4.1
Clara was mildly confused when she Awoke to meet an Unawake Eleventh Doctor. She didn't get a ping from anyone, so it could have been one of those "Stealth Anchor" things the Doctor had talked about, but she wasn't sure on that.
"Doctor?"
"Yes, Clara?" he said, fiddling with something.
"How can you not be Awake?"
"What are you talking about? If I wasn't awake I couldn't be talking to you. Well, I suppose I could, but I'm pretty sure I'm not prone to sleep-talking. Or sleep-walking. Or sleep- Ow!" The bit of machinery the Doctor was working on sparked and he shook his hand. "Sleep-fixing!"
"No, that's not what I meant. You're the one who explained all this to me in the first place, you know. Okay, the Multiverse is broken and time is repeating-"
"Oh, the time-thing. Yes, the Time Lords have known about that for eons. Nothing to worry about. Though, the White Guardian is a little miffed, he told me ages ago that the Black Guardian was acting out because things kept being the same all the time."
"Sorry, what guardians?"
"Oh, just the Six-Fold Guardian of Time. Nothing to worry about."
"Anyways, not the point. You are the Anchor for our universe, which means that you are always Awake. And by 'Awake,' I mean able to remember other Time Loops."
"I guess that is a mystery. Bit hard to solve, though, considering I'd be both investigator and investigated."
"It could be that an Anchor from another Loop is here. That can happen sometimes. If they are, I'm sure we'll run into them sometime." Clara shrugged. "Let's just keep going. There's plenty to do, yeah?"
The time had come. Clara had been both anticipating and dreading this day. The Doctor on Trenzalore and his regeneration.
"I will always remember... When the Doctor was me." Eleven dropped his bow-tie, and with a flash Twelve took his place. "Gah! Kidneys! Still can't stand their colour!"
"Doctor?"
"Ah, Clara. I hope you've figured out how to fly the TARDIS by now, 'cause I don't think I can do it right now!"
"Wait, Doctor, you're Awake?!"
"Keep up, Clara, I'm always Awake, you know that!"
4.2
"Well, this is when we normally part ways, Doctor. I guess I'll be seeing you a few faces down the road." Sarah Jane stood in the TARDIS console room, bag packed for home.
"Actually, Sarah, I had a bit of a poor experience last Loop," said the Doctor, fidgeting with his scarf. "You see, I decided to do something strange for me and actually be Lord President of Gallifrey after I won the election." The Doctor shivered. "So many plots to keep track of, all that corruption and politics. Honestly, I could do with staying with you on our journey for quite a while longer." After a moment, the Doctor grinned his toothy grin. "I wonder what the Master will do if I don't show up for his plan?"
Sarah Jane smiled back and set her bag aside. "I have been wondering lately what you get up to between now and your next face."
The Doctor gave Sarah Jane a hug and moved over to the console. "Well, then, let's see how you get on with Leela of the Sevateem, eh?"
4.3 (Scorntex)
Webley's World of Wonders, proclaimed as one of the biggest human-build amusement parks throughout all of history, was quiet. There were people there, to the tune of several dozen nervous soldiers, one reluctant ruler, and a time-looping time-traveller who was occasionally checking her watch. But they were all keeping amazingly quiet.
The quiet may have had something to do with the Cyberman that had shown up, kidnapped a human girl, and vanished into the woodwork again. But also, they were in a giant abandoned amusement park in the middle of the night. On the plus hand, the soldiers had discovered why the place had a reputation for people disappearing.
It had been about thirty minutes since the Cyberman had made off with Angie and Artie Maitland, and the Doctor had promised to go find them. No one had seen him, or a hint of a Cyberman since.
And Clara Oswald was getting concerned. The first time she'd been through this nightmare, the Doctor had been possessed or taken over by an incredibly bizarre cyber... thing, one that apparently hadn't even been programmed with an indoor voice. And this time he'd assured her he had a means of "dealing with" the Cyber-Planner.
Like every other time the Doctor had asked her to trust him, this made her feel increasingly uneasy. The Doctor and well-formulated plans, as she had learnt from experience, weren't on speaking terms. And this was even after the however-many Loops he'd been through before her.
So she sat, checking her watch, outside Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle, worrying about Artie and Angie.
Well, she was worried about Artie. She was certain about that.
