//------------------------------// // The Beginning // Story: Until the end of time // by Discorded Pegasus //------------------------------// As the Doctor and Derpy sprinted down the dark, metal tunnel they could still hear the heavy, metal hooves of the Cyberponies gaining on them. Just before they reached the end of the tunnel they buried their hooves into the metal ground to stop themselves falling down the enormous abyss that was at the end of the tunnel. "Jump!" The Doctor, a light brown stallion with the spikiest of manes, shouted to his pegasus companion. "What?!" Derpy, his confused, light grey mare replied in shock. He was surely crazy if he thought that she would actually jump. "Trust me, jump." The Doctor stared into Derpy's eyes. He was serious. Derpy took a deep breath, closed her eyes and leaped into the void below. ----- Falling, she was falling. "Derpy! Derpy open your eyes!" Derpy recognised his voice, it was the Doctor, the stallion she fell in love with, he was also the stallion that made her fall to her death!" She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was him, falling just like her and looking everywhere for something to stop their rapid descent. "So what exactly is the plan?" Derpy asked the timelord. "Umm... I don't have one." The Doctor said calmly; he seemed to be okay with the situation at hand. "What?!" Derpy shouted. "Well... I was hoping that there would water at the bottom of this pit." The Doctor looked down and chuckled at what he saw. "And it looks like we are in luck." Derpy also looked down and, to her astonishment, there was water at the bottom! She raised her head and looked at the Doctor. The anger within her exchanged with delight when she realised that her life wasn't over. Derpy laughed. "Doctor you are amaz-" Before she could finish, they crashed into the water. When the Doctor finally swam back up to the surface of the water, he noticed that Derpy hadn't come up yet. He started to panic, shouting her name over and over again looking everywhere for her. He assured himself that if Derpy hadn't came up, then she must still be underwater! As the Doctor took a deep breath, he forced himself under water to find her. His vision was blurred and the water was a murky, dark green. There was also what appeared to be a light grey stone with blonde seaweed on it, but that wasn't a rock or seaweed, that was his companion Derpy! The Doctor swam down towards her as fast as he could, when he reached her, he grabbed hold of her hoof with a firm grip and swam instantly towards the surface. When the Doctor rose from the water, he held Derpy's head up above the water while he looked desperately for a safe platform to place her on. As soon as he found something relatively safe, he headed straight for it, even though he was carrying another pony, he still swam exceptionally fast. He was determined not to let her die. Not like this. Not ever. The Doctor threw Derpy on platform first then slowly dragged himself up, he sat there for a moment regaining his strength then realised his companion was lying half-dead next to him. He first checked her pulse, but after holding her dripping wet forearm to his ear for a couple of seconds there was a result, a faint beat came from the limb. "She's alive!" The Doctor was astonished that she survived the ordeal. He then began to try and get her heart to beat faster by pushing repeatedly on her chest. He tried vigorously, but with every push the more reality started to sink in. Tears began to slip down his muzzle and onto his companion's chest, he then lowered his head and cried into his companion's drenched coat. After a few moments, Derpy coughed back into life, spitting up water from her lungs. The Doctor got up and stood back in shock, giving her some space to breathe. Once she had finished coughing, the Doctor wiped his tears and gave her a hug, suggesting that he was happy she was alive. "I thought I lost you." The Doctor whispered into the companion's ear. Derpy coughed and a faint voice followed. "We're never doing that again." The Doctor smiled and continued the hug. 'That was too close.' He thought to himself. He then released and asked, "Do you think you can stand?" "I-I think so." The pegasus coughed then slowly sat up and looked down at her hooves. "Is it true... what they said about taking over Ponyville and turning the ponies into... into them?" "It's more than that, they won't stop at Ponyville, the Cyberponies will keep upgrading and upgrading, pony after pony, until they control all of Equestria. Come on, I've seen how fast they can take over planets, we haven't got much time." He looked around and noticed an access hatch on the other side of the water. "There might be a way out through that access hatch over there." He pointed at the hatch and Derpy followed. "You sure that's the only way out?" "Its our best bet and its not like we can climb back up." Derpy knew he was right, like he always was, but she still didn't think it was a good idea and nothing was going to change that. ----- The Doctor dived into the water first and his companion hesitantly followed. She still wasn't sure about re-entering the water, you know, the thing that almost killed her, but once she was in, she opened her wings and used them as a floatation device. The timelord looked back to see if Derpy was ok, but once he saw her using her wings to stay afloat he couldn't help but laugh. "I never knew Pegasi could do that! Ha ha, I'll have to write that down." Derpy gave him an unamused look. "Lets just get this over with." She swam gracefully past him, hypnotizing him into following her. After