Discord's statue has vanished from where Celestia had put it in the royal dungeons, but it doesn't seem to be because Discord himself has escaped. Rather, somepony has stolen it. Now the Doctor and his loyal companion Derpy will search time and space to find the culprit. Bring on the drums!
Night Shift the unicorn sighed as he made his rounds. He never thought he'd miss the Royal Canterlot Gardens, but this shift was actually worse. The guard detail of the dungeons had increased tenfold since the new "arrival" and, lucky day, Night Shift was one of the guards chosen to take part. At the gardens he simply had to deal with the occasional straggling tourist or a couple trying to get a little... closer during the off hours, but at least he could see the night sky and breathe in the fresh air, neither of which was available down in these dank corridors.
Still, as a loyal Royal Guard it was not his place to complain. Night Shift peeked through the barred door to make sure his charge was still there. It still was—a stone statue depicting a creature that was such a jumbled up mess of animals that it was eerie to all who looked upon it, even those that were technically a fusion of multiple beasts themselves. Night Shift found that the statue's current look of terror made it a bit less unnerving than the dramatic smile from before.
Night Shift turned to make the rounds one more time, but stopped when an unfamiliar sound reached his ears. No, that wasn't true. He knew the sound, it just didn't belong here and now. It was the sound of hoofsteps upon the stone floor. “Halt!” he shouted. “If you turn around and go back now, you won't be arrested. This is your one warning!” The intruder turned a corner, yet stayed in the shadows so Night Shift could not see him or her clearly. “I did warn you,” he declared as his horn powered up with his own unique orange glow.
Night Shift's screams echoed throughout the lower levels of the dungeon.
A Storm of Chaos
A Dr. Whooves Adventure
By Shotoman with collaboration from CommacazyFreak.
Part 1: The Doctor is In
In his modest shop in the middle of the small burg of Ponyville—literally the epicenter, in point of fact—the Doctor paced behind his desk, grumbling under his breath. His short brown tail flicked in agitation as he checked one of the many, many clocks which all but completely covered his walls. “Bored bored bored bored bored,” he muttered under his breath, absently turning over the hourglass—the one that matched his cutie mark—which he kept on the desk. “Bored bored boring bored bored. There's nothing of any significance whatsoever happening today! When will that mare get done with her rounds so we can go see something interesting?”
The tingling of the bell as his front door opened caused the stallion to stop pacing, and he smiled a genuine smile as one of his favorite mares stepped into the shop. She was, after all, a personal student to Princess Celestia herself, Bearer of the Element of Magic, and a mare who would grow to be one of the most important ponies in modern Equestrian history. “Why, Miss Sparkle, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this afternoon?”
Twilight Sparkle smiled as she levitated the remains of a small, wooden counter-top clock. “One of Pinkie's parties, what else?” she said with a somewhat exasperated grin on her face. “Do you think you can fix it, Mr. Whooves?”
“It's Doctor, thank you, Miss Sparkle. Just... the Doctor,” the stallion corrected absentmindedly, fruitless though the effort was. Where did the name Whooves come from, anyway? The Doctor studied the broken wood and gears before him. “Well, this is going to be a bit of a job," the Doctor said as he narrowed his eyes and poked the former clock with a small jeweler's tool. "Well by a bit of a job I mean a major job." He ran a hoof through his already messy mane and winced a bit at Twilight's mildly concerned look. "Well... come back in a week.”
Twilight Sparkle smiled. “You'll really have it fixed?”
“As sure as I'm standing here. Cross my, er, heart." The Doctor grinned awkwardly.
“Oh, thank you so much!”
The Doctor waved a hoof. “Think nothing of it. Miss Pinkie Pie almost single hoofedly keeps me in business, after all.”
Twilight smirked wryly as she rolled her eyes. “You and about three other furniture repair shops in town. Thank you again Dr. Whooves. I'll have your payment when I return.”
“Of course, of course,” he replied with a smile as she exited the premises. She was always smart as a whip, that Twilight Sparkle, and her wit could be just as cutting. He'd been tempted more than once to invite her to go traveling with him, but always reminded himself that she more than most needed to grow up on her own, with a bare minimum of wibbly-wobbly interference.
With his customer safely away, the Doctor took the remains of the clock with him to the back room of his shop. There, sitting against the back wall was what appeared to be a wooden blue barn, though considerably smaller. Humming to himself, the Doctor retrieved the key hidden among the knick-knacks and scattered tools and unlocked the blue paneled door.
The inside of the little barn was like another world. Certainly the room was larger than it had any right to be, and a hallway led further inside, indicating that the place was even larger. In the center of the room was a circular control panel of some sort, with a crystalline spire attaching its center to the ceiling. Apart from the usual array of buttons and switches one would expect from such a piece of hardware was also such oddities as a typewriter, a ketchup and mustard dispenser, a bicycle bell, and a whack-a-mole.
"Hello, dear," The Doctor said happily before putting on the brown trench coat, which was just a shade darker than his own chestnut hue, that had been haphazardly thrown over the overstuffed red couch. He smiled at the pleasant feelings that the TARDIS sent into the back of his brain by way of greeting. From one of the coat's pockets he withdrew his coveted sonic screwdriver, and aimed the wand-like tool at the wreckage. With some muttered words sneaking into his humming, the Doctor set about the rather mundane yet surprisingly fulfilling job of fixing a clock. The inner workings were actually not going to be much of a problem. He'd be able to fix them rather easily and probably only with the screwdriver. It was the wooden paneling that was going to be an issue. The screwdriver didn't do wood. He needed a replacement. A quick scan of the casing with a little cross referencing thrown in, and the Doctor decided that a quick run to Raxxus XII would be able to get him exactly the kind of wood he needed. Or he could just go to the original clockmaker in Manehatten, but where was the fun in that?
The Doctor was surprised out of his work by the proximity alarm. From the center pillar the Doctor pulled a flat screen monitor down to eye level, and smiled when he saw the pony pictured on it. She was certainly older than when he'd last seen her—some gray was sneaking in through her slightly curled red mane, but her scroll and quill cutie mark was still clear as day upon her cream coat. It was with much enthusiasm that the Doctor charged out the door to meet his old friend.
“Wordsmith! What are you doing here?” The Doctor asked in delighted surprise as he entered the showroom.
The aging earth pony smiled warmly in return. “I could ask you the same question, Doctor. A clock repair shop in Ponyville? And you've regenerated I see.”
The Doctor gave Wordsmith the kind of hug one reserved for old friends. “About half a dozen times since we met last. You look great!”
Wordsmith shook her head. “I got old.”
“Aw, don't say that. You look amazing. Seriously.”
The reunion was interrupted by a happy, almost boyish voice. “Hey, Doctor! I'm done for today! And I brought us some muffins!”
The local mail mare, one Derpy Hooves, bounded into the shop in a gray blur, her misaligned eyes darting every which way as she laughed with all the bubbly energy her cutie mark implied. Wordsmith smirked slightly at the enthusiastic pegasus' entry. “Doctor, who's your friend?”
The gray mare enthusiastically shook the older mare's hoof. “Hiya! My name's Derpy! What's yours?”
“Wordsmith,” the red maned pony replied. “Doctor...”
The Doctor stepped in with a nervous chuckle. “Derpy, Wordsmith here is one of my, ah, former travel companions.”
Derpy's unfocused eyes widened in excitement. “Oh, oh! You used to travel with the Doctor, too? You've gotta tell me about some of your adventures! Did you meet Daleks? How about Cyberponies? Ooh, ooh! How about gas mask zombies? I met those, once!”
Wordsmith smiled in spite of herself. “So, Miss Derpy, I take it you are the Doctor's current companion?”
The Doctor interjected. “I actually don't really know what I would call Derpy to be honest.” Wordsmith raised an eyebrow quizzically, and Derpy's serene expression never wavered. “She does accompany me on my travels, but I've only been on something like two journeys within the last month. Derpy here insists on returning to Ponyville so she can maintain her job as the local mail mare. There's a lot of intriguing things that happen here, actually. Last year's Winter Wrap Up was a most interesting experience, thanks to Miss Twilight Sparkle. It ended up being a most historically important day.”
“Then what would you call it?” Wordsmith asked while smirking doubtfully.
The Doctor stumbled over that question. “Ah, well... A rest stop. I'll have you know Ponyville is a major historical nexus point. Keeping the TARDIS in the back room is how I keep the old girl powered up these days.”
Wordsmith chuckled and tapped Derpy playfully on the shoulder. “Whatever it is you're doing, you just keep right on doing it.”
“Yes Ma'am!” Derpy responded with a salute and an oblivious smile.
The Doctor cleared his throat irritatedly. “Why are you here, Wordsmith? For that matter, how did you know I was here?”
Wordsmith became all business, her brown eyes narrowing slightly. “That is something we need to discuss privately.”
The Doctor nodded and led the two mares back to the TARDIS. Once the door was safely closed behind them, Wordsmith got down to business. “I was actually sent here to find you by Princess Celestia.”
“Little Celestia sent you?”
Derpy laughed. “'Little Celestia?'”
“Well, yes. I've known her since she was a filly, after all.”
The gray mare gasped. “Celestia was once a filly!?”
“Well of course she was. What sort of question is that? 'Was Celestia a filly?'” The Doctor turned his attention back to his former companion. “Why did Little Celestia send you? She usually knows not to interfere with me.”
Wordsmith became completely serious. “Discord's statue is missing.”
A loud crash interrupted the conversation, when Derpy fell over, knocking over one of the pillars that surrounded the TARDIS control console. “Well, that is bad,” the Doctor agreed. “But why send for me? This is an Element of Harmony problem, not a Time Charger problem.”
“The Princess assured me she's preparing the Elements as we speak, but there are a few inconsistencies that point to someone or something else being behind this. Not Discord.”
The Doctor's interest was now piqued. “What sort of inconsistencies?”
“First of all, the statue's been missing for over twelve hours. Have you noticed anything strange today?”
The Doctor scratched his chin in thought. “No. Nothing at all. In fact, today's been rather...” His eyes widened slightly. “...Boring.”
Wordsmith nodded. "Exactly. No cotton candy clouds. No soapy roads. Nothing." She reached into her saddlebag and produced a small box, which she placed on a blank spot of the console. “There's one other thing. This was found on the scene.”
The Doctor opened the box and reeled back in surprise. “Oh, bollocks,” he swore. Inside the box was what appeared at first glance to be a small doll of a pony. It was a white unicorn wearing the armor of the Royal Guard. The Doctor knew better, however. It wasn't a pony doll in the box. It was a pony corpse.
A sharp blow to the back of the head brought the Doctor's attention back to his wall-eyed friend and companion. “Oi!” he exclaimed.
“Language, Doctor,” Derpy admonished sternly.
“Right, right,” the Doctor muttered as he brought the sonic screwdriver to bear on the little corpse in the box. Under his breath he added, “Not that bollocks means anything to you...” After a brief moment of the instrument's buzzing, the alien stallion brought the Screwdriver to eye level and growled something that by all rights pony vocal chords should not be able to produce. He got smacked again for his trouble. “Oi!”
“I know when you're cursing in alien, Doctor,” Derpy reminded him.
The Doctor glared at Derpy for a moment, then turned his attention to Wordsmith, who was biting her lip to keep from laughing out loud. The Doctor himself was less than amused. “I assume you know the significance of this?” he asked.
“Of course,” Wordsmith responded. “That was one of the reasons I accepted the job—other than the fact you just don't say no to Princess Celestia, of course.”
“Why not?” the Doctor asked, a bit of his humor returning. “I do all the time.”
“So what does this mean, Doctor?” Derpy asked.
“Well, Derpy, you know what this is, right?” The Doctor held up the box so his companion could get a good look.
“Exactly. A dead pony. Specifically, a dead pony who's been killed and shrunk by a Tissue Compression Eliminator. The list of beings who use Tissue Compression Eliminators as part of their M.O. is very short indeed. Well, it's actually a list of one. Which makes this whole thing very unsettling.”
Derpy tilted her head. “Why is that?”
The Doctor sighed. “Because I really hoped you'd never have to meet this one particular being.” The Doctor shook his head, and a melancholy expression crossed his face. “You know how I've told you I'm the last of the Time Chargers?” Derpy nodded. “Well, I may not be. I could never know for sure, but there is one who very well might have escaped the War.”
Derpy's expression brightened. “Why did you never tell me before? I could have helped you look for...” Realization dawned. “He's bad, isn't he?”
The Doctor nodded. “Oh yes. He's like me, only, well, bad. He even chose his own name the way I did. Calls himself the Master.” A frown formed on his face. “But something doesn't add up. He hasn't used the T.C.E. in ages, and for a very good reason. Its primary use is in stealth and hiding evidence. And it works well on local police and the like, but to me just using it is like shouting through a megaphone 'Here I am! Come get me!' Even if he hadn't left the body behind, and even if I hadn't been made aware of the problem, I would have discovered traces of its energy signature when I was going to scan the dungeons in a couple of days.”
“You scan the Canterlot dungeons often, then?” Wordsmith was smirking.
“Once a week at least. Very tempting place for outsiders who would do ponykind harm. Derpy and I found and dismantled a Cyberpony transmat there just last week, didn't we, Derpy?”
“Yup!” was the cheerful reply.
“Never told Celestia I do it, so she doesn't know, or pretends not to. But the point is,” the Doctor said, trying to stay on track, “this was careless and sloppy. And while I could use many adjectives to describe the Master, those are not included in the list. That leaves a number of possible scenarios, the least worrying being that he's simply fallen on old habits and is taunting me.”
“Oh, that's the least worrying, is it?” Wordsmith rolled her eyes.
“You've gotten cheeky over the years, do you know that?” the Doctor asked irritably. “Another possibility is that we're dealing with one of his earlier regenerations—the implications of that I'd really rather not dwell on. For one thing, I always get a headache after meeting any of the stallions I used to be. The final and most worrying scenario is that somehow someone else managed to find or reproduce the T.C.E. and is using it to send us on a wild goose chase.” There was silence for a moment as the Doctor let that sink in. “Well,” he suddenly blurted, his mood shifting back to annoyingly cheerful. “The only way we're going to find out what's going on is to go to Canterlot and investigate ourselves.”
“Oh, oh! Are we going to meet with Princess Celestia?” Derpy asked with an inordinate amount of excitement.
“You travel with the Doctor, don't you?” Wordsmith asked. “Surely you've met the Princess.”
“Oh, lots of times. But still, it's Princess Celestia! Oh! This is gonna be one of those trips isn't it? I'd better call Carrot Top and ask her to watch over Dinky for me!” With that, the hyper gray mare grabbed a small communications device off the control console, turned her back to the others, and began talking animatedly into it.
“Is she always so... energetic?” Wordsmith asked the Doctor.
“Of course! Why do you think I chose her in the first place?”
“Honestly?” the aging mare asked, smirking. “I figured it was so she could stand around looking impressed while you were being clever.”
“Derpy?” The Doctor laughed, either ignoring or not catching the dig. “She barely even notices when I'm being clever. And when she does, it's usually because, and I quote, 'I didn't understand a word you just said.'” The Doctor laughed again, then cast a gentle glance over at the wildly gesticulating pony. “No, I chose Derpy as a companion because it doesn't matter if it's the birth of a star at the far end of the universe or just a Wednesday night in Ponyville, she can see it.”
“Everything!” the Doctor replied, a smile on his face that his former companion had never seen him wear before. The Doctor's expression then turned quizzical. "What?" he asked.
Wordsmith started. "What, what?"
"What's with that look? That 'I'm kind of sad but kind of happy' look?"
Wordsmith chuckled. "Since when were you an expert at reading expressions?"
"I have had over nine hundred years experience you know."
Wordsmith just shook her head and patted the Doctor gently on the shoulder. "I'm just thinking... It's good to see you happy for a change. You used to be so melancholy when there wasn't some big disaster surrounding you."
The Doctor blushed a bit. "Well, I was a different stallion back then, you know."
"Maybe on the outside, and a few quirks and tastes were different, but you're always you at the core."
Fortunately for the Doctor's growing discomfort, Derpy had finished her conversation and rejoined the other two. “Alrighty. Everything's taken care of, but Carrot Top said to bring her a 'really cool souvenir' this time.”
“I'll see what I can do.” The Doctor chuckled as he rubbed his front hooves. “Are we all ready?” He didn't wait for an answer before he began a mad dance around the console, mashing buttons, turning levers, smashing the bell with a hammer, and smacking the whack-a-mole. As the familiar screeching began to sound, the room shook violently, knocking Wordsmith on her flank. The Doctor laughed like mad, as Derpy joined in with her own “Woohoo!” The wide eyed look of disbelief on Wordsmith's face simply made him laugh all the harder.
“Three, two, one!” the Doctor counted down as he grabbed one last lever. “Allons-Y!”
~DrW~
The statue rattled and shook before exploding into tiny fragments, releasing the mismatched creature within. Discord took a moment to stretch out the kinks before taking in his surroundings. “Now that was an interesting experience,” he muttered, before the alien surroundings did the near impossible and stunned him into a brief silence. He was standing in a small cylinder of light, which, when he tried to poke a finger through it, sent him reeling back with a painful feedback. The room was dimly lit, mostly by various screens flashing information that looked to Discord to be gibberish. In the middle of the room was a game board of some kind, with custom pieces. Discord recognized himself, of course, and vaguely remembered the gray pegasus with the funny expression placed next to the boring looking brown stallion, but the rest of the pieces were unrecognizable—most of them not even ponies.
“Somebody fancies himself a game master,” the draconequus muttered to himself.
“I do not fancy myself one,” a voice boomed throughout the room. “I know myself to be one.”
“Ah, and so my gracious host decides to show himself,” Discord mocked. When no one stepped from the shadows, he amended, “Or not. So I suppose that since I'm here, and on your board over there, that I am included in whatever game you're playing?”
“You would be correct.”
Discord grinned. “Yes, well, unfortunately I prefer to be the one setting the rules, so I'm afraid I'll have to opt out on this one.” With that, Discord snapped his bird-talon like fingers and in a flash of bright light... stayed planted exactly where he was standing, blackened with soot covering him head to foot. Discord coughed a black cloud. “Okay. That was different,” he muttered.
The voice laughed. “Oh you planet-locked beings can be so short sighted. You're convinced that because you are far and away the most powerful being in Equestria, that makes you the most powerful being everywhere.”
“Not an unreasonable assumption, normally,” Discord conceded. “So. If you're capable of so much more than me, I take it it's not my magical power you're after. That begs the question... what is it can I provide you that's so important to risk waking me up to gain it?”
“Risk?” the voice laughed. “What risk? I have your so-called magic completely nullified. You provide me with no risk. No being who could be so easily defeated by six mares barely older than fillies from some little provincial town could ever hope to be a threat to me.”
Discord laughed. “Are you trying to get under my skin, little... well, whatever you are? You're going to have to try harder than that. I don't like being beaten by any means, but I do learn from the experience. And if I had the bits, I'd bet you're not the undefeated Grandmaster you pretend to be either.” The silence that answered his taunt told Discord he was right. “Now then, since you obviously aren't going to tell me what you want from me just yet and the introductions, such as they are, have been made, I guess the game has officially begun. I do feel I should warn you, though. I'm not some pawn on your board. I'm an active player. So game on.”
The sudden screeching that sounded throughout the middle levels of Canterlot Castle sent the guards in an uproar. They scrambled in an urgent, but organized search for the source of the odd sound, while a number of the guards went to inform their captain of the disturbance. In very short order, a group of guards were surprised to find a blue barn, roughly the size of an outhouse, slowly materializing from nothing in the middle of a hallway. The younger guards raised their spears at the strange structure, but the older ones simply rolled their eyes and motioned for them to lower their weapons.
After a moment, the barn fully appeared, and the door opened. From within practically skipped a strangely excited chestnut earth pony in a shabby brown coat. “Here we are,” he said, his Trottinghamish brogue giddy with delight. “Canterlot Castle, circa 1002 C.R., seat of the Equestrian government, home to Princess Celestia and her sister...”
“I know what Canterlot Castle is, Doctor,” a childish sounding voice said in playful irritation as a gray pegasus flew out of the barn, rolling her eyes, though their speed did not match each other. “I have been here before, you know.”
The Doctor shrugged. “Sorry, Derpy. Old habits, you know.”
The hyper pegasus waved at the guards. “Hi guys! Is Captain Armor on the way?”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Captain Armor? Shining Armor? Oh right, I keep forgetting. The ol' Brig retired. Shame, that.”
An aging red maned pony stumbled out of the barn, her cream colored coat taking on an odd green hue. “I never thought I'd say it, Doctor, but I think you've actually gotten worse at piloting the TARDIS over the years.”
“How can you say that?” the Doctor asked indignantly. “After all, we landed exactly where I was aiming for. Give or take about fifteen minutes and a couple dozen meters.” The last sentence was mumbled under his breath, though it was easy enough for both mares to hear.
“What was that, Doctor?” Wordsmith smirked.
“Nothing! Nothing at all.”
“Stand down, boys,” an oddly easy going voice said from behind the guards. They parted to allow the speaker through. Shining Armor shook his head to get his two-toned blue mane out of his eyes as he stepped forward to greet the Doctor. “You just can't resist making a scene, can you? You do know the Princess has built a private landing dock for you to avoid the commotion, don't you?”
“Ah, Shining, where's the fun in that?” the Doctor asked with a grin. He then leaned in and whispered, “Don't tell the girls, but I was actually aiming for it. I sort of missed.”
With a wide smile, Shining Armor turned to Derpy and Wordsmith. “He says he missed.”
As Derpy and Wordsmith fell over laughing, the Doctor glared at the captain. “That's the last time I tell you anything in confidence.” Still, he extended a hoof, which Shining Armor took. “It is good to see you, Shining. How's married life treating you?”
“Amazing, for the most part. I do wish Cadance warned me ahead of time that she's not a morning mare, though. And Ponyville? How's my sister doing?”
“Oh, brilliant as always. I just spoke with her today, in fact.”
Shining Armor grew serious. “She doesn't know what you really do, does she? Trouble finds her often enough without her looking all over everything for it with you.”
The Doctor raised a placating hoof. “Oh, on that point I totally agree. Her future is already going to be...”
“Going to be... what?” Shining Armor raised an eyebrow.
The Doctor grinned. “Special. Big. That's all I'll say on the matter, but rest assured it's best for all if her history is left alone to play out. Just came by my boring old shop to get her boring old clock repaired. No timey wimey spacey wacy for Twilight Sparkle.”
Shining Armor smiled. “Good to know. Come on, then, Doctor. The Princesses would like to brief you on the situation.”
“Ah well, who am I to say no to the Princesses?” The Doctor was all smiles. His companions, both former and current, shared a chuckle. Even Shining Armor rolled his eyes as he led the Doctor and his companions toward the throne room.
~DrW~
Celestia, Princess of the Sun, smiled as Shining Armor led the Doctor into the small private meeting room behind the throne room. “Doctor, it's good to see you.”
Next to her, her much darker sister smiled as well, though admittedly not quite as warmly. “For me as well, Doctor, though the circumstances are unfortunately not ideal.”
The Doctor found himself grinning. “Oh, Little Luna. You've started getting the hang of modern speech. Kind of a pity, really. I'm going to miss the old Royal Canterlot Voice.”
Luna's smile twitched slightly as she got up off her chair and walked up to the Doctor. Celestia and Shining Armor, used to Luna's sense of humor, both covered their ears. Derpy and Wordsmith followed suit. “WE CAN ALWAYS SPEAK IN THE VOICE IF WE EVER SO CHOOSE, DOCTOR!” Luna reminded him.
“That is quite enough, Luna,” Celestia said, her smile widening and becoming wry. “We do want this conversation to remain secret, after all.”
Luna grinned as she sat back down on her seat. “Of course, sister. Of course.”
The Doctor chuckled even as his ears rang. “It is good to see you've retained your sense of humor, little one.” He couldn't help but laugh.
“Yes, well, I have had some help,” the Princess of the Moon admitted.
The Doctor allowed himself one more huff of laughter before getting back to business. His face grew somber as he reached into one of his coat pockets—bigger on the inside, like many of his possessions—and withdrew the box that contained the shrunken guardpony. “Now that this one's purpose in getting me here has been completed, I trust he'll be given the respect he's due?”
Celestia grew visibly sad. “Yes, of course. Captain?”
Shining Armor stepped forward and retrieved the box. The look on the young stallion's face nearly broke both the Doctor's hearts. “Your first?”
Shining nodded. “Yeah.”
“Never gets easier, mate.”
“I would hope not.” Shining Armor bowed to the princesses before exiting the room.
The Doctor turned back to the princesses. “Now then, if I'm going to be going on this mad little quest of yours, I'll need to know everything you do.”
“Doctor, that's new,” Derpy noted with surprise. “Usually you just wing it.” Wordsmith barely managed to keep from laughing out loud. “What?” Derpy asked, completely unaware of her own wings fluttering in annoyance.
“Yes, well, usually we just land willy nilly right in the middle of these things. This is an actual royal mission." The Doctor's expression brightened. "Ooh, I rather like the sound of that. Very Double Oh Seven. But enough of this nonsense. Information. Needed now. Yes.”
Celestia nodded and conceded the floor to Luna. “It happened last night at about eleven thirty,” the Princess of the Night began. “The yell of poor Night Shift alerted the other guards, but when they got there, he was already dead, and the statue was gone.”
“Now, here's the thing I don't understand,” said the Doctor. “A shrunken body means, well, quite a lot to me. But you two really have no way of knowing that. And given everything ol' Discord can do, shrinking a pony would just be a talon snap away. Why call me?”
Luna nodded. “You do not know Discord as well as my sister and I. Killing ponies is not his style. He rather likes playing with them instead. Also, his disappearance was a relatively stealthy matter. Had Night Shift not been in the way, we would not have learned of it until the shift change. Had Discord escaped of his own will, oh we would know. He's always been an insufferable showoff.”
“Hmm, yes. And I'd guess he'd either immediately go after the two of you, or the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.” the Doctor squinted a bit in thought. “And seeing as how the two of you are standing before me all calm and healthy, and I not an hour ago had the pleasure of young Twilight Sparkle's company, I can assume he's not done either.”
“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “This all leads us to believe he was taken by some outside force. The problem there is that we stored him in the bottommost levels of the dungeon, with nearly a full platoon of soldiers throughout. And contrary to what some of the newspapers are saying after the wedding fiasco, our Royal Guards are far from useless; they are in fact trained meticulously well. Anypony sneaking through the dungeons would have been found.”
“So, teleportation, then,” the Doctor supplied, choosing not to inform the Princess that he made rounds down there weekly.
“We have defenses in place for that,” Luna responded.
“Of course.”
“Also, our mages have found no trace of teleportation magic anywhere within the dungeons. In fact, even Night Shift left no trace of magical energies.”
“And now the pieces come together,” the Doctor cheerfully stated. “Seemingly magical effects that leave no magical residue? Then it must be technology, right? And no species in Equestria is capable of tech like that. Thus, time for the Doctor to make a house call, is that it?”
“In a word, yes,” Celestia replied with a nod.
The Doctor saluted the Princesses—with the wrong hoof, of course. “Lucky for you then—well, lucky in that it's convinced me to go along on this mission of yours, quite unlucky for any number of other reasons—I gave Night Shift a quick scan on the way over, and recognized the energies used in his demise. This is most certainly a Doctor problem. Mind if we go down to the dungeons for a quick look see?”
Celestia nodded with a smile. “I was hoping you'd ask. Take a few guards with you. I get nervous during your weekly unsupervised visits, and finding good excuses to distract the guards gets tiring after a while.”
~DrW~
Upon arrival at the dank cell which once held Discord, the Doctor immediately put on a rather flimsy pair of glasses, one lens blue the other red. He made his paces around the room, the sonic screwdriver in his mouth buzzing in several different tones. The guard who had accompanied the strange pony, a unicorn named Shimmering Star, turned to the pair of mares who completed the entourage. “What is he doing?” he asked.
“If I were to guess, I'd say he's taking readings of some sort,” Wordsmith supplied. “Though beyond that I never could fathom.”
“With those glasses, I'd guess he's looking for Void stuff,” Derpy posited. “Unless he rewired 'em or something.”
“It's teleport stuff today, Derpy,” the Doctor said around his screwdriver as he continued the paces.
At the guard's confused look, Derpy smiled. “Technical terms. Very technical.”
After a few more moments, the Doctor sat up next to Derpy, removed his glasses, and handed them over to her with a brusque “Have a look."
Derpy eagerly put the glasses on. “Oooh, lot's of teleport stuff in the middle of the room.”
“Yes, consistent with a Gallopfreyan Type VII telepad. An older model, but far more reliable than the Type VIII's—less tinglies and fewer missing tail hairs. Harder to build and maintain, though.”
Derpy slowly turned her head to face the door. “Doctor, there's a small trail of teleport stuff leading out of the cell.”
“That there is, my wall-eyed friend,” the Doctor almost sang. “Let's see where it goes.”
The Doctor led the way with his screwdriver, as the other three ponies followed along. The trail led out into the hall, around a corner, up a small stairwell, and around another corner before stopping. “I would say this was our culprit's entry point,” the Doctor mused. “Do you agree, Derpy?”
“Oh yes. Lot's of teleport stuff,” Derpy agreed. “But, uh, Doctor? There's another path leading around that corner.”
The Doctor felt an eye twitch. “What?” Then he heard the metallic hooffalls from around the corner Derpy indicated. “Oh, that's never good,” he muttered.
From around the corner came what could only be described as a metal pony. It consisted of one color, the color of polished chrome, with blank black eyes that looked in the direction of the four ponies. Upon its flank where a cutie mark should have been was etched a circle with a line cut halfway through it, making a stylized 'C.' “You will become like us,” it said in an emotionless, metallic voice.
Shimmering Star blasted the metal intruder with a bolt of magic. The thing stumbled a bit, but the blast didn't even dent its armor. “What the hay?” the guardpony asked.
“It's a Cyberpony!” the Doctor told him. “You're going to need to hit it with something a lot harder than that.” He turned to his companions. “You two know what time it is, right?” They nodded. “Then get to it.” As the girls turned tail and scrambled back down the corridor, the Doctor turned to Shimmering Star. “You too, soldier-colt. It's running time.”
Shimmering Star fired another ineffectual bolt at the Cyberpony, who reacted by unfolding a weapon of its own from just above the shoulder. Shimmering Star barely managed to drop to the floor as a red bolt scorched the wall behind him. “You go on. I'll try to hold it back. Give you time.”
“You are not planning some idiotic sacrifice are you?”
“Not really, but you're the one who can work this thing out. You're the important one.”
The Doctor's face twitched a moment before he chomped down on Shimmering's tail, and with a strength that belied his size, yanked the surprised guard around a corner as another bolt left a second scorch mark on the wall. “Now you listen here,” the Doctor growled. “I'm in charge of this daft expedition, and I say your captain is not burying any more soldiers today, so when I say run, you run! Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” Shimmering Star replied.
“Now run!”
With the Doctor taking the rear, the group charged upwards through the dungeons, the Cyberpony close behind. The Doctor paused at one of the turns, taking a moment to aim his sonic screwdriver at the metal pony for a second. He glanced at the screwdriver, nodded, and continued his mad dash. Minutes later, the light from the palace proper shone before the group. “I hope you're up there, Shining!” the Doctor shouted.
“With you down there? You better believe I am,” the Captain's friendly voice called back.
“Once we've passed, we need a max level barrier over the door! Got it?”
“Got it!”
“Good!” To his expedition the Doctor added, “Pick up the pace, ponies!”
The group of four ponies barreled into the light of the palace, the Doctor glancing back in satisfaction as the Cyberpony ran face first against a solid barrier of rose colored magic. He sighed with a smile.
“Is that a pony?” one of the guards asked.
“Not anymore,” the Doctor responded, straightening his coat. “There are quite a few pony parts in there—brain, nervous system, a couple other bits to keep it technically alive—but anything that actually made it a pony died long ago.”
“It comes from another world that was a lot like Equestria at one time,” Shining Armor added, causing the Doctor to start. “Then some madpony with the know how decided that was the pinnacle of equine perfection. Now these things travel the universe, spreading that 'perfection' by force.”
The Doctor smirked. “Shining Armor, you've read the Brigadier's reports.”
“I am Captain of the Guard. It's my duty to be informed on potential threats to the kingdom—a duty I take a lot more seriously after recent events.”
“I bet,” the Doctor muttered. “Do you think you can safely bring it in for me to dispose of?”
“Shouldn't be too hard. Gimme a second to work it out.”
Shining Armor closed his eyes, biting his lower lip. After a moment of concentration, the barrier field removed itself from the door and wrapped itself around the Cyberpony like plastic wrap. The fully immobilized enemy was floated into the hall. As the Doctor approached its side, the magic field slid away from a panel located around where the ribs should have been. The Doctor aimed his screwdriver at the panel, and it popped open.
The Doctor cast a sad look up at the subtly twitching metal pony. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” he murmured before activating his screwdriver one last time, causing an eruption of smoke and flame to burst from the panel. “You can put it down now, Captain Armor. It's done. Also, you should conduct a thorough headcount of your personnel—particularly those with access to the dungeons. Derpy and I are going to do a thorough search, make sure there are no conversion stations down there. Usually where there's one Cyberpony there are others, or they make others. This time, though, I think we'll be fine.”
Derpy furrowed her brow. “Why's that, Doctor?”
