Authors Notes: A remake/revamp of the original stories of my 2021 storyline: DW: CTW: The Man With No Name and DW: CTW: Time and Life's Champion. This short story is completed and is canon to my 2025 storyline.
If the readers decide for themselves, it can also be allowable to be canon as well for my Doctor Who Cross Adventures which consists of only two stories: A Doctor Who and a Wayward Family's Adventures (Doctor Who/Supernatural) and A Certain Doctor's Adventures of Magic and Science (Doctor Who/A Certain Magical Index), in relation to the War Doctor incarnation. Though, as a reminder, the Doctor Who Cross Adventures are not canon to my 2025 MS storylines.
Opening Song: Adele - Skyfall (Official Lyric Video)
...I am.
...I am.
...I am the Doctor...
...No more.
A whisper. An echo. A reverberating silence. The time to put asunder the very promise that the Man had - his memories hearkening back to the more innocent days. He once dreamed of Ian and Barbara, and of his granddaughter Susan. The universe was much, more simpler then. But alas... these, and other memories of more innocent days were hardly a comfort. Memories hurt. Especially for a Time Lord, who can see... everything.
That is my curse. Forever.
I tried... I tried to change my own fate. I tried... everything. And all I ever did was trying to put out the inevitable.
The face I wore before all of this - a man of once high spirits and adventure; a man that wanted to experience the wonders of the universe again, but setback after setback, Faction Paradox, the Master, the various monsters that keep crawling around in the dark corners of the universe, the high puppeteers who pulled my own strings and slice my own timelines - to the point where no one would ever truthfully know which is true and which is false, and made it more complicated by making it more true.
My life... a jigsaw puzzle of the 221th Dimensional Prize Winner.
My dream... asunder. My school... The one I was inspired to found. All for naught. I closed my school down when the War had begun. I didn't want my companions and my students from all of time and space to either be swept into this HELL and potentially never return - and I have seen it happened with my mind's eye. I've even dreamt of companions that I never had, all because of the War and how's it's changing even my own story. We are all stories, and the War is a shredder, that destroys all meaning.
Why do I even bother to keep trying?
"Doctor no more."
He finally said the words. He spoke it - and with it, all timelines now collapsed into one single mode, as if in an instant, that fixed itself for all eternity. No longer can it be changeable. All roads eventually lead to him. The Man With No Name. The Man With No Number. Not Sixth. Not Seventh. Not Eighth. Not Ninth.
I am the Man With No Name.
And it all started when I recently tried to save someone - as I always did. A idiotic bloke who would pass through without ever as much as wanting to be on either side. Most certainly not the Daleks. The Destroyers that they had become. Timelines splintered. Literal gods died. And I never believed in gods. I acknowledged their existence, but I had always believed in people, in simple, mortal, non-ephemeral, people. Not those on high who think they could dictate mortality and make arbitrary rules that even they wouldn't really follow.
It all started, when someone was calling me for help.
"Hello, please, hello, can anyone hear me? This ship is crashing, please, is anyone there, can anyone hear me?"
Of course I can hear you. I can hear countless numbers of souls that cried for help, ever since this war began. Yours was no different, oh dear Cass. And you were but destined to be the last person who would ever bear witness to the Man Who Was the Doctor. That man was already so tired and war-weary. He thought, this wasn't how it was supposed to be. How can he stand by, helpless? This was not the first time war he's ever fought. There was that debacle with the War in Heaven, and he stopped it? Why can't he stop this one?
Something - for one reason or another - always tried to get the War back on track. The War always seems to want to happen on its own. I can't stop it, anymore than my other selves can stop it. I see my fourth life taking a turn. I see my sixth life taking a turn. I see my eighth life taking a turn. All of these alternate timelines and parallel universes that seem to never stop crushing through my own thick skull.
Really? Why do I keep holding back? Why? Was it because of the promise I made? Or is it merely my own ego speaking. I don't even know anymore. But even so... even I could not ignore the nearest cry for help.
"I'm trying to send a distress call, stop asking about doctors!" The woman would say, with an exasperated distress seen beneath her pale face.
"I'm a doctor," The man behind her would say. She turned around, surprised. "But probably not the one you were expecting." He said, with that reassuring smile of his. Yes, that was it. A mere gesture. A simple word. A thoughtful course of action. What may amount to a pair of collective circumstances that could classify as pure coincidence was all planned and nudged.
I nudged things. I'm a Time Lord. It's in my nature to nudge. It can't be help. All decisions, potentialities, everything are present and ready for you to use. That was how I always survive, you see. I always knew... And yet... Even I grew tired of winning. When the point of winning one battle is drowned in sheer madness; when everything you've worked hard for became undone.
The War was trying to drag me into becoming something that I had long since tried to refuse. To become a Warrior.
