> Into the Unknown > by Bubble-Fics > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > The Voyage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Present day… “Derpy!” The grey pegasus awoke with a startle “Oh…I thought you would be up by now” Derpy rose herself up in bed to look over at the Doctor. “Derpy, sleep off the large amount of muffins she ate from last night” The Doctor watched her wipe the sleep out of her eyes with a hoof. “Oh…Anyway, you must come at once to my lab, I have something dire to show you!” In Doctor Whoove's lab... “So what was it you wanted to-“ “Behold!” The Doctor presents an ordinary looking key in front of Derpy’s face “It was just mere moments ago that I found this peculiar key that fit the lock of this old chest you see here” Derpy focused her attention on an old, rustic looking chest in the corner “Little did I know it contained a whole memory’s worth of my family’s work” The Doctor moved over to the chest and opened it using the key in his hoof “more specifically my mother’s” He added on. “That’s real great, Doc!” “That’s not just the only thing” Derpy looked on “I found this!” The Doctor pulled out a very old, brown book, from the chest, that had dust all over it. “A book?” “Yes” The Doctor blowed off the dust on the book’s cover, causing Derpy to sneeze “This is a book of legends and mysteries of the unexplainable!” Derpy came over to the Doctor’s side to examine the book’s interior “My family were quite fond of the topic and would travel to various locations that had reports of such tales” He gestured to a scrawny, drawn map of Equestria drawn in the book “Once they were done with that location, they would mark it off with a red marker” He pointed to the red markers on the drawn map “but…” The Doctor recoiled away, confusing his ditzy friend. “But?” “One location still remains…unmarked” The Doctor uses his hoof to point at a drawn mountain range on the map, that, true to his word, was left without a red marker. “Where is that?” Derpy inquisitively asked. The Doctor flipped a couple pages before presenting, images of some ancient looking architecture. “This discrete chamber, you see here, is found in the heart of a cavern, deep within one of the tallest peaks of the mountain range in the..Unknown” Derpy looks on, intrigued “It is only in the Unknown where you’ll find the ‘In Modis Aliis Porta’” Her eyes widen in wonder a she stares at the beautifully drawn picture “The gateway to other dimensions” “Ooh” Derpy looks back up to the Doctor “Does it have muffins?” Doctor Whooves scrunches up his face in confusion. “Um, I don’t know…” He flips some more pages in his book before giving up on his search “I guess there’s only one way to really find out!” “What do you mean?” “Doctor Whooves, what are you doing?” Derpy watched the Doctor, run around his house, like a headless chicken, scrambling for various things around his home to put into his saddlebags. “Preparing myself for an adventure” He grabs a set of warm overalls, shoving them into his ever growing bags “One must be fully equipped if they are to discover and behold the treasures of the ‘In Modis Aliis Porta’” Derpy raises an eyebrow, before watching him dash off upstairs. “You’re leaving today?” “Why yes!” He comes back, almost falling down the stairs as he does, with some random tools “What better time, than the present” The Doctor begins zipping up his saddlebag before dashing off into the living room, remembering something. “For how long?” “Well, its hard to say, but one can assume quite some time” He runs back into the foyer “Why?” He continues to shove more stuff into his pretty stuffed saddlebags while Derpy droops her head to look at the ground. “Derpy don’t know what she’ll do when Whooves is out of town” The Doctor freezes his furious packing to look back at a saddened Derpy. He bites his lip before coming up with an idea. “Maybe” Derpy’s ear flickers and she slowly raised her head back up to stare at the Doctor, with a glint of hope in her ditzy eyes “…she could join Whooves on his voyage” Her expression changes to an unsure one “I’ll pack a box of muffins” > Entering the Void > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- “So” Derpy stood outside of Dr Whoove’s house, with her own set of saddlebags, watching the Doctor, lock up his place before safely putting his key into his personal saddlebag “How are we going to get there, Doc?” “Simple” He comes over to stand by Derpy’s side “We fly!” The Doctor proudly stands there, with a puffed chest, focusing his attention to the sky with a pretty confident expression on his face. “Umm…” Derpy looks at him in confusion. “Using a hot air balloon, of course” He points towards a resting hot air balloon, not too far away from their position and starts heading towards it. “Oh,” Derpy follows after the Doc “Derpy gets it now” The pair approach the magnificent balloon where the Doctor eagerly clambers abroad. He taps on one of the various ropes that hold up the big ballon on top of them. “It is the easiest and fastest way to get to our destination” Derpy watches the Doctor start loosening some saddlebags which, causes