The Doctor Whooves Chronicles Episode 6: Twilight Falls

by Doctor Perseus

The Indecisive

Chapter 7: The Indecisive

Nymphadora, 1678 C.E.

The Doctor and Klaus walked side-by-side through the tunnel. The orbs of white fire floated peacefully in the air, casting soft shadows across the floor and ceiling. The air, which had been a comfortable lukewarm back in the massive chamber, had grown considerably cold in spite of the presence of the white fire. It was moments like these where the Doctor was thankful to be a pony with a coat of fur instead of a humanoid with easy-to-chill skin.

Klaus appeared to still be simultaneously confused, frightened, and joyous about the healing of his previously-broken leg. Still, the Ruleonite had a heavy, depressing aura emanating from him. It didn't take much thought for the Doctor to understand why. The poor soldier had lost his sister and several of his friends in a brutal crash and fire only a few hours ago at the max. His ears drooped, his fluffy tail was hardly vibrant, and his eyes were glassy and distant. The Doctor could tell that the soldier had yet to see carnage such as this prior to his entrance of Dusk's twilight. Sure, he had probably seen a few fights and brawls up on the unstable Auran but had probably yet to see the true and complete horrors of war. Now he had.

As the Doctor and his Ruleonite companion walked on, the tunnel seemed to bend and twist. The Doctor knew it was simply an illusion created as the result of staring down the seemingly endless tunnel of magical fire for such a long duration of time and hardly thought anything of it. The Time Lord pony couldn't help but give a quick glance in his companion's direction. Klaus appeared stable and sound of mind. The Doctor gave a quiet sigh of relief. He knew such illusions could cause the confused and emotionally hurt to experience extra doses of psychological fear. Thankfully, Klaus appeared to be the type who could handle such an uncomfortable mixture of emotional trauma and external phenomena.

Once again, time began to twist, shrink, stretch, and bend all at the same time. The land and air around the Doctor grew fuzzy and felt almost incomplete in a sense. He wanted to get a sense of the passing of time. He wanted to get a sense of anything passing. The Doctor never realized how much he would miss the internal sensation of himself, everyone and everything around him, and the planet beneath his feet, now hooves, falling through space at such tremendous speeds. The twilight took this ancient sensation away from him. He desperately wanted it back.

"So...when are we supposed to know when we're underneath the City Centre?" Klaus asked.

"Oh I think we'll know," the Doctor replied.

Klaus glanced at the Doctor's chest for a moment. "Holding onto something precious?"

"What?" Klaus pointed at the Doctor's chest and he looked to see that one of his forehooves was pressed tightly against the suit pocket where he was currently storing both his sonic screwdriver and the walkie-talkie that had broadcast the troubling future confrontation. "Oh...it's nothing. Just...stuff."

"Okay. Whatever you say."

Klaus continued forward and the Doctor placed his forehoof back down on the rocky surface before continuing after his Ruleonite companion.

Suddenly, a mere moment later, Klaus's ears shot up and he turned back in the direction they had come from. "Do you hear that?" he asked.

Looks like we're both hearing things down here, the Doctor thought with slight amusement as he stared back into the darkness. Almost instantly, a sense of fear and tension overcame him. Being a common traveler of space and time, the dark didn't really frighten him unless it was hosting some Vashta Nerada. Down here, however, the Doctor could feel some incredibly strong and unwanted forces reverberating from the depths of the darkness.

"So what do you hear?" the Doctor asked.

"It sounds like clawing." Klaus stretched his ears a bit and nodded. "Yep. Definitely clawing."

The Doctor felt a shiver course through him. The earth beneath his hooves seemed to groan. It was crying. It was in pain. Something unnatural was coming through it. Something unwanted and forced. The Doctor cleared his throat and started continuing in the direction he and Klaus were headed. "I suggest we go right now. I don't think we're alone down here anymore."

"Is the Guardian coming back?" Klaus asked instantly.

"No. Our threat is smaller...but far greater in number." As if on cue, a series of blank, white eyes appeared in the darkness of the tunnel behind them. Dirt began falling from the walls and ceiling and the floor started to crack. "Klaus, start running. Now!"

The Doctor took off in a full gallop with Klaus hastily following not far behind. Pained, depressing shrieks and groans started echoing through the air around them. The dirt and stone around them was quickly falling apart. Hands, paws, claws, and a whole assortment of limbs and appendages were starting to claw out of the earth. Klaus was soon running immediately next to the Doctor. The Doctor noticed Klaus beginning to glance back.

