Doctor Hooves: To Whom Gods Pray

by M1ghtypen

Chapter 2

Ponies living in Ponyville had routines. It was one of the privileges of living in a small town; life was predictable enough that one could become accustomed to doing certain things at certain times. For Dr. Horatio Hooves and Ditzy Doo, two o’clock was tea time. They hadn’t broken the tradition in almost a year, and today would be no different apart from being extremely uncomfortable.

At Pinkie Pie’s last party both Ditzy and Hooves had downed a little too much of the special punch. After leaving Hooves had offered to walk her home, an offer that Ditzy was in no shape to refuse. What happened afterward was a bit of a blur but, if she tried very hard, she could remember kissing and awkward attempts at conversation.

Ditzy gingerly removed the fob watch from its place on the mantle. She didn’t have much time to think about what she was doing. Any moment now Hooves would return from the kitchen and she would be expected to talk to him. She had to make her decision quickly, because if she didn’t act now then she never would.

Ditzy sat down at the table and placed the watch next to her plate. She waited patiently until Hooves returned with a small tray of sandwiches. He sat across from her and stared at the tablecloth, unwilling to look her in the eye. “So,” he began, but nothing more came out.

Things had been awkward for the last few days. Neither of them knew how to act around each other. “I w-want us to still be friends,” Hooves stammered. “Even if you don’t want to be together romantically, we can still be close. That’s alright, isn’t it?”

Ditzy stared at the watch that he had yet to notice. She could probably have left it on the table for hours and he wouldn’t think to question its presence. “I need you to listen very carefully,” she said slowly. “I’m only telling you this because it’s really important to me and you probably won’t remember in a few minutes anyway.”

Hooves started to argue, to say that he would never brush aside anything that was important to her. Ditzy knew because it was exactly what he needed to say to make her feel better. “Wait,” she ordered. “If I stop then I might never get started again. Don’t make it easy for me to talk myself out of this. You said that I should only do this for one of two reasons. Firstly, if something terrible happened and the universe needed you; second, if I was so completely lost that I needed you.”

“I did?” Hooves asked.

Ditzy grinned. “Right now there’s a red light blinking in a telephone box telling me that all of Equestria is in danger.” Her smile vanished. “But that isn’t why I’m doing this. Maybe the universe needs you right now, but so do I. I need you because I feel more lost now than I ever have in my entire life and the only way to fix it is to bring you back.”

Tears were beginning to flow down her face, but she continued on regardless. “I’d love to let you stay this way –to stay with me- but I know it’s selfish. As much as it hurts, I know that you aren't yourself right now and you don’t really know what you’re saying.”

“What are you talking about?” Hooves asked. “Derpy, I meant everything I said. I understand if you don’t feel the same, but if you do-”

Ditzy winced as he used her fake name. She hated that name with a passion. “I do,” she whispered. “I really do, Doctor, but you don’t.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Hooves asked. “Being a doctor is a profession, not a name. Besides, I’d feel a bit pretentious if I called myself a doctor because of a degree in cheesemaking.”

Ditzy giggled. “You could always make me laugh when I needed it the most.”

“As many times as I have to,” Hooves assured her with a smile that made her want to cry.

“Here.” Ditzy pushed the watch across the table and watched as he examined it. “I’m glad to know you, Hooves or Doctor or whoever you are. For the record, and again I’m only telling you this because you’re about to forget, I love you too.” She stood up and trotted around the table, taking his hooves in hers while they were occupied with the watch. “Goodbye, Hooves.”

Hooves almost said something. He forgot what it was when she kissed him so gently that there was almost no contact at all. Ditzy backed away slowly as a strange light began to fill the room. He looked down at the watch in his hooves, wondering which of them had opened it.

In a few moments he stopped caring. One word came to mind and tumbled out of his mouth before he could even think about it: “Geronimo.” His eyes opened, the entirety of time and space rushed in on him, and he opened himself to it completely.

*****

Traveling with the Doctor was not without its dangers. Usually a short ride through space and time was enough to escape even the most tenacious of foes, but the Doctor had a knack for angering strange and powerful beings. In this case he had managed to anger a goddess, which was something of a personal record.

