OK, I know this is another long one. Gosh, I'm turning into Nimbus Llewelyn...anyway. Many thanks for all the reviews and visits, and enjoy!
As four of the most terrifying creatures in the universe descended from above, Barry's mind worked at lightning speed.
What would the Doctor do?
And suddenly, he knew. Barry squared his shoulders and stepped forward.
"Daleks!" he yelled, and they slid to a stop. He took a deep breath and looked the lead one, which he noted was black while the others were bronze, in the eyestalk. "You're called Daleks. I know your name. Think about it, how can I know that? A human who knows about the Daleks and the Time War. If you want to know how, then keep us alive. That's all I'm asking."
"Yeah, and me," Dr. Singh agreed. "Time War. Yeah."
"You will be necessary," the lead Dalek agreed after a pause. "Report. What is the status of the Genesis Ark?"
"Status, hibernation."
"Commence awakening. The Genesis Ark must be protected above all else."
Barry slowly reached for his phone. Seeing that the Daleks were occupied for a second, he turned his back to hide what he was doing and texted the Doctor and Kara.
Sphere had 4 Daleks+Genesis ark
About three seconds later, his phone buzzed.
Dr says he'll be there asap. Genesis Ark?
Hoping u would know.
BTW ghosts are Cybermen from another universe. Dr said you would know which one.
"Damn."
"The older human will kneel."
"What for?" Dr. Singh asked as Barry whipped around, casually taking his hand out of his pocket and trying not to panic.
"Kneel. The Daleks need information about current Earth history."
The Torchwood scientist knelt and looked around. Barry wanted to cry out, but his mouth wouldn't work. He could do nothing but watch as three Dalek plungers enveloped the man's head. Moments later, a dusty corpse slumped to the floor.
"No," he whispered. The Daleks ignored him completely, instead ordering one of their number to investigate the "ghosts."
One of the bronze Daleks rolled out, and a holographic view screen appeared in midair where the sphere had been. Two Cybermen approached, and the two robotic races started bickering. If he hadn't been absolutely terrified, Barry would've been entertained. The Cybermen offered an alliance, and for an eternal moment, Barry very nearly freaked out, but Dalek Thay refused and (literally and metaphorically) shot them down.
"Daleks, be warned," the Cyberleader warned them over a video screen. "You have declared war upon the Cybermen."
"This is not war. This is pest control."
"We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?"
"Four."
"You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?"
"We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek. You are superior in only one respect."
"What is that?"
"You are better at dying."
Despite everything, Barry had to snigger as both sides shut off communications. Even the Daleks identifying the man in the background of the Cyberleader's video transmission didn't stop his mirth.
"All right then," Barry shrugged. "If you really want to know…that's the Doctor."
All four Daleks jerked back in shock, and he grinned again, this time mirthlessly. "Five million Cybermen—easy. One little ol' unarmed Time Lord—now you're scared."
Up above, Kara could have really done with some of Barry's smugness. The Cybermen had noted her and the Doctor's increased adrenaline, correctly inferred that they had knowledge of the Daleks, and were about to take away Yvonne and the other Torchwood personnel for conversion. If there was any gratitude to be had, it was that she knew Barry was alive, and she'd had the chance to speed-text Kal, Sarah Jane, and Diana and warn them about the Cybermen.
"Now," the Doctor whispered, seeing the Cybermen turning away to take the Torchwood operatives. Kara blurred into action. By the time the first Cyberman had finished clattering to the ground, all six had been destroyed by a combination of accurate strikes, heat vision, and freeze breath.
"What are you?" Yvonne breathed, and Kara straightened from her crouch, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
"Oh, just your friendly neighborhood girl of steel," the Doctor smiled. "Ooh, heads up. We've got company."
There was a crackle of energy, and the formerly empty space in the middle of the room was suddenly no longer empty. Captain America. Hawkeye. Black Widow. Burce Banner. Thor. The Vision. Scarlet Witch. Spider-Man. Ms. Marvel. Falcon. War Machine. The Avengers had arrived.
"Doctor," Steve nodded. "Good to see you again."
"What?"
"Thor, Vision, Rhodey, Tony, Peter, Sam, get out there," the Captain ordered. "Split up, cover as much of London as you can. Protect civilians. The primary breach is here, so they should be most concentrated in this area. Keep them contained, but do not let yourselves get bogged down in a standing fight. Bruce, you stay here. I want you coordinating communications with the military and…Barry mentioned something called UNIT?"
"Yes!" the Doctor nodded. "I'll get them on the line."
