“Fluttershy!” I exclaimed. “You have to get away! I’ll try to distract it!”

I stood up, ready to think a plan over to distract the rampaging Ursa Minor, when I noticed it… wasn’t really rampaging any more. In fact, the way it was smiling made it look cute enough to hug. Fluttershy giggled. “Oh, Twilight,” she said softly, “there’s no need to worry; Ben’s not a threat.”

She fluttered over to the Ursa Minor and nuzzled it. It began to lick her face—or tried to, anyway; its tongue was easily twice her size. I then noticed something. “Fluttershy? You…”

Her flank was once again decorated by butterflies, as they had been in the original timeline. Furthermore, her voice was no longer a whimper—it was as soft and buttery and feminine as I remembered.  Her eyes, once haunted and sorrowful, shimmered for the first time in what must have been years. “You’re… You’re all…” I couldn’t seem to find the right words to express my joy.

She fluttered down from the Ursa Minor’s affectionate licks and gave me a hug. I grimaced from the fact Fluttershy was damp from the Ursa Minor’s tongue, but I returned the embrace regardless. “You told me that I was good with animals in your timeline. So I thought, why not try that?”

“But an Ursa Minor?! You could have been seriously hurt!”

She gently let go of me and began to cuddle Ben’s nose. “Oh, you don’t understand,” she said, “Ben’s just a big shweetie, yes he is! Yes he is!” Ben began to wag his tail and whimper like an overjoyed pet. “I found him caught in a bramble patch, the poor thing. It took me all day to get him out. He was such a brave boy!" Ben licked her again. "He’d never do anything to hurt anypony!”

The Doctor smirked at me. “You changed the future,” he told me. “Specifically, you changed hers.”

My mind traveled back to the moment earlier that day, when the Doctor told me about his ability to see the future: Every moment is a stepping stone to a possible future. My eyes widened. I looked to Fluttershy to see her nuzzling Ben again, telling him he was a "good boy", and “Mama” was “so proud.”

The sound of hundreds of clicks shook the air around us. As if from nowhere, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by Troll Busters pointing at us with their rifles. “Surrender in the name of True Love!” shouted one. (I noticed the Doctor suppressing a chuckle at this.)

I looked to Fluttershy, who displayed another aspect of her that I’d missed: “The Stare.” Despite the clear advantage of having weapons, the Troll Busters were visibly afraid. “Back off,” she hissed. “Nopony hurts my friends.”

“I repeat, surrender NOW!”

“They didn’t even do anything wrong,” Fluttershy said indignantly. “What are you going to pin them for?! The crime of coming back from the dead? What would your mothers think of you, locking up innocent ponies for things they’re not responsible for?!”

A few of them seemed to think this over. “I never knew my mother,” sobbed one. “She spent so much time shopping, she forgot about me…”

Their squad leader rolled his eyes, his rifle not going down. “Surrender now! We have guns!”

Fluttershy never broke her stare. “I have a bear.” As if on cue, Ben growled in their direction, threatening bodily harm to anypony who fired a shot. Many of them backed down.

“W-We have rocket launchers!”

“She has a bear,” the Doctor said. Ben seemed to growl even more angrily.

“W-We, uh… we have bazookas!”

“She has a bear,” I joined in, shooting them a haughty look.

“W-We… um… we have… the power of love?”

Unfortunately, the power of love apparently doesn’t stand a chance against an angry universe-bear, and the Troll Busters ran for their lives as Ben roared at them. I hugged Fluttershy again to celebrate our victory.

But I celebrated too soon: the wall of the auditorium was knocked down, and through it came a tank. It stopped just before us, and the top opened up. The squad leader from before popped up through it. “WE HAVE A TANK!” he shouted.

Before we could react, he gave the signal to fire. Fluttershy warned Ben to flee, but he was the kind of size that would be hard to miss. A deafening sound cracked through the air, and the shell shot straight for Ben…

Only to stop in mid-air, surrounded by a white aura.

I blinked. Fluttershy, the Doctor, and Spike were equally perplexed. Suddenly, from the open hole Ben had made earlier, in floated Magneighto. He stood on the frozen shell. His steely gaze fell on the tank, which was surrounded with the same white aura as the bullet.

