The Legend Of The Blue Box

“Ahh,” Twilight Sparkle groaned. She was in her home, the Ponyville library, sitting at a desk; in front of her was an open book that she was visibly agonizing over. She used her magic to flip through the pages. “Nothing, nothing, nothing!” she said angrily. The unicorn let her head fall on the manuscript and stayed there for a moment. Behind her, all of the library’s bookshelves were completely bare; all the books scattered around the floor to the point that the floor was not even visible.

A small purple dragon was wading through the sea of tomes desperately trying to reorganize. He carried a stack of books so tall that he was unable to see where he was going and had to rely on feeling his way around. This attempt at moving proved futile as he tripped, dropping his stack of books in with the rest on the floor.

“Aw,” he grunted. He looked up to see a very depressed Twilight. “Don’t you think you should give it a rest already?”

Twilight looked up from her studying. “A rest? How can I give it a rest Spike? I’ve gone through every book in this place twice and found nothing! I’ve contacted the Manehattan Public Library, the Appleoosa History Center, the Fillydelphia Research Institute and still, nothing! I even contacted the International Bio-research Lab that supposedly has a record of every plant, animal, fungus or bacteria that has ever been discovered and still nothing! There is no record of any kind of two-hearted ape, no record of anything even close to a Dalek, no single mention of a ‘Time Lord’ whatever that is, and nothing about any disappearing blue box! How can I give it a rest?!”

Twilight stood over her assistant breathless, staring at him with bloodshot eyes. Her mane seemed to become more frazzled the more worked up she became. Just to make things worse, one of her eyes developed a slight twitch.

“But it’s been a week,” Spike pleaded. “You’ve barely eaten. And have you even slept?”

Twilight started pacing in circles. “Sleep? There’s no time for sleep now! What if the Dalek comes back? The Elements of Harmony were completely useless, only the Doctor knows how to defeat it and who knows where he is.”

Spike covered his mouth; he looked like he was about to be sick but then let out a loud burp. A small green flame came from his mouth and materialized into a scroll. Twilight’s mood improved at the sight of it, she smiled and started to unroll it with magic. “It must be from the Canterlot Archives. If anyplace has information it’s them, I just know it.”

“Dear Miss Sparkle,” Twilight began to read aloud. “At the request of her highness, Princess Celestia, we at the Royal Canterlot Archive have carefully combed through every piece of information we have with regards to your inquiry. Unfortunately we regret to inform you,” Twilight’s voice began to sadden with each word, “that although our team has double-checked every book we have, there is no information about an ape with two hearts, a traveling blue box that disappears without magic, or anything close to the metal creature you called ‘Dalek.’ We apologize for any inconvenience and…” Twilight stopped reading. There was nothing more to read, just an apology and a signature.

Spike rubbed his claws together nervously. He wasn’t really sure what he could say at this point; Twilight had always found the information she needed in the past but this time there was just nothing.

Twilight started to second-guess herself, there wasn’t just a lack of knowledge there was literally zero like it was never even real. Was she losing her mind? Was the whole experience some dream that she was taking too seriously? Spike could see the discomfort and doubt in her eyes; he needed to cheer her up.

“Hey,” he said trying to sound positive and jovial. “Here’s an idea, why don’t we go to Sugarcube Corner? I bet a good snack would help.” His words seemed to fall on deaf ears. He couldn’t give up; he had to try anything he could think of. “Okay, how about we go see Rainbow Dash? She always has some new trick to show. Or maybe we could help Fluttershy with her animals, or Applejack on the farm. Come on Twilight, I’m sure your friends miss you by now.”

“My friends?” She looked up with a strike of inspiration. “My friends?” she repeated more energetically. “My friends, that’s it!” She dashed over to her assistant and embraced him in a hug. “Spike you’re a genius. Why didn’t I think of it before?”

Twilight dropped the dragon and sped out the door. Spike was mostly happy; on the one hand Twilight had finally gone outside and appeared to be getting back to normal, on the other, he was left alone to clean up. He grumbled as he started dutifully picking up books.

“Apples! Come get yur fresh picked apples!” Applejack announced. She and her sister were in the town marketplace trying to attract customers to their stand.

“Apples just picked this mornin’ at Sweet Apple Acres,” Applebloom yelled out.

