An Equestrian Girl needs a Doctor

by jidbrony

Chapters

The Sun Rises Prologue
The Sun Rises Part 1
The Sun Rises Part 2
The Sun Rises Part 3
The Sun Rises Part 4
The Sun Rises: Epilogue
Interlude Strange Behavior
Prince of Darkness: Prologue
Prince of Darkness Part 1

The Sun Rises Prologue

Prologue: Vale Decem

Vale Decem

In the depths of space, the Ood were singing him to sleep.

It was the End of Time. The end of his time.

Pulsing.

Pain.

Silence.

Pulsing.

That’s all he heard, now and in that very moment, in the blink of an eye, this moment of fear was, at this moment, the only real eternity this incarnation knew, except that everything about himself was going to be lost in the streams of infinity. Ad aeternum.

As he trudged towards the TARDIS doors, he struggled to find comfort in Ood Sigma’s words: “This song is ending, but the story never ends.” However, we wished, with everything he could, that this song could carry on forever. But none of that mattered, because ironically, it was all over. It was decided by the fates, and all he could hope for now was that they favored him. Di Melioria.

All of it. His old life. His travels with that face and personality, clothes and that estuary accent, that self of his that abandoned all desire to simply be above others, in favor of sharing life with them. That self that enjoyed life on its own value. All gone in far less time than any other incarnation to enjoy being comfortable in his own skin, all of it which he barely got to enjoy lost for eternity. Ad aeternum.

Now, as he was opening the TARDIS doors and stepping away from the cold into the comfort of his TARDIS, this life was ending for the Doctor; he was turning into a new man, before he could even fully enjoy being this incarnation. And his time, he felt, was sometimes poorly spent. He was just going to turn into a new man, he was certain would most certainly swagger off from his old life and would repeat all of the same mistakes as his previous selves, disregarding anything he learned in this life, ignoring the times he had as this person. Worse still, this upcoming incarnation should surely scorn his predecessor, as the Doctor did so many times before.

Vale Decem.

Regardless, as he tossed his coat to one side, he began to realize that maybe it wasn’t merely that he felt that his time was always misspent. More than any other faucet of the greater whole that is the Doctor, this side of him lost his companions more easily than any other. Eternity was not something he could ever afford to indulge in. The fates never favored him to begin with. Would they favor him now? Di Melioria. The pain and the fear were so intense that a part of him hoped that this would be the end, that he would die then and there.

But this was unusual; almost every time he regenerated, there was somebody there to comfort him - generally not preferred among Time Lords, most preferred to do it in the privacy of their homes. But they always had somebody to come back to, in the end. Not for him though. A part of him just wished that there was somebody there, just to to enjoy that blessing of having somebody to be there with him. Beati. Someone, anyone even….

Not this time. Not for him.

This time, not only was he alone, he basically had nobody to come back to. An almost complete reboot of his life, should he live long enough to continue it. He felt it necessary to continue to carry on. He brought peace to so many peoples, and felt responsible for bringing peace to many more. Pacifici.

Was he even going to survive this regeneration? It felt extremely unlikely. This time he felt himself being eaten, bit by bit. He only felt this way on Androzani Minor and in San Francisco, and he barely survived on either occasion. Maybe this time he wouldn’t make it. But would that be so bad? Who was there to go back to? Only people who remembered his moral vanity, at this point. Yes, he did so much wrong his his latter years. Nothing he could do would ever atone for it. He suddenly believed at that moment that in many ways, he was the worst incarnation of his greater self. And ironically, it was all because he only wanted to be the best.

Vale Decem.

Maybe this time, the only thing he should do is allow death to claim him.

Forever.

It was at this moment that he felt the most ready to lay down his burden. Alis Grave. Then he heard a familiar voice in his head, followed by another after another. All of these voices were familiar, all of them close to his hearts. Voices, telling him You mustn’t die Doctor! You mustn’t! I love you!!...Don’t die, Doctor...Ye always told us, Doctor, that among the trillions of people in this universe, there is only one of each of us…What was it you always told me Doctor? Brave heart? You’ll survive Doctor..We always said, in my old job, ‘neither rain nor snow’; don’t give up now, Doctor!...Grandfather!...

Rose, Sarah, Luna, Tegan, Ditzy….Susan…. he thought. Rose would not want him to die now, nor Sarah Jane, Luna, Tegan, Ditzy, or even his beloved Granddaughter. They wanted him to have a longer lifespan than merely in eternal memory. There would be far too many who would have delighted at his death - enemies, power mad conspirators, -basically, anyone who stood against decency, kindness and love.

Then another voice, this one far less sympathetic, whispered in his ear. No, my dear Doctor, you must die! Die and join me, Doctor! Die Doctor, die!! That final voice finished with a broken, maniacal laugh.

No, no...he couldn’t! He was needed! All those innocent people, who barely got to taste the sweetness of life! All of them who lived in peace, because he brought peace to them! He remembered them all! He couldn’t die! There were no other Time Lords left, only him!! He wouldn’t die!! Not here, not now!!

Hoping that he could not only live longer, but also stall his regeneration one last time, this time living what could be his last life not only correctly with all memories of his mistakes and all memories of how to atone, but also with this face and self he grew to dearly attached to, he told himself, in anticipation of an increasingly bleak hope.

Vale Decem

So many regrets so many sins left to atone for, one that he will still live with for the rest of his life. But the song was ending, the Ood, those bizarre former slave tentacle creatures, and the entire Universe bidding him farewell, singing him sweetly to his sleep, hailing him before he slept in the next incarnation’s mind for eternity.

Vale Decem.

The song was nearing completion, one more verse to go:

So bleak was his mind, so sad were his hearts, that the last words he spoke were a simple whimper: “I don’t want to go!”

A pause; and he saw his hand glow.

Nothing he could say could change it. It was too late for that, to keep going on as this self. He was going to go.

Vale decem.

It was now the End of Time for the man who regrets.

However, it wasn’t too late to live...

He felt his face began to sear with a scorching heat, his body being devoured by its own inferno. The burning began to reach his hand, and reluctantly inspecting it, he saw that it was all over already. He was losing his own essence as he could see and feel it. The searing heat devoured his body, eating away at every inch of it, until he could not feel anything, but pain.

The radiation from his body burst out, heating the air around it, and causing the organic whorls of the TARDIS to fall apart, the windows bursting to pieces, as the RNA in his body rapidly suppressed previously active genes in every cell, and unleashing new ones, renewing his body entirely. It was actively being remade cell by cell.

Every part of him was turning itself inward and outward, leaving his whole body in excruciating agony. He could not stop himself from shrieking out his pain, and as he did so, a new voice began to crack through….

He was now a new man….A new life...and a new beginning in the ongoing story.

A new Doctor.

“And still not ginger!”

The Sun Rises Part 1

Night fell on the mid sized city.

The Stars were shown brightly full force that night, to the point in which some might have been blocked the lights of the skyscrapers, a rare occasion in Equestria City. Normally, Equestria’s lights, traffic, and general human activity lit the clouds bright shades of yellow and pink, covering the stellar radiance. However, even during days when the city lights shown at their brightest, most of the stars could be seen if one looked hard enough. In fact, if one looked hard enough right now, one would see a star zooming across the sky in quite a mad formation. Except it wasn’t a star at all. No, this was something far different...

It was a Box, a big blue box with the word “police” on it. But if one thought that was strange, then the person inside it was even stranger.

Agony. That was the first thing the new Doctor felt. That, and relief that he still had legs. Any such feelings of pain, however, were actively being suppressed by the Doctor’s efforts to focus on a more serious problem, his malfunctioning TARDIS.

“I don’t want to go...I don’t want to go? Really Ten, is those your last words? ...Good thing no one heard that, or people would think you are a wimp.” He muttered to himself ““Damn thing! Why is it every time I go through this, my TARDIS always tries to kill me?”

Suddenly a loud wheezing sound echoed around the man in response.

“Yes, yes I know, I know! It’s never intentional…” then he mumbled, “at least, I have no proof it is.”

The TARDIS then promptly belched chlorinated water on the pages of his favorite books in angry reply.

“No, not Dickens! He signed that!” He pleaded as he saw the ancient and priceless pages fly out. Oh well, he could always go back in time and buy the first editions later. Still, it was irritating: “Blasted thing, change of appearance, and already the old girl has a fit!”

The Doctor, the alien, the Time Lord, and an all around bizzare person, nothing you wouldn’t expect, ran like a madman around his main control panel as it sparked and exploded around him. Controls flew off, buttons were hitting the walls the library was in pieces with books everywhere and even the odd bit of broken shelf. It was nothing but chaos and he loved it.

Now he was in his eleventh incarnation, almost close to the end of the line of the life of a Time Lord. The last of his kind, yet still the grand adventurer of his youth, yet despite his youthful appearance, he was still the old man through and through, cranky on the inside, despite being optimistic on the outside. Although his optimism was being tested as he was being whisked around his own ship through earth's atmosphere in goodness know what timeline.

“Woo! Re-generated a few minutes ago and already I’m about to have big crash! This day is amazing! Oh I’m a bit reckless, I’ll keep a mental note of that. Though I’m not ginger, so that’s a minus.”

In his giddy joy, it happened to be far too bad he was suddenly flung back against the wall, hitting his head. The impact hurt but right now he was too disoriented from the regeneration to really care.

“Ouch! damn gravity! Ooh, my giddy aunt!” After spending a minute to hyperventilate, he told himself, “okay, so I swear and experience pain even more-mental note number two!”

His body started to fumble again, regeneration was never good for a Time Lord during the first days. In fact it could be incredibly painful depending on the situation. All the cells coming back online, a completely new body and brain chemicals. Yet for the Doctor, this was always this case, for he never re-generated in peace; it always in the middle of something bad. Followed then by something….well something.

More sparks came from the wall as he tried to keep steady. Yet he was starting to find out his legs with a bit gangly than his previous incarnation. Much of his body was gangly, his arms like noodles as he fumbled around like a raggedy doll. A brief look in the mirror revealed though he had a massive head and chin, and his hair was somewhat longer than normal when he first saw it he thought he was a girl or at least some sort of space hippie.

“Man! I have a chin…” he stated, thoughtfully rubbing the new and unusually large protrusion of bone on his mandible, “I mean really old girl, a chin, like, a real chin, not one of those small ones, I mean, like a really big...I mean who has a….”

The TARDIS roared with a loud wheezing causing him to look offended.

“I! Am! Concentrating!” the Doctor groaned, looking incensed. “Look at this face this is the face of a man...or ...yes I think I am a man who is concentrating his re-living guts out.

Another round of wheezing.

“No, I’m not being vain, and I just want to see what I look like, I’ve been through eleven of these, it’s important for me to know who I am. Remember when peoples hated six? I liked him though.”

More wheezing, no matter what incarnation he was in the TARDIS would always treat him as if he were her significant other.

“I’m just interested in knowing what I look like, though I think my old pair of specks isn’t going to work with this face they don’t match I’m going to need something a bit more….”

Loud wheezing again.

“Ok, Ok, Ok….I’ll fix you, I’ll fix you...Uh...Oh boy.” The Doctor looked around frantically for some tools of some sort. “Let's see, where is that rusty old pickaxe at.”

Another round of wheezing.

“No we aren’t going to the end of the universe again….I’m not in one of those moods.”

He and the TARDIS had a special relationship going back for centuries. Similar to that of a old married couple, both loved each other very much, though they hardly ever showed it to one another Instead they would bicker and argue, trying to annoy the other always trying to get under each others skin But that’s how they liked it.most people would end up driven mad by the words these two say to each over but they were mad all ready I mean what sane person after all would want to travel throughout all of time and space with all sorts of dangers lurking about.

“So where exactly are we going? The Doctor muttered

A spring came from the controls as the main TARDIS monitored showed up showing exactly in which direction the TARDIS was landing, and by landing it meant crashing. Though the Doctor had a sneaking suspicion that even it’s crashes had some calculations to it.

“There? Why there? It’s not London, it’s not even in Europe.”

Angry wheezing.

“No i’m not biased against non Europeans per se, it’s just I get used to something and you know I kinda well-

More angry wheezing.

“No I’m not racist! At least I don’t think I am.”

Another round of angry wheezing.

“One time I used that word to describe the Natives and that was one you can blame me.” The Doctor waved a hand and sighed. “Still better than anything he said...and no I don’t miss him. What happened happened and there is nothing I can go about it..”

Soft wheezing.

“No-I wouldn’t have made him a companion unless he changed, that’s a promise. Last me took only decent people”

Angry wheezing.

“Rose was decent! Ok looking back she had a few flaws and last me really might have been a bit finicky not me. So don’t think about landing me with a psychopath or something I am good judge of character-I think.”

With another loud flung another set of books came out.

“My collection of fantasy novels, Grimm, Anderson….oh no! C.S. Louis sighed those-oh well…Are you testing me or something” Before he could keep complaining The Doctor found himself being flung near the main door that burst open. The winds were howling outside in a long, lonely agony. Looking down he found himself hovering a nearby city. Miles and miles high up. Just the thought of him falling out made him faint yet he kept steady anyway knowing that if he did fall it would be game over seeming as he’s on his last regeneration.

“Great Leaping Gobstoppers! Oh is not good! This not good at all….” The Doctor took a deep sigh before giving one of his classic cheshire grins “Well in all the stars and planets in the universe let's see where fate decides to take me this time…….Geronimo!”

-***-

“Finally, one more push and their friendship is good as toast!” she huffed with more cynicism than excitement.

Sunset Shimmer was not your average teenage girl.

For one thing, she was technically a unicorn from another universe who had been transformed into a human, but apart from that really minor detail, she was incredibly smart for her age. At school, she took all the advance classes, and aced them with ease. She was also quite a good organizer; she could organize and plan anything if she put her mind to it. However, she was also a incredibly mean and bitter person, and used all of her talents for putting others down and ensuring the status quo favored her. She had no friends, never hung out with the other students, for some reason she never even bothered making friends In fact if anything she hated the friends that others had.

Another was she lived by herself in a one bedroom loft. Yet it was quite organized for a play if a bit grim and dower in some regards, did not have a homeiness nature to it, tough it had a few items here and there that were out of the ordinary.

Tonight she had been organizing something very special, a plot….One that would separate five very close friends with one another. That was not good for her up and coming social status and most popular girl at her high school. Something that she had managed to build up by maintaining the status of ‘mean girl’ which according to her schoolmates was consider a good thing.

She also had a personal vendetta against all five of them. All of them were once enablers of bullies at Canterlot High, before most of the worst were purged. All victims of emotional abuse while catering to the whims of Queen Bees, they then had a day dedicated to confessing their problems for emotional support, and the five of them bonded that day. Huge problem. Sunset wasn’t sure if she could trust any of them. How was she supposed to know that they wouldn’t end up repeating the strategies of their predecessors? All she knew was that the last things she wanted was more Queen bees.

From her perspective, only so many were destined to become the Leviathan, the untamable ruler over others. High school Queen Bees, from her point of view, were pretenders to the part, immoral obstacles to the rightful and God-chosen leader over others. They were cruel, criminal leaders, undermining proper values. They encouraged ways of life that were solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. No long term thinking. Any group or values established were inevitably going to crash and burn. This status gave her a certain reputation and influence in the school that she was enjoying, made life easier for her, even if it took a while to maintain. Though thankfully it didn’t get in the way of her studies and schoolwork, she was already a genius so it took her merely a hour to complete all of her work.

“They are all just so dumb!” Sunset said aloud as she looked through a bunch of images she collected for the school paper about friendship. “How does friendship accomplish anything apart from being able to use them?” Of course, even this she hardly meant. She was prone to being addicted to her own misery, and often sought out excuses to justify her often unstable emotional state. Combining this with a tendency to be severely socially awkward, and you had somebody who had a bitter and cynical attitude toward most rational beings.

Her previous mentor was very big on the idea that friendship was the most powerful force in the world. But nothing about it seemed practically or relatable, did it end wars, stop world hunger, stop stupid people from being stupid. If anything, she was doing them a favor. Sunset actually hardly saw most people as evil, but she saw most of them as any combination of selfish, chaotic, naive, or just plain idiotic. The current cultural overemphasis on cheap bonds seemed to prevent people from doing the right thing. Too often had she seen the same problem, over and over again: People who were otherwise morally upright would suddenly engage in bullying and mob behavior solely because others were doing it, simply because there was less guilt in doing what others were doing. Friends simply, from her point of view, distributed personal responsibility to uphold ethics onto others, and cost people any sense of personal accountability.

The next image was that of her two only companions, two boys named Snips and Snails. Idiots, morons and complete doodoo heads. Yet they are also good at keeping secrets and spilling them when needed. They were her spies that allowed her to understand what was going on in the school. A necessary evil; bullying used to be rampant throughout this school. So few students realized that the most bullying wasn’t physical, and the most serious bullying didn’t happen to freshmen nerds, and that the worst bullying didn’t come from boys.

No, bullying usually happened between girls, “friends” psychologically tormenting their other “friends” into capitulation and artificial emotional support. Then, when Sunset Shimmer arrived, one by one, bit by bit, this began to change. “Popular”, or rather feared and emotionally abusive girls, had been exposed for things, for threatening other students, or inappropriate relations with teachers, and other coutless issues that would lead to numerous expulsions. So many girls were getting expelled, that it had hampered Canterlot’s reputation to parents all over, and numerous lawsuits towards the school.

However, the students were hardly concerned with such matters; as far as they concerned, mysteriously, the sharks of the school were disappearing one by one. Sunset was quite pleased with herself for reducing the bullying and enabling to less than half of what it was when she had arrived. Now a vacuum was left behind, a wide, gaping hole….but it was only a just reward for doing the right thing. She had to remind herself that. But this power vacuum made it altogether too easy and too necessary to make use of Snips and Snails.

Plus, with her job in the school paper, she had easier access to sleazy art students, for half of any given art students were inevitably going to be sleazy, to get the dirt on other students if she needed any. Know thy enemy after all. And they were so much more useful than her previous informants, who were all timid girls who were often coerced into bullying even more timid girls than themselves. Rainbow Dash was useful for a time, but she was also often a nervous wreck, and sometimes had too many allegiances to the worst of the worst, such as Gilda.

Sunset Shimmer was absolutely positive that Rainbow was never going to come out of her acne-ridden shell, or overcome her ADHD, or join a sports team, or even be remotely attractive. Nope. None of this was going to happen. She was sure of it, and as far as she was concerned, so was everypo- no, everybody else.

Suddenly Sunset heard a soft buzzing sound coming from her phone, it was Snips. “What?” She hissed.

“Der Sunset, word on the street is you are a show in to win the Fall Formal Princessshipship.”

“Yeah, princesship.” Snails said in the background.

Sunset smirked; English was not her first language, but at this point, she was positive that it wasn’t for Snips and Snails either. “Was there any doubt? Now wear something nice and make sure everything is ready.” Good ol’ Snips and Snails. She liked to view herself as a helpful older sister to them, guiding them to do what was best for them. Maybe some day, they would find out, on their own, just how worthless they really were. They grow up so fast!

“Yep!”

“Got it!”

Sunset shut off her phone with a victorious grin. Princess of the Fall Formal, a royal title for someone who deserved nothing less than to be royalty.

It was a important night for her after all, the night of the fall formal. Which was going to be her most important event of social status ever. Sunset had her dress on her bed, even though now she was wearing her usual outfit of leather jacket and pink shirt. Apparently despite being a mean girl she had managed to get people to ‘vote’ for her because apparently being mean was cool and deserved praise. If she won she would be given the title of Princess, a title that would probably help out in the long run if she was going to survive the highschool social order.

“These students are all idiots.” Sunset said going over another pair of images. “Of course I’m gonna need them if I’m gonna be their princess by the next formal.” Her emotional state was complex and unstable, often alternating between sadness and a state of being comparable to watching paint dry. The fact that she deliberately entertained negative thoughts of others often didn’t help her much.

This time it was of five girls, all of them seemed to be particularly good friends. Something about them just infuriated sunset she just hated looking at them. Just seeing them created some sort of uncontrolled anger inside her. It was if there happiness was a toxin that needed to be extinguished,

Yet was she the one to do it. She’d normally have preferred the fates to make it happen, but obviously, the fates weren’t doing their job in this world.

Over this past month she collected enough dirt of them to get any drop she wanted. Plus they had one incident earlier that almost broke up there friendship. It was such a fragile thing. Easily broken if not tendered and nurtured.

