> 'Tis Lunacy!
>  by X2_U
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: I'll be back for that midnight snack.... Eventually
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Twas not a good night to be Luna.
The day had started out as any other day had, with her rising with the falling of the sun, courtesy of her beloved sister, and preparing for the night ahead of her.
She had stood at her balcony and slowly used the connection she had with the night in order to arrange the stars in what was sure to be a spectacular showing. Once she was sure that was done, she used the same connection on beloved moon to raise it into the sky, darkening the heavens and slowly bringing the stars she had arranged oh so carefully to center stage, with her moon as the lead in her nightly show.
She had left her balcony feeling pleased with herself, letting her magic run on autopilot to slowly move the moon as the night went on.
Of course, her night simply had to come crashing down around her from there.
She had gone to go get ready for the night court which was to be convened at midnight, but she found the water in her room had run out of hot water. After a brief curse at her sister for hogging all the precious liquid of life, she went ahead and chose a cold shower, which was not fun at all.
Then, she trotted over to her dresser to find her royal regalia missing, with a small note attached to the cushion were it normally would have been placed reading "Sorry sister, but it appears you will have to go without it tonight."
So, Tia had taken both her hot water and her jewels marking her as a mare of royalty. She could have lived with that, knowing her sister loved to rile other ponies up in order to get a reaction to lighten up her day, but that wasn't all that had happened.
Since she could feel her anger rising, she decided to go ahead and sneak down into the kitchens for a brief snack. Both fortunately and unfortunately, she had ordered her staff to have the night off tonight, and now she was slightly regretting the decision to forgo eating a five star breakfast, but that also meant that she could have a snack at any time she wanted, such as she was doing at the moment.
So, she cantered over to the kitchens, and turned on the light.
Only to find her entire kitchen a wreck.
"..." She found herself unable to comprehend the scene in front of her, causing her brain to shut down her speech centers and forcing a wave of devastated silence upon herself.
Pots and pans lay strewn on the floor. Ingredients had been taken out of their containers and joined with their fallen metal ware cousins in the grounds sweet embrace. Confectionaries, once tall and proud under their glass containers, now rested like the ruins of ancient cities atop their silver platters. An infernal cold draped the large room, stemming from the open refrigerators that had been raided of their terrifyingly tempting treasures, leaving not but a void of light.
And then she spotted it. At the very end of the row of ice-white storage boxes was a peculiar blue box with a warm luminescence emanating from its open doors, standing rather inconspicuously against its brethren. This one she did not recall being there.
Her ears pricked up upon hearing voices resounding from said blue box as she approached it.
"... Mff hmph hmph hmm hmph hmmm?" Haha! She had found the heathen that had stolen all her snacks. She could here to pony chewing them right now!
"Derpy, what have I told you about eating with your mouth full?" She heard an accent similar to what Pip sounded like call out. She quickly moved forward, using her wings to lighten her hoofsteps. She was now outside the box, but decided now was not the time to enter. She made herself hidden behind the door of the mysterious object and placed an ear next on the side. "Also, can you grab me the didgeridoo from the corner? Oh, and the vuvuzela too!"
'Instruments?' Luna wondered. 'What sort of madpony plays insturments while raiding somepony’s kitchen?!’
"Heehee! Got it Doctor!" She could hear something being dragged. "Oof! This thing is heavy..."
"Don't hurt yourself, Derpy!" As soon as she heard the stallion (or, at least, she assumed it was based on the pitch), say those words, she heard a crash come from inside. "Derpy!"
"Oooooh..." Luna hoped that the mare (once again assuming based on pitch), was alright, although she couldn't help but feel a bit of vindication upon the thief of her saccharine treats getting her just desserts. "I'm alright!"
"Just remember to be careful on your-" she heard another crash, followed by a bang. "-*sigh*... Way up..."
Luna was now starting to become curious. She assumed that the box had some sort of space enlargement magic on it in order to be crashing around inside of a box no larger than the refrigerators it was near. She wondered if perhaps they were burglars and that tonight the kitchen was their quarry, which would explain the need for the box itself. Following that line of thought, she wondered if it had some of teleportation spell tuned onto the inside of it in order to make quick getaways, which would also make how it got there in the first place.
However, Luna had already learned her lesson on assumption making and its consequences. She would wait and see how this played out, despite the evidence to the pair being thieves.
She heard something akin to a thump coming from the interior of the box and the voices started up their conversation again.
"So, what did you need these things for again?" She heard the flapping of wings and then the sound of hooves meeting a solid surface. "And what is this thing?"
"Well, first question, I need these things to rouse the sleeping beast since you conked it over the head! The combination of the frequencies emitted from both of these should jump start its neural pathways and we can finally see what we have on our hooves!" A brief pause hung in the air. "And as for your second question... It's a Warp Worm!"
"...and what's a Warp Worm?"
"...I don't know!" She could feel the expression of exasperation and confusion on the Pegasus mare, if that was indeed what the companion was. "I came up with the name just now!"
"But, but... You know everything Doctor!" Luna highly doubted that. "But wait, if you don't know what it means..."
"It's a mystery! Isn't that exciting?" The gleeful tone of the stallion rebounded around his box and out into the kitchen. "A worm-like being that phases through our dimension like sand through a sifter, and I can't figure out why it’s here! I can just smell the adventure waiting around the corner..."
"That usually means a lot of trouble too, Doctor..."
"Oh, pish posh! It's just a cutesy little worm this time! I mean, our little escapade in capturing it did lead to the destruction of the kitchen of this nice establishment, but it didn't appear to be doing much harm other than playing the best game of hide-and-go-tag I've ever played in my entire lives! And, and!" She heard the mare giggle. "You, my dear, were the winner, and you netted yourself a nice bushel of delicious muffins for your effort!"
The giggling intensified before finally giving away to a proper thought. "Heehee, Doctor, you're making me blush..."
"However, we must remain vigil! Even if it didn't cause too much damage now, who knows what epidemic could happen in result of its sudden appearance... So, as a precaution, we're going to wake it and talk to it!"
Luna was sure the mare inside was just as confused as she was. "Talk to it? Doctor, it’s a worm..."
"A dimension phasing worm, Derpy! I have yet to meet a species that can do that in this universe that cannot form a proper method of communication!" Another pause permeated the inside of the box. "Well, I have yet to meet a dimension traveling species in this universe, but that's beside the point! Now Derpy, you take the vuvuzela while I will take the didgeridoo, and on the count of three, we will both blow! Got that?"
"Rodger dodger, Doctor!" Luna decided that listening was now going to be enough at this point, so she carefully aimed her head around the side of the door and into the box itself.
She had been expecting to see it be much larger on the inside, but she hasn't expected it to be quite that large, nor as... decorated, as it was. Tree-like pillars sprung from the floor, keeping a domed roof covered in golden lights aloft. A metal floor dominated the center of the room, with stairs leading down to the depths below, and in the very center of that platform was a large contraption of some kind with wires coming down from the top. Said contraption was surrounded in a hexagon of levers, switches, dials, and other technological goodies, with the center pillar of the device looking like some kind of pump.
Right in front of it were two ponies, one brown earth pony with a cutie mark in the shape of an hourglass, and one Pegasus mare with a green mane and a gray coat, a gaggle of bubbles acting as her cutie mark. Grasped in between the ponies hooves were the instruments they were talking about earlier, and in between the two instruments was a large glass jar, big enough to fit a filly. Inside the jar was a rainbow colored worm, coiled like a snake.
"Alright, one... Two..." Luna had then remembered that the instruments were rather loud and pulled her head back to cover her ears. "Three!"
VVRRRRROOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Luna could feel the noise in her bones as the sound seemed to blast through her skeleton for an eternity. When it finally stopped, she looked around the door to see that the worm had uncoiled itself and had started thrashing around in the jar.
"Hoho! You’re not going to cause any trouble from inside there! That jar is quantum locked, so no phase-shift trickery today!" The Doctor, if she recalled what the Pegasus called him, took out some sort of wand with a light at the end of it and started waving it around the jar. "Now, we are not going to hurt you, we just need to find out why you are here... so, if you are as intelligent as I think you are, please tell us so we can help resolve it!"
She couldn't understand how a worm could possibly speak, but a noise was emitted from the Doctor's wand-like object. "Chhhkk... I... Cchhhhww... Hungry... Vrwwww...disturbance..."
"Ah, hold on, I've almost got the correct frequency..." She watched as the Doctor fiddled with his device before pointing it at the worm. "There we go! Try now!"
"I... Am... Grild..." So, she was finally going to get an answer to what was going on. "I... Eat... Rifts..."
"Ah! Name and a purpose! And rifts! Ha! What kind, if you would clarify please?"
"I...ride...rifts... I... Eat... Rifts... I... Felt... Large one... Forming..."
The Doctor looked at the Pegasus who was staring intently at the worm. She met his gaze and nodded. "So, you eat rifts? As in, dimensional rifts? As in, you ride a rift all the way through, eat it, and then go to the next one?"
"Yes..."
The Doctor put on a very large smile. "Derpy! Derpy! Do you know what we found?!" The Pegasus shook her head, declaring her answer to be a negative. "We found the multiverse's detrivore! Oh this is exciting!"
"Uhhh... detrivore, Doctor?" Luna was wondering that as well. She hadn't quite had the time yet to catch up on all the advances science had made.
"Oh, uh... detrivore! Decomposes dead materials! But our fried here-" he tapped the glass with a hoof. "Decomposes rifts between dimensions so icky stuff doesn't flood through! Bloody useful creature, isn't he?"
"So he gets rid of portals that could have really bad things could come through?"
"Absolutely! He is integral to keeping the foundations of every universe stable and keeping them from collapsing into each other!" He let out a breath. "Ha... When was the last time we met an alien that actually didn't want to kill us or take over some lesser, in their opinion, civilization?"
"Ummm... I don't think we have yet..."
"A first then!" Suddenly, the Doctor's smile turned into one of confusion. "But then, why did she bring me here if nothing was wrong?"
Luna felt even more confused now. Who was this she he went on about?
He turned to face the worm again. "Wait, why did you say you were here again?"
"Felt... Large... Rift... Largest... Ever... Felt..." The worm contorted in the glass, as if to show its delight at such a large meal.
