Derpy steps on a butterfly. This unleashes the most terrible evil the Doctor has faced and turns her into a sarcastic British theoretical physics professor.
The Doctor, on the Master's half joking suggestion, takes Derpy as a companion in the TARDIS. He intends this as a relaxing break from his usual shenanigans, but he quickly finds himself trapped in an incomprehensibly large and complicated conflict millennia in the making. He has to escape, but how can do that when he has no idea who or what his enemy is, and the one who trapped him is himself?
Aside from knowing the TARDIS is a time machine, Doctor Who knowledge should not be necessary to understand the story, but you will get a lot more of the jokes.
Gallopfry was now indestructible. At least in theory. In reality, that turned out to be the overly optimistic sales pitch of a time bubble salesman. Technically, he wasn't wrong. Nothing could destroy Gallopfry now. However, nothing could get in either. Or out. Ever.
You see, it turns out that surrounding something in a time bubble for all of eternity is basically the same as destroying it. And when you trap an ancient society whose only pastime was time traveling and watching other civilizations in a time bubble forever…
Let's just say that claustrophobia, boredom, and time machines are never a good combination, and the moment the time bubble was activated, Gallopfry blinked out of existence in every spot of time and space.
The good news was that a handful of its residents, Time Lords, were out and about time traveling during all of this, and because of that were spared from the debacle. The bad news was that all but two were eaten by a sentient pan dimensional astroid thing. The worse news was that these two were the most psychotic lunatics produced by Gallopfry.
One occupied his spare time by traveling to distant worlds, bringing death and chaos in his wake, then saving innocent people until their gratefulness alone could keep him alive. The other one was the Doctor, who occupied his spare time trying to convince himself that wasn't what he was doing. The Doctor and the Master, the two remaining Time Lords, thus often clashed.
After foiling the the Master's diabolical plans yet again, and finally just caving and giving him a planet he could do whatever he wanted with, the Doctor was milling around time and space wondering what to do. After a good amount of consideration and bad amount of brooding, the Doctor chose to take the Master's advice and take a mentally handicapped companion, because, I quote, "they'll be impressed by anything."
Immediately he remembered Derpy and took her on his grand tour of time and space.
Nothing interesting happened whatsoever, until one day when he took her to a remote planet remarkable only for its repeated failure to make first contact, and thus, was the third most boring planet in the galaxy.
"Welcome," he said, with a dramatic flourish, "to Equestria. Circa 2013."
Derpy looked at the paleolithic landscape in confusion. "2013?"
"Relative to last world we were on."
Derpy got the joke, but smiled and blankly nodded anyways because the Doctor got depressed when he found out people could understand him. In reality she was perfectly intelligent, but a childhood with horrible eyesight and worse teachers created a huge gap between her and the normal pony. A month with the Doctor had all but removed that gap, though, a fact she desperately tried to hide because of a nagging suspicion he was specifically looking for someone mentally handicapped as a companion. "So, what's on this world?" she asked, with as much blankness as she could muster.
"Stuff."
"Stuff?"
"Cool stuff."
"Cool stuff?"
The Doctor snapped his hooves. "You said it."
Derpy was unimpressed. "It can't be too cool. It looks like my old home."
"You mean… you didn't grow up on that space station?"
Derpy looked offended. "Of course not!"
"How did you get out there, then?"
"I hitchhiked."
The Doctor gaped. "You what?"
"I got a ride."
"That's impossible."
"Why?"
The Doctor thought of a couple different reasons, then settled on one very important one. "I thought I was the only person that gave hitchhikers rides through space."
"Well… no."
The Doctor tried to wrap his head around that. Eventually he gave up and just said, "Right."
They then sat there for five minutes and stared at nothing happening.
"You sure take me to a lot of boring places," Derpy said.
"There's a reason for that," the Doctor said. "You want to know what happened when I went to exciting places?"
"What?"
"People died."
"Come on," the adrenaline deprived Derpy said. "Not everyone died."
"The universe compensated with cruelty."
"Cruelty?"
"Have I told you about Clara?"
"Who?"
"She was with me for about a week."
"And?"
"She ended up dying about 2 billion times across all of time and space."
Derpy winced. "Ouch."
"You said it. And have I mentioned Rose?"
"No."
"Well, she got stuck in a parallel universe with a clone of me."
Derpy looked confused. "That doesn't sound bad."
"A clone of me that's not a Time Lord and has a slow growing TARDIS piece. So, bored, dying, claustrophobic, and going to have a time machine soon."
"Oh." Derpy thought about it. "Why would you give a growing TARDIS piece to someone like that?"
"I didn't. Another clone did."
"What?"
"Now her brain is fried, and if she remembers any of it her head will explode."
"What?"
"And then there's—"
"Just stop," Derpy said. She was at least intelligent enough to know sitting through the Doctor's exes was bad for her jealousy and her stomach. "I get the idea."
"Okay," the Doctor said, and they stared at the landscape a bit more. It lost novelty with each passing second.
"I'm going to take a walk," Derpy said, tired of the awkwardness.
"Okay. Don't go too far."
Now, you see, the funny thing about rewriting history is that it's not nearly as dangerous as any time traveler makes it out to be. Any seasoned time traveler will tell you messing with your own timeline will cause the universe to explode, giant space meatballs to come and eat everything, or some other gruesome ending. This is simply not true. In reality, the universe is surprisingly good at compensating for timeline issues. The problem is the headaches that inevitably causes. Often, the way the universe compensates is so complicated and paradoxical just thinking about it is good enough to cause a migraine, to the point where some time travelers wish their changes would cause the universe to explode simply because that would be easier to understand. Thus, it's become an unspoken rule among time travelers to tell companions that messing with your own timeline is a bad idea, and bribe some space meatballs to gruesomely eat things once in a while to emphasize the point, because it's the only thing that will make others approach the issue with due caution.
This is relevant because if the change is big enough, the headache starts retroactively, which was currently happening to the Doctor.
"Argh!" he groaned, clutching his head.
Derpy, now a good 3 yards away, looked back. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," the Doctor said, but continued his unsightly grimacing.
Then the headache exploded into a full on migraine and the Doctor collapsed to the ground in agony.
"Doctor!" Derpy yelled, and flew to his side. "What's wrong!?"
"It's… it's just a migraine… a really bad migraine…" the Doctor said. "This usually only happens when…" He looked up to Derpy. "Did you step on anything right now?"
"What?"
"Check your feet. Now!"
Derpy obeyed. On the bottom of one of her hooves there was a dead butterfly.
"The butterfly effect," the Doctor said with no small amount of horror.
"The what? What's the butterfly effect?"
"It's a time traveler's worst nightmare," the Doctor said. "Time is always in different states of flux. There are fixed points that will happen the same way no matter what you do in the past. There are slightly fixed points that will happen slightly differently. And then there are loose points, where the alteration of the path of a single butterfly in the past will completely change a world's history."
Derpy looked at the butterfly in shock.
"We need to get back to the TARDIS now," the Doctor said, struggling to stand up. "We need to see how much history is changed."
The Doctor, forgetting his migraine in the adrenaline rush, ran back to the TARDIS at full speed. Derpy flew behind. Once there he unlocked the TARDIS, burst open the door, and immediately started fiddling with a computer console.
"What are you doing?" Derpy said. She knew explaining things would keep his spirits up.
"Checking the TARDIS' repository of known history. It's protected against timeline changes, within reason, of course," the Doctor said. Derpy knew this was serious because he didn't explain how. "Let's see… it looks like the civilization on this world stays fairly consistent. Some places urbanize, but most of the planet sticks to a fairly agricultural lifestyle. But eventually…" The screen started filling with static. "Dammit! Just how big of a change did this cause!?"
"I'm sorry," Derpy said, throwing the dead butterfly on the floor. "If I hadn't—"
"It's no use blaming yourself," the Doctor said, grabbing Derpy. "If the timeline here was this fragile anything could've disrupted it. If it wasn't you, it would've been someone else. It's not your fault, okay?"
"Doctor…"
"It's okay."
"Doctor, behind you!"
The Doctor turned around to see, through a static filled image, himself on the monitor.
"This is yourself from the future," the monitor screeched. "Leave this world now, while you can. You have minutes at the most. This world is sealing off."
"What!?" the Doctor yelled in terror and confusion. "What do I mean, sealing off!?"
A different, more desperate Doctor appeared on the monitor.
"Do it! Leave! It's the only way to prevent this world from complete destruction!"
Yet another appeared.
"Whatever you do, do not help the princesses!"
Another.
"Run! This is your only chance!"
The screen started to be bombarded with different variations of the Doctor, some regenerated, some not, all in some stage of panic. He could only catch part of each message.
"—gods—"
"—monsters—"
"—endless cycle of destruction—"
"—the weapon—"
"—universe itself balancing it out—"
"What's going on!?" Derpy yelled.
"Whatever happened is so large, the universe can't change it all at once! It's leaving the walls between timelines open for a bit!" the Doctor said. "We're getting every single message I could possibly decide to send in the future at once! And if I'm right…" He paused. "Every single timeline in this world drives me to send a message to the past out of desperation."
Derpy grabbed the Doctor by the shoulders violently. "Then listen to yourself! Get out!"
The Doctor stared at Derpy for a bit, amazed, then rushed over the controls. But right when he was about to turn the first lever, the screen stopped with one final message, noticeably calmer and more articulated than the others.
"If you're hearing this," the future Doctor said, "it's too late. You've chosen to stay. Again."
The Doctor stopped.
"Don't try to leave. I say that because it's the only way to guarantee you'll try. It's important you know your situation."
The message ended. The Doctor went back to turning on the TARDIS.
"Don't bother," Derpy said, sitting on the ground with no strength. "It's too late."
"I have to try!" the Doctor yelled.
"No," Derpy said, "that's not what I meant. It's too late for me."
"What? What are you talking about!?"
"I wasn't in any of those messages."
The Doctor stopped and looked at Derpy. "I'm sure nothing happens to you."
"Don't lie to me!"
"If I have to send a message to the past this time, I'll use you."
"What we just saw is proof that never happens!"
"Still," the Doctor said, "I have to try." He flipped one final lever, and the TARDIS went careening off of the planet. "Open the door! Tell me what you see!"
Derpy ran and opened the front door. "I can see the planet we're leaving. We're passing a couple more planets. An asteroid belt. And now…" Derpy stopped. "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
The Doctor checked some readings, then slowly headed to the door and stood next to Derpy. They both looked outside and saw nothing but darkness. No galaxies. No stars. Nothing except a speck in distance. That solar system.
"What happened?" Derpy said. She clung to the Doctor. "Did the entire universe get destroyed? From that one butterfly?"
"No," the Doctor said, "but the real answer isn't much better."
"Tell me."
"We're in a time bubble."
Derpy's eyes widened. "Isn't that what—?"
"Destroyed my home planet? Yes. There's no escape. No way in or out. The only way out is to try to change the timeline so you never get trapped, which as you noticed, rarely works." The Doctor looked down. "We're stuck here now."
Derpy was silent.
"The only person in this sector that knows how to make a time bubble is me. The only reason I would create a time bubble is whatever change that butterfly unleashed created something so horrible I was willing to trap myself to keep it from reaching the rest of the universe. That probably means it's something intelligent. Something that outmaneuvered me repeatedly." The Doctor paused. "That cannot be good."
Derpy looked at the Doctor. "Does mean that we'll have to make that time bubble later?"
"Not necessarily. Time bubbles affect multiple timelines at once. If I get that desperate in one timeline, it affects them all. That's why they're so effective. As soon as you've created one, it's always existed, at every point of space and time. And because of that, they're extremely secret. Only three people in universe know how to make them, and they're all me."
"What?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Timey-wimey."
Derpy giggled a bit, but stopped when she saw the Doctor's face.
"But that's not what's scares me about this," he said. "What scares me about this is how big this time bubble is. I put an entire solar system in a time bubble. That takes, literally, unthinkable amounts of energy. Just putting one small planet, Gallopfry, in a time bubble meant exploding every star in an uninhabited galaxy. I don't even know how I did this. I mean, I hope I didn't explode 10 galaxies to do this, but if I did I must've had a good reason. And that's what really scares me, because I can really only think of two reasons I'd go to that much effort."
"Two?"
"One, that whatever that change unleashed is that big."
Derpy shuddered.
"I doubt that," the Doctor said. "Big is fine. I can deal with big. It's, unfortunately, probably the second reason."
"I am going to make you an offer you cannot refuse. If you accept, you will get all the power of the throne."
"And if I refuse? What's the catch?"
"The catch is," she smiled, "if you refuse, I will kill you."
– – – –
The Doctor was the most skilled time traveler in the universe. At least in theory. In reality, most of his knowledge was useless here inside the time bubble. The TARDIS could no longer accurately display what year it was, which was a huge problem given that it could never accurately steer.
Another problem was that, to the best the Doctor and Derpy could figure out, the timeline of this world followed anything but a linear pattern. Often they would go, at least from their perspective, careening through time and space only to arrive at the same town next year. Except that one random detail would be different, like the ruler would be different or everyone would be gay. The only constants, they could gather, was that there was always a town called Ponyville, and the land's ruler seemed to ricochet between two ponies named Celestia and Luna. Furthering the mystery, there were some parts of the timeline that the TARDIS almost refused to land on, and whenever they managed to, they found the planet a scarred wasteland.
Eventually the Doctor and Derpy reached the conclusion that in order to figure out anything about this world they would need to stay in the same place for at least a month, so they, out of options, landed the TARDIS somewhere completely random and went out to explore.
They had stopped on a holiday, a good sign.
"Welcome," a spastic blue pony yelled, "to Nightmare Night!"
"Oh," Derpy said, looking around, "are we supposed to be dressed up?"
"I don't know," the Doctor said. "Are we supposed to be dressed up?"
Derpy put her hoof on her chin. "I think this is like a holiday I had back home. We're supposed to be in costumes. We can be dressed as fictional characters, stereotypes, or prostitutes."
"Oh." The Doctor thought about it. "Well, we can just say were dressed up as time travelers. That's a stereotype, right?"
"That's stupid."
"We'll fit in."
Derpy raised an eyebrow. "What do you know about fitting in?"
The Doctor couldn't argue with that.
"Be back in a bit," Derpy said, running off. "Try to have fun without me, okay?"
"Hey! Where are you going!?"
Derpy stopped. "To the TARDIS," she said, "obviously. That thing has a huge costume rack, doesn't it? I'll be just a second, trust me." She waited for an objection, and when the Doctor failed to articulate one fast enough, flew off.
The Doctor really didn't like it when people treated the TARDIS like a giant clothesrack, but he figured if he had time to worry about things like that life couldn't be too bad.
He walked around, trying to enjoy the festivities. One benefit to being trapped in the time bubble was that death no longer appeared to follow him wherever he went. Usually, that would be great, but knowing every timeline in this world inevitably led to him facing the most horrific evil he had ever faced made it hard to see any good parts in his situation.
It also made him terribly paranoid. After rescuing another kid from another eldritch alien conspiracy that turned out to be bobbing for apples, the Doctor sat dejectedly on a bench that looked slightly more pathetic than he was feeling.
"You are the time traveler, are you not?"
The Doctor froze. It was another conspiracy theorist, he was sure of it. This never ended well. He slowly turned around, slightly delaying the inevitable.
A large blue pony was staring at him intently. He recognized her as the one shouting earlier. She had large made-up eyes that, after years of social isolation, were closed at just the wrong amount to make conversation comfortable. Her mouth was closed, frowning. She wasn't breathing, but she wasn't holding her breath either. If she was moving at all, it was imperceptible, and if it wasn't for her occasionally talking, it would be difficult to tell she was alive.
But more importantly, the Doctor had the vaguest feeling he had seen her before. Not just a couple minutes ago, when she was yelling, but somewhere else. Somewhere on his travels.
"Have we met?"
She looked confused. "I do not think so. But you might know of me."
"Really?"
"Have you ever heard of of Princess Luna?"
"Yes."
"The Princess of the Night?"
"Yes."
"Do you not know what she looks like?"
"No."
She looked disappointed. "Why not?"
"I assumed the Princess of the Night was a porn star."
Her eyes widened and brows furrowed. "She is not."
"How do you know?"
"Guess."
The Doctor stared at her a bit, then it finally came together. "Wait, you're…"
She smiled. "Princess Luna."
One of the rulers of this land! The Doctor gaped. He had hundreds of questions, but wanted to get the most important out of the way first. "Okay, so how did you know I'm a time traveler?"
"Well, you keep appearing throughout history with the same face," Luna said. "That means you are either a time traveler or immortal, and you cannot be immortal."
"Why?"
"Because I know all the immortals in this world."
The Doctor sighed. "Just give me a straight answer for once," he said. "I know you must tell everyone you're immortal, but what's the truth?"
"The truth?"
"Look, I've been around, and you would not believe the amount of people I've heard say they're immortal. And you know what? Every single time it's been a lie," the Doctor said. "Why? Because it's impossible. Living forever? It goes against the basic principles of the universe. Conservation of matter. All that stuff. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the universe. So out with it."
"I am immortal."
"Really."
"I have lived for millennia, watched civilizations turned to dust in my wake."
"So have I," the Doctor said. "I still can die."
"Explain my hair."
It was slightly, imperceptibly wrong. Actually not. It was very perceptibly wrong. It was as if a two-dimensional object had been hastily pasted into a three-dimensional reality. It was difficult to say for sure since it was constantly moving, wafting away from her head like a pillar of smoke. Inside there was a full set of constellations. Someone could probably spend years making a celestial chart of them if they weren't in someone's hair, thus making the process very embarrassing, and most definitely not something one of the princesses made some poor cartographer do for years as a brutal punishment. Truly only a supremely unnatural beast could have hair like this.
"I've seen worse."
"Nevermind, it does not matter," Luna said. "The important part is, may I time travel with you?"
"What?"
Luna blinked. "That was a bit abrupt, I think."
The Doctor was more than a bit taken aback. "A bit?"
"But still. What do you say?"
The Doctor didn't even have to think about it. "No."
"Why not?"
"It's my golden rule."
"What?"
"Anyone who wants to time travel that badly is probably going to end up causing a paradox."
"I will not. I swear on my honor as a princess."
"And they probably have a political motive."
"I do not." Luna shuffled around awkwardly. "Maybe."
"Yeah," the Doctor said, getting up, "I think you can see the problem."
"Pretty please?"
"No." He started off before getting predictably stopped.
"Wait!"
The Doctor turned around slowly, making it as clear as possible he was irritated. "What?"
Luna put a hoof to her ear. "Do you hear that?"
"Do you really think I'm going to fall for that!?"
"No, really. It sounds like… keys against metal."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "What?" There was only one thing that made that sound. The TARDIS. He listened closely.
Faintly, in the distance, he heard it.
"Derpy!" the Doctor yelled, and sprinted off towards the TARDIS.
Luna smiled.
– – – –
It must have actually been keys against metal because the TARDIS was still there.
"Dammit," he said, "I knew I shouldn't have trusted her." He knocked on the front door. "Derpy? You in there?"
No response.
"I'm coming in."
He grabbed the front door and tried to pull it open.
Locked.
And he forgot his keys inside.
With a sinking sadness, the Doctor realized he had locked himself out of the most powerful and well protected ship in the universe.
"Derpy!?" The Doctor yelled, banging on the front door. "Derpy, if you're in there, open up! You hear me!? Open up!"
No response. She was either already outside, and hopefully had her own key, or she was inside and had been crushed by the giant clothing rack. The Doctor hoped for the former. He ran back to town.
While running, he heard a bang, like a gunshot. He turned around and saw a green explosion in the air. Dismissing it as fireworks, he ran along.
– – – –
"A blonde gray pegasus? Can't say I have."
"Haven't seen anyone like that."
"Googly eyed? What do you mean, googly eyed?"
"Sorry, no dice."
No one had seen Derpy. That wasn't good. She could be anywhere, and she had a TARDIS key. That was dangerous. In the wrong hands, someone could… not do much, since they were in a time bubble, but it would still inconvenience the Doctor, and he didn't like that.
Right when he was beginning to lose hope, someone tackled him to the ground.
"Ow…" he groaned, rubbing his head.
"Sorry!"
The Doctor looked up. It was Derpy. Dressed as a pirate. The Doctor wondered how none of the townspeople had seen her, but in the end decided to ignore it.
"Where have you been?" he said.
"Looking for you," she replied. "What have you been doing?"
"Do you have your TARDIS key?"
She produced it. "Yeah."
"Oh thank god," the Doctor said, wiping his brow. "I thought I locked myself out."
"You can lock yourself out of a TARDIS?"
"Yeah. Shut up."
Near the forest, a crowd was starting to gather. A pony in the center was gesticulating wildly, obviously trying and failing to calm things down.
"Do you think something is going on?" Derpy said.
"Let's find out," the Doctor said.
They walked over to the scene and worked their way into the crowd.
"What's going on?" the Doctor asked.
"They found something in the forest," someone said. "I think it's a body."
The Doctor and Derpy pushed their way through the crowd and reached the center. The pony in the center turned to them, angry.
"Nothing to see here," he said while gesticulating yet more, which was just making everyone more curious. "Just get back behind everyone else."
"Would you mind telling me what's going on?" The Doctor said.
"What business of it is yours?" the pony said.
The Doctor produced his psychic paper. "I'm Inspector Smith. This is my assistant, Doctor Doo." The pony read god knows what on the paper and nodded in admiration. "What appears to be the problem?"
"We just found a corpse in the forest," the pony said. "And it isn't pretty. Follow me."
He led them through a winding path in the forest, obviously familiar with the area. It was late at night, and the forest pitch black. Finally, they reached a small clearing that was cordoned off with some makeshift tape. The Doctor recognized the area as being near the TARDIS. A body was covered by a gray sheet.
"You might want to brace yourself," the pony said. "This is a bit unpleasant."
"I've seen my share of crime scenes," the Doctor said.
"I wasn't talking to you." He looked at Derpy.
She gulped. After taking a second to compose herself, she nodded to the pony. He removed the sheet.
The worst part wasn't that the corpse's face was permanently locked in terror. The worst part was you could tell even though the face was utterly mangled beyond recognition. The cutie mark was also similarly mangled, making recognition impossible. There were bruises on the torso and what looked like a burn mark on the head. The victim might've used to have wings, but the skin there was ripped so thoroughly it was impossible to know. Next to the rips were what appeared to be bite marks. The sheer amount of injuries made it difficult to tell which was the fatal blow.
The other strange thing about the corpse was that, if she wasn't standing right next to him, the Doctor would've sworn it was Derpy. The colors and build were exactly the same.
Derpy noticed too.
"Is that… me?" she whispered to the Doctor.
"That's impossible," the Doctor said. "You're right here."
"But could that be… me in the future or something?"
The Doctor paused. He wished he could tell. "I don't know."
The pony grew impatient. "Well? What are your conclusions?
"This must've been a professional job," the Doctor said. "The evidence has been erased too thoroughly. Anything that could be used to identify the victim has been removed. No common criminal would have the means or wit to do that."
"That's exactly what we thought," the pony said. "We'll be taking this back to the lab as soon as possible. Hopefully that'll let us catch the culprit."
At that, someone else ran up, panting.
"What? What is it?" the pony said.
"It's Princess Luna, sir," they said. "No one can find her anywhere!"
"What!?"
– – – –
The whole town began frantically searching for her to no avail. A panic was beginning to set in.
"Shouldn't we let the royal court know about this?" the Doctor said.
"Would you want your town known as the town that lost a princess?" someone yelled back.
The Doctor shrugged and continued to aimlessly run around. In desperation, people were checking inside houses, inside trash cans, under benches, in that fold in space time where Pinkie Pie stores all her crap, inside drawers, and thousands of other places the princess was unlikely to be, but everyone felt should be checked so they could testify they were thorough in court later.
Still nothing.
So it was a bit surprising when, after a couple hours, the townspeople saw the royal chariot fly through the air with Luna on it.
It landed and she calmly stepped out.
"Where were you!?" someone screamed.
"My apologies," she said. "I had some urgent business to attend to."
"Urgent business!?"
"Urgent royal business."
"Urgent royal business!?"
"And thus secret."
The town was silent.
"I bet she was just screwing her guards," Derpy whispered to the Doctor.
The Doctor looked at her like she was insane.
"Well, don't let my brief absence ruin things!" Luna yelled. "Let the festivities… resume!"
The town gave a forced cheer and dispersed.
Noting that he was one of the few that stayed behind, Luna leaned over to the Doctor. "Okay, what's really going on?" she said. "They couldn't have been that worked up over me being gone for a couple hours."
"Yes, they could," the Doctor replied, "but you're right. Someone found a corpse in the forest. A murder."
"A murder!?" Luna yelled, then looked around to make sure no one heard. She turned to her guards. "Fly around and arrest any suspicious characters! The murderer might still be near!"
Her guards obliged.
"What makes you think that?" the Doctor said. "They probably knew the forest, and if they're a pegasus they're long gone."
"It's better than doing nothing. And they need something to do," Luna said. Her eyes softened. "Thank you. I'm sure anyone else would have tried to hide this from me. What was your name?"
"What? I thought you knew."
"Why would I know?"
"We just talked a few hours ago."
"We did?"
"And you seemed to know more about me than I did."
"I did?"
"Oh, the princess is just groggy after her royal business," Derpy said. "Right?"
Luna looked confused. Then a bit angry. "Yes. Apparently."
The Doctor just looked confused.
Suddenly, a flash of blue light flashed above the forest. It reminded the Doctor of the green explosion he saw earlier.
"That must be one of my guards," Luna said, extending her wings. "He must've found someone. Let's go. Hop on."
The Doctor paused uncomfortably. "Me?"
"You look competent."
The Doctor grimaced. "You want me to… get on you?"
Luna looked a bit offended. "Is it that strange?"
"No," Derpy said, "it's my job."
The Doctor gaped at Derpy, slack-jawed. Then he jumped on Luna's back.
"Hey, what gives!?" Derpy yelled.
"Derpy," the Doctor said, "take a cold shower."
And they took off. Derpy pouted.
Luna chuckled. "This is ironic," she said.
"What? Why?"
"No reason. Hold on."
She banked to the right and and swooped down. It was all the Doctor could do to stay on. With considerable effort, he managed to look ahead and see what she was racing towards. He saw one of the bat ponies in hot pursuit of an earth pony on the ground. The earth pony was running with all his might, but against two skilled flyers, one of them a princess, he stood no chance.
There was only one way to deal with a situation like this.
"Yell at him," Luna said.
"What!? Why!?" the Doctor screamed, the Gs blasting him in the face.
"It will make him feel even more outnumbered."
The Doctor didn't have enough time or energy to argue. "Stop it now! Cease and desist!" he yelled. "We have lethal force!"
Luna looked back at him, panicked. "What!? No we don't!"
"Yes, we do!" the Doctor said. "Just hit him hard enough!"
"That wouldn't kill him, just stop him!"
"Well then even better! Do it!"
"Oh. Right!"
She swooped and tackled the fugitive to the ground.
"On behalf of the royal court, I'm putting you under arrest," Luna said.
The fugitive laughed. "You're not the princess."
"You're right," Luna said. She leaned in, scratching his face with her horn. "But I'm one of them now, and that's all that matters."
He folded. "It… it wasn't my fault! She made me!" he yelled.
"So," the Doctor said, jumping off of Luna's back, "you're the one that killed that poor mare?"
"…yes."
"Tell me," the Doctor said, "who was she? What was her name?"
"What do you care!?"
"It might be someone I know."
"That's impossible."
"Just tell—!"
Luna put a hoof on the Doctor's mouth. "It's better you don't know."
Usually the Doctor would have objected, but when he looked into her eyes he gave up immediately. It was unlike him, but he saw something in them. Something he hadn't seen the first time he talked to her, and which the sudden presence of disarmed him.
Compassion.
– – – –
Derpy was leaning against the TARDIS, clearly bored. "So? Did you catch the guy?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what happened?"
"He was just some maniac who murdered his ex. I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay."
They stood there awkwardly for a few minutes before the Doctor noticed something.
"Derpy. You're not breathing."
"What?" Derpy looked down at her still closed mouth. Then she made a big show out of inhaling deeply. "Oh, silly me! I forgot."
The Doctor stared at her uncomfortably.
Something strange was going on, and he hoped he was very wrong about what it was.
The TARDIS was the most private place in the universe. At least in theory. In reality that only applied if you were the Doctor, because he tended to watch everything. Therefore, if you were one of his companions, you basically had to accept you were constantly being monitored, even if you were having sex. Especially if you were having sex. Derpy asked the Doctor why and he said something about a river and timey-wimey and dropped the subject.
Derpy, however, was fed up with it, and decided to look for a place on the TARDIS where she could be alone. She was sure he couldn't watch everything. There had to be gaps. All she needed was a way of telling where they were. Fortunately, a way of doing that presented itself quite nicely. One day, she was bored and started unconsciously tapping a handrail.
Taptaptaptap.
Taptaptaptap.
Taptaptaptap.
"Stop that," the Doctor said, twitching.
And no matter where Derpy was on the TARDIS, if she started tapping that pattern the Doctor would come on over the intercom and say, "Stop that."
So one day, she systematically went through every room in the TARDIS and tapped out that pattern. The Doctor quickly admonished her over the intercom each time, until finally she reached one room of complete silence.
She shouted some obscenities, tapped the pattern again to make sure, and closed the door.
The room, like all of the storage rooms in the TARDIS, had contents completely incomprehensible to anyone who wasn't the Doctor. This time, it was a bunch of walls placed in inconvenient locations and angles.
Derpy touched one of the walls, expecting something to happen. Nothing did. It was indeed a completely plain wall. Content that the room was safe, albeit strangely laid out, Derpy headed out.
On the way to the door she bumped into someone, knocking her to the ground. She rubbed her head and looked up, panicked, expecting it to be the Doctor. It wasn't.
It was her.
Well, not exactly her. Her doppelgänger had an identical body, but was wearing glasses, slightly chipped at the top of one lens, and had a piercing expression completely unlike the vacant smile Derpy was used to seeing on herself. "Oh, sorry about that," she said in a thick British accent, and leaned over to help Derpy up.
That was when Derpy knew this was her only chance.
She quickly took advantage of the situation to make out with herself.
Her doppelgänger did not enjoy this. For the first three seconds, she tried to relax, but immediately afterwards she backed away, gurgled, and spat on the ground.
"Who are you?" she said. "You're not me."
Then, after flickering a bit, she disappeared.
Derpy felt this was sufficient cause to see the Doctor, so she went up to the control room. The Doctor was underneath the platform around the control panel, tweaking a large pile of tangled wires with his sonic screwdriver.
"Okay," Derpy said. "Okay." She tried to regain her composure. "I was down in this room with a bunch of walls, and—"
The Doctor sighed. "You saw yourself."
"Um. Yeah."
"What did you do?"
"Um." Derpy blushed.
The Doctor had seen this face before. "Okay, I know it's embarrassing, but don't worry," he said. "It isn't gay if it's yourself."
"T-That's not—!"
"Sure," the Doctor said, unconvinced but eager to get back to business. "Did you have distinguishing characteristics?"
"What?"
"Did the other you have," the Doctor said, searching for words, "a scratch, or something else different from what you usually look like?"
Derpy thought back. "She was wearing glasses, kind of glared, and had a British accent," she said. "Oh, and the glasses were a little cracked. Why?"
"Oh, time just tends to get a little more wibbly wobbly than usual in that room. That was probably you from the future," the Doctor said. "So, the next time you turn British and break your glasses, you'll need to go down there and… do whatever you did." If the Doctor realized how strange that sounded, he didn't show it. "If you don't, the paradox will make the universe explode. Or something. Okay?" He got back to work.
Derpy looked confused. "That's it?"
"Yeah, this type of thing happens all the time." He smiled. "Trust me. It's completely meaningless. No purpose whatsoever."
