Author's Note: Obligatory "I did not create Friendship is Magic or Doctor Who" disclaimer aside, I'm genuinely curious to see what response I'll get with this story. Not so much from people reading it, but from people who have me on their subscriptions. This is my first fic in a long while, and my last fics were for One Piece, Naruto, and Detective Conan. Now I'm doing My Little Pony. Then again, my first ever stories were Powerpuff Girls so we shall see.

On the outskirts of Ponyville, a junkyard existed. Not an especially large one, but a place where many a pony have gone to find or discard some random item or two. Where one pony's trash is another's treasure. The oddest of the junkyard's many oddities appeared just recently. A mere five months ago.

A strange miniature barn, colored in blue.

MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC

and

DOCTOR WHO

IN

AN UNEARTHLY FILLY

PART 1

Based on episodes by originally written by Anthony Coburn

At the Ponyville Schoolhouse, class had let out for the day. Most of the children had gone home already, but there was still a filly or colt waiting for pickup or otherwise staying late. Cheerilee had been thinking about one in particular when she saw a cart pull up near the school. The cart was filled with empty buckets and baskets, and was pulled by a red stallion wearing a yoke around his neck.

"Had a good day at the market, Big Macintosh?"

"Eee-yup" he said in reply.

"Good to hear. If you're here to pick up Apple Bloom she left with her friends already. They had some new Cutie Mark ideas to try out."

Big Macintosh rolled his eyes with a huff from his nose. Cheerilee noticed he was grinning though.

"They're more stubborn than most." Cheerilee agreed, "But everypony works it out eventually."

"Eee-yup."

"I mean, fillies and their cutie marks are easy next to-" Cheerilee began before stopping herself, "N-nevermind. I almost said too much."

Big Macintosh looked at her in concern.

"Really, it's nothing." Cheerilee hesitated. Then, she thought, if I was going to talk to anypony about this...

"It's one of my students. I just don't know what to make of her..."

"Perennial?" Big Macintosh asked.

"Apple Bloom's mentioned her then?"

He nodded.

"She and her grandfather moved to Ponyville about five months ago." Cheerilee began, "And of course I welcomed Perennial into the schoolhouse. So did everyone else. She's smart... so smart it often feels like she's holding back to keep me from looking bad. But then... there was another time. We were using money as a simple math problem, but she kept getting it wrong because she insisted a hundred bits was a buck. I had to keep reminding her there was no such currency."

Big Macintosh raised an eyebrow.

"Strange." Big Macintosh agreed.

"Oh, there's more. Her homework had been slipping lately. I went and tried to visit her home to see if I could talk to her grandfather, a Doctor Forelock, about it. The address I got from her back when she enrolled was just the old Trotter's Lane junkyard. I'm starting to get concerned..."

At that moment an earth pony filly with a Cutie mark resembling the face of a wristwatch, her mane done in something of a bun in back, came out of the school house. She was just finishing buckling her school saddlebag when she passed by the two adults.

"Oh, Miss Cheerilee," she said in her Bitish accent, "Thank you so much for allowing me to borrow this history book. I promise to have it back to you tomorrow."

"Not a problem at all, Perennial dear." Cheerilee said, "You can keep it until you're finished."

"Oh, I'll be finished by then, I'm sure." she answered, then turned to Big Macintosh, "Hello, Mr. Macintosh."

Big Macintosh nodded back. Perennial began to canter off before stopping.

"Miss Cheerilee, I almost forgot. I must apologize for my errors in class. I checked in the book and you're right. Bits are the only currency in Equestria. It will be a few more years yet before laws increasing the currency and instituting a decimal system come into place."

"All right..." Cheerilee remarked, unsure how to respond to that. She simply looked at Big Macintosh with an expression that said "See what I mean?" Then she got an idea.

"Say, Big Macintosh here was about to give me a ride home in his cart. If you like I don't think he'd mind an extra stop, woud you, Big Mac?"

"Nnn-ope" Big Macintosh said without hesitation.

"No no, that's all right." Perennial replied as if startled, "It's better if I go on my own. I have some errands to run before I go. And also, Grandfather doesn't like strangers around our home."

