Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ DOCTOR WHO: NEO KOSMOS (New World) ❯ CREATURES OF THE DARK ( Chapter 1 )

Episode1

CREATURES OF THE DARK

Carrying on from last season, The Doctor is stuck in limbo, with his ultimate foe. And surrounding him is the creatures of the dark. The Lonely Assassins. But things aren't as they seem. A greater danger is looming, that could be the end of all. As the group desperately tries to find the Doctor, he must face the burden of more revelations to come.

Scene 1:

Doctor[OC]: (starting of in a far-off echo) Limbo. But Black. Not the white jolly kind you think you go to when you die. Nothingness prevails. All the things that keep you alive – gone! That feeling that makes you trust your existence. Tells you you are alive. Even in the deepest trances of your sleep. The little light at the corner of your eyes, through the walls of mist in your eyes and haziness and everything uncertain, breaking through the walls of your dream. Telling you. Assuring you that there's a world out there and it's all safe. It's safe to wake up. That light at the end of everything, even in blackest of pitches - Gone! The sound of your voice even to your own ears that makes you put an effort. That makes you want to distill out other screeches and noises. Tells you there is something out there. The sounds you have learned to live with your whole life. The gradual thumps of the heart. The flow of fluid and synapses through any direction. The churning of chemicals within you. The crackling of bones and the momentum you produce, sounding off against everything you touch. The humming at the back of your brain. Things you hear when you close your ears to the outside and listen keenly. Very keenly. Sounds you have learned to live with everyday and still not notice - also Gone! No wind. No heat. Nothing that creates a rustle on the ends of your skin.

All empty. No clicking of clocks and turning of gears. You do not know how fast or slow time is passing you by. You do not if it is day or night. You do not know if it has been weeks or days. There has been nothing to estimate! No sun, no moon. There is a strain in your eyes. Like a sharp sensation when you haven't slept in days. Except it's not a mist of cloudiness covering your eyes. You are tired. But you are also awake. You want to be. No matter how strong you think you are. Strength does not matter when you cannot even tell if you are alone or not. It is pure horror! You think you just caught something move! Except you forget you cannot even see! You start imagining what 'light' itself is like; how it would feel. But you are afraid after this long, it would dazzle you so much that it may blind you. After a few days or so, you forget that your eyes are open or closed. What is the point anyways. There is no light. Nothing to see even if they were. 

Doctor: [Much closer now]..Nothing in sight. Not a sound. Nothing to tell even if you are alive. Nothing to t- Wait! Hold on. Scratch that. Nothing to see. But something to hear. A faint little sound. Far, far off. Getting closer. Closer, and closer, and closer. The sound I was talking about. The sound of an internal system you have learned to live with everyday[thumping grows louder]. A sound that makes you who you are. Tells you that you are alive. A sound you cannot hear unless you hold on to or press or lean against something. Unless of course, you are me![Thumping stops] The beat of two hearts!

Doctor[opens eyes]: So now that we know I am alive and your limbo is not having any effect on me, what in the name of Rassilon are we even doing here!?

[The Doctor is tied up in a cross, in what looks like an X resembling a Cyber-conversion machine, but very modernistic.]

Valeyard: Patience, Doctor. It's a brave new world. And we are just getting started!

Valeyard[OC]:..BWwaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha[Zoom out].

[Cue Title Theme]

Scene 2:

[Meanwhile, it has been quite a few days outside the Limbo. Over a speedy progression of scenes, we are shown how the investigation has progressed. While the New Shadow Proclamation has set up shop, two Judoon guard try to approach the site, but get zapped out of time, stuck in a temporal distortion bubble. They keep getting zapped in and out every few seconds. Later, the Master and the companions have entered the hot zone, wearing eye-gears that look like modified and metallic holo-simulation headsets. All they are seeing is thermal images, not actual sights. The Master sonics the Juddon back into existence. The temporal distortion has drained a whole lot from them and they are wheeled out in gurneys. Portable light posts and air-scanners have been set up. The Architect is seen amidst serious conversations with her troops. Later, sporting the same eye-gear, the Master has picked up the Winkle's Wonderland Magic Mesmerizer Card.]

Master: It's an Angel.

Layla: What's an Angel?

Master: The thing that took him. Looks like the statue of an Angel.

Daniel: But how would a statue take him?

Master: With finesse and precision, of course. They are not really statues. Quantum locked beings who can move only when you are not seeing them. As soon as you see them, even for a nanosecond, their visage along with their whole metabolism and form gets stuck. In any subsequent pose. And not the playful pretense of being a statue stuck. Actual stuck. If you blink while seeing them, they take all the while needed during a blink, the time shorter than even two heartbeats, to suck temporal energy out of you and send you back in time. They feed of what you people would call time energy.

