Chapters A young pegasus sat by the river’s edge in the humid air of the tropical climate, preening her feathers as she waited. The sun was high in the sky, and there was not much for Medley to do while awaiting her travelling partner’s return.
Medley was about 17 years old, and had had a blueish green coat. Her cutie mark was that of a rain cloud, which meant that her specialty was in weather control. Usually she preferred to gather clouds for a rainstorm rather than clearing the sky, but on this occasion she had made sure that there wouldn’t be anything blocking sunbeams. Her partner had been very specific on his need for natural light.
She flicked through the pages of her book, which she had pulled off the ship’s bookshelf at random. It was titled Raxacoricofallapatorius: A Brief History , and she wasn’t interested in the least.
Medley sighed, and shut the book. She needed something else to read, something more interesting. She was about to get up to leave when she heard a sound echoing through the air.
It was a bit distant, but it seemed to be coming in the direction of the mountain.
Medley stood up, and walked over to the edge of the grass, just over the hill by the river’s edge. Spread before her was a vast rolling field of tall grass, ending in the distance where it met the rain forest. She could see a small figure entering the grass, cutting through at high speed.
She heard the sound again, still too faint to hear but growing stronger.
Six more figures burst from the trees, not much taller than the first but each taking a new path bent on catching up. Behind them were six more, and then six more after that. The first figure was being chased by a small army of similarly sized creatures.
The first figure was now coming up over a hill about halfway toward Medley, and she could see who it was. It was a tall bright-green stallion with a curly blond mane, and he was wearing a garish outfit that seemed cobbled together out of many clashing fabrics. She listened, and heard the sound more clearly this time.
“MEDLEY!!!! GET TO THE TARDIS!!!”
Behind the patchwork stallion came the first line of many small lizard-like creatures outfitted in woven plant fibers and throwing spears at the stallion. The stallion cried out to his companion once more, and it was Medley’s turn to jump into action.
The TARDIS was on the opposite bank of the river. Medley had no trouble flying across and getting in using the key strung around her neck, but she thought of the Doctor coming up right behind her across the field. Leaving the door open, she searched about the white interior to try to find something she could reach out with.
“MEDLEY!!” the Doctor cried, reaching the edge of the river with tribal lizards still in pursuit. Left with no other way out, he jumped into the coursing waters. Spears were flung at him, and splashed into the water at his side.
Medley reached out of the TARDIS doors with a long coat rack, holding it out as far as she could to try to get it within the Doctor’s reach.
The Doctor battled the current to try to reach the opposite shore, paddling with his hooves and scraping the rocky bottom of the river. He jumped up, reaching for the edge of the brass coat rack. One of his legs wrapped around a hook of the rack, allowing Medley to help drag him out of the water.
The Doctor leaped up onto the bank and in through the TARDIS doors, just as a volley of poisoned arrows were launched by the lizards on the other side. A few of them got lodged in the blue woodwork but none reached inside, for the door was slammed shut.
Inside, the Doctor panted. His clothes were all soaking wet and he was out of breath, but at least he was still alive.
Medley put the coat rack back where it originally came from, in a corner by the white roundels. The Doctor stood himself up, and hung his dripping coat on one of the hooks. He was still panting and wheezing like a dog.
“Doctor… what happened?” she asked, “I thought you were going to try to slip in unnoticed by the Silurians.”
“Well… evidently I arrived a bit early. No fault of mine of course, it was the TARDIS malfunctioning again,” the Doctor replied, “The Silurians haven’t even progressed beyond stone tools and leaf garments, I doubt they have a calendar yet. Probably they won’t for at least another thousand years.”
Medley went around to the other side of the console, and opened a screen as the Doctor had taught her to do. Outside the pair could see the tribal Silurians angrily throwing things at the closed door of the TARDIS.
“If it’s too early to find a copy of the Silurian calendar, then why did you stay and get noticed?” asked Medley, helping the Doctor back onto all fours, “You could’ve been killed?”
“Me?” Killed?” the Doctor protested, “Please Medley, the worst that could’ve happened is another regeneration, and I’m in no mood to waste this body of mind so soon. It’s only been fifty, sixty years since I got it? No… they mistook me for some kind of game animal. They chased after me on first glance.”
“They probably thought you were some new species of rainbow deer,” Medley joked.
“Hardly,” the Doctor retorted, wringing water out of his hair, “There aren’t any mammals that big on Earth yet, and there won’t be for a few million years. This is still very much the age of reptiles and birds.”
He flicked a switch on the TARDIS console, and the ship dematerialized. They were now flying in the time vortex.
“It was a waste of time to have you clear the sky, they won’t have solar powered buildings for quite awhile.” the Doctor said, “but I suppose that can wait.”
“Oooh, where are we going Doctor?” Medley asked, “Somewhere where I can go exploring? I want to do something fun!”
“Fun?” the Doctor repeated, “Fun?! Oh all right, I suppose I can take you somewhere… fun. What did you have in mind?”
Medley opened her mouth, but the words were cut off by a monstrous crash. The TARDIS had hit something, and the two were thrown out of balance. The Doctor clutched the edge of the groaning console to keep himself from falling down onto the wall, while Medley suspended herself in flight.
“We’ve crashed into something!” the Doctor cried over the TARDIS rumbling in protest, “Something else in the time vortex collided with us and we’ve been knocked out of flight!”
“What does that mean?!” Medley cried, as the TARDIS lurched onto the other side, spinning out of control.
“We’re crashing!”
The TARDIS fell through the cloud coverage on an unknown planet, crashing down onto sand dune on it’s side and rebounding into the air. It flipped upside down and then landed right side up, skidding to a stop. Not far from it, another police box hurtled through the atmosphere and smashed its way through a sand dune. It came to rest not far from the 6th Doctor’s TARDIS, but on its side. The door flung open, and three figures fell out in a heap.
One was a gray pegasus with a blond mane, the second an aquamarine unicorn. The third was a light blue stallion, and he wore a leather jacket. He was the first to stand up, staring at the other TARDIS with piercing eyes.
The Doctor had grabbed his still dripping coat, and stormed out of the TARDIS doors angrily.
“That’s bang out of order, you should know better than to fly a time ship over the path of another….”
He stopped, staring at the other stallion and the police box, now on it’s side in the sand.
“Oh no,” the other stallion said, “Of all the other incarnations, it had to be this one.”
“What?!” the Doctor cried, standing up to the stallion and staring him down, “and just who do you think you are?”
“Symbol of a hourglass on my flank and a TARDIS in the shape of a police box, not that hard to work it out, is it?” the leather-clad stallion said, “Oh, this is just fantastic .”
“Doctor?” Derpy asked, standing at his side, “Who is that other stallion, and why does he have a blue box like yours?”
“That,” the Ninth Doctor said, “Is me… well, a past version of me. It’s the Sixth Doctor.”
“If I were going to change out of this form of mine I’d have hoped for something a bit better than that… what are you, an edgy war hero?” the Sixth Doctor scoffed. He and the Ninth were circling each other, sizing each other up.
“Doctor…” Medley asked, “Who is he?”
“That, Medley, is me,” Six said, “It’s the future me. I might not have told you this, but my species can change form when a body is near death to keep alive. My personality and appearance changes, but my memories are intact. What incarnation are you on, Doctor?”
“Erm… I’m the Ninth Doctor.”
From behind the Ninth Doctor, Derpy snickered. She remembered the coat she had borrowed during their trip to Starswirl’s time, and now she knew where it had come from.
“What I want to know is why our two TARDISes crashed into each other like that,” the Ninth said, “because that’s not how the time vortex is supposed to work.”
“Indeed.” Six replied, furrowing his eyes and nodding his head once. The two Doctors paused in their bickering to take a glance around and take in their surroundings.
The two TARDISes and respective crewmembers had crash landed near an ocean. Both sat atop the sand of a very large beach, with the Ninth Doctor’s TARDIS lying on its side a bit closer to the water’s edge. On the other side of the dunes behind the Sixth Doctor’s TARDIS the sand dunes gave way to grass, and in the distance were green hills and mountains. Between two of the distant mountains was a village.
“There’s also another problem,” the Ninth Doctor said after a moment, facing away from the others and staring out toward the small village.
“And what would that be?” the Sixth Doctor asked, positioning himself in the latest Doctor’s line of sight.
“I don’t remember this,” Nine answered simply, “That is… I don’t remember being you and meeting my Ninth self. This entire incident has been wiped from my memory.”
Both of the Doctors were silent for a moment, leaving all three of the companions to speculate as to what the significance of the Ninth Doctor’s revelation was.
In her own mind, Derpy figured that he might have forgotten due to aging. She couldn’t even fathom how many centuries had passed between the time of his sixth body and his ninth, and she herself could hardly remember stuff from a decade ago. Lyra considered that another alien could have tampered with his mind.
Medley thought of how the Doctor had told her stories about how he had acted to his previous companion before her, who had witnessed the change to his sixth form from his fifth. He had described himself as unstable, amnesiac, and irrational. Perhaps he had forgotten due to some problem with one of his regenerations?
The whole concept was alien and ultimately none of them could grasp what exactly the Doctor was trying to imply, but the Sixth Doctor seemed to understand what his future self was trying to get at.
All thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a distant explosion, and a plume of smoke stretching into the sky over the tops of trees. The ground shook with a second explosion, and the Doctors took a step back towards the beach.
“Was that a bomb?!” Medley gasped.
“I don’t know, Medley.” the Ninth Doctor said, “But I think we can find out. Do you still have those flight goggles?”
“Still?”
“It’s been centuries since I last saw you Medley, bear with me.”
Medley nodded.
“They’re in the TARDIS,” she said, “Well, my Doctor’s TARDIS.”
“Same TARDIS, two different points in time,” the Sixth Doctor corrected, walking past the pair and opening the door. He stepped inside his box, and came back out with two pairs of flight goggles. One was tossed to Derpy, the other to Medley.
“Why do I need these?” Derpy asked.
“Because, we need you two to survey the surroundings aerially,” the Sixth Doctor replied, “and if that was a bomb or an explosion rather than an earthquake… well, you don’t want to be flying through a cloud of whatever gets released into the air with your eyes exposed.”
“What are we looking for, Doctor?” Medley asked.
“Anything,” the Ninth Doctor said, “Everything. Tell us what you can see.”
With that, Derpy and Medley took to the sky. The two Doctors and Lyra remained on the ground, watching as the pegasi shrank to a tiny size and disappeared into the clouds. The ponies on the ground were silent for a moment, until the Ninth Doctor spoke up.
“So… where am I meeting you at? Obviously it’s after the trial, but how long after?” he asked.
