The Fantastic Adventures of Dr. Whooves: The Planet Eaters

by The-Pony-Librarian

Chapter Five

Chapter Five
In which a plan that sounds like it would be much too easy to be true turns out to be much to easy to be true, and the Doctor tries to help Twilight's Achluophobia by telling her all about the Vashda Nerada

Leaning down, Twilight looked at the TARDIS door with a critical eye "You know" She said thoughtfully "I might be able to put a sheild spell around the perimeter....wouldn't that be convenient"
Despite the niggling feeling that doing so would be far too easy, she sat down and focused her magic. Almost immediatly afterwards, she broke off the spell, coughing violently and falling backwards away from the entryway, propping herself on her elbows.
"Are you alright!?" The Doctor said, eyeing Twilight with worry as she shakily got to her hooves, still coughing slightly.
"How big is this thing!?" she wheezed, indicating the TARDIS interior with a forelimb as she leaned against the TARDIS console.
The Doctor blinked "Very."
"Well that explains it" Twilight said wryly "It felt like I was trying to put a shield spell over all of Equestria....more than Equestria actually, it felt like I was trying to put a shield spell over everywhere and every-when at the same time.....and it sucked"
She coughed again
"Imagine the worst ice cream headache you've ever had, followed by eating at entire ice cream sundae, multiplied by ten and all that pain squeezed into the period of about one second"
The Doctor winced "That sounds...unpleasant"
"Yeah. Remind me to never try that again okay?" Twilight then looked thoughtful "Hmm...I wonder"
She closed her eyes and there was a brief flash of magic, followed by Twilight sinking to the floor cradling her head in her hooves.
"Owww....."
"What in the universe did you do it again for?!" The Doctor said
Twilight pushed herself upright "Wasn't the same spell" She said through gritted teeth, rubbing her horn with her hooves as if trying to restore circulation "That was a levitation spell I tried on the TARDIS this time, like the one I use to lift books.... I suspected that it would produce similar results to the teleportation spell"
The Doctor eyed Twilight as if she were slightly insane, an action which Twilight dimly noted the irony of, considering that usually it was the other way around.
"Then why did you do the spell in the first place?" The Doctor's expression was somewhere between incredulous, and pondering exactly what possessed Twilight to do something that stupid.
Twilight just looked at him matter-of-factly "Because I needed to prove a theory. I was able to do that spell perfectly fine the day I first met you, when I lifted the TARDIS upright, but when inside the TARDIS, it failed spectacularly" She lifted a smart hoof to illustrate her point "Thus, there is a significant difference between interacting with the inside and outside of the TARDIS magically, and in a probability, I should be able to perform a shield spell perfectly on the TARDIS if I am doing so from the outside"
She gave a triumphant smirk. This plan was completely foolproof.
"One problem with that, Sparky" The Doctor said "We're kind of inside a bug, remember"
Oh...that..... Twilight wasn't going to let her plan fail that easily though.
"Won't the TARDIS protect us? Like how we were able to breathe on the moon?" She asked.
The Doctor gave a noncommittal expression "Well.....usually. I suspect most of her energy is invested in protecting herself at this point, which.....although good in the long run......is not exactly adventitious to going outside the TARDIS doors" he paused "You could probably use a shield to protect yourself from dissolving....but breathing might be an issue....are your shields airtight?"
Twilight sat down "Way to go, Doctor. You killed my plan. You just took my plan, my perfect little plan, you just took it in your hooves and squished it. It's dead now"
The Doctor tilted his head quizzically, unsure how to react "....Sorry?"
The purple unicorn continued heedless "I loved that plan" she said "It was so pretty, and lovely, and plausible....and you killed it. You killed it. It's gone now."
"Are you feeling alright?" the Doctor's head was nearly fully sideways now
"Noooo......my head hurts." Twilight mane, already frizzed from the party, was now sticking out at several odd angles "It feels like Rainbow Dash is flying around in there"
If the Doctor tilted his head any further he would probably fall over "I don't get it. How is that painful?"
"Have you seen Rainbow Dash fly?" Twilight's deadpan was hidden by the fact that she was lying sideways on the TARDIS floor with her hooves over her head, but you could hear it in her voice "There isn't a single tree...or building.... in Ponyville she hasn't hurled herself into at great speeds"
"....ouch"
"Yeah" Twilight said "I can't tell you how many times she's crashed into the library. Seriously, I mean, I can see running into it once....but running into something that big, oh, I don't know, thirty seven times seems pretty ridiculous.....Didn't you borrow Magic Theory and Difficult Spells IV last Tuesday to read up on how magic works? "
"How exactly did you get from Rainbow Dash to that?"
