The Last Great Time War: part II

Ashes of Terminus

The Warrior's TARDIS swam through the rippling temporal streams of the time vortex, dodging the ever present and ever more numerous rapids, whirlpools, and other potentially deadly obstacles. They were particularly thick in this part of the vortex, and the TARDIS often had to duck through narrow holes in the ruined stream of history. Preda's fleet followed, weapons bared. But was there any need?

"No sign of any Daleks," the Warrior said.
They were investigating a distress call from Terminus, the most remote Time Lord colony. Not in physical spatial distance, perhaps, but farthest away from the temporal strength and reach of Gallifrey and the other colonies.

As if on cue, a small fleet of Dalek saucers and DARDISes whizzed by, taking a few pot shots but not causing any casualties. Almost as soon as they had appeared, they were gone.

"Should we chase after them," Preda asked over the communicator.

"No," the Warrior replied. "I'm much more interested in what they're running from."
He pulled a lever backward and turned a crank, trying to shift the TARDIS out of the time-streams and onto the surface of Terminus. As the time vortex started to fade away from the de-opaqued walls and ceiling, the TARDIS screeched and shook as if it were skidding. The view outside was a confusing blur of spinning, shifting landscapes intermixed with the swirling energy of the vortex. The TARDIS was indeed skidding in and out of real space.

At last it ground to a halt. Outside, the air was full of mist. The TARDIS sat inside of a small crater lined with glass. The Warrior did not like what he saw outside.

"Preda," he said in a low voice, "land your TARDIS inside mine."
He then ordered the rest of the fleet to stand by in orbit.

"That's really risky," she replied.

"I know, but not nearly as risky as landing out there."

Several minutes later, Preda walked into the console room, soaking wet.

"Why in the cosmos is there a swimming pool in the hangar?!"

"It wasn't there last time I checked," the Warrior said.

"When was that?"

He thought for a moment.
"Just a little after I last regenerated," he admitted. "But it certainly wasn't there last time." He patted the TARDIS console. "Why'd you do that, old girl," he asked, then jerked his hand back as the TARDIS gave him an electric shock.

"She's unhappy right now, and I can see why," the Warrior said as he looked outside.

The planet's timestream was a mess. The TARDIS had landed in a forest. Many of the trees were only ancient fossilized stumps, while others were only saplings. Still others were somewhere in between. A few had a mix of parts that were petrified and living and green.
In the distance, half of an old eroded mountain had reverted back to a young erupting volcano. A lava flow carried fragments of the first meteors that clumped together when the planet was first forming billions of years ago.

From the slopes of the mountain, a river flowed through an old bed that was dry for millennia. In it swam a species of fish that would not evolve for another ten million years. Numerous half living, half fossilized fish were washed up on the riverbank. Some were shifting from egg to fish to bone to dust and back to egg, trapped in an endless cycle of life and death. A bird wheeled overhead, then regressed back to an chick and crashed to the ground.

"Do we really have to go out there," Preda said, already knowing the answer.
"Yes," the Warrior said. "We have to find out what happened here. This happened much too quickly to be a simple wartime accident. Something has gone horribly wrong."

They both stepped out of the TARDIS and staggered, nearly collapsing to the ash-covered ground. To their time sensitive beings, the knotted, collapsing timestream was physically painful. All around them, time flowed at the wrong speeds in the wrong directions.
Just ahead, a group of raindrops hung in the air, frozen in a single moment. In the sky, the half molten, half forested moon circled the planet so quickly it was almost a blur.
Just a few light years away they could see the Thanatos Anomaly, a colossal battle wound in the fabric of reality. Exposed vortex streams twisted and churned in Gordian knots, while planets, systems, and galaxies formed, aged, dispersed, and re-formed while billions of years of time passed and rewound. The Anomaly was far closer than it was supposed to be.
With tremendous effort, they forced themselves to stand up straight and keep going.

"The Capitol is that way," Preda said, pointing to a rise on the horizon.
It was only a few hundred feet away, (without getting caught in spatial distortions) but it still took them over an hour to to reach it.

When they finally arrived, they expected the Capitol to be nothing but ashes, or turned to a maze of twisted physics so alien that they could shatter a human mind.
What they actually found was far more shocking. The Capitol was completely intact.