The Twilight Child

by Detectivefish

Quite Possibly

Midday Eclipse was awake, and that was when she noticed something she hadn't been aware of: That she hadn't yet fallen asleep, and that it was after three in the morning, and there was rythymic noise which appeared to be coming from downstairs, which she could guess was likely Twilight Sparkle frustrated about something and engaging in a bit of stereotypy, and if it came to guessing what had the librarian so aggravated, it was almost certainly her schedule. Midday sighed. She'd been looking forward to getting some sleep, having woken up early to help in bringing Fluttershy back to her senses, after bringing her back out of her senses with one poorly thought-out speech. Midday was aware of a small ruffling sound, which meant Spike was shifting in his basket. Then there was a sudden explosion of light as the dragon turned on the lights by Twilight's bed, and gave a small noise of irritation on seeing the empty bed belonging to the studious unicorn. Midday blinked the spots out of her eyes, and decided to follow the dragon downstairs, if only for moral support. Meanwhile, Trixie (the occasionaly Great and Powerful) mumbled something in her sleep about bourbon, which sounded oddly like off-key singing.

*****

"Twilight!" Spike said, apparently shocked that the mare he'd known from birth was still up, despite Twilight Sparkle's habit of pulling all-night study sessions.
"Hi, Spike, Midday." The mare said, not even breaking stride from her pacing around the central podium, where several of her books were lying, one or two of them left open.

"It's the middle of the night, why are you pacing like this?" Spike asked, holding up his alarm clock, which helpfully told Midday it was three in the morning on the fourth of March.
"Force of habit, I'm guessing." Midday said to herself.

Twilight suddenly turned around, an annoyed expression on her face.
"Frankly I don't know how you can sleep at a time like this!" she declared.

"Closing my eyes and thinking about making cupcakes usually helps" Midday said. Twilight took no note of this, and walked over to the two of them. She looked worried.
"It's awful, it's horrible, it's tragic" she proclaimed. Spike and Midday looked at each other.

"What's wrong?" they asked. Twilight's horn glowed and a calendar leapt into Spike's hands. He looked at the large number four on it. Twilight had clearly gone to a lot of attention make sure it stood out.
"Now you do see what's wrong?" she said.

"We forgot to celebrate Arbor Day?" Spike asked weakly.
"No, the problem" Twilight rushed over to one of her open books and started flipping through it before rushing over to the dragon and the unicorn and waving a calander in their faces, "Is I just finished my schedule for the month, but I forgot to leave time to schedule for next month!" Midday felt a slight glow of satisfaction at being right, or rather she would have had she not seen Twilight's schedule-inspired panic, or fighting her eyelids, which hadn't gotten the memo she was supposed to be awake. Twilight started pacing again.

"I could move my meeting with the Ponyville Hay Board to the following Tuesday, but then I'd have to reschedule my lunch with Pinkie Pie, and you know what a nightmare she is with scheduling."
"Poor choice of words there" Midday said quietly, even though Pinkie was like a demonic entity of hatred when it came to scheduling: Demanding, near-impossible to negotiate with and almost entirely unstoppable.

"This is an absolute disaster!" Twilight yelled, "My whole year could be thrown off!"
By this point Spike and Midday were both calmly walking upstairs again. Not because they didn't care about Twilight's mental well-being, but more because after several years of experience Schedule Panic, it was routine. Normally Twilight would burn herself out during the night and fall asleep at her desk, before coming up with a simple solution when she woke up again.

"See, that's why I barely plan ahead." Midday explained to the small dragon, who just chuckled. There was a frustrated groan from behind them.
"So, any good dreams lately?" The royal blue mare asked as they walked through the door to upstairs.

*****

Night passed, as it did, and all the ponies of Ponyville slept peacefully (save Twilight Sparkle, naturally), and all of Equestria beyond that, under the watchful protection from nightmares, and the things that went bump in the night, from Princess Luna.

*****

Midday was awoken by a faint scratching noise, and awoke to see Twilight calmly working away at her desk, occasionaly muttering or exclaiming in triumph or sighing. She looked up to see the sun slowly arching it's way across the sky. Then she looked over to the clock by her bed, which told her it was only half past five. She closed her eyes again.

There was a series of scratching noises, followed by a pause, then an exasperated hiss, a fast scraping noise and then more scratching.
Midday lay there for a moment, before rolling out of her bed, picking up the pillows, and then walking downstairs as calmly as possible.

