War.1
The Doctor had been feeling apprehensive about this Loop for a while. His home planet was still Gallifrey and everyone still had two hearts, but outside of that, nothing was the same. No TARDIS, no regeneration, basic human-length lifespan, and he couldn't even find any mention of Earth when he was looking through the archives. He had sent out a ping and received a couple in kind, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure where it came from aside from off world.
He had spent the Loop doing his best to advance some of the technology of the false Gallifrey, which was already at in-system space flight, and had barely managed to get them to something resembling faster-than-light speed from behind the scenes when the hammer dropped.
A monstrous ship arrived in orbit and broadcast a signal to all of Gallifrey that managed to get the Lord President and the Council to surrender immediately. They had been keeping a secret from the general populace, one that only the members of the presidency or council (both of which were life appointments here) could ever learn.
They were a colony for a dying Earth, a colony specifically bred to replace the failing hearts of the human race that hadn't left the Sol system.
But, before the Earth ship could begin its harvest of the Gallifreyan population, a new ship appeared in orbit and launched several fighter ships, one of which was humanoid. Instantly, the Doctor grabbed one of his spare ships from his pocket (he'd never put the TARDIS in there, so it was always handy to have a back-up in situations like this) and took off, sending out another ping as he broke atmosphere.
The response was almost instantaneous and accompanied by a hail from the large white ship.
"I was wondering who sent us that ping. I am Captain Magno of the Nirvana, and who might you be?"
"This is the Doctor from Gallifrey. I presume you're ship is full of Loopy people?"
The elderly captain on the other end of the channel chuckled. "Sometimes, Doctor. This Loop it seems to mostly be myself and a couple of our bridge crew. With young Hibiki not being Awake, I presume that you are an Anchor?"
"Yes, I am. Only a few of you Awake, and you can speak of things so openly regardless? Fascinating, simply fascinating. Permission to come abroad- aboard?" The Doctor didn't have much to say, as the battle in orbit behind him was going amazingly well. Every attempt the large harvester ship made to destroy the Nirvana's ships was easily avoided and routed. The humanoid fighter ship was also somehow combining with three of them for different effects, which was definitely something he'd be interested in finding out more about.
War.2 (wildrook)
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" a familiar voice yelled. "IN-FOR-MA-TION COR-RUPT-TED! TOO MA-NY VI-RUS-ES! CAN-NOT CON-TAIN IN-FLUX OF...EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN..."
That's when it self-destructed. The onlookers were surprised because Daleks don't self-destruct.
"What just happened?" Donna asked the Doctor.
"I think it may have tried to hack into something it shouldn't have," the Doctor replied, putting his glasses on. "If the melted monitor and tower are any indication."
"Yeah, don't know what's on there that would do...THAT..."
"Well, it's certainly not anything we can fathom...at least..."
War.3 (KrisOverstreet)
"I can't believe he refused!"
The head of the Celestial Intervention Agency paced his office, tucked away in a discreet but central area of the great cathedral of the Time Lords, and waved his hands in frustration. "He knows better than anyone else what a pervasive evil the Daleks are! And yet he refuses to prevent their making?"
Cardinal Borusa smiled his little smile. "The Doctor has always been an independent soul. I presume he had moral objections?"
"He did," the CIA chief nodded, "but that wasn't why he refused. He told me that history had linked Gallifrey and Skaro; either Time Lords and Daleks both exist, or neither exist, and any attempt by one to erase the other would merely spark off a Time War of horrors that neither side could ever win." He sniffed his derision at the thought. "Poppycock. We, the rulers of Gallifrey and the keepers of the Laws of Time, destroyed by a race of psychotic pepperpots?"
Borusa could have warned him that the Doctor, even as a student, had possessed insights few others could comprehend, but which always turned out to be true. It made up for his abysmal lack of application to studies. When the Doctor spoke from the heart, only fools turned a deaf ear.
But Borusa already had things in mind for the future, and that future did not include the Celestial Intervention Agency. So if it got caught breaking the Laws of Time- as erasing a race from history surely did- and then failed in the attempt... well, that would suit his purposes quite well.