the hot air balloon to slowly rise from the ground. Derpy gets lost in thought. “Don’t we have to rent these” She watches the Doctor let loose of more saddlebags “or something” He whips around with a determined look on his face. “Not in the name of science!” “Hey!” They both look behind them to see a not-so-happy stallion running there way in the distance. The Doctor’s expression turns to that of panic. “Quick, Derpy!” The grey pegasus looks to the Doctor expectantly “Remove the last of the sand bags” Derpy does so, giving the balloon more freedom to rise up, higher, from the ground. She quickly flies abroad, watching the Doctor get to work with the burners of the balloon “And away we go” The pair soar up into the sky, looking down at the grumpy, now, out of breath, stallion that was chasing them, slow down from exhaustion. He watches his beloved hot air balloon disappear into the white, puffy clouds up in the light blue sky. Several hours later… “Um..Doc,..” Derpy looks over to see the Doctor, looking at the map in his book whilst also controlling the burners “Derpy thinks that we should get some rest now” The Doctor perks up at this mention of ‘rest’. “Huh?..Oh, right!” The Doctor closes his book “Yes” He double checks on the burners and his compass before coming to sit down, near Derpy “The balloon is set in the right course so we should be there by daybreak” He goes into his bags, to get his warm overalls “we better wrap up for the night” Derpy follows his lead, taking out her own warm overalls “soon we’ll be dealing with temperatures below 0” The pair, simultaneously, put on their warm overalls. “How exactly will we find..this ‘gateway’ of yours? There must be quite a lot of mountains in this range, so how will we know which is the right one?” “With” The Doctor finishes putting on the last of his overalls and searches through one of his saddlebags “This!” He presents a weird looking device to Derpy “The gateway itself, is said to be infused with various types of gemstones but most specifically, Painite” Derpy opens up a box of muffins, grabbing one for herself before giving one to the Doctor, who gladly accepts it “It is one of the rarest minerals known to Equestria” Derpy continues to listen, whilst she eats her favourite blueberry muffin “This device here, has the ability to detect any source of Painite and directly lead us to it” The Doctor motions his hoof to the device “So you see my friend, finding this gateway should be a piece of cake” The Doctor finishes with a smile before biting a chunk out of his own muffin. The next morning… “Doctor?” The Doctor continued to sleep, undisturbed “DOCTOR!” He wakes up with a jolt, with crumbs of muffin still stuck around his mouth, from last night. “What’s the matter, Derp-“ The Doctor sees a mountain coming there way “Holy hayseeds!” He jumps up to the controls and steers the balloon out of the mountain’s way “That was close” The Doctor breaths a sigh of relief. Derpy points a hoof outward with a fearful expression. “There’s more!!!” The Doctor takes notice of this and proceeds to work with the controls, steering them out of the multiple mountains that appeared before them. “Derpy! I need you to grab the Painite detector” Derpy hastily goes through Doctor Whoove’s bags and finds said detector “it’ll help us navigate ourselves through this blizzard” “Okay, now what does Derpy do!?” “Flip the switch” The Doctor steers them away from yet, another mountain, before looking behind at Derpy “try and listen closely to where the signal is!” Derpy follows the Doctor’s instructions, putting on a headset to listen in on the detector’s signals whilst the Doctor, continues to steer them out of harms way. “Go left!” The Doctor follows her lead “Now right!..Uh..down!..Now..Bear left again!” The signal begins to beep louder in the headset that Derpy wears “We are really close” She exclaims. The Doctor looks back at her, confused. “Really?” “Doc, look out!” The Doctor, fails to act in time, and their hot air balloon crashes into the side of a bigmountain. … “Doctor Whooves, are you okay?” Derpy searches around in the massive heaps of snow, on the mountain’s edge, trying to find the Doctor. “I’m alright” The Doctor pops his head and hooves out of a pile of snow, grabbing the pegasus’s attention “How about you?” Derpy come over to help her friend out, grabbing on to his front hooves before pulling him out of the snow. “Derpy’s good” The Doctor shakes himself off, trying to get rid of as much snow as possible “but not so sure about the balloon” He follows her gaze, to stare at the definitely wrecked-beyond-repair hot air balloon, that was slumped over on its side, half-buried in the snow. “Agh! The balloon!” Derpy watches the Doc run over to the crashed balloon “I guess we’ll have to make the rest of the trip by hoof” He sighs “Let’s salvage what we can” He finds his saddlebag, placing it on him before finding Derpy’s own and giving it to her “That Painite detector could come in handy right about now” He turns to face Derpy “Do you have it?” “Umm” The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “What?” “I think I lost the