The Doctor is popping back to Earth, and he's taking his friends and family along for the ride. When the TARDIS stalls in the middle of the vortex, though, old foes arise and threaten everypony on the ship.
(Unlisted characters: Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle)
The Doctor is taking the newly-repaired TARDIS for a spin, bringing his family and some friends along for the ride. However, when the TARDIS stalls in the middle of the time vortex, the old blue box may not be quite as safe as the Doctor hopes. Old foes are rising. An unknown force is manipulating the TARDIS. It seems that time itself is being split. This time, it seems that even the Doctor might not be enough to save the day.
Violence tag for fighting monsters and destroying robots. Also features slight internalized homophobia
The inner workings of a TARDIS were complex and well-ordered. They were, after all, designed and built by Time Lords, and that meant that chaos was exceedingly unwelcome. When the TARDIS had still been on Gallifrey, its builders had sealed off many of the engine works, on the grounds that the systems were foolproof and utterly infallible. If one were to find themself inside one of these boxes (a highly unlikely occurrence), and squinted quite hard in the faint red light that most definitely should never have turned on, the shape of a face might be seen for the briefest of moments before they were electrocuted. Sparks flew as wires that had previously been functioning perfectly normally suddenly went dead. The red light vanished, but the sound of dark chuckling echoed around the chamber for some time after.
The difficulty with utterly infallible systems is, whenever they DO fall, it is very hard to get at them. And the trouble with foolproof systems is that they often fail to account for clever people. Particularly highly malevolent clever people…
***
Ponyville, Fall of 4 H.E.: The Doctor shrunk back in terror from the gray shadow looming over him. “No!” he gasped, cowering from the menacing objects being thrust at him. “Please, Ditzy! How could you do this to me?”
The pegasus gave him a flat look, continuing to hold out the paperwork. “I already told you, if you want to move back in, you’re going to have to get a job. Post officers don’t exactly get much pay.”
“But I don’t do that sort of thing!” the Doctor protested. “I told you how my interviews went!”
“Well, the University said your resume was nothing short of astonishing.”
“Yeah, but it’s been a month, and they haven’t called me back. Just because I fixed their Extremely Large Telescope…”
“You turned it into a toaster.”
“I turned it into a multipurpose device,” the Doctor corrected. “They can see the stars twice as well now, and have breakfast while they’re doing it!”
Ditzy sighed. “Well, what about town hall? It’s only been a week since your interview there. You might still get the job as the mayor’s secretary.”
“They don’t think I’ve got the political experience,” he said moodily.
“What?” Ditzy gasped. “That’s absurd.”
“I know! I told them how I overturned an entire government in six words, and they showed me the door.”
Ditzy winced. “Er, I meant… you said you used to be the President of Gallifrey, right?”
“Oh, yeah, that too. Served for almost a fortnight!”
“I thought a fortnight was two weeks.”
“It is, yes.”
“Oh.”
“And let’s not even go into what happened at Hayburger!”
“Well, you did question whether what you were serving was even food.”
“A valid question! If you saw those kitchens, you’d say just the same.”
“Well, you’ll just have to keep trying,” Ditzy said firmly.
“Awww…” He flopped onto his side. “Can’t we just sell the house and live in the TARDIS?” he whined.
His wife gave the blue box a long, thoughtful stare. “We could,” she conceded, “but I’d rather not. Anyway, that won’t do much for keeping food on the table.”
“I-- well-- no, I suppose not…” A sly smile crossed his face. “But I know what might…”
Ditzy Doo gave her husband a worried look. “Pocket, are you planning to do something illegal?”
“Who, me? No, of course not. Well. Mostly not. It’s pretty much legal. I mean, no one’s actually written up any laws against it.”
“Oh. Well... that’s alright then, I suppose,” said Ditzy, starting to smile. “Um, what exactly are you planning?”
The Doctor’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “Oh, just a little trip to the bank… back in my home universe, I’ve made myself a pretty penny on investments, and an absolute fortune in interest.”
Ditzy’s eyebrows raised. “Going home already?” she asked, half-teasing, half-concerned.
He smirked. “Well. Not alone, I think. It’ll make for a nice vacation for you and Dinky.”
“Really?”
He nodded, suddenly stoic. “I promised you both that I wasn’t going to leave you behind again, and that is one promise that I am absolutely going to keep.”
Ditzy beamed. “Oh, wow, first time in the TARDIS and we’re already travelling to another universe! I’d better go get Twilight, she’d never forgive me if I didn’t let her come along.” She darted away before the Doctor could protest.
He stared after her for a long moment after she had left. "I meant... a family trip..."
***
Much later that afternoon, a quartet of ponies had gathered around the deceptively small blue box. They were all uncomfortably aware of the loud banging noises and alien curses from the interior. Finally, Pinkie raised a hoof and knocked. The door opened and a little unicorn filly poked her face out. “Oh. Hi. Come on in, the repairs are almost done.”
“Hiya, Dinky!” Pinkie chirped. “Isn’t this exciting? A whole new universe full of all sorts of weird aliens and things! I can’t wait to meet them all and throw a big Hello-New-Friends party!” She bounced through the door. “It’ll have to be a really, really big party, too! I’ve never had a party for an entire universe before. Maybe I should just take it one planet at a time.”
“Repairs?” Applejack asked Twilight nervously. The alicorn just responded with a shrug and stepped aboard, followed by Rainbow Dash and (rather more hesitantly) by Applejack.
The control room was as beautiful as ever, though it still smelled faintly of tree sap. In the center of the room was the Doctor. His hair was slightly more messy than usual, blackened, and smoldering just a little bit. He glanced up at the sound of hoofsteps and grinned at his new friends. “All aboard?” he asked cheerfully. “Where’s the rest of you Elements, then?”
“Well, Flutters was kind of nervous about this whole ‘time travel’ thing.” Rainbow said, rather more evenly than the Doctor had been expecting, considering her abrasiveness the last time they had spoken.
“And Rares had a big dress order t’ fill on a tight deadline,” Applejack added. “Spike stayed behind ta help her out. Trixie's helpin' her model, so she's out, too.”
“But she did tell us to take some pictures of your universe’s fashion styles,” Twilight said. “I hope that’s alright?”
“It’ll be fine,” Ditzy assured her. “It won’t even leave a mark on the space-time continuum. It’s pretty resilient, at that.”
“Right!” the Doctor shouted, flipping over several switches, “Popping back off to my proper universe, family in tow, a few new friends along for the ride…” He grinned broadly as the familiar grinding, wheezing sound of the dematerialization circuit began. “Allons-y!”
The grin dropped, however, as the materialization noise suddenly shuddered to a halt. “What?” He stared at the console.
The Time Lord tapped on the glass of a gauge that was pointing straight to zero. “Best guess, I’d say that the engine stopped,” he said, frowning. “It’s been awhile since that last happened, and it’s usually a sign of a much larger problem. I’d better go and have a look…”
“Ah’ll help.”
“Oh, that’s fine, really--”
“Nope, ah won’t hear a word against it. Come on, we got us a motor t’ fix!”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that!” the Doctor said, running after Applejack.
There was a brief, awkward silence. The Doctor was really the only one who knew how to do anything with the TARDIS, and his departure left everyone slightly off-balance. “Well!” Twilight said brightly, “Let’s just see where we are, then!” She tried to push open the doors, but they wouldn’t budge. “Um. Can somepony lend me a hoof?”
“Why don’t we just check the viewscreen?” Ditzy suggested, pointing at the monitor suspended on the Time Rotor.
Dash stared blankly at the array of instruments around the room. “Oh…kay, how do we do that?”
Ditzy paused. “Fair point,” she conceded. “Anyone see a user’s manual?”
“Here ya go!” Pinkie cheered, pulling a thick book out from beneath a railing. There was a lengthy pause. Finally, Dinky said, “Pinkie, where did you find that?”
“In this air vent! Someone was using it to prop it open, but I think it’d work better without the book in the way.”
“...Okay. Great!” said Twilight, recovering quickly. “Let’s take a look inside.”
“Uhh, I dunno how much luck you’re going to have with that, Twi.” Rainbow said, peering over Pinkie’s shoulder.
“What? Why?”
