Ditzy flew along the road to Ponyville city square. Getting this egg took a lot longer than I expected, she thought. I hope there’s still …
A beam of purple light shot from the center of Ponyville, into the night sky.
“Time!” she shouted. “Oh hailstones, I need more time!”
She changed direction and flew towards her apartment.
Midnight: Fridge Over Troubled Waters
Ditzy exited her apartment, banked a hard left into the street, and dashed onto Bridle Boulevard. Then, a voice brought her to an abrupt halt.
“Hold it right there, young lady!”
“Problem, Constable Peeler?” Ditzy faked a smile for the stallion.
“Perhaps.” Peeler scowled at her. “Where are you going, in such a hurry and at such a late hour?”
“Town square.” Ditzy paced in place.
“And what is your business there?”
“Constable Peeler, Ponyville’s curfew rules were repealed months ago.” Left unspoken was the second half of the sentence: … because you were the only one who cared about enforcing them. “So … if you’re not going to arrest me, I really need to be going.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Ditzy.” Peeler’s face was apologetic, but the heavy hoof he placed on Ditzy’s shoulder may as well have been a manacle. “If you can’t tell me what’s ahoof, then I’ll have to take you back to the station for questioning. Probable cause and all that.”
Ditzy looked at Peeler, then in the direction of the town square, then back to Peeler. She sighed. “There’s a bomb in Town Hall.”
Peeler recoiled from Ditzy, but kept his voice calm as he replied, “What?”
“I was on my way to defuse it! I didn’t want to tell because I didn’t want anypony to panic—”
“Town square and all the adjacent buildings will need to be evacuated!”
“Yes, of course! And I can—”
“You will do absolutely nothing, Ditzy. This is a job for a bomb squad, not a civilian.”
“But—”
“No buts! That is an order, young lady: stay out of this and let Ponyville’s finest do their job.”
Constable Peeler turned and began galloping. He didn’t get two paces before Ditzy lifted off and bolted towards town square. She didn’t get two feet before she heard hoofbeats and a shout behind her. Seconds later, Constable Peeler’s considerable weight was upon her back. The world shrank about Ditzy, until it consisted only of the gravel road and the uniformed earth pony pinning her against it.
Her head swam as Peeler dragged her by the tail to the edge of the road. When Ditzy’s head cleared, she found her right forehoof cuffed to a lamppost.
“What the deuce?” Peeler said. “Ditzy, have you lost your mind?”
Ditzy opened her mouth, but a reply came from somepony else: “Perhaps.”
Ditzy and Peeler both turned as the voice’s owner stepped into the lamplight. Ditzy groaned. Peeler cocked an eyebrow as he greeted the newcomer: “Dr. Time Turner Hooves?”
Dr. Hooves smiled. “The same. Constable Peeler, I must congratulate you on—”
“Time Turner,” Peeler interrupted, “I am conducting official police business, so I must request that you kindly step off.”
Without breaking his smile, the doctor produced his timepiece and extended it to Peeler. The constable glared at the doctor a few seconds longer before sparing a glance at the watch’s cover. His eyes widened, and his face paled—or at least the patches that weren’t already white did.
“Constable,” Dr. Hooves said, “this is much bigger than police business, I can assure you.”
Peeler looked at Ditzy. Wordlessly, he regained his composure, straightening his posture and turning back to meet Hooves’ gaze.
The doctor continued, “I must question Miss Derpy Hooves, a.k.a. Ditzy Doo. I trust I will have your full cooperation in this matter?”
“Well, that depends.” Peeler’s stoic expression was betrayed by the slight quirk of his eyebrow. “I trust you’ve filled out the proper paperwork beforehand?”
Hooves’ face was blank. “What? Paperwork?”
“But of course! To speak with a suspect already in custody, outside your jurisdiction, you’ll need to fill out a Writ 220-J, in triplicate, and submit it for approval to the law enforcement station acting as custodian. Don’t worry, Ponyville P.D. is usually quite prompt at responding to such writs.”
“Outside my jurisdiction? Outside my—”
“Alternately, you can take custody of the suspect yourself. This, of course, would require a Royal Warrant for her arrest, approved by either the Canterlot D.A. or one of the royal sisters.”
“Warrant?” Dr. Hooves jabbed a hoof in Ditzy’s direction. “She’s already under arrest! Why in Tartarus do I need a warrant to interrogate her?!”
Peeler stepped between Hooves and Ditzy. “She is in Ponyville P.D.’s custody, and therefore under its protection. Suspected criminals have rights, too, not least of which are freedom from interrogation and/or seizure by law enforcement officers who haven’t filled out the proper paperwork. Abduction is a crime, Dr. Hooves, especially when committed by an R.S.S. spook!”
Dr. Hooves’ jaw hung open. It was Ditzy who broke the silence. “Um, aren’t you forgetting something?” Peeler and Hooves each met half of her gaze. “The bomb in Town Hall, remember?”
“What? A bomb?” Dr. Hooves sputtered. “That doesn’t make any sense! It doesn’t fit in with your ...” He turned to Peeler. “She’s lying. I’m sure of it.”
“It is a bit of a tall tale,” Peeler answered, “but we can’t afford to disregard a bomb threat. Especially since Miss Ditzy Doo doesn’t have a history of lying about these matters.”
“Very well. I’ll keep an eye on the suspect while you go … deal with that.”
“Nonsense, doctor.” Peeler placed a hoof on Hooves’ shoulder and led him away. “Ditzy Doo isn’t going anywhere, as we can both see, and we need as many hooves on the ground as we can spare to deal with this bomb. Now, this way!”
Dr. Hooves muttered under his breath as he and Constable Peeler cantered away. When their hoofsteps faded, Ditzy focused on her own forehoof and the cuff binding it. She moved her hoof as far to her left as she could, rotated her cannon slightly clockwise, and moved her hoof hlåvwise.
She paused. Her ear twitched as a new set of hoofsteps approached the lamp post. She turned her head to address the latest interruption.
“Dr. Hooves?” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to be with Constable Peeler?”
“Oh, I am,” the doctor answered. “Really, Ditzy … Hold that thought. In the interest of politeness, would you rather I address you as Ditzy or Derpy?”
“These days, I only answer to Detsella Renombrada Morningdew.”
Dr. Hooves glared. “Very well then. ‘Bubbles’ it is.” He sighed and resumed walking, tracing a clockwise circle around the lamp. Ditzy kept an eye on him, and, as soon as his attention shifted away from her, moved her cuffed hoof two inches to the west.
“Really,” the doctor continued, “you’re not doing yourself any favors with this antagonism. A minute ago, you were surprised at me being two places at once, which is foal’s play in this line of work. It would appear that you’re in way over your head. But … there is the matter of your sabotage this morning—far too subtle to be the work of a complete novice.”
