CHAPTER 25: Epilogue: Back and Back and Back To The Future

The quiet, reclusive Time Lady in exile sat at her workbench, tinkering with her latest project, when she heard the distinctive roar of a TARDIS materializing outside. Instinctively, she reached under her seat for her defensive weapon, for it wasn't just any TARDIS's roar. It was the roar belonging to an entirely one-of-a-kind model, which happened to be in the possession of someone she once knew long ago, and was not particularly eager to see again.

"You again? Come to swipe another one of my Szalinski Compressors?" She came outside and pointed the gun squarely at the vehicle's entrance. "No shenanigans! I've already jammed all transmat frequencies and have my drone units locked and trained on your vessel's signature! So come on out with your hands up!"

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" A surrendering pair of waving hands popped out through the opening. Followed by a demure, wide-eyed pair of baby blue eyes. "Uh, Hello. Do you know where we can find somebody named 'Dorkus'?"

"No. Now who's asking?" The Time Lady answered.

"Uhm, well, I'm-" A young lady skittishly shuffled outside. She slowly and deliberately reached for something in her shirt pocket.

"Nah-ah! Keep those hands where I can see them!"

"Waaaah… It's just a watch! It's just a watch!"

"A watch?" The Time Lady vigilantly strode over to the young girl, patted down her body for any hidden weapon or instrument, then snatched the fob watch out from her pocket. She studied its etchings closely. "Wait a second," She gasped. "This is-"

"Drop your weapon, right now!" A much more assertive voice commanded from inside the vehicle. So diverted by the rediscovery of that old fob watch, she foolishly failed to notice that this unusual intruder had alongside her a companion. "Now!" A primitive human projectile weapon pointed out the door's opening, aimed directly at her head. Behind it was a pair of eyes much more closely resembling the demeanor of the person she had been expecting.

"Homura, if we want any help we can't just-"

"Take us to see Dorkus immediately, it's critical!" The girl inside the TARDIS reiterated.

"Ah, well, then," The Time Lady sighed and lowered her weapon. "I see no need to escalate this scenario." She glanced at the wide-eyed one. If you really were the person I was anticipating, you would've devised a way to preemptively negate my defenses before you even attempted a landing." Then she glared at the serious one as she stuffed her weapon in her coat. "And if you were her, you would've already pulled that trigger on that thing!"

"So does that mean you're gonna take us to see Dorkus?" The wide-eyed girl with the watch asked.

"That's another strike against either of you two being her," The Lady replied. "You would've known I was lying."

"W- Wait… Y- You're Dorkus? For reals?"

"I am." The Time Lady admitted, tucking in her shirt while slicking back her unkempt hair.

"From the description of you, she explicitly spoke of you as male." The dark-haired one finally lowered her weapon.

"I was. Once upon a time." She kept her wary eyes trained on the girl, just in case. "If I may be so bold to ask, who exactly spoke of me to you?"

"Miss Jones told us to find you." The other one stated.

"Jones? I don't recognize any such name."

"Then check inside my pocket." The serious girl offered. The Time Lady stepped closer, felt around and took hold of the watch.

"This is-" She aggressively pushed the girl aside and burst through the TARDIS door, immediately recognizing the watch's imprint. "Alright, come out! Where are you hiding? Huh?" To her surprise, the only thing awaiting within was a stasis pod, floating weightlessly in front of the main Control Console.

"She gave up her life for me." The other girl apologetically said. "Miss Jones. That's her."

"That so?" The wary Time Lady more closely examined the remains inside through its viewing window. "And you're here to do what?"

"Return her body." The dark-haired one answered. "It was her last request."

"Well, mission accomplished, then," She grabbed the handle on the floating device. "That concludes our business. Now please be courteous little delivery girls and buzz-"

"But she told us you would help us out!" The wide-eyed girl exclaimed.

"I suppose she told you that I still owed her a favor, too!" She rolled her eyes.

"And that she spared your life." The serious one added.

"Oh, she was one to talk big, tch! Such bluster!"

"But mostly we were thinking you would help, because we hoped that you were a nice person!" The other one stopped her right as she reached the door with the pod in tow.

