• Published 4th Oct 2012
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The Majestic Tale (of a Mad-Pony in a Box) - R5h



Death sends the Tenth Doctor somewhere he never could have expected. With new friends to make and ancient foes from two universes to fight, only one thing is certain: there's an awful lot of running left to do.

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Tomb of the Aquanauts (c)

And now, the conclusion to Tomb of the Aquanauts.


“Doctor!” came the yell from Seabiscuit. Even before the Doctor looked his way, the desperation in Seabiscuit's tone—and the widening of Anoese's eyes—told him that something was wrong. Then he turned around and saw just how wrong things were.

Seabiscuit had a scale around his neck and one suspended in front of himself; Lyra had none. She was submerged in the cold ocean, thrashing in pain and panic, her hooves pressed over her eyes in a vain attempt to protect them from the pressure.

Lyra!” the Doctor yelled, and he surged toward her, to get her inside his bubble—but a sea-green aura enveloped her neck, pulling her away from him. In his peripheral vision, he saw that Seabiscuit's horn was lit up. “You—”

“Listen to me, Doctor,” Seabiscuit said, pulling away from the Doctor as the Doctor lunged at him. His voice suggested that he was barely keeping it together. “Call off the Nautilus. Do that, and—and I don't have to do this.”

“You!” the Doctor yelled, continuing to move toward him: Seabiscuit kept pulling himself and Lyra out of reach. “Seabiscuit, what are you doing?”

He took a breath, his eyes wide, and said, “What I have to. Use your sonic screwdriver and call off the Nautilus. I know you can, they told me you can. You have to.”

“You're with the Order of Four!” The Doctor continued to press forward, and now they were no longer above the village; plains of sand rolled beneath them. “I should have known they'd send someone—but why? Why did they send you down here?”

You think it's that simple?” Seabiscuit yelled. He took several deep breaths. “You think that they told me anything, that I want to do this? I don't have a choice!”

“What do you mean? Let Lyra go, we can talk about this but let her go!” The Doctor made another lunge toward Lyra, but Seabiscuit pulled her out of the way once more. Her skin was turning blue, and a bubble escaped from her mouth.

“They got to me,” Seabiscuit said, half-sobbing. “My sister.”

The Doctor remembered the filly who'd so enthusiastically cheered Seabiscuit on at the launch. “What about her? You saw her, she's fine! She's safe!”

“She's not safe. No one's safe from them. You don't know what they're capable of—”

“I swear I do—stop moving!” the Doctor roared, as Seabiscuit backed away yet again. Lyra's struggles were becoming feebler. The Doctor spared her an anguished glance; he had under a minute, if that. He needed to get them to the tunnel, and fast. Come on. Keep backing up, you coward. Just a bit further.

“They told me,” Seabiscuit said—then he took a moment to catch his breath. “They woke me up in my bed one night with a knife at my throat. They told me, if this mission succeeds, I'd better not come back up—because then they'll kill her. Within the week, they'll kill her.”

“But why? Seabiscuit, let Lyra go and we can talk about this—I can help you!” The Doctor stopped moving, hanging limp. They'd reached the destination, anyway. “I've beaten the Order! I swear I can keep your sister safe—”

“You can't even keep her safe!” Seabiscuit yelled, yanking Lyra up for emphasis. She gave a final shudder and was still. The hooves dropped from her face. “If you can't do that, how can you save my sister? I'm sorry, Doctor, but I'll do anything to keep her safe!”

The Doctor gritted his teeth. Why does no one ever let me help them? “I'm sorry, Seabiscuit,” he said; then, he pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, not bothering to change any of the settings. He didn't need the technology—just the sonic.

“Sorry?” he asked. “Why?” He seemed to have dropped his guard, if only for a moment. It would be enough.

The Doctor surged forward and kicked Seabiscuit hard in the chest, pushing him back and knocking the wind out of him. “Because so will I,” he snarled, and activated the screwdriver on full blast, pointing it not at Seabiscuit but past him.