The filly headed off before Cheeirlee could properly respond. Cheerilee watched her go then looked to Big Macintosh.

"Thanks for going along with me, there. I appreciate it."

Big Macintosh shrugged, then gestured to the cart with his head.

"You're offering me a ride home after all?" Cheerilee asked, bemused.

"Nnn-ope." Big Macintosh replied with a grin. Cheerilee couldn't help but grin too and got into the cart as they headed off to the Trotter's Lane junkyard to find out what was happening with this strange filly and her grandfather.

"If she's going to show up here at all we must have gotten here first."

"Eee-yup."

Having no other real recourse short of stalking her home, Cheerilee and Big Macintosh decided to go to the Trotter's Lane junkyard to see if Perennial would appear.

Stalking would be plan B.

Plan A was to find out if there was any truth whatsoever to Perennial living in or around the junkyard. To that end they had arrived first and now sat in hiding just across the road. However, Cheerilee was beginning to have second thoughts.

"We are doing the right thing, aren't we?" Cheerilee asked.

Big Macintosh shrugged.

"I just can't decide if I'm doing this because I'm worried about her homework... bad as it is, I've seen worse... or if I just want to satisfy my curiosity. You saw her as she left. That talk about currency and decimal systems."

"Eee-yup."

"And that's not even the oddest of it. She once got so frustrated over a simple geometry problem because I was only using three dimensions instead of five. She also asked me for a red pen before borrowing that history book. My first thought was she was planning to make corrections... Do you think I'm just being a busybody pony?"

Before Big Macintosh could answer, Cheerilee sighed and answered her own question.

"I suppose I am. If so, I should really just pack up and head home right now. But... oh there's no use denying it. I just won't be satisified until I get some answers about Perennial. You have to agree she's a mystery."

"Eee-yup."

"She's so talented in some areas... but excruciatingly bad at oth-oh! She's coming!"

Indeed, they watched as Perennial opened the gates of the junkyard and walked inside. Cheerilee hesitated.

"It's strange... I feel like we're about to interfere with something best left alone... You think she could just be meeting a boy here?"

Big Macintosh looked around, but didn't see anyone besides Perennial. He began to walk to the junkyard. Cheerilee followed, suddenly eager to get this over with. As he went through the junkyard's gate, she wondered if Big Macintosh felt the same foreboding she did, but doubted he'd say so even if he did.

The pair looked through the junkyard, alternating between walking over junk or tripping over it. Cheerilee tried to call out to Perennial a few times and got no answer. The search continued like this until Big Macintosh called out and got Cheerilee's attention.

He was looking at a blue box only slightly larger than the pony himself. The words "Police Barn" adorned the top of it while a notice was posted on one of the doors.

"What is this? A police barn? What's it doing here? If I remember correctly these used to be very common in Great Bitain, about fifty years ago. But never in Equestria. What's wrong Big Macintosh?"

Big Macintosh was holding his hoof against the box, an odd expression on his face. Cheerilee pressed her own hoof to it.

"A faint vibration?" Cheerilee asked as she felt it. It gave her the sense that the box was alive somehow. Big Macintosh looked around but saw nothing magical or otherwise connected to the outside of the box. Their investigation was interrupted by a cough.

"Is that her?" Cheerilee asked.

"Nnn-ope." replied Big Macintosh. The two hid behind some of the junk and watched as an elderly unicorn with an hourglass along his flank appeared. He was adorned in a cloak, scarf, and a wool astrakhan hat just behind his horn, on which was placed a ring with a large gem. He levitated a key out of his coat as he approached the blue police barn.

"Welcome home, Grandfather." said a voice from behind the barn door.

"Perennial!" Cheerilee whispered urgently.

"Shh." Big Macintosh hushed. But not in time for the old unicorn to miss hearing them. Having been found out, the Cheerilee stepped out into the open.

"Excuse me..." Cheerilee began. The unicorn levitated a lantern in front of them. The light of the lantern and the golden-orange glow of the magic made the pony avert her eyes a bit.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"We're looking for a girl."

"We?"

Big Macintosh emerged with a soft "Howdy."

"What do you want?" said the unicorn.

"One of my pupils, Perennial, came into this yard."

"Really? In here? Are you sure?"

