To my dearest friends in all the world,
I’m not certain that this letter will ever reach you. Even if it does, I doubt that any of you will believe a word it says. It all sounds quite impossible, but do bear with me.
I was walking through the streets of Trottingham following a wonderful fashion show, one that used my own designs I am delighted to report! It was a cool, foggy night, much like most any Trottingham evening. I found myself clutching my cloak tight to my person to ward off the chill, wary of any perceived shadows in the mist. Call me paranoid, but I’ve faced down Nightmare Moon herself, I shant be found unprepared.
It was a scant few blocks from my hotel that I was startled by an ominous sound roaring out of the darkness. It issued forth with an even beat, its scratchy notes rising in cadence with each new call. If I had to guess, I’d say it sounded like a series of keys being dragged over piano strings. It was coarse, yet it held a power behind it, a hidden depth that told of an unstoppable force.
You may find it odd that I focus so heavily upon this unique sound, this arpeggio of mystery. I droop at the prospect that you may never hear it. It is a sound synonymous with his name, it is his herald.
This is the story of how I met him.
In an effect not unlike Twilight’s teleportation, a tall, blue box materialized some few feet before me. I shrank back in mild panic, cursing myself for walking unaccompanied in the depths of Trottingham. I recognized a strip of writing across the top of the box, scribed in perfect Equestrian. It labeled the box as a “Police Box,” and a part of me sighed in relief. Surely this was a new peacekeeping device, in the midst of being tested by the authorities?
The doors opened inwardly and a brown stallion poked his head out. He glanced to the left and the right, appearing confused. His eyes fell on me and widened in surprise. He ducked back inside the box. “No! No!” he exclaimed. “Wrong time, wrong place. Try again!”
The wind picked up and the box disappeared, singing out its arcane notes. I stood in the empty street for quite some time, examining the spot that had been previously occupied by the bizarre box. Finding nothing unusual, I proceeded to my hotel room, where I spent the night in blissful ignorance.
I awoke to the sound of a hoof striking repeatedly against my door. “Open up!” came an excited voice. “Rarity, you have got to see this!”
In perhaps not my most glamorous moment, I tottered out of bed and trundled across the floor. With a sparkle of my horn, I opened the door to admit the waiting earth pony. The green blur that was Daisychain brushed past me with a letter in her mouth. She brushed her rosy mane out of her eyes and presented me with the item. “Hoity Toity loved them! He ordered ten more in your style!”
Daisychain was my contact in Trottingham. A good friend from my school days, she had moved to the city to make her own way across the fashion scene. She found quite a bit of work as a model, and routinely strutted my creations down the runway.
Still groggy from sleep, I gave her a smile and rubbed my eyes. “That is wonderful, my dear, simply wonderful. Is there any reason why you’d tell me this at…” A glance at the clock confirmed my suspicions. “Six in the morning?”
“Come on, Rarity,” she said in that astonishingly perky way of hers. “You and I both know that you would have wanted to know as soon as possible.”
I nodded my agreement and went about getting myself ready for the day. There was no sense in trying to sleep any longer with Daisychain around. As I applied my makeup I inquired as to her plans for the day.
“Well, I thought we could do a little shopping,” she replied, “followed by a shopping trip, then we could end with a nice, relaxing shopping excursion.”
“That does sound delightful,” I said. I redoubled my efforts to make myself presentable. With a sense of finality I attached the fire ruby necklace, that darling gift that Spike gave me. “Why, we may even be able to fit some shopping in between our shopping!”
I can almost feel Rainbow Dash and Applejack cringing. Rest assured, I would not dream of dragging them along on such an occasion. You two can stop trying to hide behind Pinkie Pie.
We spent much of the day as you might expect; trying on clothes, purchasing ensembles, and gleaning inspiration from our surroundings. It was all but perfect.
We stopped for a short repast at an open-air restaurant in the midst of the shopping district. As I scanned the menu I felt as though somepony was watching me. I gazed about, trying to ascertain where the watcher was hidden, but found myself without a clue.
I turned back to my menu and was about to ask Daisychain for a recommendation when I was interrupted by the sudden arrival of a brown-coated stallion. He held a pencil in his teeth and a notepad in his hoof. “Mayyeh takyaw odder?” he said around the pencil.
I blinked, my mind puzzled at his antics. He seemed to be quite unprofessional. “I beg your pardon?” I asked.
He spat the pencil out (yes, spat it), and tried again. “I said, ‘may I take your order?’” He looked down at his hoof and sighed. “My kingdom for a few fingers.”
I drew back, as much to avoid the ejected pencil as to distance myself from his eccentricity. I was about to ask him for a glass of water when he interrupted me once again. “That is, I’m not really here to take your order. Actually, you’re going to take my orders. Well, you’re going to do as I say if you want to stay alive.”
I gasped, a nervous shiver running down my spine. I shot Daisychain a quick glance and huffed at our uninvited guest. “If, sir, you think you can intimidate a bearer of the Element of Generosity, you—”
He stuck a hoof to my lips, a most disgusting act. While I was silenced, he took the occasion to speak quickly. “No, no, I’m not threatening you, I’m warning you. You have about five minutes to get out of here before something decidedly bad happens.”
He pointed across the street, motioning for us to get up. “Get over there, don’t stop walking. Don’t look back. And whatever you do…” He shook his head. “Well, I suppose that’s about it. Go!”
We stood, making our way in the direction he had indicated. In addition to the nervousness experienced when in close proximity to danger, I felt a tingle of excitement. I wondered at the possibilities. Should I call the princesses? Should I stay and act out my role as an Element Bearer?
While these thoughts rifled through my brain, I happened to stumble on an unforeseen stone in the road. My tumble took me to the ground, and I nursed a bruised knee. My angle of decent gave me a line of sight to where the strange brown stallion was working. I suddenly recognized him as the stallion from the blue box the previous night, and I then thought him to be an official, sent by the princesses. He was setting up several odd contraptions around the restaurant, all tubes and wires and bulbs.