“PONIES!” he announced with a flourish. “WELCOME TO DIE!” And with that, he jumped off the bullet as it shot backwards, into the tank, blowing it up.

I remember how in some of Rainbow Dash’s favorite action movies the hero would walk away from an explosion like it was nothing. Unfortunately, physics doesn’t quite work that way, and we were all very nearly blown off our hooves, our ears beginning to ring. As the dust settled, Magneighto floated down to greet us.

“Miss Sparkle! Miss Fluttershy! Doctor!” he greeted. His eyes fell on Spike, who looked at him with confusion. “…Dragon child!” said Magneighto, not knowing what else to call him. “The anti-magic fields have been brought down, and I just got through deactivating and disassembling the majority of the Troll Buster’s weapons. It’s safer for you to proceed now.”

"What do you THINK you're DOING?!" Fluttershy bellowed as she walked up to Magneighto. She got right in his face, Stare in full force, causing the great magician to cower. "You—You just KILLED all of them! I know they were being bad ponies, but that does NOT give YOU the RIGHT to take a LIFE!"

Magneighto stumbled over his words, until finally, he said, "This is a war, Miss Fluttershy. Ponies are going to get hurt."

Fluttershy stamped her hoof. "But that's all that's ever HAPPENED! Ponies hurting other ponies! Everypony hurting each other! I'm sick of it, Magneighto! SICK of it!"

"Then what do you call bringing in a bear to--"

"Ben is only here to scare them! I don't want anypony to get hurt!"

Spike suddenly got in between the two of them. "Look, Fluttershy, I know why you don't want to hurt anypony. But the truth is, these guys are gonna use lethal force on us. Even with most of their weapons disabled, they're going to try to kill us. We're gonna need to protect ourselves, even if it means we need to become lethal ourselves."

Fluttershy fell silent. Her Stare faded away, and she began to sniffle. "I-I'm sorry, I just..."

Magneighto placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder. "I understand, and I'm sorry. But this... this world we live in. This is the way things are."

"But things... things don't HAVE to be like this," she said. Ben sadly nuzzled his "Mama."

Spike looked from Magneighto to Fluttershy, then to me. I suddenly had a great idea.

"Hey, Fluttershy. Maybe you should go with Magneighto for now. I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you're able to show him how to win a fight without having to kill anyone."

Magneighto made a perplexed smirk. Fluttershy smiled and clapped her forehooves together like a happy child. It was hard not to smile at that moment—the Fluttershy I’d known and loved was back, full-force. She fluttered upwards and took a seat on Ben’s back. “Be careful not to step on anypony, OK, Ben?” she asked. Ben grunted and nodded, then walked further into the mall, Magneighto floating close behind.

Then we took flight, the three of us, into the mall. The shops were all closed, of course, and there were no other ponies about—the mall closed early on Christian Love Day, it seemed. Suspiciously, there weren’t any Troll Busters around, even though we heard the sounds of battle coming from far away. Our footsteps echoed in the emptiness of this place. It was actually a far more tense feeling than it had any right to be.

Suddenly, the Doctor stopped. “Twilight!” he said. “Get DOWN!”

He pushed me down just in time—a series of bullets tore into the wall behind us. We got up and ran as the bullets flew by us, ripping the walls to shreds. The sound of rapid gunfire was almost a screech, like a monstrous banshee was chasing us and scraping its fingers on the wall. We took refuge in a nearby sports supply shop. Spike kept up as best he could with his fake leg (Which is to say that he did an amazing run), and managed to hide behind a display stand outside the shop.

I heard heavy hoofsteps enter the shop. “Come on out, infidel!” called Iron Will. “You commit the crime, you eat the lime!”

“It’s ‘you do the time,’ you idiot,” I muttered to myself.

Still clad in his priestly white robe, Iron Will was carrying a Gatling gun, one hand holding the turncrank, the other holding a steadying lever. His upper body strength must have been incredible if he could actually lift one and carry it around like it was a toy.