Twilight ran passed them, too focused on where she was going to notice her surroundings. “Hey, Twilight,” Applejack called, “wanna buy some apples?”

Twilight skidded to a halt and swerved to see where her friend was. She smiled and ran to the orange mare. “Applejack. Perfect, I was just on my way to see you.”

“You okay Twi? You look a little, uh... beat.”

“Never mind that, I need you to tell me everything you know about the Doctor, now!” Twilight demanded.

“Huh, what?” Applejack was a little confused at such an out of the blue request. “Why do you wanna know ‘bout the Doctor?”

“Oh, I know ‘bout the Doctor,” Applebloom said jumping up for attention. “It was awesome!”

“No it wasn’t,” Applejack corrected. “I haven’t seen that much crazy from one pony since Discord.”

“Is he really that dangerous?” Twilight asked.

“Well, not him specifically. More like what seems ta follow him. You were there last time; he just popped up outa nowhere when all heck broke loose. Seems like he can’t be found otherwise.”

“But he saved us,” Applebloom argued. “He’s a good pony and he got rid o’ the alien.”

“Alien?!” Twilight said.

“For the last time, it was not an alien,” Applejack said.

“But he said…”

“He also said he could talk ta it and understand what it was sayin'. He was just tellin' ya a story,” Applejack explained. Applebloom grunted, frustrated that she wasn’t being listened to.

Applejack sighed lightly and turned her attention back to Twilight. “Look, he’s not a bad pony. I told y’all before he doesn’t seem the type to leave anypony behind. There’s just something, I don’t know, off ‘bout him, I didn’t even realize till the metal thing came.”

“You mean the Dalek?”

“Yeah, that. I’ve seen him twice now and both times he was right in the middle o’ somethin’ weird and dangerous. I don’t know, he just seems suspicious ta me.”

“Tell me about the first time you met,” Twilight requested.

“Well it seemed like a normal day at first; me and Big Mac were up before the sun and started to work the field. It wasn’t until we all came back from lunch that somethin’ weird happened. There were all these little critters eatin’ all our crop. I thought at first it was just a big invasion o’ worms but then the Doctor showed up; him and his blue box fell right out o’ the sky.”

“Wait, you mean that thing can fly too?”

“Well, I don’t know ‘bout flyin', looked more like it was thrown at us. The Doctor and Ditzy Doo came out and ran off sayin’ they were following somethin’. Then outa nowhere this giant worm comes outa the ground. And I mean huge; that thing coulda swallowed me whole. Turns out this big worm was the mother of all the little ones eatin’ our apples. The Doctor did somethin’ and made him, his box, and the worms all disappear without a trace.”

Twilight was even more confused now. She didn’t have much more to go on and every word of Applejack’s story sounded too odd to be true. “Is that all you can tell me?” she asked.

“That’s all I know. You were there the next time he showed up.”

“But why didn’t you ever say anything before?”

“Never came up. Besides, I kinda wanted to forget it ever happened.”

“I still say it was an alien,” Applebloom chimed in.

“If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that whatever you saw, it was not an alien,” Twilight said as she went into teacher mode. “Even the closest planets that could support life would be hundreds of light-years away, the trip over that distance simply wouldn’t be feasible. And anything born on another planet would surely look vastly different from a pony. I’m sure everything has a logical, terrestrial, explanation. It’s like the great pony Occam Razor once said, ‘When confronted with two explanations equal in validity the one that makes less assumptions is more likely true.’”

“Uh, thanks for the science lesson Twi, but if that’s all, we are tryin’ ta sell apples here,” Applejack explained trying not to sound rude.

“Oh, right,” Twilight said blushing a bit from embarrassment. “I’ll just be on my way. By the way do you know where I can find Pinkie Pie?”

“Last I knew she was workin’ the counter at Sugarcube Corner.”

“Thanks, see ya later.”

A bell chimed as Twilight walked through the door of the confectionary shop known as Sugarcube Corner. She looked around but her friend was nowhere in sight, instead a light blue mare with a pink mane stood at the counter.

The mare smiled and waved to Twilight. “Good afternoon, Twilight. What can I do for you?”

“Mrs. Cake, have you seen Pinkie Pie? It’s urgent.”

