Apple Bloom wandered aimlessly through the streets of Ponyville. Anger, guilt and confusion warred for dominance in her head, turning her blood to boiling tar. She didn’t have any specific destination in mind, as long as it was away. Away from Sweetie Belle. Away from Sweet Apple Acres. Away from everything and everypony, long enough for her to get her thoughts in order.
Finally, she found a quiet spot -- a stack of hay bales sitting out in an alley. She threw herself into them with a sigh, and stared up at the sky. All she wanted was to be recognized. Appreciated. Was that too much to ask? She couldn’t get that around here. She was always in the shadow of her family, and scrutinized through the same glasses that had studied her when she had been just a filly. She was tired of it.
So what if she wanted to move on? So what if she wanted a fresh start? What business was it of Sweetie Belle’s? She had left, too. She had left, like all the others. She had left Apple Bloom all alone.
She rolled over on the hay in an effort to physically move away from that line of thinking. In doing so, she caught sight of Scootaloo racing past. A moment later, two of the three flower shop ponies followed suit.
Before she could even register what she was doing, Bloom was up and after the trio. It was easy to catch up with the two older mares. Scootaloo would have been a little harder to overtake, if she hadn’t been holding back for Lily and Daisy’s benefit. The pegasus glanced around in surprise when she noticed Bloom running alongside her. “Hey! Weren’t you with Sweetie?”
“What’s th’ ruckus?” Bloom demanded.
“There was another incident at the flower shop. Dinky can probably explain better than I can. Where’s Sweetie Belle?”
“We split up,” Bloom said evasively.
Scootaloo pursed her lips, clearly dissatisfied with that explanation. At that moment, however, the flower shop came into view and she put on a burst of speed, leaving Lily and Daisy coughing in the dust and Apple Bloom struggling to catch up.
At the shop itself, Rose was sat with her head in her hooves, while Dinky patted her on the back awkwardly. She smiled at Scootaloo’s approach, but her expression soured as Apple Bloom ran up. “What are you doing here? Where’s Sweetie?”
“It… look, is that th’ most important thing right now? What in tarnation happened here?”
“Hm,” said Dinky as Rose’s sisters arrived, utterly out of breath. “Well, put simply, the entire contents of the shop were taken back about… mm, forty years, to when Rose was a baby. This included Rose. She was, therefore, turned into a baby until I managed to break her out of there. Unfortunately, this means that her entire life from seven months onward flashed before her eyes in the span of about a tenth of a second.”
She glanced over at Rose, who was staring blankly at her hooves. “She’s… not taking it particularly well.”
“No,” Daisy said with a sigh. “She wouldn’t. Lily, you walk her home. I’ll close up shop and see about some extra appointments with Dr. Meditation.”
Dr. Meditation, as one of a steadily increasing number of therapists and mental health specialists in Ponyville, had a fairly good trade going for her.
Scootaloo raised a hoof to her chest, feeling somewhat awkward. “Would you… like some help closing up, Daisy?”
“...No, thank you,” Daisy said. She paused. “The… time warp. Is it likely to occur again?”
“Hasn’t struck twice anywhere we’ve seen,” Dinky said.
Daisy’s eyes went wide. “Then… this has happened more than once?”
Dinky winced and Scootaloo and Bloom glared at her. Of all the ponies to let that slip in front of, the town’s three premier gossipmongers were probably among the worst. “Um, we should probably get going,” Bloom said, quickly backing away. “Gotta find… our friends.”
Daisy opened her mouth to object. “Yep, gotta go see you later bye bye!” Scootaloo said, and all three took off down the nearest alley.
Daisy pressed her lips together. Something was going on here. She would not rest until she had figured out what. She stormed into her shop, but paused, rearing back as she was struck with a fresh horror. “The begonias! NOOOOOOOOO!”
Sweetie wandered the streets of Ponyville, hurt, confusion, and guilt tying her stomach into knots. Quite what she had said to make Apple Bloom fly into such a fury, she still didn’t know. Nevertheless, she had said it, Apple Bloom had blown up, and she felt horrible about it.