a couple minutes of gently floating forward they reached the hatch which was slightly underwater and was locked by an old, rusty padlock. "So... what now?" The companion said to the Doctor. "Isn't it obvious? Sonic screw dr-" As he spoke he remembered he left the sonic in the TARDIS. "-iver is in the TARDIS." "Well... go on." Derpy encourage the Doctor. "Well what?" The Doctor legitimately did not know what she was suggesting. "You're a stallion, break the lock." The timelord considered every single option available, including Derpy's idea to break the lock and her idea seemed to be the best. "Ok, ok, get back." Derpy rolled her eyes and moved back whilst the Doctor raised a hoof and placed it on the lock, he then pulled back his hoof and looked at his companion. "Ok, here goes nothing." He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and rammed his hoof into the lock. The rusted lock broke in two and sunk into the water, the Doctor whimpered at the immense pain coming from his hoof. "You ok?" Derpy said concerned for the timelord's hoof. "Yeah, excellent, tip top-aroo, could you just open the hatch." The Doctor just held his hoof to his chest trying to contain the pain while Derpy did as she was told and opened the hatch. "Voilà, see that wasn't so hard." Derpy said, having opened the hatch. "Yeah, no problem at all, can you just hurry up at bit?" Derpy entered the pipe that was locked slowly and then cautiously turned to help the wounded Doctor in. "You sure you can walk?" Derpy asked the Doctor, but he didn't answer, instead he gently lowered his injured hoof onto the floor of the pipe and gradually applied more pressure to allow himself to stand up. It was painful but he kept it in. "Ta da." The timelord said standing crookedly inside the pipe. "Now the Cyberponies should be straight up here." "Ew, but there's cobwebs." Derpy retreated a little bit and almost stood on the Doctors hoof at the sight of the cobwebs. "We've gone through worse than this, just push through them." Derpy squirmed and squealed as she felt each sticky cobweb rub past as she clambered up the pipe, the Doctor seemed to just ignore the cobwebs. There were bigger problems at ahead. ----- "What is the progress of the upgrades?" The black headed leader of the Cyberponies said, showing no emotion in his lifeless eyes whilst he spoke. A random Cyberpony manning a screen answered. "78%, all emotions have been wiped, beginning full upgrade." Two doors behind the Cyberleader began to let off a whirring noise as the machine behind doors sprang into life, behind the doors, six pods opened up and out walked six ponies with flashing ear pieces, they lined up in twos and their expression did not change the entire time, blades and pieces of metal armour lowered down on metal arms. The machine started the upgrade. At the same time, a grate in the corner of the room blasted open from one mighty kick of the Doctor, the timelord and the companion leaped out of the pipe and into the room, the Doctor whimpered a little from his hoof when he landed but was still able to yell out: "Ah ha!" The Cyberleader turn his attention to the sudden appearance of the stallion and mare that just enter the room. "Doctor." He said showing no fear of the oncoming storm. Two Cyberponies advanced towards Derpy and the Doctor, the first pushed passed the Doctor and grabbed Derpy by the forearm, "Let go of me you heap of junk!" Cried the pegasus as she tried to escape the Cyberpony's grip. The second went for the Doctor, once the Cyberpony had the stallion in its grasp, it forced the Doctor towards the Cyberleader. "Lay one hoof on her and I will personally rip you to shreds." The Doctor stared into the Cyberleaders soulless eyes as he threatened him. "You and what army?" The Cyberleader called the timelord's bluff and looked over at the Cyberpony holding Derpy, "Take the mare to be upgraded." The Cyberpony complied and started to drag the grey pegasus to the machine still upgrading the other unfortunate ponies. "What! No! Doctor, help!" Derpy cried out, she did not know what 'upgrading' meant, but the machines terrifying noise suggested that it could be nothing good. "Let her go! Let her go now!... I-I'll take her place, please!" "You are not compatible." The doors to the machine opened and standing there was six half-upgraded ponies, they stood there... showing no pain. A faint metallic groan came from one of the ponies. Derpy shivered as the thought of what she will become passed through her, the Cyberpony restraining her pushed her closer to the machine's wicked blades. "Doctor!!" Derpy screamed as she entered the machine. "NOO!!!" The Doctor shouted, he thrust forward as if he was going to run to her aid but he was stopped by the Cyberpony holding him back. KABOOM! The Cyberpony that was pushing Derpy into the machine froze in it's tracks and turned it's attention to the explosion that just occurred at the other side of the room. "Oh no..." The Doctor knew who created that explosion... and he was not pleased to see them... The smoke from the explosion started to clear and a dozen ponies wearing body armour and holding hoof-blasters rushed in a surrounded the Cyberponies... just in time, too. The Doctor sighed and mumbled to himself, "U.N.I.T." "Unified Intelligence Taskforce, don't move or we will open fire!" Screamed the pony who appeared to be the leader of U.N.I.T as he aimed his hoof-blaster at the Cyberleader's head. "Cyberponies do not take orders from inferior life forms." The Cyberleader replied to the leader of U.N.I.T's demand. "Have it your way." Without hesitation, the leader shot the