"Dr. Whooves," Twilight exclaimed in surprise on account of his and his companion's sudden appearance, "I- Wait. Did you say 'human friend?"
"I certainly did, Twilight Sparkle," he said with a smile as he put his device away, "Now I know you're all bound to have a ton of questions, but before we get started I'd like to head a few of them off: the glass in your window did break as you suspected because of focused sonic resonance, Adam is in fact most likely a nice enough person, I know a great deal about humans because I've traveled with plenty of them in the past, and my favorite flavor of cupcake is raspberry mint." Seven mouths that had been open in surprise and awaiting a silent gap to speak suddenly snapped shut, including Pinkie Pie's. "So," there was a slapping sound, then a two second delay before the earth pony's hooves caught up to replicate the action, "any of you got a plan?"
The six mares and dragon were still looking at him in surprise until Rainbow bluntly asked, "Why should we trust either of you? If we have a plan," she looked to Twilight, who shrugged back to her, "When we have a plan, we don't want anypony else messing it up."
There was another clapping sound from the earth pony, and another delay until his movements caught up, "You don't have a plan: great! I do. I know with everything going on right now, and the potential ramifications and fallout for what we need to do, trust is a limited commodity, but if you give me just five minutes, five minutes, of your time, I think we can help each other get him back." He paused then exclaimed, "Right! Allons-y," and rushed out the door.
Ditzy Doo lingered a little longer however, "Like the Doctor's basically saying, we need each other to get Adam back. I know he seems a bit wide-eyed and crazy, but believe me, he's brilliant."
"Ditzy," Twilight waved her hooves in overstimulated frustration, "just stop for a minute!"
"Please dear," Rarity implored to her, "You've rushed in here but neither of you really explained: what is it you and Dr. Whooves want? The both of you aren't making much sense."
Ditzy Doo smiled sweetly, "When he gets excited he can be like that. Sometimes he can be on a whole other level than the rest of us."
"Ah'll say, from the looks of it," Applejack mumbled under her breath.
"Just please come to the Emporium," Ditzy pleaded with them, "Back behind it is a blue box. He'll explain everything when we're all there."
She then turned and ran off into the darkening night. The seven of them turned to look at each other.
"We're not really going, are we," Rainbow asked, "We'd be better off staying here and coming up with a plan on our own."
Fluttershy cleared her throat a little, "While I would like to ask for a pardon of some kind on Adam's behalf, it's looking like that might not happen. I say we should give them both a chance: Ditzy may be a little clumsy, but she's well-intentioned, and Dr. Whooves is intelligent."
"Seriously, though," Rainbow looked at her demure friend, "If we're being real here, what's the likelihood of this turning out good?"
"Ah come on Dashie, it's only five minutes," Pinkie exclaimed as she looked up to her floating friends, "They may have more of an idea than we do, and they won't waste much of our time telling us about it! Why not? Besides, I could use a look at the cool gadgets bound to be over there!" She then bounced of into the night after Ditzy.
Applejack watched her go, sighed, and then shrugged her shoulders, "She has a point. It'll at least be quick. Might as well!"
Rarity, though puzzled by the whole mess, joined the farm pony as they both walked towards the door.
Twilight turned to her best assistant, "Spike, can you watch the library for a while?"
"Can do," he exclaimed, "I'll get everything ready for lock-up!"
As Twilight left and Fluttershy followed, the yellow pegasus turned to her friend in silent expectation that she'd follow. Rainbow snorted, before grumbling, "Fine, five minutes. Then we can get to the actual plan to save Adam from those stooges!"
The walk wasn't far by any means, but even Twilight had to admit she wanted to get back to the library to brainstorm some ideas rather than this. Doctor Whooves was a nice enough neighbor, but for the most part he had kept to himself up to this point. He had moved in to his emporium a few months back, and mostly stayed sequestered in it the majority of that time. She and Spike had visited once or twice to peruse the knick-knacks there, but had rarely ever seen him: the times they had come in Ditzy was at the counter. He said he had traveled with humans before. Perhaps he had been trying to find a normal life here, a retirement from adventure or something. The same question kept coming back into her head: why did he want to help Adam? Maybe the ones he had known were good, so he was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but to what end? For that matter, what were they going to do if they did manage to get him back? Life couldn't go back to the way it was before: the djinn couldn't go back in the bottle, as it were.
Ditzy Doo was waiting for them as they rounded the side of the Emporium, standing in front of the blue shed.
"It's, ah," Rarity tried to say something positive, but was struggling somewhat, "It's rustic."
To be fair the exterior appeared quite weathered, the royal blue it had once been was worn to grey, almost to a state of an ashen hue. Each side had two six pane windows, out of which a soft pale grey light emitted.
