> Out of Time
>  by Lunarus Solaris Nexus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Turning In Early
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Under the midnight skies of Equestria, Canterlot Castle was mostly empty and dark. A few maids and guards roamed around the halls and locked up a few of the more important rooms. The castle was more or less dead, that was except one massive room on the first floor. The room was the longest in the whole castle and quietly bustling with life. The second largest dining room table in all of Equestria and eighth in the world was filled from end to end with most of the castle staff enjoying the evening's meal.
Maids and guards quietly flirting around the table, others gossiping about the others, but at the head, two regal ponies sat enjoying their own bit of entertainment at the expense of others. Mainly the ones on either side of them. Three unicorns and four pegasi sat on either side of the two crowned ponies. The two unicorns closest to the princesses were the ones causing most of the laughter towards one another. 
The blue unicorn with four prosthetic legs and a black mane rolled his eyes as the brick red unicorn with his fire-blond hair told a story about tofu in a glow belt during guard duty. 
"And to this day I'm still not sure how that happened." the red unicorn finished as everypony started to calm down. The blue one hadn't been laughing. He'd heard the story enough from the old warrior that he could speak it by heart.
"Oh come on Nexus." the red one said. "I thought you loved my stories."
"Brand, I've heard 'em all." Brand opened his mouth and- "Even the one about the monkey in the helmet."
"Yet another thing I have no idea how it happened."
"And I'd prefer not to know."
"Please Colonel!" the young navy blue pegasus sitting next to Nexus said. "I wanna hear that one!"
"Some other time Kid." Brand told the pegasus.
"What does he mean by in the helmet Mr. Firebrand?" the younger pink maned bat pegasus asked Firebrand. 
"He was in it, not wearing it. I'll leave you to figure out the rest."
"Please!" The children pleaded.
"Astral." the light brown pegasus mare next to the navy blue pegasus colt said to the colt. "Don't pester him."
"Your mother's right son." Nexus said nudging his son with his mechanized leg. "It's if he doesn't want to bore everypony else with his story then I can tell it to you later."
"Really Uncle Lunar!?" the bat filly asked eagerly.
"Night n' Gale." the red unicorn with black stripes said motioning for her to lower her voice.
Nexus chuckled at his "niece". "Yes I can. I'll tell you and Astral tomorrow at breakfast."
"Promise Dad!?" Astral asked.
"Cross my heart and hope to fly; stick a cupcake in my eye." Nexus said going through the school yard promise.
The children clopped their hoofs together and the princesses giggled. "What's so funny?" Nexus asked knitting his brow.
"It's quite hard to see you in your reputation when I see you do such things." Celestia said still giggling.
"My reputation?"
"Ponies in the guard and even some chroniclers of Equestria have been calling you many things Lunarus." Princess Luna added to her sister's statement. "Some have started calling you The Iron Hoof of Canterlot."
"That better not stick."
"Why not let it?" the bat pony's mother, with a pale purple mane and yellow eyes, asked. "Really kind of flattering if you think about it. Like you're some kind of Emperor."
"Then what does that make me?" Firebrand asked. "I'm in almost the same spot."
"You can be the Grand Vizier." 
Nexus knit his brow again and started looking around the room puzzled. 
"What is it?" Firebrand asked.
"I'm wondering if I'd trust you or not." Nexus said trying to fill the awkward silence the followed; he sadly failed.
Luna picked up on it and shot a quick glare at Ephialtes. He unwillingly caught it and slumped down into his seat.
Nexus finished off his steak and glanced at his wife's salad and saw that there was still some left. He resisted the urge to sigh and walk out without her. The rest of the time at the head was spent in nearly absolute silence from the adults. The children laughed and giggled at one another but the rest were silent; even the Princesses kept their mouth shut. Once Nexus' wife had finished her salad, Nexus excused himself from the table and prompted his wife to follow.
She didn't hesitate to leave and their son wasn't too far behind them as they left the dining room. Luna did have to take a few more bites of her meal before attempting to catch the family at the elevator. She was able to just stop the doors from shutting as the Nexus family walked in. The elevator wasn't very large but with the little five year happily hopping on Luna's back there was more than enough room.
The doors shut and Luna broke the evening silence. "I apologize for bringing that up." She said genuinely as the elevator started to rise.
"It's fine Luna." Nexus said blankly.
"I didn't know it wou-"
"I said it's fine Luna. We can leave it back there and forget about it."
"Agreed. Happy early birthday Lunarus. Thirty-three?"
"Yup." Nexus responded.
Having left an awkward silence, Dust attempted to break it before they reached the next floor. "You're coming to his party tomorrow right?"
"Of course. I wouldn't miss it for the world. Will your mother be in attendance?"
"More than likely. Can you make sure Discord stays away though?" Nexus replied.
"I cannot promise you anything Lunarus. But I will do what I can. You know him."
"Sadly I do." Nexus said as the door came open.
The group walked out of the elevator doors on the second to highest floor in the castle and began the short trek to the two story apartment where Nexus' family resided. The door opened automatically and Dust reached for their son on Luna's back.
Astral shied away from his mother and held strong to Luna's neck. "Can I go and play with Auntie Luna, Mom?"
"Well… Lunar?" Dust asked her husband who was half way through the door.
"If it's fine with you Luna. Have him down before bed time this time though." Nexus answered to Luna.
"I would love to play with your little one. What game would you like to play then?" she asked as she made her way towards her bedroom on the floor above theirs. Dust and Nexus waved as Astral named off as many games as he could think before they hit the stairs.
The couple walked into their room and Dust shut the door behind them. "What the hell was that!?" she asked before Nexus could sit down.
"What'd you mean?" Nexus asked attempting to act confused.
"You know what I mean. Why did you make it so awkward? It was just a joke."
Nexus let out a sigh and took his seat. "Just don't like hearing that I have a reputation."
"Why's that an issue? Of course you have an reputation! I've heard a few maids call you the Slayer of Darkness."
"See that's the thing!" Nexus said standing up. "Reputations are never good, especially when you're hailed as a hero."
"Isn't that why you became a guard? Glory for Equestria and all that shit?"
Nexus stammered not having heard Dust curse in so long. "What makes you think I want to be a hero! Do you even know who you've been married to!?"
"Why don't you enlighten me then?"
"When was the last time I wanted to be the center of attention? That's what comes with being the hero. I didn't ask to be a hero Dust! Shit just happened to me, I didn't ask go through all of that bull shit!"
"Then why did you accept it if you didn't want it!?"
"Because I had to!"
"Bull shit you did!"
"Oh yeah? You know the guards in this castle, how many would volunteer to most likely not come back besides me and Firebrand? So you tell me if I had a fucking choice!"
"If we can get back on topic Lunar, why don’t you like the nicknames?" Dust asked again trying to calm down.
"I… It's the pressure of having to live up to them. When you've a hero's reputation, you're expected to either come back a winner or die trying. Be the first into a fight and last standing." Nexus sat down again. "It's a lot of pressure being a hero. Especially a soldier."
"But that's not you anymore." Dust said putting a hoof around her husband's shoulders. "You're not Colonel Lunarus Nexus, Savior of Equestria. You're the one who makes the hero's now."
"Not much better. It's just passing the pressure onto another person. Sometimes I wish I wasn't in this position. That I could just live my life unknown and unnoticed."
"Don't talk like that." Dust sighed before continuing. Look, how about I ask Luna to tuck  Astral in for us and we can turn in early. Sound okay?"
"Yeah…" Nexus replied nuzzling his wife. "I'll get A.L.I.S. to shut down and get washed up."
"Good. I'll be back down in a minute." Dust said flaring her wings and starting to hover off the ground. 
She flew to the balcony doors and they opened automatically. "Safe travels Mrs. Nexus." An electronic mare's voice called from hidden speakers.
"I'll be back in a sec' A.L.I.S." Dust said before shooting up the outside of the tower they lived in.
"A.L.I.S., start shutting everything down. Dust and I are turning in early tonight."
"Yes Commander. How would you like your room temperature tonight?"
"Sixty if you can manage. And Astral's spending the night upstairs so don't worry about his room tonight."
"As you wish Commander. There is a message from the doctor's office for Mrs. Nexus. Would you like to relay it to her rather than I?"
"If it's about anything but the baby then no." Nexus said as he started to make his way up the staris.
"It is Commander. He says that Mrs. Nexus is progressing normally despite the abnormally small size at her current stage. No harmful effects should come if she continues down her current path."
"That it?"
"You have four more messages of lesser importance from Manehatten. Would you li-"
"No. They can wait until tomorrow." Nexus said cutting off his own creation.
Not a few moments after he reached their bed, Dust hovered down from the top floor of them. She trotted in and kissed Nexus on the cheek before going to the bathroom to tie her mane back. Nexus followed her in and surprised her by wrapping his forelegs around her as she tried to get her mane to cooperate.
"Doctor sent today." Nexus said.
He quickly informed Dust of the doctor's message and she smiled as she finally got the hair tie and her mane to cooperate. She turned in his forelegs and gave him a peck on the lips.
"I know you hate to hear this too, but you're such a teddy bear." Dust said slipping out of her husband's grip.
"I don't mind hearing it from you."
Dust flicked her tail at his nose before she left the bathroom. As Nexus stepped out of the bathroom and the lights in the room turned off. The two lumbered into bed and took their respective sides of their bed. Nexus sighed as he nestled into his bed next to Dust. She of course rolled over and put her forelegs around him.
"You know in a few months I won't be able to do this." she said laying her head above his chest plate, where she could hear his powerful heart beat.
"I'll be glad to be here for it this time around." Nexus said glad to have dinner's conversation behind them.
> A Falling Out
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Nexus squirmed in bed and stretched with a groan. Something was off, the space in bed next to him was completely empty. His cobalt eyes opened a crack and his suspicions were right. Through his blurry vision he noticed an utter lack of brown and black either against his body or on the pillows next to him. He took a breath and sat up. He could feel his mane stuck to the back of his head. The early sun leaked through the balcony doors, the orange streaks were nearly blinding if the window wasn't frosted. He rolled over and felt his wings still connected to his back.
He focused his magic to his back and began to vibrate the contact plates that connected the wings to him. There was a click and they were freed from him. He never really liked those wings; he had them out of necessity mostly. Luna did always insist on him wearing them in them in public to maintain some kind of image, but he felt like they just gave off the wrong message. Nexus lay his Iron Icarus on the bed as he sat up. 
He quickly cracked his neck on both sides and finally got out of the bed. He sighed and felt the base of his neck crack. He rolled his shoulders before he started walking to the stairs. He could smell coffee already in the room. Either Dust called for room service or Luna gave them permission to skip breakfast. He was hoping the latter. Meant he could spend the morning alone. Or as alone as you can be when you're catering to your pregnant wife. And he wouldn't want to have it any other way.
He trotted down the stairs and found Dust bidding good bye to one of her friends from the maid service of the castle. Nexus couldn't quite remember her name but he knew who she was, kind of girl that REALY hated monogamy on her part but was more than happy for those that practiced it. She left the room before Nexus could get down there and Dust reached over to the tray on the coffee table where her favorite mug steamed with hot coffee and Nexus noticed something where the milk was suppose to be. 
From the stairs, he could see the inside of the small, silver jug didn't hold the white liquid, it instead held very thick, dark brown substance in it. Dust reached for the jug and poured the liquid into the mug with one hoof and then stirred it in with a spoon with the other. She sniffed the dark blue mug before pouring more in. As Nexus approached, he did so as silent as he could. She seemed to not notice him as he got closer. She stirred in the substance again and took a sip. Satisfied she reclined into the sofa with a sigh.
Nexus was only a few feet behind her now. Nexus' front right foreleg creaked and Dust peered over her shoulder. "Morning sleepy head." She said with a very calm tone.
Nexus didn't bother being quiet anymore, he closed the distance and put his hoofs around her from behind. He nuzzled her left cheek with his right. He levitated the jug to his muzzle and sniffed the brown liquid. It smelled very sweet and had a strange tinge of maple.
"You know you're sweetening your coffee  with syrup right?" Nexus ask still not letting his wife go.
"I know."
"Craving sugar?"
"Um hm. It's only going to get worse." Dust said getting up, forcing Nexus to let her go.
Nexus set the syrup down and met Dust half way around the sofa. They shared a gentle hug. Nexus gave her a quick kiss on the lips then quickly left Dust wanting.
"Prick! That's not a good morning kiss." She protested.
"Educate me then." Nexus said with a sly grin. "Astral's upstairs."
Dust didn't need to be told twice, they leaned in and pressed one another into a deep kiss. As Nexus sighed, he felt a quick jab of pain shoot through his brain. He broke the kiss and reeled back holding his temple. He groaned as his eyes remained screwed shut.
"What the hell!?" Dust said shaken.
"I'm fine Dusty. Gah… I'll have to see the doctor about this."
"Who the hell are you!?"
The pain started to subside and his eyes slowly opened to see a horrified Dust fearfully holding her coffee mug. Nexus waited for the next piece of the sentence, the "And what did you do with my husband?" But it never came. Nexus straightened up and felt his brow knit. Something wasn't right.
"Dusty? You alright?" He asked.
"How do you know my name? Who the fuck are you? WHY WERE WE JUST KISSING!?"
Now he knew something wasn't right. Not that she was acting like she didn't know him, but that she cursed. He hadn't heard her swear at him like that since they met.
"Dust, it's me, Lunar." He was getting scared now.
"How do you know my name!?" She backed away from him a few steps.
"Dust, we're married. We have a son, you're pregnant with our next baby!" Nexus was getting desperate.
"Don't you dare bring up my son! Wait, how do you know I'm pregnant!?"
"Because it's ours! Astral's ours too! What's wrong with you?"
"Stay back! Whoever you are, however you know these things, but I've never seen you in my life! Get out of my house you metal freak!" 
"Dust please!" Nexus took a step forward and was greeted by searing hot coffee being thrown into his face.
He shouted in pain and stumbled back trying to wipe the coffee off his face before he went blind. "Guards! Guards help! Rape rape rape!" Dust shrieked in terror.
Nexus cleared his eyes just in time to see two white pegasus guards burst in through their front door. Dust curled up into the corner as the two pegasi rushed Nexus. He didn't think, he countered the first pegasus that charged him. He was going for a tackle. Nexus ducked down and dug his shoulder into the soldier's stomach. He then put an elbow on his groin and threw him over his head. In his current position, Nexus had his back to the second guard. He felt the soldier get closer but met him with a buck to the jaw.
Nexus quickly jumped back towards the staircase. "Guards! Stand down!" Nexus ordered. "That's an order!"
The first guard came at him a second time and Nexus delivered a spin kick to his chest. With the added force of the piston in his hindleg, he kicked him as his friend tried recovering from the kick.
"What are you doing!? I am your superior officer here and I order you to stand down! You don't stand down, Firebrand's going to be the least of your problems!"
"Who do you think you are?" the first one said angry.
"Colonel Lunarus Solaris Nexus."
"Colonel of what?"
"The Equestrian Defense Force!"
"I don't know where you been, but Colonel Firebrand is our only head and there is no such force! Now get your hoofs in the air before I kick your ass out that balcony."
"What are you doing!? I helped train you!"
"You didn't do shit!"
"Obviously." Nexus could feel his signature spell trying to hit the still standing soldier. He glanced at the soldier who's jaw he just dislocated and saw him getting up. "Cause if I trained you you'd have had the upper hand already."
"What are you talking about?"
"You'd've gone for the horn if I trained you." Then Nexus vanished in a flash of light.
Nexus reappeared the stairs and back inside his room with the door in his hoof. He slammed it shut as fast as he could. "A.L.I.S. lock the door!" There was no response from his electronic assistant. "A.L.I.S.!" Still no response.
Nexus locked the door on his own and ran straight to what was once a small closet but had been converted into the housing of A.L.I.S.' main CPU. He threw it open and saw it wasn't full of shelves of wires and circuit boards, but instead full of junk. Old tennis rackets, spare linins, winter coats, and useless Hearths Warming presents like ice cream makers. Used once and hated. This wasn't making any sense! He didn't wait for them to break down the door. He went ahead and ran straight for the balcony so he could- wings. He turned around, ready to double back to the bed where he left his wings when, if at all possible, his heart dropped even further. His wings weren't there!
Well, he had no way of getting out his bedroom door cleanly. He looked overhead and found Luna's balcony in reach. For him anyways. He leaned back into his hindlegs and using the pistons in the lower halves, launched himself towards the bottom of her balcony. He was smart enough not use so much pressure to brain himself on the bottom of the balcony. He only got high enough to put his forelegs on the lip and began forcing his way up.
He drew himself up to the railing and hauled all three hundred pounds of half pony over the edge. As he did, he heard a mare gasp and a few things drop. Nexus shook his head and saw Luna on her bed with Astral laying next to her. A thin children's book and a small plate of what looked to have once had cake on it lay on the floor in front of them
"Wow!" Astral said getting up from the bed. Wait… Was it Astral?
His face looked the same but… His mane! His mane wasn't silver with a white strip it was dirty blonde. His coat looked to be a tad lighter too. His mind raced with questions but only one came out his mouth.
"Astral?"
"That was so cool!" He almost ran up to him but Luna put her foreleg out in front of him.
"How dose thou know his name?"Luna asked as she rose from her laying position. 
"Not you too… Luna yo-"
"Who are thou? Tell us your name."
"Luna, you've known me for years! I'm Lunarus! And that's my son!"
"What?" Astral's happy grin turned to concern.
"Thou is not Astral's father. We do not know the name you speak of. Now we shall ask you once more to indentify you-"
"Luna you've got to believe me! Colonel Lunarus Solaris Nexus! I'm your friend!"
"Do not speak such things! We will allow thou to leave and be dealt with by the Royal Guards. Unless thou would prefer to face us." This couldn't be happening.
"Luna, I'm your friend. I'm your Senator in-"
"Ha! Tis a lie! There is no Senate in Equestria. You have one last chance to persway me from-"
"Goldenchord!" Nexus wasn't one hundred percent sure why he brought it up be he had a feeling he knew where his mouth was going with it. "You loved him, only four ponies in all of Equestria even know his name and what he meant to you. I wouldn't know it if I wasn't your friend." Luna stammered for a second before lowering her horn. "YOUHAVETOBELIEVEME!"
He had a split second to react. He had no idea how powerful the spell was but he knew for certain that it could reduce him to ash if he didn't act. He summoned the strongest ward he could as the massive blue beam flew at him. A faint white circle appeared in front of him. The ward resembled a spiragraph with hundreds of interlocking circles leaving a small circle in very center. In the center, his cutie mark appeared glowing as bright as the beam she fired. Level seven ward, made by the Evening Armada a thousand years ago. He'd never had to use it before but now he was hoping he'd never have to use it again.
The beam hit him like a she'd just dropped all of Canterlot on top of him. The impact was strong enough to actually knock him back against the railing. All of the energy was stopped by the ward thankfully but it was swiftly fading as it washed over the edges of the circle. He had to do something. Nexus quickly threw up a level four ward just to strengthen the seven and he planted his hoofs firmly into the stone behind him. Sweat began pouring out of him like bullets and drenching the front of his mane. He started groaning louder and louder as the pressure on his power grew. Just as the second ward broke the beam faded and he ended up kneeling.
"Impressive." Luna said. Nexus looked up to see Astral was hiding behind her completely now.
What could he possibly do now!? His heart pounded in his head, he had nowhere near enough finite magic left to teleport even an inch away. And this was Luna, one of the all powerful ponies of Equestria, about to blow him away. There was absolutely no time to regenerate his energy from the ether so he was left with two options, hitting Luna in front of Astral, or out running her before she could turn him to a pile of dust.
"But it will take more than that to stop us." Luna continued. 
Everything slowed down again for him, he began taking stock on his opponent, just the thought made him feel wrong. She was still on her hoofs, but he could see her chest rise and lower heavily. She must've been out of practice with her stronger magic. No doubt if he tried to jump past her she'd obliterate him. Or at the least bash him against the walls a few times. She wasn't going to kill him now, he hoped, but there was no way he could just run. There had to be some kind of distraction he could cause.
Glancing over Astral's shoulder, he saw that old mirror pool that put him on the path to everything he seemed to be losing. The stone top and base were massive, even by mirror pool standards… It was worth a shot. His horn flashed and caused Luna to pick him up with her magic. He had to be quick, she wouldn't hold him there for long. He could feel what little magic he had spread across his body, basically making him one of two things, a walking bomb or a a big horn.
He channeled his magic to his right hoof and focused on the top of the mirror pool. He felt the stone connect to his hoof and just as Luna looked to see what it was, he moved his hoof like he was throwing something over his left shoulder. The mirror pool suddenly leapt from its place on the pedestal and started flying towards them. Astral screamed as Luna dropped Nexus. He took his opportunity instantly, he knew this was his only shot.
Nexus shot to Luna's right in full stride as she used her telekinesis to catch the top of the pool. All of the water in the heavy stone basin splashed across her and Astral. She spun her head around to see Nexus just at the door. She didn't have any reason to doubt he was hostile now. She fired a bolt of magic in his direction and saw a shower of sparks coming from where it hit him. He shouted in pain as the bolt passed straight through the bottom half of his hind legs. He tumbled to a stop at the bridge to Luna's room and the main part of the castle. He had no time to assess the damage but he could feel that his piston was at the very least damaged. Nexus stood up and started running as best he could
The shaft of the piston would lollop out of the rest of the leg as he went, making movement very difficult. His hoof would drag on the floor if he didn't time his stride right. As he left he could still hear Astral crying in fear. Luna wasn't comforting him, she was too busy shouting at him.
"GUARDS! INTRUDER! FIND AND CAPTURE HIM!"
That was all she needed to say to have every guard from every corner of the coming in both escape routes. Nowhere to go but forward. Nexus could feel his magic starting to come back to him, he lit his horn and used his magic to hold his leg in place as he ran. It was still an awkward stride but it was much faster than before. He was out of the glass capped bridge to the main caste and was greeted on both sides by guards. His body was on auto pilot, he stood ridged against them just as the first two shot towards him. He gave a quick side step before teleporting. 
He reappeared behind the left line of troops and was off again. The rest of the castle was loaded to the brim with soldiers ready to bring him down so he had to work fast. Ways out ran past his mind but he knew they were heavily guarded. So conventional ways out were out of the question. Before he could start forming a new plan, another group of guards stood in his way. he leapt off his good hind leg to the right and nearly implanted his face into the wall. He may not have been able to spring off as hard as he wanted but it was enough to get him over top of them before falling to the ground. 
They split open for him to avoid being crushed but were quick to try and grab him. Once again with his left hind leg, he swept a big circle around him knocking over the closest circle around him. As one more jumped over his friends, Nexus grabbed his right front hoof with his left, and had his right on the soldier's stomach. With his momentum, Nexus only acted as a fulcrum and threw him into the lot on his left. His opened a large enough space for him to escape. He ducked to the left and was bolting down the corridor as fast as his legs could carry him.
What about a window? He designed the legs to absorb a fall but with only one piston active that wasn't going to do much unless it was a very short fall. Though looking at the castle, he didn't have much of a choice. He'd have to jump from a low lying window and hope he wouldn't break a hip. With a quick glance over his shoulder he found a very large mass of white stallions in golden armor. Nexus hopped up on two hoofs and started to skid. His magic pulsed through his body again and he dropped his forelegs to his side with a great amount of force. He was slowly coming to a stop as he crossed a line of dust that puffed up right at his hoofs.
He could feel that the floor wasn't very thick but it'd have to do to slow them down. As he came to a stop he turned around just as they got to the line and pushed his hoofs up. The dark purple stone followed. Instantly jumping up to about three feet. An idea struck him just as the soldiers came to a stop. He cocked his elbows and another slit appeared in the slab. He raised his hoofs again and the side of the slab facing the soldiers and pushing it another three feet, leaving no space for them to follow. He didn't have time to admire his handy work, he needed to get to the stairs. Duel stairways that could be seen in the foyer lead almost all the way up the castle.
So they were his best bet. If he couldn't get to the lobby, he'd have to get as low as he could. With every corridor he passed, another mass of guards waiting for him. He'd up another wall and kept running if they stood in his way, he'd teleport past them then put up another wall behind him. He wasn't even down the first flight of stairs before he started to feel his base pool of magic starting to dwindle. He had to find a more permanent solution to his hind leg. He leaped down a full flight of stairs and pulled a one eighty before galloping down the next portion stairs. 
Before he hit the next half set of stairs, he noticed the drapes. He drew one of his hidden blades and quickly sliced off a large portion of the bright red drapes. Thankfully they felt like they were cotton rather than silk. He quickly slipped it through the hole and tied the ends. Nexus tapped his right hindleg to make sure the piston wouldn't just slide his hoof out again. With it somewhat in place now, he started sprinting once again as the sounds of oncoming guards began getting closer.
He was happy to have to use his magic to things other than run now. Now he could teleport past lines of guards and put up more stone walls to impede their pursuit. Despite now having a little more energy in him in general however, the constant running was taking its toll. He wondered for a moment where he was in the castle. He had to be low enough by now. After making it down his current flight of stairs he made a hard left and ran full pelt down the accompanying hallway.
Despite living here most the latter half of his life, he didn't have it all memories. At most he could find his way to most of the bathrooms, the library and main lobby where it became a lot easier to navigate. At most, he was on the fifth floor. It certainly felt like like it. His heart pounded in his chest and his lungs trying to escape his chest plate and find air on their own. His upper hindlegs were also starting ach. It'd been far too long since he'd had this kind of exercise. But the threat of death could do that to a stallion.
He rounded every corner with slight difficulty, as the curtain caused his rear to slid on the marble floors. There wasn't a shortage of guards either. The amount of walls he'd put up would probably make the castle's interior architect seem like an absolute idiot.
Nexus figured he'd run far enough to what he hopped was the front of the castle, he threw his weight against the closest door and tumbled into a casual sitting room. No time to admire the scenery though, there was a balcony window on the far side and that was his ticket out of here. He burst into the summer air and- 
"Shit." He said looking on the seven story drop. He wasn't sure if his organs could take the sudden stop.
Hell, he wasn't quite sure if he could from a five story drop. The thunderous sound of boots running down the hall confirmed he had no chance of getting out that door again. 
Nexus sighed. This was his only option now. Bellow, he could make out the castle's front courtyard, decorated with enough bushes and trees to put any forest to shame. Guess Celestia liked shade. There was enough room in front of the castle that he could hit the ground without going through a tree. But that also meant nothing to slow him down a bit. May as well commit. Nexus stepped up onto the railing of the balcony and took the step over the edge. He heard a guard behind him shout after him before the sound of rush of wind. He felt positioned himself with his hindlegs facing down, praying that the remaining piston could help make some kind of cushion to the drop.
He knew he had to roll forward but he wasn't sure if he'd have a spine to do it with. Too late to go back. He leaned forward a tad as he fell, passing the last couple of stories as fast as his hopes were going. The piston gained pressure and pushed its way out a few inches just before impact. He his left hindleg hit first. The shockwave that went up his body was painful. His whole skeleton shook from the impact and with nowhere else to go, the force took the easy way out and began pushing him forwards on his good hoof.
Not wanting to his face to permanently imprint itself on in the dirt, he pushed forward with his right shoulder first and started the roll. He wasn't sure how many rolls he'd have to do to avoid his brain coming out his eye sockets but he knew that he had to before it turned to a smoothie. The ground hit the back of his shoulder blade and allowed the force to continue pushing him forward, tossing him head over heels. He knew he was going too fast to just stand up and keep running, so he tumbled a few extra times before getting to his hoofs.
The world spun around him like a pinwheel for a moment. He could make out a tree nearby and was happy to prop himself up against it to regain his balance. As everything came into some minor focus, the sounds of his pounding heart beat started clearing out to make way for the surroundings to start coming in. There wasn't much he could do now other than hope everything would come back into focus before some pegasi would follow him. But he wasn't willing to take that risk. 
There was only two of everything now instead of four and that was good enough for him to keep going. He swayed every few steps as his equilibrium continued to try and right him. He found it got easier to move in what could be called a straight line and made his way to another tree. He couldn't get out of the castle this way. There had to be something he could do. They'd be checking all the bushes and trees for him. He sat back and caught his breath against another tree, the throbbing in his head started to fade as the light of the sun shone through the bush to his -what?
Looking over to his left the bush was glowing like the power of Faust was about to tell him to be the savior of the oppressed masses. Inside the glow, Nexus could see a few shapes hidden in the brush was the light started to fade. He had two options, he had to either bolt from that bush, more than likely giving away his position, or see what it was about. Well he couldn't concentrate enough to pull off a teleport over the wall so this was as good an option as any. 
He walked over to peak through the leaves and nearly fainted again from what was under the bushes. The silver curves and blue fibers of his Irion Icarus sat under the tree with some kind of object sitting on top of a sticky note. He pulled back on the bushes and caught the gentle glimmer of glass. Levitating it to his face, he saw his silver rimmed glasses. He haphazardly threw them on his snout and picked up the sticky note.

