Episode 32 - The Deadly Garden

The vacation ended early.

Okay, it was mostly over already, but the TARDIS... well, she did what she normally does.

Ah, but I get ahead of myself somewhat. The vacation had admittedly not been much of one. That was my fault. I was still preoccupied by what I had learned facing the Daleks. That I might be ultimately responsible for the Cracks that plagued many worlds I'd seen. That somewhere on the other end of the Cracks, someone was calling for help.

"The Doctor is dying!!"

Sweet dreams indeed.

Our vacation tour had taken us to Risa. Yes, Risa, and no, we didn't have those wooden trinkets. I'd learned that lesson well enough the last time I was here (and much to the amusement of Korra and Asami, I add). Rather I was showing my Companions what I had brought Korra and Asami to see; the majestic vistas one could find through the judicious use of a floater backpack. With the aid of the floaters, we zipped about an island chain off one of the main continents, enjoying warm sunshine and crisp ocean air from each vista.

And yet, I couldn't keep the concern from occasionally flickering to my face.

We were standing atop a rock formation and looking out over a tropical cove with warm turquoise waters stretching out below. I had put on a blue Hawaiian shirt with flower patterns and matching shorts that almost went to my knees; Liara and Katara were each in blue one-piece bathing suits. "It reminds me of Ember Island," Katara commented.

"Asami said the same thing," I noted.

A small, sad smile crossed her face. "And that stupid Fire Nation play about us." Katara giggled. "They had me crying about hope all of the time."

There was something in her voice. The way her blue eyes glistened. It was clear she wasn't actually as happy as she seemed. Liara gave me a worried look.

"And... they got Zuko's scar on the wrong eye," Katara continued. "And... and they had Toph played by some muscled up guy..." Her voice began to break. "They had a girl playing Aang and Sokka... they actually had him pretty..."

The words stopped, replaced by sobbing. Katara dropped to her knees. Liara joined her and gave her a warm embrace, letting her continue to cry. "I don't think this trip has gone as well as you thought it would," Liara remarked to me.

"I noticed," I sighed. I held up the TARDIS remote. "I suppose we'll need to find somewhere else."

"I'm not sure there is anywhere else," Liara remarked. She stopped while the TARDIS finished VWORPing in, trying to console Katara. Her eyes met mine. "And she's not the only one."

I didn't say anything. "I suppose I've been rather dour."

"The Daleks were probably lying to you," she said. "They were trying to make you doubt yourself."

"Or they were simply stating a fact."

"You can't know that," Liara insisted.

"The Daleks' reputation doesn't lend itself to lying just to make me feel bad," I remarked sullenly. I pushed open the TARDIS door and tromped in. I had my floater unslung before I got to the controls and I tossed it over the rail to the lower level. "I'll go change."

When we were all back in our usual attire, I shifted the TARDIS into the Vortex and looked at Katara's pained expression with sympathy. Helping her recover was proving vastly difficult. She had lost everyone to Xuandi's actions and had ultimately lost her world, literally; her entire timeline was erased by our success against the Dai Li. Only the TARDIS had kept her from joining her timeline in non-existence.

Sometimes I wondered if it would have been kinder to her if she had been removed, erased, or the junior partner in a quantum merging with herself after we thwarted Xuandi.

But I dismissed those thoughts. She was alive, and with that came the hope that one day she'd find peace. Real peace, I mean. I don't really count death as peace. Death is death. It's a sort of peace, but it's an inferior product compared to living peace.

Trust me on that.

"I'm sorry." Katara looked up at us with her tear-reddened eyes. "I ruined it for you."

"Not at all," I assured her. I took a seat beside her. "Truth is, I'm doing this to help you. If somewhere makes you uncomfortable, it's best to just move on."

"I'm not sure where else you could take me to feel better." Katara's brow furrowed. "Where could I go when I've lost everything?"

"Maybe somewhere that will give you a chance to have something new?", Liara proposed. "A new life."

"I don't want a new life!", Katara shouted. "I want my life. I want them back, I..." She broke down crying again.

I exchanged a look with Liara. I had a horrible feeling that this might be beyond my competency. All the while, my hearts ached in sympathy with Katara's woes. She had lost everything... as I had. I simply had the benefit that my abductor or benefactor or whatever you wish to call him or her had seen fit to lock away my memories of that stolen life.

It made me wonder... where there any losses for me to mourn? Dead family and friends? Broken homes? If I ever regained my original memories, would I find that I had voluntarily become this being so I could hide from them?

I tried to be supportive of Katara until her crying ceased again. When it did I patted her on the shoulder. I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

The TARDIS rumbled slightly. I narrowed my eyes and looked up to the controls.

Just in time to see the TARDIS engine begin to activate. VWORP VWORP VWORP!

I stood and went to the controls. As I did the TARDIS shuddered. I quickly hit a switch. "That was a disruption in the dimensions."

"A Crack?", Liara asked.

"Yes. A Crack," I answered. "I think I got to the systems in time to shield them. Hopefully we didn't make that Crack worse."

"We should check into it." Katara wiped tears from her face. She looked more focused and determined than before. An enjoyable distraction, one surmises.

"Yes we should," I said. I looked to Liara.

Liara folded her arms. "We are finishing the vacation," she insisted. But I could see in her eyes that she knew this was best. "After we check on this."

"Yes, of course," I assured her, smiling a little. I checked my readings. "Looks like we've set down on an Earth. Early 21st Century, it looks like. Come along."

We stepped out of the TARDIS and were greeted by the sight of a small town. The air was sweet with the smell of the ocean. I secured the TARDIS door and we set out to walk down a road lined with houses. I held up the sonic. "No sign of a Crack here," I said. "Some peculiar energy readings though. Let's keep walking."

We did so. Nobody in the town came up to us as we did, but I supposed it wasn't too strange. We were an interesting ensemble I suppose.

A couple of blocks and we were walking along the beachside boardwalk. "Well, definitely a Yank town," I sighed, noticing a place marked as a restaurant for french fries. "A shame, really. I could go for some nice fish and chips at a seaside pub."

Katara stepped up and looked toward me. "Is it just me, or are people avoiding us?"

I blinked and glanced around. The man at the restaurant we'd just passed was eyeing us warily as he shut his window. I noticed the black eye and bruise on his face as he did so. "Huh," I said. "Interesting. Usually small towns like this are friendly to visitors. Tourism trade and such."

"Something doesn't seem right," Liara remarked. "All of these buildings look like they've taken some damage."

I nodded in agreement and scanned around with my sonic screwdriver. "Well now. Those energy readings are quite a bit stronger." I turned toward a geographically peculiar bluff arising on the beach, the town-side of the bluff showing a nice grass field with a lighthouse at the top. "And they're definitely centered over there."

I heard a young lady call out in panic. "Daddy! Gunga! Get in the back, they're back!" I turned to see another restaurant door close with a young lady of dark brown complexion on the inside. She was in casual clothes and had an arm in a sling; broken, I suppose. I heard the click of the door locking after which she ran for the back of the shop.

Liara and I looked at each other. "I get the feeling we're not welcome," she remarked. "What I want to know is..."

"...why do they recognize us?", I finished for her.

"I want to know why they're scared of us," Katara said.

"Quite the mystery." I looked up. "Unlikely to be related to the cuisine. 'Fish Stew Pizza'? That sounds horrid."

Liara smirked. "You did want fish and chips."

"Doctor, Liara?" Katara pointed to something at the side of the building. "Look."

We walked around to her. On the side of the wall was a poster. It was prefaced as an official notice from the office of one Mayor Dewey, alerting the residents to avoid contact with...

...with us.

The images were clear as day, obviously taken from CCTV recordings. The three of us looking rather hostile and in the midst of attacking people.

We all looked at each other. "I think this explains things," Liara remarked. She activated her omni-tool. "Let me see if I can confirm..."

There was a sound in the air and I felt something wrap around my ankles. A pull of force yanked my legs out from under me and I hit the ground with an "oomf". A rather undignified sound, I agree.

And then I was getting pulled, which meant I was being dragged across ground. Instincts took over. My hand pulled out my sonic disruptor and I twisted my body to point it at the dark purple whip wrapped around my ankles. I triggered Setting 14 and a thermal beam superheated the material and caused it to snap just as I landed in the soft white sand of the beach. I scrambled to my feet and heard Liara and Katara run up behind me. "What the bloody...?!" I held my sonic disruptor ready to create a deflector field.

We were confronted with three figures on the beach. The tallest looked like a woman with a rather carefully crafted Afro that made her head look cube-shaped. No eyes could be seen under her shades. She wasn't Human given the deep purplish-red skin color, matched with an outfit that had a five point star design.

To her right was a shorter figure with a thin build, a long pointed nose and feminine facial features with pale white skin and a pearl-like orb set into her forehead. A sleeveless teal blouse with a yellow star on the chest and turquoise ribbon at her waist was joined with pale yellow shorts and teal footwear over salmon-colored socks.

And to the left was my attacker, given the whip in her right hand. She was short enough to be a child, with a lovely purple skin color and white-purple hair, with a sleeveless black top and light pants set with... a couple of five pointed stars. Yes, clearly a uniform motif. I also detected the same from the purple gem set into her sternum.

"Who are they?", Katara asked me.

"I've no clue," I admitted. Indeed, all I knew was that they clearly weren't Human, at least not normal baseline Human, and that given the jewel-encrusted whip, the spear, and the armored gauntlets the three were brandishing, they were ready for a fight.

The three looked at each other after my remark. "Uh, is this for real?", the short purple one asked me, or rather us. "Did you forget how many times we've kicked your butts?"

"We don't know what you're up to," the pearl-headed one said. "But we're not letting you hurt the people in Beach City, no matter how many times you show up."

"Well, this is rather awkward," I remarked, "because we've never been to this town before. Surely we can discuss...?"

The tall one spoke up, her accent sounding British-Caribbean. "Leave. Now. Or we'll put you down again."

I looked to the others. "Whatever's going on, we can get to the bottom of it without getting into a fight," Liara said. "We should probably leave."

I was about to agree when the decision was taken out of my hands.

I felt it go past my head. A burst of invisible kinetic force in a tight form. Before I could react the force hit the tall one and sent her flying into the waves. "Garnet!", the two cried out.

Garnet proved quite powerful, though. She rebounded quickly from the blast, twisting in mid-air and leaping back at us.

And I do mean right at us. The lady could jump.

And with her gauntlets grasped for a two-handed hammer punch.

We scattered and were still knocked over by the shockwave of sand that erupted from where she brought her fists down. Her compatriots brought up their weapons and came for us as well.

I was suddenly missing the vacation.

Our humanoid assailants were fast. No sooner did I roll back to my feet that I took a blast of energy straight to the chest. It might have hurt more if not for the magically-enhanced armored vest I wore, courtesy of Charity and Molly Carpenter. It sent me flying backward and onto the boardwalk. The thin one with the pearl on her forehead lunged at me with a spear. I barely got the sonic disruptor in time to absorb the blow on my deflector shield.

As I did so I noticed the purple one's whip lashing out toward Liara. It was intercepted in mid-air by water from Katara's bottle. That water whip technique of her's, now in play against an actual whip. The purple one pulled her whip back and growled in frustration at Katara before lashing out at her. Katara had to jump out of the way given the speed of the attack, but she kept her water whip solid and used it to deflect several more attacks.

The big one, Garnet, was on the move again, against Liara. Liara's biotics flashed into existence around her, dispersing her Human disguise to no apparent reaction by Garnet. She used a biotic field to defend herself and followed it up with a bolt that threw Garnet backward.

I tried to focus on the fight overall, but my attacker was quick with that spear, moving with swift grace in her attempts to get around my deflector shield. "Listen, this is a misunderstanding!", I shouted. "We..." I was interrupted by the need to focus on a flanking attempt that nearly succeeded. It was odd fighting like this. Like fencing with an open umbrella, in a way.

I heard a cry and turned to see where Katara was trapped by the purple one's whip and had been smacked into the boardwalk. Her attacker laughed and used a yank of her weapon to bring Katara in for what looked to be a punch. I quickly shifted to avoid my attacker and triggered a Setting 4 kinetic blast to strike Katara's opponent, knocking her over. Katara fell into soggy sand at the shoreline and turned until she was in the surf and loose from the whip, which she cut in half with a blade of ice bent up from the ocean. "Hey!" The purple one frowned at me and reached to the gem on her chest. Light appeared there and coalesced into another whip.

"What is it you want?", my own attacker demanded as she pressed her spear against my deflector shield. "Why do you keep attacking Beach City?!"

"We just got here," I retorted.

"Wohhhhh!"

I glanced over and saw that it was the purple attacker crying out as she was swept back by the waves that Katara was generating with her waterbending. Katara breathed out and the water froze into ice, encasing the purple one.

"Amethyst!" My attacker twisted and directed her spear toward the ice. An energy blast fired from the tip of the spear and shattered the ice holding the obviously-named Amethyst prisoner.

Of course, this opened me up to perform a counter-attack, and I sent another kinetic pulse that drove my opponent - going by the other names I imagined the gem on her forehead meant she was named Pearl - back across the sand. She flipped with the blow and landed on her feet.

Before she could resume her attack I found myself hit by something and sent sprawling. I found myself tangled up with Liara on the sand. We both groaned and I tried to get up, allowing me to see Pearl going after Katara as well and being swept aside by a wave of water drawn up by the movement of one of Katara's arms.

I almost asked where Garnet was when I looked over in time to see her rushing at us with her gauntlets coming down. I brought up the sonic disruptor and triggered a protective field in time to hold back the blow. Pain surged through my arms and shoulders from the reactive feedback and I almost dropped the disruptor. "We don't want to fight!", I shouted.

"They're not listening!", Katara shouted. She retreated further into the surf. This gave her more water to bend. That was a good thing. The bad thing was that it further isolated her in the two on one fight she was facing.

Liara was starting to recover as I absorbed another hit from our attacker. Whatever these gem-themed beings were, the power they had was formidable, and Garnet's punches were giving me more trouble than out of control vehicles had before. Or a sliding-on-ice out-of-control polar bear dog. "Liara, I could use some... help!"

Her hand snapped up as a blow finally knocked the disruptor out of my hand. Biotic energy surrounded Garnet and threw her up into the air over our heads. She landed upside down in a boardwalk shop behind us. The big donut sign started to dip low.

...just as the occupants stepped out of the door under it.

My eyes widened and I quickly grabbed my disruptor. "No!", I shouted. I swung the disruptor back up as quickly as I could and used it to generate a deflector screen between the people and the donut sign starting to fall on their heads. At that range and against that amount of mass I couldn't keep the shield active for more than a few seconds though, and the young people that were coming out of the shop were looking up in surprise and not moving at all. "Liara!", I cried.

She was already moving before I finished calling her name. She jumped up onto the boardwalk and arrived just in time. Her biotic field popped into existence before the sign and debris would have crushed the people who had stepped out of the shop. Liara groaned from inside the field and dropped to her knees. It looked like she had been hurt, and the stresses of generating so much dark matter so quickly was burning away at her constitution.

There was a whistling of air. I turned in time to avoid getting run through from behind by the one I presumed to be called Pearl. She made a quick movement with her spear that batted the sonic disruptor from my hand and her foot caught me with a snap kick that felt like a jackhammer had slammed into my rib cage. Without the Carpenters' vest I would have undoubtedly sustained a broken rib or four. As it was, I fell backward into the sand and could do nothing as the light blue tip of her spear came down on me.

"STOP!"

The shout brought everything to a halt. I pondered its source. High, but evidently the high voice of a preadolescent boy. My attacker and I turned our heads up and saw two small figures coming toward us from the boardwalk. The boy cried out "Stop fighting!"; he had bushy, curly black hair and a pinkish-red shirt with a yellow star on the front with blue jeans and sandals rounding out his garb. He looked a tad on the chubby side, although not outright obese or anything like that. The girl beside him had dark brown skin in contrast to his light Caucasian complexion and a thin, lithe figure; going by the complexion and facial structure I figured her to be South Indian. Tamil, probably.

"Steven!" My attacker held off for the moment and looked to the boy and girl as well. "What are you..."

"Look!" The boy pointed to where Liara was struggling to keep the biotic field up so the donut sign didn't crush everyone around her. "They're not here to hurt anyone!"

"Unnnnh." Liara's hand began to fall.

I looked over to where my sonic disruptor had fallen. I doubted I could do more than delay it for a few seconds again, but maybe...

Just as the biotic field faded, Garnet grabbed the donut sign and lifted it away. With a single heave she threw it about fifty yards onto the beach. She turned back to Liara. Her armored gauntlets turned to light and disappeared, revealing normal hands. One hand reached down to Liara, who accepted it and was promptly pulled to her feet. "Well done."

