Silver Nemesis
As the Crusaders hurried down the tunnel from which Apple Bloom’s voice had come, they heard another voice, deep and slow. “Little pony should not be using the bad words,” it said. “Little pony should be good and sweet and nice.”
The five Crusaders peered around the corner into what could only be described as a cave. The ceiling was vaulted, and the whole edifice was much more ill-kept than the tunnels they had been walking through. The floor was dirty, and the walls were rough, forming ledges and cliffs. Complex stalactites and stalagmites sprung up every which way. In the center of it all, the Crusaders saw Apple Bloom. She was being held in the huge, meaty paw of a cave troll, which was easily larger than the barn at Sweet Apple Acres. He was currently scolding her, shaking his finger in her face. She looked like she was seriously considering trying to bite it off.
“Lemme go, ya darn galoot!” Bloom said. “Ah’m busy!”
“Yes. Pony very busy little pony.”
“...Alright. So are ya gonna put me down or--”
“First, pony’s hair must be brushed!”
“...An’ that’s a no,” Apple Bloom grumbled. The enormous troll picked up a comb from the floor and started cheerfully brushing her mane.
The others all pulled back. “Okay,” Rumble said. “So it doesn’t look like she’s in immediate danger, but we also clearly can’t just leave her there.”
“Agreed,” Dinky said. “We can’t overpower him.”
“Not even with magic?” Scootaloo asked.
“Cave trolls are notoriously resistant to direct spellcasting,” Dinky said. “I could try and throw a big rock at his head, I guess, but it’d probably only make him angry. Plus, some of the shrapnel might hit Apple Bloom, and that’s assuming we don’t get all Of Mice and Mares.”
Button frowned. “Rephrase that for those of us who didn’t do so hot in Literature class?”
“He gets distracted and suddenly has a handful of applesauce,” Scootaloo said grimly.
“Oh.” Button looked ill. “Got it.”
Dinky was peering around the corner again. “The ceiling’s real low…” she mused. “He can’t even walk upright like this. I bet we could outrun him pretty easily, maybe hide in one of the narrower tunnels if it came to that.”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “Yeah, probably. But we still need to distract him. How can we get him to put down Apple Bloom for long enough for us all to escape?”
Rumble peered at the huge troll, who was still brushing Apple Bloom’s mane with surprising care and tenderness. “It looks like he’s trying to give her a makeover. Do any of you have any, I dunno, makeup? Accessories? Get him distracted with those for long enough, and we can all make a clean getaway.”
He looked at Sweetie Belle hopefully. She arched an eyebrow. “Suuure. I always take my makeup bag with me on dangerous missions to distant planets.”
“Hey, listen. You know as well as I do who your sister is. Is it so improbable that she would have taught you from a young age to do exactly that?”
“She tried,” Sweetie conceded. “I didn’t listen, though. Kinda wish I had, now.”
“Button?” Dinky tried. “Anything in that bag of tricks?”
“Uh…” He dug around. “Seven half-empty bottles of hoof polish?”
“That’ll work,” Sweetie said. “You and Apple Bloom are both autumns, so at least some of those colors should work…”
“Only, like, three of them are for me,” Button said. “The rest were mostly for making marks on parts and machines, so they’re, y’know. Really bold.”
Dinky glanced out into the adjoining corridor. “If the color of the ribbons he’s tying her mane up with are anything to go by, I think that’s only going to be a positive.”
“Alright. Anypony else got any makeover gear?” Sweetie asked.
There was a collective shaking of heads. “Okay then. Now, how are we going to get the big guy’s attention?”
“Somepony’s going to have to go out there and start trying to sell these to him,” Dinky said.
“They’ll have to be really fast to keep him from scooping them up, too,” Button said.
“And small,” Rumble put in. “Generally nimble.”
Scootaloo rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. “Just give me the stupid bottles already.”
“You know, of course, that you’ll never be able to live outside my shadow, don’t you?” a massive brown earth pony draped in a tangled, lengthy scarf said, his toothy grin sparkling with prideful malice.
“You’ve had centuries of spare time,” the elderly unicorn said, leaning on his cane to glare down at his collapsed future self. “Centuries! And yet you never once lived up to your promise, hm? You never went back to see your own granddaughter.”
