“So…” said Scootaloo. “I’m guessing that we can’t just, y’know. Walk across.”
“...Doubtful,” Dinky said. “Hang on just a minute.”
She shut her eyes and focused. The air shimmered, and an illusory golden duplicate of herself stepped onto the chessboard. Immediately, the board was electrified, and the magic copy blew apart with an anguished scream. Both mares’ eyes went wide, and Dinky took a few steps back. “Okay,” she said. “That’s not exactly ideal.”
“...How many of those things can you make?” Scootaloo asked. “If you do enough --”
“Even if I could make an infinite number of copies -- which I can’t, they’re very draining -- we’d still be here for hours testing random paths. This is a puzzle -- there has to be a clue around here somewhere…”
She trailed off, glancing around the corridor, which was entirely empty. “...Don’t suppose you could just hover over this thing.”
“Don’t suppose you could teleport past it.”
“Oh, that’s a thought,” Dinky said. “Alright, here goes nothing.”
The two mares disappeared in a flash of magic. An instant later, they reappeared right where they had been standing. “It would seem not,” Dinky said. “Must be warded or something.”
Scootaloo frowned and glanced around the hallway again. She suddenly went stiff. “Dinky…” she said slowly. “Don’t turn around. Just set me down slow.”
Dinky did as she was bade. “Alright,” Scootaloo said. “Now turn.”
Dinky looked back. Some distance down the hallway were two distressingly familiar statues. “...Shit. Alright. Uh…”
She wracked her brain for anything that might be useful, any clue she might have missed before. She did it again, and again, more frantically each time. Then she started mentally screaming.
The Doctor had been dragged in ropes to the Old Harbor district, an ancient dock that was among the last reminders of when the Capitol had possessed waterfront property, some few dozen thousand years before the Doctor had been loomed. The Gallifreyan tides were so huge and powerful, it had been decided that such waters were an annoyance and a danger to the community, and so they had been terraformed out of existence. Now all that the Old Harbor overlooked was an enormous pit. It had never been destroyed or repurposed. That was life on Gallifrey.
It seemed that it was also death on Gallifrey. He was led through an angry swarm of familiar faces, grotesquely twisted into monstrous forms. Katarina was there, her broken body floating almost peacefully in the air. A kilted man without a face stood sentinel at the base of the crudely-built stage, alongside a zombified Captain Yates. Izzy and Destrii were fused at the hip, and still trying to rip one another apart, though they stopped and glowered at the Doctor as he was led past. Zoe sat on the ground, head in her hands. Sand was pouring out of her ears, and he could see within the sand images of past adventures -- memories stolen from her by his people.
As he was led up the stairs and onto the stage, he was made to look out at the crowd and saw still more familiar faces.
Sam Jones, flickering between dark and light, her face cracked in two. Princess Luna, corrupted once more into Nightmare Moon. Discord, half-petrified. Kamelion, burning in agony.
His heart sank as his gaze fell on Susan, his beloved granddaughter. Her face was lined and pinched and stern from years of labor and later years of fighting. She held the broken body of her son, Alex.
No less terrible was the sight of Ditzy, hooves over her eyes, mouth locked in a scream of pain. He blinked, and suddenly she was staring at him, teeth bared.
And at the base of the stage, six dirty, broken bodies stared up at him, their eyes empty. The Cutie Mark Crusaders.
The Doctor took in a long breath and let it out slowly. “Well,” he said. “They say it’s a good thing to die surrounded by friends. I shan’t be alone, at any rate.”
Someone behind him snorted a laugh. “You ain’t got friends here, sunshine.”
The Doctor turned. “Oh, my Bella Donna,” he said sadly. “What have I done to you?”
Her eyes glowed golden with anger. “The same thing you did to all us broken toys,” she said. “Played with us. Shattered us. Left us to rot.” She laughed bitterly. “I begged you, d’you remember? I begged you to just let me burn. I would have died as I always wanted to live! I would have gone out in a blaze of glory, knowing that I had saved all of creation, and instead you turned me back into a damp squib.”
“You were never that, Donna,” the Doctor whispered. “Never that.”
