Fluttershy had never seen these statues before.
She had woken up this morning to find three statues of pegasi on her lawn. Each one of them had their faces buried in their hooves. Fluttershy wondered what they could possibly be crying about. They were statues! And...
Well, she thought it was her imagination, but the statues seemed to be moving. Every time she looked away they were in a different position from where they were when she looked away. It was unsettling to say the very least.
Finally she plucked up courage and went outside to have a look at them.
She came up very close to one. It was a very well crafted statue. It could have almost been alive. She inspected it for a while and decided that there was nothing too suspicious about it, so she turned back toward town to report that somepony had left a statue on her lawn...
And she heard a rushing noise behind her.
She turned around to see that the statue had not only moved, but it had changed shape. Fluttershy could see its face now, and it was horrifying. It had angry eyes, it was bearing fangs. Its hooves were outstretched as if it was trying to grab her. Fluttershy backed away from it quickly, but in the blink of an eye it was upon her again. She was about to close her eyes in terror when a voice rang out from the other end of the yard.
"I wouldn't do that!" the voice called. "Just keep looking straight at it, I'll be there in a moment!"
A red eyed Changeling walked out from behind the statue. "A weeping angel," he said. "Keep your eyes on it. They can only move when no one is looking. Tell you what, I'll watch him with you! Just try not to blink at the same time I do." The Changeling sat next to Fluttershy.
"Wh- Who are you?" Fluttershy asked shakily.
"You can call me the Master," the Changeling replied smugly. "As I see it you have two options. You can stay with my friend here, waiting to blink or look away and ending up god knows where...
"Or you can come with me, so we can have a little chat with your friends."
The Doctor, Applejack, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders sat silently around the TARDIS console. They were thinking of the conversation they just had with their... visitor.
The White Guardian had come to ask the Doctor a favor. The second he had asked in the Doctor's many centuries. He had given them the Time/Space coordinates, and then he had vanished.
For the second time in the Doctor's travels in Equestria, he had no idea where he was going to land. Or at what time period.
"So let me get this straight," Applejack started. "There're millions and millions of different universes out there. Whole different worlds like the one Twilight visited when she had to get Sunset Shimmer."
"That's right!" the Doctor said cheerfully, happy somepony broke the silence. "But more than millions. Trillions. Quadrillions. Numbers too high for anyone to count."
"And all of these worlds are different from every other, somehow," Applejack went on. "But there are certain things that have to appear in all of'em. The... what were they called?"
"Lynchpins," the Doctor answered. "The Lynchpins of the Multiverse. If these things were not a part of each universe, they would all collapse."
"The Daleks, the Cybermen, the Master...," Applejack listed. "Anything else?"
"The White Guardian said five," the Doctor answered. "Obviously there are two more. I guess we'll have to find out when we get there..."
Scootaloo's head perked up. "Doctor," she said. "Something just occurred to me."
"Yeah?" the Doctor turned to her.
"You were from a different universe," Scootaloo pointed out. "Somewhere out there is that other Doctor. The one we met in Ponyville. The one that you met when you were still Time Turner."
The Doctor thought about that. It was a good observation. The Doctor had appeared to stop each and every one of the Lynchpins as they had come to threaten this universe, just as he was there to stop them last universe. The White Guardian had essentially made him manifest here. Setting things in motion so Equestria would have its own Doctor. Was it possible that-?
The TARDIS ground to a halt.
"No time to think about that now!" said the Doctor cheerfully. "We're here!" The Doctor began flipping switches on the console.
"When and where are we?" asked Apple Bloom.
"Dodge Junction, 900 PLB," the Doctor smiled. "About a hundred and two years in your past. You four had better get dressed!"
"Dressed?" asked Sweetie Belle. "Why?"
"Well, it was a different time," the Doctor shrugged. "Ponies didn't usually go around in their skivvies like we do. Ponies, especially mares, were encouraged to get dressed up. So off you go! There are clothes in the back marked 'Frontier Era'..."
Applejack and the Crusaders went into the back room, AJ leaving her stetson on the console The Doctor heard some faint giggling and then the our came out. Dressed to their finest in period clothes. "Land sakes this dress is tight," Applejack said irritably.
"I draw the line at the bonnet," grumbled Scootaloo.
"Oh will you stop being such a tomboy and except it!" said Sweetie Belle proudly. "We look fabulous!"
"Now you're startin' to sound like your sister," Apple Bloom smirked.
"Tell her that, Apple Bloom, and I'll kill you," Sweetie Belle said sharply.
"Aren't you gettin' dressed?" Applejack asked the Doctor.
"The best part about this style," the Doctor tugged at his waistcoat's lapels and adjusted his ascot. "Is that it never ever goes out of fashion. Though you are right, it is missing something..." The Doctor picked up AJ's hat from the console and whipped it on his head. "Perfect! Shall we mosey on down to that there varmint Lynchpin and other... country-like... turns of phrase?" The Doctor trailed off.
The Apple sisters looked at each other. "Never do that again," they said in unison.
The Doctor nodded. "That would probably be best, yes."
"And give me my hat back," AJ demanded.
The Doctor handed the hat back to AJ. "Enough chatting! Avanti!"
The five headed out the door.
The main street of Dodge Junction was deserted. Something felt wrong to the Doctor as soon as he came out of the TARDIS. And then he caught sight of the sign.
Welcome to Dodge Junction
Population 55-6
"What does that mean?" the Doctor said reading the sign. "Fifty five to six? How does that work? How can you be unsure about the census of a town of less then sixty ponies? It doesn't-" He looked next to him to see Applejack clinging to his foreleg. "What are you doing?" he asked AJ.
"I...," Applejack started. "I don't know. I ain't sure how I got here..."
"Well get off," the Doctor said irritably. "You're going to wrinkle-" Everything around the Doctor seemed to pop into a different position in a split second. All of a sudden he was holding out his Sonic Screwdriver, and the Crusaders were huddled behind him. "How did we get here?" the Doctor asked. "What is going on?!"
"Doctor this is weirding me out!" Sweetie Belle squeaked.
"It's like we're forgettin' stuff!" Apple Bloom said. "It's like chunks of time are missing!"
"Well," the Doctor said. "If I'm clever, and I'm more then clever, I'm brilliant, I'd have left a little clue for myself to make sure I knew what I was doing in between the gaps..." The Doctor noticed that his cuff was unlinked. He rolled back his sleeve to see a two word message scrawled in black ink on the length of his foreleg.
Keep looking.
"Brilliant...," the Doctor said happily. "But unfortunately cryptic, that's me. Keep looking at what?"
"I can answer that," came a young voice behind them.
They turned around to meet a human shape. He was tall. Young. He had a strong chin and generally happy eyes. He wore a tweed jacket over a blue dress shirt. He had a long mop of black hair. He wore a bowtie around his neck.
The Doctor felt a prickling sensation in the back of his head. He had felt this before. He was in the presence of another Time Lord.
And not just any Time Lord.
'No," the Doctor said softly. "You're the help the White Guardian sent? I... He... regenerated into.. you? Why a face like a sixteen year old schoolboy?"
"Doesn't anyone else find it odd that in a town in this time period, nothing is happening at ten at night? There's a saloon here! There should be lots of ponies drinking alcohol or licking salt or whatever it is you ponies do to unwind after taming a bloody desert. But there's nothing going on. All you can hear, all you ever hear at nights, all that could ever exist here during the night...
"Is Silence." said the Eleventh Doctor