//------------------------------//
// Affirmative 
// Story: Time Keeps Wibbling On: A Doctor Whooves Adventure 
// by Shotoman 
//------------------------------//


Part 9
Affirmative


I really shouldn't be surprised, Blue Shield thought as the surreal--even compared to the norm when it came to the Doctor--sight unfolded around him. First of all, he and the companion of the other Doctor--that would be Derpy--were seated next to each other with some rather odd pieces of head wear. In Derpy's case, it was a colander, in his case it was a similarly shaped dome made out of what seemed to be toy building blocks of some kind. Both improvised helmets had wires and and other gizmos attached to them at various points, with trailing wires that led directly into the various machines surrounding them. All around them no fewer than four Doctors, as well as Miss Romana, were scurrying about, shouting instructions to each other, which were either obeyed instantly, argued about, or ignored. And through it all, Derpy just watched with an almost serene expression on her face.

Yes, it was shaping up to be one of those days.

"You look nervous," Derpy said simply.

Blue Shield was about to reply when the conversation was interrupted rather loudly by Romana. "No, Doctor! It's chartreuse we need, not puce. Use that setting and every molecule in their bodies will explode at the speed of light."

"I know exactly what I'm doing, Romana," the scarf wearing Doctor groused. "I did all the calculations myself."

"Did you take into account the Diversified Superstring Temporality Theorem?"

"The what? I mean, of course I did!"

"If you did, the setting would be chartreuse."

The Fourth Doctor tried to bluster some more when Eleven yelled from the other side of the room, "Just shut up and redo the math. You know she's always right."

Four's face turned an unusual shade of red before he sighed and adjusted his settings. "Now why should I be nervous?" Blue Shield asked dryly.

Derpy just laughed. "Oh, c'mon. This is the fun stuff! We gotta enjoy the fun stuff while it happens, because the scary stuff always turns up sooner or later."

Blue Shield felt a smile of his own form on his face, even as Derpy's Doctor and the lone Doctor strapped something to both their forelegs, binding the two companions together, and with even more attachments to the machinery. This mare was a lot like the Doctor, he realized. The first impression she gave was infantile, but she quickly demonstrated a surprising level of intelligence and depth, as well as a mad enthusiasm for this, ah, unique lifestyle. No wonder he traveled with her. Aloud he said, "I see you're already feeling better."

"Yeah," she said, her smile never wavering. "The Quiet Room helped a lot. I was able to sort out the different sets of memories. I know which ones are the real ones and which are the fake. Mostly." She suddenly shuddered. "I still feel really weird, though."

"Yes, that's what we're going to take care of here," Ten spoke up brightly, turning a few knobs on his console before nodding. "After that... well, after that comes..."

"The scary stuff!" Derpy said happily.

"I guess that means you like 'the scary stuff,' too?" Blue Shield asked.

"Well, yeah," Derpy responded in a tone that very clearly said What? You don't?

Just like the Doctor.

"Right! Yes! So! Everyone ready?" Eleven asked in his usual excited tone.

The other Doctors answered in the affirmative, though Four still had a petulant tone to his voice. 

"All right, then," Eleven said as he rubbed his hooves together. He turned to Ten. "If you'd do the honors."

"Naturally," Ten responded with a grin. He grabbed an almost comically large switch on the wall, waited for just a moment for dramatic tension, then plunged the switch downward with an enthusiastic "Allons-y!"

Blue Shield wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting after all the buildup. Honestly he thought at least something would explode and was actually very glad that something wasn't him or Derpy. That said, the sheer anticlimax of the brief moment of vertigo followed by the ding from the machinery was almost disappointing. Not that you could tell from the self-satisfied congratulations the Doctors were giving each other. Well, except for Eight, who was checking up on the two companions.

"How are the two of you feeling?" he asked.

"Oh, much better!" Derpy said as she tossed her colander helmet off her head and tried to start flying around the room, when she and Blue Shield both got a rather painful reminder that they were still sort of tied together. Picking herself up from the floor and undoing the foreleg strap, she smiled. "I'm ready for the scary stuff now!"

As she and Ten began excitedly discussing what was going to happen next, Doctor number Eight cast a wry look at Blue Shield, who was still looking around the room in mild confusion. "Expecting something a tad bit more dramatic, eh?" he asked.

Blue Shield kept his confused frown on his face as he removed his own headgear. "In all honesty... yes."