detector..when we crashed but, we can check the snow” Derpy realises that the chances of finding the detector in the snow were pretty slim “Oh..that’s a lot of snow” “Doesn’t matter” She looks back at the Doc “We’ll use my book” The Doctor opens up his saddlebag and reaches in to grab his book “Maybe there’s something…” He sits down in the snow to skim read the pages in his book. “Uh..Doc” “Not now, Derpy, I’m on to something here” Derpy watches a large shadow creep up towards them, before surrounding their very surroundings. “But there’s a-“ A low, guttural growl, rips Doctor Whooves away from his pages, to stare back into the beady eyes of a massive winterzilla. “…hi” The winterzilla roars at them, causing them both to run away in the other direction from the fuzzy beast. It gives chase, on its massive two feet to run after the frightened pair. “This can’t be-“ Both of them slip down a hill “The book never said anything about there being a winterzilla!” The winterzilla jumps in front of their trail, roaring at them with all its might. Derpy grabs ahold of the Doctor and flies them both past the furious creature “Oh, wait,” The Doctor looks through his book as he’s being flown by Derpy “I must’ve skipped this small detail: Beware of Winterzilla’s” The winterzilla roared once more, using its four extra limbs to help accelerate its running speed, causing poor Derpy, to speed up her flying “So minuscule, how could they possibly expect any pony to read this, I mean-“ “Derpy don’t think this is the best time” A noise from above, catches their attention, they look up to see an avalanche coming their way. Derpy drops the Doctor and they both run as fast as they can from the approaching flow of snow. Even the winterzilla, stopped, to see the approaching avalanche before running in retreat. The avalanche hits, taking them all with it, covering them in snow. Derpy and the Doctor pop their heads out of the snow only to recoil in fear as the winterzilla stood there, with its four arms stretched out to its widest extent. “It’s cornered us! Derpy, my friend” The frightened pegasus doesn’t dare take her eyes of the massive creature “I am so dreadfully sorry I dragged you into this” The winterzilla closed in, emitting another low guttural groan from its toothy maw “Now we are but mere moments from being monster chow” A light bulb went up in Derpy’s mind. “Not today, Doc” Derpy broke out of the snow encasing her form, causing the Doc and the winterzilla’s mouth to widen in shock “You want some muffins?” She presented a box of muffins to the creature, holding it high enough for the thing to see “Go get em’!” The Doctor watched in amazement as Derpy did the most heroic thing, chucking the box of delectable muffins far away from her. The winterzilla followed the box of muffins before running after it and away from the Doctor and Derpy’s presence. “Derpy..that was-“ “Let’s go, Doctor Whooves, before it-“ Derpy helped the Doctor out of the snow, looking back at the now occupied winterzilla. Before, they could move an inch, the ground beneath them opened up causing them both to fall down into it. The pair slid around and down a tunnel complex until they came to crash on the earthy ground outside of the tunnel. They slowly, got up and brushed themselves off from their slide. “This is beginning to become a habit” The Doctor grabbed a head flashlight and turned it on before placing it on his head “Derpy!” His friend began to walk somewhere causing him to follow after her in the dark cave. They turned a few corners and found themselves staring at the… “‘In Modis Aliis Porta’. We’re here!” They both stared in awe at the extravagant structure “It’s..beautiful!” “Isn’t it” Before them, stood a grand archway, with rocky pillars embedded at each side of its grand entrance. Through the archway, came some crafted stairs made out of the very earthy rock of the mountain which led towards a smooth stone looking platform where a mystical, crystal embedded, arch structure stood. Each crystal came in a different hue and size, that would make even the prime and popular, Rarity, quiver at the knees. Glowing green and blue gemstones, were embedded in the very rocky walls surrounding the grand gateway, providing it with this alien-like glow, only adding to the mysterious nature of the structure. “So..is that it? “Is that it?” The Doctor was caught off guard “Don’t you see, Derpy?” She turned to face the chipper face of the Doctor “We actually made it to the ‘In Modis Aliis Porta’, the possibilities are endless! I need to extract as much as I can from this scientific phenomena” The Doctor happily bounded up the stairs up to the platform and began rummaging through his saddlebags to begin his investigations. On the other hand, Derpy, found interest in the weird drawings, scrawled on one of the wall’s surfaces. The drawings were very faint, so it required a lot of effort to focus on them properly. “Cave Mare drawings” Doctor Whooves had begun extracting some painite and gems from the structure before him. “Pure Painite, everywhere!” He examined the painite in his hoof with a small magnifying glass “Must sample