I’m sure it has been decades since the last time I was awoken by having things thrown at me while being shouted at. Unpleasant though as it is, believe me when I say there are still worse ways to wake up in the morning.
In this morning's case, it is Spike who's shouting something very angry… something or other about pancakes? I'm not fully awake yet, I'm still kind of hazy. Oh, I see. He's upset that I 'broke' Twilight. Before I can get out of bed properly, he storms off, mumbling something or other about Rarity.
My aged body painfully protests as I try to force it up and off of this cot, while my joints audibly protest with cracks and pops. Twilight is sitting over at the 'kitchen' table near the hearth. Her weary eyes are locked onto a plate of festively decorated pancakes, apparently mulling over whether or not she wants to eat them. I make my way over and pull up a tiny stool right next to her spot at the table.
"Twilight?" I ask.
"I’m not hungry," she mumbles lazily.
“Hey, look at me.”
She lifts her head slightly. Her eyes are baggy, her mane is messy. It looks like she didn’t sleep much. Oh I had foolishly hoped that spending time with her friends last night would’ve helped. But I guess not as much as I would’ve liked.
“What’s the matter? Huh?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you still in a funk because you’ve come to the realization that the multiverse is a huge place and that you’re an infinitesimally small part of it?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt. Lucky for you, I know the solution.”
I scootch my stool a little closer to Twilight and wrap my arms around her, pulling her tight into a big warm hug. I hold onto her until she loosens up and rests her head on my shoulder.
“You know Twilight… hugs are therapeutic. Scientifically proven. By science.”
One little chuckle escapes her.
“Ah ha, there we go.” I let go of her and pat her on the back. “Better?”
“A little,” she admits.
I use a fork to take a morsel of pancake and hold it up for her to eat. “Here comes the choo-choo train!”
She somewhat reluctantly opens up and bites the pancake off the fork. She masticates for a moment then asks, “Do you have children, Dane?”
"Oh, sure I do. Hell, I have grandchildren."
"What are they like?" she asks.
A wry smile creeps its way across my face. I take another chunk of pancake on the fork and hold it up. Twilight concedes and opens her little horsey mouth. I deposit the morsel.
"Well, where do I start? My son – only child – his name is Randy. He's uh… in his fifties now." I sigh, recalling the good old days. "He was a good kid. A lot like his mother, very smart, very outgoing. But as he grew older, he became… sort of a self-entitled little prick. No idea where he got that from. His wife is… a decent person, but she doesn't like me very much. Actually, she probably hates me. Really, the only reason I'm invited to holiday dinners and the like is because she wants to keep up appearances."
"And your grandchildren?"
"Heh." I take another chunk of pancake and present it to Twilight.
Unamused, she is nevertheless getting the picture, and accepts the bite.
I continue, "The grandkids were awesome when they were little. Don, Jess, and Mary. Although I rarely saw them, I was their goofy grandpa that would dote on them and tell them amazing tall tales. But, sadly, like all kids, they grew up too fast. Still I see them once or twice a year, but then it's usually just, 'Oh hi, grandpa, how are you?' you know what I mean? Small talk, chit-chat. I can't say I blame them, they're good people – grown-ups too, now – they've got busy lives of their own to worry about. Their crazy granddad just sort of falls by the wayside…"
"It sounds like… you've lived a long and full life… but it's sort of… sad."
At this point, the pancake feeding is a matter of course, and goes without question or resistance.
"I have no regrets, Twilight." I think for a second. "Ok, I have lots of regrets, but that's not the point. The thing is… I have been… so very lonely since Patricia passed. The only thing that I had left was… this. You. Ponyville, Equestria, your friends, everypony." A smile creeps across my face. "And here I am, among friends again. My story has a happy ending, doesn't it? But what about yours? Your story – your life – is just beginning, and it's going to be amazing, Twilight. Focus on that thought. It's gonna be a while before you get out of this funk you're in, I know. But if you keep focus on the positive thoughts, everything'll get better, I promise you."
