Part 2: Once More unto the Breach
A cold pair of eyes stared at a display screen, on which the images of a brown stallion and pale yellow mare – the Doctor and Fluttershy – were examining an empty crater in the forest.
“His artron energy signature is unmistakable.” said the viewer, in a voice like a million dancing icicles. “The Doctor is interfering again. How like him.” The watching pony took a step back to survey the scene. It had no distinguishing features whatsoever. It was simply a yellowish mass of ever shifting plastic, in a roughly pony-like shape. A pair of eyes stared out from the head, but that was all – and they themselves were simply black pits in what passed for the face. “His very presence throws the invasion plan into disarray. We must resort to the contingency plan. Destroy them immediately,” it ordered the unit, a mindless drone-Auton, through whose eyes it watched the pair.
OBJECTING - INSUFFICIENT POWER - MUST RETURN - RECHARGE NECESSARY protested the unit, in its limited functionary vocabulary.
If the watcher felt any anger, it didn’t show it. “Very well. Return here. When the remaining energy spheres are located, we will have ample power to eradicate such threats. I will post an Auton guard in the woods. I feel sure the Doctor will return. By then, we will be able to deal with his meddling once and for all.”
Her Royal Highness Princess Twilight Sparkle, also known variously as ‘Twilight’, ‘Sparks’, ‘Twily’ and, by some of the more disinterested ponies of Ponyville, ‘that bossy one with the fringe’, was in a state of panic that bordered on neurosis. In fact, if she hadn't demanded a second opinion, she would have been legally declared neurotic earlier that year. She was running around her castle with her wings flapping frantically, inspecting this and that, and frequently wiping away the beads of sweat that materialized on her forehead, only for them to almost instantly reappear. What was particularly typical was that she had organised everything so completely and efficiently that she had absolutely nothing to panic about: the library had been re-catalogued for the third time that month; Spike had, after much protesting, dusted and scrubbed everything that wasn’t potentially explosive; and, most importantly of all, Twilight had brushed up as well as only Twilight could on royal protocol. Now, all she could do was wait. And panic.
“Spike!” she screamed, worry etched across her face, “Did you dust the-”
“Yes! I dusted everything I could reach,” exclaimed a grumpy Spike from the corner, where the little dragon had hidden himself behind a chair. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten our deal.”
“All that ice-cream really isn’t good for a dragon your age, Spike,” began Twilight.
“Three tubs, Twi. It’s too late to back out now. I want them by sunset, or I’m not tidying any more books for a week!” Twilight whimpered at this thought, and her knees began to wobble. “Oh, no,” Spike muttered to himself, realising what was about to happen. Sure enough, Twilight sat herself down in the middle of the entrance hall, and little tears began to well in the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away quickly, though, not wanting to let Spike see her crying.
“Spike, do you have any idea how important this is?” Spike had heard it all before, and gave his reply in the most disinterested monotone he could muster.
“Yuh-huh.” he said, simply. Unaware of her assistant’s lack of interest, Twilight pressed on with her speech.
“This is the first official royal visit to Ponyville by Princess Luna since I was made a princess!” Twilight declaimed, her voice a mixture of fear and determination.
“Yuh-huh.”
“I just have to show myself worthy of my royal duties, or she’ll probably strip me of my authority on the spot! She might even throw me out of the castle, and leave me to die on the streets!”
“Yuh-huh.”
“We’ve got to show that I am capable of organising such a meeting, or die in the attempt!”
“Yuh-huh... wait, what?” Spike stopped staring at the wall and turned to face his employer. That last bit was new. ‘Most she usually says is “or destroy the castle trying”’ thought Spike, his tail scales beginning to droop with boredom.
“This,” continued Twilight, now with the full vocal quality of a Shirespearean actress, “is probably going to be the most important day of our lives!” She paused, letting her final words hang in the air like lead balloons.
“Sure thing, Twi,” said Spike, dully – not quite the response Twilight had been looking for.
“Spike,” she glared, “I spent most of last night coming up with that speech!” The miffed Twilight was interrupted by three short, sharp knocks. Her pupils shrank to what would have been the size of pinpricks if her entire eyes had been the size of pinpricks themselves. “She’s early!” shrieked Twilight. She responded quickly and efficiently to the disaster. She collapsed. Efficiently, though. Spike sighed, and crossed the room to the door, which he opened to reveal... Rarity.
“Darlings,” she exclaimed, “I just had to come and tell you! My new tailor’s dummies arrived!” She surveyed the scene before her. Twilight, picking herself up, didn’t seem quite as excited as she’d hoped.
