"Well, I must say you girls continue to impress, no matter which dimension you inhabit." Discord said with his typical friendly grin. "Oh, and of course, you two," he added to the Doctor and Derpy, almost dismissively. Derpy rankled just a little, but the Doctor grinned with a soft chuckle.
Sitting on the grass in front of him were four cages, each with one of his created super-powered Nnn'toks. The Doctor couldn't help but grin at the proud looks on the girls' faces despite themselves. Discord was smiling, and it was genuine. He snapped his fingers, and the Nnn'toks vanished, the back of Applejack's head stopped hurting, and even the scrapes and scratches that Rainbow Dash had inflicted on herself vanished.
Another snap brought up the birdcage with the original Nnn'tok in it, which he handed to the Doctor. "I believe this is yours." Rubbing his hands, he took to the air. "And with that, I must take my leave, I think."
"Wait, that's it?" Sunset asked.
Discord guffawed as he flipped himself upside-down again, and hovered just right to meet eye contact with her. He'd found that simple displays like this tended to be just as disconcerting to others as more elaborate shows. "Yes, my dear. That's it. I told you from the get-go that I planned to give the little rat up, didn't I? All you had to do was indulge in a game, and you did so. And the lot of you won said game with flying colors, I might add. You were all quite entertaining." Discord turned to the Derpy's. "You two in particular. That was most clever, even if a bit over-destructive." When Other Derpy paled, Discord laughed. "Don't worry. All is as it was. You have nothing to fear, there." Other Derpy sighed in relief.
Once again Discord flipped rightside-up, and positioned himself as if he was on a hammock. "So, I suppose I've done all I came here to do, so I should be off. I've tea time with my Fluttershy anyway. Ta!" And then he was gone. There was no smoke, no sound, nothing. One moment he was there, then he was not.
"Huh. That was... surprisingly anti-climactic," Sunset Shimmer couldn't help but mutter. The Doctor and Derpy shared a look, then burst out laughing. "What?"
"Sorry, sorry," the Doctor managed. "But, well... for all our talk of the fun of what we do... well, anti-climax is so rare that we actually find it something of a treat when it happens."
Other Derpy looked between the too laughing loons before her. "You two are weird."
Derpy grinned. "We totally are." Other Derpy's face screwed up a bit in consideration, then she grinned just as widely as her counterpart.
The Derpy's and the Doctor took a moment and watched as as Sunset said goodbye to the other girls. Hugs were shared, laughs were had. Nothing out of the ordinary for a large group of in-their-own-ways somewhat emotional girls, and Sunset wasn't visibly more emotional than them, but the Doctor could still see it. This was still a bit new to her, and she still felt awe at it all -- she was just pretty good at hiding it.
"Kinda reminds me of Twilight Sparkle those first couple years." Leave it to Derpy to hit the nail on the head.
Other Derpy shuffled a bit in place as Sunset's five friends split up and went their own separate ways. "I guess I gotta go, too."
Derpy wrapped an arm around Other Derpy's shoulders. "Hey, maybe we'll see each other again."
The Doctor grinned. "A relatively easy to access alternate universe? With all the new sights that come with it? I can almost guarantee it."
Other Derpy smiled, and Derpy blinked. So that's what she looked like. No wonder the Doctor tried to keep her smiling so much. It was nice. Sunset had came back to the trio by then and said, "Oh, before you go, we got each other's phone info now, so... ah... be sure to give me a call sometime, okay?"
Other Derpy's smile brightened up even more. "Sure!" She gave Sunset an almost knock-down hug, which caused Sunset's face to turn beet red, and skipped off -- only falling over once before vanishing from sight.
Sunset was still smiling, and the red hadn't quite left her cheeks when she said. "So. You have questions, I take it?"
The Doctor nodded. "Indeed I do. There's been something I've noticed about this place practically since I arrived. First there was the class. A number of students seemed inordinately happy with my atrocious opening. Then there's you. You recognized me immediately. And, ignoring the whole change to a bipedal species, I wasn't wearing this face last we met. And I'm pretty sure you've never seen me with one of my other ones. Then there were the girls; I mean, Pinkie knowing about me is one thing -- she just... does that -- but I could tell that Rainbow Dash seemed to know who I was as well. She was subtle about it -- by her standards -- but I could still tell. And last but certainly not least was your Vice Principal. In short, how is it I can possibly be known here?"