The Doctor held up his screwdriver. “This one's covered in teleport stuff. Fresh, barely an hour old. I'd guess this one was alone, brought here accidentally by the telepad that brought our culprit here. Fast as the Cyberponies work, they aren't that fast. Still, better safe than sorry. Right, Shining?”
“Absolutely,” Shining Armor agreed. He turned to Shimmering Star. “You heard him. I want our entire force accounted for. Put special attention on those assigned to the dungeons. Get others to help you at your discretion. I want this done sooner rather than later.” Shining turned to the Time Charger. “I'm going down with you, Doctor, and that is not a request.”
The Doctor was giving instructions to one of the remaining guards. “And I need you to save the body until we return, and... what was that, Shining?”
“Oh, yes, yes. Fine. Perfect. The more the merrier. Now, make sure to keep it away from other ponies, guards included. It's dead, but the Cyberponies can be tricky. Sometimes they booby trap themselves just in case of something like this, but having an actual physical thing that came through on the telepad will make tracking the source just so much easier...”
“Are you okay, Doctor?”
“Guah!” The Doctor jumped. “Don't do that, Derpy!” he grumbled, placing a foreleg over his fast-beating hearts. “Wait, 'am I okay?' Why ask a silly question like that? Of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be...?” The Doctor's protests died as a pair of normally misaligned gold eyes focused directly into his.
“You're distracted, Doctor,” Derpy said. “More so than usual. What's wrong?”
“It's this!” The Doctor gestured to the unmoving metal form before him, his sudden intensity causing Derpy to jump. “It just about mucks up everything!”
“Why?”
“Think for just a second, Derpy! What is it that brought me here in the first place? A guard is killed by a weapon only one stallion—a Time Charger—has ever used. Oh, there are plenty of implications and oddities to ponder over, but it's a good solid clue. We arrive here, and what do we find? Traces of Gallopfreyan technology. Oh well that's all well and good; it fits together with the last clue to make a nice pretty little picture. And then... this! A Cyberpony just randomly teleports in on our crime scene. What is a Cyberpony even doing here? Cyberponies don't have Gallopfreyan tech. They couldn't use Gallopfreyan tech if they did. It doesn't make sense.”
“Yes, yes. I get that. But we've had things not make sense before. Lots of times, really. There's more to it than that. I can tell.”
The Doctor opened his mouth once, twice, three times without saying a word. Then, without any warning whatsoever leaped to his hooves, that manic smile plastered on his face. “Well! It's time to check back in on the dungeons then, isn't it? Come along Shining. We shouldn't need more than the two of us, especially if my theory proves true.”
The Doctor practically galloped down into the dungeons, and Shining Armor, after a brief glance back at the confused mail mare, followed suit. “I... bugh... wha?” Derpy sputtered.
“I've seen that mood before.” The sudden voice caused Derpy to jump. Wordsmith was sitting there, a small smile on her lips. “'I'm not a pony, I'm a Time Charger. I walk in infinity,' and so on and so forth. The more things change, I suppose.” Wordsmith raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Well, what are you doing just standing about? Go after him. He may be brilliant but he's awfully thick.”
Derpy smiled. “Yeah, he is, isn't he?” She took to the air, but after smacking face first into the wall rather than going through the door, decided that hoofing it was the better choice, and ran down the stairs after the Doctor. “Hey, Doctor! Wait up!”
Down in the dungeon, the Doctor was demonstrating a contraption that consisted of a small green screen, an antenna, several exposed wires, and duct tape to Shining Armor. “See, it dings when there's stuff. Specifically Cyberpony stuff.”
Shining Armor looked at the contraption, then at the Doctor. “You mean you keep Cyberpony detection gear on you all the time, just in case something like this happens?”
“Well, of course I do. Given how often they seem to turn...” The Doctor started at the gray form that suddenly bounded up to him. “Derpy? What are you...?”
Derpy poked him in the chest with her hoof. “You're my friend, and I stick by my friends. Even when they're being stupid-faces. Stupid-face.”
A blush was clearly visible through the Doctor's chestnut fur. “I... well... uh... Why are you laughing?”
Shining Armor bit a lip. “Laughing? I'm not laughing. Who's laughing? Do I get to call you 'stupid-face,' too?”
“Nope, just me!” Derpy replied.
“Let's just get this job over with,” the Doctor muttered, leading the group deeper in the dungeons.
The time passed uneventfully. Though the three ponies were diligent in their search, the Cyberpony detector never pinged once. After a couple of hours, the three ponies found themselves back in the bottommost cell, where Discord was once held. “Well,” the Doctor stated, smiling. “Looks like I was right. Nothing to indicate an actual Cyberpony presence for a change. You better go back to your soldiers, Shining. See if they've finished the head count. I've got a couple of final readings I'd like to take down here, if that's all right.”
“You sure you're going to be okay down here?” Shining Armor asked.
“I refuse to answer that, as saying anything one way or another is bound to cause something to happen.”
Shining Armor chuckled softly as he left the time traveling companions alone, the Doctor humming to himself as he removed another jury-rigged device from one of his pockets. “So what's really the problem?” Derpy asked after a moment.
“You are not going to let that go, are you?” was the annoyed response.
“Not 'till you tell me,” Derpy singsonged.
“Oh all right, fine! I'm getting the distinct impression that I'm being played, and I don't like it one bit.”
“Bzzzt! Wrong! Try again Doctor,” Derpy replied with a grin. “I know the 'I hate being played' mood, and this isn't it. You're more sad than mad. Why?”
“You know me entirely too well,” the Doctor groused. Then he sighed. “When Wordsmith showed me that package, well of course it was a bad thing, but it also brought just this tiniest sliver of hope. See, if it meant what I thought it meant, then I'm not the last. There'd be another Time Charger out there, even if it was the Master. And who knew? If he could have escaped the Time War, maybe others did. The Corsair, the Monk, Romana... did I ever tell you about Romana? Traveled with me for a time—forced upon me really—and she was brilliant. We clashed a lot, back then—too much alike—so I don't recall ever telling her so. Just another regret in a long list I suppose. But then that damn Cyberpony showed up! It doesn't really prove anything any more than the shrunken corpse did, but it does make it seem much more likely that someone is playing with me. Preying on my hopes, ready to dash them.” The Doctor was suddenly very interested in the screen's readout. “I'm just tired of being alone.”
The Doctor's eyes widened a bit when Derpy suddenly pressed her side up against his. “'Alone' my lazy eye,” she admonished, smiling. “You got me!”
A small smile played upon the Doctor's lips. “Yes, I suppose I do at that.”
“And Wordsmith,” Derpy continued. “And Princess Celestia, and Shining Armor. The list goes on. Do you need me to sing a song about it? Don't think I won't.”
The Doctor laughed at that. “No no. Please don't. You made your point.” He put his scanner back in his pocket. “Well, I think we're done here. Between these readings and a piece or two of that Cyberpony, we should be able use the TARDIS to follow the teleport signal right to its source, or close enough anyway. We'd better be getting a move on. After all, we're on an official royal mission.”
“Very Double Oh Seven,” Derpy responded, mimicking the Doctor's accent.
“Oh yes! And the best part? We have no idea where in the whole wide universe it will lead us. Isn't that exciting?”
The Doctor hummed as he attached a few more wires to the empty Cyberpony helmet, a few mumbled lyrics about show ponies working their way in. He plugged his jury-rigged scanner into the TARDIS control and tapped a few more buttons. “Okay! We should be able to follow the teleport stuff right to its source now. Shouldn't we, Old Girl?” He patted the console, which spouted a gout of smoke right in his face. “Oh, don't be like that. We'll go where you want to go next time.” The Doctor laughed as he exited the TARDIS, where Derpy, Wordsmith, Shining Armor, and Princess Celestia waited.
“All right, girls! Time to go. Don't worry your pretty young head, Little Tia.” Celestia bit her lip to keep a laugh at bay. “We'll be back with that statue before you even know it. Hopefully literally.” When his companions didn't move, his brow furrowed. “Come along, girls. We really are actually pressed for time, strange as that sounds.”
Wordsmith stepped forward with a sad smile on her face. “Actually, Doctor. I don't think I'll be coming along on this one.”
“What?”
“I told you in Ponyville. I've gotten old, by normal Equestrian standards at least. I just don't have it in me to go gallivanting around time and space and who knows what else running for my life anymore.”
The Doctor gazed at Wordsmith for a moment. “Are you sure about that, Wordsmith?”
She nodded even as her smile twitched. “I think so. You don't really need me, anyway. You have Derpy. Doesn't he, Derpy?”
“You betcha!”
The Doctor considered this for a moment more, then nodded. “If you say so,” he agreed. “Come along then, Derpy.”
Derpy smiled broadly and skipped into the TARDIS. The Doctor turned to Celestia, who smiled. “Good luck, Doctor,” she said.
“Hmph. Since when have I needed luck?” The Doctor grinned. Celestia raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Yes, well I can still pretend, can't I?” The Doctor turned to enter the blue barn, then stopped and looked back at Wordsmith for a moment. Suddenly, she found herself enveloped in a very tight, very brown hug. “Goodbye, my Wordsmith,” the Doctor said. “Now that you know where I've put down stakes, as I believe the saying goes, be sure to drop by for a visit. No need to announce yourself ahead of time. If I'm not home, just give me five minutes.”
The Doctor disengaged the hug and, with a wide, manic smile, trotted into the TARDIS, leaving an absolutely astonished Wordsmith staring at a disappearing blue barn. “He... he said goodbye. Properly!” the stunned mare sputtered.
Celestia's smile was warm, with a bit of mirth. “And, moreover, he invited you to visit.”
“He has a place to visit!” Wordsmith turned to Celestia, a quizzical expression on her face. “Is she really that special?”
“Oh, my dear Wordsmith. All my little ponies are special. But she's certainly something special to him.” Celestia chuckled. “Sometimes my ponies surprise even me, though none more than the Doctor.”
Wordsmith stayed rooted where she was for a moment, and the Princess did not seem particularly inclined to move yet either. They were both waiting to see if the TARDIS would appear within the next few seconds, mission completed. We should start a betting pool on how far he'll miss this time, a mischievous portion of Wordsmith's brain thought. Out loud she said, “Ah, Princess? I've been meaning to ask... have you and he ever...?”
“Yes, we traveled for a time, along with Luna. It was around 1,500 years ago now, and shortly after he separated with you.”
“Should I be concerned that I know exactly how that works?”
Celestia couldn't help but smirk. “Probably.”
~DrW~
“Now, here's the thing, Derpy. Gallopfreyan telepads are able to send a pony across both space and time, not entirely unlike a TARDIS. Yes, dear, I'm getting to that.” The Doctor couldn't keep his glee hidden even if he wanted to. There was simply nothing quite like charging blindly into the unknown, no matter what the circumstances. “The big issue with them is that your destination is absolutely fixed before you leave, and unless you have a return bracelet you are basically stuck upon arrival. Not a bad means of conveyance if you just want to take a two week long vacation during the First Golden Age of Equestria, or if mummy's gotten sick and you need to see her fast, but absolutely rubbish for traveling.”
“So we could be going anywhere and anywhen?” Derpy asked, trying to stay situated on the Doctor's sofa.
“That's the basic gist of it. We won't know where the teleport stuff is leading us until we get a bit closer to the source. But it isn't that big a deal because we should land practically on top of it.” The Doctor cast a quick glance at a suddenly flashing readout. “Well, within about two weeks and a hundred square kilometers. Wait. Are you sure you can't narrow the margin just a bit? Don't get like that with me, I took plenty of... No, it did not occur to me to... Hey! Where do you get off insulting my age?”
Derpy smiled as she felt the prickles of mildly amused annoyance buzzing in the back of her head. “Yeah, he's a stupid-face,” she agreed.
“Oi,” was the Doctor's annoyed response. “I don't need the two of you ganging up on me right now. This operation is very...” A sudden shake nearly shook the Doctor loose from the console, and successfully knocked Derpy to the floor. “...Delicate,” he finished lamely. “Derpy, it looks like I'm going to need an extra pair of hooves. Can you hold the shaky lever thingie down for me?”
“Sure thing!” Derpy responded as she got up off the floor and held down the indicated lever.
“Perfect!” That mad smile was plastered on the Doctor's face again. “Here we go. Second star to the right, straight on 'till morning, onwards and upwards, and my personal favorite even though I've already said it once today, allons-y!”
~DrW~
“Where are we, Doctor?” Derpy asked when the shaking finally stopped.
“Hmmm, looks like a planet called... Anthrax? Someone has a strange sense of humor,” the Doctor replied. “We're actually only a few light years away from the edge of the universe, and about three thousand years in the future.” The Doctor almost, almost, squee'ed. “I've honestly never been here before, isn't that fantastic? Let's go see what's out there.”
The Doctor's enthusiasm dropped instantly when he stepped outside. “Oh look. Rocks.”
“Oh, come on, Doctor,” Derpy laughed. “We're probably just parked in a cave or something to hide the TARDIS is all. Now come along.”
“Oi! You don't tell me to come along. I tell you to come along,” the Doctor protested as he matched pace with his excitable companion.
It only took the two ponies a couple of minutes to exit out of the cavern and into daylight. They stopped short less than four steps out, their eyes almost bugging out of their heads. It was, quite literally, a battlefield. A small group of ponies, armed with weaponry that the Doctor recognized as being about two hundred years out of date by universal standards, battling what seemed to be an entire contingent of Cyberponies. To be more accurate, the ponies were being slaughtered by the Cyberponies. The Doctor and Derpy slowly met eyes, then wordlessly crept back into the cave.
~DrW~
Another scream, another pony down. Sole Survivor swore as he blasted the head off the Cyber responsible, before taking to the air with a beat of his ash gray wings, taking after another target. He was no fool. He knew the outcome of this battle. They were just too outnumbered and too outgunned. But he would be damn sure to take as many of the metal devils out as possible before he went. He weaved and dove, avoiding red bolts of searing energy with a practiced ease. He brought another Cyber into the sights of his rifle and with a quick pull of his hoof, another enemy was removed from the board.
A searing pain tore through Sole Survivor's left wing, sending him hurtling to the ground. Looking up, a Cyber was standing immediately above his head, aiming its shoulder mounted blaster between his eyes. Here we go. Last one, Sole Survivor thought as he brought his rifle to bear.
“Hey! You lot!”
The sudden, booming voice was the first surprise. The second was that every Cyber in the area immediately turned and trained their weapons on the source. Sole Survivor stumbled to his hooves and turned his head in the direction the sound came from. Then came the third surprise. Why the hay would a single brown earth pony in a trench coat cause the entire Cyber contingent to—for lack of a better word—panic?
The strange pony had situated himself on the top of the highest hill in the field, with a megaphone perched atop a tripod in front of him. “Okay,” the strange pony said, a smile evident in his voice even if he was too far to see clearly. “Looks like that got your attention.” The stranger turned behind him and gestured, and a gray mare stepped into view, black goggles covering her eyes, strange black cylinders strapped to her sides like saddlebags. He turned back to the megaphone. “I'd advise all organic ponies to hold their breath for just a moment.”
The strange pony turned and pulled something on the mare's pack, the “saddlebags” erupting in a burst of smoke and flame. The pair of projectiles the two ponies launched flew into the air above the battlefield before exploding into a dull yellow cloud with hints of sparkles flashing throughout.
As the cloud descended upon the field, Sole Survivor obediently held his breath. The cloud was a fine metallic dust that didn't seem to be especially harmful, so what could the point behind it possibly be? Then he heard the popping. All around him the Cybers began twitching and spazzing, sparks erupting from shoulders, knees, and necks. Sole Survivor's eyes widened as every Cyber on the field fell over, useless pieces of scrap metal.
Between his injuries and the distance between himself and the hill, Sole Survivor was the last of the surviving ponies to reach the stranger. He nodded in approval when he saw that his crew had the pair stopped at gunpoint; a years-long war with the Cybers made Anthrax's surviving ponies more than a little paranoid. He was somewhat surprised by the pair's reaction to having weapons trained upon them. They had obediently planted their flanks and had their forehooves in the air, but the stallion had an annoyed look on his face, and the mare was outright smiling.
“Now why is it that every new place we go, the locals' first reaction is to point guns at us?” the stallion asked.
The mare looked at her companion—at least, Sole Survivor figured that's where she was looking, it was difficult to tell with those eyes—and responded, “It's probably because you're so weird, Doctor.”
Sole Survivor actually felt an eye begin to twitch. Who acted this way when surrounded and threatened? The mare seemed to be mentally deficient somehow, so that might explain her, but the stallion?
“I know what you're thinking,” the stallion interrupted Survivor's thoughts, looking him dead in the eye. “And I'll have you know it's not very charitable.”
Sole Survivor cocked his head. “Oh, and what am I thinking?”
“Well, obviously you're thinking I'm mad and my companion here is, to use the crude language of the layman, retarded.” The strange stallion actually tsk'ed at him. “To be fair, you're completely right about me, but to assume mental deficiency based off a childlike enthusiasm and an ocular disorder? Shame on you.”
“Yeah, shame on you, you big jerk,” the mare responded, her smile just as wide as before.
“What makes you so sure that's what I was thinking?” Survivor asked.
“Simple,” the stallion responded. “That's what everyone who meets us thinks!” He actually wiggled his eyebrows at that. “I'm beginning to think we don't make a very good first impression.”
Sole Survivor had to massage his temples for a second. “Do you know what your current situation is?”
“Well, of course I do. Why would you think otherwise? I mean, look! Hooves in the air and everything.” Suddenly the stallion's expression turned cool. “I should remind you, though, that we just single-hoofedly stopped an entire regiment of Cyberponies dead, without doing any harm to you and yours. Do you really think I wouldn't be able to get out of this if I so chose?”
The two stallions held each others' gazes for a moment, then Sole Survivor motioned to his ponies to lower their weapons. “Now, who are you?” he asked.
The coated stallion smiled broadly, suddenly all hyperkinetic energy. “I'm the Doctor, and this is my companion Derpy. Now, if you would...”
“Don't you say it,” the mare called Derpy muttered.
“Aw, you never let me say it,” the Doctor responded.
“Because it's silly and never gets us anywhere good.”
“Yeah, I'm pulling an executive veto on you.”
“I didn't vote for you.”
“Your country is a principality that's been ruled by the same princess for over a thousand years. You don't vote.”
Sole Survivor coughed into his hoof.
“Oh, so sorry,” the Doctor said, an irritatingly happy smile on his face. “As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, 'take us to your leader.'”
Another rocky cavern, the Doctor thought to himself in disappointment. Why is it that all my travels inevitably end up in caverns? He turned his attention to the pegasus who was leading them deeper into the depths of the planet. “Soo, what d'we call you?” he asked. At the pegasus's glare, he added, "Well, it's not like we can just go around saying 'hey you.' Too many ponies respond to that."
The pegasus shrugged. “Sole Survivor.”
“Sole Survivor?” the Doctor asked. “What sort of name is Sole Survivor? It's a very depressing name, really.”
Sole Survivor just hummed noncommittally. The Doctor's interest piqued, he paid closer study to his host. Survivor was a darker shade of gray than Derpy was, with a mane and tail a dark grass green. His body was riddled with battle scars, and his cutie mark was an image of a discharging rifle. The Doctor must have been staring at the mark, because Survivor cast an annoyed glare at him. “Hey!” he groused. “Trust me. I'm not your type.”
The Doctor started. “Oh, sorry! I wasn't staring. Well I was, but it wasn't at your... I mean, er...” Derpy smacked him upside the head, which caused the Doctor to cease his nervous chattering, though he cast a quick glare at her afterward. Turning his attention back to Survivor, he said, “It's just that nobody should have a weapon for a cutie mark.”
Survivor chuckled. “You sound like Old Hoof.”
“Old Hoof?”
“Our 'leader,' as you put it. He's a sentimental one, too. Though I suppose you're right about the cutie mark. The years haven't been good to us.”
“Yes, how long has the invasion been going on?”
Sole Survivor stopped and cast a look at the Doctor. “The 'invasion' has been over for almost a decade.”
“What do you mean by...?” The Doctor's eyes widened and his mouth made the shape of an 'o'. “A near complete Cyberfication. So you and your ragtag little band here are...?”
“Near as we can tell, the last ponies on the planet.” Derpy's eyes widened, and for once they were focused directly on the speaker. “You two are the first new ponies we've seen in, oh, three years now, so you can imagine why we reacted the way we did.” Sole Survivor cast the Doctor a shrewd look. “Why wouldn't the two of you know about this?”
The Doctor shuffled his feet nervously. “We're, ah, monks! Yes! Monks. From the mountaintops, shunning social interaction, meditating for days, the whole kit and caboodle!”
Sole Survivor felt his face stretching into a grin. “Monks?”
“Yep!”
“Who wear trench coats and have advanced weaponry?”
“Yes, well...”
The smile on Derpy's face threatened to split her face in half. “Isn't it cute how hilariously bad he is at this?”
Sole Survivor found himself sharing a laugh with his fellow pegasus. Oh, that felt good, he thought. When's the last time I had a laugh like that?
“If you two are quite done, I'd like to meet this Old Hoof before I die of old age myself,” the Doctor huffed.
“Right, right, sure, Most Renowned Master,” Survivor said with a smirk, earning a fit of giggles from Derpy. He was completely serious, however when he added, “You should know that the only reason I agreed to this is that I believe you when you mentioned you could have dispatched us with the same ease as the Cyber troop, but chose not to. Crazy though you two are, I feel we can trust you. And frankly, we need the help.”
The Doctor's mood whiplashed from irritated to happy. “What a coincidence! It turns out we have a bit of a problem ourselves that a few extra hooves might help with. Perhaps we can do a bit of quid pro quo?”
“Maybe, if you don't want anything too extreme. That'll be up to Old Hoof.”
“Then by all means, lead on.”
~DrW~
The Doctor whistled appreciatively when they entered Old Hoof's laboratory. The cavern walls were barely visible behind all the equipment, which, though outdated, was all well maintained. Along one table against the far wall lay a number of rifles and other firearms in various states of assembly, another wall was lined with monitoring equipment, and in general the room made the Doctor feel almost at home.
From behind one of the computer banks stepped a stallion that was old, but by no way feeble. His mane had long gone grey, but his yellow coat was still healthy, and he had purpose to his steps as they jingled the gold chain in his vest, which he wore beneath a lab coat. “So this must be the young stallion who saved our raiding party,” he said.
“Well, doesn't news travel fast around here?” the Doctor noted.
The old stallion gave a brief nod. “When there's as few of us as there are, it doesn't take much. Name's Old Hoof.”
Sole Survivor gestured toward the newcomers. “This is the Doctor.” The indicated stallion nodded politely. “And this is Derpy.” She waved with a big smile on her face. “They are rather strange, but they saved our flanks today.”
Old Hoof eagerly shook the Doctor's hoof. “I really cannot thank you enough for that. We've been at war with the Cybers forever it seems, and we've never been able to score a victory as decisive as yours today. If I may ask, how were you able to do it?”
“Oh, well,” the Doctor began with false modesty. “It wasn't much, really. I just used a glitter gun; well, a glitter cannon to be more accurate.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Sole Survivor interjected. “You beat a platoon of Cybers with glitter?”
“What? No. No! That would be just silly!” the Doctor replied.
“Yeah! Silly!” Derpy added.
“It was gold dust.” When Sole Survivor's eye twitched, the Doctor added. “Very very finely ground gold dust, given a slight electromagnetic charge, so it'd creep into the Cyberponies' joints, mess those up to slag, while the charge would do much the same to the electronics.”
“Is there any chance you can arm our forces with these 'glitter guns'?” Old Hoof asked.
“Not likely,” the Doctor answered, causing the old stallion's expression to fall. “I don't exactly carry all that much gold on me, and I only had that one cannon for... let's just say sentimental reasons. I may be able to make you a few glitter guns for use as a last resort, but not enough to fully arm your forces. But you must have some sort of plan besides highly dangerous and costly raids against the Cyberponies. From what I gathered is happening, it can't be long before the pony race is wiped entirely clean from this planet.”
“You're a sharp one,” Old Hoof nodded. “We have something we're working on—something big—but as you might imagine, I don't feel entirely comfortable sharing that with a pair of strangers met just today, regardless of what they've done.”
“Perfectly understandable, I suppose,” the Doctor consented. “I offer my services anyway, for the moment at least. However you should know we came here on a mission of our own.”
“You came 'here' on a mission?” Old Hoof cocked an eyebrow at that. “What sort of mission? And where did you come here from?”
Before the Doctor could begin, Derpy's childish voice began rattling off, “We come from a planet basically across the universe and about three thousand years in the past, on a mission of vital importance to find and retrieve the stone remains of a dangerous enemy that could threaten the way of life on our own planet and possibly the universe.”
Sole Survivor and Old Hoof looked at Derpy blankly. “What?” Old Hoof managed to say.
“Derpy, that never works,” the Doctor admonished, a hoof to his face.
Survivor couldn't keep a smirk from forming. “Actually, Doctor, I find her story to be more believable than yours."
The Doctor's other hoof joined the first and they slid down his face as he gave a long, drawn out sigh. “Whatever you believe or don't believe, understand that we came here following a very specific signal, but we were unable to pin its exact location down, and it's vitally important that we find its source.”
Old Hoof nodded with a smile. “Then perhaps we can be of some use to each other? You are obviously a pony with a great deal of technical expertise. I can certainly use the help around the lab—most of the ponies here, though brave and true, can barely use a screwdriver, let alone help build and maintain the weapons and other systems that have kept us alive and hidden.”
The Doctor smirked. “Oh, I can use a screwdriver,” he said, causing Derpy to giggle.
Old Hoof smiled, even if he was a bit confused at the humor. “In that case, if you'd be willing to help me with our general upkeep starting tomorrow, we can help you find what you're looking for. Who knows, perhaps we can help each other further as we gain each others' trust.”
“Perhaps,” the Doctor conceded as he shook the old stallion's hoof.
“Now then,” Old Hoof said. “It really is quite late, and I for one can use a good night's sleep. No doubt the two of you are in need of it, too. What do you say we start our 'missions' in the morning.”
“That will be fine,” agreed the Doctor. “We are on a bit of a timetable here, but we can afford to wait until tomorrow.”
“Then I'll have one of my stallions show you to your rooms,” Survivor said, opening the door to let in a white unicorn with violet mane. “Or is that room?” he asked.
“Rooms, please,” the Doctor clarified, spots of red appearing on his cheeks.
“Oh come on, Doctor,” Derpy teased. “I don't bite. Much.”
“Derpy!” the Doctor cried in surprise as the unicorn led them back into the caverns. Old Hoof and Sole Survivor listened as Derpy's laughter faded.
“What do you think of them?” Old Hoof asked the younger stallion.
“Honestly?” Survivor asked. “They're two of the strangest ponies I ever met, and the Doctor in particular is certainly dangerous, but I think we can trust them.”
“I think so, too,” Old Hoof nodded. “There's something about this Doctor that I quite like. Something I can't quite put my hoof on. Of course, better safe than sorry; we should make sure there's somepony watching or guarding them at all times. At least until our intuitions prove true.”
“Of course,” Survivor agreed. “Good night, Old Man,” he added with a grin.
“I'm not so old I can't still kick your flank.” Old Hoof laughed as Survivor trotted out of the lab.
When finally left alone, Old Hoof retreated through another door on the opposite side of the lab to his private quarters. He removed his lab coat and hung it on a peg, revealing a cutie mark in the image of a fob watch with a cracked face. Absently he removed his pocket watch from his vest and placed it on a simple table, retrieved a bottle of burgundy liquid from a hidden drawer underneath the table and, laying down on his simple hay bed, poured himself a drink. He took a swig and sighed, reflecting upon the day and the boon it had brought. As he did his hoof unconsciously and repeatedly tapped out a four beat staccato.
Sole Survivor peered around a corner, careful to keep as much of his body out of view as possible. The green tinged lens over his right eye flashed a number of things at him in yellow text, mostly stating that there was no Cyber activity in the immediate vicinity. “There's a camera up and to your right,” the Doctor's unmistakable voice spoke into his ear.
“Got it,” Survivor whispered as he used a hoof mounted device to launch a small dart-like device into the camera, causing it to sputter, spark, and die. He motioned for the rest of his crew to follow as he carefully but quickly made his way down the hall to the next corner. The pegasus leader tapped the earpiece the lens was attached to. “Volume's still a little loud, Doc,” he muttered.
Miles away in his sectioned off area of Old Hoof's lab, the Doctor adjusted his thick rimmed glasses. “I'll look into it when you get back. And it's the Doctor, Survivor. The Doctor. Not Doc, not Professor, just the Doctor.”
Old Hoof chuckled. “He only does that for ponies he likes. He calls me Old Man all the time. You should be flattered; I've never seen him take to anypony so fast.”
The Doctor grew a bit somber. “Yes, with a name like he's got, even I can take a guess at some of his interequine issues. I assume he earned the title?”
“More than once.”
The Doctor remained silent for a moment before a smile suddenly spread across his face, his volatile mood swings striking again. “Doesn't change the fact that it's aggravating.” His train of thought was interrupted by the sight of three Cyberponies on his monitor. After a few tense moments of barking orders, he sighed in relief. The Cyberponies had been dispatched, and there was not a single loss among the soldiers. These Anthraxian ponies definitely knew their way around a battlefield. I'm actually not sure how to feel about that, he thought to himself.
As he turned his attention away from Survivor's monitor to check in on one of the other raiding parties he said, “I don't know how you talked me into this. You got me doing mission control. I never do mission control. I'm usually out there keeping other ponies from being killed—or at least minimizing the fatalities.”
Old Hoof rolled his eyes as he began his counterargument—again. “First of all, we have four teams out there right this moment, one of which is seeking out your signal; you can't be in four places at once, and all four parties are important to the grand scheme of things. Second, you did offer to help in the lab. This is just an alternative method of doing so.”
A crash from elsewhere in the lab shattered the relative quiet and was followed by a mildly embarrassed “Oops, my bad.”
“And third,” Old Hoof continued with a smirk, “I think the two of you are conspiring to drive me mad.”
“We never go out of our way to do that to ponies,” the Doctor commented wryly. “It's just a perk.” He suddenly gave full attention to the screens. “You lot—squad three; that area's likely to be heavily guarded. Time to go into the vents. Squad two, wait where you are until you get that signal from Survivor's group. Survivor! Time to plant the charges.”
Sole Survivor nodded and pointed at his fellow squad-mates. “All right, you guys; time for our little distraction to play out. B.B., you're up.” As the twins Bang and KaBoom began arming and placing their explosive charges, Survivor turned his attention back to the Doctor. “Got any more intel for us, Doc?”
“Just that this is going to attract every Cyberpony in a five mile radius, so once the charges are set you lot'd better get the merry hell on out of there.”
Survivor smirked and rolled his eyes. “Right, no pressure or anything. B.B., how're those bombs coming?”
Bang blew her fire red bangs out of her eyes. “Set and ready go to, boss.”
“Just a button push away,” KaBoom added as he raised his protective goggles with his unicorn magic.
“All right.” Survivor nodded as he turned around back the other way. “Thirty seconds and let it go.”
The explosion that rocked the Cyber base caused raucous laughter to erupt from Sole Survivor; laughter he heard echoed in his headpiece. “Oh I love it when a plan comes together!” the Doctor crowed. “Gentlecolts, the signal is given.”
The next few minutes were a flurry of orders and activity—mostly directed at Sole Survivor's group, as at this point avoidance was the key to survival. The other two groups entered their various labs with only minimum resistance. “Good, good, now load 'em up and bring 'em on...” The Doctor's expression darkened. “What?”
“What's wrong, Doctor?”
The Doctor ripped his glasses off with a jerk and Old Hoof suddenly found himself staring into a pair of steely blue eyes, completely devoid of their usual playful arrogance. “Show me,” the Doctor growled.
“I'm sorry, what...?”
“Don't you give me that!” As the Doctor exploded in rage, the older pony took a step back. “Did you really think I wouldn't notice that those 'supplies' can be used to create the cores of multiple maginuke missiles? Did you really think me that dense? I am so clever and you don't even know, so don't play games with me! Now show me!”
Old Hoof held the Doctor's cold gaze for a moment before looking down. “Fine, when our teams come back.”
“No. Now.” The Doctor turned to where Derpy had crashed earlier. “Derpy, you're up. Keep everyone alive.”
Derpy practically materialized in the command chair. “You got it.”
Old Hoof cast an incredulous look at the Doctor. “You're leaving my ponies in her care?”
The Doctor's look caused the other pony's blood to run cold. “I am plenty aware of how she acts, but believe me when I tell you I choose my traveling companions with utmost care, and Derpy is one of the best. If I say she can handle this, then she can handle this.” He grabbed a spare earpiece and placed it in his ear. “Now, please do not make me repeat myself.”
Old Hoof sighed. “Fine, then. Come along.”
~DrW~
As he walked out on the catwalk, the Doctor's eyes widened. It's almost beautiful, in a terrible sort of way, he thought as he took in the multitude of ordinance. Aloud he asked, “How did you get all this? This isn't something the last remnants of ponykind can just... scrounge together.”
Old Hoof sighed. “Remnants of a time before the Cybers. This planet hadn't exactly been following the Old Equestrian ideal even before the Cybers invaded. There was a near constant threat of war for something like two generations, though peace did win out in the end. You're standing in the last of the decommissioning silos.”
