//------------------------------// // The Stallion // Story: Doctor Whooves: Shadow Of A Ghost // by Scyphi //------------------------------// The box opened suddenly and without warning, letting out another cloud of smoke, a small shower of miscellaneous and charred debris, as well as a tangle of what appeared to be cables, the latter of which dropped out of the box about a foot before the cables went taunt and swayed above the branch they all stood upon. Amazingly caught within that tangle of cables, coughing, sputtering, and looking like he had seen better days, was a pony, a stallion judging from the pitch of his voice. It was hard to get a good look at him with the dim lighting, but he appeared to be an adult earth pony with a tangled, but smooth mane colored a dark bronze—like an antique bronze statue the sort of which seen in the castle gardens in Canterlot. Other visual details about his physique were hidden by the tattered and scorched clothing he wore, which weren’t anything too unusual, just a suit jacket, some kind of shirt under it, and a pair of pants, perhaps more. The pants were, granted, not a common thing for ponies to wear, but it wasn’t unheard of, so the three onlookers didn’t think too much of it, especially Spike, who knew a couple ponies in Canterlot who wore pants regularly. What was unusual about the clothing is that it did not seem to quite fit the pony, adding to the pony’s struggles as he continued to cough and struggle in the bundle of cords he dangled from. The others all watched him for a few moments, wondering if the pony could be trusted, but Spike’s concern eventually got the better of him before the others. Despite Rainbow silently urging him to stay put and hearing a small gasp from Flitter as she covered her eyes in fear, the little dragon cautiously took a few steps closer. “Uh,” Spike began, addressing the pony, “are you okay?” The pony held up one hoof in response, motioning to give him a moment as he continued to cough, getting the smoke out of his lungs fully. Once he had, he hung there limp for a few moments, breathing deeply, then started to look around, his eyes squinting in the dim light. “Dark!” he declared matter-of-factly, seeming a little surprised. “I wasn’t expecting it to be dark. Dunno why though, I suppose there was a bit of a fifty-fifty chance of it.” He shrugged to himself. “But then I was busy…uh…” he trailed off, suddenly looking puzzled. “Er…oh confound it, I’ve forgotten what it was! I told myself not to forget it, and what do I go and do? Forget it! Now isn’t that entirely like me? One of these times, I’m not going to forget…whatever it was that I forgot.” He gazed in the trio’s direction, but it was hard to tell if he was actually looking at them, or just had his eyes pointing in that general area. “Of course, what I was doing…whatever it was…has resulted in me forgetting vital things that I was doing in the past…like whatever it was that I had been doing that I can’t remember at the moment. ERRGH! It’s going to bother me now! What was it, what was it, what was iiiiiiit?” He looked like he was fuming inwardly for a moment, then he breathed out in a long whoosh of air, like what Twilight would be seen doing when trying to calm herself. “Oh well, hopefully it’ll come to me sooner rather than later, maybe even as I’m saying it’ll come to me, and speaking of saying, my voice sounds funny.” He looked right at the three onlookers again. “Doesn’t it? Something seems off about my voice, like there’s something wrong with it.” The three exchanged bewildered glances, then back at the stallion, not sure if he was expecting them to actually respond. “Uh…we wouldn’t know,” Spike finally answered in the end. “We’ve…or at least I’ve never met you before now.” “Oh, well, of course you haven’t,” the stallion agreed, squirming a little in the cables he was tangled up in. “Still, something seems seriously amiss about it, like my voice got completely rebu—OH! OH! OH! THAT’s what I forgot! Ha ha!” He jabbed a hoof at them, his eyes narrowed as he grinned victoriously. “I remembered,” he said slowly and dramatically, but then bounced back to a more light-hearted tone of speaking. “Knew I would. But that explains why I’m acting all wibbly-wobbly! I regenerated! Ha ha!” His smile slowly started to fade again. “But then why did I regenerate? Augh, I can’t