Dragon Scales and Other Tails

by Darkwing Dash

Dream Scream

“That voice...” said the Doctor. “Discord! Where are you?”

The voice chuckled again. “Very observant, Doctor. Your knowledge never ceases to amaze me. Who else did you expect?’

David looked around in alarm. “How can Discord be here!?”

Discord laughed sinisterly. “Your precious Princess of the Night isn’t the only one with the power to enter dreams, Timebrat.”

“Stop it. Discord’s messing with you,” the Doctor told David. “Now let me think... You couldn’t have gotten on the TARDIS after we escaped, and you certainly weren’t on it before, which only leaves... an essence dump!”

“Essence dump?” David queried. He paced around the control room, his head twisting back and forth, looking for signs of Discord.

“Magic with a brain. Think of it like a mini ball of Discord, running around, trying to cause trouble. Not nearly as powerful as the original though.” An offended snort echoed around the room.

“And now it’s in our dreams!?” cried David shrilly. He began to tremble and unbidden memories flashed through his mind. Memories of yellowed eyes and of cold, sharp metal.

Discord laughed again. “Very astute of you, I must say. By the way, if you can’t tell, I’m rolling my eyes right now.” The sound of marbles rolling on a metal floor suddenly echoed around the chamber. Lights started flickering on and off. David looked around nervously.

“Relax,” said the Doctor, rolling his eyes in turn. “Discord can’t do us any harm. This is an artificially constructed dreamstate. Any damage done here isn’t real. In fact, I can turn this machine off anytime I want. All I have to do is trip the circuit breaker preset to exist in this dream. In this instance, a button.” He walked over to the center console and tapped a button. Absolutely nothing happened.

“Is this the part where I start feeling relaxed? Because it’s not working!” David backed away from the console still looking around. His sides began to ache as though in memory of pain. He backed into something. Something warm. His heart froze. He turned around slowly. Discord was standing there, grinning wickedly and holding a short silver knife.

“Boo.”

David screamed and bolted from the room. He tore down a hallway, not caring where it led. His hooves, fueled by adrenaline, carried him away faster than he would have thought possible. Left, left, right, left, left, right, right, left. He turned down so many corridors that he could no longer tell where he’d come from.

He stopped at an intersection to catch his breath. He looked around, trying to find some way to get his bearings. Something grabbed him from behind.

********************************************

I walked to the room I had claimed as my own, all the bedrooms being the same, trying to come to grips with the change in our party. David leaving was hard to accept. All the things we’d faced, he’d been there to give a solution. He was at least someone to think up ideas with, even if those ideas later turned out to be completely wrong. I didn’t know how he could leave, seeing as how he was trapped inside the Doctor, but that wasn’t really an obstacle. They were two Timelords after all.

Still, I couldn’t fault him for wanting to get out of this. He only had one family to go back to, and nothing for him in Equestria. The quickest way for a normal life for him was the exact opposite of where the rest of us needed to go.

Thinking about David’s family got me thinking about my own. I realized it’d been nearly four days since this whole mess started. Four days that had felt like four years. I was supposed to have talked with my family on my birthday. Were they worried about me? Had they tried to find out where I was? Or what had happened to me? What would they think if they saw me like this.

I snorted and lay down on my bed. Sleep started to take me and make my brain fuzzy. Surely they wouldn’t go crazy. My family may be quirky, but they were the most accepting bunch I knew. My brother might find it weird and my parents would be surprised. My sisters, big fans of MLP, would find it amazing. All in all, it would work out.

But that wasn’t the real problem. What about my Ponyville family? Twilight, her friends, and the rest of the people in Ponyville I’d come to consider my extended family. I couldn’t just leave them all behind forever. Which world did I truly belong to? With these thoughts chasing each other around my mind, I finally fell asleep.

I found myself at my house, the home I grew up in. I opened the door and walked inside. Everything was there, just as I’d remembered it. Most of the lights were off, giving the place a dark feel. I wandered through the rooms, looking for others.

“Hello?” I called. No one answered. I pushed open a door. My brother sat on his bed, looking away from me. I went over to him. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you all over the place.” He turned to me, staring at me with a blank, unresponsive look.

