The Centaur and the Centurion
Chapter 6: The Centaur and the Centurion
In the throne room of Canterlot, a bored Princess Celestia was reduced to the role of courier service.
A scroll materialized before her, condensed into matter from its former state as green dragonfire. The floor was littered with more than a dozen similar scrolls.
Celestia grabbed the new scroll with her magic and unrolled it. “How about now?” she read aloud. “Can I save them now?”
Her Princess-Twilight-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown impersonation was uncanny.
“No, no you can’t,” answered a bored Doctor Hooves, speaking as if he were addressing Twilight Sparkle directly instead of via dragonfire correspondence.
Beside him, his wife Derpy used her wing feathers to grip a quill. The quill was used to write down the Doctor’s words on a blank scroll. Once this was complete, the gray pegasus rolled up the scroll and held it aloft with her mouth. Princess Celestia then floated the scroll out of her mouth, tied a purple ribbon around it, and used a spell to convert it into a cloud of green dragonfire that quickly flew out of the castle window and towards the domed—not, for once, doomed—town of Ponyville.
A few seconds later, a reply from the town arrived, thereby repeating the cycle.
“Are you sure?” the message read.
“Yes, I am,” Doctor Hooves answered. “You will get a very clear signal from the Everfree before too long, and that will be the time to move in and save everybody...err, everypony.” He waited until Derpy had finished transcribing before adding, “Actually, it will be less ‘save everypony’ and more ‘clean up’, but you don’t need to tell her that.”
“And how are you so sure that everything will turn out alright?” Celestia asked on her own, after sending off the Doctor’s reply.
“I was assured by the only authority in the universe that I trust besides Derpy,” the Doctor told her.
Celestia, having had to deal with the Doctor before, was easily able to figure this one out: “Yourself.”
“Exactly.”
Derpy thought about this for a few seconds, before having an uneasy realization: “And can you trust all of your regenerations?”
Doctor Hooves had a mental image of the fellow with the question-mark shaped umbrella, a fellow who was entirely too clever for his own good. “Um...”
In the bowels of the Everfree, Apple Bloom reached back and tore free the chameleon arch that she had attached to her hip with clear packing tape. She held the object out, balanced on one forehoof.
“You...you keep that away from me!” Colgate said, slowly backing away from the earth pony.
“Colgate, you need to open this,” Apple Bloom said quietly, slowly closing the distance between them on three legs as the watch was still outstretched before her.
“N...nno!” Colgate protested, shaking her head wildly. “You heard what that dragon said. If I use it, I’ll die.”
“You won’t die,” Apple Bloom insisted. “You’ll turn back into what you’re meant to be, into that ‘noble creature’ from those dreams you told me about.”
“There were mad creatures as well in my dreams—how do you know I won’t become one of them instead?” Her eyes suddenly lost their focus. “And the noble one was the Doctor. Noble and mad, all at once. ‘The mad man with a box.’”
“You were chasin’ after that Rani character. Since she’s bad, then you must have been good.”
“Not necessarily!”
“But you are a part of her, and you are good!” She looked down at the trail of blood drops that been dripping from Colgate’s snout this whole time. “And...and you’re dyin’.”
Colgate had long since run out of cave to back into, and had slid down into a seated position. She squeezed her blue eyes shut, and squeezed some tears out of them. “So you know,” she whispered.
“I had to find out why you were so sad after that checkup,” Apple Bloom told her as she sat down beside her. “But don’t you see? That’s probably the side effect of being disguised for centuries. The arch is probably not meant to be used for this long with a pony body, or something about the magic of Equestria messed it up somehow. If you turn back, you’ll be cured.”
“Cured?” Colgate repeated slowly, her eyes still closed. “Maybe. But only if I turn back...and leave. Because that’s it, isn’t it? If I become...a Time Lord, then I have to stay a Time Lord. And, this wanderlust I’ve been fighting all my life will permanently take hold of me, and I’ll have to leave this entire universe, for the one that they came from. I will become a wanderer in an immense and lonely expanse, one of only three of my kind left in an infinity of space, inhabited by strange and unwelcoming species. I’ll have left behind all of my friends here in Equestria, left in my tiny time machine to wander the whole of Time and Space...alone...” Across the unicorn’s suddenly opened eyes marched the ultimate nightmare of any of Celestia’s little ponies: to be sundered from the Herd...forever.