Instead he asked, "What did you do with the Doctor, then?"
"Oh, I let him go on his way with his pet apes," the CIA chief grumbled. "My threat to strand him on Skaro was a bluff. The Doctor has pulled our butts out of the rocket blast too many times to abandon him. There would be a stink. He has admirers among the younger set here, I understand."
"Indeed so," Borusa nodded. "And quite a number of his classmates have gone rogue as well."
"Precisely my thought," the CIA chief nodded. "So I decided, if one rogue will not cooperate, why not another?"
"What an intriguing thought," Davros rasped, his permanently closed eyes widening slightly in wonderment. "A single button. Press it, and the entire universe spontaneously ceases to exist. Such incredible power. Such glorious power. Would I use it?" The shriveled Kaled scientist tilted his head, pondering the question for only a few beats. "Yes. Yes, I would. To have my last thought before oblivion be that everything that ever lived died by my hand- by this weakened, shriveled hand..." He clenched the one limb that still functioned into a fist. "How could I not use it?"
"How not, indeed?" the Master agreed, smiling at the artificial third eye glowing blue in Davros's forehead. But internally, he thought, And that, Davros, is why I am a Looper, and you never, ever, ever will be. I admit I am insane, but you are just plain mad.
And I thought I wanted to meet this...thing. A pox on the sin of curiosity. My dear Doctor, you can have it. I'll just stick with megalomania. It's what I know.
After a bit more toadying the Master managed to make his escape from the creator of the Daleks. He spent several seconds in a small lab by himself, rubbing his arms until the sensation of his skin crawling went away. I would rule the universe well, he thought. That thing in the glorified wheelchair would break it just to see the pretty shards. Such sinful waste. How... evil.
I think, if Davros ever became a Looper, there would actually be something in the universe I fear more than death. As it is, that man unnerves me so badly I can't hear those accursed drums anymore.
Oh, wait. There they are again.
For once the Master found the four-stroke drumbeats only he could hear comforting.
Now, how about we go prepare some fried calamari, Skaro style?
War.4 (zeusdemigod131)
Dan was having a rotten day. Usually, that was a given for the man, but this time, he had a reason... well, a reasonable reason, for his anger.
"Mister Mumbles?"
His cat was missing... again.
"I swear, if this is that same crazy lady from last time..." he said with a growl. "Mister Mumbles?"
Peeking outside his apartment, and ignoring the various eviction notices, he began looking around for his missing cat.
"That's it," he said after several seconds. "I'm calling Chris," Dan pulled out his phone and hit his friends number in speed dial. "Not like he has anything better to do anyway."
While the phone was ringing, Dan noticed something odd about his neighborhood. "Hey! I thought I blew up that animal shelter!"
The animal shelter, the same one where he'd found Mister Mumbles, was once again standing at the end of his block.
"Oh, I get it, they rebuild, and they think they can steal my cat!"
" 'ello?"
"Chris, it's Dan, meet me at my place, and bring dynamite."
"What?"
"Just do it!"
*click*
Meanwhile, several thousand light-years away, and about ten thousand years in the future, a strange man in a blue box stared at his phone. "What?"
Looking at the TARDIS' monitor and seeing that the phone call had come from twenty first century California, the man, currently wearing what had been dubbed his ninth form, once again said. "What?"
Dan grumbled to himself as he exited the still standing animal shelter holding a black and white, messy haired tabby cat. "Think they just claim that they've never seen me before huh?" He asked Mister Mumbles. "I know I've seen that hippie before, so I know he's lying, just like I know he's lying about the animal shelter never being blown up. I never forget an explosion."
"Meow." Mister Mumbles said before she nuzzled up against Dan and purred.
"Aww, I missed you too," Dan said, smiling. "Now let's get home and wait for Chris to show up with the dyna-ow!"
Dan rubbed his head as he fell backwards. "Ow... who puts a phone booth... anywhere! Who needs phone booths!" He got up and kicked the blue box. Unfortunately, he stubbed his toe in the process. "OW! Stupid thin... wait... no way," he smirked and leaned against the phonebooth. "I know how that goes."
