//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Bodies 
// Story: The Lives of Doctor Whooves 
// by GrandSpellcaster 
//------------------------------//

	Their capsule was falling, glowing red from the friction of reentry. Inside, in the smoke and flame of the explosions, the Doctor and Starlight were being fiercely flung around inside. As soon as either one of them managed to get to the main console they would each try to stabilize their ship before they would be flung away. "Try resetting the manipulation matrix!" Starlight managed to shout through the smoke as clung to several of the round things on the wall. 
Her grandfather held on with all his strength, trying desperately to engage the manual controls. "That would cause us to reenter the time vortex!" He shouted changing some settings and finally getting some control of their crash. He pulled up an image on the monitor large green and purple blotches. As they neared they were able to make out that the purple things were of hundreds of hundreds of purple and pink armor sets, just sitting in heaps on the ground. The green things seemed to be jelly-like blobs that glistened in the light. 
The Doctor managed to find a relatively clear place to 'land' with an unexpected bounce, flip, and eventually landing right side up with a resounding "thud". The doors opened and smoked billowed out and Starlight stumbled from the open doors and turned her head back in to look for her grandfather. The Doctor held part of his coat over his mouth with one hoof and he limped out of the doors and began to cough. "Not your best landing." Starlight said with a wild grin.
Her grandfather turned towards her and simply began to laugh, "I guess it wasn't." he said and began to cough again. He shook his head and that was when he noticed it, something was wrong, very wrong. His mood was instantly killed as he turned back to his capsule and saw it was still a blue police box. "It hasn't changed!" He said walking up to it and opening the door only for more smoke to bellow out. 
"Grandfather you can't go in there." Starlight said grabbing him by the shoulder. 
"We need the chameleon circuit operational if we're going to blend in!" He said trying to get back in.
"At least wait for the smoke to clear out first!" She said trying to convince him to not go into the newly made deathtrap.
He looked into the utter blackness of the room then to the heaps of abandoned full body armor and green things, and decided, "Fine. Let’s go figure out which planet we're on." 
They walked around and between the alternating piles of armor and gelatinous blobs. As they moved they got bored and started to count the piles and how many suits of armor or green blobs were in them. The further along they got the more a pattern managed to form, there was always twenty-six sets of armor and thirty-three green blobs in every pile they counted. There was also a pattern to the piles placement, as best they could figure was that the piles of armor were always placed to form hexagons, with the piles being the points. The green blobs did a similar thing but with pentagons instead. 
"What do you think it means?" Starlight asked her grandfather.
"Could mean anything, maybe ritualistic purposes, we could be on a graveyard planet, could be something trying to get attention from something above, or even some sort of spell circle." 
"Spell circle?" 
"Yes it's when you mark runes on the ground to enhance your spells, in theory on could make on a massive scale like this, but I don't think it's likely. These at the points not lines and they'd need to be lines, I think." 
The pair kept looking around and after a little wandering they heard shouting, Starlight began to gallop towards the sound. She stopped as soon as she saw them, a light green blob, which apparently had tentacles, and a pony in the full body armor dragging a green blob and a suit of armor respectively. They each through their loads into their respective piles then shouted a curse at each other before moving to grab another blob and armor. 
The two beings didn't even seem to notice the young mare as she approached them, she called out, "Hello!" to them. The armored stallion turned towards her and the blob didn't seem to respond. 
The armored pony's armor began to unfold as a weapon was relieved and mounted onto the pony's shoulder, he called out "Halt solid."
Starlight slid to a stop as per his command, "Why?" she asked.
The blob began to move closer to Starlight and as it did she heard a voice in her head, "Do not mind the Wind Wailer, he is simply a fool who hates solids like us.".
She instantly understood and hijacked the blobs mental link with her "And why does he hate 'Solids' like us?" she asked the blob. 
"His species see us as waist-full of materials." He said back to her. Starlight wandered a little farther into the blobs mind and learned a little more about it. She felt little resistance as she learned exactly why it was dragging its fallen comrades in arms into the piles. He had apparently been assembling funeral mounds for evaporation. 
She was taken out of her little investigation when she heard a cough from beside her. She turned to her side to see her grandfather looking a little board, "So did you learn anything from the Dem?" He asked looking at the blob.
"The Dem?" She asked not sure of what he meant.
