The Legend of Gallifrey Part 15: Theta Sigma
The 6th Doctor woke up in the barn, which he remembered as the place he'd started his journey in the paradox, but this time it was dark and crickets could be heard from outside. 7 lay on the ground just off to 6's left.
The two of them stood up slowly, taking in everything in the barn. While most of it seemed to be the same as 6 remembered, there was one important difference. The bed in the loft opposite the door was occupied by a small figure, who was mostly out of view due to the bed covers.
6 slowly began to walk up towards the loft to see who was in the bed, but his foot landed on a loose board. A creak echoed through the whole barn, and the figure sat up quickly.
"Who are you?" it asked. It was a small boy with brown hair and a white tunic, with red, puffy eyes. He'd been crying.
6 walked over and sat down beside the boy. "I'm the Doctor, and I'm here to help," he said. "Are you okay?"
The boy's eyes began to well up, and the Doctor pulled him into a hug. "It's okay," 6 said. "Take your time."
The boy choked with tears, but he managed to explain. "The other initiates are mean to me. They keep stealing my credits and insisting that I'm 'privileged' so I can spare all the credits I have. They even beat me up."
Something clicked in 6's mind. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Everyone calls me Theta Sigma," the boy said. "'Cause I'm really good with math."
6 stood up in shock, and Theta Sigma looked up at him.
"What's wrong?" he asked. His tears began to run again.
Suddenly, Theta Sigma dissolved into mist. The night was quickly overrun with daylight, and 6 stood there startled. 7 was a ways behind him with an equal amount of shock on his face.
…
12's eyes had effectively widened so much that they could pop out of his skull and roll across the floor at any moment. M smiled.
"But… you died," 12 said. "In the library. How are you here?"
"That library was filled with information on the whole universe," she said. "Did you really think that I wouldn't find out about the paradox?"
"I meant… how did you get a new body?" he asked.
"Ah… well that's a long story," she said. "When I was inside the library, I had the resources of an entire planet behind me, as well as my own corpse. Did you really think I wouldn't find a way back to the land of the living?"
"You… cloned yourself?"
"Yes, and then I placed my own mind into the lifeless body, leaving a link to the CPU. The only problem was, the clone body was degenerating, so I went to Gallifrey after you found it and asked for their help. All I had to do was say I was a friend of yours, Doctor, and they granted me a whole new set of regenerations."
The Doctor stood there taking it all in. M was River Song, his wife. The last time he'd seen her was on Darillium, with the Singing Towers, after which she'd met his past self and sacrificed herself to get rid of the Vashta Nerada.
"Are you still tired of not knowing?" Melody asked.
12 didn't react, so Melody went over to the control panel and switched off the screen, leaving 11 to his own bewildered expression.
"You know who I am now, but I'm afraid this doesn't change anything," she said. "They still have their own destiny to fulfill, and the other Doctors can have no part of that."
12's surprised look quickly morphed into anger. His fist balled, then he turned towards the window and smashed it.
…
The looks that War had been getting a minute ago were doubled when M revealed her real name, but the other Doctors obviously found War's choice to side with Rassilon more important. They were recovering from the news quickly and turning their attention back to War.
"What are you doing, siding with Rassilon?" 10 asked. "You remember what he was like during the Zagreus thing. He was manipulative, self-absorbed, and just plain evil."
"I've looked into my timestream," Rassilon said. "I was affected by the anti-time."
"In times of war, one must always remain loyal to their higher power," War said.
"This isn't war!" 5 interjected. "This is saving the universe, and one never sides with the power-hungry holier-than-thou warlord with an immortality complex!"
"It is war," War said. "A war between the universe and the invading force."
"And just what is that invading force?" 11 asked. "I had a little chat with X, and he explained to me the exact nature of the paradox. It's you. You start it by doing what you do best: killing. You're the source of the invading force, War. It's all you."
War's eyes narrowed. "Killing isn't a weakness," he said. "It's a necessity."
"NOBODY has the right to take another life!" 11 yelled. "NOBODY!"
Rassilon stood off to the side grinning. He turned to the boy and nodded, and the boy ran over to the pillar and brought a small device over to him. Rassilon held it up in front of him and aimed it at 11.
