Not to boast, but I’ve survived quite a number of sticky situations. This particular problem was stickier than most. It took teamwork and a few strokes of genius (and a dentist’s drill) to get us out alive.
I’m the Doctor. You might call me a professional wanderer. I drift from place to place, seeing the sights and getting involved in things. It’s hardly a profitable line of work, but it’s never dull.
I was passing through Ponyville when things took a nasty turn. Nearly everything died. Bright colours evaporated, leaving behind a muddled mess of grey and brown. The lovely blue sky became an empty void. Ponies panicked and ran indoors.
To wit, things were quite a mess.
I very naturally became tangled up in the whole affair. There were five ponies, you see, who had the courage (or perhaps the lunacy) to investigate. We trooped off together into the Everfree Forest in search of an Amulet which seemed to be the root of the problem.
The Everfree Forest is a rough-and-tumble place at the best of times, and the Amulet transformed it from a dark, dangerous maze of twisted trees into a pitch-black deathtrap.
My companions and I felt nervous and a trifle irritable. (Nothing puts a fellow out of sorts like the looming threat of deadly peril.) Arguments broke out. Insults were flung with careless abandon, and Derpy Hooves—a sweet-tempered mare with whom I’d shared one or two little adventures—finally broke down in tears.
Well, one thing led to another, and before long my companions were talking about their deepest regrets and insecurities and whatnot. It was quite touching. (I, of course, said absolutely nothing of significance; I have no insecurities or regrets.) This tender scene was interrupted by a deafening series of howls.
Derpy attached herself to me and refused to let go. The others crowded round our campfire, casting terrified glances into the darkness. Only Ms. Octavia the classical musician (and criminal, apparently) remained calm. She stood listening with her head on one side.
“What was that?” asked Ms. Colgate the dentist.
“That,” said Lyra the harpist, “was some crazed, vicious howling.”
“To what sort of creature did it belong?” asked Ms. Octavia.
“Beats me,” said Lyra, and added helpfully, “Probably like, a crazed, vicious one.”
A shape emerged from the darkness into the wavering circle of firelight.
“Is it a wolf?” I wondered aloud. “Yes! A wooden wolf!”
“A timberwolf,” said Scratch the disc jockey.
“Marvelous!” I exclaimed. “Is it plant or animal?”
“Stay focused, Doctor,” said Ms. Colgate.
“Yes, quite,” I conceded. “More to the point, is it flammable?” Several wolves stepped into the flickering light, prompting me to add, “Are they flammable?”
Ms. Octavia snatched a burning branch from the fire. “Let us hope,” she said, and plunged into the darkness.
“Octy!” bellowed Scratch. “Get back here! Dang it, please get back here! You’re going to get yourself killed.”
The fiery branch blazed through the dark like a comet, illuminating a seething mass of black shapes. The howls became louder, and for the first time they sounded afraid.
“Ms. Octavia seems to know what she’s doing,” I said. “Now then, she has bought us a few moments. Let’s not waste them. What do we know about timberwolves? Anything? Speak up!”
“Timberwolves are predatory carnivores that travel in packs,” said a familiar voice. “Impelled by the arcana of natural magic, they are capable of assimilating wood from their environments to recover from injuries or increase their size. Their sensitive hearing is greatly pained by high sonic frequencies.”
I’ve heard my share of strange things, but this one staggered me. This precise, professional lecture was delivered by our very own Lyra.
“That’s what Professor Dusty Tomes wrote in his Compendium of Natural and Magical Fauna,” she added. “It’s one of my favorites. I’ve got like, half the book memorized.”
Ms. Octavia darted to the fire to snatch another branch and bore it blazing back into the dark.
“We haven’t much time,” I said. “All right, we need a high sonic frequency—a high-pitched noise. What have we?”
Ms. Colgate rummaged through her bag (a fetching little satchel embroidered with toothbrushes) and pulled out an uncomfortable-looking device. “I’ve got a drill,” she said, and switched it on. It sounded like a cloud of mosquitoes.
“Perfect,” I said. “We need to amplify the frequency—make it louder.”
Scratch took off her headphones and tossed them at me. “That’s all I got,” she said. “Crank up the volume and those’ll blast as much noise as you need. Dang it! We need a microphone or something to hook up the drill to the headset.”
It was my turn. I’ve a sonic screwdriver—a handy little instrument that does nearly anything—and it was the work of a moment to convert it into an impromptu microphone and connect it wirelessly to the headphones.
(Are you getting all this? I generally get blank stares every time I explain things. To sum up: drill makes noise, screwdriver sends noise to headset, headset makes noise louder. All clear? No questions? Excellent.)
A deafening whine blared from the headphones. My companions grimaced. In the dark all round us, the snarling of the timberwolves rose in a din of anguished howling. The clamour receded steadily until all we could hear was the shrill buzz of the drill.
I pocketed my sonic screwdriver. Scratch took back her headphones. Ms. Colgate switched off her drill, and for the first time in hours there was complete silence. Ms. Octavia stepped into the firelight: soaked in blood and perspiration, but decidedly alive. With a cry of relief, Scratch ran and embraced her friend.
