//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: An Unearthly Filly // Story: Doctor Whooves: Beyond the Nth Dimension // by Glimglam //------------------------------// Chapter 3: An Unearthly Filly ‘The time machine is just… gone?!’ It was true. The crater in the center of the market square was now completely vacant. All that was left there now were the scattered remains of the destroyed fountain, in addition to copious amounts of… ice? Oddly enough, there seemed to be a significant bit of ice formed in and around the crater. Colgate was shocked. The blue box was gone! And in its place was now nothing more than a bunch of rock and ice! Where the hay had it gone?! It couldn’t have just vanished into thin air, could it? And for that matter, why did nopony else seem to care? The other ponies in the square, even the ones she had followed to come to the square, seemed to have lost interest in the whole affair almost right away. But why did they? Of course, they didn’t fail to notice the hole in the middle of the square, but they acted so indifferently about it. “What is with everypony?” she asked out loud. “Doesn’t anypony remember the time machine that was here not even five minutes ago?!” “Time machine?” “Huh?” “What’s she talking about?” “I’m hungry…” “There’s no such thing as time travel!” “I don’t see a time machine…” “Timey-wimey-what now?” Colgate groaned. “Ugh, you ponies are hopeless! How could you not remember? It crashed into the square only a half-hour ago!” “Is that what it was?” “I thought it was just another box that Derpy dropped…” “There was a crash?” “Still hungry here…” “What a load of bunk.” “If it crashed, then where is it?” “Wibbly-wobbly-who?” The blue unicorn facehoofed. “Seriously? You don’t remember? We heard an explosion coming from here just a few moments ago! And now, there’s a bunch of ice all over the place!” “Oh, right…” “Ice? But I thought it was the middle of summer…” “Explosion? Huh?” “Okay, I’m pretty much starving now…” “So what? I’m sure there’s a… reasonable explanation.” “Maybe it blew up or something?” “Icey-wicey explodey-wody huh?” “…” Colgate sighed. It seemed apparent that there just wasn’t any way of getting through to these ponies. She could sit here all day, and it would be pointless if the actual blue box—the centerpiece of her argument—wasn’t even present. Just as she turned to walk away from the market with dejection, she almost walked straight into the friends she had earlier run off from in the first place. “Col! There you are,” Carrot Top snapped, giving her an annoyed glare. “We were looking for you! Why’d you just run off all of a sudden? I even told you to relax and stay put! And what did you not do? Stay pu—” She stopped herself when she noticed Colgate’s downtrodden face. “…What’s wrong? You don’t look so good…” Colgate idly kicked aside a pebble on the street, and sighed. “The time machine is gone…” “Uh, what?” “The blue box is gone… It just vanished into thin air, and nopony seems to give two hoofs about it.” Carrot Top tilted her head to the side, wondering why her friend was so bothered about it. She quickly remembered why, and said, “If this is about our little ‘wager’… then, well, you can just forget about it if you want. Not to rain on your cumulus or anything, but if it’s gone, then there doesn’t seem to be much of a point anymore.” “…” The blue unicorn let out an irritated sigh. “Let’s just go and eat our food or something. I’ve suddenly decided that I’m hungry.” “H-huh? But…” “Come on. We’re eating at your place.” “B-bwuh? Hang on just a…” Colgate ignored the earth pony’s objections. She pushed past her, motioned towards a certain wall-eyed pegasus to follow, and continued on down the street. Carrot Top was left standing there, greatly bewildered by the turn of events. “…Hey! Since when has my house become a hotel to you two?!” she exclaimed indignantly, and galloped after the two mares. Somewhere in the back of Carrot’s mind, she knew that her friend would never give up on such a challenge so easily. >~===DW===~< “Tw… Twilight…?” Few things happened before that were as strange as this, but the Doctor had seen them all beforehand. This however, may have taken the cake. A full-grown unicorn, an equine by the name and reputation of Twilight Sparkle… had somehow become a filly. And on top of that, his TARDIS had been caked full of ice. It was one of those situations where he didn’t quite know how to react at first. To see a filly, unconscious, just lying there in front of the PTG… how was he supposed to react? How was such a thing even possible? The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver from his vest pocket, and waved it once over Twilight’s body. He checked the results of the scan, frowned, and waved the sonic over the PTG. As he was checking the data being extracted from the core, the Doctor was not aware of the unicorn filly beginning to stir… “Huh… So that’s it then, eh?” he muttered to himself after checking the data his sonic screwdriver had collected. “When Twilight’s spell was connected to the PTG, a reverse influx of the timey-wimey particles seems to have overflowed the chrono barriers, and… Well, essentially, it appears to have acted as the be-all, end-all ‘Fountain of Youth’. Huh, how interesting! Don’t know how I’ll fix it though…” “Ungh…” “Eh?” The Doctor turned to the filly on the floor, Twilight, who was now starting to wake up and climb back to her hooves. “What… what happened? Where am I?” “Miss Twilight! You’re okay, it would seem!” he exclaimed, giving the little unicorn a pat on the head. “A little… smaller, in any case, but okay nevertheless! How do you feel?” “Uh… f-fine?” she squeaked, looking up at the Time Lord with a mixed look of confusion and fear. Her voice sounded so much higher-pitched, nearly to the point where the Doctor would have admitted she looked and sounded adorable. “M-mister… who are