Seabiscuit looked behind himself and realized where the Doctor had led him. “No,” he breathed, staring into the deep dark hole the quarray eels had carved from the rock. There was an eerie stillness for a moment: then came a rush of water from the tunnel mouth. Seabiscuit turned back to the Doctor in a panic. “No, please—”

The Doctor dove toward Lyra and tackled her out of the way, just as an eel blasted from the hole with its maw open and gaping. It snapped shut, and there was a sea-green foreleg hanging from between its jaws; then, it opened and closed again, quick as a trap, and the limb was gone. Lyra's scale, shaken loose by the impact, flew into the ocean.

Lyra was in the Doctor's forelegs, and she wasn't moving. He pulled up her eyelid, revealing a teary, bloodshot eye. He pressed an ear against her chest and felt no movement. “Come on, Lyra, breathe,” he whispered. “Breathe for me, you have to breathe. You have to live through this, Lyra!”

Then he heard breathing, and it wasn't hers; the sound was too deep, too massive. Placing Lyra on his back, he looked up and saw a gigantic yellow eye looking back at him. The quarray eel was still hungry, and with Seabiscuit's death, he and Lyra were the closest prey.


It makes perfect sense, Octavia thought, but she wasn't aware of consciously trying to think it. The words blew through her brain of their own accord. I never really believed in the scale, after all. And it can't help me anyway, not now that I'm stuck in here. She whimpered—half in pain, half in fear—and tucked her hooves in.

Her world was small now. The quarray eel had retracted back into the depths, so in her peripheral vision she could see the darkness of the tunnel, but most of her field of view was comprised of the inside of the Nautilus. In stark contrast to the rough-hewn abyss outside, it was bright and brand-new—at least the parts that were inside her bubble. However, the craft was big enough for three, and her bubble would soon be too small for one; it didn't reach to the far wall, which was sealed behind a watery veil. One which approached millimeter by millimeter. She noticed she was hyperventilating.

Vinyl, she thought—again, not deliberately. I need to talk to Vinyl. A shivering hoof extended and pressed the call button. “Hello?” she whispered.

“Hello? What is it?” came the brusque voice of Dr. Blue Shift. “Status update, please?”

“Dr. Shift?” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. She could at least keep her dignity, at least to him. “Can you put me through to Vinyl Scratch, please? It's important.” Perhaps a few sobs escaped into her voice, but only a few.

There was a moment of silence from the other end. Then, in a soft voice, Shift said, “Yes, of course, my dear. She'll be here soon.”

The line was quiet once more, and “soon” seemed forever away. She lay back, closed her eyes, and took deep breaths.

She couldn't remember what for, but she'd once been put in time-out once as a kid—she had no idea why she was thinking these things now; they just seemed to dart in and out of her head like Brownian particles—and sent to her room, all alone. There had only been a door and a flight of stairs separating her and her large family, but that had been too much for the filly. After an hour she'd started crying, and her father had heard her, relented, and let her back down the stairs.

She was older now, and stronger, but it didn't feel like much. And now there was an ocean between her and her family—her and anyone. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and something else wet touched her hoof.

“Octy?”

“Vinyl,” she said, then remembered to press the call button. “Vinyl, it's you. Thank Celestia it's you.”

“Yeah, um, I'm pretty well known for being me.... Octy, what's wrong?”

Octavia left her hoof off the button for several seconds. Then: “Vinyl, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't think I'll be able to keep my promise.” She finished speaking, but kept her hoof on the button; it was her only lifeline.

“What promise? Wait, are you crying?”

“We failed,” she breathed. “I made a mistake, but maybe we couldn't have done it anyway. I don't know.”

“Wait, Tavi,” Vinyl said. I never did figure out, Octavia thought, why it's sometimes Octy and sometimes Tavi. “You promised earlier that you would make it back up here. Tavi, please, please tell me that's not the promise you mean.”

There was nothing to say to that. The ocean was moving up her legs, nearly to her knees. She shivered at the touch.

“No,” Vinyl said, her volume increasing. “No, this is not happening!” Octavia heard a bang from above; Vinyl must have kicked something. “You're not dying down there, Tavi, you're not!”

“Vinyl,” she said.

“No, no, no—you gotta talk to the Doctor, or Lyra, or somepony. Shift!” she screamed. “Shift, get in here!”

“Vinyl Scratch!”

The words took a lot of effort for their size. She took a deep breath. “Vinyl, please, listen. I want you to do something for me, please.” The ocean was past her hips.

“What? What do you want me to do?”