– – – –
After pinballing from one unrelated timeline to the next for a week, the Doctor and Derpy decided, with much reluctance, to investigate Ponyville more. After all, it was the only place where they could seem to land reliably, and it appeared to exist in nearly every variation of this world. If they were ever going to find out what was happening, it was there.
It was also, of course, where the Nightmare Night murder happened, so they made sure to be on their guard. They landed somewhere public, got outside, and asked directions for the most useful and least lethal place they could think of.
The library.
It was, to their confusion, in a large tree.
"That's a bit… ironic," the Doctor said.
"Are you sure about this?" Derpy said. "I bet there's going to be sap all over the books or something."
"Nevermind," the Doctor said. "Let's just go in."
The door opened in two sections, was a bit impractical, and really had no equivalent in the spacefaring societies the Doctor was familiar with, so he had a bit of trouble with it. It was also, of course, made of wood, rendering the sonic screwdriver, and by extension the Doctor, useless. Eventually Derpy kicked it open and they walked inside.
A lavender unicorn greeted them in disbelief. "Oh my Celestia. Patrons? We have patrons?" She looked up and yelled. "Spike! We have patrons!"
"No we don't!" a voice yelled from upstairs. "You're just hallucinating again!" He snorted. "Yeah, that's right! I spiked your food again!"
"I know! I gave it to Fluttershy! Celestia's top student, remember? Just get down here!"
A short purple dragon walked down the stairs. "Oh my Celestia! We have patrons!"
The Doctor and Derpy seriously considered leaving.
The purple pony cleared her throat. "Hi, my name is Twilight Sparkle," she said. "What types of books are you interested in?"
"History," the Doctor said. "Anything you have on history."
"Coming right up!"
Apparently the library was so consistently deserted that they made sure to pamper the few patrons they got. Soon, the Doctor and Derpy were surrounded in history books and snacks to eat while reading.
"If you need any help, just yell," Twilight said. "We'll be upstairs so we won't bother you."
"Wait," the Doctor said, "shouldn't we check out these books?"
Twilight shrugged. "Well, you can, but you can also read them here."
The Doctor couldn't think of a response to that. Twilight and Spike went upstairs and left.
"Well," Derpy said, "these should clear up what's been going on!"
They didn't.
"This worthless pile of propaganda!" the Doctor yelled, throwing a book against the wall. "I haven't seen anything this self-aggrandizing since the Master's autobiography!"
"Ran out of stallions?" Derpy said, examining a page in some detail. "What does that mean?"
"What?"
"Look at this passage." She gestured at a page in a large volume she had open in front of her. "Homosexual relations were unusual until 13th century AC, when our great Princess Celestia ran out of stallions, and in her infinite wisdom, declared them the new normal." She looked up to the Doctor. "What does that mean? Ran out of stallions for what?"
The Doctor tried to pretend that, in his long life, he hadn't been through the exact same situation. "I have no idea."
They sat there, staring at their massive pile of open books and snack containers.
"Now what?" Derpy said.
"Well, we should check out a couple books just to analyze their chemical composition," the Doctor said. "And then… I guess walk around town?" He cringed. He wasn't used to not having any idea what to do.
Derpy didn't notice. "Sounds good to me. Let's get lunch."
The Doctor looked up to the second floor. He was dreading this moment. "Twilight!" he yelled.
She ran down, excited. "Yes?" she said, getting a little too close to his personal space.
"I would like to check out," he pointed to a couple random books, "those."
"Okay!" She materialized a plastic bag out of nowhere and placed the books inside. "Did you find everything you wanted to?"
"Oh, yes," the Doctor lied. "Tell me, what was going on here 1000 years ago?"
Twilight looked confused. "What? You don't know?"
"I'm… not from around here."
"The war against Nightmare Moon."
"And 1000 years before that?"
"That was when Celestia salvaged the world from the dark ages." Twilight looked quizzical. "Why?"
"No reason."
– – – –
The Doctor and Derpy walked around town looking for somewhere tolerable to eat.
"Why did you ask those questions?" Derpy said. "Back there, in the library."
"I have a theory," the Doctor said. "You know how we keep encountering different versions of this world when we try to time travel?"
"Well, yeah."
"Why do you think that is?"
Derpy shrugged. "I don't know. Some universe leakage or something?"
"What if," the Doctor said, "those weren't different universes, but just different points in time?"
"What?" Derpy said. "Why would it change just a little bit then? Wouldn't we be able to tell?"
"It isn't little changes," the Doctor said. "Huge things are different, and the population is convinced it's always been like that. So what if… they're right?"
Derpy looked confused. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know," the Doctor lied. He had a theory, but it was so horrible he dared not speak it until he had proof.
Derpy tried to change the subject, and pointed somewhere random. "Hey! Look! Let's eat there!"
The Doctor squinted at the cupcake lined monstrosity. "Sugarcube… Corner," he said. "Isn't that a bakery? Do they even serve lunch?"
"Every bakery makes little finger sandwiches," Derpy said. "Let's go in." She sprinted inside as quickly as she could, forcing the Doctor to begrudgingly follow.
Inside it was completely empty, which made it all the more shocking when a bright pink pony materialized out of seemingly nowhere.
"Hi! Do you want any cupcakes?" she said.
"Um?" the Doctor got out.
"Oh, I get it! You can't say because you're a time traveler and it would cause the universe to explode, right?"
"What."
"Okay, just so you don't accidentally erase me from existence or anything, my name is Pinkie Pie, or Pinkemena Diane Pie. I was born in the Ponyville hospital on August 6th, 1983. My parents lived on a small rock farm 50 miles to the west of here…"
"We just want sandwiches!" the Doctor yelled.
The pink pony stared at him. "Oh. You should have just said so, silly!" She bounced out.
The Doctor and Derpy awkwardly shuffled around to a table and sat down. Before they had a chance to really process anything that had just happened, the pink pony came back with some sandwiches and slammed them on the table.
"Eat up!" she said, then leaned against the table and started watching them.
Derpy immediately took a bite of the sandwich and appeared to quite enjoy it, which worried the Doctor because he could not determine exactly what it was made of. There was bread, yes, and lettuce, but underneath was some strange thin pink slab that was unidentifiable. He trepidatiously took a bite. It wasn't exactly bad, but it wasn't exactly good either, and something about it tasted uncannily familiar.
"Excuse me," he said, "what is this?" He pointed at the pink slab.
"Oh, that?" the pink pony said. "That's turkey."
The Doctor violently spit out what little of the sandwich was still in his mouth. "You mean like… like… the bird!?"
"Well, yeah! It's a turkey sandwich! Duh!"
The Doctor retched. "Oh," he said. "Oh. Oh god. That's disgusting. Why would you do that?" He stood up and walked away, clutching his stomach. "Derpy, let's go."
"Can I have your sandwich?" Derpy said through a full mouth.
The Doctor looked at her like she was insane.
Derpy leaned over to the pink pony. "Doggie bag?" she whispered.
– – – –
The next week the Doctor said something incredibly shocking and probably inaccurate.
"I've fixed it!" the Doctor yelled. "I've really fixed it!"
"Fixed what?" Derpy asked.
"I've made the TARDIS steer slightly more reliably!"
Derpy looked at him in utter disbelief. "I don't believe you."
"Oh yeah?" he said. "Then watch this!" He slammed down a particularly large lever, sending the TARDIS violently shaking around everywhere. "Allon-sy-ronimo!"
The Doctor seemed to be going nowhere in particular, so it wasn't terribly surprising that he randomly banked everywhere. The entire inside of the TARDIS tilted, causing Derpy to fall against the control panel and press every single wrong button. Outside there was a hideous ripping sound until the Doctor managed to stand up and tweak the controls back.
"What did you do!?" he yelled.
"I didn't do anything!" Derpy yelled back, patting herself off. "I just fell against the controls because of your awful steering!"
The Doctor pulled up a screen. He looked panicked. "Oh no."
"What?"
"You ripped a hole in space time."
"I did not."
He turned the screen to face her. "Believe me now?"
The screen was filled with incomprehensible diagrams and equations, which would have been hard enough to understand if they weren't constantly changing. "I don't know what that says!" Derpy said.
"Fine," the Doctor said, "then look outside."
They rushed to the front door and opened it. Nothing but blue sky.
"I don't see anything."
"You don't see a rip in space-time," the Doctor said. "Because it's a rip in time, it only exists in a couple points of space at once. Understand?"
Derpy tried to wrap her head around that. "I think."
"What we're looking for is something strange to happen."
On cue, a strange figure materialized a couple yards off the ground and fell down.
"Like that?"
"Like that."
The Doctor landed the TARDIS next to where the figure fell. They went outside, hoping to get a better look at it.
Lying in a pile of leaves, groaning, was an unusual creature. The Doctor would be tempted to describe it as apelike had he not met members of its species before, and knew how much offense they took to that. The Doctor was of the firm belief they were the second ugliest species in the galaxy. They had all this hair, but it was in all the wrong places.
The creature looked at them in stunned confusion. Its eyes rested on the Doctor, then Derpy. Among its confusion, a vague sense of recognition registered in its face.
"What," it said. "What." It paused a bit, taking this all in. "What. What?"
"What?" the Doctor said. "What?"
"What?" Derpy said. "What is it?"
"I think… it recognizes us."
"That's he to you," the creature said. Then he covered his mouth in shock. "Wait, I can understand you."
Finally, a situation the Doctor could handle. "Oh, that's the TARDIS. It has this thing called a translation matrix—"
What was presumably the creature's eyebrows raised incredulously. "TARDIS?"
"Time and—"
"—Relative Dimension In Space, I know, I know."
The Doctor was a bit taken aback. "Um. How?"
The creature started shifting awkwardly. "Okay, I really don't know how to say this without giving you guys some type of existential crisis…"
The Doctor was nonplussed. "Trust me, I've had my fair share of existential crises."
"No, I mean really—"
"Spit it out."
"It's—"
"We're characters from a TV show in your world, right?" Derpy blurted out.
Everyone stared at her in silence.
"Come on, Derpy," the Doctor said, "that's ridiculous."
Derpy looked indignant. "No it isn't."
"Please. What are the odds?"
"After everything else we've seen?"
The creature chimed in. "No, she's right." He thought about it. "Sort of."
The Doctor looked irritated. "Sort of? What do you mean sort of?"
"Okay, pay attention," the creature said. He spent a couple seconds trying to formulate some logical explanation, then gave up and cleared his throat. "So, there's this show, right? And there's this other show, right? You two are characters in fanfiction of that TV show based on characters in the first TV show."
"What first TV show?"
"The TV show where you look," the creature pointed to himself, "like this."
The Doctor, in his vanity, could not believe that. "No."
"And then there's another TV show about ponies, and people combined the two and made you."
"Made me!?"
"Okay. Well. Maybe. Chicken and egg. Not really sure which came first. And you aren't exactly the same as the fanfiction. I think," the creature said. "For example, you're a bit taller than I imagined."
The Doctor tried to pretend he wasn't flattered. "People say that to me—"
The creature looked at Derpy. "I was talking about her."
"Oh." The Doctor thought about that. "What?"
"I must say, she's actually quite intimidating."
"Thanks?" Derpy said.
The creature looked up at the part of the sky he fell from. "Listen, more importantly, is there any possibility of getting me back home?"
"Look, I need some time to process this," the Doctor said.
Noticing a break in the conversation, Derpy asked what had been bugging her for the last minute. "What's fanfiction?" she said.
The Doctor looked at her with the pained, disgusted look of someone about to explain sex to a small child. "Let's not get into that right now."
Derpy backed off. The three stood there thinking for a couple minutes.
"Okay," the creature said, "are you ready to think about taking me home now?"
The Doctor sighed and figured now would be as good a time as any to drop the bombshell. "The truth is… it's probably not possible to take you back home."
"What!?"
"Listen, holes in space-time are messy. You're lucky to have survived going in one way. We're going to have to take you into town and hope you can fit in with this society," the Doctor said. He looked at his shocked companions with completely unjustified confidence. "Any problems?"
"Yes," Derpy said, "one."
"Which is?"
"We can't even fit in with that society."
"Well," the Doctor said, "maybe he'll have better luck."
Even the creature was not convinced.
– – – –
Neither were the townspeople.
"You will never fit in here," yet another pony said before slamming the door on them.
"Maybe I could just live in a shack in the woods," the creature said.
It was a reasonable suggestion, which caught the Doctor off guard. "You're taking this well."
"Not really," the creature said. "Just wait until I've had a chance to sleep this off."
They decided to try another house.
The occupant wasn't immediately angry, which was a good sign. After answering the door, they stared deeply at the human for a long time.
"What is that?" they said. "An ape?"
The creature was predictably indignant. "Oi! I take offense to that!"
"Hey," they said, raising their hooves, "I'm sorry. I've just never seen anything like you before."
The Doctor spotted his chance. "Do you think you would be willing to provide him with room and board?"
"Okay, seriously?" they said. "That's going a bit quick." Then they thought about it. "Maybe. He doesn't have any like, arcane diseases or anything, does he?"
"What?"
"Well, he's not from around here. So he must've traveled. And if he traveled, he could've brought diseases, right?" They got defensive. "I have a right to be worried."
"No, don't worry, the TARDIS automatically disinfects anyone who gets in it." The Doctor and his companions quickly realized, with some panic, that the creature had never been in the TARDIS.
"Okay, I'm sure this 'TARDIS' is great and all, but could you please get him checked out at an actual hospital? Ponyville hospital's just down the street through the forest. Then I can probably help him." Then they paused. "No. Wait. Let me make sure this is okay with my daughter." They turned around into their house and started yelling. "Lyra! I'm probably going to let some random homeless man stay in our house! And he's some weird bipedal hairless monster! You cool with that?"
"Yeah!" a voice from inside yelled.
They turned back to the gang. "Yeah, it's cool. Just get him tested."
– – – –
The hospital was not as sure.
"I don't think we can test that," the nurse said.
"Okay. Do you think, just think," the creature said, "you could just sign a paper saying I'm clean and that would be the end of that?"
"No," the nurse said, offended, "that would be unethical."
The head nurse happened to be walking by. She poked her head in the door. "What would be unethical?"
The nurse rolled her eyes. "This thing wants to get tested. He's tired of the bureaucracy, so he's trying to get me to forge results."
"What?" The head nurse looked at the creature. "How long have you been trying to get tested?"
"About 10 minutes now."
"Wimp." The head nurse started walking out. She motioned to the nurse. "Come along. Follow me. We have a procedure for this."
The nurses quickly exited and the closed the door behind them.
The creature clapped his hands together. "Well, looks like we're making some progress!"
After they became bored enough to start reading the little medical diagrams on the wall, the Doctor began suspecting the procedure for testing unknown species was to just ignore them and hope the problem would go away.
Eventually, his patience wore thin.
"Stay here," he said, "I'm going to find a form and forge results."
"Now you're talking my language," the creature said.
"Can we come?" Derpy said, already taking a step outside.
"No," the Doctor said, shoving her back in. He pointed at the creature. "And make sure he stays here."
He closed the door. The creature stared at it impatiently. "How long do you think he'll be gone?"
"A couple hours," Derpy said. "Minimum."
The creature rubbed his face in frustration. "Dammit. First I get ripped from my home and put in a land of magical talking horses, and now I have to spend forever waiting in a doctor's office. And what's worse, I'm hungry."
"Hungry?"
"Yeah. You wouldn't happen to have a turkey sandwich, would you? A turkey sandwich sounds like it would really hit the spot right now." The creature thought about it. "Wait. No. That's ridiculous. You're herbivores. I forgot. Sorry."
Derpy, however, had produced Pinkie Pie's turkey sandwich from a saddlebag the creature wasn't quite sure she was wearing before.
"…," he got out. "Why, exactly, do you have a turkey sandwich? And was that—"
"Magical talking pony," she said.
The creature shrugged and took a bite of the sandwich.
– – – –
Infiltration. Finally something the Doctor was used to.
"John Smith, health inspector," he said, showing his psychic paper to a random nurse just because he could. He shivered in excitement.
This was going to be fun.
First thing first, he needed to see what a medical results form looked like. He waited for someone that looked important to walk by, and stopped them.
"Excuse me," he said. "I'm the health inspector." He flashed his psychic paper. "I need to make sure your forms are correct."
"My forms?"
"Your patient forms."
"Correct… how?"
"I need to make sure the margins are… acceptable."
The staff member shrugged. "Okay," he said, and handed the Doctor a random assortment of patient documents. "How are those?"
"Fine," the Doctor said, and ran off with them.
The staff member stood there, gaping.
If he didn't get that paperwork back in five minutes, six ponies would die of internal bleeding, and he doubted he was going to get them back that quickly.
– – – –
"Oh… my… god…" the creature stammered. "That sandwich was… a bad idea."
"Maybe a week was too long to let it lie around," Derpy said.
"A week!?" the creature yelled. "That sandwich was a week old!?"
"Um… yes."
"That is disgusting, you know that!?"
"It's never been a problem for me before."
The creature looked at her like she was nuts.
"Listen," he said, "I know Doctor whatshisname said to wait for him, but look… I need to get to a restroom and I need to get there now. Would you be willing… to take pity on a poor—"
"Yes."
"What?"
"I've been wanting to sneak out this whole time," Derpy said. "I was just wondering when you were going to ask."
The creature glared at her. "I hate you. All of you."
The two subtly opened the door and looked outside. The hallway was unusually empty. "The coast is clear," Derpy said, and they stepped outside.
The creature looked around. "Where do you think the restroom is?"
"I have no idea."
"Great. Thanks."
"Well, let's ask. Stay here. I'll be just a minute." Derpy ran into another hallway and flagged down a doctor. "Excuse me! Do you know where a restroom is?"
"Who are you?"
"Does it matter?"
The doctor, who, despite being named similarly, was not the the Doctor, shrugged. "There's two restrooms in this building. The closest one is through the mental ward." He pointed to a door at the end of the hall. "Through that door, first to the left."
Derpy wanted to confirm she heard that right. "Through the… mental ward?"
"Yeah, I know. That's what happens when your blueprints are designed by the princesses." He thought of something. "Speaking of which, you aren't a changeling or one of the princesses in disguise, are you? If someone random appears in this hospital, it's usually one of those, and the chance that it's one of the princesses is high enough we just have to treat everyone like they could be one of the princesses in disguise. Heck, sometimes I think half of our staff are changelings because of that. I mean, it would be the perfect place to infiltrate. Just saying. Bit of a security risk." He laughed nervously. "I mean, if you are there's nothing wrong with that, but some advance warning is nice. Illusory magic drives the mental patients nuts."
"Don't worry," Derpy said, "I'm not a changeling."
"Good, good. And tell your friend to stop hiding. All of Celestia's genetic experiments are welcome here, no matter how hideous." The doctor went away, back to his business.
The creature approached Derpy warily. "What did he say about genetic experiments?"
"Oh, you know. The timberwolves, the batponies…"
"The what?"
Derpy made a face like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The batponies."
"Bat. Ponies." The creature tried to comprehend this. "Someone crossed bats with ponies."
"Yes. And?"
The creature tried to come up with some reasonable response to that. "Why?"
"They can stay up all night and don't need beds. Didn't you study history?"
The creature just gave Derpy a look.
In absence of any useful responses, the two went down the hallway and trepidatiously entered the mental ward.
To the creature's surprise, the patients were all quiet. Too quiet. On closer inspection, they were shivering in fear, which was not comforting.
"It's you," Derpy said.
"Thanks."
At the end of the hallway was a door to a single bathroom. "Thank god," the creature said, and went inside. He quickly exited. "Um. There's no toilet paper."
Derpy rolled her eyes. "What am I supposed to do about that?"
"I don't know, get some out of that saddlebag of yours that keeps appearing and disappearing?"
Derpy twitched. "What?"
"Well, it had a turkey sandwich in it. I can hope, right?"
"No, I mean," her face became grave, "you saw that?"
"Well… yeah."
Derpy got close to him. "Tell me what else you see," she said. "Tell me… what do my eyes look like?"
– – – –
The hospital seemed to have gone into a small panic since the Doctor stole that stallion's papers, but he shrugged it off. How important could 10 pages worth of patient records be?
And, more importantly, the Doctor was quickly realizing how lost he was. If he didn't know better, he would say the hospital kept changing arrangement on him.
Currently, he found himself in what appeared to be the mental ward.
What led him to this conclusion was that the hallway contained raving patients in locked rooms, various security cameras, and what appeared to be the only restroom in the entire building, which was oddly fitting. He could've sworn he saw some fresh blood caked into the floor.
Probably nothing.
The Doctor shrugged and figured he would use the restroom while he had the chance.
On the way to the door, one of the patients' rants caught the Doctor's attention.
"The master is here…"
The Doctor rushed against the door. "What did you say?" he said.
The patient inside made a motion like he couldn't hear the Doctor. The Doctor quickly unlocked the door with his sonic screwdriver and entered.
"What… did you say?" the Doctor said again.
"The master is here," the patient said. "She's come back. She's finally come back, and her day of reckoning will bring us all to the golden age!"
The Doctor sighed, all his panic erased. He was reasonably sure that if the Master promised another utopia to a hopeless alien world, he would not pose as a woman. "Nevermind," he said, "I thought you were talking about someone else." He looked down. "An old friend of mine."
"You're lucky," the patient said. "You get to be right next to her."
"What?"
"I saw you two, you know," the patient said, smiling. "She isn't who she seems."
"Who isn't? Derpy?"
"If that's what you want to call her, fine."
"What are you talking about!?"
The patient just started laughing in return, and the Doctor figured he wouldn't get anything else out of him. He locked the door and went outside.
"Ridiculous," the Doctor muttered under his breath. "I bet next he would've told me Derpy's responsible for destroying the planet in all those timelines…"
Suddenly Derpy, panicked, sprinted out of a door. "I lost the creature and I accidentally mixed together some chemicals and I think they're going to explode and burn down the building in a couple seconds!"
"What."
– – – –
The hospital, now completely engulfed in flames, collapsed to the ground.
"DERPY!" the Doctor yelled. "DERPY! YOU HAD ONE JOB!"
"I just don't know what went wrong!" Derpy said.
The Doctor looked at her like she was insane.
A newspaper, among other debris, blew onto his face.
"Gah! What's this?" he said, and held the newspaper in front of him, irritated. Then he noticed the date. "Oh. Oh crap."
"What?"
"Look at the date!" he yelled, and shoved it in Derpy's face.
"August 5th, 1983," she said. She looked at the Doctor, nonplussed. "What's the big deal about that?"
"It's the day before that insane pink pony was born!"
"Oh."
"We probably just erased her from existence! No, not we! You!"
Derpy was offended. "Hey!"
The Doctor started running. "To the TARDIS! We need to see how much you screwed everything up!"
– – – –
"…yeah, in some freak accident, the hospital where I was born burned to the ground," Pinkie Pie said, thinking back. "My parents didn't make it, but luckily someone saved my life and the Cakes took me in."
"And," the Doctor said, "did this… psychologically affect you?"
"What? No, don't be ridiculous. I've gotten over it. I'm completely normal now."
A loud, muffled scream came from the basement.
"Just ignore that."
"Right," the Doctor said, getting up. "Well, thank you for your cooperation. We'll let you know when the article is published."
"Okie-doki-loki!" Pinkie Pie said, bouncing away. "And I've got cupcakes to make!"
The Doctor and Derpy left.
"We got lucky," the Doctor said.
Derpy looked concerned. "I think she had someone locked in the basement." She looked at the Doctor. "Do you think she's… really insane now?"
"Well, yeah! You probably traumatized her for life!" the Doctor said. "But don't worry. It's nothing some corrective time travel can't handle. Trust me, it's something time lords get good at."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I mean, what could go wrong?"
That was, of course, the beginning of the end for the Doctor.
The reasons people became evil were varied and intricate. At least in theory. In reality, the Doctor had discovered that, 90% of the time, it was just some family issue. So, just pop back to the past, resolve some marital dispute, and bam! One less villain.
Which was why the Doctor and Derpy found themselves in front of Pinkie Pie's old rock farm a year before her birth. Or, more accurately, in front of Pinkie Pie's old rock farm whenever the TARDIS decided to dump them.
"Why don't we just go back to the hospital and prevent ourselves from blowing it up?" Derpy said.
"One, because that was all you," the Doctor said, "and two, what's the second rule of time travel?"
Derpy thought back. "Never seduce your parents?"
"No, but close. The other second one."
Derpy inhaled. She knew the one. It was hard to forget. "If you interfere with yourself interfering with time, giant space meatballs eat everything," she recited.
"Good."
"But," she said, "me making out myself apparently isn't a problem?"
"Time naturally works itself out if it's sexy," the Doctor said. "Now let's take a look around."
They started looking around the house, seeing if they could find any clues.
"You know, what exactly does a rock farm do?" the Doctor said, poking some termite eaten wood on the side of the house.
Derpy shrugged. "Farm rocks, I guess."
"Yeah, but you don't farm rocks. They're just there."
"What if you run out of rocks?"
The Doctor scoffed. "The whole planet is a giant rock. You can't run out of rocks."
"Yeah you can."
"What?"
"Well, what if a bunch of the natural processes got messed up or something?" Derpy said. "You'd have some rocks erode into dust, but there'd be no new ones to replace them, right?"
The Doctor looked back in horror. "I'm not sure where you learned geology, but a world would have to be pretty screwed up to reach anything even approaching that state."
The Doctor had reached the front of the house, and, desperate to end that conversation as quickly as possible, entered. Inside, as outside, it appeared to be completely deserted. Dust was beginning to gather on everything.
"Yeah," Derpy said, blowing some off her face, "looks like you went to the complete wrong time. Again."
"Not necessarily," the Doctor said, heading to the kitchen. He opened the fridge. "Look. This food's still good."
"Wait," Derpy said, "how does that make sense? The house is falling apart, there's week old dust, but the food's still good?"
"There's only one explanation." The Doctor looked around. "The occupants are still here." He started walking around the house. "Hello! Anyone here!?"
The surroundings were filled with that silence you only get with people trying to be quiet.
"Look around," the Doctor said. "They must be hiding somewhere. Maybe there's a hidden room."
Derpy nodded, turned around, walked away, tripped over a bump in the floor, hurtled into a cabinet, hit something inside, and triggered a secret passage. Part of the adjacent wall started rising up.
"Good job, Derpy!" the Doctor said, patting her on the back. "Your clumsiness has saved the day once again!"
"You're just being sarcastic."
"You think?"
They headed into the secret passage. After going down a couple flights of stairs, they reached a large, imposing, impractical looking metal door. It, among other things, lacked doorknobs. The Doctor pushed it open.
Inside was a small room. There was a table filled with a large assortment of equipment for mixing chemicals, a couch filled with a large assortment of equipment for things the Doctor could not describe without blushing, and, for some incomprehensible reason, a curtain. A bearded pony was at the table, deeply absorbed in trying to somehow combine the two sets of equipment.
"Oh," a bearded pony said. "Looks like you found the real business."
"A time traveler." The Doctor decided to stroke his ego a bit. "The time traveler."
"Far out," the bearded pony said. "Hey, Mary! There's a time traveler here!"
A head that was presumably Mary's popped out from behind a curtain. "Just a sec!" she yelled. She returned behind it, and, after making some suspicious moaning sounds, emerged with her forelegs around two dumbly smiling stallions. She looked at the Doctor lustily. "You really do look like a time traveler," she tongued, because if anyone could tongue with thin air it was her.
"Um. Thanks?" the Doctor said, blushing. "Excuse me, just out of curiosity's sake… how do I look like a time traveler?"
"I can sense time particles on a person." She slinked around him slowly. "You're full of… time particles."
"Far out, man," the bearded pony said. They clopped their hooves together. It was like a high-five, except with no fingers and far, far more erotic.
Every part of Derpy save her wings looked disgusted. "I would just like to mention, for everyone's sake…" She put her hoof around the Doctor. "…he's mine."
"I am not," the Doctor, edging away from her. "More importantly, who are you two? We're kind of looking for some people."
The bearded pony cleared his throat. "This is Mary Jane Pie, I'm Ecstasy Pie, and these two are…" He looked at Mary.
"My sex slaves."
"Her sex slaves."
The Doctor stared at them.
Ecstasy smiled. "We are completely normal for this time period."
"No you aren't," the Doctor said.
"What? Everyone knows straights are promiscuous."
"I think that's just anti-straight propaganda," Derpy said.
Ecstasy fell silent, as if he was rethinking his entire life. "Well," he said, "that changes things."
The mood became awkward. The sex slaves continued smiling stupidly.
The Doctor made a mental note to never become a sex slave.
Derpy scrunched her face up in horror and leaned over to the Doctor. "You don't think…?"
"I just had the most radical idea," Ecstasy said. "Let's name our children after the ghosts in Pac-Mare."
"Sounds good to me," Mary purred. "Just picture it! Inkie Pie. Blinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie!"
The Doctor leaned back. "They are."
"Oh, oh!" Ecstasy said. "And we should pretend to be really fundamentalist through their entire childhood!"
"Their entire childhood!?" Mary looked at her sex slaves. "I don't know if I can handle that."
"Just think of it," Ecstasy said. "What's the best way to make sure they come out like us?"
Mary thought about it. "Rebellion."
"Exactly."
Mary looked excited, in more ways than one. "It's perfect!"
They started making out.
This time Derpy actually was completely disgusted. "These two are going to raise children?"
"Explains a lot, actually." The Doctor cleared his throat loudly, attracting Ecstasy and Mary's attention. "Anyways, I have something important to talk to you two about."
"What about?"
"Your daughter is going to become a serial killer. I'm here to stop that."
"Totally radical," Ecstasy said, nodding.
"No, it's really not," the Doctor said. "For one, she becomes a serial killer because you two die."
"Oh."
Mary pressed herself against Ecstasy. "How? Do we die in…" She licked the air. "…the heat of passion?"
"No, just a fire started by an incompetent, stupid nurse." The Doctor meaningfully glanced at Derpy.
Derpy glared back.
"So," the Doctor said, "when you have your first daughter, don't go to the Ponyville hospital."
There was an awkward pause.
"That's it?" Ecstasy said.
"That's it." The Doctor started to leave. "Now, before we overstay our—"
"No!" Mary ejaculated, grabbing him. "Stay a while. Please?" She stroked his inner thigh.
The Doctor's will slowly left him. "Oh, what the hell."
"We were just about to make some crystal meth," Ecstasy said. "Anyone want to give that a shot?"
Derpy raised her hoof. "Oh! Me! Me!"
– – – –
The house, now completely engulfed in flames, collapsed to the ground.
"I just don't know what went wrong," Derpy said, with slightly less conviction this time.
The Doctor glared at Derpy. "TARDIS. Now."
They went in the TARDIS. The Doctor traveled to some completely random time period, walked over to the door, and opened it. Outside was an overgrown looking forest. "Out."
"What?"
"Get out."
"What!?" Derpy approached the Doctor. "You're kicking me out!?"
"Yes. In 24 hours, you've killed an entire hospital's worth of people, and the parents and sex slaves of the person we were trying to save," the Doctor said. "You've turned an innocent pony into a serial killer and then erased her from existence." He glared. "I don't have many lines, but you've crossed nearly all of them."
"But it wasn't my fault!"
"If it wasn't your fault, then I'm a sparkly pony princess. Get out." He shoved her out of the front door.
"But you can't just leave me here! In the middle of nowhere! I'll starve!"
The Doctor looked at the grass and flowers that surrounded Derpy.
"Okay, I won't starve, but what if I don't find civilization!?"
"You'll manage."
The Doctor slammed the door shut and traveled away as quickly as possible. He leaned against the TARDIS control panel for a bit.
"You can relax now," the Doctor said. "She's gone."
The TARDIS seemed to sigh in relief.
"Sorry that took so long," he said, messing with some equipment, "I had to think of some pretext, otherwise it might have caught on."
He brought up the statistics again, just to be sure. The screen was full of numbers outside the realm of possibility. It described power levels far beyond anything the Doctor thought possible.