Ditzy flexed her cuffed pastern three times, then moved her hoof two inches to the fjoth.
“It’s a fascinating paradox. You are a very interesting pony, Bubbles. And that’s why I want to help you.”
Dr. Hooves paused and closed his eyes. Ditzy brushed her bound hoof along the ground, feeling for the ragged boundary between the seventh and negative-twelfth dimensions. She found a short length of iron chain and grasped it in her pastern, resisting the impulse to smile.
“Now, obviously, I’m not allowed to question you. You can thank the beef-headed constable for that one. But, if you were to—spontaneously, of your own free will—tell me everything you know about your superiors and their organization, then I could pull some strings to have your punishment lightened. Perhaps even let you off with just a slap on the hoof. However, if you stonewall, then I can assure you there won’t be any leniency.”
Ditzy stopped moving as Dr. Hooves stepped beside her.
“Am I making myself clear? Oh wait, that was a question. Don’t answer it!” The doctor smirked, and Ditzy replied with her best deadpan stare. “Anyway, while you think over my offer, I’m going to take a look at this …” He opened Ditzy’s saddlebag and peered inside.
“Hey!” Ditzy shouted, resisting the temptation to swat Dr. Hooves. She wouldn’t be able to reach him without letting go of the chain—and there would be no telling which dimension it would land in.
“Now, now,” Hooves replied, “that constable never said anything about searching your possessions.”
As the doctor rooted through the bag, Ditzy turned her right foreleg to the east, then to the drŵst.
“Hmm …” Dr. Hooves said to himself, “a flattened cardboard box, a mirror …”
Ditzy’s hoof found the arc of another planar intersection, and traced its arctangent.
“... which appears to have been cut in half ... a salt shaker …”
With a bend of the elbow, Ditzy pulled her right hoof back into three-dimensional space.
“... something wrapped in parchment …”
“Dr. Hooves? I’m willing to talk.”
With a single bound, the doctor was in front of Ditzy, smiling like a colt in a candy shop. “Most wonderful. I’m all ears. What would you like to tell me first?” He leaned forward, placing his muzzle inches from Ditzy’s.
“Well …”
Ditzy’s right forehoof traced a path around Dr. Hooves’ forelegs—a nineteen-dimensional figure eight.
“... the most important thing is …”
She pulled her hoof back into normal space and raised it.
“... we’re even now.”
She pressed her hoof into the doctor’s nose. “Boop!”
Ditzy galloped past the doctor. His baffled, slack-jawed stare—half-glimpsed as she swept by—stuck in her mind. She laughed to herself as she sped down Bridle Boulevard.
Ditzy didn’t look back. She didn’t need to: the sounds from behind told her exactly what Dr. Hooves was doing. First there was an indignant cry as he realized his quarry had escaped. Two hoofsteps, as he leaped to pursue her. A yowl of pain and confusion, and an extended crunch of gravel, as the doctor learned firsthoof how hard it was to gallop with his forelegs cuffed together.
I’m lucky, she thought, that nopony’s invented higher-dimensional hoofcuffs yet.
She turned to her right, into an alley—and skidded to a halt. Dr. Hooves stood before her. His scowling face was scratched, and his disheveled mane still had bits of gravel in it. He snorted, lowered his head, and scraped the ground with his no-longer-cuffed foreleg.
Dr. Hooves charged. Ditzy leaped, flapping her wings to sail over his head. As she landed, she could hear the doctor skidding—then a hoof struck the back of her head. She fell.
Ditzy twisted her neck and looked behind her. Dr. Hooves turned around and trotted towards her. Nearer, the silhouette of her assailant loomed over her. In the darkness, Ditzy couldn’t quite make out his coat color, but she recognized his piercing blue eyes.
Her own eyes widened. Apparently the doctor hadn’t exaggerated when he mentioned being two places at once.
A flash of light, and the sound of four hooves landing on the ground, brought Ditzy’s attention to the other end of the alley. A third Dr. Hooves stood there. Ditzy was surrounded.
As the three doctors drew closer, part of Ditzy’s brain sprang into action. Unfortunately, it was the part responsible for cataloguing irrelevant details during times of stress. She didn’t see any escape route, but she did notice that the three Dr. Hooveses were not completely identical. The second doctor—the one who struck Ditzy—looked even more disheveled than the first one, and he sported a fresh black eye. The third doctor’s eye was nearly swollen shut, but his mane was in a somewhat more presentable shape. While the first and third doctors glared at Ditzy, doctor number two instead looked rather intently at number three.
However, the second doctor turned to Ditzy with startling suddenness. “You,” he said, “are definitely not a novice. In fact, I must say that was some clever psychology on your part. Let this be a lesson to me about underestimating attractive female agents. We’re certainly not taking any chances—”
The first doctor interrupted. “Laying it on a little thick, don’t you think?”
The second doctor heaved a dramatic sigh. “Excuse me, the adults are talking here.”
“Well excuse me, but you’re the one who’s intruding on my arrest! I didn’t ask for your help.”
“You never ask for help!”
“And you always barge in anyway to ‘save me’ when I don’t need it! I had this situation well under control—”
“You forgot she could fly! Pray tell, in what century would that be considered ‘under control’?”
“Oh for the love of Celestia!” the third doctor interjected. “Do you blockheads even listen to the words coming out of your mouths?” He pointed at the first doctor. “You sound like an ungrateful simpleton!” He pointed at the second doctor. “And you sound like an egotistical imbecile! And now I sound stupid for yelling at you!”
“Can’t argue with that last one,” both the other doctors simultaneously deadpanned.
“Oh, stuff it.” The third doctor walked towards the other two, stepping between them and Ditzy. “Neither of you have any idea what’s really going on here, because you’re working off a bunch of half-baked assumptions, rather than listening to the only pony who knows anything: Ditzy Doo.”
Ditzy stared, slack-jawed, at Doctor number three. Number two shook his head. Number one boggled for a few seconds, then sputtered, “You … you …”
“Oh brother,” said the second doctor. “Here it comes.”
The third doctor sighed and rolled his eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”
The first doctor pointed a hoof at number three and screamed, “Evil mirror universe clone! Evil mirror universe clone!”
“Really now,” the second doctor said. “Mirror universes are purely theoretical. Besides, he doesn’t even have a goatee.”
“Evil mirror universe clone! Evil—”
“Ahem.” The third doctor closed his eyes and began singing in a warbly tenor:
“Who needs forever?
Love me today.