He began shooting displays, searching for us. I remembered that now that the anti-magic field was down, I could turn myself invisible. But why hide? I’d spent so much time hiding and running; it was getting old hat. And even if we tried to run, Iron Will would only follow us. I formulated a better plan.

I looked out from behind my hiding place and looked at the Gatling gun again, studying its mechanisms from afar. I focused my telekinesis on it, carefully bending some of the parts. After a few seconds, he turned and saw me.

“You shatter the Mayor’s heart,” he said as he began to point the gun in my direction, “I blow you apart!” I nodded, as that rhyme was somewhat cool.

The Gatling gun clinked and shimmied; Iron Will looked at it in confusion as it overheated and began to sputter ominously. “What in—?!”

But before he could finish, the Doctor tackled him. The bulk of the gun was likely heavy even for Iron Will, and he toppled over almost too easily. The Doctor had grabbed a baseball bat and brought it down hard on Iron Will’s face. We then rushed out of the shop, leaving him unconscious.

“Where’s Spike?” I asked.

The Doctor pointed over to where Spike hid—the poor thing shivering, his color faded from his face. The battlefield was no place for someone his age and condition. “We have to get him to safety,” I said. “I’ll take him.”

“No,” said the Doctor. “He’ll be fine. We need to—”

I faced the Doctor, angrily. “I NEED to take him to safety. Spike’s…” My face fell. “Spike is MY responsibility.” I trotted over to where Spike was. I noticed he was crying, his wide eyes darting about as if mad. I nuzzled him. “It’s OK Spike, I’m here.”

The Doctor pulled me away. “Twilight, you need to trust me—”

I shoved him away, picking up Spike and placing him on my back. “I do, Doctor. I really do. But not this time.”

“Just show me a little faith!”

“I have,” I argued. “But the thing is, you said every moment is a stepping stone to a possible future. You even acted surprised when Fluttershy came to our rescue, as if that wasn’t supposed to happen. That means your ability to see the future isn’t perfect.” He looked at me with an expression of both frustration and befuddlement. “Don’t look at me that way. We can’t just leave him here!” I said.

“Trust me, he’ll—be—fine,” he said, emphasizing each word. I fought the urge to deck him.

“Easy for you to say! You can regenerate! You don’t know what it’s LIKE to die! You don’t know how scary the idea of dying even IS!” I growled coldly. “Spike isn’t just a child, he’s an amputee! There’s no way I’m leaving him in the middle of a battlefield!”

The Doctor looked at me as if he didn’t know whether to belt me or just leave me behind. Instead, he looked to Spike’s false hand, and pointed to it. “See that button on his hand?” he asked.

I admitted I hadn’t noticed it before—but of course, before, it was not blinking green.

“Spike might be a child,” he said, “but once you were… removed, in this timeline, he eventually became more self-reliant. Didn’t you stop to think about why or how he was running the library all by himself?”

I thought this over. “Well, OK, so he’s more grown up, but what does that have to do with—”

“And didn’t you notice that his artificial limbs were properly constructed to match his body type exactly, instead of being ineptly designed like everything ELSE in CWCville?”

I fell silent.

“He became independent to the point in which he began utilizing his time to build machinery in secret. His first successes were his own artificial limbs.” The Doctor pointed to the glowing green button on Spike’s hand. “Spike just called his greatest invention; it’s going to come rescue him.”

I wanted to say something, but could not. The Doctor merely looked at me as if he expected an apology. I looked away, feeling colder than I should have.

Before I could think of anything to say, several Troll Busters jumped down from the second floor, sliding to the ground with ropes. The Earth pony Busters were equipped with knives (Knives made of plastic; evidently, they had a backup plan in case Magneighto ever betrayed them), the Pegasus Busters had mounted arm rifles (Again, plastic), and the unicorns’ horns began to glow—picking up nearby debris to use as makeshift ammo.

One Troll Buster (a large black unicorn wearing a brown uniform) spoke into his yellow badge. “Intruding trolls Doctor Whooves and Twilight Sparkle apprehended! Awaiting orders, Mayor!”

We were surrounded, our fates once again at the mercy of the enemy. Predictably, the Mayor ordered us dang, dirty trolls to be killed (“After all,” he said, “dey all bin killed once b’fore. Mmm.”). Before they descended, I quickly put up a protective barrier.