as much as I can” He abruptly put the sampled painite into a small sampling jar before placing it into his bag “If only, mother, could see me now” “Hey, Doc!” Derpy looked over towards the Doctor, who was busy geeking out over the samples he was obtaining “There are some really interesting drawings on the walls that I think you should look at” “That’s nice” The Doctor moved on to sampling from the glowing gemstones embedded in the cavern walls. “Derpy, thinks they might be instructions” Derpy walks over to the gateway, looking back at the drawings “It points to this crystal here” She begins turning it like in the drawings “if I…” “Forget about Nobel Prize” The Doctor places his new sample in a jar before placing it in his bag “This discovery will make me president of the-“ He whips around to face Derpy “Derpy, what are you doing?” Derpy finishes poking another crystal, which pushes into the structure with a satisfied ‘click’ noise. She looks over at the Doc. “Opening the gateway” “Oh” The Doctor shrugs it off, going back to his sampling “Wait!” He whips around again “What!?” A monstrous roar snatches the Doctor’s attention, he looks over to where Derpy and him had been moments ago only now the spot was occupied with an angry winterzilla. “Looks like Fuzzball’s back!” He turns to Derpy, who acts unaware of the winterzilla’s presence “We need to get out of here, now!” Derpy turns one last crystal 90 degrees clockwise, causing a loud warp sound to vibrate over their surroundings “You…opened it” Sure enough, the gateway was alive, with colourful swirls of blue and purple filling the once empty space of the gateway. The loud, fast, approaching foot steps of the winterzilla echoed through their ears. “This way, Doctor Whooves!” “But-“ Without warning, Derpy, grabbed ahold of Doctor Whoove’s hoof, dragging him into the open portal with her. The portal closed behind them once they were through with only the echo of a roar sounding behind them. > The Charnea Monster > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doctor Whooves and Derpy were sent hurtling down a twisty vortex of various hues of blue and purple. It swept both of their pony forms in all kinds of directions, leaving them completely helpless to the vortex’s swirly structure. Derpy looked on, to stare at the stunned expression written all over the Doctor’s pale face as they continued to fall down. She bit her lip before trying desperately in vain, to manoeuvre herself closer to the Doc’s falling form. However, a sharp bend in the vortex caused the pair to separate even further away from each other. They both soon exited the seemingly endless vortex tunnel into what appeared to be a colossal size of a whirlpool that was radiating with vibrant lights. The two could only look on in absolute horror as they approached the blazing, fiery core of the whirlpool. … Doctor Whooves awoke with a startle, hoisting himself up to a seated position to get some breaths of fresh air. It didn’t take too long for him to realise the silent ambience that was all around him in this new plain he just woke up to. Before him lay a lifeless desert with endless valleys and hills of red sand. His right ear flickered to the sound of something moving, causing him to turn around, and watch, a dried mass of tumbleweed float seamlessly by. His eyes shrunk in realisation: He was alone. No matter where he turned, there was no sign nor hair of his valued friend. He dried gulped, thinking back to when they were both free falling towards that gigantic whirlpool of colours and how his friend tried to reach out to him during their last moments together. He sighed, looking down at his fallen saddlebag that lay, not too far from his side, at least, not all hope had been lost. His ear perked up to the sound of movement once more only, this time he turned around just in time to see the silhouette of a pony, disappear down a sand hill. "Hello?" he curiously questioned. Doctor Whooves quickly pounced up onto his hooves, placing his saddlebag on his back before cantering after the silhouette. It seemed that there was still some form of life in this plain after all. The Doctor paced himself carefully when climbing the slippery, sandy hill, reaching the top in a matter of seconds. His eyes were blazed with bewilderment at the very thing that lay before him. On the other hill’s side, beheld a rather intriguing rock complex. The massive rock was a blend of dark red and salmon pink. It had various different sized holes embedded within its intimidating exterior shell making it appear more mysterious and out of place in the barren wasteland surrounding it. Doctor Whoove’s eyes panned over the different shaped holes, each seemed to lack, a source of comforting light which, only seemed to heighten the growing fear deep within him. A flash of light from one of the holes, grabbed The Doctor's attention. He squinted his eyes, definitely seeing some form of life near the entrance to a hole. He bit his lip before steadily sliding down towards the entrance of the cave, trying not to make too much noise. But, on his trip down, his back hoof knocked over a few rocks