Powers That Be 2

Prologue
Hello. I am God.

Oh, you needn’t be so surprised. I believe every one of you has imagined that I must exist. You’ve pondered over Me. You’ve argued over Me. You’ve even fought over Me. Surely you haven’t gone through all those religions and crusades, only to conclude I didn’t exist? That would be folly even by your small standards.

Allow me to enlighten you, denizens of this and every other universe: ‘’I am real.’’ I created you out of dust in the void. I watched you grow from brutish animals into fine civilizations. I protected you; guided you; even ‘’spoke’’ to you.

It’s been a long time since you put me in the Void. But I’m back now. I am your Creator and your Savior, and I have returned to wreak your salvation.. Finally you shall be dealt a reprieve from your wretched existence.

I will save you from yourselves. But unfortunately, I must first sentence you to Hell.

Good luck, my children.

Chapter 1: Gallifrey Stands
The city was ablaze.

The crimson sky was aglow, lit up by the million burning bodies piled in the streets. Buildings had toppled, letting out billows of smoke as they smoldered to dust.

A man walked past a pile of shattered crystal. The crystal had been a beauteous fountain once--one of the finest in Arcadia. But it had fallen like the rest of the city.

The man took a deep breath of the hazy air, clutching his pistol in a cold fury. Everything was so wrong. The bronze saucers in the sky. The black smoke filling the air. The sounds of screaming children mixed with shrill electronic voices.

Gnashing his teeth in his rage, the man began a determined stride through a desolate alleyway. The alley was dark, lit only by a few faint fires and the man himself. A few tendrils of regeneration energy wisped from his skin, casting the street in an golden glow.

Three times he’d died that night. Three times he’d stood against impossible odds, defending his home from the alien scourge. He liked to think he was extorting a heavy price for each life he lost. He had almost reached the end of the alley when his path was blocked. His teeth gritted in anger as he recognized the gliding shapes--dusty bronze domes, studded with thick spheres. Cold blue eyes shone through the smoke, focusing on the man in front of them with contempt and malevolence.

There were at least a dozen Daleks at the end of the alley, sealing off his escape route. Most were bronze foot soldiers, but a single officer with a shiny black casing glided forwards.

“IDENTIFY YOURSELF!” the Supreme Dalek commanded. Its voice was high and grating, with an air of pompousness that set the man’s teeth on edge. It made him want to pull the mutant out of its metal shell and slowly tear it apart. He’d done so before--the way they screamed was always satisfying.

“You don’t recognize me?” the man called through the smoke. His voice sounded strange--he’d never heard himself speak in this body, after all.

He took a step forward, glaring into the lead Dalek’s cold glowing eye. “After the number of you I’ve killed tonight, I’d have expected a little recognition.”

The Daleks scanned him for a moment before recoiling slightly.

“IDENTIFY CONFIRMED,” they shrieked in unison. “YOU WILL SUBMIT TO THE DALEKS OR BE EX-TERMINATED!”

“I can’t count the number of times you’ve tried that,” the man said softly.

“THE WAR CHIEF WILL SUBMIT!” the Daleks pressed, closing in around him.

The man sneered. “The War Chief,” he repeated. “You speak my name like you don’t know its meaning.”

“YIELD!” the creatures repeated in a rising crescendo. “YIELD TO THE DALEKS! YIELD! YIELD!”

“Not to such miserable creatures,” the War Chief spat. “Do you know how many of you I’ve pried from their casings? Do you know how many of you have died screaming at my hands?”

“‘’YIELD!’’”

“You think you know war, little mutants? I have seen more ‘’fire’’ and more ‘’blood’’ than any Dalek in its short miserable life. I am--”

His goading was successful. With a cry of “EXTERMINATE!”, the Daleks fired a barrage of bright beams into his chest.

