Disclaimer: Knowledge of Doctor Who may be required to fully enjoy this chapter. This will be the only chapter like this, however. If you follow this story, please read the Author's Notes at the end of the chapter even if you aren't interested in the events during this chapter.
Present Day
It could be said that there was very little in the universe that The Doctor didn’t understand. That was the exact reason he was confused at the moment, he was no longer in his universe. With a loud bang the familiar sound had contorted into a strange, almost painful sounding screech. The floor shook beneath The Doctor’s feet and he collapsed in a tangle of limbs and unconsciousness.
***
Octavia gracefully danced to the door in time with the sweet sounds of the Equestrian String Quintet. She wasn’t used to having visitors on a Sunday but was happy to have company any day of the week. Vinyl was out with Skylla and Rainbow Dash at a performance by the Wonderbolts and Raincloud had locked herself in the library to study particle physics for the afternoon.
She opened the doors to a stallion standing awkwardly, covered in an ash of some sort. She closed her eyes for a moment as she realized that she was once again in for an adventure. Six months hadn’t been enough of a break. When she opened her eyes she saw a shocked look on the face of the stallion, as though he had seen a ghost. “Are you alright?” She asked politely.
The stallion’s eyes somehow grew wider. “A talking equine?” Where the words he finally settled on. “But that’s impossible; in all of my travels I’ve never once heard of talking horses!”
Octavia returned the look he had been giving her. “What are you talking about? What the hay is a horse and what grown pony wouldn’t be able to talk?”
“This is amazing!” He exclaimed. “You are amazing!” He reached forward and attempted to take hold of her in some sort of strange embrace but then stopped when his eyes settled on his hooves. His jaw nearly fell to the floor. “I have hooves. How do I have hooves? Time Lords don’t have hooves!”
Octavia once again closed her eyes and breathed deeply. It was going to be a long day. She motioned for the confused stallion to follow and began walking toward the bathroom. He followed closely, albeit clumsily. “Let’s start at the beginning,” Octavia began, tossing the stallion a towel to clean the ash off of him. “Do you remember your name?”
He fumbled with the towel in his hooves, trying to grip it somehow. “You can just call me The Doctor,” he replied, finally managing to begin wiping his face off.
“So you don’t remember your name,” Octavia said. “If you’re a doctor then it should be fairly easy to narrow down, though.”
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t remember your name’,” The stallion dropped the towel on the floor and stared at it for a moment. He looked up with a slight grin. “Just call me ’The Doctor’.”
“Alright, Doctor,” Octavia reached down and tossed the towel back up to him. “What did you mean by ‘Time Lords don’t have hooves’? What is a Time Lord?”
“Time Lords are my people,” The Doctor said matter-of-factly.
“What is a ‘people’?” Octavia asked.
“Oh, right, you’re ponies,” The Doctor said thoughtfully. “You probably don’t use that term, do you?” He thought for another moment and then seemed to reach a decision. “Have your peo— err, ponies, ever travelled into space?”
Octavia breathed deeply once more. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go make a call to the police and they should probably be able to help you.”
“So you have police!” The Doctor said excitedly. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I suppose asking one silly pony about her world is a poor way to gauge a culture. Did you happen to see a blue box fall from the sky around here?”
Octavia ran a hoof through her mane and rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should get Raincloud to take you to the mental hospital in Canterlot, instead.”
“I need to get back to my TARDIS. Now where did I put that screwdriver?” He patted his torso on both sides and then let out a short laugh. “Oh, right. I suppose I don’t have any pockets. I should probably finish getting cleaned off, too. Would you mind leaving me for a moment, miss— ahem, I’m sorry; I didn’t catch your name.”
Octavia rolled her eyes once again. “You can call me Octavia, I suppose.”
“Right; would you mind giving me a moment of privacy miss Octavia?” The Doctor asked.
Octavia turned and trotted out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She took a few more steps and then listened. “Talking equines!” She heard the rather strange stallion exclaim. She could help but smile as she began walking toward the library. She had learned in the past that it was best to tell Raincloud when they had company. She was certain that they would never live down the time Raincloud had hit the Element of Honesty over the head with a frying pan. Then again, she honestly shouldn’t have showed up unannounced.
