Dr. Whooves- Parallel Complications

The Doctor’s Universe
51st Century
Somewhere distant from Earth

Samantha and River had found a temporal storm several light years away, and after a week’s travel in the best spaceship they could acquire on short notice, they were closing in on it.

“These readings are strikingly similar to the temporal storm I found when exploring with Jack,” River said, looking at her console. “In fact, they’re exactly the same. I don’t know how that’s possible.”

“It only gives us more hope that they ended up in the same place, and we know how to find them,” Samantha replied.

River stopped working, turning away from her computers and watching Samantha with sincere eyes. “Samantha, I know you want to find the Doctor, but this is risky. They could be dead for all we know, and all we’re doing is making the same mistake.”

“These frequent temporal storms now can’t be a coincidence,” Samantha argued. “And besides, you said that the Doctor taught you how to find temporal storms at some point. How could he have done so if he was dead?”

River grinned. “The answer to that would be ‘spoilers’, and that’s exactly why I asked you. I’m very ready to take this risk, are you?”

Samantha gulped, but nodded. “For the Doctor.”

“For the Doctor.” River went back to the controls, and flew the ship right into the storm.

***

The pony universe
21st Century
Ponyville

Find her.

Those two words had been stuck in the Doctor’s head, repeating over and over again. Had Samantha found her way here? Had someone else come looking for him? Was this even someone he knew? The Doctor kept the TARDIS scanning for more cases of things appearing from his universe, in case the TARDIS hadn’t found all of them yet. Only the sounds of the TARDIS coming to a shaky halt was enough to pull him out of his own thoughts.

The TARDIS always made the same sound when taking off and landing, but not this time. The TARDIS stuttered and shook, and when the Doctor checked on what was happening, he noticed that the TARDIS had trouble pinpointing where it was landing.

“That’s odd,” the Doctor said. “We’re in Ponyville, but appear to have landed at the wrong time… right time? I don’t know what to make of this.”

“The TARDIS didn’t seem to like that landing,” Paige said.

“I guess going outside is the only way to know what’s going on,” Jack said, headed for the door.

The three ponies stepped out into a quiet night, looking around to see the streets around them empty.

In fact, the houses seemed empty too. Not a pony was in sight as the moon beamed above the silent town. Not even wind blew to shake the stillness of the grass beneath their hooves, or the flowers resting for the night.

“Where is everypony?” Paige asked.

That’s when the screams came.

All out of one building, ponies came running out, in terror of whatever they had just witnessed. The three travelers turned in surprise at the sudden stampede, and fought to keep themselves from getting trampled. The Doctor listened for any clue as to what was going on.

“She’s a monster!”

“We’ll never see our princess again!”

“Come on, Featherquill, run!”

“It’s Nightmare Moon!”

The Doctor didn’t understand what he had heard, but he finally heard something worth mentioning. “Paige, who is Nightmare Moon?” he shouted above all the screams.

Paige turned, to the Doctor, now scared herself. “I had only ever read about this event, I never imagined seeing it,” she shouted, looking towards the building. “At one point, Princess Luna fell victim to dark magic, becoming a monster that tried to make all of Equestria live in eternal night. If history doesn’t change, she will fall.”

“Eternal night might be great for parties but I’d rather have some day time to go with it,” Jack said.

“Then we’re getting out of here,” the Doctor replied, still needing to shout over the panicking crowd. “If this event is that significant, we’re not interfering, in fact, this isn’t even the time I wanted, we’re not supposed to be-“

The Doctor stopped speaking when he realized how quiet it had just gotten. Mid-sentence, the screams had disappeared, and he was shouting over nothing. The travelers now stood exactly where they had been, but on a sunny, peaceful day.

“But we were just- what?” The Doctor frantically looked around, seeing ponies going about their day to day activities.

“Good afternoon!” A pink pony said as she trotted by. Three smiling flowers made up her cutie mark, and several textbooks were slung over her shoulder in a book bag. “Are you lost? You look nervous. What’s that thing?”

The Doctor glanced at the mare while waving around his hoof, scanning with his sonic screwdriver. “Actually, I’m not lost, I’m exactly where I wanted to be. But that’s the confusing part.”

The mare blinked, and had no idea what to say to that, still confused by the Doctor waving his hoof around. “Well, if you need help finding something, I’m sure somepony can help you. Have a good day!”