Eight chuckled knowingly. "You know, we do take everything we do seriously. We just like to enjoy ourselves as we do them." He lowered his voice a bit. "Take Four for example. He actually knows his Temporal Mechanics at least as well as Romana, but, though he'd never admit it aloud, he likes the verbal sparring. He also purposefully drives the TARDIS rougher than usual just because he knows it irritates her." Though the smile remained on the Doctor's face, Blue Shield could tell a distinct shift in his mood. "The one thing that does make us serious in the way we do things is the safety of our companions. Of that I'm sure you've seen."

Blue Shield nodded as he remembered the straight up mad lengths the Doctor went through to keep him and Ripple safe. Mostly Ripple, really, but it should be noted that the one time the Doctor failed to protect Blue Shield, he still rebooted the universe to keep the failure from ever happening. "So," he said, "now that we've got everypony on their hooves, I suppose it's time to investigate... whatever it is we are to investigate."

"Almost," Ten corrected with a cheeky grin. "First, I need to get dressed. I miss my pockets. Afterwards, there's one last vitally important task to attend to."


~DrW~


Golden Harvest, known by "Carrot Top" to basically everypony (funny how some foalhood nicknames just stuck) was currently in a very good mood. She usually was when business was as good as it had been today. For one thing, she was fairly certain she beat out Applejack in the sales department for once, something that happened maybe once in a blue moon. Speaking of...

"Hey there, neighbor," A.J. said as she walked up to the carrot stand, a basket of apples on her back. "Looks like ya made a killin' today."

"Uh, huh," Carrot Top said, a grin forming on her face. "Looks like I win the competition today."

"Yeah, well, don't get too used to it," A.J. groused playfully as she placed the basket on Carrot Top's counter top. "Tomorrow's another day."

"You keep telling yourself that," Carrot Top replied as she packed the apples away in her cart. "Well, just to show I'm not a sore winner, here." She tossed a bushel of carrots at Applejack, who caught them easily. Their end of business day ritual complete, A.J. went back to her cart to finish closing up.

Carrot Top hummed a little tune as she packed up her own cart. It really was quite a nice day, even by the usual Ponyville standards, the sort of day that she'd seen cause other ponies to break into song. Not her, of course. She may join in on the chorus line a few times during those really big impromptu numbers, but she never instigated it. In a town where everypony, even the relatively straight laced Applejack, could be considered some degree of crazy, she was completely, utterly average.

Given what the crazier ponies tended to get up into, she preferred it that way.

"Hey, Toppers!" came a very happy, almost boyish voice from down the street, and Carrot Top smirked as she turned to face Derpy, Dinky, and the Doctor strolling down the street. 

Yeah, well, if I'm so normal how is it I hang out with these wackos? she thought with a chuckle. Derpy Hooves was one thing--they were best friends since a particular scuffle with some bullies in first grade, and Carrot Top was the only pony allowed to call her 'Ditzy'. The Doctor was another thing entirely, though. Crazy didn't even begin to explain what he often brought to town. Aloud she said, "Hey, Ditzy. What brings you guys out...?" Her good mood faltered slightly when she got a good look at the Doctor. He was wearing the overcoat again. Which could only mean... "Aw, c'mon, I thought you said you were taking a break from your nutty little trips."

"Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry!" Derpy said, her forehooves together in a supplicant gesture. "This was one of those trips that sorta kinda came to us."

"Really?" Carrot Top asked with a significant look at the Doctor.

"Nothing that affects Ponyville directly this time," he said in a hurry. "No living mannequins or alien bat schoolteachers here. But it is bad. We think. Don't know how bad exactly just yet, but we do need to look into things."

Carrot Top sighed. "Y'know, I sometimes think you guys take advantage of my friendship a little. I mean, what if I had plans, or a date, or something?"

"Do you?" Derpy asked innocently.

"No, but I could have." Kneeling down to get closer to eye level with Dinky, Carrot Top added, "So, Kiddo. Looks like it's just you and me again."

"Looks like it, Aunty Carrot Top!" Dinky said with an innocent smile that was very much a match for her mother's.

Carrot Top sighed and rolled her eyes with a smile. So much like her mom, this one. Which was just a little absolutely terrifying. "Alright, then. I'll take care of the little squirt. Doctor, if you'd be so kind as to pull the cart?"

"Why do I always have to pull the cart?" the Doctor asked indignantly.

"Because you're the reason I'm always foalsitting with no notice. Now quit complaining and come on."