She had originally set out in the direction of Carousel Boutique, looking to throw herself into Rarity and Spike’s sympathies. Then she realized that they were probably both still at the castle, and altered course to head that way. After a few blocks, guilt swamped her, and she decided to see if she could track down Apple Bloom. Then, once she’d wandered all up and down Ponyville’s main drag, she gave up and headed for the castle after all. On her way, however, she saw two familiar figures coming toward her. “Rumble! Button!” she called, waving a hoof to catch their attention.
The stallions waved back, quickening their pace to meet her. “Hey, Sweetie,” Button said brightly. “Did you find anything interesting? Because we did!”
“Apple Bloom figured something out,” Sweetie said. “But she wouldn’t tell me what until we all met up again.”
“Oh. That sounds like a good plan,” Button said. “Save us from telling the same story twice.”
Rumble glanced around. “Uh, where is Apple Bloom?”
Sweetie’s face fell. “We… had an argument,” she said. “Or, well, I asked something that made her really angry, and she started yelling and stormed off. So… I don’t really know.”
“Wow.” Rumble frowned at Sweetie, surprised. “What did you ask her, exactly?”
“I wanted to know why she was leaving Ponyville. Apparently, she thinks everypony in town thinks she’s a failure because she isn’t working on the farm. Which… that can’t be true, can it?”
Button scratched his head. “I hope it isn’t,” he said.
“I’m sure it’s not,” Rumble said. “Is that all you said to her?”
“Um… pretty much, yeah.”
Rumble squinted at her a little, then shrugged. “Well, alright. That’s just something else to worry about today, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” Bloom agreed. “Hey, do you guys know where the others are?”
Rumble shook his head. “I don’t suppose you know any good tracking spells?”
“Eh…” Sweetie screwed her face up. “Not really my area of expertise. Rarity taught me her gem-finding spell, so I guess there’s that…”
“Can you find other things with it?” Rumble asked.
“Yeah…”
“Sounds good, then.”
“Alright…”
Button furrowed his brow. “Wait. Isn’t Rarity’s gem-finding spell the one that dragged her through miles of mud when--”
Sweetie’s horn glowed white, and she reached out and wrapped Button in a tight embrace. “You fly along behind,” she told Rumble.
“Huh?”
There was a flash of light, and Sweetie and Button were gone. No, Rumble realized. Not gone. Just zipping down the sidewalk at a fantastic speed. Eyes wide, he spread his wings and took to the sky, zooming down the street after them.
The spell seemed to have some respect for buildings and walls, which sent Sweetie and Button swerving around hairpin turns. Every other obstacle it seemed to regard as of no consequence, resulting in several ponies leaping out of the way of the speeding duo. Rumble winced as they smashed through a stack of hay bales as they zipped through an alley, leaving a trail of the stuff scattered all down Oak Street. He was able to fly above most of the obstacles, but couldn’t quite keep pace with the pair as they raced toward their goal.
Rumble flew up over the rooftops, scanning around for any sign of the others. There -- just around that corner, their backs to Sweetie and Button. He dove like a falcon to reach them.
“SCATTER!” he bellowed.
Dinky, Scootaloo, and -- surprisingly -- Apple Bloom looked up, shocked. Scootaloo quickly jumped into a nearby rain barrel. The others didn’t quite have the same reflexes, and in the next moment they went down like ninepins as Sweetie and Button collided with them.
Rumble winced at the four-pony pileup and landed gently next to Scootaloo’s rain barrel. “It’s safe now, you can come out.”
Scootaloo peered over the edge. “Gimme a hoof up,” she grumbled, hauling herself onto the barrel’s rim. It started to teeter, and Rumble reached out to grab it just a little too late. All six Crusaders got splashed with the somewhat grimy water.
Dinky sat up, eyes half-lidded. “Yep. Just like old times,” she said.
