Romanas suns. Although, curiously, there had been none of the tell tale signs of time corridor technology or death rays that usually heralded a dalek invasion. There was nothing to do but to reclaim the observatory.
With extreme prejudice.
The TARDIS landed in the loosest sense of the word. It shook violently, ricocheting the Doctor around the interior like a rag doll. There was something wrong about this place. Maybe the TARDIS would know. She always did.
Except, it turned out, this time. The monitor fluctuated wildly and what appeared to be lightning bolts flashed frequently across the screen, where the space time co-ordinates were supposed to be. Almost as if time itself was rebelling against his landing here.
The TARDIS somersaulted and the Doctor was flung whichever way gravity was working at that instant. He grabbed onto the console and felt his chest crash into it; in recoil, his hands releasing their hold as he fell through the open doors below him.
He landed with a thud on an alien world and turned in time to see his faithful ship being tossed recklessly into the time vortex. He wasnd keep trying to break through the vortex to find him. All he had to do was fix whatever temporal anomaly was messing up the timestream and she Well that something would have to be something very powerful indeed.
Where was he? From what he could tell, nothing much was going on. You wouldns supercomputer. Hypothetically, you could reverse the datastream and absorb every scrap of information the Time Lords had ever collected; regeneration, defences, time travel; the lot. From what he could tell, it hadnd heard stories of these aliens in his childhood. They called themselves the Neverwere. They were created wherever timelines were replaced or eliminated; supposedly, they were beings whose desire to live was so strong that they ripped the fabric of space and time to bring themselves back into being and claim what was rightfully theirs. The Time Lords had used tales of their power and destruction as anti meddling propaganda to enforce Rassilont fight them. Not with a sonic screwdriver. All he could do was run and find something to use as a weapon and hope he came across no more of them. Especially not their leader.
He picked a corridor at random and ran, hoping it would take him somewhere useful. Peeking through the double doors, he spied what he thought was a recreational area. Hardly an armoury, of course, but it had some possibilities. The lights could possibly be used to blind themt work. The oven could cook them alive, but they were already on fire, so what good would that do? The Time Lords who took up residence in these observatories were famously unwanted on Gallifrey for their rebellious habits, so where are they? And why wasns gait fluctuated as it marched, the distance between them getting smaller every second. The Docotr waved his sonic screwdriver in desperation. Lightbulbs exploded; nothing. The oven caught fire; the figure barely flinched. The chess set turned itself on and made a move by moving a bishop down, then a rook forward, then a knight back in time. And the figure flickered, almost pixelating.
The Doctor leapt on this instantly, dashing to the chess set and jamming his screwdriver into the mechanism, forcing the pieces across the board in every direction, with pieces vanishing into the future and the past. As they did so, the figure became less and less clear, splintering as it encountered a complex time field. As the doctor turned the time distortion up to maximum, the Neverwere evaporated and the chess board burnt out.
One down, possibly hundreds more to go.
At least he knew how to compete. Fight time distortions with time distortions. They were already dangerously unstable in their quantum state; a little entropy could completely dissolve them.
But he couldnd expect from those Time Lord troublemakers. He looked into the screen and could see an idea form in his reflectiond blown up most of the room in defeating the first Neverwere, so more would soon follow. But if he played his cards right, heHello, this is the Doctor. I hereby address the Couldve heard of you, you snivelling I am the real deal. Saviour of many worlds, the death of many others. I am going to offer you one chanceOne chance to duel me. To defeat me in a battle of wits. The winner gets glory, the loser falls at the mercy of the otherOr, failing that, you can live out the remainder of your days knowing you couldt.d be roasted aliveve Been King was known on Gallifrey for his arrogance. Het fail to draw his attention.
The dark firey figures parted to reveal a figure more dark and firey than the rest of them combined. One eye opened on his shadowed face. As it closed, another opened where his chin would be. Arms came from his torso and fingers from his ears. Nothing was in the right place. His hair was an inferno.
ve come to face me. That
He snarled. re challenging me? The conqueror of Orion-beta? The slayer of the Star Drake? The champion of the Bramble nebula?Yes, I am. Because you seem like a worthy opponent. Or you used to be, before you got all that taken away from you. I want to see what you
Spit flew from his (was it a mouth?) and caught fire in mid-air.
s all you need to know.s body stood still for a moment. So heve Been King.
d know of course.Mend your words, Doctor and you may meet a kinder fate than apologies, your is your challenge? ,Is a mindbending machine. The Time Lords used them to improve their mental agility, but some found a darker use for it. I suspect the Time Lords here were of that consort. By cannibalising them and wiring two together, youre too powerful. The loser
Like me, he thought.
They leant down, almost bowing, as they placed their heads into the metal clamps, which fastened instantly around them. Microscopic spikes worked their way from the clamps into their brains and propagated like cracks across their grey matter.
The room blurred, becoming almost transparent, as the Doctor tried to focus in on the new reality.