Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings The Specials

Gallifrey’s Rebirth: Part 10

“…No!” breathed the Master in disbelief. “No, you’re all dead! The singularity bomb went off and you were at ground zero! That is categorical fact!”

“Therefore all elephants are pink,” replied the Doctor. “Let’s just say Rassilon’s paranoia played in our favor.”

“…So it really IS you, Doctor!” hissed the Master.

“I stand here before you,” said the Doctor. “Come on, Master. Give it up. You’ve lost.”

“I’m not beaten yet, Doctor!” The Master had his finger over the button. “If you don’t back off and allow me to take control of Gallifrey, I’ll wipe the Matrix of every single Time Lord! Gallifrey will never come back!”

“Master, you can’t do that! It’s inhuman!” urged Rassilon.

“No one in this room is human, Rassilon!” snarled the Master. “Spack off or Gallifrey’s death is a permanent one!”

“You’ve forgotten one thing, Master,” chuckled the Doctor.

“And that is?!”

“…Where’s Amy?” The Master blinked at the Doctor’s question, then realized Amy was missing.

“Wait, where’s the hedge-?!” He got his answer as Amy rang his bell with her hammer. He spun a few times before falling to the ground. At that moment, Rassilon and the Doctor got to work.

“Feeding in all data concerning those that wish to come back!” reported Rassilon.

“Transferring data to the Looms!” replied the Doctor.

“Grandfather, the Eye-!” warned Susan.

“Oh, blast!” hissed the Doctor. She quickly finished what the Master did in connecting the Eye. “Romana! Lurra Rus! Energy output!”

“Initial run is stable!” replied Romana.

“Flux comparative’s running at 4.6!” reported Lurra Rus.

“As the original did when it was connected!” replied Rassilon.

“4.9…3.2…8.6…9.5…4.6 again!”

“NOW!” called Rassilon as she pulled the switch. The new Eye glowed brightly.

“First one’s coming!” called the Doctor as she looked on the monitor giving her a view of the Looms.


The Looms, one of Gallifrey’s methods of reproduction outside of the natural way, weave strands of Time Lord DNA together and give a Time Lord a full set of 13 lives. Ordinarily, they would start as children, but Rassilon circumvented that bit and out stepped a portly adult with short, thin, gray hair and a goatee. He looked sternly at his surroundings, then checked himself out, making sure his limbs were working. He then spotted a gold helmet with a feather on top and tucked it under his arm. He then activated a communicator. “Chancellery Guard Commander Maxil, reporting,” he said in crisp military fashion. “Adult looming successful. Full set of lives confirmed. Awaiting orders.”


“MAXIL?!” protested the Doctor. “Why was HE the test subject?!”

“He volunteered, Doctor, when no one else did,” replied Rassilon. The Master then groaned and looked around.

“…NO!” he shouted as he leapt at the controls, but it was no good! He was still too dizzy from that hammer blow and was easily tripped up by Susan’s leg.

“Going somewhere, my dear Uncle?” she asked.

“You little-! That was my victory, Doctor, and you stole it from me!” snarled the Master as he was roughly pulled up to his feet by Romana and Lurra Rus.

“You pretty much stranded me and my companions on Gallifrey, so there’s your consolation prize,” replied the Doctor.

“THAT’S NOT EVEN A MERE PARTICIPATION TROPHY!” roared the Master. He then whirled out of Romana and Lurra Rus’ grasp and pointed a black rod with a hemisphere on top at Lurra Rus while wrapping an arm around her neck. “Now, I will be leaving Gallifrey! I will be taking the formula with me! And I will become the sole Lord of Time!”

“How?” asked the Doctor.

“You forget, Doctor! The Sontaran Temporal Scout Ship!” He was then clubbed in the back of the head with a staser pistol. Maxil then kicked away the rod and put handcuffs on the Master.

“I saw an explosion where the Temporal Scout Ship was,” he reported. “The Sontarans must have noticed the singularity bomb’s detonation and guessed that everyone died in the temporal fallout, so they cut their losses.”

“Let me just check,” said the Doctor as she worked the nearby console. “…Confirmed. The Sontarans fled. And we can rebuild unmolested.”

“I’ll organize rebuilding teams immediately,” said Maxil. “Just as soon as I get this one to the cells.” He dragged the Master away.


The restoration of Gallifrey was taking several months. Thankfully, all the Gallifreyans that wished to come back were restored. The Doctor was busy working on something in the Lord President’s office. Speaking of the Lord President, a Time Lady in white and gold robes with a white and gold Time Lord Collar and a white and gold skullcap entered the office. “Still working, Grandfather?” asked the Time Lady. The Doctor looked up to see that it was Susan wearing the Presidential Robes.

“No, just finishing up one job,” sighed the Doctor.

“And looking to find another, hm?” guessed Susan.

“You know me,” replied the Doctor. “Without the TARDIS, I have to keep busy somehow, otherwise the grief will kill me.”

“Grandfather, there IS a reason I was looking for you,” said Susan. “It also connects to why I’m wearing these uncomfortable things.”

“I’m not a fan of parties, Susan. That hasn’t changed.”

“No, no, just a small ceremony. One I came up with, the Chesterton Ceremony.” The Doctor smiled.

“He’d be honored to know his favorite student named a ceremony after him.”

“Come on, Grandfather,” urged Susan. “We’re waiting for you in the Panopticon.”


The Doctor and Susan made their way to the Panopticon. The Doctor saw Rassilon, Romana, Amy, and Lurra Rus alongside several Time Lords in the robes of the heads of the Great Houses of Gallifrey. In the center of the Panopticon was a tall, silver cylinder with a door in front. “A new TARDIS?” the Doctor asked Susan.

“As a thank you for saving Gallifrey,” replied Susan.

“…It’s going to take some getting used to,” remarked the Doctor. “…Thank you, Susan.”

“Step inside, Doctor, Amy, Lurra Rus,” directed Rassilon. She handed the Doctor a set of keys.

“…Hang on, these are the keys to a Type 40,” said the Doctor.

“Try them out,” replied Romana. The Doctor inserted one of the keys into a keyhole and the TARDIS door opened.

“…You’ve made a newly built TARDIS work on Type 40 keeeee…” The Doctor blinked when she saw the console room. “…That’s a standard Type 40 Console!” she said. She rushed to the console and examined it. “…I don’t…I mean, this feels like…one second!” She then put her hands on the telepathic circuits and…memories of a certain Type 40 flooded her brain! Memories of the greatest moments in the Doctor’s life in the original TARDIS! …In THIS TARDIS! “I don’t believe it!” she whispered. “This isn’t A TARDIS! It’s THE TARDIS! MY TARDIS! But she feels like she was just newly built! Like she just rolled off the assembly line!”

“Technically speaking, Grandfather, she is,” replied Susan. “As we were taking the original ship to be scrapped respectfully, I noticed something under the console. I bent down and saw a new TARDIS heart, then it greeted me like an old friend! It was the TARDIS’ Heart, but newly grown! The original Heart had grown a fragment of crystal inside the console and made a new singularity for its core, then it accepted its fate to become the new Eye of Harmony! The new Eye won’t remember you anymore, but it didn’t want you to be alone, so it made itself a new body and we dusted off the plans for the Type 40! That’s why it took several months! We needed it to be a top of the line Type 40! Behold, Grandfather, your TARDIS reloomed like the Time Lords!” At that moment, the Doctor wrapped Susan in a hug, happy tears rolling down her eyes.

“…Thank you, Susan,” she said, “for making this stupid old buffer a very happy Time Lord!” She released Susan from the hug. “…Are you sure you’re okay? With me running off like that?”

“You do your best work for the universe when you travel, Grandfather,” replied Susan. “And you’ve put in enough repair work for Gallifrey. We’re all quite sure.”

“In that case, I must be off,” said the Doctor. “Amy, we still have a small paradox to resolve and Lurra Rus, we need to find you a new home!” The Doctor began working the controls, then gave a smile to Susan as she was leaving the TARDIS. “…Call me when Gallifrey is threatened, you hear?” she directed.

“Naturally, Grandfather,” replied Susan as she departed. “Goodbye!” The TARDIS door shut behind Susan. With that, the Doctor pulled on the take-off lever!


The Time Vortex swirled in its usual manner. As it carried on, a strange object appeared. It looked like it was from Earth, specifically 1960’s London. Upon closer examination, it was a London Metropolitan Police Public Call Box with the lamp on top flashing as the box spun. Reloomed and returned to her preferred shape, the TARDIS spun through the Time Vortex, ready to bring the Doctor to who knows where and when!

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings The Specials

Gallifrey’s Rebirth: Part 9

The Doctor and her friends made their way to the underbelly of the citadel with Trev and his firing squad waiting. “Now, Trev,” chided the Doctor, “we’re unarmed. Where’s the fight in shooting unarmed people? Where’s the honor?”

“Doctor, you’re known for using your brain, a very useful weapon,” replied Trev. “I’d hardly call you unarmed.”

“…I’m…flattered?”

“You should be, because it means I intend to have you executed swiftly! Squad, present arms!” The shooting party presented arms.

“WAIT!” called Lurra Rus’ voice as she joined the group.

“Ah, the last non-Gallifreyan target,” chuckled Trev. “All that’s left is our puppet.”

“General, he’s got worse plans than you! I beg you to listen!” urged Lurra Rus.

“Worse plans? But he-!” protested Rassilon.

“Lady Rassilon, whatever he is, the Master is worse!” insisted Lurra Rus.

“…I can’t believe I’m feeling generous to a member of a species that’s extinct,” scoffed Trev. “What is it?”

“Yes, what is it?” asked the Doctor. “How is the Master’s plan worse?”

“The Master is planning to destroy us!” replied Lurra Rus.

“…He couldn’t even if he tried!” grunted Trev. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeves. And accusations are not evidence.”

“Not us personally,” explained Lurra Rus. “Our economic systems! General Trev, do the Sontarans have a stock market?”

“Of course we do,” replied Trev. “I have stock in Imperial Armaments. They make the best weapons.”

“Imperial Armament shares will become worthless with what the Master has planned,” said Lurra Rus.

“He told you this?” asked Amy.

“He was trying to recruit me and the Doctor by proxy,” replied Lurra Rus.

“Why would he do that?” quizzed Trev.

“He claimed that he needed me,” answered Lurra Rus.

“Why?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes, why?” repeated Trev. “I’d love to know.”


The Master smirked as he approached a console and opened a communications channel. He held a crystal similar to the Heart of his TARDIS. “That is not credible!” scoffed Trev’s voice. “He can’t sum up the economy of a single planet on a mere computer drive, much less any intergalactic economy!”

“The Master’s a genius!” replied the Doctor.

“He’s an engineer like you, Doctor! Not an accountant!”

“You can’t take the risk, General,” urged Lurra Rus. “The Doctor’s right. He’ll destroy every single economy.”

“I was under the impression, given your story,” remarked Trev, “that such a goal is what you want.”

“Look, the corporations are bad, but what the Master is planning is far worse.”

“Don’t tell me,” muttered the Doctor, “he sees time and space as one big concentration camp with him as the commandant.”

“Yes,” replied Lurra Rus.

“Can you imagine it, Trev?!” urged the Doctor. “All the factories of time and space producing weapons, warships, armies of combat robots, and tanks! Every skyline full of smoking chimneys, every worker a slave-!”

“Doctor, you’re describing heaven to us,” interrupted a Sontaran Trooper. “The only wrinkle in that plan is that the primitive known as the Master intends to be at the top of the heap.” The Master wasn’t taking that lying down! He allowed for two-way communication.

“I think you’ll find, Sontaran,” he hissed, “that YOU are the primitive, not me!”

“Master?! Where’s that voice coming from?!” yelped the Doctor.

“Twi’lek, what is that in your hand?” asked Trev.

“You mean this?” asked Lurra Rus. The Master guessed that Lurra Rus was showing off the weapon.

“What in the name of the Sash of Rassilon-?!” spluttered Romana.

“I fitted a radio link in that little…gift I gave you,” chuckled the Master.

“What is that device?” asked Trev.

“It’s a weaponized TARDIS heart!” replied Rassilon. “A crude singularity bomb!”

“What in Sontar’s name-?!” yelped Trev. “Where did you get that cowardly weapon?!”

“From the Master, believe it or not,” replied Lurra Rus. “He claims that Romana ripped it out of his TARDIS to act as a deterrent against you lot.”

“So, a President of the High Council of Time Lords decides to play the coward!” hissed Trev.

“I haven’t been anywhere near the Master’s TARDIS!” insisted Romana. “That kind of weapon is immoral, illegal, and Rassilon over there never thought of such a weapon even at her maddest because, like you correctly said, General, it’s cowardly! What use would I have for that kind of weapon?!”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find it to be VERY versatile,” purred the Master. “With this one, I plan to kill a whole multitude of birds with one stone!”

