//------------------------------// // Ch.5 // Story: MoonShadow. // by ParadoxPony //------------------------------// MoonShadow. ~The Professor. "Miss Shadow!?" She pushed hard against her ears to keep his words from finding her and tempting her to leave the hiding spot among the bushes. "Please come out! I'm only trying to help Mis- um, I mean, MoonShadow." The sound of dry leaves and decaying branches cracking under his hooves made her whole body shake with every step. He would find her soon, and she was too weak to run anymore. His care for her was poisoning every breath she took. "Miss Shadow...Please let me help you. I'm sorry I scared you..." MoonShadow should never have fallowed him in the first place. There was no way she could scare him like the others, he was not afraid of her. No fear emanated off of him, in fact, she could only stay hidden there as his poisonous care for her numbed her every breath. "I-" He stopped, hearing her body fall to the forest floor. And now he grew ever closer. "MOONSHADOW!" He cautiously pulled her onto his back. She didn't resist, she had no energy to. "RRR! Come on...Let's get you somewhere safe where I can check what's wrong with you." She tried to speak but no words came out. She tried to move, but her limbs remained hanging loosely to the strong stallion's side. Everywhere ached, everywhere stung. She opened her eyes to find the Professor leaning over and matching hers. Even with the pain, she could feel the blood rush to her ears and face. "Don't try to move." She did as was told. When she began to speak, she found her just as throat dry and painfully numbed as the rest of her body. "Wh-ouch!" "Um..Don't try to speak either." MoonShadow tilted her head various directions in attempts to find out where she was. It was definitely inside, but not her castle home or a hospital as she had expected. The Professor saw her questioning looks and pushed her head back down with a gentle hoof. "Don't be difficult now miss Shadow." "Where- cough- am I?" He winced, "Oh, right, of course..." He looked down and clapped his hooves together nervously. She took note of this and forced her aching muscles into action, pinning her new captive to the wall and pulling her front left hoof back. "Where am-" It was no sooner than she said this that the room shook and sent the mare falling back down, the Professor took his chance, running to higher ground and the protection of a two-way stair case. "OK...That was new." Her hooves shook beneath her, threatening to give out and send her back into a state of unconsciousness. "Please! I'm just trying to help. " He spoke slow, and seemed to be looking past her "I'm sorry but-" Somepony was behind her! Using what energy she had left, MoonShadow bolted toward him, but it was too late! Whatever it was had got her in it's iron grasp around her neck and torso. The being spoke in a mare's voice, "What do you want me to do with her Professor?" MoonShadow tried to get a glimpse of her captor, but a mettle-like hoof quickly rightened her. "Be gentle Narris! Put her back in bed and go get Italy!" MoonShadow was lifted back onto the place on which she awoke and lay there gasping for the air to return to her lungs. The sound of mettle on mettle clapped against her ears as "Narris" left the room. "You're in my home MoonShadow, you're in the TARDIS." "T-the...wwh-what?" She managed to stutter. "The TARDIS, my home miss Shadow. She came back!" He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as if it were all so obvious to every pony but her. The poker face printed on MoonShadow spoke for her. "-sigh- Time And Relative Dimensions In Space." "And that means...what?"' "It means you are safe. And that I saved you...So...Good for me, but not for you, no, you're dying." He still spoke as if it were obvious and such a simple fix! "I'm...WHAT?!" He pulled out flash cards and held them to her face, reading each one aloud as he did so, "You. Are. Dying." ... "But don't worry, I can fix that!" He picked up what appeared to be a mix between a flashlight and a pen from the able next to her in his mouth. "Iwt wi'w jush take a min'ut!" "STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME!?" He let the...thing, drop to the floor. "I, my dear pony, am not doing anything, you however, are! I'm going to save you!" A toothy smile formed across his face. "W-what is that thing?" The Professor looked down at the item he had dropped and promptly picked it up before MoonShadow had a chance to do so herself. "Oh! This thing? I wasn't really sure when I found it on the TARDIS. At first I thought it to be a flashlight, but them I did some experiments. It a genuine sonic screwdriver...Come to think of it, was kind of dummy wouls sonic a screwdriver!? I Would have chosen a watch." MoonShadow raised an eyebrow. "And this...Screwdriver...What is it going to do to me?" "Well, um..." He looked around the room as if the answer to her question was somewhere in the room. "Weeell...." "Well?!" "-Sigh- Look, I know you don't want to go the same path as those who abandoned you but-" "NO! YOU SHALL NOT CHANGE ME!" "MoonShadow... I know what it's like to be the last of your kind..." He bit his lip then spoke in a quieter tone " I know." She blinked, that answer was unexpected. " But- But-.... You're a pony!?...Right?..." He wordlessly placed her hoof on his chest...Thump..Thump..Thump..went his heard.. And then something more. Thump-Thump...Thump-Thump... Her eyes shrunk and she quickly pulled her hoof out of his grasp. "Y-Y-YOU H-HAVE TWO H-" "Two hearts? yes."