//------------------------------//
// The Dream (Part 11c: Like Oil on Gears) 
// Story: Undisclosed Desire 
// by Dark Enigma 
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	A light brown earth pony colt is bent over an exposed electrical panel with many fuses, circuit breakers and the like. He moves some wires out of the way and waves this strange pen-like device with a bluish glow at the end of it over a sparking circuit board causing it to stop sparking.

Next to the colt is a light gray pegasus mare with blonde mane, holding a red tool box with her mouth.

"Okay, Ditzy," the colt says with the pen in his mouth. He spits it into his hoof and places it on the white collar he is wearing with a small, red bow tie. "That should do it."

The pegasus places the tool box on the floor and picks up a small round object containing metal rings slowly spinning inside a clear glass casing. "What about this thing, Doctor?" she asks.

"Oh, would you look at that," the Doctor replies in an upbeat tone. "The Oscillating Axion converter, seems I forgot to re-install it. Ha."

Ditzy peers into the object's center as if it's a spyglass. "The Oci- octi- um... I'm just gonna call it the ostrich."

As the Doctor goes about removing some screws with his "pen", he sighs then says, "Ditzy, an ostrich is a flightless bird, and without the OSCILLATING Axion converter, this generator won't be able to draw out the axion waves from the polar frequencies and convert it to power the city uses to stay afloat. Comparing something like that to a flightless bird is a misinterpretation of the concept."

Ditzy cocks her head in confusion. "But... ostriches are fast, and I bet this thing can be just as fast." At that, the pegasus stands on her hind legs and throws the oscillator like a baseball, narrowly making it through one of the windows which leads to a cloudy abyss. "See," she says triumphantly.

The Doctor walks over to the window and gazes through it. All he sees is the round object bounce off a tin railing that encircles the city and dive into a sea of poisonous clouds, disappearing from sight. The sound of hollow wind grazes his ears as he sighs once more.

The sound of an automatic door sliding open draws the Doctor's attention away from the window.

Pinkie is the first to walk through. "Then, he went to retrieve the punch, but Barry drank it all!" She laughs. As she opens her mouth to continue her story, the Doctor calls out.

"Ah, the Great One approaches." He bows.

"Oh, you have to stop calling me that," Pinkie says, rolling her eyes all the while. "It's never going to catch on."

The Doctor raises to his full height, smiles and says, "You'd be surprised." And as if to exemplify surprise, he jumps up with a gasp when he notices Trixie. "Ah, Trixie. Long time, no see. How did that nasty fray with Drath go, hmm? Gave him the what-for no doubt." The Doctor does an underhoof sucker punch in the air.

Though Trixie's response is a mere shake of her head as she asks, "What are you talking about?"

The Doctor stops his imaginary fight and freezes in place as he stares wide-eyed at Trixie, examining every facet of her being. Trixie remains adamant; still expecting an answer, she raises her brow and asks, "Well?"

After a few more moments of silence, the Doctor jolts upright, startling everypony--except Pinkie Pie--as he blurts out, "Ah, time you rascally devil." Then points at Trixie. "You don't have your scar, so you haven't met me, yet. Well, I guess you're meeting me now--so that statement in itself is a bit contradictory. Eating its own tail if you will. No matter." And with a swipe of his hoof, the Doctor turns and heads to the open electrical panel. "Come, Ditzy. You two as well. I'm sure the Great One's visit is not just a mere tour for our guest."

Pinkie smiles, stepping forward and forcing Trixie to follow suit.

"Now," the Doctor continues as he pulls out his strange pen from his collar, "first things first, this generator will stay out of commission until I can appropriate enough tritium to make another converter. That'll be fun; won't it, Ditzy?"

The pegasus, looking out the window, turns around and says, "Sure, Doctor." She passes him a half smile afterwards, apparently realizing what she has done.

With his pen in his mouth, the Doctor screws in four bolts to the panel covering all the wires and circuits he was working on. "Till then, the other six generators will simply have to stay off auto-idle," he mumbles behind his pen. Spitting it out and twirling it around his hoof, he then says, "Sure we run the risk of over-working the machines, but when life gives you lemons, you just go back in time and make sure lemon trees never exist in the first place. Easy as that."

"So you're the time traveler?!" Trixie points at the Doctor. "Wait," she continues, "I get a scar?! Where?! When?!"

"But you can't go back in time," points out Ditzy. "Didn't you lose the TARDIS?"

"And why do you hate lemons?" Pinkie Pie jumps in.

"Umm." The Doctor chews on the questions then says, "Yes, yes, your left eye, sometime around the 20th century, yes, and I don't hate lemons; it was a figure of speech--lemons are quite well complimented with tea."

"Wait, hold on," Trixie says. Her head is swirling with questions making her dizzy. She wants answers but doesn't know where to start.

As if sensing her distress, Pinkie steps forward. "Doctor? Can you teach Trixie how time works?"

"Hmm?" The Doctor snaps away from his thoughts. "Of course I can; I'm the Doctor. Come with me."

