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Doctor Who: Equestria needs a Doctor

by Infinite Carnage

Chapter 13: Chapter 13: The Master of All

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The rhythmic tapping didn’t stop as the golden glow continued to surround the near lifeless form of the Time Lord. The only reason the tapping finally did come to an end was because the Doctor’s body began to float in the air. Many of the confused watchers were at a lost at what was happening. But Vinyl, Ditzy and the other Doctor knew.

The Doctor was regenerating.

The Time Lord tried to move, but still felt too stiff to be of any use. He was having trouble staying on his knees, let alone standing up. There were so many questions going through his mind but two stood out. Why had his counterpart immobilized them? And why did he forcefully regenerate himself?

It was rare for his kind to force a regeneration. Despite being immortal, they had a number of forms they could use before they could no longer regenerate. In a way, it was like stripping away a part of your soul by force every time a Time Lord regenerated. Their preferences and personality would change slightly, along with their body. However, they were still the same basic person with all their morals and beliefs intact, just slightly different. To force that was foreign to the Doctor and not in a good way.

Suddenly, the golden aura began to pour out of the pony Doctor from his limbs and head. This caused the gas mask he was wearing to go flying off his face. The massive surge of energy shook the floor they all stood on, but barely affected the group as they lay on the ground. The other Doctor glanced over his shoulder and noted that despite being paralyzed, they were all fine. Judging by it coming in the form of gas and the Doctor’s stiffness, he summarised that its effects would soon wear off. Although he doubted that it would wear off in time to stop whatever the pony Doctor had planned. When the Doctor looked at his counterpart again, the Doctor’s transformation had officially begun.

The brown, chocolate like coat began to melt away from the Doctor’s body and in its place was a charcoal grey. His brown mane began to grow longer and the colour transformed into a pure black. During it all, his body continued to float in the air as the golden energy danced around his body and exploded from his limbs and head.

Finally, the transformation began to come to a stop as the Doctor’s body slowly floated downwards until he was lying on his back. For a moment, for a single moment, the world was silent. Nopony moved or even knew what to say. Some of the Elements thought the Doctor had died, but others knew better. Finally, a small chuckle could be heard from the stallion lying on his back. His voice was deeper, but a lot sharper and distinctive than before. Slowly, he raised his head to face them.

“Ever since the Time War, I’ve had that drumming in my head,” he said with a relieved smile. “At first I hated it; I thought I had gone mad at last. Now, I realise it was sign. Out with the old, in with the new as they say.” He stood up on all fours and faced the group with a disturbingly kind smile.

“Wai… wait! Did you j-ust…?” stammered Dash.

“…Regenerate?” finished the Time Lord. “Yes Miss Dash. I know my counterpart has been surprisingly open about his history to all of you. Well, not everything of course but as you know, he is my counterpart.”

His chin was much larger than before and his emerald green eyes stood out from his dark body. There was one big difference that rested on the Time Lord’s head. He had a horn. The Doctor lightly touched his new horn and seemed pleased with the results.

“It’s a shame that I haven’t practiced magic in jolly long while. I’ll have to pick it up again when I find the time.” Part of his mane was blocking his vision in his left eye, but he made no attempt at changing it. “Now, I did say everything would soon become clear right? Well please allow me to explain.” Ditzy seemed close to tears.

“D-doctor what’s hap…” She was cut off by the Time Lord.

“The Doctor. That isn’t my name. That was a promise. A promise I had to break in the Time War. I’ll fix everything though, it’s all been leading up to this.” Some of the things the pony Time Lord said rang scarily familiar in the other Doctor’s ears. The drumbeats, the Time War, but everything that he was doing didn’t make sense at all. The Doctor was starting to feel rage. An emotion he tried very hard to suppress but only amplified when he spied Octavia lying on the floor, unable to move.

“What’s wrong? What is going on inside your head!?” He practically shouted the last part but the pony Time Lord seemed too transfixed in his own little world.

