You Are Not Alone

888

The young boy winced as he held his side. He grasped his left shoulder wincing as his hand covered a gaping wound. Sparks and smoke poured out of the wound. The boy winced as he slumped to one side. He looked up at the sky. He could see it, beyond the atmosphere, beyond the solar system outwards the projections. The fleets of the Dalek war machine rolling through the Caldonian expanse. The Gothic war wheels and the Dalek battle saucers. The blinking flashes of Gallifreyan bowships exploding under the massive assault.

In the chaos of the battle he could see the destination of the fleet. The cross-shaped stellar cluster, a giant dimensional rift called the Eye of Tantalus that could be used to launch an instantaneous assault across the entire time-scape of the war to erase Gallifrey from existence. The boy winced, pushing himself back onto his feet. His raven hair was singed from Dalek blaster fire. His dark black tunic and cargo pants burnt with holes exposing a gray surface underneath. The boy closed his eyes, his eyelids eclipsing the nearly black irises as his dark eyebrows knitted together. There was a noise, a hissing grating noise and the points of damage glowed with a bluish light. The clothing stitched back together, the hair grew and changed losing the singeing. The hole in his should was covered by a filmy liquid that seemed to cauterize the wound and then the clothing over the shoulder stitched over the new shoulder that had been materialized.

The boy turned his head, stretching his neck, hearing the vertebrae crackling. He lifted his left arm and opened his hand. From the palm of his hand a spear made of grayish liquid was excreted from his skin, lengthening and then solidifying into a black halberd with a large black, axe-like blade on its end.

The boy looked up and with a small thought and a murderous desire there was a nearly silent 'pop' and in the next minute he was there, in the midst of it. Dalek war saucer firing in all directions. He could 'hear' the electromagnetic pulsing of the energy weapons. He could smell the temporal anomalies. He could 'feel' the gravitational perturbations of black holes. He looked down and searched the fleet he had to find the flagship. If he could destroy the command ship the rest of the Dalek forces would be stunned, maybe enough to allow the Time Lord forces to launch a counter offensive. The information flitted across his vision as he looked from saucer to saucer.

He knew what to look for. The command ship would be further back, heavily shielded, and…he stared forward to one ship residing in the middle of the chaos. It was enormous, heavily armed, heavily shielded. The largest Dalek saucer the boy had ever seen. On the outside of the ship there were special insignias, different from other ships. A murderous grin played across the boy's face.

Not only was this the command ship, this was the Emperor's personal flagship. The mad fool had come to his own battle! The king monster, the ultimate Dalek was here to personally oversee the Dalek mastery over time and space. The boy's grip on his halberd grew tight. He could feel his hearts pumping, beating with the power and surge of hormonal rage and violence. He tilted his body forward and flew.

Through the swarms of Dalek fighters and smaller scout ships he burned through them slicing them in half and cutting them apart. He raged through their ranks, ignoring the blasters, the missiles, the torpedoes. He would succeed where others had failed. He would end the war, stop the carnage with one slash of his halberd. It was minutes but they flew by as he finally punched through the final wave of Daleks and came face to face with the Emperor's ship.

The boy smirked as he looked at the giant vessel, slowly spinning in front of him. He could 'see' the sensory systems locking onto him. He could smell the weapons warming up. He closed his eyes and charged forward. The blasters hit first, first smashing against the small dimensional bubble surrounding him, and then finally punching through striking his tunic and burning into his body. He winced, as each needle-like blast ripped through his nervous system. The torpedoes exploded around him as he deftly swooped and dove between them. Finally he was there in striking distance He reared his halberd upwards and sliced it down. The axe blade rebounded off of the ships shields. He growled and kept slashing, kept pounding it. The shielding shattered under one final strike and the blade sliced forward. The affect of the blade slash was larger than the blade itself, releasing a gulf negative reality forward, completely engulfing and dematerializing an entire section of the ship.

He smirked as he watched the ship explode from the wound he'd just inflicted upon it. He readied himself for another attack, when out of the corner of his eye something appeared. He turned his head and saw not just something but a horde of somethings. A fleet of ships previously undetected.

The boy screamed in pain as the assault on his body ripped through the plasmic shell. The nerves attached to the control matrix seared with fire and death. He tumbled through the vacuum of space screaming silently. The Dalek stealth ships continued their assault on the boy, firing everything they had. The child was writhing in pain. He finally slumped twirling in space. The stealth ships encircled him, and in the distance he heard the voice.

"TIME-LORD!" the Dalek voice rumbled, huge and laden with authority. "YOU - ARE - DE-FEATED! YOU HAVE FAILED! YOU ARE DY-ING! BUT YOU SHALL WATCH! WATCH AS WE EX-TERM-I-NATE YOUR PLAN-ET! YOU WILL NEVER HAVE EX-I-STED! AND WE SHALL BE LORDS OF TIME!"