“I knew it! You haven’t changed a bit!” snarled Amy.

“I can’t, Miss Rose! I see that now! Listening to everyone has confirmed that the universe MUST pay for my madness!”

“There’s still the matter of that weapon Romana constructed!” hissed Trev.

“I doubt she built such a thing,” replied Rassilon.

“She didn’t, Lurra Rus,” confirmed the Master. “I’m afraid I built it while everyone was running around like headless chickens. I faked the evidence against her. I believe people in your galaxy call it a…smoking blaster!” He then laughed.

“There’s no reason to panic,” soothed Lurra Rus. “It’s useless without the trigger.”

“Lurra Rus,” interjected the Doctor, “do you know what the trigger to that kind of singularity bomb looks like?”

“…Well, no,” replied Lurra Rus.

“Well, give me that! See, here? Trigger!” At the Doctor’s declaration, the Master cackled.

“Don’t imagine you can defuse it in time, Doctor!” he warned.

“Master, whatever you want, we can talk!” insisted the Doctor.

“You’ve always known what I want, Doctor!” replied the Master. “I tried to change on numerous occasions! I really thought I could, but you were right!”

“Scant consolation!” argued the Doctor.

“It wasn’t meant to be ANY kind of consolation. …I will miss you, Doctor.” He then keyed in a command. “That singularity bomb, on the other hand, well, it CAN’T miss you at that range!”


Below the citadel, the singularity bomb beeped as the Master laughed. “HE’S ACTIVATED THE DETONATION SEQUENCE!!” warned the Doctor. “GIMME!!”

“We can’t outrun that kind of blast, Doctor!” replied Rassilon as the Doctor took the device from Lurra Rus and ran.

“YOU STAY THERE!!” called the Doctor.

“What is she doing?!” demanded Trev.

“She’s going to one of the old temporal mine shafts,” replied Romana. “She probably intends to drop the bomb down there. I hope she drops it far-!” That was when the explosion ripped through the caverns.


The computers warned of a massive explosion and release of temporal radiation. As the alarms sounded, the Master cackled. He then got to work and headed to the vault of the Eye of Harmony.


Thankfully, the Doctor’s allies survived, but there was still the matter of the Doctor and the Sontarans. The group was surrounded by an energy field. Rassilon checked the device that was deploying the energy field. “There,” she said. “That should keep the temporal radiation from affecting us.”

“But the Doctor-!” yelped Amy.

“The field should surround her too,” assured Rassilon. “We’ll find her.”

“How far do the mines go?” asked Susan.

“Pretty far,” replied Romana, “but the temporal radiation will reach the capital before we get there. That’s sure to affect the Eye of Harmony!”

“That’s if the Master didn’t think to seal the Vault in time,” remarked Rassilon. “And I’m betting he’s there with the heart of the Doctor’s TARDIS.”

“…You think he’s taken the TARDIS’s heart?” asked Amy.

“Won’t that-?!” asked Lurra Rus.

“Strand you, yes,” replied Rassilon. “That is until we deal with the Master and make a new TARDIS for the Doctor, but I doubt it’s going to be a Type 40 like hers.”

“What do we do, then, Rassilon?” asked Romana. By now, everyone was looking to Rassilon for guidance.

“What do you think we do?” replied Rassilon. “We’re protected from the temporal radiation, but the Sontarans aren’t. So, we find the Doctor, confirm her survival or death, and stop the Master!”

“Sounds like a good plan, let me help speed that along!” called the Doctor’s voice.

“Doctor!” called Amy.

“Just a second,” interjected Rassilon as she pulled out a device. She waved it over the Doctor, then sighed in relief. “Sorry about that, Doctor.”

“Making sure I’m not an illusion as a result of the explosion, very wise,” replied the Doctor.

“Grandfather, how will we be getting into the citadel?” asked Susan. “The temporal radiation will surely affect things and the Master will have locked himself in there!”

“True, but we have three people that have presidential codes,” replied the Doctor.

“Three?” asked Susan.

“I was made President until Romana was elected to the position,” explained the Doctor. Susan tried to hold back laughter.

“You?” she snickered. “Grandfather, when were you elected?”

“Oh, after that business with the Death Zone,” replied the Doctor.

“…The High Council really ISN’T infallible,” chuckled Susan.

“OI!”


The Master continued his work. With the old Eye now disconnected, he had to use alternative power sources to continue. The Type 40 Heart had grown to the size of the original Eye of Harmony and was now being connected up. “Perfect!” he said. “Thank you for your sacrifice, Doctor! You never understood! It is everyone else that is to blame for my madness! The only cure is to sieze power! Laws will be MINE to create! Not to follow! All of time and space, in the palm of my hand! I shall be a wise and tolerant dictator. Swift but fair in retribution. I shall be the new Lord President Eternal! Gallifrey will be the center of an empire that shall span throughout eternity! And once all is finally under my total control, I shall sieze the next universe and the next! The whole of creation will be MINE to command! And all the Gallifreyans wishing to come back need merely swear an oath of loyalty, then they shall be reloomed into my servants!”

“Thank you for discussing your master plan as usual, Master,” came the Doctor’s voice. The Master turned to see everyone standing there.

“Ah, temporal illusions,” he scoffed. “Well, I’m quite happy to have illusions to be the last images of my old friend. Admit it ‘Doctor’, you’ve lost! I shall be the savior of Gallifrey! I shall rule the Eternal Time Lord Empire!”

“Oh, very good, very good,” mocked the Doctor. “…Just one problem.”

“And what’s that, ‘Doctor’?” asked the Master. The Doctor then slugged the Master in the jaw.

“NOW!” shouted the Doctor. Rassilon, Romana, and Susan quickly took over the controls as the Master readjusted his jaw and realized something; temporal illusions CAN’T slug someone in the jaw!

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings The Specials

Gallifrey’s Rebirth: Part 6

The Thanakian ship arrived outside the ruined capital. It simply faded in without fanfare, unlike a TARDIS. “You’re making the right decision, Madame President,” purred Miss Tarae, always eager to get a word in. “We’ll put their secrets to good use.” She was lightly caressing one of Romana’s shoulders. Romana decided to show Miss Tarae that such an act was a no-no by grabbing Miss Tarae’s fingers and squeezing tightly.

“I make the decisions on what to do with another race’s secrets, Miss Tarae,” she reminded, “not you.” The Thanakian ambassador then appeared in the doorway. “Greetings, Ambassador,” said Romana. “We welcome you to Gallifrey, such as it is.”

“We appreciate what hospitality you can give us, Lord President,” replied the ambassador. “We just hope the Rutan Host cannot penetrate your barriers.”

“No worries,” assured Rassilon. “The Transduction Barriers are still in operation.”

“We pray they will hold. We heard the Daleks tried to-.”

“The barriers have been strengthened,” assured Romana. “No one can get in without our knowledge.”

“We shall stay here to plan our campaign,” said the ambassador. “We ARE grateful for the hospitality you can provide.” The ambassador retreated back into their ship and the door shut.

“…Something just isn’t adding up!” muttered the Doctor.


Inside the Thanakian ship, the ambassador smirked. “Fools,” they remarked.

“Sir, how much longer?!” complained another Thanakian. “My fingers ache to pull the trigger-!”

“Calm yourself, Trooper,” replied the ambassador. “This is a necessary part of the plan. Once the Time Lords figure out what’s going on, THEN we drop the act. Until then, the disguise is to be maintained. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” replied the Thanakian.


The Time Lords returned to the citadel and rejoined with Amy and Lurra Rus. “…Rassilon,” said Amy.

“Hm? Yes, Amy?” asked Rassilon.

“You said something about making a new Eye of Harmony?”

“Ah, the contradiction in my earlier statements,” Rassilon sat down.

“The Doctor twigged to that earlier than I did,” explained Amy.

“Did she send you to gather information?” asked Rassilon.

“She doesn’t know I’m asking,” replied Amy.

“Everyone has their secrets, I suppose. Perhaps I had best spill mine. The original Eye was found, yes. But it had suffered damage. Recall how we said the Eye was made?”

“Yeah, using the potential time energy of a star trying to collapse into a black hole, only it can’t,” replied Amy.

“Well, the energies keeping that time field alive are starting to transform into something else,” explained Rassilon. “Something that can’t maintain the field around the singularity.”

“…And the collapse into a black hole will happen,” realized Amy.

“Omega left copious notes on the creation of the Eye of Harmony, but I need to find them within the Matrix,” continued Rassilon, “but every use of the Eye accelerates the moment it collapses!”

“How much of a strain was it in using the time scoop?” asked Amy.

“Not as much as the transduction barriers,” replied Rassilon. “And there’s a lot the current Eye is running. The barriers, communications, security, all of it, even when I’ve set it to reduced power.”

“Then we’re on a time crunch.”

“Romana has spent a few lives being an archivist,” explained Rassilon. “That’s why I need her newfound research skills.”

“To find Omega’s notes faster,” realized Amy. “And hopefully before the Eye collapses in on itself and takes Gallifrey and the people on it with it.”

“Precisely.”

“…Well, Lurra Rus is a mechanical engineer. I’m just the muscle.”

“Come now, the Doctor sees something beyond that,” soothed Rassilon.

“She’s right, Amy,” agreed the Doctor’s voice. Amy and Rassilon yelped as they turned to see the Doctor approaching a nearby console.

“Must you do that?!” protested Rassilon.

“Amy, you’re an empathetic woman,” said the Doctor as she started working the console. “A big hint of that is you making the offer to find a home for Lurra Rus and reignite her hope.”

“…She’s not wrong,” agreed Rassilon. Her curiosity then took over. “Doctor, what ARE you doing?”

“Let’s just say the math isn’t mathing here,” muttered the Doctor. She keyed up visual footage of the ships over Gallifrey.

“…Those ARE what Rutan ships look like,” remarked Rassilon. Then she blinked. “Hang on a minute, those ships belong to the Rutans at an earlier time. Before they started fighting the Sontarans. But that Thanakian ship is from…”

“From a later point in the Sontaran/Rutan war, far later,” finished the Doctor.

“A time loop?” guessed Rassilon.

“And from what you told Amy about the strain on the Eye, I daren’t run a full temporal scan.”

“We’ll have to risk a small one,” replied Rassilon. “If that IS a time loop, then there’s an illusion being played on us. And whoever is making that hypothetical illusion-.”

“Probably has nasty designs on Gallifrey,” finished Amy. “But Miss Tarae probably has nasty designs of her own.”

“Yes, so who would backstab who first?” mused the Doctor. “As you say, we’ll have to risk a cursory scan. Monitor the strain on the Eye, Rassilon.”

“Naturally,” replied Rassilon as the Doctor began her scans. The Doctor’s brow furrowed.

“There IS a form of temporal energy,” she remarked. “And it’s looping. It’s a recursive time loop of events that happened BEFORE anyone arrived on Gallifrey. Months before I dropped you off here.”

“But that would take an impressive amount of power,” replied Rassilon. “Power that we currently don’t have what with the Eye decaying.”

“I think there’s something else with our Thanakian friends,” mused the Doctor.

“…If they ARE Thanakians,” muttered Amy.

“Yes, I was rather hoping you DIDN’T reach the same conclusion I did.”

“Doctor, you can’t seriously believe they’re camouflaged?” asked Rassilon. “The only ones who are capable of that are…are the Daleks!”

“Not entirely true,” replied the Doctor. “There ARE a few races that developed time machines like ours, but their versions of the Chameleon Circuit are more short-term disguises instead of long-term ones like the ones installed in a TARDIS. …Then again, there are two that developed Chameleon Circuits that function like ours.”

“Doctor, do you think the Daleks-?!” yelped Rassilon.

“Well, they DO have that DARDIS,” remarked Amy. “But would they use the Thanakians as their disguise or use the Rutans as part of their time loop?”

“…No, they wouldn’t!” realized the Doctor.

“Doctor?” asked Rassilon.

“The Daleks view the Rutans as the least deadly threat to their supremacy, unlike the humans!” explained the Doctor. “But there’s one race in particular that WOULD use them as part of a disguise!”

“…No!” realized Rassilon. “They wouldn’t dare! Not again!”

“Why not?!” asked the Doctor. “They’ve already developed methods of time travel, like the Osmotic Projector!”

“And it was on those grounds that both us and the Daleks forbade them from fighting in the Time War,” recalled Rassilon.

“Doctor, Rassilon, who are you-?” asked Amy.

“Doctor,” called Romana’s voice as she, Lurra Rus, and Susan entered the room, “have you seen Miss Tarae?”

“She was right behind me a minute ago,” replied the Doctor.


“Sir!” called the Thanakian Trooper. “They’ve detected the Time Loop of the Rutan Fleet!”

