“The Ponyville library: a place where knowledge can combine with science and magic! A lovely destination to close off this adventure, don’t you think?” asked The Doctor.
Despite the enthusiasm for a place with books in it, Rainbow Dash was less than pleased. “Ugh! Books, really?! I’m an athlete, not an egghead, Doctor!”
“Oh yeah, then why do ya read that Darin’ Doo every which way ya go, Miss ‘I’m not an egghead’?” Applejack argued against her friend’s earlier statement. It seemed she had won, due to the fact that Dash was blushing, and tripping over her words for a rebuttal.
“I think it’ll be a nice change of scenery! That TARDIS, although the pinnacle of science is a bit drab, and shall I say, colorless?”
A less than pleasing groan came from the time machine to indicate resentment towards that mark. “Oi! Remember, you’re still in this ‘drab, colorless’ ship!” He shook a hoof at Rarity, making some rude and slightly obscene gestures. The Doctor’s mood suddenly changed when he approached the flight console and began… petting it? “Don’t you listen to the mean old grumpy pants. You’re still the most colorful model I’ve seen in my 900 years!” he said in a baby voice, trying to comfort his TARDIS. It seemed to work, as the groaning and wheezing stopped.
“Everyone, please stop arguing! After the adventures we’ve had, I think it is best we go back for some well-deserved R&R, don’t you think?” Twilight Sparkle said, speaking as if she’s the only sane pony on the Time-travelling vessel.
“I- um, wouldn’t mind getting back to my animals. I’m sure Angel Bunny is worried sick about me.” Fluttershy nervously said hiding behind her light pink mane like it was a shield.
Meanwhile, a white rabbit is throwing the best party he’s ever had. That is, until his “Fluttershy senses” were going off, indicating that his night of debauchery would end rather quickly, even despite the daylight outside.
“Aww, but don’t the readers want to find out about our cool adventures?” They all stared at her with a very confused look, but they shrugged the statement off as “Pinkie just being Pinkie”.
But what she said rang true. It all started when Twilight wanted to go time travelling with all her friends…
The Golden Oak Library was officially restored and all traces of the previous ashen pit that Princess Twilight once called home were wiped out, replaced with a brand new tree, enchanted by none other than Princess Celestia herself in order protect it from any future earth shattering magic, parasprite infestation, and other dangers the elements of nature may throw at it.
Twilight stood outside the newly refurbished doors of her old home, with a nostalgic look in her eyes almost hoping to preserve this moment forever. After a few more minutes of staring, the purple Alicorn’s horn began to glow, summoning a lavender aura around the door’s handle. Ever so slowly, she opened the door, almost afraid to see what was on the other side. Much to her surprise, the construction crew did an excellent job in preserving the library exactly as it was before Tirek blasted it to oblivion. It’s true that at its roots, it was different, considering that the old roots are now a part of her new throne room at the Castle of Friendship, but everything looked like it was never destroyed. Every crack in the wood, every scorch on the walls from Twilight’s experiments that didn’t end as expected… Yes, everything seemed like it belonged. Even most of the books were replaced! “I wonder how Celestia was able to do this. Even Starswirl’s magic wasn’t that strong!” she thought to herself. A distant voice caused her ear to flick as the Princess heard somebody familiar. “Oi! Those Tesla Coils are the first in existence, you hear me? Good ol’ Nikola gave those to me as a birthday present, and if just one coil is out of place, it’ll be your flank that gets electrocuted rather than the coils!” The Doctor shouted at two construction ponies that were less than gentle to the pieces of scientific equipment.
“Doctor!” Twilight shouted with glee at the resident clock maker. They met at last year’s Winter Wrap-Up, where his job was to keep track of the time that passed in addition to helping the ponies shovel away the melting snow. Mayor Mare loves to stay on schedule after all. They got to talking on that day, and she found that Doctor Hooves had an incredible photographic memory, paying attention to every last intricate detail before jotting it down in his memories. The lavender mare also managed to notice that he talked in a very strange way, most of the time about strange faraway places like this place called Earth and spoke as if he met famous ponies like they were born yesterday. “Twilight!” he rushed to give his friend a hug.
