Doctor of Equestria

So many had died in his name. Faced with a secret he never wanted to deal with again, he had taken Clara in his arms, and departed in the TARDIS, the living ship that could take him all throughout time and space. His past was catching up to him, and he didn't like to have to face his past, especially not the incarnation of him that had broken the promise to the name he'd taken. The figure claimed everything he'd done had been in the name of 'peace and sanity', but it didn't matter, because it had not been in the name of 'Doctor'.

And now he was running away, running away like he always did, and never stopping.

Levers were pulled and knobs were twisted, and his beloved TARDIS entered the Time Vortex. Clara began to stir, and the Doctor looked upon her with an excited grin.

"So, where to next Clara?" he asked, "Ooo, how about Razlafex? Oh you would love it there! The locals are very welcoming and love to throw parties every night, and they have great melon juice. Ooo, I could go for some melon juice right about now. What about you?"

In his million-mile an hour babbling however, the Doctor failed to notice the warning lights that the monitors on the central console were displaying. The TARDIS gave a sudden violent lurch, throwing the two of them to the floor. The Time Lord fought to get to his feet, pulling himself up to the console to try and discern the cause of his beloved ship's distress.

"That can't be right..." he said worriedly, pulling a fancy looking lever, "No no no, there shouldn't be a rip in here." The TARDIS lurched again, nearly throwing him away from the controls again. "Stabilizers… stabilizers..." he muttered to himself, eyes widening at what the console said "What do you mean the stabilizers are offline?!" he shouted.

There was a metallic groan before the warning bell began to go off, and flashing lights bathed the control room in an eerie red light.

"Alright, eh...let's try and close it now..." he muttered aloud to himself, twisting a knob and flipping several switches.

The alarms grew louder, and the TARDIS gave a violent heave, effectively throwing him away from the console and down some of the stairs to the lower level. The Doctor groaned in pain, fighting to get back up to the controls.

"No no no! Not now!" he shouted, seeing his hands starting to glow as he was trying to climb back up. He heard Clara screaming in pain, and his attention shot toward her. "Clara!" He tried to hold back his regeneration, to get to her. He'd promised to protect her; he couldn't go dying on her now! He couldn't lose her!

He was too late, though, after he crawled up to where he'd heard her scream; whatever was happening, her frail human body couldn't take it. Time and space were ripping her apart, and there was nothing he could do to stop it! All he could do was watch as she disintegrated into nothingness.

"Clara!" he shouted again, no longer able to hold back his regeneration cycle.

The TARDIS crashed in some unknown place, and as it did, the Doctor's head was thrown back by the internal force of the regeneration. He screamed in agony as the energy exploded off of him in great force like it did from his previous regeneration. The TARDIS's console room was destroyed, left as nothing but a burning wreckage as the Doctor regenerated into a brand new incarnation.

~~~

"I don't know what happened..." muttered the grey mare, her blonde mane fell over her face as she hung her head. "I was just trying to help." she continued, thinking back on the scene.

Having lost her job as a mailmare, But why? I mean, yes, I ended up inside a mailbox, but the mail was still delivered to the right pony!, not even two weeks after losing her job with the movers, Okay, yes, I dropped some stuff, but that purple pony was okay!, she'd gotten a job at the weather factory. After almost a solid month with no issues, she thought she'd secretly take home some of the super-spicy liquid rainbow to use as a seasoning, just to test it out. She'd had no idea that there was a leak in that jar. Or that the liquid rainbow would hit somepony in the face, causing an acid-rain panic! How could she?

So, feeling a deepening regret at another lost job, and the... DISTURBANCE her 'misconduct' had created, she slowly wandered out into the forest, mumbling and grumbling, venting in the hopes that she could return to town a bit cheerier, and begin another job search.

"What could I even do? Nopony trusts me with the tools needed to cook... They all think I'm going to burn the town down... I'm not good enough at drawing or math to be an architect pony, not that they'd be willing to live in anything I did manage to build if I was... Maybe Sweet Apple Acres needs some hired help to do... SOMEthing...", she continued on, muttering to herself and wondering what to do, as she suddenly tripped, WHUMP, and fell flat on her face. She just stayed like that, her mane covering her shame filled eyes, so that, even if somepony did happen to find her, they wouldn't see it, as the tears built up and began to fall as she silently cried.