"Yes. We saw her come in from across the road."

"One of her pupils." he said, more to himself than to either of them, "Not the authorities, then..."

Big Macintosh cleared his throat for the old horse's attention. The unicorn fixed him with a harsh stare.

"Why were you spying on her? Who are you?"

"We heard a girl's voice call out to you." Cheerilee insisted.

"Your hearing must be very acute. I didn't hear anything."

"It came from inside that barn!" Cheerilee insisted.

"Your imagination." he insisted.

"It certainly was not!"

"Young lady, is it reasonable to suppose that anyone would even be inside a cupboard like that, hmm?"

"Then wouldn't it be just as reasonable to let us look inside?"

The unicorn suddenly turned away from the ponies and took very intent notice of a picture frame in the junk.

"I wonder why I've never seen that before." he said, levitating it out of the mass of parts, "Now, isn't that strange? Pretty damp and dirty..."

"Will you please help?" Cherrilee asked, "I'm the teacher at the Ponyville Schoolhouse. We saw her come in here but never saw her leave. Naturally, we're worried."

"Have to be cleaned." the unicorn continued, paying them no mind for a moment more before setting the frame down and turning to Cheerilee, "Mmm? Oh, I'm afraid it's none of my business. I suggest you leave here."

"Nnn-ope." Big Macintosh insisted, getting with this old pony's attitude.

"Your attitude leaves a lot to be desired, young colt."

"Will you open the door?" Cheerilee asked.

"There's nothing in there!" the unicorn insisted.

"Then why not open it? What are you afraid of?"

"Afraid? Oh, go away!"

"Big Macintosh, let's go report this to the mayor."

"Very well." said the unicorn.

"You're going to come with us!"

"Oh... am I?" the unicorn chuckled, "I don't think so, young lady. No, I don't think so."

As the unicorn went off to examine some more junk, Big Macintosh put a hoof on Cheerilee's shoulder. Cheerilee saw a look of concern in his eyes and realized she was letting her temper get the better of her. Nonetheless...

"We can't just leave him here! Doesn't it seem to you like he has Perennial locked up in there?"

Big Macintosh gave a reluctant "Eee-Yup."

"Look at it!" Cheerilee insisted, gesturing to the box, "No door handle... a secret lock? Does it need unicorn magic to open? And it was Perennial's voice in there, I'm sure of it."

"Eee-yup."

"Perennial! It's Cheerilee and Big Macintosh! Are you in there, Perennial?"

"Don't you think you're being rather high-hoofed, young lady? You thought you saw a filly enter the yard. You imagined her voice. You believe she might be in there. It's not very substantial, is it?"

"Why won't you help us?" Cheerilee asked in frustration.

"I'm not hindering you. If you both want to make fools of yourselves, I suggest you do what you said you'd do. Report what happened here. Go all the way to Canterlot for a Royal Guardspony if you must."

"And by the time we get back you'll be nowhere to be found."

The unicorn closed his eyes for a moment, "Insulting. There's only one way in and out of this yard. I shall be here when you get back. If only to see your faces when you try to explain your behavior away."

"We're still doing it. Come on, Big Mac."

Cheerilee and Big Macintosh turned their backs on the old unicorn, but had barely taken a step away when they heard the box's door open.

"What are you all doing out here?" They heard Perennial ask.

"She is there!"

"Close the door!" the old unicorn cried as as he rushed the two younger ponies, intent on keeping them away. Unfortunately, Big Macintosh was more than enough on his own.

"Hold him, Big Mac!" she cried as she rushed into the box's open door and into a brightly lit room. Big macintosh came in right behind her and, like Cheerilee, stopped cold at the interior. A room very clearly larger inside than it could possibly be looking at the box on the outside. Circular indentations were all along the walls from top to bottom. The room was furnished primarily in various rebuilt pieces from the junkyard. In the center of the room, next to a hexigonal table or stand covered in switches, lights and buttons, was Perennial, the pony they had been looking for. The unicorn came in right behind them.

"Close the door, Perennial." The filly obeyed her grandfather, pushing a switch on the stand in the middle of the room and causing the double-doors behind everyone to close, "I believe these ponies are known to you."

