#arc plot

Big Bang Two, the 2020 patch update.  

The scar, the tear in time and space spewing from the outskirts of Gallifrey, had brought chaos. Reality began to haemorrhage and a Time War bled through the cracks. The Doctors were called to action. After the incursion of the Cyber PA, the Lord President’s plan was made known. There had been too much lost in this universe and now, with impending collapse, the risk was no longer too great. It was time to fix it all.

Two Doctors and the last Dalek entered the Pandorica. Connected to the TARDIS, their flight into Sol spread the ‘patch’ to every fissure. They were luckier even than their counterpart, for the power of belief in them was strong. Friends, family, and enemies alike whispered their names, ensuring their return.

Fresh and brand new, and exactly as old as it had been, a familiar blue and green planet orbited Sol. Gallifrey was gone but still thriving, somewhere out there. The once Lord President (and briefly Imperator) had no intention of going back to his job. He and his husband deserved a holiday. Of course, they found Gallifrey soon enough. The TARDIS connected them, reuniting them with their loved ones. Stern negotiation allowed the Doctors to remove the clamps from their ship and gave them leave to be the wanderers they were meant to be. Using their hybrid TARDIS’s gateway technology, they explored pastures new.

And so a more casual chapter began for X and XI, and it was going to be marvellous.

Somewhere deep in the unknown black, there was a croaked whisper.

The likelihood of X perceiving this as a trap was extremely high. She had done little to dissuade him of the fact, allowing herself to be tracked so easily. However she had done him the courtesy of waiting in neutral territory: a closed outdoor café on a rooftop; a summer midnight of a European-like country on a far-off world.

Months had gone by where Missy had enjoyed the most power she had ever experienced, the combined capabilities of Rassilon’s Gauntlet and the cluster of malevolent voices that made up the Dark Matrix. They gave her an invincibility; a freedom she had long sought. She had it all, and it was so empty. Her mind had been feeling like an hourglass with the sands of her control slowly trickling away. The less resolute she was in her thoughts, the stronger the will of the Dark Matrix became. They were angry with her, hateful that she had stolen them from the mind of the Doctor, that she laughed at their desires and ignored them so readily.

Despite all her games and schemes something underneath had been broken since regeneration. Even before the last. Ironic, really, that the Time War had done something to the Doctor and her both. It almost stopped her from blaming him for what he had done to her family. Maybe it had. Hadn’t she caused the deaths of so many of his favourite little homo sapiens? She had killed him at least twice. Even after the things he had done she wanted the dance back, and he wasn’t using the same steps. Was he even dancing with her anymore at all?

Can’t you just try to stop me like you used to? Fight me, give me an excuse to rain hell upon you for the giggles. Anything but whatever this is.

The latest change had come after further visits off-dimension. He had been so fond of checking in on other Doctors, so why shouldn’t she indulge in a similar courtesy? Missy had found other versions of herself, a series of near-identical realms and followed them to their end. Each and every one had the same result. She had not stopped thinking about it since.

When her invitee arrived on the rooftop, Missy did not turn. Her hands, one gauntleted and one bare, rested on the railing overlooking the town. Behind her there was a lit tealight in the centre of the nearest table.

“Do you ever think about the mistake he made? What it meant for the both of us down the line?” 

Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay;

The worst is death, and death will have his day.

Boss Level Unlocked: Cyber PA Theta & Cyber Planner XI

HALLOWEEN ARC PLOT STARTER CALL

He crouched at her bedside, his grinning face level with hers when she woke.

“My, my, my, I have some truly debauched memories flitting about in this brain concerning you. We should see each other more often.”

Although the Planner did not quite yet want to reveal what he was, if she knew or not, it was tempting to announce it. He was fascinated at not having met this woman before on his previous possessions of this Doctor.

“I mean you’re not as pretty as other Claras around, but you provide a service.”

Oh, but this was wonderful! Just the thing to get out so much unexpended rage. All that biding time, the cybernetic obeying the whims of the supernatural just so it could survive. At least the death of the kitsune goddess had left the Cyberiad plenty of followers to convert into an army. There would have been more if her planet hadn’t been wiped by this Doctor’s copy. Shame the Planner couldn’t have harnessed the power of that spiralling monster.

Now at least he had found somewhere to play strategy. Cybermen were amassed from as many worlds in quick succession as possible before the Planner and his minions made the strike upon the Dalek ship. Having extracted some of XI’s adept skills in robotics, the Cyber fleet tackled the Dalek escort ships with a combination of drones and bombs. The drones latched onto the Dalek fighters, metal insects burrowing inside and killing the squishy pilots. This cleared a path to the prison ship itself.

