• Published 21st Dec 2013
  • 1,378 Views, 7 Comments

Doctor Whooves - The Nightmare of Hearths Warming - Time Pony Victorious



A strange illness is taking over the lives of innocent fillies and colts, it's up to the Doctor and Fluttershy to investigate and stop these mysterious creatures woven out of terror and nightmares.

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The Nightmare of Winter

24th of Winter, 9:30am, 1002 C.R.

Ponyville Town Square

Fluttershy sighed, stepping away from the empty local confectionary, Sugarcube Corner. The Cakes, along with Pinkie Pie, had left Ponyville to visit family in a warmer venue. Huffing, Fluttershy buried her face in her warm, pink scarf and muttered apologies to Angel. She had promised to buy the bunny a few carrot cakes but it slipped her mind that the Cakes would be gone.

Angel unfolded his arms and hopped on Fluttershy’s back, undeterred and unbothered by the lack of sweets promised by her. It was a mere diversion, after all, to come down to Sugarcube Corner to avoid the conversation Angel (more or less) started.

It wasn’t very well-known, but Fluttershy was just as stubborn about certain things as Applejack. If Fluttershy didn’t want to do something she would bend over backwards just to avoid it. There are some exceptions, mind you, if whatever she was avoiding was meant to help somepony, Fluttershy could be swayed to help. If it isn’t, you better believe she won’t do it.

Leaving the shop, Fluttershy headed back home to where she could, hopefully, procure her own carrot-cakes to sate Angel’s abnormally gluttonous hunger. Walking through the now quiet Ponyville, a tinge of sadness struck the pegasus’s chest. Normally during the holiday season (especially this holiday) the village would be abuzz with activity. Applejack would’ve set up shop to sell her prized apples, Pinkie would’ve been throwing dozens of parties, Rarity would have her winter apparel on sale, Rainbow would be trying to set-up snowball fights with the entire town; even Twilight would’ve rattled off some obscure fact about the holiday.

The quiet was uncharacteristically deafening. Normally such tranquility would be welcomed by Fluttershy, acting as a refuge to the loud, obnoxious world. But after producing and nurturing such deep friendships with everypony the silence was unwelcoming.

So preoccupied with her thoughts, Fluttershy didn’t even bother to notice the suddenly materializing blue box appear in the sky. Angel took notice, standing up on her back he stomped impatiently, pointing soundlessly at the now corporeal TARDIS beginning to careen toward her.

But Fluttershy failed to heed his warning. Desperate, Angel violently tugged at her mane, yelping in pain Fluttershy looked to where Angel was pointed and squeaked as she jumped out of the way at the last moment. The TARDIS crashed into the ground and bounced for a moment before stopping face-up; smoking but unscathed.

“Oh my,” gasped Fluttershy looking at the wreckage. The TARDIS was untouched, as invincible as Fluttershy figured, but she knew how bumpy a ride it was on the inside, what it must’ve been like… “Doctor!”

The violent crash was ten times worse on the inside, so, without hesitation, Fluttershy flew over to the doors to open it. It would prove difficult, however, as she noticed the handles were disproportionally smaller than her hooves.

“How do I open…” She remembered the Doctor mentioning that the TARDIS was alive, she was even privy to the psychic waves it produced. “Um, hello, TARDIS. If you could open the doors so I can help the Doctor that would be nice, I mean, if you want to, if you don’t that’s okay too…”

Instantly, the doors opened downward and Fluttershy squeaked her gratitude. Her rescue efforts, however, was stopped as a grappling hook suddenly came flying at her. Barely dodging the hook as it grabbed the side of the doorway and fastened there.

“Ah! Anyone up there?!” Came a familiar voice accented slightly higher pitched than average stallions from within the TARDIS’s depths. Looking down the doorway, Fluttershy fought the nauseating disorientation. From her perspective the TARDIS interior was perfectly upright as if she were looking straight at in instead of downward, but the Doctor was the only thing orientated properly, floating down, dangling on his little rope.

The Time Lord grinned madly as he climbed up with difficulty. Fluttershy dove inward (again fighting the disorientation as gravity “corrected”) picked up the Doctor and flew back out.

