//------------------------------// // Saddle Arabia // Story: Derpy and Carrot Top 2: The Gathering // by Rtrotten //------------------------------// As the Doctor was about to walk through a large silver fence he was stopped by a yellow earth pony who's gray eyebrows covered up his eyes and asked for his ID, "Come on Phil we've known each other for forever you can let me through without and ID right," the Doctor gave off a nervous chuckle when the yellow pony in front of him shook his head. "Fine," the Doctor said as he walked away from the gate. With a few seconds of thought and rubbing his chin he let out a quiet compliment "Great idea." He ran back the fence as he greeted the yellow pony once more "I was told to tell you that that ..uh. John was having a uh sandwich party tonight at his place and he was wondering if you wanted to go?" The yellow pony's face grew brighter as his eyes shone brightly, "Where is he I want to tell him I am going myself!" "He's in the control room I think." the Doctor quickly added. The yellow pony ran off in the opposite direction letting the Doctor through. The Doctor quickly made his way to the blimp and loading area. There were tall lights shining brightly as ponies were rushing back and for moving stuff around and trying to load it onto the blimp. Derpy's jaw dropped as she looked at the blimp from the top of a nearby tree, she had never seen anything so weird looking before other than twilight's ballon. Derpy's head turned slightly as she tried to imagine this huge piece of metal actually getting off the ground. The blimp looked like a hoofball except that it came to sharp points on the edge. A second part of the ship was mostly made of wood. There were metal rings that had glass in them. On top was a large deck that had one medal podium at the back which was used to control the blimp. The whole blimp had vertical lines going around it while multiple ropes at both ends held the actual blimp to the deck. On the back of the blimp, there were large metal cylinders that were shaking and emitting smoke. The entire blimp was a metallic aqua green with a darker shade of it covering the lines. As the Doctor walked up to the blimp he was stopped once again, except this time he was stopped by a blue stallion with a blonde combed mane. The station also wore a red bow tie. The Doctor stopped as his face went pale and his jaw slowly came open. The Doctor slowly started wobbling as he sank to the ground. The stallion looked down at the Doctor and gave a confused look, "Can I help you... uh did I startle you?" The Doctor stared up at the blue station as a million thoughts flew through his head. The blue stallion helped him up "I'll be on my way sorry for scaring you." The Doctor shook his head as his face regained its color. He got up and looked around, not seeing the blue stallion, he boarded the blimp. The Doctor quickly made his way downstairs grabbed some tools and returned to the top deck. Once he found a quiet place he quickly made three medium sized crates from the left over materials. He tip-toed his way over to the fence, scrunching his nose while he did it, and pulled up the fence. Within seconds, a small gray bag was thrown the bottom of the fence as a blue light appeared in front of the Doctor. Acheron appeared from within the blue light "Derpy come on lets move." Derpy soon after the words left Acheron's mouth flew out of the bag. Both the Doctor and Acheron smiled at Derpy's enthusiasm. Acheron used her magic to hold the bag as she calmly trotted over to one of the crates that Derpy was now sitting in. "Can I please have the bag for twenty-five seconds," the Doctor said while raising a hoof. The bag was levitated over to the Doctor. The Doctor pulled out a stopwatch and started it as he received the bag. The doctor dove into the bag and on the 25th second, he popped back out. He threw the bag back to Acheron who caught in with her magic. The Doctor now had another mechanical arm "Ok then get in the boxes." Acheron was sitting in a box next to Derpy who now was sticking her head into the bag. The Doctor's mechanical arm went to work making hole and hammering on lids to the boxes. The Doctor shoved the arm into the last box and hammered the lid on with a rock. "HEY," the Doctor shouted. Soon a few ponies turned the corner to see the Doctor trying to push one of three boxes. Soon the group of ponies was pushing two boxes while a unicorn picked up the last box and trotted on deck. As soon as the next two crates were on the deck the blimp started to shake and smoke came out of the pipes at the back. A pony shouted, "Last call leaving in two minutes." The Doctor walked over to the rail and stared off into the night when he saw a figure in a black robe and hood limp from out of the shadows and over to the ship. The figure stopped at the ramp to the blimp and scanned from the back of the blimp to where the Doctor was standing. The figure began to limp up the ramp and towards the Doctor. The Doctor turned to walk downstairs when he saw another hooded figure standing at the bottom of the stairs. The Doctor turned once again and became face to face with the hooded figure. The figure lifted up his hoof to reveal a knife "Come with us." The Doctor walked in front of the hooded figure with a knife and behind the one that was at the bottom of the stairs. The Doctor kept walking until they came to the room that held most of the crates "Look I don't know who you are but I didn't follow you because you had a knife, I followed you so you could tell me something I don't know," the Doctor said with a smile. "You