Chapter III: Awakening
I awoke by being prodded awake by an impatient hoof. Opening my eyes, I was surprised to be greeted by faint outline of a stallion in the darkness. I struggled to find I was tied to a chair, my hands being tied behind me and my ankles strapped to the leg of the chair.
“Sorry about that mate, but I couldn’t reveal my base to you.”
I blinked to refresh my vision, quickly scanning the room. My eyes were met with nothing but complete and utter darkness.
Nervously, I spoke. “Where am I?”
“Time will tell.” The voice responded.
The outline in front of me moved from where it stood. Walking away, I heard some hoofsteps before silence.
“Now if only I could find the lights?” the voice said curiously. “Oh, there it is!”
Immediately, I was blinded by a wave of blinding light. I briefly shut my eyes to avoid being blinded. Feeling the heat of the light against my skin, I attempted to open my eyes. Squinting, my eyes made out a figure in front of me.
“Well, hello there. Might I ask, what are you doing here in Equestria?”
I struggled once more and twisted in the chair. Feeling the weakness in the ropes holding me down, I made a plan. “Yeah, go ahead.” I said expecting the worst.
“How did you get here!?” The voice questioned.
“I came from a land far, far away.”
“Lying is pointless, now tell me the truth!” The figure snared.
“Like I said, I’m from a far off land.”
“Technically, I wasn’t lying.” I thought to myself. I shut my eyes and opened them. This time I had my filter implants in effect, so this time I could fully see my surrounding. What I saw shocked me. The Stallion had a wide grin on his face. I was tied to a chair and I was missing my jacket, stripped down to nothing but my underwear. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
“Who are you and what am I doing here!?” I demanded.
“I’m the Doctor and you’re in my TARDIS.”
He paced around in front of me and then stopped suddenly.
“I’ve been watching you since you’ve been here. You caused a disruption and nearly shattered this universe…” He paused momentarily. “If it wasn’t for me, this universe would’ve been destroyed.”
I frowned. “I guess you know then.”
“Yes, and I’m not happy to see you here.”
“I really have no clue how that happened.”
“I know how, it’s also the reason why were both stuck here.”
“Would you mind telling me how this all happened?”
He looked at me with grimace. “It happened because the time vortex broke. We both came here simultaneously. When we both appeared in this dimension, we caused a time ram. Instead of being destroyed, we were thrown through time.” He gave me another grim look. “You popped up a day ago, I popped up decades ago. Because of you, I was forced to regenerate and my TARDIS was shut down in the process.”
“I do have one more question.” I said.
He looked at me again. “And what would that be?”
“Why am I in my underwear tied to a chair?”
“Oh…” He paused looking confused. “You know, I have no clue?”
He then proceeded to walk toward me and then untie me. He started first with my ankles and then with my hands. Once free, I calmly stood up then stretched. Feeling better, I then looked down at my half naked body. Embarrassed, I covered myself behind the chair.
“Can you please escort me to my clothes?” I said nervously.
“Oh sure, just follow me this way then.
He began to walk toward the door in front of us. Leading me through, we appeared in the TARDIS atrium. The atrium was dimly lit and had three levels. We were on the second level, which led to the control panel and a set of stairs leading to the third. We slowly made our way up the stairs to the third level. Upon arrival, we were in a large hallway with many doorways.
“Now I’m not so comfortable with you being here, but since the TARDIS is offline, I guess I shouldn’t be so fearful of you.” He said
We both walked through the nearest doorway, which brought us to a large wardrobe. I immediately saw my clothes.
Walking towards them, I noticed a difference in them. Instead of my usual dark jeans, crimson shirt, leather jacket and converse high tops. They were replaced with different colored clothing. I grabbed them and inspected them closely.
“They’re the same clothes, but why are they different colors? They’re just so…” My speech broke for a moment. “Colorful!”
I quickly changed and looked in a mirror. My clothes were altered to brighter shades than before. My shoes changed from a coal color to a light grey. My jeans were a brighter than before and my shirt changed from a crimson to a navy blue. And most importantly, my jacket was no longer black. It was now white with red blue stripes going down the arms.
The Doctor noticed my distress and trotted up beside me. “I’m terribly sorry about that, but when I knocked you out with my sonic screwdriver, it appeared to alter your clothing’s color. I could fix it, but I’m afraid I might make it worse.”
I stared at my reflection, disappointed with my new clothes. “I guess I can deal with.”
“Well let’s go then, Allons-Y!” He said vigorously.
“Where will we go exactly?”
“I dunno, but I think we should get back to your friend Thomas.”
“Hey, just to be clear here. I’m not following you and you’re not following me okay.” I said as we both shot each other nervous glances.
In unison, we both spoke. “Agreed!”
We both left the wardrobe and then walked into the atrium. The interior of the atrium was dimly lit, because of this I reached into my jacket and pulled out my own sonic screwdriver. Activating it, I increased the lighting of the TARDIS.
“What! Where’d you get that?” The Doctor exclaimed.