“Rarity,” responded the alicorn, “never frighten me like that again.”
“Oh, don’t worry, darling, they’re in perfect condition,” replied her friend. “They’re just the most wonderful thing...”
“Never mind the dummies! Princess Luna is due here any minute.”
“Whatever for? You didn’t tell me about this.”
“I don’t know. She only arranged it at the last minute. She said it was a ‘surprise visit’. I hate surprises! How am I supposed to plan for surprises?” Spike was gazing up at Rarity with adoring eyes.
“You can tell me about the dummies, Rarity,” he simpered. Rarity seized the opportunity eagerly.
“Well, they’re made entirely from a new...” She was silenced by the sound of trumpets from outside. Looking through the still-open door, the three saw that Princess Luna, accompanied by half-a-dozen guards from the Night-watch, was dismounting from her flying chariot.
“Twilight!” she called warmly, “I see that everything is going splendidly here! Well done, my little princess!”
Twilight collapsed again. This time, at least, she was smiling.
Halfway across Ponyville, and a few minutes earlier, the Doctor, accompanied by a confused Fluttershy, was half trotting, half limping in the direction of the castle.
“But Doctor,” she was asking, “I don't mean to pry, but what was it you wanted to show me?”
“A Nestene energy unit. Something that could spell disaster for every living thing on this planet.”
“What is it?”
“It contains part of the Nestene Intelligence. Not much, though: like a tiny lump of thought from a huge brain.”
“What is Nestene?”
“Nestenes are extra-terrestrial life-forms made from living plastic, of course! Do I have to do all the thinking? Now, please, be quiet, I need to think...”
“Oh, um, sorry...” Fluttershy hung her head, but the Doctor was already too absorbed in thought to notice. She looked around her, and noticed that it was market day (which she had quite forgotten), that the Carousel Boutique was closed, and that there were an awful lot of other ponies around. She decided that looking around for ten seconds was as outgoing as she needed to be that day, and hid her face behind her mane again. The Doctor spoke.
“This is the direction of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s Friendship Castle, isn’t it? I need to talk to the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Because, my dear,” he continued, pre-empting her question, “only you and they have the power to defeat the Nestenes. I’m in no fit state for that kind of thing.” As if to underline his statement, the Doctor completely lost control of the right-hoof-side of his body, and half-walked, half-slumped into a market stall selling fresh vegetables. The irate stallsmare turned on them.
“’Ere! Why don’t you look where you’re goin’?” The Doctor bowed to her in deference.
“You have my sincere apologies, madam, as well as the assurance that my errand is one of global imperative!” He tried to sweep past her – a dreadful mistake, given his state of health. He fell over again, burying his face in a pumpkin. “Stand aside, sir!” he barked at the unfortunate fruit, striding off once more, spitting out stray seeds and muttering about falling standards in the greengrocery industry, not to mention leaving the unfortunate Fluttershy to deal with the now incensed stall-owner.
When she caught him up, he was humming a little song to himself and sniffing the air interestedly.
“Um, Doctor? There’s something I think I should tell you, if that’s okay.”
“Fire away, my dear,” cried the Doctor, having, it seemed, assumed a gentler mantle: ‘thank goodness’, thought Fluttershy, and pressed on bravely.
“Well, er, I haven’t told them about you, so they won’t know who you are, or, um, anything...” Her voice quietened to a whisper.
“Goodness me! Whyever not? If you’ll forgive me, it seems a little – well – stupid.” The Doctor had, in his confusion, forgotten about manners again. Fluttershy was already close to tears, but reminded herself that the Doctor wasn’t well.
“Well, you told me not to tell them, in case any of your enemies found out about you being so ill, and I just thought...”
“How clever of me! I surprise even myself sometimes. I do have a lot of enemies, you know. Have I told you about any of them?”
Fluttershy sighed, and said simply “A few.” She had grown used to his ramblings, but most of what he talked about – metal ponies, creatures made of gas, ponies turning into plants – were obviously the ramblings of a deranged mind. She felt very sorry for him, but angry too, at least as angry as Fluttershy tended to get. What right had he to drag her away in the middle of feeding her animals on some wild goose chase, mad or not? She tried not to let it show, though. He meant well, after all.
Fluttershy’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud protest of clucking, and Doctorly cries of “Unhoof me, chickens!” Reluctantly, she turned to deal with this latest problem.
