//------------------------------// // Critical Failure // Story: Dragon Scales and Other Tails // by Darkwing Dash //------------------------------// Warning: This chapter contains some Doctor Who spoilers. As will most of the rest of this story. You have been warned. Cadance, Shining Armor, and I trotted down the corridor after the Doctor. “So when you say the engine is malfunctioning,” I began. “What exactly do you mean?” “The engine hasn’t completely failed yet,” the Doctor replied. “I received a warning message though, and we need to act fast.” The Doctor ducked into a side room. It was thin and the walls were packed with drawers, which he started opening and emptying, stuffing supplies and spare parts into a fresh saddle bag. “Here,” he said to Cadance, tossing her an electronic device. She caught it with her magic. “What does it do?” she asked. “It’s a scanner. Just let me know if it starts beeping.” “Can’t we just evacuate?” asked Shining Armor. “I know we don’t want to just give the TARDIS up for lost, but surely we could find a safer location to try and deal with this problem.” The Doctor shook his head. “It’s not that simple. This isn’t just engine failure due to damage or a part malfunctioning. The TARDIS was imprisoned in a void made of pure chaos. She’s absorbed too much of that energy and it’s destroying her. She could repair herself from it, but her engine is being torn apart as we speak, and that’s stopping her. If we don’t get down there soon, the core will go critical.” “How big of an explosion are we talking? Super big or just kind of big?” I asked from my perch on the Doctor’s back. The Doctor turned to look at me. “Does ‘the TARDIS exploding at all points of time creating an explosion large enough to annihilate all matter that ever did, does, or will exist in this universe’ cover it?” My face paled. “Yeah, that about sums it up.” We walked down a few more corridors until we reached an intersection. Three hallways broke off from the room in different directions, with a fourth hallway leading back the way we’d come. “Which way do we go?” asked Shining Armor. “Straight forward.” replied the Doctor. “Always straight forward. The TARDIS is infinite and can rearrange itself at will. She wants us to fix her, so she’ll guide us down the fastest path and it will always be dead ahead.” We were about to move on when we were stopped by a beep. A beep that came from the device Cadance had suspended above her. The beeping started out faint, but soon increased in volume and frequency. “Uhh, Doctor? Your scanner’s beeping.” said Cadance. “What does that mean?” I looked over at the Doctor to see his eyes closed in resignation. “It’s a life signs detector,” he responded. “It picks up any activity other than us.” The beeping from the machine grew steadily louder and faster, until it was almost a constant whine. “Back away from that hallway!” the Doctor snapped. We all jumped out of the hallway we had emerged from and into the doorway opposite, when three figures emerged. They were ponies, but they were the most grotesque looking ponies I had ever seen. They looked as though they were made from congealed magma rock, like they had been carved straight from the walls of a volcano. Their skin looked like it was made from melted rock, and rivers of fire ran down their sides. Their faces were missing, except for a gaping mouth and two burning holes for eyes. Their manes and tails were liquid and running, made from oozing ash. Two of them were unicorns, while one was an Earth pony. I recognized them immediately, and their presence chilled me to the bone. But I couldn’t help noticing that something was off. If these were what I thought they were, then something was missing. The three of them sat looking at us for a few seconds, before opening their mouths and releasing a guttural scream. They charged at us. The Doctor whipped around and pressed the button to open the door behind us. We dashed through and the door slammed closed, the Doctor locking it behind us. We raced ahead through more doors, pausing when we had left the monsters at least six corridors behind us. “What... were those things?” asked Cadance, trying to catch her breath. “It’s not important,” said the Doctor. Cadance looked at him. “What!? What are you talking about? Of course it’s important!” “It’s better that you don’t know,” said the Doctor, trotting over to the door at the end of the hallway. I scoffed. “And that’s for you to decide, is it?” I turned to Cadance. “Those things are us, from the future. The TARDIS is broken, so it’s leaking time. Those things are what we’ll end up looking like if we die in the TARDIS core room. Our skin will burn and end up looking like that.” The Doctor looked at me in astonishment. “How did you-” He scowled. “That TV show! I swear, if I ever get my hooves on that writer... Anyway, Spike’s right. Those monsters are future versions of us, pulled from recent time. There might be other versions of ourselves down here too, so don’t go chasing anything down any side tunnels. Stick together.” He pressed the button by the door. It sparked and hissed. “Oh, no, no, No! The monsters damaged the control panel! I’ll have to fix it.” He bent down and ripped the face off of the control panel. A loud hammering came from the door we’d just entered. A vicious growl from the other side told me our volcanic counterparts had arrived. “Uhh, we’ve got some bigger problems,” said Shining Armor. “Yes, I can hear that! Thank you!” cried the