He glanced up to see Daisychain helping me up, and seemed to give a snort of exasperation. He shooed us away before returning to his nameless task. He growled and jumped over the restaurant’s bordering fence, holding some sort of control box in his teeth.
The air above the establishment shimmered. Sparks filled the sky as ethereal waves emitted from an invisible source. The stallion glared at his little control box and muttered to it.
I gasped as the energy seemed to tear a hole in the very air with a blast that sent me and my friend tumbling to the ground. My heart thudded within my chest as terrible sounds, like a thousand rusty hinges screaming, poured forth from the hole.
The stallion laughed as he shouted. “I’ve got you now, you tin-coated tyrants! There’s no escape!”
The scream intensified and was accompanied by the sound of lightning striking. The stallion pressed down on his control box, igniting the bulbs surrounding the hole in the sky. The entire restaurant was covered in a blaze of blue, and the hole closed up.
In my naiveté I thought the matter over. Daisychain and I approached the stallion and called out to him, asking him to sate our curiosity on just what had transpired. He turned to us with a look of horror. “Why doesn’t anybody listen to me!?” he said. “Run, you idiots! Run like the wind!”
The equipment he had set up sparked and flickered. He looked to them with rising panic, a feeling that I was beginning to share. “No, no, no,” he muttered. “Not now, not when I was so close.”
The blue glow faded, and the hole returned. The stallion gave us one last glance and took off at a full sprint. “RUN!”
Daisychain moved to comply immediately, dragging me along with her. Her normally happy disposition was replaced with an uncharacteristic solemnity. “We don’t have to fight it, Rarity! Let’s go!”
Without the foggiest idea of what “it” was, I was left to follow her lead. I could hear a metallic clank behind us, an indication that whatever made the hole had made landfall. I could hear whirring and clanking as it moved around, though I dared not risk a glance back. Daisychain was not so cautious, and threw her head around to gage our distance. She gasped and cried out, “It’s right behind us!”
I grasped her around the middle and threw ourselves into an alley; a dank, dark alley. We huddled behind an unsavory dumpster, waiting for the dreaded “it” to pass us by. My breath caught in my mouth as a rumbling noise drew closer, a milder form of the metallic screams of the hole in the air.
I swear on my life, it looked like a salt shaker on wheels. A plunger protruded from the front alongside a metal pipe. Its head, so to speak, was a dome of a coppery color, and its obvious eyestalk swiveled around like a periscope. It seemed to be actively searching for us. It would have been comical if I had not been so terrified.
“Show yourself!” it barked. Its voice was loud and harsh, like a metal brush being dragged along chains. “Kneel before your new master!”
We kept silent, Daisychain and I. She huddled into my side like a foal, holding back frightened tears. I suppose it was only due to my attempts to comfort her that I myself had not broken down in hysterics. I watched our stalker carefully, hoping against hope that it would lose interest and leave. My hopes were unfounded, as it rolled its way down the alley.
“Come out of hiding!” it screeched. “No more games, you will give me what I want!”
It rolled past, and by some miracle missed us completely. It swept the far end of the alley; any attempt to escape would surely have alerted it
“One of you has the mark of magic!” it said. “I will have the one with the mark!”
Daisychain glanced up at my horn, mouthing a silent “what?” I shrugged back, though the thought did cross my mind that I, being a unicorn, what the one in possession of the “mark of magic” that the beast sought.
The creature turned, its eyestalk falling at last upon us. We shrank against the wall, unable to move without coming closer to the startlingly commanding contraption. “Come forth!” it said. “Show yourselves!”
We stood slowly, not making any sudden movements. Daisychain kept close to my side, and I to hers. I spoke with as much force as I could muster. “What do you want, creature?”
Its unreadable face turned towards Daisychain. “Step away from the one with the mark of magic! Step away! Step away!”
Slowly, reluctantly, Dasiychain retreated from my embrace. She swallowed deeply, tears pouring down her face. I braced my legs, ready to leap to her assistance at a moment’s notice.
I… did not get a moment’s notice.
I… Oh, darlings. Oh, Celestia.
The monster, for there is no other word I can think to describe it, spoke in that grating voice. That accused, grating voice. “You do not have the mark of magic! You are useless to me!”
Light flashed from the metallic pipe beside the plunger. Daisychain gave a startled gasp and fell to the ground. She lay there, silent and unmoving.
My dear, dear friend. Oh, my stars.
The beastly thing turned to me and its voice rumbled. “You have the mark of magic! You will help me understand magic! You will assist me or you will die!”
Blinded with hot tears, I howled at the thing. “You beast! You monster!” I said. “I’d rather die!”
It swiveled its deadly, metal pipe towards me, preparing to gun me down as it had my friend. “I should grant your request!”
It halted its action as a sound filled the air; a rising cadence of whirs and sweeping notes. I felt the air swirl in the alley as the blue box materialized behind me, “Police Box” decorating its peak. I turned towards it, daring to hope that salvation was near. The doors opened inwards and the brown stallion stepped out, his spiky hair dancing in the wind.
He looked down at dear Daisychain and sucked in a breath of air. His gaze fell upon the metal monster; a powerful gaze filled with rage. “You scum. You malignant piece of trash. You can’t go five minutes without killing, can you?”
“She was of no use.” The beast rolled its eyestalk to the newcomer. “I should have expected your interference!”
“You didn’t even know who she was! Can you even tell me her name!?” the stallion shouted. “Can you!?”
“It is irrelevant!” the thing replied. It turned its pipe at the stallion, and I nearly broke down crying at the sight. “All that matters is the triumph of the Daleks!” It twitched. “And the fall of The Doctor!”