...Well, hardly better than becoming the Valeyard, and he was recruited into the War not long ago - or was it long ago? Who can say?
"Where are the rest of the crew?" He asked.
"Teleported off," She said, incredulously.
"But you're still here?" He asked again.
His hands were now busy at the controls of the ship, while letting the woman think much or little of him. Suspicion. Perfect. He would think. For that was the thing with suspicions. They were like open doorways where one can exploit an opening. So that he could turn things around. So that people could eventually trust him. He just knew the right words to say.
"I teleported them," She would answer.
"Why you?" He asked.
"Everyone else was screaming," She said.
That was nothing knew. Even now, the screams were still felt throughout the universe. Darkness covered it, and even that concept turned itself upside down. Words no longer conveyed their ultimate meaning. Everything became a frenzy. Even now, whispers ran straight throughout the very fabric of permutational collective realities. This is the Last Great Time War, they would say. No matter how much the Doctor tried to deny it, that was a mere fact that he quietly accepted. And all he could truthfully do is do as much as he can from the sidelines.
...All the while, some people turned on him, for being just a Time Lord. That's what War does to people. To point blame on the entire collective. Even those who were completely innocent. The children of Gallifrey for instance were never stained with the blood of its rulers. Those who lived a quiet life. The Shobogans and many others.
He turned towards the woman in front of him. And he could see everything about her. Her past, her future, in various probabilities. Just a mere inkling at the back of his head. He couldn't really turned this off, even if he tried. It's not an exact science, but in the mere sense of probabilities, it was useful nonetheless. An imperfect, broken man, that would eventually come out of the shell of a hypocritical, cowardly, man with some sense of sanctimonious mission.
Pardon the Man With No Name to berate his past self in such a matter.
"Welcome aboard," He smiled, covering layers of his own guilt, focusing instead on the task at hand.
"Aboard what?" She asked.
And he took her by the hand, and said reassuringly with a gentle smile. "I'll show you!"
It was like the older days again. A new companion. Fresh for new adventures. The usual. That was he had hoped with all of his hearts. He wanted to prolong those moments, if he had the power to do so.
...I keep deluding myself. I knew, in some other potentiality, that she too would turn on me. It was only a matter of time. After all, in the current universe, almost everyone hated the Time Lords; and their reasons were overall pretty justifiable to me. I no more consider myself an innocent ever since I came to Skaro all of those years ago. In that sense, I was ultimately responsible for their rise to power. And I paid that price. It did not even matter if I kill the Daleks in their cradle or not.
How many times in fact have the Daleks been erased? The Master erased them. The Valeyard erased them. Many tried to erase them. Yet, they kept coming back, the determined spiteful creatures that they are. Non-existence means nothing to the Daleks.
The man, taking the woman to his ship, still trying to remain ignorant in the face of such insurmountable odds. She would hate him. Just like others who came before her.
"It's alright," He started saying, reaching for the blue doors of his beloved ship. "It's bigger on the inside."
That was the mistake. By being too enthusiastic, the hope that was in him was quenched and had died.
"What did you say?" There it was. That fear, that he knew all too well. Stupid Doctor. But even berating was a bitter comfort in the face of the woman's now judging look. As if the Time Lords are all the same in her eyes as much as that of the Daleks. Even when he were to try to argue, it was ultimately futile. The woman would not listen.
Of course, that didn't stop the Doctor from trying anyway.
"Bigger on the inside, is that what you said?"
"Yeah, come on, you'll love it," He would say, trying to cover the berating guilt within him. He was just tired. He wanted all of the screams to quiet down and let him be at peace. But even that was not given to him.
"Is that-" The word choked on the woman's throat for a moment. Even on a crashing ship, moments from death, it was a word that felt too dangerous to speak out loud. That was it. The time had come for that very moment the Doctor had feared. Someone had already judged him. "Is that a TARDIS?"
The Doctor looked at her, saddened for a bit, before he tried to reassure the woman. "Yes, but you'll be perfectly safe, I promise," He tried to reassure, as he held her hand, but she forcefully wrenched it back.
"Don't touch me!" She shouted, in disgust and hate.
The man frown. He understood where this came from, truthfully. But it hurts nevertheless.
"...I am not part of the War," He would say, trying to reassure her. "I swear to you, I never have been." And I never will be, is the unfinished sentence that came into his lips.
"You're a Time Lord," She spoke venomously.
"...Yes, I am," He spoke solemnly. In one other life, he tried to convince her otherwise, saying "I'm one of the nice ones." But that was futile. Whatever he did was simply futile. Vanity of vanities, as the Book would say, All is vanity.
She shook her head away from me. But the man only stared at her, and see every potentiality of his own choice. Even ones that he normally could never choose. He could just leave her. But he does not want too. He was the Doctor. He never left anyone behind. And yet, people get left behind, one way or another.
