Underworld
The Valeyard was somewhat out of practice with escapology. He had spent centuries as a data ghost in the core of the TARDIS, and decades before that practicing law. Neither of these occupations required much skill with lockpicks. (Inasmuch as floating around the ether and making the Doctor miserable counted as an occupation, of course. Really, it was more of a hobby.)
However, in past lives, the Valeyard had escaped from many a prison, and his old skills enabled him to dislocate a shoulder and grab one of the dental picks from the tray with his teeth.
After several minutes more spent prodding the lock, the Valeyard was able to break free. He paused only to wrench his shoulder back into place, then hurriedly limped from the room.
Stumbling into the hallway, he glanced left and right, considering his options. He could confront Romana again, try to take her key. That would present a certain risk -- she knew he was around, and might be more prepared for a second attack. Alternatively, he could leave the hospital and go back to the Matrix via the rift in the apple orchard.
Of course, that would mean returning to the Nightmare empty-handed, which was not a prospect he relished. It wasn’t that he was scared of that overhyped shade. Certainly not. However, he was still a professional. He did professional things. He did, moreover, what he set out to do, and that involved accessing the TARDIS. So, back to the coma ward he slunk.
The waiting room was still trashed, although the broken furniture had all been shoved against the wall. The Valeyard walked through and paused outside the door to the ward proper. Granny Smith’s description of the issues currently faced by the patients had roused his curiosity. Clearly, the Nightmare had attacked the prisoners in his absence. A certain amount of investigation was required.
Inside, he could hear a number of moving bodies. “I don’t understand,” one was saying. “What could possibly cause all this?”
“Any number of things,” replied a grim voice the Valeyard was able to recognize as Romana. “A simple stasis field would do for the immortals, Mac, and the pegasi… the unicorns seem to be having their power siphoned off. It’s a good idea to put the magic drips in them, but they seem to be losing it no faster than their bodies can replenish naturally.”
“And the broken legs which... aren’t broken?” asked a third voice.
“Well, what could break a pony’s legs in real life, hm? Scootaloo must have had some kind of misadventure in the Matrix -- likely all the Crusaders did, hence the sudden elevation in heart rates from all of them. Of course, it’s all psychic trauma, hence why her legs aren’t actually broken, but psychic trauma still has an effect.”
“Hence the swelling and bruising,” the first voice said.
“Precisely,” said Romana. “The body is responding appropriately to the signals it’s been sent by the nervous system. It just happens that the nervous system’s signals currently don’t match up with what we’d consider to be reality.”
The Valeyard frowned deeply. The Crusaders? As in the Cutie Mark Crusaders? They hadn’t been among the prisoners. How could they have accessed the Matrix?
Well. Apparently, they had, and at least one of them seemed to still be alive and kicking. Forget the key for now -- he needed to go back and warn the Nightmare that there were invading forces in the Matrix.
Well. Perhaps not ‘forget the key’. He was right here, after all, and from the sound of it, Romana had only two compatriots. This would present no problems whatsoever.
Then the door opened behind him. The Valeyard spun around. Prince Blueblood was looking directly at him. Before the Time Lord could think to react, the royal pain was already shouting for help.
The doors to the ward burst open, and the Valeyard prepared a spell that would slow time to a crawl for everything apart from him. Before he could even begin to enforce his will on the time stream, something struck him. Something which actually hurt, sending the Valeyard sprawling.
He looked up and saw a furious pink unicorn bearing down on him. He tried to strike her down with a blast of accelerated entropy, but with a flick of the head, she redirected the energy into a pile of broken furniture, which crumbled to dust.
Before the Valeyard could say or do anything more, he found himself enclosed in a pale lilac bubble. The pink unicorn stood outside, glaring at him. “I thought you said you had this creep locked up, Romana.”
“I did,” Romana replied. “He was. How in the world did you manage to break out?”
The Valeyard looked up at her. “Rule one of torture,” he said. “Make sure you have the stomach to follow through on your threats. Rule two: Don’t leave your instruments lying around where the prisoner can get at them.”
Romana was lost for words. The unicorn considered this for a moment. “Do you know who I am?” she asked at length.
“Should I care?” the Valeyard asked, eyes lidded. It was a bluff, of course. This unicorn, whoever she was, clearly had to be an incredibly powerful spellcaster to overcome him. He wasn’t even fully in this plane of existence -- by focusing enough, he ought to have been able to simply pass through the shields as though they weren’t even there.
