Dr. Whooves and the Reality War

“I’m the Doctor,” whispered the battered, broken, and bruised earth pony stallion as he slumped against the inside of the only constant in his seemingly eternal life. Well, it had seemed eternal, until what he’d just seen made that eternity look like it might very well be incredibly short. The same went for the universe, if he didn't act soon. “I’m over a thousand years old. I have witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the birth and extinctions of species, the lighting and extinguishing of stars. I have saved the universe from utter annihilation more times than I can count...

“...and I am afraid,” he finished.

With great difficulty, the Doctor raised himself up into a sitting position and reached his mouth into the white collar he wore on his neck which, alongside his green tie, was the only clothing he ever wore. Carefully, wincing with every movement, the Doctor pulled out his latest sonic screwdriver.

It too was badly damaged, sparking and sizzling with data that would be incomprehensible to anyone but a Time Pony such as himself. However, being the last son of Gallopfrey, he was the only one in the universe who could read it. Opening the device with a flick of his head, the Doctor took in what the technological marvel had been able to acquire from the brief scan he had managed to take before... they... had realized his presence and nearly ended it altogether.

He didn’t like what he saw.

“This... this just isn’t possible!” he gasped. “Nothing could create such an organized, destructive force on such a massive scale! It would take billions of years to even begin, and surely somepony would have noticed what was going on and stopped it before it went to far! Surely, somewhere in the time stream, I would have encountered this and tried to stop it myself!”

Suddenly the Doctor frowned. Perhaps someone had. Perhaps they had tried to warn him, and he just hadn’t seen the signs. Painstakingly, he limped up the staircase to the control panels of the last Gallopfreyan time machine and pulled out a small, thin book from one of the drawers beneath the odd assortment of knobs, buttons, and levers.

Surely, if someone had tried to contact him about this, they could have reached him through the psychic paper contained within this booklet. He flipped it open, but it was blank, completely and utterly. At least, it was at first... until a single black dot appeared near the corner of a page. The dot stretched and grew, spreading and branching until it had formed a letter. This was followed by an entire string of letters, which formed a word that grew into a sentence.

Well, a rather short sentence, but a sentence nonetheless.

Hello, Doctor.

“Who is this?” the Doctor wondered aloud, of course not expecting an answer. The psychic paper was usually one way. That’s the way it had always functioned, anyway...

...until now.

You know us all too well, Doctor. In fact, you just met our proteges, did you not?

“Your proteges?!” the Doctor echoed after he had gotten over the initial shock of the psychic paper responding to him. “You mean you’re responsible for the creation of those monsters out there?”

Of course. Who else could create such artistry?

“Who are you?” the Doctor demanded.

You mean you really don’t know? What a pity. We thought you were smarter than that, Doctor. It appears we were wrong. Oh, well. We suppose you’ll prove to be just another one of those boring adversaries. Nevertheless, your universe will still be all-too-fun to destroy before we move on to the next one.

“The next one?” the Doctor stated, trying to wrap his mind around the claims of... whoever this was. “What do you mean, ‘the next one?’ Crossing universes is almost impossible ever since the Time War ended!”

Really? We hadn’t noticed. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to get back to watching the show. Our proteges have already left a tenth of your universe a warped wasteland. It’ll be so much fun watching the other nine tenths suffer the same fate.

And with that, the message faded into the paper and out of existence.

The Doctor angrily threw the book across the room. They were toying with him! These monsters, they actually enjoyed causing such destruction, apparently for no other reason than because it amused them! This was the lowest form of intelligence he’d ever encountered. If they had the power to easily cross dimensions, then they had the power to do so much good. Instead, they ended universes, one at a time... or perhaps more than just that. Perhaps they were active all across the multiverse.

“What would you have done, old friend?” the Doctor sighed, looking up at a sketch done by an artist in medieval Equestria of a most curious creature. It vaguely resembled a monkey, but the only fur it possessed was atop its head, underneath a fez. It grinned widely, making the creature look even more ridiculous than it already did due to its bow-tie and old jacket.

They had only met once, on a rare occasion that had required the saving of two universes rather than just the Doctor’s home dimension. They had had quite a lot of fun together, he and the two-legged being, but in the end both had known that it wasn’t best to stick around too long with your alternate reality counterpart. Thus, the Time Lord and the Time Pony had each gone back to their home dimension after a bit of adventuring in each other’s universes.

“Perhaps you’ve already encountered them,” the Doctor wondered. “I only hope you defeated them.”

But how could his counterpart have defeated them? Their armies had nearly just destroyed this universe's Doctor, and surely the two Doctors were evenly matched, as they were essentially the same person.

Wait a minute... their armies... not they themselves. If they had the power to cross dimensions, why had whoever those mysterious entities been not just swept destruction across the universe by themselves?

Perhaps... perhaps they couldn’t!

It wasn’t much, but currently it was all the Doctor had to go on. Maybe despite their tremendous power, they had to get others to do their dirty work. Without those others, then they couldn’t be causing this mess!

The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver again, scanning the data once more. After a bit of careful analysis, he nearly leapt for joy.

“I knew it!” he laughed in a eureka moment. “These armies are tailored specifically for fighting me. If I fiddle with this data, and turn it around, reverse the polarities a bit... then... there!”

The Doctor plugged the screwdriver into a port in the control panel. An odd device that looked like an old-fashioned Equestrian television from the post-industrial age sparked to life, showing in black-and-white a picture of a most curious creature. It then flicked to another, and then another, and another, and another, and another still...

“Yes!” the Doctor rejoiced. “If these armies are specifically made to fight me, then I just have to find some help that they’re nottailored to fight. And who better to fight them than entities who are exactly the opposite of these monsters in every way?”

According to the TARDIS’ supercomputer, such entities did exist, something those interdimensional meddlers must not have bothered to realize, as according to these readouts these beings were living out ordinary, unharmed lives.

They were scattered across the history of the universe, but gathering them altogether would be half the fun.

“Time for a little road trip,” the Doctor chuckled. “Well, first a trip to the medical bay, and then it's time for a road trip. And then it’s time to save the universe from these monstrosities once and for all!”

Throwing a large, ornately-decorated switch, the Doctor laughed with hopeful glee as the temporal motors of the time machine began humming and turning, sending the little blue box hurtling through time and space.

If only the Doctor hadn’t thrown his book of psychic paper across the bridge of the TARDIS, he would have seen the last message of his taunters, who apparently hadn’t left the conversation after all.

Excellent. He’s falling right into our trap.