Infinite DC

“This is preposterous! My father will surely hear of this!”

The loud rantings of Draco Malfoy filled the T.A.R.D.I.S. console room that he, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley stood in with Bugs, Daffy, and Gizmo since avoiding their plight back at Hogwarts.

It went on for minutes, blustering garishly enough to get the attention of the two women – one of whom lied about being a student of Hogwarts – that brought them to the dimensionally disproportionate capsule.

After a while, Bugs asked of the fuming Draco, “Is he always this antsy?”

“You’ve no idea, mate,” Ron exhaustedly remarked.

“I have every right to be furious!” Draco protested. “I was taken against my will and imprisoned in this…whatever it is!”

“It’s called a T.A.R.D.I.S., Malfoy,” said Hermione, though she was no wholly confident on the concept herself. “That’s what Maureen calls it, at least.”

“Maureen,” Malfoy cursed the name. “She’s not even who we thought she was. How can we trust anything she says ever again?”

“Because she saved our lives when she didn’t have to, Malfoy,” Harry defended.

“Yeah, our lives,” Draco scornfully emphasized. “Meanwhile, the rest of Hogwarts is left to burn from that monster!”

“She had no other choice,” Harry said.

“So she says,” Draco jeered. “How do we know she isn’t responsible for what happened?!”

“You’re right.”

They turned to where the voice spoke from, discovering Maureen standing in a doorway that led further into the alien spacecraft.

The first surprising thing Hermione noticed about her was how she changed her attire. No longer did she sport her House Gryffindor robes, but a more punkish style of clothing with a denim vest worn over a red-and-blue plaid shirt, light jean shorts, and crimson leather boots.

“Maureen,” she gasped. “You look…different.”

“Had to change out, since I’m not who you thought I was…right, Draco?”

Maureen’s glare met with that of Malfoy, who refused to say anything to the Time Lady. In a huff, he went to the nearest corner of the room to sulk in.

“I’m sorry if you lot feel like you’re being held against your will,” Maureen said, “but none of you can go back to where you came from, not while Dalek Vec is still huntin’ for ya.”

“So where are we goin’?” Ron asked.

Maureen shook her head. “I haven’t the slightest idea. Rhyanna would know best.” She looked over the group, noticing her long-past predecessor to be missing. “Where is she?”

“She’s been in someplace called the ‘Zero Room’ for the last half hour,” Harry notified.

Hearing this, Maureen moaned in aggravation. “Oh, no.”

Rhyanna was the only one of the many lives of Neas to have used the Zero Room so significantly, but there was one time when she did that Maureen knew all very well.

The second Harry told her that she was there, she had to go in and check on her.

Considering it was Rhyanna’s T.A.R.D.I.S. that they were traveling in, Maureen anticipated this Zero Room to feel like a sauna once she stepped in. Body heat exerted from five hundred years of intense yoga exercises.

Sure enough, it was.

She found Rhyanna sitting lotus style on the floor, her eyes closed and her hands clasped in the Namaste position, meditating.

“You’ve gotta be the most chilled Aussie I’ve ever been, you know that,” Maureen teased, tugging at her collar. “Bloody hell, is it moist up in here! You should really consider installin’ a fan or…”

In her jesting, she stopped as soon as she saw how Rhyanna’s face had glistened – not from sweat but tears.

Her hearts sank, feeling guilty for having given her Australian predecessor such a hard time since their first chance meeting. She crouched down across from her, putting on her best comforting smile.

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” she told her. “None of this is your fault.”

“I should’ve stopped it.” Rhyanna opened her eyes, letting more tears stream out. “I should’ve stopped that monster from hurting everyone there.”

“Sweetheart, there was nuttin’ either of us could do back there. All that’s gonna make this right now is beatin’ the livin’ tar outta that bloody tin can, once we cross paths with him again. So don’t you go blamin’ yourself for what he’s done, or I’ll kick your big Aussie butt myself.”

Slowly but surely, a persuaded smirk developed on Rhyanna’s face.

“Nice to see we still have a tender side in this regeneration,” she complimented.

Maureen snickered. “Yeah, don’t get used to it.”