Thought you might need these. I need some time while M makes more popcorn. Have fun Lunie!

-L
Nexus wished he had time to wonder about all the ponies he knew with the first innitial of 'L' but that wasn't as important as getting out of there. As fast as he could, he threw his wings onto his back where they clicked into place, connecting the nerve endings and causing an electric shock to fly up his spine and all the way to his horn.  He wasn't expecting something like that but sadly, he'd have to question it later. He spread the artificial wings and shot up into the sky with a heavy leaning to the left; right back towards the castle.
He was able to correct his path with some difficulty and was over the wall in not time. From the sound of siren wailing in the castle, the pegasus patrols would be up any second. He turned tail and flew as fast as he could without losing control, straight to the south.

> Deeper Into The Uncanny Valley
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            It was around noon when he reached the rear garden of Princess Twilight's castle. This was where he had to put his first faze into action. He did make a plan but it wasn't a very good one. Nor his most complex. Get into the castle, get to the library and find something, anything, that could have caused this. If he was VERY lucky, and he was found, his other theory would be that only Canterlot was affected by whatever it was. There was next to no chance but it steeled him to sneak his way through the oddly populated gardens.
Not by guards in the garden, but by residents of Ponyville. Despite that meaning there shouldn't be any need to sneak, it didn't help the fact he still had his legs and wings. He could rectify one of those issues. He detached his wings and stashed them in the closest Blue Bird Rose bush, hoping that the light blue of the artificial feathers would blend a bit better there. He made a mental note of where it was and started towards the castle with careful eyes on all of the ponies in the garden. He got lucky. There were enough chest high hedges hiding his legs from sight. But there was two hundred yards of flower beds between him and the rear gates. And sadly, there were guards.
Judging from the stone wall around the garden, ponies weren't suppose to come in the way he had. That was the only way into the castle. this before confounded him. His horn flashed as his magic surrounded him, mostly his legs. This was an advanced spell but he knew a much easier temporary version. His legs, once metallic, now seemed organic and covered in the cobalt fur Dust loved so much. His chest plate was given the same spell. He looked normal again! But he knew it wouldn't last. He'd used a similar spell on Ephialtes a few years before but that one was much more permanent, this one would last about an hour. He was still weak from his encounter with Luna.
Clock was ticking. No doubt the guards would notice somepony they didn't see come in try to go out on their own. Lucky him it looked like a small family was leaving. With any luck he could slip in without being noticed. The thought then crossed his mind. How long would it take for sketches to be all over Equestria. If he knew Firebrand well enough there'd be something about him in before the end of the day.
Nexus started towards the family and came upon the tail end of their little group. He strode to the doors with a fake smile on his face and a spring into his step. He didn't mean it in the slightest but he certainly had to make it look like it. He passed the guards without them even batting an eye but that might just be because this plan was stupid. But it was better safe than have a spear in his chest…



Well that backfired even harder than he thought. The second he found the archive room, the spell wore off with what might as well been massive fanfare. His legs flashed back to normal and every pony there instantly spun their heads to see what all the fuss was about and he was met with obvious adversity.
"Stop right there!" guards shouted.
Nexus did have to admit that in their stand point he'd be assuming he was a threat too. Thankfully Twilight's Castle was nowhere near as heavily guarded as Canterlot and he was able to slip out with minor difficulty. He was able to grab his wings on the way out and fly back into the forest of apple trees. He didn't quite remember the layout of Ponyville but he had a feeling he could remember how get to the main square and then to the Carousel Boutique. And from there he might be able to get to find some kind of disguise. At least a cloak at most a powdered wig.
Thankfully nopony was in and lucky for him she didn't have a single powdered wig... that day. There was more than enough fabric to turn into a makeshift shroud. Covered the wings and legs but not so long it'd trip him up. Good enough for now. As he walked, he grumbled to himself.
"Alright, Dust doesn't know who I am… that' odd enough but… why did Astral look different? He was blue…ish. And his mane!? Why was it dirty blonde!? I don't understand! And what about Luna? She was talking like she hadn't been around ponies that much in years! This doesn't make any sense! And most importantly. Why does nopony know who I am!?"
Nexus would've continued ranting to himself if he hadn't run into a dark blue blob that was walking near him. Nexus grunted from being hit and fell onto his rear with the sound of fluttering paper. "Watch where you're going dude!" a generally familiar voice called.
"Why don't you…" Nexus would have finished if he didn't notice who he ran into. The leather jacket was enough of a giveaway.
His brown mane and eyes were staring him down not sure what to say to him but certainly not happy. The blue coat and typewriter cutie mark could belong to almost anypony… but the leather jacket that nopony else would wear in this heat was unmistakable.
"Vince?" Nexus asked about to lose his mind even more than he already had.
"Who the fuck wants to know?" Vince said picking up his now scattered papers.
"Vince… You're dead…"
"Last I checked I wasn't. Wait… Did that mare- oh I'm going to kick her green ass!"
"No… You were on my airship in Saddle Arabia… You were reporting on the Changeling War and died in the crash…"
"I'm sorry but stop talking to me like that. I'm not dead and I'd like it if you answered my first question. Who are you?"
"Vince, it's me! It's me! You're cousin Nexus!!"
"Nexus?"
"Yeah, Aunt Molly's kid!"
Vince started to nod as he seemed to be remembering something. Things might not be going so bad for Nexus after all! "Yeah… Yeah I think I do remember you." "THANK FAUST! "That's him! It's that guy from the posters! Help!" "FUCK YOU!"
Nexus hit him with a quick knock out spell and bolted off in the opposite direction before anypony could figure out exactly what was going on. Hopefully anyways. 
> The Doctor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It wasn't hard to get to the edge of the forest. Nopony in that town would ever dare to get there unless escorted by soldiers to get to the Castle of the Two Sisters. Even then they were hesitant. He was getting a strange feeling of déjà vu. Unlike the first time he'd gone into the forest, he hung around the edge. But he did keep moving. Sitting still was something that he'd gotten use to around the same time. 
Things were just getting stranger and stranger by the second. Vince was dead! Right? He did die right? Yeah… he died. He knew for a fact he died… So why was he walking about Ponyville? It was him, he responded to his name, so why didn't he know who he was?
"I need some time to think. I guess this is the best place for peace a-"
"Hi Nexus!" a bubbly voice called to him.
He looked in its direction but only found nothing, until he looked up. A light gray pegasus with matching yellow eyes and mane. Like most ponies he'd met he remembered the cutie mark more than the face. Her mark was as bubbly as her personality but it was a wonder how she got it. The name was coming to him…..
"Not now Derpy, I've-" Nexus' head shot up in realization of what was going on. He spread his wings, throwing the cloak me made up and then throwing himself into the air and up to her level. "Wait, what'd you just say!?" he said grabbing her shoulders.
"Uh… Hi Nexus?" she said nervously as her right eye went lazy.
"You know who I am!?"
"Yes… I never forget a face, remember?"
"Oh thank you!" Nexus gripped her in the tightest bear hug he could give her. "Somepony that knows me!"
"Okay you're starting to scare me. Are you okay?"
"I'm a lot better now! Do you know what's going on?"
"Um, besides you being crazy, no I don't."
"Look, all I know is that nopony knows who I am and everything's… different."
"Different how?"
"Well aside from ponies not knowing who I am and my dead cousin's not dead. He also called the cops on me."
"How's that possible?"
"How the fuck am I suppose to know!?"
"Okay calm down Mr. Grumpy Legs. I remember you so there has to be a way to fix this."
Nexus was about to open his mouth to protest but realized that that was something he'd over looked when trying to wonder about this situation. "I guess."
"Alright." Derpy said with a smile seeing Nexus calming down. "So why don't we go to Princess Twilight's castle and find some answers?"
"Yeah… About that."
"You got chased out didn't you?"
"Kinda'." Nexus said nervously.
"Well done. I'd say you're the smartest dummy I've met but that's a lie."
"Wait so you know somepony that can help me?"
"Well I didn't say that…"
"But if he's smarter than I am that means he can help right?"
"Well I guess but he doesn't like unwanted guests."
"Please Derpy?" Nexus got down on his knees and put his fore legs together like he was praying. "I'm literally on my knees begging you. That's no small feat. I've lost my family and everything I know and love. Pleeeeeea-"
"Okay fine!" Derpy said slapping Nexus before he finished his extended please. "But I don't really know when he'll come back."
"What'd you mean? Can't you take me to his house or something?"
"It's… complicated. His house kind of moves."
"If it's a cloud I'll just fly. Airship's all the same."
"It's a bit more than that. But he does generally come around on even days."
"Even days? Is he OCD or something?"
"Just… Come on!" Derpy said grabbing his right foreleg while they were still airborne. "You can ask all your questions over lunch."
"I'm not hungry." Nexus protested.
"I don't care! Come on already!"