The mare trotted off, and the Doctor kept scanning, refusing to believe what he was seeing. “Doctor, I don’t even feel like I just used a vortex manipulator,” Jack said. “Are you sure we just traveled through time?”

“We are now at where I had intended for the TARDIS to land, for that I am certain,” the Doctor replied, shutting off his sonic screwdriver. “As to how, I have no idea.”

The Doctor became distracted by a buzzing noise behind him, and turned to see a creature that he did not recognize. It seemed like some sort of insect; it was simply a colored sphere with wings, and a few tiny legs. The bug smiled at the Doctor, flying a bit closer.

“Well, hello!” the Doctor said happily, raising a hoof to let the creature land on something. “You’re a cute little thing, aren’t you? You know, I’ve seen millions of different species of animals, insects, sentient races, and yet I still find new things. You’re a brand new thing. What are you called?”

“Doctor…” Paige cautiously approached him, weary of the creature on the Doctor’s hoof.

“Oh, and you have some multicolored friends!” the Doctor added, two more little sphere’s coming into view. “Would you all like something to eat? Paige, do we have any more bananas?”

“Doctor, feeding those things is not a good idea,” Paige said, inching herself closer. “I’ve read about these creatures, and they got to London once. They’re not friendly.”

“Oh, they look perfectly friendly, just a bit hungry,” the Doctor replied. “I mean, how could this little thing possibly be-“

The Doctor stopped talking when one of the creatures flew up to a wooden sign above a shop, and proceeded to eat it. “Oh,” the Doctor said, his ears flattening against his head. “I see.”

Jack was dumbfounded. “Even I can’t eat that much-“

“Jack, don’t finish that sentence.”

The conversation was halted by the buzzing sound of the first few creatures growing louder. Looking up, Jack, the Doctor and Paige saw an entire swarm of them, headed straight for Ponyville.

“Paige, know anything about what’s going on this time?”

“No, only that London knew how to stop these creatures because of what Ponyville figured out.”

“Oh good, another major event in history. For a moment I thought it was a good thing we got transported away from-“

The sound of the creatures swarming towards town disappeared. It was still day, but all the ponies that had been near them changed to different ones. These ponies did not look happy as the other ones had, however. The ponies sitting or walking around looked sick, exhausted, their eyes drooping and sweat dripping from their faces.

“This is very bad,” the Doctor said, looking around more, taking in his surroundings.

“Doctor, what’s that shimmer?”

Jack pointed towards the outskirts of Ponyville, seeing a strange shimmer near the ground, as if it were a hot day. The Doctor felt no excess heat, despite the appearance of the ponies, because it wan’t hot out.

Then the shimmer began to turn black.

What was once the appearance of a heat wave now formed a strange shape. It moved with the same fluid motion as a heat shimmer, except now looked like a terrible ooze, spreading farther and farther on the outskirts of Ponyville.

“This is very bad,” the Doctor repeated. “We’re in an isolated time blend.”

***

“An isolated what?” Paige asked, fearful of the blackness in the distance.

“I can only assume Chaos did this,” the Doctor said. “With a lot of power and a lot of trickery, you can take a certain location, and sort of…” he struggled for the right words to explain it. “Imagine time like a big ball of… stuff,” he began. “When you create a time blend, you isolate a portion of space from normal passage of time, then you pop the ball, all the air comes out, and you can just crumple up everything. All the time of Ponyville just squishing into each other.”

“But nopony else seems to notice,” Jack commented.

“Where we are now-“ the Doctor paused when he heard more screaming, the group finding themselves back under the light of the moon. “Or where we were, is the convergence point. All the messed up time is crumpling towards that point, and that’s where ponies are finally being affected. Their entire timelines are being ripped apart, it would certainly make your stomach feel a little queezy. We only notice because we’ve recently time traveled. The time vortex makes traps like these go a bit floopy around us.”

“But what about all the events outside of Ponyville affected by the town itself?” Jack asked. “Aren’t there too many paradoxes?”

“That’s the problem with these,” the Doctor continued as the swarm of winged creatures flew over his head. “With enough energy you can contain this time blend without it affecting anything else. But once everything crumples in on itself, the energy explosion is massive. Paradoxes can typically resolve themselves, but at a great cost.”

“So if we don’t do something…” Paige looked at the ever increasing blackness in the distance, back in the latest point in the time trio they were passing through.

“All major events that have to do with Ponyville will change or be destroyed. And it seems like this little town is pretty important.”

“This is where princess Luna became herself again, where Discord was defeated… a surprising amount of things.”