Rainbow pointed to the side that sat at the top of each side of the box, "What the hay is a 'Police Public Call Box'?"
"Haven't the foggiest," Applejack muttered before she spoke up for all to hear, "Alright Ditzy, we're here." She then looked all around, "Where's Pinkie at?"
As if her ears were burning, the doors to the shed burst open, and Pinkie's head appeared from inside, "Come on in gals! You would not believe how roomy it is in here!" Her head withdrew from their sight, but they heard her cheerfully singing to herself as she moved farther away.
After she thought back over that again, Twilight shook her head and realized that it almost sounded like Pinkie's singing was echoing somehow. "So is the Doctor inside," she asked.
"Oh yes," Ditzy said with a smile, but she lifted up a hoof, "I just want to let you know, what you're about to see is real. Just don't be afraid. The first time is..." She laughed nervously.
Twilight had been referring to the Emporium in regards to the stallion's location, but was now more unsure of what to expect than she had been before.
The grey pegasus then trotted into the box with Pinkie, yelling as she did, "Doctor! They're here!"
Here Twilight knew she was not mistaken: Ditzy's voice echoed.
Rainbow Dash, perplexed as well by the echo, stalked around to the front of the box and stuck her head in, "Why the hay is her-" she stopped, both voice and body, suddenly, just on the threshold to the box.
Rarity was next, her mouth falling open to a slack-jawed gape. "My word," she finally exclaimed.
Fluttershy's face filled with wonder, and wordlessly she flew in.
"Sure as shucks I could use a barn like this," Applejack muttered as she too stepped into the box, leaving Twilight the only one outside.
How could seven ponies fit into one small structure? Her mind couldn't make sense of it. Finally fed up with the suspense and seeking answers, she too stepped towards the threshold, and was stopped, no, arrested by what she saw. Beautiful sandstone coral, the color of which was burnt orange. It spiraled up towards a domed ceiling. This coral was not shaped in columns to support the interior structure, but twisted and wound its way upward, as if they were grown, not built. Four segments of coral supported the high vaulted ceiling, the walls lined with rectangular segments, each with four hexagonal indentations, and each filled with a lightbulb. Twilight took a step forward, then looked down as her hoof hit metal. She stood on a catwalk, one which led to the center of this oh so large, wondrous room. The centerpiece of the room was a circular console, its surface covered in levers, mechanisms, and switches of all kinds and sorts. A soft green glow emitted from the panels, which matched the light of the glass central column that grew out of it towards the ceiling. The room was massive, at least seventy-five feet in diameter.
"This," she finally said, as her friends and Ditzy turned back to her, "This is...How is this possible? It's bigger on the inside!"
The group heard a chuckle from a corridor they hadn't originally seen, and the stallion they'd been looking for emerged, "I will never get tired of hearing that as long as I live!" Seeing that the six, minus Pinkie, were still bewildered by the room they stood in, he shook his forehooves lightly, "It's alright, really! It's just a room that transcends the confines of normal spatial reality. Just imagine the interior size has been scaled up a bit, and you'll feel better. Impossible and possible is really just a matter of perspective."
"What is this place," Fluttershy asked, a strange whimsical curiosity in her voice as she flew about the room now.
"It's my home," the stallion said as he approached, and reached for something in the air near his shoulder they could not see. Suddenly, the image of the stallion stalled and became murky. Finally, the illusion lifted. Blinking, the group now saw the being who stood before them was in fact a man, one in a blue suit and red tie, with spiky brown hair and an overcoat to match. Of all the surprises they had now had all day, this one almost seemed paltry by comparison. "And this is my real face," he exclaimed, "Well, one of them anyway. I'm the Doctor. Welcome to the Tardis."
The ponies took a second look around the large room again, admiring and taking in its details.
"The exterior certainly leaves something to be desired," Rarity remarked as she studied the nearest coral structure, "But this interior...it's simply exotic! Do all humans have these 'Tardis' boxes?"
"Naaah," the Doctor said with a scrunch of his face as he walked closer to her, hands in his coat pockets, "Tardises aren't really a human thing."
"But aren't you-"
"I know how you can see the family resemblance," Ditzy Doo said with a nod of her head, "but I can assure you he is most definitely not human."
Twilight cocked her head and stroked her chin, a growing sense of confusion in her voice, "If you're not like Adam, then what are you?"
"Time Lord," he blurted out as he turned toward the console, his hand grazing the rough stony edge with an almost gentle caress as he gazed down at it, "The very last of them, too. The old girl and I have been traveling for a while now, roving across time and space."
"This shed travels in time," Applejack asked incredulously.