Twilight looks like she wants to say something, but we both hear the sound of the front door opening, downstairs.
I call down, "Hello? Spike? Is that you?"
“Hello?” A strange masculine voice calls back from downstairs. It sounds vaguely familiar.
“We’re upstairs,” I say. “Come on up.”
Twilight and I look at each other; neither of us apparently knowing who it is. We both wait patiently for the mystery visitor to make his way upstairs. A brown stallion slowly emerges from the little doorway at the top of the stairs, it takes me a moment to realize exactly who I’m looking at.
It’s Doctor Whooves. Or Time Turner. Or whatever is name is. I saw him outside yesterday. He winked at me as if he knew me. Knew what I’d done. I hope he’s not mad at me! I have done something pretty obnoxious when it comes to the universe or multiverse or space-time continuum…
“Listen,” I say, defiantly holding up my index finger as if I know what I’m talking about, “I have a perfectly good explanation–”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
I don’t? “I don’t?”
He shakes his head ‘no.’
Wow, ok. He’s not mad at me? “So… you’re not mad about me… uh… contaminating the timeline or toying with this universe or anything?”
“Actually, I’m not mad at you about anything. I’ve been… enjoying watching you from the shadows. Seeing how your story unfolds.”
Twilight loudly clears her throat. “What happened to your accent?”
“My wha-? Oh. Heh. You’ve got me, Twilight. I’m not The Doctor.”
“Doctor? I never said you were? I don’t know who you are, just that your fake accent wasn’t entirely convincing, and then it disappeared completely.”
“Hang on,” I interject. “What’s going on here? You’re not The Doctor?”
“Hmm, no. There never was a Doctor ‘Whooves’ here. You should know that more than anyone,” he says, looking at me. “And I may not be THE Doctor, but I do have a doctorate.”
“Ok, well, who the hell are you then?”
“Don’t you recognize my voice, sir?”
Twilight is equally as confused about the situation as I am. Who is he? Why does his voice sound so strikingly familiar to me?
Ah hah, it’s come to me! I point my finger at the not-doctor. “You sound like Tyler.”
“You’ve got me, sir.”
“But… but… you’re a pony…?”
“Well it had you fooled, it’s pretty good, isn’t it? This is the result of our new holographic disguise generator.”
“A hologram? We never had any–”
“Alright, will somepony tell me what’s going on here?” Twilight demands.
I agree with her. “Yeah. What are you talking about? You can’t be Tyler. The facility…”
“…Never actually self-destructed,” he finishes for me, wearing a sly smirk on his horsey pony face.
“You mean…” A smile spreads across my face as I realize what he’s done. “You slick bastard. You bypassed the lockouts on our own universe. You… you used the device to time-travel!”
Twilight looks at me for an explanation, her little eyebrows mushed together, and her lips slightly pursed into a little ‘o.’
“Twilight, I believe… this is Tyler. He’s a scientist. He works for me.”
“Used to work for him,” Tyler corrects. “Dane is legally deceased now, so…”
“Take that shit off, kid. Let us get a look at you!”
“I really shouldn’t. I’ve probably disturbed this universe enough. Two humans are too much.”
“Kid, you literally just spilled the beans in front of a native.” I gesture to Twilight. “I mean, what kind of idiot does that?”
Twilight gives me a dirty look and grumbles under her breath.
Tyler nods his head in concession, and one of his forelegs bends in a very unnatural way. Then his pony disguise disappears, and there stands a very familiar young man in plain clothes, with a very large electronic device strapped to his wrist.
“Oh Tyler. It’s good to see you.”
“I’m still a little confused, but it’s nice to meet you, Tyler. I’m Twilight Sparkle.”
“Listen, Tyler,” I start, “I’m… so sorry about the whole… you know.”
“ ‘The whole’ trying to blow up the facility that gave me my career and was the single most important contribution to science and technology of the 21st century? Probably the millennium?”
