Chapter six
In which the greatest nerdy-joke-off of all time takes place, and the Doctor is subjected to much humiliation
"Aquatic air-proof shield spell" She read aloud "Allows easy breathing as well as keeping you dry, perfect for....." she paused "underwater sightseeing trips"
Twilight could help but chuckle dryly, an underwater sightseeing trip wasn't exactly what she had in mind...
her eyes quickly flicked over the rest of the page, absorbing the changes she would have to make to the spell until she was confident she had them correct and memorized.
"Alright" she said "I think I've got it"
"Great!" the Doctor said brightly "The sooner we get out of here, the better"
Twilight stepped up to the TARDIS door, gritting her teeth as the full realization of what she was about to do really sank in. She was about to step into a giant pool of acid protected only by her sheild spell, which, if she lost focus or overexerted herself, would burst like a soap bubble.
She pondered briefly what an awful way to die that would be. It was up there on her list of most unpleasant, right up with drowning, being trapped in a small space until she starved to death, and being burned alive. She imagined it would be something like being drowned and burned to death at the same time...
But she had friends who needed her. She would be brave.
The purple unicorn opened the doors with her magic, putting a small shield about the door frame just in case. As she slipped through it, part of the spell engulfed her like a bubble, breaking off from the spell around the door as she emerged from the TARDIS. Using her telekinesis, Twilight turned herself to face the TARDIS, trying not to look at anything else. Then she began to slowly expand the bubble around the blue machine, concentrating hard. This was the delicate part, if she lost her focus now, all her shields could fracture into nothing. Twilight took slow deep breaths as the magical bubble slowly enveloped the TARDIS, trying not to let her thoughts wander. Through the door she could see the Doctor trying to give his best thumbs up sign with hooves and failing awfully at it. Twilight rolled her eyes. Way to help with the whole "no distractions" thing, Doc.
Finally, the TARDIS was completely encased in a glowing magenta bubble. Twilight gave a weak smile, the hard part was done. Reaching out with her mind, she had the shield mold itself with the outside of the blue ship and felt the pressure of maintaining the barrier slowly diminish as it was supported not only by the incredibly strong division between two spaces that the TARDIS wall represented but by the protections that were already in place on the machine as well.
Within minutes, it had absorbed into the very structure so much that Twilight didn't need to maintain it at all, like the permanent shield and protection spells she had in place all over the library. The unicorn blinked, she had intended for the spell to be temporary, but it seemed like the magic had made itself at home. She shrugged, a shield from magical attack would probably come in handy anyways.
Twilight self-levitated back over to the TARDIS door, grinning. The purple unicorn could still feel the magic tingling through her veins. She loved the way powerful spells washed through her, making her feel alive. Maybe that was why she loved magic so much, it was the one thing about herself she could truly be confident in. Twilight embraced the new energy her magic had lent her.
As her hooves met the metal of the floor, she gave a little bow.
"Tada"
The Doctor shot a grin in return from the console.
"So, we getting out of here?" She said, trotting over.
"Patience, dear Sparky" The Doctor chided jokingly, tapping away at a myriad of buttons and stitches "Think of the poor TARDIS. How would you like to be dunked in digestive juices and then told to hurry up?"
"Actually, I think being dunked in digestive juices would be a motive to hurry up"
"Touche`" the brown stallion paused, the TARDIS gave a rumble "Here we are!"
As Twilight slowly pushed open the door she said musingly "Whats stopping the Scarisprites from just eating it again?"
"Oh! That reminds me!" The Doctor pressed a couple of buttons and turned a switch.
"The Hostile Action Displacement System is turned on now" He said brightly "If the Scarisprites try anything now, it will automatically teleport away"
"That would have been convenient earlier" Twilight muttered dryly.
"Isn't everything?" The Doctor responded blithely as he followed her out of the blue box "what are you smirking about?"
"Told you we would get out" The purple unicorn said, just a hint of smugness in the voice "What are you smirking about"
"Your hair" the Timepony replied matter-of-factly.
In the couple of hours since she had departed the library that morning, Twilight's neatly groomed mane had evolved into a frizzy, cow-licked mess, complete with small objects tangled inside like the nest of a bower bird.
