Notes: Here we are. This one is a bit short, but the last one was longer than usual and this ties up this story arc. I've already started working on the next one, so it shouldn't be too long. Please review :D

"That's not reassuring, Doctor. I need my family back and why hasn't Rose done something about this already?" River shouted.

"Stop. I need them back too. And you need to stop telling them any more about Rose," he insisted.

"Fine. Just tell me that you can fix this," River agreed.

"Yeah. They're fine. I mean, right now their brains are just in stand by mode," the Doctor tried to assure her.

"That is not fine!" River shouted.

"Listen, right now they have a much better chance of getting out of this situation alive than you do," he growled back at her.

"Which one of you said that?"

"Me. Cyberplanner. Mister Clever. Now, if you don't mind, I have a chess game to finish, and you have to die, pointlessly. Toodle-oo," the Cyber-Doctor said with a dismissive wave.

River left the Doctor to his chess game and to ramble with himself while she got the soldiers ready to defend the castle from the incoming cyberarmy that was sure to be on the way. They used a large power cable to electrify the moat, but the cybermen adapted quickly and it was up to River with her blaster and one of the soldiers with the Anti-Cyber gun to hit the ones that made it across.

"Porridge!" River shouted as she took out another robot.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Take that bomb and keep yourself safe. Understand?" she ordered.

"Got it," he replied hefting the large box and finding somewhere to hide with it until the last second. "Alice Ferrin, you should have destroyed this planet when you had the chance."

"They're nearly here. Now, you can take my bishop and keep limping on for a little longer, or you can sacrifice your queen and get your son and granddaughter back. But it's mate in five moves, and I get your mind," the Cyber-Doctor offered.

"Take my queen, and give me back my family," the Doctor agreed.

"Emotions. Can't you see what a foolish move that was? You've lost the game," he cheered.

"Family back, now," the Doctor insisted.

At that, James and Clara all blinked back to awareness of their surroundings. James turned to hug his daughter tightly and mentally contacted his wife to let her know that he was alright and get a summary of events from her. Rose was still staring into the distance, but her brow furrowed determinedly.

"Emotions, Doctor, for a family that will die at our hands anyway? What was the point?" the Cyber-Doctor goaded.

"Why are you keeping Rose? You released Jamie and Clara, why keep her?" the Doctor demanded.

"Because we can. Because you want her back more than anything and there is something powerful about her," the Cyber-Doctor replied.

"This ends now," Rose announced, golden light shining from her eyes once more.

"No! Stop, please!" the Doctor called to the Bad Wolf.

"I must protect my pack," she replied.

"I know that. But the others are safe for now," the Doctor told her.

"You are not safe, My Doctor," she argued.

"Ooh, is this the power that has been fighting us. What is it exactly? What could this add to the power of the Cyberiad?" the Cyber-Doctor wondered.

"You will be destroyed. I will burn your network from within and dissolve every Cyberman into dust," Bad Wolf announced. "This power cannot be taken from her and can only be used by her."

"Bad Wolf, she is terrified of you. Terrified that she will hurt her family because she cannot control the power herself. Why can't she control it?" the Doctor questioned, never having had the opportunity to converse with the Bad Wolf directly before. Even talking with the TARDIS didn't give them the information they needed about the changes that took place.

"Her mind is not yet ready to see all that is, all that was, and all that could be. When it is, then she will have access to see these things coming and call upon me at will," the Bad Wolf replied.

"Fascinating as this is, we have a game to finish," the Cyber-Doctor interrupted.

During the exchange, the Doctor saw Clara run out of the room and back again. He noted the item in her hand and nodded to Jamie in approval of his plan.

"Quite right. Just give me a few minutes, my lovely goddess of time," he told Bad Wolf with a wink. Her eyes flashed brighter for a moment as she saw the timelines shift with his plan and she smirked. "Your move. But before you take it, just so you know, sacrificing my queen was the best possible move I could have made. The Time Lords invented chess. It's our game. And if you don't avoid my trap, it gives me mate in three moves."

"How?" the Cyber-Doctor asked, examining the board thoroughly.

"Oh, come on. Call yourself a chess playing robot?" he teased, urging Clara to crawl beneath the table.

"How!"

"You figure it out. Or don't you have the processing power, hmm?" the Doctor urged confidently.

Outside of the throne room, they heard the weapons fire stop. The sudden silence was deafening.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor questioned.

"Doctor. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. I'm pulling in extra processing power. Three million Cyberbrains are working on one tiny chess problem. How long do you think it's going to take us to solve it?" the Cyber-Doctor told him concentrating on how the Doctor could possibly win in three moves.

"That's cheating," he accused, though it was exactly what he wanted. While the others were physically shut down, he could hear River and the soldiers easily destroying as many as they could manage.

"No, no, no, no, no. Just pulling in the local resources," he countered. "There's no way you can get to mate in three moves."

"Three moves. Want to know what they are?" the Doctor prompted.

"You're lying," the Cyber-Doctor insisted.

"Move one, use sonic screwdriver to amplify pulser. Move two, activate pulser. Move three, hit the implants with the pulser, Clara. See you," the Doctor announced and Clara jumped from beneath the table to apply the weapon to the metal bits on her granddad's face.