The boy groaned, quietly. He somehow stabilized himself in the vacuum and looked up at the Dalek ships. They were everywhere. He looked further out to see the vast hulking mess that was the wreckage of the Time Lord fleet. Dalek ships were pouring into the cruciform of stars. He coughed, and when he did bits of fluid flew out into space. He wiped his mouth and smiled an evil smile.

"You'll pay…" the boy whispered as he glared at the ships surrounding him. "Do you know what I am? I'm not just a Time Lord….I am new, reborn. A Time Lord physically connected to the control matrix of a living TARDIS infused with an N-Form….which means…" The boy lifted his hand and splayed his fingers. "I can do this!"

The ships didn't see it coming. Dimensional holes ripped open around them and something quite horrific slithered out huge nano-dimensional tentacles tore through the ships, ripping apart the quarks that made up their atoms leaving nothing but a discreet cloud of elementary quantum physics in its wake. The stealth ships that survived the initial onslaught opened fire. The child was sent flipping into the darkness. He closed his eyes and then there was silence.

He winced. It was painful. Everything was in pain. He slowly opened his eyes. There was only blurry twilight. He closed his eyes again and slowly shook his head, opening his eyes anew to a clearer world. He could hear fans running. He was in a giant room. He looked down at himself, nearly naked with only a pair of shorts covering his modesty. His thin arms and body were covered with wires that were hooked into him and reached upwards into the infinity above him. He groaned slightly and reached up pulling at the wires slowly pulling them out of his skin, leaving bleeding sores which he regretted instantly. As he pulled at the wires he could hear it, the gonging of a cloister bell. He pulled the last of the wires from him and fell forward with the limpness of an overcooked noodle. His legs were pudding, his muscles were nearly unresponsive and he wriggled about not unlike a waterless fish for a few minutes.

Finally his motor nervous system figured out how to work and he pushed himself wobbling to his feet. He staggered as the room around him felt like it pitched haphazardly around and he reached up grabbing a wall, grunting as his mass collected against the surface. He looked around him. In the middle of the room was where he'd been. A single encircled dais with wires and cords hanging down around a center column where he had been standing. He needed to know where he was. He needed to know when he was. He needed to know how to escape. It could be over any minute. The last thing he remembered was the Daleks taking the cruciform. Depending on how prepared they were they could utilize Eye of Tantalus to launch a weapon whose effect would sweep across the entire war. He winced again as he looked down at his body, riddled with swelling wounds, bruises and other injuries. He looked around the room and saw a door and pulled himself along the wall towards it, slowly pushing it open.
He fell into a new room and looked. There were desks and cabinets. He grunted and pushed towards one of them opening them. Medical kits with nanite repair drones in them. He cracked open the seal on the kits and little flickering fairy lights swooped towards him spinning around him in a tornado of golden light. He opened the next drawer revealing a small staser pistol. As he looked at the staser pistol the fairy lights finished their spinning and then dove at him. He could feel the tingling sensation as billions of tiny tickling bits of light swarmed around his wounds and knitted together flesh and bits of bone. As they worked he turned and went to another cabinet and opened it, revealing an empty cabinet. The boy grumbled and then returned to the desk, he closed the drawer with the pistol since he hadn't a place to put it.

He saw there was a third drawer and slowly opened it. The drawer revealed a large golden ring, a fob watch and a small head set. A plan was hatching in his head. He picked up the ring and looked at it. It was undoubtedly preprogrammed to return him to Gallifrey. He narrowed his eyes at the thought. He wasn't a slave to them. He fought but he also could see a lost cause when one arose. He owed them a debt of gratitude resurrecting him, but he'd done his bit and failed, and trying was really the only thing anyone could hope for. He ran his fingers over the ring and found a catch on the inside and with his fingernails he deftly flicked it open.

He looked around him and saw the roundels on the walls and ran over to them. He pressed on several before finding one that opened up revealing a small tool kit within. He smirked quietly to himself as he grabbed some tools and ran back to the desk. With some minor micro-surgery on the ring he smirked to himself and then looked to the fob watch and headset. The head set was compatible with the control matrix he'd just extracted himself from. He fiddled with both sticking the watch in the watch-shaped-hole on the forehead of the headset. He pushed out of the room into the control room.

He searched around and found a second door and pushed it open. A blazing light tore forward and the boy winced, visoring his eyes with his hand as he poked his head out. He took a deep breath. Lots of oxygen, or enough at least, but plenty of methane. He stuck out his tongue. The radiation levels were fine. He looked up and saw a red dwarf weakly flickering in the sky. He slowly stepped up onto the ground, and turned, looking down.

