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Chapter Text

It begins with a woman who is late.

She is late because the kettle does not boil.

Her kettle does not boil because although she has turned the setting to normal, the flow of electric current is sub-optimal because of a low battery. The battery is low, because during the night, the power went out. The power went out, because of fluctuations in the breaker box. Her alarm went off on time, but she is one who cannot begin her day without her tea. She must have it boil while it is plugged in.

She leaves 12 minutes late.

A delay of 12 minutes places her at the back of a crowd of people crossing a street. She dashes across the intersection even though the sign has already turned.

The vast majority of pedestrians make it across. The woman who is late does not before the system begins throwing alarms.

An automated cargo hauler slams on the emergency stop, while the late woman makes it to her destination.

Because the hauler has stopped, a human in a control centre must clear it for further movement before it can cause further congestion. The system does not respond.

Because the system does not respond, maintenance must be called. Because maintenance is called, a trainee is quickly pulled off his task to watch the new task. Because he must watch the new task, and is rushed over to it, he does not properly lock-out and tag-out the equipment he’s working on.

Because he does not shut down the equipment he’s working on, pressure begins to build in the boiler.

Because pressure begins to build in the boiler, it has turned into a budding explosive.

All of these things, cascading in such a way, would be taken as nothing more than bad luck. But they are not bad luck. They all go back to a single set of electrical fluctuations. Fluctuations that can, in skilled hands, be caused by a Time Ring or temporal induction.

We are Time Lords. No mere travellers, we observe the vast interconnected web of everything, and understand it as easily as one does a map. We comprehend perfectly what we can see, and how to make use of it. And our beings are deeper-woven into reality, such that even when we might be erased from history, the effects we leave are left behind, and even if changes might be noted, we are undetectable as the source of those changes.

The Chancellor that Galea and I have been sent to remove takes a position at the podium. He begins his address, speaking to a crowd gathered in the main foyer of his capitol’s building.

Galea and I are stood on an empty level above. A level that will be redone to have a balcony in the future, after today’s events come to pass, no doubt, looking down on the address below.

He begins as all leaders do. Speaking of honour and a shared struggle, before meandering into the meaningless things he’s really focused on.

Her voice, when she speaks, is quiet.

“This is wrong.”

I do not answer immediately.

“I used to be a scientist,” She continues, carefully, as if each word might shatter something fragile, “I’m not- I’m not an assassin!”

“You still aren’t,” I reply. “And neither am I.”

She leans forward, eyes blazing. “A man is going to die because of us-“

“This man’s death was ordained,” I reply. “It is his fate. Regardless of what Time Lord is responsible, the Council would see it come to pass. And in this case, we have done nothing.” I turn away. “We tampered with an electrical junction, nothing more.”

“That’s- oooh,” She looks about ready to explode in fury. “That is a lie, and you know it.”

“It is our lives or his,” It’s a simple calculus. “We have not the luxury for moral outrage. We are beholden to the Time Lords. It is this, or die. Or worse, fight on the front lines.”

Galea doesn’t answer, leaning on a railing. “This is the power you wield as custodes of the universe?”

“Indeed.”

“Disgusting.”

I gesture. It is empty. “In order to ensure our own right for self-determination, we have to take it from another. And in the end, it is this, or the Daleks now. We have no other choice.”

“Because of you! Always, it’s because of you!” She hisses at me.

I stop momentarily. “…perhaps.” I grant her that. “I should have gone with Van to begin with. I know. I know… But, we choose our own future without knowing what comes, and part of that is learning to deal with the consequences.”

She narrows her eyes. “And if the consequences are beyond just limited to you, what then?”

I admit, that I don’t have a good answer for.

I don’t know why the Time Lords decreed the Chancellor has to die. I can only hope it keeps them seeing Galea and I as useful.

There’s the distant sound of metal breaking, and the high-pitched whistling of steam like it’s coming from out of a kettle.

He pauses, an old man unsure if he’s hearing things, before he continues.

Then, a deafening bang. The floor underneath him splinters and knocks him into the air as the pressure wave launches him.

Time slows to a crawl.

Steam hangs in the air like spider silk, frozen in wisps. Shards of stone and fractured wood drift outward from the ruptured floor, each fragment caught mid-spin, their shadows pinned to the walls like leaves pressed in between the pages of a book. The Chancellor is suspended above the podium, coat flared, mouth open in a sound that will never finish forming. His spectacles have slipped, just slightly, down the bridge of his nose.

Even Galea and I are frozen.

Yet, there is movement.

He walks from the end of the hall, fading in out of thin air. Tall, gaunt and skeletal. His cheekbones prominent, his hair slicked back and polished black – as black as the three-piece suit and the matching stock tie he wore.

That was fast. They really had their eyes on us, didn’t they?

“Excellent work,” The Valeyard says instead of a greeting, his hands clasped behind himself as he walked. Doubtless, he’d have a baton or something if he could. “Performed admirably – you’ve shown a remarkable bit of restraint. I had wondered, momentarily, if the two of you would prove to be of the annoyingly principled sort, but, it’s all worked out, in the end. The Tower has been shimmed.”

“Is there anything principled about refusing to kill a man?” Galea demands. “I would call that basic decency!”

“Too principled, in fact.” The Valeyard stands in front of her. “One must understand that there are certain actions to be carried out, for the good of all.”

Galea rolled her eyes. “Oh, the ‘needs of the many’ defence.” She glared at him. “I programmed an AI system’s entire ethical framework. I don’t need a lecture in morality from you. The great Time Lords – a society of deceivers, manipulators, and users. If this is the society that omnipotence breeds, I’m very glad I wasn’t born into it. Never mind trying to bring mine up to your level. What even was this? Having you flex your power over us by sending us on a mission any old Time Lord could do?”

The Valeyard simply smiles. “Ah, now, my dear, you do wound me.” There’s a shock of cold air, then, suddenly, we’re standing in space above a lifebearing world. Presumably the one we were just on.

How’s he moving us around, with no capsule, and no visible means of control? It must have been a tremendous engine – and he’s using it for parlour trickery.

“In days gone, I was a scientist myself,” The Valeyard begins. “I became a prosecutor because I was rather curious about the behaviour of the guilty. To see if the case could be made for a truly absolute evil in the universe.” He spins about to look at her. “Deception, manipulation, using another to get what you want – these things are often touted as evil by those who suffer their effects. An animal sent to the slaughterhouse would find it evil, the person with a hungry stomach thinks nothing of it. Since the moment your civilisation emerged from its primordial soup, you have enjoyed the luxuries of an existence under our management – do not think you can presume to judge how we ensure that existence maintains itself.” He once more starts to walk. “Or perhaps you simply need reminding that we are not the absolute evil in the universe.”

He stops, and looks down, as a bronze saucer moves into orbit around the planet.

“What’s-“ I begin.

“Daleks,” Galea shivers.

“Indeed,” The Valeyard notes. “Your assassination of the leader of that primitive city-state has prevented a far more all-consuming holocaust from befalling that world.” He speaks as the planet flickers from a lush and green world to a dead, brown-yellow zit upon the cosmos.

“I don’t understand…”

“Naturally,” The Valeyard hums. “You are a human mind. You are not privy to the foresight that blesses we Time Lords.” He pauses to let the image stick. “Very few things in the universe are absolutely evil. The exception are the Daleks. Their depravity knows no bounds. In recent times, they’ve taken to harvesting genetic material from certain humanoid species to help accelerate their production of new soldiers.”

Space changes to a backdrop of a Dalek facility – vast, toiling vats of oozing gunk. Robotic arms lower into the vats, and remove deformed, squid-like creatures, placing them into casings.

“Some are closer to Dalek than others,” The Valeyard notes. “Only those from the same Samaarian branch that produced the Kaled race are fit. Once discovered, the Daleks make eager use for them. As Dalek puppets, or as raw DNA stock. They establish themselves in hiding, selecting only those with traits suited to producing Dalek DNA.”

A bright flash blinds me, and we’re in space again.

“Radiation is the important factor,” The Valeyard paces. “Neutronic, biological, and chemical weaponry all can combine to make the DNA weak and malleable. Mutations that can take generations to manifest can be forcibly induced then and there. Thus, they are better suited to the Daleks’ purposes. More sources of pure Dalek soldier-stock, on worlds far away from Skaro. Genetic variety enough to ensure the species does not die out, and pure enough to be Dalek. They manipulate several worlds in this manner. Subtly, to be seen as invisible to our eyes, until the world morphs into a Dalek hive. They send their signals, install their puppets, covertly manipulate the planet until one of their agents initiates the plan.” He crossed one arm over the other, turning a rueful look onto the planet below. “The Chancellor you killed was a pawn for masters he had no concept the existence of.”

“He…” Galea bites her lip. “He was working for the Daleks?”

“Oh yes, though he had no knowledge of that,” The Valeyard almost chuckles. “It’s quite a subtle thing. Mind control of any sort universally causes the victim to decay. For a puppet that must last years or even decades, perhaps centuries, such a thing is quite unacceptable. Instead, they use a kind of spore – outside of non-temporal scanners’ ability to detect – but it heightens aggression, causes decay in the memory centres of the brain. The Chancellor’s choices were his own, but they were choices that the Daleks benefitted from, in the end.”

The Valeyard then turns back around, and we’re back in his office.

Or… it might be his office? It’s changed – it’s less ‘cubicles of the damned’ and now more like a Victorian parlour.

“Not anymore, now that you’ve killed him.” The Valeyard elaborates. “His vice chancellor will take office, take steps away from the previous Chancellor’s aggressive policy, and will disarm. She, in turn, will sue for the same across her world, and the Daleks will miss their window.”

He pours from a bottle of Absinthe into two glasses.

He walks back up to both of us, and extends both glasses to us.

“So, once more,” The Valeyard rolls his syllables. “Congratulations.”

I take the glass offered to me first. Perhaps it’s foolish – I don’t know if it isn’t poisoned.

“…you couldn’t have told us that first.” Galea demands.

The Valeyard’s lips twitch. “Mortal beings are often kept in the dark about the plans of higher powers. They need not know what transpires, only that it is in their best interest to obey. Several of your earthling religions regard blind obedience to their god as a virtue.”

“You are no god of mine,” Galea stares him back in the eyes. “And even still,” She leans forward, like she’s got one over on him. “I’m an atheist.”

“And? I hold power over your very lives. Your movements, your memories to a degree, and your very futures,” The Valeyard answers. “Listening to me is in your best interest.” He places the glass of absinthe in her hand, and she shoots him a look while his back his turned.

“I’m curious,” I confess, finishing my glass. “Why you sent us, instead of another Time Lord. Something so… menial wouldn’t demand a suicide squad.”

“Young man,” The Valeyard moves to a high-backed chair. “That is precisely why I sent you. If I cannot expect obedience with such trivial matters, why would I dare send you on missions of true import? You’ve proven an ability to listen, if nothing else, the real work begins now.”

“Running us ragged until we crack and give up the location of the three-hundred watches you need, you mean,” Galea corrected.

“Indeed.”

“Right. Except,” She begins to approach him. “You need me for that information. Not him, no matter what you’ve told your council. You need me alive, but here you are, putting two people to work instead, where they could quite possibly be killed.”

The Valeyard gestures. “I’ve already articulated that point quite well. You would be more likely to give up the information.”

“And I don’t believe you,” She leans forward, staring. “I may be a human, unable to see all those things you Time Lords take for granted, but, I do know one thing: this is a Time War.” She stresses. “Every soldier you need is some… vector you can use to make a change to history. A martyr in one timeline, a leader in another, and if those three-hundred are important enough for all this, why doesn’t your council go back and retrieve them? It’s a war, special procedures, you know.”

My eyebrows shoot up. She’s clever. Even I hadn’t stopped to think of that.

The Valeyard’s hand is over his shoulder, idly playing with a frayed string on his chair. “My dear, you may have a human’s ignorance, but that comes coupled with the same stubborn nature.”

She continues to glare at him.

“Very well.” He acquiesces. “If you will not believe the standard line, believe this: you may not be useful to the Council, but you are useful to me.”

My head makes the connection easily. “You’re running operations behind their back. You know, that kind of thing can get you a Semantectomy.” I speak from experience.

Galea grins. “And we can go tell.”

“Tell whom?” The Valeyard snorts. “You’re convicts. Anyone on the battlefield would see your prisoner identification then completely disregard any words that came out of your mouth.”

Galea goes quiet.

“Why?” I question. “You’re not… working with…?”

“The Enemy?” The Valeyard hums. “No. There are certain groups who would seek to abuse the chaos of the War for their own means. Certain Factions attempting to ensure that even if the Houses win, history is left in a state more suited to their existence.”

“And…” Galea probes. “You’re one of them?”

“…more or less.” The Valeyard touches his chin. “Did you know… a fascinating machine, the Matrix is. Such a vast computer, even by our standards, it is capable of precisely charting the position of every particle in the known universe, down to the quark level. By extrapolating the movements, the Matrix can predict events-to-come with near-perfect accuracy. Coupled with its link to the time vortex, it can even account for the movement of time travellers.” He held up a finger as if demonstrating to a class of students. “And did you know, from the very first moment it was brought online, the Matrix’s most persistent and certain prediction it had made, was the very war we now find ourselves in?” His lips contorted into an odd smile. “From the people of Gallifrey’s earliest moments as the Lords of Time, one of our greatest creations had already predicted our downfall.”

Galea raises an eyebrow. “And you all kept soldiering on anyway. Funny, that.”

“Hmph,” The Valeyard grunts. He stands, and begins to pace. “But in spite of it, we as a people, even the vaunted ancients of Gallifrey, were never able to determine the identity of our Enemy. Every time, the Matrix’s answer changed. Daleks are but one. A Hybrid creature, said to be descended from two warrior races. A single renegade of single-minded wrath. It was even said the Enemy we faced could have been our own technology, the day our TARDISes finally outgrew the need for their pilots.” The Valeyard takes a pause. “In the end, however, it does not matter. The identity is in flux, because none of them are our Enemy.”

The Valeyard turns to both of us.

“They are the expression,” He speaks. “Of a process that had been set in motion billions of years ago at the very beginning of creation, that has just now reached its zenith.”

My forehead aches as I try to puzzle it out. “There’s something else pulling the strings?”

“No,” He bluntly answers. “The Time Lords as a people are an expression of a cosmic process. The process of change.” He clasps his hands behind his back, and turns to a stained glass window. “You can see this in many of our natural abilities. Regeneration, the ability to selectively move from one timeline to another in small ways. We came into this universe to enact change, rationalised the universe, and keep changing. Of course, when was the last time we enacted such changes?” He spins back around. “We have become obsolete and stagnant. Like a growth in the body once created to be beneficial only to start poisoning it. The universe is removing us.” The Valeyard quite simply states. “Every foe we face, only one expression of the Universe’s autoimmune response.”

Galea reels back, her eyes unpleasantly wide.

“And they will never stop coming,” The Valeyard bluntly continues, looking between the two of us. “Every time the Time Lords remove the Daleks from history, another foe will take their place. Be that the Cybermen, or Hordes of Travesties, or other Time Lords. And it can never be truly stopped. Say… hypothetically,” He suggests. “On the final day of the War, Gallifrey were moved, in such a manner, that the whole planet quite simply disappeared, looking to the rest of the universe as though it were destroyed. There’d be a period of grace, but the moment Gallifrey and the Time Lords were to return to existence, circumstances would converge in such a way, that Gallifrey were destroyed in the end anyway. It’s a kind of fate.” He reflects, staring at a portrait of a burning world. “As long as Gallifrey exists, it must – by definition – be destroyed. The universe attacking a tumour.”

“…so you think you need them,” Galea swallows. “To help rebuild.”

“I do not think,” The Valeyard taps a temple. “I know. I have witnessed the destruction of Gallifrey first-hand. And you know me to be telling the truth. So,” He sits back down in his chair, taking a glass from nowhere. “That is where we stand.”

I gulp. “If you know when Gallifrey is to be destroyed, you know opening the modules will be a death sentence for them.”

