I don't own My Little Pony or Doctor Who in any way, shape, or form.

Chapter 9 An Unexpected Meeting

A small lifeboat holding the four ponies was lowered from the ship. When it hit the water, the captain quickly fired up the small engine at the rear and piloted the ship towards the metallic object.

"So how do we get into that thing?" Rainbow Dash asked, "Doesn't look like there's any doors on that thing."

"No need to worry Rainbow," the Doctor replied, "If there's one thing my sonic screwdriver is good at, it's opening doors. I'll find us a way in."

Pointing the sonic at the side of the metal object, the Doctor began sweeping the sonic back and forth across it. After about a minute, as the lifeboat reached the object, a hatch on the side opened.

"Ha! See, what'd I tell you?"

"What should we expect to see going in there?" the captain asked, bringing the boat to a stop.

"No idea," the Doctor replied moving to enter it, "Exciting, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure we share the same ideas on what's exciting Timepiece."

"Most people don't. Never let it get me down though. Come on. We should take care of this quickly."

"Why?" Pinkie asked bouncing into the opening, "Is it dangerous?"

"Could be. Like I said, I have no idea what to expect."

"That's not very reassuring Doctor," Dash said as she followed them in.

"You're a doctor?" the captain asked, surprised.

"Of a sort."

"You're unlike any doctor I've ever met."

"I get that a lot."

"Still, I shouldn't be too upset. Having a doctor with us is rather fortuitous. We needn't worry should any of us get injured."

"I'm, uh, not that kind of doctor. I'm more of a scientist."

"Oh? In what field?"

"All of them I guess. I find it hard to just focus on one thing at a time. I'm actually working on five other completely unrelated problems right now."

"And these two?" she asked, gesturing towards the other two mares, "Are they research assistants?"

"Well, they're more like traveling companions, but I suppose you could refer to them as research assistants. Now then, enough about me, we seem to have to have come to a fork in the road."

The Doctor stopped as the group reached the end of the hallway they had been walking down. In front of them, the path branched off in two directions.

"All right, which way?" Dash asked.

"I think, that at this current juncture, we should split up into pairs. Two of us will go one way and the others will go the other way."

"I would prefer to be able keep an eye on all three of you, but splitting up would be the best course of action," the captain said, "I'll go with Timepiece."

"That leaves you two together," the Doctor said looking to Dash and Pinkie, "Is that alright?"

Pinkie nodded, saying, "Yep indeedy!"

"Yeah, sure," Dash said with a shrug.

"Alright then, lets go," the Doctor said moving away. Before anypony made it very far, the Doctor suddenly stopped and turned. "One more thing!" he said, drawing the others back towards him. "Everyone needs to take one of these."

Reaching into his saddlebag, the brown stallion pulled out four small discs. "These are communicators," he said as he put one into his ear, "As long as we're all wearing one, we'll be able to stay in contact. That way, should any of us get separated from our partner or, should we find anything of interest, we'll be able to let the others know."

The three mares each took a communicator and placed them into their ears like the Doctor had.

"Cool," Dash said, "Anything else?"

"No, that should cover everything. Just, uh, be careful I guess."

"Alright then. Lets go Pinkie."

"Okie Doki Loki!" Pinkie said and bounced off after her.

"We should be on our way as well," the Doctor said moving towards the other door way, "Come on."

Heart Breaker nodded and followed him through.

"So what should we be looking for?" she asked after a moment.

"Anything that seems strange or out of place I suppose."

"This whole ship is strange and out of place."

"Fair point. Alright, I guess, be on the look out for anything dangerous."

"I don't know what anything on this ship is or what it does. It could all be dangerous."

The Doctor sighed and shook his head. "Alright, fine. I'll be on the look out for stuff. You just follow behind me and look impressed when I do something clever."

"No."

The Doctor laughed for a moment. "I like that about you," he said wiping away the tears that had formed in the corners of his eyes, "Bold, confident, clever, not afraid to speak your mind. You want to come traveling with me?"

"Oh dear Celestia no."

The Doctor laughed again. "Fair enough. Wouldn't want to deprive the Sea Horse of such an amazing captain."

Breaker scoffed and shook her head. "I'm nothing special. I'm just a normal sea captain."

"Oh, that's not true, and you know it! You are regarded as the greatest sea captain to ever live. Ponies are still learning from you and your exploits. You're a hero."

"What? What do you mean? How can you know that?"

The Doctor stopped and turned. "I didn't mean to say anything, but now that I have, I guess there's no use trying to keep it secret. I'm a time traveler."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I'm a time traveler. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are as well. We've come from about forty years in the future."

Heart Breaker shook her head and walked past the brown stallion. "You're crazy," she said, "Absolutely crazy. Time travel isn't possible. Not even the princess can do it."