Cyberleader in the head with two blue laser bursts, the head exploded as soon as the blasts hit, pieces of electronics and metal was flung across the room. The other members of U.N.I.T took that as a reason to open fire on the rest of the Cyberponies, without breaking a sweat they defeated the Cyberponies in an instant, leaving the beheaded bodies on the floor and freeing the Doctor and his companion. "What do we do with these, sir?" A random soldier shouted whilst pointing at the half-upgraded ponies. "We'll deal with them later." He then turned to the Doctor who was surrounded by pieces of Cyberpony and he could see he wasn't amused. "Doctor." The leader said saluting afterwards. "Did you have to kill them? Couldn't you have tried negotiation?" The Doctor said furiously as he ignored the salute. "It was our last choice." "Last choice?! You had many choices before that but you chose to ignore them... I told you, my companion and I had this under control." The Doctor looked over at Derpy, she was being taken care of by two soldiers, they made sure she wasn't hurt and that she had everything she needed. "It didn't look like that to me..." The leader snarled back. The Doctor felt like turning around and giving a clever explanation as to how he had a plan and how it was going perfectly... but... he knew he didn't. He slowly walked away from the leader, leaving the conversation unfinished. He walked over to Derpy who was still in the care of the soldiers. "Come on... we're leaving." He said in a monotone voice. The Doctor did not give her a chance to answer... or a chance to protest. The Doctor stormed over to the exit of the room and turned to see if his companion was following. Derpy got up and thanked the soldiers for looking after her, she then joined the Doctor at the exit. Derpy walked out of the room leaving the Doctor to give one last glance at the leader of U.N.I.T... and then he left. "Sir, what do we do now sir?", A random soldier asked his superior. It took him a while to think of a suitable plan... suddenly, one came to him. "Set the charges... no one can find this place." ----- As the Doctor and his companion walked down a dim, metal corridor, there was a silence between the two ponies which was only broken by the sound of hooves treading on metal. A familiar shape began to appear at the end of the dark passage. The TARDIS. A 1963 police telephone box, coloured the bluest of blues with a frosty light, emitting from the windows and writing above the large doors. The light was not able to push back much of the darkness in the corridor, but it was enough so that the two ponies could see the dark blue box. The light brown stallion nudged against one of the TARDIS's door and it swung open immediately, filling the dark passage with an amber glow. He sighed. "I guess I forgot to lock it... again." He entered the big blue box and held the door open for his companion, Derpy. The Doctor closed the door behind him and the corridor returned to it's dark, gloomy self. The timelord trudged up to the console in the centre of the room, circled it for a bit, then abruptly stopped and fiddled with some of the buttons and switches. All the while, Derpy roamed over to the beige, leather seats and sat down. "So... that's it?" Derpy asked. "What's it?" "The Cyberponies? Are they all gone?" "I think so. I don't know if they had another factory somewhere else in Equestria." He sighed. "Why does no one listen to me? Surely I can't have one of those faces that no one listens to... again." "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I listen to you." The Doctor blushed slightly. He then smiled, still blushing. "Thank you." "You're welcome and at least we don't have to deal with those tin cans any more-" Derpy paused to listen to the faint crackling sound, emitting from an unknown source. "Doctor? What is that?" Derpy asked in confusion. "Hmm? What is it?" They both paused and the room filled with the soft crackling sound. "Ooh, that? I... I don't know what that is. Hold on" The Doctor turned to the console and played around with a few switches and buttons. He then reached over to the panel to his right and flipped a large, red lever. "Ta da!" The Doctor stood proud, thinking he had fixed the problem, but the crackling audio only increased. In a matter of moments, it could be heard all over the TARDIS. A white light appeared and grew into a circle next to the console, near the timelord. "Oh." He turned around again and fiddled with more things on the console, trying to make this anomaly cease. Derpy watched in confusion, wondering what was going on. Every button and switch he tried seemed to have no effect, the crackling audio increased in volume, so much that Derpy was covering her ears in fright. The white light that was in a circle shape on the floor, grew into the form of a pony. The crackling built harsher and harsher until a large bang shattered the noise, as fast as it had started, it had gone. The light also faded away, slower than the sound, but standing right in the spot the light had been previously, was a grey, earth pony. She was wearing a pink bow-tie with a white collar to accompany the tie. Her mane was a dark black and was also quite messy after the trip. She was looking right at the Doctor whom was astonished. "Hello, Doctor." The bewildered stallion turned his head to look at Derpy, who was also blown away by this event and still covering. Derpy and the Doctor looked at each other for a moment, then focused their attention back on the newly arrived pony. The Doctor took a deep breath to try and calm himself and shouted, "WHAT?!" -----