When Octavia entered the library she found a dozen or so books scattered throughout the room. Raincloud, however, was nowhere to be found. Octavia picked up a book titled The Possibilities of the Universe: What Theoretical Physics Can Do for You. The book had been resting with a page already opened. Octavia couldn’t help but laugh at the ideas on the page. The idea of massive machines travelling through the air was one thing but it was ridiculous to think they could travel through time as well.
She set the book down and walked over to the open window. It looked out upon a small forest, but in the distance something wasn’t right. Smoke was rising from an area that appeared to be missing trees. Octavia tried to shake off the thoughts that flooded her mind, but she knew that Raincloud was over there. Another thought entered her mind as well; the book mentioned flying machines and The Doctor had mentioned a blue box falling from the sky. That thought was a bit easier to push out of her mind. She hurried back to The Doctor who had just managed to get the door open.
The ash was gone and she could now tell that his coat was a light amber color. Three thoughts flashed through her mind: The book’s mention of time travel, the "lords of time" the doctor had mentioned, and The Doctor’s hourglass cutie mark. “You’re a time traveler,” the words slipped out Octavia’s mouth before she could stop them and she immediately kicked herself mentally afterward.
The Doctor’s face lit up. “Now you get it! You know, you actually kind of have a humanness about you, although you probably don’t have humans here,” He said and started walking toward the stairs.
“Lyra would disagree,” Octavia mused. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. There’s smoke out in the forest and I think my idiot niece is out there right now.”
“Oh, that sounds like an adventure,” The Doctor clapped his hooves together excitedly and then looked down at them as though he hadn’t meant to. His mischievous gaze returned to Octavia. “I love a good adventure, so I’ll come too.”
Octavia shrugged and motioned for him to follow. She hadn’t known this pony long and hardly knew anything about him, but she could tell that there was no hope of convincing him to stay behind. She led The Doctor down the stairs and out the back exit. The doorway opened up into a small courtyard which then had a cobblestone pathway leading into the forest, and ultimately a small, unused well. She galloped off of the pathway deeper into the forest, looking back occasionally to make sure her new companion could keep pace. The Doctor himself seemed surprised at how quickly he had managed to get his bearings.
The two ponies drew nearer to the smoke and soon seemed to be just a hop, skip, and a jump away. The smoke seemed to be fading and it didn’t have any scent to it. There was no fire that was visible, yet. Octavia slowed as she neared the clearing. She peered around one last tree to see Raincloud circling the source of the smoke, a blue box embedded slightly in a crater in the ground. The Doctor trotted forward excitedly. “I told you there was a blue box!”
Raincloud spun around and lowered herself into an aggressive stance. “Stand back!” She said in a commanding tone. “I don’t know what this thing does; it might be dangerous.”
The Doctor chuckled. “She isn’t dangerous! At least, I don’t think she is. She’s my TARDIS!” The Doctor walked up to the box and put a hoof on the panel. He turned to Raincloud and almost jumped. “You have wings! There are ponies with wings!”
Octavia knew it was time to intervene before he said something that would upset Raincloud. “Yes, Doctor, there are pegasi here,” she interjected. “Calm down, Raincloud. I think he knows what he’s doing.”
Raincloud eyed the stallion and then stood up taller. “So what is a TARDIS, then, Doctor?” She spoke the last word with more sarcasm than was necessary. She wasn’t much a fan of ponies that had medical degrees.
The Doctor continued looking over the box. “It stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space.”
Raincloud’s eyes grew wide and she developed a massive grin that showed just how happy she was. “You have a time machine?” She asked, almost bouncing up a down. “It isn’t very big, but still, you have a time machine!”
The Doctor moved to the door and managed to get it open. He motioned for Raincloud and Octavia to follow him in. The two mares took their first steps into the TARDIS and looked around. “It’s bigger on the inside,” Octavia said, sounding as if she had expected it.
The Doctor smiled. “Oh yes it is,” He said, walking around a console in the center of the room, flicking switches and twisting knobs. “I think I’ve worked out what’s going on.”
“What do you mean, ‘what`s going on’?” Raincloud asked, continuing to examine the strange space they had entered.
