Something's wrong with time. Again. Why else would there be more than one Doctor at once?
Isn't that always the way? The Doctor has finally gotten used to the idea of taking a little break from Cyberponies, genocidal madponies, gods of chaos, and the other assorted craziness that is his life, and his future self and companions just crash his place.
Literally.
Well, that can only mean one thing, can't it? Time to dive right back into that wibbly wobbly ball of timey wimey stuff. But can the Doctor deal with another one of himself for any length of time?
No. Probably not.
Thanks to sgamer82 for the creative input. Going with an old favorite placeholder image for my cover.
The Magical Land of Equestria, a very, very long time ago:
It was snowing outside again. Of course it was snowing. It was always snowing in this Princesses forsaken place. Why would today be any different? Even the amazing view outside the little colt's window did little to soothe his bad mood. Honestly, he couldn't figure out what the big deal was, anyway. Yes, the crystal spires and the myriad ways they refracted light were always beautiful, but that was just it, they were always there. It was boring. The little one desperately wished his parents had allowed him that trip to Everfree, if only for the change in scenery.
"Maybe next week," they had said. "The Fair is coming up, and you know how important that is."
Yes, of course he knew how important the Crystal Fair was. As Prince of the Realm, it was one of the many, many things that had been drilled into his head practically since birth. It was one of the pillars of the Crystal Empire's culture. That didn't stop the young colt from moping in his room tonight. "Hmph," he muttered under his breath. "Who needs them, anyway?"
Who needs them?
The colt sat up stock straight in surprise. The question was quiet--he almost didn't quite catch it. But it had seemed to come from outside his own window. "Who goes there?" He asked, sounding much braver than he felt.
Who goes?
Definitely from outside. The young one felt a shiver of fear, but also mild annoyance. Did whatever-it-was out there really mean to imply it didn't know him? Him of all ponies? "I asked first," he said, as he threw the window open to confront the whatever-it-was. If it was a foalnapper, they were going to learn the error of their ways. He was already a powerful mage--had skipped several years in school, and was a nationally ranked dualist even at his young age.
I asked first,
"No you didn't, I did!"
I did.
The fear was gone, completely replaced by irritation. The whatever-it-was certainly had a childish sense of humor. But what was it, anyway? If he didn't know better, he could have sworn it was the snow itself talking. "What is your name?"
What is your name?
The colt tilted his head in confusion. Definitely sounded like it was coming from the snow. But that was impossible, even in this world full of magic and unicorns and cities constructed out of crystal. Maybe he was just... No, no that was impossible as well. He was a prince! What need did he have for an imaginary friend?
What is your name?
The repeated question caused to colt to scratch his chin thoughtfully. His imagination was certainly vivid for something he didn't really use much. Perhaps he was lonelier than even he was aware of. Oh, what harm could it do? If nothing else it would keep him entertained for a while.
"Sombra," he said out to the frigid air. "My name is Sombra."
Time Keeps Wibbling On: A Doctor Whooves Adventure By Shotoman with creative input by sgamer82
Part 1 Sum of His Memories
Dodge Junction, Equestria, 784 C.R:
The desert heat beat down on the now quiet town of Dodge Junction. Funny how quiet things always were after the shooting stopped. Standing in the middle of the town was an odd quartet of ponies. The largest and strangest of them all turned sadly to the others. "It seems I am now a weapon without a purpose." He cast a look over to the smoke rising in the distance, then back down at his metal armored foreleg. "What do I do now?"
The current, temporary sheriff of Dodge Junction smiled up at the half metal pony before him. "A weapon? Oh, you're no weapon. I mean, don't get me wrong, you have weapons in you and quite a lot of them and most of them are really quite deadly..."
"Doctor..." the red maned mare said in irritation. "The point."
The Doctor coughed into his hoof. "Sorry." He removed the sheriff's badge from his decidedly out of place tweed jacket at hoofed it over to the cyborg. "If it's a purpose you want, perhaps you can try protection. I'm sure the ponies here wouldn't mind." The Doctor gestured to the surrounding buildings, where the townsponies were cautiously stepping out into the streets, watching the exchange. "They need a sheriff, a pony who can look out for them, keep them safe. One who'll stay by them, and that's something I can't do. I've got places to go, things to see, running to do. But you...?" He pinned the badge to the weather beaten brown cloak the cyborg was wearing.
The large pony-turned-weapon looked down at his new proof of office, then back at the doctor, the organic part of his face twisted into a smile. Dodge Junction had it's new sheriff.
~DrW~
"How was that for a weekend trip, eh?" the Doctor crowed as he gleefully threw the TARDIS door open. "Where should we go next, hmm? Signing of the great peace treaty with the griffons? Maybe a day among the dinosaurs? I know a space station in the 60th century that makes the best fruit smoothies in the universe."
"Actually, Doctor," spoke up Ripple Pond, sharing a significant look with the third member of their little party, "I think we'd better get home before anypony notices Blue Shield and me're aging faster than they are."
For the briefest of moments, the Doctor's face fell, but his smile returned almost instantly. "Yes. Good idea. Definitely something to consider. I forget how that works sometimes. And I suppose we should see if your dad's made any progress on those cubes, eh Shieldey?"
Blue Shield rolled his eyes. At least the Doctor didn't call him Mr. Pond this time.
The Doctor began his mad dash around the control panel in the center of the room, turning knobs, slamming levers into place, and pounding buttons. "Let's get a move on, then. Sooner I drop you two off at home, the sooner we can leave agaiAHG!!"
The TARDIS shook violently. Much more so than the Doctor's driving usually merited. Ripple would have landed quite painfully on her flank if Blue Shield hadn't caught her and took the painful landing himself. The Doctor got through by holding on to the console.
"Doctor, what's going on?" Ripple asked in annoyance.
"Looks like there's an irregularity in the Time Vortex, it's playing havoc on the temporal couplings and the chronodar, making it very difficult to steer right now."
"Is that your way of saying you don't know?" Blue Shield asked.
"Yes!" the Doctor replied, though his face had a gleeful smile that made his two companions groan. "Hang on to something, Ponds. Looks like we're in for a bumpy ride." He then thew his head back and shouted wholeheartedly "Geronimo!"
~DrW~
"Was that supposed to happen?" Ripple asked around coughs as she stumbled out of the little blue barn that disguised one of the greatest ships in the universe.
"Supposed to happen?" The Doctor asked in irritation, even as he was desperately trying to put out the fires their little entrance caused. "Of course that wasn't supposed to happen? When is that ever supposed to happen?"
"And yet it does," Blue Shield replied dryly.
"Oh, shut up you. Go outside for now and let me deal with the fires."
The other two did what he asked (for once) leaving the Doctor to do his work. The fires weren't a particularly big deal and he almost had them all out when Ripple called back in to him. "Oi, Raggedy Colt! We got a pony out here!"
"Yes, the owner of the shop, probably," the Doctor replied, as he got his first look at the building they'd crashed into, taking note of the many, many now-broken clocks hanging on the walls. "It's a clock shop, apparently. Oh, isn't that nostalgic? Well you wouldn't know it's nostalgic, I don't speak of the Ponyville days. But nostalgic it is. Keep him busy while I put this last fire out."
Moments later, the Doctor exited the store, his mouth running and his attention most certainly not trained on the shop owner they'd inconvenienced. "Hello there. Sorry for the mess. Our ride is giving us a bit of trouble. The fires are out but I wouldn't go in yet if I were you. Don't worry, though. I just need to see where the hiccup is get her fixed. We'll make sure the place is clean when we leave, you won't even know we were here. Oh, right. Introductions. This is Mr. and Mrs. Ripple Pond and I am the Doctaaah!"
Just as he was about to extend his hoof, he saw the pony before him, and it caused him to leap back several hooves. It... it was him. From before! From... from the Ponyville days! Looking on with a mildly amused smirk on his face. Was he really that skinny back then? The Doctor supposed he had to be, because here he was. But if he was here...
The Doctor looked up at the sign hanging above the clock shop door. An hourglass, naturally. Then... In a panic the Doctor searched the skies. Good. No sign of her. Yet. The Doctor brought his gaze back down to look at, well, at himself, and there was only one word that could possibly encapsulate all the very complex feelings churning through his hearts.
"You holding on tight, Little Muffun?" Derpy asked of her little one as they neared the school.
Dinky wrapped her forelegs around her mother's neck and grinned widely. "Yes, Mom."
"Then here we go!" With a laugh, Ponyville's rather infamous grey bottle of pent-up energy dove for the ground, pulling up just in time to plant her feet in the dirt road, her momentum carrying her forward about ten extra hooves if the deep furrow she dug was any indication. She looked around, barely taking note of the ponies who'd scattered in panic at her entrance, until she found the grape colored pony she was looking for standing in front of the school house. "Morning, Cheers!" Derpy shouted happily.
Cheerilee just rolled her eyes with a small smile. "Good morning, Derpy. How are you doing today?"
"Same way I'm doing every day," Derpy replied with a laugh as she lowered her little daughter to the ground. "Ready to take over the world." This of course elicited another eye-roll from the school teacher. Derpy turned her attention to her daughter as she hoofed her a bag lunch. "You're gonna ace that math test, aren't you kiddo?"
"Yup!"
"And you're not gonna give Diamond Tiara another black eye, are you?"
"Aw, but Mom! She deserved it!" At her mother's mismatched but stern glare, Dinky relented. "Fine."
"Good girl," Derpy praised as she kissed her Little Muffin on her forehead, just under the base of her horn. "Now you go and be brilliant, okay?"
"Okay!" Dinky replied as she trotted toward the school house.
Derpy noticed that Cheerilee was watching them, a private sort of smile on her face. "What?" she asked.
"Nothing," Cheerilee said quickly. "It's just... you two are adorable is all."
Derpy and Dinky shared a glance, then both pretended to gag at the same time, earning giggles from each other and yet another eye-roll from Cheerilee. When the moment was over, Dinky's eyes caught something behind her mother, then widened slightly as she quickly motioned her down to her level. "Don't look now," she whispered into Derpy's ear. "But I think the Funny Doctor just blew himself up again."
Derpy looked behind her and sighed at the column of smoke rising off in the distance, from just the right location. "I can't take my eyes off him for a minute," she grumbled with a small, exasperated smile. Taking to the air, Derpy waved one last farewell to her daughter and as well as her old friend. "You take care of her, Cheers."
"I will," Cheerilee replied as she watched Derpy fly off to the center of town.
~DrW~
"What exactly is going on, Doctor?" Ripple Pond asked in irritation as her Raggedy Colt just stammered incoherently at the stallion before him. There didn't seem to be much to this ordinary looking clock maker, really. He was of average size, maybe a little scrawny, actually. Chestnut colored, brown mane and tail, not exactly sore on the eyes, in an unkempt sort of way, and... "Wait a second, he's got your cutie mark," she realized.
"Hello!" the chestnut stallion said with a thoroughly amused smile as he offered his hoof to Ripple. "I'm the Doctor."
"You are enjoying this far too much!" the Raggedy Colt accused, his green eyes glaring daggers.
"And why shouldn't I?" the clock maker replied. "One of us should. And it doesn't look like it'll be nearly as amusing the second time around."
"Hold a tic," Blue Shield said. "You're one of the Doctor's past selves?"
The clock maker's blue eyes sparkled as he grinned. "Yes, brilliant! I really have to commend you on your selection of companions, Doctor. Looks like you landed some good ones."
"Some of the best," the Raggedy Doctor admitted with no small amount of pride, before turning serious. "But this is bad. Really bad. So very, very bad. If I'm here, and you're here, and Ponyville hasn't been completely erased from the very fabric of time, then something big is happening somewhere somewhen and it probably concerns both of us."
The Ponyville Doctor sighed, as his expression turned sour. "That much is certainly true," he admitted. "And I was having such a nice day."
The Raggedy Doctor was about to reply, when he saw something up in the sky, off in the distance. His eyes widened briefly before he quickly turned to go back into the clock shop. "Yes well then we'd better pop off to the TARDIS then and get started on figuring this out every second counts you know when it comes to these things and we wouldn't want something bad to happen now would..."
He was stopped in his tracks by Ripple stepping on his tail. "Doctor," she asked, a wry grin forming on her face, "who is that?" She pointed at the grey pegasus off in the distance obviously flying this way.
"Oh, that's Derpy!" the Ponyville Doctor replied happily. "She's with me."
"Really now?" Ripple asked, her grin getting wider.
"Oh, don't you start," the Raggedy Doctor groused even as he admitted defeat and sat down to wait for the inevitable.
Ripple didn't know what she was expecting, but the grey, wall-eyed thing that basically crash landed in their midst most certainly wasn't it. "What did you do this time, Doctor?" she asked as she picked herself up--completely unwinded from the crash landing. "Seriously, is it really that hard to take a little time off without trying to blow up Ponyville or something?"
"Oi!" the Ponyville Doctor protested. "It wasn't me this time! It was them!"
At the Doctor's gesturing, Derpy noticed the other three for the first time. "Oh, hi there!" she said, zipping over to the nearest one--Blue Shield in this case--and shaking his hoof vigorously. "My name's Derpy, what's yours?"
"Blue Shield," he responded, not exactly sure what to make of the energetic mare in front of him.
"Ooh, Blue Shield. You a doctor?" she asked, amusement in her mismatched eyes.
"Nurse, actually," he responded warily.
"Ooh, a nurse!" Derpy happily replied. "Don't see many stallion nurses. Good for you!" She slapped him on the back before turning her attention to Ripple. "Wow, you're pretty. Love the red mane. You ever do any modeling? I'm Derpy. What's your name?"
"Ah, Ripple Pond." The mare in question cast a look at her Doctor. Seriously? she mouthed, to which the Doctor shushed her.
Derpy turned her attention to the grey stallion in the odd clothes, ready to give him a greeting. She stopped short when she got a good look at him, her eyes narrowing cannily. Tilting her head to the side, she got a good look at his hourglass cutie mark. Straightening up she asked. "So, Doctor, are you from the future or the past?"
Ignoring both the surprised gasp from his companion and the amused chuckle from his past self, the Doctor gave a small smile as he gave in to the temptation to run a hoof through her messy, almost coarse, yellow mane. "Ah, Derpy," he said softly. "Still just as brilliant as ever, aren't you?"
The Crystal Empire, at the height of King Sombra's dark reign:
He strode with purpose, bypassing his various tricks and traps as if they weren't even there. His whole life was spent in ensuring his complete dominance of this cursed empire, ensuring that the ponies here bent to his will. There had only been one obstacle in his path, one thing that could have stopped him here, before his influence could spread to engulf the whole of Equestria itself, and now it was in his possession. King Sombra allowed himself a self satisfied smile as he placed his new possession on the pedestal, secured away in this extra-dimensional space located beneath his own throne room, behind a door nopony but he could open. After all, what had he to fear?
The Crystal Heart, the source of the Empire's wealth and prosperity, and a mighty artifact in its own right. Sombra studied his own reflection its expertly cut faceted surface. Years of experimenting with dark magics had left him almost unrecognizable as a pony, with his glowing green and red eyes, sabre like red horn, and almost ethereal darkness that exuded from his very being, but he cared not. "Soon, my friend," he muttered as he pulled a small glass sphere from a pocket in his red fur cape. "Soon all our plans will come to fruition."
Within the glass sphere a miniature blizzard raged. Yes, a voice emanated from within. It will only be a matter of time before you've crushed those accursed Princesses underhoof, letting us roam free.
Sombra chuckled to himself. "Heh. Time. We have all the time in the world." With that, he let his horn flare up with its unnatural black and green flame-like aura, and he unleashed a spell of the purest dark magics upon the ancient artifact.
~DrW~
Ponyville, 1002 C.R.:
"Eyes front, soldier," Ripple Pond admonished. "Remember who it is you came to this party with."
The Raggedy Doctor broke his gaze from his long former companion, and looked into the pretty blue eyes of his current one. Though she still wore that amused grin, he could see the concern in her eyes. "Yes! Right! Well! Quite! Sorry, Pond," he spouted, seemingly reverting back to his childishly energetic self. Quickly spinning in a full circle to turn around, he trotted back into the ruined clock repair shop. "Come along, Ponds. And Derpy, and me. We'd better get crackin' if we wanna solve this mystery. The First Law of Time isn't something easily broken, even with the Time Chargers gone." And then he vanished back inside.
"What do you suppose that was all about?" Ripple asked Blue Shield.
"Well, it's hardly rocket science, is it?" he replied, gesturing to the chestnut Doctor and Derpy. "Those two are his past, right? But he's never so much as mentioned her before, has he? Big warning bells there, when you remember that he's told us about the Time War. Not exactly difficult to put two and two together."
Ripple sighed as she watched Derpy and the other Doctor exchange words before they got up to follow the Raggedy Colt. "Idiot," she muttered to herself.
"What? What did I do this time?" Blue Shield asked.
"I wasn't talking about you, idiot. I was talking about... oh never mind and come along."
Several hooves away, Derpy was eyeing her own Doctor with a serious expression on her face. "You okay, Doctor? This whole meeting-your-future-self thing seems kinda weird, even for you."
The Doctor chuckled. "Oh, don't you worry about me. It's not the first time I've met myself, and it likely--well, obviously really--won't be the last. What about you, though?"
"What about me?" Derpy asked, confused.
"Well, it's just that... he's my future, this other Doctor, and, er..."
"It's okay. Don't worry about it," she replied. "I already knew I wasn't your first traveling companion, and I guess I always kinda knew I wouldn't be your last. I'm okay with it." Her cheerful facade dropped ever so slightly as she added. "It is weird actually seeing it though. Not gonna lie."
"Ah, don't you worry," the Doctor said as he draped a foreleg around Derpy's neck. "We've still got plenty of years together, you and I. You won't be getting rid of me that easy."
Derpy's smile returned, just as bright and genuine as ever. "Right!" Her face fell again as they entered the building the Doctor had made his home the last couple of years. "Oh, Doctor," she said softly. "Your shop!"
The place was a mess, no doubt about it. Not a single clock survived without some damage, with most being destroyed outright. The counter where the Doctor did his business was completely splintered, and right in the middle of the rubble sat the familiar form of a miniature blue barn. The Doctor, however, was unconcerned. "Don't fret, Derpy. An afternoon's work and some timey wimey cheating and she'll be good as new."
The future Doctor stuck his head out the TARDIS door, huffing impatiently. "Well? Aren't the two of you the least bit curious? C'mon in. It's not like we can tangle up our timelines worse than they already are."
The Ponyville Doctor found himself chuckling. "Am I always tempting fate like that?"
"Yes," Derpy replied simply as she entered the little wooden box, the Doctor following behind. When she entered, she whistled appreciatively. "Y'know what, Doctor? I think its even bigger on the inside than yours is."
"Yes, he has done a bit of redecorating, hasn't he?" the Doctor noted, taking in the rather extreme changes made to the TARDIS control room. "Eeeeeeh, It could've been worse. I still don't like it, mind, but it could have been worse."
"Oh, yes! Still don't like it!" the future Doctor groused. "You never like it. S'not like yours is any better, you and your grunge phase."
"My what?" the Ponyville Doctor responded indignantly. Derpy shared a look with the other two ponies before they broke down laughing. Their moment of frivolity was interrupted by a very familiar screeching noise. All the ponies in the room spun to look at the control console. The crystal spire in the center--one of the few semi constant things about the TARDIS--was completely still, and there were no blinking lights or shaking of the ground. Despite the familiar sound of dematerialization, they weren't moving.
"Oh, what is it now?" the Raggedy Doctor asked nopony in particular. "Can't you see we were just about to have a good and proper row? Love a good row. Haven't had one against myself since that bit with Omega."
"Looks like you might get another chance," Derpy said, pointing off the main catwalk and down into the maintenance area. "Look!"