“Yes,” the Sixth Doctor replied, looking upwards and raising a brow, “Er… I’ve met Medley in the mid 1980s, we’ve been to an alternate version of Gallifrey- dismal place- stopped a group of scientists in the 22nd century from creating a race of vampire-ponies… oh! we rescued Romana from a prison facility operated by the Nestene on Polymos… built another version of K9… and most recently I tried to obtain a Silurian calendar.”
“Wound up running for your life, haha! I remember that bit!” the Ninth Doctor interjected, “Was that right before now?”
“Yes, immediately.”
“Well… there’s no gap between that and my next memory of being you,” the Ninth said, “I sort of remember taking a nap and waking back up in the TARDIS, business as usual.”
Derpy and Medley were returning now, and the pair landed a short distance from the Doctors and Lyra, and chose to gallop the rest of the way.
“There’s a group of squiggly lines not too far from here,” Derpy said, “and then there’s some sort of space in between them and another set of lines.”
“They look like a bunch of creatures dug rows and rows of lines in the dirt,” Medley continued, “and the space in between is…”
“Nopony’s land,” the Doctor said in unison.
“What?” Lyra spoke up, “Like from the war with the Gryphons?”
“No… it can’t be.” the Ninth doctor said, pulling out a watch from the pocket of his leather coat, “It’s 1934 right now, this should be peacetime…. Derpy, how far did the trenches reach?”
“Not that far,” she admitted, “They just sort of block off the village.”
“The villagers must be defending themselves from attack,” the Sixth Doctor said, “I think we ought to find out just what is going on here.”
The two Doctors and all three companions walked through the main square of the village, where there was not a soul in sight. By now, the sounds of yelling and combat on the other side of the forest were easier to hear.
“Everyone’s gone out to fight,” the Ninth Doctor said, “But I wonder if some have stayed behind… you know, the weak, elderly, children.”
“I would think so…. look!” Derpy said, pointing to a nearby building. The windows were boarded up, and messages were painted onto the boards. They took a moment to look at the buildings, most of which were in a similar condition: reinforced in case the entrenched defenses didn’t stop the enemy.
“No entry… Gryphons will be shot on sight… Do not Enter… Bad Wolf… Keep Out…” the Sixth Doctor muttered, reading the painted messages, “They’re protecting themselves against Gryphon invaders it seems.”
“That’s wrong,” the Ninth Doctor said, “Totally wrong. It’s too early for another war, that’d be years off.”
“Maybe not,” suggested Six.
“No, my history’s perfect,” Nine insisted.
“Not as infallible as you think, it would seem.”
“Doctors,” Medley interrupted, “It’s not worth arguing over. I know history says this event didn’t happen, but it’s happening now and we have to deal with it. Maybe we were all the ones who stopped it all from happening, I don’t know.”
“Wait up a sec,” Lyra said, turning back to one of the houses, “That one over there… general store by the look of it… that one says ‘Bad Wolf’ on the side of it.”
The Ninth Doctor peered at the boarded-up storefront, and sure enough the words “Bad Wolf” were painted along with the “Keep Out” messages on slabs of plywood. He slowly walked toward the side of the building, running a hoof over the wood. There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about it other than the message itself. The wood boards and paint were both genuine.
“Psst! You there!”
The Ninth Doctor, being next to the wall, had been noticed by whomever was barricaded within. They spoke through a small gap between boards, where the threshold to a delivery door had once been.
“You’re speaking to me?” the Doctor asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes, you!” the voice responded, “What are you doing outside? Aren’t you supposed to be on the battlefield?””
“Erm, I sort of just landed by the beach not too far off with a couple of my… er… a couple of my crewmembers. We’re off course, a bit lost if you will,” the Doctor lied, “Could you tell me what’s going on?”
From the gap, a greenish eye appeared and looked the Ninth Doctor over from head to hoof.
“You’re a pony sailor, but you wear the jacket of a Gryphon Captain? Are you a sympathizer?”
“Oh no…” the Doctor quickly said, “I’m just a civilian. Picked the coat up secondhoof, it’s not really important. I’m really interested in what’s going on outside the village. What’s with all the fighting?”
“We’re fighting a neighboring village,” the voice replied, “You do know where you are, right?”
“Not at all, actually.”
“What kind of captain are you, if you can’t even tell where your ship is sailing?” the voice chortled.
“I’m just a Doctor, you see. I’m not in charge of the navigations.”
“Well,” the voice continued, “Since you're so clueless, I’ll let you in on the facts. This is the border between Prance and Gryphony, and something crossed the border and attacked the village. We think they’re trying to invade and start another war with their newfangled weapons. Our best flyers have been sent to the cities to raise the alarm and get the Army to send reinforcements, while every able-bodied stallion and mare fends off the Gryphons. We’re dug in.”
****
The Doctors and companions surveyed the battlefield from the edge of the forest.
“This doesn’t seem right,” Nine said quietly, “A battle on this scale shouldn’t be happening at this point in history, even if it gets resolved without leading to war. This didn’t happen.”
“I find the use of artillery most disconcerting,” Six whispered back, “They may look like a farraginous group of villagers, but they have the equipment and tactics of army regulars from the prior era.”
While the two Doctors discussed everything wrong with the picture of the battlefield and made snide remarks about one another, Derpy and Lyra conferred with Medley from behind the trunk of a nearby oak tree.
“Does your Doctor always do that?” Lyra asked, “He sounds like he enjoys throwing in words nopony understands.”
Medley giggled.
“He thinks it makes him sound… how does he describe it… ‘like a true cosmopolitan, possessing infinite tact and finesse’.” she said, “Though I wouldn't want to trade for your Doctor. He acts like a hotheaded war hero.”
Derpy laughed out loud, perhaps a bit too loud. Both Doctors snapped their heads around, and Six made a violent shushing gesture with his hoof.
“No Derpy, this isn’t 1678, this is the 2500’s” Lyra imitated in a whisper, “It isn’t even Equestria, it’s Tersurus! Don't you know, this is the planet at it's height of intergalactic mud wrestling! Fantastic!”
“When are you two from?” Medley asked, pushing her goggles down from on top of her forehead and letting them hang loosely around her neck.
“1999,” Derpy replied, “You?”
“1989,” Medley said, “Wow… only ten years apart. I’ll be 27 in your time, assuming I don’t get stranded on some planet and turned into an alien queen.”
“I think I’ve seen your face before,” said Derpy, “Just in passing… you smile at me a lot. Now that I think of it, it’s probably because…”
“Because I’ve known that you were eventually going to meet the Ninth Doctor, yes.” finished Medley, “I’ll have to remember to do that now that you told me.”
The Doctors motioned for each of the companions to join them by the bushes on the edge of the forest.
“What’d you find, Doc?” Derpy asked.
The Sixth Doctor raised his eyebrows.
“Doc?” he muttered, “My dear Derpy Hooves, my name is not ‘Doc’, and I’d prefer if you refrain from calling me that.”
Nine parted the bushes again, giving them a line of sight to the battlefield. The tide was mostly unchanged from the earlier stalemate.
“I’m guessing that a rogue time agent came back to the 1930’s, and started all this,” the Ninth Doctor quietly said, “That’s the most likely scenario.”
The Sixth Doctor’s mouth turned up at the corners, and he regarded the three companions in turn.
“What my future self has failed to mention is the possibility of other scenarios,” he suggested, “For instance, this could be a parallel world where events are out of sync with your established history, or this could conceivably be another world that just happens to share very specific things with yours.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lyra and the Ninth Doctor said in unison.
“Not any more so than a planet where works of fiction come to life!” asserted Six, standing up suddenly, “Worlds where trees are made of words!”
“Come off it, this isn’t the Land of Fiction,” Nine interrupted.
“Maybe not,” Six said, “But I think it is possible that the battle you’re watching just doesn’t exist at all!”
At that very moment the battlefield, trenches, and weapons of war faded from existence and left an empty field untouched by the horrors of war. The distant throbbing of mortars and artillery ceased, and the world seemed very quiet.
Derpy’s mouth sagged open, and the Ninth Doctor just stared with widened eyes and a sharp brow. Even the Sixth Doctor himself was taken aback by the effect of his phrase.
“It’s not the land of fiction, I can tell you that,” he slowly said, “But I believe that all that we saw earlier was a fabrication. A manipulation of reality using elements of your Earth history.”
Nine nodded in agreement.
Somewhere not far from the edge of the woods, the grassy field split open. A column of dark smoke coiled up from the new hole in the earth, and was dispersed by a wayward gust of wind.
This caught the eye of the Ninth Doctor, who quickly stood up.
The others watched him curiously, and followed him out of the treeline and toward the edge of the newly formed hole in the ground.
Upon closer inspection, they could see that it was rather large, and cut deep into the soil in the shape of an elongated rectangle. From one edge, stone steps led downwards into the darkness and what appeared to be a tunnel.
“I don’t like this, Doctor.” Derpy whispered to her Doctor, “It looks like something out of a bad dream.”
“I don’t like the look of it either, Derpy.” the Ninth Doctor said, “But if what I’m being led to believe is true, then something wants us to go down here.”
“What for?” Medley called to him, “To kill us?”
The Ninth Doctor shook his head.
“No, they could have done that much earlier. I think someone or something wants… or maybe needs…. us. Let’s take a look around.”
Inside the shadowy catacombs the two Doctors and company tread softly. Below their hooves was stone, and around the inside of the tunnel were burning torches to light the way. This tunnel connected to an underground rotunda. Inside this structure a stone arch bridged a pool of grimy water in the center. The walls were lined with neatly arranged rectangular holes, into which wooden boxes were stuffed.
An ornate sculpture of the grim reaper was fixed on the opposite side of this rotunda, looking at those who entered with empty stone sockets. On either side of this skeletal pony statue was a new set of tunnels.
“This looks like a tomb of some kind,” Medley whispered, “Like a cemetery, but inside.”
“I think the term you’re looking for is ‘Mausoleum’, my dear Medley.” the Sixth Doctor said, “I can see why you ponies find these places creepy… there’s something about hanging around the bones of the deceased that is most unnatural.”
Derpy had been wandering from the central group over toward the nearest stack of coffins in the walls. Below each coffin-hole was a plaque, but the inscription was in some kind of alien language she couldn’t make out.
Which was odd, because the TARDIS was supposed to translate language.
“Doctor,” she called out, prompting two heads to turn, “What does this plaque say, and why can’t I read it?”
The Ninth Doctor moved in closer, looking over Derpy’s shoulder at the plaque and letting out a slow sigh.
“It’s written in a very, very old language.” the Doctor explained, “My language, the language of the Time Lords. TARDIS probably won’t translate it.”
The Sixth Doctor looked on with widened eyes.
