I imagine the stranger was pleased with himself, his fat and disgusting self, as he wiggled and slithered down the street the next afternoon in a poor imitation of feminine movement. The look on his face was completely made up of smug self-satisfaction. Victorious glory to the stallion that braved the crowds with nothing but lipstick and a blue one-piece dress!

It wasn’t even a flattering dress, either. He probably fished it out from a dumpster.

As he rounded a corner, a ninja ran past him, quick and silent as a knife thrown from the shadows, sidling him, taking his tacky purse. The stranger decided to give chase to this ninja, and followed her to the Carousel Boutique. This ninja was running quite slowly, as if on purpose, to remain in sight of the stranger, who constantly ran out of breath (Though in his defense, it’s hard to run in heels).

The ninja, now tired of the game she was playing, threw the purse through an open window in the Boutique’s second floor, running off. The stranger decided the purse was more important than the thief and knocked on the Boutique’s door.

No answer. He knocked again.

Still no answer. He tried the knob, and it turned out the front door was unlocked. Not one for respecting other ponies’ privacy, the stranger moved in, slowing his movements, moving into the unlit Boutique like a spy—a fat, clumsy spy, but a spy nonetheless—retrieving vital files from an evil corporation.

I watched from nearby, my Invisibility spell turned on. The ninja from before jumped down next to me (I had told Lyra I was going to be standing next to a red barrel), and removed her mask. Lyra looked at me, trying to find my eyes. “All right,” I said, “Good work. Time for phase two.”

And with that I slipped into the Boutique, the stranger’s invisible shadow.

Inside, the stranger made his way up the steps to the second floor, where Rarity’s bedroom was. He tried to remember where the purse had been flung, I’m certain, as he was counting the doors. He noticed the light was on in one of the rooms, and moved closer. Inside, he heard somepony talking, as if to a mirror.

“Yeah, Rarity! Totally dope!”

Her accent was rather thuggish and masculine, her choice in slang quite urban. Despite this, it was still Rarity nonetheless. Opening the door more slightly, the cross-dressing stranger saw Rarity decked out in a basketball jersey, white baseball cap, and baggy jeans. I tried to suppress a laugh; just being inside such a monkey-suit was probably murdering Rarity by now. The slang was hilariously forced, though, and bounced off Rarity’s embarrassed reflection, making it look like Rarity had an equally stupid-looking clone.

“None-a dose bitches gonna know it’s you, brah! Too cool to fool, yo!”

“Rarity?”

A VERY awkward silence had crept into the room along with the stranger.

“Rarity? Yerra… a Tomboy?”

Rarity looked as though she were about to break down in tears. Those lessons on acting more masculine probably hurt her more than they should have. I wondered if Roid Rage had been too tough on her. “Y-Yes,” she blubbered, throwing herself to the stranger’s hooves. “Yes, it’s true! I am secretly a Tomboy! I am ashamed of my own femininity! Ashamed, I say!”

The stranger, in a strange moment of empathy (Although I suspect it had something more to do with comparing Rarity’s predicament with his own), told her it was OK to be a Tomboy since she was getting in touch with her inner colt.

“Y-Ya shud be proud-a who you are, Rar’ty. An’ I always t’ought you were vurry pre’y.”

These words, forced and fake, drew an equally bogus smile from Rarity. So far so good.

“Oh, I’m ever so pleased that SOMEpony in this town understands!” She began to pet the stranger’s head, only to withdraw her hoof to see it covered in a dark dirt. She looked to the stranger and immediately shifted her tone back to the forced urban slang. “Yo yo yo! Maybe we oughta hang out like chums n’ crap! Yo!”

When Fluttershy said “crap,” it was scary. When Rarity said it, I nearly blew up laughing, nearly screwed up my whole plan.  Her slang was too uproarious for me to at least not grin. I was grateful neither of them could see me, almost as grateful as Rarity probably was that none of her family members were here to see this.

So the stranger asked where they ought to hang out. Sticking to our plan, Rarity wanted to go to the curiosity shop. He wanted to take her to the Hair Of the Dog, a local bar. She looked at him as though he had simply skipped to the part where he asked her for sex.  She came out of her stunned silence, already averse to the idea of taking him anywhere—especially wearing this butch outfit.

“I-I thought we could speak to the Doctor.” Her slang came back, cornier than ever. “He’s always got the whizz-bang heezy! Going on! Bro! Pimp!”

“I wannit ta goooooo to da barrrr,” he whined. And I’m not exaggerating at all: he literally whined at Rarity to go get drunk with him this early in the day. At this point, I didn’t find it all that surprising. After all, I already knew his sleeping patterns were spotty at best; he probably thought it was later in the day at this point.

