//------------------------------//
// Chapter One: Regeneration 
// Story: Why Derpy is a Companion 
// by ina23 
//------------------------------//

	 The Doctor was running through the Everfree Forest on December 21, 2012. Panting and bleeding, he ran from a cockatrice that had just turned Twilight Sparkle into stone and destroyed her final resting place. Every now and then with his eyes closed, he sent off a blast of his sonic screwdriver, hoping it would hit the cockatrice. 
Only a few feet away from the TARDIS, fate decided that it was time for him to regenerate. 
He started to glow in a way it looked as if he was on fire.
"No, I'm not ready! I need more time!" The Doctor spoke his thoughts as if there was someone to speak to.
He reached for the TARDIS door and went inside the abnormally large police box interior. With the little time he had, he quickly sent the time traveler off to an unknown place and time, for he could not see what he was doing.The light coming from his body shined brighter and he was in severe pain. The fact that he had no clue of where he was going only made things worse for him. The TARDIS came to a sudden stop and sent him flying to the floor. After a few more seconds of regenerating and pain, his body had come to rest.
"Ah, finally, some peace. Now let's see what my stallion body looks like next!" The Doctor stood up, eyes closed and walked up to the next thing the pony thought was reflective in the TARDIS. "That's strange, my voice sounds as if it was for a mare. Oh well. I'm sure it will fix itself in a few minutes." The Doctor opened his eyes. "Ah!" He screamed jumping backwards almost knocking into a wall. "I'm a, I'm a, I'm a mare!" She squealed. "And why is my eyesight so...messed up?" The newly made mare tried to see her reflections properly. 
"Wait, I know this pony. I've seen her before. How did I become somepony that already exists?" She was a light gray pegasus with light blonde hair, eyes of a spectrum of colors from yellow to orange, and had a cutie mark of bubbles. The Doctor had become Derpy, the mail carrier. 
"I'll think of something later."
She walked, unbalanced, to the TARDIS door and let herself through. Her strange walk was the result of her new body and strange eye fixture. When she walked out of the time machine, she found herself inside a dentist office with no one inside the room at the current time. The Doctor looked around the room. The calendar showed that it was December third, 2010. She looked at the clock, it was five twenty-three in the morning. No wonder no-pony's here, it's way too early for work! She thought. 
She tried to walk through the room's door leading to the hallway, but instead, because of her eyes, hit a lamp and fell to the floor.  The mare rubbed her forehead, hoping it would help the pain. She got back on her hooves and tried again. 
And she, again, fell on the floor. 
This may be the quickest regeneration ever - death by eyesight! 
It took five or six more tries, but the Doctor made it to the hallway. "Now I need a new companion, somepony who has intelligence and strength." She thought out loud. "I could always just fetch Twilight again, right before I had seen her first. Wait, no. That would create a ripple in time. If I got her now, old me wouldn't be able to get her, which would mean we'd never meet the cockatrice, which would mean current me would disappear and never be here, which would mean-"
"Derpy, what are you doing here? Your appointment isn't until ten thirty." She had knocked into a unicorn mare that had blue fur and dark, blue-white mane. Her eyes were a spectrum of white to dark purple, and her cutie mark of an hourglass. "And besides, you never wake up this early. I always have to wrench you out of bed for your appointments."
"I think I've found my new companion. Allow me to introduce myself - I am the Doctor. Before you ask me anything, no, I go by the Doctor and nothing else. Also, I am a Time Lord. Second, I am not your friend. I mean, I could be your friend, I'm just not...Derpy. See, I have to regenerate my body when I am about to die so I can keep living on as I travel time and space, saving Equestria. How I became your friend, I don't know, for I never turn into somepony that already exists. I hope to find out how this happened before I need to regenerate again. Anyway, I am asking you to be my companion on this journey of time and space, fighting the evils of Equestria. Do you accept my task?" The unicorn's jaw dropped. 
"Oh! Where are my manners? Feel free to introduce yourself."
"Um, I'm, uh, I'm...I'm - I'm Colgate. I’m the boss of this place, and I'm also the lead dentist. I am still very confused about the whole...Time Lord thing, so I'll say it's a maybe. If you want you can stay at my house until I've come to my decision, but for now I'm not very sure I can trust you." The cross-eyed mare's smile brightened.
"Great! That gives me time to figure out how to make these eyes actually give me a sense of sight, and how to work these wings." The Doctor's stomach grumbled. "For now, you got any food?"
"Uh, yeah. break room is over there. Follow me." Colgate motioned to the Doctor and trotted happily to the room. "Let's see, the food stock hasn't come in for the day, so all we have are day-old muffins."  She levitated a tray of muffins from a counter in the corner of the room to the round wooden table in the middle of the room. “But, um, Doctor - why me?”
"Those look good." The Doctor licked her lips and tossed one in her mouth. "A bit stale, but these are acceptable. Now, if you like, I'll show you where all the time travel magic happens. But first I need to scarf down all these muffins. And why you? I don’t know why, I only know who. But these are really, really good...”