Scootaloo gloried. She soared through the skies on wings of bronze, the night wind reaching out to lift her up like an old, old friend. Down below, she could see the Doctor looking up at her, and Ditzy flying desperately in an attempt to keep up. It was pointless, though. Scootaloo had studied all the theory, done all the exercises, dreamed of this day for years. Now she had the chance to put it all into practice, and she wasn’t planning to stop anytime soon. Over the sound of the wind whipping in her ears, she heard the cries from below. “--e careful!” “Don-- go --oo far!”
Too far? Too far!? Did Ditzy know what she was saying? She had years of flight to catch up on, casting her wings out into the stars, skimming her hooves across lakes, finally being able to practice maybe breaking the sound barrier. It would be months, years, that she could stay in the air, and it still wouldn’t be long enough. She could circle the globe, pass through every nation, every city, and still it wouldn’t be far enough. She could touch the moon with her own two hooves, and still it wouldn’t be high enough. She could hold the sun, let its rays kiss her back as she soared over the clouds, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
If she could have put a fraction of that sentiment into words, she would have explained it all to Ditzy. But instead, she just laughed and did another lap around the compound as she remembered another story from Roan’s rich mythology.
Icarus and his father, Daedalus, were imprisoned in a labyrinth of their own devising. The wicked minotaur king, Cretin, had heard that Daedalus was the most brilliant inventor in the world, and he wanted to use that genius for his own selfish ends.
So he clipped the wings of Daedalus and his son and kept them prisoner. Icarus despaired for his lost ability of flight, but his father told him not to worry, that everything would be alright and they would someday fly again.
(Which was worse? To fly, and have that power taken from you, or to never fly at all?
(Trick question. It’s actually listening to the jeers of those who could still fly, or from those who were never meant to.))
Daedalus worked long and hard to build two pairs of wing extenders, made from the feathers of seabirds and held together with wax. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to fly from the island yet, but his son was so desperate to escape, he yielded. (As parents so often do)
‘But,’ Daedalus warned Icarus, ‘my son, this is far from a perfect replacement. We must be very careful not to fly too near the sea, else the feathers will get wet, and we must not fly too near the sun, else the wax will melt. And we must land as quickly as we can!’ (Daedalus had little faith in his own work)
‘Yes, father,’ Icarus had said, bowing his head. (Icarus trusted his father completely. (He trusted his father’s work completely as well.))
Daedalus was satisfied, and they took off immediately.
It was a bright, sunny day. Daedalus didn’t like that. There were no clouds on which they could rest, and neither was there any land for leagues and leagues around. There was only open ocean below, and blazing sun above. (Only the glory of an open sky, bordered by eternity)
Icarus did not share his father’s fears. He was free, for the first time in years. He did loop-the-loops and barrel rolls, flew up and startled seagulls, and laughed and laughed and laughed.
And then, up above, he saw Helios driving along in his chariot, driving the sun, and he decided that he would go up and say hello. (Well, somepony had to do it before Celestia was around. You really think it was those idiot unicorns? (The Romanes certainly didn’t.)) In a flash, he was soaring up, up, up, waving hello to Mr. Sun.
And then the wax melted. And his wings were clipped again. And he was no longer free, only free-falling, going to say hello to Mr. Sea. (Scootaloo’s wings were not made of wax.)
And Daedalus saw him fall, and there was nothing he could do. (Scootaloo always thought it was weird that he never even tried.) There was a splash, and his son was swallowed up by the sea. And Daedalus flew on, alone. There was nothing else he could do. Nothing but regret.
(But Scootaloo flew on wings of bronze, which wouldn’t melt no matter how high she went.)
(And even if she did fall, there would always be somepony there to catch her, right?)
(Was this what Icarus thought, way back then?)
(Was this how he felt?)
(She was bronze and silver and gold and crystal.
She would not fall.
She would fly forever.)
Ditzy landed by her husband, defeated. “She’s impossible,” she grumbled.