"Thank you." With her biotics no longer active Liara's holobelt restored her Human disguise.

"Ugh, just what this town needs," one of the people she'd rescued grumbled. Given the big donut on his shirt he was obviously an employee of the establishment; the fact that his ear lobes were more open space than lobe was a peculiar thing. "More weirdness." He got elbowed in the ribs by the short blond woman standing beside him.

Garnet looked toward us. "Pearl, Amethyst, stand down. We need to find out what's going on here."

As I suspected, my opponent was named for the gem in her forehead. She sighed and nodded before pulling the spear away. "I thought we had them this time."

I looked toward the beach. Katara was caught up in Amethyst's whip, but her free arm had Amethyst gripped in an icy fist of ocean water. "How about we call it a draw?", she asked Katara.

Katara didn't quite care as much, so she nodded and gave a dismissive reply of, "Yeah, fine."

"Cool." A look came over Amethyst's face. "You're not going to suck away the ocean, are you?"

Katara blinked. "Uh, no."

"Okay, good. Everyone's really sensitive about that since the last time."

I blinked at that. Just where had we come to? "I think some introductions may be in order," I said while clambering back up onto the boardwalk. Katara made an ice slide to maneuver herself and Amethyst up to join us. Liara stumbled up to join us while Amethyst and Pearl joined Garnet and the children, allowing us to face each other across the boardwalk. "Well, now that we've stopped that little fracas... I'm the Doctor, a Time Lord of Gallifrey, and these are my traveling Companions, Dr. Liara T'Soni and Katara." I reached into one of my jacket pockets and mentally cursed. I'd forgotten the packet of M&Ms again.

"Hi." The boy stepped up and offered me his hand. I knelt down and accepted it. "I'm Steven. Steven Universe. Pleased to meet you."

The girl stepped up and offered her hand too. "I'm Connie Maheswaran."

I accepted the other handshake as well. "A pleasure."

With that done, the lad continued his side of the interaction. "And this is my family, the Crystal Gems." The young lad was quite pleasant as he introduced the three formally, although I'd already realized their names from what was said during the fight.

"So, now that you're not trying to pound us into the sand, can you explain that?" Liara pointed to a warning poster with our faces on it.

"People who look like you have been going around hurting people," Steven explained.

"And no matter how many times we kick their butts, they keep coming back!" This was provided by Amethyst.

I frowned. "No coincidence, then. Something else is going on here."

"Could any of your enemies have found a way to travel in six dimensions as well?", Liara asked me.

I shrugged. "Perhaps. But how many would know to fake you and Katara instead of, say, Korra and Asami, or Katherine?" I shook my head. "I think there's another origin here. Whatever it is, I'd like to get to the bottom of it. Especially since..." I looked to the Gems. "Tell me, did you see who was on the boardwalk behind us when our confrontation turned into a fight? I distinctly felt an energy wave go past me before it struck you, Garnet."

"Well, there were only a few who came out of their stores," Pearl said. "Most of the people were staying indoors. I don't think there was anyone outside."

"Steven and I were up by the lighthouse." Connie shook her head. "We didn't see anything."

"Someone provoked the fight. They wanted us to destroy you." Garnet adjusted the opaque shades over her eyes.

I frowned at that. "Given there is a Crack somewhere on this world, I find that concerning." This was especially true for the fact that the only force to come through the Cracks and encounter Katara with me were the Daleks. A scary proposition to be sure, but it didn't feel quite right to my estimation. This didn't feel to me to be the work of Daleks, although they can be crafty buggers if they needed to be. So I could be wrong.

"Um, excuse me?" Pearl raised a finger. "What do you mean by 'crack'? Is it some sort of spatial tear?"

I nodded. "Yes, although that's hardly enough to describe what it is. It's a crack through six dimensions of space-time, to be precise," I explained. "And beings and forces from my home cosmos have been using the Cracks to invade other cosmoses."

The others, save Garnet, started blinking. Well, I suppose she could have been too behind those reflective shades. "So, uh, what's a 'cosmos'?", Amethyst asked. "Isn't that, like, space and stuff?"

Katara and Liara shared bemused looks while I sighed. "I suppose a quick lesson in multi-dimensional mechanics would be necessary," I sighed. "It's just quite hard to get across some of the ideas. But to start..."

"You're talking about sixth-dimensional locations based around fifth-dimensional clusters of localized space-time that share the same general metaphysical attributes and rules," Garnet answered.

At that I blinked in surprise. "Well, yes, that's the best explanation to put into simple vernacular." I raised an eyebrow. "I'm quite astonished, your people are that versed in multi-dimensional theory?"

"Actually, Garnet probably just saw what you were going to say," Steven supplied with a bit of childlike sheepishness. "She has future vision."

I nodded. "Precognition? Indeed? Multiple timeline potentiality?"

"Something like that," Garnet answered.

Well. That was an interesting ability to have. And not always in the good way. Multiple timeline potentiality, seeing multiple possible futures, can drive beings insane after a while. Especially in what appeared to be the Gems' line of work. Consider seeing multiple futures where some or all of the people you care about get wiped out by a foe while trying to see any future potentiality that lets you beat said foe with no serious loss. Now consider this happening repeatedly.

It was no wonder Garnet was so... stoic, I suppose?

I didn't mention that, of course, opting instead for asking, "I suppose you usually use the river metaphor?"

"It works well."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" I noticed Liara's look. "Yes, yes, time to focus on business. We need to find out what's going on h-."

A column of light rose over the boardwalk's buildings, coming from inland. The Gems and their young friends stared in shock. "That's not possible," Pearl said. "Where could that Warp beam be coming from?"

A sick feeling came to my gut. I started running toward the source of the light. The others were following, but how closely I couldn't tell. Not when I was focused on getting to my destination and confirming...

...that the TARDIS had been taken.

I pulled out my TARDIS remote and triggered it.

Nothing happened.

Liara and Katara came up beside me. "They took the TARDIS?!", Liara shouted. "How?"

I had my suspicions and looked to see the Gems running up, the children taking up the rear. "What's wrong?", Steven asked.

"They took my TARDIS," I said. "That column of light must have been the teleportation device they used."

"But they shouldn't have been able to!", Pearl protested. She started looking around the alley. "There aren't any Warp Pads here!"

"Um, excuse me?" A hand went up and I looked toward Connie. "What's a TARDIS?", she asked.

"My timeship," I answered. "It currently looks like a London Police Box."

That answer only seemed to confuse the young lady more. "But aren't those just phone booths? How can they be ships?"

"It's bigger on the inside," Katara answered for me. "Much bigger."

Steven and Connie looked like their eyes were ready to light up. "So it's just like the Temple?!", Steven asked.

"Hrm?" I looked back at him. "What temple?"

"It's where we live!", Steven offered enthusiastically. "And it's really big on the inside. Waaay big."

Thoughts started to go through my head. I looked at the Gems. "Your home has a dimensionally transcendental field?"

"Well..." Pearl looked a little nervously toward Garnet, who said nothing. "I guess you could call it that?"

"Hrm." I smiled at that and brought a hand up. My mind started to race. "Well... I wonder... that might work, I'll just..." I pointed a finger toward them. "Might I see it?"

"Uh... I guess?", Amethyst offered. She looked to the others. "I mean, they're not normal Humans, what could be the harm?"

"It's a matter of trust," Garnet pointed out. "We don't know much about these people."

"We know they want to protect people, though." Steven stepped between me and Garnet. "Shouldn't we help them?"

"Well..." Pearl looked toward us and back to Garnet. "We should. Because whoever is behind this wanted to turn us against the Doctor, and we don't know why yet. Or why they want his ship."

"True." Garnet nodded to me. "Alright. We'll show you to the temple. This way."

The temple, as it was called, was built into the cliff at the edge of the peninsula facing the Atlantic. It was clearly thousands of years old. If anything it made me think of Hindu sculptures given the multiple arms of the design.

In the belly of the statue was the obvious entrance. Fairly obvious given the small house built there. "A pleasant looking home," I noted as we ascended the stairs.

"It's my room," Steven answered with bubbly enthusiasm. He opened the door for us. "After you."

"Quite courteous of you," I answered. I stepped into what looked like a flat, or studio if you prefer. A kitchen to my right, living area to the left and stairs leading up to a comfortable bed and a small TV and visible video game console. I was quite surprised that the home of a child this age was so spic and span-clean. "You're rather well kept for a lad your age."

"Oh, Pearl keeps it clean. I'm actually sort of messy."

"Such refreshing honesty..." By now I was heading toward the rear of the "house", or rather the non-house portions. The rear of Steven's living space opened into a cave mouth. The walls glittered here and there and a single circular platform was in the center of the room. A door with a five-pointed star emblazoned on it was beyond the platform. I held up the sonic screwdriver toward the door.

"Would anyone like some lemonade?", Steven asked.

Quite the gracious host, this lad.

"I'm good. Your temple door?", I asked Garnet rhetorically.

"Yes." She held up her hands. The red and blue lights on the lower points of the star lit up. "How will you use the temple to track your stolen ship?"

"Oh, a trick with the dimensionally transcendental fields and the resonance from their proximity," I answered. "But first I need to assemble some machinery."

Behind me, spirited conversation was picking up. "So, how were you doing that?", I heard Connie ask. "With that bubble you made to stop the sign? Or moving that water around?"

"Well, Katara is a waterbender from a world where Humans can develop the power to 'bend' the elements," Liara explained. "And as an Asari I am a natural biotic. I can generate and manipulate dark energy."

Her answer more than satisfied the young lady, given her reply of, "That is so cool."

I had finished my own considerations by this point, just as Liara was asking about how the Crystal Gems' powers worked, but I overheard their explanation. It was fairly intriguing. The physical gems on their bodies being the actual core of their beings, projecting physical bodies, providing weapons, that sort of thing. It sounded to me like a Gem was at least in part a matter replicator of some sort. How that worked, well... "Magitech" in metaphysically receptive universes can be rather interesting sometimes. I'd have to find out more later.

"Do you have a quantum field focus controller?", I asked.

Garnet looked at me with that same neutral expression she'd kept for most of the day. "No," she finally said.

"Hrm... what about a hyper-volume capacitor?"

"No."

"I see." I rubbed at my chin. "So we'll be rigging something up. Right. I'm going to need spare parts. A lot of spare parts."

Garnet nodded and looked toward the front door. "Amethyst? The Doctor is going to need to see your room."

Amethyst seemed quite energized by the prospect. "C'mon, Doc!" Her hand grabbed mine and pulled me to the door.

"Doctor." Liara walked to the edge of the cave mouth. "What do we do about the attacker who started the fight? Whoever is behind this may still be in the town."

I thought on that. "Hrm. Indeed." I looked back. "Does anyone have any of your early 21st Century communications devices?"

"Um. Here?" Steven pulled a smartphone out of his pocket. Connie revealed a flip-open cell phone from her's.

I walked up to them and started running the sonic screwdriver over one and then the other. "Woh, what's this?" Steven seemed intrigued by the new icon that popped up on his phone.

"A sort of app I've created for it," I revealed. "It can pick up levels of the energy that comes from the Cracks in the Multiverse. If anyone or anything has been exposed to such, your phone will go off."

"This is so cool," Connie said yet again as I finished working on her phone.

"It's always cool," I guaranteed her, winking at them both.

"If these beings are dangerous, I should go too," Pearl said. "I don't want Steven and Connie to get hurt."

I nodded. "Yes, of course." I looked to Katara. "Would you mind joining them? I'm going to need Liara to help me build what I need."

Katara nodded. For a moment I was wondering if she was paying much attention given the dull look in her eyes. But she went toward the door without a word.

Steven and Connie looked toward each other and then at me. "Is she okay?", Connie asked.

I shook my head sadly. "She lost everyone she cared for," I said, trying to avoid more complex explanations given the work at hand and not wanting to rub salt on the wound.

Nevertheless, they got the gist of it. And as I looked up, I saw a flicker of... recognition, I suppose, go through Pearl's eyes.

"Maybe we can cheer her up?", Steven suggested.

"Good luck on that," was my reply. "Although it's best if we focus upon the task at hand. Whomever took my TARDIS could cause a lot of trouble."

"Right. Oh!" Connie went over to the small closet built below the stairs to the bed and opened it. After a moment she pulled out a rather large sword set in a pink scabbard.

I admit that my eyes widened as I watched her heft it over her shoulder with ease. "You're awfully young to be running around with something like that," I noted.

"Oh, it'll be fine," Steven assured me. "Connie's great with a sword! Pearl's been training us and everything!"

I blinked and glanced at the aforementioned gem. She blushed blue a little. "They're quite marvelous students."

"Very well," I answered, keeping my tone delicate. It was clear this wasn't new to them, so who was I to judge? I looked back to the temple door, where the other two Gems and Liara were waiting. "We'd best get going. This is a mystery I want to solve immediately."

I was answered by nods. After they all filed out I walked back toward the temple door. "Well, shall we?", I asked.

Garnet nodded at me and looked to Amethyst. She turned toward the door. Her purple gem lit up in time with the purple light on the door. When it opened, it did so with a bizarre purple goo of some sort forming the split in the otherwise-solid door. The goo seemed to disappear as the opening completed; inside was a cavernous space of mostly purple color. Amethyst stepped through first. At Garnet's indication Liara and I went in.

The entire chamber was full of... detritus. Junk. Anything and everything one might find in a hoarder's storage shed or house. The surfaces of the cavern were glittering with what looked to be crystals or gemstones. "Ta-da!" Amethyst held her arms out. "So, what are you looking for?"

I admit I was caught by surprise for the moment at the sheer quantities of junk present. Liara seemed equally surprised by it. "I don't suppose I can complain about your piles anymore," she said.

"No, not really..." I sighed and pulled out the sonic. "Okay, first off I'm going to need..."

The others returned to Beach City and started their search on its Boardwalk. "So this 'Crack' in space is somewhere in Beach CIty, right?", Connie asked.

"I don't think so." Katara was still just starting to grasp the concepts I had explained to her of tears through space and the like. "The Doctor said he couldn't detect it when we landed."

Steven was apparently enthralled by the display my little added app made on his phone. "Woh, this is so rad! Look at this." Energy waves vaguely oscillated, showing the energy from the Crack dimly existing in the background. Trace amounts from the passage of those permeated by said energy. Including our violent doppelgangers, if my suspicions were correct.

As they passed by the pizza place, the proprietor of it called out to them. "Steven! What are you doing with that girl?! She's the one who hurt Kiki and wrecked my shop!"

"Hey Mister Pizza!" Given the response offered, it seemed nothing could get this boy's friendly attitude to diminish. "That was actually an impostor. Or something. This one's completely friendly."

Apparently, Katara did her best to smile and look friendly, regardless of her inner feelings. And they were starting to get stirred up, I imagine. "We're going to find the people who hurt you," she assured the pizza shop owner. "We'll stop them."

"Hmph. Well, I hope so!" Mister Pizza promptly returned to his shop and slammed the door behind him.

"The people of Beach City can be... difficult sometimes," Pearl explained to Katara.

"They just get a little upset from all the times we ruin their stuff while fighting monsters," Steven insisted. "They'll see you're just as nice as me soon."

"It's nothing," Katara insisted. She took in a breath. "We should keep going."

I can only imagine the turmoil inside Katara as she observed Steven socializing with his neighbors, Connie at his side. His friendly demeanor, always seeking to find the bright side in things, that sort of thing.

In many ways, he acted just like Aang had, especially at that age. Which should tell you something about why Katara was starting to get uncomfortable.

I suppose Katara's feelings weren't well-hidden at the moment. Connie asked her, "Are you okay?"

The reply was honest and straightforward. "No. But that's not important."

That answer was apparently not the right one to give to those children. "Why?", Steven asked her. "What's wrong?"

Katara directed a look at him. I can't imagine what went through her mind at that moment. How did she intend to react? Would she dismiss their concerns? Would she demand they not bring it up?

Whatever response she intended, she never got a chance to give it. Pearl spoke up. "Steven, I think we should focus on the search."

"Oh. Right." The boy didn't seem convinced by this, but he bowed to the wishes of his... mother figure? Aunt? Something like that I guess. He looked back to his phone. "I think we're supposed to go... this way?"

"Yeah, that's on mine too," Connie agreed.

They continued onward.

While that group was touring Beach City, I was busy going through veritable mountains of detritus and salvage.

Or, in this case, nearly being buried in it.

I waited until the shower of collapsing trinkets stopped before lowering the sonic disruptor and turning off my deflector shield. I looked up and couldn't keep the scowl off my face at seeing Amethyst laughing. "Wow, that was fun," she cackled.