The Doctor was silent for a moment, taking count of all the missiles. There were... rather a lot of them. “You do realize what unleashing this all means, don't you? You're talking Scorched Earth, here. What about the ponies?”
Old Hoof pointed to the doorway at the end of the catwalk. “We have a rocket prepared for them, that we will launch first. It will get them safely out to deep space, where they will hopefully be found and taken in by one of the other settled planets out there. But we can't just leave the Cybers to expand across the universe. It would be disrespectful to the memories of our friends they've converted.” The old stallion sighed. “All this is our last resort, naturally, but as you yourself noted when you arrived last week, we're just about there.”
The Doctor let his eyes scan the room one more time, an ice-cold lump of sorrow in the pit of his stomach. “I happen to know a thing or two about last resorts, Old Hoof. Even when they succeed, they can be agonizingly difficult to live with.”
Old Hoof smiled humorlessly. “That's why we save them for last, isn't it? We're not stupid, Doctor. We're plenty aware that this is one last, desperate play, and the odds are astronomically stacked against us. But at this point, it's the only thing we've got. It keeps us going.”
“Where there's life there hope, eh?” the Doctor muttered with a wistful little smile.
“Something like that.” Old Hoof nodded. “If you've got a better idea, I would love to hear it.”
The Doctor was silent for once. He really didn't have a better idea, and that infuriated him. He'd arrived far to late to save Anthrax, and he couldn't take the TARDIS back to try and save the planet at the beginning of the invasion, no. He only knew about the invasion because of the sorry state of the world now. Going back and changing that state would be asking for all kinds of paradoxes, to say nothing of the mission he was actually here to complete.
The Doctor's musings were interrupted by Derpy's excited voice in his ear. “Hey Doctor! If you're done being all Doctor-y down there, get back to the lab. Looks like our colts found the source of the teleport stuff.”
~DrW~
“Show me, Derpy!” The Doctor barely kept his impatience in check as he burst through the lab door.
Derpy tapped her hoof against one of the monitors, which showed an image of a group of ponies gathered in front of a large metal door set against the back wall of a cave. “They just found this a minute ago. The signal is coming from the other side of the door.”
“Another cavern,” the Doctor muttered. “Oh well. You got the coordinates, right?”
Derpy smiled and pointed to a string of numbers on the bottom corner of the screen. “Of course.”
“Perfect!” The Doctor studied the coordinates for a moment before barking instructions to the recon team. “Okay you lot. Thank you for your help, but we'll take it from here. Get yourselves back to base; the other teams are already on their way. Pat yourselves on the back. You did a great job.”
The Doctor turned to his companion with a wide smile. “Progress. Finally. Come along, Derpy!” The Doctor charged past Old Hoof, patting him on the shoulder. “We'll be back in an hour. Maybe two.”
“Hey, wait for me!” Derpy called as she leaped out of her chair to follow the quickly disappearing Doctor. In her haste she ran into Old Hoof, knocking the two of them on their flanks. “Sorry, sorry. My bad,” she apologized as she helped the elderly stallion to his hooves. “Nice watch.”
Old Hoof shook his head. “I'm sorry, what?”
Derpy pointed at the fob watch that was now dangling from it's chain, knocked loose by the collision. “Your watch. It's pretty.”
Old Hoof took the watch in one hoof and looked at it curiously, studying the surprisingly intricate concentric circle design etched upon its face. “Yes. I suppose it is...”
“Derpy! You're lagging behind!” the Doctor's voice shouted from down the hall.
“Oh, sorry! Coming, Doctor!” Derpy ran out the door, leaving a pensive Old Hoof staring at his timepiece as if for the first time.
~DrW~
It took a little more time than the Doctor would have liked to get to the coordinates given. The cave was only a couple kilometers away from the resistance base, but there were enough Cyberponies out, looking for “imperfect” ponies to convert, that they had to proceed with extra caution. If the groups were small enough, the Doctor would disable them—though most of the time he and Derpy had to hide instead.
Finally, the pair of explorers squeezed their way into a small crack in the side of a rocky hill, and entered the large room and the metal doors that guarded their quarry. The Doctor studied the lock for a moment and tsked. “Not deadlocked. That's good.” With that he withdrew his sonic screwdriver and, after a brief moment, the lock disengaged with a puff of smoke and the door slid open.
On the other side was the Gallopfreyan telepad; the transport disc was big enough to carry about three ponies and was etched in the ancient Gallopfreayan text, which looked vaguely like an artist's rendition of the inner workings of a clock. The control console to the side looked like a miniature version of a properly maintained TARDIS console. So of course, it was sterile and completely lacking in character.
Oh well. We work with what we have, the Doctor thought as he attached one of his homemade scanning devices to the console. He frowned as a sudden suspicion entered his mind and he placed his teleport stuff glasses on his face, completely ignoring Derpy as she peered at the Gallopfreyan inscriptions on the disc. The Doctor groaned. Of course. A quick inspection of the readouts confirmed what he already knew.
“Well that's just a lovely kick to the head,” the Doctor complained aloud, adjusting his scanner for new readings. “This telepad wasn't built here. It was transported here. I don't like it. Not one bit.”
“Doctor...”
“Not now, Derpy, I'm thinking. The implications here are... well about par for the course now that I think on it. Of course anyone who'd be able to use Gallopfreyan technology would likely know I'd be on the case sooner or later and would therefore want to distract me for a while. But why here? I mean, if I were trying to set a distraction for me, I'd send me somewhere where things were bad, but not unwinnable. Maybe here, certainly, but back when the pony-to-cyberpony ratio was more even.”
“Doctor...”
“Not now, Derpy! So for what reason would I have been led here and now? Master or not, our culprit would have to have some specific reason for sending me here. And this door. It was unmolested. There's no way one Cyberpony could have gotten transported by accident. It was sent on purpose—possibly to shake my resolve, get me to second guess myself. Heh. I can see the Master doing that. So the big question is...”
“Doctor!”
“What!?” The Doctor spun to face his companion, who's eyes were narrowed in thought.
“What are these markings?” she asked, pointing at the transport disk.
The Doctor cocked his head. “It's just basic safety warnings and such, written in my planet's native language. Why?”
Derpy closed one eye and stuck out her tongue. “I dunno. Just looks familiar. Saw something just like this, and not long ago...”
The Doctor sat and patiently waited for it to come to her. He knew from long, hard experience that when Derpy said she saw something, she did. It just sometimes took a minute to dig through her memories to find it.
“His watch. He's got one of those golden pocket watches. I saw it when I bumped into him. It's a pretty watch.”
The Doctor's eyes narrowed to dangerous little slits. “This watch... the markings look like those on the telepad?”
“Uh-huh! All circles and gears and strange squiggles.”
“How did he react... you know, about the watch?”
Finally catching the change in the Doctor's demeanor, Derpy grew serious as she tried to remember anything that seemed odd. “He was kinda... confused, I guess? But I did just run right into him. I think... he was just looking at the watch when I left.”
The Doctor smacked his forehead. “Oh bloody HELL!” And with that, he yanked his device from the console and charged out the room at top speed.
Derpy, briefly stunned by the Doctor's language, took off after him. “Doctor? Doctor! Wait up!”
~DrW~
Old Hoof stared at the watch, dangling on its chain. He'd had it for as long as he could remember... didn't he? Thinking back, he always put it in his pocket every morning, put it away every night, but any time in between? He couldn't recall ever once taking it out of his pocket. He never used it, never showed it to anypony. It was like it wasn't even there. That was not usual behavior. The watch looked like it could be a family heirloom, perhaps. But he had no recollection of his family. Maybe that was why he kept it? But then, why would he never think about it—never show it off? And just looking at it now, he could hear them—the drums. The drums that invaded his dreams at night. The drums that he could sometimes hear in the back of his mind, when all was quiet. Old Hoof held the watch up to to his eye and peered at it, as if just doing so could tell him its secrets. Nothing came to him, of course. There was just one thing for it. Old Hoof tapped the switch on the top of the watch, and it popped open.
Derpy stopped her charge in surprise as the Doctor wriggled his way back into the cavern from the crack that formed the entrance. He growled out another curse in some alien language. “Too many Cyberponies. Damn it all.”
“Doctor?” Derpy asked, a waver in her voice that caused the Time Charger to stop his rant before it could get a proper start. “What is it? What's wrong?”
The Doctor turned and looked Derpy in her right eye. “It could be nothing,” he said, his tone of voice the exact opposite of convincing. “It could be just a watch. But if it is something, it's something big.” He peered out the entrance, sighing as a group of metal ponies passed by. “There's a particular piece of Time Charger technology. It allows us to perfectly disguise ourselves as any other—no offense—lesser equine species. It rewrites our DNA, our memories, everything. It's not used often because it hurts. A lot. And rewriting memory is always a tricky prospect. You following me so far?”
Derpy nodded. “Yeah. You can disguise yourselves by not being yourselves, but you don't like doing it because it makes you not yourselves.”
Despite his fears and urgency, the Doctor found himself smiling at Derpy's near tongue-twisting answer. “Exactly. Now, this is not meant to be a permanent situation. We need to return to ourselves eventually. So we record our memories and everything else that makes us what we are in some innocuous item we can carry around. Usually a watch—gotta keep with the theme, you know. Open the watch, and poof! You return to yourself, physically and mentally. To keep the watch from being opened early, there's usually a perception filter placed on it, so you'd basically keep it on you all the time, but never think about it. At least until someone brings your attention to it.”
“Wait a second,” Derpy interrupted. “Are you saying Old Hoof is a Time Charger?”
“That's precisely what I'm saying. Well, I don't have any proof, that much is true. But what you described does match up with the general process.” The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “The question is... which Time Charger is he? I've got this sinking suspicion that we were lured here specifically to wake him up, and if that's true he's not one of the good ones.”
~DrW~
Sole Survivor was in a rare good mood. Four different raids, and they were all successful. And even better, all the ponies came back alive. He had just gone through the various reports and was on his way to report in to Old Hoof, but stopped momentarily at the golden light that seeped through the cracks to the old stallion's lab. It only took a second for his brain to kick into gear. “Old Hoof!” Wings flared in agitation, Survivor charged into the lab, fully ready to take on a whole platoon of Cybers if he needed to. He blinked in surprise when he found Old Hoof calmly sitting in the middle of the room, looking at the time on an old watch. “Are you okay?” the young pegasus asked.
Old Hoof cast a smile his way, a smile that caused a chill to run down Survivor's spine. “I am perfectly fine, boy. Why wouldn't I be?”
“It's just... I saw a light and... where's the Doc?” Survivor, for some reason, was well and truly flustered around Old Hoof just now. He couldn't quite explain it, but he was feeling a definite fight or flight response.
“He's off checking up on that signal of his,” Old Hoof said as he sat at his computer console. “We can hardly blame him now, can we? Whatever his reasons are, he's been looking for the source for a week now.”
“Right,” Survivor agreed warily. As Old Hoof typed, his left hind leg began tapping a beat—four quick taps, pause, four quick taps, pause, and so on. Survivor slowly crept around the room to the weapons table, not sure why he was doing so, but his instincts were roaring at him, and he'd learned over the years to trust them.
“So I take it the supplies are stored away, waiting to be installed?” Old Hoof asked over his shoulder, seemingly oblivious to the younger stallion's discomfort.
“Y-yeah. Ready and waiting for you.”
The old stallion nodded. “Hmm. Too bad there's no real use for them anymore.”
Survivor cocked his head. “What do you mean by...?” His question was cut short as the ground beneath him shook. “What was that?”
Old Hoof didn't turn around from his work as he answered. “Oh, that's just the escape rocket. I activated the emergency destruct. Nopony's going anywhere now.” Before Survivor could even think to respond, the emergency sirens sounded, very briefly, before being suddenly cut of. “And that,” Old hoof continued, “was all our defenses being shut off. We're completely visible to the Cyberponies now, and there's no defense systems to keep them from just marching right on in. It'll take, what? Ten minutes to get here? Twenty?”
Survivor couldn't believe his ears. This was... it was some sort of nightmare! Old Hoof just betrayed them all! And the sheer callousness behind his actions... it was all too much for the pegasus's brain. All he was capable of as a response was a strangled, “Why...?”
Old Hoof laughed. “Why? Because I can! Because you idiots trusted me not to. But mostly...” Here, the old stallion spun to face Survivor and a deafening bang shook the room. Survivor looked down at his chest in shock. His brain somehow didn't register the pain, but the red stain that was spreading throughout his coat was confirmation enough. Old Hoof smirked as he placed his revolver back on the console. “Because I am the Master, and an old friend is coming to call.”
Sole Survivor fell over, knocking the table over as he went. He still barely felt anything, though his vision was going blurry. He had seconds, maybe, left of his life and he knew it, but he was nothing if not a fighter. Willing himself to stay conscious, he reached for a rifle that had fallen next to him. His movements seemed agonizingly slow to his mind, and he pushed himself ever harder to bring the weapon to bear on the stallion who had once been his mentor. The edges of his vision had gone black, and the blackness was closing in. Like those stupid cartoons from my foalhood, he thought wryly as he focused on his target and pulled the trigger. He saw with grim satisfaction that the shot tore into one side of Old Hoof's body and out the other, shattering one of the monitors. The blackness took him before the other even hit the floor.
The Master wanted to cry out in rage, but all he got was a muted gurgle and a mouthful of blood for his trouble. It was embarrassing, really, being brought low because of such a rudimentary error. He knew better than to turn his back on an opponent before he was really and truly dead, but he was giddy over his awakening. And it wasn't like this was going to stop him anyway. The Master smiled a bit as his eyes began to glow with a golden light. I almost wish you were still alive to see this, boy, he thought an instant before his entire body erupted with golden energy, which spewed in every direction, yet harmed nothing. The old stallion closed his eyes. Oh, well. I was getting tired of this old body anyway.
~DrW~
The Doctor ran as fast as his hooves could carry him—so fast that Derpy had to take to the air to keep up. The Cyberponies had all left the area as one, and that was never a good sign. “Faster, Derpy! We have to reach the TARDIS before things spiral out of control!”
Derpy scrunched her face up in determination. “You want fast? Then let's go fast!” The flying pegasus took the surprised Doctor in her forelegs and before he could protest, she shot beyond the horizon in a gray streak that dissipated like popping bubbles.
Minutes later, she rather roughly deposited the Doctor on the ground before taking a rather nasty looking tumble herself. The Doctor's eyes were wide, the pupils tiny little pinpricks. “Wow... That was just... WOW! You could give Miss Rainbow Dash a run for her bits with speed like that.”
Derpy got to her hooves and brushed herself off. “Nah. That's barely her cruising speed. C'mon Doctor, we gotta get to the base.”
The Time Charger shook his head and galloped into the small cave entrance. “Right you are. Come along. We've got a universe to save.”
The two companions entered the TARDIS moments later, and the Doctor didn't waste any time in pounding away on the controls. “Okay, Old Girl. Listen to me. We need your cooperation on this one. Fate of the universe stuff. Yes, I know it's always fate of the universe stuff.” The screeching of the TARDIS's engines came without the usual bone rattling shaking that often accompanied it, and they were off. The Doctor smiled. "Thanks, dear."
~DrW~
The blue barn barely finished materializing in the center of Old Hoof's lab before the Doctor burst from it, followed immediately by Derpy. They stopped short at what they saw. Derpy gasped and ran to kneel next to Sole Survivor, lying in a pool of his own blood. The Doctor, however, was more interested in the other stain by the computer equipment. He sniffed the air, and his expression hardened. “There was a regeneration here,” he muttered, all his suspicions now verified.
The Doctor's attention turned to the security monitors. The Cyberponies had arrived in force, and were barreling through the base like a hot knife through butter. One monitor in particular caught his attention; the demolition expert Bang was kneeling over the unmoving form of her brother as the Cyberponies surrounded her. When she raised her head, she had tears in her eyes, and a pin in her mouth. A brief flash of flame was the last thing the monitor showed before giving way to static.
“Derpy, come...” The Doctor paused as he saw the tears streaming down his companion's face. “...along? Derpy?”
“It's my fault!” Derpy blurted, causing the Doctor to start. “I did this. I bumped into Old Hoof, and made him aware of his watch. None of this would have happened without me here! I messed everything up. Again!”
The Doctor paused for a moment before a determined look crossed his face. “You listen to me, Derpina Meringue Hooves.” Derpy looked up and focused both eyes on his. “You did not do this. Okay? Listen to me—listen! None of this was your fault. It was a watch. There's no way you could have known, alright? The disguise is a temporary solution anyway. He would have awakened eventually with or without us. You did none of this. It was all him. Understand?”
Derpy sniffed and wiped her nose with a foreleg before enveloping the Doctor in a hug. The Doctor was stunned into silence as his cheeks flushed bright scarlet. Hesitantly he brought his own forelegs around her shaking form. “Come now,” he soothed as best he could. “We'll have none of that, eh? This isn't the Derpy Hooves I know, now is it? Where's that foal-like exuberance, hmm?”
Derpy disengaged her hug and smiled, though her eyes were still shining. “You're right. This isn't me. Sorry, Doctor.”
The Doctor smiled and patted her head, mentally kicking himself for forgetting that Derpy was still a sensitive mare from Equestria, no matter what else they may have encountered. She just wasn't desensitized to tragedy the way he was, and he hoped she never would be. “Trust me. You have nothing to apologize for.”
A sudden voice interrupted the two companions. “How touching. Where's the popcorn when I need it? Or at least a bag of Jelly Fillies.” The two ponies spun to see all the monitors showing the smug face of a young orange pony with short cropped golden hair. He wore a wide, manic smile as one of his brown eyes twitched slightly. “Hello, Doctor.”
Though the face was new, the Doctor recognized the pony instantly—all Time Chargers developed a mild mental link with each other so they could recognize each other after a regeneration. Mentally the Doctor kicked himself. Honestly, he should have known. The name alone was an obvious giveaway. Old Hoof: noun. A somewhat archaic term to denote many years of experience in a particular skill or field. In other words...
“Ah, Doctor.” The Master's image on the screen lit up with a smile. “I do so love it when you call me by name.” The Doctor remained silent, and the Master shrugged. “So. How do I look? Do I look good? Tell me I look good. I look good, don't I?”
The Doctor's eyes narrowed and his glare intensified. At his silence, the Master continued rambling. “No? Nothing? No quip about not having the old beard? Nothing at all? Or are you going to just glare at me with that wrath-of-a-Time-Charger look?” Silence, again. The Master sighed. “Oh I do hope you're not trying to intimidate me with that. I mean, sexy though the look is, don't forget that I can be just as wrathful as you.” The Master screwed his face up in a steely-eyed glare that caused Derpy to shiver.
The moment ended when the Master belched, a stream of golden energy erupting from his mouth. “Sorry about that. Still cooking.” The newly regenerated Time Charger seemed to dance in place. “Oooh, I haven't felt this good after a regeneration in, oh, my whole life, really! This is just fantastic!”
“Why?” the Doctor asked.
The Master put a hoof to his ear. “I'm sorry, what was that?”
“Why? Why do all this? It has nothing to do with galactic power, immortality, or any of your usual goals! What do you get out of all this?”
The Master just shrugged. “What sort of rival would I be if I let you get a genocide under your belt and I didn't?” He grinned as the Doctor flinched. “Oooh, too soon?”
“You shut your face!” Derpy shouted, causing both Time Chargers to start.
“Oh, you're his new lackey aren't you?” the Master asked smugly. “Stay out of conversations you can't understand, little girl.”
Derpy narrowed her eyes. “Oh, you think I'm stupid, too, huh? Well, I know exactly what you're talking about. I know what the Doctor did to... end... the Time War. And I know he saved the universe doing it.”
The Master laughed. “I like this one. She's got spunk. Yes, I'm sure he made it out to be some big noble sacrifice for the sake of all who live or some such rubbish. But think on this for a moment: The Time Chargers are all gone, except for the two of us. He was just saving his own flank at the expense of his race. Not that I care—the Time Chargers were a stagnant group of bureaucratic pricks and the universe is probably better off without them. But make no mistake, sweetheart. The Doctor's no hero. He's just like me.”
To the Time Chargers' surprise, Derpy laughed. “Anypony who thinks that has worse vision than I do. Anypony,” she reiterated with a significant look at the Doctor. “Wherever the Doctor goes, he tries to do good. Usually he does. Sometimes he messes up. I know the feeling. Tell me something, 'Master,' what do you do when you're not running and hiding like a coward?”
The Master whooped his approval. “Oh, this one is a keeper, Doctor. Can I have her when you're done?”
“What do you want, Master?” the Doctor asked, his expression taking on a cool, dispassionate expression, though his eyes blazed with a fire that could likely cause Celestia herself to back away.
“He speaks!” the Master dramatically intoned.
The Doctor's speech and mannerisms remained coolly disinterested. “Is there a reason behind his little call of yours? I mean, if it's just going to be your typical megalomaniacal banter, then I think I speak for all three of us when I say we have more important things to be doing.” As if underscoring the point, a metallic clang erupted from the laboratory entrance, and the Doctor could hear the emotionless voices of the Cyberponies giving orders on the other side. “Perhaps you can just tell us your plans now and save us all a lot of trouble later.”
“Mmm-hmm, yes. We can all have a little tea party while I tell you all about my plans so you can ruin them later I don't think. I just called to let you know you had five, no, three minutes to get in your TARDIS and get off the planet.” The floor began rumbling and several of the monitors switched from the Master's grinning face to show the maginukes launching. “I couldn't help myself—two for the price of one!”
The Doctor seemed oddly unconcerned about both the launching missiles and the Cyberponies attempting to break into the lab. “Yes, good. Three minutes to leave. Thanks for that. I suppose we'll be seeing each other again, then. Oh, but I do have one thing to say before we part ways.”
“I'm all ears, but make it quick.”
“Derpy is not, nor has she ever been, my lackey.” His piece said, the Doctor withdrew his sonic screwdriver from his coat and shorted out the computer system, causing sparks to pop and flames to burst from the various bits of hardware. “Come along, Derpy. There's nothing left here.”
“Right behind you!”
A trio of Cyberponies burst through the door just in time to see a blue blur crash through the ceiling, leaving a perfectly square hole where it passed.
~DrW~
The Master practically danced down his secret tunnel. No one knew of this particular passage, not even his Old Hoof persona. It was well concealed—even the Cyberponies would have been hard pressed to find it, had they time. After all, there was a precious cargo hidden here. The Master could not explain why this regeneration came with such seemingly endless nervous energy. Usually Regeneration Trauma would kick in and leave him weak and pathetic for a day or two, but this... he'd never felt better in his life. The only thing casting a shadow on his mood was the drums beating in his head. But that had been going on for so much of his life he was able to, for a moment anyway, enjoy himself and his victory.
He stopped at the end of the tunnel, the wall rough cut and appearing no different from the rest of the cavern. He beat out three repetitions of the ever present drumbeat, and a glowing white crack appeared on one of the more prominent rocks. It slid open to reveal a door, and entering in, the Master returned to the familiar sterile white environment of his own TARDIS. His smile stretching even wider, the Master went to work on the controls. “It's good to be home.”
~DrW~
The little blue barn hovered over the planet Anthrax, its door open and the Doctor staring down upon planet below with that same cold fury he'd demonstrated with the Master. Even from up here, the explosions could be seen. A planet once full of life was now ending. Oh, the sphere itself would continue its sojourn around its sun, but it would be millennia at least before it would be able to sustain even the most rudimentary of life. “I'm sorry,” the Doctor muttered into the vacuum before turning around and closing the door behind him.
No sooner had he done so than a number of alarms blared, startling both him and Derpy. “What's going on?” the cross-eyed mare asked. “That's not an alarm I've ever heard.”
The Doctor's eyes widened. “It means there's another TARDIS in the vicinity taking off!” He rushed over to the console and checked the various readouts on the screen. “Can we track it?” he asked aloud even as his hooves began working the controls. “Excellent, excellent. Keep that tracker, we're following. Yes, yes, I know. Like shooting a bullet with another bullet while galloping blindfolded. I don't care! We are following.”
Derpy grunted as the TARDIS shook even harder than usual, depositing her on her flank. She looked upon her Doctor with concern as his dance around the console was fueled not by his usual unbounded glee, but anger. “I'm so thick!” he shouted to nopony in particular. “This wasn't even a wild goose chase. It was a trap. A blatantly obvious trap and I walked right into it like amateur. You'd think that almost a millennium of experience would make me wise to such things!”
“Doctor, what are you talking about?” Derpy asked.
“What I'm saying, Derpy, is our thief in Equestria never was the Master. It's someone else. Someone who knew I'd be after him, and used the Master as both bait and distraction. Well it worked, because I am distracted now.” The Doctor let loose an almost feral sounding growl. “Even with all the inconsistencies, even with all my doubts, I still walked right into it.”
Derpy continued to watch in concern as the Doctor abused the console. There were a lot of questions to ask, such as who would be able to play both the Doctor and the Master that way and how would they be able to find him now, but those questions would have to wait. One disaster at a time, as the Doctor would say if he was in a better mood. Right now, Derpy just watched in concern. She had never seen the Doctor get this well and truly furious—at least not since he regenerated into this form from the one with the big ears and leather jacket. In the back of her mind, Derpy felt a foreign mix of fear, anger, and sadness, which tapered off and left a feeling of uncertainty. “Yes,” she answered the TARDIS. “He is.” An extra dose of concern prickled in the back of her mind. “Yeah. I am too.” Worry creased her brow as she continued to watch as her best friend continued to abuse the console. “Stupid-face.”
~DrW~
Discord was concentrating on a switch on the other side of the room, willing it to move. He sighed in frustration. This was elementary. Even the most unskilled unicorn could do such a thing, yet he, the mighty personification of chaos itself, could not manage it. All because of this dampening field he was put in. He'd learned early on that he had access to some of his power within the field, but not enough to do anything to free himself, and his magical grip did not extend beyond the light. This, coupled with the various experiments he'd had to endure, were only making his mood fouler. More and more, Discord found himself imagining the terrible retribution he was going to pay on his 'host' as soon as he was free.
Speaking of... Discord stopped his experimenting as an out of sight door slid open, and the now familiar sound of halting, limping hoofsteps rang through the room. Discord watched with a certain interest as the pieces on the board began rearranging themselves—the most notable change being the inclusion of another earth pony to the mix. “So I take it another player has been added to your little game?” Discord asked.
“Another pawn, yes,” was his answer.
“Oooh, don't you just sound pleased as punch? Then I take it you've got your enemies right where you want them hmmm? Leaving you alone to do whatever it is you're doing with me for that much longer. Seriously, what is it you need? It's not my magical power, I know that. But it's something, with this whole over-thought and overwrought scheme of yours.”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“I don't know. Maybe it'll make things go easier. I might be somewhat more cooperative, though we both know how unlikely that is. Perhaps because your ego has been pushing you to explain to someone the depths of your genius and I'm the only one around? I don't know, humor me.”
There was a pause, then, “Oh, very well. I guess there's no harm in it.” For the first time since Discord was brought here, his captor stepped into the light. Though Discord had already guessed from the sound of his captor's steps that he was being held by a pony, he was incensed to see that it was no alicorn that had him so utterly trapped. It was just a unicorn, and a decrepit one at that. His white coat had faded, and his head seemed bald, with a ridiculous red skull cap that matched an equally ridiculous red and gold robe which flared almost humorously large at the neck. What most struck Discord was that the left side of his captor's face was frozen in stone, the expression one of abject terror contrasting sharply with the shrewd expression of the normal flesh.
“What I want from you,” the strange unicorn said, “is nothing more than the secret of immortality itself.”
The engines of the TARDIS fell silent, and for a moment neither of its occupants said anything. Derpy sighed as she picked herself up from the floor. “So, where are we this time?” she asked.
The Doctor glanced at the monitor once, then quickly looked back at it again. He brought a hoof to his face with a muttered “Of course.”
“What is it?”
The Doctor turned to his companion, a grave expression on his face. “We're back in Equestria, Canterlot specifically, in the year four hundred thirteen C.R.”
Derpy looked confused. “Why would the Master come to Equestria? And why almost six hundred years in the past?”
The Doctor tapped the floor agitatedly with his foreleg. “The date is a mystery. As near as I can tell, it's not even a particularly noteworthy year. As for why he'd choose Equestria, it's likely because I made my home here.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Derpy questioned.
The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and turned back to his companion for a moment. He seemed to be ready to say something, then changed his mind. Instead he simply issued a brusque “Come along, Derpy.”
Without another word, the Doctor exited the TARDIS. Her brow furrowed in concern, Derpy followed. They exited out into a back alley of the city. Not too surprising, the TARDIS usually appeared in back alleys and the like. Nothing seemed too out of place, either. The sky wasn't an unnatural shade, no screams could be heard. It was a bit nippy, but nothing out of the ordinary.
The Doctor was already looking about, sticking his tongue out as if tasting the air. After a moment of this, he withdrew the sonic screwdriver and began taking readings with it. He didn't say a word, didn't hum to himself, didn't nearly trip over his own feet in excitement. The Doctor showed none of his usual giddiness at arriving at a new destination, and Derpy was concerned.
Knowing that attempting to talk to him in this mood would be an exercise in futility, Derpy instead began checking out their surroundings herself. She may not have had a sonic screwdriver of her own, and had only the most rudimentary knowledge of how to work one anyway, but the Doctor had stated on numerous occasions that her “unique” view on life was one of her best contributions as a companion.
Something pasted to the back of the alley caught her attention, and she trotted over to get a better look. Derpy reared back in surprise, then called to the still silent Doctor. “I think you should look at this.”
“What is it Derpy?” the Doctor asked even as Derpy pulled one of the many grungy-looking posters off the back wall. Holing a corner between her teeth, she practically bounded the short distance between herself and her friend. After getting a look at the parchment, the Doctor's eyes widened and a gasp escaped his lips. He snatched the paper out of Derpy's mouth so quickly it tore.
The image on the poster was that of the Master, his ever-so-smug grin firmly in place, and written just below the picture was the word “Change.” The Doctor scowled. “Brilliant. Just brilliant. Do you know what this means?” He didn't wait for a response, and his voice continued to grow louder as he ranted. “It means we've missed him, given him time to enact whatever it is he's planning. We've missed him! It could have been by days or weeks or even months! Just once It'd be nice if we could actually land where we were aiming but that just seems too much to ask, now doesn't it?”
He would have continued for quite some time, but the Doctor's rant was interrupted by a gray hoof planting itself in his face. The blow sent the Doctor into a full 360 degree spin, and as he regained his hoofing, he stared wide eyed at his now sheepish looking companion. “Did-did you just punch me in the face?” the Doctor managed to ask after a moment.
Derpy nervously shifted her weight from one side to the other. “Well, you were starting to freak out, and it kinda scared me. Besides, you aren't gonna help anypony by yelling like that.”
Silence reigned for a moment more before the Doctor burst out laughing. He laughed for several minutes, the laughter increasing in intensity as he went. He only managed to stop himself when he noticed that Derpy was tensed, apparently ready for another blow. His composure finally regained, he laid a foreleg over Derpy's shoulders and gave her a small but sincere smile. “Oh, Derpy. Derpy, Derpy, Derpy. Don't you ever stop being magnificent.” Suddenly, the moment was over and the Doctor was instantly out in the streets, his eyes on the impressive structure built into the mountainside. “Now then, what would you bet Little Celestia could give us some info on whatever's going on around here?”
Derpy smiled as she followed the Doctor out into Canterlot proper. “I wouldn't bet against it. Are we going to walk there or vwoop?”
The Doctor's smile was wide as he responded. “Let's take the mundane route today. We're going to need all the information we can pick up on this one. I estimate it's an hour's walk from here so we'd better get started. Allons-y!”
~DrW~
The pair walked down the streets of Canterlot for several minutes in silence. Derpy in particular couldn't keep her eyes from wandering. On the one hand, there was no mistaking the city for Canterlot. It was still as impressively huge as ever, with a large population of ponies, largely unicorns, crowding the streets around them. But it was so different at the same time. There was a lot less marble, and considerably more cobblestone than in her time. It all seemed almost... rural. By comparison at least.
“Do you notice anything strange?” the Doctor asked, breaking the silence.
Derpy screwed up her face in thought for a moment. “Well, everypony seems to be avoiding us and giving us the stink-eye, but that's nothing new for Canterlot. They all seem... a little jumpy, though.”
The Doctor nodded. “'Jumpy' seems to be the word. Much more so than they really should be, by all rights. Fourth century Equestria is a bit wilder than the Equestria of the early one thousands, but it's still a remarkably peaceful land. The last major conflict the country's suffered was the Second Griffon War, and that ended over a hundred years ago. No one outside of Celestia herself and maybe a couple of grizzled old griffons should even remember it. This almost reminds me of a country embroiled in a cold war.”
“Cold war?” Derpy asked in confusion. “What's that?”
The Doctor couldn't help but smile. “And they always wondered what I saw in Equestria, bless. A Class 3 civilized world with peacetimes measured in centuries, such that the concept of a cold war is as alien as I am? You ponies are amazing, you really are.” Derpy was shooting him her best 'you're beginning to ramble' look, and the Doctor reigned himself in. “Imagine for a moment, Derpy, two countries that are technically at peace with each other. No overt hostilities between them. But each country is convinced the other is gearing up to start a war. A war to end all wars. So they prepare. Stockpile weapons. Teach their children fear and paranoia in place of love and tolerance. And this goes on for years. Years and years, with not a shot fired, but continual fear over what will happened should that shot ever be fired.”