“This one is Commander Hilred,” he whispered, “And the one next to him is Azmael! That can’t be right, Azmael died on Titan 3. I was there.”
“Look at the others,” the Ninth Doctor said, looking about at the engravings beneath each of the coffins, “Goth, Zorac, Spandrell, Maxil…. the Master, the Rani, Salyavin, Gomer…”
The Ninth Doctor reached one coffin at the far end and stopped reading. He leaned in closer, looking over the name several times. Silently, he placed a hoof on the surface of the wooden coffin. His head drooped below his shoulders, and his face was hidden from the view of the others. Nopony made a sound, and the mausoleum was silent save for the faint sound of the flickering torch flames.
“That can’t be right,” the Sixth Doctor quietly said, “Some of these Gallifreyans died elsewhere… some did not have bodies to reclaim. Some of them shouldn’t be dead at all, even by the time of your incarnation. At most that’s 600 years in my future, am I right?”
The Ninth Doctor didn’t speak.
“Hold on,” Lyra said, looking about the rotunda and counting each coffin, “There’s only about 40 coffins here… where are all of the others?”
Before anypony could say anything else Nine’s head snapped up. He looked around and stared at Lyra, holding a hoof to his mouth.
Unfortunately, the Sixth Doctor kept asking questions.
“All of what others?” he said, “There are more!?”
It was at that moment that the pool beneath the stone arch started to bubble. The dirty water started to circulate slowly at first, but soon started to froth and splash violently. Medley took a step away from the edge, pressing herself against the wall out of fear.
The water level plummeted rapidly. As it left, the time travelers could see more rows of coffins lining the inside of a deep circular pit. The water had been covering up a deep chasm completely stuffed with the coffins of Time Lords, and it extended down into the darkness seemingly indefinitely.
An awestruck Sixth Doctor removed a torch from it’s holster on the wall and dropped it down, watching the bright light descend. It fell until it became a pinprick of light, and then disappeared entirely. For several very long seconds there was no sound of impact, but then came a clatter and a splash from deep below, echoing back up faintly
“If all of these are Time Lords,” Medley muttered, “Then… how many of them are buried here?”
“Millions,” the Sixth Doctor said, “Possibly billions.”
The Ninth Doctor slowly got onto his hooves, and walked over to the statue of the Grim Reaper. Up close he could see the detailing on its face, his expression mirrored onto the skull. His eyes were drawn to the bottom of the statue. Here too, below the hooves and long robe, was a name written in Gallifreyan.
“What does it say?” asked Six, “Doctor… what is the name underneath that statue? Who is it supposed to represent?”
The Ninth Doctor looked back at his past self, at the two companions he traveled with, and back to Medley.
“It’s just another trick,” he said softly, “It’s just this place trying to get into my head. Trying to break me down and make me give up. It used a historical impossibility to intrigue us, to convince us to poke around… and now that we’re here it’s out to get us… it’s out to render each and every one of us vulnerable and break us down. That's my theory at least. Could be wrong.”
“We can leave though, right?” Derpy asked hopefully, “We can just go back to the surface, get into the TARDIS, and go somewhere else.”
“I’m afraid not,” the Sixth Doctor said.
“We’ve got to keep going.” Nine continued, “Theories aside, there’s got to be a purpose behind all this. I don’t know what it is. Somehow, I think that if we get to the bottom of all this we’ll find a way back to the TARDIS. There’s two paths, so I think we should split into two groups. If one of them is a dead end, that group will come back here and follow behind the other one.”
“I’ll go with the old Doctor, if that’s all right.” Lyra volunteered.
“What, the pincushion?” Nine said with raised eyebrows. Six stared him down, and stuck his chin in the air disapprovingly.
“Yeah,” Lyra replied, “I’d like to find out more about this whole ‘different versions of the same being’ deal.”
“Well suit yourself,” Nine said, “You’ll come with me, Derpy? And Medley, you with your Doctor?”
Both nodded.
“Fantastic, sounds like a plan to me… Doctor, if you discover anything important that I need to know, set up a telepathic trance. I’ll do the same if I learn anything.”
“Right,” the Sixth Doctor repeated, “I’ll be sure to let you know once I’ve got it all figured out.”
“Oh,” the Ninth Doctor said, “One more thing… This mausoleum doesn’t exist!”
The coffins, the pit of deceased Time Lords and the skeletal statue all vanished, leaving behind a simple stone rotunda devoid of marking. The Ninth Doctor's face changed expression, but it didn't turn into a grin. He turned back to go with Derpy, and proceeded down his route.
The dusty passageway felt cramped from above, forcing each of the three ponies to keep their heads lowered. Unfortunately for the Sixth Doctor his curly blonde mop of a mane would pick up cobwebs and other debris and force him to stop every now and then to pick the material out.
Lyra and Medley walked side by side, and went at a slightly slower pace than the Doctor in order to carry out a conversation between themselves without being overheard by the Doctor himself. Something about the Ninth Doctor’s reaction to that one coffin made Lyra uneasy, and she wanted to learn what she could.
“Has your Doctor ever… you know, broken down?” Lyra whispered, keeping her eyes fixed on the garish rainbow up ahead of them, just out of earshot of their whispered conversation.
“What, like back there?” replied Medley, “No… but he’s had other times when he became really down. Last week he played a game of some kind on a little gray box. I think he called it a visual novel.”
“What was it called?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Medley, “Something with a ‘K’. All I remember is that he got depressed after finishing it. I think he got emotionally attached to a character.”
“What, like a crush?” Lyra snorted. Up ahead the Sixth Doctor stopped, and her heart skipped a beat in fear of being overheard whispering. She was relieved to see him angrily shaking his mane out, and trying to flick a spider off his head with a hoof.
“I didn’t think the Doctor was capable of love and romance,” Lyra whispered, “I’ve never seen him show affection to anyone or anything, fictional or real… except maybe the TARDIS itself, but I’m not sure if that really counts.”
Medley shook her head.
“I think he feels the same way that you or I do,” she whispered, “He just keeps it all to himself. I do know that he has a granddaughter somewhere, and he also romanced a mare of his own species a couple hundred years ago. Other than that, he hasn’t been very forthcoming. I kinda found this stuff out by accident and through offhoof references, you know?”
Lyra had to mull that one over. She knew that the Doctor had lost his entire race, he had said as much before. Just when had that occurred? Were they all still alive by the time of this incarnation, or had he been the last of the Time Lords for a long time? What was the proper word for a mare Time Lord?
It would make sense if the traumatic event was more recent. This Doctor acted differently compared to hers. He was much more confident, if his ability to wear such a horrid costume un-ironically was any indication. He carried himself with a sort of swagger that was still present in the Ninth Doctor… but here it was more prominent. If the Time War had occurred more recently, sometime after this version of the Doctor, then it would explain everything from his contemporary sense of style to his downright bipolar nature. That reminded Lyra of another question…
“Does your Doctor have mood swings?” she whispered, “does he go from being really happy and caffeinated to being dark and depressed?”
“No,” Medley whispered back, “He’s… well…”
“What?”
“He’s a bit egocentric.” Medley whispered in her quietest voice.
“I am not egocentric!” the Sixth Doctor cried, turning about and shouting back at the two ponies, “I am perhaps the least egocentric being out there!”
Medley was silent and the Sixth Doctor decided against pressing the issue, leaving the three in a short silence while Lyra contemplated the hearing abilities of a time lord.
The cramped corridor came to an abrupt halt, ending in a rectangular threshold to another chamber of some kind. Beyond the opening was no light, and even with dark-adjusted eyes neither of the ponies could make out anything about it.
The Sixth Doctor stepped through the portal, disappearing into the blackness. Medley paused for a moment, and carefully followed the Doctor with Lyra bringing up the rear.
Even from within, the blackness was all-encompassing and left the three travelers blind to what lie ahead. What little information they could gather came through hearing, smell, and touch. Lyra could hear her hoofsteps echoing about, leading her to conclude that the area was sizable. The ground felt hard like a rock, but was cold and wet. Sniffing the air didn’t reveal anything new.
“Doctor, do you have anything that lights up?” Medley whispered.
“No… I haven’t a flashlight, if that’s what you mean,” the Doctor replied.
“I’ve got it,” Lyra said. She concentrated for a moment, focusing her energy into her unicorn magic. Her horn glowed a bright green for a brief moment, and then illuminated brilliantly from the tip. The sudden brightness caused Medley to cry out and shield her eyes.
Pointing her horn upwards, Lyra revealed the chamber around them to be cave-like and earthy, without much marking to guide them further or reveal anything important about the entire facade.
In the direction they had been previously moving toward was nothing but a rock wall. In fact, the entire chamber was little more than rock walls and emptiness. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to go from here, nor anything of importance to see.
The Doctor didn’t seem to agree, however. He held up a hoof, signaling for silence. Medley and Lyra focused, straining their ears to listen for a sound.
A very quiet, very soft squelching noise seemed to emanate from the far side of the cave.
The Doctor cupped his front hooves in front of his mouth, and made incomprehensible sucking and squelching sounds with puffed out cheeks. He seemed to be trying to communicate with something.
The original noise stopped.
The Doctor waited for a response, and after hearing none tried making the gross sound effects with his mouth a second time. After once again not hearing a response, he looked down toward his hooves and picked up a small stone. He held the stone with one hoof and watched the opposite wall intently for a moment before throwing it.
Rather than strike the rock wall with a clatter and bounce off, the rock stuck with a sharp splatting noise. The Doctor seemed surprised by this turn of events, and turned back to face Medley and Lyra.
“Most curious,” he said quietly, “There appears to be a creature over there, camouflaged as a rock formation. I’m wondering if perhaps it could be blocking the exit from view.”
“What kind of creature?” Medley asked, “Intelligent?”
“I suppose,” the Doctor said, “But not in the way you’d recognize as ‘intelligent’. I’m sure that it’s a sentient life form as it communicates using a language I recognize, but not one that the TARDIS can translate.”
“That’s what those noises were?” said Lyra, “That was you trying to talk to it?”
“Basically, yes, if you can call that talking.” The Doctor replied, “I’m not sure it’s worth explaining in full… unfortunately the creature seems to be unwilling to respond.”
“Or unable to.” Medley noted.
“Interesting idea,” the Doctor said, “Excellent idea, in fact. Good work Medley, you're improving!”
“Thank you.”
“It’s all due to my influence though, you mustn’t take any of the credit.” the Doctor said, clapping his front hooves together, “Now here’s the question… why can’t it respond? What’s holding it back?”
“Fear.” guessed Lyra, “We scared it by our noise.”
