The Doctor and her group were led to the lab. “Welcome, Doctor!” greeted Davros.
“What are you plotting in the long run, Davros?” hissed the Doctor.
“Plotting?” chuckled Davros. “That’s a bit much, even for you. I’m simply introducing something new into my creations.”
“You want to create an unstoppable army of magic-wielding Daleks!” accused Ssylphiel.
“The Doctor’s question concerned the long run, not the short term,” dismissed Davros. “Doctor, you really should choose your friends a little more carefully. Perhaps use Sarah Jane Smith as the benchmark?”
“Keep her name out of your mouth, Davros!” snarled the Doctor. “Anacassandra, why are you helping that lunatic?!”
“That’s where the money is, Doctor,” replied Anacassandra. “What matters to me is that the Great Chain of Being that everyone foolishly resists will be proven true once we accomplish our goals. I’m a pacifist at heart.”
“You and Davros are everything wrong with that Chain of Being nonsense made flesh!” accused Coilzette.
“No, Coilzette!” snarled Davros. “There’s someone worse, and that someone is content to let the universe fall to chaos and destruction!”
“That’s still you, Davros!” insisted the Doctor. “Do you really think that everything will be hunky-dory if the Daleks learn magic?! If those things can summon a fireball with a mere chant, who knows what kind of havoc they’ll unleash!”
“Rejoice, Doctor,” replied Davros. “Your questions will soon be answered.” He turned to the Daleks. “Bring forth the casing!”
Nora finally finished her work. “There, that’s the last,” she said as she handed the modified Dalek gunsticks to Shannon, Lukas, and Bea. “But I really must stress that I’m not a Ryuginese weapons-smith. Guns are outside my field of expertise and these things-!”
“Will be destroyed when this affair is over,” promised Bea. “I won’t let them exist a second longer.”
“Rest assured,” called Tysar when she entered the room, “all traces of Dalek influence will be destroyed.”
“Tysar, what were you doing?” asked Lukas.
“I picked over what remained of the Daleks’ computers,” replied Tysar. “I managed to locate where they took our friends.” She pulled out a map and pointed to a jungle area between Serpentia and a beach acting as a land border to the Aquarinix Empire. “Right there,” she said.
“That’s where we found Egg!” gasped Shannon.
“Davros and Anacassandra must have set up shop there to properly track the Dalek’s movements between Serpentia and Aquarinix,” guessed Tysar.
“Then we can conduct a raid?” asked Nora.
“I was thinking about a combined sabotage and rescue operation,” said Tysar. “But we need to be quick. We find our friends, help the Doctor in sabotaging the Daleks’ plans, destroy anything Dalek-related (including these guns), and send Davros back to my native universe. All right?”
“…I’m in,” said Shannon.
“Let’s do this,” agreed Bea.
“Ready and waiting,” said Lukas.
“Let’s tear the tin cans apart,” decided Nora.
“…Thank you. All of you,” said Tysar proudly.
The Doctor and her friends were restrained to a wall as a new Dalek casing in bluish gray was brought into the room. This one had a cowl over the whole dome, even shielding the speech illuminators. It was armed with a multi-dexterous claw instead of a plunger. Each sensor sphere on the travel skirt had a rune on it. The gunstick was also more elaborate, looking less like a whisk and more like a bejeweled wand. “Davros, you can’t do this!” pleaded the Doctor.
“I’ve come too far now!” replied Davros. “I will see it through!”
“That is to be my new casing?” asked the Bronze Dalek.
“That is correct,” confirmed Davros. “Unseal your casing!”
“I…obey!” The Bronze Dalek opened its casing. A Dalek arrived. It was built with a scoop attachment on its manipulator arm and a tank with a liquid attached to its back with a hose running from the tank to the scoop. The new casing then opened up as everyone got a good look at the Dalek creature piloting the Bronze casing. It was a greenish brown cephalopod with an exposed brain and a single eye.
“Ugh! That’s what a Dalek really looks like?!” gagged Coilzette.
“Pure evil made malignant flesh!” hissed the Doctor.
“The superior life form!” argued the Dalek Supreme. It swiveled its eyestalk to the Dalek with the scoop attachment. “Remove the Veteran from its old casing!”
“I obey!” The Dalek moved its scoop attachment to the Bronze Dalek creature. The creature slithered into the scoop. “Veteran organism connected to temporary nutrient feed! Life signs stable for now! Placing organism into new casing!” The Dalek moved the Bronze Dalek creature towards the new casing. The Bronze Dalek creature slithered into the new casing and settled in. “Veteran organism now connected to new casing!”
“Seal your new casing!” Davros ordered the former Bronze Dalek.
“…I…obey.” As it spoke, its hidden dome lamps flashed bright violet. The former Bronze Dalek sealed its new casing. Upon the final latch on the casing being sealed, the camera eye flashed bright violet and its limbs and eyestalk raised upwards.
