//------------------------------// // 7. Daleks Have No Concept of Change // Story: "Daleks Have No Concept of Friendship!" // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// By default, the main room of the Type-40 TARDIS that Soldier entered was simple in its layout, a central control console stemming from the Matrix intended to be operated by six Time Lords, a holographic imaging screen, and few other features aside from doors leading deeper into the vehicle and walls covered in glowing circular designs. The Doctor had altered the color scheme, however; it was supposed to be white, but the Doctor had apparently elected to instead color the entire thing in hues of blues and greens from the ceiling, making the floor dark, while many of the circular designs had been converted into plastic bubbles containing trophies and mementos from across the Doctor’s lifespan. Rather absurdly, a large hourglass, taller than Soldier was now long, hung from the ceiling over the Matrix, all its sand resting at the bottom. Soldier trudged in, the Doctor following behind her and closing the doors immediately once he had, then turning to face Soldier. “Why did you do that?” He demanded. She stared at him, confused. “Explain.” “That, what you just did out there. Apologize. Why did you do that?” Soldier looked away. “I…was sorry. For lying to Spike. I apologized.” “Daleks don’t have a concept of sorrow!” The Doctor was right, of course. Soldier sat down on the floor, running one hoof against it, feeling the cold metal underneath her. “I was sorry.” “And how about everything else, then?” The Doctor asked. He came forward, sonic probe sweeping over her, scanning her. “Unless you’re going to tell me you died fresh from a Progenitor, then you and I both know there’s blood up to your eyestalk in your past life. Feel sorry for that?” “No.” “Thought not.” The Doctor took his sonic probe from his mouth and looked at it. His device was many generations in advance of the fairly crude one Soldier had been able to construct, it probably included a psychic readout and interface. He seemed somehow both satisfied and perturbed by what he saw, and made a gesture before proceeding to the control console, flipping switches and pulling levers at it. Throughout the TARDIS, the high-pitched groan began again. Soldier noted with interest, however, that the Matrix itself did not light up or move in any way – the ship was moving through space, not time, she surmised. The sound didn’t last long as the TARDIS reached its destination. “What are you going to do to me?” Soldier asked. The Doctor hadn’t really taken his eyes off of Soldier, but at that his full attention returned to her, and his eyes narrowed. “I first met your kind when the Thals were still on Skaro. I went to your city. You were planning to irradiate the planet, wipe out the Thals. Back then you still depended on energy coming up from the floor to move around. I broke that energy, I took it away. You begged me to restore it. I didn’t. I couldn’t, but even if I could have, I wouldn’t. I’d known you for a day and I knew you were filth.” “There was another time I was looking to help a poisoned friend. The universe, the whole universe, hadn’t known war for twenty-five years, and then five thousand Daleks got it into their casings to try and wipe out everything. You used a Time Destructor. I turned it on you, set it in reverse. Disassembled your casings, aged you all back to embryos and watched you die. “During the Dalek Civil War – do you remember that, Dalek? Were you there for that one? – I booby-trapped an ancient Gallifreyan artifact. I goaded Davros into using it. I set off a supernova that destroyed Skaro and then I talked the Supreme Dalek, the last Dalek, into killing itself.” The Doctor advanced on Soldier, staring down at her – easy, since not only was he taller, but Soldier had folded up a little on herself with every one of the Doctor’s words, shrinking back from the Doctor as his image blurred in her vision. “What am I gonna do to you, Dalek? Something like all that. Or maybe something new. I'm still deciding.” Soldier was silent as the Doctor continued to loom over her, eyes darting around her. After a rel, he backed away, returning to the TARDIS console and pressing some buttons. “Stop doing that.” “E-explain.” Something had happened to her throat, it felt like there was something caught there. It was a struggle to get out just one word. She heard tapping beneath her and realized that it was her hooves twitching on the metal floor of the TARDIS. “That! Looking like…like that!” The Doctor waved a hoof at Soldier again. “The big watery eyes, the trembling lip…stop it, you’re not fooling me.” He glared at the TARDIS’ console. “Where is she…” Soldier rubbed