“Excellent!” praised the ambassador. “And knowing their intelligence, they’ll figure out it was an illusion!” The ambassador keyed in a command on a nearby communications console. “Scout Party 1 to Temporal Mothership, confirm that Gallifrey has detected the time loop!”

“Gallifreyan time loop detection: confirmed,” replied a gruff, male voice.

“Then deactivate it! It’s time to put all our power into weapons! We go to a war footing!”

“Sir,” called another Thanakian trooper, “our Time Lord dupe is approaching our ship.”

“Get me my flag and meson rifle!” ordered the ambassador.


Inside the citadel, the console beeped. Susan checked it. “Grandfather, the time loop’s dissipating,” she said.

“What?” asked the Doctor. She checked the console and goggled in horror. “Oh god, they duped Miss Tarae!” she said. “Everyone, outside now!” Everyone ran to the citadel’s exit.


Outside the Thanakian ship, Miss Tarae approached it. “Come on, my dear little Thanakians,” she purred. “Time to serve your master.”

“MISS TARAE, GET AWAY FROM THAT SHIP!” called the Doctor as she and her friends approached.

“Not this time, Doctor!” cackled Miss Tarae. “With the Thanakians as my slaves-!”

“Those aren’t Thanakians!” argued Amy. “They’re Son-!” She was interrupted by someone inside the ship opening the door and shooting Miss Tarae in the back. The ambassador stepped out with a smoking gun and a flag.

“Oh, drop the illusion!” scoffed the Doctor. “We know you’re not Thanakians, Corporal!”

“That’s GENERAL to you, Doctor,” replied the ambassador as it tore off something from its collar. As Miss Tarae started glowing, the ambassador’s illusion dispersed and in its place was a Sontaran General waving his flag! “In the Martial Year 76,042,” he laughed, “I, Trev the Temporal Terror, General of the 14th Sontaran Time Fleet, hereby claim Gallifrey, its moons, and satellites for the greater glory of the Sontaran Empire!” He then planted his flag, unfurling it to reveal the symbol of the Sontaran Empire as the ship he was using shimmered until it assumed the familiar spherical shape. Sontaran soldiers then stomped out of the ship, more than what the external dimensions would allow.

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings The Specials

Gallifrey’s Rebirth: Part 5

As Rassilon and Romana went to greet the Thanakians, Miss Tarae saw the Doctor talking with Amy, Lurra Rus, and Susan. “Grandfather,” said Susan, unaware of Miss Tarae’s presence, “I still don’t understand why she’d do that!”

“Well, she justified it as the Lie Gallifrey was Built on,” replied the Doctor. “As humans of the 21st century are wont to say ‘cool motive, still murder’.”

“Telling your granddaughter about what happened to our home?” asked Miss Tarae, startling everyone.

“…Well, she deserves to know the truth,” remarked the Doctor.

“What is the truth but a mere interpretation of the facts?”

“That may be,” remarked Susan, “but the truth is an interpretation worth upholding.”

“Oh? So you know about what the Doctor did? What sparked the Time War?”

“I still hold that it was that mission during the last days of the Thousand Year War on Skaro that sparked the Time War,” remarked the Doctor.

“Oh, come now,” chuckled Miss Tarae. “Giving your own granddaughter an incorrect interpretation of the facts? We both know it was Skaro’s destruction.”

“Destruction?” asked Amy. “But we were ON Skaro.”

“A rebuilt Skaro, yes,” replied the Doctor. “The Daleks managed to restore it thanks to their time travel capabilities. But I DID turn Skaro’s sun into a supernova.”

“What?! How?!” asked Susan.

“Through the Hand of Omega,” explained the Doctor. “I knew a wicked race of time travelers would try to use it, so I had the Hand turn the sun of the offending race into a supernova.”

“And that race of wicked time travelers turned out to be the Daleks,” guessed Susan. “But where does Miss Tarae fit into all that?”

“Further along into Skaro’s past,” replied Miss Tarae. “What if I were to tell you that the High Council used me as a sacrificial lamb?”

“What?”

“Not entirely a correct interpretation,” remarked the Doctor. “But the High Council DID make a metaphorical deal with the Devil.”

“I’d hardly call it metaphorical, considering the Daleks ARE the Devil,” scoffed Miss Tarae. The Doctor drew in a breath before continuing.

“When she was the Master,” she said, “Miss Tarae had used up all 13 of her regenerations. She wasn’t technically a Time Lord. She possessed the last Keeper of Traken. To top that off, she was dying, infected with a cheetah virus that was slowly turning her into an animal. Romana and the High Council saw this as an opportunity. She called it the Act of Master Restitution; a bid to try and stop a war between us and the Daleks.”

“I was at the end of my tether,” interjected Miss Tarae, “and the High Council saw me as the ideal man for that suicide mission!”

“No!” argued the Doctor.

“Yes,” countered Miss Tarae.

“It wasn’t as clear-cut as that! I know Romana-!” insisted the Doctor.

“DON’T LIE TO ME, DOCTOR!” Miss Tarae grabbed the Doctor by the collar of her coat and pulled her close. “I was expendable! Some sugar-coated promise of a new regeneration cycle for ‘helping the cause’! But all they really wanted was to kill two birds with one stone! Romana told you every single detail of the plan! You knew I wasn’t going to be walking away from Skaro alive, didn’t you?!”

“…Yes,” admitted the Doctor.

“And the deal was struck!” hissed Miss Tarae. “Go on, Doctor. Tell them all! Tell them the details of that failed deal!” She flung the Doctor to the ground. Lurra Rus helped her up. The Doctor adjusted her coat and continued.

“Miss Tarae was sent back to a period before Skaro’s destruction to broker some form of peace treaty with the Daleks, to try and avert any of the future events from happening and starting a war.”

“But that’s breaking the cardinal rule of time travel!” protested Susan. “The High Council would never allow something like that! They’re not Earth politicians!”

“My dear Susan, whether from Earth or Gallifrey,” said the Doctor, “politicians are a stuffy bunch who will stop at nothing if it means not getting their hands dirty, even if it meant breaking a rule or two. After I destroyed Skaro, the Time Lords knew that any surviving Daleks would see it as an obvious act of aggression and would come here to destroy us.”

“Why didn’t they send you?” asked Amy. “You’re the one that knows the most about the Daleks.”

“They would have killed her on the spot, and the High Council knew it,” replied Miss Tarae. “No, I was considered expendable, and I already had dealings with the Daleks. President Romana felt that would play in Gallifrey’s favor. Doctor, do you know what happened on Skaro?”

“You were executed and somehow transferred your consciousness into a Deathworm Morphant,” answered the Doctor.

“Oh, how naïve,” remarked Miss Tarae. “Although, I suppose I should be grateful for their lack of morality. If only they just killed me. No, the Daleks wanted to know how we work.”

“How we work?” asked Susan.

“Regeneration, my dear,” explained Miss Tarae. “And our sensitivity to time! They must have learned a lot from me.”

“Experimentation!” shuddered the Doctor.

“They did things to me that even YOUR nightmares could not conceive, Doctor! Thank goodness I plucked a jarful of Deathworm Morphants from the swamps of Skaro. They spliced my DNA with other creatures and subjected it to different forms of radiation while I experimented on the Morphants. Only one impossibly strong Morphant could house my consciousness! …On the subject of Dalek experiments, even I learned some things I didn’t think were possible. For instance, did you know that gamma radiation accelerates the regeneration process?”

“But Grandfather just said,” interjected Susan, “that you were possessing a non-Gallifreyan.”

“Yes, and that’s what prompted my execution,” remarked Miss Tarae. “For the crime of stymying their scientific efforts, I was sentenced to vaporization. But the last surviving Deathworm Morphant managed to hold onto my consciousness. After a stint with the Doctor after he freshly regenerated into his eighth incarnation, I was brought back to life.”

“And after several plots,” remarked the Doctor, “she was drafted into the Time War like I was.”

“But that whole incident burned in my mind!” hissed Miss Tarae. “The High Council called it the Act of Master Restitution! And it failed! The Daleks still went to war against us! All because of the Doctor selfishly destroying their homeworld!”

“No, Miss Tarae, the war started when I was sent back in time to avert their creation!” insisted the Doctor.

“Avert their creation?” asked Susan.

“So that’s when you first met Davros?” asked Amy.

“Exactly, Amy,” replied the Doctor. “And to answer your question, Susan, the Time Lords foresaw a time stream where the Daleks would destroy all other forms of life in the universe. So they sent me into Skaro’s past, during the nuclear war we heard about. I had learned that the Daleks’ humanoid ancestors were actually called Kaleds and they produced a madman called Davros. In a bid to win the war with the Thals, Davros accelerated the mutations of his people and slapped them into a metal war machine, the means of locomotion based on his old chair.”

“You mean this Davros character was a halfway point between the Kaleds and the Daleks?” quizzed Susan.

“Exactly.”

“Hold on, I saw him with legs,” said Lurra Rus.

“He didn’t used to have legs, or hair, or a left arm,” replied the Doctor. “A Thal shell packed with radioactive isotopes ruined his body, but he was alive. His chair acted as life-support, but his hatred kept him alive up until he stole some of my regeneration energy.”

“So he’s got two legs these days?” asked Miss Tarae. She then realized something. “Wait a minute-!” she snarled at the Doctor.

“Miss Tarae,” interrupted the Doctor, “unlike you, I don’t force others to fix my insanity, even if they started it in the first place. Rassilon and Romana have weightier concerns, callous though I may sound. Weightier concerns, I might add, that YOU plopped on our doorstep! We’ve all confessed our sins to you numerous times and offered constructive solutions. YOU are the one that refuted them in favor of conquering the universe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to puzzle out a new tangle Rassilon left us.”

“Something about this Eye of Harmony?” asked Lurra Rus. She and Amy then realized something.

“Didn’t Rassilon say she used the Eye to power the time scoop and bring Romana and Susan here?” asked Amy.

“She did,” confirmed the Doctor.

“So why make a new one?” asked Susan. “…Unless…” She trailed off in thought.

“Susan?” asked Amy.

“Grandfather, perhaps we should assist our presidents in greeting the Thanakians,” suggested Susan. The Doctor caught onto her granddaughter’s plan.

“I do believe you’re right, Susan. Let’s go, everyone.” The Doctor led the way with Miss Tarae snarling.

“Distract everyone by going off on a tangent, Doctor!” she hissed to herself. “How gutless! And the universe WILL pay for my madness one way or another!”

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings The Specials

Gallifrey’s Rebirth: Part 4

“You don’t understand, Miss Rose!” hissed Miss Tarae.

“Understand what?” asked Amy.

“I spent 90 years alone with my thoughts after our last encounter, thanks to Ganondorf’s magics! Many more years after that, after my prison was destroyed throughout Hyrule’s many temporal resets as I drifted in space-!”

“And now that you’ve had a little think about it, you’ve decided to mend your ways.”

“A little think?! …Ninety years! Do you have ANY idea?! You must think death impossible for a Time Lord! You most likely believe 90 years must be nothing to us! Believe me, when you’re a Time Lord stuck in a crystal prison without the ability to time travel, it is a lifetime unable to move! I was in complete sensory deprivation! I wasn’t breathing! I couldn’t even feel my hearts beating! I stood utterly alone…I thought I would go insane!!”

“No comment,” remarked Amy.

“…I wondered if I really HAD died after all. How would I know? …I started hearing voices!” By now, Miss Tarae was looking fearful at what she was forcing herself to recall. “I started imagining things out there in the darkness! Terrifying things! Larger than me! All around me! It was like I had been cast adrift on a raft in the middle of the ocean! I heard all my former allies there! The Cybermen! The Autons! The Daleks! Every one of them calling out my names in unison! All the names I had, even my birth name! …They sounded so faint.”

“It feels like you’re demanding an apology for what YOU used them for,” said Amy.

“Then I saw the face of the Timeless Child! Tormenting! Sneering! Cruel! Cowardly! Just as it is now! Just as it had always been! Their true face! Not the one they happen to be wearing today as the current Doctor! …Then there was nothing. …A near…century…of nothing. …I turned inward. My mind, consumed by memories, forced me to live and relive every single experience from the moment I was born! Maybe even before that! I was LOCKED in my past! Unable to change my mistakes! Condemned to relive them over and over and over! Every death, every failure, every lie, every betrayal! Even those I thought I had completely erased from my memory, like-!”

“…Like?” ventured Amy.

“…Every one of the foul deeds I thought I had buried…rose up…taunting me! …I felt so ashamed…so naked. The process stripped me of everything. It showed me how small I was! How insignificant my achievements had been! I was NOTHING! The mere dreams of a Time Lord who should have died millennia before! I passed through eternity! Imagining every possible theory! Every possible book! Every possible idea! And then, as I had exhausted every combination in that moment…I felt myself transcending! I felt myself starting to lift away from my body to join with something greater than me! Greater than ALL things! …And then…I felt my hearts beat. …That had just been the first second of my imprisonment. …And I was back at the beginning! Utterly trapped! Cursing those who had imprisoned me! A mere deformed, unfinished mind! Before the next hearts beat, the process was repeated in every detail! The third second was the same! As was the next! AS WAS THE NEXT!”