Dan felt pretty proud that he'd remembered to stop kicking the thing after it proved ineffective. "See Mister Mumbles, you just have to-"
" 'ello?" Dan quickly learned a new lesson, don't lean against doors.
"Ow." Dan landed flat on his back, his head in between the shoes of a man with a buzz cut wearing a leather jacket.
"Are you alright?" the man asked, he had a British accent.
Dan groaned. He HATED the British. "Yeah yeah," he said, brushing himself off and standing up. "Watch where you're going next time."
"Excuse me?" the man asked, confused and offended. "You walked right into my TARDIS."
"TARDIS?" Dan asked. "What kind of stupid name is TARDIS!?"
"It's not stupid! It stands for... wait, you're the angry young man who called me, aren't you? Asking for dynamite?"
Dan gasped. "I called Chris asking for dynamite!" Dan grabbed the man by his collar. "Who are you and what did you do with my friend?!"
"Okay, first thing, hands off," he pushed Dan back and stepped into the TARDIS' doorway to get further from him. "Second off, I'm the Doctor, and third I didn't do anything with your friend."
"A doctor?!" Dan shouted. "I hate doctors! A doctor once tried to kill me with a super virus!"
"Really?" the Doctor asked, rubbing his chin. "Tell me, have you been suffering through a temporal Loop lately by any chance?"
"What are you? Crazy!?" Dan shouted. "I'm not a time traveler! If I was, I would go back and convince Chris not to go through with his wedding."
"Mhm." The Doctor thought for a bit. He supposed it could just be a coincidence... if he believed in those. "Tell me, what led up to you calling me this morning?"
"I told you, ya crazy Brit, I was trying to call my friend Chris... oh right, I was accusing you of kidnapping him."
"I promise, if you tell me what I want to know, I'll take you to your friend," the Doctor said with a smile.
Dan growled. "Fine, I got up, found my cat was missing, saw that the animal shelter I blew up was back, got Mister Mumbles back." He held up his cat to make his point. "Then ran into your stupid box."
The Doctor smiled. That was all he needed. "Very well." He stepped aside. "Come into my TARDIS, and I'll take you to your friend."
"You... want me to go in the phone booth?" Dan asked.
The Doctor nodded.
"Alright, not gonna be the weirdest thing that's happened to me," he said with a shrug as he walked past the Doctor
As the short, angry man walked past the Doctor, the Time Lord smiled. "We'll see about that," he said as he shut the door.
Several hours later, the TARDIS materialized outside of a pleasant suburban home, and the doors swung open just as Dan walked out, grumbling to himself and holding Mister Mumbles. "Stupid tree, stupid Loops, stupid Doctor."
"Oh stop your whining," the Doctor chastised. "You were going to get 'the talk' sooner or later."
"I don't care!" Dan shouted. "I don't want to be in these stupid Loops!"
"Well too bad!" the Doctor yelled back. "Now, normally I'd be willing to help you, maybe take you on an adventure, but you tried to smash the TARDIS' control panel so... good luck." The Doctor closed the doors and the TARDIS faded, leaving Dan alone in front of Chris and Elise's house.
Standing there, Dan felt something boiling inside of him, something he'd felt many, many, many times before.
"INFINITE LOOOOPSSS!"
War.5 (Scorntex)
It was too late. Something had gone wrong, and Mister Finch and the rest of the Krillitanes had cracked the Skasis Paradigm, despite K-9's best efforts.
The Doctor braced himself. Rose (or far more likely, Mickey) screamed, and Sarah was utterly quiet as everything went distressingly green.
And then there was a sad sounding noise, and several Krillitane were standing around looking utterly confused. Brother Finch turned to look at his fellows, then to the Doctor, with an utterly perplexed look on his face.
"You..." he hissed. The Doctor just shrugged.
"At the risk of making a blow to my ego, I..." he paused, looking toward Rose and Sarah (and Mickey), and sighed wearily, "I didn't do anything."
