A young doctor, smiling in the morning's light and headed further into town to gather some things, paused with one hoof still in the air. An ear twitched as she listened to the strange sound nearby... Angel Feather pushed one slightly unruly lock of her bright red-and-yellow mane out of her eye as she looked around, trying to determine the source. Ah! The alley nearby.

Darting over to the alley, she peered around the corner of the building, looking down the alley. Her eyes widened as she had arrived just in time to see... a box. A strange, tall blue box that had just faded into existence. She wasn't an expert spellcaster by any means, but she'd never heard of teleportation that looked like that... or that worked on a big blue box.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, she crept into the alley, reaching out to poke the box with one hoof when another pony, an earth pony, suddenly stepped out of the box. Now she knew something strange was going on - Earth Pony Magic did not work that day. Suddenly, she was glad she had a lack of patients, because this... was going to take some time.

"It's a curious thing, a big blue box that appears out of nowhere, as if by some unknown form of magic, bearing an earth pony!" Angel darted around to stand in front of the unknown pony, abandoning her examination of the box (temporarily), and smiled at him. "May I ask, sir, what form of magic is this, and who might you be?"

Trotting through the streets of Ponyville the earth stallion was slowly, if surely, heading toward the Summer Song Cafe. He was taking in the sights. Sure it had only been a week away in a stretch of three good months of being there but Form was always interested in anything that might have changed in his world, whether he seemed it or not. There was, after all, a lot to see and think about in the world.

Then a noise, something he'd never heard before.

... Something Beautiful...

He found himself drawn to it, this screeching, whirring "vwoorp" that repeated itself, coming in a bit clearer, louder. A small wind kicked up as he followed it, looking around. Seemed everyone else, for whatever reason, didn't notice it. He wanted to find out what the sound came from, what it must have been.

As he sped up to follow the sound he turned a corner, seemingly at the same time as a different pony entirely, and saw it; a big blue box that looked like it was from from Trottingham. (In his father's time) A Police Public Call Box, as it said. And, suddenly, a brown earth pony stepped out. His eyes went wide as the Unicorn in front of him called out to the brown stallion. "Would like to know myself..." He called out just loud enough to be heard, standing up straight on his hind hooves to be ready to fight... but, reasonably speaking this big blue box... the bluest blue he'd ever seen, just literally appeared out of nowhere. Form had to ask himself, staring seriously at the brown stallion, could even his skills be of any use here?

Just as he closed the door of the box behind him with a click, the Doctor found himself being interrogated by a very inquisitive yellow-and-red colored mare.  She had apparently seen his arrival, and wanted to know more, just like oh-so-many before her.

You do this on purpose, don’t you?...

Truth be told, he didn’t mind these coincidental meetings.  A surprising number of them resulted in a recruited companion, but he suspected that was by design rather than mere chance.

Before he could open his mouth to respond to the mare’s questions about who he was and what “magic” he had a second pony walked up, this one a gray stallion.  He also wanted to know what was going on.

The Doctor grinned.  ”Oh, it’s not magic, my little ponies…”  Ironically, Form stood about a head or so taller than the Doctor.

”It’s Science, plain and simple….”  The stallion winced a little, ”Well… not really “simple” … but plain enough…”  He hesitated again.  ”Alright, so it’s not really plain either…. But I assure you, it’s not Magic!”  He spoke with a clearly defined Trottish accent, but his mannerisms and the fact that he literally just appeared out of nowhere might betray the fact that he was not actually, in fact from Trottingham.

”I’m the Doctor…”  He offered a hoof in greeting, to the mare first, then to Form if he’d have it.  ”So, now that you have me at a disadvantage… Who might the two of you be?”

Transcendence's voice startled Angel slightly, and she eyed the rather much larger earth pony curiously. She hadn't noticed his arrival, but guessed he'd been drawn by the sound, just as she had been. Although there was always something about these large earth ponies that made her feel on the tiny side - and she really was the smallest one in the alley.

At the mention of "science", Angel's eyes narrow slightly. This didn't seem like any science she had ever studied. Not, she had to admit to herself, that her studies had ever really ventured much beyond biology and psychology. Her suspicion faded a bit as the Doctor failed, miserably, to explain, and her smile returned.