“What? Oh that’s right!” Remembering that the Doctor was the only person who would have owned a sonic screwdriver, I quickly explained. “Well having the ability to travel anywhere. I traveled to the giant universe store thingy…” I ended with a lull.
“What?!” He asked once again.
“I bought it.”
“No, I mean how did you increase the lighting output? The TARDIS is barely managing without a time rift to suck energy from, so it can barely keep the power on.” He pulled out his sonic screwdriver from his collar. Checking the scanner, he then activated it.
“Quick, follow me!” He then proceeded to gallop outside. Bursting from the door, we both appeared in the evening twilight of the town.
I turned around to see that we were in the marketplace near where I first arrived in town. I even noticed that the doorway to his house was the same navy blue, just like the TARDIS.
Confused I blubbered “Wait, what the?!”
The Doctor clarified.“I built my TARDIS as the doorway to a dummy house. That way when I have guests, they don’t get suspicious about my house.”
“That’s actually quite clever.”
“Well let’s get going then. Allons-Y!”
We rushed through the city for the next hour. While traveling through the city, he told me how he brought me back without people noticing me. It’s actually funny, because all he did was put me in a wagon and throw a tarp over me. Sadly, not a single flying feather was given that moment. I also couldn’t help but realize how big the city of Ponyville was.
While we were nearing the inn, I noticed Thomas walking nearby with a bag of groceries. He noticed me and then shouted for my attention.
“Yo, Max! You won’t believe who I met today!” Thomas cried out.
“You won’t believe who I met today.” I responded.
The Doctor stepped up from behind me and spoke up. “And I should have brought my companion!”
For a moment, we all stood around for a while and stared at each other. Eventually the Doctor spoke up.
“Yes, I know I’m a pony…” He paused awkwardly. “Unlike you guys, I meant to keep a low profile.”
Thomas looked at me. “When did he get here?”
“The Doctor is here because of an accident.” I rolled my eyes. “Just like us!”
“So Doc, what should we do now?” I asked.
The Doctor started to walk toward the inn. “Why not go inside?” He said as he began entering the building.
I immediately began following the Doctor. Thomas trailing behind me, decided to speak out.
“So aren’t you curious about my adventure?!” He said as he started digging in the groceries.
“Not really.” I responded lazily.
Thomas looked at me and frowned. “Oh, well… I met someone named Carrot Top.”
We both entered the building after the Doctor. Seeing that he was chatting up with some mare. We both decided to head toward our room. Entering the room, Thomas went off to put away the groceries, while I went to look around the room. I never got a good look at the room, noticing that the room was very boring, I settled on putting up a poster. I pulled out a demotivational poster from my jacket, carring on to hang it up.
Thomas walked up behind me and took in a good look at the poster.
“Really?!” He spoke in a shocked tone. “Why that poster?!”
I looked at the poster again. It was just a poster of a kitten hanging from a tree branch, below it was labeled ‘Keep on hanging pussy!’.
“I honestly don’t see a problem with this.” I said jokingly.
“Its offensive, that’s why!”
“Who’s gonna see it other than us?”
He shot me a foul look. “What if a mare sees this!”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out another poster. “How about this?”
He gazed at it briefly. “Okay seriously. What the hell?”
I turned it around and stared at it.
“So, what about motivational posters?”
“Sounds better I guess…” He sighed.
I heard a voice by the doorway. “What are you two doing!?”
I looked in the direction of the voice and saw Jericho. He started to trot toward us angrily, picking up pace as he noticed the poster hanging.
“You need to take that down.”
I twisted to see him. “Why?”
“Regulations, that’s why!”
“Okay, rules are rules.”
I turned to take it down before being distracted.
The Doctor came in after our discussion and leaned against the doorway. “Well I need to start getting out of here, so I’ll see you all later.” He started to walk out before turning around again. “I also paid for a monthly stay for you. Now if you don’t mind me…” He paused dramatically. “ALLONS-Y!”
Jericho continued to chat with us. “Like he said, he paid for your rent this month.” He glanced down at his leg, checking his watch. “Unlike you guys, I have a job. Now excuse me while I get back to work.”
I mumbled something to myself as he trotted away, shutting the door behind him. “Well it was nice talking.”
“He’s not very nice!” Thomas said. “It’s like he has a stick up his arse!”
I looked around and then plopped down on the nearest bed. “I understand, but what if… What if he has a very dramatic and tragic fillyhood, causing a disturbance in his adult life?” I said kiddingly.
Thomas shrugged. “I guess?”
I leaned back into the bed. Thinking about my day, eventually dozed off.
I found myself in another dream world. This time, things were actually normal. I was just going through a basic dream for me. Usually I would go through an earlier memory. This one was just a boring adventure. A previous companion and I were going through a tunnel, this tunnel eventually led to a doorway, but this was no ordinary doorway. This was my
Doorway! I instinctively lurched forward, attempting to grasp the door. I only met a failed attempt, I spun around to meet the eyes of my companion, only to see nothing but blackness. Startled by the change, I stumbled back into a gloomy shadow of my inner mind.
In the darkness… I saw a light.