Ponyville in a "Jam"

by Polygrammar

Three new problems

The Doctor was thrown down on the ground harshly, the bag around his head muffling the “Oof” he made as his captor then began pulling it off his head, only to quickly replace it with a blindfold. He was then picked up and thrown onto a chair, the rattle of metal reaching his ears as he felt himself being restrained by heavy chains.

“Let me go! You have no right to treat me like this!” He wasn't sure where he was or who had kidnapped him, but what he did know was that he wasn't going to let this go without a fight. “You think you can just bind and gag me and get away with it!? Do you have any idea who I am? I’m the Doctor! I've taken on countless enemies in my thousand years, I’ve even survived multiple encounters with the Daleks! What possible chance do you think you have against the likes of me?”

Suddenly his blindfold was pulled off, light flooding his eyes as he squinted to adjust to the brightness. When they did, he froze at the sight of his captor. Well, captors. Three of them to be exact. Three small fillies. Three small, very confused looking fillies.

“Wha...what?” The Doctor was, for once, speechless. He had several questions, but had no idea where he should start. Perhaps “Why have I been kidnapped by children?”, or “How did three little girls overpower a grown stallion?”

'I’ll go with the former, definitely the former' he thought.

They continued their stare down, until one of them finally spoke. “...Who's 'Dalek'?”

The Doctor stiffened, saying nothing.

“Yer a thousand years old?”

He opened his mouth, but still said nothing.

“Are you really a doctor?”

That question he could answer.

“Yes, I am a doctor. But not just any doctor, I’m the Doctor.”

The fillies looked even more confused. They all looked at each other, back at him, and then ran off into the corner, huddling in a circle and talking quietly together. The Doctor took this time to look around the room for some means of escape. He was in a small, dark room, and the only two windows he could see were covered with heavy cloth to block out the sunlight. It seemed to be made entirely out of wooden boards, possibly a tree house judging by the smell of sap. A single lantern hung above him, a cone placed around it to allow a concentrated beam of light to shine in his face. Other than a table behind him and a few posters on the wall, he saw nothing to help him out of his predicament.

He turned his attention on his so-called “captor's”. They were still huddled in the corner, talking just quietly enough that he was only able to catch a few words at a time. One of them was orange in color, her mane and tail a purple hue. He could also make out tiny wings on her sides. One of the other two was pale yellow, with a deep red mane and tail and a large pink bow on her head, which he could easily see because it was sticking up above the others heads despite the fact they all had them down. The last was white, with a light purple and pink mane and tail. As he was looking them over he realized one thing they all had in common: the lack of a cutie mark on their flanks.

Suddenly they all stopped talking, turning back to him and approaching slowly. They all stopped just in front of him, the white one stepping up and getting ready to speak.

“We are-”

“Unicorn!” Indeed, now that he had a closer look at her, he realized she had a small horn sticking out of her head just under her mane. His outburst caused her to lose focus for a second, stumbling back as if afraid he was going to hurt her. “Oh, this is fantastic! First there was Twilight right before I fainted, then Rarity at the boutique, and now I have the luck to meet another unicorn, and a filly to boot! Tell me, can you use magic, or have you not learned to yet? Can you learn magic, or do you just gain the ability to after you reach a certain age? Is it like a puberty sort of thing? Is there some sort of-”

The orange one clamped his mouth shut, cutting off the rest of his rant. She nodded back to the white one, who continued where she had started.

“We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders Private Investigators, and we want to ask you a few questions.”

The orange one let his mouth go so he could reply. “Cutie...Mark...what?”

The yellow one stepped forward. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders! We're on a mission to find our special talent and earn our Cutie Marks!” She yelled proudly, raising her hoof in salute as she finished. The others did the same.

The Doctor stared at each of them, an unreadable expression on his face. The fillies waited for his reply, which, after a few moments, wasn’t looking like it was coming anytime soon. They were about to check if he was still alright, but then he started laughing. Hard.

The orange one glared. “And just what do you think is so funny, mister?”

“Hahahaha! Oh my....that is the...haha...that is the most adorable thing I have ever seen! You have a name and a club house and everything!” He continued to laugh until the orange one clamped his mouth shut again.

“We are not adorable! We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders! This is serious business!”

