Alternate Earth, 1966
Inside a chamber filled with wires, liquid mercury, buttons, and levers sat two middle-aged gentlemen. Both wore velvet jackets and both had greying hair.
"My dear fellow," said the Doctor, "how can you have built a TARDIS in your back garden? It takes thousands of years back home!"
"Good chap," said Dr Who, "I read a manual by that fine scientist, Michael Aster."
Dr Who's ship, TARDIS, was a police box that contained a control room triple the size of the outside. The control room was the only room, hence why everything was inside and it was a total mess. The Doctor's own TARDIS was much cleaner in every sense of the word.
"Doctor!"
"Grandfather!"
"Yes, Miss Grant?"
"Yes, Suzie?"
Jo Grant and Suzie came into TARDIS. Jo was the Doctor's assistant at UNIT while Suzie was Dr Who's granddaughter. She was much younger than the Doctor's granddaughter Susan had been when they last met. Behind closed doors, the Doctors had already decided that Suzie was far more intelligent & useful than Jo despite Suzie being about 10 years old and Jo in her twenties.
"Liz wants you back in your TARDIS. The Brigadier has found a policeman sneaking around."
"Louise says that Tom Campbell's back!"
Dr Who jumped up and almost ran out of TARDIS. The Doctor followed, heading to his own TARDIS to find that his previous assistant, Liz Shaw, and the Brigadier were holding a police constable up against the outer plasmic shell. "He was trying to break in," Liz said.
Louise, a neice of Dr Who, said, "He thought he was coming into your TARDIS, Uncle. He got the wrong one."
"Let him go," said the Doctor. "Now, young sir, what were you doing. Don't try any tricks or I'll poke you in the chest."
Tom sighed and only just stopped himself falling over. "The Daleks are here! Here in 1966!"
"No," said Dr Who. "Can't we ever get away from those scandalous pepperpots?"
"Locate Dr Who! Dr Who is required! Seek! Locate! Annihilate!"
"No! No!" said the Doctor. "I've already seen another Earth crash & burn. I will not let it happen again."
The first blue Daleks appeared. They were standard soldiers with the usual gunstick and arm. The only difference was that some Daleks had arms with claws instead of plungers.
"Dr Who located! Exterminate!"
A Red Dalek then glided in.
"Inside!" the Doctor said.
The last to go inside was Louise. Just as she passed the door of the Doctor's TARDIS, hissing gas from a Dalek gunstick engulfed her. Her screams echoed around the street and the TARDIS. The Doctor sighed and flicked the door switch on the console. "She's just the first," he said to Dr Who. "As I said, I will not allow another Earth from a parallel universe to die."
"My brother's daughter is dead!"
"Yes, yes, jumping Jehoshaphat, I noticed. Look, Miss Shaw, Brigadier, could you attend to our guests? Miss Grant, please check the scanner. Here's what to look for."
Outside, the Daleks tried shooting their steam at the TARDIS again, but they didn't make a scratch. "Report to benefactors!" shouted the Red Dalek. "Report begins! Unable to exterminate Dr Who! A second individual known as the Doctor is blocking us! Request assistance!"
Back inside, Jo called the Doctor over when she saw some more Daleks come out of the alleyways. At the same time, 5 drunkards were waddling down the street yelling a demand to be shown the way to go home. A grey Dalek, the sort Jo had seen before, focused its eye on the group. She could imagine the pupil in the Dalek's eye widening in glee as its gunstick buzzed. 3 of the wasted fools screamed as the colours around them inverted; blue turned to orange, white turned to black, purple turned to green.
"Tragic," the Doctor sighed.
A blue Dalek sprayed another drunkard with the lethal gas.
The Doctor leaned closer to the screen as the next Dalek arrived. "What in the name of sanity?"
This Dalek had a broadly similar outline, but was slightly bigger. It had a shining bronze & gold colour. Its eye glowed with blue light. It was facing away from the last drunk, but it then swivelled its mid-section around. The human's skeleton glowed green as he was cut down.
