The Warrior, Preda, and several Time Lord soldiers stepped out of their TARDISes and into a cavern more that a mile below the main city on Skaro. The Warrior's TARDIS vanished as the cloaking device activated, while the battle TARDISes disguised themselves as Daleks.
The cavern was about twenty feet high, and as wide as a football field. The ceiling was crisscrossed with pipes and wires from the city, illuminated by rows of tiny diodes. The only other sources of light were the flashlights of the gun scopes and the eyestalks of the disguised TARDISes.
On the walls were colored engravings made by the Kaled Soothsayers of Old who had looked into the Rift of Prophecy, Skaro's own Untempered Schism that had been destroyed during the war between the Kaleds and the Thals. They showed many things, but one series in particular caught the Warrior's attention.
The first engravings showed a lush, verdant world, covered in jungles, fields, and rivers.
Next, the beginnings of civilization. Villages growing into towns, towns growing into cities.
After that, the Thousand Year's War. Cities blooming into mushroom clouds, fields and forests burning, rivers and lakes boiling, jungles turned to stone and cities emptied by neutron strikes.
The next engravings showed the Daleks rising from the ruins, and boarding fleets of flying saucers launching out into the stars.
After that was a vivid picture of a globe surrounded by saucers, engulfed in a whirlwind of fire.
"What's that," Preda asked as she looked at the picture.
"It's the destruction of Skaro," the Warrior replied. "We're getting distracted from our mission. We didn't come here to look at an art gallery."
As he said this, though, he could not help but stare at an engraving of "the Oncoming Storm," the Kaled God of War. The picture showed all eight incarnations of the Doctor, and a much older version of the Warrior pressing a blood-red jewel on a stalk.
Up ahead were the lifeless, damaged hulks of about a hundred Daleks. They appeared to be failed experiments. One had an enlarged gunstick that had apparently burst open upon firing. Another had been cut open during a modification that was never finished. Several had cones instead of spheres embedded in them, and several more had been blasted apart. A few appeared to have nothing wrong with them at all, aside from being left down there for way too long. Some even had small stalactites hanging off of their dead eyestalks, gunsticks, and plungers.
They heard a creaking, groaning sound as they walked (or in the TARDISes case, glided) past. They looked and saw that one of the Dalek's eyestalks was glowing faintly and following them, with the bent gunstick twitching. The only-mostly-dead Dalek's one remaining headlamp lit up as it tried to speak, but only a metallic, rasping, grating noise came out. A horrible screeching noise was heard as the Dalek started to inch across the grimy rock.
"Don't touch it," the Warrior, Preda, and two Time Lord soldiers said as one curious soldier reached out his hand. It was too late. The soldier recoiled in pain after his hand had made contact with the Dalek.
"TTTTIIIIMMMEEE EEENNERGY ASSIMILATED-INITIATING CELLULAR RECONSTRUCTION!"
The Dalek sped forward and latched its manipulator arm on one of the TARDISes. The TARDIS changed form several times as the Dalek drained its energy. First a Time Lord soldier, then a boulder, then a large, plain, white box as it died. The Dalek repaired itself as it absorbed the energy. Missing sensor globes and headlamp regrew, the twisted gunstick straightened, and the limestone deposits melted off as the dull brown metal returned to bright bronze.
"EXTERMINATE," the repaired Dalek cried as it fried the foolish soldier who had touched it. The Warrior and several soldiers fired on it, but it was no use. By absorbing all the energy of a battle TARDIS, it had supercharged its shield.
Suddenly, the Dalek melted into a twisted, flaming blob as it was hit from behind. Another shot blasted it apart, throwing molten metal everywhere. The Warrior had to extinguish his burning jacket after a drop landed on it.
Unfortunately, once they saw what had fired the shots, everyone wished they could just have the Dalek back instead.
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The Last Great Time War: part II
FanfictionRealizing that he cannot run from the War any longer, the Doctor has rejected his name to become a warrior. He must take a stand and fight to save the universe from the conflict and horrors engulfing it. Fighting Daleks is now in his nature. But see...