Before the astonished eyes of the five ponies, down in the relatively open space beneath them, another miniature blue box slowly appeared from out of thin air. Once it completely solidified, the doors opened and out stepped a rather tall pony, colored similarly to the Ponyville Doctor, but where he kept his mane short and messy, the newcomer's was almost impossibly curly. Upon his head he wore an old floppy fedora, and around his neck he wore an impossibly long, multi-colored scarf, which he had wrapped around his torso several times to keep himself from tripping.
The newcomer had a wide smile on his face, revealing some rather large teeth, as he spoke with a flourish to another pony inside his box. "I bring you the Leisure Hive of Argolis," he said with a deep booming voice. "Vacation capitol of the gala...xy." His face fell as he realized he wasn't where he thought he was.
A pretty young mare with straight golden hair and an off white coat exited the newly arrived TARDIS. She took in her surroundings with a smirk as she straightened the simple straw hat she had on her head. "Well, Doctor," she said in amusement. "This most certainly is not Argolis."
"No, Romana, it most certainly isn't," he agreed, the five strange ponies on the catwalk above catching his eye. "And it looks like we've been called in to work."
As the newcomers made their way up the stairs to meet the others, Derpy found herself staring at the barn they came out of. It was clearly recognizable as the TARDIS, though there were some subtle differences between this one and hers. "Huh," she said aloud. "There's a TARDIS inside the TARDIS. That is probably the weirdest thing I've ever seen."
"Not normally possible, either," her Doctor added. "There really should be all kinds of flashing lights and and an ominous countdown or something right now."
"Oh, I deactivated those a long time ago," the future Doctor replied. "If I didn't they'd never stop. Still, the sight brings memories, doesn't it Blue Shield?"
"Yeah," Blue Shield replied, a goofy grin on his face. "Memories." This earned him a sharp jab in the ribs from Ripple.
"Do I wanna know?" Derpy asked.
"No," Ripple replied.
"I must say, it is a rather odd sight, even for us," the curly haired Doctor said, suddenly in the middle of the group. "Certainly not something you see everyday. What do you think, Romana?"
The mare that came with him studied the sight before her. "Honestly, Doctor, it makes my senses tingle just looking at it. Still, there's obviously something bending the Laws of Time for our benefit at the moment, so we seem to be safe for now at least. Obviously, though, the sooner we resolve the issue at hoof and send everyone back to when they belong, the better."
"Quite right, quite right!" he responded with that huge smile of his. "So, what say the three of us get to it, eh?" he asked, gesturing to the other two Doctors. "I presume you two are my future selves?"
"That we are," the Ponyville Doctor replied before the other one could. "And as you might imagine, we've been having a rather interesting day."
The newly arrived Doctor nodded. "Yes, so I see. Which ones are you, perchance? Seventh? Eighth?"
"Tenth," the Ponyville Doctor replied. "I am the tenth Doctor."
"Yes. Right. Hello," the Raggedy Doctor said. "That would make me the eleventh."
"Which one are you, Doctor?" Derpy asked.
"Oh, I'm the fourth, if you go by order of regenerations. First if we're going by charm and importance."
"He's definitely you," Ripple said to her Doctor with a grin.
"Oi!"
"Yes, well, my presence here does make things easy, doesn't it?" the Fourth Doctor said, as if he were never interrupted. "With me here, that means the two of you have lived through this already. Twice in your case, Eleven. So... what happens next?"
The Eleventh Doctor opened his mouth with a smile, ready to answer, when he realized, "I... don't know."
"You don't know?" Ten asked indignantly. "How could you...oh. Oh, waitaminute. How could we forget something like this?"
"And to think I of all ponies am to go senile in my old age," Four commented dryly.
"HEY!" the other two Doctors complained simultaneously.
"Is it really such a good idea to aggravate yourselves like this, Doctor?" Romana asked.
"Please, Romana. I'm not aggravating them. I'm getting them to think."
Ten snorted. "And a bloody lot of good you're doing at OW! Derpy!"
"Language, Doctor," Derpy admonished, as the Doctor rubbed the back of his head in irritation. Her head smacks were getting harder, he figured.
"Oh. Oh, wait," Eleven spoke up. "That is good. That is really good. Actually it's quite bad, very bad, but it's brilliant in a very bad way." He started pacing in circles, ranting to himself.
"Mind sharing with us, then?" Ripple asked with an amused smirk.
"Huh? Oh, sorry Pond. This thing. It's more than a memory issue. I remember us crashing in on Ten's place here from when I was him--and you're right it was funny the first time around--and I also remember this moment from Four's perspective--and those are really rude thoughts to have about other ponies I'll have you know--but anything after that is blank, like... like, uh..."
"Like a journal you haven't finished writing yet?" Derpy asked helpfully.
"Yes! Yes, just like that. Except, no not really, but if it helps you imagine it than go ahead and think about it like that."
"Oh, that is rather ominous isn't it?" Four asked.
"What is?" Ripple asked.
"Hm?" Four responded to her question. "Oh, it's just that, had we been thrown together in one of those wonderfully haphazard accidents that seem to happen to me so incredibly often, these two would remember it."
"Yeah," Ten continued. "Remember when I told you about that time I met my past self because I forgot to turn on the temporal dampening fields in the TARDIS?"
Derpy nodded. "Yeah. You were able to fix things, because your past self watched you fix things and you remembered it from that. It was all very timey wimey."
"Quite so. Ontological paradox of the mind, or perhaps a predestination paradox, they're difficult to distinguish at times, like how a lot of ponies confuse irony and poetic justice. Still, it's one of the ways the universe protects itself from such events. Not that they happen often, mind, what with the First Law of Time being a considerably stricter than usual scientific principle, but with a rouge Time Charger running about mucking things up like me, a few extra fail-safes never hurt."
"But!" Eleven cut in, his forelegs flapping about wildly with each point made. "But! There have been times when an outside force purposefully brought my selves together for various ends, both benign and not-so-benign-at-all. Since it's something being actively affected by outside sources, it falls completely outside of the usual predestination rules and leaves us, or me, or them, completely without memory of the event because, to me, it hasn't happened yet. Until a few minutes ago, I never had my future self crash my pad--is that how it's said? Crash my pad? Ech. Never saying it again, so what's it matter? In my history I didn't meet myself here because I never crashed here, nor did I get sidetracked from my trip to Argolis when I was Four."
"So, in short," Four concluded, "the simple fact that all of us are here together, now, with neither of them having any recollection of the events, means that someone or something has brought us together for some very specific purpose."
"Is this going to happen a lot with you three?" Ripple asked, with an eyebrow cocked in amusement. "Finishing each others' thoughts like that when you're trying to sound clever?"
"No, not at all," Eleven responded. "Well, actually, maybe, yeah. Probably. Almost definitely."
"So the question is who brought us all together and why," Blue Shield said.
"Do you think it's one of the Guardians?" Romana asked her Doctor. "They're certainly powerful enough."
"I should hope not!" he replied indignantly. "If they could find me that easily, what was the point of the randomizer?"
"Hmmm... Possible but doubtful," Ten replied thoughtfully. "I haven't had contact with either of them for centuries now. Have a tendency to throw a nice big monkey wrench in their plans, both White and Black, so they've been leaving me more-or-less alone. Not gonna be Borusa, either. Just had a scrap with him last week."
"It's the Old Girl," Derpy said matter-of-fact, causing all the other ponies in the room to look at her blankly.
"What?" Four asked. "You mean the TARDIS? Preposterous."
"Nuh-uh!" She replied. "She just told me. You three were so busy talking you haven't been listening."
Ten and Eleven both laughed, even as Four began sputtering. Ripple cast a confused look at her Raggedy Doctor. "Does that mean she talks to the TARDIS? Like you do? Where she talks back?"
"Yeah, very unique. Never had the TARDIS take to any of my companions as easily as she's taken to her. Even Romana never got her to talk to her and she's a Time Mare."
"I don't think she much likes me," Romana admitted.
"All right, Derpy," Ten said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Why did the Old Girl bring us all together d'you think?"
Derpy shrugged. "Kinda obvious isn't it? She knows the Time Laws better than you do, and wouldn't break the really big ones except for one reason. Something's gonna happen to you."
A new voice interrupted the conversation, coming from the hallway that lead deeper into the TARDIS. "Excellent, Miss. Very good, very astute. I can see why I'll be traveling with you in the future." Everypony turned in surprise to see a new pony--obviously a new Doctor--standing in the doorway. He was grape colored, a shade lighter than Cheerilee, with a chocolate brown curly mane, with bangs that came just shy of obscuring his vision. He was wearing a dark blue great coat that once was very nice, but was now showing signs of wear. He face was young, but had started to show some prominent wrinkles, apparently from exhaustion, though his expression was currently quite amused. He was also dripping wet. "Would somebody mind explaining to me when and why I decided to move the swimming pool into the library?"
To say Princess Twilight Sparkle was graceful in her flight would be giving her way too much credit. Thanks to years of lessons from Rainbow Dash, she could at least fly competently, but she certainly did not draw the eye and win gasps of appreciation from other ponies the way the other princesses did. This normally didn't bother her any, really, except those instances where she found herself flying side by side with one of them. Like today, for example.
"Is something wrong, Twilight?" Princess Cadance asked as she glided up next to her sister-in-law.
Twilight shook her head to clear it of the embarrassment. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. What makes you think anything's wrong?"
Cadance chuckled. "Yes, what could I possibly have been thinking? You do know you've actually become quite good as a flyer, don't you?"
Twilight could feel the heat in her face, and knew it had turned beet red. "How did...?"
Cadance allowed herself a brief chuckle and a wry smile. "How long have I known you now?" A spark of mischief appeared in her eye. "Race you!" And then she was off like as shot.
Twilight sputtered briefly before taking off after the other princes. "Heeeeey! No faaaaaaaaaair!" she shouted as the two made a beeline for the Crystal Palace.
The two princesses were laughing by the time they landed on the balcony that led into the throne room (Cadance won, but not by much), and were met by Shining Armor, who trotted over to give his little sister a hug. "Hey, Twiley! Great to see ya! How was the trip?"
"It went just fine. No last minute disasters or anything. Even Discord left me alone for once."
Shining chuckled. "After what happened last time? Even he'd know his limits, right?"
"You don't know Discord."
Cadance giggled. "I have to tell you, I've barely been able to sleep for a week, I've been so excited. How long has it been since we've had a family get together?"
"Speaking of family," Shining asked, "where's Spike?"
Twilight shrugged. "Out and about town, I guess. I don't know why, but he practically shooed Cadance and me away when we met at the train station."
"I'd bet he's either gone to bask in the adoration of his fans, or he's at Gemstone's place," Cadance replied, smirking. "Either way, he said he'd be here in time for dinner."
"Well, your luggage won't get here for another half hour yet, what do you say we get started with a game of..." Shining Armor stopped mid-sentence when he saw his wife gasped in pain. "Cadance? What is it, Honey?"
"I don't know, I just..." Cadance's eyes suddenly widened in alarm. "The Crystal Heart!"
That was all that needed to be said. The three ponies--seasoned adventurers all--galloped off toward the tower where the Heart was kept. Upon reaching the door, Twilight stopped and held out a foreleg to stop the other two. "Twiley?" Shining asked. "What is it?"
"There's a powerful magic in there. Dark magic."
The three ponies gave each other one last look before nodding. Cadance used her magic to undo the lock on the door, which flew open with surprising force. Twilight was the first to recover from the surprise and looked in the room on the other side. She gasped at what she saw. The Crystal Heart was glowing black, and was currently protected by visible magical barrier. With her knowledge in the magical arts, Twilight could tell that there was no easy way to break it. Much less obvious but no less real was the pervasive malevolence that seeped into the room.
"Oh," Cadance said. "That's no good."
~DrW~
The TARDIS (one of them, anyway), located at Ponyville, 1002 C.R.
"Who's this then?" Ripple Pond asked at the sight of the new Doctor.
"Oh, come now Pond," Doctor number eleven scoffed. "It is rather obvious, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's you. I get that," Ripple replied in irritation. "But which you is it?"
The new Doctor shook his head with a frown. "Please tell me we're not assigning numbers to ourselves on this little outing. I've always found it rather demeaning."
Four shrugged with his oversized smile. "I sympathize, old chap. But it's already been done. You might as well go along with it."
"Oh, all right fine. I would be number Eight, then." he conceded. "Pleasure to meet you all." He turned to face Four and Romana. "It's especially nice to see you again, Romana." He took her hoof in his and gave it a quick gentlecoltly kiss, which caused her to blush briefly, while Four looked on flabbergasted.
Ten chuckled. "Always was charmer, that one."
"What happened?" both Derpy and Ripple asked simultaneously.
"HEY!" their Doctors replied indignantly.
"So, what?" Blue Shield interjected. "Can we expect the other seven of you to just pop in for a visit?"
Ten and Eleven looked at each other, their expressions thoughtful. "Well, Sexy?" Eleven asked the room. "You got any more surprises for us?" After a moment of silence, he turned to the others. "She says no. He's the last one, 'and we are all together goo-goo-ga-choo.'"
The other Doctors groaned, and Ten gave his successor a wry smirk. "Seriously?"
"I don't get it," Derpy said.
"Old song lyric, before your time," Ten told her.
"And something of a private joke," Eight elaborated.
"Jokes which I don't believe we have time for," Four said, bringing the conversation back to the problem at hoof. "If the Old Girl is bringing us together, there must be a reason."
"Can't you just ask her?" Ripple asked.
The four Doctors, Romana, and Derpy all shook their heads. "Communication with the TARDIS isn't that cut and dry." Four answered. "She exists at all times at once, making it rather difficult to communicate more than the most rudimentary concepts."
"I usually just feel what she's feeling," Derpy added. "It's pretty easy to have conversations with her, but as soon as you start asking 'why' and 'what,' things get hard."
"Well, we can't just sit here waiting for this mysterious even to happen, can we?" Blue Shield asked. "I mean, you were all brought together to fix it."
"Quite," Four responded. "I say we begin... ah, getting to know each other, as it were. The TARDIS brought a rather specific set of us together, and we must determine why."
Eight gave a look at his predecessor. "You know better than that. There are centuries between you and I, and I don't even know the years between myself and them. We can't be sharing personal experiences with each other."
Four scoffed. "Who do you take me for? Of course I know that. But beyond personal experiences, there are always differences from one regeneration to another--did any of you pick up the Venusian Karate again, do you all still use sonic screwdrivers, that kind of thing--and we're going to need to know these differences if we're to have a chance at fixing... whatever it is the TARDIS wants us to fix."
"Actually, that's fair," Ten replied. "Whatever is going to happen doesn't seem to have happened yet, and we rarely get anything resembling 'prep time' when it comes to these get togethers. I say we do it."
Eight sighed. "Fine.
Eleven shrugged. "I just want to go on record as saying prep time never really seems to help us at all, and we're probably just going to resort to just doing a thing somewhere down the line, but since we still don't know what's going to happen we might as well make use of time, so I'm in."
The four Doctors nodded at each other, before closing their eyes and, one after another, they said "Contact!" before going silent, lost in a telepathic conversation with each other.
Romana sighed. "I wish just once, he'd invite me along on these conversations."
"How long d'you suppose this is gonna take?" Ripple asked. "Our Doctor usually just does a headbutt and gets it over with."
Derpy shrugged. "Since it's four Doctors, it's probably gonna take a while. You know how much he likes to talk." The other three ponies couldn't help but nod. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm gonna find the kitchen and bake up some muffins."
"Muffins?" Romana asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"I like muffins," was the simple response. "You guys coming?"
Ripple Pond and Blue Shield shared a glance at each other before shrugging. "Sure," Ripple said. "We don't really have anything better to do right?"
The four companions of the Doctor made their way deeper into the TARDIS, making small talk as they did, while the four Doctors were locked in a conversation only they could hear.
~DrW~
Ponyville, Equestria, 992 C.R.
It was a typically nice day in Ponyville, with the usual assortment of busy shoppers, shopkeepers, etcetera. None of these ponies noticed as a miniature blue barn slowly faded into existence in a back alley between the Quill and Sofa and a currently unoccupied building, despite the loud screeching noise it made as it did so.
No sooner had the building reappeared than one of its double doors opened up and a teenage gray pegasus bounded out. "Oh, it's good to be home," she said with a sigh as she took in the all-too-familiar sights.
Moments later, a much more subdued pony walked out behind her. His face was different--his coat was grey, his hair was short, and his ears were large--but it was the Doctor. He watched as the young mare Derpy skipped out of the alley and back into normal, everyday life. He sighed softly. He was certain he'd found a new companion to share in the madness of his life. After all, right from the get-go with those Autons, she had proven herself to be absolutely fantastic.
But who was he to force her along if she truly didn't want to. Back to the drawing board he supposed, as he turned back to the TARDIS.
Boy was he surprised when Derpy's happy voice called back to him. "So... same time next week?"
The Doctor stopped, and turned back in surprise to see the young pegasus's smiling face looking at him expectantly. "What?" he asked.
"You'll be picking me up same time next week, right?"
The Doctor's eyes widened. Derpy was proving to be a never ending font of surprises. Never before had he a pony willing to live the normal life, while making time for the fantastic box travel. He'd never thought he'd have the patience to deal with it. But then again, what did patience have to do with it? The TARDIS was a time machine, after all. A time machine that seemed to quite like Derpy, actually. He found himself grinning, his smile stretching charmingly wide.
"Of course, Derpy. Same time next week."
She gave him a wide, toothy, squeaky smile before bounding off to do... whatever it was Derpy did when she wasn't traveling. The Doctor's silly grin remained on his face as he found himself muttering "Fantastic." He reentered the TARDIS, and was about to say something to his old girl, when she sent an emphatic message into his brain.
"Wait, what?" he asked in confusion. He dove for the console and pounded on several controls. "It's a teleport. We're caught up in a teleport. What sort of teleport can capture you?" He continued to frantically pound on his controls even as various klaxons started to go off, adding their noise to the chaos.
On the outside, the barn began to glow an eerie yellow light, before vanishing instantly and without its usual noise.
Being the infinitely modular piece of technology that it was, the TARDIS was capable of creating a kitchen a five star restaurant would be proud of--and actually had on more than one occasion. Even so, the kitchen that the four companions discovered was a small little thing, very rustic, with wood paneling, a small dining table, and all the necessities, but little more. The only out of place thing in the whole room was a what appeared to be a small vending machine built into one wall, advertizing various flavors of 'nutrient packs.' Ripple Pond suspected that, given the familiarity that their odd grey pegasus 'host' bounded around the room with, that this kitchen was probably made specifically for Derpy back in the day.
"So you're Romana, huh?" Derpy asked as she expertly broke a pair of eggs into the batter she was making.
"So you've heard of me, then?" Romana asked with a smirk.
"Once," Derpy replied, with a simple smile that didn't quite hide a sense of sadness. Then, completely changing tacks, she asked, "Do all Time Chargers have clock things for their cutie marks?"
"Hmm?" Romana replied, casting a glance back at the mark on her flank--a surprisingly detailed and delicate table clock under a glass dome--for the first time in... a long time, really. "Honestly, I hadn't thought on it much. The mark itself is much less important in Time Charger culture than in most others. But now that it's been brought to my attention... I suppose we do. Everyone that I've met at least."
"Not really surprising, that," Blue Shield responded. "When a group of ponies gets really good at certain things, their cutie marks tend to have similar themes. With all the different generations of Apples we've met over the years, I think we've only ever met one who's cutie mark didn't have anything to do with, well apples."
Derpy nodded as she stirred up the mix. If there was a word she'd use to describe Blue Shield it was... normal. Or perhaps average. Good looking, but not enough to really stand out, kinda awkward and quiet. His cutie mark told a much bolder story, though, being a blue cross on top an old fashioned night guard colt's sword. This quiet unassuming stallion was both a healer and a protector. "Raisins?" Derpy asked, holding up a bag of them.
