A Tale of Two Doctors

Reluctantly, John Smith had agreed with The Doctor’s insane luck driven scheme, but only on the condition that there was some sort of back-up plan if things went to Tartarus.

“Okay,” The Doctor sighed holding John Smith’s shoulders with his hooves.

“I swore I’d never do this again, but…here we go.”

And with that, he head butted the Changeling as the both recoiled in pain from the collision.

“Aw…Oh…that really hurt…” he groaned, massaging his forehead.

“Was there any way to do this without fracturing my skull?” John Smith asked, mirroring The Doctor’s movements.

He then gasped as memories and knowledge began flooding into his brain accompanied by voices echoing;

“Absolutely Fantastic.”

“REVERSE THE POLARITY OF THE NEUTRON FLOW!”

“A brilliant smile beaming with intelligence.”

“DIE DOCTOR!”

“Care for a Jelly Baby?”

“Binary vascular system detected.”

“Don’t blink.”

“Bowties ARE cool.”

Images flashed through his brain;

Most of them featured creatures that were or looked similar to a species known as humans.

Words and terms seemed to be magically written into his mind as the very second they were generated he knew the history and definition, but they were coming in too fast and it felt as if his brain were burning up as it struggled to process the information.

The strain was so great that he could only focus on a small chunk of the words flooding into his memory.

‘Regeneration, TARDIS, Sarah Jane, K-9, Rose Tyler, Gallifrey, Martha Jones, Weeping Angels, Cybermen,  Donna Noble, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, The Silence, Daleks, Sonic Screwdriver, Isomorphic Controls, Chameleon Circuit, Trenzalore, The Great Intelligence, Sontaren Stratagem, Clara Oswin Oswald, Telepathic Circuit, The Master, Quantum Locked, Stupid Ape, Fantastic, Allons-y, I’m so very, very sorry, Geronimo, Cool, Yowza, Timey-wimey, River Song, Demon’s Run, The Last Centurion, The Girl Who Waited, Soufflé Girl, Impossible Girl, Commander Strax, Lonely God, Time Lord’

And…

He gasped when he realized what it was; The Doctor’s NAME! He KNEW what it WAS.

That was when it all seemed to stop and his body felt as if it had been dunked into a tank of ice water.

“You might want to hold on,” The Doctor spoke up, he’d been observing silently once the pain had subsided.

“This is going to be the really rocky part.”

Before John Smith could ask him what he was talking about the feeling of ice water flowing through his veins was quickly replaced by stinging and then burning as his body involuntarily shifted between different pony forms he’d never even seen before.

“I’ve given you all of my memories and past experiences as well as my vast intelligence in case anything happens to me in the hive, you’re body is trying to cope with past regenerations…it must be extraordinarily painful…but, that was always a possibility.”

John Smith’s body shifted to the point where he was a white stallion with a short, practically non-existent mane, a pair of large ears and a black jacket.

“You could have told me that EARLIER, you stupid horse!” he growled before wincing in pain as his body shifted back.

The Doctor was contemplating whether to approach him or if this was just the eye of the storm and a prelude to a stronger, more violent burst in which case any interference he cause would most likely do more harm than good.

“Is that it?”

It seemed highly unlikely that a process like this would end with just a single regeneration, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointing at not catching a glimpse of more of his past selves with all of their quirks, but at the same time he didn’t know too much about Changeling anatomy.

“Yowza...” John Smith breathed.

“How are you feeling John?”

“Hungry…you wouldn’t happen to have any Jelly Babies around, would you?”

“That’s an after-effect of the process, give it a few moments and it’ll fade.”

“Doctor, why bother doing all of this? I could just turn into you at a moment’s notice-what’s the point of giving me all of your memories and other stuff?”

“Because if we’re going to pull this off, we need to think exactly the same and be in perfect synchronization; besides, I can’t be everywhere at once and if we do succeeded the liberated Changelings will need someone intelligent to guide them…the only draw back is when you change into one of my regenerations you’ll also have all of the quirks and flaws.” The Doctor explained.

“How is that a good thing?” John challenged.

“Because the reason one of the reasons Chrysalis failed to take over Canterlot was because Twilight Sparkle knew Princess Cadance well enough to see her disguise, since she didn’t have her memories or her mannerisms.”

“Okay…”

“Something wrong?”

“Yeah…you gave me something I don’t think you meant to; your name.”

“No, I meant to do that-it’ very important that you know my name and the reason why it must be kept a secret-but, hopefully that will never come to pass.”

“What will never come to pass?”

“…My death.”

“What are you talking about? You’re not sick and by Time Lord standards you’re only middle-aged.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that I am very old…and after all I’ve been through it’s nothing short of a miracle that I’ve lived this long…it’s quite possible that one of these days all of this travelling and making new enemies will kill me.”