Through The Crack: Part 2 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Swapping Stories

"So, uh, what were we talking about?" the Doctor asked after Eggman closed the door.

Eggman turned from the door and gasped at what he saw. The inside of the TARDIS was almost a uniform tan and brown with a pattern of yellow lights going covering the entirety of the domed walls. In the center of the room was a large turquoise cylinder, at the bottom of which was a very odd looking control panel that encircled the large cylinder. Past the cylinder, at the far end of the room, was a passageway that Eggman assumed led to other rooms. Leading up to the control panel were metal walkways. How did
this all fit into that tiny blue box?

The Doctor noticed Eggman's gasp and smiled. "I thought you saw inside here with those x-ray glasses."

Eggman shook his head. "Not in this much detail and, just because I saw it, doesn't mean I understand it."

"Time Lord technology, my friend," the Doctor said, beaming with pride. "And that reminds me; we were talking about me being a Time Lord."

"Yeah, you said that that was some sort of alien..." Eggman paused and glanced at the Doctor. "Are all Time Lords ponies?" he asked, walking up to the control panel.

"No, Time Lords come from an entirely different universe than the ponies," the Doctor explained, fiddling with some of the buttons and knobs. "You see, there are, so far that I've found, 3 different universes: mine, the pony one, and yours... of course, I only found out about yours recently."

"How long ago did you find out about mine?" Eggman questioned, wondering if the Doctor had ever previously been to his world.

"A couple of minutes ago, when I saw you outside the TARDIS's door, actually. The only reason I knew that you were from a different universe was because you're too colorful and... oddly-shaped to be a human of my universe but not colorful enough to be part of the ponies' world," the Doctor said, continuing to fiddle with the controls.

Eggman looked down at the assortment of knobs, buttons, and levers on the control panel and wondered idly how the Doctor could possibly use it. It all looked so confusing to navigate; it mad no sense! The only thing Eggman recognized was a computer monitor raised about a foot off the control panel, but it was currently blank.

"What are you doing, exactly?" asked Eggman, glancing at the Doctor. It looked like he was pushing buttons and pulling levers at random, and... how on Earth did he do that with those hooves!? That shouldn't even be possible!

"I am tracing back the TARDIS's last known path so that we can go back to where I last left from," answered the Doctor.

"And where would that be?"

The Doctor smiled. "Canterlot, in the pony nation of Equestria," he said, pushing a blue button and pulling a T-shaped lever. "Allons-y!"

Suddenly, the TARDIS began shaking and some stuff inside the center cylinder began moving up and down. The shaking intensified to the point where Eggman and the Doctor had to hold on to the metal railings surrounding the platform. At the same moment, the grinding noise Eggman had heard earlier began again.

"Is this normal!?" Eggman shouted, holding onto the railing for dear life and nervously glancing around the room, waiting for something to explode. Maybe this wasn't the best idea for escaping the void.

The Doctor nodded, his forelegs wrapped around the railing. "Definitely! Of course, it's nor-" Part of the control panel exploded in a shower of sparks, shortly followed by another shower of sparks from a different part of the panel. "-mal!"

At that, the shaking and noise ceased.

The Doctor let go of the railing. "Alrighty then Dr. Eggman, let's discuss the universes," he said. At the sight of Eggman's terrified face, the Doctor burst into laughter.

"What? What's so funny?" questioned Eggman. untangling himself from the railing.

The Doctor was laughing so hard now, tears began spilling out of his eyes. "It's just y-your face! It was hysterical!" the Doctor squeezed in between fits of laughter.

Eggman blushed. "Uh, yes, quite funny.. but, um, you were saying something about the different universes?"

"Yes, right," said the Doctor, recovering from his laughter. "Before we discuss anything though, can you tell me what caused you to be in the void between worlds?" His gaze became just the slightest bit suspicious.

Now it was up to Eggman to think of something fast. In retrospect, it probably would've been better to think of what he was going to say once this came up instead of asking all those questions. Curiosity had gotten the better of him and it still gnawed at the corners of his mind, trying to get him to ask more question, but now was a time for quick thinking, not curiosity. It occured to Eggman that he had two possibilities: he could tell the truth but say that he was going to change (which he now fully intended to do) or he could lie about it.

"Me and my, uh, cousin were trapped there by the evil Sonic the Hedgehog and his genetically mutated fox henchman Tails," Eggman lied, choosing the option that he felt he could gel with easier. After all, he'd lied before with success, the gullible echidna Knuckles being just one example. He hoped the Doctor was nearly as gullible. "That hedgehog has a history of turning poor innocent woodland creatures into robots to help with his evil plans. His latest plan involved them using a teleporter to transport me and my... cousin outside of the universe... what is it?" he asked, noticing that the Doctor had closed his eyes and frowned.

"The Doctor's eyes opened. "Nothing, nothing, it's just that those names sound familiar..." the spiky-haired pony replied, trailing off.

Eggman laughed a very nervous laugh. "Well, isn't that wierd!" he said, trying to keep his voice steady. On the inside, Eggman was freaking out. If the Doctor somehow recognized Sonic and Tails, then Eggman was doomed. "Wait a second, how do you know that that was the void between the different universes? When we were actually in there, you couldn't recognize it."

"Yes, well, I've never actually seen it before, so I wouldn't have recognized it until I heard it described," started the Doctor. "When I heard that it was entirely devoid of time, I knew that it had to be the void between worlds; no other place that I know of is completely devoid of time."

"I see..."