“Who are you?” he asked dully.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s me, your brother Peter.”

He continued to stare. “What... what are you?” he asked in that voice.

“Oy, cut it out. It’s me, Peter. Pet-er. Enough with the idiot act, you’re too good at it.”

He didn’t react. “What... are you?” he asked again, this time with a note of disgust in his voice. I looked down at myself, at my dragon self, and then back up at him. I didn’t know what to tell him.

I turned and ran down the hallway, running into a separate room at the end. My two sisters were there, huddled next to each other and whispering together. I could hear what they were saying.

“Wow, what a freak.”

“I know. What even is he?”

“I don’t know. Let’s stay away from him.”

“Yeah, maybe if we ignore him he’ll go away.”

The words stung me. I turned and ran from the room, back into the hallway, which had changed behind me. There was now a different room at the end of it. I entered it, and there stood my parents, gazing down at me with cold, unfeeling pity in their eyes. “Mom, Dad...”

“You have no home here,” they said in unison. “Leave this place. You do not belong. Earth is for humans. You do not belong. Go back to where you came from.” They continued talking, repeating their message in monotone voices. I turned to leave, but the door was no longer there. Instead, I had turned to face my parents once more. “Leave this place,” they continued. I turned again, but there they were. Each way I turned only brought me to face them once more. Scared, I put my head in my hands. When I lifted them again I was in Equestria, in the Ponyville town square. The houses were destroyed and the city was in ruins. A pile of blackened bodies was in front of me, in the center of the square. I recognized the faces of my family among the dead. Atop the pile stood Discord, wielding a knife and grinning.

“Welcome home,” he said.

The ground beneath me shattered and I fell into darkness.

When I came to, I found myself surrounded by darkness on all sides. Off to my far left, a spotlight shone on five silhouettes. Directly ahead, a spotlight shone on one figure. Off to my right a spotlight shone on a vision of Ponyville. My thoughts were very clear now, as if I was conscious. I recognized this as a dream.

I looked at myself. I was no longer a dragon. I was the six foot tall, blue-eyed, and black-haired human me. Why did I look like this? I shrugged. Why did anything happen the way it did in a dream? I walked up to the center spotlight.

There stood Spike, slowly pacing around in a circle, a look of anxiety on his face, muttering to himself. “Have to choose. Must choose. Can’t choose. Won’t choose. Can I choose? Who should choose? Must I choose?”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I have to choose,” Spike replied, not looking at me. “Here or there? Here or there? Ponyville or Earth? Ponyville or Earth.” He stopped pacing, clutching his head. “I can’t choose. I can’t choose. I can’t choose!”

I crouched down and looked Spike in the eye. “Hey, don’t give up.” I said. “I know now. I’m you and you’re me. And do you know what that means?”

“What?”

“It means that there’s two of us!” I shouted. “Plenty to go around. Enough to satisfy two worlds! We shouldn’t have to choose, and if we do choose, we choose to live in both worlds!”

“Live in both worlds?” said Spike incredulously. “But that’s... that’s impossible!”

“Ha!” I snorted. “Kick logic to the curb and do the impossible. That’s the way Team Doctor rolls. We have two homes that love us, the power of magic and the might of science on our side! There’s no way we can lose!”

Spike smiled. “You’re right!” We high fived.

“Now get going!” I said. “You’ve got somewhere to be, and so do I.” Spike turned and strode confidently towards Ponyville. I turned and walked in the opposite direction, towards the five waiting silhouettes. Towards my family. Slowly, the world around me turned white and faded away.

I opened my eyes, and found myself lying on a bed in the TARDIS. I was back in my now familiar dragon body. I swung my tail to the side, hearing the comforting rustle of scales, the sound I’d known since birth. How could I have ever grown up without that sound? I yawned, and a small jet of fire shot out. It left a now familiar smell behind. I examined my memories, and found that my Ponyville ones were just as fresh as my ones from Earth, as though I’d lived both lives side by side, not one after the other. I was whole at last.

The lights were off all around me. The TARDIS must have gone into nighttime mode. The Doctor had told us that all the lights on the TARDIS corresponded to the sleep schedule of its occupants. So, the lights were off and would stay off for a couple of hours, or until otherwise programmed.