"Oh, that is not good, not good at all..." He turned to face the contraption in the middle and fiddled around with it for a few seconds. "Derpy, these rifts... They aren't just one way. If one is big enough, it could swallow an entire city, into it, an entire country, even! If he is right, and there is a rift out there that is the largest he has ever felt in his life..."
"Then it could be really, really bad..."
"Yes, Derpy, it could be really bad." He twisted a knob and smacked a lever. "Now if only I could find it..."
"Not... Here... Yet..." The worm announced. "Soon... Very soon..."
The Doctor turned to face the creature surrounded in glass. "You have the ability to sense where rifts are going to be?! Fascinating..." He took out the wand once again and started to wave it in a circular fashion. "Can you give me a general location of where it will be so I can narrow my range?"
"... Up..."
"Up?" He tilted his head. "Up? Up... Up! Up." He turned to his assistant. "Derpy, what do you think of this?"
"Ummmm..." She sat down and placed a hoof under her chin. "Maybe he works like a compass? Maybe we can throw him outside and he will point us in the right direction!"
"Excellent idea, Derpy! Time to fire up the TARDIS and go on a little adventure!"
Luna was pretty sure the TARDIS was what he called his box, and assuming her guesswork was correct, he would disappear before she got the answers she wanted. She decided it was time to make an entrance.
"Halt! We wish for answers!" Luna called out in her best authoritative voice.
However, her entrance was cut short by a strange sound filling the air, the door closing behind her, and the entire structure suddenly going under a simulated earthquake.
Her hooves suddenly turned to jelly and she looked for the nearest hoofhold in order to keep her balance.
"Uhhh... Doctor?"
She heard Derpy call from across the room. "What is it Derpy?"
"I think we picked up a hitchhiker!" Luna assumed she meant her.
"A hitchhiker? What do you-" He looked over to the other mare in the room. "Well, hello Luna! How have you been doing? It's been a while since I have seen you!"
Now that the room had stopped shaking the life out of her, Luna got back on her hooves and proceeded to try to dust herself off in a regal manner. "We do not recall ever meeting one such as thou, Doctor. We were simply investigating a disturbance in our kitchen when we found thy box!"
"Oh, I see... We haven't met yet. Well, I suppose I should introduce myself once more!" He made a flourish with his hooves. "I am the Doctor! And this here-" he pointed over to the grinning mare at the opposite end of the console. "-Is my dear companion and assistant, Derpy Hooves! Say hello, Derpy!"
Derpy, still smiling, took a few seconds to comprehend the Doctor's words before rushing over to her. "Oh my gosh! Luna! It's been like..." She looked up. Or at least one of her eyes did. Now that Luna was closer, she could see her irises were displaced inside their sockets. "A month since the wigniscant invasion! But, I guess it hasn't happened to you yet... Oh wait! I still owe you half a muffin! Or do I owe future you half a muffin? Oh, I guess I owe you 14 and a half muffins now, but do I pay future you or now you?" She flipped upside-down in midair and tapped her chin. "This is confusing..."
"Now now, Derpy debts later, we have work to do!" He went over to a small toolbox under the console and started to fiddle around with the insides. "Alright Luna, how much did you listen in on and how much do I have to explain?"
Luna trotted over to the console and looked it over with a critical eye. "We understand that thou wishes to close some form of inter-dimensional rift with thy companion, but-"
Luna was cut off. "Ah, that's the Luna I know! Always gathering all the facts before making a judgment! Just the kind of mare that I trusted to lead NEURON."
"Neuron?"
He waved his hoof around while tossing seemingly random objects like a whisk and a computer circuit out. "Oh, you know, National Equestrian United Reconnaissance and Offensive Network. You know, the thing you set up to combat all kinds of threats, internal, external, alien?" He turned around to see Luna's perplexed expression. "I take it you haven't even thought about it yet? But you told me that you set it up two years ago..." A look of realization crossed his face. "Oooooh! Luna, you cheeky, cheeky princess, you..."
Luna was now very confused. She had assumed that this box had managed to work on some form of sorcery or rune work, but she could see nothing of the sort and both ponies in front of her were not unicorns. Who were they and what was going on, and why did he speak like they had met before?
"We demand answers, confusing brown one!" She stamped a hoof into the floor to show her indignation. "Who art thou and why dost thou knowest us?!"
The Doctor finally pulled his snout out of the tool box and lifted a contraption that looked like a mad scientist had taken different parts from a computer and some heart's warming decorations and glue them together. "Oh right, got to tell you, don't I? Well, short explanation is that I'm an alien that traveled here from another dimension that can travel all of time and space with my ship, called the TARDIS, stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, by the way, with the goal of helping all sentient life throughout the cosmos!" He pushed a few buttons on the device in his hoof. "Long story is... Well, it’s a long story and I won't bore you with the details. Nopony-" He giggled slightly at some unknown joke. "-likes boring details. One exciting detail I will tell you though is that Derpy here decided to accompany me on my escapades and she has been an invaluable companion ever since!"
Derpy flipped in the air several times before landing and giving a bow. "Aww, that's really sweet! Thank you, Doctor!"
Luna was not sure if this pony was mad or telling the truth. Surprisingly, she was leaning more toward the truth, seeing as nopony would ever come up with such a convoluted story.
"... Very well. We accept thy explanation as fact, given current information presented." Luna decided to fire off another question. "So, thou hast been to the future? Describe to us the details, if thou willist, Doctor."
The Doctor looked up and tilted his head. "Nope. Not doing that. Spoilers and all. Too dangerous. But!" He waved the device over the container with the worm inside. "If you want, you can help us out. It's always great working with unicorns-" She heard and indignant "hey!" Come from the muffin thief. "And an alicorn will simply make the problems so much easier to solve. Plus, since I can travel time and space, we'll simply drop you off at the time you arrived back on board! What do you say?"
Luna was about to say no, but she thought about it. According to these ponies, there was to be some sort of disaster that could affect the entirety of equestria sometime in the near future. They, from what she could tell, had some experience in dealing with such matters and also had some clue as to what could possibly happen and how to stop it. Plus, she was one of the ruling diarchs of equestria, and thus had an obligation to protect it from any threats.
And she could finally escape that blasted castle and be out from under her overbearing sister's watchful eye for once.
"We have thought it over, and we have decided to accept they offer, if thou art indeed free of deceit."
A beeping was heard from the contraption and the Doctor rushed over to the black box attached to a metal arm on the console. "Excellent! Now, to fill you in on what I am currently doing-" he pulled a small, metallic tidbit from the side of the device and plugged it into a port on the table in front of him. "-I took some readings on Grild's natural rift locator and combined it with this device in order to triangulate the location of the rift, and hopefully its current size..."
He pushed another set of buttons, pulled a lever, punched a water noodle that popped up from the console, and then pushed a small red button on the black screen.
"And here we go!" The screen suddenly lit up, showing an image of a box, the same box she was currently in, sitting atop a cloud. "This is our current location..." He adjusted a few knobs on the screen, causing it to slowly back out and turn the current image into a black screen with yellow lines in a crisscross pattern, with bulges and dimples revealing objects that were hidden behind them.
The image kept backing up, farther and farther out, until it showed the entire planet, and even then it still kept going.
Finally, it stopped once the planet took up only half the screen, with a peculiar bulge taking up a much smaller portion at the opposite end. However, on that bulge were a scattering of tiny yellow dots, and Luna could swear that some of those dots were slowly growing in size.
"And here we are! Location confirmed!" The Doctor turned his head once he heard the ding telling him the screen had done it's work. "Oh... Oh... Oh dear, this is not good. Not good at all. This is very, very, very bad..."
The Pegasus glided over and pointed at the screen. "Uh, Doctor, is that what I think it is? And are those dots what I think they are?"
The Doctor pressed another couple of buttons and turned a few knobs and zoomed in on the object in question. The screen also disappeared, giving way to what Luna immediately recognized as her celestial body.
"That is our moon!" Luna also moved in closer to the screen, looking it over carefully. "What were those infernal yellow dots and why were they on our moon, Doctor?"
"Well, I'm afraid I have to inform you that what is left of your moon is most likely going to look like Swiss cheese..." The stallion pointed to a couple of peculiar spots that stood out ever so slightly because they seemed to be displaced from the surrounding area. "Those there are the dimensional rifts we are looking for..."
Luna quickly searched for her connection to the moon within her skull that kept it moving through the sky, but found it curiously gone. "Doctor! We hath lost our connection to the moon! How is it still within the sky?"
"Lost your connection? That shouldn't-" the brown stallion suddenly got a look on his face screaming realization. "Hold on, I used the TARDIS with you on board, but that shouldn't..." He trailed off on a tangent and started pacing along the catwalk. Luna, however, couldn't wait for him to finish his thoughts and instead decided she needed to take some action. Namely, reestablishing her connection to the moon so that she could perform her duty of moving it.
She opened the doors to the TARDIS and looked up, seeing that the moon did indeed still rest high in the sky. On closer examination, however, she realized that it was perfectly still, not moving at all, as if locked in place.
She took her magic and attempted to tether herself to the moon once more and found herself successful.
"Luna...? Luna! Luna, stop what you're doing right now!" Luna looked over her shoulder to see the Doctor yelling at her. "Cut it right now! If you don't-"
"Doctor, we believe we can try to affect our moon in what manner we please, so..." She pushed some magic into the connection, trying to get a better feel for the surface of the moon. "... If thou dost not mind, we will do as we must!"
"Luna, don't! I'm serious-" she blocked out what the stallion was saying and found one of the intrusive bubbles upon the surface of her fair moon. She poked at it with her magic, and determined that absorbing the energy out of it would be the best manner of ridding the offending thing, and so she started to absorb it.
Once she started the drain, however, she found that she could not stop, and quickly found herself overwhelmed with an abundance of energy.
Luna fell to the floor, clutching her head in pain, trying to cut the connection, but found that it simply would not stop.
"Derpy! Quick! She's undergoing a massive spike in energy! Close the doors and being her back to the console! We're going to do an emergency jump to cut the connection and drain the energy!"
In her pain, she felt somepony lift her from the floor and drag her body over to the console, a strange, cold device being attached to her horn. Upon its fastening, she felt her headache lessen, but she could still feel it climbing.
"Alright, time for an emergency jump!" Luna heard the Doctor flip a few switches and press a few buttons. "Don't let me down now, sexy!"
Her headache intensified, and soon she found herself whiting out from the pain.