Slightly stunned by the sudden hug from one of his friends, he soon returned the friendly gesture with almost the same amount of force.
“Hello, Twilight! Read any good books lately?” Suddenly, her warming smile almost vanished from sight. The Doctor looked around, and noticed where he made his mistake. “I-I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about your home, and all its precious books.” He hugged her again, but this hug was meant to be apologetic. “It’s okay,” she said. “The Castle has its own library, and Celestia gave me a few books from her private collection to get it started.”
“A few???” he chuckled. “No, that will never do! Come with me, it’s time I showed you something. Oh, and we better bring your friends too. All six of you need a break from chaos for a while.” Somewhere, Discord’s ears burned. Perhaps because he left them on the oven again, but we’ll never know.
“There she is!” The Doctor exclaimed. The seven ponies were all gathered in a meadow around a tall Apple tree. To the Main Six, it seemed… off; almost as if it fit in too perfectly.
“Doctor, that’s what you wanted to show us?! I hate to break it to ya, but there are millions of trees in Equestria! What makes this one so special?!” Rainbow Dash said in her trademark annoyed tone.
“Ah, see that’s where you are wrong, Miss Dash! Notice how there’s no apples growing on this tree. It is the season for it, isn’t it, Applejack?”
“Well, I reckon it’s a late bloomer, Doc. But-” She paused.
“Go on…” The Doctor said.
“But it seems too old for that. It’s like it is an Apple Tree, but at the same time it’s not, ya know?” she concluded.
“Come to think of it, even the leaves are off. Those leaves are for an Oak Tree, not an Apple Tree.” Twilight stated.
“Correct you are!” The Doctor said excitedly.
“Which one?” The others simultaneously asked.
“You all are! As soon as I fell into this dimension 2 years ago, I’ve been hard at work to disguise her.”
“Her? It’s just a tree, darling!” Rarity stated matter-of-factly.
“This is not just any old tree, Rarity! This is THE tree!” He said. “Come, I’ll show you!” Suddenly, he pulled out what looked like a futuristic looking wand, and pointed it at the mysterious unidentifiable tree. The device then made a slight, but distinctive, screeching sound that made the tree wobble and dissipate to reveal a small blue box, with the words “Police Public Call Box” adorned above the wooden doors. The Doctor started to walk towards the mysterious object, motioning the others to follow him. “You have many questions, I’m sure. But I’ll only answer them once we’re all inside.” He said.
Twilight Sparkle was now at her breaking point. “Okay, I understand that your wand or whatever it is can make a tree turn into something else, but there is NO POSSIBLE WAY you can scientifically fit all of us into that tiny box! Unless you plan to defy physics, we aren’t all fitting.”
The Doctor smirked. “That’s exactly how I intend to do it, Princess!” He opened the doors to his world, the TARDIS, where physics were stretched beyond imagination, and wonders and miracles came true. All of them entered, and were instantly awestruck. The room was vast, mysterious, fun, and exciting all at the same time. In the center stood the console, with different gizmos, bobs, and machines of all sorts implanted onto it. Within the center of the console stood what looked like a futuristic hourglass that bobbed up and down at a steady pace.
“Wowee! I bet it took a lot of fun power to keep this baby going!”
“Does this mean I’m a tree now?”
“This is so… AWESOME!”
“Why ah’ll be a Cherry Tree during Apple Season!”
“It’s a bit drab, except for those Divine round things! What do you call them, Doctor?”
“I like to call them Round Things! Clever, huh? I came up with the name myself!” he chuckled.
Okay, now Twilight was at her breaking point. Hairs started to split, her ears started to twitch, and it seemed as the others had horrific flash-backs to a similar state of the Princess. “Okay, he’s officially a god! Everything he’s shown me is a physical impossibility and can’t be explained by the rules of nature!” She got on her back legs, and started to bow at her newfound deity. “ALL HAIL THE DOCTOR! HE IS BEST PONY!!!”