“She’ll come down when she gets tired,” the Doctor said, reaching out a hoof. Ditzy gave a sigh, half-exasperated, but she snuggled into his side.
They watched Scootaloo fly for a little while. Then, Ditzy said, “You never answered my question.”
“Really, love? Which question was that?”
“What did you even do to Commander Hurricane that made him hate you so much?”
The Doctor pulled in a breath. “Ah. Well. I only saved his life, is all. Spared him from a massacre at the hooves of the earth ponies, that’s all. Kept him from an untimely demise as Centuriate Hurricane, and in the process ensuring that Hearth’s Warming would proceed as history needed it to, that’s all.”
Ditzy frowned. “I don’t follow.”
The Doctor didn’t meet her eyes. “There were, at the start, eighty-seven other soldiers alive in the century he was leading. Only nineteen made it out of that battle alive.” He breathed out slowly. “He felt, at the time, that it would have been more honorable to have died with glory in battle than to have been spared by the enemy, and I’m guessing that not a whole lot’s changed since then.”
“But that’s terrible! If you saved his life--”
“Doesn’t matter. Not to him, anyway. I insulted him terribly.”
Ditzy struggled. “But you saved his life!” she repeated.
“Yes, and I’d do it again,” the Doctor agreed. “Because I save people. But I don’t expect him to be grateful for it. That’s just not who he is, and I’ve had to learn to accept that.”
“But--” Ditzy stopped. “This is a metaphor, isn’t it?”
“Nope! True story,” the Doctor said. “‘Course, if you want it to be a metaphor, it could be that too.”
Ditzy watched as a little bronze figure far overhead glinted in the moonlight. “I want her to be happy,” she said sadly. “But I want Holiday and Lofty to be happy too, and I want Scootaloo to be safe. I’m worried about how they’ll react to this.”
“I think they’ll be happy that she’s happy,” the Doctor replied.
Ditzy sighed. “I hope so,” she said. “But metal pegasi? I don’t think anypony in Ponyville’s ever seen anything like that before.”
Twilight had managed, with no small difficulty, to wrap a series of sensors, meters, and flashing lights around the TARDIS-shaped hole in space. It wasn’t easy, because she felt obliged to stop every so often and rant about how stupidly impossible this was, wrapping things around a hole. But with some help from Thunderlane and Rainbow Dash, she managed to get everything on that she needed to. Then she flipped a few switches, and her bank of instruments lit up.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Okay, that seems fine… That’s interesting, but probably doesn’t affect anything outside of that… hole. And… hm.”
“Translation, please?” Rainbow demanded.
“Well, it’s exactly what it looks like,” Twilight said. “A window-- yes, that’s much better than ‘a hole’-- a window into some kind of laboratory in the clouds. A completely wrecked laboratory, mind you, but a lab nonetheless. You said it looked different than it did before?"
“Yeah, it was sitting outside on a street,” Dash said. “What about the robots?”
Twilight shook her head. “None are in range of the scanners. On the bright side, the ‘window’ that the TARDIS left behind is completely solid and airtight. Not even atoms could pass through, judging by these readings. I suspect that if there's any way to alter that, it could only be using the TARDIS itself, which does make the appearance of an ancient Romane soldier here... well, never mind that now.”
“Okay, yeah, but what if somepony breaks the window?”
“It’s not actually a window, Dash. I don’t know what it’s made of. I could drag out an electron spectrometer and give it the once-over that way, but I don’t know if it would even fit inside the
Twilight blinked. “Zzorry~. What wazz I say~ing~?”
“You were~ tal~king about an e~lectric zzpectrum~ or zzomething~.”
“Right~.” Twilight shook her head, like she was getting some water out of her ear. “For the e~lectron~ zzpectrometor to function~, it needzz to be able to break~ off~ piecezz of the zzubzztance being examin~ed~.”
“Zzo what do we do~
~uh, do now~?” Dash asked.
Twilight frowned and poked her own body. “Rain~bow~,” she said. “Do you remem~ber being~… not a robot~?”