“My name is Starlight Glimmer.” The walls of the bubble pressed in a few inches.
“You attacked my friends.” The walls squeezed a little tighter.
“And I’m more than happy to follow through on my threats.”
The Valeyard thought quickly. He had to get away. This unicorn was nearly as powerful as the alicorns, and had the additional benefit of not being in an artificially magic-dampened environment.The bubble was pressing in, pinning him to the floor. The floor. Of course!
He shot another ray of increased entropy straight down. The floor rotted beneath him in a perfect circle, then disintegrated entirely. He fell through to the floor below with a pained and undignified grunt. Then, before any of the ponies above could recover, he darted away.
He heard Starlight scream in rage and jump through the hole he had created, in hot pursuit. The Valeyard doubted that he could stay ahead of her all the way to Sweet Apple Acres. So, he did the next best thing. Planting his hooves and shutting his eyes tight, he willed a new rift into the Matrix to open in front of him.
There was a ripping sound, and a golden hole appeared in the middle of the corridor, through which the inside of the Tower could be seen. With the noises from behind him growing ever louder, the Valeyard sprang through, sealing the rift behind him until all that remained was a single glowing golden point.
Moments later, Starlight ran up to the point, batting at it with her hooves and blasting at it with her horn. She kept this up, swearing bloody vengeance all the while, until Nurse Redheart trotted up to her and rested a gentle hoof on her withers. All the fight drained from Starlight, and she allowed herself to be led away. Blueblood and Romana remained behind, studying the golden point.
“There’s another one of these at Sweet Apple Acres,” Blueblood said at length. “It wasn’t compressed into a point yet, I should remark.”
“Still open, then,” Romana mused. “Interesting. Ports into the Matrix are rather difficult to open -- even more so to keep stable.”
“Would their destabilization be cause for concern?” Blueblood asked.
Romana considered this. “I can’t say. I don’t believe it would be much of a problem unless somepony was foolhardy enough to go through an unstable Matrix port.”
Blueblood arched an eyebrow. “You mean, as our friend just did?”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt it was stable enough for him to go through,” Romana said. “The Valeyard is many things, but most of all, he’s a coward. He’d never have pulled a stunt like that if he wasn’t certain of his own skin remaining intact.”
She rubbed her chin. “You said there was another at Sweet Apple Acres?”
“Indeed.”
“I should like to see that.”
“I thought we might wait for Fancy and Fleur?”
Romana shook her head. “I’ll leave a note for them with Redheart. Right now, I shouldn’t like to waste time waiting for them.”
Blueblood nodded. “Fair enough. You go leave your message. I’ll wait in the main lobby for you to come down.”
The pair went their separate ways. Therefore, neither of them were present to watch as the dot flickered, spasmed, and elongated into a thin and jagged golden crack hanging in midair.
Scootaloo and Dinky made their way along the lower corridors of the tower. Scootaloo kept glancing at the walls as they passed, while Dinky kept her gaze fixed dead ahead.
“So…” Scootaloo began. “Not to rehash what’s already been said or anything, but shouldn’t we have come to a staircase by now?”
“No,” Dinky said. “The tower is considerably wider at the base than it is at the top, remember? Besides, given the size of that atrium we came in through, I think it’s safe to say that we’re dealing with another ‘bigger on the inside’ situation.”
“Oh.” Scootaloo nodded. “Hey, listen, I wanted to say --”
“Quiet.”
Scootaloo’s jaw flapped in indignation. “Well, if you’re going to be like that --”
“Quiet!” Dinky hissed, stopping in her tracks. “I think I heard something.”
Scootaloo quickly shut her mouth and looked over her shoulder. “I don’t see anything,” she whispered.
Dinky nodded and lit her horn. Scootaloo squeaked as she was picked up and spun around to sit backwards on her friend’s back. “Can you keep watch?” Dinky asked.
“Of course I can,” Scootaloo said. “What do you think it is, then?”
“Dunno,” Dinky said. “I just heard a sort of thumping sound.”
Scootaloo glanced back at her friend. “You sure you weren’t just imagining things?”
“No,” Dinky admitted. “But I’m not sure I was imagining things, either, and neither are you.”
“Okay, okay,” Scootaloo said, turning back around. She instantly tensed.
“What?” Dinky said. “What is it?”
“There’s a pony behind us,” Scootaloo said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Just at the end of the hall. They’re not moving, and I don’t know how they got there.”
