You really shouldn't blame Dinky. Children are by nature expert product testers. Hand them any object, no matter how simple or child-proofed, they'll zero in on the one thing they must absolutely not do with it.
It was a quiet morning at the clock store. At the workbench Time Turner hummed tunelessly to himself around the screwdriver held in his mouth as he finished a careful adjustment to the escapement of an expensive mantlepiece clock. The tan-flanked pony put down the tool, sighed in relief, adjusted his green bow tie and waited.
Three... two... one...
Every clock in the store binged, bonged, clanged, or rang twelve times in unison, a perfect chorus of tintinnabulation. Time Turner swung a hoof with pride at that. Every clock wound, all running in perfect time... yes!
Then he peered into the mantlepiece clock's workings again, finally spotting the missing screw he'd dropped earlier. "Aha!"
He called happily over his shoulder. "Only a bit left to do here, Dinks -- promise! And then, lunch!" He grabbed a tweezers with his mouth and gently inserted it into the clock's gearing.
Seated on the floor next to the shop's sales counter was a small purple-flanked filly with a blond mane. Dinky was staring fixedly at a toy in her forehooves. It was a marble game, which involved gently maneuvering a metal ball-bearing through a maze made of wooden dividers. There were covered tunnels as well, in which the ball was briefly hidden from view. And holes in the surface, leading to more secret tunnels criss-crossing beneath. And at least one place in the maze -- Dinky hadn't figured out exactly where yet -- where the marble simply disappeared altogether. It reappeared somewhere else, at random, only after a considerable amount of shaking the puzzle and turning it end-for-end.
The puzzle had been occupying her for days, off and on, as she tried to work out its secrets. She felt she was really getting the hang of it. But every once in a while, even though she knew it was cheating, her horn flashed as she used her unicorn magic to give the marble just the teeniest, tiniest shove, so it went the way she wanted it to go for once.
She glanced up at Daddy, saw he'd started oiling the clock's innards. That would take a while, she knew. He always liked to do a thorough job.
Dinky reached around, pulled open a drawer, and tucked the puzzle away, because she was a good filly and Daddy had taught her to put things back where she found them. Then she got up and trotted over to the stairs and climbed them, up to the upstairs room they all shared, with Mommy and Daddy's bed on the one side and her own smaller bed on the other.
Pausing for a moment to listen to Daddy's busy humming downstairs, she quietly crossed the room and climbed the ladder, up into the attic.
She wasn't supposed to be up here alone but she loved the attic, with its boxes of old clock parts, coils of wire, oilcans and discarded tools. And there were the well-worn suitcases, relics of Time Turner's days as a clock salespony, full of old travel brochures, maps, and yellowing train schedules. It was dusty up here as usual, and she sneezed, as quietly as she could manage. And then she crept over to the trunk.
The trunk was her favorite. It always seemed so mysterious, sitting there off in the corner by itself. She liked to pretend it was a treasure chest. It was large and old, with strange gear-like symbols embossed all over it. It also had a large antique padlock on the front. But Dinky had long since figured out how to get past that with a bit of bent wire she kept tucked in her mane and the tricks Daddy had taught her for getting into clocks and storage cases that customers had lost the key to.
Inside the trunk was a pile of old clothes, including a long scarf, a funny round felt hat, and a pair of gold suspenders. There was a ring of keys, a sack of coins of strange colors and shapes. And down at the bottom there was a large grey coat, with capacious pockets.
Dinky loved the coat best of all. It was the same color as Mommy, it smelled like Mommy. And it seemed that every time Dinky dipped a hoof in its pockets she came up with something completely different.
But this time when she lifted the coat out of the trunk, something fell out of its sleeve. It was a watch. An old, antique pocket-watch, much like the ones Daddy sometimes worked on with the tiniest of his tools.
She picked up the watch, turned it over in her hooves. It had the same strange, gear-like symbols etched on it, just like the trunk. It had a fob and what looked like a cover that flipped open. But she wasn't able to open it, no matter where she pressed on it. And when she held it up to her ear, she heard nothing for the longest time.
And then she heard... tick.
It was like the time she'd played with a music box, and held its cover open, listening as it wound itself down all the way to the very end, note by note, slower and slower. It had sounded so plaintive and sad. Like the one thing it wanted in the whole universe was to play just one more note of its song.
So Dinky did the obvious thing. She wound up the watch, and listened again.
Tick-tick... tick-tick... tick-tick... tick-tick...
Pleased, she carefully put the watch back in the sleeve of the coat, put the coat back in the trunk, and then everything else back on top of it, and then locked the trunk back up. Because she was a good filly, and Daddy had taught her to put things back where she found them. And then she climbed back down the ladder again.