that alerted the being in the entrance, causing it to swiftly, disappear from sight, into the darkness of the cave. "No! Wait!" he shouted. The Doctor rushed after it, hesitating when he reached the entrance to the hole. The entrance looked way more menacing up close, making him feel very minuscule standing close to it. But, this had been the only place where a source of life had been not to long ago and potentially, the key to finding his friend. The Doctor switched on his flashlight, taking a breath before advancing inside. … A lone droplet of water fell and hit the light grey muzzle of Derpy. Derpy, slowly began to regain consciousness, stretching out her limbs before raising herself up. She opened her eyes only to see darkness, she frantically looked all around but there was no light anywhere. She then remembered her saddlebag, using her hooves to blindly search around herself before she felt a strap. Not wasting any time, she quickly unpacked it before grabbing ahold of what could only be her flashlight. She turned it on, placing it on her head, hitting it a couple times with a hoof before the flashlight illuminated the darkness all around her. From what she could barely see, she was in some sort of underground tunnel of sorts, it took her a few moments to realise it had been due to that weird whirlpool her and the Doctor went through. The Doctor? Derpy soon noticed the absence of The Doctor, causing her heart to beat faster as she looked all around herself in the dark. The sound of rock crumbling, caused her to aim the flashlight in the sound’s direction, illuminating the shape of some form on the ceiling. “D-Doctor W-Whooves?” The shadowed, opened its glowing maroon eyes at Derpy, dropping itself from the ceiling to land flat faced on the ground. Derpy, trembled in fright as she watched the form lay silent on the ground. She gulped, before getting on her hooves to back away from the absurd thing at the end of the tunnel. The form’s wings suddenly sprung upwards, letting out a little hum as they began to flap at an alarming speed. Its wings soon lifted its lifeless form of the ground making it airborne within the limited space of the tunnel but terrifying all the same. “There are no doctors here..” It, in a creepy fashion, lifted its limp head to stare at the retreating pegasus before flying towards it with impeccable speed. Derpy, reflexively opened her own feathery wings, to fly away from the advancing danger, screaming all the while. … The Doctor, blindly walked down a seemingly endless dark tunnel, looking all around with his head gear to try and navigate where the being before him had gone. At an intersection, his ears perked up to the faint sound of screaming from a small tunnel. "Derpy!?" Doctor Whooves bounded towards the source of screaming in a heartbeat. "Derpy!" ... Derpy, blindly flew through various tunnels and intersections of this never-ending underground complex, trying to evade the creature that was hot on her tail. As she rounded a few more bends, she heard the familiar faint voice of the Doctor. "Doctor Whooves!?" She veered off to the side, without warning, causing the creature behind her to fly past and smack into a rocky wall. She hastily flew down a tunnel towards The Doctor's voice, looking briefly behind her to see that the creature wasn't following. The Doctor continued on his way through the underground tunnels, he knew that he was really close to Derpy's whereabouts and that alone fuelled his determination to find her. But, alas, he was too distracted to notice crack marks on the ground beneath him and before he knew it, the earth underneath him gave way. Derpy flies by and pauses by the tunnel the Doctor had been, looking all around for him. "Doctor?" ... Doctor Whooves opened his eyes, to find himself very much alive and well from his fall, it seemed the sticky net around him had saved him from plummeting into the chasm below. Wait? Sticky net? Using his flashlight, he turned his head from side to side, to see that the net holding his form was in fact a spider's web. But in no such book had he read about spiders creating webs as large as the one that he found himself unfortunately stuck to. He tried tugging and pulling away from the web but he found no such luck In doing so. "Isn't this a surprise.." a voluptuous voice resounded above the Doctor's trapped form. Doctor Whooves froze his efforts, darting his eyes around the dark perimeter before locking onto an approaching dark mass. "I hadn't anticipated on having company but.." Doctor Whoove's eyes met that of the assailant "..the pleasure's all mine" Now before him, dangled a strange beast that seemed to have the upper torso of a mare, that had a mauve coloured coat, a shoulder length dusty red mane and four pastel red spider eyes, which examined Doctor Whooves intensively. Beneath its pony counterpart, it had the legs and abdomen of that of a spider, which were all a shade of dark purple. "Uh..." "What's wrong with your face?" The pony-spider landed onto her web to lean closer at the Doctor " You look..repulsed" Sweat began to form on the Doctor's brow "Are you repulsed by