her eyes; they came away wet again, as they had before in the basement with Spike, and yet somehow the feeling was totally different. Spike had said that this was good – how could this be good? “I…my body is…wh-what have you done to me, Doctor? What have you done?” The Doctor let out a groan. “I haven’t done anything yet! I’ve talked. That’s how this normally goes, Dalek, I talk, you listen, I talk some more, you threaten to exterminate me, you never get ‘round to it before I do something clever and get away.” He returned his attentions to the console, staring into it. “Only this time I don’t have to get away. This time, I’m in control. A little gift from this reality for my retirement. Told you things just work out here. Come on, where are you…” He glanced back to the Dalek. “Not you.” “Wh-why am I trembling? Stuttering? Why a-are my eyes leaking?” The Doctor breathed out sharply, looking upwards and mouthing something silently before looking back to Soldier. “You’re scared and you’re smart. Brain the size of a planet is looking at the being who’s defeated armies of Daleks time and time and time and time again and figuring its odds of survival are zero. And you’re a pony instead of a Dalek, and the Dalek part of you is screaming at you about how wrong that is, screaming at you to exterminate yourself even as the pony part of you is trying to figure out what’s so wrong about it and how anything can hate itself so much. And you’re in what looks like an enclosed space with nowhere to run, and the part of you that’s a pony wants to run but sees that it can’t, and that’s just not helping the part of you that’s a Dalek at all.” He paused, looking away. “Or, I dunno, you have a sugar imbalance.” “Well of course she does,” a new voice said. Soldier’s head snapped in the direction, and saw, coming in, a familiar-looking blue unicorn – Minuette. She closed the door behind her and walked straight over to Soldier, though stopped several feet short of her and stooped down to look her in the eye. “Never ate anything at all until just a few hours ago, then had enough to last her a week. Including more chocolate than anypony should have in one sitting.” “Yes, well,” the Doctor said. He pointed to the control console. “You’re here. We can go now.” “I will do no such thing, that’s not what happens, and besides, I am a doctor and Soldier is still my patient.” She carefully stepped forward, holding out one hoof and gently laying it atop Soldier’s head, lightly ruffling her mane. “There, there, Soldier. I’m sorry my boyfriend’s an idiot. It’s the age. He means well, usually. And he was not going to kill you, Soldier, he was only planning on wiping your memory and putting you back in our reality in a prison that could contain you.” Soldier hiccupped for the first time in her life at Minuette’s touch, flinching away as her mind was somehow simultaneously working at a mile a minute and completely frozen at one rel in time. “Y-you are the Doctor’s companion,” she observed. Of course, that made sense given the earlier interaction between Minuette and the Doctor, the familiarity. “You…you are an e-enemy of the Daleks. Y-you are my enemy.” Minuette frowned as she stepped still closer to Soldier, hoof moving down to rest on her shoulder, touching her the way Twilight had when Twilight had been attempting to console her. “No, I’m retired.” “So am I supposed to be,” the Doctor said, stepping closer to Minuette and jabbing a hoof at Soldier. “But something’s come up and we should really just pop out of retirement for just a bit to deal with it.” The blue unicorn stepped still closer to Soldier, turning as well so she was sitting beside her, one hoof over Soldier’s withers and pulling her close, a similar action to what Twilight had done earlier. Soldier felt her body moving of its own accord, leaning in to the touch, burying itself in minuette’s fur. “Why ever should we come out of retirement?” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Because without you, Minuette – ” “Ooh, we’re being formal then? I suppose we do have someone over…” “ – without you, I don’t really have a TARDIS. I have an RDIS. I can do space but not time and we’ll need both to get back home.” “Can’t even do space very well, you dissolved half the wall of my office. Nearly destroyed my diploma, scared poor Strawberry Sunrise half to death, and you know how impossible it is to get her to sit in that chair…” “It’s psychic paper, it’s not a real diploma.” Minuette looked the Doctor up and down with indignation. “And where’s your psychic paper doctorate then, Doctor? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have one. Spoiler: you never will.” Soldier glanced between Minuette and the Doctor. The Doctor’s TARDIS was malfunctioning, but Minuette could fix it? A dentist? That didn’t seem right. “What is happening? What is going on?” She asked. Minuette reached out with her free hoof, taking one of Soldier’s into it and shaking it up and down slightly. “Let’s re-introduce ourselves. Soldier, I’m the TARDIS. Well, I was the TARDIS. Well, I was part of the TARDIS.” She nodded her head towards the command console, the Matrix it was centered around. “The important bit. But you can still call me Minuette.” Soldier glanced between her, then the console, then back to the unicorn, then back to the console. She felt her terror begin to abate as she tried to process what Minuette had said, worked through the calculations. The Daleks and the Time Lords had been nearly equal in terms of scientific understanding during the Time War, and the Type-40 TARDIS was considered a relic by the latter and had been for ages. She was well aware of the vehicle’s specifications. “Absurd,” she objected at length, wiping the wetness from her eyes. “Absurd! This is a Type-40 TARDIS. The Matrix of the TARDIS extends across time and space! It cannot be contained in a physical body!” “In our reality,” Minuette said. “Different world. Different rules. It helps that I don’t extend across all of this time and this space.” She glanced around the interior of what was, in some ways, herself, and waved a hoof to indicate it. “Just here, when I’m here…” she then tapped the same hoof to her chest. “And in here, the rest of the time.” “And…you became…a dentist?” “I’ve spent my whole life traveling. I thought I could use a break, settle down, mean to stay in one place for a while. You can learn a lot about ponies from their teeth.” At Soldier’s confused stare, Minuette pressed on. “Like whether or not they’ve been flossing!” Soldier glanced between the Doctor, the command console, and Minuette, her mind struggling to turn away from the fear, struggling to think. “You…did not arrive as I did,” she surmised. “You came here of your own volition. You came and used Time Lord science to change and adapt your bodies, this vessel, to this reality. You came…and you can leave.” The Doctor stepped forward. "Speaking of - " “Shut it, this bit’s important,” Minuette countered, jabbing a hoof at the Doctor and glaring at him. The Time Lord backed away at the intensity, a look of confusion on his face. Soldier stepped away from Minuette, rising to her hooves. “The Doctor. He spoke of Celestia with familiarity. He said he would speak to Luna about the stars. The Princesses of Equestria, he knows them. But Celestia told me I could not return. That I was trapped. Celestia lied! Lied! LIED! Or…” Soldier paused, then turned to look at the Doctor. “Or you did. You lied to Celestia. You lied to Celestia! YOU LIED!” The Doctor glared down Soldier. “No I didn’t. I told her I was a traveler from a very long ways away, that I wasn’t really a pony, that I was looking for a place to put up my hooves – I had already gotten myself hooves at the time – and rest, and that I would bring no harm to her or her ponies. That was the complete truth, it was all she asked for and even though I told her there was more, she said that I’d said enough. And what’s it matter to you, Dalek?” “I think it matters because her choice to become a pony was predicated on the idea that she didn’t have any other except death,” Minuette observed. “CORRECT!” Soldier screamed, glaring hate at the Doctor from where she stood, enough hate that had it taken form it would have been the Dalek Emperor itself. “I could still be Dalek! I COULD STILL BE DALEK! I COULD STILL BE PURE – ” Soldier froze, the last word catching in her throat, stopping breathing. She tried to, starting up with only a deliberate act of will and a hacking cough that also froze in her throat. She sucked in a breath, barely exhaled, sucked in another one, barely exhaled again…as everything that being “pure” entailed suddenly came rushing towards the front of her mind. She could be Dalek again. She could even hide her impurity, her human corruption, or covertly remove it, if she was careful and could tolerate her own existence long enough. Genetics was no more difficult than any other science to her. Already ideas danced in her mind, ways for her to go about doing it, to remove the corruption, the infection, the sickness from her cells, to become once again whole, once again pure, once again truly Dalek…and return to her Mark-III Travel Machine. Trapped. Never again to taste, to feel, to smell. No more sunlight. No more food. Never again to run free. Never again to be near anyone else, to feel their warmth. No more magic. The part of her that had been transformed by Celestia, the part of her corrupted by Rose Tyler, screamed in horror in her mind at the thought. Her