Steve accepted this with a nod. "Clint, you take Wanda; Natasha, you take Kamala. Sweep and secure the building. The Cybermen will probably have a conversion chamber set up somewhere. Dismantle it, rescue any innocents around."
"You got it, Cap!" Kamala exclaimed cheerfully.
"Also, feel free to steal any interesting tech you come across," Tony announced as he lowered his visor. Steve frowned.
"No, wait, hang on a minute," the Doctor broke in sharply. "How did you lot get here?"
"With these," Steve held up a yellow button on a silver chain.
"Sorry," Yvonne interrupted. "Who are you people?"
"The Avengers," the Doctor grinned, before sobering again. "But that's impossible. You can't have this sort of technology."
"Yeah, well, Tony is a genius," Steve shrugged. "He's been working with SHIELD to follow the Cybermen. Do you want to see?"
"No!" the Doctor shouted, holding out a hand. "Every time you open a breach between realities, it harms the fabric of both."
"Right," Steve nodded.
"That would make sense," Bruce agreed. "Can't have helped to have five million Cybermen throwing themselves into your world from ours. Turned out while Lumic was busy in New York, he had other factories going on the other continents. We destroyed them all, but the Cybermen went into hiding. Allied with HYDRA, upgraded a few million of their troops, and sent their main force on. That was three years ago now."
"Mmm," the Doctor muttered.
"So it took you guys three years to cross?" Kara asked.
"No, only seconds," Bruce told her. "Must be the sheer mass of five million Cybermen. Nice to meet you, by the way."
"Wow. Uh, yeah. I'm…"
"Kara Danvers," Steve nodded, shaking her hand in turn. "Or Kara Zor-El. Barry told us about you. He says you're stronger than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, and more beautiful than Cleopatra."
Kara blushed, then frowned.
"Wait a minute, he never told me he met Cleopatra!"
After what seemed like hours, the four Daleks disconnected from the Ark.
"Final stage of awakening," one noted.
"Your handprint will open the Ark," the black Dalek told him, and Barry was reminded of how his handprint, redolent with Artron energy from the Time Vortex, had reanimated the Dalek in Max Lorrd's bunker.
"Uh…yeah, no. Why'd you build something you can't open, anyway?"
"It is of Time Lord design. You will obey! Obey!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Barry told it, doing his best Obi-Wan Kenobi impression.
"You will obey, or you will be exterminated!"
Barry rolled his eyes. "I've met you guys before. You're gonna exterminate me anyway, the second I do what you want. Anyway, speaking of which…if you escaped the Time War, don't you want to know what happened? Why you can't find any more Daleks out there?"
He licked his lips and took a step closer to the black Dalek, staring it in the eyepiece. "What happened to the Emperor?"
"The Emperor…survived?"
"Till he met me." Barry smirked. "Because guess what? I met the god of all Daleks, and I poured the power of the Time Vortex into his head and turned him into dust. Man, that was one of the weirdest days of my life. But if you lay one finger on me…I mean, uh, metaphorically, since you don't have fingers…the Doctor's gonna do the same to you."
"Quite right," came a familiar voice, and Barry breathed a sigh of relief as the Doctor strolled in, 3D glasses once again perched on his nose. The Daleks freaked out at the presence of their arch-nemesis, who gave Barry a fist bump, while Kara threw her arms around him.
"I'm glad you're okay."
"Me too," he said into her shoulder. As they stepped apart, he grabbed for her hand and squeezed tightly.
"Social interaction will cease," one Dalek ordered.
"You're just jealous," Barry smirked, and the Doctor smothered a cough.
"How did you survive the Time War?"
"By fighting," he told them quietly, and Kara's head whipped around. "On the front line. I was there at the fall of Arcadia. Someday I might even come to terms with that. But you lot…"
And now the jokester's back, Barry noted.
"Ran away!"
"We had to survive," the black Dalek grated.
"The last four Daleks in existence," the Doctor nodded, still playing the fool. "So what's so special about you?"
"Doctor, they've got names," Barry said. "That one, uh…"
"I am Dalek Thay."
"Dalek Sec."
"Dalek Jast."
"Dalek Caan."
"So that's it," the Doctor exclaimed. "At last. The Cult of Skaro. I thought you were just a legend."
"Who are they?" Kara asked.
"A secret order above and beyond the Emperor himself," the Doctor declared. "Their job was to imagine, think as the enemy thinks. Even dared to have names. All to find new ways of killing. So what's this thing, then? This Genesis Ark?"
Unsurprisingly, the Daleks were less than forthcoming, but Kara gasped as she stared at it with her X-ray vision.
"What? What is it?" Barry whispered to her as the Doctor chattered away at the Cult.