“You’re letting your misery consume you,” a blue batpony in dark glasses and a hoodie warned. “If you’re not careful, it’ll destroy everything you love.”
“You’ve become careless with your companions,” warned a pinto pegasus with celery pinned to his lapel. “How quickly do you move on these days? Do you even remember all of their names?”
The Doctor opened his mouth. “Susan,” he croaked. “Ian. Barbara. Vicki…”
“None of them here now,” a blue pegasus clad in a question-mark-patterned sweater noted archly. “You’ve sacrificed an awful lot of pawns, Doctor, for someone who claims to hold life so dear.”
“We aren’t so different, y’know. You and me,” said the image that the Doctor had almost thought was his own reflection. It wasn’t, though. Not quite. “We were both born in war. Forged in fire. And you couldn’t even bear to look at me. Couldn’t face the clone, even if it was only half-you.” He blinked and laughed bitterly. “Looks like I’m half-human on my mother’s side after all.”
“The screams will always haunt you, you know,” said a gangly pegasus in a fez and bow tie. “Forever and always.” He glanced around quickly, then leaned in. “And they always should. No one should ever be able to. Let them fuel you, spur you on to make sure it never happens--”
The tide of voices quickly rose once more, drowning out the blue pegasus. The Doctor blinked. That had actually almost sounded… encouraging?
He looked around at the assembled reflections. He could recognize his past and present selves behind the mirrors. Off in the distance, he could even see a few alternate histories lurking in the shadows of the glass. But there were a few that he could see, but couldn’t recognize. The twinky, gangly pegasus. The retired rockstar batpony. The tiny blonde earth pony.
The Doctor shook his spinning, aching head. He focused on the orange mare. “Hang on. Who are you?”
She gazed at him seriously for a long moment. Then she looked round at the other two familiar faces. “Alright lads! Contact!”
“Contact,” the old batpony said.
“Contact!” the skinny pegasus crowed. All three shut their eyes in concentration. None of the other Doctors seemed to pay them any mind, not even as their own mirrors winked out of existence one by one, until the room the Doctor was trapped in was a perfect equilateral triangle.
The Doctor glanced around. “I don’t understand,” he said.
The batpony chuckled. “What? You think the Valeyard could kick up something this big without disturbing a few other potential futures?”
“That’s us! Hallo!” The pegasus waved. The Doctor waved back, uncertain.
“Now!” said the orange earth pony. “We can’t actually interfere directly, obviously. WWe can’t even stay here like this very much longer”
“Oh,” said the Doctor.
“But we’ll be doing what we can!” she assured him.
“In the meantime, remember what we told you,” the pegasus said.
“You… haven’t told me anything, though.”
The one in the hoodie groaned. “Rassilon give me strength.”
“Oi!” the mare frowned at the old batpony. “He’s been through a lot. Not exactly at the top of his game. Go easy on ‘im.”
“Let’s put this another way,” the one in the fez suggested. “You’ve accepted your burden, Doctor.”
The old one nodded. “Now you just need to accept that others can help to bear it.”
“Allons-y,” the earth pony said with a sharp nod. Then she gave a grin and winked at him. All three mirrors shattered, sending the Doctor falling into an endless void, screaming as he went.
“Alright,” Sweetie Belle said. “We all good with the plan?”
“I still don’t love it,” Scootaloo said. “But yeah. Let’s do this thing.”
Rumble sneaked a peek around the corner. “Okay, he’s looking the other way. Everypony, get into position!”
All five ponies scurried out into the cavern beyond. Dinky and Rumble hid behind a stalagmite, while Button Mash and Sweetie Belle hurried into the tunnel on the other side of the cave. Scootaloo pressed herself up against another stalagmite and peered around it. She met Apple Bloom’s eye, and the earth pony gasped. The cave troll frowned at her. “Something is wrong, little pony?”
“Uh… these ribbons are a mite tight,” Bloom said smoothly. “They’re pullin’ somethin’ fierce on my scalp. Reckon you can retie them a little looser?”
The troll gasped in horror. “Little pony should not be in hurt! Jim will loosen ribbon.”
While the troll -- or ‘Jim’, apparently -- was distracted, Scootaloo waved to the others. Dinky and Rumble hurried to an even closer stalagmite to Apple Bloom and the troll. Scootaloo braced herself for what she was about to do. Drawing in a deep breath, she stepped out into full view. Apple Bloom’s eyes went wide and she opened her mouth, but Scootaloo shushed her.