“She’s taking a break upstairs with the foals.” Mrs. Cake gestured to the stairs giving Twilight permission to find her friend.

“Thanks,” Twilight said frantically running up to the second floor. She entered a room to find Pinkie Pie entertaining two foals by making silly faces. She held a sack of flour over her head and opened it coating herself white for a big finale. The foals rolled around laughing.

“Pinkie,” Twilight called, coughing from the airborne powder.

“Not anymore,” Pinkie responded referring to her now white coat. She shook off the flour returning to her usual pink self. Twilight covered her mouth and let the white dust settle. “Now I am!” Pinkie declared. The foals erupted into a new fit of giggles.

“Pinkie, I need to talk to you. I want to know everything you know about the Doctor.”

“Hmm,” Pinkie mused as she touched her chin trying to look contemplative.

Suddenly she ran around the room with amazing speed closing the door and shutting the curtains to darken the room. She placed a lit lantern in the middle of the room and corralled the group around it like it was a campfire. The foals stared at the small flame inside the lamp.

“The first time I ever saw the Doctor was a long time ago...” she started.

I was just a little filly back then, I didn’t even have my cutie mark yet. Things weren’t as super duper fun as they are now. Back then it was just me and my family on our rock farm. Everything was so dreary and as soon as I could walk I had to work, digging and moving rocks all day, it was so boring.

One day was different though; I was pushing a big rock all by myself but it just wouldn’t budge so I tried to use a shovel but that didn’t work either. I was far out in the fields away from my family so I had to try all by myself but no matter what I did it just would not move, it was totally being as stubborn as a... as a rock or something. I was going to go get help but when I turned around it started to move on its own. It wasn’t just one rock like I thought, it was a whole bunch of rocks and they all started to stack on top of each other and they turned into a monster.

It stood on two legs, had two arms, and a long rock tail with a diamond shaped spike at the end. It didn’t even have a head but it did have a face right between its two arms. I was so, really scared, I didn’t know what to do but I remembered what my granny told me when I had trouble sleeping in the dark: giggle at the ghosties, just laugh to make them disappear. I looked up at it and said ‘ha’ but it didn’t go away. I tried again to laugh but I was too scared and could only squeak out a few more ha’s.

As I cowered down in front of this rock monster a voice called out “Ha-ha” as he leapt over my head at the monster. It swatted him to the ground and he landed in front of me with a thud. He looked at me, smiled, laughed, got up and told me, “Hello there, run for your life!” Before I knew it I was on his back and he was galloping away and the rock monster was chasing after us.

He yelled out, “Now!” and some flying pegasus that I couldn’t see very well threw something liquid at the monster. Everypony stopped and looked at the monster, waiting to see what would happen. Dust settled and the monster still stood there, it almost seemed surprised that nothing happened.

“I used the green, why is it not working?” she yelled to us.

“I said not green,” he yelled back.

“What? Who says not green?” she yelled.

The monster started chasing all three of us and the pegasus flew off somewhere else and the Doctor and I took shelter in a small cave. The monster must have been confused when we split up because it didn’t find us. He laughed after we were out of danger, I didn’t see what was so funny though I mean there was some rock thing out to get us and all he did was laugh like he was entertained or something. And then he said to himself, “A rock golem, a real live golem. Wonders never cease.”

He looked at me and introduced himself, “Hello, I’m the Doctor.”

“I’m, uh…” I started saying. I didn’t really know what I should have said; this was the most super weirdest thing that had ever happened to me, I mean really of all the places to find a rock monster, why there?

“Wait a moment,” he said to me. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” He looked deep into my eyes like he couldn’t remember my face and needed to look at my soul or something to know who I was. “That’s it, Pinkie Pie. I almost didn’t recognize you.” He ruffled my mane and acted like he was some old friend, I thought maybe he was a friend of my dad who knew me as a foal or something. But he called me ‘Pinkie,’ nopony had ever called me ‘Pinkie’ before.

“My name is Pinkamena,” I told him. I tried to straighten my mane back to what it always was.

