Author's Note: I have been told that my Dalek dialogue is a little off. I'm sorry about that. I tried my best. Please pretend it's better than it is.
The Doctor stepped outside of the TARDIS, carefully closing the door behind him. Twelve Daleks hovered nearby, their gun-barrels twitching and their eyestalks all focused on him.
"You rang?" the Doctor asked.
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!" one of the Daleks cried. "YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS!"
"Yes, I was rather expecting that," said the Doctor. "Well, go on. Aren't you going to add in that next bit, the one about your wanting to exterminate me?"
"THE DOCTOR WILL OBEY," the Dalek commanded.
"The Doctor will obey?" the Doctor asked. "I've been downgraded from 'exterminate on sight' to 'you will obey'?"
"YOU WILL OBEY THE DALEKS!" the first Dalek shouted. "OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMIN—"
"Oh, shut it," the Doctor said. "If you'd wanted to exterminate me, you'd have done it the moment I left the TARDIS. Now. You brought me here for a reason, and I want to know why." He leaned in closer, staring straight into the Dalek's blue eyestalk, and the Dalek flinched backwards. "What are you up to?"
"ALERT! ALERT!" the Dalek shrieked. "THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE MOVEMENT! THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE!"
"You've butchered entire planets," the Doctor growled. "You've drained them of their life force. That isn't something I approve of. That isn't something I like." His voice raised to a shout, as he demanded: "So I'd like to know why!"
"THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE TALKING!" another Dalek commanded.
The Doctor stepped back, with a laugh. "Cease talking?" he asked. "You have files and files of data on me. Am I likely to cease talking? Have I ever ceased talking?"
Another group of Daleks poured out of a nearby sliding door. "THE DOCTOR WILL FOLLOW," they commanded.
"Will I, then?" the Doctor asked. He looked back at the Dalek he'd stared down before. "I thought you told me to cease movement."
"MOVE!" the Daleks around him shouted, in unison. "MOVE, OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, if you put it that way," said the Doctor, "I'd be delighted to move." And without a moment of hesitation, he followed the Daleks out the door.
An enormous, high-vaulted room with black metal walls and grated metal floors loomed before the Doctor. Daleks flew through the air, their eyestalks twirling as they noticed him. The Doctor took in the room in a second. Dense machinery lined the walls, and the cacophony of Dalek orders rang through the air. The Doctor turned back to his Dalek escort.
"Not exactly the prison cell I was expecting," the Doctor confessed.
"THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE TALKING!" one of the accompanying Daleks shouted at him. "MOVE! MOVE!"
The Doctor followed them into the center of the room. Around him, he noticed, the flying Daleks had begun to divert their flight paths away from him, almost purposely avoiding getting anywhere near him. The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back.
"So, this is your center of operations, is it?" he asked. "Not so typical for you to bring me in here. Even with an armed escort."
"OPEN TRANSMISSION TO DALEK SUPREME!" one of the Daleks shouted.
"TRANSMISSION INITIATED!" another one called back.
A screen popped up in front of the Doctor, displaying a glowing white Dalek, its eyestalk pointing directly at him.
"Transmission?" the Doctor asked. "You mean he's not here in person?" He gave a sideways grin, and leaned back on his heels. "Oh, let me guess. This little project of yours — it's a long shot, isn't it? One last ditch effort to get back into the Dalek Supreme's favor. The Dalek Supreme knows it's going to fail. That's why he's abandoned you."
"REPORT," the Dalek Supreme commanded.
"THE DOCTOR HAS BEEN LOCATED!" shouted one of the Daleks accompanying the Doctor. "HE IS A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS!"
"Which explains why I'm here," the Doctor continued. "You're boasting. Boasting to your superiors that you've managed to capture me, your greatest enemy. Because you're desperate. Desperate to get back in the Dalek Supreme's favor, desperate to save your own necks. Desperate enough to try to get me to help you, despite the very real danger that I'll destroy you."
"SILENCE!" a Dalek nearby shouted.