The Doctor obediently strapped himself into the cart, though not without muttering a few things under his breath about 'wasted genius' and 'underdeveloped technology.'

The trip back to Carrot Top's was relatively quiet and uneventful. Really, that should have tipped her off. Just as she was about to open her door, it was thrown open from the inside and she found herself in the rather intense gaze of a pair of green eyes. "Carrot Top!" the oddly dressed grey stallion the eyes belonged to almost shouted happily. "Good to see you! Very good to see you. Surprisingly good, really. Didn't think I liked you that much." 

The stranger vanished back into her house, and, oddly, Derpy was glaring at the Doctor. "He doesn't speak for me!" the Doctor was quick to say.

"Yes I do," the other stallion replied from inside.

"I do apologize for him," another voice, a bit older sounding, with a quiet amusement in its tone, said from deeper in her house. "He's rather easily excitable, even by my standards."

Carrot Top cautiously stepped into her house to see another strange stallion, a purple one with brown mane sweeping a metal wand over the nearby wall. In the nearby kitchen, the grey one had his head buried in her refrigerator, and just stepping into the living area from her bedroom, was another brown pony, with curly mane, wide blue eyes, and an unnaturally long scarf wrapped around him.

"Why are there a bunch of strange ponies in my house?" Carrot Top almost whimpered. "Who are they? And to reiterate the more important question, why are the in my house?"

"Well, that's easy," the Doctor said airily. "They're me. Past and future."

There was a moment of silence as Carrot Top stared at the Doctor, but then she just gave a resigned sigh. "The most disturbing part is I believe you and am not really all that surprised," she said. 

"As for why we're here," the scarfed one said. "Since you're apparently a good friend of Derpy here, we are just taking a few extra precautions to make sure you and the little one remain safe while we're gone."

Now Carrot Top was going from annoyed to concerned. "Why? What happened? You never did something like that before."

"That you're aware of," the Doctor corrected. "And I'm not expecting anything to happen. Not truly. It's just, this particular problem hit a little close to home and Derpy and I will both feel a bit more comfortable knowing you two are well looked after."

"And to that effect..." the scarfed pony said before whistling back to the bedroom. From the room rolled... well it was metal, with lots of hard angles, and was vaguely shaped like a dog. Dinky released an audible squee at the sight of it. "K-9 here will stay and watch over the two of you while we're gone, isn't that right, K-9?" the scarfed Doctor asked, ignoring the brief interruption.

"Affirmative, Master," the robot said with just a hint of smugness in its tone.


~DrW~


A few minutes later, the Doctors and Derpy filed out of Carrot Top's house. As the other ones filed into their TARDISes parked just off the main road, Ten cast a quick look at an empty spot of grass by the house. "Be good," he said, knocking on something invisible but solid.

"Are you sure you want to leave her here?" Derpy asked.

The Doctor nodded. "You're going to need to be in the same general time and space coordinates as Blue Shield 'till we get everything resolved, and I actually get a feeling we will be well served having one of the Old Girl out of the way and in reserve."

"Oi, you two!" Eleven shouted from his TARDIS. "We got things to do, Doctors to track, and, very possibly, monsters to fight. Get a leg up!"

The Doctor and Derpy laughed and went to enter Eleven's TARDIS when he felt another's gaze on him. He turned and saw Eight watching with a sad look in his eye. Motioning Derpy to go in without him, Ten turned to face his predecessor.

Eight smiled sadly as Ten approached him. "I must admit, it's good to see I have a future beyond the War," he said.

Ten nodded grimly. "That's not to say you don't have some very difficult times ahead."

"Isn't that just always the case with us, though?" Eight asked.

There was a moment of silence before Ten spoke again. "Careful what you let them see," he said, jerking his head at Four's TARDIS. You know what our next stop was after picking up Ace."

"I will do my best, but you know how he can be."

Ten smirked as he gave his previous self one last quick farewell before going back to Eleven's TARDIS. This wasn't going to be an easy trip, he'd decided, for either party. Entering the TARDIS he could hear the comforting sounds of chaos as Eleven was beginning takeoff. 

"Where is it exactly we're going?" Ripple Pond asked her Doctor as he danced around the console.

"Oh, not too far. Not at first. Ponyville again, about ten years past. That's were old Grumpy Big Ears disappeared. From there, once we pick up his trail...? Who knows?"

And so, with a screeching sound unlike anything else in the universe, three small blue barns faded from existence, one going one way in time and space, the other two going in quite another.