“That sounds horrible!”
“Oh yes. I've seen it on many worlds. And it seems the Master has put Canterlot at the very least into this same mindset. I'd guess he's made himself known, and though he's done nothing hostile, what he's done is enough to plant fear in them all.” The Doctor became grave. “I think we've learned enough on the streets. Let's pick up the pace, yeah?”
Derpy nodded. “Yeah. Let's go.” The two ponies burst off in a gallop, sending Canterlot ponies running every which way.
~DrW~
As the Doctor and Derpy approached the main entrance to Canterlot Castle, he noticed a definite change to the atmosphere of the place. Oh sure, there were always guards at either side of the door, serving as a reminder that visitors were expected to behave, but now there were something like triple the normal amount of guards, with expressions that made it clear that visitors were discouraged altogether.
Well there was only one thing to do with a hostile audience like this. Walk on in and act like you belong. “Hello, there,” the Doctor said to the nearest guard, his best smile on display. “I'm the Doctor, this is Derpy. If at all possible we'd like to see Princess Celestia regarding this stallion.” The Doctor flashed the poster of the Master, and suddenly found himself with a significant number of spears pointing at his face. The Time Charger could only sigh in irritation. “We're not even in a new place and they're pointing weapons at us.” At the sound of nickering behind him, he added, “Don't you even start, Derpy.”
“What business do you have here?” the lead guard asked. “And what connection do you have with that stallion?”
The Doctor eyed the guard with a hint of distaste. “If you must know, I'm currently on a top secret mission from the Princess herself, and my connection with this stallion is strictly between myself and her. I do have credentials, if you'd kindly get these things out of my face so I may produce them.”
The guard glared at the rather aggravating chestnut pony in front of him before nodding to his subordinates, and the spears were lowered. “Thanks for that,” the Doctor said amicably as he dug into his trench coat and produced a worn black wallet. “At your leisure,” he stated as he handed the wallet to the guard.
The guard opened the wallet and gave a thorough look at the blank paper within, completely unaware of the smarmy smirk the Doctor was wearing. Best invention in the universe, psychic paper. “Everything looks to be in order,” the guard said as he handed the wallet back. “Still, we must check with the Princess herself before we can allow you to see her. Who shall we tell her is visiting?”
“The Doctor.”
The guard cocked his head in confusion. “Doctor who?”
The Doctor chuckled a bit. That question was second only to 'it's bigger on the inside' when it came to things he just couldn't hear enough. “Just the Doctor. Trust me, she'll know who you're talking about.”
~DrW~
The two time traveling companions were left alone in the Princess's stateroom, two guards posted just outside. Derpy cast a concerned look about her surroundings. “Isn't this kinda weird, Doctor?” she asked. “I mean, usually whenever we visit the Princess, she's right there happy to see you. But now...”
“Yes,” the Doctor agreed. “She seems to be unusually cautious, doesn't she? Even random visitors she's never heard of usually get better treatment than this. Just what has the Master been doing? And how long did we miss him by?”
Any more querries were put on hold as the back entrance to the room opened and Celestia herself entered. The Doctor brightened up. “Ah, there you are Little...”
He was instantly silenced as Celestia's face suddenly appeared inches away from his own, her eyes narrowed and probing. “Silence, please,” she ordered in a tone that brooked no argument, not even from the ever-so-gabby Doctor. She circled around him a number of times, her face serious, her horn glowing it's distinct golden light. Finally, the light of her horn faded, and the expression on her face softened into a weary, relieved smile. “It really is you,” she muttered as she brought her head down to rest on the Doctor's shoulders in an equine hug. “It's good to see you, Doctor.”
The Doctor chuckled a bit nervously. “I can't wait to hear the story behind this one.”
Celestia straightened up to her rather impressive height. “I apologize for the cold reception. With the situation being what it is, I would have had to do the same even had you appeared with the teeth and curls and scarf. We had a rather... unusual visitor a while ago.”
“Let me guess,” the Doctor replied with a knowing smirk. “This visitor appeared in a vanishing blue box and claimed to be me, assuming that, given my penchant for appearing with a different face every now and again, a TARDIS would be all that he needed to be welcomed with open hooves.”
Celestia nodded. “Yes, exactly. He didn't seem to realize that I can recognize you almost instantly regardless of the face you wear, and the instant I questioned him on his true identity, he disappeared back into his TARDIS. In truth, I've been expecting you to show up for some time now.”
The Doctor tapped a hoof to his chin in thought. “Now, that's a surprisingly bold move on his part, especially as an opening move. What could the Master... hold on. How long ago was this?”
“Eight months.”
“Eight months!?” the Doctor shouted. “We missed him by eight months!?”
Celestia grinned a wry grin. “So he is one of yours, then?”
The look the Doctor shot back was one of exasperation. “Of course he's one of mine. He has a TARDIS, hasn't he? How would he not be one of mine? Are you purposefully stating the obvious just to get on my nerves again?” Celestia didn't answer, but her smirk and the wink she shot Derpy's way was all the answer he needed. The Doctor sighed and shook his head, though a small smile formed on his face. Little Tia... she hadn't even met this regeneration yet and she knew he needed cheering up, and did so in her own quiet, dignified, slightly mischievous way. Just what had he done to deserve friends like this?
The Doctor cleared his throat. “Anyway. Yes. He's one of mine. A Time Charger, a childhood friend, and my greatest single enemy. Calls himself the Master, and whatever reason he has for coming to Equestria is not a good one.”
Celestia became all business. “No, it isn't. Ever since he ran from the castle, he's been stirring up unrest. Holding secret rallies, spreading propaganda. In short he's attempting to rile up my little ponies' anger and get them to distrust me.”
“He's setting up a coup,” the Doctor agreed. “Trying to get a war going over the very throne of Equestria itself.” His face screwed up in thought as he rapidly ran his hoof through his mane, making it even more untamed than usual. “But why, though? I mean, no offense, Little Tia, but when one has all of time and space as one's backyard, a kingdom—strictly a principality in this case, though it wouldn't take much to change it into a kingdom I suppose—just doesn't mean much.”
The Doctor stopped in his tracks and suddenly began glancing around the room. “Wait. Wait wait waitwaitwait. Something's... wrong here. Something's... missing. Something big. Important. Obvious.” After a moment more of thinking, he shot straight up. “I got it! Dawn Riser! Where's Dawn Riser?”
Derpy tilted her head. “Who?” She asked.
“Dawn Riser! Celestia's personal student.” Lowering his voice to a whisper, he added. “Basically this era's Twilight Sparkle.” Raising his voice to address Celestia he continued. “I know by now she's finished her studies. She's got some important position or other on your court, so as to be by your side at all times. And there's no way she wouldn't be here for an important, potentially dangerous meeting such as this.” Seeing the subtle change to the princess's expression, the Doctor softened his tone. “Celestia, what happened?”
Celestia sighed, and a pained smile formed on her lips. “I never was very good at hiding things from you, Doctor.” Her expression darkened, becoming a rather alarming mix of sadness, disappointment, and rage. “He turned her. I do not know how he did it, but this 'Master' of yours has turned my faithful young student against me.”
The Doctor's eyes went wide. “Oh, that's... no good...”
“Wait, what?” Derpy asked, confused. “One of Celestia's personal students... something she only even accepts, what? Every century or two? Is a bad guy?”
“It's not entirely without precedent,” the Doctor said, completely oblivious to the hurt filled glare Celestia shot him for so casually bringing those memories to the surface. “But I certainly wouldn't have thought it of Dawn Riser, and not just by her history. I've met her a time or two, you know, and I've always found her to be quite brilliant. One of the few ponies apart from myself willing to tell you, Little Tia, exactly what she thought of your ideas without instinctually flinching away at the mere thought of it. And yet, when push comes to shove, I can think of only a pony or two in the world who's ever loved you as much as she does.”
“That is what I believed as well,” Celestia agreed. “At least until recent events.”
“So what's that mean, then?” Derpy asked. “Mind control? Hypnotism?”
The Doctor began to pace, and both pegasus and Princess watched in interest. “Well, that is certainly a possibility. The Master does have a certain hypnotic quality about him, for a given value of hypnotic. But to enthrall a pony with a will like Dawn Riser's? No, no. That's not something he could do on his own. But! But, he's certainly genius enough to create something to enhance those abilities. But could he create something like that in eight months, on Equestria, at its current technological level, having just the clothes on his back and the TARDIS he rode in on?” The Doctor stopped his rambling and ran through all the possible variations of such a device in his mind. “Not likely. I mean, we can do quite a lot with quite little, but a kettle and a piece of string can only go so far. Not unless he... but no. No! Not even the Master would... what am I saying, of course the Master would. However, I'm going to need to get back to the TARDIS for some tools to make sure.” He suddenly stopped pacing and made for the exit. “Come along, Derpy. We now have an inkling of a lead. Let's see what we can get by poking it. Sorry we can't stay, Little Tia, things to do, power mad conspirators to stop. But don't worry, we'll have your student back to you before you can say...”
The sound of an explosion over the skies of Canterlot interrupted the next words out the Doctor's mouth, and all three ponies jumped in surprise. With a quick glance at each other, they dashed to the nearest windows just as the fireworks display reached its end. After a brief moment of silence, the sky lit up with a hundred hoof tall projected image of the Master, a smarmy grin stretched across his smug face. “Good eeeeevening, Canterlot!” he bellowed across the city.
“Oi,” the Doctor muttered in disgust. “Do I get that smarmy when I think I'm holding all the cards?”
“Yes,” Derpy and Celestia replied in unison, smirking a bit at his scowl.
“You all know me by now," the Master continued. "I've been holding rallies, sending out posters and fliers, everything short of preaching on the street.” He paused for a moment and looked off to his left, listening to somepony out of broadcasting range for a moment before addressing his audience again. “Oh, right. I've done some of that, too. For months I've been working to show you good gentleponies the decadence and complacency you've let yourselves be led to under the rule of your 'lovely' Princess Celestia. For months I have been striving to get you up off of your flanks to do something about it. I have been...”
“Blah, blah, blah blah blah!” Derpy muttered in disgust. “Does he ever shut up?”
“Not in the many centuries I've known him,” the Doctor replied as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at the projection. He dropped it instantly and quickly blew on the burn it had left on his hoof, Celestia and Derpy looking on in confusion.
“Gah that stings! And here I thought I finally had the sonic calibrated to safely pick up scans on magic—bloody physics defying mumbo jumbo jiggerypokery. Back to the drawing board again I suppose, but that's not important now. That, that is magic power on a scale I'd reserve for, maybe, five ponies in history, both forward and backward, not including you and your sister. A student of yours you won't meet for a few centuries so, you know, spoilers, Starswirl the Bearded, Captain Greymane the Brutal, Aura of Equus II, and...”
“Dawn Riser,” Celestia confirmed.
“In that order, which at least means we're only facing the fifth most powerful unicorn in history, rather than the first or second, but all in all, that's not exactly a comforting thought.”
Derpy shushed the Doctor. “I think he's finally getting to the important part.”
“And now that I've given you all time to prepare, to choose sides, it's time to get right to the root of the problem and cut it out. After all, what this country needs, what it really needs...” And here the Master's grin grew particularly smarmy, like he was sharing a private joke. “... is a doctor.”
The Doctor's eyes grew wide and the pupils shrank upon hearing that last line, even as the Master's image disappeared from the sky to be replaced by dozens of multicolored specks off in the distance. “Oooooh no. No no no no no!” he muttered as he desperately dug through his pockets before pulling out old Greymane's telescope and looking out the window. “Pegasi,” he reported. “Coming in fast from the looks of it.” The Doctor started as seemingly hundreds of white streaks launched themselves from the castle turrets, as Celestia's pegasus soldiers flew in to intercept. “Looks like your soldiers came to the same conclusion,” the Doctor said as he put his telescope away. “This is bad. Really, really bad. The Master's declared war.”
“Yes, I think I got that,” Celestia responded dryly.
“No! Not against Equestria! Well, yes, against Equestria, but it's so much worse than that. He's declared war on me.”
“How is that so bad?” Derpy asked.
“Have you ever seen Time Chargers at war?” The Doctor asked with venom in his voice. “We nearly ended the universe that way, remember? Just two of us really going at it could destroy the planet at least. And where d' you think you're going, little missy?” he asked, spinning to face Celestia.
The Sun Princess had her wings spread and she was tensed to leap out the window. “To join the battle of course,” she replied irritably. “My soldiers need me.”
“Oh, no. What you're going to do is sit your pretty little bum down, stay here, and trust your soldiers to do their jobs. I'll go out there and end this.” At Celestia's stern look he quickly added, “And don't try the indignant royalty act on me, we don't have the time and frankly it doesn't suit you.”
Celestia's eyes narrowed dangerously, and Derpy could swear they seemed just a tad brighter than they were a moment ago. “No, Doctor. I'm not going to just blindly follow your orders when my little ponies are out there fighting each other. You have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn't go out there and lessen the loss of life.”
The Doctor once again scratched his hooves through his mane in frustration. “Why must you ponies always make everything so difficult? If you go out there, yes you'll win the battle, but you'll give the Master everything he needs to win the war.”
Celestia's expression softened just a bit and her muscles relaxed. “What do you mean by that, Doctor?”
The Doctor sighed. “Look, how long has it been since your subjects saw you use your sizable power in battle, eh? Not since you took on ol' Godrick a century ago, I'd wager. And how long was it before even your most trusted advisers even dared look you in the eye afterward?” Celestia's face fell at the less than pleasant memories, and the Doctor pressed on. “You go out there now, and use your power against ponies, against Equestrians, what do you think is going to happen? You'll have planted a nice ripe little seed of fear in everyone's hearts. Now, normally no big deal. You deal with the enemy now, then deal with the repercussions afterward. You've gotten really good at that. But this is the Master we're talking about. A war with him isn't about force—he thinks like I do. He'd be able to take that fear, nourish it, help it grow, and before you know it, you've got a bloody coup on your hooves.”
“Language, Doctor,” Derpy reminded him.
“Seriously, Derpy, not the time,” the Doctor grumbled. He turned his attention back to Celestia. “Trust me, I can end this.”
Celestia sighed and reluctantly sat down. “I do so hate it when you're right,” she muttered.
The Doctor grinned smugly. “Then you must hate almost all of time. Onwards and upwards, Derpy!”
Derpy and Celestia both gasped as the Doctor flung himself out the window. The young pegasus dove out the window after him, crying out his name, and Celestia watched as the two of them rose up past the window again a moment later, the Doctor dangling in the grip of Derpy's forelegs. “So,” a teasing voice floated back through the window as the two began to fly toward the battle. “Her 'pretty little bum,' huh?”
“Oh, shut up,” the Doctor muttered, and Celestia chuckled as could almost perfectly imagine the blush that had to be forming on his face.
Her mirth disappeared as the two companions flew off toward the horizon. She had known the Doctor a great many years. Most of her life in fact, since that day she got lost in Everfree as a filly. She had traveled the stars with him, laughed as he kept searching for some 'scientific' explanation for her ability to move the heavens, and served as a point of comfort when his long life grew a bit too heavy. In turn, he had a knack for showing up just when she needed him. Though some Law of Time mumbo jumbo kept him from stopping it from happening, he did show up during the blackest night of her life four centuries past and used his TARDIS to definitively prove to her that things would someday be okay. The Doctor knew her like few other ponies, and Celestia liked to think that she knew the Doctor as well.
She was used to his many faces and many moods, and saw a certain intensity to this one that had more to do with personal experience than whatever it was that changed his appearance. Have you ever seen Time Chargers at war, he'd said. Celestia saw the brief, haunted, fear that flickered in his eyes as he said it. The young pegasus mare, Derpy, helped with his pain, helped him live in the present rather than the past. But there was still a hurt to the Doctor that wasn't seen before. “Stay safe, friend,” she whispered to the air, as battle raged over the skies of Canterlot.
~DrW~
In the center of the maze that made up the Royal Canterlot Gardens, lay a special place. A place doted with statuary that told of the history of the land, from the first Hearth's Warming Eve to present. Nestled off on one corner, rarely visited, often reviled by critics and casual visitors alike, was displayed the statue of the vile draconequus Discord. Far from the terror the statue would display in the future, here it was reared back, one arm thrust out, a wide grin spread on its mismatched face, which only added to its unreal nature.
For just the briefest of moments, unseen by anypony, a red glow flickered to life on the statue's chest before going out like a candle.
Discord was in the middle of testing the weaknesses of his little prison once again when his mysterious captor limped into the room, his back left leg making the sound of stone on metal. The draconequus gave the unicorn a cursory glance before turning his attention back to the field around him, then suddenly brought his attention back to the old stallion. A mocking smirk formed on Discord's face at what he was seeing. “Now that is an impressive piece of headgear,” he said, struggling to keep the chortle from his voice.
“You will be silent,” the mysterious stallion commanded, causing Discord to snort. The robes alone made it quite difficult to take the aging unicorn seriously, but that thing on his head! Even Dearest Celestia and Little Luna knew the value of 'less is more' when it came to royal regalia. The monstrosity this guy was wearing had to weigh at least ten pounds. And those garish rubies inlaid throughout! An image of a certain white unicorn very vocally making her disapproval known over such overuse came unbidden into Discord's head, causing him to laugh outright.
“I told you to be silent!” the unicorn shouted.
Discord chortled. “And I'm the embodiment of chaos. I don't do what I'm told.” Here, he bowed mockingly. “Your majesty.”
The stallion's, ah, good eye glared at the impertinent creature before him. “You would to well to watch your tongue. The Circlet of Rasstallion is an item of great power. It is likely to be the last of the Great Items of Rasstalion. And I will make it fulfill my purposes. As should have happened with the ring.”
The last line was spoken under the unicorn's breath, but Discord heard it plenty clear. He chuckled with glee. “Oooh, there's some interesting sounding back story there. Trouble with a magic ring? It wouldn't have anything to do with your current look, would it, Stoneface?”
The unicorn ignored Discord's taunts as he began attaching numerous wires to the crown. Discord opened his mouth to continue taunting him when a sudden, intense pain briefly tore through him, causing the draconequus to double over. “Well, that was different,” he muttered to himself.
An alarm klaxon blared and the unicorn's expression changed from snug confidence to concerned worry. He yanked the crown off his head with his magic, tossing it atop one of his doohickies. “What? No! What is this? Just what have those two idiots done?”
Discord watched with interest as the unicorn pounded furiously on the controls of his machines. Several ghostly images appeared above the unicorn's head, rapidly switching from one to another as he continued his pounding. Discord caught sight of the boring brown stallion—nice coat though—the googly eyed pegasus, even his dear Celestia, amongst the rapidly flashing images. When the images stopped shuffling, the focus was Discord himself. Specifically the statue he'd been turned into generations ago by Celestia and Luna, sitting in the statue garden.
“No! What have they done?!”
Discord had to smirk. “Problem, old one?”
The unicorn slammed a hoof to the top of one of his machines. “Curse Equestira and its overabundant magic!”
“That's funny, coming from a unicorn and all.”
“You. Will. Be. Silent!”
Discord's demeanor became deadly serious. “No. I. Will. Not. I don't much appreciate your tone, friend.”
The unicorn huffed. “Your threats would be more meaningful if you weren't still completely at my mercy.” He turned his attention back to his computers, muttering to himself. “I suppose I should have seen it coming. Whenever those two get together, chaos is rarely far behind. Of course they'd weaken his seal early. They may have forced my hoof. Then again...” He peered at the images closely. “There is still some time before the point of no return. Still, I must prepare.”
The unicorn hobbled off, leaving Discord to his own thoughts. Though he tended to act juvenile, he was far from an idiot, and he'd learned a number of things about his captor today. Things really should go wrong more often. “Well, well, well. Time travelers. Like Old Man Starswirl. That explains quite a lot...”
Discord's thoughts were interrupted as another wave of pain washed over him.
“Do you actually have a plan for stopping this fracas?” Derpy yelled over the wind generated by the speed of her flight.
“Derpy, how long have you known me now?” the Doctor asked wryly.
Derpy sighed. “I can hope, can't I?”
The Doctor smirked. “Besides, it looks more like a hullabaloo.”
Minutes later, as the city of Canterlot gave way to open field and forest, the odd pair of ponies reached the outskirts of the fierce areal battle. For the moment, the royal army was keeping the attacking forces at bay, but more aggressors were appearing every second. The Doctor narrowed his eyes as he took in the sights. “This isn't right,” he murmured under his breath. “Not right at all. How could the Master have amassed this many angry ponies in a mere eight months? Hmmm... Derpy! Get as close as possible, but stay out of direct combat. I need a closer look.”
Derpy frowned. “You do realize I'm not a stunt flier, right?”
“What you are is brilliant. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think you could do it.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Derpy admonished even as she felt her cheeks flush. Without another protest, she dove into the chaos.
Close study proved difficult for the Doctor, what with all the dives and loops his ride was forced to make, but he was beginning to get the inkling of an idea. Most of the attackers seemed to be slightly off. Nothing immediately noticeable—a glint in their eyes as they flew past, a strange expression in the heat of battle—but it was definitely there. And the Doctor knew he recognized the signs.
Before he could voice his suspicions, a group of attackers broke from the battle and made a beeline for Canterlot. “Derpy, quickly! Follow them!” the Doctor shouted, though the young pegasus herself had already begun charging in their direction. As they neared the closest one, the Doctor began shouting instructions. “Now, Derpy. This is very important and I need you to do exactly what I say. When we get within range, I want you to throw me at him.”
“Throw you?” Derpy asked in disbelief. “You are crazy!”
The Doctor shot her his most purposefully infuriating but-you-love-my-eccentric-charms smile. “Oh yes!” he wholeheartedly agreed. “Now, what are you waiting for? Allons-y!”
“You worry me sometimes, Doctor,” Derpy muttered, even as she let the madpony in her forelegs fly.
The Doctor laughed as he flew through the air, and he landed solidly on the retreating pegasus' back. He wrapped his forelegs around the stallion's neck even as the pegasus tried to shake him off. “Hello!” he said cheerfully. “I'm the Doctor. What do I call you?” The pegasus responded by growling and trying to buck him off. “Not much of a talker eh?” The Doctor's voice remained happily conversational. “Somehow I figured that.” Now the pegasus was flying in tight loops in his attempt to dislodge the Doctor, but he still held firm. “We both know what you are, and you'd better stop that and land,” he admonished, worry creeping its way into his voice. “No, I'm serious,” he continued as the pegasus continued to fight. “You need to land now before...”
Snap!
After the sickening sound almost echoed in the Doctor's ears, both Time Charger and pegasus pony dropped like a pair of stones. The Doctor let go and called for his companion. “Derpy! Catch me! Now, please!”
The wind was suddenly knocked out of the Doctor's lungs as he landed on the gray coated back of his faithful companion, who levied a severe stare in his direction. The other pegasus disappeared into the foliage below, though the Doctor was certain he caught a brief flash of green light where the poor blighter crashed.
“That was insane, Doctor!” Derpy almost yelled, the fear giving way to anger in her voice.
The Doctor frowned. “Yes, that never happens usually.”
“You've done that before?” Derpy gasped.
“Please. That's far from the maddest thing I've ever done,” the Doctor said, smirking playfully. “It's not even the maddest thing I've done around you.”
“Doesn't change the fact that it was crazy,” Derpy groused as she began lowering herself to the ground. “If I could reach you right now, I'd smack you upside the head.”
The Doctor laughed. “Oh, I'm sure you'll have plenty more chances to do that before we're done with this increasingly mad trip. Make sure to land around where our opponent crashed.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Before long they landed in a small thicket of trees, their attacker a few hooves away. The Doctor immediately hopped off his companion's back to get a good look at it and stopped cold, a brief burst of air escaping his lips. The poor thing was thrashing about a pool of its own green internal fluids, it's chitinous body bent awkwardly and its back legs eerily still compared to the thrashing forelegs. Its transparent green wings were crumpled like tissue paper and its green compound eyes twitched in pain. Most ponies would have found the creature revolting. Not their fault, really. Changelings were a predator of ponies after a sort. But the Doctor's views on beauty came from a much more... expansive pool of experience, and all he saw was a prime example of its species laid low because of him.
The changeling hissed at the Doctor as he came near, but stopped in mild confusion as its senses picked up compassion. Compassion that was aimed at it. The Doctor knelt beside the fallen creature and began making soothing sounds as it laid its head on the ground and stopped moving. After a moment the Doctor stood, an unreadable expression on his face. “That wasn't supposed to happen,” he muttered. Then his expression hardened as he shifted from emotional to logical. “No. That wasn't supposed to happen. At all. Do you know why changelings rely so much on their shape shifting powers and sheer numbers?” Before Derpy could answer, the Doctor did for her. “Defense! Individually, changelings are much, much weaker than ponies. They don't have the sheer magical power of unicorns, they don't have the physical power of earth ponies, and they don't have the magically buffeted flight of pegasi. This means there are some rather simple tests in determining if a pony is a changeling or not. A flying pegasus is the easiest, just toss some extra weight on it mid flight. Only a really weak pegasus flier like Miss Fluttershy would have much difficulty staying airborne even with the full weight of another pony tossed onto it.”
“But here's the other thing changelings have. They have a surprisingly powerful survival instinct—particularly for such a hive-minded race. They know they can't support another pony, so they instinctively go into a controlled dive. The landing is a bit rough, but no more so than one of yours.” The Doctor was pacing now, fully in the zone, and didn't see Derpy's little glare as he went on. “But this. This. I landed on this one's back and what does it do? It fights. It ignores generations of ingrained survivalism and literally breaks its wings in the process. It's as if...” The Doctor's eyes widened in realization. “It's as if its instincts were turned off entirely.”
“Any ideas?” Derpy asked.
“Actually, yes,” the Doctor replied as he withdrew his screwdriver from his coat and began tinkering with the innards.
Derpy looked confused. “Two things,” she said. “One: didn't you burn that thing out back at the castle? And two: what good will it do here?”
“Oh my dear Derpy. If the sonic were that delicate I wouldn't have carried it around for the last few centuries. And you of all mares should know I've saved the universe with this thing.”
The Doctor smiled as he turned a few internal nobs on his favored tool. “It's right in the name, isn't it? Sure, it's a screwdriver, but it's also sonic.” A small explosion popped from within the screwdriver, causing the Doctor to jump.
Derpy's expression showed that she wasn't impressed.
“What?” the Doctor protested. “Have I ever let you down before?”
“I've got a list,” Derpy remarked, though an excited smile began to form on her face. True, the Doctor was crazy, but that craziness was contagious.
~DrW~
A few minutes later, Derpy was taking to the air again, the Doctor riding on her back. The battle was raging, and the Doctor was grinning. “You ready to stop another war?” he asked.
“I dunno,” Derpy responded with a grin. “We've stopped so many it's starting to feel a bit old.”
“Are you kidding? It never gets old. Onward!” Derpy grinned and dove right into the middle of the battle. After a few moments of diving and swerving, they finally arrived at around the middle of the chaos. The Doctor couldn't keep the smile off his face as he raised the sonic and pressed a button. The screwdriver made a mildly annoying whine that drove the changelings absolutely bonkers.
They all brought their forehooves to their ears, dropping their disguises instantly, and began flying around in a panic. The Doctor chuckled to himself. “You know this is the second time I've driven back a full army this trip? I think that may be a record.”
In their panic, the changelings flew in all directions, at times bumping in to each other, sometimes scrambling over and around the now confused army ponies. When the confusion cleared, there remained a few ponies among the aggressors, but nothing compared to the sheer force brought by Celestia's army. It was going to be foal's play to round them up for questioning.
“And that, I believe, is that,” the Doctor crowed triumphantly as the guards gathered the stragglers up.
“Oh, bravo, Doctor,” a sudden voice said from behind. “Bravo.”
Derpy spun in the air to face the new voice, and found a magically projected image of the Master floating there, a smug grin on his face. The Doctor's eyes narrowed. “What do you want, Master?”
“Oh, this time I am just calling to gloat.” The grin the Master was wearing made Derpy want to knock his lights out.
“Gloat?” she sputtered. “About what? We drove off your invasion.”
The Master eyed the aggravating mare before him disdainfully. “Thinking's not really your strong suit. Is it, lackey?”
“I swear, insult her one more time...” the Doctor growled.
The other Time Charger snorted in disgust. “Oh Doctor, when did you get so needy? It's made you so much less fun. But to business. Do you think I'd take control of a nest of changelings, the most powerful unicorn in the world, and a number of rather important political ponies and waste them all ona full frontal assault? Changelings have far more... interesting uses to them than that.”
“More insidious uses, you mean,” the Doctor corrected.
“Whatever you say. It all means the same thing to me. This was just a little something I whipped together when I realized you finally arrived. A special little 'hello' for my special little Doctor. So tell me, Doctor. Was it as good for you as it was for me?”
“What do you want?” the Doctor asked in exaspteration. “What could you possibly find here and now that you can't get elsewhere?”
“Now Doctor, you know better than that. I've outgrown my spill-my-plans-at-the-first-opportunity phase. Tell you what. You find me, stand in front of me charger to charger, and then I'll tell you my plans? Deal? Deal. Good bye, Doctor. Hope to see you soon.” And with that, the Master's visage blinked out of existence.
After a brief moment of tense silence, Derpy asked “So, do we head back to the Princess now or what?”
“No,” the Doctor answered, a scowl on his face. “We go to the TARDIS.”
The interior of the TARDIS was as close to silent as it ever was, only the various humming and clacking of the various instruments broke the quiet. Even so, when the Doctor pushed the door open, both he and Derpy cringed and drove their forehooves into their ears as if they were suddenly thrust right into the middle of one of DJ Pon3's raves. "What is that?" Derpy shouted.
"She's angry," the Doctor answered simply.
"I can see that," Derpy groused.
The Doctor pulled himself up to the console and dragged the monitor down to his level. "You don't understand. The TARDIS is more angry than I've ever seen her before. Seven hundred plus years and I've never seen her like this." He turned his attention to the console. "What is it, Old Girl? I can't help you if you won't tell me." He winced as another wave of rage flowed over him. "Now see here, you stop that right now! You're scaring Derpy! Remember Derpy? You like Derpy. Now simmer it down a bit so we can do something about it."
Both ponies sighed with relief as the psychic noise dialed down to a dull roar. "Now, what is it?" the Doctor asked again. The monitor flashed briefly as it filled with ancient Gallopfreyan writing. In the few seconds it took the Doctor to read it, his face registered a cold fury of its own.
"What is it, Doctor?" Derpy asked.
The Doctor turned to Derpy, his blue eyes burning. "She can hear her sister screaming."
Derpy cocked her head in confusion. "What does that mean?"
"Her sister, Derpy? TARDISes are alive! All of them, not just mine. It's something every school foal from Gallopfrey knows."
"Well, I'm not from Gallopfrey," Derpy huffed.
The Doctor slammed a hoof on the console. "But the Master is. Don't you see? He's knowingly mutilated his own TARDIS!"
"Why would he do that?"
"To build his enhancer/transceiver thing. Equestria in your time would be just barely at the level of technology required to create such a thing, but now? Six hundred years in the past? Unthinkable. And the Master's never been a player of the long game. He'd never have the patience to, say, 'influence' the rise of Equestrian technology until it suited his needs. No, it's much faster and easier to rip the guts out of a convenient TARDIS and use that instead--never mind the fact that doing so leaves the poor thing in utter agony."
The Doctor began pounding out commands on the TARDIS control console. "Where are we going?" Derpy asked. "Does the TARDIS know where the Master is?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No. The screams are too far, too muffled." His face darkened dangerously. "We're going to pay a little visit to one of the 'normal' ponies the guards arrested this afternoon."
~DrW~
The Master was the first to arrive, Dawn Riser in tow. After all, he was the mastermind here, and impressions were so very important. He couldn't help but chuckle. This was supposed to be a secret, obscure, out of the way little hidey-hole for the conspirators to gather, yet the large round conference table was still made of hoof carved mahogany, expensive tapestries hung from the walls, and the room alone was larger than most homes in, say, Manehattan. Damned Equestrian nobles.
He leaned back in his chair, tapping out the beat of the drums with his hoof upon the extravagant table, and took in all the sights as his, ah, sponsors--most of whom he didn't even need to hypnotize which surprised him greatly--began shuffling in the room. "Ah, Blueblood," he greeted cordially. "How're the wife and kids?" The Master barely registered the bored sounding reply as his eyes roved around the room at the assembled unicorns. Nobles of Canterlot all, and all of them supporting his 'cause' because they felt he could give them a greater portion of power to squabble over. Blood sucking little parasites, the lot of them.
Still he smiled jovially at them. It was all part of the game, after all.
Dawn Riser stood behind him, viewing the proceedings stoically. Her sky blue coat and silver hair practically shone in the slightly overdone lighting, as did her starburst cutie mark. The Master wondered briefly what she'd think--if he didn't have her under his control that is--if she were to learn that the only real contribution her bloodline would bring to the dawning of the Magical Age of Equestria was that of a loudmouthed showpony with more power than skill inadvertently teaching a lesson in true humility to the real star of that particular show.
A few more moments, and the group had assembled. The Master stopped his tapping and stood up on his hind legs, leaning on the table for support. The smile he wore was genuine now. This was going to be fun.
~DrW~
The Doctor strode purposefully down the dungeon corridors, his coat flaring rather importantly behind him. He didn't share any words with any guards that tried to stop them, just flashed his psychic paper in their faces and was gone before they could finish a stumbled apology. Derpy simply shot the confused guards apologetic looks as she followed.