The two women shared a second of laughs before they were disrupted by a sudden blaring siren. Its quality was foreign to them.

“That’s not the cloister, is it?” Rhyanna shouted over the deafening noise.

“No, this is somethin’ new,” Maureen corroborated.

Together, they rushed back to the console room where their companions were covering their ears.

Bugs was particularly affected by it, having the longest ears in the room.

“Any way you can turn off that racket would do us a huge favor!”

Rhyanna happily accommodated by turning a few knobs on the console that muted the noise.

“What the bloody hell was that all about?!” Ron said, sensing as much numbness in his eardrums as everyone else.

Maureen glanced at the Gallifreyan calligraphy displayed upon the circular monitor positioned above one section of the console.

“Coordinates,” she muttered. “Somebody just sent us some weird coordinates.”

“To where?” Harry queried.

Cobbled together with random parts she found all over the Wasteland, Min treasured her makeshift motorbike just as she did her T.A.R.D.I.S. The round, reflective, giant white-and-black marble was situated a few feet from her and the bike. She figured the others had been waiting some time for her to come back in and help prepare for the arrival of Neas and her many regenerations.

Up to now, they managed to draw in one with the beacon: a tall, sporty Caucasian blonde of Australian design with a friendly disposition. She arrived in that high rectangular solid she knew all too well, exhibiting black yoga pants and fitness jacket. She named this regeneration – her eleventh – as “Lindy.”

Two out of however many ain’t bad, Min thought.

Sanders was the only other one accounted for, yet she had the task of going out to gather Neas’s regenerations, as well as those of her father. It should have been a simple scouting mission, even with a time machine; but, somehow, Sanders took much longer than necessary.

Tinkering on her motorbike, Min tried to imagine what took Sanders so long, until the moment that she heard distinctive humming and grinding.

She glanced to her T.A.R.D.I.S.

Nope. Still there.

She knew it to be the resonance of a materializing – or dematerializing – T.A.R.D.I.S.

Two others then registered, corresponding with the one.

Min stood up from her crouched position beside her bike, moving her welding goggles to her forehead to see three rectangular solids manifest side-by-side within the occupied warehouse space. Their doors opened from the inside, and their passengers stepped out.

A young Portuguese woman with a boy, a short-haired blonde with a couple of costumed individuals and a pair of anthropomorphic characters, and two younger ladies with a quartet of teens in school uniforms.

Min interestedly eyed each and every one of them.

“There’re so many of you,” she said. “Any of you – all of you – could be her.”

“Could be who?” asked the anthropomorphic fish that accompanied the short-haired blonde.

“I believe she’s referring to us,” boasted the short-haired blonde, gesturing between herself and the Portuguese woman to her left. Approaching her, she continued, “I remember how much of a pain in the butt this one was, with her Latin tongue.”

The Portuguese woman grimaced doubtfully. “Have we met before? In another time, perhaps?”

“This is regeneration, Isabel,” said the blonde. “You’ve been through it twice already; don’t get lost on me now.”

Isabel’s mouth gaped. “You are me?! Ah meu Deus! Não acredito que eu tenha regenerado em uma tão jovem e peituda!”

The blonde peeped down at herself, one questionable eyebrow raised. “Peituda? Realmente?!”

The exchange was lost on the ears of those around them, except for the two younger women out of the third Type-Z T.A.R.D.I.S., who giggled among themselves.

Detecting their snickers, the costumed man with the lightning bolt on his chest asked them, “You know what they’re saying?”

“Course we do,” replied the punk-styled woman, speaking with a Northern English accent. “We are them!”

“Nice seein’ ya again, Isabel and Cara,” the other younger woman – another Aussie blonde dressed for fit activity – waved to her past incarnations.

Isabel and Cara glimpsed their way, both equally baffled and amused.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Cara expressed. “I’ve gone full international in my old age.”

“What are your names?” Isabel enquired.

“Rhyanna,” authenticated the Aussie blonde.

“Maureen,” confirmed the Northern Englishwoman.

Min broadly smiled with satisfaction. “Now that makes six of you we’re able to get here.”