"Whatever that was," he said, "that definitely was not Derpy."
– – – –
"Dammit! Dammit! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!"
Derpy kicked a rock. It went through three trees and made a large gash in the canyon wall behind.
"I can't believe that bastard kicked me out!"
A small rabbit looked on in fear. Derpy walked over, crushed it with her hoof, and tore its head off with her teeth.
"Time to find out when I am."
Derpy removed her disguise and started her long walk home, wherever that was in this variation.
– – – –
After sending the fake Derpy away, the Doctor immediately went on sabbatical. He had actually been planning this for a while now, ever since the imposter first set foot into the TARDIS and all the power readings went into the quintuple digits. The Doctor originally planned to confront the creature, but after seeing those readings, he decided it would be safer for himself and the rest of the universe if he stayed in character and made them think their disguise was working. If those readings were accurate, they could have destroyed a significant part of the TARDIS if they breathed wrong. While he had yet to perfect his mental model of how the TARDIS and the universe connected, he had seen more than enough evidence that one exploding usually led to the other following.
So he immediately headed to the time period he had arbitrarily named the present and went to a café that had become a particular favorite for him. The scenery was great, the service tolerable, and, most importantly, little to nothing exciting ever happened there.
The Doctor ordered a sandwich, making it excruciatingly clear he didn't want meat on it, and leaned back in his chair. He relaxed for the first time in millennia.
Murphy's Law quickly came into effect.
"Hi!"
The voice was right next to the Doctor's head, but he figured they were talking to someone else.
"I'm not talking to someone else. I'm talking to you."
The Doctor whipped his head around.
Staring at him very closely, very intensely, was Pinkie Pie, the pony Derpy had supposedly erased from existence.
"Wha…?" he stammered. "Bu… you…"
"It's not that easy to erase me," Pinkie Pie said. "I must admit, I did prefer the last form, but the universe found a new way to incorporate me into this reality."
The Doctor was at a loss. "The… universe? But… we killed your parents! Before you were born!"
Pinkie Pie smiled. "You only need parents if you're alive, silly! Didn't I say I preferred the last form?"
The Doctor backed away, scared. "What… what are you?"
Pinkie Pie got even closer to his face. If he didn't know better, the Doctor would say she began to go through it. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes."
"I'm cotton candy."
"What?"
"I'm the weapon."
"What?"
"I'm the universe's last effort to restore balance to creation."
Now the Doctor was completely confused. "…what?"
"I don't know how much more clearly I can explain it," Pinkie Pie said. "Now I have to go do this again in another timeline. Tootles!" She jumped into a nearby sandwich.
"Here you go," a waitress said, placing it on the Doctor's table. "One daisy sandwich."
"Did you see that!?" he said, sweating.
"See what?"
"Did you see that pony just jump into my sandwich!?"
The waitress stared at him.
The Doctor got irritated. "Tell me! Did you!?"
"Was she pink?"
"What?"
"She was pink, wasn't she?"
The Doctor wondered how that was relevant. "Yes. And?"
"That's Pinkie Pie," the waitress said, smiling. "She does that."
The Doctored gaped.
"Don't worry, it just makes the bread taste a little like strawberries. Enjoy your meal!" And she left to serve other customers.
The Doctor looked down at his sandwich, which was slightly pinker.
For some reason he didn't quite feel like eating it.
– – – –
Sprung into action by his violated sandwich, the Doctor decided to visit the one pony in this time period that probably knew what was going on.
Unfortunately, at the moment she wasn't being very cooperative.
"You have overdue library materials," Twilight said, glaring.
The Doctor groaned. "Look, can you please just tell me about Pink—"
"According to this," she said, producing a detailed looking checkout form, "you still haven't returned the books you checked out… three months ago." She looked back up at the Doctor. "You do realize what this means, don't you?"
The Doctor stared at her, blank.
"You have to pay a large fine. And return the books. Preferably both," she said. "Oh, and this."
"And wh—?"
Twilight grabbed the Doctor's head and slammed it into a nearby table.
"GAAAH!" the Doctor yelled, clutching his head. "What did you do that for!?"
"I've noticed that tends to help with punctuality. I learned it from Fluttershy. She really has been getting more assertive lately, don't you think? Ever since the humans… sorry, I'm getting off topic."
The Doctor had no idea who that was and wasn't about to ask.
"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
The Doctor had only tried this once before, and it was a disaster, but he wanted to end this as quickly as possible. "I'm a time traveler," he said, bracing himself. Her confusion would buy him enough time to run away, at least.
Fate had other ideas.
"I know."
The Doctor blinked. "What?"
"Why do you think I bashed your head in? You have no excuse for overdue books," Twilight said. "You could've had them back in an hour if you wanted. In fact, can't you just go back now and return them on time?"
"Um," the Doctor said, worried, "how did you know I was a time traveler?"
Twilight scoffed. "You just come out of nowhere, not knowing anything about this world or its history? What else would you be?" she said. "And I thought you looked familiar. I looked through the history books. You're everywhere."
The Doctor was not going to drop this. "How did you know I wasn't just, say… immortal?"
"Come on, don't be ridiculous. Only the princesses are immortal," Twilight said, prompting the Doctor to roll his eyes. "Besides, it's obvious from your behavior. What immortal would be confused about basic history in their own world? You'd have to be a hermit, which is extremely unlikely because you obviously still have enough social skills to get snippy." She glared at him. "Not to mention, you never tried to take power. What kind of self-respecting immortal doesn't try to seize power?"
The Doctor was about to object again when he realized it wasn't actually important whether she knew he was a time traveler. "Okay, we've gotten off-topic. I'll get you your books. Can you just tell me about Pinkie Pie?"
Twilight glared, but conceded. "Fine. When I first met her, I was also curious, so I asked around. Apparently she just sort of appeared out of nowhere one day. No one quite knows when, where, or how. All anyone can remember is it was the one time they saw her looking distraught. When someone asked her about it, she just said she came from 'home,' desperately needed to make cupcakes, and refused to say anything further." Twilight looked out the window. "Everyone has a different theory about her, none conclusive." She smiled. "Personally, I like the one where she has an ingrown unicorn horn."
She looked back to the Doctor. "Does that help?"
The Doctor smiled. "Yes, yes it does."
– – – –
The circumstances presented one option.
Go to the past and stake out Ponyville until Pinkie Pie miraculously appeared.
It wasn't terribly logical, but then again, neither were the circumstances.
The Doctor sat in the TARDIS, waiting. He was sure the event would be accompanied by some unusual energy readings, and he was going to figure out what was going on if it was last thing he did.
After about the fifth hour the Doctor got bored, so he went outside and stretched. He looked around. Some of the townspeople had noticed him, and briefly stopped, wondering why a man just came out of a small box, but most did not. Then he saw something in the distance that bothered him.
"Is that…?"
He started walking closer. First slowly, then, the clearer he could see it, faster and faster. When he finally reached the three ponies, they stared at him, worried.
Standing in front of him was what appeared to be a young Derpy, the real Derpy, no older than five, and her parents.
At first he wondered how that was possible, since he met Derpy on a space station. Then he remembered. She said the planet she grew up on looked like this. She must have been away long enough for her not to realize this was the planet she grew up on. Apparently, when she was a teenager, some bored space traveler whisked her away into space, and she hadn't been back since. The Doctor, curious, had pressed her for details, but she just said something incomprehensible about a pony with two heads and a heart of gold and dropped the subject.
He briefly wondered how the time bubble accounted for her being whisked away into space, since in the time bubble there was no space to be whisked away to.
"Can I help you?" what was presumably Derpy's father said.
The Doctor also remembered her talking about how, in her childhood, everyone thought she was mentally retarded because of her eyes. He knew, especially in contrast to her imposter, that she was perfectly smart. She just had a lazy eye.
Her imposter…
The Doctor thought back to that night. To that mutilated corpse that looked eerily like Derpy. At the time, he thought it might have been her from the future, but now he realized.
That must have been the real Derpy.
In this timeline, Derpy was inevitably heading towards her death.
He had to change things. He could save her. How didn't matter, as long as she ended up somewhere else.
"Oh, what a coincidence!" the Doctor said. "I was just about to make an appointment with you two."
"Who are you?"
"I'm the district superintendent," the Doctor said, showing them his psychic paper. "I wanted to speak to you about your daughter."
"Yes, we know she's underperforming," Derpy's mother said with some exasperation. "It's just… we don't have the money to look into treatment for her. You understand."
The Doctor subtly looked down to her perfectly manicured hooves. He remembered Derpy complaining about her parents being greedy bastards.
He got an idea.
"Treatment?" he said. "What are you talking about?"
"Can't you see?" Derpy's father said. "She's slow. Thick. Dence. Retarded."
"I'm talking," Derpy's mother snapped. She looked back to the Doctor. "As you can no doubt clearly see, our daughter's… disadvantaged."
"She most definitely is not!" the Doctor said. This was going to be risky, but as long as he could push her life in a different direction, he figured things couldn't end up too bad. "It's nothing but her eyesight."
"Her eyesight?"
"The teacher, bless her heart, I forgot her name, has been suspecting it for a while. She gave Derpy a pair of glasses and a standard intelligence test, and you know what she got?" The Doctor paused. "100%."
"100%!?" Derpy's parents looked at her in awe.
Derpy was dumbfounded at her apparently incredible performance.
It was all lies, of course, but he figured if he appealed to their egos enough they wouldn't bother to fact check. "If I say so myself," the Doctor said, "you have your hands on a latent genius."
"A latent genius…" Derpy's mother mouthed.
"Just give her a good pair of glasses, send her to a good private school in say, Trottingham, and mark my words, you'll have one of the forefront minds of our era on your hands."
"Wait, wait. Hold the phone," Derpy's mother said. "A private school? We definitely don't have that kind of money! And you're suspicious." She narrowed her eyes. "Why would you be telling us to take our genius out of your school?"
"For the same reason you should listen to me," the Doctor said. "Imagine if she does become one of this world's greatest minds. I'll be known as the superintendent willing to give up a special student for the benefit of ponykind. You'll be known as the parent that helpfully nurtured your daughter into a genius. It's an investment. If it fails, so what? You lose some money. But if it succeeds?" The Doctor smiled the most disgusting, moneygrubbing smile he could manage. "Our names will be etched into the history of Equestria. Not to mention the inevitable money."
Derpy's mother thought about it. "Well," she said, "I think this talk was very productive. We'll think about it. Thank you very much."
They walked away, both parents clearly deep in thought and Derpy wondering what the hell just happened.
The Doctor smiled. With any luck this would at least alter her life enough that she wouldn't end up traveling with him and dying. He walked back to the TARDIS.
On the way, he got a bit of a headache, but dismissed it.
– – – –
After a week, the Doctor figured he had missed whatever event brought Pinkie Pie into the world, and decided to go back to the present to investigate further.
What he saw when he opened the door was a bit of a shock. Instead of the usual, quaint Ponyville, which the Doctor had grown quite used to and was, despite his better judgment, beginning to like, he was in what appeared to be a large downtown district. It was nighttime, but ornate streetlamps lit up the roads, which bothered the Doctor because he thought technology hadn't reached that point in this world yet. In fact, the whole thing looked much more modern than what he was used to seeing on this world.
He approached a figure walking by.
"Excuse me," he said, "I'm lost. Where am I?"
"Ponyville University," they said, not paying him a moment's notice, and rushed off.
The Doctor thought. So, it was still Ponyville, but something changed it into a giant college campus. How on earth did that happen? Was it something he did? Logically speaking, it had to be, since he appeared to be the only time traveler in this world, but he couldn't imagine anything he did causing this.
Just thinking about it made his head hurt. He decided, for the moment, it would be best to do what he usually did in Ponyville: get lunch. Or dinner, in this case.
He entered the nearest pub, since it was one of the few businesses open this late. It was having a busy night, so the first thing the Doctor did was walk around, looking for an empty table. In the back of his mind, something bothered him.
After completely failing to find an empty table, and walking past the bar again, he realized what it was. One of the voices from the bar sounded familiar. It was a woman, clearly drunk, laying her life story on anyone who sat long enough to listen. Usually he wouldn't have cared less, but it sounded like someone he knew and he knew that was impossible. She had a strong British accent, and he hadn't met a single British person in this world. It couldn't be someone he knew from outside this world because they were all outside the time bubble. And yet…
He tracked the voice to its source, and when he saw it he nearly jumped out of his skin. That blonde hair. Those gray wings. Those bubbles. And were those… glasses?
"Derpy?"
She turned around, eyes wide. It was definitely Derpy, but something was different. The Doctor didn't get a good look because she promptly clocked him in the face.
Derpy, or Dr. Ditzy Do, as she preferred, was the smartest mare in Equestria. At least in theory. In reality, no one was quite sure. All anyone could say definitively was that she was the most controversial.
Publicly straight. Major lazy eye. Luna supporter. Engaged to a Wonderbolt. Only pegasus in high education. British. It was easier to list of the things about her that weren't controversial.
To the best of Ditzy's knowledge, it all started one day when a mysterious stallion appeared before her parents and gave them a surefire plan for her educational future. He said he was the school superintendent, but Ditzy found out later that wasn't true. For one, he was a brown, fairly ordinary earth pony, and the school superintendent was the most flamboyantly gay bright purple unicorn she had met. More importantly, that day he had a clear alibi at a strip club in Las Pegasus.
The strangest part about this mysterious stallion, however, was that her parents actually listened to him. The next week Ditzy found herself enrolled in a private boarding school in Trottingham armed with nothing but a pair of new glasses and some luggage containing a couple sandwiches.
The coursework was absurdly difficult, and her classmates, who were all unicorns for some reason, were unusually hostile, but Ditzy trudged through anyways. She studied madly, hoping for some chance to redeem herself. After all, she apparently got a really good score on some intelligence test. She could handle this.
What she didn't know was her whole attendance at the school was a sham. Her parents had, in their arrogance, enrolled her at one of the most exclusive unicorn only schools in Equestria. The administration, amazed at their sheer stupidity, decided to take the opportunity to get living evidence that, no, pegasi could not handle the same level of education as unicorns and never will be able to.
Unfortunately for them, Ditzy did. With complete ignorance of what she was up against, she managed to pass all her classes that semester. And the semester after that. And the semester after that. The school even tried making her take magic classes just so she would fail at something, but with the help of an accommodating lab partner and a long neglected method for non-unicorns to describe magic, she passed those too.
For reasons incomprehensible to her, Ditzy slowly became a celebrity. It had been said that, after graduating, a reporter asked her, "So how does it feel to be the only pegasus to graduate from Equestria's most exclusive unicorn only school?"
Her response was something to the effect of, "Equestria's what?"
Now that it was time for her to enter college, all kinds of institutions vied for her attention. None, however, as enthusiastically as Ponyville University, a small earth pony town that had recently been converted into a college. The townspeople had been inspired by Ditzy's efforts and their power to promote equality. Ditzy decided to attend their college for an entirely less wholesome reason.
They were the only one that offered to foot the bill.
It was during college Ditzy began to develop her unusual political views. Maybe, she thought, Luna could run Equestria better than Celestia. Maybe just because 90% of Equestria was gay didn't mean she had to be. Admitting either was social suicide, and possibly literal suicide, but after apparently vanquishing an exclusive unicorn only school without even realizing it, Ditzy did not know the meaning of failure. Even Celestia, who knew that, on general principle, she should probably at least bitch slap Ditzy for the Luna thing, was too entranced by her to do anything about it. As the oldest living creature in Equestria, and possibly the entire universe, Celestia knew people like Ditzy didn't come around often.
After graduating and getting her PhD, Ditzy took a brief hiatus, during which she met her fiancé at the Grand Galloping Gala. She couldn't bear settling down for long, however, and quickly accepted Ponyville University's job offer. She was now a professor, teaching the very students that, just a couple years prior, were her classmates.
Currently she was teaching a class on theoretical physics.
The students were, in open defiance of literary tradition, actually quite enthralled in the material.
"So," Ditzy said, pointing at the board in typical professorial flourish, "Reneigh Barjavel poses he question, what would happen if you were to travel back in time and kill your grandmother? Or even, possibly, yourself?"
Someone raised their hoof. "You would erase yourself from existence?"
"Possibly," Ditzy said, "but think about the implications of that. Logically speaking, from then onward, you would not exist. But does that include the you that traveled to the past? How would you prevent yourself from existing if you never existed in the first place?"
The class intently stared at the board, waiting for an answer.
"Until actual time travel is perfected, of course, it's impossible to know. It's one of the many paradoxes that exists in time travel. This one is, because of the grandmother example, called the Grandmother Paradox."
Ditzy quickly raised one of her wings, a signal for her unicorn assistant to write what she just said on the blackboard. The assistant automatically got up, levitated the chalk, scribbled out "Grandmother Paradox," and sat back down to her work.
The class stared, still not quite used to this procedure. The shockwaves of Ditzy employing one of the few unicorns in Equestria without a cutie mark as her personal assistant still hadn't quite subsided.
Ditzy continued undeterred. She knew the class would, like the rest, quickly get used to Twilight.
"Another important paradox is the Bootstrap Paradox," Ditzy said. "This is when excessive time travel causes a situation in which an idea, object, or person never has a logical chance to be created. For example, let's say you went back in time and accidentally impregnated one of your parents." The implications of that for a bit too much for the class, who squirmed in discomfort, but Ditzy continued undeterred. "Now let's say the baby turns out to be you. In that case, where did 'you' come from? You created yourself. It's an infinite loop. Because of that, this paradox is sometimes called the Reverse Grandmother Paradox." She paused. "Any questions?"
Someone raised their hoof. "Yes. You said this was also called the Bootstrap Paradox," they said. "What's a bootstrap?"
Ditzy considered this, then shrugged. "I don't know, some human thing. It's not terribly important. Any other ques—"
At that moment, Ditzy felt a strong draft and unconsciously turned towards it. In the process, she caught a glimpse of… her.
It was impossible to see her if you were specifically looking for her. It was a bit of an unscientific conclusion, but in the face of all the evidence, it was the only one Ditzy could make. Her seat seemed to occupy a space right past the edge of pony consciousness. Even when no one was there, it was a seat that seemed so average you had no choice but to ignore it. But sometimes, like now, a coincidence would cause someone to look in that direction, and they would, just for a fleeting moment, see her.
She was a bright pink pony with darker pink hair. Every time Ditzy caught a glimpse of her, she was doing the same thing. Staring at her intensely, unmoving. She looked slightly impatient, like she was waiting for something. Every time, Ditzy wondered what she was waiting for, and every time, she forgot a couple seconds afterwards.
"Well," Ditzy said, looking at the clock, "that about wraps up class for today. Next time I'll have your tests graded, and we'll go over that. You can leave now."
The class started shuffling out. On their way out, one of the students bumped into Ditzy, dropping their books.
"S-Sorry…"
"It's okay," Ditzy said, helping to collect some stray papers. She handed them over. "Hope you have a good day, Rainbow Dash."
"Y-Yeah…" Rainbow Dash said, and fluttered off.
Ditzy wondered what was up with her. She seemed more nervous than usual.
On a whim, Ditzy stole a glance at the mysterious pink pony's seat. As usual, it was empty. No one had ever quite seen her come or go.
"You saw her again, didn't you?" Twilight said.
"Who?"
"The pink pony."
Ditzy thought about it. "Yes," she said, "I think I did. Funny, the things you forget."
"Everyone forgets," Twilight said. "Everyone but me." She looked at the seat. "You know what's strange? I always get the feeling I know her."
"You don't say."
Twilight looked down. She seemed to consider what she was about to ask. "Do you ever get the feeling something is wrong with this world?"
"What?"
"Well, that's the only thing that can explain me, isn't it?" Twilight said. "It's supposed to be nearly impossible for a pony to not get a cutie mark before adulthood. Yet there's four of us, and we're all at this college." She walked to the window and looked out of it. "Sometimes… when I look at people, I feel like I know them. They'll look at me, too, and I can see they feel the same way, but we've never met before in our life. And then they just leave, forgetting about it, but I remember." She touched the glass. "I always remember."
There was an awkward silence.
"You know," Ditzy said, "why don't you take the day off early? I think you need it."
"But the tests—"
"I can grade stuff on my own, thank you very much. Come on, maybe you can use the extra time to find your cutie mark!"
Twilight knew that was hopeless, but Ditzy looked so hopeful she didn't want to let her down. "Okay," she said, and left as quickly as possible. This job was the closest she had to meaning in her life, and it was with great reluctance that she took time off.
Ditzy heard her teleport away once she was out of eyesight. Unicorns usually assumed other ponies were uncomfortable with their magic. The reality was, as long as it wasn't being used to enslave anyone, no one could care less, but Ditzy could never quite work up the courage to tell Twilight that.
She was always amazed by the skill of Twilight's magic. When she saw other unicorns perform, their magic was almost invariably more clumsy than Twilight's. It seemed impossible for her to not have a cutie mark. Maybe Twilight had a point. It seemed like if one little thing were changed, she would have everything. And then there was that pink pony…
Ditzy quickly lost her train of thought and decided to start grading the tests. She walked over to her desk and looked through the stack of papers. Twilight had gotten through about half of them. She sighed, picked up the first ungraded one in the pile, and reached for her gradebook.
Panic swept over her when she felt nothing. It was late enough in the semester for the gradebook to have a sizable amount of assignments, but early enough there was no backup. If she lost her gradebook, that would set her behind weeks. She quickly searched the rest of the desk and classroom to no avail. Where was it? Twilight must have taken it out from the office. She always graded with the gradebook right next to her, and she was more a slave to routine than even Ditzy. But… she did seem distraught today. Maybe she forgot.
Ditzy ran out of the classroom to her office. Once inside, she looked for the spot where the gradebook usually was. It was gone. Twilight had taken it. Twilight had a quite… unique organizational style, so if anyone else had taken it the law of gravity would have intervened and the office would be a mess. So the book must've disappeared after that.
Maybe Twilight dropped it on the way to class. She usually teleported, but the way Ditzy understood it, if a unicorn lost concentration while teleporting, anything they were carrying could be left behind at a random point on a straight line between the two locations. If they particularly lost concentration, body parts could be left behind at random points on that straight line, but Twilight appeared intact so that probably didn't happen. Unless Twilight meandered, which Ditzy doubted, that would mean the gradebook was probably in one of the adjacent classrooms. And if she did walk to class today, and dropped the gradebook during that, it would be in the hallway directly outside. Confident in her plan, Ditzy opened the office door.
A brown earth pony was directly outside, looking inordinately pleased with himself. He was wearing some sort of collar and tie. Ditzy got the feeling she knew him, but couldn't remember his name for the life of her, so she stole a glance at his cutie mark. It was an hourglass.
"Can I help you?" she said.
"And volia!" he said. He took his tie off, threw it at her, and sprinted away.
Ditzy blinked. The tie slid off her hair and fell onto the floor.
A volleyball team member watched the scene in some confusion. "Was that some sort of straight mating ritual?"
"Not that I know of," Ditzy said. Usually she would've been offended by such an insensitive comment, but she had to admit, under the circumstances it seemed the most likely explanation.
"Well," the volleyball player said, "looks like someone's getting some tonight." She nudged Ditzy, who automatically recoiled away.
Ditzy's massive intellect told her this conversation was going to quickly get unpleasant if she didn't intervene. "You're on the volleyball team, aren't you? How did the last game go?"
The volleyball player scoffed. "We lost, of course," she said. "But if we had Rainbow Dash on the team, it would be a different story…"
Rainbow Dash had managed the impressive, if confusing, feat of becoming the school's star athlete despite being on none of the teams. Every sport she tried she excelled at, but every time, she refused to join the team, preferring to focus on her academics. While it constantly confused Ditzy how Twilight lacked a cutie mark, it seemed obvious why Rainbow Dash lacked hers—for some reason, she was running away from her true talent as fast as possible.
This obviously drove the sports teams nuts, and they all wished to recruit her. As of yet, none had succeeded.
"Yeah, sure," Ditzy said. "Anyway, could you help me out a bit?"
Ditzy quickly regretted saying that. "With what?" the volleyball player purred.
"Look, it's nothing like that," Ditzy said. "Have you seen a thick binder lying around anywhere? It's my gradebook. I've lost it."
"Can't say I have," the volleyball player said, "but I can help you with something else." She searched through her backpack and handed a small business card to Ditzy, whose expression quickly went from confusion to disgust.
"This," Ditzy said, "is the calling card of a prostitute."
"I know."
Ditzy sighed. "Please, tell me, because I really want to know. Why are you giving this to me, a teacher? I'm not even your teacher. I'm just a teacher."
"She's, like, amazing," the volleyball player said. "She completely changed how I thought about sex."
"I'm straight."
"She could fix that."
"And engaged."
"A little infidelity never hurt anyone."
"I'm not sure how many different ways I can say no," Ditzy said. She flipped the card around a bit. "Besides, what do you even expect me to do with this? There's not a number on here or anything."
"It's an enchanted card. Just hold it, say her name, and you'll be taken to her."
Ditzy made a mental note to avoid saying the word "rarity" for the foreseeable future.
"I've got to get to practice," the volleyball player said. "Have fun." She winked and ran off.
As soon as she was out of earshot Ditzy ripped the card in two and threw it into a trash can. She went into the first classroom she saw, which was luckily empty. She searched every nook and cranny and found nothing. Dejected, she went out and tried the next classroom. Inside, she saw two of her students, a unicorn and a pegasus, studying. She tried to be as quiet as possible.
"Come on," the unicorn said, "do you really think the protagonist in this book is based on some obscure ghost story?"
"It's not obscure! Every pegasus knows it," the pegasus said. "Back in Cloudsdale, there was this one yellow filly who could hardly fly. Everyone always bullied her. And then, one day… she just disappeared. The whole city looked, but no one could find her. To this day no one knows where she is.
"But about that time, rumors started appearing. Rumors that, in the Everfree forest, there was a monster. A yellow pegasus that lures in her victims with a sickly sweet voice hardly louder than a whisper… and then, after torturing them for weeks, breaking them down, making them beg for it… she eats them alive." She smiled. "So? Isn't it obvious?"
The unicorn just stared at her. "This book," he said, "is about a straight drug addict pimp in Las Pegasus!"
"Well—"
Ditzy half remembered someone like that in Cloudsdale, and in thinking about it, became distracted enough she ungracefully crashed into a wall.
"Oh, hey, Dr. Do," the pegasus said. "What are you doing here?"
"I lost my gradebook," Ditzy said after regaining her composure. "Have either of you seen it?"
"Nope," the pegasus said, then looked a bit alarmed. "Something just appeared in your hair. It looks like a piece of paper or something."
Ditzy pawed at her hair until the Rarity card fell out. "Oh Celestiadammit," she said. "This volleyball player gave me that card and now it won't go away." She looked at the unicorn. "Listen, could you… I don't know, disenchant it?"
The two students produced their own Rarity cards.
"I take that as a no."
"There is some ridiculously strong magic on those things," the unicorn said. "It's easier to just put it in your wallet and forget about it."
The pegasus gave Ditzy a comforting smile. "Yeah, and don't worry, it's not that hard to avoid saying 'Rarity.'" She immediately looked panicked and disappeared.
Ditzy and the unicorn looked at the spot where the pegasus used to be in some embarrassment.
"When she comes—er, returns back here," Ditzy said, "tell her I don't mind if she turns in the next assignment late."
"O-Okay," the unicorn stammered.
"And next chance I get I'll take these up with the administration."
"Okay."
Ditzy left. The next classroom was hers, so it probably wasn't in there. She groaned. It was going to be humiliating to ask all of her students for their graded assignments back.
She then remembered she left all the tests in her classroom, and noticed with some panic the door was open. She rushed in.
The tests were intact. Inside was the janitor, scrubbing away at the floor.
"Oh, thanks," Ditzy said. "Those tests were mine." She walked over to her desk and began gathering them up.
"Yours, huh?" the janitor said. "Maybe I should've thrown them away."
Ditzy looked at the janitor, irritated. "What does that mean?"
"Don't you recognize me?" The janitor removed her hat.
"Applejack," Ditzy said, looking embarrassed, "I didn't know you worked here."
"Figures you wouldn't notice. Derpy."
Ditzy cringed. "My name… is Ditzy Do."
"I know what your name is."
Silence.
"Look, Applejack, it's over between us. There was nothing personal, I just…"
"Pretended to be in love with me so you'd be more popular," Applejack seethed. "So you wouldn't be the straight weirdo. Yeah, I know why you did what you did. It doesn't help."
Ditzy looked down.
"You know, I never did get a cutie mark." Ditzy's eyes widened. "Yeah, that's right. I'm one of the four," Applejack said. "But I see that isn't a problem for you. Now you've got your hoofs sunk into that Twilight…"
"That's not what it's like!" Ditzy yelled. "I'm engaged!"
"Better let her know that, then! I've seen the way she looks at you. But you're going to cast her aside, just like me, aren't you?"
Ditzy trembled in anger. Twilight was actually one of the only other straight ponies at the University, but she hadn't gathered the courage to come out yet. They were friends. Nothing more. But she knew Applejack wouldn't believe her.
"Listen," Ditzy said, "have you seen my gradebook? It's a thick binder. I think someone might have dropped it somewhere."
Applejack laughed. "Dropped it!? What about stole it!? Or is that not even a possibility, for someone to steal from the great Dr. Ditzy Do!"
"Who would want to steal my gradebook!?"
"Your students, for starters!" Applejack yelled. "I've heard how tough you are. You've got hundreds of students that would want to bring you down a notch, or even just cheat. I bet they'd do anything."
"My students wouldn't—"
"Oh, do you think you teach so good that you enrich everyone's lives and make them want to learn and all that bullshit? Well, wake up! To them, it's just a grade!"
Ditzy thought back.
During the class, she felt a sudden draft, and that's when she looked at…
"It was taken during class," Ditzy said.
Applejack stopped. "What?"
"The gradebook! It was taken during class!"
"What are you talking about?"
Ditzy grabbed Applejack in joy. "I know who has the gradebook! All thanks to you! Oh, I could just…" She paused awkwardly and blushed. "Hug you. Lightly. In a not gay way. I've got to go!" She flew off.
Applejack looked at the pile of tests Ditzy left behind. "You never change," she said.
She smiled.
– – – –
Ditzy stood in front of Rainbow Dash's dorm. She was mostly sure in her deduction, but not completely. If she was wrong… things could end badly. But if she was right…
She knocked on the door.
Rainbow Dash groggily opened it. "Hello?" she said, then noticed it was Ditzy and froze.
Ditzy remained cordial. "Hello, Rainbow Dash, I was wondering if—" She noticed something familiar lying against the wall. "My gradebook!"
Rainbow Dash panicked and tried to close the door.
Ditzy fought back. "I know *ungh* it's in there! You can't *uf* hide it now! I just want *oof* to talk to you!"
After some hesitation, Rainbow Dash folded and left the door open. Ditzy entered.
Rainbow Dash had a small single dorm that would make a bibliophile like Twilight jealous. It was covered everywhere in books on every subject. Rather than a love for books, however, it betrayed an intense frustration with them—each book was stuffed with angrily scrawled post it notes. A single large poster of the Wonderbolts hung on a wall, neglected.
"How did you figure it out?" Rainbow Dash said.
"Just a hunch," Ditzy said. "Once I narrowed down the times the book could have been taken to during class, I remembered that gust of wind I felt. I remembered you were struggling, and… you probably figured out the rest."
Rainbow Dash looked down.
Ditzy eyed her with pity. "Why did you do it?"
"I don't think," Rainbow Dash said, "you want to know."
"I think I do."
Rainbow Dash sighed. "Don't you want to punish me or something?"
"I know you," Ditzy said. "At least, I know you well enough to know you aren't the type of person to cheat. So something must be wrong." She approached Rainbow Dash. "I might be able to help."
Rainbow Dash's eyes widened. "You can't help."
