The Doctor and Rose go to Canterlot to find out why the city seems to be putting off large amounts of time energy only to find out that many ponies and even a dragon have gone missing. Can Rose and the doctor find out what's going on before it&
The Doctor and Rose go to Canterlot to find out why the city seems to be putting off large amounts of time energy only to find out that many ponies and even a dragon have gone missing. Can Rose and the doctor find out what's going on before it's too late?
Rose walked into the Tardis, throwing one final look over her shoulder at the dully gleaming city before the Doctor closed the door behind her.
"Do we have to go right now?" Rose asked, leaning up against one of the pillars in the main control room of the Tardis. "I mean, we saved the place; shouldn't we at least stick around to see it before we leave?" Rose's voice was not accusing or annoyed as most mares would sound after losing the chance to see the grand Crystal Empire; it was casually interrogatory, in a way that only Rose could manage.
The Doctor ran up to the console and started playing with the dials before he answered, "I picked up some funky readings in Canterlot around the 1000 summer sun celebration."
"Is it the same kind of stuff that we picked up from the Crystal Empire?" Rose asked.
"No," the Doctor replied, "Although it is along those same lines."
"So it's a strange, powerful Energy," Rose said.
"Powerful energy, yes, strange… well, no." The Doctor's voice got more bleak as he reached the end of the statement. He put on his glasses (which he really didn't need) and started to stare at one of the Tardis' many screens.
"Well, what kind of energy is it? If it's not strange, that means you must know about it," Rose said.
"It's not possible. . ." the Doctor whispered, his face losing some of its color as he stared harder at the screen, tuning everything else out.
Rose started towards the screen, wanting to see what was making the Doctor get so upset. She walked up behind him and looked at the screen. She saw a wispy, golden smoke that seemed strangely familiar. Rose looked at the Doctor; then it hit her. She remembered... she remembered the human Doctor bursting into what looked like a golden flame. She rememberd as the flame dispersed this gold stuff into the air. She remembered a name -- Time Energy.
------***-------
Rose and the Doctor stepped out of the Tardis. Rose was wearing a frilly hat with a white pansy tucked carefully under a pink ribbon, and the Doctor was wearing a green tie with a pin that resembled his cutie mark. The pair stepped out of the alleyway, and saw the metropolis in its full beauty. Rose let out a gasp as she looked at marble and gold buildings of Canterlot. Even the Doctor, who had seen thousands of cites, smiled at the sight of Equestria's crowning jewel. As the pair walked down the street, Rose noticed that most of the ponies were wearing some form of clothing. She felt her large, otherwise cumbersome hat, and suddenly was glad it was there. At that moment the Doctor leaned down and whispered something in her ear.
"Remember, you're Rose Luck and we are here from Manhattan on vacation."
"Manhattan?" Rose said, trying her best not to laugh at the absurd name.
"Yeah," the Doctor said, suppressing his own laughter. His joy suddenly stopped as he noticed a statue of a Pegasus that was covering its eyes, apparently sobbing. The Doctor stared at the statue for a long moment when . . .
CRASH
The Doctor had not been watching where he was going, and had bumped into a table, causing the contents of the table to fall over. To the great misfortune of the mare sitting at the table, the table had previously held a very hot espresso perched precariously near the edge. The espresso had been sent flying when the Doctor had bumped into the table, and had splattered all over the mare.
"Sorry!" the doctor quickly apologized, before starting to help clean up the mess he had made.
"SORRY! SORRY!!!!!!" the mare was fuming, livid with rage. "Sorry won't cut it, you earthpony ruffian! How DARE you spill coffee on me, Madam Van Glory!"
"Oye!" Rose said, annoyed at Miss Van Glory's I'm so much better than you attitude. "It was an accident!'
"You let your mare friend fight your battles for you; how pathetic! But I guess that's what I would expect from an earthpony peasant!"