His silence was all that he could say. No words needed. Neither Time Lord nor Dalek.
A potentiality spoke to him. "Dalek, Time Lord, who can tell the difference any more." That woman would say. But she did not say it here. Not this time. He knew what was coming next. Even if he didn't respond. Even if he did respond. It was always the same outcome. She will die, and there was nothing he can do to stop it.
She slammed her hand on the red button, activating the incursion seal. Her ship, like all of the others, had been proofed against the Time Lords, and now was the time to see if it worked. The man could only look at the woman with sadness. He only walked towards the door, a few calculative meters, and stopped.
"...Open the door, Cass," He gently pleaded softly.
The woman shook her head, while speaking to him with a venomous tone. "It's deadlocked. Don't even try!"
"Please, open it," He asked again. "I only want to help."
"No," She shook her head, as tears came into her eyes. Tears of pure victory... and scared. The Doctor, when he looked into those eyes, could never hate her. "Go on! Go back to you're battlefield - you're not finished yet, some of the universe is still standing." She spoke with joy, hoping to get a response from him.
"...Yes," He softly muttered, beyond all of her expectations, as she sees a tear shed upon his eyes. What do those eyes now see that this woman could not? "...It still stands. I agree completely. And... here I stand, and I am not leaving this ship without you."
The woman spoke with glee, yet it was shaken. She had never... encountered a Time Lord like this before. "Then you're going to die right here. Best news all day."
He closed his eyes. The woman thought she was victorious with that jab. But... she was wrong. She looked upon the eyes of something else. Icy blue eyes that stared in defiance. "...Then I will die," He will mutter. "I will die, as the Doctor, not of War, but of Peace."
He looked at her in the eye. Now, it was he who towered over her, like a true god that no mortal would dare cross. And yet, his eyes never lost the empathy that he tried to convey even as he spoke, with simple yet efficient words.
"I will die, with you, Cass," He smiled softly, with acceptance. Perhaps it was time, he thought sadly and with resignation. "If this means the atonement of my people in your eyes - not all of us are as you say... we have families, children... and I had them once upon a time..."
She was shaken. This was not what she was expecting as a response to the man who came from the same species who would gleefully burn worlds asunder.
"...Now," He spoke solemnly. "No more."
...But, Cass couldn't open the door. The potentiality is now fixed. Even when she forms a genuine regret, it was far too late. She made her choice, and that choice will cost her. Dearly.
I said my last goodbye, under that very door. I said my last goodbye in the presence of one who considered me as an enemy - all because I was a Time Lord. I knew... that my time was over. But if that was so... I wanted to make it count, to be the Doctor in that very moment, even with the hurt and the tears that came from my eyes. A fraction of hope burned within me; wanting to reach the woman who justifiably hated the Time Lords. I could not blame her. I knew that it was a response to the actions of my own people - who used to the protectors and overseers of the timelines near and beyond.
...But now. Now they are slowly turning into the monsters that they have tried to fight against. The Darker Times have now come. This was what the Time War reduced my people too.
...And I did not want to become a part of that. Better to die as a true Lord of Time, than to become the very monsters that had been well hated and despised. Not Time Lord. Not Dalek. Not an amalgamation of the very two, no matter how many may claim of me.
And so... the last I saw of Cass Fermazzi, the woman I tried to save, was a blink of white flashing light.
Where we both die...
I die as the Doctor.
But... even death did not give me that comfort. For I now stood before the Sisterhood of Karn, those who had exiled themselves from Gallifrey and kept the traditions of old before the Reformation that Rassilon... or should I now say Lord President Eternal? Quite a mouthful of titles, just as his ego. It was just like him. Naming his own technology. Naming his own grand design. Naming everything after himself. After all, that was the idea. To become the glorified Founder of the Time Lords. Whatever amount of respect I had for him now had been flushed down the very toilet.
The Sisterhood at least were quite accommodating for me, having prepared the very brew that I would eventually take.
I took the cup, offered by Mother Ohila, and I drank it. And a new surge swept from within me. I had just finished reciting the names of all of my companions that I have ever undertaken within my own face. Then...
...A bright glow. A change. And I spoke the very first word that I uttered on my very own lips.
"Doctor no more."
And I looked into the mirror. And I see... a very old friend; that warmth my own twofold hearts.
Ah... Professor Broom (*1). It is good to see you again, my old friend. He thought with a saddened smile as he touched the face gently, before he frowned as he clenched that same hand. It's a pity that I now have to share your face; but it is what it is, and it is something that I would need as I now begin to fight in this very War. And I hope that your son can forgive me for that, if I ever bump into him.