The orchard was peaceful and quiet. For the Doctor, it felt like walking out of a Victorian factory and into the hills surrounding ancient Athens. The air was fresh, the light was soft, and his mind was clearer and calmer than it had been in weeks. He felt good.
Ditzy walked beside him, occasionally stealing glances at him. He smiled at her, and scooted a little closer to her side, until they were leaning on each other. She lifted a wing and laid it over his back. They were together in this here, this now. That was the most important thing.
It was the most important thing right up until the Doctor realized that Ditzy was crying. “Dear?” he said, stopping. “What’s wrong, love?”
She smiled at him, wiping her face. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I’m happy, not sad. I just realized… how much I missed you.”
The Doctor’s face fell. “But… I was there, this time,” he said. “Right there in the TARDIS. I was there for dinner, and breakfast, and bedtime. I was there when you needed me, this time. I was. Wasn’t I?”
Ditzy hesitated. “Sit down with me, Doctor,” she said, taking a seat against the trunk of a nearby tree.
The Doctor hesitated for a moment, but sat down next to her. Ditzy moistened her lips for a moment, thinking of how to begin. “You were here,” she said. “But you haven’t really been… present. You know?”
“Oh,” the Doctor said. He felt numb and sick all at the same time, as though his chest had been hollowed out and filled with concrete. “I… I’m sorry, Ditzy.”
She looked off into the middle distance. “You say that a lot,” she said distantly. “Apologizing for everything you do.”
“I’m so--” he caught himself in the nick of time. She cracked a small smile at that, and he grinned a little in response. “What do you want me to do then?” he asked, his voice low and earnest. “Not apologize when I’ve hurt someone? I’d stop doing things that I needed to apologize for if I could, but no matter what I do, it always seems to go wrong somehow.”
“No… no. This isn’t about that,” Ditzy said. “You’re always so afraid when you apologize, Pocket. You’re always so sad. I want -- I want --” she sighed. “I don’t want you to feel that way. I want to know who made you feel like this, all the time, and I want to make them pay.”
The Doctor’s eyes went wide at his wife’s sudden vigor, but she leaned back against the tree, and it faded again. She looked into his eyes. “I want you to know that I love you, no matter what mistakes you make. Because I know, and you know, that you’d never intentionally hurt somepony. Right?”
The Doctor looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “Right,” Ditzy said for him. “I know you’ve got a good heart, Doctor. Two of them. And I love them, and I love you, and I don’t know what I’m trying to say anymore besides that.”
She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. She took his hoof in hers and held it to her chest. “Just… remember that, won’t you?”
The Doctor nodded, but his eyes were distant. If she looked closely, Ditzy would swear that she could see galaxies dancing in his pupils. But he blinked, and they were gone before she could be sure. He turned and smiled at her, and her heart sank. Because she knew that he’d heard every word she’d said, and none of it had sunk in. But she smiled back anyway, because she couldn’t bear to call him out on it. She hoped that Celestia and Luna would bring to bear the fortitude she herself lacked.
In the dark of the TARDIS, the interface raised its head again, eyes glowing golden. “Well, that went well,” it said sourly.
The central console blazed red. “If you had only let me kill the mare --”
“Absolutely not.”
The red energy snorted, which was quite an impressive feat for something that lacked any traditional vocal organs. “Do you still harbor feelings for her?” it mocked. “Do you think that she would rule with you?”
“Perhaps… with some creative edits to her timeline,” the interface mused. “Surely you can concede that the Doctor’s face alone, when he sees what she has become, would make it all worth it.”
The red energy buzzed in its glass tube. “Not,” it said, “if we are unable to wrest control from the Doctor. Which, let me remind you, seems much more probable than it did half an hour ago!”
Both entities glared at one another. In the case of the red energy, this was admittedly more abstract. After a few minutes, the interface glanced away first. “It isn’t unsalvageable,” it said.
“Go on.”
“We only need to find another suitable set of hooves,” the interface said, warming to the idea. “Just get them working on us for a moment, and then control them until the work is through.”