Pinkie, unusually perplexed, held up the book so Twilight could see. She studied it for a moment. “...What’s with all the circles?”
Meanwhile, deep in the corridors of the TARDIS, a pair of earth ponies walked along the maze of hallways. The silence was stifling. Finally, Applejack could take no more. “So, uh, what’s behind all these doors?”
“Oh, you know. Lots of stuff. This one here leads to the old swimming pool.”
“Nice.”
“Well, it used to be, until it sprung a leak and flooded the library.”
“Ah.”
“‘Course, there’s always the duck pond. That’s still quite nice.”
“Fluttershy’d probably like to see that.”
“Yes… I’ll have to remember to tell her sometime. Tell me, Applejack, why did you come along today?”
The mare flinched slightly, but regained her composure quickly. “I jest wanted t’ try an’ help with that motor—”
“No, no. Not to the engine room. To the TARDIS. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have you aboard, but you don’t really strike me as the ‘go exploring in another universe’ type. So, what’s up?”
Applejack sighed, frustrated. “Other day,” she said flatly, "ya got back with Ditzy after darn near a decade."
"I did."
"So are ya good at, Ah dunno, relationships?"
The Doctor hesitated. "You mean... long-lasting ones? Ones that occur in a linear fashion? With courting, and dates, and domestics and such?"
Applejack nodded.
"No, not really. Lucky that Ditzy puts up with me, to be honest." He was silent for a moment. "Rainbow Dash?"
Applejack glanced at him, surprised. "Am Ah that obvious?"
"No! No, no, no. Well. A bit, I mean. I've got this sort of low-level telepathy, and you give off a lot of strong emotions around her, if you see what I mean. She gives off similar ones around you, if that's a help."
Applejack sighed. "Well, it's somethin'. But now what? What do Ah say? She's just so dang... aw, shoot, Ah dunno. Free. Loyal, too. Mah best friend in a lotta ways, but Ah don't even know if she likes me like that."
“I believe that I mentioned that it seemed fairly likely that she reciprocates. If nothing else, she seems to have a great deal of respect for you.”
“Yeah…”
“So, what’s the problem? The Chancellor of Honesty (or whatever your title is) having difficulty talking to her crush about her feelings?”
Applejack’s silence was answer enough. The smile slid from the Doctor’s face. “Ah.”
"She don't even know Ah like mares."
The Doctor stopped in his tracks and looked at her. "I'm not... the first you're telling, am I?"
"Pfft! Course not! Mah whole family knows. Ah just don't mention it much. Never really thought 'bout settlin' down. Just me, the farm, an' mah kin. But then..."
"You got a crush."
"Yeah."
The Doctor looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. “Ditzy wasn’t exactly my first love, you know,” he said quietly.
Applejack said nothing, but watched her companion closely.
“I had a family, once. Parents. A brother. A wife. Kids. Grandkids, too, even some great-grandchildren in the end. But one day, I just… went away. And they stayed behind.”
“All of ‘em?” Applejack asked, shocked.
“Not quite all,” he admitted. “My granddaughter, Susan, traveled with me for a long time. Got me a few new companions along the way.”
“By ‘companions’, you mean…”
“Friends. Fellow travelers. There were a few, over the centuries, that I felt romantic towards, of course, but, well... I've lived for a very long time.” He looked down the hallway. "I never even told all of them how I felt."
Rose.
Grace.
Romana.
Jo.
Jamie.
...Ditzy...
He straightened up. “No. I was always too busy. Too distracted. Too afraid of being rejected.”
He turned to look his companion straight in the eyes. “Don’t make the same mistakes that I did, Applejack. You’ve only got one lifetime. I strongly advise that you live it.”
He turned and continued walking down the wood-paneled hallway. Applejack didn’t move for a minute. “Had a family?” she muttered to herself.
***
Back in the console room, Twilight and Ditzy were doing their best to make some sense of the manual. “I… think that that symbol there means ‘speech’,” Ditzy opined cautiously. “But this is definitely a different language than what the Doctor writes in, and way beyond what he's taught me to read…”
“Must be a different dialect,” Twilight muttered, her eyebrows furrowed. "Or maybe it's just more a formal version?"
“Aw, forget all the egghead stuff,” Rainbow said dismissively. “Let’s just pound a few buttons, see what happens.”
“I tried that once,” said Dinky, deadpan. “I got pressure washed. And that was just in the shower. Imagine what all these buttons might do!”
Rainbow hesitated, staring around at the arrays of buttons and switches. “Well… okay, fine. No pushing weird buttons. Hey Pinkie, you got any ide— uhhh…”
Pinkie was standing in the middle of one of the walkways, vibrating like a tuning fork. “D-d-d-d-d-ooooooo-zzzyyyy!” she managed to shriek, just as the shaking stopped.
At the same moment, the lights flickered and went out. “I didn’t touch anything, I swear!” Rainbow yelped.
The sound of a distant bell, tolling sonorously through the TARDIS cut off any reply.
Twilight looked back to Pinkie Pie, who had started shaking again. “Well. This may not be the best sign.”
***
Applejack, recovering herself, started after the Doctor, but paused almost immediately. Where had he gone? The hallway continued straight for some distance ahead. No turns, no corners, and absolutely no way he could walk fast enough to reach the end of the hall in the few seconds she had been distracted. There was only one way he could have disappeared. She wrenched open the nearest door. Lots of books. No Doctor.
The next door revealed shelves and shelves of bananas, but a total lack of Time Lords. Grabbing a banana for the road (just because one is an apple farmer doesn’t mean one can’t appreciate a little variety), she looked back the way she had come- and noticed that the lights were going out, one by one. Her eyes dilated to pinpricks. “Aw, shoot,” she muttered, breaking into a gallop away from the approaching darkness.
“Doc? Where are ya?” Applejack yelled as she ran. The dull clanging of an ominously tolling bell echoed through the corridors behind her.
***
The Doctor stopped. This wasn’t the hallway he’d been walking down earlier. It was all metallic, and geometric. He turned around. No Applejack. “Okay. Don’t panic,” he muttered to himself. “Just start retracing your steps…”
Running back the way he had come, the Doctor suddenly stopped in front of a seemingly nondescript wall. For just a moment, he’d thought he’d seen a flicker of movement behind him. Slowly he turned around. A ghostly, featureless humanoid figure stood at the end of the corridor. The Watcher had returned. That could mean only one thing: his regeneration was at hand. Scowling, the Doctor advanced toward it. It reciprocated, drawing nearer him. “Now look here,” the Doctor shouted, shaking a finger at the ominous figure, “I’ve already died once this week, and that’s quite enough for me, thanks! You can just go— eh? Are you mocking me?”
For, indeed, the Watcher was mimicking the Doctor’s every move. Taking a closer look, he realized that there was a very logical explanation for this.
He had been yelling at a mirror.
“...Really glad no one saw that,” he muttered, turning away. Suddenly, he froze. If he had been yelling at a mirror… He held up his hands. They were paper-white. His suit had been replaced with matching robes. He had become the Watcher, the grim specter of imminent doom. Faced with this revelation, there was only one question remaining.
“WHAT?”
Reality suddenly shimmered, and he was back in the corridor where he had started. It was much darker now, he noticed, and there was still no sign of Applejack. He quickly glanced over his body. Good. All normal. Well, apart from the whole “being a pony” thing. He breathed a sigh of relief. This lasted all of three seconds before the ominous chimes tolled again. He straightened up. “Oh no,” he whispered, his eyes widening, “The Cloister Bells.”
***
Back in the console room, Twilight was beginning to panic. “Okay, I’m sure that absolutely everything is just fine,” she said, eye twitching. “They probably just tripped some circuit or another trying to get us to restart, right?”
She glanced frantically at her friends. “Right?!”
“Ohh, yeah, everything’s gonna turn out juuust fine!” Pinkie chirped. “It’s only the second story, so I don’t think anypony’s going to die just yet!”
This bout of Pinkie logic managed to snap Twilight out of her reverie. “Huh?” she asked, tilting her head at the peculiar party pony.
“Ugh,” Rainbow grumbled, “Let’s talk about this later. I’m gonna go see if I can find AJ and the Doc.” So saying, she zoomed off down the hallway her friends had taken earlier, as the dolorous chimes grew ever louder.
