Here we go again, first paradox up this time and everyone who has played the game knows what that means… Slight warning for referenses in the begining here but nothing big, quite small actually. Not going to keep you waiting actually so, Allons-y!
There is Two of You?
"So where are we?" Jenny asked getting to her feet as the TARDIS landed and quieted down.
"I'm not sure but the TARDIS is detecting a paradox and that is never good" the Doctor said reading away at the screen in the Gallifreyan none of the others could understand.
"Well, after having travelled with you for ten years I say let's go. We have to deal with this and then I want to find Amy" Rory said releasing the railing he had been holding onto and giving the Doctor a firm look.
"Yes, we need to get this paradox closed, it will slightly stabilise the universe so here we go" the Doctor said opening the door and looking around. "We better stay close to the TARDIS, give me a moment to expand the air shell" he said moving back to the console.
"Why?" Rory asked glancing at the door.
"Is this Earth's real moon then?" Porridge asked standing by the doorway.
"Yes" the Doctor called.
"And we're going out there without protective gear?" Rory asked astonished.
"I held your wife outside the TARDIS in open space by her ankle the first trip she had with me, the moon is safer than that" the Doctor said waving away the man's concerns.
"You… why am I not even surprised?" Rory said exasperated. "Hope she had pants on under that nightie"
"I'm married Rory, I wasn't the slightest bit interested" the Doctor said. "You know better than I if she sleep with pants on"
"I think we cut the conversation there" Vastra said, there was only one person's underwear that she was interested in. "Is it safe to exit yet?"
"Yes, here we go" the Doctor said rushing towards the door.
"Does he always have that much energy?" Porridge asked.
"Yes" Rory said at the same time as Vastra said "Not always" glancing at Rory.
"Eh, you better get out here, I don't fancy taking on those Daleks on my own" the Doctor said and the earthlings were quick to follow him.
"Daleks, what are they doing on the moon?" Rory asked as they joined the Doctor.
"Could be many reasons, misplaced in time is most likely" the Time Lord answered.
"Oh great, that means we have no idea what is going to show up" Rory muttered and the Doctor nodded as he studied his screwdriver.
"My sonic screwdriver is picking up readings from the paradox ahead. We need to close it to stabilize time. Some of the readings are very strange, coming from my past, we need to be very, very careful. Anything could be in there" he said seriously as he pressed the button to bring up the gem-board and stop the approaching Daleks in their tracks.
"Okay, how does this work?" Rory asked glancing over the gems that had appeared mid-air in front of them.
"Watch and learn, are you green by the way?" the Doctor asked holding up his wrist to show off the blue light there.
"Yes" Rory said glancing down at his own wrist where the strange watch glowed green.
"Good, let's show you how this works" the Doctor said moving a few gems and creating enough combos to blast the blue Dalek out of existence.
"Handy" Rory said as the Doctor did the same thing to the yellow Dalek but this time focusing on Porridge's black gems. "Oh great, we get all colours at once here" he grimaced when a red and an orange Dalek approached.
"Seems like it, but the Daleks aren't the worst thing here" the Doctor said gazing beyond the Daleks at something they couldn't see yet.
Five more Daleks fell with not much struggle before a strange creature showed up. It was big, reddish brown with what looked like at least two mouths, scythes for its four arms and its tail and bat-like wings.
"What is this creature?" Vastra asked staring in slight horror at the thing.
"We called them Reapers. The Time Lords kept them in check, while they could. Now they hunt through time and space, looking for paradoxes. They are incredibly dangerous. We can't destroy it, but it will vanish when we close the paradox. We just need to get past it" the Doctor said studying the creature and saw how the paradox was becoming visible.
"Can we knock it out?" Porridge asked.
"We can try. Activate that ability of yours Porridge, I just hope it's damaging" the Doctor said and Porridge pressed for activating his ability.
"A bomb? Now we're talking" the emperor said and the Doctor nodded.
They kept fighting, the bomb going off after a few turns taking a lot of health with it much to their delight.
"Maybe we can defeat it" Jenny said but the Doctor just shook his head.
