Time travelling with Spike and Doctor Whooves

Chapter 2. Doctor Whooves.

It was night time in Ponyville, everything was quiet, the fillies and colts had stopped playing outside and had already gone to bed, the mares had sung a lullaby to their kids and the stallions were getting some sleep after a hard day of work, and the princess of friendship did as well, she had a long afternoon after the gem hunt with Rarity and Spike, she had to write down a whole book on everything she learned, only to read it again and again later on the week with no specific reason.

But her assistant wasn't sleeping, in fact, he was grabbing a backpack and some things for tonight, if everything went according to the plan, then the night would last longer than he was expecting, the dragon grabbed a camera for everything he would see, a little bag full of gems he had 'borrowed forever' from the gem hunt and some other stuff; a lantern, a box of matches, a pair of batteries, a little notebook, a pen and a little audio recorder.

Spike was ready now, he was going to go to the doctor's home and ask him to join him into this time travel thing, but there were a lot of things that could go wrong, the doctor could say no, the strange bubble inside the cavern could not be a time machine after all, or maybe they could get into huge troubles with the time paradoxes if the old bunch of metal turns out to be a time machine.

Spike didn't give much importance to those possibilities and just wanted to go and find out if that thing worked; with caution, Spike took steps as quietly as he could, to not wake up the alicorn by accident, Spike stepped out of the castle, and closed the doors behind him with care.

Once he was out, Spike grabbed his backpack, breathed silently and ran towards the house of the doctor, as he ran through Ponyville he looked at everything around him, the buildings, the ponies inside, the flowers, he wondered if everything would look the same in the future or in the past, and the attitude of everypony? He was also wondering if that would change as well.

Eventually he arrived at his house, Spike knocked silently on the door, there was no response, he knocked normally on the door once more, there was no answer this time either, Spike knocked ten times as hard, almost bringing the entire house down.

"Oh my Ponystein! Who's there, by science's sake?!" Replied an angry voice behind the door.

"It's Spike, the assistant of the princess of friendship!" Replied the dragon.

"Ugh, is it about that debt for her watch? I said I would return it on Sunday!" Said the male voice inside the house.

"No! I'm here for a different reason!"

"Then why are you here in the middle of the night?!"

"Because I need you to figure out how a machine works!"

The voice behind the door stayed silent, as if he couldn't believe what he heard, then the locks on the doors began to unlock, then the door opened and Spike saw the imponent figure of a stallion with messy hair and cold eyes, probably because the dragon had awoken him in the middle of the night.

"A machine?! You're here to know how a printor, a computer or a fax machine works?! Is that so important that you couldn't wait until tomorrow?!" Said Doctor Whooves with a sleepy yet menacing tone.

"It's more than just any machine, this is a time machine we're talking about!" Replied Spike.

The doctor looked surprised, he didn't know if this kid was serious, after a little moment of silence, the doctor waved his hoof at himself, motioning the dragon to go inside the house. When Spike was inside his house he looked around, the room was illuminated by one light bulb on the ceiling, and on the walls were photos of important scientists in pony history, the furniture of this guy was also interesting, there were lots of devices for all sorts of things, even the clock looked like a robot.

"Tell me, is that 'time machine' you're talking about even real?" Said the doctor, sitting down on a couch.

"Yes! I found it in a cave when I was in a gem hunt with my best friends!" Replied Spike.

"What is a 'gem hunt'?" Asked the doctor.

"Well, that doesn't matter, but when we found it we also found a note that said something about destroying the machine and..."

"What?! Why would they want to destroy something like a time machine?!" Interrupted the doctor with surprise.

"I don't know, but they seemed really serious with it." Replied Spike, shrugging.

"Do you have that note?" Asked back the doctor.

"Uh, no, we left it along with the time machine in the cave." Replied the dragon.

"And why didn't you destroy it like that guy asked you to?"

"We thought it would be dangerous, but did you really want us to destroy it? I thought that maybe you would be interested in travelling through time." Replied Spike, looking confused.

"Oh, I would love nothing less in the world, it's been my dream since I was a foal, I wanted to visit the past to rectify some historical mistakes and myths, and I also wanted to travel to the future to see the evolution of pony kind, I even made a list of the places I would like to visit if I got the chance of doing it!" Replied the doctor, losing himself in his memories and imagination.

Spike didn't say a word, he watched as the doctor lost himself in his own mind, in fact, he remembered Twilight being like this pony, he remembered Twilight wanting to reach the moon as a filly, he also remembered Twilight being horribly obsessed with books after she discovered Starswirl the bearded, which reminded him of the time Future Twilight supposedly came to warn everypony about a disaster.

Spike watched the stallion, he was an earth pony, so he couldn't just do the spell for it, but this guy seemed like a guy that loved science, so he wondered if the doctor had tried building a time machine or asking a unicorn to take him with them to visit the past.

"Did you try building a time machine?" Asked Spike, after some moments of silence.

"Yes, I tried building a time machine with the ability of going everywhere in the universe, but it didn't end well after it's power source exploded and sent me to the hospital with a broken back leg." Replied the doctor, looking a little sheepish.

"And why didn't you just ask a unicorn with the power to send you back to the past or the future to take you with them?" Asked Spike, remembering the time when Twilight did it.

"For what I've heard, it takes a lot of magic to go back a month, do you have any idea of the power needed to travel back to the time when dinosaurs ruled the planet? I don't think even Princess Celestia has that power, besides, I don't get along very well with unicorns, some of them believe they can do anything just because they have magic and I want to prove cience is better than magic; mathematics and physics are the type of spells needed to learn how the world around us works, not some 'magical sparkles' that emerge from an extra limb." Replied the doctor with a lost stare, a cold stare for that matter.

"Ooo-kay, changing the subject, would you help me with this machine?" Said Spike, snapping his fingers to bring the doctor back to reality.

"Sure, we'll get going at first hour in the morning and..."

"No! We have to go now!" Interrupted Spike.

"What? What for?"

"I can't leave tomorrow because... because I... umm... I'll get sent to the dragon lands to work there!" Said Spike, the doctor gave him a questioning look before shrugging.

"Well, alright then, we'll leave in thirty minutes!" Proclaimed the doctor.

"Thirty minutes?" Questioned Spike.

"Yes, I always wanted to travel through time, I absolutely MUST pack some things if we're going to go to the past! Oh, and I must remember where I put my list!" Said the doctor before running inside his bedroom, looking for some stuff to bring with him.

"Gosh, if I didn't need him to figure out how the thing works then I would've left alone. I'm begging he doesn't turn out to be just like Twilight."

Spike knew that the doctor was going to be as excited as a kid in a candy store when he sees the machine, so Spike sat on a couch and waited for the doctor to come out, this will indeed be a long night after all, a night he wouldn't forget.