“Then it was a good target for Chaos to change the history of the entire planet.”

The three lost themselves in silence for a moment, letting the thought stir in their heads. Nopony around them could help, or would even realize what was happening until this point in time.

“Is there any way at all we can warn these ponies?” Jack asked.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” the Doctor replied. “We’d likely disappear before we could finish talking for starters. The only ones that could be aware of this and halted in one particular time would be someone who has experienced time travel but not for at least the past several months.” Something or someone showed up as from my universe at the point where all the insects are swarming, the Doctor thought to himself. Samantha, could you be here? Could you help?

“We have to do something. Is there anything we can do to stop this?” Paige asked.

The Doctor thought for a moment. “Yes, get back in the TARDIS,” he told Paige and Jack. “We might be able to stop Chaos’s plan for this town still.”

***

Back inside the TARDIS, the Doctor immediately set to work, dashing from one end of the consol to the other. Paige and Jack waited in a nervous silence, unable to help but worried for the future of the world they were on.

“There are three points we’re jumping between,” the Doctor said, beginning to explain as he continued working. “There’s the convergence point, and two other points in time that ended up having high amounts of energy near them, by pure chance, nothing more. The three points gives us enough room to resync Ponyville back into the flow of time with the rest of the universe. What we need is a beacon at each point.”

“I assume the TARDIS can be one of the beacons, but what about the other points?” Paige asked.

“Excellent question Paige, and I have an idea that just might work,” the Doctor replied. “I believe that unicorns can emit the necessary frequency to resync Ponyville. We’ll need a different unicorn at each of the other two points that know what to do, and then we’re set.”

“I don’t know much about unicorns, there weren’t really any in Apppleoosa, but I know that magic isn’t as easy as thinking what frequency to emit,” Jack said. “We’re going to need some brilliant unicorns.”

“We’ll find a way.” The Doctor examined his monitor, scanning the points in time now that the TARDIS had jumped enough times to get sufficient data, looking for the most stable place to try and make the TARDIS land and not jump like the rest of them. However, as he scanned, something caught his eye that he could hardly believe. “There’s already a signal at one of the points…” the Doctor double checked to be sure of what he saw, and no data proved otherwise. Someone or something already knew the frequency to emit at and wasn’t moving from their current time. Samantha, if that’s you, you’re brilliant. It’s been long enough for you to stay in one place if you haven’t been jumping about with your vortex manipulator. But how could you be that brilliant? Who could possibly know all the information I know?

“So does that mean we only need to find one unicorn?” Paige interrupted the Doctor’s thoughts.

“Apparently…” the Doctor still mulled over this new discovery. “The frequency is coming from the swarming bugs time frame. If a unicorn is going to need time to learn how to emit this frequency, then we need to find a brilliant unicorn in the time with Nightmare Moon, and then he or she can take the long way to the future and emit the frequency from the convergence point.” The Doctor turned to his companion. “Paige, you’ve read a lot, and there seem to be a lot of important events tied to Ponyville. Is there any unicorn you know with possible potential?”

Paige placed her hoof on her chin, turning over memories of history books and news articles. “I’ve never met her in person, but I think I know the unicorn to find.”

***

“You’ve been up all night Spike. You are a baby dragon after all.”

Twilight Sparkle gave her baby dragon one last glance, making sure he was sleeping soundly, then headed downstairs. There was a lot of work to be done if Equestria was going to be saved.

All the tails were true. The mare on the moon had returned, and if nopony stopped her, Equestria would fall under eternal night once more. There had to be something on the elements of harmony somewhere in the array of books she had access to downstairs, otherwise everypony would be doomed.

Twilight planned to immediately search through the books after turning on the light, but gasped when a light brown pony was standing in the middle of the room, looking at her. His mane and tail were both styled in a spiked fashion, and his cutie mark was shaped like an hourglass.

“Sorry to startle you, I don’t mean any harm,” the stallion said. What was that accent? Twilight’s best guess was the England region on the opposite side of Canterlot that Ponyville rested on. She had never been there personally but many visited her home town.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked, nervous of the way the stallion looked at her.

“I’m the Doctor, and I’m here because I’ve heard you’re good at magic,” the stallion replied. “I need you to write something down.”

