3.1
Lucca sighed as she put the last connections of the Telepod into place. It was odd, this strange time loop she had found herself in. At first she thought it was some sort of revenge from Lavos, or something those strange Mystics did to her, but when the time for the two to attack her orphanage came again, she was ready for them and found herself continuing past that point until Porre's sudden army attacked Guardia and took it over.
Life as a refugee wasn't fun any of the times she did it. Getting killed, of course, made everything worse by sending her back to today. At least the kids did alright for themselves, forming a rebellion group called "Radical Dreamers" and fighting guerrilla warfare. She was somewhat surprised with how talented Kid was at thievery, however. Maybe they could visit the El Nido Archipelago together sometime, instead of Kid running off on her own.
Eventually she started taking advantage of the Loop, learning as much about 2300 technology as she could. She could now safely say that she could easily advance technology a thousand years without any problems.
Once the final wire was plugged in, her dad went to alert the fair staff that they were ready. He had been mildly surprised to find her ability to put the Telepod together so quickly, but just chalked it up to enthusiasm (despite all her sighing).
Immediately, two guests arrived, but she recognized neither of them. This was important to note because she had long since memorized the faces of the crowd that gathered at the Telepod exhibit. Since they were unfamiliar, she decided to go speak with them.
"Hello, I'm Lucca."
The man, who wore a green coat and ruffles and had shoulder-length wavy brown hair, held out his hand, which Lucca shook. "How do you do, I'm the Doctor." He gestured to his companion, a short woman with black hair and a red dress. "This is Clara." Clara waved. "I must admit I find myself rather curious. This Telepod technology, what does it do?"
"Dad will explain when the exhibit itself happens, but in a nutshell, it's a point-to-point transportation system."
"Fascinating. You know, when we saw all those swords and things, I thought we were in a far more medieval period. But to have dematerialization and rematerialization with such limited tools, it's a credit to your genius." The Doctor then went over to the console and started looking it over carefully.
"Don't mind him," said Clara. "He's good with machines. Well, mostly. The TARDIS gives him trouble sometimes. She still gives me trouble sometimes, and I've been learning as much as I can about her just in case."
"TARDIS?" Lucca asked. This was starting to get strange.
"Time And Relative Dimension In Space," answered the Doctor. "Speaking of, I notice that there's a weakening in the fabric of time in this area. You might want to be careful, as an overload in the demat circuits could cause a rupture."
Lucca just stared in shock for a few moments. "Time and... space? Who are you? Do you know why time is repeating for me?"
"See, Clara? I knew that someone would react."
"Yeah, yeah. Next time I Loop with this incarnation of you I'll pay for our shoe shopping trip."
"Now, I'm afraid this is going to take a while to explain, so shall we find someplace nearby to sit?"
3.2
The Doctor Awoke to find himself in the curious state of not having a body. But before he could contemplate the situation, he became aware of the words "activate the EMH," and found himself standing in the med-bay of what appeared to be a Federation starship (in all his Fused Loops, he'd yet to find anything that looked quite like them).
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," he automatically recited. "Oh, yes, I see. I haven't been a medical doctor for some time."
"Doctor?" asked the person in front of him. She wore the red and black of twenty-fourth century command staff and had short, brown hair. On her breast was a communicator that had three bars behind Starfleet's crest. Hmm. Must be the Voyager. "You aren't the Doctor we usually get."
"Yes, I hear that rather often. If you'd prefer, you can refer to me as Doktor von Wer."
"Isn't that German for 'Doctor Who?'"
"Well, yes, but at least it's not the usual 'John Smith' thing my future selves tend to give out. Tell me, have you seen my recorder anywhere?"
"I'm afraid not, Doctor. As for me, I am Kathryn Janeway, Captain of Voyager. Just to be on the safe side, you can perform as a medical doctor?"
"In the baseline, barely. But I have managed to learn quite a few things, and the programming of this 'EMH' business can help with that. Now, if I remember from my encounter with Captain Picard, your ship is the one that was lost in the Gamma Quadrant?"
"Delta Quadrant actually, but yes."
"Should be exciting," said the Doctor, shaking Janeway's hand excitedly. "Now, what's our first stop?"