The unicorn pulled a pocket mirror from her saddlebag, and flipped it open, eyes widening a fraction as she saw herself. With a quick spell, her hair returned to it's smooth state.
"Hmph" She huffed "At least my mane is usually neat. Your's looks like it might escape into the wilderness to rejoin it's wild brethren at any moment"
She began skirting around the doctor as if his hair were a wild animal, talking in her best impression of the iconic accent of the pegasus crocodile hunter, Steve Irwing.
"And here we have one of the most dangerous and elusive creatures of the ponyville wilds.....When provoked, it can be deadly, striking with unerring accuracy....."
She poked his mane with a hoof, and it immediately sprang back into place with a curious poofing noise.
"It's angry!"
The Doctor gave a snort of laughter as they walked from the field by the Everfree, where the TARDIs had landed, to Ponyville square, where Twilight had decided the best place to set up the spell would be "Very funny." he said wryly "To think you were so uptight when I first met you....I must be rubbing off on you"
"I was not uptight!" Twilight huffed
"Oh yes you were. The first time you made a joke, I wondered if I was hearing things"
The purple unicorn pulled herself up, affronted "I make jokes!" she said "I'll have you know that I know the most nerd jokes of anypony I've met"
"Oh, yes?" the Doctor asked "because I'm pretty sure I know more. How often do you tell chemistry jokes?"
"Periodically." Twilight replied "I even told a chemistry joke the other day..."
"There was no reaction" the Doctor finished "What's the most cheerful part of cell division?"
"The smileyphase. How can you tell when light is happy?"
"It waves" The Doctor answered "Why did the beaker go to college?"
"He wanted to become a graduated cylinder" Twilight said smugly "Never trust an atom...."
"They make up everything. Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar..."
"And doesn't. If you aren't part of the solution..."
"You're part of the precipitate" They were on a roll now "A neutron walks into a bar and orders something, how much does his drink cost"
"No charge. An atom tells his buddy he's lost an electron, to which his friend replies..."
"Are you positive?" The Doctor said with a smirk" Gold walks into a party uninvited..."
"The host then yells, 'Au. Get out!'" Twilight laughed " These are really too easy. Why are helium, curium and barium called the medical elements?"
"Because if you can't helium or curium, you barium. Two cats on a sloped plane, which one slides down first?"
"The one with the lower mew. What's the difference between a cat and a comma?"
"Oohh, a grammar joke, clever" The Doctor said "One has claws at the end of it's paws and the other has a pause at the end of it's clause. Why couldn't the sea sponge go out with the vertebrate?"
"His parents wouldn't allow him to Chordate." Twilight smiled. That was one of her favorites "An electron gets pulled over for speeding, and the cop asks him if he knew how fast he was going, the electron replies..."
"No, but I know where I am" The Doctor completed the joke "Newton, Pascal, and Einstein play a game of hide and seek. Einstein is it, pascal hides, and newton draws a square meter on the ground and stands in it. When Einstein tells Newton he's found him, Newton replies"
"No, You've found Pascal" She told the joke with Einstallion, Neighton, and Ponyscal, but she had picked up the Doctor's humanized speech fairly quickly "Argon walks into a bar and is told to get out because there were no noble gasses allowed"
"Argon doesn't react. There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary..."
"Binary?" The purple unicorn asked, blinking.
"Oh! I forgot, you ponies don't have computers yet" The Doctor said brightly "Guess I win!"
"No fair!" Twilight huffed, before pausing "...Have you noticed that this entire time we've been walking, we haven't seen a single Scarisprite?"
"Now that you mention it....no. It makes sense though. Now that they think that we, the biggest threat to them, are out of the way, they've spread out to go search for food. They're opportunistic feeders, so right now they are probably making use of the most abundant and easy to access food source, the plentiful vegetation of the Everfree. They're still wary of ponies, so unless those ponies are an active threat to them, like we were, they won't bother trying to tangle with them until their other food is either completely depleted, or more likely, their numbers grow so much that there won't be enough room for all of them at their current location, and they will have to expand outward to other places and make use of the food sources there"
Twilight tilted her head in bemusement "Then why were you so worried?"
"Because, if my math is correct, they will outgrow the Everfree in about three hours"
Twilight blanched "Three hours?!"