“Yeah… I know my pitiful apology must sound like… a pitiful apology, but… I really am sorry. I’ve felt really terrible about it this whole time. I feel like… it wasn’t right for me to try and take that all away from you… especially not since… well I kind of feel like maybe you were interested in this particular world, too.”
“Wait, wait. You blew up your portal machine?” Twilight asks incredulously.
“Tried to, apparently,” I correct. “It might be a little hard to understand for someone who can just teleport to places on a whim, but the technology I had control over, was the single most powerful thing in our world. In the wrong hands, it could’ve been disastrous.”
“Well, sir, you left the technology in very capable hands. And we’ve been able to do so much more with it since you left. And… I might have had some interest in this place. How could I not? It was about the only universe we ever looked at or worked with. It was special to you, so it was special to us.”
“How long have I been gone, anyway? I mean, I know all that is relative. What I mean is, how long have I been gone for you?”
“Something like ten years.”
“Wow, you sure took your dear sweet time getting here. But I suppose you had the time. I didn’t…”
Tyler sighs.
Twilight asks, “How did you make yourself look like a pony? It was very convincing. Are you sure there’s no magic in your world?”
“Yeah, that is one seriously cool gadget. Is that our tech?” I ask.
“It is our tech, actually.” Tyler moves closer to Twilight and shows her the device strapped to his wrist. “This device can generate a near-perfect hologram around the wearer, and obscure a certain amount of their shape as well.”
“Can you disguise yourself as anypony or human you want?”
“Admittedly, it was an enormous challenge to get the pony to work properly. But technically, yes, I can. Unfortunately, preparing the disguise is an exhaustive process, and the device can only produce one disguise.”
“Will it work on a pony?”
“I suppose there’s no harm in a little experimentation.” Tyler removes the device from his wrist, and places it on Twilight’s foreleg.
He presses a button and Twilight appears to transform into a contorted mess of brown stallion body parts.
“Oh Celestia.”
“Oh God.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Twilight asks.
“Um, Twi, try rearing up and standing on your hind legs only,” I helpfully suggest.
“Alright.” She apparently does, and although his posture looks a little peculiar, there’s Dr. Whooves standing right in front of us.
“You know, its unofficial name is ‘the Changeling’,” Tyler comments.
I clear my throat loudly, and shake my head ‘no.’
“What’s a changeling?” Twilight inquires.
“Oh it’s just a…”
“It’s a human term for…”
“A disguise-d…”
“Human?”
“Right. I’m going to go and look in the mirror.” Twilight walks up the stairs to her bed.
“Oops,“ Tyler says.
“It’s alright, kid, I’ve already said worse things…”
“You have? Well, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Wow. This thing is amazing!” Twilight calls down from the loft area where her bed is.
She walks back downstairs, looking like a contorted ball of Doctor Whooves. “How do you turn this thing off?”
Tyler assists her with the deactivation and removal of the rather impressive holographic disguise generator.
Twilight, being visually Twilight again, asks, “This is amazing. I can’t believe this device is purely mechanical!”
“Well, electronic, but yes,” Tyler comments.
“Non-magical,” I suggest.
“What other technology do you have in your world?” Twilight asks.
“Oh we have so many things, Twilight. Tyler, what other new tech have you guys come up with while I’ve been gone?”
“Well by far the biggest thing is that we’re working on commercializing teleportation for long distance travel.”
“Oooh, that’s impressive! Non-magical teleportation!”
“What about the power consumption?” I ask.
“We’ve found that if you travel to another dimension first, for a split second, we can use that as a sort of dimensional sling shot to shoot you back to our world. I believe that might’ve been your idea, actually. It reduces the energy cost significantly. Also, if we teleport more people in a single go, energy usage scales non-linearly. So if we teleport a container full of people, roughly the size of a school bus, it starts to become very economical. We’re thinking the first public ‘flight’ will be available in about five years.”