The Doctor snickered, the sound muffled from the orange one's hooves on his snout. They glared at him.

The white one spoke again. “I am Sweetie Belle, this is Apple Bloom and that's Scootaloo.” She pointed to herself and each of the other two as she spoke, indicating which was which. He snickered again at the sound of their names. “Have you heard about the recent theft in town? Everyone's talking about it. They haven't found out who did it yet, so we took it upon ourselves to figure it out.”

The orange one, Scootaloo, let him go, walking back to stand by the other two. “When we started our investigation, we looked for anyone suspicious, and as it turns out, you were the most suspicious pony we could find.”

The Doctor turned serious hearing that, sitting up a little straighter. “Me? Why me? What have I done to earn your suspicion?”

Apple Bloom was the one who answered. “We've noticed how ya'll are always runnin' 'round town, like yer in a hurry or somethin'. What're ya in a hurry for, mister?” She eyed him up and down.

“Well, I-I-”

“And yer always talkin’ an’ actin' weird, like yer from another planet.”

“Hahaha, that's ridiculous! I-I can't be from another planet, that's absurd-”

“Then there's this thing.” Sweetie Belle pointed to Scootaloo, who held up his sonic screwdriver. “It fell out of your tie when we grabbed you. What is it?”

“It’s a screwdriver, now give it back!”

“It don't look like no screwdriver ah've ever seen.”

“That's because you won't see one like it for another three hundred years!”

“What does it do?”

“What doesn't it do? It can unlock doors, repair metal, scan frequencies of various materials, detect tears in the fabric of space, even one's that have been recently closed-”

“Where did you get it?”

“I built it myself.”

Scootaloo set the screwdriver down on a table just behind where he was. “You don't sound like any pony I’ve ever seen. Where do you live, anyway?”

“Hey, yeah, we've been following you around for a while, and we've never seen you go into any house. Do you even have a home in Ponyville?” Sweetie Belle asked.

He opened his mouth to answer, but then decided against it. If he told them he lived in the blue box that kept popping up all over town, they would want to know how he could live inside a cramped box, and he couldn't explain that without telling them about the TARDIS. He was going to have to think of something quick, he could tell by their looks they weren't going to be easy to fool. He needed a believable lie to convince them he wasn't the thief. So he blurted out the first thing he could think of.

“I live with Ditzy Doo.”

They all looked taken back for a second, but then their suspicious glares returned as they all simultaneously moved closer to stare him down face to face.

“Ditzy Doo already has a roommate.”

“They both agreed to let me stay regardless.”

“So where do you sleep?”

“I sleep on the sofa.”

“How come ya don't find yer own place ta stay?”

“I haven't found the right house yet.”

“Is Ditzy Doo your girlfriend?”

The Doctor’s head spun as he panicked, sputtering out random words in a failed attempt to answer. “Wh-wh-wha-what!? I-I-I-I'm not- Y-y-you don't- It's not like-” He shook his head to slow down his racing thoughts. “Wh-why would you think s-something like that?”

Sweetie Belle looked closer at him. “I saw you and her standing together on the bridge during Hearts and Hooves day.”

“Yeah, and ya splashed us with mud when ya were runnin’ by ta meet her!” Apple Bloom piped in. “Why were ya runnin'? Were ya late for yer date with her? Huh?”

“D-Ditzy is NOT my girlfriend! As it so happens, she is my assistant. I was only running to meet up with her because we had a-”

“Date?” Scootaloo finished.

“It was not a date!”

They narrowed their eyes at him, clearly not bought. Scootaloo stepped up. “Just who exactly are you, Mr. Doctor, if that is your real name.”

“Of course it's not my real name.”

“Aha!” She exclaimed, pointing her hoof at him. Then she pulled it back slightly, confusion taking over the previously victorious look on her face. “Wait...what?”

“Of course 'Doctor' isn't my real name. What kind of person would name their child 'Doctor'? That would be completely ridiculous, not to mention confusing.”

“So then you're not a doctor?”

“Yes, I am. Why would I go around telling everyone to call me 'Doctor' all the time if I wasn’t? And what about you? Do you honestly expect me to believe your real name is Scootaloo?”