“Forget this,” said another familiar voice. “Let’s just smash ‘im already!”
The Doctor blanched. “Ace,” he said. “Oh, Ace--”
“Shut it,” she said shortly, electricity sparking across her body. Her leather jacket seemed to be the only thing holding her glitching, mutated form together. She pointed the shattered remains of her metal bat at him. “I’m through playing your games, Doctor.”
“Just toss him over the edge and be done with it,” Sam shouted. “Let us go already!”
“No,” Leela replied. “The time is not yet right. The executioner is not yet here.”
The crowd broke into an uproar. The Doctor shut his eyes and flattened his ears, but that wasn’t enough to shut out the roar of the crowd. But all that stopped when one singular voice rose high and clear above the others. “HELP!” Dinky shouted. “HELP! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!”
Everyone stopped and looked at the figure of Dinky, front-row center in the Doctor’s mind. The Doctor flapped his mouth for a moment. “I… yes?”
There was a long pause. “Doctor? What are you doing in my head?”
“From my point of view, you happen to be in mine,” the Doctor said. “You must have accidentally triggered a psychic link, all Time Lords can do it -- which means --” He blinked several times. “You’re alive?”
“Yeah. All of us survived the fall,” Dinky said. The other Crusaders blinked into life one by one around her, glancing around in surprise. “But that might not be true for much longer. Scootaloo and I are in the tower, stuck between a pair of statues and an electric chessboard --”
Romana pointed at Dinky. “Someone shut her up!” she shouted.
Several of the corrupted companions rushed forth, but the other Crusaders sprang into action, fending them off. “The statues… you mean Weeping Angels?” the Doctor asked.
“Yeah? They move when you blink, is that them?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, mom and Fluttershy got turned into them. So did Rainbow Dash, but she managed to fight off her conditioning or whatever it is that’s making them attack us.”
“They can still be saved,” the Doctor murmured, his eyes going wide.
Donna grabbed his collar and started pulling him away from Dinky. He struggled to call out to her as her voice began to fade.
“Dinky! Just remember -- easy as Pi -- just walk -- CIRCULAR!”
All that remained after that was static.
Dinky blinked several times. “Okay. Well, that was something.”
“What was? You totally fuzzing out on me for ten seconds?” Scootaloo demanded.
Dinky looked at the Weeping Angels. They were barely ten meters away. “I was talking with the Doctor.”
“...Come again?”
“Apparently I have psychic powers and nopony remembered to tell me. It didn’t last long, but he tried to tell me how to cross the chessboard…” she relayed the message to Scootaloo quickly, pausing only for blinks.
“Circular,” Scootaloo repeated, furrowing her brow. “What could that mean on a square board?”
“Same question with easy as pi,” Dinky mused. “I’m gonna take another look at the board, keep your eyes open.”
“Alright.”
Dinky scanned the board. No, there was nothing circular around here. What else did she know about chess? Pieces -- king, queen, knight, bishop, rook, pawn. None moved in circles. The pieces would be set up along rows 1, 2, 7, and 8 --
Oh. Now wasn’t that interesting…
“Scootaloo,” Dinky said slowly. “This chessboard is set up wrong.”
“Is it?” Scootaloo asked. “Imagine that.”
“In chess, the lowest right-hoof square is white. On this one, it’s black.”
“Great. Is there a point to all this? Blink.”
Dinky glanced up to stare at the statues, then back at the board. “I think so. In chess, the squares in columns are marked with letters, and the squares in rows are marked with numbers. They’re flipped now, which suggests an alphanumeric code of some kind.”
“And the code word is… circular? Dinky, I’m pretty sure ‘R’ and ‘U’ are a little outside of a chessboard’s normal span.”
“Yeah, so’s ‘L’. But the other part of the message, ‘easy as pi’ -- what if it’s not just a straight conversion from letters to ordinal numbers? What if you line up the letters of the alphabet --”
“Blink. With the digits of pi?”
“Yeah!”
Scootaloo said nothing. “Scoots?”
“Shush, I’m calculating. What are the numbers on a chessboard?”