It wasn’t his fault, really. There were some events that not even a Time Lord could interfere with, and the changeling invasion of Equestria was one of them. The Doctor had stood by while Canterlot fell under siege without attempting to warn Celestia. It had been the right thing to do, but the monarch hadn’t seen it that way. Two of her royal guards had died trying to defend Canterlot Tower and the loss had hurt her deeply.

Ditzy had never seen Celestia so angry, and hoped that she would never see the fury of a goddess again. Even the TARDIS (“That’s ‘Time and Relative Dimension in Space’,” the Doctor had proudly proclaimed on their first trip), a machine so amazing that Ditzy still could not wrap her mind around it, could not outrun Celestia.

To escape certain death via violent combustion, the Doctor had gone into hiding. Like almost everything he did, his methods had been both extremely effective and completely bizarre. He hadn’t been satisfied with pretending to be a normal pony; the Doctor had insisted that he needed to become a normal pony.

Ditzy had laughed at the idea when she’d first heard it. Why would a Time Lord want to become a boring old earth pony? More importantly, how could it be possible?

The Doctor’s explanation had been complicated and confusing, but Ditzy thought that she understood the general idea. A creature as powerful as Celestia could sense the mixture of science and magic that made up his body. It could serve as a beacon and lead her right to him.

The Doctor knew that he could not afford to be found; Time Lords were capable of many things, but they could not best an alicorn in a fair fight. The Doctor had created a pocket watch containing, as he put it, his identity as a Time Lord. Somehow his essence was trapped inside and could only be released when the watch was opened.

Ditzy, his clumsy and walleyed companion, was entrusted with his safekeeping. She had never felt more overwhelmed with responsibility in her life and watched him like a hawk for weeks, afraid that she would fail in her duties and cause the death of the most amazing pony she’d ever met.

Time wore on, and after months of carefully watching her friend she realized that he wasn’t about to go running off into the sunset to save the day and rescue somepony he’d never met. He was an ordinary pony, and he did ordinary things. They became friends, and life turned into the wonderfully safe monotony of a normal existence.

At no point had Ditzy been told how long the Doctor intended to hide. Two years had passed, and she wasn’t sure if this sort of thing had a time limit. Now, as he shivered and gasped on the floor, she was beginning to think she had waited too long.

Her fears were laid to rest when the Doctor leapt to his feet and shook himself violently. “Wow, what a rush!” he laughed. “I feel terrible! My head feels like it’s about to explode, and not because of all the cleverness packed inside.” He grinned happily. “Isn’t it great? I’m back!” He grabbed Ditzy and spun her around like a ballroom dancer, then wrapped her in a hug. “Oh, feels like it’s been ages since we've talked. How long was I gone?”

“A little over two years,” Ditzy squeaked. “D-Doctor, I can’t breathe.”

“Two years?” The Doctor asked. He set her down and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s longer than I’ve ever hidden before. I’ll have to do a few tests on myself, you know, to make sure everything’s not gotten all scrambled in my brain.”

“Good idea,” Ditzy said, forcing a smile. She was glad to have her Doctor back, but she would miss Dr. Hooves.

“Why am I awake?” the Doctor asked. “What’s happened? Do you hear that? No, never mind. There’s no time. What about Celestia?”

Ditzy winced. “She’s still angry. Did I bring you back too soon?”

The Doctor shrugged as though angering a creature capable of moving a star across the sky every day wasn’t something he needed to worry about. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Trust me.”

For a moment awkward silence fell over the room. “Go on,” the Doctor prodded. “Say it.”

Ditzy rolled her eyes. “Can’t we just go?”

“Pleeeaaaase?”

Ditzy giggled and hugged her friend. “Okay. I trust you. You’re the Doctor.”

The Doctor hugged her back, then squared his shoulders and adjusted his tie. “Let’s go!” he announced. “To the TARDIS!” He ran for the door and stopped with his hoof on the knob. “Really though, do you hear that?”

Ditzy cocked an ear and listened intently. “The clocks are ticking,” she said after a while. “Is that it?”

