A Journey Unthought Of

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 27 REVISED

The alarms blared through every corner of the RSD. Everypony who was aware of what the particular code meant proceeded to their appropriate positions: soldiers and security to the Floor to confront the threat, and researchers to safe in-facility housing until the emergency had passed. The immediacy of the alert meant that most were busy concentrating on getting to those locations, and Vinyl's guard was no exception. Once she was left with a group of other scientists to be escorted to their panic suites, he proceeded to the armory to load up as quickly as he could for whatever intruders had penetrated the installation. The other scientists of course had their minds on escaping whatever harm was coming their way, and didn't notice when a new member of their party was missing. Vinyl sneaked a glance around the corner she was hiding behind, waiting for a group of security agents to pass further down the hall before she slunk after them. She was betting all her bits that the break-in was the Elements coming to rescue her, and not that it was some incredibly well timed invasion by other, more sinister parties.

---

"We're almost there," the Doctor yelled, as he fought to hang onto the console, the gravity still drawing them all to the floor at an angle. Through the still open doors of the Tardis the group could see they were plummeting straight through hundreds of feet of rock, air pockets, and leftover minerals.

"Hope so," Applejack grunted out, "not sure how much more of this we'kin take!"

As if in response to what she had said, a capacitor on the console exploded, and a heavy burning smell quickly filled the chamber. The rhythmic trundle of the Tardis' engines began to stall, and sounded as if it were hyperventilating.

"Hold together, you beauty," he yelled up at the oscillating glass cylinder, before bringing a rubber mallet down on the damaged component, stopping it from venting any further gas. He then reached for the gyroscopic sphere and gave it a twirl, "She's struggling too much for us to keep going like this. We've gotta set her down!" He pointed his hand in the direction of the open doors and snapped his fingers. The doors slammed shut, and with that the outgoing suction ceased. Just as the seven ponies began to relax the Doctor called out, "It's not over just yet. We're coming down hard!"

Ditzy's eyes grew wide and she looked to the others, yelling, "Brace yourselves!"

"I don't know if I can be braced any further," Rarity snapped as the pressure and stress finally got to her.

On the outside meanwhile, their intrepid blue box had just materialized through the wall of a large open space in the underground facility, spinning horizontally relative to the floor. The Doctor threw the switch that made them tangible to the outside world, and then jumped into the crash seat near the console, strapping himself in. Outside, the ponies on the Floor yelled in panic as they suddenly witnessed a blue shed phase through solid matter. Each got out of its trajectory, some grabbing others to remove them from it's path. The Tardis slammed through what appeared to be the bottom half of a bipedal cloven hoofed torso, knocking it to bits and sending components flying through the air in all directions. It glided ever closer to the floor, skidding against the ground, driving deep gashes into the concrete beneath it until an invisible barrier surrounding it collided with a wall, knocking an enormous circular crater into it. The scientists left in its wake scrambled for the nearest intercom to raise the alert of an intrusion.

"Alright," the Doctor said with a wince as he let free the strap keeping him secure to his chair, "I will be the first to admit that that landing in particular could have had some more...finesse to it."

"Are we stopped," Twilight asked, "I can't tell from in here."

"We are in fact stopped," he said as he brought the console monitor around to himself. The countdown now read 1:21:24:57. "Yes, yes, I know," he muttered and shooed away at the number. The monitor seemed to react to his movement, because it miniaturized into the bottom right corner, allowing room for a map to appear. "The inertia dampener has always been a bit janky, but you can take my word for it."

Twilight saw to helping her friends pick themselves up, the gravity having now normalized, and gave a boost to Fluttershy before she turned and asked, "Did we make it?"

"We are about 200 meters away from Adam. Any other circumstance and I would have just materialized in his cell and away we'd go," he sighed a little as he slipped his hands into his pockets for a moment, then threw them up in the air, "but the odds are against me here!"

"Doctor," Ditzy called out, immediately grabbing his attention. She was helping Rainbow Dash up, whose wing still hung at her side, "Could use your help with this!"

Seeing the problem he vaulted over the safety railing and jogged to the multi-chromatic pegasus' side.

"It's fine," Rainbow grunted in pain, "It's just a dislocation: had tons of them in the past."

As they recovered from their disorienting ride the others began to gather around and show their concern for her. The Doctor felt around where her wing met her barrel until he had located the exact edges of the socket, each with a hiss of pain from his patient.

Fluttershy hovered nearby, her attention rapt on her friend, "Rainbow, I need you to lay down flat on your stomach. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah, yeah," she replied even as she stretched out, "I, Ah! I know the drill. 'Slight discoaaah-" she gasped in pain, "-omfort' and all that."