"'The Doctor', huh? Well, it's nice to meet you, Doctor. I am Angel Feather." Her smile turns to a bit of a mischievous grin. "Doctor Angel Feather, that is. I run the Angel Care Clinic, around the block from here." She shakes the Doctor's hoof, still grinning slightly. "I imagine you're a doctor of some kind of scientific field then? Engineering, maybe? Or something else that I've never heard of, perhaps?" She indicates the box. "I don't care if you call it science, I've never heard of any science that can teleport boxes holding ponies... or maybe make it disappear and reappear, instead?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:28, Sun 02 Mar 2014.

Science? Form wondered what sort of science it could be... though thinking about it... Angel Feather seemed dubious at best but Form thought he could imagine something greater than it seemed. Vedic Science had many very valuable lessons and one of them was that ponies seldom acknowledged the truth if they hadn't yet had an explanation behind it. But, all the same, an even more nagging sensation came to him at the stallion's name.

"Doctor Who?" He asked in that deep, level voice, stepping forward more to look at the box than The Doctor, "Transcendence Form." He said simply, looking around the box, looking it up an down; making sure there was nothing behind it. "Not a doctor..." he finished blandly.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:07, Sun 02 Mar 2014.

The Doctor nodded his head from side to side non-committedly as Angel guessed that he was some sort of Scientific doctor.  ”You…. might say that… It’s not your form of engineering, that’s for sure.”  He wasn’t talking “down” to her per-say; it really was a difficult concept to explain.

He nodded tentatively as she started to piece things together, going from teleportation to vanishing and re-appearing.  He had only known this mare for about thirty seconds, but he was already starting to like her.  She was a thinker.  And the Stallion, he seemed to be an observer, learning how the world worked by watching, learning, and only then acting.    Or at least that’s the vibe the Doctor got from him.

The Doctor grinned as Form finally asked the one question he had been waiting for either of them to ask.

’Doctor Who?’ … It always starts like that, doesn’t it? …

”Yes… Good to meet you, Angel… Form, can I call you ‘Form?’  ‘Transcendence’ just doesn’t have a very good ring to it… Names should always have a good ring to them, I think…”  He outwardly ignored the question, as he had a thousand times before, and instead came back around to Angel’s hypothesis.

”Right!  So.  You’re not too far off.  But teleportation only works in three dimensions... What if you could teleport in not three, but four separate dimensions? … Not just Up and Down, Left and Right, Forward and Back… but…”

He intentionally trailed off to give them both a chance to see where he was leading them.

"Four? Hmm." Angel had to pause for a second and think. "As I recall, dimensions, like you're referring to, are length, width, and height... followed by...." The golden mare paused for a second, narrowing her eyes as she remembered. "Are you certain it's not magic? I personally don't know any time magic - or teleportation magic, for that matter - but I understand it is possible. My talent lies elsewhere, of course." Angel takes a step back and to the side, so that she can look at the big blue box properly, consideringly. "But you say that it's science - science that can do what magic does find very difficult."

The concept strained at her mind a bit. Not the very idea of time travel - she may not have attended Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but she was still quite well educated and time magic was known to not be entirely impossible, just totally beyond nearly all unicorns. But the idea of a scientifically made... box... that could do it? Her gaze slid back to the Doctor as she wondered a bit if he was simply mad.

"Time." He said blandly, giving the wood of the TARDIS a few brief knocks, touching it, putting his ear against it. He couldn't, of course, believe it right off, not without questioning it. But it was a progressively more and more interesting character as things went on. He legitimately appeared out of nowhere, talking in riddles and a trottish accent.

And he had to go and mention the name....

"Form works." He said simply, tugging at the handle experimentally, "A Time Ship?" He asked with no emotional inflection, opening up the phone door and inspecting the phone.

The Doctor loved brilliant minds, and these two were just about as bright as they come.  Angel was working her way through it all faster than most ponies could realize that what they thought they knew didn’t apply.  It was harder to tell what Form was thinking, but already he could tell that the stallion was a thinker.

“Time”  Form’s one-word realization spurred Angel off as she puzzled out how Science could make simple what Magic found complicated.  As the gray stallion stepped over and inspected the TARDIS more closely, the Doctor couldn’t help but feel a hint of satisfaction.

Finally, Form opened up the small door that contained the telephone and flatly asked, "A Time Ship?"

