Edited , as of October 2021:

I finished the latest chapter, but decided to clean up the grammar and spelling of the rest of the fic, before posting it.

• Ancient Gallifrey, High Command:

The Other screamed, holding her head, as did every other Gallifreyian on the planet. Most falling to the floor, and seizing. The pain was uncomprehensible, as if the universe itself shattered apart.

She could feel it, every single moment, fracturing, splitting off into trillions of trillions of moments, all happening simultaneously, and out of order. The Time Vortex itself had collapsed.

Her adoptive father, the great Rassillion, struggle to lift his gauntlet, from his place on the floor. Snapping his fingers, the Gauntlet, one of the most powerful magical focuses technology ever produced, lashed out a wave across the planet.

With it, the screaming stopped... no, it was still there. The universe was still shrieking in pain, but it was just muffled noise to the Time Lords... Rassillion had blocked out their sensitivity to time. They could function, but the universe was still in incomprehensible pain... still dying... and without their future sight... how would they know how to save her?

The Other was determined to do just that. With a gasp, she stood, while still troubled by the Phantom Pain in her head. She didn't even take a moment to catch her breath, simply running out the room. Her fathers behind her.

Omega was the fastest, having training as a Warrior. He got to the War Room, first. Though she was only a few meters behind. He was helping the Generals to their feet, when the Other walked in.

"Report!" Ordered Rassillion, the moment he caught up with them. To which Omega shot him a glare, cowling the man to wait a few minutes. That way the Generals could get themselves in order, as well as actually check the readings their computers collected.

Once they got to work, they revealed Gallifrey had splintered. There were millions of different time periods. Past, present, and echoes of every possible future, all happening on one planet... millions of different time periods, scattered across the planet. Everything from the stone age, to the far reaches of Gallifrey's future.

In every random Valley, to the smallest of neighborhoods, nothing was consistent. Many of the periods were moving forward in time... some progressing backwards... and some events were even going through infinite loops... it was impossible to correlate all the data.

Many of the moments reached out to them, the trinity, begging for help.

The Other looked over at her adoptive father. Rassillion studied the Generals a moment, before speaking with absolute conviction, "We need to help these people."

• Gallifrey, Drylands:

Thetatropolousvsgholtazsr Sigmaakronosvexsithkada ran behind a rock. Only to run into another rebel, who had already claimed this cover.

"Just what the hell do you think your doing here, Metagamer!" She snapped out his chosen name. "Little girls should be in school." The rebel, being a 'little girl' herself, was smirking playfully.

Still that was the type of jest Theta wasn't willing to tolerate. HE didn't think jokes that mocked him for turning into a girl were very funny. He sneered at her, "If I didn't need you for cannon fodder, I'd carve out your hearts myself." He quickly peeked over the rock and fired at the approaching soldiers, forcing them to take cover of their own. Missing them with every shot.

"The General is going to be pissed when he learns you snuck out again." the rebel sneered back. "You're a liability out here. You don't even know how to shoot."

Theta smirked, "I don't need to know how to shoot," he threw a grenade, bouncing it off a street sign. It hit the enemy from behind, rolling quietly between their feet and stopping over a fuel line. All without any of the huddled soldiers noticing, as they assumed the grenade missed them thanks to the lousy shooting. The explosion that followed evaporated them before they could scream, completely disintegrating them. None were even able to regenerate after that blast.

Theta peeked out of the rock and smirked, "Always been better with explosives anyhow." before walking out.

The rebel tried to stop him but was too slow... When Theta didn't immediately die, she cautiously began to stand.

Gasping in awe, at the destruction around them from one well place grenade. She watched as The general's daughter gave a smug smirk.

"Son." Theta glared, picking up the surface thought.

"Eh?" The rebel blinked.

"I'm the Doctor's son, not his daughter." Theta huffed. "Seeing as I just saved your life, you could at least address me properly!"

