Twilight hurried up the stairs, the others hot on her hooves. Bonbon had only just finished explaining that something had happened to Rumble and Bulk, and Rainbow and Lofty had arrived in a bad way, and the princess was off like a shot.
Bonbon was shouting something, trying to explain, but her voice was lost in the rush of cosmic sound echoing through Twilight’s brain. Stars danced on the edges of her vision. Friends were in danger. She could smell it, taste it, feel it prickling her flesh. She burst through onto the main floor at a gallop. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” she demanded, glancing around wildly. Then her eyes fell on the two stallions, and she didn’t need to ask anymore.
Bulk’s wings had grown into gorgeous, majestic things suitable for his bodybuilder’s frame, and Rumble had swollen to a size that would rival Big Macintosh. Rainbow Dash was convulsing on the ground, Lofty trying to comfort her as she too was wracked with pain. But that wasn’t the most alarming change. Twilight sat back, gape-mouthed as she saw the metal covering their bodies piecemeal. No, she realized with a sick horror as Rumble turned to look at her. Not covering. Growing out of. A violet light shone out of Rumble’s left eye, or what remained of it. “Help,” he muttered. “Please, Twilight, it hurts.”
“I--” Twilight gasped. “I--” She couldn’t tear her eyes away. The metal was growing over them all. She could see the thin, spiderweb circuitry as it wrote itself in their flesh, watched the wires slowly weave along like vines. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fainted dead away.
Ditzy and Scootaloo sat up on the roof. “This sucks,” Scootaloo complained.
“Mm,” Ditzy agreed. “I can understand the Doctor wanting to talk to the-- to her in private, but did he really need to make us wait up here?”
Scootaloo rolled onto her back. “Hey, the stars are coming out.”
Ditzy looked up. “Oh, yeah.” She lay back as well.
“They look really bright tonight, don’t they?”
“You think? They look pretty normal to me.”
“Maybe it’s just ‘cause we’re so high up,” Scootaloo said, her voice distant. “So close we could almost touch them…”
Ditzy coughed. “So! Uh, we’re three years pre-Unification. All I really remember from history was the first Hearth’s Warming. What else was going on?”
“Shouldn’t that be ‘is going on’?” Scootaloo wondered.
“Dunno.”
“Huh. Well, the griffons are sacking Roan, for a given value of ‘sack’ and ‘Roan’,” Scootaloo said.
“...I don’t follow.”
“It’s a cloud city. They just keep moving it and leaving behind little buildings for the griffons to steal from.”
“Oh. That’s anticlimactic.”
“Well, for now,” Scootaloo replied. “The griffons don’t just want treasure, though. They want glory. Sooner or later, they’re going to force Roan into a direct confrontation and everypony knows it. They’re only delaying the inevitable in some ways.”
“They should stand and fight,” Ditzy said, disapproving. “They’re letting all their resources drain away, and their enemies are just getting stronger.”
“Yeah, but they can’t fight the griffons. Can’t fight ‘em and win, anyway. Right now, they’re attempting to work out a military alliance with the cows and yaks, but so far it’s no good.”
“What do you mean they can’t fight the griffons and win? Wasn’t Roan the greatest military--”
“Okay, fine. They could probably beat the griffons, but not without massive losses. They’d be sitting ducks for whatever army came along next. So, they’re stalling for time and looking for another way out, which will come up three years later after the Unification.”
“The griffons were that good?”
“The griffons were incredibly powerful, and Roan was, is, ridiculously decadent.”
“Huh,” Ditzy. “Hard to believe Griffonstan's going to fall so low in our time.”
Scootaloo shook her head helplessly. “I guess that’s just history for you. Nothing lasts forever. From what I hear, it might just be about to get shaken up again.”
“Huh, yeah, the riots,” Ditzy agreed. “Didn’t know you’d heard about them.”
“Gabby sends me and the others letters every now and again.”
“Oh, your honorary crusader friend? She was such an… energetic one, wasn’t she. And so sweet! How’s she doing these days?”
“Well, she’s one of the highest-ranked lieutenants in the cultural revolution. So she’s got that going for her.”
“Wow.” Ditzy rolled over. “You know, I still don’t think that evading the problem is a viable strategy.”