Whilst she was cackling in her mad new world she created in her head, The Doctor asked “Is she always like this?” The others simultaneously nodded while still watching their friend go mad.
After a few more minutes of Twilight’s madness, an odor began to linger in the air. Pinkie Pie knew the scent by heart, and with a Cheshire cat level grin she rushed through the vessel, knowing exactly which corridors and hallways to turn, despite the sentient machine trying to redirect her course in order to keep the surprise party, well… A surprise! Nevertheless, the other 5 ponies began to recognize the smell as well.
The Princess of Friendship snapped out of her crazy when she smelled it too. “Isn’t that Derpy’s muffins I smell?”
The jig is up, I suppose. That shows me, trying to keep a surprise party secret from Pinkie Pie of all people! He thought to himself. With a slightly defeated sigh, he said to his guests. “If you follow me, I can lead you to the kitchen where there was going to be surprise party after the tour.”
“Serves ya right Doc, for trying to hide a surprise party from the pink party pony herself! Honestly, did ya think you could keep it away from her through an entire tour of this spaceship doohickey?” Applejack said.
“I know… I was just hoping to treat my guests’ right. If you follow me, I can still give you a brief tour of the TARDIS.”
He began with the simpler areas, occasionally stopping to answer questions, and then led to the more complex areas he wanted to show to keep his guests entertained. First was the multi-layer swimming pool, which piqued a certain cyan Pegasus’ interest.
“WOAH! How big is that awesome looking swimming pool?!” Rainbow Dash asked, clearly impressed.
“Well, it started out as a water recycling station, but I ended up moving that to the Agriculture room. In any event, the swimming pool is approximately 257 square miles, and features several gravity defying water slides. This is also where I put your room, Ms. Dash.” The Doctor said.
“I GET TO SLEEP HERE?! This has officially made this tour 20% cooler!” she squealed.
While they were headed towards the next destination, a serious and important question needed to be answered.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” Pinkie Pie whined. Okay, it wasn’t as serious as intended, but what was, when the party pony was around?
The actual serious question was asked while waiting for pinkie in the bathroom. “Doctor, what’s a TARDIS?” Princess Twilight asked.
The Doctor donned his trademark smirk before answering the question. “Time And Relative Dimension In Space. T-A-R-D-I-S. It’s my time machine!” he smiled.
At that point, Twilight began to seriously doubt how technologically advanced her friend’s vessel is. “Okay, I might understand how you compacted a vast amount of space in such a small object, I learned that type of magic at age 4! But you can’t have enough power to travel through time without unicorn magic! It took me most of my life to try to master it, and I barely managed to go back a week, and it was only for a few minutes! What you’re claiming is impossible!”
“I’ll show you how it works later. For now, the tour continues!”
As promised, the tour continued of his technological marvel, until they all stopped at the agriculture production facility. “Behold! The Agriculture Production Facility! I like to call it the apple farm, however, because it’s so very similar to your farm, Applejack. In fact, I took soil surveys and monitored the artificial sunlight to see how accurate it was to the real deal. It was pretty much spot on! In fact, I think this has more yield than your crops!” The Doctor went just a tad too far with that remark he put in at the end.
Applejack turned a shade of red close to the tint of her apple cutie mark, and with all her pent up rage, bucked one of the nearby Apple Trees, and grabbed an apple. Needless to say, she spat it out at his feet as an insult to his farm. “Yer’ apples taste like metal, and can’t ever compete with my apples!” Sure, she said it on the surface, but what she was thinking was “Tartar Sauce! They taste sweeter than our famous zap apple jam!”
“If you look closely, Applejack, you’ll notice I created a replica of your homestead back in Ponyville. I tried getting more accurate scans, but some big, red, stallion wouldn’t allow it. Said something about me ‘being a pervert tryin’ ta snag some shots of his sister’.”