Finally, the Doctor was in a cell with one of the captured ponies. The captured pegasus glared at the intruder. "What do you want?"
The Doctor returned the glare with a cool, almost emotionless look of his own. "Fast Track, if I'm not mistaken? A member of an offshoot branch of the Royal Family but far enough removed to not have any official titles?"
Fast Track snorted. "And what's it to you?"
"You are going to tell me everything you know about this whole debacle."
The pegasus laughed. "If I haven't talked to the guards, what makes you think I'll talk to you?"
The Doctor grabbed either side of Fast Track's face with his forehooves and brought the latter's face mere centimeters away from his own. "Make no mistake, friend. You don't have to say anything. I'm going to give you one last chance to give me the information willingly, before I just... take a peek myself."
Fast Track stubbornly clamped his mouth shut and continued to glare. The Doctor sighed. "Fine then. Have it your way." His face hardened as he locked eyes the pony in his hooves. "Contact."
~DrW~
"It's so nice to have the lot of you here, you backstabbing lot of traitorous filth," the Master began. He smirked inwardly as the assembled nobles visibly buried their resentment at the title and tried to laugh it off.
"Oh, yes, very funny," Blueblood XIV said with a strained chuckle. "But if you'd be so kind as to..."
"I wasn't joking," the Master clarified. "Did it seem like I was joking? Riser, did I look like I was joking to you?"
"No, sir."
"See, joking is like this." The Master smiled a huge fake sunny smile. "Right now, I'm like this." He then screwed his face into an equally comical scowl.
The Master sneered at the assembled group, who were now watching him with narrowed eyes of their own. "See, that's just it. That's exactly what you are. You all betrayed your ever so beloved sovereign--who I might remind you all raises the sun every morning and never holds that over your collective heads--because I brought the promise of power. I mean, it's not like you don't have power. You're the nobles. The elite. The creme de la creme and all that. But along I come and you all just... join the herd. So I think to myself. I think, 'if this lot is willing to betray the kind and graceful Princess and Goddess of the land, what use do I have for them?' Pretty astute question if I do say so myself."
Blueblood growled as he stood up, his horn glowing bright. The others followed suit. "And just what is it you think to do with we 'traitorous filth,' eh? We are the ones funding your campaign."
"Oh, sit down before you hurt yourselves. Dawn here can take the lot of you anyway. Here's a question for you, did you know there's only a few degrees of separation between an invisibility spell and a disguise spell?" With that, the Master clicked a hoof on the table, and the room was suddenly filled with bursts of green fire. Fire which soon coalesced into...
"Changelings!" one of the nobles gasped.
The Master was smiling now. The show was getting good. "Very good. Changelings. Now, I have two other questions for you that you might find interesting. First question: before their queens discovered the joys of slave labor and the like, how do you suppose changelings traditionally prevented that awkward moment where the real deal comes home while the changeling is there? Second question, related to the first: if their diet consists of something as incorporeal as 'love,' why d'you suppose they've developed those lovely flesh rending fangs? I'll leave the lot of you to discuss the matter."
As the Master got up to leave with Dawn Riser in tow, Blueblood stared in horror. "You... You're insane!"
The Master's smile was wide and genuine. "Yes. Yes I am. Thanks for noticing." That was the last he said before closing the door behind him.
As the sound of ponies screaming mingled with other, even less savory, sounds from the other side of the door, the Master casually popped the kinks out of his neck. "Be sure their 'replacements' get home before their families and friends have a chance to grow suspicious, will you, Dawn? And be sure to bring in the cleaning crew once they're done in there. I'm expecting the Doctor at any time now and I'd like the place to be clean."
"Yes, sir," Dawn Riser responded, deadpan.
The Master stood at the door, listening in on the gruesome sounds for several more minutes, then checked his watch when they showed no sign of abating, then cracked the door open to check in on the progress. He winced and quickly slammed the door shut. "Also, be sure to let the cleaners know I've approved overtime."
The blue door burst open as the Doctor stormed towards the TARDIS control console. "All right! We have our destination! Let's go and..." His eyes widened as the TARDIS sent a very emphatic psychic message his way. "What d'you mean 'no?' You're just as angry as I... Wait, what? I'm scaring..." His eyes widened as he spun to see his companion in the doorway, a definite note of concern in her eyes. The Doctor sighed and laughed humorlessly. "Yes, we do like Derpy, don't we?"
"What was that?" Derpy asked.
"Er, well, I..."
"What was that?" she repeated. "You just dove right into that pony's head without his permission. What was that?"
"Now, Derpy, all I did was look." By Rastallion, that sounded lame even to him, and the look on Derpy's face showed she thought the same. "Now look here, you. I don't know if you've noticed but we're actually on a bit of a timetable here. I haven't forgotten the original mission, have you?" Derpy continued glaring at him. "Well, what do you want from me? What do either of you want from me, eh? Okay, I admit it. This being the Master automatically makes things personal, and he's been pushing buttons to make it even moreso, and I'm angry and frustrated, and maybe, just maybe I'm letting slip the real me that I don't wish for any of my companions to see, alright?"
Derpy's expression turned shrewd. "The real you?"
"Yes, the real me. What you see is what you got. Fire, rage, and destruction, that's me. You don't get a title like the Oncoming Storm by being a nice guy. Haven't you noticed the trail of destruction that seems to follow me everywhere I go? I mean, you're not blind."
To the Doctor's surprise, Derpy just laughed. "Oh, now you're being stupid."
And now the Doctor was struggling to keep up with the sudden change in track. "Stupid? Me? How?"
"Well, you think anger and frustration and, and, darkness is the real you? Dumbest thing I've ever heard, and you can say some kinda dumb things. The real you is, well, weird. But it's the good kind of weird. The kind of weird that will take a dippy little pegasus mailpony who can barely even fly straight, who can't control weather to save her life, and who's always been looked at kind of funny, and you take her and show her all sorts of neat new things. Some scary things, too, but you're the kind of weird that knows how to get out of scary things and make them cool in the end. You're weird, and you're my best friend, and that's the real you."
The Doctor was struck well and truly speechless, a rarity in his long life.
Derpy, however, seemed to be on a roll. "So you got a little angry, got a little scary, and maybe messed up a little. You know what you do when you mess up? You shake the soot out of your coat, straighten your mane the best you can, and keep on chuggin'. Trust me on this, Doctor. If there's one thing I'm an expert at, it's messing up."
A small smile tugged at the corners of the Doctor's mouth. "And so much more," he half whispered.
"You say something, Doctor?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
Derpy smiled that little I-know-you-better-than-that smile that she likely didn't even know she had. "So," she asked. "Are you done being all angry and stupid? Because, really, the act's getting old."
The Doctor chuckled softy "I can make no promises other than that I will try."
Derpy's smile became that wide, toothy, childlike smile that, if the Doctor was honest with himself, was what drew him to her back in the day. "Good enough."
The Doctor cast a playful glare at the crystal spire set in the center of the TARDIS console. "And you? Is it good enough for you?" His lips twitched slightly at the sense of smugness sent his way. "I swear, the old girl was much more cooperative before she started talking to you," he groused, but not without a humorous undertone. "Yes, I know you're still in the room. You are the room. Can't really avoid that, can we?"
"So did you at least get a location out from that pegaus?" Derpy asked.
"Oh yes. Fast Track was only a mid-level flunky at best, which is probably why the Master felt he could send him on that attack, but he was still high enough on the totem pole to be in on a few of the Master's plans. He's hiding out in an obscure--by Canterlot standards--place on the edge of town."
"So that's where we're going?"
"Not quite yet. I'm sure the Master himself is there, probably waiting for us, but there's no way he'd leave something as important as his hypnotic transceiver device where his flunkies can find it. We need to fly out somewhere there's fewer ponies, less interference, and see if the old girl can pick up on her sister better from there."
"Got any places in mind?"
The Doctor got that look in his eye. That look-and-be-amazed-at-my-brilliance look. "I'm thinking the future site of Ponyville."
~DrW~
Derpy cast a critical eye over the empty field they had landed in. "This is gonna be Ponyville?" she asked.
"Indeed it is," the Doctor responded with a smile. "In fact, we're just a couple of meters away from the very epicenter. About where the display case of my clock shop is, actually."
"So what are we doing here exactly?"
The Doctor cast a glance back at the blue barn behind them. "Well, I've found that certain historically important sites retain a distinct connection to the Time Vortex pretty well indefinitely, both forwards and backwards in time. Such connections allow time displaced beings like myself and the old girl to expand our abilities somewhat. I'm hoping the extra push will let her find what we're looking for."
Derpy continued to take in the sight, somewhat unnerved at how alien it seemed without any of the usual landmarks. There was a tree off in the distance that she recognized as the library. It was in the right spot and had the right shape, but without the welcoming windows and door it looked almost... spooky. "Is Ponyville really that important, Doctor?" she asked.
The Doctor laughed. "What are you talking about? Of course it is. It's home to the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, who've already saved the world twice now, and that's before we even get into the Crystal Empire."
"The Crystal what now?"
The Doctor gave his companion a smug wink. "You'll see. I'd hate to spoil the surprise."
"I hate it when you do that," Derpy groused.
"Anyway," the Doctor continued, getting back to business. "Yes, Ponyville is a most central part of history. In fact, it's a bit of a rarity in the entire universe. It's the site of two fixed points in time, both of which occurred within a year of each other. That almost never happens. Honestly, it's one of the things that drew me there in the first place." Before he could continue that line of conversation, the Doctor paused and put a hoof to his ear. "What was that? The Badlands? Hmm, no that makes perfect sense. Come along, Derpy. We've got work to do."
~DrW~
The Master looked out over Canterlot from his office. Oh, it was hardly a million bits view by any means, but it was sill sufficient to appreciate what these primitive little ponies were capable of. He could almost, almost see what his old friend and enemy saw in this place. Not that it mattered much. It'd all be gone soon enough.
He smiled when he caught the sudden flash of blue out the corner of his eye. Sure enough, across the street was that ridiculous blue barn. He wasn't even trying to hide it this time, was he? The doors swung inward, and out stepped the Doctor, looking ever so important with his trench coat flapping dramatically in the wind. Personally, the Master missed the old hat and scarf ensemble, though he chalked that one up to nostalgia. The Master himself was responsible for the death and regeneration of that one, so he always felt a certain connection to it.
The Doctor stopped and looked up at the building before him, his eyes zeroing in on the very window the Master was standing at. For just the briefest of moments, it was as if the two had locked eyes, centuries of history passing between the two otherworldly earth ponies.
Then the moment passed, and the Doctor strode purposefully toward the building.
"Dawn," the Master called.
The pale blue unicorn was instantly at his side. "Sir."
"Be a dear and escort our guest to the conference room. It's been far too long since the two of us have met face to face."
Dawn Riser bowed her head before vanishing with a pop.
The Master took a moment to make sure he looked perfect. His black suit was free of wrinkles, and was fit to ensure his cutie mark--a fully repaired fob watch--was visible. Not a single strand of his blond hair was out of place. Frankly, he looked good. After all, the Doctor deserved nothing but the very best.
The Doctor allowed himself to be led through the place by Dawn Riser. He'd attempted to start a conversation with her a couple of times, but each time she shut him down with a terse reply. Very unlike the just-opinionated-enough-to-be-interesting Dawn Riser he knew. So the Doctor contented himself with studying the place as they climbed the ornate stairway. It was no important Canterlot landmark, the place the Master was holed up, no. Probably just some noble's guest home or some such rubbish. Which still made the place an absolute palace compared to anything in Ponyville, Manehattan, Las Pegasus, or any number of places. The Doctor shook his head with a sigh. For all the love and enthusiasm he had for Equestrian ponies, the upper crust atmosphere of Canterlot tended to breed the few he genuinely disliked--the few that actually saw themselves above the rest on account of some accident of birth. True, the Doctor himself tended to look down on other ponies--just a bit--but that was on account of his own hard earned brilliance. These ponies, however...
Wait a tic, where were the other ponies? Obviously, the Master would not have tolerated much in the way of company, especially when expecting a visit from such an 'old friend', but a place like this would have required at least some staff, and the Master was never one to shy away from comforts. The sheer emptiness of the place made the Doctor somewhat uneasy.
Dawn Riser stopped at the top of the stairs and opened a door, waiting silently. The Doctor looked into her clouded eyes and could swear that he could see her consciousness behind them, struggling to break free. "Oh, Riser," he murmured. "I am so sorry."
"He's waiting for you," Dawn Riser tersely replied.
"Right, right," the Doctor sighed as he stepped through the door, pausing briefly when he heard the distinct pop of unicorn teleportation as Dawn Riser vanished. I don't much like the sound of that, he thought to himself.
He was now standing in a ballroom. It was smaller than what most would think of when using the word--probably used for more intimate family gatherings than anything--but a ballroom nonetheless. All furniture was cleared out except the fully stocked bar on the far side, where the Master sat. "Doctor!" he bellowed happily. "So good of you to come. It's been far too long since we met face to face like this. Not since our little get together in San Prancesisco." The mad Time Charger gave the Doctor a wide smile as he gestured the various bottles. "Offer you a drink?"
The Doctor kept his face impassive. "Well, out with it."
"Out with it?" the Master asked, mock confusion etched on his face. "Out with what?"
"Don't give me that. We had a deal. I believe it was something along the lines of 'face me charger to charger and I'll tell you my plans.'"
The Master sighed before taking one last swig from his glass. "It's always the same with you, Doctor. You want to skip the foreplay and get right to it." A thoughtful look crossed his face. "How about this, then? You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."
The Doctor cocked his head in confusion. "What?"
"Don't you give me that, Doctor. I know you. You weren't just on one of your little jaunts that happen to end in disaster when you were on Anthrax. You were looking for something." The Master shot the Doctor a superior smirk. "Just because I was a different pony back then doesn't mean I don't remember. So, you tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."
The Doctor matched the Master's smirk. "You first."
"Oh are you seriously going to be that way about it?"
"I am."
The Master tsk'ed as he stepped down from the bar and started pacing in a clockwise circle, matched by the Doctor doing the same. "I'm going to overthrow Celestia. There, that's it." The Doctor cast him a dubious look. "What?"
"Putting aside for a moment that Celestia literally raises the sun every day..."
"What, you actually believe that superstitious rubbish?"
"Trying to disprove that 'superstitious rubbish' was a pastime of mine for about three centuries. But putting that aside, what do you get out of that?"
"Power, control, domination. What else do I need?"
"Don't try and fool me with your lies and half-truths. We've been through too much for me to fall for them. You're the Master. 'Master of Time,' 'Master of All,' 'Master of'... whatever. You have access to all time and space. What care do you have for a single little planet? Care enough to destroy that which gave you access to all of time and space. You wouldn't sacrifice so much for so little. Ruling Equestria is not the endgame here. It's just a step in the process."
The Master practically cackled with glee. "This is what I've missed about our games. You being just barely behind me. Just close enough to make everything a challenge."
"As I recall, I'm the one who's won all our previous battles," the Doctor reminded him.
"Hmm. Depends on what you consider 'winning.' I did cost you your taste in Jelly Fillies and absurd scarves. But you're right, of course. Taking over the country is far from my end goal. I may not even run for president when this is all over. Oh, who am I kidding, of course I will, but only for a term or two, just enough to pass the laws I want passed. The important part is getting rid of the Princess."
"But why?"
"Why? Well now, let's have a look at Equestria's history. You do so love history, don't you? In approximately six hundred years Celestia's precious little sister Luna is going to return from her thousand year banishment in the moon, set to destroy Equestria by plunging it into eternal night. A year later, the feared draconequus Discord breaks free from his own stone prison to wreck havoc on all and sundry. In both instances, the threat was defeated by the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, led by one Twilight Sparkle, personal student to the great and powerful Princess Celestia. Now, what do you suppose will happen when there is no all powerful goddess princess to take her under her wing? When Equestria is being ruled by a group of well-meaning but very mortal ponies, who won't even know the stories behind either threat to their world?"
The Doctor's eyes went wide as the pupils dilated. "But... but both of those events are..."
"Fixed." The Master's eyes were wide and wild. "Yes. The very foundations of the universe. And two of them so close together. The odds of that are... well beyond astronomical. If the failure of one to occur doesn't kill time dead, the subsequent failure of the second surely will."
The Doctor stopped the pacing and met his opponent's gaze. "What's the matter with you? Why would you actively work to destroy everything? You, who's survived death itself more times than any opponent I've ever faced, save perhaps Davros and his abominations. Why would you wish to destroy everything, yourself included?"
The Master laughed bitterly. "What, you don't know?" After a moment of eye contact, his face fell. "You... you don't, do you? You can't hear them, can you?" he asked, a tone of horrid revelation in his voice.
The Doctor remained confused. "Hear what?"
"The drums!" exploded from the Master's mouth. "The Rasstallion damned drums! All day every day, ever since the Elders forced me to look into the Vortex and this mark appeared on my rump! Constantly there. Constantly beating!" Now his left forehoof was beating out a repeated set of four. "Do you want to know why I clung to life so desperately? Why I'd prefer existence as a rotting corpse over death? Because death was not enough to silence the drums! Perhaps taking everything with me will do the trick."
The Doctor was completely aghast at what he'd heard. "You do realize you're mad, don't you?"
"Oh, like you're not." The Master exhaled a deep breath, and seemed to calm down. "So, I've told you mine, so tell me yours."
The Doctor seemed to consider for a moment before shrugging. "Sorry. I can't do it. It's all very Double Oh Seven. Very hush-hush. You understand."
A wry grin spread on the Master's face. "Why you cheeky little..." He stopped mid sentence and brought a forehoof to his wincing face. An angry gleam was in his eye when it popped open and without another word he ran to the window. After a moment, in a calm, deadly voice he asked. "Where is it?"
A golden halo actually appeared above the Doctor's head. "I'm sorry. Where is what?"
The Master rounded on his old foe, his face contorted in rage. "Your TARDIS! Your damned blue box! WHERE IS IT!?"
"Oh, that," the Doctor responded, the faux innocent look still on his face. "You really should have known better than to mutilate a TARDIS when I'm involved." His smile turned sly. "It's made the missus ever so cross."
~DrW~
Derpy panted heavily as she ran from one esoteric switch to another, the image of the next appearing in her mind almost faster than she could keep up. The TARDIS's trademarked screeching was even louder now than usual, the shaking worse than any time the Doctor piloted the thing. You've got to be kidding me, she thought as an image of three switches on either end of the console appeared in her mind. She barely made it work by wrapping her tail around a leaver, kicking another with her left hind hoof, and pounding the whack-a-mole with her right forehoof. And the image of the next step was in her mind before she finished.
After several minutes of this, the shaking and the noise finally stopped and Derpy dropped to the floor, exhausted. "I'm... about... to barf," she complained. She stopped and cast an annoyed glare at the spire jutting from the console. "Of course I won't puke on you. Even if it is your fault." After taking a few moments to collect herself, Derpy got up to her shaky hooves. "So, is the other TARDIS out there?" A grim acknowledgment formed in the back of her mind. Derpy's face became softer. "And there's no way to save her?" The grim feeling became replaced by mourning. Derpy sighed. "Fine, then. Let's just get this over with."
With determination in her steps, Derpy marched over to the double doors and pulled one open. She was met with the mildly surprised gaze of Dawn Riser, who was surrounded by an entourage of at least ten changelings. Derpy flashed them all a wide smile, a nervous little squeak escaping her lips, before calmly closing the door again.
The Master couldn't help but laugh. "You sent your, ahem, little assistant out to the Wastelands to destroy my transceiver?"
"I don't see what's so funny about that," the Doctor replied, incensed.
The Master mimed wiping a tear from his eye. "Where d'you think I sent Dawn Riser to? Such an important piece of hardware left unguarded with you around? Give me some credit at least. You just sent your idiotic little pegaus to face the most powerful unicorn in the land."
"Fifth in history, actually," the Doctor corrected. "And give me some credit. You sending her to guard the remains of your TARDIS already figured into my plans. Derpy was with me when I faced down Graymane the Brutal. She can handle herself around unicorns." The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "And you of all ponies should know by now that I do not make it a habit to travel with useless ponies, no matter what I may say to them myself. I have great faith she'll come out on top."
The Master snorted. "Your reliance on other ponies has long been a weakness, you know."
The Doctor responded with a grin. "We have different opinions on 'weakness', I suppose." He quickly withdrew his sonic screwdriver and aimed it above, causing the priceless chandelier that was hanging above the Master's head to drop. The Master himself managed to dive out of the way and withdrew a metal rod of his own from his coat pocket. Its end glowed red as he aimed it at the Doctor, and the brown Time Charger yelped in pain, dropped his screwdriver, and collapsed to the ground. A bloody welt had formed on the knuckle joint of his foreleg.
The Master grinned as he held up his weapon. It was built to resemble a sonic screwdriver, but was both longer and thicker. "Mine's bigger than yours," he taunted.
"And laser powered, to boot," the Doctor grunted through clenched teeth.
"Really, now. Why would anyone go for sonic? I never could understand your fascination with the old and outdated." The Master fired another shot, and though the Doctor managed to mostly dodge out of the way, his shoulder felt as though it exploded. "Granted, I haven't been able to give it all the features I would have liked," the Master conceded. "But I think you'll find it to be more than deadly enough for my purposes."
~DrW~
Derpy paced nervously in front of the TARDIS console. She wasn't particularly worried about the ship itself, despite the otherwise alarming sounds of some very powerful spells making contact outside. She'd seen the TARDIS withstand much, much worse than a unicorn (fifth most powerful in history she may be) and some changelings. No, she wasn't worried they'd get in at all. She was, however, in a quandary about how she could get out without getting instantly vaporized. "What's she even doing here, anyway?" she asked the softly humming room.
Derpy stopped and cast another glare at the crystal spire. "Oh, don't go blaming me for this. I don't know what went..." Derpy gasped mid-sentence as her eyes widened and her gaze straightened for the briefest of moments. "Say, do you still have that room? The one with the clouds?" Now she chuckled at the irritated response the old girl gave her. "Oh, don't be like that. It only happened the one time. Well, yeah, you only let me in there the one time, but that's not the point. The point is I got an idea."
~DrW~
The Master had the Doctor purely on the defensive. That is to say, the Doctor was forced to continually dodge the laser bolts the Master fired his way. Really, all that was missing was the Master telling him to dance. The beleaguered Time Charger rolled behind the bar as a perfectly round hole was punched through the trailing end of his coat. Taking advantage of the very brief respite to catch his breath, the Doctor grinned when he saw the small metal cylinder that had rolled its way under the table.
Grasping his sonic screwdriver one more time, the Doctor exhaled a long breath to calm his mind. He had only one shot at this and didn't want to screw it up. The moment had passed and the Doctor instantly stood up behind his barricade, pointed his screwdriver at the Master and activated one of its few destructive functions. Both screwdrivers disabled the other, though the Doctor's violently exploded in his hoof, sending him reeling in pain, while the Master's simply made a small 'pop' before a small stream of smoke rose from within.
The Master cast a disappointed look at his now inoperable weapon before tossing it aside. "Not bad, Doctor. Not bad at all. But you're still just delaying the inevitable." The Master peeked over the bar to find the Doctor hunched over, seemingly in pain. "What's the matter? Hurt yourself?" he asked mockingly.
When the Doctor looked up, he was grinning. "Y'know, funny thing about dimensionally displaced pockets. You put things in them during your travels and forget they're there. Like these for instance." He held up his hooves, and in each one was a brightly colored glass ball, one red the other blue. "I picked these up during one of the many, many hostile invasions I've stopped on Hearth's Warming Eve. I'm beginning to think there's some kind of cosmic importance to the date. Anyway, cute little things, aren't they? Why not give them a look?" He rolled the glass decorations under the the bar, and the Master tried to scramble away for a brief moment before the bar was ripped apart by an explosion which knocked him several hooves away.
The Doctor stepped out from behind the smoking rubble--though not without a slight limp--and calmly brushed some soot off his coat sleeve. "Are you quite done?" he asked.
His response was a hoof to his face.
Stunned, the Doctor took several more blows before gaining the sense of mind to start dodging. After weaving between a couple more punches, he spun around with a speed and grace that belied his rather scrawny size and planted both hind hooves into the Master's face, sending him reeling. "Really now," the Doctor admonished. "This is just getting embarrassing. Sad, even. Two of the greatest minds in the universe, and we're brawling it out like... like drunkards in a pub."
The Master stumbled to his hooves, spit out a tooth and shot the Doctor a wide-eyed grin. "Fine by me!" he shouted as he lunged at his foe once again.
~DrW~
Dawn Riser growled in frustration as she blasted the blue barn in front of her with another destructive spell. The bolt of magic energy bounced off, blasting another hole in the cavern wall. Her frustration rose another notch as her horn began to glow in preparation for another spell. She blinked in surprise when the doors swung open. She then got knocked on her flank as a rush of water vapor burst forth from the now open TARDIS.
Derpy trotted along the top of the cloud almost cheerfully. She could see she was in a rather large dome shaped cavern, the ceiling far overhead and rough tunnel entrances bored into the walls like certain cheeses. Over along the far wall was a mess of pipes and wires that climbed the wall and entered several of the tunnels. That would be where the messed up TARDIS is then, she thought.
She did start when a hot bolt of magic burst through the cloud several hooves away and burned a new hole in the ceiling. Time to get to work. Derpy started hopping randomly on the cloud as several more bolts were fired through it. "You should probably cast a force field spell or something down there," she called down to the mind-controlled pony beneath her. "And you too," she added to the group of changelings that had flown through the cloud to confront her. "Because I have no idea what I'm doing."
Down on the ground, stuck in a fog the consistency of pea soup Dawn Riser ignored the pegasus's warning and continued firing blindly at the little irritation even as the fog began to darken ominously and her mane began to stand on end. It was only when an arc of electricity passed before her eyes that a small shred of lucidity took over and had her put up the shield spell. Less than a second later the world turned white.
~DrW~
Derpy stumbled through the wrecked cavern, occasionally coughing up a gout of smoke. "Woah," she mumbled to herself. "That was a good one!" She looked around and saw a couple of changelings smoking and twitching on the ground. Along the far wall, a fire had erupted within the cylindrical capsule that had once been a TARDIS, the haphazard machinery surrounding it fried to slag, and lying in the middle of the room was an unmoving blue unicorn. "Hey!" Derpy yelled out as she ran to the other pony's side. "Are you okay?"
Dawn Riser coughed a couple of times as she slowly got to her hooves. "I... believe I am, thank you," she responded in a tone that Derpy thought was mildly snooty. As Dawn Riser was moving her various joints experimentally, she cast an appraising eye at the pegasus before her. "And who might you be?"
"Name's Derpy," she replied with a proud flutter of her wings. "I'm the Doctor's companion."
A look of understanding dawned on Riser's face and she nodded. "So you travel with the Doctor. That certainly accounts for your... unorthodox method of combat. I do suppose I should thank you for destroying that monstrosity and freeing me from his control."
A sudden, almost deafening buzzing noise stopped the conversation dead in its tracks as swarms of changelings began surging out of the various tunnels and into the dome. "You can thank me inside the TARDIS," Derpy said in a rather sped up, high pitched voice. "Run!"
The battle between the two Time Chargers had reached a small lull. Both the Doctor and the Master were panting, bruised, and bleeding. "Ah, just like old times," the Master noted with a slight giggle. "I was afraid that you've lost your touch, what with this ridiculous semi-pacifism you've developed over the years."
"Having lost my taste for violence does not mean I've lost the capacity," the Doctor responded, a tiredness in his voice that had little to do with the battle. At this, the Master charged his opponent, who ducked down in response and used his own momentum to flip the crazed Charger through the air, whereupon he landed flat on his back, the air knocked out of his lungs. "I do have to admit," the Doctor panted, "that I am getting more than a little tired of how often our encounters devolve into some sort of physical duel."
The Master had crawled to his hooves and was about to reply when instead he brought his forehooves to his temples and began a long, drawn out howl of pain. Once it had subsided, the Master was furious to see that the Doctor was grinning. "What did I tell you?" the Doctor asked smugly. "Never underestimate my Derpy."
In response, the Master simply charged the Doctor again with an inarticulate roar, clapping his forehooves on either side of the Doctor's head. While the stars swam around the Doctor's head, the Master spun and delivered a hard buck to his chest, sending him sprawling. "We're not done yet!" he shouted.
"Right. 'Course we're not," the Doctor muttered as the got to his hooves. "It'd be too easy otherwise, wouldn't it?"
~DrW~
Derpy quickly slammed the TARDIS doors closed, smiling at the sound of several changelings crashing headfirst into it. "Well, that takes care of that," she said, satisfied that both she and her charge were securely in the safest place in the universe.
Dawn Riser, however, was staring at her surroundings in total awe--a reaction she'd be the first to admit as being difficult to inspire in her. "It... it is..." she sputtered.
Derpy chuckled as she patted Riser on the back. "Go ahead and say it. Best to get it out of your system."
Dawn Riser looked Derpy in the eye and almost whispered, "It is larger within."
Derpy burst out laughing at that. "What?" Dawn Riser asked indignantly.
"You said it wrong! It's supposed to be 'It's bigger on the inside.' Don't worry I got it wrong, too. Said it was smaller on the outside. Anyhoof, welcome to the best ship in the universe, the TARDIS. Short for Time and Relative Dimension in Space, but we just call her the old girl. Though, you probably shouldn't. She doesn't know you yet. It'd probably offend her."
Dawn Riser blinked in confusion a few times before grasping a straw in the conversation that made sense. "Did you say this was a ship?"
"Yep," Derpy responded as she began digging for something under the overstuffed armchair. "Best in the universe."
"And you... captain it?"
Derpy grunted as she pushed a large wooden chest out of the alcove beneath the chair. "Nope. Only the Doctor can fly her, really. And even he messes up, like, a lot. I only got her this far with her help, and my insides are still doing loopedy-loops from that, so I don't think trying it again would be a good idea." Derpy had opened the chest and was now digging through it, her visible rump bouncing to some unheard tune. "Now where did he put it...?"
"Apologies, Miss Derpy, but you are making very little sense."
Derpy pulled herself out of the chest, a thoughtful look on her face. "Really? Huh. Sorry 'bout that. I think it's a side effect of the Doctor." She glanced back into the chest and brightened up. "Oh! There it is!" And with that, she dove into the chest, completely vanishing into it despite it not being quite big enough for a pony to fit in. Dawn Riser simply rose an eyebrow at the sight. After a few moments of some rather large banging noises, Derpy popped back out of the chest, a large black vinyl disk in her mouth.
"What, pray tell, is that?" Riser asked.
Derpy walked over to the console in the middle of the room, and gave it a good kick with her left hind leg. A turntable popped out of the face, with a 'ching' sound. Derpy placed the record on the turntable, then pushed it back into place. "It's the recall code. If this works, we should automatically get sent back to where the TARDIS last was, with some adjustment for time, so we don't cross our own timeline. That's dangerous, you know."
"Wait. What do you mean 'if this woOOAAH!" Dawn Riser was knocked on her flank as the room shook with surprising violence, and an unEquestrian sound flooded the room. She watched in stunned silence as Derpy threw her forelegs in the air and badly mimicked the sound. She briefly considered the idea that she'd let herself get abducted by a madmare.
~FIM~
The fight wasn't going well. The Master was well and truly berserkring at this point, lashing out without strategy or care of consequence, and the Doctor just couldn't keep up anymore. Despite earlier words, he'd spent considerable effort avoiding physical confrontation since the Time War (unless absolutely necessary, like that one time with the Syccorax), and it had been a great many more centuries and regenerations beyond even that since he was at his prime in that regard. So it was, then, that the Doctor was lying on the floor, struggling to get back to his hooves, and the Master was standing triumphantly over him.
The Master had a hoof raised, ready to bring it down on the Doctor's skull, when he was suddenly jerked off the ground. Looking around for the source of this outrage, he suddenly found himself looking into the coldly furious eyes of a certain sky blue unicorn. The rage that had filled him suddenly drained from his body as he realized what was about to happen. "Oh, bollGRGH!" he managed to get out before being violently thrown against the far wall, with enough force to crack it. He dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes before being thrown against the opposite wall. And again. And again.
The Doctor took advantage of the respite to gingerly get up on his hooves. Then he heard a most welcome voice call out his name. Looking up, he saw his Derpy looking at him in worry. "You're hurt!" she said worriedly.
"Hello, ow. Hello Derpy," the Doctor said with a pained but genuine smile. "I see you were successful."
"Don't you 'Hello Derpy' me, mister," she scolded. "Look at you. Was this your plan? To get beaten to a bloody pulp?"
"I was a very effective bloody pulp I'll have you know. Kept the Master here, didn't I?" The Doctor cast a wry look over Derpy's soot-charred coat and messy, on-end hair. "And you're not exactly one to talk."
"Hmph. At least I won my fight." Derpy smiled and said in a very loud stage whisper. "I think she's a little embarrassed, actually."
This caused Dawn Riser to stop in her beating of the Master. "I am not embarrassed!" she said a little too quickly. "I am grateful, truly." She paused as the corners of her mouth drew upward in a smirk. "I should mention, though, that nopony under mind control will ever fight at their full capacity. And also, she cheated."