“Twi~light, what are you tal~king about~? I’ve al~wayzz been a Zzyber~mare~”
“No… Da~sh, I thing zzomething’zz wrong~”
Twilight looked at her array of devices and reeled with shock. “The per~meabil~ity of the portal izz increazzing~! Zzomething could come thr~
Bzzz.
Rebooting.
“Unit R-D45H~. Report~.”
“Per~meabil~ity of portal rizzing, Zzyber-leader. Ezztim~ated ti~me of inva~zzion T-minuzz twel~ve-point-three minutezz~.”
“Ex~cellent~!”Twiberleader incorrect designation The Cyberleader turned to face the army behind her. “Prepar~e yourselv~es~. Inva~zzion imminent~. The Zzyber-ponies will achieve victory~. For Empire~."
"For empire~," every pegasus present chorused.
The Doctor didn’t know how long he had sat there cuddled up with his wife, watching Scootaloo pull off the most unlikely aerial stunts. Well. He did, actually. His time sensitivity was counting it out, microspan by microspan. He made an effort to ignore it, lest it cheapen the moment.
Of course, the moment was quite ruined anyway when the Rani, furious and sopping wet, stormed over to them. “You might have told me that your atmospheric controls were malfunctioning,” she snarled.
The Doctor frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me, Doctor! It’s raining inside your ship!”
“What?”
The Doctor let go of Ditzy and looked at the Rani with intense concern. “That wasn’t happening while I was in there.”
“Well, it’s happening now,” the Rani growled. “Come back and help me figure out that mess of spare parts you call a control panel.”
“Really? You’re asking for my help?”
“Don’t let it get to your head.”
The Doctor smirked, but it faded when he turned to look at Ditzy. “Do you want to--”
“I’ll stay here and look after Scootaloo,” Ditzy said, not turning to look at the Rani.
“Right. Alright. Be back in a jiff.”
The two Time Lords trotted away, leaving Ditzy alone, watching the little bronze figure dance through the sky above.
They walked in silence for a time. The Rani only spoke when they were out of Ditzy's hearing range.
“I don’t believe your wife likes me.”
“I suspect you’re right.”
“Why not? I tried to help her.”
“Yes, but you lied to her, you drugged her without asking permission, and you insulted her.”
“When did I insult her?” the Rani asked, alarmed.
The Doctor gave her an odd look. “Well, when you suggested that her eyes were something that needed to be fixed, for a start.”
The Rani looked at him blankly. “But they do. They negatively impact her vision.”
The Doctor sighed. “That doesn’t mean they need to be fixed. When you tell someone they need to be fixed, you’re saying that they’re broken. That they’re lesser. Ditzy feels happy and whole and gorgeous just the way she is. Her eyes are just a little quirk to her. A beautiful quirk.”
“By that logic, no-one should ever seek help for anything with their bodies,” the Rani argued.
“No,” the Doctor replied. “It just means that it should be their choice if they want to seek treatment or not. I appreciate your effort to turn over a new leaf, Ushas, but you’ve still got a long way to go.”
The Rani said nothing. “Why do you care all of a sudden anyway? Up ‘til now, you’ve considered my companions nuisances at best.”
“Perhaps I’ve changed. The War had a way of doing that.”
“True. But it was usually for the worse.”
The Rani lapsed into silence again. “Look, you don’t have to tell me,” the Doctor said. “I’d just like to kn--”
“I’m in love with your wife!”
The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth hung open. The Rani reached out and shoved it closed, scowling. “I don’t know why I tell you anything,” she grumbled.
The Doctor blinked. “Well,” he said after a long moment. “I’ll tell you this, Rani. You’ve got excellent taste.”
“Bah.” The Rani stormed off in the direction of the lab again, leaving the Doctor jogging to catch up.
“I mean, I’m happy for you,” he said. “Well, kind of happy. Well, not really happy that it’s my wife you’ve fallen for. But, er, are you going to tell her?”
