//------------------------------// // Chapter Seven What's a TARDIS? Part II // Story: Love and wubs // by PhantomDred //------------------------------// Chapter Seven: What’s a TARDIS? Part II You woke up next to Vinyl in the infirmary, there was a pony with a nurse’s hat, you assume she was a nurse, hoping you weren't making an ass out of you and her. She instantly realizes the moment your awake and grabs Vinyl’s attention she was momentarily distracted probably thinking about something though you couldn't imagine what until the recent events caught up with you and you remembered when and where you had blacked out. You were filled immediately with an overwhelming sense of dread but vinyl, sensing your worry, comforted you by nuzzling you, the nurse began promptly explaining your blackouts to you saying that they were caused by overtaxing your mind with too many questions, your brain activity would spike filled with more questions than you could handle until the only thing that was left for it was a hard reboot I.E. you blacking out, you didn’t entirely understand it nor know why she was talking about computers but it seemed to make sense to Vinyl. Her comfort was moving and incredibly useful as it seemed to ease you back into reality, as opposed to being tossed against the spiked wall which your reality had suddenly seemed to turn into, you felt so betrayed at how your reality seemed to be changing so much lately I.E. in the past day at how it had become completely unhinged you weren't entirely sure whether or not you were delusional though you were glad that if on the off chance you actually were delusional that at least you had Vinyl standing right by your bedside in said potential delusion as without her it would seem a lot worse. “Sketch, are you ok?” Vinyl said looking at you worryingly “Say something come on..” You realized that you hadn't said a single thing, you didn’t even know if your vocal cords were capable of making noise what if somehow the blackout caused you to lose your ability to speak you became temporarily worried but you couldn't think of anything to say so as to confirm whether or not you were in fact suddenly mute the worry and nervousness and anxiousness all piled one on top of the other until finally you figured out that the only way to confirm whether or not you had been made mute by the ordeal that had been the blackout you would have to say the first word that you could think of no matter what otherwise you might not say it and that word was… “Well at least I haven’t gone mute” they both seem to laugh, thankfully had you been mute you wouldn't have been able to say that and would have spared yourself the embarrassment of being wrong, you take pride that your blackout addled mind had thought up something so ingenious if that's what had actually happen and you didn’t just string together a bunch of words hope for the best and pray you got lucky. Whatever it was you count this among your successes, right next to having vinyl as a lover. This was a good thing. You are quickly filled in by Vinyl what happened in the hour or so you were asleep and as it turns out the Cyberponies haven’t gotten past Ponyville for some currently unknown reason and that most of the semi-friendly species native to Equestria have decided to turn the other way on this one and not get involved, it had been determined that you needed somepony who either had as much to lose by all of this as all of you or who was incredibly nice and helpful towards everypony or somepony who could be forced/coerced. The Doctor and River came in during the explanation and suddenly Twilight and Haru come barging through the door. “WE KNOW HOW WE CAN STOP THE CYBERPONY INVASION.” You are greatly relieved to hear this, perhaps too relieved, you find yourself blacking out immediately from the sheer relief of it all which apparently your mind isn’t able to handle at the time. When you awake again you find yourself nauseous and about to puke, you’re on the TARDIS and Vinyl seems to have a bucket at the ready for you. “Told you he would still puke even if he wasn’t awake.” Vinyl said and you couldn't help but laugh. “I guess you were right, he is certainly a strange pony isn’t he.” They both giggled at this. “Yeah, but he's my strange pony and I love him to death.” Once more the bucket seemed to disappear after being filled with what you could only imagine was the beautiful lunch that your wonderful mare had cooked for you, now sadly thrown away, somewhat disheartening but mostly disorienting. You see The Doctor monitoring various view screens in the TARDIS and notice that Fluttershy appears to have convinced some timber wolves into fighting against the Cyberponies, you find it to be one of her more awesome moments as you never knew she could be such a badass pony. Pinkie and somepony who she had earlier referred to as captain Jack Hoofress seemed to be fighting their own small battle and being slowly overwhelmed you turned around feeling someone was watching you and realized princesses Celestia and Luna were both preparing a spell, you realize you’re floating in midair when the TARDIS doors are opened by River as they together cast a spell radiating all over Ponyville and beyond that even, Vinyl explains that it should weaken their defenses which nopony had previously been able to penetrate and according to the screens it seemed to work though the battle was still in favor of the Cyberponies, you were going to congratulate them on striking such a blow but you realized they had moved off away from the door (now closed) to rest, clearly it had taken a lot out of them to do this and you didn’t think things would be able to get much better any time soon at this rate. “Alright we should have bought Pinkie and the others enough time now onto recruit some more allies…” said The Doctor as he started punching in information to the TARDIS and doing the equivalent of what you had to imagine must have been steering it. When you suddenly stop and the doors open you realize a sense of dread prevailing you, you don't know why but somehow this feeling of dread had overridden your desire to throw up as you had every other time the TARDIS engines were used, you quickly realized however this was not true and that you were merely too caught up in that feeling of dread to realize that you had in fact puked… a lot. You were in the middle of the changelings. It was a giant valley, but instead of grass or anything else growing it was just rock. Rock was everywhere and it was strangely beautiful even though it seemed so barren, the jagged spires near the top of the valley made it near-impossible to get into the area without flying. “WHO DARES TRESPASS IN THE DOMAIN OF THE CHANGELINGS” much to River’s dismay he pulled the doors inward and out walked the doctor stating calmly “Hh… that would be me, hehe, hi there.” He said ever amused, this pony clearly was a thrill seeker he seemed to get a new level of high every time he