Prologue
Doctor Whooves & Professor Whooves
Prologue
~O~The Professor~O~
High above the planet Equs, a wooden structure floated just barely outside the atmosphere. The wooden door of the outhouse was open, and a brown coated Unicorn mare sat in its entrance. She held a telescope in her hooves, observing the planet below her, as a deep bell rang from within the structure that seemed to have no business floating where it did. In a matter of seconds, the mare dropped her telescope and ran inside.
The interior of the, admittedly small looking, structure was much larger then the outside would have led anypony to believe. Her hooves carried her to the central column of the vast room that was hidden inside the much smaller outhouse. The control console of the SENTOR was round, and the mare ran from one screen to another, pushing buttons and pulling levers as she went.
No matter what she did though, the deep sound of the bell did not cease. Stopping in front of one of the many monitors, she observed a few diagrams that only made sense to her. Well, to her and anypony who had learned how to fly a SENTOR.
“Bogus!” she finally exclaimed, looking up at the spinning circles in the middle of the console as if they had personally insulted her intelligence.
“There's no way another Timecapsule's approachin', old girl! Your sensors must be on the fritz again.” she added, checking the readouts one last time.
~O~Clara~O~
The Doctor was talking to her as much as he was talking to himself as he looked around the TARDIS, a sad look on his face. He had, of course, told her about regeneration, but she had hoped it would be a long time before it actually happened to him.
His hands began to glow, and Clara knew that the time had come. She rushed forward, begging the Doctor not to change, but there was nothing the Timelord could do...
~O~O~
Outside the TARDIS, in the eternal vortex of time, a Dalek stealth ship had noticed the Doctor’s ship as it dematerialized from Trenzalor. The Doctor had, somehow, managed to destroy almost their entire attack force. Only this one last vessel had survived, since it had been stationed in the Time Vortex to intercept the Timelord, should he attempt to flee.
In the exact same moment as the Doctor’s regeneration cycle began, the ship’s weapons fired upon his TARDIS. The Timecapsule, sensing the danger, evaded the first volley without its passengers actually noticing anything. It wasn't so lucky on the second volley though. One of the shots hit its mark and, even though it did not manage to penetrate the TARDIS’s defenses, its consequences were a disaster.
The dissipating energy from the Daleks’ weapons, combined with the inherent instability of the Time Vortex and the Doctor’s regeneration energy building up, caused a small bubble of time to form around the two ships. Its feedback was so strong that the black hull of the Stealth Ship was ripped apart, spilling almost its entire crew out into the raging winds of the Vortex, where they were quickly erased from time itself.
~O~O~
As the shockwave from the explosion hit the TARDIS, the Doctor was about to complete his regeneration. The Capsule was thrown around, and alarms began to sound. Alarms that Clara had never heard before.
The lights went out and, in a flash of golden energy, she thought she saw something in the darkness that made her doubt her eyes...
~O~The Professor~O~
The bell sounded even deeper now, and the sounds came faster and faster as the Professor raced around the central console. Something was happening alright, but she just couldn't figure out what it was. None of the readouts seemed to make any sense.
Then, suddenly, she was hit sidelong by something that had phased right through the outer wall of her SENTOR. For a moment it materialized, hit her, and then phased out with reality again, dragging her along.
“What the bloody Hell?” she thought, as she saw her SENTOR in the distance. A rip in reality was rapidly closing behind it, and flaming debris was falling through. Her blue eyes could only watch as the pull of another reality caught her ship, and dragged it through.
The sudden heat on her coat made her realize that, while the loss of her Timecapsule was a pretty severe problem, she did have more urgent matters to attend to. Whatever this strange, blue, box she was clinging onto was, it was re-entering the planet’s atmosphere and she did not intend to act as its heat shield for that.
Just as she wanted to try to pry open one of the doors she was pressed against, however, the heat around her dropped to a slightly chilly temperature. Flames began to erupt around the newly formed force field, and the Professor could still feel the rushing wind, but had, for the moment, avoided being incinerated. Now, only the landing worried her...
~O~Celestia~O~
The Princess of the sun had set her heavenly body for the day, and had been enjoying the moonrise before going to bed for the night, when she had sensed a disturbance in the magical field of the planet. Her sister, Princess Luna, had sensed it as well, and was watching the sky intently from the tower of the moon while Celestia did the same from the tower of the sun.