Ripple Pond and Blue Shield spoke up at the same time, Ripple saying "Yes" and Blue Shield saying "No." Blue cast a quick glance at Ripple before amending with "Yes."
Derpy smirked as she separated some of the batter into a smaller bowl before adding the raisins to the first. Ripple Pond reminded her of Rainbow Dash somewhat. Abrasive, self centered, and kind of annoying, but those same words could be applied to the Doctor just as easily. Her cutie mark was interesting--an apple with a happy face cut into it. Derpy was pretty sure Ripple Pond didn't have anything to do with apple farming. The mark had to have a particularly personal meaning, much like Derpy's own bubbles.
Derpy separated the batter into baking pans, ready to go, when suddenly she stopped, her eyes widening and briefly focusing. Then the other three ponies jumped as she fell to the floor screaming.
~DrW~
The silent, psychic conversation between the four Doctors was cut short when Ten and Eleven suddenly fell over gasping. "Eh? What was that?" Four asked in confusion as he and Eight watched their older selves pick themselves back up, though they were noticeably shaken and weak.
Ten shook his head. "A feeling I only felt once, but one I'll never forget."
"You'll remember it, Eight," Eleven said. "The ever so happy and free feeling of having a chunk of your own soul ripped out, with an empty hole where it used to be."
"Oh," Eight responded. "That."
"Mind filling me in?" Four asked.
"You were part of it, too, actually," Eight said. "But you were on the other side of it, one of the causes, of a sort. Remember, Borusa, the Game of Rasstallion, the Master? Past selves being ripped from their place in time?"
Four's eyes widened even further than usual. "Including myself. Oh. I say, that is rather alarming."
"Process of elimination being what is, it must have been my successor that was taken," Eight theorized.
Ten and Eleven shared an uncomfortable glance before Ten nodded. "Right. Makes finding the gap easy." Closing his eyes, Ten searched through his memories. He chose not to go over the Time War. Personal pain aside, the War was quantum locked. Though the Laws of Time could be bent and even broken, breaking through to that was well and truly impossible. So that left the early years afterward. When he was bitter, and grumpy, and... "Oh," Ten breathed as his eyes popped open.
"What is it?" Eleven asked.
"What do you think it is?" Ten replied irritably. After a moment of thinking, Eleven's eyes widened. "Derpy!" they both said together, before galloping full speed into the deeper recesses of the TARDIS, despite their weakness.
~DrW~
Ten arrived first, stopping short at the sight. Derpy was writhing on the ground, screaming wordlessly as Blue Shield struggled to get her to calm down. "Oi, c'mon, stop that," he was grumbling as he dodged another hoof. "I can't help you if you don't let me!"
"You can't do much to help her in any event," Romana said in a calm but sympathetic voice. "There is nothing wrong with her physically. It's a temporal matter."
Eleven arrived at that moment, just as Ten dove in and grabbed Derpy by the forehooves. "'Ey, Derpy! It's me, the Doctor."
Derpy's eyes focused on her Doctor, tears streaming down her face. Then he saw something he didn't expect. Anger. Then she slapped him in the face. "You didn't come back!" she shouted. "You promised you'd come back in a week! Why didn't you come back!?"
The Doctor pulled her in and began stroking her mane. "Oh, Derpy. Derpy, Derpy, Derpy. Derpina Merengue Hooves. I didn't come back? What rubbish is that? 'Course I came back. I always came back."
Derpy clamped her eyes shut as more tears fell. "It hurts, Doctor," she whimpered.
"Yeah. I know."
Ripple Pond looked up from the scene before her and locked eyes with her Doctor. His expression was worryingly blank. Then he turned and stumbled back out the door. Out in the hallway, he ran into his other two selves. "D'you think you could do me a favor?" he asked Eight. "Get Derpy to the Quiet Room. Pretty sure the me in there isn't in any shape to do so."
"Right," Eight agreed with a nod, as Eleven continued to stumble down the hall.
He didn't get very far when he was stopped by Ripple Pond's voice calling for him. He wearily turned to see her looking at him worriedly. "You okay?" She asked.
The Doctor chuckled humorously. "Not really, no."
"What... what happened to her?"
The Doctor sighed. "Just about the worst bit of timey wimey nonsense that can be done to a time traveler. Someone or something has removed a chunk of my past. And that chunk... well, it was my early days with her. Really, by all rights time should have overwritten her completely, but well..."
"She's special, isn't she?"
The Doctor smiled. "Ah, Ripple Pond. All of my companions are special. Each one of them hold irreplaceable places in these hearts of mine." He bumped foreheads with her. "That includes you, you know. Ripple Pond, the Filly who Waited, First Face this Face Ever Saw."
Ripple grinned. "Well of course. But..."
"But, you know, these little get togethers of mine are hard. Take Mr. Charmer. Notice that he arrived completely alone? He's running from a really major decision right now and I know for a fact that he doesn't have all that much time left before the choice catches up with him. Similar thing with Hat 'n Scarf and Romana. He doesn't know it of course, but they've got, maybe, a year or so left--relatively speaking--before she leaves."
"And Derpy?"
"Ah, yes. Derpy. She was something. Just what I needed in fact. I'm sure you've seen it, right? The way she instantly recognized me? How she's able to keep up in the timey wimey talk, despite less than flattering first impressions? Even more important for me when I met her, her ability to stay cheerful no matter the situation."
Ripple Pond nodded. She hadn't known Derpy very long, but the description was accurate. "Why is she so affected by this an not you? I mean, it is your life."
The Doctor gave her a sad smile. "Who said I'm not affected?" Ripple now saw for the first time the sweat beading on his brow, and the shakiness in his legs.
Ripple sighed. "That mess there in the kitchen. It was all really familiar, wasn't it? Memories both with you and without you? It was... kinda eerie, really."
"Yeah..." the Doctor conceded for a moment, before he was hit by a sudden realization. A moment of silence later and he was laughing hysterically. "Oh, oh. That is good. That is very... You are a genius!" Ripple smirked, perfectly aware he wasn't speaking to her at the moment.
"Oi!" She shouted as he ran back the way he came. "Where are you going?"
"It's obvious, isn't it?" he asked giddily. "I'm off to do a thing! This is my 'I'm going to do a thing' face. And what a thing it's gonna be!"
A genuine grin formed on Ripple Pond's face. "And after that...?"
Deep in the inner recesses of the TARDIS was a small room, with no furniture or other features. It was unique in that it was the only room that never got remodeled in the whole time the Doctor traveled. It was still a sterile white, with the Round Things adorning the walls. Changing it would defeat the purpose, after all. While Time didn't stop, or even slow, within it, the room was temporally calm. All the anomalies, paradoxes, and stray energies that naturally existed in the timeline were kept at bay, allowing temporary peace to those who were sensitive to or otherwise affected by these energies. There was a name for it, a dry, boring name the Time Chargers had come up with, but the Doctor had long forgotten it. He called it the Quiet Room.
Naturally, this was where the Doctor had Derpy taken to.
"How you holding up?" her Doctor asked from his spot next to her on the bare floor. She shot him a look that had mostly pain, but also a little irritation, end even some amusement in her mismatched eyes. "Stupid question?" he asked.
"Little bit."
The Doctor chuckled. "Sorry. I just can't seem to help myself when it comes to the stupid questions, can I?" His expression turned worried. "But it is helping, isn't it? The Quiet Room, I mean."
"Little bit," she repeated, a small smile on her face.
Blue Shield straightened up from the physical examination he was giving her. He sighed as he removed his stethoscope. "It's like Romana said. Physically, she's fine." His face darkened slightly. "I can't help her."
"Yes, as I do believe we've already told you," Four said in a tone somewhere between exasperated and condescending.
"Doctor!" Romana chided.
"Well, we did," he replied childishly.
"Don't feel too put out," Eight consoled Blue Shield. "When it comes to paradoxes and the like, even we have trouble fixing it."
Blue Shield nodded in acknowledgement, but his expression didn't lighten. He cast a look back at Ten and Derpy. "Since none of us are really being useful at the moment, I think we'd best leave then in private."
Eight nodded. "Yes, I'm certainly in accord, there." He cast a glance at Romana, who nodded.
"Come along, Doctor," she said, tugging on Four's scarf. "Time to give these two some privacy."
"Privacy?" Four asked in confusion, even as he reluctantly let his companion lead him out of the room. "Whatever for?"
Eight couldn't help but grin and roll his eyes. "You'll understand it when you're older."
"You're not nearly as clever as you think you are," Four grumbled.
"My good colt, no one is as clever as we think we are," Eight responded with a chuckle before finally closing the door, leaving Ten and his companion alone.
Derpy chuckled a little, despite her condition. "You're weird, Doctor."
"Well, 'course I am," the Doctor replied with a small smile. "If I didn't let myself go just a little mad, I'd've gone well and truly bonkers centuries ago." His face fell again. "Time to be serious now. Are you going to be okay here? I'm going to have to go out there to fix this whole mess."
Derpy smiled sadly. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I'm sick, and I'm grumpy, and I'm weak, but this room has made my memories calm down again. You go and be crazy and weird and brilliant and fix things. I'll be fine, don't worry."
The Doctor chuckled as he stood up. "Stop worrying? Over you? I don't think that'll ever happen. But it is time for work, I suppose."
As the Doctor started for the door, Derpy gasped and grabbed his left hind leg. "Wait, what about Dinky?" she asked in a near panic.
"Dinky will be fine," he comforted. "Remember, she came into your life completely independent of our wibbley wobbley shenanigans, we've never taken her on one of our trips, and I was even wearing this face when she showed up. At worst it's a bit dodgy if she'll remember me at all, but that'll be the extent of it." At her continued look of concern, he sat himself down to her level again. "Hey, I'm an expert at this, remember? I also had the old girl peek in on her classroom while the, ah, other Doctors were carrying you here. She's fine."
Derpy sighed in relief. "Thanks, Doctor. Now get."
The Doctor laughed as he trotted out of the room. "Yes'm."
~DrW~
Another time, another place, another TARDIS
"Ace, where do you think you're going?" the Doctor asked.
The mare he was addressing, a young two tone brown pegasus who was wearing a black jacket with a number of personalized badges and holes cut in to make way for her wings, turned to him with a look of confusion on her face. "Old Trottingham," she said.
The short, stumpy, green pony that the Doctor currently was chuckled. "Ah yes, but by which route?" he asked, rolling the 'r' in an exaggerated manner. "The direct route with Glitz, or the scenic route?" The confusion on Ace's face gave way to a disbelieving smile. "Well? Do you fancy a quick trip 'round the twelve galaxies, and then back to Old Trottingham in time for tea?"
"Ace!" the young pegasus exclaimed as she flew a couple quick laps around the control room.
"But! There are three rules," he said sternly, stopping her in her tracks. "Rule one: I'm in charge."
"Whatever you say, Professor!" Ace said.
"Two: I'm not the Professor. I'm the Doctor."
"Whatever you want."
"And the third:" His face split in a wide, happy grin. "Well, I'll think of the third by the time we get to Old Trottingham."
The smile the two were sharing was interrupted by the TARDIS shaking violently, almost causing the two to fall over. "What's going on, Professor?" Ace asked.
"Rule two," the Doctor admonished as he ran to the console. After taking a moment to glance at the readouts on the screen, he narrowed his eyes. "That really shouldn't be possible," he muttered.
"What is it?" Ace asked.
"We're caught in a teleport," the Doctor replied, a worried look on his face. "And we can't get out. Hang on to something Ace. Looks like we're taking our first detour earlier than anticipated!"
~DrW~
Just outside the Quiet Room:
The Fourth Doctor's eyes widened as his successors cried out in pain before collapsing. "Another one?" he asked.
"Y-yes." Eight murmured. "My direct predecessor."
"Great," Ten muttered as he scrambled shakily to his hooves. "Things're getting even more complicated and we haven't actually gone anywhere yet."
"Yes, we're going to need to fix that," Eleven said as he stumbled into view, sweat beading on his forehead. "'Let's split up, gang,' and everything else that comes with it. But before we do, we have something more important to do: we're going to get Derpy back up on her hooves."
"How do you propose we do that?" Four asked, irritated.
"Simple," Eleven said with a grin. "Well not exactly simple. Very far from simple, actually, but plenty doable. We just need to merge her temporal signal with someone who's lived long enough to spare a few years. Give her a lifeline of sorts."
"Impossible," Ten said with a shake of his head. "As Time Chargers, we're right out. We are just far to biologically different from Equestrian ponies to be anything close to compatible."
"Little Tia would be willing to contribute," Eight said thoughtfully. "But I fear we would just come across the same problem. She and her sister are just too unique, even compared to other winged princesses, to be viable lifelines."
"I think I know where this is going," Blue Shield said with a sigh, though he was secretly glad he was going to help after all.
"Yes, Blue Shield! Exactly!" Eleven said with a wide childish smile. "I still don't know exactly why we've been brought together, or why Short 'n Stumpy and Big Ears are the ones to be removed from the timestream, but I do know at least one reason why the Old Girl brought me along on this trip." His grin grew wider as he draped a foreleg around Blue Shield's shoulders. "I just so happen to have with me a perfectly ordinary Equestrian earth pony who as it turns out has a good two thousand years to spare."
"What?!" the other three Doctors exclaimed.
"Explain," Ten demanded.
"Please," Eight added.
Eleven waited for just a moment, drawing out the dramatic tension like a master storyteller. "What do you three know about the Last Lunar Guard?"
The field was empty. Not five minutes ago, the skies were full of spaceships of every imaginable type, the fields loaded with a large number of the Old Guard doing battle with Cyberponies, Sontaurans, you name it, and the Doctor was right in the middle of it all. Now, though, the Doctor was gone, the aliens were gone, the ponies were gone, even the stars in the sky were gone.
And Blue Shield couldn't bring himself to care.
His world was the pony laying on the ground in front of him, taken down by his own unwilling hoof. Or rather, The gun hidden inside it. "Ripple..." he cried, holding her unmoving form to his chest. He sighed. "So the universe ended," he said, barely keeping the tears at bay. "You missed that, in 995 S.R. no less. I suppose this means you and I never get born at all. Twice, in my case." He chuckled mirthlessly. "You would have laughed at that. Please laugh." He wasn't trying even trying to hold back now, though thanks to this damn new plastic body, he couldn't actually shed tears. "The Doctor said the universe was huge and ridiculous, and sometimes there were miracles. I could do with a ridiculous miracle about now."
As if on cue, his grief was interrupted by a bright flash of light, which coalesced into the form of the Doctor. Holding a mop in the crook of his right foreleg. And he was wearing a red fez on his head. A ridiculous miracle. "Shieldy!" he shouted before going on one of his stream-of-conciousness rants. "Listen, she's not dead. Well, she is dead, but it's not the end of the world. Well, it is the end of the world. Actually, it's the end of the universe. Oh, no. Hang on." And he vanished, but only for a moment. Then he reappeared, without the mop. "You need to get me out of the Pandorica."
"But you're not in the Pandorica," Blue Shield responded in confusion.
"Yes, I am. Well, I'm not now, but I was back then. Well, back now from your point of view, which is back then from my point of view. Time travel, you can't keep it straight in your head." The Doctor shook his head, and hoofed over his sonic screwdriver. "It's easy to open from the outside. Just point and press. Now GO!" And he vanished again.
Blue Shield just stared at the high tech wand in his hoof for a moment before the Doctor was back again. "Oh, and when you're done, tuck the sonic behind her ear. Most convenient spot since no one listens to me and brings anything with pockets on these trips. Now go!" And he was gone again.
A few very confusing minutes later, and Blue Shield was back with the Doctor--one who was not going to just vanish on him this time. "I killed her," he said simply, pointing to Ripple.
The Doctor's eyes widened slightly as he sighed. "Oh, Blue Shield..."
"What am I, Doctor?" Blue Shield asked.
The Doctor got very serious. Much as he always hated to do it--okay, riling up Wordsmith from time to time was actually pretty fun--it was time for a cruel-to-be-kind moment. "You're a Nestine duplicate," he said bluntly. "Otherwise known as an Auton. A lump of plastic with delusions of ponydom."
Blue Shield suddenly looked very small, very vulnerable, despite the regal Old Lunar Guard armor he was wearing. "But I'm Blue Shield now. Whatever was happening, it's stopped. I'm Blue Shield."
"That's just the software talking," the Doctor huffed.
Blue Shield ignored that last dig, casting a helpless look at Ripple's dead body. "Can you help her? Is there anything you can do?"
"Yeah, probably," the Doctor said distractedly. "If I had the time."
Blue Shield froze. "If you had the... time?"
The Doctor suddenly turned on Blue Shield, fury of the Time Chargers in his green eyes. "All of creation has just been wiped from the sky. Do you know how many lives now never happened? All the ponies who never lived? Your marefriend isn't more important than the whole universe."
He was completely unprepared for the punch to the face, which spun him around a half circle before he fell to the ground.
"SHE IS TO ME!" Blue Shield screamed.
The Doctor leaped to his hooves, an ecstatic smile on his face. "Welcome back, Blue Shield! Sorry. Had to be sure. Hell of a gun-hoof you're packing there. Right, we need to get her downstairs. And take that look off your plastic face. You're getting married in the morning."
And a few slightly less confusing minutes later, Blue Shield was alone in the underground cavern looking up at the large, rune-covered box that was the cause of this whole mess. The Doctor was gone, off to save the universe as he always was. Ripple was in the box waiting for the day for it to open and let her out alive and full of piss and vinegar. Problem was, that day was 2,000 years away. And that left Blue Shield. The Doctor wanted to take him with him, of course. But there was no way he was going to leave the Pandorica unattended for that long. Not with how precious its cargo was.
And besides, it wasn't like he was a pony anymore, anyway.
~DrW~
Blue Shield blinked the traumatic flashback away as he rubbed a hoof over his right foreleg--his very flesh and blood right foreleg. That was another life, another time. Technically, it was a time that no longer existed, meaning he never lived it at all. Tell his memories that, though.
"The Last Lunar Guard?" one of the other Doctors asked--the relatively normal looking one who's place they trashed. "Now, why does that sound so tantalizingly familiar...?"
"You've forgotten?" The toothy one with the scarf scoffed. "It's quite an old Equestiran legend. Sightings of an earth pony in the ancient uniform of Luna's Guard ranging back... a thousand years at least."
"Two, actually," Blue Shield's Doctor corrected with a grin.
"And if memory serves," the purple one added. "He was guarding... protecting... something. What was it again?"
"That is odd, isn't it?" Ten asked. "A very tantalizing old Equestrian legend that we don't even know the details of, let alone the origin."
"I say, that is rather suspect," Four agreed. "Considering how knowledgeable we usually are over such things."
Eight chuckled. "Knowledgeable? We're the cause of half of it."
"Yes! Right! Weird, isn't it?" Eleven said with a grin. "Here's the thing. The Last Lunar Guard is from a timeline that no longer exists. The only reason you lot remember it at all is because you're Time Chargers. Well, because you're me specifically. Long story. Universal cracks, friends turned into autons, a new Big Bang, the works. The point is. Blue Shield here is the Last Lunar Guard."
At Ten's look, Blue Shield nodded. "It's true. I was a 2,000 year old piece of plastic, once."
Ten remained unreadable for a moment before his face split in a huge grin. "Oh, that is good! So very good!" A mad laugh erupted from his mouth before he planted a kiss right on Blue Shield's mouth before charging back into the quiet room.
Blue Shield's face scrunched up disgust. "Yeah. He's you all right."
"He doesn't usually do that though," Eleven said with a smirk. "Then again you did just make his day. Now come along Pond."
"I'm not a--"
"Yes you are." Eleven turned to his other selves and Romana. "You also. We're gonna need all the genius minds we can get on this one."