"...Doctor? Doctor! I think she's waking up!"
Luna stirred from her rest. She didn't want to get up quite yet. It was nice, warm and comfortable on the bed she was sleeping on, so she kept her eyes closed and rolled over, pulling the blanket that had fallen off her shoulder over her head to block of the light and keep the heat in.
"Luna isn't much of a quick riser, from what I remember last time we found her napping on the job..."
Luna was much too tired to respond to such comments, but she did shift slightly to place her head under the pillow she had been resting on.
"Do you think it's a good idea to tell her she's sleeping in a bed we found on the surface of the moon?"
'Wait, what?' Luna thought. She instantly pulled herself from out of the sweet embrace of the bed and blearily looked around.
The white dust of her moon rested beneath her hooves. She was in one of the many craters decorating it, as she could barely make out the distant ridges of the walls where a meteor had caved in the surface of her current terrain. Behind her, she could see the seemingly random bed, the strange pair she had met within the blue box, and the box itself.
And then she looked up.
She really shouldn't have looked up. The planet certainly looked like her planet, with greens, whites, and blues representing lands, clouds and oceans, but there was one very key difference.
It was square.
A cube rested where a sphere should have been resting, revolving without a care in the world.
"Oh good! Good morning Luna! Or would that be good night? I am unsure how the day/night cycle works on the moon the way it is right now..." He trailed off. "Anyway, welcome to the moon! Isn't that exciting?"
Luna could only stare, as her thought processes had shut down to try and compare tend the scene before her.
She decided she did not want to deal with this today, so she decided to crawl back into bed and go back to sleep.
"So, Doctor, how long do you think we'll have to wait this time before she wakes up?"
"... I don't know..."
> Chapter 2: Blackboards are Like Towels, Both are Imperative in Space!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"...Luna? Luna! Luuuunaaaa!" She ignored the mare yelling in her ear. "Luuuuuuunaaa! Hey, Luna! Luna! Luna! Lu-"