Let’s forget tomorrow,
it’s too—”
The first doctor gasped loudly, interrupting the song. His gaze darted between doctors number two and number three. “The trust password has been compromised!” he shouted. “Code ultraviolet! Repeat, the trust passwo—”
The third doctor punched him in the face. He flailed his hooves in retaliation, then the second doctor leaped into the fray, and the trio became whirlwind of thrown hooves and brown-coated bodies.
“Maniac!”
“Blockheads!”
“Turncoat!”
One of the doctors was expelled from the ball of violence. He gingerly touched a hoof to his eye, where a bruise was beginning to form. He then ran away, shouting, “Everypony for himself! Code ultraviolet!”
The two remaining Hooveses continued grappling. Ditzy glanced back and forth, from the alley’s exit to the fighting time travelers. On the one hoof, she knew her time was running out. On the other hoof, one of these Dr. Hooveses had come to her defense, so it didn’t feel right to abandon him if he needed help. But on the third hoof, she couldn’t tell which doctor was which anymore.
Before Ditzy could decide anything, one of the doctors got the other in a stranglehold from behind.
“You …” the strangled one choked out. “We both know you can’t really hurt me. … Since you’re just me … from the future.”
“Oh?” The strangler loosened his hold slightly. “So you realize—”
“Yes, yes, that mirror universe thing was poppycock. I’m suitably mortified at my past self for entertaining the notion.”
“And since I’m from the future, clearly I’m …”
“Brainwashed.” The grip around his neck tightened. “You can’t hurt me! I know you’re just bluffing!”
“Am I? Am I? Try me, you dunce! Maybe I’ll get angry enough to break causality! Maybe I’ll—”
“Um, excuse me,” Ditzy Doo interrupted. “He’s unconscious now.”
“Oh dear!” Doctor Hooves released the hold, and his double slumped to the ground. “I guess I got a little carried away there. That could have been …” He whipped his head towards Ditzy. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have something important to do?”
“But …”
“Butts are for sitting on, and there’s no time to sit! Go! Do your … thing!”
Ditzy spun and galloped out of the alley.
Ditzy approached a street corner and flared her wings, preparing to take flight. She rounded the corner—and was blinded by a flare of purple light.
“Aaargh!” She screwed her eyes shut as she skidded to a halt.
“Oh, hello, Ditzy Doo,” Twilight Sparkle said. From her tone of voice, she did not sound pleased. “Fancy running into you at this hour.”
“Yeah, fancy that.” Ditzy fidgeted her wings. “Look, Twilight, I’m sorry to keep brushing you off, but now is really not a good time. Can we talk—”
“Later?” Twilight snorted. “Yes, of course we can talk ‘later’. In fact, it seems like ‘later’ is the only time we can ever talk! Because ‘now’ is apparently never a good time! No, forget it.”
Ditzy’s heart sank. It sank with such velocity that she was surprised it didn’t burst out the bottom of her hoof and burrow its way into the planet’s molten core.
“That information you read,” Twilight said, “well, you’re not the first pony to illegally access it. But do you know what happened to those others? Fined. Imprisoned. Fined while in prison!”
Twilight’s hooves crunched against the gravel, and her voice moved with it. Ditzy’s mind raced, seeking some way to escape from the Bearer of the Element of Magic, the personal student of Princess Celestia.
Twilight continued, “But you must already know that, because the warning is clearly posted in the only library in the world that holds that information! A library that even I have only been allowed to enter twice.”
Ditzy mentally discarded her seventh escape plan, then she noticed that Twilight’s hoofsteps and voice were behind her. Her eye twitched, in spite of being tightly shut. She whipped around to face the voice.
Twilight said, “You’re not—”
“Stop it!” Ditzy interrupted. “Stop it stop it stop it stop it!”
“What?”
“You’re pacing around me! In a circle! Stop doing that! In the past few days, I’ve been on the receiving end of entirely too many monologues from ponies circling me, and I can’t take any more! If you wanna lecture me, then fine, I’ll listen. Just, do it in front of me!”
“That’s … reasonable, I guess.” Twilight sounded somewhat taken aback, but her voice regained its prior confidence as she continued. “But that’s what I was trying to say. You’re not stupid, Ditzy. You’re certainly not stupid enough to gain legitimate access to that library and just … not mention that to me, for no reason! So I can only assume that you’re up to no good. Which means it’s my duty to stop you.”
Ditzy sighed. “Well, what are you going to do, then?”
“Do? I already did it.” Twilight’s hoof prodded Ditzy’s chest. “I sent a strongly worded letter to Princess Celestia.”
A few seconds’ silence followed. Ditzy broke it with a flat “What?”
Twilight’s hoof found its way to Ditzy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry it had to be this way. Would it help if I wrote to you in prison?”
“What?”
“Nevermind. I hope I’ll see you again, someday.”
“What?”
Receding hoofsteps signaled Twilight Sparkle’s departure. Ditzy opened one eye to risk a glance, and found the purple glow was gone.
“What?” she said, her words echoing in the empty street.
Ditzy sped towards Town Hall, the source of the purple light beaming into the sky. She alighted on the porch and swallowed to choke back her bile. A revolting odor surrounded her, as if the air itself were dying around the spatial anomaly.
He’s almost here, she thought.
She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out the flattened cardboard and the salt shaker. With a few folds, the cardboard formed a small box.
The ground shook slightly. In the corner of Ditzy’s vision, something moved inside the nearest wall. She turned one eye towards it as she unscrewed the top of the salt shaker. What she saw revived half-forgotten memories of biology lessons. Looks like scorpion mouthparts, she thought. What were those called, again? Cheli-something?
She dumped the salt into the box and taped it shut. Grasping the box between her forehooves, she gave it a shake. Nothing happened. She shook it again, and nothing continued to happen.
“Come oooon…” she muttered, shaking the box and resolving not to stop until she got results. About thirty seconds passed, and the ground rumbled beneath Ditzy as the appendage in the wall shifted.
Then, a new sound came from the box—something much larger than a salt crystal striking the lid. The box suddenly gained several pounds. Ditzy yanked her hooves back and let the box fall. It continued to shake. Five legs punched through the box, and then the floor beneath it, as if the cardboard and the wood planks were both wet tissues. The legs were covered in a smooth exoskeleton and ended in sharp claws.
And, much to Ditzy’s surprise, they were a pleasing shade of aquamarine. She had thought that all tyndalocurrs were tar-black.
With her forehoof, Ditzy kicked the box. It struck the nearest wall then slid down—past the point where the wall would have joined the floor if normal three-dimensional space weren’t napping—into the abyss.
Two screams filled Ditzy’s ears as she sped towards the basement floor. One screamer had the voice of a pair of thousand-foot-long iron bars scraping against each other, chattering their teeth as they did. The other had the voice of an earthquake with phlegm in its throat. Ditzy smiled slightly. A single tyndalocurr versus the Eyeless King was a ludicrously uneven fight, but it would at least delay the King for a few crucial minutes.