The stallion grabbed me and dragged us backwards into the blue box. Some small part of my mind wondered how we would both fit inside. It seemed to be no bigger around than Applejack’s applecart. Once inside, the stallion shut the doors.
I slumped to the floor and remained unaware of my surroundings for quite some time. I mourned for Daisychain, sobs wracking my body with pain that was unable to outstrip my sorrow. Oh, my friends, my friends, don’t ask me what her sacrifice was for. To this day, it seems such a waste of life. I hated the thing. I hated the thing that had killed her. The monster.
I know not how long I lay there, and I suspect with him it matters little. When I found myself once more, I could only play with the fire ruby necklace. I could see my puffy eyes in its polished surface, and I absently began to clean up my running makeup.
Unsurprisingly, the stallion took notice of my movement. “Ah, it seems you have reentered the world of the living.” He trotted up to me, producing a handkerchief. He held it out to me, and I, of course, accepted it gratefully. “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
I blubbered, making quite a sight of myself, I’m sure. Still, I fought the good fight to at least make myself presentable. I thanked him for saving me and asked him where we were.
He smiled like an artist displaying his best work, or perhaps like a parent extolling the virtues of their child. He swept his foreleg around the room, a rounded collection of metallic walls and sparkling lights. “Welcome, my dear, to the TARDIS. T-A-R-D-I-S. That stands for ‘Time And Relative Dimension In Space.’ It is my transportation, it is my home, it is my life.”
I stood and made my way to the center of the room. A tall tube led from the floor to the ceiling, and it was surrounded by a series of control consoles. I looked closely at what appeared to be a toaster connected to a corkscrew. Unable to ascribe any purpose to the device, I turned to the stallion. “And what does the TARDIS do, Mr.—”
His eyes widened in realization and his ears flopped low. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. We haven’t made introductions.” He stretched out his hoof in greeting, which I took daintily. “You may call me The Doctor.”
I tilted my head in perplexity. “Yes,” I said. “But ‘Doctor’ who?”
“Just ‘The Doctor,’” he replied. “Do forgive me the occasional eccentricity. You are?”
“I am Lady Rarity of Ponyville.” I held my head high, attempting to display my pride for my hometown. I do try to be more open about my roots nowadays, so you needn’t be too surprised. At any rate, nervousness at such humble beginnings seemed to be wasted in The Doctor’s company.
“Really, Ponyville? Such a lovely place,” he chuckled. “There are plenty of adventures to be had there, yes indeed.”
I hid my surprise under a question. “You have been there, then?”
“Once or twice,” he told me. “I have a friend there.” His smile grew as he glanced around the room. “Now, you were asking just what the TARDIS was capable of?”
I nodded my agreement, and he was off. He moved around the console as he explained the workings to me. The TARDIS is, without a doubt, an amazing creation.
“The TARDIS,” he began, “is a spaceship, capable of traveling to any spot in the galaxy under its own power.”
“Does it have anything to do with that blue box you arrived in earlier?” I interrupted.
“That blue box,” he said with a grin, “is the TARDIS.”
“But how can that be?” I asked. “How can it be so much smaller on the outside?”
“Would you believe me if I said ‘magic?’” he asked coyly. I gave a small titter at his remark, but I shook my head all the same.
“Very well,” he nodded. “The inside, sufficient to say, is in a separate dimension from the outside. It acts as a sort of pocket in space, you might say.”
Something clicked inside my head. “Ergo, ‘Relative Dimension?’”
“Well, amongst other things.” He mused for a moment. “It also acts as a time machine.”
He paused, as if expecting me to faint suddenly, or deny such things could possibly exist. I must admit, before Twilight’s adventure in the past, I might have thought such things constrained to the realm of fantasy. As it was, I could only display mild interest. “Really? That seems as though it could come in handy.”
He deflated slightly, disappointed, no doubt, at my lack of reaction. His eyebrows shot up as if a thought had just barged its way into his mind. “So, you have some experience with time travel?”
“A friend of mine had an adventure with it, for sure.” I admit to a slight pleasure in seeing The Doctor so surprised, he appeared to be a stallion not used to being one-upped. “She ended up causing herself a week of pain trying to prevent something that would not occur.”
He nodded in understanding. “Time is funny like that. You never can tell until it’s too late.”
I looked around the room once more, noting a few stallion-centric decorating choices. Pants hung over the back of a nearby railing, few pictures were scattered around, and the console was all but caked with dust. I recalled something he had mentioned prior in the conversation. “You say that you live in here? You a traveler, then? Are you not working for Celestia?”
“Yes, I am a traveler,” he said. “I work for no one. I go where and when I please, and I do as I please.”
“Oh,” I muttered. I worried my lip and swallowed, preparing myself for my next question. “Why are you here?”
His smile, waning as the conversation went on, disappeared entirely. “I came because of that creature, that monster.” He ran up to the console and began twisting, turning, and pressing various gadgets. “I traced strange temporal energy shifts to this area of space-time, and it was only a matter of a few days wait before they reared their ugly, domed heads!”
The change in The Doctor was astonishing. He who had a moment before been a pleasant, if eccentric, stallion seemed to lose all sense of decency. He snarled and growled at his instruments. His grimace held an anger that seemed far older than even a dragon’s fury.
“They are the Daleks. They are a race of monsters, creatures only created for destruction. They consider anything that is not a Dalek to be beneath them, fodder for their glorious conquest! They will not stop until the universe’s only living creatures are Daleks, and then they will begin to tear each other apart out of boredom!”
He looked at me with venom in his eyes. “I cannot allow them to run roughshod over the worlds that I have come to love. I will protect those worlds, no matter the cost. Do you understand what I mean?”
My tail bumped up against the railing that surrounded the console; I had been taking involuntary steps backwards. One look at The Doctor told me exactly what he meant. “Will… Is destroying them the only way? Can they not be contained?”
He muttered something about a “Time Lock,” but I was unable to make anything out. He then spoke loud enough for me to hear. “I tried. It didn’t work.”