Blue Shield blanched. "I suddenly don't like the sound of that."
~DrW~
The Crystal Empire, the reasonably near future:
"Hey, guys," Spike said cheerfully as he entered the throne room, always glad that such rooms came with doors he didn't have to duck to enter these days. "What's... happenin'?" He stopped at the the concerned look on the faces of the Prince and Princess. Also... "Where's Twilight?" he asked.
"Right here," Twilight Sparkle said as she entered from the door that led to the Crystal Heart's tower, sweaty and panting and not at all princessly.
"Twilight! You okay?" Spike asked as he ran up to her and knelt on on knee to get her roughly to eye level.
Twilight smiled at her not-so-little-anymore assistant. "The Crystal Heart's being corrupted by an outside source, Spike. I've been spending the last couple of hours analyzing it." She turned to her brother and sister-in-law. "It's Sombra."
Cadance and Shining Armor cast a concerned glance at each other. "Twiley, are you sure?" Shining asked.
Twilight nodded. "I'll never forget his magic signature." She shuddered. "It's him all right."
"But I don't get it," Spike said in confusion. "Isn't he... y'know... dead? Blown to smithereens by the Crystal Heart, confirmed by Princess Celestia herself? A good ten years ago? Sound familiar?"
"Oh it's him all right," Twilight said darkly. "But that's not even the worst thing. The spell, though not one I've actually seen myself before, is very similar in makeup and purpose to Starswirl the Bearded's time spell."
There was a silence before Cadance asked the obvious. "So he's time traveling?"
"Yes," Twilight confirmed. "From the far past." She sighed, remembering the almost absurd level of preparation and planning his old tricks and traps displayed--a far cry from the guttural force of nature they actually faced a decade ago. "And that's not good. C'mon Spike, we've got things to do."
"Letters to Princess Celestia and the girls and then the library?" Spike said with a grin.
"Yes. I've got some important research to do. Let's go." And she was gone in a flash of light.
"I hate it when she does that," Spike grumbled as he stormed out of the room to chase after her.
"Well, there goes our little hero, as usual," Cadance said, a combination of amusement and concern in her voice. She cast a glance at her husband. "And what's going on in that brain of yours?"
Shining Armor gave a sighed. "Just thinking of ways to organize the Guard and actually contribute. You know. Can't have my little sister show me up every time something happens."
"Uh huh." Cadence had a grin forming on her face, despite the situation. "And I bet you're also hoping we get a visit from a certain old friend from your Royal Guard days, right?"
Shining Armor cast a long hard look at a corner of the throne room, half expecting that silly little blue barn to materialize at any moment. "Honestly? Given the circumstances? Yes."
I really shouldn't be surprised, Blue Shield thought as the surreal--even compared to the norm when it came to the Doctor--sight unfolded around him. First of all, he and the companion of the other Doctor--that would be Derpy--were seated next to each other with some rather odd pieces of head wear. In Derpy's case, it was a colander, in his case it was a similarly shaped dome made out of what seemed to be toy building blocks of some kind. Both improvised helmets had wires and and other gizmos attached to them at various points, with trailing wires that led directly into the various machines surrounding them. All around them no fewer than four Doctors, as well as Miss Romana, were scurrying about, shouting instructions to each other, which were either obeyed instantly, argued about, or ignored. And through it all, Derpy just watched with an almost serene expression on her face.
Yes, it was shaping up to be one of those days.
"You look nervous," Derpy said simply.
Blue Shield was about to reply when the conversation was interrupted rather loudly by Romana. "No, Doctor! It's chartreuse we need, not puce. Use that setting and every molecule in their bodies will explode at the speed of light."
"I know exactly what I'm doing, Romana," the scarf wearing Doctor groused. "I did all the calculations myself."
"Did you take into account the Diversified Superstring Temporality Theorem?"
"The what? I mean, of course I did!"
"If you did, the setting would be chartreuse."
The Fourth Doctor tried to bluster some more when Eleven yelled from the other side of the room, "Just shut up and redo the math. You know she's always right."
Four's face turned an unusual shade of red before he sighed and adjusted his settings. "Now why should I be nervous?" Blue Shield asked dryly.
Derpy just laughed. "Oh, c'mon. This is the fun stuff! We gotta enjoy the fun stuff while it happens, because the scary stuff always turns up sooner or later."
Blue Shield felt a smile of his own form on his face, even as Derpy's Doctor and the lone Doctor strapped something to both their forelegs, binding the two companions together, and with even more attachments to the machinery. This mare was a lot like the Doctor, he realized. The first impression she gave was infantile, but she quickly demonstrated a surprising level of intelligence and depth, as well as a mad enthusiasm for this, ah, unique lifestyle. No wonder he traveled with her. Aloud he said, "I see you're already feeling better."
"Yeah," she said, her smile never wavering. "The Quiet Room helped a lot. I was able to sort out the different sets of memories. I know which ones are the real ones and which are the fake. Mostly." She suddenly shuddered. "I still feel really weird, though."
"Yes, that's what we're going to take care of here," Ten spoke up brightly, turning a few knobs on his console before nodding. "After that... well, after that comes..."
"The scary stuff!" Derpy said happily.
"I guess that means you like 'the scary stuff,' too?" Blue Shield asked.
"Well, yeah," Derpy responded in a tone that very clearly said What? You don't?
Just like the Doctor.
"Right! Yes! So! Everyone ready?" Eleven asked in his usual excited tone.
The other Doctors answered in the affirmative, though Four still had a petulant tone to his voice.
"All right, then," Eleven said as he rubbed his hooves together. He turned to Ten. "If you'd do the honors."
"Naturally," Ten responded with a grin. He grabbed an almost comically large switch on the wall, waited for just a moment for dramatic tension, then plunged the switch downward with an enthusiastic "Allons-y!"
Blue Shield wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting after all the buildup. Honestly he thought at least something would explode and was actually very glad that something wasn't him or Derpy. That said, the sheer anticlimax of the brief moment of vertigo followed by the ding from the machinery was almost disappointing. Not that you could tell from the self-satisfied congratulations the Doctors were giving each other. Well, except for Eight, who was checking up on the two companions.
"How are the two of you feeling?" he asked.
"Oh, much better!" Derpy said as she tossed her colander helmet off her head and tried to start flying around the room, when she and Blue Shield both got a rather painful reminder that they were still sort of tied together. Picking herself up from the floor and undoing the foreleg strap, she smiled. "I'm ready for the scary stuff now!"
As she and Ten began excitedly discussing what was going to happen next, Doctor number Eight cast a wry look at Blue Shield, who was still looking around the room in mild confusion. "Expecting something a tad bit more dramatic, eh?" he asked.
Blue Shield kept his confused frown on his face as he removed his own headgear. "In all honesty... yes."
Eight chuckled knowingly. "You know, we do take everything we do seriously. We just like to enjoy ourselves as we do them." He lowered his voice a bit. "Take Four for example. He actually knows his Temporal Mechanics at least as well as Romana, but, though he'd never admit it aloud, he likes the verbal sparring. He also purposefully drives the TARDIS rougher than usual just because he knows it irritates her." Though the smile remained on the Doctor's face, Blue Shield could tell a distinct shift in his mood. "The one thing that does make us serious in the way we do things is the safety of our companions. Of that I'm sure you've seen."
Blue Shield nodded as he remembered the straight up mad lengths the Doctor went through to keep him and Ripple safe. Mostly Ripple, really, but it should be noted that the one time the Doctor failed to protect Blue Shield, he still rebooted the universe to keep the failure from ever happening. "So," he said, "now that we've got everypony on their hooves, I suppose it's time to investigate... whatever it is we are to investigate."
"Almost," Ten corrected with a cheeky grin. "First, I need to get dressed. I miss my pockets. Afterwards, there's one last vitally important task to attend to."
~DrW~
Golden Harvest, known by "Carrot Top" to basically everypony (funny how some foalhood nicknames just stuck) was currently in a very good mood. She usually was when business was as good as it had been today. For one thing, she was fairly certain she beat out Applejack in the sales department for once, something that happened maybe once in a blue moon. Speaking of...
"Hey there, neighbor," A.J. said as she walked up to the carrot stand, a basket of apples on her back. "Looks like ya made a killin' today."
"Uh, huh," Carrot Top said, a grin forming on her face. "Looks like I win the competition today."
"Yeah, well, don't get too used to it," A.J. groused playfully as she placed the basket on Carrot Top's counter top. "Tomorrow's another day."
"You keep telling yourself that," Carrot Top replied as she packed the apples away in her cart. "Well, just to show I'm not a sore winner, here." She tossed a bushel of carrots at Applejack, who caught them easily. Their end of business day ritual complete, A.J. went back to her cart to finish closing up.
Carrot Top hummed a little tune as she packed up her own cart. It really was quite a nice day, even by the usual Ponyville standards, the sort of day that she'd seen cause other ponies to break into song. Not her, of course. She may join in on the chorus line a few times during those really big impromptu numbers, but she never instigated it. In a town where everypony, even the relatively straight laced Applejack, could be considered some degree of crazy, she was completely, utterly average.
Given what the crazier ponies tended to get up into, she preferred it that way.
"Hey, Toppers!" came a very happy, almost boyish voice from down the street, and Carrot Top smirked as she turned to face Derpy, Dinky, and the Doctor strolling down the street.
Yeah, well, if I'm so normal how is it I hang out with these wackos? she thought with a chuckle. Derpy Hooves was one thing--they were best friends since a particular scuffle with some bullies in first grade, and Carrot Top was the only pony allowed to call her 'Ditzy'. The Doctor was another thing entirely, though. Crazy didn't even begin to explain what he often brought to town. Aloud she said, "Hey, Ditzy. What brings you guys out...?" Her good mood faltered slightly when she got a good look at the Doctor. He was wearing the overcoat again. Which could only mean... "Aw, c'mon, I thought you said you were taking a break from your nutty little trips."
"Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry!" Derpy said, her forehooves together in a supplicant gesture. "This was one of those trips that sorta kinda came to us."
"Really?" Carrot Top asked with a significant look at the Doctor.
"Nothing that affects Ponyville directly this time," he said in a hurry. "No living mannequins or alien bat schoolteachers here. But it is bad. We think. Don't know how bad exactly just yet, but we do need to look into things."
Carrot Top sighed. "Y'know, I sometimes think you guys take advantage of my friendship a little. I mean, what if I had plans, or a date, or something?"
"Do you?" Derpy asked innocently.
"No, but I could have." Kneeling down to get closer to eye level with Dinky, Carrot Top added, "So, Kiddo. Looks like it's just you and me again."
"Looks like it, Aunty Carrot Top!" Dinky said with an innocent smile that was very much a match for her mother's.
Carrot Top sighed and rolled her eyes with a smile. So much like her mom, this one. Which was just a little absolutely terrifying. "Alright, then. I'll take care of the little squirt. Doctor, if you'd be so kind as to pull the cart?"
"Why do I always have to pull the cart?" the Doctor asked indignantly.
"Because you're the reason I'm always foalsitting with no notice. Now quit complaining and come on."
The Doctor obediently strapped himself into the cart, though not without muttering a few things under his breath about 'wasted genius' and 'underdeveloped technology.'
The trip back to Carrot Top's was relatively quiet and uneventful. Really, that should have tipped her off. Just as she was about to open her door, it was thrown open from the inside and she found herself in the rather intense gaze of a pair of green eyes. "Carrot Top!" the oddly dressed grey stallion the eyes belonged to almost shouted happily. "Good to see you! Very good to see you. Surprisingly good, really. Didn't think I liked you that much."
The stranger vanished back into her house, and, oddly, Derpy was glaring at the Doctor. "He doesn't speak for me!" the Doctor was quick to say.
"Yes I do," the other stallion replied from inside.
"I do apologize for him," another voice, a bit older sounding, with a quiet amusement in its tone, said from deeper in her house. "He's rather easily excitable, even by my standards."
Carrot Top cautiously stepped into her house to see another strange stallion, a purple one with brown mane sweeping a metal wand over the nearby wall. In the nearby kitchen, the grey one had his head buried in her refrigerator, and just stepping into the living area from her bedroom, was another brown pony, with curly mane, wide blue eyes, and an unnaturally long scarf wrapped around him.
"Why are there a bunch of strange ponies in my house?" Carrot Top almost whimpered. "Who are they? And to reiterate the more important question, why are the in my house?"
"Well, that's easy," the Doctor said airily. "They're me. Past and future."
There was a moment of silence as Carrot Top stared at the Doctor, but then she just gave a resigned sigh. "The most disturbing part is I believe you and am not really all that surprised," she said.
"As for why we're here," the scarfed one said. "Since you're apparently a good friend of Derpy here, we are just taking a few extra precautions to make sure you and the little one remain safe while we're gone."
Now Carrot Top was going from annoyed to concerned. "Why? What happened? You never did something like that before."
"That you're aware of," the Doctor corrected. "And I'm not expecting anything to happen. Not truly. It's just, this particular problem hit a little close to home and Derpy and I will both feel a bit more comfortable knowing you two are well looked after."
"And to that effect..." the scarfed pony said before whistling back to the bedroom. From the room rolled... well it was metal, with lots of hard angles, and was vaguely shaped like a dog. Dinky released an audible squee at the sight of it. "K-9 here will stay and watch over the two of you while we're gone, isn't that right, K-9?" the scarfed Doctor asked, ignoring the brief interruption.
"Affirmative, Master," the robot said with just a hint of smugness in its tone.
~DrW~
A few minutes later, the Doctors and Derpy filed out of Carrot Top's house. As the other ones filed into their TARDISes parked just off the main road, Ten cast a quick look at an empty spot of grass by the house. "Be good," he said, knocking on something invisible but solid.
"Are you sure you want to leave her here?" Derpy asked.
The Doctor nodded. "You're going to need to be in the same general time and space coordinates as Blue Shield 'till we get everything resolved, and I actually get a feeling we will be well served having one of the Old Girl out of the way and in reserve."
"Oi, you two!" Eleven shouted from his TARDIS. "We got things to do, Doctors to track, and, very possibly, monsters to fight. Get a leg up!"
The Doctor and Derpy laughed and went to enter Eleven's TARDIS when he felt another's gaze on him. He turned and saw Eight watching with a sad look in his eye. Motioning Derpy to go in without him, Ten turned to face his predecessor.
Eight smiled sadly as Ten approached him. "I must admit, it's good to see I have a future beyond the War," he said.
Ten nodded grimly. "That's not to say you don't have some very difficult times ahead."
"Isn't that just always the case with us, though?" Eight asked.
There was a moment of silence before Ten spoke again. "Careful what you let them see," he said, jerking his head at Four's TARDIS. You know what our next stop was after picking up Ace."
"I will do my best, but you know how he can be."
Ten smirked as he gave his previous self one last quick farewell before going back to Eleven's TARDIS. This wasn't going to be an easy trip, he'd decided, for either party. Entering the TARDIS he could hear the comforting sounds of chaos as Eleven was beginning takeoff.
"Where is it exactly we're going?" Ripple Pond asked her Doctor as he danced around the console.
"Oh, not too far. Not at first. Ponyville again, about ten years past. That's were old Grumpy Big Ears disappeared. From there, once we pick up his trail...? Who knows?"
And so, with a screeching sound unlike anything else in the universe, three small blue barns faded from existence, one going one way in time and space, the other two going in quite another.
Somewhere, somewhen, in the deep, dark reaches of the universe...
Somewhere, far, far away from Equestria's magical lands, beyond even the stars visible from its surface, where Princess Luna's astrological power had no hope of ever reaching on its own, a pair of small blue barns floated, their doors open, and in each a pony was poking their heads out as if going out for the morning paper. A ludicrous sight indeed, though neither pony registered it as such.
"So this is where my future self, three times removed, was taken from?" the Fourth Doctor asked as he precariously balanced a hat-rack-turned-satellite-dish out his TARDIS's door. "Doesn't seem to be anywhere all that important, does it?"
"It isn't; not truly," Eight responded from his own TARDIS as he punched a few corrections into his own hoof-held scanning device. "At least, not as far as the universe is concerned. Just the ending point of one of our many mad adventures."
"Except...?" Four asked with a shrewd expression on his face.
Eight sighed. "Except the end of this particular adventure meant goodbye to one companion and hello to another. You do know how that goes."
"Yes, and I imagine that the next adventure you went on was one of the more notable ones in our career," Four said casually. At his successor's surprised look he laughed. "You of all beings should know better than to think me a fool," he said, a tone of something almost approaching menace in his voice. "I do realize I'm the young one here, the one who brings the greatest risk. Our future selves don't want either of us to learn too much about their past come our futures. Believe it or not, I do understand the wisdom in that. It's why I haven't pushed. Until now. For good or ill, whatever the Old Girl's reasoning may be, I'm here now, and I think we both know that your next runaround is likely to be important to our current objective. As rare as it is for me to say so, I need to know what we're getting ourselves in for."
From her position by the control center of Four's TARDIS, Romana blinked in surprise. It was rare to see the Doctor like this. Oh, she knew he was far more brilliant than he usually let on, that he tended to play the fool due to an odd combination of his legitimate idiosyncrasies, attempts at throwing potential enemies off guard, and simply for his own amusement. But this... this was different. Even when put under the worst of dangers, or when his brilliant traps had sprung, he almost never dropped the 'mad idiot' act. Even she had to forcibly remind herself that it was, indeed, an act as often as not. Then again, she'd only witnessed him converse with one of his past-or-future selves once before, and that adventure had practically reached its end by the time those five finally came together. She supposed it made a certain amount of sense that, of all beings, he'd be able to drop the act in front of himself.
"Of course you are correct," she heard the future Doctor say. "One we've set up the scanning devices I'll come over and explain, barring too many details of course, about what is about to happen. We'll have some time before all the data is collected in any event."
~DrW~
Ponyville, Equestria, the not-at-all-distant past...
"Huh," Ripple said, looking out at the town from the alleyway the TARDIS appeared in. "It looks exactly the same."
"Well, of course it does," Ten said absently, shaking one of his odd 'dings-when-there's-stuff' devices to get it to work. "It's only a difference of about ten years or so, and this is just a small, sleepy, little earth pony town."
Casting her gaze to the rather small, plain looking treehouse library some distance away, Ripple Pond smirked. "Not where I'm from it's not."
"Shhh!" Eleven shushed, suddenly at her side. "Spoilers," he whispered. "The whole Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship/Harmony/Whatever thing is something that happens naturally during the next couple of years of Derpy's lifetime. Ol' Browncoat over there's been trying really hard to keep it a surprise."
"'We can't change our own personal timelines' and all that rubbish?" she asked with a knowing smile.
"That and it's more fun that way," Eleven answered with a smile of his own.
"Oi!" Ten called. "You're supposed to be helping me track this super teleport stuff, not gossiping!"
"Oh, come off it," Eleven grumbled as he took his sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket and joined his predecessor. "Ponyville's nostalgic to me. It's been a couple of centuries since I've been back."
"Yes, well, we're not here to sight see."
"Oh, like you're one to talk."
"Sooo," Derpy said, joining up with Ripple and Blue Shield at the mouth of the alley. "Wanna let them do their thing and go get a bite at Sugarcube Corner or something?"
"You sure that's a good idea?" Blue Shield asked. "What if your past self sees you or something?"
Derpy just laughed. "I already had some time in the TARDIS, remember? It's why I went so loopy when the timey wimey stuff happened. I'd probably just think it's funny."
"You have to take into account the other ponies' reactions," Ten interrupted from the back of the alley, his eyes not leaving the readouts of his device. "How do you think Mrs. Cake would respond if a twenty-something Depry was to walk into her shop when she'd be expecting a teenager?"
"Aww, you're no fun," Derpy complained.
"So you say," Ten said with a smile as he and Eleven continued their work.
