Spike yawned. "Is that her back again, already?"
"I wouldn't be surprised," said Twilight Sparkle, struggling to be heard over an enthusiastic knocking from downstairs,
"What's she doing?"
"Knocking on the door by the sound of it,"
"I know that, I mean what is she doing here? What does she want? Celestia has barely raised the sun yet".
Spike yawned again.
"Don't worry Spike. I'll deal with this; you go back to sleep".
Twilight pattered down the steps, while the banging from outside rang around the huge empty rooms of her castle.
"Okay, okay; no need to break the door down".
As she got closer to the front door, she could hear a muffled voice from outside.
"The great and powerful Trixie grows impatient".
With a sigh, Twilight opened the door. Trixie burst in, then immediately tripped and fell head over hoof. She recovered in time to perform a graceful bow.
"It's about time," she said, "I'll bet you can't wait to see what Trixie has to show you today,"
"Well, I was kind of thinking that after I gave you that spell book you might leave me alone for a while" replied Twilight,
"I think you underestimate the powers of Trixie. I've been up all night practising those spells,"
"Really, you stayed up all night? I've done that before and it's not good for you, trust me,"
"But don't you want to see the results, and marvel at the remarkable wonders of Trixie?".
Twilight considered. "I must admit I'm curious, but probably for entirely different reasons. Okay then Trixie, show me what you've got".
Trixie raised her head smugly. "Let us begin with a simple teleportation spell,"
In an instant they were both engulfed by a blinding flash. Twilight opened her eyes. They had moved. She couldn't work out where they were, but her surroundings looked familiar somehow.
"Wow that actually worked," said Trixie, "I mean, of course it worked. This is Trixie after all".
Twilight, meanwhile, had finally figured out where they were; they were standing on the ceiling.
"Wait, that wasn't supposed to happen,"
"This is really good," said Twilight, "you've even created an anti-gravity field,"
"A what?"
A moment later they were no longer stood on the ceiling, and were plummeting to the floor instead.
"You didn't create an anti-gravity field did you?" said Twilight, wind rushing through her mane.
Trixie shook her head. They both slammed into the ground.
"I think I know what went wrong," Trixie declared, springing straight back up.
Twilight lay dazed and disorientated. She had taken the brunt of the impact, while Trixie had landed on top of her, cushioning her fall. "Ergh, you've been awake too long Trixie," she moaned,
"But I have so much more to show you,"
"I think that's more than enough magic for one morning, thank you".
Trixie gave Twilight her best weak, pleading expression, with her ears flopped down. "Just one more. Please,"
"Oh, okay," said Twilight, "one more,"
"Excellent. Have you ever wanted to see the future? Well now is your opportunity, for you are about to witness, before your very eyes, Trixie perform a time spell. This is going to be so amazing. I can already picture the future. They'll be banners everywhere: Trixie; the greatest magician in all of Equestria, mentored by Princess Twilight herself,"
"Now hold on there a second," said Twilight, "first of all, about this whole me being your mentor thing, I'm not sure that..."
"Well I suppose they won't talk about that so much. It'll mostly be about me and how brilliant I am,"
"No that's not what I meant. Anyway it takes most ponies years to perfect a time spell; are you sure that..."
"It's nothing the great and powerful Trixie can't handle. Now silence, if you please. This spell requires absolute precision". Trixie stumbled and fell on a crease in the carpet.
"Well I don't see any way that this could go wrong," muttered Twilight.
"Muffins, would you be so kind as to pass me that neutron capacitor, over there," said Doctor Whooves, his head buried underneath some equipment.
Derpy gazed at the mess of cables and gadgetry spread across the floor in front of her. Apparently when the pod crashed, the impact had severely affected the temporal drive, but with the Doctor's inventions it was hard to tell what was damaged and what was working perfectly from outward appearance alone.
"Which one did you say?" asked Derpy,
"The neutron capacitor, you can't miss it," was the Doctor's muffled answer, "it's the only one with a pre-set modulation,"
"A pre what?" said Derpy.
The Doctor at last withdrew his head to help her. "That green pointy thing. There. No, there". He picked up the component and placed it in Derpy's hoof.
