//------------------------------//
// Pride Cometh Before the Fall 
// Story: Doctor Whooves: Brave New World 
// by Gandalf158 
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Doctor Whooves: Brave New World


By: Gandalf158


Chapter 3: Pride Cometh Before the Fall


The Doctor glared at the Great Intelligence as he was pushed forcefully into the cage along with his dumbfounded companions and a terrified alabaster fashion designer. The bars slammed close, and the blue plastic unicorn smirked. The Doctor was the only being in the room who knew just what the Intelligence was capable of, and knew he wouldn't he  sitate to kill her if it meant acquiring new knowledge.
He also knew he wasn’t going to be doing anypony any good as long as he was trapped inside this cage. He began looking around for something, anything in the cage he could use to try and escape. But the Great Intelligence was almost ready to begin his work, and the Doctor needed to stall. So, he did the only thing logical, he got the Great Intelligence talking about himself.
“Really, that’s your plan? Kill a princess to gain her knowledge? Seems a little simple and heavy handed for you, your plans are always so elaborate. What are you really planning?” rock, rock, pebble, nothing really useful here.
“Oh, Doctor, this is but the first stage of my plans for this universe. But I can not make an effective plan without the proper information. Once I have Princess Sparkle’s knowledge, I can move forward.” he said.
“But you must have a plan? At least a concept of what you’re going to do?” he kept looking around, but there was nothing in the cage that could help them get free. He looked over at Twilight, but she was in the same situation as they were.
“Learn everything there is to know about this world, and every world in this universe, and then I suppose the next step is conquering them all. Now that you won’t be getting in my way anymore, there is no one to stop me.” the smirk on his face grew even larger. The Doctor looked around the rest of the ruined throne room.
There wasn’t much in it, the cage that he and the three mares were trapped in, the cage Twilight was trapped in, and the strange contraption the Intelligence had set up in the corner. He had no idea what to do, when he noticed the other autons stopped moving when the main one spoke, like the act of controlling such a detailed model strained him to the edge of his abilities. Interesting…
“So, how did you get the Nestene Consciousness to follow you, Intelligence?” he asked,  smirk of his own forming.
“Those fools? They are nothing compared to me. When you destroyed the Consciousness under the Eye, the mannequins left behind were easy enough to possess. I created these higher quality ones by melting down the old ones.” just like last time, while he was speaking, the autons preparing the machine stopped dead in their tracks, then continued again when he stopped.
The Doctor looked over at Twilight’s cage, looking for anything that might be a power source, anything that might be glowing…..there! One of the crystals on the machine’s control panel was glowing the same color as the force shield. He slid a rock over to Vinyl and nodded in its direction, she nodded in understanding. Good, he thought, now to keep his attention on me.
“Do you plan to kill us as well, GI? Because if you are, then why haven’t you already? We are completely at your mercy, you could simply turn an auton on us and tell him to pull the trigger.” he said, all three of his cellmates and Twilight staring stunned at him, he simply smirked.
The Great Intelligence considered it, the autons stopping once again, a look of confusion and trepidation on his face. The Doctor saw their chance and nodded, Vinyl catching in the corner of her eye and taking aim. As the Intelligence opened his mouth to speak, she threw it with all the force her telekinesis would allow, the rock striking the crystal dead-on and splintering it. The shield around Twilight flickered and died, its power source disabled.
Every auton in the room wheeled as the alicorn was set free. They all opened their gun-hooves, and fired, but she was already gone. She reappeared in front of the Doctor’s cage and put up a shield of her own as the autons turned towards her. She quickly unlocked the iron cage’s door and threw it wide. The Great Intelligence, seeing his advantage failing, turned tail to run, the effort freezing the autons once again. Twilight seized the opportunity, having seen the phenomenon for herself now, and grabbed the fleeing auton in her magic and pulled him back towards them.
“Fire!” he shouted, “Fire you fools!”
“You haven’t realized it yet, have you? You’ve stretched yourself too thin, too many autons and not enough power!” the Doctor shouted.
“That’s impossible, I have all the power! I am the most powerful being in the room!”
“Maybe back in our universe,” the Doctor replied, “But not here, this universe operates under different rules. The autons are powered by psychic energy, and right now, the most powerful entity in the room is Princess Twilight.” the Intelligence was dumbfounded.
“What does it matter? I control them, I alone!” he shouted, panic rising.
“You did, but her powers are interfering with your own, and the connection between you and them is being severed. You don’t have enough power to keep the connection live and fight off her’s!”
The Intelligence was at his wit’s end.
“You’ve once again underestimated your enemies. And here I was thinking that after all our encounters that you’d have learned your lesson. It will be your doom someday, I promise. Give it up, you’ve lost.”
“Have I, though?” he said, a smirk across his face, making the Doctor cringe. He knew that look, it was an “I’m being clever” look. He hated that look on his enemies.
All the autons around the room began to glow an ominous red as the Intelligence’s smirk grew. They all melted into a pool of liquid plastic and congealed in the center of the room, forming into a gigantic version of the Intelligence’s chuckling head. Part of his face reshaped itself into a longer version of the auton's hoof cannon and training itself on Twilight's shield.
The cannon fired a blast of psychic energy at her, putting a crack in the rose colored barrier. Twilight looked at the Doctor.
"I can't hold this forever, Doctor, how do we stop him?" The Doctor looked around again, spotting the Intelligence's machine sitting behind the head.
Another blast slammed home, widening the crack. But the Doctor noticed something; when the Intelligence fired, a small amount of the head melted away and didn't reform.
"The trip through the Void must've weakened him, that's why he couldn't control them all! If we can keep him firing, he'll eventually run out of power on his own." Another bolt, another crack. Twilight wouldn't last long enough to wear him down.
Looking back at the machine again, a thought struck him.
"Twilight, do you think you can teleport me over to his machine?"
"It's taking all I have to keep the shield up!" She grunted, nose bleeding from the exertion. She found her teeth.
It seemed that even weakened, the Intelligence was still a major force to be reckoned with. He couldn't teleport, couldn't use his screwdriver, and couldn't leave the safety of the shield without being killed.
"Vinyl, can you find a way to distract him? I need to get to that machine!" He asked, the blasts increasing in regularity and force.
The shield was starting to break, chunks falling away like pieces of glass. Rarity added her magic to the mix as Vinyl thought. She nodded nervously. She started to pick up pebbles and throw them at the giant blue head.
The blasts stopped altogether as the Intelligence shouted angrily, "Stop that!"
Much to his chagrin, she continued throwing rubble, Octavia joining her. While he was focused on the musical mares, the Doctor bolted around the edge of the room, right up to the machine, looking it over. It seemed simple enough, connect the diodes to the target's head, connect the other end to yours, touch that crystal and the process starts automatically. Not much help to him now, but the array of unstable looking crystals, however, was a different story.
Having no idea what he was, he started removing crystals at random and placing them back in the wrong order. He grinned as he touched the power crystal and the whole thing started to glow. Then turned and ran as it started to crackle with electricity and glow. The Great Intelligence turned around just in time to see him stumble past as the broken machine exploded. He slid behind the shield as the shockwave overtook them.