The Doctor grinned. "Bet the Dalek Supreme doesn't care. He probably thinks I'll foil your plans and wipe you out. Get rid of a few dissident Daleks for him, save him a job."
"SILENCE!" the Daleks around the Doctor commanded.
"THE DOCTOR WILL MAKE THE NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS!" the Dalek to the Doctor's right informed the Dalek Supreme.
"Adjustments?" the Doctor asked. "What am I adjusting?"
"AND HIS COMPANIONS?" the Dalek Supreme demanded.
"No companions," the Doctor put in. "Came alone, this time. Didn't want to involve others, not with Daleks around."
"COMPANIONS NOT REQUIRED," the Dalek beside the Doctor replied. "THE DOCTOR WILL OBEY!"
"Obey what?" the Doctor asked. "What do you want me for? Why am I here?"
"YOU HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HUMANOIDS KNOWN AS THE GREAT VAMPIRES?" the Dalek Supreme asked.
The Doctor gave a laugh. "Ah, so that's it!" he cried, clapping his hands. "Your Fountain's not working!"
"SILENCE!" shouted one of the Daleks beside the Doctor.
"THE DOCTOR WILL FIX THE GENETIC DISINTEGRATOR!" another Dalek shouted. "OR HE WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"Genetic…?" The mirth fell off the Doctor's face in an instant, and he took a shaky breath. "Life force energy. Strong enough to rewrite DNA. Or simply unravel it." His eyes skimmed across the Daleks. "That's why you brought me here. To destroy every living creature in the universe."
"THE DALEKS ARE THE SUPREME BEINGS!" the Dalek Supreme shouted.
"ALL OTHER LIFE FORMS ARE IRRELEVENT!" the Daleks around him confirmed.
"Which is all very impressive on paper," said the Doctor, a little more confidently, the lightness back in his voice. He clasped his hands behind his back. "Only you can't do it, can you? Because you've stolen technology from the Dark Times, technology that hasn't been used for billions upon billions of years. It's incompatible with anything that exists now. You may know enough to use the Fountain of Kulkmattoll, but you don't know how to make the energy it stores power your own machine." He gave a little smile, as he put the final pieces together. "Which explains why you believe you need me. You think I can make the two systems compatible."
"THE DOCTOR WILL MAKE THE NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS!" one of the Daleks behind him commanded.
"YOU WILL OBEY!" the Daleks around him echoed. "YOU WILL OBEY!"
"Or what?" the Doctor asked. "You'll exterminate me? But you're going to do that anyways. If I help you, I'd condemn not only myself, but the lives of every other life form in the cosmos. So if you're trying to make me help you, you'll have to come up with a far, far more convincing argument."
"OBEY," the Dalek Supreme commanded, "OR WE WILL DESTROY YOUR TARDIS."
The Doctor froze. "You'll what?"
"HEARTS RATE INCREASING!" the Dalek beside the Doctor yelled. "PROBABILITY FACTOR HIGH!"
"Probability factor?" the Doctor asked. "What probability factor?"
"THE PROBABILITY THAT YOU'VE LEFT YOUR COMPANIONS INSIDE THE TARDIS," the Dalek Supreme said.
"What is this for you, Dalek Supreme? A test of how I'll react in different situations?" the Doctor asked. "Am I your lab rat?"
"OBEY!" the Dalek Supreme shouted. "OR WE SHALL DESTROY YOUR TARDIS, AND ALL COMPANIONS INSIDE."
The Doctor raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said. "Yes, fine, you got me. My companions are inside the TARDIS. Don't hurt them."
"THE DOCTOR WILL OBEY!" the Dalek to the Doctor's right shouted.
"How do you even know I can obey?" the Doctor asked. "The Great Vampires were wiped out billions of years ago. The Fountain of Kulkmattoll was just a fairy story by the time I was born. Who says I know anything about that sort of technology?"
"TEMPORAL SIGNATURE TRACES SUGGESTS PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'," a Dalek to the Doctor's left informed him. "THEREFORE, IT IS LOGICAL THAT YOU WOULD SHARE HER KNOWLEDGE."
