"Luna!" Celestia dived down toward the canopy, and then shot back up when her hooves disappeared past a certain area. "This is... strange... Luna, come back here!" Celestia shouted a final time. She looked nervously at the canopy, she reached a hoof in, and not feeling anything from it Celestia took a breath and dropped into the unknown. She found herself a few feet below, but from below Celestia could see the intricate cloaking spell that covered this entire section of the Everfree's canopy. Luna must have prepared it in case of emergencies.
Up ahead there was a breach in the sea of leaves, one that Celestia couldn't see from above the spell. "What are you hiding Luna?" She dropped through the hole and into the forest of monsters.
It became incredibly dark as Celestia landed in the space between trees. The branches that filled the air would catch her wings if she tried to fly any further, but even then Celestia was too big to walk easily among the woods. Celestia was tempted to light the forest using her magic, but it would only serve as a warning to Luna, if she was even still here.
Celestia marched of in one direction, but after getting tangled in some branches and not being able to look for any clues of the Princess of the Night in the darkness Celestia gave in and lit her horn.
Immediately the darkness was expelled, the entire area becoming as bright as day around her. Celestia clearly saw the path of broken branches and hoof prints that continued in a different direction than the one she came. "Gotcha." Celestia said, turning down the light on her horn and following the path of destruction made by her sister.
Once Celestia was a ways down the path, and out of hearing range a tree was surrounded by a deep blue aura, and it opened up, revealing the dark blue alicorn pony, who had squeezed herself into the hollow of the large tree. "Gotcha." Luna said, struggling her way out of the tree. "Darn. I guess I've gotten bigger over the last 1300 years."
Pinkie Pie was running through the castle of the night, trying to find an exit to get back to Ponyville. "Pinkie, come back, Princess Luna will come for us soon and she can take you back, it's quite a distance to Ponyville." The Doctor shouted after her.
"Which is why we should make it easier for her by waiting at the exit!"
"Pinkie, it's a maze down here, I think we should just wait for her, we'd never... find the..." The Doctor skidded to a halt next to the pink mare, and they both stared at the glowing electric 'EXIT' sign above a steel door with a push lock, not unlike one that could be found at any modern building back on Earth. The door swung open and a strange creature was on the other side.
It's face and body was split down the middle with a jagged uneven line, on the left side it was white, and on the right it was black. It had a head that was both dragon like and horse like at the same time, on the left side of its head was a black horn, on the right a white antler. Both of it's eyes a blood red circle surrounded by yellow. But what stood out the very most of all was it's eyebrows, it's goatee, and it's short mane, all of it a familiar shade of hot pink, and looked like it was bouncy cotton candy. The contrast of his colors fitted the contrast of his features; and eagle claw, a cloven hoof, a reptile's foot, a paw, and a dragon's tail, all attached to his head along his black and white serpentine body.
The Doctor and Pinkie Pie stared at the creature, who just smiled pleasantly and expectantly at them. After a few seconds the strange creature frowned, and looked at a watch that had appeared from nowhere onto his wrist. "I'm too early, aren't I?" It said in a voice that made Pinkie's ears stand up. The creature looked between the two of them with a kind of sad smile. "Oh, i am... There's always something!" the creature then shut the door, not offering an explanation. The door then fell over onto Pinkie and the Doctor, the Doctor shielded Pinkie and braced for an impact that never came, he and Pinkie were covered by blueberry jelly though. As Pinkie's tongue somehow grew in order to clean her entire face in a single slurp. The Doctor continued to stare at the 'exit' sign, that flipped around and said 'entrance' and then melted into molasses.
"What... just happened?"
"I don't know, he looked kinda like Discord though, but his head was different, and he was less kooky looking, the colors were wrong too... something familiar about his hair though..."
"It looked like yours... so you saw a creature like him before?"
"Yep, he was a Draconequus."
"A Draconequus?"
"Yep, they're like a mess of other creatures all pushed together."
"He turned a steel door into jelly." The Doctor said without emotion.
"That's nothing, he turned gravel paths into slip'n'slides, buffaloes into ballerinas, rain into chocolate milk, he just kinda turns things into other things."
"Where does the door lead to? Was it a portal, he said he was too early... what do you know about the other one?"
"Just that he's the spirit of Chaos, and tried to conquer Equestria a few months ago. Also, we share a lot of the same tastes."
"Uh..." The Doctor looked back at the pile of molasses as it climbed back onto the ceiling and hardened. A second later a sugar-cube butterfly broke out of it and flew away. "Well, I think that broke of just about every Physics law."