~~~

Something was wrong. He couldn't feel his fingers or toes. Had he regenerated without them? It was a possibility; regeneration was a very dodgy process for a Time Lord...the Time Lord. Last of his kind...right...

He didn't have time to ponder what he looked like however, as his beloved machine began to fill with smoke. The Doctor coughed violently as it quickly filled his airways, his eyes watering as the smoke stung them. He had to get out of there, out to fresh air before he suffocated. He didn't need to go through another regeneration when this cycle had barely even started and he needed a full day to recover.

So he began to crawl toward the door. His body felt awkward and hard to control, but his main concern was finding the door. After some effort, he managed to locate it, shoving the twin doors open to breathe that sweet fresh air. He crawled out of the TARDIS with smoke pouring out behind him, before the blue box's doors promptly shut tight behind him.

"Hey!" he protested, but was thrown into a rather loud coughing fit soon afterward.

~~~

She'd gotten up, startled, and wiped at the tears. There were strange noises, some she didn't understand, others had definitely been the sounds of crashing. She'd flown up into the trees, unsure if it was a beast after something to eat, or somepony in trouble.

She did her best to remain hidden as she'd moved from tree to tree, looking for the source, wondering why anypony else would be out here, and feeling more and more like heading toward the sound was a bad idea... Until she saw the smoke. She kept going, cautiously, looking for the source. When she found it, she sat in the tree and watched, unsure of the scene that played out before her eyes.

Somepony was coughing like mad near the source of the smoke, otherwise he looked okay... But... He WAS yelling at a BOX... She sat for some time, watching him, confused. Then, panic struck, and she flew straight at the box as hard as she could!

"Come on, Mister, help me push it!" she spout towards the shouting stallion. Obviously, this box must have landed on somepony, why else would anypony be angry at it!

"Come on, open up!" He banged on the doors, but they weren't responding. The TARDIS had effectively locked him out, likely so she could repair herself.

The Doctor nearly jumped in surprise though when something came flying out of nowhere and rammed into the box. Whoever is was was urging him to help push it, and he looked on in confusion, or tried to, as his body healed itself of the smoke inhalation faster than it normally would due to the fact he was still undergoing the regeneration process.

"What are you doing...?" he questioned, not realizing it wasn't even a humanoid before another round of coughing hit him. Oh how he hated regeneration, as useful as it was.

"What, mmph, do you MEAN what am I, HRMMMPPHHH, doing?! Aren't you angry, mmRRRPPPHHHH, at this box for landing, MMPHH, on somepony?! WE HAVE TO GET THEM OUT FROM UNDER IT OBVIOUSLY!"

She just kept pushing and pushing, hoping to be able to help, to prove she could be useful. The box took every ounce of strength she put out, and refused to even budge. It didn't even give her the courtesy of playing along and groaning or something. Every second that passed, she became increasingly alarmed that somepony was dying beneath this ridiculous box.

"Why aren't you DOING anything?! SOMEPONY IS DYING UNDER HERE!", her panic drove her to the point she was nearly shrieking the last words.

"Landing on some... What?" he questioned, trying to get his bearings. The Time Lord's vision was a little messed up at the moment still, so he shook his head, flinching when her shrieking hurt his ears. "There's no need to shout," he explained, "I'm just mad she locked me out. No one's dying. At least I don't think anyone is. They might be, not here anyway. Somewhere far away from here, but not at this particular spot at this particular moment in time."

"Thank Celestia." she muttered, somewhat disappointed that she hadn't gotten her chance to prove useful.

He rubbed his eyes, everything finally coming into focus. Blinking to get his eyes more used to the oddly bright sunlight, he was able to get a better look at the one talking. The Doctor had to do a double take just to be sure what he was seeing was in fact real.

"Hang on, are you...are you a Pegasus?" he asked, a mad grin starting to spread across his face, "Well, that's, that's impossible! Pegasi aren't real. Pegasi? Pegasuses? Anyway, you're impossible. This has to be some sort of trick; a computer simulation, a hologram, something." He began to look around for some sort of device, or door, or something that might clue him in. "Alright, who's doing this?" he called to no one, "What's the trick? Why am I here?"