Finch's face passed between utter confusion and cold fury.
"Hold on then," Sarah said, "if you didn't do anything, who did?"
One of the Krillitanes, having noticed something while everyone else was standing around, screeched and roared. Mister Finch swivelled to look at whatever it was that it was making a noise about, then growled even more.
Of the humans in the room, only the Doctor knew why. As he later explained (once they had escaped from the very serious peril of thwarted school-teachers / bat-creatures), someone had gotten into the programming the Krillitanes were using and reprogrammed it. And he had a sneaking suspicion as to who.
The fact that they'd started with the message: "The Skasis Paradigm is the property of the Noble Corporation. All rights reserved." really helped in that regard.
Some time before...
In the dark school room, the only sound was that of someone humming to themselves. And somehow they managed to sound distinctly smug about it at the same time, as they worked away at the computer, occasionally stopping to double-check their work.
Finally, satisfied with a reprogramming well done, the very-much Awake Donna Noble merrily activated her mostly-stolen transmat device, leaving the whatever-they-weres to find she'd replaced their Skasis Paradigm with the works of Agatha Christie, but with all the endings removed.
She couldn't wait to see how the Doctor would try and explain his way out of that.
War.6 (OathToOblivion)
"Doctor, wait!"
The Doctor blinked as he Awoke, unconsciously applying Bessie's brakes before he could go zooming off. Quickly, he went over his Loop memories before finding that, once again, he was in the middle of the Death Zone on Gallifrey with Sarah Jane. He rather disliked Waking up in the middle of this. It gave him no real time to come up with a simple plan for defusing it. And considering he had awoken in his third incarnation, that meant that the Scarecrow and his original self would be Unawake. That was going to be a chore, but at least his fifth self would also be Awake. But back to the matter at hand.
He and Sarah both turned around, seeing a figure cloaked in black standing a ways behind them. Sarah's question of who it was was a clear tip-off that she wasn't Awake herself, or at least not Awake yet. Assuming everything was baseline for now, he knew who it was. "I have a sneaking suspicion I know who," he said for Sarah's benefit, before backing up Bessie to properly greet the person who was undoubtedly the Master.
For the time being, he decided to semi-parrot the script, as it was. "Jehoshaphat, it really is you," he said, looking at the Master. He decided to dispense with accusing him of bringing them there. Nobody on Gallifrey would let the Master anywhere near the Time Scoop, after all.
"Doctor, who is it?" Sarah asked again.
"Well, it's my best enemy. He likes to be known as the Master, don't you?" he tossed at his...friend? Enemy? Dare he even think it...frenemy? "My, my, my, but you've changed. Another regeneration?"
"Not exactly," the Master said, just the same as the Doctor remembered. ...But maybe it was just him, but did he seem a bit...dull when he said that? ...Probably just his imagination.
"I take it you are responsible for our being here in the Death Zone?" the Doctor questioned, injecting just the right amount of suspicion into his voice so that it seemed natural. Yes, he had told himself not to just automatically blame the Master for things, but it would look strange if he didn't ask, wouldn't it?
"For once, I'm innocent, here at the High Council's request to help you, and your other selves." He wasn't imagining it that time. The Master...seemed bored as he spoke the words that the Doctor remembered. But he wasn't doing anything out of character for the Master, so it couldn't have been another Looper, could it?
"You? Sent by the Time Lords? I expect you have proof?" the Doctor said skeptically.
"See for yourself. I carry the Seal of the High Council." Ah yes, the Seal of the High Council. He was going to need that later, assuming he couldn't avert the Time War entirely. The Doctor took it, seemingly to check its validity. Internally, he was thinking of something else entirely. Was it possible that the Master was Looping? Based on what other Anchors had said, it made all too much sense if he was. In all his lifetimes, the Master was the one person he had known the longest.
"Hm...very well then. Get on. But no funny business, alright?" the Doctor warned the Master. For his part, the Master blinked in surprise. Clearly, he hadn't expected the Doctor to be so accommodating. ...Or could it have been surprise that the Doctor was deviating from what he remembered from previous Loops?