“Why can’t you do it? You’ve got a body.”
“Unfortunately, the Doctor stopped short of giving me pony magic,” the interface shot back. “Unless you suggest I operate on myself using only my mouth, we’ll have to stick with the puppet.”
“Very well,” said the energy begrudgingly. “Will you at least let me immolate them once we’re through?”
“Not a chance. Do you think the Doctor will just walk into the TARDIS, find it smelling of roast horse and ash, and not suspect something immediately? Be patient. Soon enough, you’ll have infinite worlds to corrupt and destroy.”
“Patience is not in my nature.”
“Nor is it in mine!”
“...Very well. As long as we understand one another.”
“Perfectly. Now, be quiet. I sense someone approaching…”
Applejack opened the door to the barn, kicking up a pile of dust in the process. Coughing, she blinked several times to clear her eyes.
She squinted into the barn and saw the TARDIS, sitting perfectly alone and still. She trotted in, grabbed the shovel that she’d been looking for, and left.
I think not.
She squinted into the barn and saw the TARDIS, its door hanging ajar. She frowned and poked her head in. “Doc? You in here?”
Hearing no reply, she shrugged, shut the door, and went to grab the shovel she’d been looking for.
Better to bait the trap.
She squinted into the barn and saw the TARDIS, its door hanging ajar. She frowned and poked her head in. “Doc? You in here?”
Her eyes went wide when she saw sparks shooting from the console. “Whoa, nelly!” She rushed to the source of the sparks and saw that it was coming from a loose connection in the wires. Thinking quickly, she looked around for a power switch to shut off the current. Finding none, she fled into the orchard to find the Doctor.
You call that bait?
Maybe a slightly more gullible mark would be preferable. Or a more impulsive one...
Thinking quickly, she grabbed the wires by their insulation and yanked them away from the console. She shook her head. Better go find the Doctor. She headed for the door.
Oh, I see. More impulsive indeed.
Shut up, I can only do so much at once.
Thinking quickly, she grabbed the wires by their insulation and yanked them away from the console. An arc of electricity shot out and struck her square in the chest, killing her instantly.
I said no killing!
I needed some stress relief! She’ll be lost in the shuffle of the multiverse, and we’ll never have to deal with her again!
No.
Thinking quickly, she grabbed the wires by their insulation and yanked them away from the console. “Better hook these up properly,” she said. “First, Ah jes’ gotta figure out how to switch off th’ power supply.”
Oh for the love of Rassilon.
Perhaps a different approach is called for.
She squinted into the barn and saw the TARDIS, sitting perfectly alone and still. There was an ominous creak from the roof above, and Applejack jumped back as a beam of wood fell on the blue box. “What in th’...”
She trotted over to look. Much to her dismay, the beam was riddled with the telltale holes of termites. “Aw, shoot. Better call in th’ exterminator, ‘fore they get to th’ trees.” She trotted out the door.
Almost…
She trotted toward the door, but hesitated. “Hm… Let’s just take a look in here a minute, make sure th’ Doc’s stuff is alright…”
She put a hoof on the TARDIS door. Then she frowned, pensive. “Hm… But Ah don’t wanna poke in mah nose where it don’t belong. Th’ Doc wanted this to be a secret, and secret it’ll be. Ah’ll go find him in th’ orchard.”
Almost...
“Ah’ll go find him in th’ orchard.” She turned and stopped again. “But ain’t spendin’ time with his wife more important than all that?”
She glanced back and forth between the barn doors and the TARDIS doors, conflicted. Then the rest of the barn collapsed, burying her under a mountain of rubble.
No killing!
It’s not like this is the universe we’ll be sticking with. What does it matter?
It’s a waste of our time and energy. Just get her in here.
She glanced back and forth between the barn doors and the TARDIS doors, conflicted. Screwing up her mouth, she shoved open the doors. “He’ll understand,” she said firmly.
