//------------------------------//
// Chapter Four 
// Story: The Fantastic Adventures of Dr. Whooves: The Changeling Princess 
// by The-Pony-Librarian 
//------------------------------//

For a minute Twilight did nothing, just laying on the cold floor of the time machine in a heap and heaving deep, panting breaths. Finally, her vision stopped swimming, and the purple unicorn staggered to her feet and in the general direction of the door.
"Twilight! Twilight what are you doing?" a brown pony lunged after her, blocking her way.
"Saving my friends!"  Twilight's violet eyes flashed as she tried to push past him.
"Twilight you aren't thinking clearly. There are probably hundreds of royal guards surrounding the TARDIS right now, you can't just charge out there. It would be suicide."
"Watch me." she spat "I have magic. I'll be fine. I need to save my friends!"
"We both very well know that if you had magic you would have used it to get past me by now" the Doctor said matter-of-factly "I'm no unicorn expert, but it seems to me that magic requires energy, and energy has to come from somewhere. I doubt you're in a fit state to do much of anything at the moment"
"Don't you get it?" Twilight, fell back to the ground and then staggered determinedly to her hooves once more "If she wanted to kill my friends before, she's a thousand times more likely to now that I've escaped! And if you think I'm going to sit back and rest when the ponies I love are in danger than you have another thing coming! Do you think I care about getting hurt? I don't give a flying feather about royal guards or any of that. My. Friends. Need me. and..and if you think I- I- How do you think I could live myself if I let them get hurt? How?!"
She sat down heavily, as if all the energy had been drained from her, blinking back tears.
"I..." Twilight said softly, answering her own question "I wouldn't be able to"
She was the element of magic after all, the element that couldn't exist without the others. Pinkie AJ, Dash, Shy, Rarity, Spike.....they meant the world to her. More than the world.
"Twilight" the Doctor said, looking straight into her eyes "I'm the Doctor, I've traveled through all of space and time, I've saved hundreds of worlds and countless more lives, and we will get your friends back. That I can promise"
"Pinkie Pie swear?" The words slipped out unbidden, a product of months of habit. Twilight looked down, feeling foalish.
"Whot?" the Doctor said, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side
Twilight shook her head, embarassed "Nothing. It's not a big deal"
"What! No, you can't just leave it at that! You've got to tell me now!" The doctor protested
Twilight shook her head a bit more, face reddening
"C'mon!" the Doctor prompted
"It's something Pinkie taught us, for promises" Twilight finally said "You know, cross your heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in your eye"  She did the motions, chest cross, foreleg flap, close eye, then hoof "I guess it's just kind of second nature now..."
She trailed off, The doctor was talking
"Well Twilight, in that case, I Pinkie Pie swear that I will get your friends back. Cross my hearts, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye" Brown hooves copied her movements from earlier, chest cross, foreleg flap, close eye, then hoof.
A small smile formed on Twilight's face. She didn't know what to say.
Whatever frustrations she might have had with the Doctor, she knew right then that he was a good pony. Strange, confusing, infuriating, but undeniably and wholeheartedly good.
And she believed him.
Slowly, Twilight started to get to her hooves, pushing herself from the ground.
"Twilight I wouldn't do that If I were you-"
The world spin sickeningly, blackness overtook the purple mare's vision, and she slumped back to the floor, consciousness fleeing as.....wait....did he say hearts?!
Sense came back to Twilight slowly. She was on the ground. Why? She had fainted! Yes, yes that was it! What had happened? She couldn't remember yet....Probably one of her crazy adventures, that meant that her friends were probably there. She should get up, they would worried about her...Except Rainbow dash. Twilight could just picture her typical insensitive reaction of "Geez I thought you were dead" and then Rarity smacking her for being so impolite. The thought amused her, her friends could be such nuts sometimes. She really should be getting up now though.... she shifted her hooves experimentally. Ohh....maybe AJ had some apples! She could really go for some apples right no-
"Sparkle, are you awake?" a familiar voice interrupted
The surreal bubble of Twilight's half-conscious state popped. 