“No,” Apple Bloom vowed, putting her free forehoof on Colgate’s shoulder. “I won’t let that happen. If you have to leave, then I’m coming with you.”
“No!” Colgate protested. “I couldn’t possibly do that to you!”
“What makes you think that it would be a bad thing?” Apple Bloom said with a smile, tears of compassion and a strange sort of light glistening in her eyes. “We ponies have lived all of our lives on this little world, thinking that it was the whole of Creation. But it isn’t—it’s just the start of a whole incredible universe, wonder after wonder. If one world can produce creatures as inspiring as Amy and Rory, what else is there to see and do? How many opportunities must there be to improve the lives of those in need, to save those lives that think that no one is left who cares for them?! Most of all, how many lonely souls exist that are in desperate need...of our friendship? Colgate! Colgate, or whatever name you really have, we two will see the universe! A place filled to bursting with strangers, and what is a stranger, but a friend you haven’t met yet?!” And saying this, she gently placed the watch into Colgate’s outstretched hoof, a hoof the unicorn had seemed to raise without even realizing it.
The moment was rudely interrupted by four timber DDs, who silently yanked Apple Bloom to her hooves and dragged her away. The pony made no move to resist, her eyes fixed on a frozen Colgate until the earth pony was dragged out of eye contact.
“Make an example of the unicorn,” the voice of the Rani commanded. “I have no use for mental defectives.”
The wooden army moved in for the kill.
# # #
Three timber DDs dragged Apple Bloom back into the cage, and positioned her so she could watch the fight in the nearby arena. She turned her head to see that the hole she had made in the back of the cage had already been repaired. Soon, all the ponies in the cage had their eyes transfixed upon the cruel tournament that the Rani was forcing Rory to participate in. As for his opponent, the transformed Big Mac appeared to have no free will whatsoever, completely controlled with the Rani’s device. With his greater height and strength, the centaur seemed to be the inevitable victor of this fight. Meanwhile, the timber DDs had placed the unresisting Apple Bloom’s rear legs into a wooden mold, and had begun filling it with quick-drying cement.
“Wait!” ordered the voice of the Rani. She put down the joystick that she had been using to control the centaur she had created from Big Mac. “Your cutie mark has changed. No pony is supposed to be able to do that! Fraxinus, describe the new mark.”
Apple Bloom looked at her flank. Instead of the plain yellow fur, or the pocket watch that she had taped there before, she saw—
“The outline of a flower marked out in white points.”
“Not points,” Apple Bloom corrected is a voice of rapture. “Stars!”
While most of the ponies’ eyes were upon the new cutie mark of Apple Bloom, Amy’s had never left the steadily losing battle of her husband. “Give him a weapon!” she cried. “What else could you possibly learn from such an unbalanced fight?!”
The Rani raised one scaly eyebrow. “Indeed!” she said. “I do need to see the limitations of this form, before I consider transferring my consciousness into a unicorn version.” With a sadistic smile, she reached down and tossed a short sword into the arena. “Oh I’m sorry!” she cried out mockingly. “I forgot that the Doctor’s companion is now a worthless earth pony, and not a creature capable of wielding a—hold on, how is he holding that? That...that shouldn’t even be possible for a quadruped! How is he fighting back against my perfect warrior? What is he?”
Amy was more than happy to explain. “That, Rani, is Centurion Roranicus Pondicus, of the Second Augustan Legion, part of the greatest untechnologically advanced fighting force ever known. Of course, ‘Roranicus Pondicus’ is like the stupidest Roman name ever, but I invented it as a twelve-year old girl for this really annoying boy that always wanted in on my make-believe games, and the gods saw fit to turn those silly little fantasies into reality and I really don’t need to go down that particular logic chain right now. Let’s just say that he knows a Roman sword like nobody’s business.”
“How?!” the amazed dragon shouted only a few seconds later, as her remote-controlled monster collapsed into the dust, unconscious, bleeding, but alive, thanks to an almost-surgical knowledge of equine and human nerve points by his scrawny earth pony opponent.
“A...a little top heavy, I found,” a gasping Rory informed her. “Kinda inevitable with a centaur, wouldn’t you say?”
The Rani looked hopelessly at her woefully incomplete notes on pony abilities. “I must know more!”
“And so you shall!”
All eyes turned to the entrance of the cave.