"So, what? We just sit here and wait for the two of you to finish up?" Blue Shield asked, almost hopefully, Derpy noticed.
"Some adventure this is turning out to be," Ripple grumbled.
"Enjoy the respite while it lasts," Eleven said darkly. "You know it's only a matter of time before the screaming starts."
~DrW~
In the TARDIS of the Fourth Doctor...
Four's face was set in a serious expression. Not one of his 'oh, am I supposed to be serious right now?' sort of expressions, either. What Eight had told him--vague and lacking in detail as it was--was still worrisome. "And so, because of your predecessor, the planet Skarro will be destroyed?"
"And with them the Daleks," Eight responded bitterly. "Poof! Gone! No more! They cease to be! At least, that was the plan. I made so many plans back then, and no one was safe from them. Enemy, friend, all were pawns on the board as far as I was concerned." Eight sighed, his anger giving way to a deep-rooted sadness. "Of course, it wasn't the end of those abominations. Like a nest of cockroaches they returned, rebuilt, attacked. Even made a whole new Skarro, somehow. In my time, they're engaged in a war. With Gallopfrey. And it's tearing the universe apart."
Four's eyes widened in alarm. "I say!" he sputtered.
Romana was silent. The Daleks. She'd had experiences with them before, and, honestly, they were one of the few things in the universe to make her well and properly afraid. A race with no emotion but hate. No purpose but to kill. No society to speak of, with all the energies and devotion often spent in the arts and other methods of self improvement spent on finding better ways to keep killing. And advanced enough in their technologies that the universe often was in true danger because of them.
"Obviously, that's why our future selves are so tight lipped about their pasts. They come from after the war, I can tell. The very fact they exist at all tells me we somehow won, but the costs that victory must have come with... I can scarcely think on it." Eight turned a cool glare on his past self. "It could be considered your fault you know."
"My fault?" Four sputtered.
Eight nodded. "You had the chance, once, to stamp the Daleks out before they even existed. Yet you didn't. You didn't feel you had the right to play god in that way. And from there, escalation."
"Do you mean to tell me that if it were you, if you had the chance to do it all over again, if you had the proverbial switch in your hooves, that you would have done it?" Four asked.
Eight sighed again. "In all honesty, I don't know. In principle, I completely agree with your decision, even now. But I've had a great many centuries of hindsight." At that moment, he looked far older than his physical appearance implied.
A moment of silence passed before Four's eyes widened in alarm. "I've just had a most distressing thought. What if the Daleks are in fact the common link between us? Both those that have been taken and those in search of them."
Eight paused in consideration for a moment before he said, "That's a bit far fetched isn't it? I mean the Daleks are a constant in our life, all the way back to the First. The fact that that you, I, and the Seventh have all had major altercations with them doesn't really mean a whole lot when every incarnation I'm aware of has."
"Ah, but some of these 'altercations' are more important than others. As you say, I was there at their creation, which brought Davros into our lives. Seven dealt one of the biggest blows against them that could ever be dealt. And you..." he fell silent for a moment. "Then there's the timing to think about as well. Seven was taken just before he was to embark on his great plan."
"Which could be a coincidence," Eight countered, though he wasn't too sure of himself when he said it.
At that moment, a distinct ding sounded from the TARDIS console. "Well, then," Four said, his usual demeanor beginning to return. "It looks as though we are about to find out."
~DrW~
Ding!
"Ah Here we are!" Ten said happily. "Now all that's left is to plug 'er into the Old Girl's console and have her tell us where to go next!" He stopped in thought for a moment. "I can still do that with your new console, right?"
"Please," Eleven huffed as he tapped the sidewalk with a forehoof and the TARDIS doors opened. "You think she'd let herself be incompatible with anything you made? Or that we couldn't figure something out even if she did? Who d'you think we are?"
"Right, right. Sometimes forget how clever we are. Always good to have a reminder."
The three companions rolled their eyes and shared a smirk at that.
"Come along Ponds!" Eleven called as he disappeared into the TARDIS.
"You too, Derpy," Ten added. "The scary stuff is just ahead."
"Am I the only one here not looking forward to that?" Blue Shield asked, fully aware of the answer.
"Yes," Ripple and Derpy said immediately.
Derpy let the other two go in before her, and tuned to get one last glance at the Ponyville of her past, when a very familiar grey pegasus entered her line of sight. The other pony stopped suddenly and turned to look into the alleyway, one misaligned pair of eyes meeting a matching gaze. Derpy smiled and put a forehoof to her mouth in a shushing gesture. The other pony mirrored the gesture with an audible laugh. And then Derpy rejoined the others inside the little blue barn.
~DrW~
Eight sighed. "It can never be easy, can it?" He, Four, and Romana were huddled around the monitor that set into the wall of the TARDIS. The readings were very clear. The signal came from Trottingham, Equestria, in the general location of...
"Foal Hill School?" Four said to no one in particular. He then cast a wary look at Eight. "You didn't..."
"Well, what else would I have destroyed Skarro with?" Eight responded.
"Care to fill me in?" Romana asked.
"It would be best if I didn't," Four said in a dead serious tone. "Suffice it to say I left something of great importance there a very long time ago, which I will apparently go back for some time in the future."
Eight shook his head. "We're going to have to contact the others. You're little theory is starting to look more and more likely."
~DrW~
"Oh," Eleven said under his breath.
"Well, that is a kick in the head, isn't it?" Ten agreed.
Derpy looked at the monitor screen, filled with unreadable-to-her Gallopfreyan writing. "What is it? What's a kick in the head?"
Ten and Eleven shared a brief, concerned look at each other before Ten responded. "Looks like we're heading back to Satellite 5."
Derpy's eyes widened. "Oh," was the only response she had.
Ripple Pond and Blue Shield shared a glance. "I guess I'll be the one to ask," Ripple said. "What's Satellite 5?"
"Oh, not much in the grand scheme of things,' Eleven said offhoofedly. "Just a place Derpy and I went on for some of our earlier adventures. Back before I was him even. The thing is..."
"The thing is...what?"
"That's where I got this face,' Ten answered. "And these teeth. Short answer, it's one of the places I've died."
The silence that followed Ten's statement was awkward, but brief, as one of the screens hanging from the ceiling cackled to life, bringing with it the staticy image of Eight as he impatiently tapped the screen on his end. "Hello? Hello? This blasted thing never... oh, there you are," he said as the screen cleared.
"We always did have such wonderful timing," Eleven said under his breath before greeting the screen. "Hello! You got something important to report? Of course you got something important to report. You wouldn't be calling if you didn't have something important to report. Well, c'mon then, out with it."
Eight cast his future self a confused look for a moment before shaking his head and saying, "I do have something that is a bit of a concern, but before I go into all that, have the two of you found your destination?"
The two Doctors glanced at each other before Ten answered, "Yyyyyyeah. Just now."
"And this important event in our history, does it involve Daleks by any chance?"
This time the two Doctors visibly jumped. "Why do you ask?" Eleven said.
Eight sighed before explaining the hypothesis he and Four came up with.
"Hmmm, tricky, tricky," Ten said. "Like you said, it could be a coincidence. We fight the pepperpots all the time, it seems. Still... we can't ignore the pattern. What with Four..."
"And his thing with Davros," Eleven interrupted.
"And his thing with Davros. And Seven..."
"The whole 'blowing up Skarro thing.'"
"Just so, for all the good it did."
"And I hold no illusions on where my eventual future lies. For all my running the Time War still looms depressingly large," Eight said with a dark frown on his face.
"And Nine... best not to go into it. Myself, I've fought the Daleks plenty, though so far I don't think I've hit any of those catastrophic turning-point-in-our-careers moments yet."
"You will," Eleven said. "Trust me on that. You will. And I've already had at least one. Possibly two. Right now, the Daleks being behind all this somehow is as good a guess as any, all told. Doesn't change the fact that we gotta go, though."
"Oh, of course it doesn't," Ten agreed with a shake of his head. "'Course we gotta go. We wouldn't be us if we didn't."
"In multiple senses," Eleven said, smiling. "Anything else to report, Mr. Charmer?"
"I suppose that's it," Eight said, a slightly confused look on his face at his future selves' antics. "I suppose I should say something along the lines of 'good hunting' and be on my way."
As one of the faces of the Doctor disappeared from the screen, the other two turned to their companions. "Well, you heard him," Ten said. "We're very possibly walking right into battle with the single most dangerous race in the history of the entire universe. If you don't want to come along on this one, I think we'd both completely understand."
Ripple turned to Derpy. "Is he joking?"
"Probably not," Derpy said with a shrug, "but I'm coming anyway."
"Too right," Ripple agreed.
"You can't get rid of us, Doctor," Blue Shield added. "We've gone and become just as mad as you."
The Doctors just smiled.
~DrW~
UNIT headquarters, Canterlot Equestria, circa 974 C.R...
All was quiet in the Doctor's lab when he finally managed to sneak back into it. He didn't really see what the big deal was that he should be confined to a bed. Regeneration was a dodgy process, true, but a few hours of sleep and he was right as rain. Why couldn't the (heh) doctors just see it? Oh well. At least he managed to get away from them. It was difficult enough dealing with the new teeth and curls without them fussing about. And there she was. The TARDIS herself. Oh, what a beauty. And so neglected for so long. He hadn't gotten nearly enough chances to take her out even after the Council rescinded his banishment.
Just as he managed to dig the key out from one of his old socks and open the door, a familiar voice interrupted him. “And just where do you think you are going?”
The Doctor turned to see his good friend and companion Wordsmith glaring at him. The Doctor smiled a wide, wild smile. “Just out and about for a bit.”
“Doctor, you can't just up and leave.”
“Can't I?”
“Can't he?” another voice interrupted as Princess Celestia entered the lab, a smile on her face.
The Doctor brightened when he saw her. “Ah, Celestia. Celestia who gave me a place when I needed it, who I will apparently share many adventures with, and who is just as long lived as I. Care to join me on a trip?”
Celestia shook her head. “You have no idea how tempting the offer is, Doctor, but I have too many responsibilities. I just came to see you off.”
The Doctor just shrugged. “Pity. And you, Wordsmith? You traveled with the old me for quite some time. Care to give the new me a try?”
At Wordsmith's hesitance, Celestia gave her a nudge toward the blue barn. “Well, go on. It's not like you don't want to,” she teased.
Wordsmith gave an annoyed look at Celestia before remembering who exactly it was that was annoying her, then turned to the Doctor. “Of course I will,” she said. “Any plans on where to go first?”
The Doctor grinned as he let her in the TARDIS. “Oh, I don't know. I thought I'd just hit a few random buttons and let the old girl decide.”
"Are you serious?" Wordsmith said as the TARDIS doors closed behind them.
"Perhaps not entirely," the Doctor said, smiling that big, toothy smile he'd just gained. "But it has been far too long since we've had a good and proper trip, hasn't it, Old Girl?" He finished off his question by tapping a hoof on the TARDIS control console.
Wordsmith was about to respond when the TARDIS began shaking. "Doctor, what's happening?" She asked instead.
The Doctor quirked an eyebrow in confusion. "You know I'm really not sure. That's... that's a bit worrisome, actually."
~DrW~
The Fourth Doctor's TARDIS, in the Time Vortex,
The Doctor suddenly cried out, tripped over his own scarf, and nearly collapsed atop the TARDIS control console. "Doctor!" Romana cried as she ran to his side.
He merely waved her off. "I trust you felt that?" he said, looking away from Romana and up at one of the TARDIS's communications screens.
"Of course," his four-times-removed future self said over the screen. "The others likely did as well, but we've already broken contact."
"What is it?" Romana said, looking between the two Doctors in concern.
"They're after me now," her Doctor said, sweat pouring down his face. "Not now of course. In my past. My first trip in this regeneration, in fact." His face suddenly hardened. "I say, we can't have that, can we?" There was an ice to the Doctor's tone that made Romana flinch.
"What are you going to do?" She asked.
The Doctor cast a hard look at his future self's image, then turned to Romana. "A pair of very foolish things." He then charged immediately to the front doors and threw them open.
"Have you gone mad?" Romana exclaimed as she galloped up to him.
"Mad?" the Doctor said, affronted. "Mad? Of course I've not gone mad!" Outside the open TARDIS door the other TARDIS swept into view, its door also open, the other Doctor almost leaning out of it. Arcs of energy were visible as the force fields of the two time capsules merged together. Four looked at her with a very serious expression. "This is what is called a calculated risk."
Romana realized just a split second too late what it was that the Doctor had in mind. "Oh, no you doOOoon't!" she cried as the Doctor roughly wrapped his forelegs around her torso and actually threw her out the door. After a brief moment of blind panic, she collided roughly with his future counterpart, safely in his TARDIS.
"Don't you ever do that again!" she shouted as she got back up to her hooves.
The Doctor--the future Doctor--grinned a charming grin. "Don't tell me you're still sore, Romana. That throw happened centuries a...go." His banter trailed off at the steel in Romana's glare.
"You don't get to be clever," she said. "Not after that." Then she turned her back to him in a huff, mentally berating herself for acting like a little foal, no matter how deserving of it she felt.
The Doctor sighed. "You're right of course. Of course you're right. You were always... right." Something in his tone caused her to turn back and look at him. The smile was still there, a bit thinner than before, but his eyes made her gasp. As a Time Mare, Romana had no difficulty seeing this Doctor as the same pony as hers. And of course she knew that this incarnation was centuries separated from the one she traveled with. But that look in his eyes. He looked so, impossibly old all of a sudden. And old was the one thing he always promised he'd never be.
"What...?" Romona stopped herself before she could say what happened to you? "What is he doing? Over in the other TARDIS."
The Doctor shook his head with a humorless chuckle. "I think you know already, don't you?"
Romana's eyes widened. "No. No. There's no way to tell what will happen."
The Doctor laughed again, this time with genuine warmth. "There never is with us, is there? I'd have thought you would have been used to it by now."
~DrW~
"All right, then," Four said mostly to himself as he withdrew his sonic screwdriver from within his hat and dashed to the console of his TARDIS. "It seems the two of us are alone at last, doesn't it, Old Girl? I feel I owe you an apology in advance for this. You won't enjoy it. Nor will I, come to that."
He pointed his screwdriver at a panel beneath the controls and all the bolts holding it in place flew out as if shot from a gun. "Sorry, again. No time for delicacy," he said as he put the screwdriver in his mouth, ripped the panel out and dove into the opening. The next few seconds consisted of the Doctor frantically pulling wires out of place and reattaching them in new configurations, all while muttering calculations under his breath and around his screwdriver.
Once he was finished here, the Doctor withdrew himself from beneath the console and began a hurried set of adjustments on the console. He didn't even look up as his communicator screen lit up once more, or at the irritated female voice that asked, "What do you think you're doing, Doctor?"
"Concentrating for the moment, Romana," he said, shushing her loudly when she tried to say something else. "And you know exactly what I'm concentrating on."
Romana sighed in exasperation. "Yes, of course I know the theory and mechanics of what you are attempting to do, Doctor. A power surge, sent back in time from your current TARDIS to the TARDIS of your past should, theoretically, short out whatever it is that is attempting to remove you from the past. But, Doctor, the dangers..."
"Dangers?" the Doctor scoffed. "What dangers? Yes, the TARDIS will be without power for a day or two, and the safety protocols will shunt me out of the Time Vortex rather on the abrupt side of things, but no matter where I land, it will only be a matter of time before I catch back up with you. You're never truly lost so long as you have a TARDIS, after all."
"If it's as harmless as you say, why did you shunt me off to the safety of another TARDIS, then?" Romana asked pointedly.
The Doctor didn't answer.
After a few more adjustments were made, he spoke one last time. "Doctor?" His future self--so much older than he was, yet seeming so much younger--appeared on the screen. "Watch after her, won't you? I will be coming back to pick her up soon."
The Eighth Doctor nodded. "I will. Have no fear of that."
The Doctor cast that toothy, disarming, mad grin of his up at Romana before throwing the final switch. And then everything went black.
"Doctor?" Romana asked even as the screen went black. "Doctor!" There was no answer of course, and Romana just couldn't help but berate herself for this undignified show. But emotional she was.
"He'll be okay, you know," the current Doctor said gently.
'How do you know?"
"Because I'm him and he's me."
"That doesn't mean anything," she countered. "The Laws of Time are in a current state of flux. The fact that you're still here even as he vanished doesn't mean anything. He could die out there and it could be possible that you wouldn't be affected for months."
"Yes, I'm aware of all that," the Doctor said as he began calmly pilot the TARDIS. "All that and more. I'm not basing my conjecture around any sort of temporal mechanical nonsense. It's just that... if you can't trust yourself who can you trust?"
Romana sighed. "You're right, of course. It's just... I worry is all." She pretended she didn't see the smile on his face. Romana turned her attention to the current state of the TARDIS control room. She needed a distraction, something to focus on intellectually, and the Doctor's Eighth incarnation certainly had different tastes compared to the others.
Whether it was Four's traditional sterile white with the odd bits of comfort--such as a couch and hat rack--or Ten's coral dome where everything from the couch to the control console itself looked to be barely functional, or even Eleven's oversized foal's playroom, the TARDIS control room was always just that. The control center, with the console itself always the centerpiece and focus of the room. This however...
The console was still in the middle of the room, with curved support pillars separating it from the rest of its surroundings, but it seemed small compared to the area around it... there was a sitting room, to one side of her, with high bookshelves loaded with books, and comfy chair, and a record player. On the other side was an old stone staircase with stained glass window and lit by candles. It was all very... eclectic.
"Trying for something new?" she asked.
"Going with an old favorite, actually," the Doctor responded. "I've been in this skin for quite some time. Seen a lot of things. And, honestly, it's kind of nice to have a reminder of simpler times, when my biggest concern was my oddly frequent bouts of memory loss." And there was that sad, old, smile again.
"It's really bad, isn't it?" Romana asked.
"Hm? What?"
"The war.. Even before you told us about it, there's been this unknown... honestly the best word I can use to describe it is dread... that hovers over you, despite your best attempts at hiding it. And I can tell, you'll be affected for centuries afterwards, given what I've seen of your future selves. They try even harder to hide the scars,,,"
"Which makes them that much more obvious," the Doctor finished. "Yes, the war is bad. Catastrophically so, and not in a fun I-just-need-to-save-the-universe-is-all sort of way, either. Even before this little get together, I knew... well, I'm heading towards a crossroads, and it's probably soon." A small smile appeared on his face. "If nothing else, though, I am glad to see that, whatever it is I do go through, I--and indeed the universe--do come out the other end. I could have done much worse for myself than Derpy and the Ponds."
Romana nodded, a small, sad sort of smile of her own on her face. "Yes, well, before all that, we have to solve our current crisis, don't we? It's not much, we only have to save the universe is all."
The Doctor's grin widened, and the expression in his eyes became notably warmer. "Indeed, Romana. Let's get right to it, then, eh?" He began to pilot in earnest, the smile becoming that thrill-seeker's grin that was roughly the same no matter the face he wore. "Destination, Foal Hill School and the Hoof of Omega."
"Excellent. Wait, what?"
~DrW~
Within the TARDIS, back at UNIT headquarters...
As suddenly as it began, the alarms went silent. After a brief moment to collect himself, the Doctor checked over their location and timeline. He managed not to let loose an obvious sigh of relief. They were still in his lab in Canterlot.
"What was that?" Wordsmith asked.
Putting on his newly acquired toothy smile, the Doctor turned back to his companion. "Oh, nothing at all, really. Just a mild hiccup due to being unused for so long."
The look that Wordsmith shot him very clearly said that she didn't fully believe him. "If you say so."
"But enough about that. The universe beckons and we should answer." The Doctor flipped a switch on the console, and when the comforting sound of dematerializion hit his ears, he almost forgot about the recent close call entirely, and the event would pass from his mind for some years to come.
