//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: The Trip of a Lifetime // by Royale With Cheese //------------------------------// The three ponies wake up and went to the dining part of the blue box. Sitting at the table already was Rainbow Dash, with a cup of coffee. "Hey Dash, how are you feeling?" Derpy asks as she sits diagonally across from her. "Didn't sleep too well, but at least two cups of coffee will do the work" Dash slightly smiles "The nightmare from the other universe caught up to you, Dash?" Spitfire asks as she pours a cup of coffee for herself. "Ya. Who knows what today will bring." She turns to Doctor. "Hey, Doc, how do you know when we're back to our universe?" "Each universe has its own special code, it shows on above the green button. I managed to grab the code for our universe in time before our incident as of now. That code was just a simple '1'" Doctor walks over to the green button which now has a plastic guard over it to protect it from flying objects. "The code for this alternate universe is 1623" Rainbow looks up "W-what was the code for the last universe?" Doctor thinks "885" "I'll keep that number in my head" Dash said "I just realized something" Derpy looks at the three other ponies "What if the numbers tell us the number of the alternate universe? Say if we're in the last ever alternate universe, and their is 1623 alternate universes?" "That's a lot of alternate universes, Derpy, that can't be right" Spitfire said "She can be, but I'm unsure. I left the alternate universe handbook guide at my house, I never knew I would be needing it, until now. So, who wants to have a quick trip to my house?" Doctor asks. The three pegasi nodded in unison. Doctor walks to the teleportation section of the police box and presses a couple buttons "A quick teleportation to a place ten minutes away won't hurt anything" he pulls the lever and the police box makes a whirring sound for five seconds before the door opens and they all walk out. They walk up the steps, he opens the door and they all walk in. "Welcome to my house" Doctor kindly said. He looked around, he noticed that the house was slightly different, with extra pictures and decor hanging around. "Honey, who's at the door?" A stallion voice echoed "I'll check" A mare's voice then the sounds of hooves trotting on the kitchen floor which was down the short hallway from the front door. Then there she was "Hoovesy! Looks like you brought a few friends over!" Doctor looks at her with a shocked but happy face "M-m-mom?" She hugs Hooves where she got a very lovable hug back from her son who was on the verge of tears. She pulls back "Honey, what's wrong? Oh no, did you get an F on your science test?!" "N-no..." he wipes away his tears "I j-just have something in my eye, I-I'm going to w-wash it out..." he then runs upstairs. An older stallion walks in "So, you are Hooves' friends? Please kindly introduce yourselves." "I'm Spitfire" "I'm Derpy!" "I'm Rainbow Dash" "Very nice names" the stallion says. "This is my wife, Lunar Hooves, and I'm Comet Hooves" "So, the parents of uh, Doctor, nice to finally meet you" Rainbow greets again. "Yes, same to you too" Lunar says "Now I bet you have some science project to finish" "Um, uh, we do" Spitfire says with a silly smile then heads upstairs with other two ponies following. "Science, my best subject" Spitfire sarcastically says. "Where my best grade was a C-" "You flopped in Science?!" Rainbow laughs "You can get into the Wonderbolts but you can't pass Science" she laughs before getting punched in the leg by Spitfire. They walk into Doctor's room where they saw Doctor happily sobbing to himself. "Doctor, what's wrong?" Derpy asks. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just very happy" he wipes his happy tears "In our universe, my parents have been dead for ten years. It was very hard for me to see them all of a sudden" "Sorry to hear that, Doctor" Spitfire "It's fine, now the book" he gets up and looks for it. After a few minutes of rummaging through many drawers, he finds it. "Just give me a few minutes to go over" The three other ponies stay silent as they look around the room with tons of creativity put into it. "So, there's a few points to go over. If we go under three hours in the alternate universe, it will ruin the machine's mechanical system and will stop working, and we already broke that rule, because it's cooling down from traveling through many generated universes just to pick one, No need to worry though, it was just once and Rainbow was in great harm." "Secondly, we cannot stay in the same universe until the clock hits 11:55PM. This will cause something very bad to happen the next day and the machine will break down" Doctor continues and sighs "There are 2000 alternate universes, like I said, the machine randomly picks a universe and chooses us to go there. Their is a tiny chance for us too be back in our universe, as soon as possible. Last but not least, every universe we go through, wastes a day in our universe." "What?! I got a whole team of Wonderbolts to practice with!" Spitfire blurts. "Ya, I have friends who need me when something bad happens!" Dash follows "I-I have a daughter to take care of..." Derpy