“As I only have a watch synced to Mobius and the TARDIS,” said Amy, “and I don’t have the life-span of a Time Lord, maybe you should skip to the end.”

“…The end?” asked Miss Tarae. “…Very well. I came to realize that I could count myself the queen of an infinite universe were it not for my bad dreams! That there was more in heaven and on Gallifrey than was ever dreamt of in YOUR philosophy, Amy Rose!” By then, the Doctor announced her presence by laughing in the doorway, causing Miss Tarae and Amy to yelp in surprise.

“Eternity?!” asked the Doctor between giggles. “And the best you could manage is to misquote Shakespeare?! Any non-Mobian monkey with a typewriter could do that! At least THEY would have managed to write something down!”

“My point precisely, Doctor!” hissed Miss Tarae.

“Good night, Sweet Prince,” countered the Doctor. “I need to check on something. The bio-data induction channel is very fragile. Amy, I trust-.”

“She didn’t lay a finger on it,” assured Amy.

“Good to know. Now, let’s see-.” The Doctor was interrupted by someone approaching. That person was Romana.

“Doctor, we need to give the Thanakians sanctuary,” said Romana.

“What?” asked the Doctor. “But with so many inconsistencies-!”

“A Rutan fleet was discovered making their way to Gallifrey!” replied Romana. “They’re in attack formation!”

“…The Rutans aren’t so ham-fisted!” argued the Doctor.

“I’d say the Rutans are desperate for a win,” remarked Miss Tarae.

“I have discussed this with Rassilon,” said Romana, “and it’s agreed that the Thanakian flagship may land, but that ship only.”

“What about the other-?!”

“The Thanakians have ship-to-ship teleportation, Doctor. They’ve already beamed over those that haven’t stayed behind. However, they are to stay in their time ship until proper accommodations can be made.”

“I don’t like this,” muttered the Doctor. “Everything is happening so fast!”

“Doctor, we’re still in a position to dictate terms,” said Miss Tarae. “Perhaps I should explain my deal with the Thanakians fully.”

“Yes, perhaps you should!” hissed Romana.

“As you know, the Thanakians have considerably primitive time-travel capabilities. Their power source is a more wasteful one compared to the Eye of Harmony.”

“What IS the Eye of Harmony?” asked Amy.

“Rassilon and Omega created a star,” explained the Doctor, “then suspended time around it as it exploded in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur. That energy was then imprisoned in a crystal that was connected up to all of Gallifrey and all the TARDIS’ ever made, including my own. It was lost during the Time War.”

“Then how-?” asked Amy.

“Rifts in space-time can refuel a TARDIS,” explained Miss Tarae. “The Doctor’s favorite rift is in Cardiff, Wales on Earth!”

“Let me guess,” muttered the Doctor, “you think a new Eye of Harmony can be created.”

“I know it will,” replied Miss Tarae. “And the Thanakians can observe how it’s done.”

“That’s entirely dependent on if Rassilon can pull up how she and Omega did it in the first place,” remarked the Doctor.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Miss Tarae.

“Come on, how long has it been since she and Omega made the Eye?”

“Rassilon can’t just forget something like that!”

“Well, she probably did and maybe the notes are in the deepest recesses of the Matrix,” remarked Romana. “I haven’t seen those notes when I was trapped in that dimension.”

“Oh, for the love of-! Are you REALLY going to make me look like a liar in front of Thanakians?!” complained Miss Tarae.

“What, did you give them a timetable?” asked the Doctor. “Come on, you can see the state of Gallifrey, the Matrix is probably at dial-up speeds right now.”

“And I’ll need to tell them that you, Miss Tarae,” said Romana, “jumped the gun as you forgot that the Eye is a proprietary secret.”

“But-!”

“But nothing! My decision is final!” said Romana. As Romana left, Miss Tarae snarled.

“Who does she think she is?!” she hissed.

“The current president of the High Council of Time Lords,” remarked the Doctor. “Currently consisting of you, me, Susan, her, and Rassilon. …Coincidentally, we make up the current population of Gallifrey.”

“And you have to admit, you DID promise them something that doesn’t exist right now,” remarked Amy.


“Gallifrey to Thanakian ship,” Romana said over the call she was setting up. “Thanakians, come in please.” The Thanakian ambassador appeared.

“Lord President,” said the ambassador fearfully, “the Rutans are moving in for the kill!”

“I sympathize with your plight and I wish we could save every Thanakian,” replied Romana, “but we can’t have every ship in your fleet landing on Gallifrey. Have your people evacuate to your flagship. We will lower the Transduction Barriers for that ship only. And until accommodations can be made on Gallifrey, I must ask that you stay aboard the flagship. Only then can we help you formulate a plan of campaign against the Rutans.”

“We are grateful for what you can realistically offer,” thanked the ambassador. “These terms are acceptable.”

“I’m sending you coordinates,” said Romana as she keyed in the coordinates for a landing site outside the capital. “There will be a beacon there to guide you to the landing site.”

“Thank you, Gallifrey!” replied the ambassador. The call ended. At that moment, Miss Tarae entered the room.

“What is this supposed to be?” asked Miss Tarae. “Your act of undoing the Master Restitution?”

“Keep silent about that, Monster!” hissed Romana as she stormed away to collect Rassilon and greet the Thanakians. Miss Tarae smirked.

“You can’t anyways,” she chuckled to herself. “Soon, I shall be in control of Gallifrey. I already wounded Rassilon, but never had the pleasure of wounding YOU, Lord President Romana!”

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings The Specials

Gallifrey’s Rebirth: Part 3

“I don’t like this,” muttered Amy at one point.

“Do any of us?” asked the Doctor.

“Should we really trust the same person that gave Eggman the means to split the universe apart?” asked Amy.

“Okay, to be fair to Miss Tarae,” conceded the Doctor, “we BOTH told him how bone-headed it was to roboticize a TARDIS.”

“Gallifrey calling Thanakian Ship,” Romana said to a screen. “Thanakian Ambassador, come in please.” A horrifying monster appeared on the screen. “Ah, there you are. This is Romanadvoratrelundar, Romana for short, Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords and duly elected spokesperson for Gallifrey. It is my understanding that Miss Tarae told you that we can accept refugees.”

“That was the impression,” replied the monster, the Thanakian Ambassador, “but, forgive me for saying this, all we see is rubble and ruin. Under better circumstances, we would help you rebuild your world.”

“Yes, well, that’s thanks to one of our number learning the truth about our past and throwing a tantrum. I understand the Rutans are after you lot?”

“They have ravaged our planet! We cannot hold against them! If the Rutans are not shown that the universe will stand together, they will commit worse atrocities than the Daleks just to destroy the Sontarans!”

“That doesn’t sound like what we saw of their timeline,” said Romana, “but, then again, we haven’t been able to see ANY timeline as of late. …I sympathize with your plight, but, as you see, we’re not in a place to accept refugees.”

“Gallifrey, we beg you! All we ask is a place for our chief executive so that we may coordinate a plan of campaign!”

“…I’ll see what can be done if anything CAN be done,” sighed Romana.

“We are grateful,” replied the Thanakian Ambassador. Romana switched the call off and went off to find Rassilon. Much as she hated the former Lord President Eternal right now, Romana needed the advice of a previous ruler.


As the call went on, Miss Tarae and Amy were in a room alone. The Doctor and Lurra Rus had just gone for a cup of tea. “…What ARE you doing here, Miss Rose?” asked Miss Tarae once the silence was uncomfortable for her.

“Helping Rassilon restore Gallifrey, like the Doctor promised,” replied Amy. “Gotta admit, the work’s coming along nicely…although, I’m not an engineer, more of a muscle-.”

“You want to see me destroyed,” observed Miss Tarae.

“…I don’t want you to pull a Toymaker,” corrected Amy, “and turn the universe into your playground. There IS a distinction. And, given what few interactions we’ve had, well…not the best first impression, gotta say.”

“…Even if Gallifrey were restored, I’d still be alone,” muttered Miss Tarae. “An outcast from my people.”

“Only because they probably know your nature, probably not as well as the Doctor, granted.”

“…Indeed. …Miss Rose, do you know who is the nearest non-Time Lord that I have to a friend?”

“Nope.”

“…You.”

“Me?!” Amy was taken aback at that! “But-!”

“We have been through a lot in our few interactions, have we not?” asked Miss Tarae. “We are both women forging our own destinies. You said so yourself, you’re not an engineer, but your intellect lies not in that! It lies in bringing peace and prosperity to everyone! We have that much in common!”

“We’re not friends, Miss Tarae,” reminded Amy.

“No, we’re not,” conceded Miss Tarae. “…But I often think that, in some strange branch of history, we might have been. Fate has made us allies, Miss Rose! Imagine what we could achieve together!”

“You’re dangerous.”

“All beings of destiny are!”

“Beings of what?” laughed Amy. “Destiny? Before I met the Doctor, I was a heroine that lived her life in a linear pattern. Maybe I have a different perspective on fate and destiny.”

“You do, yes,” replied Miss Tarae. “But you are one of the Elite of Mobius! It was YOU that organized a successful resistance against Dr. Eggman when he was playing with the Phantom Ruby! The same resistance that freed Sonic from prison and led to the final victory in that campaign! The Doctor doesn’t pick her friends from the Rabble! I think Rassilon and Romana are like us! We CAN achieve great things!”

“You can’t have four supreme beings, Miss Tarae, by definition.”

“I always thought it was a question of destruction! …But I see now that the constant fighting just cancels out any gains. If we can work together-!”

“To what end?” asked Amy. “Like I said, I don’t know you as well as the Doctor, but I know you well enough! I know your nature!”

“…Your people had abandoned the death penalty long before your birth, yes?” quizzed Miss Tarae.

“…Yes,” replied Amy, not sure where Miss Tarae was going with this.

“…Why?”

“…Well, because, deep down, we all hold life to be sacred. We believe that even the worst criminal could be rehabilitated.”

“Precisely!” Amy blinked as she realized what Miss Tarae was driving at.

“You…think you’re a reformed character?” she asked.

“Not yet, Miss Rose,” replied Miss Tarae. “But I HAVE been given a new chance and I intend to take it!”

“The Doctor introduced me to a saying the humans have; a Dalek can’t change its bumps.”

“I am not a Dalek!” snarled Miss Tarae. “Unlike those monsters, I have always been in control of my destiny!” Her face softened and she looked away, holding her forearm. “I have…misused that power. …Done terrible things.”

“…But now you’re going straight?” asked Amy.

“…I understand your skepticism,” replied Miss Tarae. “All I ask is that you judge me by my actions.”

“Don’t worry, we all will,” snarked Amy.


As Amy and Miss Tarae talked, Susan approached the Doctor. “Ah, Susan!” greeted the Doctor. “Excellent! I’ll need some with-.”

“Grandfather, I just learned why Miss Tarae did what she did,” interrupted Susan.

“…She did a great many things, Susan,” replied the Doctor. “You’ll have to-.”

“I’m talking about the Timeless Child, Grandfather! About you!” The Doctor paused her labors. Susan wasn’t going to let this go. “…They didn’t change your original bio-data, did they? Rassilon and her former friends?”

“…No, they didn’t,” sighed the Doctor.

“Then there’s a very real chance that…”

“…Yes, Susan, barring any fatal damage between regenerations, you very well could have endless lives like me.”

“…Does this mean that, even if and when we restore Gallifrey, we’ll live beyond its final end?” The Doctor didn’t want to hear that question, but it was one that played in her mind. She already hated the fact that she would outlast her companions, but this…this was far more horrible. An immortal among immortals. And with Susan having the potential to regenerate endlessly like her grandfather…

“…Susan…I don’t know,” the Doctor finally sighed. “…But this time, we’ll be there for each other if and when that time comes.” The Doctor finally gave Susan the long-overdue hug she needed.


“They’re still waiting,” Rassilon said to Romana.

“Well, Rassilon? Your advice?” asked Romana icily. Lurra Rus sighed.

“Perhaps,” interjected the Twi’lek, “you two could fill me in on what’s going on between you two? This feels like unresolved trauma and the engineer in me wants to get that out of the way before it turns into something that ends badly like it did between me and my parents.”

“…To begin,” said Romana, “the Time Lords were at war with a race called the Daleks. It was known as the Last Great Time War at its conclusion.”

“You fought those monsters across time and space?” asked Lurra Rus.

“Exactly,” replied Rassilon. “And I went mad with power, deeming myself a god as the Emperor Dalek did.”