"Ha! Physics, good one." Pinkie walked away, leaving the Doctor to watch the sugar butterfly of CHAOS!
Celestia found her way to a small pond, she looked around, and not seeing any other trail, not even in the air, sighed, took a breath of air, and dived down into the water. She lit her horn and used her wings to propel her deeper into the murky water. She searched for a cave, a magical bubble, anything. As she moved her horn in every direction she caught a glimpse of some light sparkling off of something. She shot forward towards it, finding herself in a smooth cave, the bottom was covered in very silky sand, and sitting in the center of the cave was a large round gem. She moved forward to investigate it, but suddenly the ceiling jerked and Celestia was trapped inside what she recognized as some kind of gigantic mollusk or clam.
Celestia looked around in a panic, she fired a beam from her horn at the wall, but all it did was make the mollusk move and make the water around her uncomfortably hot. Celestia was scared now, she didn't have much magic left after the whole display with the banishment spell and using the 'sun beam' for three times longer than she should have to get into the Dalek ship. She could drown down here.
It was generally believed Alicorns were immortal, but rather it was more that they were incredibly powerful and aged incredibly slowly. Celestia could heal herself almost indefinitely, but only when she had enough magic. She could regenerate the magic quicker than unicorns, but that didn't mean it was impossible to kill her, just very difficult. Celestia could keep herself from drowning for about... two hours she guessed, doing the math and sensing how much magic remained inside her. But after that... she didn't know. Celestia swam to where her sun-beam hit and eyed the wall, it left a scorch mark, but didn't burn through at all. Celestia considered trying to bore through some more with the beam, but it would leave her with even less magic to preserve herself, and would boil the water, hurting her, and resulting in having to use even more magic to heal her own burns.
Celestia was beginning to lose hope. She wished she had learned how to teleport, it would have been so useful so often. So many times, every time she got herself trapped like this she promised herself she would ask Luna or Twilight to teach her, but she always forgot, always, every day for the last 32,000 years.
Celestia was just about to lose hope when the clam opened and a bright light almost blinded her. "SHOO-BE-DOO, SHOOSHOO-BE-DO!" resounded inside the cave mouth and reverberated inside Celestia's skull.
"No...no...No! NONONONONO!" Celestia screamed as the abominations against the Hippocampus and Equus families began their cheerful song about almost drowning.
Luna arrived at her cloaked Castle of Night, and went into the door, reactivating the defense spell around the fortress. She collapsed onto the ground, exhausted. She just wanted to fall asleep right there, but after remembering Celestia was after her she rose back to all fours. She fell back to the ground laughing once she realized that Celestia had probably fallen into the trap of the sea ponies by now. Then she realized what Celestia would do to her after the sea ponies let her go. Luna checked that the defense spells were still functional, and then made her way slowly to the Doctor.
She walked up and down the maze-like halls of her castle, sometimes not being able to recognize a particular one because of the dissolving wall paper, crumbling statues, and faded paintings. A millennium of disuse could do that to a home.
"Doctor! Where are you?!" Luna shouted in the Royal Canterlot voice.
She waited for a few seconds, and a voice echoed back "Luna?"
"Doctor!" Luna felt rejuvenation at the sound of the voice and ran toward it, now at a gallop.
"Luna, I'm over here, the most incredible thing just happened!" The Doctor seemed happier now too, now that the Daleks were no longer a threat. "There was a door, and a Draconequus, and then a butterfly, and- and... you look awful."
"Thanks."
"No, no i mean, what happened to you, you look like you went through a fight while i was gone, were there more Daleks?" The Doctor asked, his face growing determined and serious.
"No, no, i uh... flew through some trees... and using magic takes a lot out of you."
"You poor thing, come on Luna, rest up. Oh yeah, have you met Pinkie?"
"We... We met several times."
"Hello Princess!" Pinkie said happily, apparently unaware of the displeasure on the blue mare's face. "Me and the Doctor are trying to get to Ponyville so i can pack and go traveling with him!"
Luna raised an eyebrow at Pinkie, and then a betrayed stare at the Doctor. "W-well she asked, and I don't really know you yet... um... She just wants to go on a few trips, Luna, do you want to come with?"
"No. It would be better if I didn't."
"Are you sure, anywhere, anywhen, all of the Equestrian universe to explore?"
"I already explored two thirds of it."
"What about the other third?"
"It's on fire."
"Okay..." The Doctor said, looking between the two mares awkwardly. "However, we'll have to wait another few minutes for the Tardis to recharge enough, then she'll go off somewhere safe, then she'll get information and build up power for a few centuries, and then she'll come back, a few seconds for us will have passed, and the Tardis will be ready for anything."