So then why could Sunset so easily just send a few emails and crush it like a flower.

Sunset slowly put her hand over the mouse of computer and began to put in the addresses, one by one she had everything ready. With a bit of hacking and labor intensive trickery she had set up a series of dominos that would easily end all these relationship with a few simple clicks.

“Ok….Just a few words here and there and then…..

BANG!

The ground around her house began to shake causing Sunset to drop from her chair and land on the ground with a thud. A bright light began flowing from her window. Sunset wondered if a crater had landed in her front yard. But carters rarely fell in the city, of all the days something had to go wrong it would have to be today.

“What in Equestria is that!” She muttered under her breath.

Suddenly Sunset got up from the ground and looked out the window and saw a bright ball of light falling towards the school. She was petrified but at the same time curious about what she was witnessing. She began to lean towards the window to get a better view however it started to come right towards her landing in the middle of her front yard.

A large wave of smoke rose from the ground, a small crater was formed by whatever had landed. Sunset tried to look harder yet she could not see anything.

Quickly she ran outside to see what had happened, thankfully no one else seemed to notice. The lights on the other apartments weren’t turning on and people remained quiet. Good, she didn’t want anyone else to have to deal with this. When people started taking notice of her personal life then questions were going to be asked. The more she could keep under the radar the better.

Carefully she approached the crater and leaned over the edge. As the smoke began to clear she started to see the outline of a large box. Dirty yet a light blue, she saw it had the words POLICE on it before the two doors burst open, a bright light emanating through it.

Sunset eyes narrowed as the brightness temporary blinded her. She looked down, her heart was starting to race. What was in such a box. Clearly it was not normal for police boxes to light up. Perhaps it was alien, the humans spoke of them. Green men who probed young women and got them pregnant. If this was the case Sunset was ready to run or if she had to fight even.

Suddenly loud moans began to come within. Sunset stepped back and ready her first for battle.

“Woah nelly!” A voice said it had a accent that Sunset only recognized as British, “What a mess….I am not cleaning this up.”

The box began to wheeze.

“What….Oh right….Hang on! Hang on! Hope nobody saw this. Granted with the amount of invasions happening theses days Aliens should start to become more a of a normal thing. Twenty First Century is when it all changes after all.”

A hand emerged and began to grab the sides of the box, then another hand emerged. As far as Sunset could tell they looked human enough. Then a head emerged and boy was it a head with a massive chin and lots of brown brush hair.

It was a man, a strange man, bush hair, big chin, and eyes, eyes that were wide and youthful yet with a hint of age. Sunset saw the man as he looked around admiring his own surroundings stopping however the moment he met eyes with Sunset.

He looked into her, his eyes piercing her soul. He could sense a youth, and an emptiness, about her, and all he could say was…

“God dammit! How come you get to be ginger?!”

Her mouth hung open for half a minute.

“Seriously….Is space time just not fair to me….did a future life do something so...Ok i take that back, still I feel i don’t deserve never being ginger.” He said as he began digging himself out of the machine realizing that his ranting wasn’t making a good first impression. “Excuse me- sorry-Oh new body and already it aches. Old girl doesn’t always land the most gracefully these days, that’s a few centuries of doing this for yuh ey.”

Sunset merely remained silent looking at him with a mixture of horror and awkwardness. As for the man he just looked at her with awe and wonder, it was if he never saw a person in his life before. Gangly body, giant head, he looked like a raggedy doll that she used despite getting as a child. She had sudden urge to pop the head out all of a sudden but calmed herself as she reminded herself she was a living person-she thought.

“I'm the Doctor.” He said again, as if trying to instigate conversation hand out ready to shake.

Sunset blinked and realized this. “Eh…….”

“Not much of a talker?”

“Eh………”

The Doctor’s face was strangely blank: Only his eyes were moving, and they were moving everywhere: “Well are you just going to stand there, or are you gonna help me get out of here.” He was stuck between the side of the door. “Leg feel asleep.”

Immediately Sunset came out of her trance and pulled him out. He was in a bad shape, drenched in sweat and wearing torn ragged looking clothes.She didn't know why she was helping him - if anything she should have run for the hills and hide for a few hours. But yet something about him, he didn’t seem harmless...if anything he seemed overly innocent. As she pulled him up, he tripped over the box’s side and began to spasm a bit landing on top of her.

“Get of me!” She pushed him off more violently than she meant too. “Don’t touch you-you?...” She watched as he kept spasming.

“It’s ok...It’s ok.” The Doctor said, voice shaking, “This is all part of the proce-” He paused as he lurched forward a bunch of gold dust busting through him. “Mm..smells like sprinkles this time-last time it was gyn.”

“W-What was that?” Sunset asked pointing to the fading gold dust, trying to grab some.

“Re-generation energy. Bad for the digestion system. Good things you humans don’t have any right. The energy not a digestion system, you have that.”

“Re...Wait, are you alien?” Sunset said, sounding more suspicious than actually shocked. She was well aware that she was hardly the only alien who had ever visited this planet: The destruction of Big Ben by 2006 was well-documented, the Pairan visitation of Japan around 1956 was now the talk of the town all across the internet, the Mysterian invasion of America and Japan during 1957 was becoming increasingly publicized as more information about extraterrestrial information was being leaked, information Sunset might have prided with a few computer skills she had managed to pick up during her time. 1964 had alien life in the Earth’s atmosphere. 1965 was the worst year for Earth in turms of relationships with other forms of life. A meteor that contained an alien lifeform opened around February of that year unveiling a King of Terror who merely wanted to depopulate the Earth for fun. Then after that The Nartal visitation of the globe was recently leaked as well. Photos of a slug-like Martian creature brought to Earth a mere months after the Nartal invasion were now on magazine covers.

His response indicated that he didn’t: “Yep.”

“A real alien, aren’t they supposed to be green?” Sunset asked examining him closely.

“Some are...Not always, some of them are blue. I knew this one fellow with a lazy eye on his shoulder. Lovely sod, too bad he kept bumping into things. Oh well, what can I say...Aye.”

Sunset just looked at him with a raised eyebrow, her arms folded across her chest, as she began trying to think of the most important question she could ask. Ah yes! Now she remembered!

“If you are an alien, how come you sound like you’re from Canter- urgh! Why do you sound British? How can we even talk?”

“Lots of planets have a Britain!” the Doctor explained. He paused, realizing just how wrong that was. “Okay, no, actually no, first off my planet is more of a Rome, or a pre-modern China. The TAR- er, a device I have, increases my naturally telepathic powers, turning me into a ‘thought converter’ as it were. It translates everything to everybody within large radius of myself and my machine. Different accents pop up because my machine is smart and uses accents to tell bits and pieces of everybody to each other, their pasts, the historical significance, that kind of thing. By the Eternals,” he “exclaimed” very casually, “I really am telling you too much, aren’t I?”

“Perhaps.” Sunset said tapping her tabel. “That’s why i’m quite.”

“Touche….Secretive, what you have double life, you secret spy teenager who saves the world. Don’t tell me you are like one of the secret powered people in the comic books. I love those, though the ones with young folks are hit and miss.”

Sunset grimaced and began to stumble her words trying to think of what to say.

“I’m kidding!” The Doctor chuckled. “Sort of -are you superhero.”

“Hardly.” Her mood instantly darkened. “Depending on what you consider a hero to be.”

“Good point, neither am I, though my last self was pretty close in that department. Perhaps a little close some would say….You have any food?”

Sunset was visibly perplexed: “Food?”

“Yes food the thing we eat….Everyone has certain universal functions.” The Doctor went inside the house the first thing he went to was open the closet door. “What’s what all these costumes!”

Sunset quickly went inside slammed the door. “Don’t touch those, and why do you need food!”

“Lots of fairy tales...ah Grimm, classic.” The Doctor flipped through it and pouted. “No pictures though.”

“Don’t touch!” Sunset slapped him making sure the book wasn’t permanently damanaged.

“Crowns? Fake though-what are you a princess's is disguise?” The Doctor got excited now thinking he found why he crashed here. “Like that one movie...I’m gonna be your bodyguard?!?!”

“Queen -I- I mean...I like jewelry ok. Normal teenage stuff.” Sunset laughed nervously. “Again why hord my house for food!”

“Yeah...I just regenerated I’m a new man, I’m hungry. I have a new tongue, new tastebuds new thoughts, new feelings. New ideas...A whole new outlook on life. So yeah, I’m hungry. I want food.”

Sunset looked to her loft and sighed. “Uh...Yeah sure, hang on...C-come in???”

Why was she letting him into her loft. He was a stranger, a alien, and worse, he seemed annoying. Yet here she was letting him as he went through her fridge, digging through what little food she kept with her. Sunset wasn’t known to be a heavy eater, so she kept light foods mostly. Canned goods and a few slices of fruit.

“Apples..Bananas, oh those goods. Celery, have to remember that, foundation of civilization, celery. Carrots...ew, no. Peaches...Why peaches?”

Sunset wasn’t sure why he asked: “Uh, because I like them?”

“Meh.” The Doctor threw it away, ignoring that it splattered against a window in the process, and kept going, “Peaches are tart, I hate tart things.”

“You didn’t even eat it!” Sunset yelled. She currently didn’t have much money, and each scrap of food was extremely precious to her.

“I don’t like tart things….Just the word sounds wrong. Tart...Tart….sounds like….tar...and who wants that. I never met a ground sloth or a mammoth who did. Any who tried tar inevitably regretted it later. They don’t call it the La Brea Fun Pits you know.”

“Well, they’re fun for me, best field trip ever” Sunset mumbled. She kept her cool, because she didn't know if this alien had powers or some sort of abilities, though he certainly sounded as though he did. It was almost relieving, because all she saw in this world, from these human creatures, was the same old predictable mortality, a world utterly dull and without magic. The presence of the alien was shaking things up, it reminded her of things from Equestria. Regardless, she had to be careful in case he went wild or turned into a monster. Yet somehow the more she watched him the less threateningly she thought he might be.

“Yes well not for me thank you very much.” He said tossing another jar out of the fridge. “Maybe something sour or sweet….sour sweet, that should be a combination.”

Finally he settled for her fish fingers and custard and sat at her dining table, taking a mighty whiff before choosing down. As he ate she just watched him, leaning against the wall moving a bit of her red hair out of her eyes as leaned down some. She had trouble looking people in the eye, gave them a advantage of reading them, and she did not want to read in the slightest.

The Doctor looked up and motioned him towards her. “Oh...Come on don’t leave me hanging...Isn’t that what you youngins say.”

Sunset carefully moved forward and sat down next to him as he continued to eat a few more of her fish fingers. He just stood there, it was all so weird, like he was Tigger and she was Pooh, or maybe it was more of a Peter Pan scenario and she was Wendy. Maybe he was from a Island that he never grew up, though clearly he missed that place by at least twenty years for he definitely was no teenager. Though acted like a child, except the eyes, he looked in the eyes. Old and worn out. Either way this felt like something out of the tales she read when she was younger and when she arrived to Canterlot. Tales that made her feel right at home, perhaps not in the least because the complexity of these stories was similar to the complexity of Equestria, and not the mundane monotony of this world. Brothers Grimm being her favorite, just the name Grimm-felt right at home.

“So what’s your name? I never asked.” The Doctor spoke as he took another long bite. He already felt as though his whole body was drained, and needed to be restored.

Sunset Shimmer wasn’t sure if she should reveal anything to this stranger. He generally seemed harmless, but he was clearly insane in her eyes: “Uh….”

“Hello Uh!” he snickered. “Is your middle name eh or muh?”

Sunset groaned. “Sunset Shimmer-that’s my name.”

“Sunset Shimmer, sounds like something out of a fairytale- or a clearly girl centric franchise.”

“Hey!” Sunset Shimmer muttered, half enjoying the fairy tale complement. “What kind of name is Doctor, sounds like something out of a dumb sci-if franchise from the sixties.”

The Doctor shrugged. “I’m not judging, I’m just pointing out.” He looked around the long house now and all the things cluttered around, dark, moody. “So...you live alone?”

“Yeah, so?” Sunset said defensively, the topic above any others, always grinded her gears. “I’m old enough at this point.”

If the Doctor had eyebrows, one would have visibly gone up. “How old are you? Fifteen...sixteen…You cannot be eighteen.”

“Old enough. I go to a highschool if that’s what you wanna know.” Sunset replied taking a bit of food, she might as well. She wasn’t sure how old she was exactly in “man years”, but she speculated that she was approximately fifteen years old in the years of the human race, and gave these ages to more intelligent specimens among the apes, or at least among those who knew her better. However, occasionally, to those who didn’t know her or were more gullible, she sometimes claimed she was older in order to go to places or gain things that would normally be forbidden to her.

The Doctor took a bite. “Ok...Still no parents, no girlfriends, no boyfriends….You seem lonely….And moody, not goth you don’t have that look, but more like a biker on the road who likes to travel and see the sights. Although with the costume you clearly aren’t afraid to express your girly side. Scowl means you seem to be a grumpy grump but the pink pajamas says there is innocents in there-somewhere.”

Sunset remained quite looking down at her food, she wouldn’t have a alien questioning her life choices. He clearly was a nosy person but it also seemed like he was a very smart person and figuring things out if he put his mind to it, she would have to be careful around him to keep her true secrets hidden

“Ah...I’m right aren’t I?” He said giving her a smirk. “Come on….Come on...I have to be….” He pointed at her like a fiver year old

Sunset tried to think of a way out and she had it. She started to burst out into a fit of laughing, her sides started to hurt by how funny it is. “Lonely! HAHA! Oh that’s a good one...Pfft, I don’t need anyone! I’m not lonely.”

“Oh-A desperate soul then.” The Doctor asked looking at her closely. “Nice work hiding it by the way.”

Sunset kept laughing. “What are you my guidance counselor, really lonely-that’s a good one HA!”

“Please i’m more than a guidance counselor, I’m a adventure I go to strange places new civilization to discover.” He was on his feet now being bombastic. “To see the stars and the sky and the….

“Boring!” Sunset shouted him down. “Why would anyone want that?”

The Doctor seemed a bit taken aback, but taking a moment to gather himself, he sat down,you don’t seem to get out much do you?”

“I prefer books and reading.” A light buzz came from the corner of Sunset’s bed, getting up she went to check. Better than being around a ever growing annoying alien. She looked at it and sighed, typing a bit she put the phone down and turned back only to find the Doctor standing right in front of her.

“Who’s that?” He asked.

“Agh! Don’t scare me like that.”

The Doctor nudged Sunset aside to look down at the phone the name Flash Sentry was marked on it.

“Oh...Boyfriend?” The Doctor leaned in curiously. “Is he cute handsome….sexy...he’s sexy isn’t he.?” he grinned, remembering Grace and Rose.

“No! Just some annoying zitty kid who wanted to help me adjust to a new school,” Sunset muttered “his acne problem is a sight to behold.”

The Doctor looked at him carefully. Unless Sunset was looking at one or two negligible dots, this boy did not have any more of an overabundance of acne than the Doctor had an under abundance of chin. “Looks nice,” he muttered. He was starting to fall under the impression that Sunset was one of those people. He had never met one of those people since he first met a particular companion of his on Alzarius. Poor kid, how he missed him-

“He’s annoying...Like you,” she sneered, interrupting the Doctor’s thoughts. “...Though,” she sighed, thinking over her words, “actually, being friends with him has been a big help to me back at school. Big, big help...” she reached towards the photo the Doctor held.

“Me? Annoying? No way!” The Doctor replied defensively, ignoring her gesture. “I’m the King of fun...literally. I was made king of fun by the people of Funlandia in the year 21.21 ACY for my many fun curls at the time, and then I left, and then I came back, more fantastic than ever, and considered valid for the throne because my new ears were as fun as my old curls, but that was after your time, Oops spoilers.”

“Again...annoying.” Sunset said through gritted teeth. “So unless you unless you know how to make my life easier, and-” she took a moment to sniff him, an old Equestrian habit that would die hard, “get some deodorant or wear one of those air fresheners as a necklace, get out!.”

“I don’t smell that bad…”.The Doctor sniffed himself “Ooh new smells...still no parents, not sure if I can't condone that.”

“Oh yeah what gives you the right.”

“I am the Doctor that gives me the right.” He said quite vindictively, already questioning himself after saying it.

Sunset now was a bit scared. “That has like no legal standing, I should know I’m studying the law of this place.”

“True...and maybe that was a bit much still it’s not proper for a young lady of your age to be alone. No guidance no nothing- no friends. People are made for social interaction, society functions with others begin around one another. It is the way we function.”

Sunset paused thinking about how she spent her time pretending to be a fictional character or plotting to advance her way in school, but waved it quickly thinking that what he said was nonsense. She didn’t need anyone. Just respect and authority.

“What are you gonna do call the cops? The Doctor snickered. “Ok look-I know one thing about Sunset Shimmer, you are far from just a normal human teenager-and that’s good. Yeah that’s good very good.”

Suddenly a loud wheezing came from outside.

“Oh bugger!”

The Doctor leaped forward and began to charge outside, Sunset following quickly behind, stopping though as she watched from afar. Suddenly the strange device to fizzle in and out of existence almost as the Doctor popped his head out one last time.

“It’s ok, it’s ok! I’m just heading out of reality for a few moments, i’ll be back...Don’t worry.”

“I don’t care.” Sunset called out.

“Maybe not but you are curious!” The Doctor flicked her nose playfully only to get it slapped away.

“Don’t touch me.”

The Doctor rubbed his elbow. “Sorry.”

Sunset folded her arms, looking down at the big blue box, how it was laying there just like that. It’s door flung open as it began to make a roaring sound. It was so strange, so unique, so interesting….She wanted to know what it was and she wanted to know now! Something that just landed in the middle of the ground must have had some value to it. The temptation to know was to much to her, all the possibilities. Something inside her churned, a roaring creature that wanted to know just like she felt when she left her mentor back home.

Without a minute’s more hesitation Sunset ran as fast as she could leaping into the air and fell straight through the door landing face first into the Doctor’s shoulder knocking him down onto the ground and tumbling onto the hard floor.

“Ugh-my arm.” Sunset grunted as she got up holding down her shoulder ot make sure nothing was broken, slowly she began to notice her surroundings, not what she was expecting. “Holy Celestia-It’s bigger on the inside.”

The Doctor groaned as well as he got up, his eyes widening in a panic as he saw her. “What in blazes are you doing in here!”

“A box comes down near my loft and I’m not going inside it.”

“Get out before-” To late the doors slammed shut as the ship began to shake violently. Then suddenly, he heard a familiar voice in his head:

“This isn’t how you’re supposed to spend your first day with your companion.”

He ignored it as best as he could: “Blast!”

“What?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes as he headed to the controls. “Normally my companions wait for me to come back and deal with their daily lives for a minute before something bizarre happens, and then I need to rescue them. Guess this time you’ll come with me during the -unknown phase.”

“Unknown phase?” Sunset asked regretting saying anything instantly.

“Yes.” The Doctor grumbled. “The phase when I’m dealing with my personal issues of self discovery.”

“What does that mean?!” she yelled.

“We are about to find out - hold on!” The Doctor held onto the railings before being launched back, Sunset landing on her back again as the TARDIS began to fly through the open vacuum of space time once more. “GERONIMO!!!!”

Author's Note

Than you Doc-Grant for your contribution to the First Episode

Expect updates slowly this time-but this story has now been rebooted.

The Sun Rises Part 2

“UGH!”

“Hey!”

The TARDIS landed in the middle of a vast empty desert with nothing more than a few plant lives and three suns bearing down from a purple sky. It flung Sunset and The Doctor out immediately and locked itself shut. Both Sunset and the Doctor looked exhausted and tired, the last hour or so had been them being flung around while Sunet tried to devise what the heck she had just jumped himself into. All she knew right now was that she was with a alien, and apparently one with a broken ship. Either than that she was completely lost.

“Oh sweet goddess!” Sunset grabbed her throat. “I got thrown out, we can’t breathe.” Already, thoughts and fears were racing through her mind, all of them of death.

Sunset felt everything spinning her head was in pain and she was sitting on very jaggy and very hard flore. Everything hurt, her muscles, arms, everything, though she was resilient and very good at bouncing back from a fall.

“Don’t worry we are fine.” The Doctor said calmly getting up sniffing the air. “Yes, yes, the oxygen levels are fine-carbon is a little higher than normal but nothing deadly. You should be able to breath normally.”

