Trixie Times Two

by KATCompositions

First Contact

Spike yawned. "Is that her back again, already?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," said Twilight Sparkle, struggling to be heard over an enthusiastic knocking from downstairs,

"What's she doing?"

"Knocking on the door by the sound of it,"

"I know that, I mean what is she doing here? What does she want? Celestia has barely raised the sun yet".

Spike yawned again.

"Don't worry Spike. I'll deal with this; you go back to sleep".

Twilight pattered down the steps, while the banging from outside rang around the huge empty rooms of her castle.

"Okay, okay; no need to break the door down".

As she got closer to the front door, she could hear a muffled voice from outside.

"The great and powerful Trixie grows impatient".

With a sigh, Twilight opened the door. Trixie burst in, then immediately tripped and fell head over hoof. She recovered in time to perform a graceful bow.

"It's about time," she said, "I'll bet you can't wait to see what Trixie has to show you today,"

"Well, I was kind of thinking that after I gave you that spell book you might leave me alone for a while" replied Twilight,

"I think you underestimate the powers of Trixie. I've been up all night practising those spells,"

"Really, you stayed up all night? I've done that before and it's not good for you, trust me,"

"But don't you want to see the results, and marvel at the remarkable wonders of Trixie?".

Twilight considered. "I must admit I'm curious, but probably for entirely different reasons. Okay then Trixie, show me what you've got".

Trixie raised her head smugly. "Let us begin with a simple teleportation spell,"

In an instant they were both engulfed by a blinding flash. Twilight opened her eyes. They had moved. She couldn't work out where they were, but her surroundings looked familiar somehow.

"Wow that actually worked," said Trixie, "I mean, of course it worked. This is Trixie after all".

Twilight, meanwhile, had finally figured out where they were; they were standing on the ceiling.

"Wait, that wasn't supposed to happen,"

"This is really good," said Twilight, "you've even created an anti-gravity field,"

"A what?"

A moment later they were no longer stood on the ceiling, and were plummeting to the floor instead.

"You didn't create an anti-gravity field did you?" said Twilight, wind rushing through her mane.

Trixie shook her head. They both slammed into the ground.

"I think I know what went wrong," Trixie declared, springing straight back up.

Twilight lay dazed and disorientated. She had taken the brunt of the impact, while Trixie had landed on top of her, cushioning her fall. "Ergh, you've been awake too long Trixie," she moaned,

"But I have so much more to show you,"

"I think that's more than enough magic for one morning, thank you".

Trixie gave Twilight her best weak, pleading expression, with her ears flopped down. "Just one more. Please,"

"Oh, okay," said Twilight, "one more,"

"Excellent. Have you ever wanted to see the future? Well now is your opportunity, for you are about to witness, before your very eyes, Trixie perform a time spell. This is going to be so amazing. I can already picture the future. They'll be banners everywhere: Trixie; the greatest magician in all of Equestria, mentored by Princess Twilight herself,"

"Now hold on there a second," said Twilight, "first of all, about this whole me being your mentor thing, I'm not sure that..."

"Well I suppose they won't talk about that so much. It'll mostly be about me and how brilliant I am,"

"No that's not what I meant. Anyway it takes most ponies years to perfect a time spell; are you sure that..."

"It's nothing the great and powerful Trixie can't handle. Now silence, if you please. This spell requires absolute precision". Trixie stumbled and fell on a crease in the carpet.

"Well I don't see any way that this could go wrong," muttered Twilight.

---

"Muffins, would you be so kind as to pass me that neutron capacitor, over there," said Doctor Whooves, his head buried underneath some equipment.

Derpy gazed at the mess of cables and gadgetry spread across the floor in front of her. Apparently when the pod crashed, the impact had severely affected the temporal drive, but with the Doctor's inventions it was hard to tell what was damaged and what was working perfectly from outward appearance alone.

"Which one did you say?" asked Derpy,

"The neutron capacitor, you can't miss it," was the Doctor's muffled answer, "it's the only one with a pre-set modulation,"

"A pre what?" said Derpy.

The Doctor at last withdrew his head to help her. "That green pointy thing. There. No, there". He picked up the component and placed it in Derpy's hoof.

