Chapters Twilight turned to Silverspoon, an exasperated scowl highlighting her features.
"It's impossible, Sil, so why bother? I've proven to you time and time again, time travel simply doesn't work past simple party tricks. It is impossible to travel into established events unless the excursion in time will result in a loop of events. Even then, it is totally impossible to send a physical copy of yourself farther into the past than your own timestream goes, as the magic required is linked between your past self and present." Twilight frowned. "Even if it was possible to complete the journey, time is strictly cause-to-effect. It's linear, and you would be affecting your present self by interacting with the past. Sil, I shouldn't have to teach you this so often. Besides, what does it even matter to you? You're an earth pony, so even the simple time travel that IS possible wouldn't work for you, seeing as how a unicorns past horn links to the present one in order to form the causality loop."
Silverspoon sighed condescendingly and looked down her nose, a smug smile spreading across her face.
"Really?" Twilight's expression turned from annoyance to real anger when she heard the poisonous arrogance lining her students word. "You haven't even considered several possibilities, Twilight. First, you have simply assumed that time has to progress in a logical fashion." Silverspoon took a step towards Twilight, her eyebrows furrowing into the scowl that Silverspoon always assumed before delivering something absolutely brilliant. Twilight loved that intense scowl, and when it formed, she always prepared herself for the ingenious thoughts that she had first noticed in Silverspoon. She just wished that Silverspoon's genius hadn't come packaged with such simpering arrogance. "See, despite your assumptions, there is no absolute proof that time is as linear as you say it is. Secondly, the only reason that the causality loop occurs is because the magic involved forces it to circle around itself in order to connect the timestreams, as without such a circular neutron flow between the two unicorns, past and present, the time travel spell would fail from lack of connection to the past. Therefore, time travel as it is known has always resulted in a causality loop merely because of the magical forces involved. But..." Silverspoon grinned, "but, if one could travel through time without the aid of magic, the causality loop wouldn't be necessary."
Twilight turned back towards her proud student, one eyebrow arched as she stared intensely into Silverspoon's eyes, angry at her student for talking down to her again, but interested in her theory despite herself. "Perhaps..." she mused. "But if this, this...machine did exist, it would have to have absolute knowledge in it's circuits of not only the physical placement of every single atom in the universe at every single instant that ever has or ever will exist, it would have to be able to predict every single possible way they could change due to interference from time travel. Otherwise the paradoxes would rip it apart, and even then, it would need a near inexhaustible energy source. We most certainly can't build such a device, so your fixation on time travel is still just as meaningless as before, Sil!" Twilight's expression turned to one of righteous rage and her voice reverberated around the small library. "Now, unless you have something meaningful to say to me, Silverspoon, I suggest you return to you studies on the recent war between the gryphons and Saddle-Arabia. I want three pages on how that conflict has influenced Equestria, despite our choice to remain neutral." Twilight turned around and began to walk for the door, her hooves leaving marks in the hard wood floor as she stomped to the door. It swung open with a purple flash, and Twilight stepped outside, only to hear Silverspoon start arguing with her yet again.
"But Twilight! You aren't understanding my point at all!" Silverspoon whined. Twilight whipped around. She tried to put a murderous light into her glare, but only succeeded in making herself look constipated.
"But WHAT, Silverspoon! But WHAT ! I have important business this afternoon." Twilight paused, then grinned. "So, you can keep arguing with me, but, by Celestia, if the next words from your mouth aren't absolutely, positively , GENIUS , I will suspend you from your advanced studies with me for two weeks." As Twilight had intended, her words left Silverspoon speechless as she pondered how much that would delay her. Twilight decided that a final push was needed. "I'm sure that Sweetie Belle could easily surpass you in your studies with a two-week advantage." Twilight said sweetly. Silverspoon bit her lip and looked down, considering her words very, VERY carefully. She took a deep breath.
"Twilight, I know that we can't build a time machine. But that doesn't mean that somewhere in the future, someone else hasn't. And I've spent the past three months engineering a device that creates a polarized neutron flow that could detect if the timelines were altered somehow, and I was wondering if maybe we could just make my machine, and, you know, test the timelines." Silverspoon saw Twilight starting to give.One last push... she thought. "If nothing pops up, I promise that I won't bother you with my time travel obsession EVER again. Alright?" Silverspoon bit her bottom lip as Twilight thought about the ramifications of Silverspoon's theory.
"Fine." Twilight said suddenly. "But when nothing shows up, and it won't, I promise you that, you will keep your promise or, with Celestia as my witness, I swear that I will expel you from my school.
"School? Me and Sweetie Belle are the only students. Not sure if that qualifies as a school, but..." Silverspoon stopped in her tracks as she realized that Twilight had agreed to go ahead with her idea. She threw her hooves around Twilight and then proceeded to gallop out the door.
