Time Bubbles

by Janicethelight

Chapter 17: Sorming the City

“How are your wings, Derpy?” Doctor ask, worry consuming his eyes.

Derpy’s feathers fluffed themselves in response, the sun glistening in the early morning sun. “I told you they’re fine yesterday, Doctor. See?” She stretched her wings out before turning to Basura Colla. “Thanks again for cutting my wings free last night.”

“Anything for Haoss...Forgive. Uh, Derpy? Anything for Derpy.” He gave a sheepish grin, having noticed the Doctor’s warning gaze. Derpy sat, a bit dumbfounded at the sudden change of Basura Colla’s mind. She turned to the Doctor, who was suddenly interested in something in the forest, and wondered what the two had talked about before bed.

“Ah, here we are!” The Doctor’s voice shook her out of her confusion. She looked up to see a wall with a building above it.

“Are...are you sure about this plan, Doctor?” Derpy asked, fidgeting in place, “I mean, isn’t there a chance we could be starting a fight?”

“We will gather attention, but my hope is that I can get them to listen to us. If they can be reasoned with like the Imbuka, then we have little to worry about.”

“But doctor...they tossed us out because I spoke about magic! Why do you think they will listen now?!”

“Well, they can’t very well kick us all out, Derpy!” He mused, looking at the clan of Imbuka behind them, “I know it seems like a big leap, but I know we can all pull this off without anyone...or any pony getting hurt.” He took her hooves, smiling into her eyes, “trust me.”

Derpy took a long, deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. She opened them back up, nodding, “I trust you, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Derpy. Now, you know what to do.”

“What if...what if I can’t?”

“I know you can do this. You have a lot more strength than you’re aware of. Not just anyone, nor any pony can break the Tardis by bumping into it.” He winked.

“Okay...I’ll do my best.”

“Atta girl.”

Derpy flew straight up, stopping halfway to the top. Her mouth crinkled in concentration as she flew back, keeping the wall in sight. She breathed, “here goes nothing!” Before flying straight as the wall. She closed her eyes before impact. She bounced off , falling to the ground. “Owwww.” She moaned, rubbing her forelegs.

“Derpy!” The Doctor yelled, rushing to her side, “are you alright?”

“Yeah, just a bit sore. Sorry, Doctor...I let you down.” The doctor noticed her head fall to the ground, ears flattening.

“Hey. It’s alright.” He gently rose her chin up to meet his eyes, “I shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you. We can think of another way. Maybe we can build a catapult of our own.”

“Maybe…”. Derpy sighed, “I just don’t know what went wrong.” She looked up to the wall before starting to walk back only to have her back hoof caught in a vine on the ground. Derpy staggered, trying to right herself weaving back to balance herself out. She leaned too far back, falling backwards into the wall behind her. The wall broke, causing her to fall through a sizable hole, covered in brick dust. The Doctor came over.

“Derpy. Wha- how?!”

“I fell…”

“You run straight into the wall and not even a dent...you fall into it and it breaks! Oh Derpy, you are an enigma!”

“Hey!”

“No, no...I mean you are a mystery to me!”

Little by little, everyone snuck through the hole. Derpy blushed when she noticed the Doctor was still staring at her. She looked away, “so, uh...what now, Doctor?”

“Now we demand an audience, Derpy. Make sure every raccoon knows the Imbuka are here, and talk with them about a union of sorts.”

“Good luck…”

“Thanks. First, let’s make some noise and get to the area before the concave!”

“Noise Imbuka Do well!” Basura beamed with pride before the other Imbuka drummed a beat.

Derpy felt the beat shake through her very core, looking to the doctor, “I hope you know what you’re doing…” she murmured, having a bit of a bad feeling as the raccoon without an arm began to sing:

You know how heart's beat, but you don't know a thing about life!

"It's time to teach the truth! The wall is finally down! All Imbuka, forward!"

You know how heart's beat, but you don't know a thing about life!

More raccoons that joined the imbuka began singing.

You know how heart's beat, but you don't know a thing about life!

"The age of authoritarian order is at it's end! see the signs!”

You know how heart's beat, but you don't know a thing about life!

Stressing, wresting

Analytic testing

Infected, disected

Countless data collected

Experiments for eminence

Patterning malevolence

Rejects cast out

Disregard the fall out

You know how we breathe, but you don't know a thing about life!

You know how we breathe, but you don't know a thing about life!

Scorn us, hate us

You will never break us

Cuff us, stuff us

You will never snuff us

We rise, hear our cries

But you don’t have to despise

Self-righteousness, frightens us

But you’ll never silence us!

You know every cell, but you don't know a thing about life!

You know every cell, but you don't know a thing about life!