"That was also uncalled for," I protested. "And I'm looking for very specific things here!"

"I didn't even understand half of what you said before," Amethyst retorted. "You really need to work on how to talk to people."

"I talk to people just fine, thank you very much." I sighed and looked to where Garnet was providing the heavy lifting in managing anything Liara found that fit what I had told her to find. A dismantled refrigerator was gaping open with her at the opening, hard at work removing machinery I needed. Beside her was an antenna radio providing part of the material I needed for my machine.

I looked over at the improvised scanner and shook my head. Building something I could use to test dimensional resonances between the Crystal Gems' temple and my own TARDIS, the usual effect of two different dimensionally transcendental objects being so close together, was difficult given the tools I had to work with. "Ah, here it is!", I heard Amethyst crow. She threw down a small satellite TV dish. I caught it. "Is that what you're looking for?"

I scanned it with my sonic screwdriver before nodding. "It's the best candidate so far." I took it over to the scanner as Liara brought the cooling unit scavenged from the refrigerator.

She asked, "Are you sure this will work?"

"Um... eighty percent sure," I answered. "Go ahead and..."

Together Liara and I affixed the cooling unit and the dish to where they had to go. The result was a backpack-sized unit. "Alright, I'm ready to give it a test. Setting the wavelength..." An old small television screen provided the monitor I needed, with the keys from a typewriter for my controls. It was very surprising how much junk Amethyst had in her room. "Liara?"

Liara's omnitool came to life around her right forearm. "I'm ready to receive data," she answered.

"Good. Well, here we go...!" I flipped the activation switch.

Nothing happened.

We looked at each other and frowned. I looked back to the device and examined it. "Wiring is good, power source working... just what did we..."

Before I could finish that thought, a purple fist came from the side of my vision and smacked the scanner. It came to life. "Ah, thank you, Amethyst," I said. "Although hitting it that hard may have been unnecessary."

"But more fun," she countered with a smile.

I sighed, but this time it wasn't aggravation. Amethyst's antics made me think of some of my sillier moments with Jan back in the day. I looked back to the display. "All right. Let's see how it handles some of these bandwidths..."

I started testing the range of the scanner. Liara confirmed results for me and everything looked quite good. I had again managed a feat of techno-wizardry, cobbling together a dimensional resonance scanner from a lot of, well, scrap.

"Wait, something's..."

I looked up in time to see Liara's omnitool begin to waver. The hard light displays began to destabilize and warp from interference of some sort. "Unexpected," I said, rotating the knob I was using to control the scanner's output. "Distortion effect. Hrm, must be from the..."

I was interrupted by a pair of screams. I turned my head and watched the Gems double over. Their physical bodies began to distort and waver. I immediately twisted the knob the other way until the effect stopped on them and on Liara's omnitool. "My apologies," I said. "I had no idea it'd do that."

"It's... fine." Garnet straightened herself.

"Ow, my head..." Amethyst put a hand in her white hair. "What was that?"

"It appears that at certain operating frequencies, the scanner's emissions have a negative effect upon your Gems." I brought out the sonic screwdriver and walked up to them. "Hrm. Still showing telltale traces of the effect. Again, I am terribly sorry." I swallowed as a thought occurred to me. "A good thing that power source isn't stronger. I shudder to imagine what it might have done."

"Your device, is it ready?", Garnet asked.

"I believe so, yes," I replied. I picked it up and grunted with the effort it required. "Humans and their cast-metal toys," I grumbled.

"I can carry it." One of Garnet's hands came down and gripped the device. She hefted it like it was made of air.

"Oh. Thanks." I wiped at my brow. "Well, let's get back into Steven's part of the home, once I get a fix on the resonance we can start following it."

"Then we find whoever's been attacking the city and bust them up!", Amethyst laughed.

"Something like that, yes," I answered.

The others had made a bit of a circuit around the small beach town while following the energy sources. Part of it was probably my fault in misjudging the effectiveness of the scanners; they weren't fine-tuned enough to tell the minor background remnants from actual distant traces.

And part of it was probably because of our opponents making sure they weren't easily found.

They were trudging along the northern side of the peninsula now, following the exterior of the amusement park. "Katara, can I ask something?", Connie inquired.

"Sure," she answered. Undoubtedly she expected more personal questions and was ready to deflect them.

But Connie was thinking of something else. "What's it like?", she asked.

"Huh?"

"Living with this Doctor," Connie continued. "I mean, are you just hunting these 'Cracks'? What does the Doctor do?"

"Oh. Well... he's a traveler," Katara answered. "The Doctor goes everywhere."

"Everywhere?", Steven inquired. "Where everywhere?"

"Literally everywhere," Katara confirmed. "Different worlds. Different times. He goes to alien planets and space stations and wherever he or his TARDIS decide to go."

"Oh!" Steven's voice picked up in energy. "So could he take us to other planets?!"

"Well, yes," Katara answered after a moment's consideration. "I guess he could."

"That's great!" Steven looked at Pearl. "You should ask him to take us with him, Pearl! You could show me all of those planets you used to visit!"

"Now Steven, the Doctor appears very busy with these tears he talks about," Pearl answered. Given what I later learned, I can imagine the forlorn look that came over her expression as the topic was discussed. "He probably doesn't have the time to take us around like that."

"You... might be surprised," Katara answered, quite familiar with my tendencies at this point.

From what I was told, the expression on Pearl's face shifted to show a sort of uncertain hope.

The phones started beeping. "Wait, what's it doing?", Steven asked, seeing the signal showing on his phone picking up in strength. "I think it's picking something up."

"Mine too!" Connie held her phone up. "This way!"

The children led Katara and Pearl further down the road. "Hey, wait a minute," Steven began to say as they turned the corner. "It's leading us to..."

"...'It's A Wash'?", Katara asked, a slightly confused look undoubtedly on her face. There were still some aspects of other worlds' wordings and such she had yet to grasp, Gift of the TARDIS or no.

Steven looked confused. "Why is it coming from my Dad's car wash?"

Pearl reached to her forehead and generated her spear from her gem. "I'll go in first."

Connie pulled her sword from the scabbard and stepped up behind Pearl, Steven beside her, and Katara in the rear. As they approached they heard a commotion coming from inside the car wash tunnel. The sounds of a struggle provoked Steven to run ahead. "Dad!", he shouted.

"Steven! Wait!" Pearl and Connie were quick to follow.

For Katara, it must have been interesting to step into the car wash tunnel. Not because of it being so different from the world she had known. No, nothing as simple as that.

Seeing herself, as well as Liara and myself, beating up on a middle-aged Human, now that must have been a sight.

Steven's father, by the name of Greg I was to learn, was up against the wall of the wash tunnel with the three impostors standing over him. All four turned to look as Steven and the others ran in. "Steven!", Greg shouted. "Get away!"

"Get away from my Dad!", Steven screamed. A pink circular shield appeared over his left arm and he threw it. Appropriate that his name was "Steven", I suppose, as he was halfway to the name of the other shield-thrower I was acquainted with.

Said shield bounced off the fake Liara, sending her flying. Fake Katara turned and hissed in anger. "How dare you!", she shrieked.

"I was about to say the same!", Katara shouted back at her. She popped her flask open and created a water whip to lash at her doppelganger. The water wrapped around the doppelganger's wrist and yanked her off her feet.

The Liara counterpart jumped back up and rushed forward, generating some form of fighting staff made of dark energy. Pearl went ahead of the others and intercepted her. "What are you?", Pearl demanded.

She received no answer.

That left my counterpart, who pulled a facsimile of my sonic disruptor. Connie's over-sized saber flashed in the air and nearly took his hand off. My doppelganger snarled at her and started using the disruptor like a sword, fencing with the girl. He was quick, almost as quick as I was, but Connie made up for that with her training. Several times her sword cut the material of my counterpart's copied jacket. Whatever else he was, he couldn't match her exquisite swordswomanship.

To make matters worse for him, he wasn't in a one-on-one duel. When he did finally manage to get an opening on Connie, Steven came in with his shield and slammed him backward. Connie slipped under his legs, twisted to her feet, and brought her sword down across his back.

Had it been me, Molly Carpenter's enchantments on my vest would have partly deflected the blow, converting the cut into, at most, kinetic energy that would have knocked me forward but not sliced flesh.

But this being had no armored vest. The blade cut cleanly through flesh and drew a scream from my doppelganger. That scream was cut off by Steven jumping up and slamming his shield into the impostor's face. He fell backward and lost his footing when Connie's sword found the back of his knee, bringing him down.

Given the multiple wounds, his concentration must have failed. Something along those lines at least. His skin began to shift toward crimson and pink and the shape of his body started to change. It only stabilized after several seconds, returning to my shape, but with the skin remaining red. But this happened long enough for another detail to show itself.

Set into the creature's forehead was a red gemstone, easily the size of Pearl's.

"It's another Gem!", Steven shouted in surprise.

My doppelganger laughed at him. When he extended a hand this time, an aperture appeared at the end. Steven caught the ruby beam that erupted from it with his shield. It blew him back into the opposite wall of the tunnel and he collapsed with a groan.

"Steven!" Connie's sword flashed in the air toward the offending hand. My double's other hand swept over in the form of a shield and deflected the blow. Connie retained her balance and swung again and was deflected again, but this time with a move of the shield to bring the sword out of position to stop the doppelganger's shapeshifted gun hand. The gun hand fired again and Connie went flying, landing beside Steven.

"Connie! Steven!" Pearl pushed off against the staff in false-Liara's hands, twirled, and brought her spear down on it with enough force to break it and cause the staff to dematerialize. This prompted false-Liara's skin to turn crimson. A circular red gem appeared below her neck and she sneered. Light erupted from it and she pulled out a pair of dueling blades.

Katara's counterpart was doing the same, revealing a tear-shaped gem in her forehead as her skin shifted red. Energy gathered at her hands and turned the water whip Katara was swinging at her to steam. Katara began pulling the water back to reform it as she needed. She was just starting to turn it into ice when the blaster formed on the fake-Katara's hand and fired. A ruby-colored energy bolt slammed through the forming ice and struck Katara in the belly, sending her flying back into the nearby wall.

"They're Gems!", Greg shrieked.

False-Liara laughed and lunged at Pearl. Which proved a mistake, I suppose. Pearl apparently took this as a sign to not hold back at all, ducking the lunge effortlessly and bringing her spear up into the belly of the false-Liara. The creature shrieked and grew redder.

This seemed to surprise Pearl. She never got a chance to say so, however.

Greg struck her in the back.

"Dad?!", Steven said, horrified, as he watched the figure of his father knock Pearl to the ground.

A vicious sneer crossed the face of his father... as his skin turned crimson and his shape changed to a larger, alien being with gems set into his forehead and hands. A crimson light erupted from the gems in his hands, creating an energy that surged as it enveloped Pearl. She barely had time to call out "Greg?!" in confusion before the light finished enveloping her, forming a bubble of energy. Pearl's spear came up in an effort to puncture it.

Lightning crackled within the sphere just before she could. Her eyes widened, her pupils dilated, and her spear fell from her hand and dissipated harmlessly against the crackling energy within the bubble. She went catatonic and stiff; whatever the energy was, it was preventing her from moving her physical form.

"No!," Steven cried. He tried to get up.

"We have accomplished the objective," the Greg impostor informed his allies. The fake Liara was snarling and hissing as she lifted herself from the floor, oozing fluid from an open wound in the moments before it finished sealing. The fake Greg walked toward one end of the car wash tunnel and pulled the bubble containing Pearl with him.

"Where's my Dad?!", Steven demanded. "What are you doing with Pearl?!"

"You will find out soon, child." The fake Greg looked to the others. "I am returning to base with the package. You three, secure the boy. And do with the others as you see fit." He brought out a device and pressed something on it. A beam of blue light descended from the sky and enveloped him and the bubble containing Pearl, drawing both away.

The three impostors looked toward Steven. "Don't resist, child," the fake me said. "Or we'll kill your little friend."

"Leave Connie alone!", Steven shouted. His shield re-appeared on his arm.

Each of them caused their hands to shift form into weapon barrels.

"Steven." Connie's hand moved up. "The pipes."

"What?" He briefly glanced back to Connie, who was struggling to move, and then back up to the advancing impostors. His eyes moved up to the piping running along the ceiling.

That is, the water pipes delivering water to the sprayers for the car wash.

Now, take it from me. Steven Universe can be a little on the impulsive side at times, and he doesn't always work things out immediately, but he's not slow. He can be a pretty bright lad. So he was quick to realize what Connie was thinking. He heaved and threw the shield up into the pipes. Metal shrieked as the edge of the shield tore right into them, creating a wide gash across several of the pipes. Water flowed from the wounds.

For a moment, Steven's attackers were likely bemused by this gesture. My impostor stepped forward, as if to seize him in defiance of the downpour of water.

But suddenly the pipes shrieked more as the water seemed to come alive. A force was pulling the water out in ever greater volume than the gashes created by Steven's shield.

Katara's arms whirled about her, the water mimicking that movement and gathering together at her command. She cried out in anger and the water solidified into a solid deluge that smashed into the three. They shouted in surprise as they were thrown from the tunnel of the car wash and into the street. Katara wobbled a bit on her feet - she was still wounded, obviously - but she kept her arms moving and her breath flowing, gathering all of her energy to wielding the massive quantity of water flowing from the car wash's pipes. The onslaught kept those attackers pinned.

That was the point where the rest of us showed up.

We had been on our way to "It's a Wash" anyway, as Garnet proposed Greg's van could make a viable platform for the scanner I'd cobbled together. "Isn't that assuming the TARDIS was taken somewhere close by?", Liara pointed out.

"Well, this is the first time we've seen anyone else using warps, and these guys have been attacking the town almost every day," Amethyst answered. "So they're probably pretty close."

"Yes," I agreed. "Given this is the same warp technology you Gems use, I would surmise our culprits have found out how to set a pad to pick up a remote signal and not another one of your pads. But that would require quite a bit of power to be drawn from the pad itself so odds are the range is limited. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred to three hundred kilometers."

"Do you know of any pads in that area?", Liara inquired.

"Yes," Garnet answered, but not as quickly as I had imagined she would.

Curious.

"Wait a minute, Garnet." Amethyst looked to her larger companion. "You don't think it's..."

A column of white light emerged from over the cliff face. "The car wash!", Garnet declared, and she and Amethyst started running.

Very, very fast.

Thankfully I was also quite fast when I really pushed myself, so it was Liara who was taking up the rear. We sprinted around to the roadway, went past the donut shop, and were coming up on the aforementioned car wash when water gushed from the roadside exit of the wash. Three figures flew, screaming, out of it, and as the water cleared I realized it was our dopplegangers. Or at least, our doppelgangers if we had reddish skin.

And then I noticed the gems set into their bodies.

So did Garnet and Amethyst. Garnet set the scanner down and generated her gauntlets and Amethyst pulled out her whip. "They're other Gems!", Amethyst shouted.

A battered, wounded Katara stepped out of the car wash, pummelling our crimson copies with blast after blast of water. Her counterpart twisted under the onslaught and what should have been a hand came up. But it was in the shape of a weapon barrel. A solid beam of ruby energy lashed out and struck Katara through the water. She cried out and fell back.

Amethyst and Garnet leapt into action while I reached for the sonic disruptor. Amethyst's whip wrapped around the hands of the Katara clone before they could fire again and with a firm yank sent her flying. Garnet came down on the fake Liara as she drew blades from the red gem between her neck and sternum. The blades crossed and met her fists, the end result being that she was thrown skidding back along the road nearly to the beachline.

My counterpart faced me and sneered. "Well," he said, "we wondered when you would show up, Time Lord."

"What is all of this about?!", I demanded. "What are you?! Who are you?!"

"The future rulers of this planet," he answered. "And of many others. You arrived just in time."

"Where did you take the TARDIS? You can't possibly get into it!" I held up the disruptor and absorbed a blast from his weapon arm.

He only sneered. An energy blast erupted from his hands again, the same color as the gem set into his forehead, and the energy crashed into the deflector shield of my disruptor.

The fake Katara cried out as she slammed into my counterpart, Amethyst's whip still wrapped around her wrists. She shrieked in rage and the gem on her forehead glowed. A bolt of ruby light slammed into Amethyst's belly and sent her flying, which pulled the Katara clone with her.

I took a look around. My counterpart had yet to get up. Liara's was trying to dodge Garnet's powerful attacks. Behind us Liara was coming up, her biotics flaring into existence, though not strongly since she hadn't had a chance to eat and refresh herself given all of our activity. And there was no sign of Pearl or the children.