Walking away, the Doctor begins to hum a tune; complex at first, involving long notes that seem to have nothing to do with each other, but then it cuts to a series of short notes only to start over.

Trixie follows, her hooves clacking on the hard floor, adding a monotonous beat to the Doctor's tune. The others walk close behind Trixie, supplying additional beats to the rhythm.

Without warning, the Doctor takes in a large gulp of air.

"If you sing, Trixie will hurt you."

"Oh, you're no fun--But very well." The Doctor turns down a hallway.

Along the walls of this hallway are gears--lots and lots of gears of different sizes--behind a plexiglass surface to hold back the oil running throughout the system of gears.

Further down the hall is an opening to a balcony overlooking an expanse of clouds. Around the platform, is a metallic railing scraping against the wall of dark moisture, creating grooves in the passing clouds.

"Now," abruptly says the Doctor with his intoxicating voice, "time works differently in this universe than I am use to but the concept is fairly easy to understand. See these gears?" He motions to them with his hoof. "Well, time is nothing like them--space is. Pockets of space spin and spin around, causing the fluid in between to move. That 'oil' is time. The movement of space makes time move.

"Spaces moves, time moves, simple as that. But you may ask yourself, 'some gears move in the opposite direction; does that mean time travels backwards there?' Well, kind of. I said before this universe is different than the spacetime fabric I'm use to in my universe. Anyway, time has no direction that means forward. Time is what it is. It's very movement makes things age. There is no forward, back, up, or down. It's just movement.

"But to travel through it--time travel--one needs a machine that can swim--so to speak--through the oil. And I have--or rather had--a machine that can do just that."

"The TARDIS?" asks Trixie. "Where is it?"

The Doctor steps out into the balcony. "Um, well... somewhere down there."

Trixie peeks over the railing to see the clouds part and reveal a broken city glowing in a crimson light. Spitfires burn wildly on nearly every corner of the city streets while strange creatures dance around them. It's a horrid sight of chaos and toxicity. But the more Trixie looks at it, the more she recognizes the small bridge running over a black stream, the castle grounds burning in a malevolent fire; there's no doubt about it. This city burning underneath the dead sky is Canterlot.

"Welcome to the edge of the pit," a voice behind Trixie says.

Trixie turns and sees Silverstreak walking up towards the group.

"Hi, Silver." Pinkie waves at him. "How'd the council meeting go?"

Silverstreak stands next to Trixie, his light mane waving gently despite the force of the wind around him. He places his hooves on the railing and says, "The council is voting to kick you off their ranks. The stunt you pulled caused them to question your standing as leader of the Grand Council. So far the only one defending you is Shadowforth."

Pinkie shakes her head. "Let them kick me off. They're hardly any fun to be around anyway. And the only reason I decided to be on the council is to please the Princess."

Silver streak grunts and continues looking at the city below. "Doctor," he says, "if I heard you correctly, your time machine is somewhere in Canterlot, correct?"

"Yes," the Doctor announces enthusiastically. "I left it there when I tried to take down those nasty demons. They're a powerful lot and chased me away, forcing me to leave my TARDIS."

"Did it happen to be a blue box about the size of a phone booth?" Silver asks.

Surprised, the Doctor replies, "y-yes, how do you know?"

"I saw it when I went to go get this urn." He pulls out Trixie's urn from his saddle bag. "It was the only object that looked out of place, but I didn't think much of it because I thought she could fix everything." He gestures to Trixie with a small incline of his head.

Pinkie steps towards Silverstreak and--with concerned tone--she asks, "Silver? What are you planning?"

Silver doesn't respond. Instead he turns to Trixie and says, "Come." Then walks away.

No pony talks. And the only one to move is Trixie. After all, Silver is her master and she must do what he tells her to do.

Trixie catches up to Silver and dares to question his motives. To which his only reply is, "I don't care what happens to this stupid city. I just want some answers, and the only pony who can provide them was killed by the Queen a long time ago. So... I'm sure you can figure out what needs to be done."

"But," Trixie says, "do you even know how to work a time machine? Won't you need the Doctor?"

"She's right," the Doctor yells out as he catches up to them with his assistant, Ditzy, following him. "I'll gladly lend you my assistance with my assistant. Those blasted fiends took my TARDIS, and I want it back. And this time I am ready for them."

"You sure, Doctor?" asks Ditzy. "That's what you said last time."

"Ah, but last time we didn't have an all powerful genie with us," he replies. "We'll stand a much better chance this time. But first, we must visit the Princess. I have no doubt you are powerful, Trixie, but it seems you don't know much about you're new found strength. Ure means well, but he isn't the best teacher. Don't ask me how I know Ure; I'll just end up confusing you with events in time you won't understand until you've experienced them."

Trixie holds her tongue with some difficulty, but she knows the Doctor is right. No matter how many questions she asks, she'll have more than what she started with.

"Now then," the Doctor says, "off to the see the Princess. Hopefully, I am still in good standings with her. My last venture outside the city didn't sit well with her."