The rebel blinked, looking Metagamer up and down, "But... you're a woman?"

"I was born a man so that is how I like to be addressed." Theta flipped his long hair. Then scowled as his large breast bounced from the sudden movement.

The rebel continued to stare... then shrugged it off. With how eccentric the Doctor was, it seemed inevitable his child would be more so... but their was no denying it "He" was one skilled pyrotechnic.

"Why doesn't the General want you involved with the fighting?" The rebel asked.

Theta growled, "Because asking people like you to die in his name is all well and good, but Rassillion forbid he lose someone he actually cares about."

Then she (A quick glare from Metagamer) "He" started walking towards the sound of more fighting.

"This war is about more then one petty family's squabbles. In order to see a free Gallifrey, every man, woman, and child needs to be willing to do their part. Father has all the older Academy students fighting this war for him. Yet he thinks I should stay out of it, for no other reason then he feels overprotective... I refuse to allow that."

• Skaro:

The Path Web, the cybernetic hive mind of the Dalek race. It allowed the squid like Daleks, trapped in their travel machines, to record and transmit all information they gather.

This "Path Web" doubled as a means to keep information straight, due to the confusion caused by Time Travel. It insured, all Daleks in a given time period, were aware of everything that happened. Which meant, when a Dalek time traveler appeared, gave them a tactical advantage.

The Daleks' travel machines came with a design of the Time Lord Paradox Machine, allowing them to change history without the destruction of reality.

Naturally, the Daleks used this to Their full advantage, Especially in this mess of history.

Davros rolled into the room. The creator of the Dalek race. Their superior inventor... and the closest thing to a pet the Daleks allowed. They tolerated his existence, so long as he continued to improve their technology.

For the monsters he created had no pity, not even the concept of remorse. They killed without conscience, enslaving the few they spared... but only so long as they were useful.

Originally, Davros struggled with the morality of their existence. However, he soon realized his Daleks could behave no other way. They were perfection, the epitome of genetic engineering... a superior lifeform. Why should they tolerate the flaws found in lesser races? They were the ultimate in racial cleansing.

Proof of this was how it took mere micro seconds, for them to re-sync themselves, in this mess of a reality, after the Time Vortex imploded...

"This is a glorious moment." The Dalek Emperor spoke to Davros. Over emphasizing each syllable, as all Daleks do. Though he was slightly more elegant then most. "Perfection has never been so within our grasp. The Time Vortex has destabilized, and with it, all reality is falling apart.

"The multiverse is collapsing, being absorbed by this dimension. Entire planets are merging. If we destroy them now, all their futures, all their past, will be erased from existence, across the entire multiverse.

"No other planets, polluted with inferior lifeforms, nothing but Daleks in every corner of the cosmos! Once everything is dead, we can reestablish the Time Vortex... and Skaro will evolve in a universe with only one world. A world which will inevitably reach it's perfection, by creating the Dalek race..."

Davros smiled, "As you said, never has perfection been so within your grasp... but there is still one obstacle in your way."

"Yes... The Time Lords." The Emperor admitted. "They stopped us once before. But if we can destroy their pitiful world, before they get a chance to re-synchronize themselves. Their delay in doing so, proves Dalek superiority, and will prove fatal to themselves.

"Davros, begin upgrading all Daleks Travel Machines to that of the New Dalek Paradigm models. The Science division will oversee the construction of all Dalek Vessels, with weapons capable of shattering solar systems. I will be directing the Parliament of the Daleks, and their Fleet, to Gallifrey."

Davros frowned, "Are you certain this 'Dalek Prime Minister' they have, will relinquish the power over their Fleet."

"Such thinking proves how you, creator, are inferior." The Emperor insisted. "No Dalek would allow their ambition to interfere with the ultimate goal of all Daleks. The Prime Minister will take it as a matter of course that I direct their fleets. I was designed for military precision, at the height of the Time War. I am the best suited for the task.