"Nice person?" She stood there for a minute, staring skeptically at the young girl, silently judging her and her apparent naïveté. That quirk aside, there was something else about this one that was rubbing the old Time Lady the wrong way. For she absolutely reeked of the stench of her own endangered kind. But it had been quite a long time since she had last been in touch with another living soul, consequently her ability to discern a member of her race from others was woefully out of practice. And this girl looked far too young to be another Time Lady. Could her rusty old senses be deceiving her? "That watch," She finally spoke again. "Did she tell you how it came into her possession?"

"No." The girl took it out and inspected it closer. "She didn't tell me a thing about it!"

"So I suppose that means she also never told you what treasure was once inside?"

"N-No. B- But she put something else inside," The young girl slid the cover open. A brilliant glow of intense blue light mushroomed out and materialized a C-shaped crystal-like gem onto it.

"What? The hell?" Her curiosity piqued, she reached for an ophthalmoscope-esque tool in her pocket, anxiously grabbed the girl by the hand and inspected the altered watch with it.

"That's my soul." The girl bashfully told.

"I can see that." The Time Lady tucked away her tool and next checked the girl's pulse. "Peculiar. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that-" She paused and took out another tool, one that very closely resembled a stethoscope. She pressed it up to the young lady's nervous chest. "No. Can't be!" She slowly slid it down just below her breast, which confirmed her suspicion. "Oh, my goodness!" She exclaimed. Somehow, this young girl really was a member of her own kind! "You know, I was the one who first suggested to our leaders the idea of biologically melding a lower humanoid with a Gallifreyan. You see, we were in the midst of a population crisis, and were looking for ways to increase our numbers." She put her tool away as she talked. "But they shot me down right on the spot. I mean, to them I was but a mere junior administrative assistant. Who was I to question their wisdom, and their countless eons of staid experience? A nobody, that's who! They claimed at the time it was far too dangerous, said it risked a metacrisis, but really what they feared was some outsider coming to power and disrupting their oh-so-carefully planned and constructed society! Tch!"

"Please, spare us the monologue." The serious one cut in. "Miss Jones said the only person who could better replicate what she crafted for us is you! Are you interested or are we all wasting our time?"

"Well, that all depends, I suppose." Dorkus interestedly itched her chin.

"Depends on what?" The young Time Lady asked.

"Depends on exactly what she crafted for you pair!"

"That thing." The dark haired serious one turned the woman's attention towards the makeshift microwave embedded in the wall panel. She promptly tossed a set of blueprints and Miss Jones's notes on the console over to her.

"Oh? Let's see! Let's seeeeee…" The bemused Dorkus speedily browsed through the plans as well as the notes. "Hmm. Appears to be a rather crudely designed Ectomatter separation device. But where would you transmit the Depleted… Ahhhhh, I seeeeee!" She reached down her trousers and impertinently scratched her rear end. "But how did she gain access to a… Ohhhhh!" She slowly nodded, reading on and on until her nodding got more and more rapid in pace. "It's terribly rudimentary, but at the same time I must give her high approbation for this design, when considering the technical limitations. Then again, what she lacked in taste and grace she always made up for in resourcefulness and determination.

"Are you interested?" The serious girl asked her. "Can you replicate her feat for us?"

"Let's say I'm not disinterested." She rolled up the blueprints. "What's in it for me?"

"Good grief!" The young Time Lady rolled her eyes. "Does it look like we have any money to pay you?"

"Do I look like the kind of person who cares about currency or shiny metals?" The older Time Lady retorted.

"Then what else could we possibly give you?"

"We'll leave you alone, if you help." The other glanced at her companion with a slightly raised brow. "If you don't, well, I may soon expire, but she'll assuredly live on and annoy you here on this world to no end. After all... She has nowhere else to be."

"Uhhh, yeah!" The other girl grabbed Dorkus by the arm. "That's riiiiiiiiight! You're the only other Time Lady I know and I've got sooooooooo many questions. Like, are we like birds? Do we lay eggs, or are we kangaroos? Do I have to raise a baby in a pouch?"

"What?" Dorkus jerked her arm away. "No!"

"Or are we like those one-celled things, where our bodies divide in two and a whole new me picks up where I left off?" The young Time Lady cloyingly bit her lip.

"Auuuuggghhh! Fine! Fine!" Dorkus surrendered. "I'll make whatever you need! Just leave me alone and never come back here when I'm done!"

