Prologue: Derpy's Birthday
The sound of the alarm clock pounded into Derpy’s head as she woke up. It was met by a strong wing with equal force. It was her birthday and she wanted more sleep.
“Morning, sweetie,” Derpy mumbled. No answer.
“Sweetie?” Derpy’s eyes opened.
“Doctor?” Derpy looked to the other side of her bed and saw that it was empty. She looked to the corner and her eyes met a small, but tall for it’s size, blue barn. The barn had a plank on which was written “Pony Public Call Box”. It was still here, but where would the Doctor be then? Strange. Derpy didn’t put anymore thought to it and immediately ran downstairs. She ran to a door with a paper sign that said “Dinky’s Room”.
The room had a pink bed, a pile of candy wrappers, that Dinky somehow kept forgetting to throw away, lots of scattered toys, as well as many posters depicting assorted colt-bands. But it didn’t have Dinky.
“What,” yelled Derpy, “It’s my birthday and you both leave the house before I wake up?!”
Derpy wasn’t going to let that get her down, she decided to go to sugarcube corner and buy an extra-large muffin. She pranced out the door, her mouth watering from thoughts of blueberries and cinnamon. Derpy opened the door and stopped in her tracks. She was staring directly down the barrel of a cannon. Derpy’s eyes went from crossed to straight instantly. Derpy didn’t no what to think and was about to run away from the aliens or whatever it might be when she heard a fammiliar voice.
“Surprise!” Pinkie jumped on top of the cannon and fired it. Much to Derpy’s relief, it shot confetti. Derpy suddenly saw nearly a quarter of Ponyville at her doorstep. Including Dinky and her husband. Many of them were bearing gifts. The pony party made their way into her house, many of them had come prepared so she wasn’t worried about any preparations.
“Wow, Pinkie,” she said, “you didn’t have to go through all this trouble.”
“Are you kidding?” She replied, “you did save the town from the weeping angels.”
Dinky and Doctor Whooves walked in, Whooves was pulling a cart that contained what could easily be the largest muffin. Dinky sat on top of it while filling the pastry with candles.
“Hi mom,” she shouted as it was wheeled into the kitchen, “happy birthday!”.
Pinkie’s 5 closest friends walked to the pink and gray ponies.
“You have such an interesting family,” said Twilight who along with her friends, new all about the TARDIS, “I still can’t get over the fact that your husband is the sole survivor of a planet that's mastered time-travel, that time machine was probably why we always saw you mixed in with everypony everywhere we went.”
“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash, “I was confused when I saw you at the Galla’s V.I.P. area. You probably have an explanation, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we have something called Psychic Paper, It makes ponies see only what we wan’t them to see, such as V.I.P. tickets.”
“It sounds like you’ve had some great adventures,” Twilight was starting to get excited.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Derpy had an “oh, you” expression.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you meet The Doctor?”
“That, Twilight, is a rather interesting story.”
It was nearly 20 years ago for me. I had a pretty good life despite my vision impairment and general clumsiness. I had worked in the Pegasi Postal Service for 4 years now and figured I would stay in it for a while. My life changed entirely one day, I had started work completely normal, had to sort and deliver mail, it was when I signed out of work that I met him I had just pulled my punch-card out of it’s slot when I saw some envelopes moving, I went to them to see if there was a window blowing them down, but they began to shake. The envelopes, and other papers around the post office had started to shake madly and I was terrified, I tried to get to the door, but the paper had placed a barricade, It soon started to swarm around me and I thought I was finished, I was thinking about what it would say in the news, “Local Pegasus Killed By Paper” or something. But I was saved, A colt ran through the storm of paper, he was an earth pony with a light brown coat and a darker brown, spiked mane. He was holding a strange metal rod, it had a handle of white and black as well as a pronged shaft and tipped with a green light and four prongs. The pony held the rod in his mouth and pointed it at the paper, it emitted a buzzing noise and lit up, the paper seemed to wither away from the rod, at first, I thought it was a magical wand of some sort. It was then that the pony spoke.
“Are you okay miss, uh...” the colt had a charming trottingham accent.
“Hooves, Derpy Hooves. Thank you for that. What’s your name?” I was hyperventilating from what I had just experienced, but I still managed to speak.
“The Doctor”
“Doctor who?”
“Usually just The Doctor, but some people call me Doctor Whooves.”
“Wait, I think I know you, you were the time keeper at the sweet-apple acres cider competition. Isn’t your name Time Turner?”
“Yes and no.”
“What?”
“Well, you can’t do anything official if your name is just The Doctor now, can you?”
He had a cute laugh, despite his odd sense of humor though.
“Anyways, I have to go know, there are plenty more of those paper buggers.”
He ran out the door, me, being quite curious followed him. And besides, I’m not going near that paper again. I tripped while running out the door, by the time I righted my self, he was walking into a tall blue barn, I’m not sure how he fit into it. I flew to follow him, but didn’t look where I was going and hit a stop sign. While I (once again) reoriented myself, I heard a strange creaking noise as well as a strong wind. The wind soon faded and when I got a chance to look, the blue barn was gone.
Now, I wasn’t going to go home, I was rather nervous about this paper thing. I decided to go out to eat. I went to my favorite restaurant and placed my order. While I waited, I had a look around I noticed that a mare was staring at me. I stared back and she looked away. I looked closely at her and I noticed some strange things. she was completely white with a slight hint of grey. She looked over again and I made sure she was in my line of sight and that I always had a single eye on her (which for me, is not that hard to do) and I noticed she was still staring, It was starting to get creepy. I barely even noticed when someone walked up to me.
“Look out Derpy!” Yelled a familiar voice, more excited than concerned.