For some reason he was soaking wet but his smile didn’t waver. Patting Fluttershy’s shoulder, the Doctor tried to dry himself off to no avail. “Many thanks, Fluttershy. That would’ve been a hell of a climb back up from the library.”

“Um, no problem, but why are you wet?”

“Landed in the pool when the TARDIS lost control,” he answered, shaking his body suddenly, soaking Fluttershy slightly.

“Oh, so the pool is in the library?”

“No, of course not, don’t be silly,” the Doctor huffed. Standing up he dried his mane as much as he could while
Fluttershy stood by watching the eccentric Time Lord work.

He was dressed differently than normal but relatively similar. Despite the cold weather, the Doctor wore a simple thin black vest over a tight white shirt with a distinctive Hourglass design on his collar, clearly a work by Rarity. It was odd, however, that his outfit lacked pockets, something the Doctor held dearly and claimed to be useless without. Still, he wore his traditional bright blue bowtie, slightly crooked to one side as always.

“Two out of ten, that landing, a bit rubbish but I’m working on it,” the Doctor mumbled to himself. Fluttershy barely paid him any attention only focusing on the Doctor’s rather uncharacteristic apparel.

“Um, Doctor, aren’t you cold?” Fluttershy finally asked.

The Time Pony gave her a grin and shook his head. “Nah, although I’ll admit it is a bit nippy, Time Lords simply have a higher body temperature than hu-, er, ponies. What about you?”

He pointed at Fluttershy’s simple scarf with a puzzled expression. Fidgeting in place, she averted her gaze, touching her scarf almost protectively. “Same, although, I’m not a Time Lord, pegasi can endure harsher weather better. In fact, I don’t even need the scarf, it’s just…”

She touched the thin piece of fabric, feeling how worn out it was, feeling the many years the weathered the scarf in her hoof. “I like it.”

The Doctor only nodded, a sagely wisdom shoning in his eyes as if perfectly understand Fluttershy’s sentiment.

Fluttershy sighed softly, turning back to the more pressing matter before them, the proverbial blue elephant. “What happened, Doctor? I understand the trips in the TARDIS are, well, bumpy… what went wrong?”

It was the Doctor’s turn to feel uncomfortable, sheepishly averting his eyes and finding interest in his hooves he coughed awkwardly before gesturing to the TARDIS. “To be perfectly honest, I have no idea. I was responding to a distress signal I received and on the trip back the TARDIS…” He exhaled sharply. “Went completely wonky.”

“Distress signal?” Fluttershy swallowed, concern and worry causing her wings to fold.

He reached into his vest, into an unseen pocket, and produced a familiar black wallet. “Psychic paper,” the Doctor answered, flipping it open revealing a simple white piece of paper with the words “THE NIGHTMARE IS COMING” written on it. “It picks up stray psychic calls anywhere in time and space, those privy enough are capable of sending me personal messages with them, though I’d rather they didn’t.”

Remaining silent as the Doctor explained, Fluttershy visibly winced at the psychic message. She’s seen pretty scary things in her tenure as the Doctor’s companion and even before meeting him, a few dozen creatures and myths came to mind that could explain what the Nightmare could’ve been. None of them were nice and cuddly as Angel.

“Did you find out who sent the psychic message?” Fluttershy asked, pushing the scary thoughts away.

The Doctor tilted his head slightly and smiled sheepishly. “Well…”

10 minutes ago

The Doctor scanned Bluebell’s comatose body with his trusty sonic screwdriver. She lay there under her covers and to the unsuspecting eye she would look completely at sleep. One wouldn’t notice her rigid state, her bluish skin (hidden well underneath her equally blue coat) completely stone-cold even beginning to frost over.

Feeling her forehead, minding her unicorn’s horn, the Doctor grimaced. It was absolutely frozen. Glancing at the readings from his sonic, the Doctor frowned. Carefully, the Doctor opened her eyes, one at a time, to quickly examine them.