She went up as the chanting continued:

Tell me what has become of our world

There was an age when you all had compassion

We're all the victims of a dystopia now

We're tired of being villified

You’re ripping us apart to satisfy your pride!

Now Derpy is here to fulfill prophecy, and set you free!

Derpy’s eyes widened at the mention of her name, wondering what she had to do with any prophecy.

“Our messenger goes before us, followers of the Order! The Chaos Bringer’s emissary has arrived! Behold! Derpy is she, Haoss Begis! Now, finally, the Conclave must heed our words!”

Derpy was beginning to panic. “Doctor--”

“Relax, just go with it.”

“But I’m not a--”

“That doesn’t matter. We could tie strings together that have been torn apart for ages! Derpy, we have a chance to save a world, and it’s because of you!”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“It’ll be fine, I’ll be right there with you. Between the two of us, we’ve got this.”

All the Imbuka joined in once more:

Scorn us, hate us

You will never break us

Cuff us, stuff us

You will never snuff us

We rise, hear our cries

But you don’t have to despise

Self-righteousness, frightens us

But you will never silence us!

You know how life works, but you don't know a thing about life!

You know how life works, but you don't know a thing about life!

As they finished, raccoons lined the sides of the opening before the concave, hundreds of horrified faces looking into eyes of ‘crazed ones’. The doctor wanted to be noticed, and he got exactly what he asked. He could only hope that their words would be enough to help heal these creatures for a better future.

“Well, here goes nothing…” The Doctor breathed, “hello, raccoon friends if Rahsla’ Tuhna!” He grinned, but quickly realized the worried chattering was blanketing his own voice. “Pardon a moment, but I am talking!” He yelled. A few in front looked his way, but the chittering was too strong. “Alright. Small hiccup. We need something to amplify my voice…”

Derpy shook herself back to reality, ignoring the song lyrics for the moment. “I’ll go find something for you, Doctor!” She nodded, flying off.

“Derpy, don’t-and there she goes…”. Procione sighed, “well, I guess there’s really no way this could get much worse, so what’s the harm…”

Derpy flew threw the city, looking for something to make the Doctor’s voice louder. She inexplicably crashed into three workshops, ten raccoons, and a sign before she finally found one raccoon trying to lead the others using a megaphone. “Perfect.” She smiled, swooping down and grabbing it from the raccoon, “so sorry I need to borrow this, but I’ll bring it back soon!” She shouted as she flew away. She landed, noticing the sudden silence as she landed. The raccoons were all staring at her in disbelief. She quickly felt uncomfortable with so many eyes staring at her, mouths agape. “What is wrong with all of them all of the sudden?!” She asked.

“Derpy?” Forsker asked, his voice wavering despite his best efforts, “H...how are you holding that?”

“With my hoof.” Derpy explained, feeling like the answer was obvious.

Hushed murmuring followed filled with disbelief. “That’s not physically possible.” Forsker managed.

“Look, what I can or can’t hold with my hoof isn’t the important thing. What’s important is what the doctor has to say!”

“Oh, why thank you, Derpy!” The Doctor took the microphone, causing the silence to blanket the crowd again. He looked, noticing the buttons, something he knew he couldn’t use with his hooves, “um, Procione or Forsker, if you wouldn’t mind…”

“Certainly.” Procione nodded, eyes still doubled in disbelief as he pressed the top button.

“Thank you--” his voice boomed unexpectedly far better than he had anticipated, accompanied by some nasty ear-piercing feedback. “Wow, nice amplifier,” he noted before holding it near his mouth again. “Greetings, to all of you! Just to point out the obvious, look who’s baaaaaaack!” He pointed over at Derpy. “It appears one impossibility after another has been taking place in the past day.”

“Improbable, not impossible. And what do you intend to accomplish bringing these monsters in here?”

“The answer is in your question; to convince you that they are not monsters!”

“Imbuka not monsters, they monsters!”

“Neither of you are monsters! You simply began to divide, and instead of talking things over, you got lost! Well, I am the Doctor, and I am here to fix that!”

“How?!” Everyone asked. Derpy trusted him, but was still curious herself about the Doctor’s plan.

“Look at you! Look at one another! You all see only the differences. I see how alike you are! You do the best for your places to live. The Imbuka have a more organized rule than they thought and you raccoons have more chaos than you know!”There was an outcry from the crowd as the raccoons argued against the Doctors words. The Imbuka formed a line across, linking arms to keep the raccoons from reaching the Doctor. Derpy backed up closer to the Doctor, fear raising at the raging mob before her. She bumped into Procione. Procione jumped, letting his paw let go of the button. Derpy bowed apologetically to her friend. He desperately tried to calm her nerves, hardly able to hear her over the angry sea of voices. He pressed a button without looking, and a long, sharp squeal came out of the megaphone, silencing the angry sea as they put their paws to their ears. Procione let go, giving a sheepish look to the Doctor before pushing the right button. “Forsker, if you would demonstrate.”

