“Before I came here,” Calco began, “I was not a receptionist. I was a freedom fighter in an old, old war.”
“The Tharil Independence War,” the Doctor nodded. “Yes, I had a friend who fought in that.”
“Then you know why it began,” Calco said solemnly. “My people were forced into slavery for the crimes of our ancestors. It had been that way for many years. We were helpless, trapped in their ships and forced to power them through time and space.”
Rarity gasped. “How dreadful,” she said. “What monsters could do such things?”
“Humans, mainly,” Calco replied. “There were others as well, but mostly humans.”
“Before their empire fell, the Tharils enslaved many other species, including humans,” the Doctor explained. “Eventually, they all revolted and overthrew their masters, forcing them to power great interdimensional spaceships.”
Calco nodded. “I make no excuse for my ancestors behavior, but neither do I pardon the revolutionaries for their actions. At any rate, it seemed that we would be forever trapped in servitude. But then, one of our number escaped— only temporarily, but long enough to bring help.”
“Help,” the Doctor added, “in the form of a certain dashing alien in a blue phone box.”
Rarity’s eyebrows rose. “Really? You?”
“Well. Mostly me,” the Doctor grinned. “My companions might’ve had a hand— hoof, sorry— in as well. “
Calco stared in shock. “You are the Doctor?” he asked, incredulous. “You… do not look like how he was described.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve changed a bit over the years.”
Calco nodded gravely, then continued with his story. “Two of his companions stayed behind in E-Space to help us in our fight for freedom— Romana and K-9.”
Rarity glanced at the Doctor. His eyes had grown a bit moist. “Yeah,” he agreed, voice hoarse. “Brilliant, the both of ‘em.”
“Things continued in this way for many years,” Calco continued. “For ten long years, our band grew ever stronger. We were nearly victorious at last. But then…”
“Then?” the Doctor pressed.
“Then,” Calco said slowly, “the pegasus showed up.”
Whatever the Doctor had been expecting, it obviously wasn’t that. “Pegasus?” he repeated blankly.
The Tharil nodded. “She was old, and scarred by battle as much as anyone else in our camp. More so, perhaps. She arrived at camp early one morning, and insisted on speaking to our leader, Romana, to whom she gave an armband, a strange machine, and a series of coordinates. She then gave Romana a message, and vanished into the night.”
“And what was the message?” Rarity asked.
“I don’t know,” Calco replied. “When she read it, she turned pale and destroyed it immediately. Then, she said that she had to leave us.”
“You just accepted that?” Rarity asked incredulously. “Pardon me for saying so, darling, but I don’t think that letting your leader leave you in the midst of a war is the most intelligent thing one could do.”
“We tried to argue,” Calco replied sadly. “But she would not be swayed. Eventually, it was decided that if she must leave, she should take with her a guard. I was selected for the role, and so accompanied her to her destination in the abandoned swamps of Alzarius.”
“Alzarius?” the Doctor asked, eyebrows rising sharply. “The swamp planet?”
“What’s so important about Alzarius?” Rarity asked.
“It’s the exit point of a CVE— a Charged Vacuum Emboitment,” the Doctor explained. “Basically, it vented entropy out of a universe, and into another. That also means you can get from one universe to another through them.”
“Which is exactly what happened,” Calco interjected. “Except, we didn’t get to the right one.”
The Doctor frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Romana was attempting to return home,” the Tharil explained. “But something went wrong, and we arrived here, as you can see.”
The Doctor nodded. “Riiight. All very logical and reasonable. Only question is,” he leaned in close to the Tharil’s face and growled, “Where. Is. Romana.”
***
Applejack and Colgate looked out into the infinite whiteness that surrounded them. “Well,” Applejack said. “That’s new.”
“What is it?” Caramel asked.
Colgate squinted into the abyss. “I— I believe I’ve been here,” she whispered. “I recognize it.” She hesitantly took a step forward, and then another.
Applejack and Caramel watched, incredulous, as the mare trotted out into what appeared to be empty space. After a few moments, Caramel commented, “I don’t think she’s stopping.”
Applejack sucked in her cheeks, then gave a heavy sigh. “Well, I reckon we better follow her. She seems t’ know more’n us about this place, an’ if we don’t keep an eye on her, she might do herself a mischief.”