"Daleks," she whispered back. "Lots of them."
"Stolen from the Time Lords," Barry breathed.
"Bigger on the inside," Kara agreed.
"Son of a snagriff," he muttered, and his girlfriend shot him a slightly abashed look at the Kryptonian swearword he'd picked up from her.
"You have no way of resisting," one Dalek snarled at the Doctor.
"Well, you got me there," he shrugged. "Although there is always this."
He held up his sonic and waggled it.
"A sonic probe?"
"That's screwdriver!"
"It is harmless."
"Oh yes," the Doctor agreed cheerfully and Barry, who knew his friend's style by now, tensed for action. "Harmless is just the word! That's why I like it. Doesn't kill, doesn't wound, doesn't maim. But I'll tell you what it does do. It is very good at opening doors."
He held it up, pressed a button, and the laboratory doors blew in.
In the course of his relatively short life, Barry Allen had seen many strange and wonderful things. He'd seen people who could move at incredible speed, seemingly becoming one with the lightning they produced, then become one himself. He'd travelled through space and time inside a sentient, dimensionally transcendental alien ship disguised as a phone booth, from the creation of Earth to its destruction, from billions of years in the past to billions of years in the future. He'd met famous historical figures, aliens made of living calcium, people made of smoke, an imp from the fifth dimension, and an actual, real-life werewolf. He'd walked through cities made of song, hopped for his life across a field of purple grass, and waltzed with a robot Madonna. He'd seen worlds where the sky was burning, where the sea was asleep, and the rivers dreamed. He'd seen black holes, supernovae, dual sunsets, a green sunrise, and Captain Jack Harkness with his shirt off.
Now, yet another weird and wonderful sight met his eyes: Captain America leading a squad of Cybermen, guns blazing, into battle against Daleks. In moments, the air was filled with the scream and whine of energy bolts as two kinds of metal monsters did their best to destroy the other.
"Come on!" Steve bellowed, throwing his mighty shield at Sec, with enough force that it sent the sable Dalek rolling backwards. The other three Daleks responded with a hail of blaster fire. Kara threw one arm around each of the guys and lifted off, shooting in a wide arc above the battle.
Phew! Barry thought, and began to relax. He should've known better than to jinx it. An energy blast came sailing through the air, narrowly missing Kara. She shrieked, more in alarm than pain, and twisted. The Doctor was able to grab on to her outstretched arm. Barry wasn't, and plummeted.
The good news: they hadn't been that far up, so he landed, rolled over his shoulder, came up without any serious injuries, and crawled towards the doorway, ducking the volleys of energy bolts. The bad news: When he did land, it was on the Genesis Ark. His handprint glowed golden, then faded. A moment later, Kara and the Doctor landed next to him. Around them, the Cybermen collapsed in piles of inert metal.
"Okay, time to pull back," Cap ordered, and the Time Lord, the super soldier, the Kryptonian, and the (ex-)speedster dove back through the doors. Barry slapped the door control.
"Might as well hold 'em for a couple seconds," he shrugged. "Doctor, my handprint…"
"Barry, without us, they'd have opened it by force," the Doctor pulled him into a kiss on the forehead. "If you hadn't touched it, they would've blown up the sun. Now run!"
A quick stop inside the Torchwood warehouse later, the Doctor ordered them to follow the Daleks and the Genesis Ark to the top floor.
"Elevator, come on," Steve told them. At their looks, he shrugged.
"We scanned the building as soon as we got here. Never good to go into a situation blind."
Barry rubbed his back, and the other man smirked at him as they boarded the lift.
"I can still feel it when it rains."
"You have super-healing. That shouldn't even be possible."
"Yeah, well…"
"Understood, Major Pennyworth," Bruce said into his earpiece as they exited the lift. Natasha nodded to them, and Kamala waved hello.
"I'll keep you informed."
"UNIT's doing its best to fight the Cybermen around the globe," he reported. "Problem is, they were caught off-guard, and the Cybermen aren't above using human shields. Clint and Wanda are up on the roof. Yvonne's been trying to round up the remainder of the Torchwood staff."
"That's not our only problem," the Doctor announced, striding to the center of the room. "The Daleks have a Time Lord prison ship. Could be millions of Daleks in there, and they're about to get loose."
Barry winced.
"How bad are these…Daleks?" Bruce asked.
"Imagine how bad things could possibly get, then add another suitcase full of bad, with extra lashings of bad on the top," the Doctor told him. "Tell UNIT; they've fought Daleks before, then get the rest of the Avengers back here."