“What do they look like?” Dinky asked, going from a walk to a canter.
“I don’t know. The lights are too dim to see them properly. I think… I think they’ve got wings.”
Dinky nodded, not that Scootaloo could see. “Okay. I’m going to brighten my horn a little. Tell me more.”
The ambient light in the hallway increased. “Definitely wings,” Scootaloo said. “They look kinda grey, and --”
“What?”
“They just moved again,” Scootaloo said, her voice a whisper. “Twenty meters. I didn’t even see them move, they were just… there!”
“Okay,” said Dinky. “Keep calm. Just keep talking. Can you see them more clearly now?”
“Yeah. It looks kind of feminine. She’s made of stone. A statue of a pegasus.”
“A statue?”
“Yeah. She’s still too far away for me to see her face or anything. Which, hey, let me tell you something? I don’t mind that at all.”
Dinky hurried down the hallway a little faster. “Okay.”
“She moved again,” Scootaloo said, her voice high. “I only blinked -- she’s only about twenty meters behind us.”
“Can you see her any better now?”
“Um… yes…” Scootaloo said. “You’re not going to like this.”
“I don’t like any of this,” Dinky said.
“It’s a statue of Fluttershy, or else it’s actually Fluttershy and she’s been turned into a statue. And, uh, her mouth is open and it’s full of a lot of really sharp teeth.”
There was a long silence. “Shit,” Dinky said at last.
“I’m trying not to blink again,” Scootaloo said, her voice strained. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up.”
“...Fine. Okay. I’m about to levitate you off my back --”
“You can’t just leave me here!”
“What? Don’t be such an idiot! Of course I’m not going to leave you. But if I turn around, there’s going to be a moment where neither of us are looking at her, and that’s going to be a problem!”
“Oh. Um… oops.”
Dinky growled. “Your lack of faith disturbs me. Try not to blink while you’re in the air.”
“Got it.”
Scootaloo set her jaw and glared at the statues as Dinky lifted her into the air. Then there was a flicker, and her magic cut out. Scootaloo fell, knocking Dinky to the ground in the process. She looked up again. Fluttershy loomed large over them, hooves in the air and wings spread. She was no more than five meters away. “What the Tartarus was that?” Scootaloo asked.
Dinky shook her head. “Dunno.” She winced. “It’s like she’s trying to repress my magic. Hard to keep the light on.”
There was another flicker in the light and suddenly Fluttershy was right next to them, her face mere inches from Scootaloo’s
Scootaloo flinched back. “Fluttershy, please! It’s me, Scootaloo!”
The statue was impassive. “Can you hear me?” the orange pegasus whispered. “Please, Fluttershy, tell me you can hear me!”
Dinky reached out a hoof. “Scootaloo,” she said quietly. “She’s a statue. They don’t talk back.”
“She moved before!” Scootaloo replied angrily, glaring back at the unicorn. Her eyes went wide, suddenly.
“What?”
“No, don’t look. There’s another one right behind you.”
Dinky nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll watch Fluttershy. You watch the other one. I’m gonna back out real slow, now, and you just follow me.”
Scootaloo nodded, her eyes burning. She squinted at the other statue as she passed it. She could only imagine the torment that Dinky was going through, having to keep from blinking and fighting for her horn to stay lit.
Finally, both mares were out from between the statues. “Okay,” Dinky said. “We’ll take it in turns to blink. Tell me when you’re about to --”
“Blink,” Scootaloo said.
“Blink,” Dinky said.
They both blinked at once. Nothing happened. Dinky blinked again, more slowly. “Okay. I guess they’re staring at one another now.”
“Oh, thank Celestia,” Scootaloo said, rubbing her eyes frantically. “I guess that settles that, huh?”
“...Scootaloo,” Dinky said. “The first statue is Fluttershy. Who does that make this statue?”
“Uh, dunno. The manestyle looked sorta like Rainbow Dash’s…”
“It isn’t Rainbow Dash,” Dinky said quietly.
Scootaloo took another look at the new figure. Glaring at the spot where the two mares had stood was a statue of Ditzy Doo, hooves raised menacingly, wings spread wide, eyes glaring balefully in two directions.
“Oh,” said Scootaloo. “Oh man.”
Dinky took a long, shuddering breath in. “Mom,” she said, her voice cracking. “Mom, I’m so sorry. I -- I --” She stopped, unable to speak through the lump in her throat.
