Timeswirl

by Fedora

Beast Below the Soil

The TARDIS materialized outside a small village with a run-down look about it. The buildings were squat and unclean, and carts had been abandoned in the middle of the streets by the inhabitants as they hunkered down inside their meager accommodations. Several large craters and holes were found across the ground, and several buildings themselves were caved in, or else reduced to rubble.

It looked like a war-torn village, yet there had not been any war between the tribes.

The door was flung open forcefully and suddenly, and Somber Shadows found himself thrown down onto the snow-covered ground. The teenage wizard groaned, and his master exited the TARDIS second with a scowl.

The student shrieked, and rose up to swing a hoof at Starswirl. A magic field pinned him back down against the ground. Derpy and the Doctor exited the TARDIS hastily.

“Both of you, just stop!” Derpy pleaded, flying over the fighting pair.

“You could have destroyed ALL of the diplomatic progress the King and I have been building up for decades, do you know that?!” Starswirl growled, “All because somepony hurt your pride? That’s pathetic, if not irresponsible. I should never have taken you in as my....”

“Stop it!” Derpy insisted, even as the snarling apprentice retorted.

“You’re as foolish as you are forgetful, master! The pegasi and earth ponies will never want to seek peace and you know...”

“Everypony stop talking!” the Doctor commanded. An uncomfortable silence fell over the four of them gathered, interrupted by only the crackling of lightning and the howling wind. Starswirl and Somber Shadows glared at one another, while Derpy placed herself at the Doctor’s side. The Doctor snatched his leather coat off from Starswirl, covering his now-wingless back and jumper.

“Right, whatever beef you two have with each other ends right now, or at least put it on hold,” he said, “The negativity only feeds the Windigoes and makes them stronger- strong enough to worsen the storm.”

“What’s a Windigo?” Starswirl asked in a subdued voice.

“Energy-like creature that feeds on chaos and disharmony. Hatred is their favorite though, they eat it right up. You arguin’ and fighting like that is like the cherry on top of the icing for them.”

“So you’ve known it was Windigoes all along?” Somber Shadows grunted from on the ground. Derpy lent him a hoof, allowing him to stand and wipe the snow off his backside and cape.

“I needed to be sure, and now I’m positive. Look around you at the storm. It was calmer when we set out, now it’s getting stronger, and the only thing that’s changed is you two at each other’s throats over a stupid battle of wills.”

“Doctor, I’m cold. Can I get a coat from the TARDIS?” Derpy asked.

“Yeah, in the wardrobe. D’you know where that is?” he asked.

“No.”

“First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left. Got it?” instructed the Doctor.

“I think.”

“Meet us in that tavern over there, we’re going to talk to the locals,” the Doctor said, “You lot, keep yourselves contained. We still have work to be done.”

“Like what?” Somber Shadows said, “You think the Earth Ponies have any good tips on beating the Windigoes?”

“Maybe, or they might be able to tell us where the oldest set of ruins are. Mind you, Windigoes love a set of ruins, some like to set up shop and live their lives out in a set of ruins.”

The moment the Doctor reached for the door of a nearby tavern, one of the buildings left completely whole and uncrushed. The wind nearly sheared the door off entirely. He and the two unicorns entered quickly, and it took two of them to close the door completely again against the force of the wind.

The inside of the tavern was dingy, and dimly lit. Like the pegasus buildings, this was crowded and cramped with ponies, but there was at least space to breathe and move about if one had to. The undisguised unicorns were receiving dirty looks from each corner, while others looked on curiously. Some whispered aside, and it was then that the Somber Shadows stood up on top of a wooden table to address the crowd.

“I need everypony’s attention!” the teenage stallion said calmly, “We three are looking for ruins, and we need direction!”

“What do you want, Unicorn?” a belligerent pony shouted. There were boos and catcalls from the crowd, and one pony tried to pull the table out from underneath Somber Shadows.

“We seek to save you- all of you- from a terrible fate! There are monsters out there that could spell doom for your crops, which-” Starswirl tried to say with a raised voice, but he was soon drowned out by increased booing. The Earth ponies weren’t having any of it. Exasperated, the Doctor took the table from Somber Shadows, standing on top of it and whistling loudly enough to draw attention to himself.

“That’s enough!” he called out, “He’s not lying! Look at me, no horn, no wings. Nothin’ to worry about, right? There are monsters out there, and they’re affecting the weather. We need to work togeth-”

“Just who are you supposed to be?” interrupted another earth pony, hitting a hoof off the Doctor’s leg. The Doctor’s jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed.

