Act I; Scene I: A New Drug, a New Prescription
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The Companions (The Fall of Queen Celestia Book 2)
Act I; Scene I: A New Drug, a New Prescription
The Doctor. Usually one would think of a medical professional, not a madman in a blue box running across time and space who's saved the universe countless times. Unless you were the right kind of person. Then there are signs everywhere...were signs everywhere. Now he was just a legend on Earth and throughout the rest of the galaxy containing Earth. Now he was just a lost soul with no clue who he was, where he was, and why he was here. Although the most prominent question was why his hooves felt wrong.
When he had opened his eyes for the first time in the new universe, he didn't know who he was, why he was here, and what he was doing here. All he knew was that there was a splitting headache in the center of his forehead. And that he wasn't supposed to have hooves. He sat up and stared at the foreign appendages, slowly remembering the fact that horses had hooves and grinning as the information slowly came back. But he still couldn't remember anything about himself. No matter how much information flooded back, he co-
The Doctor.
The voice stabbed through the dark that surrounded his thoughts, ripping through a part of the netting that held his them. He was the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He had "borrowed" a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) after his first regeneration, during the Great Time War, where he...that was it. That was where his thoughts stopped, but even so, he could feel the person he was supposed to be. A savior of sorts, someone who would break every law if it meant saving a life. None of this helped though. He still had no clue where he was, why he was here, or what had happened.
A door opened somewhere, light spilling into the room where he was. From it, a crisp wind blew through the now widening doorway. He looked around and he finally figured out where he was; the control room of the TARDIS. Although that should have been apparent, it was kind of hard for him to make anything out with the lights off. That fact contradicted with his memories though. The TARDIS couldn't cut the lights off. Not in the control room at least. Something was definitely wrong here.
Almost as if to give him a break from his thoughts, a note fluttered along the wind, landing in his lap, the side with his name scrawled on it facing upwards.
"What could this be," he asked himself, trying to pick it up with his hooves a few times and failing, eventually picking it up with his mouth and heading outside so he could see. He arrived outside and sat down, nosing the letter open and reading aloud.
"Heya Doctor! I know that you might not know me...in fact, it's a fact that you don't know who I am. I know who you are though, and I suppose this is me trying to help you get started here in Equestria. I wish I could tell you about the times we had together, like the adventures we had with Eli, and how we caused a time loop on accident. But I can't because of future you's rules. Although, present you is eventually going to become future you, so we'll get to this point one day, and you'll know me and the rest of our friends and we'll all be getting ready to...Right, I keep forgetting.
"I guess it's time to get to the point of this letter, isn't it? In front of you are five boxes, each one has a magical lock on it so don't try opening them Just take them into the TARDIS and then leave them there. After you've done that, then come back and finish reading this."
He looked up in front of him at the five wooden boxes he'd completely missed, his mind lingering over the words "magic lock" before focusing on what the note had said, moving the boxes one by one into the TARDIS and settling down beside them to read the rest of the note.
"If you've gotten the boxes in the TARDIS, then it's time for you to power it back up. As you have already noticed, she's dead. You have to journey to the center of her to power her back up. Now, reach into your coat pocket and pull out the sonic screwdriver. And for Luna's sake, learn to use your hooves."
He reached inside the coat pocket and pulled out a small metal device that had a few buttons and knobs on it. He suddenly felt certain that this was the sonic screwdriver that the note was talking about. The fact that he could still recognize things like these gave him hope that he wouldn't be left without his memories, but at the same time left him feeling like he didn't want them back. He shook the thoughts away and read the final part of the note.
"The steps are simple, get the the center of the TARDIS and drop the screwdriver into the engine. The time energy surrounding it will give it enough energy to last us the length of our journey. The actual act though...that's your first difficulty. Because the TARDIS is dead, all of the rooms are in their original positions and won't move on command. That means a few miles of trekking. The next obstacle is that, you had a lot of creatures in the TARDIS, most of them extremely hostile and more than willing to kill you. They can't enter the central control room though because of a shield that's been implanted there that keeps out any unwanted creatures. We never did find out why you had those creatures, but the main point is for you to get to the center of the TARDIS safely. You can't do this alone though, so-"
His voice cut off as somebody fell through the doorway that led outside, the figure quickly scrambling up and shutting the door, plunging the two of them into the darkness. The Doctor felt the buttons protruding from the screwdriver, pressing his hoof down on one of them and giving the figure over by the door a smile as the tool lit up white like a flashlight. He got a small glimpse of the person, or pony, whichever you'd rather argue at the moment, and managed to conclude that it was female, whether he had come the the conclusion from the grey fur covered curves or the long, blonde hair, he couldn't decide, he just knew.
"Hello there," he said to the hyperventilating pony.
She settled for giving him a hard glare while trying to calm her breath and said, "Well, at least you're not trying to kill me."
"Kill you," he exclaimed, "why would I try to kill you?"
"I don't know," she replied, sitting on the ground with her back against the door. "Why don't you go out there and ask the royal guard?"
"The royal guard," he questioned. "Is that some sort of rebel group or something, it's not striking a note."
She gave him a look that asked how stupid he was and said, "Where are you from?"
"Gallifrey," he answered, looking down at the note again and reading the rest of it in his head.
-so I present to you Derpy Hooves, your new companion through time and space. By the time you read this, she'll have already made the decision in her head that you're insane. It's better that you ignore that for right this minute though and tell her to get away from the door, you're about to get some uninvited guests.
The Doctor looked up from the note, curiously gazing at the woman as she studied him, opening his mouth to warn her, but closing it as she got up and moved over to him.
"What's that," she asked, spotting the note.
"Just a note that I got with some..." he trailed off, realizing that the boxes had disappeared somehow, leaving him wondering whether the TARDIS was 100% dead. "It's nothing," he finished. "You know, we should probably get away from this room."
"Why?"
"Because we're about to have some uninvited guests."
"Well how do you know that?"
"I just do, now come o-"
Suddenly the door exploded inwards, spraying the two of them with wood. The Doctor took Derpy's hoof and ran in the opposite direction of the doorway, passing under an archway that led into a dark hallway, the screwdriver and note clamped between his jaws.
Beware the shadows Doc, we don't want you dying too soon, now do we.
The voice seemed to come from everywhere to the Doctor, but Derpy didn't seem to notice it, leaving him with no choice but to pretend to not have heard it. The two of them ran for a few minutes, stopping for a short rest in an out of the way room.
"You know, I didn't get much of a look at where I ducked into," Derpy said quietly, "but this place seems a lot bigger than it should be."
"That's because you're inside a TARDIS," he said, feeling himself about to explain something that he somehow knew. "It looks small on the outside, but on the inside it's massive."
"Oh, like one of those illusion tricks, right? It looks smaller on the outside."
"I prefer bigger on the inside, but yes, it's essentially the same, just a might more complex."
She opened her mouth to say something but was cut off as something large appeared out of the shadows, covering the both of them with a claw, pinning them against the wall as a predatory grin spread across its face.
"Well well, lookie what I have here, lunch," it growled, the smile growing even wider and it's fangs showing, dripping with saliva.