"You think she knows about the Great Vampires?" the Doctor asked.
"THE FEMALE'S FULL TITLE IS 'VAMPIRE SLAYER'," said a Dalek behind the Doctor. "THIS IMPLIES FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE GREAT VAMPIRES AND THEIR TECHNOLOGY."
The Doctor shook his head. "Oh, no wonder the Dalek Supreme doesn't like you. You lot really are unbelievably stupid."
"EXPLAIN!" shouted another Dalek.
"No human will ever be able to tell you anything about the Great Vampires," said the Doctor. "Not if you go back through time and track down every Vampire Slayer that ever existed. You know why? Because humans never encountered the Great Vampires. The Time Lords wiped them out long before humanity ever existed. And your Time War got rid of all of them." He stared the Dalek beside him in the eyestalk. "Face it, Daleks. Your project is a failure. Anyone who's ever fought a Great Vampire is dead, gone, and locked out of time and space. You lose. Again."
The Daleks said nothing, for a moment. Then, the Dalek Supreme's eyestalk twitched.
"EXCEPT FOR YOU," he said.
The Doctor froze. Then he pasted a grin on his face. "Nice try," he said. "But race memory doesn't work like that. Billions of years before I was born, remember? You might have one Time Lord, but you've got the wrong one. I know nothing."
"INITIATE TEMPORAL PLAYBACK!" the Dalek Supreme commanded.
"TEMPORAL PLAYBACK INITIATED!" the Dalek beside the Doctor shouted back.
Another window popped up in front of the Doctor, this one showing himself — his last self, with the pinstripe suit and red trainers — and Buffy, tramping through a cluster of trees, a blinking and complicated looking device in his hand. Buffy clutched a stake, and looked around, then back at the younger-him.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Buffy-on-the-recording asked. "You're not exactly Mr. Vampire Killer."
"Oi! Fought off the King of the Great Vampires myself," younger-him said. "Hybrids like these… well, piece of cake, really."
The screen popped out of existence. The Doctor kept staring at the spot where it had been, now just empty air.
"DOCTOR!" the Dalek Supreme shouted.
The Doctor spun on his heel. "All right," he said. "So I was lying. But that still doesn't mean I'm going to help you. Because I won't. I won't do it. Go ahead. Destroy my TARDIS! Destroy the Earth! Exterminate me! There's nothing you can do to make me unravel the genome of every other life form in existence. There is no power you can wield, no threat you can deliver that will make me obey you. I refuse, and that's final."
"ALERT!" one of the Daleks at the other side of the ship shrieked. "ALERT! UNIDENTIFIED HUMANOID LOCATED!"
"DISPLAY!" the Dalek Supreme commanded.
A window popped up, revealing Buffy, standing directly in front of a dusty, scuffed brown metallic machine. A Dalek stood right behind her, its gun stalk aimed at her.
"Elizabeth," the Doctor breathed.
"IT IS THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'!" the Dalek beside the Doctor shouted.
"Doctor," said Buffy, "I'm sorry. I didn't disable the Fountain in time."
"It's all right," the Doctor told her. "I understand."
"THE HUMANOID FEMALE WILL BE TAKEN FOR FULL BRAIN EXTRACTION!" the Dalek beside Buffy announced.
"No!" the Doctor protested. "Leave her alone! She doesn't know anything! She's never even seen a Great Vampire before. Please, I…" the Doctor trailed off, his eyes fixed on Buffy. His shoulders slumped, and in a low voice, he told the Daleks, "I'll do what you want."
"What?" Buffy exclaimed. "Doctor, you idiot! Don't do what the evil-killy-robot-things want! They're evil-killy-robot-things!"
"SILENCE!" the Dalek beside Buffy commanded. "THE HUMANOID FEMALE WILL CEASE TALKING!"
"YOU WILL MAKE THE NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS?" the Dalek Supreme asked the Doctor.
The Doctor hung his head. "Yes," he said. "As long as you don't harm Elizabeth, I'll fix your machine."