“What are you doing?!” the Doctor shouted at Discord, struggling toward the doors of the TARDIS as he watched Ryan enter a similar time machine from above. “We have to stop him!”

“Yes, I know that,” the draconequus droned, snapping the doors shut.

The Doctor was clearly agitated, and stamped his hoof against the floor as Discord maneuvered the controls.

“This isn’t supposed to happen!” the stallion snapped. “This isn’t even what happened last time!”

“I know that,” Discord said seriously for once. “That’s all the more reason for concern.”

“Then why are you impeding-?” the Doctor began, but Discord cut him off.

“We’re running out of time. That much is obvious,” he said, tapping his claws against the control with a rap tap rap tap. “The flow of time is being more seriously affected than even before.”

“He can’t have caught up to us already!” the Doctor said in distress, pulling at his mane. “We still need more time…!”

“And we’ve got just enough,” Discord consoled him, even though he didn’t even believe it himself. “But we still need to sacrifice a pawn or two if we’re going to save the King.”

Mine.

He’s finally MINE.

Ryan cracked his knuckles with an unbridled glee, rolled his neck for good measure, and threw open the doors of the TARDIS.

“Ah-ha!”

Ryan jabbed an accusatory finger toward the rather stunned looking ponified time lord, and basked in his triumph.

And that was the extent of Ryan’s grand plan.

Kick in the door and shout ‘ah-ha’.

“… Can I help you?” the tan stallion with an hourglass cutie mark and a short tie gawked at him.

It momentarily occurred to Ryan just how outlandishly stupid his ‘brilliant’ scheme had been, but thinking was a waste of time. He kicked the door behind him with a loud snap! and promptly drew himself up to his full height, towering over the pony.

“Long time no see, Doc,” Ryan grinned viciously, the animalistic leer on his face only growing wider as he drew closer.

“Mister Miller,” the Doctor sidled away without dropping his gaze, which remained locked onto Ryan.

“I got a few questions,” Ryan seethed quietly, wishing he’d brought some form of weapon. Then again, the pony looked to be defenseless, and Ryan was much bigger. This would be over quickly, to be sure.

“And I will gladly answer them,” he replied coolly, sidestepping Ryan’s sudden lurch and slipping effortlessly to the side. “Should you cease your attempts to mangle me for reasons unknown.”

“Hold still!” Ryan bellowed, kicking violently at the stallion, only for his leg to swipe harmlessly into the air as the Doctor slipped backwards yet again.

“Maybe you should take a moment to, I don’t know,” the Doctor said conversationally as Ryan blocked his exit. “Sit down, calm yourself like a sane, rational person? May I ask what has you so bothered?”

“Fuck you!” Ryan growled angrily, trying to keep the Doctor from slithering past him to the door. “I got you right where I want you, asshole, and I’m askin’ the questions!”

“Surely you don’t actually believe you have the upper hand,” the Doctor deadpanned. Had Ryan been paying closer attention, he might have seen the sonic screwdriver sliding into his hoof.

“Bitch, I got you like a fuckin’ rat in a trap. And don't call me 'Shirley'.”

It was like the stallion’s face had… changed. An uneasy air was felt from him, and Ryan suddenly became aware that the lights inside the bizarrely larger-on-the-inside machine had flickered.

“You just made a big, big mistake.”

“Oh yeah?” Ryan glowered at him, but didn’t feel nearly as brave as he sounded. He could see that the pony was holding something, but just couldn’t tell what. In all likelihood, some kind of weapon… waiting for Ryan to rush him again, leaving him wide open for counterattack.

Keep him talkin’, disarm n’ disable.

“What mistake would that be?” Ryan asked deliberately, inching toward the Doctor with caution.

“Oh, big, big mistake. Huge, really],” the pony said conversationally, which only served to put Ryan even more on edge. The cautionary Spark began bubbling up toward the surface, making Ryan feel like he were standing too close to a source of electricity.