Then she heard the sound of a soldier yelling something. That caught her attention. That was probably the Doctor, meaning he was alive. Quickly, but not so quickly as to leave Porridge behind, she made her way to the drawbridge where the Doctor probably was.
That was when things went differently. He was yelling frantically to the soldiers. Angie and Artie were running, not towards the castle, but in the direction of the TARDIS.
And he wasn't covered in Cyber-things, or carrying a chessboard. That probably explained the frantic shouting.
What it didn't explain was what was in the small bags he, Angie and Artie all appeared to be carrying.
"Doctor," she asked tentatively, noticing the sheer amount of panic on his face, and the fact that he was almost out of breath, "what did you do?"
"No time!" he stated, before turning back to the soldiers. "C'moooooon! Everyone off the planet!"
"What's going on?" she heard Porridge, or Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Longstaff the 41st to his mates, ask.
The Doctor turned to him. "Still no time."
The soldiers, each looking increasingly bewildered, stared.
"Everyone, get to the Spacey-Zoomer," he hurriedly listed. "Box. Big blue box. Get inside big blue box. Don't ask questions, just go."
The soldiers stared blankly for a moment. Clara as well, before memory kicked in and reminded her she was technically in charge (well, unless Porridge felt like blowing his cover early).
"Right, you heard him. Everyone get to the Spacey Zoomer," she repeated. Instantly, the increasingly confused soldiers listened.
Clara stared at the Doctor, who'd turned around to glance at something behind him. "Don't suppose you could tell me what you did?"
He turned back to her, looking nervous and guilty. "I... might have been a bit too clever by half, this time."
One of her eyebrows raised. "This time?" she asked incredulously.
"Clara," he gulped. "We have minutes, at most, before they finish and come after us. If we can get to the TARDIS, we'll be safe."
And with that, he started running again. Clara followed after. Just before they reached the building the Zoomer was kept in, Clara felt something in her boots. She stopped, and turned, trying to figure out what it was. It felt like the whole planet was shaking.
The Doctor, having apparently noticed, turned around and grabbed her.
Once they were inside the TARDIS, the Doctor shut the doors, before nudging his way through several baffled soldiers.
"Yes, bigger on the inside," he said hurriedly. "Excuse me. Clara! If you can get past the soldiers, I need some help."
A few seconds later, and they'd managed to get the TARDIS launched. The soldiers quickly filed out of the way, trying not to look at anything.
"Sorry," Porridge spoke up a few seconds later. "But what did we just run from?"
The Doctor stared blankly at Porridge, and shifted uncomfortably for a moment, before staring back at the observation screen.
"Okay," he murmured to himself. "Basic abandoned planet, so assuming they take everything they can get their hands on..."
He hemmed and hawed. Meanwhile, Clara stared at the bags Artie and Angie had death-grips on.
"Artie," she said, as gently as possible. "I don't suppose I could see what's in that bag, could I?"
Slowly, he handed the plastic bag over to her. Cautiously, she opened it, and looked inside. Instantly, her head whipped up and turned to look at the Doctor. Whatever he was staring at, it was with wide-eyes.
"Doctor! Why is there what appears to be cake in this bag?"
He stared, then motioned for her to look at something. She made her way over to the screen. Time and experience with the Doctor, and the Loops, had taught her to be ready for anything that it could have possibly been, and even a few things that it couldn't.
What she hadn't been expecting was for a large pink blob to be present on the surface of Webley's World.
The Doctor was grinning nervously. "Oops?" he tried.
"Oops?" she repeated. She turned back to stare at the screen, then back to the Doctor. "What did you do?!"
Some time ago...
The Doctor screamed. He had been planning on doing something amazingly brilliant and clever to counteract the Cyber Mites this time. It hadn't worked, meaning once again he had the Cyber-Planner crawling, that cold and vast insanity, crawling through his brain.
"Relax, just relax," the voice, his voice, only devoid of warmth and feeling, soothed. "You are being incorporated and upgraded into the Cyberiad. If you just relax, you'd find this a perfectly pleasant experience."
He ignored it, and focused on locking away any memories the Cyber-Planner could really use. It guffawed to itself as it found the memories of the Time War, and the Time Lords. It paused briefly as it found that despite him having knowledge of the Cyber-species, they had no knowledge of him.
He also, and with the greatest care and discretion, tried to hide the fact that he was hiding a secret weapon from Mister Clever Program. A secret anti-viral program he'd acquired a long while back, on the recommendation that sooner or later it'd come in handy.