"Oh that one. Why didn't you say?" She passed it back to the Doctor.

"Thank you," he said, "I don't know what I'd do without you sometimes,"

"Aw thanks Doc".

A serious expression fell across the Doctor's face. "The problem is every time I increase the power it creates a feedback loop which is overloading the circuit,"

"Have you tried using a type forty-two terminal to generate a manual feedback bypass," said Derpy,

"Well I did consider doing that, of course, but I'm not sure if... wait what did you just say?"

The Doctor shot a scrutinising stare at his assistant. "You just memorised all of that, didn't you?"

"All of what?" Derpy replied innocently,

"Whatever you just said then,"

"I don't know what you mean,"

"You did. I can see it written on your other hoof".

Derpy crossed her legs quickly. "There's nothing written on my hoof,"

"Oh yeah? Why are you standing like that then?"

"I, er, have an itch".

The Doctor shook his head. "If you really want to do something useful, go up to the cockpit and configure the backup power to manual".

Derpy went to follow the Doctor's instructions, but stopped at the laboratory door. She began to open her mouth.

"It's the switch under the side window," said the Doctor, "there's a very similar switch nearby with the words sprinkler override written above them. Whatever you do, please don't get the two mixed up.

Once Derpy had left the room, the Doctor stared contemplatively at the unresponsive panel in front of him. "Use a type forty-two terminal to generate a manual feedback bypass". He repeated the phrase a few times, rolling the words around in his mouth. "Hmm".

The Doctor went to work. A couple of minutes later he flicked a switch and the entire panel lit up. "What a brilliant idea of mine".

"Doctor?" said Derpy, peering around the door,

"Hmmm?"

"Are you sure there's no other life out here?"

"Without out a doubt. Out there is nothing, nopony, zip, zilch, zoink, is that even a word? Anyway, you have to understand that we are stranded potentially millions of years away from civilisation, so there is virtually no possibility of there being any form of life outside,"

"Oh, it's just I saw two ponies heading towards the pod,"

"Great whickering stallions," cried the Doctor, leaping up, "could we be about to make first contact with alien life forms in disguise, or perhaps a swarm of super evolved changelings? Come on".

---

In a few moments they were waiting in the midsection of the pod.

"Be prepared," warned the Doctor, "we don't know what could come through that airlock".

The mechanism activated.

"How do you make first contact these days anyway?"

The airlock opened and Twilight stepped in, followed by Trixie.

"Greetings, I'm the Doctor, this is Derpy, I call her Muffins, you'll find out why. She's my assistant from Ponyville. We come in peace, and erm, take us to your leader? Am I doing this right? Please tell me if I'm sounding too cheesy".

The two newcomers stared at Doctor Whooves dumbfoundedly.

"No wait! I recognise one of you from somewhere don't I? No don't tell me, it'll come in a minute,"

"Well of course you recognise me, " said Trixie, preening her mane, "I am after all, the one and only, the great and powerful..."

"Princess Twilight Sparkle," the Doctor exclaimed,

"Please, Twilight is fine,"

"You were at the summer sun celebration, I remember. It was really good, although obviously, not as good as what can be achieved with science and mathematics..."

At that point Trixie interrupted. "Yes, yes, yes, now what about me, Trixie?"

The Doctor looked at her blankly.

"Come on, you must have heard of me. You know, Trixie Lunamoon; the most gifted unicorn in Equestria".

"Who?"

Trixie was starting to lose her temper now. "I've visited Ponyville three times".

The Doctor shook his head until Derpy kicked him and he began nodding politely instead. "Oh yes, of course, I remember you now, er, what was your name, Trillion?"

Trixie growled.

"Anyway, what were you doing hanging around out there? There's a toxic storm due any moment on the scanner. For that matter how did you even get here in the first place?"

Twilight heaved a sigh.

"I think you'd best ask the great and powerful Trixie here,"

"Oh I love it when you say my name like that," said Trixie,"

"Well thanks to your marvellous time spell, we're now stuck here, which is assumedly somewhere in the future,"

"Ah, I see," said the Doctor, "it's quite common this time of year. One moment you're stood there, all four hooves on the ground, and the next, whoosh, you're whisked off to Celestia knows where,"

"Actually where is this and, when is this?" questioned Twilight.