"The green blob, I had a hunch when I the dead ones, but I know a living Dem almost anywhere. They're the only green blob things that weren't created, or sustain their existence, through magic." He said focusing his attention on the armored stallion. "You however, I have no idea about you. So what are you?" 
The armored pony's gun trained onto the Doctor and he said a bit too loudly, "I am a flame sergeant in the great Dilud imperial army! I am the..." 
"That's enough young thing, I got what I wanted no need to ramble on about your various titles and accomplishments." The Doctor said complacently board with the Dilud. He then turned to his Granddaughter again, "We may yet salvage this, and the Dilus are magic based entities, specifically void magic." 
Starlight had heard the term before at academy during a magic course but it was always glanced over by her instructors. "What is void magic exactly?" She asked.
"It's the background magic of the universe, utterly useless to almost any species, and the base element of Mana." He said.
"So the Dilus are one of the species that can use it?" She asked giving the Dilud a sideways glance, Must be a very special species if they can use a magic that the academy doesn't even bother with.
"Oh yes, and they hate any species that came before the Event. They hunt us down and try to destroy us and if I'm remembering correctly that will lead to their ultimate destruction..."
"Your filth will be removed from our universe!" The armored pony shouted, his weapon humming to life. He never got the chance to fire though as a long, slender, green tentacle warped around his torso and constricted the armor. The moment the armor's visor shattered a black, smoky, substance swelled out of if a shot up incredibly fast towards the sky only to dissipate a few meters up. 
"What?" Starlight asked.
"Thank you my good Dem." The Doctor said bowing lowly.
He felt the Dem enter his mind as it said, "You are welcome Time Lord. We non magic users need to stick together."
The Doctor did the same thing as Starlight had and replied, "I must agree" 
The Doctor felt Starlight's presence in the Dem's mind and she asked, "But what was the smoke?" 
The Doctor asked the Dem, "Shall I explain or do you want to?" 
"I shall." The Dem answered and directed his attention to Starlight, "The Dilud are a space based race, they cannot survive on a planet for long. So they have depressurizing suits that they use to fight planet based races like us. The black smokish thing was it retreating to space, after I broke out truce to not kill each other."
"You had a truce with him?" Starlight asked.
"It was a necessity, his weapon would have killed me before one of my tentacles could get close and I needed to arrange the evaporation piles for my comrades. However with you two distracting him I was able to get close enough to crush him and banish the last putrid Dilud off my home world." there was a clear sense of distain  at the end.
There was a slight shaking that, in a matter of seconds, grew much more violent. As they were all being shaken they were able to make out a distinct and familiar voice saying, "Foals! You have taught me to survive!" 
Soon after the voice came a black mist started to appear above them. The Doctor looked to his granddaughter and noticed that her horn was glowing, How long was it doing that, had it been glowing the entire time we talked in the Dem's brain? he thought to himself then he looked back to the Dilud hovering above him. "How are you here?" He asked.
"I do not know exactly! But I'm going to do what I came here for in the first place!" it bellowed. Quickly dark tendrils poured from the small cloud and moved towards the Dem.
The Dem was complacently defenseless agent the magical attack and started to turn a darker green like the Dem in the pile. Its last act while it was alive was to bring its tentacles into itself to form a perfect ball. As it turned the green of the dead Dem it became like mush or putty, as it sagged to the pull of the planets gravity.
"You know it's you two I have to thank for this victory!" The Dilud taunted, "If it wasn't for the mare here I'd have died when my unpressure suit was broken, but thanks to her I was able to find a protective pocket around her. And while you three were brain dead I was able to figure out how to recreate the effect around myself. "Now nothing will stop us from riding the rest of the universe from you non magic based creatures filth!" it shouted as is sent the same tendrils of blackness to kill the to Time ponies. 
As the tendrils pierced the Doctor and made their way into his hearts to shut them down something magical happened. Starlight seeing her beloved grandfather was about to die, unleashed a blast of magical energy from her horn. The beam that she hadn't even known she could do hit its mark, the Dilud.
The Magic didn't die down as the Dilud tried to figure out what was happening."What...are...yo...you...doi...doing...how...is...possible?" He questioned as the beams direction suddenly reversed and he felt himself being pulled into Starlight's horn. 