Just as she reached the bottom, she heard Daddy calling up the stairs. "Dinks! Lunch time!"
She hurried down the stairs and found him, waiting for her at the bottom, smiling and carrying a bit-bag in his mouth which he passed to her. "There you go! Run along now to Sugarcube Corners, and tell Auntie Pinkie what we're having for lunch. I'll be along directly, soon as I find Mummy, all right?"
"Is Mommy lost again?"
"Nah! Not a bit!" Time Turner smirked. "Just gets a little busy on her rounds, gets a little turned 'round, needs me to come round her up. Happens to all of us. Come on, off you get!"
Dinky took the bit-bag, tucked it carefully in her mane, and then raced happily out the door.
Time Turner watched her head off down the street. Then he sighed and went the other way, round the back of the shop and across the meadow... into the Everfree Forest.
After a bit of a ramble through clinging brush and nettles he came to a clearing hidden deep amongst the vine-strangled trees. And there, standing incongruously in the middle of it, was a tall blue box. It had frosted windows on all four sides, and a pair of doors on one of them, above which were the words:
POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX
Time Turner trotted up to the box, and patted it gently with a hoof. "Some day, old girl," he whispered sadly. "Some day!"
But it wasn't the box he was talking to. He'd noticed the mailbag carryall sitting by the doors. The right-hand door was slightly ajar. Nosing it open, he stepped inside.
Within, in a space much larger than the box should have contained, there was an imposing ancient temple of golden crystal and blinking lights. In its center was a hexagonal control console covered with levers and switches and readouts. As well-versed as Time Turner was in science and intricate mechanisms, every time he stepped in here it took his breath away.
There was a hole in the floor, where one of the deck-plates had been levered up. From within came occasional clinkings and tappings, and grunts of frustration.
"Lunch time, my sweet!" Time Turner called gently.
The industrious sounds stopped. Up through the hole popped a gray-coated, blond-maned head. The mare stared owlishly at him, wide-eyed.
And just for a second, as her eyes met his, he saw it: both of her eyes looking straight at him in perfect alignment. There was a burning intelligence in her gaze, which would have been frightening if he didn't know for a fact that the mare behind it was one of the most caring souls who'd ever lived.
And then, even as he watched, her eyes began to drift crossed again.
"Already?" she asked plaintively.
He shrugged. "Sorry, love! But you'll know where to pick up tomorrow, eh?"
"Ugh! This is taking forever! Twenty minutes a day. And that's on the good days. And just as I'm making a start, I have to leave off again. You get more work done in here than I do!"
"I do what I can, love," Time Turner reminded her patiently. It wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation. "I fix the mechanical stuff, every chance I get. But I can't do the really important work, only you can. I can fix the timey things. But only you can see to the wimey things!"
The Doctor sighed, frustrated. Then she held out a foreleg. "Hoof!"
"Hoof," he echoed, extending his own leg to give her a pull up.
She stood beside him, gazing around sadly. "I just want her to fly again, Timey! Just want to travel again! Pick a star and see what's on the other side of it. Remember?"
"Oh, I remember, love! How I remember!" He put a hoof around her shoulders. "And you'll do it. I know you will. And I'll help. However long it takes, I'll be right here. And so will Dinky. Great whickering stallions! You know right now she's probably stuffing herself silly on cupcakes that dearest Pinkie knows she isn't supposed to give her, but can't help it because she's the second nicest pony I've ever met?"
The Doctor smiled at that -- the knowing, mischievous smile he liked ever so much. And then, gradually, her expression faded, became distant and puzzled, her eyes fully crossed. Her voice became sad and worried.
"Oh no," she said, looking around. "Did I wander into your box again, Timey?"
"Yes, love," he said softly. "You're in my box. But it's all right. You like to hide in here sometimes, make me find you. Come on, now. Lunch time!"
Derpy smiled at him, relieved, and merrily trotted out through the door to collect her mail carryall.
After lunch, Dinky worked through the math problems Daddy had given her as her lessons for the day, and then helped him strip down and clean the old grandfather clock that needed to be done the day after next. She liked working with Daddy, liked the way he was so patient, never getting cross when she dropped something or put a part in backwards. He just showed her the right way, and smiled to let her know he was proud of her.
Finally, Mommy got home from her afternoon mail rounds. She shrugged off her mail carryall and flung aside her hat. And then she threw her forehooves wide for a hug from Dinky. Always a hug, first thing when she got home, without fail. And then a hug from Daddy as well, once he'd finally managed to extricate himself from the clock's innards.
