Chapter 5
July 20, 1518 CE, 11:10 am, Changeling Castle.
“I’m sorry, what?” The Doctor was cornered by the cybermen, leaded by their cyberleader. The cyberleader had just said it knew who the Doctor was.
“We have met before.”
“You must be more specific than that.”
“You tried to kill me.” Everypony looked to the Doctor, who still was trying to recognize the horse in front of him.
“More specific than that.”
“You tried to kill me in Equestria.”
“Oh… You are… Nedry? I thought you were a dinosaur.”
“No, EMMA.”
“Emma? EMMA! But… but…”
“I was upgraded. Now, it will be the turn of your friends.”
“I’m sorry, but how a computer would be upgraded? Stupid question, how a computer become the cyberleader?” The Doctor asked, but the cyberleader didn’t answer him.
“Walk there. Everyone wait for your upgrade.” The cyberleader said to its prisoners.
“How did you met her?” Samus asked to the Doctor.
“Who? Oh yes, she was a supercomputer in the future, tried to kill both Derpy and me, so I had to unplug her. Apparently she started to create her new cybermen.”
“What?” Derpy asked this time.
“Her software was built for Cynux OS, and Cynux was owned by a corporation called Cybus Industries. They created a kind of cybermen.”
“Let me guess… you stopped them, right?” Sharp Tooth asked.
“Yes, I send them over the void. To nowhere in space or time.”
“So, why are the cybermen here?”
“I don’t know.”
“What? How could you don’t know?”
“Because I don’t even know how I got here in the first place.” The Doctor defended himself. “Look, I’ll promise you that we are going to be safe. You’ll not become cybermen and this war ends today.”
“What are you gonna do?” Derpy asked.
“Save our lives.” The Doctor smiled at Derpy.
The Doctor called EMMA attention. When the cyberleader moved her head, the Doctor called her again.
“I was going to tell you that we are going to escape and bomb this place with all the cybermen inside.”
“What are you trying to do? Run to your TARDIS, Time Lord?”
“Oh, you know what is a Time Lord. Good. So you may know something about the TARDIS.”
“Cybermen attempted to take control of your ship a long time ago.”
“Yes, and I stopped them.”
“Don’t you think the cybermen learn from their past mistakes?”
“I don’t think that.” The Doctor smiled at the cyberleader. “If that was true… you’ll know that keeping me here would be disastrous to you.”
“Take the gray pegasus.” The Cyberleader ordered to a couple of cybermen.
“Wait! Stop it!”
“She’ll be the next cyberman. Prepare her upgrade.”
“No you won’t.” The Doctor yelled angry to the cybermen.
“Don’t we learn from our mistakes? Your emotions are your greatest weakness. The love and caring you feel for this pony will be the cause of your defeat.”
“No.” The Doctor almost whispered.
“No what?” The Cyberleader lowered her head and asked again “No, what?”
“You don’t learn from your mistakes.” Then the Doctor raised his hoof, carrying his sonic screwdriver to the ceiling. “I’m quite impressed, that chandelier didn’t fall when the Changeling Kingdom did it, or when the war began on this place. Or even better, when you put this workshop!” The big old chandelier fell from the ceiling, and crashed to the conversion area. The ponies caught their weapons and began to shoot to the cybermen, killing most of them. “RUN!”
“Think Fast. Really smart.” Colonel Samus talked to the Doctor.
“Do that for later, we need to go to the TARDIS.” The ponies ran to the main door, and they were surprised to see the TARDIS standing there.
“That wasn’t the other side of the town?” Gerrard asked.
“Not now, Gerry, everyone inside, now.” The Doctor turned his head and saw the cyberleader running to them. “Well, not you!” The Doctor closed the TARDIS doors before the cyberleader could enter it.
VWOOOOORP! VWOOOOOORP! VWOOOOORP! VWOOOOOORP!
July 20, 1518 CE, 11:30 am, TARDIS Interior.
“Anyone it’s here?” The Doctor asked. To his relief, Derpy, Samus, Gerrard and Sharp Tooth were among the ponies who survived the cybermen attack.
“Ok, we got barely time to explain. Yes, this is where we came from, it’s the TARDIS, it’s bigger on the inside and we can use it to travel through time and space.”
“Ok, I’ll believe you. Everyone here will believe that.” Samus said to the Doctor.
“Now, we must go to the Canterlot Castle and tell the princesses to stop this war.” Derpy said.
“No, take us to the Ministry of Defence. Princess Cadence and Princess Twilight are there.”
“Ok, we are going to stop this war.”
“No, wait!” Gerrard exclaimed.
“Wait for what?” Samus said to Gerrard.
“We must go first to the Griffon Kingdom. We need both the griffons and the ponies to stop this war.”
