//------------------------------//
// Like A Stone - Ch. 4: Gone Away 
// Story: The Doctor And Derpy Adventures 
// by Closer-To-The-Sun 
//------------------------------//

Like A Stone - Chapter 4: Gone Away

"Join? Now what's all this then?" the Doctor's ears were perked in disbelief.

The little unicorn's voice answered, "The angels want us to be among them, to be statues."

"But I don't understand, why do they need us to be like them?" the Doctor asked yet another question, "This is nothing like their normal plan of attack. They would have feed off of our energy by now."

"They're dying Doctor. As a species, they are becoming extinct. Corrosion, weathering, decay; they are wasting away, Mr. Doctor. Their colony on this planet is vanishing at an alarming rate," Dinky explained, her voice distant.

"But why do they want us, Dinky?" Derpy cried, clinging on tightly to the stone statue of her daughter.

"Because they need a source of energy, any organism's energy. And if they decay beyond repair, they will need more angels," the Doctor explained, "For quite some time, it became well known that any image of an angel will get the properties of the weeping angel. Without those images, they are slowly dying as a species." The Doctor trotted up to the row of stone angels, examining each statue. The stallion noticed that age had caught up to each stone figure. They were all decaying.

"Correct, Doctor. And with the energy of your TARDIS, we will be able to feed off of it for millenniums, if not more. And we will grow in our numbers," Dinky added.

The grey pegasus sobbed a bit as she spoke, "Dinky, stop saying such weird things! Stop being a statue!" Derpy's cries fell on stone, deaf ears.

The Doctor gritted his teeth and looked at Derpy holding the stone Dinky, "You are not going to succeed, weeping angels. I've dealt with you before, and I can deal with you again."

"While you have dealt with them before, Mr. Doctor, they have had time to prepared for you," the disembodied voice of Dinky replied.

Before the Doctor could ask what she meant, he looked up from the to see the row of weeping angels had taken moved forward drastically and only a foot away from where the Doctor, Derpy, and the statue of Dinky were. Quickly, turning his head around, he looked to see that another wave of angels were beginning close in on them as well.

Quickly, the Doctor turned his attention to Derpy. "Listen to me, we need to run. Now."

Derpy's response was upset, "Not without Dinky!"

"Then grab her and fly! And whatever you do, don't blink!" the Doctor stressed the last statement, "Follow!"

The pegasus wrapped her limbs around the stone unicorn and took off in flight upwards. Using that as a distraction, the Doctor galloped as fast as his hooves could take him. To the Doctor's luck, a few of the angels had made eye contact with each other, quantum-locking them and trapping them.

"Derpy, head to the to the edge of the cliff, and down to the TARDIS. Now!" the Doctor instructed, hustling to the rim of the roof.

The mare obeyed her instructions and glided down from to the blue phone box at the bottom of the ledge. The Doctor, on the other hand jumped off the cliff and slid down the slope of structure. A few yelps of pain were heard coming from the Doctor as he went down the grade. Finally, arriving at the bottom of the cliff, the stallion continued his galloping pace into the TARDIS, quickly followed by Derpy with her stone daughter in her hooves.

"Doctor, are you alright?" Derpy asked as soon as she entered the time machine.

"I'm always alright, now close the door! We have to sever the link between the weeping angels and Dinky," the Doctor ordered as he stood at the console, pulling levers and pushing buttons. After the door was closed, the Doctor set the TARDIS into motion, which in vanished from the surface of the alien planet.

Derpy looked at Dinky, who still had her horrified expression on her stone face, "Doctor….Dinky….is she….?" the pegasus's eyes were beginning to well up with tears again.

"She's still turning to stone."