*****

Elsewhere.
Imagine a staircase. A really, really long staircase that seems to go on forever, just spiralling down, and down, and down, and down and further down, until you start to wonder why you aren't bursting into flames, or why everything suddenly feels so cold for some reason, and then you come to a vast cavern, at the end of which lay a door, which seemed to exude cold.
Not that Princess Luna felt cold, since being a Princess (and due to a lucky coin-toss, princess of the Winds and Water) meant she rarely felt cold, and it would have had to have been beyond the range of most mortals to feed. She looked about the vast cavern, playful concern on her brow. She whistled into the gloom.

"Here, boy."
In her magic's grip was held a large (roughly the size of a large bathtub, or a small swimming pool) plastic bowl, filled with all manner of unpleasant smelling foods regularly delivered at night by the finest Griffon deliverymen. It was meat, though Luna hadn't really checked what brand of meat it was, she was fairly certain that it's intended recipient didn't care what he was eating. The cavern remained still, bits of etheral fog wrapping around her slippers (Even for a pony resistant to the cold, wearing metal shoes in a freezing cold cavern wasn't up there on the list of Great Ideas for the Ages).

Luna frowned. She whistled again, longer and louder this time. Nothing continued happening.
"Here, Kirby. Here, boy." There was no noise, save the slight echo of her voice.

"Din-dins!" She said, though not at the volume she was used to using, what with all those bits of advice Cadance had been giving her. She was puzzled, and gently set the large bowl down, and walked around it.
"Kirby?" she asked to the darkness, her horn glowing slightly. She looked about, her wings flapping slightly. She looked back to the stairs, which were quite large. Large enough enough for several ponies to walk it side by side. Large enough, perhaps, a voice in her said, for a giant three-headed dog.

A few seconds later the ever-graceful Princess of the Night was soaring upwards through the cavern, and eventually out into the early morning sky, just outside Canterlot. The two Princesses had debated (not bickered, as some pundits had speculated. Princesses did not bicker.) about whether it was truly a good idea to place a portal to the underworld itself near their castle and centre of government, to which Luna had pointed about that anything that got past a giant three-headed dog and the Eternal Staircase (they'd been in a sarcastic mood that decade) wasn't going to be in much shape to fight two alicorns, and if it got past them, then a bunch of mortal ponies throwing sticks and bits of metal at it weren't going to be much use, so if something got past Cerberus, the two sisters would have at least been close enough to know about it.

*****

Princess Celestia was just beginning her day, with a report from the hard-working (if slightly over-caffeineated) Royal Public Relations department, when the door slammed open, and Luna dramatically swept past a rather stubborn collection of guards, who had decided that they were guarding the throne room against everything, and since everything did include Celestia's younger sister, they were duty-bound to stop her. Somehow.
"Luna? This is hi-" Celestia didn't get much further as the younger Princess began to speak.

"WOE! OH LAMENTATIONS! SISTER, I BRING DIRE NEWS! THE GATES OF TARTARUS STAND UNGUARDED, AND ALL MANNER OF EVIL THREATENS TO LOOSE ITSELF UPON THE WORLD!"
For a moment, nopony said anything, merely staring at anywhere but each other's eyes. Celestia fortunately chose to cough slightly, and smiled one of her more reassuring smiles.

"If you will excuse us, my sister and I must attend to other matters for a moment" she said, summoning the castle staff to escort the Public Relations officials to one of the many waiting rooms, where they could drink tea and coffee to their heart's content. Celestia turned to look at Luna, who was still wearing her slippers, and looked like she'd been about to take a nap, as she often did during the day.
"What is it, sister?"

Luna whispered something. Celestia fought the urge to raise an eyebrow. While Luna had, over the last year, managed to shed herself of the Traditional Canterlot Voice, she still spoke in more formal tones when emotional, and when truly emotional, she went straight back to shouting enough to break windows. However, the whispering was almost unheard of from Luna.
"Sorry?"

"Kirby's missing" Luna said, now loud enough to be heard. For a moment, Princess Celestia was genuinely confused. She knew all of the ponies who dwelt and worked within her castle by name, from the highest guard (although since he was engaged to her niece, and she was officiating the wedding, this wasn't a surprise) to the lowliest dish-washer, and she'd never heard of a 'Kirby' before. Then she realised Luna wasn't talking about a pony. (When the word moment is used, this is in the seconds of roughly under a few seconds. For an immortal being, a few seconds can feel like hours, and hours like seconds. Just like regular ponies, really)

"You mean Cerberus?" Luna nodded. That made sense, since Luna had always been fond of animals, much as she always been fond of other ponies, it was just that most of them tended to sleep through her night as well. She had previously been fond of cats, but between the whole Nightmare Moon incident, and a dreadful occasion involving Philomena, Luna had gone completely off felines.
Questions teamed through Celestia's head, eventually she decided to go for an easy one.