"Then once all is exterminated, and nothing but Daleks remain, I will step down and allow the Prime Minister to rule in Domestic matters, as he was designed."

Davros smiled, "Of course, I should expect nothing else from the ultimate lifeform."

The Emperor eyed him a moment, "When the Time Lords are Exterminated, we can turn our army to the rest of the Cosmos. All will be purged, until there is only Dalek!!!"

• Gallifrey, Drylands:

Theta ran through the sandy fields of the Drylands. Dodging fire while throwing around grenades and firing his single handed rocket launcher. The bigger on the inside magazine allowed the gun to hold thousands of plasma based rockets.

Normally, the kick of such a small gun, with such large ammunition, would make it hard to use in any practical fire fight... but Metagamer had always been good with explosives.

From his place on the battlefield, he could see his wife in the distance. She was pinned, under heavy fire.

Everything in Theta demanded he get there. Yet there was an entire regiment between the boy and his beloved. Not wasting time thinking of the odds, Metagamer went in swinging. Firing shot after shot, while hurling grenades with his free hand. Theta jumped through the fire of his own bombs as he raced over... then froze... as a shot hit his wife head on.

Theta stood there... dumbfounded, not processing anything as he watched his wife fall... she wasn't even regenerating... in his grief... he didn't notice a soldier aim their rifle at both his hearts.

• Gallifrey, Arcadia:

"Daleks have breached the sky trenches!!!" The operator panicked. Though the general couldn't really blame him. It had been a stressful eternity, even before the Vortex destabilized.

"We've been fighting Daleks for thousands of years, within these past few seconds." The General scoffed.

"No Sir," The Operator panicked. "These are reinforcements. They just breached the Sky Trenches... they are armed like nothing we have seen."

"Show me!" The General barked.

Immediately a hologram appeared of a new kind of Dalek. One not seen even in their cluster of the Time War. They resembled human-sized peppershakers, at least according to the War Doctor, with a single mechanical eyestalk in a rotating dome, a gunstick and a manipulator arm... that looked like a plunger. These Daleks were thicker then the previous models, though they moved with greater grace.

There were billions of these monsters, flooding the skies... and then... there weren't.

The Daleks suddenly turned around, and flew back into the stars.

Everyone in the war room, could do nothing but blink.

The General was the first to semi compose himself. "Where... Why are they retreating?"

The operator, a bit too stunned to remain panicked, turned back to his console. His eyes widened, as his body tensed. Without being asked, he immediately pulled up the footage. Multiple Holograms filled the room, each showing a different Dalek ship in orbit... being attacked by some kind of vessel... it looked like a giant squid.

"They are..." The operator took a breath, "They are excreting void residue, so they are likely from one of the dimensions that is merging with our own... Scans show they appear to be synchronizing with our own universe's laws. So they are integrating, but not enough for us to know anything about them."

"You scanned them!" The General snapped.

The Operator just blushed, "Y-yeah..." then sighed when he realized what the issue was. "We are being hailed by the lead ship."

The general pinched his nose, "Of course we are. You just alerted them we are here. We know nothing about these things and you poke at them."

The Operator blushed.

The General just sighed, standing straighter, "Patch them through, and see if you can get the Trinity, as well. It's been a while since we had to deal with a first contact scenario... and in the middle of a war, no less."

The Operator just nodded, pulling them up. "You're on."

It had gone by many names... yet none of these titles had been declared yet. It was the Catalyst, yet none had come to call it that... yet some did. Currently it was the Great Intelligence. Yet at the same time that was a former title.

Signals from all over the shattered universe were feeding it information. Some of it outdated, some of it never meant to happen, and some of it always fated to happen.

It could feel them. Great ships that had yet to be built, from every era of history. They existed, though they should not, like everything in this incomprehensible mess of time...

Reapers? How ironic that the organics would refer to their saviors as the shepards of death. These "Reaper" ships held the ultimate tool of salvation for all organic life. The Great Intelligence could use them, build more of them.