“Tell me a joke,” she said. For a moment she didn't know why she wanted this, but the moment didn't last. “Make a funny noise. Make me laugh.”

“But—but why?”

“I don't want to die scared,” she whispered.

She tried to take a deep breath, but the ocean was getting up to her chest, pressing against it. Her last breaths would be short and shallow.

After several seconds, she let her hoof fall from the call button. It's not a funny situation, she thought. I guess I understand.

Then, the voice crackled back to life on the other end. “Okay,” Vinyl said. “So two mares walk into a bar, and—” Her voice caught in her throat, and she took a few seconds, then started forcing the words out once more. “A—and one of them says to the other, 'Hey, gal. Why the long face?'” Octavia heard her make a little laughing noise, though it was probably a choked sob. “And the other one... and the other one says.... No.”

There was another second's silence, then Vinyl repeated, “No.” Her voice didn't sound weak this time. “No, Octavia, you are not going to die. I swear to... I swear to everything worth swearing to, I swear you're gonna make it out of this, I don't know how—but I'll swim down there and pull you back up myself if that's what it takes!” she yelled.

Octavia smiled, and raised her hoof one last time to the button. She had to press it through the water to get there; the bubble was at most a foot in radius at this point, centered at the scale around her neck. Only her head and a slight bit of her torso remained inside.

She pressed the button and said, “I believe you.” It's finished, she thought, letting her hoof fall back down. Her eyes closed. I've done all I need to do.

But she really would come for me, wouldn't she.

Something struck her eyelids like a physical force. For a moment she thought it was the ocean, but confused neurons managed their assessment after a second: it wasn't dark and cold. It was warm, and it was bright. And, in fact, she felt the weight falling away from her chest, her forelegs, her rear legs—she was completely dry.

Is this what death feels like? she wondered. But when some of the brilliance subsided, and she managed to open her eyes, she looked down and saw the light coming from the scale around her neck. She was still in the Nautilus, but as she watched, the last of the water fled the vessel.

A great gasping breath entered her lungs. “I don't understand,” she whispered, between subsequent gasps. I don't believe it. Seeing's supposed to be believing, but I never believed in the scales....

Another thought entered her mind. Wait. Did they ever say I had to believe in the scales, specifically?

She thought back. They won't keep you safe from the sea unless you believe, Mariana had said. And Anoese had spoken about the scales' power, and the importance of belief—but he'd never once mentioned believing in the scale itself.

She laughed—what else could she do? It wasn't a large laugh to begin with, but as realization flooded her body, the hysterics rocked her lungs harder and harder. She sank against the wall, helpless as the tension left her. I don't have to believe in the scales—I just have to believe, period.

And I believe in Vinyl Scratch.

“Wow, um...” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I, uh, I didn't think it was that funny.”

Octavia noticed that in her hysterics, she'd flopped against the call button. “Vinyl Scratch,” she managed, as her laughter died down. “Oh, Vinyl Scratch, you....”

“Octy?” she said. “Tavi, hang on, are you okay?”

Finally, Octavia's laughter diminished enough for her to get a sentence out, but a huge smile remained on her face. “Vinyl Scratch, you are an absolute lifesaver! Ow,” she said, as she noticed a painful twinge in her back; the tunnel wall was digging into her spine. She sat up to get it away from the rock, but as she did so the Nautilus shifted around her.

Of course, she realized. My bubble is so big now... I wonder if.... She focused on a single word: Move.

She surged forward, and the Nautilus lifted from her leg like a leaf in a breeze. It was entirely contained within her sphere. Now her smile had teeth, and she glanced at the broken sonar on the ground. As she gave it a critical eye, it didn't seem too bad; torn, but perhaps not fundamentally broken.

“So, just to be clear, your life is actually saved now, right?” Vinyl asked from the Nautilus's speakers. “Like, definitely, completely saved?”

Octavia noticed that Vinyl was breathing heavily. “Don't worry, Vinyl,” she said. “I'll see you soon. Now get Dr. Blue Shift on the line. I'm finishing the mission.”

“Okay, I'll... I'll do that,” Vinyl said. “And then I guess I'll just... have a heart attack in the corner. Jeez, Octy....” Octavia couldn't help but smile.