"I'll bring my design over tomorrow! Thanks Twilight!" Silverspoon yelled as she ran home.
As she watched Silverspoon ran off, Twilight put a hoof to her forehead.
"I'm going to regret this." she sighed, and took off at a trot for Carousel Boutique. Despite their academic rivalry, Sweetie Belle would definitely want in on Silverspoon's crazy scheme tomorrow.
Author's Note
Please note, I do realize that this is rather sloppy. However, I am on a very tight schedule and normally do no have access to the internet, although I do have it for two weeks on my Christmas break. I wanted to write something, but I sadly don't have much time to edit or review my work. I wrote this in 45 minutes, and I likely won't have times where I can write in blocks for much longer than that for all of Christmas. So, again, sorry for the sloppiness.
It Goes Ding When There's Stuff
"Whaaaaaaaaaat? No way. Sil can't be serious." Sweetie Belle said. "She actually designed this thing? That's...different. Usually she sticks to the chemistry stuff."
"So? Are you in or not?" Twilight said.
"All right, all right. I suppose I can come. But this better be good. I'm gonna have to miss Scootaloo's New House party for this. I mean, I told her it's really more of a first house party, but I guess she really didn't want to admit that she's been living with Rainbow Dash since she was six. Not that anyone really cares, seeing as how she's the number one stunt mare from Manehatten to Canterlot. No other sixteen year old filly has made enough money to buy a house, that's for sure." Sweetie Belle stopped and looked at Twilight. "Am I on a tangent again?"
"Yes. Yes you are."
"Oh. Well, when are we going to build this thing?"
"Now." Twilight said, matter-of-factly.
"Okay. I thought I heard you say now. Did you say now?" Sweetie Belle said disbelievingly.
"Yes, I did say now. Come on, then."
"As in now. As in right-now now."
"Yep. Jeez, Sweetie Belle, I thought you were a genius."
"Yeah. It's just that it's six AM ARE YOU CRAZY TWILIGHT! I CAN'T DO CALCULUS IN THE MORNING!" Sweetie Belle screamed.
"Shhhhh! You'll wake up Rarity! Just come on , Sweetie Belle!" Twilight whispered. She looked at Sweetie Belle imploringly. "I promised Sil that we would start right away today. She came over at midnight and wanted to start! Please, Sweetie Belle, she's driving me crazy!" Twilight begged.
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. "Fine. But you owe me a pound of marshmallows from Sugarcube Corner. Got it?"
"Got it. No problem." Twilight started to walk off, then turned around and looked quizzically at Sweetie Belle. "A whole pound? Jeez, Sweetie Belle, diet much?"
"Oh, shut up. Let's go already." Sweetie Belle said, rolling her eyes.
"And here we are! Back at the library! Ready to design Sil's . . . thing." Twilight said. Sweetie Belle yawned and opened the door to the library.
And promptly got hit in the head with Spike.
"She's crazy! Run for your lives!!!" Spike yelled as his winged form rocketed away. Sweetie Belle looked inside the library, to see the framework for the large machine already under construction.
"Now, attach the astrolic to the neural interface...annnnnnd the construction part is finished!" Silver Spoon turned and looked at Sweetie Belle and Twilight. "Oh hey, slowpokes! Just in time! I finished building the holding device but I still need the program for the neural interface to be written, Sweetie Belle that's your job since you're the best programmer, and Twilight, you can help build the shielding mechanism and then start giving it a bit of magical power!" Silver Spoon looked expectantly at the shocked unicorns and laughed. "Hurry up, we're building a time-detector thingy, not waiting for spiders to build webs in your very open mouths!" she giggled.
Sweetie Belle closed her mouth and huffed angrily over to what she called her Power Station. "Spike's right," she mumbled. "That pony is crazy." She turned on her computer and yelled over her shoulder, "Hey, what exactly am I supposed to code, anyways, Sil?"
Silver Spoon threw a scroll over her shoulder and started grabbing a wobbling piece of the machinery to move it to a more stable position. Sweetie Belle picked up the scroll and started reading through the instructions.
"Code a program that will allow the computer to use the full mental capacity of a pony's brain without damaging it, and release the pony unchanged from the neural interface after calculations are complete." Sweetie Belle frowned. "Hey! You've been hacking into my project list again, haven't you!" she yelled after Silver Spoon. Silver Spoon turned and smirked at her.
"Maybe I wouldn't if your security wasn't so lame." Silver Spoon said. "Anyways, I know you've worked for several months on that program, but if you could just tweak it so that it wasn't for looking through databases for illegal activities and rather looking for signs of time travel, that'd be great. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes for someone who codes as fast as you do, especially since you only need to change a couple of things."
Sweetie Belle ground her teeth and started to code, when a question popped into her head. "Hey, why does this thing need a neural interface, anyway?"