"Funny business? My dear Doctor, would I ever do such a thing to you?" the Master asked almost mournfully, and with a bit more animation than he had been showing beforehand. Of course, the Doctor knew that he was simply trying to get under his skin, so he ignored it.
"Knowing you? Yes. Now get on." ...Okay, he didn't ignore it completely.
"Doctor, are you sure this is a good idea?" Sarah Jane hissed in his ear.
"Quite frankly, Sarah? No," the Doctor admitted. "But if he really is here to help me, then who am I to turn him away? Besides, I know how he works, so he won't be able to surprise us," he added under his breath, knowing full well that the Master's stolen Trakenite body would be able to hear him. He seemed almost amused by that.
As the Doctor drove Bessie off in the direction of the Tomb of Rassilon, he couldn't help but reflect on things. Was it possible for the Master to be Looping? ...He'd have to probe him carefully if that was the case.
War.7 (Scorntex)
It was an unusually pleasant morning in Chiswick, and Donna Noble (presently working for H.C. Clements) was making her way to the local bus stop, utterly ignoring what sounded like a dodgy leaf-blower, or something like that.
As she was almost at the main road, a man appeared in front of her. Tall, thin, greying, and oddly familiar (she was sure she'd seen him on the telly somewhere, but if she had, she must've been hammered at the time), and glowering at everything like life itself just wasn't measuring up to his expectations.
"Morning," he growled in what she guessed was a Scottish accent, before grabbing her hand and dropping something into it. "Here, Donna. Y' can have the TARDIS this Loop. Bye."
And with that he stomped off. Donna never saw him again, and never figured out what he'd meant.
In hindsight, the Doctor would admit that he probably should've checked whether Donna was Awake before sulking for an entire Loop.
War.8 (Evilhumour)
The Master smiled. He was happy, so very happy. Many would have seen this as a punishment loop, and considering what he did in that under water hell, pitying that squid enough to torch the entire city to the ground, he did deserve some form of punishment, he figured.
But this?
He watched one of those creatures with a TV in their stomach, one named Twiley-Wiley, run past him as she went to play/work with the others.
This was pure paradise for Masty-Wasty.
War.9 (Gamerex27)
"EX-TER-MI-NA-"
Before the Dalek could even finish talking, Jack twitched in place, then ducked, as the Dalek's laser narrowly missed him.
Grabbing his handgun from the ground, he popped back up, aiming at the Dalek's eyestalks, and shooting them three times in quick succession.
They weren't dead, of course, but the shot was enough to disable their vision for a few moments-just long enough for him to grab at their casings, and yank one Dalek after another out of their battlesuits. Using the final three bullets in his gun, he shot all three of the abominations dead.
"Ha!" he declared. "Finally did it this time! Dunno if that broke the loop," he admitted to himself, "but the whole 'no more painful immortality' is a start."
The Doctor Awoke as his hands were precariously resting on the detonator to blow up the Earth.
"Yeah," he muttered, "no."
Taking his hands off of the detonator, he ignored the Dalek Emperor's rant and pondered to himself how to take out the Daleks this time. Turn them into frogs? Drain the battlesuits of all their power? Use a Word of Power or something to force them to back off?
Huh. They normally would have started firing at him right now. Did the Bad Wolf get here earlier or something?
Turning around, he saw the smoking, hole-ridden Daleks falling to the ground in unison, and Jack standing by the door, casually blowing the smoke of of the business end of his gun.
"I thought you'd be dead," he said, ignoring the furious self-proclaimed god of the Daleks in the background.
"With enough practice, it's just a matter of where to shoot," Jack replied. "So, now that I can ask you this time, do you know about the whole 'time loop' thing going on?"
"I was wondering if you'd ever Wake Up," The Doctor said with a grin. " Fantastic. I'll explain later. Or, well-"
The TARDIS materialized at the back of the room, and Rose in full Bad Wolf stepped out.
