Ditzy smiled as the dream returned to her.
She was sitting on top of a cliff, overlooking a magnificent sunrise over an alien planet. The planet she wason was Bermuda 15, the beach planet. The planet is said to have sunrises that could melt the hearts of anypony who watched it. The planet was also the planet where the Doctor helped stop an infestation of the Black Demon virus, a virus that turned ponies into hallow shells of pure evil. Ditzy was lucky to have stumbled across the antidote when the Doctor fell ill.
As the sun rose above the horizon, she could feel the Doctor sitting next to her. “Well, off on another adventure?”
Ditzy sighed as she looked over at him. She didn’t have the familiar shine in her eyes whenever he asked that. In fact, in her eyes was confusion. Not about the question, but about her future as a citizen of a little planet tens of millions of light years away from there. She felt herself slip off the cliff and into the water. The Doctor shrieked and jumped in after her.
Ditzy felt herself sink to the bottom. She saw the Doctor break into the surface of the ocean and saw him swim to her. He was inches away from her hoof when she knocked it away. His hoof turned into smoke as his image faded into the water. The ocean was weighing down on Ditzy’s chest, but she welcomed the pain. She felt herself softly land on the ocean floor. The darkness had enveloped her completely. She felt the eyes of sea creatures around her.
The wall-eyed pegasus looked around at her surroundings. Indeed, sea creatures of every size and species came to see her. Some looked fearsome while others looked at her with confusion. One of the sea creatures approached her with hesitation. She held her arms out as the creature came between them. They both shared a hug under the sea.
Ditzy’s eyes shot open. Her eyes readjusted as she looked around her. She felt her breathing labored and her chest heavy. She was on her bed and in her room. It was night with a full moon. Ever since the Doctor disappeared, Ponyville had its share of unusual happenings. The Everfree Forest attacked the city and the bearers of the Elements were powerless. The Forest had retreated, but the Mane 6 returned with no jewels.
When the trials for the Equestria Games came in, she was put on the Ponyville team to replace Rainbow Dash while she was injured. Of course, she immediately recovered, but she didn’t mind. She was still there when the games began. The peaceful scene of Equestria had ceased after the sudden attack against the princesses a while ago. Ever since then, it had been one chaotic thing after another.
Ditzy’s ear twitched at a faint sound growing in the distance. She hopped out of her bed and ran to the window. There was the magical blue box that she remembered so well. She quickly flew down the stairs and threw up the door. Of course, there was the Doctor with his blue suit vest and tie. He didn’t look a day older than when he left. His usual grin greeted the pegasus. “Doctor, you’re back!”
“And it’s good to be back. I’ve got to say, it took me a while to get the hang of my hands and feet again,” he said.
“You mean those weird things that other weird thing gave you?”
He nodded and chuckled. “Anyway, I’m back for you. We still have a whole Universe to explore, and more bad guys to stop. What do you say, wanna come back to the TARDIS?”
Ditzy’s face began to burn up with embarrassment. The Doctor was quick to notice. With no more words, she walked into the house and motioned the Doctor to follow.
The Doctor sighed as he entered the room. The room was just big enough for a filly, and sure enough, there was a young unicorn sleeping in the bed. An old music box was playing in the background, probably what lulled the filly to sleep in the first place. The Doctor wanted to curl up and sleep as well with the music playing, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“How long was I gone?”
“3 and a half years Doctor. I found her a while ago and Carrot Top helped me raise her. I wanna be there for her Doctor, so I am retiring from the TARDIS,” Ditzy said.
The Doctor smiled. “You remind me of the nanny we met on Mal-Relati. I understand Derpy, and I imagine that these past few months have been tough on you,” he said.
Ditzy nodded. “So many things happened Doctor, but I want Dinky to be safe.”
“Oh so her name is Dinky?”
Ditzy smiled. She yawned as she closed the door. “I wanna get some sleep Doctor. You don’t mind, do you?”
The Doctor only smiled. “Has my derpy best friend finally grown up?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Nope, I’m still me. I accidentally almost crashed into Rainbow Dash’s house the other day. I ended up crashing into Twilight’s castle though, but she wasn’t home,” she said.
The Doctor sighed and gave his Derpy companion a pat on the head. "Take care of yourself Ditzy."
"You too Doc."
The Doctor waved goodbye to Ditzy as left the house, leaving Ditzy to her daughter’s bedroom door. As she turned in the opposite direction of the Doctor, she could hear the sound of the engines firing up. She shut her eyes and focused on the sound of the TARDIS. She implanted the sound into her memory before heading back into bed. That would be the last time she would be inside the TARDIS. She didn’t count on the fact that she would see the Doctor again, but it would be under a different set of circumstances. Circumstances that would bring the Doctor back from the end of time.