And he held the bandoleer across his newly formed chest, where his now burning twin hearts beat within. A catch of fire; of resolve and determination, still wearing the worn-out clothing of his own past, as if symbolizing what he'd discarded. The bandoleer that he wore was something that belonged to the young woman's corpse that was on the stone table. His eyes turn forward as he walked, before gently touching her body.
He closed his eyes, and all he could ever truthfully see now, are all possibilities where she dies, for good. And he cannot save her, whether in the future, or in the past. For in the Time War, all futures and all pasts burn.
"...Ohila," He spoke solemnly. "...I would need a proper burial for this woman."
"It shall be as you asked, my Lord-"
"None," He spoke swiftly, but coldly. "I am... Nothing. I am No One. Call me... No One. Call me... The Man With No Name..."
And thus, on his very own terms, he would set out what he needed to do. There were things he truthfully needed to do. Complex weapons and explosives; intertemporal political maneuvers and gathering of resources; but all of that can wait. He will enter the conflict, but it would be on his very own terms.
I am a free agent of my own accord. I am now, and always will be, on the side of innocents, of the collateral, of those who cannot be able to defend for themselves. I am no longer the Eight Man Bound. I am now... the Man With No Name. I was and shall be the definitive and fixed Ninth Man, contrasting myself from those who came before (*2) and after (*3) me. That is what I shall truthfully be - and become - and forevermore be. I, who had the record of over seventeen different and contradictory, yet true timelines.
Yet I, alone, had the advantage that all of my other ninth selves do not. I was the secret. I was the X-Factor. I was the one with no traceable origin; no timeline to call my very own. Evidently, I removed much of myself, within the normal purview of reality. It was quite simple. When you had a working and proper ordering TARDIS, you can do things you can never even dream of. I gutted my own origins, synchronized them, yet kept them distinct. No one can ever tell the complete difference.
I am quite messy like that. And with that, I start to blaze a trail, within this cold hearted war.
No more. My resounding battle cry. My own promise, in fact, to call my own. In the name of peace and sanity.
I accepted who I am. The darkness that I tried to deny. And for that, I am Anonymity. I am Nothing. If knowledge is power, knowing what you don't know is wisdom. Use your ignorance to your advantage. That was what a famous Greek philosopher (*4) that I had once had the pleasure of conversing had famously observed: "I know one thing, that I know nothing." And on another, he would say: "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." And that is in fact the truth.
I am Nothing.
The Man With No Name.
And I, who no longer had a name, turned my eyes to the woman who gave me that epiphany. The woman who now lay dead. The woman behind my own face. I pay respects, as is due.
...For even in death, I remember, of timelines where there had been that one glimmering potentiality, of her becoming my own companion. I considered her was one, even when this War cut that off.
I will forever remember you, Cass Fermazzi. Rest assured. I will keep these memories... to my last twofold breaths.
She was Cass Fermazzi.
The woman I failed to save, in this very lifetime, and countless others. In a universe torn apart by war, it was quite hard and test-worthy to try to find and trace her exact timeline. But he would find it. And when I did, I was able to return her to what was left of her family.
I learned from there that she had grown up on one of the farm planets of the Gazrond Belt, and had stowed away on a star freighter at the age of fourteen - fourteen? That was of a similar age as many of my companions and students that were apart of my school. If it were not for this War, I would have invited her to my school, where she could experience new wonders, and meet new friends.
She was fourteen, when she wanted to see the wonders of the universe. I'd admire her tenacity for adventure. But that potential, like all others, was cut off harshly by the War. The War that was my own doing. The War that now threatened all reality. At first, she ran, like all of the others. But one day, she helped an old soldier die in a crater full of mud snakes under a burning moon, she realized then and there that there was nowhere left to run or hide. The following morning, the kindly medtech who closed the soldier's eyes, unclipped the bandolier from around the dead man's chest and gave it to Cass, perhaps mistaking her for a friend or relative.
Cass, in honor of the poor soul, took the bandolier, tightened it around herself, and decided to start running in the opposite direction. Three months later, she was crewing a gunship. Four years later, she had survived the Nightmare Child (one of them), wept at the massacre of Skull Moon - a battlefield that a potential future of my own self had fought, and she personally fought through the ruins of the Ulterium. On the last day of her life, she and her crew successfully repelled a Dalek fleet from the fending hives of the Vantross, but then, as they flew to safety, found themselves under attack from one of the Time Lord battle cruisers, now as indiscriminate in their slaughter as the Daleks themselves. They were blasted from the stars for no better reason, other than they were blocking the view of the retreating Daleks.
That was what my people become. Harming the innocent, when there is a potential tactic to exploit.
And even in spite of that, she'd been the only one who didn't panic. She'd teleported the crew to the safety of the nearest planet and, with no one left to telport her, realizing that a safe crash landing was now an impossibility, and that was the moment she finally asked for help. And he answered her call.