Caramel stared into the abyss. The abyss did not stare back. Rather, it stared through the candymaker, barely even registering his presence. Suddenly, Caramel felt very small. “Ya can stay here if ya want,” Applejack said, trotting out the door. “But y’all’ll be stayin’ alone.”
The stallion looked around with trepidation. The walls seemed closer than they had previously, and the strewn paperwork seemed, to his fearful eyes, to be moving. With a squeak of mild terror, Caramel galloped after his cousin.
***
Calco wiped his brow. The Doctor was still staring intently at him, leaning in far too close for comfort, “Doctor,” Rarity said quietly, placing a calming hoof on his back. “I believe you’re scaring him.”
“Romana was one of my closest friends, and one of the few of my species that I actually got on with. Furthermore, she might be the only other Gallifreyan who didn’t die in the Time War. I will scare whomever I—”
Rarity smacked him rather hard. “I do apologize, Doctor,” she said as he rubbed his jaw gingerly, “but you were getting a tad intense.”
The Doctor winced and rubbed his cheek. “Right. Yeah, sure, I get it. Thanks.”
He turned back to Calco. “So. Romana. Where is she?” he asked, in a slightly more relaxed tone.
“Well, once we arrived here, she started glowing gold,” he explained. “And then she said that there wasn’t much time left, and that I needed to go find— well, you, Doctor. When I got back, she wasn’t there. Just Colgate, and a note from Romana telling me to keep her safe, along with a couple of machines. One of them made the office larger on the inside, and the other one’s purpose is still unknown to me. I don’t know any more than that, except that I have been posing as a dentist’s receptionist here for over ten years now, and I have grown to hate teeth more than anything else in the world. If I never see a poster about flossing again, it will be too soon.”
The Doctor leaned back in his chair, looking as though the wind had been knocked from him. “Glowing gold? Then she’s regenerated,” he sighed. “She could be anywhere, look like anypony at all."
“And what of Colgate and the others?” Rarity asked. “Where are they?”
“Oh— back in the dentist’s office,” the Tharil replied, indicating the hall door. “Er— best not to go in just yet, I had to… block the entrance.”
The Doctor furrowed his brow, his mouth an inquisitive moue. “Block?” he repeated.
“Um,” Calco hummed. “I… may have transported the office into the void between timelines?” He glanced between the two stony faces. “Sorry. I can bring it back!”
The Doctor’s thunderous frown was generally terrifying. Calco, however, didn’t even notice. It was tricky to see such detail when you’re on the ground bleeding because a mare has just sucker punched you in the face.
***
The emptiness was apparently eternal. Even Applejack was beginning to grow skittish, and Caramel was a few minutes away from having a full-blown freakout. Colgate, however, continued stoically on, as though in a trance. She had said nothing since they had departed her office, and the silence was, to Caramel, just as unnerving as the void, if not more so. At least voids were expected to be empty. His friend was not. She was meant to be making terrible, hammy jokes. She was meant to be bantering with him about tooth decay. She was meant to be discussing the relative merits of sugar-free candy. She was not meant to be absolutely silent. It seemed to the confectioner as though everything that made Colgate Colgate had just been drained out of her. “So, uh,” he said, “Colgate? Should we start heading back to the office?”
“Hn?” she muttered, eyes unfocusing for a moment. Then, she blinked sharply and shook her head. “What? Where are we? What’s going on?”
Caramel and Applejack exchanged worried glances. “Uh, sugarcube? Y’all were the one who led us out here,” Applejack said slowly.
“I… what?” Colgate looked back and forth between the two Apples. “I don’t even know where we are! I mean, what is this place? How did we get from my office to here?”
“Better question,” Caramel said, his voice a few tones higher than usual, “How do we get back?”
“Why, that’s simple, sugarcube, it’s right over… oh. Huh.” Applejack glanced around, as though expecting the office to appear right next to them. “Well, that ain’t good,” she muttered.
Caramel squeaked, and Colgate turned a few shades paler. Applejack nodded, half to herself. “Right,” she said. “Well, we were goin’ in a pretty straight line, so Ah don’t reckon we can be too lost. Come on, let’s git headin’ back,”
She turned about and started away at a canter, careful to keep the others from seeing the fear in her expression. They would find the office eventually, right? It’s not like there was anything else out in this place.