“Ah’ll have to talk to Big Mac about that when we return”, she thought. The Doctor took a look at his watch on his forearm. “Look at the time! My word, if we don’t show the other rooms soon, the muffins will be cold!” And so, they all began to rush towards the next destination: Wardrobe Design.
“Here it is! Every silk, fabric, and accessory under one roof!” Nopony had to look at Rarity to know she nearly fainted by the thousands of materials for clothing before her. “My TARDIS creates suits based on the personality I have in a new regeneration. If I’m dark and brooding, it reflects that. If I turn into a pony, well… Let’s just say it took a while for it to do a complete wardrobe without constant full body scans.” He said.
Twilight’s ears perked up at that last thing said. “Wait, did you say ‘turn into’, Doctor?” the brown stallion nodded. “Well, if you don’t mind me asking, what were you before?”
“That’s easy! I was human! Well, I was humanoid at least…”
All 6 ponies gasped. “You mean, you were there, in that other world through that portal?!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Well, not exactly. You were in a high school on planet Earth. Me? Well… All questions will be answered at the end of the tour. Shall we move on?” he said, avoiding the question.
Rarity looked around and became confused, wondering where the furniture was. She saw the other rooms had at least some sort of couch, chair, or cushion to sit on. “Out of curiosity darling, where am I supposed to sleep? I don’t see any chairs around.”
“Right you are, Miss Rarity! You see, most of these fabrics are slightly psychic. They can read your thoughts, but only to a certain degree. For example, if you want a purple threaded cushion…” suddenly, one of the silks adorned on the racks came to life, and began to float in midair, twirling about and getting brighter every second. Almost immediately, the silk exploded in white light, and before the group floated a purple cushion, looking just as The Doctor said.
With this clever example, the pearl white mare became satisfied and more at ease with this newfound information.
After the Wardrobe tour, up next was Fluttershy’s home. On the outside, the door was simple, only bearing her cutie mark, but on the inside was an almost scale replica of her small cottage. It wasn’t just the interior, either! The Doctor somehow managed to get the home’s outside look to fit in, as well as the hill it sat upon and the bridge over the stream that was used to get to it. Even the birdhouses and chicken coop were there! All six ponies stared at the obviously ecstatic cream colored mare with her jaw dropped and wide eyes at the beautiful sight before her. “Oh, if you think that’s good, just wait until you see your guest! For some reason, after I briefly mentioned the idea of a vacation to him, he started getting all uppity, bouncing everywhere, demanding I take him with us. After some… heated words, he ‘convinced’ me to take him”
After hearing that, Fluttershy let out the largest gasp anyone ever heard, and sped past the others and into the cottage, emerging with a small white bunny. “Oh, Angel! I’m glad you’re coming with us!” she said to the squirming pet. It seems that no matter what, that bunny always is annoyed with everyone. After some more cuddling with Angel, Fluttershy calmed down, and the tour was coming to a close.
“Only one more room left to show you, then we can have some muffins!” The Doctor said. And so the adventure continued, to the next guest room: The Library.
“I saved your room for last, Princess. Mostly because I thought you needed a reminder more than most, so the whole time we’ve been on the tour, my TARDIS has been making adjustments to the Library” The Doctor said, as he walked between the various bookshelves and display cases that made up his own personal encyclopedia of the known Universe.
Even at first glance, Twilight Sparkle was in awe at the massive size of the Library. There must be at least 15- if not 20- floors of books alone! She thought to herself. What more could this spaceship do?! That’s when she saw her room. It was a perfectly identical indoor replica of the Golden Oak Library, her once beautiful home, now buried in smoke and tinder. Almost every detail was perfectly preserved. From the scorch marks left by practice spell sessions, to the worn out furniture that indicated decades of use. Everything was perfect. The purple princess was paralyzed in a moment of pure nostalgia. It seemed as if it was all too much for her to handle, until tears welled up in her eyes when she saw her old bed. All the other ponies looked sympathetic towards her as the tears expertly held back started to flow gently from their friend’s eyes.