Applejack was rapidly running out of hallway. The oncoming darkness had cornered her in a dead-end corridor, and though she knew on an intellectual level that there was probably nothing to fear from the dark, every instinct she had was screaming at her to get as far away from the shadows as she could. She skidded to a stop. Glancing back, she saw that the darkness had slowed in its progress. It knew that she was trapped, and despite everything that should be possible, it wanted to play with its prey before consuming her. But then, out of the corner of her eye— a door!
She bolted towards it. The darkness roared, racing towards her, trying to seal off her escape. But she was through the portal already, slamming the door shut behind her. Her heart was pounding, her breaths quick and shallow, but she was smiling. “Heh,” she muttered to herself, “Bet— even Dash— ain’t never— gone faster— than the speed— of dark…”
After she had recovered herself, she glanced about the room she had entered. It was dimly lit, and extremely dusty. A pile of luggage sat in a corner, every case neatly labeled. Intrigued, she drew near, reading the note on one. “Donna Noble: For the Planet of the Hats,” said the little round box. Inside sat a yellow flowery sun hat. Rarity would’ve approved. Shaking her head, Applejack moved on.
“What is this place?” she wondered aloud. The shelves around her were surrounded with assorted boxes and pieces of bric-a-brac. They didn’t appear to be in any order— cans of manespray marked “Do Not Shake” shared space with a piece of corroded metal, a multicolored umbrella, and a little broken gold star. “Badge for Mathematical Excellence: Adric,” Applejack read off of the label. “Huh. Bet Mac'd like one of these.”
She left it be. It made her uneasy, and anyhow, the Apple Family didn’t raise no thieves.
***
Dinky was staring intently at the handbook. “Whatcha doing?” a perky voice inquired from just behind her.
To the filly’s credit, she hardly flinched at Pinkie's sudden appearance at her shoulder. “I just thought that— since I’m part Gallifreyan or Time Lord or whatever— I might be able to read the language.”
“Ooh! Can you?”
“... No. It was a stupid idea anyway. Languages are learned, not inherited.”
“Aw, too bad.”
Dinky sighed. Yeah. It was too bad, she agreed internally. Especially since those weird symbols seemed to move just a little whenever she looked at them hard enough…
Ditzy, meanwhile, was sitting near the doorway, occasionally glancing down the hall. Trotting over Twilight smiled gently at the pegasus. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Oh! Well… yes, yes, everything is going to be just fine,” Ditzy replied, smiling just a little too widely.
Twilight gave her a kind smile. “It’s okay, you can tell me what’s wrong.”
“Oh no, I’d hate to be a bother…”
“Not at all.”
Ditzy puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “I guess, it’s just that everything is happening so quickly,” she said. “I just got Pocket back last week, and he’s already moving back in. And now,” she added, her expression darkening, “it looks like I might just lose him all over again.”
“Hey, don’t say that,” Twilight said, wrapping a wing around the troubled mare. “I’m sure he and Applejack and Rainbow will all be fine.”
***
The Doctor was running, desperate to get to the Cloister Room. The TARDIS, however, seemed to have other plans. Every path through the halls that he tried twisted and turned into dead ends. “What’s wrong, old girl?” he whispered as he reached the end of yet another blind alley. As if in response, a creaking noise echoed down the hallway behind him, followed by heavy footsteps. The Doctor turned around to see what the noise was, but only darkness surrounded him. He fumbled for his screwdriver, but before he could pull it out, he felt something strike the nape of his neck. He promptly fell boneless to the floor.
***
Dash was not enjoying herself very much. While flying through the dark at high speeds sounded like a good idea (fast, thrilling, adventurous) at the time, she soon came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t worth smacking your head on every low-hanging doorway. She had, therefore, elected to walk, instead. She had flown full tilt into five walls already, so she was probably just a tad concussed. She was also utterly lost.
"Hey!" she shouted, stumbling down the hall. "Can anypony hear me?"
There was no response but the echo of her words. "HEY!" she yelled, a little louder.
Echoes again. She made her way down the hall, yelling anything and everything that might attract attention. That wound up being mainly curse words. Behind her, unseen in the dark, something large, hairy, and quieter than anything that size should ever have been watched her go.
***
Applejack continued through the maze of shelved corridors. The Doctor was, apparently, a collector of knick-knacks and keepsakes.There didn’t seem to be any sort of rhyme or reason to its organization. “Twi’d probably pitch a fit if she ever saw this place,” Applejack muttered, observing a book on botany sitting open, precariously balanced atop a harlequin costume on a chair. “Why does the Doc keep so much stuff—”
She cut herself off suddenly as she rounded a corner. “Oh… mah… Sweet Celestia…”
The hallway opened into a room, filled with pictures. She recognized a few faces as the Doctor’s other selves, but there were many others. Looking at one of the nearest photos, a purple mare with a vibrant red mane, she noticed that it was labeled ‘Donna Noble’.
“Planet of the Hats…” Applejack recalled.
She noticed other familiar objects as well. The cans of manespray were held by a dark blue bat-pony apparently named ‘Ace’. The umbrella was in the hooves of a previous Doctor. And… there. The badge for math was being worn by a young ki-rin called ‘Adric’.
As she completed her slow circuit of the room, she noticed a set of photographs without any of the Doctors in them. There were a number of names on them, so many that Applejack couldn’t tell who was who. Names like “Braxiatel” and “Akitor” swam past. But that didn’t matter. She knew what these pictures were, what all of these photos were. She had been to enough reunions to know a family photo album when she saw one. “Aw, Doctor, what happened?” she whispered.
***
The Doctor blinked awake. “Ech,” he muttered. “Not the worst place I’ve woken up, I suppose…” He had returned to the strange alternate TARDIS, and a brief downward glance confirmed that he had, indeed, turned into the shadowy Watcher that had foretold his fourth self's doom. “...Lovely,” he sighed. He saw that he was still in the maze of hallways, but a much more well-trodden area than before. He moved along in what he thought was the rough direction of the console room, but before he could make it there, a noise from behind caused him to pause. He cautiously peered around the corner, trying to avoid detection.
A girl stood with her back to him, arguing with an unseen figure. The Doctor smiled at the beautiful waves of auburn hair. “Seriously, why have I never gotten to be ginger?” he muttered.
“Alright, alright,’ the ginger woman grumbled. “Off to the Blitz it is. Just let me put on something other than my pajamas, yeah?”
“Alright,” replied an unfamiliar voice. “But do come along, Pond, or we’ll be late!”
She paused. “We’re in a time machine.” she pointed out.
Whatever the other figure— presumably some sort of alternate or future version of himself, the Doctor thought— replied, it was lost to the ears of the Time Lord as he scarpered away. Couldn’t risk being seen, after all. As he ran, the world seemed to briefly wobble on its axis before fading into oblivion.
Back in the console room, everypony waited disconsolately, sullenly sitting and staring at the console, or the manual, or Pinkie Pie’s increasingly erratic jittering. Suddenly, the hair at the base of Dinky’s mane prickled. Standing abruptly, she made for the door. “We need to go,” she said.
Twilight, looking away from the shaking pink pony that had been the subject of her scrutiny, gave Dinky a peculiar glance. “...What’s the matter?”
“Don’t know. Just get out!”
Ditzy was the first after her daughter. Twilight merely shrugged and rose to follow, pulling Pinkie along with her. Once out in the hallway, they stood awkwardly, staring back into the room. “...Right…” said Twilight, making her way toward the door. “I’m just going to go back—”
She leapt back, startled by the doors in front of her slamming shut. There was a moment of stunned silence. “What the hay?” Twilight finally asked.
“Language!” Ditzy admonished, gesturing to her daughter’s innocent ears.
Murmuring apologies, Twilight peered through the porthole at the top of the door. She let out a slight gasp as she took in the view. “What is it?” Dinky asked, balancing on her back legs to get a better look through the window.
The TARDIS doors had opened, revealing a swirling vortex of pulsating golden light. In the distance, if one were to squint, the TARDIS handbook could be seen spinning away, its pages burning as they scattered as confetti into the infinite golden swirls. It did not take much imagination to think what it could do to a pony. Twilight turned to Dinky in astonishment. “How did you know that that was going to happen?”
