Chapters Did you just say...Jelly?
It was a sunny day in Ponyville. Not exactly much of a stretch seeing as how the weather was controlled manually, but it was still nice to have the sun on one's wings as they flew around town. Ditzy wasn't normally one to fly since the sight of her above their heads tended to make many of the townsfolk nervous, but today she was feeling the need to leave the ground behind and soar all over while she went on her daily rounds. She'd had a lot more time for delivering mail since the Doctor told her she could have a break from being his assistant a few weeks ago.
Speaking of the Doctor, she didn't actually know where he was at the moment. He'd gotten pretty lazy lately, what with the fact there hadn't been any "Doctor problems", as she'd started calling them, in quite a while. He'd stopped paying attention to where he left the TARDIS; often times even outright forgetting to be inconspicuous, making for some awkward conversations when she was the only one around to explain why there was a mysterious blue box in somepony's living room. Now he mostly just lounged around doing nothing but eating butter all day.
Ditzy glided down and landed softly outside Sugar Cube Corner, searching her mail bag to make sure nothing had fallen out, and then walking to the door and entering. As the door opened a bell above it chimed, alerting the older mare at the counter to her presence. As she turned, a big smile lit up her face as she recognized the grey pegasus that had just walked in.
"Oh, hello Ditzy! How is your day going?" Mrs. Cake said as she walked around the counter to greet the mail mare.
"Wonderful, thank you for asking, Mrs. Cake!" Ditzy said with a smile.
"What brings you around today?"
"Oh, right!" Ditzy leaned around and grabbed the envelope from her bag in her mouth, handing it over to Mrs. Cake. "Just this one for you today, Mrs. Cake. It doesn't look like it's going to be very busy for me today."
Mrs. Cake's smile turned into a smirk. "Oh, I see. More time to spend with that handsome young stallion I always see you with, huh?"
Ditzy reeled, a furious blush hitting her cheeks as she tried to stutter out an excuse. "W-what!? N-no! I-it's nothing l-like that! We're just friends! I'm not interested in the Doctor like tha-"
"Now now, you don't have to explain yourself. I understand completely. I was young once too you know." Mrs. Cake took the letter and put it on the counter, turning back to lead Ditzy to the door.
"Y-you d-don't understand! I-I'm just his assistant, w-we're not-"
"No no no, you don't need to explain yourself one bit, Ditzy Doo. Now you go, I'm sure he's just waiting to see you!" The older mare shoved Ditzy out the door, effectively stifling any objection she could try to think of.
Ditzy stared at Mrs. Cake, trying and failing to come up with a way to explain that she wasn't in a relationship with the Doctor. When she realized there was nothing she could say to convince the baker, she said a quick "Goodbye" and turned to fly away, only to find herself getting bowled over face first by someone in a hurry.
"Ugh…Ow, my head…Oh dear, I'm so sorry miss-Ditzy Doo?"
The grey mare didn't have to open her eye's to know who it was that ran into her, she'd recognize that accent anywhere. She felt him grab her fore hooves and haul her up to her feet, making sure she was steady before letting her go. As her eyes adjusted, she confirmed her suspicion as they focused on the face of the very same colt her and Mrs. Cake had just been talking about.
"Ditzy, I'm so glad to have run into you! Well, not glad I ran into you, per se, but I am glad I ran into you on a figurative basis. I wouldn't be glad I ran into you literally, since that might cause you physical harm, and I would never want to cause you physical harm. You are my assistant after all; if anything happened to you I don't know what I would do! I'd be completely lost without you at my side! Oh, hello there Mrs. Cake! And how are you doing this fine day?" As usual, the Doctor was rambling, a large smile plastered on his face as he spoke a mile a minute. He waved to the baker, who was still standing in the doorway, much to Ditzy's horror, that same knowing smirk still on her face.
"Hello, Doctor, I'm doing just fine today! How is yours going?"
"Even better now that I've found Ditzy!"
Ditzy was sure if it was possible to blush any harder it would mean death, which was looking more and more appealing as the ever-oblivious Doctor continued to feed the flame that was her embarrassment.
"So, I take it you have some fun activities planned for you and Ditzy?"
"Oh, yes! In fact, that's why I was looking for her! I just discovered something interesting and I need her with me immediately!"
"Well, don't let me hold you two back! Go on, go on. Enjoy yourselves!" Mrs. Cake offered one last smirk and a sly wink to Ditzy before going back into the store, leaving her and the Doctor standing alone in the street.
Ditzy swallowed, still trying to hide her embarrassment. "So...you…need me with you for something?"
"Hmm? Oh, right! Well you see, I've been noticing a few anomalies in Ponyville, specifically one's dealing with fluxuations in the makeup of space in the area, creating a few minor inconsistencies to the flow of time and altering possible-"
"Doctor? Remember when you told me that the reason I can understand aliens is because the TARDIS automatically translates the language into one I can understand?"
"Um, yes?"
"Is there any way you can make it so I can understand you?"
"Well, I suppose if I did a little reprogramming I could fix the translation software but I don't see how that would help seeing as how I'm not speaking a different-Hold on, are you mocking me?"
Ditzy rolled her eyes. "Could you just get on with what's so important Doctor?"
"Oh, right. Well, you see, I've been noticing a few anomalies in Ponyville-"
"Doctor!"
"Alright! The TARDIS has been picking up signals of something opening and closing holes in the fabric of space. It only seems to be centered in Ponyville, which means there someone here who is doing it."
"But then what's the problem? If they're closing the holes after they open them then why does it matter?"
"Well, say you dig a hole in the ground and then fill it in again, there's going to be a bit of a mound several inches higher than it was originally, as well as being able to support less weight, because the dirt is significantly less compact then it was before you dug it up. Not a very good place to build a house, one would think. That same property applies to space. Every time you open a hole in space, you must give it time to settle and return to normal. If you just keep opening and closing holes all willy-nilly, the fabric of reality begins to weaken, and although it's not a big deal now, if this continues much longer the integrity of space in the area will grow so weak it will collapse! Isn't that great?"
Ditzy stared at the Doctor with a confused expression. "Uh, how exactly is that…great, Doctor?"
The Doctor wrapped a hoof around his assistant's shoulder, hugging her close to his side and exclaiming "Don't you see!? This means we finally have something to do! It's been months since our last adventure together, it's about time something happened that requires immediate attention from the Doctor and his assistant!" The Doctor finished his rant with a triumphant look on his face, Ditzy awkwardly hanging from his side where he still held her to him. She heard someone clear there throat nearby, and looked over to see Mrs. Cake's head sticking out the door to Sugar Cube Corner, once again smirking at her. Ditzy groaned, letting her head fall limply.
"Ditzy, are you alright? Ditzy?"
"So, Doctor, what do you think is making these holes, anyway?"
The Doctor scrunched his face in thought before responding. "Well, there are many creatures that I can think of that could cause spacial rifts like these, as well as different kinds of technology, the TARDIS being one of them, but there's too many to make an accurate guess at the moment. We'll need to do a little investigating to see if we can narrow it down."
They were on their way to the TARDIS, the Doctor of course wanting to get to work as fast as possible. Unfortunately, Ditzy still had a few deliveries to make and she couldn't just drop what she was doing to help the Doctor, so he had volunteered to help her with deliveries while they figured things out on the way.
"Where should we start then?"
"I imagine we need to ask around to find out if anyone has seen anything out of the ordinary-" The Doctor froze, every muscle in his body going completely rigid, his eyes shrinking to pinpricks.
"….Doctor? Doctor, what happened?" Ditzy waved a hoof in front of his face, eliciting no reaction whatsoever. "Doctor are you ok-Eeep!" Suddenly the Doctor grabbed her and dragged her into the nearest alley, holding her against the wall and clamping a hoof over her mouth. "Mmph, mufmr wrt fr hr mrfmr?"
"Ssssh!"
She waited for something to happen, a Dalek or some rogue alien attempting world domination rampaging through Ponyville. When she heard nothing of the sort, she shot a questioning glance at the Doctor. He let her go and nodded his head towards the entrance to the alley. Ditzy slowly made her way to it and peered around the corner out to the street. After a few moments she turned back to the Doctor and asked the obvious.
"Doctor, what am I supposed to be looking at exactly?"
He came over and joined her, looking around the corner and seeing whatever it was that had him so freaked out, and then flattening himself against the wall again. Ditzy stared at him for a little longer with an odd expression before finally asking "Doctor, what am I supposed to be seeing?"
"Her!" He pointed around the corner and then quickly returned to his hiding place.
Ditzy looked where he had pointed and realized why he was acting so weird. "I should have known it was just the Doctor being the Doctor…" She mumbled quietly.
A familiar purple unicorn was walking down the street, a heavy book levitating in front of her face so she could perform her favorite past time: reading while walking. Of course the reason for the Doctor's odd behavior was because of the local librarian he had a weird obsession with.
"As long as we stay in here she shouldn't be able to see us. Just stay quiet and she'll walk by and we can go on our merry way without her being any the wiser-"
"Oh, hi there Ditzy Doo! Do you have any mail for me today?"
"Yep, got it right here for you, Twilight!"
"Ditzy!"
"My new index cards! I've been waiting for these for ages! Thank you Ditzy!"
"You're welcome!"
"So, who's your friend there?" Twilight asked while craning her head over to look at the Doctor trying in vain to become one with the bricks.
"Oh, yeah! Doctor, don't be rude! This is Twilight Sparkle." The purple mare gave him a warm smile and a wave. The Doctor returned it by uttering an unintelligible sound and sinking to his haunches. Ditzy laughed awkwardly, saying "Give me just one second" before running over to the Doctor and hauling him to his feet.
"Doctor, quit being silly! Introduce yourself!" She hissed.
"I can't! She's just so…unicorn! And did you see the way she was making that book float? It was like magic!" He waved his arms around in random circles to emphasize his point.
"I don't care Doctor! Now get over there and introduce yourself before she thinks you're some weird pony!" With that Ditzy shoved the Doctor over to the increasingly confused Twilight, the librarian patiently waiting for whatever intelligent response the colt could come up with. A response that never came as the Doctor opened his mouth and immediately fainted.
The two mares stared at the unconscious stallion for a few moments, and then looked at each other.
"So…he seems…nice."
Ditzy rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, that's the Doctor for you."
The Doctor didn't quite know where he was, but what he did know was that he was content. It was like he was floating in a sea of random colors, and he wasn't sure which one he should focus on. 'I need to get more sleep on a regular basis' he thought.
"Doctor."
A honey sweet voice reached the Doctor's ears, making him roll over in his sleep.
"Oh Doctor."
"Mmm." That time the voice sounded less honey sweet and more annoyed.
"Doctor, if you don't get up in the next five seconds I am going to do something you're not going to like."
How could he not like anything this mystery person could do? If he was this content now what could they possibly do to make him not-
"Waaah!"
Suddenly he found himself face first on the floor, now fully awake and completely aware of what had happened.
"Ditzy, was that completely necessary? I would think a simple 'Wake up Doctor' would have worked just as well. I mean really, flipping me over in my sleep? That's low, even for you-Wait a minute…" The Doctor looked at his surroundings, noticing a complete lack of other-world technology, metal beams and such. "This isn't the TARDIS."
"What's a TARDIS?"