Rarity looked like she wanted, so badly, to argue; to charm him into agreeing with her. To be honest, I’m not so sure her being manipulative was ever a good thing. She has this old-fashioned way of thinking that females are meant to charm males into behaving exactly the way they want them to—and it’s just so easy for her to do. She’s so beautiful and confident, stallions bend to her every will.

But wearing that ridiculous ghetto costume and having to act butch seemed not just to dampen her spirits, but robbed her of her security. She was left in an awkward position, and the look in her eyes seemed to convey her confusion too well—not that the stranger noticed. He seemed to be looking at her everywhere BUT the eyes.

I gave Rarity a tap, nudging her to continue. She apparently forgot I was going to be there, invisible, to oversee the operation, and nearly jumped forward. The stranger thought she had fallen forward and moved to catch her, only to force her backward, and into me. The two of us fell over from the force of the stranger’s accidental shove.

The plan was not going as planned.

Rarity on top of me, I whispered “The bar isn’t open, tell him that.” The stranger helped her to her hooves, but didn’t apologize for knocking her over. Predictable. Rarity attempted to tell him the bar wasn’t open, only for the stranger to once again tune her out.

Instead, he came up with a better idea. “Well den if da bars are all closed, why dunt we just go do someding else dat’s fun?”

“Like the curiosity shop?” Rarity asked, trying to get back to the original plan. I got back up, slowly, trying not to make any sounds or sudden movements. The stranger walked about in the room, taking in the decorations for the first time. Don’t run into me, I thought. Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t. It was bad enough the first time.

“I dun like da curry-ossum-y shop,” he slurred. He looked at himself in the mirror, and adjusted his hair. It was stiff and made crackling sounds as he moved it, and I had to stifle a whining grimace (so I settled on a disgusted puckering of the face). Rarity wasn’t afraid to wince at this sight. “Da Doctor dere is kinda scary.”

Yeah, sure, I thought. The Doctor’s a pretty scary guy. He’s scary because he actually bathes, is only rude when he knows he has every right to be, is actually attractive, is a successful inventor, has done more with his life than you ever could, and I’m getting off-track. I was suddenly frightened by how angry I felt over his comment about the Doctor—and I couldn’t figure out if it was because he was once again comparing himself to someone else as if he were better, or if it was because I had slowly begun to despise him for the sake of hatred.

A sick chill began to creep into my body. It was like being covered in snakes made of snow: I could feel this cold rage slithering all over me. I could feel the urge to lose my self-control. It’d be so easy to grab him with my telekinesis, grab him by that disgusting hair and shake him until his spine warped, until his neck broke, until it’s cold COLD COLD COLD—

I breathed deep. Keep it together Twilight, I told myself, this is almost over. Keep it together. Just a few more hours.

Rarity decided to get the stranger interested in something until the bar opened. I figured that I might have to rework some of the plan at this point, and whispered to Rarity that I would go tell Whooves to meet her at the bar, and have his TARDIS ready.

Outside, it was nearing four o’clock. The sun was just beginning to dip in the sky, and soon the bar would be open for the night. I had to move quickly. I wasn’t at all comfortable leaving Rarity behind, so I told Lyra—who was still waiting outside the boutique—to keep an eye on things and not hold back if the stranger tries anything on Rarity. I removed my invisibility, since I didn’t think I needed it for now.

I weaved my way through the streets quickly, but not at a pace so fast it would attract attention. Unfortunately, attention had become something I couldn’t avoid at that point, as who else could have spotted me but Bon-Bon. She tried to stop me and ask where Lyra had gone. It was evident she didn’t trust me very much anymore.

As I gave an excuse (I can’t remember what it was now), I tried to get away from her, but I was tackled to the ground, Bon-Bon sitting on my back. “You’re not going ANYWHERE until you tell me where Lyra is!”

I perked up my head, shaking out the taste of dirt in my mouth. “Why are you getting so HOSTILE?!”

“You’re feeding Lyra’s obsession!” she hissed in my ear. “She’s been at this for years! It was cute at first, like she was a foal who believed in Santa Clop, but it got worse after she was convinced that Whooves guy was from some other human world! Now everypony thinks she’s demented! And that creep Chris has gotten her back to her old ways… and you helped her. You HELPED her, Twilight! And I’m not gonna let YOU make her situation worse!” She put her forearm on the back of my neck and applied pressure. “Now TALK! WHERE. IS. SHE?”

With my telekinesis, I flung Bon-Bon from my back and to the ground. Passerby watched in shock and confusion. Bon-Bon had caused a scene, costing me time. Once again angry, I got in Bon-Bon’s face. “She’s at the Carousel Boutique! Do you know why? Because I asked her to stay there! Because she thinks I’m a better friend than YOU!”