Twilight shook her head. “You don’t even tell me your name, you just come in and tell me to write something? The other ponies I got introduced to today I can handle, but you’re just-“

“You’re trying to stop Nightmare Moon, so that Equestria won’t be underneath eternal darkness,” the stallion said. “Unfortunately, though you have succeeded in the history books, all Ponyville history is going to change if you don’t help me. I don’t have a name, it’s just the Doctor, I’m not from around here, I come from somewhere much farther away. I travel, I help people, and I’ve recently found a passion for bananas. They’re just delicious. And helpful. Is that a better introduction?”

Despite her fear, something about this pony… his voice, the look in his eyes… she began to trust him. He seemed to know things she didn’t, and right now she needed all the help she could get. If this pony had a way to save Equestria, why not at least listen? “I’m Twilight Sparkle, and I’m not from around here either,” she said. “I don’t think I get everything you just said, but I don’t know where to start. You can help me save Equestria?”

“Yes I can, write this number down and keep it somewhere safe.” Twilight levitated a piece of paper and quill to her, and the Doctor told her a five digit number with a decimal. “This number won’t help you with tonight’s problem, but it will help you later. I’m out of time, but keep an eye out. You’re looking for a stallion with no cutie mark to tell you the rest.”

“The rest, but when-“ Twilight looked up from the paper, noticing that the Doctor was gone. The door hadn’t opened, nor a window. Twilight and Spike were once again the only two souls in the house.

Twilight looked at the number written down on her paper. She didn’t know what it meant, or where this pony even came from. She went back upstairs to place the number with the rest of her important belongings, then rushed back down to the books, beginning to magically toss them off shelves, making quite a noise. She had to put her curiosity on the number aside and search for the elements of harmony.

“Elements, elements, elements… how can I stop Nightmare Moon without the elements of harmony?”

“And just what are the elements of harmony?” Twilight hadn’t heard anypony come in once again, but suddenly had the blue Pegasus she had met earlier right in her face. “And how did you know about Nightmare Moon, huh? Are you a spy?”

***

“Help!” Spike cried out.
The spell hadn’t worked. Now the strange winged creatures were eating everything except the food, and were swarming over an even larger portion of Ponyville. And when Twilight returned to her house to search for an answer, theses insane bugs were somehow eating the words right out of her books.

“They’re eating the words!” Twilight looked around frantically, no idea how to solve this. This creature was so strange, and Fluttershy had no idea how to deal with it. There was somepony else that she could turn to for advice on strange wonders of nature and magic, but she would have to be quick.

Twilight jumped up, grabbing one of the creatures with her teeth to take to Zecora. She bolted out the door, leaving the rest of the swarm to destroy her books; for now there was nothing she could do about it.

Everywhere Twilight looked she saw another one of these replicating, feasting insects. Her worry for Celestia arriving and the town being a mess turned into a worry for the safety of all the ponies in Ponyville. Just how much damage could these creatures do?

Twilight pressed on, running for the border of the Everfree forest. A tall, dark blue pony stepped out from behind a bush in front of her path, catching her by surprise. She skidded to a halt.

“Hi there! See the flank? Handsome, I know, but no cutie mark on it.” The stallion turned, showing his flank to Twilight. Twilight had no idea what to say, merely confused that a stallion that looked so old would have no cutie mark yet. “You were told about seeing me.”

That’s when the memory hit Twilight like a brick thrown at her face. She had forgotten about the number. The strange pony with an hourglass cutie mark. You’re looking for a stallion with no cutie mark to tell you the rest.

The number. Twilight had never looked at it again, and although all of Equestria didn’t seem in danger, Twilight thought to herself. The other pony had said something about history saying Twilight stopped Nightmare Moon, and that changing. She had never heard of such an event, but then again, how could she? Was it really possible for history to change, with something like time travel? If these infesting creatures weren’t stopped at Ponyville, would they keep going?

“What do I need to know?” Twilight asked, no longer doubting the truth of what that Doctor had told her before. She quickly jumped and grabbed a hold of the creature again after letting go to speak.

“That number, it’s a frequency. If the Doctor understands magic correctly, you can convert that number to a neural wave, and transmit it through magic. When a Pegasus tells you to start, we need you to do so. Do you think you can learn to do that?”

Transmitting waves. Twilight had read some items on something called radio waves that some ponies were trying. But that was science, not unicorn magic. She had never heard the term neural wave, but bet she could find out what that meant.

“I’ll do my best,” Twilight replied.

The stallion smiled, which for some reason made Twilight blush. “Fantastic. I’m Captain Jack Harkness by the way. Nice to meet you.” Then just like the Doctor, he disappeared.