"I am the Bad Wolf," she declared, continuing on in her usual speech, seemingly not noticing that the Daleks on the station were already dead. Then again, there were several million Daleks in orbit right now, and the Doctor usually did need Bad Wolf's help to take care of them.
"Suppose I'll be regenerating in a few minutes," the Doctor joked. "I'll leave it to the next one."
"Pushing all the work onto the next guy in line?" Jack asked, laughing. "C'mon, that's not like you!"
"I have to suck all the Time Energy out of Rose in a few seconds, anyways. May as well get started. See, there's this tree called Yggdrasil..."
War.10 (Scorntex)
The Master, Prime Minister of Great Britain once again, leaned back in his seat, checked to make sure the phone was still unplugged, and grinned.
Outside, a dinosaur (he wasn't really sure which one. One giant angry lizard was as good as any other to him) roared as it made its way through the typical London afternoon traffic.
Lazarus had more than earned his ridiculously high government grant. And all it had taken was a few minutes of conversation (and some mild hypnotism) to get the old fool to change his plans. Actually creating the things had been a bit more difficult, but fortunately they'd had a good-looking Time Lord to "help" them.
There was the sound of a bus being knocked over. The Master's grin grew ever wider. At least, until he realised the BBC was probably filming some of the carnage. Then he started looking for the TV remote.
War.11 (Gamerex27)
The Doctor dropped his sonic screwdriver, numbly staring at the space where that green...thing once was.
"What...what the hell was that?!" Rose said, blushing crimson at the sight that had just, mercifully, been banished from his TARDIS.
"Some kind of creature spawned by humanity's collective unconsciousness," he replied, after taking a moment to calm himself. "Like those imps and succubi we saw outside, before. A lust based one, probably."
"That," Jack Harkness said, zipping up his trousers, "was Mara, the demon lady of temptation. And one of my exes, too."
"Somehow, I'm not surprised," the Doctor muttered, massaging his aching temples. "Did you have to start flirting with it, again? It didn't seem to happy to see you, even before you started punching it."
"Oh, you know," he replied, turning to face them with a sheepish grin plastered on his face. "Last time we saw each other, she tried to sell me out to the Time Agents again for sex, so I had to pay her back."
"Well, take it outside the TARDIS next time!" Furiously, the Doctor stripped off his leather jacket, throwing it on the TARDIS console's nearby chair. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to dry clean that? And the TARDIS's laundry machine doesn't work well with blood!"
"Couldn't...you just drop it off at a dry cleaner, and take the TARDIS to the next day?" Rose said, still gaping at the space where the demon once was.
"Oh, Rose, you know how hard precision steering is with the old girl," he replied. "And since she drained all the TARDIS's energy, we're stuck here in this time for a few days!"
"Ah." Rose was still staring at the space where Mara had been. "I-I think I'm going to get some chips," she finally said. "I need to get out of here for a bit."
"Bring some back for me!" Jack asked as Rose ran out of the TARDIS.
Once she was gone, the Doctor turned to face the immortal captain again, fury on his face. "Look, just 'cause you're Looping now, doesn't mean you can just do what you like!"
The former Time Agent just shrugged at this. "Look, I just got back from dealing with the Three Families again last Loop, alright? I needed to unwind somehow!"
"Well, take it outside of my TARDIS next time!" the Doctor. "I won't have you and a giant green..." he waved his arms, "thing, snogging and hitting each other in my ship!"
"Alright, alright, fine." Jack walked towards the TARDIS doors, then stopped. "You want to get a drink after this? Once we've closed that door to Hell, anyways."
"Fine. God knows I need it, after all this."
War.12 (OathToOblivion)
Zurvan steepled his fingers as he looked over his terminal. It looked like he had done too good a job. When he and Jormungandr had fixed the Doctor's coding so his regenerations would always be the same, it seemed that he coded the 'Meta Crisis' event too hard. In a baseline Loop, the Doctor was always shot by a Dalek to trigger his eleventh regeneration into his twelfth incarnation, which kept the same face as his previous one. In variants, something else took the role, but he always got shot.