“And where is ‘here’ exactly?” Cara questioned.

“Yeah, and who’re you?” Maureen grilled.

“My name’s Min and I’m going to show you just how we’re stopping that pain-in-the-butt, Dalek Vec. I just hope the rest of you are on their way. I don’t think we have all that much time left.”

“I’m not sure when your last feeding was, Gizmo, but it’s a little difficult to tell when we’re bouncin’ all around time and space.”

The Mogwai concurred to that sentiment with a gentle chirp.

Lauren carried him into Neas’s T.A.R.D.I.S., no longer able to withstand the sound of crashing waves or the nauseating sensation of Willy’s ship – the Inferno – swaying back and forth. Just the thought of it cramped her stomach.

Who knew this regeneration suffered seasickness, she amusingly thought.

Neas’s T.A.R.D.I.S. was one of the few parked at the mast’s base, right in the middle of the ship’s deck. Those of Kimbyr and Ms. Mars were situated at opposite sides. Kimbyr compared the positioning to a close replica of Stonehenge.

Alone in the console room with Gizmo, Lauren scouted the console for the secret compartment she remembered to have installed for nutritional emergencies. The kitchen was quite a long ways from there.

“Teacher.”

She joggled at the voice speaking directly behind.

Believing to have had the room entirely to herself and Gizmo, she was surprised to have seen that Gen followed her in, totally undetected.

“Oh…hello again,” Lauren inelegantly greeted, mentally recalling their previous encounter in the same room of a different T.A.R.D.I.S., when she was Skeeta. “C-Can I…help you with…something?”

“Teacher,” Gen repeated, maintaining that same robust smile.

Lauren softly chuckled; it was like déjà vu with this girl.

“I…I still don’t know what that means, sweetheart,” she confessed. “Can’t you give me some kind of clue or…? Wait. Am I the ‘teacher’ you’re referring? When we were back on the farm?” She chuckled again. “Well, that’s sweet, but I was only giving fatherly advice, really…”

She rambled until the second she noticed Gen lifting her eyepatch.

Lauren cringed, not anticipating the gesture or what was beneath that patch.

Fortunately, what she saw was nowhere near as horrid as she imagined. There was deep scar tissue that ran in a few jagged lines across the eyelid, creating small gaps in the skin that exposed the eye.

At least, what looked like an eye.

A glint of gold flashed through the broken skin.

Rising up her damaged eyelid by the fingers of her left hand, Gen used those from her right to reach deep into her eye socket. The right side of her face winced as she pulled the foreign object out, holding it out in her hand.

To her astonishment, Lauren saw that it was a data orb.

Etched in its shiny gold casing were Gallifreyan hieroglyphics that translated into instructions that guided the user in how to insert the orb into the nearest console port.

And that was precisely what she did, after Gen graciously handed it over to her.

The view screen automatically flickered on, once the T.A.R.D.I.S. picked up on the data orb.

A dark-haired young woman with distinctive cheekbones appeared in view; she wore skintight black leather pants and a fur coat as red as the clothes Lauren wore when she was “Steven” on Gallifrey. Her eyes were crystal blue, and her skin was fair. She was worthy of being a runway model.

“Data Log 137,” she registered to the camera, speaking with a voice that carried much warmth as it did authority. “This entry is placed by Min, seventh regeneration of the Tinkerer.”

Lauren’s ears perked at this bit of detail.

“This is Min?” She gathered. “Min is me.”

“Are we ready?” A woman off-screen addressed Min in the recording.

The voice was undoubtedly Gen’s, only it sounded a lot more together in sanity with a breath of supremacy.

“We’re set,” Min answered. “Let me just set the anti-gravity function.”

The camera wobbled slightly as she made the adjustment and then lifted above her head, slowly rotating to show the entire three-sixty panorama of the console room.

In the rotation, Gen popped into view.

Lauren was struck with awe in how vividly dissimilar the “Gen” in the recording looked from the one presently standing beside her. She sported a black leather jacket, a white tank top, skinny jeans, and boots. Her long blonde hair tied in a single ponytail, as opposed to the pigtails of her present-day self.

“Do we really have to bring that thing with us?” She griped of the floating orb.

“It’s important to document your journeys,” Min said. “You should know this.”

Gen rolled her eyes – both of them. “Fine. Let’s…”

Before she could say “go,” the footage momentarily scrambled, transitioning to a later time. Now Min and Gen were trekking through a forest of living trees, with Min consistently oohing and awing at the majestic scene.

Again, another jumbled time skip in the footage.

Min now sat again in front of the recording orb, situated back in its port on the control console. In the backdrop was Gen, practicing with a bō staff.

“Today’s our tenth day in the realm,” Min logged. “The creatures we’ve encountered here are more fascinating than any we’ve…” She stopped herself mid-sentence, as if to consider what to say next. “I suppose, for the record, I should say that it’s more fascinating than any Gen has encountered.”

“What about me?” The distracted young blonde questioned, twirling her staff in one hand.

“Nothing,” Min quickly remarked, switching the orb off.

Another unspecified jump in time.

Min and Gen inspect a dark cavern. The feed on the orb had switched to night vision, displaying an eerie visage, not unlike any seen in a horror film.

“There’s nothing here, Gen,” Min pleadingly said. “Let’s just go.”

Gen shushed her. “I heard something in here. It’s gotta be—LOOK! RIGHT THERE!”

The camera jerked, fighting to capture what Gen sighted.

Lauren could only perceive what seemed to be a malnourished, humanoid creature crawling on its hands and legs before the footage abruptly scrambled back to the console room and a visibly shaken Min.

“We shouldn’t have been in there,” she recorded. “The man…if I could even call it that…was so…disturbed. H-He wanted to eat us, but I sure wasn’t going to let that happen!” Her tone was fierce, but she took a moment to calm herself before she continued. “I think Gen took something from him. She’s been coped up in the Zero Room ever since we got back from our last trip. We need to leave this place or else…”

Another transition.

Min and Gen engaged in a shouting match through one of the corridors in the T.A.R.D.I.S.

Gen also had taken on more medieval attire for reasons that were not clear in the recording. Much of the data in the orb was erased, leaving gaps between certain intervals of the entries. In one, Min and Gen were disputing over their prolonged stay in the realm; in another, Min rescued Gen from an imposing creature that was described as an “Orc” in the recording.

But the most disturbing entry was one entered by Gen herself.

Inside the heavily dimmed Zero Room, her manic, bloodied face closed up on the camera. Her hair was disheveled, much of it dangled over the left side of her face, which bore a bandage over her mortally wounded eye – the same one her patch currently hid.

“They…want…it,” she wheezed. “She…wants…it. But…she…can’t. It’s…mine. Mine. Mine! Mine! MINE! MINE! MINE!”

This unsettling entry was cut short, swapped with a more serene one by an emotionally drained Min, once again inside the console room.

“Data Log 743,” she grimly registered, tears streaming from her eyes. “This final entry is placed by Min, seventh regeneration of the Tinkerer. There’s nothing more I can do for my little girl. That fierce woman I once knew was gone. The ring changed her into this empty shell she is now. It’s been returned to Gandalf, who promised me that it’d be destroyed at once. But the damage has already been done to Gen.

The mind of a Time Lady was never meant to suffer such an effect. I only pray that, through the healing power of regeneration, she’ll be herself again. But, for now, it is my deepest regret to leave her be, with only this data orb – which I’ve altered for all intents and purposes – to serve as a reminder to myself. One day, Gen, our paths will cross again, only our faces will be different. None of this will have happened for me yet, but all of it – as much as your mind will permit you to remember – already has. When you see either a handsome, bald black gentleman or a twenty-something English blonde, that’ll be me, sweetheart. Your father…your teacher.”

This final entry finished on a freeze frame of Min’s smiling, hopeful face.

Lauren’s was drenched in her own tears, having sobbed through it.

She felt Gizmo squirm in her arms, reminded of him being there; his writhing due to the danger of tear droplets falling on him.

