Interrogation
The Doctor stood very still as the Commander stormed towards him. The Time Lord’s mind was working furiously. The Commander wasn’t the most intelligent fellow, but he was steadfast, determined, and above all, skilled. He didn’t get the job done well, or quickly, but he always completed what he set out to do. And the Doctor knew that what Hurricane really wanted was for a certain Time Lord to face justice. The magenta pegasus drew up quite close to the Time Lord. “Where are they?” the military pegasus growled.
The Doctor blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“Take me to the Professor!” Hurricane demanded, voice rising. “Under legal code LXXIV of the Conquered Territories Decision, I demand to be taken to see your leader within five to seven business hours!”
The Doctor’s mouth opened and closed silently. “Um,” he said. Alright. Okay. Hurricane had no idea that the Doctor could regenerate. More to the point, he had no idea that the blue pegasus in the sweater-vest against whom he had sworn vengeance was the same being as the tan earth pony standing before him. “I think there must be some… misunderstanding,” he said slowly.
The Commander snorted. “I doubt that.”
“My name is Turner. Doctor Time Turner,” the Doctor continued levelly. “I’m the, er, ‘leader’ of this ship, I suppose. Also the only one aboard, but that’s neither here nor there. The main thing is, I’m the chap you want to talk to.”
The fuschia pegasus snarled and stepped forward. “You lie.”
“I don’t!” the Doctor replied, stepping backwards. “I know Query well enough. His ship and mine are quite similar, but they don’t look exactly the same. Mine’s taller, for a start, and more neatly painted. And the sign on the door is white, not blue.”
Commander Hurricane paused, considering this. “The roofs… are not identical,” he conceded.
“There you go, see? This isn’t the Professor’s TARDIS, and he isn’t aboard this one, either. Only me.”
The Commander cast a weather eye around the room. It was, he had to admit, completely different from the grim, vaulted chamber in which the Professor and his agitator associates had lived. However, a Commander of the Imperial Pegasus Army did not give up so easily. “Let us say that I accept your claim that the Professor is not on this… vessel,” he replied. “You still have confessed to knowing him. I demand you take me to him at once.”
The Doctor gave a strained smile. “I’d love to. Really. I really would love to see you knock the smug little grin off his face. Just one problem with that.”
“Problem?” the Commander raised a brow. “I see no problem. Either you take me to see the Professor, or I will see you thrown in prison.”
The Doctor paused. “Prison? In the clouds? How d’you intend for me to stay up there?”
“It is no concern of mine if you should happen to, quite by accident, fall through,” said Hurricane, a note of menace entering his tone.
“Ah,” said the Doctor. “If I could have leave to address the problem, then?”
“Speak on,” the pegasus said, wary.
The Doctor gestured to the control array. “I’ve crashed,” he said bluntly. “The TARDIS tried to do something quite impossible, and she’s not going to do a thing until I can fix her. That’s another…” he broke off, thinking. “Say, twenty-two hours before I can so much as hop down to the chemist’s, let alone chase after the most dangerously crafty one of us all.”
The pegasus flushed with anger, but the Doctor barrelled on. “On the other hoof, if I could be supplied with a decent cloudwalking charm, an assistant, and somewhere in the area of…” he glanced at the readouts on a very pink console. “Say, half a liter of mercury, I could cut that time down to around six hours.”
The Commander regarded him, indecisive. Then, he reached into the open console panel and pulled out a piece of machinery. “I am now going to have your box moved to a laboratory,” he said. “It would be unwise to try and take off with a broken… Tarr-diz.”
The Commander looked so triumphant that the Doctor didn’t quite have the hearts to tell him that all he’d managed to remove, in a nest of oxygen suppliers and gas controls, was the air conditioner. Instead, he said, “You will be sure to keep that part safe, won’t you? We’ll need that before we take off again.”
“Of course,” said Hurricane magnanimously, lifting his helmet and secreting the aircon beneath. “Your cloudwalking boots, lab and assistant, and mercury will be procured shortly, Doctor Turner. Roan thanks you for your aid in the capture of this dangerous criminal.”