Scootaloo put a hoof around her friend’s withers and held her as she cried. Dinky wrapped her hooves around the pegasus and bawled like an infant as Scootaloo rubbed her back gently. When, after several minutes, the crying and the shaking had subsided, Dinky looked up at her friend. Her eyes were wet and red, and snot was bubbling from her nose. “Tell me it’s going to be okay,” she said softly. “Tell me we can fix it.”
Scootaloo took a deep breath. “I can’t say that for sure,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what’s happened to them. But I know that this place isn’t real. Whatever happened to your mom and Fluttershy probably didn’t happen in the real world.”
“But what if it did? Or what if they can never wake up because of this?” Dinky demanded. “What if they’re lost forever?”
“Well,” said Scootaloo. “That might be. But right now, we’re trying to rescue some of the smartest, most powerful creatures in the world. If the Doctor and Twilight and Sunset can’t undo this, I bet you anything that Discord can just snap their fingers and bring them back to life. The point is, maybe we can fix this, and maybe we can’t. But we definitely won’t be able to fix things if we just sit here.”
“I…” Dinky said nothing for a long moment.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” she said, her voice cracked from the crying. “But… can we maybe just sit here for a few more minutes?”
“If you need to.”
“I think I do. And… Scootaloo?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you hold me again?”
“...Of course.”
“Well,” said Applejack. “This ain’t exactly th’ best situation we’ve ever been in.”
“Rarity,” Spike murmured, slumped on the ground.
“It’s not so bad,” Pinkie said. “It’s like a mirror maze at a funhouse!”
She was, broadly speaking, correct. The three were standing -- or in Spike’s case, lying down -- in a system of mirrored corridors. The floor was dark grey and not particularly solid -- it reminded Applejack of walking on a cloud. She didn’t generally associate that particular aspect with mirror mazes, but she supposed it wasn’t impossible. There were pegasus carnivals, after all, so why not?
The major bone of contention that she had with Pinkie’s comparison was the mirrors themselves. At a carnival, a mirror maze showed you warped and goofy images of your own body. Here, on the other hoof…
Applejack glanced into a mirror at random. She saw a young, markless version of herself and Pinkie Pie, and a large purple egg. She glanced the other way and saw the three of them, several years older than they were right now. Spike’s horns were larger and craggier. Spike himself was also larger, though not as craggy. Pinkie Pie’s laugh lines were a little more prominent, and Applejack saw that she herself had picked up some nasty scars. On the upside, she also had an engagement ring, so it looked like that balanced out.
Other mirrors were less straightforward -- in one, all of them looked just as they were now, except Pinkie Pie was a pegasus and Spike was much smaller. In another, Pinkie’s mane was flat as an ironing board, and Applejack was sporting a black hat, a red kerchief, and an ugly scar across the cheek. In a third, Applejack and Pinkie were stallions and Spike was a dragoness.
Applejack pointed at the mirrors. “So, this here is some more of that alternate universe stuff, right?”
Spike nodded from where he lay on the ground. “Looks like there’s just some past and future stuff, too.”
“And neverweres and might-have-beens and sidestinies and a whole army of wouldacouldashouldas,” Pinkie said, staring into the mirrors as they reflected off one another into eternity.
“Crudely put,” said a terribly familiar voice, echoing around them. “But broadly correct, I suppose.”
All the mirrors flickered, no longer reflecting the three imprisoned friends. Each now showed iterations of the Nightmare, monstrous faces reflecting into eternity. Applejack recognized countless variations of Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, the TARDIS Interface, and faces that she had never known, with sharp teeth and glowing eyes. “You,” Spike growled, pulling himself to his hooves. “What did you do with Rarity?”
Countless terrifying faces rolled their eyes as one. “Oh, spare me. Your little girlfriend is alive. She and the other unicorns are proving tremendously useful. The three of you, on the other hand, are only still around because your suffering amuses me. It would be wise to remember that.”
Applejack stepped forward. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Oh, nowhere special. I wouldn’t waste my time designing something entirely new for you, so I simply repurposed the trap I’d designed for the Doctor. As you so crudely surmised, it is a method of viewing alternate selves -- past, future, and alter.”
“Hear that?” Pinkie chirped. “We were right!”
The Nightmare snarled. “I will take particular pleasure in breaking you.”
Suddenly, the hall was awash with golden light as a portal opened right behind the Nightmare. “Eh?”