"What the heck is a haul-oh-graham? And this comm-pewter? Is it some kind of dish? Is now really the time to be thinking about food, Mr. Stallion? And who are you anyway?" She flew closer and closer as she talked, becoming sure with every sentence he spoke that he was, contrary to what she'd previously though, not alright.

"Oh no no, it's not a dish of any kind. You know; a hologram...it's...it's a negative, a negative produced by exposing a high-resolution photographic plate, without camera or lens, near a subject illuminated by monochromatic, coherent radiation, as from a laser. When it's placed in a beam of coherent light a true three-dimensional image of the subject is formed." He grinned widely. "Basically it's just a 3-D moving image that looks real, but it's not, that's being projected from somewhere else." Oh he loved it when he got the chance to sound smart; God knows he was clever after all. "And a computer, well, it's a machine with lots of buttons on a keyboard that lets you go on the internet. Some food sounds good right about now though; not sure what I like, brand new face, new personality and all that. Can take weeks to find out what I like sometimes."

He tripped when he attempted to walk, spitting out dirt after landing on his face. "Well the dirt certainly tastes like dirt," he said, making a disgusted face, "Never liked the taste of dirt much. Why is this new body so awkward?"

She had to stifle a chuckle. "A-are you, pff, are you alright, mister?" she asked, but without answering, he said something about dirt tasting like dirt? "Of course dirt tastes like dirt... what else would it taste like?" she asked, poking him in the head a few times with her hoof. "Are you sure you're okay, mister?"

"Oi, I don't go poking you in the forehead with my fingers!” he protested, "To answer some of your other questions, I'm the Doctor! Pleasure to meet you! But a stallion? How can I be a stallion? Last time I checked I was at least Homo Sapien in appearance. Shouldn't change just because of a new regeneration..."

"Homosaywhatnow?" First the stallion started talking in some weird language, and now he thought he was something besides a stallion?

"Homo Sapien; you know, hairless ape, bipedal..."

Confused, she looked him over and shook her head. "I don't know what a homo-sap-een is, mister, but you are most definitely a pony." she stated so matter-of-factly that she couldn't help but look pleased with herself, "And I'm still pretty sure you banged your head pretty hard. Let's get you to a doc-- wait, can you fix yourself since you're a doctor? No... Doctors aren't supposed to try to treat themselves, right? Come on, there's a doctor in town, and after that we can get something to eat, mister. Those 'cohearant radishes' you were talking about sound pretty tasty." As she finished talking, she reached down with a smile to help him up.

"No, no, I can't be a pony. I mean, I can talk to them; I know every language in existence, but I'm most definitely not one," he disagreed.

The pegasus began to talk about taking him to a doctor to get him checked out, but his focus was only half on her. Of course, being a Time Lord his brain had the capacity to easily focus on two different things at once, so while half of it was taking what the mare was saying, the other half was busy with the observation of his new body, due to the fact he'd raise his hand to show her he was humanoid only to find that he had no hand.

"Well now, that explains why I can't feel my fingers or toes. Can't have fingers and toes with hooves!" He giggled a bit childishly as he followed his new foreleg to the rest of his body. "Well would you look at that..." he muttered curiously, turning in a circle and nearly falling on his face again as a result. "Nice chestnut coat, oh the tail's a nice touch too. Blast, still not ginger. Twelve regenerations and I'm still not a ginger..." he complained. He then noticed the hourglass mark on his flank. "Look at that! Ha!" He looked to the winged mare with a grin. "There's an hourglass right here on my rump!" He pointed to it with one of his hooves, nearly losing his balance again.

"Fin...gers...? Do you... Do you think you're some sort of fish? Of course you have hooves, you're a pony..." she stopped, wondering what he could possibly be doing. Even vain ponies don't look at themselves this thoroughly. "What are you doi--" she started to wonder aloud, stopped by his flank suddenly in her face. "Y-yes. an hourglass cutie mark, right there are your flank, mister. We should really go show it to a doctor, right after we have him take a look at your head. Wouldn't want you yelling at anymore boxes..." Her previous worries mounted more and more with every word he spoke. You'd almost have believed he really wasn't a pony. SHE'D almost believed it. But he was obviously a pony, wasn't he? The question, just a small seed of doubt... Still, no time for wondering about that. "Come on, mister, please, we really need to get you checked out!"

