A Madman Without his Box.

by Nivarion

Arrival

Author's Note:

This is just popped into my head as an off the fly item. No structure, no plot. First draft with just a quick read over. And if there is any doubt, any doubt at all, N is a shameless self insert. Absolutely shameless, but I enjoy using him oh so much.

I wasn't really pleased with how this turned out, so I've done some light editing and rewriting. I feel it's a bit better and closer to passable now.

The Doctor laughed, the TARDIS groaned and outside, his enemy roared. Staggering across a floor rocked by spacial turbulence, The Doctor found his way to the door and threw it open to look at his foe. It was bound to the TARDIS by energy not even he could consume. “I told you Braniac! I told you to stay away from the inhabited worlds, warned you not the cross me! But would you listen? NooOoOoO!”

The giant self proclaimed God screamed at the time lord. “Fool I am beyond you! I have all knowledge! I am in possession of every fact-”

“All you have is an over inflated hubris. Your knowledge? Scraps of what my people had.” The doctor said, leaning out the door. “SCRAPS you hear me!”

Braniac struggled to reach the TARDIS with his technology consuming tentacles. “I will have your knowledge then. You will give it to me!”

“No I don't think I will. We're at our destination anyways.” The doctor shouted as the blue box slowed to approach speed.

“What are you doing?” Braniac demanded, seeing what they were heading towards.

“Something stupidly brilliant. Or brilliantly stupid. OR maybe just stupid, but I'm doing it anyways! Say hello to your new home Braniac! I think you'll be spending a long time here.”

Gravity began to increase, stretching the artificial intelligence out, though the TARDIS protected the Time Lord in the door way. “You could say that this is a bitter pill to swallow, eh Braniac? Bet it annoys you that you don't know that reference, doesn't it!” The Doctor's mad smile grew.

“Fool! You will die too, if you approach any closer my calculations say your chances of survival are one to twelve sextillion!

“Fraid not brain boy. As long as the TARDIS's relativistic stabilizer is in place, I'll be fine. Not so sure about you-” A loud fizzing noise interrupted the Doctor's victory gloating. “Wait, what's that?”

The rhythmic grinding of the TARDIS grew to a frenzied sound as the ship began to plummet towards the black hole. Slamming the doors the Time Lord raced towards the center console where a piece had just exploded from the tower. “Blimey, that's no good. Okay, think doctor, think!” he said rubbing his head. “Gotta be a solution, simple, easy solution to get out of this!”

The ship began to shake hard, like it did on a particularly rough trip. “hold on ol' girl. You can make it! You've been through worse phasing into places. THAT'S IT!” Running around the console the Doctor began to enter settings for anywhere that wasn't dropping into a black hole.

“Boy, you sure are cutting it close.” A man said. The doctor looked up at the odd fellow standing in his TARDIS, leaning on the console. “That would work normally, I think. But- I'm gonna have to interfere here. I want to mess with your life a little.”

“And just who are you?” The Doctor said, stepping back from the TARDIS controls and drawing his Sonic.

“Me? No one important, really. I'm N, just the God of a small section of reality and need someone to be a hero in a corner planet of that section. Really, a world I'm
borrowing. Actually, one I stole. Hmm, might have trouble with that at some point. Ah well. Whatever. You know how stealing things can be.” As the self proclaimed god spoke he was turning knobs and switches on the TARDIS control panel while the Doctor scanned him. “I wonder, what ever would happen if I did this?”

The Doctor half smiled, “Yeah, yeah. People have gotten in the TARDIS before and I've met plenty of gods. Good gods, bad gods, gods with big smoke clouds and glowing green face projections. But I have to say, I've never met a real God.” The Doctor looked at his his sonic, confused by a readout that said 'Species; God. IQ God. Health; God.' In fact, 'God' was the answer to every inquiry the sonic made. “What?” The Doctor said, just before the God's question caught up to him “WHAT?” he said, looking in horror at the being, who's hand was on the control lever for the TARDIS.

“Well, as you used to say, about eleven generations ago. Alons-y!” N said, pushing the lever down. The ship began to shake even harder as it went somewhere unknown. A moment later the being disappeared like he had never been.

The Doctor ran in a frenzied panic to the control panel and pulled a screen towards himself. The TARDIS was heading towards an empty sector of space. One no one had been to in at least a thousand years, just an empty gap between galaxies. “Why here?” he asked as the ship began to rematerialize in regular space. “Of all the- Whoa!”

For the umpteenth time today the TARDIS began to shake and bounce, this one worse even than falling into a massive black hole. His TARDIS was built to handle that, it wasn't built though, to handle slipping through the gap between two varied dimensions. Sparks and fire flew through the control room, making the lighting flicker wildly.

As soon as he was past the dimensional gap, he found his ship flipping end over end as it entered the atmosphere of a planet. “WHY?” he shouted at the screen as he saw that he was heading for a city. Old medieval times city, with thatch roofed cottages built around an imposing castle. A castle right in his way.

The TARDIS rattled as it crashed through the western turret and bounced off the ground in a huge mess with lots of collateral damage. Judging by the sound, at least three cottages and a wagon full of cabage were destroyed by his passing. Even with most of the stabilizers still active and functioning, the impact was a lot for a TARDIS to negate. Like a rag doll, the Time Lord was thrown into a waiting wall, with a good bounce he passed out.

He was awoken by a distinctive quadruple tap. If he wasn't mistaken, it had been at least a half hour since his unexpected meeting with a wall. Slowly, the Time Lord sat up and took in his surroundings. The TARDIS control room was in terrible disarray; Paneling was scattered across the sideways room, wires and blown conduits hung from the ceiling as a few various circuits smoked. The entire scene was bathed in the eerie red of the emergency lights.