As Caramel and Colgate hurried after their friend, a cold, staring eye watched them go. A solitary white robot, blending almost perfectly into the endless white void, started after the ponies.
***
“I’m telling you, they were right in here!” Calco cried, stabbing a hoof at the dentist’s office.
The Doctor and Rarity stared dubiously at the undeniably empty room. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, darling,” Rarity began, but the Doctor cut her off.
“Actually, it is that we don’t trust you. It is exactly that,” he said, glaring at the Tharil.
The alien cringed. “I said I was sorry,” he mumbled.
“Sorry doesn’t quite make up for trapping three ponies in the interstitial space between universes,” the Doctor said flatly. “How did you even do that?”
“Oh, well, I just sort of removed the hallway,” the Tharil said vaguely as he looked in the cupboards on the off chance that the trio may have hidden in one of them.
“Removed the hallway?” Rarity echoed. “As in— no, I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean by that.”
“Tharils can bend space and time around them,” the Doctor explained. “They can time travel without a TARDIS, removing a hallway from the spacetime continuum is nothing. Although—” he frowned. “I’ve always wondered. Where do you put them?”
“Like I said, the interstitial spaces,” Calco said, now poking at scattered pile of paper, in the faint hope that the ponies might somehow be hiding under there. He glanced up, tucking away some small object. “Is it important?”
The Doctor had frozen. “You put the hallway,” he said carefully, “into the interstitial space.”
“That is correct.”
“You don’t do anything else to it.”
“No.”
“You didn’t maybe lock the office door?”
Calco looked puzzled. “No.”
The Doctor sighed. “So there’s nothing to keep them from, for example, wandering OUT of the office and INTO the void?”
Calco looked blank. “Why would they want to do that? It’s just empty space.”
The Doctor looked like he was considering making an extremely uncomplimentary comparison between the void and Calco’s head, but Rarity interjected. “You mean, they could all be wandering out in that… interstitial space, you said?”
“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed grimly. “Trapped between universes, in an infinite blank plane.”
He sighed. “Well, nothing for it. We’ll have to go after them.”
“How?” Rarity asked. “Won’t we be in the same situation?”
“Not if we take the TARDIS,” the Doctor said with satisfaction. “Come on, the both of you!”
***
Meanwhile, in another time and place… “No, be quiet,” Trixie said urgently. “Trixie heard something!”
Sunset fell silent. “I don’t hear it,” she said after several seconds.
“There was a crash,” Trixie insisted, turning to face across the street.
Sunset frowned. “If you’re right,” she said slowly, “that could mean…”
“We’re not here alone,” Trixie said, hurrying across the street, leaving Sunset to race after her.
***
The Doctor stared at the empty patch of grass behind his (or rather, his wife’s) house. “It was right here, I swear,” he said.
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Well, it can’t have just teleported away, can it?”
The Doctor frowned at her. “Rarity. It’s a time machine. That’s literally exactly what it does.”
She met his stare with her own. “Without a pilot?” she challenged. “I don’t think that any ship, no matter how advanced, is going to travel on its own.”
“Point,” the Doctor conceded. “Unfortunately, much as it pains me to say, Grand Theft TARDIS is a mystery for later. Right now, we need to get Applejack, Caramel, and Colgate out of the vortex.”
Rarity nodded. “But how can we do that without a time machine?”
The Doctor turned to the third member of their party, who was huffing and puffing heavily and bracing himself against the fence. Calco, sensing that he was the center of attention, looked up. “Huh?” he gasped.
“Tharils can travel through time and space at will,” the Doctor said. “And they can take passengers, can’t you?”
Calco considered this. “Ionno,” he panted. “Water?”
“I’m rather parched myself,” Rarity agreed.
The Doctor sighed. “Right, hang on, I’ll get you both water, then we’ll see if your powers can extend to others. I mean, you lot powered spacecrafts, so I don’t see why not…”
Once the Doctor had gone inside, Rarity turned to Calco. “Goodness, but I’ve had to do a lot of running today,” she said airily. “I must say, being friends with the Doctor certainly makes for a good exercise regimen.”