3.3 (Scorntex)
Hogwarts. He was finally in Hogwarts. Ever since he'd read the books, so long ago, he'd wanted to see it. And yet, in another sense, he hadn't. Something about the school, with its Houses and horrible teachers and bullying brought back several painful and unpleasant memories he'd tried constantly to bury.
But there was another part of him that really wanted to see a phoenix, and thestrals, and to meet one of the original Loopers, and to get a good look at the way that world's magic worked.
And the train, because even with all the time-travel he rarely got a chance to use trains.
But there was the one everyone seemed to speak of. Dolores Jane Umbridge. A horrible, nasty and as utterly vile woman as there was disguising herself in the thinnest veneer of sugary sweetness. Indeed, the first day he'd met the local Anchor (and goodness, he actually had the scar), he'd been warned about her.
Curiosity piqued, he wanted to meet this woman.
But he'd looped in on the first year. Meaning he was going to have to wait.
In all honesty, Harry Potter thought, he was surprised the Loop had gotten as far as it had.
It had started four years ago. There they'd been, standing in line outside the great hall. Neville had lost his toad, and Malfoy had been Malfoy about it.
Then an absolute giant of a first year student had stepped in. There had been something about that giant mass of curly hair that set Harry's brain off, or the smile that made its owner look like he was about to go for someone's throat. And there was the way he'd talked so loudly. Harry had a sinking feeling the moment he'd seen that.
Then, during the sorting, Professor McGonagall had actually stopped while reading out the list, before announcing "Doctor of TARDIS." Harry counted himself lucky he hadn't been drinking or eating anything at the time, as the giant curly-haired boy had practically bounded over to the chair, still grinning like a maniac.
He'd been under the hat for several minutes before it'd declared him for Gryffindor.
That had been four years ago. Four long years with the Doctor. And not just any Doctor. The Fourth one.
However, and he wasn't necessarily going to complain about it, but watching Snape drop to the floor the minute he'd tried to read the Doctor's mind had been a highlight of the first year.
And watching the Doctor verbally trounce Lockhart, not to mention swanning into Professor Dumbledore's office carrying a sword, Ginny and the remains of a book that Harry could quickly recognise as Tom's diary, grinning madly while smelling insanely bad. When asked how he found it, he'd just smiled even further and said he "spoke snake".
Harry was used to visiting Loopers doing strange things, but this version of the Doctor seemed to insist on doing everything by himself.
It was probably the teeth.
Funnily enough, on the fourth year, when the subject of Barty Crouch Junior had come up, he'd said nothing, and disappeared for several weeks. He was found later in the Room of Requirement, yelling at a mountain of books.
And then in the fifth year Umbridge had arrived. At which point Harry had decided to sit back, fetch some popcorn and watch.
She lasted all of one week.
There had been shouting, yelling, shaking and rumbling for a few minutes, no necessarily all in that order. It had started simply enough. The toad-like woman had been trying to quash rumours of Voldemort's return, enforce her will over the entire school, essentially standard for her. Then the Doctor had raised a hand, and asked about the book, much as Harry had himself, only with more veiled insults aimed at Umbridge.
She had insisted he not ask questions.
He'd insisted it was his job to ask questions.
She had told him that if that was the case, he could ask questions in his detention after class.
He had simply ignored her and kept asking questions. She'd quickly turned a funny pink colour and then she'd started yelling.
He started yelling back, much louder. It didn't help that he was already pretty loud to begin with.
Some of the Ravenclaw students had already begun making their way toward the door by that point.
Not even two minutes later the entire classroom was empty save the Doctor and Umbridge. The students hadn't actually gone far, they'd just planted themselves at the nearest safe distance and listened to the noise.
"Harry?" Ron asked. "Whose idea was it to give him a wand anyway?"
Harry dwelt on that one for a few minutes. "Good question," he admitted.
The two of them shared nervous looks.
Then the door of the classroom opened.
Well, the door fell off its hinges, followed by a great plume of smoke. From it, a scarfed shape flourished out, wand held firmly in the grasp of a battered but otherwise intact Doctor. Hovering a short distance away from the wand was a small rotating shape.
Spotting the small crowd, the Doctor made his way over to his fellow students, grinning triumphantly.
"Ah, hello," he beamed. "That did take a while, didn't it? Still haven't quite managed to get this wand working yet."