"Don't look back!" the Doctor snapped. Klaus instantly looked ahead once more. "Don't think about what's behind us! Just keep looking forward! Keep running forward!" The Doctor's words began to become directed as much to himself as they were to Klaus.

The Doctor could feel them reaching for him and Klaus. He could feel them clawing through the surrounding earth. He could feel their hot, stale breath on his neck and rump. He could hear their hungry cries for true life. At times, the Doctor was tempted to take a solid millisecond to glance back at cursed attackers trapped in a state more resemblant to that of Hell than Limbo. But he knew he couldn't perform such an act. To do such a thing would cause him to stop and stare into their desperate, tortured pupils. He had seen enough pain and sadness within the eyes of too many creatures and friends. This was the limit. He didn't want to face these poor creatures. He would try his best to save them, sure. But we wasn't going to look at them. Even if bringing back Donna Noble's memories of him was the reward, he still wouldn't look back. The sadness would kill him. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"Doctor! There's something ahead!" Klaus exclaimed as he pointed in the direction of a pair of metal doors a few yards ahead of them. The doors were definitely connected to something but the rest of the structure was blocked off by the rest of the surrounding dirt and stone.

The Doctor's hearts beat even faster as he noticed that the doors were closing. This was it. This was his and Klaus's escape from their attackers. However, it could also prove to be their trap in they weren't fast enough. "Just keep running! Don't stop!" the Doctor ordered. His hooves kicked off the earth with an almost angelic grace.

Despite all the running, the air around them seemed to grow colder with every frantic breath. The Doctor could see clouded bursts of air moving from his open, panting mouth and trailing behind him like comet tails. He and Klaus were getting close to the closing metal doors. He could feel the attackers behind him reaching for his hind legs and tail.

"We're not going to make it!" cried Klaus.

The Doctor had to admit that their chances seemed narrow. The doors were at the point where only a single being could squeeze through the opening at a time and the poor monsters behind them were literally right behind them. Yes, their chances of survival now were pretty slim.

A mischievous smile of glee appeared on the Doctor's face. Yes, lady luck was not on their side. Yes, things sure looked grim. Yes, the chance of them surviving was about equal to that of a mouse stopping an oncoming train. But he was the Doctor. Moments like this, moments of slim survival and unfair odds, were what he was an expert at getting around. This wasn't the first time he had faced odds like this and it certainly wouldn't be the last. No matter what face or form he took, no matter what personality and warped morals, no matter if he was running on feet or hooves, no matter what horribly unfair and outmatched situations he was put in, he would always be the Doctor: the master of spitting in the face of impossibility.

"Get in front of me and think positively!" the Doctor ordered as he suddenly grabbed Klaus and placed him ahead, shoving his head directly into Klaus's back to push him forward. "We're going to make it!" The Doctor could see the doors a mere leap of faith away. "Now...JUMP!"

In that instant, both the Doctor and Klaus leapt for the closing doors. Silence seemed to fall in that one second. Tortured souls reaching from behind. Doors closing ahead. Nothing but air surrounding their bodies as they flew. The only sounds being that of thumping hearts and held breaths.

The Doctor couldn't see anything clearly at this point. Most of his vision was obscured due to his face being mostly dug into Klaus's back. This didn't matter. The Doctor simply closed his eyes tightly and took a breath, his senses anxiously waiting in anticipation for the results of the leap. Would they make it through? Would they be trapped with the hungry corpses? Would they be caught in between and mutilated? He would find out soon enough.

The doors slammed shut.

Derpy regained consciousness to a city that was completely silent aside from the sound of hoofsteps on cement. The pegasus looked down to see a pair of furry paws walking along the ground beneath her. Hoofsteps. Footsteps. Whatever. I'm calling them hoofsteps, she thought as a mild pain rocked her skull.

"You awake?" came the voice of Marcus the Nymphadorian from above. Derpy, upon instinct, reached for the spot of her head that hurt the most and felt it. There was an incredibly prominent bump rising up from the top center of her cranium. "Got a nasty bump on the head a while back. I managed to clean it up to the best of my abilities."

Derpy gave a nearly silent cough and opened her eyes completely to make eye contact with Marcus. "How...how long-"

"My guess is that it's been an hour or so. Maybe two. Can't really tell. Time doesn't flow naturally here."

Derpy began moving around. "Can you let me down now?" she asked.

"You sure you're fine walking...or flying on your own? I don't mind carrying you. To be completely honest, you're not that heavy."

Derpy giggled. "I'm fine. Head hurts a bit but I'm sure I can walk and fly just fine."

"Okay. If you need any help just say the word and I'll resume carrying you."

