Chapter Eleven: The Truth

As everyone was unconscious, in the pitch black darkness, Grodd sent a telepathic message out to someone. "I have acquired the machine," Grodd said. "Here are the coordinates." He sent them telepathically.

The Doctor started to wake up. Grodd walked over and said, "Timelord, why did you bring all this destruction to my world? You should have stayed away, in your world, where you belong."

"Who are you, Grodd?!" The Doctor said.

"Just a gorilla, who needs to survive. Sometimes, in order to survive, you have to choose a side. I've already chosen my side, Doctor. And he's coming. He's coming right now."

"The TARDIS won't let anything or anyone in or out. It has just experienced the most dangerous scenario in all of my lives, that is why the cloister bell sounded backwards through time."

"Is it, Doctor? Is that why? And are you sure no one can get in here?" Grodd smiled as two red eyes formed at the door of the TARDIS. Red electricity started to appear all around the door, and all around the TARDIS. Barry and Lyla started to wake up.

"Red lightning?" The Doctor said.

"From the Negative Speed Force," Barry replied.

"Negative Speed Force?" The Doctor asked. "What's that?"

"It's the opposite of the Speed Force. A man made speed force created by Thawne. Oh no..." Barry started to realize what was going on.

A voice could now be heard. "Thank you, Grodd, for your service. It was a good show." The lightning became stronger and brighter. "Oh, hello Flash. Nice to finally see you again!"

Barry recognized the voice, the lightning, and the red eyes. "THAWNE!" he yelled. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?!"

"Oh Barry. Do I ever stay dead? I am, after all, The Reverse Flash!"

"You need to get off my ship!" The Doctor yelled.

"Oh, who is that? Is that the good old Doctor? The Daleks have told me so much about you! About your hatred towards them. About how you killed all of them! Oh Doctor, I think you may have missed one... or five thousand! I have them all out here with me. And once we get control of the TARDIS, the amount of energy in there alone, oh what I could do on this Earth, and so many others!

"Good and faithful Grodd," Thawne continued, "great job orchestrating that stunt at the beach earlier with Killer Shark. After you broke out of that first A.R.G.U.S. prison, I knew they would take you to a more secure one. And once these Daleks told me Lyla and her gang of idiots had one of their own hostage, that they had captured a Dalek, I had to save, as it were, one of my own. Well, they are mine now."

"How long have you been working with the Daleks?!" The Doctor said angrily.

"Oh, Doctor, that's the best part! Three months! No one has noticed. Everyone has been so busy. Thank you for going into the Speed Force, Barry. With you gone, I could move just a bit more freely. Albeit still in secrecy, but hey, a villain has to live! Oh and I must commend you, Barry, thank you for hesitating for just one small second before actually entering that portal into the Speed Force. That was just enough time for one of my speedster Daleks to sneak in there before you, undetected. How do you think they infiltrated the Speed Force, Barry?! It was YOU! Your weakness, for the people you love. I commend you, Barry, you played a huge part in my plans. As you usually do."

Now almost glowing the entire room completely red from Thawne's lightning, Thawne himself was but moments away from infiltrating the TARDIS.

"Barry, don't listen to him!" The Doctor said.

"Why didn't the Speed Force notice such evil inside of it?" Barry mumbled.

"Speak up, Barry," Thawne said. "We all can't hear you! But to answer your pathetic question, it was too busy trying to keep you comfortable to notice."

"What does he mean?" The Doctor asked.

"I, was saying goodbye to my friends. My family. The love of my life."

"Iris," Thawne laughed. "She's not doing too well. She misses you dearly."

"Shut up, Thawne!" The Doctor said.

Barry continued, "After defeating this villain that was, basically a future version of me, a possible future--"

"Embrace your anger, Barry, maybe Savitar can live again!"

"No, Thawne! Savitar is, and always will be, dead! After we defeated him once and for all, the Speed Force, the force that charges my powers and the powers of all speedsters, became unstable. Savitar was a prisoner of the Speed Force. And him being forever in the Speed Force, trapped, running, it kept everything stabilized. But once he got out, and we defeated him, someone needed to take his place--"

"You forgot the best part, Barry. When your beloved speedster friends were stuck in there for a while, because YOU feel the need to always be the one to save everybody! But you sure don't mind it when your friends take the fall, do you?"