The Doctor laughed and ran a fond hoof through Derpy's hair, which actually zapped him a little. "Well, of course she did. D'you think we've survived as long as we have by playing fair? Oh, and Dawn, I think you've made your point." He gestured over to the battered and nigh unconscious Master still in her magical grip.
Dawn cast one last glare at her former master before conceding with a slightly annoyed snort. "Oh, very well."
She trotted over to the other two, still keeping the Master suspended and harmless, and cast a probing eye on the Doctor. "So, you are the Doctor, then? You certainly do not look like the Doctor I remember. Is it a title passed down from father to son, perhaps?"
"Oh, no. I'm still the same nutter you met all those years ago. Why, I still remember stumbling upon you in the streets of Bucksalona, having sampled a little too much cider, and..."
"That will be quite enough, thank you," Dawn Riser quickly interrupted, her face beginning to glow crimson. Derpy stifled a laugh. The Doctor, however turned suddenly serious. He was staring Dawn Riser full in the eyes, a thoughtful frown forming on his face. "Doctor?" Dawn asked. "You seem troubled, and, frankly, you are making me rather uncomfortable."
The Doctor quickly broke his eye contact, though the frown persisted. "It's nothing. Well, it's not nothing, it's definitely something, but it's probably nothing too significant."
"What is it, Doctor?" Derpy asked.
"Hmmm? Oh, well, it's just that there's no sign whatsoever of the Master's presence in Dawn Riser. Nothing at all."
Derpy scrunched her face up in confusion. "Isn't that a good thing?"
The Doctor nodded. "Oh, for Dawn Riser, most certainly. And Little Celestia will be downright thrilled once we return I'm sure." (Dawn Riser was about to protest the Doctor's overly familiar term for her Princess and mentor, but stopped when she realized that this was probably more important.) "But, it doesn't make sense for the Master to let his control be broken so easily."
"Easy?" Derpy sputtered. "You think that was easy?"
"Compared to how it should have gone?" the Doctor responded. "Most certainly. Think for just a moment. I've got a TARDIS. The Master no longer does. What better way to fix that problem than to manufacture a believable rescue, while still retaining a mental hold that he can reassert later, then have her turn on us. It's what I would do if I were evil and insane. And I had plans in place for just that eventuality, but now it seems they are no longer needed."
Derpy and Dawn Riser cast each other a worried glance. "Maybe the Master just got careless?" Derpy asked.
"Perhaps, but I doubt it. There's something missing here. Something... important." Suddenly his eyes shot wide open. "Derpy, how did the changelings react when you destroyed the transmitter?"
"I dunno. They swarmed the place all at once. They were all shrieking really loud and seemed really mad. Why?"
The Doctor facehooved. "Remember what the Master said earlier? About the 'fun' uses of a changeling army? We have to get back to Canterlot now!" The Doctor cast a glare at the still dazed Master, who was giggling in his sleep. "I think we may have actually set off the next phase of his plan."
The Doctor frowned as he led the two young mares out of the mansion and looked up at the sky. A small garrison of guard pegasi flew overhead and into the heart of the city. From their current position on the outskirts, all the Doctor and his friends could see was smoke billowing from various places in the distance. "That's no good," the Doctor muttered to himself. "No good at all."
"What is it, Doctor?" Derpy asked in concern. "What's going on?"
"I'll be able to explain better in the TARDIS. Come along you two, and make sure to keep a good firm grip on him, Riser."
Dawn Riser rolled her eyes in irritation. "There is no need to remind me of that, Doctor," she grumbled as the Master stirred in her field.
The three ponies dashed across the street where the blue barn was awaiting them, the Master being dragged along none-too-gently by Dawn Riser. As soon as he had the door open, the Doctor dashed to the console, took just a moment to put on the brainy specs, and pounded on the controls, causing several more monitors than usual to descend from the ceiling. He grumbled incomprehensibly as for the next few moments they showed nothing but static. Finally he turned his back to the console and delivered a hard buck to its side, causing all the monitors to spring to life. Whatever self satisfied boast he was about to say was lost at the images shown.
Canterlot was in chaos. Ponies were running every which way, terrified out of their minds. Soldiers were trying--in vain, for the moment--to keep some semblance of order. Fires were breaking out. And the cause of it all... "Changelings?" Derpy asked incredulously as her eyes widened. "Changelings again?"
"Yes, changelings again," the Doctor replied irritably. "Sent out by the Master who knows when, impersonating who knows who, and doing who knows what. Then the Master's influence is suddenly cut off, and they're disconnected from the hive mind. Of course, getting cut off so suddenly will cause them to panic blindly. Their very existence in the city causes the ponies to panic blindly, and here we go loo de loo."
The Doctor suddenly spun from his position at the console, purposefully strode to the Master, still dangling limply in the air, and delivered two hard smacks to his face, surprising both the mares he was with and jarring the Master awake. The other Time Charger blinked groggily, then grinned as he took in his situation. "Hello, Doctor. You know, I had a dream like this once, only there was more..."
"How many?" the Doctor asked, his glare brooking no lip.
The Master merely grinned with a quirked eyebrow. "I'm sorry. What?" He never was one to oblige.
"How many?" the Doctor repeated, the wrath of the Oncoming Storm beginning to enter his voice.
"Oh, you mean the changelings," the Master replied conversationally. "Oh, I'd say, upwards about three hundred. Replaced the heads of several noble houses, some other well-to-do business and land owners whose resources proved useful, but mostly vagrants and the like. I tell you I was shocked, shocked! at how much poverty actually runs rampart in this city. Right under your dear little Celestia's snout. To hear you talk, I'd have thought Equestria to be some nigh perfect utopia."
The Doctor was aware of Dawn Riser's figurative feathers ruffling at his side due to the Master's subtle dig against Celestia's ruling, and was equally aware of the small gasp Derpy made as the implications of 'replaced' ponies hit her--she always was a smart one. Still, he had to ask. Had to know. "And what happened to those you've 'replaced?'"
And the master gave him that grin. That ever so aggravating, condescending grin that seemed constant no matter the regeneration. "Oh, Doctor. What do you think?"
The Doctor glared at the other Time Charger for a moment even as Dawn Riser's voice caught in her throat, before turning back to his console. He had no further words for the Master at the moment. Derpy cast a concerned look at the brouhaha on the monitors before glancing back at the Doctor. "We should do something. We gotta stop this."
The reply was simple, but surprising. "No."
"No?"
The Doctor nodded. "No. What do you think, Riser? Could this on its own be the Master's endgame?"
Dawn Riser shook her head to clear her thoughts before answering. "I would not know. As I am sure you've already deduced, the last few months are nothing but a haze with small bouts of near lucidity. I would not know his plans even if he told them to me, which I highly doubt."
"You know, it is rude to talk about someone like they're not in the room..." the Master interrupted.
Ignoring him, the Doctor continued. "Yes, I am aware of that, but you are one of the personally selected students of the Princess, and that means, among other things, that you are clever. What does your not-inconsiderable brain tell you?"
Dawn Riser scrunched her face in concentration as she looked over the images on the screens. "No, I do not believe it could be. Horrible as it all is, the Guard is more than capable of routing a group of blind, panicking changelings, in numbers far greater than what the Master has rallied. True recovery after the fact would take some time, but heirs will ascend, businesses will reopen, and life will go on. This seems less the grand stroke of a master plan and more a petty child having a tantrum over losing a game."
"Still in the room." Thud! "Ow!"
"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "On its own this seem almost... anticlimactic. But what if we were to place it alongside everything else he's done since his arrival? What else has he been doing?"
Dawn Riser nodded in thought. "Well, the first thing he did was attempt to impersonate you."
"Yes, and your dear Little Celestia saw right through that act," the Master remarked with a grin. "Makes one wonder about the nature of your 'relationship' with her that she knows you that well."
The Doctor placed a calming hoof on Dawn Riser's shoulder as she bristled at the insinuation. "Ignore him. But good. Very good. Though he failed at his initial goal there, he did plant seeds of doubt, small though they were, for when I did inevitably come calling. What else?"
"Before I was... taken," Dawn Riser continued, "he had gained a bit of a reputation as a rabble rouser. He'd even gained a small following. Nothing too worrying, but a few disenfranchised ponies who thought that the time had come for a change."
"He made all of Canterlot scared," Derpy chimed in.
"Good. What else?"
"He turned me against my Princess and mentor," Dawn said, venom dripping from her voice.
"He launched an attack on the palace to try and get ponies scared of the Princess's power," Derpy said.
"Good, good. What else?"
An sudden recollection dawned in Riser's mind. "He took advantage of the greed of many of the noble houses, promised them power, then betrayed them."
"Hmmm..." A pattern was beginning to emerge. Distrust, greed, fear, paranoia, discontent, and now, blind panic. All these negative emotions, it was as if... "He's manipulating the field," the Doctor muttered with wide eyes.
"He's manipulating the what now?" Derpy asked.
"Equestria's magical field," the Doctor replied. "I know I've already explained it to you before."
Derpy cleared her throat and assumed a lecturing pose, eyes closed and sitting up straight. "Though its exact limits and nature are impossible for science to fully determine, magic is still a fundamental force in the universe. All planets have a magical field as surely as they have a gravitational field. Unicorn magic comes from their direct link to this field, but earth ponies, pegasus ponies, and all other creatures have their own unique ties to it as well. Equestria has an unusually potent one, which makes it kind of rare in the universe."
"Excellent, full marks," the Doctor praised even as Dawn Riser's jaw dropped slightly. "But there's more to Equestria's magical field than mere power. It's also somewhat empathic. The land itself will change in accordance to the overall mindset of its inhabitants."
"You are speaking of the Balance of Harmony," Dawn Riser realized.
"Yes! Just like the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant. Well, y'know, historical inaccuracies notwithstanding. Princess Platinum in particular must roll in her grave every year it runs. She was a lovely pony, you know. Loved Clover the Clever like a sister and could easily have borne the Element of Generosity had she not predated it. It was her court that was..." Derpy smacked him upside the head. "But I'm rambling! Am I rambling? I'm rambling, aren't I? The point is that, due to Equestria's unique magical field, the state of the world itself is directly tied to you ponies, and griffons, and what have you."
Dawn Riser nodded. "Yes, that is one of the principle reasons the Princess preaches friendship, love, and tolerance. The greater the overall harmony of the land, the easier it is for the pegasi to control the weather, the more bountiful the crops are, and the further the dangerous creatures withdraw into the wild places such as the Everfree Forest."
"Which could in theory lead to a true, perfect utopia should perfect harmony ever be reached," interrupted the Doctor. "Only theoretical of course--all ponies are flawed in some degree or other, and Little Tia knows better than to push it. Well, there is that one event in 3025, but she can't really be held accountable for her actions when inflicted by Trekkunen Brain Worms, can she?"
"And disharmony leads to windigos," Derpy said, forestalling another tangent.
"Or worse," the Doctor replied. "The opposite theory is also true. Complete disharmony could in theory destroy the whole planet, though that, too, is purely theoretical. Even Discord himself couldn't... couldn't..." the Doctor's eyes widened as a thought came to him. He cast another glance a the monitors to be absolutely sure, and was met with confirmation. The streets were rife with confusion and chaos. "No. No. N, no. No no no. No."
The Master grinned. "You can practically see the light bulb turn on over his head."
The Doctor ignored his old enemy, just as he ignored the limp from his earlier fight, as he once again began the cacophonous process of piloting the TARDIS. The two mares present had to brace themselves to keep from falling over, but the moment passed after only a few seconds, and the Doctor was out the door almost before the vibrating stopped.
"Doctor? What is..." Derpy began as she followed, though her question died as she saw where they had landed. Standing before her, glistening in the almost inappropriately sunny weather, theatrically posed with a huge smile on his face, was the statue of Discord. And in the center of his chest, throbbing in and out of existence like a heartbeat, was a dull red glow.
The Master, still being dragged along by Dawn Riser cackled. "The roads may be different, but the destination is still the same! Everything goes fffft!"
Derpy strode over to the Doctor, who was muttering seeming nonsense under his breath. Not a good sign, that. "Doctor, there is something we can do to stop this? Right?"
"What?" the Doctor asked, snapped from his reverie. "Yes, yes. Of course there is. There always is. I just... don't know what."
Derpy looked back up at the statue again. No cracks had formed yet, though she heard an ominous chuckle that informed her the time wasn't long yet, and could form only one reply. "Aw, horseapples."
"Language, Derpy," the Doctor admonished absentmindedly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her half-amused, half-aggravated smirk. "What?"
"Pardon me, but what is going on?" Dawn Riser asked.
"Oh, where are my manners?" the Doctor asked sarcastically. "Dawn Riser, meet Discord. Discord, Dawn Riser. One of Celestia's celebrated students, instigator of the Dark Times."
Dawn Riser's eyes widened in shock. "The Dark...?" She couldn't help but be skeptical. "You mean to tell me, that the dread creature that thrust Equestria into centuries of darkness has been sitting here in the Royal Garden all this time?"
The Doctor's eyes were rooted on the statue, his mind obviously elsewhere even as he answered. "Oh yes. I think it was Luna's idea. Always was the more theatrical of the two. And now, thanks to our friend the Master, he's waking up for an encore performance. And six hundred years early to boot."
"Aw, you're too kind," the Master responded.
Derpy cast another glance at the statue. Its "heartbeat" was beginning to speed up. "Isn't his return one of those fixed point thingies that can never ever be changed or else the universe explodes?"
The Doctor nodded. "It's more like a balloon flying around the room making that phphphphph noise, but you get the idea. The Bearers of the Elements must beat him. That's got to happen. Not just for the one fixed point, either, but because he's got a role to fulfill down the line, one that even you wouldn't believe if I told you. Which means we have to stop this return from happening."
"Can't we just, I dunno, gather up the Elements of Harmony?" Derpy asked.
"The Elements of Harmony are nothing more than a collection of prettily carved rocks in the middle of a ruin in the middle of a forest that doesn't even have a frontier town bordering it right now," the Doctor exasperatedly answered. "To say nothing of the fact that we have no clues as to who could possibly serve as Bearers in this timeframe. Do you have any idea how many years of careful watching and subtle maneuvering it took to ensure that Twilight Sparkle and her friends would be in the right place at the right time to become the Bearers? I do. I even lent a hoof a time or two. And it's time we don't have, plain and simple."
"What if the two of you were to just take your ship back to before this all happened and stop it then?" Dawn Riser asked, earning a pair of rather shocked looks from the Doctor and his companion. "Do not look at me like that. Anypony who's read Starswirl's theories on chronomantic magic can tell you are time travelers."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Ah, to be so clever and yet so thick." Dawn Riser glared at him. "Also, Derpy, remind be to be extra careful around Miss Sparkle from now on." Turning his attention back to Dawn riser, he continued, "Starswirl the Bearded was an amazing, one of a kind unicorn, capable of a great many things. But his understanding of temporal mechanics compared to mine is like a foal on her first day of magic kindergarten compared to you, so I suppose your ignorance is understandable. We're already involved in these events. We can't just go back and change it because we know where said events lead. That leads to paradox, which leads to nasty time-eating bat-thingies and the end of everything even faster."
"What if we loaded Discord in the TARDIS and skedaddled two weeks thataway?" Derpy asked. "Figured out something from there?"
"Similar problem. Discord is far too important to the timeline to just remove. Even removing the statue from the gardens could have unpredictable results on history. Besides, without proper preparations, who knows what kind of reaction a being of his caliber could have within the Time Vortex." the Doctor shuddered. "I really would rather not find that out the hard way."
"So what can we do?"
"I don't know, all right? I just need a minute to think."
"I don't know if you've noticed, but we don't exactly have a minute."
"Oh, by all means, keep fighting," the Master interjected smugly. "Keep adding fuel to the fire."
"Shut up," the Doctor snapped.
The Master stuck his tongue out at his adversary. "Make me."
Dawn Riser rolled her eyes. "You are both children."
"Guys guys guys guys!" Derpy's voice flailed almost as much as her forelegs. "We can't do that. It only wakes him up faster!"
"You're right, Derpy," the Doctor said through a sigh. "Absolutely." He then began pacing in front of the statue, muttering under his breath, occasionally stopping to dig his forehooves through is mane. After a moment or two, he threw his head back and released a loud, long-suffering sigh. "All right. All right. Master, you win."
Three pair of eyes stared at him. "What?" three ponies asked in unison.
The Doctor spun around and began stalking toward the Master. "Did I stutter? You win. You got me to paint myself in a corner. No sonic, no time for a brilliant plan, no way to TARDIS my way to victory. So, you win. You finally outmaneuvered me. That's what this whole thing is about, isn't it? Well, fine. Take your victory, just fix this."
The two Time Chargers kept their gaze for a moment before the Master burst out laughing. "You think this was all about you?" he sputtered. "And they say I'm vain. I was dead serious before. This..." he tapped his head, "is going to end. One way or another. Beating you was just icing on the cake."
The Doctor's eyes widened as his flank hit the ground. Derpy cast him a concerned look. "Doctor...?"
The look he sent her way caused her to stop short. It was that look. That remembering-the-Time-War look. "Derpy, I... I'm sorry."
Her eyes widened at the words. "No. No, Doctor. There's something you can do. There's always something you can do."
"What, exactly?" the Doctor asked. "I have nothing, and the universe goes poof in ten seconds."
"Seven," the Master corrected.
The Doctor sighed again, his mind still desperately searching for a way to win. Then came a sudden and unexpected flash of light, blinding him.
With the spots still fading from his vision, the Doctor found himself giggling fitfully, briefly forgetting where he was. "Doctor?" a voice asked from above. He glanced up and saw Derpy looking down at him, hovering in place. There was something wrong with that, but the Doctor wasn't quite sure what.
"Oh, hey Derpy," he managed through a laugh. "How are you doing?"
She scrunched her face up in concern. "Are you okay?"
"Of course! Just a bit of a temporal anomaly. They always put me through a bit of a funny turn. Just give me a second." With a giggle he turned to see the Master, his eyes doing a brilliant impersonation of Derpy's on a bad day. "Oh, look. It's the Master."
A brief moment passed, and the jumbled pieces snapped back together in the Doctor's mind. Suddenly alert again, the Doctor took in his surroundings. The three of them were floating in an anti-gravitational effect. Not magic, he could feel that. It was technology. Very familiar technology. But where was Dawn Riser? He looked around for her and found her lying off on the ground, unconscious and with a trickle of blood tricking from her mane. Not good.
"Doctor, look!" Derpy pointed. "The statue's stopped."
She was right. Discord had in fact stopped showing signs of awakening. What the Doctor could see that Derpy could not was the faint blue energy field surrounding it. "Oooh. Clever. Temporal stasis."
"What's that mean?"
"It means someone's cheating," the Master groused. "That statue is now frozen in this exact moment in time until the one who set the device decides to free it. Probably in six hundred years."
The Doctor was grinning appreciatively. "It's a fast and dirty piece of temporal technology. The Time Chargers haven't used it in generations--it's more of a Time Agency thing. Still, in this case it's brilliant. Wish I'd thought of it."
"As do I," a mysterious voice said from behind the statue. "I was hoping not to reveal my hoof until the game had ended." The trio of ponies looked to see an old unicorn in a black Gallopfreyan robe limp out from behind the statue. The sight of him caused the Doctor to bring a hoof to his head in pain, as it brought forth memories; memories which, due to their rather... complex nature, the Doctor kept safely locked up.
His first life, taking a lovely little stroll down the Royal Canterlot Garden, whisked away to face Daleks alongside his lovely granddaughter Timekeeper. His second life, bending the rules of time just a little to visit his old friend the Brigadier, suddenly taken alongside the old stallion to face monsters and rather painful illusions. His third life, taken while having a nice little drive on ol' Bessie, forced to fight Cyberponies and other mechanical threats with Wordsmith. Just like old times. His fourth life, taking a relaxing day off with Romana, whisked away and fallen prey to an old mind-control relic--a rather embarrassing weakness to an otherwise brilliant run. And his then-current fifth life, fading away and close to death due to the removal of his past selves. After all, a pony is the sum of his memories, a Time Charger moreso. The Master was there, but was not the instigator of it all. No, that was the pony standing before him now. Former lord president of Gallopfrey, willing to risk the entire universe because of a petty fear of the inevitable.
The really quite ancient Time Charger glared at his disrespectful old student, the contrast in expression between his flesh eye and stone eye lending him an air that the Doctor calmly noted made him actually quite terrifying. By most ponies' standards at least. "I know I taught you better manners than that, Doctor. You will address me as Lord President Borusa, if you don't mind."
Floating to the Doctor's right, the Master gave a short, but loud and derisive, laugh. "Lord President? Of what, exactly? I mean, I know you've spent the last several centuries as a rock, but even you must be aware of the fact that Gallopfrey no longer exists."
"He has a point," replied the Doctor, even as Borusa's scowl deepened. "And even had that not been the case, you lost your title long ago."
"Yes," Borsusa responded dryly, "and it was given to you. What did you do with it, hm? As I recall, you just shunted off your responsibilities to someone else and went running in the opposite direction. For all the things you've done and all your supposed fearlessness, actual responsibility always seems to make you a coward."
The Doctor scoffed. "You're hardly one to talk to me about responsibility, Borusa." He chuckled as a memory came to him. "And, well, honestly the Time Chargers really should have known better than to even try after the first time I was appointed. Now that was quite a weekend."
"Hmm," the older Charger responded, less than impressed. "All those centuries and five regenerations and you haven't changed at all, have you?" He turned his attention to the Master. "And young Koschei, as always, falling short of your true potential."
"My name is the Master," was the affronted reply. "And I for one call foul. You can't just show up and... and Deux Ex Machina my plans away. For one thing, that's his job." He pointed a hoof at the Doctor.
"I see you've developed something of a sense of humor in this regeneration. A poor sense of humor, but humor nonetheless."
The Master grinned. It was a grin without much levity. "What, you think I was joking? I'm dead serious." A menacing scowl formed on his face and the next words were like ice. "The only being in the entire universe from whom I would ever accept defeat is the Doctor."
Derpy, who has hanging upside down above the Doctor and a bit to his left whispered in his ear. "Is it me or is this thing between the two of you getting kinda weird?" The Doctor shushed her, though a smirk formed on his face.
"So. Borusa," he interjected, chuckling inwardly at the subtle twitch in his old teacher's hackles at the lack of title. "Is it safe to assume that your being here means that you're the cause of, well, all of this?" At the Master's curious look he added, "Well I was looking for something when I found you, wasn't I?"
Borusa smirked. It was a small smirk, subtle. Not like the Master's grandiose displays of superiority, but born of the same thought process. "As you would say, Doctor, 'Oh, yes.' In all honesty, I was hoping the two of you would keep each other busy until I was well and truly prepared to play my hoof, but when you came within seconds of destroying all of reality...!" He took a calming breath here. "Obviously I had to intervene."
The Doctor nodded. It all made sense, pieces falling together he hadn't even noticed were there. He was one of the very few Time Chargers who actually had a love of his planet's own history--and that of its technology, as his choice of a Type 40 TARDIS proved. Yet the telepad used at the beginning of this whole mess was outdated--he had mentioned it himself, though his own preferences kept him from even dwelling on it. Type 7's hadn't been in general use since, well, the Doctor's fifth incarnation. Then there was the surprisingly in depth yet outdated knowledge of the Master's M.O. And, really, when the Doctor thought about it, the game itself was just a cruder version of the last one, just with fewer pieces and simpler rules. Borusa had even supplied the same enemy to fight.
"Still trying for immortality, then?" the Doctor asked, then added, pointing at the stone deformity on his old teacher's face, "Even with that lovely little reminder on how the search for it is and always will be folly? And really, even if you were successful, I've only ever met two beings in all of creation who've been able to handle the pressure, and both of them have had some fairly impressive freak outs, actually. Wait, how did you get free, anyhow?"
Borusa chuckled humorlessly. "My escape is a repercussion of the Time War." The Doctor rolled his eyes. Of course it was. It seemed that these days everything could be traced back to that bloody conflict. "When Rasstallion decided to 'resurrect' himself and join in the fray, he didn't put terribly much focus on his tomb. Not that it mattered overly much, most of those I was trapped with had long gone mad. But I, I still had strength of mind and will enough to--with the help of the constantly shifting temporal landscape--escape my fate." Resignedly tapping a hoof to his half petrified face he amended, "Mostly."
The Doctor nodded subtly, his expression unimpressed. "So, now that you've gotten our disaster fixed and have us at your mercy, what d'you plan to do?"
"If you were half as smart as you think you are," the Master said, "you'd just kill us now."
"Kill you?" Borusa asked. "Why would I want to kill you? We're the last. I would really prefer to keep as much of our culture alive as possible. Even the two of you." He began pacing, like a professor narrating for a class. "But I can't just let you free to roam either, as this near miss has demonstrated. So, I'm just going to have to make sure you go where I want you to. Fortunately, I know exactly how."
His horn lit up with a pale white light, almost sickly, and Derpy was pulled from the anti gravity field with a yelp. "Derpy!" the Doctor called out.
Borusa grinned, but Derpy simply glared at him. "You're making a mistake," she said. "Same one a lotta bad guys make. They all think I'm some weakness for the Doctor. They think kidnapping me is gonna somehow stop him. They're wrong. You're wrong. All messing with me is gonna do is make him mad."
"She's absolutely right," the Doctor replied. "You take Derpy, you do anything to her, and nothing in the entire universe will stop me from finding you."
"I am counting on it," Borusa replied.
The Master smirked as he casually rested his forehooves behind his head. "Good. Great. Wonderful. But what about me, eh? You may have the Doctor completely pegged, but you've no carrot to tempt me with."
"Haven't I?" Borusa asked. "Not even the promise of immortality?"
"You mean like the immortality you won before?" the Master asked mockingly. "I'll pass. Besides, once you've experienced death a time or two, the fear of it tends to diminish. What else do you have?"
"More than you may suppose," was the reply. Borusa tapped out a quick four beat cadence, multiple times with a brief pause between repetitions. The Master's eyes widened. "I was Lord President for a good many years. That makes me privy to quite a lot of sensitive information. Perhaps I may know something of interest even to you."
"Oooooh. Low blow," the Master muttered under his breath.
"Now then, I think it's time I took my leave. I trust the two of you to follow shortly."
Derpy waved a foreleg at the Doctor, one of her almost absurdly bubbly smiles in place. "Don't be late Doctor. I wanna see you kick this jerk's flank real quick." To most ponies, she seemed her usual, happy, hyper, slightly dim on first glance self. But the Doctor could see it. There was fear there. And, well, that made things so very, very simple.
Borusa, who seemingly didn't notice the sudden tight line the Doctor's mouth was currently making, pulled up the sleeve on his robes, revealing a bracelet with several controls on it, and with a few button presses he and Derpy vanished and the Doctor and Master were unceremoniously dropped to the ground.
The Doctor immediately threw on his teleport stuff specs and whistled. "Ooh, that's good. That's very good. There's almost more stuff here than I know what to do with. Which makes sense when I think on it, he wants us to follow." He quickly withdrew one of his many homemade devices from an inner pocket of his coat and began taking readings. It wasn't as accurate or speedy as the sonic, but with a trail this bright, this obvious, it really didn't matter.
"You do realize you're gearing up to head directly into a trap, right?" the Master asked conversationally.
"Well, yes. Of course. It's obvious, isn't it?" the Doctor replied as he turned a dial made from a soda bottle top. "But Bourusa's got Derpy, so I'm going to get her back. You know how it works."
The Master shrugged. "Of course. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of what we were getting ourselves into."
The Doctor stopped short, then began to laugh. "Oh hohoho no. There is no us here, Master. You aren't setting hoof in my TARDIS."
"What, don't you trust me?"
"About as far as I can buck you."
The Master sighed, a smile on his face. "Ah, the imagery you put in my head, Doctor. But really, you can't expect to leave me here?"
"And why not?" the Doctor asked, as he tapped out a few more adjustments on his gizmo.
"Well, first of all, would any of the prisons here be able to hold you?"
The Doctor snorted. "No, obviously not. Not in a million..." He stopped, one eyebrow raised. "Touche."
Any further arguing was forestalled by a groan. The Doctor facehooved. In all the excitement he forgot about Dawn Riser. "Here, finish up," he instructed as he tossed the instrument into the Master's hooves.
The Doctor was at her side instantly, checking on the injury to her head. It was one of those head wounds that liked to bleed a lot, but didn't seem overly serious. Though she was knocked unconscious by the blow. That had to count for something. "What... what hit me?" the dazed unicorn asked.
"Well, I'm not one hundred percent sure on the what," the Doctor responded, "as we were temporally displaced for a moment, but I can say for a fact that I know who."
Dawn Riser blearily looked around, noticing that everything seemed remarkably... normal. "Discord?" she asked.
"Safely taken care of. Which is the good news. I think we're safe to take you back to Little Tia, where you can get that head wound looked at properly and you can give her my regards. Also good news."
Dawn Riser noticed something missing. "Miss Derpy?"
"Ah, well, that's the bad news. It's why you're going to give Little Tia my regards rather than me doing so myself. I still have one final trip to make."
The Doctor helped an unsteady Dawn Riser to her hooves. "What is it exactly that happened to Miss Derpy?" she asked in concern.
The Doctor tried to put on his sincerest expression, fully aware of how unconvincing it was. "Oh, well, nothing really. Nothing for you to get your tail in a knot about. Just a mild case of abduction is all. Nothing I can't take care of. Happens often enough. Don't worry."
"Abduction!?" Dawn Riser exclaimed. "Who abducted her? When? How?"
"Now don't you fret about that. I'll save her, you can be sure of it. That's my role in this whole mess. What you need to do is get back to Little Celestia and begin rebuilding Canterlot. That's your role."
Dawn Riser cast the Doctor a concerned look. "But I owe her much. I am a unicorn, I could be of use in rescuing her. Please..."
"Tch," the Master scoffed. "He's politely trying to tell you that this is a Time Charger problem. So stay here like a good little girl and let us take care of this. Oh, I finished your data collecting. Good job Borusa wants to be found. How did you get along with such primitive technology?"
Dawn glared at the Master. "YOU!" Her horn lit up as she prepared a most unpleasant spell.
The Doctor tapped a forehoof on her shoulder. "Hold, a moment." He turn his attention to the Master. "Us again, Master? I don't remember inviting you along. And I had a sonic screwdriver once, remember?" He grabbed his scanner out of the Master's hoof. "Give me that!"
The Master looked rather affronted. "You're backing out on me? But you said..."
"I agreed I couldn't keep you here. That's a long way from trusting you enough to take you with me."
"You're not the only one who has issues with the old workhorse!" the Master shouted. "He used me just as much as he did you last time if you'll recall. And besides he has something... I want."
The Doctor locked eyes with the Master, and a tense couple of seconds passed. "Can I trust you until we reach him?"
The Master smirked. "Absolutely."
"And after?"
"Oh, well, business as usual, of course."
One corner of the Doctor's mouth turned upward. "Of course." His expression turned cold as he added, "But you do realize that if you do anything out of the ordinary, touch any controls, if you so much as change the temperature on the thermostat, then I will throw you into the Time Vortex."
The Master chuckled, then backpedaled upon seeing the stern look the Doctor sent his way. "Oh, this is you being serious, isn't it? Okay, fine. All things considered I suppose it's fair enough."
"I do not believe this!" Dawn Riser cried, her usual subtle arrogance replaced with an almost childlike whine. "You are going to take him yet you wish to leave me behind?"
"Don't feel too bad," the Master said in a mock consoling manner as he draped a foreleg around the Doctor's shoulders. "You couldn't begin to understand the history we two share."
"Stop that!" the Doctor snapped as he pushed the other Time Charger away. Turning his attention to Dawn Riser, he attempted consolation. "Look, the Master has made one solid point. This is rather personal, for the both of us. There is a history there, and though I hate to admit it, he has a right to face it. As for as not taking you, well I'm afraid the risk is too great."
"What? Because of the danger? I can handle it, as I am sure you are aware."
"Oh I have no doubts about your competency, but just believe me when I say it's just too dangerous." At her silent glare the Doctor sighed. "But of course you won't leave it at that, will you? You're too clever. You just have to know exactly what the risk is."
He tapped his chin with a hoof. "Okay. Okay. You already pieced together that we're time travelers. Well, there's a certain responsibility that comes with that. Certain rules, to keep reality from breaking completely apart. You almost witnessed what could happen when a few of the really major ones get broken." He glared at the Master here, who simply grinned. "Now, I've always been something of a renegade. I've bent and broken almost all the Laws of Time at least once. But there are a few that I'll only bend in dire straights and even I will never break outright."
"What does that have to do with me?" Dawn Riser huffed.
"Why don't you stay silent for just a moment and let him explain?" the Master snapped. "He's already being remarkably patient with your dullheadedness." He turned to the Doctor. "I just don't understand what you see in these Equestrians."
Ignoring both the Master's intolerance and Dawn Riser's scowl, the Doctor pressed forward. "One of those rules that I rarely if ever break--well, at least not anymore, that one I had to learn from experience. Anyway, the rule is this: 'never remove a pony who's overly entrenched in history from the timeline--especially on a trip that has a very real risk of death.'"
Dawn Riser rolled her eyes. "And...?"
Now is was the Doctor's turn to roll his eyes. "Okay, now you're just being purposefully thick. I mean, look at what you've already done. You're the personal student of Princess Celestia herself, one of her most trusted Royal Aides, fifth most powerful unicorn in history forwards and backwards, and--perhaps most important of all--Little Tia's best friend, at least for this generation. And you're barely in your twenties. You of all ponies know of your own potential, don't you? What would happen should we take you along and something should happen, eh? All that history, all that good. Gone."
