Allons-Y!
Part 2
Allons-Y!
A sharp blow to the back of the head brought the Doctor's attention back to his wall-eyed friend and companion. “Oi!” he exclaimed.
“Language, Doctor,” Derpy admonished sternly.
“Right, right,” the Doctor muttered as he brought the sonic screwdriver to bear on the little corpse in the box. Under his breath he added, “Not that bollocks means anything to you...” After a brief moment of the instrument's buzzing, the alien stallion brought the Screwdriver to eye level and growled something that by all rights pony vocal chords should not be able to produce. He got smacked again for his trouble. “Oi!”
“I know when you're cursing in alien, Doctor,” Derpy reminded him.
The Doctor glared at Derpy for a moment, then turned his attention to Wordsmith, who was biting her lip to keep from laughing out loud. The Doctor himself was less than amused. “I assume you know the significance of this?” he asked.
“Of course,” Wordsmith responded. “That was one of the reasons I accepted the job—other than the fact you just don't say no to Princess Celestia, of course.”
“Why not?” the Doctor asked, a bit of his humor returning. “I do all the time.”
“So what does this mean, Doctor?” Derpy asked.
“Well, Derpy, you know what this is, right?” The Doctor held up the box so his companion could get a good look.
“Of course. It's a...” Derpy gulped here. “...dead pony.”
“Exactly. A dead pony. Specifically, a dead pony who's been killed and shrunk by a Tissue Compression Eliminator. The list of beings who use Tissue Compression Eliminators as part of their M.O. is very short indeed. Well, it's actually a list of one. Which makes this whole thing very unsettling.”
Derpy tilted her head. “Why is that?”
The Doctor sighed. “Because I really hoped you'd never have to meet this one particular being.” The Doctor shook his head, and a melancholy expression crossed his face. “You know how I've told you I'm the last of the Time Chargers?” Derpy nodded. “Well, I may not be. I could never know for sure, but there is one who very well might have escaped the War.”
Derpy's expression brightened. “Why did you never tell me before? I could have helped you look for...” Realization dawned. “He's bad, isn't he?”
The Doctor nodded. “Oh yes. He's like me, only, well, bad. He even chose his own name the way I did. Calls himself the Master.” A frown formed on his face. “But something doesn't add up. He hasn't used the T.C.E. in ages, and for a very good reason. Its primary use is in stealth and hiding evidence. And it works well on local police and the like, but to me just using it is like shouting through a megaphone 'Here I am! Come get me!' Even if he hadn't left the body behind, and even if I hadn't been made aware of the problem, I would have discovered traces of its energy signature when I was going to scan the dungeons in a couple of days.”
“You scan the Canterlot dungeons often, then?” Wordsmith was smirking.
“Once a week at least. Very tempting place for outsiders who would do ponykind harm. Derpy and I found and dismantled a Cyberpony transmat there just last week, didn't we, Derpy?”
“Yup!” was the cheerful reply.
“Never told Celestia I do it, so she doesn't know, or pretends not to. But the point is,” the Doctor said, trying to stay on track, “this was careless and sloppy. And while I could use many adjectives to describe the Master, those are not included in the list. That leaves a number of possible scenarios, the least worrying being that he's simply fallen on old habits and is taunting me.”
“Oh, that's the least worrying, is it?” Wordsmith rolled her eyes.
“You've gotten cheeky over the years, do you know that?” the Doctor asked irritably. “Another possibility is that we're dealing with one of his earlier regenerations—the implications of that I'd really rather not dwell on. For one thing, I always get a headache after meeting any of the stallions I used to be. The final and most worrying scenario is that somehow someone else managed to find or reproduce the T.C.E. and is using it to send us on a wild goose chase.” There was silence for a moment as the Doctor let that sink in. “Well,” he suddenly blurted, his mood shifting back to annoyingly cheerful. “The only way we're going to find out what's going on is to go to Canterlot and investigate ourselves.”
“Oh, oh! Are we going to meet with Princess Celestia?” Derpy asked with an inordinate amount of excitement.
“You travel with the Doctor, don't you?” Wordsmith asked. “Surely you've met the Princess.”
“Oh, lots of times. But still, it's Princess Celestia! Oh! This is gonna be one of those trips isn't it? I'd better call Carrot Top and ask her to watch over Dinky for me!” With that, the hyper gray mare grabbed a small communications device off the control console, turned her back to the others, and began talking animatedly into it.