“Yes. Capture. Quite,” said the Doctor drily. Fortunately, the Commander was immune to sarcasm.
“It is fortunate, I was only just now on my way to meet one of the Empire’s greatest scientific minds,” he said, a note of boasting sneaking into his voice. “I am certain that she will be able to easily comprehend the workings of this vessel.”
“Really? Well, I shouldn’t wonder,” the Doctor said. “What’s her name, then?”
“You will be working,” the Commander said, swelling with pride, “with Lieutenant Silver Pallas.” He cantered back out of the TARDIS, slamming the door shut in the process.
The Doctor stared. “Who?”
Twilight’s face was hidden behind a mask, the brilliant light of the oxyacetylene torch reflected in the small window of tinted glass. Sparks rained down on the armored form, which lay, dormant, on the operating table. At length, she flicked off the torch and raised her mask. The other three mares followed suit as the alicorn mopped her brow. “Ain’t ya broken through yet, Twi?” Applejack asked, squinting to see the cherry-red metal clearly.
“I’m afraid not,” said the princess glumly. “Whatever this metal is, it has a melting point higher than anything I’ve ever seen. This is a custom-made cutter, here. The gas is lit by dragonfire, which Spike supplied. Two minutes of superheated dragon’s flame would be enough to melt about a cubic meter of solid granite, let alone ten. But it just… isn’t melting.”
Sunset scratched her head. “If conventional study isn’t working, I could always try reading its mind,” she offered.
“You’re assuming it has anything like a mind,” Romana corrected. “Could you ever read a computer in that way? Particularly one that’s been switched off!”
“It’s worth a try,” the chaos spirit argued.
“Well, perhaps,” Romana conceded. “But I think that there’s another way of going about this.”
Twilight cocked her head. “Go on…”
“It reacted considerably more to being struck in its joints than anywhere covered with armor,” the Time Lady said, levitating up the leg which had gone ‘dead’ after first being hit. “If we tried to apply pressure there…”
“Then we might jes’ be able ta pull it apart,” Applejack said. “Alright, Ah’m game fer it.”
“Good,” Romana said with a slight smile. “Have any of you ever used a Christmas cracker? A Hearth’s Warming cracker, I mean.”
“Right,” said Romana, squinting a bit as she levitated the robot just a few centimeters above the table. “Are you two ready?”
Twilight nodded. “I think so,” Sunset agreed. “There was something similar on the other side of the mirror. Every Thanksgiving, after the feast, two people take the turkey’s wishbone and, uh, they snap it… and…” she glanced at Twilight, who was looking a little green. “You know what? Never mind. Let’s just pull this robot apart.”
“Yes please,” Twilight agreed quickly.
Applejack glanced first at one, then the other. “On yer marks, get set, GO!”
The metal pegasus’s forelimbs lit up, one in magenta, one in orange. The two mages reared back their heads and yanked. Fortunately, the spell-reflecting metal didn’t seem to cover the flexible joints, which appeared to be made of some sort of plastic, so it was possible to obtain a grip. They certainly needed it. Before too long, both magical prodigies were sweating, teeth grit and mouths grimacing. Sunset was quietly uttering human curse words under her breath, and Twilight had fallen flat on her flanks as she strained.
However, their efforts were not in vain. The black plastic of the joints began to stretch and turn white with the tension. “Keep it up,” Romana coached. “You’re almost there.”
Applejack, meanwhile, leaned closer to look at the joins. “Huh. Ah think there’s some kinda connecter under there,” she muttered, picking up a mallet. “Lessee what happens when Ah do this—”
The answer, as the quartet learned in the following instants, was that the arm at which Applejack had struck shot off like an arrow, catching Sunset square in the eye, while the bulk of the body was sent sprawling off more slowly in the other direction, crashing into Twilight.
“Oh,” said the farmer sheepishly, setting the mallet back on the table. “Sorry, there.”
“Flipping OW!” Sunset yelled, clutching at her face. “My fishing FACE!” she added, somewhat unnecessarily.
“Oh well, no harm done,” Twilight sighed, shoving the robot’s bulk off her.