Ditzy landed on the basement floor, in front of the refrigerator. She grabbed the parchment-wrapped egg from her saddlebag, tore its wrapping off, and placed the egg in the fridge.
As she waited for something to happen, Ditzy's eyes wandered to the crumpled parchment on the floor. With one hoof, she smoothed it out until the writing was visible. She focused on the one part of Abhean’s letter that she could decipher: the blessing in the final paragraph.
She glanced back at the egg. Nothing had happened to it. She quirked an eyebrow and turned back to the letter. She carefully folded it, then tore the final paragraph from the rest of the letter. She ate it.
Maybe this will be helpful, she thought as she chewed. “May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back.” I can use some of that where I’m going. I just hope that “May you reach the shores of Mag Mell a full hour before the Gan Ceann know you’re dead,” won't be necessary.
She swallowed and turned back to the fridge. The egg was still just as she had left it. “Oh, come on,” she muttered.
She paced for a minute, but nothing still continued happening. “Come on come on come on …”
She slammed her hooves on the shelf on each side of the egg. The nothing-happening streak remained unbroken. “Come on come on come on come on!”
The ground shook once more, but the egg stubbornly persisted in doing nothing.
“No no no no no no!” She punctuated her cry by slamming the fridge door shut.
“Arrrrrrrgfrstl!” She bucked the empty space behind her, stomped in a circle—vigorously shaking her head and snorting all the while—then bucked once more for good measure.
She sighed and glanced back at the fridge. Wait a second, she thought, squinting at the closed door. She opened the door. Inside, the egg glowed fluorescent pink.
Ditzy scrunched her eyes shut for five seconds. When she opened her eyes again, the egg was still glowing—steadily and brightly, the light of a very stable Krasnicker tube. She reared back, kicking her forelegs and shouting “Ha-haaa!” to the heavens.
Ditzy placed one forehoof on the tube’s threshold, and looked at the fridge’s bottom shelf. She confirmed that half of the mirror—the same mirror that had been hanging on Carrot Top’s wall two days ago—was still resting there. She made certain the mirror’s other half was securely in her saddlebag, then placed her other hoof on the threshold. She pushed both hooves, up to her fetlocks, into the Krasnicker tube. Tensing her rear legs, she took a deep breath, then exhaled.
The warm, prickling sensation on her fetlocks reminded Ditzy how strange it felt to transition from normal space to folded, inner tubespace. Thank Celestia I’m not ticklish, she thought.
She closed her eyes and leaped.
Space inside a Krasnicker tube is folded in ways considered impossible by all but a hoofful of arguably mad physicists and magicians. The spatial folds are particularly impossible at the tube’s perimeter.
Impossibility does not mix well with physical matter.
As Ditzy crossed the threshold, a wave of profound dislocation washed over her. For a brief moment, she felt as though her neck were a thousand miles long, her teeth were too large for her mouth, her fur were made of paper clips, and her hooves were made of ice cream. Before she could even consider reacting, the feeling passed, and her own skin felt comfortable again.
Ditzy had assumed the pose—her legs outstretched, her head held low, and her wings clasped tightly to her sides—as one does when traversing a Krasnicker tube. Ideally, she would not need to flap, and momentum would carry her to her destination.
After what felt like a minute, she chanced to open her eyes. The visible portion of the Krasnicker tube’s perimeter, which would normally appear to be a series of glowing pink rings, sped past so quickly that it resembled a solid but translucent wall. The tube stretched into the distance with no end in sight. Outside the wall, shapes were moving. Ditzy closed her eyes.
Possibly two minutes passed, and she opened her eyes. She was centered in the tube, with enough clearance that another pony could comfortably fit between her and either wall, floor, or ceiling. Safe for now, she thought, but no room for carelessness. She still couldn’t see the tube’s end. She closed her eyes.
About five minutes later, she opened her eyes. The end of the tube was visible, but so far away that it appeared smaller than a bit coin.
Outside the tube, darkness hovered over aimless shapes. Radiant points of blackness were splashed across the sky—inverted stars arranged in reverse constellations. Behind them, garishly colored geometric objects moved about, filling all visible space. A blue circle bisected a scarlet rhombus, whose halves seamlessly rejoined seconds later. An orange triangle morphed into a quadrilateral, without any of its angles changing. A yellow pentagon passed in front of a cluster of nine black stars—then a green shape with about twenty sides passed in front of the pentagon, but behind the black stars.
Ditzy yawned. Then she noticed something close to her. A small pebble—a bit of Ponyville gravel dislodged from her own mane, most likely—was flying at the same speed as her. Slowly, it drifted away from Ditzy, towards the tube’s edge—but not slowly enough.
Ditzy gulped and looked forward. The end of the tube still looked about the diameter of her outstretched hoof. She wouldn’t reach it before the pebble hit the tube’s side.
The pebble was a few inches away from the side. Ditzy gulped, shook out her wings, and braced herself. Any second now …
There was a blinding flash of blue light. Ditzy banked and flapped towards it as hard as she could. At the same time, the shockwave pushed her away—towards the opposite wall. With the shockwave, neutrinos and vril particles washed over her. Their intense heat lasted less than a second. Gritting her teeth, Ditzy flapped more, fighting her momentum from the shockwave. She screwed her eyes shut and felt her sideways movement slowing … and finally stop.
Ditzy opened her eyes. She was inches away from the wall. Flapping carefully, she moved away, back into the tube’s center. Satisfied that she once again hurtling at an impossible speed down the straight, safe path, she sighed. Then she noticed that the tip of her right forehoof was singed.
Outside the tube, the chaotic mass of colors had become ordered. At some point when Ditzy was distracted, the various colored shapes had all assumed the same form and grown completely still. The sky was full of circles.
Kinda creepy, she thought.
She reached the end of the tube and blasted through the threshold.
Upon exiting the tube, Ditzy felt cramped. When a few seconds passed, and the feeling persisted, she realized it was not merely the effect of transitioning from tubespace. She was, in fact, crammed into an area too small for her.
What did I expect? she thought. I'm inside a fridge.
She extended her legs to push against all four sides, and the one behind her gave slightly. Bracing against the opposite wall with her forelegs, she kicked backwards.
The fridge door swung open. Ditzy scooted backwards, then the shelf broke beneath her, spilling her onto the floor outside. A bowl full of salad landed on her head.
Ignoring the crisp, wet lettuce on her scalp, Ditzy looked in every direction for the owner of the fridge and found nopony. Or rather, no one—she couldn’t make assumptions about the inhabitants of this alien planet.