This fight had to end. It had to end now.

"Liara, I need that wavelength again!", I shouted, running over to the discarded scanner. She was bringing her omnitool online as she came up to me. "What was it?"

"Wait a moment... here, I've..."

I had just a second to notice it before a bolt of red light sent Liara flying. I turned and saw my counterpart coming up on me, an angry look in his eyes that told me he was ready to end this fight in a permanent fashion.

Thankfully, a second was all I needed.

My sonic made the necessary frequency adjustment for me and I brought the scanner online, this time on a narrow beam. The same disruption effect I'd stumbled into before struck my impostor and his form began to waver. He let out a cry.

My arms strained as I hefted the scanner. I turned in time to catch the fake Katara, now free of Amethyst's whip, as she turned on me. The beam of invisible energy fell on her and she screamed, her body wavering in shape. I noticed it wasn't quite the same though. Not like the scanner had done to Amethyst and Garnet earlier.

"We must withdraw!", my counterpart shouted. "This isn't over, Time Lord!"

I turned in time to see him reaching for a device on his arm. A pillar of white light claimed him before I could bring the device back to bear. Ahead of me, the fake Liara grabbed her's just before Garnet could land a vicious hammer punch.

I swung the scanner back around and caught the fake Katara as she tried. She stumbled, screamed, and took a moment before she resumed the attempt to escape. Amethyst's whip lashed out and wrapped around her wrists and forearms, restraining her. "You're not getting away!"

The only reply was a terrible scream, after which the gem on her forehead shattered violently. I would have been pelted by the resulting shards if not for Liara getting a biotic field in place at the last second.

Amethyst and Garnet walked up to the fallen impostor, whos body began to shift further, losing the Water Tribe robes Katara favored for more of the reddish skin. The complexion of the impostor was starting to take on a more pinkish shade as well.

"Whatever they are, they are not Gems," Garnet noted. "But how could they be using..." She stopped and turned. "Wait. Steven! Pearl! Connie! Where are you?!" She and Amethyst ran toward the car wash.

Steven stepped out with Connie, who was leaning heavily against him and struggling to breathe. Given the blackened part on her blouse, the kind of point-blank energy blast she had taken had undoubtedly caused some form of internal damage to either her lungs and diaphragm. Tears were flowing from Steven's eyes. "I... I can't... my healing isn't..."

"Katara!", I shouted. I saw her stirring from where she had been hit again.

"Steven, what happened?" Garnet asked.

"Th-they took Pearl, Garnet," he cried. "And Dad... Dad w-was one of them..."

Katara managed to get back to her knees. "Set her down," she instructed Steven. Since they were all standing in an ever-expanding pool of water coming from within the car wash, I immediately got what she was doing. The moment Steven lowered Connie back into the water Katara's hands moved over the water around her. It started to give off a familiar ethereal blue light. Connie groaned and breathed in more easily afterward. The moment she sat up, Steven gave her a hug. "She's going to be just fine," Katara assured Steven, putting a hand on his shoulder. "She was just a little hurt, that's all."

He smiled at her in reply. "You can heal too?" The fact he was able to say the sentence without stuttering a word showed he was getting over the crying fit.

"It's a part of my waterbending," Katara explained. "You said something about healing?"

"Y-Yeah. I have healing spit." His eyes looked downward. "But I haven't been able to get it to work again."

"Don't worry," Katara assured him. "I'm sure you'll get it."

"Woh, okay, back it up," Amethyst said, looking at Steven. "Are you saying they took Pearl?"

"Yeah," Steven said. "And they've got my Dad. They replaced him with one of them."

Garnet put a hand on Steven's head. "We'll rescue them, Steven. I promise." She looked over at me. "These things... they know you. Do you know them?"

I turned and looked back to the impostor who had been masquerading as Katara. Even with the sun going down in the western sky, there was enough light left to recognize the being's profile, its shape, and to know precisely what it was. "Yes," I answered, sighing. "I'm familiar with them, at least."

"That's sort of freaky, isn't it?", Amethyst said, stepping up beside me and looking at the enemy she'd helped to subdue. "What is that thing?"

I frowned as I focused on the shape of the thing's head and the triangular shadow it cast behind it.

"It's a Zygon."

The Zygon was not very helpful.

Mostly on account of it being dead.

I looked over the body of the Zygon with my sonic out and scanning. "It can be hard to tell, what with the metamorphical cell structure and such, but it appears to have suffered complete neurological system failure," I surmised.

"Well, you did shatter its Gem," Amethyst pointed out. "We'd be dead too."

"But would you leave a body behind?", I asked.

"Well... no."

"Exactly. Still, it's the most likely explanation," I granted. "If the Zygons are tying themselves closely to the gems they're implanting, then it might make them reliant upon them physiologically."

"These aren't Gems."

I turned my head up to face Garnet. "What do you mean?", I heard Steven ask.

Garnet held up a piece of the shattered gem from the Zygon. "Even a shattered Gem will retain something in the individual pieces. But there is no life inside of this gem. No echo. It was never alive."

I could sense the tension in her voice. "Yet it clearly granted the Zygons the power you wield." I reached down and picked up a small shard of the broken gem to examine. "Where could they have gotten these?"

I noticed Amethyst and Garnet look at each other in clear discomfort. Steven was the one who finally answered me. "Well, the Gems from the Homeworld made a place on Earth to make more Gems. They called it the Kindergarten."

"Did they now?" I frowned. "And this seems to upset you all greatly."

"Well, the Gems told me it's why they fought the Homeworld," Steven continued.

"It is, yes," Garnet answered. "It is not easy for us to talk about, Doctor."

But talk she did, laying out the basics of how this form of Gem production worked. Great injectors to implant what were essentially seedling Gems into the planet, which sucked the life out of the surrounding area to complete the creation of the new Gems. It wasn't a leap to figure out what was going on then. At least in very general terms.

"They re-activated the Kindergarten," Garnet said, and I could detect a hint of cold fury in her voice. "And they're using it to grow gems for their own use."

"That seems the most likely scenario, yes," I agreed. As I said I realized just how macabre the situation really was. The Zygons, in order to wield Gem power, were literally growing brain-dead Gems to implant within themselves. "And this Kindergarten would be within the range I stated earlier? For use of remote warp transporting?"

They nodded at me in reply.

"Well, now we need transportation," I mused. "Using your warp pad is highly dubious as a course as they're certain to be watching it."

"What about Greg's van?"

Amethyst's query caused me to turn to the side of the building. A single old van was sitting there, emblazoned with a colorful stripe and such with the name "Mr. Universe" across the side of the van. I pondered it for the moment. "I suppose we could all fit." I watched Amethyst pull open the back door and sighed. The inside was something of a mess as well, along with a mattress; clearly Greg Universe lived in the back. I pondered why; Steven had a perfectly fine abode at the entrance to the Temple. But such things were minor details, honestly. "Enough room for five of us, at least."

"Um." Connie lifted a hand. "You forgot me and Steven."

"Actually, no I didn't," I answered. "You were in enough danger here. And we know they're after Steven. If we brought him, we might as well put a ribbon on him, present him as a gift to the Zygons."

"But they've got Pearl! And my Dad!", Steven protested.

"Which is why we're going to rescue them," I assured the children.

Connie shook her head. "You need us!" She looked at the Gems. "Are you going to let him leave us behind?!"

Amethyst looked at Garnet, who seemed to remain non-committal. "Well, he's got a point, I think?", Amethyst finally managed.

Garnet crossed her arms and appeared to be deep in thought. After several silent moments she spoke. "It would be safer if Steven and Connie went with us."

I sighed. "This is that future vision Steven says you have? You're saying we're more likely to have a desired outcome if they go?"

The silent "Hm" was enough affirmation for me given the accompanying body language. I sighed again and held my hands up. "All right. We all go."

Liara looked at me sternly. "Are you really going to give in like that?"

"Well, they're almost Jinora's age, and we let her go last time," I pointed out, even if I still didn't like it. Jinora had, after all, been a master Airbender. "The least we can do is make sure we know where they're supposed to be, lest the little ones decide to behave rascally." I looked at them. "But I want you two to be careful, and to remain with one of us at all times. The fact is, Steven, the Zygons wanted you too, and until we know why..."

Katara stepped up between them and set her hands on their shoulders. "I'll watch them, Doctor."

"Ah. Good." I nodded and looked back to the van. "Well, let's get going then. I'd like the time to fine-tune my scanner, so can anyone..."

Before I could finish the sentence, Amethyst had jumped into the driver's seat. "I've always wanted to do this!", she shouted happily.

"Uhhh..." Steven and Connie looked at each other with trepidation.

"Those Zygons even left the keys in the ignition. That's so much easier!" The van's engine came to life.

"It will take time to travel by road." Garnet went to the passenger seat. "We should leave immediately."

Liara looked with trepidation. "I'm going to regret this, aren't i?" She jumped into the back and helped me secure the device among the detritus of Greg's living space. Katara, Steven, and Connie piled in behind us and the children shut the rear door.

"Here we go!" Amythest started cackling as she shifted the van into gear and hit the accelerator.

And I do mean hit.

I will give her driving credit, however. She actually managed to get us out of Beach CIty before nearly killing us.

After a quick stop outside Beach City we resumed our trip. With me at the wheel, which I took after Garnet pulled Amethyst out of the driver's seat (literally), because I was the only other person who could drive a 20th Century motor vehicle. All we had to do is wait for Liara to finish calming her upset stomach down and we were off.

"I will never complain about Shepard's driving again," she had murmured to me while we climbed back in.

And so we were off, driving along the roadways of the Delmarva peninsula's rural reaches, passing through the occasional small town as we went. Garnet had provided me the raw coordinates for the Kindergarten's location, leaving it to me to negotiate the roads to get us there as efficiently as I could.

Amethyst fell asleep while Liara quietly ate some potato chips that Greg had left in his van, tinkering with my scanner as she ate. Behind them I could overhear Connie and Steven talking about the Kindergarten as Steven remembered it.

And then Steven changed the conversation. "Are you okay?", he asked.

"I'm fine," Katara answered quietly, from her place at the back of the van.

"But you look miserable." I heard Steven move. I glanced in the rear-view mirror long enough to see he and Connie were shifting closer to Katara. "So I know you're not okay."

I imagine Katara's eyes narrowing. She didn't like talking about it, not until the grief became too much and she broke down from it. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh. Well..." I glanced again and saw Steven and Connie looking at each other. "Thank you for helping Connie."

"That's really cool, how you can heal people with water," Connie added, trying to keep some enthusiastic warmth in her voice. "And all those other things you did."

"Yeah. I wish my healing powers worked that well." Steven's voice took on a sadder tone. "Sometimes I wonder if they'll ever come back."

There was silence for a moment. "I'm sure they will," Katara finally said.

"So, what kind of world do you come from?", Connie asked. "Can anyone do what you can?"

"No. In my world, there are four nations, all from the elements. I'm from the Water Tribe, so I'm a waterbender. Someone from the Earth Kingdom would be an earthbender. And not everybody is born with bending. My brother Sokka couldn't bend. My parents couldn't either." Her voice wavered a little.

"Wohhhhh," was the amazed reply from both children, undoubtedly imagining what said world looked like.

Things went silent. I heard someone moving in the back and a glance showed me that Steven had crawled up behind the front seats. "Doctor, can I ask you a question?"

"Certainly, Steven," I replied.

"What's it like?"

"Hrm?"

"Traveling to other worlds," he continued. "Katara says you go to all of these different worlds and places."

"Oh, well, it's quite enjoyable. I'm not surprised a young man like you is interested in all the sights. Nebulae visible from planets, grand vistas of binary systems, great space habitats, all of that sort of thing."

"Actually..." A glance at the mirror confirmed he was being more thoughtful than giddy on the subject. "It's not just that. Pearl talked about traveling to other worlds before and she really misses it."

"Ah." I checked the van's gauges just out of caution and put my eyes back on the road. "And what was it you had in mind, Steven?"

I believed I already knew what the boy was going to say next. But he didn't get the chance. He pointed ahead, moving his arm to near my face. "Look!"

I was looking indeed. Ahead of us, I could watch as grass was starting to visibly wilt. We kept going and soon were driving upon gray and dead land. I held my sonic out the window and slowed down enough to get a proper scan. "It's all dying," I said upon checking the results. "Something is drawing the energy right out of the cells of every living thing in the ground."

"The Kindergarten." Garnet's voice was tense with anger. "Someone has set it to full power."

"Then we mustn't dally," I said, and my foot pressed down harder on the accelerator. The van's engine revved and the vehicle picked up speed. "We have to stop them."

Great towering edifices of lifeless stone told me we had arrived at our destination. I pulled the van up to the nearest roadside and we stepped out. In the distance metallic whirring and drilling could be heard. I ran my sonic in the air. "These 'injectors' of yours are putting out quite the power signature."

"Here." Liara helped me sling the scanner over my back. A hardlight interface she had rigged up with her omni-tool allowed me to review the sensor data that would lead us to the TARDIS. She gave my systems a double-check. "Everything is fine."

"Good, good. Now..." I clapped my hands together. "Shall we get going?"

The Gems drew their weapons. Connie balanced the big pink saber on her shoulder and stepped up beside Steven and Katara. "Everyone be ready," Garnet said. "They saw us coming."

"They had to have," I remarked. If anything, I suspected there might still be Zygon infiltrators back at Beach City who would have reported our departure.

We walked forward into the misty environs. Which were a perfect place for a trap if you ask me. I kept an eye on the scanner systems as we went, walking around active injectors; great large machines sending drilling shafts into the earth, resembling bacteriophages if anything.

How... thematically appropriate.

We came up to an injector and I halted. It looked like it was going through a technical fault cycle. Clearly it had been working and had merely stopped for a mechanical reason. We started to clamber over it. What looked to be a beating heart of sorts was working irregularly within the canister tube segment of the device. I held up my sonic to it. "Hrm. Looks like the central core is faulty. Some of the wiring looks to be shorted out."

"Well, this Gem stuff is old," Amethyst remarked. "Maybe it's just too old."

"Or it was damaged long ago." Garnet kept quietly sweeping the area.

"Still... it would make for an opportunity." I kept moving around it until I found a manual interface. Or rather what looked like an interface for Gems to use with their mutable forms. I used the sonic to activate it. "Hrm. What do you make of this?"

Garnet stepped up beside me and looked at the screen. She set a hand on the injector. "They've done something to the Gem cores the injector is planting. The Gems they've made are wrong."

"Wrong in what way?" I asked.

"They have no mind. No guiding intelligence," Garnet said. "They wouldn't be able to do anything."

"I see." I turned off the display and started running my sonic over the controls. Just doing the usual Doctor-y things. "Then that explains what's going on."

"It does?" Amethyst looked up at me. "Because it just makes me confused. Why would they set the Kindergarten up to grow useless Gems?"

"Because..."

I didn't get the chance to answer. The entire injector shook and tilted to its side with a violent shudder. Everyone cried out in surprise as we all slid to the ground as a result. Liara managed a biotic field in mid-air that lowered herself and the children more slowly. Garnet regained her balance in mid-air and landed flat on her feet. The rest of us managed to roll with the impact.

When I looked up, we were surrounded by a semi-circle of Zygons. They hadn't shapeshifted, not yet anyway, but I could immediately tell there was something different about them.

Notably the red gems laid into their foreheads, sternums, and in two cases, palms.

I got to my feet. "Well, here I was, about to complain about the service. Finally deigned to show yourselves, eh?"

"Time Lord." One of the Zygons held up a hand. "You brought us the hybrid child. And the others. Excellent."

"Where's my Dad?!", Steven shouted. His shield appeared on his left arm. Connie stepped up beside him and pulled the pink saber from its sheath. "Where is Pearl?!"

"Come with us, child, and you'll see them."

"You'll have to go through me first!", Connie shouted.

Katara stepped up to their side to watch a Zygon moving that way. "And me."

Amethyst growled and summoned her whip from her gem.

As she did so, the Zygons began to shapeshift. The one who was speaking turned into a copy of me, presumably the same fellow we'd fought in Beach CIty, and two more turned into Liara and Katara.

The others shifted as well, turning into copies of the Gems themselves. All three of them.

Which confirmed what I already suspected. "So this is what it's all about, eh?", I stated while reaching for my sonic disruptor. "That's why you're implanting those mindless Gems into yourselves. You're combining their properties with your metamorphical cells to give yourself shapeshifting at will. No more need for imprints to keep the shape, eh?"

My doppelganger smirked. "Among other benefits."

As was clear when they turned their hands to energy weapons or generated the weapons of the Gems.