"That is assuming that I die," Dawn Riser stubbornly insisted.
The Doctor sighed. "Yes, that is assuming you die. But that is not a risk I'm willing to take. Especially since, well, Little Celestia would kill me."
Dawn Riser continued her glare for just a moment before she conceded with a chuckle. "Very well. But let me at least do something for you first." With that she closed her eyes and her horn lit up. The Doctor felt the familiar feeling of magic sending prickles throughout his body, stopping at points where he'd been injured to speed up the healing process. The Doctor obligingly stood still and let the spell work its magic. As the magic crept through his chest, she opened her eyes in surprise. "Two hearts?" she asked.
The Doctor grinned. "A never ending bag of surprises, I am."
Dawn Riser shook her head and continued with the check up. A few moments later, Dawn Riser was done, and the Doctor felt good as new. Well, almost as good as new. Well, at least the limp was gone. After all, no magic could fully replace true natural healing. Still, he felt much improved.
"What, no healing spell for me?" the Master asked.
The Doctor smirked. "Do you really want me to leave you in her care?"
"Hmm. I guess not."
The Doctor turned to open the TARDIS doors and called over his shoulders. "What say we skip over the guards and drop you off right at the throne room, eh?"
Dawn Riser smiled. "I think I would like that."
~DrW~
The Doctor smiled as he watched the scene on the main monitor. Dawn Riser froze not two steps out the TARDIS, obviously not sure what to say. What could a pony say after months of working with the enemy? Sorry, I was mind controlled? Celestia herself was sitting on her throne, and she was regarding her newly arrived student with that face she often pulled. That face that, to most ponies, looked completely serene but in actuality was a masterful facade hiding her own worries.
The two ponies took a few tentative steps toward each other before Celestia quickly closed up the distance and had her young student enveloped in her wings--a hug the Doctor knew was usually reserved only for her long-missing sister. When she looked up at the TARDIS expectantly, the Doctor shook his head. "Maybe next time, Little Tia," he murmured before he launched into piloting mode. "Come on, Old Girl. We have a companion to save. Yes, again. Do you have the trail? Excellent. Let's go, then."
The Master, who had planted himself on the armchair in a show of compliance grunted in disgust even as the room shook. "You still talk to your TARDIS? Honestly, you're like a child."
"See, that right there is one of the reasons I'll never let you touch her," the Doctor replied as he continued pounding on the controls.
The Master simply harrumphed and watched as the Doctor did his thing. Despite the Doctor's wholly unorthodox piloting--even considering the wholly unorthodox ship--the Master was well able to keep his balance as he watched in interest. As the minutes passed--that itself a rarity in a TARDIS jump, those usually took less than one--the shaking and rattling and overall racket intensified. And still the Master sat firm, though a hard line formed on his face as he continued to read the output on the screen. He would have to step in, and soon. Still, the Master knew his old enemy--or was it friend? He honestly didn't even know from one minute to the next--well enough to know that he had to wait for just the right moment in order to avoid too much pointless arguing.
The moment came shortly when a particularly violent tremor sent the Master sprawling to the floor. "All right. That does it. I can read the writing on the wall just as well as you can. I know what we're heading into, and I know that if you want to survive, you'll need help piloting this ruddy piece of junk."
Even as the Doctor performed quite the feat of contortion to hold down a pair of switches he managed a stern glare at his peer. "Not happening, Master. You know that."
"Look here. I know you don't want me touching your precious 'old girl' for fear of sabotage. And frankly, I don't blame you a bit on that, but let me tell you, I don't want my atoms to be spread all throughout spacetime, either, and that's exactly what will happen if you don't let me help you!"
The Doctor had a retort almost out his mouth when he suddenly turned back to the central spire. "What!? Are you mad, woman? Yes, I know he's got a bloody point, but... Oh don't you start that with me, I get enough of that from Derpy." The Doctor sighed. "Fine, fine. You're the boss." He cast his most serious glare at the Master. "No funny business."
The Master grinned as he took his place directly across from the Doctor. "Well, you know me..."
"None," the Doctor reiterated.
The Master put on a childish pout. "Aw, you're no fun anymore."
And so the two Time Chargers, ancient survivors of the planet Gallopfrey, began piloting the even more ancient type 40 TARDIS. To any who might have looked upon it, it could have been a dance. The two ponies never stayed in one spot for more than a second, leaping around the console, smashing buttons, pulling levers, hammering nonsensical tools. And yet, with no communication between them, they always were on opposite sides of the machine, never in each other's way, never tripping over the other's hooves. Perfectly synchronized. The Doctor almost didn't realize that laughter was erupting from his mouth, laughter mirrored by the mad pony across from him. And for a moment, for a brief shining moment, they were not ancient enemies with centuries of battle behind them. They were young schoolfoals on Gallopfrey, looking for adventure and causing new grey hairs in Professor Borusa's mane. The moment was but fleeting, as such moments are, and as soon as it arrived the moment ended.
All was still for a brief moment before the Doctor spoke up. "Well, I suppose we've arrived."
The Master shuddered. "D'you feel that?"
"That creepy crawly tingly feeling that makes you want to jump out of your own skin?"
"Yeah, that."
"No, not at all." At the Master's glare, the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Of course I feel it."
The Master hopped from one hoof to the other. "How close to the Void are we anyway?"
"It's always difficult to tell precisely, but it can easily be measured in miles and in minutes," the Doctor responded. "Really, quite a genius hiding place, right at the very edge of the universe. No one would think to look for him here."
The Master harrumphed. "Because nobody would be mad enough to, and I'm plenty aware of the irony of that statement so you can take that fool smile elsewhere."
The Doctor coughed into his hoof. "Right. Well then, we'd best be off, I suppose." As he turned away from the console to leave, it beeped at him, grabbing his attention. The Doctor turned to see a metal cylinder pop out of an opening in the main board. "A new sonic? Oooh, you always did know just what to get me." When he pulled the new tool from the console, he was surprised to note that it seemed a bit larger than his last one, the now green emitter held in the middle of a three pronged claw. "Have you been toggling the personal settings again?" he asked.
The Master cleared his throat in annoyance. "Oh do shut up and let's get this over with." He pulled the door open, but with a sudden embarrassingly high shriek, he slammed it shut almost instantly.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow quizzically. That was... unexpected. "What was that all about?" he asked.
The Master's eyes were glazed over, and a cold sweat had begun to bead on his forehead. "You should take a look for yourself."
Confused, the Doctor punched a few buttons and turned the monitor on. He paled at the image that appeared on the screen. They were surrounded by... but no. That was impossible. To the inexperienced, they didn't appear all that frightening. More than one of his companions called them giant pepperpots before learning of how terrifying they actually were. See, they had no real sense of aesthetics, but the forms were near perfect killing machines. "Daleks," the Doctor managed to get out.
"Borusa led us into a Dalek trap," the Master said.
"No. No, I don't buy that," the Doctor argued. "Whatever else he may have become, he's still a Time Charger. And even during the Game of Rasstallion, where he brought in a full regiment of Cyberponies, he only risked bringing in one Dalek."
"Well how the bloody hell do you explain it?"
The Doctor didn't answer. He was busy examining the screen. Now that the initial shock was wearing off, there was something strange about the image before him. Ah, there it was. The Doctor resolutely marched over to the door and threw it open, and he managed not to cringe at the orb he found himself face to eyestalk with.
And there was silence.
Not a single 'exterminate,' not a single blaster shot. Just silence. "What's going on?" the Master asked.
In answer, the Doctor pointed his new sonic screwdriver at the Dalek shell in front of him. It opened easily, and inside where the horrid little blob was supposed to be was empty. Just a rather unpleasant stain where it had once been. "Well now, it looks to me like we've landed in a Dalek ghost ship," he explained.
The Master's expression was quizzical. "A ghost ship?"
The Doctor stepped out into the morgue like room, making sweeps with his screwdriver just in case there was the odd survivor. "Makes sense, doesn't it? Borusa could only have survived the Time War by escaping it unnoticed. The best way to do that would have been to repair and commandeer a ship that had been shot down, and we took out a lot of Dalek ships around the Death Zone."
That said, he put the sonic in his mouth and went further into the room. This wasn't the main bridge. There were a number of terminals along the walls and, if the Doctor recognized the markings on the Dalek shells correctly, these were engineers. Slowly picking his way around the Dalek shells, his screwdriver pointing every which way, just in case, the Doctor made his way to the nearest terminal. Of course, it wasn't designed for pony use, but that was what the sonic was for.
It only took a couple of tries to find what he was looking for. It was a map of the ship, overlaid over a visual of the currently active power flow. As he suspected, he was in an old engineer station, and most of the power was being sent to the main bridge. Made sense, that. The Doctor glanced to his side, to see that the Master was there, his face completely neutral. "This is our target," the Doctor instructed, "right here. The main bridge, as you'd expect. This is the route we need to take. Memorize it--Dalek computers don't do printouts."
"Naturally," the Master responded, a touch of forced arrogance to his voice.
The Doctor simply nodded, shut off the computer, and led the way toward the exit. It was strange, the quiet that permeated between the two Time Chargers. There was never silence between the two. Especially during rare moments like this one, where they were forced temporarily to work together. Where there should have been a near endless stream of irritated arguing and veiled insults, existed a silence that was almost as loud as a gunshot.
The Doctor himself found it difficult not to jump in fright at the least unexpected sound, something which irritated him to no end. There was a time when the Daleks were nothing more to you than another set of monsters to stop, a small corner of his mind chided. Oh, they were always dangerous, and you always hated what they stood for, but if anything you always welcomed the challenge they presented. That was true enough, the Doctor conceded as he snapped his head around to make sure he didn't actually see one of the shells move. But for both himself and the Master, the Time War changed all of that.
The Time War changed a lot of things.
They passed an observation port, outside of which was a nothingness far deeper than the mere emptiness of space. The Dimensional Void, the very edge of the universe itself, both spatially and chronologically. Being this close to it, this close to the edge of-of everything, well, it certainly wasn't helping either of their moods. The sooner this adventure wrapped up the better.
The journey to the main bridge passed without incident. There weren't even all that many Dalek shells in the main hallways. Even so, the Time Chargers' diligence never wavered. Neither one of them completely trusted that the Daleks were all dead and gone, despite the increasing evidence. As such, when the final door opened, and the Doctor saw Discord casually leaning against the inside of a containment field surrounded by a rather large amount of high tech computers and equipment, he actually sighed with relief.
When the Master saw him, his eyes widened slightly in disbelief. "He's what you were looking for?" Then his expression turned shrewd. "That actually explains a great many things."
"Doesn't it?" the Doctor remarked as he entered the room.
"Ah, hello there little ponies," Discord said in that deceptively friendly tone of his. "Welcome to my humble and very temporary abode." He looked over the Doctor with penetrating red eyes. "You must be the Doctor my ever-so-gracious host can't seem to shut up about. I must say, I was expecting something... a bit more impressive."
The Doctor harrumphed. "I could say much the same thing, Discord. You've certainly seen better days."
"I would be a liar if I were to deny it," replied Discord. "Which, granted I am anyway. Still, given my current, ah, situation, I think some degree of honesty might prove somewhat advantageous."
"Likes to hear himself talk, this one," the Master remarked.
The Doctor smirked. "Pot, meet kettle. Not that I can talk. We all have a bit of a gob here." he turned his attention to the captured draconnequis. "I'm actually looking for a friend of mine. Don't suppose you've seen her? Grey pegasus, wingdingy eyes. Very bubbly."
"Oh, her? She's over there." Discord pointed a talon over his shoulder, where a conical piece of hardware, roughly half again as tall as the average pony, sat. The Doctor was there instantly.
"Derpy? Derpy, you hear me?" he called. A pair of maladjusted golden eyes appeared from the other side of a small rectangular opening in the cage.
"Hi, Doctor. Glad you could make it."
The Time Charger laughed. "Oh, are those googly eyes a sight for sore ones. Don't worry, I'll have you out in a jiffy." He trained his screwdriver on the locking mechanism and frowned. "Okay, maybe a little more than a jiffy. This lock is emitting a counter pulse. Difficult to circumvent but not impossible. Seems a bit overkill, though."
"Well I did sorta kinda maybe possibly buck that jerk Borusa in the face. Twice."
"Yes," Discord interjected. "It was the most entertainment I've had since I've arrived here."
The Doctor chuckled. "That's my girl."
"Yes, yes, ha ha," the Master put forth. "This is all so very funny and touching and whatever, but aren't you the least bit concerned that Borusa hasn't shown up yet?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I'm sure he's just waiting for the opportune moment to make his grand entrance. One thing at a time."
The Master sighed in frustration, but conceded that there really wasn't much to do but wait. So he began studying the field that held Discord. He whistled. "This is quite an anti-magic field. One of most powerful ones I've ever seen. Certainly not Time Charger technology."
The Doctor nodded as even as another tumbler fell into place. "Probably Dalek tech that Borusa modified. They can't use magic, so naturally they've spent a good deal of time and effort devising ways to counter it." Finally the lock disengaged and one side of the cage split open like a walnut, allowing Derpy to escape. No sooner had that happened than a blue dome of energy formed around the cage an the immediate area around it, trapping both ponies within.
"What...?" the Master started to say before being taken by an instant sensation of vertigo. When it passed, he saw he was suddenly inside the force dome along with the Doctor and his companion. They all turned to see Borusa limping out of the shadows, his horn smoking and his breathing coming out in ragged gasps.
"I had forgotten how difficult teleportation magic is," the old Time Charger managed to get out.
"I told you,' the Master grumbled. "Did I not tell you? I told you."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. You were right I was wrong. Now please stop being such a foal about it." Turning his attention to Borusa he asked. "So, what do you plan to do with us now, eh?"
"Nothing just yet," Borusa responded. "I was quite serious when I said I'd prefer to keep the last remnants of the Time Charger race alive. For now, I'll be satisfied with you witnessing my ultimate triumph.
With that, Borusa put on the Circlet of Rasstallion, wires still connecting it to his equipment, and he flipped a number of switches. As he did, Discord cried out in pain, visible currents of energy surging through him. Borusa himself grimaced as he continued to work his controls. After a moment, the current stopped surging through Discord, and transferred to the Time Charger, causing the stone on his face to visibly crack. With one final pull of a lever, Borusa flung his head backward and, with the stone shattering off his face, his eyes flew open.
They were glowing with a golden light.
"Doctor?" Derpy said in concern. "That's what you looked like back when... when you..."
"I know," the Doctor replied. "He's regenerating."
The three captives threw their hooves in front of their faces as their captor was suddenly lost in a sea of golden energy.
When the light of regeneration died down and the Doctor lowered his foreleg, he sighed and turned to Derpy. "It's going to be one of those days, isn't it?"
"Looks like it," Derpy responded cheerfully.
The Master rolled his eyes. "Of course..."
Borusa opened his eyes. He felt... good. Powerful. Tall? He glanced around. He was indeed several hooves taller than before. He took a deep breath. Younger too. Younger than he'd been in centuries. He closed his good eye, and grinned as he could see clearly out the other one, especially as a strand of golden hair drifted past his field of view. He ran a hoof through his now full mane and laughed. Time to take a look over himself. His new size meant that he ripped his way out of his robes, leaving his sundial cutie mark plenty visible. And... were those... wings?
He spread the wings and gave them a few experimental flaps. "Well, this is new," he muttered.
Borusa took a look at his reflection in a particularly polished piece of equipment. His horn was in fact still there, and had gained several inches in length, and he now had a long, gold mane and tail to go with his white coat. He laughed. "I can't believe it. An alicorn." He turned to his captives triumphantly. "Not even Rasstallion himself could claim that."
The Doctor was rather unimpressed. "Yes, yes. Very impressive. Though, I should mention I take tea with a natural born alicorn goddess, and she's considerably more impressive. So, now what?"
"Pardon?" Borusa asked.
"It's just that, you've finally won. You've gotten what you wanted and cheated your way into immortality. Congratulations on that--even I'll admit that was actually rather clever--and you've got the two of us right where you want us. So, now what? What comes next?"
Borusa looked at the Doctor with confusion in his eyes. "Next...?"
The Doctor's expression was a small smirk that still managed to convey almost obscene arrogance as he casually twirled his screwdriver around his hoof. "What is it, Borusa? So focused on the goal you don't know what to do once you've attained it?"
The arrogance in Borusa's expression was colder, almost terrifying. "No, it's just that I thought it was blindingly obvious. Now we get to undo your grand failure, Doctor."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Now we get to bring the Time Chargers back."
The Doctor dropped his sonic screwdriver and his eyes widened. "No," he said. It wasn't a quiet no, or terribly desperate. Just a simple, to the point, no. But both the Master and Borusa blinked in surprise at the intensity behind it.
"I'm sorry, what?" Borusa repeated in confusion.
"I believe I said 'no.'" the Doctor replied, that icy tone still in his voice.
"I don't understand," Borusa confessed. "Don't you want to undo your greatest mistake?"
The Doctor began to laugh. It was a hollow, humorless laugh that caused both Derpy and the Master to take a step away. "My mistake? My mistake? Tell me Borusa, what do you know of the Time War?"
"I know enough."
"No! No you don't. Because you ran. Both of you did. But I stayed on the front lines 'till the end. I was there when the Nightmare Child destroyed Davros's flagship. I was there as the dead were returned to life again and again and again, stretching the fabric of space-time to the breaking point. I was there when Rasstallion ordered..." The Doctor sighed here. "Think for a second. You know me. In the years since the Time War, I've lost days of sleep at a time because of the guilt. I've found myself devising plans to bring them back several times. Plans that could work. Plans I could make work. But I can never put then into practice. Do you know why?"
Borusa snorted. "I assume it's because you're a coward."
"Hey!" Derpy shouted indignantly, as she glared at Borusa.
The Doctor held up a hoof to silence her. "Granted," he conceded. "But have you ever known me to accept a horrific draw like that, let alone cause it? The war reached the point that neither side could win, or else everything would suffer. Useless though I'm sure it is, I implore you to just believe me. The Time Chargers can not come back."
Borusa kept his gaze locked with the Doctor's for a moment before turning his attention to the Master. "And do you follow his reasoning?"
The Master shrugged his forelegs. "What do I care? They never did anything for me. I came here for answers."
Borusa grinned. "Ah, yes. The truth about your 'drums,' was it? Yes, it's something we had been looking into at the Counsel for centuries. I mean, what was it that caused one of our most brilliant members to go mad? And the answer is simple. You're just mad, plain and simple."
Derpy could almost swear that she literally felt the temperature drop a few degrees at that statement. "You're lying. Or wrong," the Master said, dangerously calm.
Borusa shrugged with a neutral expression on his face. "I seriously doubt it. Tell me, when did you first start hearing these supposed drums? According to all our research it started when you looked into the Time Vortex as a child, yes?" The Master's silent glare was all the answer he needed. "You know our history as well as anyone, Ko--ahem--Master. That ceremony has long been a turning point in every Time Charger's life. It's how we receive our cutie marks, after all. Even the Doctor's maverick tendencies can be traced back to it." The Doctor harrumphed. "It's very clear that you are one of the very few who simply went mad."
Even as the the Master's scowl deepened, the Doctor's settled into understated smugness. Derpy, catching the sudden change in his demeanor, quickly picked up and hoofed him his sonic screwdriver, a large smile forming on her face. This was going to be good.
"I have to say, Borusa, I'm not sure if it's the regeneration trauma, old age, of if you really are that thick, but that was incredibly stupid." At the blank look on his opponent's face, he laughed. "I mean, stop and think for a minute. I came here to recover Derpy, and here she is at my side. Right where she belongs. Isn't that right, you?"
Derpy's smile widened. "Exactly!" she responded.
"And the Master," continued the Doctor, "he came here looking for answers. Which you gave, such as they were. D'you realize what that means?" His face twisted into a sneer. "You've got nothing to hold over us." He turned to the Master. "Care to continue our truce just a little bit longer?"
A small grin formed on the Master's face. "Oh, that goes without saying."
The Doctor nodded in satisfaction as he began fiddling with the sonic. "Now, I am under no illusions that you haven't taken the sonic into account when you built this little force field cage of yours, but I wonder... did you take into account my current model? How long ago did you last see me use one, exactly? I mean, you know both me and the Master very well, but your knowledge is more than a little... outdated."
With a grin he turned to the Master. "Did you know he framed you with the Tissue Compression Eliminator?"
The Master had to chuckle. "What, that old thing?"
Turning his attention back to Borusa, who was watching the entire exchange silently, the Doctor continued. "Now me, I'd actually stopped using the sonic for quite some time when we last met. I was in the early years of my hoof-free period at the time. Still, I'd bet you'd plan for the possibility that I'd go back to it eventually--probably even took into account that I'd do some tinkering on it. But, seriously, do you even know which model I'm on by this point? Doubtful. Even I stopped keeping track. There's no way you could know about the power and features I've added over the years. And this one," he held up the sonic. "This one is a gift from my Old Girl. Even I don't know all it can do. Shall we test it?"
With quite possibly his most insufferable smirk yet, the Doctor pointed his sonic straight up and, with a quick press of a button, the force field turned off. Instantly, the three that were holed up in it scattered, leaving a confused Borusa in their wake. "What...?" he asked.
From behind a console the Doctor laughed. "You really are thick, aren't you? I told you exactly what was going to happen, and you just let it." He pried the covering from the back of the console and began fiddling. He smirked to himself as he heard the an automatic sentry gun fire and the distinct sound of a defensive shield blocking the shots. Good job, Master, he thought to himself. Let's see if I can do the same.
Borusa shut off his protective shield and fired a blast at the turret, destroying it. No sooner had done so than the air was almost literally sucked from his lungs. With a desperate gasp he leaped backward, the air returning as he did so. Even as he did, he used his magic to shut the offending valve in the ceiling. "That is enough!" he shouted as his horn lit up, and both the Doctor and the Master were pulled out from their hiding places. "Did you really think I couldn't find you? That I wouldn't have memorized all the systems and devices of this room?"
"Well, given your track record..." the Master began before he and the Doctor were thrown against the far wall.
"SILENCE!" Borusa bellowed.
"Take note," the Doctor muttered as he painfully got to his hooves. "This regeneration has a bit of a temper."
"Noted," the Master replied.
"Do you really think you can afford to be so flippant with me?" Borusa asked.
"Honestly, yes," the Doctor replied. "I've faced a great many gods in my time. Good gods, bad gods, wibbly gods--y'know, I think I gave this speech before. Only proves my point, though. And you aren't even the most noteworthy. Don't even rank top five to be honest."
The Doctor didn't even flinch as Borusa picked him up with his magic. "Would you care to elaborate?" the larger pony asked, a faux calmness to his voice.
"Oh, well, if you insist. Just remember you asked," the Doctor agreed amicably. "Are you aware of just how many planets are inhabited by equine races? Billions upon billions. And over ninety nine percent of them include alicorns somewhere in their creation stories--whether factual or allegorical being beside the point, especially since a surprising number of them actually have more than just a kernel of truth to them. Not to mention, most planets have something resembling equality in numbers between the three races. Oh, some discrepancy usually exists, surely, but usually nothing terribly extreme. But us? The Time Chargers? Ninety five point three percent earth pony, and we're lucky if we regenerate into another race once in twelve tries. And Rasstallion and Omega were unicorns. Until now, there has never been an alicorn Time Charger. Have you ever considered that? Of course not, you're a perfect representation of the old ways that made me run in the first place. It's never occurred to you just how magically weak we are. How utterly dependent upon our so-called 'advanced ways' we've become. So you're the first Time Charger alicorn? Good job on that. But let me tell you something. Miss Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville Equestria, though still just a unicorn--and a young and inexperienced one at that--is more powerful than you."
The Doctor smirked as one of Borusa's eyes twitched at the allegation. "You dare...? You compare me to a simple, primitive, planet-locked unicorn?"
The Doctor chuckled. "Compare you? To Twilight Sparkle? Oh, my dear Borusa. I wouldn't dream of it. I respect Miss Sparkle far to much to insult her like that. So go ahead. Do your worst."
The intensified glow of his horn and the look in his eye indicated that Borusa was prepared to do just that.
The Doctor watched impassively as Borusa's horn glowed brighter. Just before the alicorn could release his spell, Derpy, flying at full speed, rammed into his face, causing the spell to disperse and the Doctor to drop. Borusa grabbed instead the aggravating pegasus and pulled her to him. "Stop that!" he shouted in her face. "That's the third time you've bucked me in the face, despite knowledge of how dangerous I am. What is wrong with you!?"
"Nuthin'," Derpy said with a smile, before planting a quick kiss on the end of his snout, causing him to drop her in confusion.
The Doctor laughed even as he charged his foe. "That's right," he crowed as he delivered a vicious buck to Borusa's ribcage. "And don't you dare let anyone tell you otherwise."
With an inarticulate howl of anger, Borusa turned to the Doctor, his horn lighting up again, but Derpy pegged him in the back of the head, dispersing the spell again. As he turned his attention to the wildly flying irritation, he received a kick to the flank, this time courtesy of the Master, who had cottoned on to the other two's simple but effective battle strategy--the idea being to keep Borusa's attention splintered. After all, even the best spell casters needed a certain amount of concentration to work their magic. And Borusa was hardly the universe's best spell caster.
"So what's the plan here?" the Master asked as he delivered yet another buck to Borusa's backside. "Are we just going to beat him unconscious? Hardly seems fitting for stallions of our caliber."
The Doctor landed another buck to Borusa's side, which did succeed in causing the larger pony to stumble, but only barely, and the force of it sent a jolt from this back legs down to his forelegs. "Probably not possible in any event," the Doctor answered. "But it should keep us alive long enough for me to form a plan."
"Oh, well, that's just wonderful then, isn't it?" the Master groused. "I'm so glad I chose your side in all this."
Derpy, who at the moment was riding atop Borusa's shoulders and had her hooves clapped over his eyes, snapped, "If you've got any better ideas we'd love to hear 'em!"
"You know, I've changed my mind," the Master groused. "I've decided I don't much like you." Derpy simply stuck her tongue out at him in response.
"That. Is. ENOUGH!" Borusa shouted as he slashed the air with his wings, scattering the Doctor and the Master. In that brief moment of respite, he magically pried Derpy off his back and, after a brief contemptuous glare, threw her hard into a far wall, where she crumpled to the ground.
"Derpy!" the Doctor cried as he almost made a dash for her.
"Distracted," Borusa muttered, and the Doctor barely saw the flash of light out of the corner of his eye before being blasted by a searing bolt of unicorn magic.
The Doctor cried out in a rather new kind of pain as the blast sent him flying. He bounced off the ground once before skidding to a stop, smoke rising from his trench coat. He groaned and tried to stand, but it was as though every nerve in his body was agitated, making it a futile gesture. He really did hate magic some days.
The Doctor barely heard the "look out!' before being violently slammed into again, this time physically. As he slid along the floor again, the Doctor could only watch in horror as his old friend-slash-enemy the Master was gored by a several hoof long unicorn horn in his place.
"Tch," Borusa huffed as he tossed the limp figure in the Doctor's direction. "That was most unpleasant."
The Doctor, still not recovered from the attack, crawled the few hooves separating him from his old foe. The Master was still alive, but was breathing shallowly, a mask of pain clouding his features. "Why did you do that?" the Doctor asked.
The Master opened one eye to look at his old enemy's concerned face. "Why indeed?" he grunted through clenched teeth. "Didn't think. Just did." He coughed blood here, and when he opened his eye again, he saw tears pooling in the Doctor's.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" the Doctor asked desperately. "Regenerate!"
The Master gave a brief chuckle, that devolved into another painful cough. "Trying," he managed. "Not working." He turned his head a little so he could look at the Doctor with both eyes, a small smile playing on his lips. "My best enemy..." he muttered, as the Doctor watched his eyes go dull. With one last shuddering breath, the Master was gone.
"You blocked his regeneration," the Doctor said simply to Borusa, who was wiping the blood off his horn with a hoofkerchief.
"Of course," Borusa responded, equally simply.
The Doctor didn't ask how. That would have simply insulted both their intelligences. There were ways, and this was a Dalek ship taken from the midst of the Time War, after all. Instead he asked. "And what of not wishing to kill fellow Time Chargers?"
"I honestly did not wish to, and I would still rather not, but I'm no fool. I knew the odds of you two continuing to oppose me, so I took necessary precautions." Here, Borusa saw the Doctor's tear streaked glare. "Oh. You're actually angry, aren't you?" Borusa sighed. "I honestly don't understand the two of you. One minute you're trying to tear each others' hearts out--literally in his case, at times--the next... Have you forgotten the death and destruction he's willingly caused over the centuries? During this very 'adventure,' even?"
"No. I haven't," the Doctor responded, that ever-so-dangerous calm entering into his voice, even as he straightened himself up to a proper sitting position and slid his sonic screwdriver into his hoof from within his sleeve. "And you're right. I am angry. Livid, even." He cast a glance over to Derpy, who had stumbled to her hooves, spread her wings, and gave him a nod. "Funny thing about anger. Sometimes it can blind you, cause you to make mistakes. Other times? It makes everything very, very clear."
His piece said, the Doctor pointed his screwdriver upwards and, a brief buzz later, a panel popped open in the ceiling, and a gray blur snapped him up and disappeared into the opening. Borusa laughed. "After all that bluster, and you're running and hiding?" he mocked.
"Didn't you know?" the Doctor's voice rang out from seemingly all directions at once. "Some of the best predators in the universe are the ones that hide and wait."
"Oh, so I'm your prey then, am I?" Borusa asked with a smirk.
"Something like that," the Doctor responded. "Best part is, I'm going to defeat you the same way as I did last time."
Here Borusa laughed. "Last time? You didn't defeat me last time. I had you beaten, all five of you. The only thing that defeated me was that Rasstallion lied about his prize."
This time it was the Doctor's turn to laugh. "Is that really how you remember it? D'you really think I wouldn't have been able to beat you myself? As you say, there were five of me at the time, three of whom had already beaten Omega himself. I had simply deduced the true meaning behind Rasstallion's little riddle, and, since you wanted it so badly, I decided to let you destroy yourself."
Borusa's expression was one of wry amusement. "Even if I were to believe that version of events, what is there for me to 'destroy myself' on this time?"
"Well, for one thing," the Doctor's voice responded, amusement apparent its tone, "don't you think it's strange that Discord has been so... quiet?"
"Wait, what?"
"Oh, surely you must know. Discord's got a gob that makes me look silent in comparison. Given the oh-so-interesting climactic battle taking place before his very eyes, don't you find it odd that he hasn't been keeping a running commentary going of some sort? Just saying."
Borusa paled as he turned to look at the field where he kept the Chaos Bringer. It was empty. "No," he muttered before rushing to the control console. He was a moment away from shutting the field down before he stopped himself. Rushing into this could have disastrous consequences, after all. Better to take some readings first and...
"Thanks for showing me the right console. Saved me some time."
Borusa turned to see the Doctor standing behind him, a grim purpose in his expression, his sonic pointed in his direction, the emitter bright and blinking. "No!" Borusa cried even as the console began to smoke, and the field turned off. Instantly Borusa was caught up in a raging windstorm of magic. He cried out in surprise and pain as a lion's paw closed around his throat. Borusa could only watch in horror as Discord himself faded into view before him. Borusa's eyes widened even further. The creature who had him in his grip was not the jovial, self centered trickster he'd had imprisoned for all these weeks. He was instead the malevolent creature that had caused pain and despair for generations of his world's local populous. Discord's lip curled upward as his mismatched eyes met with Borusa's own terrified ones. His voice was low and deep and threatening as he spoke but one word.
As suddenly as it was there, the menace vanished from Discord's countenance. He was suddenly all smiles and playfulness as he dragged Borusa along in his magic. "I must admit, I was getting a bit cramped in there," he said as he began to stretch out the kinks in his legs and neck. "It's nice to finally get out and stretch. Funny how things work out i'nnit? You had this big elaborate game set up, and victory was just in your grasp, but a simple invisibility spell, some admittedly uncharacteristic patience, and a little outside distraction was all it took to send the whole board tumbling down."
Turning his attention away from the helpless alicorn in his grip, Discord focused on the brown coated pony before him, who was discussing something with the pegasus he came to rescue. "Bravo, Mister Doctor Pony. I must say, you do put on quite a show. I haven't been that entertained in quite some time."
The Doctor cast a seemingly disinterested look Discord's way as the pegasus flew back into the ducts. "Thanks, I think. I do have my moments."
"Oh-ho! Don't sell yourself short, Doctor," Discord gleefully said. "I mean, that whole 'barely controlled righteous anger' bit alone was almost worth the price of admission. And the way you almost got..." Here he stopped, then turned back to Borusa. "You know, I never did actually learn your name. Oh well. Not important." Turning his attention back to the Doctor, he continued, "The way you got this guy here to almost set me free himself? Pure genius. Poetry, really. Though I do wonder at the wisdom of trading him in for me."
"Yes, well," the Doctor said with a shrug, "I do have some little plan in place for you, actually."
Discord chuckled. "I'm sure you do. Can't wait to see it." He turned his attention back to Borusa, his expression remaining cordial, though his eyes almost literally burned with anger. "In the meantime, what are we to do with you? Oh, wait. I know. Ho ho hohoho. This will be fun."
