Chapter 5
Bridging the Gap
Gaia; Equestria; Crystal Empire; Crystal Palace; Castle Spire; 1 P.C.E.
The Doctor worked on the inside of the rift machine for another few hours, unsure exactly how long he and Jonathan -sorry- Farsight had been up there. He struggled when he needed to tie a pair of split wires together, but after some trial and error, he was finally able to tie the wires together and became one long cord. The Doctor wiped the sweat from his forehead and went back to the access panel to check on Farsight.
He was sitting down near the edge of the crystal floor, watching the small dots that represented ponies slave away. He watched as the guards would just stare at them, never moving unless one of the ponies stopped working or even tripped. In that case, Farsight would watch painfully as the ponies were harmed, the Vashta Nerada simply touching them to provoke their anguish. Farsight saw a small pony, either a filly or a colt, stumble and knock into a pile of gems, spilling them across the ground. One of the armored guards began to approach the child and he turned his gaze away.
The Doctor watched him turn away and noticed a tear run down Farsight's cheek. He could only guess what the pony was watching, having to have seen it himself not too long ago, but he understood exactly what he was feeling. The Doctor looked to the mishmash of wires and switches inside the machine and back to Farsight. He exhaled slowly and climbed out of the hatch.
"Farsight..." the Doctor approached him slowly, "are you alright?"
Farsight quickly wiped away the tear and sniffed, "I-I'm fine."
"Are you su-"
"I said I'm fine," he insisted.
The Doctor knew that this was not the case, so he sighed and sat down next to Farsight. "What's wrong?"
The pegasus was silent for a few moments. "Everything," he finally admitted. "And I know that I've said this who knows how many times, but..." he shook his head, "... it all seems so surreal. I'm just... really overwhelmed."
The Doctor tried to give Farsight a reassuring pat on the back, but he pulled away.
"I don't need sympathy," he explained, "I just need an explanation."
The Doctor stood back up, "Then an explanation will be found!" He held out a hoof to Farsight and he accepted with a hint of reluctance. "Now the first thing," the Doctor started, pointing at Farsight's left leg, "is that vortex manipulator."
TARDIS; Control Room; 1 P.C.E.
"Adjust the calibration of the thermal output parameters," the Doctor hologram instructed.
"And that would be...?"Twilight asked.
"The large red lever on the right," it clarified.
Twilight slowly pulled the switch down before a subtle Ding! was heard. "Parameters set."
The projection flickered out again and popped up on the opposite side of the control panels. "Activate temporal resonance and adjust the lateral dilation."
Twilight hurried over to the other controls and pressed the buttons it pointed out. The monitor began flashing on and off, the Gallifrean symbols swirling and quickly realigning. "What now?" she asked.
"Pull that lever," the recording instructed, indicating a large, black switch, nearly two feet long. "It will be more difficult in-flight, so you'll have to be ready."
Twilight nodded, understanding his orders. She wrapped her forehooves around the switch and hesitated for a moment. But only for a moment, because the next thing she knew the central piston moved, the TARDIS shuddered, and the engines sounded.
VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP!
Gaia; Equestria; Crystal Empire; Crystal Palace; Sombra's Chambers; 1 P.C.E.
VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP!
The sound of the TARDIS engines were echoing throughout the castle. It flooded through the corridors, permeated closed doors, and reached King Sombra's ears.
"WHAT?!" Sombra's voice boomed even louder than the TARDIS, literally breaking doors and shattering any glass within 100 feet. "I WANT IT FOUND NOW! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!" he raged to his guards.
"Yes, Master," they bowed their heads.
"NOW MOVE!" Sombra ordered, "AND MAKE SURE THE DOCTOR NEVER LEAVES UNTIL THE TASK IS FINISHED!"
The soldiers evaporated to fulfill their orders, obeying Sombra immediately. They shot upwards toward the spire, reforming as a large, black mass of darkness.
Gaia; Eqestria; Crystal Empire; Crystal Palace; Castle Spire; 1 P.C.E.
VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP!
The Doctor smiled widely while Farsight looked around in confusion.
"What's that noise?!" the panicked pegasus asked.
The Doctor practically flew over to the rift machine, leaping through the access panel like an acrobat. "That," he said gleefully, "is phase two!" The Doctor ripped out a pair of wires and snapped them together. The rift machine began to glow a dim blue, the inner workings sparking and crackling wildly.
"What are you doing?!" Farsight panicked again.
"I'm doing what our dear friend Sombra asked me," the Doctor explained, flipping some switches at the same time, "widening the gap!"
TARDIS; Control Room; =Year: It Could be Anything!=
Twilight hung on to the controls to prevent herself from being thrown to the floor. The Doctor's projection just stood there as if he was immune to the shaking. "What... now?!" Twilight shouted over the noise.
In response, the hologram pointed at a set of switches just within Twilight's reach. "Throw these three to the 'up' position." Twilight nodded and reached up to the controls.
She was an inch away before the TARDIS jolted violently, sending her crashing back into the railings. Twilight grunted as she slammed into the metal poles, the wind being knocked out of her instantly. She opened her eyes and watched the control panel spark and flare up. The Doctor hologram was still standing by the controls, waiting for Twilight to complete the task. Twilight tried to get back to the controls but found that her back leg was caught between two bars. She tried to tug it free, but it was stuck fast.