“Ugh.” Scootaloo threw a hoof over her eyes. “I’m not running away, Ditzy. I just need time to collect myself.”
“Scootaloo, it can’t have been easy for them--”
“And y’know what? They did the same exact thing. All these years, they never told me the first thing about my parents. They lied to me, Ditzy. They lied ‘cause it was easier than the truth. So don’t tell me about how hard it was for them, okay? Don’t tell me that they were trying to protect me, or they didn’t want to hurt me, or they were waiting until I was older. They never would’ve told me if I hadn’t asked them straight out. Maybe they would’ve thrown me a bone every now and again, a little chunk of information that meant basically nothing. But they ran away from this. Don’t act all high and moral when I do the same.”
Ditzy sat there, stunned. “I’m going inside,” Scootaloo said shortly. “If the Doctor has a problem with it, well, tough.”
She stormed back into the building and slammed the door behind her. Ditzy sat there, stunned, for a long moment.
“A difficult situation,” a voice mused quietly from the other side of the roof.
Ditzy froze. “Who’s there?” she demanded. “Show yourself!”
A shadowy hoof reached out of the darkness and slid up the shade of a dark lantern. And then Ditzy found herself looking at… herself.
Or, no, not herself. She didn’t generally sport an eyepatch and dark armor paired with a cape made from a deep violet velvet. The other mare was considerably older as well. Ditzy could only draw one conclusion. “Oh my Celestia, you’re me from the future!” she gasped.
The other mare frowned. “Oh your who now?”
Or, of course, she could be completely wrong. “Not my future self then,” she said, stepping back. “Who are you?”
“My name is Cyclone. Propraetor Cyclone of Skyzantium. I’ve been looking for you for some time now, you know.”
“Oh, have you?” Ditzy asked, continuing to scoot towards the door.
“Yes. Pansy, grab her.”
Ditzy didn’t even have time to register what her doppelganger had said before a pair of blue hooves grabbed her from behind. “I’m very sorry about this,” a voice said, “but I’m afraid you’re something of a threat to the Empire. We need to ask you a few questions.”
Ditzy sat very still as her double approached. Cyclone peered at her minutely, looking over her eyes, her ears, her mane, and more. “Incredible,” she observed. “A few differences, naturally. The cutie mark is altogether wrong, and she is a few years younger, but overall the resemblance is quite uncanny.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-- um-- to do whatever it is that I did.”
“Do?” Cyclone chuckled. “Oh, very little. It alarmed some ponies to see a mare who they took for their leader to go tearing into the gladiatorial lockers, but as I was at the time busily seducing the fine young recruit currently holding you, and had a whole street’s worth of witnesses to support that, my reputation took little damage. And given that you didn’t even bother to wear an eyepatch, I very much doubt that you had mischief on your mind. I’m even inclined to believe that you didn’t even recognize the similarities between us. No, my dear, you did nothing wrong.”
“...So, what are you--”
“And yet,” Cyclone said, cutting ruthlessly through Ditzy’s question, “protocol would dictate that anypony impersonating a high-ranking official should be imprisoned and questioned at the very least. And if their answers should prove unsatisfactory, harsher methods ought to be used. Do I make myself understood?”
“...Yes,” Ditzy said, turning away. “What do you want from me?”
“You have been inside the building. You spoke of names unfamiliar to me. I want you to tell me everything that you know of Silver Pallas’ secret project. I attempted to observe it in progress, but could find no entrance, nor even a window through which to peer. I must know what she is hiding, for the safety of my empire and my people." She leaned in close, and Ditzy could feel the mare's hot breath on her face. "If you stand between me and that safety, I will rip you to shreds and throw you to the falcons.”
“Okay.”
“...That’s it? I was expecting more resistance, to be honest.”
“Why? I have no love for Silver Pallas. I can’t say that I know everything about her work, but I know enough. You may want to sit down, Propraetor. This might be something of a shock.”
Twilight stirred. “Wha’ happen’?” she slurred. She felt heavy and stiff. Probably had something to do with how she had passed out on a floor made completely out of crystal.
“Oh, thank Celestia, you’re awake!”