“Nah,” he said, “Pinkie is much cuter, you lot are better off with cute names. I remember this one pony I met, you know what his name was? Cabbage Patch. He sold cabbages. Not exactly the most creative name but it was descriptive I’ll give you that. Funny thing is I kept running into him all over the world, quite literally in fact, I was always knocking over his cabbage cart one way or another. Completely by accident mind you. ‘My cabbages!’ he would always yell. I always wondered where he ever acquired his plants, I mean really, he travels all over the world, when does he have time to grow anything?”

I started to giggle, I don’t even know why, but for some reason listening to him ramble made me feel safe. I wanted to be able to ramble on and on and on and on like that, it seemed like fun.

“There you go,” he said, “smiling is always best.”

I was about to say something but then we heard a sound from outside the cave. The Doctor shushed me and we backed up against the wall. He held some weird device in his teeth and watched the cave entrance like he was waiting for the golem to show its face. I started to get worried again; here I was, away from my family with a stranger in a cave and a monster after us for some reason I didn’t know.

The rock monster took a step right in front of the cave and paused. I think we both were thinking the same thing: Don’t look into the cave, don’t find us. Unfortunately it leaned in and saw us, I could see the smugness in its glowing eyes like it was triumphant in finding us but then the Doctor bit the thing in his mouth and it made a strange noise. The golem was temporarily discombobulated and we ran past it and kept on running because it was chasing us again.

And then…

“Pinkie,” Mrs. Cake called.

Pinkie stopped talking. The two foals were leaning on one another sound asleep.

“Pinkie, your break is over and it’s time for the foals nap,” Mrs. Cake said opening the door.

Pinkie picked up the sleeping ponies and gently put them in their crib. “Just telling them a bedtime story Mrs. Cake.”

Twilight yawned and rubbed her eyes; she was having trouble staying awake as well and with the dark room and snoozing infants, staying awake was not proving easy. The three ponies went downstairs and left the young to nap.

“Twilight, you don’t look so good. Is there something I can do or get for you?” Mrs. Cake asked.

“Maybe just something to keep me awake,” Twilight answered. She smiled to show that everything was fine.

“Well alright, I can make you some coffee if you like but don’t push yourself too hard, foals aren’t the only ones who need sleep you know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”

Mrs. Cake went into the kitchen, leaving Pinkie to run the front counter for a while. Twilight stood by wanting to ask her friend to continue the story but Pinkie was preoccupied with customers and couldn’t talk.

Finally a lull in activity let Twilight speak. “Do you think you can continue that story Pinkie?”

“Sorry, Twilight but there’s a lot to do, I have to bake and package and deal with customers and take orders. But I’ll be done in a couple of hours if you want to wait.” Mrs. Cake brought a cup of coffee and Twilight decided to sit and wait.

A couple of hours passed and Twilight sat, sleeping in a chair with her head on a table. A half eaten sandwich and half empty cup of coffee lay in front of her.

“Finished!” Pinkie yelled bouncing out of the kitchen. Twilight awoke with a start. She looked around to get her bearings; she wasn’t sure where she was for a moment. “Oh, sorry, Twilight, I didn’t know you were sleeping.”

“It’s fine Pinkie, I need to hear the rest of that story anyway,” Twilight said rubbing her eyes.

“Well… okay then.” The pink pony took a seat across from her friend. “Now let’s see, where was I?”

“You were saying something about running out of a cave,” Twilight reminded her.

“Oh yeah. So after the Doctor used his sound-device-thingamajig to confuse the golem we ran out of the cave.”

I think it was fear that let me keep up with the Doctor, he’s a really good runner you know, I bet he could even give AJ or Dashie a run for their money. The golem wasn’t very fast but it was very big and each step it took made the ground go BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

The Doctor kept trying to zap it with his gadget but for some reason it wouldn’t do anything. “Ah,” he complained, “the magnetic wave reconstruction field permeating and animating the rocks should have been neutralized with the right sonic frequency. What am I doing wrong?” Or at least he said something like that; I didn’t really understand a word of it.

The Doctor stopped running and the golem was catching up to us fast. I panicked but the Doctor just kept messing with that gadget saying, “Come on, come on.” When the monster got close I looked at the Doctor and tried to make him see it running at us but he just wouldn’t pay attention so I closed my eyes and screamed as loud as I could. When I opened my eyes I saw the golem standing there looking like it was in pain.

