The Return of Doctor Whooves

There are things out there in the big and vast universe nopony understands. Things that would want to gobble you up and swallow you whole without a second thought. And sometimes, those things escape to Equestria, either it being to flee some sort of bigger and scarier thing, or just falling through cracks in space and time. You see, it's a little known fact, but the city of Canterlot was built unknowingly on a rift in space and time. It took a lot of hard work and effort by Princess Celestia to cover up this fact to avoid inciting mass panic, and even more hard work and effort to understand this rift. But that wasn't the only problems faced by the Solar Monarch. Like I said, sometimes things fall through. Monstrous beings so horrible they would give you nightmares that would never make you want to sleep again. Sleep, that's a main theme of this episode. Dreams as well. But I'm getting ahead of myself. What we must focus on is the continuation of the story of the organization formed to stop and contain the rift breaches. Nopony knew when it was first formed, but the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense was formed for this exact purpose. They existed for years, working in secret, capturing and containing the various creatures coming through the breaches. Until, suddenly, the rift closed, with nopony knowing why. (Celestia often suspected the Doctor had a hoof in this, but she never asked.) Without a purpose, the Bureau was shut down and it's secrets laid dormant for years. But that was then and this is now. With the arrival of the Doctor, and the Weeping Angels, along with numerous other threats to Equestria like the Daleks and the Windigos, Celestia knew it was time to revive the organization, under a new name. That name? R.I.F.T.

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Now: The Bunker

"Ugh, do we really have to move and catalogue all this crap?" The former captain of the Night Guard, Galaxy Swirls grimaced, in no way in a good mood. He'd left the Night Guard after the Windigo invasion, citing "Shellshock" as his own personal reasoning. He'd even refused treatment (Threatening to cut their heads off with his scythe, or drain their blood along with other various violent actions. To this day, nopony could actually tell if he was just joking around in his own half-crazed manner or not.) by the good doctors and nurses at the Canterlot Hospital. Both Princess Luna and Princess Celestia knew better, Galaxy was lying about his supposed "Shellshock" and knew that he had recently become very interested in the Para and Extranormal qualities that lay out there in the dark, lying in secret just waiting for them to expose themselves once more. It also didn't help his case that Celestia had noticed the secretive glances the Bat-Pony took towards Sunburst when he thought nopony else was looking.

"Well, with what we've been left with... I'd say yeah." Another pony, one with green fur and a crosshairs for her Cutie Mark replied dryly to him as she came down one of two staircases that led to the upper entranceway. The walls were a plain beige color, illuminated by lights in the walls with intricate designs carved into the metal railings on the steps and walkways. "The Bureau didn't do exactly a good job of cleaning up after themselves after everything folded."

"Puh! I'll say!" Galaxy chortled as he reorganized some books he'd found in a cardboard box. The books had titles like "Ghouls, Ghosts and Demons, Exorcism for You" and "Monster Killing for Dummies: The Abridged Version". Without his Night Guard armor, Galaxy's finely toned body from years upon years of training in the guard could be seen. He had pure black fur, and a dark brown mane along with pure black wings with a shield with a scythe on it for his Cutie Mark. He took a glance, and then a quick read through of the book he was currently holding, a hardbacked book with a red cover and gold lettering reading "Exorcising Zebrawa Demons, 101 things you may want to know" and sighed. What use was all of this? Demons hadn't been sighted, not even in rumor in Equestria or any other land beyond it for years. It was like the Bureau was just built on over-preparedness, or paranoia as Galaxy preferred to think of it.

"Well, look on the bright side, you can put this on your 1,000 things you did before you died". A light grey pegasus with a scroll with a quill over it as his Cutie Mark chirped merrily. His name was Scrabbling Quill, a young pony who Celestia had recruited for his superior organizational skills and kind heartness. However, that wasn't his most glaring trait. That belonged to his constant over eagerness to help out in anyway he could, often to the point of annoyance of everypony around him.

"Pretty sure that's not what it's called, Quill." Another pegasi, one with tan fur and a red mane with a pair of glasses set nicely on his face deadpanned as he briefly glanced up from the crossword puzzle that was currently occupying his mind before getting right back to it. His wife, the pony with green fur and a target on her flank gave him a look of annoyance and sighed in resignation. Nothing, it seemed, not even her, could get Sudoku's mind off a puzzle once he started it. This wasn't always a bad thing, but when everypony was supposed to be pitching in and doing their part to clean up and reorganize the new R.I.F.T Headquarters, it really grated on her last nerves.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be helping?" Target Quartermane barked, making Sudoku jump slightly from the sheer loudness of her voice.

"Sorry, so sorry, but you know h-how it is with me and puzzles." Sudoku swiftly apologized. In the background, Scrabbling snickered and said "Whipped." before a harsh glare was sent in his direction by Target.

