Chapter 18:
The Many Familiar Faces
"ALERT. ALERT." There was something wrong. The energy scanners were going crazy; something was bothering the Child. "Open all scanners" Artemis commanded.
All energy levels were off-chart. The boy fired off a diagnostic, impulses in his brain firing. "Temporal energy detected" the computer said.
Temporal energy. Meant a breach in the time vortex. Artemis ran his fingers across the nerve-board. The Scientists on level 24 had to be alerted; something was tampering with the gateway at the Cascades. Something was trying to bring another variable into the equation.
Artemis stopped. The equations. The Scientists had been warned, the conformation light confirmed. Back to the equations...17=83972932[8{98484747]8439284082734+9384838=8465837 to the power of E, 7878.90280070% power must be diverted, 92872018392...
"WHAT THE D'ARVIT IS THIS SUPPOSED TO DO AGAIN?"
Foaly was, for the fourth time in his life, absolutely terrified. The Doctor had said that in order to get in touch with the people he needed, they would have to "open the Vortex and split it with a wedge". He had very successfully explained that splitting the Vortex (whatever the hell that meant) at the wrong instance would cause the TARDIS to explode. Before they had started, Mulch asked the Doctor if they could first go back in time, so that the dwarf could make sure he never met any of them in his life.
The Doctor considered it for a moment, and refused.
Now, splitting the very essence of time and space requires a lot of power, and an open rift into the vortex. This should be defined as a Haramien Nexus generator, a frequency modulator, and a carefully controlled time portal. Unfortunately, what they had was a teenaged demon warlock, and a clunky old time engine.
"That should do just fine" the Doctor had said. Luskar immediately strapped himself onto the TARDIS couch.
Now the gamble was taking place. The Doctor had opened all the doors to the time engine, and commanded everyone not to look into it. Everyone turned away.
"NOW" he yelled over the roaring time engines, "I WANT YOU TO DO SOMETHING." He pointed at No1.
"WHAT?"
"YOU SEE THE BALL OF ENERGY AT THE CENTER OF THE ENGINE?"
"THE THING I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT?"
" I WANT YOU TO LOOK AT IT!"
"YOU ARE KIDDING ME!"
Now No1 stood in front of the howling vortex at the center of the time engine, with the Doctor clasping his temples. "Now" the Doctor whispered in his ear, "I'll provide the pictures of the people. You just have to find them and grab them."
No1 nodded his head. He began to chant his demon chant, and raised his arms. Blue lightning leapt from his finger tips, snaking into the vortex. Images flashed through the warlocks mind, as the Doctor put himself in a trance for complete focus.
Though he was told not to look, Butler craned his neck ever so slightly to see what was going on. What he saw was the interior of a time machine filled with fairies, its engines opened so a demon warlock could pump magic into it to retrieve the friends of a alien he needed to help save his employer from genocidal robots in a flying spaceship fish.
"This is my life" he thought.
No1 was having no picnic. Images kept flashing and flashing; it was getting harder to discern who was needed. Did The Doctor really know this many people?
There! The last person. No1 now focused all his magic, and with a mighty heave, 'yanked' the people he caught back into the present day. However, they did not come quietly. The shock of bring so many people caused a mini explosion, sending wisps of temporal energy flying everywhere around the TARDIS. Its occupants were thrown against the walls (again) and tumbled all over the place.
Holly groaned. Her body wouldn't survive past 100 years with this constant battering. She slowly turned on her side, and yelped. The man she was looking at yelped to, and jumped to his feet. He hadn't been there a minute ago, and he sure didn't look familiar. The man was tall and lanky, with a brown coat and a long multicoloured scarf running down to his ankles. His brown hair curled and poofed out of his head, and his eyes bugged out of his head, threatening to roll down his tomahawk nose.
The man twirled his head around his shoulders, eyes darting. "Who the hell are you?!" he demanded. "Where am I?! Well?!"
Holly stared, then instinctively pulled her mini-Neutrino off her belt. "I'd ask the same of you, Mud Man."
The curly haired man stopped, and put up his hands. He flashed his teeth in a smile. "Uhhhh...hehe. I'm sorry, I came off a bit strong didn't I?" He stuck his hand out. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the-"
Then, Holly felt another man come up behind her. She swung around, and found the barrel of her gun stuck up the nose of another curly-haired man. But he was older, with snow-white hair and wrinkles that made him look very wise. He wore a shoulder cape over a flamboyantly striped suit.
"Who are you, young lady?" he said. He spoke with a slight lisp. Before Holly could answer, the white haired man noticed the scarf man behind her. Instantly his face twisted. "YOU!"
"Oh, you."
Holly was really confused now. But then it clicked; these two must be who the Doctor was talking about. The white haired man ran up and grabbed the scarf man by the collar. "How are you here?" he said.
"And I'd like to know why are we here?" replied the scarf man. "I don't recognize the surroundings...maybe it's Omega again?"
"Don't be daft. Omega's dead. I saw that with my own eyes."
Holly and the two men swirled on their heels to see a third man by the TARDIS doors. He was young, with blonde hair and a baby face with flawless skin. He wore a white cricket suit, looking very respectful if not for the celery stalk he had in his pocket.