After Luna had assured her that her visit was only a routine scientific investigation and quickly departed, Twilight found herself feeling a little bored. She had not known how long the visit would take, and had carefully rearranged her schedule to accommodate a full two hours of meeting. The fact that the whole thing had lasted only ten minutes, if that, seemed rather a disappointment. She therefore almost welcomed the third knock at the door in that quarter-hour: anything as an alternative to listening to Rarity rabbit on about her new dummies. Honestly, she was trying to get Twilight to order some, now! What would she want with tailor’s dummies? To be honest, things had been a bit dull - almost as if their adventures had been on hiatus - since they’d helped Luna defeat her dreams, and that had been ages ago. What she wanted was for something really unusual to happen.
She got it. What she had been expecting, at best, was the mailmare, or a door-to-door salespony. What she got was a strange brown stallion with a spiky dark brown mane, who leapt through the door into her face and shouted “I have come from outer space to save the world!” dramatically throwing out his right forehoof and pointing towards an imagined distant star. Twilight’s heart sank, her thirst for the unusual already forgotten. This was going to be one of those days.
Equestria’s system of a fixed identity via the cutie mark, and a meaning of life for everypony, means that there are very few tramps. The only ones there are are of a very peculiar and eccentric ilk who actually enjoy sleeping on park benches, rooting through bins and the like.
Sam Spoons was one of them. He had always known that he wanted to be a tramp. For one thing, he suffered from homophobia – the morbid fear of houses. For another, he had always felt a certain oneness with nature, that had driven his parents to much consternation. Often, they would look out of the window to see his four-year-old self rolling around in the mud in the middle of a rainstorm, or trying to build a leaf-pony in autumn. He was asked now and then how someone as well-read and intelligent as he had ever become a tramp, but it was simple. He had decided what he wanted to be, and worked hard at it.
He was a dingy-green earth pony with a messy black mane and short bushy beard, and vivid green eyes that some said were his best feature. His cutie mark was a pair of crossed spoons, indicating his bizarre musical talent. He had always been insatiably curious as a colt, and this trait had lasted well up to then. Therefore, upon finding a pulsing, glowing and bleeping lump of plastic embedded in the undergrowth on the border of a field just outside Ponyville, he was nothing short of fascinated.
“My, my,” he mumbled, “what’s this doing here?” He found himself a stick, and was about to use it to poke his discovery, when he was startled by the sound of a twig snapping behind him. Turning quickly, he was surprised to find nothing but... a tailor’s dummy? In the middle of a field? He looked around, searching for whichever ponies had put it there, as some sort of prank, perhaps. There was nothing. No heads poking out from behind trees. No giggling from the hedgerows. Nothing to indicate he was being made a fool of, or being watched at all. He glanced uneasily back at the dummy. Had it... moved? It seemed closer, certainly. He began to back slowly away. “If this is some sort of joke,” he shouted to the field in general, “it’s not funny!” A look of horror crossed his face as the dummy raised a leg. “Is there somepony in there?” The dummy placed the leg on the ground, picking up another. Slowly, surely, it began to follow, gaining in speed. “Is it a costume? I... I...” He began to stutter, as the reality of his situation truly dawned on him: alone in a field with what seemed to be some sort of magical creature, with no sign of cover anywhere.
He backed more quickly, and, to his relief, the dummy stopped following. What happened next, though, brought his fear flooding back to him. The dummy extended its right foreleg, pointing its hoof straight out towards him. There was a short, harsh buzz, and the end of the hoof simply fell away on a hinge at its base. It had been masking a turquoise interior hoof, on which red and yellow lights flashed alternately. From a small hole extended a thin tube with a mechanical whirr. Sam instinctively knew it was a weapon. He was frozen to the spot, completely unable to move. He heard a building hum from the dummy, and knew it was now or never. With a tremendous effort of will-power, he hurled himself to one side. He was just in time. From the hoof he heard an echoing “T-chok!” Although he could see no projectile, no visible magic, a pillar of billowing smoke erupted out of the ground where he had just been standing, closely followed by flame as the grass caught alight.
He turned and fled, galloping as fast as he could. He heard another “T-chok!” The ground just a few yards to his right burst into flame. “T-chok!” This time he could feel the heat of the flames licking the back of his hooves.
He thought back to his foalhood. As a colt, he had had a lazy eye, which the optician said could only be corrected by wearing obnoxiously huge glasses. Of course, the other colts at school had teased him mercilessly, and would often hide along his route home ready to pelt him with stones and brambles. One day, he had tripped and fallen during the onslaught, and shattered the lenses. Needless to say, his parents had questioned him, but he had made up some story about tripping over a tree root. His elder sister, Peanut Brittle, had known him better, and got the whole story from him later on. She said she could not stop the bullies, but had advised him to run in zigzags to throw off their aim. Why that hadn't occurred to him sooner, he would never know, but it was advice that he had treasured ever since.