Then the Doctor heard a voice in his head. “Oh! Some job you’re doing!”

The Doctor’s eyes widened; that voice was painfully familiar. It was a voice he heard for the entire span between his last two regenerations. And this was a complete outrage. This voice was not supposed to speak to him! Not here, not now!

Sunset took a moment and opened her mouth and took out a deep breath, and, here eyes darting around her surroundings, she came to realize something: “Wait….Oh no.”

“What?” The Doctor asked taking a minute to look around. “There’s a problem?” he asked himself, trying to make sense of what was happening right now. Where were they, and why? And was he hearing that voice in his head?

“Uh, yeah, I think there might be,” said that same, extremely familiar estuary accent. The Doctor never figured out why he took on such a voice for that incarnation, but it was probably due to the influence of Rose Tyler

“Oh shut up you! The others never gave me that hard a time-Seven actually made sure I would be okay!” Indeed it was so; it was not unusual for the Doctor to fear regeneration, or to suffer from post-regenerative trauma, but this time, it was absolutely ridiculous in both cases! Never before had an incarnation been so determined to hold on to its selfhood.

Sunset looked shocked; here she was, stuck with a practical schoolboy who was talking to himself like a lunatic! “A problem? A problem?! Yes! There is a problem! We are in the middle of nowhere and I have a dance to get too tonight! So yes, by that definition, I’d say we had a problem!!”

To the Doctor’s annoyance, he had to hear here while also listening to the nagging of the voice of the last incarnation in his head: “Really, I would listen to her.”

The Doctor chose to ignore his previous incarnation’s voice, and focus on Sunset Shimmer: “Oh don’t worry, once this all fits in, I’ll get you back lickity split, time machine after all….I could you one second after we left. That’s the beauty of time travel!” he finished with a boyish smile.

“That’s good to know,” Sunset grumbled under her breath. “So where are we, anyway?” Never before in her life had she seen anything so dark and bleak before.

“Hmm, before i got knocked out i was able to get our coordinates, we are in the Plaxima Galaxy coordinates 11-79-TillPhill around the year…..4123...Maybe later.” He put his thumb in his mouth and held it up high as the saliva flickered in the wind. “Definitely during the time of Fourth Bountiful Human Empire.”

“All the way from Mutter’s Spiral? Hardly a safe journey, especially for a young girl who’s never traveled with you before. You’ve regressed so far you’re already forgetting how to pilot the TARDIS.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “This had better be temporary. I’m not the Eleven-and I barely know how he handled ten voices,” he added glumly, “let alone one.”

“Oh ho! touchy-touchy!” the voice said in the usual mocking tone of the previous Doctor. Only now did the current Doctor realize just how annoying it was!

Sunset took a moment to scan the Doctor and make sense of what he was saying. “Who are you talking to?”

The Eleventh groaned, “my last incarnation.”

‘Your what?” Sunset seldom met anybody sane or wise who spoke much about “previous incarnations”.

The Doctor was still dazed, and said half-mindedly, “oh, he had this...feckless charm about him, that simply wasn’t me.”

”Oh really? I thought I was sweet!”

The Doctor wouldn’t stand up to that: “Sweet? You thought you were sweet?? Oh, that says it all!!”

“Enough!” Sunset said angrily taking back command of the situation. “Just answer me were we are already! Anyone of you!” she added, studying the Doctor with a careful intensity.

“Oh.” The Eleventh said, taking a moment to look up in the sky, “-eh, 5454.”

“Oh….” Sunset took a moment before realizing what he said. “5454! We are in the future!”

“Yep.”

”I would have answered a lot sooner.”

The Doctor raised a finger to his lips to shush his previous incarnation, even though the voice could only be heard in his head.

Her expression changed, demanding the utmost of seriousness from the Doctor: “We are in the actual future?”

He gave an expression derived of the utmost seriousness, but his emerald eyes were honest: “Yep.”

Suddenly she looked terrified: “Did the apocalypse happen?!”

He squinted for a minute: “Hard to say, maybe for this planet, that’s the beauty of the universe, because you see, it never ends, yet always ends every day. Somewhere a new star is born, and yet another one lives years and years, all without knowing that entire civilizations are just starting up or ending there golden age. Though by the looks of this place it seems that no one is here ye-” The Doctor froze before clinging to his sides in agony, falling to his knees as he screeched in pain.

“Let me go!”

“No!” the Doctor roared, “you had your chance! Now let me have one!”

Sunset flinched and stepped back. “Are you-ok?” It looked like he was suffering from intense convulsions, his body pulsating in rivets of intense pain, making his joints do things that they most certainly were not meant to do. The pain was too much for her to watch, but what could she do?

“Yes! Yes! Again, regenerating….Not used to this body, it’s just setting in, and this time, a part of the old self...we will not let go!” Then the Doctor suddenly burst upwards, completely normal, as if nothing had happened. He gave her the most reassuring he could muster as he said, “still, isn’t this amazing-this planet is so beautiful-you have to admire the wonder of the universe, it’s vastness, it’s wealth, it’s beauty, everything!”

Sunset stepped back and grimaced. She struggled to think of anything, he looked so helpless right now, but she felt very helpless herself. What was she supposed to do? “So uh-Doctor, alien-person- what do we do now.”

“Easy.” The Doctor sat down on the ground, folded his legs and smiled, “we play the waiting game.”

“What?” she asked with a face twisted in fear. Given the Doctor’s physically weak state, and her utter lack of knowledge on the situation, she didn’t think waiting was a good idea.

“The waiting game, we wait for the TARDIS to repair herself and let us back in, then batta bing, we go home, and i get you to that dance.”

Sunset’s mouth dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

“Seconded!”

“I most certainly am!” he bellowed at his unseen previous incarnation. Then he saw Sunset’s face. She looked absolutely frightened; she was in a new and dangerous-looking place, stuck there with a man who shouted at himsef. The Doctor immediately sought to save the situation: “...I have my serious face on, see...look, serious!” The Doctor gave a large grumpy face, only to perk up instantly. “Beside we can see the Hyperion Cluster from here, were the Qarterlian Empire resides. Though it could be gone by now...hmm..hard to tell.”

Again Sunset said nothing, it was like he was just speaking Ancient Minotaurese.

The voice spoke again: “You had better do something - fast.”

For once, the new Doctor agreed with the old.

“Oh don’t be like that, normally when I’m with someone there is a lot of running and screaming and normally aliens shouting DELETE or EX-TER-MIN-ATE. Nice for once to just land on a planet with some peace and quiet. No people, no souls to save no civilizations to start up, no genocides to prevent. Finally can just have-peace.”

“Genocides?” Sunset asked grimacing a little.

“Nice going, Doctor. I most certainly didn’t advertise the biggest dangers to Ditzy when I first met her.”

“I’m a busy man, what do you expect?” the Doctor shrugged, seeming well-relaxed.

“Being all calm about that isn’t going to help, emotionally speaking anyway, you know that, right?”

The Doctor’s face twisted in discomfort, trying to force the voice down. He said nothing, but he looked extremely uncomfortable.

Seeing him make funny faces like a crazy hobo on the street she saw once, some thoughts had suddenly crossed Sunset’s mind: “I just met you like a few hours ago, I really have no idea what to expect,” she then took a minute to study him, “for all I know, you might be some sort of creepy stalker.”

“Pah! Creepy stalker...creepy stalker?” The Doctor then suddenly looked incensed by the very notion. “Creepy stalker?! You’re the one who jumped into my TARDIS without my permission young lady. You just don’t go into a man's ship without permission, it isn’t right. How would you like it if i jumped into your ship without permission, yeah, and you say I’m a creepy stalker well indeed.”

“Oh, I’m getting to you, aren’t I?”

The Doctor folded his arms, trying to suppress his prior incarnation’s voice in his head. He huffed as he continued to mutter to himself under his breath giving daggers to Sunset, who looked at him perplexed. He was acting like a child who was accused of knocking over the vase back home. Though by the age, Sunset guessed he had be in his twenties, maybe a tad older.

“Creepy stalker, hmph! I’d show her creepy stalker I should.” The Doctor muttered. “I’m not as creepy as Peter Pan, that’s for sure!” But perhaps what troubled the Doctor the most was that he could be perceived as such by others, and he found it troubling.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it ‘Doctor’?”

Closing his eyes, the Doctor, for once, responded to the last incarnation entirely in thought: “The same is true for you too. Now leave me alone.”

The voice stopped entirely. The Doctor must have done a good job internalizing his problems, because Sunset hardly acted as if anything was different.

“I didn’t read that book!” Sunset yelled; however, this was a lie. She did, and she did so knowing about about the author’s possibly dark background. She found it morbidly fascinating, and found the book somewhat disappointing as it didn’t point to as much twisted content as she had hoped for. Still, it was far less disappointing than Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. At least a crocodile ate people in Peter Pan. That was cool.

The Doctor had a somewhat different opinion; although he suspected that J.M. Barrie was probably not necessarily guilty of the things that he was often accused of after his death, he still was a man who took too much pleasure in playing tricks on other people for amusement and his personal goals. This reminded him too uncomfortably much of a certain old friend of his, who also liked too much to play tricks on people for amusement and to advance his personal goals...Furthermore, the Doctor had personal reasons, as he had been compared to Peter Pan on multiple occasions in the past, especially while he was in his Eighth form. And he wasn’t proud of everything he did during that life. Not in the least because of what it led up to, which was-

No. He didn’t want to think about that.

“Are you so easily going to forget that?” the voice cut in furiously.

The Doctor then told himself, “better to forget, than to live your entire life in regret.”

The Doctor realized his state must have almost have been trance-like, and he had tried to change the subject for his own sake as soon as possible: “Well, you must be into fairy tales,because you are all about this princess thing. Who’s your favorite? I’m gonna say- Merida, because of the red hair, though no Scottish accent sadly.”

”I can do a Scottish accent. Just listen; ‘hello, I’m the real Doctor’. See? I can do it.”

The Doctor winced and moaned at this.

Sunset turned her head in a crimson flurry: She was surprised that the Doctor caught on to this aspect of her so quickly. “A few people I know have compared me to characters fairy tales.” Sunset muttered before rolling her eyes she began to pace around, she hated sitting still anyway, didn't’ help her brain. Taking a deep breath, she went over in her mind what just happened, from the Doctor landing on her yard, only to then eat her food, chat her up, talk nonsense all the time, and then for some reason she must have gone delirious for she jumped into his TARDIS box and now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere and what was worse, she was going to miss her fall formal and finally being the most popular girl in school. “And my favorite Princesses are Queen Grimhilde and Maleficent, thank you very much!”

“Wow, somebody wants to be edgy!” the Doctor flashed a quick smile. “At least you didn’t say Rumplestiltskin, dear God do I hate hearing that name all the time.”

“I think he’s fascinating.”

While the Doctor struggled to ignore this, Sunset had a moment to muse to herself. Apart from legend, Sunset loved the fairy tales of this world, which reminded her the most of the creatures of her native Equestria. Some inspired her even, even the ones back home-but the one’s she got introduced to her had grown a special place, especially certain characters, such as Queen Gremhadale of Snow White by the Grimm brothers. After reading that story not only did she love it but admire her. Sunset realized that this woman was not a royal, and had married up, yet her claim over her throne was completely legitimate. It was simply challenged because the story said otherwise. In her mind the ‘Evil Queen’ was far more a ruler than Queen Bees. At any rate, at least the Queen didn’t self-reflect or show any signs of what Sunset generally considered to be a weakness -hence she loathed Snow White, and she didn’t care if the Queen poisoned her either. Snow might have been the rightful ruler, but Sunset had it with weak kind people like that. Such a lifestyle never suited her now, and it would never suit her later.

Sunset ignored the Doctor’s snide remark: “Ok, so there has to be some sort of civilization around here somewhere.” Sunset said looking around trying to find a clue, she too sticking out her tongue and getting a gage of the wind. “Let see by the trajectory of the wind it’s blowing eastward, there seems to be a bit of a river heading west…”

“Oh, smart girl.” The Doctor snickered. “I know a few friends who’d like your style.”

“Stop revealing so much. No, really, please, just don’t.”

“I have a I.Q of one hundred ninety two,” Sunset smirked. “I take advance mathematics and have one several science awards.

The Doctor eyes widened. “Impressive, most impressive.” He was thinking about somebody whom he knew once, long ago, who had earned a badge in mathematical excellence. Sunset seemed to be similar to him, a lost, troubled youth.

“Star Wars reference.” Sunset snickered, thank you Dima.

“Don’t you see what you are doing? By focusing on all these past memories, you are denying a chance to make some new ones with your companion. Talk to her. She just gave you the perfect opening.”

“Oh pop culture savvy…” he said, changing as quickly as possible, felt this girl was perhaps a little too big-headed and needed some contradiction, “but maybe not as savvy as you think,” he finished with a grin.

Sunset Shimmer began to look somewhat cross when she asked “what does that mean?”

The Doctor gave that irritatingly cheeky grin again: “Not telling!”

Sunset Shimmer was nothing short of flustered, and shouted, more as an exclamation than a question, “Why do you always speak cryptically?! And why do you always talk so fast!?”

“Why do you always ask questions?” The Doctor smirked back. “Okay, well, I will say that talking fast helps me think sometimes, plus I just regenerated, so I need to get my brain up and running, it’s like being in a concussion, but worse. Well maybe not worse, but the point is -It helps.”

“Wait a minute-” Sunset tapped her chin thinking. “Oh my gosh you are in a panic right now, and you are trying to hide it from me.”

The Doctor looked almost mortified for a second: “No I’m not, why would I be in a panic? We are just stuck here and my TARDIS has locked me out, that is far from ready to be a panic,” the Doctor said, yet Sunset saw that he could not look her straight in the eye.

“She’s right you know. To be fair, we all got scared at some point, but you seem to be especially bad at hiding it. Just like the Second self, whom you seem keen on channeling.”

She could tell he was lying, if there was one thing Sunset was good at, it was being able to tell when a person was lying. They would flinch or they couldn’t look her straight in the eye, or something. Everyone had a tell.

“She’s onto you.”

If the Doctor showed any sign to Sunset Shimmer, she didn’t acknowledge it. “Whatever,.” Sunset replied. She continued to pace back and before heading off, suddenly,

However, this would not escape the Doctor’s notice; he burst up and began to run after moving in front of her before she could to far. “Woah, woah, woah, what are you doing!”

“I’m looking for civilization,” Sunset grumbled under her breath. This ‘Doctor’ seemed to waste time enjoying everything around him rather than moving on to any comfort. It was as if all of life was the same to him, and all of it worth enjoying.

She wasn’t about to stand in the middle of a vast desert, she had to get back home. Tonight was crucial to her and clearly in her mind this Doctor was not going to be of any use to her in the slightest. He was bumbling and empty headed it seemed. Tonight was her night to shine, but right now she was covered it what she could only hope was dust and dirt. She could already feel her hair getting messy just by standing out here

“Stay here.” The Doctor demanded a look of concern on his face. “Don't move, don’t do anything really stupid.”

“Why? Your stupid ship might not even open, we might be stuck here forever, might as well find some shelter or something! Sunset snapped. “If anything, you are the one who shouldn’t be doing anything stupid.”

The Doctor looked perplexed; You are taking the news that are stranded far better then I would have guessed.”

“I’m a survivor.” She said through gritted teeth. “And I’m not going to let that stop me from getting home.”

The Doctor just sat there as Sunset stood out there thinking of a direction to go in. He pondered quickly, she was more determined to get home than other people he had been stranded in. A certain wanting was in her eyes. Lover perhaps? No-she was to cranky for that. Family member.

“Why are you so interested to get back?” He finally asked walking up to her. “I mean, apart from the go home part.”

Sunset rolled her eyes, struggling to think of how to explain what she needed to this alien: “Tonight is important to me.”

“Oh-Why?” The Doctor asked walking up to her a bit closer now. “What about your night-which is this planets day which is my-I guess afternoon, I lost track of my own time about 600 years ago-is so important? Look at this Sunset! It’s a world you’ve never seen before! A world you never knew! In all the centuries I’ve been alive, I have never seen anything so beautiful in its sheer lifelessness!”

She studied the empty horizons, and found herself agreeing with him. Never did she realize just how crowded even the least populated parts of the Earth were. Now she saw something truly blank, like a brand-new house, and that was beautiful in its own right. She had always longed for something different, and she found it, a world that was truly alien.

As he was.

She began to look at him, his face so ever young, and yet his eyes - those eyes were more than sable. His emerald gems in those sockets truly were old, and had seen more than a few things. These were the kinds of eyes that had seen something like the birth of the Universe, and had seen time run out moment by moment, until nothing remained. Just him. She felt something stir in her, and softedly asked, “what are you-” but she stopped herself. It just wasn’t right. “Nevermind! If you must know, tonight is the Fall Formal and I am going to be crowned Princess.”

The Doctor blinked. “Is that all?” Not since Jo did he ever have a companion with such small concerns, and even then she tended to assume that as the Doctor used a time machine, she could go to wherever or do whatever she wanted exactly on time.

Sunset balked, acting as if she hadn’t heard such a ridiculous question in her life. “Uh-yes! Do you not know, that could cement myself at the school. Do you know how hard it’s been, this is my chance to be on top.”

“Of a school?” The Doctor was about to speak, yet couldn’t fathom the right words. Taking a moment to think, he asked, “why not Queen?”

“Because they won’t change the damn title,” Sunset muttered aloud, “apparently Princess is more...safe, or whatever. Won’t even give you a cool cape to wear along with the dress- capes are cool,”

“Then just take charge over it! Queen it up I say!” The Doctor shrugged, but also beamed. “Still, it seems a bit silly, Princess of a School, what next, Princess of the neighborhood block? I mean, you elect them, so there’s that I suppose, but I take it that they aren’t selected from families, so it’s probably not an elective monarchy. Sounds like a more Republican system. You should be called the Lord and Lady President!”

Sunset rolled her eyes, however she was sincere when she said she liked Queen Grimhalde. In fact it was because of a magic mirror that Sunset had arrived in this world. Since then she too had become interested in them, hoping to find another that would show her destiny just like the one back at Equestria did. But could she? This world seemed to follow completely different rules than the ones of Equus. Her home of Equus, where she recalled living at comfort in her home, and yet, it wasn’t always comfortable. She was often under the impression that the only reason why her parents didn’t divorce was simply because it would not have been good for their reputation. She could never really be fully validated by either of them, except for what she could achieve if Celestia picked her as a student.

“What planet are we on?” Sunset asked, wanting to change the subject

The Doctor took a moment to look around. “No idea.”

This planet was barren and dark, a lifeless pit of nothing. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of plant life, animal life, fungal life, or any life, and the only thing that came was large chunks of rock. Sunset shivered at the idea of being stuck here for what could be the rest of her small life. As for The Doctor, he seemed quite calm, almost at peace, as though he enjoyed the quiet.

“So you don’t know everything?” This was worrisome for her; here she was, stranded on another planet with somebody whom he didn’t fully know what was before him.

“I still know a lot of things.” The Doctor snickered. “I’ve been around for a very long time, and I’ve seen many things. They don’t call me ‘Doctor’ for nothing!”

Sunset growled, “oh yeah? Then why can’t you land your ship properly, and land in the middle of my apartment in the first place?!”

“That was completely random fate, believe me I land in the middle of a bunch of peoples houses dozens of time. One time I kidnapped someone and they became one of my best friends, another time I had to-.

Sunset Shimmer loudly groaned and brushed him away with her hand. “I don’t want your life story!”

The Doctor pouted. “Ah, I think my life story is pretty fascinating, granted it would take a while, nine hundred plus years - well, my enemies insist it’s more like four thousand, but you shouldn’t believe them. But I’ve been around long enough for a lot of story.”

“Nine hun-” Sunset felt something in brain break for a moment. “Nine hundred plus...but you look like you’re in your twenties.”

“Really? Oh wow, I did age well, what’s next, I’m a teenager?” the Doctor chuckled.

“Look, just...ugh!” Sunset huffed, stepping on something rather disgustingly warm and soggy. “Ugh, my boot!”

The Doctor kept after her, a wide grin that wrinkled his eyes on his face: “Hey, hey...It could be dangerous, I’ll take the danger rather than being around you and the insanity that I’m not suffering!”

The Doctor was silent now, not making as much as a peep.

Sunset wondered if she found in him what she always tried to find in others: His weakness. “Oh what, did I hurt your little feelings?” Sunset mocked.