Then, straightening up and tossing her mane, she called out, “Good evening, my good stalli -- er, my good troll!”
Jim paused and looked around. Scootaloo continued. “You look like a troll interested in the finer things in life!”
Jim pointed to his chest.
“Yes, you, sir! How would you like to buy some finery for the decoration of little ponies?”
She had his attention before. Now she had his interest. “Little pony sell accessories?” he asked, fascinated.
Apple Bloom glared. “Scootaloo,” she hissed. “What d’you think yer do-- WHAAA!”
Jim wheeled around to set Apple Bloom on one of the many cliffs around the room before leaning down to come face to face with Scootaloo. “What accessories has little pony?” he asked.
Scootaloo swallowed. The creature’s breath smelled of wet earth, which wasn’t exactly unpleasant or unexpected, but was nevertheless deeply off-putting to experience. “U-uh, just, just hoof polish,” she said. “But in all kinds of different colors!”
“Different colors,” the cave troll echoed, his craggy brow ridge rising. “Please show colors to Jim!”
Dinky and Rumble peered out from behind their stalagmite. Dinky nodded sharply, and Rumble took to the air. For a moment, Scootaloo felt the old, familiar stab of jealousy, but she squashed it down. This was no time to be petty. “Of course, of course. Could you give me your hand? It’d be a lot easier to paint some swatches on there…”
Apple Bloom glared down at Scootaloo. What in blazes did she think she was playing at? This could only end with her being captured, too, and while she didn’t exactly mind a moment’s respite from the cave troll’s makeover session, she didn’t want her friend to suffer the same fate. She tugged at her dress. It was vaguely pink, and seemed to have been made out of burlap.
Then she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. Grey on grey, it was hard to see at first, but when she turned to face the shape head-on… “Rumble!” she gasped softly.
He grinned, landing softly next to her on the ridge. “What? You didn’t think we would just leave you behind, did you?”
She smiled almost wide enough to split her face in half. “‘Course not. Took yer sweet time ‘bout it, though.”
“Yeah, sorry. We didn’t actually see you get snatched.”
Apple Bloom shuddered. “Yeah. It weren’t pleasant. There Ah was, mindin’ mah business an’ out of the dark comes a hand th’ size of an apple cart.”
“That must’ve been unpleasant.”
“Terrifyin’!” Bloom shook her head. “Still. This ain’t hardly th’ worst fate Ah coulda suffered.”
“True enough. C’mon, we’ve spent way too long in the open as it is. Let’s get gone.”
“Right.”
Rumble wrapped his hooves around Apple Bloom and lifted off again. They hadn’t gotten very far, though, when they both came to a sudden halt.
Apple Bloom glanced down. “Aw, horseapples.”
The dress had snagged on the rough rock wall.
Scootaloo, meanwhile, was patiently painting the cave troll’s rough, rocky skin with every sample of hoof polish she had. She would make a mark, a few square inches in area, on his arm, big enough for him to clearly see the color. Once it had dried a little, Jim would raise his arm to gaze at it intensely, studying the new mark and ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the color.
“So, I gotta ask,” Scootaloo said, painting on a patch of pink with mixed-in glitter hearts. “What’s the big idea about giving ponies makeovers? What do you get out of it?”
Jim shrugged his massive shoulders. “Jim make little ponies look pretty because Jim like pretty little ponies.”
“Huh. Well, I can’t say fairer than that,” Scootaloo admitted.
“Someday, Jim open little pony salon, where all little ponies can come so Jim make them pretty.” He paused, then added hopefully, “Jim can make little pony pretty?”
Scootaloo pursed her lips. “We’ll see,” she said. “How does that look, Jim?”
Jim stared at the new patch on his arm, transfixed. “So… beautiful,” he whispered. “Jim will take all the hoof paints, little pony. How many acorns must Jim pay?”
“Uhhh…” Scootaloo’s mind spun wildly. How many acorns seemed reasonable? How much was an acorn? “Fifteen?” she tried. “Er, per… bottle?”
Jim’s mouth dropped. “So cheap,” he murmured, shaking his head.