However, she could venture some guesses based on her surroundings. First, these aliens were probably not too alien, because their refrigerator was almost identical to one of Equestrian design. Second, they must have liked huge, blank spaces, because Ditzy was in the center of a concrete chamber, large enough to comfortably contain her entire apartment four times. The refrigerator was the only furniture. There were no decorations in any electromagnetic spectrum. The only things that broke the monotony of concrete were a blackened spot on the ceiling directly overhead, a much larger burnt spot on the floor below, and a single window directly facing Ditzy.
The salad bowl slid off her head. It struck the floor, and its echoing crack brought Ditzy’s mind back from its wandering. Before the echoes faded, a voice interrupted: “Oh for crying out loud! Who let a filly into the test chamber?”
Ditzy looked around for its owner, but the room remained as empty as before. “I told you, bro,” another voice chimed in. “Bring Your Daughter To Work Day is an accident waiting to happen. I warned you!”
There were two pale shapes behind the window. The one to the right moved slightly, in time with the second voice’s words. These were the owners of the voices. Ditzy ran towards them.
The one on the left said, “Whose daughter is that anyway? Ed’s?”
Ditzy was close enough to get a good look at the aliens. They were of equinoid shape but much taller, at least the height of one of the princesses. They had strangely folded skin and one dark, pupil-less eye covering most of their faces.
“No idea, bro,” the one on the right said. “I can never tell any of those gray fillies apart. Wait, what is she—”
Ditzy slammed her forehooves into the glass. “Hey, you!” she shouted.
“Little girl,” Leftie said, “you’re not supposed to be in there.”
“Yeah, whatever, I’ll be leaving in a minute. I just need to do one thing first. How big were—”
“Little girl, that room is dangerous. If you don’t leave right now, you could get hurt very badly, and I’m sure you’d get in a lot of trouble with your parents.”
“Urrrrgh. Let me guess: this room is dangerous because that fridge keeps producing high-yield exothermic reactions, right?”
The two aliens looked at each other.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ditzy said. “So how big is the blast radius?”
“Oh brother,” Rightie muttered. “How classified is this research, again? Someone’s gonna get fired over this.”
Leftie nodded and turned to Ditzy. “Did your father tell you about these experiments, little girl?”
“For crying out loud!” Ditzy flailed her forehooves then started pacing in front of the window. “My dad is LaMonte Burningspear Morningdew. He knows nothing about this place and you’ve never met him because he’s from another planet!”
The two aliens looked at each other again, then back at Ditzy. They said nothing.
Ditzy stopped pacing and snorted. “So I will ask you one more time: how big is the blast radius?”
“Um…” Leftie said. “If you know about the blasts in that room, why are you still in there?”
“Oh for the love of the Princess! Because I’m the one who causes them!”
With a groan, she turned away and looked at the refrigerator. Her gaze traveled down, to the blackened floor below the fridge. “Hmmmm.” Her eyes split and looked at the opposite sides of the charred circle. In her mind, she compared the size of this circle to the ground floor of Ponyville Town Hall.
“What?” Leftie said. “You caused them? How? Why?”
Ditzy flew to the edge of the blackened circle. She landed and trotted around its circumference, counting her hoofsteps as she went.
“How did you …” Lefty sputtered. “What are you doing?”
Ditzy got all the way around the charred circle before remembering that she didn’t actually know Town Hall’s circumference in hoofsteps.
“Why are you facehoofing?”
Even without knowing the exact circumference, Ditzy was reasonably certain that the blast was larger than Ponyville Town Hall by a comfortable margin. She dashed over to the fridge. Alright, she thought, now I just have to … Huh.
The fridge was completely empty: no food and no Krasnicker tube. “Hmmmmmm.” As Ditzy shifted her weight, something wet crunched beneath her hooves. She was standing on the same salad she had spilled mere minutes ago. “Hmmmmmm.” She furrowed her eyebrows as she glanced back and forth between the salad on the floor and the empty fridge. An egg on my end of the tube and a salad on this end? she thought.
“I’ll have to completely overhaul my tube-formation hypothesis when this is over,” she muttered. “Well, at least this means I did it. … I …”
Her eyes widened. “I did it! Yes yes yes yes yes …” She punctuated each shout with a leap into the air. She continued shouting and leaping until the salad was reduced to an indistinguishable mush beneath her hooves. “... yes yes yes yes yes! Ha HA!” She took to the air, shaking her haunches and flailing her hooves as she sang, “I diiiid it! I diiiiiiiiid it! Who’s an awesome pony? Who i—”
Ditzy froze, midair. The two aliens were staring silently at her. She coughed once and flew towards them.
Rightie shook her head. “She’s flying. That filly is flying. You can see her flying, right, bro?”
Leftie nodded. Rightie continued, “We must be tripping. Someone put locoweed in our lunch or something, bro. And now we’re hallucinating about a filly who knows Agni Classified information and can fly.”
Ditzy tapped the window with her forehoof. “For your information,” she said, “I am a full-grown mare, thank you very much!”
She looked Rightie straight in the eye. Something was behind that eye, something suggesting an equine face. Realization struck Ditzy like a bowl of salad to the head. These creatures’ “eyes” were actually darkened faceplates; their “skin” was actually an impermeable fabric. These extraterrestrials were horses in hazardous material suits. Ditzy couldn’t tell if they were Saddle Arabians, or perhaps one of their mythical ancestors, but they were certainly horses.
She shook her head and continued. “Anyway, you’re the ones who kept putting food in that fridge. Right?”
Rightie nodded. “Well, we're not the only ones,” Leftie added. “There's about a dozen other researchers working on this project.”
Ditzy leaned into the window until her nose touched the glass. “Stop. Doing. That.”
“What?”
“Every time you put food in there, it forms a Krasnicker tube to my home planet.”
“A what?”
“A Krasnicker tube! A high energy, extradimensional connection between two points in your space-time manifold, possibly permitting faster-than-light travel between those points! They—”
“You mean a wormhole?”
“Whatever! Close enough. The point is, every time you guys make one, I’m the one who has to break the connection from the other end to stop it from blowing up my best friend's house!”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Leftie raised a forehoof to his temple. “You’re saying that the fridge keeps forming wormholes to another planet, and you keep breaking them, and that’s what’s been causing these explosions?”
“Got it in one!”
“So you came here to make us stop the wormholes?”
“No, I came here to, um …” Ditzy scratched her chin. “... save my town from a monster. It’s kind of a long story.”
“Tiny flying horses and monsters?” Rightie said. “Your planet sounds pretty wild, sis.”
Ditzy shrugged. “It’s home. And I really need to get back.”
Reaching into her saddlebag, she removed the remaining half of the mirror and placed it on the floor. She extended one hoof through the mirror, then paused and turned back to the alien horses.
“Those explosions from before ...” she said. “Um, they didn’t hurt anyone, did they?”