A few seconds later, she heard Dr. Shift's voice. “What is it?”

Business time. Octavia lost the smile. “Dr. Shift, the sonar on the Nautilus is broken. I need you to talk me through repairing it.” She drifted to where the sonar lay in the tunnel, carrying the Nautilus with it.

“Broken? And what do you need it for, anyway?”

She picked up the sonar. “Saving the seaponies. Now, listen. It's come detached from the Nautilus, and there's a bunch of wires sticking out of it. Red, blue, green, yellow, and brown.”

“Saving the seaponies—well, hang on. Is anything broken inside the sonar's casing?”

Octavia removed the box's case and frowned. “There's some sort of board here, and... well, to tell you the truth, I don't know if it's broken or not. Lyra already reworked it—”

“You've been modifying my sonar? To what end, you ridiculous mare?”

“The seaponies are under attack by quarray eels—they're sensitive to sound—so we needed to generate a large amount—”

“Stop talking just a moment,” Blue Shift said, and Octavia did. “Moderately clever, yes—which I suppose counts as something on a play on words between 'modifying' and 'moderately'—ignore that digression. Now, I don't have the schematics in front of me, but I am mostly one hundred percent certain that the only way to increase the power output would be to link up the—”

He chuckled. “Well, I'll give it to you in plain English. Do you see a green wire?”

Octavia took only a moment. “Yes, I do.”

“Has it been spliced together with a brown-blue wire? Brown with blue stripes.”

“Both of the two wires look like they were spliced,” Octavia said, holding both, “but they're disconnected. Maybe that was the impact.”

“Well, don't sit there, girl, put one and one together!”

Octavia spliced the two wires. “Now what?”

“As it turns out, putting out sound is the most basic, boring thing a sonar system can do, which means that if we're interested in that alone, we can sacrifice some other, more difficult things. You say the box is disconnected?”

“Yes,” Octavia said.

“That may prove helpful. Detach everything but the red wire from the device, then splice those ends into the same port as the red wire is attached to....”

Before long, Octavia had done it, and she was attaching the wires to the Nautilus when she noticed a new cessation of ambient noise. Time to speed up, she thought, jamming the green wire into its socket.

“Ready?” Blue Shift said.

“Ready!” Octavia answered. Water was rushing down the tunnel at her. She smirked and activated the sonar.

The quarray eel stopped at a distance of what seemed like inches away from her face, as the vibrations began. Octavia couldn't hear them, only feel them—but the quarray eel certainly could. It thrashed in agony, its head slamming against the tunnel wall. Then against the other tunnel wall, and against the ceiling, and on and on. Unless it was Octavia's imagination, cracks were forming with each impact.

“Have we done it?” Shift said, his voice rising in volume. “By Jove, have I really done it?”

Either way, it's time to leave, Octavia thought. Without looking back, she glided away from the eel and toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

She couldn't help but smile at the cliché.


The quarray eel made a lunge for the Doctor, but without warning it veered wildly and struck against the sand. Something had entirely disoriented it, and the Doctor took only a moment to hear what that something must have been. They did it! he thought, feeling some of the sonar's vibrations against his skin. Well done, Octavia.

This feeling of pride lasted as long as it took to remember that Lyra was still slung over his shoulder, and that she was still not breathing. “Come on, Lyra,” he muttered into her ear, as the little fire within him was extinguished like a match thrown into the Arctic ocean. “Come on, Lyra, you're safe now, just breathe.” He squeezed her stomach, hoping to force some water out.

A low groaning sound hit his ears, and for a moment he wondered if something had gone wrong with the sonar. In fact, it was the quarray eel; it lay on the sand, not even bothering to try to escape the vibrations. Its mouth was open in a quiet moan of pain. Poor misused, misbegotten beast, the Doctor briefly thought: then he pushed it out of his mind and pulled Lyra away from it, just in case.

“Breathe, Lyra,” he said, squeezing her again. “Breathe, breathe, breathe, breatheCOME ON!” He seized and shook her in a sudden violent frenzy, throwing her head back and forth. “Don't you DARE do this to me, you ridiculous animal! BREATHE!

He crushed her diaphragm with what felt like rib-cracking force, then did it again, and again, and again, letting out a snarl each time. But though she shuddered with every attack, her body refused to show any signs of life, and at last the fire of fury in him died as the fire of pride had. He released her and let her lay limp on his back.