“Not quite,” the Doctor said, “Not by our noise, but by the vibrations that make up our noise. This species isn’t capable of the same kind of hearing that you or I recognize… but they can sense the sound waves and vibrations. Makes sense for a gelatinous being, but I don’t particularly envy it. Couldn’t hear a thing, but you’d always know if someone was talking. That’s just downright frustrating.”
“So… what do we do?” Medley asked, “Where do we go from here?”
The Doctor was silent for a moment, and paced back and forth. Lyra’s horn light began to dim as she lost concentration on maintaining the spell, so she renewed it and the place brightened back up slightly.
“I wonder…” the Doctor started, his words trailing off. He approached the “rock wall” with outstretched front hooves, attempting to form a psychic link with the creature.
All was silent for a moment. The Doctor stood with his hooves connected to the gelatinous creature’s side while Medley and Lyra watched on with bated breath.
At that moment, a terrible thing happened. The Doctor’s hooves were violently sucked into the side of the creature. The Doctor let out a terrified cry seconds before his face vanished into the side of the blobbish monster.
“Doctor!” Medley cried. Her loud voice and the Doctor’s point-blank scream irritated the creature. It reared back on itself, seeming to fold backwards and for a moment revealing the way out before plummeting back down onto the stone floor. The shock sent a vibration through the rock. Medley had the sense to take to the air, but Lyra was hit by the force of the blow and fell onto her side.
Her magic light extinguished as she fell, but a dim glow seemed to emanate from the outer layers of the blobbish creature’s skin. Had it absorbed some of the light?
A silhouetted form of a time lord was visible just underneath the outermost layer, kicking and thrashing about to no avail. He vanished, along with all sight of the creature as the slight glow faded and the chamber was full of absolute darkness again. Lyra went for an illumination spell again, but accomplished nothing in the way of startling the creature enough to make it spit the Doctor back out.
At least she and Medley could see again.
“Spit him out, Spit him out! ” Medley cried, flying higher and zooming down in the direction of the blob with outstretched back hooves poised for a drop-kick from above.
Unfortunately, her brave move did little more than get her stuck to the beast’s topside, sucking her in just as the Doctor had been.
“Lyra!” she shouted, “Bad idea, don’t try hitting it!”
Her hindquarters were trapped, and in the process of speaking the creature’s outermost layer ensnared her wings. Within moments, her head would be stuck as well.
“Medley, fight against it!” Lyra cried.
“I’m trying!” she yelled back, “It’s not working! Do something with your magic!”
“It’s only basic things and talent related-stuff! I can’t lift it up, it’s too heavy!”
“Think of something with your ta-”
The end of Medley’s sentence was lost as her head and the rest of her body vanished to the blob.
Lyra stood still, watching the shadows of both ponies trapped inside still trying to fight their way out unsuccessfully. She was lucky that she had a moment to think, and that the creature wasn’t actively after her , but she had to think fast. She doubted either of them could breathe through that… whatever that was.
She could levitate small objects, create light, and talent-related tasks. What good was a cutie mark in music and vocals if one is trapped in a cave with a giant blob trying to eat your friends? She could sing it a lullaby, perhaps. But then, the Doctor had mentioned that the thing didn’t have a sense of hearing.
But it could sense vibrations. After all, they had startled it when they had spoken up earlier, and shouting had irritated it. That gave Lyra an idea.
Lyra’s horn glowed a bright yellowish green, and a funnel formed out of the magic energy. The magic funnel moved toward her mouth, and Lyra sang in a high soprano.
“Do Re Me Fa So La Ti Do!”
The creature seemed to react negatively to the amplified sound of Lyra’s voice, but didn’t release it’s grip on the ponies. She tried again.
“So Do La Fa Mi Do Re, So Do La Ti Do Re Do!”
Still little reaction. So much for the warm up. Lyra’s mind snapped to something a bit louder, a song she had learned as a filly listening to her father’s old records.
“Baby you can haul my cart!
Lyra’s voice was less of a high soprano and more of a passionate alto at this point, blasting out the lyrics acappella and letting them reverberate loudly off the walls. This seemed to agitate the creature much more, and it started to push the ponies out halfway. The Doctor’s head and forelimbs were still stuck inside, and so were Medley’s hind limbs, but Medley was able to gasp for air. Lyra continued her loud singing, trying to remember the words to the verse
“Asked a filly what she wanted to be
Medley gave a large kick to the ailing creature, which released its grip on her hind hooves entirely, causing her to take a fall down onto the hard rock. The Doctor was still stuck, seeming to have gone limp and unable to work his way out.
“Baby you can haul my cart!
Lyra stopped singing as soon as the creature had spat the rest of the Doctor out onto the rock floor in protest to the intense assault on the senses caused by Lyra’s vocal chords. It seemed to ball up and retreat into a corner.
Taking the one chance they may have before the exit would be blocked again, Lyra dragged the Doctor by the collar of his ugly-looking outfit through the blackish threshold, beckoning for Medley to follow.
When all three had made it into another set of corridors, Lyra bent her lit horn over the Doctor’s face, listening for breathing. She didn’t hear anything, nor was his chest rising.
“Let me do this,” Medley offered, patting his neck with a hoof, “They taught us how to check for vitals in flight school.”
“You went to flight school?” Lyra asked, “That hasn’t been a requirement for ages.”
“I enlisted,” Medley said proudly, “Class of ‘89… He’s got something pulsing in his neck, but it’s irregular…”
“That’d be the second heart.” a different voice said.
The Doctor sat himself up with his back against the wall, and lower hooves stretched out on the ground. He was instantly taken down as two ponies tried to hug him at once.
“Take it easy, take it easy!” he said in a muffled voice. Returning to all four hooves, he dusted the dirt off from his patchwork frock coat and pulled it snugly about himself by the lapels.
“Respiratory bypass,” he explained, “Comes in handy every now and then… can’t say it’s too pleasant.”
“I thought you were dead.” Medley pouted, “You sure you’re all right?”
“Honestly Medley, I’ll be fine .” The Doctor assured her, “Though that little incident makes me certain of one thing… the threats down here are deadly . At least, they have the potential to be. I must warn my future self.”
The Doctor sat himself back down again, crossing his back legs and placing his front hooves on his forehead in a sort of meditative position. His expression became placid, and his breathing slowed down.
Medley and Lyra watched him sit like this for what felt like an eternity, unwilling to make small talk for fear they might break whatever trance he had put himself under.
The Doctor stirred after a while, and at a moment’s notice bounded back onto all fours with a huge grin on his face.
“I made contact,” he said, “I warned myself about the possibility of these constructed apparitions being deadly. Haven’t done that in awhile, I must admit.”
“You what?” Lyra asked, tilting her head to one side.
“Oh, never mind that. It’s all Time Lord voodoo. We've got work to!” The Doctor said, taking the lead of the trio once more.
The Ninth Doctor and Derpy ascended some sort of spiral stone staircase. Shafts of bright daylight poked in through cracks in a wall, illuminating the stone with a crisp golden light. Lining the walls on each side were tiles inscribed with ancient texts, which the Doctor paused to read.
“This is from your world,” he said, “Ancient history to you, but a lot newer than most of what I expected to find here.”
The Doctor paused, sitting himself down on the steps for a moment. His brow furrowed, and he didn’t respond to Derpy’s prodding.
“Doctor,” she said, “What’s the matter?”
He blinked a few times, made eye contact with Derpy once more, and smiled.
“That was myself,” he said, “Ha! That was my past self, making psychic contact with his future me.”
“His future…” Derpy trailed, “That’s a weird way of putting it.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “What did he have to say.”
“Oh, something about the risk of death here being real and all that, nothing to be too worried about.” he replied with a smile, “Apparently he nearly got killed by a great blob of a creature with gelatinous skin. Imagine that!”
“I’d rather not.” Derpy admitted, “Everyone else alright?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Fantastic.”
“Oi!” the Doctor protested, “That’s my line!”
They reached the uppermost step in the stone staircase, and found themselves on a sort of balcony overlooking a deep chasm. Weeds, fungus, and vines grew up between cracks in the wall and in spaces between stone tiles, lending the place an atmosphere similar to an old set of ruins from a Daring Do novel.
In fact, it looked an awful lot like something out of a Daring Do novel, now that Derpy thought about it. Everything was there, from messages left by an ancient civilization to a chasm of doom.
Looking over to the opposite side of the chasm, Derpy could see another ledge, and on that an entryway into something beyond. The classic death trap for an injured pegasus seeking a precious artifact.
Only Derpy wasn’t injured. Quite effortlessly, she flew across the never-ending chasm and landed on the opposite side.
It was no wonder Daring was always getting her wing injured in the books. That kind of solution was the epitome of an anticlimax.
The Doctor paced back and forth on the other side of the chasm, growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of wings.
“Nine incarnations, and I’ve never been a pegasus. Can you believe that?” he called across, “Not once. I’ve been a unicorn one time, that was nice. I could levitate all sorts of little things in a laboratory.”
“I could try to carry you across,” Derpy offered.
“Nah,” the Doctor replied, “I’m far too heavy.”
“At least you’re not the other Doctor.”
He smiled at that. His eyes scanned the other side, looking for a loose vine to try to jump for. There wasn’t any. All of the plants growing were on his side, while the floor and walls of Derpy’s side of the chasm were bare save for the empty torch holsters attached to the wall.
The Doctor looked around by his hooves, finding a loose bit of floor tile. He kicked at it and knocked it out of position.
“Derpy,” he said, “Listen.”
He kicked the bit of stone over the edge, allowing it to fall down into the chasm. Both he and Derpy waited for a noise to signal the depth of the chasm, but no noise came. All was silent save for the distant chirping of rainforest birds adding to the artificial ambience of the “lost ruins”.
“An endless pit.” the Doctor whispered, “Now how did you manage that?”
Leaving the pit’s edge, the Doctor set to work pulling up tangles of vines that grew up from the floor. He wrapped an end of a particularly long one around his hoof, and gave a sharp tug on the other side. It seemed durable, perhaps even durable enough to hold his weight.
“Derpy, how are you with knot tying?” he asked, “Ever been a foal scout?”
“No,” she admitted, “I can probably figure it out though.”
“Right,” the Doctor said, “I’ve got a length of vine here, I want you to fly it back over to that side and tie it onto that torch holster over there. If this works, I should be able to swing my way across.”
“Good idea.” Derpy agreed. She flew over the seemingly endless chasm and back to the side the Doctor was stuck on, and took one end of the vine in her teeth. The Doctor had the other end wrapped tightly around one hoof.
Flying back, she set to work fastening the vine to the torch holster. It was a small piece of bronze shaped like a hook and fastened to the stone wall. In use it would have served as something that a wooden torch could be slid into and left against the wall, an ancient version of a light fixture.