my image?" "No" "You behave as if you have no clue who I am" "Uh..." "You don't know!" The pony-spider looked away in dismay "How could you n-I'm the Charnea Monster!" The Doctor looked at her with a confused look in his eyes "You know, teller of tales" The Doctor continued to blink in confusion "Being of all knowledge of the-oh, insolence!" The pony-spider stomped a spider leg in anger, shaking the entirety of the web "Now, you'll probably tell me you didn't come here to try and steal my all knowing eye" The monster moved a portion of her mane to show a fifth eye, that unlike the others was an actual gemstone (a red almandine garnet, for all you rock nerds out there). "I didn't come here to do that" "Lies!" The Doctor gulped in response at the malice in her voice "I know your kind too well" She stared down at him with nothing but fury in those spider eyes "Deceitful little tricksters you are! Trying to steal something that is not worthy for you" The Doctor's eyes became distracted by movement in the background "Why else would you come down here?" The Doctor snapped his attention back on the Charnea Monster. "For other reasons" "Like..what?" "Well..you're all knowing, right? So you should know..why I'm here" "You wish to toy with me, morsel!" The monster got more close and personal, displaying her terrifying fangs to the already frightened-as-it-is Doctor. "N-No" He stumbled with his words "I j-just..want to k-know..if you really live up to your s-status" The monster looked at him unimpressed "I mean, I'm trapped" He illustrates it out by failing to pull away from the web "I can't do anything" The monster lowered her eyelids, leaning back to give the Doc some space. "Very true" The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief "Well, I guess I might as well.." He began to perk up "..not do that" All hope diminished in an instant, as the monster let out a ripple of wicked laughter "You are quite foolish, to think, that I would listen to the likes of a mortal dweller" She laughs some more "Now, you shall follow the same fate as others who have come before thee" She hisses at him with her fangs but before she can lunge at him, the monster gets kicked very hard in the face by Derpy. Doctor Whooves watched the monster's form tumble and roll, a great distance away from him. The kick that Derpy had given it, had also generated enough force to release the gem in the monster's fifth eye and into the grasp of the pegasus. "Agh!" She grimaced "Insolence!" She got back onto her eight legs before looking at the hovering pegasus as well as the gem that now rested in her hooves "You shall pay dearly, mortal dweller!" The monster charged towards Derpy on all eight with a murderous look in her eyes. Derpy effortlessly, dodged the obvious attack, flying just out of reach of the enraged monster below. "You'll be the only one dwelling at the bottom of this chasm once I'm threw with you, monster" Derpy moved out of the way once more as the monster tried to attack her before flying straight for the ceiling giving it one hell of a kick from her back hooves. The ceiling cracked upon contact, causing water to break through and flow downwards. The web holding both the Doctor and the monster broke upon contact. Derpy flew down in time, to catch and hold the Doctor as they both watched the Charnea Monster fall into the dark depths of the chasm below. Derpy, hovered the Doctor over to a landing to allow him to stand. "Derpy!" Derpy landed beside the shocked Doctor "That was amazing! How did you-" The earth around them began to shake. "Come on, Doctor Whooves!" Derpy pulled onto one of Doctor Whooves ushering him along. ... The pair ran for their lives, through the tunnel, fortunately for them, this tunnel led them directly back to the surface. They both exited the rock complex in time to watch, it slowly fall and crumble into the dark recesses of the abyss beneath it. The Doctor and Derpy, took several breaths before calming down all together. "Well.." Derpy looked towards the Doctor "that was quite an exit" The Doctor inspected the red garnet in Derpy's hooves "I must say, that gem is quite a beauty" Derpy reflexively pulled the red garnet out of the Doc's reach causing confusion to arouse. "Um, yes, I should probably put it in my saddlebag for safe keeping, don't you think?" "Sure!" The Doctor watched Derpy place the gemstone into her empty dusty saddlebag. Had her saddlebag always been that spacious? He could have sworn she had the same amount of stuff as he had... Before either one of them could say anything else, a portal opened up not too far out of reach displaying the familiar hues of purple and blue. "Isn't that-" "The portal!" Doctor Whooves jumped onto his hooves "This must be our ticket out of here!" He stared back at Derpy who just stood there, unsure "Come on, Derpy!" The Doctor waited for Derpy to catch up to where he was. "Ooh!" The Doctor searched through his saddlebag before finding some rope "We don't want to get separated again, now do we" The Doctor handed Derpy some rope. "Nope!" The two tied themselves securely to one another before walking through the portal.