“…Ore sanjou?” asked Lurra Rus.
“It’s a dynamic way of saying ‘I have arrived’,” explained the Doctor.
“…Nice skirt,” remarked Lurra Rus. Den-O looked down and finally saw the skirt.
“Dang it! This always happens when I possess a girl!” he grumbled.
“Kamen Rider Den-O! At last!” cackled the Lantern Imagin. “I’m gonna enjoy this little warmup!”
“Warmup?” asked Den-O. He then took four parts hanging from his belt and assembled them into a sword. As he did, he started talking. “I don’t know how things work with you Red Lanterns, but you’re on MY turf! And around here, I don’t do warmups and I don’t do warning shots!” He finished forming his sword. “Everyday, from start to finish, I’m always at a climax! Let’s go, let’s go, LET’S GO!” He then charged at the Lantern Imagin, sword ready! The two clashed with Green Lantern and the Flash helping out.
“…Everything’s happening too fast,” muttered the Doctor.
“Doctor, maybe you need another Time Lord’s help,” suggested Lurra Rus.
“…I suppose I do,” agreed the Doctor. “Owner, perhaps I had better bring you into the picture.”
“Telepathically?” asked the Owner. “This seems like quite a tale.”
“It is. Contact.”
“Contact.” The two Time Lords then had their telepathic conference with the Doctor filling the Owner in on events from Batman’s warning about the Grouping to the current crisis. They then opened their eyes.
“Drat! I completely forgot to contact Susan after the last adventure!” the Doctor chided herself.
“We’d best contact Gallifrey,” remarked the Owner. “Your TARDIS still has a means of communicating with the homeworld, the Den Liner does not.”
“But there’s the matter of the Imagin! They’re walking chronal surges!”
“They’re also from an aborted timeline. No amount of bringing them back to the future will make it better. They have become, quite literally, beings made of the Sands of Time.” The Doctor looked back at the fight.
“…Drat,” she muttered. “Momotaros, tell Amy that the Owner and I need to contact Gallifrey and that dealing with the Imagin is the only way to correct the chronal surge!”
“She heard you!” replied Den-O. He then acted as if he heard something. “…What hammer?!” he said. His arm then stretched out and, with the flick of the wrist, summoned Amy’s hammer. “Oh, now THAT’S a climactic weapon!” he said.
“What am I supposed to do?” asked Lurra Rus. “Stand here and look pretty?”
“Actually, I need help fixing the comms system,” replied the Doctor. “Mind giving us a hand?”
“All right.” Lurra Rus followed the Doctor and the Owner into the TARDIS. Green Lantern managed to restrain the Lantern Imagin so the Flash could get some rapid-fire punches in.
“Get out of the way!” called Den-O. “This flashlight’s mine!” He managed to scan his pass again.
“Full Charge!” announced the belt as red light crackled around his sword and hammer.
“Hissatsu! Ore no hissatsu waza! Hedge-hammer-sword version!” Den-O stuck his weapons out and spun like a tornado! He bashed into the Lantern Imagin repeatedly, then stopped as the blade of his sword flew out of the handle! He then swung the handle, making the blade hit the Lantern Imagin repeatedly, then swung down, chopping the enemy Imagin right down the middle and making it explode into sand. “…There it is!” said Den-O. “My new finishing move!”
“I though hedgehogs curled into balls,” remarked Green Lantern.
“And how lame would that have been?” asked Den-O. Momotaros was then suddenly ejected as Amy took her body back over and took the belt off, dismissing the Den-O armor.
“LAME?!” she shouted. “THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH COOLER THAN WHAT YOU DID!”
“EXCUSE ME?! WHAT I DID WAS COOL AND YOU KNOW IT!” retorted Momotaros. The Imagin and Hedgehog Girl then got into a shouting match.
While Amy and Momotaros argued, the Doctor had finished up her call to Gallifrey, informing them about the Owner and Stationmaster’s survival and decision to remain as they are, apologizing to Susan for not contacting her after the previous incident with two of the Doctor’s past incarnations, and learning about what caused the Grouping in the first place. “…I…I see,” muttered the Doctor.