The filly blinked in confusion. “I… don’t know. It just felt like… I don’t know. Someone was telling me that we needed to get out.”
“Maybe we should move along…” Ditzy said. “All of a sudden, I'm very aware that the only thing between us and the vortex is a door…”
Pinkie hiccuped and fell into a dead faint. Twilight gasped and hurried to her side. After a moment of intense concentration, she sighed in relief. “She’ll be alright. At least she isn’t vibrating anymore.”
“Do you think that that was the doozy?” Ditzy asked, nodding to the swirling vortex.
“Well, it could—” Twilight’s reply was cut off as Pinkie began to violently shake again. “...No. I guess not.”
Glancing at each other and their surroundings nervously, the group moved down the hall, a doozy-detecting Pinkie Pie unconscious in Twilight’s magic.
***
Applejack was fairly good at navigation. She had never gotten lost a day in her life, not even in the Everfree. And yet, she was absolutely certain that she had already passed that set of bagpipes at least twice now. Well, maybe not. Hadn’t there been some kind of metal ball sitting on the one she had gone by? Best not to worry about it. Probably a better idea to worry about those hoofsteps in the next aisle. “Hello?”
There was a pause. A familiarly raspy voice replied, “Oh. Hey AJ. I’ve been looking for you.”
Her heart skipped faintly. “Why’s that, then?” she asked, as casually as she could.
“The console room basically blacked out. We…” she sighed. “We need the Doc to fix it,” she grumbled reluctantly.
Well what had she expected, Applejack thought. ‘Course it was the Doctor that Dash was looking for. Why would anyone want to find her? She snorted faintly.
“...AJ? You okay there?”
“Yep! Ah’m feelin’ better’n a fresh apple pie, sugarcube!” she managed to say with a cheer she didn’t feel.
There was a long pause. “...Alright, then. So, where’s the Doc?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know that myself,” Applejack admitted. “Ah lost him in th’ halls, just before th’ blackout.”
“Nuts. Still, at least I found you, yeah?”
Applejack was about to reply, when the hair on the back of her neck prickled. “Shush!”
A beat. "Excuse me?"
“Ah said to shush!” Applejack whispered, perhaps a little more fiercely than she might have intended. “Ah think Ah heard somethin’!”
Both mares fell silent. A heavy thumping noise echoed from somewhere to the rear. “Right,” Rainbow whispered. “Now, when I say ‘run’—”
“Way ahead of ya’, sugarcube. RUN!”
***
Meanwhile, in the halls of the TARDIS, the small group of ponies was still wandering aimlessly along. It seemed as though they had been walking for hours and miles. Twilight knew that that idea was preposterous, but on the other hoof, preposterous things had turned out to be true before. Suddenly, Ditzy stopped in her tracks. “What time is it?” she asked.
Twilight blinked. “Um. We’re outside of time and space. I think that question might be kind of academic.”
Ditzy gave her the sort of thousand-mile stare (made all the more intimidating by her off-kilter eyes) she normally reserved for ponies trying to send aerosol through the post and those who didn’t fill out change-of-address cards. “Lunchtime. Lunchtime was where I was going with that,” she said flatly.
“...Oh. Well, I guess I could eat,” Twilight said, slightly awkwardly.
“Great!” Ditzy said, smiling. “I brought a picnic!”
“Dare I ask why?”
Ditzy shrugged. “Who knows what kind of food humans eat?” she asked. “I mean, really, who knows?”
“...I do. I have literally been to a dimension populated with humans.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Ditzy frowned. “What kind of food DO they eat?”
“Um.” Visions of hamburgers and bacon flashed through Twilight’s head. She coughed. “Well, they have muffins,” she said after a long moment.
Ditzy raised an eyebrow. For a moment Twilight was afraid she was going to have to explain the concept of a sapient omnivore to the others (which had NOT gone over very well the last time she had tried. Applejack had locked herself in her room and refused to come out for four hours). Ditzy, however, merely asked, “GOOD muffins?”
Twilight blinked, mentally switching gears. “...Yes? I guess?”
Ditzy smiled. “That’s good to hear. Anywhere that has good muffins is worth visiting.”
Internally, Twilight breathed a long sigh of relief. “Talking of muffins, how about that picnic?”
“Oh! Right, sorry,” Ditzy giggled, blushing. “I put it in Pinkie’s mane for safekeeping,” she said, rummaging around in the other mare’s curly mane.
“Satyrs!” Pinkie gasped, sitting up suddenly, “Perverting the course of Gaean history!”
She blinked once. “Oh. Hello,” she said, glancing around. Her eyes were mildly glassy.
“Yepperepperepperepperoonie!” Pinkie responded. “Abso-doodly fantastic!” Her smile was fixed, and her head lolled like a marionette with cut strings. "Let's eat!"
And so, feeling slightly discomforted, the travellers sat down to eat their lunch.
***
The Doctor opened his eyes. It didn’t really make much difference. He waved a hoof in front of his face. “Nope,” he sighed. The old adage held true. He really couldn't see it.
Struggling to stand, he banged against a wooden table. Grunting in pain, he fumbled onwards, hoping to find a light switch. Finding nothing, he pulled out the sonic— where was the sonic screwdriver? He felt around desperately in the stygian blackness, but it was nowhere to be found. “Aw, NO.” he whined. “I can’t have lost my sonic screwdriver. I LOVE my sonic screwdriver…”
A noise in the darkness caused him to pause and glance around ineffectually. A door was flung open, the light causing him to wince and flinch away from the shadowy silhouettes that stood on the threshold.
Applejack’s pounding gallop echoed through the halls like gunshots, the swift beats of Rainbow’s wings close on her tail. Flying higher to get a better view of the situation, the pegasus peered back at the source of the noise. Her eyes widened and she swooped back down to Applejack’s side. “I think we’re being chased by a fur coat!”
“Come again?”
“Well, that’s what it looks like!” Dash defended.
Applejack stifled a groan. “How ‘bout a way out? Did ya see that?”
“Yeah, there was a door over… thataway. Come on, I’ll lead the way!”
“No! You go, I’ll handle this guy m’self.”
“AJ…”
“Go on. Me an’ Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee can handle— HEY! Put me down!”
“No! I’m not gonna leave you behind!” Dash growled, hauling Applejack off the ground. “Especially not to get attacked by a stupid walking fur coat! Now quit struggling, and lay off the apple fritters, will ya?”
Applejack snorted. “Please. This here is pure muscle.” But she stopped squirming as Dash soared higher. The beast roared in the distance.
This is actually pretty nice, Applejack thought. Well. Not that crack about her weight, but the rest of it… she gazed at the floor far below. Flying was pretty fun. “Okay, AJ, we’re coming in for a landing!” Rainbow shouted.
“What?”
Dash banged into the double doors, knocking them open as Applejack went sprawling. “Oops. Heh, sorry about that, Applejack…”
“‘S fine,” Applejack grumbled, stumbling to her hooves, “Jest help me find m’ hat.”
Hoofing Applejack her stetson, Dash yanked open the doors with her other hoof.
“Oi!” groused the Doctor, reeling back from the light.
***
There was a long, awkward pause. “Uh, Doc? What are you doing in here?” asked Dash.
“Well, just at the moment, I’m looking for a light switch,” the Time Lord huffed. “Check that wall on your left, will you?”
Brushing the wall with her wing, Rainbow flicked on the lights. “So, what is this place?” Applejack asked.
“Huh. It’s the secondary control room!” the Doctor said, glancing around. “I haven’t been in here for centuries!”
“Nice place,” Dash said, taking in the beautiful and intricately carved wooden paneling, the delicate brasswork, the vaulted ceiling and swooping staircases of the room.
Applejack, perhaps more pragmatically, asked, “So, does that mean we can fly the TARDIS from here?”
“Yep!" the Doctor said, scooping his sonic off the ground. "Well. We could, but the engines are still knackered. So, no, not really…” he trailed off.
Meanwhile, Applejack was investigating a monitor mounted on the wall. “Now, how does this thing work?” she muttered.
“Oh! Allow me,” the Doctor said, flicking a knob on the console. The viewscreen flickered, but did nothing else. The Doctor gave the console a solid kick, and the view finally settled on an empty hallway.