"Give in, Time Lord," demanded my doppelganger. "We have power you couldn't comprehend."

"Well, isn't that embarrassing, I was about to suggest the same to you," I countered. "Return your prisoners and the TARDIS and I give you my word, I'll let you go back home through whatever tear in the fabric of space brought you here."

"Offer denied!", was the reply.

I brought up the sonic disruptor in time to absorb the shot he sent at me and the one fired at Liara. She gathered her strength and threw out a biotic singularity. Our doppelgangers jumped out of its way.

There was a loud boom and I turned to notice Garnet fighting her Zygon impostor, armored gauntlet versus armored gauntlet. She ducked a thrown punch, hopped a kick, and slammed her fists into the Zygon's face. It fell backward while howling from the impact.

Amethyst's double lashed out with a copy of her whip. The diminutive Gem rolled away from the strike and countered. Her counterattack was caught by the spear of the Zygon impersonating Pearl, who cut the whip with the spear's tip. The fake Amethyst lashed out again and her whip wrapped around Amethyst. "Woh!" She shapeshifted into the likeness of a large, yet still very purple, male wrestler, breaking the whip in the process. "Ha! What's the matter, can't copy me that well?!", Amethyst shouted. She generated another whip and used it to yank the spear away from the Zygon-Pearl. "What did you do with Pearl, huh?!"

Their reply was to keep attacking.

Katara's double was coming after her with energy weapons. Katara trailed water from one of her carrying bottles, using it to strike at the energy weapon hand with her water whip mingled with ice projectiles. Her counterpart dodged those strikes while maintaining its own attack. One shot nearly connected, only to be blocked by Steven's shield. He advanced with the shield raised against attack and Connie followed, sword at the ready. The Zygon-Katara realized their plan and shifted weapons to face them, generating larger and more powerful blasts that staggered Steven behind his shield.

A solid column of ice slammed into the fake Katara and sent her flying into the cliffside, or rather one of the holes in said cliffside. Katara pulled her arms backward, a motion that pulled the ice back and returned it to water.

Had I not been so pressed by my counterpart I would have had time to cry out a warning. Zygon-Pearl came flying in, spear raised, and Katara didn't see her coming until it was almost too late. She jumped forward just as the sharp spear cut along her back. She turned in her jump and flung a host of ice shards at her new attacker. The shards tore into flesh and damaged the pretender enough that the Zygon's natural coloring started to show on Pearl's normal features. The Zygon extended a hand and fired a quick pulse that Katara didn't have time to dodge, sending her flying back toward the broken injector. Zygon-Pearl went in for the kill.

Steven and Connie intercepted the downward strike before it could find Katara's heart. Steven's shield caused the blow to slide away harmlessly and opened up the fake Pearl to a multitude of attacks from Connie. She handled the saber like an expert would, driving the fake ever backward. A few times the fake seemed to find some ground again. But it was never enough. Connie was, despite her age, simply too much. Their quick duel culminated in a clever bit of swordplay that took the spear from the fake's hand. Before the Zygon-Pearl could go for another, Connie spun away and Steven came in, bashing the Zygon with his shield. Connie came in from the side and brought the blade down on the red gem set in the Zygon's forehead. It cracked under the blow. The Zygon screamed in agony and toppled backward.

There was another cry. My doppelganger turned and scowled at seeing Liara's biotics holding her Zygon duplicate in mid-air. Liara threw out a bolt of biotic energy that collided with the singularity and produced a powerful explosion that sent the Zygon-Liara flying into the far cliff wall.

"Having a little trouble, are we?", I said, smirking.

A quick glance confirmed for me that they were. They were down three and the Garnet and Amethyst copies were being handily beaten by the real things.

The same glance told him the same. "Do you think this will change anything, Time Lord?"

"Well, yes, rather," I said. "I'm not sure what dreams of conquest you've gotten, but I won't let you harm this planet."

The Zygon laughed. "You haven't the faintest clue what's really going on here. The real power at play."

"Then enlighten..." I stopped.

He was distracting me.

But from what?

I switched to offense with a kinetic blast that threw the Zygon backward, although not nearly with the same violence the same blast would have propelled me. I turned and realized what was going on.

Alas, a moment too late.

The Katara-Zygon was back up. But not back in the fight. Instead it had slipped by to the broken injector we'd passed and taken control. The device stood up on its legs and moved toward us. "Oh bugger," I breathed.

Liara generated a biotic singularity and threw it at one leg,, looking to unbalance the device. It stopped for a moment, shifting weight, and then began to turn. A drill bit dropped from the bottom of the main body and plunged toward LIara. She jumped out of the way just in time. The drill buried itself into the earth and kept going.

Ah. Of course. Hard-programmed, the Zygons couldn't just lift the drill right away.

I held up my sonic to try and remotely seize up the injector. "Well, if you want to play this game...", I muttered.

A powerful blast of energy threw me to the ground. I turned and had to get my deflector up to absorb another shot from my counterpart. "You're awfully persistent!"

"This is our future!", the Zygon answered. "The future of my entire species! A new world to claim! Power like nothing we have ever known!"

The Zygon-Garnet slammed into my counterpart and they both went flying. I turned and saw Garnet going for one of the legs. "Amethyst! The leg!"

Amethyst looked up from where she had wrapped up her Zygon counterpart. "Just as we were having fun!" She punched the Zygon in the head and pulled another whip from her gem.

The Crystal Gems assaulted the legs on the far side and Liara took up a third, leaving one leg for the rest of us. Or rather, for me and Katara, as I was quick to bark, "Children, keep your distance!" I looked to Katara. "Katara, use whatever water you've got left, freeze the upper leg! As cold as you can!"

"I've got it!" She pulled the rest of her water out and sent it at the upper section of the leg, where it was thinnest.

I brought up the sonic disruptor and waited for the ice to finish solidifying. As soon as Katara reached her limit I used a full kinetic blast. The metal was already weakened from age and use; the flash-freezing had put it over the edge. It snapped like a twig. The injector began to fall over.

A blast of energy came from the side of my vision and struck Katara directly. She went flying into the shadow of the falling injector. I had enough time to see my doppelganger, energy still in his hand, smirking.

"Katara!" Steven and Connie ran to her side at the same time I did.

Again, into the shadow.

"Steven, watch out!," Garnet shouted.

I was already lifting Katara into my arms when Garnet's cry to Steven prompted us all to look up. Connie and Steven cried out as the injector fell toward us. Faster than it should have, as became clear when I saw the Zygon-Katara jumping off it from the other end.

I pulled an arm away from Katara, looking to try and shield us with my sonic disruptor, even if I doubted I could stop something that big from crushing us.

Pink energy surrounded us, looking like a blooming rose until it solidified into a bubble.

And then the injector fell on us.

Which, in turn, caused the ground to collapse below us. Everyone cried out as we fell into the darkness.

One of the many, many benefits off the armored vest I wore was that the physical and magical enhancements of the vest protected my ribs from things like falling into dark and dusty holes created by crashing alien technology, all with a fairly weighty dimensional resonance scanner still on my back. I coughed a bit as I picked myself up.

"Steven? Steven?!" Connie coughed through the darkness.

"Connie? Unnh... Connie, are you..."

"Hold it!", I said. "Let me get a light." I tested the display for my rigged-up dimensional resonance scanner, since its light could still work even if the display itself wasn't what I needed, but it didn't pop up. Blasted scrap parts, the fall must have knocked out something.

So I reached into my pocket and pulled out an electric torch. That is, a flashlight for you Yanks. A flip of the switch and a beam of light illuminated the darkness. I moved it about until I found Steven and Connie within a few feet of each other. "There." I let out another small cough from all the dust in the air. "Now where is Katara?"

A low moan came to my hearing. I looked the other way and found her sprawled out on the ground. The front of her blue robes had been burnt black by the energy blast. I went over to her and brought up the sonic. "Katara. Can you hear me?"

The children came up behind me. "Is she going to be okay?", Connie asked.

I swallowed. Going by the sonic, the blast had damaged Katara's lungs and diaphragm, not to mention her tissues surrounding that rather vital organ and its supporting muscle. "If we can get her to the TARDIS, yes," I answered. I reached into my pocket for the emergency medi-gel shot I carried. "Here, this should help."

We all waited for the seconds that it took for the medi-gel to do its work. I frowned when Katara still struggled to breathe. It wasn't enough.

"Steven, maybe you should try," Connie suggested.

He looked at her and then to Katara. Worry and doubt cast a pall on his young face. "I... I don't think it'll work... it doesn't work anymore."

"Can't you at least try...?"

"Doesn't matter," Katara wheezed. I turned my head sharply to her.

"What?", I asked.

"I shouldn't... exist anymore... anyway..." She wheezed from the damage to her lungs. "Just leave me..."

"Don't you talk like that," I growled. "Don't you dare."

Steven moved up beside me. "How could you say something like that, Katara?"

She moved her eyes to look at him and Connie. I saw tears form in her eyes. She struggled to breathe before replying, "I have..." A sharp breath. "...nothing left. Nothing."

"But that's not true," Steven protested. "You've got the Doctor, and Liara, and going to all of those different worlds and places..."

"But that's not..." A cough. "...what I want." She started to cry. "I want..." Another wheeze. "...my family back. I want... Toph... and Sokka... and Gran-Gran and... Pakku... I want Aang back."

As she gave the abbreviated litany of family and friends who had perished before her very eyes, the depths of her despair had become more than evident. For all my efforts to help her find a new life, I couldn't bring that old one back for her, and the yearning in her strained voice showed just how attached she remained to it. New worlds, new people, how could that compare to the life she should have led? The family she should have had? The only hope I could ever give her was if I found a way to give that life back to her. Since I couldn't... she wouldn't have hope. Only despair at ever knowing the happiness she once had.

And, now, a desire to just end the struggle. To accept her loss not on the road to gaining a new life, but to simply ceasing to be.

In the dim light I saw Steven and Connie look to me. I sighed and realized I had to explain more fully than I had before. "Time travelers destroyed everything she cared about. We... that is I and others... ended up stopping the time travelers, but because she was in the TARDIS, and because she became so different... she remained in existence. Even when our victory removed her entire timeline."

"But doesn't that mean everyone she misses is still alive?", Steven asked.

Connie added her own question. "You saved them, right?"

"Yes." I nodded. "But another her already exists at that time. Another her that is living the life she can never have."

"That's so sad..."

Steven nodded at Connie's words. He looked back to Katara. "I'm sorry all of that happened to you. I... I'm scared that can happen to me. That something will happen to Connie and my Dad and the Gems."

Katara looked at him as he spoke.

"They're, they're all I have. And they're in trouble. And you're really good with that water stuff you do and... and your healing... and what I guess I'm..." Steven stopped talking. "What's the use? My healing doesn't work anymore anyway."

"Steven..." Connie took his hand.

I looked to the readings from my sonic again. In an ordinary situation, this wouldn't be a big deal. The TARDIS had the means to easily stabilize Katara's condition.

But down here? In this dark, dusty hole, with naught but a sonic screwdriver and a couple other distinctly non-medical tools? I didn't have the means to save her. "You said your spit could heal?", I asked.

"Y-yeah..." When my torch moved enough again to illuminate Steven's face directly, I could see the streaks of tears going down his face. "But it doesn't work anymore."

"Can you try?" I leaned toward him. "Please?"

He looked scared at that. I saw the fear of failure in his dark eyes. "But what if it doesn't work?"

"Then nothing changes," I answered. "But if it does, you save Katara's life."

He sniffled. And then he nodded. "Okay."

Traveling the wonders of creation leads to some pretty bizarre sights. Watching the Goblins of Eorzea in their cheesemaking, for instance (I couldn't get Asami to eat any cheese again for almost a month). But watching a young boy lick his hands and apply the spittle as a life-saving measure? Oh, that's one for the record books.

We watched and waited. But nothing happened. In the dim light I could see Steven's self-doubt come to the fore. "It's not working," he said. "See? My healing doesn't work anymore."

"You tried. That's the important thing," Connie said to him.

"But..." Tears appeared in his eyes. "What if it's you next time? Or Dad or one of the Gems? What if you need me to heal you and I can't? What if...?"

He started to cry a little. I rested a hand on his shoulder. "You'll figure it out, don't worry," I said. "These things can take time..."

I looked back to Katara, who was looking at Steven as Connie comforted him. The tears in her eyes reflected the beam of my torch.

Her hand moved up toward the little spit wad over her wound. A small smile came to her face. "Actually," she said, her breath still labored and difficult, "I do feel healing power in this."

Steven and Connie looked over to her. "What?", he asked.

"There's power here. I think I can..." Katara concentrated and moved her hand gently over the drying spitwad. It started to glow blue, an ethereal light even brighter than water normally got when she applied her waterbending healing to it. Light enough to illuminate the cavern we'd fallen into briefly. Katara gasped softly and then seemed to breathe easier. I checked my sonic and confirmed that the damage was healed. At least, healed enough that she wasn't in any danger. "Thank you, Steven," she said to him.

"You mean my healing spit still works?", he asked. "But why isn't it working for me anymore?"

"I'm not sure, but I know you can figure it out." Katara sat up slowly and kept looking at him. "It took me years of practice to get my waterbending skills to where they are now."

Steven nodded and smiled, as did Connie. The two children then took Katara into a hug, which she returned. The smile on her face was not as painful as before. There were still tears in her eyes. "You remind me of Aang," she admitted to Steven. She looked at me and I nodded and smiled as well.

"What was he like?", Connie asked her.

"He loved life," Katara answered, tears bright in her eyes. "He loved having fun. He loved to meet people and help them work through their problems. And he always tried to keep people from fighting and find peaceful solutions. He only fought when he had to."

That prompted a nod of understanding from the children. "You loved him a lot," Steven observed.

Katara nodded and wiped at the tears going down her cheeks, leaving behind smudge marks from the dust. "Yes. I did."

For a moment nothing more was said. I started to examine our surroundings while they had their tender moment. Just to make efficient use of the time, mind you. Inwardly I was more focused on Katara and what effect this meeting was having on her. I had wondered so often at just how I might help her come to grips with what happened to her.

Now it looked like I'd found the answer I needed in the guise of a curly-haired pre-adolescent boy.

Don't you just love it when things turn out so unexpectantly?

As for my other work, my sonic did confirm my suspicion. There was a buildup of temporal energy in the area consistant with what I expected to find; the Crack was somewhere in the Kindergarten. That settled the "how" quite well.

Now it was time to confirm what was going on with the Zygons and what they were doing to this Earth.

As I swept the torch around I saw something sparkle. I got to my feet and briefly pointed upward with the torch, letting its beam shine over the ceiling of our little dusty hideaway. The hole that we had come down through was visible, but no light shined from above. Undoubtedly from the Injector having landed upon it.

Satisfied I had the head clearance I required, I walked over to the sparkle I saw. Upon standing over it I realized what I was looking at. A red gem reflected the light of my torch. I scooped it up and held it in my hands, shifting away dust with my fingers. I gripped the torch under my arm pit and pulled out the sonic screwdriver to scan.

"Doctor, what is it?", I heard Katara ask.

"One of the Zygons' gems," I replied. "Must have just formed from the process they're using." I kept the sonic over it, adding purple light to the mixture before me. "Hrm. Ahhh... I think I see."

"See what?" I heard footsteps and looked over to see Steven and Connie were standing beside me. Katara walked up beside them.

"Why the Zygons want you. Why they took Pearl." I chuckled. "Oh, you fools, you silly fools. Mucking about with things you don't fully understand, and look where it's gotten you."

"Doctor?"

"Sorry, just finishing confirmation of a theory," I answered. "Now, we should get going." I shined the torch about. "I'd think there would be an exit about here somewhere, the Zygons do need a way to get their new gems out after all..."

I shined the torch about. The only indication I found of an exit was the outline of a cave leading out now filled with debris. Blast. The Injector's collapse must have caused a general cave-in.

"So..." Connie looked up at me. "How are we going to get out?"

I looked around, trying to think of a solution. Blasting the debris away with the sonic disruptor was the most likely way to work, but also the most likely to cause a further cave-in. "Hrm..."

Pink light filled the cavern. We all turned to its source, a portal forming nearby. A single creature leapt from it, landing on all fours beside Steven. Taking in its features, all in pink as well, I was surprised to see it was a...

"Lion!", Steven cried out. "Good boy, you came!" He ruffled the pink lion's mane. "We're going to need you to get us out of here."

The lion made a low, not unfriendly growl.

I blinked. "Lion... Lickers?"

Steven nodded. "Yeah, he..." The boy's eyes widened and he looked to me. "Wait a minute, how did you know about those?"

"Well, your pink friend is asking for one," I answered.