They all had dinner together around the worktable, with Dinky chattering about all the things she'd done and learned that day, and Derpy telling them about everyone she'd run into on her rounds, sometimes literally.
And Time Turner sat silently, patiently, listening to both of them, enjoying every minute of it.
When dinner was done, Derpy took Dinky upstairs to see her to bed, and to spend time sitting by her bed, talking or sometimes reading her a story. It was their quiet time together, just the two of them, since Mommy had to be away at work all day. Dinky liked the stories best of all. Mommy hardly even needed to look at the book in her hooves. She just talked, about faraway lands and strange creatures, of times far past and far future. Of all of time and space, all that ever happened or ever would. Of times and places and ponies so wonderful, so dreamlike, that one simply had to run and run and run, to try to get to them before they disappeared...
Dinky fell asleep, safe and comfortable, listening to the sound of her mother's voice.
And then after talking together for a while, her parents turned in as well, hugging each other tightly before falling asleep in each others' hooves.
And up in the attic, deep in the bottom of the trunk, the watch ticked. It was self-adjusting, so it always showed the correct local time on any world that was not yet tidally locked.
The hands crept steadily, relentlessly towards midnight.
And at midnight... the watch lid clicked open.
The Doctor awoke. And she knew something was wrong. She remembered.
It wasn't like the fuzzy, uncertain recollections of the semi-lucid times she allowed herself. Twenty minutes, twice a day: once at noon, when she could work on fixing the TARDIS between her postal rounds, and once again at midnight, so she could dream properly. Princess Luna had been quite adamant about that, the time Derpy had nearly gone off the deep end and caused all that damage to the Town Hall.
Dreams are how the mind sorts itself out, Luna had advised her sternly. With so many memories, thou has to allow thy mind time to sort itself out properly.
And she would know, the Doctor agreed.
Lately she'd found herself awake for those twenty minutes in the middle of the night, her mind a jumble of plans, fears, hopes...
But not tonight. Tonight her mind was crystal clear, her memories back in place, all the way back to Gallifrey.
And that's not good, she thought. That is very not good.
She nudged the sleeping pony beside her. "Timey!" she whispered.
"Mwuhh?" He came awake quickly, staring up at her. "You're awake, love. I mean, really awake!"
"Yep. Someone been messing with the watch? It's run out way too soon."
"Not likely. It's tucked away safe, you know that."
"How long's it been? What time is it, anyway?"
Time Turner didn't need to look at a clock. "Three in the morning."
"So... figure three hours at least. It could be on its way here already. And once it's found the CVE, once it's found the way in, there'll be no stopping it!"
Throwing the covers back, she got up as quietly as possible.
"I need to go see the Princess, to warn her. And then I'll need to finish the repairs, fast as I can. And I need you," she added, pointing a hoof at him, "to do as we agreed, right?"
Time Turner looked stricken, as he quickly got up to follow her.
The Doctor stopped at the head of the staircase. She stood silently looking across at Dinky, asleep in her bed. Time Turner came to a halt beside her, looking at Dinky as well. "You don't regret it," he whispered -- half statement, half question.
"No! Not in the least. I love her! More than life itself. Which only makes this all the harder. Stay here. Back as quick as I can."
Spike was surprised at being awoken that early in the morning by the hammering of a hoof on the door of the Friendship Castle. He was even more surprised when he opened it, and found Derpy standing outside, looking unusually alert and impatient.
But the small purple dragon was beyond surprised when Derpy pushed briskly past him. "Spike, I need to speak with the Princess, right now."
"Erm, Twilight was working late last night. And it's kinda early to disturb her. Can it wait until morning?"
He gasped as Derpy swung round and grabbed him up in her forehooves.
"Spike, you know how much of a friend you are to everyone here?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"And how much we value everything you do, not just for Twilight, but for all of us, not expecting any thanks or recognition?"
"Um... I suppose?"
She stared him straight in the eyes, making him draw back uncomfortably.
"Wake up Twilight right now. Or I set fire to your comic-book collection."
He stared back, blinking. "It's that serious?"
"It's that serious."
"Be right back!" Spike dropped out of her hooves and scurried away.
When Twilight Sparkle trotted into the map room a few minutes later, the lavender alicorn found what she thought was an agitated Derpy, pacing back and forth.
Then the gray pegasus looked up at her.
Okay... not Derpy, she thought to herself. At least not the Derpy I know.
"Princess," the Doctor said, "we don't have a lot of time, so I'll be brief. And let's save the time-wasting questions for later. I'm called the Doctor. I'm a Time-Lord, from a planet called Gallifrey. I've been hiding out here, posing as the town's mailmare. And I'm sorry, I'm very sorry to have to say this... but my presence has just become a major threat to everypony here."