"No, but if we remove all its health we should knock it out long enough to close the paradox" he said and they all nodded in agreement.
Not too long after the Reaper collapsed in a faint and the paradox grew bigger. The Doctor started to move gems but as he was about to start his second round Rory stopped him.
"I'm going to guess here but that pink bar is our health bar, right?" he said and the Doctor nodded. "Then you better find a way to refill it or we are toast" he said pointing at the almost empty bar.
"Doctor, we're out of pink gems" Vastra warned and the Doctor bit his lip.
"Rory, give your ability a go. Press that button" the Doctor said pointing at Rory's watch. "Vastra, you and me as well when we've seen what Rory's does"
"Oh thank the gods" Rory said letting out a little of the Roman that still existed in him as their health bar was slightly refilled.
"Useful" Vastra said as her own ability proved to be a powerful attack against their enemies.
"Very, in this situation" the Doctor agreed as his own ability, blue lights were actually circling around his wrist, worked similarly. "Now, let's close this thing before the Reaper wakes again"
"Fine with me" Jenny said determinedly.
Some devastating hits later the paradox collapsed in on itself and the Reaper dissolved at the same time. There was something that fell out of the paradox just as it was collapsing however, the form of a man fell out of it.
"Oh boy, we need to get him inside the oxygen shield and –" the Doctor didn't have time to finish as Vastra's tongue darted out, wrapped around the man's arm and swiftly pulled him into the oxygen shield.
The man coughed a few times before sitting up and looking around. He was wearing a brown pinstriped suit, shirt and tie underneath while his feet was stuck in red converse shoes. He had brown hair that seemed it would defy gravity even on Earth, he looked around at them and groaned as he spotted the Doctor.
"It's you again, I just left you in that museum" he said getting to his feet. "Meeting you again so soon can't be good"
"It's never good when we meet" the Doctor agreed. "But it's always interesting"
"Well the universe falling apart like this is both but also the worst meeting this far" the unknown man said getting to his feet and the Doctor nodded.
"Can we get back inside? I get slightly unnerved by being on the moon without protective gear" Rory said and the Doctor looked at him and shrugged.
"You've been through worse" he said but he still moved to the TARDIS and opened the door for them.
"So care to give me the full explanation? Universe collapsing, paradoxes sucking me in, you, a Silurian dressed for Victorian times in the TARDIS, Gem Legacy equipment and I still don't like how you redecorated" the new man said looking around.
"And you are still skinny" the Doctor argued. "Come on, we need to take off and get out of here"
"Of course" the new man said joining the Doctor by the console and starting to flip switches and such. "May I?" he asked gesturing to the leaver that would make them take off.
"Go for it" the Doctor said and the man grinned.
"Allons-y" he said pulling down the leaver with a big grin and the TARDIS shook to life. "Now, could you explain what happened?" he said turning to the Doctor who started to talk, but the earthlings in the ship didn't understand a word.
"What language is that?" Porridge asked glancing at the others.
"No idea, not one from Earth at any rate" Rory answered. "What does Allons-y mean by the way?"
"I think it's French for 'let's go' but this other language" Porridge just shrugged.
"I've heard that language before" Vastra said and her wife and the men turned to her. "But only from the Doctor's mouth, and the girl that left these" she said pointing to the device on her wrist.
"Then who is he? If that is Gallifreyan then River is the only person I know of who is even close to knowing it" Rory said and the women frowned.
"Couldn't that be one of his own people?" Porridge asked.
"No, he's the last of his kind" Jenny answered and the short man blinked at her in surprise.
"Unless…" Rory said studying the new man. "I have seen those clothes somewhere before" he said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Where? And why only the clothes? What about the rest of him?" Porridge asked perplexed.
Rory didn't answer and the other three could see the gears turning in his head as he worked it out. Because he had seen those clothes before.
"Doctor" he called and both men turned to him confirming his suspicion. "Are you going to keep speaking to yourself in a language no one else can understand or are you going to switch to English? Or some other language the TARDIS translates"
"Oh, sorry" the Doctor in pinstripes said scratching the back of his head.