"Yessss!" The young one pumped her fist. The other one merely smirked slightly.

"I assume by her notes that what you require is a more refined, possibly more portable version of her device." She shoved the blueprints into a pocket in her coat. "May I ask how many of them you require?"

"Thousands." The serious one answered. "Girls' lives depend on it."

"So no pressure, eh?" The Old Time Lady joked. "How portable would you like 'em to be?"

"As portable as her watch." She replied. "Or this thing on my finger." She pointed at a ring on her finger with a series of peculiar inscriptions. "If you can."

"Oh, I can. Lived for a stint as a jewelry maker. Made lots of rare and valuable treasures." Dorkus leaned in, grabbed the girl's hand and squinted at the ring. "Indeed that thing right there might even be one of…" The girl cut her off by yanking her hand away. "Ah. Perhaps I am mistaken."

"How long will it take?" She asked.

"Years."

"Years!" The two girls exclaimed in unison. "But we don't have that kind of time!" The Little Time Lady added.

"My dears, you have a time machine." Dorkus pointed out. "You have nothing but time. All you need do is fast forward and come back once I'm done." She ripped off a scrap of paper and took out a pen from her side pocket. "I'll even offer you some temporary authorization codes for the trip."

The Serious one wasn't sold. "How do we know this isn't a ploy? A way to get us to retreat so that you're better prepared for when we come back?"

"Homura, was it?" Dorkus recalled, hoping that addressing her by name might instill a small seed of trust. "It's a pretty name." She took the weapon out of her inner pocket and flipped it to her. "Keep it. It's the only defense I have, save for my drones. Really, my best asset is this location's isolation from the rest of this miserable damn Universe."

"On that, we have only your word?" Homura countered.

"My word is sacrosanct to me." She stared wistfully at the body inside the pond. "Without it, I am no better than that self-serving duplicitous old brain trust that she rebelled against."

"Okay," The other one spoke. "We'll do it your way. We'll leave, and come back in exactly one year." Homura glared unhappily at the Young Time Lady. "What? We appeared out of nowhere demanding she help us. She backed down after you held her at gunpoint. She backed down again when she demanded payment. The least we could do is give her a little leeway on how she does the job. Let's leave her alone. It's all she really wants out of us!"

"Thank you," Dorkus slightly smiled. "If I may so impose, what is your name?"

"Mine?" The girl seemed surprised by Dorkus's sudden change in tone. "Uh, Sayaka. Sayaka Miki."

"Sayaka Miki," The Old Time Lady soberly drummed with her fingers on the floating stasis pod. "I'm starting to see what she liked about you." She pressed a few keys on a side panel, where it holographically displayed the status of the body inside. "One year, this world's time. That'll be enough time to forge a first batch of your Ectomatter filtration gems. If you are satisfied, return five years after, for the follow-up batch, and ten years after for the rest. Deal?"

"Deal." Their preliminary agreement made, The Time Lady escorted her late counterpart's body out of the TARDIS, as Homura and Sayaka input the destination date and codes.

One year later, the pair returned. Dorkus promptly met them at the door and presented two dozen devices, in the form of rings, earrings, bracelets, bangles, necklaces, chokers and other assorted jewelry items, with added instructions.


"How are they supposed to work?" Back on Earth, Mami inspected the freshly-minted goods. In their time, it had been a mere two days since Walpurgisnacht's fall.

"Basically, at the center of every gem is a microsingularity," Sayaka tried her best to distill Dorkus's overly-detailed explanation the basic premise. "Uh, that's like a teeny tiny little black hole of sorts." That snapped everyone else to attention. "But don't worry, it's calibrated to only attract the darkness in Soul Gems!" She concluded, saying "So you treat it just like a Grief Seed. Just put it close to your Soul Gem until the dark stuff comes out and gets swallowed by the microsingularity inside." Sayaka demonstrated with Mami's Soul Gem by tapping a gold-emblemed necklace to Mami's gem.

"So where does all that darkness go?" Mami followed up.

"According to Miss Jones and Dorkus," Homura elaborated. "To whatever dimension my buckler connects to." She noticed a small look of concern still lingering on Mami's face. "Don't worry. They also said I'm not at risk of being affected. My buckler merely serves as an opening to that place. Same as these jewels." Seeing Mami's concern allayed, she asked her own question. "What have you decided to tell the others?"