“And it was because of her madness that I crafted an assassination plot,” continued Romana. “It failed and I was exiled into that pocket dimension with all of Gallifrey’s archives to be an archivist. So, why DID you bring me back, Rassilon? Needed to set yourself up as a god again and needed a historian?”

“…Atonement, somehow,” replied Rassilon.

“Atonement?!” scoffed Romana. “What, do you regret being a madman?!”

“Well, after travelling with the Doctor on a quest for the Key to Time, wouldn’t you?!” snapped Rassilon.

“You’re lying!” accused Romana.

“Ask the Doctor or Amy! Look it up in the TARDIS! You’ll see I’m telling the truth!”

“She is, Romana,” called the Doctor’s voice. Everyone turned to see the Doctor and Susan approaching. “Before Miss Tarae did all this to Gallifrey, I exiled Rassilon. She managed to make it time travel capable, but bumped into the Black Guardian, ordering her to retrieve the Key to Time.”

“The Guardian said that order was overrunning the universe, making it stagnate and eventually fall into chaos,” continued Rassilon.

“Something you’d think the Guardian of Chaos and Destruction would want,” said the Doctor, “but, apparently, the Guardian needs to dictate how that’s supposed to go down.”

“And if I didn’t get the Key within six incarnations, I’d be her plaything forever,” Rassilon went on. “I wasted five incarnations to make my bowship time travel capable, then I found the Doctor.”

“After that, we went on a hunt for the segments, found them all…and Rassilon grew along the way,” finished the Doctor.

“…I learned that just because the rest of the universe is not temporally sensitive,” said Rassilon, “it doesn’t mean its suffering is less real. …But it’s a struggle every day. I still don’t know if I’ve fully changed.”

“So how did you get out of that situation?” asked Romana.

“Well, remember the end of our quest for the Key to Time?” quizzed the Doctor. “Where the Black Guardian posed as the White before we figured it out and stopped him?”

“Yes, that’s why we had a randomizer installed in the TARDIS,” replied Romana.

“Well, the White Guardian was doing the same,” explained the Doctor.

“Turns out it was the WHITE Guardian that sent me on that quest to teach me a lesson,” explained Rassilon. “At least, according to her, I passed her test, but…”

“But you’re not sure if you fully believe that,” said Romana.

“No,” admitted Rassilon lamely. “I suppose that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, to restore Gallifrey.”

“You could just start over elsewhere,” remarked Romana.

“I don’t have a choice!” retorted Rassilon.

“…You do, actually. But you chose an option that served Gallifrey over you.” Romana drew herself up to her full height. “Understand that I have not forgiven you for your past sins, but I can see you’re attempting to repent as best you can.”

“…Whose idea was it to clear the air now?” asked the Doctor.

“Lurra Rus,” replied Rassilon. “She correctly figured that not addressing it would be bad for Gallifrey in the long run.”

“Good work, Lurra,” praised the Doctor.

“Well, I didn’t want the mistakes of my past to be repeated,” replied Lurra Rus.

“…Speaking of resolving things for the good of Gallifrey, we’d better make sure Amy and Miss Tarae don’t kill each other,” said the Doctor as she headed off.

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings The Specials

Gallifrey’s Rebirth: Part 2

“…Miss Tarae, will you kindly release Amy?” hissed the Doctor.

“Oh, please yourself,” sighed Miss Tarae. “Her death will actually complicate things.” She put her TCE away and Amy rushed to the group. Miss Tarae then saw Susan and smiled. “Well, if it isn’t Susan! Come give your great-aunt a big hug!”

“That’s the Master,” the Doctor explained to Susan.

“Oh,” muttered Susan.

“State your business and begone, Miss Tarae!” demanded Rassilon.

“And I was hoping for something more cordial, especially from the Founder of Time Lord Society,” remarked Miss Tarae.

“Founder of-? That woman can’t be Rassilon!” laughed Susan.

“No, no, it is,” replied the Doctor.

“…WHAT?!” protested Susan. “Grandfather, what is going on here?!”

“It’s a long story,” said Amy. “Doctor, mind if Lurra Rus and I fill her in?”

“Yes, you do that,” replied the Doctor. As Amy and Lurra Rus led Susan away, introducing themselves in the process, the Doctor and Rassilon turned to Rassilon.

“I don’t recall sending the Call to YOU, Miss Tarae,” remarked Rassilon.

“You didn’t, but you DO lack a bit of technology,” replied Miss Tarae. “Engineering dimensions is hardly a one-person effort, even you must admit that.”

“…You found help on that front?” scoffed Rassilon. “I admire your cheek at that blatant lie.”

“It is no lie. I requested the aid of the Thanakians.”

“The Thanakians?!” laughed the Doctor. “I like them well enough, but their most advanced time travel technologies barely reached our most primitive!”

“They DID outpace us in dimensional engineering, Doctor,” replied Rassilon. “But why should I believe that? Let’s just say, Miss Tarae, your arrival and willingness to help is a little…convenient.”

“Oh, come now, Rassilon!” cackled Miss Tarae. “We’re all Prydonians here! We need to make Gallifrey-!”

“Don’t!” snapped the Doctor. “…Just don’t.”

“…Well, now you force a confession from me,” grumbled Miss Tarae. “The truth is that I offered them sanctuary as this world was allegedly still dead.”

“On what grounds?!” protested Rassilon.

“The Thanakians are losing a war,” replied Miss Tarae. “A war against the Rutan Host.”

“The Rutans?!” asked the Doctor. “But they’re still engaged in that interminable war with the Sontarans!”

“War has defined their culture much like it has the Sontarans,” remarked Rassilon.


Susan had to sit down when she got the story. It was a lot to take in. “…Grandfather…” she muttered.

“I know it’s a lot,” soothed Amy. “I still haven’t figured her out.”

“…I have to admit, I didn’t expect the Doctor to be some sort of chosen one,” remarked Lurra Rus.

“Grandfather always poo-poo’s the idea,” said Susan.

“That hasn’t changed,” replied Amy. Susan breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, so, that’s us all caught up to Gallifrey’s present,” declared Susan, “let’s go see what they’re up to.” The three headed up to the Doctor and her group.

“I sympathize with the Thanakians’ plight,” said Rassilon, “and you DID invite them, so that DOES satisfy my recent edict, but we’re not in a state to accept refugees!”

“If I heard what Amy said correctly,” interjected Susan, “the current state of Gallifrey was a mess YOU, Miss Tarae, had caused!”

“You heard her correctly, my dear,” replied the Doctor.

“Did she tell you about what the Doctor is, Miss Foreman?” asked Miss Tarae.

“She has, but finishing what the Daleks started wasn’t the way to go!” hissed Susan.

“In any event,” said Rassilon, “like I used to be, you’re just a tyrant, Miss Tarae. We need a proper politician, a President of the High Council of Time Lords and while the Doctor HAS shown me what proper morals are, she’s a terrible politician. Her running away from being the Lord President is proof enough.”

“…While true, you didn’t need to go THAT hard!” grumbled the Doctor.

“So who are you retrieving, if not electing any of us?” asked Miss Tarae.

“I presume you’re familiar with Lord President Romanadvoratrelundar?” quizzed Rassilon.

“That weak-willed imbecile?!” snarled Miss Tarae. “She’s the one that sent me to Skaro to stand trial in the first place! She’s the one who signed my death warrant!”

“A death warrant YOU circumvented,” reminded the Doctor. “But I do have to agree, Romana is one of the High Council’s better Presidents. She’ll be able to look at this objectively.”

“Will you need my help, Grandfather?” asked Susan.

“I could use your mathematics skills to check our work, if you don’t mind,” replied the Doctor.

“Well, what about me?!” asked Miss Tarae.

“YOU,” declared the Doctor as she shoved Miss Tarae out of the room, “can wait outside!” She then shut the door. “Amy, could you stand guard?”

“Will do!” chuckled Amy as she summoned her hammer.

“…How is she-?” Susan asked Rassilon.

“Not even your grandfather has figured it out,” replied Rassilon. “And she’s known Miss Rose longer than I have.”

“If Miss Rose can teach Grandfather how to maintain long-term relationships!” muttered Susan.

“OI!” protested the Doctor.

“All right, let’s not get bogged down by who’s terrible with what kind of relationship,” said Rassilon. “Let’s just focus on getting Romana and all that knowledge with her out of that pocket dimension. Let me just make sure I recall how to access it correctly.” She keyed in some figures. “…Aha! That’s it! Doctor, prepare the flux feedback generators. Make sure they stabilize at 4.7.”

“Give me the hard job of stabilizing flux, huh?” chuckled the Doctor.

“Grandfather, that’s supposed to be division,” corrected Susan.

“Oh! So it is!” said the Doctor.

“Miss Rus, how fares the loop engine?” asked Rassilon.

“Climbing to 8.0,” replied Lurra Rus.

“Tell me when it reaches 14.0,” directed Rassilon.

“Still climbing,” reported Lurra Rus. “9.0. 10.0. 11.0. …11.7?”

“That’s a normal variance,” assured Rassilon.

“12.4,” continued Lurra Rus. “…13.7. …Maintaining 13.7. …14.0! NOW!” Rassilon then switched on the Time Scoop and everyone awaited the results. The triangular shape appeared again, then dissipated into a woman with African features. Outside the Time Scoop, piles of books appeared.

“Retrieval complete!” cheered Rassilon. “Madame President, are you all right?”

“Romana? A new bit of cosmetics?” asked the Doctor.

“…May I ask which of you is the Lord President Eternal?” asked the woman, Romana. Rassilon winced.

“Erm, that would be me, Lord President Romana,” she admitted. “Or, at least, that WAS my ti-!” Romana then punched Rassilon square in the nose. Rassilon fell to the floor, clutching her face and crying out in pain.

“Couldn’t you have waited until later?!” protested the Doctor.

“Trust me, she has another one coming,” replied Romana. “…You sound familiar.”

“Romana, it’s me! You know, Princess Astra? You regenerated into her? France? E-Space?”

“Doctor?!” yelped Romana as a smile crossed her face. “Oh, thank goodness!” She then hugged the Doctor. “Still got that quaint Type 40 working?”

“Kind of says something about that class of TARDIS,” interjected Susan, “when it managed to survive all sorts of things, even the loss of Gallifrey.”

“…Oh, that’s right! You’re the Doctor’s granddaughter!” recalled Romana. “She talked about you when I traveled with her, or rather HIM.”

“I’d love to reminisce,” said the Doctor, “but we DO have a matter of some delicacy. Amy, you can let her in now.”

“Right!” replied Amy. She opened the door. “Your presence is required!” she said to Miss Tarae in mock-politeness.

“How kind,” muttered Miss Tarae.

“All right, let me just warn you, Romana,” said the Doctor. “Miss Tarae right there is actually the Master.”

“Madame President,” greeted Miss Tarae.

“…Charmed,” replied Romana.

“Now, let’s all have a nice telepathic conference on our predicament, hm?” suggested the Doctor as she helped Rassilon up.

“All right,” said Romana. “Contact.”

“Contact,” replied Rassilon.

“Contact,” said Susan.

“Contact,” said the Doctor.

“Contact,” finished Miss Tarae. The five Time Lords shut their eyes and concentrated.

“A telepathic-?” asked Lurra Rus.

“It’s a quick way for Time Lords to fill one another in on what’s going on,” explained Amy. It took a while, considering the amount of Time Lords and details, but, eventually, the telepathic conference ended.

“As I said,” remarked Rassilon, “I sympathize with the Thanakians’ plight, but we’re not in a position to accept refugees.”

“Ordinarily, I’d agree with you,” replied Romana, “but consider the reputation we’d build if we accepted allies.”

“Romana, wait a minute,” protested the Doctor, “Miss Tarae here is the one that brought them here and most likely has an ulterior motive for that!”

“You wound me, Doctor,” said Miss Tarae.

“I’ve known you since the Academy.”

“Might I make a suggestion?” offered Susan. “Let’s hear out what the Thanakian Ambassador has to say.”

“Susan’s quite right,” agreed Romana. “Thanakian ships always have at least one ambassador on board.”

“Well, their diplomatic skills ARE the finest in the galaxy,” recalled the Doctor.

“Which galaxy?” asked Lurra Rus.

“Mutter’s Spiral,” replied Rassilon. “What the humans call the Milky Way.”

“…Okay, when this is over, I gotta learn how many names that galaxy has from all the species that live in it.”

“In any event, unless Miss Tarae fatally shrunk her-,” said the Doctor.

“Hang on, my TCE is NOT as overused as your Sonic Screwdriver!” protested Miss Tarae.

“It is,” replied Rassilon and Romana.

“Sonic Screwdriver?” asked Susan.

“And the Thanakian Ambassador insisted on staying on the flagship,” continued Miss Tarae.

“Rassilon, do we have communications?” asked Romana.

“We do. That’s how I got the Call through to the Doctor.”