The Valeyard staggered into view, repeated iterations of the Doctor appearing in each mirror, all wearing the same uncharacteristic sneer.. “My apologies for returning so late --”
“Fool!” the Nightmare snapped, turning. “Can’t you see I’m intimidating the prisoners?”
“Yes, which is something which I wanted to speak to you about!” the Valeyard snapped. “I told you expressly not to --”
“I don’t take orders from you, you --”
They fell to bickering. Applejack arched an eyebrow.
“Psst,” a voice hissed.
The three turned around. One of the mirrors wasn’t like the others. Three ponies stood in front of the TARDIS. Two, a tall blue pegasus in a bow tie and a small orange mare in a striped shirt, stood with their heads bowed, concentrating intently. “Sorry about this,” the third figure, an old blue batpony in sunglasses and a hoodie said. “Not much time, we can only break through while they’re distracted --”
“Get on with it,” the mare growled.
“I was about to! Have some patience. Anyway, there’s a way out of this place, you just need to look for the true mirror. Once you’ve done that, you can work on freeing the others. There’s still a chance to beat the Nightmare, we’re talking proof of that, but that chance is getting smaller every second you waste in here.”
“How?” Spike asked.
“Not sure yet. That one’s on you.”
“You’re th’ Doc’s future, ain’t ya?” Applejack asked, tilting her head.
“One of them, yes. Technically, this is breaking quite a lot of rules, but the Valeyard’s opened up quite a lot of illegal backchannels, so we don’t much mind making free use of them.” He glanced around. “But they’re high-security. Not a lot of wiggle room, meaning we have to go. Now.”
“Remember,” said the one in the bow tie. “Find the true mirror! It’s in here somewhere…”
The scene faded away, replaced with the still-arguing Nightmare and Valeyard. “If you would stop blathering for a few moments,” the Valeyard said, “I might be able to get it through your thick head that I haven’t given up. I’ve come to warn you that the Cutie Mark Crusaders have invaded the Matrix.”
“And if you would stop blowing hot air, you pompous windbag, I could explain to you that I’ve taken care of that problem permanently.”
“Oh,” said the Valeyard, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Have you. Because I heard not five minutes ago that at least one of them is still alive!”
“WHAT?!” The Nightmare glanced back at the imprisoned friends, eyes wide. There was a flash of light, and the scene of the tower was gone.
All three stared at the mirror, wide-eyed. Slowly, Applejack began to grin. “Well, well. Ah shoulda known them six wouldn’t go down so easily.”
“You think they all survived?” Spike asked.
“If one of ‘em did, Ah don’t see why not. C’mon, let’s bust this pop stand.”
“And then we can bust the Nightmare!” Pinkie sang, her mane puffing up.
“And bust Rarity and the others out!” Spike said.
“Exactly! All we gotta do is find th’ right… mirror…” Applejack trailed off. Around her, the world reflected into infinity. “Aw, shit.”
Thunderlane awoke to find that he wasn’t. He hadn’t been for almost an hour now, but he was only now waking up to become aware of his nonbeing. It was very uncomfortable. Well, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It just wasn’t comfortable, either. It wasn’t anything. “Um,” said Thunderlane. “What just happened?”
“Search me,” Cloudchaser said, rubbing her head. “Ow. Anypony get the license plate on that haycart?”
“I’m hungry,” Flitter moaned. “And thirsty.”
Tender Care said nothing. She seemed to be trying quite hard to avoid throwing up.
“Where’d that guy go?” Thunderlane asked, blinking repeatedly to try and clear his head. Everything seemed fuzzy and empty, like a secret liminal space between being very drunk and extremely hungover.
“What guy?” Flitter asked, scrunching her muzzle.
“You know, the guy! The white guy,” Thunderlane tried to explain. “He was here and then… something happened?”
“Where is here?” Cloudchaser asked. “Weren’t we in… what was it? A hospital?”
“Yes?” Thunderlane furrowed his brow. “Hard to remember anything. Tender? What do you think?”
Tender glanced over at him. “Well,” she said. “I’ve been holding my breath for about five minutes now and I don’t think I need to blink anymore. I think that we should begin to seriously consider the possibility that we might be dead.”
“Dead?” Thunderlane reeled. “What -- I can’t be dead!”
“Unless you’ve got a horn we don’t know about, you certainly can,” Tender said.
Cloudchaser gave a dirty snicker.
“Oh, grow up!” Flitter snapped. “This is serious.”