"And you've checked everywhere? He isn't sleeping in one of the spare ballrooms?" Luna fixed her with a look that indicated she had, in fact, checked everywhere. Quite possibly more than twice.
"Well, shall I tell the guards to look out for him? After all, he's the size of a small house, so it's not like he can stay hidden for long."

"'kay." Luna said, apparently smiling at the thought of the dog trying to hide itself, and somehow succeeding. Celestia walked over to her sister.
"You just go get some rest" she said, gently nudging Luna with her wings. The younger alicorn slowly took to the air and flew off in the direction of her observatory. Celestia shook her head, and started trying to think of a way to phrase the missing dog flyers.

*****

Just outside Ponyville, there was a set of hills. They were relatively nondescript things, green, grassy, occasionaly brown, nice for looking at the stars at from, fun to slide down when it was snowing. Nothing important ever happened to hills, usually, save being moved to make space for mountains or houses, which meant a lot of time got bottled up, just waiting to be used, for something, for anything, first kisses, fights, spats, awkward first encounters, scabbed knees, dropped ice cream, this sort of time wasn't fussy, not like its pushy up-town neighbours, only saving itself for Fixed Points and Historical Facts and the like. Fixed Points don't tend to happen to hills, and it was the same with this one. A Fixed Point was not about to happen to it.
Time had something much better in store.

The first thing that happened was a slight rustling, despite the complete absence of wind, and then... the Noise. Some ponies who had heard it (and would go on to hear it) would claim that despite its' rough, grinding nature, it still had something beautiful about it, some intrinsicly brilliant quality that just was.
It was the noise of a time machine landing. It was shaped like a box, in the most blue shade of blue there ever was and would ever be. It proclaimed itself to be a 'Police Telephone Box'. After a few seconds of the beautiful noise, there was a heavy clunk. Then there was the creak of old doors opening, and a head emerged from the door, sniffing at the air. The mouth of this head opened.

"See? Told you! Ponyville, just as you left it." The pony stepped out, and the first thing that would be noticable about this stallion (Beside the odd accent, and the hair, and the chin) was the bowtie.
There was a small 'huh' noise, as a blonde-maned mare with grey fur and bubbles for a Cutie Mark stepped out, appearing to admire the scenery for the first time in forever. The first thing noticable about this mare were her eyes (and stop staring!), followed by the kindly smile.

"You were right." She smiled. The stallion gave a mildly smug smile.
"We're home?" A smaller voice said, and a unicorn filly practically bounced out of the box, which didn't look anywhere near enough to fit a full-grown mare and stallion and a filly.

"Of course. You asked me to take you somewhere and back by 'tomorrow morning'. Here we are, tomorrow morning." The stallion said, patting the box slightly. The mare walked over to the stallion and kissed him, to which he looked amazingly embarrased, especially once the filly giggled.
"Thank you, Doctor." Ditzy Doo said. "For everything."

*****

Midday was just starting breakfast when Spike came downstairs, shaking his head.
"She's still at it?" Midday asked. Spike nodded, glumly, before sitting on the raised stool he normally occupied.

"She's not normally this bad." He sighed, before leaning in towards Midday. "Is she as bad about this in your time?" he said at a whisper, in case Twilight was listening.
Midday tilted her head. "Depends on her mood. Though to be fair, the next twenty-odd years do give her time to improve her scheduling tactics."

She suddenly felt an itching sensation in her horn, and an odd static feeling, and the dishes in the sink were rattling.
"Something wrong?" asked Spike. Midday looked at him.

"She hasn't decided to skip sleeping, has she?" They exchanged glances, both apparently considering the problem of a sleep-addled Twilight Sparkle praciticing magic. Spike was imagining another brawl between everypony in town. Midday was just thinking of a massive crater with a few bits of smoking pony remains lying about.
The rattling stopped. Neither Spike or Midday looked reassured by this. They quickly rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, Midday bashing the door down to find- she stopped, and stared in confusion.

Standing in front of them was a clearly sleep-deprived Twilight Sparkle, and by the fireplace was... another Twilight Sparkle, only this one was wearing a torn black body-suit, and an eye-patch over her right eye, and there was a bandage over her head. And worse was her mane. The normaly well-manicured and maintained mane was bent... and looked like it had been set on fire. Numerous alternatives rushed through Midday's mind, but as the mare opened her eyes, and Midday noticed the massive bags under her eyes. Then she remembered an old tale her mother had told her, one she'd dismissed as being made-up (A viewpoint that had long since fallen apart, especially once Pinkie had told her that was what really happened). This was the Twilight from Next Tuesday, which was still the past to Midday, even though it was the future relative to Future Twilight and-... Midday sighed.