“I am no longer the Doctor. I need a new name, a new promise. What was that name Pinkie mentioned? Ah yes, the Master. Yes, that’s my name. I am the Master. How appropriate it is that I take his name.”

The Doctor could feel his hearts pounding inside his chest. It was all so clear now. This was not just an alternate version of him, it was an alternate reality version of the Master as well. One of his greatest enemies. It was definitely based off himself, but in this reality, he eventually succumbs to the same madness as his old foe only in different circumstances. In this reality, the master was already dead, and the Doctor was destined to replace him. There was something especially eerie about the fact that he could’ve ended up as his counterpart if the circumstances had been different. Clearly the Time War was the cause of all this, but the reference of a drumming noise alerted him to what his counterpart was planning. He had to be sure though.

“Let me guess,” said the Doctor as calmly as he could muster, “It involves the tower above us.” The Time Lord now calling himself the Master nodded smugly.

“I came across your universe when I found a crack in time and space. Something that had been overlooked by my people. Naturally I went to close it up, but this was soon after the Time War and I had left Vinyl and Ditzy back on their world before I left.” The slight flicker of eye movement between the two mentioned mares was enough to say that something had clicked in place. “Because I was alone, I wasn’t able to sort the correct sequence that would close the hole in time, so I accidently fell through. However, from disaster lies opportunity. That opportunity came when I discover the cybermen.” The Doctor still had trouble moving his body, so he decided to conserve his strength. The Master trotted past him and towards the balcony.

“They were an alternate version of the cyberponies. A race of beings that lived on Equis’ twin planet, however, they are all dead now. They died before Vinyl or Ditzy had ever encountered them. They were simple in goals and very easy to hack, that’s what led me to enact my plan.” He left the balcony and trotted over to Celestia next. Luna struggled with all her might but couldn’t move an inch from her position. She panicked at the prospect of Tia being harmed, but instead, the Master pointed at her.

“I had encountered Celestia before, but in another form so she didn’t recognise me. The truth is, she has been manipulated for quite some time.” The Master turned towards Luna. “Did you find it odd how all of a sudden; Celestia was obsessed with parallel worlds?” Luna didn’t respond but she didn’t need too. The Master already knew the answer. “That was my work. A slight hypnotic suggestion left at night for one month was enough to drive her to that state. So when the Cybermen came to her, she let them in, when normally she would have had defences set up in case something went wrong. I nearly got caught a couple of times, but it was all worth it in the end.”

“Two weeks prior, I personally handed the cybermen the information to build what they have built since coming here, even the plan to break into this world and start their species again. Of course, I hacked into their network and wiped all knowledge of myself from their databanks. That is where the next step of my plan kicked into gear.” He trotted into the middle of the group and gazed at them individually. He gave looks of triumph to some, looks of disdain to others, and looks of regret and sympathy to those he was close too.

“Funny thing, their plan would never have worked. Despite raw magic’s potential, for their plan to work they needed more than metal, they needed some organic material of what they wanted to duplicate. Of course they never knew that, they were just following the plans that I had left for them. You see, my full intention has always been to feign ignorance to their plan and use all of you to help me stop them. Because the tower is not for them, it’s for me.”

“Th-that’s why yo-u di-dn’t want us to…” stammered Fluttershy.

“… Destroy the tower? That was one reason, but of course I need you all alive, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any point to this.”

“Then what is this? Why do all of this!?” Asked the Doctor.

“Simply put, the Time Lord’s will be reborn.”

“Reborn?”

“Let me ask you a question that you must have been pondering this entire conversation. Why would I force myself to regenerate? What purpose would that serve?”

There was no immediate answer. It had definitely been something on the Doctor’s mind so he decided to look at it from another angle. What benefits were there when you regenerated? Of course it gave you another chance when you were near death, and it saved the Doctor’s life on more than one occasion. With all that energy… ENERGY! That was it. The leftover regeneration energy.