Silver Spoon looked over her shoulder and arched one eyebrow. "Why do ya think?" Sweetie Belle kept looking at her questioningly. Silver Spoon smacked her forehead with her hoof. "Really? You can't figure that out?" she said. "Fine. It needs a pony's brain capacity, which is way more than any computer, because of the gigantic amount of data to go through. Got that, or should I speak more slowly?"
"I'm not stupid! I was just wondering. By Celestia, take a damn chill pill, Sil. By the way, I'm done with the code. Because you know, I'm just as much a genius as you. Ten minutes for that kind of code is an insult, seriously." Sweetie Belle said.
"All right! Twilight, you done with that shielding mechanism yet?" Silver Spoon yelled across the library, where Twilight was fiddling with an equation.
"Almost! Just need to balance this equation annnnnd... done!" Twilight said, a note of victory in her voice.
"Finally," said Silver Spoon. "Now, I'm gonna be the pony in the hot seat with the code in my head, so I sure hope that somepony didn't mess up, and that would be you I'm talking to Sweetie Belle." By this point, Sweetie Belle looked ready to blow fire from her horn. Silver Spoon didn't notice this and kept on jabbering. "Twilight, you power her up, since you've got the superpowerful magic. Just a simple power spell, not a problem for a unicorn of your caliber." Silver Spoon continued, putting on the bizarre helmet she had designed for the neural interface. She breathed deeply.
"Now, the actual search requires me to sit here for only a few seconds, but the results will take at least a minute. So Twilight, keep up the power spell after I'm done, all right?" Silver Spoon said.
She flicked the power switch and her eyes went white as the computer began to use her as a tool. A puff of smoke later, and she fell out of the chair, disoriented.
Sweetie Belle rushed over. "You all right, Sil? Looks like that hurt." she said, albeit without much sympathy.
"Shhhhhh! It's working!" Silver Spoon whispered.
The machine beeped.
"Searching..." it said. The ponies held their breath.
"Searching..."
"Searching..."
Twilight sighed. "I told you, Sil, time travel doesn't work." Silver Spoon sighed. It had been a full minute. "Just... ten seconds more, please Twilight?"
Twilight lifted her head and looked at Silver Spoon. "Ten more seconds." she agreed.
"Searching...Results found. Result: Conclusive evidence supporting time travel. Would you like images from all files?" the tinny voice of the computer said.
"YES!YESOHYESOHYES GIVE ME THE IMAGES!" Silver Spoon yelled ecstatically. Twilight's jaw dropped.
"N-n-not possible...this can't be..." Twilight said breathlessly.
Images popped up on the screen, cycling rapidly. Silver Spoon looked with curiousity, and then with absolute amazement. "The pictures...." she said, "They're all the same..." The screen continued to go through the database of images it had come up with. The pictures were from quite a few different places in Equestria, and many of them were obviously old. But although the background was different, each picture had one thing in common. One impossible thing.
A blue box.
The Bluest Blue in the Universe
Silver Spoon sat there. Her eyes were sparkling, and her face spoke of the absolute ecstasy that she felt. "It's real... time travel is real..." she mumbled joyfully.
Twilight on the other hand, had gotten over the initial shock. "What is it?" she said."And why isn't the world destroyed by paradoxes?"
Sweetie Belle, on the other hand, just groaned. "Great. Just great." Twilight and Silver Spoon both looked over at her, questions already forming on their lips as they tried to understand how Sweetie Belle seemed not only to be handling this with a surprising lack of shock, but actually seemed annoyed.
"What's wrong, Sweetie Belle? Silver Spoon asked.
Sweetie Belle looked at her grimly. "I've seen that box before, Silver Spoon." As soon as she said this, Silver Spoon stopped moving. Then she turned around.
"Seriously?" she said.
"Seriously." Sweetie Belle confirmed. "Before you ask, it was a long time ago, and no, it's not where I saw it anymore. It was in Canterlot when I went to that wedding in Canterlot. You know, the one with all the changelings? Anyways, I saw it there. I wouldn't remember, except I saw this weird creature open the door and go in. It was all tall and creepy, looked like it had spaghetti hanging off of it, kinda. It went inside the box, then it disappeared. I tried to show Rarity, but she told me it was just a figment of my imagination. And seeing as how I, um, kinda sorta had been drinking with Spike, it sounded like a reasonable explanation." Sweetie Belle grinned a little apologetically. Twilight looked at her with stormy eyes.
"You went drinking. When you were only NINE years old."
"Ummmmmm...yes?"
"You said this was with Spike?"
"Maybe? Just a little bit?"
Twilight stormed off, muttering to herself. "I'm going to kill him. I really am this time. Going out drinking with young filly? Seven years ago or not, he is GOING. TO. PAY."
