The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

Shades Of Armageddon

Waiting.... It was still not a concept the Doctor was as accustomed to as others might be. But how often would others find themselves sitting around with little to do while waiting for gods to drop in for a visit.

An overwhelming feeling of giddiness did little to help the time pass more quickly. Ever since the Doctor's first experience with the Disciples of the Light on a lonely planet drifting at the far edge of the Universe, finding some other sign of that mysterious race had become almost an obsession. It was not just about their technology, which could suspend an entire planet against the gravitational pull of a black hole with no discernable mechanism. Nor was it because such an advanced civilization had gone completely unnoticed by the Time Lords for nearly a billion years.

What most intrigued the Doctor about the Disciples of the Light was this: Back then, as he stood at the bottom of a bottomless pit on an impossible planet, he could not help but feel, for the first time in his life, that a power far greater than his own was defining his destiny. It was as if that pit had been waiting billions of years for him to find it.

And those vases, which he had shattered to plunge Krop Tor and its prisoner, the Beast, into the void of darkness, had also been waiting eons for him to come. Then there was the mysterious reappearance of the TARDIS which he was sure had been lost forever. Those experiences had, at the same time, left him feeling both tremendously important, as well as incredibly small and insignificant. But mostly, they just made him feel very unsettled.

Then there had been dreams and vision and cryptic messages on psychic paper—all of which reminded him that everything he had believed about the universe was wrong. All of this had led him to this point. The Disciples of Light had brought him here. Soon, they would come, and all his questions would be answered.

Then where are they? The Doctor thought to himself.

The Doctor had begun beaming transmissions into the rift the moment the TARDIS had arrived at the Medusa Cascade over an hour ago. It was the same message he had sent the last time, and he was certain it should have been answered by now. Soon, his giddiness began to dissolve into frustration.

"Where are you?" the Doctor shouted into the air. "You told me to come back here when the trap was set. Then you told me the trap was set. It's right here!" he yelled as he held up the black billfold and shook it in the air.

The Doctor flipped open the billfold glanced down at the psychic paper in his hand. It was blank now, as if that last message had never been written there at all.

"For the last two years you have been haunting my thoughts," he shouted again, "making me feel as though everything I had ever believed was a lie."

The Doctor listened quietly for a few seconds but nothing came.

"Then you gave me dreams and visions. You spoke to me and told me I had been chosen to do your dirty work. I did everything you asked me to do! What more do you want from me?"

To the Doctor, the long silence that followed was his answer. No one was coming.

So, was that it, he thought? After all they had gone through to capture the Beast, was there really ever a plan to imprison it?

He thought about all those who had fought so hard back at Hogwarts—and how much they had sacrificed. If everything had gone according to plan, the Beast should by now have been wrapped-up in a box, neatly packed and ready for delivery. Only now it seemed the buyer had cancelled the order. What would he say to them? How could he tell them that their suffering had been for nothing?

Frustration turned into anger. The Doctor really had no idea what he was going to do next. But one thing was certain: The Beast was his problem now, and he was going to have to find a way to finish it off for good. And this time, he was going to do it alone.