"I... see." Twilight nodded. "The Princesses mentioned you were here. But, I always thought that Time Turner..."
The Doctor cut her off. "He's been kind enough to cover for me, let ponies think anything weird about us was his doing. He's been kind in more ways than I can ever properly thank him for. And so have all of you, which is why I came here at once to warn you. A terrible threat is on its way here. I've been awake far too long. It'll be able to sense me now, track me. It'll know I'm here. And it'll be here soon itself."
"What will?"
"The thing that I've been running from, hiding from all this time." The Doctor paused, trying to put it into words. "Try to imagine -- if you can -- the entire Universe being really cross with you. Well, the parts of it you've ticked off over the millenia... eons... kalpas... whatever! Big chunks of really long time. Everything in the Universe that's ever lost to you, ganging up at the very end of time, amalgamating into one big seething ball of destructive hatred. And then coming for its revenge. It's been chasing me, for a very long time. I've tried running, can't get away. Tried hiding, hoping it would give up or lose the trail. Doesn't work. It's trouble incarnate... and trouble has always been able to find me."
"All right." Twilight nodded, her voice level and serious. "What can we do to help?"
The Doctor smiled thankfully. "I'll be leaving here shortly to keep everyone safe. I need you to keep everypony here, guards, townspeople, everyone from interfering, trying to stop it or protect me. This is between me and it. No one else needs to get involved. And... there's one other thing..."
She sighed unhappily. "I need you to help me find a proper home for Dinky."
"But..."
"I can't take her with me. And believe me," she said with a forlorn look, "this isn't a choice I make lightly. If the Princesses have told you anything about me, they've told you the life I lead isn't safe. Ponies who travel with me can be hurt or killed, despite my best efforts to prevent it. I can't let that happen to Dinky! I won't let it happen!"
Twilight nodded. "I understand. What it means to you. And I'll do whatever I can."
"Thank you, Twilight. And if it helps at all, to make up for the trouble I'm putting you through, I just want you to know that your Library -- the old oak tree Library? -- was always my favorite stop. It's why I came there first on my rounds every morning... even when I didn't understand exactly why."
Despite herself, Twilight smiled. Even given how early it was, even with everything the Doctor had just unloaded on her, there was something about the look in the mare's eyes, that incredibly honest, humble, thankful look, that did indeed make up for it all.
And then they both heard it... the noise outside.
It was like the grating rumble of an earthquake, a heavy bass vibration, seeming to come from no fixed source... it was simply everywhere.
Together, they looked at the main doors.
The Doctor swiftly recrossed the entry hall, Twilight only a few paces behind her. Gently, the Doctor eased open the right-hand door, and they looked out together.
In midair a short distance away, there was a violent rending of spacetime, a shredding of reality itself, throbbing and pulsing. Its core flowed and swirled with inky black tendrils enclosing a blazing core of livid, angry violet light.
The one glimpse Twilight got of it made her shiver... she felt as if every certainty she had ever known had been undermined, as if she would never ever feel entirely safe again.
The thrumming sound grew louder, becoming a growling, a roaring, as if the air itself was being torn atom from atom.
The Doctor slammed the door, threw her back against it. "Oh, that is so not good!"
And then she shoved Twilight one way, threw herself the other...
... just as a massive blast of violet energy ripped through the doors, immolating them in an instant and then passing straight onwards in a furious torrent, burning a huge tunnel straight through the entire castle. And that wasn't the worst of it. Everything the ravaging energy touched, everything it didn't simply destroy, became... unspeakable blackened, twisted horrors.
"Spike!" Twilight yelled, terrified.
For a tense moment there was no reply. Then: "Y-y-yeah, Twi?"
"Are you okay? Stay out of sight!"
"Don't worry! I'm not movin'! Well, okay, I'm gonna move a bit, just to get away from whatever the carpet's just turned into!"
"Wait, Spike!" Twilight forced herself to stay calm. "Don't move. Just tell me where you are. Exactly!"
"Uh, you know that little side-table, the one with the statue on it? I'm hiding right underneath it, and..."
Twilight shut her eyes, concentrating. In a flash of teleportation, Spike was sitting beside her.
"... and okay, now I'm here!"
The Doctor nodded appreciatively. "Nice," she said. "You know, there've been plenty of times when I wish it could have been that easy!"
"Okay," Twilight replied, pulling Spike close. "Now what?"
"Simple. I get out of here, as fast as I can," the Doctor replied. "Lead it off."
"And then what?"
"Later! Running now, plans later. I need to get back to my TARDIS. It's hidden in the Forest near the clock shop. Do you think you could..."