The Doctor continued working at his console. “I don’t think I’m in my own uni—“ He was interrupted by a loud, metallic groan and the lights dimming. The Doctor looked at Octavia, who had a faint white glow around her. He walked over to her and began to examine her closely. “Oh my, the TARDIS is afraid. That makes no sense; we’ve been to the beginning and end of the universe and she’s never been afraid of anything. It makes even less sense that she’d be afraid of you.”
Octavia looked around frantically. “What’s going on? Did you do something to me?”
“No, it wasn’t me,” The Doctor said softly. “It was something else; something inside of you. I don’t even know what it is, but it’s so evil that I can almost taste it. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Octavia.” He out a hoof around her and hugged her awkwardly. Suddenly he turned and almost leaped back to the device at the center of the room. “That’s it! How did I not realize it sooner, though?”
Octavia stared straight ahead with an uncomfortable look on her face; she had never much liked being embraced by stallions. Raincloud watched her for a moment and then decided to ask the obvious question for her. “What did you not realize sooner?”
“Any crash that would cause the TARDIS to breach the ground as far as it did, I'm estimating about three centimeters, would have to have immense force behind it. Basically the gravitational force that pulled it in would have to surpass anything physically possible in my own universe. Now, I was once travelling through my own universe and the TARDIS was pulled into a planet with massive force, causing it to indent the ground by about one millimeter,” The Doctor rotated around the console, checking screens and flipping switches. “The TARDIS redirected power to the point of impact to avoid damage. The power was drained by about ten percent.” A ding came from one of the monitors and readings came up on the screen.
“This is amazing!” The Doctor said excitedly. “According to these calculations the TARDIS should have been reduced to zero power.”
“Why are you acting like that’s a good thing?” Octavia asked, shaking her head as if coming out of a daze.
“The TARDIS draws energy from the universe,” The Doctor explained. “It absorbed energy from your world, and the particles it absorbed are multiplying. The energy my TARDIS absorbed from your world has filled every available space in here with an infinite source of energy.
“That’s good, right?” Octavia asked sheepishly.
“I’ll put it this way,” The Doctor said. “I’m eighteen thousand, three hundred and nineteen years old and have explored every nook and cranny of space and time and I have never seen anything quite like this.”
Octavia decided to not even question the age he had given. “So what are you going to do now that you have your time machine back?”
“Think about it,” The Doctor said. “There is so much I could do here, so much untapped potential. My TARDIS can’t even plot a course to head forward in time, which has never happened before, even at the end of time itself I’ve been able to travel forward.”
“You’re an alien, so are you going to probe us,” Raincloud asked. The Doctor looked confused. “I mean, Octy might not like it but you can probe me if you want.”
“You don’t have to pay attention to her,” Octavia said flatly. "Please continue."
The Doctor was about to respond when a series of alarms erupted around them. The Doctor ran to a screen and his eyes grew wide. “Oh dear, this is not good.”
It’s about time something went wrong, Octavia thought. “What’s going on, Doctor?”
The stallion looked down sorrowfully. He breathed deeply and then turned to face the two mares with him. “I don’t know how much you know about the sun and the processes that go along with it, but it’s basically about to explode.”
Raincloud and Octavia looked at each other for a moment. Octavia started giggling and Raincloud soon joined her in a ridiculous amount of laughter. The Doctor looked on in shock. “What’s so funny? You’re all going to die if we don’t do something!”
Octavia looked at him as she took control of the fit of laughter. “You aren’t kidding,” She said flatly. The Doctor shook his head, still very clearly in shock. “That’s impossible. Princess Celestia controls the sun; she makes it rise in the morning and fall at night and when she had her mind controlled by an evil cult she melted an entire city with a beam of focused heat from it, I think if the sun was exploding she would stop it.”
“You have a princess that raises the sun?” The Doctor asked. “That doesn’t make any sense. Let’s just go take a look outside.” He walked through the door and stood outside, staring up at the sky. Octavia and Raincloud followed and looked up.
“See, there’s nothing to—“ Octavia began, but stopped midsentence as her mouth fell wide open with shock.
“Sweet Celestia, what the hell is going on?” Raincloud’s eyes were wide. In the center of the sky, in place of the sun, was what could essentially be described as a ring of fire, slowly spreading across toward the horizon.