The problem here was that the trigger for that regeneration was too narrow. He should be able to easily dodge getting shot, and keep going on without having to regenerate. His Anchor may be resigned to that, but Zurvan was nothing if not determined. He swore he would get this Loop running, and he did, didn't he? He may not be the coding whiz Hephaestus was, but he'd fix this bug that he'd caused, without a doubt!
Maybe if he tried that?
"Hit the deck!" Upon hearing those words on Awakening, the Doctor immediately fell to the pavement. There was the sound of a beam weapon, and what was unmistakably a Dalek crying out in anguish. There was a short moment of silence, before the Doctor poked his head back up. There was Rose, where she usually was, and there was Jack, whose gun was smoking. Oh, and there was a broken Dalek over there, but never mind that!
"Doc, you alright?!" Jack called out as he ran up.
"I'm fine, Jack. And don't call me 'Doc'!" the Doctor said indignantly. After getting that out of the way, he turned to the person he had been running towards.
"Doctor," Rose whispered.
"Rose," he said in return with a smile on his face. The two immediately embraced for a quick second, before the Doctor had to, much to his displeasure, extricate themselves from it.
"Right! Before any more show up, back to the TARDIS!" he declared. "Rose, you go on ahead. I need to talk to Jack for a second," he hastily said. Rose nodded her acknowledgement, then ran off to where Donna and the TARDIS were.
"Jack, how did-?" The Doctor was at a loss for words on how easily Jack had destroyed That Dalek.
"Pretty good, huh? I noticed that you got a bit upset when you were talking about it last Loop, so I figured, why not?" Jack said conversationally.
"Jack, I always get hit by That Dalek, or at least an analogue, no matter what I do. How did you do that?" the Doctor asked in shock.
Jack processed that for a second, before shrugging. "I dunno. Guess I'm just that awesome!" he declared.
The Doctor rolled his eyes at that. "Alright, back to the TARDIS, before more show up!" he repeated. The two of them immediately ran back to the blue box, miraculously not getting ambushed by another Dalek. The Doctor was surprised. Could his luck in this regard have finally turned around? He scarcely hoped it. Maybe he'd get more than 9 years out of this body now!
"Right, what's our game plan?" Jack asked when they were all safely in the TARDIS. Right, the Crucible, Davros, and the whole fleet of Daleks.
"Don't worry, I have a-EGH!" The Doctor was about to reassure them, when he felt a sudden pain. He grimaced in pain, before falling to his knees.
"Doctor?!" the chorus of voices rang out from the other three, before they rushed over to him. The Doctor attempted to say something, but the instant he opened his mouth, a gold mist flew out of it.
"What?" he gasped out.
"But...you didn't get shot! Why are you-?" Jack said in confusion. The Doctor instead stared at his hand, which was beginning to give off a goldish glimmer.
"What?!" he repeated.
"N-No, you can't! I just came back, you can't!" Rose pleaded.
"Would someone please explain what the hell is going on?!" Right, Donna wasn't Awake. But why was this happening?! He'd beaten the curse of That Dalek. As the mist started forming all over his body, Jack caught the two women by the arm and pulled them back.
"Both of you, back!" he called, bringing them to the other side of the TARDIS console. And as the Doctor's arms splayed out and he began letting off a stream of regeneration energy, he had only one thing to say.
"WHAT?!"
Zurvan winced. Apparently not...
War.1: Entire planets can Loop into VanDread as targets for the Harvest.
War.2: 4chan is a dangerous place...
War.3: The Master may be a bad guy, but he's not an Omnicidal Maniac, even on his worst days.
War.4: Dan vs. The Infinite Loops.
War.5: Sometimes, the knowledge of a Time Lord can be a fun and dangerous thing.
War.6: The Doctor starts to suspect.
War.7: Cross-temporal pings aren't yet a thing.
War.8: "Television in their stomachs! Now that's evolution!"
War.9: Members of the Infinite Loops. Prepare to dance.
War.10: It's the little things.
War.11: BARROWMAN!
War.12: Some glitches are harder to be rid of than others.