Pain seared through his body, and he felt himself thrown against a crumbling marble wall. “Daleks,” he hissed furiously. “After all these centuries, you still haven’t learned…”

More beams converged on his body. He thrashed and convulsed, feeling the lethal rays digging into his bones. His mind was swimming, his body disintegrating--

And he shined. Deep wells of regeneration energy sprung from his hands and face, blasting into the air like fountains of liquid gold. His body blazed like paper lit by a match, burning away and reforming in a new image. He felt his mind twist and turn, remade into a triumphant new face.

“THE WAR CHIEF IS REGENERATING--” but the cry ended in a strangled scream. Year upon hellish year of practice had taught the War Chief how to make the most out of death. He angled the bolts of regenerative light towards the bronze casings, blasting the Daleks aside like dust before a hurricane. They shattered like eggs, blown backwards by the tremendous blast.

A Time Lord didn’t die. A Time Lord regenerated.

The War Chief took a few stumbling steps away from the wall, the last golden light streaming off his body. His regeneration had left the Daleks as broken chunks littered around the street--and the other end of the alley was similarly devastated. His head was still swimming, and he felt exhausted, but he was ‘’alive.’’ He walked over to a piece of bronze hull, staring at the wretched creature squirming in the dust.

A Dalek wasn’t the machine. A Dalek was the fleshy mutant that lived within. The fleshy mutant here lay whimpering in the street, its small breathing orifices choking in the smoke of battle. Several of its tentacles had been blown off, and its wounds were bubbling with green fluid.

The War Chief knelt beside it, pulled out a small knife, and stabbed it through the eye. It let out a shrill and immensely satisfying gurgle before expiring, and he moved on to the next shattered travel machine.

Some of the Daleks in the alleyway had been killed outright by his regeneration. There were only a few badly injured specimens clinging to life on the cold ground. He stabbed each one, killing them instantly.

Until he came to the squirming, whimpering Supreme Dalek.

“Hello, little mutant,” the War Chief whispered. “Your arrogance has been your downfall.”

The mutant swiped at him with a clawed tentacle, to no avail. The War Chief was too quick to be harmed by such a pitiful creature.

Most Daleks didn’t speak once they’d been de-shelled. This one, surprisingly, did. “The Time Lords… will be…” the creature wheezed slightly, its split eyeball oozing green blood. “Ex… term… in…”

The War Chief laughed. “Exterminated, little mutant? You’ve succeeded only in destroying yourselves.” He pulled out his knife and stabbed it into a remaining tentacle, causing the grey mutant to shake and shriek.

‘’Omega,’’ but this felt good. He slit deeper into the tentacle, slicing it off and moving on to the next one. Memories filled his head as he toyed with the dying mutant--he’d spent centuries fighting these twisted creatures. He’d died so many times, he only felt alive when he was spilling their vile blood.

He slowly began eviscerating the wretch, smirking in the faint firelight. The creature was at the verge of death--

“Magnus,” a high voice called out. “What are you doing?”

The War Chief lifted his head to the sound of the voice--which immediately turned out to be a mistake. The second his eyes left the creature, the dying Dalek lashed out with its last tentacle, striking his face with a clawed tip. His cheek flared in agony, causing him to cry out from the pain and collapse into the rubble.

“Exterminate,” the bloodied mutant gurgled happily. “Ex-term-in--”

The War Chief furiously stabbed his knife through the alien’s eye, killing it instantly. Meanwhile the speaker from before still stood in the smoke and fire, watching him with disapproving eyes.

“You just ruined my new face,” the War Chief spat angrily. “Don’t interrupt me while I’m in battle.”

His interrupter spoke in a cold, female voice. “Battle? I believe you mean ‘execution,’ Magnus. Butchering caseless Daleks is hardly befitting of a Time Lord general, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Don’t presume to judge my ways, Ushas,” he growled back. “You’ve spent the whole war cowering in that lab of yours. Don’t think yourself better than the ones who fight on the front lines.”