'This is going to need a program' she thought.
Meanwhile, Current Past Twilight seemed excited. "You're you, but I'm me too. How can there be two 'me's? It's not scientifically possible." She jabbed Next Tuesday's Twilight with a hoof "You are not scientifically possible."

"She must be possible, she's happening." Midday observed, rolling her eyes. Both Twilight's ignored her.
"Twilight, please! I have a very important message to you from the future!"

Current Past Twilight (or Past Past Twilight, perhaps, to compare to Future Past Twilight, which actually sounded pretty good to Midday for some reason) gasped in joy, or curiosity. It was hard to tell where that ended for Twilight.
"You're from the future?!"

"That's right" Future Past Twilight said solemnly, "Now, listen-"
"What happened to you?" Current Past Twilight said, circling the battered mare, "The future must be awful."

"Please!" Future Past Twilight said, pleadingly, "I don't have much time!"
Current Past Twilight scratched her hoof, and frowned. "Is there some sort of epic pony war in the future or something?"

Midday found herself fighting down a laugh, and finally noticed Spike just staring in utter confusion at the scene in front of him.
"Actually, I'm from next Tuesday morning." Future Past Twilight said, before seeming to remember something, "But that's not important right now!"

"I can't believe time travel is really possible! How did you" Twilight paused and laughed, "I mean, I, figure this out?"
Future Past Twilight frowned, "The time travel spells are in the Canterlot Archives. But that's not-" Midday felt a great swell of pity for Twilight Sparkle as she watched the proceedings, all too aware of the temporal paradox. Curent Past Twilight looked giddy (although that was probably the lack of sleep working against her).
"Really? Where? I've never seen them!" She sounded almost hurt by that realisation that there was something in the Canterlot Royal Archives she hadn't read yet, and that she hadn't even known that there was something she hadn't read.

"They're in the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing" Future Past Twilight said, shooting a look at Midday as she did so, which made the mare take a step back. "Now you have to listen to-"
"Is time-travel fun, or does it hurt?" Current Past Twilight squeaked, "I have so many questio-" Future Past Twilight jammed a hoof in her past self's mouth.

"I have something important to tell you about the future, and I only have a fews seconds so you have got to listen!" Future Past Twilight frowned, "Whatever you do, don-" Suddenly a glow became to surround her, and wind began to whip around the room, and then there was a bright flash and a sound like a thundercrack, and the once-and-future Twilight was gone. The Twilight of the immediate present just looked concerned.

"Future Twilight?" She stared down at the scorch mark on the floor, "Oh no" she whispered. She looked up at Midday and Spike.
"What was she trying to warn me about? Her clothes, her mane, and that scar..." She tutted, "Oh, what a mess she is!... I mean, I am!... or will be!" She gasped.

"She must want me to prevent whatever horrible thing happened in the future."
"She wants you to prevent whatever happened by next Tuesday? Bit of a deadline." Midday said. Twilight just stared at her and Spike.

"C'mon" she declared, "We have to warn everypony." And she rushed downstairs before Midday could say anything. Behind her, she heard Trixie stirring.
"Wh- what's going on?" The mare asked, blearily. Midday turned to look at Spike.

"You okay?" She asked the dragon.
"Two... Twilights?" he whimpered. She shook her head and lifted him onto her back.

"COME ON!" Twilight yelled from downstairs.

*****

Celestia finally relaxed. It was her first break of the day, the nicest fifteen minutes she would have all morning. She quickly realised all too late what she'd done, just as there was a gentle knock on the door, and it opened just slightly. A familiar etheral-maned head poked into the room.
"No, Luna. We haven't found him yet." She said, calmly. Luna nodded sadly. Her head slowly disappeared again.

*****

Back in Ponyville, Ditzy walked through the town confidently, Dinky resting on her back. Or rather, Dinky was supposed to be resting on her back, but she couldn't help but notice ponies pointing and staring and whispering at her and her mother. Dinky was smarter than she looked, and she was certain she could hear them saying her name as well as her mother's... impolite nickname.

*****

Five minutes ago, in the box belonging to the Doctor, the stallion flicked a switch, there was the beginning of the wonderful noise of his machine, his TARDIS, his se-... his beautiful girl, preparing to fly. Then it stopped. He frowned, paused, then nudged the switch back and forth. Nothing happened. He batted a hoof at the screen connected to the central terminal, the one that told him the date. True, he was awful at time-keeping, but he'd promised to Ditzy and Dinky to bring them back the day after they'd left. He'd promised. He scowled at the machinery. Then he kicked it.
A few seconds later, his hoof really really smarting, the Doctor rushed out of the TARDIS towards Ponyville.

