Because I just love the sound of my own(voice) fingers hitting these keys, I have some more AN for you all! Thanks a bunch for all the views, likes, tracks, comments, and favorites(?). I'd like to acknowledge a certain Bookpony230, thanks for acting as my editor; hope you continue to give me a hand. EDIT: Man, I am on a roll today! Two chaters, same day. Sorry about not getting this out sooner, stuff hit the fan. Anyway, hope you like! Anyway, remind me to never do any act in one chapter ever again, It's freaking annoying. WARNING: I didn't do much editing, I just wanted you guys to get this ASAP. Thought it had been delayed long enough.

Side note- This chapter is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.

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It has been a long time since I last gazed upon the colt. The colt and his magic blue box, he so full of laughter and jibes and he so full of hate and anger and loneliness and despair. He was from beyond Equestria, Luna knows exactly where. I wanted to travel with him in the box, I wanted to see the stars and see the entire universe with him. What a time we could have hat together. The doctor and I, The perfect team. I have waited for him for so long, wishing for his return, hoping every single day and every single night that I would at last see his return.

Instead I grew up.

- - - - - - - - -

The Book of Answers

“Ah! Good old Ponyville. Glad the TARDIS is up and running, was afraid I broke it. Wonder what that was I saw on the moon.” The doctor trotted out of his Police Box and smiled, gazing down at Ponyville from a small hill. He looked down at Ponyville and frowned. “Well. Let’s go see why the TARDIS landed me now instead of when I had expected to land.

Below him lay a sprawling city and, at its center, a massive tree whose’ boughs spread shadow over much of the town. Around it lay a ring of skyscrapers, and even further away, a mighty wall inset with great mosaics of gold, lapis lazuli, amethyst, and other precious metals and gems. The mosaics seemed to convey stories, stories of happiness and friendship. The guards at the gate stood tall and dignified, but had no weapons. Between the gates a constant stream of ponies flowed. “Well.” He said, in awe. “I didn’t think I had gone this far.

Making his way through the grand archways, he walked down the main thoroughfare past hovels and run-down shacks for what must have been a mile or two. He reflected that no matter how rich any civilization was, there would always be those who were poor, performing the jobs that nobody- or rather, nopony, he assumed the term would be now- else wanted to do.

Then came the skyscrapers. They towered above the houses around them, and it seemed to the doctor that they substituted crystal for glass. They were not unlike the buildings he had seen on earth, but these seemed top glow with internal radiance, rather than just a reflection. He walked by the buildings, and then to a scene that seemed frozen in time. It was almost exactly the same as when he last visited Ponyville, however many years ago that been. The only difference was a short wall around it, with more guards at every entrance, as well as a rather more significant change: the tree that had once housed- maybe still did house- the library was the very same tree that covered the sky and showered the earth with mottled shadows. Everyone- everypony, rather- Needed to show some sort of ID before going past the wall. No Problem, he thought to himself, and pulled a small scrap of paper from his scarf.
Trotting up to the guard, he said, “Bureau of Inspection of Structural Architectyness. I’ve come to check on the buildings, there have been reports of cracks in them. The gold-clad pegasi blocking the path sighed and looked suspicious, but he got out of the Doctor’s way. “Guess I still have my touch,” he muttered once he was out of earshot.

Yet more ID was required as he passed into the tree. He wanted to know what had either forced such a rapid change in society or had caused his TARDIS to overshoot his destination so far. And he knew of only one pony that would tolerate his questions- if she was still alive. And her name was Twilight Sparkle.

“Hello doc. I’ve been waiting for you- or rather, I was waiting for you. I stopped about four years in. I’m curious to hear what waylaid the good doctor for so long that it made his next appointment almost eight years overdue.”

* * * * * * * * *

“So you’re telling me,” Twilight said impatiently, “That my eight years is your couple minutes, you’re a time traveler -well, I suppose that last bit makes that obvious- you’re the last of your kind, and you come from a place so far out in the stars that we can barely see it on telescope, and you’re a bit more than twelve-thousand years old.” Twilight stood up from the lavish red chair and paced around the room, then walked up to his own chair that he was more lying down at than sitting, and stopped. I’m prepared to believe that. Fine. Well, really, most of it. I knew you must have been older than you looked, and I was pretty sure you weren’t from anywhere near Equestria. But time travel is, like, Im-Possible. You can only do it for a couple moments, not extended periods. I mean, that’s common knowledge.”

