Episode 1: The Grasp of Nightmare
Explosions streaked the interior of the main console room. The TARDIS rocked violently inside of the time vortex. The ship was sputtering, lights and equipment were sparking. The Doctor was thrown against the guard rails surrounding the TARDIS console as he tried to move around to find out what was causing his vessel to rip itself apart. “Come on girl, hold it together,” he cooed to the console. “Just have to find a place to set you dow-”
At that moment, the navigation controls exploded beneath the Doctor, throwing him back into the rails for a second time.Hooking his arm over the bar, he tried to get up but his strength gave out on him. His muscles began to shut down. The Doctor tried to keep himself awake as the TARDIS died around him. He could hear the warning sounds as breaches in the dimensions in part of the ship began to go offline. He could see the floor giving out and the lights on the wall sputter and die. In the end it was too much for him and the Doctor slipped away into darkness.
The Doctor began to wake up, his vision shifting between blurry and clear, but after a while the effect wore off and the Doctor could see what had happened to the TARDIS. After his sight returned, his hearing, which was just a slight ringing at the time, began to come back to him. The Doctor looked around him at the destruction his latest trip had caused. It was a horrific sight. The TARDIS, once a beautiful ship, had become a dark pit with sparking wires and flickering lights.
“Wha- What happened?” the Doctor groaned, shaking his head. “I was just on my way from... come to think of it, I don’t remember. I want to say I was going to arbitrate a peace treaty with the Slitheen on Raxacoricofallapatorius but I know that’s not right.” The Doctor stopped suddenly, his eyes wide open. “New voice, new voice?” He sat in a position of fear and disbelief. “No, no, NO!” The Doctor began the search to check his new body and held up his ‘hands.’ In their place he saw hooves. The Doctor stared at them in careful contemplation. Looking to his left hoof, he went to his right, then back to left. Then, out of nowhere, he screamed, “What happened to my hands? What are these things?” He looked down, still yelling “Why am I naked? Where are my clothes? Where’s my sonic?” He continued to shout for a few minutes longer before finally calming himself down.
“Okay, new body, need to get used to that. New ears, mouth, tongue. Ooh, I have a tail! I always wanted a tail! And still a male.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s a good thing.” Moving his tongue around in his mouth, he stated “And for some strange reason my teeth itch, hmm, must be a side effect of regeneration.” Rushing over to a reflective piece of metal the Doctor looked to examine his most recent regeneration. “Damn it! I change completely and I’m still not ginger! Speaking of which, what am I? Hooves, floppy ears, tail, face. If anything, I’d say I was an equine of some nature. That explains the lack of canines.” Taking another look back in the mirror, the Doctor squinted at his reflection. “Hang on, I remember that hair,” he said as he moved his hoof along his scalp. “I loved that hair. Hmm, seems like one of my past regenerations was the basis for my change in species, I’ll have to keep that in mind next time.”
The Doctor moved precariously on his new four legs towards the doors of the TARDIS. “Well, it looks like I’m going to be here for a good bit while the TARDIS repairs itself, better get myself acquainted with the planet.” Smiling, the Doctor put his newfound hooves on the door, took a deep breath and opened the doors. The Doctor exhaled and slammed the doors shut. “A moon? A blasted moon? Why not send me into a sun, it’d make the same amount of difference!” he cried to no one in particular. “Okay sexy, let’s get out of here.” Only after he said this did he check on the fuel levels of the TARDIS; they were almost empty, not enough for even a single trip. Fortunately, the TARDIS was still on emergency power, meaning that life support systems were still online for the moment. “What happened?” he asked, thinking for a moment before hitting himself in the head. “Ohh! I must have absorbed the excess arton energy to use for my regeneration. But how do I get it back to the TARDIS?” His eyes widened with fear. “The Eye of Harmony is out of energy, and without the Eye’s support, all of the TARDIS’s dimensions are going to collapse in on themselves. It’s sucking up most of the remaining auxiliary power I have left. If I don’t find a way out, and soon, the TARDIS is going to decompose.” Rubbing his forehead he declared, “Aw, to hell with it, I’m going outside.”
Putting on a space suit the TARDIS materialized for him, he took his first few steps on the surface of the moon. The moon overlooked a planet, a green and blue planet similar to Earth. But given its similarities, it was not Earth or Mordas, Earth’s twin. The continents were all shaped differently. The clouds in the atmosphere were arranged in a patterned style. That’s curious, the Doctor thought. Those don’t look like natural cloud formations. Do creatures down there, assuming there are living things down there, have the technology to arrange the atmosphere? Strange, I don’t see any satellites in orbit nor any discernible colonies on this moon. Normally this would be the first to be settled. Relatively clear upper atmosphere, no signs of debris. Must be a relatively primitive society if anything.
As the Doctor continued to gaze at the mysterious planet, his attention was drawn to a jet of indigo that suddenly leapt from the surface. It looked like a comet, yet was darker than any the Doctor had ever seen. The comet had a large noticeable head and a much larger semi-translucent tail. Its destination was clear and it was coming fast.
The object hit the moon at such a high velocity that the ground beneath the Doctor’s hooves was shaken and cracked. The impact site was about a hundred meters away. Eager to investigate, the Doctor ran as fast as he could over the lunar soil to the point of impact. The Doctor saw an indigo puddle spreading like a spider web across the surface, the same color of the comet-like thing. The puddle was everywhere and had spread a long distance away from the main site. From the surface of the indigo puddle rose a mist-like substance. The mist rose and fell, giving it the appearance of breathing. He carefully dipped a suit-encased hoof into one of the puddles, finding the substance to be slightly sticky, but would come off with enough force. Mulling over what this thing could be, the Doctor walked over to impact site. The ground was wrecked, disfigured by the crash. Jagged spires erupted from the ground, created by the force of the impact. As the Doctor got closer, the mist grew larger and larger. The puddle that had been stretched across the plane of the moon was now receding back to the center of the crater. It confined itself into a ball, a black ball, with no signs of cracks or fissures. Rather, it had a moving surface, like when looking at clouds from orbit. The surface moved and swirled more forcefully as the Doctor continued to gaze into it. The shadowy ball lowered itself slightly onto the surface of the moon, and from there, it began to change its form. From the outside, it appeared as if there was a creature inside the ball, pushing and kicking against the surface, trying to escape. Within a few moments, what looked like a leg burst out from the interior of the ball. But instead of it immediately retracting back into itself, the surface augmented itself to accommodate the leg. The creature wasn’t trapped inside of the ball, the creature was the ball, and it was merely reverting to a semi-solid state. Body parts began to appear. More legs, wings, and a head that seemed to have originated from the nightmare stories of creatures from all over the universe. It was a terrifying sight for any normal creature to observe; thankfully, the Doctor was not necessarily a ‘normal’ creature. After it had fully transitioned, it appeared to be a pegasus with a unicorn horn, the embodiment of ancient human mythology.
The creature appeared to be semi-solid mass of darkness. The Doctor backed up slightly, but still intrigued he called over on all frequencies possible, hoping to communicate while being as civil as possible. “Hullo! I’m the Doctor. What’s your name?”
The creature looked at him with a sense of shock. It obviously did not expect to see him. A voice echoed through the Doctor’s mind.
“Prison?” the Doctor asked, looking around. “Looks more like a moon to me. And by the way, telepathic communication, very nice, very advanced. But way too advanced for the planet down there; judging from the lack of lunar infrastructure, they don’t even seem to be spacefaring yet. So tell me, who are you?”
she exclaimed.
“Equestria, hmph,” the Doctor whispered to himself. “It seems like I’ve regenerated into the dominant species near this planet, curious.”
“Wait, wait, wait, domain?” the Doctor asked. “I thought you said that this was your prison!”
“Yeah, I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree on that one,” the Doctor sighed, motioning the stars.
“Basically.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve been to them. Some much older than the planet beneath us.”
she commanded, the mist coalescing into spiked tendrils pointed at the Doctor.
“Now hang on just a minute, you need me. I was able to get here, onto your prison. And I’m the only one that can get us both out of here. Or you can kill me and stay here for an eternity, your choice,” said the Doctor softly, giving a slight smug grin.
Nightmare Moon poised her tendrils at the Doctor, threatening him. Finishing her threat, Nightmare Moon let her ‘weapons’ dissipate but kept her gaze on the Doctor.
“Don’t count on it,” the Doctor said flatly.
Rushing back to the TARDIS, the Doctor took off his helmet and began to think. “What should I do? Where is this place anyway? How do I get off this rock and away from her? I’d like to be on the opposite end of the galaxy by the time I get out of here.” The Doctor brought up the scanner; it was still functioning, barely.
“No, no that can’t be right,” the Doctor gasped quietly. “It says here that I’m on the moon, Earth’s moon! That’s... no, that’s impossible.” The Doctor paced around the console of his TARDIS, pondering, trying to wrap his mind around the information he was given. “That’s impossible, impossible... Unless!” he shouted. “Unless I was transported to a different universe, but that’s impossible.” Upon saying this, he immediately slapped himself. “Bad Doctor, we’ve been around long enough to know that nothing’s impossible. So if I really was in a different universe, what would that mean?”