...Or rather, the Doctor answered her call. He died, in her presence, and in Karn. I became the reality of unrealities. My life, exchanged with his life.
I pieced all of this together, through the available scraps of data that I could find - even scrubbing a few corrupted ones, as it was inevitable in the Time War; historical records were oftentimes unreliable; through trustworthy sources such the Sisterhood, who uncovered the remains of the woman for me, and give them back to me willingly in order for me to return her to her family, when the coast was relatively stable and clear.
The Sisterhood of Karn. My first recruitments to the cause. My cause.
Even as I feel the laughter of the very universe that I held dear - I who had once seen universes of pure anti-matter and darker ends, I who had now foreseen in mere flashes, of apocryphal canonicity, of a cherished potential time when Cass Fermazzi was another companion of his. No war on the horizon. Free to travel the universe. Uncover ancient tombs, help others that they found to be in need of, meeting new faces and learning new cultures. The same old routine that I had took for granted at times.
Those times... I still missed.
But no more.
That timeline was gone, cut off of its multiple potentialities by the very War I loathed and dread, before it could truthfully see the light of day.
I attended her funeral. It was a simple kind, similar to the ones I found on Earth. The simple ceremonies and last rites of the dead, common to all races and cultures, of the Sisterhood, he personally found commendable, even when there was a time he had mocked the very idea of their Sacred Flame of Eternal Life. Simple and solemn. Just as I would prefer, in her honor.
And it was Ohila herself who presided the ceremony, all with the hint of authority present within her voice. It reminded him of the bedtime stories of all, of simpler times.
All I did was stood in silence, as I contemplated what would happen next.
I can feel it. The weight of full temporal simultaneity. All time happening at once. All time, all seasons, all days.
I can sense the approaching darkness heading straight towards the planet.
So, he would say, they finally came. Of course they would.
Thus, he would call out to the High Priestess herself. "Ohila."
One look was more than enough for her to understand.
The Daleks are coming for their world.
The mind of a Lord of Time is a fickle, yet interplaying and complex machinery. The boundaries between sheer intuition, a strategic and practical mind, and outright precognition of potential probabilities can only be stretched quite thin as it were. But it was because of this that The Man With No Name had foreseen the coming calamities - both potential and unreal.
I saw Karn burn, with the wreckage of over a thousand ships, of both allied powers as well as the enemy. But who can tell the difference between a true ally and a hidden enemy. I saw it, like an off-stage gun fight of the old Wild West had just occurred. I saw a potentiality where I simply left the Sisterhood to my fate.
Ah, there, I see it. The Man Who Became the Valeyard. In trying to fight for peace and sanity, a slippery slope would turn me into that.
Then, I see myself - with varying reactions from different medium streams, that all interplay in a kind of cause and effect over an event, as if they were all just stories that could be told. The overlaying complexity of these timelines for the average Time Lord foresighter is harder and harsher since the War had started.
But not for me.
I can see it. And I will not let this happen.
I make and decide my own fate.
Nobody else.
...Somewhere, exiting the Vortex of Time, there were countless quintillions of bronze, saucer-shaped motherships that were now seen existing from outside the void of space, dematerializing. And now, all were in proper, coordinated, and attack formation, ready to begin their primary objective.
"SUPREME DALEK," One of the Daleks said, with its glowing ears. "KARN HAS BEEN LOCATED WITHIN OUR PRIMARY SENSORS. WE WILL PREPARE THE ASSAULT IMMEDIATELY, CONTACTING THE TERTIARY FLEETS TO BOMBARD THE PLANET'S HALVES."
Karn was their primary target. It was the planet that once held the legacy of the Time Lord criminal, Morbius, who was known for his infamy for having started his own time war between himself and the good peoples of Gallifrey. The planet was there, right for the taking. No sign of any Time Lords, or their allies. The planet was completely defenseless, meaning there was no one to truthfully interfere.
First Tactic: Karn can provide a potential - even if highly improbable - rumored backdoor to Gallifrey's own timeline, and once the former is taken, it may perhaps be much easier to take the latter by a swift and surprise counteroffensive against the Gallifreyans who would not have anticipated this.
Second Tactic: Karn houses the Sacred Flame - a powerful heat source fueled by an underground natural gas pocket that escaped through a fissure in the rock, acting like a natural gas nozzle. They must have it even if they were to tear the planet apart to its subatomic origins.
If the goals prove to be impossible, then it is not a major issue for the war effort. They were more than prepared to die for their GOD-EMPEROR.
"EXCELLENT. I WILL MAKE CONTACT WITH THE STRATEGIST AND TELL HIM PERSONALLY THAT WE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY BREACHED THROUGH THE TEMPORAL BLOCKS THAT STOPPED US BEFORE FROM REACHING KARN. NOW, WE SHALL TAKE THIS PLANET BY STORM AND USE IT FOR THE VERY PURPOSE OF SUBVERTING THROUGH GALLIFREY'S DEFENSES AND FOR THE CAPTURE OF THE SACRED FLAME," the Supreme Dalek commanded in a shrill voice.