“No.” The Doctor frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe. Never mind, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

*****

“City Guard Security Box,” the Doctor sighed. “I’ve missed reading those words.” He affectionately ran a hoof down the door of the TARDIS. Ditzy had missed them too.

The TARDIS was just a big, wooden box with paneled doors on the outside. Nopony in Equestria would have thought much of it until they saw the inside. There were huge open rooms, hallways, a library, and sometimes even a swimming pool. The little blue box was much bigger than it looked, and the layout tended to shift every now and then.

“I missed you, Doctor.” Ditzy breathed a sigh of relief; she meant it, from the bottom of her heart. She had her Doctor back and the world was finally going to work the way it was supposed to. Never mind that she still felt a dull ache in her chest. That feeling would go away in time, just as it always did.

The Doctor held out his hoof and Ditzy handed him a key. “Let’s see how she looks after all this time.” The doors swung inward despite the word “PULL” printed on them in big, obvious letters. The Doctor and Ditzy stepped inside, shutting the door behind them and locking it with a tiny click.

“Look at you,” the Doctor breathed. “Just look at you, you gorgeous thing!” The TARDIS’s main control room was the size of a small house, with structural supports crisscrossing the ceiling and catwalks erected over some of the more delicate pieces of machinery. A raised island stood in the center of the room with an impressive array of buttons and view screens mounted around it.

The Doctor ran to the control panel with all the excitement of a foal on Hearth’s Warming Eve. “Where should we go first?” he asked. “It’s all ours again, Ditzy! Past, present, and the distant future! We could see the Horsehead Nebula, New Equestria, or maybe even the very first Hearts and Hooves Day.”

His face suddenly fell, all traces of excitement disappearing as he noticed a light blinking on the console. “Hang on, what is this? This isn’t right. This shouldn’t be here.”

Ditzy trotted over to the single chair in the room and sat down. She’d always thought of this as the captain’s chair despite it being too far away from the control panel. “That started blinking an hour ago. I noticed it when I came to check on her. What does it mean?”

“Something not good,” the Doctor said quietly. “Something very, extremely not good. It means the TARDIS had detected a huge surge of time energy. There’s a Time Lord in Equestria.”

“But that’s great!” Ditzy exclaimed. “Doesn’t that mean you aren’t the last?”

“No. It means that I’m not the last anymore. It means a pony that I thought for certain was dead has just found a way to cheat death yet again. It means that things are about to get very, very bad for Equestria if I don’t do something to stop him.”

Ditzy had always thought of the Doctor as a whimsical, almost childish character that loved every ridiculous thing about life and the universe. She had rarely seen him when he was serious, when most ponies wouldn’t even recognize him as the playful stallion that loved to go whizzing around in his blue box. She would never get used to it, even if she lived as long as he did.

“You were right to bring me back,” he said. “Equestria is going to need all the help it can get.”

*****

Canterlot Tower, and by extension the royal vaults that it contained, was completely locked down. Teams of guardsponies patrolled constantly, on the lookout for anything suspicious. They had lost two of their own and most were itching for a chance to repay the loss.

Such things were of little concern to Ditzy Doo and the Doctor. The TARDIS traveled through time and space and could survive at the center of stars, so slipping through a secure perimeter was foal’s play.

“Here we are!” the Doctor announced once they had materialized fully. “This place was built with Time Lord technology. You could fit the entire population of Canterlot in here and still have room left over.” He led Ditzy out into the huge, open area of the tower’s interior. His trusty saddlebags were strapped to his back and his sonic screwdriver was tucked into his collar. He was ready for anything.

“Why?” Ditzy asked. “What is all this stuff?”

“It’s technology that Equestria isn’t ready for. Every civilization in the universe needs to develop in its own time; awful things can happen when a species gets technology more advanced than it can handle. Entire planets have been destroyed because someone got careless and sold the wrong kind of bomb to a native.” He rolled his eyes. “So naturally Celestia, knowing how knowledgeable I am about, well, everything, asked me to help find a way to keep it all locked up.”

“Makes sense.” The pair began looking around for signs of theft. “What did they take?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but we can find out.” The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, a small metal tube with a blue light on one end that had seemingly endless utility, remained clipped to his collar. He clearly didn’t feel like he needed it. “Let’s think for a moment: imagine that I’m the Master.”