I stepped out into the hallway. It was incredibly dim, with only faint lights at intersection entrances to see where the corridors changed direction. I could barely see my hand in front of my face. What caught my eye immediately though, was the bright blue light, sitting stationary in the middle of the hallway. I stared at it. It stared back, looking at me like an eye, devoid of all emotion. When it spoke, two white lights to the side of the blue orb flickered and illuminated in time with the voice.

“YOU ARE THE DOCTOR’S COMPANION?”

“No,” I breathed, my blood turning to ice. “Not you.”

“SCANS INDICATE THAT YOU ARE THE DOCTOR’S COMPANION!”

I backed away slowly. “No. No, no, no.” I repeated, in utter shock.

“YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!”

I ducked a laser which flew over my head and hit the wall behind me. “Noooooooo!” I screamed, turned into a corridor and bolted down it.

The thing behind me screamed louder still. “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”

*******************************************************

An arm clamped over David’s mouth and spun him around rapidly.

“Shh, it’s me,” said the Doctor. “Calm down.” He took his hoof off David’s mouth.

David let out a long, slow breath. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. How did you get here ahead of me?”

“I keep trying to tell you, this is just a dream. Everything, even the scenery, is all an abstraction created by the helmet. You never ran anywhere, it was just your mind trying to distance itself from Discord.” The Doctor stepped out of the hallway and into the four way intersection. “We can’t die here. Discord can’t do anything to harm us. Even if we die in this dream, it won’t matter. It won’t be our real bodies, just a mental representation of them.”

David dropped his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t take it. The knife, the spear wound, it all just...” He couldn’t finish.

“Relax,” assured the Doctor. “Anyone would be traumatized after what you’ve been through. “Death isn’t something you just get up and walk away from, even if you’re a Timelord.”

“How touching,” said Discord, emerging from the shadows. “And if you’re looking for the way out, I think I could lend a hand.”

*****************************************************
Shane lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He thought of David and their recent conversation. David had been so torn, so worried about his choices. The responsibility of knowledge and the duty to keep the universe safe. It reminded him of his first days training to be a Royal Guard.

No! Shane thought to himself, pushing the unwelcome thoughts away. That’s not me. Those aren’t my thoughts.

Yes they are, said another voice in his head. They’re a part of me and I’m a part of you, no matter how much you hate me.

No, said Shane defiantly. You aren’t me. I’m a human. From Earth.

Exactly, agreed Shining Armor. And you’re also a pony from Equestria. Or, at least, I am.

Go away. I don’t want anything to do with you or Equestria.

Really? replied Shining. Not even Cadance?

That gave Shane pause. Her name is Kate, he thought. Not Cadance.

They’re both the same person. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about all of this. Speaking of which, why aren’t you with her right now?

She’s sleeping, thought Shane.

So? Shining thought right back. You’re her husband. You’re allowed to share a room with her.

Cut it out! thought Shane. We’re not married!

Uh, yes, you are, thought Shining. I remember it. It was a pretty eventful day, after all.

I’m going to ignore you now. I need some sleep.

Fine, the unicorn replied. When you need my help with some new enemy, just give me a call. With that last word, Shane finally drifted off to sleep.

He walked through the woods, no longer equine, but human. The night pressed in close, kept at bay only by the wan beam of his flashlight. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he had to find it fast.

His ears picked up a noise. He whipped around, scanning behind him. The forest was empty, his light landing on nothing but empty trees. He turned back, walking more hurriedly. The endless trees shone dully in the glow of his flashlight. Something caught the light, reflecting it back. It was a white object. He jogged up to it. The object was a white piece of paper taped to a tree. On it were written the words: THE MIRROR STOLE HIS IMAGE.

There was movement. Shane whirled around. There, next to a tree ten feet away, stood a pure white pony, a unicorn, gazing at Shane with a face missing every single facial feature. His mane was a dark blue, evenly mixed with streaks of lighter blue. Terror gripped Shane and he ran. He sprinted through the trees. He had to find a way out. He knew what would happen if that thing caught up with him. Only one thing could happen. Death.