Suddenly, his body started shaking and trembling as a burst of regeneration energy left him, flowing up to the top of the TARDIS. The gold, glowing ribbon of energy floated carelessly to the ceiling, almost like a feather swaying side to side. After staring at it until it dissipated, the Doctor eyes opened fully as he suddenly had an idea.
“Of course, blimey, it’s so simple. Why didn’t I think of it before?” Running over to the console, he continued talking to himself. “The TARDIS was brought to this universe through a rip in the fabric of reality, a rip that created a time rift when it opened. And the TARDIS is right at the heart of it.” He inputted commands into the console despite his lack of fingers. “Activating long-range sensors, shutting down all non-essential systems, and jettisoning the pool,” he said, flipping levers and switches. “Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Staring at the screen, the Doctor took in what limited information the TARDIS could give him. “Rift’s closing, well that’s just rubbish. I can’t let that happen now, can I?” he whispered to himself rhetorically. “That’s my ticket home.”
“Okay, come on old girl, just need you to give me a little bit more juice. Just a little bit more, come on. If I activate the reverse gravitational field generators just for a little bit, I should be able to get the huon particles still being created in the dynamorphic generators to create enough reverse magnetized force to blast a path into the time vortex, smashing open the rift and giving me a straight shot through back to my universe.” In a frenzy, the Doctor raced around the TARDIS’s console room activating what he needed and adjusting settings. “And if I give some of my regeneration energy to fuel this one little push, I can kick start the engines as well. Rift equals artron energy, artron energy equals fuel, fuel equals a way off this moon.” Halting his mad rush, the Doctor braced his forelegs against the main TARDIS console. Beams of golden light coursed through the Doctor’s hooves and into the central pylon, where it traveled up into the TARDIS interior, waiting for the Doctor to initiate his plan.
“Locking onto the rift. Engaging reverse gravitational field generators. Distributing regeneration energy.” Pausing for effect, he got ready to activate the lever. “Geronim- No, wait, that’s been used. Excelsior- No, no, not that either,” he mused. “Ahh, that’s it!” he paused, pleased with himself. “Tally-ho!” he shouted as he bucked the lever into position. There was a rumbling and the Doctor looked around, hanging onto the console of the TARDIS. He was rewarded by a sudden flicker of the lights before they activated all around the TARDIS. “A-HA! IT WORKED!” the Doctor cheered. “I knew you still had it in ya,’ sexy!” he cooed to the console. A few minutes and we’ll be all fueled up.
“Well... yes and no.” Nightmare Moon growled in anger. “See, the rift is open and has cut away at the energy that is keeping you bound to this moon. And if we’re lucky, you should be completely free in, say, one thousand years time. So, how does that sound? Eh?” the Doctor asked in a pleasantly cheerful voice.
“Well,” the Doctor said, drawing out the word, “to be fair, I was never really on your side to begin with. You just became big and misty... and tentacle-y... and black-y,” he added, giving a look over the disembodied energy in front of him, slowly becoming larger and larger by the second. “And then you threatened to kill me. I mean, really? Who ever taught you how to make friends?”
she spat.
“Anywho, I must be off. I hear that the moon is exceptional this time of year. Tally-ho!” And with that the Doctor galloped back into the TARDIS and locked the doors, sealing them from Nightmare Moon’s energy. That didn’t stop her, however, from pounding on the exterior of the TARDIS. Her efforts were futile, as nothing that she could do would have any effect. The Doctor ran over to the navigation controls on the TARDIS, locking onto the rift itself, it had run the calculations for travel, and the Doctor was a free man, or free pony for that matter. Hitting the engine release lever, the TARDIS flew into the heart of the rift and away from Nightmare Moon.
After escaping Nightmare Moon, the Doctor allowed himself to relax and enjoy the ride. He found it hard to believe that in only an hour, he had traversed universes, regenerated, saved himself, saved the TARDIS, and was now on his merry way back to his universe where he contemplated what to do when he shifted dimensions. “Let’s see, what happened last time? Well, as I was shifting universes, the TARDIS nearly died, so I’m going to rig up the stabilizers to absorb most of the temporal interference in the void. Redirect energy from non-essential systems to the temporal shields, and allow for variables in the engine thrust. But no matter what, it’s still going to be extremely difficult.” Remembering how rough the ride had been before, the Doctor tried to find a place to fasten himself down during the trip back. “Okay, it’s going to get a little shaky, nothing I can’t handle.” Looking around, the Doctor groaned, “Seat-belts, why did I never install seatbelts?”
If in answer to his question, the TARDIS shook. The time rotor in the center slowed to an almost complete stop. “That’s not supposed to happen,” the Doctor said nervously. The TARDIS shook again, this time more forcefully. “Dropping back into real-space! No! I was so close! No, no, no, no! Don’t do this to me, come on don’t do thi-” The Doctor never finished his sentence. A third and final shake of the TARDIS was enough to bring it completely back into real-space. The TARDIS flew out of control down to the nearest largest center of gravity. The Doctor was thrown across the room into the door, crumpled in pain. Groggily, he sat up, wanting to see the second random location where the TARDIS was being sent. He opened one of the doors to the TARDIS and looked outside. Instantly, he was buffeted by high speed winds as he flew through the atmosphere of a strange planet. Blinded for a moment, he adjusted his hoof to shield his eyes and looked out into the oncoming…
“MOUNTAIN!” the Doctor screamed as he shut the door and assumed the brace position. The blue box hurtled through the air at incredible speeds before it finally slammed into the side of the mountain, causing debris to crumble off the side, falling in large chunks. The TARDIS tumbled a little while in mid air as it bounced off of the mountain and fell into a dark section of an alien forest.
Recovering from the second hit, the Doctor ran to the console to see where the TARDIS landed. “Earth,” he spat. “Well, certainly not my Earth.” A small beeping from one of the displays caught his attention. “It looks like there is a settlement nearby. Maybe they’re friendly.”
Sector 8023 of the Third Quadrant, also known as Ponyville, Equestria. 15 years before the release of Nightmare Moon:
“Colgate! Have you done your chores yet?”
“No mom, not yet! I’m studying!” she called back. The light blue unicorn rolled her eyes, her two-toned mane of navy blue and white fluttering as she shook her head slightly in annoyance.
“You’ve been studying those books for days now, I don’t think it will help you find your cutie mark any faster. Well, since you haven’t done anything all day but sit on your bed, go fetch the groceries,” her mother commanded. “You know I’m going to be gone until tomorrow, right?”
“Yes Mom, I know. Don’t worry, I won’t burn down the house,” Colgate replied sarcastically.
“I know you won’t, I’m more worried about you, sweetie. I just want you to keep yourself safe.”
Colgate turned on her bed to face her mother and gave her a smile. “I will Mom, I’ll be fine.”
“Here’s what you’ll need, sweetie,” her mother told her as she handed her a grocery list. “I left a few bits on the counter in case of emergency. I love you sweetie,” her mother told her as she gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“I love you too, Mom,” Colgate affectionately said back.
“And you know where the spare key is, right?” her mother called as she was halfway out the door.
“Yeah, it’s in the potted plants, as always!” she responded, laughing slightly at her mother’s worry.
“Morning Colgate, what can I do for ya?” the shopkeeper asked.
“I just need to pick up a few items for myself.” Colgate gave him the list.
Briefly looking over the list, the shopkeeper asked, “Say, I don’t usually see you around all by yourself. Where’s your mom and pop?”
“Dad’s off on business and Mom had to head out for a day.”
“Well, alright then, let me grab your things and you can be on your way. Say ‘hi’ to your folks for me when they get back,” the shopkeeper cheerfully said as he trotted into the back. “Here ya’ are,” he said, dropping the bag onto the table and Colgate gave him the required bits for the transaction.
“Thank you, and I will.” She waved at him in farewell.
“What do ya’ have in the bag there?” He pointed at her bulging saddlebags.
“Books, I’m doing a little studying.”
“Fillies your age ought to be havin’ fun with their friends, not head-down in a book.”
“Well, I’ve got to get my cutie mark somehow, and I love reading and learning so it only seems logical.” Colgate shrugged. “Although, no matter how hard I try, I can never get my cutie mark.” Her face dropped when admitting to this.
“Well, I’m not one to judge. Have fun though!” he called to her as she left.
Colgate went directly to the library. Unlike previous times, where she wandered in not knowing what to find and reveling in the mysteries of new books, she was set on a specific book. Walking in, she met the librarian, Bookworm. Bookworm was an elderly pony, kind but irritable at times. He always was available to help Colgate out when she came to visit. “Who’s there? If it’s you good-furnothin’ colts, you better be out of here by the time I get my glasses!”