The Doctor eyes darted upward. “No….Well yes….But there is also a giant tentacle-mouthed monster standing right in front of you now.”

Sunset looked down to notice the vass shadow standing right on top of her and the Doctor as a cold shiver began to run up her spine. Slowly she began to turn around, squinting lightly as he began to gaze up at the horrid site.

The Doctor for his part just waved. “Hello.”

As he said, a giant tentacle monster was standing right in front of her, it’s skin was green and it had ten eyes, each a different color but all of them glaring right back at her. She had heard of many tales of horrible creatures and myths back home yet nothing like this would even enter her most horrid nightmares. Very quickly the beast opened its mouth revealing several layers of teeth as it roared a loud screeching roar right back at them.

Both Sunset and the Doctor stood absolutely still, both of them too scared to move, both of them too scared to speak. However, something seemed to change inside of the Doctor, something seemed to stir and compensate for the fear.

Quickly The Doctor took Sunset by the hand, still paralyzed in the legs. “Now here comes the part I love the most.”

“What?”

The Doctor looked at Sunset with a insane grin. “We run.”

Before Sunset could even ask The Doctor zipped into action, still holding on tight to her hand and ran as fast as his skinny legs could take him. Sunset managed to keep up, grateful for all those time she went to the gym to keep in shape. The last thing she saw was the monster rise into the air as it began to chase them down with it’s several spikey legs each step it took caused the ground beneath her to shake.

“Why it chasing us?!”Sunet yelled

The Doctor looked down at Sunset boot, noticing the brightly colored goop on it. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

The Doctor recalled the stuff on Sunset’s boot. “I think you stepped on its eggs.”

Sunset turned her head fiercely: “What?”

“You killed it’s children Sunet, great, just great!” he shouted.

“Not my fault I stepped on its stupid eggs!”

“Those eggs were life!”

“I’m life!” Sunset retorted. This Doctor annoyed her; he seemed like the type who would be in a battlefield and would mourn for the butterflies, rather than for the fallen all around him.

“Nevermind, we can talk about morals later…” he answered breathlessly, “keep running!”

She couldn’t believe her luck, now she was being chased by a giant space monster and what’s worse, her only companion looked like he was enjoying himself. Could he be one of those insane death seekers who enjoyed the thrill. If that was the case she knew now she was doomed to die here. Bye, bye Fall Formal Princess crown, bye bye life to be honest.

“So do you have a plan, you said it yourself you know everything so I assume you have a plan.” Sunset said, panic in her voice. “Please tell me you have a plan.”

The Doctor took a second to scan his vast mind: “Nope, just run.”

As the lactic acid pumped into her leg muscles from using them more than any other time before, Sunset squealed in agony. It was already extremely difficult to coordinate a body she wasn’t made to have, but this was beyond anything she ever did before.

The monster began chasing them farther and farther away from the TARDIS. The Doctor noticed this for he kept trying to go in circles to keep close to his ship in case something happened, but the monster kept blocking their path from getting back to the ships vascinity. So thus they had to continue to mount the muddy terrain. Sunset held on tight so that she wouldn’t slip.

However, the Doctor did.

Sunset ran fast noticing the Doctor tumbling over, looking over his shoulder to see the monster near him.

“Oh this isn’t good,” the Doctor muttered to himself while scooching back.

Sunset was a few feet away, unsure whether to go back and keep running. She looked forward and then back at him, then forward and then back at him again. One the one hand she could leave him and run for it and last perhaps a day or two or save him, but most likely get eaten by the monster. It was quite the dilemma and one she didn’t want to deal with right now. She barely knew him, and her own survival was important.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, about to make her voice.

BANG!

The Doctor and Sunset both gasped as they saw a blue beam hitting the monster, causing it great pain. Yet it began to retreat before eventually collapsing on the ground causing a loud rumble as it landed face first onto the ground.

“Well that was lucky of us-poor thing though.” The Doctor said sighing. “Always a shame when life has to be lost.”

Sunset jaw dropped. “Poor it? what about us? It almost ate you!”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean it deserved to die now, that’s just nature’s way. Still,” he began to ponder quietly, almost to himself, “I wonder who let out that beam.”

That question was soon answered. From seemingly out of nowhere, several mean in black armor arrived pointing guns at them. Quickly Sunset and the Doctor raised there head were pushed back together as the men surrounded them.

“Ah guns, this is another thing I have to deal with a lot of the time.” The Doctor said looking at the soldiers, most of them wearing helmets and masks.

“You two identify yourselves,” their commanding officer, whoes modulated voice came out as that of a women, said. “Now!”

“I am the Doctor, and this is my companion Sunset Shimmer.” His breath was faltering - he hoped he wasn’t inheriting the cowardice of his Second incarnation.

“The Doctor….The Doctor….” The Commander clicked her tongue as she looked over her data pad. “Actually yes we have you on record, we are to terminate you at once!”

He heard the voice yet again: “Fine mess you got us into.”

Sunset Shimmer didn’t think it was possible for the Doctor to become paler than he already was. But it happened. As any sense of color faded from his face, his only two words were: “Oh joy.”

The Sun Rises Part 3

“Calling high command, repeat! We have them, over!” the commander spoke in her coms watch before looking back at the Doctor.

The voice of the last incarnation spoke in the Doctor’s head again: “Try to talk to them. That’s how we always got out of this.” The Doctor decided to go with this suggestion from the voice.

Sunset watched in horror as the guns pointed right at her. Never in her life had she ever had to stare down the barrel of a gun, and she didn’t like the feeling of it any more than being chased by a monster.

“And who may I ask do I have the pleasure of being threatened by today.” The Doctor asked grinning slyly.

“I’m commander Tempest Shadow of Contracted Shadow Proclamation time squad 010110,” she said briskly.

“Lots of ones and zeros.” The Doctor snickered. But he took that first word into accout: Contracted. It meant that she probably was a internal contractor, consistently hired by the Shadow Proclamation under her own terms, but able to take outside jobs if desired.

The voice moaned “Oh, I hope those eggs weren’t important!”

The commander removed her mask revealing a purple skinned face with a scar right through her right eye. She looked young, yet strong, a look that said she had seen action throughout the universe, and had gone through quite a bit of suffering along the way. The Doctor could always realize such a look for it was one that he saw in the mirror every day within himself, not that he would let anyone know that. Especially back when he was...no. That was a lifetime ago. A lifetime he swore he would forget.

She was flanked by black-uniformed creatures that the Doctor immediately recognized as Judoon, and a squat grey humanoid with long, thick, silver-white hair, which the Doctor speculated was an Erinangelos, a insectivorous species from a tropical planet. Condescendingly pointing his thumb to himself, the Erinangelos added “And Chief Superintendent Grubber of the same group! I’m very important you know!”

“Of course you are.” The Doctor just mumbled, “the shadow Proclamation, I thought we had cleared up that whole running away bit during the 27 planets crisis.”

“I remember that!” the voice inside the Doctor’s head exclaimed.

“What, twenty seven planets?” Sunset asked. Sunset Shimmer previously had no idea that planest could be moved by anybody.

Grubber, not wanting to feel left out, added, “gee Bill, how come your mom lets you steal twenty-seven planets? No skins!”

The Doctor paused, ignoring Grubber’s attempt at a joke. He was now looking at Sunset as if she had asked the dumbest question ever: “What are you talking about, remember twenty seven planets in the sky, death , destruction, earth almost getting annihilated….Don’t tell me I landed pre 08?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Sunset muttered. It was frustrating for her - the Doctor kept talking about things that she never heard of faster than she could get a chance to understand them, and she hated not understanding things.

“B-B-But-” The Doctor started to spasm. “Twenty seven planets, that was a big deal, that was like a-a-a series arc of character development I had about family and what not and a final battle against the ultimate evil. Come on you had to been there, at least as a bystander watching it all right? Right? Tell me I’m not mad...I’m not mad right, that was big arc that re-generation. It was all leading that, I swear.”

Tempest aimed her gun at him. “Yes, I know. Twenty-seven planets were taken by a eugenics activist.”

The Doctor mumbled, “I think he was a bit more than just that.”

Tempest huffed: “I don’t care about the politics, I just go to the highest bidder. And this time, it’s the Shadow Proclamation.”

“And I’m in it for the cake!” Grubber proclaimed, “and the pie!” he added.

“Mercenaries these day,” Tempest sighed. “You get what you pay for, I suppose.” Tempest Shadow had briefly recalled the glory days, in the disarray of a post-Dalek galaxy, when the largely disorderly civilizations formed their own militias to restore order. Already many civilizations were getting far too complacent for their own good.

The Doctor chuckled. “So a mercenary then, a bounty hunter, to be precise, I figure. Okay, I’ll bite….So the Shadow Proclamation want my head for something….That’s never a good sign.”

“They want you and the girl.” Tempest pointed her gun to Sunset now. “Let’s just say that incident left a few patches in galactic space time affairs.”

“Hey what did I do!” Sunset asked defensively. “I just found out about all this stuff.” Why was all of this being placed upon her shoulders?

She wasn’t there during the invasion, The Doctor pondered. “Beside what I...What we did was right!”

“Don’t care…” She uttered checking her pad. “You are on the list as well-Sunset Shimmer, Equestria City, Canterlot district, Earth 21st century. I’m just following orders to get paid.”

The Doctor scowled at her lack of concern for law, but Sunset had other worries. “H-How do you know that?” Sunset asked, fear consuming her. “W-What else do you know?!?

“Ooh, wibbly-wobblyness already, don’t worry this happens to me often….Tell me what sort of crimes does the shadow proclamation have against me this time. War, interference, helping others even if they were deemed unworthy because they weren’t high powered beings?”

Tempest glared: “You’ll find out soon enough.”

”I don’t like the sound of that,” the voice said.

“So uh….Doctor-what’s going on why are we be arrested.” Sunset asked sounding very confused her voice shaking a bit. “Because I really want to know.”

“Well long story short the Shadow Proclamation is a intergalactic policing force, with some time travel capabilities if primitive to say the least. I’ve had various run in with them over my many lives, normally not on the best of circumstances by apparently we have done something to them via their past in order to screw up our futures, or is it our present...Yes I think present.”

Sunset tried to fathom half of what the Doctor said, past present future, none of it really made any sense. How could she have done something that she never that she had no recollection of doing before nor probably ever did. Whenever she did something she would normally remember doing it first, that’s how life worked. Then of course the Doctor’s blathering about intergalactic police and past lives, that didn’t make any sense either.

“Look if you want me that’s all great but let the girl go, she didn’t do anything-as far as I’m aware of, all she wants to do is go to her silly little teen dance.” The Doctor spoke.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “It’s not silly, it’s socially important.” Or at least, she thought, it was important as a foundation for establishing herself as somebody significant later.

“Yes because highschool social status is the bedrock of life.” The Doctor muttered sarcastically. If he had a credit for every person who gained high social status in high school only to be all the more washed up when it was all over, he could buy out the whole universe.

His thoughts were interrupted. “Unfortunately we cannot let her go, she is to come with us along with you,” Tempest said, her other men keeping at attention.

The Doctor looked at her wrist and noticed her fiddling with someinth. “Ah yes, good old fashion Time transporter, very 2-D very archaic really. All it does it let you go forward and back, not up or down, or forways or backways and frontways and all the other ways you can imagine. But I guess that’s you people, two dimensional thinkers.”

She was barely looking at him, but her face crinkled all the more. “Judge us all you want, but I still have to take you in.”

“Of course, of course- But uh-How do you know I’m me..”

“What?”

“I mean what is the last known record of me, TimeLords regenerate but how do you know I am me. I just became me, but I might not be me for all you know the me you know might now be the right me. ”

“Because you said you were you.”

“Yes, but I just became me, I was someone else just a few hours ago my time, I could be lying the whole time saying I’m me when I’m actually someone else, someone you didn’t expect just to make myself feel important.”

“We have files Doctor, implanted in us but also on one of my tablets I could show you if you desperately to want to know.”

“I’m always happy to know there is competence in the world, so yes.”

Tempest rolled her eyes and began to take out her tablet. Sunset turned to the Doctor trying to get a good read on him, he winked back and reached into his pocket and took out his tiny metal device and slowly began to raise his arm and hold it up.

“Do you know how to kick?” he whispered to Sunset.

“What?”

“Do you know how to kick?” the Doctor hissed again, a bit more grimly this time.

“Yes well-”

The Doctor’s tone seemed to be more enthusiastic as he whispered, “get ready, kick the commander!”

Without warning the Doctor activated his sonic device to its highest radiance causing them to hold their ears in incredible pain. Sunset kicked tempest as hard as she could just as the Doctor instructed causing him to leap forward pinning her down and grab her Vortex manipulator.

“Are you a action hero?” Sunset yelled.

The Doctor got up putting it on. “Nope-Well, sometimes-well-Depending….Either way hold on.”

Pushing a button Sunset was taken by a flash of light, Sunset found herself being flung in a way she had never been flung before, like her entire body had been completely taken out from under her and now she was being taken far, far off.

-000-

Sunset opened her eyes quickly her body returned, yet her stomach was incredible pain, she got on her knees wanting to vomit, yet she couldn’t. The Doctor seemed a bit shook as well but didn’t seem to taken in by it. Looking around she found herself in a city of brick and chimneys, the people wore large suites and dresses.

“Where are we?” Sunset asked.

“London, height of the Empire, sadly old Vicky died a few years after this though, i should probably say hello after the werewolf incident. Same one that started affecting her descendants in the 21st century.” The Doctor said looking around. “Sorry about that, TARDIS is way better than this arcane stuff.”

Her eyes widened greatly: “What is that?”

“A vortex manipulator, the poor man’s form of time travel. Not the best way but it will help us try to lose these people for now before the TARDIS is ready. " From behind The Doctor saw Tempest and her soldiers begin to appear. “Well we know we lost one due to process of elimination, we could just lose each one at a time maybe we can fend them off.”

Again taking her hand the Doctor began to head off into the crowd, Sunset quickly trying to follow him as fast as she could. Quickly she let go and just headed herself, hating the idea of being handled that way.

“I can handle myself thanks.” Sunset muttered.

“Fine, no need to be rude” the Doctor grumbled, “just trying to help.”

“Why didn’t you just send me back to Equestria City.” Sunset snarled.

“Well then they’ll find your time-Or at least precise location, can’t have your home life get ruined.”

“They are more after YOU- I could fend for myself.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Teenage girl fights mercenaries with guns yes I would love to see that.”

“Do you always have to have the last word. You are worse than Rainbow Dash and Dima.”

“Who-?”

If it wasn’t for two particular boys she had known, there was no way she was going to be where she was today. First there was Dimitry Ivaov, or “Dima” or “Dimwhit” as many called him; however, he was actually very bright in some ways. He came from an interesting family; most of them had immigrated from the former Soviet Union to the United States, taking a closely affiliated Mongolian family with them. Dimitri’s older sister had married a Mongolian man named Delger, and together they had a daughter, Sukh-Khutaluun, or “Scootaloo” as she was generally named. Dimitri was very emotionally distant and slightly socially incompetent. Which was good for Sunset espeically when a lot of her ‘to many’ strange ideas started showing, espeically after Dima gave her the books of fairy tales like Grimm.. He gave her a book on Slavic folklore, and another book with the stories by the Brothers Grimm. While Koschei the Deathless had his appeal, the stories by the Brothers Grimm were sometimes troubling; they seemed to have that distinctly “Western” disdain for monarchs, often suggesting that monarchs should be questioned if not ridiculed.

Sunset for her part came from a culture in which the monarches were often synonmous with the highest of the priestly caste, and thus from her perspective, killing a queen was like killing the Pope, or worse. Western culture was also far more individualistic than Equestrian culture, and the individualism that humans sometimes benefitted from was depressing to the herd animal that Sunset was, and she felt that murdering monarchs was almost akin to tearing her own family apart.

Still people like Scootaloo took notice when Sunset took her obsession with the Dark monarchs in books a bit to far, almost to fangirling degrees and watched Dima ignore it, even if the signs were clear as day the darker the better it seemed and worse Dima ignored it

Perhaps the depression she was developing while living away from her people in a culture not designed for skittish former prey animals like herself was eating away at how she saw the world, making her more drawn to the not only the rebellious and mysterious, but also to the dark and macabre or even malevolent. This caused for many strange acts and choices in fashion at time. It started innocent enough, an almost perfect replica of Queen Grimhalde’s costume as seen in the Disney movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves with some customization, as Sunset liked her hair out. In fact Sunset asked to be taken in it when they went to Disneyland, Dima didn’t see why not, even if Scootaloo and some of the others started to notice. .However, afterwards, it began to escalate, she got darker both in personality and taste. Some said it was a goth phase, but goths were a completely different type of subculture this seemed more...odd.

Perhaps to fill in empty holes both figuratively and literally, because she was living on a planet without any of her people, Sunset created a “slut” version of the Evil Queen’s outfit, hoping to get the helpful boy to admire her more feminine charms. However, it didn’t work. Perhaps it was their age difference, or perhaps it was that Dima had Asperger’s, but whatever the reason, it simply didn’t work.

Though she kept many of the outfits to this day. It felt like the old clothes of back home, and came in handy when she discovered the great advancement of social media. Something she had gotten very handy in and helped her during the early days of living in this strange world.

She liked to simply put one on and sit in a chair with arms. Simply feel like a queen. Plus the cape was cool. Definitely cooler than bow-ties and fezzes. Fezzes were stupid. But regardless when she was angry or upset she would dawn the mantle of the Evil Queen trying to regain her composure.

Now, Dima was obviously not entirely successful, but that didn’t stop her from having interest in consorts. Of course, one by one the choices were eliminated. Not Big Mac. Not Blueblood. The list went on. She just hoped to Tau Sunflare that the choices wouldn’t have been narrowed down to Flash Sentry. Flash was the worst. He was an idiot. He was rich, but he was a dork. No way he was ever going to be the most popular boy in school!

Well, no way he was going to be popular...on his own, that is to say. Maybe that could be fixed. Maybe.

Regardless Sunset considered herself a “evil queen” of Canterlot High, well more Queen but people called her evil because of her personality. She didn’t mind-she welcomed there hate. Better than all the annoying friendship happy go lucky personalities she had to suffer at the beginning or even back home-yuck.

Sunset kept up faster now that she wasn’t being dragged on her feet, in fact she was so good The Doctor was rather impressed. They continued to head deeper into the crowded streets, not even bothering with the fact that they were in the middle of Early Twentieth century London standing out like sore thumbs.

“Aren’t you worried about messing up time?” Sunset asked noticing Tempest men in there gear.

The Doctor shrugged. “This isn’t that big a deal, you’d be surprised how much you humans forget things long term. I mean you forgot the Twenty Seven Planets….”

“I didn’t!” Sunset grimaced. “Just get me back home so I can go the Fall Formal.”

The Doctor scowled and raised his voice: “Again, this formal of yours - it is just a dance!”

“It’s not just a dance!” Sunset snarled her temper rising. “This formal is life or death for social status, it’s going to determine whether I’m a nothing or a something.”

“You are something,.” the Doctor said casually. “You are filled with tiny particles, blood vessels and other organs, that is nothing….this-” he waved his hands in the air. “That’s nothing you-you are something.”

One of Sunset’s eyebrows cocked at this remark. The Doctor realized he would have to support his claim.

“Look, Sunset...all of this stuff you’re so concerned about..it’s arbitrary. And really, so are a lot of things you know of. Look at you! Your civilization is still so young in the grand scheme of things! You’re going to find that a lot of the things that you believe in aren’t what you thought at all. Like how you guys realized that phlogiston is not real all those years ago and realized the Earth isn’t flat, you’re going to realize you live in such a bigger, better Universe than that. Can you serve me an esteem on a plate? You can’t, because it’s not what you think it is. But, you, you are real, and the stars and planets, that is real, and when your people once again focus on that which is real, you are going to do great, great things.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Then what do you mean?”

“In highschool from what I know status is everything it determines who you hang out with what people think of you, what you think of them. It can mean everyone likes me and I get favors in return and i can do things for them. Or it means I sit in the corner all day with my head in a book and no one remembers me afterwards.”

The Doctor tapped his chin and thought a moment. “So basically you are doing is patronage politics.”

“Exactly!”

“Well I-” The Doctor seemed taken aback by how well she put two and two together. “Well there is more to life than politics I’ll grant you that. I should I know I was Lord President of my planet.”