“Ok, it’s not a bad idea. Let’s go there.”
July 20, 1518 CE, 11:30 am, Canterlot Ministry of Defence.
The building of the Ministry was filled with a lot of ponies running and flying all over the place. In the main room, the generals of the Equestrian Army were debating over the next decision they should made.
“But we can’t do that!”
“Why not? They must be thinking of doing the same thing!”
“But.. that’s genocide!”
“Better them than us. Princess Sparkle, what should we do?”
The purple alicorn horse was thinking about the proposed solution. Almost all of her generals approve the solution of bombing one of the Griffon Cities as an ultimatum. Somehow the thought wasn’t as unpleasant as to continue the war, something nopony wanted to do. But she didn’t want to hurt innocent griffons to stop it. When she was struggling with her mind, one of her generals, a deep sap green pegasus, called her attention.
“Your highness. If we don’t do something now, Equestria will fall. I know you don’t want to do it, but is the only option.”
Twilight cleared her throat and began her chat. “Everypony. I want to tell you that I’m not happy with the choice I made. Let’s remember we didn’t do it for hatred or fear. We did it because we didn’t have other choice.” A tear was coming from her eye when she said that.
“General Hawker” she added, “you may continue with Project Manehattan.”
VWOOOOORP! VWOOOOOORP! VWOOOOORP! VWOOOOOORP!
“Wait!” Twilight stopped her generals, she recognized that sound from her youth in Ponyville. “Maybe we got another chance.” She run to the source of the sound, and she was relieved to see the TARDIS standing in the middle of the other room. “Doctor! It’s a pleasure to see you!”
“Twilight! The pleasure it’s mine.”
“Look, Doctor, I know you won’t like this but-” The Doctor gently put a hoof on her mouth.
“I’m here to end the war. I need both nations to stop this madness.”
“What? Yes, I mean, I was about to do something I’ll regret my whole life.”
“You don’t need to. Now, I need all the princess to come to my TARDIS.”
“That’s kind of impossible. Princess Luna can’t leave her bed.”
“Ok, so let’s go to her. You are going to sign a peace treaty. A fair one that would lead to friendship with the griffons.”
“Wait, but, how we are going to convince them to sign?”
“I already did it.” He pointed his hoof to the TARDIS, where a big griffon came out of there. At the sight of the griffon, the ponies quickly grab their guns and pointed to him.
“Doctor, you told me this wasn’t going to happen.” The Griffon exclaimed.
“Sorry, won’t happen, put your guns down.” The Doctor ordered to the ponies. “PUT YOUR GUNS DOWN!”
“Do what he said.” Twilight ordered.
“But- but- those things almost killed Princess Luna.” One of the soldiers replied.
“Disobeying an order from Equestria Highest Authority it’s cause of martial court.” At the threat of a martial court, all the ponies put their guns down. “Let’s go, Doctor.”
July 20, 1518 CE, 11:30 am, Canterlot Hospital.
The hospital room where Princess Luna was staying was closed for general public. Only generals, doctors and the royal family could go there for safety reasons. Four years ago she was shot by somepony at the middle of an event in the Griffin Kingdom. Since the shooting, Princess Luna had been feeling weaker, and she was trying to do her best to survive.
Next to Luna there was her niece Princess Cadence. She put Twilight at the Ministry of War so she could decide the course of the war, because she believed that Twilight would do the best to find the culprit of the shooting. She decided to stay close to her aunt just to make sure she got anything she would need.
She was waiting for the time of her lunch when she heard the whirring of the TARDIS.
“Doctor?” Cadence greeted the Doctor.
“I’m sorry, I need both of you. This war ends today.”
“Doctor? What are you saying? The war ends until the griffons pay for the things they have made.”
“I’m here to do something I must have done four years back.” The griffon voice sounded in all the room, waking up Princess Luna. “I have to pay a visit to an old friend.”
“Stay away from her!” Princess Cadence yelled at him, pointing her horn at him. “If you get close-”
“Cadence!” A weak voice said. The Princess of the Night was trying to lift her head to her niece. “Let him talk.”
“But-”
“Please, I know him, he wouldn’t do anything wrong, right Gunther?”
Gunther walked to the side of the Princess.
“This four years I had sent so many griffons to death, there is so much blood from my paws I couldn’t stand the pain I have caused. I’m here to end this war. I hope, your highness, you could forgive me for all the pain my people, specially me, have caused to Equestria.” Gunther said to the Princess.
“I’m sorry too, Gunther. This war could have ended before and without so many losses if we didn’t said those things to each other. I know you didn’t cause that assault, nor you planned it nor endorsed. So many ponies and griffons died for our guilt. There’s no way we could change that. But we can do something now, and sign that.”