~DrW~
A long, looooong, time ago...
The frigid cold of the Northern regions were barely felt by the two ponies that were now hiking the mountains, despite that it was colder now than it had ever been. No, much more unnerving was the sight of the once glorious Crystal Empire, with the continually swirling cloud of dark magic that covered the sky immediately above it, despite still being roughly a day's trek distant. The smaller, darker colored pony turned to her larger companion. "'Tis truly a saddening sight, is it not, sister?" she said.
"Aye, Luna. It truly is." Rose colored eyes filled with sorrow. "And to think, this was caused by a pony."
Luna sighed. "Oh, Celestia..."
Before Luna could say anything else, they were interrupted by a sudden and loud crash from behind them, which covered them both in snow and mud. Spinning around, their horns lit and ready for battle, the two princesses stopped short when they saw a sight from long ago. A small blue barn. The doors opened, and amidst the smoke that suddenly poured out of it stumbled the Doctor, his unruly hair even more messy than usual, his scarf wrapped up in tangles around him, and his blue eyes spinning madly. "I claim this land, in the name of Trottingham!" he said grandiosely before falling face first in the snow. The sudden cold shock seemed to bring him quite quickly back to his senses and he quickly sat up straight, shaking the snow off his face. His expression brightened immediately upon seeing who he two ponies that were looking on in concern. "Oh! Little Celestia! Luna, too! What an unexpected..." He seemed to get a rough bearing on his location then, and peered past the two at the darkened Empire off in the distance behind. "...Surprise."
~DrW~
In orbit around the world Equestria calls home, far in the future...
The view was the same as the last time she was here, Derpy noticed. The wonderful, bright view of her homeworld taking up the entirety of the view out the superenforced window in a space station that wouldn't be built for many generations past her own time. Moments like this, this was why she loved the insane travel. And she could see the same familiar-but-still-awe-inspiring sort of looks in both Ripple Pond's and Blue Shield's faces. Madponies, the lot of them.
"So, what did you say the name of this place was?" Ripple asked.
"Satellite 5, known later as the Game Station," Ten said, his usual giddy excitement gone. Derpy couldn't begrudge him that. There were some tough memories here. "Back before I had the face you see with me now, Derpy and I made two different trips here, both of 'em ended rather disastrously, and the last time..."
"He ended up regenerating into the skinny little thing before you," Eleven finished for him as he finally exited the TARDIS and locked her doors.
"Oi! You're just as skinny as me you know!"
Ignoring his indignant past self, Eleven continued on. "It was a rough time all around, and I made a sorta kinda maybe promise to myself not to ever come back here."
A sudden unfamiliar voice broke in on the conversation with, "Which does beg the question: why did you come back?" The group of time travelers turned to the only entrance to this relatively little room, to see a blue pegasus, tall, handsome, and wearing a long black coat that matched his well groomed hair. And with an amused and rather fetching smile on his face. "And two of you yet. It must be a big one."
With a small squeal of delight Derpy charged at the newcomer and gave him what could only have been called a bear hug. The pegasus for his part caught her and spun around with a laugh before meeting her forehead with his. "Aw, Derpy," he said with smile that was both happy and sad at the same time. "I can't tell you how good it is to see you again." Suddenly his attention was taken up by the Ponds. "Well, hello there."
"Stop that," Ten said under his breath.
"I'm being friendly!"
"I know. Stop it."
"Besides," Eleven added. "They're married."
"Really?" the pegasus said, his smile widening. Derpy had to hide a chuckle as Ripple turned beet red, while Blue Shield just looked confused.
The Crystal Heart Chamber, Crystal Empire, ancient times...
This Majesty the King exhaled sharply as the magic abruptly shut off on his horn. His breaths came out as ragged gasps, and only his pride kept him standing. The spell was a massive undertaking, both in terms of sheer power required and the calculations involved, but it was done. Sombra grinned darkly at the small, near indistinguishable green pulse now throbbing in the center of the Crystal Heart. With this, he had truly planned for every contingency.
It took a minute or two for his strength to return, during which time, the little kernel of magic he planted became well and truly untraceable and invisible. "There," he said to his friend, perched on a small column not far from the Heart. "It is done. All that remains is to eliminate those two, the only ponies in existence who could possibly pose a threat."
"You do not have long to wait," the friend's voice rumbled from within the little globe of snow. "They are already here, and... odd." Sombra raised an eyebrow and flicked his tail in curiosity. The friend continued. "There seems to be another with them."
"What?" That bit of news took Sombra by surprise. He didn't like being taken by surprise. "Who would they have...?" he muttered to himself as he closed his eyes and searched them out with his own magical senses. It didn't take long; he could easily see them, just barely entering into his territory, from the East. They were truly magnificent specimens of magical power, no wonder they were as revered as they were. One burned with the intensity of the sun itself, bright, passionate, playful, but dutiful. The other radiated almost as much power, but hers was dark, cool, mysterious. And the third... where was the third?
It took him a moment to notice him, between the two sisters, and what he saw confused him. His magical power... it was almost impossibly small. Even earth ponies had an aura that glowed like a well-maintained firefly lantern when observed. This pony... his was more like a dying ember. Sombra didn't like this. He knew the princesses. Studied them. They did not do things without good reason. So what could they possibly have been thinking bringing this one along to, frankly, a future warzone?
Then, Sombra was surprised yet again, when this new pony actually turned its attention on him. And suddenly, Sombra wasn't just looking at magical aura. He was looking into a soul. It was deep, unknowable, with a breadth of experience that made him, King Sombra of the Crystal Empire, feel small in comparison. The soul was an old one, ancient even. Possibly on even keel with the princesses. There was knowledge, there, more knowledge than could be contained in the whole of Equestria. Wisdom, too, tempered by a foallike impulsiveness. And, buried under a relatively thin veneer of bravado and humor, a deep sadness, spurred on by loneliness, that would have made lesser ponies weep openly. But behind all that?
Power.
He had a greater force of will and... and was more regal the Princess Celestia herself. He knew power, he handled power, and he gave up power, multiple times. If Sombra was entirely honest with himself (which he wasn't, but, y'know...) he was scared of this little earth pony with the ridiculously small magical power. This earth pony who was sending him the message that he really didn't care to be observed anymore. Sombra obliged, and returned to reality at the Crystal Heart chamber so suddenly that he stumbled backward.
"So, what did you discover?" his friend in the orb asked.
Sombra narrowed his eyes as the now familiar green fiery aura emanated from them. "He is likely the most dangerous of the three. We must strike him down."
~DrW~
Satellite 5, formerly known as the Game Station, the far future...
Nuts sighed as he looked at the mess of wires and electronics before him. The satellite was slowly but surely getting back up to a workable status, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Jack Harness, who, after his role in driving the Daleks out of the station last year, stuck around to help in the rebuilding. Still, the Daleks absolutely wrecked the place, and the station was far from "fully functioning." Nuts crawled out of the access panel and turned to his partner, Bolts. "This'll be a week's job at least. And that's assuming we actually have all the parts on hoof this time."
Bolts sighed. "Which probably means it'll be closer to a three weeker."
Nuts nodded with a slight roll of his eyes, when he he saw something that caught his attention. "Oh, hello there, Harness. What brings you to this neck of the woods?"
Jack shrugged easily as he gestured the group of ponies that was following him. "Not much, Nutsy, just showing some friends around the station. They kinda showed up for a... let's say a surprise visit."
Nuts shrugged. That was a cryptic answer to be sure, but not so much that he decided to worry about it. Above his pay grade. "Nice to meet you." They all responded in different manners. The gray one with the odd eyes took his hoof and shook it enthusiastically, the couple consisting of the beautiful redhead and the tall skinny colt were polite but not as overly friendly, and the last two stallions were vaguely dismissive. Still, the group was an interesting one, and Nuts couldn't help but pay closer attention to them, especially last two.
First of all, they were wearing clothes, like Jack. One of of the two was even dressed in a similar manner, though his coat was brown rather than black. The other was a bit more odd, with an outfit that looked to be one an old college professor might wear. Certainly out of place on a pony as young as him. He did catch a casual glance at that one's cutie mark... an hourglass, huh...
And while the pony that had once been known as Nuts continued its inane small talk with the interloper designated "Jack Harness," sleeper unit 167B awoke from deep within the once and former pony's subconscious and began taking much closer stock of the odd group. Not one of them were registered members of Satellite 5's crew, and furthermore, they weren't on any visitor's manifests either. 167B took a microsecond to check the records and logs to be sure. The one with the Unknown Mark and the brown pony with him had surprisingly low magic stores, and were both anatomically distinct compared to the rest of the group, even beyond the obvious oddity of both having two hearts each.
As Jack Harness excused himself and his group, Nuts turned back to the repair work he was supposedly doing, but 167B trained its listening sensors on the group as they went further along the hallway. The gray one, designate Derpy Hooves, was discussing with designate Jack Harness about improvements made since a previous trip to the satellite and questioning why designates Celestia and Luna allowed the crisis to reach such a boiling point. Odd questions to ask. It was common knowledge that the princesses were currently off planet and had been for a near century. The mating pair designate Ripple Pond and Blue Shield were making comments on the station being rather unimpressive after having witnessed "dinosaurs on a spaceship." Both conversations were being recorded and transmitted, though it was the two oddities, no designation known, who drew the drone's true attention.
"So, care to tell me what you were doing?" the chestnut one asked, his voice low to prevent from being heard by the others.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the other said in reply.
"Don't give me that. You stayed behind in the TARDIS for a good two minutes after we left it.. We never do that, unless it's important and we want to keep the details secret. So, tell me, what did you do?"
"I placed a phone call. Don't give me that 'I don't understand what you just said' look. It doesn't suit you. You felt the disturbance on the way here, I know you did. I think. I'm pretty sure you did. Anyway, there was another disturbance in our past. Or there nearly was one in any event. Our very history is getting attacked and we are, in truth, no closer to the perpetrators than when we started. So I called in a favor to make sure our history is properly protected while we're out solving this thing."
"But who would you... Oooooh, no. No. No no no nonononono. You called her? You know how things get when she and Derpy are within a decade of each other. I'd like to not get shot again, thank you very much."
167B's conscious listening of the conversation came to an end when orders were transmitted from command. It looked at 245D, formerly pony designate Bolts to confirm that it, too received the command. 245D nodded, a useless gesture held over from the host's memories, but it confirmed that it was in accord. The one with the Unknown Mark and his compatriot were to be captured and brought back to command.
The rest were to be exterminated.
~DrW~
In front of Foal Hill School, Trottingham Equestria, 963 C.R...
It had spent days now, sitting in the same spot, cloaked from view, watching the old building which seemed designed to hold the young ponies for the day. Very little of note had happened during the days it sat there, despite the clandestine but obvious military cart parked not far away, but it knew patience. If it were ordered to sit there for an eternity, it would if it would further the superiority of its kind.
Today, that changed.
Today, the Predator had arrived. Deep within the bowls of its casing, the small piece of organic matter shuddered. The Predator had arrived, and in one of its most reviled forms, rivaled only by the Warrior which supplanted him and the curly maned one three forms its predecessor. This one, on first impressions, seemed the weakest of his forms, even when compared to the fifth. The most likely to seek a peaceful solution to any given conflict and least likely to get out of said conflict alive. Yet the facade hid a fierceness that was frequently vented on the Empire. The Predator was joined by another. It registered the identity of the female as well, though it was odd that she would show up here, with this form of the Predator.
"You mean to tell me that all this time you were the one who had the..."
"Not here, or now," the Predator said quickly, silencing the female. "You never know who might be listening." The Predator gestured to the military vehicle. The Predator made a sound, one that the waiting scout recognized as laughter. "A horse drawn carriage carrying sophisticated radar and listening equipment. I do so enjoy Equestria's endearing dichotomy of technological advancement."
"Doctor..."
"Come now, I returned it. Eventually." The Predator said, sweeping the area with its sonic tool. The creature felt a twinge of... well, it didn't know what it was, it was bred to not feel anything but superiority and hatred, but if it had any inkling of knowledge of emotions, it would have recognized it as fear. The moment passed as the Predator, seemingly satisfied with the results of his sensor sweep nodded. "Excellent, everything seems in order. Nothing changed. We are a bit early, though. Best hope it stays that way. Come along, Romana. Next stop on this little romp down memory lane is a nearby junk yard."
The scout watched as the Predator and the female started trotting down the road. Based off of the Predator's comment and the direction they were headed, their destination was the site of one of the traitors. The scout silently turned to follow the two ponies, something akin to excitement in its cold circulatory pump. Like the traitor they were moving to see, they were about to be exterminated.
The Doctor (yes, "the Doctor", thank you very much. He had no problems going by #4 in a group of himself, but now that he was alone, he was just "the Doctor") sneezed before wrapping his scarf around his neck a time or two more. Using it for its intended purpose, he thought wryly. What a novel concept.
"Thou really shouldst have dressed warmer for this outing, dear Doctor," Ceslestia said with a smile on her face. "Thou art not protected against the extreme conditions the way the two of us are."
"Yes, well, the wardrobe is a bit out of sorts at the moment," the Doctor said. "And last time I was at the Empire, it felt like spring in Everfree, despite the cold outside. I thought it was supposed to be protected from the rigors of the local weather."
"Aye, under normal circumstances, that is indeed the case," Luna said, then cast a significant look at the billowing black clouds above them. "However, today these are hardly normal circumstances."
"True, sister," Celestia agreed. "And as we are now in enemy territory, we must maintain diligence, lest Sombra discover us before we are prepared."
"Oh, he already knows we're here," the Doctor said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I felt him watching us the second we entered his territory."
Celestia sighed. "And we suppose you made him aware of this fact."
"Of course I did. I don't much like it when others are spying on me. It's rude."
Luna chuckled. "We are invaders in his territory, righteous though our intents are. It is only fair."
"Yes, I suppose," the Doctor said as he cast another look around the deserted street. He didn't like it. The Crystal Empire was supposed to be one of the busiest hubs of ponydom, despite its isolated nature. And yet, not a single pony apart from the three of them inhabited these streets. Occasionally, the Doctor caught sight of a pony peeking through their windows before tucking back out of sight, and even that brief glimpse was enough to see that that the crystal ponies were dull and lifeless compared to their usual brilliance.
"It is disquieting, is it not?" Celestia asked. She knew him far too well, didn't she?
The Doctor nodded. "All the more reason to make haste, Little Celestia."
Any further conversation was interrupted by a column of black an green fire that erupted several hooves in front of them. After a brief moment, the flames coalesced into the form of a coal black pony, who barely looked like one anymore, between his saber-like horn, flowing mane of pitch black, and especially his burning red and green eyes. "WHO IS THIS WHO DARES INTRUDE UPON THE DOMAIN OF KING SOMBRA?" The force behind the question made it feel like a force of nature itself. The response was much less impressive.
"You may call me the Doctor."
King Sombra's ever so impressive facade flickered for just a moment, as he looked at the little pony before him in mild confusion as the two princesses shared knowing smirks.
"Oh, I thought... Was that not meant for me?" the Doctor asked innocently. "I was most certain that question was meant for me, as I was certain you were already familiar with my companions here, Princesses Celestia and Luna, considering that you're preparing to go to war with them and all. It'd be highly irresponsible of you to not know them. Or were you expecting them to speak for me? Have a nice little chat with Celestia about me, while ignoring the simple fact that I am standing right here in front of you. So sorry if that was the case. I prefer to talk for myself, thank you very much."
Sombra stared at the Doctor for a moment in genuine confusion. "Who, or what are you?"
"Oh, me? No one of any real importance. Just a traveler. A tourist if you will. I happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I'd pay a visit to the much lauded Crystal Empire." The Doctor took one last look around and sighed. "I have to say, the reality leaves much to be desired."
"Oh," Sombra asked, his eyes glowing fiercer. "And why is that?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Understand I've been to the Empire at its heights. Streets practically swarming with ponies, of both the crystalline and more mundane varieties. A veritable center of trade, travel, and enterprise, despite its rather, shall we say, inconvenient location. This, however..." the Doctor indicated the empty street. "The streets are dead, the ponies themselves nearly so. No real luster or beauty to be seen in the buildings, despite the impressive construction. It's falling apart, withering. All to satisfy the cravings of one, solitary pony."
Here Sombra laughed. "And why shouldn't my subjects give me their all? It is their duty to do what is required of them by their king, is it not?"
"King? King? What is it, exactly, that makes you king? An inherited title? Such things mean nothing. A note in a document, a pretty sounding word. Easily overthrown, as my friends here will no doubt show you. King. It is the king's duty to look after his subjects, not the other way around. A king's first thought in the morning and last thought at night are of the safety and well-being of his kingdom. King. I see no kings here. Just a spoiled little foal who never learned what the word means."
"SILENCE!" Sombra roared as he fired a huge blast of pure destructive force at his enemies. It was stopped utterly by a dome of dark blue energy.
Princess Luna shook her head with a sigh, even as she dropped her shield. "We suppose this is what we get for allowing thee to speak first."
"I only said what you were thinking, Little One, and don't you even try to deny it."
"True, that," Celestia agreed. "Though we can not help but point out the hypocrisy of you of all ponies giving that lecture."
"I never claimed that I would be a good king," the Doctor said in his defense.
A new voice interrupted the conversation. "Well, well, old friend. It seems you're correct about this one. There is something both odd... and familiar about him." The winds picked up, kicking up a flurry of snow in the area next to Sombra. After a moment, a large snowpony was formed, with icicles forming viscous looking fangs where its mouth would be. "We must ensure he does not interfere." The Doctor cocked his head and one of his ears twitched at the sight of it.
The snow pony made a sweeping motion with a foreleg, and suddenly the Doctor and the princesses were surrounded by five other snow ponies. "Fascinating," the Doctor said. "Some kind of cryokinetic ability. Possibly aquakinetic. But that doesn't seem quite right, either. This whole scenario... it's familiar for some reason. Little Celestia, you're better equipped than I. Could you tell me if these creatures are made from Sombra's magic?"
Celestia's horn lit up as she cast quick glances at the snowponies. "Nay. There is no magical power at all animating these golems. I sense a form of will behind them, but it is difficult to determine what it exactly is as it is..." she paused here. "...foreign to my knowledge."
"You were about to say 'alien,' weren't you, Little Celestia?" the Doctor asked, his big-toothed grin spreading on his face. "An alien presence. Bully."
"You claim to know us?" the snowponies asked in unison.
"Oh, heavens no," the Doctor replied, a laugh in his voice. "I've only just an inkling of a thought, a ghost of a memory if you will. But I do know one thing. In this universe there are events that must happen and, at times, outside forces attempt to disrupt these events. And though it's hardly an official title I hold or even a personal quest to do so, I often find myself intercepting these outside forces. Today just happens to be another one of those instances." He cast Celestia a significant look, who nodded.
She fired off an attack at Sombra, who became a black mist of smoke to dodge it. He coalesced into a solid form in the air before a dark blue sphere of magic appeared around him. Before Sombra could react, Luna suddenly appeared before him, and she delivered a hard buck that sent the magic sphere flying out of sight. The two princesses vanished, one in a flash of gold, the other in a burst of blue.
"What did they just do?" the lead snowpony asked, confusion and anger in his tone.
"Oh, they're just doing what they came here to do. They're just doing it on the other side of town, so you can't bother them."
"Can't I?" the snowpony asked. "I am linked to the King in a way you can't even imagine. I can get back to him in an instant."
"Oh, no you can't," the Doctor said, and his grin turned a little colder. "You have to deal with me first. I'm just as much a wild card in your plans as you are to ours."
The snowpony's face shifted into a predatory smile. "True enough. I should take care of loose ends first."