"Just watch me!" Twilight shut her eyes, focused, her horn blazing with magenta energy.
There was a blinding flash, enveloping all three of them.
And then they were all standing at the other end of Ponyville Square.
"That can't be right!" Twilight said, worried. "I was aiming for the clock shop, I know I was!"
"You aim was true," the Doctor reassured her. "It's reality that's bent. That's what this thing does. It distorts reality to suit itself!"
The swirling, inky vortex was still hovering in front of the Friendship Castle. Then it began sweeping towards them. And as it came, it exploded outward into a swirling, gaping maw of ink-dark clouds, a tunnel leading back to an impossibly distant eye of blazing, blinding light. The flowing, swirling clouds drew the eye, hypnotized the mind... they seemed to draw Twilight's very soul straight down into a roaring, raging maelstrom of limitless dark, immolating hatred...
All at once, there were several flashes of light, sudden and almost blinding. Multiple lightning bolts had struck the ground right in front of the thing.
With its hold on her mind broken, Twilight was finally able to look up. She saw a storm-cloud in the night sky overhead... with a familiar cyan face peering anxiously over the edge of it.
"Yo! Twilight! What the hay is that thing?"
"Rainbow! Stay away from it! It'll blast you into next week!"
A raging violet blast evaporated the cloud. But not Rainbow, who had dodged aside with inches to spare. "Oh, that's how ya want to play it, huh?" Rainbow boxed with her forehooves, then quickly dodged another blast. "Come on! Let's see what you've really got!"
"Rainbow! Are you insane?"
"Are you still here?" Rainbow dodged another blast. "Make like a library and book! I'll distract it!"
Twilight fretted a moment, then nodded. "Clock shop, Rainbow!"
"Gotcha, Twi! Yah, missed me again! What a lousy shot! Whoops! Okay, that was a little too close! Bleah! See if you can keep up, ink-blot!"
Rainbow swung round in a flash of rainbow contrail, and then shot away in an evasive pattern, just as Twilight reluctantly fired up her horn and tried the teleport spell again.
This time they wound up just where she'd intended, directly in front of the clock shop door.
The Doctor ran to the door, hauled it open. "Dinky! Timey!" She listened tensely. Then she nodded, and turned back to Twilight. "If Time Turner has done as we planned they'll be well away from here, gone to ground somewhere safe. You and Spike should do the same, Princess. I can take it from here."
"Not a chance! You might still need help. Once you're safely away from Ponyville, then Spike and I will go hide under our beds for a month. Deal?"
The Doctor didn't argue. She turned, led the way around the shop, and towards the looming wall of the Forest beyond.
With Twilight providing light from her horn, the three of them pushed through the clinging brambles, and finally came to the tall blue box, hidden in its clearing deep among the trees.
"That's it?" Spike asked, underwhelmed. "Somehow I was expecting a lot more."
"Be careful what you wish for, Spike," Twilight warned him.
The Doctor reached into her mane behind her ear, and produced a small key, which she used to unlock the door. "I'll need to do a couple terrible, horrible, no-good, awful bodge-up hacks to get her moving. Could you keep watch for a minute?"
Twilight nodded, and glanced around worriedly at the sky.
Beside her, Spike peered through the open doorway after Derpy, at the cavernous interior. "Woah..." he whispered.
"Told you, Spike!"
And then Twilight heard it... the rumbling, growling vibration, coming closer. "Doctor!" she called, not turning around, "I think we're running short of time!"
"Nearly done!" the Doctor called back from inside. "Get clear, you two. And thanks for everything!"
"Safe travels, Doctor!" Twilight called. "Come on, Spike."
And then suddenly Rainbow came flying over the edge of the treetops, dive-bombing straight at them.
"GANGWAY!"
Twilight tumbled backward through the doorway, Spike right behind her. Rainbow managed to pull up at the last moment and roared past, missing them by inches and hitting the deckplates rolling. With a loud thump she ended up wedged upside down beneath the rim of the central console. "We need to get moving!" Rainbow yelled, shaking her head. "I tried leading it off, but it suddenly gave up following me and headed this way. I think got ahead of it, but not by much, and..."
She finally managed to take in the room around her. "... what the hay?"
The Doctor popped up through the hole in the deck. She glanced back at Rainbow, then turned forward again... and her eyes went wide. "Twilight! Shut the doors! Now!"
Twilight's horn blazed, she found the doors with her magic, and slammed them closed.
Looking back she saw the Doctor clamber out of the hole, throw herself at the control console, and yank down a lever.
Twilight heard a raging blast of energy outside, saw angry violet light glaring through the fragile-looking windows of the doors...
