Prologue
An exhausted earth pony stallion trudged across the metallic floor, his hoof-falls echoing ominously in the domed chamber. The pony was struggling now. Each movement he made was becoming more and more taxing. He lifted a shaking hoof and pulled a lever on the central console, and the room lurched as TARDIS engaged its flight.
Sweat was beginning to pour off of the pony now. Despite all the time he had been through this, it still hurt. It always hurt. His vision flashed white and he collapsed to the floor, twitching with the torment that would save his life. Save his life. Well in a manner of speaking that was correct, but he would still be gone, nothing more than a memory of a life in another pony.
He pushed himself to his hooves, casting his gaze about the TARDIS, his TARDIS, for the final time. Tears began to moisten the corners of his eyes. He’d never them again… all his friends, his companions… not with these eyes. Before they could fall, his tears evaporated, rising in motes of golden light.
“I…I don’t want to go…”
Energy tore free of the stallion’s body, channeled through his face and fore-hooves. A powerful scream tore from his throat. There was fire. Explosions. Something was wrong. Columns fell. The TARDIS shook as it exited the time vortex, falling through space, hurtling back towards the Equestrian surface.
The energy subsided, and lying crumpled on the floor was the Last of Time Turners. His tan coat was now a dull slate, his spikey brown mane transformed into a flowing black.
“Oh… Oh blimey, who am I? What am I? Oh, this all so new!” The pony exclaimed as he examined his hooves, “Ooo lookie here, I’ve still got you my pretty little hooves. I love hooves, who doesn’t love hooves? Things with hands maybe… but hands? Ha! Who needs ‘em? I don’t!”
The pony pumped a hoof in the air triumphantly, oblivious to ruinous state of his vehicle.
“And look at this mane, I got hair for days! Oh I’ll need to buy more shampoo, there was always this one in Equestria that made just the right kind of bubbles. Maybe I can ditch the pomade though, sleek over spikey! New Doctor, new mane!”
An almighty explosion rocked the TARDIS as it streaked through the Equestrian sky like, falling like a blue meteorite. Suddenly there was a loud “Foomf!” sound. The TARDIS punched through a layer of the Cloudsdale residential district, leaving a distinct hole in the sturdy cloud’s surface. Whether the regeneration addled Doctor realized it or not, the cloud had slowed his decent just enough for the TARDIS to make an entirely ungraceful but definitely survivable crash-landing.
“First floor. Parking.” The Doctor said as he giggled to himself.
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A lantern clicked on, throwing the walls of the little tent into sharp relief.
“Did you hear that, Flutters?” A voice drifted out of one of the two squishy sleeping bags. Specifically the one with the unruly tuft of rainbow colored mane sticking out of the top.
“Y-yeah…Wh-what do you think it was?” Replied the other sleeping bag, its voice quivering.
The head of a cyan filly popped forth from the first sleeping bag as the young pony moved into a sitting position. “We should check it out!” The little filly said excitedly.
“But what if it’s dangerous, Dashie?” The head of a buttery yellow filly with a flowing pink mane that partially obscured her face became visible as she mirrored her friend’s posture.
“Pfft, there’s nothing I can’t handle out there. Beside it’s, like, the perfect thing to do during a backyard campout. We can go explore, awesome right?” Rainbow was already hallway out of her sleeping bag now, wiggling a bit to free her flanks from the poofy confines.
“O-okay…” The yellow filly climbed out of her bag, having some difficulty extricating her too long legs, but by virtue of some natural grace she was able to climb out without as much trouble as her friend. The friend in question was failing to find any traction with her back hooves and with a grunt of effort flipped forward, performed an unintentional summersault, and rolled into the tent’s wall.
“Meant to do that...” The cyan filly grumbled, while her friend covered her mouth with a fore-hoof to politely to hide her smile.
Before long the pair emerged from their tent and made their way through the quite backyard. Rainbow Dash carried in her teeth the lantern from the tent, shining its light around the deserted landscape in order to check for monsters, wild beasts, or grown-ups. Fluttershy followed close behind her friend, more than once bumping into her flank when the cyan filly had stopped short.
During once such incident Fluttershy murmured a quiet “I’m sorry,” only to be shushed by her friend. Fluttershy shot her Rainbow a pleading look, but the filly only pointed ahead with an outstretched hoof. Fluttershy gasped, there ahead of her in the clouds was a hole. Not just a little hole that a foal would dig in the clouds for fun, but a real honest-to-Celestia hole that went straight through Clouldsdale.
“Oh…oh my,” the yellow filly managed as her companion too the opportunity to edge closer to the hole.
“There’s something down there, all the way down, on the ground,” Rainbow voice began to grow excited, the gleam of adventure shining in her eyes.
“Oh no… please Dashie, no…” Fluttershy began to plead, taking a reflexive step back.
“Oh come on, it’ll be fun, and I don’t want to go alone…” A sudden idea popped into her rainbow adorned head, “If you do this for me I’ll go see the next five migra-whatsit things you were going on about with you.”
Fluttershy gasped, her eyes going wide with excitement, “The butterfly migration! They… they only come around every few years… You’d do that?”
Rainbow Dash gave her friend a playful nudge. “Yup! And all you gotta do is come with me to check that thing out.”
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The pair of fillies made their way down through the hole in the clouds, with Fluttershy resting on a miniature cloud chariot which was being expertly lowered by Dash. Fluttershy was still having trouble flying in thinner air of Cloudsdale, so the two friends had worked out this little system as a way they could visit Fluttershy’s animal friends on the surface. Except they usually did that during the day… and they usually told their parents where they were going.
Before long the object they were seeking came into view. It looked like a…blue box?
“Wh-what do you think it is?” Fluttershy asked timidly.
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out!” Dash said as she lowered her companion the final few hundred feet.
As the cloud touched down, Fluttershy extended a shaky foreleg and tested the grassy surface. She let out sigh of relief and began to smile, happy to be back on terra firma. The shy filly fluttered her wings and hopped off her little vehicle. Dash gave her friend a little smile, the cyan filly never quite understood Fluttershy’s love of the ground but the timid filly’s good mood was always contagious.
However their good mood was short lived. A sound like the tolling of a deep bell sounded from within the blue box. The fillies looked at exchanged looks. They approached the box together, and despite her earlier bluster, even Dash couldn’t help but shake a little.
The pair heard a hinge squeak, stopping them dead in their tracks. Suddenly a puff of smoke rose from the interior of the rectangular box and out popped the head of a grey stallion.
“Oh, hello there! Do you have an apple?”