"Enough!" shouted the Doctor. "I'm going to move this capsule around the other TARDIS."
A few moments and mechanical groaning noises later, the Doctor said, "It actually worked!"
Dr Who came out of the back room to see his own police box inside the control room. "What's happening?"
"The Daleks have come to your time, so we should get away. You said that you defeated them in 2150? We're going to 2160."
Alternate Earth orbit, Dalek Saucer
"Analysis shows that alternate Daleks use primitive gaseous weaponry. Ineffective."
"Incorrect, Dalek Thay," said Dalek Caan. "They exterminated Louise. If a weapon kills, it is effective."
Thay and Caan were not codes or numbers. Thay and Caan were the names of the Bronze Daleks. There was a third, Jast, and finally a Black Dalek called Sec. They had names to make them think as the opposition thinks. They were Daleks ordered to think differently from other Daleks. They were the Cult of Skaro.
They could have argued for hours. They had found another version of the Dalek opponent called the Doctor. This Dr Who had also been responsible for the deaths of Daleks, even if these were inferior versions from an impure parallel universe.
"Keep on topic!" Sec ordered. "Dalek Jast has returned from the surface. Dr Who is travelling with the Oncoming Storm to the 2160 of this reality! Move! Move!"
The Cult's Saucer carried approximately a hundred crewmembers, from other Bronze Daleks to Robomen built out of able-bodied prisoners. The Grey Daleks were the majority of the Daleks aboard, soldiers from remote zones who still had not been upgraded. There were other creatures waiting too.
"Thay, Jast, Caan, switch identification codes!"
The Bronze members of the Cult often changed the images beneath their eyestalk to confuse opposition. Which Dalek had the line in the middle instead of above or below?
Alternate Earth, 2160
The Doctor, Dr Who, the Brigadier, Tom, Suzie, Jo, and Liz walked out into Trafalgar Square. "They've cleaned up, Grandfather," Suzie said.
"Goodness gracious," said Dr Who. "They've put a Dalek on the Fourth Plinth!"
"What a dump," Liz sighed as she walked around the square. "They haven't turned the fountains on? Shocking."
"They still need water, water to drink," the Brigadier replied. "Personally, I would have torn all Dalek casings apart, melted them down, turned them into armchairs."
The Doctor and Jo rushed up to the crowd in front of the National Gallery. "Excuse me! I'm the Doctor."
"Are you?" asked the bearded politician in a suit. "Well, I am Wyler, and I'm sure that the gentleman climbing over the stone lions is the Doctor."
"No, no, he's Dr Who. I am the Doctor. We, all of us, want to talk to someone in authority. The Daleks are following us."
"That shouldn't worry you, sir. The Daleks come back, we suck them back into the core with magnetic force."
"What the blazes are you talking about, man? I've never heard such rubbish!"
Jo tugged the Doctor's coat. "But that's what they did! Louise told me."
Weylyn snorted and waved some of his assistants over. "Look, smartass, I'll show you to Downing Street, but one more insult and there'll trouble."
The Doctor folded his arms. "Try trouble with me, sir, and you will get an aikido chop."
"Daleks!" shouted someone. "Daleks are here!"
3 Grey Daleks and 1 Bronze Dalek glided from St Martin-in-the-Fields church towards the crowd. 7 Blue Daleks led by a Red Dalek came from the opposite direction.
"Fire!" Weylyn shouted at his team.
The Grey & Bronze Daleks did not even dignify the bullets with a response. Bullets sparked off grey casings. The bronze casing wasn't even touched as the bullets melted away when they hit the force field. The Daleks just sat there staring at the humans.
The Blue & Red Daleks returned fire with their gas guns, also unharmed.
The crowd charged at both Dalek teams. A few fast ones got to grips with the Blue Daleks, pushing & shoving. The Daleks shot anything they could still aim at, but they were still struggling.
