"You're a hard man to remember finding!" the Doctor said cheerfully.
"A power we developed to help the sinful absolve them," the Preacher hissed. "What about you, Doctor? Do you have any sins to confess to me? I am willing to listen..."
"No," said the Doctor. "None that I haven't already confessed to someone or the other. I like to remember my sins, thanks. It helps me learn from my mistakes."
"What about the sins you have yet to commit, Doctor?" the Silent whispered harshly.
The Doctor shrugged. "I haven't committed those," he said. "Oh! You're talking about Trenzalore! Listen, I'm sure that my answering a question will end the whole of reality, I won't answer."
"I'll make sure of that," the Preacher hissed. "This universe will crumble in on itself soon. It will all fall through the cracks. And at that point I will have fulfilled my duty. On Trenzalore, when the question is asked, silence will fall."
"And I suppose that's why you have your flock here, isn't it?" The Doctor gestured toward the silent congregation. "All ponies have some sort of magic in them. You're having them use theirs to force the crack open. Soon it will just be a great big hole and the whole of this dimension zaps itself into non being."
"My flock will sacrifice itself to maintain the Silence," the Preacher said. "Such action is laudable."
"Such action is bloody ridiculous!" the Doctor shouted. "Even if you were right, and he best thing to do was kill me, what gives you the right to sacrifice these ponies! If you're going to kill me, it can be done with a gun, Preacher! No need to take out an entire universe with me!" The Doctor thumped his chest. "Come on! I'm right here! Don't tell me you came unarmed because you never do! Two shots ought to do it! One to start regeneration, and one to stop it!"
The Preacher paused, as if considering it. "You know that is not true, Doctor," he whispered. "Simply killing you has proved vastly difficult."
"'Simply' killing me?" the Doctor laughed. "You're joking right? You have never done anything simply in your entire lives! Breed a baby from my companion to use as an assassin bred to kill me. Blow up my TARDIS when you had no guarantee I'd be in it at the time. Try to send a subliminal message to everyone on Earth by staging the moon landing. You realize if you walked up to me with... I don't know... A gun I had no plan?"
The Preacher seemed taken aback by this. As if he had never considered it before.
"Go on then!" the Doctor barked. "I'm all ears! What insanely overcomplicated and bloody stupid plan to kill me have you got this time? Perhaps the entire church is filled with highly trained mice assassins? Oh wait, sorry, I know what your plan is. End this universe. So why did you need Discord? Why contact him?"
"I..." The Silent seemed to be quaking with rage. "I didn't... He contacted me."
"I did not," Discord protested. "How could I, I didn't even know about this until you contacted me!"
"Lies!" the Preacher hissed. "A creature of deception!"
Discord and the Preacher began to square off as the rest of the crowd looked between the two of them.
"Well," Silver Smith spoke up. "One of you two has to be lying, right? Somepony contacted somepony..."
"Oh no," Eleven spoke up. "It's far scarier than that, they're both telling the truth..."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh bloody hell, you're right..."
"Someone has been doing a little matchmaking," Eleven smiled. "Someone wanted you two here. I think I now who..."
"The Black Guardian," groaned the Doctor. "This is all one massive distraction. He wants to keep us here while he's off doing god knows what. For some reason he also wanted Discord here too... Probably because Discord could probably stop him in the early stages of whatever his plan is."
"This is a trap," said Eleven. "And we're all caught in it. No escape now."
"So," Applejack said after a while. "Let's go? I know things have got to work out here, because I'm from the future. We should leave now and try to stop whatever the Black Guardian has up his sleeve..."
"We can't," the Doctor smiled. "I think that the only reason that there is a future for us to be from is that we were here. Time is a bit silly like that."
"Silence!" hissed the Preacher. "I'm no one’s pawn! I need to save my universe."
"Oh, be quiet would you!" Eleven shouted. "You were taken in, we all were. How about you just seal up that crack and go home. I'm headed back to our Universe when we're done here, I can drop you off!"