*****

Twilight and Midday raced through the streets of Ponyville, Spike holding onto Midday's hair for dear life. Twilight had explained she was going to find everypony, gather them together and 'future-proof' Equestria. Midday just nodded, and ran after her, though Twilight had looked slightly bothered by that, she said nothing. They had searched everywhere, but Rarity and Pinkie Pie weren't in their stores, but apparently Pinkie and Fluttershy had been gathering supplies on the edge of town. And while they were running, Midday saw something that made her stop dead, which managed to catapault Spike clear off her head, although by good fortune he managed to land on Twilight.

"Twilight, stop!" she yelled, to which the mare did, though not sharp enough to throw Spike from her back.
"What?" she asked. Midday pointed, to where a confused-looking grey-furred mare with blonde hair and bubbles for a Cutie Mark was walking along the road, and Midday could see a hoof or two sticking out from her back.

"It's Ditzy!" She declared, before rushing over to the pegasus and smiling broadly, before hugging the mare.
"Where were you?" She asked. Ditzy stared at her, then over to Twilight, who was slowly approaching her.

"What do you mean, 'where was I'?" she asked, tilting her head. Midday couldn't see it, but Twilight was staring at her hooves.
"What?" The mare asked. Possible options ran through Midday's head, and while she didn't like the answer she got, she decided to ask it anyway.

"Ditzy... what's the date?" The mare looked uncertain.
"The sixteenth of January." She said, her eyes moving from Midday to Twilight. There was a clattering noise, as a familiar-looking brown-coated stallion ran up to Ditzy looking unbelievably nervous.

"Hello, sorry, Ditzy... I might have got the date wrong." He said. Ditzy stared at her, which meant both her eyes were focused on the same spot, and strangely enough that was worrying.
"How. Long. Have I been gone?" she asked, the little filly on her back looking terrified of the sudden change in her mother.

"Almost two months." Midday said. There was a moment as the mild-mannered mailmare took in what she heard.
"WHAT."
The Doctor looked sheepish, and muttered an apology. Ditzy simply glared at him, her mouth opening and closing several times, until she finally managed to say something.

"Seven. Weeks?! How did you manage to... I-... You-...!" She looked to Dinky, then back to the numerous gathered ponies who were staring at her, and then Midday noticed she was quivering. The stallion looked at her.
"I am sorry, Ditzy, I ju-" He stopped, and then started walking away. Midday found herself hugging Ditzy.

"Hey, it's alright." She said, "You're back, and you're with us, and you're safe. 'S all that matters."
"Seven weeks" the mare repeated. Midday looked at Dinky, who looked confused.

"What happened?" Midday asked. Ditzy just smiled slightly.
"We met at Hearth's Warming. You'd never believe me if I told you."

"I just say a version of Twilight Sparkle from two days into the future show up via time-travel, and I once heard Princess Luna sing in the Traditional Canterlot Voice. There's not really much I won't believe."
"Well, there was this army of snow ponies, you see..." Midday was aware that Twilight had walked off to tell everypony about her future-self, which also conveniently distracted the ponies who were giving Ditzy some very suspect looks. Ditzy described the strange, illogical tale of how she met the pony who called himself the Doctor, which apparently had involved Princess Luna, snow-ponies that ate ponies, and something Ditzy wasn't sure what.

"That's weird." Midday finally said. "But I still believe you."
"Story's not over yet." Ditzy said, as ponies around them went to work begining the disaster-proofing of Equestria.

"See, it started just after what I did to the town hall... I was trying to get on with my work, but I went to pick up Dinky from school, and..." Tears began to well up in the mare's eyes, and Midday noticed the fortuitous arrival of Trixie. The mare approached them.
"Ditzy? Where have you been?" She smiled. Midday raised an eyebrow. First today had Twilight accepting the concept of time-travel, then Ditzy and Dinky had returned, and now Trixie was happy to see somepony. This didn't seem right to her.

"Hey, Trixie, do you mind taking care of Dinky for a while?" Midday asked. Trixie looked from her, down to the sad and confused looking little filly. She smiled.
"Trixie shall do her best." She motioned for Dinky to follow after her. The filly looked to Ditzy, who just nodded, then suddenly looked at Trixie with a fierce expression.

"If anything happens to her, I will be very cross with you" She said, her voice calm but underscored with just the right amount of subtle menace. The showmare looked alarmed, but still led the little unicorn away. Ditzy watched, smiling, as the two walked down the streets.
"You know, every time I've made a mistake in my life, all the bad choices I've made, and I see Dinky, and suddenly I find myself thinking I'd do it all over again, just for her." Ditzy said, sighing contentedly.