“Wait-” Sunset paused looking shocked. “You are the president of your planet? Now I know you’re shitting me.”

“WAS!” The Doctor corrected. “I got impeached...a few times actually. Thankfully not for any reason your presidents do, like harassment or corruption.” He didn’t even mention that there was no planet to go back to. He almost forgot for a minute.

“Why did they impeach you then?”

“Guess when you don’t attend meetings every so often it’s considered bad form, that and reforming the system just by saying THE SYSTEM IS REFORMED very loudly isn’t going policy.” The Doctor muttered sounding bitter. “Least I had friends who tried better than me.”

Sunset was shocked to hear this: If she was in charge of the executive branch, she would do whatever it took to use the position. For good, of course.

The Doctor and Sunset got behind a alleyway to take a rest for a moment, finally they were able take a small breather after losing them. Sunset was tired, her stamina starting to slowly dwindle away second by second. Tempest and her men continued to rummage through the streets her second in command kept licking his lips as he saw a bunch of food in some of the market stands.

“Not now!” She shouted. “We have a Alien to catch.”

“Aren’t we all aliens in our own unique way.”

The Doctor kept poking out his head as he heard the two bicking to one another, checking the rist device “Ok-Phew, well not phew we still have to avoid them completely now.”

Sunset put a hand on his mouth. “What-Is-Going-On. And if I don’t like the answer, I will punch you….HARD!” She removed her hand.

“Basically you are caught up in one of my fantastic adventures were I get chased by my enemies for something I may do in my future there past.” The Doctor explained.

Sunset paused to think.

WHAM

“Ouch.” The Doctor rubbed his nose. “I explained what happened.”

“I didn’t like it.”

The Doctor checked to make sure he wasn’t bleeding. “Well anyway that is what is happening now, I apologize for unconvincing your social life but you jumped into my TARDIS remember. If you didn't you’d be at this dance that is oh so Important to you. That clearly you didn’t think about it long enough to jump into my TARDIS.”

“I-I….” Sunset bit her lip. “I was curious, I mean how many times to boxes that are bigger on the inside fall from the sky.”

“So curiosity is more important to you than a silly little dance that is good that is very good. It means you are opened minded it means you want to learn it means you are looking for something beyond the confines of your school and life.”

“It’s not about the dance!” Sunet yelled. “It’s about the title and social status.”

The Doctor stepped away for a second. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he said to Sunset Shimmer, “social status means something to you - interesting.”

Sunset rollers her eyes. “Yes! And i’m about to have one as a prisoner if we don’t get away from these freaks”

The Doctor looked out to see the troops headed towards them nearing the plaza, pushing various people harder and faster now, closing in. “So touchy over a dance, very well….Hmmm….” The Doctor looked around the area now they were in the middle of a local plaza, The Doctor picked up a paper and began to read. “Let's see 1913, tension highs…..Oooh.”

“What?”

“I hate to do this but destiny says it happens anyway.” The Doctor took a deep breath and shouted. “GERMAN SPIES!” He pointed at Tempest and her men.

Several citizens developed massive scowls and began to huddled towards them giving them a firm lashing. Tempest looked as if it was killing her just to hold back the urge to shoot but yet didn’t. The Doctor looked surprised, impressed even. Britain during this time was quite suspicious of Germans due to the heighten tensions at the time.

“Why are they attacking them?” Sunset asked looking surprised

The Doctor sighed. “Ethnic tension between the Imperial powers are at a all time high during this time, in a few days the First World War began. Shame, it was a pointless war at the end of the day.”

The Doctor continued to watch as Tempest and the others just got pulled into the crowd. In fact he was shocked by the notion that she was actually trying to stop her troops from fring on the crowds. “Hmm...Either she has a soul, or perhaps the time streams don’t allow her to do this.”

“What?” Sunset asked

“Kill these people.” The Doctor said firmly pointing to Tempest controlling the other mercs. “She hasn’t fired on the civilians once, which is good obviously.”

Some of the civilians started throttling them a few took out there Time vortex manipulators, but quickly Tempest was sift, she leaped into the air and got up from the crowds 2 more of her squad followed suite.

“Oh boy here they come!” The Doctor began to activate the manipulate. “Ok one more oh bugger!”

Sunset grabbed the Doctor’s arm quickly as she was transported again

-000-

Again a flash and again Sunset and The Doctor found themselves in the unknown, this time in the middle of burning city. Explosions echoed in the distance, the place smelled of suite, and the air tasted of burnt ash. Never before had Sunset seen such destruction only in the stories of war in legend, just the sight of it made her sick. This was definitely no fantasy. This was war, a battleground, plain and simple.

“What is this place?” Sunset asked her voice now more timid as she saw the destruction around her. “It looks-dead.”

The place was quite, very quiet, uneasily quite. Smoke and dust came from the distance, as loud explosions continued to rocket the background. Like the apocolpyse had helped, the city background made it look like she was standing among the ruins of a ancient civilization

The Doctor looked at his vortex manipulator and saw his watch. “It says Earth…” His widened in fear now. “Twenty Second century.”

“Why is that bad?”

The Doctor began to fiddle with the machine immediately now trying to hurry get the device up and running. “We have to go, we have to go now I can’t be here.”

Quickly he began to fling through the manipulator finding a better date any date. Sunset had no idea what was going on, but yet the fear in the Doctor’s eyes was something she had never seen in anyone ever before. She could not understand just what about this date or perhaps whatever was going on scared him. But whatever it was, part of her did not know nor want to find out.

“Ok what about….March 26, 2005….” Sunset said pointing to the date. She wanted to watch the protests in Taipei live on television; she fully related to their concern of China’s anti-succession laws, as Sunset herself came from a territory of Equestria whose citizens largely wanted to cede. Even better, if she stuck around for a couple of weeks, she could catch the start of the great Kaiju Wars, which began with a giant nuclear explosion in Siberia that year. Plus she get an original copy of Civ V, she liked modding it and making her own civilization
“Can’t do that either.” The Doctor said continuing to flip through the watch trying to get better coordinates.

“Why not!” Sunset moaned. “I wanna see monsters fiiiight!”

“Sunset! That was a massive tragedy!” He huffed, collecting himself: “Besides...l I can be parts of there not all of there…But seriously, monsters fighting? I know you’re a kid and all, but back then, I think the kids were crying more than cheering. Unless you are one of those kids living in the ivory towers...or the rural center, monsters never attack there for some reason.”

Undeserving Queen Bees Sunset thought “Ok-so why can’t you go to certain parts?” Sunset whined even more now, because she hated not getting her way.

The Doctor’s face became a subdued scowl, and his tone matched it: “Because parts of that time are Time Locked.”

“Time what now?!”

“Long story, I’ll teach you it later!” The Doctor kept massively tinkering with the device, pleading for it to work. “Come on, come on-I hate arcane Time Travel.”

“Make it quick!” Sunset Said looking around another explosion coming in the distance, screaming grew louder. “What’s attacking !?!”

“You know how in fairy tales there is the dark army that normally wants to spell doom and gloom on the land and even the lesser evils have to unite with the good guys to fight it.”

“Yeah?”

“Well right now that dark force is attacking this time period as it was mean to be and I can’t be here no matter how hard I wish it.”

Sunset looked around seeing such destruction, it was horrifying to say the least even for her and she had a tough constitution to begin with. In the background she could see what appeared to be blue lasers coming from the distance, and a high pitch mechanical screeching echoing ahead, uttering a hard to hear three syllable word. Yet it didn’t matter for Tempest and two of her goones came for them pointing their guns right at them.

“Hands up Doctor, you know you want to leave and so do I now hand me the vortex manipulator and.”

“Let me leave and we continue this somewhere else!” The Doctor shouted.

Tempest snickered. “That’s right, you can’t be here!”

“Why not!” Sunset yelled in exhaustion. “Someone explained something.”

“Get your companion up to snuff.” Tempest laughed. “I thought she was a smart one.”

“Just let me get out of here we continue the chase later just not here just now with-”

“Commander, look out!” one of the goons shouted, pointing to a nearby missile.

The Doctor grabbed Sunset and pulled her back activating the device teleporting them away. Sunset opened her eyes to see that they were now right back in front of the TARDIS now. There it was still standing there, still sitting in the middle of the Baron looking world.

Slowly Sunset and The Doctor got up, both groaning in agony as Tempest arrived holding her gun right in front of them a wide smirk on her face.

“Finally have you.”

The Doctor extended his arms. “Ok-Ok, you have me.” He said as he took one step back towards the TARDIS doors, Sunset keeping close. “Just don’t hurt her ok, she's young, we just met, if you seperate us now, whatever Timeline you are trying to prevent will end.”

“I could just kill her and be done with it.”

“No kill me then I’m out of lives at this point, this is my last one you know.”

Tempest rolled her eyes. “Fine whatever-” She prepared her gun. “Though my masters will not be happy, I can show them a body.”

“Of course, of course you can, always good to have evidence right.” The Doctor’s body was now right next to the TARDIS door. “But I have one last saying request.”

“Which is?”

“This….” Without a seconds warning The Doctor managed to open the TARDIS door and swing Sunset right inside before slamming the Door shut behind. “Ha! Ha! Yes….Now come on.”

Sunset was not happy with being flung but The Doctor didn’t care as he ran to the controls not even noticing that the entire interior was different. No longer was it a circular dull rust bucket of a ship, but more alive, vibrant with color and grand scheme. Something almost out of a child’s dream. Outside one could hear Tempest screams of anger as she tried to blast the TARDIS door open.

“Good luck getting through those unless you are Gallifrayen!” The Doctor snickered as he pushed several buttons and knobs, causing the TARDIS to roar as it began to de-materialize, next stop earth...Oh wait.”

The Doctor pushed a button, outside the TARIDS shields went up deflecting Tempest fire right at her vortex manipulator breaking it. The last thing she saw was that of a blue box vanishing into thin air, never to be seen again.

The Sun Rises Part 4

Sunset was still in shock that she was still alive let alone breathing. There was definitely more to this alien than met the eye. Hunted, a fugitive, despite his almost weakly demeanor, he seemed to have enemies. Better for her he knew how to deal with them.

“Not bad Doctor!” the voice said again.

“So...Doctor, how did you now that would work?” Sunset asked, almost afraid to ask. She had a feeling that whatever the Doctor was going to suggest, it was going to either be too complicated, or too disturbing.

The Doctor shrugged. “Easy, I sent us a thousand years into that planets future, if the TARDIS wasn’t done by then it just shows she’s getting up in age. Good girl always needed to look her best and all.”

Okay, so a little bit of both, thought Sunset.

Sunset looked around the place now, still perplexed by how it worked. A box that was bigger in on the inside and that could travel through time and space? All the possibilities all the knowledge, so much of it seemed grander than any school dance in her eyes.

Then she remembered. The Fall Formal. She had to get back to the Fall Formal! Oh no, she couldn’t miss it! But maybe as it was a time machine-

“Don’t worry I’m getting you back home.” The Doctor said, pushing a few buttons. “Then you can win your silly little crown and I get be on my silly little way, I need a fresh pair of clothes after all.”

“Doctor,” the voice cut in, “try to show a small amount of respect for the companion. You’re not ginger. Don’t compile the flaws by being rude as well.” The Doctor decided to not acknowledge the voice much this time; firstly, he didn’t want to confuse Sunset further, and secondly, he was his own person, his own Doctor, and no prior incarnation could tell him otherwise.

“What,” she exclaimed “Oh right!”

“Unless,” he began, recalling how he felt before he regenerated, the empty feeling of being all alone in his travels, “you want to stay?” the Doctor said, almost looking hopeful.

“What ?!?”

“Yes-Stay, I mean, you were fun to have around today, a bit bossy and mean, but fun, I do like having friends along when I’m on adventures, makes life a it more interesting when you have a friend.”

At this Sunset smirked. “I don’t need friends Doctor- believe they just do nothing but tie you down, or worse, make it easy to be horrible - well, most of them, except for the one, special person. Everybody else can die.”

The Doctor made a face as though she publically regurgitated: “Well that seems like a unhealthy attitude to have. The first bit I understand, the second...we’ll work on it.”

Sunset turned her head away, avoiding eye contact with the Doctor: “I’m just pragmatic.” Sunset did have experience with close relationships with other people once. It didn’t end well.

The Doctor looked disappointed. As far as he could tell, this was not pragmatic. This was cynicism. “Oh-Ok, well then, off to the dance you go.”

-000-

The Doctor did as he promised and landed them right in front of Sunset’s loft just a few minutes after they had left. Hardly any time had passed. It was like everything that had happened was that of a blink of an eye. The only thing that was different was the TARDIS making that strange noise, that weird odd screeching sound. Children cried, women and children in panic.

With a snap of his fingers he opened the door. Sunset starting out to make sure it was her home and not some other planet. But nope it was her loft, her single boring loft. Her normal city of Canterlot. Everything was really back to normal.

The Doctor had felt strangely lonely and empty at the very thought of once again, being without companions. “So, end of the road?” the Doctor said, fiddling with his thumbs, almost as if he was sad to see her go.

“Yep, I’m back.” Sunset said stretching looking at him with suspicion. “Did not expect this night to go this way.”

“Who does, crazy spaceship lands in the middle of one’s loft only to then be flung around a bunch of various areas of time and space, I suppose that would cause anyone your age to become a bit fidgety now would they.”

“Yeah….” Sunset said slowly heading back to her loft. “So-See you I-I guess.”

The Doctor waved back. “Yeah, have a nice dance-What high school? Which one?” The Doctor’s eyes widened.

“Ah,” Sunset rubbed the back of her head, “Canterlot High, it’s -”

“I know this place.” The Doctor suddenly looked uncharacteristically serious. Sunset had to wonder what he would have to do with a high school, and why he would know one.

Sunset looked surprised, he looked sad almost. She thought with all the trouble she caused him he would want her to leave. Part of her didn’t want to give him a answer at all

“Canterlot-Canterlot High?” She said to her own surprise.

“Oh really?” The Doctor said thinking. “Well, have fun.”

“Yeah-I will.” Sunset closed the door behind her now.

The Doctor began to watch her leave, but then, a thought crossed his mind, “wait, Sunset Shimmer!” She turned around, the door only slightly open. She caught a glimpse of the dance - already, the students were beginning to congregate. Already, her heart longed to partake - not be close, of course - but to be swept up in the moment with them, to become more popular with them, and maybe to find a nice - and useful - boy for herself. But no friends. Never again. However, she now had but one obstacle, the Doctor, calling her over. What was so unusual was that the Doctor, she realized, was her ticket to freedom, to truly leaving this world, this world where there was no magic, no wide variety of sapient creatures, and now the Doctor could offer her the next best thing to Equestria.

She closed the door, and turned to face the Doctor. As she began to step towards him, he began to open his arms wide. Sunset realized what he meant: “Oh no, I’m not a hugging person!”

“I’m afraid you don’t have much choice on the matter!” the Doctor said, darting forward and wrapping her in a tight embrace. Sunset Shimmer felt weird, it was different, it was...nice.

She then gently pushed away, “okay, I’m going to the dance now.” The Doctor nodded in acknowledgement, and she dashed forward to the gym.

Finally she was home, her loft just as she left it, granted she had only been gone for a few hours her time, yet still it was such a bizarre experience. Looking at the clock she found out that it was almost time to get ready for the Fall Formal. Yet something inside her felt different, her mind was not at focused as it once was. Her goal of becoming the fall formal princess right now felt very-less important that it had been just a few hours ago.

Space and Time

She had been through space and time, there was more to the world than just this planet. Aliens, technology, organizations peoples possibilities. Suddenly a princess crown seemed a bit petty. Yet now this was the life she chose, she still needed to insure her place in it. Thus she prepared for the last few hours of her night before the dance was to begin, hair, dress and all. Yet still flashes of the adventure played in her head over and over again.

“Ugh-get out my head-stupid man.” She muttered as she checked herself in the mirror and snickered. “Like a Queen..Though I still wish it had a cape.”

Outside she saw a car pull up and began to head off. Flash Sentry had promised to give her a ride to the fall formal. It was the way couples were supposed to handle themselves after all. The boy driving the girl, or so what she knew. Flash was nice to be sure though not really her type, not that she wanted a type. He was waiting outside her front door.

Sunset grumbled wishing she could just walk, but she supposed a whole ride wish her ‘boyfriend’ seemed like a small price to pay for the prestige that would soon be hers.

“Hey.” He muttered as she walked down wanting to be a gentleman and take her hand, only to be slapped away. “Ouch.”

“Don’t touch.” She grumbled.

Flash sighed. “Sorry-can I at least get the…

Sunset got in herself without even bothering to wait. Flash was always so -it was hard to explain-it was like he tried to be someone yet always just coming off as fake or disingenuous. This rockin bad boy, who in reality was as soft and wouldn’t be caught jaywalking let alone commit a crime.

During the car ride Flash tried to be a flirt and make small talk, but was always shot down by her. “So uh...How was your evening.”

“It was-it was-” Sunset said looking out at the window. “Whatever-doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Nervous?” Flash asked. “Don’t be because I think-”

“If you call me a Princess, I will slap you.” Sunset grumbled.

“Sorry.”

Sunset hated Flash when he was like, he didn’t have any wit to him, none at all. The only reason she kept him around was because everyone else seemed to like him, why? She didn’t know-nor did she care, if it helped her status so be it. Plus she could tell he was smitten with her, even if they weren’t technically a item yet. Most people only thought they were because she kept him around alot and he was consider popular for bizarre reasons.

The Doctor heard the voice sigh in his head: “Humans have such low standards.” The Doctor mused how unusual this was from his previous incarnation, who generally focused the most on the positive potential on the human race.

They arrived to the school auditorium were all the students were there gathered around, talking, not even knowing that Sunset had almost died and been chased around space time by a insane alien with a big chin and accent. Snips and Snails waiting for her outside giving her a firm salute.

“Sunset-We got the vote box ready to go.” Snips said

“Yeah-yeah whatever.” Sunset muttered as she continued to ponder what had transpired to her until she bumped into someone. “Watch it!” She yelled.

“Oh sorry.” It was Fluttershy, one of the meekest student in the school. “I-I didn’t see you there.”

“Well look up when walking.” Sunset grumbled.

“Hey she said you were sorry.”

“Rainbow Dash.” Sunset grunted as she saw the Rainbow haired girl approach.

“Don’t have to be a jerk princess.”

“Well i’ll be one soon enough, I heard I might actually win.” Sunset snickered.

Sunset walked off and entered the dance hall, which was just the school gym. Immediately she stood in the corner in the dark, looking over everyone from the shadows, as she had been most of her life. Yet still she couldn’t get out of her head everything that had happened. How could one after going through space time, being chased by mercenaries, monsteros, whatever was attacking Earth in the 22nd century.

Looking at her fellow students living there tiny lives and not knowing what laid beyond. It made them all feel small by comparison.

Suddenly Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna arrived and Sunset mind then dwelled to the announcements of the results. The two sister teachers cleared there voices as they prepared the students for the announcement.

“And the winner of the Fall Formal Princess election is-” Celestia pulled out the card. “Sunset Shimmer.”

Sunset grinned as she walked up the stage to put on her princess crown. Finally, her social status of this school was complete, the students politely applauded. Personally she wanted them to bow-as far as she was concerned she was this school's monarch and should be treated as such.

However in the crowd she saw a familiar looking big chinned man standing in the back, giving a wave. Once her euphoria was done she approached him, bypassing pretty much everyone.

“No way”.

It was the Doctor, with new clothes, brown jacket with silly red bowtie, he looked like one of the chess club nerds Sunset made fun of. Quickly she ran up toward him pushing forward the other students without delay.

“So hello, your highness,” he snickered as he walked towards her the other students didn’t see he noticed he walked in..

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Hey, I won, fair and square.” And she did, as far as she knew - well, she got Snips and Snails to beg for votes for her, but no actual voter fraud was committed.

“Who votes for princesses? Well unless you live on Naboo, they elect queens. It’s an electoral monarchy, similar to Reformation period Venice, and early modern Holland.”

“Why are you here?” Sunset asked with an obviously irritated tone.

“Because now that this silly little dance is over I wanted to know if you wanted to join me on a real adventure throughout time and space and not just a crash course.”

Sunset was about to speak before Flash Sentry walked over looking excited his mood dulling as he saw the Doctor and looking confused.

“Uh Sunset-who is this?”

Sunset panicked! “Him?” Sunset’s mind went blank, looking for a excuse. “He’s uh- he’s uh...” How was she supposed to explain this weirdo to the rest of them?