“Bookworm, relax. It’s me, Colgate.”
“Ah? Colgate, I didn’t realize it was you. What can I help you with?”
“I’m looking for a book on dreams.”
“Oh?” he asked, confused. “That’s oddly specific.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been having nightmares for the past few days. I want to see what they mean.”
“Nightmares? Strange... I have been having nightmares myself actually. Only just started recently, I think. But yet it feels longer than that, it’s hard to explain.”
“Really? Have other ponies been having bad dreams too?” she asked curiously.
“I can’t say I know. But I’m sure you can find out if you ask around.”
“I guess I’ll take the book on the run,” she said. “Where is it?”
“Third shelf, second row, you can’t miss it,” he told her calmly. “Oh, and Colgate?” he called to her.
“Yes?”
“It’s fair to say that I’ve have lost my glasses, how’s your cutie mark conundrum? Have you gotten yours yet?”
“No,” she sighed. “Still a blank flank. Do you have any ideas on how to get mine?”
“Well, I would say ‘go out and play’ to most ponies, but you aren’t most ponies. But if I have to guess, I’d say that it’d be something truly unique, for the most unique pony I know.”[SAM7]
“Thanks Bookworm, I’ll bring this back to you by tomorrow.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Keep it as long as you’d like, I know you’ll be careful with it.” She thanked him and left out the door to the library. He paused for a moment before calling out for her, “Don’t be afraid to go outside the norm, you never know where an adventure will take you!”
The Doctor, finished with reactivating systems of the TARDIS disrupted in the crash, decided it was time to explore the mysterious world he was on. “Well, I can’t go outside without putting on something, but then again, who knows what ponies wear on this planet?” Going to his completely re-made wardrobe, the Doctor went through his choices. “Scarf? Naw, too warm. Shirt with decorative celery? I pulled it off once, but no. Leather jacket? I don’t think the vegetarian ponies would appreciate that. Bow tie? Maybe, maybe not. Oooh,” the Doctor exclaimed as he picked out a folded down shirt collar with a small tie. “Now I like this. Who can go wrong with a regular tie?” After trying it on, the Doctor went to the mirror, pleased with how it looked. “Now I’m not one to brag, but I look brilliant in this.” The Doctor left the wardrobe and went back to the console room. Giving everything a last check, the TARDIS surprised him with another sonic screwdriver. This sonic screwdriver was not as bulky as his last one, but still had a nice heft to it. It sported an indigo light instead of a green one and had custom controls for manipulating it with his mouth. “Ah, I was wondering how I’d use a sonic without thumbs. Oh, how I have taken thumbs for granted,” the Doctor mumbled as he pulled the sonic out of the console. Activating it for a few seconds and being pleased with the result, the Doctor put it away in one of his ‘pockets’. Not wearing clothes in the traditional sense, the Doctor had to improvise. On certain parts of his body were invisible transcendental pockets which allowed the Doctor to store and remove a seemingly limitless amount of items at a time.
“Well, no time like the present. Tally-ho!” the Doctor exclaimed as he left his TARDIS to explore his surroundings. Looking around, he saw that he had landed in the ruins of a castle, surrounded by forest. The castle itself was old and run-down, parts of the roof had caved in and the entire structure was overgrown. The castle was similar to those in medieval England. It was tall, massive, and grand. The Doctor could tell that this was home to important creatures at one point in time. Giving only a passing look, the Doctor inhaled a deep breath of air and began his journey. Amidst the dark forest, the Doctor saw a spark of light miles away, buried in the trees, his way out of the forest and on to new adventures.
Colgate found a comfortable spot underneath a large tree in the shade to begin reading about her dream problem. Using her magic, she unfastened her bags and pulled out the book. “The Science of Dreams,” she whispered out loud, reading the book title. “Let’s just hope you have the answer I’m looking for.”
“Talking to books? What’s next, are you going to sing them to sleep?” a voice snidely asked and was followed by the cruel laughter of others. Colgate, suddenly self-conscious, put her head down in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” Colgate apologized. “I was just thinking out loud, Prissy.”
“That’s Pristine Gem to you, Colgate,” she told Colgate, spitting out the light blue pony’s name. “It’s a pity, you know. Almost a mare and you still don’t have your cutie mark. In fact, I don’t think you’re ever going to get it. What do you think you’re going to find in those books, anyway?”
“I... I don’t know. I just like to read, that’s it I guess,” she squeaked.
“You like to read? Well that’s funny, because that’s the only thing you do. You’d probably die reading a book if it were up to you.” Laughter was heard from the background behind Pristine Gem’s taunts. “You aren’t cut out to do anything else, you’re terrible at sports, you can barely use magic, you don’t have any friends, all you can do is sit by yourself. No wonder your parents left you, you freak.”
“I have friends,” she mumbled through a cracking voice and tear-filled eyes. Pristine Gem signaled the rest of her friends and they turned around to leave. Still sniffling, Colgate spoke up with a shaky voice. “Having nightmares Prissy? You seem meaner than normal”
“How do you know about that?” she asked with a start.
“I’m a freak, remember?”
Pristine Gem looked at Colgate and went pale, as if her most well-kept secrets were now on display for the world to see. Also, that gave Colgate information; ponies everywhere were having nightmares, including those who truly deserved it.
Colgate slumped in her shady spot of the tree, hooves covering her eyes as she wept, trying to conceal herself from the world.Even though she hated to admit it, what Pristine said was true. She was poor at magic, extremely poor. She was nowhere near the level of expertise that was expected of a pony her age. She was bad at anything physical too. She always preferred to be indoors. Whenever she was outside playing, she made a fool of herself. And she was adopted. Colgate never knew her parents, her biological parents. She was abandoned as a newborn on the doorstep of the orphanage. Even when she was that young, Colgate still remembered vaguely what happened, even though she didn’t understand its significance. It was a dark night, rain poured from the heavens. A pony was carrying her, sheltering her from the rain. Then she was set down, and she didn’t know why, why she was being abandoned. The pony left her, and Colgate lay there crying. The crying must have woken whoever was inside, as she remembered being picked up for the second time and taken into a warm shelter. That was the last she remembered of that day. She later learned that she was taken into the orphanage by the kind old pony who lived there. Thankfully, she was adopted by two ponies who Colgate now called ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad.’ She lived with them for her entire life, and not once had she felt like she was an outsider of some sort for being adopted. They treated her as well as anypony could ever hope to ask for, and Colgate was proud to call them her parents.
Colgate sobbed to herself quietly, trying to force her feelings aside. She attempted to resume her book, but after picking it up, she scoffed and rolled her eyes at it. After what had just happened, there was no way Colgate could get into her book. “So much for that,” she said as she put the book back. Drying off her eyes for the last time, she sighed and laid down in the shade, bored and staring up at the sky. In the corner of her eye, she saw a pony stumbling around on his hooves, carrying a metal stick in his mouth.
“Rift energy,” the Doctor mumbled to himself. “What’s rift energy doing here?” The Doctor bent down to scan a different part of the ground, but the sonic’s droning was interrupted by
“Hello?” Colgate asked the pony in front of her. “What are you doing?” Her face was scrunched in confusion. She looked over the strange pony as though attempting to glean the information she requested by staring at him.
Standing up, the strange pony met her gaze. “Hullo, I’m the Doctor.”
“The Doctor?”
“Yep, the Doctor.”
“Doctor...?” She waved her hoof in a way that asked the Doctor to elaborate.
“Just the Doctor.”
“Doctor who?”
“Just ‘the Doctor.’”
“‘The Doctor?’”
“Exactly!” he yelled with a look of pride.
“Well alright ‘Doctor,’ what are you doing out here? Also, what’s that thing in your mouth? Why does it make that sound? Where did you come from? And why are you wearing that?” She pointed to his tie.
“To answer those in the correct order: scanning, sonic screwdriver, it’s sonic, Gallifrey, and it’s a tie,” he said, looking offended. “I look great in ties.”
“What are you scanning for anyway?” Colgate asked.
“I’m scanning for rift energy. There seems to be a large presence of it leaking out here, and I can’t figure out why.” He scratched his head.
“What’s rift energy, and why’s it leaking?”
The Doctor stopped what he was doing and brought his attention towards Colgate, “Rift energy is... Well, hard to explain.” He pondered a thought for a moment and turned his gaze back toward Colgate. “Rifts are breaches in space-time and they only appear in certain places. Think how people get syrup from a tree, you have to shove a tap into the tree and then the syrup falls out. Except here, there is no tree; well, of course there isn’t a tree, because a rift is nothing like a tree. Do you get what I mean? As for your other question, I haven’t the slightest.”
“I think I understand, a little bit at least. A ‘rift’ is like a tree, but there’s no tree here, or it’s a non-‘syrup-getting tree’, yet syrup is still falling out. Is that kinda what you mean?”
“Yes-no, well kinda, I guess. For all intents and purposes, yes. Not many can understand that, good job.”
“But you said ‘people,’ why?”