"Want me to rub your hooves? You know how much you like that..." Sudoku said flirtatiously and Target gazed upon him with half lidded eyes and stroked his chin, before whispering to him "Hmm, I'll think about it..." in a seductive voice that made Sudoku shudder in anticipation for what was surely to come later. In the background, Galaxy mimed a gagging noise while Scrabbling made kissy sounds earning them both harsh looks. Target groaned, honestly, the stallions she worked with were such idiots sometimes. Just then, she caught Galaxy eying a blade that looked as if it had been made from a jawbone and quickly took it away from him.

"Hey, don't touch that! You don't know what kinds of curses might be on that! Could turn you into a demon for all you know!" Target barked, before setting the blade down on a nearby table that had a map of Equus on it before she stormed off, finally fed up with her comrade's idiocy. But when nopony was looking, Galaxy grinned and took the blade and hid it in a pocket of the brown leather jacket that he wore. Then, a thought came to him.

"Hey, where's Sunburst?"

The Vaults

The Vaults, as they were known were only for keeping the most dangerous of artifacts and creatures that fallen through the cracks scattered throughout Canterlot. It had taken the Bureau years to collect everything that they'd found, and keep it safe from dangerous hooves. Inside the corridor, it was dark and dingy, with what little light provided coming from warehouse level lighting hanging from the concrete ceiling. Sunburst walked nervously through the corridors, various creatures roaring and screeching at him from their magically warded cells. At one point, he passed a particularly unusual creature, one that resembled some freakish cross between a bug and a bear, with most of it's body a grizzly bear, but with bug's wings and a bee's stinger attached to the very end of it.

"O-Oh my..." Sunburst whispered as the "Bug-Bear" (As nopony had could think of anything else to call it) roared at him, spitting... well spit in his face, beard and glasses. Rubbing them clean with a soft cloth, Sunburst sighed as he looked towards another cell, where the Weeping Angel the Doctor, Shining and Celestia herself had tricked into looking into it's own reflection now sat along with it's icy mirror. Sunburst shuddered, that thing, even when it sat unmoving, still gave him chills. Sunburst, even now, remembered Celestia's very words on the creature.

"S-so far as we can see ma'am, it's been dormant. Actually, I d-dare say it might be dead at this point." He explained nervously.

Celestia shook her head.

"No, Sunburst. Make no mistake, this thing is not dead. Only dormant. It's biding it's time, and you and I both know it. If it weren't for it's reflection in front of it, this thing would go on the rampage and kill us all."

Sunburst, on hearing those words took a step or two back.

"I... I see. E-Even you, ma'am?" He stuttered.

"Yes, even me." Celestia finished. Sunburst swallowed. Even the pay he got wasn't worth this...

"Yep, still not worth it." Sunburst muttered to himself as he looked towards another cell, where the statue of Discord, still in his fearful expression from being blasted with the Elements of Harmony sat, after being moved here from the Canterlot Royal Gardens. Celestia's official explanation was that he was a dangerous artifact, and so deserved to be placed here, though rumor had it that it was just really because the statue was freaking everypony out. Sunburst personally believed the latter. It certainly scared him.

"Oh great, so we're starting statue collections now?" Came a slightly teasing voice from behind him. Sunburst turned a full 180 degrees to face the voice's owner, a teal blue pegasus with a yellow lightning bolt (Matching her manestyle perfectly) with stardust below it as her Cutie Mark. Yep, Lightning Dust was part of R.I.F.T as well. Her reasoning for being here was because that the Royal Guard didn't quite get the adventure she was hoping for as all it turned out to be was just standing around guarding things half the time, and she'd worked off her community service anyways, so she was free to do as she pleased. She hoped being in R.I.F.T would provide her the adventure she desperately craved, and perhaps a bit of redemption in the process for all the bad she'd done. After all, it was an alien who nearly made her commit her greatest crime against Equestria, help kill Princess Celestia, and therefore she wanted to get back at any other bad aliens who came to Equestria, and be on the front lines of those battlefields.

"B-Believe me, those statues are nothing to joke about." Sunburst whispered, gesturing to Discord, whose "Jokes" had become infamous from before he was a statue. Sunburst had done his reading. Before both of the Royal Sisters had harnessed the powers of the Elements of Harmony for the first time, the world was in chaos for one hundred years, nothing making sense. It seemed hopeless, until the Elements turned Discord into a statue for the first time. And that was saying nothing about the high danger level of the Weeping Angel statue. Sunburst probably was being paranoid, but he could swear both of the statues were seemingly following him and Lightning's every move, impossible as it was.

Suddenly, there was a snarling sound as a animalistic creature wearing a boiler suit jumped towards the two from it's cell, it's fang like teeth bared and ready to chomp down on the blood-veins of Lightning's and Sunburst's necks before it was suddenly pushed back by the magical warding set up back when the Bureau was still in operation.