“Report on operational status!” ordered the Dalek Supreme. The former Bronze Dalek looked around and tested its limbs.
“…Internal assessments,” it reported, “indicate 91% efficiency. Beginning simple magic usage test.” The former Bronze Dalek opened its new claw…and summoned a fireball. It then closed the claw, extinguishing the fireball! “…The positronic brain network wired into the new casing DOES facilitate proper magic usage!” it reported. “I’m no longer just the Veteran! I…am the DALEK SORCERER!” Lightning flashed behind it, spooking other Daleks.
“…Bit ostentatious!” called the Doctor.
“The Doctor and her friends are no longer required!” barked the Dalek Supreme. “EXTERMINATE!”
“NO!” called the newly rechristened Dalek Sorcerer.
“…No?” asked Davros. “She was only needed to witness your rise! She’s served her purpose!”
“It hasn’t fully sunken in for her how badly she failed,” replied the Dalek Sorcerer, now sounding more…human-like, for lack of a better word. “I want her alive so she can finally see how much we have risen.”
“But the Doctor-!” argued the Dalek Supreme.
“Rest assured, she will be properly restrained,” soothed the Dalek Sorcerer. Davros opened his mouth to argue, then the alarms sounded. “What is that?!” demanded the Dalek Sorcerer.
“Unauthorized Transmat in progress! Alert! Alert!” reported a Dalek.
“Locate source of the transmission! Locate! LOCATE!” ordered the Dalek Supreme.
“Triangulating!” replied the Dalek. “…Source located! The Serpentian Capital Citadel! The end point is within the stronghold’s command center!”
“Previous communications,” warned another Dalek, “indicate that the Dalek Task Force there was utterly destroyed by a Thal and her friends!”
“Tysar!” whispered the Doctor.
“The Doctor’s companions are attempting a rescue!” realized the Dalek Supreme. “Alert Daleks in the command center! They must not reach the Doctor!”
Tysar and her friends shimmered into view. Shannon was the only one not carrying a gun as her magic laid more in the medical field. Everyone looked up when they heard the alarms. “They know we’re here!” warned Tysar. “Move!” The group approached a door…just in time to run into Daleks!
“HALT! HALT!” ordered a Dalek. “EXTERMINATE!”
“YOU BUGGERS FIRST!” called Nora. She pulled out her forge hammer, swung it to the floor, and used her Dwarven magic to create cover for her and her friends. Those with the modified Dalek guns opened fire, tearing through Daleks that attempted to exterminate them.
“ALERT! ALERT! DALEK FIREPOWER BEING TURNED AGAINST US!” warned the de facto Battle Commander. “WITHDRAW! REGROUP!”
“Move aside!” called a new Dalek’s voice. The Dalek Sorcerer then arrived. “Let me see what we’re dealing with.”
“…That’s new,” remarked Tysar.
“Oh, we’ve met before,” replied the Dalek Sorcerer. “If they weren’t occupied, the Doctor and her companions would confirm that I’m the Dalek you’ve called Egg.”
“…Why the new casing?” asked Tysar.
“The better to channel my new abilities, my dear…Tysar, was it?”
“Tysar, if that’s Egg, why isn’t he talking like a Dalek?” asked Lukas.
“Must be a privilege that comes with the casing,” remarked Tysar.
“Privilege, necessary curse, take your pick, my dear,” remarked the Dalek Sorcerer. As they spoke, the Dalek Sorcerer used its claw to create a circle of red light! Bea and her friends backed up.
“That’s a magic circle!” she explained. “That thing is using magic! Egg DOES have a soul!”
“That’s impossible!” protested Tysar. “Daleks are soulless monsters!”
“Evidently, we’re not,” purred the Dalek Sorcerer as several runes on its sensor spheres flashed and surrounded the magic circle. The Dalek Sorcerer then rapidly extended its claw through the circle, multiplying it and the surrounding runes by four and making all four copies sail towards the modified Dalek guns. …All of a sudden, the modified Dalek guns burned their hands, making the group drop them! The Dalek Sorcerer then fired its gunstick on all four weapons, destroying them. “Very clever, using our firepower against us,” purred the Dalek Sorcerer. “But we Daleks are nothing if not adaptable.”
“That’s a laugh!” scoffed Tysar. “You lot hate change! …Come to think of it, you hate everything and everyone.”
“Perhaps by your antiquated definitions, we do.” The Dalek Sorcerer looked at a Drone Dalek. “Bring them into the cells. I want them to see how badly the Doctor failed.”
“The Dalek Supreme’s orders were for their immediate extermination!” argued the Drone Dalek. The Dalek Sorcerer slowly turned its eyestalk to the dissenter.
“The Doctor’s weakness is seeing her companions in danger at the moment of her failure,” it said softly, the tone making the Drone Dalek back up. “Only when they’re all in the same position as her will the Doctor’s hope truly dies. Only then will the Doctor die. Bring the prisoners to the cells. That…is an order!”
“…We…obey!”