"Whilist thou shut thy mouth! We art trying to think!" Luna had been pacing back and forth in front of the TARDIS trying to come to terms with the current situation. Derpy's incessant need to talk was not helping.

"But Luuuunaaaaa!" She held up a rock. "I found a space rock! It's soooo cool! It's shaped like a pony and has a little face on it!"

Luna glared at the offending object that had been shoved in front of her face and realized that it did, in fact, look like a pony, with the ridges and grooves on the 'head' portion giving it a face.

"...That is... Very nice. Now we shall get back to our previous musings."

"Aww, future you is so much funner." Derpy sat on the ground and started to play with said rock, but soon it contorted into a confused expression. "I thought being the head of a super secret organization was supposed to make you not-fun. Isn't that some sort of universal rule or something? Being the shady head of a super secret government sect is supposed to suck the fun out of you? How come you're not-fun now and fun-fun later?" She lifted the rock and glared at it. "What do you think skippy?"

'She has named it already. Shall she knight it next and declare it head of order of the moon?' Luna had already noted that Derpy always seemed a bit... Out there during her times in ponyville, but actually spending some time with her had given her a scope at her rather inquisitive and tangential mind.

Luna, however, was not occupied with thoughts of the Pegasus. No, they were currently tuned to the problem of the doctor having yet to return from his jaunt.

*flashback*

"...But then I said 'reverse the polarity!' And the other me responded with 'that's your answer to everything!'" Luna found herself trying to block out the sudden sensation of consciousness in order to go back to sleep, so she took the pillow her head rested on and put it above her head in an attempt to block out the sound. "Now, this is where-oh! Luna! Awake now, are we? Why don't you get up and join us for some tea! I made some and I still have some left over! In fact..." She heard two clacks, followed by two more clacks. "Yes! We have enough for three and we have some biscuits left over if you want some!"

The voice sounded unfamiliar and she recalled that her room was not supposed to be a tea parlor, so she took her head out from under the pillow and cracked an eye open to see who had managed to infiltrate her room for afternoon tea so she could magic them to the far reaches of equestria.

At first, the image was bleary, but after a couple of blinks, she could make out three shapes, and after a few more, she could finally see the scene in it's entirety.

Two ponies were currently having tea, a wooden table between the two raising said tea to comfortable reaching levels, and behind them was a strange blue box that tickled her memory. And then, she looked slightly to the left of the box and the events from yesterday poured back into her mind as the image of a cubular Equis spun lazily in space.