“Is she always so... energetic?” Wordsmith asked the Doctor.
“Of course! Why do you think I chose her in the first place?”
“Honestly?” the aging mare asked, smirking. “I figured it was so she could stand around looking impressed while you were being clever.”
“Derpy?” The Doctor laughed, either ignoring or not catching the dig. “She barely even notices when I'm being clever. And when she does, it's usually because, and I quote, 'I didn't understand a word you just said.'” The Doctor laughed again, then cast a gentle glance over at the wildly gesticulating pony. “No, I chose Derpy as a companion because it doesn't matter if it's the birth of a star at the far end of the universe or just a Wednesday night in Ponyville, she can see it.”
“'See it?'” Wordsmith asked, confused. “See what?”
“Everything!” the Doctor replied, a smile on his face that his former companion had never seen him wear before. The Doctor's expression then turned quizzical. "What?" he asked.
Wordsmith started. "What, what?"
"What's with that look? That 'I'm kind of sad but kind of happy' look?"
Wordsmith chuckled. "Since when were you an expert at reading expressions?"
"I have had over nine hundred years experience you know."
Wordsmith just shook her head and patted the Doctor gently on the shoulder. "I'm just thinking... It's good to see you happy for a change. You used to be so melancholy when there wasn't some big disaster surrounding you."
The Doctor blushed a bit. "Well, I was a different stallion back then, you know."
"Maybe on the outside, and a few quirks and tastes were different, but you're always you at the core."
Fortunately for the Doctor's growing discomfort, Derpy had finished her conversation and rejoined the other two. “Alrighty. Everything's taken care of, but Carrot Top said to bring her a 'really cool souvenir' this time.”
“I'll see what I can do.” The Doctor chuckled as he rubbed his front hooves. “Are we all ready?” He didn't wait for an answer before he began a mad dance around the console, mashing buttons, turning levers, smashing the bell with a hammer, and smacking the whack-a-mole. As the familiar screeching began to sound, the room shook violently, knocking Wordsmith on her flank. The Doctor laughed like mad, as Derpy joined in with her own “Woohoo!” The wide eyed look of disbelief on Wordsmith's face simply made him laugh all the harder.
“Three, two, one!” the Doctor counted down as he grabbed one last lever. “Allons-Y!”
~DrW~
The statue rattled and shook before exploding into tiny fragments, releasing the mismatched creature within. Discord took a moment to stretch out the kinks before taking in his surroundings. “Now that was an interesting experience,” he muttered, before the alien surroundings did the near impossible and stunned him into a brief silence. He was standing in a small cylinder of light, which, when he tried to poke a finger through it, sent him reeling back with a painful feedback. The room was dimly lit, mostly by various screens flashing information that looked to Discord to be gibberish. In the middle of the room was a game board of some kind, with custom pieces. Discord recognized himself, of course, and vaguely remembered the gray pegasus with the funny expression placed next to the boring looking brown stallion, but the rest of the pieces were unrecognizable—most of them not even ponies.
“Somebody fancies himself a game master,” the draconequus muttered to himself.
“I do not fancy myself one,” a voice boomed throughout the room. “I know myself to be one.”
“Ah, and so my gracious host decides to show himself,” Discord mocked. When no one stepped from the shadows, he amended, “Or not. So I suppose that since I'm here, and on your board over there, that I am included in whatever game you're playing?”
“You would be correct.”
Discord grinned. “Yes, well, unfortunately I prefer to be the one setting the rules, so I'm afraid I'll have to opt out on this one.” With that, Discord snapped his bird-talon like fingers and in a flash of bright light... stayed planted exactly where he was standing, blackened with soot covering him head to foot. Discord coughed a black cloud. “Okay. That was different,” he muttered.
The voice laughed. “Oh you planet-locked beings can be so short sighted. You're convinced that because you are far and away the most powerful being in Equestria, that makes you the most powerful being everywhere.”
“Not an unreasonable assumption, normally,” Discord conceded. “So. If you're capable of so much more than me, I take it it's not my magical power you're after. That begs the question... what is it can I provide you that's so important to risk waking me up to gain it?”
“Risk?” the voice laughed. “What risk? I have your so-called magic completely nullified. You provide me with no risk. No being who could be so easily defeated by six mares barely older than fillies from some little provincial town could ever hope to be a threat to me.”
