The Timepony’s Journal

by Penny_Shavins109

Chapter 22 - The Next Act

Twilight Sparkle rummaged around the underside of the Tardis console, observing more of the console’s inner mechanisms. She thought that seeing the actual inside of it might give her a better understanding of how to work it. Even for her it was hard to comprehend. The Doctor had repaired the Tardis before her several times before during his exile. She’d been reminiscing a lot recently, especially since Radiance left her in her own Tardis behind.

She thought that the Fast Return Switch, what could easily return her to any previous locations from recent flights, seemed to be malfunctioning. The thing was that it worked perfectly fine on any other time or location, but it was as if even the slightest attempt to return to the Doctor’s original coordinates were surrounded by an indestructible bubble.

“I’d never have to read his entire life story if a little switch could solve all of my problems.” Twilight sighed in annoyance.

Flying the Tardis was already a hassle, but it seemed she’d been able to lock the destination down to within the flight logs. While the Doctor’s travels was not as infinite as time and space, it was still a lesser infinite. She’d landed on acid soaked beaches in both her world in the past and others in the future. She’d made it to fields of grass underneath large radars and to intergalactic circuses. But not once was the Doctor there. The list never appeared to end.

This was clearly the wrong approach, considering she’d been at this for months. The constant attempts, the theories and questions unanswered. She’d hoped to warn the Doctor before he’d entered danger but that would cause a paradox. She didn’t want to go anywhere near that evil place she’d been in where Radiance left. It was just some ordinary planet drifting through space, almost a complete mud ball now. What was so significant about this planet, about Provia?

There was one more thing she could test and try. Luckily with all of the failed attempts it was easier to pilot the old thing. She looked at the coordinates for Provia, where and when the barrier was. If the barrier were a bubble then it had to have an outer edge somewhere. With the flick of several levers, cranks, and keys, the Tardis took off once more. Off to the borders, off to the edge of where she could possibly be within range. The Tardis clearly tried to resist, knowing what she was trying to do.

This time the resistance was more like traveling through molasses than hitting a brick wall. Both Twilight and the Tardis drifted from the epicenter of the temporal and spatial barrier. Time seemed to slow down, almost begging her to stop. But then, she landed. Only about a few decades and a hundred miles off. That was all she was going to get.

“Now where am I… there’s got to be something.”

Twilight wished she’d taken Spike or somepony else along, but she couldn’t risk their endangerment. She’d known first hoof what it was like out there, but going it alone felt worse to her. The air was damp, artificial, sort of smelling like a lab or a hospital. There was a distinct smell of chemicals in the air. It was also very dark.

With the illumination of her horn the room appeared to be some sort of storage area. It was so small she almost walked right into the door upon exit. The door whined as it opened, two hinges already cracked and rusted away. Traveling down the hallways felt like a scene from a horror film. Years ago this may have been a state of the art facility for medical science or some strange agricultural advancements if the scattered documents and discarded experiments were any indication. The building creaked with age as Twilight took one step after another. This wing of the building had been condemned for being unstable long ago and could collapse at any second.

Eventually past all of the condemned signs and yellow tape the building returned closer to its original white and sterile tiled walls. However as bright and sterile as this new area may be, it was still an absolute mess. If anything the only difference between wings was that the power was still working. Looking through one door Twilight was horrified. So many sick ponies crammed into one small room in varying states of some unknown illness. In the split second she saw them she noticed that their skin was covered in lumps, that was before another hoof quickly pushed her own off of the door. It was one of the medical staff and she could see the fear deep behind her eyes, only shown in that second when she almost opened the door.

“I-I’m sorry, but visiting hours are over and are especially not without the proper protection.”

Looking down Twilight saw the nurse dressed in what might as well have been a hazmat suit. What happened here to have warranted such drastic measures?

“No, it’s my fault. What happened to every pony in there. It’s…”

She wanted to say something along the lines of absolutely terrifying but the words were caught in her throat.

“It doesn’t have an official name yet, but we’re calling it the Zeta Virus. It’s gone airborne in only the past few days. It was just a virus in the wheat, nothing serious at all but it spread so fast I… I’m terribly sorry. It’s been a stressful time for all of us so please sit in the waiting room and we’ll call for you.”

The nurse was clearly hanging on by a thread. Radiance said that Provia was a planet filled with flowers and life, but once she returned everything was wilted and dead for a long long while. Twilight tried to protest against being forced into the waiting room, however the nurse insisted. She had to get back to the TARDIS immediately or she’d further risk getting the infection herself. The TARDIS’s antigens could expel most of the virus alone but there was no telling how much damage it could do.