As the dust and lights faded, there was a lone, broken auton in the center of the room in a puddle of inert plastic goop. The same goop that was covering both the walls of the throne room as well as Twilight's shield spell. The droplets fell to the ground around them as she dropped the spell and breathed an exhausted sigh of relief.
The Doctor walked over to the remaining auton. The Great Intelligence was beaten, his plastic body lay broken at his hooves. Or so he thought until a familiar glowing blue mist spilled forth from its mouth. It took the shape of a cloud of gases, and the Intelligence's face became visible.
"You may have defeated me again, Doctor, but we shall meet again." It said before departing.
Twilight started to go after him, but the Doctor stopped her.
"You're just going to let him go?" She asked, a mortified look on her face.
"He's beaten, and it'll take time for him to recover. For now, let him run." Then a thought struck him, "How did you know where we were, anyway?"
"One of those auto-things came by my palace with a note telling me to come to the old castle alone." She replied.
"He really sent a random note to you? He really was desperate, wasn't he?" She nodded in agreement.
"So, what was that thing? And how do you know it?" She asked.
"That was the Great Intelligence, ancient being made of living information." Twilight caught herself wondering what that would be like, being made of knowledge, "And he and I have been enemies for ages."
"Okay, next question; who are you? Are you a friend of Vinyl and Octavia's?"
"You could say that. Let me introduce myself, Princess. Hello, I'm the Doctor!" He said, smiling like a madpony, holding out his hoof for her to shake.
She shook hooves with him and asked the age-old question, "Doctor who?"
The Doctor's giant grin got even bigger, he lived for that question...

Later, in Ponyville, the Doctor and company stood in the throne room of Princess Twilight's castle. Twilight and her friends smiled at them, the Doctor looked around the room, but stopped when he saw what looked like a baby Dragon sitting next to the purple Alicorn. He'd definitely need to stop at a library soon, so much he didn't know.
The princess cleared her throat, "Is there anything that I can do to repay you for your service to Equestria and to me and my friends?" She asked.
"Well, there is one thing..."
"Name it, Doctor. What is it you desire, bits? A title in the government? Prince for a day?"
"I would really love an apple, if you please." He smiled expectantly.
Everypony in the room simultaneously facehoofed at this request. Moments later, a brown unicorn in an apron and a chef's hat came out with a juicy looking red delicious apple. The Doctor took it and bit into it. He quickly grimaced and spat it out of good mouth.
"Apples are rubbish!" The orange earth pony with the Stetson snorted angrily at the statement...