I turned around and saw that I was glancing face-to-face with him. That’s when I heard a thump, the white mare was shooting darts from her body, other ponies were already running out the door. One of the darts hit the table that I was on and sliced through it. At a closer glance, I saw that the darts were made of paper, and so was the pony, who was approaching us slowly, but surely. One of the pieces came close to my face and made a clean cut on part of my mane.
“Time to run!” The Doctor broke into a sprint and so did I. Much to my surprise, we weren’t going near the exit, we instead ran through a kitchen backdoor,
“I don’t think the door is gonna hold her!” I said.
“Maybe if I tried this.” The doctor pointed his rod thingy at the door. There was a loud buzzing as it lit up. There was then a bang on the door, but it didn’t open.
“It won’t hold her for long,” said The Doctor as he started to run, “get into the blue barn.”
When I looked around, I finally noticed that tall, blue barn that I saw this morning.
“But, two ponies can’t fit in there.” I protested, but The Doctor grabbed my hoof.
“Come on!” He yelled as he pulled me into the barn.
I hit metal, almost brass-like from the color. I was confused, I should’ve hit a wall. I looked up to see what had happened. What I did see would change my life forever. A vast room made entirely out of brass, It’s circular walls were full of hexagons that contained lights, there were plant-like pillars holding up parts of it as well as doors leading to other rooms, but the strangest of all, was a green and circular tube in the center. It contained a piston, and at the base, the was a control panel of sorts around it. I looked up to see where I had fallen in through, the barn must’ve been a passage, but when I looked around, I saw the inside of the barn’s doors. I moved slowly to them and pushed them open, I saw the street that we were on when we left the cafe, there was still banging on the door, I closed the barns doors, as confusing as it is, I’m staying inside.
“I suppose you’ve noticed by now,” The Doctor casually walked up to me, “bigger on the inside than on the outside. There are different dimensions inside and outside of this barn. It’s called The T.A.R.D.I.S.”
“The what-now?”
“T.A.R.D.I.S. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.”
“Wait a minute, are you suggesting that this thing can travel through time and space.”
“Yes, it disappears and reappears elsewhere.”
“A time-machine that’s bigger on the inside...It’s alien right.”
“Gallopfreyan to be exact. Made on the planet Gallopfrey. Which is where I’m from and probably the reason that every race we encounter calls us time lords.”
“Doctor!” I had been trying to get his attention for a whole minute.
“What?”
“What is a police public call barn? What is that rod you have? And why is paper trying to kill me?”
“A police barn was something once used to summon Canterlot guards and other law enforcement to a scene, kind of like a phone booth, they are of course, out of service now. The rod I have is called a Sonic Screwdriver, it does a variety of things with sound waves. The paper is not trying to kill you, it is being manipulated. There is a race, a race called the Nestene Consciousness. It’s made entirely of liquid-paper, it also has the ability to manipulate wood-based materials. It seems to be hunting for food. This one in obviously weak, it can only manipulate paper.”
“And what do they have to do with me?”
He scanned me with his so-called, Sonic Screwdriver.
“You seem to have high amount of Anti-Paper.”
“Of what?”
“Anti-Paper. It’s a wheat-based acid that disintegrates paper. Large amounts are inside of you. How could you have so much of it?”
“Did you say wheat?”
“Yes.”
“I eat a lot of muffins.”
“Perfect! How many muffins does this town have?”
“I have most of them.”
“Can we stop by your house.”
“Sure.” I gave him my address.
The Doctor shouted “Allons-Y” and pulled some levers on the pillar, the piston set in motion.
“This is the TARDIS Console,” he said over the noise, “It’s the controls of the TARDIS.”
The sound stopped and The Doctor, who from now on I’m going to call Doctor Whooves walked out of the TARDIS. We both walked into my house. I directed him toward a large trunk in my kitchen. I grabbed it’s key and unlocked it, inside was my complete muffin storage. Muffins are good, but I’d rather get rid of some so called Nestene that’s trying to kill me. We loaded the muffins into the trunk and Whooves stared the TARDIS again. This time, we landed in midair, floating above Ponyville. Doctor Whooves poked his head out the door and started to look around.
“If I where paper, where would I hide?” he mumbled.
“How about the post office.” I pointed to the post office, now surrounded by a maelstrom of paper.
“Right,” he said, “let’s go.”
We teleported the TARDIS and went right through the paper storm. We reluctantly opened the door. We came face to face with an ugly, white blob. The blob seemed to be made of pulp and upon seeing us, got very mad and came towards us.
“I didn’t know it was going to be this close.” Whooves was suprised.
“Throw the muffins!” I yelled.
“The wheat alone won’t kill it, we need something acidic as well.”
“I dug into the muffin trunk and pulled out a box of lemon muffins.”
“How about citric acid?”
The Nesten became enraged and had begun to flow into the TARDIS an grab onto us. I dumped the muffins onto it. There was a sizzling and the blob screamed. The blob soon turned to nothing, defeated by muffins, now sizzling and most likely inedible.
“Fantastic!” Yelled Whooves, “that was brilliant! I’ll be happy to replace those muffins and give you a ride home.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, “this thing can go anywhere you say?”
“Yes.”
“I’m staying right here, so If you don’t mind, I wish to pack my things.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve had companionship so It’s fine with me.”
“Brilliant.”
And with that, our adventures began.
***
“What happened to the paper?” Asked Pinkie.
“It became inanimate when the Nestene died.” Derpy Replied.
“I thought that paper was a magic related accident,” said Twilight, “but that sounded really dangerous.”
“We’ve seen worse, actually the same worse countless times over and over again.” Derpy said.
“What is that?” Asked Twilight.
“The most dangerous and most powerful race in the universe, a race that thrived on hate conquest and genocide. The race of...The Daleks.”