“Well isn’t that just so me. Silly old faraway old impossible old me. He trotted over to a stack of blue books and read the name several aloud. “The Legend of the Blue Box, the Constellation of Kasterbourous, the Pearl City, the Shadow Proclamation: For Foals, and The Last Great Time War. Despite the fact that you said you no longer were interested in what I said, you seem to have done an awful lot of research on my exploits. Why? What has you so interested in m, such a boring Little Pony?”

Twilight seemed agitated. She paced again, walking about the pile of books and levitated books off of it seemingly at random, throwing them away soon after she looked at them for a few moments. “There have been strange events recently. Something bad is underhoof; I can feel it in my bones. Ponies have been vanishing without a trace recently. The city of Ponyville have been getting restless. After the Vashta Nerada emerged from the undergrounds and attacked, we evacuated Cantelot, as I said earlier. I had insisted that we took every book in the library with us. But as soon as we got back here, people started to go missing. Not the same way people went missing when the Vashta Nerada were involved- these left no skeleton, and all that is ever found is a pool of blood that quickly evaporates.” As she spoke, there came a frantic knocking at the door.

“My lady Twilight Sparkle! Please! It’s an emergency! Come quickl-“the words died in the caller’s throat and in its place rose a stifled gurgle. Twilight jumped up and opened the door, motioning at her guards to unhand a spluttering Pegasus. The young mare coughed for some moments and then spluttered one last time, speaking quickly and urgently. “My ma, she’s been coughing up blood. All morning. I got a doctor to come see her, but he said there’s nothing medically wrong with her. I think- I think she has the consumption.” At these words the filly’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Please, I beseech you, Help!” The guard’s looked at Twilight then.

“My lady, it’s too dangerous! What happens if-“

“There will be no ‘What Ifs’. I will not my worry for my own personal safety interfere with my duty. Nor will I let yours.” She ran off then, the guards following her. The doctor took this as a sign to follow.

Being a pony with two hearts makes it easy to run really fast. The doctor decided after he overtook Twilight, the guards, and the mare that had come begging for help and arrived at the source of the problems quickly. It was a house just on the edge of what Twilight had called Old Ponyville. He pushed open the unlocked front door and trotted up a flight of stairs to an old mare, lying in front of a bin and pouring out blood from her nostrils, occasionally spitting a globule of crimson liquid out.

“Who are you?” The mare said weakly, barely managing to say anything at all through her coughing fits.

“I’m the doctor,” he said.

“There’s nothing any doctor can do for me now, I’m afraid. The consumption has me, and it will not unclench its grip.” Coughing again, the mare turned around and looked at him sadly and somewhat reproachfully.

“You’d be surprised.” The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his scarf and pointed it at the bin filled with blood. He passed it’s glowing green tip all over the bin and the mare’s body, then pulled it back to look at its side. “That’s odd.” He said, not so much to her as himself. “The blood doesn’t have any viruses in it, no radiation, but it’s outputting a massive amount of sub-atomic meta-particles. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The doctor was concerned now. He knew most things about the universe, and the things he didn’t know of tended to bite. The mare coughed up yet more blood, but now, it was different. The stream was not interrupted by coughing, and it came from her throat and nose… no, from her eyes. From here pores and every opening in her body blood flowed. The doctor stood back, horrified. “Oh no. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. There’s nothing I can do for you but make sure this never happens again. He ran downstairs, only to find Twilight and her entourage going in a conflicting direction. He bounced off her into the wall.
“Ouch. Anyway, more importantly, she’s dead.” The Pegasus wailed and ran outside. Twilight looked after him, a strange, almost reminiscent look on her face. The guards looked at him distrustfully. The one on the left said, in a gruff, low voice that he faintly recognized,

“What did you do to her, doctor?”