Doctor. The window set in the center of the door shattered as a lava pony stuck his hoof through it. I could see the faces of all three ponies snarling. Something still felt different, out of place. Something was missing. “Doctor, what happens if those things get their hooves on us?” Cadance asked, her face pale. The Doctor sighed. “Well, the human versions liked to claw your face off, but these ones don’t have hands. They’re driven mad by pain and are little more than beasts, with no thought of mercy or fear. Their main weapon though is that they’ve been irradiated and burned by the TARDIS, so most likely they’ll try to melt your face off with their several hundred degree body temperatures.” A blast of fire shot through the window. “And apparently they have fire magic,” the Doctor added. The answer hit me like a bolt from the blue. “That’s it!” I cried. “Fire!” The Doctor looked looked at me warningly, but when he spoke, his voice was different. “Oh no,” said David. “Don’t even think about it. I know what you’re planning, and it’s crazy.” “What?” asked Cadance. “Don’t you see?” I said, turning to her. “That’s what’s missing! If these are our future selves, then where’s the dragon? I’m not there because I’m fireproof! By the time the core gets hot enough to melt me, the TARDIS will have exploded anyway.” “So what!?” cried Shining Armor, struggling to keep the door closed against the monsters. “So let me fight them.” I said. “I’ll distract them while you get to the core room. Once I’ve beaten them, I’ll come back and find you guys. All they have is heat touch and fire magic. It’ll be a piece of cake!” The Doctor groaned in defeat. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll program a secondary path for you. Just take the left-hand side of any intersection you come to and it should lead you to the core room.” “If you’re going, then I’m going to,” said Shining Armor. “No, I said. “It’s too dangerous. Besides, you need to stay here and protect the others from whatever else might be down here.” He glared at me, but stayed silent. “Alright... now!” I yelled. Shining Armor yanked the door open and I dove through. I crashed into the monsters head first. My entrance caught them off guard. Before they could react, I punched a unicorn in the gut, causing it to double over. I was caught from behind by the second’s magic and brought up to face it. I held my breath as it hit me with a gout of fire. I felt nothing but a warm breeze. I smiled widely, “Too cool,” I said.  I lashed my tongue out and wrapped it around the unicorn’s horn, pulling the horn towards me and bit down on it hard. I shuddered. The thing tasted like ashtray. The unicorn dropped to the ground with a scream, curling into a ball. Yeah, I know, it was a cheap shot, going for the horn, but these weren’t my friends, they were monsters, so anything goes. The second one had recovered by now and was charging towards me, blasting fire ahead. I dove through the flames and underneath it, planting my legs on the ground and sweeping the pony’s legs out from under him with my tail. He toppled over and I gave him a vicious kick to the horn to make sure he stayed down. Memories came flooding back to me. Spike was no master at fighting, but he knew enough to use his natural talents at least. When you’re the only dragon in Ponyville, you have to teach yourself, I guess. I knew I’d felt Spike’s mind underneath my own, guiding my movements. He felt content enough to lend a support role though, and leave the main work to me. Thanks. The third pony, the Doctor clone, after seeing me dispatch its two associates, tried to make a break for it. I dove after it and caught it around a back leg, bringing it down. I scrambled up onto its back and, using something Shane had taught me this time, wrapped my arms around its neck and squeezed, trying to knock it out. The pony thrashed, rolling over and over onto its back, attempting to shake me off. I gripped on tighter and was never more thankful that I still had hands. Eventually, the pony’s struggles grew weaker and weaker until the monster fell into unconsciousness. I climbed off of its back and went down the hallway the monsters had come from. A second passageway forked off to the left, and I took it, going deeper into the bowels of the ship. Several corridors later, I heard a roar behind me. I turned to find six monsters standing behind me, two unicorns and four earth ponies. “Oh come on, you’re making more?” I asked the TARDIS in an accusing tone. While I wasn’t afraid of fighting them, getting buried under a mound of lava ponies did not seem like a comfortable option. Sooner or later, they’d find a way to deal damage. I turned and ran down the corridor behind me, the monsters close at my heels. I ducked down several more left turns, until the monsters grew farther and farther behind. Coming to one particularly obscure corridor which almost seemed to double back the way I’d come, I opened the door and rolled inside, the door closing behind me. I stayed crouched, listening to the footsteps of the monsters pass through the intersection. When all was quiet, I slowly got up. Lights on the path in front of me flickered into life, leading, one pair after another, to a massive computer screen, which was already illuminated. I walked up the path to a large chair which sat before a keyboard and the screen. Curious, I tapped a button. ‘TARDIS Database’ appeared on the screen. I already knew all I needed to know about the Doctor Who universe