"Oh that one. Why didn't you say?" She passed it back to the Doctor.
"Thank you," he said, "I don't know what I'd do without you sometimes,"
"Aw thanks Doc".
A serious expression fell across the Doctor's face. "The problem is every time I increase the power it creates a feedback loop which is overloading the circuit,"
"Have you tried using a type forty-two terminal to generate a manual feedback bypass," said Derpy,
"Well I did consider doing that, of course, but I'm not sure if... wait what did you just say?"
The Doctor shot a scrutinising stare at his assistant. "You just memorised all of that, didn't you?"
"All of what?" Derpy replied innocently,
"Whatever you just said then,"
"I don't know what you mean,"
"You did. I can see it written on your other hoof".
Derpy crossed her legs quickly. "There's nothing written on my hoof,"
"Oh yeah? Why are you standing like that then?"
"I, er, have an itch".
The Doctor shook his head. "If you really want to do something useful, go up to the cockpit and configure the backup power to manual".
Derpy went to follow the Doctor's instructions, but stopped at the laboratory door. She began to open her mouth.
"It's the switch under the side window," said the Doctor, "there's a very similar switch nearby with the words sprinkler override written above them. Whatever you do, please don't get the two mixed up.
Once Derpy had left the room, the Doctor stared contemplatively at the unresponsive panel in front of him. "Use a type forty-two terminal to generate a manual feedback bypass". He repeated the phrase a few times, rolling the words around in his mouth. "Hmm".
The Doctor went to work. A couple of minutes later he flicked a switch and the entire panel lit up. "What a brilliant idea of mine".
"Doctor?" said Derpy, peering around the door,
"Hmmm?"
"Are you sure there's no other life out here?"
"Without out a doubt. Out there is nothing, nopony, zip, zilch, zoink, is that even a word? Anyway, you have to understand that we are stranded potentially millions of years away from civilisation, so there is virtually no possibility of there being any form of life outside,"
"Oh, it's just I saw two ponies heading towards the pod,"
"Great whickering stallions," cried the Doctor, leaping up, "could we be about to make first contact with alien life forms in disguise, or perhaps a swarm of super evolved changelings? Come on".
In a few moments they were waiting in the midsection of the pod.
"Be prepared," warned the Doctor, "we don't know what could come through that airlock".
The mechanism activated.
"How do you make first contact these days anyway?"
The airlock opened and Twilight stepped in, followed by Trixie.
"Greetings, I'm the Doctor, this is Derpy, I call her Muffins, you'll find out why. She's my assistant from Ponyville. We come in peace, and erm, take us to your leader? Am I doing this right? Please tell me if I'm sounding too cheesy".
The two newcomers stared at Doctor Whooves dumbfoundedly.
"No wait! I recognise one of you from somewhere don't I? No don't tell me, it'll come in a minute,"
"Well of course you recognise me, " said Trixie, preening her mane, "I am after all, the one and only, the great and powerful..."
"Princess Twilight Sparkle," the Doctor exclaimed,
"Please, Twilight is fine,"
"You were at the summer sun celebration, I remember. It was really good, although obviously, not as good as what can be achieved with science and mathematics..."
At that point Trixie interrupted. "Yes, yes, yes, now what about me, Trixie?"
The Doctor looked at her blankly.
"Come on, you must have heard of me. You know, Trixie Lunamoon; the most gifted unicorn in Equestria".
"Who?"
Trixie was starting to lose her temper now. "I've visited Ponyville three times".
The Doctor shook his head until Derpy kicked him and he began nodding politely instead. "Oh yes, of course, I remember you now, er, what was your name, Trillion?"
Trixie growled.
"Anyway, what were you doing hanging around out there? There's a toxic storm due any moment on the scanner. For that matter how did you even get here in the first place?"
Twilight heaved a sigh.
"I think you'd best ask the great and powerful Trixie here,"
"Oh I love it when you say my name like that," said Trixie,"
"Well thanks to your marvellous time spell, we're now stuck here, which is assumedly somewhere in the future,"
"Ah, I see," said the Doctor, "it's quite common this time of year. One moment you're stood there, all four hooves on the ground, and the next, whoosh, you're whisked off to Celestia knows where,"
"Actually where is this and, when is this?" questioned Twilight.
