We burst into the clearing where I hid the TARDIS, and I skidded to a stop. Unfortunately, the mares behind me were not prepared for my quick stop, and they crashed into me and we promptly collided into a nearby tree. My face took most of the impact. I sat back, clutching my head with my hooves.

“HOW MANY TIMES AM I GOING TO BE HIT IN THE HEAD TODAY? I mean, I just need to be more careful now... ok, that’s not going to happen, but the thought is nice. Ok, just stay away from hard surfaces... Ok that’s not going to happen either. Why does whatever I say to not do I end up doing? I need to stop doing that. Ok, no more doing what I told myself to not do. That’s not going to happen. UGH, I DID IT AGAIN!” This came out in a breathless rush, lasting for about ten seconds.

Rainbow Dash and Derpy were looking at me with blank stares. Or, at least Rainbow Dash was. One of Derpy’s eyes had found an apparent interest with the tree branch currently residing above my head. Oh, ponyfeathers I thought, and I hastily moved out of the way. Only now did I realize that I didn’t see the TARDIS. What the hay? It was parked here, I swear! How the hay do I ALWAYS lose a giant blue police box time traveling wibbly wobbly timey wimey machiney thingy? I've got to stop doing that. UGH I DID IT AGAIN. I realized Dash was talking, and I pulled myself out of my berating thoughts to catch what she was saying.

"Uh, is this where the TARDIS is supposed to be? Because if so, you did a REALLY good job at hiding it..."

"Yeah. Heh heh. We apparently have a slight problem. It seems to be that I have temporarily misplaced the TARDIS..."

Derpy pointed one of her eyes at me, the other one facing the sky. She had an incredulous look upon her face. "You... lost the TARDIS? YOU LOST THE TARDIS!?"

"I DID NOT LOSE THE TARDIS. I TEMPORARILY MISPLACED IT. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE." I shouted back, trying to pull together what remains of dignity I had left. I was a pony, had been totally smushed by three young fillies, whacked in the head half a dozen times, and lost my only means of transportation which looks like a police box. In a forest. I was not having a good day.

"You lost it." Dash replied flatly.

"Did not. I misplaced it."

"No, you LOST it."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did NOT."

"Did TOO."

"DID NOT."

"DID TOO."

"WOULD YOU BOTH JUST SHUT UP!" Derpy pulled us out of our quarrel. Fine then, be that way. I was gonna win, anyways. It was only a matter of time. Ugh, never mind. I started running around the clearing, looking for any telltale signs of the TARDIS. "But I swear, it was right h-"

I smashed into something and crashed into the dirt. Lucky for me, my face took the hit. Again. Awesome. I looked up from my position on the ground, and saw nothing in front of me. When I stood back up, I started walking forwards. I hit a barrier. I'm not even going to say what I hit first, I think that's pretty self explanatory by this point. I held my hooves up, and leaned forwards. I stopped moving, and a wide grin spread across my face.

"SEE? Temporarily misplaced. I found it..."

"Ok, why did you leave it in invisibility mode when you left exactly?" Derpy asked, walking around my TARDIS and feeling the invisible walls. Rainbow Dash was busy looking awed at my invisible TARDIS. Dunno why though. I mean, you can't even see her. She's... invisible. An invisible box. An invisible police box. An invisible blue police box. An invisible time traveling blue police box. An invi- ok, I'm done. I was busy looking for the key when I realized something. All of my clothes are still in the TARDIS. Including my key. Okay, no problem. I'll just snap, and it'll op- no fingers. No worries, I can just look behind the pull to open sign for the key I hi- the key in my jacket was the emergency key. Oh wait, what about behind the big P in the word POLICE on the top? Empty. Crud. I was locked out of my invisible TARDIS.

Derpy had been watching me the entire time, seeing as I went through all the possible possibilities of a key floating around somewhere. "You lost the key, didn't you?"

"I did NOT lose the key... I temporarily misplaced it..."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "So... what are we going to do about it?"

Huh, they said we. That was new. Usually it took a while to get people on board. Maybe ponies were different.

"Ok, since I changed, and the TARDIS controls changed, and the sonic changed, and- ok, since basically everything changed, that means that there must be an alternate way that parodies snapping as a pony that will open the TARDIS." I thought out loud. I tried stomping my hooves, clapping them together, flapping my ears (it made kind of a snappy sound), flicking my tail. Nothing. Even sonic-ing it didn't work. It stayed invisible and as indestructible as ever. Frustrated, I shouted out, "ALOHOMORA!" Because I couldn't think of anything else to do, I was out of ideas for the time being. I heard a clicking noise, and I saw a sliver of orange-y light pop out from an invisible surface. Wait, my TARDIS now opens up to Harry Potter spells? I could get used to that.