"My schoolteacher and one of my classmate's siblings." she said in stunned recognition, "What are you doing here?"

"Where are we?" Cheerilee asked in wonder.

"They must have followed you." replied the unicorn, ignoring Cheerilee, "That ridiculous school. I knew something like this would happen if we stayed in one place too long."

"But why would they follow me?" she asked, looking at the two adults.

"Is this really your home, Perennial?"

"Yes." she replied.

"And what's wrong with it?" The old unicorn asked indignantly.

"But it was just a police barn..."

"Perhaps." said the unicorn.

"And this is your grandfather?"

"Yes." Perennial replied.

"Why didn't you just say so?" Cheerilee asked the unicorn she now knew to be Doctor Forelock.

"I don't discuss my private life with strangers." the Doctor said simply.

"But it was a blue box." Cheerilee said, changing gears, "We both walked around it! Right, Big Mac!"

"Eee-yup."

"You don't deserve any explanations." the Doctor said, as he began inspecting an antique clock, "You pushed your way in here, uninvited and unwelcome."

"I think it's time we left." Cheerilee said, having realized they may have gotten in over their heads. Instead, Big Macintosh walked over to the Doctor seeking a proper explanation. The Doctor was still more interested in the clock and took a moment to notice the red pony.

"It's stopped again, you know, and I've tried- Hmm? Oh, you wouldn't understand at all."

"Try me." Big Macintosh replied.

"Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes." said the Doctor dismissively as he took off his coat and scarf, "Oh by the way, Perennial, I've managed to find a replacement for that faulty filament. Bit of an amateur job, but I think it'll serve."

"He's a unicorn." Cheerilee muttered, "So maybe an illusion?"

"What is she on about now?" the Doctor asked.

"What are you doing here?" Perennial asked again.

"You don't understand, so you find excuses." said the unicorn, more to himself than to them, "Illusions, indeed? You say you can't fit an enormous building into one of your smaller sitting rooms?"

"Nnn-ope." said Big Macintosh.

"But you've discovered photography, haven't you?"

"Eee-yup."

"Then by showing an enormous building on a photograph, you can do what seemed impossible, couldn't you?"

"Hmm." Big Macintosh considered.

"It's not quite clear, is it? I can see by both your faces that you're not certain. You don't understand." the Doctor laughed, "And I knew you wouldn't! Never mind."

The Doctor cantered back to the hexagonal stand.

"Now then, which switch was it? No, no, no.. ah yes, that is it!" the Doctor said as he flipped one of the stand's switches, "The point is not whether you understand what is going to happen to you, hmm?"

He looked to Perennial.

"They'll tell everypony about the ship now."

"Ship?" Big Macintosh asked.

"Yes, yes, ship! This doesn't roll along on wheels, you know."

"We're nowhere near water... but you're saying it moves?" Cheerilee asked.

"The TARDIS can go anywhere." Perennial replied.

"TARDIS? What do you mean, Perennial?"

"Well, I made up the name TARDIS from the initials. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. I'd thought you both would understand when you saw the different dimensions inside from those outside."

"Let me get this straight. This blue police barn, standing in a junkyard... can go anywhere at all?"

"Yes!" Perennial exclaimed.

"Quite so." The Doctor confirmed.

"Hmm." Big Macintosh said.

"Why won't they believe us?" Perennial begged of her grandfather.

"How can we, dear?" Cheerilee asked.

"Now, now, don't get exasperated, Perennial." the Doctor said, placing a reassuring hoof on his grandchild's shoulders, "Remember the buffalo. When he saw the first steam train, his savage mind thought it an illusion, too."

"You're treating us like children!" Cheerilee said.

"Am I? The children of my civilization would be insulted."

"Your...?" Big Macintosh asked.

"Yes, my civilization. I tolerate this era, but I don't enjoy it. Have you ever thought about what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles?" the Doctor asked as he motioned to himself and Perennial, "Perennial and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day..." he gazed into the distance, his foreleg around his granddaughter, "...we shall get back. Yes, one day... one day..."

"It's true." Perennial insisted to Cheerilee and Big Macintosh, "Every word of it's true. You don't know what you've done coming here..."

She turned to appeal to her grandfather.