Soon both sisters spotted several objects entering the atmosphere, leaving burning trails that lit up the night sky. Since it was night, it was Luna’s responsibility to check out the burning fragments that impacted in or near the Everfree forest, and Celestia was glad to see that her sister took flight without her having to say anything.
“She's adjusting better every day,” the older Alicorn thought, as she turned around to go back inside. It was then that she heard a wheezing, grinding, sound that became louder with each passing second.
Celestia’s head snapped around, and she was just barely able to summon a shield before one of the burning objects crushed her. Her eyes widened, as she recognized the object as a blue box. They widened even further, as a brown Earth pony mare flew past her, tried to stop herself on the marble floor of the Princess’s bedroom, bounced off, hit her bed and rebounded once more before hitting the wall.
The Princess of the sun panted slightly, as she dropped her shield to take a closer look at the box that had by now bounced off her shield and fallen onto the balcony in front of her. The blue exterior seemed to be made of wood, but that couldn't possibly be true. Anything made of wood would have burned up in the atmosphere.
A groan from her bedroom reminded her of the other thing that had apparently dropped out of the sky. The mare was slumped against the wall, rubbing her head with both forelegs. The fancy suit she had been wearing looked scorched in places and had definitely seen better days.
“Would anypony mind explaining to me what is going on here?” Celestia finally asked, her one visible eye twitching slightly. The only answer she got from the mare on the ground was another groan, as the squeaking of an opening door sounded from behind her.
~O~Clara~O~
Clara clawed her way out of the TARDIS, which was lying on it’s side. Flopping onto the ground outside, she couldn't help but curse the Doctor for actually having a swimming pool in the TARDIS. When they had crashed, some stabilizer thingy had obviously been malfunctioning, and so the pool had, once again, flooded the control room. She wanted to go back inside and look for the Doctor, but for the moment she just didn't have the strength left to do so. She was wet, miserable and had been thrown from one end of the control room to another. It was a small miracle that she hadn't broken anything!
Suddenly, she smelled something. The smell was slightly familiar, even though she couldn't place it immediately. Opening her eyes, she felt as if her heart had stopped. .
There, almost directly in her face, was a horse. A horse that, for some reason, had a horn, wings and a pretty annoyed look on its face.
“Ehm... hi...” Clara said, trying to scurry backwards.
“Hello. Excuse me, but would you mind explaining to me who you are, where you come from, and why you crashed into my bedroom in the middle of the night? Also, I hope you and your friend over there are unhurt,” it said, gesturing over to another horse... no... that wasn't quite right. This one was more like a pony, if anything. But... it looked strange somehow, not to mention that it was wearing a smart business suit that looked as if someone had tried to burn it in a furnace just to pull it out again at the last minute.
“Clara!?” came a male voice from above her, and yet another Pony poked its head out of the TARDIS. This one had blue eyes and a gray mane. For a moment it looked directly into the face of the horse she had initially seen, its blue eyes fixating on the horse’s purple ones.
“You're not Clara,” it finally said, much to the surprise of the big white one. Clara put her hand to her forehead. So it hadn't been her imagination after all.
“Doctor?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly. The brown stallion looked at her, a smile forming on his muzzle.
“Ah! There you are. I seem to have some... problems, and can't find a mirror. Can you see if there's anything wrong with me?”
Clara just couldn't look at the Doctor. Not only had he regenerated into a different species, but he also had, for some reason, developed a Scottish accent.
“You're a Pony, Doctor...”
“Nah, stop kidding around. I'm a Timelord.”
“Excuse me...” the big white horse...Unicorn...thing... began, but the Doctor just waved one of his hooves to silence her, before returning his attention to Clara. Then, suddenly he stopped, raised a foreleg, and examined it carefully.
Suddenly, he broke out in a fit of laughter and grabbed the big white one by its... shoulders(?), shaking it slightly.
“I'm a Pony! This must be some kind of a mistake! But it's brilliant! Even if it's just a dream caused by my recent regeneration, it's such a great opportunity!” he began to ramble. It was just about then that the other brown Pony in the room tackled him to the ground. A shouting match ensued between the two and, for the first time, Clara got the distinct feeling that the Doctor had found his match.
“Excuse me...” the white horse began again, addressing Clara again. Her voice sounded desperate as she did her best to keep a smile on her face.
“Funny that...” Clara thought, before deciding just to accept that the dominant species on this planet seemed to be horses....