“One through eight.”
“So if any of them line up with a zero or nine…” Scootaloo lapsed into silence. “They don’t.”
“Alright. I’m gonna put you on my back and go for it,” Dinky said. “You gotta tell me the numbers and check my six, alright?”
“Okay,” Scootaloo said. “Just let me refresh my eyes a second. Blink.”
Dinky stared at the statues as Scootaloo pressed her hooves against her eyelids. “Alright,” she said, opening her eyes again. “I’m ready.”
Quickly, Dinky turned back to the board and lifted Scootaloo up onto her back. “Go,” she said.
“Four,” Scootaloo said. Dinky stepped onto the fourth square, wincing as hoof met tile. Nothing happened. “Alright,” she said. “Good start.”
“Five,” Scootaloo said. Again, nothing happened.
From B5 to C3 to D4 to E6 to F8, nothing continued to happen. Then Scootaloo hesitated. “This one’s another three,” she said slowly. “Can you make it?”
Dinky gauged the distance. “I don’t know,” she said.
Scootaloo considered this. “Could you make it if I wasn’t weighing you down?”
“...Probably. But I’m not leaving you behind!”
“Just get clear and levitate me over when you’re over! I’ll be fine, I promise. I -- Oh Celestia, I gotta blink.”
Quickly, Dinky levitated Scootaloo off her back and turned to stare at the statues as Scootaloo blinked frantically. “I’m not leaving you behind,” Dinky said fiercely. “I’ll stay here and levitate you over first.”
“Fine,” Scootaloo said. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Neither taking their eyes off the statues, Dinky levitated Scootaloo into the air and tried to push her over to the appropriate square. However, she seemed incapable of moving Scootaloo outside the perimeter of their current tile. “Okay,” Scootaloo said. “Let me think, let me think… how high can you lift me?”
“Scootaloo, you’re not --”
“I can still glide, thanks, and I’ve had way rougher landings.”
“Not with two broken legs you haven’t!”
Scootaloo glared at her. “Lift me.”
Dinky grit her teeth and sent her friend higher and higher, until her magic hit another invisible wall, some three meters up. “Okay,” Scootaloo said. “Let me go.”
Dinky did so, and Scootaloo buzzed her wings for all they were worth. Dinky wanted desperately to watch, but knew that she couldn’t break her gaze on the statues for even a moment.
There was a thump and a squeal of pain, but nothing that sounded like lightning striking. “Scootaloo?” she called. “Are you alright?”
There was a long string of cussing, followed by a long pause. Then a pained voice. “Yeah. Fine. Landing on a broken leg hurts.”
“I’m sure the medical community is fascinated by your novel insight,” Dinky said acidly. “You haven’t broken your splints or anything?”
“Don’t think so.”
“You can keep going?”
“Yeah, last one’s a three, too. Keep watching them for a few more seconds, I’ll crawl out of your way.”
There followed a few more moments of near silence. Dinky’s eyes burned, and she felt incredibly guilty about forcing Scootaloo to keep taking point on all the watches. But Scootaloo hadn’t let her down. Dinky could do no less.
After an agonizing several seconds, Scootaloo said, “Alright. I’ve got eyes on them. Dinky, go.”
Dinky blinked several times to clear her eyes, then turned and leapt for the penultimate square. She skidded into the landing, barely keeping herself from going over the edge. Fortunately, the wards only seemed to block magic traveling between squares, and Dinky was able to conjure a shield to slam into before she went over. Shaken, she hurried over the final square and off the board to sit at Scootalo’s side. “So… can we stop watching them now?” she muttered. “We’ve got the electric chessboard between us, maybe that’ll keep them at bay?”
“... Only one way to find out.”
“On my count. One, two, three --”
They blinked.
“Your situation is, roughly speaking, as follows,” Romana said, traversing row upon row of medical equipment in the storage closet. “The Valeyard attempted to erase you from existence through a thoroughly barbaric method which I’m pleased to say my alternate self expressly outlawed on Gallifrey. It was known as the Oubliette of Eternity.”
The pager she was carrying buzzed. Oubliette?