Standing there, surrounded by a nimbus of light, was a light blue unicorn. But that voice couldn’t be hers—it was more authoritative than any pony had ever remembered hearing it. It no longer was the voice of a dentist, of a lowly citizen of Ponyville. It no longer was the voice of a pony that never expected to be obeyed, even when conveying advice on how to prevent gingivitis.
It was now the voice of a princess.
The dragon studied the figure silently for a few seconds, before smiling at a joke that only she knew. “I think you’d better introduce yourself. Again, since the earlier name no longer applies.”
The unicorn stepped forward. “I am Romanadvoratrelundar, former Lady President of Gallifrey and chief of the Time Lords. I was authorized to apprehend you for your crimes against basic sapient decency.”
“But your authority no longer exists,” sneered the Rani. “Now let me introduce you...to your prison!”
As she said this, the dragon quickly reached behind her stalagmite, removed another Cyberpony head from behind it, and tossed it unerringly right towards the unicorn’s head. Its eyes were glowing a brilliant blue.
The unicorn’s response was to reach into a small bag with one hoof and toss a pile of gold dust at the metal head.
The Cyberpony head struck the unicorn’s head, causing her to reel. The light of the construct’s eyes scanned over the pony, trying to initiate a transfer of consciousness. But this was interrupted as the disembodied head began to cough in a shrill metallic voice.
“Nooo!” the Rani cried out. “It was first generation, and I didn’t have the resources to set up a defense against auric bio-mechanical breakdown!”
“Well!” the blue unicorn said coldly. “Now that we are done with introductions, shall we proceed to the terms of our alliance?”
“An...alliance?” the dragon asked incredulously.
“Yes, the two of us to rule and exploit this planet. Together.”
“You are supposed to be on the side of law and order!” the Rani protested. “Why would you possibly want to take over a planet?”
“In case you forgot, we were all sold out by the forces of ‘law and order’,” the unicorn replied contemptuously. “And as for ruling this planet, it’s practically begging for a take-over! Under Celestia, technological development came to a stand-still! For the sake of progress, for the sake of knowledge, the ponies must acknowledge their superiors—us! Together, we can rule Equis!”
The other ponies looked silently between the two speakers. That included a battered Rory, who had climbed out of the arena, the sword gripped in his teeth.
The Rani laughed out loud, in a highly theatrical manner. (This is not to say that practically anything she had ever said was ever not pronounced in a highly theatrical manner.) “That was what I was going to do anyway!” she lied. “What do you possibly have to offer that would lead me to share one iota of my power and knowledge with you?”
“Well, I dunno...” Romanadvoratrelundar said idly, waving one hoof around in a circle. “How about...this?!” And having said this, she reached around a corner and pulled a cart containing the books she had stolen from Twilight’s library into view. “I hereby present the collected magical wisdom of Equestria—the greatest intellectual treasure trove of all time! And the 24-volume Encyclopedia Equestria as a free bonus.”
The Rani pointed excitedly at the cart. “Bring me that!” she ordered her minions, in a tone little distinguished from a junkie ordering her next fix.
The timber DDs brought the cart over to the Rani.
“Neuromolecular Structure of the Unicorn Brain,” the dragon said, eagerly reading aloud the title of the top-most book. She quickly moved on the rest: “The Somewhat Complete Dragon Spell Catalog. A Practical Demonstration of Pegasus Weather Control Capabilities. Just What the Heck is a Breezy, Anyway? Flora and Fauna of the Eastern Deeps, Rated by Diminishing Magical Capacity! 10,001 More Spells You’ve Never Heard Of! So much knowledge! I must possess it! It all must...be...MINE!”
As she had been speaking, the Time Lord pony had retrieved a stubby cylindrical object from the cage that contained the comatose body of the Doctor, and used it to somehow open both cages and shatter their various concrete enclosures. The ponies had then swiftly made their way out of the cage, and into the Everfree, carrying the centaur, the Doctor’s body, and the Doctor’s consciousness between them. You might consider this a mighty heavy load to bear, until you remembered that one of the ponies doing the carrying was Applejack.
The timber DDs did nothing to stop them. Instead, they watched in the fibrous equivalent of bewilderment as their mistress ranted more and more about unintelligibly-complex topics, her greed for knowledge causing her to bloat and bloat in size, until it overwhelmed her intellect entirely.
The Everfree echoed with the roar of an enormous dragon, as her expanding body demolished her hidden lair and crushed her former servants.
...And back in Ponyville, a pent-up princess with nothing to do finally received her signal to actually do something.