“Mm, mhm,” Calco muttered.
“I am rather surprised, though,” Rarity continued. “All your talk about being a freedom fighter— terribly interesting of course— but, well, one would expect you to be in slightly better shape.”
“Working— behind a desk— for over a decade— will do that—” Calco replied.
“Well, I suppose that— Oh, you seem to have dropped your watch,” she added, gesturing to a spot just behind the Tharil.
“Eh?” he gasped, spinning about in a panic. He scanned the ground frantically. There was nothing there.
Rarity nodded in satisfaction. “I thought as much. Oh, do calm down, you’ve not dropped it, I can see the chain in your mane. But, given how you attempted to hide it before the Doctor could get a good look at it, I must ask what exactly makes it so special.”
The Tharil glared at her, betrayal etched into his features. “How did you see it?” he asked. “I thought I had it tucked away before either of you could get a good look.”
Rarity smiled. “You don’t get as far as I have in the fashion industry without having an eye for detail,” she replied. “Now, if you would answer the question?”
Calco glared a moment longer before sighing and collapsing against the fence. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Romana left it for me in the note. I was to guard it, keep it secret from everyone, and use it to hypnotize Colgate if she started to question things too much.”
“Hypnotize her?” Rarity gasped. “But that’s dreadful! And what do you mean ‘question things too much?’”
Calco frowned sternly and, straightening, squared his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “But I’d trust Romana with my life. She says that Colgate needs to be put in a trance regularly, so that’s what I’m doing. It’s not as if I’m controlling her, I don’t even give her any orders. I just have her look at the watch, and she’s out like a candle.”
“Well I don’t approve of your casual snuffing of her flame,” Rarity snapped, giving him an arch glare.
“It’s not like that,” Calco protested weakly.
“Then what, pray tell, is it?”
Calco’s mouth flapped furiously for a few moments, but he was saved having to answer when the Doctor returned. “There. Two glasses of water, perfectly lovely. Now, if we could get going?”
Rarity glared at the Tharil. “This is not over,” she mouthed.
Calco winced. “Come on, come on, time’s a-wasting!” the Doctor insisted.
The Tharil breathed out, closing his eyes in deep concentration. Time was, to time-sensitives like the Tharils or indeed the Time Lords, rather less like a little stream, and more like a raging river, dragging everything inexorably along in its steady current. What he was about to do might be compared to damming a little bit of the river, but not really. It was much more like shoving a pipe down through the riverbed, far enough so that it would let out in an entirely separate but parallel river underground. But that just sounds preposterous, frankly, so let’s just say that he was ripping a hole in the universe and leave it at that.
Rarity’s eyes went wide as the back door of the Doctor’s house began to fade, losing detail and color until all that remained was… nothing. Nothing at all. “Well done,” the Doctor whispered. “Oh, this brings back memories. Not very good ones, but memories nevertheless.”
He walked through the portal, hesitantly at first, but with every step he took, his confidence increased. He glanced back. “Well? Come on, you two!”
Slowly, cautiously, Rarity and Calco crossed over to the other side. The unicorn glanced around and shuddered. “So tacky,” she muttered. “All white can work, but only with the proper shapes and textures. This— this is just dreadful!”
“No time to stop and critique the decorating now,” the Doctor replied. “We need to find the others. Did you drop us about where you left them, Calco?”
The Tharil stared. “Space has no meaning here.”
The Doctor’s face fell. “Oh,” he said. “Yes. That’s a point. To be exact,” he sighed, puffing out his cheeks, “we’re points on an infinite blank plane, trying to find a trio of other points.”
“So it’s impossible, then?” Rarity asked, an edge of fear creeping into her voice. “Are they— are they gone forever?”
The Doctor frowned. “Nothing is impossible,” he replied. “We just need to find a way to get their attention…” He fell into silence, pondering.
Rarity looked around and slowly smiled. “An infinite plane, you said?” she asked.
“Yep.”
She looked at the Tharil. “Space and distance have no meaning?”
“Correct.”
Rarity nodded. “Then I believe that now is indeed the time to do something about the decor.” So saying, she illuminated her horn and shot a stream of bright, colorful sparks into the air.