The Doctor looked like he was struck with inspiration but what he did next still kind of confuses me. He took out a large quill and asked me, “Pinkie, are you ticklish?”

I just stared back at him; I didn’t have time to respond before he started tickling me. I tried to tell him to stop but it was too much fun and I couldn’t stop laughing, so I laughed and laughed. The golem made a desperate grab for us but it fell apart before it reached us and turned back into regular rocks.

The Doctor stopped tickling me finally and went to look at the remains. I calmed down and asked him what happened.

“A singular sonic wavelength wasn’t enough to compensate for the electromagnetic radiation’s tendency to change frequency in order to hold the molecular bond. We needed a high pitch variable pulsating wave that changed hertz as it went to, um...” he looked at me and must have realized I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. “Uh, your laughing broke it.”

“Is it... dead?” I asked.

“It was never really alive,” he answered.

“But, if you knew how to stop it then why didn’t you earlier?”

“Well I had hoped to capture it and trace the magnetic radiation back to its source,” he said as he picked up one of the smaller rocks and looked it over. “Maybe I still can.”

Some strange noise came from his jacket and he took out some weird new device and held it up to the side of his head. “Good timing,” he said into it. He waited for a moment like somepony else was talking to him. “No, it’s gone now. Had to destroy it before it destroyed us.” He paused again. “I don’t think we have to. The green one you used earlier had the opposite effect, it actually strengthened the molecular bond and now that I dismantled it a residual trace amount remains on the rock. Though probably not for long.” Another pause. “Right, I’ll be right over.”

“Okay then, nice to meet you Pinkie but I have a very important job to do, so run along home now, yes?” he said with a smile. He started to walk away.

“Wait,” I yelled. “Which way is home?” It wasn’t until now that I realized how far we had run; I couldn’t even recognize the landscape, it was all some valley with trees all around.

“Uh, well it was…” he said looking around. “Oh, very well, come with me. But don’t wander off.”

And so we ran some more, through the trees and up and down hills following that same talking device he was using before. Until finally we just stopped, right in the middle of nowhere, a big clearing in the middle of a bunch of trees. The Doctor put away his talky thing, raised a hoof out in front of him and knocked... on nothing. It was the strangest thing, I could hear knocking like he was hitting a door but there was nothing there, all I could see was him miming knocking on a door and somehow making the sound.

He put his hoof down and waited. Finally I heard a beep and the air in front of us opened like a door and I could see the inside of a building but there was no outside of it, just an inside through this one doorway in the air. The Doctor walked in and I stayed right next to him. I was kind of scared but mostly just excited and confused.

“Invisibility,” he said to me. “Helps to keep the unwanted out.”

We walked down a hallway and entered a huge room full of ponies in uniform and all kinds of weird stuff and gadgets and boxes. There were ponies dragging boxes and crates across the room and other ponies following them marking things down on paper. There were ponies that seemed to be unpacking the weirdest devices I’ve ever seen, things I can’t even describe; strange metal claws, a crystal that transformed and floated when touched, and lots of other stuff. There was also a tall blue box in the corner of the room that nopony seemed to pay attention to, it wasn’t until later that I found out it was the Doctor’s blue box.

A female pony wearing a green military uniform and hat walked up to us. She was yellow with a greenish mane that was tied back. “Doctor,” she greeted with a salute. She turned her head and looked at me with a glare. I shrunk back a bit; there were a lot of new things that day and I really didn’t understand any of it, I think I just wanted to go home right then. “She’s not your usual companion.”

“This is Pinkie Pie. Pinkie, this is major Cross Sword,” he introduced us.

“You do know this is a secret facility don’t you?” asked Cross Sword.

“Well I couldn’t just leave her on her own, she’d be lost. Besides she won’t cause trouble, will you Pinkie?”

I shook my head.

The mare sighed and asked, “Did you bring it?”

“Right here,” the Doctor said pulling one of the rocks out of his jacket. “We may only have a matter of minutes left.”

“Then we can’t waste anymore time. Follow me.”

We walked across the room and came to a set of double doors. I stopped and looked above them; there were big letters carved into the stone wall overhead. U.T.O.P.I.A. The Doctor called me, snapping me out of a trance and I followed him into the room.