That hadn't exactly been the way the pony who'd given it to him had put it, but it was the essential gist.
Mister Clever had noticed.
"Oh, dear," he sneered, apparently trying on one of the Doctor's previous voices and failing. "I hope you weren't planning on using that program. The Cyberiad boasts truly fantastic anti-viral software. Your little virus, it won't do a thing to me."
The Doctor had just silently glowered at his foe across their mental landscape. Mister Clever paused at that.
"Oh? Did someone think he had the upper hand? A cheat he could bring in at the last moment?"
"I wouldn't open it," the Doctor thought. Mister Clever paused. The vast data-network of the Cyberiad paused. Tentatively, they gave the object the most passive scans they could, just to be certain.
These scans took only a fraction of a second. It took two seconds longer for Mister Clever's frown to vanish.
"The hell?" he uttered. "What's in this program? This is your secret weapon? Utter GIBBERISH?! If I weren't a program, I'd feel downright insulted. Actually, I think I'm going to be insulted anyway."
The Doctor shrugged, "Go right ahead."
Mister Clever stared blankly. Behind him, in the vast glowing branches representing the billions upon billions of active Cyber-minds, one light went out.
"Did you feel that?" Mister Clever asked.
"Feel what?" the Doctor asked, innocently, as another light went out.
He wasn't entirely certain what the program he'd been given did. Apparently no-one it was ever tested on was able to give the same answer, and that only applied to anything that still had its sanity after even looking at the program.
"Oh," Mister Clever gasped. "You already set it loose. That's..."
The image of Mister Clever began to distort. "That's NOT FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIII-*"
The Doctor suddenly found himself coming back to blissful, Cyber-Planner free consciousness, as the mites dropped to the floor. A quick check revealed Artie and Angie were fine as well. A quicker check revealed what was left of Webley was out for the count.
Then he noticed the lights were flickering.
"Uh-oh," he muttered.
The lights blinked out, and there was the feeling of something hissing and whirring. The lights came on again, and he noticed he, Angie and Artie all appeared to have paper hats on their heads.
"Please stand by," a not-so cold, not so mechanical voice whirred. "Party procedural protocols unable to be implemented at present. Have a nice day."
"Did that-?" Artie started, pointing a finger at the Cyberman, which appeared to have cocked its head slightly.
The Doctor, weighing the options, and considering the Cyberman appeared to somehow be putting up banners and balloons, decided on the only sensible option.
The Cyberiad consisted of untold billions upon billions minds, each active and ever increasing in knowledge as new beings were incorporated into their galaxy-spanning network. If it were possible to describe, the nearest equivalent would be trillions of stars, blazing with a cold, indifferent light.
However, something was happening. Star after star was blinking out, picosecond after picosecond. Something was tearing its way through the network at a spend unseen throughout the Cybermen's long history.
Firewalls were erected, quarantines put in place. No good. The program found its way past or through everything in its path.
And then, the Cyberiad noticed something strange. The fallen and corrupted sections blazed to life again, new programming rewriting everything that it held pure and sensible.
This new thing was no longer dedicated to improving the stain of life wherever it was found. Instead, it had decided that life was to be celebrated.
With parties. Endless parties.
Clara stared at the Doctor for a moment, then to the blob of pink on the planet's surface.
"So... the Cybermen are now... what, exactly?" she asked.
"Bright pink?" the Doctor shrugged helplessly. Clara tried to show just how unhelpful she found that answer without resorting to the use of her hands.
She failed.
"Excuse me," Porridge coughed. "But did you actually reprogram the Cybermen? That's impossible."
"Yeah," the Doctor nodded. "I know."
"But they won't try and upgrade anyone anymore?" Porridge asked, cautiously.
"Oh, no, not any more. But..."
"But?"
"They will probably try and build a spaceship first chance they get, and spread across the universe." The Doctor shifted. "And throw you a few dozen "we're sorry for upgrading you" parties first. Might want to warn the Empire about that."
Porridge suddenly looked startled, followed quickly by resignation. "You knew I was the Emperor?" he asked quietly.
"Sorry," Clara said.
"You know," the Doctor said casually. "This old girl can go anywhere in time and space. I could drop you off somewhere quiet."
Porridge looked intrigued for a moment. "But what about them?" he asked, pointed to the soldiers.
