//------------------------------// // Chapter Eight // Story: The Fantastic Adventures of Dr. Whooves: The Planet Eaters // by The-Pony-Librarian //------------------------------// Chapter Eight In which Big Mac is revealed to be a terrible poet and Twilight is a goody two shoes “You know” The Doctor said as appeared outside of the library, running his hooves over his mane to make sure everything was in order “When I figure out how to use the Sonic Screwdriver to manipulate magic, you are going to be in for in for it, Missy” Twilight just laughed "I can't take your threats seriously when you are wearing that saddle" "I'm wearing that wha-" The Doctor began, before noticing the garish pink saddle still on his back "...oh" A cloud of Twilight's magenta magic quickly lifted it up, folded it, and stuffed it in her saddlebag. Then the purple unicorn turned to the library door and closed her eyes, horn glowing. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes again "Just a simple distracter spell" she explained "Anyone who tries to exit the library will remember some other task they need to do and be distracted from leaving" "Ooh!" Pinkie giggled, wearing her tuba around her "That sounds like fun!" As they trotted away from the library, Twilight was busy filling in Pinkie on the situation at hoof "So" she concluded "We need you to lure the Scarisprites with your music" "Okey Dokey Loki!" Pinkie said happily "Do you need other instruments besides the tuba?" Twilight asked Her bubblegum pink friend nodded happily "On the rock farm, we all had to learn how to play the Parisprite Polka because we would get huge swarms of them coming to eat our rocks. The best instrument combo is a tuba, a harmonica, cymbals, an accordion and a banjo...ooh! Also, maraca's help if you can find them, but you don't superdy duperdy need them. The tuba is the most important part though. You can't do it without a tuba..." As Pinkie babbled on, Twilight sighed. Now they had to find instruments. "Well I guess we'll start at-" "Hey there, Twilight! Watcha doin'?" chirped a high voice with a southern accent. The purple unicorn squeaked and fell over backwards, glowering as the Doctor and Pinkie burst into laughter. "Again?!" She yelled, as the yellow filly and her two friends looked at her quizzically. Huffily, she picked herself up. "Excuse me Miss Twilight..." Sweetie Belle said "But what are you doing?" "Uhhhhh....." Twilight's mind drew a blank....Tell three excitable fillies about giant bug monsters? Definitely not....but what to tell them? Luckily, the Doctor stepped in to save her. "We're gathering instruments for a festival. Top secret, orders straight from Celestia" he paused, leaning in conspiratorially "You three can keep a secret... can't you?" "Well...." Scootaloo began, but Applebloom quickly shoved a hoof in the orange pegasus's mouth. "Ah' course we can Mister Turner" She said hurriedly, Sweetie Belle nodding eagerly beside her. "Wonderful!" the Doctor said brightly, clapping his front hooves together "Because I have a very important job for you...Would you be willing to help us gather the musical items we need" The three fillies exchanged glances, Scootaloo shook her head almost imperceptibly "Ummm....Well..." Sweetie Belle said slowly "That sounds really fun and all, but we need to go....uh....walk Opalescence." "Oh, no" Twilight said, smiling "That's fine...too bad though. We could have really used you help on this, super special, top secret, ultra important project...who knows...you might have even been able to get you cutie marks, but it's fine, really. We can do it ourselves" "Well...I guess Opalescence can wait" Scootaloo said slowly, still not wholly convinced, but a bit more willing. "Oh, no, it's fine" the Doctor said "We wouldn't want to trouble you girls" "We'll just find some other fillies to help us out" Twilight added "Maybe Diamond Tiara and her friend...I heard they're very helpful" Three sets of eyes widened in panic. "Please? It really isn't too much trouble, honest! " Sweetie Belle said quickly The brown stallion pretended to think about it "No, no...We wouldn't want to be a bother" "PLEASE!" The three fillies threw themselves at his front hooves, looking up at him with eyes so large and heart rending that they could have turned even the most stoic royal guard into a pile of sobbing mush. "Oh alright" the Doctor said, exchanging a small victorious smile with Pinkie and Twilight "I guess so..." "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS-oof!" Applebloom elbowed Scootaloo mid cry "It's top secret, feather-brain!" "Well sorry...." the orange pegasus huffed angrily. The Doctor looked over to Twilight "I believe that organization of assets is your forte, is it not?" The purple unicorn nodded "Listen up!" She said "We already have a Tuba, so we need a harmonica, cymbals, a banjo and an accordion, alright? We'll split into teams to find them. Sweetie, go with the Doct-I mean...Turner and get the cymbols. Applebloom, you go with Pinkie to get the accordion, and Scootaloo, you'll be with me getting the harmonica and banjo" "Awww...We can't stay together?" Applebloom said sadly. She, Sweetie and Scootaloo all scooted closer together, eyes wide and pleading. Behind them, Pinkie also scooched in, putting her hooves around the three fillies and giving Twilight the puppy eyes as well. "Fine" Twilight caved, left ear twitching in annoyance "We'll all go find the instruments together. It'll go faster with more eyes, anyways" A chorus of happy exclamations rose up from the gang of three half-grown fillies and one full-grown mare, creating a fallout of such uncontrollable childish enthusiasm that, if tasked with containing it, even Cheerilee might have cut her losses and thrown in the towel. Twilight and the Doctor exchanged glances. "So what are we waiting for?" Pinkie bubbled "LETS GO FIND OURSELVES SOME INSTRUMENTS!" She bounded off into Ponyville, the three fillies racing after her, giggling madly. "Nice one about the super special, top secret, ultra important project" The Doctor commented as they followed after. "Me? You were the one who came up with the whole idea...How in Tartarus are you so good at that?" "Practice. Years and years of it" the Doctor replied, a slightly melancholy expression on his face Twilight blinked, unsure how to reply "C'mon" She finally