Forsker cautiously approached, wishing the Doctor could have picked anyone else. “Yes?”

“Forsker, if you were locked in a room and left to die, what would you do?”

Forsker went up close to the megaphone, the Doctor turning it his way.

“I would try to escape?” He answered nervously.

“Your odds of escaping this room are infinitesimal! Would you still try?”

“Well, yeah, I not going to let myself die!”

“Precisely!” The Doctor‘s face grew smug, “it’s instinct to ignore the odds! It’s not at all logical though. The most logical thing to do would be accept death! Who here would do that?” The area was stone silent for a few moments. The Doctor nodded, “Sometimes life requires an element of irrationality. Yes! Chaos! Holding onto hope when logic says ‘no’ has saved countless civilizations that would have perished if they simply accepted their fate! You all are brilliant, but short sighted. You have amassed great knowledge but have tossed wisdom aside! Please, at least attempt to repair the bridge that you destroyed so long ago!”

“It is too dangerous. Chaos would have destroyed us and you expect us to let it happen again, for friendship?!”

Racoons from both sides began to yell.

“Can I say something?” Derpy asked.

“Why, of course, Derpy!”

“Stop! Haoss Begis speaks now!”

The Doctor screamed “Quiet!” into the megaphone. The crowd hushed long enough for the Doctor to tilt the megaphone towards her.

“Where I come from, we don’t always get along, and we don’t always agree. We have bad days and good...but when the day is through, even on days when we’re mad at some pony, we work through it because...well, no matter what, we’re all ponies, and friendship will see us through.” She blushed a bit, taking a breath, “you might not see eye to eye all the time, but try being friends, and listen to each other. At least give it a try…”

“Preposterous!” A concave member spoke, “First magic, now Friendship! Friendship serves no practical purpose! We continue to learn and evolve perfectly fine without it!”

“Wrong! Imbuka friends, Imbuka care for each other, all happy together!”

“We are happy without it! It’s trivial!”

“Friendship not trivial! Friendship life!”

“You lack even basic observational skills! We are alive without friendship!”

“That not living. That survival. Not same!”

The crowds began to yell again but Derpy screamed, “Without friendship my world would have ended long ago!”

The voices immediately ceased.

“Friendship saved you?”

“We were once like you. Ponies were divided into not just two, but three different tribes who couldn’t cooperate or even tolerate each other. We were always fighting and blaming each other for our hardships. Then one day our world began to freeze. Every pony would have died! But we put aside our differences, came together, and it saved us! Ever since then, we have been united as one!”

The Doctor was all at once impressed and moved by what he heard. He still knew so little about Equestria, but now felt the pride of a loving father for the mysterious world of little ponies. He smiled and spoke more gently into the megaphone.

“We all need each other to survive. That’s what defines a civilization. It’s not just discoveries and advancements in technology. It’s how we treat one another.”

“That may have worked in your world, but it wasn’t friendship that saved us. It was science.”

“And for what do you continue to advance, with chaos already gone? Why continue learning, hypothesizing, experimenting, developing? What for?”

“The more we learn, the better we can make our lives.”

“And there it is,” the Doctor said. “See? You care for one another or else you wouldn’t keep working, and then sharing what you discover with other racoons. You might not classify it as friendship, but it’s there. Without that connection, then what is each individual but their own personal tribe, building walls around themselves like the wall you built around this city?”

A number of the Conclave racoons cocked their heads in deep thought.

“Doctor smart,” one of the imbuka said.

The Doctor asked, “what would all this be if you had nobody to share it with? I, for one, have gone more than my fair share without a com-a friend...I can tell you, the road is a lonesome one that will lead to less and less raccoons wanting to explore and create.”

“Science is our way of life! That will never happen!”

“Ask any raccoon why they made what they did, and I can guarantee they had some raccoon or raccoons in mind!”

“Like the raccoon helping others with this megaphone!” Derpy smiled.

“Yes! Most everything is made to make things easier for someone, or to know more about something and then share it! Science is meant to be shared! Look at all you have accomplished! Your technology could help the Imbuka thrive!”

“And what would they give us?”

“They can teach you what you’ve forgotten about.”

“But they don’t have science. They don’t learn. All they have is the words of the chaos bringer.”

A particularly crazy eyed Imbuka walked over to the Doctor, snatching the megaphone from the pony’s hoof, “they have the cure for rabies!”