He ran until he felt certain he’d left the monster behind. He thought of its face. It had no eyes, yet it had stared at him with unmistakable intent. He saw a path ahead of him and started following it. The trees around him started to thin, until he came to a clearing where six trees stood. None of the trees had any branches and they had all been cut down from their full height, leaving nothing more than tall stumps. Taped to the stump in the middle was another piece of paper. He took it. HIS MASK HIDES THE TRUTH.

He could feel the eyes of the creature on him. He stuffed the two papers into his pocket and ran on. What did they mean? What was following him? Why did it want to kill him so badly? How could he escape!?

His thoughts were broken by the appearance of a giant rock in the path in front of him. He looked closer. The rock was actually two rocks, split down the middle. Another sheet of paper had been taped to one of them. With trembling hands, he took the paper and read it. 1+1=1. His breathing was faster now. He ripped the page from the rock and turned around, to stare directly into the blank face of the pony. Its blank face filled his vision. He screamed. The bulb on his flashlight shattered, and the world fell into shadow.

He opened his eyes to find himself in a world made completely of darkness. He got to his hands and knees. Off in the distance, he could see his friends. Kate, David, Peter, they were all there. He saw them cower under an unknown threat. He stood up and ran towards them. He had to get there, had to help them.

A burst of magical energy, a raw arcane explosion appeared in the darkness, hurtling towards them. In desperation, he reached for his magic and threw a shield over them, protecting them from the blast. As it continued to engulf them, he stood there, sweating and blinking from the strain of holding the shield through the assault.

He heard a noise behind him. He turned to see the white pony, gazing eyelessly at him, slowly walking towards his position. Gritting his teeth, Shane put a shield over himself too. The pony stopped at the edge of it, staring at him, unicorn horn glowing, unable to pass. Minutes ticked on. The explosion continued, and Shane felt his energy draining fast. He sank to his knees. He could see both shields fading fast. He could only keep one up.

He looked at the silently waiting pony. “If I let this shield fail, let you get to me... can you promise that my friends will stay safe? Will you protect them?” he asked. The figure said nothing. Then, slowly and silently, it nodded. Shane sighed and let the second shield drop. The pony walked up to him and placed a hoof on his shoulder. Shane’s body convulsed, as if filled with electricity, and the world faded to white.

Shining Armor gasped and sat up in his bed. His mind burned, filled with images, all familiar. He sorted through them all, his first life and his second, both completely clear. He looked around him, at the unfamiliar room. Who was he now? He’d never stopped to think about it. Was he Shining Armor? Was he Shane? He was neither and both. He had the memories, the responsibilities and the benefits of both. He looked through all his memories. His family, would he ever see them again? What about his kingdom, the Crystal Empire, how was it doing after 25 years?

He got up off his bed and went into the hallway. He paced around, thinking hard. He heard footsteps running towards him in the pitch black corridor. “Who’s there?”

“Shining? Is that you?” Spike called. “Hurry! We have to get away from here! There’s a Dalek on the TARDIS!”

“Dalek? What? Is this more of your Whovian stuff again!?”

“It doesn’t matter!” cried Spike. “We have to leave before it kills us! How are you not getting this?!” He ran to Shining’s silhouette and began pulling him down the hall.

Shining pulled back. “Slow down. What in Equestria’s a Dalek and why should I be afraid of it?”

Spike growled. They didn’t have time for this. He spoke at top speed. “It’s.. How do I explain this? Picture a small alien driving a golden mix between a trash can and an iron. It has one horizontal eyestalk and two arm-like attachments. One looks like a whisk. The other looks like a plunger.”

Shining Armor doubled over laughing. “And I’m... I’m supposed to be afraid of this?”

“Yes!” cried Spike. “It’s a super smart alien driving an indestructible golden trash can-iron with a self-repairing eyestalk, a face-crushing plunger and a whisk that shoots unstoppable instant death lasers!”

“That sounds a little more intimidating,” Shining admitted, still skeptical.

“Yes it does, now come on!” Spike urged. “I think I finally got away from it. It doesn’t move all that fast, but it could appear behind us at any moment.” They started down the hallway. A desperate, terrified scream broke the air behind them.

“Cadance!” Shining cried, and tore off down the other end of the corridor, Spike at his heels.