The Doctor appeared flustered. "Now that is a good question, which I don't really know the answer to I'm afraid. I programmed the temporal drive for a quick test hop to the reneighssance and back, but there was a small glitch, you know how it is with technology, and we sort of crashed a bit,"

"Crashed a bit?"

"Okay, we crashed a lot actually. The readout says this is two million and three hundred thousand years in the future, but that could mean anything. Everything got badly shaken in the impact,"

"But we must still be in Equestria right, even if this is some post-apocalyptic far future version of it? I mean the spell Trixie used was a time spell, so there's no reason we should have moved,"

"Well that rather depends on what theory you're using. Working on the assumption that distance, like time, is relative, it is possible to conjecture that one independent structure can remain immobile, while the rest of the universe pivots around it,"

"I think I followed all that," said Derpy, "but just in case, to be completely sure, could you repeat the whole thing again, from the beginning,"

"He's saying we could be absolutely anywhere," said Trixie,

"Correct. Still, on the bright side I believe I've located the original fault".

"Wait, did you build all of this?" Twilight asked, looking more closely at her surroundings.

The pod was divided into the three sections. There was a cockpit at the front and doors leading to more rooms in the aft portion. A set of stairs in the corner led down to the Doctor's laboratory. Loose wires and bric-a-brak hung from every wall. Twilight couldn't tell what served a practical purpose and what was just there for decoration.

"Cobbled together would be a more accurate technical term," the Doctor replied, "just from a few bits and pieces, and odds and ends I've accumulated over the last century or so".

This gave Twilight renewed enthusiasm. "Then you can fix it, right?"

"Ah, now, slight difficulty there".

The Doctor leaned in close to Twilight's ear.

"I didn't want to say anything before, but between you and me, things are looking bleak. We're facing a dark future,"

"Why?"

"We're almost out of spare light bulbs. That's not even the worst of it though. We're down to our last twenty crates of muffins,"

"What's so bad about that?"

"Did somepony say muffins?" cried Derpy, jumping up and down, "where? Where? I love muffins; strawberry muffins, blueberry muffins..."

"We get the idea," said Trixie,

"Raspberry muffins, banana nut muffins".

Twilight decided to ignore her. "All I want to know is can you get us back home?"

"Well," said the Doctor, "factoring in the damage done in the crash, there is frankly about as much chance of the time drive working again as, well, Derpy eating cupcakes,"

"Great. So we're still stuck here".

"I take it then that you won't mind us staying with you for a while," said Trixie,

"I don't know," the Doctor answered, "after all I can't just let anypony and their metal dog be my companions; I only choose the very best,"

"I see, and you chose Derpy,"

The said pony was now busy holding two loose wires together and watching in transfixed awe as sparks jumped from one end to the other. She paused from this activity to smile at the mention of her name.

"Don't let the eyes deceive you. I believe there is a brilliant mind lurking in there, somewhere," said the Doctor,

"Yeah, I'm sure, but you see we don't exactly have anywhere else to go do we?"

"Hmm I suppose that's true. There's only one bunk room left, so you'll have to share,"

"Hold it right there everypony," said Twilight, "just let me get this straight. We have no idea when, or where in Equestria, or outside of Equestria we are. We have no way of getting back, and we're going to just sit here and twiddle our hooves for the rest of eternity,"

"Still, at least you have the privilege of sharing a room with the great and powerful..."

"Shut up, just shut up," Twilight shouted, "all of you, just shut up and leave me alone, and just... eergh". She stormed towards the nearest exit.

"Er, if you're looking for the bunk room, it's the other door," said the Doctor helpfully,

"Eeeergh," replied Twilight, turning around.

She slammed the door, setting off a small quake inside the pod. When it died down the remaining three were left standing in awkward silence.

"So, where are the muffins?" said Derpy.

Comments

[ClockworkMage]

Wouldn't she know where the muffins are because she's already been here a while?