Chapter Two - The Show Must Go On, Synergy!
The Doctor, still in shock from what he had witnessed moments earlier, asked Jerrica,
"Mind telling me what it was that I just saw? I might've just gone mental!"
She smiled. "That's Synergy! I'm lucky she had just enough power to turn me into Jem so I could meet you, Doctor," said the Starlight Music owner.
The slightly less confused Time Lord and Rose Tyler continued down Hollywood Boulevard with Jem and the Holograms, until the group stopped at a nearby parking lot. The Holograms then walked towards a glamorous vintage-looking automobile. Jerrica told the Doctor that this car was called the "Rockin' Roadster." Upon seeing the Rockin' Roadster, the Gallifreyan was awestruck.
He gleefully exclaimed, "This car is…she's…fantastic! I haven't seen one like it since I was the proud owner of old Bessie!" "
She is, isn't she," said the ocean-haired Hologram, Aja Leith.
"You must be Aja Leith. I'm the Doctor, nice to meet you," said the Doctor to the Holograms' lead guitarist.
"Come on, we must get back home! Synergy is waiting," proclaimed a worried Jerrica.
Heeding Jerrica's word. The Doctor used a device called BRU, or Bessie Retrieval Unit, that summoned his old roadster, dubbed "Bessie" during the time of his third incarnation. The Time Lord lovingly examined the mustard-colored roadster, complete with a "WHO-1" license plate. After his inspection, the Doctor and Rose hopped into Bessie and drove off, following the Holograms to their home, Starlight House.
When both groups arrived at the mansion, the Doctor noticed immediately that something was amiss. There appeared to be objects vanishing, the house changing shape and form, much to the bewilderment of the Time Lord.
"I haven't seen anything like this…in hundreds of years," said the Doctor as he exited his car, still astonished. Not wanting to alarm more people, he decided to change his face a bit. The renegade Gallifreyan used a special device called a perception filter to make himself look like his sixth incarnation, completed with a bright rainbow coat. As Rose exited the car and walked towards him, she nearly fell on the ground.
"Doctor, what the bloody hell happened to your face? You look like a dandy!" said Rose, amused.
"This face, young lady, is but an old relic, but it serves a purpose considering where we are." said the Doctor in kind.
As the group entered the house, there were sparks and bolts of electricity strangely flying out of a nearby wall. The Doctor immediately realized the wall in question was clearly a hologram and a fake. He passed through it to find a massive machine that resembled an elaborate pipe organ.
As the Time Lord got closer to the giant organ, he noticed mysterious damage, as if it was hit by laser fire. The Doctor decided to test the machine and pressed a key.
Immediately after, a female figure appeared, clad in purple and pink, and her skin and hair were just the same. She began to speak.
"I am Synergy. I believe we've met, Doctor, but your face - the face I know - is but an illusion. You are not the sixth Doctor, you are the tenth Doctor…"
As he heard Synergy's words, he removed the perception filter that he was wearing, returning to his original form.
"How did—how did you know?!" questioned the Doctor, befuddled.
"I know a lot of things," said the sentient synthesizer.
"Who attacked you?" asked the Doctor in reply.
Synergy explained.
"I am not sure. My visual processors were disabled at the time, but I heard voices. Robotic voices. They kept saying they were looking for you, and I heard screaming, with the word exterminate following soon after as if it was coming from one of those machines."
"Daleks. You heard Daleks. Do you have any idea where they came from?" the Time Lord asked.
"Jerrica told me she saw unidentified flying objects circling the mansion as the Holograms left to perform at a concert. Immediately after, I briefly saw machines that looked like pepper pots before my visual processors were cut off." replied the holographic woman.
"But I thought you said that - oh, no. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." uttered the Doctor, defeated.
He had noticed some Dalek technology attached to part of Synergy, and realized she didn't have much time left before she would be infected with a virus and alert any nearby Dalek forces as a results. Worse yet, there was a failsafe on the virus transmitter that would destroy Synergy if someone tampered with it.
The Doctor, looked at Synergy, broken. "This may be the end of Jem and the Holograms. I'm sure you know about the virus that will take you over so the Daleks will come and get me. But that device has a fail safe, one that will destroy you if I try to remove it. Even the Sonic Screwdriver would set it off." said the Time Lord, distraught and frustrated.
As the Doctor finished speaking, Synergy's hologram started glitching and fizzling. Her eyes started turning from deep purple to bright red, and the room began to appear as if it was about to collapse.
Synergy's face lost all expression, and gave a deathly stare at the Gallifreyan.
"Exterminate…exterminate…" said the fallen sentient hologram, repeating the word as she moved ever closer to the Doctor.
The Doctor ran out of Synergy's room and told the Holograms and Rose, who were hanging out together in the living room, that she was compromised by the Daleks. They ran outside and drove off in their respective cars. As the Doctor was driving, he saw Dalek starships chasing him down the highway. The ships proceeded to open fire on him, causing him to violently crash into a guardrail.
The Rockin' Roadster, with the Holograms and Rose Tyler in tow, passed the wrecked Bessie, and parked nearby to help the Doctor out.
They pulled him out of the car, and the Time Lord was gravely injured. His hands started flaming with golden light, and his face started glowing soon after.
"No, this - this can't be right…" said the 'dying' Doctor.
"Doctor, what's happening?" asked a completely flabbergasted Jerrica.
"I'm - I'm regenerating!" exclaimed the Doctor, as he became consumed in the fiery energy that is associated with the act of regeneration…