Ron stared at the object hovering next to his wand, as he looked toward the small crowd.
"By the way, is there anyone here willing to look after this?"
He noticed something Harry couldn't, and his smile somehow managed to increase.
"Ah, Misters Weasley. Would you two mind terribly holding on to this for me? Be careful, though, it's sharp and bad-tempered."
Harry swivelled to look. There, towards the edge of the crowd were Fred and George, who it seemed were handing out food and merchandising to everyone.
"What are you two doing here?" Hermione asked, as one of the twins carefully took the whatever-it-was from the Doctor.
"Oh," George said, trying to look offended. "We heard it from upstairs. And we've got to keep an eye on our chief bread-maker."
"Quite so," added Fred, handing out a shirt to another student. "Quite so. Our Doctor does earn us a tidy profit. Got to make sure he hasn't accidentally blown himself up."
"Oh," George added, handing Harry a small bag. "I believe these are your earnings, Mister Potter. Very lucky guess by the way."
Harry calmly took the bag of coins and shrugged. "Just happened to be right, I suppose."
Hermione gasped in horror, and stalked off. Ron meanwhile couldn't help staring at what the Doctor had been levitating.
"What is that, anyway?" he asked. He got his answer when it unfurled and hissed angrily at him.
"It happens to be Professor Umbridge," the Doctor mused, staring at what transpired to be an angry grey-ish kitten.
"But I'm not certain I got it right. It was supposed to be a toad."
3.4 (OracleMask)
As a seasoned time traveler, the Doctor knew better than to alter important past events to suit his whims unless the timeline really needed tampering with (as well as whenever he thought he could get away with it). But there was no harm with doing minor fixes, getting certain people to the airport on time, and so on.
Becoming a looper simply meant there were more events to choose from.
The Doctor, having Awoken just shy of his regeneration into Body No. Four, was once again aiming to drop Sarah Jane Smith off in Croydon instead of Aberdeen. Not being a looper meant Sarah couldn't properly appreciate the effort he went to but it helped to ease her resentment later on. And then there were the times the TARDIS decided to counter-meddle, making sure they arrived on Mars or Mexico or anywhere else that wasn't Aberdeen OR Croydon.
Once it had been Pompeii, at the same time that his Tenth self was there with Donna. It had been an interesting experience, though it also became immensely awkward when Sarah and Donna started gossiping.
This time, the Doctor landed square in Croydon. Sarah took her things and stormed out of the TARDIS without a backwards glance, letting the doors swing shut behind her. He had just turned back to the controls when there was a great banging at the door.
It opened to reveal a Sarah Jane who was somehow more incensed than she'd been five minutes ago.
"Alright, the joke's gone on long enough."
"Joke?"
Sarah waved behind her.
"This isn't Aberdeen," she said, "It's Croydon! Which means you've known all along about - about what's going on!"
His hearts gave a leap, and the Doctor did nothing to conceal the wild grin that appeared on his face.
"Yes, Sarah, I've known for quite some time that you live in Croyden and not Aberdeen."
"That's not funny - "
"But I hadn't known you were looping in time," the Doctor interrupted, "I was a bit concerned with making sure we didn't land in Ancient Italy again."
"Looping? ...Ancient Italy?"
"Although I recall that Pompeii was rather nice this time of year…"
3.5 (Masterweaver)
"PA-THET-IC LIFE FORMS! WE, THE DA-LEKS, WILL IM-PROVE YOUR STAN-DARD OF LIV-ING! WOR-SHIP OUR GEN-ER-OS-ITY AND BE GRATE-FUL WE DO NOT EX-TERM-IN-ATE YOUR SCUM FROM THE U-NI-VERSE!"
The Doctor blinked for a bit as his archenemies started building up shelters for the impoverished. Behind him, Clara hid a datapad and a smile.
3.6 (crossoverpairinglover, edited by OathToOblivion)
The Doctor, currently in his Time War incarnation (and considering he wasn't in it right now, it hopefully wasn't going to start up this time), couldn't even relax properly as he had a nice cup of coffee in the town he was visiting this loop.
For one thing, the town was sort of weird, even by his standards. He was sure some of his other incarnations would like it, but it was too...crazy looking for him.
Plus, it was named Death City. Death. City.
Who'd want to live in a place like that?