Derpy nodded in response. Marcus slowly lessened his hold on her and, with a few flaps of her wings, she was soon flying peacefully next to him.

As Derpy slowly regained her full train of thought, she quickly noticed that their group was two members short. Marcus was walking next to her, Ash and Sylvia were walking together a couple feet ahead, but there was no sign of the Doctor or Klaus.

That's when full recollection of the events leading up to her unconsciousness came back to her.

"Oh no," Derpy uttered as she lowered herself to the ground. Her entire body began shaking. Tears formed in her eyes and fell down onto the cement surface beneath her. "Nooooooooo." Her voice was weak. She didn't have the strength to scream. She could merely sit there in her new pit of despair and guilt.

She shook as Marcus placed a paw on her shoulder. "Derpy...I'm sorry. I'm really, truly sorry," he said.

Derpy knew he meant well and was thankful for his words. But they weren't helping. How could they? The Doctor had fallen into an abyss. Her traveling companion was gone. The only creature that could get her back to her home was gone. But most importantly, her friend was gone. Not only that, but poor Klaus had fallen into darkness as well. It wasn't fair. The Ruleonite had already suffered enough. He had deserved better than this. Both of them had deserved better.

A familiar aura of cold swept over Derpy. She looked up to find herself staring into the ghostly eyes of Colonel Ash. "If it makes you feel any better, we're not one hundred percent certain that the Doctor and Klaus are dead," he stated warmly.

Derpy wiped her eyes and choked slightly on her tears. "But how could they not be?" she asked. "They fell into that hole in the ground!"

Ash nodded. "Yes...they did, but we didn't see them return as spirits." The spirit froze for a moment. "Normally, if someone dies in Dusk's twilight, they turn into a trapped spirit. Like me. Like the others that were part of Sylvia's group. They usually turn up not long after their deaths. By now, if the Doctor and Klaus were indeed dead, we should have run across them again." He gave a confident smile. "But we haven't."

"So...they're not dead?"

"In all honesty, I can't say for sure. There's definitely a chance that they are dead now but there's also an equal chance in favor of them being alive. There's hope, Derpy. We can have hope for their survival. In times like these and in places like this, hope is something we desperately need." Ash softly placed one of his fingers beneath Derpy's chin. It was cold but he wasn't making enough contact to cause her coat to ice over. "So don't cry now, Derpy. Just hope. Have hope for the Doctor and Klaus. I do. And if a spirit can have hope then I'm sure a bubbly pegasus can have ten times as much."

Derpy giggled before wiping the final stream of tears from her eyes, an expression of confidence now replacing her previously sad face. She gave a quick nod then flapped her wings to return to the air. As she did so, she looked up to see where she, Marcus, Ash, and Sylvia were now.

The gargantuan buildings of Lupae surrounded them on all sides. However, one particular building stood out from the rest. It was easily the tallest and reached towards the sky at such lengths that it wouldn't surprise Derpy if it were taller than the mountain where Canterlot resided. Even in the bleak twilight, Derpy had to admit that the building was a marvel. A carefully designed glass, marble, metal exterior with spires, statues, and thousands upon thousands of windows. Strangely enough, the twilight sort of made the City Centre look kind of beautiful.

Strange. When Derpy stopped to think about it, certain aspects of the twilight realm were wonders to behold. Silver wisps in the air and sky. The violet hues. The electrified hum in the air. If it weren't for the terrible tyrant, monsters, and trapped spirits, the twilight could have been a thoroughly gorgeous sight.

Just then, the ground shook. Derpy and the others hastily prepared themselves for any possible threats. "More monsters?" Sylvia asked as she pulled out one of the many guns in her bag.

Ash knelt down and placed his paw on the ground. He jumped back a moment later and shook. "We need to move. They're coming up," he said.

"Who's coming up?" Marcus asked.

"The Indecisive. Now come on!"

Small cracks began appearing in the sidewalk and street. Derpy didn't want to waste time questioning Ash further and simply continued after him alongside Marcus and Sylvia.

A loud clang rang out as the Doctor and Klaus collided with the metal floor, the closing doors behind them giving off a sound that was somewhere between a clang and a hiss. The Doctor heard Klaus give a loud groan and, honestly, the Doctor didn't blame him. Getting rammed in the back by a stallion and colliding with a metal floor probably didn't give off the best of sensations.

The Doctor stood up to see that he and Klaus were at the edge of a massive room filled with various computers, hard drives, and various electrical hardware. It was easily the size of a football stadium with a few extra meters of width added. The walls, floor, and ceiling were perfectly clean and sparkled like diamonds in the violet light.

