Through Another's Eyes

“Tickets for three, please” Derpy told the ticket manager, who only looked at the mare with despair and fear

“You and your Unicorn kids?” the mare asked back, looking around for the two ponies who sometimes came with her with the help of a spell or two

“No, just some friends” the mailmare replied “Dinky’s playing with Sparkler over at the park, so I’ve got a few minutes”

The ticket master looked at the mare with fear-filled eyes, thinking back to some past events which caused the destruction of buildings and historical landmarks. She considered giving the tickets, but remembered the story of how she had put the stadium into total lockdown after she found a stray raincloud, two popcorn buckets and a carrot. Honestly, how was that even possible?

She then remembered the whole reason why Derpy Hooves wasn’t invited to the Best Young Flyer competition, which all Pegasi living in Cloudsdale, Canterlot and Ponyville were invited to. Apparently, the staff had come to the agreement of not letting the mare anywhere near 200 yards of the place in case of unforeseen circumstances. How did she find out? Probably from some friends. Yeah, that’s right. She has other Pegasi friends who might have told her…

But didn’t she work at the post office? That means she must be the one who handed out the invitations, so-

“Hello~” a young mint Unicorn waved a hoof in front of the ticket master “Earth to pony, are you in there?”

“Why, yes!” answered the ticket master, who was creeped out by the sight of the Unicorn “Here you go, three tickets. Enjoy the show!”

The pony then watched as Derpy trotted into the stadium, followed closely behind by the strange mint Unicorn and a brown stallion Pegasus. She looked at the group in fear before getting back to work, only to be greeted by a pony whose coat was the pinkest pink she has ever seen with an ever pinker mane than that. Her cheerful grin was somehow contagious, making her want to smile as well.

“Hi! Ticket for four, please!” Pinkie Pie squealed in excitement

The ticket master gave her the four tickets and when the party pony has left, the next customer was greeted with a sign.

Gone for health issues

The Doctor looked in awe at the stadium laid out before him. It was brilliant, truly brilliant! In all of his years travelling, not once did he ever see an entire city made on top of a cloud! Such workmanship, such creativity. He could stay for a long time just admiring the piece of work if it weren’t for Lyra nudging him on the shoulder.

“Yo, Doc! Guess what” Lyra said with a grin that made The Doctor question her sanity “One of the competitors has the Feather Flu, and they need a new replacement!”

“Oh, that’s not good” The Doctor said, not used to his new voice yet “Who’s the replacement? Fluttershy? Derpy?”

“No, they won’t let Derpy compete in any competition ever since the Great Rainbow Flood of 2005” Lyra said nonchalantly.

“At the weather factory?”

“No, it was a sewing competition” Lyra added “Anyway, they wanted you to join! I already told ‘em yes, so you’ve gotta do it”

“Hold on, I barely even know how to fly! How am I going to compete in a flying competition if I can’t do the simplest trick?”

“Come on, you’re The Doctor! I’m sure you could think of something to do. Now get going!”

The hyper mint Unicorn pushed The Doctor towards the preparation room of the stadium where they were greeted by a female Pegasus who looked rather worried. As soon as he saw the two, she instantly beamed and dashed over, shaking The Doctor’s hooves wildly and thanking him, saying she was eternally grateful for The Doctor.

When The Doctor turned around to look for Lyra, she had disappeared. Reminding himself never to invite her along again, he went to get ready for the competition.

Back at the stands, Lyra had found Derpy and the two sat at a nearby cloud, chatting away. Derpy, too, was surprised when she found out that The Doctor was competing, and was excited to see just what tricks he would do. Lyra, sitting her trademark sitting position, was chomping down buttered popcorn. The two friends waited as the announcer came out and declared the competition to begin.

The two ponies watched as the first contestant came out and started doing stunts and tricks that made them squeal in joy and excitement. When the first one was done, they saw that The Doctor was up next. They leaned in closer as the brown stallion got into the centre cloud and started his stunts. Derpy stated that she should have brought along a camera to record this moment, but Lyra wasn’t listening.

She had noticed something odd in the audience.

“Hold on, Derpy, I’ve gotta get some… uh… popcorn! Yeah, popcorn” Lyra said to the grey mare as she jumped off the cloud and landed on the fluffy ground… cloud.

She turned to the audience and started to sneak past them slowly and stealthily, trying not to make a scene. Of course, she wouldn’t have made a scene if it weren’t for the fact that she bumped into everypony and accidentally dropped a cup filled with soda. Well, at least it wasn’t acid. She remembered the last time that happened. Not so good.