remember! Well, isn’t that just like—no wait, I already said all of that.” By this point in time, the three could only stare at the pony, wondering if he had suffered some kind of head injury when he crashed the box in the tree. Even Flitter finally came closer so she could gawk at him better. Meanwhile, the pony continued talking to himself. “Why am I dangling about five feet over a tree branch anyway?” he asked aloud, and started to try and roll himself over in his cradle of cables, working to see above him. “Last I can recall, I was trying to fly to—” he cut himself short when he managed to succeed in rolling over and saw the still-smoking blue box above him. “Oh!” he exclaimed, grinning as he learned his answer, but like before, that grin quickly faded as realization set in. “Ooohhhhh, that’s…that’s not good at all. Sorry old girl for…whatever it was that I did that got you in this mess, I’m still trying to remember.” He peered into the smoky interior of the box. “Oh dear, definitely seem to have shorted out something…if I could just recall what it was that caused all of this…let’s see here…I remember I was flying the TARDIS, and then I turned and said to my comp—ohmigosh, did I have a companion with me when I crashed!?” Spike gasped too, forgetting for a moment that the box couldn’t possibly be big enough to fit another pony, and hurried closer so he could try and peer into the box himself. But its interior was still too filled with smoke to really see. Rainbow, also moving closer to help look, thought about flying up to get a better look, but worried the stallion and the cables he was tangled up in would only get in the way. Flitter continued to keep her distance, but she gazed worriedly into the box as well. “Hello?” the stallion called into the box. “Anybody else in there? Heellllooooo! Olly, olly, oxen free!” He peered around with narrowed eyes, trying to see past all the smoke, making the nest of cables he sat in sway from side to side. “Hmpf, I can’t tell, I really can’t tell, but seeing I’m dangling like this, then the artificial gravity must be on the fritz, so if there is someone still on board…” he leaned forward, as close as he could get to the box. “EXTRACTOR FANS ON!” This did nothing, though, except to cause something to short out inside the box, raining sparks back down on the stallion. Spike, despite being immune to harm from the sparks, jumped back with a start. Rainbow pulled him back another pace just to be safe. “Hmm, the power relays must be burned out…” the stallion remarked aloud, trailing off as he considered the dilemma. “But if there is a companion…no wait. That’s right, NOW I remember…I was just on my own when this happened! Well, thank heavens for that!” The tension started to uncoil in the three onlookers below him when he said this, but not entirely, especially as the stallion kept talking. “At least…I think that was the case. It’s all still a bit fuzzy…plagues and pestilence, this is frustrating. I don’t recall being this disoriented before.” A pause, then, “And since when do I say ‘plagues and pestilence?’ That’s an awfully stupid thing to go and say…aw well, bigger things to worry about I suppose.” He tried to move to a better position to look inside the box, again causing the cables to sway, only to be abruptly interrupted when one of the cables slipped and the stallion’s rump suddenly dropped free of the nest, dangling lower than the rest of his body as he hurriedly wrapped his fetlocks around other cables to stop from falling. His tail, previously hidden, now slipped free and dangled freely as the waist of his pants slid down a bit. Rainbow, despite herself, snorted at the sight, and quickly stuffed her hoof into her mouth to keep from laughing. Flitter, having now moved close enough to do so, nudged Rainbow with her elbow for the snort. The action seemed to have made the pony suddenly aware of his tail, because his attention shifted to trying and turn and look at it, a puzzled expression now worn on his face. “What’s that?” he muttered, squinting. “That wasn’t there before, was it? Something’s really wrong here. I mean, really, really¸ wrong.” He squirmed around a bit to try and see better what he perceived to be ‘wrong,’ but only succeeded in making him slip lower in the cables, about to fall out of their tangled weave