Ushas smiled haughtily. She was by far the most infuriating Time Lady the War Chief happened to know--standing tall with those imperious eyes of hers, she seemed to think herself a living divinity akin to Rassilon or Omega. She wore a uniform with the Seal of Rassilon stamped across her chest, like any other soldier on Gallifrey; but she’d personalized the uniform with all manner of pockets. Pockets which, no doubt, were larger on the inside and used to carry dozens of lethal monstrosities.

“While you’ve been fighting on the front lines,” she said coolly, “I’ve been gathering useful information. Care to see any of it?”

She held out what seemed to be a stack of neat papers, tinged slightly red to advertize their important nature.

The War Chief swiftly marched to her side, glaring from her to the burning city around them.

“Sweet Other, woman, don’t you see we’re in the middle of a battle? Now’s not the time for a bloody staff meeting--”

As if on cue, a flying Dalek drone careened from the sky and hurtled towards the two Time Lords.

“EXTERMINATE!” it cried furiously. ‘EXTERM--”

In mid-air it exploded, blowing to bits against the side of a glowing field suddenly surround Ushas and the War Chief. Ushas smiled.

“Personal energy fields,” she said in a matter-of-fact-voice, “were never officially developed with the energy required to destroy Dalek units. Too hazardous for widespread use. The council, of course, has never minded if I abscond with a prototype every now and then.”

“Thievery doesn’t suit you,” the War Chief snapped, grabbing the sheet of papers roughly from her hands.

“Perhaps not. But survival suits me quite well.” Ushas peered over his shoulder, pointing a bony finger at particular files. “You’ll want the latest reports from the city. Look under ‘architectural damage.’”

The War Chief frowned. The files were parched, primtive paper, a growing sign of Gallifrey’s economic difficulties.

"Blue box," he mumbled, flipping through the pages. "So he's still piloting that absurd thing, is he?"

He stopped at a crisp new photograph, one which depicted a crumbling wall with scorch marks in the shape of words.

NO MORE.

"I thought the old man regenerated out of his old melodrama," the War Chief remarked wryly. "I fail to see the importance of your coming to me amid the fall of the city just to tell me our dear old friend's resorted to petty vandalism."

Ushas smiled grimly. "He's stolen the Moment."

All traces of levity and disdain evaporated from the War Chief's face, leaving only stunned disbelief. "He... what? Your intelligence is wrong," he snapped furiously. "Even he isn't that mad."

The look in Ushas' eyes told him everything he needed to know. While armies of Daleks and hordes of travesties only made him laugh, at the news of this Magnus found himself leaning against a ruined wall as he processed the news.

"The High Council," he said finally. "They must have a plan."

"They certainly did," Ushas said with a sigh. "Unfortunately, the Doctor's already stopped it. He's thorough when he puts his mind to the task."

The Time Lady sat down beside him, for the first time showing true weariness of her own. Wrinkles rimmed her eyes, and there was a cold darkness in her expression. For all the War Chief sneered at her, the truth was that even her obscene laboratories weren't safe in a war of this scale.

The pair of them sat for a few minutes more, oblivious to the explosions and sounds of dying around them. None of it mattered any more. The Moment could be activated at any moment, and there'd be no stopping it. Gallifrey and Skaro alike would burn.

Somewhere far above a Dalek saucer was hit by a shell, exploding with the force of a hundred sonic booms. The blast shook the Gallifreyan atmosphere below, the air itself trembling and fracturing along the powerful force. A shockwave spread across the planet, knocking over trees and buildings and shattering windows from one side of the planet to the other. A surviving pane of crystal glass shattered not more than a dozen meters from where the two Time Lords sat, but the million fragments remained in the frame rather than spilling onto the ruined ground all around.

It was then that the War Chief saw the Pattern.

Without fully knowing why the War Chief stood, striding over to the window and inspecting it with care. His fingers ran trembling across the broken fault lines, and his hearts began pounding with a sudden feeling of importance.

"What are you doing now?" Ushas snapped, striding to his side once more. "Have you appointed yourself Gallifrey's final window inspector?"

"The glass," the War Chief murmured. "It can't be..."

It couldn't. Could it?

The Time Lady rolled her eyes.