"Why? Why not?" Ditzy said. "I'm your teacher. I can't just watch you destroy yourself. Please, tell me." She took her glasses off and, in a gesture reserved for a select few, opened her eyes all the way, revealing the true extent of her lazy eye. "I know what it's like to overcome impossible odds."
Rainbow Dash just laughed. "No you don't! You just never realized the odds were there."
Ditzy was taken aback. "That's… um."
Rainbow Dash suddenly looked flustered. "No, don't take that the wrong way!" She smiled. "That's why I like you."
Ditzy, for the second time that day, found herself blurting out, "I'm engaged."
"Not like that!" Rainbow Dash said, then reconsidered. "Okay, maybe a little. But that isn't the point." Rainbow Dash looked wistful. "I used to want to be an athlete. I used to look up to the Wonderbolts. I trained to be the fastest flyer in Equestria. I wanted to push the boundaries of what it meant to be a pegasus by breaking every speed record! By doing the most heart pounding flight routines attempted! But then you came.
"When I heard about what you did, I was inspired. You pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be a pegasus far more than anything my cheesy tricks could have done. You did things everyone thought only unicorns could, everyone! Now that is cool!" Rainbow Dash smiled. "I looked up to you. I wanted to be like you. So I studied. Studied as hard as I could, hoping to capture just a fraction of your brilliance.
"But… look around you." Rainbow Dash gestured to the piles of post it filled books. "Look at all I have to do just to pass my most basic classes. And your classes! They're great. They're brilliant. But I can't make heads or tails of them. And if I failed this one, I could get kicked out." Rainbow Dash looked down. "So… that's why. That's why I stole your gradebook. I thought I could subtly manipulate my grades and return it before you noticed. At least make up for that last test."
"If you wanted to retake the last test, you needed only to ask," Ditzy said. "I can't believe you went behind my back like that."
"I'm sorry."
Ditzy went over and grabbed her gradebook. She flipped through it a bit to confirm it wasn't tampered with, and, once satisfied, closed it. "I'm not going to bring any charges against you," she said.
Rainbow Dash was a bit taken aback. "Really?"
"No. And you can retake that test if you want." Rainbow Dash's face lit up. "But! If you do, you have to promise to consider what I'm about to tell you."
Rainbow Dash braced herself.
Mentally, Ditzy begin to formulate a long speech on the virtues of academic honesty. But the more she thought about it, the more wrong it seemed, and almost completely without warning, an urge overtook her and her lips began moving on their own. She found herself saying two words, two words she knew she would never be able to take back, and two words she could not believe she was saying as an educator.
"Drop out."
Rainbow Dash blinked.
"What are you even doing here!? You have to be the best athlete I've ever seen. You could be so happy, so successful, so popular if you could just see that! You could have your cutie mark! You could be normal! I am 100% sure of it! But no! Instead you had to waste your life pining after me!" Ditzy choked. "I don't want to destroy your life."
Rainbow Dash could do nothing but stand there.
Ditzy regained her composure. "I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me. It's been a bit of a long day."
Rainbow Dash approached Ditzy and gave her a gentle hug. "It's okay," she said. "I'll consider it."
The two embraced for a bit. A bit too long. Ditzy wasn't quite sure when the right time to end a hug with a member of the same gender was, but was reasonably sure that if either of their wings had the chance to become completely erect, it had gone on too long. "Rainbow Dash," Ditzy said, looking up in embarrassment, "you can let go now."
Rainbow Dash backed away, blushing. "Oh! Sorry."
"I've got to go," Ditzy said, opening the door. She looked back. "Good luck. Whatever you do."
"You too."
Ditzy began the long journey home. After her day, she was looking forward to spending some time alone with Soarin.
– – – –
Because this, she was a bit surprised to open her front door and immediately see Spitfire's ass. She did have to admit, from a detached point of view, it did appear to have most of the qualities that made an ass "fine." It was firm. It was big. The areas around it were not particularly flabby. To the best of her knowledge, that was what made a mare attractive.
Unfortunately, she couldn't really elaborate much more on it because Soarin's head was currently obstructing most of it.
This was a problem because Soarin was Ditzy's fiancé.
"Um," she said.
They both looked at Ditzy. Soarin's face filled with panic. Spitfire appeared unfazed, and continued doing strange things with her tongue.
Ditzy had many concerns about this situation. One, however, quickly pushed its way to the forefront. "I've eaten off of that couch."
"So have I," Spitfire purred.
"Please leave."
Spitfire looked at Soarin, who was uselessly gaping. She sighed, and slowly walked outside. Despite having every reason not to, Ditzy found herself watching Spitfire as she left. Something about the way she moved was strangely hypnotic, like she could slink right through any mental defenses you had. Ditzy found herself reminded of what her friends often said about her: "Everyone is straight for Spitfire."
Soarin approached Ditzy. "I can explain," he got out.
Ditzy didn't budge. "I sincerely doubt that."
"I was lonely."
Ditzy stared at him, then started laughing hollowly. "So you went and saw Spitfire? She's practically a prostitute!"
Soarin winced. "She is not."
"Oh really?" Ditzy narrowed her eyes. "Then explain that Playcolt cover where she was doing things to that slab of raw meat."
"How—"
"I found your stash." Soarin opened his mouth, presumably for another halfhearted defense, but Ditzy stopped him. "Look, I don't care if you have a stash, but when you start having sex with the centerfold, I think I have a right to be concerned!"
Ditzy waited for Soarin to respond. The two stood there in silence for a couple minutes. Soarin considered his words carefully.
Finally, he said, "You're never here."
"What?"
"That's why I started to see Spitfire," Soarin said. "She was here." He looked at Ditzy. "Do you know how long this affair was going on?"
Ditzy was silent.
"A year. And you didn't even notice. Do you know how easy it is to have an affair when your lover's never home?"
"I thought," Ditzy said, "that we agreed to not put our careers on hold for this relationship."
"There's a difference," Soarin said, "between having a career and being obsessed. I'm part of Equestria's premier flying team. I do events all over the country. I do interviews. I do press releases. I find the time. What's your excuse?"
"You know being a teacher requires some after hour work…"
"Well, if every teacher is like you," Soarin said, "maybe I don't want one."
Ditzy stood there, in shock. They both knew where that comment was leading, but Ditzy didn't want to believe it. "What?"
Soarin looked away. "There. I've said it."
"You… you want to leave me? For that slut!?"
"Yes."
Ditzy was, once again, silent.
She started to say, "Why?" but decided otherwise. He had made it perfectly clear why. "I…" Words failed her. She wanted to know more, yet not know more. She wasn't sure what to ask, or if she should.
Soarin seemed to realize what she was getting at. "Do you remember the last time it was just us? And we didn't talk about work or anything?"
"Of course," Ditzy said. "The night we first met."
"And when else?"
Ditzy confidently opened her mouth, but then realized the problem. She tried, desperately tried to think of a time, but could not.
"That's my point."
Ditzy stopped. That was the moment everything came tumbling down. Rainbow Dash. Applejack. Soarin. Had she really been responsible for destroying so many people? And now, the one thing she thought would last forever was crumbling before her eyes.
"I'll pack my things."
Twilight was sounding more right by the second. Maybe there was something wrong with this world. How could one person have so much power? If she hadn't been sent to that private school, what would've happened? Would the world be different? Sometimes things seemed to center on her in strange ways. Almost as if wasn't the world that was wrong… it was her.
Ditzy ran out the front door and flew high into the sky, running away as fast as possible. She couldn't bear it any longer. She couldn't believe all the pain that surrounded her.
At a time like this, there was only thing she could do.
– – – –
"…and that's how I ended up at this pub," a now significantly more sober Ditzy said. "I mean, what else was I supposed to do? If I did anything else I'd just ruin someone else's's life. All I'm good for, apparently." She paused. "Hey. You okay?"
The Doctor was slack-jawed. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Honestly, he had always liked Derpy. Nearly everything about her was just his type. Except one thing. He had always thought, if only she were a little more intelligent, then he might seriously consider her a candidate for romantic companionship. He had dismissed it as his tendency to find at least one thing wrong with all his companions, but he was beginning to rethink that. Sitting in front of him was Derpy, but more intelligent, and he could find nothing wrong with her. He looked into her eyes and he knew, even in this state, that she was constantly thinking and analyzing everything around her. He looked into her mouth and thought distinctly less wholesome things. For one of the few times in his life, the Doctor found himself not in control of his faculties, and he found himself making his standard yet terrible offer.
"Want to time travel with me?" he blurted out.
Ditzy blinked. "Time travel doesn't exist," she said flatly. "Not yet, anyways. Trust me, I teach this crap."
"If I'm a time traveler," the Doctor said, "time is relative."
"If you're a time traveler," Ditzy said, clearly doubtful, "prove it."
The Doctor smiled and walked out. A few minutes later, he came back without his tie. "I just went a few hours in the past and gave you my tie," he said.
Ditzy chuckled. "That doesn't prove anything," she said. "You could have just given your tie to me earlier today and put a new one on tonight. I bet you've had me scoped out all day long." Ditzy smiled, secretly flattered, but not about to admit it.
That was it. The Doctor knew he had to have her now. Unfortunately, unless she got in the TARDIS, he couldn't think of any other way to convince her he was a time traveler. Unless… there was one thing. It was risky, but the Doctor was running on adrenaline, in addition to a couple other hormones.
"I know what's wrong with this world."
Ditzy froze. Usually she would have dismissed a statement like that, but something about the tone of his voice disturbed her.
"It seems like your life took a strange turn, right? A turn it wasn't supposed to? And because of that the world changed?"
"How—?"
The Doctor looked grim. "I caused it."
Recognition dawned on Ditzy's face. "Wait, you're… you're that man! The one that talked to my parents! You said you were the superintendent!"
"That's right."
"And that caused…?"
"All of this?" the Doctor said. "Yes. That one conversation altered the history of this entire country."
"My entire life," Ditzy said, taking this in. "So all those things that just seem wrong for no reason, those are side effects of—?"
"The timeline altering? Yes," the Doctor said. "Every timeline is vaguely connected. Some people are more in tune to this than others. If a large change, like this, is artificially induced, it causes side effects only they will notice. Not to mention the occasional little illogical part. I mean, look at your… mark thing, cutie mark, whatever it's called. It doesn't seem to represent anything you've done in this timeline."
Ditzy looked at her flank the best she could.
"It's probably some time leakage. Or something. Time travel's a bit unpredictable. Honestly, no one is quite sure how it works. You know how it is. People assume that time is a strict progression of cause and effect, but really," the Doctor couldn't stop himself, "it's more like a big ball of… wibbly-wobbly… timey-wimey… stuff."
Ditzy was amazed. "You really are time traveler. My Luna. You really are." She looked at him. "Can I come along with you? Even if it's just for a little bit? I mean, this is sort of my life dream. Can I?"
"Isn't that what I've been saying?" the Doctor said, smiling.
Ditzy hugged him. "Thank you thank you thank you!" she said. "Let me pack. I'll be ready really quick, I swear."
"The TARDIS—I mean, my time machine has amenities."
"Still. I have some things I want to bring." She walked outside. The Doctor casually followed.
Ditzy looked up at the clear night sky. A few clouds, lit up bright by moonlight, stood in front of intricate patterns of stars. "Oh, thank the stars," she said, almost unconsciously.
Being a space traveler, the Doctor was so used to seeing stars they hardly registered in his mind. He briefly chuckled at her vague superstition, then stopped. He realized something was wrong with that, but couldn't quite put his hoof on it.
Then he realized, and was overcome by a sinking feeling. He had no idea how he could overlook something so obvious, yet so wrong. He slowly looked up at the sky. He saw them. The stars. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
He realized they shouldn't be there.
– – – –
Luckily Soarin had already left. Probably to Spitfire's, Ditzy thought. Well, good for him. She was going to have fun tonight too if she got her way.
She packed her last item and zipped up her luggage. She dragged it outside, neglecting to close the door.
She was in such a hurry she didn't notice the letter placed conspicuously on her front table. It had the royal seal, both the real one and the decoy, on it.
The Doctor was smart. Extremely smart. He could figure out anything, anywhere, anyhow, armed with nothing but his brain and a couple paperclips. At least in theory. In reality, these days, the Doctor rarely had to actually figure anything out. He had been through so many situations in his long life that whenever he found himself in a bind, he simply needed to think about the last time this happened and do the same thing again.
Of course, this left him with a particular disadvantage in coping with this universe.
"Why are there stars in the sky?" Ditzy said in some disbelief. "Any colt knows that. Are you getting philosophical or something?"
"No," the Doctor said, fiddling with various levers on the TARDIS control panel, "I'm being quite literal. Tell me, what is a star?"
"Really?"
"Bear with me. This is going somewhere."
Ditzy sighed. "A star," she said, "is a small, decorative point of light placed in the sky by Princess Luna."
"Yes, yes," the Doctor said, then realized what he just heard. "Wait, what?"
"How could you not know that?"
The Doctor turned around and stared right into Ditzy's eyes. "Do you really believe that?"
"Yes, I do," Ditzy said, refusing to be intimidated. "Of course, there are some alternate theories, but they lose some validity when you have the goddess of the night herself to consult for answers. And if you don't trust her because, among other things, she was trapped on the moon for 1000 years and probably went insane in the process, I checked the theories out myself. Mathematically, they aren't correct."
"Alternate theories?" the Doctor said. "What kinds of alternate theories?"
"Oh, nothing worth talking about. My favorite is that each star is a huge ball of fire, each with these little round things, planets, I think, orbiting around them. And we live on one of these 'planets.' Absurd, isn't it?"
The Doctor could just blink. "Well, I hate to tell you this, but they're right."
Ditzy would usually defer to the judgment of a time traveler, but this was a bit much. "You're not serious."
"I can prove it," the Doctor said, returning to the control panel. "Watch. I'll show you the planet we're on right now."
"What? In a time machine?"
"It's also a spaceship," the Doctor said. Ditzy looked confused, forcing him to add, "It can travel through space. I'm going to take us to the space directly above the surface of this planet, so we get a good view."
"Right," Ditzy said.
The Doctor fiddled with a large swath of buttons and levers until he reached one large pedal and stopped. "Brace yourself," he said, smiling, and pulled it down.
The TARDIS took off with its typical unceremonial lurch, forcing Ditzy to grab hold of a railing. After an uncomfortably long time, the worst of the shaking stopped and the Doctor double checked a screen to make sure they were in the right place.
"Is it always this rough?" Ditzy said.
"Unfortunately, yes," the Doctor said. "Open the door."
Ditzy obliged, and jerked back in shock. "What on…"
"We are currently in orbit around your planet," the Doctor said, throwing down a useless lever just to look cool. "That, out there, is space."
Ditzy continued looking outside with a blank expression.
"Space is, er, the space between planets. If you look down, you'll see a… round thing. That's your planet."
Ditzy looked down. She looked concerned. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why?"
"Because that doesn't look at all like Equestria to me."
"How so?"
"Well…. it sort of looks like a giant gaseous ball."
He looked outside. She was right. The planet below was large, definitely large enough to sustain life, but all he could see on it were sickeningly yellow clouds quickly churning everywhere and sending bolts of electricity flying.
"What the…?" It didn't look like this last time he saw it, but then again, the last time he saw it was right after Derpy stepped on the butterfly that unleashed the time change. Since then, he had trouble identifying what time they were in, and a lot could've happened since then. But this? What was this?
Then he saw something that was a bit distressing.
"Oh, look," Ditzy said. "There are the stars. What did I tell you?"
The Doctor could not get anything useful out. Yes, there were stars, but they were on the planet's surface, where they definitely did not belong. Poking out from the swirling mass of yellow clouds was what appeared to be the top of a black dome. The edges were fuzzy, as if it was not quite a solid object. It was massive—the Doctor estimated it must've covered at least a third of the planet's surface. And on its surface were thousands of little stars, placed in arbitrary patterns.
"Those aren't supposed to be down there," the Doctor said. "They're supposed to be…"
"Just admit it. You're wrong."
"No, look, I've been up in space before and…" He tried to collect his thoughts. "Listen, the fabric of this universe was altered somehow. I was traveling with you—no, not you, another you—and you stepped on this butterfly, and that unleashed some kind of monster that made me separate this solar system from the rest of the universe…"
The Doctor noticed Ditzy glazing over. "Could we talk about this in the morning?" she said. "Sorry, but I don't think I can handle this at the moment."
The Doctor wanted to defend himself, but couldn't think of a reasonable excuse to continue. "Sure," he said, giving up, and Ditzy turned away from the door. The Doctor took one last glance at the dome, his mind full of questions.
– – – –
"Me too."
"What?"
Ditzy looked at the stallion in front of her. He was a pale blue pegasus with dark gray hair. She could have sworn it was Soarin, the star of the Wonderbolts. Then she realized it probably was, because this was the Grand Galloping Gala.
She had been invited quite suddenly a couple weeks earlier. Usually, Ditzy would've been angry to have such short notice, especially during finals week, but she was invited by Celestia herself. That was the opportunity of a lifetime—Celestia never invited anyone anywhere, unless you counted sending people to the dungeon as inviting them there. Ditzy managed to convince an elite fashion designer to make a dress for her, and now here she was, mingling among the country's top aristocrats and entertainers.
Not that any of that provided context for Soarin's outburst. "Me too what?"
"Oh. Um," he stammered, scratching the back of his head. Ditzy had never quite seen anyone so nervous. "Sorry, I just… I just came out to the rest of the Wonderbolts. As straight. Like you. You were my inspiration, actually. After you said that in that interview…"
In an interview a couple months earlier, a reporter had asked Ditzy about rumors she was straight. She halfheartedly confirmed them, and tried to change the subject, but the reporter started drilling her. He asked her why, what could she possibly gain from this. Ditzy, fed up, said, "Why do you think I'm doing this to make some type of political statement? I'm doing this because I like penises. Big, fat, sexy penises. That is my only motivation. This interview is over."
To her dismay, it had quickly become the most popular thing she had said. Despite making it very clear she wanted to remain apolitical, Ditzy was flooded with requests to represent or lead or speak at or manage various straight rights groups, events, orgies, and fundraisers. She turned down all of them, of course, hoping they would let up or at least get angry at her. Ditzy's reputation preceded her, though, and her denials just made the groups more desperate than ever. In absence of any organized way to see her, people started approaching her on the street, asking her questions about what it was like to be straight, was it true straights had to pay 5% more sales tax, and so on. It was clear something needed to be done.
So one day, Ditzy, with her lawyer, worked out a form letter response to anyone who approached her about straight issues, which she immediately took advantage of.
"I'm happy I've given you the courage to come out," Ditzy said automatically. "I hope you find a sweet and tender lover." Ditzy wasn't quite sure about that clause, but her lawyer insisted it was necessary. "But really, I don't think I should be giving advice on…"
"I don't need advice," Soarin said. "I need you."
Ditzy blinked.
Soarin facehoofed. "Oh Celestia, did I just say that?"
Ditzy sighed. The most irritating thing that came out of this debacle, by far, was the sheer amount of stallions hitting on her. Ditzy lost track of the amount of times she had to explain that, no, just because she was straight did not mean she wanted to screw every stallion she saw.
This guy was an exception.
"Oh, why not?"
Soarin paused. "What?"
"Come on. Follow me. I know a place."
Honestly, Ditzy thought, you were obligated to have at least one sexual misadventure at the Gala, and if she waited any longer, Celestia might get to her first.
Ditzy broke away from the party and Soarin followed. She looked around for the object she needed. There. The third potted plant from the right in the hallway behind the dance floor. The pot was, as she read, a slightly darker yellow than the others.
Soarin looked around. "Is this the place?"
"No. Well, maybe," Ditzy said. "I read that… well, this is either going to work fantastically or make me look like a moron."
She braced herself, ran up to the pot, and dove into it.
At this point, at least, she was reasonably sure she had not drank any of Celestia's infamous spiked drinks. Rumor was, if you were sober, the castle walls seemed to move on their own, doors seemed to lead to slightly different rooms depending on what direction you entered them, objects randomly disappeared, and you moved between different floors without climbing stairs. If you were drunk, the castle appeared to behave like a normal building.
As Ditzy stepped out of the small potted plant into another large hallway, she decided, yes, she was definitely sober.
She shook off some soil and yelled, "Okay, it's safe," into the pot. She wondered if her voice would carry through the portal, but regardless, Soarin got the message and quickly tumbled through.
He looked around in shock. "Wha…?"
"The castle apparently has space distortion magic applied to it," Ditzy said. "I never quite believed it until now. It's probably to keep out intruders." Her brow furrowed. "Or to keep them in…"
"Is this legal?"
"I can't imagine why not. If they know we're eloping, I'm sure the princesses will be fine with it. I've heard Celestia sometimes forces couples to sneak off to some bedchamber or other."
Soarin was a bit more skeptical. "If you say so," he said, scanning the surroundings.
Ditzy began walking off, trying to remember the minutia of the route she memorized. There it was. The door.
"Okay," she said, "this is the second step. Go into this room, close the door, wink at the tapestry, then exit."
"Listen, Ditzy, I'm really—"
Soarin was too late. Ditzy had already entered the room. He waited for her to come back out, but she never did. After a while, he figured it would be best to follow her instructions. While he had been to the castle far more than she had, he had never seen this side of it, and had doubts in his ability to get back on his own.
He opened the door, entered the room, and closed it behind him. It took his eyes a while to adjust, but eventually saw a tapestry of Celestia giving him bedroom eyes on the opposite wall.
He winked at it.
Nothing apparent changed, but Soarin knew that meant nothing. He opened the door and found himself in a completely different section of the castle. Ditzy sat on the floor impatiently.
"What took you so long?" she said. "I was beginning to get worried."
Soarin already was worried. He knew that once you began to get this close to Celestia's mind games, things got dangerous. One minute you would be laughing at a goofy painting of her, next thing you knew it would be two weeks later and your appendix would be missing. At least, so he heard. "How much longer?"
"Not much," Ditzy said, standing up slowly. "We just have to jump through a couple trash cans." She walked forward, making sure to gratuitously sway her hips as she did so.
Soarin caught himself staring. Maybe this would be worth it, he thought.
Then he felt it.
Ditzy sensed something was wrong. "Soarin?"
Soarin looked down a hallway. "The wind suddenly…"
"What?"
"They're here."
There was no need to specify who. Ditzy's eyes widened. She stopped in her place. Her confidence completely left her. "What do we…?"
"Hide! Under that bench!"
They both jumped underneath a small, decorative stone bench. They knew it wasn't enough. If the princesses wanted to find them, they would find them. But what else could they do?
The sisters were so quiet that at first, Ditzy doubted Soarin. But then she saw them. She saw their hooves hit the ground, saw their huge wings lay poised at their sides, saw their warped manes make a mockery of perspective and order. She had heard stories, as everyone had, but it was the first time she had seen either in person. She knew this sight would remain with her the rest of her life.
Somehow, the two never noticed Ditzy and Soarin. They were so deeply involved in a personal argument they were not paying attention to their surroundings.
"Come on now. You are going to be late."
"Oh, so that was your game. If I didn't agree with you quickly, I'd be late to my party." Celestia scoffed. "Did you honestly think that would work? Just who do you think I am?"
"Do you not care about your subjects at all?"
"I had tonight all planned out until you butted in."
"You would have created another abomination."
"She is perfect for the game and you know it!"
"So was Starswirl."
"Says Mrs. I-went-and-accidentally-used-the-process-on-my-dominatrix. You know, I'm still wondering, just how do you 'accidentally' use the process? Do you know how many corpses that requires?"
There was a tense silence.
"That… was a mistake. I will admit it. But so was Starswirl. And we cannot erase either. We were able to seal away the orange one with the system, but that will not always be an option. Besides, despite our efforts, it will always be a temporary solution for a permanent problem, and you know it. So tell me, as another immortal… what makes you so sure she will not be another mistake?"
Celestia paused. "In all my years, I've rarely seen anyone so bored with life. And among those, I've never seen anyone channel it into so much power. Even as she is now, she has irreversibly altered the direction of this country. Just imagine what she could do on our level."
"True…"
As Ditzy watched, she realized everything she had heard of the sisters, all of the horror stories, urban legends, shocking exposés—that was them holding back. This was what they were like alone. This was what they really were. Somehow, even though nearly nothing happened, seeing that was worse than all of the terrifying rumors put together.
The sisters walked away, and their conversation became indistinct. Only when the two were sure they were gone did Ditzy emerge from under the chair and double check the hallways. Empty.
"I think we're safe," Ditzy said. She turned to Soarin. "Want to go on, or—"
Soarin immediately lunged at and made out with her.
"Marry me," he said.
"Okay," Ditzy replied.
– – – –
And then Ditzy woke up. She looked around at her surroundings in confusion until she remembered where she was—in one of the bedrooms in the TARDIS.
She rubbed her aching head. Why did she have to dream about something so unpleasant? She wanted to forget about Soarin. But, she had to admit, she also wanted those old days back.
More importantly, that conversation between Celestia and Luna had bugged her for years. She lost track of the amount of times she ran through it in her mind, trying to figure out what it meant. What was the game? The process? The system? What happened to Starswirl? Who was the orange one? Who was "she?" And what did Luna's dominatrix have to do with any of that? Whenever she thought about it, she inevitably grew more confused. Maybe the Doctor would be able to help. She had never told anyone about the incident for fear of getting caught, but Ditzy was reasonably sure even the princesses could not track down a time traveler.
Ditzy then felt something brush against her, and heard a faint thud and crack. The room was still dark, and Ditzy was half asleep, so she started feeling around. On the floor next to the light stand, she felt her glasses, now chipped in one lens. With some embarrassment, Ditzy realized she had knocked them over with her erect wings. She sighed and put them on.
It was just going to be one of those days.
– – – –
Ditzy slowly navigated her way to the control room. Once there, she saw the Doctor underneath the central control unit with some tools, tweaking something. He briefly looked up at her.
"You slept for a while."
"It was a long day," Ditzy said. "And the alcohol probably didn't help." She tried to not let the worst of her hangover show.
The Doctor vaguely nodded and got back to work. "Breakfast is in the kitchen," he said, then added, "The kitchen is three doors down to the left of the hallway connected to the third door on the second hallway at the top of that ladder over there." He paused. "And failing that, all the purple walls are edible. Don't worry, they'll grow back. I think."
Ditzy wasn't listening. "Doctor…"
The Doctor continued fiddling. "Yes?"
"Does the phrase 'the game' mean anything to you?"
The Doctor went out on a limb and assumed she wasn't talking about the one he just lost. "Well, my people, the Time Lords, had something called that. They would take people out of time and force them to compete to the death. It was terribly barbaric. I put a stop to that, of course."
"Anything related to the history of this world?"
"You know more about the history of this world than I do," the Doctor said, expertly screwing something in with his mouth. "I can't even figure out what year it is, to be completely honest."
"What!? I thought you were a time traveler!"
"Really, when you think about it, that just means I've traveled a lot. I've never encountered a place like this before." He poked his head out from under the walkway. "Doesn't that make you feel special? To know this world is one-of-a-kind?" He stopped, and gave Ditzy a disturbed stare.
"What?"
"How long have your glasses been chipped?"
"Since this morning." Ditzy blushed. "I had some… problems."
The Doctor ruffled his hoof through his hair. "Okay, I know this is going to sound crazy, but…" He inhaled. "You're going to need to go down to the basement and meet yourself."
Ditzy blinked. "Myself?"
"It's difficult to explain."
"Try."
"It involves time travel."
"Clearly."
The Doctor tried to construct a logical explanation. "Back when I was traveling with… another version of you… the other you went in the basement and saw herself from the future. According to her, that future self had a British accent and was wearing glasses chipped in one lens." He pointed at Ditzy. "In other words, you."
"So I've got to go back and close the loop?"
"Exactly."
A real time paradox! And on the first day! The only thing containing Ditzy's excitement was her hangover. "When do I do it?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Whenever you want. Just don't fix your glasses."
"And if I don't?" Ditzy wished she had a notepad, but couldn't pass up this opportunity.
"Giant space meatballs come and eat everything," the Doctor said. "Not necessarily in that order."
– – – –
Ditzy stood in front of the basement door. Apparently, all she had to do was walk in. The Doctor said that since time was warped in a very specific way in that room, it would connect the two points on its own.
Probably.
It was easier to get to than the kitchen, at any rate.
Despite her prodding, she was not able to get him to say any more about the space meatballs.
With no small amount of nervousness, she pushed the door open.
Inside, the room was, in a word, illogical. Despite being called a basement, all it appeared to contain was a large amount of walls jutting out at inconvenient angles. Ditzy walked through it uncomfortably. She didn't want to risk causing a time paradox, even though she had no idea how she could avoid that. She looked at the walls. Just around every corner, it seemed, there were people. They must've been projections of people from different times, Ditzy thought. Just how many people had the Doctor taken in his TARDIS?
Her line of thought was interrupted when someone bumped into her and fell to the ground. Ditzy, flustered, adjusted her glasses and looked down.
It was her.
Well, not exactly her. Her doppelgänger had an identical body, but was not wearing glasses, and had a confused, wide eyed expression completely unlike the stoic look Ditzy was used to seeing on herself. "Oh, sorry about that," Ditzy said, and leaned over to help her up.
She stared at Ditzy for a couple seconds, seemingly trying to make her mind up about something. Then, with no warning whatsoever, she grabbed Ditzy and made out with her.
Ditzy did not enjoy this. For the first three seconds, she tried to relax, but immediately afterwards she backed away, gurgled, and spat on the ground.
"Who are you?" she said. "You're not me."
Then, after flickering a bit, her doppelgänger disappeared.
– – – –
Ditzy rushed into the control room. "What," she yelled, "was that!?"
The Doctor, now sitting on a railing, rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I probably should've told you she made out with you."
"No, that is not the problem!" Ditzy paused. "Well, yes, that is part of the problem, but it is not the problem!"
"What is the problem?"
Ditzy glared. "Who was that?"
The Doctor played innocent. "What do you mean?"
"That was not me. Not from another timeline, or another universe, or whatever. She was completely different."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"I know me. For one, I'm straight as an arrow. There is no way I could kiss another mare like that. Not to mention, she at least knew about time travel, right? Space meatballs or not, would any version of me risk breaking the space-time continuum just to make out with herself!?"
The Doctor almost said yes, but decided against it.
"But that wasn't the half of it. When I looked straight at her she looked like me, but out of the corner of my eye all I could see was this giant dark blob. And that kiss wasn't right either. She looked the same height as me, but was leaning down. And, most important thing last…" Ditzy got in the Doctor's face. "I'd like you to tell me in what universe I have a tongue that long!"
Ditzy stood there, fuming.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "I… also had my suspicions about her."
"I would hope so!"
"That was probably some other being posing as you. I have no idea how or why, but I think we've both noticed that their shapeshifting skills leave a bit to be desired."
"Why didn't you, I don't know, kick her out or something!?"
"I did. But I had to wait for an opportune moment. Look at this." The Doctor pressed some keys and turned one of the monitors towards Ditzy. "This is what the TARDIS produced when it analyzed her composition."
Ditzy's eyes widened. Anyone with knowledge of physics, or even of numbers, could tell you the figures the screen displayed were impossible. The sheer amount of digits alone was mind-boggling. "W-What?"
"That being had enough power to destroy an entire planet. Easily. I had to avoid giving it a reason to use that power."
Ditzy took that in. "So, what I just saw was a godlike alien creature… pretending to be me?"
"That's right."
"Why didn't you—"
"I was going to tell you all about it this morning. Then your glasses broke. I wanted to plug that gap in space-time as quickly as possible. For all I know, if we left it open, she could have used it to come here."
Ditzy calmed down. "I suppose that makes sense."
The Doctor inhaled. "Also… I didn't want to tell you that the imposter killed the original version of you." He gave a melancholy smile. "That's why I went back in time and talked to your parents like that. I wanted to alter your timeline so you didn't end up traveling with me and dying."
"So," Ditzy said, raising an eyebrow, "doesn't that mean I'm just going to die again?"