altogether. “Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh!” he said, quickly moving to stop himself. “No wait, I’ve got this!” he started to roll over onto his belly again and trying to wrap his fetlocks around the cables. “Just…got…to…why can’t I grab these…? Wait, wait, I’ve almost got it, just a little—AUGH!” His whole body finally slipped free from the tangled cables and fell five feet to smack belly first into tree branch hanging under him. Startled by the sudden fall, Rainbow and Spike hurried forward to see if he was all right. “No wait!” Flitter said and quickly grabbed both of them with her forehooves, keeping them back. “We don’t know who he is!” “But he could be hurt!” Spike argued back while Rainbow wordlessly shrugged off Flitter’s restraining hoof and approached the stallion. “What if he needs our help?” But it turned out it wasn’t needed, because the stallion quickly stirred. “Oowww,” he groaned, but started to push himself up like nothing was injured. He shook his head then lifted it up to come face to face with Rainbow, who was watching him closely, her expression a slight anxious. The stallion blinked, pulling his head back, but then grinned. “Oh hello miss…” he trailed off, his gaze looking past Rainbow’s face and on down the length of her body. “…pony…um…” Rainbow eyes narrowed, unimpressed. “I’m Rainbow Dash,” she offered. “Well hello, Miss Dash,” the stallion greeted, grin returning. “Sorry for all of this, not exactly at the top of my game at the moment. Not entirely sure what the deal is…well, yes I do, and then no I don’t…it’s complicated—but not to worry! I’ll get it sorted out and get out of your hair…” he paused again, regarding Rainbow with a slightly puzzled look. “…er…mane…very colorful mane, in fact…” He shook his head again and finished his original sentence. “…soon enough.” He started to rise again. Rainbow moved to try and help him, but hesitated, not wanting to make herself a nuisance. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “That was a bit of a fall you just had there.” “Oh I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” the stallion assured her brightly. “Quite quaint actually. Having just regenerated and all of that, I’m all but invulnerable for the next fifteen hours or so.” Rainbow blinked. “Ooookay,” she responded, glancing back at the others. The stallion sat up, oblivious to Rainbow’s puzzlement. “Anyway, all I’m suffering from is disorientation and some fuzzy memory,” he explained. “I’ve faced worse actually, so I’m sure I’ll be able to shrug it off soon enough and you are female, right?” Rainbow’s head twisted back around to stare at him for the odd and sudden comment. “What?” “Rainboooow…” Flitter said slowly, wearing a worried expression as she started to back away again. “Normal stallions don’t go saying things like that…” “Oh no, no, no, no,” the stallion quickly assured, trying to stand up, only he looked like he was trying to force himself up onto only two legs. “I don’t mean anything like that. It’s just I’ve never met a race quite like yours before, so I wanted to be sure I was right to assume Miss Dash here truly is a miss, because obviously that’d be awkward if she wasn’t, and why is this suddenly so hard?” He struggled to rear up on two legs, the others watching him with an increasingly puzzled expression, before he finally managed to, teetering slightly, balance on his hind legs, forelegs thrown out to try and stabilize himself. He grinned. “Ah, there we go!” And then the pants he was wearing slid off his torso, falling down around his hooves in a crumpled heap. “WHOOP—!” Blushing, he threw his forehooves over his exposed khaki-colored legs suddenly, but in the process overbalanced and fell flat on his face again. “Ow.” He pushed his front up off the surface of the tree branch, frowning. “Okay, there is seriously something amiss here, and I want to know what it is.” “Uh…” Rainbow began, holding up a hoof to say something, but the stallion cut her short. “Excuse me for a moment Miss Dash, I need to do a quick check-over, I’ll be just a tick,” the stallion explained, holding up a hoof to her. “Now, eyes.” He put both hooves over his eyes and then removed again, grinning. “Check. Ears…” He moved his hooves to either side of his head, frowning when he didn’t immediately find them. Patting searchingly, he moved his hooves upwards until he found