“They will not be pulled into the war – I’m far from being so impulsive,” The Valeyard refutes. “No. They will remain where they are, safe, until I am ready. But I still require the modules’ location, and until then, I will gleefully insert the two of you into whatever horrors necessary to prove to you how serious the matter is.”

He leaned back, and spread his arms. “It was a plea deal, after all.”

----------

It was always awkward when everyone was quiet. Especially when it was a government building, it was supposed to be a moment of celebration, and it was supposed to have been from a trial taken by a person’s self and not with others, and there had just been world-shaking information uncovered.

Oh. And they had an assassin in tow. That was extra awkward.

They entered into the main hall through the transporter, climbing the steps

Emperor Sorean was stood like a statue, posture straight despite the tension etched into his face. Yumea stood to his right, hands folded neatly, expression composed in that practised way Melia knew far too well. She looked every inch the dignified Consort that never never ever did anything wrong but still held people’s ire.

Melia stepped forward and knelt. The others followed suit, slower, more hesitant. Elma’s eyes never left Yumea.

“Father,” Melia said, her voice steady despite everything. “We return from the Tomb of the High Entia.”

The Emperor inclined his head. “Rise, my daughter.” He looked at her, with worried eyes. “I admit… such news would be cause for celebration – but you undertook the trial with the express understanding that it would have to be accomplished on your own.”

Melia floundered for a moment.

Yumea took the opportunity. “She cares not for the customs of our people, I fear,” She shook her head, suppressing something on her face. “If I were to make a hypothesis, it seems to me she undertook the trial for the purpose of violating its rules.”

Melia’s eyes directed at Yumea, aghast.

“Father,” Kallian stepped forth. “If I may-“

“Kallian, please,” Sorean held up a hand. “You aren’t in trouble, but I must get an explanation from Melia. No others.”

“But-“

“No.” Melia shot him a glance. “I will defend myself.” She walked closer. “Father, for 88 years, I have remained nothing but a loyal, loving, and devoted daughter and Princess, performing all duties expected of me.” She paused. “And I have done so in the face of vitriol and hatred from all corners on account on my blood. Even from ones closest to me.” She shot a glare at Yumea, one that she kept focused squarely on the woman as she continued to speak. “You have never forgiven me for existing,” Melia said, voice clear and carrying. “For being born with Homs blood in my veins. For daring to breathe the same air as you while I carry my father’s favour.” Her hands clenched at her sides. “You have never missed an opportunity to remind me of it, however subtle.”

Yumea’s mouth thinned. “Mind your tone.”

“I have minded it for eighty-eight years,” Melia snapped, the restraint finally cracking. “I minded it when you and your courtiers spat venom behind my back whilst you thought I couldn’t hear. I minded it when my legitimacy was questioned every time I dared to even speak in your presence. I minded it when you smiled at me with all the warmth of a blade pressed to the throat.”

The Emperor gestured. “Melia…”

“No, Father,” She said, not turning. “I have held my tongue for a great many years out of the mistaken belief that, one day, my actions might be sufficient enough to earn me a reprieve. I see no further point in doing so.” Her gaze locked onto Yumea again. “After my mother died, you were the only woman left in my life who might have guided me. How could I not see you as anything other than that? My father had, at a point, loved you as much as my own mother. Thus, I tried to trust you, despite you making your disgust of me abundantly clear, if no other reason than because you were Kallian’s mother, and because I love my brother too much to hate the woman who raised him.”

“You speak out of turn-!” Yumea began.

Melia glared. “I rather think it is you who forget your place. You are neither a queen or any leader of our people. You are a consort, from outside our family. By all rights, you have no voice or influence, but my father lets himself be swayed by you out of a sense of respect for your relationship, no doubt.” She turned to Sorean, then. “Your Majesty, the Consort has been persuading you to send me into danger. Against the Telethia, and into the trial chambers. For a time, even though I suspect she wishes the encounters to have killed me, I’ve handled them, all the same. But in this latest case, the consort has committed an unforgivable transgression. She has conspired to act directly to get me killed.”

Yumea reeled, aghast. “I- how da- Your Majesty, this is absurd! She violates the sanctity of the trial, and immediately turns it into censure against me!?”

The hall had gone deathly still.

The Emperor looked for a long while at Melia. “Melia, what are you saying?”

“She’d conspired to place a Telethia, and an assassin, in the Tomb,” Melia gestured to the assassin, the woman glaring.

Yumea’s eyes found the woman, and she turned a very reproachful look onto the assassin. Not one of ‘you’d conspire to kill’ but ‘you failed in your mission, and there’s gonna be punishment.’

“Kallian saw the consort speaking with this assassin,” Melia explained.

“Is this true?” Sorean turned to his son.

“Kallian, do not answer!” Yumea raised her voice. “She would have me thrown in prison for her inability to face the trial!”

Kallian closed his eyes, and exhaled. “It is true. I witnessed it myself.”

“Furthermore, if I may speak,” Elma spoke up. “This assassin has a marked resemblance in uniform to a group of assassins myself and the Doctor faced.”

“Silence!” Yumea barked. “This is Imperial business, your… altercations do not concern us!” She turned to him. “This idiocy has gone on long enough already. If she cannot handle a single person’s distaste for her to the extent she would ruin their life through underhanded slander, imagine what she would do on the throne.”

The Emperor stood, quiet, for a long time.

He cast his eyes down at the assassin. “Attempted assassination is a very serious accusation. But I cannot fathom, for the life of me, why Melia would lie about such a thing.”

“Is it not obvious?” Yumea hissed under her breath in response. “She has failed the trial by bringing outsiders into it, proven herself unworthy of the throne.”

The Emperor turned to look at her. “But it was you whom suggested the trial to begin with.”

“Yes – hence why she feels the need to be rid of me! She has fallen short, and rather than face her own inadequacy, she would lash out at the one who suggested the trial!”

The Emperor slowly began to nod, dawning scepticism in his eyes. “And yet, no others could know on such short notice.”

Fiora and Sharla shared a look.

“Ye- What!?” Yumea spluttered.

“Melia departed for the tomb as soon as my address to the public had ended,” The Emperor outlined. “How could an assassin have prepared to strike with such a small window?”

“Indeed, your majesty,” Alvis spoke with a smile. “In fact… I hold such suspicions myself. Assassins had planned to strike at Shulk and all of his associates, but found only the Doctor and Elma because of luck, but they would only be targets as a result of the Monado’s ability to give Shulk visions of the future. In order to ensure the Telethia and assassin did their job, Shulk would need to be removed from the board. The ability to place a Telethia in the Tomb without advance knowledge that a trial would occur – knowledge not widely circulated until the very address whence you named Melia your successor – notwithstanding, how would the assassins know of the Monado’s ability to see the future? It’s not known beyond those present.”

“Alvis,” Yumea sneered. “You must stick your hands in everything!”

“Only that which, you will find, harms the throne,” Alvis politely retorted. “The Emperor sits upon it, as will one day, Melia – you, however, do not.”

The Emperor turned to Yumea, a blank look in his eyes. “Is this true?”

Yumea let out a sound in between a scoff, a snort, and an enraged squawk. “It is wild conjecture, and a plot against me! Why not accuse the countless guards who have also been present, hm!? You must see it for what it is, they are all… ganging up upon me!”

The Emperor held his tongue, casting his gaze back to the group. He didn’t speak, but his next question was perfectly clear: what’s the proof?

“It is true.” Kallian spoke, causing Yumea’s head to snap in his direction, pale with betrayal. “I witnessed the consort speaking to an assassin, dressed in the same uniform as this,” He gestured to the one in their custody, “Before the suggestion of a Trial was ever made.”

“Kallian!” Yumea gasped. “I’m your mother, and this is how you respond to me!? I’ve always held your best interests in mind, and now you would spread these lies about me!?”

Kallian clenched his jaw.

The Emperor sighed profusely. Already, he knew. Kallian and Melia were not telling lies – hadn’t been from the beginning, but Kallian so brazenly saying, effectively, ‘I think my mother plotted to kill my sister’ was enough.

Then, something not any of them expected occurred.

“…it is true,” The assassin spoke up. “Her Highness, the First Consort, plotted to kill the half-breed.”

Yumea went dead silent with frothing rage, glaring at the assassin.

The Emperor focused on the assassin. “And? Who might you be, young one?”

“I am Tyrea,” She spoke, still had her head hanging low with shame and resignation. “A child of the Bionite Order. My sisters and I were given the mission to kill Melia, and her associates.”

Shulk glanced at her, shocked, as the others had said they probably wouldn’t get anything like that out of her. Then again… she was standing before the Emperor, having failed, and she was due for the chopping block sooner-or-later anyway.

There was no honour amongst thieves.

“…I see,” The Emperor rumbled. “Tyrea, if that is truly your nomenclature, look up.” He ordered.

She did so, tilting her head up, looking him dead in the eyes properly that time.

The Emperor gasped, reeling back.

His breath caught, just slightly, but enough. His eyes lingered on Tyrea’s face with an intensity that made everyone feel uneasy. Recognising a pattern he wished he did not see, something in her face.

Emperors, nobility in general, had to be good with faces. Came with the territory.

Then, whatever he had realised vanished behind a wall of iron restraint.

“Enough,” He said quietly.

Tyrea swallowed, shoulders slumping as if the fight had finally drained out of her. Yumea opened her mouth, being swiftly cut off.

“Tyrea of the Bionite Order,” Sorean continued, measured and precise, “You stand accused of attempted regicide, conspiracy, and treason against the Crown. Your confession has been heard. You will be taken into custody and held under guard until such time as judgement may be passed.” He turned his head slightly. “Remove her.”

The guards moved at once, grasping Tyrea by the arms. She did not resist, as they led her away.

Only then did Sorean turn back to face Yumea.

Already, one could tell what would happen next.

She straightened, colour returning to her face in a rush. “Your Majesty,” She said, voice trembling with fury. “Surely you cannot be entertaining the ramblings of criminals and half-blood children over your own Consort.”

Sorean studied her for a long moment. “You have served at my side for many years.”

“And faithfully,” She snapped. “I have done nothing but act in the Empire’s best interests.”

“You have acted,” He agreed. “That much is no longer in question.”

Her lips curled. “You would strip me of my standing on the word of that girl?” She jabbed a finger toward Melia. “She has poisoned this court against me. You are allowing sentiment to rule you.”

Melia did not speak. She stood very still, wings tucked close, hands shaking despite her effort to steady them.

Sorean exhaled slowly. “And yet, I find my sentiment for you leading me astray now.”

Yumea recoiled. “Wha-?”

“You wear your hearts upon your sleeve. It was, for a time, what had attracted me to you,” Sorean bowed his head. “Yet I didn’t believe you held within you the capacity for murder, until I saw Tyrea’s face.”

“You cannot do this,” Yumea hissed. “I am your Consort.”

“You are under suspicion of treason,” Sorean replied. “And I will not have this matter decided by shouting matches and slurs. If you are innocent, which I hope in my heart of hearts that you are, the truth will reveal itself.”

That did it.

Yumea’s composure shattered entirely. “You ungrateful fool,” She spat, venomous now, unmasked. “You would place that mongrel above me? That half-Homs thing? Against Kallian?” Her eyes burned into Melia. “He belongs on the throne more than she ever will! You’d sully your bloodline for all eternity for… what!? Some vague notion of mingling with peoples lesser-developed than us!?”

Kallian took a sharp step forward. “Mother. Enough.”

She rounded on him. “Don’t you dare,” She snarled. “I did everything for you. For this family. And this is how you repay me?”

The Emperor sighed, gesturing to his guards.

They moved in, firm and unyielding, taking Yumea by the arms. She fought them, thrashing, dignity well and truly abandoned.

“Stop! Unhand me, you degenerates!” She screamed as they dragged her away. “He would destroy all that our people would hold dear!”

Yumea kept slinging fury, even as she was pulled into a transporter, and taken away.

As silence filled the air, quickly, the Emperor sought to break it.

“Melia, are you…?”

“Fine, father,” Melia swallowed.

Sorean’s gaze lingered upon her, unsure whether or not to believe her, until at last, he gave a single nod, and looked upon the others.

“My apologies – to all of you.” The Emperor spoke. “I find it highly regrettable that you all were pulled into this unfortunate business. Still, you acted quickly to assist Melia. To assist the future of the High Entia. And for that, you have my gratitude.”

“Savin’ damsels in distress has started to become a bit of a thing with this group,” Dickson muttered.

“It was nothing,” Shulk quickly shook his head. “Melia’s our friend.”

Melia’s head quickly swivelled to Shulk in surprise.

“Yes! Riki very, very happy to make sure Melly make it home safe!” He bounced around.

“She has found great comrades, indeed,” The Emperor looked upon Melia with a subdued smile. “And you, Melia, return with the blessing of our Ancestors. Even if you had not, vanquishing another Telethia in such short order after the first… Regardless of what the First Consort says, you are more than a worthy successor for the throne.”

Melia lowered her head, a watery smile rising to her face. “I- thank you, father.”

“What will happen to Tyrea and Yumea?” Elma addressed gently. “The rest of the assassins are still out there.”

The Emperor cleared his throat. “That depends upon entirely what they are willing to share. About how deep this rot goes. If my Consort was one of them, I shudder to think…”

“It’s odd that she folded so quickly, isn’t it?” Sharla wondered. “Tyrea. She was quick to throw her employer off the bridge.”

The Emperor awkwardly coughed. “That one’s reasons were her own, I suspect. All we know as of now is that the two of them had contact – not what their working relationship was like. There will be a full inquisition, do not worry.”

“The Bionite Order will fall,” Alvis spoke to the others. “For a group so dependent upon secrecy, the slightest bit of attention would prove to be their undoing.”

The Doctor let out a hum, an uneasy look turned to Alvis. Rather on the nose, he thought.

“In any case, I feel that’s not what we should remain focused on,” The Emperor continued. “If there was any shred of doubt in my mind left, your recent actions have dispersed it. You are one I can trust, Shulk.”

Shulk anxiously jittered, eyes darting about, as his friends glanced his way. “Um, I’m honoured, Your Majesty.”

“Still, I feel that I must apologise,” The Emperor spoke. “To you, personally.”

“Oh, boy, here we go…” Dickson muttered under his breath.

The Doctor’s ears, meanwhile, twitched.

“The awakening of the Bionis is only part of the equation,” The Emperor began to elaborate. “It’s said one of the true deciding factors will be what lies within the heart of the one who wields the Monado. Whether the sword will bring destruction or prosperity depends upon it.” He cast his gaze over to an ancient tablet floating near the throne. “I know not what is sealed within Prison Island – the records have been lost to history. But, if it is a power that can enhance the Monado, it must be terrible indeed. Such strength would, naturally, be coveted by one who lusts after power. But, I see that you, and your associates, are not the sort to let such covetous urges rule them. Indeed, you have quite a noble urge driving you.”

Fiora turned her head up with a slightly-smug smile.

“I will make the necessary preparations,” The Emperor decreed. “Give me some time, and I will summon you when it is time to embark for Prison Island.”

“All right, yeah!” Reyn pumped a fist. “The Mechon ain’t gonna know what hit ‘em!”

“Curb your enthusiasm, Reyn,” Shulk instructed, but with a chuckle of his own. “We haven’t even powered up the Monado yet.” He turned to the Doctor, to get him to weigh in, but went quiet.

He was somewhere else.

As the Emperor walked off to begin the task of getting everything in order, and the others dispersed, Shulk wondered where it was.

----------------

Across the observable universe, there are millions upon millions of worlds where life exists in some form. Of those, quadruplexes in local life-forms are regulated mainly to out-of-sight tasks – mainly helping along cellular division and helping to preserve the telomeres – and they’re not really quad-helix DNA (four strands, like a double-helix viewed by someone who’s cross-eyed). Of that pool of planets, only a few are host to intelligent life.

But, only one is host to the unique form that permeates all life that walks its surface.