“It seems you have a choice before you, Doctor,” said the Owner. “What will it be and how will it protect time?”
“…Well, I DID get a hint in my previous incarnation,” sighed the Doctor. “I just…don’t know how to go about it so she and Lurra Rus are safe.”
“…Speaking of Amy, we should check on her,” suggested Lurra Rus.
“Agreed,” said the Owner.
“Come on, you two,” directed the Doctor. The trio left the TARDIS and saw Amy and Momotaros arguing with Green Lantern and the Flash standing by. The Flash saw the group leave the TARDIS and whistled.
“Hey! Guys!” he called. Momotaros and Amy stopped arguing. “They’re finished in there.” He directed their attention to the group.
“…Right then,” said Amy. “Well, it looks like this adventure’s over.”
“So it seems,” replied the Owner. “Momotaros, it’s time we departed. We have more chronal surges to look out for.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” grumbled Momotaros as he and the Owner boarded the Den Liner. “Feels like the adventure went too fast.” The Den Liner then pulled out of the Watchtower like it was a station and opened a path to the Sands of Time.
“Amy, it’s time we left,” said the Doctor.
“So soon?” asked Amy. “But I wanna catch up with Diana and-.”
“Amy, we just learned something about the cause of the Grouping,” interjected Lurra Rus.
“…Oh. …Well, Hal, Barry, I guess I gotta go.”
“Momotaros was right, this adventure went WAY too quickly!” remarked the Flash.
“…Did you just tell us to slow down?!” laughed Green Lantern.
“Goodbye, everyone,” said the Doctor as she hurried Amy and Lurra Rus back into the TARDIS. The lamp on the TARDIS’ roof then flashed as it made its usual take off noise and dematerialized.
“…Doctor, Lurra Rus, what’s wrong?” asked Amy as the TARDIS continued its flight.
“…Well, let me just…try and see how to best explain-,” floundered the Doctor.
“Doctor, we can’t afford to stall,” chided Lurra Rus. “This event is too big for that.” The Doctor sighed.
“You said that the Time Lords found out how the Grouping got started,” said Amy. “How’s that possible?”
“…They’ve determined that it was one paradox that started it,” replied the Doctor.
“A paradox, huh? And how did this whole paradox unfold? Who’s the source of it?”
“I’m rather afraid you are.”
“WHAT?!” yelped Amy.
“Remember how you first stepped aboard the TARDIS?” asked the Doctor. “You were encouraged by your future, wearing your current outfit, to go along with me. The TARDIS was working overtime to try and stabilize the paradox, only…”
“Only its heart split and the original became the new Eye of Harmony,” recalled Amy. “Are you saying that when it did that-?”
“It released its stabilizing ability over the paradox and now that paradox is creating chronal surges all across time.”
“Would me going back to that point in time fix it?” asked Amy hopefully.
“I’m afraid not,” sighed the Doctor. “For one thing, the TARDIS accounts for how long its occupants have been inside it, so it only drops someone off at a later point in their native planet’s time after their initial departure. For another, I can’t take you back for the sole fact that your future said that someone else will take you back. And for yet another thing, Batman knew about the Grouping long before we did, but that mess with Den-O didn’t involve Batman at all, it’s too late into the Justice League’s future. Remember that Batman said that I had already regenerated by the time he was made aware of the Grouping. …But, hopefully, closing the paradox will mitigate the damage.”
“But…I’m at the center of it…” summed up Amy. “…The heart of the problem. …All our…recent problems!”
“Doctor, how bad would it be if Amy stayed aboard the TARDIS?” asked Lurra Rus.
“A temporal implosion,” replied the Doctor. “All of time and space collapsing into a single point, into Amy herself. …Too terrifying a concept to comprehend, even for Time Lords.”
“Then how can we keep time and space from collapsing and taking me with it?!” asked Amy.
“All we can do is mitigate the damage,” answered the Doctor. “I don’t know how to fully fix it and the Time Lords are working overtime to try and find a solution.”
“…Doctor,” mumbled Amy, “…I’m scared.”
“So am I, Amy,” sighed the Doctor. “So am I.”