She glared at him. “That is my real name!” The other two began giggling. Scootaloo whipped around to face them. “Oh, like your names are any better!”

“Hey!”

The three began to argue, and the Doctor wasted no time in trying to move his chair back so he could get to his sonic screwdriver.

“My name is perfectly fine!”

“Oh please, Sw-ee-tie Belle.” Scootaloo put extra emphasis on every part of her name, exaggerating each syllable.

The Doctor was already a quarter of the way there, moving as fast as possible without tipping the chair over or bringing attention to himself.

“What about Apple Bloom? Does everypony in your family have to be named after fruit?”

“Yeah, what’s up with that? Every time I hear you talk about your family I get hungry.”

“Ya'll better leave mah family outta this if ya know what’s good fer ya!”

Half way there, the Doctor accidentally caused a scraping noise as he tried to scoot the chair over a knot in the floor boards. The three stopped their spat for a second to stare in his direction. He smiled sweetly, feigning innocence. They went back to arguing.

“What makes you the name expert anyway?”

“It's not that I'm an expert on names, I just know yours is stupid.”

“You’re stupid!”

“Nuh-uh! Ms. Cheerilee said I'm the hardest working student in her class!”

“That just means yer not as smart as the rest of us, Scoots.”

“Ha!”

“Shut up!”

Somewhere in the back of their minds they were aware of an odd whirring noise, but they were so caught up in their arguing they didn't pay it any attention.

“If I'm not so smart then why am I always the one who comes up with all the ideas?”

“You only come up with all the bad ideas, we just do 'em to humor ya.”

“Oh yeah well your just a-”

“Wait, wait, hold on! Where’s our suspect?”

They froze mid argument, their senses coming back to them. A quick look over to the chair their prisoner had been sitting in showed it was now empty, with the chains that had recently held him now in a ring around the legs.

“Didn't he say that screwdriver of his could unlock doors?”

“Can it unlock chains too?”

Apple Bloom walked over to the chair, kicking at the chains on the ground and scowling.

“Girls, ah do believe we just got played.”
________________________________________________________________________________

“Once again, I am so sorry Applejack. I'll have the Doctor move it as soon as he gets here.”

“He better get here soon sugarcube, ahm gettin' tired a' waitin'. That there blue box has been sittin' right on top a' the entrance to the storage cellar under the barn for the last three days, and we need them spare wheels for the apple cart.”

“Don't worry; I'm sure he's right on his way.” Ditzy had no idea if the Doctor was on his way. He said he’d be right there after he went back to get his TARDIS key, and somehow he must of managed to get himself abducted or something because she’d been waiting there for almost an hour. She didn’t think much of it at first, but when she got to Sweet Apple Acres she was greeted by an angry looking Applejack demanding she get rid of the blue box or Big Mac was going to have a go at it. Ditzy wasn't sure if it was even possible to destroy the TARDIS, she vaguely remembered the Doctor mentioning something about some guy named “Gangly Can” not being able to break through the doors, but she didn't want them trying in case they might find out what it really is.

'Doctor, what kind of trouble could you have gotten yourself into?' She thought.

Another thirty minutes passed before the Doctor came running up, out of breath and rambling about a bunch of muscular ponies overpowering him and dragging him away to question him about the theft.

“Yeah, okay Doctor that's fascinating and all, but we have more important things to worry about.”

The Doctor slapped a hoof to his head. “You're right, we still need to figure out who or what has been making all the holes in space around here!”

“No, you parked the TARDIS over the storage cellar and Applejack is gearing up to break it down if we don't move it soon.” They both looked over at the farmer, who was busy practicing bucking on a blue sandbag. He flinched when she delivered a particularly strong kick that sent the bag flying into the barn.

“...Right, we'll move the TARDIS first, then continue our investigation.”
________________________________________________________________________________

They got the TARDIS moved to a better location, which was difficult thanks to the Doctor's inability to actually pilot it correctly, resulting in a very short visit to some planet whose name Ditzy couldn't even pronounce.

“Racksis...calimero...folliptoroptorous?”

“Eh, close enough.”

After the Doctor locked up the TARDIS, the duo split up to ask around town to see if anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary in Ponyville. Ditzy wasn't having much luck. Everyone she asked knew as much as her, and absolutely no one had seen anything weird like a hole in space. She was getting ready to just give up and go find the Doctor when she overheard an interesting conversation.