“Oh, this is bad. Emergency power systems... The damage isn't as bad as it looks but I'm going to have to find you some food soon old girl.” The Doctor slowly bear crawled his way to the center console, the floor leaning at an odd angle, signifying the failure of the orientation stabilizers. “Well, lets get to that, this old bucket aught to do the trick!” he said, digging in the center storage for the device.

It wasn't much to look at, really. A human made computer hooked up to one of their automotive batteries, a gift from UNIT. It had one purpose, and one purpose only; and that one purpose was to seek out suitable power sources for the TARDIS. He was just getting it booted when a sound caught his attention. A small soft click, like the turning of a lock. A moment later the click was followed by the squeak of unoiled hinges. “HAH! I told you I knew this!” a voice shouted triumphantly. The Doctor raised his eyebrow in worry. There were less than five unaccounted for keys to his TARDIS in all of existence. While it wasn't impossible that one was here, it at least struck him as highly unlikely. "No, he's probably not ready for company, just go back to the castle- Yes, he's completely safe! You might be a princess but I'm older than you little missy!" The door opened wider, filling the room with bright sunlight and admitting the key holder.

“Doctor, are you okay in there?” The intruder said with deep concern. “That was a pretty bad wreck- Oh, you're up!” The Doctor could only stare dumbfounded at the speaker. In his many travels he had seen many things, had conversed with many creatures of all shapes and sizes. But the cobalt blue horse, or pony rather, stumped him.

Sure, the coloring didn't make any sense, and the fact that it could speak was a bit shocking. But he'd met the oddly colored and the odd intelligent species out there. But the fact that the creature was speaking perfect Time Lord when it addressed him was... odd.

“I never thought I'd see you again!” the pony said, rushing forward to hug the Doctor around his waist. “It has been FAR too long my friend!”

“Must- *gasp* BE! Because I seem- Ouch- to have forgotten a talking pony.” The Doctor wedged a hand against the offending horse's face and pushed. “TOO MUCH HUGGING!”

The stallion let go with a laugh. “Sorry Doctor. I guess I do look different these days, but surely your recognize me even?” The stallion turned to present his rump, where an ourboros was emblazoned in bright gold against the blue. “I have to say, I do like the coloring of this regeneration. Reminded me of my best mate in all of existence.”

The Doctor looked stallion over, He had strong, thick legs, indeed he was a stocky build and heavily muscled, as the Doctor's aching ribs attested. He spoke Time Lord, and if he was to be believed, had regenerated, then that meant that surely this pony was a Time Lord himself. But it was the Ouroboros that pulled it together. “No...” The Doctor said.

“YES!” Replied The Pony. “Welcome to Equestria! You're probably gonna be stuck here till the end of your life, but it's a pretty great place to be stuck, eh?” The blue pony said, leaning in towards the still Humaniod Time Lord. “And the Mares are pretty hot round here if you know what I mean?” He said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“No, no. You see, you're trying to tell me that you're the Corsair. But THAT!” the Doctor pointed strait up “Is a fatal mistake. You see, the Corsair is dead. I personally dealt with his killer. Unless... Wait, are Time Lords equine of nature in this reality?”

The 'Corsair' shrugged, an odd looking action for a horse. “Don't know. I got here without my TARDIS. House killed her.” he sighed. “Sadly, I don't think this dimension's compatible with our technology anyways. Yours doesn't seem to be handling it well.”

The Doctor looked at the energy cells of his blue ship. They were fading quickly, too quickly. If the Doctor had to make a guess, this dimension was draining her. “NO! Hold on Sexy!” The Doctor shouted, pulling open a panel of the TARDIS. “I'll figure something out! I promise!” he straddled the hole he had made and began to dig “Okay, this isn't hard. I just need to find an alternate source of energy. I could use a regeneration, but I've only got three of those left. But what good are they if I have to spend them on one planet? Can you imagine living a whole lifetime on one planet?”

“Hey, this is a great planet! I've already been here for three regenerations!” The Corsair said indignantly, but the Doctor ignored him, there'd be time for catching up and or proving identity when his ship was stabilized.

“Maybe there's a fissure in the multiverse around here, and I can drag her over there and charge her up just enough to escape?” The doctor said, tapping on the computer

“Doctor!” The Corsair said, “You're getting in that mood.”

The computer was scanning, but showed no sources of energy nearby. Wait, no, there was one a little over two thousand miles off, but it might as well be on this world's moon.

“But how would I even move her? Augh Maybe I could-”

“DOCTOR!” The pony Time Lord shouted. “Calm down man!”

The Doctor turned on the intruder. “Why? It's my ship! My life! I mean... Hahaha, no she'll be fine. I've gotten out of this situation a half dozen times before! I just need to find a living energy crystal and feed it-”

“Doctor listen!” The Corsair said forcibly. The Doctor stopped mid sentence. There was a pop, a crack like an arm being pulled from it's socket layered over with paper being yanked from an envelop and glass shattering. A distinct sound that all Time Lords were taught to fear. The sound of energy crystals collapsing from exhaustion.

“It can't be... I- I don't know what... How many have you--?” he dropped to the floor, back against the center console.

“A dozen Doctor. How many does a model forty have?”

“Thirteen.” The Doctor said.

As soon as he said that, there was a 'crack pop' of horrible, terrible finality.

Comments

[Nivarion]

Those who declare first without adding something, will be keel hauled.

[LongJohn 03]

Good start

[Limelight02]

Good job.