“Oooh you’re that fun guard I met eight years ago. Hello fun guard! Anyway, all I did- all I could do, really- was take some readings of her blood. No viruses, no infection, nothing, just a rather high amount of sub-atomic particles being emitted- or perhaps, transmitted to- the blood. In layman’s terms, there’s something emitting a bunch of energy that’s causing these disappearances.”

Twilight gasped, looking horrified. “Maybe somepony was using magic to make this happen, but, why would anypony do such a thing? It’s just… I don’t know what to say.”

“Ok. Magic. I guess that answers that question, but I still have so many…” Holding the screwdriver up in the air, he waved it around in the air. Eventually, he stopped. “That way!” The four of them charged out the door, and with the doctor in the lead, they sprinted towards the center of the trouble.

* * * * * * * * *

They found it in the form of a strange green unicorn muttering in a strange eldritch tongue that’s very sound made Twilight want to plug her hooves in her ears. He had no whites of his eyes- only deep green ringing huge black pupils. The doctor stepped in front of her then, and started waving his screwdriver that didn’t have a screw around the pony. It emitted the same green light and buzzing noise as it had eight years prior, but the unicorn didn’t seem to notice at all.

“Well” the doctor said. “That explains a lot.” Twilight wanted to laugh, since all it meant to the rest of them was that the unicorn was a bit off in the head, but stopped, remembering the seriousness of the situation. “Who are you?” he said, trotting circles around the oblivious unicorn. “What’s your purpose in taking this body? Well, I suppose it’s because you need its magic, but why this one? What did it see, what did it know…”

Twilight started. Suddenly, she remembered: she had seen that very same unicorn working as a scribe in the restricted section of the library. And- oh no, she really didn’t want to be right for once.

“Doctor! He’s one of the library scribes of the restricted section! When we evacuated Canterlot he was assigned to haul the cart with all of the books that were stored there: we need to go!”

Then the scribe’s head snapped towards Twilight.

“Why!?” He asked, in a voice that seemed like it was only half his own. Twilight noticed that his eyes had returned to normal.

"What?” Twilight said, looking puzzled. The guards drew weapons hidden in their armor, their beauty masking their deadliness.

“Why!” He asked again, in a slightly more ponylike voice. Then a sudden pain seemed to afflict him, and he doubled over, uttering a soundless shriek. He held his hooves up to his temples and crouched, and when he spoke, it seemed to cause him great pain. “I looked at the book I brought from Canterlot. The book of answers. I think it somehow took control of me, I can’t remember why I’m here, but-no… NO!!”

“What! What is it!” The doctor shouted. Then he noticed that the scribe’s horn was glowing. “Stay back, all of you!”

They looked on in horror, as, screaming to the sky in agony, the scribe collapsed. He was crying- but every drop that spilled was hued slightly more and more red.

“No!! Please, help! Someone, please! I never wanted to do any of it, I remember, I REMEMBER!!!” The unicorn seemed to shrivel up, like a cut apple left out in the sun. He oozed blood, until nothing but a withered black, emaciated corpse with flesh stretched over it, taut as a drum.

The doctor looked at Twilight over the blood pool. “Well, we may as well be on with it. Lead us to the book.

*** *** ***

They skidded to a halt once in the library of the great tree. “It’s larger than the archives. That’s quite something. Anyway. I suppose that big old ‘Restricted’ sign over there means the restricted section, and that would be where we look first.” The doctor said. They continued their headlong rush through the library, through the restricted section, which felt like a labyrinth, and finally, stopped. There was a circular room at the end of the hall, and in the center, on a pedestal, lay a massive book. It seemed the size of four ponies, and it lay open. As they walked into the room, a certain presence seemed to pervade their minds. And the presence thought in a soft, quiet, but entirely insidious voice.

“I am the book of answers. I hold the every question ever asked, and its answer. What is yours? A young scribe came to me recently, used to be a nice little pony.”

The guards drew their weapons again. But before they could charge at the book, a tendril of thought that Twilight could feel in her own mind, and they flung themselves on the ground, much as the green unicorn had. “Oh, my little ponies, such an archaic attack will never work on me. Ask away, Twilight Sparkle, Doctor.”