Starlight realized what was happening as the Dilud began to scream. She really did try to stop the spell, even if she didn't know how she cast it in the first place. But despite her efforts, she just wasn't experienced enough with magic to even begin to figure out how to stop. The Dilud was absorbed into her horn with a minor shock wave that caused the Doctor to stumble.
She turned to her grandfather and looked at him with lime green eyes and red pupils before they faded back to her usual turquoise. Time seemed to lose all meaning for the two of them and after what felt like ages Starlight, a bit to calm, asked, "what?"
There was another long pause before her grandfather just began to slowly shake his head.
She asked again with a little more force "What?!"
All her grandfather did was continue to slowly shake his head as he desperately tried to process the impossible thing he had just seen his granddaughter do.
Starlight on the other hoof had no such problem, it had felt good to consume the Dilud's magical essence. But there was still one problem, "What did I just do?"
Her grandfather finally managed to get his head around what he had just seen and answered, "The hidden magic" was all he said. 
Starlight gave him a cross look, "Am I supposed to know what that is?" She asked.
"Soon after the event our ancestors were fascinated by what was happening to developing planets and species." He managed to get out before he was sent back into the utterly confused state again, still not believing what he had seen.
"What does that have to do with this?" He heard Starlight's question but didn't process it for several moments.
He managed to get out, "they started to notice that the younger species were able to manipulate the leftover power from the event to do very basic things, like survive in a place that they were ill adapted for. They also noticed that all the new planets were practically dead unless the new species did something. That was when we began abducting members of the newer species by the millions. After years of testing we eventually learned how to do what they could but at the cost of almost all of them." He stopped here to allow his mind to catch up to his lips.
"So there is some old technique they used?" Starlight asked.
"Not exactly, our ancestors were unable to store the magic within them and they'd have to take the power from other things to do the most basic of spells." He explained turning his head towards the crushed set of armor. Armor designed to keep magic in and out, I wonder. 
His thoughts were interrupted by Starlight, "please go on."
"Oh yes! Well they'd only take a little from the surrounding area, but the hidden magic was practiced by our ancestors when they learned that they could increase their mana pool by stealing them from others. It became so widespread that we began to actually be born with them. At this point it was decided we were causing more harm than good and the spells that allowed us to do so was hidden away."
"So how did I just do that?" Starlight asked following the Doctors line of sight to the broken armor.
"I don't know, maybe all the time in our capsule..." He trailed off as he began to think.
"It is an old TARDIS, maybe it was around when the spells were used and when it was damaged by that alicorn its psychic circuits could have planted the spell in my mind." Starlight speculated.
"Tardis?"
"It stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, do you like it."
"It's okay, but I'll stick with Time Capsule."
"Fine"
"But back to your theory. It could be that, but it could be since it used your magic to sustain itself that you simply took yours back and he came along for the ride." The Doctor said. He walked over to the crushed armor and picked up a piece of it, "do you hear it?" The Doctor asked turning the metal in his hooves.
"Hear what?" 
"The Dilud, is he poking around in your head or was he destroyed."
"He's not in my head and I dough he survived the ordeal." Starlight said moving next to her grandfather, "Why are you rummaging around in his armor?"
"I'm looking for the hard drive" he said pulling a small rectangle from what was the base of the armor's neck. He placed it on the ground and promptly smashed it with his hoof, "don't want to be found out." he explained as he twisted his hoof to grind the hard drive into nothing.
"Come along." He said as he started to head towards the general direction of their capsule. Starlight followed and they walked in silence as they circumnavigated their way through the piles of dead and abandoned armor. As they did so she played with her new magical power lifting little bits of the armor around them with her mind. Never holding onto any piece for long, just enjoying in the fact that she could lift them at all. Soon they saw the sight of the blue box that their capsule was currently stuck in. 
The Doctor quickly pushed the doors open then stepped back, a thin layer if smoke gently poured out of the open doors and the two time ponies entered to the white consul room. The Doctor walked to the consul and placed his hooves on it, "Child... It's clear that you’re becoming better and I honestly think you're going to need some formal training in magic..."
"Formal training?" Starlight said walking up next to him, "What kind of formal training?"
"I'm thinking the best kind, seeing how easy it was for you to lift the armor back there, I'm thinking of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."
"Never heard of it." Starlight said.
"It's the school that Princess Twilight went to early in her life." The Doctor explained inputting the coordinates.
"You mean... The Princess Twilight!"
"Yes" He said placing the capsule in flight.