The Doctor appeared flustered. "Now that is a good question, which I don't really know the answer to I'm afraid. I programmed the temporal drive for a quick test hop to the reneighssance and back, but there was a small glitch, you know how it is with technology, and we sort of crashed a bit,"
"Crashed a bit?"
"Okay, we crashed a lot actually. The readout says this is two million and three hundred thousand years in the future, but that could mean anything. Everything got badly shaken in the impact,"
"But we must still be in Equestria right, even if this is some post-apocalyptic far future version of it? I mean the spell Trixie used was a time spell, so there's no reason we should have moved,"
"Well that rather depends on what theory you're using. Working on the assumption that distance, like time, is relative, it is possible to conjecture that one independent structure can remain immobile, while the rest of the universe pivots around it,"
"I think I followed all that," said Derpy, "but just in case, to be completely sure, could you repeat the whole thing again, from the beginning,"
"He's saying we could be absolutely anywhere," said Trixie,
"Correct. Still, on the bright side I believe I've located the original fault".
"Wait, did you build all of this?" Twilight asked, looking more closely at her surroundings.
The pod was divided into the three sections. There was a cockpit at the front and doors leading to more rooms in the aft portion. A set of stairs in the corner led down to the Doctor's laboratory. Loose wires and bric-a-brak hung from every wall. Twilight couldn't tell what served a practical purpose and what was just there for decoration.
"Cobbled together would be a more accurate technical term," the Doctor replied, "just from a few bits and pieces, and odds and ends I've accumulated over the last century or so".
This gave Twilight renewed enthusiasm. "Then you can fix it, right?"
"Ah, now, slight difficulty there".
The Doctor leaned in close to Twilight's ear.
"I didn't want to say anything before, but between you and me, things are looking bleak. We're facing a dark future,"
"Why?"
"We're almost out of spare light bulbs. That's not even the worst of it though. We're down to our last twenty crates of muffins,"
"What's so bad about that?"
"Did somepony say muffins?" cried Derpy, jumping up and down, "where? Where? I love muffins; strawberry muffins, blueberry muffins..."
"We get the idea," said Trixie,
"Raspberry muffins, banana nut muffins".
Twilight decided to ignore her. "All I want to know is can you get us back home?"
"Well," said the Doctor, "factoring in the damage done in the crash, there is frankly about as much chance of the time drive working again as, well, Derpy eating cupcakes,"
"Great. So we're still stuck here".
"I take it then that you won't mind us staying with you for a while," said Trixie,
"I don't know," the Doctor answered, "after all I can't just let anypony and their metal dog be my companions; I only choose the very best,"
"I see, and you chose Derpy,"
The said pony was now busy holding two loose wires together and watching in transfixed awe as sparks jumped from one end to the other. She paused from this activity to smile at the mention of her name.
"Don't let the eyes deceive you. I believe there is a brilliant mind lurking in there, somewhere," said the Doctor,
"Yeah, I'm sure, but you see we don't exactly have anywhere else to go do we?"
"Hmm I suppose that's true. There's only one bunk room left, so you'll have to share,"
"Hold it right there everypony," said Twilight, "just let me get this straight. We have no idea when, or where in Equestria, or outside of Equestria we are. We have no way of getting back, and we're going to just sit here and twiddle our hooves for the rest of eternity,"
"Still, at least you have the privilege of sharing a room with the great and powerful..."
"Shut up, just shut up," Twilight shouted, "all of you, just shut up and leave me alone, and just... eergh". She stormed towards the nearest exit.
"Er, if you're looking for the bunk room, it's the other door," said the Doctor helpfully,
"Eeeergh," replied Twilight, turning around.
She slammed the door, setting off a small quake inside the pod. When it died down the remaining three were left standing in awkward silence.
"So, where are the muffins?" said Derpy.
The bunk room was cramped and grey. In contrast with the rest of the pod, it's contents were somewhat minimalist. Twilight lay motionless on the bottom bunk, staring into space. With a loud clatter, Trixie burst into the room.
