Soren the Alicorn Part 3: A True Hero?

by KingNyroc15

A One-Way Trip

Soren and Rainbow Dash were walking through the Sweet Apple Acres fields. They were pretty exhausted having searched a great area looking for Twilight Sparkle. First, the pair had flown to Fluttershy's house and searched there and the area around it with no sight of the purple unicorn. Next, they flew to Sweet Apple Acres to check there. Now, they had just finished running around Applejack's home for the past twenty minutes with still no results.

"Where is that egghead?" groaned Rainbow Dash.

"No clue," Soren replied, growing tired. "We won't find her any time soon at this rate. We need a better plan."

"I say we just meet up with Vinyl and Octavia and see if they found anything."

"That's good enough for me. Let's start flying again." The pegasi took flight once again and headed straight towards Sugarcube Corner. "This turned into an interesting Hearts & Hooves Day" was the only thing Soren said as they flew towards their destination.

Right as the couple was almost clear of the acres of apple trees, Soren felt a soft ringing in his head. He ignored it, assuming it was nothing but the wind passing through his ears. Within the minute, however, it got worse; it grew louder and slowly increased in pitch. Very soon, Soren started to get a headache from the inner noise, so he put a hoof to his head to attempt to somehow soften the pain. Rainbow Dash looked at Soren with concern as his flight path angled downward.

"What's wrong, Soren?" she asked. Soren couldn't respond; he was too busy trying to rid himself of the pain. With every passing second, his flight angle became steeper and steeper. Rainbow looked at his wings and noticed that he was barely flapping them. "Soren, start flying! What are you doing?" Soren tried to fly, but he felt as though the pain was almost numbing his entire body.

"I...can't. This ringing...in my head is...unbearable." As Soren put a second hoof to his temple, his wings stopped flapping altogether. He went into a nose dive, and he couldn't do anything about it. Rainbow Dash dove as fast as she could to catch up with Soren. Soren cracked open one eye to see what was happening and saw the ground coming very fast towards him. He closed his eye and braced for impact, but he felt something grab him and hit the earth with him. The ringing softened, but it didn't go away. Soren opened his eye again and saw Rainbow Dash lying down near him.

"Rainbow Dash, are you ok?" The cyan pegasis slowly got up and brushed herself off.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a hard landing. Nothing I haven't done many times." They both chuckled. Rainbow saw Soren still holding a hoof to his head. "Is the ringing still there? Why is that happening?" Soren painfully shook his head in response.

"I don't know. But...I think Twilight is in danger." Rainbow tilted her head and gave him a confused look. "I barely heard Twilight's name within the ringing, but I know I heard it. You don't think... that her emergency necklace works for me now, do you?" Rainbow's eyes widened.

"We have to go to the library. Now!" With that said, the two ponies raced towards the library on hoof since Soren was in no condition to fly, albeit he was barely in any condition to run also.

As they came closer to the library, Soren noticed the ringing was getting softer and softer, and pretty soon, it no longer bothered him. As a result, he began running at full speed. Rainbow Dash noticed this and also ran at full speed. Within the minute, the pair arrived at the Ponyville Library and burst through the door. What they saw next surprised and shocked them. Soren and Rainbow Dash burst inside to see Spike holding Twilight's emergency necklace while he was being held captive by a very familiar earth pony. The earth pony had his fore-leg around the dragon to prevent escape and was using the Doctor's old sonic screwdriver to activate the necklace.

"The Master," Soren growled menacingly. The Master kept his cool as he held Spike and stopped the screwdriver. Rainbow and Soren started to slowly walk forward, but the Master spoke up.

"No, no, no," he said calmly, "you two better stay put. If you two try anything, I'll make sure this baby dragon doesn't get to see his precious unicorn friend again." Taking a more serious tone at the end, the Master managed to stop Soren and Rainbow in their tracks.

"Where's Twilight?!" Rainbow Dash demanded. "You're outnumbered now that we're here." Soren sighed and looked at her.

"Rainbow Dash," Soren interrupted, "it's obvious he used Spike to get us, especially me, here. The question is..." Soren looked back at the Master, "why does he want me here?" The Master chuckled.

"Well why don't you go downstairs and find out? I'm sure Twilight will be more than happy to see a familiar face...Doctor." Soren flinched at the word. 'How?' was his only thought before leading Rainbow down into the library's basement; the Master and Spike were right behind them.

When they reached the basement, Soren, Rainbow, and Spike heard a strange noise eminating from the TARDIS. Soren was unsure if he wanted to walk in there, but if he didn't, who knew what would happen? The three of them walked inside and saw Twilight Sparkle off to the side, unconscious. They quickly ran over to check on her as the Master shut the doors and began working on the TARDIS' console. Althought worried about Twilight, Soren kept his eyes on the Master. 'He's up to something,' Soren thought, 'and it's probably more evil than his last plan.' Twilight slowly regained consciousness and looked at her worried friends.