“Then I’m calling the Thanakians,” declared Romana.

Categories
Kamen Rider Vortex Kamen Rider Vortex Chapters

Chapter 26

Go ahead, play the Doctor Who theme. Imagine your own intro sequence. Now, imagine the names “Jodie Whittaker, Michael Archer, Emmanuel Babineaux, Sheela Kumar, Irina Kuznetsov, Hiroki Hishikawa, Tonje Haugen, Xiomara Elizondo.” Now, imagine the title of the show. You can see it in bold, capital letters. Doctor Who! Now imagine Jodie Whittaker’s grinning face in the stars then fading into the episode’s title, The Dalek Extermination of Earth! before we cut to the interior of the Dalek Command Saucer. “Time capsule detected!” reported the Dalek running Scan-Ops.

“Battle computers estimate a ninety-seven percent chance that it is the Doctor!” read off the Dalek running the battle computer mainframe.

“Oh, I think we can up that to one-hundred percent,” replied a voice from the shadows. “However, I give you my word, this time, there’s a zero percent chance of the Doctor’s survival!” As the voice ranted, the TARDIS landed in an old station of the London Underground that had been exposed by bombing. Outside, the Daleks were squawking orders to the humans.

“Do not resist the will of the Daleks! All humans must present themselves for processing!” they bellowed. We all poked our heads outside.

“So, where and when is this?” asked Xiomara.

“London in the year 2055,” replied the Doctor, “or, at least, what’s left of it.” She sighed in annoyance. “Who else but the Daleks would cause so much destruction?”

“Well, no point staying down here,” I mused.

“Right,” agreed the Doctor. “We need to find a way up onto the street. I don’t want to be late for the surprise welcome party.”

“Oh, look,” observed Irina, “a locked door.” It was a shutter style door.

“Well, Doctor,” I jested, “these broken shutters are nothing your magic wand can’t handle.”

“You mean the Sonic Screwdriver?” asked the Doctor.

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” I dismissed.

“The Sonic Screwdriver is a tool of the Time Lords!” argued the Doctor in annoyance. “It is technological in operation, not mystical!”

“It’s a device that can perform a multitude of tasks with either the flick of a switch,” I countered, “or an incantation. It can function as a crude laser or unlock doors. That’s what a magic wand does.”

“Well, at the moment,” replied the Doctor as she pulled out the charred remains of a Sonic Screwdriver with the TARDIS at the end of it, “a Sontaran shot it. I haven’t gotten around to fixing it. Michael, be a dear and get the toolkit.” She then got a faraway look. “I really need to use it more often. I don’t know why I stopped.” She then pushed me into the TARDIS. “In any case, off you go!”

“Wait! But…!” I couldn’t complete my sentence as the door was shut on me. “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE IT IS!” A beep from the console alerted me to a path being shown in yellow light. I figured out who made it as I grinned at the console. “Is there anything Time Lords can’t put into their time machines?” I asked rhetorically. The console then showed me a person in simple clothes on its view screen. “Yes,” I muttered, “humility isn’t a Gallifreyan’s strong suit.” I followed the path into a room built like a futuristic tool shed, complete with the TARDIS’ old roundels. “Not even the Doctor knows what the roundels are,” I muttered to myself. I grabbed the toolkit and returned outside. The toolkit apparently also has telepathic circuits as I knew what tools were inside and what their main functions were.

“Excellent!” cheered the Doctor. She knelt down at the door controls that she had opened up. “Now then, pen torch.”

“Pen torch,” I replied as I handed her the tool. It was a pen with a powerful torch at the end, or flashlight, if you’re from America. The Doctor pulled a small clamp arm out and attached it to the edge of the opening after she turned the torch end on. After adjusting the light, she could see what to do.

“Magnetic clamp,” she requested.

“Magnetic clamp,” I replied, handing her the tool. She put it across the internal workings to make a circuit.

“Astro-rectifier,” requested the Doctor.

“Astro-rectifier,” I confirmed. It was used to give temporary power to the circuit the magnetic clamp was making. The doors opened and the Doctor removed her tools. As I put them back, I started wondering to the Daleks’ purpose here.

“What do you suppose brought the Daleks here?” asked Irina, voicing my thoughts.

“I’m fairly sure that they didn’t get lost on their way to a plumbing convention,” mused Emmanuel.

“I never asked Davros why the manipulator arm looks like a plunger,” muttered the Doctor as we went up onto the street.

“Why ask Davros anything?” I asked. “He just wants to cause destruction.”

“But, a plunger?” quizzed the Doctor.

“Daleks are the masters of Earth! Daleks are the masters of Earth!” shrieked a Dalek. A saucer then blasted a large hole where a double-decker bus was resting.

“Daleks reign supreme!” called another Dalek.

“Alert!” screeched a third. “Vortex riders detected!”

“Right on cue,” quipped the Doctor. “Not so nice to see you again.”

“Time Lord genetics detected!” reported a Dalek.

“Confirm identity of Time Lord,” ordered a Black Dalek.

“I obey!” obliged the subordinate. A probe stuck itself into the Doctor and flew towards the Dalek.

“I already got vaccinated!” she protested.

“TARDIS located!” screamed a Dalek that traveled to the Underground.

“You don’t even have legs!” called Hiroki.

“They don’t need them,” I gulped. “Stairs may have been a problem for early model Daleks, but not these new ones.”

“Identity confirmed!” reported the Dalek that stuck the Doctor with a needle. “It IS the Doctor!”

“Exterminate!” ordered the Black Dalek.

“Drivers ready, everyone!” I directed. “Protect the Doctor!” We got our i.d tags out and readied ourselves.

“Henshin!” we all announced. We donned our familiar Rider suits and charged the ranks of the Daleks as the Doctor looked at a wall of blue light.

“A Dalek energy shield,” she muttered, “and heavily guarded too. There’s nothing getting past that in one piece. There must be a power source nearby. And chances are we’ll find a few more Daleks too.” As she looked around, we fought off the Daleks.

“Might want to add us to your ‘Ka Faraq Gatri’ files!” I quipped. “The Doctor’s getting lonely being your only arch-nemesis!”

“Ka what now?” asked Sengoku.

“It’s Dalek for ‘Oncoming Storm’!” I explained. I then stabbed a Dalek right between the manipulator arm and the gun stick. A bit of green dripped from my blade. I then turned it into rifle mode and fired on three more. As we fought, the Doctor found something. It was a console that had the same globes that are on the Daleks’ skirts.

“AHA!” she cheered. “What do we have here?”

“Dalek technology?” asked Swing.

“Unmistakably Dalek technology,” confirmed the Doctor. “And if my calculations are correct, and they are, then this is one of the power sources to that energy field.” She started fiddling with the electronics inside. The unit started shaking. “Take cover!” called the Doctor. Those of us that could fell on our fronts and covered our heads. The Daleks, regrettably, do not have a way to do so. I couldn’t see their deaths, but I could hear them. Judging by the boom and the following death rattles they made, I guessed that the shrapnel pierced their casings and killed the creatures inside. We got up and saw the grisly aftermath of those Daleks. They weren’t moving.

“Non-Dalek lifeforms detected!” screamed a Dalek’s voice. “Exterminate! Exterminate!”

“Stay calm!” called the Doctor. “More Daleks incoming! We need to get to safety!”

“Where in this time zone is safe?!” asked Arch.

“Especially now that a Special Weapons Dalek is coming!” I yelped.

“You’re right,” agreed the Doctor. “There’s nothing we can do here. The Daleks will have us surrounded. So, where to next? Let’s take a punt, shall we? Back to the TARDIS!”

“Problem,” replied Seeker, “the Daleks are surrounding the Underground entrance. That Special Weapons one is with them. If only Wyldstyle were here.”

“How easy you forget,” chuckled Climb as she drew out the Wyldstyle i.d tag. She swapped hers out for the new one.

“Wyldstyle Steel!” announced her belt. She got the Wyldstyle Steel on and used the Special Weapons Dalek and some street lamps to make a laser beam to slice through the Daleks and get back to the TARDIS. We got inside and started working the controls, this time with Arch and Sengoku standing to the side. The Doctor told them to head down to a room near the pool and retrieve a valuable asset. We landed in Central London again, but in a different time.

“2015,” sighed the Doctor. “A good year, or at least, it will be if we can find the next power source to break down the Dalek’s force field.”

“And you think that we can find it here?” asked Sengoku as he and Arch brought a robot in. It was shaped like a dog, was gray, and had its name on one side. It had a red visor with a probe that could be extended from the eye. It had a pair of radar dishes to look like dog ears and had a wire tail. It had a dog tag, a set of controls on its back, and a hook for someone to attach a lead (leash) on it. It looked quite battered.

“K-9!” I cheered. K-9 didn’t move.

“He’s had quite the tumble with some Sontarans,” explained the Doctor as she opened K-9 up. She fiddled with the electronics and muttered to herself. “Let’s see…can’t quite…ah, yes…need to align that…oops, almost forgot where arrow A points…and Bob’s your uncle! One fully operational tin dog!” She closed the dog and switched it on. As the eye glowed red, she went to the front, holding her hand out to sniff. The probe extended as K-9 gathered data on the hand, then the head tilted to see the face.

“Master?” quizzed K-9 as the probe retracted. The Doctor stroked her dog’s head, making the tail wag. “Last time I saw you,” said K-9, “was with Mistress Sarah.”

“This is the Mark IV K-9?” I asked.

“Yes,” confirmed the Doctor. “I picked him up after Sarah…passed.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I sympathized, remembering Sarah Jane Smith’s actress having a battle with cancer. She died in 2011. Then I remembered what the Doctor said earlier. “K-9, when were you around the Sontarans?” K-9’s response, apropos, given that he doesn’t know me and my friends, was to deploy his stun blaster from his snout.

“Negative! Negative! Negative!” barked K-9 as his ears rotated backwards. “Retreat! Retreat! Retreat! Intruders are not welcome in the TARDIS!”

“K-9! HEEL!” ordered the Doctor.

“Master?” asked K-9.

“I picked these people up to help me with a Dalek problem in 2055,” explained the Doctor. “Now, recognize Michael, Emmanuel, Hiroki, Irina, Tonje, Sheela, and Xiomara: friends.” K-9 slowly retracted his blaster and extended his probe. We cancelled our transformations and held our hands out for him to scan. When he was finished, his tail wagged.

“All are now recognized as friends, Master,” reported K-9. “Correction; Mistress.”

“Calling me Master is fine,” assured the Doctor. “Now, shall we get moving?” We left the TARDIS with K-9 at the Doctor’s heels. We were in Central London. A tree was about to be planted, but the truck’s crew was on break. I then remembered something.

“Doctor,” I observed, “there was an area that would have had a tree in 2055. It would have easily been long enough for us to climb the bus and get to another part to find the energy field power source.”

“I think Richard and Emily would call it going halfway around your butt to get to your elbow,” muttered Irina.

“They used another word, but yes,” agreed Hiroki.

“That could be our best option,” mused the Doctor. “K-9, see if you can plant that tree.”

“At once, Master,” obliged K-9. He found a panel at the truck’s rear and extended his probe to interface with it. A claw arm on the truck then grabbed the tree and put it in the ground.

“OI!” called one of the crew members. The whole crew saw us. The Doctor drew out a wallet with a blank card, at least, blank to me. She presented it to the crew.

“I’m the Doctor, this here’s the relief crew your Foreman asked for,” she answered.

“You trying to be funny?!” snapped the man. “I’m the Foreman and this paper’s blank! I didn’t ask for a relief crew OR a doctor!” The card, called Psychic Paper, didn’t work.

“More clever than you gave him credit for, eh?” I muttered to the Doctor.

“Look, sir,” argued the Doctor, “planting this tree is VITAL to the survival of the human race. For, in the future, that tree could very well alter the course of human history, being a beacon of hope, showing every man, woman, and child that perseverance will ensure their survival and you’re not buying a single word I’m saying, are you?”

“What gave that away?” quizzed the Foreman. He was dialing a number on his mobile, the police, in all likelihood. Sadly, he couldn’t complete the call.

“Master! Hostiles, incoming! Danger!” warned K-9. We turned to the sky to see the Dalek fleet! We landed on the date the Daleks invaded Earth!

“All hail the Daleks!” called one of those pepperpots as it shot one of the crew. The Daleks were firing everywhere on the screaming masses.

“Time to go, I think!” yelped the Doctor. We turned to face a Dalek right behind us. Its eyestalk was a few centimeters from my face.

“All humans are to surren…!” it barked. The Dalek didn’t complete its sentence as I whacked it off with a knife hand chop. “MY VISION IS IMPAIRED! I CANNOT SEE!” We got out of the way of the gunstick as the Dalek fired wildly. We retreated into the TARDIS.

“Daleks conquer and destroy!” called another Dalek.