"Well Rainbow Dash crashing into the library made me think of the time she crashed into the library right I had re-shelved and knocked everything over, and that made me think of how a book landed on Pinkie Pie's face, and that made me think of the Unicorn's guide to Advanced Magic series, which that book it a part of, which made me think of the rival series to those books...Stardust's Challenging Spell Guide volumes one through five....That made me think of how Lyra needs to return volume four of that collection, and that made be think of how I'm missing volume four of another series....Magic Theory and Difficult Spells IV....And you were the pony who borrowed it. A chapter of that book includes hundreds of adaptions on the average shield spell. I haven't gotten the opportunity to learn all of them yet, but I know that one of them is an airproof version....Wow, my thought process it really lucid right now, I wonder if that has anything to do with the head pain"
The Doctor broke into semi incredulous chuckles "You know, Sparky....you astound me sometimes" He shook his head slowly "To the library, I guess...that's where I put it"
Twilight blinked, ears flicking as she sat up "Library?"
"Yeah...the TARDIS library"
There was a brief shuffling sound as Twilight got to her feet
"The TARDIS....has a library? With books.....about humans?"
"Yes?"
"WHY IN CELESTIA'S NAME DIDN'T YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS!"
"You never asked!" The Doctor said defensively
Twilight gave a small eye roll, then put a hoof briefly to her head as is smarted "Sorry I never thought to ask my time traveling alien friend if he had a library" she said dryly.
The Doctor grinned "And Twilight Snarkle returns once again. Come on, the library is this way"
"C'est Parti" Twilight said, grinning wickedly as she used the "catchphrase" as a small revenge for the Doctor's comment.
The timepony made a face in return, but eventually led the way to the Library door, and pushed it open "Tada!"
"....is it always this....disheveled?"
The Doctor took a look inside the room. There were books strewn everywhere the eye could see. Most were scattered on the floor, and over the various chairs and desks inside of the room, the ones that remained on the shelves were laying higgledy-piggledy on top of each other and falling open. The whole thing combined to make for a giant pile of literary disorder to rival that of Twilight's on cleaning day.
"Oh yeah" the Doctor said "The TARDIS got jostled around a bit....I forgot about that"
"Well......"
"This could be a problem"
Twilight waded into the pile of books and began looking through them, using her magic to lift each one past her face and onto a shelf
"Are you okay to do that? Because you running out of magic at this point would be really inconvenient"
"Yeah!" Twilight breezed "I do this all the time, it's easy. Plus I cut those other two spells off quickly, so even though they gave me an awful headache, they didn't use that much energy.....These books have weird names" she said as they whizzed past her "Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy? The Great Gatsby?"
"....I suppose yours are much better then" he said sarcastically "Hoofhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? The Great Trotsby?"
"Yes actually" Twilight said "I adore Hoofhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was one of my favorite books when I was younger. The Great Trotsby was excellent too, although I found Daisy Buckhanan annoying....she was just so shallow"
The Doctor blinked, then shook his head "I give up....these pony puns are just.....Daisy Buckhanan? Seriously?"
Twilight ignored the question, continuing to examine and shelf books at breakneck speeds, not to be outdone, the Doctor began sorting through a stack of his own by hoof.
"Physics....Biology.... World History-"
"World history? An entire history, of a completely different world.....in another galaxy?!" Twilight asked, the books around her coming to a halt.
"Yeah! Really not that accurate though, I should kno-"
"GIMME THE GIMME GIMME!"
The book was shot out of his hooves and straight over to Twilight, who squealed like a little filly as she opened it "This is fantastic!" She gushed, having opened it to a random page. She pointed her hoof to a picture of an airplane "This could fly without pegasai to pull it! Amazing! I can't believe.....Is this an over due library book?!"
She had accidentally flipped to the very back of the book and was looking at the library book slip, it's ink faded and edges worn. She checked the back of another one of the books in her telekinetic grip, only to find that it had a library slip in the back as well
"How many overdue library books do you have in here?"
"I have a feeling that if I told you, you would probably hurt me"
Twilight took the history book and gave him a small rap over the head with it.
"Oi!"
"Serves you right for being so disrespectful of library property!" Twilight huffed
"Well I meant to return them eventually!" The Doctor protested "But I can't exactly now that I'm in another universe. Besides, if that history book was at a library back on earth, then you would be unable to gawk at all it's gloriously inaccurate contents"
Twilight gave a small grumble, but made no further reprimands "Mind if I borrow this?" She asked, wiggling the book in her magical grip
"Sure, why not"
