CHAPTER 2

I do not own Doctor Who, Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Merlin, and I am not making a profit off of this.

A NEW PLAYER ENTERS THE GAME

"It doesn't have to be this way, Discord. There's no point to this," Sarah Jane said.

"Oh, but there is. I'll have my life the way that it always should have been. I'll finally get my second chance to do it right," Discord said.

"What about that girl there? Do you really want something to happen to her? With all of the power that's going to be thrown around in here in a minute, it's not safe for her to be here," Sarah Jane said in an almost pleading tone.

"She's none of your business. I'll keep her safe. No harm will come to her. Don't worry about that. I'd be more worried about myself if I was you," Discord said.

Everyone there could see that Sarah Jane had struck a nerve with her.

April put a comforting hand on her shoulder as she said, "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

A feeling that she hadn't felt in a long time made its way into Discord's hearts at that point. It was the first time since the birth of the current universe that Discord had felt guilty about anything.

The original Black Guardian realized at that point that Discord might become a liability to him. He would have to make sure that if this kind of doubt continued that he took care of Discord before she dragged him down with her.

He would not fail this time.

Nearby in Eris' TARDIS, Eris and the Doctor's daughter, Andromeda, and her friend, Buffy Summers, watched the two sides forming up and beginning to get ready for battle with nervous anticipation. Buffy had been asked by both Jenny and Eris to keep Andromeda in the TARDIS no matter what and to make sure that she used it to leave if the worst happened. Buffy wasn't so sure that Andromeda had gotten the memo though because she kept staring at the door like she wanted to bolt out of it at any moment.

"I hate this. Why did Mum have to come here for? Don't they have enough Guardians out there? What's one less going to matter?" Andromeda said worried.

"I asked her that too but she said that all of the Guardians had to be there for them to all have their full strength. It's some kind of weird Guardian thing. I just nod and pretend to understand it when I really don't understand a thing. It's the same thing that I do when Giles drones on and on with his many boring lectures about which demon does this and which demon does that," Buffy said with a grin.

Andromeda smiled for a moment and then said, "Thanks, Buffy. I know what you're trying to do. I'm still worried though."

"She'll be alright, Andromeda," Buffy said.

"Yes, she will. I'll make sure of it," Andromeda said.

"What does that mean?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

"Don't worry about it," Andromeda said.

Buffy sighed as she started to realize that trying to keep Andromeda in the TARDIS was going to make fighting the Mayor look like a cakewalk.

"Are we going to stand around here and stare at each other all day or are we going to do this? Let's wipe them all out now!" the Ouroboros said impatiently.

"Discord, why don't you just make the most of the life that you have now? That's what I'm doing," Eris said.

Discord didn't have an answer for that. Once when she was alone she would have, but now that she had April with her she was beginning to feel different about this whole thing. She realized more and more that April was becoming just like another Andromeda to her. It helped that she looked and acted so much like her.

Was that what all of this was about in the end? A mother's grief and loneliness? Or was it more like a mother's irrational guilt and sorrow that she wasn't there to save her daughter when she should have been?

Did she really want to make an entire universe pay for that?

The original Black Guardian saw Discord hesitating yet again and realized that this plan was in danger of falling apart before it even began. He had to take action, and he had to do it now. He would remove the obstacle to everything. He would kill April.

The original Black Guardian started the battle by attacking the most volatile member on the side of the heroes. He instinctively knew who was the one who was the least likely to hold back or hesitate to fight if provoked, and he attacked that person first.

The Black Guardian attacked Mary Winchester, the still immature daughter of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle. Her temper and willingness to fight without hesitation were her worst qualities, and now the Black Guardian took perfect advantage of that as he attacked her with dark energy from his hands.

"Do you really think that I'm going to let you get away with that on top of kidnapping Bobby? Oh, it's on," Mary said as holy white light poured out of her hands and hit the Black Guardian.

Only it wasn't the Black Guardian that it hit. It was April!

"No," Mary said with instant regret as April fell to the ground screaming in pain, and then she stopped moving altogether and quickly became silent. It was a deadly silence

The Black Guardian smirked. He had put an illusion of himself around April that only Mary saw in order to trick her into firing on her first. Now as the Guardian looked into the horrified, pain filled eyes of Discord, he could see that his job was done.