"No!" the Silent was gripping the podium now. "I can't let you go back! I can't let you reach Trenzalore! When the question is asked, silence must fall! I am going to make sure that both of you fade into nonexistence! This universe will die to save mine!"
The Doctors were wide eyed at the Preacher's ranting. Eleven turned to Discord. "I'm sure this serves as proof enough of his ill intentions, yes? We can have our Eyes of Harmony back?"
"Of course," Discord growled as he prepared to snap his fingers. "Now to close up that crack."
"Sorry," the Doctor chimed in. "That won't help. Your powers can only affect this universe, and that crack isn't from any universe. Simply put I need to figure out an extremely clever way to get us out of this."
"Do you have one?" Sweetie Belle asked.
The Doctor began to look awkward. "Well..." he started, "no... Not as of yet, no."
Scootaloo buried her face in her hoof. "Oh brother..."
"Well we gotta think of somethin'!" Apple Bloom protested. "I'll go tape it shut!"
Sweet grabbed the filly. "You stay right here, young'un I ain't havin' anypony gettin' hurt while I'm here."
The Doctor smiled at the motherly side of Sweet. "Silver Smith... and Sweet... Oh," the Doctor burst out in a wide grin. "Oh I have high hopes for the two of you..."
"And I have an offer..." hissed the Preacher." You want the crack closed up, fine. I'll do it myself. All I want is for one of you two to step into the light. Be erased from this reality. I want one less Doctor in the Multiverse. One of you grant me this, and I will gladly seal the crack and save this reality."
The Doctor pondered the idea for a while. There were general protests from the rest of them. Eleven tried to explain that he couldn't close the crack, even if he wanted to. The Doctor was too lost in thought to hear them. Eventually an Idea sprung into his mind. This would work. It had to. If Eleven was right...
"Alright," the Doctor said with a huge grin. "You've got a deal. I'll go."
"What?!" said everyone else in the room, including the Preacher.
"He's quite right," the Doctor said as he removed his ascot and started unbuttoning his waistcoat. "One of us stepping into that light is the only way we're going to close that crack. Eleven is right however, the Preacher can't close it." He finished removing his clothes and handed them to Sweetie Belle. "Take good care of this, I'll be needing it back later."
"Are you crazy?!" Sweetie Belle was close to crying. "If you step in there, you'll never have existed! We won't even remember you! And... And I won't..."
"Shh," the Doctor said quietly. "Trust me. It will be fine."
"I'm not gonna let you do it!" Apple Bloom shouted. "We can't forget you!"
"The Doctor winked." You're right, you can't."
"Don't go!" Scootaloo squeaked.
"Have to, I'm afraid," frowned the Doctor. He pointed to Discord. "You! Listen, once you figure out what's going on I'll need to be back here. Lord knows where I'm going to end up, so I'll need to get back quickly before I'm deep-fried by a fire-breathing dragon, okay?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about..." Discord seemed puzzled.
"You will," the Doctor smiled. "I think Bowtie does..."
"Actually, no," said Eleven.
"Really?" smiled the Doctor. "Oh, you're going to feel stupid later, mate."
Applejack stood blocking the Doctor's path to the crack. "You realize I can't let you do this?"
"Applejack," the Doctor smiled. "Remember when I asked you to trust me?"
Applejack slowly nodded.
"Trust me now..." he gave Applejack a hug and whispered in her ear. "I'll be right back."
The Doctor strode proudly to the crack. "In case I'm horribly wrong about this," he smiled. "And I'm only about 98% sure I'm not, I'd like to leave you all with a last word that would appear to sum me up quite nicely..."
The Doctor burst into a wide grin. "Avanti!"
He leaped back into the light coming from the crack.
There was a massive shockwave that made everyone fall to the floor. The congregation seemed to be shaken out of their trance. When Applejack looked up...
The Doctor was gone.