“I’d love to stay and reminisce,” muttered the Doctor as we gathered around the controls, this time with Xiomara and myself being left out, “but, you know how it is. Things to do, planets to save.” We took off and returned to Dalek controlled Central London in 2055. The tree we planted had indeed grown with branches long enough to get to the roof of the bus.

“Drivers ready!” I called. We got our i.d tags and struck our poses.

“Henshin!” we announced. After we donned our suits, we climbed up the tree and landed on the bus. Poor K-9 was almost left behind!

“I got him,” called Arch. He swapped out his i.d tag for the Batman one.

“Batman Steel!” announced the belt. He then fired the grapple gun onto the latch for K-9’s lead.

“Master Arch, what aaaAAAUUGGH!” yelled the tin dog. K-9 was brought up rapidly onto the bus’s roof. He’s one that claims he has no emotional programming but judging by how his tail was stiffer than usual, I’d say Arch spooked the poor dog.

“Next time, just let poor K-9 use his hover generators,” moaned the Doctor as she reassured her dog.

“Intruders detected!” reported a Dalek. “Protect the energy shield!”

“Exterminate the Doctor!” ordered a Black Dalek.

“I obey!” obliged a third. After dispatching those Daleks, we had managed to get a lift truck to get us up to where we could see the generator, but the only ledge was on the second floor instead of the top floor.

“Let’s see, judging by the decay,” said the Doctor as she licked fingers after touching it, “I’d say it was completed in 1867. We just need to go a couple of years before and move the ledge up.” She then took out a whistle, blew into it, and the TARDIS appeared. “And the TARDIS whistle works just fine!” cheered the Doctor. We got back into the TARDIS and headed for 1865 Central London. This time, the Doctor decided to hang back with Claw. The landing was…bumpy, to say the least. As we staggered out, we cancelled our transformations again. Our shoes crunched against newly fallen snow. “Here we are,” whispered the Doctor, “Victorian London. The Gelth, Weng-Chiang, a giant dinosaur in the Thames, I’ve got a tale or two to tell from my time here.” She examined the snow. “It must be winter,” she observed. “Strange how quiet it is, and there’s a sinister look to the snow.” I then saw old friends of the Doctor.

“Hey! It’s the Paternoster gang!” I called. I approached the gates to try and introduce myself, but they shut on their own accord.

“Creepy old gates slamming shut of their own accord in the middle of the night,” muttered the Doctor. “Never a good sign.” We headed to an old crane, but part of it was frozen in ice.

“I think I can handle this,” called Hiroki. “Or, rather, with Wyldstyle’s help, I can. Henshin!” After the Henshin sequence, he activated Wyldstyle Steel and built a large flame thrower. After that, we moved the ledge to the top floor where it was needed. We were about to get into the TARDIS when we saw a shaggy, brownish, bear-like creature spraying the TARDIS with some sort of aerosol that made ice on contact. The thing was bipedal, had fearsome claws, and when it turned, we saw yellow eyes and teeth.

“A Yeti!” I exclaimed.

“Yeti?” asked Xiomara.

“What on Earth is the Great Intelligence up to now?” moaned the Doctor. That’s when the Yeti laughed. That surprised me, they usually roared.

“The Great Intelligence?” growled the Yeti. “That thing is nothing more than a Cosmic Annoyance. I’m a Yeti of Vortech’s design. The Mark IV Yeti, if you will.”

“That dolt’s interfering here?” I snapped.

“He intends to control this universe,” explained the Yeti. “After seizing the Foundation Element of this universe, a Dalek gunstick, he figured the best thing to do would be to get rid of you, Doctor. And, with the avatar of the true Gaia Memory in our possession,” Sengoku was surprised, “ah, I THOUGHT that remark would startle you, Kamen Rider Sengoku, the self-proclaimed Rider Encyclopedia. Yes, we have Philip. Shōtarō followed after him, but we lost him.”

“Henshin!” announced the rest of us.

“Careful!” warned Sengoku after we finished transforming. “If they have access to the true Gaia Memory, they may possess the power to make their own.”

“And a Gaia Memory looks like…?” I ventured. The Yeti then grabbed a USB flash drive and pressed a button near the plug. It was brown like the Yeti’s fur and had an illuminated Y on it.

“YETI!” announced the flash drive after the Yeti pressed the button.

“That’s a Gaia Memory,” explained Sengoku. “They carry the memories and powers of certain things, like the wind, or metal, or Yetis, in this case.”

“Amazing what one can build with Master Vortech’s abilities,” crowed the Yeti. He then pulled back a fur flap on his right arm and put the Gaia Memory in at a diagonal and then pushed it flush against his arm’s internal mechanics.

“YETI! MAXIMUM DRIVE!” announced the Gaia Memory.

“Yeti Freezer,” declared the Yeti as he got ready to swipe his claw. We raised our weapons to strike, but the Yeti swiped the air, making ice encase us. We froze on the spot. “I am hardly the only one in this city’s timeline with a Gaia Memory. Sengoku, you’ve probably heard of Kamen Rider Eternal. That Rider’s been essential in making the two Gaia Memories my master has in his possession. Speaking of which, Lord Vortech wouldn’t want you running around and ruining things, so I’ll just deal with you now. With you lot gone, the Vortex Riders are that much weaker and the Time Lord will finally die. Say goodbye, Doctor and Company.” He raised his claw to strike, but something interrupted him.

“SONTAR-HA!” it roared. Something tackled the Yeti and knocked him to the ground while a pair of women got us out of the ice. Being of a colder body temperature than humans, the Doctor recovered more quickly than us.

“Is everything quite all right?” asked one of the women, wearing a black veil.

“Apart from being frozen, Madame,” I shivered. “I think we’ll be okay. We’re not feeling sluggish, at least. The Doctor, even less so.”

“So, you know the Doctor?” asked the other woman. “Is he still in there?” She was pointing to the TARDIS.

“No,” corrected the Doctor, “SHE’S right here. Good to see you again, Madame Vastra, Jenny. I presume Strax is dealing with the Yeti?” The person that tackled the Yeti was then flung off. He picked himself up and grabbed a large club. He had a potato shaped head, reached up to my solar plexus, had three fingers, and a crazed expression.

“I’m going to enjoy eviscerating you, Sontaran!” roared the Yeti.

“Prepare to meet complete and utter dismantling at the hands of a Sontaran Warrior!” declared the creature, a Sontaran.

“Strax, return here at once and put that club down!” commanded Madame Vastra.

“But, Madame!” protested the Sontaran, Strax.

“Now!” ordered Vastra. Strax grudgingly put the club down and joined with Vastra and the other human.

“And the young woman with you is your wife, Ms. Jenny Flint, correct?” I asked.

“That’s…right…” stammered Jenny.

“Now that the Sontaran lap dog has returned to its master,” growled the Yeti, “the TARDIS key! I can’t have you returning to 2055!”

“I don’t think so!” snarled the Doctor.

“JOKER!” announced the voice of a Gaia Memory. We all looked around, Sengoku trying more feverishly to find the source of the voice.

“Henshin!” called a voice behind us.

“JOKER!” announced the mysterious Gaia Memory. A small orchestral hit played. We turned to see a Kamen Rider in black with purple trim, red eyes, rounded shoulder pads, and a long silver unibrow evoking the letter W. The belt he wore was red with a silver outer lining that held a black Gaia Memory with an illuminated J. The Memory Slot was tilted to look like an L resting on its point.

“Kamen Rider…Joker!” introduced the mysterious Rider as he flicked his left wrist to make a J with his thumb and pointer.

“YOU?!” roared the Yeti. “How did you find me?!”

“Nothing escapes a Hard-Boiled detective, Dopant,” declared Joker.

“Half-boiled, you mean!” argued the Yeti.

“That’s not a Dopant, Shōtarō-san,” replied Sengoku. “That’s a robot powered by a Gaia Memory with Kamen Rider Eternal’s help and Philip’s coercion.”

“Then, where’s Philip?” demanded Joker to the Yeti.

“Like I’d tell you!” roared the Yeti. He pressed his Gaia Memory’s button again.

“YETI!” announced the Yeti Memory. He then put it in his neck and swung it down. “YETI! MAXIMUM DRIVE!” Joker then took out his Gaia Memory and put it into a slot on his right leg. He then pressed a button on the slot.

“JOKER! MAXIMUM DRIVE!” called the Joker Memory. Energy gathered around his foot.

“Rider Kick!” announced Joker.

“YETI CRUNCHER!” shouted the Yeti as energy flowed around his teeth. As the Yeti charged with an open mouth, Joker leapt at the Yeti and delivered a powerful kick, shattering the Yeti’s teeth. “MY TEETH!” screamed the Yeti. The kick was still travelling as the ice around the TARDIS shattered.

“And we’ll be going back to 2055,” cheered the Doctor. “All of us, Paternoster Gang and new Rider included.” We got into the TARDIS and Joker started looking around.

“Welcome to the TARDIS,” I introduced. “Yes, it’s bigger on the inside and it can travel to any planet, any time. Now, please don’t gawk. We’re landing.”

“Couldn’t we take a breather?” asked Joker.

“Not likely, given that Daleks are surrounding the TARDIS,” I answered, looking at the screen. Sengoku explained what Daleks were as we got ready to fight. “Er, Ladies and Gentlemen,” I gulped. “The Daleks have a hostage and have recovered the Yeti. They seem to be with a Kamen Rider.” Joker looked into the screen when he heard me say “Kamen Rider”. This Rider had a white suit with a black cape, blue gloves in the style of flames, yellow eyes, and three prongs like a crown. He had a belt like Joker, but the Gaia Memory was white and had an illuminated E. He was holding a knife at the throat of someone in what I would call a fashion disaster outfit. A red Dalek with prongs around its neck and three dome lights instead of two was at the head of the group. This was a Dalek Supreme.

“Doctor, we know you are in there!” boomed the Supreme. “We are willing to cease the attack if you surrender yourself to us in exchange for Philip!” It was referring to the human the Kamen Rider was holding his knife to.

“Come now, Shōtarō,” declared the Rider, “surely a hard-boiled detective could understand the reality of the situation. Surrender the Doctor and we’ll stop attacking London.” After confirming the mysterious Kamen Rider’s identity, I pressed the external communicator.

“Eternal, surely you know about the Daleks,” I replied. “They’ll exterminate you on the spot once the Doctor steps out, as well as Philip.”

“Our leader has ordered them and their master not to do so,” called Kamen Rider Eternal. The Doctor took over negotiations.

“‘Their master’?” she said. “That was the phrase you used? The Daleks answer to no one, not even their creator.”

“Given that I saw him shout orders at a couple of these tin cans,” answered Eternal, “I’d say that claim is in dispute.”

“Davros barked orders and the Daleks said that they obey?” I muttered.

“Something seems wrong here,” mused Madame Vastra.

“Perhaps it’s a Dalek duplicate,” guessed Strax. The thought hadn’t occurred to me.

“Which one?” I asked. Multiple possibilities ran through my head.

“Their hostage, most likely,” figured Jenny.

“You have five seconds to obey!” demanded the Dalek Supreme.

“It could be a bluff,” guessed the Doctor. “It could be that they may strongarm Shōtarō or myself into obeying.”

“Four!” counted Eternal.

“Then again, why would the Daleks need Philip?” asked the Doctor. “Now that they’ve learned how to do so, they can make their own Gaia Memories without him.”

“Three!” counted the Dalek Supreme.

“Doctor!” I yelped, guessing her endgame.

“Two!” counted Eternal.

“Power down,” ordered the Doctor to all Riders. “I think we’d better do as they say.” As we powered down, I noticed Shōtarō’s civilian form was dressed in film noir detective clothes, complete with fedora, er, trilby, er, whatever. We headed for the doors.

“ONE!” counted the Dalek Supreme. We stepped out when it said that.

“Good afternoon!” greeted the Doctor.

“Doctor, you’re proving to be a thorn in our side,” hissed Eternal.

“Oh, no tea and chat?” asked the Doctor. “For someone who claims to be Eternal, you’re forgetting what makes eternity bearable. Tea, a good meal, a story, brilliant lights,” she seemed to be shooing one of us off in secret. Xiomara then got an idea and got to the lift truck. “You see, you surround yourself and poor Philip with the ultimate racists. The ultimate terrified people.”

“You imply that the Daleks know fear, Doctor,” argued the Supreme. “You are incorrect!”

“Oh, but you DO know fear,” countered the Doctor. “Where else does your hatred stem from? You fear anything that isn’t a ‘pure’ Dalek, the Dalek Civil War is a prime example. You would smash anything that Daleks didn’t make because the materials didn’t come from Skaro or any planet in your empire of ruin.”

“We’ve built an empire of purity!” shouted the Dalek Supreme. “The Daleks on those planets do not have to deal with other races! It was Davros who said so! When all other life-forms are suppressed, when the Daleks become the supreme beings of the universe, then there is true peace! There is no war in our empire, Doctor! We succeeded where the Time Lords have failed! Yet, you still dare to oppose us!”