“Dilated,” he remarked, noting the lack of response. “It’s reasonable to assume her hypothermia is responsible for the comatose state, but…”

Glancing at the sonic again, he scrutinized the readings. If it was hypothermia her body temperature would be well-below normal, but it read normal. It was only her skin that produced temperatures below freezing, but there wasn’t any damage, save the coma, to her body. Her body is functioning as normal, normal breathing, normal heart-rate normal everything, it looked like she was sleeping from these readings.

“So, what causes a comatose state complete with below-freezing skin but completely normal body readings” the Doctor asked, looking around, his rhetorical question dying in his throat as he remembered he was alone.

“Right…” Looking at Bluebell he scrunched his face up in a frown. “I don’t suppose you could answer, eh?”

Unfortunately, Bluebell was hardly in any condition to answer. Pocketing his sonic in his coat, the Doctor left the bedside and headed for the door. Making his way to the living room to talk to the father, Azul Hoof, the Doctor considered his words carefully.

He had utilized his psychic paper to explain that he was a traveling Doctor checking up on everypony because of the recently freezing weather. In reality, however, he was here responding to Bluebell’s psychic message.

Still there was something missing, something he can’t see… right out of the corner of his eye.

“Sorry about the wait,” the Doctor said before he entered the living room, putting on his best professional tone. “Bluebell is stable, everything is reading normal although I can’t find a reason behind her comatose state but I’ll figure…” His words died as he walked into the living room, finding it empty.

“… It out…”

Letting out a breath, the Doctor watched as it froze in the air quickly noting the sudden drop in temperature. Brandishing his sonic, he pointed it about, scanning the room as rapidly as the device could function (which was very fast). There was something here, according to the sonic buzzing into his ears, where though?!

Suddenly a force seized the Doctor skyward, grabbing him by his black coat, and slamming him into the ceiling. Dazed, the Time Lord shook the stars from his vision. “Whatever you are, I order you to leave this planet!”

Thrown into the wall, he crashed against a very nice cabinet, a bit scratched up but more miffed than hurt. “I’m the Doctor! The Oncoming Storm, Bringer of Darkness, don’t”—crash! – “Make me”— crash! – “Fight you!”

The invisible force threw him suddenly into the kitchen, his coat tearing away from his body as a result. Sliding against the floor, the Doctor groaned as he scrambled to his hooves. “Ugh... right then…”

Quickly, he picked up his screwdriver and aimed it at the doorway, running through dozens of different frequencies attempting to pick up this invisible creature. Finally, the correct one rang out of the device like a chirping bird and a ghastly wail shook the home. The creature revealed itself, a stallion-sized black ghostly… shape materialized before the Doctor.

It looked like it was fabricated entirely out of shadows, wrapped together in some semblance of a pony. There were horrified faces woven into the leathery-like “skin” of this creature and its face… its face was as dark as a black hole, in fact the more the Doctor looked at it the more it resembled it.

“There you are…” the Time Lord muttered. The creature remained immobilized by the sonic frequency but it appeared intelligent. It stared at the Doctor with what he could call “malice”.

“What are you?” he asked. “Too solid to be a Vashta Nerada, too shadowy to be alien-controlled ice. So…” He took a step forward, glaring at the creature. “What are you?”

The creature paused… then hissed, swiping at the Doctor so hard he flew out of the backdoor and crashed into the backyard. Groaning, he rolled himself to his hooves and fixed his bowtie. “Impolite, that’s what…”

Looking up at the small house, the Doctor’s hyperobservant eyes marked everything of importance. The weather was acting odd, these were times before weather manipulation was discovered so any uniformity was entirely by chance. But right above the house floated a massive black cloud, probably produced by the creature.

The surrounding temperature was absolutely freezing more than normal. But why would it want to affect the temperature a bit? There were better ways to conquer the world.

Then the Doctor looked. In the front street, where the TARDIS was parked, the shadows had thickened to a black aura surrounding the blue box. The black aura suddenly became fixed… into the creature he just got attacked by. There were two… four, no eight of them.

Breaking out into a full sprint, he made a run for the TARDIS brandishing his screwdriver and turning it on. As expected, the creatures whined and departed, briefly, from the TARDIS. Whistling loudly, the Doctor ran straight into the TARDIS just as the doors opened and slammed it shut behind him.