"Spike...Rainbow Dash?" Twilight asked groggily. "Where...am I?" Spike hugged Twilight, then he and Rainbow looked at Soren, who was staring intensely at the Master. The Master took notice and smiled.

"Relax~," he said, dragging the word, "we're just going on a little trip. Just like you used to do, 'ey Doctor?" Soren simply scowled in response. "You need to relax more. We're about to leave. Let me just—" Sparks flew from the console, and the TARDIS groaned. Soren had enough. He ran at the Master and slammed him away from the console. Without getting up, the Master shot his laser screwdriver at Soren, but the white pegasus moved out of the way, causing the laser to hit the console.

"Hahaha!" the Master laughed. "You are such an idiot! You think I didn't plan for you to attack me in here? I needed to damage the console anyway. You just gave us a one-way ticket to your demise." Soren's confidence shattered. He looked sincerly at his friends, who were worried yet calm. The Master stood upright by the double doors as the machine tilted and shook with great intensity. Soren held onto the console, and Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike held onto the railing. Eventually, the TARDIS landed with a loud thud. More sparks flew, and the hissing of steam could be heard. Soren looked at the doors to see that they were already opened by the Master.

"He's gone," Soren stated to his friends. "Is everypony alright?" Everyone stood up and nodded.

"Where did the Master go?" Twilight asked. "Where are we?"

"Only one way to find out," Spike replied as he headed for the doors. The others were hesitant, mostly because of how Soren looked.

Soren had an almost neutral face, but what truly worried his friends, or at least Twilight, were his eyes. Rainbow Dash couldn't see it very well, but Twilight could see the emotion in his eyes from a mile away since she's been with the Doctor for so long. She could see the eyes of fear, rage...and failure. 'I must be imagining things,' Twilight assured herself. 'Soren couldn't start being like that...could he?' As Twilight thought to herself, she followed her friends outside the blue box to see what 'demise' awaited them.

They were immediately greeted by a horrible sight. They were staring in disbelief at the desolate, ruined world that stood before them. The ground was mostly made of what they assumed to be dark grey rock. Some volcanoes could be seen and heard in the background as they erupted now and again. The land stretched for as far as their eyes could see with no notable hills, besides volcanoes, in sight. All in all, this world was destroyed.

"What is this place?" Twilight asked in shock. "It's so...dark." Soren and Rainbow Dash looked up and noticed that the smoke from the volcanoes was creating its own clouds, thus making the world darker. "This can't be Equestria."

"I don't like it here," said Rainbow. "Those clouds aren't good for anypony..."

"If anypony is even on this rock," Soren corrected as Twilight secretly studied him.

The ponies and Spike picked a random direction to walk in. They were hoping to find the Master, but most of them were just looking for any sign of life. After many minutes of walking, the group was close to giving up. This planet had to be desolate. All of them decided to sit down on the slightly warm ground and all gave a simultaneous sigh of defeat.

"It's hopeless," Spike complained. "That 'Master' pony is nowhere to be found, and we can't even find any sign of life."

"Soren," Twilight called, grabbing his attention, "maybe we should just head back to the TARDIS. We need to fix the controls." Soren shook his head.

"Why not?" Rainbow Dash interjected as she shot into the air. "You're the Doctor! You should be able to fix your own machine." Soren stood up and looked at her.

"It's not that I won't try, it's that we're being watched. And I'd very much like to know how there is life on this planet." Rainbow landed on the ground and started looking around, as did everypony else. Soren continued to look at Rainbow as he spoke once again. "You all are looking everywhere but the place they're actually watching us from."

"Then where are they?" Twilight asked. Soren pointed towards the sky. Everypony but him looked up and saw four pegasi hovering above them, staring at them.

"What do you guys think you're doing up there?" shouted Rainbow. "Get down here or I'll come up to get you!" The four pegasi started laughing; one nearly fell out of the sky. Rainbow flushed angrily and scowled at the laughing pegasi. Soren walked up to her and put his hoof on her shoulder to calm her down.

"We aren't from around here," Soren explained to the pegasi. "We were tricked into coming here. Can you four help us until we leave?" The pegasi stopped laughing and started gliding down to the ground. The four ponies landed in front of Soren and his friends and faced them.

"Yeah, we'll help ya," the pegasus who appeared to be the leader of the four said. "Y'all don't look like bandits, but be warned: it ain't pretty out there." Everyone but Soren exchanged nervous glances as they followed the pegasi to the west.