The Doctor had no idea who was looping here, and it really didn't matter. He just wanted a nice, quiet loop with no war, no murder and no pointless fighting.
One loop with a giant hand was more than enough for him…
"YAHOO HO HO!"
The Doctor barely jumped out of his chair in time as a small shape crashed from the sky and shattered his table, breaking his cup in the process.
The person who landed in front of him was a short human male, with blue hair that spiked in ways gravity should not allow, in a black muscle shirt that exposed a star shaped tattoo on his shoulder.
He sort of reminded him of Naruto, except more hyperactive, if that was even possible.
"I am Black Star!" he shouted in a way that even a Dalek would call 'dramatic'.
"...And your point?" the Doctor dryly asked. The boy pointed his fist at him, which began to glow sort of like that Danny Rand fellow from that loop with the Spider person.
"Fight me!"
"...Why the hell would I do that? I'm on vacation!" The Doctor complained. "I'd like to not be a warrior for a change, even if I cannot be a Doctor."
"You can call yourself whatever you want," Black Star smirked "The Juggler, The Painter or The Cook, I still want to fight. You cannot surpass the best if you do not climb the ladder of badasses, and I'm sure you fit in somewhere on that ladder."
The Doctor wasn't sure if he was glad the boy had no idea who he was, or not. But it looked like a fight was imminent...
"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"
A small army of Daleks suddenly warped into being around them, all armed for war. This caused the Doctor to feel a sense of relief that Daleks should really not bring him.
"You know, Daleks are said to be the ultimate life forms, the superior species and the murderers of all other life forms," the Doctor said nonchalantly. The boy looked up the Doctor in surprise, apparently thrown off by their somewhat 'dorky' appearances, and ignoring the fact they were charging their lasers. "I'm sure you'll gain more points on your climb to being the best by taking out a Dalek Army than simple old me." And with that, he apparated away.
"WE ARE THE DA-LEKS! WE EX-TER-MIN-ATE IN-FER-IOR BEINGS!"
"Inferior huh? Well, I guess you mustn't have heard of me" Black Star gave a wide grin as he charged at the nearest one with his still glowing fist. "I AM BLACK STAR! I WILL SURPASS THE GODS LOOPING AMONG US! I WILL DEFEAT YOU ALL!"
"IL-LOG-ICAL!"
"HELL IT IS, TIN CAN!"
BANG!
Dusting his hands off after a long fight, Black Star proceeded to apparate away from the mass of broken Daleks.
Another win for the man who would surpass everyone.
3.7 (Scorntex)
It had started when he first woke up in the new Loop. He'd started off incredibly late in his life, after his tenth regeneration. Things had gone as they usually tended to, Rose, Mickey, Cybermen, Sarah (who wasn't awake), Martha, the Master, Titanic, Wilfred, Donna, all the usual things.
Except there hadn't been any Daleks. At all. Not even a peep, or a glimpse. And that troubled him.
So when the Medusa Cascade incident finally came along, he was surprised when Daleks weren't the ones that abducted the Earth. He still got zapped and wasted a regeneration, though, but it wasn't That Dalek that got him.
It only got worse once they reached the Crucible. The demonstration of the Reality Bomb was still there, only this time it didn't kill those unfortunate souls. Oh no. Davros' replacement for this Loop wasn't anywhere near as kind as that.
That was why they'd kidnapped the twenty-seven planets, and abducted lifeforms from each one. They needed a control group for the weapon.
And now they had it working.
Beside him, there was a horrified noise from Rose as the screen closed.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" their captor grinned, horribly. It was worse than Davros. At least he was Davros. In any other time and place, he would have called the person talking now a friend. "The bomb forcibly alters a beings' morphogenic field, permanently altering their body, enslaving their mind."
She nodded towards the screen, casually, "That was just tested on the prisoners. Full transmission will alter every living being."
"The twenty-seven planets," the Doctor repeated, and this time the horror wasn't feigned, or subdued by confidence in Davros' failure. "They become one big transmitter."
"Across the entire universe..." the mad woman grinned. "...every species in its path will be altered. They will become like us, perfect. Harmonic. And that wavelength shall continue, breaking through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation!"
Twilight Sparkle, the monster behind the Conversion Bomb, was now shaking with manic excitement.