"Uh, Twilight?" Sweetie Belle called out. "Isn't the time travel box thingy a bit more important right now?"
"NO!"
Sweetie Belle sighed. "Oh well. Anyways, Sil, I guess that we might want to look through these pictures a bit more, see what we can find." She glanced over at Silver Spoon, who was already copying the pictures into a file.
"Uh-huh. You look for the...spaghetti guy. I'm going to see if I can figure out why this box is at these specific times and places. There must be some sort of reasoning behind this spaghetti time traveler." Silver Spoon said.
Sweetie Belle sighed and started going through the database of images their machine had archived.
"Blue box....blue box....blue box, nothing but this stupid blue box. Why isn't there a picture of the time traveler?" she mumbled. Silver Spoon turned around and looked at her, exasperated.
"Maybe if you set the search for pony facial recognition, Sweetie? That would probably be faster and quite a lot less annoying." Silver Spoon paused as Sweetie Belle looked at her, grinning as she realized that Silver Spoon had finally said something rather stupid.
"Sil? He wasn't a pony, remember?" Sweetie Belle said, her voice ringing with false innocence. "So maybe you should do something useful and not so annoying. Like not talking. I think that would help me a lot more than your petty arrogance, don't you?" She patted Silver Spoon patronizingly on the head, grinning with victory. Silver Spoon just grabbed her hoof and groaned.
"Maybe he wasn't a pony, but his head was probably roundish. Simple scientific fact there, Sweetie. And given that that's what the facial recognition software looks for, it still might work." Sweetie Belle turned back around and crossed her arms, frowning.
"Humph." Sweetie Belle said. She went back to tapping away at her keyboard. A few seconds later, the computer dinged.
Facial recognition scan complete. 14 images found. Sweetie Belle gasped. Whatever this was, it definitely wasn't a pony. It wasn't even slightly a pony. Well, except for one picture at the bottom, but Sweetie Belle wasn't worried about that. Probably just an error in the program. Her neural scanning code wasn't perfect, after all. But all the others....they were the same, all of this strange alien. But none of them were clear. Just blurry shots of it running, or silhouettes leaning against that blue box. But that silhouette was more than enough for her to recognize what she had seen, all those years ago.
"It really does look like fleshy spaghetti," she said. Silver Spoon turned and looked at her, a little bit disgusted.
"Sweetie Belle?"
"Yeah, Sil?"
"I swear to Celestia, you should be arrested for weirdness sometimes. And creepiness, craziness, and for having a funny insect collection."
"I am not creepy!"
"Face it, Sweetie Belle. Spiders got nothing on you."
"Just shut up and look at what I've found."
Silver Spoon turned and looked at the screen. "Ewwww....you may be creepy, but you're kinda right. Why is it always wearing clothes? Wouldn't that be uncomfortable?" Silver Spoon said as they both turned back to their screens.
"Meh," Sweetie Belle replied. "Maybe it's from a colder place, you know?"
"Possible," Silver Spoon replied."Anyways, I've been analyzing where and when these photos were taken. At least half of them have been during some global crisis. One is actually from Canterlot during the changeling invasion, probably the same one that you saw. I've also managed to pick up a small audio file of that thing. Wanna hear?"
"Sure." Sweetie Belle shifted in her seat so she could get a better angle.
"Annnnd...play!" Silver Spoon said.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but whoever is listening to this file, you are in tremendous danger. They've homed in on my voice, and they're coming. Don't trust anyone. They might not be who you think they are right now. Anyone who's been with you since the start of this message, don't let them out of your sight, because they are the only person you can believe. However, there is one action you can take that just might save your life right now." The voice paused, the obvious Estuary accent fading almost into nothing, before starting again, sounding like a joyful maniac.
"Run!"
Hold Tight and Pretend It's a Plan
"Should we-"Sweetie Belle started.
"Nah. It's not like-"
"No. No way. Probably just a joke, right?'
"Well, he is a time traveller," said Silverspoon. "Maybe we should give that a little thought, you know?"
Sweetie Belle started to answer her, but was abruptly interrupted by a loud knocking at the door. Silverspoon cautiously walked over and pulled open the door very slowly.
"Yeeees?" she said.
"Hey girls!" Sweetie Belle and Silverspoon were greeted by a very familiar purple alicorn. Twilight immediately barged in and started talking.
"So what's this that you guys made? Nothing I have to worry about hopefully?" Twilight said.
Sweetie Belle looked at Twilight, puzzled. "You helped us build it, Twilight. And I thought you were going to go punish Spike. What are you doing back here already?" she said. Twilight chuckled and waved a hoof, dismissing Sweetie Belle.
"Oh pish, Sweetie, it wasn't all that important."
"You never call me Sweetie."