“Yeah, well… I’m a big supporter of independent businesses, you know?”
Jim nodded. “Jim appreciates you, little pony. Jim will go and get acorn purse.”
Scootaloo glanced around Jim and her eyes went wide. Rumble and Apple Bloom were stuck on the wall, yanking at the hem of Bloom’s dress. “I, er, wait!”
Jim paused and looked back at her. “I, uh, have one more accessory for you,” Scootaloo said slowly.
The cave troll’s eyes lit up, probably. It was kind of hard to tell under his massive brow ridge. “What is accessory?”
“It’s, erm…” Scootaloo took a deep breath and lifted a wing. “It’s called ‘feathers’.”
The Doctor’s screams echoed, reverberating throughout time and space, though the infinite void was apparently devoid of either. Pure darkness flashed through the Doctor’s mind, interspersed with occasional flashes of color and light. Waves of energy, representing the untold billions of neverwere timelines discarded by the vagaries of fate, roiled and piled atop one another, forming a cosmos-cleaving blade-like structure.
Oh brilliant, the Doctor thought. The Time Knife. Been ages since I saw the Time Knife.
The Doctor crashed to the floor and lay still for a few moments. Then, a strong pair of hooves gently rolled him over. Big Macintosh stared into his eyes for a long moment, then glanced up. “Well,” she said. “He ain’t dead.”
The Doctor groaned and glanced around. It seemed that he’d been reunited with the others, back in Rassilon’s Tomb. Ditzy rushed to his side. “Doctor! What happened? Are you alright?”
“Er… I think… I think I just had a psychedelic interlude,” the Doctor muttered.
Pinkie gasped and her eyebrows shot up. “In a fanfiction?” she asked.
“As for how I’m doing…” the Doctor sat up and rubbed his muzzle. No blood. Good. “Yes, I think I’m just fine. I think that was meant to go on for rather longer than it did…” He shook his head. “How did we end up back here?”
“Th’ world flipped, an’ we all landed right back next to th’ coffin,” Applejack said.
“We’re being toyed with,” Discord growled. “I don’t like that one bit.”
Everypony turned to glare at them. Even Fluttershy looked rather reproachful. “Hey! Listen, I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite, alright?” they snapped. “Sheesh! I’m so sorry that I, the spirit of chaos, change, and disharmony, am not consistent enough in my worldview for your tastes. Ugh!”
Fluttershy patted them on the shoulder.
The Doctor glanced around the room and frowned. “Is it just me, or does it look rather different in here?”
Luna nodded. “Yes. We had noticed as much. Tell us, Doctor, what do you think of it?”
Glancing around, the Doctor took in the most obvious changes first. The high arched windows that lined either wall, looking out onto the Gallifreyan twilight skies, the imposing backlit mountains, and the vast, scorched desert below, were definitely new. In addition, the whole room seemed larger, and the stones had taken on a vaguely violet cast. Pillars, cracked and crumbling, lined the walls, and the obelisk that had always stood at the entrance of the room seemed to have… sprouted?
He studied the new structure more closely. He could still discern the central form of the obelisk, although it seemed to have been scaled up considerably. Five plinths extended from the object, each one holding a pale grey stone orb. A sixth sat proudly atop the piece. The Doctor trotted around it slowly. “The writing’s been changed,” he mused. “Let me see. This one says…”
He squinted. “Hm. Depends on how you interpret it. ‘Accuracy’ would be the most literal translation, but it might also mean ‘correctness’ or simply ‘truth’. The next one is probably… ‘fealty’? Then…” he shook his head. “Someone’s tried to express a very tricky concept for the ancient Gallifreyans, there,” he said. “Maybe, um… favorable timeline? No. I think that symbol means satisfaction, and that one is a curse word which might be best interpreted as ‘chance’...”
He scrunched up his brow. “Satisfactory… chance? What could that possibly mean?”
“Could you perhaps translate it as ‘laughter’?” Twilight suggested.
The Doctor brightened. “Oh! Yes, that would be perfect! How ever did you guess… that…” He stopped, thinking. “Accuracy and fealty… or honesty and loyalty!”
He glanced at the other two orbs. “Yes… yes! This one is ‘compassion for, er… lesser species’, which is probably the closest thing they had to kindness. The other one translates to ‘distribution of knowledge’, which must be generosity. And the central orb is… oh.”