"Please tell me I'm still dreaming" She mumbled, lifting her head slightly and blinking bleary eyes at the TARDIS interior and the brown pony in front of her.
"Oh! You are awake! I thought I heard you moving around a bit" The Doctor said brightly "Everything back in working order? I would ask you how many fingers I'm holding up...but, you know...hooves."
He turned around, and began to shuffle through an assortment of random items from a compartment in the floor, 
"You know, Usually it's me who's passing out all over the place after a regeneration it's a bit weird having it the other way around. Not that I'm complaining....dying is usually such a pain with all the coughing up golden smoke and strange cravings and the like...." He shook his head "But, like I was saying, this time I've had none of that.Probably because the change to this pony body was so massive...used all that pesky extra regenerative energy right up!" 
He smiled at Twilight, who just stared at him blankly "....What?"
The Doctor just laughed and continued on "In any case, you should probably eat something. Now I knew I had a package of biscuts around there somewhere"
He continued to rummage, casting aside an assortment of strange items in the process. 
"Wait a second..." Twilight said "Why are you wearing my saddlebags?"
"Oh, Sorry" the Doctor said "Hope you don't mind that I borrow them for a bit. I should probably keep the Sonic on hand...or hoof... and, unfortunately, I seem to lack pockets. Also, I think it looks rather fetching, don't you?"
Twilight face hoofed "Sure, whatever"
After a few more minutes of digging the Doctor finally exclaimed triumphantly, holding out a package to the unicorn.
Twilights eyes widened, and she snatched up the box eagerly "Are those Jockey Dodgers?"
The jam filled biscuits had always been a favorite of Celestia's, and after being given one as a filly, Twilight had loved them ever since.
"Jockey what?...oh wait...I get it!" He chucked, shaking his head "Jockey, horses....Jockey dodgers! That is too funny!"
Twilight looked up, a confused look on her face and a Jammie Dodger in her mouth.
"They're called Jammie Dodgers where I come from" The doctor chuckled again "Honestly, these horse puns just crack me up.....are most things in the universe Ponyfied.... for a lack of a better word?"
Twilight looked even more confused than before "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Hmm..." The doctor hummed musingly, trying to figure out how to explain it before finally opting to give an example instead "Here...List the names of some cities for me"
Still unsure where this was going, Twilight said "Well, there's Canterlot, Manehattan, Los Pegasas, Neigh Orleans, Salt Lick City, Tampa Neigh" Having named a good amount of nearby cities, she went more forgein "then theres Manechester, Trottingham.... Mareis?"
She looked up questioningly, before giving an angry huff at the Doctor's bout of laughter "Really, I don't see what's so funny about this!"
"Sorry, sorry" The Doctor  was still chuckling, but he held up his hooves in a placating gesture "You see, where I come from, all these places have different names, similar, but different. Too see all these names, replaced with things all having to do with horses" another snort of laughter "It's really quite amusing"
Twilights expression changed from annoyance to curiosity "What are the names of your cities then?"
"Well lets see.." The Doctor said, taking a second to remember all the cities she had listed "there's Manhattan, Los Vegas, New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Tampa Bay, Manchester, Nottingham, Paris"
"That's amazing!" Twilight said, munching another biscuit "Where do you come from anyways?"
"Well, all these cities I just listed were from Earth, but I myself come from somewhere else" The Doctor paused "But...That's a different story"
"And ponies lived on Earth too?" Twilight asked, Lavender eyes brimming with inquisitiveness
"No, no" The Doctor said "The beings that lived on Earth were humans, apelike creatures, bipedal, no hair except on the top of their heads.... Quite similar to ponies in mannerisms though, as far as I've seen"
"So you...used to be a human being?" The unicorn tried to imagine what they would look like, but couldn't quite picture it.