The next thing Twilight saw was a pair of metal hooves reaching for her. She screamed and blasted them with a force spell. The figure was launched halfway across the room. “Geez, Twi,” it said. “Overkill much?”
The machine sat up, a fringe of bronze and gold and silver and violet flopping over one of its glowing purple eyes. Twilight blinked. “Rainbow?”
“Yep! In the-- uh, not in the flesh. Anymore.” She coughed. “That hurt a lot.”
“Rainbow? Why are you metal?”
“Aheh. Funny thing, we were kinda hoping you could tell us.”
“We?”
“Every pegasus in Ponyville, yeah. We’re all metal now. I mean, it’s not all bad. Like, we can fly, and we’re all crazy stupid strong, and I smashed into the side of your castle and didn’t even feel it.”
“Oh.”
“And, uh. Romana told me all about the robot in the basement.”
“Oh.”
“Like, I don’t think I wanna attack anypony right now, but I’ll keep you updated.”
“That’s good.”
Rainbow stayed silent. “Rainbow? Is something else the matter?”
“What? No. No, no, no, no, no no no, no, no.” She pursed her metal lips as best she could. “Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I…” Dash grunted. “Look, there’s no good way to say this, so here goes.” She held aloft a mirror. Twilight stared into it.
A purple metal alicorn stared back.
“I still can’t believe this.”
“It was all rather banal, actually,” the Rani said with a wave of her hoof. “The bulk of the science was taken from the Cybermen.”
“You what? That’s a recipe for disaster if I ever heard one, converting one of this world’s greatest warrior cultures into mindless automata. I thought you were cleverer than that, Rani.”
“Don’t be stupid,” the Rani snapped, opening a door in the wall. The two of them walked into an icebox of a room, filled with massive lockers. A morgue. “I changed the programming to ensure they would register me as their leader and prevent them from performing conversions all on their own. Later, when I began to work on live subjects rather than reanimating corpses, I took the first of those commands out, to preserve free will. Isn’t that one of the things you’re always nattering on about, Doctor? You should be proud.”
“Proud? Of grave robbery and unethical experimentation?”
“There’s nothing unethical about it.”
“You kidnapped your latest subject!”
“Hi~. I’m zztill he~re~,” the charioteer said, unenthused.
The Doctor gesticulated at the pony wildly. “Kidnapped! Not ethical.”
“And when he got here, I gave him the choice to participate or be sent home with his mind wiped,” the Rani said shortly.
The Doctor’s mouth snapped shut. He looked at the charioteer for confirmation. “It’z true~.”
“And would you care to tell him why?” the Rani asked.
Silence. “Shall I tell him?”
“No~. I can do it~.” The charioteer took a deep breath. “I wazz dy~ing. Zzyphilizz~. I tried everything~. I hung fox~ tezz~ticles on my forehead~. I ate~ live~ toadz~. I even had~ a mercury enema~. Noz~zing worked~.”
The Doctor goggled at him. “Your physician recommended all that?”
“Phyz~zicianz~? Thoz~e quackz~? Not a chanz~e.”
“Ah. Naturally.”
“As for the dead, you can put any macabre thoughts about contract killing or grave robbing to rest. I advertised for volunteers to donate their bodies to science after their death of natural causes.”
“There was one with a knife still in him.”
“Blood loss is about the most natural cause of death there is around here. Anyway, it isn’t as if I had him killed, he died in the line of duty.”
“Soldier?”
“Unpopular politician. Every living subject I’ve processed has been a volunteer. Naturally, I have to keep all this a secret, so I can’t exactly advertise publicly.”
“So you get your ‘volunteers’ by kidnapping them.”
“Yes, and then offering them a choice between a life of pain or an experimental cure!” the Rani snapped. “You seem to be confusing me with Koschei, Theta. I’m not evil, no matter what you may think of me. If they refuse, I wipe their memories and let them return home, unaltered. The rest… well, let me show you.”
Twilight reacted better than Dash had expected. It only took eight minutes to get her to come out of her room, and only six more to actually get her into the hall with the others. All the time she was doing so, Dash told Twilight all about Scootaloo and her aunts and the portal in Ditzy’s backyard. Twilight was busily panicking through most of it, but she was good enough at multitasking to get the gist.