It was an odd experience. Looking down at the body laying contorted on the ground. Definitely looked a lot like him, though where there was severe damage the gray subsurface of the true form of the TARDIS was visible. The face was completely melted and burned away. And then there was the giant hole where the door had opened that was in the middle of what would've been his stomach. The boy surveyed the area. The planet he was on was young, he didn't see any terrestrial organisms around him, but assumed many aquatic life forms in the aqueous ponds surrounding him. He looked up at the sky once again. He knew that up there beyond the atmosphere the universe was on the precipice. That his existence was threatened. That the Daleks will be coming and may have already won. He was not going to die, not yet, somewhere deep down in his young body he could feel another pair of heart beats. He knew that that one was alive still, and he would not die until he had proven his prowess and superiority to that individual. He had to survive, he had to, the sound the drums, beating rhythm compelled him to go forward onwards forever if necessary. He turned and looked back at his half burnt and melted avatar and stepped back into the hole in its torso, descending into the impossible depths.

He walked past the control matrix and into the supply room. He grabbed the headset and the golden ring and returned to the control matrix. He had a plan. He smiled at its ingenuity. The Time War was not in fact pervasive to all reality. There were places in the history of the universe that neither the Time Lords or the Daleks ever wished to go. The deepest farthest parts of time where the universe had given up were safe. The universe was too thin, energy too limited, any battle there would created spasms that would be detrimental to all causality and whilst the Time War wasn't all that worried about punching holes in the fabric of reality, tearing the universe in half was another thing entirely.

He smiled to himself. That's where he'd go, and he'd go one further. If the war ended, if Gallifrey was erased he had to protect himself. He'd use the chameleon arch. Rewrite his biology, heck with the TARDIS rewrite his history, divorce him from the planet that would hang around his neck like an albatross, and once he was free and once the war was over he could turn back, and the universe wouldn't care because it would read it as a human becoming a Time Lord, not a never-was Time Lord suddenly being.

He stepped up onto the dais. Plugged the arch's headset into the control matrix. He took a deep breath preparing himself for the surge of pain and delirium to come and with one hand put the headset on and with the other hand held onto the ring. The pain was immense, surging through every molecule of his body, and then….

A boy fell forward. He felt woozy and looked around himself confused. He looked up to the column of wires hanging from somewhere on high and saw the helmet. His eyes were drawn to the fob in the center of the forehead and he reached up and grabbed it with one hand, the other occupied with a large golden ring. He turned to look around him.

The room he was in was huge. He looked over to a spear of light and walked towards it pushing outwards into the open air beyond. The air had an unpleasant smell to it. Around him were numerous sludgy puddles and in the sky a faint red star weakly twinkled. It was cold, and that was maybe the first time he realized he had no real clothing on. He wasn't entirely sure where he was, who he was at least not at the moment. There were words whispering in his head, hissing names and dates and places. He looked down to his hand and to the golden ring and then there was a compulsion to hold it tight and above his head. He did so and then he watched the world around him fade sickeningly and he reappeared, falling forward as he did and crashing on his knees. The barren puddle filled landscape around him replaced by a cold dark ocean that lapped at cold gray sand. The dark night sky had a single star in the abyss one faded white twinkle in a sea of black. He was confused. He was lost. He started to cry, bawl, to scream at the darkness and his complete loss.

He heard a voice. It was distant. He looked around him to find a small lantern light swinging towards him.

"Sav-Oh my God, it's a child-tho!" a large, blue insect lady was running towards him. She took off a shawl that was around her shoulders and swept it around the boy.

"Kor-what's he doing out here-mo?" a second blue insect, this one male, was running behind. "Kor-it's a human-mo!"

The boy looked up at both, part in wonder and part in fear. They knelt down to his level and looked at him. "Sav-are you ok-tho?"

"I…I…" the boy couldn't remember talking before but the words were in his head. "I think so…"

"Kor-What is your name-mo? Kor-Where are you from-mo?" the male said. "Kor-why are you alone out here on the shores of the Silver Devastation-mo?"

"I don't know where I'm from…" the boy said as he looked around him. "I don't know where I am…I don't know why I'm here? Where is here?" He looked down at his hands, one held a ring, which looked singed and it broke apart as he clutched it. The other was clutched around the watch. He opened the hand and saw the watch. He looked hard at it but it seemed fuzzy, not really there. He thought for a second about opening it but found that suddenly he had memories, memories that it was broken that the latch would not open. More memories started to flood his mind and he felt almost sick, there was this rhythm, this beating, this rage-filled thumping in his temple. He staggered slightly and the two insect people caught him before he fell. He looked up at them and whispered. "Yana…."

"Sav-Yana-tho?" the woman asked.

"It's…it's my name…" the boy said and then he passed out.

888

AN: Don't read anything into the fast turn over. This is due to having two quick ideas pop into my head that were easy to get onto the word processor. And they kind of go together. Since none of these 'chapters' (which is not what they are they are vignettes at best) are long in and of themselves, I can sometimes get super productive if I happen to catch the right ideas. This story is designed to have a discernible end...it's an anthology that will always be updated...when it gets updated, and when I have the right ideas.

And yes...in my mind the Time Lords went all Mobile Suit Gundam with some of their WarTARDISes...(which is based off a similar concept in the Eighth Doctor Adventures with Compassion...though in that one Compassion was actually a TARDIS rather than being a person-shaped one).