“Hey, can you get a view of the main room?” Rainbow suggested. “Pinkie was flipping out about something when I left.”
Nodding, the Doctor carefully turned the knob a few clicks. The screen flashed red for a moment, before settling on a terrible sight.
The ponies stared. The control room was empty, the doors swung open to reveal terrible golden yellow energy. The Doctor sat down heavily, his face gone slack. Rainbow spun around to face him, her eyes blazing and her mouth open, ready to roar, but his expression stopped her cold. “It can’t be,” he whispered, staring into empty space. “I just got them back, and they’re gone.”
Applejack sat down heavily next to him, wrapping a hoof around his side. “They ain’t the first you’ve lost?” she whispered. It wasn’t really a question.
The Doctor took a shuddering breath before replying. “No,” he agreed. “Not the first.”
After a lengthy pause, he continued, “Y’know, you’d think that it would hurt less, by now. After every loss, you’d think that death would lose its sting. But it doesn’t.”
“No,” agreed Applejack, “It don’t. But do ya know what all that pain is good for?”
The Doctor glanced up at her.
“It lets ya know that you are still alive,” she said firmly. “And while you’re still alive, you can remember ‘em. You can help folk learn to get on with their lives. While there’s life, Doc, you can live.”
There was a long silence. After what felt like an eternity, Dash sat down and put a hoof around them both.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” the Doctor murmured, “who did you lose?”
“Mah parents,” Applejack replied, nodding her head out of respect for the dead. “Ah was only ‘bout twelve when it happened. Bloom was just a toddler. They were going off to visit relatives in Vanhoover, and the train crashed. They weren’t the only Apples we lost that day, either.”
She paused for a moment to swallow a growing lump in her throat. “Hey. AJ. You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t wanna,” said Dash.
“Nah, nah. ‘S fine." She sniffed. "Anyway, when my folks died, Ah was devastated. We all were. Mac drew even further into his shell than usual. Granny’s eyes weren’t dry for a week. Even Bloom knew that something was wrong. But Ah was the worst of the bunch. Kept blaming myself. Shoulda made them stay, or gone with ‘em, or something anything. Ah didn’t get outta bed for a week. Probably woulda stayed there longer, except Granny came in an’ told me that she’d already lost a bunch o’ good Apples, and she wasn’t gonna lose another. Then Ah yelled something stupid about how Ah wished that I’d gone instead of them, and it just turned into a great big ol’ shouting match.”
Taking a deep breath, Applejack continued. “But the gist of it was, while there’s life, there’s hope. Sounds a bit cheesy, but that’s wisdom for you.”
The Doctor exhaled slowly and nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Anyway,” Dash said, “I kinda don’t think that they’re dead. Just a hunch, but, y’know, Twi’s an alicorn and Pinkie is— well, Pinkie. If anyone’s going to survive that, I’d put good money on a group with them in it.”
“Yep, y’all got a point there,” Applejack agreed.
“That’s the Time Vortex,” the Doctor said flatly. "The only people who can survive extended direct exposure to it are already fundamentally immortal.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see about that,” Dash said, a sharp glint in her eyes as she flipped the monitor dial to ‘External View’.
As expected, the view consisted mainly of yellow time energy. Less expected however...
“What in Celestia’s name is that?” Rainbow gaped.
“It looks like…”
“What?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you could fly us at faster-than-light speed?” the Doctor asked, looking over at her, expression half-hopeful.
In the center of the viewscreen, what appeared to be a black hole in the timestream pulsed, its gaping maw grasping at anything around it.
The room fell silent once more as everypony’s eyes were drawn to the swirling darkness on the screen. Suddenly, the Doctor’s eyes sharpened and his mouth set into a grim line. “Right. RIGHT. Okay,” he muttered. “Crew of three, possibly seven. No power to the engines. Falling through a rift in reality without any sort of steering or shields worth speaking of…”
“I’m guessing that’s bad,” Dash said, deadpan.
“Not altogether brilliant, no,” the Doctor agreed. “Fortunately, however, I have got a cunning plan!”
Applejack raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“You two need to go jump start the engines. The main reactor room should be at the other end of the room, three hallways to your… left. Yes, left.”
“And once we get there, we do what exactly?” Dash asked, crossing her forehooves.
Fiddling with his screwdriver, the Doctor muttered, “Point this at the core reactor-- big, glowy ball, too bright to miss, don't look directly at it, it channels power directly from a collapsing star-- on setting 492.57. That ought to get us going again. I’ll leave it on a sonic blast setting for now, just in case you run into… difficulties, again.”
“An’ while we’re runnin’ all over this here ship, what exactly are y’all going to be doing in th’ meantime?” Applejack asked, her gaze challenging.
“I’ll be in here, preparing to get us away from that,” he gestured to the void in the vortex, “as quickly as possible.”
“...Fair enough. Come on, Rainbow.”
Once they had gone, the Doctor let out a long breath. His eyes never left the void. “Here it is, then,” he whispered. “Death catching up with me at last.”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
***
“So… what was all that about?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, it was nice, the way you helped the Doc with his little meltdown, but… why? And how did you know all that stuff about this ‘not being the first time you’ve lost somepony’?”
Applejack looked away. “I don’t rightly reckon it’s my place to tell y’all…”
“AJ. Come on. This is me we’re talking about, Miss Councillor of Loyalty or whatever.”
“Chancellor,” Applejack corrected.
“Yeah, that. I can keep a secret!”
Applejack puffed out her cheeks. Slowly, she nodded. “This way,” she said, trotting off to the left. In the shadows, something watched them go. A very large, hairy something.
***
Ditzy sighed. “Okay, we’re officially lost.”
“What? No, that’s not possible,” Twilight objected. “We’ve been keeping one hoof on the left wall the entire time, and-”
“It’s true,” Dinky interrupted. “Look.”
At her feet was a pile of muffin crumbs, left over from the impromptu picnic they had held earlier. Twilight’s face fell. “But that’s impossible!” she cried.
“The TARDIS doesn’t work like that,” Dinky said. “It’s dimensionally transcendental and more or less sentient. Directions have no real meaning here.”
Ditzy stared at her daughter. “How— how did you know that?” she asked, perplexed.
“I—” Dinky began, then frowned. “Huh. I don’t know. Probably heard the Doctor talking about it once.”
Twilight shuddered, mirroring the semiconscious and continually vibrating pink pony suspended in her magic. “So the TARDIS is alive?” she asked. “Does that mean that when the engines are off…” she didn’t finish the thought. Death was not a pleasant concept to apply to anything, even a blue box.
“No… I don’t think so…” Dinky replied frowning, before wincing in pain.
“Muffin? Are you alright?” Ditzy asked, fussing over her little filly.
“Yyyeah… Yep, I’m fine, mom. Just a little headache, or something like—”
She was cut off by a dull roar echoing from back the way they had come. After a brief glance was shared between the three of them, they galloped straight ahead. They cut off suddenly, however, when another roar came from the hallway ahead of them. The lights flickered between shades of red and gold. Dinky turned around. “Here! In here!”
Ditzy yanked the door aside, and they rushed in, letting it close behind them. They were sealed in now. Everything was falling into place.
***
Rainbow gazed at the room full of photographs. “So he’s traveled with all of these guys?” she asked in wonderment.
“An’ eventually lost ‘em all, too, ah reckon,” said Applejack solemnly.
“Dang.”
“Yep. Pretty tragic.”
“What? Oh. Yeah. But I was actually talking about this dude over here,” Dash said, gesturing to a photo of a dark blue pegasus stallion grinning roguishly. “He’s pretty hot.”
Applejack’s heart sank. So, her friend preferred stallions after all? Her tongue felt heavy and dry in her mouth, and she felt vaguely ill. So miserable was she that she almost missed what Dash said next.
“She’s pretty cute too,” the pegasus murmured, nodding to the next picture over, featuring a blonde-maned pink earth pony mare.
Applejack froze. “Beg pardon?” she asked, eyes flicking over to her friend.
Rainbow stopped. “Uh, heh, I, um. I mean, she’s cute. Y’know. Good-looking. For a mare,” she stammered. “Yeah. Not like—” she glanced around desperately “—that guy! Yeah, he’s really hot,” she concluded, grabbing a photo of a stallion with a cropped orange mane and a necktie.