“...and I had just bought some too. But when I looked in my pantry every jar of jelly I had in there was gone. And it didn't look like anypony had been in my house; nothing else was touched. I wonder if it was the same pony who stole Berry Punch's jelly.”

“I had the same thing happen to me. I went to buy more at the market, but nopony had any. Every shop, tapped dry. It’s like all the jelly in Ponyville is mysteriously vanishing.”

Ditzy's eyes went wide. That definitely sounded like something the Doctor would want to know. She sprinted off to find him.

The Doctor, on the other hand, was having similar findings. After asking several ponies he struck up a conversation with a stallion who claimed all the jelly he had had been stolen as well, and he wasn't able to find anyone else to buy anymore from.

“So how long did it take you to realize your jelly was gone?”

“Well, like I said, I was home all day. At lunch I decided to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but when I looked in my cupboard it was all gone. I didn’t hear anyone else come in the house, and they couldn’t have come in through the back door if they did. The lock’s been broken for years; I haven’t been able to open it since I first moved into my house!”

The Doctor pondered this news for a second, before asking “Did you notice anything else in your home when you discovered you had been robbed?

“Like what?”

“Well…” He hesitated a moment before continuing. “Like an interdimensional portal linking your house to an alien planet billions of light years away?”

He got nothing but a blank stare in return.

“Doctor!”

He turned, spotting his assistant making her way to him. “Ah, Ditzy, there you are! I was just asking this fellow if he noticed any odd goings on lately.”

Ditzy looked around. “What fellow? I don't see anyone.”

The Doctor turned to see that the stallion he had been talking to was now gone. He spun in a full circle but couldn't see him anywhere. “Where did he...”

“Never mind that Doctor, you'll never guess what I found! I was listening in on some ponies talking and I overheard them saying that-”

“-they had recently bought jelly and realized it had been stolen, and when they went to buy more no one else had any either. That's what I've been hearing too. So then it's not just coincidence.”

“Do you think the jelly thief and the holes in space are connected?”

“That's what I'm starting to think. Perhaps we may have to do a bit of hands on work to figure out the answer to this puzzle.”

Ditzy turned her head over in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it just so happens I have a jar of preserves in the TARDIS. Maybe we can use it to lure the thief out, catch them in the act, and learn just how he or she is making swiss cheese out of the fabric of space.”

“Yay, it's time for a stakeout! And you know what this calls for?”

“I can only guess…”

“Muffins!”

Two hours and a dozen muffins later, the two had the perfect setup for a stakeout in Ditzy’s house. This, as you would
imagine, simply involved a counter top to put the jar on and an upturned couch to provide a place to hide.

“Alright Ditzy, now we wait for the thief to show up and steal the jar, and we'll have him caught red handed!”

“Or her.”

“Right. And we’ll have him or her caught red handed.”

“Doctor, this seems silly. Couldn't we just open one of those holes again and see where it leads?”

“Wh-wh- y-y-you can’t just...” He paused. “…I-I'm the Doctor here, and you’re the assistant! This is how we are doing this!”

“You never even thought of doing that, did you Doctor?”

“It crossed my mind...recently.”

The sound of clinking glass brought their attention back to the jar, which was now gone.

“What!? B-but...h-how? We...we turned away for...ten seconds...”

“My idea is starting to look a lot better now, huh Doctor?” Ditzy ignored his glare as she innocently took a bite of a muffin.

“I don’t understand, I’ve created a delta wave generator in the time it takes someone to get a cup of coffee! By myself! I mean, I never actually fired it, but I still made it! How could I be outsmarted by a mare who frequently mistakes the atom accelerator on the control panel in the TARDIS for a baby rattle?” He looked at Ditzy after saying this, noticing that she was now making a “Boo-hoo!” face and pretending to wipe tears from her eyes. “Urgh…How far I’ve fallen…” He began walking to the door to try out their next plan of action.

“You know Doctor, I guess you could say this has been quite a...jam?”

“…Ditzy, give me back my spectacles.”
________________________________________________________________________________

Pinkie Pie hummed a random tune as she walked down a set of stairs into the basement of Sugar Cube Corner, her usual smile lighting up her face.