"Well, come on! We only have..." The brown pony took out the metallic wand like device she recalled him waving around earlier and used it once more, the now familiar high-pitched buzzing filling the air. "Another hour and sixteen minutes at the rate he's going before the rift goes down! So go ahead and head into the TARDIS and get ready for some of the best tea and biscuits this side of the galaxy, if I do say so myself!"

She watched the gray one opposite of the doctor nod her head eagerly as she took a bite out of one of the biscuits she saw her pull out of a jar on the table. "Derf fwery goof!"

"Derpy! Manners!" He chastised.

She gulped them down and took a large sip of her tea. "Sorry Doctor!" She patted her chest heavily, coaxing the food down her throat. "But they are really really good!"

"Why thank you!" He flashed a smile in Luna's direction. "Go on! We'll wait! Bathroom is down the door on the left, all the way at the end of the hall on the right! "

Luna decided getting ready for whatever craziness today was going to bring her was to be her top priority, so she got out of the bed she was sleeping in and paced around the table and inside of the TARDIS.

She found her way to the bathroom and washed up, using some magic to speed up the process.

Then she quickly trotted out and went to the table, where a third seat had been placed for her, and sat down.

"Would thou mind telling us why we are enjoying tea and crumpets while equestria is in danger of losing her moon?"

"Right! You need to be filled in..." He quickly poured a small cup of tea and placed a stack of biscuits in front of her. "But first, tea! Can't get out of bed properly in the morning without tea!"

Luna, although wanting some answers first, decided to have some tea first, seeing as she was sure this Doctor was not reckless enough to have tea on the moon without rhyme or reason.

Hopefully.

So, she sat in silence, occasionally taking a bite out of a biscuit and washing it down with tea as the two conversed about how pretty the sky was here or what was different and what was the same while relating it back to previous escapades which the details slipped between the gap and only gave her an out of context version of certain events.

"Still, squares huh?" Derpy said after she took a bite out of one of the last remaining bread pieces. "Reminds me of the time we got stuck in that giant computer!"

"Those controls had no idea what hit them, did they?" The Doctor chuckled.

"Derpy Hooves! Master master controller confudler and breaker, at your service!" She wiggled in her seat in a strange fashion. "That dimension button though... Ugh, I can still feel the headache from that one..."

"Gazing into every possible future at once will do that to you." The doctor sighed. "You were so young then, too. You got your cutie mark for that incident though, so I suppose it wasn't all bad." He sighed once more. "I'm still very sorry about that. If I hadn't gotten to you in time and hadn't drained that ability into the TARDIS..."

"Like I said, its fine, Doctor!" She drank some tea and sprung up from her seat. "Now nothing is invisible from my eyes! Nothing! So I'm super awesome now!"

"That you are Derpy, that you are..." He attempted to reach for a biscuit, only to find them all gone, his hoof tapping an empty plate for something not there. Then he went for his tea, only to find that empty as well.

"Huh. We're out of tea and biscuits... I suppose that ends tea time..." He placed his dishes off to the side and beckoned Derpy and Luna over to him. "Right, so, Luna, I'll give you the rundown of what our current plan is once this has been cleared up! So, would you like to do us a favor and use those dimension warping alicorn powers of yours to bring the table in while Derpy and I bring in the dishes?"

Luna, always one to be courteous, obliged and used her magic to levitate the table after they had picked up the dishes, which had been precariously placed upon Derpy's wings like those waiters she had seen in a few of those fancy restaurants she had been forced to visit by her sister in order to "improve her image", she said.

After that had been done, they made a single file line straight out the door and waited for the doctor to come out. He eventually did, dragging a blackboard with him.

"Ooooh! I love it when the doctor takes out a blackboard! He makes everything so interesting!"

Luna's curiosity was peaked. She always had a liking for those who could teach. "Thou would say this doctor is a good teacher?"

"Oh, yeah! He's a great teacher!" Derpy pointed to the board itself. "Last time he took it out, he taught me how certain beams of anti-light can be reflected off black surfaces!" She got up and pointed to a certain darker spot on the board. "That's where the beam hit when the doctor pulled it out of the TARDIS to protect us from those really mean bounty hunters!"

"Now now, Derpy, story time for another day-" the doctor came out form behind the board and flipped it over on it's axel, revealing a very intricate diagram of the moon on it. He tapped the chalk clutched between hooves twice on the board. "-for learning time is now!"

"Got it!" She made the motion for a zipper over her mouth. "Mmmhmmph!"

The doctor locked eyes with Luna, and Luna nodded showing it was okay for him to start his explanation.

"So, this here, if either of you can't tell, is the moon!" He made an exaggerated circular motion with his hoof. "And we are..." He took the chalk and made a small circle with it near the very top of the drawing of the moon. "Here!"

Luna nodded, showing her understanding. Derpy, however, was content with blowing the moon dust from under her and watching it float, before slowly falling back down.

"This circle, however, is not simply an indication of where we are, no! This here circle is one of the rifts that I was talking about! Right now, we are in an alternate dimension!"

Luna raised a hoof. "Alternate dimension? As in, those described in the parallel magic theory?"

Luna had read the paper in an attempt to fit in to modern society, but said paper had led her on a bit of a modern magic binge, as it interested her greatly. That one stuck out in her head because it was the very first one she had read.

The doctor head nodded quickly in response. "Ah, yes, I remember your future self mentioning she had read it, so I suppose I won't have to go into an explanation of parallel universes, will I?" He turned back to the board. "So, here we are on a parallel moon! However, there is a lot to understand about parallel dimensions, so please bare with me!"

"First thing you should know about parallel worlds! Once you are in, there is a very large chance you will not be able to leave!" Luna's eyes widened at this statement. She was about to speak, but held her voice once the doctor raised his hoof and smiled mischievously. "Now, that would be the case this time, but we have a solution in the form of a certain worm."

"Dost thou mean the worm that ruined our kitchen?"

"Yes!" The doctor made another drawing next to the moon, this time drawing a simplified sketch of the moon's surface, with a door standing straight up without anything to hold it. "So, imagine this door is the rift and this moon is your moon. Now let's open the door..." He altered the image to leave the door ajar. "And on the other side of the door is this moon!"

Off to the side, he drew a box. "So, this was us, inside my TARDIS. Then we flew through the door..." An arrow was placed upon the drawing, showing the TARDIS's vector. "And appeared here!"