Before the small army of snowponies could converge, the Doctor held up a small paper bag. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. This here is a very powerful and rather unstable explosive. Take one more step towards me, and everything within a ten meter radius will be vaporized. Including you."
The snowponies stopped in their advance. Then the lead one chuckled. "You are lying. Even apart from the fact that you would never risk yourself, or any hidden ponies in the area, that bag is full of confections."
The Doctor kept his composure for just a moment longer, before popping one of the Jelly Fillies in his mouth. "Quite right, quite right. I was bluffing. And as far as bluffs go, it wasn't even one of my better bluffs, I must say. I can see how you'd intuit the bluff so easily." The grin then vanished completely, leaving a look of cold calculation. "But, there is one thing. How did you know it was candy?"
~DrW~
???????????????????????????
Lockup hated this shift. Most of the guards did. On paper, it seemed the perfect job. No patrols, no bed checks, no real danger. Just watching over one solitary prisoner. A prisoner who was, about 75% of the time, a model prisoner. But that was only because she could almost literally walk out of the place whenever she wanted, no matter what security measures were put in place.
And she was looking at him, with those exotic brown eyes, and her playful grin. She was quite beautiful--hot even, if he was to be honest, despite having to be at least his mother's age--with an interesting tan coat, and an incredibly curly mop of a mane that only enhanced the mystique. And who wouldn't be curious about a pony whose cutie mark is a question mark? But behind the beauty was a real piece of work, capable of anything.
"Aren't you going to get that?" she asked, amused.
Yes, the damnable phone was ringing.
"It's going to happen either way, you might as well make it easy on yourself."
Lockup sighed. That much was true. Using his unicorn magic, he silently unhooked the phone and passed it to the prisoner. She put it up to her ear, and with a smile that dazzled said the two words that always, always meant trouble.
"So this is the future, is it?" Ripple Pond asked in some amusement as she took a bite out of her hayburger, her eyes roaming the commons cafeteria. "Very different than the futures I've seen. It all seems so very... our time, space station or not." That much was certainly true. The place was not unlike the food courts found in malls throughout the larger cities of Equestria, loud and chaotic and slightly smelly, what with all the ponies and cheap food stands.
"Yeah, it's really rather sad, isn't it?" Eleven said, getting rather bored himself. Neither he nor Ten ordered anything, though their companions and Jack decided to break for lunch, since they'd come up with no leads over the last few hours. "Y'know, this era was supposed to be a high point for the Great and Bountiful Solar Empire. Once upon a time this era was a high point for the Great and Bountiful Solar Empire. But with so many temporal threats out there and the Time Chargers no longer available to keep things running nice and orderly like, something came in and disrupted it all. Oh, the Empire will still have its day--that's one of the things I've been checking in on recently--but it'll be a number of centuries late, now."
"What was it, then?" Blue Shield asked. "The Daleks?"
"Not the Daleks," Ten said as he made yet another sweeping motion with his sonic screwdriver. He then held it up to his ear and made a face, before doing it again. "Something else, something completely unrelated, hit this place a few centuries prior to the Daleks. Derpy and I managed to put a stop to its shenanigans, but it did leave a nice little power vacuum for the Daleks to sneak right on in with one of their crazy little schemes."
"That's where we came in," Jack Harness said, a grin on his face. "See, the three of us, me, Derpy, and the ol' grump here," ("Grump," Ten muttered under his breath. Eleven just shrugged with a smirk.) "were traveling together at the time. All fun and games at first. Disarming a bomb here, stopping a Slitheen invasion there, then we land here. I actually didn't know that the Doc and Derpy'd been here before, but I'm not the least bit surprised, either. Well, one thing led to another and the Daleks launched a full out attack on the station, and, here we are: me doing the best I can to help the ponies here rebuild and have a chance at things, while the Doctor left to grow himself a new face."
"Y'know, that's something I don't get," Derpy said, her eyes focused straight at Jack, a sure sign of her being serious. "How'd you even get left here, anyway? The very end of the attack is kinda a blur to me for some reason, something to do with how the Doctor stopped the Daleks I think, but we'd've never just abandoned you here. Well, maybe the Doctor would've--he really was a grump back then--but I never would've let him. What happened?"
Jack and the Doctors shared a quick glance--one that was not lost on the other ponies present--but Jack just flashed that disarming smile of his and winked. "Well, now, that I think I'll keep secret. More interesting that way, donch'a think? And now that everypony's all eaten, we should probably keep up the search for whatever it is that brought you guys here." He turned to Ten, his grin growing wry. "Unless you've actually found something with that thing over the last twenty minutes or so."
"Not a bloody thing," Ten responded irritably before getting a smack to the back of the head. "Oi!"
"Language, Doctor," Derpy reminded as she got up from the table and started off towards one of the exits. "And you're keeping secrets from me. Don't think I didn't notice." She cast a rather dangerous looking smile at Jack. "I'll just have to get it out of you, Jack."
Jack laughed as he joined her, the others following behind. "You'll never get me to talk. But it'll be fun having you try."
~DrW~
"That doesn't answer my question, and you know it," Derpy complained, a cross look on her face that made Jack laugh out loud (it was the puffed out cheeks that did it.).
"I told you, you won't make me talk, no matter how cute you are."
Derpy grumbled as she cast her gaze around her surroundings. The group was currently in one of those really strange sort of hallways, the ones that were sealed off from public use, station personnel only, etc., yet completely ordinary otherwise. No secret passages or closets full of skeletons (figurative or otherwise), nothing. It was surprisingly boring, actually. "Okay, then," she relented. "How about this one. What's the station being rebuilt as?"
"Ah, that I can answer. It's gonna be a communications hub, like it was originally built to be. With a whole different purpose, this time. No cheap entertainment or completely biased 'news.' The Empire desperately needs to reestablish contact and relations with other planets and lifeforms. But given the past century or three, sending expeditions out would be... lets say a bad idea. Right now, we need to start small, sending out notices and updates, letting the benign races out there know what we've gone through and the changes in the Empires outlook because of them, while hopefully letting the more malicious out here know that we did still drive off the Daleks. For that kind of range, we're not just talking about repair, but a general overhaul and upgrade." A glance up ahead later, and Jack's grin widened. "And speaking of... here's a few of my best colts. I give you Nuts and Bolts."
~DrW~
A few minutes after a short and unremarkable meeting with a pair of repair ponies, the group was continuing down the hall, the Ponds relatively quiet (they were starting to get ever so slightly bored), the Doctors engaged in a whispered but heated argument, and Derpy still asking questions on the state of things. "Y'know, there is one thing about this whole Satellite 5 thing I never did get. How did the Princesses let things get so bad for so long?"
To Derpy's surprise Jack got a little fidgety. "Aaaaaaah, that one's tough. Short answer is they've been offworld for a good long while now. The long answer...? How much do you know about the formations of the Solar Empire and Lunar Republic?"
"Not a lot. The Doctor refuses to say much about it--and that is really weird let me tell you--and I'm got gonna be the one to ask the Future Princesses about it."
"Yeah. Good call. The transition was... let's just say tough. Nothing as bad as Nightmare Moon, granted, but their relationship was strained for a few decades, there. And given that you are technically an illegal time traveler, coupled with the Doctor's reluctance to talk--wow that is weird--I probably shouldn't say more."
"Yeah. I bet the Doctor was right in the middle of it. Probably more than once. And y'know, I don't know if Princess Luna ever really 100% forgave him for not doing anything to stop the Nightmare. Your friends are following us, by the way."
Jack grunted. He'd been aware of the tail himself, naturally, but when Derpy mentioned it, the two ponies stopped. "Good hearing on 'em, too." At this point, the whole group had stopped, all of them showing subtle little signs that they knew something was odd. Well, Ripple Pond and Blue Shield's reactions were subtle, the Doctors had turned to face the two ponies with matching expressions that were somewhere between glares and smirks. No way would that end well. "I'll go see what's up," Jack said, forestalling any Doctor related chaos. "They do work under me after all."
Derpy watched in concern as Jack Harness casually clopped up to the two repair ponies. There was a certain... blankness to their expressions that concerned her. "I'm not the only one with a bad feeling here, am I?" she asked the group, her focus primarily on her Doctor.
"Pssh," he responded. "I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. This is Jack Harness after..."
The rest of Ten's reassurance was cut off by a very loud, very harsh sound, and Jack lit up like a Hearthswarming Tree, his skeleton completely visible. When the light faded and Jack's limp form fell to the ground, the two Doctors spared a split second staring at each other in shock before simultaneously shouting "RUN!"
And so they did. Any turns that presented themselves they took, to prevent from being easy shots. None looked back. All five of the remaining ponies had seen that particular weapon before, and that meant their enemy was exactly what they feared it to be. Their enemy was... "Daleks!" Ten spat the word like a curse. "Always the Daleks!"
"Yes, always the Daleks," Eleven agreed. "Except for when it's the Master, the Cyberponies, the Sontarans, the Vashta Nerada, the Autons, the Weeping Pegasi, the Black Guardian, the Zygons, that one time with the Jaggeroth..."
"Point, point! You've made your point!" Ten shouted in irritation. "And I thought I had a gob that didn't quit in this form."
"You do!" Derpy shouted from the front of the group. "Now less talky and more runny."
"And that goes double for you, Raggedy," Ripple added.
"Right. Running," the two Doctors said simultaneously.
Moments later the group arrived at a large room, with a round piece of equipment in the center stretching from floor to ceiling, designed to have somewhere between four to six ponies sitting around it. "What is this place?"
"Broadcast room, I think," Derpy said. "At least, this is what they looked like last time."
"New equipment, though, obviously," Ten said. "Doesn't look like they plug directly into the ponies' heads anymore, that's good."
"It's all very shiny and fascinating and all, but we're not here for a guided tour," Eleven said as he ran around the equipment to the door on the other side. It was locked of course, so he whipped out his sonic screwdriver to unlock it and... "It's deadlocked. Of course it's deadlocked. We're only being chased by Daleks in a partially rebuilt space station, naturally it'd be deadlocked."
"Well, there's only one thing for it, isn't there?" Ten said, almost happily, as he withdrew his own screwdriver from his coat pocket.
His mood instantly soured when he got his firs clear look at the Daleks chasing them. They weren't the usual domed monstrosities they normally were. No. They were... the repair ponies, Nuts and Bolts, only with the traditional Dalek eyestalks protruding from rather nasty holes in the middle of their foreheads, and the wand-like Dalek blasters protruding from equally nasty holes in their left shoulders.
Ten's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Those aren't just synthetic shells, are they?"
Eleven sighed. "No. No, they're not." In front of him, there were Daleks, behind him, three of the most important ponies in his universe, and beside him, his counterpart's near legendary temper was flaring like a bomb that had gone off. "This isn't going to end well, is it?"
Romana was still rather irritated, much to the (Yes, fine, Eighth) Doctor's amusement. Oh, how he'd missed her over the years, especially recently,what with the war that was ravaging everything good--and even a lot of the bad--during his time. "Do you realize just how much of a stir you've caused at Gallopfrey, just with that one stunt?" she huffed.
The Doctor chuckled. "Disappearing with one, or possibly more," (he shot her a very smug look that she scoffed at) "of Gallopfrey's prime relics is hardly a 'stunt,' Romana. And I know I caused enough of a stir that you were easily led to believe that you were spying for the Council when you first arrived at my TARDIS."
Romana stopped. "You knew about that?"
With a chuckle the Doctor nodded. "Oh, you were very good. Very subtle. Never asked anything too obvious, never explored more than could be chalked down to general snooping and curiosity. And I did notice that even that stopped long before you learned that the 'Lord President' who assigned you to me was the White Guardian--or was it the Black Guardian in disguise? I don't think I ever learned where one's influence began and the other ended. But let's both be honest, eh? Considering the thorn I've always been in the Council's side, what other reason would have been feasible at the time, eh?"
Romana actually pouted a little at that. "So you knew my what my initial 'mission' was the whole time, and never once did you..."
"Why would I say anything? I took no offense, nor would I have if I didn't know the truth about your circumstances," the Doctor said with a smile. "If anything it was a boost to my ego, which I suppose I've never really needed, especially back then. And it's not like you did any real harm. Your efforts were minimal and ended remarkably quickly. By my accounts, you were more interested in me as the mysterious Doctor who ran away from Gallopfrey rather than anything I might be hiding in my TARDIS."
Romana chuckled. "I don't think your ego has calmed itself as much as you think it has."
The Doctor shot her the beginnings of a cross look, before he chuckled himself. "Heh, probably not. It does seem ever present, no matter the face I wear, doesn't it? Ah, here we are."
Romana stopped along with the Doctor and blinked in confusion. "But the junk yard is still a good mile away," she said with a frown.
"Well, yes," the Doctor responded, picking up a rock and testing its weight. "I have a few preparations I'd like to make while outside the Dalek's sensor range."
"Dalek! You plan to engage a Dalek?"
The Doctor chuckled as he began digging through is great coat. "Certainly not. I'm hoping to simply confirm its presence. Preferably without its knowledge. Not to bore you with too much detail, but this particular Dalek is an instigator, a first encounter if you will, which eventually led to my destroying Skaro. If it is still at the junkyard, waiting further orders, then we can all breathe a sigh of relief and focus specifically on finding my past self without having to otherwise fix the timeline as well. If it's not there, well, that would be bad."
Romana's ear flicked in agitation while the Doctor continued digging around in his coat. "'Bad' doesn't half cover it, Doctor. If this Dalek encounter is as important as you make it out to be, we could be dealing with a paradox of astronomical proportions."
"Or greater," the Doctor agreed as he finally withdrew a hoof-held device from within his coat. "But, even a quick in-and-out operation, no matter how essential, needs a little preparation whenever a Dalek's involved." The Doctor activated the device, causing a pair of what could only be described as holes in the air about three hooves apart. Then he almost casually tossed his rock into one of the portals. The rock then flew from the other hole and back into the first, over and over again, each time gaining speed until the Doctor deactivated the device and the portals vanished.
The Doctor was not unaware of the strange look Romana was shooting him. "What?" he said.
Romana hesitated for a moment before asking, "Since when do you carry a vortex generator?"
The Doctor's eyes widened for a moment, as if he were surprised at the question, before his face settled on that sad smile that he and his successors seemed to have gained over the years. "It's just a sign of the times, I suppose." He then pushed himself past her and started back toward their destination. "Now come along, Romana."
Romana paused briefly before sighing to herself. She already knew he was... damaged, she supposed, and unfortunately there was little she could do about it, so there was equally little reason to obsess over it. "I'll have you know, I never liked being told to 'come along,'" she said, in an attempt at lightening the mood.
"I know," the Doctor responded, his usual mood restored.
The lightened mood lasted until they reached the gate to the junk yard, where both Gallopfreyans tensed up immediately. The Doctor had his sonic screwdriver in hoof, its red sensor module blinking as it scanned for various proofs of Dalek existence. Romana watched in interest. The sonic screwdriver of her time was, for the most part, just that. A handy tool to have around and the most effective lock pick in the universe. It was clear, though, that this Doctor and his successors had made innumerable modifications to the blessed thing. Even she could hardly imagine how the Doctor was reading anything off of it when he held it up to look at it, or the one time he stuck the end of it in his mouth. It had truly become something unique to the Doctor. Somehow, she thought, that was really quite fitting.
The Doctor's eyes widened briefly at whatever it was he saw, heard, or sensed. "That's... that cannot be right." And suddenly all caution was thrown to the wind and the Doctor was galloping deeper into the yard, Romana close behind. Moments later the Doctor was tearing at something that could charitably be called a "structure" formed of a pile of sheet metal and other assorted garbage. Before Romana could ask what the issue was, she saw with her own eyes. Here, clearly, was the Doctor's Dalek.
The remains of it at least.
There was no mistaking the tall, dome topped monstrosity before them, but given that most of its front had been blasted away, leaving dangling wires, loose components, and the ever-so-lovely scent of cooked meat, there was also no mistaking that it was dead as dead could be. "That is not good, is it."
"Understatement is beneath y--DOWN!" The Doctor bodily tackled Romana to the ground as a bolt of energy barely missed them and sheared off a chunk of the Dalek's dome top.
The Doctor and Romana turned to face their attacker to find--to neither of their surprise--a second, very much alive Dalek. The Dalek turned its domed "head" towards the Doctor and looked right at him with its unblinking eyestalk. "You-Are-The-Doctor. Enemy-Of-The-Daleks," it said.
"Goes without saying," the Doctor deadpanned.
The Dalek turned its attention to Romana. "You-Are-Romanadvoratrelundar. Enemy-To-The-Daleks."
"It knows my name, I'm flattered," Romana said with a slight smirk of her own.
"You-Are-To-Be-Exterminated."
The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he got back on his hooves. "Are we now?" he said in a tone that caused an instant chill to run down Romana's spine. She'd seen the Doctors mood swings in the past, but this one... she could almost physically feel the hatred. "I unfortunately don't feel much like being exterminated today."
"Resistance-Is-Futile. You-Will-Be-Exterminated."
The Doctor chuckled. "You've not been following your history." With that, he put his screwdriver in his mouth, and a small vortex appeared over his left shoulder, launching a rock directly at the Dalek's eyestalk with the speed of a bullet--faster even. The Dalek tried to shoot it down, but missed and was rewarded with a shattered eyestalk. It let out an unnatural shriek and backed up a few hooves. "My-Vision-Is-Impared-I-Cannot-See!"
The Doctor leaped onto the disabled Dalek and jammed his screwdriver into the seam in its armor that would roughly correlate with its neck. Its dome popped open like the lid to a rubbish bin, and the Doctor shoved his screwdriver right into the new opening. A moment later, the Dalek shuddered as smoke rose from various points of its armored body. In a moment, the Dalek stopped altogether.
The Doctor hopped off the remains of the Dalek, an almost feral look on his face as he took deep, ragged, breaths. Romana reached toward the Doctor then pulled back. "Doctor, wh... I thought you said you were staying out of the war."
The Doctor's gaze softened, though he was still a far cry from the jovial pony he usually was. "I said I avoid the war. Sadly, it doesn't always avoid me." He sighed, calming down.
"So... what do we do from here?" Romana asked, casting a look at the first Dalek body. "This was your worst case scenario."
"Oh, my dear Romana. It's so much worse than that."
Romana stopped short at that. "What?"
He pointed at the second Dalek. "What do you see?"
"A Dalek, obviously."
The Doctor scoffed, a small amount of his old self--the Doctor she traveled with--leaking through. "No, Romana. I mean really look. At both of them. What do you see?"
Romana began to seriously appraise the two destroyed Daleks. Though a good portion of the first one was missing, it was still enough for Romana to tell a number of differences between the two, in size, basic design, etc, even apart from the color difference--the first one being largely a dull gray with the round weapon pods being black, the newer one a the color of brass, with more complex black workings. "They're different models from each other." she finally said.
"Yes, yes they are," the Doctor said. "And this one... this one is remarkably like the ones from my time. But not exactly the same. I'd imagine one of my successors would recognize this one." He turned to Romana, a haunted look on his face. "This Dalek is from the future. Far in the future. Don't you get what that means? The Daleks are interfering with their own timeline. The one Law of Time even they would never break. And they've broken it."
Romana's eyes widened as the implications hit her. "Oh, my."
The Doctor chuckled. "Understatement is beneath you," he repeated.
They were now at a standoff, in the skies above the empire. King Sombra, standing on a set of magical disks, glared at his two opponents as his eyes seemed to generate green fire. These upstarts. These princesses! They thought they could dethrone him. Him! The soon to be eternal Emperor of all Equestria. They would regret that. With an inequine roar, Sombra unleashed a huge tornado of black magic that obliterated all around him for meters around. Except... he could see them. A brilliant white streak, and an electric blue one, spinning counter to his maelstrom. "No..." he said under his breath, as he closed his eyes and willed more power into the attack.