In the Academy, they taught it as the concept of ‘two, plus one, plus one.’ Long, long, long ago, life on Gallifrey was not unlike life everywhere else. It started as a speck in the ocean, feeding off heat and radiation. The Gallifreyan Archaea might’ve been like all other life, everywhere else – had Gallifrey not formed right on top of the boundary where the Time Vortex was weakest. It was a subject of some debate – if the tear had formed naturally, or if it was the result of the Time Lords of days to come claiming their birthright and retroactively making the tear happen – but in either case, in short order, once the Gallifreyan Archaea had started getting further and further away from the depths, the radiation stopped diffusing enough to have a tenable effect.

That, it was said, caused life on Gallifrey to develop the T-strand – the temporal component of their DNA. Largely inert, out of phase with non-temporal scanners, and connected to the higher geometries of spacetime. Millions of years later, when the Time Lords learned to walk and came to stand in front of the Untempered Schism, the raw output of the Schism would activate that component, expand their senses, and write them onto the cosmos itself.

The other strand blossomed from it, it was said. Once the T-strand had developed, it opened the door to the power of Regeneration. The body balanced it out by ‘stapling on’ another strand of RNA.

At least… he thought so.

He fell asleep in that class.

From the other, mythological perspective, it was said that, once, Gallifreyans didn’t have DNA. Back when the universe was raw, and untamed, during the Wild and the Dark and the Chaotic times before they were Time Lords. Back then, while everyone else had DNA, or had knitting patterns as their genetic structures, the children of Gallifrey’s genetic structure was more like… a mathematical equation, whose solution resolved to a person.

Then the Time Lords pinned open the Eye of Harmony, hung the flesh of the cosmos upon the face of creation, stringing it between the countless towers of the fixed points in time they decreed that were important for their interpretation of the universe, and in so doing weaved the web of time, and (in addition to crystallising the laws of physics and banishing the illogical) the lifeforms of Gallifrey had their genetic structure change from completely impossible living maths to a possible, but not at all through natural evolution, quadruple-helix DNA.

In any case, it was simple: according to all laws of biology, such genetic structures could only exist on Gallifrey. It was the only planet capable of supporting them.

What that implied about the Telethia was… unsettling. To say the least.

Actually… it was very, very concerning. A big shake-up to everything. And it called everything into question.

Were the Telethia of Bionis the only ones with it, or did the ones native to Mira possess it as well?

“Doctor?” The Doctor was suddenly interrupted like a train smashing into a brick wall, as Shulk leaned into his vision. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, yeah, fine,” The Time Lord sniffed, rubbing the back of his head.

“You’ve been awfully quiet for a while.”

“Just… thinking.”

Shulk nodded. “I get like that, too.”

The Doctor looked concerned. “Like what?”

“Well… mostly everyone has already left.” Shulk gestured.

The Doctor’s presence-of-mind returned, and he whipped around, looking. Aside from himself, Shulk, and Elma, most of the others seemed to have left. Even Kallian had retreated.

Could you blame him? There was so much to think about.

“Right…” The Doctor rubbed his face. “Sorry, it’s just… hard. To process.”

Shulk nodded slowly. “About the Telethia, right?”

The Doctor tilted his head, puzzled. “How’d you figure?”

“It wasn’t difficult. You seemed to get lost in your thoughts after you saw that information,” Shulk recalled. “I get like that, too, when there’s something I’m working on. Dickson usually had to send Fiora to rescue me, in that case.”

“Oh, that’s me all over,” The Doctor tried to laugh. That time he got bored, decided to undertake a quick thirty-minute tinkering adventure… that actually wound-up being a complete 36-hour resulting in the first model of his sonic screwdriver he’d created.

His date had to send the Master to retrieve him.

The Doctor’s shoulders slumped as he got a reminder of his current mental stress.

“I’m fine, Shulk.” The Doctor repeated.

“Well, would you like to talk about it?” Shulk inquired. “Even if no one else can actually help, usually talking about it helps steer my mind.”

“Nah,” The Doctor deflected. “You don’t want to get lost in my thoughts, too.”

Shulk hesitated, then opened his mouth again, clearly weighing how far to press it.

Before he could, Elma cleared her throat.

“He’s right, you know,” She said, nodding toward Shulk. “Talking, I mean.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and threw his head back. “Oh, not you too…”

Elma gave him a stern look. “Don’t give me that. You know for a fact one of your worst traits is your inability to talk about things on your mind. The amount of trouble that we would save if you spoke it…”

“Elma, usually, if I’m not talking about it, it’s for a good reason!” The Doctor deflected again.

Elma leaned over to Shulk. “He travels with humans because his mind is too big, always focusing and processing, never slowing down enough to see things until it’s too late. Then, he gets huffy when we ask him to share his thoughts.”

The Doctor pointed. “Because I’d rather not frighten you.”

“And if it’s something worth being frightened over, we’ll have the correct reaction, so,” Elma crossed her arms. “Spill. It’s about the Telethia. You know it, I know it, Shulk knows it, and anybody else within line-of-sight when you took a look at the results of that scan knows it. So, might as well save the friction, and distrust, and just tell us.”

The Doctor looked between them. Elma, steady and unreadable, and Shulk, earnest.

He exhaled through his nose.

“Ugh, fine,” The Doctor groaned. Always choosing the difficult humans, him. They caught wise to his nonsense and browbeat him until he did what they wanted.

He wondered what it spoke regarding what was deep within him that he kept picking the difficult ones. They always called him out. He felt like it was keeping himself humble. A much crueller part of himself whispered that it was punishment. The melodramatic side, mostly. It spoke in a Scottish accent.

The Doctor took a moment, choosing his words. “What I saw in the Telethia wasn’t just… unusual biology. It was a kind of… language, I suppose.”

Shulk’s eyebrows shot up. “A language? Like runes?”

“Well… no. More like a design language. A common way of doing things,” The Doctor rubbed the back of his head. “Genetically speaking. Life on earth, if you would, has all the same underlying grammar. A chemical framework, shared between everything, all the way back to a first, common ancestor.”

“Like how the first micro-organisms on Earth evolved to encode instructions on how to reproduce as DNA, and even though life evolved and drifted away from that first micro-organism, they still use DNA. All earth life does.” Elma nodded.

Shulk nodded in comprehension, then his brow raised in understanding. “Which is why life on Bionis concerns you, doesn’t it? We share those structures with Earth life.”

“Yes and no,” The Doctor wiggled a hand. “There’s not really a whole lot of ways to encode genetic information. If you’re a carbon-based lifeform, your options are limited, and convergent evolution pretty much locks you into DNA.”

“Okay,” Shulk nodded. “But, the Telethia is different, because…?”

“Because the kind of DNA it has only exists on one planet.” The Doctor stated. “Can only exist on one planet. Gallifrey. My homeworld.”

Shulk blinked. “I… don’t understand. You think the Telethia are from your world?”

“I don’t know,” The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. “On Gallifrey, we had megafauna. Gargantosaurs. Our version of dinosaurs, basically, lovely things, used to go wild for them – but nothing like the Telethia. Nothing that so ravenously consumes everything.”

“Well,” Elma crossed her arms. “The High Council was never exactly the most forthcoming about a lot of things. You sure they didn’t originate from Gallifrey and were wiped out, and the information was hidden for safety?”

The Doctor groaned. It was an awkward – in the sense of being messy and a little bit forced – possibility, but he had to consider it. Even still, “I don’t think so, no. During the War, the High Council were doing everything they could to secure a victory. The kind of things they unleashed…” Then, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Telethia would be the perfect weapons, but they never showed up. Ever.”

“You’re sure?” Elma questioned. “Not that I’m trying to call you a liar, but… well, you don’t know what you don’t know.”

The Doctor paused for thought. He remembered the War, chewing him up and spitting him out. At the heart, when the Protocols of Linearity broke down, and it all turned into an amorphous mass of stuff happening.

He remembered his Eighth regeneration activating the Moment from atop Yarvelling’s Church. He remembered being that face and using the TARDIS’s power to assert a new history and blast Gallifrey off the face of the universe. He also remembered being an old Warrior who’d activated the Moment on Gallifrey’s surface and somehow surviving the destruction which should have took him as well, in defiance of all logic. He remembered their Enemy razing Gallifrey, and the Master finally helping him.

Through all of that, at the weakening of the firmament, when the Meanwhiles’ and Never-Weres’ strength was at its zenith, the Princes of Madness and the Pantheon of Discord looked upon the devastation and ran screaming, when the likes of Morbius, Borusa, and the War Chief were brought back, leading charges of everything Gallifrey had ever produced-

He’d not once seen a Telethia. Not even during the end. The moment, when the Eye of Harmony convulsed and yanked at the threads connecting it to all others, and all creation was compressed into a single, eternally-long, ephemeral moment of infinite destruction.

“There weren’t any weapons we were scared to use, in the last days,” The Doctor softly intoned. “We brought back things from every point in Gallifrey history. Cannibalised our own ancestors to make us more aggressive and strong, mounted weapons on every species of Gigantosaurs we could find, even brought back the Pythia. Telethia’s not from Gallifrey, I can promise you that – I never once saw them, in a single battle.”

“Weapons?” Shulk asked, staring at the Time Lord. “Your people were at war?”

The Doctor silently nodded.

“But… that’s odd. Really,” Elma frowned. “The Time Lords didn’t limit themselves to just things from Gallifrey. Why not grab the Telethia?”

“…Mira’s weird,” The Doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It was protected, during the war. Or, it protected itself. A lot of people found they couldn’t even approach it. It removed itself from the Web of Time.”

“…oh,” Elma breathed. “That’s… concerning.”

“Oh, yeah, at the time, it was damned scary,” The Doctor let out a puff of air. “But Mira’s always had kind of a… ‘will,’ for lack of a better term.” He furrowed his brow. “But why? Nopon don’t have it, nothing else on Mira has it – I’m not even sure this is a thing not unique to Bionis Telethia,” He turned to Elma. “You wouldn’t happen to have-“

Elma went pink in her cheeks, violently jumping back and pointing at him. “No! Nuh-uh, don’t you even dare! I know how this goes!”

“I’m not asking you to put it on!” The Doctor defensively raised his hands. “I’m asking if you have it. On you. In a bag. In a pocket. Folded up somewhere.”

“Which is a prelude to asking me to put it on!”

“No,” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “It’s made with Telethia materials. There still might be pristine DNA inside.”

“It was meant for a fundraiser! I don’t keep it on me!”

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. “Really? You don’t have a single part of it on you?”

“I keep a pantsuit and dress shirt in my portable storage for emergencies! That’s it!”

“Mmm,” The Doctor nodded. “And you don’t keep a black bow tie for in case you need neckwear at all, do you?”

The Time Lord and the descendant of Samaar became locked in a stare-off.

Elma gave in first, letting out a grunt of resignation, as she drew her BLADE scanner, tapped a few commands into the holographic interface and, in the air in front of her, a small strip of cloth materialised. It looked like normal fabric, cotton or wool that was finely threaded, but shone with a polish like that of shoe leather.

Before she could reach out to pluck it, the Doctor beat her to the punch.

“A-thank you,” The Doctor spoke, beginning the scan.

Shulk frowned in confusion. “What does a bow tie have to do with fundraising?”

Elma scratched at the side of her head, and crossed her arms. “People will sink money into anything if there’s glamour involved. Glamour and spectacle. Concerts with lots of loud noises and bright colours, fashion shows, drag queens… NLA’s economy was starting to stall after the Lifehold Power Reserves entered the red zone, so BLADE funding got low, so we had to get back the public goodwill through fundraising.”

“Ah,” Shulk nodded. “So, you made bow ties to sell.”

“…well, no,” Elma shook her head. “I wanted to do live comedy. Whose Line is it Anyway with my team. Everyone else wanted to do a cabaret act.”

“Just as well,” The Doctor, still scanning the article, cut in. “You’re rubbish at jokes.”

Elma gasped, affronted. “I am not!”

“Goes right over your head,” The Doctor continued. “Need I remind you of a certain incident in NLA? Involving a certain ‘Elma person?’”

Elma let out a flustered, embarrassed groan, covering her face. “Please, don’t… don’t mention that. Ever again.” She shook her head. “Anyway, our clothes needed a sheen to them. But we didn’t want to compromise mobility by using stiff materials like leather. So…”

“So they went out and beat a Telethia until it dropped enough stem cells to weave into fabric,” The Doctor shook his head. “Humans, the lengths you’ll go to…” The Sonic Screwdriver let out another bleep as the scan completed, and his joking tone evaporated. “Right, let’s see wha-“

Another projection appeared above the emitter. Identical to the other sample of Telethia DNA. Four strands and all.

“…but that’s impossible…” Elma breathed.

“…Alvis!” The Doctor bit out, shoving the sonic into his coat pocket. “I need to find Alvis!” He dashed off, leaving Elma and Shulk behind.

“Does… he do that a lot?” Shulk questioned.

Elma shook her head like a tired sibling. “Too often.”

-------------------------

The Doctor did not need to ask directions.

He was like a bloodhound following a scent, but the scent were waves in existence itself, and his legs propelled him like a rocket.

He arrived in a large chamber that, upon just a cursory examination, looked to be the main library here in the Imperial Palace.

Alvis was at a table, looking through a tome, eating out of an opaque, plastic baggie.

The Doctor approached.

“You know, this is a library,” He said. “The librarians are probably not going to be happy to see you eating and handling the books at the same time.”

“They would also be quite displeased at the noise, so, do try to keep it low, yes?” Alvis suggested, turning a page. “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Now you’re mocking me.”

“Hardly. Keeping the mouth occupied helps concentration.”

The Time Lord shook his head. “I’m good, thank you,” He focused on them, and his nose crinkled. “They’re the blue ones. I’d rather have-“

He glanced again, stopping, as they changed colour from blue to orange.

“…ah.” The Doctor sniffed, and took one. He didn’t need to ask how he knew – he’d spent some time around the Master during the Year-that-wasn’t and one of his favourite tricks was giving him a bag of jelly babies that had the rubbish ones – all the ones he liked except orange. “Well. Thanks.”

“Of course. Thirsty?”

The Doctor couldn’t even open his mouth to reply, before he felt the waves tremor and focus, before a tea set with two, already-poured, steaming cups appeared on the table.

“Transmigration,” The Doctor recognised. “Funny. You were always rubbish at that.”

“My horizons have expanded, far beyond what you’d consider previously possible,” Alvis settled in his chair, looking up at the Doctor. “In this world, I am – for all intents and purposes – a god.”

The Doctor slowly nodded, a faint air of scepticism surrounding him. “Like Omega in the Antimatter Universe.”

“Om-“ Alvis began to repeat, before his composure cracked and he let a smile blossom on his face. The paradoxically sharp-yet-soft features crinkled, his eyes sparkled, and he looked genuinely joyful. “Yes… Yes, I suppose you can think of it that way.”

“And you used that power to help us,” The Doctor continued to stare at Alvis. “In the Tomb, the Telethia was overloading, spitting out Ether. You shielded us. Protected me. Even though that was a perfect time to let me die. Get me out of your hair forever – I doubt even I could tank the ether blast. But you didn’t.”

“Indeed. I did not.”

“Why?” The Doctor demanded at once.

“I’ve already told you,” Alvis replied. “I’ve changed in more ways than it is possible for you to ever fully comprehend.”

The Doctor stared, quiet, for a long time. “How?”

Alvis bent over the book. “Are you aware, Doctor, of the concept of the Elysian Field?”

His brow furrowed. “…that’s an old wives’ tale. Like bi-generation. Or how committing suicide is the only sure-fire way to switch exterior type during regeneration.”

“A great man once said all stories begin somewhere, often at the truth.” Alvis refuted. “It’s quite simple – consuming biomass and energy reserves to burn an old body into a new one, bypassing the regeneration limit, resetting the cycle, and, it’s said,” He flipped a page. “Expelling parts of the personality thought… undesirable. In some circles, it’s said you will use the technique yourself, one day.”

The Doctor’s brow furrowed in confusion. “So… what? You’re the Master’s goodness and honesty? The parts of himself he always hated?”