"But I can," the Doctor said catching up to her, "How else could I know about the future? About you?"

"Easy. You made it up."

"Why would I do that?"

"To try and get on my good side. To make me forget about you stowing away on my ship."

"I would never do that."

"Really? And why should I believe you? Why should I listen to anything you say?"

"Because I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor of what? You didn't give me much of an answer earlier."

"Like I said, I sort of study everything."

"And like I said, that's not much of an answer."

"Well, it's the truth, okay? Look, I'm sorry, but that's just how it is."

The red mare sighed and shook her head. "Fine, whatever. Let's just keep looking around."

"So, any idea what we should be looking for?" Dash asked.

"Nope!" Pinkie replied, skipping alongside the pegasus, "Do you?"

"If I did, I wouldn't have asked you."

"Hmm, good point. Maybe we should ask the Doctor?"

"Uh, I don't think we should bother him with a question like that."

"Okie Doki Loki! But that still leaves us with no idea what to look for."

"Hmm, yeah, you're right. I guess we should look for suspicious stuff, but everything here looks kinda suspicious."

"Yeah, you're right. Oh, wait! What's that over there?"

Pinkie rushed over to a small, mangled looking piece of metal that was lying on the floor.

"What is it?" Dash asked as she moved over to Pinkie.

"It's a thingy!" the earth pony replied rather matter-of-factly.

"A thingy?"

"Yeah! A thingy."

"Uh huh. Right. Not very useful, so, lets go."

"Wait, it could be important!"

"Important?"

"Yeah! We should tell the Doctor."

"The Doctor said to call him if we found anything interesting. This doesn't seem very interesting."

"Dashie, I've been traveling with the Doctor a lot longer than you. I'm pretty much an expert on this kind of stuff."

"Ugh, alright, fine, whatever. Call him."

With a nod, Pinkie pressed a button on her communicator. "Doctor, Doctor! Are you there Doctor? It's Pinkie!"

"Yes, I'm here Pinkie," the Doctors voice chirped in her ear, "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"We're fine. Anyway, we found a thingy!"

"A thingy? What kind of thingy?"

"A mangled up metal thingy."

"Hmm, interesting. Meet us back at the fork and bring the thingy."

"Can do!" Pinkie said with a salute, "Come on Dashie!"

Picking up the metal thing, Pinkie stuffed it into her mane and skipped back the way they had come, Dash following closely behind. Within a few minutes they reached the fork just as the other two arrived.

"Hello, hello," the Doctor said with a nod, "Now, then, lets have a look at this thingy."

"Here ya go!" Pinkie said shaking her head. The metal thingy fell out of mane and landed in her outstretched hoof.

"Hmm, interesting," the Doctor said moving closer to her. Pulling out his sonic, he quickly scanned it. "Well now, that's even more interesting."

"What is it?" Dash asked.

"This is the blade of a combat knife, made from the same kind of metal as this ships hull. It would of taken something very strong to bend it like this."

"Knife?" Pinkie suddenly exclaimed, "Is my head okay? Am I bleeding?"

The Doctor took a look and shook his head. "You're fine," he said with a smile, "But we might not be. There's a very good chance that whatever bent this knife blade is still on this ship. Splitting up again is not a good idea."

"Agreed," Heart Breaker said with a nod.

"Alright, that still leaves me with one question though. Which way?"

"We didn't finish checking out our side," Pinkie said.

"Same here," the Doctor replied and looked down for a moment, "Alright, I've got a solution."

Reaching into his saddlebag, he pulled out a small coin. "We'll flip for it. Heads we go right, tails we go left." He gave coin a toss and caught it as it came back down and slapped it down on his other leg. "Tails. We go left."

"Lets go!" Pinkie exclaimed and began skipping down the left hallway, the others following.

"Could you tell me something Rainbow Dash?" Captain Breaker asked the pegasus after a few minutes of walking.

"What's up?"

"How long have you two been traveling with this Timepiece?"

"Pinkie's been with him for about a month. I've only been traveling with him for about a day."

"And you trust him?"

"I don't really know him well enough to trust him yet, but Pinkie does and I trust her."

"I see. The two of them do seem close. Is there anything between them?"

"What? No way! They're just friends! I know Pinkie, and I know that she wouldn't be interested in a guy like that. At least, I don't think she would. Why does that matter anyway?"

"Oh, no reason. Just curious."

"What are you two mumbling about back there?" the Doctor called out over his shoulder.

"Nothing!" Dash replied.

"Good, because we've found something and I need everypony's attention."

"What did you find?" the red earth pony asked moving closer to him.

"A big door!" Pinkie said bouncing up and down.