"Drop them off somewhere as well," the Doctor shrugged.
"Somewhere in our own time will do," Porridge said.
"Your choice," the Doctor said, before casually flicking a switch.
Angie Maitland, feeling put out by being ignored, just sniffed. "I knew Porridge was the emperor already."
"Yes," the Doctor said. "You're very smart. Now hush up."
4.4 (Detective Ethan Redfield)
The steady thrum of the Sonic Screwdriver echoed through the workshop. The building had countless consoles and futuristic computer chips shaped like stones in every nook and cranny. Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart stepped through the doorway. His eyes gazed around, noting the parts scattered everywhere, and proceeded further inside. Ever since the Doctor requested a larger warehouse, he was curious what the Doctor had been doing with it. And now, he would find out.
At the center of the warehouse, something resembling what he could only describe as a spaceship of unknown origin. He strode around the vessel, much larger than the TARDIS and looked like it could fit a small squad of his soldiers within comfortably. A ramp opened from the rear as the Third Doctor, who rubbed his hands together on a rag as if he was removing grease from his fingers even though nothing was visible on his hands. His head turned to the soldier and gave a small smile, "Ah, Brigadier, come to check and see what I'm working on?"
The Brigadier showed no visible reaction, instead staying somewhat stoic. "You requested this new warehouse last time we spoke. I was curious to see what new project you came up with. What is all this?"
The Doctor looked between him and the ship. "My efforts to recreate the TARDIS from scratch hit a dead end. So, I acquired a vessel from a well respected trader recently. I am currently modifying it to recreate my TARDIS. There are...unfortunately, some limitations in my design. For example, the time circuits are nontransferable so I won't be able to travel through time in it. However, I feel my TARDIS' ability to instantly travel across space is feasible."
The Brigadier paced towards the craft and laid his hand upon the ship, rubbing his fingers across the hull. "Astounding. And this supplier, would he be willing to deal with UNIT by chance? We may one day need spacecraft to deal with, say, the Daleks should they decide to invade in force and exterminate humanity."
The Doctor shook his head and patted the Brigadier on the shoulder, lying through his teeth. Not that the Brigadier could tell. "I'm afraid not. He only comes by this sector once every 50 years and I was only so lucky to know when he would be in the area."
The Brigadier shook his head. "Unfortunate. What is the original name of the craft?"
"I believe it was once called the Delta Flyer."
The Brigadier nodded, feeling that indeed this vessel was aptly named, though he knew not why.
4.5 (crossoverpairinglover)
"NO IN-FER-IOR BEINGS ESCAPE THE DA-LEKS!"
Two beings back to back in Green Lantern green, a brown haired hero and a traveling observer in a bow tie so horrible it could cause an interplanetary dispute that not even the powerful Green Lantern Ring could hide, were surrounded by a red and black painted army of Daleks in space.
"Dalek Manhunters. Of all the things this loop could give me, it was freaking Dalek Manhunters!" Hal Jordan, ring slinging hero of the Green Lantern Corps complained while he and the Doctor had to dodge a good hundred green energy blasts from the levitating horrors.
"I take it they are troublesome?" the Doctor inquired of these 'Manhunters' as he used his ring to form a department store planet's worth of Sonic Screwdrivers to skewer each and every Dalek in sight.
"Annoying, yes. Troublesome, depends on the loop," Hal quipped as he responded with a sports league worth of baseball bat constructs to knock them away. "I highly doubt they are actually too dangerous to us, but I happen to want to keep Kilowog's planet in existence if possible for once so let's end the..."
"END THE DA-LEKS!? NO IN-FER-IOR BEING ENDS THE DA-LEKS! NOT WHEN THE DA-LEKS CAN PER-FORM FUSION INTO THE ULT-IMATE FORM!"
"Fusion..."
"Ultimate form..." Lantern and Doctor alike trailed off in horror as each and every Dalek Manhunter turned into red energy and merged into a singular glowing orb of energy, that quickly began to take shape into something much larger.
Into a shape that sent shivers down Hal's spine and gave the Doctor a sense of dread he rarely ever felt in baseline.
As a red and black painted fusion of Dalek and Ultimate Threat loomed over them, both Loopers floated back a good few yards.
"NO IN-FER-IOR ENTITIES ESCAPE THE DA-LEK MONITOR! THIS PLA-NET SHALL CEASE TO CON-TINUE EXIST-ENCE!"