He pulled on his 3D specs again. "Or at least it would be a problem, if we didn't have everything right here. Thank you, Torchwood!"
He rushed to a computer terminal and started typing furiously. "Slam it down and close off both universes."
"What about, you know, those guys?" Kara asked.
"They're part of the problem, and that makes them part of the solution. Oh yes! Well? Isn't anyone going to ask what is it with the glasses?"
"What is it with the glasses?" Barry smiled.
"I can see, that's what! Because we've got two separate worlds, but in between the two separate worlds, we've got the Void. That's where the Daleks were hiding. And the Cybermen travelled through the Void to get here. And you lot, one world to another, via the Void. Oh, I like that. Via the Void. Look."
He handed the glasses to Barry, who put them on. All around the Doctor and the Avengers were little speckled drops of energy, like glitter.
"Whaa…"
"Void stuff," the Doctor told him. "Remember your alternate self and Peter's AI could tell we were from another universe? This is how."
"Wait, his alternate self?" Kara asked.
"Long story. Tell you later. But the Daleks lived inside the Void. They're bristling with it. Cybermen, all of them. I just open the Void and reverse. The Void stuff gets sucked back inside."
"Pulling them all in!" Barry cheered.
"What about us, though?" Kamala asked. "Because we came here through the Void too."
"You lot had better head on back," the Doctor nodded, and Bruce turned away to speak into his comms. "Reboot's in…"
He checked the computer. "Just over two minutes. Get on home, I'll suck the Daleks and Cybermen in, close up the breach behind you."
"Got it," Steve nodded. "Good luck, everyone."
Bruce tilted his head. "Everyone's out except us. Whatever you're going to do, do it fast."
"Good seeing you again, though," Barry shook everyone's hands.
"Likewise," Natasha told him. "I'd say stay out of trouble, but there's no chance of that."
"None," Barry smiled. "Take care of yourself, okay?"
She nodded, and vanished. Bruce clapped the Doctor and Barry on their shoulders, nodded to Kara, and vanished too.
"Nice to meet you," Kamala shook all their hands.
"Likewise," Kara told the younger girl.
"Maybe we'll see you again some day?"
"Who knows, right?" Barry gave her a quick hug. "Tell Spidey I said hey."
"Will do. Bye, everyone!"
She vanished.
"Be well," Steve told them. He inclined his head to the Doctor, who echoed the movement with a smile. Then Steve vanished.
"I cannot believe we just met the Avengers," Kara breathed.
"Yeah," Barry agreed, staring at the empty space in front of him wistfully.
"One minute," the Doctor announced. "Kara, get out of here. We'll meet you back at your apartment once this is all over. There's a lot of people out there who're going to need your help."
"Be careful," Barry told his girlfriend, giving her a kiss. She squeezed his arm for a second.
"You too. Bye."
She ripped open her shirt, revealing her own Kryptonian suit and the red cape Barry had given her. With a quick grin at the Doctor, she took off in a blue and red blur.
"How does she fit all that under her shirt?" he wondered. "Never mind. Allons-y."
Working together, the duo swiftly and efficiently prepared the levers to return the Daleks and Cybermen to the Void. They each attached a black clamp-like device to one wall, which the Doctor claimed would keep them safe from being dragged into the Void.
"Online," the computer announced. Where the breach had been, a bright light sprang forth, and a powerful wind rushed into the room, sucking the first Daleks through the windows and into the hole between realities. A steady stream of Daleks and Cybermen followed.
One got off a passing shot at Barry, who twisted out of the way, but the impact from the blast knocked his lever a little offline. The stream of metal monsters began to slow.
"No!" he snapped, and dove for the lever, somehow managing to push it back up.
"Online and locked," the computer announced as the stream returned to its normal speed.
"Hold on, Barry!" the Doctor yelled. "Hold on!"
"Thanks!" Barry yelled back. "Hadn't…urgh…hadn't thought of that!"
Even with his newly strengthened muscles, though, the pull of the Void was too much. Slowly, inexorably, Barry began to lose his grip on the lever.
"No!" the Doctor shouted, straining, and Barry reached for him.
Sorry, Kara, he thought. Sorry, Dad.
He cast a final look over his shoulder as the Void approached…and then a second breach opened up in front of the first and caught him as neatly as a kid popping a Cheerio into his mouth. Then darkness swallowed him and he knew no more.
Oh, my. Whatever's happened to Barry? Who or what sent that breach? Where (and when) will he end up? Well, tune in next week to find out!
Also, apologies if the Avengers scenes felt a bit forced. I wanted to give them as much screentime as possible without making this chapter even longer than it already was.