"Oh, no!" the Doctor said. "That was just that one timeline. Yours is so completely different it couldn't possibly happen that way again. Yes, traveling with me is risky, but you're definitely not predestined to that death."
"How comforting." Ditzy looked at the control panel. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to, but she asked, "You don't think you could show me where this happened, do you?"
– – – –
The Doctor pushed open the door. Outside, there was a dense forest, and in the distance they could see a small town. "Ponyville! Circa… I have no idea." The Doctor looked embarrassed. "I would take you to when it actually happened, but since I altered your timeline, I don't think that point in time exists anymore. Also, if it did, I don't think it would be a good idea to have two mes and three yous in the same place at the same time."
"No, it's fine," Ditzy said, only vaguely paying attention. "Where did it happen?"
The Doctor pointed at some indeterminate spot. "There. I think. The foliage has changed a bit."
Ditzy walked over to it and looked down. It just looked like any other spot in the forest. She wasn't sure why she had expected anything else. Nothing had happened here yet, and according to the Doctor, nothing ever would. But still—this was the spot where she had died. Where she would die if the Doctor hadn't intervened. It was humbling. It was one thing to teach time travel, but another to witness its consequences. She burned the image of that clearing into her mind as a reminder of the dangers of her voyage.
They stood there in silence for a while.
Eventually, the Doctor cleared his throat. "Ready?"
"Yes," Ditzy said. "I believe so."
– – – –
"Ponyville wasn't always a college town," the Doctor said as they walked through the marketplace. "In all the other timelines, it stays like this. Small, quaint, agricultural. I'm surprised that one conversation with your parents changed so much, honestly."
"What makes you so sure it was that?"
The Doctor looked confused. "Well, I didn't change anything else."
"But couldn't you have unintentionally manipulated something that caused that?"
"Probably not. If time was that fragile, we wouldn't be able to time travel at all," the Doctor said. "Different events are… well, fated to a different degree. Some are extremely malleable. Some are nearly impossible to stop. But most will happen in a roughly similar way no matter what you do."
Ditzy blinked. "Fated."
"I don't mean anything spiritual by that. That's just the best word I could think of. There's really no logic to how malleable an event is. Sometimes, a thousand year war can be caused and prevented by a single pen running out of ink, but no change you make, save destroying the planet, can prevent one man from burying a loaf of bread at a certain time."
Ditzy looked out at the crowd. "I take it my fate is extremely malleable."
"It must be. It's not often a single person can exert that much control over a world, even if it is mostly by a series of bizarrely timed coincidences. But then again, this world is strange. Nearly everything you see was caused by a past version of you stepping on a single butterfly."
"What!?"
"I'm not sure exactly what that caused, but whatever it did, it forced me to, at some point, use a device that sealed off this solar system at every point in space and time simultaneously. That's why nothing exists outside this and a couple other planets."
Ditzy scoffed. "Back to the planets again. Your universe must have been pretty strange."
"Imagine what this world seems like to me. It works in a way completely contrary to everything I've experienced." At that, the Doctor stopped. They had walked far past the marketplace and were now in front of the library. "Speaking of which, it would probably be a good idea for me to consult this world's history some more."
"There's something depressing about a time traveler forced to consult history books."
The Doctor glared at her. "You can walk around town if you want."
"I think I will."
They split up.
– – – –
"That'll be 10 bits."
Ditzy set them on the counter.
The cashier looked at them, looked up, and continued staring at Ditzy until she cleared her throat. "Extra sales tax?"
Ditzy begrudgingly set another bit on the counter. "How, exactly, could you tell?"
"We can tell," the cashier said, pointing at her head. "We know these things."
Ditzy was not quite sure what she meant by "we" or "things," or even "know" for that matter, but decided to not explore the matter further. Instead, she took the hat she had just bought, put it on, and walked outside.
Well, discrimination wasn't a new thing, at least. Ditzy had trouble deciding whether that was comforting or not.
Ponyville lost a bit of its novelty when Ditzy realized, with the exception of the University and some slightly updated architecture, the town was largely unchanged from her time. She figured she might as well get something from this trip, though, and decided to buy a fancy hat as a memento.
One particularly nice thing about this hat was how much of her vision it blocked. No matter how she turned it, it always drooped over half of her eyes, rendering her unable to see anything but the ground directly in front of her. After the last couple days, she figured it would be nice to not see some things.
At least until a stallion ran by and nearly hit her straight into a wall.
"Watch it!" she said.
"Sorry," the stallion replied, then stared at her. Or, at least, Ditzy assumed he was staring at her, because all she could see were his brown legs. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
"I don't know!"
"In a strange way, you sound just like… but wait, she's… oh great, I lost them. Real genius, Doctor." He ran off.
Ditzy froze. "Doctor?" She turned around, lifted the brim of her hat up with her hoof, and looked at him. She caught just a fleeting glimpse, but that was definitely the Doctor.
"What's he doing?"
– – – –
When Ditzy reached the library, the Doctor was waiting in front, impatiently looking around. When he saw her, he rushed over, smiling.
"Nice hat," he said, poking one of the tassels.
Ditzy was unimpressed. "What's with you? Just a bit ago you didn't even recognize me in this."
"What are you talking about? I just got out of the library."
"Don't play dumb. You just ran off that way."
"I did not."
"Come on, don't try to prank—" At that moment, Ditzy was overcome by a searing migraine. "AAAGH!"
She nearly collapsed, but the Doctor caught her. "What? What is it?"
"My head… suddenly… it's like when I study for too long and…"
The Doctor knew that feeling. It was the headache caused by significant timeline changes. But what could've happened? To the best of his knowledge, after his change, nothing happened in Ponyville, unless…
The Doctor froze.
"What… is it?"
"I didn't park the TARDIS there."
Ditzy caught a glimpse of it. There, skillfully hid between two buildings, was the TARDIS.
"Did it… move?"
"It can't move on its own. And the only time I parked it there was…"
The Doctor bounded towards the forest, dragging Ditzy behind him. In record time, they reached the TARDIS and the Doctor shoved Ditzy inside. He followed, and closed and locked the door behind him.
Ditzy rocked on the floor, nursing her head. "What was that?" she said.
"You saw me."
"Yes, but—"
"You saw another me, when I time traveled to this town before. I was running, looking for someone, wasn't I?"
"Yes, I seem to remember—"
"Dammit!" The Doctor ran to the control panel and madly started pulling levers and buttons. The TARDIS rocked.
Ditzy grabbed hold of a railing. "What—?"
"Usually the TARDIS automatically avoids situations like this, but clearly that doesn't work in this world! Dammit! Dammit! This is serious!"
Ditzy was losing patience. "What is serious!?"
"That was when I talked to your parents!"
Ditzy's heart stopped. "What…?" Did that mean she had blocked his route to her parents? But that conversation had changed everything! That conversation defined every aspect of her life! "That—"
"We have to go back to your present and see how much damage has been done! Maybe there's still some hope!"
Hope? Her migraine was proof something had been erased, wasn't it?
The TARDIS landed with a deafening roar. The two stared at the doorway. Their hearts pounded. The Doctor approached it slowly. "This is Ponyville in your present. I can't land this thing incredibly accurately, but it should be in roughly the right time. Are you ready?"
Ditzy would never be ready in her entire life, but she nodded. The Doctor opened the door.
Before them was a nearly identical Ponyville, no university in sight.
Ditzy could do nothing but stare at the spectacle, her jaw slack.
The Doctor approached some pedestrians. "Excuse me, have you ever heard of Dr. Ditzy Do here?"
"Did you just come out of—"
"Just answer me!"
"Can't say I have. Why?"
"Okay. Thanks. Listen, this might seem like a strange thing to ask, but was there ever a strange corpse found in the forest around here?"
"Yeah. A couple years back. The Nightmare Night murder, they call it. Gruesome thing. Personally, I think one of the princesses got bored. That all?"
The Doctor nodded. The pedestrians moved on. Neither the Doctor or Ditzy moved.
The first thing that always struck Ditzy about the TARDIS library was how absurdly gothic it was. Stone columns were placed with reckless abandon. The ceiling vaulted into places where it probably shouldn't have. The architect, in a feat of incomprehensible idiocy, managed to construct an interior flying buttress. Luckily for the weak minded, it was difficult to see its most egregious sins against common sense, because the room was lit only by small torches inside various gargoyles' mouths. Ditzy actually had to walk around with a flashlight to find new things to mock the room for, and quickly came to regret it.
She had asked the Doctor about the abomination, but he shrugged and said it was just a phase, causing her to briefly wonder if he had spent any time as a hormone addled teenage girl. They seemed to be the only ones into this "goffik" stuff, although Ditzy was beginning to suspect that had nothing to do with the style of architecture.
Ditzy sighed, looked down at her book, tried to turn the page, and realized just how much mental effort she was exerting trying to ignore it. She finally decided to give up and set it down. She could only take so much. She was promised intense political debate and instead got trains. This Ayn Reind must've been a real piece of work.
She briefly debated whether to give the book another shot, but her decision was made for her when the Doctor busted in. "Ditzy! Ditzy!" he said, waving around what, at this distance, appeared to be a small wallet. "Something amazing's happened!"
Ditzy looked down from her balcony. She doubted it, but she had to ask anyway. "Did you fix my timeline?"
"No. But!" The Doctor began ascending the spiral staircase to the second library floor. "Look at this…"
Ditzy glared at him. If it wasn't that, why should she care? But when he got this enthusiastic there was no stopping him. She just had to play along.
"What is it?"
The Doctor smiled and opened up whatever it was he was holding, revealing a small, index card sized piece of paper. On it, the word "HELP" was written in bloody, scrawled writing.
"Where did you find that?" Ditzy said. "In the kitchen?"
"I didn't find this note anywhere," the Doctor said, that obnoxious twinkle in his eye starting up. "This is psychic paper."
Ditzy leaned on the reading table. Here we go.
"Psychic paper can receive strong thoughts across the space time continuum and pinpoint their location. It works by taking advantage of isotonic subordinated decaffeinated dodecahedrons." Ditzy was pretty sure that violated every tenet of known science, but stayed silent. "It also does wonders for identity theft." He paused as he let that sink in. "Isn't that great?"
"If I understand you correctly, someone thought 'HELP' so hard they made your wallet bleed. I fail to see what's so great about this."
The Doctor decided to let the wallet comment slide. "What's great about this is now we can rescue them! What better than a little harmless adventure to get your mind off things?"
"I prefer to keep my head attached for that, thank you very much," Ditzy said, then picked up her book and tried to pretend that yes, she too was interested in who John Galt was and how he would change the world with trains.
The Doctor grabbed the book from her. "Oh, come on. I've seen worse and no one's been decapitated yet."
Ditzy believed him. That worried her.
"So? Do you want to go and check it out? You do, don't you? The mystery compels you, doesn't it?"
Ditzy sighed. "You've already plotted the TARDIS to the origin of that SOS, haven't you?"
"We landed 15 minutes ago."
"And you're going to check it out yourself regardless, aren't you?"
The Doctor paused. "Possibly."
If there was anything more unpleasant than traveling with the Doctor, it was being in the TARDIS alone. "Fine, I'll come."
"All right!" the Doctor said, trying and failing to hide his enthusiasm. He looked at the book he had confiscated from Ditzy. "And what are you doing reading this garbage, anyway?" He threw the book with great force at the flying buttress.
– – – –
"Nice scenery, isn't it?" the Doctor said.
Ditzy was too busy being silently grateful the Doctor hadn't noticed her taping the Rarity card to the bottom of the control panel to notice.
They were in the middle of a small clearing in a dense forest next to a mountain. The sun was setting. There was no civilization in sight.
"Maybe someone got in a hiking accident," Ditzy ventured.
"No, that couldn't be it," the Doctor said, trying to think of a complicated explanation as to why. He didn't want to admit it was because he didn't want it to be something so boring. "Let's… try going out a little further. You want to go left or right?"
"I hardly want to be out here at all."
"Right it is, then."
They started trotting to the right. It seemed like, as they went on, a path started emerging, but it was so unkempt they couldn't tell whether it was placed there intentionally or if the grass just happened to die in roughly a straight line.
It turned out it must have been put there intentionally, since it led them to a small town, or what was left of it, at least.
"What happened here?" the Doctor said.
"What happened," Ditzy said, "is that you missed your SOS."
The town was utterly destroyed. The buildings were crushed, wood splintering out everywhere. The whole place seemed oddly damp.
The Doctor approached what looked like a large deposit of goo on one building. He touched it, and smelled it.
"Can't be," he muttered.
Ditzy looked around. "So, what happened here?"
"I'm not quite sure," the Doctor said. "A lot of these buildings look like they were destroyed a while ago. A couple of years ago, at least." He walked around a bit. "But something must've come along recently and did some more damage. Otherwise things wouldn't still be this damp."
"Think it could be a flood?" Ditzy suggested.
"I hope so," the Doctor said, which worried Ditzy.
They poked around the ruins for a while. As the sky dimmed, Ditzy noticed something. "Do you see that light?"
"What light?"
"That light, up there."
In the middle of the darkness was a small light that looked suspiciously like a window into a lit room. As soon as they tried to get a better look, it shut off.
Ditzy and the Doctor froze.
"Let's check it out," the Doctor said.
They trudged through the forest, towards where they had seen the light, as quiet as possible.
Then, the forest cleared, and they realized the light came from a large, two-story house with about four rooms on each floor. It was on the top of a hill, and a well marked, meticulously landscaped path ran up to the front door from a different direction. Trepidatiously, they walked up the path.
Once at the front door, the Doctor leaned against it, trying to hear if there was anything unusual going on inside. He heard nothing, so he opened the door and burst in with gratuitous theatrics.
It was a hotel. That much became clear from the cubbies on the wall, the reception table in front of that, and the thing standing behind that.
The Doctor did a double take and tripped on the floor, and Ditzy just stood there with her jaw agape. Neither were expecting to see a human there, and Ditzy had never seen one in person before.
"Oh, hello Doctor!" the human said.
"What."
The human rapidly covered his mouth.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "How do you—"
"Spoilers," the human said ominously. Then he made a high-pitched squeal. "Ohmygod I've always wanted to do that!"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
The human tried to calm down, and cleared his throat. "Seriously, though, there's some time travel shenanigans going on here."
"Right," the Doctor said.
"I'm Bob," the human said. "You want a room here, right? Here, let me get—"
"Not really," the Doctor said. "I was mainly wondering what happened to that town down there."
"Oh, that? That was destroyed by some monster three years ago. It's no big deal. Apparently it just, like, sat on the town and completely broke it." The Doctor looked concerned. "I'm pretty sure the monster's gone now, so I… I mean, me and my boss started a hotel here." Ditzy looked concerned. "I mean, no one's died yet, right? At least not from anything other than food poisoning. Ha ha ha!" He paused, then leaned in. "That was a joke, by the way. The food's great."
The Doctor and Ditzy stared. "Maybe the SOS came from one of this hotel's guests," she said, half joking.
The Doctor took her a little more seriously than she wanted. "You know what, scratch that," he said. "I think I do want a room."
"Great!" Bob threw a key at the Doctor. "You'll be in room 15. Upstairs. Don't tell anyone, but it's on the house. Old friends and all."
Even if there were time travel shenanigans involved, the Doctor doubted they were "old" or "friends."
"Oh!" Bob said, catching the two off guard. "And just don't worry about anything, you hear me? I know how you get. Nothing has happened here in forever. Nothing weird ever happens here, trust me. It's super, super boring."
At that moment a yellow pegasus with Rainbow Dash on a leash came down from upstairs.
The Doctor and Ditzy were temporarily shocked into submission. "I don't think I trust your judgment," the Doctor said.
"What? That's not weird at all," Bob said. "She has a permit."
"A permit?"
Bob rummaged through a couple drawers and produced the permit in question.
The Doctor read it carefully, then let it go, letting it sadly flutter to the floor. "There is a permit for having ponies on a leash in public," he got out. "This country is infected with much greater evil than I thought."
"I know her," Ditzy said.
The Doctor turned to Ditzy. "What?"
"The one on the leash. She was one of my students." She gulped. "I think I'm going to try talking to her."
The Doctor grabbed her shoulder as she moved away. "Remember," he said, "she doesn't know you."
Ditzy looked back. "I know."
She went after the couple, who were just heading out the back door. The Doctor followed close behind.
"H-Hello," Ditzy said. "Is your name Rainbow Dash?"
The two turned to her. Rainbow Dash, after briefly looking to the yellow pegasus, simply nodded. Ditzy suddenly noticed she was wearing an eyepatch.
"Oh my Luna!" Ditzy said, unable to restrain herself. "What happened to your eye!?"
Rainbow Dash averted her remaining eye. She looked to the yellow pegasus again, who gave Ditzy a chilling stare.
In a way that wasn't creepy at all, she said she had fed Rainbow Dash's eyeball to her pet rabbit, who had grown quite fond of the things.
"That makes sense," the Doctor said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Ditzy wondered how kidding he was. "Do… do you know a pony named Twilight Sparkle? Do you know who she is?"
Rainbow Dash stared at Ditzy, confused. The yellow pegasus nodded.
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth a couple times, as if speaking was no longer normal for her. "She's… a… princess." She took a step towards Ditzy. "Who… who are… you?"
The yellow pegasus tugged on her leash, and Rainbow Dash's face went pale with fear. They walked outside, no one daring to stop them.
After a pause, the Doctor said, "Who was that yellow one? She seems nice."
"Oh, her? She's Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness," Bob said. "She just has a certain… Fluttershyness, doesn't she?"
Ditzy looked at both of them like they were nuts.
– – – –
The Doctor and Ditzy tried to settle into their room. This mostly consisted of looking under the mattress and pillows for cockroaches and stuff.
"Tell me," Ditzy said, shaking her pillowcase and hoping nothing came out, "how would you usually react if someone told you they fed someone else's eyeball to their pet?"
The Doctor stopped. "Excuse me?"
"Just humor me."
The Doctor thought about it. "Well, I suppose that would depend on how sarcastic I thought they were being," he said. "It's still pretty shocking, though, so I'd probably get a little mad." He looked suspicious. "Why?"
Ditzy ignored that. "So, to reiterate, you would probably not calmly nod and say, 'that makes sense?'"
"What?"
"Because that's what you did about 15 minutes ago."
"Come on, don't be—" Realization dawned upon the Doctor's face. "Oh dear god, I did say that. Why would I say that?"
Ditzy put her pillow down. "I've been wondering the same thing."
The Doctor started pacing. "No, no, this is really strange. I didn't even remember doing that until you pointed it out." He looked around. "Is there some kind of mind control going on here? I haven't done anything else strange, have I?"
"Relatively speaking? No," Ditzy said. She sat on her bed. "This does remind me of a story I heard back home, though."
"A story?"
"Every pegasi knew it," Ditzy said. "In my flight class, there was this yellow pegasus. She was extremely shy—so much of a wallflower that hardly anyone noticed her. That's why no one noticed when she fell off a cloud. The adults searched around for days, but could never find her. She was presumed dead.
"But, rumor is, she didn't die. She fell into the Everfree forest and grew up as a feral pony. The isolation drove her insane, and she became a monster. She would lure in travelers with a sickly sweet voice, hardly louder than a whisper, that made people hear whatever they wanted to. Once ensnared, she would torture her victims for weeks, toying with them in every way imaginable, before finally…" Ditzy got in the Doctor's face for dramatic effect. "She would eat them alive, and they would enjoy it."
The Doctor was more shaken than he cared to admit. He laughed nervously. "Come on," he said. "That's ridiculous."
Ditzy got up. "Is it?" She walked around the Doctor. "Everyone in that year's class, including me, remembers a yellow pegasus who suddenly disappeared. And there really were a lot of unexplained deaths around the Everfree Forest, even where there were supposedly no monsters."
Ditzy stopped. "What I'm thinking is, what if, in this timeline, that yellow pegasus never fell from the sky? What if she grew up in civilization, like a normal pony, but had the same sadistic personality, and the same mind warping powers?" She looked at the Doctor. "Wouldn't that explain what we just saw?"
"Possibly," he said. "It's a bit hard to believe, though. How could she control people's minds? She's not a unicorn, so she doesn't have any magic."
"Maybe it's not her magic," Ditzy said. "Listen, what if—"
Suddenly, they heard what sounded like a wooden spoon banging against a pot, accompanied by Bob's obnoxious voice yelling, "Dinner! Dinner! Get it while it's fresh!"
"I must admit, I am feeling a bit peckish," the Doctor said. "Want to get something to eat?"
Ditzy blinked. "Sure?"
– – – –
The dinner was nothing like what the Doctor and Ditzy were expecting. Specifically, they were expecting edible food. What they got instead was some incomprehensible goulash.
"Make sure to eat it while it's still fresh!" Bob said with unwarranted enthusiasm.
"I don't see what difference it will make," the Doctor muttered under his breath.
Bob heard. He leaned over to the Doctor, who automatically scooted away. "It's even worse when it's not fresh," he said. "Trust me."
He then went on to comfort some of the other guests, who were also looking concerned.
The Doctor stared at his food. "You don't really think that SOS was just because the service at this hotel sucks, do you?"
Ditzy poked around her food a bit. It resisted a little too much for her liking. "It is definitely possible."
Suddenly, an earth pony with a hat and beard slammed the table in front of two. He glared at the Doctor and Ditzy, who recoiled in fear and confusion.
The pony pointed at Ditzy. "You," he said, with much passion. "You." He paused. "You destroyed my house, killed my wife, and took her unborn child with you. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Ditzy gaped, opening and closing her mouth in utter confusion.
The Doctor scratched his head. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
"The last name's Pie, if it rings any bells."
The Doctor mulled that over, until finally, the realization hit him. "You! You're Pinkie Pie's father!" The pony looked at him in confusion. "Or, at least, you were in that one timeline. But not this one. I think. What if…" He stopped. "Just nevermind all that."
Ecstasy Pie merely narrowed his eyes.
"That wasn't my fault, by the way," the Doctor said, prepared to run if need be. "You see this pony next to me? Ditzy?"
Ditzy cleared her throat.
"Er. Dr. Do?" Ditzy nodded. "Anyway, that wasn't her back then. It was a ridiculously powerful, practically immortal being posing as her." The Doctor leaned back. "I don't know why it wanted to destroy you and your family so badly, but there really wasn't much I could do about it."
Ecstasy Pie continued glaring at them for a few seconds, then suddenly became calm. "Oh, in that case it's fine," he said, sitting down. "If it was one of the princesses in disguise, I'm sure they knew what they were doing."
"Wait, I never—"
"Besides!" Ecstasy spread his arms. "In the end it did me nothing but good anyway! I've seen the light now. I've become a reverend!"
The Doctor could only sit there, mouth agape, as he considered what he just heard. "Excuse me?"
"Didn't you hear me? I'm a priest now!"
"I thought that's what you said," the Doctor said, concerned. "What, exactly, are you a reverend of?"
Reverend Pie looked confused. "The Church of Celestia. Obviously."
"Oh, yes, obviously," the Doctor said, vaguely gesturing towards Reverend Pie's hat and hoping it meant something.
Ditzy leaned back, disdain on her face. "So he's like the opposite of me," she muttered.
The Doctor looked at her. "The opposite?"
"I'm a Luna worshiper myself, but I'd never become a priest or anything."
"Right," the Doctor said, not understanding a word of this. He turned to Reverend Pie. "So, what caused you to suddenly… see the light?"
"It happened after I miraculously survived our house exploding," Reverend Pie said. He turned to Ditzy. "You probably don't know this, but your imposter decided to go and blow up our meth lab. You know, looking back, it was probably Luna. That sounds like the kind of crap she would pull."
Ditzy tried her best to hold back any religious comments.
"As I crawled out of the wreckage, I felt someone's hooves. I looked up, and there, bathed in the sunlight, was Celestia herself! Of course, I was instantly frozen in fear. Her intensity is hard to bear under normal circumstances, and I was on the verge of death. She looked down upon me, and asked what had happened. I tried to come up with a cover story, saying a fire had started or something, but Celestia, being all-knowing, instantly saw through it.
"'I could care less about your drug business,' she said. 'Just tell me everything that happened here. I think you know very well what I'm capable of if you don't cooperate.'
"So I told her everything. About you, the time traveler, and your companion, and our drug business, and how your imposter mixed up some chemicals and blew it all up. I started talking about how it all began, just to fill space, because I was so nervous, but Celestia stopped me.
"'That's enough,' she said, and began to walk away, extending her wings.
"I called out, desperately, asking why she had come to me. She turned back, looked at me, and uttered words I would never forget." He paused.
The Doctor grew impatient. "And they were…?"
Reverend Pie inhaled. "She told me, 'A fully grown pink pony just came out of my oven and said she was an abortion, and you were her father. It seemed worthy of investigation.' Then she flew away."
The Doctor and Ditzy looked at him in confusion. Ditzy in particular was completely unable to handle this. "Excuse me?"
"I have no idea what it means either," Reverend Pie said, shrugging. "She works in mysterious ways. But after seeing her in person, I forever believed in her strength. From that moment forward, I made it a practice to adopt her morals. From that moment forward, I embraced—"
The Doctor felt it would be prudent to stop him before he started ranting. "Oh, look at your food!" he said. "It's starting to… get cold! Better take care of that!"
Reverend Pie looked at him, an eyebrow raised, and uncomfortably shuffled back to his food.
Ditzy leaned into the Doctor. "What was that all about?"
"Your imposter kept trying to kill a pink pony named Pinkie Pie for some reason. Everywhere we went, she somehow managed to erase her from existence or turn her life into a living hell. Eventually, the timeline became so screwed up there was no possible way she could have been born. But somehow, she still existed, literally just popping out of nowhere. Out of an oven, apparently. This time, however, she was different."
Ditzy looked at the Doctor. "Actually, I was talking about you awkwardly sending the good reverend away."
The Doctor looked disappointed. "Oh." He started to poke his food around. Some of it scuttled away.
Ditzy rolled her eyes. "What do you mean, different?"
The Doctor perked up again. "She seemed to have some kind of… power. Not quite magic, but not quite technology either. I've only seen power like that once before—with a being that lives on a different plane of existence than us." He paused. "A god."
Ditzy remembered the pink pony that she saw in her classroom. The one that did nothing but sit completely still and stare. The one that no one else noticed. Was that Pinkie Pie? Did she know…?
At that moment, a blue-gray pony with bat wings walked by, clearly trying to forget the disgusting meal he just ate.
The Doctor tried to be polite, but he gawked. "Is that…?"
Ditzy tried to figure out what he found so unusual. "A batpony? Yes, it is. I take it you've never seen one before."
"I didn't think they actually existed," the Doctor said. "Someone told me about them, but I thought it was some kind of joke."
"A joke? Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows batponies were created by Princess Luna to work around some unionization loophole."
The Doctor couldn't tell whether Ditzy was kidding or not.
Meanwhile, the batpony had doubled around and was now staring at the Doctor. "Excuse me, are you the—"
"The Doctor? Yes," the Doctor said. "Do you know me too?"
"I…" The batpony looked nervous. "I don't know if I can say anything without my head exploding."
The Doctor decided to ignore that. "Tell me, because me and my friend are having an argument about this…" Ditzy looked offended. "Is it true that batponies were created by Princess Luna to work around some tax loophole or something?"
The batpony sighed. "Regrettably, yes. We were all grown in a lab, actually. First 20 years of our life spent in an artificial embryo, with the lab attendants tapping Shave and a Haircut against the glass as our only companionship."
The Doctor began wishing he hadn't sealed this universe in a bubble purely so that the inter-universal equivalent of the UN could come and cite this planet for something. "Sounds… tough."
"It's life. Also, we don't have names. Just numbers. I'm higher ranked, so mine's actually a rational, positive number, without any decimal points or Es or square roots or anything." He extended his hoof. "My name is Seven," he said. "Nice to meet you."
The Doctor and Seven shook hooves awkwardly. The Doctor thought about this a bit. "Say, what are you doing here? If you're working for one of the princesses, shouldn't you be at the capital or something?"
Seven looked like he was hit by a truck. "That's… I… that's…" He took a deep breath. "I've been given a vacation." He said it like it was a death sentence.
"Good for you?" the Doctor managed, noticing the oddly tense atmosphere.
"You don't need to pretend to be happy for me," Seven said. "I know what vacations mean around here. And I know I should probably not get too attached to anyone here. Goodbye." And with that, he ran off.
It was the Doctor's turn to be confused. "What was that all about?"
"Maybe he's afraid the princesses are trying to fire him," Ditzy said. "They can get quite… creative in their ways of doing so."
"Got that right," Bob said, who was suddenly behind them. The Doctor and Ditzy jerked. Bob looked at the table. "What's wrong with you two? You haven't even touched any of your food!"
Ditzy rapidly tried to change the subject. "Say, have you ever heard of a Twilight Sparkle? Probably not, she was just a friend of mine I lost touch with…"
Bob looked confused. "You mean Princess Twilight? Of course I know her. Everyone knows her."
"Yeah," Ditzy said, "specifically, I'm wondering about this thing where she's apparently a princess now."
"Man, you must've been living under a rock for the last couple years," Bob said. "A while ago, Celestia made Twilight a princess. It shocked everyone, because it was right after Twilight tried to stage a coup and overthrow Celestia. I guess Celestia saw it as a token of strength or something.
"It all started last year. One day, Celestia planned this great, huge event, but didn't tell anyone what it is. Fairly normal, for her at least. So anyone who's anyone came, there's all this fireworks and stuff, and then she led Twilight out. Now, Twilight was a bit of a national hero at this point, so everyone knew what she looked like. She definitely didn't have wings before."
"So, that was her coronation?" Ditzy said, trying to keep up.
Bob thought back. "Actually, now that I think about it… Celestia never actually called her a princess. Everyone just kind of assumed she was being coronated. Some people think Celestia still has something planned for her, but I don't know. It could be. Twilight did look a bit shaken up."
Ditzy sighed. "Well, thank you," she said. It was nice to know Twilight was doing better for herself in this world. "Oh, and do you know of a Soarin? He's still the captain of the Wonderbolts, right?"
"Oh, no," Bob said, laughing. "He got kicked out a while ago. Last I heard he was a homeless bum in Las Pegasus. He's probably dead by now." He noticed the look of utter horror on Ditzy's face. "Well, it's tough, but it's life."
Ditzy stared into space. "I think I'm going to go back up to our room," she said.
"Okay," the Doctor said, and let her walk up.
Bob looked at the stairway. "Was it something I said?"
"I think they were engaged," the Doctor said.
Bob blinked. "Oh." He thought back, trying to remember if he had heard anything about that, but couldn't. He changed the subject, growing oddly serious. "Listen, is it true? What you told me?"
"What?"
"Am I really going to die today?"
The Doctor looked a bit worried.
– – – –
Ditzy closed the door behind her, and leaned against it, closing her eyes. Dead? She didn't like Soarin much, especially after he cheated on her, but she never wanted him dead.
And Twilight. If Celestia really did have something planned for her, her life wasn't getting better at all…
Ditzy heard a knock.
"Hello?" she said, opening the door.
It was Fluttershy. She must've returned while they were eating. She asked if Ditzy had seen Rainbow Dash.
"Can't say I have," Ditzy said.
Fluttershy said Ditzy was lying.
"So? What if I am?"
Fluttershy threatened to disembowel Ditzy.
"That would require me to have anything to lose from that," Ditzy said, and slammed the door shut. Then she turned around and realized a particularly beat up Rainbow Dash had been behind her on a bed the whole time.
She shrieked, but Rainbow Dash flew over and covered her mouth before much could come of it.
"Don't… make her… come back," she said desperately.
Ditzy calmed down. "What are you doing here?"
"You're one of the… few that… she can't control… for some reason…" Rainbow Dash said. She began coughing. "Water… please…"
There was a small sink in the corner of the room. Ditzy grabbed a pathetic looking paper cup, filled it, and handed it to Rainbow Dash. She downed it almost instantly.
