Whooves tightened the grip on his trusty device, anticipating some devious move from the queen of decay and destruction. She stood shakily on her whooves, which looked like decaying willow trees. her coat was cut and desheveled from her collision with the ground, and her mane seemed to have not fared any better. Her eyes were by far the most interesting feature on her frame.
She was wide-eyed and frantically searching for something. Whooves could only assume that she was looking for a minion or object to aid her. Whooves was not going to let this opportunity to catch a wanted fugitive slip through his whooves.
"Stay right where you are." Whooves glared at the mare. "Let's make this nice and simple, and I won't have to resort to, um, violence."
He honestly did not want to confront the towering queen, especially after his last encounter. He regarded this species of changelings with that of the Graske of the Planet Grannoth. In no way was a ponified version of these monstrosities any good to Whooves, or anypony for that matter.
Chrysalis took a step forward to approach Whooves. "I said stay still." Whooves commanded.
The Queen disregarded his command and took another step.
" Whooves..." Derpy whimpered, tucking Dinky in between herself and Whooves.
" Wait, Derpy," chrysalis finally spoke, "It's not what you think. It's me...Twilight."
The two ponies stopped and looked at the queen, dumbfounded. "T-twilight?"
~~~~
The four ponies walked over to a bench to sit and discuss this new development. Whooves found it both amusing and somewhat terrifying that he was only a few feet from the changeling queen, sort of.
Chrysalis-er-Twilight took a moment to collect her thoughts.
"Let me start at the beginning." She took a deep breath. "A few days ago, Princess Celestia asked me to come to Canterlot for some secret project. She didn't explain it any further, but I am always willing to try something new if the Princesses ask. Anyway, I made it to the castle and it was completely empty. Not a single Colt, Mare, or Filly in the entire castle. At first, I thought that something terrible was happening, like Discord returned and turned everypony invisible. Pinkie Pie would have been ecstatic...where was I?"
"Oh yes," she continued, "Upon further inspection, I found that the castle had been closed for an imperative experiment. The princesses were kind enough to tell me only after I had been wandering aimlessly for half a day. They approached me and asked if I had remembered anything about the changelings and their queen, and with my idetic memory, I told them that I could recall every detail."
"They then asked me to come with them to the observatory. When we reached our destination, I found that they had converted the entire room into a laboratory. At first, I was a little confused, since they already had a few labs scattered throughout the palace grounds. They then said that they needed the lab in a heightened location to amplify their Celestial powers. I told them that it was all very fascinating, but I still had no clue as to what they needed me for. They responded by saying that they wanted to recreate the powers of the changelings for the sake of learning their enemy, in case she decided to return. Celestia also happened to mention that they had a little wager between herself and Luna that the changelings were indeed real and that it wasn't some giant belated April foals joke on Luna."
Derpy chuckled at the sentiment, "As I was saying," Twilight continued, "Celestia motioned me to stand on a pedestal at the center of the room. She then asked me to create a magic bubble to contain the effects of their spell. After a moment, they concentrated their magic and directed it towards me. At first, everything went well, but without warning, my magic seemed to have agitated something in the room. This agitation caused a ripple in the bubble, and broke the spell and sent me flying through the air. When I awoke, I found myself here, in this form."
Twilight finished her lengthy recollection and waited for a response from Whooves.
"Hmm, I've heard of this before, but where?" Whooves scratched his chin aimlessly. "Hrrg, it's at the tip of my tongue. If only I had the TARDIS I could- the TARDIS... That's it! The TARDIS!
Derpy and Twilight stared at his sudden enthusiasm. "Don't you two get it?" He looked at the two expectantly.
After a moments silence, he shrugged and said, "Twilight you said that there was some sort of distortion in your bubble, am I right?"
She nodded.
"Did the distortion happen before or a fter the Princesses used their poers?'
"After," She said.
"Of course, of course. Then that means I don't have to go hunting for my TARDIS anymore!"
"Uhhm?" Twilight looked at him looking for some sort of explanation.
"Sorry, Twilight; but we are going back to the castle. I'll explain when we get there." He paused for a moment. "Also, can you change form? It's going to be quite disruptive if we go through Canterlot like that."
"Let's see..." Twilight scrunched her eyebrows and stuck her tongue out in concentration. At any other point in time, that face would have been the cutest thing imaginable, but now was not the time.
After a couple false stars, Twilight finally changed into her proper Twilight form.
"Alright, let's be off then shall we-"
Whooves came face to face with dinky, who was perched on Derpy's head. "Daddy."