This room was different, and I mean different. The last room was huge with a really high ceiling and all the walls were stone, but this one was smaller with a normal ceiling height. There was a window, which was nice, and a big map on one of the walls. There were all kinds of test tubes and microscopes and science-y stuff everywhere. Off in the corner was a small cage next to some big panel on the floor. I walked up to see what was inside and when I got close a scary growl made me jump; it was a baby timber wolf.

The Doctor put the rock under the microscope and an image of it appeared on a big screen next to it. The Doctor touched the screen and made it do and say all kinds of weird things. But there was something else that I was more interested in. “Doctor,” I asked, “what’s U.T.O.P.I.A?”

“Underground Terrestrial Observatory and Ponykind Intelligence Agency,” he answered without looking away from what he was doing. “An organization dedicated to…”

“Doctor!” Sword interrupted. “That information is classified.”

“Oh lighten up will you? Even if she tells somepony it’s not like they would understand,” he argued back.

“Even so I can’t have such information be spoken so freely. If it were my choice I never would have pulled you into the loop Doctor. After all, you are the biggest mystery of them all. I don’t know why the higher ups trust you so much.”

“You should consider yourself lucky that I’m helping you at all.”

Sword rolled her eyes and turned her attention to me. “Just stand to the side and don’t touch anything okay?”

“Humph,” I said. Then I stuck my tongue out at her and walked back to the timber wolf cage.

The Doctor chuckled. “You certainly have a way with kids don’t you?”

“Oh, shut up,” she responded.

“Hello... What are you?” the Doctor asked looking at the image of the rock.

“What is it?” Sword asked. “Have you found the source?”

They walked over to the big map and the Doctor started pointing around it and marking places with little red dots. He and Sword were talking about something but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was starting to get hungry and all I wanted was to go home. I walked over to the weird floor panel next to the cage and started poking it; I didn’t really have anything better to do at that moment. Then I heard a beep and the panel started to hum.

“Uh-oh,” I said quietly.

Suddenly I was lifted above the panel and started to float in mid air. I felt something almost prickly all over, it tickled and I started to laugh and laugh and laugh. The Doctor and Sword turned and ran up to me and just stared at me like something wasn’t right, I didn’t care much though it was fun.

“The containment field, why is she affected?” Sword asked.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense,” the Doctor said, “unless… Oh! Of course.” He smacked his forehead. “Why didn’t I think of it before? The oscillating resonance frequency. If we calibrate the containment field generator to the correct frequency we can contain the outbreak and trap the creatures it creates in a cutoff area. We might not be able to get rid of it but at least we can permanently seal it off.”

The Doctor turned off the panel and the ticklish feeling wore off. I suddenly realized that I wasn’t being held up anymore and fell but the Doctor caught me. He told me I was brilliant for some reason and laughed triumphantly.

“Uh, Mr. Doctor,” I said, “can I go home now?”

The Doctor looked almost shocked like he had forgotten that he was supposed to be taking me home. “Oh, yes, of course,” he said. “My assistant knows the way, I’ll ask her to take you back. Just wait here a moment.”

He left the room leaving me with Cross Sword. The two of us just stood there awkwardly waiting.

The Doctor came back with a pegasus, probably the same one who was supposed to throw the ‘not green’ stuff. She, at least I think it was a she, wore a big overcoat that only exposed gray wings and a blue and yellow tail. Her mane was black but it looked more like a wig to me and she wore these big glasses that hid her eyes. Oh, and she had a mustache, I don’t know why.

Cross Sword looked at her in disbelief and asked, “Why are you wearing all that Di—”

“Shh,” interrupted the pegasus. “Ix-nay the aim-nay”

“What?” Sword asked.

“Never mind,” the pegasus said. She walked up to me and looked me in the eye. “You were so cute.”

“Huh?” I asked. This pony didn’t make any sense at all.

“Uh, I mean I hear you want to go home. How about I fly you there?”

“Okay,” I said. “My name is Pinkamena.”

“You can call me, uh, Blue...” she said looking around, “...Diamond.”

“Blue Diamond?” I asked. It really didn’t seem like a name I would expect.

“Yep. Blue Diamond,” she said. “Now come on, let’s get you home.”