“Amazing. Simply amazing! You know, it’s too bad we don’t have much to show Twilight, I really wish I had remembered to take my cell phone from my desk before I came here. You would love it, Twi. You wouldn’t happen to have yours on you, would you, Tyler?”
“No, sorry.”
“ ‘Cell phone?’ That’s not that little black rectangle thing, is it?”
“Yeah… it is sort of like that, actually. How do you know, Twi?”
“I might have… oh… taken it from the hospital, while you were still unconscious.”
I smile. “You stole my cell phone?”
She gets all flustered. “I was gonna give it back! I’ll go get it.”
Twilight returns shortly after with what is indeed my cell phone.
“Lucky I did remember it! You are gonna love this Twi. This little thing is going to make those clanky old computers you have in the basement look like… clanky old computers.”
“Really? Because it kind of just looks like a little slab of polished black glass. You can see light through it. Wouldn’t there need to be at least some wires inside of it?”
“Ah, the non-magic magic of clear printed circuit boards.”
We all hear the door open and close downstairs.
“I’m back, Twilight,” comes Spike’s voice from downstairs.
We all kind of glance at each other, apparently worrying about Tyler’s presence here, but not worried enough to actually do anything about it.
Spike crests the stairs. “Hey Dane, I’m– whoa. Who’s this?”
“Spike, this is Tyler.”
“Hi Spike.”
“He works for me,” I add.
“Used to work for him.”
Spike holds up a little claw. “Are you humans gonna be a regular thing around here now?”
“I don’t think so, I’m just visiting,” Tyler says.
“Alright, well anyway Dane, I just wanted to, you know, apologize for earlier. I know you didn’t mean to make Twilight all… whatever. But she does look a lot better now. Are you feeling ok, Twilight?”
“I think I am, actually. Dane was just about to show me his ‘cell phone.’”
“What’s that?”
“I have no idea!” Twilight squee-s with delight. “But we’re about to find out.”
I hold up my phone, doing my best to emulate a hand model presenting a useless set of kitchen knives on an infomercial. “Let me show you the wonders of human technology.”
Thanks for putting it up
Another unexpected visitor (but also a welcome one) was an update to this story! Nice to still see it alive!
Glad you’ve been sticking through this story. It’s certainly a good one, and certainly an old classic (in my eyes at least). Can’t wait to see more.
9740641 lol np. I wasn't planning on keeping it all to myself, you know
9740653 I was never going to cancel this one
9740673 Thanks!
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Its very nice to see the old stories being updated. It was kinda depressing to see so many falling out of the fandom or just from writing.
Holy crap, I can't believe this got an update, I'm so reading from start again, hopefully will be completed.
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9740708 Yeah, I know the feeling.
9740727 It is already completed, my friend. Only two more chapters ready and waiting to be published.
Oh hey, this story. This has actually been in my read it later list for...let's see, it's on page 77 out of 80 next to Best Chance For Romance, which looks like 2013. So six years I've been waiting for this one to finish.
There are actually a lot of great stories from early on in the fandom. And I don't just mean classics. Sure, pretty much everyone knows about My Little Dashie and Past Sins, but the most famous stories aren't always the greatest. Sometimes it's the not-as-popular, short but greats that really stick with you. Stories like Twilight Sparkle: History's Greatest Monster, where the author hasn't even logged onto to fimfiction in a couple years, or like Asylum where allegedly the original author had some sort of mental breakdown and left the fandom for mental health reasons. I keep unfinished stories like these in my read it later list, often times for years...just in case
Because sometimes, those authors come back and finish stories from years ago.
Welcome back.
9740731
YASSS, I remember when I first read this, boy it was a long time ago.
9740742 Thanks! I think? I mean, technically I never left. For the past 3 years, I've almost always been on fimfic at least once a week. But I know what you mean. lol page 77/80. Long ass time ago... I've got a few fics like that on my list too...