“Have I mentioned? She hates me,” the Rani ground out through gritted teeth.
“Well, yes, there is that aspect to consider.”
“Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“If you don’t stop talking, I’ll be forced to hurt you.”
“Right-o.”
They trudged back to the lab. The Rani frowned deeply. “The door is open.”
“Perhaps you left it ajar when you came out to look for me,” the Doctor suggested.
“No, I distinctly remember slamming every door that I went through.”
“Hm,” the Doctor said. “Shouldn’t we be seeing more of your undead guards?”
“‘Undead’ is not a scientific term,” the Rani replied. “I prefer ‘reanimated’. And I put them into storage. They still require a certain amount of time shut down to function properly.”
“Right.” The Doctor pushed the door all the way open. “Anypony in here? Olly-olly-oxen-free!”
The Rani all but tackled him. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. “You’ve just alerted whatever’s in there to our presence!”
The Doctor raised a brow. “Better out here where we’ve got loads of places to run than once we’re in a maze of corridors and set to be ambushed from anywhere.”
“I hate you.”
“Because I’m right?”
“Because you’re a smug git.”
The Doctor grinned. “Well, nothing’s come running out yet. Time to go in.”
The Rani’s lip curled. “Fine. Come along, Doctor.”
Ditzy had been looking up at the sky for so long she’d gotten a crick in her neck. She took her head in her hooves and twisted gently, letting out a little sigh of euphoria at the little cracking sound.
Then she looked up again and jumped. Hovering right in front of her was Scootaloo, her violet eyes shining bright in the shadows of the night. “Where’d the Doc~tor go~?”
It took Ditzy a moment to recover herself. “He’s back at the lab. Miss Cleverhooves managed to make it start raining inside the TARDIS.”
“Really~?” Scootaloo burst into mechanical laughter. “I wan~na zzee, see that~!”
Ditzy managed a smile. It did sound rather funny, put like that. “Okay. Let’s go.”
She set off at a trot, Scootaloo flapping along beside her. “I wanted to apologize.”
“Oh~?”
“I haven’t been very supportive of you, I guess.”
“Gee~, really~?”
“If I could finish?”
“Zzorr~” Scootaloo paused, twisted up her mouth. “Sssorry~,” she pronounced carefully. “The wing~zz ar~e great~, but the voizze, voice, could uze zzome work~.”
“Anyway,” Ditzy said, a little forcefully, “I wanted to say that I’m happy for you, Scootaloo.”
“Thank~ you~.” Ditzy could swear that the young mare’s metal face went just a little pink, though perhaps it was just the light from her crystalline eyes. “Thizz meanzz a lot~ to me~.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Aren’t you going~ to as~k abou~t my auntzz again~?”
“Do you want to talk about them?”
The silence returned with a vengeance. Ditzy allowed it to continue for a minute. “So,” she said. “Think you could pull off a sonic rainboom like this?”
“Nah~.” Scootaloo said.
Ditzy had only a moment to register surprise at that before Scootaloo continued, “A zzonic Zzcootaboom~, now~, that’zz~ a diff~erent matter~.”
Ditzy giggled. “I can’t wait to see it.”
Scootaloo tilted her head. “Hey~, Dit~zy~.”
“Yes?”
“Can ro~botzz get cu~tie mark~z~?”
Romana and the four other mares sheltered inside a stairwell. It didn’t do a great job of keeping the weather out, as the wind seemed to blow straight up the stairs, bringing with it a modicum of misty drizzle. But at least the rain no longer felt like it was lashing the skin from their bones.
Romana was quite happy to stop and get out of the storm. She only had one objection. It was taking every ounce of energy she had not to strangle Holiday. She could understand familial loyalty. She approved of the mare’s desire to see her niece safe and well. But by the Asscheeks of Rassilon, she wasn’t going to do anyone any good if she drowned first!
“Haven’t we rested long enough?” she demanded.