"WE OBEY!" all of the Daleks complied.
And yet...
Those same ships, powerful beyond the mortal imagination, were suddenly swiftly defeated, without their knowing it. Violent explosions followed. Fires spread out as multiple Daleks screamed in their shrill mechanical agonized voices. No enemy in their line of sight which can explain the strange phenomenon. Only a few seconds seem to pass when this happened. One of the warships however nearly survived the explosion. It was the one that houses the Dalek Supreme.
"EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! CONTROL SYSTEMS COMPROMISED BY UNKNOWN SOURCE! CRASHING THROUGH THE PLANET IN EXACTLY 5 RELS IMMINENT!" the Dalek Supreme said, interlaced with dread for its upcoming demise. The last word it ever said before he and his entire crew perished in the crash.
Moments later, Battle TARDISes of the Oxmiron Fleet now came and land within the wreckage of the various temporal ships that once belonged to the fifth-fold Dalek Time Fleet. There were many Time Lords - Gallifreyean soldiers trained and combat ready against the Daleks. Their weapons were clicked and loaded. And yet, as they scour through the crashed Dalek saucers, they found one, and it caused a ripple of different levels, of interest for a single point, as only one left remaining houses the recently dead and extinguished Daleks, currently being checked by the Time Lord militia on the ground.
A high ranking Lord Cardinal of the War Council, Cardinal Ramus (*5), was heavily notified of the situation due to a secret transmission directed from his own Battle TARDIS, which of course made them set course for Karn in order to provide aid. But there was nothing to give that has not already been offered.
Why?
Because The Man had finally ended the assault long before he and his fleet got here. He fled, just as he won, and was never to be seen again.
The Cardinal himself became quite thoughtful, reflective, and disturbed. He turned next towards the High Priestess of the Sisterhood, who was standing right next to him, lost in deeper thoughts.
"...And," His voice brought her attention. "...You say that he is, different, somehow?"
The woman nodded. "...He is...and he isn't."
The Cardinal frown. "What do you mean by that?"
"The Man... has rejected his own name." She said, solemnly defining the situation. "You are free to call him as you and I know him, but he has personally decided to remain anonymous for the time being, a free agent."
"A free agent?" The Cardinal looked incredulous. He thought. He wasn't quite as cooperative since the last time I saw him, so much so that even Cardinal Ollistra herself had to drag the man kicking and screaming if she had to.
"Oh, but there was one other thing that he had decided to do," She said, making the man pay attention. "Here is the message."
She stated:
"You will leave Karn alone, you and the Daleks. As for myself, I will handle the latter as it is due, while you lot handle with providing aid to the Sisterhood, give them everything that they need to ensure its continued safety, for further benefits that could better serve the interests of Gallifrey better than whatever it is you have in mind. Consider this my own act of gratitude towards them, and a warning against you and those who follow you, as I know that you and your fellow bureaucrats within the High Council have personal interests on this planet as much as anyone else that has more worth of salt in this conflict. If my warning isn't needed, I would know."
Even if The Man was not here, the Cardinal can already feel the heavier weight of these very words, as if directed straight towards him. He felt his brow sweating, and gulping for the moment.
He would damn well listen. For he would not dare crossed this Man. The evidence was already a foreboding of evidence that he needed. If he did not take it seriously, there will be consequences.
The Man has now taken part within this conflict, where the universe burns continuously.
Darker days have come.
Written on the edges of the crashed Dalek saucer, for all to see...
NO MORE
NO MORE
Was it around the same time? At the same time? Or after? Who can say. What can be said is that - in an instant - all of the Dalek warships that were attacking throughout several parts of the universe from several epochs appeared to have perished through unknown circumstances. A battle here, another there. The eternal stalemate suddenly broke off, as if something had happened that finally allowed the opposing forces to crush the Dalek opposition with casual ease.
And thus, the trails blazed with furious intent. The news spread like instant wildfire. Something odd was happening underneath everyone's noses. Note even the Time Lords themselves can take credit for such acts - or as humans say, Acts of God. The most impossible of miracles was pulled off. The universe was now fighting back. The troops rallied, as their courage now regains a new sense of hope. The war fleets of Battle and War TARDISes were now taking full advantage of the chaotic potentialities and reinstated their governing territories, expunging the Dalek plague, at least for this temporary moment.
But it was all that Gallifrey needed.
One moment was more than enough for the Time Lords to start fortifying the universe. It would not be a lot harder for the Daleks to regain these territories, and they were going to have to think of more unorthodox methods to do so.
All around the universe, only one word was seen and left over - in whatever medium or sign that it had been carved in and written down.