"Fish...? Ha, that's a good one! Though I suppose being a fish could be fun, swimming around in deep water, not having to worry about drowning...though I suppose for a fish it's the other way around..." The pegasus then further elaborated on what the mark on his hindquarters was, and the Doctor couldn't help giggling at the concept. "Cutie mark, now that's one I haven't heard before, and mind you I've heard a lot in my time, a lot of a lot."

The mare seemed adamant to get him to a doctor though, and he couldn't help it as his grin spread wider. She really thought he had a head injury of some kind. "Nope, don't need a medical doctor, nope nope," he disagreed with another giggle, "I've always been a little bit crossed in the head, but then, there's so much going on in there it's hard to keep track of everything sometimes. Like I said before, I'm the Doctor, just the Doctor mind you, Miss Pegasus. I've studied medicine from all across the universe, so I haven't needed one of my own yet!"

"The Doctor? That's a silly name. And... Misleading." she ended with a giggle, "I'm Ditzy Doo."

She kept a close eye on him as he rambled, still not entirely certain he was alright, and she was right to, because the painful after effects of the initial regeneration were already starting to kick in. He could feel the stabbing pain in his stomach, his hearts both kicking up a tempo or two in pulse. The pain forced him to have to sit down, using both of his front hooves to hold his stomach as he cringed, gritting his teeth against a barrage of screams that were trying to claw their way out.

"O-Oh dear, this is...ooo… this is an extra painful one..." he mused through his teeth, his eyes reduced to squinting, "Not a body… I'm, I'm used to..."

"I knew you weren't okay! You seem smart, is there something I can do to help?! Maybe I should try to carry you to town!" Panic set in again as she watched him writhing and clutching at his stomach.

"N-NO!" he shouted, likely startling her. The Time Lord held out an arm (leg?) to try and keep her away while the other continued to clutch his stomach. "N-No, please..." he amended, lowering his voice, "just...ngh… j-just give me a, a moment, please..."

She’d jumped back at his shout. "O-okay." she agreed nervously, watching him.

His breaths came in short gasps as his eyes were finally forced to squeeze shut. The Doctor was doubled over so much his nose was nearly touching the ground, and he looked like he might throw up as his breathing hitched in his throat. He seemed to stop breathing for a moment, before his mouth dropping open and he let out a long exhale. A golden stream of energy was released from his mouth, rising high into the air and disappearing as it did.

"Ahhh, that's so much better..." he sighed in relief, sitting up and raising his nose to the sky and inhaling deeply, "This regeneration's at least real otherwise it wouldn't have been that painful; ooo, I'm not looking forward to the next twenty-four hours..."

Derpy's jaw dropped open in surprise, and as soon as she'd regained control of her muzzle, she started rattling off, "Re-general-hooha? Why are you breathing gold? DID YOU EAT GOLD?! I didn't know gold was edible!"

"There's nothing wrong with my name; Doctor is the name I chose, it's sort of...like a promise, I guess you could say," he said, picking up from the point she'd introduced herself, smiling as if nothing had happened and acting as if he hadn't heard her questions regarding the gold energy, "And what sort of name is Ditzy Doo? Seems a strange name for a horse, and I've met many strange characters in my day."

"Well, mister 'I'm a fancy Doctor, blahblahblah', Doctor isn't a name at all, let alone a strange one." she spat in a huff, finding him rude to say such things.

I'd still really like to know how he made that gold gas though... she thought to herself, as she regarded the... UNIQUE pony before her with awe, and caution.

"It is so a name!" he huffed right back, though rather childishly for his age, "What did you expect my name to be?"

She thought for a minute before she responded, giving him a thorough looking over. "Frank. I expected you to be called Frank." she stated seriously.