********************************************

Kate sat in horror as Shane burst into flames and sank below the lava. Discord stood on the other side of the pit, cackling with laughter. Cadance stood, impassive, watching the scene with disinterest. Shane’s arm, vastly out of her reach, stretched at her, begging her to save him from his fiery death.

The scene shifted. Spike was facing Discord, sword flashing desperately parrying blows from the draconequus. Kate and Cadance stood watching the scene.

“Do something!” Kate yelled at the princess. She didn’t respond. She never did. Kate watched as Spike’s sword was swatted aside and Discord ran him through.

The scene shifted. And shifted again. Each time a new nightmare. David shot. The Doctor disintegrated. Shining Armor drowned. Over and over the visions played out.

The scene shifted. Shane stood against a wall, Discord looming over him with a spear.

“No!” screamed Kate. She ran up to Discord and started punching him. He shrugged the blows off as nothing. She pulled at him, trying to wrestle the spear away. He turned and knocked her aside. Discord lifted the spear at the ready, Shane in his sights. Kate looked up from the ground, murder in her eyes.

She stood up and summoned her magic. In the air halfway to Shane, the spear stopped. It was surrounded by a light blue aura. Cadance smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Finally,” she said. Her horn also started glowing. Kate felt Cadance’s magic, her magic, flow into her. She gripped Discord’s throat in magic and raised him off his feet. The spear floated into her hand.

“Now,” she growled. “Let’s see how solid you really are.” The world faded to white.

Cadance awoke with a start. She could hear a loud crash in the hallway outside. Everything was pitch dark. She crept to the door and peered out. She could see a blue light moving down the hallway. When it reached a door, it turned, blasted it inwards and entered the room inside. “SCANNING,” It said in a loud robotic voice. “NO LIFE SIGNS DETECTED. CONTINUE SEARCH.” It re-entered the hallway. She stared at it. The blue light, the screaming voice, the white bulbs that flashed in time with its words. She was never a huge Doctor Who fan, but she’d seen enough to recognize a Dalek when she found one.

She performed a spell. A disembodied scream sounded from behind the Dalek and it turned to look the other way.. She grinned. Perfect. She waited until it reached the end of the hallway. She readied her favorite spell, her magical widebore laser, a present from her eighteenth birthday, and stepped out into the corridor. The blue light heard her hoofsteps and turned to face her.

“Let me ask you,” she said. “Does a machine like yourself ever experience fear?” She lowered her horn to fire.

“Cadance!” Shining Armor cried. He and Spike rounded the corner and stopped, right behind the Dalek. In the line of fire.

Cadance raged. “Move out of the way before I blow you to Tartarus!”

“What?” called Shining, oblivious. The blue eye turned towards the pair. “COMPANIONS LOCATED.”

Cadance’s eye twitched. Instantly, she changed her plan. She fired. Instead of a widebore laser, she released a blinding flash of light.

“VISION IMPAIRED!” screamed the Dalek. Cadance shut her eyes tight. Working from memory, she ran forward and leaped over the Dalek. Still keeping her eyes shut, she grabbed the stumbling duo and pulled them down the hallway. They ran, even after they had left the light behind them.

“Are you insane!?” Cadance yelled. “What in Tartarus possessed you to come in and ruin my attack!?”

“We heard you scream,” said Spike.

“That was a spell,” raged Cadance. “A distraction, you nimrod!”

“It doesn’t matter! Do you even know what you were up against?” Spike asked.

“A Dalek, of course,” huffed Cadance.

“Exactly! Which means any attack you were going to do wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.” Spike shot. “We need to find the Doctor.” They turned and ran down a long corridor, and stopped.

“A dead end!?” yelled Shining Armor, incredulous. “We’ve run up and down this ship and now, the one time we need to keep running, we come to a dead end!?”

They turned to run back the way they’d come. The blue light advanced towards them. “We’re pinned,” Cadance said, taking charge. “Shining, start trying to cut through the floor with your laser.” She lowered her horn and charged up her own widebore laser once more.

“I keep telling you,” repeated Spike. “Your laser won’t do anything!”