Layla: Is that where he is? Is the Doctor stuck in past?

Master: Yes, but I do not know how far back. I have recalibrated these headsets to trace live thermal energy of things moving and alive in our own spatio-temporal plane. And as soon as the AI senses the contours of an Angelic periphery, it lights up where its' eyes should fall with bright UV spectrum. But I can tell this is no normal Angel. It is bound in something that looks like sapphire time crystals. The Valeyard upgraded it So I do not know how far or where he has gone to. Leave him alone for one minute or take away his purposes of defeating and foiling dear-old-me and he starts to muck up the order of the universe!

Layla: Why are you telling us this? All of this.

Master. Because, Miss Robbins, unlike that oaf there, you would actually understand.

Daniel: OI! I warn you-

Layla: Ssshhhh.

Master: And because, as painful as it is to admit to myself that I have to associate myself with the likes of you jolly primates, I do need your help. We are the only ones that can save the Doctor!

Scene 3:

[Limbo]

Doctor: Is this a 41st Century Cyber-conversion unit? What, do you want more of Cyber-Doctors now?

Valeyard: I already have all of you I would ever need. In here! And a few in the Cyber Leaders I keep. My little pets.

Doctor: What!?

Valeyard: Oh, yes! Those are, or were Doctors as well. Doctors who turned to Valeyards from parallel universes.

Doctor: If you have achieved your dream already, then why am I here?

Valeyard: Who said anything about my dreams right yet? And who said I even liked those versions!? Tssshkkkk..Doctor. You should know better by now.

Doctor: So who are they?

Valeyards: In yours, our universe. I am the amalgamation of all your evil from your supposed 12th to last version. In other universes, there have been earlier offshoots of the Valeyard. A series a like to call the Nexus event. There was a like-minded Valeyard like me, that exploded a multi-plane continuity bomb on various universes, starting the Valeyards early. I killed him anyways; too ambitious for his own good. But the nexus event did not fade away.

[Sits in a platform rising from the depths of the Limbo]

Doctor: Oh, goody! Here comes the long talks.

Valeyard: There have been other versions of me. One where I did touch the wires and killed all Daleks. The one where the trials took a toll on me, and Mel's murder by a Zygon sent me off edge. The one where I never saved Wilfred and was not assassinated. The one where Jenny had an incomplete Haploid recombinant production. She died without a regeneration. And then Donna was killed by the Vastha Nerada. His Nexus event was losing Donna and River on the same night, and not being able to save CAL and all the 4022 people in her memory banks. One where after Leela's death, The Lord President Romana went tyrannical and I had to kill her. Dynamic versions of me. But all too weak. The only thing that turned down my own Nexus ironically was me. After facing the Voord, all versions of us pondered over the thought why the 9th version was not called on to be a Time ghost like the rest of us, when his regeneration was after the start of the Last great Time War too. A version killed his friend. A version chose to stay with River and let go off saving the universe. My own version went berserk after Clara left. We all had faults. But upon seeing him in a café with Rose Tyler, we understood that there were no versions of him that were any less than fantastic, even on an average day. That self-righteous do-gooder prick. But truth be told, deep down I knew we were bound to be doomed someday. Even a version as good as the 9th, DID turn to the rest of us. All can be lost. Everything can be corrupted. And that is the one constant thought I lived with. Made my resolve even stronger day after day, until the day I became what I had to be, as it was meant to be.

Doctor: So you decided to give them a wardrobe change? Cause what's better than suiting up faulty versions the likes of you affected within a Nexus!? You lived in a bubble outside the universe. Apparently outside the record of time itself. 'Time' would have who-knows-what-effect on you. So it would neither serve to be prudent nor detrimental to touch other versions of yourselves now. No paradoxical anomalies caused. Why did you have to shut them off in an armor for?

Valeyard: Because they had my faces but the stench of failure. They lacked resolve and had a lot of guilt, unlike me. But their apparent thinking capacity and tactical vision should not have been wasted. So I used the basic principle of the Cyber-Masters, with a limitation of two regenerations. They have all the usual features, of course. Dart-tube in their dorsal tubing. The whole mouth can be refitted as a gun. Neural pathway and info stamps to communicate with each other. And the whole severed head had Cyber-pollen fragments, for the next Doctor I could kill.

Doctor: There is something intensely wrong with you. 

[Something whooshes past by behind the Doctor]

Doctor: What was that? You have guests?