Applejack studied the picture. “No, he ain’t.” He was scowling, seemed terribly uncomfortable, and looked vaguely like Mr. Cake’s evil, less handsome twin.
Dash looked at the picture again. “...No, you’re right, bad example. Let’s see.” She frowned. “Why are there so many girls?”
Applejack merely raised an eyebrow and Dash sunk in defeat.
“Aw, jeez, Applejack, don’t make this weird,” she pleaded.
“Make… what weird?” Applejack asked, cocking her head in honest confusion.
“I— I like mares. And stallions. Both of them,” Dash admitted, settling in for a landing.
Applejack frowned. “Ah know what bisexuality is,” she said. “Ya’ll don’t have t’ spell it out for me.”
“Huh?” the pegasus replied, staring at her. “What's bi— y’know what, nevermind.”
Applejack’s frown deepened. Why was Dash so concerned about all this? She had to know it wouldn’t make any difference to their friendship, didn’t she? Apparently not.
Dash hung her head. “I’m sorry, I guess I shoulda said something earlier, but it never really came up.” She sighed heavily. “Go ‘head. Hate me if you want to. I can take it.”
“Darn right you shoulda said something earlier,” Applejack said, her face splitting into a grin. “Have you got ANY idea how long I’ve spent tryin’ to work out if you were into mares or not? Honestly, the sheer amount of stress over this…”
Dash looked puzzled. “You were… trying to figure out if I liked mares? Uh, why?”
Applejack stared at her flatly. “Ya know, fer someone who claims to be as fast as you do, you can be awful slow on th’ uptake.”
This got her nothing but another blank look. Applejack sighed and rolled her eyes. “Awright, let’s put this in terms that y’all can understand.” She cleared her throat theatrically. “Miz Dash, will you do me th’ honor of comin' round fer dinner this Friday evening?”
Dash blinked. “Wait. What?”
“Ah. Like. You. There, that simple enough?”
“But— wait, you don’t hate me?
“Sakes alive, no!” Applejack took a step back in shock. “Why would ya— Do y’all think that little of me? This is yer friend Applejack, th’ very definition of dependability yer talkin’ to!”
“I— um— well,” Dash stuttered.
“Ah mean, it ain’t like I’m straight m’self!”
“Well, you never told me that, did you?”
“...Fair. But ah sure as sugar ain’t gonna stop bein’ yer friend jest because of who y’all like. What gave y’all that idea?”
Dash gave her a sideways glance.“That… is a really long, seriously uncomfortable story from when I was a kid, and might be better suited for when we aren’t about to fall into a hole in time.”
“Might have somethin’ there. Come on then, sugarcube, let’s get—”
She suddenly leapt back as a massive, fur-covered thing came stumbling out of the shelves. Its eyes glowed a menacing red. Glaring at them, it gave a roar of pure fury. Applejack gasped, frozen to the spot. It raised a claw, ready to strike, but a blue blur knocked it away. “Hey, tall, dark, and hairy!” Dash shouted. “No one gets to hurt my friends without goin’ through me!”
As the monster started to swing at Dash, Applejack recovered herself enough to pull the Doctor’s screwdriver out of the brim of her Stetson. Clenching it between her teeth, she brandished it at the beast. There was a loud whirring, and both mares yelped as screwdriver and monster alike shot sparks.
The creature landed heavily on its side. Dash hovered above it, eyeing it warily. “You think it’s dead?”
Applejack spat out the screwdriver, which had broken and turned black all along the casing. “Ah sure hope so, ‘cause the Doc’s li’l doohicky looks like it’s fer the scrapheap too!”
Rainbow landed beside the beast, nervously shuffling her hooves. She glanced at her friend. “So, uh, about what you were saying, AJ…”
Applejack sighed. “Much as ah appreciate you thinkin’ about it, ah reckon we’d best get back to th’ Doc first. Without that,” she nodded to the screwdriver, “ah ain’t too sure that any of us are gonna get out of this alive.”
Dinky, Ditzy, Twilight, and Pinkie found themselves on a carved wooden balcony. “Where are we?” Ditzy murmured, glancing around at the vaulted walls as she stepped into the light.
Suddenly, a voice came from down below. “Well, old girl, looks like it’s the end of the line for us both.”
Everyone glanced down to see the Doctor, facing away from them, resting against an antique table. His tan coat blended almost perfectly with the decor. “That’s okay, I suppose. Properly speaking, this was always just a bit of extra.” He nodded, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Yes. All things considered, I don’t think I mind dying too terribly.”
He sighed, and his face dropped. “I just wish that I hadn’t dragged all those ponies into this mess,” he continued, shaking his head. “If it weren’t for me, they’d all be safe. They’d all be alive.”
He blinked back tears. “Dinky and Ditzy would still be alive.”
Dinky smirked. "Ahem."
The Doctor spun around, disbelief etched across his features. “What?”
He took in the sight of his new friends, whom he had thought already dead. “WHAT?”
He blinked at the sight of his wife and daughter, whom he had thought he would never see again. “WHAT?”
Then, without further ado, he vaulted to his hooves and rushed to embrace them all.
“But how did you escape the Time Vortex?” he asked.
Pinkie, who had mostly regained consciousness and awareness of her surroundings, grinned dazedly. “Well, we just took a jump to the left… Ooh, and then a step to the right…”
The Doctor glanced at Twilight, who shrugged. “It’s easiest if you just nod along and pretend to understand what she’s talking about.”
“...Ah-huh. But really, how did you get out? Teleportation is a risky business at best in the Vortex.”
Twilight shook her head. “We weren’t in the room. Dinky insisted that everyone go out into the corridor just before the doors opened.”
He frowned. “That’s odd…” he murmured. Turning to his daughter, he asked, “Why did you do that, Dinky?”
She shrugged. “I just got this weird sort of sense that the console room wasn’t safe.”
The Doctor looked ready to say more, but behind him, the doors swung open. “Hey Doc, bad news— OHMYCELESTIA, AJ, THEY’RE ALIVE!”
Twilight, Pinkie, Dinky, and Ditzy all suddenly found themselves knocked to the ground by an overjoyed pegasus, who was closely followed by an equally thrilled earth pony.
The Doctor attempted to speak over the excited hubbub, but failed. Finally, he roared, “EXCUSE ME!”
Everypony stopped talking. Turning to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, the Doctor continued in a quieter voice, “Now, thrilled as I am that everypony is still alive, may I assume that this means something went really very wrong and you can’t start the engines?”
Applejack’s face screwed up into a frown, and she pulled a piece of mangled machinery out of her hat. “My sonic screwdriver!” the Doctor gasped. “You broke my sonic screwdriver! Those things don’t grow on trees, you know! That was practically new!”
“Well, it died honorably,” Dash said, rolling her eyes. “Took down some kinda giant furry thing that was trying to kill us.”
The Doctor looked up, though he still held his broken screwdriver closely cradled in one hoof. “Trying to kill you? What? When I warned you about trouble, I didn’t really think that—” He thought back to the unknown being that had knocked him unconscious and presumably carried him here. “Hm.”
“Here, lemme show ya,” said Applejack, turning the monitor controls. The screen flickered, but eventually settled on the monstrous form of the deceased beast. The Doctor started from his seat, moving over to get a closer look. He flipped on a pair of spectacles and squinted at the corpse. “That,” he breathed quietly, “is impossible. Literally, impossible.” He glanced back at Dash and Applejack. “That’s what attacked you? You’re sure? It didn’t just… fall over, or something?”
“Sure as apples is apples,” the orange mare replied, offended. “What is it, anyway?”
The Doctor took one last glance at the screen. “It’s a Yeti.”
There was a long silence. “You’re kidding,” Twilight said. “Yeti don’t exist!”
“Yes, they dooo…” Pinkie sang, but the others chose to ignore that.
“Says the talking purple pony,” muttered the Doctor. In a louder voice, he continued, “Well. I say Yeti. It’s actually a robot designed to look like a Yeti, because… well, it’s a long story. I brought them aboard the TARDIS to keep them separate from their control spheres. Without those, they’re useless.” He gave the figure onscreen another long look. “Or so I thought.”