“Hmm hm hmmm, hmm hmmm hm hmm...”

The pink earth pony began searching shelves when she entered the large room, calling out as she did so. “Jelly? Jelly? Where are you, jelly?” She spotted a jar at the end of one of the shelves. “Oh, there you are! Gummy loves jelly, it's a good thing we still have one more jar!” She grabbed it and began walking back to the stairs. When she got there she heard something shuffle around somewhere behind her.

“Hmm?” She turned. “Hello? Gummy, is that you? I've got your jelly right here Gummy, what are you doing down here?” She couldn't see the little reptile, but she could hear something moving in the back of the room.

“Gummy? If you wanted to play hide and seek, why didn't you just say so?” With a naive giggle, she bounded around the room, checking every nook and cranny for Gummy. When she had only one place left to check, a dark corner hidden by a stack of flour bags, she crouched down really low, creeping slowly to the corner that the shuffling sound was coming from. When she got right up to it, she yelled “Gotcha!” and jumped forward. It was then she realized the creature that stared back at her was not Gummy.

“Hey, you're not Gummy. You wanna be my friend?”

It lifted its head up until it was several feet above the mare, staring down at her with a hungry look in its eye.

“If you're gonna be my friend, I'll have to throw a party for you! What color balloons do you want? What kind of cake do you like? Oh, this is going to be the best party ever! I better go make the invitations right away!” She ran to the stairs, leaving the mysterious creature behind as it watched her go, a confused expression dominating its face.

Comments

[Darkran]

U jelly

[Dusk Quill]

Hi, me again! Here to do a Chapter 2 review for you!

Okay, it's getting there! Definitely looks cleaner with those clear-cut transitions now. Good job with those. There were a couple of instances where you had possessive apostrophes in places they didn't need to be...

I’ve even survived multiple encounters with the Dalek's!

“We are the Cutie Mark Crusader's Private Investigators, and we want to ask you a few questions.”

... like those, and they repeat for each time the CMCs address themselves. Since it's plural and not possessive, you wouldn't use the apostrophes with them, just the "s" at the end, or whatever the word requires respectively. On my first pass, that was the biggest thing I noticed - otherwise, it's looking better!

Content-wise, be careful about having him travel places he's been in the past. The general fanon consensus regarding The Doctor is he is now in an alternate dimension, which would make traveling to other planets impossible - unless there's alternates of those planets. That could be interesting to explore in the future.

I can't help but wonder why The Doctor isn't using his screwdriver as much?

Oh, and to Miss Derpy Hooves, I believe it is pronounced "Raxacoricofallapatorius".

Well, there's my take on it! I hope you find it helpful, and if there's anything you have questions on, do not hesitate to ask! Till next chapter!

-- Dusk Quill
Editor/Reviewer for the "Editor's Dreamland"

[Polygrammar]

1783020 Once again, thanks for the review! You're freaking smart, you know that? It's amazing how much I've forgotten since 5
th grade english, learning apostrophes and what not. But now that you mention it, I do remember possessive and plural uses of adding "s" to the end of a word. I guess I'm not smarter then a 5th grader. Also I don't intend to keep this going as a long series or anything. My original inspiration was from a dream I had about an episode from season 3 that turned out to not exist. This might go on for another chapter or two, but I'm really not planning on making it any longer. So I'm not really worried about the Doctor visiting places he's been to before, I wanted to write it in as him ending up there to visit a ponified Blon or however her name is spelled. I ended up not including it because it was too heavy. And as for the sonic screwdriver thing, I'm going for a 5th Doctor take where he doesn't use it to get out of every trap.My first idea was to make the lock on his chains a dead lock seal, rendering his screwdriver useless. But I didn't know how to write it, so I left it out. And lastly, there is a possibility that I may not be uploading the next chapter for a while. I'll be going by "daddy" for the rest of the week because I'll be watching my 1 yr old cousin, so that will leave me with no time to work on it. I'll try to get some done, but she's a handful so I'm not making any promises. Did I use that apostrophe right? I'm not sure.

[Mydnyt Rayn]

The Cutie Mark Crusader's pony napped Doctor Whooves?!