“I don’t think so?” Leftie answered, turning to Rightie and shrugging.
“Yeah, sis,” Rightie added. “The first one was in a warehouse and no one was inside at the time. The rest were right here in this lab.”
Ditzy sighed. “Thanks.” She climbed through the mirror.
Just like on the prior visit, it was a sunny midday on the other side of the mirror. Unlike the prior visit, the scene was much more active. The air was full of white spheres, possibly the same spheres she had seen on the ground before. Each was slightly smaller than Ditzy’s head. Some were rising and some were falling; none were moving with any urgency.
Ditzy wiggled halfway through the window pane, then found she couldn’t wiggle any further. Her saddlebag was caught on the mirror’s edge. She pushed against the wall with her forehooves, but that just made the bags dig painfully into her flanks. She wriggled back a few feet, then unclasped the saddlebag's strap. It slid off her back, onto the concrete floor of that alien world.
Ditzy slid forward, into the open air. She opened her wings, but before she could flap she found herself rising unintentionally.
“Whaaaaaa?” She kicked her legs and folded her wings, and her ascent slowed, then stopped. The air doesn’t feel any thicker than usual, she thought, looking around for some explanation. Is the gravity just weaker he— “Oh my princess!”
Something blotted out the sky behind the apartment building. It resembled a series of nested ovals: a black oval, inside a blue one, inside a white one, inside a massive pink shape. The overall effect made Ditzy’s stomach churn. “No. It can’t be …”
The black, blue, and white all disappeared—leaving the massive shape entirely pink for less than a second—then they returned. Ditzy blinked a few times. “Apparently it can be.”
A sudden current grabbed Ditzy and tossed her—along with most of the white balls—upwards. Flailing her legs, she slowly spun head over rump as she ascended. She flapped her wings the opposite direction, stabilizing herself—just before another current pushed her into the ground. Groaning and wondering why the ground felt like hard plastic, Ditzy picked herself up, just in time for another current to yank her back into the air. This time, she flew back down and pressed herself as tightly to the ground as she could.
Slowly, half crawling and half dragging herself, Ditzy made her way towards the façade of the apartment building. She was fifty feet away, and the white spheres were swirling in the air above her.
She was twenty-five feet away, and another current pulled her into the air. She flapped against the current and returned to the ground as quickly as possible.
She was ten feet away, and a white sphere bounced off her head.
She was five feet away, and everything darkened. The sky had turned brown—aside from the pink shape that still dominated the horizon.
She reached the apartment. She was just beneath a window—the window farthest from the one she had arrived at this place through. Holding her breath, she raised her hoof. When it passed effortlessly through the glass, she exhaled.
Ditzy spared one last look around her. The pink shape—it was a pink, equine face, and there was no point pretending it was anything else—had somehow come around the building to directly face Ditzy. She didn’t know if it saw her, and she didn’t care to find out. It blinked once more, and Ditzy scrambled through the window.
Once more, Ditzy found herself crammed inside a refrigerator. She located the door and kicked, but the door only opened slightly. This permitted a sliver of moonlight—just enough to see that the fridge was buried under wooden debris.
“Is anypony down there?” a voice called. It was very muffled—the speaker was outside the mountain of debris—but it sounded like Constable Peeler. “Hulloooooooo?”
“Down here!” Ditzy shouted. “I’m in the basement!”
There was some indistinct murmuring as Peeler spoke with somepony else. Then he called back to Ditzy, “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay! But I’m stuck down here!”
“Just hold tight! We’ll get you out, ma’am!”
An hour later, Peeler and the others had cleared enough debris away to open the fridge door. Ditzy zipped out, into the air. The sky above was clear, lit by the full moon. The buildings all around, at the edge of the city square, were completely undamaged.
Ponyville Town Hall was gone; the wooden wreckage below was all that remained.
“Woohooo! Feels so good to be …” She trailed off as she saw the faces of her rescuers. Aside from Constable Peeler, there were two pegasus stallions in police uniforms, and half a dozen civilian earth pony stallions. Most of them smiled back at her. But Peeler looked puzzled, and another stallion scowled severely at Ditzy. He still bore signs of his recent altercations with the ground and with himself. He even had some bits of gravel in his mane, still.
Ditzy glanced between Peeler, Hooves, and the way back to her apartment. Can I? she thought. Can I make it back there before they … She shook her head. No. No more running. Not this time.
She gulped, then descended. Upon landing, she inhaled and exhaled a few times before facing her rescuers and speaking. “Dr. Hooves, Constable Peeler, now that all this nonsense is over and Ponyville isn’t in immediate, existential peril, I think I owe you both an explanation.”
“Existential peril?” the doctor muttered under his breath.
Peeler turned to the nearest police stallion. “Deputy Chips, take the rest of the team and continue searching. This building should have been empty—” He shot a sideways glare at Ditzy before continuing, “—but we cannot afford to take any chances. Doctor Hooves and I can take Miss Doo’s statement.”
Fishen Chips snapped to attention. “Yes, sir!” Turning to the others, he called out, “Follow me, everypony!”
Dr. Hooves paced while the others departed by the path they had cleared through the rubble. As soon as he was alone with Ditzy and the Constable, he said, “Well, well, well. What an interesting turn of events. Who could have foreseen that this would end with Ponyville Town Hall blowing sky-high in the middle of the night?”
“Ditzy did,” Peeler answered. “She warned us about this, and I believed her.”
“Yes,” Ditzy said, “about that—”
“And that just raises further questions!” Dr. Hooves interrupted. “Tell me, Bubbles, was bombing Town Hall part of your plan all along, or is it something you just threw in at the last minute?”
“Bubbles?” Ditzy groaned. “Are you really still calling me that?”
“Wait…” Peeler butted in. “You can’t seriously be accusing Miss Doo of setting this bomb off, without any evidence!”
“No, no, both of you wait!” Ditzy interjected. “Before I say anything else, I need to know—Dr. Hooves, which of you am I talking to?”
The doctor furrowed his brows. “I don’t follow.”
“Am I talking to the you from the furthest in the future, or the second-furthest?”
Hooves’ scowl turned into a glare that could have stopped a clock. Nodding his head slightly towards Constable Peeler, he said, “Deliberately leaking sensitive information won’t make your sentence any lighter, dear.”
“Fine, let me reword it. Are you the one who was doing the chokehold, or the one who was getting choked?”
The doctor facehoofed, and Ditzy sighed. “The chokee, I presume,” she muttered. “Well, this conversation is going to be fun.”
Peeler glanced between Dr. Hooves and Ditzy. “Doctor, what the deuce is she talking about?”