"Uh, yes Sweetie?"
"Come home safe, okay?"
Dinky's cryptic plea struck at Whooves. It sounded way too familiar...
After a pause, he said "You know, usally it's my job to be the cryptic one." Dinky didn't look amused.
"Sigh, I'll see you when I get home." He kissed Dinky on the horn and galloped off to catch up with Twilight.
~Canterlot~
So are you going to explain what exactly we are doing," Twilight asked as they were walking throught the hall of the palace.
"In a moment, we just have to find the- ah here we are."
Whooves and Twilight stood outside the observatory, and Whooves motion for them both to go inside.
Inside the room, Celestia and Luna were busy running around the room testing figures and breaking beakers, as if the world was about to end.
"What in Equestria are you two doing?" Whooves finally asked.
"Huh- oh, It's just Whooves and twilight.. Twilight!" Celestia galloped over to the unicron and swept her up in a large hug.
"Oh thank the heavens! I thought we had sent you to the sun or something." Celestia nearly wept. Twilight put a hoof to Celestia's mouth and silently stared into her eyes.
"I'm fine, Tia. And I have some good news, too! At least, I think I do."
Whooves took a moment to mentally analyze the strange behavior between twilight and Celestia before he interrupted.
"Ehem." The three other looked at him. "I don't mean to be callous, but if we are going to change Twilight back to normal, we'll have to do it now."
"Change her back?" Luna chimed, "There's nothing wrong with her."
Twilight took this moment to alter her form back into Queen Chrysalis. Needless to say, Luna was shocked.
"W-well, it' seems that celestia was correct," Luna used her hoof to keep her jaw from going slack.
~~~~
Twilight stood back on the Pedestal, as per Whooves instruction. Before she could ask the purpose yet again, Whooves was waving his Sonic Screwdriver around like a Madmare.
"No...not here either...eenope not here... Ah here we are!" Whooves tapped the Screwdriver on an invisible object, causing it to immediately reappear. It was non-other than his TARDIS, which caused Whooves to bounce around like a silly pony.
"An invisibilty spell?" Twilight pondered.
"Ah you would think so, but no. It's actually a safeguard to prevent anypony from accidently stumbling into her. Useful, amirite?"
"Uh, sure." Twilight stared flatly at him.
"Now, with out any further ado, I must now ask that the pihnehehsjugh and htiinee athei hinmmd."
As it turns out, Whooves cannot be heard well from deep inside the TARDIS.
"What was that?" The other three ponies asked in unison.
"What?" Whooves said as he poked his head out of the TARDIS. "I said that I need Celestia and Luna to use their spell again while I do some...things in here. Twilight, I also need you to create two bubbles; one around the TARDIS, and one around yourself."
The mares all nodded at him, and he ducked back into the TARDIS.
"okinh, noiwiw."
"WHAT?" The three yet again had to ask.
"I said now." Whooves said cheerily as he poked his head back out.
They began the spell at this, and Whooves shut the door to the TARDIS. Once inside, he began to calibrate the TARDIS to go in a reverse momentum of the Celestial powers that be in order to create an annulling bubble inside the TARDIS, preventing a rip in the bubble.
Everything was going smoothly until he began to notice a figure starting to appear inside the TARDIS. Befroe he could could get a solid bearing on the figure, it spoke in a hauntingly familiar voice.
"And here i thought I was causing trouble by leaving you behind." The voice echoed.
'Wait...it can't be,' Whooves thought.
"I guess all it took was a few thousand year, but at least you forgot about your good old companion. I don't really mind; after all, it would have been pretty sad otherwise."
"W-who are you," Whooves was genuinley nervous for the first time in a long time.
"See what'd I tell you. Of course, it is pretty easy to forget good old Rose, huh..."
Rose.
Suddenly, everything went black inside both the TARDIS and in Whooves mind.
Outside the TARDIS, the spell went as smoothly as it could, and Twilight returned to her original form. After noticing that Whooves had not come out of the blue box, she decided to open it herself.
"Whooves...Doctor? Is everything alright in there?" She couldn't see through the deep blanket of blackness.
After a few moment, she began to see something in the darkness. It seemed to be a pair of sharp blue eyes, glaring at her.
"W-whooves, is that yo-"
"LEAVE NOW" The eyes said in a hauntingly low voice.
Before she could answer, the door to the TARDIS was slammed shut and locked. Not until a laughter that chill the very soul of Equestria was heard, did Twilight realize that something was terribly wrong....
End Of Act 1