The Doctor whipped around to come face to face with the same unicorn that caused him to faint in the first place. He froze once again, losing all major brain function and reverting back to the unintelligible noises he had made before.
"You're not going to faint again, are you?"
The Doctor shook his head, ridding himself of the darkness that had already begun to invade the edges of his vision.
"Wow Doctor, you'd think having two hearts would make you less lightheaded." Ditzy said sarcastically.
"You have two hearts?" Twilight asked, confusion written all over her face.
"Of course not, who has two hearts! Ditzy is just being…Um…."
"Being…What, Doctor? Ditzy is just being what?" The gray Pegasus said with a deadly glint in her eyes and venom in her voice.
"Uuuh….Oh look, a tie!"
The doctor ran over to a rack that was indeed full of a myriad of ties, pretending to be interested in rifling through them.
"Oh, so you like ties, do you? You must have an eye for fashion, darling."
They all looked over to see a white mare with a rich, deep purple mane that was obviously meticulously groomed day after day. Of course the Doctor could care less about her beauty, since all he was focused on was the horn on her head.
"Another unicorn? Oh, this day just keeps getting better and better!"
Ditzy stepped forward. "Doctor, this is Rarity. She's Twilight's friend. She was on her way over to Rarity's boutique to help her with some things before she ran into us and had to help me drag you here so no one would wonder why you were lying in the street." Her tone become one of exasperation at the end as she gave the Doctor a dull look.
A look that went unnoticed by the colt as he was currently drooling at the sight of the two unicorn mares.
"So, 'Doctor' is it? You seem like a stallion of good taste. Love your tie by the way, but green just isn't your color. Maybe blue, that way it would match your eyes." Rarity batted her eyelashes, turning back to Twilight and flicking her tail into the Doctor's face before walking to her friend and starting work on a dress. Ditzy didn't know if Timelords could melt or not, but it didn't seem to matter to the Doctor as he was currently nothing but a puddle on the floor of the boutique. So she elbowed him in the ribs.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"You know what it was for! Now come on, I think we've stayed long enough, let's just head over to the you-know-what and get started on this 'Doctor problem' of yours-"
"Oh Doctor, would you be a dear and hand me that fabric on the table over there?"
"Right away Miss Rarity!"
Ditzy rolled her eyes as the Doctor sprinted over to the table and grabbed the fabric, sprinting back and handing it to the fashonista.
Rarity smiled when he came over. "What a gentleman."
The Doctor sighed. Ditzy facepalmed.
"Alright Doctor, let's go now! Thank you for helping me with the Doctor, Twilight. Sorry we can't stay longer but we have stuff to do." Ditzy grabbed the gushing Timelord and began dragging him to the door.
"Alright Ditzy, see you later!" She turned to continue help with the project Rarity was working on. "So, Rarity, did you hear about what happened to Berry Punch? Isn't that just awful?" Twilight asked when the two had resumed working on the dress.
"Oh I know, the nerve of somepony to be so insensitive as to steal somepony else's entire stock of jelly!"
The Doctor's ears perked up at that, planting his hooves and forcing Ditzy to a stop just in front of the door.
"Doctor-"
"Sssh!"
Ditzy stopped and listened along with the Doctor.
"It's very strange though, I heard the door was locked and that there wasn't any sign that somepony had found some way to unlock it or even that they had opened it all! They think it might have been some sort of teleportation spell but there wasn't any sort of magical residue left over. It was like it just disappeared."
"Well Twilight, that's because it was well planned out. Everypony knows that the ones who resort to thievery spend more time planning crimes than actually learning to contribute to society."
"Yes Rarity, if only everypony could become a fashion designer in a town inhabited mostly by ponies who don't wear clothes."
"Exactly."
The Doctor walked over to the two unicorns, wearing the same suspicious look that Ditzy had on.
"Excuse me, but what was that about jelly being stolen?"
Twilight turned to him. "Yes, it happened just a few days ago actually. Berry kept all her jelly in her cellar, and one day she went down there and found that every last bit of it was gone! Nopony knows how they did it; they don't even have any suspects."
The Doctor rubbed his chin with a hoof. "And you said there was no magical residue? Would there be any way of hiding it if they had used magic?"
Twilight thought a moment. "Not likely. It would just dissipate after a few days, but Berry Punch said that she had just been in there the day before so it couldn't have been enough time for it to be undetectable."
"And where does this 'Berry Punch' live, exactly?"
The Doctor took one last lap around the cellar, his sonic screwdriver making its usual sound as he passed it back and forth through the air. Berry Punch stood at the foot of the stairs with Ditzy, a worried look on her face.
"So then, Mister….I'm sorry, what did you say your name was again?"
"The Doctor."
"Doctor who?"
The Doctor smirked. "Just the Doctor, thank you."
Berry nodded. "Ok…Doctor. What are you looking for?"
"Anything out of the ordinary." As he said this his screwdriver beeped. "Aha! Just as I thought! There was no residual presence of magic because whoever robbed you didn't use magic!"
Berry looked at him, obviously very confused. "If they didn't use magic then how did they-"
"Well then, I'm sorry to have used up your precious time. I have everything I need here; I'll get back to you as soon as I have more. Have a nice day! Come along Ditzy!" He marched past her with a smile, Ditzy close behind.
The pair left the house and started off in the direction the Doctor left the TARDIS last, which happened to be at Sweet Apple Acres.
"So Doctor, what did you mean when you said 'they didn't use magic' to break into Berry's cellar?"
"I mean that they didn't use magic. Honestly Ditzy, I'd think even you could get that. Oof!" He rubbed his now bruised ribs tenderly. "They didn't use magic because they didn't need to. Whoever stole the jelly probably wasn't even from this planet."
Ditzy gasped. "You mean an alien?"
"It's possible. There's no way someone from this planet could have the technology required to open a hole in space leading into a cellar."
"You mean...whoever the thief is…is the same one that's been causing all the weird readings you've been getting in the TARDIS? How can you tell?"
The Doctor held his sonic screwdriver up for her to see. "There may not have been any magical residue, but my screwdriver did find evidence of a dimensional rift that had recently been closed." The Doctor tucked his screwdriver away under his tie, once again smiling. "Ditzy, I do believe things are beginning to come together. What fun this is turning out to be!" He checked his pocket, frowned, and then checked again. "Uh oh, I think I dropped my TARDIS key in Berry Punch's cellar."
"Well that's okay Doctor, you can just use the one you gave me."
"Yes I could, but that would mean leaving mine behind. Not a good idea to leave a key behind when the lock it opens leads into a time traveling police public call box. You go on ahead, I'll be there shortly."
"Alright Doctor." Ditzy walked away, as the Doctor turned around to look for his key. When he did so, something small and shiny caught his eye at his feet. He picked it up, realizing it was the missing key.
"Oh, there you are! You must have fallen out when I started looking for you! You naughty little thing you!" He put it back in his pocket and began heading after Ditzy. "Never mind Ditzy Doo, I found my-mmph!" Before he could finish, someone behind him threw a bag over his head, muffling his cry of alarm. His unknown assailant then began dragging him away.
The Doctor's cries for help went completely unheard by the blonde-headed pegasus mare as she hummed a tune while on her way to Sweet Apple Acres.
The Doctor was thrown down on the ground harshly, the bag around his head muffling the “Oof” he made as his captor then began pulling it off his head, only to quickly replace it with a blindfold. He was then picked up and thrown onto a chair, the rattle of metal reaching his ears as he felt himself being restrained by heavy chains.
“Let me go! You have no right to treat me like this!” He wasn't sure where he was or who had kidnapped him, but what he did know was that he wasn't going to let this go without a fight. “You think you can just bind and gag me and get away with it!? Do you have any idea who I am? I’m the Doctor! I've taken on countless enemies in my thousand years, I’ve even survived multiple encounters with the Daleks! What possible chance do you think you have against the likes of me?”
Suddenly his blindfold was pulled off, light flooding his eyes as he squinted to adjust to the brightness. When they did, he froze at the sight of his captor. Well, captors. Three of them to be exact. Three small fillies. Three small, very confused looking fillies.
“Wha...what?” The Doctor was, for once, speechless. He had several questions, but had no idea where he should start. Perhaps “Why have I been kidnapped by children?”, or “How did three little girls overpower a grown stallion?”
'I’ll go with the former, definitely the former' he thought.
They continued their stare down, until one of them finally spoke. “...Who's 'Dalek'?”
The Doctor stiffened, saying nothing.
“Yer a thousand years old?”
He opened his mouth, but still said nothing.
“Are you really a doctor?”
That question he could answer.
“Yes, I am a doctor. But not just any doctor, I’m the Doctor.”
The fillies looked even more confused. They all looked at each other, back at him, and then ran off into the corner, huddling in a circle and talking quietly together. The Doctor took this time to look around the room for some means of escape. He was in a small, dark room, and the only two windows he could see were covered with heavy cloth to block out the sunlight. It seemed to be made entirely out of wooden boards, possibly a tree house judging by the smell of sap. A single lantern hung above him, a cone placed around it to allow a concentrated beam of light to shine in his face. Other than a table behind him and a few posters on the wall, he saw nothing to help him out of his predicament.
He turned his attention on his so-called “captor's”. They were still huddled in the corner, talking just quietly enough that he was only able to catch a few words at a time. One of them was orange in color, her mane and tail a purple hue. He could also make out tiny wings on her sides. One of the other two was pale yellow, with a deep red mane and tail and a large pink bow on her head, which he could easily see because it was sticking up above the others heads despite the fact they all had them down. The last was white, with a light purple and pink mane and tail. As he was looking them over he realized one thing they all had in common: the lack of a cutie mark on their flanks.
Suddenly they all stopped talking, turning back to him and approaching slowly. They all stopped just in front of him, the white one stepping up and getting ready to speak.
“We are-”
“Unicorn!” Indeed, now that he had a closer look at her, he realized she had a small horn sticking out of her head just under her mane. His outburst caused her to lose focus for a second, stumbling back as if afraid he was going to hurt her. “Oh, this is fantastic! First there was Twilight right before I fainted, then Rarity at the boutique, and now I have the luck to meet another unicorn, and a filly to boot! Tell me, can you use magic, or have you not learned to yet? Can you learn magic, or do you just gain the ability to after you reach a certain age? Is it like a puberty sort of thing? Is there some sort of-”
The orange one clamped his mouth shut, cutting off the rest of his rant. She nodded back to the white one, who continued where she had started.
“We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders Private Investigators, and we want to ask you a few questions.”
The orange one let his mouth go so he could reply. “Cutie...Mark...what?”
The yellow one stepped forward. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders! We're on a mission to find our special talent and earn our Cutie Marks!” She yelled proudly, raising her hoof in salute as she finished. The others did the same.
The Doctor stared at each of them, an unreadable expression on his face. The fillies waited for his reply, which, after a few moments, wasn’t looking like it was coming anytime soon. They were about to check if he was still alright, but then he started laughing. Hard.
The orange one glared. “And just what do you think is so funny, mister?”
“Hahahaha! Oh my....that is the...haha...that is the most adorable thing I have ever seen! You have a name and a club house and everything!” He continued to laugh until the orange one clamped his mouth shut again.
“We are not adorable! We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders! This is serious business!”
The Doctor snickered, the sound muffled from the orange one's hooves on his snout. They glared at him.