“No harm done? No screaming harm done? Like YAY there’s no harm done!” Sunset shouted, really being a little whiner about the whole thing. “I think you blanking broke it! You broke my smiling face! You nearly took my pudding-damn eye out!”
“Well, at least now we can see inside the body,” Twilight said brightly. “What’s wrong, Romana? You look pale.”
The Time Lady was frozen, staring at the tableau. She quietly pointed at the table. Blood was splattered over it, and not all of it was from Sunset’s horrific injuries which stemmed from getting punched in the face with roughly the same force as a bullet.
“At least somebody can see I’m hurt,” Sunset muttered.
Injuries which she could easily repair using chaos magic.
She paused. “Oh. Right.” Her face exploded once, then reformed. Blinking with her newly-repaired eyes, she could now plainly see why the others had gone so very quiet. Dots of blood were sprayed over the operating table. They were thickest where Applejack had popped the robot’s arm, and tailed away after both body parts.
Slowly, Sunset lowered her gaze to the forehoof that still lay in her lap. A small red puddle was forming at the end. Her horn illuminated, and she pulled away the rubber coating of the joint. Out of the end of the metal, bone protruded out of bleeding muscle, thin silver circuitry cut into the flesh. “Oh,” said the draconequus quietly. “I see.”
She rose and carefully set the severed hoof on the table. “Excuse me, please,” she said with careful calm. “I think I'm going to be sick.” She stifled a sob, then vanished in a small explosion. Twilight remained staring at the body that she had shoved away from her, her face a tableau of blank horror.
I did not speak much for the rest of that meeting. I felt numb, as though I had been brushed by the hoof of King Midas, turned to solid gold. (A trophy. A prize won and then flaunted. Property.) I managed to excuse myself to the bathroom, and I plunged my head under the faucet. (That was how Midas had rid himself of the golden touch. He stood in a river and let the current wash it away. (It made a sort of sense; the river was too big, too fast to turn to gold, and the drops were too tiny.) (You can't stop running water by standing in it.))
I couldn't look in the mirror. I couldn't meet my own eyes, knowing what I did. Knowing what I had done. There was nopony I could tell, nopony who could know. If this got out, it would ruin both his career and mine. (Midas had had a later adventure, Scootaloo could remember. Given donkey ears by an angry god. (He could hide it, most of the time, with a big hat.) The only one he couldn’t hide it from was his barber) But how could I keep it in? How could I hide it, knowing what I did now? How could I leave Heat Wave without him spilling the beans? (The barber couldn’t keep it a secret forever (tragically, Midas had not had the foresight to evoke a Pinkie Promise from the man) and had dug a hole and whispered it into the earth. Reeds had grown up from the spot, all whispering in the wind “The king has asses’ ears, the king has asses’ ears.” Until the whole world knew. (Nothing spread faster than rumour (Gabby Gums had taught them that) especially if the rumour is true.))
It was then, with my face dripping and the sink running, that I heard the cry. A high wail, like a siren. (Twilight had faced sirens once. Their voices were hypnotic, compelling). I rose from the sink, as though entranced. (Classically, they fed on desire, lust even. (Scootaloo had always thought she’d be immune. Then Mom said, ‘oh look, it’s Rainbow Dash,’ and Scootaloo had whipped around, and they had both laughed…) but now they seemed to feed on animosity (which, Scootaloo supposed, were at least pretty connected).)
I walked into a little room, painted lilac. There was a little white wooden crib, and a mobile hanging overhead. (...)
Solar was already in there. The crying had stopped, or at least faded to a low whimper, and she was singing or hushing or murmuring, I can’t recall. And she was holding a baby. Maybe a year old, but certainly not much more. (...(What)...)
She turned and smiled at me. “Would you like to hold her?” she invited.
What could I do but nod? “What’s her name?” I whispered. (No)
“Our little Scootaloo.” (...)(!)
Scootaloo? Scootaloo, get back here! Scootaloo!
Scootaloo slowly blinked awake. “Wha,” she muttered.
“Oh, good,” said a familiar, chirpy voice, awash with relief. “You're awake.”
“Hrng,” Scootaloo muttered. The last thing she remembered was running into the changing rooms to confront the foalnapper, and then… “I haven't felt this bad since my first college party,” she remarked, gazing at the ceiling. “How long was I out?”