“State secrets, Constable,” the doctor muttered. “Above your pay grade.” Planting all his hooves on the ground and standing up straight, he fixed his gaze firmly on Ditzy. “Now. You received the answer to your question, so it’s time you answered mine. Why did you bomb Town Hall?”
“First of all, it wasn’t a bomb,” Ditzy said, smirking. “It was a Krasnicker tube. A wormhole, if you prefer. As for why I did it, it was one of those ‘blow up a building to save the village’ situations. One of those ‘fighting fire with extradimensional explosions’ scenarios. It’s like they say: you can’t make an omelet without destroying Ponyville Town Hall once or twice.”
“Really. And what could possibly be bad enough to necessitate the complete destruction of Town Hall?”
“The return of the Eyeless King! The Void Treader!” Ditzy leaned forward and flared her wings as she shouted, “He whose footsteps level mountains and boil oceans! He who Qronos and Princess Nebulosa sacrificed their lives to blind and seal beyond the Ninth Darkness!” She stamped her hooves. “The Scarlet Ceremony had been fulfilled! He was coming right here! Ponyville would have been a radioactive crater before the Princesses or the Elements of Harmony could do anything!”
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. After her heartbeat had slowed down to normal, she opened her eyes and concluded. “So, the only solution was to break the summoning circle. Which happened to be Town Hall.”
Constable Peeler and Dr. Hooves both boggled at her. Peeler found his voice first. “Does she sound mad to you, too, doctor?”
“I’m afraid not,” Hooves answered. “If she really means what she says, then it sounds like she’s perfectly sane, and it’s the universe that’s gone mad. And if she’s lying, then it’s the whopper to end all whoppers. The Void Treader? The Ninth Darkness? Technically, I’m not even supposed to know about those.”
“Oh dear.” Constable Peeler gulped. “I’m starting to agree with you, doctor. I’m definitely not getting paid enough for this.”
“Well, I’m still not entirely convinced that she’s telling the truth. Really, Ditzy, are we supposed to believe that a horrible monster from beyond space and time was being summoned to Ponyville without either of the … I mean, without my noticing any warning signs?”
Ditzy quirked an eyebrow. “But you did notice one of the signs. The building started giving off tachyon radiation a few days ago.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I saw you then and talked to you. Right outside Town Hall. You were waving some sort of scanner at it, and you took one look at the readings and said—” At this, Ditzy threw a hoof to her forehead and affected a voice that was almost, but not quite, exactly the opposite of Dr. Hooves’ voice, “—‘Oh my princess! Ditzy Doo was right all along! If only I had listened to her sooner! Oh, here she comes now to ask some questions! I should be as smug and evasive as possible!’”
Dr. Hooves rolled his eyes. “Even allowing for your transparent exaggerations, that doesn’t sound like anything I’ve said in the past week.”
“How could you forget that?! First you spied on my conversation with Twilight Sparkle, then you ran away when I tried to talk to you, and I lost you when you ducked into an alley. And then, somehow, you were at Town Hall! And apparently you fell out of a tree or got into a fight in between, because you looked …” Ditzy’s eyes widened. “You looked just like you do now.”
“Are you implying …”
“Dr. Hooves, you were at the time and place I described. I clearly remember it.” Ditzy prodded the doctor’s chest with her forehoof. “But you don’t remember it, because you haven’t done it yet.”
“Yes. Very clever, Ditzy. But how do I know you won’t just—”
“Nononono!” Ditzy flared her wings as she interrupted. “Not one more word! This conversation is over, until you go back and see the sign I was talking about.” She folded her wings and began walking away, then stopped to look back over her shoulder. “When you’ve done that, meet me on Stirrup Street. The alley between the muffin shop and that clock store.”
“Time Turner’s Timepieces? That clock store?”
“You know where it is, then?”
Dr. Hooves smirked. “Yes, I’ve heard of it once or twice. But how do I know you’ll be there?”
Constable Peeler said, “Because I will be accompanying her there.”
Ditzy blinked. “Sounds like a great idea.” She smiled as she added, “After all, when it comes to catching me and keeping me caught, Constable Peeler has a much better track record than you, doctor.”
Hooves muttered something under his breath, and he kicked the air behind him. A flash of green light covered him, and he was gone.
“Did …” Peeler said, “did he just catch on fire and disappear? Is that a thing that just happened?”
“No,” Ditzy said. “That was time travel.” She clambered out of the wreckage.
Peeler followed, then caught up. “Miss Doo, how long has the local clockmaker, who is also apparently a secret R.S.S. Agent, been able to time travel?”
“I dunno. I only found out he could do that today.”
“You’re remarkably calm about this, ma’am.”
“Sir, I’ve seen a lot of weird things. Sometimes, I just have to accept that it’s not gonna make sense, or I’ll go crazy trying to figure it out.”
“That seems an irresponsible way to live. Um, no offense. I suppose it’s served you well enough so far, ma’am.”
Ditzy shrugged and continued in silence.
As they turned onto Stirrup Street, Peeler spoke again.
“Have you ever considered, Miss Doo, how peaceful Ponyville is this time of night? So different from my last duty station. Behind every door on this street is somepony sound asleep in their bed, completely unaware of what you did tonight to save all of them.”
Ditzy sighed, then smiled. “Yeah. That’s really nice.”
“That is, of course, assuming that you actually did what you say you did.”
“Yes, of course. Alright, we’re here.”
Ditzy glanced into the alley, while Constable Peeler looked up at the two stores’ signs. “The Muffin Emporium,” he read. “You know, I’ve never eaten here. Is it good?”
Ditzy opened her mouth, but a flash of green light cut off her answer. Dr. Hooves stood before her. Ditzy couldn’t be sure, but he looked slightly more beaten-up than before. In spite of that, there was a hint of a smile on his lips.
“My apologies if I’ve kept you waiting at all,” he said. “I had to stop by a certain alley on my way back, to close a time-like loop, and that may have thrown my count off a bit.”
Ditzy quirked an eyebrow at that.
“Yes, Ditzy,” Dr. Hooves continued, “that means exactly what you’re thinking. Speaking of which, there’s something I really should have asked you sooner.” He cleared his throat and sang a few lines:
“It’s only a paper moon,
hanging over a cardboard sea …”
He paused and extended an arm to Ditzy, as if hoofing an invisible something over to her.
“I’m sorry,” Ditzy said. “Where was the question?”
Dr. Hooves sighed. “Oh, thank the Princess. If this had been just a ‘right hoof versus left hoof’ misunderstanding, I would never live it down.” He turned to the Constable. “Constable Peeler, Miss Doo’s story checks out. At the time and place she described, there was a significant amount of tachyon radiation. So something was mucking about with time-space itself. Ditzy, I assume you can tell us more about this?”