"THIS IS OUR VICTORY, DOCTOR! THE PONIFICATION! OF REALITY! ITSELF!
3.8 (crossoverpairinglover)
The Doctor didn't know exactly how he ended up in a line up surrounded by a green skinned female, a raccoon, and a large, sentient, mobile tree, but it was probably interesting.
As was likely the tale of why a human six was tattooed to the back of each of his hands.
"...Peter Jason Quill..." one of the guards began discussing someone while the technological restraints were flashing around him for a change.
Odd, that wasn't his name. Did he just happen to be borrowing it for a loop?
"He's also known as Time Lord."
"Who calls him that?" a second guard asked in befuddlement.
"Himself mostly, wanted mostly on charges of minor assault, public intoxication and theft of over 4 tons of Jelly Babies."
The Doctor sighed to himself. It was going to be one of those loops... though the Jelly Babies sounded good right about now.
"So, you're replacing Quill?" the Raccoon huffed as the Doctor eyed his fellow prisoner.
"It would appear so. So... we just stay in prison all loop?"
The Raccoon shook him off. "Nah, we have to bust out to keep an Infinity Stone from ending up with Thanos, which is bad."
"With a name like Thanos, I highly doubt it would be good," the Doctor snarked back to the Raccoon looper.
"Well, it might be a bit tricky. Bar you and me, the rest of the gang who appears in this part of this Variant aren't Awake, and we aren't exactly carrying many of our big hitters around this part of the loop like Warlock and Quasar/Martyr/Whatever she's calling herself at the moment, so we can't afford to not have any of them. Sure, Groot will do what I ask him to here rather simply, and this Gamora isn't much harder, but man you don't want to know the incidents Quill's had with an Unawake Drax."
"Oh, Drax?" the Doctor seemed interested in that one. "What's he like?"
"They call him Drax the Destroyer."
"...Oh." That name was somewhat ominous, and painful.
3.9 (Blazingen1, edited by OathToOblivion)
The TARDIS materialized yet again in a familiar museum, the grinding noise of the Time Rotor fading out. A curious 11th Doctor poked his head out of the doors, quickly leaving the TARDIS. Following him was a confused looking Amy Pond, still so young, as she looked into the Museum the Doctor had brought them to.
"You've got a time machine. What do you need museums for?" she questioned.
The Doctor, deciding to stick to the script, declared, "Wrong! Very wrong! Ooh! One of mine! Also one of mine."
"Oh, I see! It's how you keep score," Amy decided.
Once again, they stood before the home box of the category 4 starliner, the black and burnt machine with Gallifreyan words written on them. Something that intrigued the Doctor was that the words on it often differed from baseline, even when there was no reason for River to do so.
"There were days, there were many days that these words could burn stars and raise up empires and topple Gods," the Doctor said, continuing his baseline spiel.
"What does it say?" Amy asked in impatience.
The Doctor took a good look, only to blink at the latest weirdness to cross his paths in the Loops. "Place Ads Here?" he asked in confusion.
3.10 (Scorntex)
It was a lovely beautiful day, the beginning of a new Loop, fresh with promise of excitement, a world holding its breath in anticipation.
"DOOOCCCCCCTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Or perhaps the breath was actually that of a seriously aggrieved woman from Chiswick suddenly finding themselves Awake for the first time.
"Donna!" The Doctor exclaimed cheerfully, and perhaps a bit too loudly, given he'd been only a few feet away from his friend when she'd yelled.
The cheerfulness of seeing his friend again stopped dead when he saw the Look heading in his direction. And he felt the capital letter was needed, because it was the sort of gaze that caused some peoples heads to explode.
Donna was angry.
"WHERE AM I?" she bellowed. "HOW DID WE GET HERE?"
Donna paused, blinked and stared down at herself, then at the Doctor.
"AND WHY ARE WE FLIPPING PONIES?!"
Donna, in this case, happened to be an Earth pony, her mane and tail their usual bright red, and her coat a shade of brown not too far removed from the brown the Doctor happened to be sporting. And as a Cutie Mark she appeared to have a typewriter.
She blinked, then stared at him again. "Last I remember..."
Her eyes narrowed, and she glowered at him again. "Did you wipe my memories?" she hissed.