Twilight stood there for several minutes, unable to move. She would not forget about the number again. This was somehow more important than any small catastrophe that came across Ponyville. She would find a way to help.

But until then, Ponyville is being eaten! She shook her head and resumed running for Zecora’s house.

***

Twilight struggled to continue walking, her body aching all over. All of Ponyville was sick, and she had no idea why.
The last time Twilight had gotten a visit from her strangers was long ago. The break between the Doctor and Jack Harkness had only been a couple months, but now well over two years had passed. She didn’t know why the first two times were so close together and the final event farther out, but she never lost trust.

It had taken her months, but she found information on neural frequencies and examples of powerful unicorns who had done it before. Some ponies had done it without even realizing they were doing it, the spell didn’t seem that hard to perform, just hard to learn. She had spent months more studying the neural frequencies, and tuning her mind to the number written on the paper. In a hectic event involving just herself, she discovered time travel was possible, and believed she had a better understanding of what the Doctor had said.

The Doctor. Just in case Twilight would mess with time by saying anything, when Celestia told her of the Doctor she acted like she had never heard the name. But when Celestia spoke to her, she already understood how incredible the Doctor was. He and whoever helped him spread out across time to give her an important message, which she only assumed had to be at great risk to themselves. Twilight had only managed time travel once, and barely managed to talk to herself, she couldn’t imagine how much the Doctor had to do.

If the last piece of the puzzle was going to come, Twilight believed it would be soon. Strange things were happening all over Equestria. Such a short time after Discord had been befriended, he was now dead. Killed by an ancient, more powerful version of him, that sought to cause more harm than Discord ever did. And now Ponyville seemed to be facing its final moments, with everypony collapsing to the ground from a sickness nopony could explain. In the distance, Twilight saw strange, black ooze swirling around, making some sort of borderline around Ponyville.

Twilight fell to the ground herself, the last bit of energy in her legs gone. This was the end for her. The Doctor had tried his best, but couldn’t save Ponyville. She didn’t feel so bad about that. She only hoped that nopony else would get hurt, and that somepony would find a way to stop Chaos. Twilight closed her eyes, letting the exhaustion take over her, letting the end come.
Her eyes fluttered open again from the gentle touch of a hoof against her back. Twilight struggled to sit up, but could only manage to move her neck, tilting her head up from the ground. The hoof that had been on her back now caressed her chin, lifting her head a bit more.

The sun formed a shining silhouette around the pony that held Twilight’s face. Her eyes struggled to adjust, more sensitive to light with whatever illness was upon Ponyville.

Her eyes were able to see after the pony’s wings blocked more of the sun. Wings. Was it…

The pony leaned in even closer now, and Twilight could make out the face of a mare. Her body was faded blue, with eyes almost matching the shade, and a light, faded yellow mane and tail accompanied her. She leaned in as close as she could, a small tear trickling down from her face, and whispered. “Now.”

Twilight dug deep, searching for strength she absolutely had to find. She had to be strong, now was the time that everything came together. She fought and fought, every ounce of energy she had pouring into her horn, her body shaking, and with her body about to pass out, she began transmitting the wave.

***

“Yes!” The Doctor had managed to lock the TARDIS in the Nightmare Moon time frame, and detected a second signal being transmitted. Twilight had done it. “And now of course, for me!”

***

Suddenly, the sickness disappeared from Twilight as if it had evaporated into nothingness, and she stood up tall. She felt some sort of connection, as if others out there were transmitting the same wave, and it helped her push her magic even harder.

***

Someone found the signal. The connection is completing!

***

With a flash, Paige found herself in a completely normal Ponyville. Twilight was no longer right in front of her, nopony was sick, and there was no terrible blackness in the distance. The Doctor’s plan had worked. The time blend broke, and everything returned to normal.

Paige quickly turned when she heard the sounds of the TARDIS coming to pick her up. The Doctor had dropped off her and Paige in different times at the start of a cycle, so that all three of them would be in a different time, and could have better luck finding Twilight at different locations. The doors of the blue box opened, and she hopped in, the TARDIS quickly taking off again to pick up Jack.

Jack was sitting patiently where the Doctor had told him to, and found the TARDIS materializing in front of him after a few more minutes. He smiled and stepped in.

“Well, Ponyville is a mess, but some crazy one pony band got all those flying things out of here,” Jack said.