Derpy found the knot-tying part a bit harder than she had anticipated. Coupled with her inexperience at working with rope was the unforgiving stubbornness of the vine itself. Vine was not a proper substitute for rope, and tying it into something that wouldn’t slip and come undone was quickly going from being a simple task to a major pain in the hindquarters.
Derpy managed to loop it through the holster and attempted to tie the vine back onto itself in a sort of sloppy-looking half hitch. She gave a tug, and the vine tightened. Thankfully, her makeshift knot didn’t give way, and it seemed to be fastened more or less securely.
“Alright Doctor, I think I’ve got it.” she called over.
The Doctor nodded, and positioned himself on the opposite side with both front hooves together. The vine was still firmly wrapped about one hoof, while the other grasped the line just above.
“You know… I could sort of use a pith helmet and some fanfare right about now,” the Doctor joked. Derpy didn’t seem to hear him.
He jumped off the edge, and felt himself drop down into the chasm. His jacket flared out and the vine pulled taught with stress from his weight. As he swung across, disaster struck. The holster they had tied the rope to snapped in half from the force applied to it, and the vine was no longer fastened to anything. The Doctor let out a cry, and fell into the darkness of the chasm.
Derpy dived for the end of the vine, holding it in her teeth. She felt a violent jerk and her hooves slid out from under her as she was pulled down over the edge with the Doctor, down into the blackness of the neverending chasm.
Air whipped about them, and Derpy screamed. She felt herself tumble over upside down and then right side up, and her head started throbbing while the entire world seemed to spin out of control. Even as the rushing air seemed to dissipate, she felt the mad spinning sensation grown stronger, and she held her hooves to her face and winced.
She didn’t impact with anything, which given the idea of an endless pit didn’t surprise her. What truly surprised her was the loss of that sensation of one’s stomach dropping. She didn’t feel like she was falling anymore. It was more of a floating sensation.
Derpy opened her eyes for a moment, and though it was very dark down in the chasm she could make out the form of the Doctor next to her. He was grinning madly.
“Alright, I have to admit that this isn’t what I expected.” he said, “But what a fantastic turn of events!”
“W-What’s happening?” Derpy sputtered, “Why aren’t I falling?”
“Suspension,” he replied, “You and I, the vine, and that little stone I tossed down here are all suspended. And I think I’ve figured out why.”
Derpy was silent.
“Well, aren’t you gonna ask?” the Doctor said expectantly, “Why I think we’re suspended?”
“Alright, why?”
“Well,” he conjectured, “I can turn myself upside down like this…”
His voice trailed off, and he effortlessly turned himself over on his back, hooves facing toward the distant ceiling.
“... but I don’t feel blood rushing to my head. Gravity’s out of whack.”
“What, somepony’s messed with the gravity,” Derpy asked, “is that what you mean?”
“Possibly.”
The pair was silent for a moment, rotating slowly in the gravity-challenged zone of the chasm. The Doctor tried to maneuver himself to face the bottom of the pit, but in doing so spun too far and did a complete arc in the wrong direction.
“I’m guessing it’s some kind of tractor field.” the Doctor said, “An array meant to harness us in midair like this. I guess the only problem is that we’re not being pulled in anywhere, just… left to float.”
Derpy thought about this, and tried herself to move in the zero-gravity zone. It was effortless, and her movement sent her careening into the stone side of the chasm. She threw her hooves out in front of her to brace the impact, but she still hit the wall rather painfully.
Rubbing her head, Derpy tried another approach. She touched the wall as gingerly as she could, and began to lower herself down beyond the level the Doctor was on.
Noticing this, the Doctor called out to her.
“What are you doing, Derpy?”
“Trying something.” she answered, “I’ve got an idea.”
“It’s a tractor field, Derpy. You get out of it and you’ll just keep falling.” the Doctor warned, “And you’ve got no idea how far down the floor is.”
“Good thing I’ve got wings.” she called back. Derpy was now much lower than the space occupied by the Doctor, and she started to feel her body moving unwillingly. It was an odd sensation, like being pulled by the hooves.
Her link to the wall ended and she found herself springing back to where she had just came from, nearly bowling over the Doctor in the process.
“Interesting,” he said, “You might have a point there.”
“It pulled me back here.” Derpy said, “That felt really weird .”
She tried again, this time making a break for the floor using her wings to carry herself along. As before she felt a pulling sensation, but it didn’t hinder her flight more than she was used to. In fact, the upwards pull and the lack of blood rushing to her head gave Derpy the disconcerting sensation of typical flight.
She was flying up towards the bottom of the pit.
“I think I’ve figured it out,” she called back to the Doctor, reaching the stone floor-roof and feeling around for something in the darkness, “Gravity reversed itself. I flew up toward the bottom of this thing.”
There was a brief pause. Derpy found a spot near the edge that did not have a solid rock wall lining it. Instead, there was an open space large enough for her to fit into. She did so, and felt herself resting on a ledge not unlike the one at the very top of the chasm. She was willing to bet it was some sort of passageway.
“Are you there now?” the Doctor called back.
“I found something,” Derpy replied, “I think it’s a passageway.”
“Fantastic!” exclaimed the Doctor, “See if there’s anything for me to attach the vine to and I can climb my way up… or is it down?”
****
Derpy and the Doctor walked along a darkened tunnel lit only by the blue glow of the sonic screwdriver. The tunnel was rocky, cold, and moist. In a way it felt less like an intentional path and more like a natural cave; a notion the Doctor would almost certainly dismiss based on the day’s events so far.
“You know, it’s funny,” the Doctor said, breaking the silence, “This reminds me of an arcade game I once played.”
“This face, or another one?” Derpy asked, “Because I can’t picture you playing an arcade game.”
“Oi!” cried the Doctor, “This one. I’m great at the video arcade, you know. What I was trying to say was that this reminded me of a secret passage. A warp zone. Some little out-of-the-way secret that acts as a shortcut through some of the difficult parts of the game.”
“Or skips the easy parts and brings you to the harder stuff.” Derpy stated. “I’ve played a few too. I wasn’t very good at them.”
A dim light appeared somewhere up ahead, apart from the light of the sonic. Crawling over jagged rocks and cramped spaces, the Doctor and Derpy could make out a roughly pony-sized gap leading out into daylight. The Doctor crawled through first, and reached back to help Derpy return to the surface
They emerged onto a sandy surface in broad daylight. Unlike the sand at the beach they had started at this was finer, and much drier. The landscape was one of rolling dunes and distant rock mountains. The heat was intense, coupled with the burning glare of the sun’s rays.
Derpy took the chance to fly a bit higher in hopes of spotting something they should aim for, to see if this route was even worth pursuing. From a greater altitude the dunes and rock mountains became smaller in magnitude, and she could see the expanse of canyons and a small greenish zone of vegetation to the South. Or maybe it was West. Her navigation had always been a bit off.
Just beyond the distant vegetation was a stone castle, sides bleached white from exposure to the sun. Four turrets stood at corners of a great wall around the outside, while a fifth turret in the center of the fortress stood tallest.
Derpy returned to ground level to explain what she had seen to the waiting Doctor. The directions she gave were vague. She couldn’t tell which way was north, south, east or west, but she could point the Doctor in the general direction of the oasis and the castle beyond.
“Let’s get moving, then.” the Doctor said, “No interruptions, should take us about an hour max. You thirsty?”
“A little.” Derpy replied, “Do you have any water?”
“No.” said the Doctor, “Tell you what, though.”
He reached into his jacket, and tried searching around for something with a single hoof. This search produced nothing, and he tried looking around through the other side.
“I…had a flask in here somewhere,” he muttered, “Can’t remember what was in it.”
“Don’t bother,” Derpy said, raising a hoof, “I’ll just wait until we reach the oasis. You said it was an hour’s walk?”
“Based on what you told me.”
Derpy nodded.
“I can wait until then.” she stated.
The pair set off over the sandy slopes of the erg, making idle conversation to pass the time. Behind them stretched a growing trail of hoof prints left in the sand.
Time passed. Stories told by the Doctor tended to flow into the next, and Derpy felt like she was having a hard time telling what was one story and what was bits of another one leaking through. She tried to imagine what it must be like for the Doctor. She found it hard to remember back to when she was a little filly sometimes, and that was just more than a decade and a half ago for her. Judging from what the Doctor had said of himself, he had been around for centuries. How did he remember all of that? Did his distant memory just fade away into nothingness, and what she was hearing was just the greatest hits of the most recent 100 years of space-time?
Derpy took her turns telling stories as well. To her, even her most exciting retelling of her childhood and teenage years seemed mundane sided with the Doctor’s life. Surprisingly, the Doctor seemed much more interested in hearing about her life than she had been about his. At first she suspected that his interest was feigned, but the questions he would ask revealed that he had been paying much closer attention than she had thought.
“...so you’re telling me that your father spotted an Orca whale on a whale-watch that went out of Baltimare seaport?” he asked.
“That’s right. He pointed it out to me, black body with a white spot behind the eye.” Derpy said, “They’re not usually that far south.”
“No, no they’re not.” the Doctor replied, “It’s not unheard of, just unusual. Fantastic creatures, the Orcas. They’re very intelligent predators.”
They walked on. The conversations continued for a time, then began to dwindle. The gaps of silence lengthened, and soon the Doctor and Derpy stopped speaking altogether.
It was just as well for Derpy, her mouth was getting dry. She could only hope they reached the oasis soon.
That thought made Derpy stop for a moment, and look at her surroundings. It had definitely been an hour, and they seemed to have made little progress. There was still quite a lot of desert to cover.
The Doctor was having similar thoughts. He halted just a few steps beyond Derpy, and rolled up his sleeve to look at the watch around his left hoof.
“It’s been 67 minutes.” the Doctor said, “This isn’t good… oh, this is not good.”
He withdrew the sonic screwdriver, and held it up to take some sort of scan. It’s whirring noise intensified, and when he brought it back to his face to examine the readings his placid face turned into a scowl.
“We’ve covered roughly a quarter of the total distance between the hole in the ground and the large stone structure the sonic’s picked up.”
“Maybe it’s detecting mountains by accident?” Derpy suggested.
“It can distinguish between a castle and mountains, Derpy.”
Something beneath them rumbled. Derpy felt a surge of dread, recalling their encounter with the land eel in Starswirl’s time.
The Doctor felt the rumble too. Hastily stowing the sonic back in his coat pocket, he backed up from a certain point on the ground. The sand over that point started shifting and bulging. A surprised Derpy stumbled backwards from it.
“Doctor, what is it?” Derpy cried.
“Something sensitive to sonic energy, I’m guessing.” He said, “This isn’t good.”