"Thank you," she said, setting it down. "It's been a while since I've drank that much water."
"What?"
Rainbow Dash scoffed. "Fluttershy keeps me at the very edge of life and death. I rarely get more than a sip of water a day."
Ditzy balked. "How can she get away with this?" she said.
"Are you kidding? It's Celestia's orders, and Fluttershy's her right hand mare. There's no escape." Rainbow Dash looked out the window. "Eventually, I'll have to go back to her. I'm sure I'll be punished for this. Who knows how. Fluttershy's creative. I can count on that." She smiled. "But she has one weakness. She won't let me die. I know that. She needs me. She needs to break me." Rainbow Dash looked at Ditzy. "So, I figured, I should take advantage of that to talk to you."
"Why me?"
"Because," Rainbow Dash said, "you seem to know me, and I don't remember you."
Ditzy bit her lips.
"You risked angering Fluttershy to keep me in here. You resisted her mind control. You know Twilight, too, but somehow you didn't even know she'd been coronated." She narrowed her eyes. "Who are you?"
Ditzy looked away. "It's… complicated."
"Tell me."
"I can't."
Rainbow Dash stood tall. "I risked my life to be get here."
Ditzy winced. "I can't."
"Why!?"
Ditzy was filled with shame. "Because it hurts too much."
They were both silent.
Rainbow Dash started slowly walking in circles around Ditzy. "Do you know about other dimensions?"
Ditzy lurched.
"This isn't the only world out there. There are other ones. Like the ones the humans come from. You do know about the humans, right?"
Ditzy nodded.
"I got sent to that world once. But it was an accident. It screwed me up. I had no memories, and my body had regressed. A human there took care of me. We grew close, but eventually, Celestia and my friends came to fetch me. I don't even want to think about what they did in that world before they found me, but anyway, they gave me a choice. I had to choose between him and home, so I chose home, and said goodbye.
"I had always wondered what became of him. Then Fluttershy came to own me. As part of one of her little games, she made me torture a human. I didn't know who it was. She had removed his vocal cords, so I couldn't recognize his voice, and tarred and feathered him, so I couldn't recognize his scent. I figured, I didn't have loyalty to any humans here, and anything was worth her letting up on me, so I played along. I did everything she told me, until finally it was over, and he was dead. I was happy. I thought she might take it easy for me for a while.
"Then she removed his mask."
Ditzy's skin grew cold.
"That monster made me murder the man I loved in cold blood! And do you know what her endgame is? Do you!? She wants to break me so much that I work at her factory for systematically murdering children—and enjoy it! So don't talk to me about pain. Don't ever talk to me about pain, because I doubt you can match that!"
Ditzy glared. "I might have been responsible for all that," she said. "How's that?"
Rainbow Dash stopped. "What?"
"I also came from another world. The only difference between our two worlds is that, in this world, I was killed at a young age, and you never got to know me." Ditzy looked down. "That one event changed your whole life. I don't think you would've ever found yourself here."
"How?"
"In that world, you were so obsessed with me you never even got your cutie mark."
At that, they both heard loud, slow knocks coming from the door.
"That's probably Fluttershy," Rainbow Dash said. "I'd better leave before she tries to hurt us more than she already will."
Ditzy nodded. Rainbow Dash opened the door to see an angry looking Fluttershy holding a riding crop. They walked away, and shut the door.
The Doctor then entered the room, looking down the hall, confused. "Well," he said, "I found out some things I didn't want to. Damn time travel. How're you doing?"
Ditzy turned to the Doctor, tears in her eyes, and collapsed against him, sobbing.
– – – –
Fluttershy had her head against the wall, listening. She congratulated Rainbow Dash on her technique.
"It wasn't intentional," Rainbow Dash said.
Still, Fluttershy went on, the various ways she had attacked Ditzy's psyche were quite effective…
"I said it wasn't intentional," Rainbow Dash snapped. "I'm not like you."
Fluttershy asked if she had warned Ditzy.
"Of course not."
Fluttershy grinned. She said maybe they weren't so different after all.
"How?"
Fluttershy asked why she hadn't warned anyone.
"Because… because…"
Fluttershy asked if it was because of the inevitable punishment if she did so.
"…yes."
Fluttershy said that was proof. Before, Rainbow Dash would gladly have sacrificed her life to save others. She was the Element of Loyalty, after all! But now, she was thinking more selfishly. She was beginning to see the world for what it was.
"For what?"
Fluttershy smiled a wide, sick grin. "A FAÇADE, MADE BY CELESTIA TO TORTURE US ALL.
"A BEAUTIFUL FAÇADE…"
– – – –
Bob walked down the hallway, holding some laundry. He whistled. This day had been a good day. The hotel had more business than it had in years! If these guests had a good time, who knows? Things could be looking up.
He opened his bedroom door, took a step inside, and froze.
"You've been a naughty, naughty boy, my little human…"
– – – –
The Doctor was rudely awakened by loud, rapid knocking on his door. Ditzy, roused from her sleep, sat up.
"Well?" she said. "Get it."
"You get it," the Doctor muttered under his breath, but by time he was done he was already turning the doorknob.
It was Reverend Pie.
The Doctor braced himself for massive amounts of stupidity. "What do you want, and you realize how late it is?" he said.
"I can't find Bob anywhere!" Reverend Pie said.
The Doctor didn't even bother asking what he needed Bob for. "Maybe he's, I don't know, sleeping?"
"I tried his bedroom, but it was locked. And I heard… strange noises from inside."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "What kind of strange noises?"
"Unearthly moaning. The bed creaking and snapping. Maybe some glass breaking."
The Doctor walked out. "Maybe he's getting some," he muttered. "More than I can say for myself."
Ditzy followed groggily.
"Well?" Reverend Pie whispered to her. "Are you just going to let him get away with a comment like that?"
"Yes," Ditzy said. "I was about to say something considerably dirtier."
They quickly reached Bob's bedroom. The Doctor started wildly rapping on the door. "Hey, hey, Bob! Reverend Pie wants you for something, or something. I don't know. It probably isn't worth it. Just get him off my back for me."
The door opened slightly.
The Doctor glared at Reverend Pie. "Locked, huh?" Reverend Pie shrugged, and the Doctor pushed the door open some more. "Well, let's see if there's a problem."
There were, in fact, many problems with the room, but the first one any of them noticed were the black, plated, slimy tentacles forcing their way in through the window. Upon being noticed, they instantly pulled back, revealing Bob, or what was left of him, at least.
Ditzy stared, slack jawed, while the men shrieked wildly. Seven flew down from upstairs.
"What happ—" he started, but it quickly became obvious. "Oh. Oh dear."
Fluttershy came from behind, presumably also awoken by the commotion. Instead of being shocked, however, she let out an extremely inappropriate sigh of ecstasy.
Everyone stared.
"We… were just on our way outside," Rainbow Dash said. She attempted to pull the now drooling Fluttershy out of eyeshot. "Come on now."
With considerable effort, she managed to get them both outside.
When they were both safely out of earshot, Reverend Pie said, "Is it really safe for them to go outside?"
"I think they can handle themselves," Ditzy got out. She felt bad for Rainbow Dash, but if what she said was correct, being next to Fluttershy was the safest place she could be. The thought made her shiver. "We've got to worry about ourselves."
The Doctor, however, was just beginning to get into his element. "Okay, everyone stand back," he said, entering the room. "I'm going to investigate." He stopped, and turned around. "Isn't someone going to stop me?"
"I wasn't," Seven said.
"Please, by all means," Reverend Pie said.
The Doctor looked a bit disappointed, and Ditzy rolled her eyes and entered the room.
"So, what was that thing?" she said, trying to start conversation.
"I don't know," the Doctor said. "I've never seen anything quite like it. Those plates…"
"Oh, come on, you have to know. Didn't you tell me you've been to all these different places and stuff?"
"I told you. This place is different."
They looked at Bob's corpse.
"Very different."
They continued looking at Bob's corpse.
It was actually so completely disgusting they weren't even scared by it. Just confused. Their ignorance of human anatomy helped this.
Ditzy's desire to know what she was up eventually overrode her desire to vomit. "What's… that stuff?"
"What stuff?"
"You know."
"I really don't."
"That… white… stuff."
The Doctor blinked, and slowly turned to Ditzy. "It isn't."
"I didn't say anything."
"It can't be."
"I don't want it to be."
"It's utterly impossible. There isn't a single tentacle creature that actually does that."
"Prove it."
The Doctor, after some hesitation, walked over to the body and prodded it a bit. He sniffed. He stopped, and his face fell. "It is."
"What in Equestria are you talking about!?" Reverend Pie yelled in typical naivety. Seven had caught on long ago, and was staring into space, resigned to his fate.
The Doctor took a deep breath. It would do no good to hide it. "Okay," he said. "Okay. Okay." He took another deep breath. "Okay." He pointed to the body. "You see that… substance on the body?"
"Yes. What is it?"
The Doctor groaned, and looked around awkwardly. "You remember those… noises you heard from outside?"
Reverend Pie nodded.
The Doctor started gesticulating with his hooves.
Reverend Pie looked confused for a bit. Then his face lit up. "Oh! Oh." He looked at the body. "Oh." He raised an eyebrow. "I thought those only existed in—"
"Clearly not."
"Why would it—?"
"I don't know!"
Seven felt the need to speak up. "Excuse me, the lady appears to be stepping in…"
Ditzy suddenly realized that wet feeling around her hooves wasn't her sweating. "Ggaaaah!"
The Doctor's face twisted. He examined the puddle closer. "Wait, but that's…"
"I know what it is, thank you very much!" Ditzy yelled, blushing. "I've tasted far more than I've cared to," she muttered.
The Doctor furrowed his brow. "But, if that's there…" He looked at the corpse. "…and that's there…"
The Doctor and Ditzy looked at each other.
– – – –
"Okay, so this is what we know," the Doctor said. "Bob went into his room, probably carrying some laundry, and once inside he was… accosted by two… things, a male and a female. We know this from the… evidence they left behind." He cleared his throat. "We know that at least one of them is giant black plated tentacle creature." He thought. "Those plates still bother me, you know."
Ditzy held back a laugh. "Maybe it's 'for her pleasure.'"
The Doctor ignored her. "From the state of room, and the state of the body, we can assume that one of the creatures has incredible strength and vitality."
"And the other one is a giant tentacle monster," Ditzy quipped, eliciting a glare from the Doctor.
"You're not taking this seriously, are you?"
"I'm sorry, it's just so ridiculous," Ditzy said.
"She's got a point, though," Reverend Pie said. "I've been around the block a few times, and let me tell you, that puddle is not normal."
"If that was a normal pony, that would be half their body weight," Seven added.
"Okay," the Doctor said, exasperated, "so we're dealing with two incredibly powerful ruthless depraved creatures. Got any ideas?"
Seven almost said something, then stopped. He opened his mouth a few more times, not quite sure whether to let it out or not.
The Doctor looked irritated. "What? What is it?"
"Well, when you said powerful, ruthless, and depraved, I immediately thought of the princesses."
The room stopped.
"You can't mean Luna," Ditzy said, a little miffed.
"No, you mean Cadance, don't you?" Reverend Pie said. "She is the princess of love. I bet she's into all this stuff."
The Doctor felt vaguely offended for some reason. It felt almost like those headaches he got before the timeline changed. He ignored it.
Seven stirred. He knew what he was going to say next wouldn't be good. "No. Celestia."
The room stopped again.
Ditzy thought about it. "Now that you mention it…"
Reverend Pie looked at her. "This does fit her modus operandi."
Ditzy begin getting excited. "Not to mention, that crazy yellow pegasus is affiliated with her, isn't she? Maybe she has something to do with this."
Reverend Pie tilted his head. "Crazy? She seemed fine to me."
Ditzy almost objected, but the Doctor interrupted her. "Wait," he said. "You're saying Celestia, the benevolent ruler of this country, could be behind this attack on a single hotel? That's ridiculous!"
The remaining three looked at him. "Why?"
The Doctor worked up some righteous indignation. "She would never do anything that cruel."
The three stared.
"Doctor," Ditzy said, "are you feeling all right?"
The Doctor turned to Reverend Pie. "Come on, you're a Celestia worshiper, aren't you?" he said. "Stand up for her!"
"Er," Reverend Pie said, "you do realize no one actually worships her for being good, don't you?"
The Doctor paused. "What?"
"She embodies complete and utter selfishness. How else do you think you get to run the world? She works for herself, and no one else, and that's what we strive to copy," Reverend Pie said. "Also, she is literally God, so every day she doesn't get bored and decide to kill us all is a blessing."
The Doctor blinked. "That is the worst religion ever."
"At least we're better than the Luna worshipers," Reverend Pie said, eyeing Ditzy. "All those late night rituals, covered in tribal painting…"
"Watch it, wanker!" she yelled.
"Okay, I get it!" the Doctor said. "Celestia could be behind this! I don't even know why I thought she couldn't, it's not like I've met her or anything…"
"It's probably just the mind control," Seven said absentmindedly. "How else could you have not noticed gaining a cutie mark?" He froze.
The Doctor twitched. "What?"
Seven stood completely still. "You might want to take a couple steps back. I said too much."
"You what?"
Then Seven's head exploded.
The Doctor, Ditzy and Reverend Pie just stood there as several pieces of brain landed on them.
"Skeptical now!?" Ditzy yelled.
– – – –
Fluttershy watched the spectacle through binoculars. She giggled. She said her favorite part was when they began to lose hope. She asked Rainbow Dash what her favorite part was.
"My favorite part is when it's over," Rainbow Dash said.
Fluttershy said that was also a good choice. That was when you got to do whatever you wanted with the corpses. She took a sip from her shot glass and asked Rainbow Dash if she wanted any cider.
"No thank you."
Fluttershy said that was a shame, and drank the rest. She threw the empty glass behind her, letting it shatter on the forest floor.
The two were perched on a high tree branch a good distance from the hotel. It was deep in the night, but in the distance they could make out the tentacle creature and a smaller figure flittering around it.
Fluttershy asked if Rainbow Dash knew that the tentacle creature used to be a human.
"I know now," she said. "I wish I didn't."
Fluttershy said he used to be his world's most prolific serial rapist, until he came here and was foolish enough to—
"Fluttershy, why are we here?"
Fluttershy stopped.
"You said this was a reward, but I think you could've guessed I would never enjoy this. What's your plan?"
Fluttershy asked if being let out of the room was nice.
"Well, yes, but—"
Fluttershy asked if seeing the master in action was nice.
"Of course not! It's sick. It's disgusting!"
Fluttershy undid Rainbow Dash's leash. She also threw it into the forest.
"THEN STOP HER."
– – – –
Ditzy, the Doctor and Reverend Pie stood there, looking at the carnage. The headless body of Seven fell to the floor, bleeding everywhere.
"Dear Luna," Ditzy got out.
"I guess it's to be expected," Reverend Pie said. He laughed nervously. "If Celestia has decided we're going to die, we're going to die. It's that simple."
Ditzy looked at him. "But why…?"
"She gets bored. That's probably the only reason she doesn't kill us all. It would be too boring."
The Doctor slammed a hoof against the wall. "Dammit…"
Ditzy and Reverend Pie looked at him.
"I've gotten out of worse, much worse," he said, "but I didn't want there to be any more victims. I don't want anyone else to die. I'll get us out of this, just you watch!"
Reverend Pie looked at him with hope, but right then, a tentacle burst through the window, grabbed him, and whipped outside.
– – – –
Rainbow Dash laughed nervously. "What do you mean, stop her?"
"YOU KNOW WHO I'M TALKING ABOUT."
"What are you talking about? I don't stand a chance against her!"
"IF YOU FIGHT HARD ENOUGH, SHE WILL STOP. WE AGREED." Fluttershy smiled. "OR… LET'S PUT IT IN A DIFFERENT WAY. IF SHE NOTICES YOU MORE THAN SHE WOULD A FLY, SHE WILL SPARE THIS ONE HOTEL."
Rainbow Dash swallowed. "And if she doesn't?"
"SHE WILL SWAT YOU. LIKE A FLY."
Rainbow Dash stared at the hotel, completely still. She tentatively extended her wings. For the longest time, she just looked at the carnage.
"YOU CAN'T, CAN YOU? NOT ANYMORE."
"Shut up."
"YOU CAN'T SACRIFICE YOURSELF."
"Shut up."
"YOU CAN'T SAVE ANYONE."
"Shut up!"
"NOT EVEN YOUR LITTLE PET HUMAN!"
Rainbow Dash punched Fluttershy in the face, sending her flying into the tree trunk. Leaves rained down. "Shut up!"
They both stood there for a while, panting. Rainbow Dash hoped she did some damage, but Fluttershy was, of course, smiling. One of her eyes was half closed, and her nose was bleeding. When some of the blood reached her mouth, she slowly extended her tongue.
"GOOD," she said. "NOW, IF YOU HAVE ANY CONSCIENCE LEFT, DO THAT TO HER. IF NOT, RUN."
In the distance, the tentacle monster roared, and Rainbow Dash heard it. The laughter. It bounced off the mountain walls, a high-pitched panting shriek that penetrated the air for miles.
She flew in the opposite direction as quickly as she could.
Fluttershy giggled.
– – – –
The Doctor and Ditzy were alone now.
Everyone else had died. Bob. Seven. Reverend Pie. Who knew where Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were? For all they knew, those two were in on this. Anything seemed possible.
They huddled against a wall.
There, they came up with a brilliant plan. At least in theory. In reality, there seemed to be little useful to do. All the Doctor had on him was his sonic screwdriver. Normally, that would be of some help, but most of the hotel was made of wood, which it was useless against. The only things remaining were a bunch of kitchen appliances, which even the Doctor couldn't make useful.
Negotiating seemed useless. They were up against a tentacle creature that appeared to have no rational thought and, for lack of a better term, the god of this world. Not exactly unusual for the Doctor, but at the very least he needed some leverage, which he currently lacked. He had not only failed to save anybody, but he had failed to notice anything unusual was going on until it was far too late.
The building creaked.
It was risky, but they were going to have to head outside. If he was able to get to the TARDIS, he would be able to do something, even if it was just save themselves. He felt bad enough for what happened to Ditzy…
Ditzy stirred. "Do you hear that?"
The Doctor turned. "What?"
"The building."
It was subtle, but the entire building was creaking, as if it was letting out a long, drawn out moan. Occasionally, wood would snap.
The Doctor looked out the window. He saw the shiny black plates.
"It's squeezing the building," he said.
"You were thinking of going outside, weren't you?"
The Doctor looked down. "I was too late. As usual."
Ditzy smiled. She closed her eyes. "Don't worry about it," she said. "Maybe this is what should have happened from the beginning."
"Don't talk like that."
"I can never go back home, can I? No one would know. It would be natural. The only natural thing."
"Don't talk like that!"
There was a loud snap as the ceiling gave. The Doctor lunged at Ditzy, just barely saving her from a falling beam.
The two panted, the Doctor on top of Ditzy.
Tears began to form in her eyes. "Why?"
The Doctor smiled. "I have to have some hope."
Then he noticed something. His ears perked.
Ditzy's eyes widened. "What? What is it?"
"I've got it!" the Doctor said. "I've got it! I know how we're going to get out of here!"
"What!?"
"It was slight, but when I said I had to have some hope, the tentacles hesitated!"
"So?"
"Don't you see? That creature feeds off of negative emotions! That's why it goes to so much trouble to—"
Ditzy blinked. "You're not saying we're going to fight against this creature with hope, are you?"
The Doctor tried to think of a better way to word that, but couldn't. "Er, yes."
Ditzy saw something, and gained the composure of the completely screwed. She put a hoof on the Doctor's shoulder. "Okay, we don't have much time, so let me briefly explain to you the problem with that plan," she said. "If you were a creature that fed off of fear, what would you do if your victims began to get hope?"
The Doctor looked at her, confused.
She grabbed his head and turned it towards the window. "I'd probably do something like THAT!"
The Doctor didn't have much time to react, but what was clear was that the main body of the creature was lunging towards them extremely quickly, especially for its girth. The Doctor briefly wondered how many tons it weighed before it crashed into the hotel, completely breaking down the wall and sending glass flying everywhere. The place collapsed quickly as it repeatedly heaved against it, emitting desperate screams as it did so.
The Doctor suddenly realized he was still alive, and tried to move. He couldn't. One of the tentacles was wrapped around him, copiously emitting goo in random directions. The Doctor tried not to think about how wet he was getting, and looked for Ditzy. He heard her above him, and saw that she had gotten it worse than he did. Two tentacles were grabbing her from different directions, almost trying to pull her apart, and she was positively soaked.
"Don't worry!" the Doctor yelled. "If I'm right, it won't want to kill us for a while!"
"Very comforting!" Ditzy screamed, struggling with all her might. Then she looked ahead. "Doctor?"
"Yes?"
"What is that?"
It was then the Doctor noticed the creature had a mouth. At least, that was the polite way of describing it. That appeared to be where a good portion of his fluids were coming from.
It quivered, releasing a stream that hit the Doctor and Ditzy head on, and began to open.
They screamed.
Before they knew it, their world was very dark and very, very wet. When they stopped tumbling through the creature's insides, they weren't quite sure if they had hit any sort of solid ground or if they had just been glued in place by its secretions.
"Oh yes," Ditzy said, coughing and spitting out a bunch of stuff, "it feeds on emotions."
The Doctor was still struggling with what appeared to be a giant ball of phlegm attached to his face.
"What I wouldn't give to be dying as a penniless, starving bum right now! At least that would have some dignity!"
"Shut up!" the Doctor yelled, basically free now. He managed to separate himself from the wall. "We're still alive. What's the worst that could happen?"
There was the sound of a tidal wave approaching.
"You just had to say that," Ditzy said.
The walls, if any sane person could call them that, started convulsing, and a wave of what was hopefully water swept the two off their feet. It was impossible to tell where they were going—they were being tumbled around too much. The Doctor had the vague feeling they were going up.
His suspicions were confirmed when they were spit out of the creature's mouth at a ludicrously high velocity. Before either of them had much time to react, they were slammed into the branches of a particularly large tree, shaken, but not stirred.
Ditzy tried to shake herself off, but quickly realized she would need quite a few showers to feel clean after all that.
The Doctor was gaping. "Wha…? How…? Why…?"
Ditzy noticed a small shape flying around the creature. It started to fly towards them at what looked like about mach 10. They heard the sound barrier break, and all the trees shook.
She grabbed the Doctor. "TARDIS! Now!"
They jumped down from the tree and started running as fast as they could go. Behind them, they could hear wing beats, and trees being knocked to the ground. Ditzy desperately hoped the Doctor knew where he was going.
Luckily, after some particularly thick underbrush, they reached the clearing where they parked the TARDIS. The Doctor got out his key, opened the door, and they both jumped inside. He slammed the door shut just in time. They stood there as they heard something ram against it repeatedly, angrily. Even the inside of the TARDIS shook.
"Don't worry," the Doctor said. "It can't get inside. The TARDIS is impenetrable."
"I'd like to make sure of that," Ditzy said, approaching the control panel. "We're leaving. Now."
"But—"
"We don't stand a chance against those things and you know it! If we're going to strike back, we need to at least be alive!"
The Doctor grimaced. He walked over to the control panel, flipped a couple levers, and the TARDIS began to dematerialize. A couple seconds later, the ramming finally stopped.
Ditzy slumped. "Finally. We're safe."
"Relatively speaking," the Doctor said. "Personally, I don't feel safe on any planet with things like that on it."
Ditzy looked at the Doctor. "Do you really think it was her out there?"
"Who?"
"Celestia."
The Doctor was silent.
"I mean, I know she's a bit eccentric, but this?" Ditzy said. "I have trouble believing this."
The Doctor looked up. "It could be. If it was…" He shook his head. "I can only be glad she's trapped in this universe."
"Trapped?"
"Yeah, that's probably why I—"
"She's not trapped."
The Doctor turned. "What?"
"Rainbow Dash told me she went to the human world once."
The Doctor's face fell. "And by 'she,' you mean…?"
"Celestia, obviously."
– – – –
Rainbow Dash flew away extremely quickly, her surroundings almost a complete blur. She avoided trees out of pure instinct. She didn't care if she hit anything. She knew Fluttershy would punish her, but it would be worth it. She wanted to get away from that place, even if only temporarily. Anywhere but there. Please. Anywhere but there. The things she was hearing behind her. Oh god…
It was then she noticed the light. A bright, rectangular light in the middle of forest for some reason.
She couldn't stop herself fast enough to avoid hitting it. She braced herself, but instead of colliding against it, she suddenly found herself in a large room filled with railings and platforms and an odd pulsating cylinder in the center.
There was one other person in the room. A gray pegasus with blonde hair and a thick bandage over her eyes. Despite obstensibly not being able to see, she was clearly looking right at Rainbow Dash.
"What!?" Ditzy yelled. "You're kicking me out of the TARDIS!?"
The Doctor rubbed his head. "Well, not kicking you out, per se…"
"Is this about me not telling you about Celestia soon enough? Because, trust me, as soon as we weren't running for our lives from a crazed tentacle sex monster, I told you as soon as I could!"
"That's not it!" the Doctor said. "You told me everything… admirably. It's just, I thought this universe was completely sealed off from the others, and it isn't. I need to do something about that."
"What does that have to do with me?"
"It's a bit complicated," the Doctor said.
Ditzy sat down. "I have time."
The Doctor sighed. "Your doppelgänger accidentally opened a rift in spacetime, one that's slowly draining the human world and depositing it here. At first, I wasn't worried about it, since it seemed to deal only with living humans, and the rate at which they were being whisked from their world was slow enough it would not significantly impact their population."
"And now?" Ditzy said.
"Now I know beings from this world can go to the human world and back," the Doctor said. "Considering what happened at the hotel, that is a bit worrying."
"So you want to seal the rift," Ditzy continued. "Somehow."
The Doctor nodded. "Unfortunately, I've done this before," he said. "I need to cross the rift to seal it."
Ditzy began to see where this was going, and she did not like it.
"Once I get to the other side, I need some way to get back. While technically, yes, I could probably get back on my own, it will be a lot safer if I have an accomplice on this side with some equipment to assist my passage." The Doctor looked at Ditzy. "Someone like you."
Ditzy winced. She could see the logic in it. "But couldn't you get someone else…?"
The Doctor put a hoof on Ditzy's shoulder. "I trust you, Ditzy," he said. "And you're an astrophysicist. There couldn't be a more perfect person for the job." He sighed. "I know this is hard, but… I need you to do this for me. Okay?"
Ditzy found it difficult to argue.
– – – –
After taking a couple more showers to wash the last of the tentacle creature's fluids off of her, Ditzy found herself outside of the TARDIS, with three large metal suitcases piled in front of her.
"I've left instructions in the third box," the Doctor said. "They're pretty technical, but they probably won't give you much trouble. Oh, and be sure to open the top box first. Got to go. Good luck!"
The Doctor slammed the TARDIS door shut, and with its signature groaning, the blue box slowly faded away.
And with that, the Doctor was out of Ditzy's life.
She looked at the boxes. She knew it was probably best to wait a bit, but she couldn't resist. Immediately, she opened the top one. There, on top of some indeterminate machines, was something Ditzy couldn't believe. It was a large, wrapped present, with "To Ditzy" written on the front.
There was a letter attached. Ditzy ripped it off and read it to herself.
Dear Ditzy,
I'm sorry I had to leave you behind like this, but I hope I've made it clear that the fate of the world hangs in the balance of what I'm about to do next. Whatever happens, I cannot let them run free.
I know how lonely you'll get without me, so I'm leaving you a memento. I realize I might've said some insensitive things to you, and for that I apologize. Everyone's literary tastes are different, after all.
Thank you, The Doctor
At the words "literary tastes," Ditzy's stomach began to churn. She slowly unwrapped to the present, trying to convince herself that no, it couldn't be, this couldn't be her last memento of the Doctor…
She opened the present to reveal that stupid book about trains she was reading.
She grabbed it and chucked it into a nearby lake.
– – – –
The Doctor's procedure for choosing new companions was long and complicated. At least in theory. In reality, the process was quite ad hoc, especially when he was stressed.
"You," the Doctor said, pointing to a completely random pony in a café. "You look bored. Want to see my time machine?"
She was a cyan unicorn, with light, almost white hair, and a picture of a harp as a cutie mark. She looked up from her tea. "Sure."
"What?"
The pony got out of her seat. "I said okay. Where's your time machine?"
The Doctor was a bit shocked. No one had reacted this way before. He wasn't about to argue with it, though. "Right this way," he said, and the two walked off.
After the cyan pony left, Bon-Bon walked up to the table and noticed that Lyra's half filled drink was there, but Lyra was not. "Dammit, not again," she muttered.
– – – –
"My name is Lyra Heartstrings," Lyra said, walking next to the Doctor. "What's yours?"
"The Doctor."
"Doctor what?"
"Doctor who," the Doctor said automatically.
"What?"
"Everyone says 'Doctor who.'"
Lyra decided to drop the subject. The two continued walking a bit in silence. After a while, she said, "So, where are we going first?"
"We need to go to the human world," the Doctor said.
Lyra balked. "The human world? Why would you want to go there? I've heard things, you know. It sounds awful."
"We're not going to sightsee," the Doctor said. "Surely you know that humans have been randomly appearing in this country for a while?"
Lyra nodded.
"I want to fix that. To do that, I need to go to the human world." He looked at Lyra. "I'll need your help."
Lyra looked surprised. "My help?"
The Doctor pointed to her horn. "I'll need to use your magic," he said. "As you probably noticed, I don't have any magic of my own."
They continued walking for a bit.
"So, just to make sure," Lyra said, "'time machine' wasn't just some euphemism for your penis?"
The Doctor just about did a spit take, even though he wasn't drinking anything. "Excuse me?"
Lyra cocked her head, as if she was reevaluating her interest in this expedition. Then she looked at the Doctor. "Now that I think about it, don't I know you from somewhere?"
"Oh, that's normal," the Doctor said, waving a hoof. "Time travel screws with your sense of déjà vu a bit."
"No, I don't think that's it," Lyra said. "It's nothing French. I just think your voice sounds familiar…"
"I really doubt—"
"That's it!" Lyra said. "I remember, when I was six, you came up to my house, talked to my mom, and said something about letting some monster stay with us or something."
"That was you!?" the Doctor said, who had, until now, remembered her as "that child with horrible judgment."
"Yep, that was me!" Lyra said. "I guess this was fate, wasn't it?"
The Doctor didn't want to legitimize that with a response. He had a unicorn that was willing to travel with him, and that was enough. Although, in retrospect, he probably should have asked that librarian first. She seemed a lot more reasonable.
Finally, they reached the TARDIS. It was sitting straight smack dab in the middle of town square. The townspeople were walking by, seemingly oblivious to it, even though it was inconveniently blocking nearly every path.
"It's got temporal distortion… thingies on it," the Doctor said, his memory failing him for a moment. Lyra looked completely unfazed. The Doctor smirked. "Wait until you see what's inside," he said.
The Doctor put his key in the slot, turned it, and opened the door. He walked inside. Lyra followed. Inside the small blue box, she suddenly found herself in a huge, multi-story room, covered in giant fake tree coat hangers, girders, and a cylindrical control panel in the center.
The Doctor waited. "Yes," he said, trying to egg her on, "it's bigger on the inside than the outside."
Lyra smirked. "That's what he said," she said.
The Doctor's face fell. "What?"
"Well, you know… it wouldn't make any sense to say 'that's what she said,' because she wouldn't be getting…"
"No, I'm just amazed you can crack dirty jokes when you're confronted with a space bending time machine," the Doctor said.
"Oh," Lyra said. "Well, that happened to me last night, so I just thought of it. And…"
The Doctor was missing Ditzy more with every passing second. "Let's just get this over with," he said. He pushed down a lever, and the front door closed and the TARDIS begin shaking. "We're heading up, near the space-time rift," the Doctor said. "Yes, this thing can travel through space as well," he added, hoping to elicit a response.
