The TARDIS materialised on a planet in the First Universe.

The Doctor and Martha stepped out to get a good look at their surroundings. It was a bleak, hellish wasteland. Windswept hills, plains of dust and death, lightning in the sky. Hell, almost literally.

"Cheery place, isn't it?" quipped Martha.

"These are the last days of this universe, Martha", said the Doctor. "This is all that is left of this whole universe. Dust and ashes."

"Pleasant", Martha commented dryly. "And you're around here somewhere…"

Ignoring her, the Doctor started walking in a random direction.

"Where are you?!" he yelled desperately.

Martha ran up to him, worried by his rather strange behaviour.

"I don't think he can hear you", she said, soothingly.

"I'm not yelling for him", said the Doctor. "I'm yelling for the others."

Even as he spoke, two figures appeared on the horizon, and quickly got to them Another Doctor, and a girl Martha didn't recognise.

"Hi", the girl said. "I'm Sophie, and that's the Doctor…"

"I'm Martha," Martha replied, "and that's the Doctor too…"

The two Doctors ignored their companions, and stared at each other intently in telepathic communion. And then they broke off, and grinned almost simultaneously.

"Right", started Martha's Doctor. "Since we're agreed…"

"Oi!" came a yell from behind them. "What about us?!"

The two Doctors turned to stare in the direction of the yell, as did their companions.

"My… God…" said Martha quietly.

"I second that", said Sophie. "And put forward the motion to add bloody hell…"

There were hundreds and hundreds of Doctors, some alone, some with companions. Some of the Doctors were in suits, some in jeans, and there was even a Doctor in a Tarzan outfit at the back.

"Well, at least we have the advantage of numbers", said Martha's Doctor dryly.

The Doctor looked around. He was in an old laboratory. Bleak and dead, just as he'd expected from the end of a universe, but not empty. An old man was staring at him. He wore a pinstripe suit, but it was old, faded, worn.

"Who are you?" he asked, suspicion and venom in equal measure in his voice.

"I am the Doctor," the Doctor replied simply. "And I believe you are, too."

The First Doctor stared at his counterpart.

"What are you doing here?" he asked finally.

"I've come to try and convince you to stop this", said the Doctor.

The First tutted and rolled his eyes.

"Well of course," he mumbled. "Not caring about the trillions upon trillions of people in my universe that I have to save, you've come here to stop me by… what? Using the power of reason?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"I wouldn't try and do that. I'm just going to appeal to your better nature. Everything dies, you know that," he said. "Planets, stars, even whole universes. We must accept that. All of us."

"I can save my Universe!" yelled the First. "I will not be dissuaded."

"No", said the Doctor. "You can postpone it's destruction, but it will die anyway. One way or another."

"I can't give up", sobbed the First. "I won't!"

"I know you don't want to admit it, but you can't win this fight", said the Doctor.

"No," the First said, venom pouring into his voice again. "I can most definitely win this fight, if I only take you out of the equation."

"What?" said the Doctor, puzzled.

The old man shook with determination.

"I will not give up!" he yelled. "Though I may fail, the universe will remember that the Doctor died to save his Universe from the Darkness!"

The First raised his sonic screwdriver.

"That isn't a weapon," the Doctor said, confident that he knew himself well enough.

"I wouldn't be so sure," the First replied. "I learned a lot from the Master."

He shot his younger counterpart, and the Doctor fell to the floor in agony.

"No…" he managed to say. "This isn't the way…"

The First stared down at him, sorrow plain on his face. He was actually sorry for this, that was the worst thing. Megalomaniacs you know want to cause harm – but the First was doing this for a good cause.

"No", he said, as the Doctor slipped into unconsciousness. "It is the ONLY way."

The many hundreds of Doctors had decided to split up. The better to find the First, they thought.

Martha and her Doctor had ended up with a Doctor in a t-shirt, jacket and jeans (the t-shirt bore the legend "Darth Vader was framed"), and a girl by the name of Veronica.

"I think that the other us was way off", said 'Darth Doctor' as Martha thought of him. "You know, the one in the message."

"How so?" asked Veronica.

"Well", said Darth Doctor, "I personally could never destroy a whole omniverse, just to save one universe, and I think my counterpart here thinks the same, so how a version of me, ANY version of me could do it, is beyond me."
Martha's Doctor merely shrugged, and looked around.