"That's cheating!" the Cyber-Doctor protested before he was completely purged from the Doctor's mind.

"Just taking advantage of the local resources. You were brilliant, my darling Clara! Could you untie me now, please?" the Doctor praised.

"Are you alright now, granddad? Completely you again?" she asked.

"Completely me again, promise," he assured her.

"Ok. Can you fix gran too? What happened to the Cyberplanner?" she questioned as she untied the ropes holding him to the chair.

"Out of my head and redistributed across three million Cybermen right now, and about to wake them all up, kill us and start constructing a spaceship. We need to destroy this planet before they can get off it. As for your gran, Bad Wolf, you are welcome to force them out of Rose. We'll take care of the rest," the Doctor explained.

With a flash of golden light, Rose gasped back to consciousness. Before she fell over, she was caught by the Doctor and James. They both hugged her tightly and Clara crashed into them, hugging her around the waist.

"Next part of the plan," he urged and pulled Rose by the hand back toward River and the Soldiers. They found Porridge and the bomb near the others who were still firing on the twitching Cybermen.

"Okay, it has a fallback voice activation," the Doctor said.

"The Captain, but she's dead," one of the soldiers argued.

"Then we should ask Porridge," Clara replied.

"Why?" Rose wondered.

"Well, he is the Emperor. I bet he knows the activation codes. Oh, come on. It's obvious. He looks exactly like he does on the coin, and on the waxwork, except they made him a bit taller," Clara explained.

"You are brilliant, sweetheart. Come here," River told her, opening her arms to her daughter for a hug.

"She's right," Porridge admitted.

"So you can save us?" Rose asked him.

"We all die in the end. Does it matter how?" he grumbled. "I don't want to be Emperor. If I activate that bomb, it's all over."

"And if you don't, three million Cybermen will spread across the galaxy. Isn't that worth dying for?" the Doctor argued.

"Doctor-" Porridge began.

"Three million Cybermen!" he shouted as the robots started to come back online.

"The bomb, the throne, it's all connected. I just have to say this is Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick, called Longstaff the forty first, the Defender of Humanity, Imperator of known space. Activate the Desolator. And it's done," he announced loudly and the activation lights on the bomb shone brightly. "It'll blow in about eighty seconds. Easily long enough for the Imperial Flagship to locate me from my identification, warp jump into orbit, and transmat us to the State Room."

With a flash of bright white light, they were all transported up to the Imperial Flagship. They could see from the large windows around them, that they were in orbit of the planet that was about to implode.

"Oh yeah. Nice ship. Bit big. Not blue enough. Listen, there is a little rocket-looking ship at coordinates six ultra nineteen P. I need it transmatted up here right away," the Doctor told them, needing to save Jamie and River's TARDIS before the bomb went off.

"Right. Did you get that?" the emperor agreed and the officer at a nearby console brought the little ship on board as well. "And that's that. Seventy six, seventy seven, seventy eight, seventy nine-"

Beneath them, the bomb activated, destroying the planet and all of the Cybermen along with it.

"Farewell, Cyberiad. You know, it was good to get away. Good to be a person and not to be lonely, or Emperor of a thousand galaxies with everyone waiting for me to tell them what to do," Porridge told them.

"Can't you run away again?" Clara suggested.

"They'll be keeping a close eye on me this time. That's what happens when you're Emperor. Loneliest job in the universe," he answered.

"You don't have to be lonely," she told him.

"Would you come back to visit me, Clara? We could play chess," Porridge requested.

"Sounds like a deal," she agreed and ran over to give him a hug.

"We'll make sure you can contact our TARDIS anytime, Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick," James told him with a formal bow.

"Porridge is fine. For my friends," he responded with a friendly smile.

"We'd best be going for now," Rose suggested and the time travellers all made their way back into the little rocket ship that was the young TARDIS.

James set up a communications channel between his ship and the Imperial Flagship so that they could keep in contact with their new friend to visit in the future. It was nice for Clara to have a friend, and good for the emperor to have one too.

"Do we have to go back right away?" Clara asked.

"No, sweetheart," Rose told her. "We still have a Golden Ticket for the park. Let's just pick a better day to visit, yeah?"

"Sounds good to me, mum," James agreed and set their coordinates for a month after the park originally opened.

The little family had a lovely time on that trip before returning to the other TARDIS and ending their visit for the time being. Rose and the Doctor made their way to the library of their own TARDIS to find their older granddaughter.

"Have a nice time?" she asked innocently.

"You know we did," the Doctor laughed. "Care for a visit with your friend?"

"Nah, we keep in contact, but he's a bit too busy for that just now. Mum and dad took me back there quite a few times when I was younger. Besides, he wouldn't recognize me now," she replied.

"I'm sure we could explain," Rose assured her.

"It's alright. It's been a long time for him and he has other friends as well as a wife to keep him company now," Clara told them. He had been a good friend to her when she was a child, but things were different now. While it have just happened for the Doctor and Rose, it had been a long time ago for Clara. "How about we go watch the Intergalactic Chess Tournament in 7541? I've been reading up on the champ from that year, sounds like a good one."