Like the Hand of God coming down.
NO MORE
At the very tail end of it all, Karn was provided with a much more stable and secure time lock that would allow its entire history to remain protected from further incursion - either form the Daleks or from their allies or other associates. Further sub-transduction barriers and quantum forcefields were provided as well. Thanks also to the powers of the Sisterhood, they managed to further make the planet disappear, securing the planet further. An additional Battle TARDIS Fleet would be provided between intervals as additional security.
One timeline nipped off the bud. An unnecessary adventure was put on hold, one that may have resulted in a few unnecessary deaths. The first major success of the Man and he didn't even need to wield a gun as all he truly needed was his TARDIS, the old girl whom he trusted more than anything, and yet he can still feel the growing sadness from the ship that he had always called home.
What happened to you, thought the TARDIS sadly.
"I've changed," he muttered softly, gently patting the main console table. "No more adventures this time, old girl. No more running. This time would be different. I needed to be different."
Even if you are no longer calling yourself the Doctor, the TARDIS silently asked as if begging that it was not to be so.
"I have already lost the right to call myself by that name, ever since Cass had recently died... but you can call me that if it makes you feel a bit better," he simply said.
As for the Man himself, he would never be better, not until this War would finally end. But he had a good yet unfortunate feeling that the War is about to last for a very long time. Long battlelines lay ahead in the coming days between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And he needed to plan things accordingly, bringing out his inner seventh. Yes, it was about time for the chessmaster to come again and play the game, putting the pieces into place for his usage and discretion.
It was now time to get to work.
The first stop he would take is Earth. The world that he had adopted as his own.
Of course, I would not leave Earth unprotected.
Immediately after Karn, I made my way to Earth, and decided to create an entire temporal shield around it and its entire solar system, separating it as much as it is Lordianly possible from the Time War timeline itself, hiding itself behind countless layers of temporal onions, if I could provide a comparison for such a trivial work. Naturally, the Strategist would eventually find some way around some points - some weak points that I could have missed. A worry for later, but for now, Earth and its entire solar system is at least "grounded".
The shield that I placed was designed by ancient, rogue, pre-Rassilonian Gallifreyans, who hid on Earth, calling themselves the Chronosmiths, who are artists at temporal technology.
As I provided the finishing touches, having completed it, I was suddenly visited... by someone from my past.
"...My Champion."
He stopped working on the complex machinery, as he slowly turned around to see a very young woman with blonde hair and regular clothing of grey and blue. He was silent. His eyes would recognize immediately on just who he was truly dealing with. A highly regarded figure that he had dealt with more than two incarnations ago.
This woman... was an Eternal... and more than just an Eternal. She was one of the so-called Mental Celesti, a pantheon of goddess deities that the ancient Gallifreyans once worshipped during the rule of the Pythia, at least in accordance with one historical account. When it comes to Time Lords' history, they tend to be inconsistent, and it was very deliberate.
A tactic of disadvantage against the enemy. You can't strike at the home front if you do not know where to shoot.
This woman... was called Time. One of the few considerate so-called gods that the Man in his past incarnations had encountered, and granted him firstly with the title of Time's Champion. Her other sister, the Eternal Life, would follow suit, granting him the title of Life's Champion.
He was their champion. And one of them came to visit him, in the hour of darkness that now struck.
...But he did not consider such fortunes.
He opted to ignore her, his face was blank and unemotional, solemn but focus driven on the task at hand as he begins to get back to work. Currently, he was working on a piece of machinery that was both simple and complex - it looked more like a large mysterious black box with no labels that denote whatever it was except for one big red button that was visible for all to see. And he was now about to ignite it, allowing the black box to emit a bright light color that was now doing its part.
It is finished, the Man thought.
The Man was simply here to add the finishing touches after everything that had been done to keep the timeline of Earth and its system as stable as it can ever hoped to be. But he felt in his heart of hearts that this may or may not last depending on the next move...
No... it's better not to think about it.
The Man did his part and simply begins to leave for his ship...
"...Wait!"
The young woman - Time - begins to hold onto his sleeve, preventing his escape.
"My Champion, why are you ignoring me?" she asked, in worry.
The Man only gave a sad worn-out expression, simply saying. "I am no longer your Champion anymore, my Lady. That honor belongs to the Doctor, but not to me."
"But... you are him," the young woman's eyes grew saddened.
"No..." the Man shakes his head, both solemn and negative. "I have forfeited that title since my death on Karn. Now, I no longer have a name. People can call me what they like, it would serve to my purpose as well. The Doctor would not do the things that I am about to do, my Lady. Your blessings are rather to be given to someone else more deserving, and that would also have to include the blessings of Life as well, and that right only belonged to the Doctor, and for that, I-"
"No!" She would stop the Man from continuing further. She will not allow him to renounce the rights of being her champion and the champion of Life. She began by pointing out the flaws of his own argument. "Why do you contradict yourself? Have you forgotten? My and my sister's blessings upon you cannot be revoked as long as you live with both of your hearts beating. You are and will remain our Champion even in this darker day of the War that has already begun the moment you were born."
