The Lost Pegasus

by J8ck78

Chapter 23 - Lost Pegasus

A few seconds of hitting Jack with his Sonic Screwdriver, Jack was all patched up and ready to go. The same could be said for their plan, as the Doctor pushed a banana peel and in seconds, the TARDIS center glowed a brilliant gold for a few seconds. He looked over it in a bitter sweet feeling. On the one hand, he had, at his fingertips, the very tool they needed to defeat Discord. The downside was he needed to nearly sacrifice one of his dearest companions to do so! He took in a deep breath as Jack walked over. Sweat was pouring down his face as Jack put his hand on his back and gave him a reassuring smile. While it was tough to look at him, the Doctor nodded back and finally fired his Screwdriver at the TARDIS.

“So, Doc, we ready?”

“Yes. All we need now is Derpy.”

“She'll be fine,” Jack tried.

“Can you be sure. This power is not meant to be seen by anything! It can drive a person or pony insane!”

Jack of course had an answer: “I'm not sure. It's just the only option we got and I'm going with it!”

“You're somewhat similar to your namesake,” The Doctor remarked.

“I'd like to know how,” Jack responded sarcastically.

Before the Doctor could respond there came a low moan and they looked over to see Discord starting to stir. Their fears rematerialized as they hoped that Discord hadn't caught on to their plan. Jack ran over and aimed his Grenade launcher prepared for anything. Whooves ran to his controls and started throwing and activating everything and anything he could. He cursed himself for not doing this earlier as he madly ran his fingers and eyes over the TARDIS. With Discords own power reduced, he could locate all inside the TARDIS, and sure enough he did. In a flash, Twilight, Tara, Diane, and Derpy appeared trying to wake up Reine, while Lou, Celeste, and a half clothed April and Dash appeared, the latter two screamed in horror.

The Doctor looked to Jack, a bit uncomfortable with the sudden change in the situation. While April and Dash quickly put their clothes on, Twilight and Diane walked over to the out cold Discord, Diane poking him somewhat to see if he was dead or not. There was a subtle movement, and she jumped back and his behind Twilight.

“What is going on?!” shouted Twilight.

“Derpy forgive me!” the Doctor pleaded.

Derpy looked to him confused until the Doctor opened a panel. From it came a stream of golden colored smoke, that began to whisk around about the room. It swirled around the center, then out to each one of the beings standing in the room; save Jack which it avoided at all costs. The Doctor looked on, a tear nearly forming in his eye as it started to orbit around Derpy. He started to have second thoughts, he could end this, right here and now. One punch at the panel and it would shut and the vortex stream would dissipate before any harm could come of it. His hand slowly reach for it, the Doctor unwilling to put Derpy through it. Just as he grasped it, a voice in his head said everything was going to be alright. What startled him the most was it was Derpy's voice! He found himself suddenly unwilling to close the panel, and watched painfully as Derpy became transfixed on the golden glow swarming around her.

All eyes were upon her, in awe of what was happening, until a explosion changed it. Jack was being held in the air by Discord, his Launcher smoking from being fired. In seconds he was thrown across the room so hard he cracked the wall of the TARDIS. He fell off and fell face first onto the ground, out cold. Discord stood there; more of his old draconequus form than human.

“Hello everybody and everypony.” he grinned.

He was through playing games, and held his hand up charging a attack, eyes glowing white in a chaos powered rage. Celeste and Lou met the force with their own attacks while the Humane 6 attempted to use the elements of Harmony. Meanwhile the Doctor ran over to Derpy, who was holding her head in pain, the golden aura glowing around her. He held her close nearly on the verge of collapsing in emotional pain himself.

Doctor! I'm scared! What's going on?”

She looked up to him, her eyes glowing with the power now manifesting inside of her. The Doctor could hardly look at her, knowing he was the cause of all this.

“I'm so sorry Derpy. I promise everything's going to be okay.”

“What happened to me? I- I can see everything!”

“I know.” The Doctor told her

“The TARDIS looked into you, and you looked into the TARDIS.”

Before Derpy could say anything back to him, there came a chuckle from afar. The two looked over to see Discord holding back, having managed to throw off the rest of his attackers.

“So you glow in the night. You honestly think that will beat me?”

The Doctor glared at him with a fire in his eyes: “Discord, this is your last chance. Stand down and stop this madness, or you will be destroyed.”

“We will see about that,” he sneered.

However, before he could even raise a finger, he was thrown across the room and slammed into the wall. He slid down when he suddenly felt his power being drained. He looked up to see what he thought was Derpy standing there, albeit a golden glowing one. The rest, their strength returned thanks to Derpy, readied their own attacks to finish him off for good as Discord looked on in disbelief.

“You honestly can't hope to stop me!” he cracked.

Dash was quick to answer: “We got a Goddess, two Deities, The Elements of Harmony, Twilight Sparkle, the Doctor, and a Zombie! I think the odds are pretty stacked in our favor!”

Then came a grunt from said Zombie nearby as he stood up, ready again to fight. Everyone was up and ready to fight Discord, and he knew it. He looked on, trying his best to hide his fear. This wasn't going as he planned, and he couldn't think of anyway to weasel his way out of it. The rest looked on as he tried to think of a way out, and Jack struck first. Smoke arced across the TARDIS, striking the man in the face, throwing him into the wall. He recovered fast, and was instantly up before being restricted by magical bindings from Twilight. He struggled to break free before a green beam struck him in the center and he fell over, the Doctor looking on in anger. The others closed in ready to fire upon him, but he was not intimidated.