Anyone who charged at the Grey Daleks was dead before they knew it.
The Bronze Dalek said, "We are here too, humans!"
The crowd threw a pair of Blue Daleks down the stairs leading back to Trafalgar Square before charging at the Bronze Dalek.
"Yes, attack me, humans!"
The first thug to reach the Bronze Dalek burst into flames when he touched the casing.
The next brave humans started pushing & shoving before screaming. Small hatches had opened in the Dalek's neck section. Each human had got a stinging tentacle to the neck. The Dalek creature drew itself back inside its casing as it prepared for another wave.
One of Weylyn's assistants yelled and picked up a loose branch. The Dalek's plunger shot forward onto her heart, sucked it out of her body, and threw her to one side. It then threw her beating organ towards the nearest bin. It missed.
"Finish them!" the Bronze Dalek told the Grey Daleks.
Within seconds, everyone near the National Gallery except for the Doctor & Jo was dead.
"Doctor," said the Bronze Dalek. "You are not expected to die yet. You and your associates will come with us."
"Now, just a moment," the Doctor said before the teleporter whisked him away.
"Linkup to Saucer. We have captured the Doctor, Dr Who, Jo, Suzie, and Alistair. Liz and Tom are loose."
"We will send a team to find Liz," said Jast's voice. "Tom is of no value. We will kill him."
Alternate Earth orbit, Dalek Saucer
Jast screamed, "Skaro Degradation deployed!"
Caan & Thay backed away as the mutated Daleks jumped out of the ship. Sec had told the Cult of Skaro that the Time Lords had tried to interfere with Dalek evolution, leading to Daleks to spill out all over reality. Sec had convinced some of them to join the Cult's invasion of the alternate Earth, such as the Spiders flying down to the planet.
Alternate Earth, 2160
On the surface, Liz saw the first egg-shaped Daleks on 3 legs land roughly. She saw that they had hit the side of Whitehall offices and were scuttling down the wall. Without a word, each machine spun its four gunsticks around, chewing up anything that moved. The physicist only survived because she didn't move, or so she thought.
"Liz Shaw!" screamed a Degradation. "Come with me! Come with me!"
Tom Campbell saw a Dalek and jumped back. He has sneaked away from Trafalgar Square to join some soldiers who were carrying Dalek gunsticks fixed to rifle stocks.
He pulled out his periscope to check around the wall, only to see that the Dalek hadn't moved. He looked closer to see that it wasn't even a Mark III Travel Machine, just a statue. He laughed. This Dalek was only a lump of stone.
Why would anyone build a statue of a Dalek? Target practice?
His team went the other way, with their backs to the statue. Only then did one of the soldiers scream; his skeleton glowing blue as he vanished completely. Campbell spun around. The statue was as still as before. His team carried on, but then a few more vanished too.
Campbell turned again and raised his gun at the statue. He saw that it had changed. While they weren't looking, the Dalek- it was definitely a Dalek of some kind- had picked off his team. He blinked.
He was gone.
The statue was still there. One of the worst groups in the Time War was the Horde of Travesties. The vast majority of them were barely describable, but the Dalek Angels were straightforward enough. A Weeping Angel flock had taken over the statues in a city famed for its artwork of Daleks, Cybermen, Sycorax, etc. The new Dalek Angels had slaughtered everyone in the city, including the original Weeping Angel flock, and escaped from the planet. Like the Weeping Angels, the Dalek Angels were quantum-locked, turning into stone when observed. However, they did not freeze each other, the weakness of the original Weeping Angels.
The Dalek Angels still had the mindset of Daleks, so were one of the few Travesties to willingly work for the Dalek Empire. Other Travesties allied with the Time Lords, such as the Cyber Osirans or the Nameless Tentacles, but even more just formed a third side in a war with enough carnage already.