The children looked at me in surprise. "You can talk to animals?", Connie asked, incredulous.

"Well, some," I said. "Depends on their intelligence."

Lion growled again.

"Yes, yes, you'll get your Licker whatevers, after we get out of here," I answered.

Another growl.

Oi. And I thought Mouse gave me enough lip.

"Can you get us out of here?", Steven asked Lion.

Lion seemed to consider it. He turned to face the rubble blocking the exit and let out a growl. Waves of force left his muzzle and struck the debris, breaking it up and throwing it about. The exit from the cavern was visible beyond.

I narrowed my eyes at the beast. "I could have done that."

There was a little growl of satisfaction.

"Smart aleck," I muttered, after which I stepped into the opening. I shut off the torch and held out the sonic. "Going by my readings, we have a clear path toward the center of the Kindergarten, this way," I said. "But we'd best keep the lights down so they don't spot us."

"Right," I heard Steven agree. "Wait, one moment. Here Lion..."

I heard plastic crackling behind me and happy growling from Lion. He'd gotten his Lickers. After a moment I held my hand out. I felt Katara take it. Presumably Steven took her hand and Connie took Steven's.

We walked into the darkness.

The tunnel went on into another dark chamber, where a greater number of the red gems were present. A scan confirmed for me what I had seen before, and so we continued wordlessly.

The next chamber was lit up. Machinery moved about, examining the gems forming along the walls and scooping up a few completed ones. The environs were dusty and sterile, fitting as the soil was now completely devoid of the characteristics that would have let it sustain any form of life. I spied a Zygon in the distance looking away from the entrance. I led the others around the machinery, making sure not to be seen, and soon we were in another tunnel.

"What do we do if we get spotted?", Katara whispered to me.

"Run," I answered. "But let's not get spotted, eh?"

There was another chamber, also gathering red gems, and this one was completely unmanned. We moved along the wall again and were justified in this measure when a Zygon emerged from one of the other openings. This one had a gem set into its sternum. It looked about and then headed on to the tunnel we had just left. As soon as a scan confirmed we were alone, I looked to the others. "They might be looking for us. And we're getting close to the center of their operation, so don't do anything unless I instruct you."

Steven and Connie nodded quietly.

Another fully lit tunnel took us to yet another chamber like the others. Even more of the red gems were present. This time, however, not all were intact. I exploited the fact that it was unmanned to move forward and get a scan of some of the fragments. Yes, total confirmation. I was right.

About what, you ask? Well, let me get back to you on that.

A pair of voices were coming from another tunnel. I pulled the others into hiding behind one of the containers for the red gems. "...unnecessary, why return when we can conquer here? There are no Sontarans, no Rutan, no Daleks, and definitely no Time Lords to intervene against us."

The two Zygons who entered were still in altered shape, looking like myself and Liara. "And there are no worlds worth it," the Zygon-Liara replied to my counterpart. "Once we finish studying these gem creatures, we can use their powers to conquer what we see fit."

"If we can perfect them." I heard some pain in my counterpart's voice. "The imperfections are too limiting." A growl. "Either way, we need that mewling child."

"I've sent..."

Their voices faded. Presumably they entered another tunnel.

"Their gems aren't working right," Steven said in a low voice. "So that's why they want me?"

"Oh, yes," I answered, my voice equally low. "Very much yes. And that's why we shan't let them have you, Steven." I scanned quickly and found where to go. "This way."

As we went, I kept my eyes open for any internal security systems. There weren't any that I could see. Presumably the Zygons didn't believe they had any risk of someone sneaking about. More likely, they had limitations on how much they could bring through the Crack, and internal security systems were one thing they had to skimp on compared to other priorities.

Still... I had questions about what was going on, and I knew where to find the answers.

The next chamber, as it turned out.

Well, here we were.

The main chamber of the tunnels under the Kindergarten looked like it had once been used by the Gems who created the Kindergarten, now repurposed for use by the Zygons. A shaft in the far wall existed for a lift to head up to the surface, with at least three other ways out that I could see. All undoubtedly going to other tunnels. The chamber itself was large and full of machinery and technology of both Gem and Zygon make, including several obvious reactors to give the Zygon base the power it required. Within the room must have been at least a dozen Zygons with gems set into their bodies. None of them were shapeshifted at the moment save one; the Zygon impersonating Steven's father. He was at one end of the room at some controls, speaking to someone, while the others were checking various stations. "... our end of the deal," he said in a growled tone. "Is the transmat ready to work?"

As he asked that I scanned the room with my sonic, not to mention a visual scan to go with it. Along one side were a number of capsules. A few were empty, but most had occupants. I noticed Steven's father was in one. Pearl was in another. A pudgy young man with curly yellow hair, a woman in a postal office outfit...

...and Liara and the other Gems as well.

Steven poked his head around the corner of the tunnel. "They've got Dad and the Gems..." He looked over the others. "Ronaldo? Sadie's mom? And I think that's one of the guys who run the kitchen store."

"They're in stasis and attached to body print readers," I noted. "It's how Zygons usually change shape to resemble other beings."

"Hey, Steven?" Connie tapped him on the shoulder. "Is that...?"

I looked over with Steven to not quite far end of the room, where the Zygon-Greg was standing with another figure now moving into view. This one... was most definitely not a Zygon. The skin or surface was primarily shades of green, the fingers on the hands weren't actually attached to the hand proper, and... oh yes, a green gem was set into the forehead, flatter than the oval shape of Pearl's gem.

"That's Peridot," Steven gasped.

"A friend?", I asked.

"She's one of the Homeworld Gems." Given his tone of voice, I needn't ask if that was good or bad. It definitely sounded negative.

"Didn't you say she created those Gem Mutants we fought in the Hospital?", Connie asked, as if needing to confirm for me my calculation on what side Peridot was on.

Before he could answer I shushed them both, not just to avoid detection but to ensure I could hear.

"...promised me!", the Gem called Peridot was shouting, her voice on the shrill side. "I did what I promised! Now get me off this stupid planet!"

"I promised to get you back to your homeworld when we finished our work," the Zygon answered. "We're not done."

"But you're expecting me to help you create these... these things?" Peridot's voice dripped with disgust as she held up one of the red gems. "So far you've given me nothing for my work! Without me you wouldn't have been able to re-activate the Kindergarten or rig the warp pad for remote transport! Don't expect me to have to clean up your failures too!"

The Zygon leader didn't look happy at that. It was curious that he was still in Greg Universe's form. Or, at least, curious if you weren't me. "You may have noticed that we took care of your other problem."

"What, the clods?" Peridot laughed. "I get away from them all the time."

"I see. So they didn't cost you your foot..."

As they argued I looked about and felt a tinge of frustration. I couldn't see if the TARDIS was present. I reached behind me and tapped something on the scanner I was carrying, but even it couldn't give me a definite reading. The TARDIS could be somewhere in here I couldn't see, or she could be in a nearby chamber, still behind whatever isolation field was keeping me from calling her.

Well. There was nothing more to be done about it. We couldn't stand here all day. Eventually some Zygon would need to leave down this tunnel, or would return through this tunnel, and we would be spotted. We needed to act.

I stepped back into the tunnel and knelt low, drawing the others to do the same. "Connie, I need you to sneak over to those capsules and release the Gems."

"How?", she asked.

I held out my sonic screwdriver. After some consideration I handed it to Connie. "Here, point this at the capsule and press."

She looked over the screwdriver with surprise in her dark eyes. "That's it?"

I nodded. "That's it. Wonders of Time Lord technology." I winked.

"What if they see me?", Connie asked.

"Oh, don't worry about that. Katara will be watching your back as best she can."

Katara nodded at that.

Steven, on the other hand, actually looked a little perturbed by it. "But, what about me?"

"Oh, what about you, eh?" I ruffled his curly hair. "You and I are due on stage, Steven. We're going to give them quite the performance. Up for it?"

I was answered by a nod.

By the time I finished explaining what I was about to do, shouts were coming from the control room. We all looked back and watched Peridot clenching a disembodied fist. "I should have known never to deal with organics! I never agreed to this ridiculous experiment of yours."

"The Steven Universe child is the key."

"And you clods can't even catch him! Even if you did, that doesn't mean we can get this to work! Gems aren't meant to be implanted in organic bodies and controlled!"

"You are going to help," the Zygon insisted. "One way or the other."

"Oh yeah?!" Peridot brought her arm up. Her fingers pointed outward save one, looking very much like it was going to be used as a weapon. "How are you going to make me, clod?!"

Another Zygon moved up behind her and held a hand out. Energy erupted from the gem in the hand and snapped into place around Peridot before she could move. She flinched from it when she tried to hit it with her other hand. "What are you doing?!," she demanded.

"Put her with the others. A fourth intact Gem will give us more options for the experiments."

I looked down to see Steven looked... rather ferocious, given the usual expressions I've seen for him. But I could understand it. The Zygons had just admitted the fate they had in mind for the Crystal Gems. For his family. "Don't waste it," I murmured to him. "Hold it down. Be ready to use it when the time comes. Are you ready to start the show?"

Before he could answer, a chime came from within the room. "Lord Grolon," a voice said, "we're getting a transmission through the tear again."

The Zygon didn't seem entirely pleased. He reached down and pressed a key on the nearest control surface. "Yes?"

A voice came through on the other end, distorted to the point I couldn't make out anything identifiable about the speaker save that it sounded vaguely masculine. "Is the Time Lord's TARDIS ready?"

I held up a hand. I didn't want to interrupt this part.

"Nearly so," Grolon - Zygon-Greg - answered.

"Do not take me for a fool, Grolon. It is a simple matter to prepare it for the transmat process."

"Maybe so." Grolon moved about. "But you have not informed us of why you desire this device so greatly. I am well aware of the power of Time Lord technology. I will not give it away so simply."

"If you want to see the rest of your people safe on this side of the tear, you will follow our arrangement. You will give me the Time Lord's TARDIS."

Well, that was that. I decided it was time to step in. "Oh ho ho, now what do we have here?!", I shouted, stepping out of the tunnel and going toward "Grolon" and the other Zygon. Steven came up behind me, as I had requested him to do. "Hello everyone! So pleased to see you, get acquainted, that sort of thing. So, who do we have here on the other end of this call? Because I rather like my TARDIS, sir, and I don't think you can do right by her."

I received no actual reply to that. Whomever was on the other end decided to cut the communication. The Zygons, for their part, reacted with stares of surprise and anger. And those with gems in their bodies brought forth weapons. I laughed. "Yes, bring out the guns. You're the hosts, after all, wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable, would I?"

"You are that mad?", Grolon asked. His voice was stuffed with incredulity at my audacity. "You have just surrendered yourself and the child we seek!"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh please, you lot seem to know so much about me that you should know better. Now, since I'm talking with the boss and not that bore who's going around trying to emulate my good looks, perhaps we can come to an agreement."

Grolon stared at me. "An agreement?", he asked dully, stunned that I should have the pure cheek to do something like that.

"Yes. An agreement by which you return back through the Crack in the Multiverse so I don't have to get nasty to protect this planet and its guardians," I answered.

For a moment the Zygon stared. Then he started to laugh. The others joined in. "Time Lord arrogance! You always think you're so much smarter."

Well. That wasn't in the script.

And then I heard the very slight shuffling of feet behind me.

Steven and I looked back. Connie and Katara were being held at gunpoint by my counterpart and Liara's.

Oh. Bugger. So much for that idea, eh?

So, my nice plan to get the others free was out. Steven and I were still in the middle of the Zygon control room while Katara and Connie were under close watch by our Zygon counterparts. The Zygon-Liara was holding Connie's sword in one hand already.

"Connie!", Steven shouted.

The poor girl looked positively miserable. "They got us right after you walked out," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Such a simple tactic," Grolon laughed. "Did you expect such minor misdirection to actually work, Time Lord? You are easily caught."

I should have been nervous at this point. Surrounded, overmatched, isolated, against an enemy with quite a bit of power and every advantage..

It must have been surprising to Grolon when I didn't react like that, though. "Am I so easily caught?", I asked, smiling at him.

"Be as defiant as you want. Now that we have the boy, we can learn how his gem interacts with his body."

"Thus negating that whole problem with losing control of them over time, eh?", I asked. "Not to mention their fragility. I've heard of 'glass cannons' before, I just never expected anyone to literally do that to themselves. And it looks like you have a problem with the shapeshifting now, don't you? I can't imagine you'd still be in a Human's shape for fun, after all." At that I shook my head. "Having difficulty with the gems you're using mucking up the metamorphical cells, hrm?"

Grolon laughed. "Yes, we have had problems. Thankfully, we have other things as well." He looked away from me to the capsules with their prisoners. "Here we have the hybrid, hostages, and a Time Lord to hold them over." When he turned back to me, he was smiling with relish. "So much for Time Lord ingenuity. Our victory is assured."

"Now you just have to decide what to do with it, eh?", I pointed out. I tilted my head back to my doppelganger. "My impostor seems to think going back home is foolish."

I didn't look back to see his reaction. Grolon's was a minor smile that looked strangely amused on the visage of Steven's father. "Oh, I am aware of Brunoc's thoughts. You needn't worry about that. I've got other matters that your Time Lord brain must be put toward."

"Um, Doctor?" Steven looked up at me. He looked rather upset, understandably so. "I thought you..."

Grolon turned about. His expression turned angry. "What did you say?", he asked, interrupting Steven.

"Huh?" Steven looked at him with evident confusion. I had to restrain my temptation to smirk.

"What did you call him, child?!", Grolon demanded.

At that point, I spoke up. "Ah yes, we never got to the introductions, did we?" I put on my best showman's smile. "Hello, everyone." I raised my hand in an open greeting. "I'm the Doctor."

Oh, that got a reaction. Grolon's face contorted into stunned horror. I looked back and saw my counterpart - Brunoc apparently - had a rather displeased expression as well. "I told you," he rasped, looking at Grolon. "I told you not to trust...!"

"Quiet!" Grolon turned to one of the other Zygons. "Reset all systems! Reset them all!"

Said Zygon went to a control and began operating it. Several frantic moments later the Zygon protested, "I can't access the command functions!"

My smile grew into something more bemused. I started to speak, waving my hand about a bit. "All of this Gem technology is really quite interesting. For one thing, all of the Injectors in the Kindergarten are remotely networked to one another. Makes the job of coordinating the process easier. Funny thing is, they're quite redundant too. Each one has the necessary hardware to tap into the network. So, say, if you have one injector taken off-line because of a mechanical fault, it still has the hardware to access the main network." I looked up at Grolon and I'm sure my smile turned quite smug. "You... didn't happen to tap the Kindergarten's network into your own, did you?"

Right after I said that, one of the displays nearby started fritzing, displaying random code.

"Oh, right, you did," I continued, making my expression show fake shock. "How thoughtless of you! So now I've locked you out of all of your systems." I pointed a finger upward. "Now, what was that you were saying about Time Lord ingenuity?" I used the other hand to cup my ear, as if straining to hear. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that before. Would you mind repeating it? Go on, tell me about how ingenious we are, I can take it."

And I couldn't stop smiling. It's fun when you get the drop on a foe like that.

The truth was, I had defeated the Zygons' plan upon arriving at the Kindergarten. Or, more exactly, upon my examination of that broken Injector we came across.

One of the reactors in the room suddenly went offline. "Maintain main power," Grolon demanded. "The stasis field around the..."

He was undoubtedly talking about the field that kept me cut off from my TARDIS. I just want to make that point clear given what happened next.

The stasis capsules shut down and fell open.

The Humans were mostly just stunned silent for the moment. Liara was simply trying to get her bearings back, and given the bruise on her head I could see why.

The Gems, on the other hand? They'd been aware the entire time too, just unable to move their physical forms.

Within a moment their weapons were out. "Pearl, protect Steven and the others! Amethyst, watch the door!" Garnet's gauntlets flashed into existence and she jumped forward. Grolon managed a physical shield just before she slammed into him with a hammer punch that sent him flying.

Several of the Zygons began shifting into counterparts to the Gems again. The one trying to emulate Pearl didn't get a chance. Pearl's spear went right into its gem, shattering it. The Zygon screamed and fell over.

With the other Zygons now aiming to attack the Crystal Gems, they lost focus on everything else. Peridot's stasis bubble was left to fall to the ground, untended. And I had the moment I needed. I brought out my sonic disruptor, aimed it at Grolon, and fired a kinetic pulse that threw him into the far wall. "Steven, get to Connie and Katara!", I shouted, turning as I did. My eyes had already spied the hydraulic line that fed water to some of the biotech parts of the Zygon machinery. Another kinetic pulse blew it away, sending water spilling out on top of a couple of the Zygons behind us trying to get a bead on Pearl.