The ground gave way in a burst of sand and soil, and a gargantuan worm burst up, screeching loudly. It’s skin was mottled whitish gray, and the head had four hinged ‘jaws’ lined with broken teeth used for tunnelling.
“Run!” the Doctor yelled, taking off over the nearest sand Dune. Derpy took off into the air and zoomed after him, matching his speed on hoof with her fatigued flight.
“Is it a meat-eater?” she shouted down to the Doctor, “Like the land eel?”
“No!” the Doctor yelled back, “It’s very protective of territory, though, and it will kill you!”
The worm dove back into the ground, only to spring up ahead of the pair of terrified ponies in the direction they had been fleeing. A glob of venom shot out of the head of the creature, clipping Derpy’s hindquarters and bringing her down. It stung, and she hastily tried rubbing it off on the sandy ground.
The Doctor had skidded to a halt. The worm was in mid-spit, so he took his momentary opportunity to strike at it with his back hooves.
The worm reeled backwards, and retracted back down into the soil. Moments passed, and though the ground rumbled below them the worm didn’t break the surface right away.
“We need to get out of here,” the Doctor said, “Derpy, fly high as you can and keep out of range.”
Derpy tried to open her mouth to reply, but felt something other than words trying to force its way up her throat. She felt a burning sensation, and her insides felt like they had flipped upside down. Her legs wobbled, and gave way. The pony buckled over and despite her best efforts, threw up.
The worm resurfaced, making a swipe at the Doctor in the process. He was thrown off his hooves, tumbling into a heap in the sand. Venom-spit splattered down very near to his face, sizzling against the hot sand. The Doctor moved into action again, trying to keep the worm focused on him rather than his sick companion.
For Derpy, the world was starting to spin. Dehydration and heat sickness was sitting in, and she knew she couldn’t keep this up for long. Despite trying to assure the Doctor that she would make it to the oasis, she knew she wouldn’t last that long.
Turning her attention to the nearby shouting of the Doctor and the cries of the worm, Derpy caught sight of the Timelord being side-swiped and thrown to the ground. The worm’s head reared back and lashed at the Doctor, who rolled to the side to avoid getting bitten. Derpy stretched her wings, and despite feeling horrible made an abrupt dash to the sky. It was a reckless, spontaneous decision and it might just save the Doctor from getting killed.
She sank her kind hooves into the head of the creature with considerable force, cracking the cartilage underneath and causing the creature to double over. Derpy hurtled out of control at breakneck speed and crashed nearby, faceplanting into the sand. The stricken worm writhed in shock and from the damage sustained by Derpy’s blow. It slunk back down into the hole it had created and remained there, unwilling to attack again.
Derpy rolled over, spitting sand out of her mouth. She looked up into the bright blue of the sky. Though adrenaline surged through her system from her counterattack, she felt the heat sickness, dehydration, and shock from the impact threatening to seize control.
A face looked over her, drawing a shadow that covered her eyes. This face was blue, and had a very close-cut brown mane that made his ears stick out. It was almost comical. Almost.
“Derpy… are you alright?” a distant voice called out, “That was a nasty crash.”
The sky grew dark. No… her vision was going dark. Derpy couldn’t stop it any longer. Unconsciousness drew over her like a thick blanket.
The Doctor stood over his companion, waving his hand in front of her face. When she didn’t respond, his hearts started to beat faster.
“Don’t do this to me…” he said to no-one, “Not now. Oh, come on Derpy.”
He listened for her heart. Still thumping. The Doctor leaned in over her, feeling her forehead with a hoof. Figuring that they couldn’t stay here and that if Derpy was this sick she wasn’t going to be able to walk, he put Derpy’s limp form over his back, and pressed on.
****
Derpy’s vision slowly returned from blackness, but her surroundings were still dark. Beneath her was cool grass, and above the tops of sparse trees and a clear star-filled sky. A dim orange light flickered among blades of grass, and a sense of warmth came from somewhere behind her. The temperature was much cooler now that night had fallen, and she was glad to have something blanket-like draped over her back.
She felt the blanket for a moment, starting to roll over. The inside was smooth, but the outside of it was a bit rougher, and well worn. She hadn’t really ever felt real leather before; it wasn’t particularly common in Equestria. This was the Doctor’s jacket.
She tried swallowing. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel very sick anymore, nor was her mouth and throat parched. Somepony had given her water to drink.
She shifted to face the warmth coming from behind, and was startled by the sudden bright orange glow greeting her. The Doctor sat across from her on the other end of a small fire, wearing only a black jumper over his bare fur. He smiled upon noticing that she was awake.
“How are you feeling?” he inquired, “Head hurt?”
“No.” Derpy answered honestly, “I just feel… oh I dunno, sort of drained of energy.”
The Doctor added another branch of wood to the fire.
“You were out of it for hours. It’s gone on night time now,” he said.
Derpy was quiet for a moment. Despite the fire and the Doctor’s jacket covering her, the night air sent a chill down her spine. She suppressed a shiver.
“Um… how did I get here? Last thing I remember was a great big worm, and we were in the middle of the desert.”
“I carried you.” The Doctor said, “On my back. Took twice as long getting here, night had almost fallen. I got you drinking water and set up a little fire for us out of what trees there were.”
“Thank you.” responded Derpy, “For saving my life. Again.”
“Nah, don’t mention it.”
Derpy thought about what the Doctor had told her for a few minutes. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him about it. It probably didn’t make much of a difference if she said anything or not, the Doctor didn’t seem keen on dwelling on the subject.
“What about the others?” she asked, “If it’s been hours…”
“I’ve thought about it quite a bit,” he admitted, “and I haven’t heard anything from my past self. No psychic contact. Obviously he’s not dead, as I haven’t ceased to exist. My guess is that time is moving at different rates for the two groups of us.”
“What do you make of this place?”
The Doctor took a moment to reply. He placed another piece of wood onto the fire, collecting his thoughts in the meantime. When he did reply, he leaned in and spoke in a low voice.
“The scenarios we’ve been facing… would you agree that they’re contrived?”
Derpy nodded. The situations and threats had been coming out of nowhere, and were all disjointed. There was no way any one of them could have occurred naturally with the other.
“I’ve narrowed it down to a shorter list of possible places.” The Doctor admitted, “The effects of the weather, the way time moves and your recovery give me a couple of clues that could narrow it down even further. Now, what the point of it all is… you’ve got me there. I think that something intelligent is putting these obstacles in our way, but I’ve noticed that they haven’t been too hard to deal with. Dangerous, yes. But the solutions haven’t been much of a stretch.”
“A collection of annoyances.” Derpy suggested.
“Maybe, yeah, maybe.” replied the Doctor. “I’m thinking more of half-hearted attempts at killing one of us.”
The Doctor knew that was false. The venom of the worm probably was lethal to a pony, but his immune system would have been able to recover. The desert took it’s toll on Derpy first. Even the gelatinous creature faced by his prior self served as more of a threat to his companions than it would have to a Timelord with respiratory bypass. He knew the truth behind what was happening here. Whoever was in charge was out to kill off his companions. They wanted the Doctor alive, but the companions dead. He had known this since they had first emerged onto the desert.
“You should get some rest,” he finally said, “I’d like to be up and moving before the sun rises, so we can make use of the cooler temperatures. It shouldn’t be too far to the castle, but you never know.”
Derpy couldn’t keep her shiver contained this time, and her teeth noticeably chattered.
“Doctor?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m cold.” Derpy stated.
The Doctor nodded. He went to go for another branch to add to the fire in an attempt to build it up, but Derpy spoke again.
“Doctor?” she called.
“Yes Derpy?”
“Can you lie down over here by me?”
The Doctor hesitated for a moment, but obliged. He sat himself down next to the curled up Derpy. She moved his leather jacket partway off from her back, and partially covered his. With one jacket acting as a makeshift blanket over the pair of them, she rested her head down on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Within minutes, her breathing had evened out and she drifted off into a slumber. The Doctor blinked slowly. After a while, he rested his own head against Derpy’s and let his thoughts wander inward.
He felt strange. Ever since the beginning of this incarnation he had felt nothing but guilt. He was truly a haunted being, despite how he tried to present himself otherwise. No amount of grinning or gleeful cries of ‘fantastic’ could cover the deep trauma he felt. Behind the facade of the whimsical adventurer in a blue box was a tortured soul who couldn’t forgive himself for his own actions. Faced with the reality of what he was capable of, he lived in constant fear of what might happen if his darker side took over.
Yet despite all that, amid the non stop torrent of negative emotions, the Doctor felt something else. Sitting here next to Derpy, feeling the nonverbal trust and gratitude she had for him, he felt happy. Really, truly happy for possibly the first time in this life. A small smile crossed over his face, unobserved by anyone else.
A thick metallic door slid upwards into the ceiling, and let loose a burst of sparks. When the hot bits had scattered, the Sixth Doctor bounded into the futuristic-looking corridor through the smoke, followed by two ponies coughing from all the smoke.
Medley looked around, bleary-eyed and still sputtering. They had gone from underground tunnels into something more metallic and space-punk. The corridor had neutral-colored panels and a grate at the top and bottom, and was clothed in red lighting. Another monitor farther down exploded, sending bits of flaming broken hardware spewing out.
“I recognize this place!” Lyra said, “This is the Poet . At least, it’s a ship sort of like it.”
“Equestrian Starship,” The Doctor said, “By the look of it, crashing or under attack.”
Medley backed up, half considering leaving this part for the tunnels once more. If the creatures they encountered had the ability to kill them even in a created scenario, who was to say they weren’t in the same danger trying to navigate through a crashing starship?
The door they had entered through slammed shut with a loud sound, startling Medley and causing her to jump.
The Doctor made his way over to it, tapping the side with a hoof and listening for sound.
“The internal mechanisms have been fused together, we can’t go back this way.” he said, “We’ve got to keep moving.”
The Doctor took off down the corridor at a fast gallop, leaving Medley and Lyra having to play catch-up. Around the nearest bend was a branched path, with one path leading to engineering and the other to the command center of the ship. The Timelord skidded to a halt at the sign, and almost immediately took off once more in the direction of the command center.
“Doctor, where are you going?!” Medley cried after him, having to stop to catch her breath. Lyra turned to look back to her, and then back to the Doctor. She couldn’t call him back, so turned to run after the Doctor once more.
Sighing, Medley took flight to try to make up for lost distance. The gap between them closed, just as the Doctor came to a sudden stop once again. Medley nearly crashed into the wall, catching herself with a hoof to come to a stop.
“Doctor, will you please tell me what’s going-”
“Do you hear that?!” he said suddenly, in a very shouty voice.
Medley fell silent. Around her, the ship grumbled and parts groaned. A series of distant explosions crackled, but perhaps the loudest noise was a deep, chugging groan coming from somewhere below.
