Under The Milky Way Ch. 1

Under The Milky Way
Written By Closer-To-The-Sun (Joseph Noblit)
Chapter 1: Ghost In The Machine

Night blanketed Equestria. The early morning hours in Ponyville were only visited by three different visitors; the stars, Princess Luna's moon, and a purple unicorn called Twilight Sparkle. The mare was awake for an activity she loved to do while the rest of the world was asleep, stargazing. From the comfort of the Ponyville library's balcony, the unicorn sat with her telescope and books as she charted the stars and made observations.

Looking into the telescope, she observed a couple of stars before turning back to her books and using her magic to write something with her quill. She smiled at her scribbling in the book and returned to her sky watching.

"I do love these peaceful nights. Just me, my telescope, and the stars looking down upon me," Twilight mused, reading her notes by candlelight, "Shame that no pony else joins me for these late night endeavors."

Using her magic to adjust the knobs on the telescope, Twilight's vision in the lens widened and allowed her to view more of the stars. She continued to observe the heavens until she saw what looked like a shooting star across the sky. This startled the purple pony as she backed up from her lens. She looked back up to the sky with her bare eyes to see the star stream across the sky.

"Wow, it's so beautiful. It looks so big…." Twilight commented, "….and close!" The shooting star seemed to come closer and out of the sky down to the surface. With the appearance of being engulfed fire, the star fell to the surface and landed in the outskirts of Ponyville.

Standing up, Twilight tried to take a look of what landed from the balcony. "What in Celestia's name was that?" she asked in astonishment. She looked to the other homes in Ponyville, noticing that it had not awaken any of the other residents. With a sudden burst of energy, Twilight blew out the candle and hurried inside of the library. Quickly, she gathered up a flashlight, some quills and parchment into her saddlebag. She then went to Spike's bed to try and wake her assistant.

"Spike! Spike, wake up!" she shook the small dragon's small bed, "Spike, come on, wake up!"

The baby dragon came to life, "Wha-huh?" Spike was obviously tired and not entirely awake.

"Spike, a shooting star landed just outside of Ponyville!" her voice was filled with excitement, "Come on, let's go check it out!"

"Twi….it's way too early to do anything…." Spike yawned from being woken. He quickly pulled the covers over his head.

"But just think of what we could learn from this! I mean, this is a shooting star that has landed in Equestria! And if I write a report about it, I could possibly become published scholars along with the likes of Star Swirl The Bearded! You have to come along with me, Spike, you are my assistant!" the mare's eagerness kept pushing the dragon's buttons.

From beneath his blanket, Spike replied sternly, "No, I'm going back to bed and that's final." With in moments of that statement, Spike had return to sleep.

Finally giving up on the lost cause, Twilight left her assistant to his sleep as she exited the library. With the light of the moon, Twilight trotted quickly to site of the extraterrestrial body had landed.

"Honestly, I don't understand how Spike could pass up such a rare and magnificent opportunity. This could be big! And if I write about this wonderful event, I can go down in pony history! Oh, just the thought of that is amazing to me! I can see it now in the newspapers, 'Princess's Prized Pupil Discovers Extraterrestrial Object In Ponyville'. I like the sound of that!" Twilight's imagination had captivated her mind as she drew closer to the site.

Arriving to the location where she had given an approximate estimate of it's landing, Twilight only saw a large crater. Carefully, the unicorn used her magic to take out her flashlight from the bag to shine into the hole. A little on edge with the darkness, the mare held her breath as she examined the object that had fallen from the heavens. Looking at the item sitting at the bottom, she saw it was a blue rectangular box, lying with its width down. Continuing her observation, she saw that there were what looked like a few windows on the box with a yellow tint. At one end of the object, there was a light at the top that was flashing as well as the words 'Police Box'.

"Now what exactly is this thing?" Twilight asked herself before carefully making her way down into the crater. While the shadows caused by the flashlight's beam did spook the mare, she continued on to satisfy her curiosity.

Standing next to the strange blue box, Twilight noticed it was quite large, and that in it's current position, it was as tall as her. She quickly came to the conclusion that it was not properly upright and that was meant to be standing to be three times tall than her in height.

Continuing her observation, she made another comment, "This very odd. What kind of power source is causing all of these lights to stay on? Is it an independent power source? Maybe perhaps it's charged somehow?"

"You are correct with the first, my dear!" a voice loudly and proudly proclaimed from seemingly nowhere.

This spooked Twilight very much, causing her to drop her flashlight and back away from the object in front of her. "Wh-Who said that?" her voice was filled with panic at both the disembodied voice and with her source of portable light now gone out of her reach. The idea of what it could be startled Twilight, as her first assumption was assuming that it was some type of ghost or phantom, "A-Are you some sort of gh-ghost?" After she spoke, she realized exactly how silly it sounded for her to ask something, but it did worry her nevertheless.

Responding to her question, the top of the box opened up, revealing it to be a doorway. With light coming out of the opening, a light brown stallion with darker hair popped out and smiled warmly to the fearful Twilight, "No ghost here! And certainly no Gelth! One can easily mistake those for something of a ghost."

Cowering in fear, Twilight was very cautious as she spoke, "Wh-Who are you?"

With a proud demeanor and a bright smile, he spoke, "I'm the Doctor! And what I need you to do is to trust me."