Remembering one of the rules to caring for him, Lauren handed the little Mogwai over to Gen before her emotions literally put him at risk. After drying her face, she looked on Gen, only to see a new party that had joined them in the console room.

It was Neas.

“How long have you been standing there?” She asked him.

“Long enough, Pop,” he said. “Long enough.”

By his hardened demeanor, she suspected him to have watched the recording with them, either at the beginning or somewhere in between.

As he sat upon one of the chairs on the console platform, she opened up to him, “I know that I can’t apologize for things I haven’t done yet, but I am truly sorry. I’m just…sickened that she…that I would just leave you like that! I…” She fought through tears to get her apology in order; yet, no matter how hard she tried, there were no words to justify herself.

“You were right to do what you did,” Neas forgivingly stated. He nodded to Gen and earnestly added, “We were spiraling out of control, because of that ring. The way she is now…that’s proof of what evil can do to someone so pure. But you, Pop…you’re proof of what good can do for someone so corrupt.”

Half of a humbled smile sympathetically formed on Lauren. “I’ve been a terrible father…and yet you somehow find it in both your hearts to forgive me.”

Neas playfully shrugged, grinning. “Yeah, you are a terrible father. But no father is perfect.”

Lauren chortled at his lighthearted jab.

He stood up and shared in a hug with her.

Gen warmly watched close by with Gizmo cooing in her arms.

The tender moment was snappishly disrupted by the sudden clanging of the cloister bell all around them.

“Danger,” Neas uttered. “From inside?”

“You guys better get out here!”

They heard Rigby, poking his furry head through the entranceway of the T.A.R.D.I.S.

Following in his instruction, Lauren and Neas hurried out back onto the ship deck. Gen joined them soon thereafter, leaving Gizmo behind in Neas’s T.A.R.D.I.S.

Willy and his spooked crew witnessed alongside the Time Lords and their companions the materialization of a fourth Type-Z T.A.R.D.I.S. right in the middle of the deck.

“Another one of us?” Ms. Mars probed to her successors.

“You could say that,” grumbled a despondent Neas, knowing exactly who was in this specific materializing T.A.R.D.I.S.

The instant that it solidified, a few of its passengers stepped out straightaway with guns drawn. “This is a stick-up,” one of them shouted.

“No, matey,” Willy argued. “This be an execution.”

All of his crew, himself included, drew their flintlocks and swords on the three interlopers, pressuring them to drop their guns in a state of panic.

“I take it these are the twentieth-century gangsters you warned us about?” Mars presumed.

Mandy confirmed this with a nod. “Oh, yeah.”

“Not exactly the bright bunch, are they?” Kimbyr observed.

“Oh, yeah,” Neas emphasized.

The last passenger of the T.A.R.D.I.S., a middle-aged woman whose scantily-clad attire came as a shocker to Mars, emerged from the Gallifreyan ship.

“Who in the universe is that?” Mars asked. “Don’t tell me she’s another one of us – not with all that goin’ on!”

Neas was too reserved to verify that Sanders was indeed another regeneration.

“WHERE IS SHE?!?!”

The fuming Benson briskly loomed on Sanders, pushing his way past Willy’s crew and the Fratellis.

“WHERE IS SHEL?!”

“Whoa, whoa! Relax, Benson!” Sanders exclaimed. “Shel is safe in another dimension. I dropped her off somewhere she can find a woman who’s gonna help us beat Dalek Vec.”

Hearing this confession from the Time Lady, Agatha scowled in her direction.

“You lied to us!” She snarled. “You’re dead meat, girlie! I’m gonna kill ya, if we make it out of this alive!”

“If any of us make it out,” a terrified Mordecai gulped, pointing skyward. “Look!”

Everyone on the deck tracked his gaze to the massive flying saucer of a spaceship that descended from the clouds and hovered directly over the Inferno. Its colossal, rotating presence disrupted the waves, causing the pirate ship to lurch profoundly.

“YOU WILL SURRENDER!” The booming voice of a Dalek ordered through the saucer’s loudspeakers. “WE CLAIM THE TIME LORDS, THEIR COMPANIONS, AND YOUR CREW IN THE NAME OF THE DALEK EMPIRE!”