"So, what happened next, after you saw Dinky?"
Ditzy looked like she'd been slashed through the heart. "Dinky's growing up. She's not stupid, and she knew ponies were talking about me, after what I did to the town hall, and... she doesn't have a lot of friends, not ones her own age, I don't think. She's never invited any over, and I know why. She doesn't want to risk overworking me just for her friends, and..." She sniffed. "We were walking home, and this brilliant, kind madpony, the Doctor showed up. He said some things that didn't make sense, and then he noticed Dinky was crying. He asked us... he asked us if we wanted to go somewhere, just for a while. He said he had a time machine, anywhere we wanted to go he would take us, and I just- he just seemed so nice, and so we accepted. And he showed us to that box he's always travelling around in, and it actually was bigger on the inside, like he'd said." She stopped and looked almost embarrassed.

"So, Dinky and I, we're in this magnificent machine, and we don't know what to say, so he smiles and said he'd choose for us. And there was this noise, this... wonderful noise, like the universe turning, and then it stopped, and he walked out of the door. We just stood there, not sure what to do, but we eventually decided to see whether he was just playing a joke on us. And we stepped outside and we saw paradise." She smiled slightly as she recalled the events, "Everywhere we looked shone in the sun, everything was made of crystals, an entire beautiful city that seemed to stretch on forever, and at the center there was a massive castle, like a great mountain carved out out of more crystal than I ever thought existed, reaching into the heavens." Midday's jaw dropped as she recognised what the mailmare was describing. There was a small sniff from the mare.

"I could smell the incense floating in the air, the wonderful smells of all sorts of wonders I had never known, and then there was this wave, this energy that washed over us like a wave made of joy, and bliss, that I just wanted to hold on to forever, and never let go of. Then I asked him why he was doing this for us, and he looked so hurt and lost, I just didn't know what to do. And he said it was so that Dinky was 'happy now, because she's going to be unhappy later.' That was why. So that my little girl felt happy. And then we left, and returned here and he turned out to be almost two months off-date, and now everypony probably thinks I tried to run away with Dinky in case somepony tried to take her from me."

Midday stared at Dinky as she finished that statement and went silent. She hugged the mare tightly.
"Nopony will take her from you." Was all she said.

"Can you promise that?" Ditzy asked. Midday looked at her.
"I don't need to. I mean it." She stood up, and after the shock of realising she'd sat down, motioned for the (likely now ex-) mailmare to follow.

*****

"Have you any luck finding him?"
"Still no, Luna."

*****

Midday's plan had been to make sure the Mayor understood the situation about where Ditzy and Dinky had gone, then find somepony to give character testimonial so that nopony would try to send Dinky into foster care. It turned out they needn't have bothered, though Ditzy discovered she hadn't been on paid vacation, and was docked the pay for the weeks she was missing. She just vowed to work harder, to which someponies had remarked whether it was actually possible.

"Ditzy's back!" Pinkie cheered, and began to rush off to throw a party when a familiar aura grabbed her. It took Pinkie several seconds to stop running in place.
"No, Pinkie, we can't throw any parties until we are absolutely sure Equestria is safe!" Twilight Sparkle declared. Everypony looked uncertain, but eventually agreed to wait until Twilight Sparkle declared the all-clear, though Midday did lean in towards the party planner.

"Hey, Pinkie, could you possibly find a way to make Ditzy a bunch of muffins for me?"
"Okie-Dokie-Lokie, one box of apology muffins on your account." The mare smiled, bouncing away before Midday could ask how she knew. She considered it and realised the answer was, and always was going to be 'She's Pinkie Pie'.

*****

The Doctor paced around the console room, glaring at the machinery.
"Why won't you do anything?" He muttered, "I check the blinkie-bits, looked at the wibbly stuff, I've torn the whole zig-zag plotter out and replaced it, so why aren't you flying? Eh?" He placed a hoof against the central column. "What is it? What's wrong?" There was a beeping noise, and he looked at the display screen, and the words flashing against the frame.

"Oh no" he whispered. "No, no, no." Once more the Doctor rushed outside, before rushing back in to grab the small silvery device sitting idly on the console. On the screen, the words 'meta-crisis' continued to flash on and off.

*****

Some hours of sweaty, bone-breaking list-checking later, and Twilight stood triumphant. The dam had been given a good checking, the water tower refilled, sidewalks de-gummed, bridges repaired, and Pinkie's hair more or less tamed. Every potential disaster in Ponyville, and all across Equestria had been pre-solved (Save Midday's back giving out from carrying all the checklists, since she'd been assigned the function of Checklist Carrier).