"Well, that's good. Celestia's o her way here, piping mad and hoping to destroy the Tardis in an effort to keep you from ever going back in time."
The Doctor looked her in the eyes. "You could have said that earlier." He said calmly.
"You were worried about me." Luna said sweetly back. "Now, let's go back to the Tardis... It's been years since I've been inside."
"Well, if we get there quick enough we can get inside before she recharges."
"Alright, what are we waiting for?" Luna stood up and started galloping toward the Tardis. "Race you both there!" Pinkie squealed in joy and began hopping after her.
The Doctor shook his head, smiling and ran after them. Shouting "I have lot's of experience running to the Tardis! Not one of you could beat me, not in a million years!"
Sar was beginning to shiver inside his armor. He was a Dalek, a mutant that had been genetically enhanced for years, stripped of anything unnecessary, anything Davros thought was weak. He didn't strip Daleks of emotion, for unlike other mad scientists he understood that emotion was a key motivator, but he had created creatures with the only emotions he deemed necessary. 'Hate' and a desire for the Dalek's version of 'purity', then cloned millions of times, given a rank and number, he rose in rank for his cruelty and genius. But being in this world had simply brought more and more emotions, and with them a came new ways to feel pain, to feel shame, to feel... well, to feel anything but an urge to kill. But now he was sure that it had gone beyond having new emotions, he was insane.
He needed to spin, he needed it. NEEDED IT! But they wouldn't let him spin. All of them were torturing him. Except for Fluttershy, she had tried to relieve his pain, but the one in the armor stopped her! "Pony in armor. Tell me what you are called so that i may hate you properly. I ORDER IT."
"... Captain Doting." replied the velvet red pegasus.
'curse you Captain Doting! Curse you!' Sar thought while glaring at her.
"I am soo bored." Rainbow finally said, having flown to every corner in the room.
"Why don't you fly in some circles?" Sar said innocently.
"Don't do that." Doting said, eyeing the twitching Dalek.
"I WILL EXTERMINATE YOU CAPTAIN DOTING. I WILL EXTERMINATE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!" the Dalek didn't have time to react as Doting flied upward, catching the Dalek's eye stalk with her front hoof.
"Now listen Dalek, you leave my family out of it, if you want to kill me, be my guest, i'd kill you first. But Celestia was going to petrify you, and that'd be the end of it. That is, until you start saying things about my family. Come on, you open your armor, and i'll take off mine and we'll duke it out the right way."
Sar looked at the furious mare. "... You would win,"
"Of course I would."
"I'm twice the size of your head, and I have no limbs. In a battle of wits I would win under any circumstance, but physically, without my armor, you'd step on me and i'd die without hurting you." As Sar spoke his eye opened wider and wider, his actual eye, not the mechanical stalk. He saw opportunity to end his shame, in a battle no less. He opened the war machine and closed his eye to the blinding light, he had never seen unfiltered light before. Breathed unfiltered air. For the first time he noticed the slime that surrounded him, the gooey webs that surrounded him. The liquids of his birth he realized. He opened his eye and looked upon the ponies. He could see the horrified expression on their faces, except for Fluttershy. She had a look of concern. "Well?" Sar spoke into the unfiltered air for the first time, without the mechanical part of his voice it sounded like a raspy groan. "Step on me, I threatened your family."
Fluttershy pushed the guard to the side. "Hello..." Sar looked into Fluttershy's face.
"Hello."
"Have you ever felt the air before?"
"No."
"The sun on your face?"
"No."
"Another creature's touch?"
"No." Fluttershy reached down as her friends' eyes widened, staring at Fluttershy with horror that turned to gagging as she picked up the Dalek. She looked upon his soft pink flesh, his tendrils, his tiny lungs struggling with the unpurified air, and his clouded, golden eye with a slit-pupil. She hugged him. Rarity fainted.
She placed him on her back, and reached into the space where the Dalek had lived out it's life. She began pulling out the gooey webbing and pushing the liquid out of it. "Don't worry, i'll clean it out, tell me if you are about to slide off, i have... pretty good balance, but i don't want you to fall." Sar watched the pegasus clean out the space the best she could with her hooves. "Ugh... Twilight? Could you clean it out with magic? I can't reach the back."
"Uh... sure." Twilight hesitantly levitated the slime and birth liquids away from the machine.
Fluttershy carefully and gently placed the Dalek back inside. Fluttershy got lower so that she looked him in the eye. "Now, are you going to apologize to miss Doting?"
"What?"
"You were rude to her, and to her family, now apologize."