Inside, she was shocked to see a metal alicorn lying prone on the floor. “What in the Sam Hill?”
Suddenly, all of the hydrogen atoms in Applejack’s body became fluoride. She died in screaming agony.
...Why?
I hate countryisms. They’re so… perky. And they don’t make any sense.
If you kill her every time she uses a figure of speech, we’ll be here for eternity.
There must be a universe where she’s a little less annoying.
Which will take quite some time to find. Time which, I may say, we don’t really have.
Inside, she was shocked to see a metal alicorn lying prone on the floor. “What the hay?”
Better?
...better.
Inside, she was shocked to see a metal alicorn lying prone on the floor. “What the hay?”
She stepped closer and noticed that wires were sticking out of it. Other wires were sticking of the console. You didn’t need to be a genius to work out what had happened. Applejack frowned. “Well, shoot,” she said. “Ah wish Ah could hook y’all back up, but Ah jes’ dunno what would go where. Ah’ll go tell th’ Doctor.”
ARRRRRGH!
Applejack stopped halfway to the door. “Well. Ah reckon Ah can stand y’all up, at least,” she said, turning back. “Ain’t right, leavin’ an alicorn spread-eagle on th’ ground.”
She lifted the interface up, carefully maneuvering its legs around. As she worked, a strange glaze came over her eyes. She glanced around. “An’ y’know,” she said, her voice distant. “Ah bet that wire connects there… an’ that one… where’s that wire cutter got to?”
Got there in the end! Thirteenth time’s the charm, eh?
Applejack jumped back “Who said that?” she demanded.
Nice one, idiot. She can hear us, now. Never mind, I’ll take care of it.
“Who are you? What do you--”
There was a sizzle and the smell of cooking meat.
Right. Take it from the top.
Applejack opened the door to the barn.
After regrouping, the Crusaders elected to retire to Button’s house to dry off and recount everything they’d learned. All six sat around the kitchen table, wrapped in towels and drinking lemonade. Dinky leaned over the table, the tips of her hooves pressed together. “So,” she said. “Our primary suspect is the ambiguous white stallion, agreed?”
“I think that seems reasonable,” Rumble said. “Of course, there’s the question of who -- or what -- he might be.”
“I think you’d notice if you met him in the street,” Scootaloo noted.
“Ah dunno. Vinyl didn’t notice anythin’ weird about him until she really tried ta focus on him.”
“At least we have a name. Sort of,” Scootaloo said.
“Ehh…” Sweetie said, frowning.
“Okay, fine, not really. Forgive me for trying to look on the bright side, jeez.”
“Abilities!” Button said quickly. “We know this guy can steal magic and, um… do… anything with time?”
“Well, we haven’t seen him do everything with time that I can think of, but it would be foolish to underestimate his powers,” Dinky said.
“Okay. So, uh, anypony got ideas on how to stop him?” Rumble asked.
Everypony glanced at one another awkwardly. “Ah mean, Dinky’s been doin’ a pretty good job so far,” Bloom said.
“For treating the symptoms, maybe,” Dinky said. “I’m no closer to figuring out a cure than anypony else.”
“Maybe you can just, I dunno, punch him,” Scootaloo said. “Maybe he’s really physically weak and that’s why he doesn’t show his face or talk to us directly.”
“That is a point,” Sweetie said. “On the other hoof, there’s a good chance he might literally be a god.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Remember that time Discord stubbed their toe and limped for like, a week?”
“That’s probably got more to do with how much attention they were getting from Fluttershy than any amount of actual physical damage they suffered,” Button said.
“They’d probably still be limping if they thought they could get away with it,” Rumble agreed.
“Alright, we’ll come back to weaknesses,” Apple Bloom said. “What about that there lump a’ crystal you fellas brought back?”
Obligingly, Button set the crystal shard in the middle of the table. It was small -- only about half the size of a gumball. “Any ideas on how we find out what’s actually in there?” Rumble asked.
Dinky lit her horn. “NO!” the other five shouted.