“Well,” I said, my ears ringing, “That, I suppose, is that.”
Derpy leapt into the air and squealed, “We did it!”
“Not bad,” said Ms. Colgate, “for a band of misfits.”
“Misfits!” I exclaimed, and burst into helpless laughter. “That’s splendid—too blasted perfect—ruddy fantastic!”
Ms. Colgate seemed concerned. “Doctor, are you all right? You’re acting hysterical. We’re all shaken, but we’ve got to keep it together.”
“Hush,” I gasped. “Don’t you see?”
“He’s like, totally snapped,” said Lyra in a hushed voice. “We need to get him to a doctor.”
That was taking it too far.
“I—what?—shut up!” I exclaimed. “I’m not hysterical. You lot! You’re brilliant!”
“What the heck are you talking about?” demanded Scratch.
“See here,” I said. “Not one hour ago, you were all lamenting the things that make you misfits. Don’t you realize those things just saved our lives?”
I looked round at five puzzled expressions. (I told you I get a lot of blank stares.)
“Lyra,” I continued, “your obsession with strange creatures gave us the wolves’ one weakness. Ms. Colgate, your unnatural desire to be a dentist supplied the all-important drill. You, Scratch, may not be a successful musician, but you’re a dedicated one—dedicated enough to carry those headphones everywhere you go. As for you, Ms. Octavia: we’re all grateful to you for your shady past; you held off the wolves like a true bodyguard. Lyra, why the devil are you crying?”
“You—you too, Doctor,” sniffed Lyra. “You may not be there when we want you, but you’re like, totally there when we need you. That’s why we only see you when there’s trouble, isn’t it? Healthy ponies don’t need a doctor—only sick ones do. You never stick around because you’ve got other ponies to help.”
Derpy Hooves, bless her, hung her head, apparently dismayed at being the only one who had done nothing to help.
It was my pleasure to prove her entirely wrong.
“As for you, Derpy,” I exclaimed, “I’ve saved best for last. You convinced this whole daft pack of ponies to go tripping into the Forest in the first place! These magnificent misfits, whose awful oddities just saved our lives, only came along because you asked.”
Derpy began to cry—hang it, this tale is drenched in tears, isn’t it? She also gave me a hug, much to my discomfort. This story has too many hugs. I’m not cut out for all this sappy, twee nonsense.
We finally got moving again and walked for hours through a dark, dank wilderness. The slivers of blank sky we saw through the tangled branches overhead faded as night fell, and the Forest sank into utter blackness. Ms. Colgate managed to make that horn of hers glow—I’m still put out I wasn’t a unicorn instead of a plain pony—and I lit up my sonic screwdriver.
The Everfree Forest was as dead as a door-nail, as Dickens would have put it—hold on, Dickens wasn’t a pony. Dash it. Forget I said anything about Dickens. The Everfree Forest was dark and dead, thanks to the Alicorn Amulet and whatever poor blighter pinched it from Ms. Zecora.
“There’s like, a crumbly old ruin up ahead,” said Lyra. “It’s where Princess Twilight ran into Nightmare Moon just after arriving in Ponyville.”
“That was early in the morning on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration,” noted Ms. Colgate. “What a coincidence! At this moment, it’s just after midnight on the exact same date. Today is the Summer Sun Celebration.”
Ms. Octavia gave a ladylike little gasp and added, “There are six of us, just as Princess Twilight and her friends numbered six.”
“Difference is,” observed Scratch dryly, “they’re heroes, and we’re misfits. They also had the bucking Elements of Harmony. What have we got? Muffins?”
“And butter,” I hastened to add. “What are muffins without a spot of butter?”
“There’s another problem,” said Ms. Colgate. “The Alicorn Amulet can only be removed by its wearer. We can’t just take it. Whoever is wearing it, we’ll have to persuade him to give it up of his own free will.”
“I bet it’s Flim and Flam,” declared Scratch. “Well, Flim or Flam. I guess it can’t be both.”
“Whatever happened to that Sombra guy?” wondered Lyra. “Did he like, die? I never found out for sure.”
“Iron Will is precisely the sort of self-serving ruffian who would take an interest in a powerful relic,” said Ms. Octavia.
“Cranky Doodle Donkey scares me,” said Derpy. “Think it’s him?”
“Whoever it is,” I said, “I bet he’s in that ruin. The effects of the Amulet are stronger than ever. I think we’re close. Onward!”
I charged forward into the darkness and ran squarely into a tree. After disentangling myself from some clinging lianas, I adjusted my fez and pressed onward: over a patch of withered grass, across a rickety rope bridge spanning a gorge and up to the shattered gates of a crumbling castle.
The ruins lay pale in the light of my sonic screwdriver, like the bleached bones of some vast prehistoric monster. It must have been a splendid castle in its day. My companions caught up to me, panting.
“Well,” I said. “Here we are: exhausted, scared, sweaty and hopeless, with no plan, no Elements of Harmony and no inkling of who is waiting for us.”
Derpy shook, but spoke bravely: “We’ll be okay. We have each other.”
I looked round at the wan, weary faces of my misfit companions.
“Right-ho, then,” I said. “Shall we knock?”