Chapter 2
Stitches of Flame
The crow carrying Ditzy Doo (who she had decided to refer to as Rustle) started to slow and descend, snapping the disgruntled and confused pegasus out of a rather interesting conversation with herself. Coming to a stop a few feet above the ground, Rustle opened his talons and let Ditzy drop to the ground.
Looking around, Ditzy found herself in what seemed to have been a sanctuary some time ago, but was now crumbling and decayed. She was in the center of a depression with another bonfire. To the north was a building that may have once been a small throne room, with a tower behind it. to the right of that was a large hall open to the air. Behind the throne room was a staircase leading to a graveyard. To the right was a well and a staircase seemingly carved into the side of the cliff that terminated the plateau.
An impossibly large tree stood off the cliff to her left, next to a staircase leading down to a mezzanine with another staircase on the other side. As Ditzy was heading towards the staircase, she heard a terrible grinding sound, slowly cycling and getting louder. As she looked around for the source, she saw a strange blue box slowly fading in, pulsing in rhythm with the noise. As the box solidified, one of its sides swung open like a door, and out walked a brown colt with an hourglass cutie mark.
"I know you, you’re that one weird pony who goes around calling himself The Doctor aren’t you? How did you end up here?” Even if she didn’t really know him, Ditzy was glad to see a somewhat familiar face.
“Well my dear, ummm...”
“Ditzy Doo.” The conversation already off to a smashing stop.
“Yes, well my dear Ditzy Doo, that question unfortunately raises many more, some of which I cannot answer. Regardless, I shall attempt to do so. Firstly, yes, I am the Doctor, and right now I’m dealing with one of the sickest patients I have ever encountered. I’m here to see if I can get him working right before the entire thing shatters and kills everything everywhere, and most things in some nowheres.”
Her face bearing a look that spoke volumes about her inability to understand this strange new pony, Ditzy settled on asking the most obvious question. “I don’t see any sick ponies around here though, where is he?”
“Where’s who?”
“Your patient.”
“He’s right here!”
“But where?!”
“Oh, yes, sorry, it was a figure of speech, this entire dimension is falling apart is what I’m saying. The fabric of this reality is becoming undone and if that happens, then that whole everything and most nothings going away part happens.”
“But why?”
“Hmmmm, let me put it this way.” the Doctor picked up a stick and started drawing several parallel lines in the dirt. “This is what the flow of time looks like in most dimensions. Well, not really but for our purposes this is what it looks like, each person’s perception of time flows in sync with the others. Now this:” He then scratched another group of lines, these ones curving and intersecting in seemingly random patterns, but gathering on a few nodes. “Now this is what the flow of time looks like in this dimension. Again, not really but if I tried to explain the dynamics of relative time streams we’d be here till the end of everything, which is about 3 months from now. Suffice it to say, if this dimension fully shatters, then the shards will tumble around the void between dimensions, crashing into everything else and destroying any sense of dimensional isolation. Again, not literally, but that’s the easiest way to explain it.”
“WHAT!”
“What I’m trying to say is that this dimension is falling apart and if it does so, the entire multiverse, that’s the all of the everythings and some of the nothings I was talking about earlier, is going to go down with it. And so, I’m here to try and fix this place.”
“But how did we get here?”
“I believe it had something to do with the explosion that originated at the library back in Ponyville. I was passing through when it hit, and I think it knocked your dimension straight into this one, which would be why everyone here is a pony.”
“But then what about Equestria, is it still there?
“Most likely, though I can’t exactly risk breaking through a dimensional barrier this fragile to just check up on something like that. Now then, luckily I have a plan to fix this. Unfortunately, that plan involves finding where this dimension started breaking apart. So I’m off!”
Before Ditzy could get a word in edgewise, The Doctor had entered his blue box, which then gave off the same horrific screeching sound and slowly disappeared
After a few seconds passed, the noise began again, and the blue box faded in. As the door opened, a heavily scarred and somewhat frazzled looking Doctor stepped out.