Katara's arms came up and the water responded to her, whipping about and knocking both Zygons over on the way to smashing into the Zygon-Liara. A cry came from the Zygon at the impact of ice and water, knocking it off balance and allowing Connie to pull her sword from the scabbard still in its hand. She swung the blade and nearly lopped off the limb in question, freeing the scabbard. Zygon-Liara screeched in agony and lashed out at Connie. All it ended up doing was smashing its working hand into Steven's shield. Steven whirled around and Connie's blade found the Zygon's belly, slicing across it and forcing the Zygon down. It started to lose that distinct Liara shape.

Brunoc growled in rage and came at me, energy weapon firing. The sonic disruptor's deflector absorbed the shots again and again, with growing strain. "You're ruining everything!", he screamed. "This was the future of our people! This world, this universe!"

"It's not yours!," I retorted. I triggered a kinetic blast that threw Brunoc back. "Connie! I need my screwdriver back!"

Steven, without a word, swapped places with her to deflect the blows coming from the wounded and enraged Zygon-Liara. Connie took one hand from her sword, requiring her to lower it, and pulled the sonic from her pocket. "Here!" Her throw was well done and I easily grabbed my sonic from the air. She promptly brought her sword back up and used it to cut away at their foe again. The Zygon stumbled backward from the wounds and left its gem wide open for Connie's sword to break.

The Zygon lost most of what was left of Liara's shape as it fell. And it didn't get back up again.

Brunoc was starting to recover. But he was knocked aside from a biotic blast from Liara. "Some vacation, eh?", I asked.

"I'm not dignifying that with a response!", was her reply, all while she generated another biotic burst.

A warbling sound was going off overhead. The alarm, undoubtedly, manually activated to get around my takeover of their network. I brought out the sonic and used it on the Zygon systems, looking for whatever data I could find on who sent them through. The mysterious voice that wanted them to give him my TARDIS.

Another generator crackled and fizzled. The lights flickered.

"What's going on?!" Greg looked to his son. "Steven!"

"Dad!" Steven kept his attention on using his shield to block one Zygon and cover Connie's back. She was busy dispatching the Liara-Zygon with swordplay aimed at its gem.

"Aliens!", the blonde young man with chip hair screamed. "We've been abducted by aliens! They must be after our kidneys as part of a plot by the Diamond...!"

Garnet went flying past. A moment later an impact slammed into my head and sent me flying as well. I slammed into the far wall, dropped down hard onto a control surface, and hit the ground. Stars were spinning in my vision and the disorientation was enough to keep my sprawled out for the better part of thirty seconds. When I looked up, I saw Grolon batting Liara away. The Zygon's appearance as Greg was becoming unstable, his skin turning Zygon reddish-pink and his shape starting to waver and lose cohesion. Through clear force of will I saw him hold his arm in proper shape. The gem on his head glowed and he pulled out a rather nasty looking blunt weapon. "It is time to meet your end, Doctor!" He brought the weapon up.

And then he brought it down.

"No!"

Steven jumped in, shield raised, and he grunted with effort as the weapon slammed against the shield. "I won't let you hurt him!", Steven cried. "I won't let you hurt anyone else! I'll stop you!" His voice was harder now. Well, "hard" might be the wrong word. But there was more to it than his usual friendly, happy tone. He was doing as I instructed; taking all of those feelings over what the Zygons had done to the people he cared about and using it here and now. Constructively.

"Impudent child!" Grolon snarled and brought the weapon down again, but to no avail. Steven's will was not wavering. "I'll deal with you next!"

"Hyah!" Connie came flying in, jumping off Steven's shield and slashing at Grolon's head. He cried out in pain and rage and struck out, narrowly missing Connie as she flipped over him. Ichor oozed from the wound on his head, mixed with the shattered remains of one of his gems. His shape shifted entirely now, becoming an even more grotesque mix of his normal Zygon appearance and his form as Greg Universe; losing one of the gems that kept his shape stable was not doing anything good for the rest of him. He screeched with rage and flung his weapon down on Steven's shield again. Steven groaned against the impact. For my part, I scrambled for my sonic disruptor, but my head was still spinning. I was going to need Katara's skills after the battle, I surmised. This could even be a concussion.

Assuming I lived.

Suddenly Pearl was standing over us, her spear already in motion. Grolon's weapon went flying from his grasp and exposed the gem in his palm. Connie's blade shot up and came down on it, smashing it with a single blow. Grolon's other hand flew outward from shock, and it was Pearl's spear tip that caught the other gem. It too flew apart from the impact. Grolon let out what would be his death cry and promptly collapsed. His body literally fell apart. And I do mean literally. The cellular structure disintegrated and he basically dissolved into nothingness.

Steven looked back at me. "Are you okay, Doctor?" He held a hand up.

"Why do you have eight fingers and two thumbs on your hand?", I answered, only half-jokingly. Yes, my bell had been rung quite loudly, thank you very much Grolon. I put a hand on my temple.

Another Zygon was already coming in, screaming revenge, and Pearl jumped in, deflecting blasts from its energy hand to hold it off. "There's more coming!", I heard Amethyst shout. "I can't fight them all!"

"We need to regroup!"

Shortly after Garnet said that, another power generator fizzed out, courtesy of my network sabotage. I tested something with my sonic and grinned. "Oh yes, oh yes indeed." I reached into my pocket and felt the TARDIS remote in my hand.

VWORP VWORP VWORP

My TARDIS, lovely as always, materialized right beside us. I snapped my fingers and opened the door. "Everyone into the TARDIS! Now!" I got to my feet and noticed the stares of the captives. "Come on!"

"Follow me everybody!", Steven shouted. He motioned to the TARDIS door.

"Steven!" Greg ran up and embraced his son. "Thank heavens you're all right!" He picked him up. Steven's shield came up and stopped an energy blast from one of the Zygons, who was thereafter seized by one of Katara's water-whips and pulled away. A momentary glance told me Katara was holding off three of the Zygons by adopting that water-octopus form she was so splendid at, using tentacles formed from water and ice to harass the Zygons and prevent any of them from getting a good shot.

When I looked back, the prisoners were all moving into the TARDIS. Liara came up beside me and threw out a Singularity that trapped two of Katara's opponents. A second biotic strike sent both flying. Katara, now able to focus on one foe, wrapped several of the water tentacles around the Zygon and then hammered the gem on its forehead with an ice column until it cracked. The Zygon began to twitch and collapsed.

With my Companions back at my side, that just left the Gems. I looked over to find them and... oh.

They were on the other side of the chamber. Garnet was busy pounding a Zygon that was trying to emulate her appearance and her armored gauntlets. Pearl was wielding a spear in each hand, twirling about gracefully while parrying blow after blow, drawing Zygon cries whenever she turned her defensive moving into an offensive attack. Amethyst's whip cracked through the air and struck the chest gem of one of the Zygons while wrapping around the shapeshifter. She heaved and pulled the Zygon around, throwing it into two others, and immediately released the whip to use it to wrap around the wrist of another attacker.

And yet there were more. They were completely surrounded.

Steven and Connie emerged from the TARDIS. "The Gems!", he cried out. He looked up to me. "Doctor, what do we do?"

I pondered the situation for the moment. The Gems were holding their own and trying to shatter the imperfect gems the Zygons had affixed to themselves, but the Zygons were adapting to that tactic and protecting those same gems. And the Zygons had numbers on us, after all, so the longer we fought, the more advantage they were likely to get. I had to end this now. But how?

Ah. Of course.

I shifted the weight on my back and put the scanner down. "Steven, get through to the Gems. And when I call for it, you need to use your defensive bubble. They're going to need it."

"Right." Steven looked to Connie, who nodded and held up the sword. She handed the scabbard over to a mystified Barb and, with Steven, charged into the backs of the Zygons. I gave them a bit of help by bringing up the sonic disruptor and sending a kinetic bolt over their heads and into the Zygons before they got into their midst.

While the yelling told me how effective the two were being, I turned to my Companions and motioned them to follow me into the TARDIS. "Doctor, what are you doing?", Katara asked. "Why did you send them into the trap?!"

"To protect the Gems!" I jumped down to the lower level and went to my tech particle. After throwing a few items around I found what I was looking for, scooped the items up, and ran up the stairs. "Katara, Liara, I need you to run and put these into the walls on the other end of the chamber!", I shouted, handing them two of one particular item. I looked to the last one and then around. I hated the idea of having to use a volunteer.

Greg reached and grabbed the last one. "This is some wicked audio equipment," he said. "You're setting up some kind of surround system, right?"

"Something like that. Not audio, though." I stepped out long enough to check on the battle. I watched Pearl swat away a blow that would have taken Garnet in the back. Amethyst's whip was holding one Zygon's weapon arm and swinging it around while Steven shielded her from retaliation. Connie lashed at anyone who got too close. They were holding out, but they couldn't do it for much longer. "I need it put over there." I pointed to one section of wall. "Just push it against the wall, about this high."

"I've got you," he answered.

With that done I was busy attaching the other items to the backpack scanner. I held up the sonic and used it to hasten the process. When I looked up to check the others, I saw Katara defending Greg from a Zygon and Liara fighting off another. But all three pieces I needed were set up.

Well. It was time to...

...get smacked in the head by the Zygon Brunoc. My doppelganger was looking down at me and scowling with hate. "We're not finished," he rasped, his voice now more Zygon than human in its timbre. He kicked me again. Pain exploded through my body. "You think you're so clever, Doctor? Always opposing our people. Always protecting these pathetic Humans. You even had to follow us across the dimensional barrier to stand in our way. But no more. Today is the day the Zygons win. Today the Doctor falls!"

I was moving over to get my sonic up, and I promptly took another blow, this one to my shoulder, that sent me flying from all fours over onto my back. Brunoc slammed a foot down on my chest and only the armored vest kept me from getting a cracked rib from the impact. He brought over an arm, which shifted into a weapon. His other foot came down on my left arm. Not hard enough to break it, but more than enough to pin it so I couldn't raise my sonic screwdriver. "So, any more boasts, Time Lord? How will you save your allies and friends now, Doctor?!"

"Doctor?!" I heard Steven's voice. "Doctor, please! Are you ready yet?!"

"Yes." Brunoc laughed. "Are you ready, Doctor? Ready to admit this is it? There is no way to victory for you, Time Lord! Not here!"

I smirked at that. And at him. And I shook my head. "You don't know me very well, do you?"

"What?"

"I'm the Doctor, Brunoc," I said. "I always find a way."

I couldn't move my left arm.

But I could move my left hand.

Time Lords have some pretty good coordination. More than Humans do. And when you've been adventuring as long as I have, you tend to become very good at this sort of thing.

Also, sonic screwdrivers are pretty light.

Using my left wrist to angle it just right, I threw my sonic screwdriver toward my chest, behind Brunoc's leg. My right hand came up and grabbed it from mid-air just above my left hip.

Before Brunoc could react, I moved my right arm, pointed it at the scanner I'd cobbled together from Amethyst's room, and triggered it.

Ah, that delightful whirring sound. And that lovely purple light at the tip.

The scanner activated. The emitters I'd tied to it aligned with the ones I'd had Liara, Katara, and Greg spread around the room.

"Bubble!", I shouted. "Bubble them Steven!"

I thought I heard the subtle sound of air being pushed away as Steven's energy bubble literally blossomed into place around himself, Connie, and the Crystal Gems. As that happened, I heard the scanner's main systems activate, tied to the frequency I'd stumbled across before.

You know the one.

Brunoc screamed.

All of the Zygons did.

My counterpart flailed about and stepped off of me, allowing me to stand up. The Zygons were flailing around, still screaming in agony as their bodies began to shift uncontrollably, while within the bubble the Gems were perfectly fine.

I looked back to Brunoc, who's screaming hit a crescendo. I thought he was trying to yell something, but nothing audible came from him before the gem on his forehead shattered. He fell to the ground, halfway between my shape and his Zygon shape.

More and more gems started shattering across the room. Katara pulled in water to make an ice shield for herself and Greg while Liara's biotic field protected her from the debris. A bit of a sting on my cheek told me I'd been hit by one shard, presumably from Brunoc.

Within seconds, all of the Zygons had fallen. Some simply disintegrated, as Grolon had, while others looked like Brunoc.

"No..." The rasp caused me to turn and face Brunoc. He was dying. That much was obvious. But he wasn't dead yet, and he was pressing something on his belt.

And given the character of the man, I had good reason to know it wasn't good news.

I used the sonic and shut down the scanner. I motioned to Steven and pointed to the TARDIS. He dropped the bubble. "Get in the TARDIS!", I shouted.

"Where is she?!", Pearl shouted. "Where is Peridot?!"

"There's no time!", I answered, now from the TARDIS door.

Inside the other Beach City residents were standing there doing nothing. Save for that chips-haired boy - didn't Steven call him Ronaldo? - who was despairingly searching his pockets. "My phone!", he wailed. "They took my phone! I can't take pictures of this for my blog!"

"Out of the way!", I shouted, going for the controls and turning a few knobs to make sure of things. "Alright girl, I'm home! Time to go!"

The others came in. Katara and Greg first, the latter supremely winded at this point, and the Gems with Steven in Pearl's arms and Connie held up by Amethyst. Liara took up the rear and was pulled in by Garnet. She reached out and shut the door. "We're in!"

I pulled at one of my three-dimensional flight levers. The TARDIS shuddered as it plowed upward through the dead soil and rock of the Kindergarten. My instruments confirmed my fear; Brunoc, with his dying breath, had triggered a self-destruct device in the base. Thermal readings went up the scales. "Hold on!", I shouted to everyone as the TARDIS rocked under us. "Time for more speed!"

"What's going on?!", one of the Beach City residents cried.

"A daring escape!", I laughed. "Tally ho!" I pulled the main lever.

The TARDIS shook under us. I could imagine what the sight must have been like from the outside. The TARDIS erupting from the gray, dead soil, a plume of flame and light following underneath it. The entire Kindergarten shook from the violence of the blast. The ground below collapsed and brought down some of the Injectors with it, including one of the rock cliffs, to fill in the volume of the now-destroyed Zygon base.

I brought the TARDIS under control to the point the shaking stopped. With the critical work of staying alive complete it was time to get a look at that Crack. So I brought up my scanners and twisted a couple of knobs and...

...and nothing.

I mean it. Zip. Nada. Nothing. The energies of a Crack were completely missing. Given the pattern I knew, a metaphysically softer world like Steven's should have been oozing energy, but there was absolutely nothing.

"That's strange," I muttered.

"What?"

I looked down and saw Steven and Connie standing beside me, looking up with curiosity. So I satisfied it. "The Crack is gone. I mean, gone from the base dimensions. As if I had sealed it myself."

"Really?" Liara stepped up beside me. "You're sure?"

"Quite positive," I said. "See?" I showed her the display. She'd seen it before, so she knew what a Crack would be showing on it. "Nothing. The Crack is gone. There's barely anything, just residual traces of the temporal energy."

"But we didn't do anything to it," she said. "Could this be like the Crack from Mitakihara?"

I shrugged. "I can't say for sure. I wouldn't think so, though. The Mitakihara Crack was bound to the dimensional portal to the Elves' parasite dimension, after all."

Liara nodded. "Alright. So what happened here?"

"I'm... not certain, honestly," I answered.

"Could someone on the other end have closed it?", Connie asked.

I looked down at her and then back to Liara, who shrugged. "It seems a reasonable question. Maybe the being who was after your TARDIS did it?"

"A possibility," I agreed. And it was a frightening one. The list of beings who could manage such a feat was small, and with one or two exceptions, not ideal at all.

"Uh, excuse me?"

I turned and saw Greg standing with the other rescued captives, Steven at his side. "Thank you for saving us and all," he said, "but I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

"Ah." I nodded and forced a smile. The somber thoughts would remain in my head, but for the sake of being a good host I pushed them out. "My apologies for the lack of introductions, Mister Universe. I'm the Doctor, and these are my Companions..."

I materialized the TARDIS along the beach beside the Gems' temple. The first one out was Chips Hair Boy. He fell over and kissed the beach sand before promptly spitting some out. "I did it!", he shouted. "I survived an alien abduction! I've got to put this on my blog! The world has to know about the aliens and their master!"

"They have a master?" Steven looked actually curious about this.

"Of course!" Chips Hair Boy turned back to us. "Their master is a fifteenth dimensional being from the end of time itself! It's in league with the Diamond Authority, and together they're trying to take over, uh..." He seemed to struggle for a moment with a suitable target for this nefarious scheme. He settled on "Everything!"