And then the entire room reverberated with a wheezing, groaning sound. The central column of the control console rose and fell. There were explosions under the deckplates, and sparks flew from the console itself. And then, as the noise reached a peak, there was a sense of the entire space around them being snatched away, thrown headlong through space and time, carrying them all far away from the threat behind them.
Twilight looked about. All around her, the TARDIS's control room clicked and hummed peacefully.
Catching her own breath, the Doctor smiled at her. "We're safe now, at least for the moment. Entire armies have tried to force their way through those doors... not a hope." Then her smile faded. "Even so, as long as I'm in here I might as well have painted a neon target on my back. That thing will just follow me, find me, wherever I set down again."
"And Ponyville?" Twilight asked, worried.
"... is safe now. Everyone back there will be fine. It's me it's after." The Doctor looked worriedly at the control console, then crossed to it and began carefully adjusting levers and pressing switches. "Now," she said, "let's see if I can even land us safely. I had to cut quite a few corners getting us off."
Rainbow hauled herself out from under the console and came over to stand next to Twilight and Spike, staring across at the Doctor.
"You're pretty quiet, Rainbow," Twilight said, smirking.
"Meh. Being around you, Twilight, I'm used to weird stuff happening. But... just explain it to me sometime when we've got like three weeks to spare, will ya?"
Then Rainbow looked across at the gray mare, still busy at the console controls.
"Uh, hey, Derpy. This is... a new look for you, isn't it?"
"Oh. Is it?" She looked back at him. "A good look, I hope? I mean, I can still do the eyes, if that helps." She crossed them deliberately, with a hint of her old whimsical smile.
"Nah, that's okay," Rainbow waved a hoof. "And... I'm also kinda sorry about all those times I made fun of ya. You know, for..."
"It's all right, Rainbow. It's what you were supposed to think about me. It kept me safe... kept everyone safe. As long as it couldn't find me." She frowned. "If only that blasted watch hadn't run out so soon --"
She stopped and fell silent. All of them turned to look. They'd all heard the noise, a soft "eep", coming from behind an inner door on the other side of the room.
As they watched, the door creaked open, and through the gap Dinky peered out at them, wide-eyed. She was followed a moment later by Time Turner, looking sheepish.
"Mommy?" Dinky said, her voice small and frightened.
The Doctor stared at her, shocked.
And then her serious expression melted into a warm, loving smile. "Dinks!" She threw her forehooves wide.
Dinky came racing across to her for a hug. "I'm sorry, Mommy!" Dinky cried. "I was playing with the watch and I wound it up and even though I put it right back now everything's broken and it's all my fault and I'm sorry!"
"Shh! Shh!" The Doctor held her close. "It's all right, Muffin. You didn't know what it was. And it's turned out okay. We're all here, we're all safe."
The Doctor looked up, over Dinky's head, at Time Turner. He took a step back uneasily.
"Ah... sorry, love," he said. "In my defense, well... I just couldn't go back to working in that clock shop all by myself. Every tick and tock, every bing and bong reminding me of you, somewhere out here on your own, where I couldn't lift a hoof to help you. I couldn't bear it! So we hid in here. I knew we'd be safe in here, at least."
"Are you angry, Mommy?" Dinky asked, "Because we hid in your box?"
She shook her head. "I'm only ever angry with my enemies, Muffin," she said softly. "Never with those I care about. And that goes for you too, Timey," she added, putting out a hoof and tugging him close. "Even if you are bog-awful at keeping your word."
"That I am, love!" he willingly agreed, hugging both of them.
The Doctor glanced across at Twilight and the others. "Sorry, Princess. Little family moment here."
"Nothing to be sorry for, Derpy -- I mean, Doctor," Twilight replied. "It's wonderful to see you're all still together."
"But Dinky," the Doctor said, staring down at her sternly, "if you're going to travel with me, you need to understand something very clearly. This isn't a picnic or a school outing. It's deadly serious. You can get hurt out here. You need to pay attention, do what Mommy says. No big eyes, no arguments. You have to do what I tell you, even when you don't want to. Especially when you don't want to! Because it'll be that important. You hearing me, Dinks?"
"Yes, Mommy!" Dinky replied, nodding.
"And that goes double for you, mister," she added to Time Turner. "I need you to set a good example here."
"Right you are, love." He nodded. "Loud and clear!"
"Well!" Rainbow said. "This is all nice and wonderful and ooey-gooey. But what exactly do we do now? I get the sense we're not in Ponyville anymore."
The Doctor glanced at the controls. "About... nine billion light-years away from it," she said. "And just about... wait for it... there, just three trillion years in the future."
