//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2; The Broken Tooth 
// Story: Mad Mare With a Box. The Twilight Time Lord 
// by Snow ghost pony 
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Chapter 2
Golden Oaks Library was normally a picture of cleanliness and organization. This was due to the fact that it was Twilight Sparkle's home for the past year, but now it was a wreck as said purple unicorn tore through it in an attempt to find the book that might solve her problem.
"Where is it?" She screamed in frustration of her fruitless search.
"Who." hooted her owl assistant Owlowisious.
"The book!" Twilight all but screeched as she tore through books at speeds that would make Rainbow Dash jealous.
She whipped her head around to look at Owlowisious and froze as a book cover entered her vision. Owlowisious looked a bit smug as he dangled the book that she had been looking for in front of her, highly amused at the dumbfounded look on the purple unicorn’s face that slowly spread into a grin that threatened to overtake it. She snatched the book from the owl and started practically dancing around the piles of books to the table, making an even bigger mess as she slammed the book down on the table, causing inkwells and stacked books to fall off.
"Starswirl the Bearded should have the answer!" Twilight quickly opened the book to the page with magic curses and drainage. Her excitement quickly turned to despair at the passage.
Although I have extensively studied the matter of unicorns having their magic cut off or removed, it was in a vain attempt to find a way to restore the magic they held. Once cut off or removed, a unicorn cannot have their magic connections reactivated. All attempts to do so have led to one of three results: nothing happening, becoming comatose, or death. Thus I am forced to cease this area of study. Though it pains me to admit, those poor souls will never cast even basic levitation ever again. The only thing that will help a magic-less unicorn is removing the horn to prevent magical build up in the brain that will eventually kill them.
Twilight stared at the passage, her earlier elation now turned to horror.
“R-r-remove my horn?”
The horrible thought echoed through her head. The very idea sent tremors down her spine and made her sick to her stomach. Removing her horn would mean removing everything that she stood for. Her horrified staring quickly turned to rage.
“RAGH!” she slammed the book shut, then turned around and punched the shelf behind her.
WHAM!
She yelped in both pain and surprise at the impact before she blacked out.
When she woke up, Owlowisious was staring down at her, worry clear in his big yellow eyes.
“I’m okay, Owlowisious.” Twilight groaned as she sat up, “But what hit me?”
She looked beside her and saw a book, the same book she had found in the basement several months ago.
“Time travel by John Smith?”
She picked the book up only to have something fall out of the cover. Twilight quickly grabbed it and took a look. Her confusion only increased as she realized that it was a key.
“What’s a key doing in a book on time travel?” she asked herself out loud.
She licked her lips as she started to contemplate the possible reasons, only to stop as she felt her top teeth. She looked back down at the spot her head had been, which confirmed her suspicions. Twilight groaned as she saw the piece of the tooth on the floor.
“Great. Now I have to go get this fixed.” She started to grab her saddlebags and bag of bits but paused when she picked up the book and key.
“Might as well take it with me. Gives me something to read during the wait.”
Now ready to go, she turned around and started walking towards the door, unaware that she had activated the key.
In the basement the blue box that had mourned for all of time was jolted out of its grief. Its key had been found by someone. Now it just needed to wait for them to find its doors and steal them away.
Twilight walked towards the dentist’s office, her recent discoveries still weighing heavily on her mind.
‘What am I going to do if I can never use magic again? What can I do?’ Her thoughts then went to the book. ‘Why would a book on time travel have a key in it? Never mind that, who is John Smith? That doesn’t sound like a pony name. But it-’
She was jolted out of her thoughts by a sudden pain in her muzzle as she ran into the sign for the dentist. Twilight shook the stars out of her vision and entered the dentist office.
“Welcome to Colgate’s Dentistry, where we make your teeth shine in ten Minuettes or less!” A blue unicorn with a half blue, half white mane greeted brightly. “Oh, hello Twilight.”
“Hey Colgate, how are you?” Twilight asked conversationally.
“Great! So what brings you here?” the dentist asked curiously. As far as she could tell, Twilight took as much care of her teeth as she did everything else. She also didn’t have an appointment for another one month...two days three hours and forty-three minutes. So what was she doing here?
“I had an accident and broke my tooth,” Twilight stated, opening her mouth to show her, “I know I don’t have an appointment, but do you have the time to fix it?”
“I have the time!” The blue unicorn was practically jumping like Pinkie Pie in a sugar rush.
Twilight was so startled that she jumped backwards a good three feet.  Colgate looked really sheepish.
“Sorry, it’s just that most of the other ponies don’t care enough to visit and get their teeth checked. I’ve only had a total of twelve customers, and they all had terrible excuses as to why they didn’t brush their teeth.” Sighed Colgate.
She really loved being a dentist, but the lack of work prevented her from making a lot of money to keep her house and shop aloft. She even had to take a second job making and tuning clocks.