“I can’t be dead!” Thunderlane repeated. “What about Rumble? This is going to destroy him when he wakes up!”
“What about Rumble?” Cloudchaser repeated. “What about us?”
Thunderlane glared. “You’re dead, too! I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Uh, ‘lane? Think about what you just said.”
“I -- yes. Okay, we’re dead, but that’s more of an ‘us’ problem. Rumble being on his own? That’s going to be very bad.”
“And Button,” Tender said quietly. “I know -- I know no parent should outlive their child, of course, but… this is going to break his heart.”
There was a long moment of consideration. “So…” Flitter said. “Maybe we can just try and haunt them when they wake up? Is that anything?”
Cloudchaser stood up. “‘When they wake up’ nothing. I just woke up dead, I’m gonna see how many ponies I can freak out by popping out of walls at them.”
Sweetie pulled Button into a side corridor and they both pressed themselves against the wall, catching their breath. “Did we lose it?” Button whispered.
Sweetie put her hoof to her lips and listened hard. There was a long, mournful howl off in the distance. “Sounds like it,” she said. “But it’s still between us and the door to the tower.”
Button considered this. “We could lead it away,” he suggested. “Get it lost in the tunnels.”
“We could,” Sweetie agreed. “But how confident are you that we wouldn’t get lost ourselves?”
“Not very,” Button admitted. “I don’t suppose we could just go back, climb out of the pit, and go through the main entrance?”
“I don’t think so,” Sweetie said.
Button sighed. “Yeah, me neither. Maybe I can put together some kind of decoy out of the stuff in my bag?”
While Button peered through the various pouches, Sweetie Belle kept an ear out for the cries of the beast. They didn’t seem to be coming any closer, but better safe than sorry. As she listened, though, she couldn’t help but notice that the howls had a ring of the familiar about them, rising and falling almost like…
“A melody,” Sweetie whispered.
“Huh?” Button said, glancing up from his work.
“The creature… it’s trying to sing the same song I was,” Sweetie said. “Listen.”
Button pricked up his ears and listened intently as the mournful howls echoed through the tunnels again. “You’re right,” he said. “What does that mean?”
Sweetie Belle considered this. “Well… I think I have an idea. Do you trust me?”
“Of course!”
“Would you trust me with your life?”
“You’re starting to scare me, but yes.”
“Aww! That’s so sweet, thanks!”
“Uh, you said you had an idea?”
“Oh yeah. Does that light have a strobe function?”
“Not yet it doesn’t,” Button said, taking off the headlamp. “Just give me a few minutes. In the meantime, you were saying?”
“Well, it’s like this…”
Stats
Page generated in 0.034 seconds
Total duration
956 users online
1,384,150 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
The second one is hardly an excuse.
I'd say shame on Starlight for not making a complete sphere, but that might not have worked when intersecting the floor. Still, she won't make that mistake again.
Craaaaap.
Best Pony. Even when she technically isn't one at the moment.
I like the term "sidestiny." Sometimes even fate has to make a Plan B.
Worst part is they can't go for the Esme Weatherwax method. They explicitly have to find the true mirror, not the true self.
Oh hey, the neverborn are awake. That should take an interesting turn.
So... Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
Intriguing developments all around, especially with activity from several groups of the seemingly incapacitated. Now to see where this next wave of twists and turns leads.
Underworld... I'm drawing a complete blank on. Like, seriously, I didn't remember this one at all. To the point I had to go check my shelf in a panic to make sure I actually own it (which I do, thankfully). Well, guess that means it's prime for a rewatch...
To be fair, the Doctor(s) "break quite a lot of rules" on a regular basis, so this is hardly a new thing for them.
Thunderlane and Friends in the Land of pre-existence (or Minusland, for those who get the reference)
Oh hey, you are going exactly where I thought you were going with the Royal Beast of Peladon. (Aroon intensifies)
Yeah, I knew Romana was underestimating the old cur. You forget, fair lady: if the Doc could find a way out, so can he...
The word you are looking for, Valeyard, is “Eep.” And darn it, Star, think spheres!
And they planned everything out in front of the golden pinprick. Drat.
Finding the true mirror should be interesting. I am reminded of that old Conan short story (curses, I’ve forgotten the title!) about the wizard and his hall of mirrors, and his ape servant who had taken his place and his crimson cloak. Now I want to reread that, too.
And of course Sweetie saves them with music!