"Oh, sorry," he paused to look at them in turn with a smile, "Did I forget to mention? Tardis is an acronym. T.A.R.D.I.S. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It means I can go anywhere I want, anywhen. Back in my universe, Adam's too, I'd traveled all over the earth and beyond, seeing new sights, meeting all sorts of people."
"So if that's the case, how exactly didya end up here?"
"It's not really important honestly," he said with a wave of his hand, "In fact it's quite boring, but this has all been a bit of a sidetrack! Adam! We need to focus on getting Adam back."
"Well, this is a time machine, right," Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes, "Why don't we just go back in time and rescue him before he was ever kidnapped?"
The Doctor shook his head, "We can't do it. Five of us witnessed him being carried away: to alter what we've already observed would mean interfering directly with our own timestreams, which is an incredibly bad idea."
"So what happened to 'impossible is a matter of perspective'?"
"Just trust me," he said with a now neutral face, his joviality drained away, "there are some lines that aren't meant to be crossed, ever. I've learned it the hard way." He looked at her with an intense stare before turning towards the others, "We have to be especially cautious here. In my own universe I generally know what I'm doing, but here I don't really know more than you do. I'm not sure how much I can change or how much should be changed: I'm running blind."
"So, uh, what exactly do we do with a time machine that can't travel in time," Pinkie piped up.
"Well it's not all the Tardis can do," he replied indignantly, "She can do loads of things, just not her main thing at the moment! For example, we're going to use her to break out a high security prisoner, already having been spirited away by the Equestrian government, and from whose clutches we will snatch him!"
"Oh my goodness," Fluttershy exclaimed softly.
"How are we going to do that,” Twilight asked, “I may not understand your machine, but I do know Canterlot and its history. The prisons beneath it were once a large mining operation, and they are deep down in the mountain’s heart. Even if we could sneak this box past one set of guards, somehow, there would be ten more nearby. It’s probably the most high security facility in all of Equestria, prison notwithstanding, because it’s also home to the most advanced government research organization in existence. We won't be able to even get near Adam, much less rescue him!"
"You want near him? Simple," he replied with a smirk, "Just ask politely before going through the front door. You've already got the Princess' ear Twilight; just find a way to convince her to let you near him, and give him this."
He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small billfold, which Twilight took with her magic and opened. There was a blank slip of paper beneath a clear protective shield in its interior. "Uuuuh, what is this?"
"It's psychic paper," Ditzy Doo exclaimed, "It bends others perceptions to make them think you can be places you normally shouldn't. The device the Doctor uses to blend in is based on similar principles; I designed it myself."
"You designed Dr. Whooves' faux-sona," Pinkie blurted, ramming her nose into Ditzy's, "Make me one! I want everypony to think I'm an alicorn!"
"Anyway," the Doctor said with a raised voice, "I've modified the paper to act as a psychic transponder. Give it to Adam, and I can locate him with the Tardis, and the rescue can begin!"
Twilight looked down at the paper before her eyes, then glanced at her friends, and then back to the Doctor and Ditzy, "I'm not so sure about this plan. It seems a little...half-baked."
"Most of my plans are," he said with a grimace, "It’s broad strokes that really matter! I can make due with the details as we go along. So long as you can get the paper into Adam's hands, I can take care of the rest."
Twilight had to admit that her's and her friend's plans were sort of similar in that regards, so it didn't seem like all that big of a change from the norm. Still, with two new players with unknown abilities, she wasn't sure what they could and couldn't do. "It's better than nothing," she finally relented, "but I guess we'll go along with your plan, Doctor. All the same, I think we might make a backup instead."
"Whatever you'd like, just so long as we get Adam back," was all he said. He grabbed the handle of the monitor that pivoted around the central control panel, and yanked it towards the side of the Tardis away from the others, who began to file out.
"Just what is so important about Adam to you anyway, Doctor," Twilight asked as she brought up the rear of the retreating ponies.
He looked around the monitor to her, his expression blank. "Nothing really, but what happened isn't right, and I'm pretty good at setting things right."
Regardless of vague reasoning Twilight left, more perplexed by her neighbor than ever.
Ditzy looked worriedly up at the screen with the Doctor. A sequence of numbers was displayed, its corresponding language for the Doctor appearing above. 2:17:43:18 2 days, 17 hours, 43 minutes, 18 seconds, and it was counting down.
"I might have fibbed a bit," he murmured to Ditzy, "I think he's key to helping me fix this. To fixing everything."
"Do you think you can make it in time," Ditzy asked softly.
"We can only hope," he replied, and then looked up towards the door, imagining the ponies as they ventured back to the library, "The fate of the world is riding on their shoulders, and this time they don't even know it."