The Doctor looked at her, confused. Trying to get an idea on what she meant in her confusion of ‘people,’ and suddenly it came to him. “Of course, why would I say people? There aren’t any people around,” he sighed, rubbing his temples.
“So what do you normally say then?”
“Well ponies, for starters. What else could it be?”
“The dominant species is ‘ponies,’ everything is pony,” he chastised himself and then went back to talking to himself. “Everypony not everybody,” he said to himself, over-enunciating the suffix of each word.
“You aren’t from around here, are you?” Colgate asked.
Giving her a broad smile, the Doctor said in response, “Further than your imagination can take you.”
“I have quite an active imagination, thank you very much.”
“Now I must know,” he said, changing the subject, “is there anything strange going on? Anything that feels out of place? Something new, anything?”
“Well, it seems like a lot of ponies are having bad dreams lately. I don’t know if that’s important, I mean, it’s just dreams,” Colgate hung her head low, not wanting to make something that isn’t important seem like a big deal.
The Doctor scanned her with his sonic screwdriver, going from her hooves to her head. “I’ve learned long ago not to disregard nightmares,” he said in consolation, moving his sonic to the edge of his mouth in order to talk. “When did they start?”
“They started... I-I don’t know, it seems like they’ve always been there. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“No, I’ve met crazy. I’ve met a lot of crazy actually, especially this one guy. I told him he should have been a conductor for music, but no,” the Doctor said, droning out the ‘o.’ “He had to go and try to take over the universe. So believe me, everyone having nightmares is probably one of the sanest things I’ve ever heard.” He gave her a small comforting smile. “I’m going to need to see the origin point for the nightmares. Where do you sleep? A barn, a stable?”
“I sleep in a house, Doctor.” She rolled her eyes. “And Doctor? Are you seriously asking me to show you my bedroom?” Colgate asked unamusedly, hinting at a suggestive nature of the Doctor’s suggestion.
“Wha-” He wrinkled his face in disgust. “No, eww. Oh, grow up. I can’t get a good reading out here scanning grass, now can I?”
“I guess not. Just keep your distance, Doctor. I still don’t know who you are.”
“Fine, fine. You’re the boss.” He smiled slightly. They walked quietly down the streets, giving the Doctor enough time to look ‘starry-eyed’ at the buildings they passed. The Doctor watched in amazement as he saw a highly advanced civilization, new and brimming with potential. He saw sentient beings, not just regular equines anymore, but creatures who seemed to live in harmony with each other all mulling about, living their lives. “Amazing,” the Doctor mumbled to himself. “All of this was done without thumbs, incredible! I really miss thumbs, though, I don’t think I’ll ever get past that.” They walked even further until they reached Colgate’s house.
“Here it is Doctor, my house,” she said, still irritated that the Doctor would have thought she lived in a barn.
“Brilliant architecture, I must say so myself. Not many species have advanced to this point in so little time. Good job,” he applauded, giving Colgate a pat on the back. Colgate only looked at the Doctor with scorn, irritation boiling inside her at this odd stranger.
Patting down her saddlebags, Colgate suddenly looked very concerned. “Where’s my key?” Colgate whispered to herself, worried. “Did I drop it? My parents are gonna kill me when they get back!”
“Do you need some help?” the Doctor asked the increasingly emotional mare in front of him.
“No, I don’t need any help! I need to find the bucking key!”
“Bucking?” the Doctor pondered under his breath. “I guess that’s what they use to replace the word-”
“Doctor! Please, shut up.”
“Alright then, shutting up.” Breaking the promise, the Doctor asked, “Don’t you have a spare key?”
“I do, but I need to find my key. My parents said this was the last the last time I could lose my key, and I’d have to pay for new locks next time.”
“I could help you find your key, if it’s any consolation.”
“A little, I guess.” Colgate reached into the potted plant, grabbing the spare key and sliding it into the lock. The Doctor watched this display with amazement.
“How did you do that?” the Doctor asked incredulously.
“Do what, Doctor?” Colgate sighed.
“How- how’d you pick up that key without thumbs?”
“What?” Colgate shouted in frustration. “Are you stupid, or are you just thick?” She put her hooves on her head, pushing them through her mane. “You’re driving me crazy Doctor, let’s just go inside so you can get out of here.”
The Doctor got his sonic out and proceeded to start examining the room. Scanning every nook he could find, he made few remarks, but was dead focused on the task at hand. When they finally came to Colgate’s room, the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver became louder and louder to the point where Colgate had to ask what was happening. “Why is it doing that, Doctor?”
“Huge spike in rift energy, but why?” he trailed off.
“I can’t say I understand it Doctor, do you just like to go into ponies bedrooms and start scanning with your sonic stick thingy? Do you know how creepy that is?”
“Screwdriver!” the Doctor replied. “And yes, I guess it is strange but I can’t say I do stuff like this a lot.”
“Don’t lie to me, Doctor. You do stuff like this all the time, maybe not exactly like this, but I can see it in your eyes. You live for this sort of stuff,” Colgate berated the Doctor as she leaned against her bed. As soon as she did this the sonic became even louder than before.
“Can you please step away from the bed for a moment?” the Doctor asked, his voice even. Colgate complied and took a step back, the sonic returning to a more normal hum. “Fascinating, the rift energy in the room is directly connected to you by some high level psychic field. This is your room and your bed, so over the course of time it has connected to your brain waves directly. No doubt if we were to recreate this with anypony else we would get the same result. ‘Anypony’, I just love saying that,” the Doctor said with a smile. “I need to ask you to get onto your bed,” he said, “I need to measure the psychic energy coming from you.” Colgate only gave the Doctor the same dirty look she did when he asked about seeing her room. “Again: eww,” the Doctor responded. Sighing with frustration, Colgate sat on her bed while the Doctor scanned her. While scanning, the Doctor’s eyes suddenly went wide and he collapsed on the ground, dropping his screwdriver.
“What’s wrong?” Colgate asked, frightened.
“Arrrhhh- AHHHHH!” the Doctor screamed, his back lurching in an unhealthy direction as he tried to sit up. He fell to his front hooves and they trembled beneath him. He breathed heavily until his head snapped upwards as parts of his body glowed gold for a moment, a slight bit of regeneration energy escaping his mouth.
“Who are you?” Colgate breathed out.
“I’m still not sure, I’m new to me too,” remarked the Doctor, slowly getting to his hooves. “Looks like we’ll find out together.”
As the Doctor was recuperating from his spasms, a loud and evil voice called out from the ether.
“What the hay is that?” Colgate shouted as she rolled off her bed, just in time for a dark fissure to erupt from her bed and start to spread to the surrounding area. Cowering against the wall, the blue unicorn repeated, “What the hay is that?”
“This is really not good,” the Doctor said to himself nervously.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve asked you your name yet,” the Doctor asked the mare next to him, trying to keep calm to set an example to in a terrifying situation.[SAM8]
“Colgate, my name’s Colgate,” she responded, not taking the scene in front of them as well as the Doctor was.
“Nice to meet you Colgate.” The Doctor held out his hoof, and she shook it with a horrifyingly confused expression on her face. “Now Colgate,” he said hurriedly, “I am going to say to you something important; something that has toppled empires; something that can destroy planets; and, on certain occasions, has unraveled the very fabric of the universe itself.”
“And that is?” Colgate asked in a near panic.
“RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!”
The Doctor and Colgate ran out of the house as fast as their hooves could take them. The Doctor looked behind them to see that the fissure was spreading and following him. As they got out of the house the Doctor turned around to see Colgate at the door trying to re-lock the house. “Colgate, come on!”
“Hang on, I have to lock the door!” she called back.
“We don’t have time! Leave it!”
Colgate stood at the doorway, contemplating what to do. The Doctor could see the strain on her face as she tried to choose between following the Doctor’s instructions and going with her ingrained habits. In the end she settled on listening to the Doctor. “Fine!” she called as she started running. “Let’s go, but if anything happens to my house, I’m going to beat the snot out of you, Doctor!”
While sprinting away the Doctor shouted, “I think we have bigger issues to deal with right now!” He also saw that the fissure had left the house, a black spot in the air filled with malice and death. At once, the fissure morphed itself into a dark spear and drove itself into the ground. The ground broke as the darkness passed into it. Mist radiated from the point of impact. The mist, becoming larger by the second, used the ground as a way of transport instead of the air, rocketing off in the direction of the Doctor and Colgate much faster than it had previously.
“Doctor, where are we going?” Colgate yelled.
“Into the forest, come on!”
“Haven’t you heard not to talk to strangers, let alone follow them into a forest? Why should I follow you?”
“Because there is a bloody ‘rift-voice-thingy-of-death’ chasing us! And I’d prefer not to die!”
Silent for a moment, Colgate responded, “Okay, that’s a pretty good point. But where are we going, anyway?”
“To a castle deep in the forest, we need to get to the TARDIS!”
“The what?”