Directly in front of them was, in fact, a rather large door with the word 'Storage' written across it. On the wall next to the door was what looked like a control panel. There was a small display screen the read 'Locked' above a round recess with what looked like some kind of scanning device within.

"A storage room?" Breaker said, looking at it confusedly, "What are they storing here?"

"Won't know until we get in. Unfortunately, the door seems to be locked. I'm sure that this, though," the Doctor said gesturing to the panel, "Has something to do with opening it."

Pulling out his sonic, he ran it over the panel for a few seconds before making an angry sounding grunt and stepping back. "Blast," he muttered, "The sonic doesn't seem to be doing anything. Just what is this?"

"It's a hoof print scanner," called out a new voice.

Turning, the three saw a dark brown unicorn with a white mane walking towards him. "Guess you haven't encountered one yet, have you Doctor?" he asked with small smile.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" the Doctor asked.

"What? You don't recognize me?"

"Sorry no. Should I?"

"Huh, interesting. Come to think of it, you do look younger," the unicorn mumbled to himself, "Right, okay. Guess I should introduce myself. Names Gear Head," he said, extending a hoof.

"I'm the Doctor, but you already seem to know that," the brown earth pony replied shaking his hoof, "Leaving us with the question of how."

"That's an easy one. I'm a time traveler."

"Oh please. Not this again," Breaker said with a scoff, "Time travel isn't possible."

"Oh yeah? Why don't you wait about six hundred years, then we'll see if you're singing the same tune."

"That brings up another question," the Doctor interjected, "How are you time traveling?"

"With this."

Gear Head held up his foreleg. Near the end was a brown leather band with a small metal device embedded into it. The device was covered in small blinking lights and buttons.

"Is that a vortex manipulator?" the Doctor asked, eyes wide.

"Yep."

Pulling out his sonic, he quickly scanned the device.

"My god, this is amazing. It's just like the ones back home, but this one is powered partially by magic. That is so amazing."

"Thought you might like that."

"Ahem. Can we get back to the issue at hoof here?" Heart Breaker interrupted.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, right! What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked, turning to Gear Head

"Me? I'm part of this ships crew. Why are you here?" the unicorn shot back.

"Your ship hit ours, so we came down to investigate it."

"You're part of the crew?" Dash said, "What exactly does this ship do?"

"We're a research vessel of sorts. We go to different time periods to collect samples of specific life forms to study their evolution through time."

"Hmm, that's different," the Doctor said, "I take it, then, that this storage room contains your samples."

"Yep. Well, it contains most of them at least."

"That doesn't sound good," Pinkie said.

Gear Head shook his head. "No. No it doesn't. See, we found something when we were collecting samples from the last ice age. It was some kind of creature we'd never seen before, frozen in the ice. We brought it on board and kept it in a cold storage room. We hoped that we could revive it back home and study it, but somehow it thawed out."

"How'd that happen?" the captain asked.

"No clue. The cold storage room never lost power or got turned off or anything. Anyway, that… thing is stalking the ship now, picking off the crew."

"Maybe we should leave now," Pinkie said nervously, "This sounds kinda scary."

"Yeah, I'm with Pinkie on this one," Dash said with nod.

"I'm inclined to agree Timepiece," Heart Breaker said as well, "We should leave now before anything happens."

"What? You can't be serious!" the Doctor exclaimed turning to the three mares, "This is just starting to get interesting!"

"No, it's starting to get scary," Pinkie replied.

"What's scary about an unknown creature stalking around on a tiny ship?"

The three mares simply looked at the Doctor and all raised an eyebrow at the same time.

"Fair point," he replied, "Still, we owe Gear Head a bit of help."

"With what?" Dash asked.

"Gear Head has vortex manipulator, meaning he can leave anytime he wants. The fact that he hasn't shows us that something is keeping him here."

"Right as usual Doctor," the unicorn nodded, "There's two things keeping me here. First is the fact that this ship is temporally locked."

"What's that mean?" Pinkie asked.

"It means that nothing in this ship can be temporally displaced, effectively rendering that vortex manipulator of his useless," the Doctor explained.

"I see, I see. What's the second thing then?"

"My friend Burns."

"Burns?"

"Bunsen Burner. He's another researcher alongside me. He's somewhere on the ship and I need to find him."

"Helping out a friend. That's good. I like that," the Doctor said with a smile, "One last question though."

"What's that?"

"This creature. What does it look like?"

"It's big. Twice the size of a normal pony. It has an insect like body. Six legs, with long, razor sharp claws."

"Anything else we should know?"

"It seems to be very good at hiding or, at least, being very sneaky."

"Hmm. Got it. Now then, we know what to be on the look out for and we know what we're trying to find. Keep your eyes peeled, and try not to do anything that'll draw this creature's attention. Lets go."

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