Lunch was good. Muffins with a hayburger. Unfortunately for Nexus it was an odd day. According to Derpy, she'd just gotten back from an adventure yesterday and that he'd give her some down time afterwards. If it was as constant as she said it was then he wouldn't have to wait long. But he was completely wrong. No sign of this friend of hers for the past two days. All he knew about him was that he was not normal. Nexus was no stranger to odd ponies but Derpy kept saying he was like nothing he'd ever seen. And he's had tea with Discord. 
In the mean time, Nexus was doing everything he could in her humble home on the ground. It was a pain for Nexus not to leave at all. She had a treadmill so he could run for a while and the rest of his cardio with push-ups and such. He was in the middle of another massive set of push-ups in the late afternoon when Derpy came home from her mail rout. She set her mail satchel on her couch and stared with wondering eyes.
"How many push-ups can you even do?" she asked stepping into the kitchen for her afternoon tea.
"All of them if that helps you out any." Nexus said looking straight at the floor.
"Why do you even bother?" she asked dipping her tea bag into the pot. "Your legs can't get stronger right?"
"The muscles that are connected to the legs still get the work." Nexus let out a few pants to keep the blood flowing. "They just don't get as tired. Meaning I can do more."
"I still don’t understand why you do this." she then poured herself a cup and brought the tray in with a second cup. "You want any?"
"I'm not a massive fan of hot tea. got any ice tea?"
"Nope. Take it or leave it pall."
"I'll leave it then." Nexus let out a sigh as he finished his final set for the day.
As he stood up and let out a loud wheezing sigh. Wait? He'd heard that noise before. He couldn't quite place it but it sounded like a steam prop engine failing to start up coming from the back yard. Derpy perked up and put her tea on the table as she ran in the direction of the noise. Nexus left trotted after her just as the noise stopped with a deep resonating *DONG*. In the middle of her back yard, that he'd seen enough to know it wasn't supposed to be there, was a large blue phone booth. The lit up sign on top read Police Public Call Box. 
The front left door opened and a light brown head with a brown mane in a blown back style. He looked young but something was off. Nexus watched from the backdoor for now. The pony looked familiar but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. 
"Ditzy!" he said with a thick Hoofington accent. The two hugged and he spun her around. "It's been too long!"
"It's been two days Doctor."
"Well for you maybe." he looked down at a watch on his wrist and knit his brow. "Oooo. I'm not messing with Tea Time am I?"
"Not at all Doctor."
"Well then, off we go!" the doctor was about to hop back into the phone booth when he notice Nexus observing from the door. "Oh, you didn't tell me you had company Ditzy. You mind introducing us?"
Nexus quickly trotter to the door and shut it behind him. "Oh uh… Doctor, this is-"
"Lunarus Nexus. The world's first perfection of prosthetic." he said making his way towards Nexus. "Took the world by absolute storm after the Changeling War with those beautiful legs and even prevented a war without bloodshed." he extended his right hoof towards him with a smile. "I'm the Doctor."
Now he remembered him. He was playing chess with Discord that one time. Nexus shook his hoof with knit brow. Derpy didn't look too happy to have the doctor interrupt her. 
"This is The Doctor." Derpy said finishing her interrupted introduction. Nexus noticed the Doctor's mostly star struck gaze turn serious in an instant. "He needs your help Doctor."
"I can see that. Come on then," he said letting go of Nexus' hoof. "into the TARDIS, the lot of ya!"
The Doctor turned around and hopped back through the open door. Derpy wasn't too far behind. Nexus entered expecting it to be cramped with three full grown ponies but it was surprisingly roomy. Much more than he had expect. Inside this what now seemed so small box, a massive room unfolded. The brass orange walls were covered in hexagons with circular yellow lights in side them. They were set in two rows on each plate going up the whole room and into a domed ceiling.
Four stone supports that looked more like spider webs going from the raised glass hexagon floor. In the center of that raised floor was a glass column with rods and disks inside moving up and down. Green and white lights shone up from the floor and a dim peach light came from the translucent ceiling. The center console contraption was in the shape of a hexagon as well. It was covered in buttons, dials, switches and a random turny wheel on one side. Nexus let out a low whistle as he took in the black wires hanging from the ceiling and connecting to the top half of the tube where the glass chamber going through the center.
"Quite the set up you got Doc." Nexus said shutting the door behind him.
"It is pretty cool isn't it?" The Doctor said with a giddy grin on his face.
"I'll say. So how is this going to help me Doc?"
"Wait… you don't have any questions about where you are right now? This room and all?"
"Nope not really. So this machine's gonna fix everything?"
"Yes she will. Well… she won't do it all. She'll show us the problem and we have to fix it ourselves. She's called TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."
"So it's a time machine?" Nexus asked.
"Yes, yes it is. Are you sure there aren't any pressing questions you have about the TARDIS?"
"Nope. How's a time machine going to fix this?"
"Well first we have to understand what's going on." he must've been too ADD to keep track of himself from how much he was jumping around. "What's happened to you?"
"We've only just met. You know a lot of me and you're a time traveler apparently so why can't you just flip a switch and fix this."
"Just stick with me here Lunarus."
"Nexus, Doc. Just call me Nexus or Lunar if you have to use my first name." Nexus said leaning back on his haunches.
"Alright Nexus, what's happening and when did it start?" The Doctor said pulling a strange looking pen with a blue light bulb on the end. He pointed it at Nexus and it started flashing.
"A few days ago, I got up and kissed my wife… I got a splitting head ach and then she didn't know who I was at all." Nexus said holding back as much as he could. He might be able to help but he wasn't ready to start telling him everything.
The bulb flashed with a whirring sound. The Doctor waved the wand thingy around in front of him. "Oh my…" he said cringing a tad. "That's not right at all."
"What?"
"There's an energy that people can give off if they're far enough removed from their time. And you're emitting a large amount of it."
"Could just be magic."
"Nope. The Sonic doesn't really coupe with magic. It's uh… Complicated."
"I'm willing to listen."
"Huh… Ditzy you might wanna start working a bit harder, Nexus is giving you a run for your money."
"You're kidding right?" Derpy said with a growl.
"Yeah…" the Doctor said nervously. "Anyways. It's called Paradox Energy. It's the energy given off by the life you could've lived. It's not very powerful but some creatures do feed on it. Using a temporal shift usually. The energy is well… not found normally."
"So what does that mean?"
"It means your main timeline has been heavily altered." The Doctor put down his "Sonic" and just stared at Nexus waiting.
"What?" Nexus asked pushing him back.
"Isn't there something out any of this that's odd to you?" The Doctor asked waving his hoofs around the room.
"Okay, what in the world is your problem?" Nexus asked getting tired of the constant prodding.
"He wants you to say something. He likes it when ponies say it." Derpy informed rolling her eyes.
"What then, if it'll shut you up." Nexus said leaning against the railing on the walk way to the console.
"He wants you to say i-" Derpy would have finished what she was saying if the Doctor had not put a hoof over her mouth.
"Don't tell him!" The Doctor whined like a foal. "You'll ruin it! Go on then."
"What?" Nexus said looking around the room to find something out of the ordinary. More so than what was already there. "Simple perception filer hiding the size of your craft and making it seem like it's fitting inside the smaller space without a physical trace outside. Very exact and advanced magic but nothing I wouldn't expect."
Derpy slapped the Doctor's hoof away from her mouth defiantly and got enough distance to keep him from doing it again. "He wants you to say it's bigger on the inside!"
The Doctor groaned in annoyance and returned to his console. "You know I love hearing people say that Ditzy! Why'd you have to ruin it!?"
"Shut up and focus Doctor." Derpy said getting in his face.
"Right." He bent down and pulled a massive panel edged in rough white stone. from under the console. He put it up on the console and flipped a few switches on it. "I need your ha-Hoofs in here."
"Why?" Nexus asked leaving the walk way. "What is that thing?"
"Why do you ask so many questions?"
"Because I like to learn."
"Well, this is a telepathic circuit board. Put any organic material into those slots and it'll read your whole timeline. So come on, hoofs, in here, now." He quickly went back to the rest of the console, busily flipping switches and turning dials. 
"Uh… Doc. I hate to rain on your parade but… uh, my hoofs aren't organic. They may be living metal but they don't have a DNA coding sequence. And believe me I checked."
"Oh… Right…. Sorry 'bout that. Uh… Tongue!"
"Tongue?"
"Yeah, put your tongue in…. that slot there."
"I'm not doing that."
"You want to fix what's going on or don't you? Now come on, man up and stick it in."
Derpy did her best to hold back her laughter seeing Nexus and the Doctor pushing each other around. Nexus begrudgingly walked up to the panel and eyed the hole he had to put his tongue into.
"What are you waiting for, it to buy you dinner? Put your tongue in that slot there."
"You really shouldn't talk like that. Might send mixed messages."
"Shut up and get it over with, it's perfectly safe."
Nexus cringed and licked his lips. He wasn't one to trust easily, but due to the recent issues, he didn't have much of a choice. Nexus took a deep breath and stuck his tongue out. He slowly leaned closer to the slot the Doctor pointed to and held the breath he took in as his tongue touched the cold metal outside the slot. His tongue slipped into the slot and the strongest and most unpleasant taste he'd ever tasted shot through his nerves.
"Oo eed ho kleen hiss hing." Nexus slurred with his tongue in the machine.
"What'd he say?" Derpy asked.
"That I need to clean the slot he's got his tongue in. Quit your whining!"
"Whak youykelth Hak."
"How can you understand him?"
"Talking with your tongue out is a sub-language of baby."
"Ayay izi'n a langage."
"Yes it is. Now stop talking for a second. I'm working…" he started flying across the control panel, all the while starring up at a screen. "on finding your… Oh…. Oh that's bad. That's really really bad."
"Wha iz?"
"Here's your timeline… But there's no you."
"What'd you mean?" Derpy asked getting up against his right shoulder. "He's right here and breathing so doesn't that mean the TARDIS can find him?"
"You'd think so but according to the readings on his timeline, past, present and future, he doesn't exist."
"Ho wha are oo hooking hat?" Nexus asked.
"I'm looking at your timeline. Well… A parallel timeline to yours but without you in it. If that makes any sense."
"You lost me Doctor."
"I hkot it."
"Finally, somebody that gets me!" The Doctor said throwing his hoofs in the air. 
"Get hon whik it Gok."
"Right. So from what the TARDIS is telling me, a man by the name of Firebrand was a great soldier. He was captured by changelings a few years before the attack on Canterlot and was found soon after when his imposter was stopped before killing Princess Luna. Soon after that he finished climbing the ranks of the guard, he became happily married to a castle maid known as Dust Storm."
"WHAT!?" Nexus shouted straightening up instantly. "Let me see!"
"Forget I said that!" The Doctor said holding the monitor and rotating it around the console as he ran. "Skipping that pa-whoa!" He tripped and Nexus was right on top of him with a hoof in his chest. "Note to self, don't run with the monitor unless you get longer legs."
Nexus took hold of the monitor and read what the Doctor had been reading. "You're shitting me… she married Firebrand… FIREBRAND!?"
"Calm down Nexus." The Doctor wheezed.
"No! I won't calm down. One of my mentors and closest friends married my wife!"
"Shut up!" Derpy shouted throwing Nexus off the console. "I know you're mad-"
"You can say that again." The Doctor said rubbing his now soar chest.
"But if I got what the Doctor said right, this is just a place where you didn't exist. All we have to do is make you exist again right?"
"Not exactly. It's not like getting Marty McFly's parents together at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. Nobody prevented his existence, he was erased."
"I was erased?"
"Well that's what it looks like."
"How do we fix it?"
"That's the hard part. There are only two options as to what caused this. Your timeline might have became unstable and it booted you out to prevent a collapse of space and time. The only way that could happen is if there was a hole in the time vortex, it caused a storm and it chose you as collateral damage to avoid total collapse. In that case there's no way to fix it. What's odd is that it was very exact in taking you out. Normally there isn't a single trace of the person that's been taken out, not even a body."
"You said there were two options, Doc. What's the other one?"
"The other one is totally impossible. It'd require a working TARDIS console and this I the last TARDIS in existence."
"What is it Doctor?" Derpy asked.
"No…" the Doctor quickly turned to the console and started turning knobs, flipping switches and spinning the wheel thing Nexus had noticed earlier. "It's called a paradox machine. If in the right wrong hands it can erase anything from time. Whereas the timeline doing it taking the object out of both time and space. It creates a time storm and and if controlled correctly can take be devastating to the timeline of the whole universe. Or at a lower level, take someone out of their own timeline completely. The only issue is that the technology that's needed is in a TARDIS. Something that only one person can have."
"No… Doctor you have to be kidding."
"'Fraid not."
"Who is it?"
"There was a man… Another Time Lord, he, using a TARDIS I time locked him into to create a paradox machine to try and destroy me. He's called the Master."
"But you told me he was dead."
"I've seen stranger things Ditzy. But wait… It can't be him even if he's somehow still alive."
"What'd you mean?"
"It's his life goal to kill me. So why would he target somebody I don't even know?"
The tree looked to one another hoping someone could have an answer that made sense. "What about finding this storm?" Nexus asked. "There has to be a way to find the storm."
"I don't know. But we're going to do it." The Doctor quickly went back around the console and started flying across the controls again. "Twiddle that knob over there for me would you Ditzy?"
"Uh…" she looked to the panel covered almost exclusively in knobs. She reached out with a hoof and twisted a random knob.
From the Doctor's look it was the right one. But Nexus suspected they were all the right one. He watched the screen as the Doctor went about his things and felt a growing resentment to his old mentor. Especially with the picture on the screen of their wedding. A big, grand thing in the castle, her in a beautiful white dress.
"Got it!" The Doctor shouted ecstatically, snapping Nexus out of his seething jealousy. "You are not going to believe this!"
"I'm in a phone box that can travel in time and space, I think I can accept anything."
"It's not in the universe."
"Come again?"
"What'd you mean it's not in the universe?" Derpy asked.
"The universe does have a definite size unlike everyone things." 
'Not new but not proven.' Nexus thought to himself.
"Now it's obvious this storm isn't just outside the universe. Absolutely nothing can exist outside the universe unless it's inside of what is known as a pocket dimension. Meaning-"
"It's a very small universe outside our own that cannot be reached from ours right?"
"You really are brilliant."
"Just good at connecting dots."
"Same thing."
"So can we get to it Doctor?" Derpy said seeming to have slight trouble keeping up.
"Well that's the amazing part. There's a landing zone."
"A what?"
"The scanners are picking up a small area of ground more than big enough for the TARDIS to land on." The Doctor said starting to run across the console again.
"What's it attached to then?" Nexus asked.
"Let's say we find out?" he said putting his hoof on a very large switch that seemed fairly out of place. Derpy grabbed the railing she was near and Nexus knit his brow. "ALLONS-Y!" the Doctor shouted, throwing the switch forward causing the whole ship to lurch and shake violently.
> The Maze
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            The TARDIS shook and wobbled heavily as it went. The Doctor clung to the console while Derpy held on to a railing. Nexus on the other hand was enjoying a face full of glass as he did everything in his power to get his hoofs under him and get to the console as well. Unfortunately for him he kept sliding around on his stomach and face. The Doctor did what he could to fly around the controls before finally slamming the switch back down.
The same gong sounded when he first appeared and the rumbling stopped. The Doctor and Derpy looked around the room and the Doctor cracked a smile. "And that's how it's done."
"We on the ground?" Nexus asked rubbing his most abused cheek.
"We have in fact landed! Brilliant!"
"Is it safe outside Doctor?"
"You said there's nothing in space." Nexus began. "What about air?"
"You'd be right. There isn't any. Good thing there's an air bubble around the TARDIS. And besides, scanners are picking up a similar bubble around the walkway to… I'm not really sure what that is."
The Doctor peeled himself away from the console and ran straight for the door. He threw them open and Nexus wasn't sure what to expect. Nothing was the first option but anything would be equally possible. For all he knew there'd be a wave of space just flying in through the door. What would "space" look like anyways? Nexus pushed the thought out of his mind and peered over the Doctor's shoulder.
What was ahead of them wasn't much to speak of. It was a stone pathway leading into blackness with street lamps in the center of the walkway and an arch separating the path from the landing pad. It lead to what looked like the first story of a very large skyscraper just made out of gray stone. The walkway lead to an opening in the walls and it gave absolutely nothing about the inside. What was much to talk about was the beam of white light coming from deep within the structure and the swirling mass of  black clouds lined in burgundy light overhead.
"That's a time storm?" Nexus asked.
"That it is… And that beam confirms it. It's a paradox machine."
"Do you know how to shut it off?" Derpy asked.
"I wasn't there when it happened the first time but from what I hear we just gotta smash it. Sounds simple enough!" the Doctor confidently strode out onto the platform.
Derpy wasn't far behind him but Nexus was much more cautious, taking his steps lightly. Or as lightly as a two hundred and fifty pound stallion could be. The stone under his hoofs were perfectly solid. Out of caution, he used his elemental magic to try and find out what they were dealing with. The ground underneath was only about ten meters thick. across the whole of the structure. Now that he could feel it, he knew it was gigantic! The walls were about… wait.
"Doctor!" Nexus called out to the Doctor, realizing how far ahead he and Derpy had gone.
Nexus sprinted through the arch and was suddenly engulfed by a bluish white light. The Doctor shouted to Nexus as the lights started swirling around him, slowly going up his head. As the lights closed in on the top of his head he felt his magical view of the ground fading. The lights finally formed several circles around his horn before closing around it and forcing itself to be absorbed. The grooves in Nexus' horn glowed as the spell took full effect. All feelings he'd had from the building ahead were gone and replaced by a shock through his whole body
"Nexus!" The Doctor slid to a stop as Nexus hunched over from the magical feedback. "You alright?"
"What was that?" Derpy asked putting a hoof on h his shoulder.
"Magical lock…"
"A what?" The Doctor asked.
"A magic lock. Basically means I can't use my magic anymore. They use them at sporting events so there can't be cheaters in the crowd."
"Well can't you break it?"
"Nope. Not unless you've been hiding a horn in that insane hair and the lock didn't notice, I can't use magic until we get out."
"And that's bad for you?"
"More for us. Means I can't see where we're going."
"What are you even talking about?"
"That thing over there," Nexus said nodding to the structure. "That's a maze worthy of Tartarus."
"A maze?" Derpy said confused. "What's a maze doing out here in the middle of space."
"Edge." the Doctor corrected. "And that is a good question. Nexus, start asking better questions if you want to keep in my graces."
"This isn't a competition Doctor. And I'm irreplaceable." Derpy said so cock sure of herself.
"Both of you shut up." Nexus said shrugging them off. We need to get moving. Sooner we beat this maze, the sooner my life's back to normal."
"Initiative, well done." The Doctor said. Nexus felt the Doctor was indulging himself in the idea of them competing to be better than one another.
Nexus rolled his eyes and started down the path. Towards the maze. Derpy and the Doctor were right behind him. Nexus could still feel the tension from both The Doctor and Derpy. Hell, even Nexus was afraid. The three reached the door of the maze and stopped. The Doctor pulled that Sonic Pen out of his hammer space and turned it on. The sound of the pen grew higher in pitch before it was nearly too loud to bear. He yelped in pain and dropped the pain, watching it bounce off some kind of invisible wall.
"What is it Doc?" Nexus asked.
"The Sonic doesn't understand magic." Derpy explained. "Makes it overheat."
"She's right." the Doctor said gingerly picking up his pen. "Doesn't happen often."
"So what were you looking for?"
"I was trying to see if there was some way to get a feel for the place. Magically protected."
"The floor isn't." Nexus said.
"How do you know?"
"I used Geomancy to scan the place. The floors are stone but the walls are enchanted steal. I could only see the creases in the foundation. When I looked."
"That's how you knew it was a maze?"
"Yup."
"Any chance you saw where the Paradox Machine was?"
"No. There's a few big rooms in there. No guarantee it's in any of them. It's only geomancy, not the infinite power of Faust."
"Point taken. Any routs then?"
"Only one for now. Right."
"Good enough for me."
"You sure about this?" Derpy asked.
"No. But I'm sure I'm willing to spend eternity in here."
"Careful with those words." The Doctor said glancing over to him. "You just might have it happen."
As the group walked through the door and a wall of light, not bright enough to obscure the TARDIS in the distance. Derpy turned and put a hoof against the wall before the Doctor could stop her. Her hoof touched the light as though it was solid.
"I guess we can't go back now anyways…" she said slowly taking her hoof off the wall.
> You Are Not Alone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            The Doctor and his companions stepped down the corridors of the maze with eyes on everything. The halls weren't very wide but just enough for two ponies to walk next to one another and high enough for either Derpy or Nexus to fly over them. After about an hour of walking Derpy took that opportunity. Nexus walked just ahead of the Doctor just trying to use what little geomancy magic was still just flowing through his body. With the lock on his horn he couldn't see very far ahead of them but could see the other side of the walls. Still not very useful but it did still mean Nexus could use some very weak Geomancy.
Derpy kept her head low as they went. Nexus made the mistake of trying to get an aerial view of the maze, thinking there would only be magic walls following the real walls but was sorely wrong. There was a much more potent wall covering the top of the whole maze. Just as his head could peak over the top of the wall, he felt a super powerful jolt of electricity surge through him. His legs and wings went limp and drug him into the stone like a lead weight.
It took some time for him to recover but once he could feel his legs he continued down their path. Despite not being able to see very far with what little magic he had in use, he and the Doctor knew full well that just aimlessly walking through the maze would get them absolutely nowhere. Every time there were multiple paths, the Doctor pulled his pen and welded a circle pattern in the right wall. Though on a second look it looked like it was in Equestrian. Then it was the circle pattern before he had a chance to read it.
They didn't talk much. Nexus had to keep his mind on what was around the next corner. but even then he wasn't sure if he could pick up anything besides stone. Though he could often feel very strong vibrations, both with magic and without. Nopony could figure out what it was but there wasn't much time to figure it out.
"It's probably just the Paradox Machine trying to cope with your timeline trying to straighten itself out." the Doctor said as he finished carving his marks onto the wall.
"You sure about that? Doesn’t feel like it." Nexus replied looking around the left corner unsure.
"He has a point Doctor." Derpy said lending her two sense. "Wouldn't that beamy thing… blink or something?"
"Well…" Nexus and Derpy looked on waiting for an answer and the Doctor couldn't really think of anything. He held his mouth open a while longer as he tried to find something to say. "Maybe the maze is shifting or something?"
"Considering the circumstances I'd buy that for a bit. What way should w-"
"Sh!" The Doctor said putting a hoof up. "Ya hear that?"
Neither Nexus or Derpy answered him but only listened. For some reason he could hear some kind of whirring sound. Similar to the Doctor's Sonic Pen but much lower and more constant. Some voice with a very monotone voice with a heavy electronic filter on it called for something from the left pathway. It was too far away for any of them to clearly make out what it was saying. But either way the Doctor's face grew heavy with worry.
"No…" The Doctor said with his trademarked worried voice that Nexus had learned quickly to fear.
"What is it Doctor?" Derpy asked.
"Doc…toooor." the voice called again.
The three of them stepped around the corner. What Nexus saw he couldn't quite understand. It looked like to top of a radio tower with eggs sticking out of its lower plates. At its midsection there were two things sticking out in front of it. The object on its right was what looked like a sink plunger and the left was some kind of… whisk. Bellow the dome that was the top, several disks surrounded a vent looking thing. The top section had two bright lights on either side of its dome head and some kind of mini, glowing toilet plunger.  The thing looked absolutely ragged. The metal was oxidized, or he assumed it was oxidization, heavily from top to bottom.
"Doctor!" the voice shouted from the machine. "The Doctor!?"
"Doc what is that thing?" Nexus said ready to draw his weapons.
"Dalek!" Derpy shouted ready to sprint.
"Run!" The Doctor shouted.
"Exterminate the Doctor!" the Dalek shouted.
Its whisk flashed and sparked. Nexus drew his right pistol instantly and was a mere instant from lining up a shot between the disks when something grabbed his foreleg and started dragging him away. Nexus' hoofs was forced to follow with the force dragging him. His vision was shaky at first before he could stabilize vision. Once it was stable, he could see the Doctor holding his foreleg as he himself ran. He dropped Nexus' foreleg so that he could run faster and Nexus didn't waste any time keeping up, only so he could slap him for what he did.
"Why are we running!?" Nexus asked. "I could've disabled it at least!"
"A Dalek against your level of technology could kill you in an instant, no matter how heavily damaged! Now shut up  and keep running!" the Doctor answered quickly.
"What are you talking about!?"
"Just run!"
The three of them ran as fast as they could, Derpy flew just behind them, taking the corners as fast as the boys were on foot. With a glance behind them, Nexus noticed the Dalek was nowhere to be seen. Nexus skidded to a stop forcing the Doctor and Derpy to do the same.
"What are you doing? Run!" The Doctor said about to drag him away again.
"If that thing could catch us then it would have. And all this shouting will more than likely give him a better idea as to where we are!"
"Then stop shouting at me!"
"You know what? No! Because I could've handled that! I don't need somepony pulling me out of trouble! What is your deal!?" Nexus shouted getting in the Doctor's face.
"What are you talking about? I was saving your life!"
"I can handle myself against a giant sex aid!" Nexus and the Doctor were now literally head to head.
"You don't know the Daleks, everything on their body is designed to kill!"
"You said it was damaged. I think I could've handled it. If I'd dealt with it-"
"You'd be dead!" Derpy was just about sick of hearing them argue she was about to push them apart when the Doctor shoved Nexus back with just his head. "Your bullet would've bounced off and it would kill you faster!"
"Okay both of you shut up!" Derpy finally interjected throwing the two apart.
"Your boyfriend started it!" Nexus accused like he was a colt.
"Well now I'm ending it! If you haven't noticed now we're lost! So get it together!"
Nexus and the Doctor were about to tell her to butt out until they realized that was defiantly the case. They also took notice that the end of their corridor was a dead end. Nexus was sure that they needed to go somewhere other than here.
"Alright, we can deal with this later. Let's just find the last turn we took a-" Nexus was interrupted when he saw the stone cold looks of fear on Derpy's and the Doctor's faces.
Nexus slowly turned as the whirring sound of the Dalek drew closer. The old and rusted monstrosity rolled around the corner shouting for extermination. Nexus was about to turn and run when he realized there was nowhere to run. The three of them started to slowly back up as it drew closer.
"Exterminate! Exterminate!" it shouted as the three ponies got their backs to the wall.
The plunger on its body began extending out before it suddenly was blocked by a wall of light similar to the one that locked them into the maze.
"What is this?" The Dalek asked. "Explain, explain!" the ground beneath their hoofs started to rumble and the Dalek started to descend, along with the rest of the maze. "Explain! Explain!"
The maze continued to drop beneath them until they could see the whole maze. A few other large square sections of the maze were following them up.
"Oh that's good. That is brilliant!" The Doctor said as they came to a stop. "A shifting maze." he finished as the sections began to turn in the air.
Theirs in particular rotated ninety degrees counter clockwise before floating back down. The maze reconnected itself properly and the light barrier in front of them faded. Nexus reached out with his hoof and it was unimpeded by the now dissipated shield.
"Oh that's really cool!" the Doctor shouted looking back at the corner they were just cowering in.
"I'd bet you twenty bits that's going to make things harder than they already are. For all we know there's more of those things. What was it anyways?"
"That…" Nexus could feel the weight of what he was about to say knock his cheer right off. "Was a Dalek. They're a race that exists only to kill. Everything that isn't Dalek is scum to them. Remember, there is no greater evil than a Dalek. And there's never only one. We'd better keep moving. There's no telling what could be coming."
"Agreed." Derpy said still slightly shaken by the sudden change in status quo.