"Of course I do! All the time!" Twilight grinned sheepishly. "Anyways, I thought I heard somepony else in here. Sounded like a colt." Twilight jokingly poked Silverspoon in the side. "Makes you wonder what you would want with a colt, eh?"
Silverspoon's expression suddenly darkened. "Twilight would never say 'eh'. She hates bad grammar like that. Who are you, anyways?"
Twilight tried to laugh it off. "Why, I'm Twilight! Who else would I be? Shining Armor, perhaps?"
Sweetie Belle laughed. "Ha. I was born at night, but it wasn't last night, changeling. " Twilight's demeanor suddenly darkened.
"Changeling? I might not be Twilight, but you seem to be getting me mixed up with someone else, scum ." The imposter coughed suddenly.
Silverspoon tugged at Sweetie Belle's mane."Um, Sweetie? Maybe the guy on the audio tape had the right idea." Silverspoon tugged a bit harder as the impostor coughed again.
"Come on, Sweetie Belle, let's go !" she said. Sweetie Belle held up her hoof to stop her.
"Just a minute." Sweetie Belle looked very carefully at the coughing fake. "This might be important." The fake Twilight suddenly sprouted suckers all over it's body. Silverspoon screamed. Sweetie Belle stopped resisting Silverspoon.
"Ok, he was most definitely right. Run! Definitely run!" Sweetie Belle shrieked.
Silverspoon and Sweetie Belle turned around and ran. Straight up the stairs and out the window. They heard a gurgling shriek coming from below as the leaped for their lives, right onto a conveniently placed hay cart.
"Well, that was convenient," said Silverspoon. "Thanks, whoever it is driving this cart. Really helped us out." A sucker-headed freak turned around from the head of the cart and grinned at her.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Silverspoon screamed. She and Sweetie Belle ran into Ponyville.
"Isn't anyone else around?" yelled Sweetie Belle breathlessly as they ran down the street.
"Doesn't matter! Can't trust anyone but us!" Silverspoon replied. She glanced around. "Where are we running, anyways!?"
"We can head for the Boutique! Nice and defensible! At least somewhat!" Sweetie Belle replied.
"How is a dress shop defensible !?"said Silverspoon.
"Rarity! Security freak! Don't worry about it, just follow my lead!" Sweetie Belle said.
The two mares crashed through the door. Sweetie Belle ran over to the love seat in the lounge, lifted up the leg and pressed a mauve button hidden in a compartment underneath. Immediately the boutique started to transform into a virtual fortress as stone encased the entire place. Unfortunately, that included the windows. As the last sliver of light left the room, Sweetie Belle sighed. "Whew. Safe at last."
"Yeah, that's great. Mind giving us a little light from that horn of yours?" Silverspoon replied. Immediately a warm glow started to spread from her horn.
'Cough '
Silverspoon whipped her head around and looked at Sweetie Belle. "Please tell me that was you. Please. Because I am really starting to freak."
"Nope. Wasn't me." Sweetie Belle replied, goosebumps forming on the back of her neck.
"Yeah. Didn't think so." Four suckered faces appeared from the shadows around them and started to close in on them, grim smiles on their faces.
"Tell us where he is," one rasped. "You might survive that way." Silverspoon buried her face in the floor, tears welling in her eyes.
"TELL US!"
"We don't know!" said Sweetie Belle. Tears ran freely down her face as she bravely stood up and faced the monsters. Her thoughts went to Applebloom and Scootaloo. She sniffed as she realized she could've been at a housewarming party. Instead of about to die. Sweetie Belle wiped the tears from her face and lifted her hoof. "And even if we did, we wouldn't tell you." She stared at the monster, refusing to blink or back down.
"It's your death," the suckered creature said. It reached for her, a suckered hand reaching for her face. And then it backed away, as an alien noise rang through the boutique. It rang with the fury of a thousand impoverished worlds. The dark recesses of loss in a father's soul as he knelt at his son's tombstone. The glory of a raging sun rising over the horizon, lighting the souls of the broken. It spoke of salvation. Judgement. And most of all, it rang with the promise that no matter what comes, be it monsters, demons, the end of time itself, there would always be a way out. A place to hide. A place to run.
Vworp. Vworp.
Creak . The door opened. Silverspoon slowly lifted her head. She saw a pair of white trainers step out of a square of blinding light. Her eyes traveled up and she saw him, dressed in a pinstripe suit and a trench coat. He stepped out of the his blue box, a confident smile on his face.
"Hello. I'm the Doctor." He grinned cheekily, hands on his hips. Sweetie Belle turned around, her recent tears still very evident. "Doctor? Doctor Who?"
"Just the Doctor, thanks. And can I just say, you are absolutely brilliant ! Talking unicorns? I mean, that's the sort tale you hear about as a little kid! Well, not me. I had the Three Little Sontarans and Once Upon a Time War." The suckered monsters faced the Doctor, annoyance flitting across their leaders face.
