For a few seconds, nopony was sure what to do. I just stared at the Mare-Do-Well as she tied Dr. Chuckles and his cohorts around a support beam. I suddenly felt some tugging, then an increased amount of slack. I looked behind myself and saw that Spike was untying me.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“I’m fine. What about Fluttershy?”

We looked over to Fluttershy, who was being cared for by the Doctor. He had taken out a box of tissues from his coat pocket (?) and began to put the tissues in her mouth in wads to absorb some of the bleeding. He turned to me. “We need a doctor,” he said. “I don’t think this’ll be enough to stop the bleeding entirely.”

“Then follow me.”

The raspy voice had come from right next to me, causing me to jump. The Mare-Do-Well had the feet of a shadow, for whenever she moved, she never made a sound. Before I could say very much, she took a moment to undo the bomb on my horn. She apparently had a utility belt and tools for this kind of thing.

“I take it from the utility belt you wear, you aren’t a unicorn…”

The Mare-Do-Well looked at me. The glass covering the eyes were one-way goggles, same as the ones I used to wear when I had the suit; the dark mask itself perfectly disguising everything about her head besides its general shape. It was actually very creepy, now that I thought about it: it was as if she had not a head or face, but really some false object meant to simulate the part.

“Don’t talk,” she grumbled. “It’s distracting me.”

With a click from her instrument, the bomb, now harmless, clattered to my hooves. She then took the bomb and—much to our collective shock—attached it to Snails’ horn. “Wh-What are you doing?!” I yelled. “Are you insane?! He’s just a kid!”

The Mare-Do-Well turned to face me so abruptly that I jumped back. “Hurm. He’s a kid—with magic powers, who works for one of the most dangerous gangsters in CWCville.” Snails was barely conscious at this point, and I prayed he wouldn’t panic when he found that thing on his horn.

She turned and opened the warehouse door. We all hesitated until she turned to us again. “You said you needed a doctor,” she said. “I know where you can find one. Let’s go.”

I turned to my friends. “I don’t trust her. She’s unstable!” I whispered.

“She also knows where we can find a doctor. I say we trust her for now, figure her out later,” opined the Doctor.

Spike shook his head. “I’m with Twilight. She’s not much better than that Chuckles freak.”

Fluttershy looked at the Doctor and shook her head, signifying her agreement with us.

“What are you waiting for?” We all jumped again. The Mare-Do-Well had crept up on us while we were debating, and stood directly behind me as she spoke. “The CWCville police are gonna be here any second, and they’re gonna find a half-dead clown along with two ponies who were supposedly already dead.”

With no other alternative, and our choices apparently made for us, we decided to follow the Mare-Do-Well. Before leaving however, I noticed the Doctor had stayed behind in the warehouse for a few seconds. He then came out with a smile on his face, and nodded to me. I had no idea what for, but I decided he’d tell me on his own time.

As we followed her through the shadowy streets, I learned a great deal more about the extent of the damage to the citizens of CWCville. The soup hotels I had read about were really more or less sensationalized (or rather romanticized) pauper drop-offs, and the only reason such a place would be built would be if unemployment was obscenely high. Judging from the number of ponies still on the streets after dark, it seemed either there was no longer any vacancy in the current hotels, or these gangland streets were more tolerable living conditions.

“No wonder there are so many criminals,” I said aloud. “Unemployment this high, everypony gets desperate.”

The Doctor looked at me as he tried to keep Fluttershy on his back. “You study politics now?”

“I study a little of everything,” I said. “But I mostly study magic.”

“Hurm. No talking.”

I wanted to slap that stupid vigilante. I was still disgusted with her placing the bomb on Snails. She was totally dangerous and off her rocker. But the thing was, we all knew she knew this town better than we did; and if we demonstrated that we didn’t trust her, she might label us an enemy. We already had the stranger and his new power to contend with, and we didn’t need a psychopath like her following suit.

A few more minutes passed. It began more and more to feel like these alleys were a clumsy maze, with demented-looking buildings and childishly designed lampposts. It all just seemed to go on forever. “Are we there yet?” asked Spike, quietly. He was seated on my back, and had begun to lean downward on me. It was evident he was very tired: the hour was late, and he IS still a baby dragon, even in this timeline.

“Hurm, no talking!”

I had had enough. “Look, give him a break, he’s just a kid.”

She turned again. In the play of the shadows and the dim lights, she appeared almost a devilish specter, a black cut-out from her surroundings. The glass eyes seemed to glow. “What is it with you and kids?” she asked. “With that kind of mentality, no wonder Chuckles captured you so easily. Nopony in this town can be trusted! Nopony but the PVCC!”

“Then why are you trusting us?” asked the Doctor.

The Mare-Do-Well looked at the Doctor. “Because you’re one of the founding members. Doctor Whooves.” She looked away. “The reason you were executed today? The Mayor branded you a ‘Troll’ and you were hunted down.”