"Frank?!" he sputtered, utterly offended, though perhaps he was being a touch overdramatic, "But that's such a boring name! Why would anyone want to be called Frank? Doctor is so much cooler!"

His mind went back to the questions she posed about the energy he'd exhaled, and he found himself grinning at them. "At any rate, that energy I expelled is excess regeneration energy, my dear. It's energy my body can create. It's not gold of any kind, and I certainly don't eat gold. I tried it once, I think. Good way for me to find out more about the composition of something. It tasted like rubbish, mind you." He chuckled at the very thought. "It's a bit of a complex concept to explain; basically, if my body is fatally wounded, I have the ability to undergo something called regeneration. It changes my physical appearance completely, along with a new personality and the fun of discovering new likes and dislikes!"

His stomach growled loudly then, and he found himself blushing slightly in embarrassment.

"Unfortunately, there's always side effects that vary for each one, which can range from excruciating pain, to a massive hunger, to forgetting important things, to, well… just about anything I suppose," he continued, "Speaking of which, can we find someplace to eat? I feel like I haven't eaten in a lifetime!" After all, it was effectively the truth, and he giggled at the joke, though he'd be the only one to get it.

She listened to him start to explain stuff, and... started daydreaming. She was sure he'd said something about that General again. She refocused on what he was saying since it seemed to be almost over. He seemed to slow down what he was saying just a tiny bit right before he would finally stop, she'd noticed. When his stomach grumbled, she couldn't help but giggle.

"Y-yeah, hehe, let's go to Ponyville." With that, she trotted away, slowly, looking back to make sure he was following. Wouldn't want him getting lost out here, she thought.

The Doctor grinned widely at the name. "Ponyville? Well that's a new one," he said to himself before turning to the box and touching the door with his hoof, "Now you just rest here alright? No one should bother you out here. I'll be back as soon as i can to see how you're doing."

The Doctor planted a loving kiss upon the door of the shape shop as the mare began to trot off, and the Doctor hurried to catch up with her. He was already getting the hang of walking on all fours. It wasn't that hard really; not much different than crawling.

"I think I'm starting to get the hang of this!" he mused happily, looking to the mare he was walking beside, "So tell me Miss Do, what's this Ponyville like? Frankly, I'm having a hard time picturing it."

"Why'd you kiss that box, Frank?" she asked as he began catching up. She really was curious, but couldn't resist throwing that name in there now.

"Oi, my name's not Frank, it's the Doctor!" he corrected, "And that box is much, much more than just a box. I couldn't even begin to describe the intricacies of the interior, much less what she's capable of. She's in a bit of a bad way though, and needs her rest in order to heal up."

"Ponyville is a pretty great place. Lots of ponies. There's Sugarcube corner, they have great treats. Of course, there's also a nice café, they have awesome sandwiches. OOH, we could go to The Hay Burger and get some great Hay Burgers!" She rambled off restaurants and the like as they walked, but spread into non-lunch themed information, after a short time, "There's also a hospital, and a joke shop, and a library, and a costume shop... And a day spa! Oh, and then there's also the bowling alley, and a quill shop. A school of course. A theater... And Mayor Mare is probably in the town hall! We should go introduce you to her, she's really nice."

Following alongside the winged mare, they soon exited the forest, coming upon the two that she had called Ponyville in only a matter of minutes. The Doctor's eyes went with in amazement and curiosity, and began darting every which way so he could try and take in everything at once which Ditzy explained about several of the different buildings.

"Well I'll be, a whole community of ponies! There's even unicorns! Ha!" he said giddily as he looked to the pegasus, "You know I met a unicorn once, but it was only in a land of make believe. He had a very bad temper if I remember correctly." His stomach grumbled again, and he was immediately distracted by it. "Meeting your mayor sounds great, but I think it would be best if I quelled this hunger a bit first. That restaurant you mentioned; the Hay Burger was it? I've never tried hay before though I always imagined it might taste a bit bland; sounds like a lovely place though. Lead the way Miss Doo!"