I played with my necklace as I thought about his words. I soon came to a decision as to what I would do. “I want to help you.”
He started. His head twisted around to look at me, startled surprise on his features. “You what?”
“I want to help you,” I repeated. “I don’t want what happened to Daisychain to happen to anypony else.” I took a step forward and stood tall, even though I desperately wanted to curl in a ball and weep. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
He explained to me that the Dalek was alone and isolated, and would have gone into hiding as soon as we vanished. He explained that he and I would draw the monster into a trap of his own design, one that would most certainly spell doom for the Dalek. He would draw it into middle of the deadly contraption, and I would be ready with the activation code. It would be The Doctor who landed the final blow; he insisted on that duty, and I was all too ready to let him take it.
He landed the TARDIS with much shaking and rattling. It was clear that The Doctor never had a smooth flight, as he took the jolts with aplomb. He exited with a coil of wire wrapped around his midsection, cautiously stepping his way through what appeared to be an abandoned factory. I followed him, making sure to keep my wits about me. The walls were decorated with medical diagrams of ponies, perfect anatomical recreations. I could only pray that the information was second-hoof.
A note of similarity amongst the diagrams was that they were all of unicorns. A few pages were dedicated solely to the horns, and how magic was channeled through them. I am sure that Twilight would have found them fascinating, though they held little use for a seamstress such as myself. I wondered just how long we had been away for the Dalek to have compiled so much information, but I feared the answer nearly as much as the question itself.
I whispered to The Doctor, asking him if he was certain that the Dalek was in the factory. He nodded and pointed to his ears. I strained, and after some time was able to make out the sound of the creature talking. It spoke to itself about magic, about finding the source of the power, about how it needed a pony to find the answer. I shivered and nearly bolted right there and then. I could not, however, abandon my duty.
The Doctor set the ring up and placed a round, long tool in my grasp. “This is a Sonic Screwdriver. When the Dalek rolls into the ring, point this at the ring and press this button.”
I memorized the button he indicated and hid myself in the shadows. I watched as The Doctor shimmied up the support poles to climb into the rafters. He called out to the Dalek, saying that he had come, and the monster was soon to be defeated. My pulse quickened as the metal beast rolled into view, its eyestalk searching for its prey.
“It’s over, Dalek!” The Doctor exclaimed. “You’re finished! You’re alone, low on power, and I’m at my peak! You can’t win!”
“I have faced defeat before and survived!” the Dalek countered. “I have faced you and survived! The Dalek Empire will return with the Cult of Skaro at its head!”
I expected The Doctor to counter instantly, to goad the creature on. Instead, I heard him speak in just short of a whimper. “What did you say?”
The Dalek spun, pointing its plunger at the various drawings upon the wall. “The Cult of Skaro will rise again, Doctor! With the power that this world calls ‘magic’ at my disposal, I shall become the most powerful being in the universe!”
“The Cult of Skaro was destroyed!” The Doctor’s voice had lost its commanding tone, and he now sounded as though he was pleading. “I watched you fall to your own avarice!”
“Surely you remember Manhattan, Doctor?” the Dalek spat. “One of the Cult escaped, the most clever of Daleks! As long as one survives, you have not won!”
“But… That would mean that you’re…” I heard The Doctor’s hoof slip on the metal rafter and his yelp that followed.
The Dalek’s eyestalk turned to the sound of The Doctor’s hoof, a sound that had not echoed off of the walls as his voice had. A roaring sound filled the room as the Dalek rose into the air on a pillar of fire. I looked up and saw it come face to face with The Doctor.
“I am Dalek Caan!” it declared. “I will be remembered forever as the Dalek that exterminated The Doctor!”
“No!” The Doctor shouted. As the Dalek’s weapon fired, he slipped beneath the rafter. The shot passed harmlessly into the air to impact on the far wall.
“Exterminate!” Dalek Caan yelled as he fired again. “Exterminate!”
The Doctor fell to the floor, his landing cushioned by a pile of cardboard boxes. I could see that he was injured, and unable to stand, so I threw a nearby wrench at the flying Dalek. It rebounded off its head uselessly, but it did serve to divert its attention away from The Doctor.
Yes, its attention was now on me, but I was still coming up with the plan as I went along.
“You!” Caan said. “You have the mark of magic! You are now a prisoner of the Daleks!”
I stood in the center of the ring, glaring daggers at the metallic monster. “Just try it,” I dared.
He flew at me, his suction cup aimed at my face. I danced backwards, causing the Dalek to land where I had been standing a moment before. I levitated the Sonic Screwdriver and pointed it at the ring. “Sorry, darling,” I said. “I’m not the prisoner here.”
Yes, I did say that. I’m serious. It sounded really good, too. I swear.
I activated the trap, and Dalek Caan was ensnared in a web of energy. He screamed in ineffectual fury as he struggled inside his bonds. I ran over to The Doctor and all but screamed in his face. “What do we do now!? It’s caught! We can finish this!”
“No!” he shouted back, astonishing me. “We can’t follow the plan, the plan has changed!” He stood shakily to his feet and grabbed my hoof. “Run!”
I looked back at the Dalek to see it already breaking out of its bonds. I gasped and took off in a sprint. It was with quiet dismay that I noticed that we were headed away from the TARDIS. I hissed at The Doctor as we ran into the factory’s office space. “What’s wrong? Why can’t we end it now?”
He pushed me into a closet and backed himself inside, closing the door shut behind him. His eyes held a panic that looked very foreign on his face. “We can’t destroy Dalek Caan because he saved the universe.”
I gasped and looked at him askance. A Dalek, that monster that had murdered my friend, had saved the universe? I thought it insane, and I told him as much.
He shook his head, desperate to relate his thoughts to me. “He… he changed, a long time ago. It’s all very wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimy kind of stuff.”