A few seconds of eerie silence passed, as though the Mare-Do-Well had lost her train of thought. She turned back to us with a sudden, mechanical jerk of her head. “I was told to retrieve you at this exact location.”

“Who told you?” I asked.

She looked to Doctor Whooves. “You did.”

The Doctor and I shared glances. This Mare-Do-Well was more insane than we’d thought. She continued. “The Doctor told me that at nine o’clock tonight I would find him and a few friends in that warehouse, at Dr. Chuckles’ mercy. He told me he would give me an explanation for why once I rescued him.”

The Doctor decided it was time to come clean, and told her our story thus far—which was also the first time Fluttershy and Spike heard it. “That’s insane,” the Mare-Do-Well said. (“So are you,” I thought.)

“But it’s what happened,” the Doctor argued quietly. “Surely you were informed about my TARDIS?”

“The Mayor found it and destroyed it a long time ago. I didn’t think he had one too, but it makes sense—now if he tried to escape through time, we wouldn’t be able to chase him. He could recuperate and try again.” The Mare’s head suddenly looked up, as if she had just hit a realization. “Hurm, that’s how he managed to stay young for the thousand-plus years he’s been alive.”

She looked at us—both of us. “All right, I believe you, Doctor. But it might take some time and some effort to convince Shining Armor.”

My heart skipped a beat. “My brother is here?”

The Mare nodded. “Hurm. The other half of the PVCC’s Founding Fathers. I think it’ll do him good to see you specifically.”

Part of me was reluctant to see Shining Armor. It wasn’t that I disliked his company, not at all: you of all ponies know how great my love for him is. I was afraid of what he’d been turned into. I had already seen what the stranger had done to both gentle Big Macintosh and loveable Mr. Cake, and the effects it had on my town and my friends. Did I really want to see his hoof-work on my own brother?

On the other hoof, my brother was the leader of the apparently last stand against the stranger. There was a quiet sense of pride that swelled within me. Leader of the royal guard in my own timeline, leader of a band of rebels in this one… It felt like no matter what happened to the world, Shining Armor would always live up to his name and protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, and lead them to a brighter future.

We continued our trek into the sewers. “Careful,” warned the Mare-Do-Well, “there are turtles and rats down here.”

The Doctor smirked. “Do the turtles bite?”

“No,” said the Mare-Do-Well. She became more dramatic. “They’re ninjas.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Swell.”

Fortunately, we never ran into the ninja turtles the Mare-Do-Well mentioned, and we eventually found ourselves at a wall that was browner than the others. The Mare-Do-Well looked at this wall, and all around it, as if searching for something. She pressed a brick like it was a switch and the door opened. She turned to us, me specifically. “The exact brick changes every hour, thanks to the Doctor’s magic and technology. Keep that in mind in case you need to come back here.”

I cocked my head. “So how did you know it was on this wall instead of anywhere here in the sewers?”

The Mare-Do-Well tapped her glass eyes. “Detective Mode,” she said. It seemed although she lacked my magic and Fluttershy’s wings and Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie Sense, she had still gone and made several adjustments to the original design. There were no handicaps for the Mare-Do-Well.

Beyond the door was a spiral staircase leading upward. As we climbed it, we began hearing voices. On the top floor was the entrance to what I assume was a subway station. Like everything else in CWCville, it seemed hastily and improperly designed: the walls and floors all seemed to lack proper measurements, with some walkways being tiny enough to maybe allowing a rodent through and other walkways big enough to hold a dance party.

I never even knew Ponyville had a subway station this old, but then again, so much had changed in this reality, we likely don’t have one at all in our time, and this one was probably built by the stranger and was forgotten.

In here were several ponies, only a few of which I found somewhat familiar: one was Minuette, whom I may have spoken to once or twice, and Blossomforth (One of Rainbow Dash’s co-workers) was also present. The rest were ones I didn’t recognize—perhaps because this reality had changed them to the point where I couldn’t recognize them. They greeted the Mare-Do-Well while eyeing the rest of us suspiciously. One of them spoke up.

“Who are these guys? New recruits you found?”

Blossomforth stretched and lay down, catlike, on the staircase. She seemed to eye the Doctor the same way a loose mare does a dashing stallion. This Blossomforth must have grown up differently—which wouldn’t be at all surprising, really. You’ve probably already read the stranger’s artbook I included with this report, so you and I both know that, if the stranger were in charge of the education system, we could hazard a guess as to what his preferred role of females is, and that he would teach them accordingly.

Her eyes opened up a little wider, snapping into a realization. “Doctor?” She stood up, walked down the staircase to us, and looked the Doctor over more closely. “It IS you! Aren’t you supposed to still be in the Mayor’s fortress?”

The Doctor simply stared at her, as if wondering whether or not he should repeat our story. Instead, Mare-Do-Well did it for him—although her sentences were shorter and to the point. The other ponies looked at each other uneasily. I could tell they weren’t wondering about the authenticity of the Mare’s recounting of the Doctor’s story; they were afraid of the Mare herself, and were considering how to go about telling her their doubts, especially if their leader Shining Armor wasn’t there.