She looked up at one of the screens in the lobby, just a typical health program likely shown in most of their hospitals. The lobby here was already loaded with those desperate and trying to cling onto hope, how many more were experiencing the same fate? The walls of the hospital suddenly started trembling before the program switched to an emergency broadcast. The mare on the screen looked overjoyed as she gave her report.

“What was once thought to be a meteor is instead a large spacecraft, a small fleet of them in fact. Our scanners may have misidentified them before but now our saviors are here. We all know that Provia had been struggling for the past five years, constantly sending out distress signals to the far reaches of the galaxy but no pony had answered. The universe has been growing more and more silent by the day, but now our calls had been answered. Everyone please give a warm welcome for…”

Twilight was only shocked for a second as the so called “help” appeared on screen. Daleks, she should’ve known. She’d thought that they’d all been wiped out, though that was a different time and on her own world. These weren’t the Daleks she’d faced over the years, there had to be hundreds of thousands of them. The broadcast was then patched through to one of the commanding ships.

“We have heard your calls, we will provide assistance in your time of need. The universe is at war and you are all in danger. The Daleks will protect you and exterminate any threat that endangers your planet.”

There was a moment of silence before the entire waiting room erupted with pure joy. They were finally going to be free of this disease in their eyes. This was worse than she thought, these Daleks weren’t as battered and worn as those in more recent years. This was the Daleks at their prime and Twilight had just arrived at the doorstep of an armada. It was then that she realized that the Daleks would be able to locate the TARDIS with ease, especially if unguarded on a planet with technology much more primitive compared to it. The Daleks may have already found it, taken it to their ship and leaving her stranded. The clock was ticking, how much time did she have left?

Immediately she got up and ran, bursting through several doors to the protest of the hospital staff. The cloister bell rang in her ears as the Daleks filled the sky by the hundreds. This was the reason that the whole area was time locked, or at least one part of the puzzle. Only one thought was going through her mind as she went through the condemned area of the hospital. The structure creaked further as support beams fell around her.

The light of a Dalek squad peered through the windows, probably chanting something about the Doctor or the Tardis being spotted. Time almost slowed to a stop as she processed the directions in her head. One wrong turn could mean death. One left, two rights, another right. She was so close until she heard the shattering of glass before instinctively ducking. The Daleks had shattered the window at the other end of the hall, the cloister bell audibly echoing across the decrepit walls.

“Halt. You emit the energy pattern of a time traveler. You do not belong in this time period. You are Twilight Sparkle, an associate of the Doctor. We have located his TARDIS, therefore you have no use. You will be exterminated!”

There wasn’t anytime to reason with the metallic pepper pot. It happened so fast and she was so sure that this was the end for her. The Dalek fired, but it’s shot never hit. Instead the TARDIS materialized around her, alarms ringing left and right. She’d run out of time before the temporal shielding was encasing the entire temporal and spatial coordinates.

Just like before, the TARDIS was running away. It had saved her life mere seconds before death. Twilight laid on the mesh flooring, her heart beating at a thousand miles per hour. Right across from her, sitting in one of the tan chairs was the diary that started this all. Radiance, Provia, the TARDIS, all starting with the need to find the Doctor at the end of his last adventure.

She got up shaking, picking up the book and ready to chuck it across the console room. But she couldn’t, that might destroy it and her only chance of seeing the Doctor again. It was in that moment while the console room was lit an eerie red that she finally started to ask herself, why. Why was she doing this, why was she trying to save the Doctor alone, why did she have to save him alone?

The Doctor had entrusted her to save him, but this felt like too big of a task for anyone. To stand where the Doctor stood was a dangerous life and she was still attempting to tread in his hoof steps. Twilight started to cry for the first time in awhile, not since she thought about the destruction of her library what felt like so long ago. Maybe she needed a break or a vacation of some sort. Rarity did mention that she was going to Manehatten soon.

She’d originally felt so confident in herself that she could do this, but everything was gone. One wrong move no matter the precautions was all it took. Twilight didn’t have to steer the TARDIS this time, it knew that she needed the rest. So trotting down those halls once again, back to her old room, she laid down for the first time in awhile and just had a rest. There was still so much more left to do, and so many more places to see, but for now it was time to just sit back and relax.