“Ok, I need all of you to sign this.” Samus grabbed a paper in front of the princess.
“What’s your name, soldier?”
“Colonel Nate Samus, your highness.”
“Thank you, Brigadier Nate Samus.” The princess smiled at the unicorn.
“Brig- Brigadier? Madame, are you sure?”
“You helped to end a war, and you did it in the most peaceful and honorable way. Why I shouldn’t promote you.”
“No, I mean. Thank you, your highness.” The now Brigadier blushed. “Madame, there is another reason why are we all here.”
“Really?” The Princess got a worried face.
“Yes. My soldiers found a new threat in the Changeling Kingdom. The only way to save all of us is a bombing in that place.”
“Ok, we are going to the Ministry to arrange the attack.” Twilight said.
“Doctor, take me to my kingdom. I must send a message and prepare a bombing.” Gunther said.
“Alright, let’s go Derpy.”
July 20, 1518 CE, 1:00 pm, Changeling Kingdom.
With the newly found alliance, both nations bombed the remains of the changeling kingdom. Then they send a search party for all the remaining cybermen. All of their remains were put in a cellar that was sealed with the magic of Princess Cadence, Twilight and Honeydew. When they made sure nopony would open the seal, they walk to Gunther and his generals to discuss some aspects of the peace treaty.
“As a sign of alliance, both Equestria and Griffonia would help each other to the reconstruction of the ruined cities.” Cadence read.
“And the nations will create an organization to improve the relations between the members of it and to prevent another war.” Gunther read. “But, where we are going to put that organization?”
“Why not here?” Honeydew asked.
“There are cybermen buried here. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The Doctor pointed.
“But maybe close to this place. We can rebuild this city and put a big building above the cellar so nopony would enter there.” Gunther added.
“How are we going to call the organization?” Twilight asked.
“I’ve got an idea. Where I came from, there was an organization called the United Nations. They had a military taskforce with people from all their nations. It was called UNIT.”
“Ok, so let’s create UNIT and the United Nations.” Princess Luna said. “Brigadier Samus, escort the Doctor and Derpy to the TARDIS.”
The Doctor and Derpy walked to the TARDIS with them. With Samus, Sharp Tooth and Gerrard were promoted as well. They were now a sergeant and Feldwebel. They walked to the TARDIS and stand there to give their goodbyes.
“Brigadier Nate Samus, how does it feel that new star?” The Doctor asked to Samus.
“To be honest, weird. I didn’t think that I would become a Brigadier, specially at my age.” Samus said. “I’m not sure if I’ll handle this well.”
“You’ll be great.”
“Doctor, where those cybermen came from?” Derpy asked. The Doctor face became serious.
“I don’t know. After the bombing I went to some cybermen but their communication was lost and I couldn’t figure it how they entered here. I tried to find the cyberleader but EMMA disappeared.”
“Do you think they’ll come back?” Sharp Tooth asked.
“Yes, probably. I think you can handle that, but if you want any help…” the Doctor grabbed a card from his pocket and gave it to the Brigadier, “call me, no matter where I am or when I am, I would come here as quick as I can.”
“Thank you Doctor. Derpy, it was an honor and a pleasure.” Samus said.
“Your welcome.”
The Doctor and Derpy entered the TARDIS, and it slowly disappeared in front of the soldiers.
“Gentlecolts, take the rest of the day. I’ll see you tomorrow at 1800 in the morning.”
“Wait, Nate, I mean Samus, I mean Brigadier.”
“What is it, Tooth?” The brigadier raised an eyebrow to her sergeant.
“I was thinking that maybe… you know… as friends, it doesn’t have to mean nothing but…”
Samus gave him a serious look, “Sergeant, what you are asking for it’s dangerous and forbidden.”. When the changeling looked to the floor, she smiled at him. “I’ll pay the popcorn and the soda, you’ll pay the tickets. No romantic thing, maybe The Power Ponies: United. Eight o’ clock. Got it?”
“Ummm, got it, Brigadier.” Sharp Tooth smiled.
“Don’t call me Brigadier off duty, call me Nate.”
When they were walking away, a lighting sound stopped them. They saw a big blue sphere with lightings getting bigger. Suddenly the sphere faded away, leaving behind a blue pegasus pony, with a long light blue mane and a brown coat. His cutie mark was a Mars symbol. Suddenly, the pegasus raised up and began to walk.
“I… I…” He then looked at himself “I am a pony? That’s weird, a blue pony. And apparently I can talk.” He looked to the ponies and the griffon, who were in defensive stance. “Hello there.”
“Hello. Who are you?” Samus asked to the pegasus.
“I am Captain Jack Harkness. I’m looking for the Doctor.”
TO BE CONTINUED