A Storm of Chaos: A Doctor Whooves Adventure

by Shotoman

The Mind of Evil

Part 19

The Mind of Evil

"Language, Derpy," the Doctor admonished absentmindedly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her half-amused, half-aggravated smirk. "What?"

"Pardon me, but what is going on?" Dawn Riser asked.

"Oh, where are my manners?" the Doctor asked sarcastically. "Dawn Riser, meet Discord. Discord, Dawn Riser. One of Celestia's celebrated students, instigator of the Dark Times."

Dawn Riser's eyes widened in shock. "The Dark...?" She couldn't help but be skeptical. "You mean to tell me, that the dread creature that thrust Equestria into centuries of darkness has been sitting here in the Royal Garden all this time?"

The Doctor's eyes were rooted on the statue, his mind obviously elsewhere even as he answered. "Oh yes. I think it was Luna's idea. Always was the more theatrical of the two. And now, thanks to our friend the Master, he's waking up for an encore performance. And six hundred years early to boot."

"Aw, you're too kind," the Master responded.

Derpy cast another glance at the statue. Its "heartbeat" was beginning to speed up. "Isn't his return one of those fixed point thingies that can never ever be changed or else the universe explodes?"

The Doctor nodded. "It's more like a balloon flying around the room making that phphphphph noise, but you get the idea. The Bearers of the Elements must beat him. That's got to happen. Not just for the one fixed point, either, but because he's got a role to fulfill down the line, one that even you wouldn't believe if I told you. Which means we have to stop this return from happening."

"Can't we just, I dunno, gather up the Elements of Harmony?" Derpy asked.

"The Elements of Harmony are nothing more than a collection of prettily carved rocks in the middle of a ruin in the middle of a forest that doesn't even have a frontier town bordering it right now," the Doctor exasperatedly answered. "To say nothing of the fact that we have no clues as to who could possibly serve as Bearers in this timeframe. Do you have any idea how many years of careful watching and subtle maneuvering it took to ensure that Twilight Sparkle and her friends would be in the right place at the right time to become the Bearers? I do. I even lent a hoof a time or two. And it's time we don't have, plain and simple."

"What if the two of you were to just take your ship back to before this all happened and stop it then?" Dawn Riser asked, earning a pair of rather shocked looks from the Doctor and his companion. "Do not look at me like that. Anypony who's read Starswirl's theories on chronomantic magic can tell you are time travelers."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Ah, to be so clever and yet so thick." Dawn Riser glared at him. "Also, Derpy, remind be to be extra careful around Miss Sparkle from now on." Turning his attention back to Dawn riser, he continued, "Starswirl the Bearded was an amazing, one of a kind unicorn, capable of a great many things. But his understanding of temporal mechanics compared to mine is like a foal on her first day of magic kindergarten compared to you, so I suppose your ignorance is understandable. We're already involved in these events. We can't just go back and change it because we know where said events lead. That leads to paradox, which leads to nasty time-eating bat-thingies and the end of everything even faster."

"What if we loaded Discord in the TARDIS and skedaddled two weeks thataway?" Derpy asked. "Figured out something from there?"

"Similar problem. Discord is far too important to the timeline to just remove. Even removing the statue from the gardens could have unpredictable results on history. Besides, without proper preparations, who knows what kind of reaction a being of his caliber could have within the Time Vortex." the Doctor shuddered. "I really would rather not find that out the hard way."

"So what can we do?"

"I don't know, all right? I just need a minute to think."

"I don't know if you've noticed, but we don't exactly have a minute."

"Oh, by all means, keep fighting," the Master interjected smugly. "Keep adding fuel to the fire."

"Shut up," the Doctor snapped.

The Master stuck his tongue out at his adversary. "Make me."

Dawn Riser rolled her eyes. "You are both children."

"Guys guys guys guys!" Derpy's voice flailed almost as much as her forelegs. "We can't do that. It only wakes him up faster!"

"You're right, Derpy," the Doctor said through a sigh. "Absolutely." He then began pacing in front of the statue, muttering under his breath, occasionally stopping to dig his forehooves through is mane. After a moment or two, he threw his head back and released a loud, long-suffering sigh. "All right. All right. Master, you win."

Three pair of eyes stared at him. "What?" three ponies asked in unison.

The Doctor spun around and began stalking toward the Master. "Did I stutter? You win. You got me to paint myself in a corner. No sonic, no time for a brilliant plan, no way to TARDIS my way to victory. So, you win. You finally outmaneuvered me. That's what this whole thing is about, isn't it? Well, fine. Take your victory, just fix this."

The two Time Chargers kept their gaze for a moment before the Master burst out laughing. "You think this was all about you?" he sputtered. "And they say I'm vain. I was dead serious before. This..." he tapped his head, "is going to end. One way or another. Beating you was just icing on the cake."