Discord laughed. “Are you trying to get under my skin, little... well, whatever you are? You're going to have to try harder than that. I don't like being beaten by any means, but I do learn from the experience. And if I had the bits, I'd bet you're not the undefeated Grandmaster you pretend to be either.” The silence that answered his taunt told Discord he was right. “Now then, since you obviously aren't going to tell me what you want from me just yet and the introductions, such as they are, have been made, I guess the game has officially begun. I do feel I should warn you, though. I'm not some pawn on your board. I'm an active player. So game on.”
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I've only seen the season with the ninth Doctor so far, so I haven't seen anything with the Master, but he seems like a nast piece of work. I'm looking forward to reading more of this!
Hmm, a game of wits.
Intresting.
I like this! But there is a problem; It seems like you're leaning on Doctor Who for your dialogue. Some comparisons I found...
In your fic:
And this line from the 11th Doctor episode, The Impossible Astronaut:
Once more, in your fic:
And in a deleted scene from series 5, right after the end of Flesh and Stone:
Reusing dialogue straight from the show is fine if it's just a catchphrase, like "well" or "allons-y!" (which has two L's, if you could fix your chapter title). In this case, though, it just seems like you're trying to shove a Doctor Who reference into the fic... which seems a bit redundant, all things considered. And clunky.
More than that, it's a bit confusing. Those lines are from the Eleventh Doctor era - isn't this supposed to be the Tenth Doctor?
(Oh, and I believe there was another example last chapter, where you reused dialogue from School Reunion - but given how it was a conversation between Sarah Jane and the Doctor, and that here the lines are read by Pony Sarah Jane and Pony Doctor, that example doesn't stand out as much.)
Overall, it's pretty good, but that issue stands out to me.
1408139
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the critiques, though now I get to go ahead and say a few words defending my choices.
You mentioned the lines from "School Reunion." The point there (and the later similar scenes) is that, well, this is a different dimension with a different Doctor. (Basically the classic series happened here with a roughly 90% similarity to the 'real' universe, while New Who deviates because Doctor Nine found Derpy instead of Rose Tyler), so this is the School Reunion scene. It also shows how things are different because of the differences between this universe an the other. When Derpy showed up, due to her being so enthusiastic and innocent, instead of a pissing match on who's experienced more with the Doctor, Derpy just instantly wants to know what she's seen because it's just so cool to meet somepony else who's traveled with the Doctor. There will be other similar scenes going on later--in fact, this story is in the end going to be about 1/3 ponified retelling when all is said and done. (For one thing, I wanted to specifically use the New Who Master, and his in show introduction was just far to fitting for me to not use.)
As for the eleventh Doctor dialogue, well with the "stand around while I'm looking clever" bit, the Doctor just said aloud what a lot of fans thought about the point of the companions, and with Wordsmith still working out her opinion of Derpy based on her actions so far, it seemed logical she'd come to that conclusion. Also the "She sees everything bit" was just a beautiful explanation of why the Doctor takes companions in general, and why he'd choose Derpy in particular. Doctor 11 may have said it, but he really is the same man as 10, 9... all the way back to 1. I doubt that deleted scene was the first time he'd ever said something similar to a companion, though I doubt he'd say it often. And I used it in a way that I figured the tenth Doctor would--not as an emotional declaration to the companion herself (he's always had trouble with that kind of overt displays of emotion), but a casual admission to one who is easily one of his best friends.
While I admit to swiping some dialogue and scenes for this story, none of it was purely for random references. In some cases, I had dialogue needs that existing dialogue provided a pretty little solution for, and had the added effect of a (at least I thought) subtle show reference. The stolen scenes are there mostly for showing both the similarities and differences between the my universe's Doctor and the original one.
oh this should be fun the master and discored the doctor is gonna need help with this one
i can't the the only one who read discord in john de Lancie's voice. anyone?
this story has all of my yes so far, and i await the further chapters with much eagarity
1960320
If you weren't reading Discord in John de Lancie's voice, you wouldn't be doing it right. ;-)
Heck, if you aren't reading Wordsmith's voice in Elizabeth Sladen's, you really should start.
2555147
Thanks to you, I'm reading The doctor's voice in David Tennant's and Derpy's voice in Rose's.
okay, I'm crossing my fingers for the third Doctors Master, anyone else? no? just me? oh well, in any case. I freakin love this. he got under the skin of the Master, now that's an accomplishment if I ever did see one.
3048782
I, personally, am rooting for Saxon. Or Missy.
They're cool like bowties