Someone's going to pay for this, he thought, hanging limp himself. Maybe me.

And then he heard a cough, and felt flecks of spittle on his coat. “Lyra?” he said, daring to hope, and looked up into her face. She coughed again, and a little more seawater came out; then, she opened her eyes, which were still red and puffy. “Lyra!” He twisted around and grabbed her in a hug.

She coughed a few more times, before saying, in a weak voice, “What... what happened?” Her eyes focused as best as they could on the limp quarray eel in the sand. “What did you do?”

He gripped her tighter, hoping to get some warmth into her body. “I brought you back.” A little smile came onto his face.

Still holding on tight, he carried her back to the village without sparing the quarray eel a second glance.


As Lyra recuperated, still inside the Doctor's air pocket—her own scale had disappeared—Octavia showed up with a bubble larger than the Nautilus and an unbelievable story to tell. Lyra managed to half-listen as Octavia recounted her tale of the tunnel's treacherous depths. Full listening wasn't really possible; it was hard to think, harder to concentrate.

Halfway through the story, Octavia was describing the disappearance of Captain Mariana and Rusty Davey when, out of the blue, they appeared as well. If anything had happened to them, it hadn't left any marks—at least none that Lyra could see. Her vision was still blurry.

Mariana lifted a scale with her wing and said, “Does this belong to anyone?”

Anoese, who lay resting against a house, said, “It belongs to Lyra.” And Lyra recognized it as the scale Seabiscuit had stolen.

“How can you know?” Octavia asked. “They all look the—” She stopped herself and smiled. “Never mind. Of course you know.”

With a great surge of effort, and scrunching up of her bloodshot eyes, Lyra managed to activate her magic and pull the scale toward herself. She let its cord drape over her hoof, then—with great reluctance—extended her foreleg into the water.

The awful coldness touched her hoof; she gasped and pulled it back in. There had been no bubble to protect her. “Why won't it work?” she whimpered, then hacked out a few coughs. Even discounting the awful state of her eyes, she felt like crying.

She felt a tap on her shoulder—a cold, wet tap; she recoiled—and looked over to see Anoese's hoof extending into her pocket of air. “May I?” After a moment, she realized he was indicating her scale.

She nodded slowly, and he pulled it from her hoof and examined it. Several seconds later, he shook his head and sighed. “I'm sorry, Lyra. You gave in.”

“What?” she sniffled.

“I told your friend, earlier, that only special scales would protect you: scales blessed with joy. But when that fiend held you unprotected in the deep, you gave into hopelessness, into despair. I'm sorry, but this—” he tossed it back to her “—is merely a scale.” Lyra didn't catch the scale, and it fell to the seafloor in front of her. It had lost its luster.

“That explains a lot, you know,” Octavia said, smiling and rolling her eyes a little. “That must have been what almost happened to me in the tunnel—which would have been wonderful to know at the outset, by the way. Your explanations of these scales have been incomplete at best.”

“Apologies,” Anoese said, smiling back. “You can understand why we would not use their power ourselves, and... well, we rarely entertain visitors who do.”

The two of them shared the smile for a few seconds. “I thank you,” Anoese said, offering his hoof. “You've saved our home, and our lives.”

“Call it a good habit.” Octavia took the hoof in her own and shook it. Anoese winced at the firm motion. “Will you be okay?” Octavia asked.

“I think I'll pull through,” he said.

“Oh, well, of course you will in that case.”

“Where's Seabiscuit?” Rusty asked.

The smiles, the general feeling of bonhomie, bled away. Lyra hadn't been thinking about what had put her in her current state, but now such thoughts were unavoidable. She remembered Seabisccuit screaming in fear. “You think I want to do this? I don't have a choice!” Slowly, with new tears in her eyes, she looked up at the Doctor, whose mouth was set in a grim line.

“Doctor,” Octavia said, “why is Lyra looking at you like that?”

The Doctor sighed, then launched into an explanation. It wasn't a story like the one Octavia had told—it was merely a collection of facts, delivered as if through a textbook. Now that Lyra was less disoriented, she was able to listen fully to the account, and she wished this was not the case. She shut her eyes and tried not to focus on his words.