“That chugging sound is the engines,” the Doctor elaborated, “and they’re not supposed to make that sort of noise. That means that they’re failing, we’re in a decaying orbit somewhere within the atmosphere. I don’t have time to sit around explaining things, you’re going to have to just trust me on- DUCK!”
He tackled Medley to the ground, just as the panel near her head rocketed out of place. Lyra dove down to avoid the shrapnel, her face smashing into the floor grate. Wires crackled and fizzled down, and a column of smoke began pouring from the scorched spot the panel had just occupied.
“We haven’t much time, this place is coming apart by the seams.” The Doctor muttered, bouncing back onto all four hooves and offering an arm out to help Medley back up.
Upon reaching the bridge the three time travelers found set of deserted consoles, broken fixtures, and wailing sirens. Not a crewmember was in sight.
The Doctor jumped over the broken captain’s chair, landing next to the science console. Cracks ran along the glass surface of the screen like a web, making the screen impossible to read. The Doctor tapped at the buttons in frustration, trying to get a readout to appear on one of the other screens.
“Where did everypony go?” asked Lyra, “Nobody’s flying the ship!”
“I’m trying to get an equinoid lifeform count on here right now,” the Doctor replied, “Medley, make yourself useful and find out which console was the navigator’s. It should have a yoke on it.”
“Aye, Captain.” she retorted.
The Doctor paused in his work to look back at her, wanting to make a remark about taking things seriously, but decided that it was probably not worth the effort.
Medley found that part of the navigator’s chair had been strewn up onto the console itself, and the plastic had melted around the edges and re-solidified to parts of the paneling around the bottom edge of the console. Lyra had to help her tug on the sides, breaking the chair off in order to gain access.
The desktop screen was intact, and showed a diagram of the the ship falling around the planet with a countdown to impact. Currently, the countdown was at just over five minutes.
“Doctor, this thing says we’ve got five minutes until it crashes!” she shouted over. The Doctor looked up from somewhere beneath the jutting desk on the opposite side. He had wedged himself into a section with blown-apart paneling and exposed connections to try to re-route the display on the science monitor onto another.
Something seemed to have worked, as the results of the search he had just tried to run showed up on the very screen Medley had been looking at for the countdown. The new display showed that there was a total of five equinoids onboard, and two non-equinoids.
“That’s great, now I’ve lost the clock.” Medley said.
“Never mind about that, we know what we need to know.”
“Which is…?” trailed Medley.
The Doctor cut through another wire, and the wailing sirens stopped. The sounds of the chugging engine far below stopped, and the three ponies were shrouded in darkness. The Doctor stood up, tightening the lapels of his overcoat and raising a single eyebrow. Neither Lyra nor Medley said a thing. Their ears rang from the sudden drop in noise. Silence fell over the bridge.
“I didn’t do that.” The Doctor said, “I just cut the connection to the science console. That shouldn’t have made all of the… wait a moment…”
He jumped up and down in place, feeling the ground move and listening to the impact of his hooves against the grated floor.
“We’re not on a spaceship.” he said.
“I know that,” Lyra replied, “You said all of this was created to give us a hard time.”
“No, but even a created spaceship feels like a spaceship, my dear Lyra.” he continued, “This place is wrong. The gravity feels like natural gravity, not artificial. A simulator, I’m guessing.”
The room was silent for a moment. Medley felt something strange happen, but she couldn’t place it at first. Lyra sensed the shift. Something cold filled the room, and she felt the shift. The Doctor’s eyes widened.
The main viewscreen flickered, and settled onto an image of the Ninth Doctor and Derpy entering some kind of darkened laboratory. Flickering overhead lights illuminated desktops laden with machinery and papers and parts of the stone floor, but no light was present in one particular corner of the room. Something resided in the shadows, kept down by thick chains and attached to a long length of electric cable attached to a running generator. The entire room was laid out like a scene from a Frankenstein remake, but with the monster out of sight.
****
“There’s something alive over there,” Derpy said, motioning to the corner.
The Ninth Doctor walked slowly around the tables, looking at the equipment. Shock prods, drill bits, and an industrial strength portable drill. Somepony was torturing the creature in the corner.
“I’m not sure what to make of all this,” the Doctor admitted, “Whoever’s been doing research in an abandoned castle- if you can call this sort of thing ‘research’- left it all on display and left the door unbolted. I know it’s a trick, but I wonder why it’s this simple.”
Something sparked by the electric generator, but it continued to whir. Upon inspection, the Doctor could see that the switch used to run current along the wires and into the body of whatever was chained up in the corner was currently set to off. It wasn’t being shocked.
A thought occurred to him. Was it possible that the creature, whatever it was, could communicate?
“Derpy, would you mind going outside?” the Doctor asked, “I don’t know if this is dangerous or not, it’s better to play it safe.”
Derpy nodded, and went around the corner toward the exit.
Now alone in the room with the unknown creature, the Doctor spoke to it directly.
“Can you understand me?” he asked. There was silence. No sound other than the whirring generator.
“You don’t have to be afraid of answering me, I’m not going to shock you.” he said, “I don’t know who had done all of this to you, but I’m going to try to put a stop to it if I can. Are you able to respond?”
****
The Sixth Doctor made a motion to Medley, who came to his side. He leaned in closer to whisper into her ear.
“I don’t like this.” he whispered, “Think you can break a metal door?”
“Maybe”, Medley whispered back. The Doctor slid something into her hooves on a chain; an average-looking key. Medley straightened up, eyes widening. The Doctor’s eyes widened too, and for a brief moment they stood still, silently staring at each other with wide eyes.
Then, like coming out of a trance, she snapped out of it. She wrapped the key around her neck, and bowed out of the room. Lyra waited until Medley had left, then posed her question.
“Doctor… why did you have to whisper?” she asked, “Is somepony listening in on us?”
The Doctor was silent. The only sound in the room came from the audio of the Ninth Doctor on the viewscreen, to which his eyes were glued.
****
“Look, I’m not sure what I can do to gain your trust, but I promise you, I’m here to help.” the Doctor said to the shadow. There was no response. He decided to try a different approach.
“I’m the Doctor.” he stated, “it means ‘healer’. I can fix you, probably. Maybe.”
This time, he did receive a response. A mechanical voice responded slowly, laboriously. A small circle of blue light shimmered into existence, and with each word a pair of lights just above the blue one flashed.
“DOC...TOR?”
The Doctor’s reassuring smile faltered, and his lower jaw seemed to sag for a brief moment.
“Impossible.”
“THE DOC-TOR?”
The Doctor stumbled backwards, his hind end crashing into a desk and knocking a desk lamp over. The light fell to the ground, but was not extinguished. Instead it illuminated the dark corner of the room to reveal the occupant; a chained, disabled tank lined with round bumps and armor. This tank was equipped with a beam emitter and a plunger-like grabbing device around its midsection, while its head was shaped like a dome with only an eyestalk and a couple of lights protruding from it.
“YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF THE DA-LEKS. YOU MUST BE DES-TROYED.” the creature screamed, “EX-TER-MINATE! EX-TER-MINATE! EX-TER-MINATE!!!”
The room was silent. The Doctor had taken a dive underneath the table to avoid a death ray that never came.
Regaining his composure, the Doctor began walking toward the lone Dalek.
“It’s not working!” he said. The Doctor rolled his head back, and laughed.
“Oh! This is fantastic! Powerless, you are! How does it feel to be powerless?”
On his last sentence, he rushed forward, standing right in front of the Dalek. The Dalek recoiled, pulling against the chains to try to distance itself from the Doctor.
“KEEP BACK!”
“Why? What for?” the Doctor taunted, “What’re you gonna do to me?”
He began circling the Dalek, nearly eye-to-eyestalk. He stared into the blue light with his own piercing eyes, and his words came through a snarling face.
“If you can’t kill… then just what are you good for Dalek ?” he taunted the broken enemy, “What’s the point of you?”
He changed direction this time, and the glowing eyestalk followed his motion. The Doctor paused, taking a step away from the Dalek and leaning against one of the tables.
“What are you even here for?” he asked.
“I AM WAIT-ING FOR ORDERS.”
The Doctor said nothing.
“I AM A SOLDIER. I WAS BRED TO RECEIVE ORDERS.”
The corners of the Doctor’s lips curled upwards, and he bared his teeth when he next spoke to the Dalek.
“Well, you’re never gonna get any,” he said, “not ever.”
“I DEM-AND ORDERS!” The Dalek insisted angrily.
“They’re never gonna come!” shouted the Doctor, matching the Dalek in terms of tense anger. He sprang up from his leaning position and came close to the eyestalk again, as if trying to stare down the wretched mutant within.
“Your race is dead!” he continued, “You all burn. All of you! Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second.”
“YOU LIE!” The Dalek screamed back.
“I watched it happen.” The Doctor said, raising his eyebrows. As soon as he did so, his face contorted and he leaned in as close as he could, teeth bared and brow furrowed.
“I made it happen!”
“YOU… DES-TROYED US?”
Silence fell over the room once more. Somewhere outside, Derpy listened in with a heavy heart. The Doctor had told her of the evils committed by the Daleks. He had explained the many innocent lives lost to their armies, and that their entire purpose was one of racial cleansing. They existed purely to eliminate all other forms of life from existence. He had impressed on her that they were creatures of absolute hate.
So why was it she felt a small part of her pitying the creature?
The Doctor turned away from the Dalek, unable to look at it in the eyestalk any longer. Taking a few steps away, his rageful expression subsided into something else. He closed his eyes.
“I had no choice.” he stated.
“AND WHAT OF THE TIME-LORDS?” asked the Dalek.
“Dead.” the Doctor said simply, “They burned with you.”
****
The Sixth Doctor was left speechless. He took a few steps backwards, away from the viewing screen, but was totally silent. Lyra couldn’t see what his expression looked like, and she couldn’t begin to imagine.
“Why?”
****
“The end of the Great Time War.” the Ninth Doctor continued, “Everyone lost.”
“...AND THE COW-ARD SURVIVED.” The Dalek slowly said.
“Oh, and I found you, didn’t I?” the Doctor said, “Trapped in the Matrix.. in a pocket universe with no more access. The last Dalek in existence, trapped in the last aspect of Gallifrey.”
“I AM… ALONE IN THE UNI-VERSE.” said the Dalek again, in an even slower, more subdued voice.
“Yep.”
“SO… ARE YOU.” it continued, “WE ARE THE SAME.”
Something seemed to snap inside the Doctor. His remorseful gaze away from the Dalek, his demeanour of regret and his inability to look at the creature all vanished to be replaced by a loud, shouting Timelord with throbbing veins in his neck.