them on top of his head, his eyes going wide as he felt them for a moment. “Okay…that’s a bit abnormal…uh…gee, this has never happened before…um…well, I’ll come back to them. So what’s next? Mouth?” He opened his mouth and stuck his hoof on his tongue before pulling a disgusted face at the apparent taste and turned to spit for a few moments. “Check! Nose…” He immediately put one hoof on his nose, going cross-eyed as he went to look at it and blinked in surprise. “Whoa! How did that get way out there? And…wait a minute…” he turned his attention to his forehooves, looking back and forth between the two like he was only just now seeing them. His pupils started the shrink. “What the—where the devil did my fingers go?” He looked up at the three watching him, as if hoping for an explanation, but they just stared at him. “Fingers?” Rainbow repeated, scrunching her snout in puzzlement. “Do you mean claws?” Spike asked, holding up his own hand as an example. “But ponies don’t have claws,” Flitter stated plainly, like this fact should be obvious. She held up her own hoof as an example. It seemed it wasn’t so obvious to the stallion. “Puh…puh…” he repeated, growing more and more shocked. Hurriedly, he started looking his whole body over, from his forehoooves down to the hourglass cutie mark on his flank, growing even more shocked as he took it all in, apparently not what he expected to see. “Buh…huh? How…but…what? I…I…no, no, no…wha…WHAT?” He sat there and gaped to himself for a moment, suddenly at a loss for words. “Okay…okay, okay, okay…so apparently I have hooves now. And a snout. And no fingers. And wacky ears. And am by all intents and purposes a pony, or some like equine…thing. And a tail, I have a tail now.” He looked back at the bronze-colored tail as he flipped it back and forth a few times before grinning. “But I’m actually okay with the tail. Who knew tails could be so much fun? I’ve been missing out all these years!” He turned serious again. “But anyway…I have no idea how this happened, and that worries me. Because I’ve heard of regenerations going horribly wrong like this, but never…” he suddenly rose and looked back up at the box above him, absent-mindedly kicking the fallen pants he had been wearing off of his legs. “I need to do a scan of myself, figure out what went wrong, but of course, just when I need my TARDIS the most, it’s out-of-order…” “You…sure you’re all right?” Rainbow asked again, giving the stallion a baffled look. “You…uh…didn’t hit your head too hard or something like that?” “Nah, it’s fine,” the stallion dismissed, waving a hoof in Rainbow’s direction as he continued to look up at the box and completely missing (or ignoring) Rainbow’s tone. After a moment, he regarded his body yet again with a furrowed brow. “Maybe it has something to do with where I am…” he turned to study the others. “Is everyone around here a pony or like animal?” “Uh…” Rainbow said, blanking out at the question, unsure how to answer that. “Animal?” Flitter repeated in annoyance, taking offence at the stallion’s use of the term, and for the first time, started to approach him. “Now listen here, you…” “Actually, you aren’t really like ponies at all, now that I think about it,” the stallion interrupted, suddenly turning to Flitter and looking her all over, prodding her, poking her, circling her and generally being too close to her, but he seemed too lost in his own train of thought to notice Flitter’s discomfort as he worked. “I mean your physical shape is all wrong, the hooves have too much range of motion, the head is slightly too large, the snout entirely too small, to say nothing about the unusual colors—no offence Miss Dash…” Rainbow glanced up at her multi-colored mane and debated whether or not she wanted to take offense anyway. “…the mane is highly stylized, almost anthropomorphic, and the wings—wait, wings? What kind of pony has wings? Feathered wings at that?” “A pegasus pony does, you nitwit!” Flitter suddenly snapped at the stallion. “Pegasus?” the stallion repeated, looking surprised by the term, but then he suddenly was distracted by something else, pressing his snout into Flitter’s as he stared into the mare’s panicked eyes. “Wow, what big eyes you have too! Too big for a pony…why would you even need such big eyes?” “All the better to see you with?” Spike offered suddenly. The stallion