//------------------------------// // Chapter 47: End Of The Doctors (Part 2) // Story: Celestia Uses An Online Dating Website // by RainbowBob //------------------------------// The tyrannosaurus rex stampeded down the halls of the building, tearing up the floors with her sickle-shaped claws while her tail tore down the walls on either side. She was a menacing predator of the highest caliber of carnivore possibility. Forty feet of reptilian muscle, speed, and hunger, the giant brown dinosaur that was the king of her era destroyed the building and anything else in her path. And with the biting power of around five-thousand pounds of force, there wasn’t a doorway or way in her path she couldn’t crush instantly. Of course, riding this terrifying beast was Celestia. “Come on, Susy, we’re nearly there!” Celestia shouted, swinging a makeshift spear around. Susy didn’t need much goading, and was already on a path of ruin for the end of the room. All around them lay old props to some geeky sci-fi television show that had been thankfully canceled years ago, but boy did a bunch of dust get thrown up from all the destruction a t-rex can cause. Moldy wardrobes, cheap props, and decaying sets were all soon in tatters wherever Susy went. At the end of the recording set room there lay a door. A door that Celestia had no idea what lay on the other side. But that was okay, because she had a dinosaur, a badass one at that, and that easily trumped pretty much anything that could be a treat to her. With a single headbutt of her mighty skull, Susy had broken through the wall. What lay on the other side was a large hanger with a high ceiling and a few alien spacecrafts scattered about with Daleks guarding them. The Daleks were the same as ever: just really ridiculous looking trashbin robots with plungers attached to their chests. “EXTERMINATE!” one of the Daleks cried out, before Susy ripped off its head (did they even have heads?) with a single bite. The next two soon followed the same process, and before long Susy was tearing through Dalek after Dalek with bites, chomps, stomps, smacks, whacks, headbutts, tailwhips, and the ever fun occasion of throwing them up into the ceiling so that she could swipe it with her tail and score a homerun. Celestia quickly hopped off Susy as she enjoyed her mayhem, running down to the opposite side of the hanger where a another door could be seen. Breaking it open even though it was unlocked to begin with, Celestia lighted up her horn with magic and pointed it directly into the room. “Okay, nopony move, this is a stick-up! Or, actually a horn-up! But that doesn’t matter! Give me what I need right this instant! And that is answers... and hopefully a ride back home would be nice!” Celestia blinked, the magic in her horn slowly being released. She was in an… exercise room. Yes, an exercise room. There were a few treadmills against the walls, a weight bar on the other end of the room, a few dumbbells here and there, a mat and yoga ball, and finally a few exercise bikes lined up against one another. And on one of those exercise bikes at that very moment was… “Steven Moffat?” Celestia said. “I remember you from my date with the Eighth Doctor. But what are you doing here?” Moffat never got up from his bike, not yet done with his incline workout. Wiping some sweat from his face, he said, “Oh, yes, Celestia, I was just wondering when you’d show up. How exactly did you get past the Daleks?” “I had a t-rex friend I made during the Jurassic period help me out with that.” “And how’d you manage to find me?” Celestia shrugged. “I pressed a few buttons on the TARDIS control panel and then pulled a lever or two. Next thing I knew, I ended up here. So I’m guessing either the TARDIS guided me here, it was pure luck, or my time traveling experience has finally paid off.” “The TARDIS actually has a function where it returns to this location when you’re in it.” “Oh…” Reaching the end of his exercise, Moffat leaned back in his bike seat and smirked. “Though I do have to admit, I’m surprised how you managed to get a t-rex to fit in there.” “Well, it is larger on the inside than on the outside.” Celestia and Moffat shared a good laugh for a few seconds. Then Celestia glared at him and asked, “So why am I here, Moffat? And what do you have to do with it?” Picking up the towel laid over his shoulders, Moffat dabbed his perspiring forehead and sighed. “Well, to be honest, I’m responsible for this entire thing. The Doctors going on dates with you, those dates being ruined, your time-traveling