“So,” she said, struggling to regain some equanimity in the face of losing her equinity, “you looked through and saw clouds. Where do you think it was?”
“I dunno. It looked new, but old.”
Twilight stopped and gave Dash a Look. This was somewhat undermined by the fact that she hadn’t actually worked out how to make facial expressions yet, but it was a valiant effort.
“Okay, like, it looked like really old buildings. Y’know, columns and stuff, like ancient Roan. But they looked like they’d just been built.”
“I see,” Twilight considered this. “We’ll need to go investigate,” she decided.
“What? But that metal pegasus--”
“Dash,” Twilight said flatly. “Look in a mirror.”
“Oh. Heh-heh, yeah, I see what you mean.”
“Not to mention, we now outnumber it by, well, a lot.”
“Yeah, I guess. Look, we’re almost to the cutie map room, we can bring it up with everypony else there.”
“Alright,” Twilight said, pushing open the door. “So, how many--” She stopped. “Dash.”
“Yeah?”
“Is this… the entire pegasus population of Ponyville?”
“Um, pretty much, yeah.”
“All in the cutie map room.”
“Well, it’s not as though there isn’t enough space…” She trailed off, troubled.
This did not escape Twilight’s notice. “What’s wrong?”
“Scootaloo’s not here,” Dash said quietly. “And, uh… yeah, Ditzy’s missing too, but I bet she’s gone off in the TARDIS. But Scootaloo…”
Twilight frowned. “I see. That is concerning. On the upside, I think we can stop worrying about her being in any immediate danger, given that almost nothing should be able to get through these shells.”
“Unless she was hurt before the whole ‘turning into metal thing,’ Dash muttered, but Twilight had already moved on, trying to corral Cloudchaser and Raindrops away from hoofwrestling on the cutie map which was already beginning to crack.
Dash was torn. She hated feeling torn. Scootaloo was out there somewhere, maybe in terrible danger, and Dash knew that she needed to find the filly before the unthinkable happened. But she also knew that whatever the heck was going on here was also important, maybe even posing a threat to the town at large.
Rainbow didn’t know much about ancient pegasus mythology. {She had spent the lessons there, like a lot of the rest of her school days, doodling and thinking about flying.}
It had been one of the main subjects in her seventh grade history class, in a unit that took about six weeks to complete. {In comparison, the history of the unicorns and earth ponies had filled up about a week, total {the griffons, minotaurs, cows, and yaks got even less attention}.} The teacher was a pompous old windbag, always talking about ‘noble pegasus heritage’ and the importance of tradition. Dash had labeled him a jerk while she was still in school {an epithet he shared with many of the other teachers}, but now she had a different name for him. Flight supremacist.
Oh, sure, he wasn’t as bad as some. There were some -- not many, not with the wrath of the princess prepared to smash them to dust if she caught wind of them, but some -- who did terrible, awful things to other ponies, just because they couldn’t fly. {Which, Dash guessed, was better than just saying terrible, awful things to other ponies just because they couldn’t fly.{Right? It’s gotta be a little better, right?}}
Anyway. She didn’t remember much from that class. One of the few things she could remember was the Odyssey. {She liked Odysseus. He kinda reminded her of Daring Do, now} {Her favorite part was when he got home and killed all the guys who were hitting on his wife because they wanted to take over as king. {Her second favorite part was when Circe turned all the sailors into flying pigs}} But what she was thinking of now was the problem of Scylla and Charybdis.
Odysseus had to pilot his cloud-ship through a pair of enormous mountains, too high to fly over, and too big to fly around. On one side lived Scylla, a monster with six snakey heads that would lash out and snatch sailors off the deck of the ship. On the other side lived Charybdis, which was a giant cyclone, sweeping up ships and dashing them to pieces on the mountain. Odysseus chose to take the Charybdis route, and lost his ship and all his soldiers.
Dash had to be careful. Could she afford to let Ponyville handle itself so she could protect Scootaloo? Or did she need to let Scootaloo go in order to protect the town?
And even if everything turned out fine this time, how much longer could she keep making this choice? How much longer could she keep protecting Scootaloo?
Dash felt a hoof rest on the back of her neck and tensed. But then the hoof began to rub in a gentle, familiar circle, and her legs turned to jelly. “Hey, AJ.”