Dalek mind tried to shunt it aside, to press it down, to remind Soldier of the purity she had once known, the perfection that had been hers, the glory that was her birthright… …but the Dalek part of her contained the memory of the Nightmare Child, too. The memory of her fleeing. The cowardly part of her running away, somewhere else, anywhere else but into its maw…and the pony part gave that part of her somewhere to run to, something to run towards. It wasn’t much. Chocolate and sunlight were hardly great prizes to be taken, the Dalek part of her noted. And the pony part of her also contained Spike’s scorn, the look of betrayal. It contained feelings of shame and inadequacy and futility. The pony part of her promised her moments of…of something, something positive, something barely felt but which she knew was there…amidst a lifetime of hurt and pain and loss and fear. But a life of tiny brilliance surrounded by darkness was more than the Dalek part of her could offer. The Dalek could only offer itself. The pony could offer everything. Including the Dalek part. It was going to be part of her no matter what. A part of her, but not all of her. Soldier’s legs were trembling. She closed her eyes. Whatever was freezing the breath in her throat finally gave, and she exhaled…a long and tortured scream as she fell to her knees and hocks. She took in breath only to cry out again. She felt the wetness in her eyes once more, great rivulets of tears falling from her to the floor. “I…I don’t…I don’t want to go back!” She exclaimed, looking to the Doctor, or his shape, what she could see through the tears. “I don’t want to go back! I don’t want to be a Dalek! I don’t want to die! I want to live!” The Doctor was staring at her with wide, confused eyes, she could see them even through her tears. He’d retrieved his sonic probe again and was scanning her in confusion, but then Minuette was beside him. She used her golden magic to take the sonic from him, then nodded towards Soldier. “We have now reached the part where you ask a question you should have asked her from the start,” she said softly. The Doctor looked at Minuette in confusion before turning back to Soldier. “Who…who were you, Soldier?” Soldier was hyperventilating, but she lifted herself from the floor, and repeated the breathing exercise that Twilight had shown her. When she had recovered enough, she looked to the Doctor, wiping tears from her eyes. “I…I am a soldier. I t-told you before…I do not know how long it has been since we encountered o-one another from your perspective…but from mine, less than o-one day.” The Doctor’s eyes fluttered at that. “Did I kill you?” “Y-you tried. You were stopped. I h-had been injured. I had fled the Time War. I f-fell to Earth. I burned for th-three days. I s-screamed. I could not fire my weapon. I could not kill my captors. I was tortured. I came into the p-possession of the human Henry Van Statten – ” “Rose,” the Doctor interrupted, rocking back on his hooves. He glanced all over Soldier. “You’re…that’s not possible. You committed suicide. Rose ordered you to kill yourself, I watched you reduced to dust! There was nothing left to come to Equestria! How could it have happened?” “I do not kn-know. I remember…I r-remember not existing for a time. S-stillness. Frozen i-in a moment, trapped in a s-single thought…I do n-not know for how long…b-but…but then I was here, in this world.” She breathed in sharply at the memory. Sunlight. Kind eyes belonging to a kind creature who hadn’t known her but had helped her. Soldier rubbed her eyes of tears. “Then Princess Celestia found me. She offered me life. And I could not refuse. I was…I could not die again.” The Doctor had sat down, hooves running through his mane as he stared at Soldier. “I…I didn’t know…” “You didn’t ask,” Minuette observed. She shifted back over to Soldier, hugging her, rubbing a hoof up and down Soldier’s back as the tears finally began to subside. “Didn’t even think to. Didn’t even stop to consider what it must have meant, to have a Dalek running around in a pony’s body in this world.” She released Solider to look to the Doctor, and crossed her front hooves, glaring at him. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? Things just work out here? You were right, you know. This is a kind world. It offers kindness even to creatures that don’t deserve it because one day, they might. Think about that, love. Think about this world, and then think about the sort of Dalek that Soldier would have to be, or have the potential to be, to get in.” The Doctor’s eyes finally narrowed as he looked to Minuette. “It doesn’t work like that,” he said. “The world’s not alive.” “Neither is Time, but somehow you and I both know that Time seems to dislike being fiddled with more than is absolutely necessary and bites back when pushed too far. And Space?” She leaned back and glanced up, letting out a laugh. “Don’t get me started on Space.” “She doesn’t…” The Doctor began, then paused, and looked back to Soldier. “You said you don’t even feel sorry for what you’ve done. You feel sorry for lying to a small child but not for killing…do Daleks even count how many they’ve killed?” “We do not,” Soldier confirmed. “But the number is large.” “She’s new to everything,” Minuette countered the Doctor. “She’s new to every part of her body and half of her mind. Everything she did was back during a time when she didn’t care, and it’s going to take time for her to really attach who she is now to what she did then. Guilt will come if it’s allowed to, you can’t expect her to just fall down and immediately beg forgiveness for everything when she only acquired a concept of sorrow hours ago.” Minuette looked to Soldier. “Ooh, if you think today was rough…you’re going to go to pieces one day. Not even very long from now…a year at most. But you’ll make it. You’ll be happy again at some point not long after that. Not going to tell you too much, though. Spoilers.” Soldier didn’t understand…but she had gathered that Minuette, as the TARDIS, was essentially omniscient while inside of herself. She was seeing the future. Soldier did not look forward to ‘going to pieces’…but apparently she would survive the process. She would live. Minuette frowned after a rel. “Oh. By the way, we are just about to be invaded by a rather colorful collection of ponies and one dragon.” She pointed a hoof to the door. “I convinced Twilight and her friends to give me some time with you, but I wasn’t certain it would work until I actually came inside, so…insurance. Left the door unlocked.” Soldier, the Doctor, and Minuette all looked too the door – which didn’t open, because instead there was a lavender flash-pop, and a purple alicorn, five other ponies, and one dragon were all suddenly inside the TARDIS with looks of determination in their eyes. “Doctor Oncoming Storm!” Twilight Sparkle declared loudly. “I’m not going to let you lay a hoof on Soldier! Doctor Minuette explained all about the Time War and the Daleks and the Time Lords to us.” “Actually, I get the impression she left out a lot of details…” A yellow-coated pegasus ventured. “We got the gist of it,” a cyan-coated, rainbow-maned pegasus countered. “Lots of bad ponies doing bad stuff and Soldier was one of them.” “But that doesn’t give ya the right to judge her when you were one a’ them bad ponies durin’ the Time War too,” an orange-coated earth pony that Soldier recognized as Applejack continued. “Indeed,” a white-coated unicorn said, “and especially not when Soldier hasn’t even been given the chance to correct her mistakes.” “Also?” a pink earth pony added, “I just got back in town and bad pony or not Soldier is getting a welcome to Ponyville party! I’ll throw it in the town stockade, don’t think I won’t!” Twilight stepped forward, wings spread wide. “It might be true that Soldier’s done bad things, but that was back when she was a Dalek. She deserves a chance to try to become more than what she was, to change and grow as a pony. What happened was a long time ago and in your reality, but now Soldier is in this one. Her old life had to end in order for her to get here. It was like she regenerated, just like doctor Minuette said you used to do. If regeneration could turn you into a whole new pony, why can’t it turn Soldier into one? “Soldier’s a pony now, she’s one of us – and ponies help each other, no matter what!” Twilight looked directly at Soldier. “And even if you still want to call yourself a Dalek…this world has never had Daleks in it before. It doesn’t know what a Dalek is yet. You’re not just the last Dalek, Soldier, you’re the first one. You get to define what it means to be a Dalek here! This is your chance to make it good! With all our help, with the power of friendship, I know you can!” There were several long rels of silence. “Correct,” Soldier said. “Absolutely right,” the Doctor added. “Nice touch with the regeneration bit there, Twilight,” Minuette noted. “Would have probably worked if it had been needed.” Twilight Sparkle stood still a rel longer, before her wings twitched slightly, then lowered about halfway. “Uh…what?” “You’re absolutely right,” the Doctor repeated. “I was wrong…what I did was wrong. Soldier’s free to go, no strings attached. Keep an eye on her, help her. Teach her about loyalty and honesty, and kindness and generosity, and laughter, and friendship.” He scratched the back of his head. “I…may need a refresher on them myself…” Twilight’s wings fully sagged at that. “Oh,” she said. “Well, um…good! Good. Glad