He erased the door and the TARDIS, and placed another TARDIS in the door's previous position.

"But, where is the door?" Luna asked.

"And that, dear princess of the night, is why most dimension travelers cannot leave the universe they traveled to! These doors are usually one way, with the physical door disappearing all together! But..." He pointed at the smudged leftovers of the door. "The door still exists! So, out wormy friend takes these remnants and eats them, makes a new door, goes through, and then eats both doors once he is on the other side! All we have to do is hitch a ride along with him!"

Luna nodded, finding no fault in his explanation.

"Onto topic two! And that is..." He made a dotted line around the TARDIS. "Don't leave the space around the TARDIS unless you have been approved by me, are sure it is safe, or are in danger, as the TARDIS is currently emitting a UW field."

"UW field?" Luna questioned.

"UW field; Universe Wavelength field! What it does is emit a wavelength to keep you as, well, you. Step outside, and who knows what might happen!" He drew a stick pony on the board. "Let's say this is you."

Luna was a bit put off by the fact he had drawn her a a stick figure when he could clearly draw very nicely, but went along with it.

"And this, lets say, is you after leaving the field!" He then gave her a bit more girth, making her a box figure instead of a stick figure. "See what I mean? Lets suppose we wind up in a universe where magic and ponies don't exist, so what do you suppose you'll turn into? The answer is you won't know what you'll turn into! So until we can figure that out, no leaving!" He teetered his head side to side. "Well, I suppose its impossible to loose your magic since it's so ingrained into you, but point still stands!"

"We shall not leave the area, doctor. We are more responsible than that."

"Ah, Luna, Luna, Luna... You assume we don't know about that mischievous self you hide so well, but it's there, so please take this warning seriously!" The doctor smiled one of those smiles that revealed he knew something more than she knew. "Especially because you are pretty much guaranteed to leave. Time travel does have it's positive sides, after all!"

"And what dost thou mean by that?!"

"Ah, don't worry about that, Luna. Nothing important..." The infuriating smile still decorated his face. "And finally, this one should be a given, if you do leave, remember to set up an oxygen field! Ponies can't breathe on the moon because there is nothing to breathe, so be sure to do it!"

"Class dismissed!" The doctor then went up to Derpy and looked down. Luna followed his gaze and realized that Derpy had doodled on the ground in front of her, drawing a platform similar to those who won the equestria games stood upon, except this particular platform was made of muffins. On the left, in the third place spot, was Luna, a moon shaped medal around her neck. On the right was the doctor, waving to the crowd. Finally, in the middle, upon the highest podium, stood Derpy, hefting a large trophy with an exorbitant amount of sweets piled out of.

"So, Derpy, since you were doodling while Luna was paying attention, would you like to stay after class to help put away the board?"

"Sure thing doctor!" Derpy then went to the side of the board and started to push it back in, leaving the doctor and Luna alone outside.

Luna then remembered a question she had wanted to ask but had not recalled until now. "Doctor, thou stated that the worm was busy making our gateway out. How long shall it be until this barrier falls?"

"Oh! Ah, hold on..." He took out the metallic tube again and waved it in the air. "Ah! Three minutes, twenty-three seconds!"

Luna nodded and then wandered over to the bed that she had woken up on.

From what she remembered, this particular bed had not been placed here by the doctor. No, they had placed her unconscious body on a bed they had found in an alternate dimension's moon.

Typically, one would not do that, as it would not be safe, but the doctor had done it anyway. Perhaps he had used his strange metal wand to analyze it?

She tapped it with a hoof, trying to see if it would come alive, but it remained a bed. She tapped it a bit harder, and was startled upon seeing a tiny crack where she had hit. She tried to get a closer look at it, but then the crack healed itself.

"Interesting..." Luna said to herself.

Wanting to see if the same effect would happen if she were to do it a second time, she hit it with a slightly stronger blow than her previous attempt. Again, the crack appeared, but just as quickly went away.

Luna would have just left it there, but her curiosity got the better of her, and so she started hitting it some more. The crack became wider and wider the more she hit it, other cracks soon joining it.

What she didn't notice, however, were similar cracks covering the entire bed, including the pillow and the blanket.

She hit it one more time, and then the entire thing collapsed on itself, becoming a much smaller version, one that could fit in her hoof, and slowly began to rotate.

'What kind of magic is this?' Luna, instead of deciding to use her magic to analyze it, reached out to try and grab it between her hooves.

Instead of resting on her hooves, however, it instead attracted itself toward her torso, where it melted itself into her being.

Luna brought a hoof up to herself and patted the area where it had been absorbed into herself, as if she were trying to feel where it had gone.

"Infernal wooden resting tool, please detach yourself from our being!" Luna began to say. "We do not appreciate thy need to nestle within our body, so please evacuate thyself!"

No such thing happened.

Then Luna thought back to what the doctor said.

'So, perhaps it is not sentient, and perhaps this is simply a property of the object? The ability to store itself on ourself?' Luna thought hopefully. 'Or perhaps it is a parasite, intent on devouring our inner workings...'

Luna's horn lit up as she analyzed her body for any abnormalities, and found none.

'Where did it go to, then?' She pondered the question. 'A mental trigger, then? A magic bed that stores itself in another dimension to be pulled up through mental command?'

Seeing as she had time and it didn't appear to be doing anything had to her, she called up the image of the bed. To her surprise, a bed plopped out from her hoof and onto the moon dust below.

"Huzzah!" She cheered for herself. "We hath done it!"

She picked up the bed again, sending to that other dimension she had theorized, and trotted back over to the TARDIS to tell the doctor of the development she had discovered.

Instead of finding the doctor, however, she instead found a note pinned to the door of the TARDIS.

'Sorry, Luna! Had to go, turns out that this particular field is actually a dimension within another dimension! Can't take one down without the other, so I'm going to see if I can't merge the two without collapsing both and then exiting that way. Gone to see our wormy friend. In the mean time, please get to know Derpy a bit better. Be back soon!'

In the bottom corner was a drawing of the doctor with a smile decorating his face, along with a small post script.

'P.S., please take a necklace and wear it. It is pinned to the other side of the TARDIS. I'll tell you what they do later.'

Luna promptly went to the other side and found the necklace the doctor had been talking about. It was a simple rope necklace, nothing special. Luna picked it up using her magic and placed it on herself. She then looked around to see if she could find Derpy.