“What? Oh, good. That’s good.” The Doctor didn’t even look at Jack, keeping his eyes focused on the monitor.

Paige noticed the ignorance, the Doctor hadn’t talked to her either. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”

“Someone or something gave off the third signal. I thought it might be someone I know, maybe I, without knowing, taught some highly advanced physics to someone, but I’ve sent out universal calls that any space ship, no matter how old or new, would pick up. There’s nothing.”

“So… another unicorn then?” Paige suggested.

“Twilight might have shared what we told her, but you said yourself, Jack, that it would take a long time to learn the spell from scratch unless they already understood it. Something’s not right here. I still picked up something that came from my universe, and I detected it somewhere around this place and time, just like I found you in Appleoosa a couple weeks after you got there. Something really isn’t right. We’re not done here.”

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS without another word, leaving Paige and Jack behind. Find her. Who had the creator meant? Samantha couldn’t be here. She would have responded to his signals. Who was he supposed to find?

With everypony calmed down, many ponies returned to their day to day activities, since nothing could be immediately done about the damage the town had taken. Some ponies went back to work, others returned to their meals, and those who had no business to complete began picking up the leftover mess.

The Doctor scanned everywhere, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Just pony after pony. He didn’t know any of these ponies. If a unicorn had managed to be the source of the signal, he or she couldn’t possibly have any relation to him-

That’s when he saw her.

Sitting at a café, eating a sandwich, sat a female unicorn. Her body was a light blue, more vibrant and bright of a shade then Paige. Her mane had two tones to it, one a dark blue, almost like Jack’s body, and the other white. But none of this mattered at all to the Doctor. He was staring at her cutie mark.

An hourglass.

“No two cutie marks are the same, even though ponies have similar talents,” Paige explained. “It’s something that makes everypony unique.”

Paige had said those exact words to him, yet now the Doctor was staring at a cutie mark exactly like his. No slightly different color, slightly different shape. That was supposed to be impossible for ponies. Then again, the Doctor thought to himself. Just like I look similar to humans, I may look like a pony now but I’m still a-

The Doctor’s eyes widened and he sprinted for the table the unicorn was sitting at. He slowed as he got closer, remembering she had no idea who he was. He didn’t want to scare her off.

“Hello there,” the Doctor greeted the mare, putting on a smile. “How are you today?”

The mare looked up from her sandwich. “Hello,” she replied, giving the Doctor a friendly smile. Her accent sounded similar to his. “Well, now that those crazy bug things are gone, my day is going by just fine. What’s your name?”

“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor replied. “Nice to meet you.”

“Well, if we’re introducing ourselves by job titles, I’m called the dentist,” the mare said, chuckling.

“Dentist, really? That’s an interesting cutie mark for someone who works on teeth.”

“Oh, yes I know,” the mare replied, looking down at her cutie mark. “I’m good with clockwork as well, but I just happened to enjoy dentistry. There’s no restrictions on getting a job based on your cutie mark,” she continued, chuckling again. “Now, what about you? So many doctors and yet they all manage to have different cutie marks. What does yours look-“

The mare’s eyes froze when she saw the Doctor’s cutie mark. “But that’s…” She stood up, backing up a few steps from her stool and staring at the stallion in front of her. The doctor’s facial façade was gone, his now serious eyes returning the unicorn’s stare.

“…Who are you?” the mare asked.

“I was about to ask the same question.”

***

Twilight had been home for a few days since talking to Celestia, sad that she couldn't help except for remembering to keep her faith in the Doctor, like the princess had said.

It seemed so strange to her. The elements of harmony couldn't help, but just one pony could. She wished that she could meet this Doctor, but unfortunately she didn't know him.

Or did she?

Twilight pressed a hoof to her head, suddenly getting queezy. Time travel. The thought came into her head but she had no idea why. She had only time traveled once, and that was for something pointless. What did that have to do with anything. I have to remember the number. What number? Twilight didn't feel like she was even in control of her own thoughts. Images started flashing in her head, of Nightmare Moon, of parasprites, of some strange, black ooze surrounding Ponyville. Hold on, black ooze? When did that happen?
In a flash of pain that caused Twilight to fall to the ground, memories rushed back into her head. This spot on the ground, where she had collapsed just now, was familiar. She had helped save Equestria from this spot. She had known how thanks to a pony she met long, long ago.

That's when Twilight remembered everything about the events in Ponyville that to everypony else never happened, and knew she could do just as Celestia asked. Put faith in the Doctor.