“Time And Relative- you know what? I’ll explain it when we aren’t about to die!”
The mist was slowly catching up to the Doctor and Colgate. As they dodged through the trees and debris, the mist had a surprise for them. It shot a bolt of dark energy like a subterrian towards the Doctor, it was similar to a submarine but on land. When it got close enough, a razor sharp black spike exploded from the ground, nicking the Doctor’s side.
“Gah!” the Doctor shouted in surprise rather than pain. “Colgate, watch out!”
“I am watching out!” she yelled back, annoyed. “I’m trying not to die here!”
“Good job for the most part!” he yelled sincerely. “But it’s throwing something new at us!”
“This entire bucking thing is pretty new to me!”
“Don’t use that language with me, missy!”
“Who are you, my dad?”
“I’m worse than everybody’s dad!”
“Everypony!” she corrected him.
“Whatever! Just keep a watch behind you. If you see a jet black line coming after you, sidestep it!”
“You mean like that?” Colgate asked, looking behind her as the mist sent up another torpedo towards them.
“Yes! Don’t let it get you!”
Colgate jumped to one side as the torpedo exploded next to her. “EEEP!” she screamed at the sight of the spire of dark energy that erupted next to her. Seeing that only caused her to run faster.
“Don’t worry, Colgate!” the Doctor called to her in his most reassuring voice. “We just need to do this for a little bit longer. Everything is going to be alright.”
“Is that a lie?” Colgate asked, on the verge of a panic attack.
“Of course it is!” he shouted. “It was better than saying that we’re most likely going to die!”
“Are we?”
“Probably, yes!”
“AAAAAAHHH!” Colgate screamed with frustration, hopelessness, anger, and fear. She just wanted a nice, quiet day with her books, but now she was running for her life with a mysterious ‘Doctor.’ Colgate and the Doctor both jumped aside to dodge another set of torpedoes.
“Like hell I can’t!” the Doctor shouted back toward the mist. “Colgate, look, there it is!” In front of them were the ruins of an old castle. “Come on, we just need to get across the bridge!” The bridge was rickety and held the possibility of collapse. While trying to be quick, the Doctor and Colgate slowly made their way across the bridge. Once they were on the other side, the Doctor used his sonic on the ropes holding the bridge, causing the bridge to collapse into the abyss.
“What did you do that for?” Colgate screamed at the Doctor. “We have no way out!”
“It will only slow it down, but not for long,” the Doctor said, avoiding her question. “Let’s go.”
“But where? You cut off our only escape.”
“Colgate,” he said turning around. “If you want to make it out of here alive, if you ever want be with your family again, you have to trust me.” He gave her a small smile as he adjusted his tie. “I’m a doctor.” Colgate gave a nod of her head and they raced up the stairs, to where the TARDIS was parked. “Okay, come on Colgate, get in.”
“Hang on one second, mister! I’ve dealt with your sonic, I let you come to my house, I let you release a monster that tried to kill us, I followed you through the forest running from said monster, but I am not getting in... that... box.” Her voice left her as the Doctor opened the door to the TARDIS, allowing her to see the interior. Colgate’s eyes went wide as she stood there, stunned, forcing the Doctor to drag her into the TARDIS by the hoof. He closed the door right as the mist made it up the stairs.
“Goody, the architectural configuration program was able to kick in while I was gone. Good as new!”
“You know how you said you would explain everything when we weren’t about to die?” Colgate said, still stunned at the interior of the TARDIS. “Now would be a great time to start explaining.”
Proudly, the Doctor introduced her. “Welcome Colgate, to the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”
“It’s... bigger on the inside. How does that work?”
Always willing to try to explain Time Lord engineering to other beings, the Doctor began. “Imagine you draw something on a piece of paper, like a door for example. That door will always be 2-dimensional, it will always be the same size, no matter what angle you look at it. Now let’s say you create a 3-dimensional room for that 2-dimensional door and connect the two-”
“-And if you can only see the 2-dimensional door you would have no idea about the room behind it. So as far as ponies can tell there is only the ‘door’ here,” Colgate cut off the Doctor. “So it is really a box on the outside? But the inside actually transitions into a separate dimension?”
The Doctor was speechless. Never before had any sentient creature ever grasped the nature of the TARDIS, except for Rory, and now a child comes aboard and basically understands the entire concept. “Yes, that’s exactly right. In all my years I’ve never met someone so young that can actually understand these concepts.”
“Thanks,” Colgate said with a smile. “Shouldn’t we worry about that mist thing?”
“Ah, thank you for reminding me! Don’t worry about the doors, nothing in the world can get through them.”
The Doctor was on his way over to the console when Colgate piped up. “Doctor, what was that thing?”
He paused for a moment. “If I had to guess, that should have been Nightmare Moon. I met her for a few minutes. Not that nice, kinda had to make a deal with her to let me live.”
“That was Nightmare Moon? But she should be banished on the moon! And that’s just an old mare’s tale anyway,” she tried to say dismissively.
“What do you know of Nightmare Moon? Because I can assure you, she is most definitely real.”
“I only have a book on her. I keep it in my bags,” she said as she removed the book and handed it to the doctor telekinetically.
“Fascinating,” the Doctor murmured.
“What? The book?” Colgate wondered.
“No, about how you lifted that book with telekinesis, amazing. How do you do it?”
“Well, I’m a unicorn, and all unicorns can use their horns to use magic.”
“Magic,” the Doctor said with a well natured chuckle. “Of course. Now, let’s get out of here and start seeing what’s in that book.” The Doctor moved back to the console, flipping levers and switches. “You might want to hold on to something, Colgate,” he said in passing. At that point, the Doctor released the engine release lever and sent the TARDIS into the time vortex, causing the ship to shake beneath their hooves.
The Doctor gave a glance to Colgate, saw her looking around in amazement and laughing to her heart’s content. Colgate, still laughing, looked at the Doctor causing him to join her. In the midst of dematerialization, the Doctor and Colgate, having survived their first ordeals on the planet, had their much needed and deserved break.
Sitting down with Colgate, the Doctor read the book with her, absorbing as much information as he could. “That is brilliant,” the Doctor said to himself.
“What is?” Colgate asked.
“I believe I was there at the exact moment Nightmare Moon was banished,” the Doctor stated. “But what are these ‘Elements of Harmony’, and how do they have the power to bind an entity such as Nightmare Moon to the moon?”
“Well, it says here that each of the Elements represents a different physical and emotional response, and since Nightmare Moon is almost the opposite of each, it seems likely that they were able to overpower her and send her away somehow.”
“Possibly,” the Doctor muttered. “But there’s something more, something I can’t see. Why did I come into this universe at the exact point when they were used?”
“I dunno, Doctor, it doesn’t say anything about trans-dimensional travel in the book. Looks like you’re on your own for that one.”
“As usual,” the Doctor said under his breath, before turning sharply toward Colgate to talk to her. “Colgate, I arrive out of nowhere, almost get you killed, and show you that there is more to the universe than just Equestria, and I still don’t know anything about you.”
“I can say the same about you, Doctor.”
“Fair enough, but tell me a little about yourself.”
“There really isn’t much to tell,” Colgate said quietly.
“Sure there is, you are a highly advanced sentient being! Do you know how amazing that is? You are alive and thinking, already that’s brilliant. You are much more interesting than a plant, although I can’t really say that, met a tree before. She was quite nice.”
“Trees can talk?”
“Of course they can, anything is possible,” he rebuked her.
“Well,” she sighed. “I really like to read, I guess...”
“Outstanding, I always love a good book. Did you know I have an entire library in here, and a pool. And a pool inside of a library.”
Surprised, yet happy that the Doctor wanted to know about her and truly cared about what she had to say, she continued. “I’m also adopted. I moved to Ponyville right after my parents found me at the orphanage in Canterlot.”
“Did you ever meet your biological parents?” the Doctor asked.
“No, never knew who they were. If I knew my parents, maybe I’d know what my special talent is by now.”
“What do you mean by ‘special talent?’”
“My cutie mark, it represents my special talent. Well, it would, but I don’t have mine yet. You’re lucky, you already got yours.”
“I would hardly say that I ‘got’ mine, it was just there when I woke up,” he said, looking at his flank. “But what’s so bad about not having one anyway?”
“Only that ponies laugh at you if you don’t have one,” Colgate sniffed. “They say that you aren’t good at anything, that you’re a freak. You know, that kind of stuff.”
“Oh don’t worry about that, who cares what those ponies think? I’ve never been much for rules myself. But, anyway. Being a blank flank seems like the most brilliant thing ever, it means your future isn’t fixed, you can do anything you want. Absolutely unlimited potential! Why would anybody- sorry, anypony want you to focus on one thing? Where’s the fun in that? Where’s that little spice in life of doing something completely new?” Moving up to the console, the Doctor held his hoof slightly hovering over the engine release lever, giving a small little smile. “What’s life without a little adventure, eh?” And with that the Doctor engaged the lever and brought the TARDIS back into real-space, to a location completely unknown to Colgate.