She wrapped me in her forelegs and lifted us into the air. She flew through the doors, rooms and hallways until we got outside where she took to the skies. It was awesome being up high like that for the first time; I could see for forever; all the trees and hills we ran through and different buildings way off in the distance. Blue Diamond turned and raced off in one direction. The flight was even more amazing than the sights; all the wind blowing through my mane and the feeling of being off the ground, I stretched my legs out and pretended I was the one flying.

Blue Diamond was a pretty good flier too, although she did make a few random twists and turns sometimes. I couldn’t tell if she did it for fun or because she needed to figure out where she was going.

Finally we landed just a small distance from my house. She set me down and said, “See ya Pinkie,” before flying off. I stood there watching her become a small dot in the distance and thought to myself, she’s the second pony to call me by that name.

“Pinkamena!” I heard a voice call from behind me. It was my mother who ran up and hugged me. “Where have you been? We were worried sick.” She turned her head and called to the rest of my family. “She’s over here!”

Everypony else, my father and my sisters, all came running to us and started asking me the same things. ‘Where were you?’ ‘What happened?’

Suddenly there was a loud noise in the distance that scared away a huge flock of birds. The sound pulsed with a slow and steady ‘wub, wub, wub.’ My father ordered us all into the house and we all ran for cover.

“After that I tried to tell my family what happened but they didn’t believe me, they thought I was just making up an imaginary friend. Can you believe that?” asked Pinkie with a chuckle.

Twilight sat across from her friend, staring at Pinkie. Twilight’s mouth hung open a little; she wasn’t really sure how she should react to what she just heard. Rock monsters, secret organizations, timber wolves, random pegasus (clown?), the loud noise, it was all a bit too much to take in. “Is that all true?”

“Of course silly, I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t true,” Pinkie said.

Twilight sat back and tried to process the information. So far she was left with more questions than answers and if that was all Pinkie knew then she might have hit a dead end. She had to know if there was anything more to the story, anything her friend might have left out or overlooked.

Twilight leaned forward. “Is that all you know? Was there anything else? Did you ever see the Doctor again?”

“Well,” Pinkie said stroking her chin, “there was one other time, but it was only very brief.”

“Tell me,” Twilight pleaded.

“Well I got my cutie mark about a month after I first met him, you already know that story, and one of my sisters got her cutie mark a few months after me. I insisted on throwing her a big party of course, I mean you can’t earn a cutie mark and not celebrate right? So I went out to get streamers and balloons and cake ingredients and everything else I would need to throw my sister the best cutie mark celebration ever. And as I was coming back home, that’s when I saw him…”

I was walking home from the nearby market all by myself and up on one of the hills, standing tall, was his big blue box. The Doctor sat next to it, his back turned to me. Together they cast a long shadow across the ground. It was only a couple of hours before sunset and I think he was watching the sky slowly change color as he waited for something.

I wasn’t sure if it was really him at first but I ran up to him anyway. “Doctor?” I called. He turned his head and smiled at me, I knew it was him now. “Doctor it is you!” When I got closer I could see the expression on his face clearly; he smiled without showing his teeth like he was happy, but his eyes looked sad.

“Hello, Pinkamena,” he said.

“Where’s your pegasus friend?” I asked.

He turned his head back and stared across the landscape. “Your world is so beautiful, do you know that?” he asked me. “So little suffering, so little pain. Even with those rare moments.”

“What are you talking about?”

The Doctor stood up. “It was good to see you again but my time is running out, I’ll need to be off.” He walked into the box and said one last thing before closing the doors. “Don’t worry though, you’ll see me again someday.” Then I saw for the first time the Doctor’s magic box disappear before my eyes.

“And that was the last time I saw him,” Pinkie finished.

Twilight sat back thinking over the information or lack thereof. It seemed like now, if she wanted to find out about the Doctor, her only lead was a secret organization that might have existed a long time ago. The more she looked into the matter the less she really understood.

A cuckoo clock on the wall chimed announcing the hour of seven o’clock. “It’s getting Pretty late Twilight, don’t you need to go home and feed Spike?” Pinkie pointed out.

“I guess you’re right,” Twilight said finally realizing that she left her number one assistant alone all afternoon in pursuit of the most elusive of knowledge. She stood, thanked Pinkie for her help, said goodbye, and started the walk home. Along the way she couldn’t help but wonder if her search was completely futile. Maybe she should just give up on it.