"NO!" The Dalek screamed. But Fluttershy wasn't phased in the slightest. She continued to stare at him. Sar tried to resist, to look away, but he was compelled to look, compelled to obey. The Stare made him shiver, or possibly it was the chilled air, but it was the same shiver that he got when Jeck demanded something of him. The Shiver of deference. Of recognizing authority. "I... I will apologize." The Dalek looked back at her, but the stare stopped, he begged it to come back in his mind, but it didn't. "Captain Doting, come before me!" Fluttershy gave him the stare for an instant and he immediately added an uncertain "Please?"
Doting fluttered up to the Dalek and tried to hide her disgust at the sight of him merely breathing. "Yes?"
"I apologize for threatening you and your family."
"I... you're forgiven I suppose." Doting said, not wanting to look at the pathetic creature.
Fluttershy smiled at him. Giving Sar an emotional response not completely dissimilar from the shiver of getting a command. "Good. Now, you're shivering, do you want to close again?"
"Yes."
"Alright." Fluttershy fluttered a foot backward and watched as the Dalek's armor enclosed him again.
Fluttershy came down gently on the ground and walked over to her friends, who were looking at her suspiciously. "That thing threatened to kill us all you know?" Rainbow Dash said to her.
"And he's very sorry for it, aren't you... what was your name?"
"I am Dalek Sar... and I apologize for trying to conquer you all."
"See, everyone deserves a little kindness." Fluttershy smiled at the blue pegasus and took into the air again.
"Fluttershy, where are you going?" Applejack followed her friend out as far as the balcony.
"I'm going to try and find Princess Celestia and ask her to spare Dalek Sar."
Applejack stared after the white-yellow pegasus as she flew away.
Everyone in the room turned to the chained up Dalek. He didn't even notice their stares. He simply watched Fluttershy fly away. "Goodbye Commander Fluttershy." he said, too quiet for his mic to pick it up.
Rarity came back to consciousness and looked around, but when her eyes fell upon the still-levitating puddle of Dalek goo she fainted again.
Celestia had finally risen from the water. She readied a sun-beam in her horn and pointed it down toward the pond, but she remembered that, technically, those things had saved her life. "Hear me sea ponies! I spare you this one time you abominations! Show yourselves to me or any of my subjects ever again and i'll boil all of you alive!"
"She just called upon the sea ponies!" One of them said, about a hundred more sae ponies rose from the pond and looked at Celestia. "Shoop-be-doo!" All of them began.
"ARRGHHHGHHH!!!" Celestia shot straight upward, breaking through the canopy, messing up her mane even further. "Curse you sea ponies! CURSE YOU!"
Celestia flew as far away as she could, as fast as she could. She rose her horn and tried to find 'moon' magic. But the entire area was blanketed with it. "Luna! Come out!" Celestia shouted over the distance.
Then Celestia noticed that the blanket lifted up about an inch in a different direction. Well, considering how far away it was, it might have been hundreds of feet tall.
"Gotcha."
Luna was dancing, jumping around in circles in a similar way to Twilight. She hugged the Tardis's brakes and looked over all the colorful, strange things that made up the controls. She flew around in circles along the ceiling. The Doctor watched and smiled. "Luna, when was the first day you met me?"
"No spoilers."
"Hmph."
"OOHH! Me next, me next, I want to fly around too!" Luna relented and swooped down to grab Pinkie Pie with her front hooves. The pink pony whooping in joy from every twist and turn.
The Doctor checked the module, which, along with the lights and life support, had began working. "Alright gang," The Doctor said, clapping. "Looks like the Tardis is ready to begin prep. Let's get outside and wait for her to disappear and appear, and from then on... no limits!"
"Hooray!" Pinkie said, rushing out the door.
The Doctor smiled and looked from the door to Luna. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"
"Heh... Doctor, there is going to be so much that you and I will do together. But... It was always me waiting and you arriving. I don't regret it, but that's the way it happened... the way it will be. Doctor, you... no. Don't worry... things will turn out fine."
"...Alright. I guess i'll be seeing you then."
"Yes." Luna followed the Doctor out and stood by his side as the beautiful sounds of the Tardis filled their ears. Luna smiled and let the sound fill her, it was the sound of fond memories, sad memories. Memories of laughter, and running, and anger, and banishment, and fear, and adventure, and of the Tardis and the Doctor. She opened her eyes, and blinked out the tears beginning to form in time to see the blue box fade away to nothing with a few last notes and beeps. At that moment Celestia shot through the ceiling into the floor, her mane wet, dirty, and filled with branches.
"SOO CLOSE!" Celestia screamed at the spot on the ground without a Tardis.