"I'm... just gonna pretend that's even possible," Rainbow grumbled. "What I mean is, what do we do about... whatever it is, that mind-melting horror thingy I'm assuming is still chasing us?"
"What we do is get the three of you back home," the Doctor said. "We'll circle round, drop you off first chance we can get. I know how much everyone back there depends on you -- you in particular, Princess. It's essential we get you back."
"Me? Why me?"
The Doctor put a hoof to her lips. "Shhh. Spoilers!" She smiled. "And besides, you don't get to do why-me. I do why-me. It's kinda my job."
"But..." Twilight objected, "even if you do get us home, Doctor, what happens to you, with that thing after you? You said it's from the very end of time itself. That means... well, that you don't ever defeat it?"
The Doctor shrugged. "That's how life is, sometimes. It's not like the stories we tell ourselves. Books, and plays, and movies, and downloads, and mindlinks... they tell the same story, or near enough. That there's an ending, that you can win, defeat the big villain, reach the conclusion, have all the loose ends wrapped up nicely at the end. It's a nice, comforting ending. But it's wrong. The fight never ends. It's fought over and over, right up until the last curtain. With new players standing as the old ones fall. Because the fight is life itself. It's what life is: a constant stand against the darkness."
She sighed. "I make it sound so bleak. And it's not entirely without hope... while there's life, there's hope. And even if you have to keep fighting for it, it's worth it. Just as long as you keep finding and seeing new things, reminding yourself what it is you're fighting for."
She looked down at Dinky, and hugged her. "Like you, Muffin! You doing okay?"
"Yes, Mommy. I'm not scared. Well... not much."
"Come on, Dinks," Time Turner said. "Let's go get a room fixed up for all of us. Give Mummy and the Princess some time to think up a plan, eh?"
"Okay!" Giving her mother one more hug, Dinky trotted through the inner door after Time Turner.
Rainbow stepped closer to the console, peering at its dials and readouts. "Well," she finally said, "I'm not sitting quietly at home with something like that roaming around. Seeing as we're along for the ride, I'd like to get in a few licks of my own." She shadow-boxed the air with her forehooves. "So tell us how we fight this thing, make it think twice about showing up in Equestria again!"
The Doctor shook her head. "I've been trying to figure that one out for ages, believe me. Every time I think I've won, it just makes that thing stronger, more virulent, more eager to come after me."
"So... maybe fighting it isn't the answer," Twilight said. "What we need is to find a way to get it off your back for a while, buy you some breathing room."
"Could we maybe distract it?" Spike asked. "Like Rainbow was doing?"
"That doesn't work for long," the Doctor answered. "And to be honest, you were lucky, Rainbow. Others have tried to lead that thing off... and paid the price. In the end, it always turns back to pursuing me. As long as I'm awake, aware, interacting with the Universe, it can find me!"
"Well, come on!" Rainbow said, annoyed. "We've got two brainiac ponies, a fire-breathing dragon, annnnd the fastest flier in Ponyville!" She bounced into the air and struck a pose, wings flapping. "We should be able to come up with something!"
Twilight looked thoughtful.
"I have a suggestion. Though it involves magic... and the Princesses mentioned how you feel about magic."
The Doctor looked uneasy. "Don't get me wrong, Twilight. Magic is wonderful. Awe-inspiring. Mind-blowing. But... there are places in the Universe where there just isn't any, and you have to make do with your wits alone. I can't afford to get lazy, let myself forget that." She sighed. "And even when it's available.... well, you know the old saying that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? It's not true. There is a difference. Give me good old-fashioned technology any day of the week. You can depend on it." She patted the TARDIS console proudly. "Well, most of the time, anyway. Magic's another story altogether..." She grimaced. "Magic bites!"
Twilight smiled. "Friendship is magic, you know!"
"Oh, yes..." The Doctor glanced towards the door that Dinky and Time Turner had walked through. "I know! Believe me, I know!"
And then she turned back to Twilight, smiling brightly.
"But sorry, you were saying? You had an idea? One that involves magic?"
It was an empty, dead world, circling a collapsed star that gave it a cold, pale twilight but little else.
The TARDIS stood in the middle of an empty plain, casting a long, dark shadow on the sands behind it. Its doors swung open, and the Doctor stepped out. She was wearing her gray coat, which Time Turner had pulled out of the trunk for her. She pulled the doors shut, then turned and waited.
After only a few minutes the air before her roiled and churned, the swirling, inky vortex exploding into view. Its snarling, growling thrum was the only sound on the empty plain.
And then the Doctor spoke.
"All right," she said. "No more running. Just you and me, once and for all. Let's get it over with."