“Yes, it’s Prench. Loosely translated, it means one’s deepest dungeon, one into which you throw prisoners so that they will be forgotten. It systematically erases your timeline and spits your soul out the other side, naked and shivering. You become a denizen of the anti-time -- a Neverperson, as they’ve come to be known. Of course, the Valeyard had only a fraction of the power of the Oubliette itself, hence why you can still be remembered.”
… You would have forgotten us?
Romana grimaced. “It’s possible. As a Time Lady, I’m better than more… temporal creatures, such as ponies, at remembering alternate timelines. But yes, you would have been erased from everypony’s memories, photo albums, any records that existed of you… wiped out.”
That’s horrible.
“Yes, hence why I banned it.” Romana slammed the last supply cupboard and leaned her head against the cold metal. “I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to restore you as soon as this crisis is averted.”
Is there anything we can do to help?
Romana chuckled drily. “No. Nothing that I can think of, anyway. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.”
Nothing? Maybe we could inspect the rift?
Romana’s face turned stony. “Absolutely not. It’s too much of a risk for you to go near it. It would destroy any living thing that tried to go through.”
We’re not living.
Romana hesitated for a split second, but then she shook her head firmly. “No. I owe it to your friends and family to do what I can to keep all of you safe. I can’t stop you from doing anything -- I can’t even touch you -- but I beg you to consider what this risk could mean to Rumble and Button. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and raid the Doctor’s workshop for spare parts.”
Flitter and Tender Care exchanged worried glances. Cloudchaser brushed back her mane. “So, uh, if I could bring the conversation back to Las Pegasus,” she said casually.
“Do what you want,” Thunderlane said. “I’m going through the rift.”
“‘Lane…” Flitter said, putting a gentle hoof on his withers. “You heard what she said. Think about how Rumble would feel --”
“Think about Rumble?” Thunderlane asked. “I’m not thinking about anything else! My brother is trapped in some kind of nightmare world, and I’m not going to sit here and talk about burlesque while he could be in mortal danger! I’m going through. Anyone else want to come?”
“I -- alright, let’s slow down and talk about this,” Cloudchaser said, rubbing her forehead.
Thunderlane snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“Yeah? Think about the fact that I’m the one saying you’re being too impulsive.”
He paused and realized that he didn’t actually have a good answer to that. “...Fine,” he said, sitting down. “Make your case.”
“Rumble’s an adult,” Cloudchaser said. “He can handle things on his own.”
“Really? We’re talking down facing down monsters on an alien world, not doing taxes.”
“Fair enough, but point two, you are currently an incorporeal echo of yourself. You’re not exactly gonna be a great help fighting.”
“... Well. I, uh.”
“So what, exactly, is the point of going through?” Cloudchaser demanded. “What do you gain from this?”
Thunderlane was silent for a long moment. “...I’ll be there for him,” he said simply. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
Much to her consternation, Cloudchaser couldn’t find a single retort to that. Thunderlane nodded. “Alright. I’ll see you later.”
Flitter rose. “Oh, no. If you’re going, I’m going.”
Thunderlane gave her a small smile and ducked his head. “Flit…”
“Don’t you try that on me. I care about Rumble, too. If you’re going, so am I.”
Cloudchaser threw back her head and groaned. “Fuck me. Well, if the two of you are going, I’d better go, too. You two jags are just gonna get disintegrated without me. You’ll just be staring into each other's eyes like a couple of lovesick twits and get eaten by whatever eats ghosts.”
All three glanced at Tender Care. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No. No, I’ll stay here. Redheart needs someone to keep her stable, and right now, I’m the only available mare for the job. Just… look after Button too, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Flitter said.
Thunderlane rose. “C’mon. We’d better hurry before Romana and Starlight seal the rift off.”
The three pegasi flew off, Flitter sparing Tender one last backward glance before following her coltfriend and sister off beyond where the earth pony could see. She watched the spot where they had passed through the wall for several long minutes before she allowed herself to walk away, tears running slowly down her face.
The creature followed them down the tunnels, as content as a kitten. Occasionally Button or Sweetie would give it a little scratch on the ear, and the creature would make a sound that was probably purring.