“Long enough to make me worry,” Ditzy said, her tone a note sharper.
“Nonsense,” said a new voice, cool and collected. “My pegasi were told only to incapacitate. They accounted for her condition as soon as they scanned for it, and as you yourself saw, Ms. Scootaloo, they are entirely capable of rendering a subject unconscious without leaving a mark.”
The orange pegasus sat bolt upright, wincing at the shower of fireworks that went off behind her eyes. “The Tartarus are you?” she asked, staring incredulously at the new mare.
“Scootaloo, this is the Rani,” Ditzy said, gesturing with a hoof. “She’s a Time Lady.”
“One of the Doctor’s people?” Scootaloo murmured, still dizzy.
The silver mare gazed at her dispassionately with painfully bright green eyes. “Much as it pains me to admit,” she muttered.
For the briefest moment, a frown flickered over Ditzy’s face, but it soon was gone. “She’s the one who brought us here,” the postmistress continued. “She detected us as anachronisms and decided she’d better take us in before we messed up the time stream.”
Scootaloo paused, processing this. “Do you mean take us in like, “here, have some tea and cookies,” or like, “take your swill and tack and go to the gulag?””
The Rani’s expression turned into a glower. “The answer may be dependent on how you choose to comport yourself,” she said coolly. “I have no desire to harm either of you, but I have no compunctions about locking you in one of the offices for an hour or so.”
“Well. You’re honest, at least,” Scootaloo said flatly.
The Rani made a noncommittal noise and turned to an alembic filled with bubbling silver liquid. “Also, you may be required to hide,” she added as an afterthought. “There are sufficient places for it. I am being…” her lip curled. “Inspected. By an oversight committee. In… perhaps half an hour. In the meantime, you mentioned tea. We have none, and the coffee is as bitter as calcium hydroxide. There is soda, if you would care for it.”
“Uh, yeah, sure. Sounds good,” Scootaloo said, slightly put off by the frankness.
“One for me, too,” Ditzy agreed.
The Rani opened a cabinet and pulled out a pair of bottles, not even glancing away from her experiment. She slid them down the counter with a flick of the wing.
Scootaloo opened hers cautiously. Ick. Grape. Still, she was pretty thirsty. She took a big swig and swallowed, making a face. Flat, too. Yech.
Ditzy nursed her soda, never once taking her eyes off the Rani. “Oversight committee, huh?”
The silver mare actually hesitated, her hooves resting on the knobs of the alchemical equipment. “Yes,” she said simply. “Your presence would draw… comments, at best. At worst, we might all be questioned. It is better for you simply to hide.”
Ditzy nodded. “Alright. Actually, we could probably just go back to the TARDIS. Could we borrow some mercury, actually? The fluid links—”
“Your TARDIS is being transported here even as we speak,” the Time Lady said in a measured tone. “My agents are spread all across the city. Apparently, Commander Hurricane has some manner of history with your husband.”
Ditzy went quite pale. “Fortunately,” the Rani soldiered on, “he does not seem inclined to act upon it, for now. The Doctor is safe enough.”
“Yeah, uh, hi,” Scootaloo cut in. “Still here. What exactly are these ‘agents’ of yours doing? ‘Cause, I’m pretty sure I saw them foalnap a guy. Where is he? What the Tartarus are you doing here, lady?”
The silver pegasus froze. “I,” she said flatly, “am serving my punishment here. Running a hospital, of sorts, under the cover of being a scientific advisor. That is all which I am prepared to say on the matter.”
“Punishment for what?” Scootaloo asked, suspicious.
The Rani tapped a hoof on the ground. “Show the mares to the side room,” she said coolly.
“Yes~,” buzzed a voice from behind Scootaloo. The orange pegasus jumped. She hadn’t even realized that the guards were still there. A golden stallion with silver eyes observed her with the air of one regarding a necessary piece of paperwork. “You will~ come wizz uz~,” he hummed.
Scootaloo grumbled under her breath, but rose to her hooves. “Alright, fine. But as soon as the TARDIS gets here, I want to stay in there.”