The Doctor could never stand the heartbeat that was always where the Daleks were, so he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and held it to a power junction box. As he hoped, it exploded and took the door with it, after he had ducked for cover. He then walked out. "Why would a power junction box be in a prison cell?" he asked himself.
A Roboman dressed in black leather and a red helmet ran at the Doctor with a club. "Hai!" shouted the Doctor. "Hai Tavitch!"
He grabbed the Roboman's arm and threw him into the cell. He got a glimpse of the door label, which in the Dalek language said 'Engineering room, no prisoners allowed'. Why was he teleported inside there then? Why did he still have his screwdriver?
The Roboman rushed out again, so the Doctor poked him in the chest. The cybernetic slave breathed in, broke through the paralysing grip, and nearly hit the Doctor again. The Doctor punched him in the gut and ripped his helmet off.
"Goodness gracious, sir, what on Earth are you doing?"
"I Roboman," said the Roboman. "Dalek captured me. Dalek... Moment clear mind. I kept door unlocked. Dalek programming took over. Had stop you but want you escape."
"What's your name?"
"Name? Name? I... I..."
The Roboman screamed and fell over. Dr Who had hit him with an aikido chop of his own. "My dear fellow," Dr Who said to the Doctor, "it's too late for him."
"Halt!" shouted a Dalek voice. "Your escape is of no importance! We only want to ask questions to Dr Who! Doctor of our reality, you are not expected to die yet! We are not here to cause unnecessary paradoxes! We will allow you, Alistair, Jo, and Liz to leave in your TARDIS unharmed, but Dr Who is our prisoner!"
"Nuts," said the Doctor.
"You are unimportant, Doctor! Dr Who, state your name!"
"Dr Who?"
"State your name!"
"Who."
"State your real name?"
"What?"
A holographic image appeared in front of the Doctors. A pair of Bronze Daleks sat on either side of Suzie. The girl was chained to a Blue Dalek.
"Suzie," said the Blue Dalek, "you were helpful to us on Skaro by inviting the Thals to take our vegetables! You may help again! What is your grandfather's name?"
"Who?"
"Dr Who, if you do not cooperate, we will extract brainwaves from Suzie!"
The Bronze Daleks stuck their plungers out and started to squeeze Suzie's head. The girl said, "Grandfather!" before the plungers enveloped her completely.
"Hughes! My name is Jonathan Hughes-Smith!"
"Pause! Jonathan Hughes-Smith, if you had told us your name the first time, we would have accepted your answer! Answers under duress are unreliable! We will require third-party verification!"
"Don't kill Suzie!"
"We do not need to kill Suzie, Jonathan. We found your other granddaughter, Barbara, and her associate, Ian. Show them!"
The camera switched to a pair of corpses. Neither were recognisable as they were reduced to dried, grey husks.
"We gave Barbara a quick death by accelerating after we found your real name! We gave Ian a painful death for his role in the massacre on the alternate Skaro!"
"What will you with Suzie?"
The Daleks released Suzie and let the girl faint. She was still breathing, but all blood had drained from her head. "Suzie will become a superior being! Suzie, you have a great honour ahead not given to many inferior life forms."
"No!" shouted the Doctor after a long silence. "That's monstrous!"
"What?" asked Dr Who.
"They're going to turn her into another Dalek!"
"Great Scott!"
"An honour!" said the Daleks together.
Suzie was still struggling, but whispered, "I don't want to be a Dalek."
"You will not be a normal Dalek!" said the Blue Dalek. "In gratitude for your help, we persuaded our allies to give you an elevated role. There are 4 Daleks with the rank of Ultima on this ship. You can be a fifth. They offer to call you Dalek Rabe."
The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the hologram and shut it off. "Disgusting."
Dr Who had nearly lost his granddaughter. He had already lost his niece, his other granddaughter, and her boyfriend. "Will you be leaving, sir?"
"Absolutely not! I said I would not allow this world to crash and burn. I tell you, my good sir, that I will rescue Suzie. I will save your Earth. I will save you."
To be continued.