“If he changed,” I demanded, “then why did he kill my friend!? Why is he so set on destroying all that we hold dear!?”
The Doctor sighed. “In the past, my friends and I faced down an entire army of the Daleks. We only succeeded because Caan had manipulated events in our favor, brought us all together. He had entered something called the ‘Time Vortex’ by accident, and through it, he had seen all of history. He saw the future of the Daleks, and it was nothing but devastation. He gave his life knowing that with his last breath, he had ensured the continuance of the universe.”
“If he’s dead, how is that thing Caan?” I asked.
“Time travel,” The Doctor said as he pried the ceiling tiles loose. “He obviously ended up here after he escaped me in Manhattan. This is just a pit stop, he’s still got to look into the Time Vortex to see the future and have his revelation.”
A scream tore through the air, and the sound of thunder crashing shook the walls. “He’s loose,” The Doctor warned. “Come on, climb up!”
He presented his back to me, and I scrambled up as swiftly as I could. Once I was situated, I reached my hoof down and did my best to pull him up. Unfortunately, my strength lies not in, ahem, physical strength. His strong legs allowed him to leap up, and he quickly placed the ceiling tiles back. The sound of the Dalek rampaging through the factory lit a proverbial flame beneath our tails, and we ran as fast as we could through the attic-like space.
A tile behind us exploded, and I yelped as the shards grazed my side. Caan’s cries of “Exterminate!” followed us as we retreated. I looked at The Doctor for some clue as to what the plan was, but he seemed to be focused on not being obliterated.
I was fine with that. I could do “not obliteration.”
I screamed as I fell through a broken tile, landing in a heap on the hard floor below. The Doctor descended beside me, checking me for injuries. A glance up brought Dalek Caan into view, and I panicked. I kicked The Doctor off of me and began to run once again, though I tripped a few paces away on my sprained ankle.
“Surrender and I will make your extermination quick!” Dalek Caan said.
“Stop!” The Doctor shouted. “If you hurt her, you might destroy your last chance to learn the secrets of magic!”
Caan froze in place, looking The Doctor over. “Explain!”
“You’re running low on power,” he replied. “After that emergency temporal shift, finding your way to Equestria, chasing us down…” He smiled a terrifying smile, as though he had a prey animal in a trap. “You don’t have much juice left at all, and what happens when that runs out? How can the Daleks continue if the last one is stalled by his own power cells depleting?”
Dalek Caan swiveled his weapon from The Doctor to me and back. “You are stalling!”
“Of course I am,” The Doctor said. “But you’re bluffing.”
They stood there in the hallway, The Doctor and the Dalek, facing each other down. I had no clue what would have stopped Caan from “exterminating” us both then and there. I had nearly lost all hope when I noticed something important.
I still held the Sonic Screwdriver.
I pointed it at a light that hung just over Caan’s head, and pressed the trigger. The light exploded as electricity shot from the socket to the monster. I held the button down, watching as the lightning coursed over the monster’s body. The Dalek screamed in agony as the energy surged through it, surely frying the innards to a crisp.
The Doctor knocked the Sonic Screwdriver out of my grasp, commanding me to stop. The lights in the building went out as the tool clinked uselessly against the wall. He said that we couldn’t kill Caan, to which I responded that I wasn’t trying to. I really wasn’t trying to.
Oh, Celestia, I almost killed another living being. I didn’t mean it, I swear. I didn’t…
I looked up to him, pleading. “But everything, it’s already happened, so we know that it’ll all turn out alright, right?”
“Time…” He hesitated. He glanced at the silent Dalek before continuing. “Time doesn’t work like that. It’s constantly changing, ebbing, flowing…”
He paced before me as I tested my sprained ankle. I found myself able to stand if I put most of my weight on my other three hooves, but running was out of the question. I looked at him as he continued his explanation, pain spreading across his features.
“Imagine that everything that has ever happened, everything that is happening, and everything that ever will happen is all happening at the same time while constantly moving forwards.” Noting my lost expression, he tried to rephrase it. “Time is alive and active and everything can be changed. The future can be changed, of course, but so can the past.
“Everything can be changed,” he said with a pronounced frown. “Some things are very hard to change, some things should not be changed, but even they can be… messed up.” He looked at me and I swear I could see tears in his eyes. “This is one thing that should not be changed. Believe me on this, Rarity.”
I placed my hoof on his shoulder and nodded. I opened my mouth to tell him that I understood, and to ask him what we could do, when he dropped to the floor. I gaped at the empty space once occupied by The Doctor, and found it now filled with the visage of Dalek Caan. His suction cup had retracted into his shell and been replaced with a grasping claw, which he snapped at me menacingly. A gash streaked red across The Doctor’s head where Caan had bashed him.
“You are my prisoner!” Caan exclaimed. “Obey!”
I glanced at his weapon, wondering why he had not discharged it, when I recalled The Doctor’s speech on power cells. “You’re too low on power to shoot me, aren’t you?” I asked.
I regretted it soon after. The claw clamped around my neck, and I was hoisted into their air. “I cannot blast you,” Caan said. “I can still crush you!”
Satisfied that I was silenced, he carried me away from The Doctor. I was taken to what appeared to be a dark replica of Twilight’s underground laboratory, complete with blinking lights and a table with straps on it. The Dalek tied me to the table and scanned me thoroughly. I felt quite exposed, I assure you.
His eyestalk zoomed in on me until it was mere inches from my face. I winced and moved as far away from it as I could. “You have the mark of magic,” Dalek Caan said. “Explain how you use your magic. Explain!”
“My horn,” I gasped. “My horn lets my magic flow—”
He rolled away from me to examine the diagrams. “I can see where it is channeled,” he said. “I can see how your body processes it. I cannot understand how you create it!” Caan turned to me, glaring through his emotionless optical center. “From what does your most powerful magic derive its power? Explain! Explain!”
