Doctor Whooves: Mark Of The Mara

by LightOfTriumph

Picking Up the Pieces.

The quiet in the nightclub did not last very long.

About a minute after the Doctor left Vinyl Scratch chimed in with a hearty "What in Tartarus was that?!" After that it all collapsed into bickering and chaos. Twilight tried to send Spike home, but Spike violently protested. Rarity promptly fainted, with Pinkie Pie catching her. Octavia was hyperventilating. Vinyl was trying to get information from Rainbow Dash, but she was in the dark just like Vinyl. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were plotting something. And Applejack...

Appklejack spent some time trying to catch her breath. She tried to clear her mind of the noise but the room just kept getting louder and louder. "Could everyone please be quiet for a minute?" AJ said. She may as well have been talking to a brick wall.

"Please," AJ said, a little more desperate this time. "Could I just have a little quiet?"

The room responded only by getting louder.

"EVERYPONY SHUT UP!!!"

With that, the room immediately fell silent. Applejack isn't usually the one to lose her temper.

"Look," AJ said, breathing heavily. "I know it's been a week since the business with The Master and the Key to Time, but for me it's only been an hour. I watched my farm burn down, some stallion bursts into the Tardis and starts hissin' like a rattler, one of my best friends completely changes his face and don't seem to recognize me. And now he's wanderin' around Celestial knows where! So I need quiet! Just for a few seconds... I need quiet."

The room stayed quiet as Applejack caught her breath.

With one more deep breath Applejack spoke again. "Twilight, you and the girls need to go back home. In case the Master comes back, we need this place protected. With that... Mara thing here its become all the more needed."

"But AJ-" Rainbow Dash started to protest.

"You're right," Twilight interrupted. Spike growled but was hushed. "Will you be alright?"

"I'll be fine," Applejack lied. "Someone needs to find the Doctor."

"We'll go," Apple Bloom said. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both smiled.

"I'll make sure they stay out of trouble," Vinyl reassured Applejack. "I want to know the crazy old coot a little better anyhow."

"And Timeboy over there," AJ pointed at Blue. "Somepony needs to look after him, make sure he stays out of trouble."

"I can watch him," Octavia said. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going home," Applejack sighed, and got up to leave. "I need to assess the damage. See if we can rebuild."

Applejack silently left the room.

---

It was damaged. Dying. And that wasn't fair.

It had come so close. So close to soaking in enough misery and hate that he could take a real physical form again. Be something tangible, instead of this abstract construct he was. It was in the middle of so much misery, so much hurt, and so much death that it almost felt hedonistic. Decadent, even. It was paradise.

And then the Doctor. And then the Doctor came just like last time and ruined everything.

It needed to save itself. It could suspend itself again. Become the ruby... But no. No, it didn't want that. It needed a host, Some idiot life form with enough negative energy to let it heal. But this place was so happy... so sickeningly happy... It not only felt the sting of content, but relief. It needed something... Anything.

And then he felt it. Nerves. Confusion. It would have to do. It followed the trail back to it's source. When it found it... It smiled.

This one. This one had always looked at it with more fear than the others had. This one had always looked at it like it knew. It didn't make sense at the time, but now it did. Now it knew why this one hated it so much.

Now all that was left was to ask the question.

---

Applejack slowly walked back home. Wondering where her life would go from here, if it would go anywhere.

The Doctor had told her that she was going to have to stay behind. She couldn't do that. Not now. She didn't really understand Time Lord regeneration, but it sounded terrifying. To nearly die, to have your brain implanted in a new body, and then not to know which parts of you were at the forefront of your mind? No. No one should go through that alone.

But she had to consider Ponyville. She had a job to do here. It wasn't just safeguarding the elements, it was the farm.

The farm. Applejack hadn't really considered it until now. That horrible image of the Master standing in front of her burning orchard. Everything her family worked for up in ashes. The horrible red eyed monster staring through her soul. What did it look like now? How long would it take to fix?

And then she saw it as she turned the corner.

Every tree in the orchard was healthy. Greener than she had ever seen it. Thousands of trees bearing thousands of apples. All waiting for the harvest. At the back of the Orchard, the farmhouse. The beautiful rose red barn standing in defiance of everything that had gone wrong.

Applejack stood there, awestruck. She could barely hear her brother calling out for her.

"AJ!" Big Mac called up from the bottom of the hill. "AJ, you're back!"

"Big Mac..." She brushed a tear from her eyes. "Did you do all this?"

"I was gonna ask you the same thing," Mac smiled. "One minute the orchard is up in flames. When we get back to it we've got one of the biggest harvests we've ever had. I don't know what that Doctor of yours did, but thank him for me will you?"