The Doctor suddenly screamed like a frightened schoolfilly. “Is something wrong?” Ditzy asked.

“I imagined too hard.” He gave her a wink and continued on. “Right, so I’m the Master and I’m looking for some secret alien technology to complete my next dastardly scheme. What do I need? Weapons! Every hostile takeover needs weapons. What weapons did I take?”

The Doctor set off at a run and, as usual, Ditzy was left struggling to keep up. “Dalek weaponry is the most obvious choice!” the Doctor announced. “Daleks had technology so advanced that they were a match for the Time Lords. We’ll start there.”

After only a few hundred yards they found the right gun case. “I was right!” the Doctor exclaimed. “I love being right.” He sniffed the air expectantly and nodded. “Good. Can you smell that? It’s a sort of charge in the air, like lightening about to strike. That’s changeling magic, maybe even from Chrysalis herself.”

The Doctor began trotting around aimlessly, scenting the air like a hound on the hunt. “Who is this other Time Lord?” Ditzy asked. “Does he have a name, or does he just have a title like you?”

“I have a name!” the Doctor said defensively. “It just isn’t one that I go advertising to anypony passing by like the rest of you lot. But yes, he has a title like mine. He’s called the Master. We were friends once.” He stopped in his aimless pacing, but quickly began again. He was busy, and the Doctor didn’t stop when he had something important to do.

“Foals on Gallopfrey didn’t have it quite as easy as they do here. At a young age we looked into the Untempered Schism. It’s a sort of initiation ritual; young Time Lords look into the rift, the hole in the fabric of reality, and see everything. The whole of time and space is connected by the Vortex, and the Vortex passes right in front of you.” For a moment he looked very small and frightened, all haunted eyes and quivering legs. “Nopony can see all of that and not be changed. Nopony.

“Most of us are inspired by it. Some run away as far and as fast as they can. Sometimes when things go wrong, we go mad.” The Doctor tapped one of his hooves against a display case: tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. “The Master started hearing drums,” he explained. “They drove him insane and they've been pounding in his head ever since. He’s brilliant, he’s eternally patient, and he’s completely mad.”

Ditzy scrunched up her nose thoughtfully. Most ponies said she looks silly when she was thinking, but the Doctor never seemed to mind. Early on in their relationship he had mentioned how adorable she looked, so she hadn’t seen any reason to change. “That sounds awful. Who could do that to a child?”

“Time Lords,” the Doctor answered. “Who else?”

“What happened to you when you looked into the schis-thingy?”

The Doctor’s mood improved instantly and Ditzy knew she had asked exactly the right question. “What a thing to ask!” he laughed. “What was the first word I said to you?

“Run,” she answered.

“Exactly. I ran across the entire universe. I stole a TARDIS from a museum and I haven’t stopped running ever since.”

Ditzy smiled as he got back to work. Yes, she decided, it was good to have the Doctor back. She had been worried about getting out of shape with nothing to run from.

*****

Any questions or suggestions regarding the story? Let me know in the comments or send me a message. Oh, and before I forget, the Doctor does actually have a PhD in cheesemaking. He said so in The God Complex. He’s a legitimate doctor, but he rarely says what kind of doctor he is. Mostly he just says he’s a doctor of “everything” when people ask him and leaves it at that.

Cue Buzz Lightyear’s horrified observation: “I don’t believe that man’s EVER been to medical school.”

It’s sooooo late. Can’t think. One last thing before I forget: I personally love the name “Derpy”. I’m happy that it’s her canon name and all, but it doesn’t make sense to call her that in this story. She’s supposed to be in hiding. Of course she’s going to use a fake name. This also explains why Dr. Hooves has always acted like a normal background pony in the show: he doesn’t know any different.

Comments

[Azreon]

why has this not gotten more likes its good

[M1ghtypen]

1771518 I'm super duper thrilled that you like it, thanks!

[Azreon]

its like the human nature/the family of blood they were good villains especially son of mine

[M1ghtypen]

1773924 I hadn't given the family much thought until now. they were actually pretty creepy now that I think about it.