> Angels
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            After what seemed like several hours of walking and another Dalek, Nexus was sure of one thing, the known location of Tartarus' gates was wrong, this was it. Tensions were incredibly high as they walked silently. Despite Nexus telling him it was useless now that they knew the maze was always changing, the Doctor still left his mark on the walls to try and help them keep track of where they're going.
"So…" Nexus said going slightly crazy from nobody talking. "How's that Sonic Pen even work?"
"I'm sorry?" The Doctor asked finishing his mark.
"I mean what's it even do? First you scanned me with it and now you're using it as a laser pointer with some edge."
"It's not a pen first off. It's a screwdriver. It uses sonic waves at all frequencies to do whatever I need."
"But how does it change frequencies? There's all of one button on there."
"It's psychically linked to me. It's just point and think."
"Sounds simple enough. I could only imagine the amount of power needed to do that." 
"A Galfraian crystal is a good power conductor. Now what about those legs? I'm still having some issues figuring out how you power those. I want to say bio-battery converting blood plasma into electricity."
"Not really. All though that's a good idea. Remind me to get on that."
"Should I drop back and let you two geek out?" Derpy asked hovering behind them.
The Doctor started on about something but Nexus could feel something odd. They came to a wider section of the maze. There was a grand entrance to something. Nexus vaguely felt the passage get wider past the entrance. Guarding the doorway were two… winged monkey creatures? The statues were very decrepit and looked like they were about to just about to fall apart. The two had their eyes covered the but one on the right was missing its head entirely.
"Can you see anything in there?" The Doctor asked hoping Nexus' geomancy was still working.
Thankfully it was but only for a few yards in any direction. "Not much but there's defiantly a room through that door." Nexus said adjusting the glasses on his nose he’d forgotten about.
"Anything else?" Derpy asked peering into the room. "It's kinda' dark."
"Nope." Nexus replied. "And I don't have a light."
"Oh what a shame." The Doctor said making his Screwdriver whir at a low frequency. Nexus assumed it was low anyways due to the tone. The tip turned white and shown brighter than any flash light Nexus had ever seen. "Come along then." The Doctor said as he started in without them.
"He always like this?" Nexus asked Derpy as they exchanged glances.
"You'll get use to it." Derpy replied following the Doctor in.
"I'd rather not." Nexus said following Derpy.
Normally Nexus was all for going into darkness. He was more comfortable in the dark. But this… wasn't normal. He'd felt this once before when he was-no. He wasn't going to think about that again. He was depressed enough as it was. The Doctor's light cut through the darkness and showed a wall on the other side and another narrow corridor. The walls not be earth if Nexus couldn't see them.
"Another maze inside the maze?" The Doctor wondered out loud.
"There are other ways around." Nexus said. "I'd rather be out there than in here."
"Me too." Derpy said standing close to the Doctor.
"What is wrong with you two?" the Doctor asked. "You see a dark mini-maze inside a massive maze outside of all of space and you want to go around it."
"Exactly the point." Nexus said. "This isn't normal darkness. I've got a real bad feeling about this."
"You worry too much. Come on." The Doctor said walking further into the darkness.
Nexus let out a sigh and followed as close behind as he was willing. He could take care of himself, even if there were unimaginable creatures from space that even the Doctor was afraid of. They always said that getting between a mother and her baby was suicide, well the pony between Nexus and his family was more than suicide. It was more like and earth pony taking a stick to fight a fully armed airship… with their head already in the main cannon… and the cannon shot shuiken and lightning… a-



The Doctor turned around to make sure Nexus was still behind him and Ditzy. The light from the Sonic's light was facing ahead but did send a little bit of light behind them. Nexus was just at the edge of it, with blackness covering everything just over his shoulders. Out of the darkness, something grabbed the cyberpony and pulled him away. He heard him shout and he hardly had enough time to spin the sonic around to illuminate the thing that took Nexus away to the sound of something heavy being slammed against the wall.
The Doctor froze at what he saw while Ditzy was horrified by what she was hearing. Nexus was pinned to the wall, choking and wheezing in pain as a stone hand held him to it. The hand was connected the one statue that was outside and still had a head. Its face, once hidden by its hands that were now around Nexus' neck, was twisted in an expression mimicking a powerful scream of rage. From the sound of it there was more than enough pressure on his neck to kill if he didn't get out of it immediately.
"Weeping Angel!" The Doctor shouted keeping the Sonic trained on the statue. "Don't stop looking at it Ditzy and whatever you do, don't blink!"
"O-okay Doctor." Ditzy stammered. "What's it doing?"
"It's trying to send him back in time. It'll send him back then feed on the energy of the life he could have lived. Now don't stop looking at it! It can't move if you your looking."
The Doctor was on the Angel's arms instantly looking for something to exploit as Nexus hacked croaked struggling against the Angel's hold. With one of his bionic legs, he kicked at the Angel's body but it didn't budge. He did used a foreleg to try and break the arms holding him there but nothing would make it budge.
"Hold on Nexus, I'll get you out of here." The Doctor said frantically scanning the Angel with the Sonic.
"Krrrrr… Krrrrrrrrrnnnnn."
"Stop talking and hold on a little longer."
Nexus' eyes started rolling back as he finally got what he wanted to say out. "Krrrrr-Ruuun."
Nexus' body convulsed and he vanished. It left the signature scar in space where they had been that quickly dissipated after being absorbed into the Angel.
"NO!" The Doctor shouted as Ditzy reeled back in fear. "Don't stop looking at it! Don't blink!"
"Where'd Nexus go Doctor?"
"I don't know. But I know for sure we're going get out of here and we are going get Nexus. We just have to break the Paradox Machine and he'll come back. Let's go."
"G-go whe-re?" Ditzy said still shaking. "That's in the way to the closest exit."
"We just have to go through the maze. If that's the trap then this one can't be too hard. Now come on!" He said putting a hoof on her shoulder and his back to the Angel.
Ditzy glanced at the Doctor before looking back at the Angel. She gasped when she saw the Angel's fanged face right in hers. She and the Doctor backed up and they both kept their eyes on it.
"What are we gonna do Doctor?"
"Quick, tie your tail to me."
"What?"
"Tie your tail to me and follow behind me. Do it, I'll watch the Angel just do it quick. I really need to blink."
Ditzy didn't skip a beat, well when she tried tying her tail to his she slipped once but other than that she tied their tail to his very quickly. "Okay done."
"Alright. Walk backwards and follow me. Only blink when we're far from the corners."
"What are you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna lead us out of here. Do you hear me?"
"Yeah… don't look away and blink when far away from a corner…"
"Good. You're going to be fine Ditzy, just remember, don't blink."
> The Return
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            Derpy's heart was racing and her eyes tearing up from having not been closed the whole time. From what she could gather, she was blindly following the Doctor through what really wasn't a maze. It was more of just a windey hallway with a dangerous monster in it. The Doctor never really talked about the things he'd fought before today. That's how it was for most of the aliens she saw throughout their travels.
The second they hit the outside, a stone wall dropped down and cut the Angel off from killing them. Derpy dropped to the ground and just let her eyes shut, just to rest them.
"No time to nap Ditzy." The Doctor said feeling the Doctor's hoofs fumble at the knot she made in their tails. "We need to keep moving."
"Doctor, I really need a rest." she said whining.
"Nexus needs help."
"You said he was sent back in time or something. We can't do anything."
"We have to get to the end of the maze and shut down that machine!"
"But what if he's-"
"Ditzy," The Doctor said picking her up and holding her by the shoulders, "we're going to fix this. I may not personally like his profession but I'm not going to give up on anyone that I travel with. If it was you that got taken by the Angel I… "
"What?"
"Never mind, we've got to move." The Doctor said letting her go. "If we shut down that machine everything will be fine."
Even after that little pep talk, neither Derpy or the Doctor weren’t feeling any more chipper. They were still in slight shock from seeing not only the Angel but, for Derpy at least, seeing someone vanish and more than likely die. It wasn't her first time seeing somepony die, but the Doctor was keen on not killing unless it was the last resort. She'd only seen aliens and corrupted ponies from the future die, either by the Doctor's hand or their own hubris. This was even worse. At least with death she could've been certain his suffering was over, but he said he was sent back in time or something. Maybe to another place… maybe in a wall where he was suffocating!
She had to stop thinking about it. Worrying never solve anything. At least that what she heard from the Doctor when they met. She had to stay focused on getting through the maze and fixing the paradox. The Doctor said even if he was dead destroying the Paradox Machine would bring him back too. But rule one was that the Doctor lies sometimes….
"Doctor?" Derpy asked breaking the silence.
"Not now Ditzy I'm trying to figure out where to go now." The Doctor said waving his Sonic between the three way intersection in front of them.
"Are you sure Nexus is okay?"
"I told you I don't know but shutting down the Paradox Machine will fix everything." The Doctor replied not looking back at her.
"Doctor." This time the Doctor hesitantly turned around. "Tell me it'll fix everything."
"Ditzy, he'll be fine when we shut it down."
"Do you promise?" The Doctor opened his mouth to say something but stopped before he even could get the air to say it. "What'll happen when we shut down the machine?"
"The timeline will rewind until the moment when the machine was started. It'll be like it never happened."
"But?"
"Why does everyone say that? There isn't always a but you know."
"With you there is Doctor. Please don’t lie to me."
"To everyone in the eye of the storm… nothing will have happened. Time will have seemed to passed as normal and nothing will have changed." Derpy fell back on her haunches and leaned against the left corner. The Doctor was at her side quickly with his hoofs around her. "I'm sorry Ditzy. But I didn't completely lie to you. No matter what I'm going to fix this. All of it. I'll do whatever I can to bring Nexus back if he’s-"
Derpy shoved him off of her. "I know you have to lie sometimes but maybe you could give actual advice instead of lying to ponies to make them feel better. I've been traveling with you for years and you still lie to me! Why do you keep lying to me!?"
"Ditzy… I care about you. Anyone that's traveled with me I've cared about, even him. Worrying about him won't make it any easier. I lie to help. I'm not very good at life advice Ditzy and believe me, I am as afraid as you are."
"And what do you tell yourself?"
"That I can fix it. No matter what, I'll fix it."
"You're lying again Doctor."
"I know I am. But I know for a fact I'm doing everything I can do to fix this and I will get him back."
"No you won't." Derpy said getting up. "We will. You're not the only one here. Now no lying Doctor, will we get Nexus back?"
"We will. I promise you we will fix this and we will get him back. That's a promise."
Before the Doctor could go into another one of his grand speeches, a deep rumbling roar shook their bones. Derpy felt the sound resonating in her chest. Their heads snapped to the left to try and find what the source was. Derpy's mind flashed back to all those years ago when she had her first bout of nearly dying just from proximity to the Doctor. Down the left hall, taking the whole of the hallway on that side, the massive body and mane of a manticore sat in the way. It hadn't been there when she looked down the hall before, she was sure of it.
"But for now, we run!" The Doctor said grabbing her by the hoof.
She didn't need to really be grabbed, Derpy was on his heels the second he started running down the front hall. Behind them Derpy could hear and feel the monstrous paws slam into the ground as it gave chase. Derpy got one glance back and found it slammed into the side of the wall at the corner they'd just left behind. She didn't bother looking back again, the heavy creature's paws shook the ground beneath them and just the thud felt like it was throwing her heart out of her chest. That might've just been her heart trying to throw itself out of her chest in fear.
If it wasn't while being chased, it sure as heck was when she made what was possibly the greatest mistake in their whole endeavor here, she made a left when he made a right. Another major rule of traveling with the Doctor was unless he says so, never separate when in danger. Derpy often ignored that and it… sometimes worked. But being where they were now and getting separated was an absolute no no. She heard him shout for her but she knew if she looked back she'd risk the manticore looking at her and chasing her down. She wasn't totally sure why she figured it'd do that because it saw her, Derpy wasn't willing to risk it.
"Over here Fluffy!" The Doctor shouted at the beast as it got between them.
Derpy had to stop. There was no way she wasn't going to let the Doctor do what he was about to. "Not him!" She shouted. "Over here! I've got wings! I bet I taste like Chicken!"
"No!" The Doctor shouted. "I'm an alien! I'm exotic! I'm like your planet's Caviar, come get some!"
"You might not like Caviar. Good old reliable chicken dinner!"
She wasn't quite sure if that's what helped it make its decision but it made it. the manticore roared in Derpy's direction and began taking steps towards her. Derpy didn't need any more motivation to break into a sprint and soon flight. She knew she couldn't maneuver very well without hitting the walls and she certainly managed to do that but a few bruises were of little consequence of not being eaten.
The Doctor shouted at them, trying to get the manticore to come back after him but he was far too late. Derpy could hear him following them. Barely. Over the sound of the beast behind her she could hardly hear anything. The clop of his hoofs on the stone was nearly completely overshadowed by the thunderous pounding of the manticore's paws and claws on the ground. Then the second worst thing that day happened, she took a curve with her wings down and hitting the wall, wing first.
Derpy went into a quick spiral, before skidding a distance on her belly. The stone, though smooth wasn't perfect. Small imperfections caused a few scratches. The Doctor, not very far behind the Manticore, didn't bother to wonder why the thing he was crawling under was so fuzzy but he didn't care. His friend was in trouble and there was nothing he wasn't going to stand behind it no matter how dead he knew he'd be in front of it.
"Ditzy, get up!" The Doctor shouted.
Derpy tried but notice the elephant in the hallway. "Doctor!" She shouted hoping he'd have some kind of teleporter in his plot but she was holding out way too much hope.
"Hey!" a familiar voice shouted from behind the manticore. "Big fat and ugly!"
The manticore started to turn around and was met with a stool to the back of the head. The monster ducked as the wooden stool hit him and shattered. Over it's now slightly hunched shoulders, Derpy caught a glimpse of blue and silver. The glimpse got better as it hunched even further with the thud of the silver hoofs of the aggressor on the manticore's neck. The stallion let his momentum take him over the beast until he stood facing away from them with his fake wings spread.
"You know what's good for ya… RUN!!" Nexus shouted in his Canterlot voice.
The manticore flinched hearing Nexus' shout and backed up. With what looked like a grin, Nexus lunged forward slightly and the manticore started to turn around and start to run. Nexus turned with a cocksure grin on his face and chuckled.
"Miss me?"
"Nexus!" Derpy exclaimed with joy.
"Where'd you get the stool?" The Doctor asked.
"Where have you been!?"
"Statue thing could only teleport me I guess." Nexus answered.
"Yes but where did you get the stool?" The Doctor asked again.
"Why does it matter Doctor, we found him."
"Yes we did Ditzy and it's brilliant that he survived but I want to know where you got the stool."
"Come on, I'll show you." Nexus said motioning over his shoulder.
Derpy followed right on Nexus' heels while the Doctor kept his distance. He wasn't so sure of this miracle.


> Suspicions Confirmed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            Apparently Nexus found some kind of bar just a few corners away from where the manticore had The Doctor and Ditzy trapped. And not matter how much he could use a cocktail, The Doctor was still dubious about this. Things never fell this perfectly into place, even for him. With the recent events however, the Doctor was more than happy to take a seat. The bar was pretty basic. Dark wood floor matched the bar top and tables in the whole thing. The lighting wasn't much better than the rest of the maze, the storm still gave mostly dim light.
Ditzy sat at the bar as Nexus went on about what he did after the angel teleported him as he mixed The Doctor a cocktail. He was strangely vague about it. To paraphrase his excessive padding, he fought off his own manticore and even got past a Dalek before he found the bar he an Ditzy ran past. Ditzy listened with rapt attention as Nexus poured The Doctor's cocktail. He wasn't really sure what he'd made, but he knew for a fact he wasn't ready for one from Nexus.
"What's the problem Doctor?" Nexus asked sliding the green drink closer. "Ditzy said you liked cocktails."
"I do love a good cocktail but I'm not really in the mood." The Doctor said not breaking eye contact.
"Are you sure you're okay Doctor?" Ditzy asked.
"I'm fine Ditzy. I just need a clearer mind for this. I think we've sat for long enough." The Doctor said getting up.
"Not even just a sip? I'll even make one for you Ditzy."
"I don't drink."
"Now's the time for it." Nexus said.
"She doesn't want any Nexus. Now I've got to ask, why don't you-" The Doctor would have finished the big question on his mind, a thumping sound made him stop. He knew that noise… It got louder as both Nexus and Ditzy noticed. Ditzy followed The Doctor's eyes while Nexus just looked around trying to find the source. "Nexus… Make room."
"You wanna mix your own drink?" Nexus asked for some reason exited.
"Sure why not?" The Doctor said obviously not concerned with drinking. "Ditzy, why don't you come back here and help me."
"You're serious?" Ditzy asked considering how well the Doctor knows her.
"Yeah, help me find the rum."
"I already-" Nexus said.
"I mean a different kind of rum!" He said shoving Nexus down as the stomping got closer. "Come along Ditzy!" he threw Ditzy over the bar, almost throwing her against the back wall of shelves.
The Doctor wasn't too far behind and made sure to shove both into the bar's stash under the bar. The thumping noise continued getting louder as Nexus legitimately searched for the kind of rum the Doctor wanted. He silently slapped Nexus' arm away from the alcohol and told him to be quiet as the stomping sounded as though it was at the opposite door. It stopped for a moment then came into the room. The Doctor peeked his eyes over the counter just in time to see the back of a metal clad man man at the far entrance as it scanned the opposite side of the room.
The Doctor made a shushing motion with his ha- hoof and mouthed for them to stay down. Nexus meanwhile was too curious and peeked over the bar with his whole head out. The Doctor and Ditzy were quick to yank him back down before the metal man could see him. The man turned a few more circles and concluded that nobody was there. It lumbered out the door they'd come in and the Doctor made sure Nexus stayed down until the man was gone and far down the hall.
"Are you absolutely mad or just plain mental!?" The Doctor shouted at Nexus.
"What are you talking about?" Nexus asked still wondering if he wanted that drink.
"What kind of tactical mastermind stands up to look at something that can kill them!?"
"I barely got a look at it, what was it?"
"That was a Cyberman!"
"Cyberman?" Ditzy asked confused. "It only had two legs, that wasn't a Cyberman."
"Then it must've been one from my universe."
"Your universe?" Nexus asked.
"You really are dim today aren't you?"
"What's a Cyberman then?"
"They're us. Well…. Humans. That one anyways. Fully augmented human. All that's left of them is the brain and heart. Sometimes not even that. And there's never just one. We better get out of here."
"And go where?" Nexus asked.
"Out the door it came in should be our best bet. Let's go." The Doctor said hopping over the bar while Nexus and Ditzy simply walked around the side.



Nexus walked ahead of Derpy and the Doctor down the corridor. He stopped every corner to wait for the Doctor to put his mark on the wall. They got caught in the middle of a change in the maze at one point and ended up walking past the bar again. They did however star making some progress as a quick look to the emptiness of space above them proved. The beam that marked the place of the paradox machine was much closer to them than before. They came to a rather straight section and Nexus insisted he could feel something ahead of them so he could take point.
The Doctor agreed and let Nexus go ahead while Derpy and him sat back and kept an eye on their rear. "I think we need to leave him behind." the Doctor whispered to Derpy.
"What!?" Derpy said in a hushed shout. "We can't do that! He needs us."
"I know he needs us but I'm not entirely sure I trust him right now."
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you notice anything odd about Nexus at all?"
"What'd you mean Doctor?"
"What's he missing? What should be there after what we've been through?"
Derpy pondered for a moment. What have they been through so far?  They've been chased by Daleks, thrown into a pocket dimension in order to shut off a machine that was erasing him from history and he was…
The Doctor noticed what had just crossed her mind and opened his mouth before she could. "I don't think he's who he says he is Ditzy. Notice something else? He's been calling me Doctor and you Ditzy."
"What's that have to do with…" Derpy rubbed her neck just to make sure Nexus wasn't listening from ahead of them.
"Before the Angel, he called me Doc and he never used your name."
"But you said the Angel sent him back in time or something right? Maybe after some time he just forgot?"
"This dimension hasn't lasted that long, a few hours at that. So there's nowhere for him to be sent. Plus he's not technically in time so the Angel wouldn't have anywhere to send him either. And to top it all off, that was a weak Angel, it probably didn't have the strength to send him back in time."
"So then…. What about the neck?"
"I don't know…. It's hard to feel the universe's time line in here but he feels like he's still apart of it."
"What's that mean?"
"It means… either it fixed itself or…"
"Hey guys!" Nexus shouted from ahead. "I think I've found the way to-"
There was a sudden thunderous blast of thunder inside the maze. Derpy felt he shockwave from the shot hit her in the chest and through her lungs. From the end of the hall where Nexus stood, a light green mist exploded from the left side of his neck. His body jolted as his blood spilled and his head jolted in the direction of the shot. His body tipped and toppled onto its side limp.
"Nexus!" Derpy shouted in fear and anger.
They both ran to Nexus' side. The Doctor scanned him with the Sonic Screwdriver. Nexus' green blood spread out on the floor. The stench was unbearable, it wasn't normal blood. From the gun shot in his neck, the shot had to have come from the left. To know if they had to run or not, she looked over to the left and froze at what she saw.
"Doctor." She said standing up not sure if she should run or not.
The Doctor looked up and saw what caused his faithful companion to leave the side of dead/dying man. Just a few yards down the left hall a tall blue man stood with his metallic hoof extended and a pistol held by small robotic arm. His neck, was bruised black and blue and his eyes were blood shot. Though quiet, his breathing was ragged and short.
"Do…Doc….tor…" Nexus coughed before collapsing to the ground, his glasses falling off his nose.

> Fear
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            Nexus lay there nearly motionless as Derpy and the Doctor rushed to his side. Derpy picked up his glasses as she slid to his side, hoping to keep from crushing them. The Doctor rolled Nexus over and scanned his neck with the Sonic Screwdriver.
"It's him! It's the real him!" The Doctor said ecstatic.
"If that's Nexus, the who was that?" Looking back at the fake Nexus and found his place taken by a red insect looking pony.
"Questions for later Ditzy. Right, Nexus, can you hear me?" Nexus groaned and his eyes cracked open and all Derpy could see was the bottom of his iris. The Doctor reached forward and lightly slapped Nexus on the cheek and that somehow helped him wake up a bit more. "Nexus, look at me."
Nexus' eyes shifted over to his right and locked with the Doctor's. "Doc…" Nexus wheezed. "I… It… Hurts."
"I can see that. Just hang in there Nexus." The Doctor scanned him again. "Oh my…"
"Wha…What?" Nexus asked.
"Nothing, you're going to be fine." Derpy said trying to keep Nexus calm.
"Everything…. Your life signs are low. The Angel couldn't've done that."
"I…I'm dying?"
"Slowly. Your life signs are getting lower. It's like your body's energy's just… stopping."
"I… I can…."
"Stop talking, I'm going to help you just hang in there."
"De-Derpy." Nexus shuttered.
"What? What is it?"
"Do… do you trust me?"
"You're going to be fine Nexus. Just let the Doctor do his work."
"Clo… Closer." Derpy leaned in closer and Nexus put a hoof on her shoulder. He motioned for her to come ever closer as the Doctor continued wiring his Sonic Screwdriver at him. "I'm gonna regret this." Nexus groaned before using his hoof to pull Derpy in.
Their lips met and Derpy's eyes grew as wide as dinner plates and the Doctor for the first time in a while was left speechless. It wasn't a kiss kiss but it was certainly a long kiss. Nexus' eyes were wrenched shut while Derpy seemed locked in place. Derpy wasn't sure what the Doctor was thinking at the moment but he was definitely at a loss for words or even actions. Derpy could feel herself growing tired. She could feel it setting in as he held her in place. Something started seeping into her mind… Images… scenes from somewhere else. She saw changelings standing over her with a saw in their magical hold, a gray unicorn with red eyes laughing at her, horrifying images of dozens of dead ponies and blood on her hoofs. Powerful feelings…Sorrow, fear, anger, hate, sadness, adrenaline fueled rage… She wanted it to stop.
After only about thirty seconds, Nexus let her go with a smooch. Nexus gasped and coughed as he sat up. He pushed the Doctor back as he filled his lungs with air. He coughed a few more times rubbing this throat.
"Well that worked." Nexus said blinking.
"W…What?" The Doctor said backing up a step.
"I feel kind of funny…." Derpy said holding her head.
"That'll ware off in a few minutes, give your body time to adjust to the aftershock. What'd you think you're staring at Doc? Let's get a move on." Nexus said standing up.
He took his glasses from Derpy and placed them firmly back on his nose. He gave a spin on his heels and notice the creature on the floor. "Oh. And you thought my dying was bad."
Derpy's mind slowly started to come back to her, the fog Nexus had… left was starting to clear. "What is that thing?"
"That my wonky eyed dear, is a changeling."
"I thought changelings were green."
"Wh-What'd you do that for?" The Doctor asked still trying to figure out what had just happened.
"They're suppose to be… I've only ever seen a handful of red ones. I'm not really sure why they're red. Different hive from a different country maybe." Nexus continued knitting his brow as he stood over the changeling he'd just killed. "Thing is, they don't work like normal changelings. I've never found one using another pony's emotions to feed on. I'm not sure if they even feed like that."
"Why… What possible reason was there for-"
"No time Doc. Where there's one there's bound to be more. We need to get moving." Nexus said pushing past the Doctor before he got into another coughing fit.
"You alright?"
"My throat's not doing so hot." Nexus croaked. "On account of that statue trying to break my neck and all. You still waiting around? What's that word you use Doc? That word you used in the…." Nexus clopped his right hoof on the floor trying to remember where they were when The Doctor said the word. "TARDIS?"
"A… Allons-y." The Doctor told him still wrapping his head around what he just saw Nexus do.
"Good. I like that word. As you say Doctor… Allons-y!" Nexus said helping Derpy to her hoofs.