you?” “…” The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. “Say wha’? Of course you know me Miss Twilight, I’m the Doctor! One does not simply forget meeting the Doctor, you know.” Twilight took a tentative step backwards as she gazed at him. The look of apprehension in her eyes became more pronounced. “A d-docter? Y-you’re not here to give me another shot, are you? I-I already had mine!” “Eh? What in blazes are you talking about? Twilight, it’s me! The Doctor! You know, your friendly neighborhood Time Lord? The one that you’ve been spying on for…” Something clicked inside his mind as the revelation from earlier sprang to the forefront. “HEY! Wait just a moment! That’s another thing! You were spying on me! Me! The Doctor! How could you, Twilight?!” Twilight recoiled with shock, her wide eyes becoming fearful as she took another step back. “Wh-what?! B-b-but I don’t even know w-who you are! O-or how to be a spy!” “Don’t play games with me! You confessed, not even ten minutes ago, that you were sent to be my assistant by Celestia herself—as a spy! Don’t even begin to come up with an excuse for why you can’t even remember such a severe breach of my trust—” “W-wh-why are you y-yelling at me, mister?” the filly whimpered, tears starting to well up in her eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on! I-I just wanna go home!” Twilight started to wail with despair. “I want mommy!” This sudden display was enough to snap the Doctor out of his anger in a flash. Was Twilight… genuinely crying? Since when does she cry? The Time Lord frowned as he thought the situation through. He hastily waved the sonic screwdriver over the now-filly Twilight and checked the data that it received from the brief scan. His suspicions were confirmed. Not only was Twilight a filly by appearance, she was actually one. Her personal time stream had, likely due to the exposure to the PTG, been reversed by at least ten years. She could only have possibly retained memories from before then. As far as he was concerned, he may as well have snatched up a younger version of Twilight in the past and taken her along to this moment in the future. But this… this was something different. This shouldn’t even be possible; it could cause a paradox. It needed to be corrected. “…Twilight,” the Doctor began to explain calmly, “I need you to listen to me. Something has gone wrong, and I have to fix it. Please, you must cooperate with me for only the slightest of moments—” “NO!” the filly suddenly shouted, startling the Doctor. Her fear-filled eyes were transfixed on his sonic screwdriver. “Go away! I don’t want to get another shot!” “For the last time, I’m not that kind of…” He stopped, and realized that Twilight was staring at the device in his grip. The Doctor took a moment to realize that, to a filly, it would have looked suspiciously (and scarily) like a doctor’s needle. “Oh… no, this isn’t what it looks like! It’s just a sonic screwdriver! See?” To illustrate his point, the Doctor turned on the sonic, causing the tip end to split into four prongs with a glowing green light in the center. “See? Completely harmless!” Unfortunately, seeing such a ‘demonstration’ was not sufficient to convince the filly of its supposed harmlessness. The Doctor attempted to reach out to Twilight, but the confused filly instead turned away and ran, whinnying with fear the whole way. She nearly slipped on the ice-covered floor a few times, but quickly vanished out the chamber’s doorway. “Oh, for crying out…” The Doctor slapped a hoof to his face, not caring that it actually hurt to do so. “Twilight! Come back here! You can’t leave the TARDIS in your condition!!” The Time Lord’s attempts at galloping after the fillyfied Twilight were rather clumsy, thanks to the zero-traction ice floor, but he was eventually able to get out of the PTG chamber and enter the corridors. The ice appeared to have not been limited to just the chamber. Like the chamber itself, every inch of the corridor was caked in snow and ice. It was a wonder that the spell didn’t freeze both of them solid. Slipping and sliding on the floors, the Doctor finally reach the main control room of the TARDIS—and by ‘reach’, we mean that he slipped on the floor and slid straight into the console face-first without stopping. After picking himself off the ice-coated metal floor (“Oww…”), he turned his gaze full-circle around the room in search of the filly. “Twilight! Where are you? I know that you must feel afraid, and confused, but you have to listen to me! I can help you!” Nobody—or nopony, rather—replied. The Doctor groaned. The TARDIS was beyond huge; there were countless rooms, corridors, and squash courts within its depths. But, as he remembered, each room could be ‘deleted’ from the TARDIS main console. Any living beings within those deleted rooms would instantly be brought back to the control room. It would take time to reboot the previous settings, but if it could ease the stress of finding Twilight, then it would be worth it. However, right when the Doctor was going to go about doing this, he could have sworn that he felt a… breeze. That was odd, the fans weren’t even turned on (they were probably frozen shut anyway). Where did it come from? ‘She couldn’t have…’ The Time Lord slowly looked towards the double doors at the control room’s front. The entrance to the TARDIS, the gateway from this little dimension to a much larger one… was open. A pair of tiny filly-sized hoofprints in the snow led straight out of it. “Oh, no…” The Doctor began walking towards the TARDIS doors, a terrible realization starting to set in. “No, no no no no…” He pulled open the doors fully, and stepped outside. “Oh sweet TARDIS’s ghost, no…” The hoofprints continued outside, evidenced by the bits of snow that were still here and there, before they trailed off and vanished. “This is not good, this is NOT good… Oh dear, look at me, I’m panicking! Been a while since I last