“Perhaps I will then. Why did you take control of an, I assume, innocent scribe?”

“Oh, doctor. It’s a reason I think you know. I was lonely. Having people to control, people who follow your every will like blind dogs, is fun, I’m sure you know from experience.”

Twilight snapped. She charged at the book, intending to impale the book with her horn, but she was flung aside as easily as her guards.

“Stay there, my dearest Twilight. Doctor, I wonder what you will ask next. How to kill me, perhaps? It matters not. Of course I will not tell you that. I even know the answer to the most asked question in the universe, the one I think not even you know, with twelve-thousand years of time and space. Doctor Who?”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to kill you. I know perfectly well. In the early medieval ages of a faraway, farawhen planet called Earth, the ultimate punishment for books was burning. They would be burnt simply for disagreeing with people’s ideas. However, there is a new reason- you have killed in the most merciless way, using others as puppets. As you’ve made clear to us, your psyche is linked to the Book, and when the body is destroyed, so too is the mind.”

Then the doctor took out his screwless screwdriver and pointed it straight at the book. “And you won’t even be able to stop me from doing this with your so-called mind control- it’s really blood control. I’ve seen it all before, and I’m not a pony- thus, different blood. Bye-bye now.” The buzzing from the screwdriver became more intense, and the book’s thoughts, once lucid, became an incoherent wail of anger and pain and fire. The book caught then, and it created an inferno that licked the roof of the chamber. The four of them watched as the flames died down, and then, they left the ashes to float their sad way to the ground. And they walked, the four of them, through the city up to gates. And they left Ponyville under the cover of twilight, and headed for the hills.

They stopped at the TARDIS.

“That’s it. That’s the box” the guard on the right said, awed. The left one looked at him oddly.

“What’s so special about this box? I mean, it is in the middle of nowhere, but we are in the Everfree. It’s not that odd.

“Oh, but you aren’t the fun guard.” The doctor said, smiling. “Fun guard, meet fun box. It’s called the TARDIS. That’s Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. Not-fun guard, you should say hello too. Well then, Twilight, I would be honored to have you aboard my ship. The guards looked at each other, barely suppressed mirth on their faces. “Oh come on, grow up. It’s bigger than it looks.”

The guards sobered, returning to seriousness. “I cannot allow Twilight to go in there. If it is what the name implied, which I highly doubt, then it is too dangerous for the Lady Twilight Sparkle to enter.”

Twilight looked the doctor in the eye, and smoothly said, “He’s right, I’d love to come, but my duties are more important.” And she winked. Once, slyly, and was sure the doctor understood.

“Well, it’s a shame. I won’t be seeing you for a long time, I guess. This is goodbye.” And he stepped into the box, and they heard the lock click.

“Come on, you two, I have work to do in my study, and it won’t be delayed.”

They looked back as they walked back into the city.

The TARDIS was gone.

* * * * * * * * *

Twilight was writing. A thousand worries ran through her head. “Don’t be late this time, doctor, you better not leave me again.” She muttered softly.

The clock struck twelve. At that instant, the same vast whirring noise filled the room, and a blue glow emanated from the corner. And the TARDIS was there, and the Doctor opened its door and walked out.

“Man, it has been a while. For me, hopefully not you. Just went to Raxacoricofallapatorius, amazing planet. Such nice people there. Anyway, hop in!”

“You bet I will!” She ran in after him, barely reading the words on the door. She was stunned. “When you said it was bigger than it looks…”

“I’ll say it for you. Bigger on the inside”

“This is impossible.” Twilight ran out, ran a circle around the box, and ran back in. “How- What- I- I don’t- I don’t get it.”

“The look on your face was absolutely priceless. It’s a time machine that’s bigger on the inside. Impossible, but so much fun! Choice of bathrooms left, right, and above. Where to first? How about…” He ran up a set of crystalline stairs to a large circular console, with a tube emanating from it. He pulled a lever, and the tube began a pumping motion. But Twilight had an even better idea than anything the doctor could come up with.

“Wait! Go to the moon, ten years ago on the summer solstice.”

And so they began their adventures in time and space.