Now the battle had truly begun.

"April?" Discord said as she became frantic.

"She's dead. That girl killed her," the Black Guardian said goading her on.

"No. She can't be. She can't. I can't have failed her again. I can't!" Discord said crying.

"I'm sorry. I thought she was him," Mary said in an extremely upset voice as she pointed at the Black Guardian.

"Liar!" Discord said as she attacked Mary with an enormous blast of dark energy.

Her power was instantly blocked by Rose who quickly created a force field around the young Nephilim. Rose had already worked it out and realized that Mary had been tricked. She realized that it was the Black Guardian who was really to blame but knew that she would probably never convince Discord of that. Not now in the heat of the moment like this.

"You're protecting a no good killer, Rose. She killed an innocent girl who never hurt anyone. Where are your high minded morals now, huh?" Discord said furiously.

"She was tricked, Discord. If you'd just listen . . ." Rose started to say.

"No more. No more lies," Discord said as she attacked Rose now.

The two of them began to trade multiple energy blasts and soon both sides followed their lead and went to war with one another. The battle was now well underway. The die had finally been cast, and there was no longer any going back.

Now there would be consequences. Dire consequences.

The Great Intelligence from the other universe in his new Dalek body used his power to unleash enormous blasts of reality altering energy from his gun stick instead of the usual ray that would have otherwise come out of it. He began to tear the entire station apart as he attempted to hit his universe's version of the Doctor and Clara, and they kept running to avoid him.

"Doctor, what are we going to do? We can't stay lucky forever. Sooner or later, he's going to hit us," the other Clara said as she kept running hand in hand with the other Doctor further and further away from the pursing Dalek.

That was when the other Rory opened his Auton hand into a gun and started firing on the Intelligence. He quickly scored a lucky shot against the Dalek casing, and it started to catch on fire right away. As the Intelligence stated to fire on Rory, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to cause the casing to go haywire. It quickly went careening into the wall and exploded.

"Good work, Roranicus!" the other Doctor said happily.

He knew that wasn't necessarily the end of things though. The Intelligence could have easily jumped into someone else's body before the end and be hiding in it even now.

The others had all matched off against one another as well. Rose and Discord continued to trade blows, Eve was attacking Jo and Mary, Blodeuwedd was locked in mortal combat with Merlin, Cara, and Sophia, the Ouroboros was battling with Ishtar and Theta, and the original Black Guardian was fighting with the current Guardians and holding his own with them if just barely. The entire area had erupted into uncontrolled chaos almost instantly.

The Doctor from this universe had taken advantage of this to slip past the others and immediately go towards the prisoners as he attempted to free them. He was quickly joined by Dean Winchester who had had the same idea.

"We've got to hurry before one of them notices us," Dean said impatiently as he quickly went to work picking the lock on Bobby Singer's cell while the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and went to work on the lock of his Clara's cell.

"I'm going as fast as I can. It would help if there were more than two of us doing this," the Doctor said.

"Well, your wish is granted because here I am. Live and in person," the Doctor from the other universe said with a huge grin as he started work on his daughter Jenny's cell.

"Hurry up and get her out, Doctor. The Intelligence might show up again at any minute. He could be anyone," the Clara from the other universe said.

The Doctor released Clara from her cell, and Clara immediately hugged him in gratitude as she said, "Thanks, Chin Boy."

Clara noticed her double looking at her idly and asked, "What?"

"Aren't you going to kiss him?" the other Clara asked.

"Oh, yeah. Of course," Clara said as she kissed the Doctor on the cheek while he worked on opening Jackie's cell next.

"That's it? You're not even going to give him a quick peck on the lips? I mean he just saved your life. He deserves more than a kiss on the cheek," the other Clara said confused.

"What? What are you talking about?" Clara asked.

"Aren't you and him going out?" the other Clara asked.

Clara made a face and gagged as she said, "Me and him? Never! Don't get me wrong. I love him but only as a friend. Besides he's already married."

"What? To who?" the other Clara demanded as she became filled with curiosity now and maybe just a little bit of jealousy.