felt something like that…” Looking up, the Doctor realized that the TARDIS must have moved far from the square where it sat originally. It now rested on a hillside, overlooking the nearby apple farm Sweet Apple Acres. The town of Ponyville now seemed much further away. The closest building (just a couple of hundred meters at best) appeared to be a tall wooden house, with what appeared to be an oversized carrot mounted at the apex of the roof. He wasn’t entirely sure of the time period, but it couldn’t have been very long after his TARDIS crashed at Ponyville’s market square. The Doctor scanned the landscape around him for a sign—any sign—of Twilight. The poor thing must have felt so scared to just run off like that. And as far as the Time Lord was concerned, letting her run around Ponyville in such a state was unthinkable. He needed to find her and convince her to stay in the TARDIS until the situation could be rectified. …But where would he begin? “Hang on, Twilight… I’m coming to find you…” Not once turning his back, the Doctor galloped towards Sweet Apple Acres—where it appeared that the hoofprints were leading en route for. It would only make sense for her to head to the closest place to hole up that was still far enough away. As he went, the Time Lord failed to realize that—in his urgency—he left the TARDIS doors wide open… >~===DW===~< As much as Carrot Top objected to the notion of having both of his friends over at her less-than-average-sized home, Colgate wasn’t going to have it any other way. Derpy Hooves didn’t really seem to mind (she preferred to ‘go with the flow’), but she did find a bit of entertainment in taking Col’s side of the argument. Two beats one, after all. It was this decision that, ultimately, led to the three mares sitting around Carrot’s dinner table, contently munching on the food they had bought from the restaurant. “I still think those guys were meanies,” Derpy pouted, her eyes crossing as she forced a scowl. “I don’t even know what their problem was! All I did was trip a few times…” “…And stumble, and tumble, and crash into that table, sending a bunch of hot soup splashing all over Roseluck’s face,” Carrot Top idly pointed out, chuckling at the memory. Colgate couldn’t help but laugh as well. “I must say, I’d never heard the phrase ‘The horror, the horror!’ spoken in quite that context before.” The pegasus looked a bit hurt. “Hey, I said I was sorry to her…” “You did… when she was running off, shrieking with pain and ‘horror’, that is.” Carrot Top laughed again, and looked over to Colgate. “Remind me; was that about the time that the waiter asked us to leave?” “Please don’t,” Derpy whined, covering her face with her hooves. Colgate smirked as the memory reoccurred to her. “Nah, I think it wasn’t until she bumped into that same waiter, which made him spill all those croutons. Boy was he ever mad.” The gray mailmare shrunk into her seat, face flushing red with embarrassment. “B-but… I said I was… Ugh, never mind… You two are mean.” Carrot Top shrugged nonchalantly, and took another bite of her hay fries. She grimaced as she chewed, noting how much colder they seemed. If they had been able to eat at the restaurant, without incident, then perhaps the taste would be much more palatable. It would suffice, though… As she ate, the earth pony noticed that Colgate seemed to be doing that ‘thing’ where she stares off into space again. Carrot Top sighed; she just won’t let the whole fiasco with the ‘time machine’ go, won’t she? “Hey, Colgate?” she asked, and the unicorn perked up upon realizing she was being called. “You still feeling alright? You’ve barely touched your food.” Colgate trailed her gaze down at the petal sandwich in front of her, and then to Carrot. “Oh… yeah, I’m fine. I just have a weird feeling.” “Oh, I’ll bet you do,” Carrot Top replied, giving her an eye-roll. “It’s like… I can feel it close by…” The unicorn shook her head. “No… never mind. I must be imagining it.” “Hey, you guys?” Derpy asked, one of her eyes focused on Colgate while the other one was busy examining the window. “What’s that thing on the hill?” Carrot Top raised a confused eyebrow. “Huh? What ‘thing’?” “The big blue box, outside the window!” the mailmare clarified. After realizing what she just said, Derpy suddenly gasped. “Wait… that’s the…” “…” Silence hung over the room like a shroud. Carrot Top and Colgate shared a brief glance, and then jumped up and practically slammed their faces against the glass of the window just to see outside. The unicorn could hardly believe her eyes and her luck. The blue box—the time machine—was sitting on the hill right beside Carrot Top’s house. “There… there it is!!” Colgate squealed, her open-mouthed grin stretching to implausible proportions. “I knew it was around here somewhere!” Carrot Top, for one, looked shocked. “H-how in the wide open world of Equestria did that box…?” She shook her head. “I must be seeing things…” The unicorn threw the earth pony mare a challenging look. “Hey, CT!” she exclaimed confidently. “The bet’s still on! Let’s go!” “W-wait a second just hold on a—” The carrot farmer’s disagreement was promptly nullified as Colgate grabbed her by the hoof and yanked her from the kitchen and out the back door of the house. Derpy, cautiously optimistic and a bit perplexed as to their behavior, followed after them. Colgate couldn’t believe it. The box had appeared right there, on the hill between Carrot Top’s farm and Sweet Apple Acres. What were the odds of that? Even better, this proved that the box could move around with such ease! And another thing: how could it still look so ‘brand-new’ if it had crashed into a fountain in the middle of Ponyville? There had to be much more to it. Once both mares (and Derpy) had arrived on the scene, they could only stare at the tall blue box with awe. It had to have been nearly twice their height. The sign, mounted near the top edges of the