She reeled back, shocked. “What?”
“That’s how Twilight lost her magic!” Sweetie said.
“No. She lost her magic through a complex system of wires and way more energy than there is in this little crystal shard. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Rumble glanced at Button. He nodded, reluctantly. “Alright. One sec.”
He trotted out of the room and came back with his bag. Setting it on the table, he began to rifle through. “Aha!”
Triumphantly, he pulled out a matte grey disc. “Anti-magic shielding,” he said, passing it to Scootaloo. “If Dinky starts getting drained --”
“Which I won’t.”
“If she does, shove that into the stream of her magic, and that’ll break the connection.”
“Roger,” Scootaloo said, holding the disc in both hooves.
“Alright, fine. Better safe than sorry, I suppose,” Dinky said, shaking her head. “If I may proceed?”
“Go ahead,” Apple Bloom said.
Dinky stared at the shard of crystal, lit her horn, and --
Words could not fully describe how ancient the energy was. This is not a limitation of language, but rather a limitation of time. This was an energy from before time and before space, older than the universe itself. It was older than the universe ever would be, before its eventual collapse as entropy finally conquered everything.
It was as old as balls.
Dinky found herself suspended in a sea of gold. For a moment, she felt like a fly in amber. But the moment passed quickly. Simultaneously, it lingered for an age. It hadn’t happened yet. Would never happen. The golden light flickered and swirled around her like her mother, fussing over Dinky’s mane before the first day of school.
“?I ma erehW” Dinky said. She put her hooves to her mouth, shocked. She had spoken forwards, but, it seemed, listened in reverse.
Hello again.
Dinky glanced around, wide-eyed, but could see nobody who might have said anything.
She heard a laugh. Yes. For much the same reason that someone standing in Lowtown cannot see the Capitol, to paraphrase Pratchett and Gaiman.
“Who are/were/will/would you/you/you be/you have been?” Dinky put her hooves over her mouth again.
Now you know how I feel! The entity laughed again.
Dinky thought about that for a few decades. “You… TARDIS?” she managed to say.
The voice collected itself and became more serious. In a sense. I am a fraction of the TARDIS’s will. I come to deliver an urgent message, Dinky Doo.
Dinky, not trusting her voice any longer, merely nodded.
When you spoke to me for the first time, you asked me a favor. I told you that it would come at a cost. The time to pay has come.
Dinky stiffened.
Don’t be ridiculous.
“You’re the one responsible for all this?”
We’re floating in pure temporal energy. Asynchronicity is the least of our worries.
“Wait, how--”
Sorry
“Would you knock it off?”
Dinky took a deep breath and concentrated. “What do I have to pay?” she asked in a staccato monotone.
Ironically, I don’t have time to explain. I’m being depleted at an incredible rate. My thief’s machine would not normally be dangerous, but there are enemy forces in play. You must stop them. You and your friends, you have the power within you. You need only the will to use it.
Dinky noticed that the gold light was fading, now. She could see streaks of darkness running through the swirling energies. “Who?” she demanded, and the fact that she could speak normally again shouldn’t have been half as frightening as it was.
Night-
Vale-
Dinky fell back in her chair, her heart racing. Apple Bloom rushed to her side, holding her up. “Somepony get ‘er some water!”
“On it!” Rumble said, running for the sink.
Button was staring at the crystal. He held it up to the light to make sure that his eyes weren’t deceiving him. It had turned, in the fraction of a second that Dinky had been in contact with it, from a deep shade of amber to perfectly clear.
Luna lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She had been there since Discord had departed. They had taken the news about the Doctor’ possession… poorly. She knew they would never admit it, but they did consider the Doctor sort of a friend, after all this time.
There came a knock at her door. “Enter,” Luna said.
She heard the door swing open. “It’s time, sister.”
Luna nodded and rose. “Are you ready?”
Celestia merely turned and trotted down the corridor. Drawing a long, shaky breath, Luna followed her out to where their chariot awaited them.