The Doctor sat back on his hind legs and clacked his forehooves together.  ”BINGO!”  Standing again and walking over to the door, he took the phone from Form and hung it back on the hook as he closed the door.  ”Right you are!  Otherwise known as a ‘Time Machine’…”  He gestured and posed dramatically with a knowing grin.

”So….”  He looked back and forth between them.  ”Care to take a look inside?”

He produced a strange key seemingly from nowhere, unlocked the door and stepped inside.  A few moments later, from what sounded to be a lot further away than it should be, they heard him call out.  ”Well, come along, quick-as-you-like… Don’t dawdle!”

Should either of them decide to look into the strange, alleged time machine, they would see a perplexing sight.  Where the might have expected a small, bland, 5 X 5 area to be was instead a massive, well-decorated chamber.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs7...edowaado-d6yj74n.png


Along the sides of the room were many large bookshelves, filled with almost as many books as the Golden Oaks Library, many of which could not be found anywhere else on the planet, and a few of which were the last surviving copy in the universe.  To the right was a sitting chair, a couch, a small table with a masterfully crafted alicorn bust perched atop it, and a large hourglass that bore a striking resemblance to the Brown stallion’s cutie mark.  Along the right was another small table and couch, along with a grammaphone that looked old by anypony’s standards.  Along the back wall was an exquisite painting that sat between the stairs of a double staircase that led up to a balcony, which housed more tables, sculptures, paintings, and even doors to what seemed like other rooms.

Everything in the room seemed to be centered around one thing:  a huge console filled with all sorts of odd-looking displays, buttons, switches, levers, knobs, gizmos, and doo-dads.  A rail surrounded the console, which was on a slightly elevated platform.  All of this was arrayed around a massive column that spanned from the hardwood floors to the translucent, high-vaulted ceilings.

The Doctor was leaning back against the outside of the rail around the console.  He had a coy little smile on his face.  ”Well… go on… What do you think?”
This message was last edited by the player at 18:16, Tue 04 Mar 2014.

Angel hesitated briefly as the decidedly odd pony opened the box and vanished inside - after all, there couldn't be that much space, could there? Then she heard his voice again, and not from nearby, at that, and she realized she was being foolish - there was clearly more at work here than what she could see, even if she didn't really believe his claim of "science". A few quick steps takes her inside... and much, much slower steps take her further in as she stares at the strange room. Total wide-eyed stare.

After coming most of the way to the central console, the golden unicorn just comes to a stop, and turns in place, still staring. She manages to keep enough presence of mind to look back out the door, confirming that, yes, this was definitely in that alley and she hadn't completely lost it. She only really snaps out of it when the Doctor's question finally hits her, and she spins to face him. "What do I think? What do I think? I think... This is... incredible. Bonkers. Absolutely, positively the last thing I EVER expected to run into and why is it bigger on the inside?!"

As he stepped in just ahead of Angel Feather he too slowed and looked around. If only every doctor's office was so breathtaking maybe I'd go more. he thought, reminded of the pain in his back and joints. He let himself wander a bit, ignoring, for a moment, the Doctor's question as he scanned through the books... and one book caught him particularly hard. The Form Family Manifesto; of which there were very few copies in Equestria, one of which under his father's control in Cloudsdale, another in Canterlot Royal Library. One, apparently, here. He took it out, peeked into it briefly, approved it for the real deal. This was... incredible.. as in without credit. Some of these things he really couldn't believe.

He stepped to the console, looked it over, appraised the buttons and knobs, levers and wheels... "Mustard and Ketchup?" He asked with half a touch of curiosity, looking at a pair of closely placed  tall plungers with spouts at the top; yellow and red respectively. He squeezed one down and it dispensed a dab of yellow mustard on his hoof, which he tasted, finding out that it was, indeed, mustard.

Vrrrrrr! CLANG!

The plunger appeared to have been hooked up to something else as well. Upon depressing the plunger marked 'Mustard' a whirling noise started and was quickly followed by the sound of some heavy object being released from the depths of the TARDIS.

THUD! WAP! CRSH! THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD.

The object was obviously tumbling through the interior of ship on a path to the control room.

SMACK! WAM!