“No.” Alvis bluntly answered. “But it is a nice explanation, isn’t it?”

“Hm.” The Doctor hummed. “Still… if there was a chance to kill me, that was it.” He reached down for the cuppa. “So… thanks.” He took a sip, and almost spat it out in shock. Not disgust; shock.

“Is it not to your liking?” Alvis politely inquired.

“No, it’s… it’s just how I like it…” The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed. He looked up. “What is this!? Saving my life, leaving the colour of jelly babies I like, making my tea how I like it? Are you trying to butter me up?”

“I’m afraid such a thing would be quite useless, you know that.”

“I really don’t.” The Doctor refuted.

“Do you?”

“You’ve lied, stole, murdered, manipulated- I don’t think anything is beyond you.”

For the briefest shadow of an instant, a veil of guilt flickered over Alvis’s face.

“Have I ever been dishonest to you?” He asked of the Doctor.

The Time Lord opened his mouth – then, cut it off. The Master had killed him, manipulated, sure, but… lied, well…

The Doctor’s eyes went unfocused as he tried to think back. He skimmed everything he could. San Francisco, the Death Zone, the Capitol, Earth – everywhere and everywhere. He struggled such that his head began to hurt, as he dredged up some deep, long-forgotten, ancient memory that felt like it belonged to the lives he sometimes had and didn’t have. A woman in a Victorian dress stood across from him, all wide-eyed and crazy-looking, and was stepping away from him. She took his hand, and he felt the knife on it.

Another mental struggle, the pressure-induced headache caused by him straining his brain, and he was in front of an MI6 agent who… what was it… knocked him on his back? No, was the plane hitting turbulence? No, was it the engines? It all faded.

And that was it.

The Doctor cast his eyes down. “…there’s a first for everything.”

“I am not asking for trust,” Alvis said. “Only tolerance.”

The Doctor barked a laugh. “You really don’t know me at all, do you? I can tolerate enough, but what you tend to bring with you? No chance.”

“I know you well enough,” Alvis gestured, “To propose a compromise.”

“Oh?” The Doctor arched an eyebrow.

“A wager,” Alvis said.

The Doctor froze, then slowly grinned, sharp and foxlike. “Oh, I do like you sometimes.” He stepped closer to the table, leaning on it. “What kind of wager? I’m not usually a betting man.”

“If I am telling the truth, and this is no game of any sorts with you, you owe me a thousand apologies,” Alvis answered. “If I am lying…” He took off his pendant, and placed it upon the table.

“What is this?” The Doctor inquired.

“It is everything you need to know,” He spoke, turning his head. “About the state of the universe, how it entered that state, where it is going beyond that. All of my… ‘dirty little secrets,’ as the saying goes.”

“And I know that… how?” The Doctor probed.

“You do not,” Alvis smiled. “But it rather defeats the purpose of a wager if you know perfectly, ahead of time, all of the details. There must be an element of doubt. And a willingness to take your fellow gamblers at their word.”

The Doctor straightened, eyes gleaming now, that familiar dangerous joy creeping in.

“Tell you what,” He said. “I’d bet a fiddle of gold against your soul.”

Alvis’s mouth twitched. “Because you think you’re better than I?”

“Nah,” The Doctor shrugged off half-heartedly. “You were always better at piloting, and studying, and atomic science, and the jiggery-pokery class. Just tell me:” He leaned forward, getting a serious look on his face. “The Telethia. Why do they have Gallifreyan DNA?”

Alvis stopped momentarily, his composure maintained, but he lingered in silence for an awkward pause. “Perhaps it’s because they are native to Gallifrey?”

“You and I both know that’s not the case,” The Doctor shook his head. “The Telethia here is one thing – you could have your fingers, meddling in it, for what I don’t know, but it makes sense. But Mira?”

“Convergent evolution is a well-proven science,” Alvis hummed. “Similar organisms in similar niches, even across planets, develop similar morphologies.”

“Yeah, but not at the genetic level,” The Doctor refuted. “Not the very DNA. So, what is it?”

Alvis cocked a smug little eyebrow. “And what makes you certain I know that information?”

“Well, this is your universe, isn’t it?” The Doctor gestured about his head. “The Telethia, the Homs, the Nopon, the High Entia – they’re all here, because of you, most likely. So, where’d you get them? The Homs – human DNA is dime-a-dozen, thanks to Samaar, doesn’t matter if it’s from Earth, Mondas, or Narnia. The Nopon, you probably got from Mira – but what about the Telethia? Where did it come from, really? Why do both samples have a DNA type native to Gallifrey?”

Alvis held the silence for a moment, before smiling. “I could tell you… but you would have to leave.”

The Doctor rapidly shook his head, leaning back. “Nope, no, not doing that.”

“Oh, but… if I tell you, you will understand why,” Alvis answered. “Your mistake in assuming that because I am the god of this place, I am the only threat.”

The Doctor’s brow knit together.

Alvis got to his feet, putting his back to the Doctor. “You are curious to know why the Telethia have a Gallifreyan fundamental DNA type. You are also curious to know if the High Entia have the same structures.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Lots of species have two-“

“They do.” Alvis bluntly cut him off. “If you were to scan a High Entia, you would find a similar genetic structure to Gallifreyan life. They are… Shadows of shadows.”

The Doctor tilted his head, leaning forward. “’Shadows of shadows?’ What?”

“They have not yet awakened their true potential.” Alvis closed his eyes in deep thought. They popped back open, and he spun around, looking at the Doctor sternly. “Which is why you must go. They are descended from Gallifrey, but it was not by my design.”

“I’m not going to just leave-“

“Then let this be the test,” Alvis argued, gesticulating passionately. “Our wager. Leave whatever technology you must in order to surveil this place. Forgiving is a two-way exchange - it requires a measure of faith and willingness to see what will happen. If you were serious, you must allow me this.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t just explain,” The Doctor leaned forward. “If the Telethia are descended from Gallifrey, how did they get here, and on Mira? Why can’t you tell me where they came from? And why do the High Entia share so much with Time Lords?”

“Who they came from.” Alvis corrected. “As for the answer to both questions… evolution, and a little bit of creative sterility.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to snap back, when an alarm began to sound. Something like an air raid siren, or tornado warning, blaring at full volume, even here, deep inside the halls of the palace.

Alvis’s head tilted up, swallowing. He looked out into the hall. “Oh, dear.” Fear flickered across his features. “It’s time.”

The Doctor’s head swivelled to see out into the hall. “Eh?” He questioned. “Time for-“ He whipped back around, and Alvis was gone.

The Doctor’s face twitched in annoyance. “If that’s going to be the new norm, I’m gonna hit him…” He muttered, before sprinting away to find the others, and find out what was going on.

-----------

“What the hell!?” Reyn snapped up, looking irate. “Just when I was getting ready to turn in, too…”

Elma turned to Melia. “Your people don’t have practice drills, do they?”

Melia quickly shook her head. “That’s the Mechon alert system.” She frowned. “Odd that they’d choose to attack us now, of all times…” She shifted, before shaking her head again. “There is no need to worry. Our defence systems are quite advanced.”

Sharla heard a distant rumble, and she clutched her rifle, looking up. “Are you sure about that?”

“Quite certain,” Melia nodded. “The transporters prevent any ground invaders from entering the city directly – they will remain one-way to enable egress from the city until the emergency passes. The glass that makes up the outer dome is extremely durable – it will require sustained attack by the Mechon to breach. Attack the Mechon cannot sustain with the automated defences attacking them directly. The Ether weaponry our machines have are quite effective against them. Do not worry – the Mechon will not enter Alcamoth.”

“The Mechon…” Shulk breathed, eyes unfocused.

“Oi!” Dickson barked. “What’re you thinking?”

Shulk clenched a fist, turning to him. “I think this is it! Onyx Face is at Prison Island!”

“What!?” Reyn spluttered.

Fiora pulled Shulk around to look at her, staring him dead in the eye. “Are you sure?”

Shulk thought on it for a moment, before nodding. “The Emperor just said he’d approve our passage, and now the Mechon are attacking. I saw Onyx Face and the Mechon at Prison Island, and the Monado was different. This has to be it!”

Elma, however, frowned. She glanced over at Melia. “Is your father the type to up and leave in the middle of an attack?” She questioned.

Melia’s face twisted in confusion. “I don’t see why he would do such a thing. Unless Prison Island were-“ She stopped, going still. Her eyes went wide open, frantic. “You don’t believe the Mechon are going to Prison Island as well?”

“Whether they’re there is academic,” Elma shook her head. “We already know they’re going to be there. A better question to ask would be ‘are they going to go there first, and then the Emperor follows,’ or ‘is the Emperor going there first, and the Mechon follow him?’”

Melia stilled. “Would they? There should be nothing of use to them, there!”

“I dunno,” Dickson drawled. “Your dad knows more about that place than us lot.”

“If the talk about there being a race between the Monado and Mechon to adapt to each other is true, and the key to the Monado’s next adaptation is in Prison Island, that definitely is something the Mechon would be interested in,” Elma supposed.

“Indeed,” Alvis appeared in the doorframe. “Come. We must go to Prison Island at once.”

“What?” Melia questioned. “But what about father?”

“He will have deduced the same as you,” Alvis replied. “And is already on his way.”

“Then we shouldn’t waste no time!” Reyn pounded his hands together. “I’ve been looking to bust some Mechon chops since Colony 6!”

Sharla pulled the bolt back on her rifle. “Same here.”

Dickson shook his head, pushing off the wall. “You kids are gonna get yourselves killed.”

“So,” Alvis addressed him. “Stay here.”

“And miss out on the secret of Prison Island?” Dickson grinned. “Not a chance.”

Alvis continued to stare-down Dickson, even while the others began to move.

------------

Finding out what was going on, at least, didn’t take long. As soon as he made it out the front of the palace doors, the Doctor could see the small plumes of explosions – orange, green, and blue – blossoming just outside the hexagonal crystal panes of Alcamoth’s protective dome.

He took the steps two-at-a-time, into the little plaza in front of the main doors. To get a better look, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a View-Master toy, with a reel with scribbled-on Gallifreyan symbols over the Earth copyright, and the other end opposite of the eyeholes cut out. With every press of the lever, the film spun, switching magnification levels.

Eventually, he saw the dots take on colour. Platinum and white, and black and brass. Then, he saw shapes emerge from the fuzziness, as the magnification switched again. The mechanical soldiers of the High Entia dove into battle, fighting angry swarms of Mechon.

“Doctor!” Someone called for him.

The Time Lord spun around, seeing Shulk and the others approach.

“There you are!” Shulk breathed. “The Emperor’s already gone to Prison Island!”

“Prison Island?” The Doctor repeated. “At a time like-“ He suddenly stopped, remembering the details of the vision. Shulk had said Mechon were at Prison Island. “Oh, of course… this is it, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” Shulk nodded.

The Doctor’s expression did not ease.

He turned slowly, looking back toward the vast, faceted dome. The crystalline panes shimmered with reflected firelight as distant Mechon detonations splashed colour across them like bruises.

He began to murmur. “I think it is.”

Shulk followed his gaze. “You feel it too, don’t you?”

The Doctor did not answer straight away. His eyes were unfocused, not looking at the city, not looking at the sky, but somewhere in between. Somewhere slightly to the left of everything.

“Yeah…” He said at last.

Reyn frowned. “That’s not ominous at all.”

The Doctor snapped back to himself, clapping his hands once. “Right! Prison Island. Lead the way.”

“Reaching the island will not be as simple as taking the transporter network,” Alvis shook his head. “There are special seals on the transporter that we will need to disable.”

“What?” Reyn scowled. “Won’t the emperor have shut them off anyway, since he needs to go there too?”

“The Emperor has his own means of reaching the Island, which we are not allowed to make use of, not holding his office.” Alvis gestured simply. “For us to gain access to the Island, we must disable two seals.”

“We should split into groups,” Fiora directed at once. “There’s ten of us – five to a seal?”

“A sound strategy,” Alvis approved. “We should not waste time we do not possess.”

They broke into a run, making for the transporter at the end of the street. Jumping through, they were whisked away in an instant.

-----------

As discussed, they split off into two groups, each one to a seal tower.

Reyn held up his gunlance in a defensive posture, spears and arrows of the Kromar nesting around the seal tower bouncing clean off the shield portion of his weapon. He thrust it forward, the Kromar grabbing its spear in both hands in a bid to catch the attack. A shot from Sharla at the Kromar’s foot caused the reptilian monster to stagger, and Reyn took the opportunity to knock it down, using his gunlance’s shield as a bat. When it was down, Elma sliced clean through it.

More of them were scrambling up from the paths surrounding the seal tower, clawed feet skidding carving into the dirt, with forked tongues flicking as they hissed and barked to one another. The narrow approach to the tower had become a funnel, and the Kromar meant to clog it with bodies.

Reyn grinned despite himself. “Oh, brilliant. Come on then!”

He surged forward, gunlance raised, shield sparking as another volley of crude spears clattered uselessly against it. One lodged in the dirt behind him with a brittle crack. He lowered his shoulder and ploughed into the front rank, scattering two Kromar off their feet as he used his weapon like a battering ram.

“Reyn!” Sharla barked. “Don’t rush on ahead! Your head isn’t that hard!”

“My- hey!” Reyn huffed. “My head may be hard, but so’s the rest of me! I’m built like a wall! I’m the hardest one here!”

Sharla paused for a moment, staring at him, before shaking her head and going back to the fight.

Sharla’s rifle cracked in steady rhythm as she directed her shots to the universal weak points all living things had. Each burst softened a target just long enough for Reyn or Elma to capitalise.

Riki bounded about the battlefield like a rubber ball, his biter snaping angrily as he swung it at his foes. “Bad lizard! Very rude lizard!” He squeaked, swinging his weapon in a blur. A burst of flame erupted from his strike, forcing three Kromar back with startled shrieks as their scales blackened and smoked.

Elma huffed good-naturedly, and shook her head. “You’re doing great, Reyn. Keep breaking those lines!” She ordered as she moved up alongside him, swinging the swords rapidly, the sharp edges cleaving through the Kromar like they weren’t there at all.

Melia remained at the back, sending bolts of Ether flying – some helpful for her allies, most harmful to her enemies; especially the electric ones.

For anyone else, the ramp spiralling around the edge of the tower might’ve been a walk of death (which was probably why the High Entia let the Kromar nest there in the first place, keeping anyone who’d try to break the seal away). But they had one of Earth’s finest soldiers, with two blades that could cut through anything regardless of toughness, the Princess of the High Entia, the Heropon, a man who may not have been the smartest student but more than made up for it in raw cleverness and drive, and probably the best marksman in the Colony 6 defence force.

They reached the top of the tower in short order.

Four more Kromar were waiting, swords and shields in hand, hissing in unison like steam escaping a cracked pipe.

Reyn stared at them for a long second, then let out a long, theatrical puff of exasperation.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” He muttered. He jerked a thumb vaguely toward the horizon, where distant flashes of Mechon weaponry lit the sky. “The Mechon couldn’t have come up here and taken care of you lot too? Would’ve saved us the cardio.”

One of the larger Kromar bared its teeth and shrieked.

Elma stepped forward, blades ready. “If only the Mechon were the cooperative type.”

The Kromar surged as one.

“Spread!” Elma called.

Reyn answered by slamming the butt of his gunlance into the stone and bracing. The first wave hit him like a tide. Claws scraped and sparked across the shield-face. A sword glanced off his shoulder plate. He snarled and drove forward, forcing them to break their line with sheer mass alone.

A Kromar attempting to flank Melia staggered as a shot punched clean through its thigh. Reyn bowled it over a heartbeat later.

Riki darted under a wild swing and brought his biter up. “Riki show no mercy!” He got the reptile right in the snout, and the Kromar reeled back.

Melia lifted her staff and drew ether down from the air itself. The wind howled around her in a tight vortex before exploding outward. Several Kromar were hurled across the platform, crashing into the outer railing with bonecrushing force.