At that moment a red pegasus wearing an apron with the words Canterlot Coffee emblazoned on the front interjected herself into the conversation. "Madam Van Glory," she said "I am so sorry that your beautiful mane got ruined by the coffee. I can tell you have obviously put a lot of time into making it look so glorious. I am so sorry. Here are some napkins to help clean it up." The pegasus handed the napkins to Van Glory before turning to the Doctor and Rose. "Why don't you follow me?" she said, and headed inside the coffee shop. The Doctor and Rose followed quickly, happy to have a reason to get away from the fuming unicorn. That's when Rose realized almost everypony she had seen in Canterlot had been a unicorn, and suddenly the "earthpony" remarks made sense. Rose walked even faster, determined to get away from the mare. The three ponies entered the coffee shop and as soon as the door closed behind them, the Pegasus turned around.
"You aren't from around here, are you?" she asked, one brow raised in a questioning look.
"We're vacationing here, from Manhattan," Rose said quickly.
"Yeah, it was pretty obvious," the mare said. "You didn't know the first rule of Canterlot."
"What's the first rule of Canterlot?" the Doctor asked.
"Ego stroking gets you out of pretty much any pinch," the Pegasus replied.
"Ego stroking?" Rose asked, overtly confused.
"Well, the people in Canterlot are always oh so humble," the Pegasus said.
The Doctor and Rose laughed at the mare's obvious sarcasm.
"Thanks for bailing us out, Miss..." the Doctor paused, realizing the mare had never told them her name.
"Silver," the mare offered. "Silver Flames."
"Well then, thank you, Miss Silver Flames. I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose Luck."
"You're welcome," Silver Flames replied. "I'm just glad she didn't thow a full scale tantrum, especially since she just got invited to the Grand Galloping Gala, and her already large ego is now the size of a small city."
"The Grand Galloping whatnot?" Rose asked.
"The Grand Galloping Gala -- it's only the most prestigious party in all of Equestria. Only the most powerful unicorns and most high society ponies are allowed," Silver Flames explained.
"Well then," the Doctor exclaimed. "Good thing I brought a banana!"
Twilight Sparkle did not want to attend the grand galloping gala. There were far more productive things to do with her time than go to a ''high society'' party where everypony thinks she's the best thing since Star Swirl's theory of magical feedback. The purple unicorn stomped her foot on the soft carpet of her bedroom in one of Canterlot Castle's large towers. "If the princess wants me to go, I'll go," Twilight exclaimed, "but only for part of the night. Then I'll come back here and study The Progression of Modern Magic."
At that moment Spike walked into the room. The baby dragon was wearing a suit and tie, a getup he didn't don often. "Ready to go, Twilight?" Spike asked, an eager look plastered across his face. Twilight let out a sigh and put away her books in a flash of magic. "Let's go, then," the young unicorn said, "and let's just hope it's not as snotty as it sounds."
===***===
"Ugh," Rose mumbled under her breath before turning to the Doctor and speaking to him directly. "I get that this is a black tie event, but ruffles!? Seriously?!?!" Rose (or Rose Luck, as they were calling her, since they were being incognito), was wearing a frilly pink dress with tons and tons of ruffles.
"Oh, come on," the Doctor exclaimed, his voice chipper, his hooves absentmindedly tapping on the Tardis catwalk in sheer excitement. "What fun is it to explore a different dimension if you don't immerse yourself its culture? I mean, look at me!!" the Doctor exclaimed, pointing at his outrageously overdone three piece suit and expensive-looking tie.
"Fine," Rose said, with a comically large sigh, before looking the Doctor's overdone attire up and down. She laughed as she noticed the Doctor's left pocket had a large yellow bulge in it. She giggled as she put a name to the small object. "Again with the banana?" Rose asked, amused but not at all surprised by the time lord's antics.
"What?" the Doctor said, in a jokingly defensive tone. "You should always bring a banana to a party."
Rose giggled again, remembering the time the Doctor had returned from 18th century France slightly tipsy, and had declared that very same line.
"Ready to go?" the Doctor asked.
"Ready to go to a party with talking ponies?!....HECK YES!" Rose exclaimed.
===**===
Rose had been excited to go to the gala and had almost trampled the stallion at the gate when he looked at their tickets (psychic paper), but soon after they were admitted, both the Doctor and Rose learned that the party was just a bunch of high society ponies showing off their pedigrees. The fact that the Doctor and Rose didn't have pedigrees made it harder to blend in.
