I laughed blithely, which was a change in pace since I rarely use that word. This old stallion is the Doctor? I looked between the two stallions, the young, spritely Doctor with his spikey mane and goofy demeanor and this old, stubborn, rigid stallion? The only thing the two had in common was how much they hated each other.
“You? The Doctor?” I chuckled. “This pony is the Doctor!”
I placed my hoof on the Doctor’s shoulder, expecting the Time Lord to laugh along because the thought of this stallion being the Doctor was hilarious. But he was as quiet as death, maintaining his cold glare on the alien. Nervously, I stepped away from the Doctor, like he was ready to turn his glare on me.
“Doctor, is he telling the truth?” I asked anxiously.
“Doctor! I’m scared!” Celestia cried.
“Sleep now,” he said. He wasn’t using any unicorn magic so I didn’t expect anything to happen, but Celestia slump over snoring.
“Hey!” My horn glowed brightly as I prepared an offensive spell against this pony but he just looked me square in the eye. Dizziness washed over me and my horn stopped glowing, its magic lost.
The Doctor was quick on his hoof, he grabbed his screwdriver from Celestia, whirred it to life and pointed it at the alien like a weapon.
“Leave this place, this galactic system otherwise I will make you,” he growled. “This planet is defended!”
“Because you are so very good at keeping your promises, Doctor?” he asked bitterly. “Queen Elizabeth I, Amelia Pond, even Clara—“
“Don’t!”
“Doctor… who is he?” I demanded.
“He’s me,” he answered sadly. “A copy of my past self, the face that I never talk about… The one who broke the promise.”
“Wha—“
“But you’re just a facsimile. A far cry from him, just an echo, that’s all you are,” the Doctor muttered. “No, what you really are, is something far less intimidating.”
He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the stallion and flicked it to life. The old stallion’s form began to flicker and change, as if it was just a projection. Suddenly his true form came through. He didn’t look very scary, to be honest, he was a tiny pegasus pony but pure white. Not like snow white or anything, like blinding white, as if his form was the beginning of everything, including color.
His eyes were as dark as black holes, there were tiny wings on his face and his head was shaped a bit like a helmet. There wasn’t a cutie mark on him, but I figured it was because he obviously wasn’t a pony. When the Doctor moved his screwdriver away, he reappeared as the elderly stallion.
“Chronovore,” the Doctor said with a victorious grin. “Parasites from my universe, things that fed on time, engorging themselves. What are you doing here? You aren’t quite powerful are you?”
The Chronovore chuckled bitterly. “I was chained and locked away like a common criminal by your hoof, Doctor. Well, a considerably younger you, but that aside…”
“How did you get here?” he asked. “Your powers aren’t strong enough to break into this universe, you’re barely able to maintain your form in this time.”
“I will soon devour enough power to make it out of this blasted universe,” Chrono answered. “It begins with this little princess here.”
“I don’t think so!” I growled, blasting Chrono with my magic. He was thrown back against the wall, groaning and still sizzling from my magic. I almost felt bad about shooting an old stallion with my magic but his glare made me forget my regret.
“Princess Celestia isn’t here for you, neither am I!” I yelled. “That’s why you went after me when I was young, right? My magic is capable of time travel and considering I am Princess Celestia’s prized pupil, I was the likely choice. But when the Doctor defended me, you went after Celestia herself.”
The Doctor pouted slightly. I raised an eyebrow and he huffed slightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Well… I just… it’s usually me saying all of those clever things,” he answered with a frown. “I’m not quite used to being outdone…”
“Don’t be such a baby,” I muttered.
Chrono’s horn began to glow, his eyes as well. I could sense a powerful magic emitting from him but that was impossible, according to the Doctor he was too weak to conjure anything like that up! I charged my own spell, he would obviously go for Celestia first so I needed to protect her.
His first spell was as fast as lightning. I produced a shield in front of me to absorb the magical attack, it took all of my will to maintain the shield because his blasts were so strong it nearly stunned me. I was aware of the Doctor working beside me, he had pointed his screwdriver at Chrono. From what I could tell, it wasn’t much of a weapon, but it seemed to affect him. Chrono became sluggish and slow with his magic.