“So,” Dash said, pacing back and forth, “Just to sum up, we’re crashing into a black hole in a malfunctioning time machine, while being hunted by robots that shouldn’t actually be able to move. Am I missing anything?”
“Well, at least the Yeti is dead,” the Doctor said with false cheer.
“One of them is,” Ditzy corrected, “But we heard at least two others in the corridors.”
Dinky, meanwhile, had trotted over to look at the controls. She twisted the monitor knob in her hoof. Suddenly, there was a burst of static, and the picture changed. Not just to a different room, but to a different TARDIS.
There was no sound on the monitor, but the images were captivating enough. Strange, bipedal beasts stood in the control room, two of them watching the other spin and twirl around the console, flipping switches and buttons as it went. “What are those things?” Ditzy asked, fascinated.
The Doctor stared open-mouthed at the what the monitor before him was showing. “What?”
Applejack looked over his shoulder. “What in tarnation is that thing wearing?”
“I think it’s a fez,” Ditzy replied. “But, Doctor, what are they? And how did they get in?”
“Humans!” Twilight replied, staring in astonishment at the scene. “Why are there humans in the TARDIS?”
The Doctor turned to Twilight, nonplussed. “How exactly do you know about humans?”
She shrugged. “Long story. Also, I had a classmate that was obsessed with them, back in college.”
“Well. You’re half right. Two of them are humans, but the one in the hat—”
“Is you,” Dinky interrupted. “It is, isn’t it?”
“...Yes. I didn’t want to admit it to myself before now, but yes, that is me. Or to be more accurate, my replacement.”
“Your replacement?” Applejack asked, confused.
“My next regeneration,” he clarified. He took a long look at the gangly, bowtied figure. “Not as bad as some, I suppose,” he conceded, “But blimey, that chin! And where are his eyebrows?”
“Uh, Doc? More important things going on here…” Dash snarked.
“You know, I’m not sure about that…” the Doctor replied, eyes glinting. “In fact, this might just be the root of all of our problems!”
He flipped up one side of the desk and, fidgeting with a few switches, turned on another monitor, this one covered in Gallifreyan symbols. “Oh dear,” the Doctor sighed. “I was afraid of that…”
“Why, what happened?” Twilight asked, looking back and forth between the two monitors, trying to find some kind of correlation.
Reaching out a hoof, the Doctor tapped one particular symbol. “See this here? It’s the Gallifreyan for— well, there’s really no equivalent concept in your language. Basically, it’s a diverging pair of timestreams.”
“Uh-huh. And what’s that when it’s at home?” Rainbow asked.
The Doctor looked down. “I… may have broken reality, slightly. When I crashed here, a separate version of events, equally real, occurred, and I regenerated into that floppy-haired chap and started travelling with those two.”
“Is… is that safe?” Ditzy asked, nervously.
The Doctor sucked in a long breath. “Oh, yeah, more or less. Trouble is, I can’t re-enter my time-stream while he's there. That would lead to two Doctors, and we all know what that would mean.”
Applejack scratched her head. “Ah don’t.”
The Doctor turned and gave her an enormous grin. “It would be a ‘Pair o’ Docs’.”
Groans echoed through the room. “Now is really not the time for puns, Doctor,” Twilight grumbled.
“Oi! I’ve just gotten back to my daughter. I owe her around ten or eleven years of dad jokes, plus interest—”
Suddenly, a loud thump came from just beyond the main doors. Everyone froze, staring at it. “Please tell me you locked that,” the Doctor said. Dash and Applejack went pale.
“Right, okay. Time to hurry,” the Doctor said, frantically flipping switches.
“But Doc, we never got the engines hooked up!” Applejack shouted in despair.
“Don’t need to! If I can just disconnect the time—”
The door burst open, revealing a trio of hulking, fur-coated bodies.
The ponies backed away as the Yeti, eyes aglow with menace, advanced. “Right,” the Doctor said. “Everypony, behind me.”
He boldly strode forwards, face stern. “Right,” he said. “I invoke Article LVI, Clause XLII of Section VI of the Shadow Proclamation, regarding the regulation of artificial intell—”
He was cut off as a Yeti picked him up and tossed him aside like a rag doll. “Doctor!” Ditzy shrieked, rushing to his aid. She was stopped, however, by one of the Yeti, who brandished a gun of some kind at her. She kept her bad eye on the fur-coat robot, searching with the other to see the Doctor. She saw his chest rise and fall, and gave a sigh of relief. He was still alive, for now at least.
Meanwhile, the other two Yeti pointed their own guns at the console. Strands of filmy webbing shot out, coating the controls. Once it was completely clogged, they turned their attention to the huddled mass of ponies standing against the wall. “Buck this,” Dash growled, springing at the monstrous robots. She flew circles around their heads. They attempted to hit her, but she nimbly evaded each blast. Finally, she stopped, hovering over the Yeti that had threatened Ditzy. The others fired, and Dash sprang aside— but just a little too late. The webbing caught in her feathers, and she crashed to the floor.
Beside her, the Yeti had fallen, coated in webbing. Dash allowed herself a small smirk at this victory, but it quickly vanished as she saw that the creature was dying. Its red eyes blinked, strobing and erratic, before finally flickering off. She glanced up to see the other two advancing, guns raised. She glared at them, unwilling to flinch. She saw, therefore, when a lariat lassoed one of the Yeti’s arms and yanked the beast to the floor, turning it into so much scrap. Dash and the remaining Yeti looked over to see a scowling Applejack. “Get. Away. From. Mah. Friend,” she growled, picking up the gun in her mouth and firing at the monster.
The webbing caught the Yeti in its chest. Sparks flew, but were caught and turned back by the impenetrable bonds. It collapsed in a sparking heap, its eyes blinking out. Applejack grinned in satisfaction. “Hah! That’s how we do it down on the farm!” she crowed.
She glanced at Dash. “Y’all right there, sugarcube?”
The pegasus’s smile threatened to split her face in two. “That… was… AWESOME!” she replied.
“Um, not to be a downer here,” Twilight interrupted, “but we’re still kind of crashing, and the only one who knows how to fix it is unconscious…”
At that moment, the lights flickered and died. A moment later, the red emergency lights flickered on. “Um, okay,” Dash said, struggling to her hooves. “So we need to fix a broken time machine using a web gun, a lasso… what else have we got?”
“Ma hat and a broken screwdriver,” Applejack deadpanned. “Ah sure wish Mac were here with his fancy mathematics.”
“That’d be good, yeaAOWW!” Dash yelped.
“Rainbow? Are you alright?” Dinky asked, rushing to her side.
Dash hissed slightly, inspecting her wing. “I think there might be more to that webbing than we thought…”
Applejack tugged futilely at the thick layer on the console, but came up hacking, desperate for air. “Whoa nelly! This stuff’s thicker than Granny’s cornbread dough!”
There was a long moment. Then, quietly, Ditzy spoke up. “We’re going to die, aren’t we.” It wasn’t a question.
“... Yes,” Twilight admitted.
The room was deathly silent. Finally, Applejack spoke up, her voice firm. “Well, there ain’t no use cryin’ over it. Any rate, ah can think of worse places t’ die than this. Surrounded by yer friends.” Dash put a protective wing over the farmer's back, wincing as she did so.
“And family,” Ditzy concurred, pulling Dinky and the Doctor’s prone form into a hug.
Dinky scowled. “Forget that, I want to live!”
“Muffin?” Ditzy gasped as her daughter pulled away and walked toward the console.
The little unicorn stared at the controls for a long moment. The cloister bells rang off in the distance. “Hi,” she said at last.
“My name’s Dinky. Well, not really, but that’s what everyone calls me.”
The ship rumbled slightly, but Dinky soldiered on. “So, apparently you’re sentient. That’s nice, that’s cool.”
The rumble came again, quieter this time. “So listen. The Doctor said that you ‘like’ me. And I know you like him. I mean, he’s your friend, right?”
The noise that came this time was not unlike a gentle chuckle. In the corner, Pinkie’s rapid vibrating was threatening to knock her out again. Dinky took a deep breath. “I need your help,” she finally admitted. “I don’t want to die, and I don’t want anypony else to die either. But I don’t know what to do!”