to help…” She started a bit, then moved aside a small purple dragon – Spike – pushed past her. In his hands, he was clutching Soldier’s optical crystal. It was unscathed from the destruction of her sonic probe. Spike looked at Soldier with an expression that she couldn’t read as he came up to her. “You, uh…you dropped this,” Spike said, holding out the crystal. Soldier took it with both of her hooves, and clutched it close to her body. She didn’t break eye contact with Spike, however. “You lied to me.” “Yes.” “And…I think you’re probably the worst pony I know or have ever met. By a lot.” “That is certain.” Spike breathed in deeply, then let it out. He pointed up at her. “You said you were sorry,” he said, “and that counts…a little. But you’ve got to show me you mean it. Okay? Not just for lying to me, but for…for everything you’ve done.” Soldier nodded. “I obey.” “Good.” After a moment, Spike puffed up his chest a little. “‘Cause I’m a dragon who thinks more like a pony, and you think like a Dalek but look like a pony. We were made for each other!” He held out his fist. Soldier recognized the gesture, and tapped his first lightly with her hoof. “There. We’re back on track to becoming friends now.” “I…” Soldier began, and paused as she searched for the word. “I hope so.” There was final rel of silence, before – somehow, without Soldier having been at all able to track her movements – the pink earth pony was beside her, one leg already slung over her withers. “Aww…” she said, “that’s so sweet! C’mon everypony, group hug!” “Daleks have no concept of – ” Soldier began, when suddenly Spike was attached to her leg, and an entire visible spectrum of pony fur was closing around her from all sides. “Ahh! I am under attack! Emergency! EMERGENCY…!” --- Yet again, for the uncountable time in his long and storied life, the Doctor felt like a complete idiot as he watched all the ponies hugging Soldier. The Dalek-pony had given up resistance when it had become obvious that she was not, in fact, under attack, and instead simply sat in place, waiting for the hug to end. She’d be waiting for some time. “How,” he asked Minuette – the TARDIS. Or Sexy, when they were alone. “How can I possibly be as old as I am, and still make the same mistakes over and over again?” “It’s because you’re an idiot.” Minuette said. “That was, in fact, what I was thinking…” Minuette smirked. “It’s because you’re the worst at being a Time Lord,” she added. “The worst, you understand? Let’s face it, as Time Lords go, you’re an utter failure.” The Doctor looked to Minuette. “I take that as a point of pride,” he said. “You should. It is. It’s why I stole you.” She leaned in, nuzzling him slightly, an utterly equine gesture that felt no more alien to the Doctor than any other at this point. Form wasn’t important, never really had been. “My Doctor,” Minuette contentedly breathed. The Doctor returned the nuzzle. “My TARDIS,” he intoned. He remained still for a moment before pressing on, his head over Minuette’s, who had her own against to his chest. “You know…I know I said I was retiring, making this my last go, my last regeneration…and I do still think this reality is ideal for it…” “But…?” “But right now I’m looking at a Dalek who’s chosen to live as a pony. Who’s going to try and make friends. And yes, she had help getting there, stole some human DNA, died, traveled to another reality, had her entire genome rewritten…well. If you’d told me that I’d see this yesterday, even after all of that, I’d have laughed in your face.” “We can actually go and see if that’s the case. Time’s a bit less picky about interacting with different iterations of yourself in this reality.” “We might well. Could be interesting. But my point is…” He turned a little to look down to Minuette without having to move. “If I’ve lived this long and can still see something this new…what else am I missing?” Minuette smiled, looking up to the Doctor without moving herself. “Finally. I’ve been waiting years to get ‘round to this, you know. Do you know how many pony mouths I’ve stared down? How many cavities I’ve had to fill, especially once the pink one moved to town?” The Doctor’s eyes widened. He wasn’t surprised she knew, but…“Why didn’t you say anything?” He asked. “Because I wasn't going to say anything. Obviously. In seriousness: the worst Time Lord.” The Doctor laughed. There were several more moments of silence; they could get back to it all in just a little bit. “So,” the Doctor ventured at length, in a low voice. “When do you suppose I should get around to telling Soldier that she isn’t the last Dalek?” “WHAT?!” Soldier demanded. The Doctor, somehow, had forgotten that equine ears were more sensitive than humanoid ones. “About right then,” Minuette giggled.