“Do you have a better idea?” snapped Cadance. Spike was silent. Down the corridor, behind the Dalek, a light flickered on. So did the next light. And another. As the ship entered daytime mode, the lights in the hallway flickered to life. Spike, squinted through the light and stared at the Dalek. He gasped.

****************************************************

“No way,” said David. “There’s no way you’re just going to give us the way out.”

“Of course not,” Discord snorted. “Who said anything about just giving it to you? If you want the way out, you’ll have to play my little game.”

“Oh, come now,” said the Doctor. “You’re not fooling anyone with that, especially not two Timelords. You can’t keep the breaker from us. It exists wherever we go. Scenery is an abstraction. If you tried to remove the breaker, the system would collapse and the dream would end. It’s a failsafe. You can’t even cause us physical pain. The most you could possibly do is try and hide the breaker from us.”

Discord smiled, unperturbed. “True, true. But what makes you think I want to do anything more than hide it from you?” He snapped his fingers. Spike, Cadance, and Shining Armor appeared in front of them. They were magically frozen, eyes staring at them in fear, mouths bound by magic.

“The name of the game is Pick and Choose.” said Discord. “One of your precious friends is the breaker. The other two are not. In order to trip the breaker-” he snapped his fingers and a knife appeared on the ground. “you’ll have to kill them!”

“...What?!” cried the Doctor. “Seriously? This is just too simplistic, especially for you, Discord. There’s no challenge, no mystery. We know these aren’t really our friends, so what’s the point of having us kill them? It might be slightly traumatic, but this is really low stakes, not your style at all.”

Discord grinned cruelly. “Is that so? I suppose I did forget to mention that events are moving quite rapidly while you stand here talking. You shouldn’t have left me such an empty vessel, Doctor.” He snapped his fingers. A TV screen materialized and Discord vanished with a chuckle..

` *******************************************************

Standing in front of us in the hallway, was the Doctor. His eyes were dull and unfocused. His coat was pure grey, every last shred of color drained from it. A headset sat on his head, crackling with black electricity. A wire, blown from its original position, dangled down, sparking intermittently. “EXTERMINATE!” the Doctor cried. A laser shot from the dangling wire and I ducked.

I sprang towards Cadance, who was about to fire. “Stop!” I grabbed her head and turned it so the Doctor was in her line of sight.

“What!?” she cried and powered down. “The Doctor!? What’s he doing!?”

“Trying to kill us, apparently,” replied Spike. “It’s that helmet. Something’s wrong with it. You have to get it off him!”

Cadance tried, straining with her magic. “It’s no good. Something’s keeping it on. It’s too strong!”

“We have to do something,” said Shining Armor, taking in the situation.

“Here,” exclaimed Cadance. “Help me move those walls!” Using their magic, they ripped the metal from the walls and bent it backwards to block the Doctor’s path.

“EXTERMINATE!” yelled the Doctor. A beam shot from the wire and pierced into the metal, cutting through it like scissors through paper. The Doctor cut a path for himself and kept walking.

************************************************

The Timelords watched events unfold through the TV screen. Finally, they tore their eyes away.

“Right,” said the Doctor, picking up the knife. “We need to get out of here, and for that, we need to find the breaker. What if we just killed all three of them?”

“That might work,” David replied. “Except that I’m sure Discord’s programmed these friend-bots to fight back when we attack, and we don’t have time to subdue them all.”

“So then we have to guess who it is,” reiterated the Doctor, pacing furiously. “It might be Spike. He’s small, but dragons are hard to kill. It could be Shining Armor. The real one wouldn’t have any qualms about dying for the others, but I don’t think that matters here.”

“I know who it is!” cried David suddenly. “I know who the breaker is. Give me the knife.”

“What!? No,” said the Doctor. “I’ll handle the killing. You just tell me which one.”

“Doctor, we don’t have time for this. Just give me the knife.”

“What do you mean?” shot the Doctor. “We have less time for you to take the knife. I’ve already got it.”