“Well then, that was an eventful week... I think. Ah, Ditzy, good to see you, I’ve got some good new and some bad news.”
“What’s the-”
“The good news is that I found out what the trouble is with this place!”
“What’s that?!”
“Why it’s starting to get cold, simple as that, well, not really. Basically, this dimension is highly magical, and one of the magical elements here, fire to be exact, is slowly going out. All we have to do is light some big bonfire in some mystical temple and everything will be right as rain. If I’m right, that is.”
Ditzy Doo had no idea what this colt was blabbering on about, but at this point, she decided to just let him ramble until he told her what he wanted, except there was one thing that still bugged her.
“Wait, but this place is exactly like that video game I was playing, Dark Souls!”
“Really? That’s funny, if I had to guess, I’d say that this dimensions slow decay was letting imprints of itself radiate to others, like, well, radiation. I would assume that whoever made that game was quite literally copying this place.”
“Fine."
“What? That’s it? No protestations about the impossibility of this situation or who I am or anything?” The Doctor looked highly disappointed.
“Listen here mister, today I’ve been dumped into a real life video game, attacked by zombie ponies, died three times, killed a demon, shot fire out of my hoof, and been carried out of a prison by a giant crow, you’re ramblings are the second closest thing to sanity I’ve experienced all day. I figure either I’m dreaming or you’re right.”
“Well, okay then, let’s go find that mystical temple, I got some instructions from a big snake thing, called himself Frampt, seemed nice enough. He said we had to ring two bells, get something called a Lordvessel from a lost city, bring that to a shrine, then get some souls from some big baddies and dump them in there, then go to the temple that opens up and start a bonfire. When we do that, the supply of flame in this world will be restored and stitch this dimension back together, and Equestria should pop right back, taking you along with it. Sounds easy enough right?”
“Fine, let’s just get this- wait, you said something about some bad news, what was that?”
“Ah, well, see, my reconnaissance didn’t sit too well with this dimension, and it seems that we’ve got a bit less than the 3 months I had mentioned earlier...”
“How long do we have then?”
The Doctor produced a small metal rod from seemingly nowhere and waved it around as it made strange noises, examining only once the noise stopped.
“I’d say about 5 days.”
For the first time in years, Ditzy’s eyes both focused on one object. In this case, the Doctor was receiving the angriest glower he’d ever seen. It honestly frightened him a bit.
“Let’s just get going, you said we needed to ring some bells?” Ditzy's voice was accompanied by an angry growl
“Well, that’s another thing, I can’t come with you.” There was that stare again.
“Why?” Ditzy was thinking that she might be better off just roasting this strange pony with her new found fire magic.
“Well, you see that mark on your rump?”
“Yeah, another pony called it a Darksign and it's replaced my cutie mark, what of it?”
“Well, from what I’ve gathered, that mark makes you unable to stay dead for any significant amount of time, generally just bringing you back to the last nexus of flame you visited, and unfortunately, I seem to have been left out.” He pointed to his flank, adorned with an hourglass. “I’m afraid that if I go with you, I’ll most likely die and I can't afford to take the time out to regenerate right now. Someone has to stay here and make sure that this place doesn't decide to clock out early.”
Ditzy just sighed, however she felt about this pony, he was the only one who seemed to know what he was doing. “Fine, you just stay here, I’m going to go find those bells.” As she headed off towards the crumbling hallway, she lost herself in thoughts, going over the events of the day as she walked into the graveyard. She had just realized that she had forgotten to ask for directions from the doctor when a very large skeleton appeared in front of her and swung its similarly large sword into her, rendering her body rather unlivable.
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“That’s not the way you fool!” The Doctor yelled at the blond mare as she headed North. After a minute, he decided to go after her. A second after that and Ditzy had appeared at the bonfire in the center of the garden in a heap. Getting up, she fixed her double eyed stare of doom on the Doctor, who sheepishly pointed up to the right towards a staircase built into a mountain.
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Big thanks again to Not for the editing help!