Chapter 3

Monochrome Crash, Dah Bomb, and Black Charge were the names of the other ponies, as the Doctor found out quickly after entering the room. He hadn't even asked, instead, everypony in the room blurted out each other's names in the middle of nervous questions and more nervous comforting answers. Feeling a bit awkward, he introduced himself and Orange Fist, and discovered that they knew Orange. He had the sudden feeling that the only ponies in this building had to be coworkers, so he had no need to introduce anypony. Then, he sadly remembered that there were no longer any more ponies to uselessly introduce.

Unfortunately, in the confusion, somepony pressed a button, a very important button. A button which, when pressed, made every door and window deadlock sealed.

The Doctor gave Dah Bomb an extremely angry look, and asked, "Dah, was that the deadlock button?"

Dah gave an apologetic nod.

"You shouldn't have done that…" the Doctor said.

"But, Doctor, can't you open any door with your screwdriver thing?"

"Not deadlocked doors," the Doctor said, frustrated, and let out a sigh.

A few minutes passed in complete and utter awkward silence, before eventually the Doctor said, in a pure and perfect impression of a young filly, "I'm bored!"

Everypony else in the room stared at him, and eventually laughed. Either the tension or the ridiculousness of the Doctor, or both, made what would've been a rather boring moment incredibly hilarious, for them, at least.

"So, what do you guys want to talk about? We're going to be locked in here for at least 15 minutes," Monochrome Crash said.

Black Charge was obviously worried. The ponies whose names had colors in them were always the first ones to be killed off by the monster in horror movies, and this was much too similar to horror movies for him to be comfortable.

The Doctor noticed Black Charge's face, and then saw Orange Fist's, both of which were looks of horror. He suggested that they talk about scary stories, because it would be fun. The Doctor didn't mention, however, that it was a personal area of expertise.

Nopony had any ideas of what to talk about, so the Doctor mentioned a picture he once saw of a picture of a dog with sharpened pony teeth, which was said to visit ponies in their dreams if they didn't spread its story. The Doctor accepted the challenge, and didn't tell a soul about it for 300 years, and wasn't visited in any dreams by the scary dog, thus disproving the myth. Unfortunately, the first ponies he told were right in front of him, meaning he'd have to tell his story again to get the word across, unless they had Ponynet connections at home.

Everypony understood what they were supposed to discuss afterwards. They did, of course, have Ponynet connections, and spent hours and hours using it to read creepy stories, some of them great, some of them terrible. Some were hilarious, and some were terrifying. But they were all known amongst everypony in the room, so it was safe to talk about them.

Some of them had even been involved in the stories themselves.

"When I was a little filly, and the sun was going down, I would watch this cool show about pirates. The weird thing, though, was that my mom swore, day and night, that the whole time, I was just watching static. Years later, I went on this website, and a bunch of ponies saw it, and we all realized that it wasn't real. I wish I could remember the name of that show," Monochrome Crash revealed, bringing them all the realization that the story they had read was really a forum topic, and not just written like one, unless Monochrome Crash wrote it himself.

"This is creepier than that video on the Ponynet that had the blank stare and the drilling sounds," Dah Bomb said.

Everypony looked confused, until Dah Bomb said that he was talking about the video that was only a few seconds long, but everypony claimed had a full version, one that was removed from MareTube due to rights violations and gore.

"I heard that they tore out their eyes and sent them to the ponies that ran the netsite, too," the Doctor said, further revealing his massive knowledge of the art of scary Ponynet stories. Orange Fist wondered if the Doctor wrote it in his free time, but the time travelling aspect of his life likely prevented a steady Ponynet connection. Still, it seemed far too likely that he knew so much about it because he was a part of its creation.

"Speaking of creepy videos, anypony here see the one of that old black and white cartoon, where the main character is just walking for a few minutes, then it turns black, and then it comes back with the loud screaming, and he's still walking, but it's all distorted and weird," the Doctor said.

Several faces in the room assumed a look between nostalgia and terror.

The Doctor smiled, and said, "It wasn't authentic, I can tell you that much."

Orange Fist couldn't tell if he made it, or if he was there when it was made. The hard part in figuring out which it was stemmed from the simple fact that the Doctor could, potentially, be anywhere, and anytime that anywhere existed.

They discussed many stories, one of which had a hunter who wandered into a cabin in the woods that was filled with creepy paintings of horrible, angry faces, and when he woke up in the morning, it was revealed that the cabin was actually filled with windows.

They then talked about the song from the first Ponymon game, one that many ponies on the 'net claimed brought fillies to kill themselves, out of fear for the music, or the creepiness of the situation it was played in, or even the tones used in the song. This theory gained a lot of credibility when they remade the game, and the song was completely redone. Needless to say, the Doctor disagreed with this idea, mostly because he played that game for a literally immeasurable amount of time, and he was still alive. Of course, as many of his enemies would plead, the Doctor was virtually unkillable. Even when they did kill him, he just came back with a different face.

Then they quickly talked about a whole bunch of stories, discussing their endings and storylines. One of them was about a pony that locked himself up in his apartment complex, and went insane with paranoia, and discovered in the end that he was right about his theory the entire time.

Another one they talked about involved an experiment with sleep that a government did on prisoners of war. Eventually, they all went insane, and no amount of sedation could make them sleep. They tried to kill the ponies out of pity, but nothing worked, which drove the scientists performing the experiments insane. Eventually, the military raided the base, killing everypony inside.

The Doctor told his own version of the ending.

"Well, everypony died, that part's right, but the rest is way off," he said, deciding not to explain the rest.

They all looked at him, with pure desire oozing from their stares, until he explained what really happened there, apparently having been there. They clapped afterwards, very approving of his storytelling skills, despite the gruesome ending of the story.

"Oh, that's nothing. Have any of you heard of Ponybius? I played it," Orange Fist said, having been silent the entire time, out of grief.

The Doctor had heard a lot of it. In fact, he had helped code it, but he didn't want to try to upstage Orange.

"Um, this is weird, considering us talking about scary stuff from the Ponynet, but, I'm pretty sure I'm looking at Slenderpony right now," Monochrome Crash said.

"Oh Celestia, not Slenderpony…" the Doctor said, very annoyed, but threatened at what he knew seeing Slenderpony meant.

"No, really Doctor, I'm looking at Slenderpony."

"So am I," Black Charge said, terrified.

"I believe you, but that isn't Slenderpony. That's a Silent, and you won't remember it in just a moment."

They both asked "Huh?" when they looked back at him, having completely forgotten about their Slenderpony.

The Doctor had looked at it, as well, and immediately asked, "Who was phone?" causing the room to burst into laughter again, approving again of the Doctor's sense of humor.

"So, Doctor, when that door opens, how are we getting out of here?" Dah Bomb asked casually, although still very serious.

"I have a time machine. Well…It's a time and space machine, I guess you could say. As long as we get there before the Cyberpony gets to us, we'll be fine," the Doctor said.

"Speaking of the door opening…" Black Charge said, looking at the door as it began to creak open.

The time had come. The fun and games were over. It was time to get back to the TARDIS and save these ponies lives for the Doctor, and this being a fixed point in time, there were no second chances.

The door opened, which meant that the door also opened for the Cyberpony. The Doctor motioned for everypony behind him to move, and ran across the corridor to the TARDIS.