There was a collective gasp, as a sea of disbelieving voices filled the area. The high pitched whine of the megaphone halted the voices. The Imbuka did not look sorry. “I was left for dead after a failed experiment by you lot! The Imbuka found me. They treated me, and here I am before you once more, no more crazed than any I see before me. My eyes will never be the same, but that is a small price to pay for the chance to live!”

He handed the megaphone back, Procione quickly pressing the button, “Well, I will admit that one surprised me… but there you go. You took too much haste in casting out any sign of irrationality. They have a god? So what? They continued to learn, grow, and evolve, just as you have, and they managed to cure a disease that you have been fighting for ages! Imagine what else you could learn from each other. The two paths you took long ago have met again at a crossroad. You could go your separate ways again, and have this be nothing more than a footnote in history. Or you could travel together, and see what happens.”

There was a silence. Both sides were wondering about the other. The Doctor bit his lip. It was up to them now.

Raccoons nodded along with the two ponies. The conclave was out-numbered.

Raccoons began shaking paws with Imbuka everywhere. The Doctor smiled. “Well, I suppose this is a good start to a clean slate….”The smile faded for a moment as his mind finished what he didn’t want to say, ‘I can’t stay here. I don’t belong in this universe.’

“Doctor! You did it!” Derpy flew over, hugging him.

“WE did it, Derpy! You were brilliant! Absolutely fantastic!”

Derpy blushed, “I didn’t do much….”

“Derpy, you helped the Imbuka see that they had order! You knocked a wall down! You helped the raccoons with me. I couldn’t have done it without you. You have been a fantastic companion...and a wonderful friend.”

Derpy let go as he lead her to where they last saw the TARDIS, and Derpy’s heart sunk...why did it sound like he was saying goodbye?!

The Tardis was in the middle of what looked like a giant trash heap. With all manner of junk around it. The Doctor tried climbing up only to have the things around him part, and fell shortly after. “Doctor.” Derpy pointed out her wings, “I can fly us up there!”

“Oh. Right. But...how could I get up?”

Derpy beamed, flying up, giving a brief twirl, and zipping down to pick the Doctor up. He felt his body lift from the ground, gasping in astonishment. “Derpy, every time I think you couldn’t possibly surprise me any more, you do something phenomenal!”

“Every Pegasus is trained to be able to fly with another pony in case of emergencies,” Derpy stuttered out, holding him close to the Tardis door. “C-can you open it?!”

The Doctor thought for a second. Snapping was now impossible for obvious reasons. He wondered if clapping his hooves together might work. He started at the Tardis, holding his hooves apart and knocking them together. To His great delight, the door swung open. “Ah, it’s good to be back.”

“It’s too bad we can’t show this to Forsker or Procione. If they saw the magic room you have in your ship, I think they would faint.” Derpy giggled a bit.

“Doctor! Derpy!” Procione yelled, quickly scampering up the heap athletically. Forsker stayed, at the bottom, waving bye, not wanting to delay the two. Forsker found himself in the Tardis in moments, in awe of what was before him. “Another impossibility.”

“Actually, it’s quite possible, and very scientific. Your world just doesn’t have the technology yet.”

“But it’s...it’s…”

“Yes?!” Doctor asked hopefully.

“Its volume greatly exceeds the dimensions of its perimeter.”

“....I like it better when they say it’s bigger on the inside…”. Doctor pouted.

“You want to come with us, Procione?! You would love Ponyville!”

“Oh, no no no no no. I just came to see you off.”

“That’s very friendly of you.” Derpy beamed. The two laughed. Forsker stopped when he noticed a shiny semicircle on the console. The console was full of shiny things, but this semicircle had sparkles floating all around, dancing an everlasting dance. It was the most beautiful shiny thing he had ever seen in his life. He had to have it. “I know you all have some ground rules to go through, but the Imbuka are kind, and the raccoons are really smart, so I think you will both do fine.”

“Yes, well it was nice to meet all of you. We should be going now.” The Doctor nodded.

“Oh, Doctor! Don’t let me forget to take you to Carousel Boutique when we get back to Ponyville.”

“Wait-where? Why?”

“Rarity can make you an outfit with pockets!”

“Oh-right...I do need pockets…wait, what is rarity?! Is that some kind of artificially-intelligent clothing manufacturer?”

“I... don’t even know what half of that question meant. Rarity is a seamstress pony!”

The two were distracted by each other. Procione snuck over with them discussing pockets, putting his back against the Tardis, and snatching the beautiful half globe with dancing sparkles quickly. “Well, goodbye then.” He said louder than he meant, scampering off as fast as his legs would carry him.

The two ponies looked confused as they saw his tail disappear from sight. “What was that about?!” Derpy asked.

“Perhaps we made him uncomfortable…”. The Doctor mused. “Now, let’s get you home.”

Comments

[kira the death pony]

Oh no the Doctor thinks he's got to leave.