"Now, what are you two doing here?" said celery man. "Why are we here..." He looked at Holly. "And who the hell is that?"
"That is exactly what I want to ask" Holly wheezed. She pointed her gun at celery man. "Now, who are all you stu-"
Butler lumbered over, and stuck his head down to Holly's level. "Before you finish that sentence, you might want to come check this out." He glared at the three men. "You three as well."
The scarf and white-haired man straightened themselves out, and the celery man overtook them as the five of them walked up the railway and onto the TARDIS control platform. What Holly saw blew her mind.
There were seven other men standing amidst the group already there. The first was an elderly man in a fancy Victorian suit, his bleach-white hair flowing down to his shoulders. The second man was also elderly, but with a brown bowl cut hair. What struck Holly was that the man had on a respectable suit jacket, but below his waist was a Scottish kilt, with knicker-bockers and buckle shoes.
The next man wore a rainbow suit, with an arched back and a orange afro. The man beside him had a regal appearance, with brown hair, a dark blue suit jacket, and a pocket watch hanging out of his lapel.
The next man was short, with a straw fedora and a brown smokers jacket with golf pants. He had an umbrella hanging from his arm, with a question mark handle. The two men beside him looked the most normal; the man on his right had a shaved head, with a black shirt, pants, and leather jumper. The man on the left wore a blue pin-strip suit with stick-up hair and a warm gaze.
Foaly kept clopping his front hooves. "Am I the only one here thinking this box is getting crowded?"
The spiky-haired man smiled. " A centaur. I don't know what I'm doing here, but this is fantastic. Isn't that right, Doctor?"
"Indubitably, Doctor" said the umbrella man.
Juliet rubbed her head. "See, this is more confusing than usual."
Trouble guffawed. "Indeed."
Holly put her gun back on her belt. "Alright, now this is starting to get confusing. Now, why don't we start figuring this out. Where's the Doctor?"
All the strange men raised their right hands. Luskar began banging his head against the pole his couch was hanging on.
Butler cracked his knuckles. "I am annoyed" he said. "The last time I was annoyed, I punched my way out of a steel pirate ship. So I want everyone here I don't know to explain themselves. NOW."
The rainbow suit man glared at the manservant. "Was that a threat, sir? Because I think you'll find-"
"Oh, can it, you flamboyant pruss" the shaved head man said. "How I came from you never made sense."
Pocket-watch man chuckled. "Nothing ever made sense with him"
"And what does that mean, pourquois?"
"Nothing...catman"
Spiky-hair and shaved head both snickered.
The elderly white-haired man turned to the kilt man. "We really became idiots, didn't we?"
"Indeed we did?"
Mulch raised his hand. "Question; what the hell is going on?"
Suddenly, the Doctor came barreling up the TARDIS stairs, carrying No1 on his back. "OH! Good, your all here." He slumped the exhausted No1 onto a chair, and stood in front of all the strange men. "Now, hello. Welcome to my TARDIS."
"Oh my giddy AUNT!" the kilt man yelled. "This is the TARDIS? This is what you did to the poor girl?"
The Doctor's face fell. "Y...You don't like it?"
Celery man looked around. "A bit...cluttered, in my opinion."
"Very" said kilt man.
"I preferred mine, to be brutally honest" said shaved head.
"I like it" spiky-hair said sympathetically. "Even if it is kind of... childish"
"CHILDISH?" said the Doctor.
"Very" repeated kilt man.
"It looks like a playground that was designed by M.C Escher" said scarf man. "And he was off his head, the poor lad."
"Oh, I remember him" said umbrella man. "Didn't I meet him during that mess with the Helhashi?"
"No..." pocket-watch said, "...I believe it was the Grand Master of the Riru."
"The Grand Master?" said rainbow suit. "You still associate with him?"
"He's still alive?" said white-hair
Holly couldn't take anymore. "EXCUSE ME! WHO THE D'ARVIT ARE ALL OF YOU? BECACUSE IF SOME DOESN'T STARTING ANSWERIG RIGHT NOW, I AM GOING TO TAKE MY GUN AND SHOVE IT STRAIGHT UP SOMEONES-"
The Doctor walked up straight to Holly and wrapped his hand around her mouth. "I was getting to that, Holly. No need for shoving guns in unfriendly places." The Doctor walked around his friends and turned, waving his arms around the control room. "As you know, I am an alien. And the really interesting thing about my species, is that when we die, we have the ability to..."
"What does this have to do with anything?" Foaly asked. He reared his left hind leg and gave Luskar a slight kick, as he had fallen asleep again.
"...My species" the Doctor continued, "when we die, our bodies release massive amounts of energy and rejuvenate ourselves. A literal resurrection, if you will."
Luskar, rubbing sleep from his eyes, puffed smoke in annoyance. "So, what does that have to do with all these people?"
The Doctor smiled. "I've regenerated my body, fully, about ten times. And the thing with regeneration is that, your body changes completely. So, you keep on living, but ….you die, and someone else goes walking away."
Butler was always known for picking up on things, and he quickly put two and two together. "So, these people..."
"Each and every single man here, is me. Say hello to my past lives," the Doctor moved his hands around the room, "the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor, and the Doctor."
"Oh, gods above" Trouble thought. "There's eleven of him."