As the golden light died down, the Professor quickly took a moment to check that everything about her was working after the regeneration.
“Legs, arms, head. Right, it’s all there. WHOA!” The entire console room shook, sparks flying from the console. The TARDIS hurdled through the vortex, a red phone box not far behind. As the Professor reached for the controls, a familiar, yet new face filled the display. The Professor stared at the intruding face for a few seconds, before a second shake brought her back to her senses. As she attempted to pilot the TARDIS, she muttered a single word at the face.
“Mistress.”
“Oh, Professor, how lovely it is to see you once again. Do you like my new face? I spent ages getting it exactly right,” The face replied in a cheerful tone.
“Yeah, yeah. Cut to the chase. What are you up to?” the Professor yelled as she tried to control her TARDIS. As she pulled a lever, the handle snapped off, leaving it useless. “Probably wasn’t important anyway,” she muttered, tossing it behind her.
“Why, what else than knocking you out of reality itself? I do hope you appreciate the work I’ve gone through to set this up. Setting it up so you’d be in the vortex anywhere near me was hard enough, but this has gone perfectly so far,” the Mistress chuckled, “Having you regenerate and botch up flying your TARDIS wasn’t even in the plan, but it’s just fantastic.”
“Uh-huh,” was the reply, as the Professor quickly adjusted several knobs and levers, before all of what the Mistress said registered. “Wait, knocking out of reality? How?”
“Well, I’m glad you asked. There just so happens to be a tiny crack, about 50 miles that way.” At this, she pointed in a seemingly random direction. “All I’m trying to do is knock you through that. Nothing to it.”
“Are you insane? That could destroy reality itself.”
“A risk I’m perfectly willing to take, thank you.”
“Oh, for the love of… righty-o, only one thing for it.”
“What are you doing, Professor?” the Mistress asked, a hint of nervousness entering her voice. At this, the Professor smiled slightly. Making her enemies nervous was always good. Unless they were the sort of enemy that got stronger when they got nervous. Then it wasn’t such a good thing.
“Materialising out of the vortex. What else would I be doing?” As she pulled the materialization lever, sparks went flying, and part of the control panel exploded, sending the Professor back into the flight couch. The Mistress saw this and cracked up laughing.
“Ah, Professor. Did you really think I didn’t think that you might think that? You’re going to have to try harder than that.” The Professor dived for another set of controls, but the Mistress just shook her head. “Professor, sorry to say this, but it’s too late. You can’t materialise, you can’t steer, and you’re heading straight for that crack. Bye!”
The Professor hung her head. The Mistress was right. There was no escape. However, she could bring the Mistress with her. That way at least one evil won’t plague this universe. Quickly diving for the correct controls, she started mashing seemingly random buttons. The Mistress seemed amused by this.
“I already told you. There’s no way out.”
“I’m not looking for a way out. I’m trying to bring you with me.” The Mistress hesitated.
“Huh? Mustn’t have heard you right. For a second, I thought you said you were trying to make me fall in through with you.”
The Professor didn’t reply. She just kept mashing buttons, twisting knobs and pulling levers, despite the fact several came off and a few blew up in her face. All set, she finally ran to a particularly large lever, placed right in front of the screen, and looked at the image of the Mistress’ new face, a smile firmly planted on the Professors own.
“Righty-o. Only one thing for it now.”
“You do realise what you’re doing right?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Just checking.”
“Anyways, like I said. Only one thing for it. RIGHTY-O! LET’S GO!”
The Professor yanked the lever, snapping it off in the process. The screen cut to static as the entire control room shook. Several explosions went off, and sparks went flying. The Professor was thrown against the railing, and felt a sharp pain on the back of her head before everything went black.
Dusk Shine, personal student of Prince Solaris and resident librarian in Ponyville, and his number one assistant, Spines the dragoness, were currently headed towards the market. Dusk looked over to the sleeping dragoness on his back, and, sighing, gently nudged her with his magic.
“Spines. Wake up”
“Whu? What is it?” the groggy dragoness replied, yawning.
“What’s first on the list?”
“What list?” The unicorn rolled his eyes.
“The list we prepared this morning. You know, the one saying the things we have to do,” he said, shaking his head at his assistant’s forgetfulness.
“Oh. That list. Right,” Spines replied, as she reached for the long scroll trailing the duo. Reading off the top of the list, she said, “First on the list is-“
Before she could say what their first task was, an unusual sound was heard in the street. Dusk struggled to place it. To him, it sounded like a gust of wind being turned on and off with… something else. He couldn’t quite identify what. However, before she could attempt any further identification, the young purple dragoness spoke up.
“First on the list is check on what that sound was.” The lavender unicorn nodded his agreement, and started to walk towards where he thought the sound was. However, the sound soon stopped, being replaced by a short creaking sound, and a thud. Puzzled, Dusk quickly walked into the alley where the sounds came from, and was utterly puzzled by what he saw.
A tall blue wooden box rested in the alley. It looked too small to fit a pony in, unless they were standing on their hind legs. Several opaque windows covered the upper half, and a small white box with blue writing he couldn’t make out was on the right door. As he looked over the strange box, Spines nudged him and pointed to the ground.
“Look! Who’s that?”
An earth pony mare was sprawled on the ground. Her coat was a light brown, with an hourglass cutie mark, and her mess of a mane was a darker shade of brown. He walked over and lifted her up, a purple aura surrounding the strange mare.
“I don’t know Spines. Could you please walk beside me? We’ll bring her back to the library and ask her when we get there.”
“Okay Dusk.”
A red phone box crashed into yet another tree before landing on the ground. A dark grey unicorn stumbled out, followed by a cloud of black smoke that matched her mane perfectly. She tripped over a protruding root, and fell on her face. She got up and looked at her hooves, a puzzled expression coming over her face.
“Okay, I appear to be a horse. No, wait, not quite.” The strange mare stumbled over to a nearby pond and looked into her reflection. “A pony. A unicorn pony no less. Not the strangest thing, but close. Still beautiful as always, though.”
A rustling behind her caused her to spin around. Three strange creatures presented themselves in front of her. They looked something like dogs, except they were larger, bipedal and wearing some sort of metal armour. The mare raised her eyebrow as the dog in front of the three started to talk.
“Can you find gems?”
“Blunt, stupid, but strong. Perfect,” the mare muttered, before turning to the three creatures. As she spoke, her horn unconsciously lit up with a black aura, and a similar aura surrounded the three creature’s heads.
“I have a proposition to make.”