box, read “PONY Public Call BOX”. And a light of some kind, supported at the top of the thing, was flashing every now and again. The windows also seemed to have a light coming from within as well. So, this was a time machine. Colgate felt giddy just to be standing close to it. That odd feeling of compelling energy was less ignorable this time around, so she started to approach the ‘Pony Box’. Carrot Top raised a hoof to try and stop her, but hesitated, and lowered it again. The unicorn walked around the vertically rectangular box, trying to size it up. She had seen both Twilight and this ‘Doctor’ go into it at the same time. How could that even be possible? Just looking at the machine close up made it seem more and more unlikely… “Hey, looks like they left the door open!” Derpy piped up, raising a hoof to point at the double doors on the front. As it happened, they were indeed opened wide. Interest piqued, Colgate carefully trotted up to the doorway and stuck her head through the doors while Carrot Top and Derpy watched on, somewhat concerned about the safety of the box. After a moment, the unicorn pulled her head back out and turned to face her friends. Her eyes were wide with wonder and whimsy. “Girls… take a look at this!” she exclaimed, beaming. With that, Colgate trotted through the open doors… and seemingly vanished into the infinite depths of the box. Moments later, a familiar blue hoof stuck itself out of the door and waved them over. “Come on! This is so amazing, you two!” Carrot Top and Derpy swapped an uncomfortable look. For the earth pony, she wondered if there could possibly be any room for them in there. For the pegasus, she just wondered if she would ever get a chance to finish her muffin. But eventually, the two slowly trod towards the box, and through the blue double doors. “Oh sweet Celestia…” “It’s… it’s…” Colgate grinned. “I know, right?” Both mares that had just entered the box were wide-eyed and slack-jawed. The interior was huge. In fact, it was nothing like what it appeared from outside. How could a huge chamber be inside such a small (by comparison at least) blue box?! “It’s bigger on the inside,” the blue unicorn noted, taking in her new surroundings and marveling at them. “It’s… smaller on the outside,” Derpy murmured thoughtfully, her misaligned eyes practically spinning in their sockets just to see the entirety of the room. “It…” Carrot Top paused for thought, lifting her hoof off the floor and staring at what she was stepping in. “…looks like somepony missed a spot during the last Winter Wrap-Up…” Only now did the three mares realize that the entire room was coated in snow and ice, from floor to ceiling. It was also rather cold as well, but that was obvious enough to notice. As a matter of fact, it was very cold. Colder than a normal winter’s day, even! “I-I… I’m n-not too g-good with the c-c-cold,” Derpy managed to say, stuttering her words as her teeth chattered. “Ah… AHCHOO!!” She let out a huge sneeze, and sniffled. Pegasi, while often accustomed to severe weather conditions, are quite susceptible to extremely cold temperatures. Like common birds, they run the risk of freezing their feathers. It’s not a problem on the ground, but if they were in-flight… “T-take it easy, Derps,” the yellow earth pony assured her friend, “you’ll be fine.” To keep the pegasus warm, Carrot Top huddled close to her and draped a foreleg over her neck, allowing them to share body heat. Derpy smiled with gratitude. “Thank you…” “Wow, it is pretty cold in here,” Colgate commented, shivering slightly. “But how did something like this happen? Unless…” Her mind immediately shifted back to the market square. All that ice that was left behind… was this the epicenter of that? If so, where had the ice come from? Being careful not to slip, the blue unicorn approached a large, octagonal machine in the center of the room. In the center of it appeared to be a large glass tube, with some sort of apparatus inside of it that occasionally shifted upwards or downwards every now and again. The console itself seemed to have a bevy of buttons, levers, switches, gizmos, and so many other things that Colgate could not even begin to imagine what any of them did. One of the lights, however, was blinking. Colgate noticed that, curiously enough, it was a red button with a picture of a small flame on it. So, did that mean ‘fire’? Heat? Wait a moment… heat! That was it! If it was blinking like that… maybe it needed to be pushed! “Colgate,” came Carrot Top’s voice from behind her as she reached out to push the button, “you’d better not be touching anything! We don’t know what this stuff even does!” “We’re about to find out,” Colgate muttered to herself, and pressed the button. Instantly, the glass monitor that was hung over the console sprung to life, causing the unicorn the flinch at the sudden shower of sparks that erupted from the console. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING!” Carrot Top yelled angrily, her eyes darting about the room anxiously. “Let’s just get out of here! I don’t like this place!” Colgate more-or-less ignored her; she was busy reading what was displayed on the monitor. ‘TEMPERATURE IS BELOW SAFE LEVELS – ABNORMALTIES DETECTED. NOW RESTORING STANDARD ENVIRONMENTAL SETTINGS.’ “W-what does that mean?” Carrot Top demanded, galloping towards the center console and glaring at Colgate. “What the hay did you just do?!” “I… I don’t know,” the unicorn admitted, biting her lip nervously. “I just pushed this button that was blinking, and…” Before Colgate could continue, the lights around the chamber dimmed slightly, and the front doors suddenly slammed shut. “Eep!” the mailmare squeaked, jumping back in fright. What little light that remained shifted to an odd orange color, and the sound of a fan starting reverberating around the room. The room suddenly started to get a lot warmer, much to the relief of the three occupants. “Whew… that’s… that feels pretty nice, actually!” Colgate exclaimed, enjoying the feeling of the warm air being blown into the room. “This thing’s even got its own heating system!” Within minutes, the room’s temperature had soared to a much more comfortable level. At the same time, all that hot air being blown into the room had started to melt the snow and ice, resulting in a lot of the floor becoming wet and slushy. Whatever water that was in the room slowly drained away, leaving the three mares feeling not-quite-as-cold. “…And you said, ‘don’t touch anything, Colgate! Wah, wah!’” the blue unicorn mocked, allowing herself a condescending giggle. “See? I know what I’m doing!” Carrot Top went red with both embarrassment and anger. “Th-that may be, but this… thing isn’t even yours! It’s that crazy Doctor’s! We should leave before he comes back! Or else, he’ll probably be really mad…” Once again, Colgate ignored the farmer. “Ah, come on! If it’s a time machine, then we literally have all the time in the world to return it! Come on CT, where’s your sense of adventure?” “It’s being safely detained and imprisoned by my common sense, thank-you-very-much,” Carrot Top retorted. “You don’t even know how this thing works! You got lucky with the heater, okay?! Lucky!” “Au contraire,” the unicorn shot back, grinning devilishly. “I do know how this thing works. Just look at this! The panel has a setting where you can set the date and location of arrival! And there’s even a ‘Start’ switch right beside it!” “Colgate,” the earth pony warned, “don’t you even dare…” Colgate shrugged, still wearing that devious little grin. “Don’t worry, we have all the time in the world. We could be gone for months, and yet, for everypony in Ponyville it would only be a few minutes!” Carrot Top facehoofed. “HOW many times must I repeat myself? No. Way. In. Tartarus. I’m warning you Col, if you pull that lever…” “Oooh, I think my hoof is slipping…” “DON’T!” “Oh Carrot, you need to live a little.” She grinned even wider as she reached for the lever. “Colgate, I’m begging you, don’t do it!” The unicorn’s hoof was mere inches from the lever… “…OKAY! FINE! I GIVE!” the carrot farmer shouted, throwing her hooves into the air with defeat. “You win, okay?! Time machines are real, okay!? Now can we PLEASE just leave?!” Colgate raised an unamused eyebrow. “You don’t mean that,” she said plainly. “You’re just scared.” Carrot Top let out a grunt of annoyance. “Of course I am! And do you know why?!” “Alright then, I’ll humor you. Why?” “Because—” “Because the Doctor is in.” The three stowaways stiffened up, and slowly turned towards the now-open doorway. A very peeved-looking stallion was staring the three of them down, and it would’ve been hard not to remember him. “…Oh snap.” >~===DW===~< “Twilight Sparkle! You open this door, right now!” “NO!” the filly shouted defiantly from the other side of the barn door. “Go away! Please, just leave me alone!” The Doctor groaned. This was starting to get just a little bit tedious. It was great that he had finally found her so soon, and that she hadn’t gone far, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be a pain to get her to come back. The fact that she had locked herself in one of Sweet Apple Acres’ barns didn’t help matters. “Miss Twilight! You come out here this instant! Or else, I’ll…” He stopped, and grimaced. “…I’ll… break the door down?” “Go away!” the unicorn shouted in reply, her voice partially muffled by the barn door dividing them. Like a scared little foal, she was determined to hide and wait it out. But the Doctor wasn’t one to take such impudence—such cheek—lying down. “Alright, you asked for it!” he threatened, brandishing his sonic screwdriver and pointing it at the door. “I’m opening this door, whether you like it or not!” The sonic whirred and buzzed as the light on the end flashed green, and after a moment of exposure the Doctor stowed the device and pushed on the door. Amazingly, it remained just as locked as it had ever been. “Ah, confound these ponies and their obsession with wooden doors!” the Doctor shouted, cursing pony society’s antiquity. He kicked at the ground, stirring up a cloud of dust as he grunted with annoyance. “I need to work out that quirk someday…” Starting to let his irritation get to him, the Doctor slammed his frontal hoof on the barn door multiple times. “Twilight! Listen to me, for Gallifrey’s sake!” he shouted. “I know you must be scared in there, but you can’t stay here! This is all… you’re… Simply you being here is enough to potentially cause a massive time paradox! By remaining here, you’re putting this world at risk! Think of what this implies! The dimensional fabric may tear; portals to other worlds will open up; chocolate rain will fall from the sky! …Wait, forget that last one. Or not! I mean… ugh! Twilight, just come with me to the TARDIS, and I can help you!” “…Go away!” With a pained groan, the Time Lord slammed his face against the door. This could have certainly been going better. In fact, things would have been going at least decently if were not for somepony’s untimely arrival. “What in tarnation is goin’ on over here?” An orange earth pony with a yellow mane and tail was approaching the Doctor with something of a suspicious scowl on her face. She wore some sort of cowboy (or would that be “cowpony”?) hat atop her head, and a pair of baskets were slung over her back, each filled to the brim with apples. “Hey, you there! Ah’m talkin’ ta you, pard!” she shouted, stomping straight up the Doctor and glaring at him. “Whatcha’ll think yer doin’, bangin’ on mah barn door like that?” “…Oh! Well, look at that!” the Time Lord exclaimed, marveling at the brown hat atop the earth pony’s head and ignoring her cold gaze. “A Stetson hat! Ah, the memories! I can remember a time when I used to rock a Stetson… Ah yes, they were cool back then… They were cool.” “Whaddaya mean, ‘were’?” the