"Grandfather, let them go now, please! Look, if they don't understand like you said, then they... they can't hurt us at all! I understand these people better than you... their minds reject things they don't understand..."

"No." the Doctor said.

"Perennial, he can't keep us here." Cheerilee said to the filly, "I don't know if this is an illusion, delusion or some kind of game you and your grandfather are playing. But you can't expect us to just believe it."

"It's no game!"

"Perennial..."

"It's not!" the filly cried out, "Look, I love your school. I love this era of Equestria. The last five months have been the happiest of my life..."

"This era? Perennial, you're a pony like us. You look like a pony and sound like a pony..."

"I was born in another time." Perennial insisted, "On another world."

"Now, look, Perennial-" Cheerilee began to try again, only to be interrupted as Big Macintosh pushed her towards the door. Or where they thought the door was. Given how everything blended into the wall once the door closed it was hard to distinguish from the rest of the room.

"No, you two can't get out. He won't let you go." Perennial said sadly.

The filly's point seemed confirmed when the two adult ponies approached the door. A high pitched sound could be heard throughout the room... as could the Doctor's chuckling.

"I think the doors open from that table in the middle." Cheerilee said, "That's what Perennial pressed to close them."

Big Macintosh nodded and started looking over all the buttons, switches, and dials on the stand.

"You still think it's all an illusion..." the Doctor said. That had just about done it for Cheerilee.

"I know that transportation to any time or any place is limited to only the most powerful of unicorns. I don't expect it from some old horse in a junkyard."

"Oh, your arrogance is nearly as great as your ignorance!" the Doctor said with a laugh.

"Will you open the door or won't you?" Cheerilee demanded, when she saw no help forthcoming from the Doctor, she turned to Perennial, "Perennial can't you help us?"

"I- I mustn't." Perennial replied. By this point Big Macintosh had clearly had enough and decided to risk it himself.

"I can't stop you..." the Doctor said mockingly.

"Don't touch it!" Perennial yelled suddenly, "It's warded for us only!"

The warning came too late as Big Macintosh raised a hoof and touched a control only for a sudden shock to throw him to the floor.

"Big Mac!" Cheerilee wailed, she immediately moved to help him up and turned to the Doctor, "What in Equestria do you think you're doing?"

"Grandfather, let them go, now! Please!"

"And by tomorrow," said the Doctor, "We shall be a public spectacle. A subject for news and idle gossip."

"But they won't say anything..." Perennial pleaded as the Doctor turned to the buttons and switches himself. He turned to his granddaughter.

"My dear child, of course they will. Put yourself in their place. They're bound to make some sort of a complaint to the authorities, if not the Princesses themselves. Or at the very least talk to their friends." he shook his head at her, "If I do let them go, Perennial, you realize of course we must go, too."

"No. Grandfather, we've talked about this before b-"

"There's no alternative, child." The Doctor told her, his tone firm and decision final.

"I want to stay! They're both kind ponies. Why won't you trust them? All we have to do is ask them to promise to keep our secret and-"

"It's out of the question."

"I won't go, Grandfather. I won't leave this era... I'd... I'd rather leave the TARDIS and you!"

"Now you're being sentimental and childish."

"I mean it!"

"Very well." the Doctor said after a moment, "Then you must go with them. I'll open the door."

"Are you coming then, Perennial?" Cheerilee asked as the Doctor approached his switches. Instead Perennial shot a panicked glance at her grandfather as he hit several switches.

"No, Grandfather, no!" she ran to him and tried to push him away from the central stand. The two struggled as Cheerilee noticed too late that Perennial's grandfather had used his claim of opening the door to actually activate his so-called TARDIS. As the two wrestled for whatever controls they were working with, the room began to shake violently. A whirring, wheezing sound could be heard throughout as a glass cylinder in the middle of the center stand began moving up and down.

By the time everything had settled down, only the Doctor was still conscious. Behind him, though he took no notice of it, a pane of glass lit up and showed the outside of the blue box. A wide open plain of high grass.

In a grassland field, in another time and place stood a strange miniature barn, colored in blue. Outside the barn, in the grass, a large, pony shaped shadow loomed.

TO BE CONTINUED