For a moment, the boy seemed surprised, like he hadn't expected Rassilon to do this, but his surprise didn't last long as the device beeped and a beam of white light extended outwards from it towards 11's chest. It connected, and 11 dissolved into whiteness. 10 and 5 stood there bewildered.
"Oh, don't worry," Rassilon said. "I didn't kill him, that would create a secondary paradox inside another one, and would rip the universe apart. I expelled him from the paradox, causing him to lose his memory of everything that's happened in here. He'll have to wait until he's 12 in order to come back in."
5 and 10 reached into the psychic link. 1, 2, 3, and 4 were also gone. They were losing Doctors quickly. This wasn't good.
Suddenly, a window shattered.
…
7's foot connected with the barn door, and its hinges gave way. Light flooded in from outside, and he and 6 stumbled out into the desert, still reeling from meeting their past self.
"That… that was us," 6 said.
"No, that can't have been us," 7 replied. "He touched you. If that had truly been him, that would have ripped the Vortex apart. It must have been a temporal echo. The real one is somewhere else in the paradox."
The two of them reached into the psychic link. Maybe the other Doctors had met him.
The whole situation in the pillar room flooded into their minds, and 7 figured out the paradox on the spot.
"We have to get to the pillar room!" 7 yelled. "War's going to create the paradox! We have to stop him!"
They turned towards the citadel and began to run as fast as they could, but the citadel kept getting further away. Eventually, they had to stop.
"It's a paradox," 6 breathed. "Time and space are fluid here. We won't get where we're going by running, we have to concentrate and bend it to our will."
The two of them closed their eyes, and the world began to spin.
…
As 12's fist smashed through the window, 8 stood off to the side watching. He didn't know who this Melody was, but he could sense through the psychic link that she was a big part of his future. Exactly what, he wasn't sure. Something about a river of song?
The look on Melody's face as the glass shattered was simultaneously hilarious and scary. She was surprised by 12's actions, and at the same time she was furious that he would defy destiny. She looked like she was ready to punch him.
12's defiance didn't earn 8's likings, but it did earn his respect. Even though this man wasn't the Doctor that 8 hoped to one day be, he would definitely be able to make do.
12 kicked off some of the extra shards away from the edge of the windowsill, then he stepped to the edge and looked down at Rassilon, War, 10, and 5. He looked like he was ready to jump and tackle Rassilon and War at the same time. Melody slowly walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You can't do this," she said. "It's his decision, you can't interfere."
"You don't get it, do you?" he asked. "This new you is a little closed-minded. I might be the only chance the universe has. If I stopped War from making whatever choice he is going to make, then the paradox wouldn't form."
"But it's his decision to make, no one else's," Melody said. "You can't intrude on that decision. You know the outcome."
"I don't."
8 stepped forward. "You don't want him to go since he knows what will happen if he makes the wrong decision, and that's because 11 saw the future along with X. But while 12 is after 11, I'm before him. I can go."
"No!" Melody insisted. "It's his decision! You all can't change that!"
"We are him." 9 stepped forward. "We are all the Doctor, as is he. He became the Doctor again as he entered the paradox. We have every right to intrude on his decision."
Melody's mouth opened in protest, but 9 made a crazy decision. He rushed forward and grabbed Melody, and both of them went over the side.
…
The whole time 12, 8, 9, and Melody were arguing, Rassilon was watching with a disturbingly entertained look. When 9 and Melody went over the side, his face changed to show surprise.
5 saw this and realized that the fall was too high to survive, so in a split-second decision he grabbed Rassilon's device that he'd used on 11 and shot it at the two falling figures. If he could get them out of the paradox, then they'd be safe. He missed.
9 lit up in white light, and he vanished as he fell through the air. Melody continued falling, hitting the ground with a sickening cracking noise.
She looked up at Rassilon, the Doctors, and the boy. She raised a bloody hand and pointed at War, then her eyes closed and her head fell to the floor.
5 ran over to her and put a hand on her neck, looking for a pulse. He sighed in relief.
"She's alive," he said. "Badly injured, but alive."
"And with the new set of regenerations she got from the Time Lords, she should still have about 12 more faces to go through," 10 said. "Stand her up."