are brave but I don't want to harm you I am here to save you and a lot of ponies lives." The Doctor now put on a stern face "If you are planning on hurting anypony I will stop you and I am giving you fair warning now." The hooded figure let out a small chuckle " You must stop your wife, she can't let anypony else know about it." The Doctor smiled again "What makes you think that I am going to do that." The figure pulled back his hood from off of his face revealing a head covered in black feathers and a yellow beak covered by a golden cover. His eyes were red but the whites of his eyes were green, "I have lived through the wars that no pony remembers and I have tried to prevent them, unfortunately, I have failed many times but I can see wars in your eyes as well did you try to stop them?" The Doctor turned around and tapped on the crate above him "Come on honey." Two lids popped off of the crates revealing Derpy and Acheron. Derpy dove at the uncovered Griffon when the second figure pulled out a sword. Derpy hit the floor and felt a sword being held against the back of her neck. "If anyone moves she dies." the hooded figure said. "A hologram very good but how did you get a hold of it?" the Doctor asked. Derpy shouted, "Doctor" in disbelief that he wasn't doing anything to help. The griffon smiled "It isn't a hologram it's a...," the griffon was cut off immediately when a carrot flew from out of nowhere and hit him in the forehead knocking him out. "I needed to use the bathroom and you FORGOT ABOUT ME!" Carrot Top shouted. The Doctor blushed and let out small nervous laughs, "Heh heh sorry about that." Carrot Top smiled, "But dang that carrot launcher can hurt if you get hit by it." The Doctor tip-toed quickly behind Acheron who was still registering everything that had just happened. The Doctor peeked up from behind Acheron's back only showing his eyes. Suddenly all of the ponies n the room began to look down spreading all of their legs farther apart to gain balance at the boards to feel it begin to move. The Doctor smiled as he ran shakily towards the stairs. Derpy got up and shouted at him "What about this guy?" Acheron shook her head as she finally entered the real world again, "Um. I got him." Derpy and Carrot Top ran shakily after the Doctor. Once Carrot Top and Derpy got up to the deck they saw the Doctor by the rails as two ponies were holding him down. Derpy rushed in as she tried to get the pony's off of him. Before she could reach him Derpy was tackled by an orange pony. "Captian we have two of the outlaws, we think there might be more beneath the deck." Four ponies ran down the stairs and within minutes they came back up with Carrot Top, Dinky, Acheron, and the griffon. The Captian had a bluish coat and a stubbly white beard. He had on a long dark navy blue trench coat that split at the end just barely covering up his cutie mark. He wore a large top hat that extended just a few inches above his horn. Derpy looked past her friends and the griffon to see a cage being put together in the middle of the deck. "Alright put them in but we can't turn around now, we'll have to message the princess when we get to Saddle Arabia." The ponies were led to the cage while the griffon was dragged across the deck to it. Once they were all in a hole lowered them into the lower deck. The Captian walked over to see them enter the dark as the deck closed above them. "Mommy are we going to jail?" Dinky said out of the darkness. "I don't know b.." Derpy stopped speaking as she saw the griffon's eyes staring at her through the darkness, "You're a mother?" Derpy smiled at the griffon through the darkness as she moved her hooves around till she found her children and pulled them close to her, "I have two children Amethyst my oldest and Dinky." Suddenly above them on deck, there were ponies shouting and running around. "What is that I've never seen anything like this before!" The captain ran up to the front of the blimp in time to see a massive cloud come into view that was swirling down into a funnel. A loud boom came from inside of it which emitted purple and blue lightning bolts. "May the princesses have mercy on our souls," he quietly muttered. He ran back up to the podium and took off his top hat with his magic. His horn began to glow a bright blue which spread into a thin barrier covering up the blip and deck. He began slowly working away at the levers and nobs at the podium trying to steer the blimp away from the clouds. Wzzzzzz."Honey what are you doing," Derpy asked through the darkness at her husband who was fiddling with something in his hoof. "Come on almost.." he was cut off by most of the bars surrounding them falling off of the cage. "Let's go," the Doctor shouted. Once they made their way to the bottom of the stairs the Doctor turned to his family and motioned for them to stay and for the griffon to come. They both ran onto the deck seeing ponies holding onto each other and anything sturdy. "Guard me if anypony try to stop me," the Doctor said to the griffon. The griffon unsheathed his sword revealing a long katana, "My name Kauter." The Doctor trotted over to the control panel "I can see you're having a very hard time concentrating, here let me help you." The Doctor gave him a quick nudge which was enough to get him out of the way. "Stop your going to kill us all," the captain managed to say. "Oh don't worry this is basic technology I can manage, also, this is our getaway vehicle and that cloud is the fuel for that getaway vehicle. "What do you mean." the captain uttered. "It means were flying straight into it, GERONIMO"