The white one spoke again. “I am Sweetie Belle, this is Apple Bloom and that's Scootaloo.” She pointed to herself and each of the other two as she spoke, indicating which was which. He snickered again at the sound of their names. “Have you heard about the recent theft in town? Everyone's talking about it. They haven't found out who did it yet, so we took it upon ourselves to figure it out.”
The orange one, Scootaloo, let him go, walking back to stand by the other two. “When we started our investigation, we looked for anyone suspicious, and as it turns out, you were the most suspicious pony we could find.”
The Doctor turned serious hearing that, sitting up a little straighter. “Me? Why me? What have I done to earn your suspicion?”
Apple Bloom was the one who answered. “We've noticed how ya'll are always runnin' 'round town, like yer in a hurry or somethin'. What're ya in a hurry for, mister?” She eyed him up and down.
“Well, I-I-”
“And yer always talkin’ an’ actin' weird, like yer from another planet.”
“Hahaha, that's ridiculous! I-I can't be from another planet, that's absurd-”
“Then there's this thing.” Sweetie Belle pointed to Scootaloo, who held up his sonic screwdriver. “It fell out of your tie when we grabbed you. What is it?”
“It’s a screwdriver, now give it back!”
“It don't look like no screwdriver ah've ever seen.”
“That's because you won't see one like it for another three hundred years!”
“What does it do?”
“What doesn't it do? It can unlock doors, repair metal, scan frequencies of various materials, detect tears in the fabric of space, even one's that have been recently closed-”
“Where did you get it?”
“I built it myself.”
Scootaloo set the screwdriver down on a table just behind where he was. “You don't sound like any pony I’ve ever seen. Where do you live, anyway?”
“Hey, yeah, we've been following you around for a while, and we've never seen you go into any house. Do you even have a home in Ponyville?” Sweetie Belle asked.
He opened his mouth to answer, but then decided against it. If he told them he lived in the blue box that kept popping up all over town, they would want to know how he could live inside a cramped box, and he couldn't explain that without telling them about the TARDIS. He was going to have to think of something quick, he could tell by their looks they weren't going to be easy to fool. He needed a believable lie to convince them he wasn't the thief. So he blurted out the first thing he could think of.
“I live with Ditzy Doo.”
They all looked taken back for a second, but then their suspicious glares returned as they all simultaneously moved closer to stare him down face to face.
“Ditzy Doo already has a roommate.”
“They both agreed to let me stay regardless.”
“So where do you sleep?”
“I sleep on the sofa.”
“How come ya don't find yer own place ta stay?”
“I haven't found the right house yet.”
“Is Ditzy Doo your girlfriend?”
The Doctor’s head spun as he panicked, sputtering out random words in a failed attempt to answer. “Wh-wh-wha-what!? I-I-I-I'm not- Y-y-you don't- It's not like-” He shook his head to slow down his racing thoughts. “Wh-why would you think s-something like that?”
Sweetie Belle looked closer at him. “I saw you and her standing together on the bridge during Hearts and Hooves day.”
“Yeah, and ya splashed us with mud when ya were runnin’ by ta meet her!” Apple Bloom piped in. “Why were ya runnin'? Were ya late for yer date with her? Huh?”
“D-Ditzy is NOT my girlfriend! As it so happens, she is my assistant. I was only running to meet up with her because we had a-”
“Date?” Scootaloo finished.
“It was not a date!”
They narrowed their eyes at him, clearly not bought. Scootaloo stepped up. “Just who exactly are you, Mr. Doctor, if that is your real name.”
“Of course it's not my real name.”
“Aha!” She exclaimed, pointing her hoof at him. Then she pulled it back slightly, confusion taking over the previously victorious look on her face. “Wait...what?”
“Of course 'Doctor' isn't my real name. What kind of person would name their child 'Doctor'? That would be completely ridiculous, not to mention confusing.”
“So then you're not a doctor?”
“Yes, I am. Why would I go around telling everyone to call me 'Doctor' all the time if I wasn’t? And what about you? Do you honestly expect me to believe your real name is Scootaloo?”
She glared at him. “That is my real name!” The other two began giggling. Scootaloo whipped around to face them. “Oh, like your names are any better!”
“Hey!”
The three began to argue, and the Doctor wasted no time in trying to move his chair back so he could get to his sonic screwdriver.
“My name is perfectly fine!”
“Oh please, Sw-ee-tie Belle.” Scootaloo put extra emphasis on every part of her name, exaggerating each syllable.
The Doctor was already a quarter of the way there, moving as fast as possible without tipping the chair over or bringing attention to himself.
“What about Apple Bloom? Does everypony in your family have to be named after fruit?”
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Every time I hear you talk about your family I get hungry.”
“Ya'll better leave mah family outta this if ya know what’s good fer ya!”
Half way there, the Doctor accidentally caused a scraping noise as he tried to scoot the chair over a knot in the floor boards. The three stopped their spat for a second to stare in his direction. He smiled sweetly, feigning innocence. They went back to arguing.
“What makes you the name expert anyway?”
“It's not that I'm an expert on names, I just know yours is stupid.”
“You’re stupid!”
“Nuh-uh! Ms. Cheerilee said I'm the hardest working student in her class!”
“That just means yer not as smart as the rest of us, Scoots.”
“Ha!”
“Shut up!”
Somewhere in the back of their minds they were aware of an odd whirring noise, but they were so caught up in their arguing they didn't pay it any attention.
“If I'm not so smart then why am I always the one who comes up with all the ideas?”
“You only come up with all the bad ideas, we just do 'em to humor ya.”
“Oh yeah well your just a-”
“Wait, wait, hold on! Where’s our suspect?”
They froze mid argument, their senses coming back to them. A quick look over to the chair their prisoner had been sitting in showed it was now empty, with the chains that had recently held him now in a ring around the legs.
“Didn't he say that screwdriver of his could unlock doors?”
“Can it unlock chains too?”
Apple Bloom walked over to the chair, kicking at the chains on the ground and scowling.
“Girls, ah do believe we just got played.”
“Once again, I am so sorry Applejack. I'll have the Doctor move it as soon as he gets here.”
“He better get here soon sugarcube, ahm gettin' tired a' waitin'. That there blue box has been sittin' right on top a' the entrance to the storage cellar under the barn for the last three days, and we need them spare wheels for the apple cart.”
“Don't worry; I'm sure he's right on his way.” Ditzy had no idea if the Doctor was on his way. He said he’d be right there after he went back to get his TARDIS key, and somehow he must of managed to get himself abducted or something because she’d been waiting there for almost an hour. She didn’t think much of it at first, but when she got to Sweet Apple Acres she was greeted by an angry looking Applejack demanding she get rid of the blue box or Big Mac was going to have a go at it. Ditzy wasn't sure if it was even possible to destroy the TARDIS, she vaguely remembered the Doctor mentioning something about some guy named “Gangly Can” not being able to break through the doors, but she didn't want them trying in case they might find out what it really is.
'Doctor, what kind of trouble could you have gotten yourself into?' She thought.
Another thirty minutes passed before the Doctor came running up, out of breath and rambling about a bunch of muscular ponies overpowering him and dragging him away to question him about the theft.
“Yeah, okay Doctor that's fascinating and all, but we have more important things to worry about.”
The Doctor slapped a hoof to his head. “You're right, we still need to figure out who or what has been making all the holes in space around here!”
“No, you parked the TARDIS over the storage cellar and Applejack is gearing up to break it down if we don't move it soon.” They both looked over at the farmer, who was busy practicing bucking on a blue sandbag. He flinched when she delivered a particularly strong kick that sent the bag flying into the barn.
“...Right, we'll move the TARDIS first, then continue our investigation.”
They got the TARDIS moved to a better location, which was difficult thanks to the Doctor's inability to actually pilot it correctly, resulting in a very short visit to some planet whose name Ditzy couldn't even pronounce.
“Racksis...calimero...folliptoroptorous?”
“Eh, close enough.”
After the Doctor locked up the TARDIS, the duo split up to ask around town to see if anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary in Ponyville. Ditzy wasn't having much luck. Everyone she asked knew as much as her, and absolutely no one had seen anything weird like a hole in space. She was getting ready to just give up and go find the Doctor when she overheard an interesting conversation.
“...and I had just bought some too. But when I looked in my pantry every jar of jelly I had in there was gone. And it didn't look like anypony had been in my house; nothing else was touched. I wonder if it was the same pony who stole Berry Punch's jelly.”
“I had the same thing happen to me. I went to buy more at the market, but nopony had any. Every shop, tapped dry. It’s like all the jelly in Ponyville is mysteriously vanishing.”
Ditzy's eyes went wide. That definitely sounded like something the Doctor would want to know. She sprinted off to find him.
The Doctor, on the other hand, was having similar findings. After asking several ponies he struck up a conversation with a stallion who claimed all the jelly he had had been stolen as well, and he wasn't able to find anyone else to buy anymore from.
“So how long did it take you to realize your jelly was gone?”
“Well, like I said, I was home all day. At lunch I decided to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but when I looked in my cupboard it was all gone. I didn’t hear anyone else come in the house, and they couldn’t have come in through the back door if they did. The lock’s been broken for years; I haven’t been able to open it since I first moved into my house!”
The Doctor pondered this news for a second, before asking “Did you notice anything else in your home when you discovered you had been robbed?
“Like what?”
“Well…” He hesitated a moment before continuing. “Like an interdimensional portal linking your house to an alien planet billions of light years away?”
He got nothing but a blank stare in return.
“Doctor!”
He turned, spotting his assistant making her way to him. “Ah, Ditzy, there you are! I was just asking this fellow if he noticed any odd goings on lately.”
Ditzy looked around. “What fellow? I don't see anyone.”
The Doctor turned to see that the stallion he had been talking to was now gone. He spun in a full circle but couldn't see him anywhere. “Where did he...”
“Never mind that Doctor, you'll never guess what I found! I was listening in on some ponies talking and I overheard them saying that-”
“-they had recently bought jelly and realized it had been stolen, and when they went to buy more no one else had any either. That's what I've been hearing too. So then it's not just coincidence.”
“Do you think the jelly thief and the holes in space are connected?”
“That's what I'm starting to think. Perhaps we may have to do a bit of hands on work to figure out the answer to this puzzle.”
Ditzy turned her head over in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it just so happens I have a jar of preserves in the TARDIS. Maybe we can use it to lure the thief out, catch them in the act, and learn just how he or she is making swiss cheese out of the fabric of space.”
“Yay, it's time for a stakeout! And you know what this calls for?”
“I can only guess…”
“Muffins!”
Two hours and a dozen muffins later, the two had the perfect setup for a stakeout in Ditzy’s house. This, as you would
“Alright Ditzy, now we wait for the thief to show up and steal the jar, and we'll have him caught red handed!”
“Or her.”
“Right. And we’ll have him or her caught red handed.”
“Doctor, this seems silly. Couldn't we just open one of those holes again and see where it leads?”
“Wh-wh- y-y-you can’t just...” He paused. “…I-I'm the Doctor here, and you’re the assistant! This is how we are doing this!”
“You never even thought of doing that, did you Doctor?”
“It crossed my mind...recently.”
The sound of clinking glass brought their attention back to the jar, which was now gone.
“What!? B-but...h-how? We...we turned away for...ten seconds...”