“Didn't anyone ever tell you? There's one thing you never put in a trap. If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap.”

“And what would that be?” Ryan finally got close enough to spot what the Doctor was holding; some kind of tubular device. Something with an odd shape, and multiple mechanisms along the side. What really tipped it off, however, was something that took Ryan a moment to finally realize.

It wasn’t pointed toward him.

“Me,” the Doctor said smugly as the sonic screwdriver activated the TARDIS, flinging them both into the air as the time machine shook so violently than Ryan was blown off his feet.

The Doctor, on the other hand, was ready for the miniature earthquake and held tightly to a handrail near the stairs while Ryan was tossed to the ground.

Ryan threw his hands out in front of him to brace for the impact, but wound up slipping and falling hard onto his side. The rising feeling of despair clawed at him as he saw the stallion galloping for the exit as the mini-earthquake ended, and his revenge was yanked away from him.

After all this time, having his vengeance dangled in front of him and just torn away at the last moment.

What might be his only chance of ever returning to his remaining family.

It wasn’t fair.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Ryan screamed, pouring all his strength into his wobbly legs as he tackled the Doctor a mere couple of inches from the door, dragging him to the floor. Ryan would crush him, at all costs.

“Get off!” the stallion panicked, dropping the screwdriver and rolling with the force. However, Ryan gave him no time to reclaim his weapon, desperately slapping his scarred left palm atop the Doctor’s forehead and making his second huge mistake of the day.

The Spark ran rampantly down his arm with a hateful joy, and with the dull, ruddy flash of green light, Ryan brushed against the exterior of the Doctor’s mind.

He was immediately flattened by the sheer, immense power.

Thump thump thump thump.

Eternity.

That was the simplest way to describe the first impression of the Doctor’s mind, the ‘man’ he’d hunted fruitlessly for. It was like Ryan had casually been brushed off, like an elephant flicks away a fly. Ryan’s mind may have been worn from the constant exposure to insane, whirling torrents of mental assaults from his experimental reaches into other minds, but this…

This was something that he never could have been prepared for.

Thump thump thump thump.

The Doctor’s mind was something just too large to fully comprehend. It was like looking onto a gigantic machine, infinitely complex and alien in nature.

Perhaps, if Ryan had never experienced the ‘mind-trick’ he’d attempted numerous times before, he wouldn’t have noticed the obvious danger approaching. It was then that he decided to make a ‘tactical retreat’, or what is better known as ‘getting the fuck out’.

Or at least, he would have, if he had any recollection of how any of his faculties worked. It wasn't long before everything went dark.

“Well, I suppose that’s one way to teach someone a lesson,” the Doctor clapped his hooves together repeatedly in front of Ryan’s face, who was currently crumpled and dazed against the time machine’s wall.

Ryan’s most coherent answer was to moan and drool.

“Whoa, what’d you do to him?”

This new voice sounded oddly familiar, and Ryan couldn’t quite tell how long he’d been sitting there as he agonizingly tried to right the position of his back. The pounding in his head, followed by a sick feeling as he clenched his eyes closed didn’t seem to care much about where he was or what was going on so long as it found some measure of relief before his head exploded.

“I’m afraid the poor thing attempted a manually invasive neruo-psychic interface,” he heard the Doctor address the new/familiar voice. “He certainly wasn’t capable of that the last time I saw him; but, then again, a lot can change over the course of a few years.”

Ryan wiped the drool from his chin, forcing open one of his aching eyes. When he pulled his hand away, he discovered that it wasn’t just drool his face had been coated in; a more careful inspection with the tips of his fingers revealed that his eyes had been bleeding.

That might explain the massive headache.

“Fuck me with a crowbar,” Ryan moaned miserably, giving up all hope of standing for the rest of the day. Or maybe the next week.