Ditzy was already sitting, with her back to the alley. With a hoof, she tapped the spot next to her. “You should sit down. This will take a while to explain.”
Dr. Hooves and Constable Peeler sat down, one on each side of her. Ditzy cleared her throat and began.
“My alarm clock was broken, to begin with. That’s a story for another day, but I was walking to Alternating Current’s shop to get the clock fixed …”
“... and that took me back to Carrot Top’s fridge, which is where you found me.”
Ditzy smiled and closed her eyes. At her side, Dr. Hooves yawned and shook his head. He had nearly nodded off several times during Ditzy’s account.
Constable Peeler was the first to speak. “Miss Doo, I understand you have a bit of a reputation for being … Oh, how to put it?”
“Weird?” Ditzy said, opening one eye. “Missing a few marbles? A space cadet?”
“Eccentric?” Dr. Hooves volunteered.
“Yes,” Peeler said. “Let’s go with ‘eccentric.’ But after hearing your story, I can’t help but wonder just how much of your eccentricity was actually your saving Ponyville from destruction right under our very noses.”
“Oh,” Ditzy said, opening her other eye. “Well, I fix problems, but they’re not normally this severe. They’re—”
“What about that time a few weeks ago,” Dr. Hooves interrupted, “when you went swimming in the Ponyville aquifer? Lyra and Bon Bon saw you climb out of the well and everything. Is there a story behind that?”
“Uuurgh. I asked them not to tell …” Ditzy muttered to herself. To the doctor, she said, “There was an oanas egg mass in the aquifer. If they had hatched, the larvae would have made the water undrinkable for a whole month. So I moved the eggs to the lake outside town.”
“Oh. No problems pulling that caper off?”
“Nope. Pretty uneventful.”
“But what about last Winter Wrap Up, when you flew north to get all the migratory birds? Was that—”
“That was not my fault!” Ditzy struck the ground with a forehoof. “There was an extradimensional manufacturing error in the compass! It pointed in two directions! North and south were both the same!”
Hooves quirked an eyebrow. “How is that even possible?”
Ditzy grabbed his forehoof. “I can show you, if you’d like. And if you’re willing to step into the twenty-seventh dimension with me.”
“That, uh, won’t be necessary.” Hooves gulped.
“And the year before that?” Peeler asked. “When you flew west to get the birds? That was but a faulty compass, too?”
“No.” Ditzy hung her head. “That was all my fault.”
“Well,” Peeler said. “Miss Doo, even if incidents like the one that almost happened tonight are, as you say, few and far between, I think it behooves us to take some precautions. To stop future incidents before they reach the point where the only solution is destroying public property.”
“Okay,” Ditzy said. She could feel the tension build in her neck and shoulders; she had an idea where the conversation was heading.
“Based on your own description of these events, it appears to me that many of your obstacles stemmed from your decision to act alone and not tell anypony what you were doing. Do you disagree with that assessment?”
Ditzy stared at her hooves. “No,” she said, her voice flat.
“Why did you choose to act alone, if you don’t mind my asking?”
She exhaled. “Past experience has taught me that telling other ponies about what I do is a bad idea.”
“Then—”
“And yes, I do mind you asking about it.”
Silence hung over the alley as Peeler and Hooves both shifted in their places. Hooves broke the silence. “It wasn’t …” He paused at the look Ditzy shot him. “It wasn’t here in Ponyville, was it?”
“No.” Ditzy resumed looking at her hooves. “Elsewhere.”
The doctor placed his hoof over Ditzy’s. “They … Whoever they were, they didn’t believe you?”
Ditzy nodded.
“Well, sometimes, all you can do with the past is learn from it and move on. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“And what have you learned from tonight? That I do believe you, Ditzy, and so does Constable Peeler.”
“Yeah …”
“So the next time something like this comes up …”
Ditzy smiled slightly as she looked up at Dr. Hooves. “I’ll ask one of you for help if I think it’s something too big for me to take care of myself.” She placed one hoof over one eye. “Promise.”
“No, no, no! None of that. I get enough of it from … Nevermind. Just a regular old promise is enough for me. What do you think, Constable? Is it good enough for you?”
“Well …” Peeler said. “I’m still not entirely comfortable with this. Leaving Ponyville’s safety in this matter to just one pony, no matter how competent he or she is—I don’t like it.”
“But she won’t be just one pony,” Hooves said. “I have a support network in my job, and I can see to it that Ditzy gets one as well.”
“Hmm …”
“And while I’m at it, I can talk my superiors into making you an official R.S.S. liaison. And when that happens, you will be paid enough to deal with this sort of thing.”
“Are you trying to bribe me, doctor?”
“See? With that attitude, you’re perfect for the job!”
Constable Peeler shook his head. “I really don’t see how you two can be so calm about this.”
“Oh, that’s easy!” Ditzy said, smiling. “During this whole conversation, Xanthorgh the Flayer has been picking sharviikas off all our brains! You should start feeling the effects any second now, Constable.”
She paused to let the words sink in. Just as Constable Peeler opened his mouth to reply, she continued, “Oh, sharviikas are parasites that live in ponies’ brains. They eat positive emotions and leave you feeling constantly irritated. So old Xanthorgh takes his claws and jabs them into your brain and just starts rooting around—”
“Blaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuurgh!” Peeler’s vocalization was somewhere between a cry of terror and a shudder of disgust. He bolted upright and fled the alley, shaking his head violently as he ran.
Dr. Hooves watched the fleeing Constable for a few seconds, then turned back to Ditzy. “That was mean,” he said.
“Huh,” Ditzy said. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known he’d react that badly.”
“And how did you come up with that bit about brain parasites? Really …”
“I … uh … made up a lot less of that than you think.”
Hooves stared at her. She continued, “Sharviikas are real. Xanthorgh the Flayer is real, and one of his emanations is right here in Ponyville. But Constable Peeler didn’t have any sharviikas for Xanthorgh to pick off.”
“But …”
“You know, I’ve had Xanthorgh pick parasites off my brain plenty of times. It’s perfectly safe. All you feel is a bit of tingling, and after that an overwhelming calmness and a bit of sleepiness.”
Dr. Hooves opened his mouth to speak, paused, and shut it. He repeated this several times before he found his tongue. “You give me your solemn word that what Xanthorgh just did to my brain is one hundred percent safe?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well,” the doctor said, rising to his hooves. “I’ve seen many strange things in my official duties. And what I’ve learned tonight, certainly ranks in the top five. Good night, Ditzy Doo. I need to go write a letter.”
He trotted a few paces, unlocked the door of the clock shop, and stepped inside.
Ditzy looked at the shop’s door for a few seconds, then her gaze traveled up to the sign. “Oooooooooohhhhhhhh,” she said.
She turned and flew home.