"Seeing this unimaginably great form of You with its many faces and eyes, o mighty armed one; its many arms, thighs and legs; its many bellies and many dreadful teeth, are all the worlds perturbed just as I am. Seeing this way You touching the sky glowing with many colors, open mouths and wide open shining eyes, I am unsettled within and unable to keep my composure and peace of mind, o Vishnu. Seeing thus Your terrifying teeth and faces like the fire of the end of time, I lose my sense of direction and find myself nailed to the ground; o Lord of Lords, refuge of the worlds, have mercy!
"Licking, You devour the people from all directions with Your flaming mouths covering the universe with all the terribly scorching rays of Your effulgence, o Vishnu. Please explain me who You, in this fearsome form, are. I offer You, o great God, my obeisances, be so good to me; I wish to know the original of You as I surely do not comprehend Your mission."
The Supreme Lord said: "Time I am the great destroyer of the worlds engaged here in destroying all people, except for you only, will all the soldiers who are situated on both sides, find their end."
– Arjuna speaks with Vishnu, from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, verses 23 and 30-32
Her face spoke of a graceful yielding to age and time had silvered her golden hair. She was still slender, deceptively fragile, a lily with a steel spine. Romanadvoratrelundar, President of the High Council of Gallifrey, was nearly in tears and her staff was frantic.
She controlled herself with an effort. "Cease this prattle and report properly. What is his condition?"
"He is enmeshed in the Matrix. It is his only reality."
"And this… Rose?"
"He has invented her as his companion, the embodiment of his emotional side, free to express fear and anger and love. She balances his psyche so that he can keep processing the solution algorithms."
The President looked at the display image of 'Rose Tyler' as the girl stared at the eruption of Daleks from the black sphere. Small, blonde, but projecting the warmth and vulnerability of a human. The Matrix technician's analysis suggested that the Doctor had given this avatar of himself some aspects of his old friend, the Lady President Romana. Romana was not sure she agreed with this analysis. The Doctor had always loved the company of humans.
"He's playing the Daleks against the Cybermen. That is as desperate a tactic as I've seen from him yet. Is he in danger of regeneration again?"
"The stress levels are rising but his body is stable for now."
The Castellan entered the room and went straight to her side. "Another Dalek fleet has arrived in Gallifreyan local space. There are more on the way. Soon they will have the power to break through the transduction barrier."
Romana drew a deep breath and leaned over the tank. The Doctor was still wearing his eight incarnation's green velvet frockcoat but his cravat was sadly limp in the suspension medium. He'd regenerated twice since melding himself with the Matrix in an attempt to find a tactic that would both stop the Daleks forever and spare Gallifrey from being wiped out of the Time Stream.
"The void ship. That looks promising."
"The theory is known, but the Matrix has never been able to apply the theory in enough detail to allow us to create such a vessel."
"And if you channel more power through the Matrix?" Romana hardly recognized her own voice for its harshness.
"The Doctor's mind is already stressed to its utmost limits. We nearly lost him in the scenario with the Beast on the planet orbiting the black hole. I believe that some part of him is trying to escape from the Matrix. He knows that his life is at risk and at least some part of his mind must wish survival no matter his willingness to find the answers we seek."
Romana looked up and the Technician quailed before the frost in her eyes. "You cannot tell me anything I do not know about his courage and his cunning and his ability to survive against all odds. That is why he was chosen for this. That is why he volunteered. Tell me what the power boost will do to him."
"I don't know the final outcome, Madame President, but the power boost will expand his mind. He will be able to process the probabilities faster and with greater perception of interrelation of all events. Almost certainly, he will be forced to regenerate repeatedly and he only has three left."
"It will kill him." Romana stated baldly the words that he had sidestepped and she hated the sound of her own voice. "No one has ever survived the thirteenth regeneration." She held the Technician's gaze. "Do it."
"Yes, Madame President. We will need all available power diverted to the Matrix chamber."
"Castellan, order it done. I will stay here."
She stayed there. Romana watched as the Doctor's face changed: once, twice, again. On the monitor, Rose Tyler died, and then morphed into different Companion Avatars. The Doctor loved, laughed, suffered, danced, killed, gave mercy, and withheld it.
She could give him none. Her world was tottering around her. Her world and his. She could only watch and know what he did for Gallifrey and a universe that feared the rule of the Daleks.
All non-critical power usage was shut down. The defence systems and the Matrix still hummed, energized to full capacity. All other technology on ancient Gallifrey, for thousands of centuries the Queen of Time, was as lifeless as if it were stone and the inhabitants of the planets still wore animal skins.
The Thirteenth Doctor's hair was red. Apparently he'd always wanted to be ginger. Romana felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth, and she suppressed it. If she laughed, she would cry; if she cried, she would break, and she did not have the luxury to be broken. Or the privilege. His vital signs were fading. He was being forced into the regeneration process that now promised death instead of life. One of his hearts stopped.
The Technician came to her, babbling, "We have it. The design modification can be applied to Type 70 and higher capsules. If they conjoin energies according to the pattern in the Matrix–"
"Don't waste time telling me. Transmit the design to the defence forces immediately." The Technician made a sign and one of his juniors began carrying out her order.
"How is the Doctor? Can he be saved? Is there any thing left to him?"
"He's as good as dead. Only the power feed to the Matrix is keeping him alive, and we must divert as much of that power as we can to the transduction barrier."
"Let it be done, then." The Technician left her and she laid her hand on the tank. "You've saved us. I hope you still believe we're worth it. Good-bye, Doctor." His eyes opened. For a moment she was not surprised that he seemed to respond to her words. Then his eyes glowed golden.
"Lady Romana! We can't stop the power feed to the Matrix!"
The tank shimmered. The Doctor arose from it: the god from the machine. His voice rang through the aether; it shook Gallifrey to the core. Out in space, the Daleks manning the vast armadas that tirelessly bombarded the transduction barrier, felt unaccountably disturbed within the metal womb of their battle armor. The barrier fell. The Dalek fleet froze in place.
I AM THE BIG BAD WOLF.
The howl of his laughter shook the stars.
Blood trickled from Romana's ears and nose. Her vision greyed. As she stared up at the unrecognizable figure of her old friend, she remembered curly hair and wide blue eyes and the most irrepressible smile in all of space and time. Which did she regret more, that she had destroyed the Universe, or that she had destroyed the Doctor?
THE END