"Okay, what the Tartarus is THAT thing?" Lightning exclaimed in disgust. Sunburst read the small golden plaque above the cell, which read in bold faced letters "Weevil: Janet".

"Okay, so it's called a Weevil... and apparently it's named Janet." Sunburst replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Somepony has a warped sense of humor, if ya ask me." Lightning muttered before she turned towards the big metal door that had a wheel on it that you had to turn to unlock said door. "C'mon, let's get out of here, this place gives me the creeps."

The twosome made their way back up to the main level of the R.I.F.T headquarters where they found everything STILL in the middle of being reorganized and checked for curses. Sudoku had stopped working on his crossword and was now reciting a spell from a book to check a pure golden fiddle for any spells laid upon it. Sunburst's eyes widened. He recognized that particular fiddle, it was the exact same fiddle Tirek used as an offering for when he challenged a young Appleloosan pony to a fiddle duel. Through the years, it had made it's way from the pony who'd defeated Tirek through the hooves of private collectors to now here. Nearby Galaxy Swirls was putting a jar filled with an ethereal dark blue mist in a safe and locking it away. Sunburst knew what this was as well thanks to his extensive research. This was the last known remaining essence of Nightmare Moon. He even knew how it had ended up here.

"Do you really think you can stop me, Twilight Sparkle? You're just a simple unicorn, while I am a goddess! I am the night itself, and I WILL make it last forever!" A pure black pony with a mane of stars and wearing blue armor yelled at her foe. "And don't get me started on those friends of yours. Newsflash for you. Friendship is. A. LIE!"

Twilight glared harshly at her foe, while they stood in the ruins of an old and crumbling castle. Nearby, her newfound friends from Ponyville watched in shock and fear.

"No, that's not true. Friendship exists and you know, deep down Princess!" She pleaded, but the incarnation of nightmares and the shadows themselves were not willing to listen.

"DO NOT CALL ME THAT! I am not Princess Luna, there is only Nightmare Moon!" The being who was once Celestia's sister roared in rage. The shadows themselves seemed to grow colder and darker, as if they had minds of their own. But that wasn't possible, was it? Twilight ignored them even as they reached for her and charged at her opponent. Nightmare burst out laughing at the sight.

"You seriously think that'll work?"

Twilight came closer. Nightmare gaped for a second.

"...Wow, guess she is serious." She said, stunned.

She readied herself but Twilight didn't attack. Instead she slid right under the dark Alicorn goddess and to the chest beyond pulling out it's contents with her magic.

"Here, catch!"

With that, Twilight tossed the items known in legend as the Elements of Harmony to her friends.

"You want a demonstration of friendship, Nightmare? Here, I've got one JUST for you!" Twilight shouted as the Elements charged up and a golden crown with the final element, Magic appeared on her head. Then, six bright beams of light came out and fired, directing themselves towards the Nightmare spirit. All while this happened, as Nightmare screamed "NOOOOOO!" in a mix of pure rage and terror, there was a familiar sound, that in the chaos, nopony noticed.

*VWOOP! VWOOP! VWOOP!*

A dark blue box reading "Police Public Call Box" appeared behind a pillar and the Doctor still in his ponified Tenth form stepped out of it holding a jar and as Nightmare Moon's essence evaporated and cleared away to reveal the form of Princess Luna, a small portion of that essence was sucked into that jar that the Doctor held and he slammed the lid on it tightly and turned it and it locked with a click.

"So, where were you two?" Target inquired with a raised eyebrow before an amused smirk that would have made Discord proud came to her face, making both Sunburst and Lightning very nervous indeed. "Don't tell me you two were off kissing in a closet someplace?" She laughed, and if you listened closely, you could hear Galaxy Swirls make a small hissing sound of jealously.

"N-No, no, anything but that!" Sunburst denied as he and his companion's faces flushed red.

"If you say so..." Target singsonged, not entirely believing them before her face turned stern. "Now get back to work you maggots!"

Sunburst, as he began to place books on bookshelves and taking them out of their cardboard boxes, mumbled quietly to himself "What did she think we were doing? Honestly, she's worst than that Wonderbolts captain... Oh, what's her name...? Spitfire! Yeah, that's it. All she needs a whistle..." and sighed as he hung his head. Life really sucked for him sometimes. But even as he grumbled away to himself, nopony ever noticed the jar that held Nightmare Moon's essence click and open itself with the mist slipping out through an open window and if you just listened closely, you could hear a small cackle.

"At last, my chance to take my revenge has arrived. Soon, those damned ponies who locked me away, especially that "Doctor" shall feel my wrath. And I know just the perfect way to stab them in their perfect little pony hearts. After all, what better way to break a pony's spirit than by the betrayal of one of their own...?"