"This is going to be perfect," she trilled, "you'll be able to teach me all sorts of spells and..."
She stopped, noticing Twilight who had still not moved. "Have you been moping around in here this whole time?"
Twilight did not reply.
"Aren't you glad to be spending time with a pony of such sophistication, such maturity? I'm claiming the top bunk by the way, so you can forget any ideas you had about that".
Trixie leaped up onto the bed, causing the structure to shake. "Aw cheer up Twilight Sparkle. We can reminisce about all the wonderful moments you've spent with Trixie,"
"When?" said Twilight,
"Excuse me?"
"When have I ever shared any wonderful moments with, you? When have we ever even been friends?"
"Oh come on, we go way back, good old Trixie and Twi,"
"Funny, I don't remember it quite like that,"
"I mean sure, we've had our differences, but that's all behind us now right? Hey, remember the time I went crazy with that amulet and tried to banish you from Ponyville? Funny how you can laugh about it now". Trixie leaned over and found Twilight glaring at her. "Sorry, I'm not really helping am I?"
Twilight got up off the bed and trotted over to the narrow window. There wasn't much to see outside. The flat, generic terrain went on and on until it vanished into an uninteresting haze of darkness and dust, picked up by the storm.
"Did you not have anypony you cared about, I mean back home, like a close friend or something?"
"Not really," Trixie replied, "I, well I suppose I was always travelling around too much for that,"
"I miss my friends," said Twilight,
"They must have meant a lot to you. I can only imagine what that's like".
Twilight nodded. "I just know if Rainbow Dash was here, she would do something brave and heroic. It might not work, but she'd try. Or if it was Pinkie Pie, she'd say something and everypony would laugh, and everything would be okay".
She turned to Trixie, who had climbed down to join her by the window.
"I'm sorry Twilight".
The two of them shared a hug.
"What did you think of the great and sympathetic Trixie?" she teased.
Twilight laughed, her eyes growing moist. "Thanks Trixie. I guess you're not so bad".
Trixie smiled. They held onto each other a little longer.
"But what if we can't find a way to get back?" said Twilight, "What if I never get to see my friends again, or my home again? We could be trapped here forever, and ever, and ever, and..."
Doctor Whooves burst in. "I'm not interrupting anything am I? It's just I fixed the temporal drive; we can go back home now".
The Doctor was waffling in his characteristic style as the others, now joined by Derpy, followed him down the stairs. "Well I say I've fixed it, it's more of a work around solution I devised, and I'm only about eighty percent sure it will work, actually more like seventy percent, no let's be optimistic and call it seventy-five percent, or maybe even seventy-five point five percent, although I had a teacher once who used to tell me off for putting decimal places in percentages, Einstallion his name was if I recall correctly".
Twilight laughed.
"What's funny?"
"Nothing, it's just, you remind me of a friend. She would always ramble about random stuff like that".
The door of the laboratory swung open. Inside was the very definition of organised chaos. Cables and technology were scattered across the floor, along with old watches, egg timers and other seemingly functionless clutter. More stuff hung from the walls, and from the ceiling. There were shelves, mostly in need of repair, loaded with tatty hardbacks. The whole place had a pungent chemical odour. Twilight and Trixie glanced at the strange cubicle like contraption in front of them, and then looked at each other.
"What is that thing?" said Twilight,
"Ah, now, you see instead of trying to transmit the entire pod back through time, as was the original idea, this is going to send us back individually. In theory..."
A spring popped out of the contraption and flew across the laboratory, landing close to Twilight's hoof.
"Don't worry, that's supposed to happen," assured the Doctor, "no wait".
He went over and fiddled with a panel on the side of the machine. Something similar to lightning began crackling through the top of it.
"Where was I? Oh yes, in theory you just step into the temporal transmitter and it will send each of you straight back to where you came from. Now who would like to go first?"
"I think you should go first Twilight," said Trixie,
"I don't know; it looks kind of dangerous,"
"Pretty lights," said Derpy, marching forward,
"Derpy wait".