"Naw, just looked like one" The doctor said "Or rather, they looked like me. Timelords came first"
"So you're a... Timelord" Twilight said slowly. Once again, getting a clear answer from the eccentric stallion was like pulling teeth. 
"Or I guess it could be Timepony now..." The Doctor chuckled "Doesn't really have the same ring to it. But anyways, how are you feeling? Not everyday you pass out on the floor of a time machine and all, but I take it you're in working order? I've only been exposed to pony anatomy for five or so hours now, so I'm going to have to rely on you to self diagnose any injuries..."
"Better" Twilight replied, after her impromptu nap, and some biscuits, she was feeling a lot less light headed then she paused, eyes shrinking " Wait...five hours?! How long was I out?"
"Oh around three, maybe four hours" The Doctor said casually "Roughly of course, I'm not the best at keeping track of time"
"What!?" Twilight squawked "By now something already could have-"
"Oh hush!" The Doctor said, fiddling with the controls "I said she was a time machine didn't I?"
The interior of the TARDIS rumbled around a bit, and the doctor announced "Now we are outside the Canterlot Hedge maze at approximately the time we entered the TARDIS earlier, no time lost...and actually some gained now that I think of it"
"Canterlot Maze?"
"She mentioned it during her evil rant" the Docter said "Why do villains do that anyways?"
"Good catch" Twilight said, though she wasn't as detail oriented as Rarity, she usually noticed those things... considering how furious she had been at the time, a slip up wasn't out of the question.
The Doctor helped her to her hooves saying "Well, there's no time to lose....GERONI- no....no. That catchphrase getting old....Tally-ho? Maybe....Bonzai? Too tree-ish....Maybe Allons-y, I always liked Allons-y, but I really can't stand to reuse a catchphrase...."
"Allons-y?" Twilight asked, it sounded familiar.
"French for let's go"  the Doctor said
Twilights eyebrows wrinkled before she remembered France was she same thing as Prance, or...to be more accurate...his version of Prance "Ohhh!....Although, if you really want a new catchphrase or whatever, you could go with C'est Parti" She said pronouncing the foreign words like Say-par-tee "It means let's go in French as well"
"C'est Parti? No, no, no" The Doctor shook his head, making a face "It's got to roll of the tongue, not just sit there in your mouth like a lump of bricks. Your catchphrase is bad, and you should feel bad"
Twilight just rolled her eyes, huffing "C'mon Doctor, you can criticize my catchphrase suggestion later. Let's go"
They pushed open the TARDIS doors and walked up to the maze.
"This is really the perfect place keep someone prisoner" Twilight noted "You can't teleport inside it, because it's is constantly changing, creating virtually no landmarks"
"So you're saying we'll have to do this the old fashioned way" The Doctor said
Twilight nodded "We'll have to be careful, the Maze will try to separate us, confuse us, and Celestia knows what else... it was designed to be as challenging as possible"
They both stepped into the entrance of the hedge labyrinth, and Twilight held her breath, waiting for the inevitable activation of the animation magic hidden within the leaves and stems of the foliage walls.... Nothing happened.
"Well." She said, starting to walk towards a branching pathway "that went better than expected. If we follow a methodical pattern then we should be able to-oh......oh ponyfeathers"
As if triggered by her optimism, a barrier had sprung up, closing off the pathway she had just stepped into.
"Sparkle?" Came a voice from the other side of the barrier "Wasn't this what you were talking about?"
"Yes." Twilight growled, silently cursing whoever had come up with the idea of a magical, malicious, moving maze. "Well....I guess we should try to continue forward. Try to get to the center as fast as we can."
"Can do!"
Hearing the doctor's hoofbeats moving away, Twilight galloped off as well. Remembering the surefire method to get through a maze, she stuck to the left wall, running alongside it at full speed.
She ran for quite a while before she saw the first guard. The maze had widened out into a slightly larger chamber with many branching pathways, and standing in the middle was a huge stallion in armour. 