The only one to speak was The Doctor, and he spoke as gently as he could, trying not to sound like his goofy scientific self, but more like his sympathetic and calm self instead. “I, uh… I went back in time to do some scans before it…” he stopped, trying to figure out the right words to say. “This is my gift to you, Twilight Sparkle. For it is you who suffered pain the most.” He waited for a response. Instead, the purple mare wiped away her tears, turned towards The Doctor, and began listening more intently. “I know what it’s like to lose your home, just to be put in a bigger, more unfamiliar one.” Her turned to face everyone, and began to tell a story. “The TARDIS isn’t just my ship, she’s my home. I made her my home after I lost mine…” He opened a massive book, with strange markings none of the others have seen before. The only thing they could make out was the cover, which said “The History of The Doctor”. Much like the Equestrian lore book Twilight opened to find out more about Nightmare Moon, this book was written in the same style: a large landscape picture, followed by text.
The first picture shown was of a planet on fire: battle-worn scorches adorned all about the surface. It was a long time ago, before I even came to this dimension. My people, the Time Lords waged war against the Daleks of Skaro: evil beings that know no emotion besides hate. They were stripped of it to ‘rid themselves of imperfection’. This war was called the Time War, for it was no ordinary war. This war waged on at every point in existence. Many had died, and even the great city Arcadia, one of the mightiest of Gallifreyan cities, had fallen… The next picture was of a massive city, with futuristic skyscrapers increasing in height, until they all met at a massive spire at the center. The city was slowly crumbling, only a shimmer of what it once was. Surrounding the city was an even bigger dome, with cracks and giant holes and scorch marks adorned all along its surface.
At that point, a lonesome Time Lord had declared “No More”, determined to stop the senseless death this war caused. Even the smartest of people called him mad, for he intended to use The Moment, a sentient death machine that can judge actions and morals, to end it once and for all. This picture was of an outlined shadow, dwarfed by the large words that spelled “No More”
He succeeded, and wiped out the greatest threat in history. But, as we all know, peace comes with a cost… The final image was of the same shadow, but this time surrounded by piles of his dead brethren. The cost was that his race perished in the blast too. Both his home and his race were gone. The blast disintegrated the planet Gallifrey, with its red grass, and domed cities, and left this Destroyer of Worlds to seek refuge within an old machine that saw the destruction of his race as well. The final picture was what shocked the group the most. Within the picture was the blue box that they were now inside, sitting alone among the stars. Just when they thought the story was over, there was more to tell.
And thus began the repent for his sins, for he saw new dangers arise to threaten the universe once again. He wanted to be known for his name, not his curse. The Doctor’s Crusade began on a planet called Earth, with several lovely human companions that helped him on his journey. Then, he met Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, and saved her from a cruel fate. But not all was to be right, for he needed a new face, with new causes. This picture showed a man in a trench coat, with a striped suit and a tie on. He also adorned some wicked sideburns on the sides of his face, but held his chin high, and gave the most serious of looks.
After Rose was trapped in a parallel world, The Doctor wandered, until stumbling into a newer, brighter dimension, filled with friendship and love. He no longer needed to protect this new world as much, for the world already had guardians of peace and Harmony. The new picture showed the Mane Six, a nickname the residents of Ponyville gave to the Elements of Harmony, huddled together, and smiling. It was the picture they took after they became friends. With that, he shut the book, tears of joy and sadness in his eyes.
“So, now you know…” The Doctor said, unsure how his guests would react. He turned to Twilight, expecting some sort of anger, or fear. Instead, her eyes told of forgiveness.
She stood up, and walked towards him. “It’s okay, Doctor. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. What matters is you learn from your mistakes and hope it doesn’t happen again. After the Library was destroyed, I felt like it was my fault that it happened. But, it was when my friends moved the roots into the Castle that I began to realize that mistakes happen, and the memory of what it was will always be fresh in my mind. Don’t think of yourself as the last Time Lord, because they’ll always be with you in memory.”
The Doctor began to smile. “Thank you, Twilight. Now, how’s about we go have those muffins?”