The vortex sprang open into the raging tunnel, extending outward into infinity.
"But before we do," the Doctor said quickly, "I want you to consider one thing... one very important thing... What you are."
She stabbed a forehoof at it. "You know who I am. I'm the reason you're here. Your entire existence is predicated on wiping me out, erasing me from the Universe."
She spread her forehooves. "And then what? What happens then? When I'm gone, what are you then? Without your hatred of me, is there anything else? Is there anything left?"
The Doctor smiled, confidently.
"Going to be awful lonely without me, you know. What are you going to do nights? What are you going to do, when you've nothing left to hate? When you don't have that convenient excuse to keep you going?"
The vortex swirled angrily. Its distant core blazed, brighter and brighter, as if readying itself.
"What are you going to do?" the Doctor repeated. "I'll make you a prediction. You won't last five minutes. Three at the outside. After all, when there's nothing else left to turn on, all you'll have is yourself..."
Her smile turned cold. "... and there'll be nobody left here to stop you!"
Seeing there was no response, she shrugged.
"All right then. Suit yourself!"
She gave a practiced toss of her head, causing a roughly-fashioned, hoof-made silver wand to flip into the air from her mane. She caught it in her teeth, and grinned. The sonic screwdriver's amber gemstone blazed alight.
"Let's end this," she whispered around it.
The depthless vortex before her blazed with blinding violet light.
The Doctor swung her head back, like a batter winding up... the sonic screwdriver whirred loudly...
But she was too late.
A roaring, implacable torrent of corrupting energy engulfed both her and the TARDIS. For several long moments the air was fried, the sands glassed and blackened. And then the searing blaze ended.
There was nothing left. Not a wisp of smoke, not a fragment, not a particle.
The inky vortex collapsed inwards. For a long moment, it throbbed fitfully, its jet-black torrents swirling and splashing. Waves and extrusions swept about, as if it was searching for something -- something it could no longer find, no longer sense. Something it had finally destroyed.
Its movements became less coordinated, more erratic. It began fracturing into lobes and globules, which appeared to be contesting with one another. Its core of violet light flickered, dimmed, and then split. It fragmented, into multiple swirling vortices, which began fighting with each other. Beams of energy spat from one fragment at another, then from several of them at others. It broke into a swarm of struggling, thrashing dark shadows, their power fading, failing...
... and then, all at once, winking out.
Silence fell. A chill wind whipped across the sands.
And, a short distance away, the Doctor and Twilight stepped out of an invisible doorway. Together, they gazed at the blackened, glassed sand, the singed, empty air.
"Marvelous illusion spell..." the Doctor said, her voice quiet and shaking. "I mean here am I, standing here, alive and well. And I feel like I've just watched myself die!"
Twilight had tears in her eyes. "And I feel like I've just killed you," she whispered. "It's the only way to make an illusion spell really work... the caster has to almost believe it themselves!"
The Doctor nodded. "Expertly done. And thanks, Twilight! But... you know it's not going to last." She sighed unhappily. "Sooner or later, there's going to be a world that needs saving, a people that need protecting, an injustice to be set right... or even just some tea getting cold. And I won't be able to help myself." She shrugged. "Can't avoid it, it's who I am. I'll have to fix it! And it'll start all over again. It'll be back on my trail, hunting me down through the millenia, getting ever closer. Until the very end of time."
"But at least for now," Twilight said, "you can catch your breath. Maybe take a moment, figure out where to make your next move. Be the one who chases, this time, instead of the one being chased."
"Good idea. I'll do that," the Doctor said. She smirked at Twilight. "Thank you, Teach!"
"My pleasure, Doc!"
Behind them, no longer obscured by the illusion spell, the TARDIS sprang into view. Rainbow leaned out through the doorway. "Aw, geez! Is that it? I thought we were gonna fight this thing!"
Spike peered out with her, looking around worriedly. "I'm just as glad we didn't have to! Can we go home now, Twi?"
"Can we, Doctor?" Twilight said, giving her a knowing look.
"Well..." The Doctor smiled. "We can always try, can't we?"
"Mommy!" called Dinky from inside the ship. "I'm hungry. Can we get something to eat now?"
"Oh, my gosh!" the Doctor said, as they all went back inside. "We really ought to. I mean it must be nearly breakfast time by now, right?"
The doors shut. The light on top of the blue box flashed. Its wheezing, groaning sound split the air. And then it disappeared.
And all around, the empty, dead sands stretched far away...
The End
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, its characters and indicia are the property of Hasbro.
Doctor Who, its characters and indicia are the property of the B.B.C.
No infringement is intended. This story is a work of fan fiction, written by fans for fans of both series.