Now Nexus understood why she had bubbles for a cutie mark. He felt completely rejuvenated despite having only recharged hardly any of his energy, just enough to live he thought. Thankfully they were starting to level out. Her energy made him feel slightly light headed and bouncy. She'd started leveling out too. Some of her generally light demeanor had returned. He hopped she didn't see anything. Nopony should have to see any of that again. As they walked, The Doctor kept mouthing to himself all the reasons he could think Nexus could have kissed Derpy but the answer never really could've come easy enough he'd imagine.
Nexus was concerned about the Doctor though, he kept giving him just the worst look he could muster. He'd had a feeling doing what he'd done had more than crossed a line. Part of him was sure he'd end up with that symbol the Doctor's on his flank at the wrong end of his Sonic Screwdriver. After a few corners they came to a dead end that really wasn't.
"A door?" Nexus thought out loud. "Kind of boring after the day we've had ay?"
"Uh… Yeah. You sure we should go through it?" the Doctor asked breaking his thoughts. A light barrier flashed behind them and the maze started to lift off again. "We could wait for it to come back down."
"Unless this is a dead end on the other end then no. You know backtracking is a bad idea in a maze. Especially this one."
"Well… Something tells me we're not going to have much of a choice." Derpy said as the maze section started back down with a solid wall facing them.
"Suppose it is." Nexus tried the door but couldn't make it budge. "Doc?"
"Yeah." The Doctor said drawing his Sonic.
It whirred and the lock on the wooden door came undone. The door creaked open slightly as the maze settled behind them. Nexus was the first to enter and was surprised to find the open ceiling lighting an empty room. It wasn't totally empty, there was a thin layer of fog in the air but not enough to obscure the exit on the other side.
"Seems simple enough. I do suggest we hold our breath." Nexus said taking a clean breath before walking in.
The Doctor licked the air as he entered with his brow knit. "Nothing to worry about." The Doctor reassured, "Just regular old mist. Quit holding your breath Ditzy!" the Doctor said slapping her on the back to force the air out of her cheeks.
"Alright then." Nexus sighed. "Shall we?"
"After you." The Doctor said waving his hoof at Nexus.
"And they say chivalry is dead."
"They might be right."
'Well fuck you too.' Nexus thought to himself.
Nexus began walking through the oddly wide room. It stretched about thirty feet in any given direction. He couldn’t really think what reason this room would exist. Just a completely empty room with nothing to speak of. Nexus moved forward and turned to say something until he saw both Derpy and the Doctor were staring off into space.



The Doctor entered ahead of Nexus and Ditzy eager to see what was on the other side. Despite the past few hours, The Doctor was trying to keep an upbeat tone. He was still trying to understand why Nexus… did that thing to Ditzy but he had to keep it out of his mind for now. If he could get a moment alone with Nexus he could probably think of something he could or couldn't do to Nexus. Looking back at his companions The Doctor froze at what he saw. Ditzy stood perfectly still with a noose around her neck. She choked and kicked as another rope held her body, holding her wings down. The Doctor fumbled through his "pockets" for his Sonic but found nothing. He turned to see Nexus was in a similar state. He struggled harder but got about as far as Derpy.
"Hang on!" The Doctor shouted. "I'll think of something!"
"H-*hack*-Do-*hack*"
"Don't talk Ditzy!" The Doctor replied trying to hold her up. "I’ll fix this! I can fix this!"
"Nexus!" Ditzy shouted after the Doctor pushed her up.



Derpy blinked and the ponies in front of her were gone. She spun around the room looking for The Doctor and Nexus but for some reason she couldn't see the dark blue unicorn or the brown Time Lord what so ever. Derpy called out for the Doctor.
"Ditzy!" She heard him call form what sounded like a distance away.
Derpy turned around and found nothing until it came from behind her again. She spun around and found the Doctor finally. He paced back and forth quickly and licked his lips nervously.
"What's wrong Doctor?" she asked.
"Oh nothing Ditzy. Just hoping we get moving."
"What about Nexus?"
"He already left while you zoned out." He mumbled something to himself like he always does but something was wrong.
"What is it Doctor?"
"It's… What the hell, 'bout time I just come out and say it.
"Say what Doctor? Where'd Nexus go?"
"He went on ahead of us while you were day dreaming. You're… You're a burden to me you know that? Constantly in danger and in my way."
"That's not true Doctor." She said trying to stay positive despite what the Doctor was saying. "I've-"
"Saved me? HA! I could get out of any situation I've gotten into and all you is distract them so I can."
"And that's not saving you?" she said getting angry now.
"Oh far from it Ditzy. Guess what? I don't need you. In fact, maybe, you should stay here. At least maybe then you'll have some kind of purpose. Live bait sounds like a good use of your talents eh?"
"Doctor stop it!"
"No, you stop. If you somehow get out of here when I destroy the paradox machine, I'll be dropping you off at your home and never turning back."
"Doctor stop it!" Derpy shouted grabbing him on the shoulders. She could feel her heart cracking with every word he was saying. This wasn't like him at all, no matter how mad he'd get at her, how mad she'd be at him, they'd never say things like this to one another."What's gotten into you?"
"Get off me you stupid pony!" He shouted throwing her off of him hard. "Look at yourself, you're pathetic. Begging me with those wonky eyes of yours. You can hardly walk straight and you think you're fit to travel with me? The last of the Time Lords!? I don't think so."
"Doctor please…" She sobbed.
"You. Are. Worthless to me. You get that little filly? I'm done with you. Now you can go run off crying or stay here and be the good little destraction you're so keen on thinking is saving me. I'm going to go do this on my own." He turned with a huff and started to the other side of the room
"Doctor! Doctor stop! Please Doctor! Doctor!"



All of a sudden they both fell to their knees sobbing. Nexus had no idea what was happening. His thoughts raced across what spells could do this to them but without his ability to feel the magic around them he had no chance of helping them. He ran to Derpy's side first and tried to pick her up. She responded by throwing him off and told him to go back to the Doctor before sobbing about being left behind.
He moved to the Doctor but he wasn't any better, sobbing that he was sorry to him and Derpy. This was bizarre even by what Nexus had seen. He was about to start shaking them to snap them out of it when a familiar little voice shouted.
"Dad!" a young colt called out afraid.
Nexus jumped hearing the voice, instantly knowing who it was. "Astral!" He called back taking his attention away from both Derpy and the Doctor. He looked around the room but found nothing until he turned back to Derpy and the Doctor. Standing where he thought they were, his son Astral stood with tears in his young eyes. It was his son as well, not the version that came from Firebrand.
"Dad… Help me, I'm scared." He whimpered.
"Come here son, it's gonna be alright." Nexus replied kneeling down to grab his child.
The moment Astral made a step towards him, several long metallic objects shot up from the stone floor. They twisted and writhed in wide arcs around Astral, causing him to retreat back to where he'd been standing before. As their movements leveled out somewhat, Nexus recognized the sharp points of barbed wire.
"Dad!" Astral screamed.
"ASTRAL!" Nexus shouted in his Canterlot Impression.
He lunged forward with all his strength and was met with a strand of barbed wire wrapping around his left foreleg and digging the barbs into the metal. It flicked him back and let the barbs drag through the metal it was made of tin. Nexus shouted in pain as the living metal was ripped apart. He looked down and saw his exposed metal endoskeleton. A few of his wires were either nicked or cut completely, sparking every time he tried to move his ankle.
"Daaad!" Astral cried as the wire whipped at the air around him.
"Hang on son, I'll think of something!" Nexus said doing everything to keep himself from panicking.
A strand of wire came around and whipped Astral across the face. The barbs cut two gashes to the bone in his left cheek. The five year old let out a blood curdling scream of pain that made Nexus' boil. Nopony, absolutely nopony, hurts his son without losing a piece of their body in the most painful way possible. Nexus shouted at the top of his lungs as the last bit of sensible thought left his head. He ran forward as fast as he could before the wire wrapped around his chest and spun him off to the side.
Nexus' body slammed into the ground like a sack of rocks. Looking down, he noticed the blood pouring out from the slices in his chest plate. But something was getting strange. Before he could think about it too much before a strand struck Astral like a snake biting its pray. The head pierced through his leg and came out the other side. Astral stumbled on that leg as it drug through him, barbs and all. All the while he screamed bloody murder. Charged up his magic but felt it shoot back through him.
He slowly stood up and looked at his son, now with another strand of barbed wire through his left wing. He prepared to lunge forward, ready to feel a mass amount of pain in his chest only to hardly feel anything. Well there was something but it was more numbing rather than pain. His heart pounded against his ribs like a sledgehammer but he wasn't bleeding that bad. It only looked like it.
Astral screamed in pain as the barbed wire caught around his neck. Nexus fought ever instinct to attack the wire with everything he had. He looked around again and noticed Derpy and the Doctor were nowhere to be found in the room. This couldn't be right. Astral started screaming louder to get his Dad's attention. When he looked back at him, his mane was dirty blonde like when he left. That wasn't right in any way. That's when it clicked. He was in an another trap.
He closed his eyes and did everything he could to block out his son's crying. He couldn't really block it. The sound of his son crying for him to save him when he couldn't do anything hurt more than anything that the barbed wire could do to him. He thought back to his weekend in the Zebra Tribes. Just clear all thoughts of the world around you and you'll see it for what it is.
"Astral's in Canterlot." He told himself over and over again. "Astral's in Canterlot. He's safe and far far away from me." The sounds of the wire whistling through the air faded but blocking out Astral's crying was much harder. The crying got louder until his vocal chords started to be turned inside out.
Nexus did everything he could to get his son out of his mind and the crying slowly but surely vanished. He sighed, feeling his energy start to settle. When he opened his eyes he could see Derpy and the Doctor sitting in front of him where they'd been before. He grabbed the Doctor by the shoulders and forced him to look him in the face. His iris' were red until he saw Nexus. They slowly faded back to their bright blue hue.
"Nexus?" He asked looking at his neck, still seeing the bruises where the angel has strangled him. He looked at him just like he did when they'd found him killing his imposter. "Nexus!" he shouted throwing his forelegs around his neck, stopping just short of snapping his neck. "You…" He gasped. "You…" he chuckled. "You…" he said like somepony out of a swing movie musical.
"Yes it's me. I'm alive and kicking thankfully. Now get up and get Derpy. I need to go check the door."
"Check for- Ditzy!" The Doctor said realizing his companion was in the same position he'd just been in, complete with red iris'.
"Get away from me you psychopath!" Derpy shouted in fear scrambling away from him holding her cheek.
"Ditzy…It's okay, I'm here now. It-"
"No shut up I don't want to hear it!" She cried.
"Derpy!" Nexus shouted from the door. "Snap out of it!"
"Don't leave me behind Doctor… Please…."
"I wouldn't imagine leaving you behind Ditzy. I need you." Derpy finally looked him in the blue eyes. Hers returned to their normal dandelion yellow.
"You… need me?" she asked confused.
"Of course I do. You're-"
"Shit!" Nexus shouted the second the top of the door started to drop down. Nexus put himself underneath the dropping stone and used his piston powered hindlegs to meet it half way.
"Come on!" The Doctor said grabbing Derpy's foreleg and started running towards Nexus who was groaning under the massive amount of pressure being put on his body. "Pistons?" the Doctor asked seeing Nexus' hindhoofs a few inches from the ankle. "Well done!"
"Praise me later…" Nexus groaned. "The ends may be metal but I've got a squishy center. Now get out of here!" He shouted as the pistons started to come closer to the ankles.
The Doctor snapped out of his usual ADD flip and ducked past Nexus' left side. Derpy wasn't far behind and Nexus shouted in relief as he collapsed forward through the door. He rolled onto his back panting as the door started to finish closing. He glanced back inside and saw a glimpse of something. It looked like a pair of eyes that seemed like they were under the magic in the room but different. The iris' weren't read but an orange-ish hue and the eyes themselves were a shade of pale orange themselves.
They were very familiar, but the door shut before Nexus could connect any dots. Nexus leaned back and continued trying to catch his breath.
"Oh that was a hell of a call Nexus, guarding the door. Good instincts. You alright?" The Doctor asked.
"Pain…. everywhere…. I'll live but…. ow….."
"I thought your legs made you like a super hero or something. That door couldn't have been pushing down hard on you."
"Stronger, not invincible… I'm thirty two years old Doc. I'm not as young as I use to be."
"Oh come now Nexus." The Doctor said. "Thirty two isn't that old, especially for you."
"Whatever you say Doc." Nexus said holding out a hoof. The Doctor grabbed it and helped him up. "Guess we should get moving." he said glancing back at the door.
"What is it?" Derpy asked stepping as close to the Doctor as she could without touching him.
"It was uh… Nothing. Let's go." Nexus said pushing past them.
> Follow the Watch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

            The Doctor wasn't really sure how long they'd been walking since that room, but he knew there were six maze changes and four times hiding form Cybermen or some much more disturbing amalgamation from Pony Hell. Nexus has assimilated to the Doctor's favorite strategy of run far and run fast when something deadly comes their way. He didn't really need an explanation to what it was but that wasn't quite the Doctor's main thought. Even after everything they'd gone through he was still wracking his brain to understand why he'd kissed Ditzy.
He tried thinking of things he could use to explain it but all were alien and Nexus wasn't. He checked, he was in well enough health and the Sonic didn't pick up anything out of the ordinary other than the lower energy levels in his body. He was metabolizing a lot slower but it was stable enough to keep him going so long as he got something to eat or just started using the fat stored up in his body. Considering there wasn't a lot to speak of on Nexus he wasn't really sure exactly how long Nexus could last in here.
What was he thinking about again? Whatever it was it wasn't as interesting as what he was thinking about now. As he thought, he began lagging behind Nexus and Ditzy as he started crunching some numbers in reference to metabolic rates of people, well Equines. Well… advanced equines with human-ish characteristics in ways he's still trying to understand. As he kept trying new formulas he slammed headlong into something that sounded like a sheet of metal being shaken. Looking up, he saw Nexus and Ditzy wide eyed through a thin veil of light.
"Doctor!" Ditzy shouted in a panic. She ran up to the light wall and tried to push past it with all her might.
Nexus on the other hand ran up and landed a solid punch to the field. Nexus shouted in mild pain and stammered back holding his right shoulder as the field rippled.
"Doctor! What's happening!?" Ditzy shouted before the maze rumbled.
"The maze is about to change." The Doctor said trying to quell his own panic.
Ditzy slammed her hoofs against the light wall desperately. "Don't bother." Nexus said rolling his shoulder. "It's not gonna move."
"We have to get him out of there!"
"Don't worry about me." The maze section Nexus and Ditzy were in started to rise up. "Just stay alive Ditzy. I'm not leaving you behind, I promise!"



"Doctor!" she shouted frantically. "Doctor, come back!"
"Derpy get back for a second." Nexus told her, pushing her back.
"No!" She shouted struggling. "Bring him back! Teleport or something Nexus please!"
"My magic's blocked Derpy, now let me see the maze." He said finally pushing her back.
Looking out over the maze, they were in a very loose section of the maze. The actual twists and turns in the maze were few and far between, meaning it'd be easier to figure out so long as the maze didn't change again. He couldn't fully remember the layout but he could do what he could to make it back to the Doctor's general location. At the very least he could go to the section they were in before. They rotated around ninety degrees counter clockwise, Nexus could see they were well into the maze with no way back in any reasonable amount of time.
Derpy stammered as the maze stated to lower itself back down. Nexus didn't have to have magic to know her heart was racing in fear. Whatever she'd seen in that room it was effecting her now. When the maze settled and the barrier fell, he turned his attention to Derpy.
"He… He left us behind… Didn't he?" Derpy asked.
"You heard him, he wouldn't leave us behind." Nexus said starting off.
Derpy quietly followed Nexus' powerful stride down the corridors. He could tell she didn't believe what he'd said. There wasn't any time to console her however, Nexus had to keep leading her. They moved quickly but Derpy only just. He'd have to stop every so often to make sure behind him. After a few more minutes of uneventful, walking Derpy stopped cold in her tracks. Nexus noticed and spun around.
"Come on then, we've gotta find the Doctor." Nexus said motioning her to follow.
She didn't budge. She only looked to the ground, like she'd just come to a stark realization. "He's not going to find us is he?" she asked.
"What?"
"The Doctor… We're lost in a maze and we won't find the Doctor will we?"
"Derpy, he'd never leave us behind. You especially."
"What'd you mean?"
"I see the way he looks at you. The way he treats you. Honestly you're lucky to have caught him when you did. I bet he wouldn't be on his own for long."
"Oh…" She said blushing. "It's not like that!"
"So… You travel with him across all of time and space, risking your life to help him and vice versa and you're not with him?"
"Just because I travel with him doesn't mean we're together!"
"So… is there somepony else then? You didn't have anything else at your house to suggest you had another pony. I saw a few shots of you and some other ponies but nothing that indicated a special somepony in your life other than him. Especially considering the way the Doctor greeted you."
"We do travel with another pony. But he's-"
"Oh so it's him."
"No! It's neither of them!"
"Sure. I never could've pegged you as a two stallion kind of mare." Nexus said playfully, praying she'd pick up on it.
"Shut up!" she said shoving him. She couldn't quite hold back a giggle. "And… what about you?"
"What'd ya mean?"
"A two mare kind of stallion?"
"Nah, I'm married. If I wanna live I wouldn't dare even think like that."
"So… what about… ya know…"
"Hm?" Nexus titled his head and his eyes suddenly looked skyward trying to find what the answer was before she could tell him.
"That kiss… After we found you. The… You you."
"That wh- Oh.. Ooooh. That. It's uh… Complicated. Magic stuff."
"A kiss is magical? Isn't that a really bad cliché?"
"It's not what you think. It wasn't meant to be… what a kiss is suppose to be."
"Then what was it cause… I'm kind of not… into your kind." Nexus raised an eyebrow at that statement. "Not that you're not nice and all! It's just… you know, you're married and you're not… my type?"
"No, I know what you mean. He doesn't like soldiers I've noticed."
"What makes you say that?"
"The way he yelled at me might set off a few bells." Nexus said hoping to distract her from asking about the kiss. "I'm pretty good at reading between the lines of what somebody's saying. And he's not fond of ponies like me. Soldiers I mean."
"It has nothing to do with that. I'm sure he doesn't hate you. But… Why did you kiss me Nexus? And don't try and talk your way around it."
"Ugh… It's uh… Got to do with the Angel."
"What about it?"
"Well… I couldn't escape. So I uh… Teleported."
"You said you couldn't use your magic because of the maze?"
"I can't… Through my horn. There is a much harder form of magic that uses the body as an outlet rather than the horn. And though I can't teleport normally, I can… do other things."
"Like?"
"Well… Space as it is is kind of a um… Sheet of paper. Well several sheets side by side, connecting several places together."
"Okay…" Derpy said very near lost.
"Teleportation is a spell that requires a concentration of magic to break down a pony and reassemble them on another sheet of paper. The way a normal pony that can use their magic to…. temporarily rip a hole in the sheet they're on and uh… land on the next. At the cost of… most of their finite magic if not all. It's called jumping."
"So you… tore a hole in space and just went through it?"
"Essentially yes."
"So… The kiss?"
"Oh, right. Um…" Nexus began simplifying the whole thing in his head. It didn't really make a lot of sense to him when Luna taught him about it but he'd do his best. "When a pony uses that much energy they connect to the pool of the magic in the universe and recharge. Here… we can't connect to it. So I couldn't recharge."
"And you kissed me to recharge?"
"Sort of. There is a sort of ritual to gain more magic from living things… There are two methods of getting it. Uh… First being intimate contact. Put the right charm on and the contact can painlessly transfer magic between them."
"And the other?" she asked fearful.
"Blood sacrifice." Nexus said sitting down hesitantly. "That method takes all the magic from the body and not only adds to the one performing the sacrifice but also amplifies their own power. What I did was just Dark Magic. That method is Blood Magic. Much stronger but much more…. unfavorable. It corrupts the user after the first usage."
"So you… took some magic from me?"
"Everypony has magic. It's how pegasi walk on clouds and control the weather, how earth ponies and zebras are so in tune with nature. I had to… take some of yours to keep myself alive."
"How much?"
"Not a lot. Enough to keep me from keeling over. Enough to keep me going for the time being."
"What does that mean for me?"
"Nothing bad. You've fully recovered by now, a mare like you. A little lightheadedness and a dizzy spell. Right?"
"Y-Yeah. That's it."
"So you uh… You know that it didn't mean anything now right?"
"Yeah… but… I saw… Things… Horrible, horrible things."
"Oh… I guess I didn't do it right."
"What were they?"
"Memories. The transfer through contact is a give and take method. It uses magic of the user to open a channel. I hopped there wasn't enough or I blocked off the right passages to keep you from seeing them. I… I really… I'm sorry you-"
"All those things… The blood… carnage… all of it. Was that all real?"
"All of it."
"Even… The saw…. the pain a-a-and the-"
"Yeah…. It's how…" He motioned to his legs. "This happened. I don't like ponies knowing. It's… Not really something people need to know about me. I'm not my past and I never will be. I'm who I am now with or without those parts of me."
"You want to forget it all?"
"Impossible. Even with time travel. Best not dwell. Let’s keep going." Nexus said getting up.
"Why not?"
Nexus sighed. "Best not to dwell. Now, if you'll trust me in thinking this," he held a hoof out. "You wanna find the Doctor or not? Cause there's no way in hell you're leaving him behind."
Derpy smiled lightly and took his hoof. They started down their path again with most of their baggage left behind. Most anyways. Derpy kept a distance as they walked. They walked for what might have been hours or maybe minutes, they couldn't know. They just kept going until they reached another four way intersection. The Doctor's mark lay on the wall but something was different. There were two. The one closest to the corner was much simpler than it's brother. 

Glancing down, Nexus noticed a silver pocket watch with similar markings on the top as the Doctor left on the wall. Nexus blinked once and the mark on the wall shifted. They didn't move but some parts became letters Nexus could recognize. He shifted his gaze to them and tilted his head. Where two of the circle patterns on the top the main circle on the right were replaced by numbers. 1421. He took off his glasses as Derpy picked up the watch. He rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on and some of the letters in the circles started making words. What he could see on the left was, "Follow the w_ _ _h." and the right said, "14-21. Time o_ W_ _ti_ _."
"Derpy." Nexus said tapping her on the shoulder. "You see that?"
"See what? It's what the Doctor's been writing on the wall." She said still holding the watch.
"Look away and look back."
She did what he said and knit her brow when he assumed she could see what he was seeing. "What the?"
"Now look away again." Nexus looked away with her and this time all the letters were filled.
"Follow the watch?" Derpy read aloud. She glanced down at the fob watch in her hoof.
"Fourteen Twenty-one. Time of Writing. What's he on about?"
"THE WATCH!" Derpy shouted happily holding it up to her ear.
"What about it?"
"It's still ticking!"
The gears in Nexus' head started to turn. He ran through his own head what he'd do in the Doctor's position and almost came up with nothing. Almost. "Does he have another one?"
"He's the Doctor, he's got two of almost everything!"
"Oh he's a genius!"
"He's marking down the time!"
"Open the watch, what's it say?"
Derpy clicked open the watch and read the hands. "Three fifty seven!"
"We missed him by half an hour."
"We can make that up easily if we run!" She quickly grabbed his foreleg and started sprinting as fast as she could, rejuvenated by the prospect of being reunited with her boy friend.