"To Rose. She's his wife. She's always been his wife," Clara said as if it were obvious.

"Rose?" the other Doctor said in shock.

"Yes. Isn't she your wife too? I mean wasn't she your wife back on Gallifrey too?" Clara asked.

"Are you saying that in this world that Rose is a Time Lady?" the other Doctor asked completely floored.

"She's not in your world?" Clara asked.

"No. She never was. At least not as far as I know," the other Doctor said.

"It's a different world, Clara. One world in a multiverse that has an infinity of worlds inside of it. Each world has billions and billions of divergence points to its history where the timeline took a different course and made it into its own distinct and separate reality. Some divergences are small and inconsequential and some are huge and can cause major differences between realities. In this world, Rose was born on Gallifrey, and on his she was obviously a human from birth. I'm betting that she's still the same wonderful person in both worlds though. Am I right?" the Doctor asked his other self.

"Yes, you're right. Rose Tyler being a warm, kind, and caring person is a universal constant no matter what universe you go to," the other Doctor said.

"Try telling that to her," Clara said as she pointed to the Ouroboros, the twisted version of Rose from another universe, who was busy doing her best to kill Ishtar.

"Well, she's almost the same in every universe," the Doctor said wincing.

Then he saw just how close that the other Doctor and his Clara were to one another and realized that their relationship was far more advanced than just going out with each other. They were deeply in love. He could tell just by looking at them.

"So you and Clara, huh?" the Doctor asked the other Doctor.

"Yeah. It seemed a little weird at first, but now it just feels so natural. It just feels . . . right," the other Doctor said as he smiled at his Clara and she blushed.

The Doctor made a face as he said, "Yeah. I'd definitely rather have Rose."

"My Rose is still stuck on Pete's World and she's happy there. Besides I really think that you're underestimating Clara. She's a very special person," the other Doctor said.

"Oh, I already know that. I just don't see her the same way as you do. I think of her as a little sister, and you clearly see her in a much different way. Not that there's anything wrong with that I suppose. It just isn't for me," the Doctor said.

"Me either. Little sister, huh? Is that another height joke?" Clara said smiling at him.

"Never. I wouldn't dare," the Doctor said as he gave her a quick affectionate hug.

The other Doctor smiled at them as he thought about how the universe never ceased to amaze him. This Doctor was just like him in so many ways and yet his relationship with Clara couldn't be more different.

Soon the two Doctors and Dean working together had managed to free all five prisoners, and then they slowly took them towards the Doctor's TARDIS as they prepared to take all of them inside of it for their own safety. All of them but Jenny Pond of course who insisted on staying outside to help in the fight.

As they reached the door of the TARDIS though, they were stopped short when a mysterious young woman that none of them had ever seen before suddenly appeared in front of it. She smiled an evil grin at them as she said, "No, Doctors, you're not taking our prisoners away that easily. Now you'll all join them inside of those cells instead."

The young woman glowed with energy, and all of them found themselves inside of the cells with the locks back on them. The Doctors also quickly found that their sonic screwdrivers were missing. In addition to that, Rory was now motionless so he couldn't help them to escape either.

"Well, that's just fine and dandy. Some rescue this is," Bobby complained.

"How was I supposed to know that some witch would pop up out of nowhere and put us back?" Dean protested.

"I'm not a witch. I am far, far more than that. I am the youngest member of the Triple Goddess. You may call me Alice," the young woman said with a smug grin on her face.

"I'd rather just gank you instead so I won't bother to memorize your name if it's all the same to you," Dean said.

"You humans are always so cute when you're trying to act all tough. You know for providing me with a good laugh I think I'll spare your life," Alice said.

A bolt of mystic energy snaked out of her fingertips, and she blasted Dean with it. He screamed in agony for a moment and then slumped over unconscious.

"I said I'd spare your life. I didn't say it wouldn't hurt," Alice said with a chuckle

"So you're here to guard us and keep us from escaping, is that it? So you're basically an over glorified babysitter, aren't you? How does that make you feel going from a goddess to a babysitter? What a downward career path, huh?" the Doctor said in a condescending voice.

"Oi! No dissing the babysitters," Clara said as she glared at him.