“Doctor, where are we?”
“About a hundred years prior to your time in Ponyville.”
“Wait, what? We went back in time?”
“Yep, and if I calculated correctly, we should be in the town square. We need to see if there are nightmares in this time period as well.”
“Well Doctor, there is one problem with that.”
“Which is?”
Colgate opened the door to the outside world, revealing untouched hills and landscapes. “There isn’t a Ponyville yet. I learned about this in history, Ponyville was settled by pioneers in this time, but wasn’t really populated until ten years later. If we’re lucky, we should meet the first colonizers of this area, the Apple family.”
The Doctor rustled Colgate’s hair a little in a friendly sort of way, and he responded, “I take you back in time and you don’t bat an eye, I turn what you thought of the universe upside down and you keep going like it’s just another day at school, that really is brilliant. Well come on, time’s-a-wasting, tally-ho!”
The Doctor and Colgate walked around the plains of future Ponyville, enjoying the view as they looked for the Apple family. Colgate was especially amazed, at one point looking to the side and running off, motioning for the Doctor to follow her. “I think this is it, Doctor,” she said, looking over a flat plain.
“What is?”
“I can see my future home from here,” she responded, excited. “That’s it right there!” She motioned with her hoof to an exact spot. “I can’t believe I’m here right now! I’m standing on the ground where I’m going to live a hundred years from now.” Colgate turned toward the Doctor. “This really is brilliant, Doctor,” she said giving him a large smile.
“This is only the top of the iceberg,” he said. “There’s a whole universe out there, filled with creatures of all kinds, beautiful landscapes and amazing planets. Stars that are going supernova as we speak. You think this is cool? Wait until you see everything else.”
“We can go to those places too?” Colgate asked.
“Someday, of course. But not if we don’t find out what’s going on first. Let’s go!” the Doctor called out as he waved Colgate over. “I think I see a settlement, come on!” Colgate ran over to the Doctor, seeing what he saw. A start of a small farm, an apple orchard from the look of it. It was about a few acres of settled land. Rows and rows of apple trees lined the flat ground, perfectly spaced. The Doctor and Colgate rushed past them to try to find the homestead.
“Doctor, this way!” Colgate called.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Of course I do, this is still Ponyville and I know my way around my town. From what I saw, it’s not much different from how it is in my time.”
“Lead on then.” The Doctor followed Colgate as she knowledgeably navigated her way through what would one day be Sweet Apple Acres. Weaving through the trees, they came across the home of the Apple family. It was small, but it served its purpose. As they approached the house they were stopped by a voice.
“Stop right there! Who are ya? I’m armed, I tells ya!” an obviously male voice shouted. The Doctor and Colgate stopped immediately.
“Um, hi,” the Doctor said calmly, “may I ask who is threatening us?”
“That’d be me.” A very bulky stallion arose from the shadows, scowling at them. “I’m a peaceful guy, but ah don’t take kindly to trespassers.”
“Well, um, you see, we aren’t trespassers.”
“Ya certainly seem like you’re trespassing,” the stallion said in a warning tone.
“I’m the Doctor. I’m from the Royal Future City Planning Commission, and this,” motioning to Colgate, “is my, uh... daughter. Yes, that’s it, daughter!”
“Daughter?” she cut in.
“Daughter,” he said flatly.
The stallion looked at them cautiously. “Ah’m gonna need to see some identification, please,” he asked politely, given the circumstances.
“Of course,” the Doctor said as he handed a blank pad of paper over to the stallion.
“Hmm,” the stranger mumbled. Colgate took this short pause to ask the Doctor a question.
“What was that?”
“Psychic paper, he sees anything I want him to see.”
“Nifty,” Colgate answered.
The Doctor looked back at her with a grin, “I know, right?”
“Well it seems good ta me,” said the stallion as he handed the paper back to the Doctor.
“Excellent!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Now I just have a few questions, is that alright?”
“Ah don’t see why not.”
“Have you been having any nightmares recently?”
“Well, no, not recently.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, ah reckon it’s because ah don’t sleep anymore. What’s the point in sleepin’ when you’re gonna wake up in a cold sweat anyway.”
“So what you’re saying is that the nightmares got worse?”
“Pretty much, yeah. That gonna be all?” the stallion asked. “I’ve got trees to attend to.”
“Yeah,” the Doctor said quietly and turned around to walk away. Colgate, watching the ordeal, did a double take on the Doctor.
“Why did you only ask him that? Couldn’t we ask him anything else?”
“We could, but it wouldn’t do anything.”
“Want to explain?”
“We need to go back to the TARDIS,” is all that the Doctor offered. They walked through the plains of the future Ponyville as night started to fall, Colgate looking over at the Doctor occasionally. His head was down, brow furrowed as he contemplated all the information available to him. When they finally got to the ship, Colgate was sick of the Doctor’s silence.
“Okay, Doctor, we’re here. Can you please explain what’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Hang on,” the Doctor said. “I think I know what happened, but I have to check something first.” The Doctor ran into the TARDIS and started looking at his scanner.
“What are you doing, Doctor?” Colgate called into the TARDIS, standing in the doorway.
“Those ponies out there said that they were also experiencing nightmares similar to the ones you were having.”
“So, why is that important?”
“I think that might be the key to all of this. Nightmares are normal, but not like this they aren’t. There was an epicenter to the nightmares and I think I know what that was.” The Doctor pulled a lever and the time rotor activated. Squinting at the monitor, the Doctor softly said to himself, “Of course, but that means... Oh... Oh, that is clever... She gains energy from psychic energy, but... No... Oh, that is not good.”
“Doctor!” Colgate called out. “Mind explaining instead of talking to yourself?”
The Doctor, running over to Colgate right outside the TARDIS, exclaimed “I know what Nightmare Moon is doing!”
“Fantastic! Cut to the chase!”
“Somehow, she got pulled into the rift I created. In doing so, her unprotected consciousness stretches over a thousand years, viewing all possibilities in all time periods at the same time. Only to make matters worse, she has learned to push a small part of herself out of the rift. She wasn’t able to fully release herself because she is still bound to the moon. That small part tapped into the dreams of ponies everywhere over a thousand years and fed off the energy those ponies were creating. She, then, is using that psychic energy to make herself stronger and push more of herself out of the universe. The energy of millions of ponies spanning over the course of a thousand years is making her stronger by the second.”
“She’s in every timeline, and she’s getting stronger? What does that mean? Isn’t she weaker in the past? Can’t we stop her?”
“It’s... It’s hard to explain. The timeline is all...” he paused as struggled for the correct word, contorting his face, thinking. “The timeline is all wibbly right now. Nightmare Moon is partially inside of the rift, spanning a thousand years, and she’s perceiving all of it at the same time.” He sat down next to her and drew a small diagram in the dirt, showing her time and the time they were in presently. “Now listen, we ran from that mist stuff in your time, right?”
“Yeah, and that was Nightmare Moon?”
“Yes, well, at least a small part of her anyway. That sentient mist stuff still exists in this time, and it has all the knowledge from the mist in your time. If we were to face it here, it would already know who we are.”
“So basically, what you’re saying is that the perspective of time we have, stepping into your box and coming out into this time, spanning only a few minutes, is just the same as how Nightmare Moon sees it?”
The Doctor lit up with a smile. “Yes, exactly,” he said with a certain amount of pride, “I’ve never met anybody, or anypony quite like you. You are awfully bright for your age.”
She only gave him a small smile back. “I think a lot,” was her only reply. “But why is she doing this?”
“She was imprisoned on the moon, and no-pony likes to be contained, they want freedom. She wants to break out of the prison,” he said in a whisper while looking up at the stars.
“But she’s in every timeline? What would that mean?”
“A massive paradox, a paradox big enough to break time itself. That would mean Nightmare Moon in every single possible timeline in history at every single moment in time. She probably has no idea what she will do, or she doesn’t care.”
Looking at him carefully, Colgate asked, “Where are you from anyway?”
“A place far away from here called Gallifrey.”
“I remember you saying that, how far away is it, generally speaking?”
“In a different universe,” he said matter-of-factly.
“No way,” Colgate gaped at him. “You can travel between universes?”
“Well I did, but I really shouldn’t be able to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where I came from, my people created the time vortex: a swirling system of storms and tunnels that the TARDIS has to traverse to travel through time. And with that came the ability to travel between universes. Traversing universes was once as easy as traveling through time. And then the war came,” the Doctor said solemnly. “A war that devastated the universe, entire races and civilizations were destroyed. Including mine, the Time Lords, every last one is gone.
“Wait, all of your people are gone? How?”
“The Time Lords, the most powerful race in existence, fought creatures known as Daleks. As they warred through time, more and more died until there were none left,” he paused. “Except me.”
“Wait,” Colgate said, “Your people could move through time, does that mean that some of them are still alive?”