Applejack was sound asleep when she heard the TARDIS engines.
Even though it had been two and a half years since Tirek unleashed pure chaos in Equestria, Applejack still had nightmares from that day. She would scream at night, trying to fight off Tirek as she tried sucking every ounce of her life force away. Her nightmares always started after Twilight surrendered to the demonic centaur. Discord would still be trapped and without the last key, they were doomed. Applejack remembered that day, and the events following it.
Apple Bloom and her friends were lucky to have been camping with Zecora when Tirek was free. Fearing their safety, Applejack sent the CMC away in order to deal with the problem. Her plan worked, and telling her young sister about what had happened was bad enough.
She was in the middle of the field, and Tirek hoisted her up to his eye level. Applejack was petrified, and right as he began extracting her life force, the sounds of a whirring engine erupted. The dream Tirek and Applejack turned to the sound of the noise. Materializing on the field was a small blue box. Tirek released Applejack and approached the box. A brown stallion emerged from the box and calmly walked up to the cloven hoof of Tirek.
The stallion looked up and chuckled. “I’ve seen worse than you! Ponies have nightmares of you, but you will soon be having nightmares of me!” he said.
Applejack smiled. She looked up and noticed a hole burning in Tirek’s chest as the stallion continued to stare into his soul. An explosion erupted behind her, and she saw herself and the rest of the Mane 6 with their new magical forms. They cast a spell on Tirek, destroying his power. Applejack smiled as she remembered that moment.
The cowpony ran to the Doctor and threw a big hug on him. He chuckled and returned the hug. Before she could say anything, the Doctor whispered in her ear: “Wake up.”
Applejack sat straight up in her bed. She looked around her room. Nopony was there. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and proceeded back to sleep, but she heard the sounds of a rusty, whirring machine coming from outside. She recognized that sound immediately. She looked out her window. Outside the farm, the Doctor’s TARDIS was materializing at the edge of the Everfree. She smiled as she grabbed her Stetson and bolted out the door.
She snuck out of the barnhouse and ran through the fields. When she reached the border between her farm and the Everfree Forest, she stopped. It was really the TARDIS, and coming out of it was the Doctor. He seemed to have been stumbling as he closed the door behind him. Applejack chuckled as she jumped over the fence.
“Ah never thought ah would see ya again,” she said.
The Doctor spun around. Apparently he was facing the Forest. “I come back from time to time. Sometimes not with this face,” he said.
Applejack chuckled. “Ya have been gone fer 3 years now, Doctor. That was a mighty big job ya had to do back in yer Universe.”
“I’m a time traveler, I can’t measure time outside while traveling. It could’ve been 3 years or 3 seconds. It’s good to see some things haven’t changed,” he said, looking at the barn.
Applejack spun around. “Twilight got a new library, Rainbow made it to the Wonderbolts, and ah am the owner of Sweet Apple Acres.”
The Doctor smiled. “It’s good to know I’m on track with history.”
Applejack smiled. “So ya’ll off on more adventures with yer friend?”
“No, she has something more important to do. It’s fine, really. She is needed here in Ponyville for Dinky, so I can understand that she wants to leave,” the Doctor said.
“Ah know how ya mean. Twilight is traveling again and most of us got our own lives again,” she said.
The Doctor nodded. “This won’t be the end of her travels. If I know my Equestrian history, Twilight does a lot of digging into Luna’s maps of the Universe. Of course she is going to be traveling, although, I think I have said too much.”
Applejack sighed. “Anyway, I’d best be moving on. Planets to see, ponies to save, bets to pay, all that stuff. I owe Cadence’s father a few chickens for a bet I made,” the Doctor said.
“What was the bet?”
“Doesn’t matter, unless you would want to…”
Applejack stared at him. “…want to come with me.”
The farm pony looked over at the TARDIS. “Go with yew, inside the TARDIS?”
The Doctor shrugged. “Yeah why not? It’s going to be fun.”
“All that stuff that happened all those years ago, all that was nuthin’ to ya?”
“Just a regular day for me. I don’t mind sharing that normal day with you though. What do you say: want to come with me?”
Applejack thought about it for a moment. “Ah have mah family to look for. Ah don’t have the time to leave.”
“But that’s the thing with the TARDIS. You can come with me and you can be back within a few hours. Nopony will ever know you left,” the Doctor said. “The beauty of time travel.”
Applejack looked over at the TARDIS again. She remembered what it was like in the TARDIS when they were invading Sombra’s Stronghold inside Canterlot. The rooms she entered were amazing, but she knew that there were so many more than just a few rooms. “Anywhere in time and space?”