“There’s only one reason you would force yourself to regenerate,” claimed the Doctor, “you're trying to use all the leftover regeneration energy inside of you.” A small laugh escaped the Master’s lips.

“I knew I would be the only one who could figure my own plan. For those of you who aren’t aware, a Time Lord doesn’t use all of his regeneration energy when he regenerates. Some of it remains in his body for a couple of days. The purpose of this is a defence against possible attacks. A Time Lord can sometimes be vulnerable and fall unconscious right after regenerating, so if they are shot, cut, or even lose a limb, all the damage will be healed without a scratch. Now, do you have any idea how else I can use this energy?”

“You’re going to have the rest flow into the top of the device and then fire.”

“Right again, Doctor. If I used a piece of my genetic code, everypony would just become an exact clone of me. But regeneration energy completely randomises a genetic code. You will all become Time Lord’s, just with all of my ideals. Of course I will become your master, we can’t have my people dying again, now can we?”

“So that’s why you’re doing this,” growled the sun princess, “all of your people are dead, so you’ll willingly replace them with us?”

“Correct, but I’m not the only one who knows that pain,” muttered the Master. Despite how quietly he had said it, everypony had heard and it only took Octavia a moment to realise who the Master was referring too.

“D-d-doctor? Does he me-ean you?” she struggled to get out. The Doctor nodded sadly as his friends shared looks of sympathy towards him.

“We both went through something called the Time War,” continued the Master. “As the name suggests, the war for time itself. Everypony in the war died, except for me. The entire event is timelocked so I cannot save my people, but, I can start again. But this time, from my own image. I will lead all of you to a golden age of magic, technology, but most of all, prosperity under my golden rule. I was president of the Time Lord’s long ago so I have plenty of experience. I have destroyed so much in my life, but no more. The oncoming storm will become the guiding light for all.”

“You’re insane.” Rarity was able to choke out what everypony was thinking.

“Ha, I thought that myself a couple of times. Then I realised, why shouldn’t I lead you all? Originally, I was going to convert another planet filled with a species called ‘Humans,’ but this world has always been a second home to me. I’m far more intelligent than all of you combined and my species was far more superior than yours. You should all consider this an upgrade.”

“B-but what ab-out all the species the tower won’t reach?” asked Rainbow.

“Regrettably we’ll have to kill them. There will be more than enough in Equestria alone to rebuild the Time Lord race. Honestly, you should be thanking me. The amount of wars this avoids will save you all a lot of trouble.”

“What the heck do you mean by ‘we’ll have to kill them’?” Rainbow’s stutter, that was induced by the gas, had disappeared.

“Ah, I forgot to mention. Thanks to the genius engineering of myself and borrowing some cyber technology, all those who are converted will instinctively do anything I say. You will all see me as your leader. I thought that would be easier than winning you all over with my charm and intelligence. Some ponies can be just too stubborn.”

The Doctor, with sheer force of will, was able to stand up. He gazed over his friends to see the pitiful sight. All of them on the floor, completely defenceless. The Master didn’t even regard him as a threat at this point. He could see the stiffness in the Doctor’s joints and realised he was having too much trouble moving to attack him.

“Y-you’re n-not the Doctor,” said Ditzy, who appeared to be close to tears. “The Doctor was a good stallion who went out of his way to help others. He had no desire to lead, only to help and explore. You can twist your words in any way which you please. But I know you’re only doing this because you want to control us.”

“Maybe you’re right. Perhaps that’s why calling myself the Master sounds so natural,” he replied solemnly. “Curse that drumming. It hasn’t left ever since the war.”

“Drumming?”

“Can’t you hear it!? It won’t stop.” The Master began to mimic a drumbeat on the ground with his hoof. To the Doctor, it was disturbingly familiar. “This plan was so perfect. Everything was going so well. And then you showed up!” The Master pointed at the Doctor with an accusatory hoof.