With a squee of delight, Twilight tucked the tome in her saddlebag before continuing to look through the massive pile of disarrayed books. The Doctor just shook his head, he doubted he would ever understand that unicorn.
Nearly an hour passed as the two sorted books feverishly, searching for the correct one. They had made a considerable dent in the pile, hopefully they would find the book soon before-
The TARDIS light's flickered
"Oohh...that's probably not good" The Doctor said
The Library was plunged into darkness, ans Twilight gave a squeak of surprise.
"Don't panic." The Doctor said slowly "The TARDIS is just conserving power. There should be light's back towards the control panel, but all the lights on the outer areas of the interior have been shut down to save energy"
"Will it run out of energy?" Twilight asked, fear creeping into her voice.
"Oh, no, you won't have to worry about that" The Doctor said "This is just a safeguard. Again, the TARDIS is highly resilient, entire armies have tried to breach those doors and failed. However, magic is a bit of a wildcard, I don't fully understand it yet, and I don't like it when I don't understand things. These parisprites seem able to digest anything by converting it into magical energy, and I'm not entirely sure how this will affect the TARDIS, so I'm taking all the precautions I can. It seems that she agrees with me, seeing as she's shut off the unneeded power....Is there a flashlight in these saddlebags?"
There was a rustling sound, presumably the Doctor rummaging in search of one. Twilight just rolled her eyes and lit up her horn.
The search continued.
"Aha!" finally came the triumphant cry from the Doctor "Got it!"
Twilight gave a small cheer "Great!"
"Here, let's get to the console room so you can read it better"
As they walked back through the darkened TARDIS corridors, Twilight shifted her eyes side to side nervously, jumping at any noise.
"Something the matter?" The Doctor asked, tapping her shoulder.
The lavender unicorn gave a shriek, leaping nearly a foot in the air before realizing it was only him.
"I'm fine" she said "Just...not fond of the dark"
"You seemed fine in the Canterlot caves"
"That was different" Twilight replied defensively "I had that entire cave's layout memorized, and knew all the exits, plus I could just teleport out anytime I wanted....Here, there are hundreds of corridors and doorways, it would be so easy to get hopelessly lost in the dark in here, I wouldn't even be able to teleport somewhere else...To teleport you need to know both where you are and where you're going....And everywhere you turned you would know that there are more doors behind you, doors that you have no idea what might be hiding behind, all pitch black"
She gave a small shudder
"Don't worry Twilight, it's fine" he chuckled "Not that I blame you for being afraid of the dark...I wouldn't blame anyone for being afraid of the dark, not after I've seen the Vashda Nerada"
"Vashda Nerada"
"The shadows that melt the flesh. They're tiny creatures, microscopic predators, absolutely everywhere, you can tiny swarms of them floating in sunbeams... look like dust specks....In large numbers they can strip the flesh of your bones in milliseconds."
"Doctor..."
The Doctor continued heedless, not hearing her "If they enter the light, they look like shadows cast by nothing, but in the darkness they're impossible to see."
"Doctor."
"They mimic the shadows of their prey to get close....and once you had a second shadow, it was too late."
"Doctor!"
"Other than light, they have no weaknesses, the only thing you can do is ru-"
"Doctor!"
The Doctor looked back to see Twilight standing stock straight, dead still as if rooted to the ground. She was practically hyperventilating, and her eyes were darting about like pin-balls.
"Oh don't worry, Sparky" The Doctor just said cheerfully "They might be everywhere, but they're only dangerous in large swarms, and I'm pretty sure there at any large swarms in the TARDIS....I mean, I suppose it's possible. Not like we would be able to see them very well with only the light of you magic-"
"YOU'RE NOT HELPING!"
"Oh....sorry"
Twilight huffed and they continued on their way, the purple unicorn even more jumpy than before. When they finally got to the lighted section, she practically flung herself at it, so happy to be in the light again.
As they trotted up to the console, Twilight took the magic book out of her saddlebag and lay it on the table. It was reading time.

Author's Note:

Figured I would make up for not posting last weekend by doing another update this one.
Enjoy!

Comments

[Capt TeK]

Wow Doctor... Have someone who is scared of the dark? Tell them about the Vashda Nerada thinking it would help!

..Great plan Doctor, great plan..

I'm gonna use that as a joke some day when i find someone who is scared of the dark..

[thetravelingman]

everyone has an irrational fear of the dark but it's not irrational it's the Vashda Nerada

[Platnium]

2462784 You took the words out of my mouth!!!!!

[MysticStoryThePegasus]

The episode with the Vashda Nerada things scared me to....scaredness...?
....And ever since then, I never sleep in a room with two lights pointing in opposite directions (thus giving the illusion that you have two shadows..)....
....And I always leave the light on when I play my computer....
..........Well, some of the time....
...................Never mind................