“No!” he shouted, leaping toward the Dalek about to restart the stare-down once more, “We’re not the same! I’m not…”
His voice trailed off, and a tooth-filled grin came over his face. He took a few steps back, eyebrows raising and voice becoming much lighter.
“Wait…” he seemed to consider, “Maybe we are… ok, yeah. You’ve got a point.”
He continued to back away, now approaching the whirring generator.
“‘Cause I know what to do.” he continued, “I know what should happen. I know what you deserve .”
He glanced back at the lone Dalek, meeting it’s gaze once more and grinning from ear to ear.”
“Exterminate.”
The Doctor slammed on the switch connected to the electric generator. Massive amounts of power surged through each of the wires, ending with a set of coils positioned in a way that surrounded the Dalek. Bolts of light jumped from the coils to the metal shell of the Dalek. The sounds of electronic screams uttered from the vocals of the doomed alien joined with the crackling electricity in a sick chorus. Light from the bolts illuminated the entire chamber, save for the shadow cast against the wall by the motionless Doctor.
“HAVE… PITY!” the Dalek cried with effort.
“Why should I?” the Doctor yelled back at it, “You never did!”
He went on to flip another switch, increasing the amperage flowing through the creature.
Having heard the chaos from outside the door, Derpy made up her mind. Something about the Dalek had triggered this violent streak in the Doctor, and he wasn’t talking like his usual self, the one she looked up to. After all his talk of nonviolent solutions and being the better pony, of second chances and an unwillingness to command wrongdoers to death, he was willing to torture and kill this Dalek?
Something was wrong, and she had to talk him down from it.
Derpy threw open the door to the chamber within, and the Doctor’s head snapped up. Derpy’s slightly off-center gaze met the Doctor’s, and she noticed something different in his eyes. It was hard to describe, but his irises seemed drained of color completely.
“Derpy, stand back!” he commanded in a loud voice.
Derpy shook her head.
“First it was the last group of Cyberponies,” she said, trying very hard to keep her voice from wavering, “Now the last Dalek.”
“I’ve got to, Derpy!” he shot back, “It’s my duty to rid the universe of their filth!”
“No!” she yelled.
That was strange. She was yelling at the Doctor now.
Now she was… running towards him and shoving him away from the switch.
What happened?
Derpy was able to flip the switch and shut the electricity flow to the Dalek off, moments before the Doctor kicked her in the side. She fell and slammed into the stone floor, winded and hurt.
The Doctor went to turn the switch back on, but noticed that the Dalek was silent. The eyestalk was no longer glowing, and a wispy column of smoke seeped out through the grille on the Dalek’s neck. It was dead at this point, completely roasted.
The room was silent save for somepony lying on the floor, crying.
“The deed is done.” The Doctor said, “I did what I had to do.”
He reached over to help Derpy to her hooves, but she recoiled from him.
“Come on, stand up,” he said, trying to say his words softly. He offered a hoof out again but Derpy slid herself farther away, refusing his help.
“I thought you were a stallion of second chances,” Derpy muttered, just loud enough for Nine to hear, “Somepony who valued life, even the lives of his enemies. You go out there and save the universe, only killing as a last resort.”
“I do what I have to do,” the Doctor said, “If these things are out there making the universe so dangerous… it’s my job to stop them.”
Derpy noticed that strange thing that seemed to have happened earlier to the Doctor’s irises happening again. This time however, his entire body seemed to be draining of color. His blue coat of fur was fading to a sickly gray.
“You know…” he said struggling to find the right words, “I’ve got to cleanse the galaxy of-”
“Do you know who you sound like?” she interrupted. The Doctor was silent. Derpy was silent. A small breeze started to blow outside, and the outer door slammed itself shut.
Derpy stood herself up, dusting her legs off. The Doctor just stood and watch, teetering between being very hurt and being very angry. She couldn’t begin to know what had come over him. Had he snapped? Was he being mind controlled? She almost wished that that was the case.
Derpy made her way toward the door. As she walked closer to it, a familiar groaning noise was heard outside.
“I’m leaving.” she said, breaking the quiet, “If this is what you’ve become, I don’t want to be involved.”
That really set the Doctor off. He gave a terrible shout, and slammed his hoof into the nearest table, smashing the wood. He swiped at the equipment on the table, knocking it off and breaking most of it.Derpy threw open the door and raced out, but the Doctor was right behind her on hoof.
As he came out into the sunlight, he was stopped by another stallion clad in a garish looking coat and standing between him and the older version of the TARDIS, which Derpy had entered.
“Let her go.” the Sixth Doctor said.
“Out of my way, pincushion.” the future version snarled.
“I don’t think you realize just how foolish you’re acting.” The Sixth Doctor said, backing himself up, “In fact, you’re not behaving rationally or reasonably, two of the qualities I pride in myself. Yes, you’re acting in a most un -Doctorly manner. In fact, you make me wonder if you’re even the Doctor at all.”
“What would you call me then?”
“The Not-Doctor,” Six replied in an instant, “The Angry Boor, Stupid Big-Eared Git, and possibly the Valeyard. That’s who I’m speaking to now, isn’t it? That’s seems like the kind of thing you’d do: create an emotionally charging scenario where I have to choose between right and wrong, and if I choose wrong it leaves me susceptible to… to…”
The Not-Doctor swiped at Six, grappling his former self in an attempt to choke him. This was met with the Sixth Doctor throwing his weight against him and causing the pair to crash onto the rock threshold. The Not-Doctor received the brunt of the impact, and loosened up just enough for the Sixth to get a quick jab to the stomach in, and bounce away. He quickly made for the TARDIS, throwing open the door and bounding inside.
Now completely grayscaled, Nine could only watch as his past TARDIS dematerialized, leaving him alone in the Matrix.
With a TARDIS of his own. He waved a hoof, and the landscape vanished around him, leaving only himself, blankness, and a TARDIS.
Approaching his TARDIS, he tried sifting through the memories of this body. He kept his key in a pocket of the leather jacket.
He sighed. The leather jacket would have to go. Perhaps an overcoat would suit him better?
Yes, that would be excellent. A nice, flowing black overcoat. There had to be one somewhere in the TARDIS.
Another thought struck the Wolf. Curiously, he rubbed a gray hoof against the blue panels. A bit of blue paint came off. Why had The Doctor painted the TARDIS, what was he trying to hide?
****
Medley, Lyra, and Derpy sat in the white console room of the older TARDIS. The Sixth Doctor watched the center of the console bob up and down in rhythm with the groaning of the engines as the ship flied through the vortex, and out of the realm of the Matrix.
Derpy had her face buried in her hooves. Quietly, Lyra made her way over and tried to wrap a front leg around her friend’s shoulder.
“What I don’t get,” Medley said, breaking the profound silence engulfing the console room, “Is what exactly happened to your Doctor. It sounds like he went crazy.”
“Partially,” the Sixth Doctor said somberly, “My theory is that he was possessed at his moment of weakness. When he felt like he was the lowest of the low. He sort of… gave up on life, and that left room for that... thing to swoop in and seize control of me.”
“He, me,” repeated Medley, “I’m so confused. Who is this "thing"?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to explain, but Derpy spoke up.
“He’s you, isn’t he?” Derpy said.
Everyone was silent. Lyra sort of let go, and Derpy got back to her hooves, wiping her eyes dry.
“He’s the worst part of you, Doctor,” she continued, “Cut off from the rest of you… the good in you.”
The Doctor nodded.
“Gallifrey destroyed, or so my future self claims. I’m surprised the Matrix survived.” he said, “That’s what all that was, you know. A Timelord Supercomputer, that created a pocket universe. If a malevolent being was in the Matrix when it was destroyed, then he might have survived the blast. It might explain why he needed a body so desperately. That’s what he had been reduced to… just life force floating about.”
“That’s what you think happened?” Lyra asked.
“Who knows?” the Sixth Doctor replied. He went to the console again, and flicked at the switches. The TARDIS’ engine noises returned, and they were on their way to a new destination.
The ship groaned, and rematerialized. The Doctor made his way to the door first, and swung it open.
“Go on,” he said, “out you go.”
He was talking to Derpy.
“I...I...I…”
“That’s three I’s in one sentence… oh nevermind,” the Sixth Doctor said, “I thought you said you wanted to leave. So I took you here, Ponyville. Somewhere around 1999, 2000.”
“2003,” Medley read, looking at the console’s clock.
The Sixth Doctor looked around urgently, slamming the door shut.
“That can’t be the case,” he said, double checking, “It must be malfunctioning.”
“If it’s all the same,” Derpy spoke up, “I don’t think I’ll be leaving.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I’m serious,” she said, “I… I don’t know. I feel like it’s my fault.”
Lyra took a step forward, opening her mouth. This time the Sixth Doctor was the first to interrupt, leaping over the side of the console to approach Derpy. She held her hoof up, stopping his approach.
“He changed the most after I said I was going to go,” she explained her voice strong and unwavering, “I think that’s what did it. Made him feel the worst, that is.”
The Sixth Doctor shook his head.
“Are you seriously-”
Lyra got her chance to interrupt him, holding a hoof to his mouth before he made the situation any worse.
“Derpy, you can’t take the blame for any of this.” she said, “It’s not anypony’s fault. It just… happened, y’know?”
Nobody knew quite what to say next. Medley sat herself down, and Lyra stood still, looking at Derpy for awhile. The Doctor was the only one moving, going back to the TARDIS console and setting to work. At first it was calm, calculated movements, but soon his gestures became more heightened. He started jumping about the different sides of the console quickly, bobbing up and down in order to reach the buttons farther in.
Seeing the ridiculous sight of the bouncing rainbow of a Doctor really detracted from the somber mood. Lyra found herself trying really hard, and failing in the end, to suppress a giggle. The corner of Derpy’s mouth curled up. Medley didn’t seem too affected as both she and the Doctor stopped to stare at the two ponies from 1999, wondering what was funny.
“What are you even supposed to be doing?” Lyra asked.
“Setting us in motion, of course, what does it look like I’m doing?” he replied, “We’re going after him.”
“But how?” asked Derpy, “How do you plan on finding him?”
“No idea!”
“What about getting the Wolf out of your future self?” Medley asked, “Is that what you’re gonna do?”
“Going to do, my dear Medley,” the Sixth Doctor replied, “If all goes according to plan.”
“But you just said you don’t even have a plan!”
Author's Note
-The dialogue from the confrontation with the "Last Surviving Dalek" was taken from the 2005 episode "Dalek". I decided to lift the scene directly from the episode itself, since the ability of the Matrix to create virtually anything would allow for this scenario to be created. I think that had the Doctor been allowed to go through with his plan of killing the Dalek, he could have spiraled into something reminiscent of the Timelord Victorious.