She closed in on the strange pony she saw between the audiences and got ready to attack. What made the pony so strange? Well, she was wearing a big pair of sunglasses, a large hat and a long scarf. Who wears that to a flying competition? Spies, that’s who. and maybe random crazy fashionista… or Rarity, but that’s a whole different story.

With a loud battle cry (“Leeroooooy Jenkins!” she screamed), Lyra jumped the mare and pushed her straight off the cloud. The two landed on another cloud, of course, since extreme gore is not welcome in these kinds of stories… probably. With another shout, she bucked the mare under the chin and got ready to block some attack she knew she was going to receive back. However, the mare inly looked at her in annoyance.

“Just what in Celestia’s name are you doing?!” the victim yelled

She was a pink Pegasus with a dark blue mane. Her Cutie Mark was some blue lightning bolts, and her clothing was already dirty from getting attacked by Lyra. The Unicorn swore she has seen the mare before, but was too embarrassed to think about that for now.

“Uh, stopping you from destroying the competition?” she blushed

“Right, and why do you suppose I was going to destroy this competition?”

“Because you look suspicious! Yeah, nopony goes to a competition in that kind of clothing!”

“I lost a bet, honestly” the Pegasus answered “Really, I would have rather been seen dead than wear this scarf”

Apologising for the small misunderstanding (“You pushed me off a cloud and bucked me, and you’re apologising? Oh, aren’t you a laugh” the victim muttered), Lyra then let the pink pony get back to the competition. She then ran off back to her own cloud, stealing some random pony’s popcorn in the process for good measure, and landed with a loud thud on the cloud where Derpy was waiting. How she made a loud thud by landing on a cloud? Don’t ask.

She was quite surprised to see The Doctor there as well, who was absolutely beaming with glee. He kept on telling Derpy about all the cool tricks he’s done by accident and Derpy answered back cheerfully. Lyra, who was blushing even worse by now, only smiled and nodded when The Doctor was talking to her.

“Honestly, that was amazing! I really feel sorry for anypony who didn’t get to see it” The Doctor said with a smile

“Yeah, how did you manage to cause that cloud to suddenly shoot lightning bolts everywhere but didn’t hit the audience?” Derpy asked

“Simple physics, Derpy” he replied “And did you see when I caught that flower bouquet some mare threw at me that was falling at 80 miles per hour?”

“Yup! Wow, Doctor, you sure are fast with those wings” Derpy added

“Yeah, lightning, physics. Really great” Lyra said with a poker face so bad she made Applejack look like a professional liar

The two ponies looked at the Unicorn expectantly. Somehow, they were positive that something was amiss with their friend. Slowly, Derpy asked why it took so long to get a bucket of popcorn. The Doctor, who was suddenly shocked by the revelation that Lyra was not around to look at his act, quickly looked at her with shock.

“You would rather wait in line for a bucket of popcorn rather than watch my act?!” he exclaimed “How could you?!”

“Eh, it was a… long story” Lyra grumbled

“Lyra, I’ve travelled through all of time and space and I’ve had more companions than the number of times Derpy screwed up and I’m old enough to have met your mother’s mother’s mother. And you still think you could tell me that you have a long story?”

Feeling as if she has already lost the battle, Lyra told them what happened. Throughout the story, Derpy exclaimed several times and The Doctor only kept a straight face. After she was done, Lyra sheepishly threw the bucket of stolen popcorn away, landing on the head of the pony she stole it form in the first place.

“Lyra, you don’t know just how cross I am with you” The Doctor said “I let you ride the TARDIS so we could travel through all of time and space and save worlds, occasionally stopping to watch some event take place or go for a vacation. I did not allow you to follow to let you go and make grudges against random ponies you barely even know”

“Yeah, yeah, I know” Lyra grumbled

“I do suppose you know that this will be your final trip”

“Yes…”

“Hey, what’s going on over there?” Derpy suddenly chimed in

When the other two ponies looked, they saw that it was Rarity and Rainbow Dash’s turn. However, something peculiar was going on. It was as if the butterfly wings on Rarity’s back was slowly dissolving. As if on cue, the wings suddenly burst into flames, sending the white Unicorn plummeting to her death.

Without a second thought, The Doctor took out his Sonic Screwdriver and pointed it at the Unicorn. However, he pulled back when he saw that the Unicorn was flailing terribly and had already knocked out three members of The Wonderbolts. He then noticed Rainbow Dash, dashing in towards the rescue. It was impossible; she would never make it in time.