“... and I did what I had to,” he said at last. “I saved her life, she started breathing, and here we are. Seaponies saved, Order thwarted from... something.” He shrugged and looked around their little group with eyes that seemed as cold as the ocean around them. “Well,” he said, “what do we do now, team?”

No one had anything to say for about a minute, but eventually, Mariana spoke up. “We tell Dr. Shift about what happened. Maybe we tell the Princesses about what happened. And....” She rubbed beneath one eye with one of her wings. “We tell no one else, because no one else needs to know. As far as the rest of Equestria is concerned, Dr. Seabiscuit died in a tragic accident.”

“Nice one,” the Doctor said, nodding. “I can work with that.”

“You'd better, unless you want everyone up above to know you've killed a pony.” Mariana looked down at the sand for a moment, then looked up again. “I told you I've been bouncing around the navy my whole life, but I've never actually been in any sort of naval battle. Not even any minor fights with pirates. So, can you tell me... how did it feel to take a life?”

The Doctor kept eye contact. “It didn't.”

Mariana held eye contact too, at least for several seconds, but eventually she had to look away. “Fair enough. Bigger priorities. So, besides lying through your teeth, what will you do when you go back up?” she asked, gesturing to the Doctor, Octavia, and Lyra. “At a guess, I'd say debriefing, group therapy.”

“Nah.” The Doctor winked without smiling. “Just dust yourself off and move on, that's my plan. Keep moving forward, isn't that the way?”

Octavia shrugged. “For what it's worth, I feel quite fine, so I think I can pass too. And you?” she asked Lyra.

Lyra gulped. “I'm going to get above water, and then I'm never gonna go underwater again. Never, ever again.” She shivered, trying to ignore the water all around her; it could be tolerated for exactly as long as it took to get her out of here, and no longer.

Anoese shook his head. “Lyra, one day you will have to face your fears.”

“Says who?” Lyra sniffed, then grabbed the scale from the sand and brought the cord over her head. “But I think I'd like to keep this. It was nice being down here... sort of.”

Her eyes, still healing as they were, didn't seem all that reliable, so when she noticed a tiny light from beneath her face, she assumed she was seeing things. But she blinked a few times, and the light remained, so she looked down to see a little glow about her scale. “But...” she said.

A gray hoof slipped in and pulled the necklace over her head. Before Lyra could protest, Octavia threw the scale at the ocean. When it entered the water, a little bubble grew up around it, like a spherical egg—no larger than the light was bright. “Maybe you'll return here some day after all,” Octavia said, grabbing the scale again and passing it back to Lyra.

Lyra pulled it over her head once more and managed a smile, but only for a second. “Maybe.”

A little bit of laughter touched her ears, and she looked around for the source. Some of the seapony children were darting through the streets again in a new game of tag. They didn't seem to realize that they didn't need to be quiet anymore, but they at least seemed happy.

“Would you like to ride with me to the surface?” Octavia asked, interrupting Lyra's reverie. She floated close enough to Lyra that her bubble and the Doctor's bubble intersected. “Mine's bigger.”


All in all, the Doctor thought as he breached the surface and walked onto the beach, that could have gone much worse. Much worse indeed. Somehow, the thought wasn't giving him much pleasure, but he resolved to give it time.

“Mission accomplished, Shift,” he said, as the blue stallion rushed toward him. The crowd was not far behind him, but thankfully still contained behind metal barriers, leaving the Doctor free to ignore their baying and concentrate on Dr. Shift. “Minimal casualties—zero for the seaponies—and one civilization saved. On the house.” He flashed a smile.

“It's very exciting, isn't it?” Dr. Shift said, beaming for some reason. He grabbed the Doctor's hoof and shook it vigorously. “I mean, I actually helped to save an entire species! When do I ever get the chance to do that? Or at least a village, as other seapony enclaves doubtless exist, but—now, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find it this enjoyable, yet even so... marvelous, simply marvelous!”

The Doctor's attention couldn't help but wander in the face of this verbal maelstrom. He looked behind himself and saw Vinyl, Derpy, and Bon Bon making for the shoreline. While Derpy stayed at a respectful distance, Vinyl and Bon Bon made beelines for the water, from which Lyra and Octavia were emerging together.