“Fine,” said the Rani, as the other two pegasi were escorted from the room. Dropping to a whisper, she continued, “The sooner you’re all out of my hair, the better.”
Rainbow peered doubtfully over the edge of her cloud. “You think we should head for the castle?” she hissed at Lofty.
The older mare gave her an incredulous look. “We’re running for our lives, and you want to head for the most noticeable thing in town?”
“The lights and sound stopped an hour ago,” Rainbow pointed out. “Twilight and the others might be hurt, in which case they need our help, or they might have beaten the robot, in which case we need theirs.”
“I really don’t know about this…”
“Look, we haven’t seen it at all since we left Ditzy’s house. We don’t even know if it made it through the portal. I think we can risk it.”
“Well…”
“Well, c’mon then!” Dash said. She spread her wings and soared for the glittering structure, not noticing how the moon reflected bright off her now-silver wings.
Romane Holiday trotted away from Tender Care’s house, head hung low. No, Scootaloo wasn’t hiding out with Button. No, neither of them had seen her at all. Yes, they’d certainly keep an eye out, but what was all this about? Holiday’s head sunk lower. She could feel the honey-beige mare’s worried eyes on her. Tender was always the sort to care deeply about this sort of thing. Holiday had always thought of the mare as a sort of mother to all things; not like Gaea, giving birth to all, but more a sort of modern Hestia, caring for all life, providing home and hearth for all whom she cared for.
A modern Hestia. What did that make Holiday herself? A modern Prometheus? Victoria Frankenstallion, pursued by a monster of her own making? She pursed her lips in a wan sort of pseudo-smile. Rambling again, Romane, she chided herself. Bad habit. Had she rambled on too long in the telling of her tale? Would it not have been better just to tell Scootaloo about her parentage? Not quite the truth, of course. It would have been enough, though. Enough to explain the truth.
Solar Flare was weak and ill. [Like Melanion, fated to die when a certain log in the fire burned to ash—[no, stop. You’re babbling again]] It was a sort of wasting disease, Romane had learned later. Something to do with the respiratory system. [She had learned more later, of course. When it became her responsibility. [Pegasus bones were hollow, made to house their excess lungs. They had to be tough to last. Scootaloo’s weren’t]]
It wasn’t contagious, of that she had been assured. But it was genetic. Scootaloo had the same disease. Neither mother nor daughter would ever be able to fly well, if at all. Their bones were brittle, and their lungs poor. It wasn’t fatal, not in and of itself, but it made the possibility of accidents far worse. [She’d nearly had a heart attack the first day Scootaloo came home from Crusading, all scrapes and bruises. They’d had to have a serious talk about safety pads and helmets after that. [But that was years ahead of the here and the now, [or the there and then.]]]
It had weakened her immune system, as well. There had been a nasty flu bug that year. She took supplements and medicines, a carefully-plotted schedule of care on hourly, daily, weekly frames. And still, despite it all, she smiled, bright and sunshiny, brimming over with kindness to all. Persephone in the Underworld, wed to a grim god, living in the realm of the dead. She was well into winter. Holiday knew it. Heat Wave knew it. Solar herself must certainly have known it, though she didn’t let on. Ultimately, she would never again pass into spring.
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I have to love how, even when the Doctor's delighting in the idea of siccing Hurricane on his preincarnation, he can't resist calling himself "the most dangerously crafty one of us all.”
Always a warning sign when the Doctor doesn't recognize someone who's supposed to be a historical figure. (We already know she's the Rani, but this should get the alarm bells ringing for him.)
So... is the narrator also a draconequus, or just lemony? Also, I have to think that Sunset deliberately applied censor bleeps to her own dialogue.
Unless she was already with Lofty, she wasn't the one having an affair. Still, an unexpected twist that raises a lot of questions.
Also, it almost seems like the invading cyborgs weren't the Rani's idea. Whose, then? I suppose we'll see in time.
10100735
Chaos gods and the fourth wall just generally do not get along.
New reader I just finished reading and I just want to say that you have managed to combine two of my favorites shows into some of the most exciting stories I have read. I am gonna to track this story and I cant wait to read more