“Even if you turn me to stone, I wont be held long! This amount of Disharmony on this planet will have me out in a few years!”

“Then we wont put you in a prison,” said Celeste.

“You can't kill me,” Discord chuckled.

“You've terrorized people and ponies long enough.”

“Do your worst,” he challenged.

Derpy's golden glow seemed to wash out all over the place as if it was interacting with the time line.

“I already have. I brought me here on the TARDIS, I brought The Doctor and Twilight here. I resurrected the dead Jack, and almost dropped his car on Twilight by accident.”

“What!? That was you!?” yelled Twilight.

“I was trying to warn you he was coming!” she apologized.

Twilight wanted to say more, but kept her mouth shut, it was Derpy they were talking about. Derpy turned back to Discord as he himself started to glow.

“And lastly, I destroyed you.”

Discord looked to her confused until he looked down to see himself starting to dissipate and disappear. He snarled, and snapped his fingers and he was back to normal.

“Did you think it was that easy?”

Derpy glared at him, until Discord was struck down with a bright white light. Celeste threw everything she could into this attack, holding nothing back. Her sister joined her, the dark blue beam erupting from her own weapon. Discord tried to hold them back, but his power was continuing to drain thanks to the efforts of Derpy. Just when things couldn't get worse, a rainbow of lights hit him, and Discord fell to the ground. Celeste, Lou, and the Elements of Harmony all firing at once at the Spirit of Chaos. He managed to open one eye to see Derpy standing over him, eyes glowing with a mix of rage and power. He felt his body dissipate, starting at his feet and working it's way up.

“You shall harm nopony else, anymore!” she told him

“No! You can't kill-”

He never finished, his body, mind, and soul erased from the time line. After all this, it was finally over; Discord at least. Derpy could feel the power starting to eat away at her, burn up inside of her. She couldn't control this, she knew why the Doctor did this, but couldn't find out why. The rest looked on to Derpy as she stood there slowly starting to burn up trying to think of a way to help.

“No! Don't go near her!” shouted the Doctor

He held them back, using his Sonic Screwdriver as a weapon. They could see the pain in his eyes, and felt it as well. The Doctor looked back to Derpy, tears in his eyes, until a hand was placed on her shoulders. She herself looked to see a bruised Jack standing there, a worried look of determination on his face. Despite her new powers of the vortex, she could not understand what he was doing.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“My job,” he said.

Derpy suddenly collapsed and the Doctor grabbed her. Jack stood there, but stumbled back a few steps.

“You know Doc, regardless if this stuff is or isn't going to kill me, you failed to realize one thing, even when you realized it!”

“What?”

“I'm still a fixed point in time, and I have the power of the Vortex.”

The Doctor cringed in fear when there came a loud low ringing that echoed through the TARDIS. There was no mistaking it, the sound of the Cloister bell. Everyone looked to Jack as he stood there laughing.

“Yeah. This is going to hurt.”

“You knew about this!?” shouted Twilight.

“Only thing I was capable of doing was giving me my future memories. I knew this was going to happen from the beginning.”

The Bell continued to ring and ring as Jack struggled to even stand.

“Goodbye everyone,” Jack coughed.

He then turned his head to one person in particular: Goodbye Lou.”

She had a tear on her face, but before anything could be said, Jack disappeared in a flash of gold and white. A breeze seemed to sweep through the TARDIS as they all looked on in disbelief. Nothing of Jack remained, nothing of Discord remained. However, in the wake of it all, everything started to return to normal. The cloister bell had stopped ringing, and albeit faintly, they could hear birds chirping outside. Still, questions needed to be answered.

“What just happened? What did Jack do!?” yelled April.

The Doctor was quick to answer, although he didn't like it: “He deleted himself from the time stream! He deleted himself to save the Universe. Aside from us in the TARDIS, no one will ever remember his existence.”

“He died, again!” shouted Lou.

“I thought he was immortal!” exclaimed Diane.

“He deleted himself from the Time stream! He didn't die, he was erased! There's a difference.” the Doctor explained.

“And he knew,” said Dash.

“He was willing to die once. What was preventing him from doing it again?” Twilight said.

The Doctor instantly caught onto that: “But that doesn't make any sense! He was willing to not die!”

“What?” asked Lou.

“He was willing to not die! What happened!?”

There came the sound of a door opening and the head shell of a Dalek skidded across the floor and into the wall. Next thing they knew Jack walked in holding the lightsaber-baton the Doctor had made him.

“I forgot about that guy.” he said walking in.

“What the? What happened?” shouted Reine.

“How are you here? You deleted yourself!” shouted Diane.

“No, I blew up,” came Jack.

Faces of amazement and disbelief hit his face; which he returned with a smile. So many wanted to ask him questions and he just shrugged.

“How did you-” started Derpy.

“I don't know,” Jack responded.

“I thought you-” tried Twilight.

“Still don't know.”

“But the vortex-” started the Doctor.

“I blew up. Can I leave? This is the fifth? Time I've died in this thing. I'm tired of dying.”

Lou was upon him and hugged him close: “Same here.”