If it had worked then, it could work now. Recklessly, he veered off his course, just as another “T-chok!” heralded the spot where he would otherwise have been running being transformed into a blazing mess. He changed direction again, running towards the far side of the field, then again, trying to make his movements as erratic as possible, a skill he had spent much of his formative years developing. “T-chok!” “T-chok!” The creature’s blasts were getting wider and wider from their mark. It was working! The dummy couldn’t keep up! He sighted a haystack in the corner of the field, and headed towards it, being careful to take as indirect a route as possible. As soon as he reached it, he hid himself behind it, knowing full well he couldn’t run another step: he was totally exhausted. Despite his outdoor life, he was not used to strenuous exertion of this sort. He collapsed next to the hay. Too late, he realised his mistake. “T-chok!” Within seconds, the haystack was a blazing inferno. He could hear the dummy’s joints creaking as it came to get him. He feebly tried to stand up, then resigned himself to his fate. He curled himself into a ball and waited for the end...
“Auton unit 4! You are low on power! You must withdraw. Prioritise the energy unit. We must reach full power as quickly as possible.”
OBJECTING - MUST DESTROY
“Forget the equine. This is of higher priority, do you understand? Higher priority.”
Sam could hardly believe it. The dummy was audibly getting further away. Was it a trick? Gingerly, he poked his head round the side of the stack. The dummy was definitely going! He wasn’t going to stick around to find out what would happen next. Having got some of his breath back, he set off in the direction of Ponyville, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the monster as possible.
“The Nestenes,” the Doctor was saying, “are essentially a slave race. They are controlled, and created, by the Nestene Intelligence, originally a being of pure thought that has developed an affinity for plastic.”
Twilight raised a hoof. “But Doctor,” she began, “if this thing exists, where in Equestria does it come from? I’ve never read about anything like that before,” she added, a trifle smugly.
At the Doctor’s insistence, Twilight had gathered the three missing Element Bearers, and they were now assembled in front of the Doctor, and a blackboard provided by Twilight, which he had covered in nonsensical writing and diagrams. She was beginning to regret indulging him – although he had been incredibly persuasive – as they were now watching him with bemused astonishment, occasionally glancing at Twilight, as if to say “You dragged us away from our work for this?” She cowered in embarrassment, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson.
“Haven’t you been listening?” exclaimed the Doctor, irritably. “They come from deep space, of course!” To his astonishment, this suggestion was greeted with snorts of derision from Rainbow Dash, and bemused looks from the others. Even Fluttershy suppressed a titter, and then looked mortified.
“If you expect us to believe that,” Rainbow said, hovering a few inches above the ground with her forelegs folded, “you must have something seriously wrong with you.”
The Doctor chose to ignore her. “In fact,” he continued, “The Intelligence has created two different types of slave. The first is the Nestene, capable of independent thought, and of reforming its constituent plastic to replicate any pony. They function alone, but can be instructed by the Intelligence, if it is present.”
“All this does seem a little far-fetched, I must admit,” Rarity offered.
“The second, and much more common, type,” said the Doctor, in as commanding a voice as he could muster, which was, to be fair, quite commanding, “is the Auton. Essentially a mindless drone, with only very basic thought and communication functions. They can be indirectly controlled by any nearby Nestenes – used as eyes and ears, that sort of thing, and given vocal commands – but if the Intelligence is present, it generally takes them all over completely. Essentially, they become part of it. All of them – and I can’t stress this strongly enough – can take control of any plastic."
“Oh no,” mimicked Dash in mock horror, “we could all be killed by sitting in plastic chairs!” More general laughter.
The Doctor was fuming. “Don’t make jokes about that. Death by chair is more unpleasant than you might think. Besides, they’re all heavily armed.”
“Sweet Celestia,” shouted Applejack, who had been right in the middle of baking an apple pie, and was not best pleased at being interrupted at her art, “could ya not just finish, already? Some of us have got work to do, ya know!”