The most annoying quirk about psychic shields, I find, is that they take quite a bit of focus to project. Any element of the shield can give its caster a headache: its size, its shape, damage inflicted, even its color (I preferred purple, although the one I cast this time was the default white). I’ll never understand how Shining Armor can withstand this kind of inconvenience.

This quirk quickly kicked me in the cranium, repeatedly, as the Troll Busters pounded on the shield tenaciously. Their unicorn members even tried to cast a Magic-Intercept spell on me. (Luckily, the education system of CWCville only teaches magic that fails—like everything else made by the Mayor.)

“What do we do now?!” I asked the Doctor, my voice breaking as the beating continued.

“We wait.”

“That’s most of what we’ve been doing! What happened to all the running?!”

A few seconds passed, my strength quickly leaving me as our assailants continued their battering. Spike began to come to, shaking his head. The Doctor patted his back. “Back with us, Spike?”

“I’m the prettiest girl at the Belle-View Mall!” he replied, his voice still drowsy.

“I’ll take that as a ‘Not yet.’”

I took it that we were waiting for Spike’s “machine” to show up and save the day, but it was likely underneath the Library, which was miles away. My strength couldn’t hold much longer; these Troll Busters were about to descend on us like vultures!

Just before my shield broke, a black boomerang-like object spun through the air and was lodged in the head of one of the unicorns. Suddenly, three members of the PVCC shot from my right—Blossomforth, who tackled two of the pegasi simultaneously; the Mare-Do-Well, who slammed an Earth pony to the ground; and Derpy Hooves, who brought down wrath like I’d never seen her do before. “FOR THE HORDE!!!” she shouted.

I lowered my defensive shield, dizzy from the stress. The Doctor told me to rest, then joined the other three in taking out the Buster squadron. After only a few seconds, the remaining Busters lay in a bruised, groaning heap.

My blurry vision began to correct itself as the headache slowly left me. “Yo, Twilight,” Blossomforth asked, looking me over. “Y'arright?”

“I’m fine,” I replied. I looked behind me and saw that Spike had fallen off my back. I gasped and put him back on. I readjusted the saddlebags I had thought to wear earlier (after all, how else was I keeping evidence of this adventure?), then straightened up. “Let’s keep going.”

“Hurm,” the Mare-Do-Well growled. “You two need to find the Mayor. The kid can stay with us.”

I wanted to argue, to keep Spike by my side. Even though this was a different timeline, and a different Spike, I felt that maternal instinct to protect him as best I could welling up within me. But the Mare-Do-Well’s lifeless glass eyes seemed to glare at me—no doubt still despising me for my… rather loose involvement with Alterna-Lyra’s death.

At the same time, I didn't trust her either. Her mental instability, constant anger, and general hatred of me could be exercised in all kinds of ways on Spike...

Derpy must have noticed my hesitance. “I’ll take him someplace safe,” she offered.

I thought it over for a second. “OK,” I agreed. “Take him to Shining Armor.”

As I placed the slowly reawakening Spike on Derpy’s back, I instructed her that he tried to summon a special machine he’d built, and that it might arrive on the battlefield at any moment. She nodded, smiling. “OK,” she said, “I’ll let Shiny and Maggie know.”

“Maggie?” I giggled.

“Yeah! He’s my Super-Best-Friend! You met him, right?”

I looked at her strangely. “Super-Best-Friend”? Was that a euphemism for “husband”? The relationship between her and Magneighto seemed rather sketchy to me all of a sudden. “Yeah,” I stammered, “Yeah, I met him.”

Derpy smiled again and off she flew. The Mare-Do-Well looked to Blossomforth. “Let’s go. Spider-Colt hasn’t reported back to us yet.”

As the Mare took off, Blossomforth groaned. “But I’m the Captain,” she said under her breath, and followed anyway.

The Doctor and I began running. For some reason, it seemed to be quite natural for him, as he never tired or ran out of breath. The sounds of battle were still quiet, and gradually, we slowed—becoming wary of any other ambushes awaiting us.