“The Time Lords are not dead, not exactly. They are still in the Time War, killing each other again and again. Since none of them can get out, they are essentially dead. After they ‘died,’ everything changed, the gates that break through the universes were closed and the void filled its place. The universes were forever sealed away from each other, at least so I thought. I was taken from my universe and somehow landed here.”
He paused and drew up a diagram: Two tunnels, parallel to each other. “This tunnel, right here,” he said pointing toward the one closest to him. “This is the time vortex in my universe. And this,” he said, pointing toward the one closest to Colgate, “is your universe. You can clearly see that they do not touch, and never will touch.” Colgate nodded in agreement. “Now something happened that never should have happened. Somehow the two universes got connected, I don’t know why.” He drew a third tunnel that connected the two other tunnels. “I believe that I fell through a hole in the time vortex, a tiny hole in time. And I was deposited in this universe, right at the start of Nightmare Moon’s imprisonment and created a rift. When I left the moon to escape, I tried to run back through the rift into my timeline. But apparently, the rift didn’t connect this universe to mine, well kinda, but not really. Finding the way back to my universe would be trying to look for a certain rabbit hole over the surface of a planet. The rift was actually connecting two points in space-time to each other, starting with Nightmare’s imprisonment. As I went through, she must have tried to follow me and got caught in the rift. I have no idea how she survived the vortex, but she must have forced me to land mid-trip. After that happened, I landed right in the castle in the forest and found you.” He continued, “I believe that she was causing the nightmares everyone was having, feeding off your fear and psychic energy. You mentioned that the nightmares were just starting, yet you also felt like they had always been there.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to explain. Do you have any idea what happened?”
“I think I might. As she went through the rift, she fractured time. You immediately felt the effects from her manipulating the timeline, as well as the bleeding effect of your history being rewritten.”
“So was any of this actually supposed to happen in the natural time stream?”
“You know when I said that the timeline was wibbly?”
“Yeah?”
“That basically means I have no clue.”
“Perfect,” Colgate sighed under her breath. “Tell me you know how to stop her.”
“Of course I do, I always have a plan.”
“Well that’s a relief, what is it?”
“Well, most likely, we are going to get into the TARDIS trying to figure out what is going wrong. But before we can do that, things are going to happen at a place with some stuff. Following, there will most likely be some tomfoolery. And after that is all said and done, we will be thrown into an incredibly dangerous situation that has potentially cataclysmic ramifications, where I will have to be spontaneously brilliant. Any questions?”
“Yes, are you insane?”
“Quite possibly.” The Doctor beamed. Colgate shook her head but couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
“One last question, Doctor,” Colgate announced after a brief silence.
“Hmm?”
“Why are you called the Doctor?”
“I picked the name for myself.”
“You picked it?”
“A story for later. Basically, I chose the name ‘Doctor’ because it was a noble profession. I wanted to think of myself as someone that helps people. Well, ponies now.”
“And that’s what you do? Fly around and fix the problems of the universe?”
“Yep, pretty much. Come on, we’re going to be late for the place with the stuff.” The Doctor got up and walked to the TARDIS, opening the door and holding it open for Colgate to enter before he got in and closed it. And before long, the TARDIS made its classic grinding sound as it dematerialized, returning the landscape to its peaceful barren space.
“Where are we going now?” Colgate asked.
“Well, we have everything we need, so we’re heading back to your time to see if we can stop her.”
“What do you think we’re gonna find?”
“Not sure,” the Doctor mumbled as he mulled over the controls.”A bit of this, a bit of that, throw in some crazy, and bing-bang boom, off to new adventures.” The Doctor threw the engine release lever and landed the TARDIS back into Ponyville. Colgate, knowing where they were, was visibly nervous.
“Shall we?” the Doctor asked.
“I guess,” Colgate said, voice quivering.
“Tally-ho!” the Doctor shouted as he threw open the doors. Behind him, Colgate braced, expecting the worst. “Huh,” was the Doctor’s only comment.
“I don’t want to see, Doctor. Just tell me what’s on fire.”
“Nothing,” the Doctor said quietly. “Everything is normal, nothing is on fire. Seems like a normal day in Ponyville.” The Doctor and Colgate walked out from the TARDIS into the street in front of Sugercube Corner. The sun was shining bright in the sky, the birds were singingand for all appearances, everything was ‘normal.’
“This is good, right?”
“Yeah, well, good is relative. I guess things could be a lot worse.”
a ghostly voice laughed from seemingly nowhere. At that point, the sky, once blue, became a maelstrom of sickly purple-black clouds. The ‘clouds’ all met in a central focal point, the eye of the storm. At the eye, matter seemed to rearrange, sucking the clouds inside itself, creating what looked like a black hole. The wind picked up, buffeting the Doctor and Colgate.
Shielding his face from the wind, the Doctor shouted to Nightmare Moon, trying to get an explanation. “You shouldn’t be this powerful, not yet! This only started a few hours ago for both of us, you shouldn’t be able to bind yourself to the planet from the rift, how did you do it?”
Unearthly laughter was heard as Nightmare Moon continued,
“What is that, Doctor?” Colgate yelled over the roar of the growing maelstrom.
“It’s a breach in time! She must be using that to push herself fully out of the rift!”
“And if she does get out?”
“Let’s just hope that it doesn’t come to that!” As if in answer, Nightmare Moon became visible through the breach, just as the Doctor had seen her on the moon. But the Doctor could see that she was not completely out of the rift. Her body was not yet whole, and mist was still connecting her to the breach.
Nightmare Moon whispered, menacingly. Black spikes erupted from the ground, spilling mist out with them. The mist took the form of the fissures that Colgate and the Doctor had seen in the young unicorn’s room. Chaos was everywhere. Ponies from all over Ponyville were running in fear. The mist responded to this fear and began to pursue them. One by one, the ponies were being grabbed by Nightmare’s mist, the fissure doubling as an arm to make tactile contact with its victims. After stunning them, it wrapped itself around the top of their skulls to make direct contact with the brain.
“Colgate, run!” the Doctor ordered as he began his way to the TARDIS.
“Doctor!” she shouted, almost pleading. “EEP!” She gave a short scream and a whimper as the Doctor heard the sound of a body hitting the ground.
The Doctor turned around sharply. “COLGATE!” he shouted, running back to her. The Doctor saw the mist had taken hold of her and driven her into submission.
“Doctor, help,” she cried weakly.
“What is she doing to you, Colgate?” the Doctor said in hurried tones.
“I... I see everything,” she said, sounding possessed.
“What do you mean, ‘everything’?”
“I see time how Nightmare Moon sees it. She wants me to feel pain, Doctor, how she feels every moment. She wants me to suffer,” Colgate answered, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Colgate,” the Doctor told her, looking her in the eyes. “I need you to concentrate, I need you to concentrate on right here, right now.”
“Doctor,” she said weakly, “It hurts.”
“I know it does, but you have to focus. You are seeing time how Nightmare Moon sees it, which means you can focus on one point in particular.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she said tearfully.
“You can, you are brilliant. Come on, Colgate, think about this point and this point only. Stop Nightmare Moon from doing this to you, steel your mind. Don’t let the nightmares take over.”
“Please help me, Doctor,” she pleaded.
“I can’t beat her for you, but I can help. You have to be the one to force her out of your mind.” The Doctor put his hooves on her head. “Now this will feel strange.”
“Stranger than what happened already?” Colgate weakly joked. The Doctor chuckled out loud when hearing it. Putting his forehead against hers, the Doctor joined his mind with Colgate. The rush of new ideas flooded against the barriers Colgate was trying to create around her mind, but instead of attacking, the new rush of consciousness joined Colgate in blocking Nightmare Moon’s grasp. After what seemed like hours of concentration, Colgate and the Doctor pushed Nightmare Moon from her head. The tendrils cupping Colgate’s head, defeated, slowly fell to the ground like feathers. Colgate collapsed after the mental exertion.
“Weak-minded?” the Doctor asked. “That filly over there has one of the most beautiful minds I have ever seen in my hundreds of years of travel. You hurt her, and I can’t stand for that, not to mention there is an entire race of sentient creatures on this planet. Peaceful creatures, they have done nothing to you, just leave them alone.”
Nightmare Moon asked.
“No.”
she said menacingly.
“I will give you one last chance and that’s it. Stop what you are doing, or I’ll force you to stop. This is the only chance I will give you.”
“Nothing can beat you? Please,” the Doctor said dismissively. “I’ve destroyed species, defeated legions of Cybermen, faced the Devil himself, hooked myself into a planet to win a bet, kick started the universe and stopped the destruction of the entirety of creation on multiple occasions. You are nothing. You are just a speck, a tiny microscopic speck. Do you ever have nightmares, Nightmare Moon? Well I’ve got a perfect one for you: me.”