"You never know what you're capable of", he said. "None of us who went through a Time War thought we were capable of…"

"Well," Darth Doctor interrupted him, "I didn't go through a Time War, whatever that is, and I'm glad of it."

Veronica pulled Martha aside while the Doctor's talked.

"Is your Doctor always such a wet blanket?" she asked. "He's so… down and gloomy all the time."

Martha was quite annoyed about that. How dare this girl – or this other Doctor – be so rude and inconsiderate to hers? How dare they?

"I don't know, is yours always such an arrogant tosser?" she replied, venom lacing her voice.

Veronica stood back, obviously stunned by Martha's outburst.

Then they were both distracted by a yell from one of the Doctors.

They ran to the Doctors, and found them staring at a small blue box, shabby and dust covered. The writing at the top was so worn you could barely tell what it said.

"A TARDIS…" said Darth Doctor, quickly.

"His TARDIS", said Martha's Doctor grimly.

"What do we do?" asked Veronica. Martha couldn't help but roll her eyes at the girls idiocy.

"I don't know" said Darth Doctor. "I really don't."

"We do something", said Martha's Doctor. "And you're all talk, mate."

The Doctors walked up to the TARDIS, and they both put their hands against it.

"She's…" started Darth Doctor.

"…cold", finished Martha's.

"What's wrong with it being cold?" asked Veronica. "It's cold weather out."

"If it's cold", said Martha's Doctor, "it's dead."

"Of course!" said Darth Doctor. "TARDIS' are normally powered by the universe, and this universe is almost dead!"

"So his TARDIS is dead as well…" Martha's Doctor completed.

"What about our TARDIS'?" asked Martha. "If they're powered by the universe…"

"I modified the TARDIS after my last out of universe experience", said Martha's Doctor. "It won't run out of power for weeks yet."

"And mine is still linked to the great Eye of Harmony", said Darth Doctor. "And that power source that can never be depleted by anything."

The Doctors looked at each other.

"He can't be far", said Darth Doctor, grinning.

"We'll find him", said Martha's Doctor. He wasn't smiling at all. "And we save our universes."

They walked off in the same direction, and their companions followed.

Sophie's Doctor was accompanied by the Doctor from the universe right next to his. As such, the two were quite similar, except that the other Doctor wore a dark blue suit. They both travelled with a version of Sophie.

They had started referring to themselves as "Doctor 1" (Sophie's Doctor) and "Doctor 2" (the Other Doctor), so the two Sophie's did the same, Sophie One and Sophie Two, matched up with the right Doctor's. Sophie 2 had dyed red hair. Sophie found it rather odd talking to herself, but once you got over the face, it was actually quite fun...

Doctor 1 sniffed the air thoughtfully.

"Well", he said, after a moment, "the trouble with having hundreds of Doctors on a planet is that you can't smell any one Doctor."

"Yeah", said Doctor 2, nodding, also sniffing thoughtfully.

"You can smell this universes Doctor?" asked Sophie 1. "That's a bit weird."

"No we can't", replied Doctor 2, "but I could if there weren't so many other Doctors."

Doctor 1 suddenly stopped.

"Ah", he said. "It might be a good idea to run."

"Why?" asked Doctor 2.

"Because unless I'm way off," he said, "behind us are three rather large and rather hungry creatures."

The group turned slowly, dreading what they were going to see.

There were three of them all right. Big, hairy and nasty, with sharp teeth and red eyes, slavering at the group and snarling like rabid dogs…

"Right", said Doctor 1. "Everyone RUN!!"

The Doctor woke up, joints still aching.

"Wh – what?"

The First was standing over him, using his screwdriver to make final adjustments to his computer console.

"Oh you're awake, are you?" he said. The Doctor nodded, and the First smikled kindly. "I'm sorry I had to do that", he said. "But you left me no option."

The Doctor realised that he was tied to a chair.

"What are you doing?" he asked the First.

"Completing my plan", said the First. "I am going to hyper regress the entire universe, using the potential energy of the end of yours. Rather like those Weeping Angels. At any rate, the Hyper regression will cause the universe to last for all time."

"What? NO!"

"Oh please don't make this any harder than it already is", said the First. "I don't want to do this, but to save my universe, I must!"

The Doctor could only watch as the First pulled a lever, and the end of the omniverse began…