Valeyard: Creatures of the Dark, Doctor.

Angels!

Scene 4:

[The Master, Layla, Xylok and Daniel desperately work their way towards a solution, to the find the Doctor.]

Scene 5:

[The Doctor is surprised at the sheer amount of Angels around him. The Valeyard throws a gravi-globe above and a little corner of the Limbo lights up. Up above the Doctor can see a hundred more Angels.., Sticking and crawling out of corners, like slabs of shadows. What is it they are crawling out of is anybody's guess. The Doctor is even more surprised that he can look straight at the Angels without serious timey-wimey repercussions.]

[The Valeyard tells him that this new bubble is a common ground, stuck between the nesting grounds of the Angels and his own Universe. Which he is sustaining brilliantly of course. The Doctor asks how did he even find the grounds of Angels, a creature as old as time itself. He dismisses the Doctor saying that the Angels were not as old as time. In a sense they were Time.

He immerses the tubes at the end of his gauntlet into the Doctor's forehead, very painfully. And initiates a first-person viewpoint mind-meld.]

Scene:

[Descriptive but indirect scenes of each species]

Valeyard [OC]: Like I have said, Time was an element always beyond anybody’s purview. Every civilization wanted to know more of it. Seek more knowledge about it. But everybody was weary of its reach too. Of what time meant for everybody. Dalek kind wanted to collect more Intel on it. So they started researching in void-compatible technology to study time, outside of time itself. So did the Mechanoids, but they failed miserably. The Cyber species was short-sighted and for them that only meant upgrading everything that existed to something or the other “Cyber”. They had no capacity of exercising a notion about what lies beyond of existence.

Doctor: [In-scene] And what of the Angels?

Valeyard [OC]: Guardian Space had their own misgivings about time. So, along with the help of others, a planetoid was created as far back as was possible. At the beginning of everything. Facing the singularity that created all of everything, but just moments later. The planet of Time. The passage of time, as you now know, was facilitated through there. And then Guardian space placed the Order of the Guardian Priests at Atropos, at the beginning of everything.

Doctor: What happened?

[Flashback video montage]

Valeyard [OC]: They were what was called the 'Sirens'. From the Order of the Guardian Priests of Time in the Temple of Atropos. Mouri who were too weak to carry on. They were then downgraded to become Sirens. While Time did not pass through them, they were still connected to the Time Vortex. They were Sirens who would warn you of dangers they could sense through the Time Vortex. With a voice so shrill and piercing, and yet multi-dimensional that you could hear a blanket of notes. Like a melody. One side of the blanket is a rhythm that carries on like a choir, sweet as music. Draws you near to listen. On the other hand is a succession of rapid waves that create a shrill, resonating tidal that could travel through universes to warn each other of danger. Together the sound created was so unique and undecipherable that you could recognize the sound of a Siren wherever you are.

Doctor: How come I have never heard of them before? I have heard many creatures, many a story and superstition named the Siren, but never one so close. Never so daftly smack-dabbing in the middle of enemy territory.

Valeyard: The second time around, when Swarm was out plotting his massive revenge and unleashing the Flux, he attacked the Mouri in the primary versions of the Temple of Atropos, in many universes. When a Mouri was damaged beyond repair, the toll of letting Time run though for Eons, burned them inside-out. Only a Time Mirage remained in a frame where they once stood, with all their memories. Like naturally occurring Matrix Memorials. The Sentient AI Nodes on the Planet of Time searched desperately for means of repair but to no avail. Swarm saw this burnt form of the priests in many versions, and it fascinated his twisted mind, out for blood. The Triangle of priests, the Mouri that remained, he tried to destroy with his swarm-touch, corrupting their constituent matter and sequencing inside-out. Some just degraded into thin air. Withered away into bits and ashes, yet still stood in place of the mirage. But the Sirens, who had lesser power, solidified in place instead, while still shouting for danger, tears rolling down their eyes. Even their last moments they spent in warning others of the peril. 

Doctor: You are telling me - ?

Valeyard: Yes, Doctor. I am. But there’s more.

Doctor: More of what? How can they be?

Valeyard [OC]: When the danger was averted, the temporal forms of the Mouri in the past, dating eons back, who were left anyways, decided to bury the solidified remains of the sisters, dubbing them beings of Angelic proportions, who chose to safeguard until their very last moments. The oldest of the surviving Mouri however, were skeptical of them. They were of the opinion that the Sirens, however Angelic, were a sham to what they stood for. Time did not pass through them. Only the notions of danger in time did. They were much weaker and hence should be disassociated and disavowed. As per their instructions, the Sirens were buried within a quantum lock frame and bound by Pilithium demond ferro chains, that barred them from becoming Time Mirages. So that the future knew they died different than the class of Mouri.