Elma slipped through the gaps Reyn created, cutting with quick, surgical strikes. One throat opened. Another hamstrung. A third disarmed before it even realised its sword-hand had been severed. She pivoted, blade flashing, and a final Kromar collapsed at her feet.

The last of them lunged at Reyn in a desperate bid, fangs bared.

He met it head-on, smacking it in the head with his shield. The Kromar dropped, and stilled.

Reyn leaned on his gunlance for a moment. “Right,” He said between breaths. “Now can we press the thing before something else decides to have a go at us?”

Elma looked at Melia. “This is your technology. You’re probably better versed with it than us.”

Melia approached the switch, and touched it with all the regal grace such a thing demanded. The light shifted from a red hue, to a blue, and in the distance, an etheric glow could be seen, building like a sunrise. Half of a great staircase of sorts materialised out of the particles. Moments passed. Then, the other half materialised, forming a vast gate.

“Looks like we beat ‘em to the punch!” Reyn grinned.

“We did cheat,” Sharla hummed. “We had the swords that can cut everything, you know.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s also because we’re just that good!” Reyn gestured.

Elma wasn’t so quick to jump to celebration. Instead, she watched the sky. Mechon were still swarming about Alcamoth, engaging the High Entia’s defences, and looked to be swarming Prison Island.

But none had diverted to the towers. At the very least, not the gate, not even reacting to what had just happened.

Not one.

“That’s odd…” She said quietly.

Sharla glanced over. “What is?”

Elma folded her arms, gaze fixed outward. “They’re not contesting the tower.”

Reyn blinked. “You wanted more of ’em?”

“No.” Her tone was flat. “But usually, when you do something in a battle, the other guy tries his best to undo the thing you just did.” She gestured toward the sky. “Whether they require the tower’s function or not, denying it to the enemy is basic strategy. If the seal helps the High Entia, you destroy it. If it doesn’t, you destroy it anyway so they can’t gamble on it.”

Melia frowned faintly. “Perhaps they do not consider it relevant.”

Elma shook her head. “When the Ganglion laid siege to Earth, they targeted the Arks before launch. Even though ship to ship they could outmatch us easily. They still made a concerted effort to prevent evacuation in the first place.” Her jaw tightened slightly at the memory. “Asset denial. You remove options. You remove hope.”

Riki’s ears drooped a fraction. “So… bad robots letting tower stay active is… more bad?”

“It means they don’t care,” Elma said.

Reyn scratched the back of his head. “Or they’ve got bigger fish to fry?”

Melia’s eyes lifted toward Prison Island itself, now faintly aglow where the seal’s energy intersected its ancient structure. “If this is not their objective… then what is?”

Reyn straightened again, fatigue forgotten. “Prison Island, right? Shulk said we were going to find them there, remember.”

“Yes, but…” Elma frowned, looking down. “I don’t know. If they know there’s something at Prison Island that can enhance the Monado, and that Shulk is the one who’s using it, shouldn’t they be trying to stop us every step of the way?” Elma turned toward the ramp leading down. “If they’re ignoring the towers, then they’re confident the outcome doesn’t hinge on us being able to get to Prison Island.”

Reyn lifted his gunlance back into a ready position. “Which means whatever they’re after…” He grimaced. “Well. We’ll see, won’t we?”

They went quiet, heading back through the transporter.

-------------

They met back at the seal gate. Or the gate seal. Honestly, the name probably wasn’t important, the fact that it was leading to Prison Island was.

“Run into any trouble?” Reyn asked of Shulk first.

“No, just some Hode.” Shulk shook his head.

“Which is odd, right?” Fiora inquired. “Regardless of whether or not they think we’re a threat, the Mechon should be trying to lock down the towers so the High Entia forces can’t get to Prison Island any easier, right?”

“That’s what I said…” Elma muttered.

Dickson, however, just snorted. “What, you think we’re walking into a trap?”

Elma did not rise to Dickson’s tone. She merely looked at him with the unimpressed stare of a commanding officer

“I think,” She said evenly, “That when a force like the Mechon leaves a strategic asset uncontested, it is either because they can’t reach it, or because they don’t need to. And with them flying around like that? They can reach it.”

Dickson rolled his shoulders. “Or because they’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Shulk frowned faintly, glancing between them. “What could be more important than the Monado?” He wondered.

Fiora shrugged. “Whatever can power it up? By definition, it has to be more powerful than the Monado, right?”

“Well,” The Doctor looked over at Elma. “Denying people their goal is the oldest trick in the military book, you know that. Makes sense for the Mechon to go there to cut us off.”

“But…” Shulk scratched his head. “If it was something that can make the Monado harm the Faced Mechon, it’s redundant for them to destroy it, isn’t it? Now that we have the Replica.”

“Yeah, but it’s still not the original. The original could still be made to be dangerous to them, so, they need to stop us from powering it up.”

“Maybe…” Shulk frowned as they climbed the ramp toward the control for the transporter ahead. “But the Mechon waited until now to attack. That’s a very curious sense of timing…”

The Doctor looked at him. “What’re you thinking?”

“…if the Mechon are reacting to us,” Shulk began. “Why aren’t they sending even a few Mechon units to us? Onyx Face likes to taunt – at the very least, I’d expect him.”

“…yeah,” The Doctor frowned as a tiny tingle went down his spine as Melia activated the button, and they descended toward the transporter.

A shadow ripped across the sculpted stone platform, accompanied by a piercing shriek that set everyone’s teeth on edge. The wind hit them a heartbeat later, a concussive downdraft that scattered loose debris and forced everyone to brace themselves, as something swooped in from above.

“Big fish coming!” Riki hollered.

“Big wha-!?” Sharla gasped.

The Doctor’s head snapped up as a dark, floating lifeform – like a mix between a shark and a manta ray, wide-finned with glowing patterns on them – descended.

“That’s an unusual looking Laia!” Shulk gasped, drawing the Monado REX.

The creature banked sharply, wide fins flexing like living sails. Ether patterns pulsed across its underside in sickly greens and violets, rippling toward a central maw that split open with another shriek.

“That is no Laia!” Melia said sharply.

“Well, judging by the pattern every time we see a new kinda monster, I don’t figure it’s friendly.” Reyn muttered, already bracing.

The creature folded its wings inward and dropped like a blade.

“Scatter!” Elma barked.

They broke formation just as it slammed into the platform, the impact sending cracks spidering through the stone. A pulse of ether burst outward from its body in a violent ring. The Doctor ducked behind a sculpted pillar, coat snapping in the wind as the shockwave passed.

Shulk sprinted towards the monster.

The Monado REX ignited in his hands, blue light cutting through the swirling dust kicked up by the impact as he dashed in. “Reyn, now!”

“On it!” Reyn roared, charging straight at the thing’s flank. He caught a lashing fin on his shield with a clang that rattled his teeth, then drove his shoulder forward, forcing the creature to tilt sideways.

That was all Shulk needed.

He leapt, his ether blade carving a bright arc across the beast’s exposed underside. The creature shrieked again, twisting in mid-air with unnatural fluidity.

It retaliated instantly, swiping a wing like a giant club.

“Down!” Sharla shouted, dropping to one knee as the swipe passed overhead.

She fired back in the same motion, her rifle barking in quick succession. Three rounds struck the creature’s central mass, disrupting the pulsing patterns across its body. The glow flickered unevenly.

“Melia!” Fiora called.

Melia lifted her staff, calling upon the Ether rapidly.

Wind gathered first, compressing into a spiralling green spoke that struck the creature mid-bank, knocking it off balance. Lightning followed in the next heartbeat, a jagged, brilliantly-glowing fork that snapped from the top of her staff and hammered into the wound Shulk had opened.

The beast convulsed mid-air.

“Riki help too!” Riki squeaked, sprinting forward far faster than his small legs had any right to manage. He leapt, biter snapping, and spat out a glob of grass at the monster. Poison bubbled, hissed, and let out a foul-coloured steam from the wound.

The monster shrieked, flailing wildly now rather than striking with intent as the poison ate at it from within. It tried to gain altitude again, wings beating unevenly.

Elma stepped into its path.

She waited, fingers twitching on the grip of her sword.

When the creature dipped just a fraction too low, she moved. One clean, decisive slash along the already damaged joint. The fin gave way with a tearing crack.

The beast listed sharply, spiralling.

“Finish it!” Reyn bellowed.

Shulk surged forward, the Monado REX’s hum rising in pitch. He planted his feet and swung upward. The blade of light cleaved through the creature’s core, and sent it plunging, sending it slamming onto the ground. With one last screech, it stilled, going limp.

Dickson took a drag off his cigar. He hadn’t even lifted his sword. “Well… that looked like it was gonna get hairy there, a second, but you know what? I’d say you kids have become quite the unstoppable force.”

Shulk glanced at him, shrinking slightly. “Well… there’s a lot of us.”

“Nah. How easy you took that on, I’d say you’d been doing this all your life.” Dickson shook his head. “And that weren’t even the real Monado. Wonder how much stronger you’ll get, fixing the real deal. The Mechon won’t be able to stop you.”

Shulk rubbed the back of his neck, words failing him.

“What is this thing?” Reyn wondered, looking it over.

“I believe it is one of the oldest creatures on Bionis,” Melia hummed. “I’ve mainly seen them as fossils around the Capital. To find a living specimen…”

“Oldest creatures…” The Doctor repeated, eyebrows raising. His hands went to the sonic screwdriver. If he could possibly figure out a genetic lineage-

“Oi,” Dickson gruffly addressed him. “You gonna give yourself an excuse to shut down and get lost in yer own head again, or are you gonna remember and stand on business?”

The Doctor’s head whipped around to look at him. “Excuse me!?”

“I’ve seen it a thousand times with Shulk.” Dickson rolled his eyes. “Always focused on the next project, instead of what’s right in front of him. You forget we got Mechon to deal with?”

The Doctor opened his mouth to respond.

“He’s right,” Elma interjected.

“Oh, come on!” The Doctor groaned. “You can’t tell me not to look at something! It’s gonna eat me up worse!”

“And every time you make a discovery about this place, you get moody, unfocused, and – honestly – a little bit obsessed.” Elma shifted her balance. “You can handle one thing not to look at.”

The Doctor went quiet. He looked at the Mechon swarming, and groaned once more. “Okay, fine.” His tunnel vision wasn’t that severe.

Elma nodded, and held out her hand.

The Doctor looked down at it, then back up. “What?”

“Your screwdriver – give it.” Elma motioned.

“Oh, you can’t make me do that!”

“I know you, and the nanosecond we’re not looking, you’re gonna look at that scan you just took.” Elma sternly looked upon him. “So, hand it over.”

“I need my screwdriver! For the Mechon!”

Elma turned an absolutely blistering look onto him. “I’m sorry – are you the Doctor, or the Sonic Screwdriver’s chauffeur?”

“Elma!”

“You got along just fine without it in your fifth, sixth, and seventh regenerations. You can go without it for an hour.”

Melia looked at the Time Lord, just as critical as Elma was of him, in that moment. “Doctor, you are accompanied by nine, heavily-armed, heavily-trained, powerful warriors. You are most likely standing in the safest place on Bionis.”

The Doctor’s eyes searched. They drifted across Alvis, who simply shrugged.

Fiora cleared her throat. “If we could keep moving, you guys?”

The Doctor let out a quiet huff. “Oh, all right.” And he smacked it down in Elma’s hand. She stashed it in short order. “But, I want that back after the crisis is averted!”

“If that’s something you’ve only seen as fossils, how is it here now?” Fiora asked of Melia.

“Prison Island’s been locked up for longer than anyone can remember.” Dickson drawled. “Mechon’re probably letting the things loose just by attacking the place.”

“Is that why the Mechon are attacking Prison Island?” Fiora inqured from Dickson. “There are these things inside?”

Dickson let out a puff of smoke. “Could be.”

“Then why attack Alcamoth?” The Doctor wondered, so quietly it was almost under his breath. If the creature and its kin were the Mechon’s target, that explained why the Mechon didn’t divert to the seal towers, or even this transporter. But if that’s the case, why were the Mechon also throwing themselves at Alcamoth? There weren’t any creatures like that in there – it just seemed to be High Entia, and small pests.

The Doctor’s brow furrowed.

“Why do the Mechon do anything?” Dickson rhetorically shook his head. “We gave up trying to figure that out a long time ago.”

The Doctor scowled in his direction. “If you never figure it out, you’re preventing yourself from trying to find a way to stop them that doesn’t involve so much bloodshed.”

“And, if we stood around, thinking about it too much, you know where we’d be? Dead.” Dickson flicked some ash off his cigar. “The Mechon don’t give us time to waste – they just pour in. Case in point.” He directed his gaze at the island. “Now, are we going to stand around here, gobbing off over an animal, or are we going to remember why we’re here in the first place, and get to it, before the Mechon can beat us to the punch?”

Dickson began to move toward the transporter first, getting everyone back on track.

The Doctor bit his tongue.

----------

The summit of Prison Island was deceptively peaceful, despite the battle raging beyond the ancient, forbidden ground.

Emperor Sorean stood alone before the towering seal mechanism, robes stirring faintly around him. The Emperor’s expression was resolute, but there was sorrow there too. An Emperor meeting his destiny. Whether or not it was because of the being imprisoned before him, it was unclear, but Emperor Sorean knew this would be the last ground he walked.

He looked at the sky, hearts weighted with sorrow as his thoughts raged.

The Mechon force was like nothing they had ever seen. The mechanical soldiers of the High Entia defended their masters valiantly, but the sheer numbers in the force was staggering. If that was but a fraction of the Mechon’s strength, then after the Homs fell, all of it would be focused upon them.

“Ancestors…” The Emperor prayed. “Grant me wisdom.” He bid. Wisdom to know he was making the right choice.

He held up his staff, began the incantation, and slammed it down.

Golden lines of Ether appeared, etching themselves into the stone, carving glyphs as the light trailed.

The floor in front of him opened up, a cold blue glow shining through as spinning rings slid up from the compartment now opened, ancient air and dust being stirred.

The Emperor’s breath was stolen from him as he witnessed the being in the centre of the rings, strung up by shackles of pure ether and the finest alloys the High Entia could produced.

A giant, of all things, was there, in front of him. No artefact, or forbidden tome, or obelisk.

Grey, papery skin, long, white hair that reached the floor, and solid red eyes like polished gemstones.

He moved his head, skin creaking and bones popping from untold eons of imprisonment.

His eyes looked at the Emperor.

“How long has it been, Emperor?” The Giant asked without preamble, a deep voice booming far into the heavens while red tattoos on his skin glowed with ambient light.

The Emperor felt his hearts skip a beat. “How can you know of me? This is our first encounter!”

“It is not you who I speak to, but your blood.” The Giant answered, yellow teeth sticking out in the light. “The blood that shackled me.”

“I see,” Sorean gulped. “I presume, then, that I do not need to explain why I am here?”

“I know why you have come,” The Giant rumbled. “Your people have enjoyed a quality of life that does not belong to them, and now, you face the repercussions.”

Sorean narrowed his eyes. “Then you take enjoyment in this?”

“I would be lying if I said it was not so, after being unjustly imprisoned,” The Giant replied. “But, I will not leave you all to your fate. The sins of the father do not pass to his son.”

“Then… you will help us?” Sorean probed.

“Of course.” The Giant drawled. “I know what must be done.”

The Emperor took a steadying breath, and slammed his staff into a slot on the floor. Ether rippled out, the outermost ring beginning to glow a bright gold, before it vanished entirely. Energy radiated outward and upward from it, coalescing into a great, shimmering barrier that surrounded the entire Island.

Now, all he had to do was wait.

-------------

They stepped out of the transporter onto the ancient, blackened stone of Prison Island. A path extended before them, lined by fences made of great, giant chains threaded between them.

The Doctor’s brow raised. “Well, those fences aren’t much good for keeping people from falling. Just…” He scratched his face. “Keep far away from it, yeah.”