“Her private tutor.” The Doctor said holding out hand giving Flash a firm shake. “Smith, Doctor John Smith. Sunset family hired me for more advance studies, I just thought I’d visit her, not every day you become Princess of the Fall Formal.”

Vice Principal Luna overheard their conversation, and her expression brightened. “John...Smith?” An expression of nostalgic warmth crossed her face, while Celestia gave the Doctor a long, hard, and strangely blank stare, “I knew somebody who was also called that,” Luna began, “long ago-”

Her sentence was cut off by Flash’s loud and awkward efforts to help her. “Oh-If you needed help Sunset I-”

“No you couldn’t.” Sunset said, her face as though he shattered a Ming Dynasty vase and then regurgitated over the remains.

“Oh….” Flash just stood there awkwardly. “So um...Sunset con-”

“Can you get me some punch.” Sunset said, signaling that she wanted him to leave her

Flash fidgeted and nodded. “Yeah of course.”

He walked off The Doctor looked a bit puzzled . “Romance is in the air, I see.”

Sunset looked shocked. “Why are you-”

“Because you got a taste of something, a taste of something you yearn for I saw it in your eyes as I did in the eyes of many. My granddaughter, Sarah Jane, Donna, Derpy, all of them looking for someone more and they found it while traveling with me. Sometimes it is me, sometimes it something grander. You want that grandness I can tell.” The more and more he looked at her, the more and more she reminded him of a boy he met long ago on Alzarius.

Sunset looked slightly dismayed, “so I won’t be the first?” Of course, it made sense, the Doctor was centuries old, but part of her would have liked to be that much more special.

The Doctor shook his head. “Nor the last-but that doesn’t matter, what matters is now.”

Sunset paused to think about it, yes she did want grandness, of a scope beyond her wildest dreams. This crown waw what she thought that would be in highschool, but all of space and time at her fingertips, well that was more than any school could give her. Still she was building something here, and she wanted to keep that going as well. Looking up at the Doctor, she was conflicted. There was everything and nothing for her here on Earth.

“Well I uh-”

The Doctor seemed to immediately sense her inner conflict: “Remember Time Machine, I can get you back here in less than a minute.”

Sunset looked back at Flash, who was waiting for her with some punch. Flash hoped that by taking care of everything for her, she would like him more. That was how it worked, right? “Ok, let's go.”

“Well you are the school princess.” He smirked holding out his arm. “Come on your majesty, shall we-”

“Princess now...Maybe one day Queen later.” Sunset said, shocked she brought up that title she thought she brushed some of those habits.

The Doctor found this talk somewhat annoying: “Titles are boring,” the Doctor chuckled. “They don’t mean anything at the end of the day.”

Sunset folded her arms to complete her skeptical expression: “Then why do you go by one, ‘Doctor’?” Who was he, to be so high and mighty when he refused to use his real name. WAIT. “Doctor...what is your name? Why don’t you use it?”

The Doctor was at a loss of words, “well, I, uh…”

She didn’t understand. She couldn’t yet. Perhaps seeing the wider world could teach her a few things she could apply at home. Not that the Earth and its human civilization was ever really much of a home to her, as he was beginning to sense. He wasn’t sure where she came from, if she ran away from home, if her parents were alcoholic, or if maybe she was an alien far away from another planet...no, not likely, but quite plausible. No what he saw just a typical teenager with a lot of potential, he just had to kick out the stereotype Queen Bee parts out of her. Yes- that was it. Shouldn’t be too hard. She was socially inept, that much was obvious and for lack of a better term-bratty-yet the Doctor had met worse, worse who was a lot like Sunset, and perhaps with the right guidance she could be something far greater and kinder than she was now. Life was growth after all.

The Doctor eyes widened as he held up his arm. “Alright Sunset Shimmer, all of time and space anywhere that ever happened and ever will…..Where do you want to start?”
“Away from here!” Sunset said huffing off into the ship.

“Sure you didn’t want to say goodbye or dance with your friends? I mean it seemed like a fun party-pageant cliche aside,” The Doctor said, seeming a bit sad. His heart was heavy with seeing what Sunset was, somebody who chose not to relate to others primarily because it was easier. “I mean I know I did my whole companion spiel but I don’t want to just have you up end your domestics like that.”

“Doesn’t bother me.” Sunset Shimmer was tired, she had been running around for far too long plus the idea of being with her friends annoyed her, she didn't have any.

The Doctor seemed taken aback Sunset Shimmer was quite a odd girl in his eyes. Most teenagers loved being socials, Twitter, Facebook and all that. Or more sensibly, going to parties, seeing their friends regularly, that thing. This one though, there was always a dark undertone in her voice. A dullness in the eyes, one he hoped to cure with fun and adventure.

“You look sad?” The Doctor asked frowning. “I mean traveling across time and space can be a bit scary but now that the TARDIS is fixed I promise only the cool areas, like a world of freezes and bow ties.”

“I’m fine really- Do you have a nightgown or something I can use to sleep?” She asked, not wanting to sleep in her black leather jacket.

“Yes.” The Doctor nodded. “We have a private dresser at the end-old girl entered the information to the telepathic sensors, if you wish, to fit the person perfectly. The TARDIS can make anything for you, we collect matter from stars and a kind of algae we grow in the water-tanks. The TARDIS can shape it into anything.”

“Anything-” Sunset bit her lip feeling a tinge of excitement. This world was so utterly devoid of magic and wonder, not as varied and manipulable as Equestria. Nothing but layer after layer of boring limits. Now she had a little realm to herself to something that might as well have been magic!

The Doctor nodded and grinned. “It can even change the shape of your clothes, or weave you new ones, by seeing what you would like inside your mind, through its telepathic sensors!”

“Telepathic sensors?” Sunset asked getting a bit nervous of something looking into her brain. “It’s not gonna reveal my secrets is it.”

“Yes...and no to the secret thing. See, much like the fingerprint or the veins in a human eye, each telepathic signal we make is unique to ourselves, it’s how Time Lords recognize - recognized, each other, even after regeneration.”

Sunset nodded and followed the Doctor down the hall until they arrived. “The TARDIS will lead you to your room on the way out, i need to make sure the old girl doesn’t get us in the middle of a war or something.”

“War?” Sunset said laughing nervously. “Is there a war happening?” Her mind raced again; of course, more advanced civilizations than the Earth almost certainly engaged in war, all the time, and humanity likely hardly saw any of it. Perhaps the boring state of Planet Earth was a state of safety, and now the Doctor was about to take her out of that safety.

“Not now, but...yeah that’s happened a few times...Have fun, you're room is to you're left.... Don’t let the old girl play with you too much- she gets a little off sometimes with companions….Oh and be careful with the monkey room.”

Sunset Shimmer cocked one of her prominent eyebrows upwards: “Monkey room?” She wasn’t sure if this ‘Doctor’ really took his status as a traveller seriously.

“For the monkeys of course, who hasn’t seen a ship without monkeys?” he smiled. Careful though; one of them has a very unhealthy fascination with Elliot Rodger.”

Sunset Shimmer was so astounded at the TARDIS that she didn’t even know where to begin. She walked along the metallic halls, something about the place felt-almost alive, as if the halls were shifting around her or something was happening in her mind.

“It’s like being inside a candy sugar-hyped child’s playhouse.” Sunset muttered as she looked around the hall.

The Doctor did say for her not to get ‘played’ by the TARDIS whatever that meant, machine couldn’t be alive right at the end of the day they were machines, they could be turned off. Her question was soon answered however as a door opened.

Sunset went down the hall as the Doctor began to work on the controls. She could only wonder what sort of bunk bed like scenario she would be forced to endure..Hopefully nothing to curt and basic.

As she entered she saw the design and marveled. It was lit by candles, giving it a strangely romantic look. Each nook and cranny had a slightly different sub-theme, mahogany taking most of the center, not unlike TARDIS console interfaces the Doctor used previously, but sub-corners of the same room took on slightly more gothic looks, with stony walls, especially around her bathroom. Keeping her bathroom from being totally gothic was the use of Asian lotus flowers in her bathtub, surrounded by thick red candles. Her bed was a massive squishy Queen-sized bed.

“Amazing.” Sunset said “It really did read my mind.” I only hope it ignores some of my more...private thoughts, she added to herself.

At the center of the wooden chamber was a seat of gold - actually, it was the remote controlling the functions of her room; able to control the floors, set air conditioning, control water levels, slide the panels of her walls to show mirrors, among other things she was probably seldom ever going to need. However, to her eyes, it looked like a throne one that she deserved, and one she would take.

“Wonder if this place has a computer.” Sunset thought to herself, as if by magic or more tech one appeared. Yes!”

“Actually it does,” an echoing voice broke in, “and unlike most computers, it is imbued with multiple artificial intelligences to personalize your search decisions.”

Sunset looked up as a face appeared in her mirror. “D-Dima!”

He was a tall young adult, of a slender build, with rust-colored hair and skin, and his wry expression was eerily reminiscent of the Doctor’s. “Nope, I’m a projection of him-but this place does have a computer, imbued with a collective of artificial intelligences.” Sunset Shimmer recalled him as one of the first people on this world who ever seemed to give her a thought, a young policeman-in-training who had helped her find her landlords and her place to live, allowing her to establish herself. In short, he was the first person on this world that didn’t seem to want anything from her.

Sunset blinked “So you are not entirely Dima, but you are what I would like him to be, in a mirror?”

He smiled to one side of his mouth. “Yep. That’s more like it.”

Sunset smirked. “So as my mirror, do you have to do what I say?” She began to wonder just how many limits this mirror had.

The image casually shrugged.“More or less? Mind you, the Doctor can establish parental controls if he ever saw it fit, but I doubt he will.”

“How much can it tell me?” Sunset sasked. She already had many ideas, pondering the aliens that the TARDIS must have known about, among other…spicier things. She hoped that the Doctor didn’t have the means to inspect her browser history.

The Doctor smiled and shrugged. “Anything you’d like to know. It has access to the TARDIS data core, which has information about everyting the TARDIS has ever experienced.”

Her grin widened as she thought of everything she was going to leave behind and what she could achieve. Time and space, that was more than her former mentor had given to her, and even more than the few people on earth she had met had offered. The world felt limitless now and the knowledge should obtain felt limitless-such excitement what power what thrill-it was to much.

She remembered a mirror that Celestia showed her, a mirrior that changed her lfe. However this made that mirror that Celestia had kept from her look like child's play. “Maybe if I just ask it too….”

Suddenly a crinkle if sound and she was interrupted when she heard the Doctor’s voice from across multiple rooms down the hall. She anger rose as again she was stopped from her plan “Sunset Shimmer! Anything you need?”

“NO!” Sunset sneered. I’m trying to discover my destiny here, she thought. For a long time, she thought anything she needed could be found in Equestria City, but now she saw what true potential was, and it was all right here in this TARDIS.

The Doctor forced a smile: “You sure?” he turned a monitor towards her direction, and as he pointed at it, he said “I’m about to put in coordinates, anyplace in particular you wanna go?”

“Just to get away from here”, she softly breathed to herself. “To go to fantastic new places away from it all. Places I’ve never seen or been to before. A place to make dreams come true.” She was unable to be happy where she was. Nothing, as far as she was concerned, could make her happier than traversing the worlds with the Doctor. “You know what? Take me to this planet’s past.”

The TARDIS played her voice loudly enough for him to hear. He’d have to turn that function off for her privacy, but it was nice to know he finally had a companion who was willing to see more than the future of the human race. It was slightly concerning, perhaps it indicated too large of a disconnect from them.

Not realizing that the Doctor heard her, Sunset shouted out, “I just want to go someplace, any place! Do you?

“Uh, yeah sure,” the Doctor replied. She had unwittingly turned on the screen allowing him to watch her; he almost turned it off, but he stopped his hand, taking a minute to watch her. She is going to be a piece of work, he thought.

Author's Note

Now just the Epilogue to this story and we will have finished Episode 1.

The Sun Rises: Epilogue

Epilogue

He stopped and thought about it. He thought that changing would either be difficult, or worse, the usual, he would pretend he was a completely different person to cope with regeneration. Neither was the case. He was still the same Doctor as he was before, the same Doctor as his First incarnation, the same as his Second, the same as his Fourth, the same as his Fifth incarnation, he was everybody he was before. They were all a part of him. Feeling balanced for the first time in a long time in his life, he admitted a change of hearts. He was ready to move forward, without any regrets or hesitation.

Then as if to confirm this, he saw a very familiar figure by the TARDIS console.

He was a tall, slender man in a brown pinstriped suit, with wild chestnut hair, prominent sideburns, and mysterious amber eyes.

The Doctor’s mouth opened in surprise at the sight of the taller man: “You!”

The taller man looked up at the Doctor, and replied, ‘yep, me!”

The Doctor could not believe what he was seeing! “What are you doing here? You can’t be real!” Never did the Doctor ever see a previous incarnation separate from himself, unless of course one of them went to the same place from different times.

“I’m not - well… sort of.” the prior incarnation took a moment to gather his words. “I’m not here, but I’m a part of you...and I always will be.”

The Doctor huffed: “Came here to gloat?” That would be so like his past incarnation, who, taking much after his Fourth and Sixth selves, sometimes had few qualms of projecting an open air of superiority.

The Tenth looked down for a minute, and then shook his head. “No. I...I came to say goodbye, to her, this old TARDIS..and to tell you...be there for her.”

“I will always be with her!”

“Not the TARDIS. Her,” he nudged his head towards a screen showing Sunset Shimmer. “She needs you, more than anything else right now.”

“A tad uncouth wouldn’t you say.”

Ten shrugged. “Hey what can I say I attracted nutters-but look at you, with that bow tie and jacket, look like one of those highschool nerds befriending the stereotypical Queen Bee. Not the weirdest match we’ve had.

Eleven began to get nostalgic. “Yeah-we’ve had quite a list of companions,” he mumbled, thinking about eveyrthing and everyone he lost.

“Listen. Be there for her. Because whatever you’re feeling right now...I think she is too?”

The Doctor looked at him questioningly, without so much as saying a word. What did he mean by that? She seemed like a smug and self-assured teenaged girl to him.

The Tenth seemed to understand this, and took another moment to think about what he wanted to say next. “I know that this is new, and you are probably scared, and confused...but something about her...I think she is too. Like...she isn’t a part of this world, of this reality. And I think...I think you should guide her through it.”

“And beside-” Ten said before he left. “If you think about, she hasn’t done anything that bad like he did. Food for thought”

The Eleventh nodded. “The one we traveled with.”

He nodded, not saying anything in direct reply. “Anyway, keep watch over her, be there for her, and forgive her…Trust me, that part will be hard.”

“Atnoment must come before forgiveness.” Eleven said. “Wasn’t that what you were all about?”

“Yeah-but I never got to the forgiving part. Especially, to be honest, to myself.” He then took a time to stroke the TARDIS walls, and he sighed. “It’s never going to be easy. Moving on.’

The Doctor remembered again how he felt back when he was this person. He said thoughtfully, “no, until you’ve finally settled in the next chapter, and then...you have to move again and turn again.”

‘Yeah… But I think you’ll see me again-before the end, I think you’ll see all of them’ he sighed again. “Still….You know, I don’t want to go.”

And he was gone.

“And I won’t either,” the Doctor smiled amid stinging eyes. “We never did.” Normally, the Doctor felt revulsion towards his previous incarnations when he was so new, as they were often a challenge to a new incarnation’s very definition and existence, but now? Now that he actually had a last word from an aspect of his psyche? He felt differently. But he was still no longer that man.

He was no longer going to be the man who regrets.

The memory of pain was fading from him as his new self was beginning to complete. He just wanted to run away from any of it. He meant to forget the pain of it, all those fine details that gnawed away at him. He was now the Man who Forgets. And he was going to dash away from world to world until he forgot every regret that ever weighed him down and with this new companion by his side, rough around the edges definitely, perhaps needing a good teacher or mentor to help her out the two would make some grand stories together.

“Yeah...You know what?” He stepped away from the console and grinned that cheeky grin of his: “I want to go!”

A new song began to continue the ongoing story.

Salvete Unidecem!

***

In another place, Samsara, Washington State, as the sun continued to set, a new crisis beset other people far away.

A petite young woman, nearly 30, with bleached hair and skin, Aryanne was writing down notes on a schedule pad, giving out in detail everything she had examined. So far, there seemed to be no security concerns, but her superior, Jo Lupo, always had a second opinion. Even the faintest displacement was concerning to her. Aryanne was tired, and in her opinion, overworked, and given that her job was to maintain the local Peacekeeping brigade as well as check all security scanners due to the unexpected disappearance of the last occupant of this job, and to check for potential outside intruders because the Guard Leader also unexpectedly disappeared, she probably was indeed overworked.

Born to a Greek father and an Indian mother, who both followed a cult at one point, Aryanne was a former member of Our Town before she was bribed by an intergovernmental organization to work on the Eureka facility. Original, she was in charge of designing the software of the base; however, as each day passed, it became less and less clear what her actual job was. Her previous job in Our Town was not exactly ideal, but it was at least clear what she was supposed to do there. But then again, she grew to dislike the management of Our Town beyond any words in the English language (but she could think of some in Hindi). The previous employers severely underpaid her for her extremely difficult software design tasks and threatened to leak Aryanne’s past and crime records to the rest of Our Town if she didn’t comply or even so much as criticized them, and also threatened to sue her and spread the word so that nobody would ever hire Aryanne again. Aryanne decided she didn’t care enough about the opinions of the populace of Our Town to stick with them.

She would never have thought that a UN organization would have saved her life from the wrath of Our Town, as almost immediately after an event involving massive embezzlement and an unflattering meme of the leadership, U.N.I.T. agents approached her hired her for the Eureka Facility tasks before Aryanne could be subject to full conversion. Aryanne’s original tasks were mostly coding and developing software so that nobody could hack into it and steal the billions that went into Samsara’s R&D, or worse, steal its secrets. They actually paid her enough for her surgery to lose all melanin in her once notably dark skin, which Aryanne believed was bad for her Kharma, according to the teachings of her mother. Now, Aryane believed she was truly beautiful, though this change came with the unflattering callsign “Michael Jackson” on Samsara.

Granted, it wasn’t without its downsides.

For one thing, on a very regular basis, a young man would approach Aryanne and frequently ask her the same questions, over and over again, about stuff she didn’t know about. She kept saying that the bosses didn’t tell her everything, which was true, and he kept asking like she wasn’t telling her the truth. It was as if he knew the answer and she didn’t. Then as she got bored with the almost daily and repetitive interviews, she began a more seductive approach, simply to spice things up a bit. As a result, she got probably the most boring boyfriend she ever had in her entire life.

The there was the fact that her Swastika tatoos on her hips, which she got as a symbol of divinity from the Hinduism-derived cult she was raised with, meant something very different in parts of the USA outside of Our Town. No single-piece suits for her. She’d have to wear a bikini top and shorts when partaking in aquatic activities, and she wasn’t entirely comfortable with that.

Then there was the fact that U.N.I.T. was always severely understaffed. As more and more of its soldiers and workers disappeared, she ended up taking more and more of their daily tasks. The increase of power seemed nice at first, especially because she was paid more for the extra work and possessed more authority on more the lazy slackers on-base, but eventually, the sheer amount of work became tiring. If this was what power meant, then she wanted no part of it. Just a lot of money. And sex. That was nice too.

Jo kurtly handed her a list. “I have a list of items we need, these are all to be sent to the bunker immediately.”

Aryanne looked upon this list and frowned, with tired eyes. “I can’t spare these parts...we’re going over budget as it is.” Indeed they were, they were spending far more than they originally needed.

Jo Lupo was not one to be reseasoned with, and now this time more than ever. She huffed, and simply said, in an eerily less commanding voice than usual, “you’ll notice that the requisition is signed by Vardos himself. If you want to take this up with him…”

Aryanne felt a chill go down her spine: “Very well, I’ll have supplies deliver this stuff by dawn. We’re going to spend a lot replacing them, but I think-”

“By midnight,” Jo cut her off. “The order specifies midnight.”

Aryanne huffed, feeling very defeated. “Yes. By midnight.”

With that Jo Lupo left the list and stormed out leaving Aryanne alone, a massive headache beginning to form.

It was days like this Aryanne really hated her job from the ridiculous demands to the overkill from management, it felt like it would never end . Still as the motto went... It wasn’t the end...It was only….The beginning.