5 and 10 each grabbed each of her shoulders and stood her up, and already the golden energy was rippling across the backs of her hands. Her eyes flew open, and golden light streamed out of them. Her arms fell to her sides and she stood on her own two feet, and 10 and 5 ran back.
"To life," she said.
And the room exploded in golden light.
…
The world warped around 6 and 7, and it turned white as it began to solidify. The two Doctors now stood in the TARDIS as it had been when they'd first run away, with the round things on the walls and the doors that were bigger on the inside.
X stepped out of the door to the rest of the TARDIS and smiled, nodding at them.
"Hello, fellow Doctors," he said. "I see you two have worked out the nature of the paradox. Would you mind explaining it?"
"The boy," 6 said. "He's me -I mean us- before we left Gallifrey. War is supposed to start the paradox by killing someone. With Rassilon's manipulative ways, he likely convinces War that either the Doctor is a problem, or the paradox is useful. Either way, he convinces War to kill Theta Sigma."
X nodded. "Good. I remember why I loved being you. And why would Rassilon do that?"
"According to 8's memories, Rassilon knows his future, the one where he gets stuck in an alternate universe. According to 12, he eventually escapes, but gets exiled from Gallifrey. Knowing him, he's doing this to prevent his disastrous future, like a sort of power play, to show he can control his own fate."
"Yes," X said. "To stop Rassilon, you must understand Rassilon and his motives."
"I have a question," 7 asked. "If the paradox forms around our death, how do you survive?"
X's eyes grew stone cold, and he gave 7 a death stare. "I broke the promise," he said. "I became the new War Doctor, but if the paradox never happens then neither does it."
He held up his sonic staff and aimed it at them. With a quick burst of sonic energy, they vanished.
…
12 and 8 had rushed down a flight of stairs that had appeared from nowhere, and now stood beside 5, 10, War, Rassilon, and the boy as Melody began to float in the air, her body bursting with golden regeneration energy. Her hair whipped behind her, then the glowing stopped and she fell to the floor and looked up.
Her eyes were now a startling light blue and almost seemed to glow as she looked at them. She had long, straight red hair that fell around her shoulders, and she had light skin to go with the bright hair and eyes.
She stood up slowly, but she lost her balance and grabbed onto a wall. "I'll never get used to that," she said. Her voice was very high-pitched and gave her a playful aura, which was a welcome change from her previous form.
Rassilon and War stood off to the side, and after the fifth Melody said her first words, Rassilon burst out laughing.
"This is all very amusing," he said. "But we still have a pressing concern."
Almost on cue, the pillar made a noise, and the golden energy was seen racing up and down the wiring. Then several wires sparked and lit on fire, and the pillar began to steam.
"You overcharged it!" 10 yelled. "We need to contain the power before it blows, and we're all caught in it!"
Melody, 12, 8, 10, Rassilon, and the boy all ran towards, while 5 and War stood back and watched the professionals work. They six of them rushed in circles around the pillar, twisting wires, replacing parts and diverting power ducts into the walls.
A wire on the pillar exploded, just as the boy was running by. It threw him backwards against a far wall, and he fell on the floor, unconscious. 10 pulled a lever, and the golden energy drained out of the pillar through a power duct. 5 ran over to the boy.
"Don't touch him!" Melody yelled. 5's hand stopped an inch above the boy's head and Melody ran up, pulling him backwards.
"You can't touch that boy!" Melody yelled. "Especially not in a paradox! Not even the last five pieces of the universe will be there!"
5 blinked. "Excuse me?" he asked.
"He's you!" she yelled. "That is Theta Sigma! He is the Doctor before you ever left!"
"And that's my cue." Rassilon stepped forward. "War, you joined me because I am your Lord President. I want you to prove your loyalty."
Rassilon pulled something out of his robe and put in War's hand, then he lifted War's arm and aimed it at Theta Sigma. War opened his hand to find a small laser gun, not very powerful but still able to kill.
12's face contorted. "That's the paradox," he said. "I kill my past self. And since I've done so much for the universe, I'm a complex space-time event. If one of those wiped itself out, that would generate a paradox of cosmic proportions. You can't!"
War stared at the gun in his hand with what looked like fear in his eyes. Then his eyes hardened, he raised his arm towards Theta Sigma's unconscious self, and pulled the trigger.