Time Keeps Wibbling On: A Doctor Whooves Adventure

by Shotoman

Feeling Diminished

Part 4
Feeling Diminished

The Crystal Empire, 1013 C.R.

To say Princess Twilight Sparkle was graceful in her flight would be giving her way too much credit. Thanks to years of lessons from Rainbow Dash, she could at least fly competently, but she certainly did not draw the eye and win gasps of appreciation from other ponies the way the other princesses did. This normally didn't bother her any, really, except those instances where she found herself flying side by side with one of them. Like today, for example.

"Is something wrong, Twilight?" Princess Cadance asked as she glided up next to her sister-in-law.

Twilight shook her head to clear it of the embarrassment. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. What makes you think anything's wrong?"

Cadance chuckled. "Yes, what could I possibly have been thinking? You do know you've actually become quite good as a flyer, don't you?"

Twilight could feel the heat in her face, and knew it had turned beet red. "How did...?"

Cadance allowed herself a brief chuckle and a wry smile. "How long have I known you now?" A spark of mischief appeared in her eye. "Race you!" And then she was off like as shot.

Twilight sputtered briefly before taking off after the other princes. "Heeeeey! No faaaaaaaaaair!" she shouted as the two made a beeline for the Crystal Palace.

The two princesses were laughing by the time they landed on the balcony that led into the throne room (Cadance won, but not by much), and were met by Shining Armor, who trotted over to give his little sister a hug. "Hey, Twiley! Great to see ya! How was the trip?"

"It went just fine. No last minute disasters or anything. Even Discord left me alone for once."

Shining chuckled. "After what happened last time? Even he'd know his limits, right?"

"You don't know Discord."

Cadance giggled. "I have to tell you, I've barely been able to sleep for a week, I've been so excited. How long has it been since we've had a family get together?"

"Speaking of family," Shining asked, "where's Spike?"

Twilight shrugged. "Out and about town, I guess. I don't know why, but he practically shooed Cadance and me away when we met at the train station."

"I'd bet he's either gone to bask in the adoration of his fans, or he's at Gemstone's place," Cadance replied, smirking. "Either way, he said he'd be here in time for dinner."

"Well, your luggage won't get here for another half hour yet, what do you say we get started with a game of..." Shining Armor stopped mid-sentence when he saw his wife gasped in pain. "Cadance? What is it, Honey?"

"I don't know, I just..." Cadance's eyes suddenly widened in alarm. "The Crystal Heart!"

That was all that needed to be said. The three ponies--seasoned adventurers all--galloped off toward the tower where the Heart was kept. Upon reaching the door, Twilight stopped and held out a foreleg to stop the other two. "Twiley?" Shining asked. "What is it?"

"There's a powerful magic in there. Dark magic."

The three ponies gave each other one last look before nodding. Cadance used her magic to undo the lock on the door, which flew open with surprising force. Twilight was the first to recover from the surprise and looked in the room on the other side. She gasped at what she saw. The Crystal Heart was glowing black, and was currently protected by visible magical barrier. With her knowledge in the magical arts, Twilight could tell that there was no easy way to break it. Much less obvious but no less real was the pervasive malevolence that seeped into the room.

"Oh," Cadance said. "That's no good."

~DrW~

The TARDIS (one of them, anyway), located at Ponyville, 1002 C.R.

"Who's this then?" Ripple Pond asked at the sight of the new Doctor.

"Oh, come now Pond," Doctor number eleven scoffed. "It is rather obvious, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's you. I get that," Ripple replied in irritation. "But which you is it?"

The new Doctor shook his head with a frown. "Please tell me we're not assigning numbers to ourselves on this little outing. I've always found it rather demeaning."

Four shrugged with his oversized smile. "I sympathize, old chap. But it's already been done. You might as well go along with it."

"Oh, all right fine. I would be number Eight, then." he conceded. "Pleasure to meet you all." He turned to face Four and Romana. "It's especially nice to see you again, Romana." He took her hoof in his and gave it a quick gentlecoltly kiss, which caused her to blush briefly, while Four looked on flabbergasted.

Ten chuckled. "Always was charmer, that one."

"What happened?" both Derpy and Ripple asked simultaneously.

"HEY!" their Doctors replied indignantly.

"So, what?" Blue Shield interjected. "Can we expect the other seven of you to just pop in for a visit?"

Ten and Eleven looked at each other, their expressions thoughtful. "Well, Sexy?" Eleven asked the room. "You got any more surprises for us?" After a moment of silence, he turned to the others. "She says no. He's the last one, 'and we are all together goo-goo-ga-choo.'"

The other Doctors groaned, and Ten gave his successor a wry smirk. "Seriously?"

"I don't get it," Derpy said.

"Old song lyric, before your time," Ten told her.

"And something of a private joke," Eight elaborated.

"Jokes which I don't believe we have time for," Four said, bringing the conversation back to the problem at hoof. "If the Old Girl is bringing us together, there must be a reason."

"Can't you just ask her?" Ripple asked.

The four Doctors, Romana, and Derpy all shook their heads. "Communication with the TARDIS isn't that cut and dry." Four answered. "She exists at all times at once, making it rather difficult to communicate more than the most rudimentary concepts."

"I usually just feel what she's feeling," Derpy added. "It's pretty easy to have conversations with her, but as soon as you start asking 'why' and 'what,' things get hard."

"Well, we can't just sit here waiting for this mysterious even to happen, can we?" Blue Shield asked. "I mean, you were all brought together to fix it."

"Quite," Four responded. "I say we begin... ah, getting to know each other, as it were. The TARDIS brought a rather specific set of us together, and we must determine why."