Discrod snapped his talons, and everything went dark. Borusa found himself bound and blinded and unable to do any magic at all. "What is going on here? How are you...? What...?"
"Boo!" a pair of red an yellow eyes appeared right in Borusa's face, causing the captured Time Charger to shriek in a rather embarrassingly high voice. "Oh, did I scare you?" Discord asked, as he straightened up, revealing that he was now wearing a stark white closed up lab coat. Borusa himself was strapped down on an operating table. "Good. See, you've done something that Dearest Celestia and her little menagerie never have. You made me well and truly angry."
"'But Discord,' I hear you say," he continued, casually pulling on elbow length black rubber gloves, "'they've turned you into stone no fewer than twice. Yet you bear them no ill will at all? Impossible.' Okay, I'll admit they've annoyed me a time or three, but see, that's all just part of the game. I'm the embodiment of chaos, disorder, and madness. Celestia, Woona, and their little followers are all about order, harmony, and sanity. One just can't thrive except at the expense of the other. It's one of those, oh how do you say it, Circle of Life... things. I got taken for granite because they played the game better, that's all. Much as I do hate to admit it. So why should I harbor a grudge?"
Discord turned his gaze back to the rather pathetic looking pony before him. "But you? What am I to you? For that matter what are you to me? All I see is a pathetic little has-been who's day in the sun has long since past who poked and prodded me because he feared the inevitable. And let me tell you, nothing ticks me off quite like a coward. Except perhaps a hypocrite. And you, my friend, are both. Well, you're not the only one that can play mad scientist. I mean, I'm as mad as the best of 'em." With that he produced a pair of comically large black goggles, stretched the elastic almost to the breaking point as he pulled it over his head, and let go, causing the goggles to quite loudly smack into his face. "Ow!"
Quickly recovering, Discord turned his full attention on the strapped down and helpless Borusa. "Now zen," he said, affecting an exaggerated phony accent. "Ve must begin viz a full physical examination before ze experimentation shtarts. After all, zis is science!" Discord then produced an X-ray screen that was big enough to provide a full look at Borusa's insides and whistled at what he saw. "Is that two hearts I see?" A malicious grin spread upon his face. "Aw, forget the physical. Experimenting starts now." He snapped his fingers and the left heart on the screen vanished, causing Borusa to wail in agony. With another snap the heart reappeared, and Borusa groaned in relief, only to cry out once again when the other vanished. The pain was short lived, as the heart was returned to its proper place. "Hmmm. Looks like both of 'em are essential. Not very efficient is it? Though I guess if one stops you at least have a fallback for a few minutes, huh?"
Discord caused the screen to vanish as he pulled over a wheeled tray with a number of implements on it. Borusa whimpered. Alongside a few distinctly cartoonish things--such as over-sized tongue depressors and a wooden mallet--were tools that might have looked like medical implements to a particularly sadistic child. Picking up a particularly nasty looking corkscrew tool, Discord grinned. "Let's start with a little poking."
Borusa's screams filled the room.
"Now some prodding."
More screaming.
"Oooh, I don't even know what this one does."
These were the loudest screams yet.
Discord stopped what he was doing for a moment and turned to look at the Doctor, who was watching with an expressionless face. "You know, you are welcome to at least try to stop me you know." The Doctor responded by planting his flank on the ground, making it clear he had no intention to move. "Ooooh. You're cold. I like you."
Discord turned back to his little project, and for several minutes there was an awful lot of screaming. Finally silence descended on the room and with a flourish and a thunk, Discord showed off his work to the other pony. "Well what do you think?" he asked. Borusa had been turned into a statue, reared up on his hind legs, a look of terror on his face. "I don't normally turn ponies to stone, you know. For the same reason I don't like to kill. I mean, after you've done it, what more can you do, right? It's all such a boring finish. But all things considered, I just couldn't resist the... the, uh... is it irony or poetic justice? I can never keep the two straight."
Shrugging the whole thing off, Discord gave the Doctor his full attention. "So, what are we going to do about you, hmmm?"
"What about me?"
Discord chuckled. "Oh, don't be like that. I know you're one of Celestia's little ponies. I'm betting you're here to bring me home."
The Doctor shrugged in return. "You are right on all counts. Except, I'm not one of Celestia's ponies at all. Well, I guess you could say that I am, from a certain point of view, but from the point of view that really matters I'm really not. We just work towards similar goals is all. Except when we don't."
"Either way," Discord interrupted with a chuckle, "you're here to send be back. Preferably in a nice stone box."
"Preferably, yes." .
"Which leads us back to the question of what we're going to do with you. I could take care of you just as easily as the other guy, you know."
"But you won't," the Doctor responded with a smug grin. "I'm not like Borusa was. For one thing I actually am as clever as I think I am. And for another... well, I'm just here to play the game."
Discord blinked twice then chuckled. "You're turning my own words against me."
"Not that you'd know anything about that."
Discord felt his grin turn into a genuine smile. He really did like this guy for some reason. "All right, then. You've piqued my interest. What do you suggest?"
"A game, of course. Winner take all."
"Oooh. And what sort of game do you have in mind?"
"That's the trick, isn't it? Neither of us can really expect that the other won't cheat, nor can we really expect the other to actually concede their prize at the end, regardless of the outcome."
"Heh. So its a battle of wits then!" Discord crowed, and suddenly the two of them were sitting in a grassy field, a table between them, goblets placed before them, and Discord was dressed in a black swashbuckler's costume.
"Something like that," the Doctor responded drolly as he took his goblet and dumped its contents in the illusory grass. "Simple goals, simple rules. If I turn you back to stone, I win. If you 'corrupt' me or whatever it is you do, you win."
Discord let out a hearty laugh. "I like it. But really, what makes you so sure you even have a chance? The only thing that's ever really beaten me in a direct contest are the Elements of Harmony, and last I checked, you weren't even one of the bearers."
The Doctor nodded. "That is a good question. A very astute, very apt question. I'm just a simple little earth pony after all. No flight, no magic. Just my wits and my screwdriver. I could answer by bringing up all the genocidal madcreatures, power mad conspirators, and, yes, even gods of chaos I've faced and beaten. I could bring up how the most dangerous races in the universe have given me such flattering titles as 'the Oncoming Storm' and 'Destroyer of Worlds.' I could even bring up the fact that the only reason we haven't met before now was that I already know how your story ends. And in bringing that up I'd be remiss if I didn't add that I still managed to be an occasional thorn in your side back in the 'good old days.' Remember the Coffee Pits of Rodrom?"
Discord blinked. "That was you?" he asked, with a rather impressed smile on his face.
The Doctor shrugged. "What can I say? Bananas are good. I could tell you all that, but it all comes down to one thing: I'm the Doctor."
Discord studied his opponent in silence for a moment, before a chuckle escaped his lips. The chuckle grew into a hearty belly laugh that lasted several seconds. "Oh, I do like you. You're literally the most fun to come my way in eons. Fine then. Let the games begin."
And with that, Discord brought up his eagle talon, and snapped his fingers.
The Doctor looked down at his impertinent granddaughter with a scowl--a scowl that made the young mare laugh. "'You suppose.' Your tone betrays a complete lack of conviction, Timekeeper. What is so wrong with it, hmmm?"
Timekeeper's sky blue face scrunched up a little, as she tried to choose her next words very carefully. "Well, I'm sure it's most impressive for the time, Grandfather, but it's just so... Weren't the Type 40's already museum pieces when you were young?"
"When I was... When I was young?" the Doctor groused, smidges of red peeking out through his own blue-turned-grey cheeks. "Young lady, all appearances to the contrary, I am still in my prime of life. I have yet to even experience my first regeneration!"
Timekeeper couldn't help but giggle. "You know what I mean, Grandfather."
The Doctor grumbled something about "fillies these days" and "respect for one's elders" to himself even as he ran a tender hoof over the control console. "Mmmmm, yes. Those were different days, child. We were a different people. It was an age of exploration! Discovery! Learning of limits and pushing past them!" The Doctor sighed. "And now we sit and wait and watch. Sometimes... sometimes I feel I was born in the wrong age."
A brief silence fell between the two, before Timekeeper suddenly asked, "Grandfather, are you in trouble?"
Taken by surprise, the Doctor stared at his young charge for a moment. Then he sighed, "Where did you hear that?"
Timekeeper shrugged. "Ponies talk, Grandfather. Even on Gallopfrey, they talk." She paused again, nervously pawing at the ground for a moment. "How bad is it?"
"How bad...? Hmmm, aaah, We don't yet have to fear the authorities coming to our door demanding I go with them just yet, but I am walking a very tight line. Yes, a very tight line."
"You're thinking of running, aren't you?"
This brought the Doctor's full attention. "W-w-w-what gave you that idea?"
"I just know you. This isn't the first time you've come to see this TARDIS. Even now I can see the gears turning in your head. I have grown up listening your tales of the Exploratory Days. I know you're not happy here. Not really. Why don't you just... go?"
"I should think the answer obvious," the Doctor responded, his tone turning gruff and unapproachable.
Timekeeper thought on that for a moment, before coming to the obvious conclusion. "Me?"
"Yes, you."
Timekeeper scoffed. "I am old enough to take care of myself, you know. Second year at the Academy, remember?"
"It's not that, it's... oh, I could leave. Take this ship right here and now. See the stars. See the times and places and ponies and wonders that I've desperately longed to see since my foalhood. And if I were to slip out now, in the quiet of the night, keep my head low and refrain from affecting history too dramatically, I doubt the Counsil would even pursue. But there would be no coming back, you see. No... no return. And where would that leave you? Oh, you're more than capable of taking care of yourself, it's true. But you'd also be the next of kin to a renegade. You know what that would do to you publicly. You've seen the disgrace Koschei's family has had forced upon it."
"Take me with you," she responded, simple as you please.
Again the Doctor was surprised. "What? Are you mad? The life of a renegade may be sufficient for me, but it's no place for a child like you!"
"I am not a child! And if I am mad, it must run in the family. Do you think you're the only one who wants to see the places? The ponies? The wonders? I've had dreams of them ever since I was a foal because of you and your stories." She smiled here. "Grandfather, you are a bad influence."
The Doctor bit his lip, conflict raging in his head. Timekeeper had given him an out. Something he very desperately, very selfishly longed to grasp with both forehooves and run away with. But he knew how selfish it was. He knew the future he would be stealing from his only kin if he were to do this. A sudden prick of emotion at the back of his skull caused him to pause in his own inner conflict for just a moment, and look dumbfounded at the central spire, jutting from the console. He could feel it, her excitement. She'd been sitting here, gathering dust for centuries. Centuries! After a lifetime of exploration and excitement and danger. And here was a pony, ready to give her that again. The Doctor could feel the nervous energy. As if a breath was being held, waiting for his decision.
Perhaps... perhaps now was the time to be selfish.
~DrW~
This was no time to be selfish, no matter how much it hurt.
He could hear Timekeeper desperately shouting at him through the comm system. See the tears on her face on the screen, but he knew deep in the pits of his hearts, that this was the correct choice. And, given his active avoidance of making the correct choice these last few years, he was damn well going to make it now.
"But Grandfather," Timekeeper cried. "I belong with you!"
"Not anymore, child!" he responded in that special tone that brooked no more argument. Timekeeper fell silent and the Doctor sighed. "During all the years I've been taking care of you, you in return have been taking care of me." He smiled fondly, even though she could not see it. "You are still my grandchild and always will be. But now, you're a mare too. I want you to belong somewhere, to have roots of your own. With Runner you will be able to find those roots and live normally like any mare should do. Believe me my dear, your future lies with Runner and not with a silly old buffer like me."
He continued speaking, trying to soothe out his own feelings as much as hers. "One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine. Goodbye, Timekeeper. Goodbye my dear." With his final goodbye said, the Doctor pulled a lever on the TARDIS...
...and nothing happened. Stunned, he looked down at his hoof. It was young and brown again, the sleeve of a darker brown overcoat stopping just before the knuckle. Though it took great effort, the Doctor did not let loose a sob, or even a sigh. He was not about to let his opponent have the satisfaction. Right for the jugular, straight out of the gates, he thought to himself, even as he heard the random and ridiculous noises that were Discord's footsteps enter into the console room. All right, then.
"I can't believe you used to wear this," Discord said happily, even as the Doctor groaned. He was wearing one of the Doctor's old coats... refitted of course for his own unique body shape. Specifically, it was the one his old companion Periwinkle had dubbed the 'rainbow explosion.' "I think it looks great on me, though. Mind if I keep it?"
"Classy," the Doctor retorted, voice dripping in sarcasm. "It's bad enough you're invading my memories as part of this game, but you're rummaging through my wardrobe as well?"
"Heh. Don't be like that. Genius work like this needs to be worn." Discord leaned in uncomfortably close. "So, how'd you like my opening shot?"
The Doctor snorted. "If that's your best shot, I've got this game won."
Discord chuckled. "Oh, whoever said that was my best? That was just a warm-up. Hows about I try rapid-fire?" He snapped his fingers.
~DrW~
"If you can hear us, Doctor, thanks for the ride." "Yes, Doctor. It was fun." Watching the two go, he turned to his new friend, tears wanting to pool in his eyes that he stubbornly kept from manifesting. "I will miss them. Yes. I will miss them. The old fussbudgets."
Helpless was he, as the Time Chargers led his best friends away. The young Scoltish warrior in particular gave him one last look. And then they were gone. Had he known it would lead to this...friendless, banished, forced to regenerate, would he have still left all those years ago? He didn't know.
The party was in full swing, the blushing bride to be radiant and all the old friends from UNIT were there. The Doctor was by himself in the back of it all, a champagne glass in his magical unicorn grip. Sadly, he raised his glass, took a swig, and was gone before the proper toast.
"Don't forget me, Doctor?" "Forget you? Oh, my dear Wordsmith, don't you forget me."
At the moment he didn't care about anything, didn't hear anything. Not the Cyberponies, not his other companions, nothing. All he could see at the moment was a rather sad looking blue star, bereft of the owner who wore it with such pride.
"You... you killed Periwinkle?"
"Yes, that's right, you're going! You've been gone for ages! You're not really gone. You're still here. Just arrived... haven't even met you yet... It all depends on who you are and how you look at it. Strange business, time. Oh, I'm sorry. Think about me, when you're living your life, one day after another, all in a neat pattern. Think about the homeless traveller and his old blue box. And his days like crazy paving."
All these moments and more. Pouring into him. Lasting moments, milliseconds, less. Yet hitting just as hard as the first time he lived them. The Doctor could feel himself falling. Deeper and deeper. But wait! He wasn't alone. He had Derpy. But even she was going to leave eventually wasn't she? That was just the way of things. If something didn't scare her off, or kill her, he was still a near immortal Time Charger and she...?
"I just don't have it in me to go gallivanting around time and space and who knows what else running for my life anymore."
No. Don't say that. Just... just don't. But it was true, though, wasn't it? One day, she was going to be gone, just like all the others, and he'd be left alone. Again. What was the point of making these amazing friends if only to lose them? Why did he always...?
"You probably don't remember your family, do you?"
His eyes shot open. He was back in the TARDIS again, the wandering space hobo and his companion. He looked over to her, and in his muddled state, couldn't quite remember her name, nor why she was in such obvious distress. He just knew she needed reassurance, and he was the only one there to give it.
"Oh, yes when I want to," he answered. "That's the secret, you see. I have to really want to... to bring them before my eyes. The rest of the time they... they sleep in my mind, and I forget." Ha! A half truth at best. His antics and plans and rescues certainly let him forget for a while, but as soon as he had a moment to himself...
"And so will you. Oh yes, you will," he continued aloud. This must be the important part, eh? "You'll find there's so much else to think about, to remember. Our lives are different to anybody else's. That's the exciting thing! Because nobody in the universe can do what we're doing."
More important things? Find more important things to remember. Yes. The pain is real. But it wouldn't be if they weren't precious to begin with, would it? Remember the important things. Remember... Remember...
"I remember I'm-I-I... I'm with my father, we're lying back in the grass, it's a warm Gallopfreyan night--Gallopfrey! Yes! A-and a meteor storm. T-the sky above us was dancing with lights! Purple, green, brilliant yellow... yes!" "What?" "These shoes! They fit perfectly."
"Don't you ever take anything seriously, Doctor?" "The things I do, yes. Not necessarily the way I do them."
"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."
"That... that was the daisiest daisy I'd ever seen."
"Do you really want to go back?" "Not really. I don't have anything for me there." "Then you did all these calculations for nothing!" "Got my point across, didn't I?" "Heh."
"I could have been stuck in the Dark Times forever!" "Did you really think I'd abandon you?"
"That was probably the most important buck in history!"
"I'm not a child; don't talk to me like I'm a child. Only children believe that crap. I am a doctor!" "But it was a childish dream that made you a doctor. You dreamed you could hold back death. Isn't that true? Don't be sad, Red. You'll do great things."
"I'm the Doctor by the way. What's your name?" "Uh... Derpy." "Pleasure to meet you, Derpy. Now: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"
"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do!"
"What began as a simple curiosity in a junkyard turned into quite a marvelous spirit of adventure, didn't it?"
` The Doctor's eyes popped open, the grey that had nearly overtaken him vanished instantly and with such force Discord was knocked back into the wall. "What was that?" he asked in genuine confusion.
"That was actually a very good try," the Doctor responded as he casually brushed off his coat. "I'm not above giving my enemies credit where it's due, and you, Discord, are deserving of quite a bit of credit."
Grumbling, Discord got to his feet and snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. "Wha...?" Again, he snapped his fingers. Again nothing happened. "What's going on here?"
"Three mistakes," the Doctor continued. "You made three mistakes. First mistake: seriously, trying to force me to turn against my inner nature? That's the last thing you want to inflict upon yourself. Trust me. I've actually seen it. Your second mistake somewhat mitigated the first, thankfully. See, I'm actually somewhat resistant to mind control and hypnotism--something I admittedly gained through living an embarrassing number of years getting hypnotized and mind controlled. The fact that you brought me so close to the edge is amazing, really. But the third mistake is the real kicker. You tried to use my friends and family against me. Now that is something I just cannot abide."
"What's happening here?!" Discord repeated in desperation as his magic continued to fail.
"Are you really that thick? Do you really not see what's going on here? It's the same power that's already stopped you twice. Unless you really think you were brought low by a simple set of tacky costume jewelry." At the sight of Discord's slack jawed face, the Doctor laughed. "You do don't you? Ooooh you really are thick. Thick Thicklstine Mcthick on Thick Street. And so's your dad."
"Okay, then, Discord. Listen up because this is probably the most important thing you'll hear in your entire life. Friendship. Is. Magic." Discord's eyes almost doubled in size. Behind the Doctor appeared an image. An image of hundreds of ponies of every size, shape and color. Creatures even Discord had no hope of recognizing, and... wait was that a tin dog? It was really, something. Magic on a scale Discord probably had never seen before.
"And I'm not speaking in some rose colored hyperbole, oh no!" the Doctor continued, seemingly unaware of... of the power swirling around him. "It is literally magic. One of the three primal forces that all ponies can tap into when the need is dire enough, whether they be earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, or even Time Chargers apparently. And that means you had better be scared. I mean soil-yourself-and-run scared! Because I've spent nearly nine hundred years storing the stuff. And you... you just woke the power up."
Discord was not one to be frightened easily. In his long life he could probably count the number of times he'd been well and truly afraid on one paw. Even so, in the face of the power manifesting before him and the cold blue eyes of the stallion who called upon it, he took a nervous step back. And his illusions--the TARDIS control room, the ever so fun jacket, everything--shattered like glass. He was back in the room he'd been imprisoned in these last few weeks, months, whatever, and standing across from him was the Doctor, apparently back to normal, though Discord could still feel the powerful magic swirling within him.
For his part the Doctor was all pep and hyperkenetic energy, his mouth already running at a hundred miles an hour. "But it's not that easy, is it? Of course it isn't. It's never that easy with me, why should it be now? Oh, don't worry you. I'm not going to blast you with an all-powerful deux ex machina rainbow beam thing. Can't do it you see. That's the problem with the primal forces. They're primal. Unless you've got a channeling agent specifically built for the task--like, say the Elements of Harmony--they do whatever the hell they want when they manifest. Beginnings of Equestria? A marvelous windigo vanquishing magic hearty thing that no amount of pageant level pyromagics can duplicate. Mere months ago by your reckoning Friendship's close cousin Love--another of the three forces by the way--ejected a literal army of changelings from Canterlot. And what do I get you ask? I get protection from your magics and manipulations but no direct way to fight back." He sighed here. "Always was too scientific for my own good, I suppose. Never could just let magic be magic. Always had to find a more rational way of things. Ah, well."
Discord blinked as he parsed the rapid fire rantings of the madpony before him and laughed. "Wait, so after all that posturing you're saying we're at a draw here? Hah! You actually had me going for a..."
"Do shut up," the Doctor ordered, calm as can be, but Discord felt a wave of power wash through him that prompted him to do as he was told. Which was an absolute first as near as he could remember. "A draw? Whoever said we were at a draw? A draw implies that I've played my turn out, and to quote a close personal friend of mine, I have not yet begun to fight. Thinking back on it, why do you suppose today's manifestation is, shall we say, less than impressive when compared to those of the past?"
Discrord shrugged. "Phsh. How should I know? Why should I care?"
The Doctor grinned at him. Discord found it disconcerting, like a cat that had cornered a mouse. Why would he be that full of confidence when he admitted to being untouchable but helpless? "You may remember that I said I had a plan. I still do. This extra development has actually done very little to change it. But before we begin, a small lesson on Time Chargers. See, we have what could be described as psychic powers, for a given value of psychic. Thoughts can pass with relative ease between Time Chargers, though the effort required gets steeper the further from our step on the evolutionary ladder we go. Equestrian ponies require physical contact and cause enough strain to give a slight headache, but it's still plenty possible to read minds and share thoughts with them. Following along so far?"
Discord waved a dismissive paw. "Yes, yes. Mind reading and physical contact and pain killers, I get it. What's that gotta do with anything?"
"Well, since you asked so nicely, everything. Ordinarily a being like you would be effectively immune to my abilities. But--and this is the important part--you've been spending a great deal of time breaking right on into my own brain, haven't you? That coupled with the extra push?" With a smirk the Doctor brought a hoof up to his temple. "Contact."
~DrW~
"Woah, what a trip," Discord muttered. Even he found himself slightly disoriented after the sudden shift in scenery. Wasn't much of a trip though, ten, fifteen hooves, probably. But he still let out a sigh of exasperation.
He was back in his little lit up prison.
A voice began humming, and Discord looked down to see the Doctor, back turned to him, seemingly engrossed in his surroundings. "What are you doing now?" Discord asked.
"Having a looksee at your first day here is all," his opponent replied. "It's really quite fascinating the way memory and the brain works. If you were to actually attempt to recall this moment on your own, you probably wouldn't remember it anywhere close to this kind of clarity. But that's a simple issue in recall. Dig just a little deeper and you find that the brain actually recorded it all, even the stuff you thought unimportant or unintelligible."
Discord was getting irritated to say the least. "Mmm hmm, oh yes, fascinating. What's the point?"
"D'you have any idea how you were set free, Discord?" the Doctor asked, then suddenly stopped almost mid thought. "Oooh, that's rude isn't it, answering a question with another question? I've been working on that, you know--not being rude that is, not answering questions with questions. But this question is essential to my answer so I'll ask anyway: Do you know how you were freed?"
Discord began a flippant answer, but stopped before any words came out of his mouth. That... was actually a good question. How did the little unicorn free him from his seal? It was less than a year old and very strong. It would have taken an unnatural amount of chaos to break him out of that statue. Yet... well, if anything his captor was one of the most orderly creatures he'd ever met. Evil and chaos did not mutually mingle, after all.
Seeing the look on Discord's face, the Doctor grinned. "I thought not. It was time travel, sort of. Not the way I do it with the going from place to place and actually traveling, but pretty close. Borusa simply sped up your own personal timeline some two thousand or so years to the point where the seal would naturally have weakened and you could have freed yourself."
"My 'personal timeline.'' Discord said flatly. "You know you keep using words that I know are real, but I'm still not understanding them."
"Well try to keep up. I'm already dumbing things down for you, and this is easy stuff. Even Equestrian ponies can get this. There was a scientist in Prance who made a rudimentary version of the exact thing I'm talking about, though granted he had alien help and almost ended all life on the planet, but I digress."
"My point is," the Doctor continued, "reversing an artificial fast forward in time is pretty easy to fix, assuming you have the proper data. Starting point, end point, power output. That sort of thing. Pretty difficult to get when the only pony who really knows what it is is serving time as a paperweight. BUT!" Here the Doctor pointed at one of the screen. "Looks like you got yourself a look at just that data, even if you had no idea what it was."
"Derpy!" the Doctor ordered over his shoulder, the present popping into place around him. "Setting seventy four gamma delta!"
"Wait, what?" Discord muttered, even as the wall eyed pegasus peeked out from behind a console, the sonic screwdriver in her mouth.
"hvnty frr hmma dlta!" she repeated around the metal rod in her mouth before vanishing behind the console.
Discord had time to sputter out a single "Huh?" before things got strange. The Doctor watched impassively as Discord seemed to become a whirlwind of activity, moving backwards through his personal time line with such speed as to be a brown and grey blur, high pitched squeaks flowing instead of words. When he stopped moving seconds later, he was one again a stone statue, reeling back in fear.
The Doctor stood proudly for a moment more before the magic that had been buffeting him suddenly drained out of his body and he began to topple to the side. At least, he would have, had there not been a very particular grey pegasus there to catch him.
"You okay?" Derpy asked.
"Yes, of course I'm okay," the Doctor insisted, pushing himself away from his companion. "Why wouldn't I be...?" He accidentally interrupted himself by falling flat on his face, with his rump in the air, and the tail ends of his coat now obscuring his face.
Derpy giggled, even as she pushed his back end down level with his front and straightened the coat out. "You were saying?" She asked.
"Okay. Okay," the Doctor relented. "I may be a bit drained on account of holding in me a very powerful source of magic for maybe a little too long."
"What, again?" Derpy asked with a chuckle.
"Well at least I get to keep my face this time. And my teeth. Took me a while to get used to these teeth."
"Uh huh," Derpy responded as she sat down next to him and draped a wing over his body.
"Er, ah..." the Doctor began sputtering, his cheeks pink."We still have a lot of things to do, you know. Getting the statues to the TARDIS, setting the ship to self destruct..."
"Giving old friends last respects?" Derpy supplied, sadness entering her voice and smile.
"Yeah. That. We should probably get to them."
Derpy nodded. "Probably. Except you look like a dead pony walking."
"What do you mean by...?" the Doctor asked in consternation before letting loose a wide yawn.
Derpy chuckled even as he glared at her. "C'mon, Doctor. You won. Royal Double Oh Seven Mission Accomplished. The cleanup will still be there after you rest a few minutes."
"I suppose, but..."
"Ah, ah. No buts," Derpy reprimanded, placing her hoof on the back of his head and gently pushing it down to the ground. "Rest now, cleanup later. Derpy's orders."
The Doctor would have liked to protest, except that his eyelids suddenly felt very heavy. "Fine. But five minutes. That's all."
The Doctor smiled as his favorite customer excitedly scrutinized her newly repaired clock. "Well, Miss Sparkle, when you hire the Doctor you hire the best."
Twilight Sparkle cast the Doctor a wry grin. "And so modest, too."
"You and I both know there's nothing immodest about stating fact," the Doctor replied with a grin of his own.
Twilight chuckled as she gave the clock one more quick but thorough look over. "Well, there's no denying the quality of your work," she admitted before stowing the clock in her saddlebag and producing the Doctor's modest fee (Naturally and to the Doctors amusement, she counted out exact change.). The Doctor stored the coins away without any real thought--truly he had no real use for money, but it was all part of being a "normal" pony.
"Thank you again Doctor Whooves," she said with a smile as she left the store.
"It's the Doctor," he replied quickly. "Just... oh, never mind." Smiling slightly, the Doctor locked up his register and strolled outside himself. He smirked at the last little bits of conversation between Miss Sparkle and her assistant that drifted his way.
"Okay, Spike, what's the next item on the agenda?"
"Twilight, you know what's next. You went over the list a hundred times already. You could probably read it back to me in your sleep."
"Spike..."
"Fine. Next up is Fluttershy's place. She needs an extra set of hooves to help with some sick field mice..."
The Doctor chuckled to himself. Hero of Equestria multiple times over, and Twilight Sparkle was going to spend the day tending to some field mice with her friend. He personally knew ponies who would never believe that the legendary Princess of Harmony, she who freed Princess Luna from the Nightmare, defeated Discord, and defender of the Crystal Empire, would ever have stooped to such mundane chores. Ponies were funny like that. Tended to forget that legends were ponies, too.
Inhaling a deep breath, the Doctor turned to look at the rest of the marketplace. Thanks to the efforts of the local pegasi and Little Celestia (one day, the Doctor vowed, he would learn how she and her sister affected the sky the way they did) it was a typically beautiful Ponyville day, just like it always was this time of year. The Doctor nodded politely at the stallion who was currently unlocking the Quill and Sofa next door. Across the way Carrot Top and Applejack had set up their carrot and apple stands respectively and began the day with their customary glares at each other (not that they had anyone fooled, everyone knew they were each others' last customer of the day). The Doctor watched as Lyra and BonBon entered the marketplace from further down the road, the minty green unicorn easily standing on her hind legs for a second as she used her forelegs to emphasize some point or other to the cream colored earth pony. In short it was a very typical, very normal day in Ponyville, just like they all had been this last week since the Doctor returned from his latest adventure.
So why wasn't he bored?
Back when he and Derpy first saved the town from invading Autons, he couldn't wait to leave. Given the way she leaped into the TARDIS when he offered, he thought she felt the same way. But to his surprise, after the next trip or two, she asked if he could take her back. He did so, and she bounded out with the same enthusiasm and said "It's good to be home." She surprised him further by turning back to him and asked, "Same time next week?" The Doctor had never encountered that before--a companion willing to live both in the mundane every day and the fantastic box travel.
It was a few years and a new face later when he decided to stick around, and that was more for her sake than anything. Even still he tended to lose patience at living life in the correct order. But now... here he was sitting on a porch in front of his own shop on a normal, everyday morning, and he was happy to do it. It was particularly strange given the what happened this time--learning he was not the last, being reminded why it was better that he was, and then being reduced to the the last once again. How would he have reacted if he were still just out there with no fixed abode? He cast a look at the sign above his door--an image of his cutie mark of course--and remembered Wordsmith's words from the beginning of it all.
Doctor, you've gone domestic.
He'd never admit it, but she was right. He had gone domestic. But why, though? What was it about this town that made him feel more at home than he ever did on Gallopfrey? It's historical importance made for a fun visit every now and then, but it was just so... so... normal the rest of the time. His thoughts were interrupted by a soft object bouncing off his head. He caught it offhoofedly and grinned as he saw it. A bran muffin. Looking up with a smile, the Doctor waved at Derpy and Dinky as they flew off to drop the latter off at school. That's one thing, isn't it? he thought with a smile. It didn't really matter why, the Doctor decided. The fact was that, for now at least, he was at home here. For now that would be good enough.
~THE ENBOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
With a start, the Doctor spun to look at his shop. Smoke was pouring out of the windows and the door, and he could smell fire somewhere within. He cast a few glances around and sighed in relief that no one was looking. For better or worse, explosions in his shop had also become commonplace. The low level perception filter helped. He stopped short as he heard several ponies coughing and sputtering from within.
"Was that supposed to happen?" a female with a Scoltish accent asked.
"Supposed to happen?" another voice asked, this one a male from Trottingham. "Of course that wasn't supposed to happen. When is that ever supposed to happen?"
"And yet somehow it does," a third voice--another Trottingham male--spoke up, his tone suggesting a long standing exasperation.
"Oh shut up you. Go outside for now, let me deal with the fires."
The Doctor's eyes narrowed as two ponies stumbled into view, still coughing up smoke. The young mare was white with a long, straight mane and tail of red, and her cutie mark was an apple with a smile cut into it. The stallion was tall an lanky with a slightly over sized snout, blue eyes, brown coat, and messy mane. His cutie mark was a blue cross juxtaposed atop a royal guard's sword. Now that was interesting.
The two caught sight of him almost instantly and the mare rolled her eyes. "Oi, Raggedy Colt! We got a pony out here!"
"Yes, the owner of the shop probably," the voice called back from within. "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."
The two ponies rolled their eyes and shared a look. That look. The look his companions shared when they thought he wasn't looking. The Doctor's blood began to run cold. He didn't recognize the ponies, but he sure did recognize the scene. It played often enough.
Finally, the third pony exited the shop. He was grey with a shaggy black mane and tail. He was wearing a tweed jacket and a bow tie, though the bullet ridden stetson hat took the ensemble from simply out of date to out and out ridiculous. The Doctor didn't even need to look to confirm his cutie mark was an hourglass.
"Hello there," the newcomer said distractedly. "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!"
Upon actually looking at the Doctor's face, the newcomer quickly withdrew the hoof he was about to offer and jumped back a couple of hooves, his companions shooting him odd looks. He narrowed his green eyes as the smile vanished from his face. "Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. You are..." then he looked at the shop behind him. "So this is...?" With a look of panic he began to search the sky. "And she is...?" Turning back to the Doctor, a look of pain and confusion on his face, he asked. "What?"
The Doctor couldn't help but smirk. A normal day in Ponyville indeed.