"Sorry. No offense meant," the Doctor said cringing.

"What is your point, Doctor?" Alice asked.

"I'm just saying that I'd feel like I was being neglected, unappreciated even, being stuck over here like this and kept out of the fight," the Doctor said.

Alice laughed as she said, "Divide and conquer, is that your motto? It won't work on me, Doctor. I know all about you and your tricks. I'm not about to let you turn me against the others. Manipulation is a game I've had several millennia to perfect. I've been at it far longer than you have, Time Lord."

"I have no doubt that you're much better at being a sneaky manipulative backstabber than I am, Alice, if that is your name. I'm much better at being clever and distracting people though. Aren't I, Rose?" the Doctor said.

"You must think that I was born yesterday, Doctor," Alice said with a smug grin on her face.

"Actually he's right you know," Rose's voice said behind her.

"What?" Alice said as she turned around to find no one there.

Rose suddenly became visible and began bombarding her with golden energy. Alice was quickly driven to her knees in agony as Dean said from the floor, "See how you like it."

"How did you do that? I never even sensed you," Alice said as she managed to get back up and started deflecting Rose's attack.

"I am the Bad Wolf. I ride the winds of time and space as effortlessly as an ordinary person might cross the street. I think that makes me more than qualified to hide myself from you," Rose said with a smug smile on her face.

"Oh, Rose. I think you're overdoing it just a bit there. You ride the winds of time and space? Really?" the Doctor said.

"You think it's too much?" Rose asked grinning as she continued to fight with the youngest member of the Triple Goddess.

"Definitely. You should just say 'I am the Bad Wolf' and give them that cold, angry stare that you do so well. That's much better. Less is more," the Doctor advised.

"Yeah, I think you're right. I just don't do someone full of their own self-importance that well," Rose said.

"That's right. You don't," the Doctor agreed.

"From now on I'll leave that sort of thing up to you," Rose joked.

"Oh, thanks so much," the Doctor said pouting.

"Will you two stop your weird flirting or whatever it is and get us out of here already?" Bobby said in an irritated voice.

"This is nothing. You ought to see them do it on a regular basis. It makes you downright sick it does," Jackie said.

"How do you put up with it? I mean I can always send Merlin to the stocks when he annoys me, but I'm sure that doesn't work for you," Arthur asked.

"When I get tired of the Doctor's antics, I just fall back on a tried and true method that we Tylers have perfected over the years. It's never failed me yet," Jackie said.

"What's that then?" Arthur asked.

Jackie walked toward the Doctor and reached her arm through her cell and into his and then slapped him as hard as she could!

The Doctor screamed as Jackie said, "That's for annoying all of us, but it's mostly just for annoying me."

"Oh, I see. I never tried that. I just don't think that I could pull it off though. I could punch Merlin in the nose though. That might work better," Arthur mused.

"Are all of you people nuts?" Dean asked shaking his head at them.

"What was your first clue?" Clara said with a mad grin.

"Dad, I really hope that someone's got a plan to get us out of here," Jenny Pond said.

"Of course there's a plan. I always have a plan. Amy, what's the plan?" the other Doctor asked.

The Amy from the other universe sighed and said, "Sometimes I'm the one who feels like a babysitter. You know it's a really good thing that you have me as your partner, Doctor. I'm just about to give you one of many reasons why."

The other Amy produced a sonic screwdriver from her pocket with a triumphant grin on her face and said, "Alice never saw my screwdriver so she never took it from me. Now that she's distracted, I can finally use it."

"You see, Jenny, I always have a plan," the other Doctor said proudly.

"Yeah and the plan is to ask Mum to bail you out," Jenny Pond said grinning.

"That's usually how it works yeah," the other Amy said laughing.

The other Amy quickly opened all of the cells and let everyone out. This time the former prisoners all made it into the Doctor's TARDIS without any further interruptions.

As soon as everyone was safe inside of the TARDIS, the Doctor used the monitor to see that Rose was still battling Alice while Discord, who had been battling Rose previously, was now fighting side by side with the original Black Guardian against the current Guardians. The Doctor frowned as he realized that things were just getting worse by the moment now.

He had no idea that things were about to get even worse than that. Much worse.