“Oh, hey!” the new/familiar loud voice toted obnoxiously close to his face, revealing the grey pegasus that he’d seen earlier. “I know you! You’re that guy, from the place, with the thing!” Derpy grinned, and Ryan couldn’t help but notice that one of her eyes didn’t quite seem to match up to the other one.

Then again, right then, his probably didn’t, either.

“Care to try again, Mister Miller?” The Doctor asked cheerfully, sitting in a rather relaxed, and quite human fashion atop the stairs, regardless of his stallion body. “You’re not the first to try breaking into my mind; and believe me, you probably won’t be the last.”

“Wait, what?” Derpy swung around toward the Doctor, smacking Ryan absentmindedly in the face with her tail. “This jerk tried hitting you in the brain?”

“Yes, something to that effect,” the Doctor deadpanned, but her clueless expression made a grin twitch at his lips. “It would seem that giving a monkey a typewriter doesn’t necessarily mean that it will write Shakespeare, even if there are already a thousand other monkeys attempting the same.”

Ryan found enough strength to flip the stallion the finger, and used the rest of his energy to massage his aching temples and wipe the blood from his face with his shirt.

“Right,” Ryan wheezed eventually. “Round two.”

“I suppose you’re here about your cousins, am I correct?” the Doctor asked cheerfully, but Ryan could tell that it was forced. Derpy busied herself poking around the TARDIS, inspecting the useless controls.

“It’s like you’re fuckin’ psychic,” Ryan spat angrily. “I’mma give you ten seconds-“

“Oh, please,” the Doctor sighed heavily, rubbing his own temples, but for obviously different reasons. “I am so, SO SICK of the constant, machoistic self-asserting blights that humanity sees fit to thrust in front of me,” he groaned. “Just ask your inane questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them, as I was trying to do from the start, you insufferable, you uneducated troglodyte, you excessively violent Neanderthal, you blithering, incompetent imbecile.”

Ryan blinked, thinking heavily.

He’d never been much of one to spend too much time thinking on a – or any – subject. He didn’t particularly like learning, and he hated reading.

Which made it all the stranger that he’d understood every word of the Doctor’s blatant insult.

To which, he brilliantly responded with “… What?”

The Doctor simply stared at him, with a mixture of annoyance and mild pity.

“I’m going to make this short so that you can understand,” he said condescendingly. “So prepare for some exposition. I don’t know where your cousins are, the last time I saw them they were both alive and well. That was after your little jaunt into an interdimensional vortex, one which I inadvertently followed in attempt to track you down, you moron, to bring you back to your family.” The Doctor paused momentarily to take in a deep breath, and continued.

“Long story short, your cousin Donald was used as a host by a nearly extinct alien race known as Thinlings and tried to take over the world, which Danielle assisted in stopping, even though she was obsessed with… er, ‘glomping’ myself and my crew. We saved Donald, the parasite got away and escaped in the time stream into who knows where, and when I tried to follow you after leaving Rose and Harkness on Earth I wound up getting pulled into this bizarro-version of reality and turned into a bucking pony.”

Ryan gaped at the Doctor, not realizing that his mouth was hanging open slightly. The pony tried to catch his breath, and even seemed to be sweating slightly.

“So…” Ryan fiddled his thumbs together. “You… didn’t cause all this?”

The Doctor stared at him as if her were stupid.

“Of course not!” he shouted. “I’m just a stranded as you are, you blundering-!”

He took a deep breath, running a hoof down his face. “And now I’ve got a headache. This is just wonderful.”

Ryan dug in annoyance at his ear, which he was actually surprised wasn't bleeding. He couldn't seem to get that annoying drumming out of his head.

Derpy looked back and forth between the Doctor and the obviously dazed human a couple of times, before pulling something out of her saddlebag.

“It’s okay, guys!” she said in a chipper tone. “I brought muffins!”

It was dead silent in the TARDIS for nearly a full ten seconds before Ryan began wheezily laughing so hard that he fell over.

Author's Notes:

*Flush.*