farmer snapped, her glare intensifying. “Ah’ll have you know that this belonged to mah pappy! It’s mah prized possession!” The Doctor more-or-less disregarded this. “I say, do you mind if I try it on? I wonder if the style would still compliment me, even though it blends too much with my coat color…” “Wh-what?! No! Who do ya think ya are—” “Actually, now that I think about it… that hat would totally clash with my vest. But then again, don’t opposites attract? No, not the season for it… Vests are cool this month, not Stetsons. So last century.” “Hey! Ah take offense ta that!” The Doctor clapped his hooves together. “And look at this! Who should be wearing this unstylish topper except for…?” He paused, and furrowed his brow with confusion. “Right, then… Say, I don’t believe we’ve met actually,” the Doctor said, bowing slightly. “I’m the Doctor. Pleased to make your acquaintance and all that. Sorry, but I was just attempting to coax Twi—errrrr… I mean, my niece… out of your barn. This… is your barn, right?” The orange mare nodded, still wearing a slight glower from the Time Lord’s earlier remarks. “Rightly so. Name’s Applejack, and while Ah can understand ya’ll wantin’ to get yer niece out of there, Ah don’t think smashing apart mah door is gonna get the job done.” “Applejack, you say…?” Something clicked inside the Doctor’s memory, and a sudden feeling of horror swept through him. Surely this couldn’t be the Applejack, right? Element of Honesty, and all that? And one of Twilight’s… gulp… friends? ‘Oh no… If she found out what happened, and relayed the news to the others… what would they think? I could come clean, but… No! This is a paradox, and it must be corrected as such! Nobody else can know!’ “Ah, that’s right… I’ve… uh, heard about you, actually…” “Same here,” was Applejack’s terse reply. “Twilight’s been going on about ya from the day ya came to Ponyville. Heard ya called yerself ‘Time Turner’ fer a while, then Twi caught ya in some kinda fancy blue machine that’s ‘bigger on the inside’ or whatever.” The Doctor looked upwards in thought for a moment. Ah, Time Turner. The assumed name he adopted for a while during his ‘incognito’ period in Equestria. ‘John Smith’ (his usual fallback name) wouldn’t have worked out well for a pony’s name, after all. For some reason, it felt a bit clichéd of a name, but it did the job. At least, until Twilight first exposed him in the TARDIS… “Ah, well… The Doctor is my proper name, actually. That was just an alias, and a rather rubbish one at that…” “Doctor, eh? Doctor who?” “Just the Doctor.” “…That’s it? Just ‘Doctor’?” “That’s right.” Applejack blinked. Her inner psyche decided that it would be best not to question this point any further. “Well… alright then… Er, anyway, ya’ll were trying to get yer niece out of mah barn?” “Ah… yes! Yes, that’s correct!” He feigned a distraught expression. “You see, I was trying to bring her back home to her mother, but she got all fussy and hid inside your barn! I’ve been trying to get her to come out, but she’s stubborn and my sonic screwdriver doesn’t do wood.” “…Beg pardon?” The Doctor nervously fidgeted with his hooves. “Eh… that is to say, I’ve been trying to get her out with my ‘fancy Doctor Tools’, but they don’t work, and so, I require assistance.” “…Oh, uh… Ah see…” Applejack frowned slightly. “So… ya’ll jus’ need me ta open the barn door fer ya?” “Yes! Precisely!” the Doctor exclaimed. “That would very much be of help, miss… Applejack, yes?” “Uh-huh…” Still giving the Time Lord a strange look, Applejack slowly walked towards the door of the barn while the Doctor took a few steps back. ‘How is she going to open it? Perhaps there’s a special key? Maybe brute force is the answer here? She certainly seems well-built for that sort of option… But why would she break her own door? What can she possibly do that I couldn’t have thought of?’ He soon got his answer. Applejack trod up to the door, inspected it for the briefest of moments, and raised a hoof… to take hold of a latch on the door, and undo the lock. The Doctor was dumbfounded as the orange mare let the wooden latch dangle loosely from its hinge, no longer blocking the door from being opened. He made a mental note to keep a closer eye out on things like that from then on. “Oh… er… I could have thought of that… Possibly…” “Yeah, Ah’m sure ya could’ve,” Applejack sarcastically remarked with a roll of her eyes. “Well then, go on an’ git yer niece outta there and scoot. Ah got work to do.” “Ah, yes, of course! Thank you very much, Miss Applejack! Good day!” The Doctor waved to the earth pony as she walked off again, and he quickly breathed a sigh of relief. Now that Applejack had gone, there wasn’t any more risk of Twilight’s predicament being exposed! But even so, there wasn’t any more time to lose waiting around! Swift as could be, the Time Lord pushed the now-unlocked door open, and to his relief, found his quarry backed against the far wall of the barn. The poor thing flinched at the door’s sudden opening, and her face became fearful as she curled into a ball. “No! Go away!” the filly that was Twilight screamed. “Why won’t you leave me alone? I’m… I’m scared!” The Doctor slowly—carefully—approached Twilight, trying not to make his movements seem sudden or threatening. If she truly had no memory of any of this, then he had to tread carefully here. “Twilight, it’s me! The Doctor! Not a medical doctor, no, of course not! I’m a Time Lord!” Twilight stopped crying for a moment, and slowly turned her wide eyes up at the stallion standing over her. “T…Time… Lord…?” “Yes, the last one, as it happens!” the Doctor exclaimed, an idea forming in his mind. “I travel through time and space, looking and searching for other people… er, other ponies to help in their time of need. I’ve been all over the place; London, Rome, Ancient Egypt, Gallifrey… you name it!” “You’re… you’re a time traveler?” the filly asked, now sounding genuinely curious. ‘Yes! Appeal to the young, curious intellectual with science-y stuff, brilliant!’ he thought, grinning. “As a matter of fact, yes I am. Pleased to meet you, Twilight Sparkle.” ‘Again…’ “You… you even know my name!” Face, meet hoof. “Yes, I’ve been using your name for the last twenty minutes or so now…” Twilight now stood straight up, her look of fear diminishing even further as she studied the Doctor with amazement. “That big blue thing that was all cold and icey… was that your time machine?” The Doctor was fairly impressed; even as a filly, Twilight was a smart cookie. “Well! Aren’t you a sharp one! Yes, it is!” he replied, feeling somewhat proud of himself at the mention of the box. “It’s called the TARDIS. That is, ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Space’. Neat, eh?” “Wow… that’s… that’s cool!” “And even better; it can go anywhere, at anytime! Name a place, and I can bring you there! How’s that sound?” “Well… I… What about my mommy? I don’t think she’ll like it if I missed my bedtime…” “That’s the beauty of it, Twilight! We can spend months at a time in the TARDIS, and yet, can always go right back to your home, just in time for bed!” “Oh, wow! That’s sounds like fun! …But, um…” Twilight scuffed at the ground with her hoof. “But… I’m supposed to be studying… I really want to get into ‘Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns’, and then I’d learn to be really good at using magic… Like I’ve always wanted to be…” The Doctor stopped to think for a moment. If what he was being told was accurate… then this version of Twilight was from before she had gotten into the school she had talked about in the past. The fact that her usual cutie mark was absent only added to that notion. “Well then, never fear my dear. I can get you home, without a doubt! If you want, I could even take you to the school directly, it doesn’t matter!” Twilight looked at the Doctor with a wondering look, as if scanning him for any signs of dishonesty. “You’d… do that for me?” “Of course I would, Miss Twilight,” he replied, smiling. “We’re friends, after all.” “‘Friends’?” Twilight seemed perplexed by the word and its meaning. “What do I need friends for?” ‘…Ah, of course. Back then, she didn’t care much for the notion of ‘friendship’. Come to think of it, she didn’t seem to care much of it at all until she started living in Ponyville… At least, that’s what I’m told…’ “Well… how do I explain this?” The Doctor cleared his throat, and began. “Let’s say you’re at home one day, and you’re feeling lonely—” “But I never feel lonely… I have all my books to read!” “Yes, well, can you talk to books? Will they talk back? Can a book sense how you feel, and offer you support and comfort?” “…Well, they… they can…” She sighed. “No…” “Exactly. Books are just ink and paper; always telling you whatever someone else wants to say obliquely and without the personal touch, and nothing else. And books will repeat that message, over and over, for as long as they exist. But a friend can be there for you, no matter what. They’re willing to stand by your side and support you on whatever you might get yourself into. Maybe you need help with something; a friend can help you out with that, whatever it is. What if you have a problem that you can’t fix? Friends can help make it all better. Most importantly, friends are people—er, ponies that you can spend time with and have fun together. And best of all, they’ll never become repetitive or dull, like books.” “…” “…Am I making sense?” The Doctor sheepishly laughed as he rubbed a hoof on the back of his neck. “It’s not every day I have teach someone a lesson about camaraderie, or something of that variety, so… this is a bit new to me… Huh, how about that! I feel strangely fulfilled for some reason.” Twilight still looked a little bit unsure. “…Um… but… but what if nopony wants to be your friend?” ‘Oh, bugger. Not this again.’ “Er… well, that’s true, not every person, er… pony will want to be your friend… but no one ever said that making friends is easy!” “Other ponies are just crazy,” Twilight muttered, sticking out her tongue. “They never make any sense to me! Even you’re crazy, Mr. Time Lord.” “Crazy, you say? Well, I suppose that could be debated, but I won’t argue the point.” The Doctor paused for a beat, twirling his hoof and trying to think of some witty comparison. “Look at a friend this way… Do you know those insects that make their nests inside piles of dung?” “Uh… y-yes?” “Well, they’re nothing like that…” Twilight gave the Doctor a strange look. She couldn’t understand what the matter with this pony was; he seemed so bizarre! Did he even know what he was talking about sometimes? Although, she had to admit that it was kind of funny how he would talk and stuff. “M-Mr. Doctor, sir, why do you want to be my friend?” “Well, why wouldn’t I want to be? You’re a bright and… eh… charming little filly, and I would be simply honored to be your friend.” “But… why?” “Why what?” “Why am I a friend you should be ‘honored’ to have?” The question, like many other things that day, took the Time Lord off-guard. “Er… well… I… uh… um…” As much as it was needed for the Doctor to convince Twilight to return to the TARDIS, he could not give away any details about her future life. And though he could very fondly remember the first time that Twilight single-hoofedly took down roughly half-a-dozen Daleks (which, as it happened, was the first time that the unicorn had traveled through time and space with the Doctor), he wasn’t just going to say anything outright. But what would he say? “Because… er…” “Yes?” “Because… because, you… uh…” “Yeeeeesss?” “Because…” The Doctor swallowed deeply, and composed himself. After a moment, he weaved together a response. “Because… you have so much potential. There’s an awful lot of hidden power inside you, waiting for the time to come out, and… well, you know.” Twilight