Bon-Bon recoiled as though I had physically struck her. I pressed my attack. “You’re so controlling of her, she wants to get AWAY from you! You smother her with your presence so much because she’s the only pony in this town who could STAND you! You invade her privacy constantly, so she has to sneak out when you’re not looking in order to LIVE. HER. LIFE.”

We stood there for what felt like hours, my eyes burning dangerously, Bon-Bon’s face looking crushed. “You did this,” I said quietly, “to yourself. You have no friends besides Lyra, because you’re not much better than Chris.”

Bon-Bon mumbled something I couldn’t hear, but the tears in her eyes said everything. She walked away, slowly, like a wounded vampire seeking shelter from oppressive sunlight. I had never felt so awful for something I’d done before, and part of me wanted to apologize.

The other part argued that Bon-Bon DID have this coming. Constantly mothering Lyra as if Lyra couldn’t decide things for herself, alienating every other pony in town as if it was all a game, the mean-spirited prank she pulled on me for helping her out. I closed my eyes, breathed, and got back to my mission.

As I neared the curiosity shop, I had a sudden thought. I had just given Bon-Bon directions to the Carousel Boutique. Where Lyra was. Where the stranger was. I cursed my own thoughtlessness and had found I had a decision to make. I could head back to the Boutique to intercept Bon-Bon and prevent her from sabotaging the plan, or I could simply get the Doctor.

Before I could decide anything, I saw the Doctor flip the sign on the front door from “OPEN” to “CLOSED” and exit his curiosity shop. He saw me, and waved. I hesitated, not knowing if I should turn around or go to him. He stopped waving at me, and his eyes widened, as though he could sense something was wrong. He quickly trotted towards me and when he was near enough he whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“I think I might have just jeopardized the whole operation.”

“What happened?”

“No time to explain, we have to get back to the Boutique before Bon-Bon does!”

I turned to leave, only to feel a sharp tug on my tail. I turned to see the Doctor holding it in his teeth. “Wait jusha momen’,” he said and let go of my tail. He seemed to kind of blush, as though he’d never touched a mare in his life. I fought the urge to giggle.

“You need to get there before she does?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well, then!” he said. “I have just the thing you need!”

“Speed boosts?”

“No.”

“Long-distance teleportation?”

“Ick, no! One never knows where they’ll end up! I have something much better.”

He led me back into his curiosity shop, into the back, to the TARDIS. “Remember what I said when I said I could go anywhere and anyWHEN?” he said. My eyes widened. How could I have forgotten? “Then we need to go back in time and prevent me from meeting Bon-Bon in the marketplace!”

As the TARDIS opened, the Doctor looked at me with the same face you would often make when I did something silly. “No,” he answered. “We need to make sure not to run into our past-selves.”

“Pfft, so?” I scoffed. “I’ve already done it once before.”

“You got lucky that time,” he said. “It was just once, but anything could have gone completely wrong!” He put his front hooves on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes, as if scanning me for lies. “And do you remember meeting your future self in that marketplace?”

He got me there. “If you went back in time now, and your past self saw you, the mind of your present self would implode from getting memories it doesn’t remember having. Your mind would melt!” His gruesome explanation made me cringe.

“Well, what do you suggest?” I asked.

He let go of me and led me into the TARDIS. I had already seen the inside of the TARDIS once before, but I found myself taken away with awe once more. Looking at all the strange lights and devices was like being on another world.

Suddenly, there came a tap at my shoulder. The Doctor asked if I’d been listening.

“Of course not,” he said impatiently. “Listen! We’ll need to go back to the point in time, in which you left the Carousel Boutique. You said Lyra, Rarity, and Chris were all there, correct?”

I nodded. “Right. So we’ll go back in time, around forty minutes, behind the Boutique. I remember leaving it from the front.”

The Doctor nodded and went to work. I had no idea what anything did, but I watched intently. Not sure I learned anything, outside of that the buttons all made funny noises. After a while, I began to grow impatient.

“Hey, are the coordinates set?” I asked.

“Almost,” he said without turning.

I groaned. “Well hurry! We’re running out of time.”

He turned around, his smile becoming impish. He looked as though he was fighting a laughing fit. “Really?” he asked. “Considering that we’re going to go back in time…” He finished inputting the coordinates. Suddenly, a tray of tea and cookies came from nowhere.

“Time is something we have plenty of. Take a break for a mo’ while I get everything ready.”

From the look on his face, I could tell he could read mine perfectly—for mine was twisted with an impatient rage. Again, I felt that ungodly chill. I smacked the tea set to the floor. “ARE! YOU! CRAZY?!”