Gaia; Equestria; Crystal Empire; Crystal Palace; Castle Spire; 1 P.C.E.
The Doctor worked at the internal technology, furiously ripping out wires and replacing others. The machinery sparked and fizzed around him, constantly singing his fur and mane. "Work!" he urged the device, "Work for me!" Farsight nervously watched him work, shifting from side to side anxiously.
Suddenly, the platform they were on was covered in darkness. Farsight looked around to find the magic shield surrounding them was dissolving quickly. At the edge of the tower, a wall of Vashta Nerada were using their shadowy forms to block out the sunlight.
Farsight stood by the access hatch, constantly shifting his gaze between the Doctor and the approaching darkness that was the Vashta Nerada. "Hurry, Doctor!" he shouted, "They're getting closer!"
"Are they coming quickly?" the Doctor shouted back.
Farsight risked a glance and was surprised to see that the shadows were actually moving at a snail's pace. He turned back to the hatch, "They're going slowly! Why?"
"Because I'm pretty sure that they know what I'm doing." The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out and held it up to a panel with flashing multicolored lights. He unplugged a few cables and the lights stopped flashing and became solid colors. Just then, a small red lever was revealed as a hinged plate appeared from the circuit board. The Doctor looked from the switch to Farsight, who was looking at the lever with a worried look. "Ready?" he asked him.
Farsight shook his head, "No."
The Doctor's hoof was inches away and he turned back to Farsight. "I'm not either," and he flipped the switch.
The rift machine shuddered, small cracks appearing in the crystal shell that surrounded it. Farsight watched as bits of the gem cracked off and fell to the floor, shattering. The mass of shadow began to swirl and morph, hissing and crackling as it moved. The machine was visibly shaking now, larger chunks of crystal and gems falling to the floor and shattered further. The machine began to give off a light blue glow, and the Vashta Nerada slowed their advance.
"What is this?!" the shadows hissed.
TARDIS; Control Room; =Year: It Could be Anything!=
The TARDIS shook and shuddered, the controls shooting off sparks again. Twilight tried to free her leg from the bars, but her efforts were proving futile. "What do I do?" she shouted to the Doctor's hologram. Then it hit her (not literally, though you could hurt yourself in a moving TARDIS). Twilight focused on the switches and concentrated her magical energy on moving them. Her horn glowed, as did the switches. With a mental tug, they were flipped to the 'up' position and the TARDIS leveled out.
Twilight took this moment of peace to navigate he leg out of the bars, pulling it free as quickly as possible. Just as she's standing back up, the TARDIS shudders again and the Doctor hologram appeared next to her and looked like he was grabbing the controls. "Activate placement setting 5-36 and throw the lever you pulled at the start."
Twilight used her magic to turn some dials to five and thirty-six, and ran to throw the switch. She grabbed it and began pulling it back to the upright position. It locked itself in place once it was set and the TARDIS made its final few jolts.
"Well done," the recording said as Twilight panted, relieved that she'd landed. "You are now an amateur TARDIS pilot. Thank you for your participation." The image sputtered out and the TARDIS was silent.
Twilight turned her gaze to the doors and stared at them longingly. She laughed and ran for them at top speed.
Gaia; Equestria; Crystal Empire; Crystal Palace; Castle Spire; 1 P.C.E.
VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP! VVRROOMMP!
The TARDIS materialized next to the rift machine, drawing the attention of everyone on the platform. The Vashta Nerada retreated slightly while Farsight stared at it in shock and the Doctor in joy.
"That's more like it!" the Doctor cheered when the ship was fully formed.
FIZZ-IT! CRACK!
The Doctor and Farsight spun to face the machine. It was now vibrating rapidly, and the blue glow turned into crackling bolts of electricity that ran up and down the point.
"What's going on?" Farsight asked.
The Doctor watched as a blue beam of electricity erupted from the spire and into the stratosphere, piercing the cloud layer and cutting a hole straight through it. The Doctor and Farsight watched the beam slowly expand outward, engulfing the rift machine and growing closer to them. "Get into the TARDIS, now!" the Doctor ordered Farsight.
The Vashta Nerada were screeching and hissing loudly, moving away from the beam. One of them was suddenly sucked into the light and released an ear-shattering cry of pain as it was instantly engulfed within the beam. The others began retreating away from the light source as quickly as possible, some unlucky shadows being drawn back to the light.
Farsight and the Doctor ran to the TARDIS doors, which were quickly pushed open by Twilight. The lavender unicorn stepped aside to let the two pass by, but the rift machine caught her eye. "What did you do?" she asked the Doctor.
"No time to explain," he replied. "Big beam of immense energy approaching!"
Twilight was shutting the doors when the machine creaked and groaned. The crystal breaking off completely and falling to the ground. The device shuddered and the blue beam of light flickered.
"Doctor?!" Twilight called out, "What's happening?!"
The Doctor returned to the doors and observed the machine. "Oh-no!" he breathed.
The rift machine shook and the light began to dim and recede. With a final shudder, the light flickered briefly and then died.