All he got was an unenthusiastic "cool."
After a couple seconds, the instruments registered them as being in the correct place, and the Doctor moved the lever back down, stopping their movement. "Now," he said, "open the front door."
Lyra obliged. They were a couple yards above a barren mountain range. "I don't see anything," Lyra said.
The Doctor was checking his screens. "Look closer," he said.
Lyra squinted, until finally, she could vaguely see some sparkly things in the air. "Is it supposed to look all sparkly?" she said.
"Not at all," the Doctor said. "We're waiting for something more obvious to happen."
Then a human came into existence at a random point in the sky and fell to the ground.
"Like that," the Doctor said. He ran over to the front door. "Do you remember where that guy appeared from?"
Lyra, finally looking a bit shaken, nodded.
"Now," the Doctor said, "I've moved us a little closer that location. I want you to stick your horn out there and emit some strong A-type magic."
Lyra looked at him like he was nuts. "A-type magic?"
The Doctor looked worried. "Didn't you learn runes in school?"
"What, like those ancient scribbly things on temples and stuff?"
The Doctor ruffled a hoof through his hair. "No, no… it's like a circuit, no, a stored procedure… no, wait, that doesn't… it's a system where anyone can draw these circles and things, and if you get them just right… okay, well, let me think…" He tried to think back to when his body was a unicorn's, and tried to think of an A-type spell she would already know. "Do you know any… transmutation spells?"
"Oh! Oh! I can turn carbonated drinks into griffon blood!" she said, then realized how strange that must have sounded. "For… reasons."
"No, it's okay. I'm sure every unicorn learns that spell at some point," the Doctor lied. "Now do that to the spot where the rift is."
Lyra looked at him. "But I don't want to turn anything into blood here."
"Don't worry, you don't have to. Just focus on emitting a similar kind of energy," the Doctor said. Lyra looked confused, but she nodded again, and looked outside. "And… now."
She stuck her horn out, and it began to glow. Almost immediately, part of the sky opened up into a blinding light and sucked the TARDIS inside of it. The two screamed as they were thrown about every which direction inside, until finally, it stopped, and they looked out to see themselves above a large, urbanized human city.
"What?" Lyra said, for once completely amazed. "But… this…"
"This is the human world," the Doctor said, feeling in his element for the first time in half a year.
– – – –
"I swear, he disappeared!"
"Come on, people don't just disappear. You know that."
"No, no, I was there. He was walking across the street, jaywalking like usual, when a car came up and…"
"Hold on, hold on. You're not going to tell me him 'disappearing' was him getting flattened under the car, are you?"
"No. Right before the car hit him, he just vanished. Like… snap. Like a jump cut, you know, like in those old movies."
"You're being stupid."
"I am not! Haven't you heard those rumors? Everyone else's seeing this happen too. And you know what happened to Obama…"
"That was different. Watch, next you'll be telling me you saw shit drop out of the sky or something."
The TARDIS chose that convenient moment to land in the middle of the alleyway. It sent bunches of papers flying everywhere, and set off a couple car alarms in the distance. After a couple seconds, the front door opened, and out came two small talking…
"Believe me now?"
"I don't believe me now."
The Doctor and Lyra looked around the empty, seedy alleyway. "Are you sure we're safe here?" Lyra said.
The Doctor scoffed. "We aren't that far into the ghetto."
"No, I mean, is the atmosphere safe for us to breathe or anything…"
"Can you breathe?"
Lyra thought about it. "Yes."
"Then we're good." The Doctor looked up. "If the humans can breathe fine in Equestria, our atmospheres must be similar enough." He suddenly noticed some extra presences, and looked to the left to see to some very scared looking hobos huddling against a wall.
"Am I high right now?" one of them said. "I have to be high right now."
"Possibly, but that has nothing to do with me," the Doctor said. "Tell me, have you two seen anything strange lately?"
The two looked at the Doctor, then glanced at the still smoking TARDIS.
"I mean aside from me," the Doctor said. "Like… people disappearing."
"A friend of mine disappeared the other day," one of them managed. "He was about to get hit by a car. Poor Chester…"
The Doctor thought it over. "Was there anything unusual about this Chester?"
The two froze. They weren't quite sure where to start.
The Doctor was a bit worried for them. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to," he said.
"Can we run away?" one of them said.
The Doctor looked confused. "Sure?"
And the two hobos ran away, screaming, arms flailing.
"Well, that was a bit odd," the Doctor said.
"Maybe they just aren't used to seeing ponies," Lyra said, walking around, looking at the extremely decrepit alleyway.
"Possibly, but I've heard a lot of the humans that arrive in your world already know a lot about it, so they must have some contact with us…"
"What's this?" Lyra said.
The Doctor looked over. "It's a fire escape," he said, drawing on his knowledge of urban areas from his world. "When there's a fire, you push the stairways down and you can run down to the street."
"Then why are the stairways pushed down?"
The Doctor took a closer look and noticed that, yes, the stairways were indeed pushed down. "Let's investigate," he said.
They slowly ascended the fire escape, passing floor after floor of boarded-up windows. As they got higher, they could see more of the surrounding city, and could make out, in the distance, a completely white building with an immaculate garden surrounding it. Somehow, it gave the impression of looking extremely important. After a while, they reached the top of the fire escape, and were greeted by a single door.
"What do you think it means?" Lyra said.
"It must be something extremely important," the Doctor lied. "Let's check it out." He tried to grab the doorknob a couple times with his hoof, but was unable to. He tried a couple more times, and finally managed to turn the thing, but then he discovered that the door was locked. Then, he got tired of it all, and started banging on it. "Hello! Hello! Anyone home?"
From inside, he could hear loud footsteps as someone ran through what must've been an extremely crowded room. Suddenly, there was the sounds of many latches being undone, and finally, the door slammed open, revealing a overweight, unshaven man in a T-shirt, shorts, and nothing else. "For the last time, we are not squat—!" he yelled, and then noticed he was looking at thin air. He looked down.
"Hello there," Lyra said sheepishly.
The man passed out.
– – – –
"Wake… up!" Lyra yelled, attempting to slap him across the face. Since she had hooves, she ended up hitting him far harder than she had intended, leaving quite a nasty mark. "Oh Celestia! I'm sorry!"
"What is this place?" the Doctor said, walking around. The room was filled with various types of boxes, some cardboard, some plastic, and some ultra-limited collectible edition action figure cases. In fact, if the Doctor could find any common thread between everything in the room, it was that almost everything was an action figure or something connected to an action figure. "This isn't someone's apartment, is it? Maybe it's some toymakers warehouse…"
The human started stirring. "He's waking up!" Lyra yelled.
"I noticed," the Doctor said, walking over.
He looked around the room groggily. His eyes rested on Lyra. "You're… you're… Lyra Heartstrings?"
"Yes," Lyra said, a bit worried.
The man looked at the Doctor. "And you're…" His eyes scrunched up. "Doctor Hooves?"
The Doctor looked confused. "Doctor what now?"
"Oh, right," the man said. "You prefer 'the Doctor.'"
The Doctor looked horrified. "How do you—"
"Maybe he's a fan of yours," Lyra suggested.
"I don't have fans! I save planets! Universes! I'm not some TV show!"
At that moment, a skinny man in a furry pink bathrobe walked in, scrubbing his hair with a towel. "Hey, Joe, what's going on—" Then, he saw them, and he dropped his towel and, unfortunately, one of the strings holding up his bathrobe.
He made a high-pitched squeal. "Oh. My. God. I'm your biggest fan!"
He then ran over to hug the Doctor.
– – – –
"I'm Bob, and that's Joe, and this is our apartment," Bob said, now changed out of his pink bathrobe and holding an ice pack to the black eye the Doctor had given him. "I'm sorry if anything we've done has made you uncomfortable in any way—"
"No, no, it's fine," the Doctor lied. Truth be told, he never really was good at handling naked men charging at him. He had to at least have some nice wine and a romantic dinner first. "I'm sorry, did you say your name was Bob?"
"Yes," Bob said. "Why?"
"Oh, it's nothing, it's just," the Doctor stammered, trying to avoid the subject. He looked almost exactly like… "It's just I think we've met before."
Bob blinked a few times. "I think I'd remember that."
"No, no, I think I met you yesterday, but… it was your future," the Doctor said. "I'm a time traveler," he added. "I sometimes…"
"…meet people in the wrong order," Bob and Joe said automatically. They looked at each other and high-fived. "We know."
The Doctor stared at them for a bit. "About that," he said, "how, exactly, do you know that?"
Bob looked a bit worried. "You mean you don't know?"
"Know what?"
Bob got closer. "You mean you think you're real?"
The Doctor backed away. "Last time I checked," he said.
Bob and Joe looked at each other. "This could be a bit complicated," Bob said.
"Want me to try?" Joe said.
"Sure."
Joe adjusted himself on the couch. "Okay," he said, "in 1963, the BBC started a science-fiction television show called Doctor Who. It followed the adventures of a renegade Time Lord, named the Doctor, as he traveled around time and space in his TARDIS, a time machine, with various companions. In 2010, the Hub, a then obscure children's network, launched My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, a reimagining of the classic toy line for young girls. It caught on with a lot of men, too, though, many of which happens to be Doctor Who fans, and decided to cross the two over and make the Doctor a pony." He paused. "The Doctor's a human in our TV series," he added. "So, not only are you a fictional character, you're not even a… legitimate fictional character. You're a fan work. You're a fanfiction. You're walking fanfiction."
The Doctor's face was currently contorted in a mix of disgust, confusion, and fascination. While he had traveled to multiple universes in the past, and this was always a distinct possibility, until now, he had never run into a universe where he was a television series. "I'm a what?"
"Want us to show you?" Bob said.
"Yes," the Doctor found himself saying. "Yes, I do."
They started to go towards another room, but then Lyra said, "Wait!" She fidgeted a bit. "What about me? Am I in this… Doctor Who show?"
Joe looked uncomfortable. Bob decided to take the reins. "Unfortunately, no," he said. "You're in the My Little Pony show, and you're an extra at that. You don't even have any dialogue."
"Oh," Lyra said, her hopes crushed. "You guys watch your thing, then. I'm just going to poke around out here."
Usually, Bob and Joe would have objected, but if their limited-edition action figures were going to be broken by anyone, it might as well be Lyra fucking Heartstrings.
– – – –
Bob and Joe, in one of the strangest moments of their lives, found themselves watching Doctor Who with the Doctor.
"Well," the Doctor said as the end credits rolled, "I'm not really sure what to say about that."
Neither did Bob or Joe.
The Doctor looked at them. "Am I really… that much of a… jerk?"
"Yes," Bob said. "But the best possible jerk," he added.
"The best jerk to have ever lived," Joe said.
The three were silent for a bit more.
"Was it," Joe said, searching for the right word, "accurate?"
"A bit romanticized, but yes, surprisingly so," the Doctor said. "Aside from the fact that I'm, you know… not human." He looked at the two. "Listen… they didn't… include the rainbow coat, did they?"
Bob and Joe looked at each other.
"Two seasons," Joe got out.
The Doctor rubbed his hooves through his face. "Oh god," he said. Then he jerked up. "Wait, what about all those times I slept with my companions? They didn't include that, did they? Tell me they didn't."
Bob and Joe blushed, having trouble taking in this new information smoothly. "No, they didn't," Bob said, trying not to let on the amount of fanfic ideas this was giving him. "Our society is incredibly prudish."
"And homophobic," Joe chimed in.
"And homophobic. It would be deemed unsuitable for television."
"Oh, good." It was one of the few times the Doctor would find those statements comforting.
Joe scratched his head. It was a bit rude, but… "Jack Harkness?"
"God no!" the Doctor said. "The man's probably a walking STD carrier." Then, realization dawned upon the Doctor's face. "There's porn of that, isn't there?"
Bob and Joe froze. They were silent for a bit. "No," Bob said, completely artificially. "There's no porn of you whatsoever."
"And we're not in possession of any of it," Joe added, although, in retrospect, he realized that probably did not help.
The Doctor stared into space. "This is just too strange."
"If it's any consolation, there's probably more porn of your friend out there," Joe said.
For a second, the Doctor was unbelieving. "She's not even the same species as you."
Joe looked uncomprehending. "And?"
The Doctor began to understand why humans had such a bad reputation in Equestria.
"Want to watch another?" Bob said.
The Doctor thought about it. Sure, he needed to save the universe, albeit a small one, but… "Sure."
– – – –
Lyra was looking through their front room, amazed at the sheer amount of stuff they had. Among them, she found various figurines of her and her friends from Ponyville, which was a bit unsettling. Particularly vexing was a plush toy of her that had some kind of hole in the back for some reason. She wondered what that could be for.
Then, one dirty cardboard box caugh her eyes. Specifically, it caught her eye because, on the front, "Nothing Interesting Whatsoever" was scrawled out in Sharpie. She took some other boxes off the top and opened it up.
"Oh my…"
– – – –
"So," Bob said, pressing a button on the remote, "that was Love and Monsters, the most universally reviled Doctor Who episode. Thoughts?"
The Doctor didn't want to admit that was the most accurate episode they had shown him. "We should stop wasting time," he said, trying to pretend he hadn't just watched 10 episodes of himself. "I am here for a reason, you know."
"Does it have to do with saving the universe?" Bob said.
"Or," Joe said, "all the universes?"
They made it sound so trite. "…yes."
"We will do literally anything for you," Joe said a little more sultrily than he intended.
"Right," the Doctor said, backing away. "Mainly, I just want the answers to a few questions. Have there been any strange things going on lately, like people disappearing?"
"Oh, yeah!" Bob said. "It's all over the news. No one knows why it's happening." He smiled. "Was that you?"
"Yes, unfortunately," the Doctor said. "There's a rift between this universe and Equestria. It's been slowly pulling things from this world to there."
"Wait a second," Joe said. "What you're saying is, when people here are disappearing…"
"…they're going to Equestria?" Bob said.
The Doctor didn't like where this was going. "Yes."
Bob and Joe looked at each other. "Then that means Obama…"
"That serial rapist…"
"Donald Trump…"
"Tiger Woods…"
"Kim Jong-Il…"
"My bitchy ex…"
"And Justin Bieber…"
"Are all in Equestria?"
"It would appear so," the Doctor said, not sure who any of those people were. "With the exception of your 'bitchy ex,' were those all notable people that have disappeared lately?"
"Yeah," Bob said. "No one really noticed until it started happening with celebrities. For a while the feds just insisted we were losing people in ghetto neighborhoods or something."
"Did any of the disappearances have anything in common?" the Doctor said. "Any similar circumstances?"
"Now that you mention it…" Joe said.
"Weren't they all in really risky, life or death situations when they disappeared?" Bob said.
"Yeah! Obama was about to get roundhouse kicked by Chuck Norris—hail President Norris—Tiger Woods tried to go back home to his wife, Justin Bieber folded and went on a date with one of his fangirls, Donald Trump set foot in a respectable bank, that serial rapist was just about to be electrocuted on the electric chair… everyone who disappeared was in very intense, life or death situations."
"As I thought," the Doctor said. "It's taking people out towards the end of their timestreams."
Joe sensed technobabble. He quickly grabbed a piece of paper, got out a pen, and clicked it. "Continue."
The Doctor looked at him. "Basically," he said, "it's taking people out of this world near the time of their natural deaths, so that it will do the least possible damage to this world's timeline. Usually, timeline changes work like that. Unless otherwise coerced, they try to change as little as possible."
"So," Joe said, "what you're saying is, if Chuck Norris had actually been allowed to let his roundhouse kick connect with Obama, he would've killed Obama?"
"Yes?" the Doctor said, sensing there was some hidden meaning behind that comment.
"So the legends are true," Joe said dramatically.
The Doctor ignored that. "Has there been any place the disappearances seem to converge on? Where the most happened?"
"You know, I've never really thought to check," Joe said. He got up, walked to a local computer, and opened up a web browser. "Here we go… patterns in disappearances… there's been a ton of theories about this on the internet and stuff." A page appeared. "Here, here's a map of where the disappearances are, and it looks like there's a lot in…" He grew pale. He looked back at Bob. "Washington DC. Here."
"As I suspected," the Doctor said, pensive. "We heard some people talking about their friend who had disappeared outside." He looked at the screen, even though he could not decipher the map at all. "I'd like to use this computer a bit, if you don't mind."
Joe got up and raised his hands. "By all means," he said.
The Doctor got out his sonic screwdriver and started zapping the monitor. Various images started rapidly flashing across the screen. After a couple seconds of this, he stopped, and looked at a little display on his screwdriver. "That should be enough data," he said, turning away.
"So," Joe said, looking a little down, "is that all?"
"Pretty much," the Doctor said. "I may stay a little longer. Is Lyra still in the front room?"
"Probably," Joe said. "I'll check." He walked out.
Bob looked around, a bit shifty, and started whispering to the Doctor. "So, you've seen my future, right?" he said.
The Doctor hated this part of time travel. "Yes."
"So, that means I was in…"
"Equestria, yes."
"What's it like? What am I like? Am I doing good? Was Joe there?" He thought about it a bit. "Can you even tell me?"
The Doctor thought about it. There was no avoiding it. "You died right after I met you, actually," the Doctor said.
Bob froze. "What? Really?" Then he laughed. "That can't be it. You can't tell me something like that about my future, can you?"
"I sort of have to," the Doctor said. "When I met you, you told me I told you. If I didn't tell you now, it would break that part of the timeline. You know how it is."
Bob scratched his head.
"Try not to think about it too hard."
Then, from the front room, Joe screamed "Oh my god!" at the top of his lungs. The Doctor and Bob, with their experience of being and watching the Doctor respectively, knew this meant something important was happening, and ran out to the front room.
– – – –
Important turned out to be relative. What greeted them was Lyra slowly, sensually thumbing through some quite dirty magazines, while Joe stood there, not quite sure what to do about this.
"Sorry," he said, noticing how intense the two looked. "It's just… that's not something you see every day."
"Doctor…" Lyra purred. "You never told me…" She rotated the page around a couple times. "That these humans were so…" She licked the paper. "Flexible…"
The Doctor snatched the magazine from her. "Playgirl," he read, and raised an eyebrow.
"They're, uh," Bob said, "for my, uh, sister…"
The Doctor groaned. "Look, this isn't a children's TV show," he said. "You can say you're gay."
Bob and Joe's faces flushed.
"I think… I need to use the bathroom," Lyra said, walking out with a magazine in tow.
"No you don't," the Doctor said, stopping her and putting the magazine back in the box. "We're just on our way out."
"But I really need to… pee! If I don't, it could happen any—"
"You can wait for the TARDIS bathroom," the Doctor said. "Come on."
"We don't mind," Joe said. "Really."
"I don't doubt that," the Doctor said. "But I don't really want my companion here to most likely defile your bathroom. Let's go."
They walked out, Lyra pouting, and her eyes resting a little too long on Bob and Joe as they went outside. The Doctor closed the door behind them, blocking Lyra's view of the humans.
"That was mean," she said.
"I'd like to think you'd do the same thing if I was acting like that," the Doctor said. "Now let's get back to our world."
"Already!?" Lyra said, rushing down the stairs after the Doctor. "But there's so much to see! I mean, this is an entire world! Don't you want to stay, just a little bit longer?"
"I came here for one reason and one reason only," the Doctor said. "To close the rift. Personally, I can't stand humans, and neither could you until you started wanting to sleep with them."
"I don't want to sleep with them!" Lyra said. She smiled. "I want to make passionate love to them."
The Doctor looked back. "Don't you have a girlfriend?"
"I'm bi."
Finally, they were on the ground, next to the TARDIS.
On the street, some people looked down the alleyway, saw what appeared to be two small horses, one in a tie, go inside a blue box from that one British sci-fi show, thought they were going mad, and went on with their day.
– – – –
"Bathroom's down the hall, first door on the right," the Doctor said, entering some data into the control panels. The truth was, since the TARDIS was sentient, it put a bathroom wherever you needed one, but it often took his companions a while to get used to that.
"I don't need to go anymore," Lyra said.
The Doctor briefly looked over to confirm she didn't mean she had used the control panel floor for her deeds. "You could at least have the decency to pretend you had clean motives for using the restroom."
"I don't need to pretend anything," Lyra said, walking to the front doors.
The Doctor pressed a button, making a clicking sound. "Locked."
Lyra tried the door anyway. "Dammit."
"You do realize, if you stayed behind, there would be no way back?" the Doctor said. "Not to mention, you're a fictional character in this world, and a new species." He pulled a wire. "The government would kidnap and perform strange experiments on you."
Lyra licked her lips. "Like… anal probing?"
The Doctor was seriously beginning to miss Ditzy.
"But… but… our job isn't finished here! Shouldn't you tell someone on this planet about this?" Lyra said. "The families of the disappeared humans would want to know where their loved ones are!"
"We did tell a couple people," the Doctor said. "Besides, I think a lot of families would prefer to continue believing their loved ones were dead instead of trapped in a world made for little girls but adored by middle-aged men."
Lyra scratched her head. "Why would they want to believe that?"
"Because they have decency, Lyra," the Doctor said. He pushed down a lever and the TARDIS began to lift into the air. "We are going to close the rift, and that is that. It will prevent any more humans from being untimely whisked away from their own…"
"Horrible deaths?"
"I was going to say world, but yes, that too." He pressed the button and unlocked the front doors again. "Now, open the doors and look outside again, just like last time. Don't use any magic, though. I don't think magic exists in this universe, so it could get a bit screwy."
Lyra tried her horn, making only intermittent sparkles come out. Meanwhile, somewhere in Saudi Arabia, a canister of oil exploded for seemingly no reason. "Huh. You're right."
"What did I just say!? Stop it!"
Lyra stopped. "Geez, fine."
Back up in the TARDIS, Lyra opened the doors. She had a nice view of the cityscape again. "Okay, what am I looking for this time?"
"Sparkles."
Lyra looked back. "I thought you said that's the one thing the rift wouldn't look like."
The Doctor groaned. "On our side, yes," he said. "But this universe works a bit differently, and since it's the one being drained, it's going to be a little more visible. So, tell me when you see something that looks like a giant crack in the sky. Except sparkly."
Lyra squinted. "There. I think I see something."
"Where!?"
"Over that… white building thing."
"Okay," the Doctor said. He pushed around some more levers and an inexplicable typewriter, sending the TARDIS flying towards the White House.
As soon as they got anywhere resembling close, the TARDIS was battered by about 25 machine gun turrets firing at it simultaneously.
"Eeek!" Lyra yelled as a couple bullets flew past her.
"Close the door!" the Doctor yelled. "The TARDIS is impenetrable!"
With some effort, Lyra managed to close both front doors. From the outside, she heard a couple explosions batter the TARDIS, causing the inside to shake slightly, as if they were in the middle of an extremely pathetic earthquake. "Good timing," she said.
The Doctor finished inputting the last of some extremely complicated equations. "Okay, I've got everything programmed in," he said. "The TARDIS will handle the rest automatically. Now, hold onto something. This could get a bit rough."
The Doctor pressed a button.
That was the last normal moment he had in his life.
"Honestly, between all the infidelity, neuroses, hygiene problems, illegal kinks, and food allergies, Lyra was a real pain," Bon-Bon said, poking around her daisy sandwich. "But if I wasn't there for her, she'd probably end up dead in some ditch somewhere, and I can't live with that kind of guilt." She took a bite from her sandwich. "Also, the sex was amazing." She looked at Ditzy with pity. "She ran off with your boyfriend this time, didn't she? Sorry about that."
Ditzy violently tore a hole in her sandwich. "Boyfriend? I wish," Ditzy said. "I think he has commitment problems. Apparently, he does this kind of thing often. Kidnaps random women and goes traveling with them." She held up her hoof. "I was the third version of me that he had traveled with."
"What?"
Ditzy went back to her sandwich. "It's complicated."
The two ate in silence for a bit longer.
"So, you're sure?" Ditzy said. "The man that ran off with your girlfriend was a brown stallion with an hourglass cutie mark?"
"Completely sure," Bon-Bon said. "As soon as it happened, I asked around. People around here are pretty used to me having to track Lyra down, so they try to remember who she's with." She blinked. "Why?"
"I just want to know what he's up to," Ditzy said, making one final lethal blow to her sandwich. She stood up. "Anyway, lunch was nice, but I really have to go. I'll pay for my meal. I don't want you thinking this was a date or anything."
Bon-Bon looked crestfallen. "It wasn't?"
Ditzy looked back. "For Luna's sake, I'm straight," she said, narrowing her eyes, and walked away in a huff.
Bon-Bon slammed her head against the table. "And that accent was so sexy, too," she said.
– – – –
Ditzy sat in an empty field filled with tall grass and rolling hills. On one side, there were mountains, with a dense forest in front of them. On the other side, a short distance away, one could see Ponyville, which Ditzy still called Ponyville University in an act of defiance.
The Doctor had wanted her to find out more about this world, but she was never able to spend much time in town. She needed to be ready to act at a moment's notice when he contacted her, after all. So, she lived in solitude on the town's borders, venturing in once in a while to get supplies and the occasional book. Most of the time, it was just her, some books, and her machines. She hated nearly everyone in Ponyville, and the grass was enough to keep her fed, so she had no problem with this arrangement.
She flipped through the pages of her book and stretched. It was still, admittedly, awful, but the thing was beginning to develop a sort of charm. Regardless of its contents, it was her last meaningful memento from the Doctor. The equipment was too impersonal to be interesting, but this? This was a memento from a world Ditzy would never see. The Doctor's world, with its stars and planets and countries. And many, many trains, if this book was to be believed.
At the very least, she had realized getting rid of it was futile. Doing so had practically given her whiplash. Multiple times, after reading a particularly stupid part, she had tried throwing it into a lake or over a cliff. Every time, though, she changed her mind at the last minute and rocketed out to save it.
She wasn't always successful, but the book was arguably more interesting with half the pages soaked or burned to a crisp.
Just as she was about to get back to reading, she heard it. The thing she had been waiting for so desperately.
The interdimensional pager.
She picked it up and looked at the number.
5.
She opened up the notebook the Doctor left behind and flipped to the right page. It was a full two pages of intricate instructions, but that didn't worry her. She had practiced each sequence multiple times, especially this one, as she judged it the most likely for the Doctor to use.
She quickly opened the metal boxes, revealing many complicated machines full of levers and buttons and displays. She started punching things in, double checking each step in the notebook. They started making noises, louder and louder the more she went. An antenna stuck out of one, and Ditzy waited for it to sense a certain amount of energy before she entered one last value. The noises reached an earsplitting crescendo, until finally, they just stopped.
Ditzy opened her eyes. She half expected the TARDIS to be right there in front of her. It wasn't. Maybe that wasn't the way it was supposed to work. Or maybe she did something wrong.
She looked at the instructions again, but couldn't find any problems. Then, she looked at the readout on one of the machines, and realized what happened.
The Doctor had arrived in this universe successfully, but 1000 years in the future.
Ditzy leaned back, laid on the ground, and laughed pathetically. She let her face rest upon the dirt.
"Come back for me, Doctor…"
– – – –
Currently, from the Doctor and Lyra's perspective, they were being tossed around the TARDIS like those little plastic balls in that lottery number choosing machine that blows around those little plastic balls everywhere. You know the one.
"Grab hold of something!" the Doctor screamed, although he wasn't really doing a good job of that himself. He heard something snap, and felt a sharp pain, but he had more important things to worry about now.
Fortunately, his latest bounce let him get a good view of one of the control screens.
Unfortunately, this let him get a good view of what the TARDIS was careening towards.
"Brace yourself!" the Doctor tried to yell, but instead he got a face full of control panel as the TARDIS slammed into the ground at terminal velocity.
The entire interior bent irreparably out of shape. Various girders and control panels fell and set fire with reckless abandon. The last thing the Doctor remembered seeing was Lyra, bleeding profusely and trapped under a flaming support beam. He tried to reach out to her, but he was trapped as well, and his consciousness faded before he could think of anything useful…
– – – –
He felt himself being carried, someone's fur bristling him…
– – – –
"No! No! Don't die on me! You can't… you can't! You're—"
– – – –
A steady beeping sound.
– – – –
Inky blackness filled the Doctor's eyes. He tried to open them.
"There, there," a voice said, touching him on the shoulder. "Go back to sleep. It's not time yet…"
The Doctor felt the magic envelope him, and his eyelids grew heavy.
– – – –
The Doctor caught a blurry glimpse of a pink pony from the corner of his eye. He tried to turn towards her, but he didn't have the strength, and, slowly, against his will, he lost consciousness…
– – – –
"Awaken, Doctor… any moment now…"
– – – –
The Doctor awoke with a start. He looked around frantically. He was on a bed, in some type of large empty room made of crystal, with a marble checkerboard floor, once shiny, now dull. There was a large window and balcony to the side, which let in bleak, overcast lighting, making everything look dreary and dead.
The Doctor got out of bed slowly. His head hurt, and he ached, but he was at least mobile. And he needed to know where he was.
He looked around more, on the other side of his bed, and noticed a table full of medicinal supplies. He limped over, noticing that one of his legs had been bandaged up with great skill.
Somebody was nursing him back to health. The TARDIS must've crashed, and somebody was helping him.
But who?
And why?
The Doctor pushed open a door on the other side of his bed and found himself in a large, tall hallway, with a vaulted ceiling made of crystals of various colors. It had many doors, leading to more rooms than the Doctor thought he could handle examining in his current condition. He needed to choose one.
Luckily, one of the doors was ajar. He limped towards it. Maybe there would be some answers in there.
With much difficulty, he reached the open door and brushed it aside. There, he saw a room almost completely identical to his, but with many more medical supplies, clearly used, some still with dried blood on them. The main difference was, instead of him on the bed, it was Lyra.
She looked much worse than he did. She was still bruised in many places, and while her bandages were less extensive than the Doctor's, they were much more numerous.
She breathed laboriously.
The Doctor approached her. How could he? How could he have dragged her into this mess? She had a life to return to. People that loved her, or at least tolerated her. The Doctor had no such things. He should have chosen someone else, someone more obscure, someone with less to lose…
"Don't beat yourself up about it," a voice said from behind him. "It was inevitable. Despite appearances, she's almost completely recovered."
The figure walked in front of the Doctor, making him freeze. She had a long, slender pink body, with wings that faded to purple towards the end. Her horn extended from her curly, immaculately kept purple hair. Her motions seemed somehow controlled, as they did on all the princesses.
"I'm Mi Amore Cadenza," she said. "Or, at least, that is one of the many names I have gone by."
The Doctor remembered his message to himself.
"Don't trust the princesses."
And now, here he was, in one of their clutches. If she were anything like…
"Were you the one that nursed me back to health?" the Doctor said. "Princess Cadenza?"
"Cadance, please," Cadance said, walking towards the Doctor. "Yes, I was. For the last couple months, I've watched over you two."
"Why?" the Doctor said. "Trying to win a favor? I know about you princesses, you know. I don't know everything, but I know enough that I'd die before I work with you."
Cadance looked at him, disappointed. "That's not it," she said.
"Then what is it?"
"I'll tell you," Cadance said, beginning to circle around the Doctor. "This world needs you. There's a great battle approaching, one that your existence is required for. If you, and most importantly, the TARDIS are not allowed to live, the timeline of this world will collapse."
"The TARDIS?" the Doctor said, getting angry. "How do you know about the TARDIS!?"
"It's quite simple, isn't it?" Cadance said. She continued to circle. "You've only told a few people on this world about the TARDIS, so it's only a process of elimination, isn't it? Think about who you told. Eliminate them, one by one. Because when you eliminate the possible, only the impossible remains."
The Doctor's face turned pale with horror. "No… don't tell me… you're…"
Cadance smiled a wide smile. Outside, there was a stroke of lightning. She jammed her face in front of the Doctor's. "That's right," she said, her eyes wild. "At one time, I was known as the the destroyer of worlds, the Time Lord menace, the Valeyard…" She stood up. "The Doctor."