Before either of them could stop her, Derpy was inside the machine. "That tickles," she said. A few seconds later she stepped out.
"Well, nothing happened," said Trixie.
Then Derpy stepped out of the machine again; another Derpy, identical to the original in every detail. Derpy stared joyfully at her duplicate, and her duplicate stared joyfully back at her.
The Doctor looked as shocked as everypony else. "I don't understand. I must have reversed the the polarity somehow,"
"Maybe it's because of the temporal feedback relay," said Derpy,
"Stop it," said the Doctor,
"Or the calibration of the anti-matter converter," said the other Derpy,
"Both of you, stop it".
The duplicate Derpy faded out of existence.
"Of course, that's it," cried the Doctor, "great Celestia, I'm a genius. I may have inadvertently created the perfect cloning device, which of course was what I meant to do,"
"No," said Twilight, "what you were meant to do was get us back home".
"Oh don't listen to her," said Trixie, "I think it's a marvellous invention Doctor, but is there any way you can make the clones exist, you know, more permanently?"
"A few tweaks to the calibration and that shouldn't be a problem".
Twilight guessed what Trixie had in mind. "I don't think that's a good idea, believe me," she warned.
But the Doctor had already set to work on the panel.
"Come on, how much longer?" Trixie demanded,
"This really isn't a good idea," said Twilight,
"All finished," the Doctor announced.
Trixie leaped into the contraption. The others watched as the lightning appeared once again. "Ouch, ow, ow, this had better be worth it". She stepped out again, followed by an exact copy of herself.
"Is it true?" she said, "could it really be..."
"The one and only," said the duplicate,
"The great and powerful,"
"Trixieeee," they both chorused.
"Finally, somepony who knows my name, and appreciates me. This was so worth it,"
"I think I'm losing it," said Twilight.
Yawning, Twilight entered the bunk room, where Trixie was sat in the corner with her clone. "And then I turned to Snips and Snails and said, well I'm not sure exactly what I said, but it was one of those incredibly wise and witty put-downs that only the great and powerful Trixie could have thought of,"
"Oh yes," her counterpart laughed, "I remember it well".
Twilight shook her head. "I'm sure you two have plenty to talk about, but I really need to sleep now. It's been a very long day". She flopped onto the bed and fell fast asleep before even getting under the covers.
"Come on Trixie, this story will have to wait until morning," said Trixie,
"After you, Trixie".
A short while later Twilight woke up. The bunk was shaking again. She could hear voices from above.
"Keep your smelly hooves over your side of the bed,"
"How can I be smelly? I'm you,"
"Yes, but, the great and powerful Trixie needs her space," said Trixie,
"The great and powerful Trixie," said her clone, deliberately putting on a silly voice, "give me a break,"
"How dare you mock me?"
"If you're really so great and so powerful, then magic us all back to Ponyville. You brought us here".
"But, but I don't even know where here is,"
"There always has to be some excuse doesn't there?"
"If a princess who represents the element of magic can't get us back, then how do you expect me to be able to?"
"You see what I mean? More excuses. You're supposed to be the most gifted unicorn in Equestria".
"Hey," said Twilight, banging on the bottom of the bunk, "would you keep the noise down up there? I'm trying to sleep".
"She started it," they both replied together,
"I don't care who started it. I take it all back; you are the most annoying pony I have ever met, both of you".
Everything went quiet for a while. Twilight lay down again.
"So mature,"
"Right that's it. Trixie doesn't have to listen to this".
There was a thud on the floor next to Twilight's bunk.
"Wait, where are you going?"
Trixie jumped down after her clone and chased her into the corridor. "Come back here, you can't just walk away. This isn't over. And stop naming yourself in the third person; you sound like a complete simpleton".
Twilight got up and closed the door. The hum of the air filtering system all but drowned out the argument outside. "Now I'm wide awake. I'll never get back to sleep". She flopped onto the bed again. What time was it now? Without the sun and moon there was no way of even telling if it was day or night. There was no day or night. There was nothing here.
"How can this happen?" said Twilight, "now, after everything else that has happened?"