"This conversation is irrelevant." it said.
"No, no it's not actually," said the doctor, walking up to it. "You see, everything's just stories in the end. There's one story commonly referred to as a dictionary. Well, kind of a story. Weeelll, if you look at it from the right angle. Well, really not a story, but it is a book. I'm pretty sure you haven't read it. Because you would have noticed something, and the Zygon fleet would never have dared set foot on this planet."
"What exactly could be of any use to us in a dictionary, Doctor?" the zygon said coldly.
"You were about to murder these two without a second thought. Don't bother denying it, because I know. Murder. Funny little section by that word in the dictionary. Right beside it there's a picture of me. And you know what it says under that picture, zygon ?"
"No, Doctor. Would you be ever so kind as to inform me?"
"Over my dead body." He barely whispered the words, but no one had any trouble hearing him.
"That was the plan, Doctor." The zygon smiled grotesquely. It pulled out a small pad and pushed a button. The stone of the boutique started to crack, little by little.
"Doctor. Now might be a really good time to run." said Sweetie Belle.
"I second that." said Silverspoon.
"Run? I would be quite willing, if we were actually in any danger." said the doctor looking down at them.
"Are we?" said Silverspoon.
"Quite possibly."
"Aren't we going to run, then?"
"Oh, no! Not yet, anyways. You see, they might have prepared in advance for this, but I have a plan!"
"You do?" said Sweetie Belle, hope lighting in her eyes.
"No, but people seem to like it when I say that. Now, shhh! I want to see what happens next!" The Doctor smiled at the zygon. "Don't tell me. Trying to transmat us, but this stone is also providing a small telepathic web around this....Is this a dress shop for ponies? That's brilliant! Telepathic shield around a dress shop! Molto bene, Molto bene. More importantly though, the transmat signal is starting to decay the shield, which means we should-"
The zygons vanished in a flash of light.
"Alright, time to go. All ponies in the TARDIS!" He grabbed Silverspoon and Sweetie Belle by their hooves and dragged them towards that big blue box that was still sitting in the middle of the room. At the last second, Sweetie Belle pulled away, just a little bit.
"But Doctor, how will we all fit? It's too small!"
"You'll see!" The Doctor and Silverspoon jumped into the TARDIS. The Doctor turned around and offered his hand to Sweetie Belle.
"Are you sure?" she said. The Doctor grinned smugly again.
"Trust me. I'm the Doctor," he said. Sweetie Belle looked up and hesitantly started to step inside. She paused for a second, just a second, as she heard the stone wall crack behind her.
It was enough.
She vanished in a blaze of light. The Doctor stopped and didn't move for a second. Then he started pulling at his hair and pacing back and forth. Silverspoon looked at him and then at the door.
"Arghhhh!" he said.
"No! No, no, NO! Get her back, Doctor, whatever you are, GET HER BACK!" Silverspoon screamed her frustration. The Doctor leaned down and looked at her, right in the eye, and held her face as she started to cry.
"Now listen to me very carefully. I promise you that we will get her back. We will find her, we will save her, and NOBODY is going to get hurt. Do you understand? We won't walk away from this. I promise." Silverspoon just nodded her head and cried. She knew that the real world didn't always work like that. But right then, when she was dying inside at the loss of the one person she had ever really felt any friendship for, she didn't want to face the alternatives.
And she absolutely would not accept that Sweetie Belle might already be dead.
"Now, first things first. Your friend isn't dead. Well, probably. In all likeliness. Well, maybe," the Doctor said. He flipped a switch and spun around. "You know what? Just a quick scan, to make sure she isn't dead."
Silverspoon gathered herself and rose from the floor where she had been sobbing. Her knees shook. She took a deep breath and turned to face the strange creature. She opened her mouth to speak. "Well, I-
A finger covered her mouth. "Shush. I'm scanning." Beep. "Nope. She is definitely not dead, and is probably very much alive. Isn't that great, er, uh what exactly was your name again? I'm rather rubbish with names. Got so many up there already, you see." the Doctor said. "Anyways, it wasn't a death ray or anything like that, it was just a little transmat." He stopped for a second."Just so you know, that isn't really a bad thing, it just means that your friend is trapped on an alien spaceship surrounded by zygons that are probably planning to do something...bad...to the planet. Not bad at all. Just a little transmat, that's all." The Doctor turned toward Silverspoon. "Well? Ready for a little adventure?" He crossed his arms across his chest. Smirked a little.
And then Silverspoon kicked him in the chest. He smashed against the railing of the walkway around the console. He groaned. "Ow." He blinked a couple of times and looked groggily at the floor, where his eyes were greeted by two grey hooves. And as his eyes moved up slowly, he backed up. Just a little bit. Because he was being greeted by eyes that were almost as dark as his were when he got angry. Not quite as threatening as he could be, he noted. But it was close.