covers her face with her hooves and sobs. "It's okay Derpy, somepony will take care of her" Dash puts her hoof on Derpy's shoulder to comfort. "Ya. By now, my teammates, your friends and your daughter will probably be wondering where we are right now" Spitfire adds. "Hmm..." Doctor thinks "I got it! Rainbow Dash, Twilight will help, right? I mean if you tell her what's going on, she'll be able to fix this, her magic is strong enough, right?" "Uhh, maybe, I can give it a shot" Dash says. "That's your job, tell Twilight about what's going on, and report to me" Hooves says "Will do!" Dash shoots back and turns to Spitfire and Derpy. "What are you gonna do?" "I don't know, probably for a soar in the sky" Spitfire says "I would love to go with you, I need to get my mind off of not being with my daughter" Derpy frowns and turns to Doctor "What are you gonna do, Doc?" Doctor looks at the clock "It's 5:55PM, we need to get back in the police box before 11:55PM, my parents usually went to bed around 9:30PM" he sighs "I'm just going to spend my last few hours with my parents, again." He smiles happily as he makes his way out of his room. "Make the most of it" Dash says as the three make their way to the door "I will. I shall say the same to you. Please, three of you, come back before ten, alright? Unless if we got Twilight to help us, we will come find you, Spitfire and Derpy" Doctor says. The three pegasi nod and head out the door. "Oh, you three are leaving? Nice meeting you, fly safe!" "Nice meeting you too, Mrs. Hooves!" Derpy says The three pegasi take off, Dash flying off into a different direction. "Doctor, dinners ready!" He happily sighs and heads to have dinner with his parents, for one final time, again. Rainbow gulps "Here goes nothing..." She opens the door to the library. "Hey Twilight! I need your urgent help!" A pony turns to her "Shhh! Can't you see I'm studying?!" She turns back "Wait, Pinkie Pie, since when did you study?" Dash laughs as she walks up to her "Uh, since forever?" Pinkie continues. "Why are you looking for Twilight and why here?" "Um, because she lives here?" Dash looks around. "No she doesn't, she lives at the apple farm with her big brother, Shining Armor. Where is your mind at today?" She turns around wearing glasses with thick, black frames. "No, she d-" Dash then realizes "Oh yeah, right..." Pinkie then turns back to her studying "Are you okay, Rainbow Dash? It seems like you're in an alternate universe and you're all confused" "Yes!" She trots up to Pinkie "I am!" Pinkie then gives her a stern look "That was just an expression, here, read a book, you seem really dazzled today." Dash looks down at the book and sighs. "And you're pretty early for our weekly get together dinner, it starts..." she looks at the clock and gasps "In 30 minutes! It's my time to cook too!" She darts off into the kitchen. All Rainbow Dash could do is just sit and wait for the others to arrive, she has had enough of this alternate universe, already. There was a knock at the door. "Rainbow Dash, can you get that?" Pinkie shouts from the kitchen "Um, ya, sure" she gets up and opens the door and she is greeted by a white unicorn. "Oh my gosh! Rainbow Dash is at a dinner before me?!" Rarity happily trots in. "Wow, that is very surprising, because you're usually the very last one to come and I'm usually the first to come, unless if you're having it at your house, because you live there! You can't be the last pony at a weekly dinner get together, because you live at that house! But anyways, a few times, you have been five minutes late, and oh yeah! Can't forget last time where you were TWENTY minutes late and you got mad because everypony ate the spring rolls, I guess you learned your lesson, didn't you?" Rarity smiles like a filly who got served a big chocolate ice cream cone, for free. "Uh, uh, ya, I totally learned my lesson" Dash said still trying to pick up the words. "Great!" She turns to the kitchen and starts happily hopping. "Hey Pinkie Pie, guess what I brought for dessert!" Dash just stands their gazed and says to herself "Its like, everypony switched bodies. This is going to be very interesting" Another knock is heard at the door, Rainbow goes up to it and gulps. She opens it. "What's up, Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy enters. "Hey Fluttershy" Dash greets. "Come on, now, ask me 'Whats up?'" She asks "Erm, ok, what's up?" Dash asks "I learned a new technique today, I call it the 'FlutterFly High'. It's where I fly up really high, then I drop down with my wings fluttering just a little bit, as soon as I get to a few feet above the ground, I zoom off leaving a trail of wind behind. Nopony else can't do it 'cause I'm awesome!" Fluttershy explained "Pfft, I can do that in my sleep!" Rainbow scoffs. "Oh can you?!" Fluttershy gets right into Rainbow's face "I would like to see you try without you getting a nightmare!" It felt like Rainbow was talking to an exact replica to herself but with a softer voice. Another knock is heard at the door and Dash opens it. "O-oh, am I late? Am so sorry if ah am, ah was tending to my little animals" Applejack says as she slowly and shyly walks in. "No you're not, you're just in time" Dash says "O-oh great" Just a couple minutes later, another knock at the door is heard. Rainbow didn't need to guess who this was. She opens the door. "Howdy y'all!" Twilight greets. Rainbow couldn't help but snicker, Twilight has never used that cowpony term before, it was kind of funny hearing it from her. Twilight turns around "What's so funny, Rainbow?" "Oh, uh, nothing" Rainbow said with a goofy smile "Something is funny too you, your face is scrunched up like a old, soggy apple left in the rain" Twilight exclaimed. "Their better not be a prank being planned here" "No, Twilight! Remember what happened when a prank happened at a dinner last time? The food was uneatable. Pranks have been banned from dinner since then" Rarity explains. The last piece of food was set on the table. "Dinner!" Pinkie calls out. Spitfire and Derpy are sitting on a cloud sharing a bag of lemon poppy seed muffins. "So, Derpy, tell me about you daughter" Spitfire says "Such a ray of sunshine, that's all I can tell you. She can tell you've been having a bad day, and she'll make it like bad days never existed." Derpy happily said. Spitfire smiles and keeps listening. Derpy continues "I was married, once, surprisingly, to a stallion unicorn named Silver Ace. Dinky was born before we even got married, thanks to a drunken and foolish night. I thought we were going to be a good and happy family, until he got fired from his job. He got drunk every night, and put me in harms way. He threatened not to leave him, or tell anypony anything but, I never had the courage to tell anypony what was going on or the courage to leave him, until one night." "It was one month in, I worked up the courage, took a bag of bits, took Dinky and flew off. I used to live in Los Pegasus, so, imagine how far that is from Ponyville. Couch surfing, sleeping in alleyways, getting the cheapest meal on menu for all three meals to save bits. We traveled for two weeks to find a good town far away to stay at." "As soon as we entered Ponyville, I had a good vibe that it was a good town. And it was, I got a job as a mail mare, the mayor understood my situation, and gave me a month to pay for the house. Even though what we've been both through, Dinky still manages to make me smile" Derpy ended with a single tear going down her face. Spitfire, who was almost on the verge of tears says "Derpy, you're one tough pony, more tougher than me, I'm proud of you" Derpy smiles "Thanks" Spitfire looks at the night sky "I don't see a clock anywhere, but I can tell it's time to head back" Derpy nodded and they both flew in the night. "6, 7... 8" Doctor sighs in defeat. "Ooooooh yes! You landed on Celestia's Castle, since I have two houses on that space, you owe me a 600!" Comet laughs like an evil entrepreneur. Lunar laughs with him. Comet yawns "Actually, you can keep it. I'm going to bed" "Me too" Lunar says while yawning and stretching. Comet hugs Doctor "Have a goodnight son, I love you" "Love you too dad" Lunar hugs him next and gives him a kiss on the check "Goodnight, my smart, precious scientist, I love you. I'll make you toasted cinnamon waffles in the morning, okay?" He wanted to cry but he didn't want too, Doctor's mom made these waffles that were very delicious. He has been trying to make them ever since her death, but they weren't even close to how she made them. "S-sorry, I have to decline. I'm going out to breakfast with my friends" Doctor replied "Oh that's fine, have fun dear, goodnight" she and her husband head upstairs. "Goodnight" he replied. He waited for a few minutes and went into the kitchen. He quietly went through every drawer, every nook and cranny, until he found it. A white paper, with a bit of aged dried syrup showing at the corner of it and words written in black ink. He took out another piece of paper and copied the recipe down. He went back into the living room and stared down at the unfinished game of Ponopoly. He heard a sound of flapping wings outside, looked out the window and recognized the three pegasi that landed. He looks back at the game, he grabbed some of his fake money and puts 600 bucks where his father was sitting. He goes out the front door and towards the police box. "So Rainbow, any luck?" He asks while opening the blue metal door. "No, maybe next universe where my friends' bodies aren't switched, and my librarian friend isn't a party planning pony" Rainbow chuckles. "How was, um, being with your parents for the last time, again?" "Wonderful" he yawns. "Let's get to the next universe before we drift off to sleep" He presses the green button, waits for the whirring to stop, then the four ponies go off too sleep. "Wow Doc, you're making breakfast!" Spitfire says "What's cooking?" "Cinnamon toasted waffles, my mothers recipe" He smiles He sets out four plates, each with two waffles on a table, the four ponies sit down. "Can I get the first taste? I finally got the recipe for this last night, I've been trying to find it since my mothers death, I've been trying to make these right since then" Doctor asks. In return, he received three nodding heads. He took a knife and fork, cuts a nice bite sized waffle, and places it in his mouth. He chews a couple of times. He smiles and widens his eyes. "Perfect"