viasco, everything.” “Why?” Moffat chuckled. “Why? There’s a simple reason why, my dear.” Moffat leaned against the handlebars of his unmoving bike. “Ratings.” Celestia squinted. “...Seriously?” “I’ve been planning to rehash a new Doctor Who series for years now. What I needed was a hook better than what the original had. The princess of a magical ponyland would draw the fanbase of little girls everywhere. And then those little girls would grow up to be geek girls with an undying fangirl loyalty to the show, even more so than now.” Moffat cracked his knuckles, a confident grin on his face. “The fandom will double—no—triple in size! And all that notoriety and royalties will be coming into my pocket.” “Wait… so you ruined around eleven of my dates just so I’ll become a companion to your stupid show?” Celestia held a hoof against her temple. “That’s… that’s… that’s the most convoluted and completely moronic plan I’ve ever heard of! If not the first eleven Doctors, then who else would I be on this new show with?” “The Sixth Doctor, actually. With him, I’ll be bringing the show back to its roots, more so than with the Twelfth. Now it’ll be bad production value, cheap sets and props, and bad dental plans, just like it’s supposed to be.” Celestia’s eyes went wide. “Wait a second. The Sixth Doctor is dead. Well, at least as dead as any of the Doctors could be.” Moffat arched a brow. Celestia rubbed the back of her neck and coughed into her hoof. “Well, uh… when the Sixth Doctor took me on our date, it went so bad that I kinda hijacked his TARDIS to ditch him. But he managed to get on somehow, and then we started fighting over the controls. Then, things went really insane when the Seventh Doctor appeared and started to argue with the Sixth. At that point, it really just boiled down to a whiny shouting match. So I… well…” Celestia shrugged. “I opened the doors of the TARDIS and pushed him out. The Seventh Doctor helped, of course, mostly by tripping him while I shoved. The Sixth went outside and fell into this great big swirly thing filled with stuff the Seventh said were chronons… whatever that is.” Moffat shook his head and laughed. “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but the Sixth Doctor survived that. He was transformed into the Valeyard instead of death. He is now a dark personification of all the Doctor’s personalities, and will truly make for a great gritty and darker character for pre-teen girls to attach themselves too.” “Oh, well damn.” Celestia tapped her chin. “You wouldn’t happen to… I dunno, know where this Valeyard guy is at this very moment? I still haven’t paid him back fully for how awful a date he gave me.” “As far as I know, he’s still locked away in his bunker with an entire army of Cybermen guarding him. Won’t come out until you’re properly secured for the new show to begin. Trust me, there’s no way someone is getting to him.” Celestia regarded Moffat with a cool, calm expression. “So, this is it then? All those failed dates, all that time wasted, everything done just so you could get me to become the Valeyard’s companion?” Moffat nodded. “Well, the plan didn’t exactly go to plan, as you can see here. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. As long as I have the Valeyard, you, and my Emmy, there’s nothing I can’t do.” “There’s only two questions I need to ask.” Moffat smiled. “Shoot.” “First off, why do you keep on exercising?” Moffat patted his gut. “I’ve been trying to lose weight, and I promised myself I wouldn’t get off this bike no matter what until my exercise program was complete.” “Well then, I commend you on your dedication to your weight loss plan,” Celestia said. “Thank you very much.” “However, how did you expect me to ever agree to become the Valeyard’s companion?” The exercise bike beeped, signaling the workout was close to being complete. “Celestia, you know how the Doctor changes each time he regenerates to a new person?” Celestia nodded. Moffat smiled, a strange darkness passing over his features. “Well, he isn’t the only one. After years of trying to control this universe and bend it to my will, I decided that there was another way. Another way to rule everything. By making my own universe. And Doctor Who is just what I need for that. My own universe to control, with characters I can manipulate in any way I wish.” Celestia back up a few steps, her eyes drawn to Moffat’s gaze while she was unable to tear herself away. “Wh-who are you?” Moffat smiled, his workout chiming that it was finally complete. “I am the Master. And you will obey me.”