encountered a more dangerous situation, you begin to wonder if he's ever tried skydiving but you think that would perhaps be a bit tame for him. “Well now it seems that Equestria would be in a bit of a bind with the Cyberpony invasion but you lot seem perfectly fine... now why is that?” he asked the question out loud though you couldn't discern if he was saying it to himself or if he knew the answer and just wanted to see if they'd tell him or if he was trying to not make assumptions or maybe and perhaps most likely this was just a part of his process “The Cyberponies are no threat to us, we are strong enough to defend ourselves unlike most of Equestria we can actually fight, numerous wards protect our lands as well, they would not dare touch this place otherwise they would feel our wrath” boasted their apparent queen arrogantly. “But that's not quite true is it, from what Haru and Twilight told me they're endangering your food supply, you feed on the strong feelings of love ponies have for one another, if the Cyberponies invade then they will eradicate love, sure you can scrounge up some food here and there I'm sure there are numerous creatures they may not harm though it’s unlikely, but… I don't think you quite enjoy the idea of that now do you. The queen was angered, it seems that there is more than she was telling us to this story, but why wouldn't she have attacked them if this was true..? “Their numbers are far greater than ours and they have crippled the supply of that which we feed off of, we are at a loss for the ability to fight them now, had we seen just what a threat they could be we would have acted sooner however now it is too late…” The Doctor nodded this was the response he seemed to be hoping she would give, what a cunning pony you thought to yourself to so easily manipulate the queen of the changelings. “But that's not entirely true anymore now, for you see the sister princesses of Equestria have used their magic to weaken the Cyberponies, right now they are being weakened by their combined feelings of love for each other as sisters and for all of Equestria, they have sacrificed much to use this spell, I should say that is quite a feat of love and that such a thing would easily give you the advantage over the Cyberponies, the window of opportunity closes though I don't think we could keep this offer on the table for much longer and I don't think I’d like to ask them to work their magic again, if we weaken the Cyberponies as a whole we can slowly begin to convert them back to regular ponies again but as their army stands now we would not be able to do so efficiently, I propose an alliance, your soldiers help us fight and we help make sure that your source of energy stays for generations to come, what do you say?” he said with a broad smile that infuriated the queen. Perhaps though it was merely the concept that she was forced into this, that she was trapped between a rock and a hard place, she gritted her teeth and agreed however, and ordered her troops to fly over Equestria, starting with Ponyville and to begin attacking the Cyberponies, a war ensued and they were effectively fighting back the cyber ponies in no time, once Ponyville’s Cyberponies were defeated most of the army moved on to free the other places in Equestria, Queen Chrysalis decided to stay behind and watch. It wasn’t until twilight and almost all of the available unicorns had used up all their energy temporarily to transform most of Ponyville's citizens that were also worn out upon being transformed back to their original forms, that Queen Chrysalis made her declaration grinning maliciously. “FOOLS, DID YOU THINK I WOULD HELP YOU ALL SO EASILY, NOW THAT YOU DON'T HAVE PRINCESS CELESTIA PROTECTING YOU NOBODY CAN STOP ME” with that she cast a spell to lock the TARDIS doors so that princesses Luna and Celestia couldn't get out while The Doctor and River couldn't get in, I wondered where Vinyl had gone hoping that she was alright and hadn't been secretly taken hostage. You quickly spotted her though in a shadow with something behind her and she winked at you and motioned for you to look away which you did before you were noticed. “I AM INVINCIBLE NOW THAT I'VE ABSORBED ALL OF THIS ENERGY I MUST REMEMBER TO THANK PRINCESSES LUNA AND CELESTIA IF I EVER GET TO SEE THEM AGAIN.” “I don't think so, check out MAH BASS CANNON” you realize that while Queen Chrysalis had been gloating she had dragged out her bass cannon and you silently congratulated her, her awesomeness having been taken to a whole new level, though this was abruptly halted as before she could press the button she was zapped away by chrysalis’s magic and she lay several yards away from it struggling to get up before collapsing, naturally instead of running to the cannon to thwart the Queen’s evil plot you run to her, she doesn't object because of the whole being knocked out cold thing naturally. You heard the sound of someone clearing their throat in time to realize that it was Haru, who hadn't been curing everyone with twilight but had apparently gone unnoticed when he decided to stay back in case (as far as you can tell) Chrysalis decided to pull exactly what she is right now pulling. “I believe it is time, as the youngsters say, to… ‘rock and roll’” the horrible line caught everyone completely off guard, especially Chrysalis who didn’t realize until it was too late that this was his setup line for not only activating vinyl’s base cannon by slamming down the button but also using his magic to amplify the sound waves that a moment later came blasting out of the cannon heading right at chrysalis in a flash of green, white, and blue sending her blasting off who knows where possibly for a second time if ever there were a first time this had happened to someone or her though why that would be significant is lost on you. Wille and Haru helped you get Vinyl back to your house “I’m going to stay here instead of going back with The Doctor, just in case anything happens” River said walking into the house as Wille and Haru walked out. “He’s going to take them home then try to figure out why the Cyberponies all of a sudden came. But in the mean time let’s try and get her awake again” she signaled towards Vinyl, who never left your side after her run-in with Chrysalis. River pulled out something that looked like a pen but made of nothing but metal as she held it towards Vinyl and the tip of it popped open glowing green and making weird humming noises. “What is that?” You said staring at it “I won’t go into details so it’s a Sonic Screwdriver. She’s fine dear, just needs rest take her to the bed if you please would, I’m going to go with Twilight to check on all the ponies that were changed back.” You nodded and gently carried Vinyl upstairs as River slipped out the door. AUTHOR’S NOTES CILFFHANGERS! WOOHOO! Alright not really a cliffhanger but if I read this without knowing what was going to happen I’d hate it. Can’t say anymore, spoilers dear.