from my knowledge of the show. Besides, now really wasn’t the best time to be reading. I started to turn away, but stopped. If this thing had been in Equestria for the past 25 years, maybe it would have information on what was going on there. I sat down at the computer and hit Enter. The words ‘Guest Account Password’ appeared on the screen along with a box. I frowned. Guest account. The password probably wouldn’t be too difficult, if this was just a guest account. I typed in TARDIS. The words ‘Guest Account Password’ changed to ‘Search’. I grinned. I typed in Equestria. The words ‘ Equestrian Discord Crisis’ appeared, along with the subsections ‘Land Conditions’, ‘Resources’, ‘Discord Movement Patterns’, and ‘Ponies’. I keyed down to the fourth section and hit enter. I knew that Twilight and our friends had been hit, but I needed to know who else had been affected. The screen changed, and a picture of a pony with a name underneath appeared on the left-hand side of the screen, side-by-side with a picture of Discord on the right. Zecora’s picture appeared, and then a red box with the letters TERMINATED flashed across it. Her picture then disappeared, replaced by another. Bon Bon: TERMINATED Carrot Top: TERMINATED Cheerilee: TERMINATED Colgate: TERMINATED Daring Do: TERMINATED Derpy Hooves: TERMINATED Flim: TERMINATED Flam: TERMINATED I stood up, my hands pressed against the keyboard. So many. All cursed. Fleur De Lis: TERMINATED Lyra Heartstrings: TERMINATED Octavia: TERMINATED I stared, my eyes wide with horror, as picture after picture flashed by. Spitfire: TERMINATED Trixie: TERMINATED Vinyl Scratch: TERMINATED I closed my eyes in despair and sat back down. I looked back at the keyboard and typed a set of names into the search bar. Mr & Mrs Cake. A picture of them together filled the screen along with a status. Location: UNKNOWN. I sat back in the chair and sighed with relief. If the TARDIS didn’t know where they were, Discord sure didn’t. At least some ponies had made it out ok. Against my better judgement, I typed in another name. I didn’t know what I expected to see, but I had to see something. To make it official. For some kind of closure. Twilight Sparkle. Twilight’s picture appeared. I stared at it for a few seconds, fond memories rushing back to me. I looked at the status. Location: KNOWN. WHAT!? There was a crash behind me. The lights in the room flared to full brightness and I saw that monsters had reached the locked door behind me and had busted out the glass trying to get in. It was time for me to go. I sprang off the chair and ran towards a door on the right, but found monsters at that door too. I looked around. There were no more doors. On the left wall was a small ventilation grate though. I dashed over to it and pulled on it. It was bolted to the wall. Drawing on my memories, I moved my lips as if to whistle and exhaled fire. The fire emerged as a blowtorch-like stream and I cut through the bars. I removed them and dived into the shaft. It was small and cramped and I barely fit through. I crawled for a few minutes, the shaft curving in a wide half-circle. I reached the other grate and cut through it. As I exited, I took one of the severed bars and heated it with flame to use as a weapon. I looked around. I was underneath the floor in one of the TARDIS’s hallways. The space was almost completely filled with cables. A ladder stretched up to reach the floor, five feet above, where a horde of monsters was still raging against the door to the room I had just left. I climbed the ladder and quietly removed one of the panels from the floor, climbing out into the hallway. Sneaking over to the doorway at the end of the hall, I jammed the bar I was carrying into the control box of the door and ran through it, shutting it behind me. There, let them break that down, if they could. I ran down the hallway, my mind racing at what I had found. Twilight’s location? Known? What did that mean? She was cursed like the rest of us. Had she turned back too? She must have. Were the rest of my friends here too? My mind spun with the possibilities. I shook them from my brain. I had to focus. The entire universe wouldn’t stand a chance if we didn’t get the TARDIS under control. I came to the end of a hallway and found a single door. Opening it, I entered the room and found myself standing on a walkway above a chasm filled with fiery energy. The rest of the room was illuminated by a light off to the side, coming from what was unmistakably the TARDIS’s power source. An exploding star. Ripped from its orbit and suspended in the TARDIS, the star was the reactor that powered the entire machine. I gazed at the star for a minute, basking in the warmth that it provided, intolerable for humans and ponies, but comfortable to me. I remembered what the star had been called, back in the episode of the show where it had been mentioned. The Eye of Harmony. I gave a slight chuckle. A hammering on the door behind me told me that my pursuers had caught up with me. I ran to the door at the end of the walkway and pulled it open, dashing into the room. The TARDIS engine room. This room was much like the first one, massive, and bridged by a steel walkway. The walkway led to a platform in the center, above which, suspended in midair, was the Tardis engine. It was round, and metal, almost looking like a mechanical planet. But that planet was falling apart. Already it looked like the engine was exploding. It was an unnerving sight. The pieces of