“What is it?” Sunset asked.
“It’s been scratched out,” the Doctor said. “Makes sense, really, my people banished magic from our homeworld back in the Dark Times.”
Twilight shuddered. “They don’t sound very pleasant,” she said.
“Oh, they weren’t,” the Doctor said, turning to scan the room once more. “The addition of that structure… I recognize this place.”
He turned to Luna and Celestia, mouth agape. “This is your old castle! The one in the Everfree Forest!”
“No, it isn’t,” Luna said.
The Doctor furrowed his brow. “Well, alright, it’s also the Tomb of Rassilon, but the implications are pretty clear.”
“This is not meant to represent our old castle, Doctor,” Celestia said quietly.
The Doctor tilted his head. “What, then? What is this meant to represent?”
“The ruins, Doctor,” Twilight said. “It’s meant to represent the ruins of their old castle.”
The Doctor’s face fell. “Ah.”
Rainbow Dash rubbed one of the stone orbs. “So, this is what the Elements used to look like? Gotta say, ours were an upgrade.”
Luna shook her head. “Nay. The Elements once existed as magnificent celestial orbs of light and color. While in use, they floated along behind their bearers like loyal dogs. They were only set in stone after… after I turned mine Elements against their siblings.”
There was a long pause. “But, yes, the portability and elegance of thy necklaces were considerable upgrades,” Luna said.
A couple of the others chuckled at that, the mood breaking. Luna smiled a little herself, but that quickly faded when she saw that her sister wasn’t laughing. “Why would the Valeyard seek to recreate the ruined Everfree Castle?” Celestia asked, shaking her head.
“It seems like trying to wound us emotionally is enough of an end goal for him,” Rarity mused. “He went after Twilight first, and indirectly got at Celestia. Then, in the hallway, he tried to attack Fluttershy.”
“Even echoing back some of my talking points from when I tried to corrupt her during my first escape,” Discord added.
“Did he?” Rarity arched an eyebrow. “Curious indeed. That lends a sort of credibility to his insinuation that he had been angling for you from the start.”
“And now this appears to be aiming for Luna and Celestia specifically,” the Doctor concluded. “Interesting how all his targets ultimately seem to be alicorns and draconocci, isn’t it?”
“Even more interesting how he seemed to know exactly how to get at all of them,” Spike added. “I know you said he was supposed to have all your memories, Doctor, but how did he know what Discord told 'Shy in that hedge maze?”
The Doctor shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know! I certainly don’t know anything about Discord's first escape. That's one event I've always kept well clear of in all my travels. The Valeyard must have found a way to use the Matrix to… I don’t know. Read our surface thoughts? Tap into our fears and animosities? All that should be impossible, but at this point I really wouldn’t doubt anything he could do with the Matrix.”
Celestia frowned deeply. “The Valeyard is becoming a persistent pain in all of our sides,” she said.
“Him, and whatever being or artifact is giving him all this power,” the Doctor agreed. “The Matrix is powerful, but everything he’s done here, like reading our minds or interfering with Discord’s powers at the level he has, ought to be impossible. And meddling in time outside of the Matrix… that kind of power would require…” His eyes slowly widened. “Oh, no.”
“Say it,” a voice demanded from the dark side of the room. Everypony spun around to look into the shadows.
Applejack scowled. “Ya no-good varmint! Come out and show yerself!”
“Say it, Doctor,” the Valeyard repeated, his voice steely.
The Doctor looked sick. “It would require the power of a TARDIS,” he said. “My TARDIS.”
The Valeyard stepped out of the shadows on the left side of the tomb. On the right side, dragged out by shimmering red magic that was unmistakably the Valeyard's, was the TARDIS interface.
Jim tilted his head. It was almost endearing. “Feathers?” he repeated. “I know feathers. They are like leaves, but softer.”
Oh shit, Scootaloo thought. That’s right. Birds exist. I’m an idiot.
Obviously she said none of that out loud. “Yeah, I mean, you know. Feathers. But these are special feathers. Pony feathers.”
“Oooh,” said Jim.