Back in the library, Spike positioned the last book in its place, finally reorganizing the entire collection. “Finally done.” His stomach growled and he looked at the clock calculating just how long it had been since his last meal. “And not a moment too soon. Wonder what we have for food.”

The dragon started to walk towards the kitchen when a knock at the door interrupted him. He stood conflicted, should he answer the door or find food? A second set of three taps answered for him.

It must be Twilight, he thought. I bet she locked herself out or something. As he approached the door he talked loud enough for whoever it was to hear him. “Twilight? Did the door get locked or...” he opened the door to find nopony there, “...something?”

Spike looked around, he was completely alone, not a single creature walking away from the library, not a pegasus or bird flying away. He looked down and saw a package addressed to one Twilight Sparkle, no address, no signature, just her name written in bold on the brown wrapping.

He picked up the package in one claw and brought it inside closing the door behind him. He looked confused and scratched his head with a finger. Spike set the parcel on Twilight’s desk and quickly forgot about it; he had food to think about after all.

A few minutes later as Spike was fixing dinner in the kitchen, Twilight opened the door and walked inside. Spike walked out of the kitchen to greet her. “Twilight, welcome back. Is everything okay?” he asked noticing her frown, slow walk, and inattentive gaze.

Twilight sighed. “I couldn’t find out anything substantive about the Doctor.”

“Wait, I thought you went out to see your friends,” Spike said.

“I went to ask Pinkie and Applejack if they knew anything and now I’m left knowing even less than before if that’s possible.”

“Maybe it’s time you threw in the towel.”

Twilight sighed again. “Maybe you’re right.” The thought of giving up didn’t sit well in her stomach but at this point what else could she do? “I think I’m just going to go to bed.” As she walked to the staircase leading to her bedroom she noticed the package on her desk. “Spike what’s this?” she asked levitating it with magic.

Spike shrugged. “Somepony left it at the door.”

Twilight inspected the package all over. “Who brought it? It doesn’t say who it’s from.”

“Dunno.”

Twilight unwrapped the paper. Inside was a book, a small blue book with a picture of an hourglass on the cover. Twilight raised an eyebrow as she looked it over; there was no title or wording of any kind. Then, as if by some unseen magic, words began to appear under the hourglass.

“The Legend of The Blue Box,” she read aloud. Her eyes widened, if this was the same ‘blue box’ that the Doctor was known for traveling in she might finally have a lead.

Twilight held it with her hooves and tried to open it but the book remained shut.

“What the…” she remarked.

She struggled even harder trying to pry the book open but it easily resisted any attempt she could make. It didn’t even make any sense; there was no lock or latch keeping it closed, it was clearly a real book with pages and binding but for some reason it could not be opened.

“Oh come on!” she yelled.

“What’s the matter Twilight?” Spike asked.

“This stupid thing won’t open,” she said tossing the book on the floor.

“Wha…?” Spike said as he picked up the book and tried and failed to open it.

Twilight marched up the stairs in a huff. She’d had it with today; it seemed like some unseen force in the universe was out to taunt her with information that she wasn’t allowed to have. Screw the Doctor, screw the book, screw the whole thing. In fact, screw the whole universe. Right now she needed sleep.

After Twilight left the room Spike set the book someplace safe and went back to making his dinner. As he walked back to the kitchen he burped and a new scroll materialized in front of him. He picked it up and started to read mumbling his way through most of it.

“Dear miss Sparkle, hmm-mm, might be relevant, hmm-mm, centuries ago a pony was found dead, hmm-mm, autopsy, hmm-mm, the pony had two hearts?” He stopped skimming over the scroll and ran to the stairs. “Twilight!”

The moment he realized how this might send her into a new knowledge crazed spiral he stopped and hid the scroll behind his back.

“What is it Spike?” Twilight asked appearing at the top of the stairs.

“Uh,” he responded looking for some excuse. “Just, uh... have a good night.”

“Yeah, you too,” she said going back into her room.

Spike sighed in relief. There really wasn’t any reason she needed to know about this yet, sleep was definitely more important. He hid the scroll someplace Twilight would never find it, exactly where it should go on one of the bookshelves, and went back to preparing food.