The Doctor paused for a moment, as he felt the sudden desire to be very far away. Very, very far away. Perhaps a few light years away. He wasn't sure it would actually save him exactly, but he'd at least have time to think.
Unfortunately, his mouth hadn't paused, meaning while he'd been pondering exactly what to do, his mouth had helpfully supplied Donna with "um."
"Did. You. Wipe. My. Memories?" Donna repeated, slowly this time.
The Doctor paused, scratching the back of his head with a hoof. "Er..."
Donna gave the Doctor a glare that should've, by all rights, incinerated him twice over.
"Right," she said. "I'm gonna KNOCK YOUR HEAD OFF!"
At this point Donna started advancing towards him. The only thing that saved the Doctor was that Donna wasn't used to the idea of hooves, and promptly fell over. Suddenly all thoughts of running were abandoned, and the Doctor moved over toward Donna, cautiously.
She didn't look angry now. She just looked embarrassed, and scared, and hearts-breaking-ly hurt.
"I haven't gone insane, have I?" she asked quietly. "This isn't something Time-Lordy you're doing while my brain melts, is it?"
"No," the Doctor said quietly, as he sat down next to her. "It's... it's tricky to explain."
"Try me," Donna muttered.
"Well, essentially there's this tree, called Yggdrasil..."
He explained, slowly and carefully as he could manage. After it was done, Donna just paused thoughtfully.
"But why am I Looping?" she eventually asked. Caught flat-footed by that, he didn't respond.
"I mean, why isn't Rose Looping, or Martha, or Jenny? Or all those others who travelled with you? Why am I ahead of them? I mean-" she scoffed slightly, "I'm just useless."
"No," the Doctor said, firmly, "no, you aren't."
"Yeah, I am," Donna frowned. "Can't even get being important right. Just messed it all up and failed."
"That's your mother talking. And..." he paused, staring at the sky above them. "If I were to use my not inconsiderable wisdom for a moment, it's because you're brilliant."
"'m not."
"Yeah," he said instantly. "you are. You're one of the most brilliant people I've ever met."
"Don'cha mean "pony"?" Donna asked, a very small grin appearing on her face.
"Oh," the Doctor sighed. "that's... detail, not important. But you are."
"Okay," Donna nodded. "If you don't wanna really tell me, fine. But why did you wipe my memories?"
The Doctor bit his lip. "Donna..." he started.
"C'mon," she said, staring straight through him as she did. "Just tell me, why didn't you do something about that?"
"There wasn't another way." He took a deep breath before continuing. "And I did try, in the Loops. I've tried every means I know, even a few I didn't, to try and find a way to stop that. Nothing ever works. Nothing."
Donna looked around at the sight of Ponyville, in all its brightly-coloured glory, before staring at the Doctor again. "Then how come I'm not dying right now?"
The Doctor stared at Donna. He blinked. With great care he brought his screwdriver out of his subspace pocket and scanned her. He stared at the screwdriver and hit it against the ground. He scanned Donna again. He stared at the screwdriver again. He brought out a spare screwdriver and scanned her with that. The same result.
"Hmm," said he.
"What?" Donna asked.
"Well..." he stretched out, "apparently you're a perfectly healthy pony."
"No brain-melting, then?" Donna asked.
"None, apparently."
"No need to get emotional for me, spaceman."
"I wasn't," he started, before smiling again. After a few seconds Donna smiled back.
"So, if we're in a Loop with ponies," Donna started, "are we safe?"
"That..." he paused. "That depends."
"Depends on what?"
"On who's Awake," he grinned.
"S' what's this place like, then?" she asked.
"Nice. Mostly harmless. Locals can be a bit weird, but they are really very nice ponies."
Donna hummed slightly, before frowning. "Do they have beaches?"
"They..." the Doctor paused. "I think they must have. I could ask."
"Alright," Donna smiled. "Let's ask the ponies if there are beaches."
"You sure you don't want to see what this place is like?" he asked, temptingly.
Donna gave this lengthy consideration. "I wanna relax first, after not having my brains melting."
"You know," the Doctor sighed, "Your brains weren't really going to... forget it. Beaches?"
"Beaches," Donna said firmly. "And if they've got cocktails, that's even better."
"Alright then," he grinned, "Welcome to the Loops, Donna Noble. Allons-y!"