“Anytime and place. The past, present, and future are yours to visit. We can visit your great-grandparents back when they stumbled upon the Big Macintosh apple. We can attend Twilight’s wedding, assuming she dug out of the books, we can travel with Princess Twilight’s ‘Cosmic Exploration’ program. We can have tea with Celestia and her mother, we can go anywhere and meet anypony. The only thing stopping you from seeing it all is this decision,” he said.
Applejack turned to the Doctor. She fixed her Stetson and smiled. “Ah’m in,” she said.
The Doctor smiled and led her into the TARDIS. The interior looked cleaner, like he put an effort into fixing it up a bit. The Doctor closed the door behind him and followed the cowpony into the control room. Applejack ran a hoof on the console. The last time she saw this was on their victory day. She remembered her friends running around with everything they needed to storm Canterlot. She remembered seeing the ground forces direct from Ponyville anxious to get inside the royal city.
The Doctor released the brake and looked over to Applejack. “So, where do you want to start?”
Applejack thought about it for a moment before she smiled. “Ah want to make a pit stop before we go. Ah need to get mah stuff first.”
The Doctor nodded and watched Applejack throw open the doors. She ran across the field and into her farmhouse. He watched her leave and pulled out a book from under the console. It was the book that Twilight used to discover the secret of the Elements. The book he shut on her. He turned to the bookmarked page and read to himself:
Based on my earlier investigations, I have concluded that the Elements are alive. This theory had scared Luna a little bit, but at least I didn’t divulge what else I uncovered to her and Princess Celestia. After doing some digging, I have discovered a fatal flaw in the Element’s design.
Instead of focusing mainly on good energy and magic, it has an open defense. A defense that can be penetrated by dark magic. I’ve tested my theory using dark magic. I must say, if King Sombra knew of the Elements and turned them, there wouldn’t be a kingdom under the Sun.
The Elements magnify one’s magical arsenal and uses the magic of their choice to work. If the Elements were used with dark magic, what they would do would contradict their original purpose: to provide harmony and life. If they are turned, then they can wipe out all life in Equestria. If this comes to be, the Elements of Harmony will be no more.
They will bring Armageddon. They will become the Elements of Disaster.
-Starswirl the Bearded
Applejack returned with a box strapped onto her back. The Doctor immediately hid the book under the console. With a destination from his companion, the TARDIS doors slammed shut and immediately dematerialized.
Trixie fidgeted in her nightmare. The two years she spent traveling across Equestria bore little fruit. Her wagon was paid off thanks to a grateful soul in Ponyville, her magic began expanding, and more ponies started noticing her. She could say it was amazing, but she always appeared AFTER princess Twilight. Twilight was the main event and Trixie was the shadow that followed. It didn’t help with her magical hat being damaged in the war a few years back.
Ever since the changelings ruined her hat, she had a violent reaction every time one appeared before her. Each time she fought and beaten a changeling, she remembered the little voice in the back of her head screaming ‘A wizard is nothing without a hat!’ Trixie had parked her wagon on a tree at the top of a hill. She was to perform at Trottingham in the next few days, and she was a month ahead of Twilight. She sighed in her empty wagon.
Suddenly, there came a knock on the door. Trixie heard it but didn’t move. Probably a prankster leaving a bag of unmentionables again, she thought to herself.
Another knock broke the silence. Trixie groaned as her dream ended and she was pulled back into reality. She looked up at the door.
Another knock came in, and Trixie sighed. “Who dares disturb the Great and Powerful Trixie?!”
She heard a thud on the ground. There was one more knock, and the sound of a pony running away. Trixie sighed as she pulled out a brick from under her bed. She grabbed the door knob with her magic, and threw it open. She raised the brick to find that nopony was there. The night was still around and crickets chirped in the night. The only difference in that scene was a brown box sitting at her doorstep. She looked around, looking for the mailmare who delivered it. On the box was a note.
Trixie picked up the note. It read A wizard is not without her hat.
‘Oh great, my nightmare is real,’ she thought. She opened the box and caught her squeak.
Inside was her hat fully patched up. She grabbed the hat with her magic and placed it on top of her head. Suddenly, she felt something sharp poking at her head. She raised the hat, and a metal rod fell out. It was a magic wand with another note on it.
‘Thank ya fer helpin’ with Ponyville all them years ago. Try and not get ponies upset.
-AJ’
She smiled as she raised the wand. She looked around and still saw nothing. The only things on the hill was a tree, and…a blue box? The brightly lit box stood there, staring at her. She did not know why, but Trixie found herself waving at the box. She picked up the box and wand, and reentered her wagon. The last sound she heard before falling back to sleep was the sound of the engines of the TARDIS fading into the dark.