by her tail behind her. She let the unicorn slide to the ground. “Right. Sorry ‘bout that. Granny always taught me never t’ talk with mah mouth full. What were ya askin’?”
Rarity hesitated. “That comment you made, just before you said that Caramel was your cousin. What did you mean by that?”
“Oh,” Applejack said.
“Awkward,” Caramel muttered.
“Ah got a marefriend.” Applejack nodded firmly.
Rarity stared. Applejack stared back, eyebrow not quite raised, but in the sort of position that implied that a Look of epic proportions was only one wrong word away. “You never said,” Rarity said.
Applejack shrugged. “Never came up,” she replied.
“I mean.” Rarity stopped. She took a deep breath. “Is there a reason you never told us?” she asked.
Applejack shrugged. “She don't wanna come out yet. Ah told Granny, o’ course, and Mac. Bloom knows, too, ‘n’ so do a few others in the family. Caramel, fr’instance,” she said, nodding at the confectioner.
“You know, of course, that we all would support you and her absolutely,” Rarity said.
Applejack sighed, exasperated. “Rares, much as Ah appreciate th’ sentiment, Ah don’t think this is th’ time. We need t’ get out of here!”
“Ah. Yes, quite. How goes it, Doctor?”
“Almost there,” the Time Lord promised. Looking up, he added reflectively, “Y’know, it’s a bit odd that the robots haven’t tried to stop us.”
There was a sudden flickering from a nearby source. Rarity closed her eyes. “Why did he have to say that?”