3.11 (OathToOblivion)
Clara Awoke rather jarringly all things considered. 'Okay, where am I?' she wondered. She tried moving, but couldn't move. She tried blinking, couldn't do that either. Couldn't feel much of anything either. 'Just what is going-?' That was when the Loop Memories set in, much to her shock. At the same time, the memories of one of her many echoes across the Doctor's lifetime came to the forefront.
"I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks and I am human. Remember me."
"...BLI-MEY."
Elsewhere in time and space, a certain Type-40 TARDIS zoomed through the Time Vortex on its way to where its Thief needed to go next.
"Well! Business at the Ood Sphere taken care of ahead of schedule; Martha won't be calling for a while; where do you want to go next?" the Doctor asked of Donna while the two of them operated the console in tandem. While it was a bit hard to access at times, Donna could still call upon all of the memories the Doctor had at the time of the Meta-Crisis. Obviously, this gave her some skills in TARDIS Operation, among others.
"What, you're giving me a choice for once, Spaceman?" Donna asked in an amused tone.
The Doctor shrugged. "Truth be told, I want to shake things up a bit. Break the monotony," he admitted.
Donna snorted at this. "What, like the time you wore that sombrero everywhere?" she mocked.
"Oi! Sombreros are cool!" the Doctor cried indignantly, before facepalming at what he said. "Oh great. Chinny's surfacing ahead of schedule," he muttered.
"Chinny... the you with the bowtie I haven't met yet?" Donna asked in clarification. At his nod, she forged on. "Why do you never come visit whenever you're like that anyway?" she questioned.
"Oh, well, Chinny's my last regeneration in this cycle, meaning the Loop ends with him. And then I'm usually too busy making sure the Ponds, River, and Clara are alright, not to mention dealing with the "Great" Intelligence as well as a lot of other things that really end up eating away my time. Anyway, I-" The Doctor was interrupted, when the phone on the console started ringing.
Donna stared at it in confusion. "I thought you said Martha wasn't going to call for a while?" she asked.
"She won't," the Doctor replied. "And I mean, not only that, but Martha doesn't even have the TARDIS number; I've got her mobile," he continued, waving the mobile phone around in his hand.
"So who's calling?" Donna wondered.
"I guess we're going to find out," the Doctor said, picking up the phone. "Hello?" he asked.
"Doctor? Is that you?" a very familiar voice rang out.
"Clara? You're certainly calling pretty early. I haven't even become Chinny yet," the Doctor said in surprise.
"Yeah, it's me. Well, to be more accurate, my name this Loop is Oswin..." Clara trailed off on the other end.
"Oswin? But isn't that...ooh, that's not good," the Doctor winced, realizing what had happened.
"Yeah, tell me about it. Can I get a pickup?" Clara asked.
"Right. Don't worry, Clara, we'll be right over!" the Doctor said before hanging up.
"What was that about?" Donna couldn't help but ask.
"One of my other Companions is Awake and in a precarious position right now. I need to go rescue her; it'll just be a simple go in, pick her up, get out. Simple, really," the Doctor said, zooming around the console.
"Since when does anything you do involve 'simple'?" Donna pointed out. The Doctor ignored her, and set the destination.
"Alright! Next stop, the Dalek Asylum!" he declared.
"Wait, Dalek what?!"
3.1 Doctor Who was the hardest time travel-based Loop to get started. But once that was done, places like Chrono Trigger were going to be easy.
3.2 Both of them are the Doctor, after all.
3.3 Stymieing Umbridge has become a favourite past time for Loopers in a Hogwarts Loop.
3.4 Sarah Jane Smith, known to many as the quintessential companion, has come to the Loops.
3.5 Clara became a genius-level hacker in the baseline. With the Loops...?
3.6 The War Doctor has a reputation he'd rather not have anymore.
3.7 Bureau Loops are considered among the worst of the Pony variants.
3.8 Well, he is a Guardian of the Universe at home. A galaxy shouldn't be too much harder.
3.9 It's the little things that change sometimes.
3.10 Donna Awakens. The reason she's not dying is because Yggdrasil is now managing her memories, so her brain doesn't have to.
3.11 Clara can Awaken as any of her time-displaced selves. So the Doctor gets a Dalek companion this time around.