"With respect, my Lady, why haven't you fled yet?" the Man diverted the subject. "Last I've heard, all of the Eternals were already fleeing away from N-Space, fleeing from this universe, and fleeing beyond the borders in order to try to escape the War. Why are you still here?"
"I am no mere Eternal," the woman's eyes flash with gold for a mere second as if to demonstrate a fraction of her power that is unfathomable to mortal eyes. "Have you truthfully forgotten who I am? I am Time, the one who represents one of the most fundamental universal cosmic principles that keeps everything in stability and order. I am the dreams and the nightmares of the Time Lords born true. I am the one who holds the chaotic fractures of the meta-structure of time. And I am the one who declares to you anew that you have and always been my Champion. I do not choose such souls lightly, especially if it were a Lord of Time."
"Nevertheless, I cannot answer by the name that you will call me by," the Man said, referring to the name that he had recently rejected on Karn at the feet of the dead body of Cass Fermazzi. Stubborn in his heart of hearts.
"Then... how about the name of the Other? Would that make you finally be able to speak with me properly?" the woman said, her eyes narrowed and stubborn.
The Man flinched vehemently as he was reminded of another form of life that he had led. Mysteries that were to remain unknown had started coming back to him - rushing back as if the past was the present and vice versa. He sees...multiple contradictory accounts of his life. Was he loomed? Was he a Founder? Was his wife named Patience? All of this crashed into him and it shook him. It echoed and reverberated through his entire timeline. It made him flinch and lowered his head.
"...I didn't think so..." the woman simply said with a solemn tone. "But...if you wished to not be called by that name, then I will grant you a new one in its place for you to be known by."
The Man remained silent, looking at the woman with a hint of surprise that didn't show on his face.
The woman said. "I decree that from this moment forward, I name thee thus... the Warrior."
The Man simply remained silent. The name that was chosen by Time herself echoed and reverberated throughout the ages, reminding him of probable futures that tasted so bittersweet. It echoed, reaching back and forth, seeing the potential of various incarnations that would have become the name. And he was the first among the first to use it. He was the X-factor incarnation. Taking that name on would fix his destiny forever as the Man With No Name that carries all names that hide his name and the name that he was born with and one that children would hear in their sleep.
"Alright..." the Man answered after what felt like an eternity. "I will allow that word to be used when addressing me."
"...Good," the woman smiled, content. "Now I would bid you farewell and glad tidings on your journey, my and my sister's Champion, for the Multiverse has need of you for this very hour... for this is your hour."
The Man nodded. He was about to head towards his ship, when he was called again by Time herself.
"Ah, before you go, here," She would offer him a red rose flower.
It made The Man... The Warrior looked at her with incredulity and a confused frown, as he would grab hold of the rose and examined it. "A rose? What would that be for?"
"A tiding for your own good future," She spoke softly, yet unclear. "Now, go and be well, my Champion."
The Man would glance at the woman one last time before he would eventually open the door. Another final glance, and he would see her smile that offered comfort in the face of the growing tribulations that lay ahead. It was both encouraging as well as heartbreaking. He lowered his head out of shame as he closes the door.
A moment later, the grinding sound was heard as the ship begins to dematerialize. The woman only watches with a saddened smile as the ship now disappears into the endless Vortex.
Vrowp Vworp Vworp
"...Alas ...the Warrior can also mean something else in other cultures... the Doctor," the woman smiled sadly, lowering her head. "And that Rose... would be your New Hope, for years to come."
For the word Doctor meant "mighty warrior" in other cultures. As the Eternal Time declares as of this moment.
The Man With No Name has now become The Warrior, armed with the blessings of the gods.
The Warrior has come armed with the blessings of the gods. Once again, he is now renewed as Time and Life's Champion and is prepared for the tasks that lay ahead.
And... a Rose was offered him.
One of Hope.
Ending Song: Metal Gear Solid V - Sins of The Father
Trivia Section:
(*1) - Professor Trevor Bruttenholm (Earth-M616 Prime) was an expert of the occult and of the supernatural, the first and former director of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, and the parental guardian of Hellboy (Earth-M616 Prime).
(*2) - An alternate Ninth Doctor (played by Richard E. Grant), one of the few surviving Time Lords after the destruction of Gallifrey by an alien race.
(*3) - An alternate Ninth Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston) who fought in the Last Great Time War and lived through the end and beyond (the events of Series 1), a timeline where the War Doctor never existed.
(*4) - Socrates was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought.