Infinite DC

The Slayer’s bridge was the only grandiose region of the Dalek flagship that did not seem deliberately threatening in design. A panoramic view of the cosmos contributed a flow of serenity – at least until it dawned on the spectator that he or she was surrounded by a fleet of Dalek battleships.

LeMarier felt that way every time she walked in.

Davros summoned her; undoubtedly, he caught wind of her conversation with Neas. Can never trust a Dalek to keep a secret, she cerebrally griped.

Only a few Daleks roamed the bridge, working at the controls as ship operators.

A couple others stood guard at the entrance.

And then there was Dalek Vec, maintaining his place at Davros’ side.

“What do you want now, Davros?” She imprudently asked, despite already having an idea of the answer.

“How much faith do you have in that savage creature you gifted to the Immortan?”

His query was something of a relief for her.

This was not about her clandestine conversation.

“The Yautja are known for their skill in hunting,” she said. “The one I ripped from his home planet is more than capable of eradicating the Gladiators and their friends. Joe was handsomely rewarded when I left that thing on his doorstep.”

Not another word was uttered between them after she rejoined.

“Can I go now?”

She was on her way out, without consent, before the two Daleks by the entrance barred her exit.

“What information did you distribute to the Gladiator’s male regeneration?”

And there it was – the real reason she was beckoned to the bridge.

“I’m leaving, Davros,” she coldly told him. “Going completely off-planet…off-dimension, if I’m lucky.”

“And what makes you believe I will let you?”

“Because I’ve given you what you wanted all along – all my dad’s juiciest secrets about trans-dimensional technology.”

“Not all. There’s still much more we desire to know.”

“Well, if that’s all you’re keeping me for, then you nabbed the wrong Time Lord,” she scoffed. “My father’s the one you should’ve kept alive.”

“Then that only leaves you out of the equation.”

At that declaration, every Dalek on the bridge faced LeMarier, each of their gunsticks trained on her.

She fearfully gulped, crossing her hands to reach her vortex manipulator.

It was her only chance in escaping; however, the trick was pressing the teleport button before Davros could say “Fire.”

“MASTER!” One Dalek operator, who was suddenly attentive to the ship’s beeping controls, screeched. “WE HAVE RECEIVED TRANSMISSION FROM THE PLANETARY SURFACE! THE IMMORTAN, HIS FOLLOWERS, AND THE DALEKS WE HAVE DISPATCHED TO HIS BASE HAVE BEEN DESTROYED!”

“What?!” Davros rotated his chariot away from facing LeMarier and to the Dalek operator. “How…?” He then calculated the possibility in his mind, riotously growling as soon as it registered in him. “The Tinkerer…his other regenerations have successfully recruited the remaining Gladiators!”

A static discharge reverberated throughout the bridge.

Davros detected its bluish hue when it bounced off the floor and ceiling, in conjunction with the crinkling noise it made. His chariot turned and faced the spot where LeMarier once stood, now unoccupied between the two Dalek guards.

“Initiate mass extermination,” he fumed, “over all of our enemies!!!”

Philip refused to let his foot off the gas pedal as he sped the War Rig across the Wasteland. He wanted to put as much distance as he could between them and whatever was left of Immortan Joe’s stronghold, which he figured was not much from the size of that explosion. They were pretty much home-free on the way back to the outpost, yet he remained cautious.

The engine was so monstrously loud that he hardly heard Min yelling for him to slow down.

That no longer was an issue once the engine finally blew out.

Smoke billowed through the crevices of the hood, indicating the extent of the damage. Neither the gas pedal nor the brake was responsive, leaving Philip with no other choice but to let the Rig stop for itself on the road.

“I told you to slow down,” Min griped, as everyone climbed out of the Rig, herself included. “Why didn’t you listen?!”

“I couldn’t hear you,” Philip ingenuously excused.

Min and Neas popped the hood.

They all scattered away from the giant, putrid vapor that puffed out.

Kimbyr hacked and coughed. “Yep. I’d say that thing’s dead alright.”

“No thanks to Philly Boy here,” Min reprimanded. “How did we get so irresponsible in our old age?!”

“Hey, just chill for a sec,” Nina told her. “No need to put all the blame on the little guy. We’re each one in the same. You would’ve made the same mistake.”

Lauren curiously looked on the three characters.

She knew Min to be a future regeneration of hers, but – from her exchange with Nina and Philip – it amused her to discover those two to be her other successors as well.

“Which regeneration are you?” She directly questioned to Gipson.

“Twelfth,” he verified.

“So you’re our last one,” Lauren construed. “You’re very young.”

Philip chuckled. “Not quite as much as you. I still remember being you.”

Lauren thoughtfully smiled. She then set her sights on Min, and her smile drooped. “And you,” she disdainfully addressed, “how can you speak about him being the irresponsible one? You were that much so when you abandoned our child!”

Min glared at her. “I take it you’ve watched the data orb. Well, let me enlighten you on something you won’t even know for another few regenerations: we have no other choice!”

“There’s always a choice, even when we’re left with nothing!” Lauren disputed.

Seeing the two Tinkerers aimlessly go back and forth with each other, Candace groaned; no matter the regeneration, her father was always the same. She looked away from the verbal conflict that Neas endeavored to settle between them and out towards the endless desert surrounding them. There was no telling how long they would be stuck out there in the boiling temperature.

She sighted the “Supergirl” by the name of Kara soaring like a jet across the clear blue sky, only to make a sudden descent to their location. Clearly, she saw the smoking War Rig stalled in the middle of the road and thought to provide assistance.

But, as Candace would soon find out, that was not her purpose.

She hit the ground with an expression of panic.

“We’ve got trouble,” she alerted.

“Oh, really?” Mars mocked. “We never would’ve guessed.”

“Some weird ships are headed our way,” Kara continued.

“What do they look like?” Barry asked her.

Kara fought to find the right description. “I dunno. They were Daleks. Only…bigger…and crazier…and flying.”

The last term clued Candace and her regenerations in. “Dalek fighter pods.”

“They still exist?” Alicia queried. “I hadn’t seen one since the Time War.”

“How many are there?” Margie quizzed Kara.

The Kryptonian shrugged. “At least a dozen.”

“Oh, god,” a perturbed Min murmured. “Alright. Kara, you do your best in holding them off, while we do what we can in getting the Rig’s engine back up and running.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

All eyes were on the Scotsman, who stood some distance away from the group, right near a looming ridge.

“Follow me,” he directed, prior to disappearing behind the ridge.

Neas doubtingly shook his head. “Has anyone yet figured out who this guy is?”

“Right ’bout now, I could care less, as long as he has something to hold against those fighters,” Candace professed. “C’mon. Let’s follow him.”

They did as she insisted, abandoning the War Rig on the lone stretch of road.

Reaching the peak of the ridge where the Scotsman stood ago, the gathered heroes were met with the daunting eyesore of an expansive desert landscape – endless dunes competing with each other to find out which was the biggest and steepest.

But it was what rested in the middle of it that immediately drew their attention.

A blue police box.

“I don’t believe it,” whispered Candace, who shared in the shock with her succeeding regenerations and those of her father.

“He’s been here this entire time?!” Lindsay exclaimed.

“He who?” A baffled Kara inquired.

“That’s the T.A.R.D.I.S.!” Barry elatedly ruminated on the blue box. “It exists! It actually exists! Oh, man! Cisco would be having a field day if he were here right now!”

Neas espied the Scotsman sprinting straight to the box and opening its doors.

“That Scottish guy,” he said. “He must be his companion.”

He led the group to the police box, following after the Scotsman.

Breezing through the opened doors, they emerged into the expanded space inside – this T.A.R.D.I.S.’s console room.

A stark, mechanical teal-aqua room that was much bigger than the one Candace and her other selves previously remembered when they last traveled with the Doctor. It had a console with more input devices and instrumentation. It was decorated with all the comforts of home: a reclining chair, bookshelves, and chalkboards. The ambient orange glow of the time rotor added an additional sense of warmth to the otherwise provisional, sophisticated area.

“Where is he?” Lauren asked, her aquamarine eyes skimming all around. “I mean, should we be expecting a curly-haired man with a silly scarf?”

The Scotsman tenderly laughed.

They saw him revolve around the hexagonal control console.

The skillful way in which he worked it made Candace rethink all the clues she mentally amassed: how he knew her name, his temperamental outlook on the Daleks, and his knowledge of the Doctor’s T.A.R.D.I.S.

There was only one feasible conclusion to it all.

“It’s you,” she respired to the Scotsman. “This whole time it’s been you.”

The Scotsman smirked back at her. “Now you’ve got it.”

Mars, Margie, Lindsay, Mandy, Gen, Neas, Sanders, Alicia, and Kimbyr – it sunk in with them purely a second after Candace.

Kimbyr blurted a four-letter expletive that scared the dickens out of Mars and Gen, who stood close next to her. Neas wanted to cry out in jubilation himself but refrained from it for the sake of vanity. Margie, Alicia, and Lindsay, on the other hand, were like three girls fawning over their favorite singer at a concert. Mandy and Sanders were thunderstruck.

Lauren, Min, Nina, and Philip were divided in conflicting reactions.

Dwonch was grinning ear-to-ear, standing and breathing the same air as the man she read about in U.N.I.T.’s archives.

“I’m sure you all have pressing questions – what regeneration I’m in, how long has it been since the Time War, et cetera, et cetera,” the Scotsman – the Doctor – said. “But we’ll have to catch up later. Right now, we need to get this old girl airborne, before those fighters get here first.”

“Airborne?!” Neas repeated in uncertainty. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to materialize out of this spot?”

“The dematerialization function is on the fritz,” the Doctor specified. “That’s what happens when you accidentally travel into a dimensional corridor instead of a time vortex, which this T.A.R.D.I.S. was not designed to do. So, we have no other choice but to manually pilot.”

“Which will be hard with those fighters on our butts,” Lindsay said.

“O ye of little faith,” the Doctor recited. “I have ten versions of my best pupil here with me, plus four of her dear ole dad. We can do this. Take your positions around the control console and follow my lead.”

“Kara,” Min attended to the Kryptonian. “You proceed on with the original plan and ward off as many of those fighters as you can while we take off.”

“Got it,” Kara obliged, moving out of the police box and ascending to the skies.

Shortly thereafter, the Doctor’s T.A.R.D.I.S. did as well, thanks to the cooperative effort of its crew and their foreman.

The dozen Dalek fighter pods – each one piloted by four Daleks – soon tailed the airborne T.A.R.D.I.S. across the wasteland. Kara weaved in and out between them, using a combination of super strength and heat vision to pop off the few pods she could before they returned fire with armed laser turrets.

She retreated back to the Doctor’s T.A.R.D.I.S., colliding with Barry on her way in. “Sorry, so sorry,” she iterated, lying atop of the Scarlet Speedster.

“It’s O.K.,” Barry moaned. “Just…stop kneeing on my groin, will ya?”

She graciously did as he requested, both of them returning to their feet.

“I got as many as I could,” Kara exhaustedly informed. “But there are still a bunch pursuing us. Doesn’t this thing come equipped with any weapons?” She noticed the Doctor shooting her a cold stare that was accentuated by his bushy eyebrows. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

“What if we used the rift rifles?” Neas proposed.

“We depleted their energy back in the arena,” Min said. “They still need at least an hour to recharge.”

“Here,” the Doctor reached under the control console, manifesting with a black-and-orange rifle of interplanetary design that he handed to Neas. “A gift from our late friend Jeremiah Williams – it’s called a Mulcher.”

Neas looked over the rifle whimsically. “You still keep weapons in your T.A.R.D.I.S., I see.”

“I’ve tried not to, but this is one time when I’m thankful of an old habit,” the Doctor admitted.

Neas positioned himself at the entranceway, steadying himself against the lurching environment while taking aim with the Mulcher. His right index finger yanked on the trigger and a strong protonic current was set off. It made a direct hit with one fighter pod, triggering a chain of events that began with the pod superheating and then exploding in a violent, swift manner. The repercussion of the explosion was penetrating enough to take out three other pods with it.

“Whoo-hoo! Only two left!” Neas boomed triumphantly.

“Don’t get cocky, kid!” Dwonch teased.

The pursuit transitioned from above the desert to a canyon.

Darting across a chasm, Neas sought tactical inspiration from the rock formations they zigzagged around. He unleashed another stream of electricity from the Mulcher, striking one of the formations. An avalanche of boulders toppled over the lingering two fighter pods, demolishing them.

“That’s it,” Neas happily confirmed to the others. “We’re in the clear!”

It was relieving news for the T.A.R.D.I.S. passengers.

Everyone, except for the Doctor, exchanged in a plethora of cheers, high-fives and applause.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we haven’t won yet,” the Doctor sourly stated, ending the brief minute of euphoria within his console room. “Davros has an entire invasion force waiting to rain down hell on us at any second. Of course, none of this would be happening, had it not been for these four.”

He crossly fingered to Lauren, Min, Nina, and Philip.

“Us?!” Nina blankly reacted. “What did we do?!”

“Oh, you know perfectly well what you did!” The Doctor admonished.

All the positivity enthused with the defeat of the Dalek fighter pods was eviscerated with this sudden outburst from the Doctor.

“Tell them,” he demanded of the Tinkerer’s incarnations. “Tell them the truth about Dalek Vec and how it was your trans-dimensional technology that brought that monstrosity to life!!”

The appalled eyes of Candace and her regenerations fixated on Lauren, Nina, Min, and Gipson. “What’s he talkin’ about, Pop?” She spoke to no specific version of her father but rather all four of them.

Min, Nina, and Philip shamefully kept their silence.

Lauren was the only honorable one to step forward and address the situation.

“I was the Daleks’ P.O.W., back in the Time War,” she sorrowfully confessed. “They took me off Earth, away from your mother and the farm, and forced me to comply with their demands of constructing a Dalek with the same interdimensional capabilities as the Type-Z.” Tears rolling down her cheeks, she concluded, “And that’s how Dalek Vec was born.”

Her dark revelation left the Gladiators severely disturbed – none more so than Candace herself.

“You have no idea how hard I fought the notion of leaving you with them for the nightmare you brought to life,” the Doctor seethed.

“They still have our wife on their flagship!” Min retorted.

“And how exactly does that transmit as ‘useful’ information?!” The Doctor scorned.

“You self-righteous madman!” Min malevolently hissed. “You may have regenerated God-only-knows so many times with so many faces, but your black hearts will always be the same!”

“There’s only one of you I can punch right now, and that’s him,” the Doctor gestured to Philip. “But I’d rather not, since he’s got a nice-enough face. Yours on the other hand…” He motioned back to Min. “…is tempting me!”

“ENOUGH!”

Their oral confrontation came to an abrupt conclusion at Neas’s eruption of frustration, everyone’s focus on him.

“Look, we’ve all done horrible things in that war – things none of us can ever forget. I know I speak for my other selves when I say, ‘Who gives a crap that Pop created Vec?’ Yeah, it sucks that he did, but what he knows can be of use against him. And we’re gonna need all the help we can get to survive this invasion force.”

Lauren was once again humbled by his forgiving words.

It was the third instance in their time together that he found it in his hearts to forgive her for past mistakes.

“I hear you, but now hear me,” the Doctor hardheartedly told Neas. “For the sake of this universe and infinite others, I hope you are right in your judgment of your father…or else we will suffer for it.”