"Hyper-dimensional entities, always out for pan-universal conquest," I joked.

"And what are you anyway?", he asked. "Because you look Human." His eyes widened. "Were you another victim of their abductions? Did they experiment on you and turn you into one of them as part of a plot to assimilate Humanity?!"

I chuckled at that, even if it did seem almost accurate. "Perhaps it was something like that," I remarked drolly. "All I know is that I really enjoy having this second heart."

He ran on, shouting more delusions about the Zygons and polymorphic sentient rocks trying to hollow out the Earth. The others were not so excited, more relieved to just get back to their lives. The elder Universe, on the other hand, seemed more at home within the TARDIS. Presumably a lifetime of contact with the Gems had made the extraordinary more ordinary for him. "Check this place out," he said to Steven. "This is real space rock stuff."

"Oh, that it is," I remarked before looking to him. "Now, about your van..."

We went straight back to the Kindergarten, or rather its periphery, where Greg's van was just as we found it. He went up to it and ran a hand along the hood. "Oh man! I was afraid that alien might have wrecked it!" He moved toward the door. "Did he remember to fill the tank? Because I was running low."

"I believe so, yes," I replied.

"Now I've got to drive home," Greg lamented. "Oh boy."

"It's fine, Dad." Steven walked up to the side of the van with Connie. She had the sword back in its scabbard and held on her shoulder. "We can go with you and tell you about all the stuff that's happened."

Greg gave his son a mocking scowl. "So, how come you couldn't tell that alien had replaced me, huh? Am I really that easy to imitate?"

"Well... um..." Steven and Connie exchanged looks.

That was where I stepped in. "To be fair, the Zygons had you in a body print device that gave them access to everything that makes you, well, you. It allows for rather flawless impersonations."

"Oh, a likely story," Greg said, but the smile on his face showed he was just teasing his son.

"Come on, Dad..."

"Oh, come here kiddo." Greg knelt down and hugged Steven again. "I'm just glad you're all right. I was really worried when those aliens started talking about kidnapping you."

"It's okay."

I looked back and saw Katara step out of the TARDIS. A medi-gel application had helped her to finish healing from that chest wound she'd taken before our fall into the underground, and she'd put on a new set of Water Tribe garb to replace the dusty and burnt ones. Steven looked back towards us and noticed her. "Hey, Katara? Why don't you ride with us?"

"Yeah!", Connie agreed. "I've still got lots of questions about your world."

I initially expected Katara to refuse. But she smiled. "Sure. I'd be happy to."

"We'll be waiting for you in Beach City," I promised. And I smiled as well. She actually seemed... well, happy.

Liara stepped out of the TARDIS as Katara got into the van with Connie, while Steven was in the front seat beside his father. The van's engine came to life and Greg pulled it back onto the road. "See you back in town!", he shouted, everyone waving as the van went on.

"She seems happy now," Liara noted.

"Yes," I agreed. "Good to see her smile without it turning sad, isn't it?"

Liara nodded. "So. The Crack?"

"Last scan still shows negative," I answered.

"The most obvious answer is that someone closed it," she said. "The same voice that was demanding they give over the TARDIS."

"Yes." I let out a sigh and turned toward the Kindergarten. "I asked the others, but aside from Chips Hair Boy ranting about fifteenth dimensional beings they didn't know anything. I suppose it's not surprising they're not going to remember much from their time as captives..."

"This is worrying you," Liara observed.

"Worrying. But also confirmation of some suspicions. After all, the Sontarans talked about being assured the Doctor would not interfere, and that gravitic generator wasn't exactly the kind of technology they typically utilize, not to mention being a bit beyond their usual technological acumen. And to have so many creatures and species from my home cosmos showing up? Just happening to find Cracks and being able to go through them?" I shook my head. "No. I fear there's something else going on."

"At least you know there's someone out there now."

"Yes. I just want to know why he - assuming it's a he given the voice distortion - why he wants the TARDIS."

"Not for anything good. We're going to have to be more careful."

"Yes, yes we will."

We waited a bit longer before three figures emerged from the dust cloud of the Zygon base's explosion that was still choking the Kindergarten. The Gems looked none the worse for wear, but they don't have to breathe, so why would they? "Anything?", I asked.

"There was no sign of Peridot," Garnet replied. "She must have escaped during the fight."

"A reasonable assumption given her involvement with the Zygons," I agreed. "Anything else?"

"It looks like all of the Zygon technology was disintegrated in the blast." Pearl handed me back the scanner I'd provided her for the work. "There's no sign of any of the flawed gems they were growing."

"About one quarter of the Kindergarten's Injectors were completely destroyed in the explosion." Garnet nodded. "That is one good thing to come out of this."

"Yes." I nodded and looked around. The "dead zone" around the Kindergarten was a stark reminder of what the further cost of the Zygon ambitions would have been. "I've taken some scans. It looks like the Kindergarten wasn't on long enough to permanently destroy some of the soils it drew energy from. Ultimately I think the new patches of dead zone will heal, save maybe the immediate periphery around the Kindergarten."

"At least we stopped it before it got worse," Liara said.

"Yeah." Amethyst looked particularly dejected. Given the origins she had, seeing her place of birth getting wrecked like this was causing her all sorts of conflicting emotions and thoughts. "Well, hey, we also stopped the bad guys, right?"

"Yes," Garnet agreed. She stepped up to me and extended her right hand. A welcoming smile, not wide but definitely the largest I'd seen her make so far, crossed her face. "And we couldn't have done it without you, Doctor. Thank you."

I nodded and answered with a smile of my own. "My thanks as well, Garnet." I brought my hand up. "Because of this I..."

The moment my left hand touched her right, palms pressed against each other (or rather the Gem in that palm pressed against mine), my mind became assaulted by images. Images so stark and quick that I couldn't tell them apart. Just a few of them managed to last long enough to stick.

Harry Dresden standing over a small figure, his eyes red with freezing tears flowing from them. His face locked into fury and guilt.

The snowy city of Tharkad burning. People screaming in the streets amongst ruined BattleMechs as shadows tromped in the background. Katherine's gravestone smashed, the blue mycosia upon it crushed into the mud.

A massive crater around what appeared to have been Republic City.

Earth. Which, I didn't know. But Earth... being consumed by red and orange light. Reflections of the same bounding about it.

And a face. The face I still couldn't quite place. The one that slipped from me whenever I thought I knew it. The face of the man from my dreams, the face who came to me whenever I tried to think about where I came from and who I was.

And all the while, voices were crying out, in such a cacophony I couldn't make most out. But there was one thing above all, one thing fully audible.

"Please! He's dying! The Doctor is dying!"

I found myself in Liara's arms. She'd caught me to prevent me from falling. Pearl and Amethyst had done the same thing for Garnet. Her shades had fallen off, revealing her eyes - three in all, how interesting - that were now struck wide with surprise. "What..." I took in a breath.

"Doctor, are you okay?", Liara asked, a sense of urgency in her voice.

Pearl spoke next. "Garnet, what happened?"

Garnet's eyes met mine. "Your future vision," I said. "How did that happen?"

"You can touch the minds of others?"

"Yes."

"Then... Sapphire. You touched Sapphire's gem. I have my future vision from her." Garnet reached down and picked up her shades. She placed them back on before looking at me again. "When you made contact with her mind, you temporarily gained access to her ability. But without control."

"Yes. Yes, that makes sense." I nodded. "My apologies."

"There's no need for that."

We exchanged nods. By this point, i honestly felt quite tired, and I could see Liara was running low on energy as well. "How about we return to your home?", I said. "It's time we all got some rest."

I was answered by nods. As we stepped in, Amethyst shouted, "So, how's this thing work? I'd love to try it!"

In response, Pearl shouted, "Amethyst, don't you dare...!"

One dematerialization and near-disaster with the Vortex Regulator later, we were again at Beach City. Liara went to her room to sleep and the Gems did... well, whatever they usually did. I took the time to check some things on the TARDIS, put away some things, et cetera.

When night had fallen and Greg's van finally returned, it was only there long enough for Steven and Connie to return to the house as well for sleep. Katara saw them in and returned to the TARDIS, where I was waiting at the entrance. The soft rustling of the waves against the breach was not an unenjoyable noise to my senses at the moment, while the air was warm from the approaching summer. "Enjoying yourself?", I asked Katara.

She smiled and nodded. "Yes."

"It's good to see you smile like that," I noted before stepping back into the TARDIS. She followed me closely. "You know, if you want to stay I could..."

"That's..." For a moment Katara seemed to think about what she was going to say. "...I'm not ready."

"Ah? Still want to travel with us?"

"Yes. I mean, I just need some more time to think." Katara stepped up beside me. "I know I've just met them, but I feel like I've known them for a long time."

"Well, he does remind you of Aang, or so you said."

"Yes. And the way Connie wants to protect him, it reminds me of..." She didn't have to finish that sentence. It was quite clear who Connie reminded Katara of.

I nodded. for a moment I considered my next question. I wanted to be careful with it. But I needed an answer. "Katara, I'm going to ask you something sensitive, alright?"

She nodded. "Yes?"

I breathed in. I wanted to make sure I worded this right. "Katara, I must know. Do you still wish you were dead?"

I was looking at her carefully when I said that. She didn't react immediately. And then, slowly, she nodded. I was disappointed to see her do so, but at least she was being honest. She took in a breath and, to some surprise for myself, a smile appeared on her face. "But not as much as I did yesterday."

I allowed myself a grin at that. I hadn't gotten the answer I wanted. But it wasn't as bad as I had feared either.

Oh well. Progress doesn't happen overnight, does it?

"Well," I said, stifling a yawn. "I think we should get some rest."

"Yes." She nodded. "I think we should."

In the morning I got up, did my morning breakfast routine of a book and a warm breakfast meal, and went to the TARDIS control room to check the scans. As expected, the Crack was still closed.

I was just finishing up when there was a knock on the door. I walked up to it, opened it, and found Pearl standing in front of the TARDIS. "Oh," she said. "Good morning, Doctor."

I looked beyond her. There was a disturbed area in the sand. She'd been waiting for a while, it seemed.

"Ah. Pearl. Good morning to you. Come on in." I moved away and let her step in. The bright sunshine came in behind her. "Looking to be a nice sunny day, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." I watched as she walked up to the control area. I could see something of a tic form on her expression due to my... eclectic organization of some of my things. The way my "Wizard" hat was hanging prompted her to reach up and adjust it.

Since she wasn't talking, I decided to. "What can I do for you?"

"Oh, probably nothing. I just wanted to get a better look at your ship." She continued around it. "I never imagined this kind of technology could exist. I can't imagine how advanced your civilization is."

I shrugged. "Sometimes I can't. Honestly, sometimes I think we grew too advanced."

"I see." Pearl didn't pry as to why I thought that way. "Do you ever miss your homeworld?"

I thought on that. I had no memories at the time, of course, and for all I knew, Gallifrey was indeed my homeworld. "Sometimes," I admitted. "Sometimes I'd love to see Gallifrey again. When it was at its height." I watched the expression on her face shift slightly and walked closer. "I'm not alone in that, am I?"

"Sometimes I wonder," Pearl admitted. "About Homeworld, anyway. But I do miss the other worlds I saw. I've been trapped on Earth for six thousand years now."

"Steven said something about that, yes." I stepped up to the opposite end of the controls. "Hard to think about. Even we Time Lords don't live forever. Well, not normally and that includes regenerations. And those..." I stopped for a moment. I couldn't really speak on the concept of regeneration, could I? I didn't remember what I was like before my current body. And I'd spent all of my regenerations on the Citadel helping Shepard to defeat the Reapers. "...well. That's a complicated subject. Among others."

I looked back at her while she was examining my little poster wall of drawings. By which I mean the drawings I'd been given by assorted children I'd met in my voyages. She looked from there to where Katherine's amethyst necklace was hanging from its usual spot. "Don't Humans usually wear jewelry like this?", she asked.

I shook my head softly. "It's not mine or Liara's or Katara's."

"Then..." She realized what it symbolized. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's fine." I thought for a moment on what I was going to say next. "Steven said something about your travels to other worlds?"

That caught her off-guard a little. "Oh, well... that was a long time ago."

"Do you miss it?", I asked.

For a moment Pearl didn't answer. As if she were trying to decide on how much to admit. Or, rather, wrestling with an old ache. "Yes," she admitted. "I do. I wish I could go out into the cosmos again." A tear showed up on her face. "But I made my choice a long time ago. I gave it up for something more."

Ah. Interesting. "Oh?", I asked.

I received no answer. No verbal answer anyway. But the way Pearl's eyes briefly looked back to Katherine's necklace was enough of an answer.

Well. It was clear this line of conversation was not going anywhere. Before I could say something else, however, there was another knock on the door. I walked up to it and pulled the door open.

Steven and Connie were standing in the doorway. Steven was again in that pink shirt with the star and a pair of jeans. Connie was in a teal sleeved blouse with blue trim and a matching blue skirt that went to just below her knees. "Pearl, isn't it time for training?", Steven asked.

"Oh, um, right," Pearl answered. She looked away from the TARDIS controls. "I'll be right there."

As she spoke, I looked above the children and toward the house. Garnet was standing at the base of the stairs going up to the porch. She nodded at me and smiled, then she was heading back up the stairs.

Future vision, undoubtedly.

Well, that settled it, didn't it?

"Oh, sword training, how exciting," I said. "But first, why don't you two step in?"

I didn't need to ask twice. I'd given them an excuse to do something they already wanted to do.

"Ah good. One moment everyone." I closed the door, stepped around them, and went to the controls. I knelt down at a panel and began fussing with the wiring underneath. "I do apologize, I really should make this a permanent part of the controls." Footsteps in the hall to my right told me that Katara and Liara were awake and coming out to the control room. They stepped into it right when I looked up to check something. "Ah, Liara, Katara, good morning. You're just in time."

"Just in time for what?", Liara asked.

"For the rest of our vacation!," I announced, putting some excitement in my voice. "Now, where was that circuit. Circuit, circuit, oh wherefore art thou circ... Ah, here we... ow!" One of the lights on the controls briefly fizzed out. Stinging pain caused me to briefly put my finger tips to my tongue. "Wrong circuit. Definitely the wrong circuit. No, I need another circuit, another... a ha! Here we are!" I pulled the wiring out and got back to my feet, making sure the wires didn't come out of my hand. I turned and faced where Pearl and the children were staring at me. "Would you please hold this, Pearl?"

"Well, okay?" She reached out with her left hand and took the wires. She had no idea what it was I was doing. "Now what?"

"Now..." I couldn't keep the grin off my face. "All of those sights in the cosmos that you saw and loved? I want you to think of the one you would love to show to Steven and Connie. The one sight above all else that highlights the wonders of the cosmos that you've longed to see again. And I want you to concentrate on that thought."

For a moment, nothing happened. Pearl just sort of looked confused for a moment. She slightly focused her eyes on the wires she was holding in her hand.

VWORP VWORP VWORP.

They all looked in surprise as the TARDIS engine powered up, apparently on its own. "Telepathic circuit," I said, in answer to their unasked questions.

After about ten seconds the TARDIS was done VWORPing. I extended a hand and Pearl returned the wires to me. "Now..." I brought my other hand up and snapped my fingers. The TARDIS door swung open behind them.

They turned and walked down the gangway to the door, already curious by what they could see of the world beyond. They stopped at the doorway. "Woh," Steven gasped.

"That is so awesome," Connie said in a low, awed tone.

Pearl said nothing. After a moment, I thought I could hear a sniffle come from her. When she looked back at me, her light blue eyes were brimming with happy tears. "Thank you," she said, and every syllable was full of gratitude. She turned her head back and stepped out of the TARDIS. The children followed.

I looked back to see my Companions were smiling as widely as I was. "Well." I clapped my hands together and pulled my lucky fez off from its place on my control panel. A kind haberdasher had fixed it after I saved his city from... what was it again? Oh, right, a meteor. Or was it a robot uprising? Blast it, I can't remember. I nodded at Liara and said, "We are still officially on vacation, right? How about we join them in seeing the sights? Should be quite exciting!"

I was answered by nods. And together, we left the TARDIS and caught up with Pearl and the children.

I had much to think about. The visions from Garnet's future sight told me of things that might come down the road, things I had to look out for.

But that wasn't the only thing. I knew, now, that there was another force out there. A force on the other end of the Cracks, manipulating the species of the Doctor's cosmos, seeking out my TARDIS to fulfill an agenda I knew nothing of.

But now I knew that shadow opponent was there. I could prepare.

And, perhaps, learning of what my opponent was might yet give me the answers I know sought.

But there was time for that later. Right now... it was time to finish our much-needed vacation.