Doctor: But that is impossible. The Angels? Them?

Valeyard: It is true. Every bit of it.

Doctor: But it can’t be.

Valeyard: Why do you disregard that which is already proved? I thought of you better than that.

Doctor: Oh, you selfish imbecile. Don’t you get it?

Valeyard: Get what?

Doctor: I do believe you. Not that I don’t But I don’t want to.

Valeyard: Why?

Doctor: You were me once. You lived a make-believe life as a Doctor and got stuck in a limboid once. You have been stuck in loops before. You know how it feels. One does not always have to hope for good. But one does not necessarily hope for bad either, do they? It is the very natural disposition to hope for normal. But to kill even that hope! That makes it dangerous. What does one hope for when stuck as a stone for eons and a passage of the lifetimes of universes? What exactly remains to be classified as normal anymore? What is good and what is bad? Kill hope – that is the most dangerous sentiment I have thought of up until today. And I once thought I blew up my own people. It is a dangerous notion to live without hope. It is even more dangerous to kill hope.

Valeyard: So you do get it do you not? What made them who they are…

Doctor: Yes. I do. Sadly I do.

Valeyard: Depleted and out of touch from the Time Vortex for so very long. No wonder they do what they do.

Doctor: What happened next? How did you come to find them?

[The Valeyard goes on to explain when he chose to fire up the Spear of Genesis, he discovered what it meant to be out of the record and reach of Time. So he set up such similar Spears at a few more places. Firing them up over a period of 566 years however, disturbed the fabric of reality itself. It helped him connect and automatically free creatures that were kept similarly locked-up, buried, beyond the scope and record of time itself. It opened up gateways to creatures of the past, the Sirens. Out of time, tied up in spatio-temporal dampening chains, made of Pilithium demond ferro alloys. And turned to stone. The Valeyard was afraid to have found the Angels after all this years. To see where they actually came from. Gave a real sense of their powers. Their form instigated pure fright in him, even after all these years. He had faced the might of empires. But this, this he dared not face, Not until he knew more.]

[He build a bubble that stayed phasing in between his own chosen ground and the nesting of the Angels, once called the Sirens. Extremely cautious, and with immense measures and safeguards in place, the Valeyard had captured about a hundred Angels. He already knew the means to incapacitate them with their own images, which he did within a mirror-bubble. He then used Time bursts from sapphire time crystals, sticking them on to their own chains, to immobilize them with temporal overload and stop untimely activation.]

[The Doctor recovers from his pain and the load of the information.]

Doctor[efforts]: Over thousand of proper years of travel, and the universe is still full of surprises I did not know. Of peace and pain unimaginable, out of reach. Makes me understand my role of being a Doctor of war and peace. [Pauses] But why? Why do this? Why need the Angels at all? Even a version as demented and deranged as you would have some part of my brain. So why would you risk it all aligning with them? I get their part and struggle. But I also get how dangerous they are and have proven themselves over the years. So why?

Valeyard: Because I have had time and space on my side Doctor. With the Spear of Genesis, I have had the foreknowledge of things you could not perhaps even begin guessing by now. These Angels, the Lonely Assassins. [Over video flashbacks] The perfect hunters. Sirens of nature that can animate any other form of stone into the likes of an Angel, with their silent whispers that have gone more than ultrasonic over the years. And you do not even know the best thing about them. 

Doctor: What do you mean? Know what?

Valeyard: Quantum-locked throughout eternity, immobilized to the viewpoint of the universe. Creatures as rock-hard as stone. Until you turn your backs on them. Seen by only those they hunt and steal energy from. Artronic and variable radiation, direct Time Vortex energy and even the quantum resonation from the years of your life that could have been, misplaced through time. Do you know why they steal that energy?

Doctor: Tell me why?

Valeyard: Because they are trying to save time.

Scene 6:

[Meanwhile-

At the Master's Tardis]

Layla: What is this. What does it do?

[There is a giant machine, shaped like a gear but with fewer cogs and ends. Spans the whole of the Tardis floor, beside the console.]

Master: This, Miss Robbins, is a Time-event replicator.

Daniel: Replicating time. How does that get us to the Doctor?

Master[growls]: Ohh!..You! That's not what- The projectory tenon at the end of the cog-like beams, that form a joint enforces a swiveling motion, like cogs in a gear. But here they have been lined with the Heart of the Tardis with wires. I doubt you would understand it.

Layla: You are feeding Time Vortex energy into the swiveling motion, which at a certain speed, creates a time-event irregularity. A portal! A portal to the Doctor?

Master: Yes. Precisely. Except I have had to work a little bit more to get a correct read. Now. Get me the readings of the card.

[Layla stares sternly]

Master: Pretty please?

[The card has been kept on an open-ended panel, textured like the gel pads. A bright UV spectrum is focused on the Angel image.]

Layla: What do I do?

Master: The Tardis is reading the closest possible spatio-dispersal readings since we do not know where the Doctor was taken. It is said that getting touched by the same Angel can transport two very different beings to a very similar time. The exact spatio-dispersal point even! So the Tardis is mimicing a touch to see where the flow of Artron energy goes from within the card. It should appear on the pad itself

Layla: Huh?

Master: Co-ordinates. I am not saying please twice!

Layla: Oh. Uh- 25-25-24-19. 22-25-07 sorry. 22-25-17-07. 23-43-45-44. 20-22-22-22.

Daniel: What happens now? Even if its the same traced point where the Doctor was taken. The Spatio-point thingy. Doesn't mean he or the Valeyard would just stand in place for us to rescue them.

Master: Which is why you will need these. Temporal configuration and realignment bands. It is coded to your DNA. Do not bother to think it out, Miss Robbins. You do not need to know where I got your DNA. I have my purposes. These are joined to a 49th century multi-stellar satellite I once took over. You do not need to operate it. But do try to avoid electromagnetic surges. Think of it as a spacey GPS so that I can track you.

Layla: You took over a satelite?

Master: I took over five.

Layla: Track us from where?

Master: From wherever the Time-event replicator takes you.

Daniel: Oh, don’t be so daft at his evilness. He tells you he takes over something and did something bad and you just move on?

Layla: And that surprises you to know about him? No need or use faltering now. No need to rethink stuff or react to what we already know. We have a Doctor to save.

[At the pull of the wibbly lever, the machine switches on. Two clamps protrude out from the base of the machine and cuffs-in their legs. The whole machine starts vibrating along with the Tardis.]

Daniel: OHhhhhhhh.OOOHHHhh. This is not like travelling in the Time Vortex.

Layla: Ohhhh!

Xylok: Layla Robbins. Massive energy build-up detected. Be advised -

Layla: Wait what about you. You cannot leave us alone like this. We have no idea what to do once we reach wherever there is.

Master: Which is why I am sending you.

Daniel: Whaaatt? You dirty piece of sh-

Master: Once you are there, helpless and unprotected, the Valeyard or whatever other danger awaits you will sniff you out themselves. You stick out like a thumb-sore. Plus if he does get his hands on you, I do not reckon the Valeyard would just leave you be. He would jump at the chance of making the Doctor feel tormented by the use of you two. That is what I would do. Meanwhile I will be following when I get a good lock on you.

[The portal starts opening, and a fast spin of howling wind starts enveloping them]

Daniel: But why are you doing this. You don't need to do this. I thought we were getting on good terms.

Master: Because this is why I am around. To make the hard choices when he isn't here. I admit, we are on better terms. Not that I care much for you. But at least I am not yearning to end you right now. After being the Lumiat and being in the fields of Gamma has changed me. In bits and pieces. I talk and act like I never imagined I would. But never ever for once think that I would hesitate to end you if it means reaching the Doctor. Be it for something I gain out of it, or be it that I want to save him this once. He and I are of the same kind. A bond that goes beyond possible or perpetual content and your primitive desires of forced progenesis and mating. This is a bond that goes beyond relations. Beyond respect and will. Beyond intimacy and forms and genders. Something you would never know about, Not in the little lives that you have, [Wind takes up speed] And like it or not, I am evil. So making you the bait for the Valeyard is what comes next. 

Layla: No, but you ca-!

Daniel: Massstterrr!

[Zap. And whiteout.]

Scene 7:

[Layla and Daniel get sucked into the pitch black darkness that afflict their senses. No up, no down. No sense of smell. Very less light. There is a ringing in their inner ear, even though they could only slightly hear only themselves. Everything feels dizzy. The inability to see the ground they are standing on frightens them. And causes and induced panic and sensation of imbalance. Like a great big vertigo. Layla falls down to her knees. But even melting down to a posture feels painful. She can focus on nothing. And lowering down to the level which she thinks is the ground disrupts her senses even more. Daniel catches her, and signals her to breathe slowly. His voice reaches her but only slightly, like from a great distance, or from outside a vacuumed bubble. Daniel, however, can hear distinctive sound coming from a distance. He picks her up, keeps her joined and embraced at the elbow, countering her balance. He says they should cautiously approach the direction of sound he is hearing. After walking for a while, Daniel sees a flickering light up above, in a distance, shining briefly, a few times. He taps on Layla and signals her to make her aware of the gravity globe.]

[Meanwhile the Master has been contacted by the New Shadow Proclamation Agency.]

Architect: What is it you think you are doing?

Master: Wasting my time entertaining you?

Architect: I leave you unguarded for two seconds and it's typical Master behaviorism all over again. Why are you running away from saving the man who did not choose to run from you. Who did not give up hope, when in fact there was none to begin wit-

Master: I am saving the Doctor.

Architect: ..with. What!? Oh. But I thought. Where are the Doctor's companions?

Master: Send them ahead for recon or falling in to traps. They have temporally refitted configuration and realignment bands. And I have a lock.

Architect: But we do not have the forces capable of countering these..these Angels! Such creatures of the darkness.

Master: Don't worry. I do.

Scene 8:

[Back in the limbo]

[The Doctor is looking directly at the gravity globe from below. It is fading away, revealing a few Angels behind the slabs of shadows.

The Valeyard has his back turned on him and is working on something.]

Doctor: What is they are clinging on to? Are they coming out of another dimension?

Valeyard: Yes Doctor. I suppose you could say that. They are peeking out of the pockets of the dimension they live in, their own zone, and into my chosen ground. And everything you see around, is in the middle. Not like a void. But more like a limbo of passage.

Doctor: And where is it they are from?

Valeyard: Nobody knows for sure. Over the years there have been speculations. They were found buried, locked out of time itself. Turned and transformed into beings of stone. As old as the beginning of everything. From where my actions released them. The most prevailing notion is that they were locked out of the planet Time itself, and there is where they should be found. But I suppose they are travelers in the Time Vortex as much as you and me. Taking them away from the vortex and keeping them bound in spatio-temporal dampeners degraded them. They were already withered and solidified specimens once they were attacked by the Swarm, dying in their screams. But the lack of exposure to the vortex turned them to stone over years. Those that remained shouting were but the foot-patrols and reactive forces of the Angels. Those that had more will and power, kept their mouth shut, knowing fully well when they needed to open them. They had lost their cries as Sirens, but had gained new powers.

Doctor: Like what?

Valeyard: Their screams were ultrasonic, silent to mere ears, but it could reanimate anything to an Angel-like state. Like a saccule from which the extent and wonders of the Time Vortex passed on to something. Put life in things that have no business being alive. Like any normal statue that resembles them.

Doctor: On that, old enemy, I’ll agree with you.

Valeyard: And a class of cherubs, thousands of them, that they reanimated over the years. While they were strong enough to break most metals of the universe, channeling power through elsewhere in the Time Vortex, the Cherubs were faster. They did not have fangs or unbelievable strength. But they could reach you within the span of your heartbeat. And they had a deadly giggle, that have said to frighten off even the likes of battle-ready Sontarans. Or as they would like to call it, pushed them to the brink of strategic retreat while their comrades fell prey. It is said that the Cherubs are controlled by the more younger Sirens that were killed. In rare cases, a 'scream' of an Angel could also siphon off energy directly.

Scene:

[Layla and Daniel have found the Doctor, tied up in a distance. With somebody else pacing by. And approach them.]

Scene 9:

Doctor: Who else knew the truth about them.

Valeyard: Not many. I for one, because the Spear of Genesis enabled me to. And a few Time Lords of the Old. Like Rassilon. Not even Borusa or Omega.

Doctor: What? He did?

Valeyard: Oh, yes. He did. He had known about the punishment the Sirens were put through for years. Any fellow Time Lord that dared defy or oppose him, he would punish them by locking them in Time Prisons or paralysis fields, posed as an Angel, hand covering their faces, that bore a reflection of the monument of their shame, or so he would say. Like the Weeping Angels of the Old.

Doctor: But how could he?

Valeyard: Oh, ever since he went back to- Well! You do not need to know about that. The great Rassilon was one hag of a Time Lord, a disgrace to his kind. No less evil in proportions than I am or choose to be. Which is why I had my own punishment for him. In my universe, foregoing Wilfred and taking over the Daleks is not all I did. After passing a century or so, I brought him back from exile. I kept him locked up in a quantum field chamber, leading to a deep Quantum tunnel. Whenever he could gather up the strength to run and try to escape through the tunneling, an Angel, engineered by me, was placed at the front of the tunnel. Soon he would give up due to lack of strength, and would be zapped back painfully to the quantum field chamber itself. For whole years, he endured that. Without proper food and rejuvenation to his vitality. Without hope and happiness. Standing a monument to his shame. All alone.

Doctor: What did you do?

Valeyard: Nothing that I had not done before. He died. I lived. His regeneration were put to good use. Greater of two evils, I would suppose.

[In a distant approaching sound]

Daniel: Well suppose this!

[The companions had slowly crept up to him all this while. And Daniel rushes him with a hexoboric wrench from his own table. An elaborate struggle ensues while Layla tries to get the Doctor free. The Valeyard soon gets the upper hand on him, zapping out of place and reforming elsewhere every time Daniel approaches. Daniel gets hit and shoved down a few times, by a rapidly materializing Valeyard. The Doctor says not to waste his energy. The Valeyard was never fully here in the first place. Only a manifestation of his crooked mind. It's one of his old tricks that he is very fond of.]

[The bands start glowing and the trio make a run for it, explaining how they got here. But at each corner of the deep, dark Limbo, there are Angels standing Guard, like a minefield. The Angels seem chained up and in pain. But each time they all take a few steps, the Angel in front zaps them a few steps back. And there are quite a few more Angels along the path. The Doctor re-calibrates his movements carefully and tells the others to follow him in a single file, step after step. They make it almost to the edge of the field, when an Angel creeps out from below, a shadow slab on the supposed ground, or whatever passes for it, and grabs at Layla's ankle. She shrieks out in fear and tries to look back.]

Doctor: No, no! Layla, don't. Don't look back. None of you do.

Daniel[mutters]: But Doctor, it's got her!

Layla [mutters back]: Why are we muttering? Angels would hear us anyways.

Doctor: Do not look back! This is the guard Angel. You look into the eyes and it sends you back to starting point. Or maybe even within a cluster of Angels in the middle. No telling where such a large group in a place like this could send you next. Here, let me try something.

[He uses his sonic to create a holo-image of an Angel, covering the eyes, that phases through Layla's feet and hardens out behind her.]

Layla: Doctor!?

[The Angel has let go off her feet. It is now in a defensive stance; fangs out, eyes closed, hand still stretched out. The Doctor takes out the top and two other consecutive rings from his sonic and places it near the Angel, avoiding its face. The holo-image of the Angel holds in place.

The Doctor searches for spare parts in his pockets.]

Doctor: Ah, if only somebody was smart enough to kidnap me with my Tardis!

Daniel: Doctor, what just happened? What did you do?

Layla: You made a hologram?

Doctor: Secondary emitter channelized disc of the sonic. With hard-light focus and micro stabilizing fields. Handy in rare cases when facing an Angel. Whatever holds the image of an Angel in quantum-locked state also becomes an Angel. I took one captured within the Judoon prison fields years ago. This is a live picture of a real Angel. Now none of them would risk opening their eyes and petrifying each other. But-

Layla: But what?

Doctor: But now I feel naked. My sonic is disabled right now. And we need to run faster!

Scene 10:

[As they crossed the blackened fields as fast as they can, they hear screeching giggle behind. From the periphery of the Horizon, they can see Angels nearing them, much faster than the usual. The shadows are facilitating their movement easily.]

Daniel: What, do they use their wings to fly? How are they so freakishly fast?

Doctor: Now you ask for a lesson!? When I am running for my life?

Daniel[staggers]: Owwh!..Well?

Doctor: They do not run or fly. Not that they couldn't. The wings are for mimicking statues of Angels. I think.

[They overshoot a few Angels on the right and keep running.]

Daniel: Oh. [Panting]Then?

Layla: [Panting] Oh, you need a smack on your head to keep that nervous inquisition in check!

Doctor: Well. They just.....sort of appear. In time. I am not sure. Never been around one long enough to ask. They have a bad habit of sending you back in time more often than you would like.

Daniel: You don't know?

Doctor: Well I suppose we can stop and ask then?

Daniel: Or we keep running.....

Doctor: Or we keep running! Ow-OWwwhhhhh! Aahhhhh!

[Their stepping have halted dead on their tracks. There is a gauntlet deep immersed within the Doctor's guts, with electricity coming out from the end of the finger-tubes, causing much pain evidently. Then the rest of the arm and the body manifests into existence.]

Layla: Leave him!

Valeyard: You won't be going anywhere Doctor. No flying, or running, or disappearing in time for you.

[The group has been incapacitated with a handheld transmat, that keeps their state temporally fluctuated. Some Angels carry them away. They flicker in their captivity gurneys, until finally put up against the Cyber-conversion units.]

Daniel: How come his Angels are so obedient, and the rest try to heckle and manhandle us.

[The Valeyard has manifested in his true form behind his conversion unit.]

Valeyard: Because in here, I alone control them. And they have nowhere to send you back to, in this space.

Daniel: Woah! What's wrong with you, You spacey creepy-creeperson!

Valeyard: Shut up, oaf!

Daniel: Hey, I am the neutral party in all of this! I do not have the capacity to get the wibbly wobbly stuff, as he puts it. And I couldn't be bothered about the ways of the universe. The beauty of the universe presents itself to me in the smallest of details, and I take it in. But I understand this much, you are pure evil! So, what are you, the evil version of the Doctor?

Valeyard: You have no idea how little that narrows that down! There have been so many evil versions of him over the years. Clones, Dream Lords, thinkers and mimics under the guidance of the Cybermen.

Daniel: Yeah, well. It's not a good look on you mate! Makes you look a bit too murdery.

Doctor [efforts]: What do you want from us now? What purpose, in all practicality, can we serve up here? [Straightens up] Or is it more history lessons today?

Valeyard: A bit of both. Your usual utility. A bit of lessons to enlighten you of your purposes.

Daniel: And what if we don't?

Valeyard: Must you always ask that? Seriously, where do you get them from now? I liked Mel better the time we met at the trials. She had spunk and brevity in her doubts. Where do you all plan on running to? The next mile of desolate desperation and hunting ground? Even in their weakened and controlled state, the Angels can do this all day. Can you say the same for yourselves?

Layla: If you want to kill us get it over with. Do what you must.

Valeyard: Oh, I do not want to kill you. Like I said Doctor. There are things you do not know. But you might soon find out. And like it or not, I need you with me for this one.

Doctor: Why? And you told me the Sirens..The Angels. They were trying to save time. What's wrong with time? The last truth bomb you dropped on me is that Time is alive, and now it's in danger?

Valeyard: My plan was to tame you, overwhelm you. Like so many others. I did not count for the arrogant imbecile and excess regeneration inside. Bring you under my control in the Vale of Vails, and use your brain and brawn to solve this, permitting you limited capabilities of free-willed thinking with psychic suggestibility and interactions. After that I would have taken you on my side, or stole your regenerations. But late on both counts. Pray we aren't late enough to save time itself.

Doctor: Why?

Valeyard: Deep out there, in one of the universes, there are series of events happening that nobody thinks out of the ordinary. But the repeated use of Time Webs have revealed one thing, that one such event could very well be the cause of the end of all such universes and known worlds. That is why I chose to meet you like this. Meet different versions of you and find out your worth. Of all the time I could have chosen to approach or defeat you. That is why I chose to let you know about the Time Webs. Not just to push you into becoming me gradually, or atleast some version. But because for this once, the Time Webs have helped us. You needed to know the power of the Time Webs. How enormously out of line it is. How differently it operates from mere quantum resonations or mixing of predictability algorithms. You needed to know it to believe it. To believe that this time, there truly is a danger.

Doctor: Where?

Scene:

[- In one of the universes, a century late than the normal established chain of events. The year is 1856. In a church, in Salzburg. A baby keeps cooing and crying steadily, in his mother's arms. Wrapped in a sheet of blanket.]

High Priest: [BY THE GRACE OF THE SPITIRTS ABOVE, WHAT HAVE YOU NAMED THE CHILD?]

Sibling[Giggles]: [COO-KOO MONSTER!]

Anna Maria[Shushes the cooing baby]: [SHUT IT!]

High Priest: [IT IS QUITE ALL RIGHT. A CHILD AND HIS INNOCENT MUSINGS ARE WHAT THE HOUSE OF GOD IS FOR. SO..?]

[Anna Maria tugs at her husband]

Leopold:[HUH?..OH. LEOPOLD MOZART]

High Priest: [THE CHILD]

Leopold: [OH! SON TO JOHANN GEORG LEOPOLD MOZART. AND ANNA MARIA PERTL. JOHANNES CHRYSOSTOMUS WOLFGANGUS THEOPHILUS MOZART.]

High Priest[mutters in prayer]:[....GANGUS THEOPHILUS. MOZAART. MOZ-ART?

Leopold[confirms]: [MOZART].

[The kid Mozart looks above, with a long howl of cooing and crying, babbling in his own possible way. Very up, up above, and far, far away, The Time Vortex has turned red and blackish. And there are whirlwinds of irregularities blowing in, like a freak storm. Time is in danger!]