"Oh crap," Hal muttered. "Not even Bruce probably has a plan for this, and I've got nothing."
"No, he probably does." The Doctor just had that gut feeling in him, currently at war with a feeling of absolute terror.
4.6 (Detective Ethan Redfield)
The sounds of angry mutterings about every which thing regarding humanity and their televisions and IDs could be heard even as Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart entered the Doctor's workshop. He looked to Jo Grant and asked, "What's he on about this time?"
Jo looked to the Doctor. "I think someone stole Bessie."
She picked up a small piece of paper on the TARDIS' console and handed it to the Brigadier. The Brigadier blinked as he read the one word on the card and asked, "Geronimo? What does that even mean?"
The Doctor looked up, clearly incensed. "It means, Brigadier, that one of my future selves has taken Bessie for a joyride around the universe! The only one who could steal Bessie with the anti-theft force field in place. And when I find him, I will give him a firm piece of my mind!"
4.7 (Scorntex)
It had started, as with so many bad ideas, with a casual suggestion over lunch. Plans had been drawn, and devised. A fusion of whatever tech they could find, mixed with what the Doctor half remembered from his time at the Time Lord Academy.
For their first test, they had found an elderly star, in an otherwise empty and dead solar system. Partially so that their work could go unimpeded, but also so that no neighbours would complain if something went wrong.
After months of painstaking research, the machine designed to prevent stars from dying was activated. A mighty pulse of energy was blasted into the core of the star.
And it worked. All too well in fact. Slowly, the dying star changed, and shifted. Massive hooves formed and cooled, at the end of legs that could stride across worlds, attached to a body which dwarfed any other in existence.
The first Star Pony blinked, with amazingly bright blue eyes. Its mouth moved, reveal teeth the size of dwarf planets. And then, with a twitch of its cosmic nebula of a tail, it rushed away into the infinite, faster than a speeding photon, leaving behind only the greatest afterimage in existence.
The Doctor gaped silently for a moment, before turning to look at Twilight, who was in turn looking at Pinkie, who had stars in her eyes.
"Aww," Pinkie grinned. "It takes after me."
With glacial speed, Twilight turned to look at the Doctor. Her face was unnaturally pale.
"Blame Trixie?" she barely managed to say. The Doctor, for his part, could only nod.
"Blame Trixie."
4.8 (Blazingen1, edited by OathToOblivion)
Well, here they were again, in front of the Category 4 Starliner's homebox. The Doctor couldn't help but wonder what would be different this time.
"There were days, there were many days that these words could burn stars and raise up empires and topple Gods," he said, almost on autopilot.
"What does it say?" Amy wondered.
The Doctor blinked as he read the Gallifreyan words. "'Do you like parties?' Oh, Pinkie, never change," he fondly said.
4.3 cont. (Scorntex)
The Siege of Trenzalore, the war of the one man against the armies from all of time. The Doctor's final fight of his final life, against his most bitter foes.
But this time, there was a difference. The Doctor did not fight this fight alone.
A fleet of Draconian warships had been knocked out of the sky by the appeared of the hyper-dreadnought as it appeared over Trenzalore, defying all the laws of physics just by showing up. Several of the "hanger-on" combatants had fled, fearing the new arrival.
When the great histories of the Church of the Papal Mainframe were kept in the Delirium Archive, along with all other records of their existence, many tour-guides lamented dearly that the archivists of the siege had recorded the only thing Her Holiness Tasha Lem had uttered on seeing the Cyber-naught appear in high orbit.
And it was thus: "Oh, bugger."
And why not? For centuries, legends had spread across the universe of the horrific Cybermen, those survivors of a dead world who had spread amongst the stars, making all who fell under their shadow cyber-kind. Until the day they stopped.
The day, long after the Cyber-Wars had ended with so many, many lives wiped out, when the Cybermen apparently changed their minds, en masse. The day, they say, the man known only as The Doctor, created something... different.
It was whispered, in the dark parts of the night, when parents sought to scare their children that they would tell of what came after the Cybermen. Gone was the desire for unity, and uniformity, life without life. Gone were the cold steels and the harsh buzz.
Replaced by the desire that none went without... fun. Replaced by bright colours and loud noises, and the occasional squeak of a balloon.
The army of the twelve-billion party-makers, they said, had spread across the stars trying to make sure that everyone had a "good time".