“Frankly, no,” Romana replied. “Applejack’s still shaking water out of her ears, Cheerilee’s half-drowned, and I had to leave my sonic screwdriver back at the bar or it would’ve short-circuited. Knew I should’ve waterproofed. My point is, we’re not exactly in great shape to help anypony right now.”
“Scootaloo can’t take shelter.”
“Scootaloo has the TARDIS, Ditzy, and the Doctor with her, and if there’s one thing the Doctor’s good at other than running, it’s taking cover. And toppling dictatorships, I suppose. There are some other things as well, but I won’t go into all of them. My point is, she’s probably safer than we are right now.”
“But--”
“You fell in a puddle and almost drowned, stop arguing,” Bonbon said.
A flash of lightning split the sky, followed almost immediately by an earth-shaking roll of thunder. Applejack frowned and sat up straight. “What was that?”
“Lightning,” Romana replied. “I thought you would probably know that by now.”
“Nah, nah. That bolt lit up dang near the whole town. But Ah saw somethin’ out there. Somethin’ flyin’.”
“Flying? In this weather?” Romana trotted over to sit beside Applejack. “That would be impossible, or at least suicidal.”
Another flash. Applejack’s eyes went wide. “Tell that to them!”
For just a moment, Romana saw the same thing Applejack had moments ago. Pinwheeling in the sky overhead, pegasi. The light reflected off their metal bodies, bright and shining like beacons. In their hooves were spears, swords, pikes, nets, and more. “Oh,” said Romana. “That’s not good.”
“Gee, ya don’t say.”
Another flash-and-crack. Romana frowned. This time, the tableau captured showed the assembly of pegasi diving down into the center of their circle. Cheerilee sat up slowly. “Am I going crazy,” she asked froggily, “or is the storm getting closer?”
“What do you mean?” Romana asked.
“The flash and the crack are getting closer together,” Cheerilee explained. “So the lightning strikes must be getting closer to us, as we can derive from what we know about the speed of light and the speed of sound.”
“Speed,” Romana mouthed to herself as lightning struck again. In the same spot. Actually, the spot quite near where the Doctor’s house was…
“Time dilation.”
“Beg pardon?”
“We’ve got to get to the Doctor’s house. Now!”
“Oh, sure,” Holiday said. “Now that--”
“Holiday, you’re getting what you wanted, now shut the spack up and run!”
The Doctor walked into the lab. “Cor blimey! Maybe somepony really did break in here!”
“Gee, do you think so?” the Rani asked. Then she saw what had become of her Cyberconverter and her eyes bulged. “No! My project!”
“My TARDIS!” the Doctor gasped, and the Rani turned to look. The blue box was fading, becoming translucent. However, it wasn’t the other side of the lab that was visible through it. It was his backyard. The two Time Lords could see phantom images of machinery hooked up to the other side of the rift in spacetime.
“Doctor, what in Rassilon’s name did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! I tried to let Scootaloo use the telepathic controls so we could locate her father, but she got distracted, tried to go there and here, and wound up here. Boom, crashed TARDIS!”
There was a frigid silence. “Doctor. Did you sleep through all our lectures on timeline navigation?”
“‘Course not!” the Doctor replied indignantly. “Don’t you remember? I was busy making paper vortex manipulators and materializing them across the classroom! Instructor Bunce barely even noticed.”
“Well, if you had been paying any sort of attention to anything outside of your childish amusements, you would have learned what happens when you try to materialize in two places at once!”
“Which is?”
“An enormous tear in the timelines! Alternate histories, rips in the fabric of spacetime, an-ach-ro-nisms. We had one basic lesson in that class Doctor, and it was ‘Don’t cross the streams!’”
“Oh,” said the Doctor. “You know, I think I actually remember learning that the hard way, back when I was all shouting and patchwork. Helped the British defeat the Daleks in the past, while I was still living one hundred years later. Nasty business, that Jubilee…”
“Your reminisces will have to wait for someone who cares, Doctor. Unlock the doors so we can fix this.”
“...Unlock?” the Doctor echoed, mystified.