“You mean…” An epiphany hit me, what if the Dalek did not need just any unicorn, but one who was a bearer of an Element of Harmony? The most powerful magic in Equestria? “Do you mean the magic of friendship?”
If a Dalek could blink, I have no doubt that Caan would have done so at that exact moment. “Friendship?”
“Well, you wish to know the source of our most powerful magic,” I said. “Don’t the Elements of Harmony qualify?”
The Dalek’s claw clamped shut over my injured hoof, eliciting a screech of pain from my mouth. “Do not mock me, unicorn!” he roared. “Friendship is a feeling! Daleks have deleted all useless feelings and have become powerful through it! Something as powerful as magic could not come from a feeling!”
“You’re right, monster,” I seethed. “Such power could not come from a feeling.”
I saw the shape of The Doctor stumbling up behind Caan. It seemed as though the Dalek had not injured him as much as he seemed to think. “Friendship is more than a feeling. It is hard work, and learning, and helping each other. It’s working together for a better tomorrow.”
I sniffed at Caan. “What do Daleks work together towards? Desolation? Destruction? Devastation?”
“Extermination!” Caan screeched. “Extermination of all creatures unworthy of existence!”
“What happens after they are all exterminated?” I asked. The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the sensitive instruments behind Caan. “Surely there’s something to be done after everything else is gone.”
“After the extermination…” Dalek Caan fell silent for an instant, almost imperceptibly if one wasn’t looking for it. “The Daleks will reign supreme for all eternity!”
“How boring,” I said. “You’ll have nothing to be superior over!”
The data collector behind Caan exploded, startling the Dalek into action. He spun around and received a face-full of sparks. The Doctor came alongside me and untied my bonds. He scooped me up, flung me onto his back, and made a mad dash for the TARDIS.
The necklace around my throat snagged on the doorframe and came undone. I gasped as it dropped to the ground, while we ran at full speed. “Wait!”
“No time!” The Doctor huffed. His body shuddered beneath me, his physical limits reaching their end. “We have to move!”
I tried to grasp it with my magic, but we were traveling too fast. I could hear the sound of the Dalek approaching over The Doctor’s hooffalls. The realization that we were so close to encountering that blasted beast again drove thoughts of lost jewelry from my mind. I resigned myself to cheering my steed onwards to freedom.
We reached the TARDIS and were nearly on our way before the doors were closed. The Doctor danced around his control consoles, flipping switches and twisting thingamabobs. The sound of the TARDIS transporting itself filled the room, leaving me feeling hopeful and defeated at the same time. I wondered if others before me had felt the same.
I looked to The Doctor, the pilot of the wondrous ship, and asked what he was going to do now.
“What can I do?” he asked. “Find a way to defeat Caan without destroying him? Daleks do not simply stop, Rarity.”
He slumped into a chair, his disposition haggard. “At this point, we can only wait until he makes his next move and respond to it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I know what he wants.”
I, on the other hoof, had a slight idea of what he wanted. “He asked about the most powerful magic in Equestria, that’s the Elements of Harmony. I, myself, am one of its bearers. He will no doubt do a little research and travel to my hometown…”
“Ponyville,” The Doctor breathed. “But we can beat him to it.”
He was off again, piloting his blue box across time and space to reach his destination. I glanced at the doors, wondering what it must look like outside when the TARDIS was travelling. It must be extraordinary, I thought. Beautiful.
With a final lurch, we arrived in Ponyville. I disembarked first to get a glance at our surroundings. We had landed in the middle of Ponyville Park, where numerous picnics, playdates, and, in Pinkie’s case, pranks were taking place. The Doctor poked his head out, much as he had done the previous night, and smiled at a nearby pony.
“Why, Derpy,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise to see you again!”
“Excuse me?” Ditsy Doo asked. She tilted her head to the side, examining the blue box with her golden eyes. “Do I know you?”
The Doctor jumped in surprise. “Well! That is… Ah. Not yet.” He took a step closer to Ditsy and she took a step back. “Sorry. You’ll be seeing me in a couple of days, but I won’t know you, but stick around anyway. I promise that my bad mood wasn’t… will not be your fault.”
She blinked at him and nodded. “Whatever you say, mister.” With that, she flew away, much to The Doctor’s dismay.
“Tenses are so hard, why does everybody need to be so annoyingly strict about them?” he muttered.
“A friend of yours?” I asked as the mare retreated.
“She will be,” he replied. “Or she was. Or she is. Like I said, tenses are hard.”
“Perhaps you spend too much time cooped up in that box of yours,” I said.
The Doctor gave a small nod. “Perhaps.” He turned to Ponyville and frowned. “Now to save your fair town.”
I am still unsure of the mechanics of the TARDIS, and how it manages to travel from place to place seemingly instantly, but I could tell almost immediately that something was off. Ponies stared at me like they were seeing a ghost. I stopped in front of Applejack’s apple stand and gave her a hello. She started in surprise and smiled. “Well, howdy, Rarity! Ain’t seen you in ages!”
I matched her surprised smile and shot a glance to The Doctor. His mouth was moving as he did calculations in his head. “Yes, I do think it has,” I said. “Care to remind me just how long?”
Applejack pushed her hat up, a sure sign that she was collecting her thoughts. “Well, Sugarcube, nopony’s seen you for a month…”
The Doctor and I shared a terrified glance. A month had passed since I had journeyed to Trottingham, giving the Dalek ample time to reach Ponyville. “Just how well can you pilot your ship, sir?” I asked him.
“She…” He took in deep breaths; his face betrayed a panic bordering my own. “She doesn’t always take me where I want to go.”
I was about to make a nasty comment about drunken driving when he placed his hoof on my shoulder. It trembled as he rested it there. “She doesn’t always take me where I want to go, but she has always taken me where I need to go. Please, trust me and the TARDIS on this.”