The Doctor's attention was then drawn to a large, black letter and a large, black number painted into the wall on the opposite side of the room: B9.

B9. Basement Nine. We're nine floors beneath the surface, the Doctor concluded in thought as he looked at the ceiling. "I suppose we'll be needing to find a way up."

Klaus stood up and rubbed his back. "The shoving wasn't necessary. I was running pretty fast on my own," he stated.

"Sorry. Didn't want to take any chances," the Doctor said with a grin. His smile only grew bigger when he noticed a staircase door situated a few yards away. "Alrighty then! Let's head up!"

"Right! So where do you think we are?"

"I believe this is the City Centre."

"Really?! We're here already?!"

"The twilight warps time and space, Klaus. Besides, what other building would need to have more than nine levels underground?"

Klaus glanced over at the B9 on the opposite wall and nodded. "Fair enough."

The Doctor and Klaus ran over to the door and opened it. Upon entering the room beyond, they both whistled in response to seeing the great length the staircase extended in both directions.

"Well, time to climb some stairs!" exclaimed the Doctor with a giddy shake.

"You seem a lot happier about this than you should," Klaus commented with a deadpan expression.

"Oh come on, Bugs! A little bit of stairs never hurt anyone! Well...unless they tripped and fell. Then it would hurt. I would recommend not tripping."

"You call this," Klaus moved towards the railing, extended his arm outwards, and waved his arm upwards then downwards, "a little bit of stairs?!"

The Doctor was silent for a moment. "Have I mentioned that I've done a lot of running throughout my life?"

Klaus raised an eyebrow. "Enough to consider this little?"

"I'm over nine hundred years old. Needless to say, one can do a lot of running in that period of time."

The Doctor started ascending the staircase with Klaus following close behind.

"Over nine hundred years old, huh? I must say that you look pretty good for your age," Klaus said with a chuckle.

"Thank you very much, they didn't invent hygienic products for nothing. Of course, regeneration also plays a bit of a role but that's a whole other can of worms."

"Well, we've got a long climb ahead of us. We've got time for this can of worms."

"Let's just change the subject. Something else. Anything. Well...except a topic about pears. I hate pears!"

"Come on! Run!" shouted Sylvia as the sound of cracking grew louder with every passing second. The cracks that had started out small were now growing enormous in size. Even while flying, Derpy could feel the vibrations caused by the tearing and breaking moving through the air.

Ash was having an easy enough experience getting across the breaking ground due to his spiritual state while Marcus and Sylvia were having a more rocky trek. It wasn't long before Derpy realized that black, dirty, rotting limbs and other appendages were breaking through the surface. They looked so weak and frail that the pegasus found it shocking that they had been able to break through the seemingly thick and sturdy cement streets and sidewalks of Lupae.

The creatures clawing from beneath the city seemed different from the spirits and monsters. They were something in between. Something less bloodthirsty than the monsters but more tragic than the spirits. "Don't look at them! Just keep heading towards the City Centre! We're almost there!" Ash ordered.

Derpy turned away from the various appendages and looked ahead to see that they were now two blocks or so away from the main ground entrance of the City Centre. The building loomed over them like a giant and cast a dark purple shadow over them. Despite the fact that she knew there was an evil tyrant with unbelievable power waiting inside, Derpy saw the oncoming City Centre as a safe point. A place of tranquility amongst insanity.

An arm grabbed onto Sylvia's leg but was quickly shot away from a blast produced by the Auranian's gun. Ash accidentally passed through a pair of clawing arms, which froze and shattered mere seconds after the initial contact. Marcus was pretty good at dodging the fast and vicious appendages. This quickly grew to become one of those moments where Derpy was thankful she was a pegasus. But she didn't spend as much time being thankful that she didn't have to put up with zombies reaching for her as much as she spent worrying about the safety of her friends on the ground.

The front doors were about half a block away now. They were so close that the group could see their reflections clearly in the glass windows. The street and sidewalk behind them was quickly becoming a massive, jagged collection of cracked cement and dispersed dust and dirt. Derpy glanced back to see that many of the creatures had managed to pull their entire abdomens up above the ground. Their eyes were milky white and their mouths were red and cracked like burning coals. The rest of their bodies chipped and tore like a mixture of rock and burnt flesh.

Derpy froze as she met their eyes. They were so white. So pained. So desperate for life. She stopped and fell to the ground. She couldn't cease staring into their eyes as they continued to crawl out of the ground. The surface cracked around her and more arms appeared.