It didn't take too long, as it seemed Derpy had found some skates, and was currently skating along the edge of the crater, using the lower gravity to do tricks. Around her neck was a similar necklace as the one she was currently wearing.

"Derpy! We wish to speak with thou!" Luna called out.

Derpy's ears pricked up, and soon the mare was racing toward her position, spiraling in a chaotic fashion that spoke of an imminent crash.

Luna averted said crash by plucking the mare out of midair using her magic and then gravitating her over to her current position.

"Hi Luna!" Derpy waved. "The Doctor went out to do a thing, so I got some skates and decided to have some fun!"

"We know, and we see." Luna replied. "We were actually wondering if thou would tell us more about thyself, seeing as we may be in thy company for quite a while."

Derpy tapped her chin. "Well, there really isn't all that much to know. I grew up in ponyville, I work a couple of odd jobs, although I usually deliver the mail... I have a little filly named Dinky, she and I like muffins... I'm not the best flyer, as you have probably seen..." She closed her eyes. "I'm not the brightest pony around, but I always try my hardest. Oh! Also, I've known the doctor since I was a filly!"

Luna took all that information in. She knew there was quite a bit more to this mare than what she had just told her, but she would let that come in time.

"Soooo... Since I told you about myself. Why don't you tell me about yourself!"

Luna thought about this. "We are not very interesting, to be honest. We like reading, having fun, our sister, playing pranks, and the night. We dislike impudence and modern grammar, and we would rather not talk about our past."

She let go of Derpy, who managed to land on her hooves despite the change in gravity and the skates, and then went to the front of the TARDIS to wait.

"We are going to wait for the doctor to return! Thou may do as thou wishes while we wait!"

"Alright!"

And then the wait began.

*end flashback*

It had been quite some time since then, and the doctor had yet to return.

In fact, while she was waiting, she had seen the barrier itself fall, as the sky and the planets above changed from cubes to their normal spherical shape, but even after waiting two hours after said event, the doctor had still not returned.

"Derpy, we believe it to be time to go and search for our mutual companion."

Derpy, however, simply tilted her head in confusion as she lifted up the rock from earlier. "But skippy is right here! Why would we go search for him?"

"Thou hast misunderstood." Luna quickly corrected. "We speak of the doctor."

Derpy giggled. "Oh, don't worry about him! He always comes through."

Luna, however, was not dissuaded. "He is a pony, correct? Ponies are not infallible. We hath learned that lesson the hard way."

"He did tell us to stay here." Derpy stated. "...but he also said that you were going to break the rules anyway, and it was getting kind of boring around here anyway..."

"Exactly." She looked around. "Dost thou know where he went?"

Derpy closed an eye and placed a hoof under her chin, which seemed to be a thinking position for her. "I think he went that way-" she pointed to a corner of the crater that the TARDIS's south wall faced. "But I'm not sure..."

"A good place to start..." Luna took off, her wings generating enough thrust to take her off the ground. "Well? Art thou going to follow?"

Derpy slowly nodded and took off. "You do remember that the doctor did tell us that once we leave the crater, we might not be ponies anymore, right?"

"Yes, we do." Luna replied curtly. "We are simply choosing to fly to the edge of the crater since it is faster."

"Okey dokey!" She watched as Derpy barrel rolled past her, a small woosh greeting her ears as she passed. "Lets go!"

Luna, not one to dilly dally, rushed to keep up with the chaotic motions of the pegasus.

Soon, they both arrived at the edge of the the crater, a large expanse of flat moon expanding before them.

"Art thou ready, Derpy?"

"As ready as I'll ever be!" She replied in a chipper tone.

Luna nodded and took a step forward.

And instantly blacked out.

"You know, you seem to be sleeping a lot lately. Is it because you are the princess of the night?"

Luna recognized the voice that was speaking to her. She tried to recall who it was, but she couldn't quite place it.

"Come on, Luna, I can feel you waking up, and carrying you is starting to really hurt by back. You're heavy..."

Luna could feel the rhythmic motion of somepony carrying her, but it felt... Off. She couldn't quite describe it.

"Luna, wake up, the doctor won't find himself!"

The doctor... That tickled her memory...

And then everything came back to her and her eyes snapped open.

"Oh! Yay! You're awake! Finally!"

Luna turned her head to her left to see the face of a strange creature, one the likes of which she had never seen. It had similar characteristics to a pony, with two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mane, and a mouth, but that was where it ended. The face had no fur, instead being a peachy color, and the nose was proportioned wrong, with it being thinner than a pony's nose. The eyes were much smaller. The entire face had similar proportions to that of a monkey than that of a pony, Luna noticed.

"Um, Luna?" The strange entity said. "Can you get off now?"

Luna noticed that her hooves were around the creature's shoulders and immediately unhooked herself from the being. She landed in a heap on the ground.

"Ahh... My shoulders..." The being moved an appendage in a circular motion, probably to circulate blood through it, and then turned to face her. "Hey Luna! You're kinda different looking now, but trust me, that body should be simple enough to get used to."

Luna briefly wondered who that was, but then her memories, along with the mane color and the eyes of the particular subject in front of her clarified for her. "Derpy?"

"Yup! The one and only!" She placed her appendages on what she assumed to be her hips and beamed. "Although I probably look really different."

Different was an understatement. Derpy was no longer a pegasus, but now some kind of bipedal creature. She stood twice as tall as an average pony, with blonde hair topping her head. She didn't seem to have any other sort of body hair anywhere else, which she found strange, although the clothing she was wearing, a gray shirt with a matching pair of pants, may have been covering any. The top half of her torso had a rather large bulge to it, although why she couldn't tell also due to the shirt. The appendages which extended from the top half of her body ended in what looked like claws, although there were some differences, such as looking more oriented toward manipulation rather than cutting and tearing, as normal claws would. Her lower appendages, the ones keeping her up, ended in a flat portion that had tiny extensions at the end, similar to how the appendages ended on her upper body. Now that she could see her face without any morning weariness, she could see the telltale displaced eyes that Derpy was known to have.

"So... Do you need any help learning to walk? I mean, last time I was human it took, like, thirty minutes to start walking, but you're probably more coordinated than I am, so..."

"Last time? Human?" Luna asked.