Twilight skidded to a halt at the end of a corridor directly behind the guard, frozen in uncertainty. Her body took that moment of pause to wreak retribution for the long run, sides and lungs burning furiously. She stood like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide, heart pounding. Suddenly, a hoof pulled her into a side corridor, dragging her back and well out of sight of the guard.
"Pinkie!" Twilight whispered ecstatically "How did you?"
But the pink mare simply put a hoof to his mouth in a shushing gesture and motioned for her to follow him. They made a few turns, then came out into another slightly wider (but thankfully empty) area.
"We should be a safe distance to talk now..." Pinkie said "I escaped Twilight! I need your help to free our friends!"
Twilight stopped trotting, slowing down. something wasn't right, something she couldn't put her hoof on. Pinkie walked up to her, looking at her curiously.
Walked. Didn't bounce, or skip...walked.
This situation, like fat free ice cream and those so called "Spill-proof" inkpots...was too good to be true.
Her eyes narrowed and, springing, she pinned the phony-Pinkie against the hedge wall.
"I know you're a fake, so you might as well show yourself" She growled, leveling her horn at it. "Or will we have to do this the hard way?" Her magic was most likely still weak, but she doubted the changeling would call her bluff.
The creature writhed, changing back into it's usual buglike form. It hissed at her evilly, then squirmed out of her grasp and away. 
Twilight was a bright pony, so she could guess what had happened. They didn't know how powerful her magic was, and they didn't want to risk her overpowering the guards, so the changeling Doctor had been sent to lure her into a trap.
After the Doctor helped her escape last time, they were probably unsure of his abilities as well...
Which meant...
Which meant the Doctor was in trouble.
Flying feathers!" Twilight growled. She got the impression that the Doctor had been on quite a lot of adventures, but that didn't change the fact that he had never tangled with a changeling before.
They weren't on the attack either...they would be easier to deal with if they weren't trying to deceive.
She made a noise of frustration in her throat, but that didn't change the fact she felt obliged to keep the Doctor from being lured into a trap. He was trying to help her save her friends after all.
She needed to think. Think and pace, think and pace. Maybe her books had something...but they were all in her saddlebags......her saddlebags!
Unicorn's teleportation has very specific limitations, under usual circumstances, a unicorn has to be able to see the place it wants to teleport to, or at the very least be familiar with (this is why it is impossible to teleport into the labyrinth) and generally, the further the place, the more difficult the teleportation. Sometimes, under great stress, unicorns can teleport very long distances to unfamiliar places, but this is thought to be a defense mechanism triggered by adrenaline surges, and thus very unreliable. Similar limitations are also in place for teleporting objects or ponies, and it is highly difficult to teleport an object you cannot see unless you have some sort of magical link to it. In fact, if they weren't being shielded, and if she was more recovered Twilight could teleport her friends. They were linked as elements of harmony.
The spell Twilight put on her saddlebags served as a sort of magical "tag" or reference point, allowing her to sense them with her magic, and therefore teleport them from anywhere.... 
This magical connection also meant it could serve as a landmark in the ever changing maze.
Twilight concentrated, reaching out her magic to her saddlebags, and latched onto the magical marker. There was a pop of light, and she was gone.
The next instant, the purple unicorn was flung forcibly into a pony. 
"Doctor!" She said, getting to her hooves "Changelings!"
She found herself staring into a pair of eyes, the same exact hue as hers, narrowed suspiciously. She balked in surprise before realizing that it was obvious the princess would send a clone of her. The Changeling wouldn't know if the Doctor knew any of Twilight's friends. Regardless, the carbon copy or herself caught the unicorn off guard, and she stumbled before regaining her words
"She's a fake!" They both cried at the same time, pointing to eachother with identical hooves. Two identical heads turned to the Doctor.
"No!" They both cried, looking to the Doctor, before looking back at each other, eyes wide "I'm not the fake, she is!"
Twilight blanched, this changeling was a better actor than the one who tried to fool her....the Princess had obviously taken special care to study her behavior. Even so, how did it copy her words so precisely?