“Doctor, please,” implored David. “This is part of Discord’s plan. He’s playing to your weakness, just like he did with the others.” On screen, the Doctor moved closer to the others, who were desperately avoiding his increasingly more accurate attacks. David talked faster. “When Discord tricked the Mane Six, he played to their weaknesses. Rainbow’s loyalty, Applejack’s love for truth. He’s doing the same thing to you. You have this need to take all the blame on yourself, to let it be you that’s responsible for the bad things in the universe.”

The Doctor looked at him, still unconvinced. “It also boils down to a lack of trust.” David continued. “You can’t trust anyone else to do what you do, to know what needs to be done to save the universe and be willing to do it.” He extended his hoof. “So please, just this once. Trust me.” The Doctor placed the knife in his hoof. “Thank you,” David said solemnly.

He started circling around them, behind each pony, never close enough to strike. He circled behind the Doctor and came around again, slowly pacing, talking all the while. “It’s the perfect plan. Discord played it out perfectly, choosing which pony to be the breaker. He hid it from you so well by playing on your weakness. You couldn’t see it.” He circled around behind the Doctor again.

“Well?” asked the Doctor “We’re running out of time! Which of them is it?”

“None.” Instantly, David lashed out with the knife, and cut the Doctor’s throat. The Doctor slumped to the floor, as did the other three, like puppets with their strings cut. David dropped to the floor and took the Doctor’s lifeless form in his hooves, tears running down his face. “The perfect plan, playing on everyone’s fears,” he continued. “Even mine... The fear of choices.” The world faded to white.

*****************************************************

“So let me get this straight,” said Spike. “Discord planned to have you kill us individually, and when nothing happened, you’d have to watch us die via television?”

“That’s about the size of it,” replied the Doctor.

“And in order to break the circuit you had to kill the Doctor?” asked Cadance.

“Yep,” David answered.

Shining Armor whistled in amazement. “That’s devious.”

“So... you’re sure he’s gone?” asked Spike uncertainly.

“Completely,” assured the Doctor. “The essence dump used up all of it’s power to control the circuit. Once the circuit broke, there was nothing left. I even did a scan of the ship. There are no more pockets of Discord left anywhere onboard.” The Doctor sighed. “Which means, we’re back to where we started. We have to go after Discord.” He hesitated for a little bit. “Is everyone agreed? I won’t take anyone into battle who doesn’t want to be there.”

“I’m still okay,” said Shining Armor.

“Me too,” agreed Cadance.

“Same here,” affirmed Spike.

Everyone looked at the Doctor uncomfortably.

David sighed. “I’m really not going to be able to run away from this, am I? I don’t suppose Discord will leave me alone?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Not now that you’re a Timelord.” He gave a wry grin. “Neither can live while the other survives.”

David rolled his eyes. “Hardy har har. All right, I’m in. Let’s go show that goat who’s boss.”

The Doctor grinned. “Wonderful! Now that that’s settled, it’s time to get started, time to take the fight to Discord.” He started inputting coordinates into the TARDIS navigation. “As of now, we hit the front lines.”

“Where’s that?” asked Cadance.

The Doctor pulled a lever. “Equestria.”

Comments

[December_Night]

*Gasp*

[ponybrony]

yay

[The Rainbow Core]

Was that a Slender reference in Shane's dream?

[Darkwing Dash]

3018548

Yup!

[the monkey ninja]

David and the Doctor compromise, neither accepting nor rejecting each other and plan to work together to meet both of their goals = nightmare they assist each other in getting out of

Shane rejects Shining, resulting in horrid nightmares until he accepts Shining (although faceless at the time) at which point the nightmares abruptly cease.

Peter and Spike gladly accept their unity and team up, deciding to find a way to live both lives, and have good dreams from then on.

Kate and Cadence, honestly, I have no idea what happened with them. Up until these two I saw a distinct pattern.

[Darkwing Dash]

3024979

Yeah, theirs was murkier than the others and harder to flesh out. I was trying to convey a sense of Kate more taking charge and doing things on her own rather than letting the Cadance persona or Shining Armor do things for her, hence Cadance's inaction until Kate used magic for herself, as well as her exasperation with Kate for taking so long, but I don't think I conveyed it nearly as well as with the others.

[Random Fandom]

The Incredibles, Slender, and Harry Potter too? You never cease to amaze me!
This story is utterly brilliant! I will be extremely upset when it ends...