To be continued.....

Author's Note

Well that's Episode 1.....Will be taking a short break but will return very soon with a new addition to A Equestria Girl Needs a Doctor.

Interlude Strange Behavior

Interlude: Strange Behavior

The Doctor was thrilled; he had a new companion! Finally some company, it was nice. He wasn’t alone for that long, technically, but regenerating alone...it was uncomfortable. He didn’t want to repeat that. Yet like always he bounce back, and now he was better than ever.

Now he was a new man, a new Doctor, someone ready to explore the Galaxy, see the sights, maybe fight some bad guys. But most likely he just wanted to have some fun. Also he now had someone right away to share in his adventure. Sure Sunset wasn’t someone he’d usually pick, her strange demeanor, her temper, actually thinking on it, she seems to fit the bill for a Companion.

It had been-what a few hours, no longer than a day at least since he picked up Sunset and already he was on top of the world. So dancing to some Disco Girl was just what he was doing to celebrate

“Oh yeah- shake that booty Doctor.” He said to himself as he shook it around the TARDIS console room. “I haven’t been this agile in years.”

It’s true this was probably his youngest body to date, not even five was that young compared to eleven.

“Now old girl, let's get this party started we got all of time and space to, the world is our stage and I feel like dancing.”

His TARDIS council had become a mess instantly the minute he took the controls, papers and gadgets and gizmos laid everywhere. A few newspapers he found he scattered to take a look at what he was missing and maybe find a good place to explore. In Paris for instance, there had been sights of strange costumed freaks running around. In the state of Oregan there had been reports of things that could only be described with one word: Weird, one paper came from the Equin nebula; apparently tensions had risen between the two major powers of the time period.

So many places so many opportune places to go, all the Doctor could right now was dance and sing about it.

“Disco girl-coming through, that girl is you.” The Doctor sang as he piloted the TARDIS. “Oooooh! Oh, I don’t know why people hate this song, it is a beautiful thing to this universe. Now if only I can my Jizz record signed I’d be a complete man of music.”

He did a small twirl as he jammed to the music.

“I don’t care if I’m the only non-human who likes this song.” He declared getting excited. “Hopefully one day I’ll find someone who enjoys these show tunes like me, I mean they are number one for a reason. Well except for that one boy band that was cloned in a factory, had to put a stop to that-that’s pretty much slavery, at least clone slavery.”

Doing a little jig while messing with the control he wanted to know where Sunset was so that he could begin the introductory process of all the important aspects of space time and what not. Pushing a few buttons and dialing a few nobs he looked at the TARDIS screen to find where Sunset had gotten too, and apparently she had found the movie room.

“Oh-cinema file yay.” The Doctor grinned. “If I’m lucky maybe she’ll be a big fan of one of my favorite movies-Mama Mia or even better The Room.”

He danced his way to the movie room, skipping a beat and a shaking his way through the metal halls of the TARDIS, as the music. Loving it he wondered what sorts of movies Sunset liked to watched, or even what he hobbies were. If he was going to work with this new companion then it would be best to get to know her in all the best ways possible. Perhaps they could bond over something they had bond over-Bond, maybe she was into James Bond. That would definitely a good place to-

“MWAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!” Sunset Shimmer, of course, was just practicing, for fun, in case she’d ever have use for it later.

Immediately the Doctor froze maniacal laughter always mean villains and villains meant -bad things. And it was coming through the movie room, that mean the companion was in trouble. Or worse a bad guy was in his TARDIS and that mean he would have to get the locks changed again and getting the locks changed would be a nightmare.

Interdimensional locksmiths were the worst, they were expensive and they did everything on the cheap.

“Don’t worry Sunset the Doctor is coming.” The Doctor burst through the door only to trip and fall on himself but jumping up instantly sonic screwdriver in hand. “Don’t worry Sunset i’m here for-for-”

Nothing.

Nothing seemed wrong, in fact everything quite calm. Sunset was sitting on the couch one army leaned back as she was watching a movie-and looking quite calm. She was watching Sleeping Beauty of all films- classic.

“Yo.” She said raising a eyebrow. “Can I help you?”

The Doctor looked around confused. “Oh I heard maniacal laughter?”

“Oh-” Sunset shrugged. “Probably just the movie, or me I practice laughter from time to time, just in case I need it”

“Uh-” The Doctor turned to see Sunset watching Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent right now. “I mean-I suppose, isn’t that like practicing sneezing or breathing, why would you do it.”

“Because I’m practicing because she so gets me.” Sunset said taking a big chunk of popcorn. “She and Grimdale

“What is evil witch/queen part of the career goal.”

Sunset shrugged putting her feet on the coffee tabel. “Gotta think of something all I know is I’m gonna aim big, and bombasity is all part of it.”

Again another explosion from the movie.

“She so GETS ME!” Sunset said as if making a emotional connection.

The Doctor turned to look at Sunset and then at Maleficent.

“Yes because I see the resemblance, i’m sure poisoning apples and turning into dragons are big things at school.”

“Pfft-Villains get me WAY more than heroes.”

The Doctor sat down leaning against the wall. “Because there edgy? Hero’s can be edgy too, I mean I consider myself- Well a few of me consider themselves heros.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “You look like the kid we dunk their head in the toilet.”

“That’s happened to me a few times too-but really these two GET you, they are fiction how do they get you..”

“It’s true.” Sunset said defensively. “They are overdogs like me, people who are top of their game, and will fight anything above and below them to continue to rise, again like me. The best of the best again ….”

“Like you…”The Doctor looked confused. “Yes well hopefully in your travels will learn that the overdog isn’t necessarily a good things, this world is made of underdogs after all and they will surprise you.”

Sunset scoffed. “Doubt it.” She grabbed a bowl of chips nearby and took a bite. Clearly in her mind the Doctor didn’t ‘get her’ good thing he didn’t know about her secret FanFic.net account, he wouldn’t ‘get’ her stories either.

The Doctor took a deep breath before heading off, if there was one thing that he guessed he would have to deal with was his new companion sense of ego. Sure he had a few hot heads in the past, a few minds he needed to have come down to earth but Sunset this was different, and being at such a young age, even younger than someone like old Ace was at the time, she was going to need a bit extra persuasion of the matter.

Youth tended to see themselves as immortal and indestructible that was going to be something he’d have to get out of her and fast if she was going to survive in a galaxy that the one he was used too.

As the Doctor walked off Sunset just sat back and took a moment to continue ‘practicing’ her laughter, while in reality she was just enjoying the pretty princess getting what was coming to her.

“Pfft, see don’t touch things that are dirty.” Sunset snickered taking another bite of chips. “Mm this are good, wish I had cheese with them, or a casadia, mm human food is good.”

Sunset of course loved villains, Princesses were just so-so well she didn’t want to think about it to much all she knew was that she hated princesses. Hated them with a passion, if she could ban the world of princesses she could. Not literally princesses. She reveled in being royalty, even wrote about it a few times. But those girls who pretended to be just so sweet, just so honorable...deep down, she knew that everybody was a liar about that. They were all rotten, in the end. No exceptions. So why not start out that way and leave all pretense aside.

-000-

“And this Sunset is the TARDIS kitchen.” The Doctor stood before a single fridge.

Sunset looked confused. “Not much a kitchen.”

“On contrary the fridge is like other parts of the TARDIS it’s connected to your mental telepathic systems. It will cook food JUST to you're specifications, temperature, sauce anything and it will specially know what you want before you want it. That way you’ll have the perfect meal eating experience.”

The Doctor prided himself in his kitchen, sure he didn’t eat much-drinking was another matter depending on the incarnation. But his companions loved some of the food the TARDIS would cook up for them over the centuries. Good food too not just fried food that so many countries now used. Except for a few companions that fried food was there real source of substance, but even then it was the best fried food in the Milky Way.

Sunset seemed unsure, yet her stomach growled she hadn’t eaten anything since she left earth, whenever that was. Slowly approach the TARDIS refrigerator almost hesitant to see what was inside. Yet she opened it anyway opening one eye to see- A burger, two actually.

“Oh nice.” The Doctor took one of the burgers. “I do like indulging myself in human food as you know.”

Sunset blinked ant took a moment to think about what it meant before the Doctor took a bite and chewed it. Only for his face to freeze his eyes widen and to suddenly spit it out on the floor.

“Oh gross! Heigh!” The Doctor lifted his tongue to see the yellow weeds sticking out. “What on earth is wrong with this TARDIS.” He tossed the burger aside and closest the fridges, opening it again as it revealed some mouthwash.

Sunset stepped back in surprise.

The Doctor grinned; he liked to surprise his companions, each and every time! “I did say it reads minds didn’t I?”

“Yeah but-”

“Hey I don’t judge people on their food or drinking habits, only when it starts to becoming a problem will I judge.”

-000-

Sunset leaned back on the railing as she watched the Doctor mess around with the controls. She was tapping her toes looking impatient. She had come out here now after a while of just standing in her room doing whatever the Doctor didn’t want to know. She had been a curious girl. Her favorite place so far had been the library were she looked through as many books as possible. But now she was board and clearly wanting something to happen.

“What?” The Doctor asked keeping a focus on the controls.

“Nothing” Sunset said darting her eyes around. “Nothing….at….all.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Alright.

Again Sunset started strapping her toes again looking quite impatient, as if expecting something to happen. She bit her lip and looked like she was constipated or something

The Doctor again took notice and sighed. “What? Am I doing something wrong?”

“No-no...It’s just……”

“What?”

“I don’t know…...Aren’t you gonna…..Sing about working on the TARDIS or something.”

“Why would I do that, I mean I do like humming a diddy every now and then but what should I do a entire musical number. Have some song and dance routine with a few show people in the background doing backup while I talk about how great the TARDIS is and all the places in space time we are going to visit throughout the journey.

Sunset paused before stating matters a factly. “Yes.”

The Doctor seemed taken a back, this was definitely not the answer he expected. “Well I uh-uh...Hmm….”

“It’s okay I’m fine.” Sunset said looking nervous now. “I-I just thought aliens are weird and do that thing>”

“Well I don’t know what movies you are watching but please, I don’t sing.”

“Oh-” Sunset ears flopped down looking disappointed.

“Now six he did, or at least a few times and I'm….and…..” The Doctor frowned seeing Sunset disappointed face.

It was strange, why would she want him to sing. Still if music was what the companion wanted who wa he to not oblige. But what? Prince? No-to formal not appropriate here. Beatles..Nah. Then suddenly it came to him, he knew just what he would do. Typing quickly on the TARDIS computer he began to play some classical music as he adjusted his bow tie.

“Watch this.” He smirked.

I’m Lord President of the Seas.
Keeper of the Legacy of Time
Commander of the Fleets of Rassion
Defender of Gallifrey….

“Nope, nope……” Sunset shook her head stopping him. “Not that.”

“Okay…..”

Then finally he had it, turning to his TARDIS radio he activated it and began playing a light jig.

“Disco Girl….Coming through...That girl is you.”

Sunset jaw dropped. “You know what forget I asked, will skip out on musical numbers later.”

“Oh come on, this is good stuff-you're missing out!”

“Nope-I forget I asked!” she grinned

The Doctor grinned back: “Well, I remembered for you!”

He put the record down on a record player - it was a deluxe edition, complete with a 12” mix, an instrumental cover, and a very inappropriate song that happened to be recorded at roughly the same time by the same people, and had largely fell out of obscurity - it wasn’t even released on iTunes.

The Doctor began to dance wildly, his hands in the air, his fingers close together on each hand, like flippers: It was the Drunken Giraffe. Sunset shook her head and tried to facepalm, but it was hard not to smile.

-000-

“I know you like your jacket and all but if you ever want to change I have a whole wardrobe filled to the brim with clothes of all sorts. I know how teenage girls like clothes at least that's what the magazines said.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “I’m not Rarity.

“Oh don’t give me that look, I know how the ladies, and even a few males I know love fashion, allows one to express and be themselves. Once knew a few nudist friends in my times, lovely chaps they were, a bit eccentric at times. Besides anything you like will probably be better than the stuffy old robes back home.”

“Robes, never wore those before.” Sunset chuckled nervously.

She looked around the place, it was definitely a concomfony of various outfits ranging from the normal to the bizarre. One in particular looked as if a rainbow had splurged all over it. Another was just a long brown suite with blue undershirt, definitely not here. Granted she didn't mind just her regular black leather jacket. She liked it made her feel tough.

Back in Equestria though her family had...unique taste, as they would say.

“You know back in the day I used to wear leather.” The Doctor said trying to make Sunset feel more comfortable.

Sunset almost wanted to laugh. “You wear leather, you would look like a dork.”

“Hey I happen to be a good looking devilish dork in a wicked bow tie.” The Doctor said straightening his bowtie. “They are after all-cool.”

“Sure whatever.” Sunset said looking at a few more outfits one with a big scarf. “I think I’l one fine.”

Sunset was about to leave before a idea popped into the Doctor heads and he quickly stopped her from leaving just yet. “Wait, wait, I have a idea, what if we use the TARDIS physic link. It could fit a outfit perfect to your own unique personality traits.”

“I think this outfit will do.’

“True, but it’s always good to have a backup right?”

Sunset pondered this for a moment. “True-okay hit me.”

The Doctor took out a remote and pushed it as a big tube, it made a few sounds before quickly zooming out and getting a mirror in place. The Doctor of course would be pleased i’m sure and so would Sunset as she it picked her new and TARDIS approved outfit. Which….Which….Which…..Was strangely a replica of the Evil Queen outfit from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

No really, a near perfect replica minus the headdress, it had the slim purple dress that covered most of Sunset body, as well as the high collar black cloak that wrapped itself snugly around her shoulders and back. Sunset blinked as she looked at it and the Doctor, well he was just confused as he started giving the TARDIS a kick.

“Okay old girl first the heigh now this, now I know you are having a malfunction. Well sorry about that I’m sure you want you're leather jacket back.

“I do.” Sunset said looking at the mirror a bit in shock. “But I’ll keep this too.”

The Doctor was about to speak but paused. “Say what now?”

“I mean- it does look nice, I look quite regal in it.”

“Really?” The Doctor looked taken aback. “Seems a bit-poofy.”

Sunset nodded admiring the lacing on the cloak and the fabric of the dress “Of course -Mind if I wear it in my room.”

“Uh-” The Doctor scratched his head. “Is this a teen edge thing.”

The Doctor wasn’t entirely off; like many adolescents, Sunset went through a phase in which she found antagonists far more engaging than protagonists. On top of the fact that, as an alien on Earth, different from everybody else, it was easy to feel alone, and to latch on more to the powerful and dangerous. She perhaps didn’t conciously understand this, but she often felt sorry for herself, sorry for being so different, unable to understand what the people of this world scrambled over half of the time. The sympathetic stories of villains in this human universe were so easy to relate to. And they had magic, just as she once had, and longed for, badly.

“It's nice-can I wear it.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Sure what rocks your boat.” The Doctor wasn’t sure about her, he hadn’t a companion who was this much trouble in such a long time...

Sunset beamed and headed off as the Doctor just looked out-yep teenage psychology was definitely on the list of things to study.

“Well...She definitely has interesting taste in clothing.” The Doctor replied. “Hope this version of me isn’t judgmental. Such strange behavior though, wonder if she’s always been like that?”

Several Weeks Ago

Dimitry Ivanov arrived inside Sunset room to check up on her and seemed taken aback by what he saw. She was sitting at a desk hunch over writing something. She was also wearing the Evil Queen costume she got for her as a joke gag, but she seemed quite taken by it.

He leaned in the doorway for a minute, thinking about what he was seeing. After half a minute, he realized that now was probably the time to speak: “Hey Sunnie! What’s up?”

Sunset looked up in surprise! “Dimwit! There you are-I’m just writing my story.”

“Story?” Dima looked over her shoulder to take a look. “Didn’t take you for a writer.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she snickered, and then covered her work with her hand; “hey, don’t read over my shoulder you idiot!”

He smiled, but then cocked an eyebrow up: “But why are you wearing that?”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “The mood, duh-I need to get into the mind of my character?”

“The Evil Queen from Snow White?”

Not again, share a few stories about characters and she starts seeing their stories as like some sort of injustice. Sunset seemed to feel that the original version of the Evil Queen was too simple a character, and thus went out of her way to expand upon her tastes and backstory until she came up with a story that put Snow far more at fault than Queen Grimhalde.

But Sunset loved writing these characters-even back home she loved writing characters like this. Any details for the characters for the stories she was told were often lost over the generations, and so she went out of her way to provide more to them. The Hearth’s Warming story she heard sounded too wishy-washy. She recalled a Draconequus in the gardens outside of Celestia’s Castle, and decided that perhaps the origin of this beast was from a horrifying synthesis of Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, Chancellor Puddinghead, and Starswirl the Bearded. Then she made the Draconequus the loneliest being in all of Equestria. Just as she was.

She had many problems as a filly. She was actually very socially inept back in those days, and many fillies talked about her as if she wasn’t there. Life at home wasn’t better either: Her mother was dramatic and sometimes, in anger, threatened suicide or harm to others. In fact, it was her mother’s behavior, and how it impacted her, that may have impacted how the others treated Sunset Shimmer; she just couldn’t bond with the other fillies or behave naturally with them.. Really, the only pony whom she could really turn to was her father, who taught her to be strong.

“Yes.” Sunset said. “I’m telling her true story not the one that no good Mr.Disney thinks is true, the real story about how a Dark Queen is just trying to bring some order to her country and keeps getting duped by a no good princess rebel.”

“Ok…..” Dima seemed taken aback. “Why?” He wasn’t sure if he liked this fanfiction, but he was always polite around her.

“Because people don’t get us, they think being good and pretty and happy go lucky is the way to go and bla, bla, bla….It almost discussing. This story will set things right.”

Sunset wrote down a sentence, a evil grin morphing in her face as she continued to write it out, once she put the period she burst out in her best maniacal laugh she could manage causing Dima to flinch. She was quite good at that, perhaps a little too good. Reason being that Sunset learned being dramatic was the only way to get attention.

“Guess the Queen is still evil in your story though?”

Sunset snickered. “Hey, good and evil are just names we give things; I think she’s broken. Just broken, nothing more.”

“Broken yes but still evil.” Dima said. “Trust me Sunnie, I’ve seen alot of folk in my time who’ve been broken on the force, some tragic because of the systems we have to work in others….others less sympathetic. Psychopaths generally have unhappy backstories, but they’re the most likely to commit violent crimes. Though there are occasions...rare when evil people generally have good happy life's, but they just….they’re just...well just be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever, I gotta have this dumb princess choke on a roofie.” Sunset chuckled darkly as she went back at it.

Sometimes Sunset just enjoyed writing scenes that would just be her playing out fantasies in her mind that she wished she could lived out in real life. Things involving Celestia, the fillies she disliked, parents, anything. Dark expression, yes, but expression nonetheless Though she did tend to get excited and express herself through maniacal laughter.

Dima took the book from Sunset hand who grimace and read it outloud. “The Dark Queen stool tall as she looked down at her hated enemy, her laughter echoing across the hall as her red hair blew against the wind dramatically…..Yep definitely FanFicy.”

“Hey!” Sunset snapped it back. “This is art, i don’t judge your lifestyle bub..”

“Says the girl wearing a Queen costume right now….But uh...Why is the Evil Queen evil anyway.” Dima asked

“Piss off!” she said with a giggle, “You know that Snow White told her evil mother about her forbidden love with the Stable Boy, and then the mother killed her only love, and that’s why she hates Snow!”

“I really hope they don’t put that in a show,” he said, and, as an afterthought complemented with a wicked grin, “that would be just stupid.”

“Hey….” Sunset gently slapped him playfully. “It’s a good idea and you know it, plus I have all sorts of ideas for the others who stories deserve to be told properly. I mean, why did Maleficent randomly curse a baby? Well, I came up with an idea - she’s a fairy, right? And fairies have wings, don’t they? Well, I thought, what if the King, when he was young, took her wings? That’s a good idea, right?”

Dima rolled her eyes. “Sure it is….Sure it is…...You strange...strange girl.”

Earth 21st Century

Soarin’ was trembling in his room. He was the sole survivor of the Samsara incident, as far as he knew. What was he thinking? Getting people together to drive all the way to Washington

He heard a doorbell ring downstairs. He didn’t go down. He could not be the same ever again. Not after what happened.

He heard his mother answer the door. He also didn’t go down. Under any ordinary circumstances, he would have done so.

