Dressed to Kill
Oh god. The Doctor ran through the town, looking frantically for any cover, any nook or cranny, any sort of shelter he could take. There was nothing—door after door was shut, and there were no cracks between the houses. It had been such a nice day.
“Get back here! I'm not finished with you yet!” the voice shrieked behind him.
“Aah!” He spied a sign post in the distance for Hoofridge Drive. Thank goodness. He veered right, rushed to the house numbered 44—which, mercifully, was open—and dove through the front door and under the window.
“This had better be another chaos god, or I'm throwing you out.” He looked up to see Bon Bon giving him an annoyed look from the couch—or, more simply, Bon Bon looking at him.
“No, but it's as potentially destructive. Get down before she sees you talking to me!”
“She?” Bon Bon rolled her eyes, but crouched down beside him. “Girl troubles. You of all stallions are having girl troubles. Who's the oh-so-lucky mare?”
“Not like that, Bon Bon. Not even close.”
“And I'm the liar?”
“Bon Bon, you need to listen to me right now, because what that mare's about to do could destroy all Ponyville.” Bon Bon shrugged. “That's your reply? A shrug?”
“Funny thing about living here; you get used to town-destroying events.”
"Seriously! It's life and death.”
“Darling, where are you?” The Doctor flinched, then peeked over the windowsill to see Rarity looking up and down the street, levitating a long brown textile behind her. “We haven't finished yet!” He pulled himself closer to the rug, vainly hoping to pass through it somehow.
“You didn't finish something with Rarity?” Bon Bon snorted. “The jokes just write themselves, don't they.”
“What?” It took a moment for the Doctor to see what she was getting at. “No! Not even a little like that!” he protested, glancing up at her.
“Okay, I'll bite.” Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “What's it like, darling?”
“Oh, Doctor!”
The Doctor wondered how it was that he'd gotten used to being a pony, but still was surprised that random ponies in the street could call him by name. A moment later, however, he realized it was not a random pony; it was Rarity. This fact was confirmed when she sidled up next to him, put a hoof on his shoulder, and began steering him off course.
“Oh! Uh, hullo, Rarity. I was just, ah, going to the, um...” He ransacked his brain for a suitable lie, but found nothing, perhaps because Rarity was batting her eyelashes at him. “Where are we going?”
“Well, I hope you'll forgive me if I tell you that I positively adore your suit. Those pinstripes really do suit you, and I'd never have thought that shade of blue workable before now, especially on a brown pony—but I must say, the contrast works! So, I was wondering if I could ask where you got it.”
“Funny you should ask, because, er... this may be a bit hard to explain, so I'll just show you.” The Doctor stopped walking, reached into his pocket and tugged part of the lining to the outside. “Could you take that and pull, please?”
She grabbed the white corner sticking out of his pockets with her magic and began pulling it out. “Well, all right, though I don't see why you couldn't...” It kept coming out, expanding like a balloon until it was fully half the Doctor's own size. His sonic screwdriver, psychic paper, spectacles, a large dictionary, and quite a lot of receipts fell to the ground. “Oh my.”
“It's bigger on the inside. Best pockets you could ask for. More to the point, do you see anything familiar?”
She scrutinized the pocket lining, and before long her mouth opened into a perfect 'o' shape. “Why, this is—it reads 'Rarity'! In my stitching—I'd know that stitchwork anywhere. But how...”
“Really? You made it for me in the future. No, sorry—you will have made it for me.” Her mouth was still suspended in shocked place. “Tenses aside, this really isn't that hard. I got this shirt from the future along with my time machine,” he explained, grabbing the odds and ends that had fallen from his pocket and stuffing them back inside. “My future self will have sent it back to me using said time machine, once I've created it. However, you will be the one to create the clothes. Makes sense?”
Rarity's brow furrowed. “I think so... but what if I decided to not make it after all? Would that cause a paradox?”
“Do you not want to make it?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then no problem.”
“Well... in that case, there's no reason to wait!” Rarity declared, grabbing him once more and pulling him down the street.
“Um, okay,” said the Doctor, acutely aware of how little say he seemed to have in the matter.
The two of them traveled to Rarity's own opulently decorated Carousel Boutique, a building whose correctness in naming the Doctor had to admire. It really was as if someone had fixed a carousel in place and added walls, windows, a front door, and a second story. Unfortunately, the inside seemed less admirable to him. His eyes were assaulted by virulently pink walls, pink ceilings, pink drapes and pink floors—enough to set the head spinning, providing the feeling of rotation that the carousel no longer could.
“Perhaps a little more pink,” he suggested. Rarity seemed not to hear this suggestion as she crossed the room to open a drawer and pull out a few swathes of fabric.
“Now, here's one of a few fabrics I think might be suited, no pun intended of course, for making your clothes.” She pulled out a roll of fabric that was, near as the Doctor could tell, identical to his own suit. Wait, hang on....
The Doctor took an unconscious step back, and a moment later his mind caught up with him. “Actually, I'd say that one looks fine, Rarity...”