“Okay… that was new.”

Present Day

“Then I flew back here, that’s when the TARDIS careened and crashed,” the Doctor finished. “It might’ve been due to the creatures but something that could affect the TARDIS like that would require massive amounts of power.”

Fluttershy listened intently, running through the numerous bedtime stories and tall tales she knew from her childhood.

There weren’t many that described the creatures that the Doctor encountered… though one of them stood out.

“Um, Doctor,” Fluttershy started. “I think I might know what that creature is.”

“Really? What—“

“DOCTOR!”

With speeds that resemble Rainbow Dash, the Doctor was tackled by a high-speed grey blur. Fluttershy blinked and registered who was on top of the dazed Time Lord, Ditzy, Ponyville’s residential mailmare was shaking the Doctor’s shoulders desperately.

“Ditzy Doo?” Fluttershy gasped.

“Doctor, you gotta help, it’s Dinky!” Ditzy explained with little restraint.

Without hesitation, the Doctor jumped to his hooves and raced off to Ditzy’s house with the wall-eyed pegasus right behind him. Fluttershy only gave it a second thought as well, looking at Angel she gave him an affirmative nod and the bunny leapt off her back and stood guard by the TARDIS. Then, resolute, Fluttershy followed the Doctor and Ditzy, this involved Dinky, a young filly and from the Doctor’s recollection another filly was in danger, if she could help she always would.

Fluttershy burst into Ditzy’s house (relatively speaking) just as the Doctor began examining Dinky Doo. She was laying on the couch, absolutely still with her eyes closed. It looked like she was sleeping but Fluttershy noticed her lips, tinged blue, and her coat was covered in frost as if she were bathing in the snow.

“Doctor, what’s wrong with her?” Ditzy asked shakily.

The Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over Dinky although he didn’t have to, he already knew what she was suffering from. “Ditzy, when did this happen?”

“A-as soon as you dropped me off, I went home and just found her like this,” Ditzy explained, tears beginning to well up.

“Doctor, her skin is freezing, what’s wrong with her?”

“There’s this creature that’s might be feeding off her life force,” he answered. “I encountered it about 900 years ago, it causes this comatose state but leaves the body in perfect health, minus the drop in temperature. Fluttershy said she might know what it was.”

Ditzy turned to Fluttershy and the timid pegasus suddenly felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. She found interest in her hooves and frowned, fearing she may be wrong about her theory but when she took a look at Dinky again those fears disappeared.

“I think it might be a wraith,” Fluttershy finally said. “It’s an old mare’s tale, but wraiths are like… the knights for Nightmare Moon. They fed off the nightmares of fillies and colts and manifested as… shadow ponies.”

The Doctor didn’t express interest in Fluttershy’s recollection, seemingly aborbed in Dinky’s condition. But Ditzy appeared as though she recognized the tale. “I remember being told about wraiths when I was a filly, it was a story told to fillies and colts to keep them in line.”

“Like the Boogeyman,” the Doctor remarked.

“The… what?” Fluttershy asked.

“Is there any way to reverse Dinky’s condition?” Ditzy asked.

Fluttershy thought about it for a moment. There wasn’t exactly a manual to how wraiths work, in fact in the stories she heard, Fluttershy didn’t even know that wraiths did this to ponies. Then again, it wasn’t like Fluttershy looked deeply into scary stories, there weren’t her thing.

The Doctor shook his head, confirming Fluttershy’s fears. “I’m not sure, but I indeed to find out, we need to find the wraith responsible for this.”

Stepping aside so Ditzy could get closer to Dinky, the Doctor quietly confided in Fluttershy by the other side of the room. Careful to keep his voice down, the Doctor gave Fluttershy a solemn look. “There’s no mistake, Dinky is in the same condition as Bluebell.”

“But that means…”

Nodding slowly, the Doctor’s eyes were so pained and sad. “It’s the same wraith, it must’ve piggybacked on the TARDIS when I came back here, probably the same reason I crashed. The TARDIS was probably trying to shake it off but ending up crashing.”