Applejack, I can only imagine what was going through your mind when you were witness to this exchange. I can only applaud your tact. “Well, can I do anything for you folks?”
I turned to Applejack and nodded. “Applejack, can you gather the girls together? I have a feeling that we may need the Elements of Harmony at full strength.”
She chewed her bottom lip. “Most of us, sure, but Twilight an’ Spike went lookin’ for you a while back. I’ll see if’n I can get ahold of her.”
“I, as well as all Equestria, would be much obliged,” I sighed. The Doctor and I set forth once more. “Do hurry, Applejack, we need the Elements!”
“The Elements of Harmony, huh?” The Doctor smiled his sad smile at me. “I am curious about what that might do to a Dalek.”
“With any luck, it’ll cast him into the Time Vortex.” I marched towards the Twin Oaks Library, where the Elements were being kept. “If not, he’ll make for a nice planter.”
The Doctor did a double take, sending a small-burning glare my way. I shook my head and sighed. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. The Elements are not meant to harm anypony.”
When we reached the library, The Doctor held the door open for me. “Not much is, at first.”
I stepped through the door to find the library dusty and dark. My foot brushed against a loose book. I peered through the darkness to find the foyer empty. “Strange,” I said. “Twilight’s usually so meticulous about cleaning before a long trip—”
The Doctor screamed behind me; I spun around to watch him be flung backwards by a field of energy. The lights flickered on as the force field surrounded the entire library, cutting it off from the rest of the world. I trembled as the sound of a menacing, and oh so familiar, voice called out to my ears. “Rarity, surrender!”
Dalek Caan rolled up to me, his grasper claw waving in the air. I backed away, only to find my passage barred by the same forcefield that kept others out.
He rolled across the room and sat beside a glass case, one containing the five necklaces and single crown that made up the Elements of Harmony. He screeched at me with that horrifying voice of his. “You have a mark of magic! You will explain to me how to use the Elements Of Harmony! Explain!”
“But… But I did tell you,” I said. “It is the magic of friendship that powers the Elements.”
“Lies!” Dalek Caan withdrew a pile of letters from inside a book. “I have spent a month studying your ‘friendship reports,’ and have found nothing about how to activate the elements!”
“If you’ve read the reports, then you know that it has always been our friendship that saw us to victory,” I replied. “When Applejack was killing herself with her workload, we stepped in and helped! When Twilight Sparkle thought all hope lost against Discord, it was her memories of us that led her to victory! When Spike rampaged through the town, it was his friendship with me that set him right!”
“Yes, the necklace.” Dalek Caan threw the fire ruby necklace at my feet. “It, too, was useless in my studies.”
I picked up the precious trinket and fastened it around my neck. It was damaged, but I cared not. I glared at the Dalek. “If you cannot see the correlation, then you are studying the wrong thing. Surely you can see the evidence before your eye that friendship has seen us through much worse than a petty tyrant taking over a library.”
“It is illogical!” Caan screamed. “Friendship is a tool used by weaklings to gain protection!”
“No!” I shouted. “It is how we grow, and build, and become stronger!”
Dalek Caan paced across the library floor, knocking books aside willy-nilly. “Illogical, it is nonsense!”
“It is beautiful,” I said with a smile. I looked down at my necklace and saw myself, but more than just me… I saw what I had become thanks to you, my friends. I saw our trials and tribulations, our victories and our dreams.
“Daleks have no concept of beauty!” Caan roared. He raced forward and grabbed my leg before I could make a move. I jerked away, but his grip was too strong.
Wind picked up inside the isolated library. Books fluttered around on gusts of air as the sound of the TARDIS rose and fell.
“No!” Caan panicked. “The Doctor is getting through the forcefield!”
The blue box materialized across the room, right on top of Twilight’s coffee table. Seizing my chance, I telekinetically grasped the container holding the Elements and sent it careening towards Caan’s head. It smashed into pieces, scattering the Elements all over the floor. The Dalek released me in surprise, and I made a mad dash to the TARDIS. I reached the open doors and pushed my way inside.
The Doctor worked the control console like a maestro at his orchestra. He breathed a sigh of relief as I entered his spaceship. “Oh, Rarity. Thank goodness—”
The blessing died on his lips as Dalek Caan entered the TARDIS right behind me. He aimed his weapon at the console and fired, blasting a hole in the center of the controls. The ship squealed as the engine started up, and we were flung into the void.
Though, if a void is considered empty, then we most certainly cannot call this place the void. Through the TARDIS’s open doors I could see a great, swirling, bluish expanse. Air rushed out of the doorway, gripping me and Caan and sending us flying towards the outside world. I grasped onto the doorframe just before leaving the world of the living behind, and Caan had me by my rear hoof. The Doctor’s eyes and mine met for a brief moment, long enough for me to understand that I had to hold on.
And hold on I did. I grasped the TARDIS for dear life. I chanced a glance at the spinning vortex around me, and almost lost my grip at the sight.
I could see things. I saw Rainbow Dash’s first Sonic Rainboom. I saw Pinkie Pie’s first party. I saw my parents’ wedding. I saw Spike, a full-grown dragon, sipping a cup of tea in the midst of a cave. I saw little Sweetie Belle singing her heart out. I saw Twilight leading a group of ponies, her wings outstretched, towards the sunrise.
A tear fell down my cheek as my mouth worked wordlessly. I looked to Caan, whose eyestalk swiveled this way and that, seeing what, I do not know. He looked at me, his emotionless visage almost pleading. “Is… is this what your kind calls… ‘beauty?’”
I gazed at the vortex once more, overwhelmed by what I saw.
Oh, the things I saw. “Yes, this is truly beautiful. This is what friendship is for. This is why we live.”
“I do not see what you see.” Caan’s voice was nearly a whisper. Well, as far as a Dalek can whisper. “Why… I see why…”
His eye fell to my necklace. I suddenly felt its weight shift as the chain, abused from vigorous testing, broke off into the swirl of color. The Dalek released my hoof and tumbled away, falling after the necklace. I watched him shrink in the distance for a long time, until he was gone from sight.