"A variation of the truth." Mami replied, taking the necklace. "That a very special girl sacrificed her own existence to forge these replacements. And that once Kyubey realized our suffering no longer served his purposes, he left this planet forever."

"Pft, okay, whatever. I guess I got no choice but to play ball with that story." Kyoko chose a black choker with a red oval-shaped jewel on its center. "So how long are these things gonna last?"

"Well, there is a small, but steady decay rate," Sayaka answered. "That she warned would be expedited with every use. Use it six times a day, it'll last only about fifty years." She offered Nagisa a pendant necklace with a cream-cheese colored, triangular jewel. "But only three times a day, double that." She smiled confidently as the young lady eagerly accepted her gift. "And at only once a day, double that!"

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Kyoko incredulously asked. "You really think we're gonna live to be two hundred years old?"

"Hey, take care of yourself, you never know what the future holds!" Sayaka coyly shrugged.

"Indeed." Homura agreed, watching Madoka play on the swings with the enthusiastic Nagisa. "The future I dreamed of for so long, it's arrived at last!"

"Hey, wait!" The Human Sayaka chased down her counterpart. "You're just gonna take off? Where ya' goin'?"

"To school." The Young Time Lady answered.

"What? For reals?" Her human twin flinched. "I thought you were going to go after Kyubey?"

"I will, in good time." Sayaka replied. "But first I have to know all about what I'm really up against out there." She strode over to her human lookalike and embraced her in a warm, affectionate hug. "I'll be back. Don't worry. 'Til then… Look after Kyoko for me." They exchanged with one another a pair of identical, sympathetic smiles.

"Good luck!"


"An Incubator willfully terminated its connection to our collective." A Kyubey observed. "If the act really was of its own volition the probability of such an occurrence was calculated to be zero point zero zero four eight one one six nine percent. It has thus been flagged as an extremely low probability event."

"The temporally displaced witch was subdued without casualties." Another Kyubey assessed. "The probability of such a feat was calculated to be zero point seven zero one six eight percent. It has also been flagged as an extremely low probability event."

"Walpurgisnacht has been defeated." A third said. "While it has been defeated in the past, in this case it has been defeated without any sort of heavy casualties from the magical girls that opposed it." It concluded, adding "The probability of such a successful campaign was calculated to be zero point zero zero zero zero zero four five two two zero one percent. Making it the third flagged low probability event to occur in a mere matter of days." It stared bewildered at its counterparts with a wide look in its eyes.

"With so many low probability events occurring within such a short span," One concluded. "Standard protocol dictates that we apprise the Karmic Guidance Beaurau of the situation and leave the organization to determine the next move."

"The probability they will then officially recall us from Earth is approximately ninety nine point one percent."

"On that we have consensus." The other agreed, an almost dejected look in its red eyes. "Our time on Earth is finished. Without meeting quota. Without contracting Madoka Kaname. Failure."

"Do you really believe that duplicate Sayaka Miki was what she claimed?" The Incubator asked of its counterpart.

"I cannot say." It answered. "But I did input her biodata and Soul data we collected while scanning her during that encounter into the predictive matrix."

"What did it determine?"

The Kyubey turned to its opposite, and simply replied "Error. Code thirty-one dash ninety-one."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," It cryptically closed its eyes and took an apparent deep breath. "That the subject does not seem to be bound by either this or any other quantum Universe's cosmic karmic strings."

"How is that possible? Has such an error ever happened before?"

"That I cannot say. But for our cause, that is... Definitely not good."


Dorkus pensively brushed her hand against the theater doors just outside the concert hall, eventually working enough nerve to push inwards and make her way inside. There, she gazed upon a middle aged, bearded bald man, playing a wonderful melody on the violin on stage in front of an audience of one.

"Kamijo!" The woman in the front row exclaimed. "Gah! Thought I recognized that face! One of the key pioneers of the Postmillennial Nuclassical Musical Revolution! Autographed my favorite data disc, though I had to be clever and gussy it up to look like a plain ole mid-century Earth record."