The Doctor's eyes widened as his flank hit the ground. Derpy cast him a concerned look. "Doctor...?"

The look he sent her way caused her to stop short. It was that look. That remembering-the-Time-War look. "Derpy, I... I'm sorry."

Her eyes widened at the words. "No. No, Doctor. There's something you can do. There's always something you can do."

"What, exactly?" the Doctor asked. "I have nothing, and the universe goes poof in ten seconds."

"Seven," the Master corrected.

The Doctor sighed again, his mind still desperately searching for a way to win. Then came a sudden and unexpected flash of light, blinding him.

With the spots still fading from his vision, the Doctor found himself giggling fitfully, briefly forgetting where he was. "Doctor?" a voice asked from above. He glanced up and saw Derpy looking down at him, hovering in place. There was something wrong with that, but the Doctor wasn't quite sure what.

"Oh, hey Derpy," he managed through a laugh. "How are you doing?"

She scrunched her face up in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Of course! Just a bit of a temporal anomaly. They always put me through a bit of a funny turn. Just give me a second." With a giggle he turned to see the Master, his eyes doing a brilliant impersonation of Derpy's on a bad day. "Oh, look. It's the Master."

A brief moment passed, and the jumbled pieces snapped back together in the Doctor's mind. Suddenly alert again, the Doctor took in his surroundings. The three of them were floating in an anti-gravitational effect. Not magic, he could feel that. It was technology. Very familiar technology. But where was Dawn Riser? He looked around for her and found her lying off on the ground, unconscious and with a trickle of blood tricking from her mane. Not good.

"Doctor, look!" Derpy pointed. "The statue's stopped."

She was right. Discord had in fact stopped showing signs of awakening. What the Doctor could see that Derpy could not was the faint blue energy field surrounding it. "Oooh. Clever. Temporal stasis."

"What's that mean?"

"It means someone's cheating," the Master groused. "That statue is now frozen in this exact moment in time until the one who set the device decides to free it. Probably in six hundred years."

The Doctor was grinning appreciatively. "It's a fast and dirty piece of temporal technology. The Time Chargers haven't used it in generations--it's more of a Time Agency thing. Still, in this case it's brilliant. Wish I'd thought of it."

"As do I," a mysterious voice said from behind the statue. "I was hoping not to reveal my hoof until the game had ended." The trio of ponies looked to see an old unicorn in a black Gallopfreyan robe limp out from behind the statue. The sight of him caused the Doctor to bring a hoof to his head in pain, as it brought forth memories; memories which, due to their rather... complex nature, the Doctor kept safely locked up.

His first life, taking a lovely little stroll down the Royal Canterlot Garden, whisked away to face Daleks alongside his lovely granddaughter Timekeeper. His second life, bending the rules of time just a little to visit his old friend the Brigadier, suddenly taken alongside the old stallion to face monsters and rather painful illusions. His third life, taken while having a nice little drive on ol' Bessie, forced to fight Cyberponies and other mechanical threats with Wordsmith. Just like old times. His fourth life, taking a relaxing day off with Romana, whisked away and fallen prey to an old mind-control relic--a rather embarrassing weakness to an otherwise brilliant run. And his then-current fifth life, fading away and close to death due to the removal of his past selves. After all, a pony is the sum of his memories, a Time Charger moreso. The Master was there, but was not the instigator of it all. No, that was the pony standing before him now. Former lord president of Gallopfrey, willing to risk the entire universe because of a petty fear of the inevitable.

"Borusa."

Author's Note:

Yes, I know I changed things up a little with the Five Doctors. As I understand it, a lot of Peter Davidson's plot in that one was meant for Tom Baker, but when they couldn't get him to come, they shifted his side arc to Davidson. I figured, this is a slightly alternate Doctor to begin with, and actors are no issue with fanfic, so in the history of this Doctor, #4 was in fact directly involved :)

Comments

[Tragicom]

Hello Old Friend/Enemy.

[DJ TR33]

...oh dear.

[Puzzle Reader]

Chapter! <3

[Stiggerzz]

i love the smell of update in the morning

[MisterSpiffy]

You wrote this chapter a year ago. Either you had inside information or incredible foresight on the use of Discord. Either way, great and fortuitous foreshadowing.

BTW, this fic deserves far more likes and comments then it has.

[IllusionedDrawer64]

"Similar problem. Discord is far too important to the timeline to just remove. Even removing the statue from the gardens could have unpredictable results on history. Besides, without proper preparations, who knows what kind of reaction a being of his caliber could have within the Time Vortex." the Doctor shuddered. "I really would rather not find that out the hard way."

Hmmmmmmm...sounds familiar....