“Hey yerself. How ya holding up?”
Dash thought about that. “Tell you later.”
Applejack clucked her tongue. “Ya know, you can be sensitive in public every now and again.”
“I know, I know. But not right now.”
A sigh. “No. Ah reckon not.”
There was a long silence. “I wouldn’t say no to a hug,” Dash said at last.
She could almost feel AJ’s smile. “Well, Ah don’t reckon Ah would, either. C’mere, you.”
She pulled Dash-- who was, both mares realized at the same time, now almost as large as Applejack herself-- into a warm embrace. Dash didn’t know how metal could feel the love and care that her marefriend was pouring into that hug, but she was glad that it could.
Wait a minute. Hold on.
“Hey, AJ? If you really want to make me feel better, I got a favor to ask you…”
The Rani opened another door, revealing a dimly-lit room with metal walls. “You’d better come as well,” she told the charioteer.
“Fin~ally, she deignz to re~mem~ber me~,” the robot drawled, trotting through. “Wait. What iz~ What iz thiz plaze~? The~ze picturez~ they move~?”
The Doctor followed them both in. “Viewscreens?” he asked.
On every screen, he could see cloud. Some were sculpted into buildings, others were mere wisps in the sky, and some were simply the ground under the camerapony’s hooves. Wait- there was one screen that didn’t have any clouds on it. It showed instead an array of monitors in a dimly-lit metal room. This room. The Doctor frowned, then waved his hoof in front of the charioteer’s face. “Oi!” the mechanical stallion spluttered.
On the screen filled with screens, a tan hoof juddered up and down in front of the image. “Cameras in the eyes?” the Doctor guessed. “What for?”
“I don’t have the space to keep all of my test subjects here,” the Rani replied. “The live subjects I take to the heart of the Empire, Roan itself. You’d be amazed what can go unnoticed there with a minor perception filter. However, I still need to keep an eye on them all. This was the most expedient solution.”
“Right,” the Doctor said. “Makes sense, I suppose.”
“So glad you approve,” the Rani said drily, beckoning them both back out through the morgue and into the main lab. Scootaloo sat there, aimlessly spinning an empty test tube around in her hooves.
“Scootaloo, I told you not to come inside until--”
“Do I look like I care?”
“Ah.” The Doctor bit his tongue. “I’ll go and fetch Ditzy, shall I?”
“A sensible idea at last. I suppose we’ll be seeing pigs fly on the morrow. In the meantime, I shall see to Commander Hurricane. I’ve left him waiting far too long. He’ll be growing suspicious.”
Inside the TARDIS, meanwhile, a little red light blinked on the console. The red light was not supposed to be blinking. The red light was not supposed to be on the console at all. There was a slow grinding noise, like the sound of the TARDIS materializing slowed down to a crawl.
A pale figure reached out a hoof and flicked a few switches on the atmospheric unit, and an unsettling hum filled the console room, followed by the sound of tiny little clicks. Individually, the noises would have been all but unnoticeable, quiet enough to make a pin dropping sound like a plate being smashed. There were enough, though, that a little tik-tik-tik-tik sound could be heard echoing through the TARDIS. The figure smiled. It was possible to look through it and see the console room on the other side.
When it spoke, its voice was cold and dry and husky. “I am no mere psychic projection, Doctor. I am your future, your present, and your past. I am you.”
And then, with a sound like the dematerialization of the TARDIS sped up to a ludicrous pace, the figure was gone again. The little red light blinked out of existence.
Commander Hurricane stood in the hall, legs locked, back stiff, neck straight. He had been standing like that for the past two hours. He didn’t mind that, terribly; it was good practice. However, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to tear Lieutenant Pallas’ hide for making him wait so long.
As soon as she opened the door, he snapped, “Pallas, report on your actions.”
She nodded, short, sharp, and efficient. “I have been discussing the repairs to the timeship with its captain. The damage is deep, but not extensive, and can be repaired in perhaps two hours.”
“The stallion said six.”
Pallas raised a brow. “That’s how long it would take him.”
“Ah. But together, you can do it in two?”
“Together, we’d be lucky to complete it by the end of the week,” the Rani replied. “I intend to keep him fully occupied elsewhere.”