And only the bravest, the boldest of beings would ever dare claim they didn't enjoy those parties. For it was said, in shadowy underrealms that Man Knew Not Of, that if the Cyber-ponies heard those words, they would descend on a world like the hoof of an angry god.
Which was naturally, according to the pre-eminent historians of their day, a load of utter bollocks.
Down on the surface below, the Doctor had no knowledge of what was about to happen. A group of Drahvins had actually made it past the church's sensors, and rather than admire the lovely houses or the trees, or the snow, instead decided to shoot everything.
"That's an army for you," a part of him spoke up. He ignored it. He disabled their weapons with a simple bit of sonic trickery, waiting for them to get in range of his incredibly fiendish and well-prepared trap.
It never happened, as his screwdriver alerted him to the flash of a teleport flare. And an odd bouncing noise. And then a sight he'd never expected to see occurred.
A bright-pink metal pony was hopping merrily along the snow. A very familiar bright pink metal pony.
The panicked flight from Webleys. That bright horde of pink, swarming over the surface of the planet. And there he'd been, happily having shut that one out of his memories for so long, and now this had come along and ruined it.
The pony paused, its bright blue eyes (or were they photoreceptors?) staring at the Drahvins, who quickly responded to its appeared by shooting at it.
To the Doctor's not-exactly total surprise, it did nothing. The metal pony, on the other hand, just stared at them.
"Hostility detected," it chirruped. "Deploying Party Cannon."
Previously unseen seams running along the pony's body split, and hissed, and folded. Its shape altered from a pony as it converted into... a cannon?
Quickly remembering himself, the Doctor tried to set off one of his traps. It didn't work.
Instead of the normal effects of a cannon being fired, like a bright flash and screaming, there was a mild squeak, and a rustling noise. Without looking, the Doctor could tell there was a party hat on his head. He looked over towards the Drahvins, who were unconscious and covered in streamers.
"Hi." He turned to look into the bright pink eyes of the Cyber-pony (He wasn't calling it that, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his immediate predecessor groaned inside his head).
"Hello?" he tried. "I'm going to assume you're not actually Pinkie Pie?"
Amazingly, the Cyber-pony scoffed. "No, silly. I'm just a Cyber-pony, advanced scout."
"But..." he paused, as a vital detail of Trenzalore's defences came back to him. "There's no technology allowed on this planet! You can't be here!"
Later on, he was going to regard that one as a pretty poor defence all-round. Somehow, the Cyber-pony shrugged.
"Magic?" it suggested, before it began smiling. "It's really nice to see you again, by the way."
"Again?" he asked weakly. It nodded.
"Yuh-huh. If it weren't for you, we'd all still be all "grrr! You'll become like us! No cake for anyone!" And that'd be so sad, and not funny, and then we heard you were holding off a siege here, so we thought we'd come and help you out."
The Doctor hadn't really been listening. He'd been too busy thinking about how much the Cyber-pony sounded like Pinkie. They'd even got her voice right. Which was why that last statement took him by surprise.
"Help... out?" he repeated, slowly. He didn't think the answer would do him any good though.
"ATTENTION, TRENZALORE!" a voice boomed from on-high, before there was an odd series of muffled sounds. "Oops. Sorry. Got the dials mixed up. Anyway! Hi. This is the Cyber-Dreadnaught No. Oh-who-cares-about-numbers! We heard about this siege, and we thought instead of being so sad about it, we'd help cheer you up from the constant threat of annihilation by throwing you... a PARTY! Just hold still while we activate the orbital-range party cannons."
And with a squawk, the voice vanished. The Doctor just stared ahead blankly for some time. "I think I need to go sit down for a few days," he said to noone in particular.
There was a mildly mechanical whimper from the Pi-... the Cyber-pony. "But you'll miss the party!" it said plaintively.
The Doctor stared his best Old-Crotchety-Man Stare at the robo-pony, but it didn't appear to have any effect whatsoever. "Good!" he announced, turning in the direction of the church he usually got a few minute's rest a day in.
"Wake me up if an actual serious threat attacks," he declared. "And not just for some huffy Draconians! An actual threat!"
4.9 (crossoverpairinglover)
The Doctor really wanted a peaceful loop for a change.
He didn't want a Time War.
He didn't want assassins with NPD and ADHD trying to kill him.
He just wanted some peace, and quiet-.
THE DOCTOR IS IN!