XI strode down the wide walkways, Dalek rays vaporising uselessly against the effects of the Sash of Rassilon hidden beneath his clothes. Cybermen flanked him in short bursts of super-speed, blasting Daleks outside of his path. The cries of ‘EXTERMINATE!’ grew fewer and more often came the gargled shrieks of ‘ALERT! ALERT! THE CY-BERMEN HAVE A TIME LORD! THEY HAVE A TIME LORD! EMER-GENCY!’

The Planner stalked up to a panicked, one-wheeled Dalek who was spinning on the spot, cybermites swarming around it like dancing metal leaves. XI yanked off the Dalek’s head casing and grinned at the quivering creature inside, clamping his hand on the rim to stop it moving.

“Not just any Time Lord, my inferior friend. We brought him all the way across dimensions to say hello. Such a bad, bad doggy who blew you all up. He’s the Scourge of Skaro, turned it into atoms. Oh, don’t worry. We won’t be upgrading you. You lot don’t have the vision. Your hate is blinding and boring. We will be taking a few prisoners however. You’re not the lucky one though, old chum. Take it away, kiddos.”

The cybermites flooded up the sides of the exposed Dalek and poured inside. Apparently enjoying the screams, the Planner set the headpiece back onto the Dalek, booted it away and carried on.

Decisions were made on what few specimens the Daleks had been studying. They were assimilated or disposed of, but one particularly interesting morsel had been left for him to see to personally.

There in this cramped Dalek cell was a Time Lady, quite beautiful by the signals his host was failing to conceal.

“Sorry to disturb,” he said, not sorry at all. “This ship is under new management. Please don’t try to do anything but surrender. I want to know everything about you.”

The sound of River’s shower masked the fracas in the living room. It was over quickly, the element of surprise on the side of the invaders who had just enough information to gain access and stay beneath the Chancellery radar. The Guard were easily distracted with machines out on the wastes, more concerned with the whereabouts of the Lord President than thinning resources watching his friends too closely. The technology would be noticed soon, but there was enough time to cause a few upsets.

When River emerged, having entrusted the care of her very young baby to its father, even if only for a few minutes alone, she found the room almost exactly as she had left it. Except the sofa had been upended and in the middle of the room there was a Cyberman. It stood completely still, holding Aiden in its metal arms. Notchy was nowhere to be seen.

Aiden was too young to be as upset as he should have been, but he began making unsettled cries. The Cyberman simply remained rigid, staring at the baby’s mother. Or was it staring through?

‘Dear Scott,

Finally we’ve got a break! We’re booked in at the Tjlish-Ahdal hotel, time and space coordinates attached. Would love to see you there.

XI’

While he waited to see if the Doctors’ friend would appear, the Planner walked out onto the room’s balcony. He surveyed the complex below, mapping a balance between disinterest and appeal. How trivial all these squealing creatures were, splashing in pools of purplish liquid, hurling themselves along flumes that spun and wobbled or jetted euphoric mists in their faces. His Cyber qualities told him their enjoyment was purposeless, inefficient in its necessity, how wasteful this space was for potential resources. And yet he had been designed, and indeed fashioned himself, to understand what the Cyberiad thought of as superfluous, and he recognised what the Cybermen had forgotten. Their original purpose had been to preserve humanity, but they had focused upon knowledge, legacy and purely outliving flesh. This Cyber Planner could exceed his primary purpose. There was beauty in art and music, wonder in pleasure, a preciousness in the fragility of flesh. What set him apart was that he still sought perfection and the stability of conquest, unification and assimilation. Better to convert all that opposed the regime and worry about restoring the definition of humanity once it was preserved.

So he found himself almost wanting to know what it was like going down a water slide. He could dig the experience easily out of the Doctor’s memories; XI wasn’t going to waste energy keeping that from him, but it was not the same as feeling the rush in person, even if he told this body to react accordingly. A thought amused him that perhaps the other Cyber Planner was doing just that. They were experimenting with blocking each other’s communications in order to experience sharing after the fact, though more power was afforded to the part of him inhabiting Theta and it was entirely possible the younger host was keeping tabs on his activities. After all, the Cyberiad did not want to lose its most important captive.

He wandered back into the suite, arching an implant-lined eyebrow at a group of cybermites who appeared to be watching a subtitled British Bake Off.  The Planner flopped back on the bed while he waited, not bothering to glance at the room’s wardrobe. Inside was a fully upgraded and inactive Cyberman, what remained of the unfortunate person who had paid for the suite.