“Hey, Doctor?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“… I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

I breathed a sigh. “For… for that outburst. I had no right at all to say any of that to you.”

Looking at his face, I gathered he had already forgotten about it—that was, until he opened his mouth. “The one with the tray of tea and biscuits? Or the one about how I can regenerate so I don’t know what it’s like to die?”

His words didn’t seem all that haughty, but they stung nonetheless. I felt hot tears gather in my eyes. “Would you just accept an apology? For once?” I asked. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry for making you feel miserable!”

I sat down, trying to gather myself. “I’m sorry for… for everything. I got you in on that stupid plan—”

“—and I left my TARDIS out in the open where he could get to it,” the Doctor said. He rested his hoof on my shoulder. “I thought we talked about this before, Twilight. We’ve talked about this over and over again. It’s not your fault. There’s no need to beat yourself up. So stop doing it.”

I sniffled. “You’re right,” I said. “I’m just wasting time. Let’s keep going.”

I felt so cold, so disgusting. Why was I having so many breakdowns at this point? This was the third time that day I felt my soul falling apart for something the Doctor kept telling me wasn’t entirely my fault. I blamed myself for the bizarre circumstances we had found ourselves in—for the Doctor, alternate timelines were a common occurrence. To me, alternate realities were a brand new concept, and having created a near-apocalyptic reality was… well, it was a huge shock.

But the Doctor was right. There was no need for water-works; there was only time now for action. We had to keep going.

Suddenly, an air vent popped open. I lit up my horn, ready to cast a Missile Strike spell, when out of the vent crawled Spider-Colt, his camera slung over his shoulder.

“Don’t scare us like that!” I said.

“Pfft, if I wanted to scare you, I’d be wearing a ‘Chris-Chan’ costume. But Chris-Chan-Colt just doesn’t have quite the same punch as Spider-Colt, does it?”

He dropped from the wall and walked up to us. “Anyway, I’ve found the Mayor’s secret.”

I rolled my eyes. “More diaper pics?”

Spider-Colt looked at me, his lips pursing, suppressing a gag. “Don’t remind me. That wasn’t a pleasant experience for me, either.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be telling Shining Armor this?”

“Well, yes,” he said, “but, ah…”

He held out the photos he’d taken. I had to stifle a scream as I took in everything I saw—and from the equally terrified and disgusted look on his face, the Doctor had done the same. “She… she told me to get you guys first. The Alterna-Doctor is waiting for you alongside her.”

“Where?” I whispered. “Where is this room?”

“It’s deep within the mall’s underground complex. Where the REAL fortress is.”

Spider-Colt reached into a pocket on his suit (How spandex could ever have room for pockets, I’ll never know), and hoofed us a map of the mall, with hoof-drawn additions, likely his. “There’s a secret elevator, here,” he said, pointing to an X in the parking garage. Next to the X was a jumble of letters.

“These letters, are they a password?” I asked. Spider-Colt nodded.

“Then let’s not waste any time,” said the Doctor.

Spider-Colt told us he would go find Shining Armor and tell him about our plan—hopefully, he would provide backup if he wasn’t busy. The Doctor looked strange at that moment, as if he were receiving a signal being relayed to his mind. “No,” he told Spider-Colt, “No, in fact, I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to know at all.”

Spider-Colt was just as confused as I was. “Why not?” he asked.

“Just trust me on this one. It isn’t a good idea. Instead, I think you should go find Fluttershy; she’ll be in the parking lot right now, riding an Ursa Minor—”

“What?”

“—not hard to miss.” The Doctor patted him on the back. “Just do it, OK? You’ll understand why once you get there.”

Spider-Colt shrugged, then left, crawling through another air vent. I looked at the Doctor. “What was that all about?”

He smiled, his boyish face lighting up like a Hearth’s-Warming Tree. “I’m just changing the future a bit—a little like somepony I know.” He nudged me as he turned, causing me to blush.

The Doctor and I then ran, this time following Spider-Colt’s map, to the basement.

Where Cadance was being held prisoner.

Next Chapter: 18. My Brother's Battle (First Movement) Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 21 Minutes