said "Let's catch up with Pinkie" They trotted up to see the pink pony walking into the front gates of Sweet Apple Acres, the CMC trailing behind her like exuberant ducklings. "Sweet apple acres?" Twilight asked, quirking her head to the side slightly. "Yup!" Chirped Applebloom "Big Mac has a banjo!" "Alright then, this shouldn't be too hard" Twilight said optimistically. "Well..." Applebloom said slowly "None of us exactly know where it is after the one time we tried to be the cutie mark crusaders country western band...you know, with Scoot as the lead singer, me on the banjo and Sweetie on the percussion?" Twilight tried to hide her wince as she imagined what their "music" had sounded like "But anyhoof, Big Mac found out and told us off, saying that nopony was supposed to play that banjo....then I asked why I had heard him playing it and singing a song about some mare the other day then. He got real embarrassed after that, but long story short he took the banjo away and we've never seen it again. It's got to be around the farm somewhere, but I have no idea where." The butter yellow filly smiled sweetly up at Twilight, who facehoofed so hard that over in Canterlot castle Princess Celestia herself still swears to this day that she heard a tiny noise, like the sound of somepony's patience imploding. The purple unicorn opened her mouth, presumably to shout one or more expletives very loudly, but was cut off by the jubilant cry of "Found it!" from Pinkie Pie. "You...you what?" Twilight sputtered "I found it" Pinkie beamed, shoving a banjo, along with several scrawl covered papers, over to Twilight "These were with the banjo too, so I brought them along just in case" "I....What...How?" The pink party pony just giggled, and Twilight gave up, taking a look at the papers. To her chagrin, they were all badly written love songs, and Twilight let them fall from her magical telekinesis, face red. The Doctor looked at her quizzically, eyes flicking to the papers. Twilight just shook her head fractionally, mouthing "you don't want to know." Scootaloo, seeing this, immediately snatched the papers up and skimmed eagerly across the page before giving a little shriek of disgust and flinging them away as if they were radioactive "Eww! Love poems?! Gross!" "Oohhh!" Sweetie Belle chirped "Let me see!" She picked up one of the papers, reading it and hugging it to her chest. "How romantic!" Twilight couldn't help but snort at that. Apparently Rarity was rubbing off on her little sibling. "Hey! That's mah brother's love poems you're talkin' about!" Applebloom said, grabbing the mediocre declaration of love from her unicorn friend and looking at herself "Sweetie pootie pie? That's even worse that shmoopy doo!" "Hey!" Sweetie squeaked "Give it back!" She tried to take the paper back, but only ended up elbowing Scootalooo in the nose, and soon the three fillies were in a knock-down drag-out brawl, yanking ears and elbowing ribs and pulling tails. Meanwhile, the Doctor's expression twisted into something that could only be described as incredulous disgust "....Sweetie Pootie Pie?....I....I don't even..." "Told you you didn't want to know" Twilight muttered. She stomped a front hoof on the ground, and the three arguing fillies looked up with a guilty expression. Scootaloo had Sweetie Belle's ear in her teeth and hastily spat it out, giving a nervous laugh. Twilight rolled her eyes "Alright girls!" She said brusquely "One instrument down, three to go!" The gang of six exited Sweet Apple Acres with banjo in tow,following Pinkie Pie's lead. Twilight wasn't sure that this was the best idea, but Pinkie seemed to know where she was headed, so she decided to let it go. "So where are we headed next?" the Doctor asked the vivacious magenta pony bouncing ahead of him "The elementary school has a bunch of old instruments they let the kids use!" Pinkie said happily "They probably have a Harmonica and Cymbals!" "But it's a Sunday" Twilight said "The school is closed" Pinkie tilted her head to the side, confused "What does that have to do with anything? It was a Sunday when the parisprites infested Ponyville too." "Breaking into a school...." Twilight said slowly "We're breaking into a school. Of course we are. I don't even know what I expected...." "Oh come on!" The Doctor said "It's not that bad. We'll be returning them after all." "But still!" Twilight said "Oh, I'm sure you've done something more rebellious than breaking into a school" The Doctor scoffed ".....I don't think so..." "Come on, what's the most rebellious thing you've ever done" "Well......" Twilight said "Once I read a book when I was supposed to be doing a really important project?" The Doctor facehoofed. The purple unicorn huffed "And there was one time I snuck into the Canterlot Archives at four in the morning to get a time spell" "See! Now we're getting somewhere" .....but then a guard recognized me and let me in. Apparently as Celestia's prodigee I get twenty four hour library access...." "Annnnd you ruined it." "That would have really helped if I had known that in school too! I could have gotten so far ahead in my homework....I probably could have gotten my term essay in at least a week before the deadline" The Doctor facehoofed again. "What?" Twilight bristled, indignant. "Well don't you think you should maybe lighten up a bit more?" The Doctor hinted "I mean...everybody has to break some rules at least once in their lives" Twilight sniffed "I think I'm light enough thank you very much." "Really?" The Doctor chuckled "Because I'm pretty sure you couldn't even handle me poking a little fun at Princess Celestia" "Could too." "Oh yes?" The Doctor said "You're fine with me taking a few jabs at Princess Sunbutt? Alrighty then" "Don't you call her that!" Twilight snapped, before clapping her hooves over her mouth and blushing "Point taken..." She mumbled. The Doctor chuckled "Just think of it as a learning experience, Sparky. You like learning don't you?" Twilight nodded "Well, to save Ponyville, you're going to learn how to break and enter. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to find you a book on it. Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid To Ask About Breaking Into Buildings" He said, referencing her favorite 'how to' book series. Twilight gave a little giggle "Alright then Doctor, let's break into a school"