"Excellent." Twilight smiled, looking at the list once more, "We've done everything on this list, but still..." She paused, looking at the nervous faces of her friends, "Future Twilight looked like she'd been through a horrible ordeal. I just have this nagging fealing we should be looking for something bigger than loose bolts and leaky pipes."
"Like what?" Midday asked. Before she could even scold herself for saying something so blatantly foolish, there was a massive impact of a giant, three-headed dog landing right in front of them, before roaring and barking and howling at everything.

"Big dog." The royal blue unicorn uttered as she looked up. And up. And up.
"Okay, everypony" Pinkie Pie declared, her voice clear and her face serious, "Follow my lead!"

She then began screaming and running away, with everypony else joining in. Midday just stared at the giant dog, which she presumed was the one that had sniffed her as she wandered blithely into the Underworld when she was younger, which was in the future so- She leapt out of the way of a massive paw.
'Creature first, working out time-travel later' she told herself. She saw Twilight preparing to zap the creature with magic, and began to move towards her. Magic wasn't going to do squat against a creature designed to guard the Underworld. In fact, of all stories about the giant dog the only beings ever counted as having gotten past the creature were Hurricane (In a gross exaggeration of his admitedly impressive abilities) and the unnamed King of the Seaponies. However, as Midday prepared to move Twilight from being stomped on by a giant dog (Which obviously wouldn't have killed her, but most certainly was going to hurt her a lot), she heard an incredibly soft voice say something.

"Hello there." It was Fluttershy, and she was flying, and talking to the giant, bad-tempered looking three-headed dog, "Who's the cute widdle three-headed doggie?" The dog seemed to agree, ever rolling over onto its back and allowing Fluttershy to scratch its stomach.
"Wow." Twilight Sparkle uttered, "I knew you were good with dogs, but this... is amazing." Fluttershy turned to smile at Twilight.

"Aw, he's just a big furry guy who got out of his yard, that's all." She turned to the dog, "Right, Cerberus?" She then proceeded to interrogate the dog as to whether he was a 'good boy' or not, until Pinkie Pie came screaming past.
"Pinkie Pie" Twilight said, stopping the panicing party mare in her tracks. She started smiling again, as she bounced over towards Twilight.

"Yes, Twilight?"
"Do you have a ball I could borrow?" Pinkie nodded and walked over to a nearby tree and stuck her hoof into it.

"I have balls stashed all over Ponyville" She beamed, fishing a brightly coloured ball out, "In case of ball emergency." Twilight, to her credit (And Midday's surprise) didn't even seem to react to that, though considering the mare had been around Pinkie Pie for around two years now, it wasn't really a surprise. Twilight levitated the ball in front of Cerberus's face, and lead the large dog out of the town. As she did, she heard Twilight utter
"I'll be back as soon as I've returned him to the gates of Tartarus. Once he's back home, there'll be no disaster."

There were several cheers, although Spike stopped when he noticed Midday was not among them.
"Why aren't you cheering?" he asked. She looked at him.
"It's time-travel, Spike. If there is no 'disaster' then Twilight won't travel back in time." She frowned. "I should probably have tried telling her that before she rushed out of the house this morning."

Spike looked at the now distant form of Twilight and her new furry friend. "Probably. But would it have worked?"
"I am reasonably confident in my understanding of time to understand that we can't change what we've already seen. Twilight's eye is going to get injured, and she's going to end up looking like she's been through a war, and then she's gonna travel back in time." Spike opened his mouth to say something else, then looked confused, while Midday walked over to the nearby Cutie Mark Crusaders.

"Hey, girls, do you mind doing something for me?" she asked. The three fillies exchanged looks.
"Okay." Scootaloo said, hesitantly.

"Do you know Dinky?"
"Yeah, we know Dinky, but we don't talk to her much." Apple Bloom said, sounding almost guilty.

"We thought she'd gone missing, so we tried looking for her." Sweetie Belle added. Midday smiled at that.
"Good to know. Now, it's come to my attention that poor Dinky has what doctors would call... lack of friends. Do you three know anypony who would be willing to make friends with Dinky?"

The three fillies exchanged glances. "You mean us, right?" Scootaloo asked.
"Yes."

"Of course." They said as one, with identical grins.
"Glad to hear it." She said, turning to leave.

*****

"Dinky!" Ditzy cried, as she found the filly sitting on a stage with Trixie. The two appeared to be getting on well, but the filly leapt from the stage when she saw her mother.
"Mom!" She declared, "Trixie's been showing me all kind's of magic tricks"

"That's nice, muffin." Ditzy smiled. She looked up at Trixie.
"Thank you, for looking after my daughter for a while." The showmare blushed.