A ventilation grill in the ceiling popped open and a large, banged up cardboard box fell out. Stamped on the side was the follow:

SHIPPING INSTRUCTIONS:
LAST CLASS
HANDLE ROUGHLY
PLEASE BEND AND FOLD

The Doctor watched as the two of them entered the TARDIS and went through the same stages of wonder and amazement that he had watched every other one of his companions go through before them.  Admittedly, Angel Feather seemed to be more inquisitive than dumbfounded, and Form was too busy admiring the features of the control panel to seem too amazed.

”This is... incredible. Bonkers. Absolutely, positively the last thing I EVER expected to run into and why is it bigger on the inside?!"

The Doctor grinned madly from his place along the railing.  ”Is it really?...”  His tone of voice was somewhat faceious as he stepped up onto the platform to help Form at the control panel. ”You know, everypony always says that, but I guess I just don’t see it…”

He saw the stallion look at the red and yellow plungers atop the console, seemingly puzzled.  “Mustard and Ketchup?”

The Doctor nodded.  ”Of course.  Traveling through Time and Space tends to make one rather hungry.  And funnel cakes are no good dry after all…”

As the gray stallion tested out the mustard dispenser, a clattering noise grew louder and closer, coming from somewhere within the TARDIS.  The Doctor tilted his head to the side curiously as a large box landed with an unceremonious thud in front of him.  ”Hello…. What do we have here?”  He read the label aloud.  ”Last Class…. Handle Roughly…. Please Bend and Fold?...”

He reached out and poked the box tentatively with a hoof.  ”Where the devil did you come from? … and more importantly, How did you get on the TARDIS?”

Angel glares at the Doctor, although not with a great deal of force. "Of course it's bigger on the inside. Or there's something even weirder and much more advanced than what I learned back in college. And you claim there's no magic involved..." The golden unicorn snorts softly, then eyes the red and yellow pumps as Transcendence fiddles with them. Funnel cakes? Seriously? Wait, did he-? "Time and space?!"

Of course, before she could confront the Doctor about what he'd said about traveling, the box came thumping into sight, distracting her. "'Please bend and fold?' Um... maybe you should use a stick? Something tells me that's not safe..."

Ever the one to take  care of things otherwise ignored by those with what was socially defined as "better sense" the gray stallion stepped up to the box as well. He read it, looked it around, poked it with a hoof. Finally, because nopony else seemed to be, he picked it up personally, standing on his hind legs as he lifted up up with his forelegs.

Presently he put an ear near it, giving it a rough shake to hear what was inside.

Worst came to worse, he was probably the most damage-proof pony around, or so he often convinced himself. If a package so obviously labeled to NOT last was so dangerous it gave the large stallion the need to question, "If Dangerous." He started aloud, "Why the label to damage it?" He asked simply. Generally doomsday bombs and dangerous packages were given great care not to be damaged until they got to their final destination, right? At least in the way of all of the novels, movies and radio shows. He wasn't any kind of specialist with dangerous packages but imagined he had enough good sense to put two and two together. Not like he figured this box was equestrian in origin... but it seemed a LOT more like an item that someone wanted to get rid of and destroyed rather than something legitimately dangerous.

In response to being shaken violently something from inside the box thumped back against his ear.

As Form approached the mysterious box, picked it up, and listened to it, the Doctor pressed his ear up to the other side.  When he heard a very deliberate *thump* in reply, his ears perked up.

”If I didn’t know any better… I’d say somepony was inside…”  He watched the box more intently for several seconds, until…

”Well, come on… what are you waiting for, open it up!”  He looked back to the box; he almost seemed excited to see what, or who, was inside…

"But if somepony's inside, why would they put all that 'last class' and 'handle roughly' stuff on it?" Angel kept her distance from the box, eyeing it suspiciously. "And what was it doing up there anyway? And what was-" She deliberately cuts herself off, stopping herself before she ends up on an endless stream of questions that she's starting to suspect she may not get answers to. Instead, she just glares at the box. And grabs hold of the alicorn bust with her telekinesis incase the box isn't holding a somepony but a something.

His eyes went wide as he heard a returning thump. As the Doctor told him to open it he set it down. "Asking lots of questions. Not very charismatic." He said bluntly, more than addressing Angel with his statement, "Really puts you as an underfoot figure." he finished, obeying The Doctor and opening it before taking a step back. Anything stuck in that box would want out and he didn't want to take the chance it would try to get more room than everyone was giving it.