The Doctor continued cowering, but then he blinked a few times when he realized what he just heard. "Wait, you're not the Master?"
Cadance look shocked, and quite frankly, offended. "What? No! That's ridiculous. He was outside the range of the time bubble when this all happened," Cadance said. "I'm your next regeneration. Obviously."
The Doctor's face fell. "Wait, I'm a woman?" His face fell a little more. "And a pink pony princess?"
Cadance winked at him. "Suits you better than you'd think," she said, twirling her hair a bit.
The Doctor laughed. "No, no, this is ridiculous. You're insane, and more importantly, wrong," he said. "I've read about you. I know you're immortal. You've been a princess for thousands of years, but you don't look a day over 20. I'm long-lived, but I still age, remember? Or did you forget Trenzalore?"
Cadance smirked. "So you believe in immortality now," she said. "Don't worry, though. I'm not completely immortal. Just… mostly. I regenerated into an alicorn, which means I get a lot of the perks, but part of me is still Time Lord. Specifically, the part that can die. "
"Brilliant," the Doctor said. "And incredibly stupid. Do you really think you can fool me with such a transparent ploy?"
"You're a stubborn one," Cadance said, leaning into the Doctor's face. "Tell me, if I was a princess, trying to seduce you into my service with lies, would I know… this?" She whispered something in the Doctor's ear.
His eyes widened. He backed away. "It can't be…"
Cadance smiled. "It is."
The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, I'm still not completely convinced. Hypothetically, someone could have told you that," he said.
Cadance looked skeptical. "Your true name?" she said. "Since when have you told anyone your true name?"
"Since River."
"Fair point. But, I doubt you would tell anyone that…" She leaned over and whispered something else in the Doctor's ear.
He blushed. "Well, that's not really…"
She whispered something else, causing his entire face to become red.
"Okay, okay, I get it, you're me!" he yelled. "No need to torment me about it!"
Cadance simply giggled.
The Doctor shuffled around awkwardly. "So… why can we even interact? We're the same person, after all. The timestream should have no end of problems dealing with that."
"I'm not completely sure either," Cadance said. "Maybe it's because our forms are so different. But I have noticed, since this universe is significantly smaller than yours, it does behave a bit differently. Timeline changes do not appear to impact it as much. Still, we should avoid bodily contact." She smiled. "Unless you want to… experiment a bit."
"No, no, I'm fine," the Doctor said. He cleared his throat. "Just out of curiosity's sake… how did it happen? I mean, if you can tell me, of course—"
"A brick."
"What?"
Cadance smiled, walking out of the room. "You trip over a brick. Then you tumble over a couple more bricks and give yourself a lethal concussion."
The Doctor followed, looking horrified. "That can't be." He laughed nervously. "You're kidding, right?"
Cadance looked back and winked. "Spoilers."
Even though it was from himself, it still made the Doctor blush.
"Glad that still works on you," she said, walking ahead. "You're not too far gone, at least. Can't say the same about myself, though. I've been in this form for about 3000 years, and it's changed me. I've had my share of husbands. And wives, of course."
"Of course," the Doctor said.
"Oh, come on, you," Cadance said, nudging him. "You were the one that discovered the 'straightness event horizon,' after all. No being, no matter how long or short lived, can stand being completely heterosexual or homosexual for more than the first 300 years of their lives." She looked wistful. "People can change so much. I had a late husband that was almost exactly like Jack Harkness, for example. Shining Armor, I believe it was…"
The Doctor just about vomited. "Should you really be telling me all this?" he said.
"Time is no longer my domain," Cadance said. "Do you know that for that entire 3000 years, I haven't used the TARDIS once? Until now, I had it locked away, far away, where no one could ever get to it. Only now have I gotten it out, for you to use, since yours got completely totaled on reentry." She noticed the confusion on the Doctor's face. "Don't think about it too hard," she added. "I try not to."
"Time is no longer your domain?" the Doctor said. "How can you say that?"
"Life can function just as well linearly," Cadance said. She pushed open a door and began to walk inside. "And as I said, this world is quite resilient. I think most worlds are more resilient than you give them credit for." She looked back. "Honestly, I like to think of these last three millennia as a reward. A reward for all we've done for the rest of the universe. And for getting through her torment." Her face scrunched up. "Don't ask about that, by the way," she added.
The room had, like the others, a large balcony, but this one seemed somehow larger, and more regal. It was completely empty, though, aside from the same dull floor and columns the other rooms had.
The Doctor heard a loud snap, followed by a crumbling sound, a loud, echoing sound that seemed to penetrate every inch of the world. He ran out onto the balcony, forgetting the pain in his leg. Cadance slowly followed behind.
He looked up, and saw a large crack in the sky.
"What on…?"
"You know the sky here is artificial," Cadance said. "Are you really so surprised it can develop cracks?"
The Doctor was appalled. "But outside is—!"
"The wasteland," Cadance said, her face hardened. "I know." She looked up at the sky. "But there's no avoiding it. The consequences of stopping this battle are far greater than letting it continue."
"It's happening right now!?" the Doctor said.
"The sky cracking is proof," Cadance said. "It's not something for you to get involved in, though. I only heard about it secondhand myself, and, well, you know. I mainly said you were needed for this battle to get your attention. But, I wasn't technically lying."
"What!?"
"I know you must have many questions, but it really is time," Cadance said, looking uncharacteristically serious. "Please go back into the room, off the balcony. I need to be out here alone. This needs to be exactly how I remember it."
The Doctor understood, and rushed back into the room. He turned around, and looked at Cadance on the balcony.
Another loud, horrible snap came from the sky, and more cracks started appearing with increasing speed.
"What are you doing!?" the Doctor yelled. "It's not safe out there!"
Cadance laughed. "Since when have you been concerned about safety!?" she yelled back, getting drowned out by the sound of the sky dying. She closed her eyes. "Besides, I've been waiting for this day for a long time now." She smiled. "Almost three millennia."
The Doctor blanched. "What?"
"Remember this, Doctor," she said. "Those millennia are a gift, not a punishment."
The Doctor bolted towards her. "No! You can't—!"
Then, the sky broke, and a stray lightning bolt hit Cadance dead on.
"NO!"
She crumpled to the ground, a charred husk. The cracks in the sky were now everywhere, and chunks of it started to fall down to the ground, crushing mountains, forests, entire civilizations in their wake.
"Regenerate! For god's sakes, regenerate!"
There was not even the slightest hint of life in the body. Not the slightest iota of regeneration energy. And then, the Doctor just barely being able to dodge it, a chunk of the sky fell on top of Cadance, taking the balcony with it. It hit the ground, 50 stories below, with a deafening thud.
There was no way she could have survived that.
There was no way he could have survived that.
The Doctor stood there, shaken, witness to his own death. But the creaks and groans of the dying world around him reminded him of his true purpose.
He had to rescue Lyra.
He sprinted out of the room as fast as he could. He was still injured, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered, aside from this. He knew he would live, but Lyra had no such guarantee.
He burst into Lyra's room, who was groggily sitting up in her bed and rubbing her eyes.
"What… what's going on?" she groaned.
"No time to explain! Follow me! Now!" the Doctor yelled, and grabbed Lyra, pulling her out of bed and out of the room.
"Hey! Ow! What are you doing!?" Lyra said.
"That sound out there is the sky falling," the Doctor said. "If we don't get out of here soon, we're dead meat!"
"What!?"
The Doctor didn't even know where the TARDIS was, but he just kept running anyway. Running was the important part. He had to keep doing something, no matter what. Even if it turned out to be hopeless.
Luckily, Cadance, or he, thought ahead, and around the next bend was her TARDIS, unused for thousands of years, and, the Doctor noticed, immaculately clean.
After dodging a particularly large section of ceiling that fell down, he got out his key and ran inside, pushing Lyra in first.
For a second, he stood there, shocked. The inside looked completely different, with crystal spires and better railings and carefully placed lights and impressive ceilings. "Nice decorating," he said, but he had only so much time to be distracted. Everything shook.
"Not this again," Lyra said, beginning to curl up into a ball.
The Doctor noticed, to his utter shock, seats, with seatbelts, in front of the control panel. It seemed sacrilegious to put seatbelts in the TARDIS, but now, he needed them. "Here," he said, holding Lyra, "strap yourself in. We don't need to escape any universes this time, so it should be a lot smoother."
The TARDIS shook again as something quite heavy landed on it.
"Relatively speaking," he said, and began rapidly pulling every lever he could find. The engine started up, hardly making any noise at all, and the TARDIS began to take off.
Almost. It rocked again, this time much more violently.
"Dammit!" the Doctor said, trying to regain his balance. "We've been hit by lightning." He looked at the control screens. "I need to get a lock on something, anything… dammit, think, Doctor, think!"
Then, at that moment, after thousands of years of sitting there, the tape holding a small business card to the underside of the control panel finally became undone, and it fluttered around the control room. It flew in front of Lyra's face, who grabbed it and, in her confusion, read it out loud.
"'For a good time, call Rarity'?"
The Doctor never thought he could bring himself to use such a metaphor, but what happened next could be best described as the TARDIS doing a wheelie. It lacking wheels only made this analogy more effective, because whatever it was doing was certainly not natural.
Once normal gravity reasserted itself, the Doctor climbed up and looked at one of the control screens. "Well, whatever you did, we landed," he said. He looked at Lyra. "What did you do?"
"I don't know," she said, and the Rarity card burned into nothingness in her hooves. She then clutched her chest. "Ouch…"
"We need to get you to a hospital, and fast," the Doctor said. "I think you got injured worse than I did." He could only hope that wherever they had landed, there was a hospital. With some struggle, he carried the wincing Lyra to the front door and opened up.
Outside was a fashion boutique, and a very confused Rarity. "Why'd… how… blue box… inside… what?"
"She needs medical attention!" the Doctor said, motioning towards Lyra. "Quick!"
Rarity blinked. "What? Okay…" She looked up a stairway. "Sweetie Belle! An injured pony needs your attention!" She waited a couple seconds. "You don't need to be recharged again, do you?"
"FOR THE LAST TIME, I'M N—! You know what, nevermind," a high-pitched voice yelled from up the stairs. Then, a small unicorn filly descended. "Oh dear Celestia! What happened to you this time, Lyra?"
"I don't know," Lyra got out, sounding awful.
"Come on now," Sweetie Belle said, holding her up. The Doctor started to follow, but Rarity stopped him.
"Don't worry, she can handle her," Rarity said. "She's the best model available." The Doctor had no idea what she was talking about, but ignored it. "I've got some questions I want to ask you."
"I'm sure you do," the Doctor said, his patience growing thin. "Listen, I need to find a mare. Her name is—"
"Oh? A mare?" She raised an eyebrow. "Are you straight?"
"Yes, but that doesn't have anything to do w—"
Rarity smiled. "I'm going to use you a bit, if you don't mind."
The Doctor blinked. "What?"
Suddenly, he felt magic envelope his body and hold him in place. Rarity pinned herself on him and gave him a long, passionate kiss against his will. Then, she disengaged, leaving a small string of saliva between the two, and grinned, her eyes seductively half closed. She expertly kicked him in the face with her hooves, displaying strength the Doctor would not have suspected of such a pony, and once again, he found himself losing consciousness.
His world slowly darkened, and the last thing he heard were the sounds of chains…
It was the last time he would see the light of day for three years.
Oh my Celestia Originally, the first human and the Derpy doppelgänger had this exchange.
"Oh my god…"
"Celestia."
The creature looked up at Derpy. "What?"
"I believe 'oh my Celestia' is the phrase they use around here."
"Fine," he said. "Let me redo that the local way." He inhaled with as much venom as he could muster. "OH! OH MY CELESTIA!"
"Good, good," Derpy said.
Meanwhile someone walking outside got the total wrong idea.
Heat joke This segment was funny, but created some plot holes, since it meant the Doctor noticed Derpy got swapped out with her doppelgänger too early.
This is sort of an obtuse reference to Beating the Heat, a sort-of-clopfic involving the Doctor. In it, in order to prevent the mane six's seductive odors from working on him, the Doctor travels back in time and gives himself a cold.
That story sort of influenced this one, because of its time travel abuse and how it made the Doctor and Master complete morons.
"Oh! Oh!" Derpy said, pointing at a completely random person. "Let's ask her!"
"Why?"
"No reason."
"Oh, come on. You just want to talk to her because she has a nice ass, don't you?" The Doctor said before realizing, with some confusion, he had somehow resigned himself to Derpy suddenly being a raving nymphomaniac for no reason. He wondered if she was in heat. He was kind of bad at those things, because usually whenever an awkward situation came up he would use the magic of time travel to completely avoid it. But still, he reasoned if he had the luxury to wonder she probably wasn't.
The creature was a bit disgusted by the conversation unfolding in front of him, but at the same time comforted that their cultures were not too different.
Secret Another sequence cut for plot holes. Any of the characters involved knowing this information at this point was a problem.
"For testing unknown species?"
"Yes," the head nurse said, "we used to do checkups on Celestia's genetic experiments, remember?" She scoffed. "Before she just started using the dungeon."
The room fell silent. The head nurse realized she wasn't supposed to say that.
"Um. What she means is we're prepared for anything!" the nurse said. "Just forget you heard that."
The Doctor's jaw hit the floor. "I don't think I can."
"What genetic experiments?" Derpy said.
"Who's Celestia?" the creature said.
"And what do you mean 'using the dungeon?'" the Doctor said, eyes narrowing.
"Just nevermind!" the nurse said, pushing the head nurse out and slamming the door behind her. The Doctor, Derpy, and the creature sat there, a bit disturbed.
"Okay, seriously though, who's Celestia?" the creature said.
The Doctor thought about it. "The ruler of this land. I think."
"Except for when it's Luna," Derpy added.
"Yeah. Except for when it's her."
The human stared at them. "You two are a real help, you know that?"
TARDII Originally, this chapter was split up into multiple chapters. This was going to be the beginning of the second part. Once I decided to merge the parts together, it took up a ton of space and just didn't work, even though it explains a lot.
Personally, this is what I believe the plural of TARDIS is.
TARDISES, or, as they were known more informally, TARDII, always worked. At least in theory. In reality, they were a damn finicky piece of equipment. Part of this had to do with it being sentient. Contrary to popular opinion, being sentient does not necessarily make a piece of equipment better. Yes, it is by definition smarter, but that usually just means it is more likely to disagree with you. Or in this case, be completely disoriented and confused by having all of space-time suddenly condensed into a small solar system. It was a problem so complete and bizarre that it would need some considerable time or help to work it out. If it had even the smallest inkling of how time progressed in this condensed, ravaged space, the rest would eventually fall into place. It was a problem for a thinker, one far beyond equipment.
So therefore, the Doctor, who dedicated most of his time fixing the TARDIS to screwing around with wires and reattaching nuts and bolts, had little to no chance of actually improving anything. Any claims to the contrary were probably wrong.
CHAPTER 5
Timeline changes For a while, the Doctor got this quip, lampshading how arbitrary the timeline changes in this story are.
The Doctor was currently banging his head on the counter. "How," he said, "can I go back in time and kill someone and nothing changes but if I talk to someone's parents the entire world changes!?" He looked around the bar. "I mean, what is this crap!?"
Ditzy looked at him. "Go back in time? What on earth are you talking about?"
The Doctor whipped his head around. "What?"
Original argument Soarin and Ditzy's argument before they broke up was hell to write. I must have rewritten and tweaked that thing at least five times before I got something I was happy with. This is one of the funnier early versions, just because of how petty it is.
"I can explain," Soarin said.
Ditzy eyed the almost completely violated couch. "Please, try. I could do with a laugh."
Soarin hesitated. "Straight people are supposed to be promiscuous. I felt obligated."
"If you wanted to be more promiscuous," Ditzy said, "you could have suggested having a threesome."
Soarin lost his train of thought. "Wait, really?"
"You know I don't care what other people think."
"That isn't the problem. I mean, if there's three people one of us would end up having gay sex eventually…"
"It would be you. I would find a man."
Soarin regained it. "Oh, that's just like you! Just go out, don't ask me at all. I wouldn't care. But if I did that, of course you'd go berserk."
"It was a joke. And I'm not having an affair."
"Well, you're not doing anything else either. With you it's all just work work work. I've hardly seen you recently."
"Hence Spitfire, presumably."
"I'm sorry, but I have needs too! You just haven't been there."
"What you expect me to do, stay home and do the dishes?" Ditzy said. "I thought we both agreed to not put our careers on hold for this relationship."
"I did," Soarin said, "but now I'm not so sure."
"What?"
"When was the last time we were alone and didn't talk about work or anything?"
Ditzy thought back. "The first time we met?"
"The princesses interrupted us, remember?"
"So," Ditzy said, "never?"
"Yeah."
Ditzy blinked.
"You aren't…"
Soarin glared. "This relationship has been dead for a long time and you know it."
"Where… where would you go? Spitfire?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
Soarin began walking out. "Wait!" Ditzy said before she could stop herself. "I can change! Really, I—"
"No you can't."
And Soarin slammed the door.
Ditzy fell to the ground.
Soft majors joke Not sure why I cut this. It was just lying around. It probably screwed with the flow, but I think I was also worried people would think it was racist. :p
Usually, academia was ruled by unicorns on the basis that, because magic is a mental activity, unicorns have a natural advantage in academic fields. Sure, earth ponies and pegasi could grasp the lower fields like liberal arts and physical education, but the advanced fields? Like science and magic theory? Never.
Original Rainbow Dash confrontation I actually wrote this segment before I wrote the rest of the chapter, which is why Ditzy is called Derpy. There's a couple funny things in here that didn't make it in the final version, like that pathetic ending.
"But," Rainbow Dash said, "then I heard about you. You pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be a pegasus for more than what I could hope to do with my cheesy tricks. You did things everyone thought only unicorns could, everyone! Now THAT is cool!" She smiled. "And I looked up to you. I wanted to be like you. So I studied."
"But the more I did, the more I realized it wasn't for me. Maybe that's why I still haven't gotten my cutie mark. No matter how hard I try, there's a lot of things I just can't get. But I still wanted to impress you, and that's why I cheated." She looked down. "I'm sorry."
"Rainbow…" Derpy said. "You do realize your plan never would have worked. I would have noticed right away if my grade sheet suddenly came back with one student miraculously doing better."
Rainbow Dash looked a bit crushed.
"Still," Derpy said, trying to comfort her, "I do appreciate the sentiment. And, while it is a bit of an abuse of authority, I will let you retake the test."
Rainbow Dash looked elated. "Really!?"
"Yes. Come by my office tomorrow afternoon. Make sure to study."
"Thank you thank you thank you!" Rainbow Dash said, doing a loop-de-loop and hugging Derpy for just a little too long. She flew off, waving.
Derpy sighed, and began her trip home.
– – – –
Rainbow Dash, of course, failed the test again.
CHAPTER 6
The hat scene I needed to get Ditzy in a hat, so that the original timeline Doctor did not recognize her, but I had no idea how. In frustration, I wrote this as a placeholder. After writing it, I realized nearly anything would be better, and so I just had her buy the damn thing.
The reason I didn't do that begin with was that I didn't want to explain where she was keeping her wallet. I must admit, stuff like that is one of the unpleasant parts of writing MLP fanfiction. So many times, I just want to write people getting stuff out of their pockets. But I can't.
Eventually, I decided on a procedure for handling situations like that—ignore it completely. They store their wallets up their asses, I don't know.
While writing this, I realized, in the Obamaverse, nearly all the incidental straight people are ridiculously over-the-top sociopath criminals. I might elaborate on that being a stereotype or something later.
The novelty wore off after a bit when Ditzy realized that, with the exception of some more modern architecture, Ponyville was largely the same as she knew it. She sat down next to a flower bed and ate a couple flowers. She hoped she wasn't violating some zoning ordinance, but she was reasonably confident in the Doctor's ability to break her out of jail if need be.
At that moment, a stallion jumped out the window above where she was sitting. Glass shattered everywhere, but Ditzy managed to avoid the worst of it by curling into a small ball of terror.
He landed just in front of her and twisted his long, thick, curly black mustache. "Matilda! The coast is clear!" he yelled into the building.
The mare that was presumably Matilda stepped through the window. "Really," she said, "there's no need for such theatrics." She looked down and noticed Ditzy. "And look! If you had any decency you would at least check under the window before you do that! You could've killed her!"
"I could not have," the stallion said. "Seriously maimed at the worst."
"You bastard," Matilda said, but she gave him a peck on the cheek as she did so. She took off her wide-brimmed hat and tossed it at Ditzy. "Here's a hat for your trouble. Tootles!"
The two then sprinted off in opposite directions.
Ditzy stayed there for a while, wondering what the hell just happened. The hat was quite nice, though, so she decided to keep it. She carefully stepped out of the flower bed, avoiding what pieces of glass she could, and began walking back towards the library.
(TODO: think of a less random way to get her wearing a hat.)
Timeline reaction Really short. I wanted to include this line after Ditzy screwed up her timeline, but it just didn't fit.
Ditzy looked at the shattered remains of her life in horror. "I was just teaching about this yesterday."
CHAPTER 7
Bob and the Doctor In the actual chapter, I cut this exchange short for dramatic effect, but I actually did write the rest of it.
"Listen, is it true? What you told me?"
"What?"
"Am I really going to die today?"
The Doctor looked a bit worried. "What?"
"You remember, when you came to—"
The Doctor covered his mouth. "Listen. You met me sometime in the past, right? Well, that was me in the future. You can't tell me anything about my future, or it breaks time. Okay? You understand?" He was hoping he wouldn't have to get out the space meatball line.
Bob nodded. The Doctor lifted his hoof from his mouth.
"You did tell me to tell you to tell me that I was going to die when you met me in your future, though," Bob said.
The Doctor began to get a headache. "Yeah, sounds like me."
Original beginning I wanted to explore Ditzy's feelings after her life was destroyed, but this segment just felt too forced.
Ditzy sat in the corner of the TARDIS control room, downcast.
"Can't we do something about this?" she said. "I mean, you're a time traveler, aren't you? Can't you do something about this?"
"Me interfering the first time was risky enough," the Doctor said. "You can't interfere with interference. It's too risky."
Ditzy chuckled. "Or the giant space meatballs come and eat everything?"
The Doctor was silent.
"This is my history. My entire life! Isn't there some way I can go back home!?"
"I'm sorry."
Ditzy was the smartest mare in Equestria. At least in theory. In reality, that never happened.
Ditzy loses it Roughly the same with this segment. I wanted to have Ditzy lose control at some point, but the more I tried to write it, the more it seemed out of character.
Originally, I wanted her to be so distraught that her and the Doctor had implied pity sex, but I quickly realized there was no way that was going to work.
The Doctor, taken aback, tried to comfort her, patting her on the back.
"What? What happened?"
"Even if I had died in a ditch back home, that would've been better than this. At least someone would have remembered me. But this!? Not only am I completely alone, but my absence is responsible for so many deaths!" She backed away. "How could you do this to anyone!? You sick bastard!"
Original plan As some of you might remember, I originally had a completely different plan for this storyline. I was going to divide it up into multiple parts and focus on an impending batpony attack. The more I wrote for that, though, the more I realized how many plot holes that storyline had, and ended up rewriting everything almost completely from scratch. This was one of the reasons this storyline took almost 6 months to get out.
For the curious, though, this was the original plan. It has some good parts, like an explanation as to why Bob was a target, but for the most part, I'm glad I scrapped it. It makes no sense.
PART 1
Ditzy is trying to read Atlas Shrugged (Celestia Shrugged?) when the Doctor busts in and says they got an SOS.
They go outside to investigate, and the only thing they can find is the "blood harvest hotel." The Doctor convinces the human receptionist they have a reservation with his psychic paper, and on the way up they bump into Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Ditzy try something to Rainbow Dash, but doesn't get much out of her.
PART 2
Ditzy bugs the Doctor about not reacting to Fluttershy's comment that she fed Rainbow Dash's eyeball to Angel. The Doctor realizes yeah, that is strange, and says there must be some mind control going on. Ditzy says this sounds a lot like the rumor about the cannibalistic Yellow Pegasus as she heard about in her timeline.
They go down to the cafeteria to have dinner, and run into Rev. Pie. The Doctor is surprised to see him, and they talk a bit. Ditzy asks him about Twilight, and he says she got promoted to Princess. Then she asks about Soren, and he says he doesn't know about him.
The human comes in and says Soren became destitute. Ditzy is a bit sad by this.
Then they go back up to bed and try to sleep. But, in the middle of the night, there are loud noises! Ditzy asks the Doctor about them, but he says it's probably just the people next door. Then there's a gruesome crunch, and everyone runs out to investigate. There's the human, dead! And up in the sky, a huge swarm of batponies!
PART 3
The Doctor yells at everyone to run back in, and they oblige. Someone says they need to look for the hotel boss. They bang on his supposed room to get no response, and break the door down. They find that the room is empty save for a bunch of junk, and realize the "boss" never existed. The human was running this business on his own.
They go back downstairs and the Doctor examines the body. Rev. pie says he can't stand the blood and goes up to his room. Upon examination, the Doctor notices something strange about the wounds. There is no fang marks.
Then, upstairs, a batpony breaks through a window and Rev. pie gets attacked. The Doctor runs in and tries to get it out. He succeeds, but he notices a look of desperation in its eyes, and that it seems to have no voice, and that gives him pause…
PART 4
Ditzy says, with some panic, that the yellow Pegasus is gone. They look around for a bit, and eventually try her room. Inside they fine Rainbow Dash, chained to a bed and beaten. She has a black eye. She tries to get them to leave, but they won't.
Ditzy and the Doctor briefly entertain the possibility that Fluttershy might have something to do with this. The Doctor says he needs to investigate more, and leaves Ditzy to tend to Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash starts ranting about how Fluttershy went outside for some reason, and how she killed the man she loved, and how she went to another dimension and met him, and was dragged back, hardly noticing Ditzy is there.
After a while, she asks Ditzy who she is. Then Rainbow Dash is like, though, I remember you. You're that mailmare. The one that went postal and disappeared a while back.
PART 5
The Doctor and Rev. pie find a closet full of sex toys somewhere. The Doctor wonders what before, and Rev. pie says it's probably to increase the illusion there is a pony running this hotel, because it is unlikely they would keep a human around without treating them like a sex slave. The Doctor's sickened by this.
They go back to Fluttershy's room, and find a distraught Ditzy there. Ditzy attacks the Doctor, saying it would've been better if she died back in her home. Better than this.
She says Fluttershy is probably responsible for this, but the doctor says that doesn't add up. Rev. pie and the human were clearly attacked by two different things. But what?
Then they hear some screeches outside, followed by some loud thuds. They wonder what that is, but then something falls in through a window.
It's a bat pony, or what's left of it. It manages to mouth one word. "Her…" while pointing up.
The Doctor realizes something.
PART 6
He gives some deductions that narrowly misses the truth, like that Fluttershy's mind controlling them and released some type of creature on them or something.
They decide there is nothing to do but stay inside the house. They decide one person will keep watch, even though that probably will not help.
Meanwhile, a light appears in Rainbow Dash's room. She walks towards it.
The next morning, they wake up and find her gone. The weather is nice, then there is hardly any trace of the carnage outside. They decide to leave while they can.
On the way out, they see Fluttershy, brutally injured, somewhere. Ditzy runs to attack her, but the Doctor stops her, saying she's got her comeuppance.
Once in the TARDIS, the Doctor asks where they should go. Ditzy says, why don't we go to another dimension? The Doctor says, no, that's impossible. Then Ditzy tells him about Rainbow Dash's story about going to another dimension
The Doctor panics.
The sign This was one of the segments from the original version of this chapter, hence the Blood Harvest Hotel, and Bob not having a name.
It was funny, but giving the hotel a neon sign created about a gazillion plot holes about how magic/electricity works in Equestria.
"Welcome," he said, "to the Blood Harvest Hotel!"
The Doctor looked up. "What." He got up, expecting some explanation for that. He didn't get one. "You're kidding, right?"
"Not at all," the human said. "That's what this hotel is called."
The Doctor and Ditzy stared at him, incredulous.
The human sighed theatrically. "The sign is broken again, isn't it?" he muttered. "Just a second." He walked into what looked like a closet and loudly kicked something. Immediately after, there was a humming sound, and a neon glow came from outside. The Doctor and Ditzy were too scared to look. Whatever was out there was probably unspeakably hideous, not to mention in bad taste.
The human came back in. "There, all fixed," he said.
Blood Harvest Hotel exposition The segment that explained what was up with the Blood Harvest Hotel. Probably the best part of that original storyline, if only for the Buffy reference.
The human, sadly enough, was clearly used to this kind of reaction. "Welcome," he said, "to the Blood Harvest Hotel!"
The Doctor looked up. "What." He got up, expecting some explanation for that. He didn't get one. "You're kidding, right?"
"Not at all," the human said. "That's what this hotel is called." He clapped his hands together. "Now, what can I do for you two?"
The Doctor almost ordered a room, but one look at Ditzy confirmed she was wondering exactly what he was. He cleared his throat. "First… could you tell me why this place is called the Blood Harvest Hotel?"
The human looked confused. "Really? Everyone's heard of this place."
"We're not everyone," Ditzy said.
The human shrugged. "Okay," he said. "I'm assuming you saw that small town on the way up. Rumor has it… you know about the batponies, right? Princess Luna's servants?" The Doctor pretended to. "Well, you know, they are actually a different species from normal ponies, and rumor has it that every year they migrate here and go through something called the 'blood harvest.' Trust me, it's just as gruesome as it sounds.
"People tried to live there for a while. Real estate was sickeningly cheap, for obvious reasons. Some vigilantes tried to put a stop to the harvest. Called themselves 'slayers' or something. But after a while? Everyone who tried died, the others just gave up, and the town became abandoned.
CHAPTER 8
Original Washington DC intro It took me a couple tries to get this part right. The main problem here was, I needed some way to get the Doctor and Lyra into Bob and Joe's apartment, and meeting one of them on the street made that way too complicated.
It was a peaceful day in Washington DC. The wind was ruffling the leaves in the trees, blowing trash through the streets, and making people's hair flowing the wind whenever they needed to say something dramatic. The police officers were also performing their daily rounds of beating up lawyers, as per the orders of the new president. Nothing lethal, mind you. Just enough so that they do not want to sue you for hot coffee or anything.
This made the presence of two small talking horses even more unsettling for the populace.
"Do you think they are used to seeing ponies?" Lyra said, although, given the looks she was getting, she was pretty sure of the answer.
"Oh, sure they are," the Doctor lied. "I've been told is that when some of these people arrive in the Equestria, they know all about us! So they must have contact with us somehow."
Lyra stopped. "Like that?" she said.
"Like what?"
She pointed to one of the passerbys, who was wearing a shirt with a picture of…
"What," the Doctor said, starting to follow the man. "What. What? What!? Why? I'm on a T-shirt!? Why am I on a T-shirt?"
Finally, after some uncomfortably crowded galloping, the Doctor reached the men tapped him on the upper leg. The man turned around and his face grew pale. He started hyperventilating.
"Excuse me," the Doctor said, "where did you get that shirt?"
The man passed out.
David Tennant reference My editor had a headcanon that the human ("the creature") that appeared in the hospital chapter was actually David Tennant. I actually tweaked to the character's dialogue to imply that, and in this chapter, I had this segment confirming it.
"So?" Bob said as the episode finished. "How was that?"
"Interesting," the Doctor said. He didn't want to mention it, but the actor playing him looked almost like the first human he had seen in Equestria. The one that got blown up along with the hospital…
"Yeah, the 10th Doctor is the best," Joe said. He looked at the Doctor. "Sort of looks like you, doesn't it? That's how this whole thing got started, you know."
"Does he now," the Doctor said, who didn't really believe it. "Anyway, we should probably stop wasting time. I am here for a reason."