“But enough about my problems! Let’s get that tooth fixed!” Colgate said, beaming.
Twilight removed her saddlebags and put them on the table beside her then slid into the dentist chair. Colgate quickly got to work on the tooth, using her magic to fix the break and doing a bit of a check-up while that was happening.
“Okay…just got to put the tooth back in place.. aaannndd… done!”  She put her tools away and pulled out a mirror. “You just have to stay here for a few minutes so I can make sure that it’s repaired properly, and then you can be on your way!”
Twilight looked in the mirror that she had been provided and grinned. You couldn’t even tell that the tooth had been broken in the first place!
“Wow! It looks good as new! I can’t wait to tell my...friends...”
The dentist looked concerned as her patients enthusiasm faded to the same mood she had outside.
“What's wrong?” Colgate inquired.
Twilight sigh and simply told the entire story to her. The blue unicorn listened intently as Twilight relayed the events from the day before and earlier that day to her. She simply sat there and waited as the distraught purple unicorn poured everything out. Colgate was almost brought to tears when Twilight informed her of her condition. After all, a unicorn without their horn is like a pegasus without it’s wings.
Colgate just sat there in shock for a few seconds, then pulled Twilight into a hug. She tried as hard as she could to help ease the pain the poor girl felt.
Her friends had always been helpful and faithful to her and this was how she repaid them? By being extremely rude to them, insulting and ridiculing them to their faces, and going to someone who didn’t know her half as well for comfort? Twilight had finished her rather embarrassing cry, but remained in the hug, grateful for it’s comfort.
"Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on these things, but it sounds like both you and your friends mucked it up big time." Colgate replied, still holding the other mare in a tender embrace. "They should've asked about the problem and you should of let them try to help."
"I *sniff* know! but I was just so mad and...and, first, they walk out on me when I was trying to warn them about the invasion, then I get told that I can't ever use magic again. *sniff* Now I have to c-c-cut off my horn because the very thing I devoted my life to studying is now *sniff, sniff* killing me. I just needed to get away from everything, so I came home.  I was just gonna find how to fix my magic and everything would be ok. Until I found that passage." Twilight stopped before she went into another crying fit.
Twilight just sat there, thinking about the passage that had ruined her life, not even hearing Colgate talking.. She did, however, notice when the blue unicorn stopped talking and started staring at her saddlebags.
"Colgate?" She asked, curious as to why the other mare had stopped talking.
Colgate didn't answer. She instead used her magic to pull out the book and key that Twilight found earlier.
Colgate just stared at the book in obvious interest and asked, "Twilight, Where did you get these?"
"That book fell on my head and broke my tooth and the key was inside. Why?" Twilight asked, confused as to why her friend was acting odd.
"They're radiating Artron energy." Colgate answered still gazing at the book.
"Artron energy?" Twilight asked, her natural curiosity getting the better of her.
"Artron energy is the energy that is associated with travel through the time vortex.. In other words time travel energy." Colgate told her. "Where did you find this?"
"In my basement, why?"
"Because I'll bet that wherever this came from is in there. Let's go check it out!"
Colgate was getting excited, not only because she was going on an adventure, but because the Artron energy radiating from the key was acting like a shot of espresso to her.
Twilight retrieved her bags, then both unicorns walked back to the treehouse. When they arrived, Twilight put her saddlebags aside.
In the basement the blue box was waking up. The key was near and getting closer. It was only a matter of time before she stole them and begun surfing the time vortex once more.
"The basements this way." The purple unicorn said, already going down the stairs.
Colgate followed her down, the feeling of Atron energy increasing with each step she took. There was certainly something down here, they just needed to find it.
"Okay, something's definitely down here. Let's split up and find it." Colgate said to Twilight, getting a nod of agreement.
Twilight took the left side, Colgate took the right. As they searched, Twilight thought about where she found the book. Maybe that would be a good place to look. Or maybe she should have turned the lights on, she thought irritably after tripping over a couple beakers and bumping into a wall.
She began grumbling to herself but froze. Wait, she didn't have wooden walls in the basement. They were all stone.
"Colgate, can you get the lights?  I think I may have found something." The librarian called to her friend, and turned around to see what she had run into. The lights came on and her excitement was quickly replaced with confusion.
Sitting right in front of her was…..a box. It was tall and blue, with a light on the top. The words “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX” were displayed on the top, above two little windows. There was an open panel on the front that had instructions and a strange device which Twilight had never seen before. There was also a lock.
'Well that was anticlimactic.’ thought Twilight. ‘I was expecting something else. And how did this get into my basement?'
Her attention was shifted to a light coming through the keyhole.
'Wait, a lock? Maybe the key I found earlier goes in there.' Twilight thought with excitement.
She grabbed the key and put it in the lock. The last thing she saw before blacking out was a bright flash of golden light.