9740742
like White Box. reading it the first time, with teh colored text is an experience.
Now, let's wait and see what happens when the actual Doctor Whooves shows up!
9740850 nope.avi
9740854 Welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying it!
Huh.
I was thinking about this story maybe two days ago.
What are the odds?
Fimfic says I read the first two chaps back in 2012. Good grief.
YES!!
It's alive?! It's alive!
It's Alive!
I'm not sure if I'm going to read this lol. I forgot thsi story existed as it goes 2-3 years between posts.
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9740944 Fimfic says I first published this story in 2012. Good grief!
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9741000 9741013
9741146 How about you read it if I promise to totally complete it within the next two weeks?
This story-
Well that was nice, I will see you all in 2022 XD
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9743314
9743785
Is everyone still alive? Still alive?
Good? Okay, let's keep going!
9740944
Huh?
I knew Fimfic keeps track of which chapters had been read, but where does it say when?
In other news, I put this story on my reading list, which means I probably will read it, but it may take a while.
9746009
I know that it's from 2012 because I had totally forgotten about this story, but I remember seeing it when it had a few chapters already.
"Oh wow!" exclaimed Twilight. "Your technology of transdimensionalism and holograms and time travel is amazing! How does it all work?"
"Magic!"
Twilight looked nonplussed, "Really?
"Yeah, actually we have no friggin' idea how the hell any of it's possible since we violate the laws of physics with it about as much as you ponies do. It all runs on this one glowing blue cube thing we snatched from some crazy German guys a while ago."
9746498 LOL You know, if this was a different story, I totally would've done that!
9747222 It's been a common, somewhat ironic, observation of mine that using science fiction to 'explain away' magic often leads to 'science' which is just as impossible as the magic it's trying to de-mystify.
Even "Star Trek" had elements of clearly 'magical' beings. Trelain of the original series (now often called a 'proto-Q'), the Q themselves, the Doud, those soul-eating things from the one episode where they met Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain, the god-like wormhole Prophets in DS9 and their adversaries.
If we're talking PURE hard-science fiction, the very best example I can think of is "The Andromeda Strain". It's quite a brilliant book, and still plausible to this day.
9747740 Yeah, I know what you mean. Even I'm guilty of explaining away 'science' with 'math.' Which... I thought was clever, anyway.
Also, I really liked the wormhole aliens in DS9. I thought they were really clever, cuz they sort of existed on a different plane, and it was so different that what they could do that would affect our world, seems like magic here, but to them it's like nothing. And like, they didn't even really give a shit about (or, in fact, really know much about) the Bajorans, who regarded them as gods, which, I dunno, I found that ... hmm... appropriate? Interesting? Not sure. Different, for sure, which was pretty cool, because religious things in movies and TV are literally the total opposite of that, usually.
9740742
My boy, I do the same thing with a lot of stories and I think the same way! I have this story: "The L words" on my read it latter list. The author hasn't logged in since 2014. Sometimes I write or visit his/her page thinking, that maybe, just maybe, I will get to see something new. Hopefully, one day, that person is going to get better, achieve stability and return to the site to laugh, write, and overall, just be happy.
And all of this is really funny. Today, a thought just popped into my mind: "Huh, i haven't checked MLP or fimfiction in almost a year and a half. I wonder what I have missed"
And what do you know? This story, started in 2012, is now finished finished after almost 7 years. I graduated school, college and I'm about to get my masters in that time. Make fun of me, but I feel that all of this was, like, something calling me back for one last run. This, I can only describe as an amazing union of time, sharing and fandom. Thanks to all of you for staying up to this point!
Now, let's get to the end together!
¡I waited over half a decade for this story to complete, and when it does, I am so busy taking care of my dying mother in in-home hospice that I miss it! I shall enjoy finally finishing this story.
Okay, holy damn, the sci-fi tech explanation is really easy to understand and I love it.
Also, "The Changeling"