“I. AM. TALKING!” he yelled, shoving the pony back. He glared at the remainder of the crowd, and continued.

“I’m the Doctor, and all that matters is that I’m here to help. We need to stop these creatures before they destroy the whole food supply, and to do that we need to know where the nearest set of your tribe’s ruins are.”

The crowd of ponies murmured amongst themselves for a moment, and one voice called out above the rest, the mare jumping up to be seen over the top of everypony’s head.

“Are you guys monster hunters?” she asked, “We have a very big problem right here in the village.”

“Yeah,” a tubby stallion behind the wooden bar cried out, “If he wants to know about the ruins so bad, make him get rid of the Land Serpent first!”

The tavern rung with a rousing affirmative cheer, and the Doctor’s face grew concerned.

“Land Serpent?”

“Big beastie, kind of like a great big worm,” one explained, “Eats just about anything, timber, metal, crops, dirt, animals. It’s been striking us for well over a month, on and off. Seen one before, monster hunter?”

The Doctor wrinkled his brow in thought. He looked meaningfully from Starswirl to Somber Shadows, and called them aside.

“I can try to find out what kind of animal they’re dealing with from the TARDIS computer,” he whispered.

“What’s a computer?” asked Somber Shadows.

“Big metal library with no pages,” the Doctor said, “I don’t feel good about this. The last major semi-carnivorous great land eels went extinct about a million years ago, there shouldn’t be any nowadays. This is all wrong, Windigoes before there should be, and an eel misplaced in time. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

The Doctor left the tavern quickly, and the door rattled closed with the frigid winds. He popped his head back inside once more for a brief moment.

“Oh, and you lot better do some making up in the meantime. Say you’re sorry.”

****

As the Doctor walked through the berating winds and snow, he glanced at the state of the village once more. Instead of appearing war-torn, the problem of a serpentine monster eating things offered a decent explanation for holes that were to be found in the snow-covered ground, and the rubble in place of several building’s sides.

The Doctor’s heart sank as he reached the spot where the TARDIS had been moments before. Rather than a blue box, a freshly dug hole was in it’s place. The Doctor leaned over the edge of the hole, staring down into the blackness below. Had the TARDIS been swallowed up by the monster?

Derpy was in the TARDIS.

He backed up, eyes widening and looking about in all directions. He scanned the soil and all exposed ground, looking for some kind of clue. Finding none, he ran back in the direction of the tavern, yelling over the sound of the wind.

“STARSWIRL! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!”

The Doctor rounded a street corner, and without looking smashed into another pony, causing them both to fall onto the cold ground in a heap.

“Ouch, you ok?” he winced, closing his eyes and rubbing his front hooves against his temples. He had hit the other pony head-on with his skull.

“I’m fine Doctor, why were you shouting?” the voice responded. It belonged to Derpy, and for the moment the Doctor forgot about his injury and grasped the pony in a sudden embrace.

“You’re alright,” he wheezed, “Oh, fantastic! You weren’t eaten after all! Why, this is marvelous!”

“Eaten?”

“What are you wearing?!” the Doctor said with a gasp. Derpy had thrown on an overcoat that seemed patched together out of various colors and patterns and materials without a single thought given to aesthetics. Derpy shrugged.

“Nevermind that, more important things,” he said, breaking into a sweat despite the snowstorm.

Starswirl and Somber Shadows emerged from the tavern, looking bewildered at Derpy’s coat and wondering what the Doctor had called them out for so urgently.

“Here’s the situation,” the Doctor said, “The TARDIS has been gobbled up by a gigantic serpentine eel, one that can burrow through the soil.”

“And the plan?” Derpy gasped. The Doctor shook his head.

“Haven’t thought of that yet.”

The ground rumbled beneath their hooves. Bumps began to appear through the middle of the road, shifting the snow-covered topsoil and collapsing down again as the serpent moved about below the top layers of ground. The bumps moved right past the ponies, only to swerve and come back once again afresh.

“Everypony get on top of something,” Somber Shadows warned, leaping on top of a broken barrel, “It’s classic hunting behavior. Like a shark patrolling the water.”

Starswirl positioned himself at the edge of a wooden cart loaded with now-frozen vegetables, the Doctor on a mound of snow, and Derpy tried to hover in the air. The strong wind was too much for the pegasus, and she could not remain in place, so she flew onto a rooftop and remained there.

The lump in the ground seemed to pause, and for a moment they thought that the creature itself had paused. The mound of pushed up soil collapsed in on itself, showing that the serpent had gone down deeper under the ground.