I blocked another one of his attacks which was weaker than usual and countered with a spell of my own. The spell slammed into Chrono and sent him flying. The Doctor chuckled beside me but I was too dizzy from the ringing in my ears to hear him.
The Doctor grabbed Princess Celestia and threw her over his back and grabbed my hoof, “Run!”
Oh, we ran.
We burst out of the room like a tornado, crashing into the first palace guard. He was a stoutly pegasus in bronze armor but he toppled over easy with the combined force from the Doctor and me. By the time he had gotten up and registered the fact that the Doctor had the Princess on his back, we were already sprinting down the hall.
I heard him bark orders at us then the thundering sound of a dozen hooves behind us.
What had I gotten myself into?
“What about the TARDIS?” I asked, struggling to keep up with the Doctor’s expert gait.
“No one in the universe can get into the TARDIS without this!” The Doctor pulled a tiny key out from within his shirt, it was hooked on a silver necklace. I found it hard to believe you could simply lock a powerful time machine with a tiny key. “She’s shielded!”
“No, I meant why aren’t we flying away in the TARDIS?!”
“We are a part of this timeline, now we’ve got Princess Celestia part of it as well. If we leave we lose track of the casual nexus and alter events as we know it! If we screw up even a little bit the entire future is in jeopardy! What if she never became the princess in the future? What would happen to you?”
I swallowed the hot lump in my throat and stopped myself from shivering. “Oh,” I squeaked, my voice suddenly becoming timid. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“This way!”
The Doctor turned a corner and I nearly tripped up following him. Spears and magical bolts whizzed past me, nearly grazing my back. The Royal Guard from my time were patient, methodical and a bit intimidating, these guys seemed like the “zap now ask questions later” type. Well considering we just kidnapped the princess, their response seems quite reasonable.
We went down a giant spiral staircase, the Doctor had trouble running down the steps for some reason. He kept wobbling awkwardly, like he was going to fall over, I had to grab Princess Celestia with my magic and put her on my back so she wouldn’t fall over.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“Avoid the powerful shapeshifting, time-traveling alien and platoon of guard-ponies,” he answered.
“What’s step two?!”
“To be honest, I didn’t think we’d get this far!”
We reached the bottom of the stairs and ended up in the grand room. I recognized some of the architecture but it was a bit different from my time, I suppose a few thousand years would inspire somepony to redecorate, personally, I didn’t like it.
“This way!” I veered right and heard the Doctor follow me. If I was correct, this path would lead straight toward the balcony where Princess Luna took her midnight tea. Three intersections later we reached… a dead end.
The spot where the balcony should’ve been was just a blank wall. Mentally I cursed myself. “Of course the balcony wouldn’t be here, Luna isn’t grown up yet!”
“Twilight…”
“Then where? I suppose the Solar Tower is out of the question as well.”
“Twi…”
“There has to be a way out, there—“
“Twilight!”
I turned around and sawthat we had been surrounded. Dozens of armed, angry Royal Guard ponies pointed their spears at us. The Doctor calmly took a step back to stand by my side. The Captain glared at me then glanced worriedly at Princess Celestia.
“Release the princess, infidels. And you will horribly executed.”
“Isn’t there an ‘or’ in that sentence?” I weakly asked.
“Twilight… Do you have any magic for a spell?” the Doctor asked under his breath as he took a step back, closer to the wall, I followed with.
“Yeah… what’re you thinking?”
“No talking!” the guard yelled.
“Squareness gun,” he whispered.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“I said no talking!” the guard repeated. “Just release the princess, now!”
“The wall,” the Doctor whispered agitated. “Make it go bye-bye.”
“Oh…”
“Sorry boys!” the Doctor said aloud. “This is where we part ways.”
I spun around and zapped the wall with a distinegration spell. The spell was so bright that the guards had to shield their eyes, when the light died there was a perfect square-shaped hole where the wall was. The Doctor took my hoof and together we jumped through it.