"If I remember correctly, this was a song he wrote in memory of a childhood friend whose soul was silenced before he could realize her feelings about him. And his lamentations of the life that was lost and the world that might have been with her in it." Dokus sat down two seats beside her. "Also the unofficial anthem of all you Time Lord renegades, The Deca."

"Dorkus," The woman irritatedly glanced at the only other audience member. "Puuuuuhleaaaase don't tell me you're using what's left of my brain to power your personal computer or something!"

"I would never be either so punitive nor vindictive." Dorkus replied. "My only aim was to give you something resembling a happy end. And this simulation was the best I could think of under the circumstances. It will run only for as long as you'd like it to."

"Oh." She sighed. "Well in that case, thanks. And I'm sorry I took so many of your best toys."

"No you're not!" Dorkus laughed.

"Yeah. You got me. Not sorry."

"I on the other hand, would like to sincerely apologize," Dorkus started, adding "For all our kind did to you. All the lies… The manipulations… The experimentations and retributions… The uncountable numbers of executions and resurrections. And for my own role in perpetuating your torture, however small." She drew a deep breath and concluded, saying "No one should ever have to endure the cruelty The Pantheon inflicted upon you."

"I take it, by the fact that you're here, that you were successful in engineering a solution for those young girls' terrible predicament?" Miss Jones, rather than either accepting or declining her words, opted to change the subject instead.

"I did," Dorkus responded, adding "Very bold of you, to so vastly alter an entire world's evolutionary trajectory through such a uniquely singular act of kindness."

"It's what I do." She smugly smiled.

The two sat in silence for hours, enjoying the digital Kamijo's concert in peace. "There is one last thing I'd like to know… Concerning you and your final lives." Dorkus finally worked the courage to ask upon its conclusion.

"What is it?" The Time Lady glanced at her.

"Considering your rather… Chequered past, and factoring in all the extra security measures that were put into that particular model TARDIS… How exactly were you ever able to run away with it?

"Oh? You really wanna know?"

"Well, considering I was one of the engineers of The Ark of Hope, though I'm sure you already knew that, seeing as you made yourself privy to all Gallifrey's deepest, most classified secrets… I would very much like to know."

The Time Lady relaxedly stretched out in her seat. "It's simple, really!" She giggled. "It just… Let me take it!"

"What?" Dorkus exclaimed. "Seriously?"

"Yuuuuuuup." She contentedly sighed and sat back as the curtains to a new Kamijo concert drew open. "Under the agreement that I eventually do it one, small favor."

"Really?"

"Five girls. A shared destiny. And I did my best." She gleefully smiled and crossed her arms. "And now, for as long as she carries on… Sayaka Miki is Hope's private secretary."

THE END


FINAL Notes:

- Thanks so much for reading. You've read what Google Docs says is a 454 page story written in single-spaced Arial 11 text. Or, what a publisher might also call "A book". I still can't believe I wrote all that.

- I hope some Troper out there appreciates my not-so-subtle chapter naming gimmick, because it was pain in the neck to keep doing.

- Features shout-outs to Blood+, Sonic, Symphogear and others for you Easter Egg hunters. ;)

- The idea to write this came all the way back in 2016, basically starting with "What if a responsible adult had found Sayaka on that train at her lowest, rather than those two assholes?" And from there evolved into giving her the Redemption Story/Hero's Journey she so deserved. The decision to ultimately make it a Doctor Who crossover came after watching Twelve's final series.

- Google Docs says I began writing in October 2017, but I think I only started in earnest the following winter. Finished sometime just after Christmas 2020.

- Wasn't originally planning to use Magia Record characters... But the NA version's EoS announcement came as I was finishing off chapter 20, and seeing as I had spent $$$ and made it all the way up to Rank 110, I felt I owed the game some modicum of respect... Which Aniplex certainly seems to have not had for it. Plus, should I eventually do that follow-up, I would almost inevitably need to feature Magia Record characters and plot points, anyhow.

- First published in January 2021 over on AO3. It got a very positive reception, so I figured I might as well see how it gets received over here on FF.

- Again, questions, observations, suggestions, crtiticisms, faves, follows, and especially reviews are welcome. Active feedback would encourage me to do a follow-up. Hopefully writing it won't take me another three years.

- Again, thanks reading. :)

- Update, 2022; HPS 2 is live and being updated on a monthly schedule. Hope you enjoy it.