"DERPY!" cried the voice of Ash. "MOVE!"

She wanted to listen to him. She wanted to follow his command and run straight through the glass doors. But she couldn't. The eyes of the Indecisive created such great sadness within her that she found it painful to even think about leaving them. All they wanted was freedom. Whether that meant return to life or return to what came after was unclear.

She was transfixed. Perfectly fine with sitting there, waiting for them to grab her. Waiting to help give them the freedom they deserved.

A sharp cold pierced her skin as she was unexpectedly lifted into the air. As her coat and skin started icing over, Derpy was tossed violently through the air by the ghostly hands of Ash. With her eye contact with the Indecisive broken, she flapped her wings and flew forward. Unfortunately, a sealed window lay before her instead of an open door.

CRASH!!!

Derpy smashed through the window. Glass flew inwards. She felt nothing pierce or cut her skin but she did feel a sharp pain emanate from the bump on her head. Her flapping wings kept her airborne for an extra second or two before she fell to the ground behind a sleek reception desk.

"Ugh," she groaned upon sitting up a few seconds later. Several random spots of her body were bruised, a constant pain was coming from her already bruised scalp, and small trickles of blood dripped from the few incredibly small cuts scattered about her body.

"That's one way to make an entrance," chuckled Sylvia nervously as she knelt down next to Derpy to examine her.

"How is she?" asked Ash as he ran up. "I threw her in the wrong direction!"

Sylvia patted Derpy's shoulder and nodded at Ash. "I think she'll be fine. A bit bruised up, but fine."

"That does it," Derpy said with a now deadpan expression. "I'm never letting anypony or anything throw me ever again."

"That's the spirit!" said Marcus with an overly enthusiastic tone before helping Derpy to her hooves.

Derpy looked back at the broken window she had flown through. Beyond that, she could see that the Indecisive couldn't get any less than ten feet closer to the exterior of the building.

"This place is protected," said Sylvia upon looking upwards. She gave several, hard sniffs and flicked her snake tongue. "I can taste the magic in the air."

"I think I can too," Derpy stated. This was followed by a quick cough. She recoiled her tongue in response to the new taste of burnt food she was experiencing.

"At least we don't have to worry about them anymore," Marcus sighed with a nod at the Indecisive. "Now all we have left to worry about is Dusk."

Derpy, Marcus, and Ash followed Sylvia's example and looked up at the ceiling. "Personally, I'm hoping we run across Twilight before we meet Dusk again," said Derpy.

Marcus nodded. "I'm with ya on that one, Derpy. One hundred percent."

"Hey! The ground's cracking!" exclaimed Thea. The ghost girl tapped her finger against the window and jumped with a strange, giddy excitement while Twilight approached to inspect the new sight.

She was right. The streets in the city far below were indeed cracking and Twilight could just barely make out strange forms emerging from them.

"What in the name of Celestia is going on down there?!" Twilight asked.

Thea crossed her arms and bit her lip. "It looks like zombies, if you ask me."

Twilight rolled her eyes. Great. Just what this place needed: zombies. As if the ghosts, monsters, and sadistic tyrant weren't enough, she vented in thought.

Thea scratched her chin. "Something big must be happening down there to be causing them to wake up like that."

Twilight couldn't help but smile. "Maybe they're here," the unicorn stated hopefully.

"Your friends?" Thea turned to Twilight.

"Yeah."

A cool chill ran down Twilight's back. "The time is coming."

Twilight quickly turned back towards the doorway of her bedroom. Nothing was there.

"Whatcha looking at?" Thea asked as she prodded Twilight with her ghostly finger, causing another cold sensation for the unicorn.

Twilight shook her head. "Nothing. Just thinking about what I hope ends up being my trump card," she replied. She turned back around and stared out the window once again. Hundreds of feet below, a black crowd could now be seen swarming around the City Centre's ground level.

Comments

[MariusIoannesP]

Great. Just what this place needed: zombies. As if the ghosts, monsters, and sadistic tyrant weren't enough, she vented in thought.

You know Twilight does have a point.

With all the running, sorries, and hatred of pears, I find myself reminded here how good you are at capturing the 10th Doctor. In know the Doctor in your other Doctor Whooves series is heavily based on the 10th Doctor, but you kind of do you're own thing with him. Naturally, given in that story he's the Doctor's 11th (or rather 13th given The Time of the Doctor, right) regeneration. Anyway, this was a good run up to the epic showdown with Dusk that I sense is coming. Keep up the good work.

[DrWhooves007]

Wait a minute, so King Dusk is transforming Nyphadora into something like this?