Finally, one of them (an Earth pony with a scar on his side) pointed to Spike and I and said, “Until Shining Armor comes back from his current mission, they’ll need to be detained. Security reasons, no exceptions.”

With a groan, I was forced, along with Spike, into a small cell. “B-But we needed a doctor!” Spike said as he was thrust into the rectangular room. “Fluttershy—her mouth—”

He didn’t need to say any more, as they brought in a doctor—Nurse Redheart, actually. Although I recognized her from that one time in which she helped Rainbow Dash during her hospitalization, it seemed here that she was even stricter than she was in my original timeline. Not to mention she was a doctor and not a nurse.

She investigated Fluttershy’s mouth wounds. “Dammit, Caramel!” she said to the scarred Earth pony, “I’m a doctor, not a dentist!”

Caramel shook his head. “Sorry, but you’re the closest thing we got. Can you patch her up?”

“I’ll try. I only became a doctor last week, now I’m getting dental work?”

They removed Fluttershy from the cell, leaving only Spike and I. They took her to where I guessed was the “hospital wing” of this hideout, while the Mare-Do-Well went with them. I watched from behind bars as they took Fluttershy away. She looked to me, frightened. Although I wanted to hold her and tell her everything was going to be OK, the only thing any of us could do was put our fates into the hooves of these rebels.

The Doctor stopped by our cell and looked at us. “I’ll get this all straightened out,” he told us. “When your brother shows up, I’ll just tell him our story so far.” I looked down at my hooves. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I was beginning to cry.

“Hey… hey, don’t cry.” His voice was filled with genuine concern. I felt the Doctor’s hoof stroke my mane. “Don’t cry,” he said. “I know everything is happening very fast, and that we’ve been running around more than we should. We’re in a very dire situation now, and because there’s still work to be done, we need to stay calm and collected.”

“Why are you so calm?” I asked him. “Somepony we barely knew has been given power beyond his wildest dreams, and he created a world that bows down to him at the expense of everypony we love. Almost all my closest friends are dead, and the ones that aren’t barely have anything left. Big Macintosh, Mr. Cake, and the Mare-Do-Well are psychopaths, Snips and Snails are punks, and I’m so terrified to see what’s happened to Shining Armor. How can you BE this calm?”

For a while, there was no response. His hoof went from my mane to my face, stroking it gently, bringing my eyes up to meet his. They were so different now, but I still knew I could trust him. He was still the Doctor who’d shown me the TARDIS in his curiosity shop, who had just died and come back to life, who was comforting me now.

“I’m calm mostly because I’ve traveled time before, and visited alternate realities before.” His eyes fell away, then came back to meet mine. His voice became quieter. “This is all my fault, Twilight. I should have been more careful. I’ll understand if you want nothing more to do with me after all this is said and done, but mark my words, we’re going to find a way to fix this mess, you and I.”

Honestly? Part of me wanted to blame him for this chaos. It was his fault that any of this happened, after all. But the other part of me took the blame: this was my idea. He may have gotten careless, but I was the one who ignored all the variables in favor of a single, selfish goal. This was easily both our faults, and here he was, taking all the blame himself.

“No,” I told him. “No, it’s not all your fault. If I’d just accepted Chris for what he was and just continued my life normally and left him alone, instead of investigating his origins and trying to send him back, none of this would have happened. It’s both our faults—and we’re facing the consequences of our actions.”

We stared at each other a little more, in silence. So vulnerable were the both of us at that moment, so helpless in the clutches of this difficult situation. While the rebel group seemed decent and might give us a fighting chance, there was no way to be sure we’d survive these “consequences of our actions”.

“Hurm.”

We suddenly jumped, the Doctor retracting his hoof. The Mare-Do-Well was standing almost right next to the Doctor. “Hate to interrupt, but we need you to answer a few more questions for us, Doctor.”

The Doctor looked into those unblinking, callous, lifeless eyes and nodded uncomfortably. He began to follow the Mare-Do-Well as she led him back to the others. “I’ll come back to get you,” he whispered before leaving. “So stay put.” I heard them walk away. A door opened. Slammed shut.

After they’d left, I turned my attention to Spike. He was already asleep on a mattress that had been laid out on the floor, his prosthetic leg apparently a problem when he tried to curl up in his sleep. I once again fought back tears at the sight of Spike in the state he was in now. If only I knew a spell that could regenerate lost limbs. I made a mental note to study up on whether or not such magic could be possible.

Spike sputtered and mumbled in his sleep—something about me. I heard him say my name in almost a whimper, and the facial expression he took was one of fear and shame. I nuzzled him, shushing him quietly, telling him “I’m here, it’s OK.”

I laid myself down by Spike’s side on the mattress, coiling around him. His body was warm and small, and so fragile-looking now. I rested my head underneath his, giving it some support, using my neck as his pillow. “Good-night, Spike,” I whispered. “Sweet dreams.”

Next Chapter: 14. Strategery Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 20 Minutes