The Doctor looked at the fallen tea set, then to me. Before he could say something stupid, I began to rant. “I asked you to HELP me! Not dick around and serving me tea when we should be going back in time like you promised! Unless this has all just been some big, impressive lie!” That cold was growing, almost crushing me now. I began to cry from its arctic weight. “I thought I could believe you, Whooves! I wanted to believe you!”

“I’m sorry.”

His capricious blue eyes looked away. I stopped almost instantaneously at his apology. From what I’d known of him—his haughtiness and arrogance and incongruity—I never expected him to say those two words. There seemed to be a swell of sadness, suddenly, emerging from deep within him; like an ugly flower that blossomed too fast. I felt myself calm down, the chill beginning to fade.

“It’s…” He breathed, and started again. “It’s been a very long time since I ever let anypony into my TARDIS, and…” I thought he was going to cry, but instead he looked at me, his blue eyes pleading with mine to not feel angry at him. Suddenly, I felt like crying myself.

I realized it now. Whooves, this reclusive Doctor who ran a shop selling inimitable baubles, hadn’t had any real company outside of the occasional customer. He was…

He was lonely. He was very lonely, and he didn’t seem to know how to handle it.

We shared a silence for a moment or two. He turned back to the device he was working with, using movements that seemed robotic and lifeless. I tried to find words to express an apology, but before I could so much as breathe a word, he said, “Just forget it, Twilight. It isn’t a big deal.” His voice was flat and quiet. “You’ve been studying that Chris pony so much, I think it must be rotting your brain.”

I smiled. THAT was totally the Doctor. I felt myself blushing as I apologized. “It might have. And either way, I’m sorry for snapping at you like that. That was uncalled for.”

He finished putting in the coordinates. “All right,” he said, turning to me. “Find something you can hold onto. When this baby hits 88 miles an hour…” He rested his hoof on the Great Big Go Button (Don’t ask me, that’s how he labeled it). “… You’re gonna see some serious shit.”

There was a loud noise that made me jump, a sound like a key being drawn against a piano string, only amplified a hundredfold. I panicked, and ran about, trying to find something to hold on to, but in a second, the sound died. “OK,” said Whooves, “We’re here.”

I blinked. “Just… Just like that?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Poke your head out there and look.”

“Why can’t you?”

He rolled his eyes impatiently and walked out of the TARDIS. He motioned for me to follow, which I did.

Outside, we were behind the Boutique. I looked up to see the four o’clock sun still in the middle of its dip, the clouds exactly as they were before. I looked forward and could see myself disappear into the marketplace. “I…” I mumbled. “I just traveled. Through. Time.”

“And you haven’t snapped back to your original time, right?”

I checked myself to make sure I was all in one piece, not ready to be flung back to my original time. After a few seconds passed, and no time-jumping occurred, I grinned. “It WORKED!” I cheered, hopping about. “OhmygoshitWORKED!”

I then grabbed the Doctor by his face. “Do you KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?” He looked at me as though I’d lost my mind.

“… No?” he offered, meekly.

I dropped him as I twirled girlishly about. “It MEANS you have a safe and dependable means of transportation through time! I mean, oh my goodness, the implications of what we could DO with it is just astronomical—”

The Doctor looked behind me. “Er, Twilight…”

“I mean, Star Swirl had his theories, and Time Travel Magic has NEVER been all that dependable—”

“Twilight.”

“Oh, I HAVE to introduce you to the Princess! She’ll want to know everything about the TARDIS! She’ll want to know everything because IT’S AWESOME!”

The Doctor, his patience at an end, merely harrumphed and turned my head to face another direction. Bon-Bon was coming nearer to the Boutique. She looked as though she’d been crying.

“Is THAT the Bon-Bon you were talking about?”

My eyes widened. She’d have to be stopped! I turned to the Doctor. “OK, I’ll take care of Bon-Bon. YOU go and trick Chris into getting into the TARDIS.”

The Doctor gave me another of his puzzling looks. “Because THAT wouldn’t look like a kidnapping at all, would it?”

I pursed my lips. Technically, that WAS what we were doing. “All that’s missing is a trail of candy and my black gloves. Wouldn’t want to leave traces,” he added. I glared at him. “Just do it.”

As the Doctor went in through an open window, I looked out at Bon-Bon. Suddenly, she noticed me and her face went from despair to anger. I don’t think a pony’s face was meant to contort the way hers did at that moment, and for a moment I considered running and hiding.

She had stopped when she saw me, but started again, started walking towards me. I began to feel that angry chill again. It was as if Bon-Bon was carrying winter on her shoulders…

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