Huge blaring letters formed in the air above him, causing the wanderer to glare at them.
"What the-?" he complained, before he found himself surrounded by a giant ape with a necktie, a giant penguin with a hammer and a short boxer with green gloves.
FIGHT!
"Wait, what's going on-?" the Doctor tried to ask, before the penguin smashed him in the torso with his giant hammer and sent him flying off screen.
4.10 (Valentine Meiken)
Harold Saxon, also known as The Master, looked at the opposing politician, a old man that he didn't recognise. The old man was wearing a vaguely ratty coat and a scarf.
"People of England, that man promises big, but can he stand up to those promises?" The man announced. "He kisses babies and gets celebrity endorsements. Me..."
The man paused, before taking out what looked suspiciously like a sonic screwdriver with a red tip. He twisted it, causing several thousand Toclafane to appear, dropping from the sky as they were clearly dead. "Next alien invasion, and oh, we've had plenty... Do you want some man in a nice suit, or someone who can stop an invasion before it even starts?"
The Master was furious as the strange old man won by a landslide, simply because he'd used the recent exploits of his nemesis to drum up support for himself as the Prime Minister of England. When he approached that strange man, he looked at him with a glare.
"How did you know they were there?" the Master growled.
"I didn't. I relied on how big your ego is, Master," the man stated. "And yes, I am Who you think I am..."
The War Doctor walked off, whistling to himself as he saw the Master storm off, having realized that his big plan with the last of humanity turned into his own personal army had failed before it had even began. He'd not even taken a year to do it.
4.11
"Excuse me, Mr. Uzumaki."
Naruto turned to look. There was almost no one in the Loops who addressed him like that. "Yeah?"
The man stepped out from the shadows behind Naruto and held out a black gloved hand. "My name is Masuta, and I've been wondering something," he asked.
"What's that?" replied Naruto, shaking the proffered hand.
"Why were you and the other Original Seven the first to Loop?"
"I actually asked Inari about that once, way back when. It had something to do with balancing things. If we count Keiichi's place as one of us, even though they're not Looping, then they're balanced by Nerima: Wishes vs Curses, Brains vs Brawn, that kind of thing."
"So what about the rest of you?" Masuta stroked his beard in contemplation.
"Well, Lina's world is all about outside magic, channeling the power of others to cast spells, which is balanced by the inner magic of Hogwarts. Usagi's magic is all about healing and life, while Ichigo's stuff deals with death and the afterlife. Me and Shinji... Hope and Despair. In our baselines, I kept going in the face of impossible odds, never giving up the hope that things would change. Shinji just fell deeper and deeper into depression, until his baseline self just decided to kill everyone in despair."
Masuta nodded, but said nothing else.
"Once we were going, the system had begun to stabilise. But it wasn't done yet, so they started working on other stuff, and the more places that started Looping, the more stable things were, so they activate more places and the cycle continues. Then there was the Crash. That was... Nasty. I think we're still feeling out some of the shockwaves of the event, even if it's been a ton of Loops since."
"Thank you for telling me, Mr. Uzumaki. I wasn't sure there was a reason, exactly, but it's nice to know." Masuta smiled ruefully. "Not that there's anything I can do with the information, of course."
"Of course."
"Have a good Loop, Mr. Uzumaki."
"You too, Masuta." As Masuta started walking away, Naruto added. "You may want to let him know you're Looping. You'd be surprised what the Loops can do for best enemies."
Masuta paused. "I'm afraid I have no idea of whom you speak, Mr. Uzumaki. As I said, have a good Loop."
4.1: Sometimes the companions can Awaken before the Doctor does. It just doesn't happen often.
4.2: Six said he should have stayed on Gallifrey, because of how rotten it had become. He'll never say that again.
4.3: Pinkie Pie's Anti-AI Partywall. Use with caution.
4.4: The TARDIS herself is forbidden in other Loops, but dematerialization is not.
4.5: Yeah... Good-bye universe?
4.6: It can be difficult, dealing with yourself.
4.7: Things can go a little... strange with Pinkie around.
4.8: Sometimes the text on the black box is the way the Doctor learns of a visiting Looper.
4.9: In honour of Smash 4 coming out. Don't worry, someone explained it to him later.
4.10: Gallifreyan politics are a nightmare. Earth politics (especially for a time traveller) are a vacation in comparison.
4.11: Here come the drums...