The Gates of Elysium
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The Daleks had invaded the Dronid system or the Drornid system depending on which time-line was asserting itself. The planet existed in a bizarre region of space-time, a region that the time sensitives called the Gates of Elysium. Many believed it had to do with the Time Lord technology on the planet, though others had suggested that it was a nexus point of multiple universes, the entire region a massive time-space scab on the surface of reality. Time flowed in a different way here. TARDISes refused to fly in the region, time vessels would disappear never to return. The nature of the region had largely saved the planet from the initial skirmishes of the war, but a year in the Daleks had decided to utilize Dro(r)nid's star to create a Dalek Eye of Harmony, except this one would be infinitely more powerful, at least on paper, because it would utilize the energy released from shattering the crystallize time fields that surrounded the system, and would make it unassailable.
The Time Lords had mounted a defense, as did just about every time sensitive race in the universe. This was the largest battle yet in the war. Twenty thousand War TARDISes, a thousand bowships created a defensive line around the system in four dimensions. The Monan Host's leviathans were in full force, the Nekkistani had three hundred battleships sitting at the edge of the Gates. The Tharils committed a thousand ships within the region, as they had the most natural capacity to navigate the temporal squalls within Gates. The Sunari arrived with a fleet of battleship that numbered the thousands and with them the Warpsmiths of Phaidon with enough carriers and fighters to turn a small planet into glass.
The Daleks had launched a fleet of fifty thousand war saucers. They were lead by their creator with his own makeshift stellar manipulator on board to create his new power source. The initial strike from the Daleks rushed the Sunari forces, believing they were the weakest link in the defenses and soon the defensive line had been compromised. Reality warped around the battle as ships slipped backward and forwards in time, dog-fighting in the Time Vortex itself. The defenders were losing, the Daleks were far more aggressive, far more insane at this point in the war, and unafraid of the collateral damage as they raged into the Dro(r)nid stary system. That was when the Doctor had arrived.
A massive fleet of Navarino Time Skimmers swarmed the battlefield. Each armed with temporal disruptors and time sheers. The Dalek fleet was forced to slow to deal with the newcomers, except for one ship, larger than the others which continues to rush into the Dro(r)nid system. The Doctor launched his TARDIS into the battle, swooshing between time torpedos, tendrils of N-forms, black hole eruptors, dimensional fold eliminators, rushing towards the Dalek command ship.
He didn't make it. The vessel released its payload. The Dro(r)nid star exploded and then shrunk. The TARDIS was flung backwards as temporal tsunamis smashed outwards from the epicenter. He tried to grab a hold of control as the TARDIS rattled and spun as it was lashed by the random temporal currents. Even within the TARDIS he was seeing images as time within the vessel twisted. He saw Susan as she was before they arrived on Earth; he saw Victoria and Jamie, Jo Grant, Sarah Jane, Adric, Tegan, Peri, Ace, Charlie, Lucie. And then he saw other people, he didn't know, a blonde girl, a dark skinned woman with long black hair, a ginger girl and a man dressed like a Roman, and then a girl with dark hair and dark eyes, she was pointing at a blinking light and looked at him and smiled. He rushed over to the light as the girl twisted into other forms, other people, he didn't recognize, he hit the button under the blinking light and the TARDIS reared, pressing itself into the waves of time, surfing the gravity waves. He took a deep breath and looked up at the monitor.
Davros's ship had been at the eye of the storm. The vessel looked like it was struggling to escape the gravity of the singularity they'd created, but that was impossible, a Dalek command ship had enough power to escape a mass of that size; that was when he'd seen it, the form tearing itself loose, as reality around it had shattered leaving a gigantic hole in the universe. It was vaguely humanoid in form but that, the Doctor knew, was just a common courtesy of his brain trying to take in the horror that he was seeing. Giant leathery wings strained against reality as the creature opened its maw. He knew he couldn't let it escape, and he knew he had to save the command ship.
"It can't be." The Doctor whispered as he saw the enormous form scratching at the seams of reality dragging its bulk into the universe from the outside. The Doctor braced himself against the TARDIS console, he patted the console gently. "I'm sorry, old girl, but you're not going to like this."
He pulled on a level and forced the engines of the ancient machine to throw the ship towards the singularity. The TARDIS shook, the great metal pylons groaned under the external forces of time waves, eddies and general chunks of time and space coming loose from the rest of the universe. Sparks showered down onto the console. The Doctor whipped around the hexagonal panels flipping switches, twisting dimmers, yanking on levers and quickly hitting buttons. The TARDIS jolted again, and the Doctor nearly fell from the plinth that the console stood on as the ground beneath his feet was yanked from underneath him. The time rotor shivered as it lifted and fell. Another jolt, another burst of pyrotechnics, and then the gong.
"Come on, old girl, no need for that!" The Doctor said as he grabbed the edges of the console. The cloister bell chimed again. "I know, I'm sorry, we got too close. We need to get closer though!"
He looked up at the monitor as it rolled around him, he grasped it closely. The saucer was tumbling into the event horizon of the singularity. There was something else though reaching out from the larger tear across reality. The massive maw of it gaped like a cavern in the middle of space. He looked down to the console. He had to get onto that saucer, but it was wobbling, trying to escape its fate, and it was shooting at him. He set the new navigation coordinates, the TARDIS voiced it discontent by jolting angrily in another direction. He wrestled with her controls as she viciously tried to escape. He kept eying the Dalek command ship, it was slipping. The Great Vampire was drawing energy from the vessel, draining its universal drive and zeta reactors. It didn't help that the command ship was firing both at the vampire and at him. The vampire of course simply consumed the fire power like it was candy. The Doctor grabbed for the button that turned on the communication system.