At that moment Pinkie Pie popped into her head. "Coool, I'm in a thought bubble," she squealed, "it's soft, and bouncy". She jumped up and down to illustrate the point.
"Pinkie Pie, stop it," laughed Twilight,
"I'm a figment of your imagination Twilight; I only do what you command me to do,"
"Why are you still doing it then?"
"Hehe silly, that's probably because you remember me as the kind of pony who doesn't follow convention".
Twilight's head sunk.
"Aw, why so sad?" Pinkie stopped jumping.
"Because, well, I'm going to be away for a while. It might be a very long time, I, I don't know,"
"That's okay, but you'll still make it to that party I have planned for Gummy next week, right?"
"I'm afraid it's going to be a little longer than that. I'm sorry,"
"Aw don't worry Twilight. The beauty of friendship is you're never far apart, even if say, just as a random example, one of you is stuck at the end of the universe,"
"So it doesn't affect our friendship?"
"Of course not. I'll always be thinking of you, just as you've been thinking of me,"
"And you'll take good care of Spike won't you, all of you? I didn't even get to say goodbye to him,"
"That's what friends are for".
The door opened, and Trixie came in. Twilight wiped the tears from her eyes. "Where's, the other one?" she said,
"Don't mention her to me," Trixie snapped, "she's going to sleep in the midsection I think".
She climbed back up to her bunk and lay down, her head sunk into the blanket. "There's no use hiding it. Trixie and I, we've had a tiny little disagreement, and the outcome of it is we've vowed never to speak to each other again. I just can't stand her Twilight. She's mean, arrogant, shallow, self-obsessed, and did I say arrogant,"
"She's you," said Twilight,
"I know, that's the problem. Oh why did I ever think this was a good idea?"
"Switch the power to manual, would you Muffins," said Doctor Whooves,
"Of course".
Derpy rushed upstairs to follow his instruction. The Doctor made a few more adjustments to his machine.
"Will this really work?" said Twilight, "can you really undo the cloning process?"
"The logic is infallible. Speaking in complex scientific terms, we simply throw everything into reverse. I just need to do one more..."
The sprinklers exploded above their heads, showering all of the Doctor's equipment. Sparks flew from the panel in front of him. The machine went dead.
"No, no, no, my work, my precious work,"
"Oops, my bad," said Derpy, peering in,
"Does this mean I'm stuck with her, forever?" cried Trixie,
"Wait, I might know a spell for this," said Twilight.
Trixie dropped to floor before the princess. "What are you waiting for then? Get rid of her. Please, please, get rid of her," she whimpered, tugging on Twilight's hoof while a growing puddle of water formed around her.
"You can't get rid of me," her counterpart protested, stepping forward, "I'm the original,"
"How dare you?" said the Trixie on the floor, "I'm the original,"
"How can you possibly believe her? Look at me; I'm the one and only, the irreplaceable,"
"Oh no, how are we going to tell them apart?" said Twilight,
"If only you'd listened to me," said the Doctor, "I warned you at beginning that this cloning business could be dangerous,"
"No you didn't," shouted Derpy, Twilight, Trixie and Trixie together,
"Oh didn't I? I must have said something along those lines though, at some point".
The others all shook their heads.
"We need to think of some task that only the real Trixie could do," suggested Twilight,
"Er, Twilight," said Derpy,
"Not now Derpy, I'm concentrating,"
"Twilight," said the Doctor,
"Just a minute, I'm just trying to think of something,"
"She's gone," shouted Trixie, "I'm freeee,"
"I said just give me a minute, wait what?"
Twilight glanced around. Trixie was bounding around joyfully. Her clone had vanished.
"But how?"
"Well I was rechecking some calculations last night, and it turns out I made an error," the Doctor explained, "the new clone may have an extended lifespan but the atomic structure is still too unstable for it to be permanent,"
"So you knew that all along," said Twilight, water dripping from her mane, "and you didn't at any point think to tell us,"
"You never asked,"
"Eergh,"
"I suppose this is a bit of an anticlimax really, after all that suspense about how you were going to decide which one was the clone, and the whole moral dilemma that was developing,"
"Doctor," said Twilight,
"Yes?"
"Shut up".