laughed and pointed a hoof in the baby dragon’s direction. “Ha! Good answer!” he praised, making Spike grin. “But seriously…anatomically you’re all wrong for a pony…maybe you’re not even related genetically…might just be convergent evolution at play here…what year is it? That could explain so much at the moment…” “WILL YOU GET AWAY FROM ME?” Flitter exclaimed, grabbing the stallion’s hoof as he reached up to poke at her cheek. The stallion’s response was to suddenly belch a ball of some sort of wispy golden stuff into Flitter’s face. The unexpected event caused Rainbow and Spike to step back in alarm, and it caused Flitter to have a panic attack, dropping down onto the branch and wrapping her hooves over her face like she had been scalded. The stallion, however, was completely casual about the event. “Oh, excuse me,” he apologized, thumping one hoof on his chest and clearing his throat. “Still have a lot of regeneration energy buzzing around in me. That’s perfectly normal at this stage…even with the bizarre results I’ve gotten from it this time around.” “Regeneration energy?” Rainbow repeated, stepping towards the stallion, suddenly revising her assessment of him. Before, she hadn’t thought much of his claims of “regenerating,” thinking it was just crazy. But then so was seeing a stallion belch a ball of golden energy. She raised a hoof towards the stallion, about to address him. “Um…” But then she realized she didn’t know what to call him. Had he given any of them any sort of name yet? Meanwhile the stallion had turned his attention to Spike. “And what are you?” he asked, approaching the little dragon and dropping down low so to be on the same eye level. Spike, unlike Flitter, remained calm, regarding the stallion before him with the same curious gaze as the stallion. “You obviously aren’t like these two lovely ladies…at least I’m assuming they’re lovely…yes, I know that sounds bad, but I honestly have no frame of reference for pony beauty at the moment…anyway, you, my little reptilian friend, are everything these ponies are not…bipedal, scaled, and you have fingers! Boy, am I envious at the moment.” He ran a hoof through Spike’s green spines. “Wait a minute…you couldn’t be…” he looked right into Spike’s eyes. “What are you?” “I’m a dragon,” Spike responded with a note of pride. “No!” the stallion exclaimed excitedly. “A real flesh and blood dragon? With the firebreath and everything?” “Uh…Mr. stallion…sir…” Rainbow attempted to interrupt, approaching the stallion. “Of course!” Spike answered the stallion, excited, and immediately blew out a ball of emerald flames. It wasn’t anything too impressive, especially for Rainbow who had seen bigger fireballs, but it tickled the stallion pink to see it. “WHOA!” he squealed giddily. “That is awesome! Do it again!” “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rainbow said quickly, intervening before Spike could get firebreath-happy. “Let’s not get carried away here!” She turned to Spike. “Don’t forget why we’re up here in the first place.” “Oh, right,” Spike responded, a little sheepishly. “Sorry.” Meanwhile, the stallion had gotten lost in thought again. “Now I wonder how the fire is formed…” he pondered aloud. “Friction? Ignition of some sort of flammable, biological, chemical? And how does it not burn the subject? Good channeling? Thick flesh? Some sort of other protection?” he shook his head. “Dragons, though…never would have thought…well, maybe, but…not something so perfectly like I’d imagine…and ponies with wings…pegasi…did I somehow end up in a fantasy world? Or perhaps—?” He trailed off as he noticed Rainbow was staring at him. “Yes?” Rainbow didn’t respond right away, and instead looked him in the eye. She initially did it so to insure she had his full attention, but was quickly distracted as she continued to gaze into them. She hadn’t noticed it before…but they seemed…old…timeworn…like how she felt when she was around Princess Celestia. And they were wise…like they had seen more than Rainbow ever could in a lifetime…perhaps more than anypony ever should. A chill ran down her spine as she realized there could be more to this stallion than she had previously dared to imagine. She regarded him with a sudden new degree of respect. “Who the hay are you, anyway?” she finally asked. The stallion grinned. “Just call me the Doctor, Miss Dash.”