"HAHA! Got it! Good ole J.K.!" I said happily, finally able to enter inside my home. Derpy slowly walked in, and a second later, was crumpled to the floor of my TARDIS as Rainbow Dash flew in above her and knocked her over. Rainbow ceased all forms of motion, a look of astonishment freezing on her face. Then she keeled backwards, and I vaguely heard a goat bleating somewhere off in the distance. Ah well, nothing I haven't seen before, taking notice of her placement on the floor. Derpy was far more cautious in entering. She stepped in carefully after recovering from Dash's unintentional attack, a look of wonder on her face. It looked especially odd because of her eyes. I trotted up to the scanner (which doubled as a type of computer) and started typing in random key words. Hmmm, I don't suppose I could Yahoo Answers! this... I instead searched up "colorful ponies". All sorts of things popped up. Most of them were old action figures, from a series I remembered was called, "My Little Pony." Nothing I recognized however. I was just about to search up the names of the ponies that I had met when I scrolled down and found a photo of a group of pony friends. Three of which looked very familiar. I quickly clicked on the photo, and sure enough, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy were there looking happy along with three other ponies and a small dragon. I was really weirded out now. Derpy and Rainbow Dash (now awakened) were too occupied looking around the TARDIS and going into the closer hallways, content to leave me alone for the time being.

As I scrolled through the page that held the photo, it mentioned a TV show called "Friendship is Magic". I quickly searched that term up, and I couldn't believe what I saw. Apparently, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and their friends were from an earth TV show. What. The. Hay? My mind was reeling. I spent the next hour finding out everything I could about the TV show, even watching parts of episodes. I learned of the sonic rainboom, cupcakes, dragons, manticores, and most importantly, the Elements of Harmony. Also, I learned that there really was a Princess Celestia and a Princess Luna. I didn't think I was being tricked. No one would go through this much just for a joke. Seeing nothing of Derpy in the research, I searched up her name. Apparently she was a "background pony" and showed up randomly in the show. I couldn't believe it. They were on TV and they didn't even tell me? I abandoned my research and ran to go and find them, wherever they were in the TARDIS. I was lucky, they were in one of the first places I looked, the swimming pool in the library. I slammed the door open, and they stopped examining everything and froze at the look on my face.

"Why didn't either of you tell me you were on TV?" My voice was deadly quiet.

"What?" Rainbow Dash said, looking genuinely confused.

I quickly told them everything that I had learned, growing louder with each sentence. As I finished, they sat in silence. Then they ran over towards the general direction of the control room. I ran ahead of them so that they wouldn't get lost and showed them the scanner with all of the information.

"So you mean we've been filmed for our entire lives? And we never even knew?" Rainbow Dash asked in a quiet voice.

"I don't get it. Why?" Derpy asked, looking at me.

"How should I know? I didn't know I was being filmed and had my own TV show. Apparently you guys do too."

"Wait, so then does that mean that we're being filmed right now, at this very moment?" Rainbow asked, looking around as if trying to find a hidden camera.

"I don't know, but if they are, then we all need to act extremely clever to get rid of them. I don't want people watching my every move."

"Wait, so then, if they film us, and they also film you, what TV show would this be on if it ever went on TV?" Derpy asked, one eye looking at me, the other one roaming around looking for something lurking in the shadows.

"I have no idea. But we need to be careful. I don't know who's watching us." I said quietly, whispering to my companions. I was already thinking of them like that. Funny how things turn out. Everypony was silent for a moment, afraid to speak for the time being. It didn't last for long however. Suddenly, the phone started ringing. I shook myself out of my thoughts and went to go and answer it. Bad idea. As soon as I had done that a wave of darkness swept over me, and was instantly gone. The feeling was still there though, something bad was watching us.

"Um, hello?"

"Hello Doctor. We have been expecting you to enter our world. We just never knew it would be so soon." A raspy voice sounded from the phone.

"What do you mean, 'You've been expecting me?' Who are you? How did you know this?"

"Now now, Doctor, if we told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?"

"What do you mean a surprise?"

The voice made a sound of disappointment. "We do not answer to you. We like your new friends though. Let's see. Miss Rainbow Dash and Miss Derpy Hooves? What a pleasure to meet you."

They gasped. "How do you know who we are?" Rainbow Dash demanded. Flying over to the phone.

"We have our ways. After all, we have been watching you for many years. You will be meeting us soon enough. When we take something that is very dear to you away. And it will be especially heartbreaking when you realize that you didn't even know we had it."

None of knew what to say, I was too busy thinking to respond. Fortunately, the weird thing on the other side of the phone was perfectly content with talking about itself. I was lucky, it was inexperienced, it was telling us all about it without us having to figure it out. I opened my mouth, about to ask them what they were, when they started talking before I could.

"We are creatures of the shadows, Doctor, to answer the question that was about to be asked. Count the shadows Doctor, remember that? We are not them though, cousins perhaps. What you faced then is nothing compared to us. We will overcome anything you will throw at us. After all, we were just waiting for the perfect opportunity." A laugh came through the telephone. I saw something dark slink from the receiver to the ground, stopping underneath the console. Rainbow Dash bent down to go and take a closer look, and I pulled her back.

"Don't step in the shadows!"

"You catch on quickly Doctor. Be thankful for that. Now remember, we are in your midsts. Watch where you step Doctor, one wrong move could give you up. We could get you right now, but where's the fun in that? Let's play a game Doctor. You get to go first. We eagerly await your next move." The voice stopped talking, and I heard the sound of a phone being hung up.

I learned then that stony silence can be pretty noisy Next Chapter: The Shadows Hold the Answers Estimated time remaining: 7 Minutes