“What do you mean?” asked the Doctor.

”You were never meant to be here. You were something I hadn’t counted on. Looking back, I knew I should have kept an eye on the hole, but I thought the plan was so perfect. Instead of moping, I used you to my advantage. Ironically, you made the Cyberman defeat ten times easier. I have to thank you. But, maybe we can work together?”

The Doctor had to shake his head clear to see if he heard right. He wanted to work together? He was still trying to get the strength back in his limbs. Slowly but surely, the stiffness that was haunting his body was dispersing. He had to stall for time. Otherwise, if it did come to a confrontation, he would be overwhelmed easily.

“What do you mean work together?”

“Hear me out before you say no. Now, apart from a few differences, our histories our almost identical. We have seen some many wondrous things, but we’ve also committed atrocities. There’s a reason they call us the oncoming storm.” Octavia could see a hurt look fall on the Doctor’s face. She wanted nothing more than to reassure him, but no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t lift a hoof.

“We’ve destroyed civilisations, brought species to extinction, burned planets out of the solar system. We’re not like them, we can never be like any of them because of the things we’ve done. Because we will outlive all of them. Look at your friends now. THEY’RE JUDGING YOU!” The Doctor looked over the crowd of ponies by his feet, and as much as he would have liked to tell the Master he was wrong, he was right. Looks of shock were on his friend’s faces. Some were because the Doctor didn’t deny the claims of the Master, some were of realisation, but now there was a new feeling in the air. Fear. Even Ditzy and Vinyl, who he thought would have known about their Doctor’s past, we’re left reeling by the sudden revelation. They weren’t just afraid of the Master, they were afraid of the Doctor as well. The oncoming storm. The destroyer of worlds.

“But you know what, that’s okay. The beat inside my head has made me realise that were better than them. None of them could do what you and me have done. These Elements of Harmony have never seen real evil. They’ve met a corrupted ruler, a god just trying to have fun and a desperate Queen try to take over with the most poorly thought through scheme ever. That isn’t evil. The Daleks were evil! They wouldn’t last five minutes with one of them.” The Doctor shut his eyes for a moment. He really wished the Master hadn’t brought up the Daleks but he couldn’t think about that as the strength in his limbs was finally coming back.

“My Point is that we are superior. We’re smarter, older than most, we’ve seen all of history unfold before our eyes. We shouldn’t just stop here. We should rule the entire galaxy. You and me, joint rulers of the universe. You’re my only equal after all and I imagine it will get lonely eventually. Two immortal beings ruling the universe till the end of time.”

“Did you really think I would say yes?” asked the Doctor in defiance. “Did you really think I would abandon everything I believe in, betray everyone I’ve ever known, I’ve ever loved. You don’t get it do you?”

“Oh I do, believe me I do. I don’t really think you’ve thought this all the way through.”

“What else is there to consider?”

“If the tower can recreate my Time Lords, what other race could it resurrect?”

The Doctor blinked in surprise as it hit him. With a few calibrations and the Doctor’s own regeneration energy, he could recreate his Time Lord’s. It was so obvious now that the Doctor began to berate himself for not seeing it sooner. Wait, no! He couldn’t consider this could he?

“Your eyes betray you, Doctor. I know what you want more than anything. You want to bring your race back from the dead. The entire universe is ours for the taking, hell, remember that ‘Human’ planet I was telling you about? Well that one is perfect for your race. The species has the same build, and look almost identical to yours if you’re anything to judge by. Imagine it my friend, the Time Lord’s, reborn.”

To the Doctor’s shame, he didn’t immediately reject the proposal. He couldn’t actually bring his people back, recreating them was an option, but at what cost? The lives of another race.
Regret, shame, desire, confusion, he felt a mix of all those emotions, but a voice snapped him out of his self-induced trance.

“Doctor, please don’t listen to him,” pleaded the voice. The Doctor stirred his head towards the voice where Octavia was looking up at him teary eyed. “Is it true? Did you really kill your own race?”