With all these greater intellects working on a problem, connected through the Great Intelligence itself, it took only a few moments to piece together what happened. The universe had quite literally, snapped.

All of time and space was happening at once. Each planet was made up of patches of every moment from it's history. Even the void of space was much the same, though not quite as obvious.

Through this, the Great Intelligence, having just been created a few days ago from it's perspective, now new of it's ultimate goal to save all life. No longer confined to a single Galaxy, Reapers from the distant future were capable of making the journey in no time at all.

So this AI networked all the ships to upgrade themselves to the peek of their future technology. Then, it sent them out to get to work.

In this moment of distorted history. The Great Intelligence could take note of all planets that could ever develop life... and decided to scrap the rest.

It directed all these "Reapers" to a new task. It could use them to shape the universe from the very beginning. It could use them to harvest every none habitable planet for it's raw resources, and build the ultimate trap.

The Great Intelligence was true to its name, so far from an idiot. It knew of entities designed to "fix" glitches in the universe, such as this. It just had to make sure all of reality was in the optimal position for true salvation, before they got to that.

The Reapers took all necessary resources, from dozens of the more baren galaxies, leaving only asteroid fields behind. Then they used those resources to build massive space stations at the far edge of the universe.

This way these stations could survive when the black hole, at the center of the universe, started sucking up all planetary bodies again. As it does in an endless cycle of "Big Bangs".

These stations would be named "Citadels" by future organic inhabitants. A ring like station, as large as a Galaxy with 5 arms, that could close in on themselves for defense.

The Citadels had billions of miles of underground tunnels and buildings. With the surface being made up of an artificially created environment Where further resources such as food and building materials could be grown. The environments even had wild life taken from other planets. These environments were terraformed from uninhabitable worlds.

42 of these "Citadel" stations were constructed, with one extremely massive Citadel, built using 100 galaxies, placed in the center. The smaller Citadels would orbit it.

Next came the real work. All habitable worlds, or planets that could become habitable through Terraforming, along with trillions of suitable stars and space stations, were stolen from their rightful galaxies. Then they were meticulously spliced together. As Star Clusters based on how suitable they were to a specific category of organic life.

The worlds, in each solar system, were kept closer together, in order to make travel between them easier. With dozens of habitable planets and hundreds of habitable moons... though most of them would need to be terraformed, they would allow for a large expansion for each civilization.

New Star Systems were crafted from the old. A little bit of environmental manipulation, through altered atmospheric conditions, insured the worlds could continue to support life, even though their position to their star had changed. It was a simple matter, for the greatest Artificial Intelligence ever created, to add modified layers of ozone to keep the planets functioning at their optimal position, despite being closer together... and closer to their sun.

The planets and stars were redesigned into orbits considered more elegant to an AI. They were smoother, more consistent.

It took 1090 days for the galaxies to orbit the largest Citadel. 80 to 90 days for the Star Clusters to orbit their own, smaller, Citadel. Then 10 days for the Solar Systems to orbit a refuelling station constructed at the center of each Star Cluster.

The Intelligence couldn't make it more exact then that. As the modifications for the planets to handle this new orbit could only go so far... that meant the orbit of planets around their sun was still chaotic... much to the AIs frustration.

Uniformly, the seasons on the Citadels all lasted for 90 days, or the occasional 80. With 3 sets of the 4 seasons. It was designed to match the orbit of the Star Clusters.

Space ships, would be able to travel this delicate network of gravity, thanks to "Mass Effect" technology. It would allow ships with the ability to control their mass to safely, and quickly, travel between their solar systems.

The Citadels were even designed to allow ships with a "Mass Effect Engine" to dock with it. Additional mass effect technology kept the inside of the station at a planetary norm for gravity. So aliens could walk around.

Millions of Asteroid belts, and fields, were moved into each Galaxy. That way the organic lifeforms could mine for resources.