She narrowed her eyes at her facsimile, which did the same.
"Dewey decimal system!" they both shouted simultaneously, the two clones then stomped their front left hoof in frustration at their trick not working. They looked at each other again, neither making a peep.
"Ponythagorian therom!" they cried suddenly, trying to surprise their double and once again failing
"Pinkie sense!"
"Starswirl the Bearded!"
"Grand...... Galloping......Apple Fritters!"
Both growled in irritation at the failure of what they surely thought was a fail-safe trick.
"Angel Bunny is kind of a brat!" Both shouted in a last ditch attempt at fooling the other.
Twilight reeled, how could the changeling be copying her so perfectly?
Unless... She closed her eyes, detecting magical auras around her required no energy, and sure enough, the Changeling was employing a passive mind probing spell. Nothing fancy, just enough to get a good impression of what someone was going to do, slightly before they did it. 
Twilight made an angry noise in the back of her throat, annoyance increasing as her double did the same. She had already used enough magic teleportng over here, and she didn't think she would be able to manage even a simple spell. That meant employing a mental shield was out of the question.
Both she and her clone turned to the Doctor, violet eyes pleading.
He looked at both of them, then took the Sonic Screwdriver out of Twilight's saddlebags and pointed it directly at Twilight, eyes cold.
"I know you're the changeling" he said "So don't even bother trying to talk your way out of it"
Twilight backed up, tripping and falling onto her backside against a hedge.
"You see this?" the Doctor said to her, wiggling the instrument pointed at her "This is a Sonic Screwdriver. You try to escape and tell that little princess of yours and you will be dead in an instant"
Twilight's eyes widened, she had thought that thing just opened doors! Horn  fizzled weakly as she attempted to and failed to create a shield
The Doctor spotted the attempt "I don't know what you just tried there" he said cooly "But I suggest you don't do it again" The tip of the screwdriver moved closer to her, nearly resting up against her forehead.
"I'll take that thank you very much!" a voice that sounded just like Twilight's said. With a greedy smirk the changeling plucked the Sonic Screwdriver out of the Doctor's grasp.
"That was too easy!" Pseudo-Twilght said "The Princess will be so pleased when she learns I killed you two myself" 
There was a green glow, a whirring noise and....and laughter.
"The look on your face" The Doctor gasped, still chuckling in between words "Was too priceless...but I'll give you some advice. Never steal from the Doctor"
Plucking the Sonic Screwdriver from the false Twilight's hoof, the Doctor gave it a gentle push backwards through into the offshoot of the pathway beside them, the changeling stumbling backwards through the opening then looking up and giving an alien shriek of anger as the hedges closed off in front of it.
Twilight made a noise akin to Winona's squeaky toy, breaking out in a giant grin. Then she shook her head and got to her hooves. "How did you know it would do that?"
"Hunch" the Doctor said breezily "From what you said, and how it separated us in the beginning, it appeared that the hedge will attempt to divide any group of ponies that are together, so all I had to do was make it easy for it to do, ergo, pushing it into the gap"
"And you knew it wasn't me the whole time?"
"Also a hunch...you were a lot less prickly that per norm" He laughed as Twilight rolled her eyes, judiciously ignoring the comment "....but I figured the changeling clone couldn't resist getting it's hooves on a supposedly lethal weapon so I used that as a basis of a more sure-fire test"
"And the sonic screwdriver is completely harmless" she said
"Indeed. Unless you happen to be a machine which..." The Doctor poked her in the ribs, eliciting a squeak and a glare "I don't think you are. By the way, what brought you here anyways?"
"A clone of you came and attempted to fool me." Twilight said "I figured it out pretty quickly, but it slipped away. Then I came to try and warn you"
"So this changeling that tried to trick you..." The Doctor said "It escaped."
Twilight nodded "probably to warn the Princess that we are in the maaaa- We should probably run shouldn't we?"
"Good girl!" The Doctor said, and he and Twilight bolted off.