Sunset sighed as she withdrew her phone. "Okay. Okay. You've already seen how this world pretty much has one-to-one counterparts to ponies back home. 'Others', I guess. Well, your 'other' is a little... different."
She handed him the phone and he curiously looked at the video she'd pulled up. There he was, brown hair, brown coat, and... huh, brown eyes... standing in front of a classroom doing that 'physics, physics, physics' thing. Then the video switched over to a black and white scene of what was obviously his first life, bidding farewell to his granddaughter. Another scene change to his short and dumpy phase, giving that one speech about the tea getting cold to who must have been Ace. The clip was about ten minutes long -- and in it he saw human representations of all his previous lives, acting out major moments of his life. He even saw and recognized the future regeneration he had that one meetup with in his TARDIS about a year prior.
The Doctor looked up from the phone, the look on his face unreadable. "What is this, exactly?"
"Well, you do exist here. Sort of. You're a long - running television show. A fiction, basically. Your stories have been running for something like fifty years, give or take. The whole regeneration thing was how the creators came up with rotating new actors in and keeping the show going, or something. Rainbow Dash is a huge fan, though she tries to hide it. It's something of a 'geek show.' I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Luna watched it as well. She's actually kinda geeky when you get to know her. So, yeah. There you go."
There was a long moment, then the Doctor burst out laughing. It was almost, almost a mad cackle. "Oh, brilliant. Brilliant! Absolutely, totally, completely brilliant!"
Sunset was confused. "That... wasn't what I was expecting," she admitted.
Derpy grinned. "What, you thought he'd be sad because he'd learn he wasn't 'real?'"
Sunset shrugged. "Kinda?"
The Doctor whooped even harder at that. "How does being fictional equal not being real?" he asked. "I exist over here just fine. Better than fine. I'm a story, over here! That's... that's just..."
"Brilliant?" Derpy asked, a grin on her face.
"YES!"
The Doctor returned the phone, the laughter quieted down, his smile not fading. "Thank you for that, Sunset. It made my day."
Before Sunset could say anything else, they were interrupted by a loud, slightly shrill "THERE YOU ARE!"
All three of them spun at the sound of the voice, to see a violet skinned girl with pink-streaked purple hair, a blue blouse, and a purple skirt and boots combo tromping up to them. The Doctor's smile strained just a little. "Any chance this is Other Twilight?"
Sunset did not hide her glee. "If there is one, I haven't met her. She doesn't go to this school, anyway."
Twilight Sparkle stomped right up to the Doctor and poked a finger right in his chest. "Do you have any idea of how difficult it is to keep a psionically induced town-wide riot contained without my alarm spells alerting me that the local clock maker and mailmare were sneaking into my basement and messing with my mirror? What are the two of you even doing here?"
The Doctor was grinning nervously. "Yes, well, ah... Oh look a distraction!"
Twilight spun to look where he was pointing for just a brief moment, then turned back around and the Doctor and Derpy were gone and Sunset was completely failing to hide her humor. Sunset pointed in the rough direction of the front of the school and Twilight turned and saw the Doctor running full tilt, a birdcage in one hand, and Derpy draped over his shoulder, waving back at her.
"Get back here and answer me, you two! You can't get away from me!" Twilight stopped almost mid-stride, and turned apologetically to Sunset. "Sorry I can't stay long, Sunset, but..."
"No problem," Sunset said, her voice shaking with barely contained laughter. "I'll write you in the journal later, set up a get-together."
Twilight smiled briefly at that, then charged full speed after the retreating form of the Doctor as Sunset let the laughter out at last.
~DrW~
Derpy sighed in contentment as she clopped her newly reformed hooves on the familiar floor of the TARDIS. "Hooves sweet hooves."
The Doctor was less enthused as he missed the button he was trying to press on the Old Girl's console. "One day with fingers has spoiled me, I think."
"You can keep 'em. I like me just the way I am."
The Doctor grinned. "Of course you do."
Derpy got comfortable on the old couch. "You're not going to be able to avoid her forever you know."
"I know, I know, it's just... you know how she gets when she sees a new... learny-thing. And you've seen what happens when Twilight Sparkle and time travel meet. It's scary."
Derpy grinned. "Even so, you can't avoid it much longer, I think."
"True, true. But let's get the little guy back home first. Then..."
"Then...?"
The Doctor smiled broadly. "It's been a while since we just hit the random button. What do you say?"
Derpy laughed. "Sure, Doctor. Sounds great."
~THE END~