"Anyway," the Doctor continued, "you told me about your universe, so I'll tell you about the other two." He cleared his throat. "First up is my universe.

"My universe isn't exactly what you'd call light-hearted and fun; it can be but, for the most part, it's pretty dark and depressing. It has thousands of alien races including humans, Time Lords, Daleks, Cybermen, just to name a few. I am a Time Lord, the most ancient and revered race in my entire universe. Over time, they developed the ability to partially control time. They were a good, peace-loving race... at least, until the Time War."

"The Time War?"

"Yes, a war that was fought throughout the entirety of time and space, a war that ended up destroying the Time Lords and my home planet, Gallifrey. I barely survived. Ever since, I've been traveling through time and space seeing the sights, sometimes taking companions along with."

Eggman could tell that the Doctor was leaving something out. He wondered what it could be. "So, where does this pony universe come in?"

"Well, nearly a year ago, I tried to mess with time. Some points in time, like important events, are fixed, meaning they can't be changed. Well, I tried to change one. It backfired horribly. Now I'm a marked man, death was coming for me in that universe. I couldn't have that so I ran and somehow ended up in the pony universe."

"So, what's the universe like?" Eggman asked. If he was going to go there, he should at least know what it was like.

"I was getting to that," retorted the Doctor. "Anyway, on my journey into the pony universe, I found myself ponified! In my universe, I look a lot closer to a human, so I was pretty wierded out. At the same time, I was fascinated. A universe run by ponies? How cool is that!? Ever since that moment, I've stayed in the pony universe, going to all the important events and making sure nothing goes too out of the ordinary. If it does get out of the ordinary, I try and fix it from behind the scenes, never up front.

"The pony universe itself is very colorful, loving, and tolerant; a very nice departure from my dark and depressing universe. There are 4 types of ponies: Earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, and alicorns. Earth ponies make up a majority of the population. I'm an Earth pony. Pegasi are the second most common. Unlike Earth ponies, pegasi have wings, which let them fly and walk on clouds. Their main job is to control the weather. Unicorns don't have wings but they do have horns. The horns let them use magic and manipulate their environments more easily than the pegasi or Earth ponies. Alicorns are by far the rarest. In fact, I've only ever seen 3 of them! The two royal sisters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and one that just got married, Princess Cadence. Celestia is the ruler of Equestria and raises the sun every morning. Luna raises the moon each night. The capitol of Equestria is Canterlot, which is where we're heading, but my personal favorite is Ponyville, mostly because that's where all the action happens. Ponyville is also where the Elements of Harmony live."

"Elements of Harmony?" Eggman questioned, ideas forming in his head. If these Elements were anything like the Chaos Emeralds from his universe then maybe-- no. No! He wasn't going to be that guy anymore!"

"The Elements of Harmony are actually 6 ponies who represent the 6 different traits of Harmony. The Earth pony Applejack represents the spirit of honesty, the pegasus Fluttershy represents the spirit of kindness, the Earth pony Pinkie Pie represents the spirit of laughter, the unicorn Rarity represents the spirit of generosity, the pegasus Rainbow Dash represents the spirit of loyalty, and the unicorn Twilight Sparkle represents the most powerful and elusive element: magic," the Docotr explained. "Of course, since they only represent the spirits of the Elements, they need to have the physical forms of the Elements in order to focus their power and use it fully."

Well, there went the possibility of using the Elements for any funny business. "So we're going to this, uh... Canterlot, was it called?" asked Eggman.

The Doctor nodded. "This was where I was before I ended up finding you in the void."

"But I thought you said that this 'Ponyville' was your favorite place? If that's the case, why were you in Canterlot?" asked Eggman.

"I was at the royal wedding," the Doctor replied. At the confused look that Eggman gave him, he added, "The wedding for Princess Cadence and Shining Armor."

"Funnily enough, I've never been to a wedding," Eggman said, frowning. For some reason, this bugged him.

"Yeah, well, I try to stay away from them; weddings and me don't mix very well..." said the Doctor, trailing off.

Suddenly, the grinding noise began once again and, upon hearing it, Eggman launched himself at the nearest railing and wrapped himself around it, squeezing his eyes shut. After a few moments, the noise stopped and Eggman opened his eyes. After untangling himself from the railing, he said, "There was no shaking that time." He looked at the Doctor.

The spiky-haired pony had tears in his eyes and his mouth was tightly shut. A couple of seconds later, the Doctor exploded into laughter and began rolling on the floor. The laughter echoed off the walls and made the volume increase.

"I thought you said that the earth pony Pinkie Pie represented the element of laughter," Eggman growled, crossing his arms and fiercely glaring daggers at the Doctor.

"And I thought nothing could top your face from earlier," said the Doctor, getting u and wiping the tears from his eyes. "Boy, was I wrong!" Upon looking at Eggman again, the Doctor launched into an intense fit of the giggles.

Eggman facepalmed. "Can you please just tell me what exactly that sound meant?"

"It meant," the Doctor started, recovering at last, "that we have reached our destination." He began walking towards the door, gesturing for Eggman to follow him.

"Wait, if I go out there, won't I turn into a pony like you did?" Eggman asked, hesitantly following behind.

The Doctor chuckled and shook his head as they reached the door. "Apparently not. Remember, I said I began transforming into a pony on the journey into the universe, not as soon as I stepped foot-- hoof into the universe itself." Suddenly, the Doctor kicked open the door, revealing a bright and sunny courtyard. "Anyway, welcome to Canterlot!"