Vinyl's first move was to grab Octavia's hoof with her own and raise it high, ignoring the latter's protests. “All right, way to go, Octavia!” she yelled at the beach at large. “Saving the day, that's how we do! Give her a round of applause, everypony!”

“Vinyl,” Octavia said, grinning slightly, “please—”

“Aw, shaddup, you love it,” Vinyl interjected, giving her a little noogie. She seemed remarkably unrattled, given how desperate Octavia’s story had made her sound.

Lyra, now that she was out of the water, ran away from it as if it were a burning building. She collided with Bon Bon's outstretched forelegs and pressed herself against them. Bon Bon gripped her close and said, “Lyra, are you okay?”

Lyra closed her eyes with a slight sob and a less slight shiver. “No.”

“Are you hurt?” Bon Bon asked. When Lyra nodded, she continued in a motherly tone, “I can get you to the hospital, and the doctors and nurses can take good care of you, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“And when you get back from that, want me to make dinner tonight?”

“Yeah,” came the quiet reply.

“And I can tell your clients you need more time, is that okay?”

“Yeah.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Dr. Shift's smile pulled itself back down into a concerned line; something seemed to have clicked in his head. “Did you say minimal casualties?”

“Well....” The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. Here comes the hard part.

“Big brother?” came a voice from the crowd, and the Doctor looked that way to see Seabiscuit's sister climbing up the metal barrier with desperation in her face. Oh, hell, he thought. Even harder. He looked around to see Mariana and Rusty walk up onto the beach. Everyone who was coming back had done so, and the filly seemed to be realizing this. “Where's my big brother?” she asked, not yet ready to believe.

The crowd went quiet, with several gasps from the ponies who were quicker on the uptake; the Doctor saw a few hooves raised to their owners’ mouths. Mariana and Rusty gave each other awkward looks, but it was Lyra who acted first: she pulled away from Bon Bon and approached the filly with the sorriest expression the Doctor had seen in a long time.

“No,” the filly said, tears beginning to track down her face. “NO!

She screamed, and screamed, and screamed at the ocean that would not give her brother back. Lyra grabbed her in an embrace, rocking gently from side to side like a mother, as the screams continued. The crowd looked away, and so did the Doctor; he chose instead to look at Dr. Shift. “What's her name?” he asked.

Dr. Shift's eyes widened. “I don't know. I suppose I should know, shouldn't I?”

“Yes, we should.” The Doctor sighed, then walked away from Shift as Mariana and Rusty took his place.

He walked toward Derpy instead, who alighted in front of him with a small smile. “Saved the day?” she asked.

“More or less,” he said. “It's good to see you again, but listen....”

The filly's screams were devolving into sobs now, and she clung tightly to Lyra as if to a raft in a storm. The Doctor pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and dashed out a quick message on it. “I need a favor,” he said, folding the note and offering it to her, “a mailpony favor.”

“What?” she asked.

“I need you to get this to Princess Celestia, pronto. I've written the details on the note, but long story short, I think that filly's going to be a target for the Order of Four. She needs protection, and soon.”

“Them again?” she asked, opening the note up. “So, what, was that Seabiscuit an Order of the member of Four, or....” She closed the note and looked up at him. “Did you have to do it?”

His shoulders slumped. “I don't know... yes. Yes, I did.”

“Then it's okay.” She jumped into the air and hovered for a moment. “See you soon, Doctor alien.” Then she was off, flying back toward the mainland with the message held in her mouth.

The Doctor turned to watch her go, but then Vinyl Scratch walked roughly into him, pulling him away from the rest of the group. Once they were out of earshot of the others, Vinyl hissed into his ear. “The next time you guys get in danger, and Octavia's there? You get her out first.” Her voice suggested the rattling he'd failed to see in her earlier.

“Okay,” the Doctor said, more of reflex than anything. Vinyl took a step back and glared at him with a venom that was visible straight through her glasses, then spun around and ran back to Octavia's side, mouth already open to start chatting anew. The Doctor looked at her and Octavia, then at Lyra and Seabiscuit's sister, Bon Bon watching them helplessly, and the gray speck that was Derpy just above the horizon. They all seemed so tiny, so far away.


Tune in next time for:
The Empire of Shadows