> The Room pt. 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Derpy and Nexus had been running for, according to the Fob Watch, about two hours following The Doctor's marks. They'd go faster if they didn't have to stop and stare for a moment and let the circles turn into the time. They were however getting closer. They were only fifteen minutes behind the Doctor now. By that time, Nexus had started having them start following the markers and only stop every other mark to get the time. It did help somewhat but for the most part the Doctor seemed to be moving at about the same pace as they were. It didn't help when the maze change again but from what they could tell, they couldn't see the sections of the maze that were moving.
So they had some hope that The Doctor hadn't been whisked away again. The more Derpy found the messages, the faster her hoofs would carry her and drag Nexus along with her. As much as Nexus wanted to share her enthusiasm, he was more than concerned. He'd been around the Doctor enough to know for a fact that he had a tendency be a magnet for trouble. He could sympathize with that at least.
They stopped again and started waiting on the new symbol the sound of some kind of beam being fired off came from a right side of the fork in the path they were taking. Nexus leaned around the corner and saw a blue beam spark against the wall as a brown mass roll across the floor. Nexus, out of instinct, drew his blades and shoved Derpy around the corner they'd come from. The pony stood up and Nexus noticed it was the Doctor as he ran as fast as he could. Nexus retracted his blades and caught the Doctor as he ran by.
"Doc!" Nexus said still looking where he'd come from. "What's going on?"
"Dalek!" he shouted.
Derpy peer around the corner as the whisk of the Dalek appeared.
"If it's anything like the last one I think we-"
"EXTERMINATE!" it shouted with much more diction than the others they'd seen.
When it came fully into view it was clearly in better condition than the first one and from what he'd just seen, this one was fully operational. Nexus instinctively opened the panel on the inside side of his right foreleg. On a small arm, his small lever action pistol locked into a groove for steady aim. He aimed in the Dalek's general direction as the Doctor shouted for him to lower his weapon but fired the first shot in the two bullet magazine anyways. The bullet stopped dead in its tracks just a few feet from the main body of the Dalek. Nexus hesitated and cocked another round into the chamber with a quick flick of the ankle.
He really had the feeling that it'd never work, so without further thought he tried to run the opposite direction as the Dalek. The Doctor grabbed him by the foreleg again and forced him and Derpy to start backtracking at full pelt rather than go left. After he'd gotten up to speed, The Doctor let Nexus go and let him follow of his own accord. The three ran as fast as they could in the tight space. The Dalek, unlike the others, was very close behind. Nexus could've sworn he saw it hovering but he didn't feel like being exterminated. 
"Door!" The Doctor shouted as Nexus glanced back over their shoulder. 
Looking back where they were going, he could see a door jamb coming up with a knob close to them coming up on the left. Derpy sped up, using her wings, and flew past them to open the door. She was visibly cringing as she flew, she must've hurt herself before they'd reunited. She threw open the door when they got to it. Nexus and The Doctor thundered in and were met with a strangely comfortable looking sitting room. Before either of them could admire it they prepared to have a moment to gather themselves with Derpy but she was oddly absent. Looking back at the same time, they saw one of the light barriers holding her back. Her horrified expression and frantic pounding to get in made Nexus' heart leap and more adrenaline shoot through his system.
"Ditzy!" the Doctor shouted in a manner that would more than likely require some kind of potion to fix the issues that would come later.
They both started pounding against the wall but Derpy ended up running when a beam from the Dalek that was behind them hit the door. She jumped back and slammed the door shut, it passing through the barrier with no problem. The sound of the Dalek shouting for blood passed quickly as the Doctor attempted to open the door with the knob but to no avail. He then tried the Sonic and from the look on his face it was getting very hot. After a few more seconds the Sonic sparked and the Doctor was forced to drop it.
"Come on! Open up!" he slammed shoulder first into the door with all the strength he could muster.
It bounced him back and Nexus stopped in before he could try again. "Stop before you break your shoulder! If you get a limp you'll never survive." he pleaded.
"I've got to save her! Something has to give!" He shouted desperately trying to break free from his literal iron hold. 
"That barrier won't!" He shouted back not loosening his grip.
"No! I'm not letting her die!"
"And I won't stop you but we're trapped if you haven't noticed!"
"I don't care! I can find my way out of anything and I'll be damned if I let whoever did this hurt her!" The Doctor thrashed madly trying to escape and fruitlessly break down the door.
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT IF YOU CAN'T WALK!"
The Doctor stopped struggling and stared at Nexus like stone. Nexus looked back and saw a lot he didn't see any other time. His blue eyes showed something darker than Nexus had ever seen. Behind it a fire that not even the most seasoned of soldiers that lived through the Changeling War couldn't even attempt dwarf. It was an unmistakable look, a veteran still fighting the nightmares and loss from a long fight. Nexus let go. He rolled his left shoulder before grabbing his right in pain.
"Told you." Nexus said coldly.
"I don't want to hear it. What'd we do now?"
Nexus looked around the room they were in. Dark blue wall paper, two tan couches flanking a light brown wooden table with an ivory checkers set in the center with glasses of water on either side. He sighed and made his way to the closest couch.
"The one thing we can do. Sit back and think of a way out. Smoke before fire." Nexus said taking a seat.

> The Room pt. 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The Doctor couldn't stand being stuck here. Ditzy was in danger! And Nexus was just going to sit down and play checkers! He had a point, there was no way they were getting out of there with the Sonic shorting out and the light barrier being in the way. They were stuck there. And without the Sonic, he couldn't check for anything that could kill them. They did keep from touching the water though. Neither of them wanted to take the chance. Checkers was easy enough. The Time Lords invented Chess after all, checkers was no trouble at all. Nexus, though a brilliant strategist, never had a chance against the Doctor. He didn't seem to mind and clearly had his mind elsewhere.
He just mindlessly moved the pieces across the board. Like the Doctor he was probably weighing their options and trying to think of a way out. No matter what the Doctor thought of, using the Sonic, if he could fix it, to try and vibrate the molecular structure of the door until it turned itself to dust. But that would require hundreds of years of calculations to keep from doing the same to the rest of the maze. And The Doctor might have a few hundred years left in him, there was no way Nexus was going to make it that long. That is unless his wings weren't totally cosmetic. Unlikely.
But something he realized sitting here with him, remembering he was armed certainly wasn't doing anything for him, The Doctor remembered he felt uneasy around people with guns. Well, uneasy wasn't the perfect word for it. More like uneasy with a dash of just plain disgust. Something that Nexus seemed to pick up on. "What's your problem with me anyways?"
"What'd you mean?" the Doctor asked moving another black checker into Nexus' space.
"When we met you looked honored to meet me. And now you're going back and forth on flat out hating me or thinking I'm just clever."
"I just don't like people with guns."
"It's more than that isn't it?"
"No, just not a fan of guns." he lied.
"Oh really?" Nexus drew his guns and ejected them onto the table. The Doctor didn't flinch. "I'm inclined to believe that's not true."
"I don't like guns. That's it. Now hurry up and King Me." the Doctor said completely ignoring the guns on the table.
"I don't think it's the guns Doc."
"What's your point? I'm stuck with ya so may as well get over it."
The Doctor saw Nexus cock an eyebrow at him, still further delaying Kinging him. "Why don't like me Doc? Derpy says you don't like Soldiers. Is that it?"
"Did she?"
"Mostly. When I brought it up she said it wasn't just that. Now how about you quit beating around the bush Doc."
"How about you just King Me!"
"I'll King you when you tell me why you don't like me!"
"Yes I don't like soldiers, now King Me!"
"Why!?"
"Because I've seen what you can do Nexus. I've seen your future. And I know your past. You're still a soldier, clearly from how you've been acting! All shoot first ask questions later!"
"It was self defense!"
"And I told you that it was a futile move! You can't kill these creatures unless you have a death wish!"
"What's your point Doc? I said enough beating around the bush!"
"Soldiers only know how to hurt others!" The Doctor finally said. "Soldiers always attack something new. Their first instinct is to kill!"
"And you think I like killing!?"
"Isn't that why you became a soldier? To prove that you could fight?"
"I became a soldier to protect the country and people I hold dear Doctor. I don't fight unless I have to, and killing is a last resort."
"And when you shot at the Dalek?"
"You were being shot at! My first instinct when something's shooting at one of my friends is to shoot back. Pardon me if I have a much more prominent Fight reflex when I'm threatened!" Nexus shouted standing up.
"And what if it was some innocent alien!?" The Doctor shouted just as loud and standing just as tall. "Some strange looking, innocent creature that was defending itself too!?"
"I'm not perfect and neither are you Doc!" Nexus shouted. The Doctor knew he didn't have a right answer to the question. "All I know is if it was threatening my LIFE I wouldn't hesitate to fight it."
The Doctor took note of his wording. Unless the Doctor specifically asked about killing, he'd avoid it. Nexus said he avoided killing but there was one thing that was making that argument incorrect. "And the Changelings? What of them? All those thousands of creatures you slaughtered?"
Nexus leant back for a moment. The Doctor had him right where he knew he couldn't avoid the answer. "Changelings are a completely different than another being. They only exist to kill or convert anypony that isn't one of them. They steal away loved ones and take their place, feeding on their emotions until they're nothing. The loved one that was taken, is turned into one of them. I've experienced first hand what they will do to break you. They're why for the longest time I couldn't feel the grass beneath my hoofs, the warmth of my wife against my chest and I feared I couldn't feel my child in my forelegs. I dedicated my service to getting them out of Equestria as soon as possible no matter the cost to them. I watched hundreds of the soldiers under my command die due to an oversight on my part. I will NOT stand here and let you compare the life of others to those things!"
"Who are you to decide if a species is worth extinction!? You relentlessly followed them across Equestria and then across the ocean as though you wished to play the world's police. You are still not right in what you did. There is always another solution!"
Nexus sneered at the Doctor and he could feel he was about to shout as loud as he possibly could. "AND WHAT ABOUT YOU!?" he shouted in his Canterlot Impression.
"And what about me!?"
"I see through you a lot more than you think Doctor. You may look younger than me but your eyes tell show something much older. I see fire behind those eyes. The same I see every day in those that survived that dreadful war. You've seen combat Doc, worse than anything I could ever hope to see."
"I have." the Doctor said going around the table and getting in Nexus' face. "And they were all preventable. So much more bloodshed than you could ever hope to see in your lifetime. I've lived through more than you could ever imagine and what I've seen would make even you fall to your knees and cry. And if you won't stand to have me 'insult' you, then I won't be compared to a barbaric, war hungry, TYRANT!"
The moment the Doctor finished, Nexus quickly reached down to his pistols and put one of his mechanized arms through the trigger guard behind the trigger itself. He lifted the weapon up to the Doctor and looking back with a look of stone cold rage that matched his own, he held the handle to him.
"Then if you're the better man prove it." Nexus said.
"I'm not dueling you."
"Wasn't asking you to. If you're the better man, the more just man, save the world another tyrant. Shoot me." Nexus shoved the pistol into the Doctor hard enough to knock him on his haunches. He fumbled for a moment but caught the pistol.
"It wouldn't matter." the Doctor said. "If you die here I'll end up bringing you back when we destroy the Paradox Machine." he lied hoping Nexus would leave it be.
"Then find a way out of here without it. If you're so clever."
"I'm not going to kill you." The Doctor said throwing the pistol to the couch.
"Fine." Nexus locked his other pistol into the other arm and put the barrel to his right temple. That took the Doctor aback.
"NO!" The Doctor shouted trying to grab Nexus' foreleg. The soldier grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him back before putting the barrel to his head again. "Nexus, don't."
"Why!? If I'm such a tyrant I'm sure it shouldn't matter to you Doc. If I'm such a tyrant the universe is well off without me. HELL, from what I've seen my wife and son are better off without me! So if you won't end this then I will!"
"Nexus stop!" The Doctor didn't know what to make of Nexus' threats. He knew Nexus was a serious man but from what he'd read he wouldn't pull the trigger. But one look into his eyes he could see something other than anger. Behind it all there was something else. And the mention of his family was certainly part of it. He wanted to die. It was a feeling the Doctor knew all too well.  Nexus, from what he saw, had nothing left. He was alone… that was it.
"Nexus… Put it down."
"Why should I?" It was starting to show more. "I've done nothing that couldn't've been done by somepony else and better. Nothing that I've done matters. And according to you it's all wrong, everything I've done is wrong. It's a question so many ask themselves, what would the world be without me? I know the answer now, and I know that no matter what I've done, no matter what I do, everypony is better without me." He was afraid. The "Iron Hoof of Canterlot was afraid.
"You know that's not true."
"My wife is happily married to my mentor, had one of his kids and another on the way, Luna is as fine as ever, my parents aren't any better than they were when I existed-"
"What about Ephialtes?"
"What about him?"
"He was charged with being a changeling remember?"
"He… He was bu-"
"But nobody was there to save him. There was nobody there to show doubt and offer him a chance to prove it. And Silver Bit?"
"She's more than-"
"Her boyfriend, her first one, the one you couldn't save. Without your intervention she would never have known what he was." The Doctor could tell this was working. "The Changeling would've killed her."
"I…I've…"
"You've made a difference. You created a delicate balance that without you has failed. If you die here Nexus, then you won't come back. Everything would return to normal but you would have died for nothing." The gun slipped down a few inches. "I know how you're feeling Nexus. And I can tell you that this is not the answer."	
"How would you know?"
"I've lived with a great mistake for over eight hundred years."
Nexus' gaze turned doubtful as the guns finally retracted back into his foreleg. "Who are you, Doctor? No beating around the bush."
"I'm a Time Lord."
"A Lord of Time?"
"Chosen protectors of all of time and space from the planet Gallifrey."
"And Gallifrey is full of immortals?"	
"No, a Time Lord has a way around death for a certain time. We can… change our face. We unleash a massive amount of energy and rejuvenate every cell in our body. It alters our personality, appearance, tastes, everything. Once we level off, we regain the memories of our past and continue our lives."
"So not all of your people can do that?"
"No… If they could I wouldn't be alone."
"You're-"
"The last of my kind. The war, the first one, was against the Daleks. It was called the Time War. We fought over all of time and space. I thought they were all dead but clearly some still live."
"Wait, if you won then-"
"Nobody won that war. I was responsible for its end and… I'm not proud of what I had to do."
"But you're a time traveler, why not g-"
"Because I can't!" The Doctor snapped. "It's against the rules to cross your own timeline. To do so might rip all of space and time apart. And there are some, moments in time that are fixed and some in flux. The end of the Time War was fixed. There is nothing I can do to save them! Nothing! Every day of my life I want to go back and fix it all but I can't. Nothing I do can change it unless I want to end the entirety of time! I can't do anything."
"You had no choice."
"No… I didn't."
"I know how that feels." it was the Doctor's turn to cock an eyebrow. "The Changelings couldn't be negotiated with. All they wanted was all of Equestria to feed on. They're parasites. And the only way to truly be free from a parasite is to kill it. Pushing them out of Equestria also cut them off from their food source. Without ponies to feed on they'll start dying off. I'm not proud of killing a species Doc. It was the only way I could keep the ponies I cared about safe. That was the only solution to do so."
"The Daleks are far worse."
"That I have no doubt of."
Now that they were calmer than before and nobody was trying to kill anyone, a thought came to The Doctor's mind. "Speaking of choice Nexus… What about what happened between you and Ditzy when we uh… found you."
"Oh… That wasn't what you think."
"Enlighten me."
"Well…." Nexus started searching for an answer to the question. "Space, as I know it, it is like a stack of paper."
"You're not fully wrong but go on."
"Normal teleportation breaks the user down into pure magic and transported to another sheet. There is another way to do it and that's t-"
"To rip the paper and fall through."
"Yes. That's… what I did. I channeled my magic through my body and ripped open the space here and fell into another sheet. It unfortunately took everything I had that I had to tap into my life force. That's why I was hanging on a thread when you found me."
"And the…" The Doctor motioned to his lips waiting for Nexus to put the words in his mouth.	"Well all ponies have magic in them. And Changelings aren't the only ones that can siphon energy from another living creature."
"So … with that kiss… you… 'sucked'… energy out of Ditzy?"
"Simply yes. Not much! Don’t worry, she's leveled off by now."
"Why?"
"Well if you lose some magic your body will lower some nonessential functions to compensate until it you recharge."
"I mean why'd you do it? Couldn't you recharge?"
"No… Unicorns, like everypony else, recharge from the ether. The ether has an unlimited source of magic for everypony in the world. The only thing is we're not really… connected to it here. So my only other source is other ponies."
"And that involved…" the Doctor waved his right hoof hoping Nexus would fill in the blank. He wasn't really comfortable with just the thought. And when he didn't, "Kissing?"
"Intimate Contact. There was only one alternative was well… something that I wouldn't even think of doing. Changelings use the same kind of magic only much more… well malicious. Like I said I only took enough to keep myself alive. If we ever get out of here I'll just recharge. It's nothing well… personal, Doc."
"Yeah. That uh…. that threw me off. If I'm not mistaken you're married and that… it just took me by surprise."
"Doc…" Nexus started sitting back into the sofa. "I'm nothing but three things; a gentleman, a patriot and honorable to a fault. I promised my life to Dust… I wouldn't throw our relationship away no matter what. I've fought for it enough… Luna'd have my head- Oh god Luna…"
"What about her?"
"I never thought about her…" Nexus groaned leaning back into the sofa. "When she almost killed me there was something off about her. She was talking like she was when she first came back."
"Guess you had an impact on her too. Though I'm oddly surprised, I thought you only worked for her."
"No… She's been like uh… like a mother to me I guess. She's done so much more than teach me to handle dark magic better. She's been there for me for me when I've needed some advice and a steady hoof to guide me through a rough part of my day or even life." This was better than he was when he was holding the gun to his head. He seemed to be sucked into a nostalgia for some reason. "Like a mother she'd help me if I asked for it or not. She knew how to read me. Even when I say things that'd make any normal person kick your teeth in or at the very least make them hate your guts she's forgiven me. It's a kind of unconditional love that only a mother could give. Honestly I think my Mom's Mom Jealous." He said with a grin on his face.
The Doctor and Nexus shared a chuckle. It really helped lighten the mood in the room. It would've been hard to consider they'd been in a shouting match only a few minutes ago. Best keep him talking. "So what about your wife?"
"I… I've never been good with uh…"
"Come on." The Doctor pestered nudging the air with his elbow.
"She's kind of… Abrasive."
"How so?"
"Well… She's nice and beautiful and all but she's also kind of…. traditionally not my type."
"And you married her?"
"Like I said I'm not good at this kind of thing. I don't look for ponies that are as… forward as she is. She's always been forward with me and to be honest she's been kind of a hard head."
"How so?" The Doctor asked half faking interest. "You love her don't you?"
"Of course I do! She's a big part of my world. Like Luna I couldn't imagine who I'd be without her. She doesn't let what others think of her or me get to her. She does what she likes and I respect that. All though she was kind of promiscuous when we met."
"How promiscuous?"
"On our first date she got wasted and went home with another guy."
"Oh that must've been harsh."
"Very. But after Luna forced us to bunk together for a few weeks she kind of grew on me and I grew on her."
"And she stopped being-"
"Yeah. She was still kind of flirty around other guys but… I got nothin' to end that sentence with, I really hate how flirty she is sometimes."
“That must be tough.”
“Sort of. She does have a good outlet for her flirting though. No matter how long we’ll be together I bet I’ll never get use to it.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Well... It depends. Call me a masochist but I like it when she whips her tail in my face. In public part of me really want to just hide from her and everypony else. The other part kind of likes it.”
“Sounds like she pushes your buttons.”
Before the Doctor could half listen a massive bang came at the door. Nexus jumped up and looked ready to pounce. And depending on what was on the other side The Doctor was more than willing to let him knock whatever was on the other side over. It did all depend on what it was. They were on other wavelengths so it was likely that even if it was some odd amalgamation of a Manticore and a Cyberman he’d still try and fight it off. Like it or not the Doctor was dealing with a soldier in a hostile environment.
Another bang came and the door and Nexus had his back arched, coiled and ready to get out or die trying. Another much more hearty bang came and Nexus flinched. Then with one final hit the door fell off its hinges in a flurry of splinters. Nexus leaned back, ready to fly forward and suddenly stood up straight. The Doctor followed his gaze and was as frozen as Nexus was. In the door jam with her rump pointing in their direction was his favorite woman on four legs. She spun around and she lit up seeing them.
“Doctor!” She shouted sprinting into the room.
She practically knocked the Doctor off his fee-hoofs. “Ditzy oh it’s so good to see you! You’re okay?”
“Better now! And Nexus!” she said ecstatically opening her left foreleg for him to join the hug.
“I’m fine thanks.”
“Oh come over here Mr. Killjoy!” The Doctor said reaching out too.
“I said I’m fine.”
“Aw. Shall we help him lighten up?” The Doctor asked looking to Ditzy with a mischievous smile.
“We shall!” Ditzy replied with an equally devilish smile. Best part of traveling with somebody for some long, they just end up on the same wavelength.
“No. Both of you just stay-”
He wasn’t allowed to finish. They closed in on him and wrapped him in two bear hugs. Nexus groaned in annoyance before they let him go.
“How’d you get that door open?” Nexus asked.
“I bucked it?” Ditzy replied confused.
“But there was a shield.” The Doctor said equally befuddled.
“Not anymore. Wait, you didn’t try kicking down the door?” she asked Nexus.
“I... I figured the shield was still up.” Nexus replied no doubt running through his mind when the shield could’ve gone down.
Come to think of it wasn’t really something The Doctor’d picked up on either. There was no sound or ceremony to it was just gone. From nowhere it just went down while they were playing checkers. At the moment they didn’t have time to think over it.
“So you two, two smart ponies like you, didn’t think to try the door again?” she asked snapping them out of their thoughts.
“It’d seem that way. We should probably move before the door shuts again.” Nexus said before looking up to the storm. “Looks like we’re close.”
“Right then. Let’s get our butts out of here! Allons-y!” The Doctor said feeling much lighter.
“Allons-Y!” Ditzy replied charging out the door with him. Nexus chuckled and rolled his eyes before following.
> Heart of the Issue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Oddly enough the three of them met little resistance. In fact, none at all. Nexus followed The Doctor with Derpy not far behind. There was a massive issue with semi-accurate navigation. With the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver broken, they couldn’t leave any marks on the walls to mark progress. Though thankfully the maze itself didn't seem to be moving about that much. Sections would still move, Nexus could see sections flying up and moving but none near them. Though after they'd left he saw several sections at once rotate, at least double the number he saw before and half of now. Nexus didn't have a problem with it, so long as it got them out of the maze faster. That's when a thought hit him.
"Hang on." Nexus said coming to a stop.
"Everything alright Nexus?" Derpy asked turning around from her listening to the Doctor's babbling.
"I just realized something. We're going to the center of the maze right?"
"Very perceptive of you." The Doctor said rolling his eyes.
"So when we get there, how are we going to get back? And more importantly, what's going to happen when we shut down the machine?"
"That's easy, find our way out and collapse the storm and then reversing time to before the machine was active. Now let's keep going." the Doctor answered quickly.
"So I'll be back home when we turn it off?"
"Ye… Well no. Unless you're in the eye of the storm. We're the kind of going to be in the direct center of the storm. We'll still have to make our way out of here."
"You sure?"
"Positive. Now come on." The Doctor said turning around to continue forward.
"Why do I have a hard time believing that?" Nexus said.
"What? When have I lied to you?"
"It's not that you've lied, just withheld info. Nothing with you is that simple."
"Rule three…." the Doctor muddled to himself. He turned to Derpy and said, "You tell him the rules?"
"No." Derpy said defensively.
The Doctor groaned before walking back to deal with Nexus. "Look, we break that machine and everything will be normal again. You'll be home with your wife and son in no time. I promise." Nexus wasn't sure if he was lying or not. His tell was very hard to find and it was only on intuition that he could see he was lying. His intuition was failing him miserably at the moment however. Begrudgingly, he sighed, "Alright Doc."
"Good. Let's keep moving." he said blankly. There it was.
Derpy could see it too. But something told Nexus, and he hoped Derpy felt it too, that he wasn't really lying but was going to do whatever he could to keep that promise.