“That,” The Doctor said, turning to them. “That is your sun exploding and dispersing flaming molecules throughout space. I think it’s time we go see this princess of yours.”
* * *
Canterlot Castle, Central Courtyard, Present Day
It took seconds for the Courtyard to be filled with guards; a strange noise and a materializing blue box certainly drew attention. A murmur traveled throughout the dozens that had arrived. One guard slowly crept forward, against the advice of his fellows. He reached out slowly with a hoof and pressed it against a panel. His head cocked and he tapped on the box twice more. “It’s made of wood!” He proclaimed.
One of the sides began to open and the guard ran back to join the ranks. The Doctor pranced out of the box and looked around. The captain of the guard walked forward and his horn began glowing. “Identify yourself or we will take you into custody,” He said in a distinct gravelly voice.
“Hey!” Octavia shouted, walking out of the TARDIS. “You get away from him and get out of our way, right this second.”
“Identify yourself,” The captain repeated.
“We are personal friends of the princesses,” Octavia stared angrily into his eyes.
“I don’t recognize you,” The captain responded. “Seize them!”
Octavia advanced on the captain and he backed down quickly. The other guards jumped to attention and prepared to intervene. “You mean to tell me that the princesses have never mentioned Octavia Philharmonica Scratch even once?”
The captain’s eyes grew wide. “Wait, you’re the Octavia?”
“Of course I am, haven’t you seen a newspaper in the last two years?” Octavia continued advancing on the captain’s position, forcing him to back up further. “Now, in case you haven’t noticed, a massive ring of fire has replaced the sun. The Doctor, Raincloud, and I are going to see the princess now.”
“We might want to hurry, too,” The Doctor cut in. “We have about five minutes until this planet is engulfed in flames.”
The captain stared for a moment and then nodded. He motioned for them to follow and they ran quickly through the castle. As Octavia entered Celestia’s room with The Doctor and Raincloud she hardly expected the princess to even be there. That was far from the truth, however. Celestia stood right in front of them as if she’d been waiting for them. “Hello, Doctor,” She began. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“How is it that you could possibly be expecting me if I’ve been in this world for just a few minutes?” The Doctor stepped right up to her and look her in the eye.
“You told me you would be coming, but that you wouldn’t know it yet,” The princess said as though it were something that anypony would say in any conversation. “You said you had to go back two hours, travel to the sun, and trigger a trans-dimensional burst of artron energy above somewhere called Earth in the year eighteen fifty-nine.”
The Doctor thought for a moment. “Did I give you an exact date?”
“No, you seemed to be in quite the hurry and didn’t say much, and you sounded slightly different too, probably adrenaline,” Celestia answered. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what’s going on, will you?”
“I’ll tell you some other time,” The Doctor said, turning around and running back to the courtyard. Octavia and Raincloud gave chase and followed him into the TARDIS. He checked a monitor. “I better not be wrong about this, we won’t get a second chance.”
“What are you talking about, Doctor?” Raincloud asked, closing the door behind them.
“At first I was confused,” The Doctor admitted. “Any sort of trans-dimensional transmittance of energy would require a ridiculous amount of power to complete. Artron energy in particular would be difficult to send through. Then I realized, I have infinite power now.”
The Doctor quickly flipped various switches and the TARDIS began its trip back in time. Raincloud and Octavia stood back and watched as he worked at the console. It was impressive how quickly he’d adapted to his pony body. After a moment there was a loud, echoing thud and the lights dimmed for a second. “All done!” The doctor proclaimed.
“All done with what?” Octavia asked.
“I think I just caused my coming here in the first place,” The Doctor said.
“Wait a second,” Raincloud said. “Your future self told the present you to bring your past self here?”
“Yeah,” The Doctor said. “Time is all wibbly-wobbly like that.”
Octavia laughed. “There’s a pony in Ponyville who said something exactly like that once.” Octavia’s gaze snapped to The Doctor in shock. “You look exactly like him, too. How did I not notice that?”
The Doctor thought quickly. “Okay, I’m about to do something incredibly stupid,” He said, once again going to work on his console. “There are three possible outcomes: One, the pony we’re going to visit isn’t me, two, I’m about to break reality, or three, my future self and I are going to stop the sun from exploding.”