"Davros!" The Doctor shouted, over the static and the explosions.
"Doctor, if you think I have time for your flippancies and gloating now, you are severely misinformed." The gravelly voice returned. The Doctor could hear the Dalek screams and screeches as they were announcing status reports, the ship was falling apart and the Daleks were apoplectic.
"Let me help you!" The Doctor implored. The TARDIS jolted again and the Doctor grabbed the console and grabbed for helmic regulator, flinging her back on course towards the ship. "You need to lower your transcendental shielding, so I can materialize!"
"HA! If you think I'm that stupid!" Davros's voice pierced through the speakers. "As soon as my shielding goes down this beast you have summoned will destroy us! Or the Time Lords will launch their weapons at this ship! No, Doctor, I believe we will continue with our current plan."
"Current plan!?" The Doctor shook his head. "You don't have a plan beyond shoot at it! Tell me, you must know that your power output is collapsing, those shields will come down one way or another, I'd rather it be sooner when I can do something, rather than later! That creature is not affected by your weapons! It's eating your firepower! Do you even know what that thing is!?"
"It matters not!" Davros retorted loudly. "My Daleks will destroy it, and then we will take ownership of this singularity, and WITH THAT POW…"
"This isn't the time for one of your rants, Davros!" The Doctor shouted. "That is a Great Vampire, it will consume your ship and then it will escape from its home reality and rage across the universe, consuming every civilization in its path, draining stars of energy, sucking biospheres dry, and where there is one, there will be others! Davros, you need to shut your reactors down, you need to let me get to you…my TARDIS is designed to resist that thing's ability to draw energy. It has special defenses against it!"
"Then materialize your vessel around the command ship." Davros said, calmly.
"I can't while you're shielded!" The Doctor shouted. "Lower your shields! Let me save you!"
The TARDIS reared angrily, throwing the Doctor to the floor of the console room. His head slammed on the metal surface. He saw stars as the world washed with brilliant colors. He shook his head trying to clear out the cobwebs, and struggled back up to the console. The TARDIS slammed again, he looked foggily up at the monitor as it bounced back and force. He could see a second vampire trying to push its way into reality. This had created a second blast of time eddies and giant quantum discord. He had to get to the controls. The comm.-link was still open.
"Doctor! What are you doing!?" Davros's shouted loudly. "Coward! You FLEE AFTER YOU CLAIM ASSISTANCE! I should have never expected anything more from you!"
The TARDIS flipped end over end, the Doctor lost his footing and barely had the where-for-all to grab the metal pylon as the internal dimensions swung around in random directions. He flung himself at the controls, groaning as his body hit the hard surfaces, and levers stabbed his ribs. His fist clutched one of the knobs on the helmic regulator. He pulled as hard as he could, but the TARDIS refused, the console burst into flames as he heard the engines wheeze to life.
"NO!" The Doctor shouted at the TARDIS. The HADS was activating. "Don't do it! Stop! We have to go back! WE HAVE TO GO BACK!"
It was too late, the TARDIS was shaking apart as it struggled to jump time tracks and escape the vampires and the shattering chunks of reality around the Gates of Elysium. He didn't know where the TARDIS was going. The TARDIS struggled like a large ship caught in a net, shaking as it was diving from time stream to time stream, trying to extricate itself from the Dro(r)nid system. All the while the comm.-link was open.
"I curse you Doctor, I curse you in the name of the Daleks. I will never forget this! When I get free I will use my dying breath to spite you! I will tear reality apart to get my vengeance on you, DOCTOR! IF IT TAKES ME DESTROYING THE UNIVERSE I WILL SEE YOU EX-TERM-IN-ATED!" Davros's voice squealed in rage.
The Doctor could see the command ship sink further and further into the maw of the Great Vampire. The first great vampire in the universe in millions of years reached out into reality. The first child of the lost spaces consumed the Dalek command ship. The nightmarish child then reached out further towards the war fleet. For the first time the entire fleets, the Time Lords, the Sunari, The Warpsmiths, the Nekkistani, the Monan Host, the Daleks, the Navarinos, stopped shooting at each other and directed their full weapon capacity at the monstrosity reaching out for them. For the first time all these races would act together to try and defend the universe from a greater threat. Unfortunately, they would fail. The nightmarish child would rage across the universe, and its brethren would follow it from the gaping wound cut in the Dro(r)nid system, soon there would be thousands of them. The entire region was sterilized. The war fleets were consumed. Not even the Time Lord bowships could stop the vampires. The Time Lords had forgotten how to fight them, and the bowships had been refitted, lacking bolts of steel on board to pierce the beasts' hearts.
The TARDIS flung itself free of the chaos, with a loud squeal of the engines. From a distance of a hundred thousand parsecs the Doctor watched as portions of the galaxy surrounding the Gates of Elysium went dark as the TARDIS continued to flee through time and the vampires washed out into the universe. The communication system picked up the terror and the screams as it picked up millions of communications, the collective sounds of millions of star systems weeping. It was a disaster, and for the first time since the war started the Time Lord wept.
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AN: Reminder that these one shots are not in 'chronological order'. IE this one comes very likely earlier than the others.