“My idea is starting to look a lot better now, huh Doctor?” Ditzy ignored his glare as she innocently took a bite of a muffin.
“I don’t understand, I’ve created a delta wave generator in the time it takes someone to get a cup of coffee! By myself! I mean, I never actually fired it, but I still made it! How could I be outsmarted by a mare who frequently mistakes the atom accelerator on the control panel in the TARDIS for a baby rattle?” He looked at Ditzy after saying this, noticing that she was now making a “Boo-hoo!” face and pretending to wipe tears from her eyes. “Urgh…How far I’ve fallen…” He began walking to the door to try out their next plan of action.
“You know Doctor, I guess you could say this has been quite a...jam?”
“…Ditzy, give me back my spectacles.”
Pinkie Pie hummed a random tune as she walked down a set of stairs into the basement of Sugar Cube Corner, her usual smile lighting up her face.
“Hmm hm hmmm, hmm hmmm hm hmm...”
The pink earth pony began searching shelves when she entered the large room, calling out as she did so. “Jelly? Jelly? Where are you, jelly?” She spotted a jar at the end of one of the shelves. “Oh, there you are! Gummy loves jelly, it's a good thing we still have one more jar!” She grabbed it and began walking back to the stairs. When she got there she heard something shuffle around somewhere behind her.
“Hmm?” She turned. “Hello? Gummy, is that you? I've got your jelly right here Gummy, what are you doing down here?” She couldn't see the little reptile, but she could hear something moving in the back of the room.
“Gummy? If you wanted to play hide and seek, why didn't you just say so?” With a naive giggle, she bounded around the room, checking every nook and cranny for Gummy. When she had only one place left to check, a dark corner hidden by a stack of flour bags, she crouched down really low, creeping slowly to the corner that the shuffling sound was coming from. When she got right up to it, she yelled “Gotcha!” and jumped forward. It was then she realized the creature that stared back at her was not Gummy.
“Hey, you're not Gummy. You wanna be my friend?”
It lifted its head up until it was several feet above the mare, staring down at her with a hungry look in its eye.
“If you're gonna be my friend, I'll have to throw a party for you! What color balloons do you want? What kind of cake do you like? Oh, this is going to be the best party ever! I better go make the invitations right away!” She ran to the stairs, leaving the mysterious creature behind as it watched her go, a confused expression dominating its face.
The Ditzy is always right
“Hey Doctor, what is it we’re doing again?”
“Ugh…”
“What? I’m just confused is all. Like I normally am. ‘Cause you know me, I’m always confused and never know what’s going on.” Ditzy’s tone dripped with sarcasm.
“Ditzy...”
“Doctor…”
“Oh for heavens- I am not saying it again Ditzy Doo!”
“You’re not saying what?”
“That we’re headed to the TARDIS so I can procure the necessary materials to put together a device that will allow me to open one of the recently closed portals so we can find this so-called ‘Jelly thief’!”
“And who is the one that came up with this brilliant plan?” Ditzy asked sweetly.
“Urgh…”
“I’m waiting.”
The Doctor mumbled something incoherently.
“What was that? I didn't quite hear you there.”
He repeated his reply, a little louder this time, but still too hard to understand.
“One more time Doctor. Remember, enunciate.”
“Arrrgh! You! Alright!? You, the uncoordinated, wall-eyed pegasus mare with no sense of direction and an uncontrollable addiction to small cup-shaped cake pastries! You are the one who came up with the stupid plan! Are you happy now!?” The Doctor flailed his hooves around in circles, gesturing wildly until he was left panting at the end of his outburst.
Ditzy grinned victoriously. “Absolutely ecstatic.” She continued on, brushing past the Doctor as he stood there dumbfounded, one eye twitching as he pondered the multiple ways he knew would be sufficient enough to cause the mare to suffer as much as physically possible.
“Maybe if I dropped her off on Europa; that ought to cool her ego down a smidge…” He mumbled, following Ditzy with his head held low.
They were making their way through Ponyville, headed for the TARDIS’s new location: right behind the library.
“I still don’t understand why you parked it behind the library, Doctor.” Ditzy said after waving hello to Lyra and Bonbon, who were evidently out for a stroll of their own.
“Well…I…uh…I-I was…uh….” The Doctor fumbled for an excuse. “I was just looking to check out a book on the history of Equestria. Yeah, that sounds like something I’d do.”
“Oh, ok. I was just afraid it was so you would have a reason to go see Twilight Sparkle again. Honestly Doctor, you were kind of starting to seem stalker-ish to me for a little there.” Ditzy’s naivete reached new heights as she spoke, the obviousness of the situation going right over her head. The Doctor wiped a drop of sweat off of his head.
“Help! Somepony help!”
The scream instantly perked up the pair, both of their heads snapping to attention as the desperate cry came again.
“Oh, it’s terrible! I've been robbed! Won’t somepony help me?”
The pony in need of help turned out to be Mrs. Cake, looking very frazzled and unnerved. The Doctor and Ditzy were there in a flash, questions flying faster than the distraught mare could fathom.
“Was it the jelly thief?”
“Did you see him?”
“Did you see any portals into another dimension?”
“Do you have any muffins?”
The Doctor looked at Ditzy questioningly. “Ditzy, what does her possessing muffins have to do with anything?”
“What? Ponies put jelly on muffins.”
The Doctor was about to reply but the older mare interrupted him. “Excuse me? Are you two done yet? I sort of have a problem here!”
The two blushed. “Sorry...” “Sorry, ma’am.”
The Doctor regained his composure first. “Now, what is it that’s been stolen from you?”
“All of it! I got an order for a baker’s dozen of cupcakes so I started preparations, and that’s when I realized they had taken it all! Wooden spoons, mixing bowls, baking pans, measuring cups-“
“Wait a minute…are you saying…that what’s been stolen from you…is cooking utensils?” The Doctor asked.
Mrs. Cake hesitated. “Well…yeah.”
“So none of your jelly has gone missing.”
“Jelly? No, I don’t think so.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Doctor! You’re being rude!”
“It’s not my fault! We’re on a busy schedule and we can’t be interrupted by petty problems!”
Mrs. Cake glared at him. “Petty problems!? I’m a baker! I need all of that stuff to make a living! Without it, Mr. Cake and I might as well kiss our well-being goodbye!”
“Well, I’m dreadfully sorry Mrs. Cake, but that doesn't exactly tie in with our current problem. Perhaps once we’re finished with discovering the identity of the jelly thief we can-“
“Without my pans and measuring cups there will be no way for me to bake muffins.”
Ditzy’s eyes widened. “N-n-n-no…m-m-m-m-muffins?” She looked from Mrs. Cake to the Doctor, mouthing words soundlessly before falling over on to her back, completely out cold. The Doctor and Mrs. Cake stared for a moment, waiting to see if she would do anything else. When she didn't, the Doctor sighed.
“Alright, it’s hard to argue with my assistant when she gets like this. I suppose we can look for your means of making a living as well as continuing our search for the notorious jelly thief.”
Mrs. Cake smiled. “Thank you, Doctor. That is very kind of you.”
“Of course it is. Come along Ditzy.” With that the Doctor grabbed Ditzy’s tail in his mouth and began dragging her behind him.
________________________________________________________________________________
“No more muffins? Have you ever heard of such a thing!? I mean, I know there are muffinless planets out there but this isn't one of them! We've always had muffins for as long as I can remember! Why would somepony suddenly just take them away! It’s despicable! It’s detestable! It’s disgraceful! It’s-“
“Nice to see you’re putting that dictionary I got for you to good use, Ditzy.” The Doctor said without looking, his eyes planted on the device he had been working on for the last hour. They were now in the TARDIS, the gentle hum of the idle machinery within it adding a familiar and comfortable air for the Time Lord, which was now being destroyed by the pacing and angry rambling of his assistant.
“Doctor, Sweetie Belle isn't even here.”
He paused from what he was doing, staring at Ditzy with a confused expression. “…What?”
“Nothing.”
“Right…” The Doctor gave her one last questioning look before turning back to his project. “Could you hand me my sonic screwdriver?”
Ditzy handed it to him. “So is that what’s going to help us open one of those closed portals and find the jelly thief?”
“Nope.” The Doctor held up the object he had been working on to reveal it to be a regular toaster oven.
Ditzy gaped at the Doctor. “Are you telling me you've been working this whole time on a stupid toaster!?”
“Yes, all this talk of jelly and baked goods has reminded me that my toaster was broken. I figured now was the best time to fix it.”
“What about our plan? You said you were coming here to build a device to re-open the portals the jelly thief is using!”
“No, I said I was coming here to procure the necessary materials to put together the device that will allow me to open one of the recently closed portals the thief is using to steal all the jelly. I had all the necessary materials in the TARDIS, and I put it together in the first five minutes we were here. It’s over there on the console.” He pointed to the console of the TARDIS in the middle of the room, where an oddly shaped device sat that looked to be made from a microwave oven with no door, a radar dish and an analog clock that had cartoon cats whose tails acted as the hour and minute hands respectively.
“So you just wasted an entire hour fixing your broken toaster and letting me rant about muffins?”
“If you look at it that way, I suppose so.”
“…Alright then, let’s get to work!”
_________________________________________________________________________________
The two set off back out into Ponyville, the odd machine on the Doctor’s back drawing more attention than they wanted, ponies stopping to gawk at the large object that looked like some sort of makeshift alien communication device, which would actually be more believable then what it really was.
“I always knew that pony was weird.”
“Why does she hang out with him all the time?”
“Maybe she feels sorry for him.”
Ditzy did her best to give the gossiping ponies a death glare while the Doctor obliviously trotted along his way with a slight smile on his face.
“So, Doctor. Now that we have your…what exactly do you call that thing?”
“It’s called a Dimensional Augmentation Material Nullifier. Or if you want to give it a shorter name you could just call it the-“
“I think I’ll just call it the ‘Portal Ray’ if you don’t mind Doctor.”
“Oh. Okay then. Are you sure? Because I’d think using an acronym to make it-“
“I’m sure Doctor.”
“Okay…”
“So, as I was saying, now that we have your…’Portal Ray’, how are we going to use it to re-open those holes in space?”
Well, as I said before, when you open a hole in the fabric of space, you have to give it time to settle and go back to normal. And you certainly can’t leave it open in case someone just happens upon it, so it must be closed to help the settling along. One of the more popular ways used to close the holes is to sort of ‘stitch’ it closed.” The Doctor nodded behind him to the machine on his back. “This device should allow me to destroy the ‘stitches’, re-opening the hole and allowing us to go through.”
“It ‘should’ allow you to do that? What happens if it doesn't?”
“Have you ever seen a bullfrog swallow a balloon? And then that same bullfrog coughing up said balloon onto a pile of cactus needles?”
“Nooo…”
“Neither have I. If this device doesn't do what it should, it certainly won’t do that.”
Ditzy stopped in her tracks, opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and then ran to catch up to the Doctor.
The Doctor decided the best place to start was Berry Punch’s wine cellar, the epicenter of the entire problem. “Since this all started when Berry’s jelly stock was stolen, it might help to try there first.”
“But you already checked there, didn't you Doctor? Besides, the portal would be closed by now, right?”