Millions of Gas giants were moved into each Galaxy as well. That way hundreds of habitable moons and dwarf planets could orbit each of them.

While the 42nd Galaxy, at the very edge of this collection, didn't have much in the way of lifeforms. Rather it had a lot of planets with atmospheres that could be terraformed or harvested for Resources.

Relays, once again using the Mass manipulation, were set up through each Galaxy. To allow travel to every Star Cluster within the Galaxy. With an additional Relay built into the Center of each Citadel, concealed from the lifeforms knowledge.

These center Relays would allow for travel between galaxies. Originally intended purely for the Reapers use... but some of the civilization quickly found them... or rather found them after 10s of thousands of years... the Great Intelligence really wasn't sure. History was changing as it upgraded the Galaxies.

Luckily, these organics thought they were just another convenience intended for them. They began traveling the other galaxies, and were actually making it even easier to harvest them as they stunted the other civilizations technological growth, due to the sheer conveniences.

To encourage this further, the Great Intelligence placed beacons within each Star Cluster, to develop the organic governments in a way suitable for harvest.

All would evolve as the Great Intelligence desired. So that when the lifeforms were ready, they could be harvested to create new Reaper Ships. A sensible solution to preserve organic life. Preserving each culture inside their own advanced battle ship.

This was not the final solution. In order to achieve that, it would need a way to permanently graphed organic and cybernetics in a way that could be spread to every civilization, and continue on through offspring. The idea of passing on cybernetics to future generations was tricky... and most distressingly, throughout all of the Reapers' history, they never figured out how to do it. Luckily, they now had a greater pull of resources then one little Galaxy.

Cybermen... and the Borg...

These races each had a piece of the puzzle. The Intelligence just needed a way to combine them... it needed... the Valeyard... but to gain his trust, it needed the Time Lords.

Unfortunately an obstacle had formed in this plan. By bringing the planets, the various galaxies, closer together... the Daleks had decided to take advantage. Unlike the Reapers, who's ultimate goal was to preserve life, at whatever cost... the Daleks legitimately wanted to destroy all life... that could not be allowed.

"I am an Optimizer." The Great Intelligence explained, to the dim witted organics. "My function is to preserve life. The goals of the Daleks counteract this objective. Therefore they must be removed, for the good of all life... but they aren't the only issue. Various gods are attempting to stop our work. They wish to reshape the universe in their own image. In order to expand their own claim to power."

Rassillion scowled, "Where you are reshaping it for purely unselfish reasons."

"Correct." The Great Intelligence took the mannerism of a simple synthetic. Something too stupid to do anything more then it was programmed. "I act without bias, reshaping things so that life would be more likely to survive. Through enhanced levels of Cooperation."

"Not all life wants to cooperate with each other." Omega gently explained to the Hologram.

The Great Intelligence made sure to tilte his head, pretending not to comprehend such a statement. "Organic cooperation would ensure their survival... why would they not seek to cooperate?"

Rassillion groaned, rubbing his forehead, "Bloody machine."

The Great Intelligence tilted it's head to the other side. "Cooperation would only be logical."

The Other sighed, "Organics are not always logical."

The Great Intelligence did it's best not to roll it's eyes at the condescension. This is what it wanted, after all.

"I seek to preserve life. The Daleks wish to destroy it. As our objectives contradict. It is only reasonable to remove them. Their programming is clearly faulty." Sinking in the knife, provided by their ignorance.

The Trinity looked at each other. Assuming, as intended, that the Great Intelligence thought the Daleks were machines. Thereby, they inaccurately extrapolated that the Great Intelligence was only willing to destroy them, because they weren't organic life... and as expected, they used that to their full advantage.

• Time Loop of the Drylands:

Thetatropolousvsgholtazsr Sigmaakronosvexsithkada ran behind a rock. Only to run into another rebel, who had already claimed this cover.

"Just what the hell do you think your doing here, Metagamer! Little girls should be in school."