The Rani jiggled the handle of the doors for emphasis. “Unlock!”
“Rani, you opened it up last, remember?”
She stopped dead. She looked at her broken Cyber-conversion chamber. She looked at the TARDIS doors. She peered up as best she could through the hole in space and time. She said a word that made the Doctor blanch.
“Rani!”
“Oh, and I suppose you’ve never said ‘Otherfuc--”
She cut herself off abruptly as the sound of a door slamming open echoed down the hall. She put a hoof to her lips. The Doctor nodded, then crept to one side of the door. The Rani spread her wings and hovered above it.
The door swung open. “Gotcha!” the Doctor cried, lunging.
“Ow! Doctor?”
He blinked. “Ditzy? I thought you were watching Scootaloo.”
“Look up.”
“Oh. Hello, Scootaloo.”
The Rani landed on the floor, her green eyes burning. “You need to leave.”
Ditzy frowned. “Excuse me?”
“I believe that you’re in terrible danger even as you stand here. Ditzy Doo, you need to run.”
“Why?”
“Run!”
“Not un~til you tell~ me why I should~!”
The Rani’s face dropped. “It’s too late.”
“What~zz~ too la~te?” Ditzy asked. Her eyes went wide and she clutched her throat. “My~ voi~zze!”
“Rani, what’s going on?”
“I improved on the existing Cyber-technology. They had Cybermats, Cybermites, pathetic. I created Cybermicrobes.”
“Nanites?” the Doctor asked, incredulous.
“Yes. And now that some idiot’s wrecked my machine, they’ve all gotten out.”
Ditzy screamed and fell to the ground, writhing. The Doctor made to move to her side, but the Rani blocked him with a wing. “They’ve also overridden my free will program.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that isn’t your wife anymore. Come on, both of you!”
She hauled the Doctor back towards the mortuary, Scootaloo flitting nervously behind. The Doctor struggled, but couldn’t escape his former classmate’s grip. The last thing he saw before the doors of the morgue slammed behind them was a silver pegasus rising slowly from the ground. They locked gazes. Her eyes were straight.
Romana grit her teeth. She had managed to conjure up a sort of shield spell that worked rather like an umbrella, keeping out some of the storm. Unfortunately, she really wasn’t very practiced at magic. As Colgate, she’d always struggled even to light her horn. In retrospect, that probably had something to do with her botched attempt to conceal herself behind an artificially-constructed personality, but that didn’t really help the situation now. So, given that she’d only really ever vaguely studied magic over the last four years, she was straining to hold up a shield that would even keep out some of the rain and hail and howling wind.
She stopped, gritting her teeth against the wind. “What’s the problem, sugarcube?”
“I-- I can’t go on,” Romana said. “The spell and the wind and the walking, it’s just too much!”
“Ya need a break?”
Romana shut her eyes tight. She nodded. “But we can’t stop,” she groaned. “Fabric of space and time. Scootaloo. Robots. All very time-sensitive, I’ve found.”
Applejack considered this. “Alright, climb up.”
“Huh?”
“Ah’ll carry you. When Ah get tired, Bonbon can take over, then Cheerilee, then Holiday. That way, y’all jus’ gotta worry ‘bout the shield spell.”
“Are you sure you can--”
“For awhile.”
“Right.” Romana struggled to climb on Applejack’s back. Bonbon gave her a hoof up.
“Shouldn’t we be more worried about the lightning?” Holiday asked.
“Not really,” Cheerilee said. “They all seem to be striking in the Doctor’s backyard.”
“Which is where we’re all heading.”
“Well, yes.”
“Ah. I can see why we shouldn’t be bothered about it.”
The being that had been Ditzy Doo made its way over to the TARDIS and knocked on the door. It opened. Three other Cyberponies stood at the console, adjusting controls that would open fully the hole between one time period and another. The silver robot stepped inside, and the doors closed again. The TARDIS faded a little more, revealing the storm on the other side. The lab rumbled sympathetically, and the ceiling began to drip.