//------------------------------// // Chapter Thirty-Three // Story: A Journey Unthought Of // by Hustlin Tom //------------------------------// Rarity cantered forward, her fully expressed amazement palpable as she said “Adam wasn’t kidding when he said humans had made things we could never imagine! This is unbelievable! Do all humans have these..Tardises?” “No human has ever owned a Tardis.” “But I don’t understand. You’re human, so how could you say that?” “Well, yes, I did say that. But your argument hinges on the fact that I am human, and I am most certainly not human.” “Then what are you?” Twilight asked. “I’m a Time Lord; the very last of the Time Lords.” “What do Time Lords do?” “In the old days, when the universe was fresh and new, the Time Lords observed all of time and space; we explored and mapped practically the whole of the universe before Adam’s kind even saw their sun for the first time.” “You’re the last of your kind?” Fluttershy asked. The Doctor’s face lost its smile. He looked down at her, and his face was that of veiled melancholy. “Yes.” “What happened? Your people sounded wonderful: where did they all go?” The Doctor paused, looking down at the most innocent pony to walk the fields of Equestria. “There was a war.” Rainbow Dash looked at him, her mind and heart brought to a screeching halt. The Doctor’s people, his whole race, wiped out. No family to go home to, no one. Even though he said he was different, it seemed he wasn’t all that unlike humankind after all. “I’m so sorry.” Was all she could say. “Nah, don’t worry about it. That’s not what’s important right now anyway! What is important is Adam. We need to get him out of Canterlot’s dungeons. Now, this is what I need you to do Twilight-“ “Hold on there, partner!” Applejack raised her right hoof as she spoke, “If we’re springin’ Adam, you’re includin’ all of us. We don’t split up.” “Yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Alright, fine, whatever! What I need you all to do, is slip this to him.” The Doctor handed a billfold to Twilight, who accepted it with her magic. “What is it?” “Inside that wallet is Psychic Paper; normally it says anything you want anyone else to believe about you on it; handy for getting in places you normally wouldn’t. I’ve tweaked it a bit so that it acts as a psychic transponder; if you give that to Adam, I can telepathically triangulate his position, and then we can go and rescue him in this.” The Doctor lovingly patted the console of the Tardis. “So you plan on rescuing Adam from the most secure prison in all of Equestria with a blue box? You’re crazy.” “Oh yes! I do sound a bit daft don’t I? But that’s because I haven’t mentioned that ‘Tardis’ is in fact an acronym, and it stands for ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Space’. Pinkie Pie whistled, “Fancy long name! No wonder you shorten it down to just ‘Tardis’. What does it mean?” The grin was back on The Doctor’s face once again, as he playfully said, “It means, Pinkamena Diane Pie, that this is my time and space machine! We can travel anywhere! You want to go visit the moon or the sun?: Done in one of my two heart’s beats. Visit Starswirl the Bearded in his prime? We can stay for tea. All of space and time is reachable in this machine; nothing is impossible!” “If that’s true, why not prevent Adam from gettin’ trapped in the first place?” Applejack queried. “Can’t do it; it would place us in the chain of events, big no-no. Especially at the rate this universe is deteriorating. Besides, I would be crossing my own timestream; especially bad idea. Anyway, you all need to get going; we haven’t got much time to spare anymore; buy express class on the train, this world is counting on you, and I promise I will explain everything when you get back.” “The world’s counting on us?” Rainbow Dash gave a tsk, as she flew out the door behind her five friends, “Doesn’t it always need us?” The doors of the Tardis closed behind her. The Doctor’s face was grim. Ditzy stared up at him with a worried expression. “How bad is it now Doctor?” The Doctor was staring at a monitor linked to the console of the Tardis. It held a countdown: 2:17:43:18. 2 days, 17 hours, 43 minutes, 18 seconds until total event collapse. “Very bad. This world is depending on those ponies getting to Adam in time. If they don’t, it’s Doomsday for everyone.” He looked down at Ditzy Doo, “This world needs those six ponies more than ever before.”