Then there was a voice at the door. “Hi, is this the Rogers household?”

“Yes, there is,” his mother’s voice replied.

“Hi, I’m Jay Edwards, I’m a member of an investigative service. It’s about what your son saw at Samsara”

“Is he in more trouble?”

“Oh no no no no no no, he’s not in trouble! I just want to talk to him, learn more! You know, standard stuff!”

Soarin’ didn’t budge. He just couldn’t bring himself to care. He heard footsteps clumping up the stairs.

A voice was outside of the door: “Is Soarin’ there?”

Soarin’ didn’t answer.

“Hi, I’m Jay and I’m here to ask what happened that night.”

Soarin’ mumbled “just open the door.”

The door open to reveal a tall black man with a buzzcut. He wore a black suit with a black tie. He eyed a seat by Soarin’s desk: “May I sit down?”

“Sure,” Soarin’ mumbled.

Jay took a seat, and eyed Soarin’ intensely. Jay noticed that Soarin’ was avoiding eye contact at all costs.

Jay rubbed his eyebrows together in frustration; what did that book by Dr. Keel Lorenz say about people who were grieving? How was one supposed to speak to them again?

Nah, fuck it. Use the direct approach. It will get results anyway. Besides, it might be the only way to get him to open up at all. “Soarin’.”

Soarin’ lifted his eyes reluctantly. Jay seemed to struggle to smile: “I’m trying to help you.”

Soarin’ took a moment to pick the words to explain his thoughts: “We took...a dare...it was all Sky Dancer’s idea, actually.”

“Sky Dancer?” Jay asked.

“A girl,” Soarin’ mumbled, “who went to school with me.”

Jay nodded. “What happened there, what did you see?”

“I saw…” he licked his lips, “I saw...a monster. A big, tall, hairy monster.”

“Man-shaped?”

Soarin’ looked at him with eyes wide in amazement: “Yes.”

Jay’s breathing went faster: “...Bigfoot?”

Soarin’s eyes widened: “...Yes.”

Jay took a minute to think about it. “I see. How did you escape?”

“I climbed out the window as quickly as I could, ran back to the car, and drove away...I…” suddenly, he broke down: “...I left them all behind! I left them all behind!” he shouted. And then, he began to weep in pain and in shame.

“Soarin’,” Jay began, “it’s okay.”

Soarin’ tried his best to put himself together: “I wish...I just wish...I could forget about it! Forget all of it! I’m going to live with the memory of me abandoning them for the rest of my life!”

“Actually,” Jay began, pulling out a silver rod with a red light, “you won’t.”

Prince of Darkness: Prologue

Doctor Who and the Prince of Darkness

Written by Doctor Grant

Prologue

The year was 1462.

After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, The Turkish armies invaded Europe with a vastly superior force, striking at various parts of southeastern europe, including the land between the Carpathian mountains that would eventually become Romania. From Wallachia and Transylvania arose a Knight from the Sacred Order of the Dragon, known as Vlad Tepes III, to defend the church. So great was his love for his God and his people that he even left his newly wed bride to fight for the Lord.

In battle, Vlad has the advantage, as the Turks spread thin. Thusly, after a long period of brutal conflict, Vlad was able to route them. However, only to return home, bursting through the doors, to a tragic loss.

His bride, Elizabeta, had perished. Her body looked much the same way it did when she was alive, one could almost assume her to be asleep. “Oh, you arrived!” his brother Radu said with forced cordiality. However, Vlad was already suspecting the truth.

Radu, the ambitious Viperu Neagru, or rather, the Black Adder, had sent the pig boy, Patrontas (a name which translates to “Baldrick”) to pretend to be a Turkish soldier who sent a letter to Elizabeta that claimed Vlad had perished. The Viperu Neagru’s scheme was to have him bed with Elizabeta so that Vlad would think her to be unfaithful to him. But the plan did not go as Radu intended. Elizabeta, in despair, threw herself into the river. She was pulled out, but it was far too late to save her. All of the Viperu Neagru’s efforts to make her seem alive were for naught, and the fact his only help came from Patrontas, who was easily paradoxically both the most and the least intelligent servant on the grounds, didn’t help. They had many a “cunning” plan, but nothing that could fool Vlad.

In the end, all they could do was preserve the body. Her body looked almost exactly as it did when she was alive, any malodorous aroma concealed by the spices, but the blood stain on the side of her mouth and the lack of breath indicated her true physical state. He found a letter upon her person, the note of suicide meant to be read after her passing. It said this:

“Vlad is dead. My Love is dead. My Dream is dead. I am forever lost without him. To join him in Heaven forever, I abandon this sorrowful Earth.”

The bearded castle priest seemed to immediately understand what Vlad was fearing, and he was not one without empathy, but he was also not one to mince words: “In her emotion, deprived us all of her own life. She cannot be saved. Raising his crucifix staff over her, he continused, “she is cursed, damned, and she will never reach the Kingdom of Heaven.” During this time period, suicide was generally considered one of the single most mortal sins of all time, and sometimes high emotionalism was greatly frowned upon.

Not that it would stop Vlad. No matter what, grief was the same for us all. The love of his life, Elizabeta, was gone. He could not accept this...no...he will not accept this!!

In rage, Vlad began to snarl, and pushed down a piller of holy water, the blood on his armored suit mixing with the water to create an eerie effect.

“Is this me reward for serving the Lord?” he asked demandingly, his eyes and face red with rage.

“No-nonsense!” protested the priest, “he- you were chosen, by him, to protect the Church and-”

“I renounce him!” Vlad screamed.

The robed priest looked mortified, and he took a step back, and he made the cross with his fingers. This was blasphemy, and this was the kind of talk that there was no going back from.

“I renounce him!” repeated Vlad, “and all of you hypocrites who serve him!”

The priests took a step back. Dracula continued:

“If my love burns in Hell, then I shall become one of the demons myself! I! Dracula! Voivode of Wallachia, will arise from the grave, and will wage war on the Church and on all of Christendom with the Darkness!”

Radu, terrified of his bother’s rage, decided to remain as obscure as possible, trying to hid in a nook of the sanctuary. His efforts were in vain.

“And you, brother!” Vlad spat. “You betrayed me! I know that you did! The little man Patrontas couldn’t hide it from me.”

Radu shot a dirty look at Patrontas. Patrontas gave him one of his usual half-hearted protests, “well, he was very insistent. And he’s really clever you know.”

Vlad ignored this and continued: “I curse you! Yes, I curse you!! I curse you to always be seeking power, but never to claim it! You and all of your descendants! I curse you all to misery and short lifespans! You shall never succeed in your goal to power until the end of the Millennium! And it will not be claimed by you, or in this Universe, but by a descendant who would surely hate you in another!! And you! Potrontas!!” he continued to rave, “you shall be doomed, in all lives you live, to serve him in misery!”

“But I serve him in misery now,” Patrontas replied plaintitively. “It won’t make much of a difference, would it?”

Vlad seemed to ignore this. Such details were irrelevant in his blind rage.

Realizing that this was perhaps all the consequences he was going to recieve, for a moment, Radu, the Viperu Neagru calmed down enough to default back to his usual smug self: “Oh yes? You and what powers?”

Vlad gave the Viperu Neagru a wild look. There was a long, tense moment. Once again, Radu lost all of his cool. Vlad was up to something. He knew something that even the wily Viperu Niagru didn’t. But what? Vlad then decided to show just what powers he meant.

Vlad rushed to the stone cross and stabbed it.

There was a silence. Nothing.

At that moment, Radu had laughed.

However, the laughter ended when, criously, the cross bled.

Radu’s eyes widened.

“The blood of God is the life!” declared Vlad. “And the life...shall be mine!” With that, he drank the blood from the cross.

A student of the Scholomance, Vlad had learned the dark arts, and discovered that otherworldly powers occurred naturally in his bloodline. There was even a legend that these powers came from an ancestor, said to be none other than Selene herself, whom his Roman ancestors dubbed “Luna”. But these abilities were long buried, unable to for him to reach, no matter how much he tried to will it...until he found help.

Having made contact with an outer but greater voice than his own, gifted with an intelligence above his own, whom Dracula believed must have been the Devil himself, he had already learned how to tap into this unreachable potential, and make himself immortal. He had completed all of the right steps, save for the very last one, which he refused to undergo, because he was a Knight of the Lord, and the final act to gain these powers would be an offense to God. As it stood, he also had intended to lead a natural lifespan and grow old with Elizabeta. His contract with this Devil, he had no intention of completing it. The immortality this Intelligence offered, he had no intention of using it.

Until now.

Elizabeta was dead. God had clearly forsaken him. He had nothing else to lose. He stabbed the cross in the castle sanctuary, which the voice told him contained the very flesh of the One-in-All and All-in-One himself, whom Vlad assumed was the Lord. The fact that it was bleeding had proven this claim was most likely true. The next step was to drink the blood, and thus gain the essence of the Intelligence in him.

Already, now, Vlad could feel something change within him. He could feel something different, something that would immerse after death, something that would ensure that his death would be nothing more than a metamorphosis. He would have to age into it, of course, but it was a guarantee of life. Already the Spirit, the Voice, was calling back to him, assuring him that what would be death for most would be change for him...but change into what?

Then the cross squirted blood on Vlad’s face, as a humiliating rebuke, and then he suddenly asked himself: What have I done? He made a decision he couldn’t back down from: In his pain and misery, he had cursed himself to many lifetimes of loneliness.

To be immortal, to be among the woes and failings of this world that caused him so much pain...he didn’t think this through...and without Elizabeta? Surely such a life would be even worse than to spend an eternity in Heaven without her, or in Hell with her. At this thought, he roared in rage and regret.

As the room flooded with blood, filling it with its bitterly sweet smell, Elizabeta’s body began to float…

Author's Note

Fun Fact: This is actually quite similar to the opening to the 1995 version of Dracula

Prince of Darkness Part 1

Part 1

Northern Ireland, 21st century

Brian Harker found it difficult getting out of bed today; the mornings of Northern Ireland were becoming chilly. However, the cows and chickens had a second opinion, many loudly calling for his attendance. The middle-aged man forced himself up and put his feet into his slippers.

His wife, Heather, was still asleep, bless her. She always fussed about her looks, but she always looked Saintly to him. He’d have kissed her at the moment, but she had been working on her blog all night. Happily married for nearly fifty years, they already had four children, two of whom already grew up and left the house. Sarah was probably already buttoning on her jacket to tend to the henhouse. However, Brian couldn’t have her work on the farm all day - she had to go to school today as well. Sarah was hard-working, but she needed to focus more on her exams. Besides, Moody Molly trusted nobody to milk her but Brian.

He got started on a pot of coffee, hoping it would shock him awake and warm his body. However, while he was doing so, he heard the distinctive sound of tired upon gravel. He peered out the window to see a nice-looking silver car, which looked fresh and clean, like an airport rental. Family from the UK flew there sometimes in similar looking cars. However, he had an inkling of who might be in this automobile, and he wasn’t family. Opening the car was a tall man in his thirties, with skin of a burnt orange color. His black hair was cropped short, and his eyes were concealed behind dark glasses - who would wear sunglasses at such a ridiculously early hour? Well, he did. From his black suit and tie, to his clean-shaven face, this man’s overall look was professional, save for his leather gloves, long outer coat, and red scarf. but something looked off about his face from this distance.

Sarah immediately approached him and began talking to him: Not surprising at all, Sarah was always social and hospitable. He could see him speaking to her from a distance, but his face remained strangely blank as he spoke, his sentences clearly kurt. However, Sarah remained gracious and perhaps oblivious as always. Still, he didn’t seem interested in small talk, and even Sarah must have sensed this. She led him, still smiling as ever, to the front door. Hearing the distinctive clicks of an opening door, Sarah called out: “Dad! Someone’s here to see ya!”

Quietly thumping behind her were the large combat boots of their guest. He was sure to introduce himself, but Brian knew precisely who he was: Delger Chonov, who found Brian’s website and had been emailing him for information for a long time. Delger looked professional from a distance, but up close, he looked almost formidable. Brian could also now plainly see what was wrong with his face: Delger’s face was scarred and deformed. Part of his left ear was clipped off, and a scar divided his right eyebrow in two. Brian realized that Delger was probably a veteran of combat, most likely during one of the Chechen Wars, as Delger would have probably been a Russian citizen at the time, but there was no way that Brian could know for sure.

Nor was he even going to ask.

Delger, however, perhaps sensing some tension on Brian’s part, removed his sunglasses, revealing a pair of eyes that were completely pitch black orbs. He then extended a hand to him: “Hello,” he started in a mild Russian accent, “you must be Brian Harker. I’m Delgerbayar Chonov. Most call me Delger.”

“Wha- oh, right! Brian Harker! Nice to meet you Delger!”

Delger seemed to force a smile, observing Brian’s robe, boxers, and slippers. “I hope I did not disturb you very much,

“Oh no, you only disturbed me a little bit!”

Delger’s expression seemed to indicate that he took this remark seriously. Brian immediately corrected himself: “Oh no no no no no! You didn’t disturb me at all!”

Delger forced a chuckle.

“Ah, would you like some breakfast? I’ve got some eggs in the refrigorator, I think.”

“Um, sure. I forgot to eat this morning.” Delger didn’t say it, but he was so excited about what he had come for that he forgot to take any stops, coming sooner than he had originally planned.

Billy woke up, rubbing his eyes. “Hullo Daddy...who’s this?”

“Oh! Remember how I said that Mister Chonov was coming today? Well, this is him!”

“Pleased to meet you sir,” Billy said half heartedly, too tired to fully feel it.

Delger smiled a little. “Pleased to meet you too, Billy.” He removed the glove and offered his hand.

Then Billy’s eyes began to work better, and he saw it: The terribly scarred visage. He most certainly did not expect Mr. Chonov to look this way. Chonov must have seen his reaction, because smiled slightly again, and admitted, “my captors weren’t exactly good hosts.”

Brian sincerely chuckled at this, and remembered that Delger was a father himself, though now hardly seeing his daughter. It had suddenly occurred to Brian that perhaps the divorce left a void that Delger was filling with the Doctor. Billy simply looked confused: “The who?”

“The Chechens,” Brian began as he grabbed some eggs from the refrigerator, “were a people in Russia trying to cede. Stalin once tried to deport their entire population during the War.”

“The Great Patriotic War,” Delger said, “is what some Russians called it. You know it by another name. The Chechens didn’t exactly forget that. They had others with other peoples of Russia since that point.”

Billy was fascinated: He was interested in soldiers and armies, and much to the worry of his parents, wanted to be a soldier himself. Now Delger was here adding fuel to it. “Are you Russian?” he asked.

“Me? A Russian citizen, yes. A Russian ethnic? No, I’m a Kalmyk and a Mongolian. My father’s people, the Kalmyks, were also deported by Stalin during the War, but many of us stuck with Russia after that point, whether we liked it or not, whereas the Chechens kept trying to cede.”

As Brian grabbed some eggs from the refrigerator, he asked, “so, how is Sükh-Khutaluun these days?”

“Oh, she’s fine, she’s been going to school.” Delger shrugged. “Doing well enough in it. I think she’s okay. The other students seem to be having trouble pronouncing her name though.”

“Daddy, let me do that,” said Sarah.

“No Sarah,” Brian corrected, “speaking of school, you should be getting ready to go.”

Then his expression became serious again. “So, you said you had documents about the Doctor?”

Cutting right to the chase, thought Brian. Brian Harker hosted a website all about the Doctor, a figure who often appeared in legends, myths, and ghost stories. He became the subject of many a conspiracy theory and even many a “creepypasta” as his daughter called them. There were many photos and sketches of the same handful of men throughout all of history, on all continents, though there was little agreement over who the Doctor actually was or what he looked like. Two of the most popular “Doctors” were a tall man with a fedora and a ridiculously long scarf, and also an unconventionally handsome man with wild hair, a long coat, and converse, and many, many eyewitnesses came forward talking about these Doctors. They were believed by most to be the most likely candidates to be the real Doctor.

But they weren’t Brian’s Doctor. His Doctor was a young man with less than prominent eyebrows, and a bow tie and a tweed jacket. He eventually found descriptions that matched this Doctor with a story about a run-in with Unit 731 in Manchuria, a man who was identical to the description that Brian Harker grew up with. This particular “Doctor” was also witnessed near a Freddie Fazbear’s Pizza roughly around the same time a horrifying incident happened there, in Virginia City during the turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s, Romania exactly around 1999, during a Solar Eclipse, and, most hauntingly of them all, he was spotted in Sarajevo, 1914.

Like any other Doctor, where he went, death followed.

“Oh second thought, Sarah,” Brian began, “why don’t you prepare breakfast while I help Mr. Chonov with the Doctor?”

Harker had an old family story, passed down for generations, about the time an ancestor of his went to Romania and met an evil count...and also a man called the Doctor. The Doctor’s young companion left behind a diary, recording her opinions on events that were happening at the time. He had a site that focused on these stories and the diary, detailing what he knew about the Doctor, but few took this data seriously.

Until now.

Delger had also heard about the Unit 731 encounter, and also of that description of the Doctor, and wrote to Brian Harker about this Doctor, asking for as many details as he could. Brian gave the best answers possible, and from there, Delger was beginning to share bits of his life as Brian shared his. Eventually, both the questions and the sharing got the point in which Brian invited Delger over himself. However, Brian’s original plan was to meet Delger at the airport about an hour from now; Delger must have came early and rented a car back in Belfast. Must have been a half hour drive for him to get here.

“Anyway,” Brian began enthusiastically, “I do have things about the Doctor. Lots of them! It’s all in the den!” Brian had been feeling bad about this; Delger was being rude, but he came to see things about the Doctor, and Brian had a diary on his hands that talked all about him. Besides, the Doctor was one of Brian’s favorite topics.

Brian’s den was very old-fashioned in its furnishings, with a bright colorful carpet, tall wooden bookshelves, with many old books, and was generally poorly lit. Delger, in his frustration, yanked down the strings attached to the blinds covering the window, filling the room with a burst of golden light. The dust seemed to illustrate the beams of light all the more clearly, the light aiming at the desk, as if in indication of the the diary’s location.

Brian realized that Delger had guessed correctly: “Oh, yes, the diary and all things related to the Doctor are in here!”

It was an old wooden desk, the two major legs supporting it also doubling as bureaus, and the flat layout of the desk itself was concealed by a sliding cover consisting of multiple wooden panels. Brian slid the panels up, and grabbed a key from the desk, which he used to unlock one of the bureaus. From it, he pulled out a lidless, clear plastic box, which contained many papers and a couple of books in it.

Brian pulled out a thin one, and pointed out “now, the thing about this book, is that it looks much like the ones you’d get at Wal-Mart now - isn’t that funny? This book was left behind around 1897!”

Delger took it and inspected the cover: Indeed, it was anachronistic; no book from that decade with have the cardboard cover or the simple checkered pattern. Yet this book was clearly ancient.

“It was written by a companion of the Doctor, probably as alien as he was.”

“Yeah,” replied Delger, “I remember what you told me. And I still have a difficult time believing you. What was her name again?

“Her name,” Brian explained, “was Napnyugta Csillámlik, or rather, ‘Sunset Shimmer,’ as she seems to translate her name.”

Delger wasn’t sure what Brian meant by that, until he opened the book himself, and as he thumbed through the pages, he discovered something shocking...

Delger suddenly looked mortified: “Mr Harker-”

“Please, call me Brian!”

“Brian...you didn’t tell me that this was written in a language like no other I or probably anybody has ever seen!!”

“Told you she was an alien! ...Oh dear! Sorry about that. But see here?” he said, indicating the beginning pages of the book, “this has a guide of sorts, which seems to translate the text here, like a Rosetta’s Stone, almost. The author also seems to write several bits of the book in English. Her vocabulary and grammar are impeccable, but she uses her syntax like a foreigner - oh, sorry-”

“No, no” Delger huffed, “I understood precisely what you meant - English is not her first writing language, even if she could perhaps speak it fluently enough. So, how much have you been able to decipher?”

“Over the years, a Harker has translated more and more of her diary. Started with my great, great grandmother, Mina Harker. This is how far we’ve gotten so far,” he said, handing out some fresher papers from the same plastic box as the diary.

Delger took them, and began to read…

The first written words were these:

“If anybody reads this....I will kill you. Personally.”

Delger shook his head and huffed, because he knew immediately what that meant: “Teenagers.”