“Somber Shadows, you compared the creature to a shark, right?” Starswirl said. His student nodded.

“What do sharks do after diving down deeper?” The Doctor returned, looking down at the ground, horrified. He knew the answer.

In a fraction of a second, less time than it took for an eye to blink or for a startled pony to experience a sharp intake of breath, the mound the Doctor stood atop disappeared behind a reddish, rubbery wall. The creature was a gargantuan, scaly worm. Small clawed appendages lined its sides like the scales of a dragon or fish. The serpent had breached the soil, scooping the mound and the time lord in it’s great jaws and diving back down the way it came.

“Doctor!” cried Derpy, zipping down to the edge of the crater and staring down into the blackness beyond.

“Derpy, get away from there, that thing’s gonna come back!” Starswirl yelled.

“But it just ate him!” Derpy wailed, crouching down at the edge of the crater. She was trapped. With no Doctor and no TARDIS, she had no way of returning to her own time. She would be forced to live out the remainder of her life in this place, a society thousands of years in the past experiencing famine and strife. The pegasus was understandably distraught.

“Don’t make it two ponies, watch out!” called out Somber Shadows. The stallion leaped from his barrel over to a slightly taller stack of crates. The Doctor had been the closest to the soil, and he had been the first targeted. He didn’t want the same happening to him next.

Below Derpy, the ground rumbled. She darted up into the gale of the wind, being swept aside and taken away only moments before the creature breached the ground again, snapping empty jaws at the spot she had been only moments prior.

“Somber, stunning spell!” cried Starswirl, bowing his horn and blasting the great eel with magic. From the opposite side of the street, his student did the same with his own magic.

The beast shook, flailing it’s head into the air while bursts of magic zapped at it’s outer layers and rendered it immobile. The head slammed against the street with force that rattled buildings, and a slippery black tongue slid out of the toothless mouth and onto the snowy ground.

“Nice stunning,” Starswirl said, leaping down and walking around the side of the creature’s skull. He bent inwards, peering at the pupils of the serpent that were the size of his head.

Somber Shadows was on the other side of the eel, and galloped across the road to where Derpy had been swept. He helped the pegasus up, and she dusted the snow off from the garishly colored jacket.

“The Doctor’s still in there!” she exclaimed, motioning toward the eel, “We have to get him out!”

“What would you suggest, cutting it open?” Starswirl shouted over to the other side.

An accented voice called back in response, from behind Derpy.

“Actually, I was kinda hoping you lot would wait a few seconds before deciding.”

The Doctor walked out from the doors of the just-materialized TARDIS, covered from head to hoof in a greenish slime that stank. Derpy’s jaw dropped, and the pony reached out as if to hug him suddenly, but the time lord backed up.

“You don’t want to touch me,” he said, “Trust me, you really don’t. This smell of this digestive gunk will stay around for hours, no matter how much soap you use. I was crawling around inside there for at least five minutes before finding the TARDIS. Nasty business.”

“But... you were just gobbled up only a minute ago, let alone five,” Somber Shadows remarked. The Doctor grinned from ear to ear, and bounded into the TARDIS once more.

The blue box appeared to dematerialize amid it’s usual rumbling noises, but at the last second became a solid once again. The Doctor bounded out, sparkling clean and smelling of expensive bath soaps. His short-cut mane was even still dripping.

“Did I mention to you, Somber, that it also travels in time?” he smirked.

“You did, yeah,” the stallion mumbled. Derpy took her chance to give the Doctor a warm hug, and stood at his side.The Doctor shifted his attention to the creature, his toothy grin melting into a show of concern.

“Which brings me to the next problem. This can’t be here. According to the TARDIS archives, this particular species has been gone for at least 70 million years.”

He glanced at Starswirl, eyebrows narrowing. The wizard looked from the stunned eel to the Doctor, shifting uncomfortably.

“It got away before I could send it back, honest,” he fessed up, “It was an experiment that went awry, I admit it, and I’m sorry.”

“I think it’s the villagers that need to hear that apology,” stated the Doctor.

“You brought this here,” Somber Shadows scoffed angrily, “and you call me irresponsible?!”

“Easy boys,” the time lord shot between the two, “It’s not that hard. Send the creature back, apologize, and then we go to find the windigoes causing this bloody snowstorm. No more fighting, ok?”

“I’m just surprised, that’s all,” Somber Shadows said, “I would never have guessed my master would just neglect his own failure like that.”

Comments

[WhalenJP]

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