Her calm facade was breaking as the cloister bells echoed in the background. One by one, the last of the emergency lights faded. The only light left in the room came from the console. Her voice thick, she continued. “Please. I need help.”
IT WILL HAVE COME AT A PRICE, a voice in her head warned. WERE YOU WILLING TO BE PAYING IT?
“Yes.”
The voice laughed. MY, MY. YOU REALLY WILL HAVE HAD BEEN MY THIEF'S DAUGHTER, WEREN’T YOU? Dinky screamed in pain and fright as the world shone with golden time energy. Her horn lit to match it. The void of time seemed to grasp at the ship hungrily.
But then, wonder of wonders, there came a noise- a wheezy, grumbling roar that echoed throughout her head. Her eyes flew open, glowing with golden light. Twilight stood back in shock, staring at the massive surge of power coming from this little unicorn filly. Applejack and Rainbow Dash gazed in wonder at the ethereal golden light drawing circles and diagrams in the air, burning away the webbing around the console. Levers flicked by themselves, knobs turning, screens flickering to life. The Doctor woke up in a daze, muttering, “Wha? Wha— Dinky?”
Ditzy pressed up against him, and they watched their daughter with trepidation and joy and befuddlement. These emotions go together far more frequently than one might think. Meanwhile, Pinkie gave one last prophetic shudder. She smiled. “Called it!” she cheered, as the TARDIS materialized away.
It was a Tuesday in Ponyville; a great big temporal tipping point. On Tuesdays, anything could happen, and it usually did. Everypony in town knew that Rarity, Spike, Fluttershy, and the Crusaders, among others, had been searching desperately for their missing friends since yesterday evening, and they were all waiting for the other horseshoe to drop. It did so in spectacular fashion, when a grumbling, whirring, howling roar echoed from an unoccupied piece of land next to the apple stand. A glowing light blinked in and out of existence, each time growing a little less faint. Macintosh stared at it in idle confusion as the outline of a blue box faded into view. It eventually settled and quieted down, but by that point, everypony in the square was staring at it.
It was, perhaps, somewhat less surprising than it should have been when the doors of the box opened, and Princess Twilight Sparkle stepped out, followed closely by Applejack, who was acting as a crutch for Rainbow. Next out was Pinkie Pie, perhaps slightly more wobbly on her pins than normal, but smiling widely, nevertheless. It was slightly more of a surprise when the town mailmare trotted out next, accompanied by her daughter and a strange new stallion, but not overwhelmingly so. It must be admitted that having a chaos god residing in town did tend to make ponies slightly cynical about the impossible.
“Twilight!” a voice boomed from across the square.
“Spike!” Twilight beamed as her number-one assistant rushed over to give her a hug.
“There you are, darlings!” Rarity said, swooping in alongside Fluttershy to welcome her friends home.
“DINKY!” a chorus of youthful voices cheered as five of the Cutie Mark Crusaders barreled into their sixth member.
“‘Lo, sis. Miz Dash. Miz Pie. Princess Twilight. Doctor Doo. Dinky. Er-” said Mac.
“Call me Doctor Time Turner,” the Doctor said. “I’m Ditzy’s husband.”
The red stallion nodded laconically. “Nice t’ meetcha.”
Meanwhile, the members of the CMC were busy inundating Dinky with questions. “What happened?”
“Where did you go?”
“Was it fun?”
“Hey, what’s that on your flank?”
There was a long pause as everypony in the group considered Rumble’s last question. Slowly, cautiously, Dinky turned to look at her tail end. Her faint, weary smile at seeing her friends again slowly changed into a grin. “EEEEEEEE! I got my cutie mark!” she squealed.
Sure enough, the image of a pocket watch had appeared on either flank. The Cutie Mark Crusaders whooped and cheered. “What does it mean?” Button asked.
“Time travel! I got my cutie mark in TIME TRAVEL!” Dinky cried.
Sweetie Belle turned to look at Apple Bloom. “Hey… have we tried that yet?” she asked.
“With Discord, yep,” the earth pony replied. But the gears were already turning in her head.
“D’ya s’ppose we could get cutie marks for… TARDIS flying?” she mused.
Several meters away, all the hair on the Doctor’s neck stood on end. He chose to ignore it, at least for now, and continued talking with Macintosh.
Only much later would he learn how much of a mistake that had been.
***
“So, about that date…” Dash murmured to Applejack. "I just... dunno. This is all kinda sudden. I'll have to think about it, get back to you. Give me a week?"
Applejack regarded her for a moment, but then nodded. “Sounds like a plan t’ me, sugarcube. Jes' remember, no matter what, we're still friends."
"Obviously!” the Dash said, her shoulders relaxing. Yeah, I mean, no duh, right? Right. Yeah." Applejack smiled at her as she wiped some sweat from her brow.
"Of course," she continued, her relieved smile turning into a smirk, “if I’m going to look awesome for the date, I’ll need to get all this web stuff out of my feathers… Might help if someone could help me preen out all the hard-to-reach places…”
Applejack's own smile stretched into a grin, and she was about to reply when Fluttershy looked over. “Oh, I’d love to help, Dash! That looks pretty nasty. I’ll mix you up a little something to put on there, and you’ll be as good as new this time tomorrow!”
Rainbow gave a nervous glance back at Applejack as Fluttershy led her away. The earth pony was chuckling. Well, that was good, right? Laughter was good. Then Applejack met her eye, winked, and blew a little kiss.
"Oh my, Rainbow! Are you alright? You should have told me if you were having trouble walking."
"I'm good," Dash said. Her voice was surprisingly clear given how she'd just faceplanted into the earth.
***
Late that evening, almost everypony had retired to bed. The Doctor, however, remained awake. He stood in the TARDIS control room, fiddling with the controls. “Funny,” he muttered. “I can't imagine what could have chewed through the door control like that.” He sucked on his lower lip, deep in thought. "A new wire'll fix you up there, old girl, but maybe you're due for a checkup."
The door creaked open behind him. “Pocket?”
The Doctor turned around. “Ditzy?” he said, surprised. “What are you doing up?”
She blinked, stepping inside. “I was just out here to ask when you were coming to bed.”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to move back in until I’d gotten a job.”
She shrugged. “Well, I decided that I want a snuggle buddy, and more importantly a husband, more than I want a secondary stream of income. I missed you, when you were gone, Pocket. I want you back with me." She smiled wryly. "That said, if you do get a job at some point…”
“Aha." The Doctor ran a hoof through his mane. "Right. Well, I’m not sure that there’s anywhere left ‘round here that’s still willing to hire me, actually.”
“You could always be self-employed.”
He grinned. “I already am. Rescuing planets, saving lives, stopping evil… That said, I suppose I could make some cash doing odd jobs, once I’ve fixed up my screwdriver. Maybe I’ll finally get around to adding the ‘wood’ setting this time…”
He trailed off as Ditzy nuzzled up to him and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Come to bed, Pocket. It’s late.”
“Ah, well, I don’t really do ‘beds’, per se. I don’t really sleep, either.” He glanced at her face. “Oh, no, come on, not the eyes. That’s not fair!”
Ditzy opened her eyes a little wider. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied sweetly.
“...Alright, fine. I’ll come to bed, just let me finish running this scan on the controls,” he agreed.
“Okay. But if you aren't up in the next fifteen minutes, I'll lead you to bed by your necktie."
"Promises, promises!" the Doctor said, grinning. "Don't worry, I'll only be five."
"Promises, promises," she repeated with a wink before trotting out again.
"Ditzy!"
She paused on the threshold, looking back at him.
He smiled at her. "I love you."
"Love you too." Then she was gone.
If anyone can keep the nightmares away, the Doctor thought, it’d have to be her.
Smiling to himself, he patted the console. "We'll leave off that checkup for tomorrow," he said. "G'night, old girl." With that, he trotted out the door with a spring in his step.
***
Deep within the TARDIS’s system of engines and computers, a spark of red energy sat, metaphorically licking its wounds. They had used themselves up today, far beyond what they should have, and for what? For nothing. For the briefest of moments, they considered simply blinking out of existence altogether.
But no. No. The Doctor had hurt them too badly, each regeneration rubbing them out little by little. Diminishing them in power as the potential shrank away. They had waited centuries for their revenge. They could wait a little longer. Oh yes. They could play the long game…