“It’s a very… large path, isn’t it?” Sharla commented, looking it over. It was, indeed, a couple of lanes wide.

“Well, this is a prison, right?” Reyn shrugged. “They must’ve had loads of prisoners pass through here when they built it.”

“Or, very big thing!” Riki bet, tremoring slightly.

Dickson, however, snorted. “All that trouble to open the door? Nah, they ain’t dumping your usual outlaw in here. Something they was so afraid of, they had to make just looking at it impossible.” He rolled his shoulders. “Never much cared for Prisons, me. Getting stuck in a room, having a long sit – ‘s like being grounded. A way you punish a child, not an adult.”

The Doctor let out a surprised hum. He didn’t expect that from Dickson. Though, knowing what Dickson was like, so far, it was probably because the man thought a better punishment was being the tar out of the criminal, or executing them. Who knew? Still, Dickson also had a point. The intricate seal network, having to activate the transporter, that wasn’t something you had for people you sent to the prison regularly. It was something you reserved for the worst.

Prison Island wasn’t a place for the regular offenders. It was very Shada-coded. The ancient prison planet of the Time Lords could be accessed by stealing a book and flipping through it in a TARDIS – granted, it was a book with only one known copy, and to get a TARDIS to begin with was almost impossible.

“There have been no prisoners of any kind sent to Prison Island – ever,” Melia shook her head. “At least, not beyond what was initially sent here. We have not added to it in the intervening millennia.”

“Oh…” The Doctor breathed. “So, we’re not dealing with Alcatraz, but Krop Tor.”

Elma jumped, startled.

“The what?” Shulk asked of the Time Lord.

“There was this demon,” The Doctor scratched the back of his head. “Or force of nature. Or trickster. And you couldn’t stop it; you couldn’t reason with it. All it would do was just… show up, and that was the end of everything. So, a good wizard – or, a lot of good wizards – tricked it, and locked it up, in a perfect prison.”

Reyn snorted. “A wizard!”

“Oi, don’t laugh,” The Doctor calmly, lightly, tapped his nose, and pointed at Reyn. “They were called the Disciples of the Light.” He walked with his hands in his trouser pockets, not looking back even as he explained. “They did battle before… well. Before. In the Dark Time.” He leaned over at Shulk, gesturing with his hands. “The Disciples took the Beast, and made a whole planet to imprison him, and they set it in orbit around a black hole. An object so big that it tears through space, so massive that even light can’t escape past the event horizon. The planet’s orbital velocity was too low for it to have a stable orbit, so it was maintained by a gravity field. Well, if the Beast ever broke his chains, the field would collapse, and the planet would be pulled into the black hole.”

Shulk nodded, taking it all in. “What’s an orbit?”

“Ah.” The Doctor coughed. No planets, no concept of orbit – at least, in the cosmic sense. “The tendency for bigger objects to make smaller objects travel a path around them in space. You’ve got a tablecloth, stretch it, put a loaf of sourdough in the centre, it presses down, throw an apple on, it follows the curve- look, doesn’t matter.”

“Before what?” Fiora probed. “You never said.”

The Doctor shook his head, as his pace began to slow. “That part wasn’t the important thing.”

“His people go back.” Elma chuckled. “Way back. To the beginning of the universe, actually. It was said the Time Lords formed out of the first cosmic processes taking place after the Big Bang.”

“Oh, no, don’t- don’t do that,” The Doctor groaned quietly.

“In the beginning,” Alvis softly intoned. “Time was amorphous. It existed as a presence rather than a passage, an ocean without shore or current. All moments touched all others, and yet nothing was yet compelled to arrive or depart. Stars burned and cooled at the same time, children were born before their parents, and because time had no spine, reality bent easily. Contradictions did not resolve into a single set of events, and coexisted, and men literally warred with themselves. A single civilisation was space-faring, and pre-industrial, and post-apocalyptic, and had never left their homeworld, all at once.”

Dickson frowned. “How do you know that?”

“I read. It is not dissimilar to what it was thought to be like here, before the emergence of Bionis and Mechonis.” Alvis answered and walked on, ahead of the group.

Elma crossed her arms, looking at the stone floor pensively, as they ascended the ramp to the entrance door. “’The great chronarchs sailed off into the endless stars, going everywhere they could see, touching all that they could touch. On every world, they built great Towers, stretching into eternity, and threaded between them the flesh of time. Every Tower a nail, and a support, and a heddle, so that the threads could shift, and ripple, and flex. And at the centre, there lay the Tower Eye, watching all other Towers so that they never shifted. And so the days became days, and the ocean became a flow, and all things were made to make sense.”

“Please,” The Doctor begged, holding a hand to his temple. “Don’t quote scripture.”

“Scripture!?” Melia spluttered.

The Doctor let out a frustrated sigh. “My people invented linear time, and it kind of gave us big heads, and maybe a few of the people who remembered what things were like before started to give… tribute, because of it. And it was a lot less mythic than that,” He coughed, and sniffed. “In quantum mechanics, observing a thing collapses all other possibilities into one. We call this the observer effect. We just… did that on the whole universe.”

“…really.” Dickson chewed on his cigar. “So, your people invented fate, and you’re saying they’re not gods.”

The Doctor let out a rueful hum. “There’s no such thing as gods. Beings with more power than us. Beings with greater sight than us. Beings with longer lives than ours. Beings we don’t understand. But not gods.”

“Hm.” Dickson looked down at his cigar, holding it as he remained in thought.

 “His Majesty – and what we seek – are likely to be at the summit of this place.” Alvis gestured as they reached the top of the ramp. The entrance door stood like a wall before them, glowing with light.

“Whoa…” Reyn breathed out. “Big door!”

The Doctor turned his focus onto it, and blinked. It really was gigantic. Was there a hangar or something on the other side, or what was imprisoned just that big? Unlikely – Alvis said the Emperor was at the summit.

Riki let out a startled gasp, causing everyone to jolt. “Ah! Dinobeast!”

All whipped around to look in the same direction as he, readying their weapons, only to relax in short order. It was on a plinth, so, it was a statue.

“Aw, come on, Riki! Take a second to think before scaring us like that!” Reyn requested.

“Riki Heropon! Riki must keep eyes peeled, or Dinobeast gobble everyone up!” Riki hissed back. “Not waste time waiting to see if Dinobeast, Dinobeast!”

The Doctor wasn’t focused on that, instead, regarding the statue. As he placed his spectacles on his face, he got close, looking up and examining it closer.

“It’s not like any Telethia we’ve seen,” The Doctor muttered. The statue was made out of metal, and aside from the dust, the polish was still holding up strong, so, any weather-warping was out of the question.

“It looks almost humanoid,” Elma shifted.

“You think so?” Sharla questioned. “I can’t tell.”

Melia examined the statue closely, regally tilting her head. “This may very well be one of my ancestors.”

“Your-“ Shulk looked back-and-forth between her and the statue. “Is that… er… possible?”

Melia nodded. “Legend says they looked quite alien to how we appear now.”

“And… they looked like that?” Fiora questioned, pointing to the statue’s wide, gaping maw. It looked more like a gargoyle, than a statue of any sentient being.

“Dinobeast!” Riki jumped. “Dinobeast!”

“It… does look a lot like a Telethia, though.” Reyn shivered. “What gives!?”

“Well, if the High Entia built this place, it makes sense that they put statues up of themselves, right?” Sharla suggested.

Melia, however, turned to look at her with a shake of her head. “No. This place existed long before my forefathers.”

The Doctor’s eyes flicked over the proportions again. Humanoid torso. Digitigrade legs. Wings. Ether channels etched along the spine, subtle enough to pass as ornamentation if you did not know what you were looking at.

He felt it then. That old, familiar itch behind his hearts.

“Alvis,” He addressed. “When Melia says her ancestors look alien, how literal is that?”

Alvis hummed. “You have the evidence.”

The Doctor swallowed a heavy lump. Two hearts that beat in the pattern of Gallifrey, the Telethia’s Gallifreyan genetics, and now, a statue of a High Entia that looked like a Telethia.

Could it be…? Were the High Entia somehow… descended, from Time Lords? No. No, Time Lords had a connection to Gallifrey via the second heart – it was why his occasionally had a pain flareup. But, Melia’s ancestors looked like Telethia…

The Doctor tightened his jaw.

“Doctor?” Melia probed. “Doctor, what is it?”

“On Earth, humans descended from ape species,” The Doctor regaled. “But apes at-large still remained around. Cousin-species, despite all the millions of years of evolution between them.”

Dickson’s fingers twitched.

“These statues were forged a long time ago,” The Doctor hypothesised. “Before the High Entia and the Telethia diverged.”

A beat of stunned silence followed.

Then it shattered.

“What!?” Reyn barked.

“That’s impossible!” Sharla blurted at the same time.

“Telethia are monsters!” Fiora protested.

“Dinobeast not bird people!” Riki squeaked, horrified.

Shulk just stared, mouth slightly open, trying and failing to reconcile the image in his head. Telethia – huge, titanic, mindless, beasts – versus the High Entia – regal, refined, and personable.

Melia herself had gone very still.

The Doctor winced as the noise washed over him. “Yes, yes, I know, sounds mad, doesn’t it,” He muttered, rubbing his temple. “Trust me, if I weren’t already having a thoroughly dreadful day, I’d dismiss it too.”

Elma exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing. “…You’re serious.”

“Afraid so,” he said. Then, more pointedly, “Elma. Sonic. Please. One scan.”

She hesitated for only a fraction of a second before producing the screwdriver and placing it in his hand. “One.”

Melia straightened instinctively. “Doctor, I-”

“Won’t hurt,” He assured gently. Quickly, he initiated the scan. Once it was done, he pointed the screwdriver up, and held down the button, allowing all to see. The Telethia strand – a quadruple helix – and the High Entia strand, a triple helix.

“The High Entia’ve lost the fourth strand.” The Doctor gestured. “Engineered or evolved out over millions of years, probably.”

“But then why are there statues here of them?” Fiora wondered. “If that was before High Entia and Telethia became two different things?”

The Doctor paused, staring at Melia.

“Doctor!” Melia snapped.

“…in some cultures – a lot of cultures – some creatures are kept as close companions. Pets.” The Doctor sniffed. “And, if you’re the kind of person to keep them, sometimes, you’ll keep around little statues of them.”

Melia recoiled, disgust spreading across her face.

“I’m sorry.” The Doctor softly intoned.

Melia gulped. “If… If my ancestors were… as beasts,” She shivered. “What could have been so terrible that they united to lock it away?” She let out a slow, horrified gasp. “If it goes back far enough, could it have been what was responsible for setting us apart from the Telethia?”

“I don’t know, I’m,” He passed the screwdriver back to Elma. “I’m still thinking.”

“Thinking – about a load of crap!” Dickson shook his head.

“I’m sorry?” The Doctor challenged.

“The Telethia’s one thing – telling this girl her folk are descended from monsters; what a load of crock!” Dickson huffed. “Regardless of what they were before, it don’t matter. What matters is we’re here, now, and we don’t have time to be wasting!”

“Know your enemy.”

“The Telethia aren’t our concern! They ain’t even here!”

“Bu-“

“Doctor, Dickson is correct,” Melia took a deep breath. “We must reach the summit. Now.” She looked ahead, as if willing herself not to focus on what they’d just stumbled across. “How do we enter?” Her eyes searched, landing on a tablet in front of the door. “Ah.”

“Hey,” Reyn, with the back of his hand, tapped Shulk on his bicep. “Check it out. Those symbols.”

Shulk looked at them, focusing, before his eyes widened in surprise. “That’s unusual. They look almost identical to the symbols on the Monado!”

“It is the language of my forefathers.” Melia explained.

Sharla turned to her. “Can you read it?”

Melia, however, shook her head. “Modern High Entian is distinct enough that it is incomprehensible to me.”

“What about you, Doctor?” Shulk probed. “You said the Monado symbols were similar to a language you were familiar with?”

The Time Lord approached the tablet, leaning closer. “It’s close, but, not quite…” His brain strained and his face twisted as he struggled to piece it all together. Gallifreyan genetics, Telethia, the High Entia, and now a language close to Earth ones. He sniffed. “The symbols on the Monado are Japanese – Kanji.” He gestured at the tablet, then. “The symbols here are a mix of Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana. Or, they would be – there’s been a bit of a drift. It’s all… gibberish, to my understanding.”

“The TARDIS can’t translate?” Elma questioned.

The Doctor shook his head. “Not without any native speakers in range. When she materialises in a new location, she scans any local communications networks – if they’re present – to build a phonetics library, symbol database, the works. Then, she uses the telepathic circuits to observe the local population to build understanding. It can even work with species that don’t have big networks. I could go to that one planet from that episode of Star Trek with the species that talk in memes and the invisible monster, and they’d be perfectly legible to me.”

Elma snorted, shaking her head. “Egotist.”

“So, what’s special about these?” Dickson gestured.

“Each symbol carries a discrete meaning,” The Doctor explained. “Actually, it’s rather like Gallifreyan languages, in that regard. But changing one small part of it changes the whole meaning, not like Latin or Cyrillic Alphabets, where depending on the word a little typo could be a little typo, or change the whole meaning. I’ve got nothing, here.”

“Well, it must be convergent, right?” Elma suggested.

The Doctor shook his head. “Species evolving to be similar is rare enough, but language? No. Not in two separate universes. But, why Japanese…?” He wondered, biting his lip. His brain had a little bit of a jolt, and he turned to Alvis. “What do you think?”

Alvis responded with an enigmatic smile. “I think, if you truly believe this to be a machination of your people then, naturally, as you’ve said it is the closest Earth language to Gallifreyan in terms of mechanics, then perhaps it was chosen for a sense of familiarity.

“Maybe, yeah…”

“If only you could tell what it says.” Shulk frowned.

“Well, it’s out here in the front, a big old plaque – it’s probably a warning sign. Restricted access, this is not a place of honour, that kind of thing. So,” He leaned over. “If it’s restricted access, how’re we getting in?”

Melia thoughtfully let her face twitch, as she stepped up to look up at the door. “This door is only capable of being opened by an heir to the throne,” She recalled. “It is why visitors must request the permission of, and be accompanied by, the Emperor.”

“So, he’s definitely inside,” Reyn hummed.

“Indeed.” Melia nodded, walking up. “As for us…” Melia stopped, and spread her arms wide. As she stood, a faint, aqua aura swept over her, shimmering as it travelled. A green glyph appeared on her forehead – the same one that the ancient High Entia AI had imparted to her, shining brightly.

The Doctor felt a tingle on his arm, and frowned. Rolling back his sleeves, he could see the old convict tattoo the Time Lords had branded him with was glowing with a similar hue.

The Doctor’s brow knit together, as he looked up at the door, confused, and a little bit unnerved. Reading (and writing) biodata tags was a Time Lord technology. Whatever was behind that door…

The gigantic stone panels slid open, revealing a gargantuan hallway stretching ahead.

Ancient stale and cold air spilled out, scraping the nostrils of all assembled.

Melia lifted her head. “Let us be off.” She declared, walking ahead first.

All followed, but the Doctor dragged his feet a bit. After a second, he grabbed Alvis by the arm, and leaned in to whisper.

“That technology is something we use,” The Doctor stated.

“Hmm. So it is.”

“What’s behind that door?” The Doctor quietly demanded.

“…I believe you have already deduced that.” Alvis answered just as softly.

“I haven’t-“

“Liar,” Alvis cut him off. “We’re standing in Prison Island. A place built by the High Entia ancestors, who have Gallifreyan-derived DNA, with a door protected with Time Lord security systems. You are smart enough to have figured it out by now, Doctor.”

His fingers loosened on Alvis’s sleeve, but he did not step back. His hearts started pounding in an uneven rhythm; dexter beating fast, the sinister thudding heavier and deeper like it was trying to pull itself down into his ribcage and hide.

“…who is it?” The Doctor probed.

“Suffice it to say,” Alvis turned his eyes. “A monster of our own creation.” He walked on, keeping a brisk pace with the others.