“Doctor…” Fluttershy gulped, unsure of what to say. “It wasn’t your fault.”

His eyes looked so painfully old and tired but he tried for a brave smile. “Okay…” Then his normal brilliant grin came to his face. “All right! Time to get to work, Ditzy, we’re going to go track down this wraith responsible, stop whatever it’s planning, and cure Dinky and Bluebell.”

“Who’s Bluebell?” Ditzy asked.

“How’re you going to do all of that, Doctor?” Fluttershy chimed in.

“I’ll do a thing.”

“What thing?”

“It’s a thing in progress, respect the thing! Come along, pegasi!” The Doctor and Fluttershy prepared to leave but Ditzy remained by her sister’s side, unmoving.

“Ditzy,” Fluttershy said gently. “The Doctor can help, we need to get going.”

But Ditzy remained motionless and silent, staring emotionlessly at Dinky’s sleeping form. Fluttershy approached her and tapped her shoulder. “Ditzy?”

A black aura quickly enveloped Fluttershy, suspending her in the air all she had time to do was to let out a strangled
yelp. Ditzy turned around, covered with the shadowy aura, her normal golden eyes turned blood-red.

“You will be cast into the darkness,” Ditzy said, her voice horribly morphed into an evil guttural sound.

“Doctor!” Fluttershy cried.

Aiming his sonic screwdriver at Ditzy, the device rang out with its familiar buzzing sound that was higher pitch than usual. Ditzy winced, dropping Fluttershy as she quickly covered her ears. The dark aura became thicker and materialized out of her body. Ditzy dropped to the ground, unconscious, as the wraith fully manifested before them.

It was just as Fluttershy remembered her those scary stories. A shadowy appearance that looked as though his skin was composed of darkness itself, a formless face that resembled a black hole but as Fluttershy looked into it all she could see were her worst nightmares come to life.

The wraith was infinitely scarier up-close than in the books.

“Whatever you plan to do, I’ll stop you. This planet is under my protection,” the Doctor warned with an icy tone. “Leave immediately and release Dinky and Bluebell and anypony else from whatever hold you inflicted on them.”

The wraith laughed a horrible sound that would frighten even the most horrible monsters from Tartarus. Fluttershy whimpered, backtracking quickly by the Time Lord’s side, every instinct told her to run and hide… but she couldn’t abandon the Doctor.

“Yes I’ve seen you, Doctor,” the wraith snarled. “I’ve looked into both Ditzy’s and Dinky’s mind. The Great Time Lord, the last of your kind… Tell me, Doctor. How exactly are you to protect this planet if you cannot even save your own race?”

The Doctor glare rated just as scary as the wraith’s horrible face. “This is your last warning, wraith.”

“Then let me give you my counterproposal,” the wraith laughed. He raked his claw, a deformed appendage that looked half pony, half lion. The action produced a tear into reality itself, before the Doctor could do anything, the wraith grabbed Ditzy and threw her right into the hole and disappeared along with it.

“No!” the Doctor ran his screwdriver up and down where the hole used to be, but his device couldn’t find any evidence of the basic teleportation technology. It wasn’t a transmat, or a vortex manipulator, or even a wormhole.

Frustrated, the Doctor slammed his hoof into the wall. Fluttershy wasn’t exactly sure what to do or even say in a situation like this, to see such a sweet pegasus be captured by such a scary monster… she wasn’t suited for anything like this, it was too scary, too horrible…

Fluttershy just wanted to run away, to dive under the covers of her comfortable bed and hide until all of the scary things in the world were gone…

She patted her hoof on the Doctor’s shoulder. The weary Time Lord gave her a tired look but when she gave him a brave smile and the subtlest of nods, the Doctor’s usual vigor returned. “Okay, we need to track down this wraith and save Ditzy and everyone else affected by this monster. You sure you want to come along?”

Fluttershy nodded. “It’s scary and dangerous and I want to run away and hide…” She took a deep breath. “But there’re innocent ponies in danger, if I can help, I want to… Um, if that’s okay with you.”

The Doctor grinned. “It isn’t just okay, Fluttershy, it’s fantastic!”