Ignoring Thawne, Barry finished his story. "After defeating Savitar, though, someone needed to be in the Speed Force, permanently, to keep it stabilized, to save the Speed Force, to save my world, maybe even the entire universe."

"There goes Barry and his hero complex! Saving everyone! I could have been The Flash, Barry, I should have been The Flash!"

"So what does this have to do with a speedster Dalek sneaking into the Speed Force?" The Doctor asked. "That is not the weirdest thing I have said today. What a day."

"Before entering the Speed Force I was saying goodbye to everyone. The Speed Force opened a portal and made itself look like my mom... to comfort me. She told me it was time. I still needed a minute. Imagine having to say goodbye to your loved ones and the love of your life?!"

"And you of all people, Barry, know how to say goodbye to loved ones! Oh, did I apologize for killing your mother when you were a kid?"

"That is horrible!" The Doctor said.

Barry started to get very angry. "Thawne, what is your endgame here?!"

"Here and now? To humiliate you. Continue with your story, I have all the time in the world!"

Barry was quiet.

"Perhaps you'd like me to kill your friends too?!" Thawne sent lightning from the door at The Doctor, knocking him to the ground.

"Stop it!" Barry shouted.

"Then finish your story!" Thawne demanded.

"After another moment with my family, I finally went with my mom, or, what looked like my mom, into the Speed Force."

"But the hesitating, the weak, pathetic feeling that you had to say goodbye to everyone. And the Speed Force just had to coddle you like a baby, Barry. It was that moment. The Speed Force was distracted by you, in the form of your mother, while she was watching you be weak. You're weak, Barry. That is the moment my friends, the Daleks, snuck inside your Speed Force. Hiding in the deepest, darkest corners, waiting for my command to start killing anything they found inside! It was so, accommodating when the Speed Force finally found them, and tried to reason with them, as you, Doctor! You have had many lives and faces, the Daleks told me. Showed me. I'm a fan, Doctor, I too like to change my face. In conclusion, Barry Allen, I would like to thank you for my victory, for being weak, and for allowing me and my newfound friends to wreak havoc on this world, and many more to come!"

The Doctor looked at Barry. "Barry. It's not your fault."

Thawne continued, "Grodd. You were so excellent. Gaining their trust just enough. But destroying the four Daleks outside of this machine, the TARDIS, was it? That was a nice addition to this charade."

"Is anybody else wondering?! How is a speedster Dalek even possible?!" The Doctor yelled.

"Foolish Doctor. You of all people should know that with science, and time, anything is possible!" Thawne said.

"But where are all these Daleks coming from?!" The Doctor shouted.

"Doctor, you ask so much," Thawne replied. "But since I'm about to kill you all, I'll tell you. But it's our little secret, okay? After this 'stolen Earth' situation, as the Daleks called it, one of them escaped. Going back to its home planet, was it, Skaro? There were apparently a bunch of Daleks around on their planet, hiding, with some of them taking refuge on a nearby moon. Those few survivors went all throughout the galaxies, however they could, even recruiting some from the, what did they call it, the Time War? Sounds fun! They somehow managed to find me, I'm just a simple wanderer, trying to survive. They found me, alone, in the far corner of the Earth, slowly going insane, because who wouldn't go insane trying to figure out how, if I was erased from existence, how on Earth was I still alive? That was my weak point. It doesn't matter how I'm alive, I finally realized. All that matters is I am alive! So what was I going to do with this gift?!"

Thawne was moments away from entering the TARDIS. As he finally made it inside, he looked around. He looked at The Doctor, Lyla, and Barry, and said, "Yes, I would like this ship, Doctor, thank you for this gift!"

Now more powerful than ever, he shot lightning bolts from his hands, hitting everyone, except Grodd, who went and stood by Thawne. He then turned around, forced the TARDIS doors open, and looked outside. Thousands of Daleks were coming out of what seemed to be warp speed.

As the Daleks closed in on The Doctor's ship, The Doctor, Barry and Lyla were helpless on the ground, as Grodd and Thawne looked outside, knowing they had finally won.