The Doctor's face turned white with horror as he saw Andromeda come running out of Eris' TARDIS and straight through the battles going on around her to reach the motionless body of April. Buffy immediately came running out yelling at her.

"Andromeda, get back here!" Buffy screamed.

"I'm getting her back inside. Maybe she's not really dead. If she's not, then she might be the only one who can convince Discord to stop all of this," Andromeda said.

"I can't believe she'd be so reckless," the Doctor said in a combination of worry and anger.

The Doctor silently blamed his own genes for that reckless streak as he raced to the console to get ready to dematerialize in a hurry. He was going to materialize the TARDIS around her in order to keep her safe. He only hoped that he would be in time.

As it turned out though, he was soon going to be much too busy to help Andromeda or anyone. He was going to have his own problems to deal with.

The other Clara was closer to the console than the Doctor was so she reached it first. She entered in a quick set of coordinates, and the TARDIS immediately dematerialized and rematerialized right in the middle of a battle between the Sontarans and the Rutans. The TARDIS was quickly hit by several shots from both sides in the battle at once and started drifting out of control with major damage.

The Doctor finally reached the controls and saw warning lights lit up all over the console. "What have you done? If we take one more hit like that . . ." the Doctor ranted.

"Really? Good! I'll make sure of it then!" the Great Intelligence in the other Clara's body said as he suddenly pushed the Doctor away from the console just as several more blasts headed toward the ship.

"It seems that we have been handed an unexpected opportunity. We are about to destroy one of the most hated enemies of the Sontarans. Let us proclaim victory! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha!" the Sontaran commander in charge of the battle broadcast over all of his ships.

Meanwhile back on the Valiant, Andromeda and Buffy were dragging April back toward Eris' TARDIS when Andromeda was suddenly hit in the back by a stray blast of energy. As Andromeda hit the floor, both Eris and Discord screamed in terror at once. Andromeda was the only person that Discord cared about other than April and now to see both of them lying on the floor side by side at once drove her over the edge.

Discord immediately left the battle and appeared by Andromeda's side at the same time as Eris did. Both women no longer cared about their personal enmity towards one another. All that mattered at that moment was the girl now lying lifeless before them.

Discord was about to use her power to heal her when she was suddenly knocked away by a surprise attack. As she was sent flying into the wall, an armored figure in a cape said, "Yet another innocent life has been ruined by people with the power of gods. Yet another tragedy that could have been prevented if I had been allowed to destroy all of you when I had the chance."

"Who is this psycho?" Buffy asked Eris.

"I don't know. I've never seen him before," Eris said.

"I have unfortunately. Hello, Savior," Jenny Tyler said as she suddenly appeared in-between them.

"You! I warned you that this kind of thing was going to continue to happen unless I stopped it, and now your sister lies dying at your feet because you didn't listen to me. Now will you let me do what's necessary and kill you all?" the Savior asked in what he felt was righteous indignation.

"That's just wonderful. Now we have Captain Insano here too. This day just keeps getting better and better," Jenny said.

"Move away from her! Now!" Discord shrieked as she charged at the Savior with her body filled with energy.

"Well, Jen, it looks like this may be the best day ever," Buffy said sarcastically.

"You're not helping, Summers," Jenny said as she stood between Discord and the Savior ready to do battle with both of them.

Eris dragged Andromeda and April out of the way as she tried to keep from crying. Her baby couldn't be dead. She just couldn't.

Then she looked on in astonishment as April suddenly woke up and healed Andromeda with a touch of her hand. As Andromeda started to wake up, April winked at Eris and put a finger to her lips. Then she disappeared right in front of her.

"Mum, what's going on? Where did April go?" Andromeda asked Eris.

"I wish I knew," Eris answered to both questions.

Next: Things just keep getting wackier and wackier as the Savior enters the battle ready to kill both sides! Meanwhile the Doctor and the others on the TARDIS have to stop the Great Intelligence from the other universe from getting them all killed. Then there's the main battle itself as the original Black Guardian just keeps trying to goad Discord into unleashing her full power against the others by convincing her that April is dead. Speaking of that, what is the deal with April anyway? Who or what is she and what is she up to?