This state of affairs lasted until they arrived at the staircase, the door still open and letting in the ambient light from the stairwell. The creature squinted into the brightness, shook its head, and retreated several steps back. Button glanced back. “I guess it likes the dark better?” he said.
“Aw. Guess it can’t come with us.” Sweetie Belle patted it on the snout. “Alright. Be safe, bud.”
“If you see a robot with lots of domes, try and make friends,” Button suggested.
The creature snuffled. How much it understood, if anything, couldn’t be known, but it seemed to grasp that they were leaving. It whined a little, and gave Sweetie Belle a lick before turning and trundling back down the corridor. Sweetie pouted after it for several seconds before turning and going back into the main stairwell, Button close behind her.
“Ugh,” she said. “I’m not looking forward to going up all those steps again.”
“Yeah,” Button said. “Especially with all the earthquakes that’ve happened since the last time we went up.”
Sweetie winced. “I didn’t even think of that,” she admitted. “You’d better go up first. I can levitate you to safety if you start to fall.”
“I thought you were out of magic.”
“Oh. Right.” She lit her horn experimentally. “Yeah. I could maybe levitate your bag, but not you.”
Button nodded. “I’ll go up first anyway. You can try and catch me by the tail or something if the stairs give out.”
“Right.”
The two started to cautiously make their way up the winding flight of steps. They didn’t seem to be any more crumbling or shaky than they had been the last time the duo had climbed them, but they seemed to seem that way. At first, Button and Sweetie walked quickly up the stairs, barely touching each step before moving off again. After they had gone some distance without incident, however, and their legs started to get tired, they began to slow down.
“So,” Sweetie Belle said. “Um. Are you still going to that tech conference in Baltimare?”
Button paused for a moment before resuming his climb. “I dunno,” he admitted. “I mean… I can’t go back to Copper Hills. I just can’t face that again. I was miserable there. But now my controller’s been really beat up just running around here, and I gave them to Scootaloo…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m stuck, Sweetie. I don’t know where I want to go -- I don’t know where I can go from here.”
Sweetie nodded, then stopped when she realized Button couldn’t see her. “I know what you mean,” she said instead. “I don’t really know what I want to do with my life, either.”
“You don’t?” Button looked back at her, surprised. “I thought you wanted to go into entertainment.”
“Well, I mean… yeah, but it’s not that easy,” Sweetie said. “You have to be really good to make a living at it, and you have to be really lucky, too. You have to work for years to make a name for yourself, and even then you might fail. More than that…”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to start,” Sweetie said quietly. “I don’t know if I’m good enough. I’m no Sapphire Shores.”
“No,” Button said. “But you are Sweetie Belle. Isn’t that enough?”
Sweetie went slightly pink at that. “Well -- that’s sweet,” she said. “But I’m still not sure --”
Button stopped and turned to look at her. “Sweetie,” he said. “You sang the Crystal Empire to sleep. You tamed that beast in the tunnels. You’ve got the most beautiful voice of anypony I know, and you use it wonderfully.”
“But I’m--”
“Please, don’t argue,” Button said. “You’re graceful and elegant and clever and creative and my best friend, and I think you deserve the world. I can’t give you the world, even though I’d like to. Right now, all I can give you is all the confidence and love I have for you, and I hope to Celestia that you’ll accept it.”
Sweetie was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly, she asked, “Do you really mean all that? You think I can really do it?”
Button nodded enthusiastically. “I know you can! You just have to be brave, put yourself out there. I believe in you, Sweetie.”
Sweetie sniffed back a few tears, then grabbed Button in a great big hug. “Thanks,” she murmured into his shoulder. “Thank you. And for what it’s worth -- I know you’ll do great things, too. You don’t need to go to Copper Hills or Baltimare or anywhere else for that. Because you’re beautiful and smart and so skilled, so creative…” She stopped, took a sharp breath in. “Did you hear that?” she asked, her voice suddenly hushed.
“Huh?” Button said, as the stair he was sitting on creaked again and gave way beneath him.