Eight gave a look at his predecessor. "You know better than that. There are centuries between you and I, and I don't even know the years between myself and them. We can't be sharing personal experiences with each other."

Four scoffed. "Who do you take me for? Of course I know that. But beyond personal experiences, there are always differences from one regeneration to another--did any of you pick up the Venusian Karate again, do you all still use sonic screwdrivers, that kind of thing--and we're going to need to know these differences if we're to have a chance at fixing... whatever it is the TARDIS wants us to fix."

"Actually, that's fair," Ten replied. "Whatever is going to happen doesn't seem to have happened yet, and we rarely get anything resembling 'prep time' when it comes to these get togethers. I say we do it."

Eight sighed. "Fine.

Eleven shrugged. "I just want to go on record as saying prep time never really seems to help us at all, and we're probably just going to resort to just doing a thing somewhere down the line, but since we still don't know what's going to happen we might as well make use of time, so I'm in."

The four Doctors nodded at each other, before closing their eyes and, one after another, they said "Contact!" before going silent, lost in a telepathic conversation with each other.

Romana sighed. "I wish just once, he'd invite me along on these conversations."

"How long d'you suppose this is gonna take?" Ripple asked. "Our Doctor usually just does a headbutt and gets it over with."

Derpy shrugged. "Since it's four Doctors, it's probably gonna take a while. You know how much he likes to talk." The other three ponies couldn't help but nod. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm gonna find the kitchen and bake up some muffins."

"Muffins?" Romana asked, with an eyebrow raised.

"I like muffins," was the simple response. "You guys coming?"

Ripple Pond and Blue Shield shared a glance at each other before shrugging. "Sure," Ripple said. "We don't really have anything better to do right?"

The four companions of the Doctor made their way deeper into the TARDIS, making small talk as they did, while the four Doctors were locked in a conversation only they could hear.

~DrW~

Ponyville, Equestria, 992 C.R.

It was a typically nice day in Ponyville, with the usual assortment of busy shoppers, shopkeepers, etcetera. None of these ponies noticed as a miniature blue barn slowly faded into existence in a back alley between the Quill and Sofa and a currently unoccupied building, despite the loud screeching noise it made as it did so.

No sooner had the building reappeared than one of its double doors opened up and a teenage gray pegasus bounded out. "Oh, it's good to be home," she said with a sigh as she took in the all-too-familiar sights.

Moments later, a much more subdued pony walked out behind her. His face was different--his coat was grey, his hair was short, and his ears were large--but it was the Doctor. He watched as the young mare Derpy skipped out of the alley and back into normal, everyday life. He sighed softly. He was certain he'd found a new companion to share in the madness of his life. After all, right from the get-go with those Autons, she had proven herself to be absolutely fantastic.

But who was he to force her along if she truly didn't want to. Back to the drawing board he supposed, as he turned back to the TARDIS.

Boy was he surprised when Derpy's happy voice called back to him. "So... same time next week?"

The Doctor stopped, and turned back in surprise to see the young pegasus's smiling face looking at him expectantly. "What?" he asked.

"You'll be picking me up same time next week, right?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. Derpy was proving to be a never ending font of surprises. Never before had he a pony willing to live the normal life, while making time for the fantastic box travel. He'd never thought he'd have the patience to deal with it. But then again, what did patience have to do with it? The TARDIS was a time machine, after all. A time machine that seemed to quite like Derpy, actually. He found himself grinning, his smile stretching charmingly wide.

"Of course, Derpy. Same time next week."

She gave him a wide, toothy, squeaky smile before bounding off to do... whatever it was Derpy did when she wasn't traveling. The Doctor's silly grin remained on his face as he found himself muttering "Fantastic." He reentered the TARDIS, and was about to say something to his old girl, when she sent an emphatic message into his brain.

"Wait, what?" he asked in confusion. He dove for the console and pounded on several controls. "It's a teleport. We're caught up in a teleport. What sort of teleport can capture you?" He continued to frantically pound on his controls even as various klaxons started to go off, adding their noise to the chaos.

On the outside, the barn began to glow an eerie yellow light, before vanishing instantly and without its usual noise.

Comments

[Tragicom]

An external force that can affect the TARDIS? Never a good sign.

[SoulboundAlchemist]

3816687
I'll say, remember what happened last time? We got an exploding TARDIS and tons of cracks all over the place. Lets just hope its someone like Celestia, who just needs to contact the Doctor.

[StrigidaeFan]

3816838
At least the cracks ultimately led to the Doctor getting a new Regeneration Cycle...

[SoulboundAlchemist]

3816941
Very true!

[MrAskAPirate]

YEAH BABY, NINE IS IN DA HOUSE!!!
i.imgur.com/NHKbz.gif

[Tragicom]

3816838
I wonder if he gave Celestia a Time-Space Telegraph like he did for The Brigadier...

[Seraphem]

Eleven shrugged. "I just want to go on record as saying prep time never really seems to help us at all, and we're probably just going to resort to just doing a thing somewhere down the line, but since we still don't know what's going to happen we might as well make use of time, so I'm in."

So true, so awesome, and, just plain great line that sums up how The Doctor ALWAYS solves things.

Batman can defeat any foe given adequate prep time.

The Doctor, can save the entirety of reality from any threat, using a 'plan' he just cobbled together five seconds ago and is adjusting on the fly.

Crystal heart getting corrupted, not good.

Only four Doctors? Awww not bad but, why not all?

Nine getting pulled somewhere, even though we know this time it isn't Sexy bringing him to meet the rest. Very VERY not good.

Well, the plot thickens, can't wait to se where we're going with this.