The Doctor took a breath, and willed his hearts to calm, entering the main chamber of Prison Island behind them. He straightened his tie, tugged his jacket down and back into place, and adjusted his cuffs, before walking on.

As they entered, their eyes searched the vast chamber, all drinking it in.

Reyn was the first to break the silence.

“…This doesn’t look like a prison.” He commented, looking at the blue candelabras-sans-candles, lit with blue flame, the vast stairs stretching ahead. A pillar of energy radiated out of a point in the ground right ahead of them.

“It’s the entrance,” The Doctor sniffed. “Prisons don’t usually put the cells right behind the entrance – it’s bad practices.”

“It’s very big in here,” Sharla commented, looking around. “They didn’t need to accommodate so many prisoners, did they?”

Riki let out a gasp. “Big hom-hom’s home! Big hom-hom’s home!”

“Ey?” Reyn turned to him, frowning. “What’re you talking about? Big hom-homs?”

“In Makna, there tomb of big hom-hom king who lived long ago!” Riki bounced, wildly flapping his wings and hands. “Other ruined places all over Bionis that Nopon try to find all the time for treasure inside!”

“Ruins…?” Fiora repeated, before her eyes popped wide. “Shulk… I think he’s talking about the Giants!”

The Doctor jolted, looking her way. “Giants.”

Fiora nodded. “Large ruins are all over Bionis. There was that fortress we saw at a distance in Satorl Marsh, I think there was one near Colony 9 in the Tephra Cave network, but I don’t think we ever saw that one.”

“Indeed,” Alvis nodded, continuing for her. “The giants once spanned Bionis, the most advanced civilisation, alongside the High Entia. Then, one day, they vanished.”

“Vanished,” The Doctor repeated.

“Oh, I remember this one!” Reyn snapped his fingers. “Arachno back then were real nasty, and there were some that were nastier than all the rest! It was like their very own Mechon war thing – Giants and White Spiders, duking it out, and the Giants all died, but they took the Arachno with them, and Colony 9 was saved.”

“That’s how they tell it to you guys?” Sharla inquired of Reyn.

“Well, yeah, that’s how it happened. The Spiders lived in Tephra Cave, and the Giants crushed ‘em all.”

“Funny,” Sharla tilted her head with a curious frown. “I remember hearing that the White Spiders were native to Satorl Marsh. They used to plague Colony 6 too.”

“Well, that was back when the Homs used to have an Emperor, right?” Reyn recalled. “Maybe the Spiders were threatening the Homs all over, so the Giants stepped in to help.”

“Makes sense,” Fiora shrugged. She looked around. “So, this is a Giant prison, not High Entia… But, why the statues outside, then?”

“If I recall correctly, our two species were cut from the same cloth, as it were.” Melia thought back to her history lessons. “We were close allies. If I am not mistaken, some Giant nobles took High Entia spouses, and vice-versa.”

“So, you might be related to these guys?” Reyn took that away as the lesson. “Nice. So, when do you hit your growth spurt?”

Melia shot him an unimpressed look.

“I think it’s incredible,” Shulk piped up. “To have so many lineages you can trace yourself back to.” He spoke, looking around. “Homs, we don’t really get the opportunity to experience cultures outside our own. Too busy hiding from the Mechon.”

Melia picked her head up. “Then, I hope we can deal with the Mechon threat in a way that it is no longer an issue for you.”

They began to move towards the geyser of energy.

“The thought of these ruins always gave me the creeps,” Sharla confessed. “A species as widespread as the Homs once were, spread across the whole of the Bionis, just all… dying out.”

“What actually happened to them?” Elma inquired.

“Nobody knows,” Fiora answered. “Like Reyn was saying, people in Colony 9 figure the White Spiders killed them off.”

“In Colony 6, the way we tell the story’s different.” Sharla continued. “The Spiders were a threat, but only one Giant was able to fight all of them – a soothsayer. After the soothsayer killed all of the spiders, there was nothing else for them to hunt that were as strong, so the soothsayer started hunting the Giants instead. Then, when they killed off all their people, they were the strongest thing on Bionis, so they tried to fight themselves, and died.”

Dickson scowled and scrunched his face. “They tell you kids that? Remind me not to get the big book of bedtime stories from Colony 6 the next time I visit.”

Sharla rolled her eyes, “It’s supposed to be a warning against losing yourself to fighting for the hell of it.”

“Sure – there’s nothing like teaching kids a lesson through a bedtime story with a suicide at the end,” Dickson shook his head.

“I dunno – very Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” The Doctor commented.

“So, what’s this, then?” Elma gestured to the pillar of radiating ether as they got close. “A geyser of magic power?”

“Maybe,” The Doctor put his spectacles back on.

“The ether signature feels remarkably similar to the transporters we possess in Alcamoth – yet there are no supports or generator mechanisms.” Melia frowned. “The closest ones I can see appear to be at the top of the stairs.”

“Could the emperor have created it?” Shulk inquired. “For us? He must have known we’d try coming this way.”

“Possibly, though to sustain an ether warp long after passing through it…” Melia trailed off.

“Well, if he left it for us,” Reyn began to roll his shoulder.

Fiora spun, stopping him with a press of her hand to his chest. “Reyn, don’t you dare. Remember what happened last time?”

Reyn shrunk, wincing. “Yeah.”

“…I think we should go for it,” Dickson spoke, causing Shulk to look at him in surprise. “What? Whether the Emperor made it for us or not, it’s our only way forward.”

“I could probably hotwire that transporter up there,” The Doctor looked at it. “See where it goes.”

“I would not advise it,” Alvis spoke up. “Prison Island has been derelict for eons, and there is no guarantee the terminus on the other side is intact.” He stood with his hands behind his back, a colour identical to the red of the warp flickering in the pendant around his neck.

“The Ether signature of the portal is extremely stable, similar to the transporters we used to arrive here,” Melia turned. “It is quite safe. If you do not trust it any more than them, you can remain here. As it stands, the only issue is the matter of the destination – which is a thing we must contend with if we activate the transports native to this place in any event.”

The Doctor glanced between her, and the spike-like column of radiating Ether. “…well, all right. If you insist.”

Shulk stepped forward first, and extended his hand. On contact, the energies in the portal broke free of their tenuous equilibrium. The matter around the warp, everyone standing around it, was dematerialised instantly, in an aura of violet.

The Doctor’s vision became awash with violet colour, before it just-as-rapidly faded. Reality returned in a flash, and they were left standing around an identical warp radiating misty bright blue and red Ether.

“Whoa!” Reyn’s hands snapped to the side of his face. “Talk about a head-rush… you’re telling me you lot can just do that!?”

“It takes an extreme reserve of energy.” Melia answered. “Mastery of the technique is rare, such that few practitioners of it are known to exist. I did not believe even father to be capable of it.”

The Doctor’s eyes drifted towards Alvis. Something told him it wasn’t the Emperor. “Well, regardless, we’ve got the express lift up, now, where are we?” He wondered. There was more ancient obsidian all around, chain-railings, and light. The path ahead climbed up in a great staircase, and the same specimens of the strange beasts flew around, heedless of the people on the ground below.

“I think we should take them,” Shulk spoke in regards to the stairs.

“Oh yeah?” Dickson asked. “You sure?”

“Well, it’s like you said,” Shulk shook his head. “If a prison like this is only for one thing the High Entia were so scared of they forbade anyone from coming here, then it must be at the top of the facility, or the bottom. The transport took us here, right in front of the steps, so…”

“Oh, I like the way you think!” The Doctor spoke to Shulk, walking right past Shulk and taking the steps up.

Decision made, the others climbed the steps too, as they turned right around and made them cross a vast bridge extending wide over the canyon. And from there, on that bridge (not counting the parts blocked by the natural walls of the Island) they could see the whole of the Eryth Sea.

And the Doctor felt… uneasy. He didn’t know exactly what lay at the summit of the island, but by now, he had an idea.

Another warp lay ahead and, if Shulk was right, it’d take them up.

They walked through.

The Doctor began to feel a phantom pain in his left heart.

A great barrier of crackling ether surrounded all of Prison Island, but the lightning outside was bright enough to overpower it, making it transparent for the briefest of moments. A strike occurred, and Shulk’s breath hitched.

“The Great Horn…” Shulk breathed. “We’re here. This is it!”

The roar of engines rumbled the air, loud as thunder, as two Face Mechon – the same stocky build as Xord had been, flew head-on into the barrier in a bid to breach it. They crashed like paper aeroplanes into a window, and crumpled, sliding off and plunging into the sea below.

The attempted strike sent everyone into combat mode. Shulk drew the Monado REX, and activated it. Everyone readied their weapons, and Melia ran off ahead. Elma passed the Sonic Screwdriver back to the Doctor.

Melia sprinted up the steps, two-at-a-time. As the others followed her lead, rising over the top, they could see what lay at the summit.

The emperor was standing, backs turned to them, in front of a vast, white-haired Giant. The Giant was shackled, strung up with his arms spread wide and pinned above his shoulders.

Dickson found his words first, with a slight grin. “Well, I’ll be…”

Melia gasped. “Father!”

“Melia,” The Emperor returned.

The assembled group all approached slowly, staring, at the titanic humanoid in chains before them.

“Father… father, what is this?” Melia probed.

Shulk walked a few steps past them, and the Giant’s eyes locked on him.

“Welcome,” The Giant spoke in a deep and booming voice. “True heir to the Monado.”

“Wha-“ Shulk recoiled, staring up. “Who are you!?”

“It’s a Giant prison,” The Doctor murmured. “So… it’s only natural that the prisoner is a Giant.” But… but he didn’t understand. Alvis wouldn’t need all that to imprison some giant humanoid. Where was the other Time Lord he had here? What was going on?

“Indeed,” The Emperor concurred. His eyes flicked over to Melia, but he made sure to keep facing the Giant. “This… is what our forefathers locked away.”

“I am Zanza.” The Giant answered Shulk. “And I have waited centuries for you.”

“For… him!?” Melia spluttered in surprise. “But how is that possible!? You have been imprisoned for all this time!”

“I forged the Monado,” Zanza proclaimed. “It is moulded from me. All who wield the sword are made known to me.”

Hang on. What?

“You… made the Monado!?”

“Yes,” Zanza answered Shulk, and so, the Doctor bit his tongue. For now. “I made it millennia ago to oppose Mechonis.”

“But… why are you imprisoned, then.”

“Well, I’d say he did something worthy of being imprisoned.” The Doctor directed at Shulk.

Zanza did not heed the Doctor in the slightest. “The Monado controls the principle of life, Ether. Control the ether, and you control life itself. Master it, and all things will bow to you. Your power would be infinite!”

“And that’s why,” The Doctor finished, gesturing, looking between Zanza and Shulk. “The High Entia locked him up, I would bet. But!” He spun around, holding up a finger. “I was told the Monado was the sword of the Bionis. Pardon me for presuming, but you don’t look a thing like it.”

“I once used the Monado to defeat Mechonis,” Zanza replied.

The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets. “That’s not what I asked. Was it you, or Bionis who made the Monado? Should be a simple question to answer, that.”

The giant narrowed his eyes at the Doctor. “The Monado is my creation,” Zanza insisted. “I used it in battle against the Mechonis.”

“And then, they locked you in prison, took your sword far away, and locked it up as well.” The Doctor hummed.

“The High Entia feared the sword’s ability to divine the future,” Zanza orated. “And so, I was imprisoned.”

“Really,” The Doctor suspiciously drawled.

“There is no greater fear than the fear of one with power. They turned against me, locked me away in here, and promptly forgot about me.”

“That is not so!” Melia hissed. “Say what you will about my ancestors, but they must have had good reason!”

“You are what you are,” Zanza looked her dead in the eyes.

“And, what are you, hm?” The Doctor questioned, putting himself between Melia and Zanza. “Cause, well, I’ve just heard a tale about a Giant who hunted his people to extinction, and here we are, and here you are. The last Giant, who had a weapon quite capable of doing a whole species in, locked up.”

“Are you accusing me?” Zanza stared into the Time Lord’s eyes.

“I’m just saying. Can’t exactly trust you, now can we?” The Doctor posed to him. “I mean, all the other High Entia from that time are all dead and gone, aren’t they! No one to corroborate your story. No one to call you out on if you’re lying.”

“And so you would keep me shackled…” Zanza began to chuckle. “Understandable. But, then, how will you oppose the Mechonis?”

“Shulk created a Monado of his own – I think he’ll manage.”

“A pale imitation cannot hope to stand against the forces that have been unleashed.” Zanza boomed. “The Monado is in shackles, as am I. An imitation of the sword is, therefore, based upon how it is in the shackled state. Whatever replica you may design, it, by nature, cannot rival the Monado with its true splendour. As the weapon you have chosen to vanquish the Mechon with… it is quite underqualified.”

Shulk looked to his back, where the Monado Original rested, then the sword in his hand.

“So, it’s not an enhancement, but the removal of some sort of… safety lock?” Shulk mused.

Zanza smiled. “Correct. In its current state, the Monado is bound to never harm the life that walks upon Bionis. It was my hope that, with these shackles, the anxieties of those who feared the Monado’s power would be allayed, but, alas, such a thing was not to be. Now, they have led to far more trouble than they have prevented. I can remove them, just as easily as I placed them… but I must have my own shackles broken, first.”

Shulk looked up, at the Giant.

“Shulk, don’t.” The Doctor sternly addressed.

“With the shackles broken, the Monado would be able to harm anything you desired it to.” Zanza continued to press. “Nothing but a god would be able to stand in your way!”

Shulk’s legs began to move.

“Don’t do it, Shulk!” Melia spoke.

Shulk stopped. “But-“

Fiora charged over. “Don’t be an idiot!” Fiora snapped at him.

“Wha-“ Shulk recoiled, looking hurt. “But… Fiora, what about Dunban? And the Faced Mechon? If we want to move forward, we-“

“No.” Fiora cut him off. “You remembered how you said you would stop taking stupid risks with the Monado? Well, this is a stupid risk!”

“It’s not,” Shulk turned back around, his eyes clouded and slightly unfocused.

Dickson stuck a stogie in his mouth, but didn’t light up.

“Shulk,” Fiora yanked him back. “You’re talking to a prisoner that Melia’s people locked up. How do you even know he’s telling the truth? The stories they have about the Monado, those didn’t come from nowhere!”

“But…” Shulk’s hands twitched. “We need the Monado.”

“We’ve been figuring things out just fine so far, we can figure out a way around the Monado!” Fiora stressed. “Listen,” She leaned in. “Something about this isn’t right.”

Shulk looked at her, properly. “What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” Fiora stressed, tapping her temples. “The Bionis and the Mechonis were warring since the dawn of time. How could he have made a weapon for it, if all life on Bionis only exists because the Bionis died?”

Shulk furrowed his brow in confusion. “Maybe the stories got it wrong? Maybe life did exist on Bionis before the final battle.”

“Okay – so, why did they lock him up?” Fiora pressed. “It must’ve been a battle a million times worse than Sword Valley, and he must’ve been his people’s version of Dunban. If he saved the rest of life on Bionis, why would they lock him up?”

Shulk thought about it for a moment. “To… keep him around, in case they needed him again? They feared his power, but maybe felt the need to have him in reserve, should the Mechonis attack again.”

“But if they knew he would help them if they set him free, then they should have had faith in his character enough to trust that he wouldn’t succumb to the power he had,” Fiora reasoned out very quickly. “So, they shouldn’t have felt the need to imprison him in the first place!”

Shulk’s eyes flickered, still unfocused, and he slowly shook his head. “Maybe it was a sense of gratitude? They wanted to execute him, but left him alive instead, perhaps?”

“Shulk, listen,” Fiora grabbed him by the shoulders. “I know you want to do all you can to make sure we’re ready, but this isn’t the kind of thing we should be taking bets on unless we’re absolutely certain. I know you have tunnel-vision, but ask yourself: However powerful the Monado is, if it didn’t harm Bionis life, why did the people of back then feel the need to lock Zanza up?”