It was too much, however, and the black whirlwind dissolved into nothingness, and the two streaks of light coalesced almost instantly into to form of his hated opponents. "Sombra!" Princess Celestia called out. "We would have words with thee!" For a brief moment, a small sphere of golden energy appeared just off the tip of her horn, before it exploded into a massive ray of magical energies. Sombra shrieked as the attack seemed to burn him to his soul, knocking him off his makeshift platforms and sending him face first into a hard buck courtesy Princess Luna.
She wasn't finished, either. The attack had launched him straight up, a good hundred hooves, and she teleported above him to deliver a bolt of her own, delivered point blank. This attack was as cold as the other was hot, and Sombra found himself being shot towards the ground. But before he could hit the ground, he launched himself into the air and back into the fray using a pair of fiery, incorporeal temporary wings. "And thus you show your true colors, hypocrites!" he bellowed, sending the princesses reeling from a magical shockwave. "You preach friendship, diplomacy. But because you disagree with my rule, my rightful rule, you attack! I was right to break our treaties with you."
Luna had to laugh. "'Tis true, we and our sister may find thy ruling practices to be disgusting, but thou knows we would not have come for this alone."
"We know of thy plans to invade our realm," Celestia said, her eyes narrowing.
"As well as the realms of the griffons, minotaurs, and dragons," Luna finished. "That is what justifies our actions, today."
The flames emanating from the Emperor flared. "I am only making claim to that which is my right!"
Celestia's expression remained stern, but a small amount of sympathy worked its way into her gaze. "You truly believe that, do you not?"
The Emperor's laugh was chilling. "Believe? What is there to believe? I am the Emperor. That is all the right I need."
"Thou art insane!" Luna said in disgust.
Luna and Celestia caught each others' eyes briefly, before launching themselves at their opponent. Before the fight could continue, they were interrupted by a sound that almost sounded like an explosion from the other side of the Empire. All three spun to see a huge, raging snow storm billowing over the buildings like a tornado.
"Doctor!" Celestia cried.
Sombra laughed again. "I do no know what kind of abilities your little friend may have, but he stands no chance against mine."
Celestia's eyes narrowed as she turned her attention back on Sombra. "You do not know my friend." And the fight was on.
~DrW~
Elsewhere, elsewhen...
"EXTERMINATE!"
That was the last thing he heard. He didn't even hear the shot, but boy did he feel it. Fun fact, Dalek death beams kill nearly instantly, but they fire off every single nerve in a pony's body beforehoof. So, while he died quickly, he also died in agony. What came next... well, he didn't know what he expected, but it certainly wasn't this. There wasn't a bright light or anything, nor was there complete darkness. What there was... oh there was no description for it. It wasn't anything he saw, heard, smelled or even felt. What he did know, though, was that Derpy was there somehow. She was there, and she was powerful, and she was calling him back. And then, suddenly, surprising him most of all...
Jack Harness's eyes slowly pried themselves open. Oh, princesses did he hurt. Oh, he hated dying. Didn't happen often, yet, but it happened enough for him to recognize patterns. Always came with a dream-flashback-something of that first time it happened during the station's last night as the Game Station. And of course, dying hurt. Especially dying from Dalek weapons.
"Wait, Dalek?" he muttered to himself as he stumbled to his hooves. "That's weird. I don't remember any Daleks." It was certainly Dalek weapons that took him out, though. That was a very distinct, very memorable sort of pain. He hit himself in in the head a couple times, trying to jumpstart his brain. It always took a moment to get his thoughts in order after waking up. "Now what was I doing before... Oh! Nuts and Bolts!"
Right. The two repair ponies had followed him and his group of time traveling friends. When Jack stopped to question them, he got hit. Strange, though. Why would they have Dalek weapons? Where would they even have hidden them in the first place. Dammit, he thought in frustration. It happened so fast. I don't really remember those last few seconds. He looked around in mild confusion. So where did the others... It was as if a bolt of lightning struck his brain. It hurt a little. Go? And he was off, running in the direction the others had to have gone.
"Always seem to be saving your flank, Doc," he muttered to himself, as a smirk appeared on his face. "'Course, it is a flank worth saving. They all have flanks worth saving, really." He chuckled. He could almost hear the Doctor telling him to focus, in three different voices. It wasn't too long before he reached the entrance to the broadcast room. He could hear the voices as he got closer. Ten was acting righteously angry, Eleven was babbling along, and Nuts and Bolts definitely sounded like Daleks. I hope you appreciate this, Doctors, he thought with a wry grin as he withdrew a particular favorite weapon from his coat.
With a grin, he charged into the fray.
~DrW~
Back to the Crystal Empire...
The Doctor chuckled as he popped another Jelly Filly into his mouth. The snowpony was obviously taken by surprise by his question. "Shall I repeat the question? Perhaps a little slower to get it into your likely nonexistent brain, perhaps?" He tossed one of the loose ends of his scarf over his shoulder with a nonchalant smirk. "Candies in general are very simply made these days, and are quite rare, mostly something bought by royalty. Jelly Fillies won't be invented for centuries yet, and nopony here, save perhaps the Princesses, has any real frame of reference to even know what they are. So I ask again. How could you possibly know my little bomb was candy?"
The snowpnoy stopped, and considered this odd, curly maned, big toothed intruder into its realm, and hesitated, somewhat unsure itself. "Well, come on. Out with it," the Doctor egged on. The snowpony looked over its shoulder at the far off fireworks display that was the battle between the Emperor and the Princesses. The Doctor smirked. "He won't be able to help you. Too far away, too busy. It's making it difficult to concentrate, isn't it? After all, you've been separated from the source of your... well, everything."
The snowpony turned back to glare at the Doctor. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
The Doctor grinned. "I'm fairly certain I do. It took a fair amount of time for me to actually remember you--understand it was a few centuries and a couple of regenerations ago, after all--but yes, I finally recalled our previous encounter."
"You are talking nonsense."
That big-toothed grin reformed on the Doctor's face. "Am I? Yes, I suppose it is possible. I've been known to dabble in nonsense on occasion. At length and with little chance of reprieve, but I doubt that's the case this time. See, you, of course, are completely unaware of our last encounter, as it has yet to happen, at least to your frame of reference. Ah, the joys and confusions of time travel. And in fairness, we've only had the one encounter, during which I had little to no clue as to your true abilities and capabilities. You were... an unknown entity. Funny thing about unknown entities, they don't stay unknown for long once I discover them. So, it's good to make your acquaintance, oh Great Intelligence."
The snowpony was obviously startled. "Oh, yes," the Doctor said with a nod. "I know who you are. And, more importantly, I know what you can do."
The snowpony gave a deep chuckle. "You have no idea what I can do." Suddenly the Doctor was surrounded by a number of snowponies, identical to the first. "And what can you do, one little pony with no magic to speak of?"
The Doctor smirked, and the new snowponies changed form, going from terrifying monsters to highly detailed snow sculptures of ponies, mostly of mares. "Are you trying to scare me with memories of my friends and family?" he asked, while the original snowpony looked on in confusion. The Doctor indicated a sculpture of a small mare, barely out of fillyhood, behind him. "My granddaughter." Another pair of ponies standing together, stallion and mare. "My first friends in Equestria." Another mare, wearing torn animal hides. "Some would call her a savage, but they'd be wrong. Now what could possibly be so frightening about them?"
The Intelligence growled, showing icicle fangs. "What did you do?"
"Oh, nothing much. I thought. I remembered. And you responded. You don't know your true nature, do you?" At the obviously confused expression on the Intelligence's face, the Doctor chuckled. "You're not as sapient as you suppose you are. You take your thoughts from those around you. Now, you've been living off Sombra for years now, he's the defining force behind your personality. But now he's across the Empire from you and I'm here." His wild blue eyes narrowed dangerously, even as his grin stayed in place. "And when it comes to mental ability, you'll find that I outclass him and every way."
The Intelligence nearly squawked in surprise as the sculptures turned and faced him. Then it growled. "You think you can can defeat me with such simple tricks? Me?" It actually laughed, cold an emotionless. "Whatever you think, whatever you believe, I am my own being!"
Suddenly the snowponies dispersed, and the Doctor found himself in the eye of a flurry that had more in common with a hurricane. While he couldn't see much, as he was using a foreleg to protect his face from the winds, he could have sworn he could see faint glimpses of a pony's face shimmering in and out of focus within the storm, as if projected on a screen. And he could hear the laughter ringing from all around him. "Oh, dear," the Doctor muttered. "I think I may have miscalculated."
It was early evening when the knock came to Carrot Top's door, causing her to break from the card game she and Dinky were playing. She wasn't complaining. She owed the little card shark something to the tune of twenty bits, and she already knew better than to play with stakes, but Dinky was getting distressingly good at the I'm-Just-An-Innocent-And-Cute-Filly-What-Harm-Could-I-Do act. If Carrot Top ever learned that Derpy was actively teaching the act to her kid, she may have to have one of those Concerned Best Friend Talks again.
Carrot Top opened the door with a practiced friendly smile and was about to greet the pony on the other side, but upon actually seeing said pony, the smile died an instant, hopefully-painless death and she instantly tried to slam the door in her face. Too bad the other pony already had a hoof in the way.
"Do we really have to do this dance every time I show up?" Amusement was clear on the newcomer's finely aged features.
"Yes, River Song, we do. And the Doctor's not even here right now. Go away."
River Song's grin persisted. "Yes, I know. Who do you think asked me to come here, anyway? And before you get all huffy, it was the future one that doesn't travel with your best friend right now. Your Doctor's still been actively avoiding me since the blaster rifle incident."
Carrot Top sighed and opened the door to let her uninvited guest in. "What're you here for, then? More 'protection' for me and the kid?"
River laughed at that. "Oh, my, no." At the offended look she was being given, she amended, "Look, you may not believe it, but I'm not actually jealous of Derpy's relationship with the Doctor and would absolutely not wish any harm on either of you. I know how the whole 'companion' thing works and am very comfortable in the knowledge of where he and I stand with each other. But, he also wouldn't use me for something like that. I'm more of a 'point and shoot' kind of mare. I just need to pick something up and be on my way."
Carrot Top was actually a little confused at that. "What could the Doctor possibly have left here for you instead of the shop or Derpy's place?"
River just smirked, and called, "Oh, K-9!" When the robot dog rolled in, she added, "Memory code RS-RP-BS-D-1-1."
K-9 looked at her blankly for a moment, then, "Greetings Mistress Song."
"Come along K-9. We've got work to do." As River began to leave the house, she smiled back at the still stunned and confused Carrot Top. "You know, I really would like to one day just stop by, do girl talk, all that. But, under the circumstances, I don't see it happening any time soon, unfortunately. Do give Derpy and the Doctor my love. Toodles." She closed the door behind her as she and K-9 left.
She stopped and closed her eyes in concentration. "Now where did he...?" Her eyes snapped open and she looked back at the house, looking at the window next to the front door. Smiling warmly now, she walked the few steps back she needed, then snapped her hoof against the ground. The TARDIS came into view, leaning right up against the house. It's doors opened for her. "Hello, Auntie," she said warmly as she entered the control room.
In all honesty, it was still a bit 'grungy', but actually seemed in much better shape than she'd seen it previously. There were fewer blatantly exposed wires, and a modicum of upkeep was visible where there wasn't before. She'd never say it to the mare herself but Derpy was certainly a positive influence on the Doctor.
She marched straight for the control console and smacked the whack-a-mole once, causing a number of monitors to lower from somewhere above. "Now, let's see how bad it's all gotten, shall we?"
~DrW~
Satellite 5, the far flung future, Doctors Ten and Eleven
"Do you have any idea what you are getting yourselves into?" Ten asked of the ponies-turned-Dalek, as they took a threatening step towards him, the other him, and their charges. "Any idea of what we can do to you if you continue to threaten ourselves or our friends?"
The Daleks took a moment to look at each other, then turned back to the Doctors. "You-have-no-weapons, you-have-no-magical-abilities-to-speak-of, you-have-below-average-earth-pony-strength. You-are-no-threat."
Ten blinked in surprise at that. "That's... not how they usually respond to us," he said uncertainly to Eleven, who just shrugged himself.
"I guess they are mine then," he responded. "To make a very long story short, a long story I'd normally love to tell and may have to before all is said and done, as of right this moment -- you know, comparably -- the Daleks don't have any memory of us."
"What," Ten said blankly. "Wait, what. Whatwhatwhat? What?"
"Yeah," Blue Shield said before Eleven could. "The Daleks shot us at a planet, things happened, and now they no longer remember you."
"Made for surprisingly effective couples therapy," Ripple said with a bit of a grin, even as the Daleks pointed their weapons their way. She thought, and not for the first time, that maybe they were getting desensitized to things they shouldn't be.
Before anything more could be said or done, a perfectly square hole appeared on the ground beneath the sleeper-agent Daleks, causing the lightly-if-at-all armored creatures to fall directly into the now-exposed power conduits below. Their fate wasn't exactly a pretty sight, one which caused the five ponies present to turn away from it, which didn't avert their attention away from the sounds of shrieking and the smell of burnt flesh, but one out of three. Fortunately the square was closed as quickly as it appeared, and standing behind where the Daleks once were stood...
"Jack!" Derpy cried happily as she rushed him a great big hug. "You're alive!"
"So it would seem," Jack Harness responded, carefully pointing his weapon away from her or any of the others.
"And you have a squareness gun!" Ten said giddily. "Wait, how did you get a new set of batteries for...?"
"I don't kiss and tell," Jack said with a wink and a grin.
"Since when?"
The reunion was interrupted by a banging on the closed door behind the Doctors and companions. "Lets get somewhere a bit calmer, shall we?" Jack said as she shot a square shortcut into the wall. They all charged through it and the hole disappeared just before the door opened and more Daleks entered it.
~DrW~
In front of the Foal Hill School, 963 C.R., the Eighth Doctor
Romana divided her attention between the rather severe looking schoolhouse, and the cart with the incongruous satellite dish set up across the street. "Is this where you...?"
"Oh, no," the Doctor responded airily. "It's where the Daleks think I put it. What's actually happening here is one of their factions has a transmat in the basement, and that military-funded scientific team is tracing its signal, with no idea of what it actually is." The Doctor stopped in thought for a moment. "Actually, if my timing is accurate, only one of the team is actually in there, the other one should be getting lunch at a nearby cafe."
"And the other faction had one set up over at that junkyard," Romana confirmed, for clarity's sake. "Had" being the operative word; the mysterious third faction had destroyed it along with the Dalek they'd found. The Doctor nodded distractedly. Now that they were back, and the Doctor was musing over what to do next as opposed to going straight to a goal, Romana actually noticed how odd that science carriage actually was. "That is some sophisticated technology, for the time period and Equestria in general. To the point where it seems a bit out of place."
The Doctor had a look of nostalgia on him that Romana was noticing was quite common on these future versions of her friend. "Equestria is a bit strange and unique in that way," he said. "Due, I believe, to how unusually magically inclined the place is, their technological needs, and thus technological progression, are notoriously dichotomous. Note that the vehicle itself is pony-drawn rather than motorized." Romana had remembered that he mentioned just that upon their arrival.
"So what are we to do now?" Romana asked.
"That is a good question actually," the Doctor said. "This particular adventure was already quite complicated, what with two warring Dalek factions, a severely under-prepared local military unit with a rogue operative to deal with, and the Hoof all thrown together. Now we have a third time-displaced Dalek faction added to the list, which already removed the first battle encounter that at least got all the players assembled. And the distinct lack of screaming and fire says that we're at the proverbial calm before the storm, so our next move should be chosen very carefully. Should I just go for the Hoof right away, make first contact with the scientist as I did previously, or..." here he cast a very serious look at a very inconspicuous young filly playing hopscotch in front of the school.
Romana shuddered. It was never a good sign when a child got that look from the Doctor.
The Doctor apparently made his choice, as without a word of warning, he trotted over to the carriage, threw open the back doors, and with obviously forced excitement, exclaimed, "Why Morse Code, it is you. I haven't seen you in ages. Positively ages! How are you doing?"
Romana facehooved as she heard the female voice within cry out "Who are...?" before being muffled by the doors closing. And if she was smiling beneath her hoof, she was going to choose not to acknowledge it. Somehow she had the impression that in this incarnation, the Doctor had some modicum of tact and grace. She forgot that regeneration doesn't change a Charger that much.
~DrW~
The Crystal Empire, the Reign of Sombra, The Fourth Doctor
The Doctor didn't cry out when he got thrown to the ground again, but it was a close thing. "Heh," he chuckled into the windstorm that was buffeting him. "Is that truly the best you can do?" He got thrown again for his trouble. "That one was a bit better, in truth, but still not enough."
He got to his feet, and continued walking, determination in his features even as the winds and snow cut into his face. His march was purposeful, even as he kept the item in his hoof clutched to his barrel. No way was he going to let it be lost. He could not keep the smirk off his face, for all it's big talk and big show, the snow creature actually wasn't able to do much to directly hurt him. He was still able to keep the worst of its efforts away from his person just through his own mental strength over its own.
"Sombra was a fool to be afraid of you," the voice in the winds said mockingly. "Despite your unusual knowledge with regards to my origin, you have been unable to actually put up anything resembling a fight."
"And why should I wish to battle you directly, when I already have you where I want you? Whoop!" The winds had picked up suddenly and he once again found himself face-to-floor.
"You continue to be all talk. It is getting annoying."
"I have been told that, yes," the Doctor admitted, getting back to his hooves and continuing his march. "It is a funny thing, though, that most times I'm told this, it's usually minutes before I win through sheer brilliance and force of will." And he grinned, here, seeing the patch of Trottingham blue fade into being in the haze before him. He brought the TARDIS key to his lips briefly in gratitude. It never steered him wrong when it came to finding her again.
"So you've found your little blue box," the Intelligence sneered. "What good can it possibly do you when we both know it has been rendered inoperable."
The Doctor smiled triumphantly. "On her own, nothing really. She's in such a state of de-powering I doubt I can get the doors open right now, but that wasn't the point. The point was that her location was a point I knew I could find no matter the situation. A point that I know is well outside of the borders of the Empire."
"What....?"
From miles away, an explosive force tore through the wind funnel the Doctor had been struggling through. The Intelligence reformed itself fairly quickly, but once again it was a simple snow pony, looking in disbelief at the scene before it. The sprawling Crystal Empire was in full view in the valley below, and erupting from roughly the epicenter was a huge black whirlwind of dark magics, far larger than the storm the Intelligence itself had become its battle with the Doctor. Flitting in, around, and through the storm could be seen two streaks of light, one an almost blinding white, even from the distance, the other a cold blue.
"I never needed nor intended to battle you directly," the Doctor said, his smug smile showing off his impressive set of teeth. "I only needed to make sure I had your full and undivided attention so I could lead you away from the actually important battle and out of bounds, as it were. Now strap yourself in, you're about to witness a show quite unlike any other in history."
~DrW~
The intruder had chosen its timing perfectly. The battle outside was raging, enough to practically change the weather itself. Getting past the King's defenses was proving to be child's play. The intruder feared nothing, so that door proved no obstacle (And, no, there was no residual flash of a multi-colored striped scarf, that was ridiculous). And the intruder's life support chair held little regard for gravity in any event, so the spiraling staircase that was positioned wrong-way-up held no challenge for it, either.
It was not long before the intruder found itself before the grand prize. The Crystal Heart, glowing practically white hot due to the energies her so-called King was drawing from her, as well as the energies she was drawing upon herself to do what must be done to end this. The intruder grinned a cruel grin, the scar-like tissue covering its eyeless sockets wrinkling like over-dried leather. It's one good hoof tapped a series of commands into the computer console set in its chair as a small, thin arm of metal emerged from a panel on its front, it's sparkling tip reaching towards the Heart.
The King wasn't the only being with the means to make... changes.