"Oh! Right, you don't know..." She took her classic thinking stance. "Well, you see, I've been on a lot of adventures with the doctor, and one of those adventure wound up with me turning into this. Don't ask how it happened, but somehow somepony created an entire world based of of his memories for him to live in and I had to go in and get him out. Anyway, the doctor used to be something that looked just like a human, and so I was turned into a human to match what he thought. Make sense?"

"We suppose..." Luna said. "Could thou tell us what those appendages are called? We do not like being in the dark."

"Right! So-" she pointed to one of the appendages at the top of her body. "These are arms. The flat things at the ends are hands, and the wiggly things at the end are called fingers." She the pointed to the appendages that kept her upright. "These are legs. The things at the bottom are called feet and the digits are called toes."

Luna briefly went over the names to make sure she had gotten them down. Then her attention turned toward some other things. "Why dost thou wear clothes? Also, what are those things?" She said pointing to her chest.

"Hold on, I'm trying to remember what the doctor told me about clothes..." She snapped her fingers. "Right! Because humans don't have a coat, they need to keep warm and clothing is the way they do it! And these things?" A cross look plastered itself on her face. "They're called breasts. I don't know what they do cause the doctor wouldn't tell me, but they're really heavy and bothersome." Then her face lit up. "At least we're on the moon! Now they're not so heavy! You're really heavy though, even on the moon."

"Are thou calling us fat?!" Luna yelled.

She cupped her hands to her ears. "Owwww... My ears..." She shook her head and looked at her again. "No, you're just really big. You're way taller than me and just... Bigger."

"So thou art calling us fat!"

"No no no! Just try standing! You'll see what I mean!"

Luna huffed indignantly before deciding to take Derpy's advice and try standing. She placed a hand on her shoulder and hoisted herself up, albeit shakily.

"Careful! Just try standing!" She put an arm out. "If you need some help, grab on to my arm for support!"

Luna followed her advice and gripped the arm in question, using it to balance herself. Then, as soon as she was sure she wouldn't fall over, she slowly rose to full height, the arm quivering under the weight she was placing on it.

She slowly adjusted her footing, and then over the next few minutes, slowly shifted weight over from Derpy's arm back to herself.

Eventually, she had let go of her arm and was now standing without assistance.

"We see why thou called us... Heavy."

She was more than a head taller than Derpy, with Derpy only coming up to her chest region. Speaking of her chest, it was larger than Derpy's albeit not by much, but it was still noticeable. It was covered by a midnight blue dress, which fully covered her entire form. Her coloring was much darker than Derpy's, being a dark tan rather than a light peach. Wispy strands of hair fell over her shoulder, a distinct onyx color with dark blue highlights.

"Thou speaks the truth, they are rather cumbersome..." She placed both arms under her chest. "However, we must make due with what we have decided."

"Yup! So, next step is walking. That is a lot harder than just standing." She held out her arm again. "Here, take my arm, you are going to need it."

Luna complied with her request. She placed both her hands on her arm and then took a tentative step forward. She wound up instead placing all her weight on Derpy's arm, causing it to dip slightly from the weight.

"At least we're on the moon. If this had been on Equis, I'm sure I would be face first in the ground..." Commented Derpy.

Another few minutes was all it took for Luna to get the basics of walking in a straight line, and another few minutes for her to figure out how to properly rotate and turn.

"Yay! You got it! So, are you ready to go?" She pointed a finger in the direction of the lip of a nearby crater.

"One moment, Derpy, we must confirm one thing first..."

Luna hadn't been able to feel her magic at all since she had become a human. She closed her eyes and attempted to locate her main source of magic within her, and soon found it. She attempted to use it, but found moving it around her body extremely taxing, and actually getting it to leave her body next to impossible.

"Very well, we can live without the use of magic for but a short time." Luna spoke to herself. "Let us go, Derpy."

"Alright! Adventure~~~ Adventure~~~ no heavy princesses on my back~~" She sung as she skipped along. " Adventure~~~ Adventure~~~ Quest on the moon, quest on the moon!"

Luna could not comprehend her current mood, but she decided that a bit of happiness on the desolate landscape of the moon was something she could appreciate.

Derpy walked at an insane pace. Luna was sure even a normal human didn't travel as fast as Derpy did when they were traveling at their normal speed. Luna had to learn how to jog to keep up with the ditzy mare or else fall behind and lose her behind the various craters and rocks.

"Derpy! Slow down! We can barely keep up with thou!"

Derpy did a 180 degree turn and then started to walk backward, still going at that crazy. "Oh! Sorry! I forgot you just learned to walk!" She slowed down a bit, allowing Luna to catch up. "Again, I'm really sorry..."

"Why dost thou walk so fast?!" Luna took a few seconds to catch her breath.

"Well, when you are always being chased by aliens and always have to go somewhere or be somewhere, you kind of just pick it up." Derpy made a fist and tapped it on her head. "I forgot that you haven't had to do that..."

Luna simply grabbed onto her arm to slow her down and then wrapped her arm around it, ensuring she wouldn't go anywhere without her.

Soon, though, the walk was starting to become rather monotonous, and Derpy had started to alleviate her boredom through other means.

"I spy, with my little eye, something... Gray!"

"Thou's shirt."

"Got that one! I spy with my little eye, something... White!"

"Moon dust."

"Yeah! Alright, eye spy, with my little eye, something... Black!"

"Space."

"Got another one! I spy, with my little eye, something... Gray!"

"Thou's shirt, and thou just said that one."

"You're good at this Luna! How am I going to stump you?" She looked around, trying to find something in this empty place, before finally resting her eyes on something.

Grinning, she turned to face Luna. "I spy, with my little eye; something tall!"

"Us."

"Nope!" Luna raised an eyebrow. "Try again!"

"A rock."

"Nope! One more guess!"

This time, Luna actually decided to look around to see what she was talking about, and it was then that she understood.

"Why did thou not tell us thou saw a building upon the moon?!"

Derpy clasped her hands over her ears again. "Ow ow ow! That was loud..." She grinned. "And I just did! Lets go check it out!"

Although Luna normally would have been against the idea, it was the most likely place for the doctor to have gone should he have decided to head this way. Plus, it was also a sign of civilization, so perhaps even if they didn't find the doctor, they would be able to find if the doctor had been there or not, and maybe find a way to contact him.

"We suppose we-" she noticed Derpy was nowhere to be seen. "Derpy! Do not leave us behind!"