“Yes, we do!” declared the Doctor as Philip surreptitiously went over to our side and handed Shōtarō a belt that looked like the driver he had mirrored itself, holding two Gaia Memories instead of one. “We dare to believe we can survive!” said the Doctor. “We hold the future in our hands! We dare to keep all of our dreams alive! It’s time we took a stand!”

“You can win if you dare!” I sang. Everyone turned to me in confusion. “The Doctor started it by quoting the Transformers movie.” While that went on, Philip showed Shōtarō a green Gaia Memory with an illuminated C.

“What?!” yelped the Doctor. “No! I…okay, yes, but it was the good one!”

“Doctor, you waste our time!” bellowed the Dalek Supreme.

“Past tense!” jeered Xiomara. “She wasted your time!” She was holding the remains of the shield generator.

“Energy shield losing power!” reported a Dalek.

“Protect the final generator!” ordered the Supreme.

“Two down, one to go!” called the Doctor. “It appears that we still have work to do!”

“Exterminate!” screamed a Dalek as it fired. We dodged. We got ready to transform, Shōtarō put the new belt on and one just like it appeared on Philip’s waist. They pressed their Gaia Memory buttons.

“JOKER!” announced the Joker Memory.

“CYCLONE!” called the green one.

“Henshin!” we all shouted. Philip then put his Gaia Memory into the right slot of his belt. It transferred through data into Shōtarō’s belt as Philip fell asleep. Strax got him into the TARDIS as Shōtarō put the Joker Memory into the left slot and tilted both sides.

“CYCLONE! JOKER!” announced the belt. It started with a technical guitar to Joker’s orchestral hit. The suit looked like Joker’s but the was a silver band going down the middle with the right half green and sporting a silver cape.

“And Kamen Rider W (pronounced Double), the two-in-one Kamen Rider, is here!” said Sengoku. W spoke in both Philip and Shōtarō’s voices.

“Saa, omae no tsumi o kazoero!” they taunted. We then charged the ranks of the Daleks. The Doctor set to work trying to find the final generator with K-9. It didn’t take long to find it as Daleks came out of the wall near the house we altered.

“Destroy the TARDIS!” ordered a Dalek. Good plan, won’t work.

“More Daleks?” gulped Shōtarō’s voice from W.

“Stay alert!” called Philip’s voice from W. As Philip spoke, W’s right eye flashed. We kept the Daleks off the Doctor’s back while she and K-9 found an energy field guarding the path to the generator.

“K-9, if you please,” requested the Doctor. K-9’s blaster came out and shot the mechanism making the shield. “…I was expecting a little finesse, but I’ll take it.” K-9 drooped his head slightly. We then approached yard doors. On it was “I.M. Foreman. Scrap Merchant. 76, Totter’s Lane.”

“The scrap yard where it all started!” I declared. “Whizzing through time and space with Susan, Ian, and Barbara on the 22nd of November 1963!”

“The doors are locked,” muttered the Doctor, concerning herself with the present situation. “Back to 2015 it is!” She summoned the TARDIS and we piled in; Philip still sound asleep. I turned to Sengoku.

“Philip’s soul entered the Cyclone Memory,” he explained. “It’s how W gets the powers of the wind. Philip’s soul then entered Shōtarō to act as strategist.”

“And, their catchphrase?” I asked.

“‘Saa, omae no tsumi o kazoero’?” quizzed Sengoku. “It means ‘Now, count up your crimes’. Shōtarō’s mentor, Kamen Rider Skull, was the first one to say that.” The TARDIS then gave its landing noise.

“Here we are!” called the Doctor. She then fished something out of the toolkit. It turned out to be Missy’s Laser Screwdriver!

“I thought she abandoned that when she was the Prime Minister!” I yelped. “What are you doing, carrying that around?!”

“Swiped it from him before he died on the Valiant,” explained the Doctor.

“She? Him?” queried Seeker.

“Madame, Monsieur, who are you talking about?” asked Arch.

“An old acquaintance of the Doctor, with a higher degree in Cosmic Science while the Doctor barely scraped by with a 51% on the second attempt,” I explained.

“That is confidential!” snapped the Doctor. “Besides, I was a late developer! He underwent a sex change regeneration before me. She now calls herself Missy, but I still know her as the Master.” We stepped out of the TARDIS. The Doctor headed to the chain over the yard’s doors when we heard something familiar. “That’s a TARDIS arriving,” muttered the Doctor. “The new Type 90.” This TARDIS took the shape of a pillar box, Britain’s free-standing post box. The top opened to let a woman out. She was in the clothes of an early 20th century nanny, complete with a ridiculous hat. Her expression was not one I would personally expect on a nanny, this was cold and calculating.

“Oh dear,” sighed the woman in a Scottish accent. “Don’t go away, Doctor!” She had climbed out of her TARDIS and walked towards us. “My coordinates seemed to have slipped a tad,” mused the woman. “Still, not bad after a round trip to Gallifrey.”

“Speaking of the Master,” I hissed.

“Missy, if you must,” corrected the woman. “I do hope you can spare a moment of your time, Doctor, especially with Daleks on the way.”

“Sarcasm always was a weak point, even with you,” snarled the Doctor.

“May I say,” I interjected, “that that hat looks utterly ridiculous. I preferred the beard version of you. Anthony Ainley was a fantastic version of you.”

“I rather like this form,” countered Missy. “It allows me to travel incognito.”

“Maybe in the early 20th century,” argued the Doctor.

“Well, Time Lords need a sense of style,” said Missy softly, “some of us, anyway.”

“Now look, if you’re here to be rude…” hissed the Doctor.

“I came here to warn you,” interrupted Missy, “an old Time Lord acquaintance of ours is involved with the Daleks.”

“Old school chum?” I asked.

“Well, which is it? You? Rallon? Drax, Rassilon forbid?” quizzed the Doctor.

“I believe she was once called Ushas,” recalled Missy.

“You mean the Rani?” yelped the Doctor. “She’s a jackanape like you, causing nothing but trouble!”

“She has something called the ‘Eternal Memory’ in her possession,” reported Missy.

“You mean it’s a woman as Kamen Rider Eternal?!” exclaimed W.

“A Time Lady, no less,” continued Missy. “She’ll certainly try to kill you, Doctor. The High Council thought you should be made aware of her.”

“How very kind,” snarked the Doctor. Missy tensed up in irritation.

“You are an incorrigible meddler, Doctor!” she hissed. “Still, the Council believes your hearts are in the right places. Now, be careful, will you? The Rani’s learned a new trick or two with the Eternal Memory.”

“I refuse to be worried by someone as cold and typically Arcalian as the Rani!” rebuffed the Doctor. “She’s an unimaginative plodder, like yourself!”

“Her degree in neurochemistry was higher than my own in cosmic science, loath though I am to admit it,” answered Missy.

“Yes, well, she was put in a house that values study,” conceded the Doctor.

“I do suppose you’re right in her being unimaginative,” continued Missy. “She stole my little ‘surprise’ from when I first came to Earth.”

“Oh?” asked the Doctor.

“Examine the chain around the doors,” instructed Missy. As the Doctor moved to do so, she was stopped by Missy’s umbrella. “However, be careful.” The Doctor pushed the umbrella aside. She then felt on the door around the chain and felt something off when her hand was at the seam of the door. She followed it all the way to the top and then felt around the chain in that area. I’d say a special invisible string was being used.

“A volatizer?” guessed the Doctor. Missy nodded. “Oh, grief!” said the Doctor. “If it should fall, it’ll explode, taking the scrap yard, surrounding buildings, and people with it. She’s most likely rigged it up so opening the door or cutting the chain will make it fall.”

“Well, I hope Missy has a witty way of dealing with it, since it was her original idea!” I demanded. Missy had vanished. I heard her TARDIS going away. “COME BACK!” I shouted. Too late.

“Good luck!” called Missy’s voice.

“Never mind her,” called the Doctor. “I have a plan.” She carefully pulled the string upwards, slowly, I might add, until we could see a black cylinder with a drum on top, the volatizer, I believe. “All right, someone fetch the magnetic clamp.”

“I got it,” I responded as I went into the TARDIS. I grabbed the clamp and then headed outside to hand it to the Doctor. She used one end of the clamp to get a grip on the volatizer and get it over the doors without falling. At that point, a Dalek saucer flew overhead.

“You will obey the Daleks!” barked a Dalek.

“I’ve just about had enough,” snarled Swing. She took the volatizer off the clamp.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU CRAZY VIKING?!” I yelled. She turned to the ship.

“This is a Time Lord explosive!” Swing shouted. “I hope my clumsy human fingers don’t do something clumsy!” She then tossed it at the saucer! “Oops! You guys handle it!” After the saucer exploded, she turned to me. “What was that about me being a crazy Viking?”

“Er, nothing, just rambling!” I said quickly.

“Thought so,” muttered Swing. While that went on, the Doctor, W, Sengoku, and Claw made a ramp from the scrap.

“Alright, back to the TARDIS!” called the Doctor when they were finished. We piled in and returned to 2055, hacking through Daleks who were confused about the ramp that mysteriously appeared. “All right, I should be able to get to the last generator from here,” remarked the Doctor as she climbed the scrap. We stopped by a control panel before the Doctor said “Oh, blast!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Claw.

“A Dalek and Eternal are guarding it,” replied the Doctor. “I can use this device to override the Dalek’s controls system, but I need someone to take care of Eternal.”

“We took care of Eternal once,” called W. “We can do so again. This ‘Rani’ is inexperienced in terms of the Gaia Memories.”

“Get to it, then!” encouraged the Doctor. W took off as the Doctor started messing with the controls.

“SYSTEM MALFUNCTION!” yelped the Dalek. “HELP ME!” Eternal was confused.

“Lady, you’re making a mistake, siding with evil” called W. Eternal turned to see W pull out new Gaia Memories. One was red with an illuminated H and the other was silver with an illuminated M. He pressed the buttons.

“HEAT!” announced the red one.

“METAL!” called the grey one. He then swapped out the Cyclone and Joker Memories for the new ones, Heat in the right slot and Metal in the left.

“HEAT! METAL!” announced the belt. A bit of rock music played followed by a metallic synth as the right side went red and the left side went silver. A long staff appeared with a red grip looking like a W.

“Let’s go, Time Lady!” challenged W. Eternal cocked her head. “We had a run-in with an old acquaintance of the Doctor. Apparently, she was male once, and called herself the Master. Calls herself Missy nowadays.” Eternal gripped her knife.

“So,” she hissed, “that jackanape decided to interfere! I don’t when or HOW she regenerated since HE used up his and was in the habit of borrowing bodies!”

“Let’s just say,” I replied, “a certain war changed that. You, of all people, should be familiar with the Great Time War.”

“I am, and I didn’t participate,” answered Eternal. “The last Dalek I fought was the cause of my first regeneration. I liked that body!”

“So, the incidents with Loyhargil and sleep deprived humans were your favorites?” I asked. That got her. She started throwing punches while W was dodging and swinging his staff. I jumped in with my sword and went on the attack. We traded blows for a while, but, W and I had to end it. W pulled the Metal Memory out and put it into the staff.

“METAL! MAXIMUM DRIVE!” announced the Memory. Fire started coming out of both ends of the staff.

“Metal Branding!” called W in both Shōtarō and Philip’s voices. I inserted my i.d tag into my sword.

“Final Attack!” announced my weapon.

“RIDER BATTLE SLASH!” I called as I swung my sword at a diagonal while W swung the staff and unleashed a torrent of flames. Eternal sparked before the belt she used spat out the Gaia Memory she was using. The suit disappeared to reveal a woman in ginger hair and goth clothes with a knee-length skirt and a lab coat. Her emerald eyes were burning into my soul as her black lipstick adorned lips parted in a snarl. She turned to the Dalek that the Doctor hacked into.

“It looks like my work is done anyways,” hissed the Rani. “See you later.” She stepped into a rusty boiler and closed the lid. Judging by the noise and its fading away, I figured out that it was the Rani’s TARDIS. When it faded completely, the Dalek screamed.

“The coast is clear!” called the Doctor. “Time to shut down the energy shield and put an end to this!” The Dalek then fired on the generator before exploding. We heard a noise like machinery winding down. “And that’s our cue!” guessed the Doctor. We made our way back to where the shield was and found a dais with a control panel on board.

“A Dalek Transmat!” I breathed.

“Last time I saw this model was during that whole mess with the Hand of Omega,” mused the Doctor. She managed to get it working. We all got out of our suits and Philip came out of the TARDIS. “Shall we?” invited the Doctor. We used the Transmat to beam ourselves upwards onto a Dalek ship. I just hope there aren’t any Daleks where we beam into.