“And it took you two hours to ascertain the depths of the damage?”
“No, sir. I also performed a test of my pet project; I informed you and the Propraetor of it during the inspection. One subject was satisfactorily processed, with two others prepared for testing. I have great hopes for the results of this experiment.”
“Mm.” He studied her minutely. “I will be leaving for the barrack refectory now, Lieutenant. I will return in two hours time. I expect results.”
“Naturally, Commander.”
She watched him go. “Pompous twit,” she muttered, then turned on a hoof and trotted back the way she had come.
Night had fallen on the research campus, but darkness and silence had not joined it. The windows of all the buildings were blazing with light, and the sound of hammering and clattering and occasional small explosions echoed through the pillars. Hurricane watched in approval as a stallion rolled a barrel of oil from building to building, filling up the lamps enough to keep the scientists working through the night. Hard work and selflessness was what Roan needed now, he thought. If he could find a way to stay awake and alert without the need for sleep, then by Jupiter, he would take that way and spread its glory across the empire.
Suddenly, he detected a shuffling, scuffling sound. He did not react or change his gait. The sound drew nearer, then stopped. Drew nearer, then stopped. He turned a corner, sparing a glance back the way he had come in the process. A figure. Not tall, but certainly not short, and fairly slender. He continued onward, then took to the air. A pause, followed by quick wingbeats. Hurricane smiled grimly, then spread wide his wings and flipped around. He plummeted like a falcon toward his pursuer. They lifted their hooves placatingly, but there was no arguing with gravity. He grabbed his pursuer and slammed them to the clouds below. “Surrender now!” he barked.
“Uncle!” the figure squeaked.
Hurricane blinked, nonplussed. “Pansy?”
“Commander.” A grey figure peeled itself out from the shadows. The single golden eye of Propraetor Cyclone froze him to the bone. She smiled. “We need to talk.”
Applejack set out from the castle, accompanied by Bonbon, Minuette, and Cheerilee. Cheerilee’s sister, Berry Punch, had pointed out that considering the rest of the team was composed of an Element of Harmony, a Time Lady, and a former secret agent, the teacher might be in over her head. Cheerilee had replied that Scootaloo was her former student, thank you, and Cheerilee would cheerfully buck in the face of anyone or anything endangering the pegasus’ well-being. So that was settled.
Romana squinted up at the sky. “Looks like a storm coming in,” she said.
“All the more reason to find her quickly,” Cheerilee said briskly. “There can’t be that many more places she’d try to hide.”
“Ah reckon the old CMC clubhouse would be as good a place as any to start,” Applejack said.
“But that’s so far out of the way!” Bonbon protested. “We should start an organized search pattern. Given that there are four of us, I recommend either the Compass Rotation or the Four Corners, preferably the former given how close we are to the center of town.”
“We need to search the Everfree,” Cheerilee insisted. “All the most dangerous areas of town. If she’s in any of those places, time is more urgent than if she’s hidden in the schoolhouse.”
“Look, Ah ain’t sayin’ there’s no place fer procedure, but we need t’ think about the way she thinks! The psychollergy of th’ individual--”
“The storm is coming in very fast,” Romana said quietly.
The other three looked up. Mere moments before, it had been an almost cloudless night. Now, they couldn’t see the stars…
“Romana, Ah don’t reckon you got some kinda fancy pony-tracker spell handy?”
“Spell? No. Machine? Yes, as it happens.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Bonbon snapped.
“I just did. Look, it’s back in my rooms over the bar. I’ll go there and fetch it out. Meanwhile, I need you three to go to Scootaloo’s house and get a sample of her DNA. Some kind of manebrush, or even a toothbrush would be ideal. A pillow, perhaps.”
“Alright,” Cheerilee said, her heartrate speeding up. “We’ll meet you back at the bar, then?”
Romana flashed her a smile. “Sounds like a plan. Just hurry, won’t you?”
She looked up at the sky, her smile dimming. “Something tells me this is the last storm you’d want to get caught in, at best.”
Bonbon turned to go, but hesitated. “And at worst?”
Romana stared grimly at the overcast sky. “It’ll be the last storm you’re ever caught in.”