He noticed the excitement on The Doctor's face as he did so. He had a feeling this was the sort of thing this pony must have lived for; the strange, the weird, the random. He must have lived to be there when things happened that were new and amazing.

In a way Form sort of Envied that.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:59, Tue 08 Apr 2014.

The now open box revealed a hog-tied, gagged and rather roughed up earth-pony. He did his best to sit up only to fall back over in the box again. He repeated this action several more times before finally managing to flop himself over the side of the box.

"Hhmmmummhjm!" the earth-pony was obviously trying to relay a distressed message of some sort but was stopped by the tape around his muzzle.

As the pony that appeared before them frantically tried to clamber out of the box and relay some unknown message, the Doctor seemed to be too busy rambling to pay the poor pony any mind.

"There was a pony in the box! ... That's just fascinating!"  He trotted right up to the mysterious pony and inspected him closely, not really taking notice of the makeshift muzzle the poor stallion was wrapped in.

"But why in the wild world of Equestria would a mad pony in a box suddenly fall into the TARDIS?...."  As he mused, he finally reached for the muzzle around his muzzle, and slowly started unrolling it.

"Well... not "mad," mad... more like "cross," really...

Besides... I thought i was supposed to be the "Mad Pony in a Box" anyway...."

He couldn't help but feel a certain sense of irony about the whole situation.

"So how did you end up here, friend?"  As he asked the question, he ripped the last layer of tape away from the pony's snout unceremoniously, and all at once.

Scene: Luna's moon. In the sky hangs the planet Equis, the light reflecting off the celestial body permeating the surface with a soft warm glow.



"GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A cry great pain from the planet above shatters the tranquility of the lunar body.

End Scene.

Beamer holds his forehooves over his mouth as let's out a stream of words best not said in the presence of polite company.

...

Or in any company really.

The green earth pony shoots a glare at the Doctor.

As the tape came off and the pony inside screamed in pain Form took a step back and raised his forehooves. He still hadn't lowered himself into the standard pony posture, alert and upright. If The Doctor was ever to choose a descriptor for him it was doubtless bound to be "jumpy" at this point. Doubtless, however, The Doctor would see him differently in time.

Even Form realized all too quickly that this new pony was screaming in pain, what with all the expletives. He took a step closer, looking down on the stallion in the box with a  bland expression, still tense but open.

==>Previous Post:  Sugarcube Corner ==>

The door to the TARDIS opened as its resident entered and headed straight for the central control panel.  He flipped several switches and pulled an enormous and awkwardly poised television screen toward him on its boom.  He fiddled with the nobs, trying to clear up the display with some difficulty, until he quickly lost paitince and gave it a good “thwack” with a forehoof.

”Oh, why is this bloody scanner always on the fritz?  Especially when there’s something important to be done….”

After more work and a second thwack, the snowy display cleared itself up and showed a map of Ponyville and the surrounding countryside.

”Ah…. There we go… that’s more like it…”

The Doctor darted from the scanner to an instrument readout that was currently printing a continuous line graph of its findings.  He then inspected a trio of dials which were giving their own opinion of the situation.

”Hmmm…. It’s just as I feared…”  He took the printout in hoof and followed along as it continued printing.  ”These readings are consistent with some sort of temporal or transdimensional displacement….  Somepony must have found my TARDIS and come after me….”  He trotted back over to the big scanner  With a flip of a switch he superimposed a grid over the town, and displayed the readings he had gathered so far as an “area of effect.”  Practically the whole town was covered.

”But with readings this sporadic the source could be anywhere!”  He dropped back on his haunches at the daunting realization.  ”Or anyone for that matter… Daleks… Cyberponies… The Silence…”

The Docor shuddered as the grim possibilities of what an invasion by any of the aforementioned aberrant races could do to the ponies of Equestria if left unchecked flashed through his mind.  He steeled his resolve and stood again.

”Then I will just have to find them, and make the first move!...”  He grabbed a small silver, copper, and green cyndrilical object from the console and extended a slide on its barrel.  A loud whirring sound reverberated through the air as he downloaded all the readings he had taken to the small hoof-held device.

”There… That should give me enough to go on…. Now…. “  He grinned toward the large, clear crystal that ran from floor to celing in the middle of the console.

”ALLONS-Y!!!”

==>Next Post:  TBD==>