“Yes. I had too.”

“Why?” asked Celestia in genuine curiosity.

“My people were going to enact something called the final amendment. They had been driven mad by the Time War, just like the Master. They would end all of time and kill every life form in history. I couldn’t let it happen but… I couldn’t make them stop…” The final words choked out of the Doctors throat as he tried his best to keep his composure. The looks of fear morphed into looks of sympathy. “So many dead by my hands, all I can really do is keep on running.”

“But you don’t have to do that anymore,” interrupted the Master with a look of bliss on his face. “Not only can you resurrect your race, but you can lead them into an age of peace with no more war!”

“But you want to enslave every pony under your rule? Can you honestly say that is the right thing to do?” questioned the Princess of the night. “I for one know when somepony has become drunk with power. Both my sister and I have lost our ways before. You have allowed your fear of being alone and the horrors that you were forced to commit cloud your judgement, Doct…”

MASTER! MY NAME IS THE MASTER!

The sudden outburst, the small eye twitch, the disgusting smile spread on his lips, they were all signs that the Master was insane. And everypony in the room knew it. What was even creepier was despite the angry outburst, the Master was smiling as if everything was wonderful in the world. A small chuckle escaped the Time Lord’s lips that quickly turned into hysterical, maddening laughter that chilled everypony to their core. Another insane rant was about to begin.

“You are all so PATHETIC! Weak pathetic little creatures! I can’t believe I spent so long trying to protect you all. Potential? Opportunity? You all just threw it away time and time again so you could keep your precious harmony! You all just accept a lie that if anyone took a moment to examine, would find a million different holes in but you all just follow it like sheep! You think I’m the bad guy!? You have no idea what I’ve seen, what I’ve done, what I can still do! I am the Master. You’re new Master. And if I have to keep you all on a leash to bring my race back, then so be it.”

“I’m not sure what horrifies me more,” began the Doctor. “The fact that I failed to see what you were up to and I let my friends get hurt. Or, that I could have so easily ended up like you. A friend of mine once told me that I need someone with me. She couldn’t have been more right. Because when I’m alone I do things I shouldn’t; I do things I live to regret. It turns out that without someone by my side I’ll go insane as well. I’m so sorry, i am so sorry for what’s happened to you but my answer is no. In my right mind, I would never do this. I wouldn’t even consider this as an option.”

The Doctor walked over to Octavia and cradled her head in his arms. She looked up at him with a relieved smile while the Master looked on in confusion. “Yes, they're stupid. All living things do some really stupid things every now and then, but then they come around and do something wonderfully brilliant.” The Doctor stood back up and began to strut around the room, showing the stiffness in his limbs had completely worn off. “They create works of art, discover hidden treasures, invent the unthinkable, survive the impossible. Ponies and Humans are so stupidly wonderful and so wonderfully stupid. You’ve just forgotten that. That’s why we help.” The Doctor extended his right hand towards the Master. He knew this was his last chance to reason with his counterpart. “Please, let me help you. There are other ways; there are ponies here that care about you. Just give them a chance.”

For a moment, it looked like the Doctor had gotten through to him. It became painfully clear that he hadn’t when his hand was slapped away by a hoof. The Master looked at the Doctor with a look of disgust as his anger began to take him over.

“It’s too late for that, and I’m not going to let you stop me now. Go to Tartarus you fool!” In one swift motion, the Master galloped out the door towards the tower. The Doctor looked behind him as his eyes met Octavia’s.

“Go! I know you can save us!” The Doctor didn’t need any more convincing as he chased the Master towards the tower. The rest of them could only lie there and hope this awful stiffness would depart their bodies.

Author's Notes:

Next chapter: Old enemies fight again in new forms. The final Battle!

Next Chapter: Chapter 14: The Resurrection of the Time Lords Estimated time remaining: 55 Minutes
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