Fluttershy landed and settled herself down so she was eye to eye with her friend. "Look at me," she said gently as she nodded to the Doctor, who nodded back. Rainbow glanced back as best she could on instinct to see what was about to happen, but she forced herself to look forward into Fluttershy's eyes. "Everything's going to be alright, ok," her friend said in as soothing a voice as she could muster, "Everything is going to be-"

The Doctor forced the wing bone back into its socket at that moment, and Rainbow screamed, yelling a curse at the end, "HORSE APPLES!"

Applejack winced: she'd seen her fair share of injuries, but this one looked particularly painful.

"OOOoooh," Pinkie said with a hiss, "That'd hafta smart."

Rarity's hoof went to her mouth in alarm.

The Doctor's work, however, was not yet done. Reaching into his suit pocket he brought out the blue tipped device again and aimed it at the wing near the socket, sweeping it in a layered pattern, going row after row until he reached the muscles groups nearing her rump. "That should take care of that nasty mess," he said at last with a reassuring tone, then flashed a grin to the others. He then gently patted Rainbow on the back as he rose up, "You're all better now."

Quizically Rainbow flexed her wing, and found there to be very little left over pain at all; she felt as if she might even be able to fly on it again very soon! "Okay, that's definitely new," she exclaimed as she continued flexing her wing open and closed, "What'd you do? I feel great!"

"Stimulated your muscles to realign to their proper location and drew the pyruvic acid away from the bruised regions," he replied. When that elicited no amazed response from her, he simplified it, "I gave you the best speed massage of your life. Enjoy it while you still feel it." He then turned to the others, "Right, so we're on a time table, let's get to it, shall we?"

"Now just hold on one minute Doctor," Twilight at last said, her frustration boiling to the surface, "We deserve to know what is really going on. Admittedly we didn't expect Bunsen Burner would come after us when we made our plan, but we had the Princess on our side! She was ready and willing to help us, and now we've gone and broken into prison anyway. How is that supposed to look to her?"

"Like I said, time's a bit of a factor," he replied, "We can get through the nitty-gritty of the details after we've saved your three friends."

"Well, we're going to have to make it four," Fluttershy chimed in, "There's another pony named Vinyl Scratch who said she was being held prisoner as a researcher here."

The Doctor let air sputter past his lips as he sighed, "and I thought only humans multiplied so rapidly." The Tardis's monitor gave off a gentle pinging noise, which brought the Doctor scrambling to look at it. "Speaking of multiplication, there's a group of about a dozen soldiers outside and growing every second."

Pinkie placed her hooves on the console and hoisted herself up to get a better look, "They definitely don't look too happy."

"Yah think," Applejack asked with an arching eyebrow.

"Only sometimes," she replied with a smile as she looked back to her fellow earth pony.

"There's not exactly a lot we can do against them," Rarity exclaimed with worry, "What are we going to do?"

"Well, I was just going to go out and talk with them," the Doctor said with a shrug and a scrunching of his face.

"With those weapons they definitely don't look like talking," Rainbow comment as she hung her front hooves over the console safety railing.

The Doctor scoffed and smile at them, "Like those matter. You can come outside if you like, just stick close to the Tardis."

Ditzy was right at his side, matching him step for step. "You've really done it this time," she grumbled just loud enough so he could hear, "Now I've got to play translator between you and some very unhappy ponies. Wouldn't this have been better if we had tried to talk to them first before we invited ourselves in so dramatically?"

"They wouldn't have believed us if we would have done that," he murmured.

"Except now they'll think we're bluffing."

"Well if they don't believe me they can always do the sensible thing and get out of the way."

"You know they won't."

They had reached the end of the catwalk, the faded white interior of the police box doors just in front of them. The Doctor sighed, and his shoulders hung a little heavier, "No, they probably won't."

"We're coming too," Twilight declared, which got both of their attention, "All of us, and when we're done here I'm holding you to that promise of telling us everything. No misdirection, no lies."

The Doctor's face was neutral as he glanced at each of the six in turn before saying somberly, "Suit yourself." He then turned back to the double doors and reached for the handles to push them out, "Now, let's go say 'hello' to the neighbors!"

Comments

[Hustlin Tom]

Hey folks! I'm just letting you know that for now this it for new chapters. Fear not, however, because I plan to have another batch ready soon. I hope by giving myself a deadline it will help to motivate me on writing more frequently. I'd say a month is good! See you August 14th!