“That sounds incredibly dangerous,” Octavia said.
“It is!” The Doctor exclaimed, almost proudly, shoving a lever forward.
The TARDIS landed after a minute and The Doctor walked to the door. He pulled the door open and his mouth dropped open. “What happened?” He asked in horror.
Octavia and Raincloud tried to look around him but couldn’t see through the small opening. “A thousand years I had to wait,” A rough, but strangely familiar voice came from outside.
The Doctor’s head hung low as he spoke. “Tell me what happened.”
“I thought I had better timing than this,” The voice continued as though it hadn’t been addressed. “There isn’t time for questions. We’re taking the TARDIS and we’re going to go back kill ourself before we can bring us here in the first place.”
“I can’t do that,” The Doctor said. “I have two travelers with me.”
“You know as well as I do that they would never have been here if we hadn't come to this world,” The voice was getting impatient. “We stop ourself from the past and they go back to their mediocre lives, keep their sun, and never remember this having happened.”
The Doctor breathed heavily and thought a moment. Finally, he nodded. “Alright, let’s do it.” The Doctor turned to Octavia and Raincloud. “You two need to leave the TARDIS and wait here. Don’t panic, everything will be fine.”
The two mares looked at him, confused, and started toward the door. It swung open quickly and a new stallion walked into the TARDIS, up to the console. As Octavia and Raincloud stood outside the TARDIS in a barren, scorched landscape they could help but stare. There, in the TARDIS, were two Doctors, one appearing slightly older but still recognizable as The Doctor. The younger Doctor closed the door and the TARDIS began disappearing into thin air.
Raincloud began looking around while Octavia continued watching the spot where the blue box had been. As Octavia began to close her eyes she heard a scream from behind her. She spun around quickly to see Raincloud being chased by an indescribably horrific creature with large fangs already coated with blood. Raincloud didn’t stand a chance; the creature was far too quick. Octavia could do nothing and watched in terror as the creature sunk it’s fangs deep into Raincloud’s now limp body.
* * *
Octavia awoke with a start, breathing quickly. She looked around; she was in the bedroom she shared with Vinyl. She began to sit up but she suddenly became very light headed and fell back into the comfort of her mattress. A gentle knock came from the door and Raincloud. “Hey Tavi, dinner is ready. Vinyl tried something out that she’s really excited for us to try and it smells delicious.”
Octavia stared at the pegasus. “You’re alright,” She said, her breathing finally returning to normal.
“Of course I am,” Raincloud said. She walked over and sat down next to Octavia. “You clearly aren’t; what’s up?”
“I had a dream,” Octavia said. “It just seemed so real, so visceral.”
Raincloud looked down. “It was about The Doctor wasn’t it?”
“You remember?” Octavia turned to her in shock.
“I remember being killed,” Raincloud said softly. “I woke up the same way a couple of hours ago. I should have known it wasn’t a dream. How do we remember? We aren’t supposed to remember!”
“It never happened,” Octavia mused. The two mares sat in silence for a moment. “I feel like I could bring him back if I wanted.”
“Maybe you should try,” Raincloud said half-jokingly. “He loved this world and with everything that’s happened to us we could use somepony like him.”
“It would be too cruel,” Octavia said, standing and starting toward the door. “I could tell, no matter how much he loved this world there was something holding him back. I can’t just tear him away from that.”
“Maybe he’ll be back one day,” Raincloud said, joining her. “We can’t dwell on that, though. Why don’t we go get some of Vinyl’s dinner and then drown ourselves in monotony to try and forget that we ever met him?”
Octavia smiled and nodded and the two walked downstairs together.
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Author's Notes:
I'm not gonna waste any time here. Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out, but I've already got chapter 5 in the works. This chapter uses elements from the series Doctor Who so if anything is confusing for those of you who haven't seen it, I'm sorry for that as well. Chapter 5 should come out some time soon.
On another note, I'm looking for a pre-reader. I'd like someone who's already been reading this story and who has also read Three Years Gone. If you have experience in pre- reading and are interested shoot me a PM!
Until Next Time,
<3 Shae