"Well, Trixie... just wished to be helpful, is all."
"I heard you tried looking for me while I was gone." Ditzy smiled. Trixie pulled her hat over her eyes.

"Yes, yes I did. I was concerned, is all. You aren't the sort of pony to randomly disappear."
"Thank you." Ditzy said again, and she could swear Trixie started coughing.

"I'm alright. Trixie is alright, no need to worry about her." the mare said quickly. "Have a lovely day."
"Don't worry, we will." Ditzy said. Dinky waved to the showmare as they walked away, but fortunately she didn't hear the muttering something under her breath, before producing a handkerchief and noisily blowing her nose.

*****

"Oh" The Doctor said, following the readings from his trusted screwdriver through Ponyville. Using the device was a bit tricky when he didn't have thumbs or fingers, but he was persevering, mainly because giving up would be far worse, especially at the moment. Then he got a reading from the screwdriver. "This is extremely not good."
He looked around the street he was in. "This is so incredibly far from good."

*****

"Okay." Twilight Sparkle said, feeling tired and sore and slightly hungry after her long journey, "Now you go down there, and stay, understand me?" The dog looked at her, or rather the ball floating in her magical grip. She looked at it, and then tossed it to the dog, who happily grabbed it and rushed off down the long, seemingly endless stairway. Twilight looked about. She was near Canterlot, and she smiled, as that would ease her travel time.

Provided she had any identity on her, or money, but she seemed to be lacking both, and she didn't feel up to walking to the nearest bank or her parent's house, and she didn't want to use any more magic anyway, in case she needed it before Next Tuesday. Her mind quickly did the calculations, and determined that it was a long way back to Ponyville.
She started walking.

*****

Midday had suggested Spike sleep on the larger bed that night, but the baby dragon had declined, not wanting to sleep anywhere but his usual basket. Midday had paused at that, and frowned, but the dragon was quite insistant, so she calmly accepted it.
She slept uneasily that night, dreaming of a world burning, and raised voices screaming, and she was certain one was her own. Which made it far worse when she, unable to sleep, heard Spike wake up and declare he'd just had the best night's sleep in weeks.
By the time the two made it downstairs, Twilight returned, looking weary, but satisfied, and also slathered in mud.

"Hey" Midday said quietly. "How'd it go with Cerberus?"

Twilight smiled. "Great. I got him back before any of the evil creatures could escape." Spike beamed, and was about to say something when he suddenly coughed up a scroll, which bounced against Twilight's face before dropping to the ground. She yelped as her hoof instantly touched her cheek. Midday could see what had caused it but Spike hadn't, being far more interested in the scroll.
"What's the big deal" He said, "It's just a lost dog flyer. I guess the Princesses haven't heard we found Cerberus yet."

*****

"Kirby! There you are you big silly, naughty dog. Where did you think you were?!" Luna roared at the large dog, which actually looked embarrased, "You had me so worried! What were you thinking? Bad dog!" She finished.
The dog looked at her, with three sets of the largest puppy-dog eyes ever achieved. It even held up a paw as if it were injured.

"Oh, no!" Luna continued, "We are not falling for it this time, Kirby! We are not going to be brought around or bought with your looking pathetic act!" She stared at the dog for several long minutes. Her frown vanished.
"I can't stay mad at you, can I?" She sighed, and started scratching the dog's ear. "Who'sa good boy, then? Who's mommy's best dog, huh? Who is? Is it you, I think it is, yes it is!"

Far up above, Celestia heard the sound of her younger sister talking in baby-talk to a dog several times her size, and shook her head, before summoning Shining Armor to tell him his men no longer had to search for any giant dogs (Which also left the Guard Captain wondering whether the whole 'giant dog' thing was one of Celestia's elaborate pranks.)

Author's Note:

And we'll leave it there for today.
Because we only have so much space.
(And it's gonna get weirder from here!)

Comments

[-Brutus]

240k words fanfic? Awesome, I'll give this a try soon as possible. On that note, giving this a favorite but not thumbs up yet.

[The Random Lord]

Too much doctor who references
sneaky

[Detectivefish]

2465311
Bit unavoidable when you're reading a story with the Doctor in it, I'm afraid.

[The Random Lord]

2465547
Cheer for references

[Rhulain]

For a mare displaced in time, Midday didn't seem to react to the words 'He has a time machine'

[SoleReclaimer]

I lovef the whole cerberus and luna bits, hilarious and adorable.

[RealityCheck]

If all you're going to do is re-tell the season's episodes with an extra viewpoint character, what's the point? CHANGE SOMETHING.