I felt a strong hoof clasp my own as The Doctor pulled me into the TARDIS. We embraced until I had my wits about me once more. I felt at the empty space at my throat and sagged in sorrow. “Lost twice in one day, Spike will never forgive me.”
The Doctor lowered his eyebrow. “Do you really believe that?”
I thought about it and smiled. “No, of course not. He’s such a darling.”
I sat down beside The Doctor and cleared my throat. “I suppose that was the Time Vortex we had spoken about?”
He smiled his sad smile. “Indeed. It seems we created something of a stable time loop, Miss Rarity of Ponyville.”
“Is that what they call it?” I chuckled. “I’m not too sure I’m very stable myself after all that.”
“You handled it very well,” he assured me. “Very well indeed.”
The music of the TARDIS died down as we found ourselves in Ponyville Park. He opened the doors to let me out, and I reveled in the peaceful silence. I rested my sprained hoof in the gentle grass, lying down beside the pond. The Doctor stared into the pond intently, as if searching for something, or perhaps remembering.
He turned to me suddenly. “Come with me.”
“What?” I started in surprise. I raised my head level with his and looked into his eyes. Those big, sad eyes…
“Come with me, I can take you wherever you like.” A smile began to grow on his face, the grin I had seen when we were first introduced. “The past, present, future… Even across the galaxy. There is no limit, Rarity. Come with me.”
This letter may never reach you, my friends.
“I can’t,” I said. “I would… I would be leaving too much behind.” I stood, and he followed. “I can’t leave my sister, or my parents, or my job… I certainly can’t leave my friends.”
“But, it wouldn’t take long at all,” he promised. “We could always arrive exactly the moment after we left.”
“You don’t know that, Doctor.” I placed my hoof on his cheek, doing my best to give him a reassuring smile. “Just our short time together has taken a month of my time. How much longer might the TARDIS travel?”
He had no answer for me. He examined his hooves for several moments before turning back to me. “Can I not change your mind?”
“Maybe,” I said with a sigh. “Maybe if you could bring my friends, or maybe my family. I don’t know. I can’t see it happening.”
He took a deep breath in. “Then this is goodbye, for now. I will miss you, Lady Rarity.”
I gave him a gentle hug. “Thank you very much, Doctor.”
He disappeared inside his TARDIS, and the ship soon followed him into the ends of time. The wind swirled the leaves around me as he vanished, the sounds of the blue box echoing through the park. A few stopped to stare, but soon went about their business.
I stood alone for some time, before I was all but tackled to the ground by my sister, Sweetie Belle. “Rarity!” she cried out. “I missed you so much.”
I embraced her with a fervor I do not usually take part in. “I missed you, too, Sweetie!”
You may never read this letter, my friends, because I’m not certain how you would react. I’m sure it could be seen as the work of an overactive imagination, but I also know that what I saw… I saw. What I saw was terrible, and magical, and strange.
I saw him. I saw what he does for us, for the people he comes across. I saw what becomes of those who dare to hurt those he loves.
I saw that even the hardest heart can soften.
This letter may never be read by you, my friends, because I guard these memories jealously. No doubt you would find my words fascinating to some degree, if unbelievable. I almost fear that to share the memories would be to dilute them.
I may not share my memories, because I’m afraid of what lies within, and what I nearly became when faced with the killer of my dear friend.
You may not read this letter.
All my love,
Rarity
Dear Diary,
It was with a heavy heart that I placed the final period on my letter to my friends. I meant it as an explanation as to my month-long absence, but it quickly delved deeper than I had intended. Each word is true, of course, but perhaps a bit too true.
Regardless, that was not the end of my adventure. A scant few days after I finished the letter, my friends gathered at my house for a little reunion. Spike seemed beside himself with relief, peppering me with questions. Questions that, as I have said before, I was not quite ready to reveal.
It was during such a Q and A session that the wind picked up inside my shop. I could see fabrics flying as a blue box took shape amid my inspiration room. My friends turned their heads to the new arrival, and were surprised to see The Doctor pop his head out of the door.
“Ah,” he said. “All here now? Good! Everypony climb aboard!”
Twilight Sparkle’s jaw dropped and she gave me a look that spoke of the absurdity of the situation. The Doctor looked at me with dismay. “Haven’t you told them about me yet?” he asked.
I shook my head dumbly. He sighed and pushed the TARDIS doors open. “One time machine ready for an adventure for Miss Rarity and friends!” He waved his hoof, waiting for a reaction that never came.
“Come now, girls,” I said with a smile. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t jump on the chance to see the future, or perhaps the past?”
Rainbow Dash flapped her way into the air. “Hey, if he’s cool with Rarity, he’s cool with me!”
A chorus of agreement flooded throughout the room, and my friends piled into the TARDIS one by one. I was stopped at the door by The Doctor; he held something in his hoof.
He gave me the trinket. It was the fire ruby necklace that I had lost in the Time Vortex. “Caan gave it to me, I didn’t remember until after I left.” He smiled. “He said to say ‘thank you.’”
“But…” I stared at the necklace in my hooves. “You saw me wearing it. Why did it take you so long to realize—”
“You changed the past, Rarity,” The Doctor grinned. He put the necklace around my neck and clasped it. “He didn’t have the necklace last time. I think you gave him something to think about.”
He led me inside, where my friends were gazing about the TARDIS in amazement. “You changed the past for the better, I think.”
So our adventure began; the majestic tale of a madpony in a box.
Author's Note
What can I say about this? It is a Doctor Who fanfiction, starring Rarity of My Little Pony, written in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
It is an exercise in First Person Perspective, it is an attempted crossover, it is a story that plays with fan preconceptions.
Why did I do this, you ask?
Because I think I'm clever! 