“But I simply can't get it wrong!” she cried, a look of utter anguish contorting her features. “Knowing I could create a masterpiece, and failing? Now just stand still—this will only take a moment.” She carried the cloth closer to his suit, and the Doctor felt a growing tingling running through the fabric, like a cloud just itching to connect to the ground via a particularly lively bolt of lightning.
He backed away. “Rarity, if that is my suit's material, it'll be my suit from the past touching my suit from the future. The time differential's gonna short out and take Ponyville with it!”
“Oh, everyone has an excuse, don't they.”
“No, not an excuse, I promise, just please!” His pleas made no difference: she kept coming, leaving him with no other option. “Listen to me!” he yelled, bolting out of her boutique and down the street.
“So that's the story?”
“Yes, and that's why it's absolutely imperative that you let me stay here,” the Doctor finished.
“What a strange and wonderful tale,” Bon Bon muttered, who had been carefully watching his face for most of the story. Then she grinned and said, “I don't believe a word.”
“What?”
“You've got the lying face on.”
“What—I do not!”
“You think I don't know the lying face? I've practiced in front of a mirror for years, trying to get rid of the lying face, and that—” she tapped his snout “—is the lying face.” The Doctor wondered what kind of cues she could possibly be picking up. “Then again, maybe you're not lying about the whole story... so which bit is it?”
The Doctor remained silent, still listening for Rarity's calls of “Doctor?” They were coming closer and closer.
“There's at least one way to find out,” Bon Bon said as she stood up and opened the window. “You know what my dad always told me to do for problem solving?”
“No...” The Doctor suspected he didn't want to know the answer.
With a moment, she confirmed this suspicion. “Lateral thinking. Alley-oop!” Before he could react, she lifted him up and turned him out the window.
"No! Bon Bon!” He tried to stand up and jump back in, but she closed her window and locked her door. “Please!” He knocked on the window many times, but she merely grinned at him.
“There you are!” With a horrible feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, he turned around to meet his fate, who brandished a length of pinstriped brown fabric at him. “Now stand still, and this will only take a moment.”
“Rarity, no—” He tried to move, but once again he was not fast enough. He closed his eyes as the pinstriped fabric touched his suit, bracing himself—
He waited a few seconds, still flinching all the while. Surely it would have to explode at some point.
Apparently not, he decided another few seconds later, and opened his eyes. There was still a Ponyville around him. He picked up his hoof and wiped some nervous sweat from his brow, making a mental note to reprimand Rarity and Bon Bon for being so reckless.
“Mmm,” mumbled the former, looking perplexedly at her fabric. “No, this isn't right at all.”
“No, this is—this is good, everyone's alive—”
“Oh, I see! Wrong color pinstripes.” She pulled out another swath of brown fabric and touched it to his suit.
“What?”
BOOM
The Doctor stood blinking in a puff of smoke. Soot covered every inch of him; mane, face, tail, and most of all suit. It also covered Rarity’s swath of fabric, but ended there; there was absolutely no damage to be found in the surrounding environment.
“Seriously! It's life and death.” The Doctor glared at Bon Bon, who smirked and continued mimicking his voice through the window. “What that mare's about to do could destroy all Ponyville.”
“Well, I might have... slightly exaggerated the area of effect.” She rolled her eyes, prompting him to continue. “All right, the intensity too. But can you honestly blame me for not wanting this to happen?” He raised his hoof to begin wiping off his suit.
“Oh dear.” Rarity sidled up to him to help with brushing. “Terribly sorry, Doctor—if I’d known something like this would happen I would never have been so enthusiastic.”
“Yes, if only there had been some way you could have found out,” the Doctor sighed.
“And look, the swath is all dirty as well... I just hope it won’t take very... long... to clean.” As Rarity trailed off, she drew her hoof over the square of fabric she was levitating. Around and around her hoof went, until the only ash left was in a faint spiral pattern.
“I-DE-A!” she exclaimed. “Subtle decorations of ash on stallions' formal wear, for the customer who simply must distinguish themselves from the crowd! A soot suit, if you will! It will be, as they say, bon chic bon genre!”
"Wonderful,” the Doctor said, brushing the last of the soot he could see from himself. “Just not with that fabric—we already know what it’s used for. You hear me?”
“Don’t worry, dear, I know how to listen. And thank you for giving me two wonderful ideas in the same day! Please let me know if any more fashion ideas pop off that spectacular brain of yours.”
A thought occurred to him. “Oh, I've got a few,” he said, turning around. “Would you like to see them?”
“Oh, I'm sure... but see them? Do you have any suit designs stashed away in those magical pockets?”
“Psychic communication. We've done it before, remember? I can send the image directly into your brain, if you’ll let me.”
“Well, don't wait!” She pressed her face right up against his own. “Show me the most beautiful fashion in the universe, if you can!”
He closed his eyes, and concentrated very hard. Focus on Six... Six... Six... Six...
Rarity gasped. The Doctor opened his eyes to see hers with shrunken irises and a shellshocked expression. She slowly turned around and meandered back to her boutique, mumbling something about “clown vomit”.
“What did you do?” Bon Bon asked, poking her head out the window with an amused expression on her face.
The Doctor smiled. “Let’s just say that some things are best forgotten.”