"Doctor," Rose whispered, "what should I say?"
"I don't know; say you're an esteemed florist or something," the Doctor replied quietly. He had come up with his fake persona fairly quickly, but when the young prince who they were talking to had turned his attention to Rose, she had frozen up.
"I am . . . uhh . . . a sought after florist and socialite from Manhattan," Rose said. Then she remembered the Doctor's alibi and decided to go big. "I helped the Doctor here work on the Manhattan clock tower. He fixed the mechanics while I did the exquisite flower arrangements."
"Anyway, Prince Blueblood, have you heard of any strange magical energy around Canterlot?" the Doctor asked, getting down to business.
"No," the prince replied. "Why should I concern myself with such petty things? If you want to know that, you should talk to one of the egghead professors from Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."
The pair of travelers excused themselves from their conversation with Blueblood and started their search for someone who could answer their questions. After talking unsuccessfully to Magic Spell, Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns' top charms teacher, as well as Silent Workings, an esteemed theoretic magic teacher and head of the board of chairs at Philadelphia's theoretical magic program, and even Spell Nexus, headmaster of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, they finally found somepony who had the information they sought.
"Oh, you mean the Centennial Pulse," Twilight said, glad to find somepony who shared her love of magic and who didn't have an ego the size of a dragon.
"So it's been happening for a while now?" the Doctor asked.
"Every century on the dot. This year is particularly strong, though. This elusive magic seems to have more than tripled this time around. It's still growing as we speak, and should continue to grow for the next two to three days, and then vanish without a trace."
"Interesting," Rose said. "Do you happen to have any other information? Anything you know would help."
"That's all I know off the top of my head," the young mare said, "but I could get some books real quick." Twilight's mood was rising, finding some ponies who were interested in magic.
"Thank you, Miss Sparkle, that would be very helpful," the Doctor said.
"Spike!" Twilight said, before realizing that the baby dragon was nowhere to be seen. Assuming that the dragon was off stuffing his face somewhere, she decided to get the books herself.
"I'll be right back," Twilight said. Before teleporting to her room, she quickly cast a keyword spell. "Centennial Pulse," she said, and came up with two books, each with glowing bookmarks in them. Twilight then quickly teleported herself back down to the gala, not missing a beat. "Here are the books," Twilight said, setting them down on a table near where the three were talking. She pulled out the first book, which was titled Strange Magic Phenomenon . She opened it to the page with the bookmark in it. The book presented no new knowledge, just reiterated what she had already told them.
"What about the other book?" Rose asked.
"Oh, that's just tales and myths, with no real fact to them," Twilight answered.
"Well," the Doctor said, "from my experience, myths are sometimes based off fact."
"If you insist," Twilight said, opening the book to the bookmark.
The Pegasus of Gold Smoke "Some ponies say that statues always stay still, and this is true for most statues, but not true for all. For you see, every 100 years the Pegasus of Golden Smoke awakens, and it always awakens hungry. Every year it eats somepony, always leaving nothing but golden smoke in its wake. It is said on the year that the smoke triples and the Centennial Pulse sent by the strange dark magic grows, the Pegasus will take the servant, then the teacher, then the one with the shining destiny. Equestria will fall to darkness, having lost the kingdom's only hope. The pegasus knows the consequences of what she does, and is cursed with eternal sorrow for her acts of the present and the future. She covers her eyes in an eternal state of weeping."
"The servant, then the teacher?" Rose exclaimed. "What is that suppos..." Rose was cut off by a loud, boyish scream. Twilight heard the scream and bolted, the Doctor and Rose in tow. The three rounded a corner to see several gemstones lying on the floor, and discovered it was a dead end. There was no place that the screamer could have gone.
"Spike!?!?!?" Twilight wondered, picking up the gems with her magic.
"SPIKE!!!!!!!!!!" Twilight yelled, trying to find the dragon.
The only thing in the hallway was a statue of a Pegasus covering its eyes.
"Not again!" the doctor whispered, putting a name to their enemy. "Weeping angels."