"Right, introductions" the bowtie-clad Doctor said. "Everyone met the last me"
"I guessed that from the whole Raggedy Doctor clothes" Rory said.
"Raggedy?" the Doctor in question asked his replacement.
"Violent regeneration, also why I changed the desktop, you burned it up" the other Doctor said. "Anyway this is Madame Vastra and her wife Jenny Flint, the real inspiration for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson"
"I thought that was Four when he dressed up as him" the new Doctor commented.
"Might have been that as well. This is Porridge who is really the emperor of humanity, he has a very long name" the floppy haired Doctor continued. "And this is Rory Pond, companion of mine and the last centurion"
"It's Williams" Rory said with a sigh. "Which he is never going to learn"
"Like teaching One Ian's name or Nine not to call Mickey 'Rickey' then" the older looking of the two Doctors said shaking all their hands.
"Wait, there is two of you? What are we going to call you then? Doctor 1 and Doctor 2?" Porridge asked pointing at the Doctors in the order he had met them.
"Tenth and Eleventh Doctor actually" the Doctor in the suit said pointing at himself when he said Tenth and at his replacement when he said Eleventh. "Just call me Ten and him Eleven and we're set"
"There is eleven of you?" Porridge asked and the Doctors looked at each other.
"Technically twelve but you get the idea" Eleven nodded.
"Twelve? What are you?" Porridge asked looking between the two men.
"Time Lord" they answered simultaneously and Porridge blinked at the answer.
"The last of the Time Lords" Ten added seriously.
"At least for now" Eleven mumbled but that was probably for the best right now even if their people would have been able to help.
"And that means you can change your face?" Porridge asked looking between both the Time Lords and the other humans.
"He does that when he dies" Rory said. "His people does that to cheat death"
"So instead of dying he change?" Porridge asked. "Have you ever seen this happening?"
"Not to him" Rory said. "But my daughter did"
"Your…? How?" Porridge said confused.
"Long and complicated story but she was conceived in the time vortex so she turned out to be part Time Lord and well" Rory shrugged incapable of explaining any better.
"His daughter is part Time Lady?" Ten asked turning to Eleven.
"It's complicated" Eleven said looking away.
"Well I would like to know!" Ten said with a frown.
"Spoilers" Eleven answered and Ten froze.
The two Doctors stared at each other for a moment, two set of eyes so incredibly old in such young bodies, before Ten sighed and turned away.
"So why are we playing Legacy against the universe?" he asked and the earthlings looked perplexed at each other.
"A Time Lady from another dimension showed up and left it here, I have checked it completely safe, so I plugged it into the TARDIS in hope of it being an easier way to win this and a safer one" Eleven said and Ten nodded.
"Legacy? What is that?" Jenny asked the question on all of their minds.
"It's what the gem-board is" Eleven explained. "It's a Gallifreyan game where both parties does this against each other, often with virtual teams and only the leader being real, slightly different now"
"Remember all those games against Koschei? And Ushas? She was hard to beat" Ten said and Eleven nodded in remembrance. "We were pretty tight with Koschei, wonder how that would go now"
"I'm not sure I want to know" Eleven confessed. "Him showing up would just mean more trouble"
"All to true" Ten said. "Wish it wouldn't" the two Doctors looked at each other and both mentally sighed, they missed Koschei, not the Master but who he had been when they were boys.
"Who are you talking about?" Rory asked confused.
"Old school friends" Eleven said shortly, not feeling up for explaining.
"Off to our next destination then?" Ten asked avoiding the question as well. "Allons-y" he said pulling down a leaver.
And Ten's in the building! Or at least the TARDIS, if there is anything 'at least' with that place. The crew is growing and it's nice to refer to past things in this story and trying to explain things to Porridge and others like him will be a fun part of this. The two names mentioned in the end of it is of course the Master and the Rani, I work with the theory that these old past names where nicknames used while they were in the Academy. I'll see you all next time I get one of these done which will be next week at the earliest as I work this weekend, so till then.