“Certainly not,” came the rather put out response, “I haven’t even told you their usual invasion plan, yet.” The company made it apparent that if he was going to, they would rather he did so at once, and was quick about it. “It’s my guess that there’ll already be a Nestene or two in place, to co-ordinate the invasion, and control a number of Autons. They normally fire around a dozen ‘energy units’ at the area of the base of operations from space. Energy units are plastic spheres, which contain a living part of the Intelligence. Not enough to control the Autons, mind, but when you put a few of the spheres together, it’s another story. That’s why the Autons are sent out to collect them as soon as the weak psychic signal from them can be traced. They’re called energy units because the Intelligence is what the Autons and Nestenes depend upon largely for energy – otherwise, they’re reliant on absorbing kinetic energy from planetary movement – and no,” he said glaring at Twilight, “I’m not going to explain how that works. You’ll just have to believe me. Anyway, the Intelligence itself is a source of pure energy, and there’ll be an army of Autons awaiting activation as soon as the Intelligence is powerful enough. The energy it creates is exponentially linked to its mass.”
“Energy,” interrupted Twilight matter-of-factly, “cannot be created or destroyed.”
“I'm afraid not,” replied the Doctor. "This creature isn't native to this universe, and breaks several laws of physics just by existing."
Twilight turned to the others. “I sincerely apologise, girls,” she began, “I didn’t realise how preposterous this stallion’s claims would be. I shouldn’t have brought you all out like this.”
“Preposterous? Preposterous?”
A mortified Fluttershy cast him a “Please, please, just shut up,” look, but he ignored it completely.
“Really,” said an annoyed Rarity, “I should have just walked out when he arrived. I’m behind on work as it is. I’ve already had to close the boutique just to catch up.”
“It beats me how anypony can be that dishonest,” fumed Applejack. “He’s more treacherous than a cornered rattle snake.”
“That was the lamest ten minutes of my entire life!” complained Rainbow.
“Doctor, how could you?” pleaded Fluttershy, her eyes brimming with tears. She obviously felt horribly betrayed, not to say embarrassed.
Pinkie Pie, who had remained curiously silent throughout the lecture, now spoke. “So, what do you want from us?” It was a genuine question. The other five looked at her in astonishment.
“HUH?” they chorused.
“Well,” said the Doctor, a little taken aback, “the first stage is to obtain one of the energy units. I can track one, but I’d need some help bringing it back.” He spoke without much hope, but, again, Pinkie proved to be his salvation.
“Okie Dokie Lokie!” she cried, sproinging over to join him. “Check it out! Pinkie and the Doc, what a team! Together we’re the Alien Detective Squad!” She pulled out a trilby, seemingly from nowhere, and rammed it tight over her head, shading her eyes in what she evidently thought was a mysterious fashion. Her ears popped up through little holes cut in the side.
“Don’t call me ‘Doc’ ever again. Ever.”
“Huh,” grumbled Dash, “trust Pinkie to believe a story like that.”
“What do you mean?” she squeaked indignantly, “Everyone knows I’m the most sensible pony in town!” As if to underline this, she sproinged straight past Rainbow Dash and into a wall. “Darned hat!” she muttered. With a ‘poof’ her mane sprang back to its usual tangled self, causing the trilby to go flying off into the air. “Ah well!” she said happily, bouncing back to the Doctor.
“Well,” he began, “thank you very much, Miss Pie. From the others’ reactions, I might as well have been talking absolute gibberish.”
Pinkie gasped in horror, and pressed her face against the Doctor’s. “No one could ever believe that!” she shouted, and meant it, too.
“Well then, there’s no time to lose. We must leave immediately. We must let nothing distract us from our mission. This could be the end of the world as we know it.”
At that moment, in walked Spike, precariously balancing a tray piled high with a teapot, teacups, sandwiches and cakes, which he set on the table.
“Then again...” began the Doctor.
“Oh, Spike,” exclaimed a proud Twilight, “you really are a treasure sometimes.”
“Isn’t he just a darling!” agreed Rarity. There were general nods of agreement from the others.
“Oh, it was nothing,” said Spike, faux-modestly, and casually examining a front claw, “just figured you girls might be getting a little peckish.”
“Well, yer a mind-reader, then,” said Applejack, approaching the table.
“Dig in, girls!” said Spike, smiling with pride.
At that moment, Pinkie’s trilby decided to re-enter the scene. It fell right onto the tray at phenomenal velocity, attainable only in a magic castle, sending bits of bread, cake, sandwich filling and china flying all over the unfortunate ponies – all except the Doctor and Pinkie, who were nearest the door.
“As I was saying,” continued the Doctor, “We leave immediately! Once more unto the breach!”
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Quite solid work. New and interesting concept for Doctor Who story.
Word of advice: when you swap perspective, mark it. Try line or three ENTER's. Because sometimes I don't know who is talking, who's hero now.
All in one - good job.