Quickly, he pointed it at the rainbow-maned mare and pressed the button, making the loud beeping noise as a green light came out of the top of the metal contraption. The longer he pressed, the faster Rainbow Dash seemed to be going. With a mighty yell, he pressed the Sonic Screwdriver harder and Rainbow Dash broke the sound barrier.

“That takes care of that” The Doctor said as he pocketed his Sonic Screwdriver “Now, let’s look for who caused the wings to burst into flames”

“You… you helped Rainbow Dash make the Sonic Rainboom?!” Derpy said in disbelief as her jaw was left hanging wide open

“Now that you mention it, yes” The Doctor said casually “Anyway, come on!”

The three friends ran off towards random directions as they looked for somepony that might have been the cause of the near-death situation Rarity was in. Everypony seemed to be acting the same way, shocked by the drop and amazed by the multi-coloured explosion of rainbow goodness. They looked around even more until Lyra pointed at a pink Pegasus who seemed to be trying to melt into the background, disappearing from the crowd.

They chased after the pony, who seemed to be quick on her wings. Even with The Doctor’s newfound flying abilities, he still couldn’t catch up to the pink Pegasus. Just as the mare was getting away, she slammed headfirst into Derpy’s flank and fell onto the ground-cloud-thing… Oh, you know what I mean.

“Oh, son of a-” the mare was starting to say before Derpy accidentally sat on her

“I knew there was a reason ponies called you the Iron Flank” Lyra said with a grin as she pulled the pony out from beneath the rump of doom “Now, tell me what you were doing trying to destroy the competition?”

“And why do you suppose I was going to destroy this competition?” the mare asked once more, confusing the Unicorn

“We just saw you trying to make your grand escape, what do you think?” Derpy said “Hold on, you do look sort of familiar…”

“Time must run it’s natural course, and nothing could change it” the Pegasus started “History states that Rainbow Dash performs a Sonic Rainboom today, and I only helped assist in the creation of the Sonic Rainboom. Time as we know it would shatter if the event does not take place!”

“Strange, that sounds like something I would say” The Doctor said as he rubbed his chin “Have we met before?”

“Not that I know of” the Pegasus said again

Without warning, Derpy suddenly gasped loudly as she looked at the mare closely one more time. She scanned her closely, taking off her garments one by one and gasping after each one. Finally, she squealed in excitement and hugged the mare tightly, making the pony choke as she tried to get the mare off of her.

“Auntie Firefly! Long time no see!” Derpy shouted at the top of her lungs

“What, who are… Derpy?” the mare named Firefly said in confusion

“You know this mare?” Lyra asked with a bewildered expression

“Well, duh! She’s Rainbow Dash’s mommy!” Derpy said gleefully

“The Doctor told me to help out with this situation, since he says he needs to stop some Necrofrigians over at Crystal Mountains” she muttered

The two mares looked at The Doctor, who only shrugged in confusion. Surely, he’s never met this mare before in his entire life… Oh wait, he hasn’t met this mare yet. Sometimes, he hates time travelling. It causes some confusion. Then he remembers that he’s The Doctor and quickly gets back to adventuring.

“So… what’s The Doctor look like?” The Doctor asked

“Oh, sort of dark brown, with brownish-black mane. Wears a bowtie. Always wears something strange and says that they’re cool.” Firefly said as her face blushed “I recall he’s wearing a fez right now”

“Well, nice meeting with you, then” The Doctor said as he pulled his two companions away “Come on, we better let her continue on with whatever timey-wimey things she’s doing”

“Could you keep a promise?” Firefly suddenly whispered to them “Don’t tell anyone, okay? Just our little secret?”

After a few seconds, the group nodded. They waved goodbye to the mother of the Element of Loyalty and trotted away to get back to the TARDIS. Along the way, nopony spoke. Apparently, The Doctor was still in shock that he had just met his future companion.

“Well, Doctor” Lyra said with a tinge of jealousy “You do have a way of picking up mares, don’t you?”

“I can’t believe you made Firefly fall in love with you!” Derpy exclaimed

“Well, I’m sure I didn’t go as far as marrying her or anything, that’s preposterous!” The Doctor said, hoping that he was right

“If I wasn’t mistaken, RD said her dad was an Earth Pony and she barely ever saw him” Derpy added

“TARDIS is over there, come on!” The Doctor said, skirting around the original topic “Allons-y!”

He threw a key to Lyra, who caught it and looked at it with joy. She couldn’t believe it, it was the key to the TARDIS! Only full-time companions got to hold the key to the TARDIS! Derpy showed her a similar key and they giggled together before chasing after The Doctor.