Silverspoon put her hoof on his chest and pushed him down. She took a deep breath and started to talk. "Now. You're going to explain all of this-clearly-to me. First of all, how much danger is Sweetie Belle in?"
"Well, hard to gauge, really-" The hoof on his chest pushed a little harder. "Probably not that much. If the zygons wanted her dead, they wouldn't have transmatted her to their ship. And the zygons aren't much for physical torture. They might try to play with her emotions a bit, but she seemed like she could handle a few alien psychologists."
"Right. Now, who are you?" Silverspoon asked. Her eyes weren't so dark now that the threat to Sweetie Belle was resolved and the Doctor stared into them, marveling at the spark of genius concealed there. Then he felt the hoof on his chest pressing down just a little bit more.
"Ahem. Of course. I'm the Doctor."
Silverspoon frowned. "That's not a name, it's a title. I want your name. "
Silverspoon lifted one eyebrow. "If you're the destroyer of worlds, why do I feel like you're the good guy?"
"I'm not, really. I have never claimed once to be good, to be nice, to save everyone. But sometimes you need someone like me. Someone so full of darkness and yet overflowing with light, because if you have any idea about how the universe works, you know there is one thing that is always true."
"You can't help others see the light from the bottom of the pit unless they stand on your shoulders and block it from you?" Silverspoon said, her eyes starting to fill up with wonder.
"Actually I was going to say you should always take a banana to a party." the Doctor said. The wonder left Silverspoon's eyes. "But yours is good, too. Don't know where you came up with it, probably some movie, but it's very good," the Doctor said, embarrassed.
Silverspoon lifted her hoof from the Doctor's chest. "Well, I have more questions, but they'll have to wait for later."
Silverspoon looked at him questioningly. "You already told me what you are, and I must say it fits, Time Lord. "
"I was a little surprised, but I figured that it was probably just a different dimension. Like if you look at something from far away, it looks smaller, but when you got close it was large. If you could get close to it with it still being far away, it would be bigger on the inside. Like this is."
The doctor put his glasses on. "Yes, precisely. Well, not quite, but much closer than anyone else has ever been." He strutted toward the door. "Now, care to save your friend?"
"But she's on the spaceship. How are we going to get the-"She stopped short and her jaw dropped as the Doctor threw open the doors.
"I've kind of got my own spaceship. Thought of all the things that would've been what you figured out first."
"I was sorta focusing on the time travel part," Silverspoon said as she stepped outside the Tardis into a dark hallway. Metallic doors lined the way, disappearing into the gloom ahead. A single light flickered in the middle of the hall. "So this is an alien spaceship, huh? Not very impressive. I liked yours better."
The doctor grinned.
"Although you might want to consider redecorating."
At this point the Doctor stopped grinning. "What's wrong with the coral desk top, I'd like to know?"
Silverspoon rolled her eyes. "There's nothing wrong with it, it's just a bit fantasy looking, you know? Not a huge fan of the box thingy either, to tell the truth." she said. The Doctor gasped.
"N-not a fan of the Tardis? How dare she?" he muttered, stroking the ancient blue wood. "It's alright, I'm sure she didn't mean it, you're as sexy as ever to me." he said as he talked to the Tardis.
"Umm...are you talking to your ship?"
The Doctor straightened up and brushed his hands against his trench coat. "No! Maybe a little bit yes,though," he said indignantly as Silverspoon smirked.
"You do realize that I could just ditch you here and go get some schwarma, right?" he said as Silverspoon began to walk down the hallway.
"Yep."
"And you're going to walk down this very dark and sinister hallway away from the Tardis, who is very sensitive by the way, I'll be weeks comforting her, and just go off into the gloom and bugger the consequences?"
"That's about right." She was getting rather far along now. "I don't exactly know what to do, though, so if you go get schwarma I'll probably end up dead. Are you sure you don't want to come, Doctor?"
The Doctor turned towards the Tardis and closed the door.
"Why am I stuck with someone who just won't listen to me?" he muttered. "Again ?"
"Maybe if you kill the guard, you can escape," the voice in Sweetie Belle's head said. "Then you'll be a murderer, but you will be free. In fact, I'll even give you the gun to commit this horrible act," it continued. A gun appeared in on the floor in her cell. She immediately grabbed it and shot the guard through the head. His blood spattered everywhere, and his brains were plastered on the wall behind him.
Immediately the cell disappeared and she saw that she was in a bright white room with another zygon in front of her. She sat in the chair opposite the zygon and leaned back, putting her back hooves on the table.
"Holy crap! You're almost as crazy as that lady in the next cell. By the daleks saggy boxers, what the hell is wrong with you!?" the zygon said. "You're not supposed to actually freaking kill the guard in the simulation! You're supposed to by psychologically conflicted and choose not too so I can torture you some more with other morally ambiguous situations!"
Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. "You really think I would sit in a cell if I could escape? Celestia, you're stupid." She smirked. "Except for one thing. You are definitely right about me being totally insane." She smiled, trying to make herself look as psychotic as possible. Her eyebrows came together and her eyes bugged out, almost rolling all the way back in her head. Her smile stretched across her face in the most gruesome manner she could accomplish, and just for good measure, she slowly ran her tongue across the front of her top teeth.
"Ummm...guys? Could I have another subject, please?" the zygon said, seemingly talking to thin air. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then...nothing happened. "Damn it all. I always get the nutcases." the zygon muttered. It cleared its throat and morphed into a copy of Sweetie Belle. "Now, how do you now that you are actually the real you?"
"You do realize that just because you're me I don't stop being me even you aren't you and you're me but I'm still not you, but me, you see?" Sweetie Belle said.
"I'm not sure. Are you me or I am you, or are we us, me me, you you, or the other way around maybe? I'm confused." the zygon said. As it said this, it changed from a clone of Sweetie Belle into a dark red male pony with purple and yellow hair that Sweetie Belle thought reminded her of a certain DJ she knew. It put a hoof on the table and started to play with it, morphing it into different kinds of feet.
"Now tell me, this scares you, right?" it said, almost in desperation.
"Nope."
"Not even a little?"
"Meh, not really. You get used to stuff like that with Discord hanging around. He dated Rarity for awhile, so I kinda learned to deal with crap like that. Truthfully, you're not even that inventive."
The zygon sat back, indignant. "Excuse me? Not that inventive? I worked for years mastering the different forms of feet from around the universe!" What had once been his hoof turned into a cyan claw covered with at least 15 mouths, all of which had long gold tongues. Real gold, too, not that cheap stuff Rarity tried to pass off on her gilded hats when strangers came to Ponyville. "You see that? The foot of the megrazhneda, worth billions if it were real, and on my final exam for feet last year! And you dare say that I'm not inventive." The zygon changed the 'megrazhneda' foot back into a hoof and crossed his front legs in front of his chest, clearly proud.
"Not really." Sweetie Belle said, disinterested and examining her hoof for cracks. "You copied something else pretty well, but that's still not inventive, you know." She leaned back in her chair, and put her front hooves behind her head. "Now Discord, he knew how to invent a foot."
The zygon shifted forward, clearly interested at this point. "Really now? How so?"
"Oh, I couldn't possibly tell you here." Sweetie Belle said, seemingly offended at the very idea.
"What? Why not?"
"Oh, I know that they have cameras in cells like these."
"Well, actually they don't, cameras are rather expensive these-"
"Shush. I don't believe that in the slightest. So if you want me to tell you how to make better feet, we'll need to go outside the cell. Just for a minute, I promise. Sweetie Belle smiled and these time, it was most definitely not her 'crazy psycopath' smile. This smile was the cutest one ever to grace the prison cell of a zygon warship, not that such a feat was very difficult. Her teeth glistened like snow on a mountaintop. Her eyes shone like Luna had decided to put the night sky there instead of where it belonged. And the sound of her squee was putting her close to Fluttershy on the cute scale.
"Well...I don't know. If you escaped, I could get in a lot of trouble."
"Ahhh, come on! Live a little,...what was your name again?"
"Urdentarth."
"Seriously? Were your parents sadists or something?" Sweetie Belle caught herself. "Anyways, that's not important, but do you really think that a little pony like me is going to escape from a big, strong alien like you?"
"I gueeessss we could just go out for a minute...but we're coming right back in after you tell me how to make better feet okay?"
"Got it." Sweetie Belle said.
The zygon put his hand against the door and it slowly slid open. It stepped outside into the dark hallway. "Now, how do you make better feet?" it said.
"Like this! " Sweetie Belle said, showing it her feet very closely and at high velocity. It went flying into the cell, and Sweetie Belle burst into a gallop, going down the hallway and running around the corner, where her velocity went from high to zip as she ran into Silverspoon and the Doctor and sent them all sprawling. An alarm begin to ring.
"Sweetie Belle? We were just going to go rescue you!" Silver Spoon said.
"Well, too bad! I escaped, no time, box thing behind you, let's go!"
"She's right," the Doctor interjected as he got up. "It's probably a good time to run, like right now." The party of three turned toward the Tardis and started to run towards it, the doors opening as they did.
"Al..most...there!" Silverspoon panted. They heard a pounding of feet come around the corner behind them. They ran into the Tardis just as the zygon Sweetie Belle had kicked ran full speed towards them.
"You still need to tell me about those feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!" it yelled as it dove headlong into the Tardis just before the doors closed with a bang.
Vworp. Vworp.