L: How much longer until they're in that section?
M: Calm down! They're almost there. Have some popcorn and shut up!
L: Don't you raise your voice at me again. Immortal or not, I can make you regret it.



"Nice call Doc. I told you to take the left for a reason." Nexus said slumped against the wall as the section of the maze they were in flew up into the air. It'd been some time after they'd stopped to ponder. Time was a bit of a pain to figure out there due to there being no sun or perhaps no time at all. 
"Well it's not my fault!" the Doctor said slumped against the other side. Derpy just stood by and waited.
"It kind of is. I said go left, towards the beam but nooooo. You have to have it your way and drag us to not just a dead end, but one that spins!"
"Hey, the logic of a maze is to have the right way be the most annoying rout possible. So I assumed that being so close to it we'd have to go around a long way! Simple!" The Doctor finished.
"Well excuse me for wanting to get out of here faster!"
"Well pardon me for thinking at all!"
"Doctor?" Derpy said stepping past them to press her face against the force field.
"What's wrong Ditzy?" The Doctor asked walking over to the barrier.
"Look." She said pointing out the barrier to the rest of the maze. Nexus looked past her but found the maze moving like it always does. The Doctor was kind enough to point that out as Nexus stood up. "Just look Doctor."
The maze was moving, or rather they were, but instead of around, it beneath them. They were moving in a direction. And from the look of the beam in the center, it was towards the end.
"I don't believe it…" the Doctor muttered to himself. "Why? What possible reason would it be solving itself for us? I don't understand."
"I'm not sure I care. So long it gets me home faster." Nexus said as he felt the adrenaline start pumping, that familiar feeling. Though the most basic instincts told him to run, he never could. Running wasn't in his vocabulary. Whatever lay ahead he was ready. There was no way he would make it easy. He knew him far too well.
"But why is it doing this?"
"Maybe she’s board." Nexus said with a sigh.
The maze piece they were in rotated ninety degrees towards the center and another piece flew by. Looking down, they could see the last path lining up with them. Straight into the last room. From here he could see well enough. Wires and tubes going throughout the room, from so many different machines. Their lights glowing and flickering from all corners of the room. The center console was lit up like a Hearths Warming tree. The beam reaching to the heavens, splitting time and space just to be rid of him. Everything he is, was and ever would be being held there. Mom, Luna… Dust. The thought to run, once present to even the slightest degree, was gone now.
This was it. The section came down slowly, agonizingly slow. It docked with the room and the field fell. Derpy stumbled forward from leaning on the barrier. The Doctor shoved past and Nexus wasn't far behind. The Doctor was the first into the room. He spun in place taking it all in. Derpy was in the same boat. Nexus wanted to look around too but was drawn to the machine in the center. It looked like one of the anti-ship mines that were at the bottom of Horseshoe Bay. It was a black iron sphere with rods sticking out from all angles. Each one had a light on the end. Electricity arced between them once in a while. His eyes were locked on the beam going into the storm above them. 
"This is it." the Doctor said jogging up to Nexus and stealing his glasses off his face.
"Hey!" Nexus complained.
"We got it!" He said running back to the back left corner and going over all the machines hooked up to the beam.
The particular one he was was circular with three tears. The lower was the widest and easiest to get to. It had several keyboards and levers for more than likely working the machine, what else would they have been used for? The tallest section had a few screens with line after line of text scrolled by too quickly to read. At least for Nexus, if he got close enough to read it he knew he wouldn’t be able to. The top was capped in a glass dome and was wider than the middle. A large uncut, yellow crystal sat within. It pulsated with a strange blue-ish green glow occasionally flashing brightly for a second. It looked like some kind of arcane generator. He wasn't an expert on arcane technology but it certainly looked like it. 
"Can we stop it Doctor?" Derpy asked.
"I don’t know. I'm not familiar with these machines. I might be able to do something with it if I still had my Sonic Screwdriver."
"So there's no way you can shut it off?" Nexus asked still not looking away from beam going to the sky. He was slowly staggering towards the center machine.
"Far from that actually. It'll take quite a lot of time but I could shut it off… Maybe."
"Maybe?" Derpy said heavy with worry.
"Well, this isn't exactly Time Lord technology. It's using the same base but uh… I don't know. Magic I guess."
"Magic isn't that hard to understand Doctor."
"Maybe for you two. You live in the stuff." 
As the Doctor kept babbling, Nexus kept moving towards the center device. Something was calling to him. Not technically, but there was more than a magnetic quality to it. Something about the beam kept begging him to get closer. The Doctor looked over his shoulder and saw Nexus only being a few steps away now. "Hold it right there!" The Doctor said leaving the machine behind. 
Nexus shook his head and snapped back into reality. The Doctor jogged up and yanked him back. "What is it? Besides the obvious thing."
"Well… Just don't touch anything in here. Especially that." He said pointing to the center thing.
"Why?" Derpy asked.
"Well, the light he should keep as far away from as possible, but I'm not sure about the machine itself. Considering everything else in this maze it wouldn't surprise me if something did something to you."
"Yeah…" Nexus said taking his eyes off the beam. "I'd buy that."
"So how do we stop it?" Derpy asked getting up close to the paradox machine.
"I don't know. Shutting off the power source maybe but I'm not sure what it's running on. It's not quite working off of a decimated TARDIS." The Doctor ran to another more simple and familiar Bartlett 8500 computer matrix in the back right corner of the room and started typing. "If I could just- damn it!"
"What is it Doc?" Nexus asked.
"The terminal's locked." He said slamming his hoofs on the keys hard enough to knock a few off. "I can't give it any input."
"Can't you unlock it?" Nexus asked as Derpy made her way around the machine. She stopped at a window looking into the dome that looked like it came off a ocean liner.
"I could with the Sonic but it's burnt out back in the maze. And The terminal itself is locked from another location. This was used to do the calculations needed to erase you but it was activated and locked from another computer. And this one's deadlocked. There's no way we can put anything in it."
"Wait…" Nexus said taking his glasses back. "Let me take a crack at it."
"What makes you think you can do anything? I can't access the data to shut it off."
"That's the problem. You can access the data, but not touch it." Nexus said tapping away at the keyboard. "So if I can find the data streams that show us how it works…"
"We can shut it off manually!" Nexus and the Doctor said in unison, seeming to forget the warning he gave him earlier.
"Doctor?" Derpy said worried.
"Not now Ditzy." The Doctor waved off and grabbing Nexus' glasses off of his face, ensuring Nexus had no way to make clear heads or tails of what he was seeing on screen. "Nothing in the alteration matrix I don't already know. And the String Theorem Converter isn't going to help us at all."
"Doctor…" Derpy said getting more and more worried.
"Maybe we shouldn't be looking for what makes do what it's doing." Nexus said nabbing his glasses back. "It'd probably be better to look for what's powering it. If we can turn it off, then problem solved." Nexus began typing his way through the terminal looking for any indication of power sources. "Okay… So it looks like it was working on that Arcane Generator over there about forty eight hours ago but switched over to something… I can't read that formula."
"Let me get a look at it." the Doctor said tearing Nexus' glasses off their owner for a third time. "Oh my… Whoever made this found a way to get it to run on the Paradox itself."
"Doctor!" Derpy called out again, leaving the machine behind and getting up behind them.
"What's that mean?" Nexus asked taking his glasses back again, still ignoring Derpy.
"It means," The Doctor said nabbing the glasses and pointing them about as he talked. "the generator started it like the starter in an engine but the machine is built to take the energy that is a byproduct of the destabilization of the timeline to fuel it. The formula works for something but I can't remember what it is." The Doctor looked back at the screen with Nexus' glass back on. "I can tell you this much, it's using technology I've never seen before to do it. It's finding away to catalyze pure paradox energy and make it into fuel for the machine."
"Maybe if we can track where the commands are going for the conversion we can find the source." Nexus said.
"Good man!" The Doctor said putting Nexus' glasses on his nose upside down. "Get on that. What is it Ditzy?"
"I think I found that pair of docks cat a'… thingy you were talking about."
Nexus spun around so fast his glasses fell down to the tip of his nose and the Doctor's eyebrows shot up high enough to pass through the hole in space time. "How'd you find it?" Nexus asked putting his glasses on the right way around.
"I looked around." she said confused.
"Well done Ditzy!" the Doctor said grabbing her by the cheeks and kissed her on the nose. "Where is it?"
"On the middle thing."
The Doctor ran past her and started walking around it. He made a full revolution before stopping near where Derpy had. His eyes went wide and he fell back on his haunches looking through the glass. Nexus jogged over as quickly as he could, wasn't often the Doctor was left speechless at something even having only known him for a day. The light from the hole covered his face as Nexus joined the Doctor. Inside the machine, he found something he never would've expected. Inside the machine, connected to the dome by cables to what Nexus assumed were the prongs, a heart. It was clearly a heart, but for some reason it was stone gray. It beat like a heart, it looked like a heart but it seemed like it was made of stone.
"Is that a heart?" Nexus asked.
"It's not just a heart… That's the heart of a Weeping Angel."
"Their heart is what they use to feed?"
"Yes, well… No. It's what they use to catalyze the paradox energy. That's the theory anyways. Nobody's ever really opened up a Weeping Angel before. Now we know."
"I'd rather forget." Derpy said.
"So how do we shut it off?" Nexus asked stepping back.
"We can't. It's self sustaining now. The only way to stop it now is to kill the heart itself."
"Then stand back." Nexus said pulling the one pistol he bothered to take with him from the room.
"No!" The Doctor said forcing Nexus' right foreleg down.
"You said break the heart and I'm more than ready to do it Doc."
"That glass is made of Transparanttium, the most bullet proof glass ever made in the universe. No bullet can make it through it."
"Well I have to do something!" Nexus shouted taking aim again.
"Nexus listen to the Doctor!" Derpy said pulling his aim away.
"What am I suppose to do!?"
"Just wait. We'll find a way to do this. Maybe if we can find a way to knock these collectors off!" The Doctor said grabbing one and pulling with all his might. He kicked at the base of the spike but it wouldn't budge. "Gah! It's too well anchored. If I could just knock it off the-” 
"Maybe a little extra kick?" Nexus asked holding up his gun again.
The Doctor looked up gave him that look, the look he had whenever he got conflicted on something he was thinking about. There was something that Nexus had picked up from being around these ponies, there was an unspoken language with the Doctor. If you were really clever, you'd never have to explain a thing to him and if you were thinking it, chances were he was too.
"Alright, Nexus. Give it a shot."
The Doctor steppe back behind him and grabbed Derpy, presumably ready to duck when the bullet ricocheted. Nexus wasn't sure if it'd do much more than bounce straight off but it'd just make him feel better. He hoped the Doctor knew that too. No matter what, there was a chance it'd help. The bullet could punch through a steel skillet but there was no telling what I'd do to this. He didn't know what metal it was made of, how think it was or even what would happen if he hit it. He had to try.
Nexus' mechanical arm pulled the hammer of the pistol and with a loud crack hit the firing pin. The crack was suppose to be followed by a thunderous bang but nothing came. Nexus pulled the pistol back and examined it.
"What's wrong?"
"Dud round. Hang on." Nexus flicked his foreleg and tried to load another shot. The first round fell out of the gun but the weapon didn't cycle correctly. The lever was locked forward and the hammer at half cock instead of full. He grabbed it and tried to manually cycle the action. When it wouldn't go, he tried to force it. When he popped the lever free, the hammer, flew off like a pinwheel. The firing pin shot out the now open back and grazed his shoulder, leaving a nick in his right shoulder.
"What happened!?" the Doctor asked examining the gash in his shoulder.
"The hammer, it came off and the firing pin went ballistic. It's useless now." Nexus sat back. "I can't break it free."
"There wasn't much of a chance it'd work anyways Nexus don't beat yourself up."
"No!" he shouted throwing the Doctor off of him. "It could've done something! Now I've got no chance of beating this! We're stuck here forever!"
"Nexus we can still fix this. Calm down!"
"No! I will not calm down, not this time! I had a chance to get home! A chance to see my wife again! There's no chance of getting out of here because of THIS FUCKING HUNK OF JUUUUUNK!" he shouted slamming his metal hoofs against the dome as hard as he could. Each hit let out a massive clang. The hits dinged the surface but nothing substantial.
"Nexus please calm down." Derpy said trying to pull him away.
"I want to go home!" Nexus said on the verge of bursting into tears. "I want to see my wife again! I want to teach my son how to play ball, be there to hold my newborn baby in a few months! I want my life back Doctor! You said we'd get out of here Doctor, now GET US OUT OF HERE!"
"I'm trying! Just keep your voice down!"
"Target located!" an electronic voice called from the entrance. "Repeat, target located."
Looking back to the entrance, they three of them saw the familiar canister of the Dalek blocking their way out. The thumping sound of something else was getting closer along with the sound of more Dalek's behind it.
"About time you showed up you glorified tin can." Nexus said facing the alien. "You're after the Doctor eh?"
"We were told to find the Doctor. The reasons were unknown." The Dalek replied turning its stalk towards him.
"And you were screaming for extermination earlier so you're here to kill us? Then go ahead. DO IT!" Nexus said getting in the Dalek's face plate. He assumed it was a face anyways, logical place for it.
"Nexus stop!" the Doctor shouted.
"Go on Spam in a Can, do it!"
"We cannot comply. You are a companion to the Doctor, you must live."
"I'm not his companion, now kill me you bastard!" he shouted as another Dalek rounded the corner and a two legged robot marched its way into the room.
"We do not take orders from lesser beings like you!" the new Dalek said.
"What is your objective?" Nexus demanded.
"To find the Doctor." the robot said with a strangely gravely, metal tone of voice.
"And if you're anything like your buddy here you want to kill him, and if you want him dead you'll go through me first now how bout that?  A two for one deal?"
"You are needed for the objective." it replied.
"What was your objective!?"
"Who's on First!?" The Doctor shouted over him.
"What?" Nexus asked.
"Thought that'd shut you up. Now, I would like to know the answer to that question. What is your objective here?"
"To find the Doctor." A third Dalek said wheeling itself in.
"And what then?"
"We were only told to find the Doctor." the robot said.
"And now we know why." the first Dalek said.
"Why? Why would you want to find me if you didn't want to kill me?"
"We were trapped here by her to find the Doctor. And now you have lead us to the source."
"The source?" Derpy asked.
"You were all trapped here? She knew you'd try and kill me on sight unless I found the Paradox Machine. That cheeky little-"
"So what are you going to do if not kill us?" Nexus asked with his blood still boiling.
"To shut down the machine and save us." The robot answered.
"Save us Doctor. Save us!" the second Dalek said. The other two Dalek's repeated it a few times before shutting up.
"The terminal's deadlocked." Nexus told them. "And we can't break into the machine to shut it down."
"Nexus!" 
"Irrelevant." the robot said. "Deactivation of the machine is simple."
"Kill the heart of the Paradox." the first Dalek said. "If the Doctor cannot help us-"
"Then we will help the Doctor." A second robot said entering the room.
"Ditzy, come here." The Doctor said waving his mare friend over. "You're going to let us go?"
"The destruction of this machine means this world will collapse. Anything left will be stricken from the timeline completely. Without you Doctor, the Dalek's will will cease to exist."
"What are you talking about? I nearly wiped you out."
"If not you then someone else. Your survival then kept the Dalek's fighting. Building up again to face our greatest enemy. If you are to die, it will be at our hands, not his." The third one said.
"Who's?"
"The Lord of Crows." the second robot said.
"Step aside Doctor." the first Dalek asked.
Nexus, Derpy and the Doctor did as it asked, moving out of the way as the two other Dalek's moved closer to the machine and the robots entered in behind them. "When I say so, run."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Derpy agreed.
"Are you sure we can get out of here?" Nexus asked.
"We have a chance Nexus. Do you trust me?"
Nexus licked his lips and kept his eyes on the aliens. "I do."
The robots raised their left arms and something popped up on their wrists, Nexus assumed it was their weapons. In the blink of an eye, beams of blue light shot from all five of them and slammed into the metal surface. The first few bounced off but after a few seconds of the barrage the first hits that didn't ricocheted off and instead flashed in a shower of sparks. He knew it did damage when the whole maze shook in protest. The Doctor yanked hard at Derpy's foreleg as he broke into a sprint.
Nexus was right behind him. Nexus prepared to make a hard turn in any direction only to find the wall in front of them crumbled into nothing. In fact they were starting to fall like it was nothing. Each wall ahead of them toppled like it was nothing, leaving a path straight ahead. They didn't question it, and just ran. The maze itself shuttered under their hoofs. Nexus looked to the sky and watched lightning roll across the sky as the storm started to pick up.
"What's going on Doc!?" Nexus asked as they ran.
"The storm's destabilizing! It's about to collapse and take this whole pocket universe with it! Now we have to get to the TARDIS!"
Nexus decided to shut his mouth and kept running. Derpy kept better pace than Nexus could've expected. The Doctor in fact was running at a pace that Nexus couldn't quite perfectly keep up with. He wasn't about to be left behind so he kept the lead out and just kept running. the walls fell like they were made of paper, the sheer volume of the storm was deafening. The thunder and lightning shook the maze as much as the collapsing in general. Derpy stumbled behind the Doctor and fell back, Nexus grabbed her by the foreleg and helped her regain her footing. The two of them kept running, Derpy and Nexus using their wings to push themselves faster.
Nexus was starting to wish the maze had done this before, would've saved a lot of time. The two of them caught up to the Doctor in no time and were getting close. Nexus caught a glimpse of a red checker's piece being thrown out of a room. They were almost there, he hoped. He hoped with everything he could possibly could that he'd get out of there. He kept thinking of Astral, Dust, his mother, everyone. He wasn't one hundred percent sure he knew what he was running from but he knew for sure what he was running towards. His last hope to see his only son, the thought of holding his beautiful wife again. The last few walls head of them broke down and Nexus could see the pathway they came down as another powerful blast of thunder rumbled across the fake sky.
He was going to make it! They were going to get out of there! He could see the TARDIS. The Doctor called for Derpy and she grabbed him from under his forelegs and flew them as fast as she could towards the TARDIS. As the three of them left the maze, Nexus looked back. The whole of the maze was falling apart. Nexus couldn't see his timeline from the machine, it was must've been done. The rumbling got stronger as the maze collapsed but getting closer to him. He spread his mechanical wings and pushed off as hard as he could towards the TARDIS.