The Doctor smiled smugly, saying in a soft voice, “If you were smart, you would.” Raising his voice he proclaimed, “Now I want you to hear, through every timeline, every moment of your consciousness, that today, right here, is when I defeat you. And when you go back to where you come from, I want you to remember one thing: The Doctor did this! All throughout time and space, you should fear my name. Remember me, Nightmare Moon, because I’m the last thing you are going to see for a long time.” Pausing for a moment, the Doctor continued in a softer tone, “Hello. I’m the Doctor, and I’m your worst nightmare.”
Nightmare Moon, responded to the Doctor with a threat of her own. she spat.
The Doctor chuckled and continued smiled. “Don’t count on it.” With that, the Doctor rushed back to the TARDIS, dragging Colgate away with him from danger. Closing the doors of the TARDIS, the Doctor ran to the console. The Doctor stood there and weighed his only option, the only way to send Nightmare Moon back to where she came from. The Doctor would have to close the rift.
The implications of closing the rift were severe; by closing the rift, the Doctor would be sealing himself inside this universe, trapping him for God-knows-how-long. Still, seeing the mayhem outside, the Doctor couldn’t stand idly by while Nightmare Moon unraveled the universe.
The Doctor muttered to himself as he began his final plan for stopping her. “I only have one shot at this,” he said as he began to activate some of the TARDIS’s systems. “Reversing the process, setting the engines to expel the excess rift energy, and hopefully that will work.” He paused. “Hopefully.”
The Doctor was one switch flick away from stopping Nightmare Moon and trapping himself in this universe forever. The weight of the action caused the Doctor to hesitate a second, but, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, the Doctor flipped the switch. The interior of the TARDIS shook, the time rotor in the center of the console glowing a pale blue as energy flowed up the center. After that, the process was unstoppable. He had passed the point of no return.
___________________________________________________________________
Nightmare Moon watched silently outside of the Doctor’s blue box, waiting for the foolish Doctor to leave his precious shelter. She had tried to get in on multiple occasions, but each time to no avail. Silently moving around the box, she saw no signs of movement. She didn’t believe that the Doctor could truly do anything to her, yet something in the back of her mind told her to keep watching him carefully. He may be only a pony, but he was shifty and confident. Was he bluffing? Well, she would find out soon enough.
In answer, the blue box in front of her started to glow with a pale white light, dimly at first, but growing in strength until it became almost blinding to look at. Even though in this form she didn’t have eyes per-say, Nightmare Moon recoiled and turned away just the same. But even as she was turned, she sensed the Doctor step out of his box. She spun back around and hissed. The Doctor, ever confident, gave her a smile.
she demanded, a hint of fear in her voice.
The Doctor, turning around to look at the glowing TARDIS responded with a slightly surprised ‘Hmmph’ and softly spoke, “Well that’s new. Anywho…” He paused, gave his attention back to Nightmare Moon, and continued, “What did I do? Well, it’s simple really. I reversed the process I used to free both of us and severed the connection the TARDIS had to the rift, closing whatever is allowing you to send yourself onto this world. Run along now, Nighty, or else you’re going to get trapped in the void for the rest of eternity. Speaking of which, it looks like it’s almost time.” Sure enough, the light from the TARDIS had reached a critical point. Sharp daggers of light burst forth from the exterior and shot upwards into the blackened sky, creating a maelstrom in the clouds. Before long, the sky, swirling around the center beam of light from the TARDIS, started to clear. Daylight showed through the cracks in the blackness, illuminating the ground once again.
“Go, Nightmare Moon! If you go back to the moon now, you can still be saved! This doesn’t have to be the end! I won’t ever let you win, but I’m not going to stand here and destroy you without giving you a way out!” the Doctor shouted at the dark mess before him. In a few moments, the shadows and tendrils of Nightmare Moon receded back into nothingness, and before long, were non-existent. The sky finished clearing, the blue sky and sun shining high in the sky. The TARDIS, severing the last few threads of rift energy, went back to its seemingly dormant state. Colgate stumbled out from the TARDIS. For the most part she looked alright, aside from a possible massive headache. “Is that it?” she asked, giving a weak smile to the Doctor. “Is she gone?”
“Yep, most likely she took my advice and is back to where she’s supposed to be. This isn’t the end of her, though. When I did break through the rift, I cut away at the energy keeping her imprisoned on the moon. So she will break free, in time. Speaking of which, I should probably see how that turns out. See if they need any help.”
“Well, I’m coming with you. You need someone to go with you. I’ve been inside your head Doctor, you need somepony.”
“No Colgate, I’m sorry.”
“Why can’t I go with you?”
“Because you still have an entire life to live with your family. Go find them; they are going to feel the effects of time being re-written again, and according to time, this never happened. They are going to forget everything that took place, all the nightmares, the sky, everything. But they are going to remember that they were scared for you.”
“Why are they going to forget? Will I forget too?” Colgate wondered, worried.
“No, you’re a time-traveler now, and you have a different perspective on time. But nothing is ever forgotten, and I’m sure that some ponies will vaguely remember what happened.” He paused. “Go to your parents, you have a full life ahead of you.” The Doctor turned to the TARDIS and was about to get in when Colgate stopped him.
“Am I ever going to see you again?”
The Doctor turned around and gave her a wink. “You will, I promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Doctor. But what if some ponies remember, I can’t really tell them that a time traveler closed a breach in reality, sending Nightmare Moon back to the moon for a second time. They’re gonna think I’m crazy.”
“Tell them that a kindly old doctor made a house call to stop the nightmares, a ‘doc-in-a-box’ if you will,” the Doctor laughed at his own little joke.
The Doctor got into his ship and closed the door. Before long, Colgate heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS dematerializing. Her heart dropped when she knew that she wouldn’t see him again. The Doctor, a creature from beyond the stars. An old creature, filled with hundreds of years of knowledge and hundreds of years of sadness. Her best friend in all of Equestria. The one pony that understood her and changed her life. “Goodbye Doctor, you better keep your promise,” Colgate whispered to no-pony in particular, crying slightly. As the big blue box faded from view, unbeknownst to Colgate, her cutie mark appeared on her flank. A gold hourglass, just like the Doctor’s.
_____________________________________________________________________
Years later…
“Hello Colgate, how was your lunch?” her receptionist asked as Colgate walked through the doors of her dentist office.
“It was great, Gum Drop, thanks for asking. Do we have any appointments later on today?”
“Only one more, it’s from a pony that made an appointment a few days ago.”
“Who is it?”
“Not sure, I never saw him before. He went by the name of Time Turner. He also asked me to give you this.” She handed Colgate an indigo envelope.
“Do you know what it says?” Colgate asked curiously.
“No idea, I didn’t open it.”
Colgate’s interest was piqued. Slowly opening the envelope, she found a single note inside, written in blue ink. Picking it up with magic, she read it; it was a single sentence, a sentence that caused Colgate’s heart to leap. “Where is he?” Colgate asked exuberantly.
“He’s in the back room now. He seemed nice enough, so I let him in.”
“You know what, Gum Drop? Go ahead and take the rest of the day off. I’ve got everything from here.”
“Oh thank you-” She was unable to complete her sentence when Colgate dropped the letter and the envelope and rushed into the back. As the note fell, it landed on the ground face-up, and on it read:
I always keep my promises.
Colgate ran into the room and saw exactly who she wanted to see, yet never believed she would. “Afternoon, Colgate! You run a dentist office? That’s brilliant!” Moving his tongue around in his mouth, he continued, “Speaking of which, I still haven’t gotten used to my new mouth, it's only been about a day since I got this new body. My still teeth feel all... eww.” He grimaced. “Think you can take a look at them?” The Doctor just gave her a small smile before giving himself a shake like he remembered something. “Oh, I found your key,” he said, handing her a charred and disfigured piece of metal. “I found it on the moon, must have fallen into one of the cracks Nightmare Moon came out of. See? I always keep my promises.” He paused for a moment and looked up at her. “So how do you feel about an adventure? Anywhere you want to go, all of time and space. Just name it.”
Colgate just stared at the Doctor as if he was a ghost, the disbelief evident in her expression. “I... I... I don’t know. I have a dentist office and I can’t afford to miss anything. I have appointments and patients...” She paused and pursed her lips, hitting herself gently in the face before she continued. “And I just realized how stupid that statement was. You can travel in time and space, so we could travel for years and still drop me off five minutes from now. Sorry, been out of practice.”
“So, is that a yes?”
“Buck yeah, it’s a yes! And I need to thank you for my cutie mark,” she said, revealing the hourglass on her flank.
“Would you look at that,” the Doctor said smiling. “When did you get it? I have to say, it’s quite fitting.”
“I got it after you just finished saving the day that nopony remembers. I think it means that I understand how time works, sort of. As you said, it’s ‘wibbly.’” She paused to flash him a large smile. “Well, I’m not getting any younger, let’s go!”
The Doctor rolled off of the seat, grabbed her by the hoof, and ran with her through her dentist office, shouting, “Tally-Ho!” as they galloped out the door to whatever adventures awaited them.