"But, since we are no longer trapped, and you have the spell, there shouldn't be any reason to panic. There should be time"
"Are you sure?" Twilight said "Three hours seems like an awfully short time to be able to round up all those scarisprites"
"Round up?" the Doctor asked
"The spell only works over a fairly short range. We have to gather them together"
"Oh. Well. That might be a problem"
Twilight's thoughts raced, they needed a plan. They needed some way to lure the Scarisprites together, something that would attract their attention...
"Doctor..." She said slowly "You said that by coming here, the Scarisprites gained some qualities of Parisprites, right?"
"Yes, why?"
"I think we need to get Pinkie Pie" Twilight said
"Pinkie Pie?" The Doctor asked "why? Does she have some giant bug catching machine?"
Actually, that wouldn't surprise Twilight, it was Pinkie after all....But she had something else in mind.
"No" She said slowly "But Pinkie can play ten instruments"
"What."
"You'll see!" Twilight sang, before taking off "To the Library!"
"We're going to have to go back to that party again?" The Doctor said.
"Unfortunately"
The brown pony sighed shaking his head "The things I go through to save the world"
Rainbow Dash flew high above Ponyville, searching for her lost quarry. It was like the two ponies had been swallowed by the Earth or something, then she saw it, just sitting in the middle of a field. A blue box. She flew down lower just in time to see Twilight and Turner emerge from it, laughing.
Dash's magenta eyes narrowed, this was fishy. Very fishy.
She swooped down nearby, watching them talk an make their way in the direction of Ponyville.
Now she had a choice to make, follow them, or investigate the box thingy.
With a flap of her powerful wings, she took off and hovered above them.
They were talking intently about something or the other and Rainbow Dash crept lower, straining to hear....Nerd Jokes? By Celestia's mane, they were telling nerd jokes?!
With a flick of the wing, Rainbow Dash turned around and began flying in the other direction. She was looking at the flipping box. Anything to avoid the incredible amounts of eggheaded-ness radiating from those two.
She landed next to the box, looking it over with narrowed eyes
"What in Celestia is a Police?" She said, tilting her head.
Whatever was going on with those two, she didn't like it.
"Is climbing through a window really necessary?" Twilight asked as she struggled for a hoofhold to pull herself up onto the library's lower balcony
"Do you want to get accosted by Rarity's well meaning, but completely delusional sentiments again?" The Doctor asked from above, he had already made it up to the balcony and reached down to give the athletically inept Twilight a hand
"Good point" Twilight said as she hauled herself up.
They crept into the Library through the balcony's doors, emerging into Twilight's room.
From downstairs they could hear pony's voices talking and laughing, including Rarity's distinctive bell-like one.
"We need disguises" Twilight said quickly, she threw open her closet and began looking through her things, eventually pulling out a tulle covered magenta saddle that her grandmother had gotten her a few years ago, and hated with a passion "Aha! Doctor, wear this"
The Doctor looked confused, holding the frilly saddle out as if it were radioactive "But...this is for a girl"
"Exactly" Twilight said, lighting her horn, and forming the Doctor's mane into a style similar to her own "With the saddle covering your cutie mark, everypony will just think you're some random mare"
"I- I didn't agree to this!" The Doctor spluttered at Twilight levitated the garish saddle onto him.
"Oh, and you'll probably want to change your voice, it's pretty distinctive"
"No, I don't want to-" He trailed off as Twilight levitated a mirror in front of him "Dear goodness, I look like a girl."
Twilight gave a snort as she attempted to stifle her laughter.
The Doctor slumped down, ears flattening "Go ahead. Laugh."
The unicorn fell over, cackling with mirth
"Should I call you..." A snort of laughter escaped her "The Nurse now?"
After another bout of giggles she finally got up, wiping her eyes and wheezing.
"Are you done?" The Doctor asked.
That question, coupled with the Doctor's expression, was enough to make Twilight crack up once more. After her snickers subsided, the Doctor asked "And how are you going to disguise yourself?"
"Easy" Twilight said she pulled her hair up into a tight bun at the top of her head, carefully hiding the purple and pink steaks in her mane, before changing into a dark blue saddle that hid her cutie mark, and setting a smart pair of glasses on her nose.
She paused to look in the mirror, before deeming the cover fit.
"Alright" She said "Time to crash a party"
Poor, poor, Doctor