"Nexus come on!" The Doctor shouted from the TARDIS doors, fumbling with his keys.
Ditzy clung to his side as he finally got the door open. He'd have thought he'd never been so happy to see the inside of his home but that wouldn't be totally accurate, there've been much worse times he'd gotten into the TARDIS. He turned around and saw Nexus flying at full speed towards him. He stepped aside and Ditzy opened the other door. He shouted for him to get going as the lightning started striking the actual body of the maze and even the path behind him. A growing sense of worry was starting to rear up in the Doctor as the unicorn got closer.
Just meters away from the doors, a bolt came from above and struck Nexus on the back. He shouted in pain and went limp shortly afterwards. The momentum he'd built up however was more than enough for how close he was. He slammed headfirst into the ground and tumbled head over heels through the door of the TARDIS. The moment he was in the door shut and Ditzy rushed to his side. The Doctor meanwhile ran straight for the controls and started the TARDIS. The familiar wheezing of the engines filled his ears as they took off from the platform they were on only moments before it collapsed.
"Haha! We're outa' here!" The Doctor said ecstatically as the TARDIS shook and shuttered away from the edge of the universe. The Doctor momentarily worried about the reverse of time but it seemed it was already done. Another two days unknown to the whole of reality for the Doctor.
"Doctor…" Ditzy called from Nexus' side. 
The Doctor snapped back and ran to his friend's side. He put a ha-hoof to his neck and felt a pulse. "He's alive. Doesn't seem like anything serious right now other than missing glasses." The Doctor said noticing the lack of his spectacles.
"Oh it's going to be far worse than that Dear Doctor." a somewhat distorted voice called from the console.
The Doctor spun around to find his screen pointing in his direction with a shadowy man inside it. He quickly stood up and made his way to the console to find the origin of the transmission.
"Who are you."
"Oh come now my old friend, don't tell me you've forgotten me already?"
"Who are you? Tell me!"
"The drums Doctor… Can you hear them yet?"
It couldn't be. "It can't be… Show yourself!"
"Where's the fun in that Doctor? Tell me who I am and maybe I'll consider telling you. Twenty questions."
"I know who you are. Why did you do this?"
"Oh, that's not the right question to be asking. You're not very good with this game are you worry wart? Come now, ask a real question or say my name."
The Doctor grunted in annoyance knowing this game too well. "Master…. Tell me; what are you planning?"
"Oh… I do wish there was an easy way to say this but… might as well come out with it."
"The Master?" Ditzy asked tempted to leave Nexus' side.
"What are you talking about?"
The screen flickered for a moment before turning to static. When it came back up there was a black stallion wi- actually could've been a mare with a long red mane as well but it was rather hard to tell. It certainly looked like a changeling but… redder.
"Who are you?" The Doctor asked. "The Lord of Crows I presume?"
"Close. Cybermen are far too thick." It spoke with a man's voice but it sounded like it could've change in an instant. "I am Lorthalis of Crows. You may call me Lolk, Doctor."
"What are you?"
"You tell me."
"You look like a changeling."
"That I am. Another breed mind you. But I'm as much a normal changeling as you are a pony Doctor. Not that it matters but let me say it is an honor to finally be talking to you."
"What'd you want?"
"I was bored Doctor." It said with a smile. "You see, your adventures are quite interesting. You and your little mare friend over there. Hello Ditzy!" it waved its porous arm at the screen and at Ditzy. "As sweet as ever I see, tending to friend's wounds."
"You leave her out of it Lolk. What do you want? What's with the maze and the aliens hell bent on killing me?"
"A challenge Doctor. Ponies love a good challenge and yours are by far and away the most entertaining."
"Lolk, the producer's waiting, speed it up!" a man called from off screen.
"Fine fine. Remember this Doctor, sometimes intervening may give way to tragedy. See you again Doctor." He gave a sinister smile and the screen went black.
"What was he talking about Doctor?" Ditzy asked somewhat confused.
"I'm not sure, but we'll have to be sure we keep an eye out for him, her, it. But for now, we better get him home."
"Is he going to be alright?" she asked as The Doctor flew across the controls trying to remember where his house was at this point in his life.
"We'll have to see. I'm sure he won't feel good when he wakes up but we still need to get him home."
> Hard Reset
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The world around him disappeared into a dull ringing in his ears and inky blackness. His heart pounded in his head and every piece of him hurt. Nexus had no idea what'd happened. Something hit him, only question was what. The ground under him rumbled and shook like an army was trampling nearby and they were taking heavy artillery fire. He felt something in his right hoof, he was so cold and numb he didn't know what it was. He tried getting air into his lungs but his ribs felt like they were cracked enough to not allow any air in.
He rolled onto his left side, the object in his right hoof still clinging to it loosely. As he pushed himself up slightly he felt something dripping from his mouth. It tasted kind of like copper. His eyelids were open, he knew they were, but his eyes were in the back of his head. Something hit him on the back but held him up as it did so, a hoof also landing on the center of his chest. Somepony was yelling at him on the right, presumably the one holding him up. His eyes slowly moved forward into place and the muddy terrain came into a semi-focus, he wasn't wearing his glasses.
The pony holding him yelled again as Nexus started breathing heavily, to his ribs despair. He shook his head slightly and blinked a few times. the sounds of gunfire started filtering through his ears. The occasional explosion would happen nearby as the pony holding him shouted again this time he could hear more clearly.
"Nexus! You still with us Commander!?" a stallion shouted over the gunfire.
Nexus generally nodded to him. He kept catching his breath trying to remember what was going on.
"Come on Commander, we're surrounded!"
"S-Surrounded?" Nexus said as something about a war started coming back to his mind.
"Come on Colonel, the Griffon's are gonna slaughter us!"
That snapped him into focus suddenly. Not a lot was coming back but some very important bits. Griffons, Griffonstone, General Iron Claw, no air support, mortars raining down That was what hit him, a mortar. He felt a massive amount of anger for some reason, he knew why somewhere but he couldn't seem to get it on the top of his head. He looked forward and found a hill ahead of them, and Griffons coming in on a full charge. Everything was going against them right now, low ammo, a lot of ponies dead. There was something they had.
"How long until the Rosetta's in range?" Nexus asked looking to who was holding him up. It was a light gray earth pony with a striped, mint green mane and golden eyes. What was his name? Thunder Clap? The smell of burnt… everything wafted into his nostrils, his body was finally catching up.
"Last I heard two minutes." Thunder said as Nexus started to stand up on his own.
"Alright. Surrounded you say?"
"Yes Colonel!"
"Tell him to aim for map grid six-eight-tango."
"That's right on us!"
"I'm well aware! PREPARE A CHARGE!" Nexus ordered.
"What the fuck is wrong with you Nexus!"
"Just trust me! If this goes south we'll have an escape route opened. FIX  BAYONETS AND DRAWL BLADES! MAKE THEM REMEMBER THIS DAY!"
"Nexus this won't work!"
"WE WERE BORN TO DIE! BUT NOT BEFORE THEM!" The soldiers around him hollered with their weapons over their heads.
Nexus shouted for the charge and started forward with as much force as he could muster. This was war, and it was time to show the Griffons they weren't going down without a fight. The soldiers roared in rage behind Nexus as they followed in full pelt. The Griffons followed behind them trying to put them into a no win scenario. Nexus knew there really was only one thing they could do to avoid it was to become the unstoppable force against the immovable object that was the Griffon's defensive line. If they stopped short of that hill, they'd end up getting hit with their own artillery.
Nexus' head throbbed as he ran, lack of oxygen from yelling and running he supposed. His vision faded in and out as he got closer to the Griffon line, charging at them as well. Nexus took a deep breath as they got close and everything cleared up for a millisecond. The rolling rumble of the two armies running headlong into one another, coming yards closer to their own Armageddon every second. Nexus saw the soldier he was running at, sword held over his head, and guard nonexistent. He leveled the tip of his cavalry sword at him and pulled his elbows back for a running stab. They were twenty feet away from each other now, closed in a fraction of a second. The Griffon brought his sword down as Nexus thrust his blade-



The world around him disappeared into a dull ringing in his ears and inky blackness. His heart pounded in his head and every piece of him hurt. Nexus had no idea what'd happened. Something hit him, only question was what. His left cheek rested on something soft yet firm while the right was being gently stroked by something, a hoof? His lungs hurt, he was hardly breathing! He took a deep breath through his nose and let it out of his mouth. Unlike the last time, he could hear for the most part.
"Is he waking up?" A woman's voice asked directly over him, echoing slightly from the space they were in. Not quite home. She smelled divine though, so Nexus wasn't sure if he cared.
"Don't know." a stallion said further away. "Been out for about, two hours now. He might be." the sound of steps on a metal great got close and stopped right near him. "Nexus, can you hear me?" the Hoofington accent rung a bell. What was going on? He was a medic? No, a doctor….
"Do-" he said with all the air he had. He took another breath and tried again. "Doc?"
"He's coming back to us." the Doctor said. "Keep him over there for now Ditzy, just need to be sure he's okay. Nexus? Lunarus Solaris Nexus?"
"I… Th-the Charge…" the silence started to fade as the war started coming back to him. When did that happen?
"Lunar… Please wake up…" the mare said stroking his cheek some more. Who called him that? Somepony important. No… She wasn't important to anything in the long run. She was important though. How? He nuzzled into whatever he was laying on, he assumed the woman. He could stand to sleep some more.
"Nexus, stay with us now. Talk to him more." The Doctor said. What was his name?
"O-Okay. Lunar… Sweetie wake up…" she said gently tapping his cheek. "Lunar… Please wake up… Don't do this to me again…" Again? Fade… darkness… death… die again… again and again… not this time. "Lunar please." she was about to cry now. He hated seeing her cry. He knew that. "Lunar, Honey please just wake up."
Honey? Honey… Relationship… Love, he loved this woman. He cringed as he tried to move, roll over and find the face. "That's good keep going." The Doctor encouraged.
"Lunar, Astral's been asking about you. He's worried sick about his Daddy."
Astral? Pegasus, son, pocket sized trouble. Mother's… Nexus had found his way onto his back, his right cheek was now resting on something while the back of his head rested against what his left was. He had to figure this out. His eyes tried to open but fought him like they didn't want him to wake up. Eventually he could see more than the orange light around him. The warm object he was resting on shifted as well and something wrapped around his shoulders, cradling him. He definitely was in somepony's lap.
"Lunar?"
His eyes slowly rolled forward again and the blurry image of  a light brown blob with black on top of it and orange around it. A small smudge of blue rested inside it as well, it was a nice blue… He remembered that blue, her favorite color. He forced everything he had at the moment to clearing the mare in front of him, or rather above. The familiar features of an average looking mare started popping into his head, he knew them perfectly but was still searching for a name.
Then she came into better focus, pure black mane tied in a ponytail, the end draped down over her left shoulder and sat just in front of his nose. He knew that shampoo, he bought it for her. He knew her, she lived with him. But what was her name?
"Good morning sleepy head." she said softly.
That did it! She was his wife! He knew her! They had a son named Astral Wind, her favorite movie was High Marks, starring Star Struck as the leading man at the Cloudsdale Air Defense Squadron. She was pregnant! She was going to have another one of his children! What was her name!? Her cutie mark, what was it again? Paint brush? No, a paint brush was the handle of something. FEATHER DUSTER! The cutie mark, not her name. This wasn't helping his migraine. If anything it was getting worse by the second. But her name was close to it… Dust… Dust was her name. Dust Storm! Wait… she knew who he was?
"Y-you remember me?"
"How can I forget you? You're too much of a pain my ass to forget."
"Mooooooooooom" Astral called away from them.
"I'll put a Bit in the jar latter son."
Nexus looked towards Astral and saw him at the TARDIS console with Ditzy… Derpy. Her name is Derpy…. or Ditzy, not important right now. In fact he wasn't sure if what he was seeing was real. Dust's lap certainly felt real enough, he wouldn't mind staying there. What'd happened?
As if sensing Nexus' thought, The Doctor answered. "Nexus, you're in the TARDIS. Do you remember what that is?"
"Time… Time And Relative Dimension… In Space. It's…….. some kind of time machine?" Nexus said cringing.
"Do you remember what happened?"
"Uh… I don't know. I… I…"
"The Maze?"
"Maze? Daleks…"
"It's alright. We're safe now. That maze is gone and so are the creatures in it."
"Dust… She…"
"She's fine now. The Timeline reset to moment when the machine turned on. Do you remember the date?"
"Uh… June… Something I think."
"It's the twenty fourth Lunar." Dust said.
"Happy Birthday!" Derpy shouted popping up behind the Doctor with Astral. They blew onto party favors to celebrate.
"My birthday? I'm Thirty-"
"Three. You lying cow." The Doctor said getting up. "But you're fine. Vitals are stable, and no permanent side effects from it I think. Never thought somebody could be struck by lightning from a time storm. Not really sure what would happen. But, it's good to see you're alright."
"You wanna go see what Auntie Luna and I got for you?" Astral said ecstatically laying next to his father's face.
"In a bit son. I'd like to rest for a while." Nexus said as the Doctor fiddled with the controls.
"Where are we going Doctor?" Derpy asked.
"Nowhere special. Just thought that with our little guest here," he said getting on his knees after finishing fiddling with the console. "I thought maybe he'd like to see what Earth looks like from space."
"Space!?"
"Oh yeah. Ditzy why don't you keep him from falling out the TARDIS while I help Nexus up for a moment."
"I'm fine here honestly." Nexus said nuzzling deeper into his wife's stomach, the end of her ponytail still right next to his nose. It just smelled like shampoo, he never really bothered looking at the scent, she liked and that's it.
"Come on, seeing the planet from a place nobody'll be seeing for almost another hundred years? You want to pass that up?"
"Well I'm not sitting here holding you all day Lunar. Now off." Dust said patting him on the chest.
Nexus groaned, still being more than a bit sore. "Okay, a little help please?"
Dust giggled as the Doctor grabbed him on his left side, Dust on the right.  They groaned and got him up on his hoofs. Dust wasn't very strong but Nexus was starting to be able to hold himself up. He did lean on her after the Doctor let go to flip a few switches on the console but thankfully Dust wasn't going down anytime soon.
"You need to invent a lighter metal instead of a whole two percent increase in A.L.I.S.' memory thing."
"Memory Server Matrix." Nexus corrected. "Doc, does the TARDIS have internal gravity control?"
"Standard."
"I think it's going into overdrive. Cause I'm getting heavier I think." Nexus said leaning heavier on Dust's shoulder.
"Lunar, Lunar don't you dare!" She said as Nexus started 'falling' on her.
"I can't help it, the TARDIS is on the fritz!" he said leaning harder.
"Lunar!"
"Alright." He said putting less weight on her. "Call that payback."
"Playfully abuse each other later. Come take a look." The Doctor said at the open doors of the TARDIS.
The Doctor moved aside to give them room to see out the doors. Astral sat behind Derpy who kept him from leaning too far out the doors. She saw Dust coming and took her hoofs off Astral. He looked back an saw Nexus up and walking. He smiled and buzzed his little wings. He flew up and hugged him around the neck as tight as he could. 
"Son… Struck by lighting… Kind of soar."
"Sorry Dad…" Astral said letting go.
"It's fine Budd. How's the view?"
"Awesome! You can see Canterlot from here!"
Astral got up on top of Nexus' head. Nexus never was quite sure why he rode on his head but his neck isn't what hurt right now. He looked out over Earth from the doors of the TARDIS in awe. They were flying right over Equestria. Astral was right, they could see Canterlot from here. The mountain range was massive. Manehatten, the Horseshoe Bay, Badlands, not the Crystal Empire. He couldn't see through the clouds to the north. It was a relatively clear day across most of Equestria though. The oceans on either side of the country were a beautiful blue with the white clouds in a semi-spiral pattern made it look like surf against the shore. It wasn't hurricane, nowhere near enough clouds. Still beautiful. He'd never actually thought the planet was this big. Maps and Globes did not do this justice. 
"Alright, it might be the blood still rushing to my head, but I'm starting to get vertigo. Mind if we get our hoofs back on solid ground?" Nexus asked.
"Sure." The Doctor said. The door shut on its own and Dust let Nexus lean on the railing.
Astral slid down Nexus' back and stopped on his wings. He'd almost forgotten he was still wearing them. The TARDIS jolted and the wheezing stopped, Nexus assumed they'd landed.
"Thanks for the view Doc." Nexus said.
"Oh we're far from done."
"Pardon me?"
"Since it's your birthday, I figured I could treat you to one free trip on the TARDIS."
"Doc, I appreciate it bu-"
"Oh not just you, all of you. I know how to get you two in the Leisure Palace on the planet of Midnight! Cocktails on demand and the best tans you could possibly get alongside the best looking landscapes you could imagine!"
"Kid coming with." Nexus said motioning to Astral on his head.
"Baby on board." Dust said patting her belly.
"Congrats. But you don't have to get a cocktail. Come on, it's the most luxurious hotel resort in the universe!"
"No offence Doctor but I'm gonna want to get some bed rest after the weekend I've had."
"You can get plenty at the hotel! Come on, it's the least I could do."
"Doc, I think I've had enough space travel for one lifetime. Plus I have a party I need to get to tonight. Come on Dust."
"It's a time machine Lunar." Dust said taking Astral off his shoulders. "We can be back before anypony knows we're even gone. Literally!"
"Dust, I would love nothing more than some time in my own bed. Please? For me?"
"Ugh…. fine."
"But I wanna see Midnight!"
"Maybe some other time son. I promise. Let's go."
"Lunar…" Dust said going next to him. 
"I could use a little help getting to the couch at least, please?" Nexus asked.
"Sorry Doctor. Maybe when he's feeling better."
"Deep tissue massages, the best food this side of the Medusa Cascade! You'll love it!"
"Doc…"
"Alright." He said turning back to the console. Dust helped Nexus off the railing, let Astral hold on to Nexus' back instead of hers and started to limp out. "It's a shame though, the diamond surface of Midnight is beautiful at night."
"What surface of Midnight now?" Dust asked stopping at the door.
"Diamond." the Doctor repeated. Derpy smiled as the Doctor kept going. "Didn't I mention that before? The whole planet is made of diamonds."
"That's it!" Dust said letting her husband off of her. He stumbled for a second before getting a hoof on the railing. "Come on Astral, we're going to pack Daddy's things for the weekend trip."
"YAY!"
"Dust!"
"We're going! It's a planet made of diamonds Lunar! When am I ever going to see that again!?"
"Next week when I can stand steady without somepony holding me up!"
"Lunar!"
"Look, I can adjust your legs to hold their own equilibrium until you get yours back. Just get packed."
"Good, I'll be right back." Dust said. "Come on Astral, let's go get your swim suits! Wait there's a pool right?"
"Six, Naturally."
"Let's go get packed honey. I'll pack for your father while he gets his legs fixed."
"Yay!"
The rest of his family walked out and Nexus move towards the console. The Doctor pulled his Soni- "Wait didn't that break?"
"It did. TARDIS made me a new one."
"Neat machine. I'm going to make you pay for this you know."
"Ah, I can get you in for free as it is. You'll have to answer to Ambassador while you're there." The Doctor answered waving the Sonic Screwdriver at Nexus' legs.
"That's not what I, wait. You're going to tell them we're someone important?"
"Well not exactly."
"It's more lie about who you are."
"I'll be your assistant John Smith. Ditzy's mine."	
"The assistant's assistant?"
"Don't worry about semantics." Derpy reassured him. "The Doctor's usually actually takes the part of ambassador when we stay at hotels."
"Wait… You do this all the time? Isn't that illegal?"
"It's… complicated. Anyways… THERE! Get off the railing."
Nexus pushed himself upright and slowly let go of the piece of metal. He stood up right and didn't waver. He stomped each hoof trying to make sure they all worked and was happy to find all four were still in working order.
"Well, paying for it wasn't what I was talking about. I mean I don't like resorts, I don't end up doing anything besides reading by the pool."
"Ah, you'll still love it. Just try something there."
"Fine."
"So… What were you talking about when you said, "The Charge."?"
"It feels like it was a dream. Honestly I wasn't sure if this wasn't the dream for a second, but I…. I saw a war. I don't remember much but I remember we were getting torn apart outside of Griffonstone. I ordered a charge and that's all I remember. Why?"
"There's a famous battle in Equestria, it was called The Charge."
"What happened?"
"I can't say. What I can say is it was one of the bloodiest events in history."
"And I was in it"
"It would seem so."
"Why do you ask?"
"When I scanned you before, the Sonic said you were locked into two points in time. I couldn't really tell until you said The Charge."
"Locked?"
"Time has two modes of being. In flux and fixed." the Doctor explained. "There are some things that can't be changed at all. If they are they'll break the fabric of space and time. It's impossible for you to change them unless you happen to have a time machine. But some things can be changed. And somehow the lightning striking you locked a moment in time within your future. And somehow it tried to lock you into it."
"I don't think I follow… But Doc… You're sure it's me?"
"Well… History says you lead The Charge."
"Alright then… I guess… I've got something to prevent."
"It's a fixed point in time Nexus. There's nothing you can do."
"Not true." Nexus said looking back to see Dust plopping a duffle bag of cloths at the door of the TARDIS. "I can sure as hell try and delay it as long as possible."
The Doctor followed his gaze and smiled. "Can't argue with that."
Astral came around the corner plot first, growling like a dog. Nexus chuckled and rolled his eyes. He moved up behind his son and saw what he was growling at, his duffle bag. The straps firmly held in his teeth and him dragging with all his little might but the bag was stuck on the edge of the TARDIS.
"Need some help there Astro?" Nexus asked leaning over him.
"No! Hi Ghot hit!" he said with his mouth full of canvas.
"He sai-"
"I don't have to speak every language to know what he said Doc." Nexus said chuckling.
"Oh yeah. Speaking of languages you should be able to understand those better now."
"Why?" Nexus asked as the bag finally came off the edge and Astral dragged it in.
"Best we leave it. Let's just call it a bonus gift."
"I'm not sure what I got bu-"
"Don't look a gift dragon in the mouth." Dust said with her bags laying across her back. The Doctor giggled for some reason and Dust set her bags down on the floor and moved Astral's next to her. "I think you should know I've got that dress and you are taking me dancing."
"I hate you." Nexus groaned.
"Love you too!" Dust said kissing his cheek.
"We ready to go?" The Doctor said as he ran across the console.
"You did pack me a few books right?"
"A few?" Derpy asked.
"He likes options." Dust answered.
"It's true."
"And yes we are."
"Good. Astral, care to do the honors?" The Doctor asked.
"Can I!?"
"Sure. Just pull this lever."
"Awesome!" Astral shouted running up to the console and Tried getting up to pull the lever.
Nexus smiled and got up behind him and lifting him up on his own. 
"Now before you pull that lever, there's something you have to say." Nexus told him. 
"What is it?" Astral asked his father. Nexus whispered it and Astral raised an eyebrow. "Really?" Nexus chuckled and nodded. "Okay… A..Alon…"
"Say it with me."
"Allons-y!" the Nexus boys said in unison.
With that, Astral threw the switch and the TARDIS made its signature wheezing noise as it went off. As much as Nexus hated resorts, he had to be honest, he wasn't as unhappy with it as he let on. Everything was going to be fine. As long as he had his family, he'd be happy, he'd be fine. The TARDIS landed and the doors opened to a blinding white light. Astral ran out almost instantly and Dust had to run out to get him. Derpy went with them on a happy trot and Nexus walked behind them. As he passed the door he picked up the bags with his horn.
He walked out into the bright white atrium of the Leisure Palace. He knew that because there was a big glass sign telling him it was so. He looked back and found the Doctor locking the TARDIS. Everypony was looking around in awe but Nexus had been to the Crystal Empire enough that this wasn't incredibly impressive.
"Alright everybody," the Doctor said. "I'll go get somebody to check you in."
"I'll come with you." Nexus said following him.
"So there something you wanted to talk about?" The Doctor asked as he looked for a pony that worked there. All Nexus could see was ponies in white robes.
"It's just… I don't want to be rude Doc, but can we keep any future visits to a minimum?" Nexus asked.
"Don't worry Nexus, you're a fixed point in time again. I can't really take you very many places without messing up space and time."
"Well, don't think that doesn't mean you can't come by. I know you don't like soldiers but… Just if you ever need anything that I can help with, don't hesitate to come by."
"Those sound like contradicting things."
"They are. After all this Doc… I'd hate to leave with you thinking I'm just another soldier."
"You're not. Only when you need to be. And when I need you, I'll come back."
Nexus smiled and held out his hoof. "Friends?"
"Friends." The Doctor said shaking his hoof.
Nexus smiled back and they looked for an employee. They did find somepony in what looked like a company's uniform and the Doctor flagged him down. "Excuse me sir! Yes, I'm John Smith, assistant to the newly elected Ambassadors from Sto." The Doctor said holding up what Nexus assumed was an ID card in his wallet.
"Oh, is this him?"
"Yes. Hi. I'm… Vincent, Vincent Autore. A pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure's all mine. I assume you're the one who's fighting for cyborg rights over in there eh?"
"Uh… Y-yes I am. I'm very happy to have been voted to represent my fellow semi-mechanical kin."
"Good. I have a-"
"The Ambassador doesn't wish to speak of work. Would you kindly take his bags to the nicest room here and have catalog him and his family?" The Doctor interrupted motioning towards his family and Derpy standing near the TARDIS still in awe of their surroundings.
"Right away sir. Again, it's great to meet you Ambassador Autore! And I hope you and your family enjoy your stay." them employee said running off without the bags. He did quickly realize his error and quickly grabbed them off his back.
"Sto?" Nexus asked quietly.
"What? It's a real planet with a cyborg population. Or do you prefer semi-mechanical equine?"
Nexus laughed and shook his head as a hovering sphere came by and shined some light in his face before moving over to the Doctor's. The sphere then flashed green and flew over to his family. They flinched when it shined its light at them but didn't act rash thankfully. It wasn't long before it came back and dispensed a card with a number printed on one side and a black line on the other. This was going to be a loooooooong vacation. As much as he was kind of excited to see this place, he was ready to hopefully relax. After all, him plus vacations never quite mixed without some very painful results. "Think Positive." he told himself. "Think Positive."