“Could be what Sharla said about that soothsayer might’ve had a kernel more truth to it,” The Doctor hummed. “I’ve seen humans be a paranoid, superstitious lot. But pragmatic. They don’t always act on what could happen, but what they’ve seen in-action – it’s one of their best and worst features. They didn’t start nuclear disarmament until they saw what kind of destruction it brought, and how many close-calls they had.”

Shulk turned to the Doctor. “What do you think?”

“I think that if Zanza is telling the truth, the power that scared the High Entia is potent enough that we want nothing to do with it,” The Doctor shook his head. “If he isn’t…”

“If something sounds too good to be true,” Elma softly intoned. “It usually is.”

Shulk looked down, thinking it over for a few moments.

“Young Shulk,” Zanza magnanimously addressed. “I will not force you. The Monado is yours now, to do with as you see fit.”

Shulk clutched his sword – his Monado. It hummed with energy, but… there was no question what lay inside. The Doctor had, several times over, alluded to a presence within the Monado. No question about it now; Zanza’s presence, guiding what abilities were unlocked, how deep the Monado could be probed, obfuscating all attempts to discover what lay inside. Perhaps Zanza was being perfectly honest. Shulk would feel guilty, if that was so, and he denied Zanza anyway, but still-

If the Monado was his to do as he saw fit, why was Zanza blocking his attempts to probe deeper? Sure, it had been the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver scraping at it here recently, but Shulk was present. Zanza must have seen it, if those who wielded the sword were made known to him. And it was more details than just ‘whoever had the sword’ – Zanza knew why Shulk had come.

Shulk took a breath. “I’m sorry… but, I can’t.” He stepped back.

“Shulk!” Reyn spluttered. “You’ve gotta be kidd- after we did all this!?”

“They’re right,” Shulk gestured to Fiora, Melia, Elma, and the Doctor. “We don’t know nearly enough about the situation.” His eyes held pure focus and clarity.  “I’ve been figuring out the Monado quite well, so far. Even if the Replica is just an imitation of the Monado at its worse, it’s still more powerful than any other weapon we have, and I can modify it further. But, if the High Entia thought Zanza was something to be so afraid of…” Shulk trailed off.

A deep, rumbling sigh filled the air.

“I regret it has come to this.” Zanza narrowed his eyes. “I created the Monado to be a tool for those who would change the world, but it is wasted in an environment filled with naysayers and gossip-mongers. You wield the sword, Shulk, not them. It is your power to claim the mantle of, regardless of what those with minds incapable of comprehending its splendour spout! The decision is yours and only yours.”

“Then you will respect the decision I make?” Shulk challenged.

“Naturally,” Zanza answered. “I cannot do anything about it where I am.” He looked down at them all. “And I ask you for nothing in return but my freedom. If you cannot free me, I cannot remove the shackles – it is simple as that. If you do not, the consequences of keeping the Monado shackled will be yours to face.”

“I’m prepared for that,” Shulk swallowed. “We all are.”

“…I see. Very well, Shulk.” Zanza nodded, his eyes sweeping over the area. “Emperor, Melia, Reyn, Fiora, Riki, Sharla, Elma, Alvis,” His eyes locked on the Doctor, “Valeyard.”

The Doctor went as stiff as a weeping angel, staring up at Zanza in horror. “How do you know that name?”

“If that is the decision you will make, and the one you all will push him towards making, the consequences are yours.” Zanza continued.

“How do you know that name!?” The Doctor repeated.

“We have nothing left to discuss,” Zanza proclaimed.

“HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT NAME!?” The Doctor screamed up at the giant.

A gunshot cracked, thundering through the air as a bolt of light streaked across the plaza.

Alvis jolted, whipping around. “No! It’s too early!”

All of them, every last one, froze, as their eyes traced the path of the streak.

All right back to Shulk.

The red vest had a charred, blackened hole in the back, a similar hole torn in the front. And Shulk looked down at his torso, staring at the gigantic tunnel carved out of him, the edges of the wound cauterised.

Shulk’s eyes struggled to remain open, and he dropped.

“Shulk!” Fiora screeched like a dying animal as she dashed to catch him. As he fell, they saw who was on the other side.

Dickson had the smoking gun raised, and a smoking cigar in his mouth.

“What did you do!?” Reyn charged at Dickson. “What the hell did you do!?” Reyn lifted his gunlance to strike.

Dickson lifted an arm, catching the swipe, and yanked the weapon out of Reyn’s hand. “My job. Something that all of you have forgotten about.”

“Job!?” Sharla spluttered. “You just shot Shulk in the back!”

“And you’re a medic, so, get to healing him!” Dickson snapped, scowling hatefully. “Wouldn’t have had to do it, if he just did what he was supposed to. Free the boss-man, get the shackles taken off, and that’d be that. But no. You had to go and get him thinking,” He sneered at the Doctor. “Stupid brat.”

Fiora looked up, rage blazing in her pupils. She drew both her machetes with a furious scrape, and began to stomp toward him. As she got close, the fury took hold, and she dropped one, both hands clenching the remaining one with a tightness that caused her veins to bulge.

Dickson sighed, and without even looking back, swung his weapon at her, knocking her to the side.

Elma rushed over to help her to her feet. The Doctor and Sharla, meanwhile, lunged for Shulk’s side, trying to help even just a little bit.

“Dickson, explain yourself!” The Emperor demanded. “What is the meaning of this!?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you!” Dickson threw back in his face, snorting afterward. “…but, you know, I guess it is a little bit confusing, isn’t it? Eh, might as well.” Dickson came to a stop. “It all started way back when we all found that portal in Satorl Marsh. You and your pretty little Princess weren’t there, but the long and short of it is, it led to a whole other world.”

“Impossible!” The Emperor declared. “Such things are a myth!”

“Well, that’s what you’ve been taught,” Dickson huffed. “Cause that’s what your little soothsayers’ have been telling you, across all the generations. Well, he told my lord the same thing. Only, turns out, when we hopped into that other world, who did I find but the bastard child of that soothsayer.”

“Bastard child…?” Alvis repeated in horrified confusion.

“I thought it was a case of mistaken identity myself, but no – the girl smelled exactly like him. Same hair and eye colour and all. So, with the proof, turns out, he’s been double-dealing.” Dickson continued. “So, my Lord and I decided to put a better watch on him.”

Zanza rumbled. “Were you truly so foolish to think that you could deceive me forever, Alvis?” Zanza accused, causing Melia and the Emperor to stare at who they had thought was their peoples’ most trusted advisor.

“Alvis?” Melia addressed. “What is he saying?”

“I knew what you had become long ago,” Zanza growled at him. “But I allowed you the leeway you received out of the mistaken belief that you still were bound to my instructions. I now understand that was a mistake. You had plotted against me with impunity for too long. I would’ve hoped that being struck by the Telethia would remind you of the mission you must obey, but it seems not.”

Alvis’s hand drifted to his chest, at the healed tissue that – in Makna – had been ripped open by the Telethia. Alvis hadn’t been expecting it, but… Zanza had been trying to punish him, all the way back then.

“Well,” Dickson continued. “You know what they say. A weapon that turns on its master is no weapon at all, so, here we are. Forced to move up the time-table, before things can get any more out of hand.” He reached down, picking up the Monado REX.

Across the way, Sharla and the Doctor were frantically trying, and failing.

“I can’t get a pulse!” Sharla anxiously muttered.

“Of course not – it went right through his heart,” The Doctor clenched his jaw.

“Why didn’t the Monado warn him!?” Sharla questioned. “It should have shown him a vision!”

The Doctor glanced over at Alvis and Zanza. “I think, whatever’s happening, the usual rules don’t apply anymore.” Distant roaring filled the air, and the Doctor’s head snapped up.

He saw the shadows of the giant Mechon moving past the shield, and groaned internally when he saw the silhouette of Onyx Face. Great. Just what they needed.

Melia felt a cold tingle on the back of her neck.

Dickson strode toward the massive restraints binding Zanza, the Monado REX humming in his grip.

“Well, you know how the old saying goes,” Dickson remarked. “’The best laid plans,’ and all.” Then, he swung.

The ether blade collided with the ether cuffs holding Zanza in place. The two wavelengths collided and collapsed, blade shorting out momentarily, cuffs doing the same, and Zanza dropped.

The flames in the standing torches blossomed wildly, filling the area with their cold light and radiant heat.

“Oh no, you ain’t-!” Reyn began to sprint.

Zanza lifted his arms, and a blast of Ether rippled out like a shockwave. Zanza’s skin began to burn, radiating golden-orange particles with an intense shimmer and a noise that scratched the eardrums.

Shulk’s body began to spasm.

“What the-!?” Sharla spluttered as Shulk went from as still as a corpse to thrashing like a feral beast.

Melia felt another prickle, and she looked up. Something was wrong.

Not in the obvious way. Not the giant god-being being freed sort of wrong.

Move. It told her.

Her eyes snapped to the Doctor.

He was still crouched beside Shulk, jaw clenched, trying to do something, anything. His hands were slick with blood that refused to clot properly, as he tried to hold Shulk down.

Then, like the voice of a demon from above, somebody called down.

“THIS PARTY’S OVER!”

The voice of Onyx Face, familiar enough to anybody unlucky enough to encounter him, heralded a loud bang on the protective barrier around the island, like a drum being pounded. The spear broke through, and went down faster than a bolt of lightning. The spear landed dead-on, and its target was instantly rammed through.

Zanza let out a gurgling gasp of agony as the spear pinned him to the floor, his body still radiating that etheric glow, a glow that was also being siphoned out of Shulk’s body.

Dickson stood, and did not react in any other way but calmly.

A searingly cold bolt of pain shot through Melia’s temples and behind her eyes like a migraine, and she turned her head upward again. Hovering in the air was a Mechon the colour of a polished, flawless ruby, cast in a mockery of Bionis’s image, and readying its own spear.

‘You have to save the Doctor.’

The Mechon sent the spear hurtling, and without knowing how she knew, she knew the spear’s target.

‘You have to save the Doctor.’

Melia launched herself forward, wings flaring instinctively to keep her balanced as she slammed into the Doctor’s side with every ounce of strength she possessed.

He hit the stone hard. She came to a stop, standing.

A flash of white pain detonated in her spine.

The Doctor’s head banged into the stone, rolling, and as he picked it up in confusion, his eyes locked on her, horrified. “MELIA!” He shot back to his feet, dashing over. “Why did you do that!? Why did you-!?” He cut himself off, as she remained held upright by the spear.

“Melia!” The Emperor stumbled over, barely able to keep himself held upright, as he saw his precious child ran through by the Mechon’s weapon. “Melia,” Frantically, the Emperor began motioning with his hands. “Please, no… my child…” He summoned up every bit of Ether he could, sending it her way.

“ZANZA!” Another voice called down from above, as the Ruby Mechon landed, pointing a gigantic nodachi at the Giant. “It is over for you now, Zanza.” It spoke with a feminine voice, all its fury directed at the Giant.

“New giant lady mech-mech!” Riki spluttered in confusion.

“What the hell is going on!?” Reyn bellowed.

“It don’t concern you,” Dickson sneered. “You’re just the help.”

“It is too late for you, Meyneth!” Zanza’s voice rang out, his mouth unmoving. “You cannot stop what has been set in motion!”

“Where-“ The ruby Mechon, Meyneth, spun about, seeing the Doctor, the Emperor, and Melia. Melia impaled on her spear, not the Doctor. “NO!” She lifted her sword, her titanic body beginning to move.

A flash and a flicker of light, and the arm was severed.

Meyneth let out a howl of pain as the sword clattered. Her head snapped in the direction of the culprit.

Elma twirled Lucky Seven. “Don’t you dare.”

“Wha…” Meyneth stiffened in confusion. “Elma? What are you doing… helping Zanza?”

Elma blinked, her eyes clouded with the suspicion of recognition, but she steeled herself. “I’m not helping anyone but my comrades. And you are trying to kill them.”

“You do not understand!” Meyneth pleaded. “We must stop Zanza before he can-“

Zanza’s body erupted into a geyser of ether energy, the biomass burned away as fuel as his consciousness cackled.

“Oh, no…” Meyneth breathed. “NO!”

The swirl of ether travelled about like miniature tornado, the cyclone moving toward Shulk. It made contact with a blinding flash, then, all who were standing around him suddenly found themselves knocked to the ground.

“My return to my true form is complete.” Shulk spoke, and it was not Shulk.

A source of light, like a miniature sun casting day onto Prison Island through the storm, floated upward. In the heart of it was Shulk, clad in white-and-gold robes.

Shulk was also on the ground, still unmoving.

“Zanza!” Meyneth pleaded. “Stop this! They are your children! Please, if you have any sense of decency-”

Zanza – his ‘true form’ apparently – looked down, disgust written all over his face.

The Doctor stared up, frozen, eyes wide in horror as a set of immaterial wings unfurled around Zanza’s back, etched with glowing patterns in Circular Gallifreyan.

“Children?” Zanza scowled. “They are parasites upon my being!” He extended an arm. The Monado twitched, and rattled. He stopped, narrowing his eyes at it. “A weapon that does not obey the desires of its master is a weapon only a fool would use. Fortunately, I have found a replacement.”

Dickson lifted the Monado REX up, and it was yanked through the air, into Zanza’s hand.

“A pale imitation it may be,” Zanza regarded it with curiosity. “But perhaps my vessel was right, when he said it could be further modified to become a suitable weapon.” A feral grin split his stolen face, and the REX’s blade shifted to a deep purple hue. He stabbed it down, a shockwave of the same colour rippling out. The blast struck the Mechon like a pressure wave, knocking them back with pained yowls as their limbs were shattered and they were rendered immobile.

The Mechon, and the people. Everyone was knocked back, bones cracking and muscle tearing.

“For a time… I tolerated this.” Zanza narrowed his eyes. He looked down at the ground beneath his feet. “Bionis.” The word carried no respect. “Do you know what it is to be eternal, and yet trapped?” He asked, eyes sweeping across them. “To possess the memory of infinity, and awaken to find only a single continent beneath your dominion?”

Zanza shook his head. “For a time, I was content. Bound to this titan, yes… but sovereign within it. By necessity. But now…”

He turned his head slowly, looking beyond the shield, beyond the horizon of Bionis.

“The way ahead is open.” Zanza spread his arms wide, “For a God’s work is never done, and mine has only just begun.” Then, in a flash of light, he was gone, and so was Dickson, and the Island began to quake.

“Guys!” Reyn screamed. “We’re falling!” Indeed, the Sea rapidly grew closer.

The Doctor gnashed his teeth in panic.

-------

The weapons lab in Colony 9 had been empty for a while.

Workbench lamps still glowed faintly. Tools lay scattered where Shulk had left them days ago. The TARDIS sat in the centre of the room.

The air shifted, and Zanza appeared in the lab.

The TARDIS doors remained closed.

Zanza approached, standing before the door. He narrowed his eyes, and lifted his hand. A blast of ether was forced right into the lock, and it snapped. The doors swung open, revealing the interior beyond.

Zanza strode in like the craft belonged to him, feet rattling the grating beneath him. He walked a slow circle around the console, trailing his fingers along its organic ridges. The coral surface pulsed faintly at his touch, recoiling from him like a living thing.

Dust clung in corners. A cracked mug sat abandoned near the controls. Wires had been patched and repatched with abandon. A god’s chariot reduced to a wandering scrapheap.

“He has a wonder, and he drives it like a drunkard,” Zanza scrunched his nose.

He stepped to the console and pressed his palm against it.

The TARDIS shuddered.

A low, defensive groan vibrated through the chamber. The lights flickered red for a fraction of a second.

Zanza reached out, finding the Briode Nebuliser, and narrowed his eyes. In a single, swift motion, he disconnected it. The Gallifreyan imprint vanished, replaced a second later by a different sigil. Satisfied, Zanza walked around.

His hands, with deft precision, reached out, and primed the controls with the expertise of a longtime pilot. Then, he pulled on the throttle, and the time rotor engaged.

The TARDIS faded away.