“Not necessarily. Well, not completely anyway. The stitches will have already gone away by now, but the holes wont fully close for at least a few more days. We won’t be able to re-open a portal that’s been closed for too long. The connection between the one in the cellar and the one that leads to the thief was already lost when we first went down there to check it out. I just need to find out more about the makeup of the portals so I can set the Portal Ray to the right frequency. You know, I don’t like the name ‘Portal Ray’. Can’t I just call it the D-“
“Okay Doctor, here we are, Berry Punch’s house! See?” Ditzy walked up to the door and knocked before he could respond. They waited a few moments before Berry Punch opened it.
“Oh, it’s you two again. Did you find out where all my jelly went yet?” She asked hopefully.
“Nope.” The Doctor walked inside uninvited, brushing past Berry and heading for the door to the cellar.
“Ummm…Come on in.” She closed the door behind Ditzy. “What was that…’thing’ on his back?”
“You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
The two mares walked down the stairs to the cellar, where the Doctor was already busy working, once again walking around the cellar with his sonic screwdriver held out. Just like last time, it made a beep, upon which he turned a dial on his screwdriver back and forth until it beeped again. He then pressed a few buttons on the Portal Ray before picking it up and placing it on his back again.
“Well, I’m done here. Come along Ditzy.”
Berry Punch jumped in front of him, blocking his exit. “Oh no you don’t! You did that last time too! I want answers, ‘Mr. Doctor’, and I want them now!”
“Ms. Punch, please. I really don’t think we have time for this right-Look, it’s the thief!” The Doctor shouted, pointing up the stairs in mock alarm. When Berry turned to look, the Doctor shot passed her, sprinting up the stairs shouting “Ditzy, hurry!” behind him. Ditzy literally flew up the stairs after him, leaving poor Berry Punch to stand in the cellar, glaring angrily at the retreating forms of the Doctor and Ditzy as they ran out of the house and into the street.
“Why did we…have to…run from…her, Doctor?” Ditzy asked between pants.
“To be honest…I’m not entirely…sure.” He took a moment to catch his breath. “But it sure was fun, wasn't it?”
Just as Ditzy was about to respond, they heard a buzzing noise far off in the distance. They looked down the road just in time to see a cloud of dust round the corner, the buzzing noise getting louder as a scooter driven by an orange pegasus filly came out of it, rocketing down the street toward the two. As it got closer the Doctor realized the scooter was towing a red wagon with two fillies as passengers, all three of them looking very familiar-
“It’s the Cutie Mark Crusaders! Not again!” The Doctor turned and began running away, dropping the Portal Ray as he did so.
“Doctor!” Ditzy coughed as the scooter raced past, the dust it kicked up washing over her in a wave. As the dust began to settle around her, she heard a high pitched scream. It took her a moment before she realized it was the Doctor. She opened her eyes to see that the fillies were pulling him into the wagon and tying him down.
“Ditzy, help!” She started to chase after them but they took off, quickly going out of sight as they rounded another corner. Ditzy opened her wings and took to the sky, trying to spot the dust cloud, to no avail. She took a couple passes over Ponyville but couldn’t see anything of them or the Doctor. She began panicking when she realized that she had lost them. She had lost the Doctor.
That definitely wasn't good.
[INSERT ORIGINAL TITLE HERE]
The Doctor wasn't scared. Nope, not a bit. Choking darkness? He laughs at it. Bone chilling floor? Please, he's been through worse. Heavy breathing from somewhere to his left?
Well, now that actually was scaring him.
"H-hello? Is…is anyone there?"
The breathing stopped. Okay, now he was freaking out a bit.
"Aaaaaah!" He screamed when he felt a drop of water fall on the back of his neck.
Well, maybe a more than just a bit.
The remnants of his scream continued to echo off the walls until there was nothing but complete silence again. The Doctor slowly got to his feet, which turned out to be a little harder than usual since he couldn't actually see his hooves. He took a couple tentative steps forward and immediately felt his hoof hit something cold, wet and sticky.
"Oh, what in the…of all the rotten…disgusting!" He lifted his hoof and tried to shake whatever it was off, but it stayed stuck. "Ew, why is it so…squishy?" Then he smelled whatever it was. It wasn't a bad smell; in fact it actually smelled good, sweet even. He brought his hoof up to his nose to get a better whiff. It was then he realized what it was. "…is this…jelly? Am I standing in jelly !? Of all the things I could just happen to step upon, it has to be the last bit of jelly in the entire town!" He fumed as he began scraping his hoof across the ground, trying to rid it of the offending foodstuff. "Stupide bonbons rejeter…" He grumbled.
"Doctor?"
His head snapped up when he heard the voice.
"Ditzy?"
"Doctor, where are you?" Her voice bounced off the walls and made it hard for him to pinpoint exactly which direction it came from.
"Apparently I'm standing in jelly. Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I got dragged in after you when I tried to save you."
"Ditzy, I told you to run. Why didn't you run?"
"Sorry Doctor…" Her voice held an air of guilt.
The Doctor sighed. "It's alright Ditzy. There's nothing we can do about it now. All we can do is figure out how to get out of here. Any chance you have a flashlight on you?"
"No, but Doctor I think there's a-"
"I guess I'll have to improvise then. I may be able to pin point the exact shape and size of the room we're in and our positions in it by creating echoes with my voice."
"But Doctor I found a-"
"Ooooooh waaaaaaaaaaah oooooooh waaaaaah-"
"Doctor-"
"Mauwa waaah naaaaaa meeeeeee wooooooo-Gah!" The Doctor's eyes were filled with a blinding flash as a spark suddenly lit up the entire room for a split second. He shut his eyes to avoid the pain of his burning retinas. He opened them to slits until they adjusted, then he looked about the now well lit room. Actually, room wasn't a good word for it. More like cave. A cave inexplicably lined with lights on the walls and ceiling. As he looked around, he finally noticed the gray mare in the corner, her hoof still on a comically large laboratory-style switch. "Ditzy, why didn't you just tell me there was a light switch-" He stopped as he got a better look at her. At first he thought it was just a trick of the light, but as he continued to stare he realized that wasn't it.
"…What is it Doctor?" Her confused look turned to horror. "Is it that thing again!?" She whipped around and looked behind her. Seeing nothing, she turned back to the Doctor, who still had the same weird look as before. She glared at him. "Would you just tell me what you're staring at!?"
"…Guh…uh…"
"Come on…"
"It's…it's…"
"Doctor!"
"Ditzy…it's your…your eyes…"
"My eyes? What about my eyes?"
"They're…they're…straight!"
"What!?" She looked into a puddle of water near her and saw in her reflection that her eyes were indeed straight. In fact if you had never known her, you wouldn't even realize she was any different in that regard. "Doctor, what happened to me!?" She screamed.
"I don't know!"
"Aaaaaaaah!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"
They both began screaming alternatingly before screaming one last time in unison. Mid scream, part of the ceiling suddenly crumbled above them, sending down a cascade of rubble and debris on top of the pair. When the dust settled, all that was left was a huge pile of rocks and dirt. The Doctor's head popped out, stars swirling about his head as he did a near perfect impression of his assistant.
"Ditzy, are you alright?"
Ditzy followed the Doctor's lead, her head popping up out of the pile. After she did so, a small rock fell and bounced off the top of her head, returning her eyes to their normal wall eyed state. "Just fine Doctor, nothing to worry about here."
"Oooh, that was a doozy!" The Doctor and Ditzy suddenly found themselves pulled into a neck crushing hug as Pinkie Pie, who had evidently fallen with the ceiling, pulled them both out only to choke the life out of them. At least that's what it seemed like what she was doing. "Boy, when I felt that huge assortment of twitches and shakes I just knew something big big big was going to happen! Who would have known I'd fall right through the floor on top of you guys!" She let them go; barely giving them any chance to fill their lungs with much needed air before she stretched her neck out (literally) to glare at them face to face. "Although , I am mad at you two for trying to sneak into the party early!" She pulled her head back, only to have it re-appear above them. "Aw, I can't stay mad at you two!" She somehow teleported between them, once again pulling them into another hug. "I know you want to party, but you have to wait for me to get it ready before we can get it started!"
The Doctor pried himself away from the pink pony with a crowbar he found in the rubble. "Miss Pie, I have absolutely no idea what it is you are talking about! And we certainly weren't trying to sneak into any party! We were dragged her by some creature. Now, could you please be so kind as to release my assistant? I don't think I've ever seen her face that color before."
Pinkie let Ditzy go, who promptly fell over, twitching slightly as she lay there motionless.
"Thank you. Now, I assume it was you who set up all these lights?"
"Yep! I was going to have the party up in Sugar Cube Corner, but my new friend was too shy to go up there, so I decided I'd bring the party to him!" She emphasized her point by throwing a hoof full of confetti over his head and blowing into a noise maker.
"You're new friend? And just who is this new friend of yours that lives in a damp cave?" Then he realized what she said. "Wait, Sugar Cube Corner is right above us?" He looked up through the hole, seeing nothing but a dank cellar in the room above. "So then this cave is right underneath Sugar Cube Corner…that must be why I didn't see the indicator on the display of the Portal Ray! One of the portals led to your room, and the other led down here, directly underneath! The one in your room hid the one in here!" He held up his hoof for a victory bump, which Pinkie gave enthusiastically, despite the fact she had no idea what he was talking about.
"So then…this is where the jelly thief is hiding?" Ditzy asked, having apparently regained consciousness.
"Not at the moment, it would seem. But Pinkie has given me a few more clues as to the identity of him. Like, for instance, the thief really is a 'him'. Isn't that correct, Miss Pie?"
"Oh absolutely , I dare say you would be right in saying that, Mr. Doctor." She replied in a mock impression of the Doctor's accent.
"I do not sound like that."
Pinkie sat back on her haunches and crossed her hooves. "I don't sound like that. I'm the Doctor."
"Miss Pie, you are being very immature."
"Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey."
"Okay, now you're just being-oh wait, I actually do say that."
Ditzy tapped him on the shoulder. "Uh, Doctor. If you're done playing around, can we maybe start looking for a way out of here?"
"Yes, it would be a nice change of pace to get out of this dreary locale. Miss Pie, is there any way you've been using to get down here to-Miss Pie?" He looked to where she had been only to realize she was no longer there.
"Up here Doctor!" He looked up to see Pinkie now in the room above them, standing at the edge of the hole and waving down at him. She reached behind her and grabbed a rope ladder she had somehow obtained and threw it down for them.
"Wha-how did she-"
Ditzy walked past him unfazed and began climbing. "Coming Doctor?"
"Oh please Ditzy, it's not like that was the first time I've ever been thrown out of a building."
"That's because you're a weird pony, Doctor."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
They were talking about what had happened to them not five minutes ago. After going back to the house they had broken into to get the Portal Ray, they were quickly thrown out by the very angry residents. Thrown out being literal, of course, the proof of that being in the fact that Ditzy was still rubbing her neck from landing flat on her head.
"Where to now anyway, Doctor?"
"To come up with a new plan."
"New plan? Do we need a new plan? I mean we already know where the thief is hiding now, can't we just wait for him and catch him when he comes back?"
"If you recall, my dear assistant, the thief is the one who dragged us there in the first place. Whether the creature you saw was a trap or his pet remains to be seen, but what we do know is that he won't be coming back to that cave anytime soon. It was completely empty, save for the pile of jelly I inconveniently stepped in. No, my guess is that he packed up and moved before we ever found that place, but that's good because now we have him on the run."
"So we're chasing him then?"
"Chase, hunt, stalk, whatever you want to call it. The thing is, he couldn't have gone far; he must be using some sort of short range-" He stopped mid-sentence, his ears perking up to their full height. Before Ditzy could ask what was wrong, he grabbed her and hauled her into the nearest alley.
Ditzy sighed angrily. "Oh, not this again…Doctor, when are you gonna stop trying to hide every time Twilight comes around-" Then she heard the same humming noise they had heard earlier. They waited stone still until the scooter and wagon zipped by, only after the noise disappeared did the Doctor relax.
"That was a close one. A bit too close. Those fillies are really beginning to grind on my gears. The sooner we catch this thief and show those three I'm not him, the sooner I can be rid of them."
"Is that why they kidnapped you? Twice?"
"Yes, now as I was saying, whoever the thief is has some sort of short range teleportation device in his possession. Now that I have the frequency of the portals down, it shouldn't be too hard for me to track the signal of the device."
They found a nice place to sit while the Doctor messed with the Portal Ray. Ditzy waited patiently as the Doctor pressed more keys on the machine and adjusted the radar dish, keeping an eye on the clock while it spun in random circles. Finally they heard a ding, and the clock stopped spinning. The hands stuck at nine and three, making a perfect horizontal line. The Doctor slowly turned a dial, making the hands begin to rise up until they got to twelve. When they did, the Doctor exclaimed "Got it!" and turned off the machine. "It would appear as if the thief has now taken up residence inside a nearby cave, just on the edge of the Everfree forest."
"Sounds like he's near Fluttershy's cottage! Doctor, we have to get there before he finds her, poor Fluttershy would never stand a chance against that creature!"
"Then we must hurry! Allonz-y!"
Ditzy looked at him confused. "Allo-what?"
"It's French. You know what, never mind. Let's just go."
They ran as fast as they could to Fluttershy's cottage, the Doctor explaining their plan of action the whole way there. As they neared the cottage, they heard a scream from the side of it. Ditzy, fearing for her friend, took flight, rocketing ahead of the Doctor.
"Ditzy! Wait up! You don't know what he's capable of!" She ignored him and kept going, quickly getting out of his sight. He pushed himself to gallop harder, his breathing becoming more labored. As he got to the corner that he saw Ditzy come around, he tripped on a rock and tumbled around, coming to a stop right in the middle of a group of ponies standing there. When his eyes stopped revolving in their sockets, he realized the ponies, now staring at him oddly, were Ditzy, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Twilight.
"Wha-…what?"
"Oh, it's you Doctor. You know, this is probably the first time we've met so far that you didn't pass out." Twilight said with a twinge of humor in her voice.
Ditzy helped him up to his feet. "I don't understand…nothing seems to have happened here."
"Well of course not, why would you think anything happened?"
"I heard a scream."
"Oh, um…th-that was me…" He looked to where he heard the quiet voice, surprising him when he thought it came from Pinkie. She took a step to the left to reveal Fluttershy behind her. She "Eep!"d when she realized she had been spotted and cowered beneath her hooves. "Y-you see…Pinkie just sort of…popped up…and it…kind of scared me…" She spoke without looking up.
"Oh. I see. So then there was no need for me to rush." He blushed in embarrassment. "Well, now I've got egg on my face, don't I?" Then a thought struck him. "Wait, why are you both here anyway?" He referred to Twilight and Pinkie Pie.
"Well, I came here to ask Fluttershy a question about a creature. I figured if anyone would know more about it-"
"Wait, you're looking for the creature too? Did you see it as well?"
"No, Pinkie told me. It sounded familiar so I started doing research. I couldn't find much, so I came here to see if Fluttershy knew anything." Twilight rolled her eyes. "She was just telling me she didn't know what it was when Pinkie showed up suddenly and scared her half to death."
"I said I was sorry!" The look on Pinkie's face didn't give the impression she meant it.
"So then…what were you doing here, Miss Pie?"
Pinkie held up an envelope. "I was here to give this invitation to my friend!"
Fluttershy looked up from where she was still cowering. "Pinkie, you already gave me an invitation…" She said shyly.
"Not you, silly! My new friend!"
Both the Doctor and Twilight perked at hearing that. "Your new friend? Is he around here?" Twilight asked while craning her head around.
"He's in a cave about one kilometer that way." The Doctor pointed a hoof behind Twilight towards the forest. Twilight looked both surprised and impressed.
"How do you know that Doctor?"
"Do you think I've spent all day passed out? I've been investigating with Ditzy. How else would I know where he is?"
"Maybe you used that alien-kabob you always carry around with you! The one that you can use to unlock doors and repair metal and-" Both Ditzy and the Doctor slapped their hooves over Pinkie's mouth, keeping her from revealing any more then she already had.
Twilight stared at them confused. "Alien-kabob? What is she-"
"Nothing! She's not talking about anything! She's just being Pinkie Pie, you know how that is. Hehehe…" Ditzy smiled awkwardly, hoping Twilight would buy it.
She obviously didn't, but she let it slide anyway. "Right…well then, if you know where the creature is, then we should start heading out." She gave them one last suspicious look before turning and walking in the direction the Doctor had pointed to earlier.
They wiped sweat off their heads. Pinkie giggled hysterically.
They set off after Twilight, leaving Fluttershy behind when it became apparent she wanted nothing to do with a scary monster.
They neared the part of the forest they would need to enter to get to the cave. It was only about fifty meters in as the Doctor explained, so they wouldn't need to travel very far. Just as they were about to enter, they heard the humming noise associated with the Cutie Mark Crusader's scooter. The Doctor whipped around, quickly realizing it was speeding right for him.
"Oh, darn it! Why can't they just leave me alone!?" He panicked and took off into the forest, Ditzy right on his heels.
The three fillies stopped their scooter when Twilight stepped in front of them, blocking their way.
"Just what do you three think you're doing?" She asked with a stern voice.
Scootaloo took off her helmet and hopped off the scooter, throwing it behind her into the wagon. "We're trying to catch the jelly thief!"
Twilight's eyes raised in surprise. "You too? Is everypony more aware of the identity of this mysterious creature but me?"
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom walked up to stand next to Scootaloo. "What creature? We're talking about that Doctor guy! We have reason to believe he's the one stealing all the jelly in town!"
"That's ridiculous-"
"Twilight! We've found it!" She heard the Doctor yell from far off in the forest. She turned and looked, waiting for him to say something again.
When he didn't, she turned to the three fillies and Pinkie Pie and told them "Follow me, and be careful." She then entered the forest, keeping her eye open for the strange pony and the mail mare who called herself his assistant. Before long, just like the Doctor had said, they came upon a cave. They all stood around the entrance to it, waiting for anything to come out.
"Twilight, in here, hurry!" This time it was Ditzy talking, her voice echoing from inside. Twilight hesitated, taking her steps tentatively when she entered the cave. The fillies and Pinkie had other ideas, wind blowing past them as they raced past her, leaving the purple mare a bit disoriented. When she finally made it to where they were standing, she saw that Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were holding the Doctor down while Ditzy stood to the side trying to negotiate his release. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen.
"Give it up thief! We got ya now! Ya'll aint goin' nowhere!" Apple Bloom shouted, gripping his back legs tighter.
"I told you, I am not the thie-"
Sweetie Belle clamped his mouth shut with hooves. "You're not talking your way out of it this time!"
"Please girls, just listen! You have it all wrong!" Ditzy cried.
Twilight stepped in. "My little ponies, let him go right now!"
"But Twilight…"
"No buts. Now."
Their collective "Aaaw"s filled the cave as they grudgingly let the Doctor go. He stood up and shook the dirt off himself.
"Thank you, Miss Sparkle."
"You're welcome Doctor."
A loud boom and a flash of light appeared, the entire cave suddenly being filled up with streamers and balloons, a layer of confetti covering them and the floor. Pinkie Pie was standing with a goofy grin behind her signature party cannon, a cone hat on her head and a noise maker in her mouth. "Thanks for coming to the party, everypony! This is going to be so super fun!"
"Pinkie, this is no time for a par…party…" Twilight slowly let her sentence trail off as the shadows behind Pinkie Pie began to rise up, two glowing yellow eyes staring down at them all from atop a long, slender neck. They all stood there speechless as the creature rose to its full height, its head almost bumping the ceiling. Pinkie Pie turned around to see what they were all looking at, and craned her neck at an unnatural angle to look straight up at the creature. Everything was perfectly still before-
"Hi there! I told you they'd all show up! You big silly worrywart!" Pinkie jumped forward and wrapped the creature in a hug around its neck; startling it and making it lower its head to avoid hitting the wall. As its head lowered into the light, it revealed a long narrow beak on its face.
Ditzy was the first one to react. "What…what in Equestria is that thing?"
Twilight shook her head. "I have no idea…"
"I don't believe it…It's a Jam Lark." The Doctor answered, surprise written on his face.
Twilight looked at him. "A Jam Lark? I've never heard of anything called a Jam Lark." She said this with a clearly annoyed expression, most likely beating herself up for not being able to find it in her research.
"Well I'm not surprised you haven't. Jam Lark's were thought to be extinct, due to the long gestation period of their eggs and the overall fragility of their existence."
"So then what is it doing here? Does it want to eat us?" Sweetie Belle asked from behind her hiding place that was Ditzy.
The Doctor laughed. "Of course not. Jam Lark's are birds, they eat nuts and insects mostly, not ponies."
Pinkie finally let it go, to its relief, and placed a party hat on its head, blowing into a noise maker and throwing confetti over it. "Welcome to Ponyville!" It was clearly confused.
As was Twilight. "What is it doing in here though, Doctor?"
"It was the only place left for it to hide. We discovered its original home so it had to come here."
Ditzy tried to shake the filly clinging to her hind leg off, to no avail. "Then why was it running from us? If it's harmless, why would it be scared of us?"
"Probably so he could protect the eggs."
"Eggs?" Apple Bloom looked around the cave. "Ah don't see no eggs."
"He's sitting on them." The Doctor replied.
"So wouldn't that make it a 'she'?"
"Nope. Just like penguins, the female lays the eggs and leaves them in the care of the male, who then hides in order to keep them safe. He must have mistaken our finding his lair as a threat, which is why he dragged us in and left before we could follow."
"So then…does this mean he's the jelly thief?" Scootaloo asked.
"Correct! The main source of food for newly hatched Jam Lark's is a gelatin substance known as 'pectin', which they would normally get from fruit."
Apple Bloom cocked her head to the side. "Then why would he steal jelly instead of just goin' to Sweet Apple Acres?"
"Well as it turns out, jelly is a much better source of pectin then individual fruits. It would be a lot easier to get the pectin he needs to feed his young from the jelly since it's made from dozens of fruit packed together and sealed air tight."
Sweetie Belle finally pulled herself from Ditzy's leg. "So then…you really were telling the truth when you said you weren't the thief…" The other two fillies held the same guilty looks as Sweetie Belle.
"Girls, do you have anything you want to say to the Doctor?" Twilight said in a strict tone.
"Sorry Mr. Doctor." They all said in unison.
"It's just the Doctor. And thank you girls, that is very mature of you. I hope you learned a lesson not to chase a man relentlessly and kidnap him and torture him and-"
Ditzy stopped him there. "I think what the Doctor means is that you shouldn't judge a pony for being a bit odd. Even if he's really, really odd." Twilight nodded her head in agreement.
"And maybe next time you should come tell me if you think a pony is doing something bad. I'd be more than happy to help you investigate."
Scootaloo shook her head. "Nah, we're bored of investigating now. It didn't work anyway; we still don't have our Cutie Marks."
Sweetie Belle shot her hoof in the air. "Ooh, ooh! I know what we could try next! Let's try to get our Cutie Marks for making jelly!"
The three cheered and sprinted out of the cave, having most likely learned nothing from the day's experiences.
The Doctor let his head droop. "Something tells me they're going to be attempting to kidnap me again sometime in the near future…"
Ditzy patted him on the back.
"…So in conclusion, yes, we have discovered the identity of the thief responsible for the rash of thefts in town, but unfortunately, if you were one of the victims affected, I'm sorry to say we cannot return your missing jelly." The Mayor's speech was interrupted by a chorus of angry shouts. "I understand your disappointment but the reason we can't return your jelly is because it has all been…eaten."
"Who in the name of Celestia could eat all that jelly!?" Some faceless pony in the crowd yelled.
The Doctor took that as his cue, replacing the Mayor at the podium and gesturing for his assistant to reveal what was behind the large curtain on the stage they were on. When it dropped, everyone in the audience gasped as the large creature behind it was revealed. "This is a Jam Lark. It is also the culprit behind all the thefts. Although his methods for obtaining sustenance for his young were…illegal, I can assure you it was all done with the best of intentions."
"And just what would that be?" Berry Punch asked angrily.
"Saving an entire species." Three small heads poked out from under the Jam Lark's chest, tiny beaks opening and closing as they chirped for food. The father obliged, lowering his beak to each of theirs and regurgitating the partially digested jelly he had eaten over the past few days. There was a mixture of "Ew"s and "Aw"s that arose from the crowd, the sight both sweet and disgusting to watch.
Berry Punch deflated, her anger dissipating. "Well, I guess that is kind of worth it. But how am I going to get reimbursed for all that jelly?"
The Doctor thought a moment. "A baby Jam Lark has a beak shaped specifically to break out of their shells. Once they reach a certain age, their beaks will fall off to be replaced by the signature slender beaks like their father's, and if I remember correctly, baby Jam Lark beaks fetch for a high price if you know who to sell to-"
"That's all I need to hear! Hey, mister Jam Lark, if you need more jelly, I can make you some more!" Berry Punch said happily while running over to the crowd gathering around the Jam Lark trying to get a better look at the babies. The Doctor laughed.
"You did a good thing today, Doctor." He looked over and saw the Mayor, Twilight and Ditzy walking over to him. "We haven't had a crime spree like this in a long time. I wasn't sure what to do with all these angry ponies breathing down my neck. You've saved me from quite a bit of paperwork young colt. You and your girlfriend should be commended."
Ditzy opened her mouth to object, but the Doctor stopped her. "Just let it go Ditzy Doo, just let it go." She sighed, nodding her head in agreement.
"Doctor! Oh Doctor!" Mr. and Mrs. Cake walked up to the Doctor and Ditzy, Pinkie not far behind sporting two (literally) bouncing baby twins on her back. "I wanted to congratulate you on solving the jelly thief mystery, but I would like to know what headway you made on discovering where our missing utensils went?"
The Doctor froze, eyes widening in realization that he had completely forgotten about that promise. "Well…I…uh…well I uh…that is to say I…"
"Missing utensils? Oh, I took those, Mrs. Cake!" Pinkie said while the babies on her back continued to bounce and giggle, causing her to wince with every impact. She held the same silly smile regardless.
Mrs. Cake looked surprised. "You, Pinkie Pie? Whatever for?"
"Well I had to bake the cake for the party somehow! I had so much to do I didn't have time to go downstairs and bake it! I left a note, didn't you find it?"
"Pinkie Pie, if I had found the note, why would I still think somepony had stolen everything?"
"Oopsie, I guess I forgot to write the note! Sorry Mrs. Cake!"
The baker simply sighed and shook her head. The Cake family continued on their way, the three still standing there laughing at Pinkie's antics. When she was done laughing, Twilight turned to the Doctor.
"So, Doctor, I am still curious as to how the Jam Lark was able to steal all that jelly so quickly."
"Oh, that's right! Jam Lark's are extra-dimensional beings, able to use that long neck and slender beak for more than just picking insects out of holes in trees. They also come in handy for punching holes in the fabric of space, allowing them to reach the food they need while remaining in their stationary position in order to incubate their eggs." The Doctor finished his explanation with a knowing smile and a wink to Ditzy.
"Wow, you sure know a lot of interesting subjects Doctor. Perhaps one of these days we need to sit down for lunch and you can share some of what you know with me. I could even help you out with a few projects, I'm pretty smart, and an excellent note taker."
"Hey, wait a minute now, Twilight Sparkle !" Ditzy said her last name menacingly. "I'm the Doctor's one and only assistant, you better back off if you know what's good for you-"
The Doctor held Ditzy back from the frightened Twilight. "Ditzy, Ditzy, please! There's no need to fight over me! I have plenty of room in my heart for the both of you! I have two after all."
Ditzy and Twilight exchanged looks, then broke out into a fit of laughter.
The Doctor became confused. "What? What is it? What did I say?"
They continued to laugh while the camera faded to black.
Author's Note
Aaaaand done!
Timey Wimey Riftey Raftey
The three fillies threw the Doctor down on the same chair as before, pointed the same lamp at him as before, and locked the door to the same tree house as before. What was different, however, was the way they had decided to tie him up.
"Rope? Well, nice to see you girls are at least expanding your horizons in some way." He said dryly. "I mean really, kidnapping me again? And then bringing me back to the same place? You're beginning to become a bit redundant!"
Scootaloo placed the blindfold from before over his mouth. "There, is that better?"
The Doctor simply glared at her.
She stuck her tongue out at him and the three once again huddled in the corner, conversing quietly. This time he could overhear their conversation and what he heard was them going over a contingency plan to prevent his escape this time. He struggled against his bonds, trying in vain to wiggle out of them. He noticed his sonic screwdriver was nowhere to be seen this time. 'Doesn't matter anyway' he thought, 'these ropes are made from wood fibers. My screwdriver would have no effect on them.'
The three fillies finished going over their plan, turning to face him as they, once again, began their relentless interrogation of him.
"This time, Doctor , we have all the exits covered. So don't try to be tricky this time, 'cause we're on to you!" Scootaloo looked him dead in the eye as she said this.
Sweetie Belle stepped up. "Now, maybe you'll stay long enough to answer a few questions this time." The Doctor gave her a dull look in response.
"Jest where are ya hidin' all that jelly, Doctor? An' how are ya stealin' it?" Apple Bloom paused, waiting for a reply.
The Doctor rolled his eyes, clearing his throat and trying to indicate the blind fold on his mouth as best he could. Scootaloo reached up and pulled it down for him.
"Thank you. Now, as I have already told you, I am not the jelly thief ! How many times must I say it before you get it through your head? I am on your side! In fact I was extremely close to solving the mystery before you three snatched me away to this unsanctioned interrogation!" He struggled against the ropes again, this time more to indicate them then to actually try to break free. "Now let me go so I can get back to Ditzy Doo and-"
"You mean your girlfriend?" Scootaloo asked with a malicious smile on her face.
"She is not my-oh, never mind…" He let his head drop.
The three giggled. "Ya know how ta make this all go away, Mr. Doctor." Apple Bloom said sweetly. "Admit ta bein' the thief, an' we'll let ya go." That made the Doctor's ears perk up.
"You'll…let me go? Just like that?" He asked, unbelieving.
"Yep. As soon as we get a proper confession outta you, we'll drop you off to-"
"I did it! Yep, it was me! All me! I stole the jelly!"
The three jumped back, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle hiding behind Scootaloo for protection. When they noticed what he said, they're looks of fear transformed into excitement.
Scootaloo reacted first. "Aha! I knew it! You're the jelly thief!"
"Yep, that's me. I'm just crazy for jelly. I love the stuff, just hate buying it."
While Scootaloo began doing a happy dance, the other two caught up to the unfolding events and hoof bumped, cheering that they had finally gotten their confession.
"Ya know what this means, girls! We completed our very first investigation! Maybe investigating really is our special talent!" After she said this, they all immediately craned their necks to look at their flanks. Seeing them still blank made them all sigh in despair.
"What did we do wrong? We tailed him, we did research on him, we interrogated him and we got a confession! How come we don't have our cutie marks?" Sweetie Belle asked sadly.
"Maybe it's because this isn't your special talent." The Doctor received three glares in response. "It's just a suggestion."
"I know what we're missing!" Scootaloo shouted. "We still have to bring this criminal to the proper authorities so he can be brought to justice!"
"Wait, what!?"
"Hey, yeah!"
"That's a great idea, Scoot!"
That most certainly was not a great idea. Dealing with these kids was one thing, but if the actual police or whatever passed for law enforcement in this crazy world full of ponies got involved, it might make his true identity as a time traveling pony that much harder to protect. Not that he was making much of an effort to hide it now that he thought of it. Perhaps leaving the TARDIS in that pony's living room wasn't such a good idea. In fact for the life of him he couldn't remember why he had left it there in the first place-
"I know how to find the thief!"
This time his outburst was enough to scare the three fillies so much that they almost ran out the door. They stopped before they opened it, turning back around, a confused look on their faces.
"What do you mean, 'you know how to find the thief'? You just confessed to being the thief!"
"Oh, I was just lying about that. I thought you would let me go if I said I was. But now I just realized how to find the real thief!"
"Hey, you can't just change the story like that! You already confessed, you can't take it back!"
"I'm not taking it back, I just told you, I lied-" He stopped when he spotted an eye staring at him through a crack in the curtains over the windows. He stared back until he heard someone clear their throat. He snapped back to attention and realized the three fillies were now giving him odd looks. "…Uh…a-as I was saying…" He looked back at the window, but the eye was gone. 'There was something familiar about that particular ocular orb' he thought.
"…What are you staring at?" Scootaloo walked over to the window and pulled the curtain aside, allowing bright sunlight to flood in. The view the Doctor got was of a wide field edged with thick brush and large trees, the beginning of the Everfree forest. The owner of the eye was nowhere to be seen.
"I-I was just staring at the…the…" He struggle to think up an excuse. "…the forest! Yeah, the forest. I-I was just hoping…for one last chance to look at it before you…you know, take me to the Big house."
Sweetie Belle cocked her head to the side. "Who's house?"
"The Big house. You know, big walls, iron bars, bunk beds, toilets in the same room you sleep?"
She stared at him blankly. The Doctor sighed.
"Jail." He said bluntly.
"Ooooooooh…"
The other two began to snicker and started poking jabs at Sweetie Belle for being so air headed. While they were distracted, the Doctor heard a "Psst!" above him. He turned to look and saw the eye again, looking at him through a trap door in the ceiling. It opened a bit more to reveal a blonde headed mare with wall eyes.
"That's why the eye looked so famil-"
"Sssh!" Ditzy hissed before pulling her head back through the trapdoor.
The fillies all whipped their heads over to look at him simultaneously, glaring at him suspiciously while circling him slowly.
"Who were you talking to just now?" Scootaloo asked.
"Yeah, do you have a complice here er somethin'?" Apple Bloom began looking around the room.
"N-n-no! No, of course not! Hehe…and it's accomplice."
Suddenly Apple Bloom made a move to check the trap door, making the Doctor's eyes widen. He looked forward at the door and shouted "They're on to us! Run!" while rocking back and forth, so much so that it caused his chair to fall over and make a loud bang.
The fillies mistook the bang for the door slamming shut, the three of them running to it and throwing it open, fighting to be the first one out. As the door slowly closed behind them, Ditzy floated down from trap door in the ceiling and began to untie him.
"Oh, Ditzy! Am I ever glad to see your wall eyed stare through a curtained window!"
"Doctor, why did the Cutie Mark Crusaders kidnap you and tie you up?" She asked after she had him untied and helped him to his feet.
"Apparently they think I'm the jelly thief, but that's not important right now. Ditzy, I know where we can find a suitable way to open a portal that leads to the real thief!"
Ditzy gasped excitedly. "Really? That's great! Where do we go?"
"Well, first things first. We need to catch up to those 'Crusaders' and get my sonic screwdriver back. You know how I despise others touching it without my permission."
"Oh…um…Doctor, I have it." She held the small device out to him. "You dropped it when you started running away from them in town. You should really keep it somewhere safer so it won't fall out."
The Doctor took it and tucked it away back under his tie. "Ditzy, until the day ponies magically develop pockets, I have no other way to store it. Now, let's get going."
They searched Ponyville until they found the house that the Doctor had forgotten the TARDIS in earlier that month. Actually, according to the Doctor, he hadn't forgotten it, he had left it there.
"On purpose?" Ditzy asked incredulously.
"Yes, I left it there on purpose. As it turns out, there is a small Time Rift inside that house, right smack down in the middle of the living room. The TARDIS was getting a bit low on energy, so I parked it on the Time Rift to allow it to absorb radiation and recharge. I intended to only leave it there for the afternoon, but I ended up taking a nap and forgot." He finished his explanation sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with a hoof.
The two approached the house and knocked, waiting for someone to answer. When no one did, the Doctor pulled out his screwdriver and unlocked the door, letting himself in.
"Doctor! That's rude, no pony's home!"
"It's not like we're stealing anything, Ditzy. We just need to open a portal possibly leading to another planet or even another dimension from the living room; it shouldn't cause too much damage to their property."
Ditzy wasn't reassured. "Let's just not get caught, okay?" She followed him in slowly.
The house was quite nice; plush furniture was placed around the room, ornate artworks decorating the walls. All in all it looked like a nice place to live. The Doctor placed the Portal Ray down on a coffee table, aiming the radar dish towards the center of the room.
"So how is this going to work, Doctor?"
"Well, Time Rifts are similar to the portals we've been seeing, except they're a bit more temperamental; you never know what'll happen with one. They don't close as quickly either, some will even take centuries to fully close. This machine I've built ought to allow me to alter the Time Rift's makeup and force open one of the portals that have been opened in town."
"You see, Doctor, the thing is…when you say things like 'should' or 'ought to'…yeah, it-it tends to make me a bit nervous."
The Doctor ignored that and began punching in keys on the machine, making it begin to slowly come to life. The microwave part glowed brightly, while the tails of the cats began to quickly spin back and forth erratically. A small beam of light shot out of the radar dish, hitting the middle of the room and highlighting what looked like a crack floating in midair. "Now I just need to adjust the beam to the right frequency…" The Doctor stopped one of the cat's tails and spun it clockwise. The beam of light got a little bigger. Suddenly a projection appeared in the microwave, showing a map of a familiar looking town.
"Ponyville!"
The Doctor smiled. "Exactly! See these dark points on the map?" He pointed to one of them. "They represent every single hole that's opened in the area."
Ditzy was awestruck. "There are hundreds of them!"
The Doctor checked the monitor, blinked, then checked it again. "Ditzy, there are twenty eight of them." He said flatly.
Ditzy rubbed her eyes and looked at the map again. She started counting them, but quickly lost track. "Stupid wall eyes…" She fumed.
The Doctor laughed apologetically, returning his attention to the machine. "Now I just have to lock onto one of them and I should be able to open it…"
"There's that 'should' again…"
The Doctor hit a few more keys and looked expectantly at the Time Rift. When nothing happened, he gave the radar dish a good smack with his hoof. It sputtered a little before shooting out a purplish beam of light at the rift, widening the cracks to the point where there was a large circular opening in their place. What they could see through it was a very frightened looking Berry Punch standing in her cellar.
"Oh, hello there, Ms. Punch!" The Doctor waved. "We're getting closer to finding the thief, so we can't talk right now. Bye!" Before she could respond he pressed another button and the opening closed for a second, only to reopen again, this time into an alley near the market in Ponyville. They could see ponies walking between stalls, saddlebags filled with groceries.
"Hmm, it looks like its opening the portal's in order that they were closed. We'll have to cycle through them to find the right one." He began opening and closing the portal, each time the view on the other side changing to a different place in Ponyville. Then it opened up to reveal a yellow Earth pony with an orange mane and tail and a bundle of carrots for a cutie mark. She didn't look at all surprised when she noticed Ditzy and the Doctor staring at her through it.
"Hi Carrot Top!" Ditzy waved excitedly.
"Hi Ditzy. Hello Doctor." She waved back, but not with as much enthusiasm as Ditzy Doo. In fact, she looked bored, like this sort of thing happened a lot. "Hey, Ditzy, if you're headed over to the market later, could you pick up some more of that herbal tea you got before?"
"Sure thing Carrot Top! We just passed that a minute ago, but I think the Doctor might be able to take me by there again! Right Doctor?"
"Wha-Oh, right! Uh, yeah, sure, I guess."
"Thank you Doctor! See you later Carrot Top!" Ditzy waved goodbye.
"Yep, see ya Ditzy. Bye Doctor." She gave a lazy wave and started yawning before the Doctor closed the portal.
They began their search again after a quick stop back at the market so Ditzy could pick up some tea, which required the Doctor to reset the machine and start cycling through the openings from the beginning. When they came back to Ditzy's house, she called out to Carrot Top and handed the tea over to her.
"Thanks Ditzy."
"No problem, Carrot Top!"
With that done, they went back to looking for the thief. They spent a good few minutes opening and closing portals, surprising more then a few ponies with a sudden "window in space" right inside their kitchen. When they reached portal twenty seven, a massive flood of confetti shot out at them, blanketing the floor of the room in brightly colored scraps of paper. They stood there in confusion for a moment before Pinkie Pie suddenly jumped through.
"Oops, sorry about that! I was just getting ready for my new friends party, and I wasn't expecting a big portal thingy to pop up in my room! Did you guys get your invites yet? I guess not, 'cause I haven't sent them out yet! Ooh, it's going to be so super-duper extra spectacularly fun! I've got a cake and cupcakes and punch and games, plus a big pile of confetti to launch everywhere! Oh, I guess you already know, that, huh? 'Cause it's already in here! How silly is that! Well, I better get going; I still have lots and lots to plan for the party! See ya!" As usual Pinkie's mouth ran faster than a cheetah on steroids, scooping up the confetti on the floor and pushing it back through the portal into her room while she rambled.
When it was over and the Doctor had closed the portal, they both stood there for a moment to absorb everything that had just happened. When they got over it, they prepared for what was next.
"Alright Ditzy, last portal. Whatever is going to be on the other side has to be where the thief is hiding. Get ready; we don't know what it's going to be."
Ditzy puffed out her chest and gave a salute. "Right-O, Doctor!"
He took a deep breath before hitting a button on the machine. The portal opened to stacks of dried grass, wooden beams and a couple sacks of flour. A large door that was partially opened showed trees decorated with large red apples. It looked like the inside of the barn at Sweet Apple Acres.
"Applejack is the thief?" Ditzy asked while staring through the portal.
"No…no this can't be right…" The Doctor checked the display of the map on the microwave. He counted the dots, frowning when he got to the last one. "Twenty eight…but that's impossible! We checked all of them! How could we have missed something?" He began typing on the machine again. The radar dish sputtered like before, then stopped completely. "No, no, no!" He gave the radar dish another quick wack to get it restarted. It shot out the beam and opened the rift once again, but this time instead of a portal to the barn, it showed nothing. Complete black, not a ray of light to be seen through it.
"I think we broke the rift, Doctor."
"No, that's impossible! We searched every opening in Ponyville, how is it possible we didn't find where the thief is?" The Doctor walked over to the portal, sticking his head in and looking around. He pulled it back and turned around to face Ditzy. "I just don't understand where we could have failed…Ditzy, why are you looking at me like that?"
Indeed, Ditzy was now staring at the Doctor with a strange look on her face. Slowly the look morphed into one of fear. The Doctor's eyes widened when he realized what she was really looking at.
"Ditzy…please don't tell me what it is. I'd rather die not knowing what's about to kill me." He felt something grab one of his back legs and quickly pull him through the portal. "Ditzy, run!" was all he was able to get out before he was enveloped in complete darkness.
Back in the library of Ponyville, Twilight was cataloging the books and putting them in the correct order with the help of her assistant, a little purple dragon named Spike.
"Let's see…'Horticultural Spells and Incantations', that goes in the 'Natural' section-"
"Twilight, do we have to do this? It's not like anything has changes since last week." Spike said from his lounge made from a pile of books.
"Of course Spike, repetition is the way to keep your mind sharp. Now get off the Astronomy pile, you're going to bend the spines."
Suddenly the door flew open, a bright pink Earth pony bounding in and skipping about the library.
"Hey Twilight, hey Twilight, hey Twilight, hey Twilight, hey Twilight, hey Twili-" Twilight placed a hoof against her mouth, silencing her.
"What is it, Pinkie."
Pinkie Pie began talking, unfazed by the fact that Twilight's hoof was still covering her mouth. "Hmmpf hmm hm mpf mm mph-" Twilight took her hoof away. "-and so I thought, what better way to send out the invitations then to personally deliver them myself! So I decided to go to all my very besty-best friends houses and give them to them in person-"
"Wait, hold on Pinkie. What invitations are you talking about?"
"To the party I'm throwing for my new friend! Duh! Why else would I spend the better part of a day preparing for a party if I wasn't planning on throwing one? Come on Twilight, I thought you were smart enough to know that much-" Twilight placed her hoof back over Pinkie's mouth.
"New friend? Is there a new pony in Ponyville?" This time she took her hoof back before Pinkie's reply so she wouldn't miss half the explanation again.
"No, not a new pony. A new friend. I met him in my basement! He's big and scary looking, but he played hide and seek with me so he can't be bad. I decided to throw a party for him to celebrate me getting a new friend and-"
"Wait, you met somepony-er, something in your basement that was big and scary looking and you decided to throw it a party?" Twilight asked, wide eyed.
"Yep!"
Something dawned on Twilight, and she got a look of recognition on her face. "Pinkie, can you describe exactly what you saw in your basement?"
Author's Note
Okay, one more chapter to go! I know that because this one was supposed to be the last chapter but I decided to cut it in half to extend it just a bit more. I'll wait a day or two to post the next one, but don't get mad at me if I'm a little late. Chances are, I'm just being lazy.