looked slightly confused, and yet, she was captivated at the same time. “There… is?” “Indeed.” “But… what kind of power?” The Time Lord raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Ah-ah… Spoilers.” To keep a long story (relatively) short, the Doctor managed to convince Twilight to come back with him to the ‘fancy time machine’. However, it was on the condition that Twilight be brought back ‘home’ to Canterlot, to which the Doctor replied by saying, “Sure, why not?” As the two of them made their way back to where the TARDIS was parked, the Doctor decided to tell a hoofful of loose tales of his past adventures. “…And then we discovered that it wasn’t the robot king after all, it was the real one. Fortunately, I was able to reattach the head…” However, as quite a few of the Doctor’s tales were to some degree of disturbing, Twilight was more than a little mortified by the time they actually arrived at the TARDIS. “…of course, this invariably resulted in that planet becoming uninhabitable for possibly thousands of years, which is somewhat harsh I think, but—Oh! We’re here!” Walking up to the crest of the hill, the Doctor placed a hoof on the side of the police box, and patted it gently. “Well, here we are Miss Twilight! The TARDIS awaits!” Twilight, who had being following close behind until now, approached the front end of the time machine and marveled at it. “It’s… really big… and blue…” “Well, yeah, she is.” The Doctor shrugged, and couldn’t help but grin a little bit. His TARDIS, by all things considered, wasn’t the most powerful or technologically-advanced model ever made by Time Lords, but it was his own. Or rather, one could say that he belonged to the TARDIS. (Long story, don’t ask.) And that was enough. It was still something to be proud of. “So, Miss Twilight, shall we go inside?” “Why do you keep calling me ‘Miss’?” the little unicorn inquired curiously. “I’m not some old pony! I’m Twilight! Why are you always talking like that?” The Time Lord clicked his tongue, remembering the typical ‘question this, ask about that’ attitude that Twilight had. Even as a filly, she simply must ask even the most mundane question. Of course, that may have been because she was trying to weed as much info as possible out of him back when she was… spying on him. After a moment, he finally replied with, “Ah… just force of habit, I suppose.” In truth, ever since his twelfth regeneration, he made it a policy of referring to all women (or in this case, mares) as Miss ‘Insert-Name-Here’. As curious as it seemed to him, he thought that nicknames (or even just names themselves) were informal and showed too much involvement in their personal lives. He also thought it was polite. …Oh, wait, he already referred to Twilight by first name only, didn’t he? Several times? Curses. He must have become too involved, then. Deciding not to dwell on this matter too much, the Doctor opened the door of the police box, and ushered the mare-turned-filly inside. “Fillies first, Miss Twilight.” “Umm… o-okay.” Without complaints, Twilight slowly trod into the TARDIS, and the Doctor followed hurriedly after. As he was closing the door and locking it behind them, he breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, he had contained Twilight within the TARDIS. Now, he could at last rest for a while. Once he figured out a way to revert Twilight back to her normal, present-day self… well, then everything will be candy and apples. Not pears, though. Egh. “Colgate, don’t you even dare…” The Doctor stopped cold. Who spoke just now? The voice, it was somewhat familiar, but… surely it couldn’t be? He spun towards the center of the control room, and gaped. There were no less than THREE ponies—all mares—around the central console. “Mr. Doctor… who are those ponies?” Twilight asked innocently, for once asking a decent question. The Doctor shook his head. “Frankly, I’d like to know myself…” “Don’t worry, we have all the time in the world. We could be gone for months, and yet, for everypony in Ponyville it would only be a few minutes!” The pony that just spoke was one that the Doctor didn’t recognize. She was a blue-coated unicorn with a mane that was half-white and half-blue. She appeared to be in some kind of argument with another pony. “HOW many times must I repeat myself? No. Way. In. Tartarus. I’m warning you Col, if you pull that lever…” Wait a moment, wasn’t that Carrot Top? What was she doing here? And for that matter, what was Derpy doing here also? Why were they all here?! And why was that unicorn reaching for… oh god, she wouldn’t. She couldn't possibly be that stupid. “Oooh, I think my hoof is slipping…” “DON’T!” “Oh Carrot, you need to live a little.” “Colgate, I’m begging you, don’t do it!” The Doctor was stunned. Three separate ponies had practically invaded his TARDIS, and now that blue unicorn (Colgate, apparently?) was reaching out for the master dematerialization switch. Were they insane? Didn’t they even realize what this place was? “…OKAY! FINE! I GIVE! You win, okay?! Time machines are real, okay!? Now can we PLEASE just leave?!” …Apparently, they did realize what this place was. Well, that just made them all the more foolhardy. The earth pony seemed sensible enough to try and convince the unicorn to cease her idiocy, but it appeared to be a lost cause. “You don’t mean that. You’re just scared.” “Ugh, of course I am! And do you know why?!” Now, the Doctor figured, would be a good time to step in. “Alright then, I’ll humor you. Why?” “Because—” “Because the Doctor is in.” The three mares at the control panel flinched, and slowly turned towards him. He could see the sudden shock and fear in their eyes, and he knew that they knew that there was no easy way out of this. In response, the Doctor simply glared at them. And as he did, he asked but one simple question. “So. Which one of you lot is going to explain yourself before I need to get a tad upset?”