"Yeah." Tears were streaming down AJ's face now. "Yeah I will..."

"Wish you could stick around," Mac smiled. "Kind of a big harvest to take care of by myself. Caramel helps where he can, but nopony bucks like an apple. Not sure I can get the whole crop down in time."

Applejack smiled softly. The message was clear. She knew what she had to do. "Thank you Braniac," she smiled softly. "For everything."

---

Octavia looked over the sleeping Blue, and sighed.

There were several ways this day could have gone. She could have practiced her music in the anticipation of her coming performance. She could have continued composing new pieces for the day. She could have knocked the day off and spent it reading with a little piece and quiet. She could have spent the day with Vinyl, despite the cavernous gulf between their personalities, it was always enjoyable.

She thought she had considered every possibility. She was wrong.

Whoever this "Doctor" was, he seemed important. So important that whatever it was that caused all that trouble last week seemed to revolve entirely around him. He knew the Changeling who called itself "Master." He knew about this strange Pony that was sleeping on her friends sofa. He knew all of this, and Octavia knew nothing. It was frustrating.

She longed for life to be like it was this morning. When all she had to worry about was her music. Now everything had changed, It wasn't fair.

Then a question entered Octavia's mind. At first the question seemed innocent. It was asked of her and by her, in some form or another, every day. You heard this question everywhere. Shops. Restaurants. Even at musical performances on Occasion. But when it was being asked in the way that it was here, there was somehow a very sinister nature to it. As if the answer that you gave reflected who you really were. It seemed like the riskiest question in the world right now.

It came from Octavia's head.

And she wasn't asking the Question.

"What do you want?"

---

The Doctor was still very hazy. But not nearly as hazy as he was letting on.

Regeneration was always a rough prospect on the body, but it felt a little easier this time. Maybe because it was the first time this body had regenerated, maybe it was because the White Guardian made it easier on him. In any case, his head was clearing up remarkably fast.

He still didn't know who this new persona really was. He definitely had a sense of humor, thanks to this little prank he was playing at his friends expense. He definitely was a little bit kind, because he regretted playing those jokes. He wasn't easily phased, due to the fact that he had just met up with a very old enemy that he was fairly sure had melted into glowing goo in front of him and that barely made him blink. Or was he simply cold-hearted? That was a possibility.

He was also the kind of man to sit in a pub and try to work this out, apparently. As stated, he was still very hazy. So he wasn't sure how he managed to get into Ponyville's Hollow Leg Tavern, where the tea in front of him came from, and how he managed to pay for it. But there it was, and it was rather delicious.

"Who the hoof are you?" came a gruff voice from next to his booth.

He looked up at the stallion who had asked the question. "You know," the Doctor said. "I'm not actually sure! I think I might be the sort of Pony who finds that rather exciting! I suppose that means I'm rather mad. I haven't been mad in quite some time. Well... To be fair I've never been mad. You see I'm actually two people, it's rather complex actually. We both certainly have our fair share of troubles...

"But I know one thing..." the Doctor suddenly got very quiet. "I'm the sort of Pony that gets very very cross... I know it's not easy to get me cross... Which is good because you don't want me cross at you, even for a moment. Because I won't be satisfied with simply causing you harm, I won't cease until I have destroyed you. I'll never kill you... But I'll make you wish you were dead. It's a bit unnerving... I can't let myself get too cross, too often... Me being cross is quite scary I'm learning."

The large stallion beside the booth gave the Doctor a terrified look. "Okay," he said quietly. "I will just find another booth."

"I'm sorry?" The Doctor looked around the room to realize that the entire bar had gone quiet. "Oh! Forgive me, I was just thinking out loud. I'm not cross! Well, I am quite cross, but not at any of you! You can have the booth, I was just...

"Oh bloody," the Doctor sighed. "Two more traits to add to the list for my new persona. Charismatic and apologetic...

"I'll tell you what, I'll treat you all to another round!"

Author's Note:

The Doctor and alcohol. Fresh off a regeneration too! This should be fun!

Please rate and comment!

Comments

[tgrtyhythrth]

[Ephraim Blue]

There's an evil among us.

Maybe.

I hope this story is a bit longer than the others. The rate its going right now, if it just went and ended within the next couple chapters, it would seem a bit rushed to me. Another 10 chapters might do

[LightOfTriumph]

7609792 Six more chapters. Nine chapter story like all the others. And I'm kind of padding to get to THAT, tbh.

[Ephraim Blue]

7611243

[Remmy4warlord]

So i did not know that you had made a sequel to the lynch pins series so I just liked and faved and when i pare down the 1400 unread chapters i have waiting i will read on this. Unless it happens to be at the top of my list

[Block]

7613100
1400?! I hit the reset button at about 300!