the engine, now just twisted metal, had exploded, and were now slowly, with excruciating sluggishness, being propelled away from the core. The core was nothing but a field of pure white. A stretch of energized nothingness that expanded just as slowly as the metal, threatening to engulf the entire room, and eventually the universe with pure white nothingness. It already covered a space as big as a house, and was expanding at a slow but steady rate. The core continued to grow with each second that passed. All of that was only discernable over the noise. A huge, immense rushing wind filled the air with its howling. Tendrils of pure white lightning lashed out from the core, striking and leaving huge scorch marks on the metal walls that extended a hundred feet out from the walkway. Cadance, Shining Armor and the Doctor were already there. The Doctor was furiously tapping away at a nearby computer console, while Cadance and Shining were staring, transfixed, at the core. They turned when I entered the room. “Spike!” they cried in unison, galloping over to my side. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m all in one piece,” I said, as Cadance grabbed me in a hug. “Although I did bring some company with me, that may or may not want to tear us limb from limb.” “I’ll go reinforce the door,” said Cadance, rushing off behind me. “Doctor, what’s the report?” I called out to him. “Not good,” replied David from the console. “The Doctor’s busy remembering formulas right now, so I’m handling the button pressing.” David stared at the screen, contemplating something. He closed his eyes, and seemed to come to a decision within himself. “Yes, there’s no other way,” he muttered. “Alright,” he said to the rest of us. “The auto shield over the core has been disabled, so we’re going to have to do it manually.” “Do what manually?” asked Shining Armor. David explained. “The TARDIS is sentient, it has resources, therefore, it can repair itself. But, the damage it has sustained is critical. The core is out of control and the engine is exploding as we speak. The TARDIS has placed it in a temporal lock though, so it’s exploding as slow as possible, to keep us safe and give us more time. Now, normally there is a shield around the core that keeps it stable and prevents things like this from happening, but it went offline when our other shields did. So, the bottom line is this: if we can create a secondary shield for the TARDIS and contain the core, then the TARDIS should be able to rebuild its engine and stabilize itself long enough for the main shield to come online.” “So, all of that basically means that I have to go out there and put a shield around that thing, doesn’t it?” Shining Armor said. “Yep,” David replied. “Don’t put a shield around the metal bits though, just around the core. The metal bits will take care of themselves. “Got it,” said Shining Armor dryly. He turned and made his way over to the walkway that led to the central platform. Above the howling of the wind we could hear a louder, more guttural roar. “Anytime you guys could finish up what you’re doing, that would be great!” shouted Cadance, who was pushing both her back and her magic against the door, which now had the force of a whole horde of lava monsters beating upon it. Shining Armor strode forward, straining against the howling wind. His horn glimmered into light, and a purple shield encased the core and started contracting around it, forcing it back into place. He strode forward a few hundred feet down the walkway, until he was almost touching the core itself. A lone figure standing in shadow against the blazing white core. Lightning bolts, as big around as cars, shot from the core at random, raking the walls and scorching them. Shining Armor stood as his shield slowly contracted around the core. As it did, the pieces of metal that were drifting away began to move in reverse, converging back upon each other slowly, as the core became smaller. David watched him, his face solemn and watchful, almost sad. A few minutes passed, with no discernable change. “Hurry up!” cried Cadance. “They’re cutting through!” It seems that the monsters had decided to take my ideas and started combining their flames to blowtorch through the door. They were attacking the hinges, and were almost through. A few more tense moments passed in relative, howling, moaning silence. Then, suddenly, it felt like something happened. A line had shifted, a point had been crossed. The core began to shrink smaller, the pieces converged faster. The howling outside the door became more frenzied, until, all of a sudden, it died away. The flames stopped, as well as the pounding. Outside the door, the monsters faded away and disappeared completely, as the rips and tears in time were repaired. David tried, but couldn’t quite give a full smile. His half-smile never reached his eyes. “Awesome work, Shining!” he yelled. “The main shield is coming back online! Get yourself out of there!” Shining Armor turned grinning broadly. There was a small, shimmering, transparent field starting to form around the core, which was almost completely encased by engine parts now. David closed his eyes. A bolt of lightning shot from the nearly-encased core. It twisted through the air in a blaze of light and landed directly in the center of Shining Armor’s back. His eyes widened in surprise and pain. He cried out, the lightning pouring into him. I cried out as well, unable to look away, as slowly, Shining Armor disintegrated.