“They’re bigger, and um… softer, probably? I preen them. Wait, birds preen too, so maybe they’re not softer? Definitely bigger, though. Here --”
Scootaloo took her right wing and pulled one of the looser feathers out with her teeth. It stung a little, but it was so close to just falling out anyway that the pain didn’t last long. Her left wing shed a feather from the same place, to conserve her balance. She held both up for Jim’s inspection. “See? Big, right?”
Jim nodded. “Very pretty,” he said, brushing his finger across them with incredible gentleness.
“Right? And, um…” Scootaloo glanced at the rescue mission again. Rumble and Apple Bloom were still tugging at the stuck hem, and now Dinky had emerged from behind the rock to lend magical aid. “Let me just take those back. Now, see, I can stick them in my mane, like… so!”
She practically shouted the last word to disguise the sound of tearing fabric. Rumble and Bloom shot forward like a pinball and nearly spun out before Dinky managed to catch them in her aura. Scootaloo grinned weakly at Jim. “It’s all the rage in Las Pegasus.”
“Feathers in the mane,” Jim repeated, nodding slowly. “How much?”
“Uh, for you? I’ll cut you a deal, a hundred acorns apiece.”
“Hmm!” Jim seemed surprised. “Can just pick them up for free.”
“Sure, the small ones,” Scootaloo said. “The big ones take longer to grow, and it’s harder to harvest them on demand.”
“Aaah,” Jim said, nodding. “Very good. Jim will take only the two, and the hoof paints.”
Scootaloo nodded, watching Rumble and Apple Bloom flying slowly back to solid ground. “Alright. I believe that comes to… three hundred and five acorns? And just because I like you, I’ll round that down a little more, to an even three hundred.”
Jim nodded. “Does little pony take credit?” he asked hopefully.
“I… you know what, sure, on the grounds that I don’t know how I would even carry that many acorns.”
Jim smiled. “Will be right back,” he promised. “Must find credit card.”
He straightened up and turned around. He paused. “Where did little yellow pony go?”
Scootaloo had leaped into motion before he had even begun to speak. She sprinted along the cavern floor toward the tunnel on the opposite side of the room. Jim spun around to confront her, but was met only with empty space. By the time he found her again, she was only twenty meters from the cavern door. Apple Bloom was peering at her, wide-eyed. “RUN!” Scootaloo screamed.
The other four Crusaders had already done exactly that, racing down the tunnel. Scootaloo passed through the mouth of the tunnel and Apple Bloom started racing along at her side. Behind them, Jim followed after them -- he was slow and somewhat clumsy, especially in the relatively confined space of the corridor, but his sheer size went a long way toward making up that deficit.
The race was on.
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Easier said than done. Let's just hope the Doctor listens to themself.
I see Jim plays Warhammer.
I believe we have our Generosity.
I'd argue both are present. It's hard to fall with nowhere to go and no time for gravity to do its thing.
One of the better places for it, in my experience. Far easier to line up all the actors, to say nothing of the special effects budget.
I do love the Gallifreyan translations of the Elements. Some carry over better than others.
And the penny drops. Multiple pennies, really. Now to see how they bounce.
I'll admit that while I thought it was strange that Thirteen was there (After all our pony Doctor is still in his tenth, technically eleventh, technically twelfth incarnation and when we checked up on the Doctor in the other universe he was still traveling with Amy.) But I didn't catch on that she shouldn't've been there until Twelve showed because in an earlier story he mentioned that he hadn't been a batpony before. But I'll admit, I love that the Valeyard's attempt to bring down the Doctor and make him the Valeyard was foiled by the Doctor's other potential futures.
Silver Nemesis, another story I really don't remember that well. Apparently there's a Fourth Reich in it? You'd think I'd remember that...
Considering Twelve's interactions with Rassilon, I'm surprised he's swear on him. Then again, of the remaining Gallifreyan icons he could swear on, one also tried to kill him, and the other (heh) may or may not actually be him, so it's not like he had many options...
“...and I shall love her and squeeze her and call her Georg...”
Poor Apple Bloom.
I LOVED the mirror scene. Once again, the Doctor’s enemies underestimate them...
I also wasn’t expecting to be anywhere near as protective of the TARDIS as I was. You’ve really done a wonderful job of quietly making her a treasured character in her own right.
Also, I must confess I feel a little sorry for Jim. Assuming they don’t try to eat anyone next chapter.