The Last Great Time War: part III

Prisoner of the Daleks, part II

The black Dalek in the center of the room fired two orbs of red energy at the Renegade and Flavia. The orbs hit before they could dodge and imprisoned them in separate force field bubbles.

"THE PRISONERS WILL BE BROUGHT BEFORE THE EMPEROR," said the black Dalek, its voice muffled by the force fields. "HE WILL DETERMINE THEIR FATES."

"WE OBEY," replied four Daleks. Two on each side of the Renegade and Flavia picked up the bubbles by their manipulator arms and took them out of the room.

They were taken through miles of bronze corridors, past several security checkpoints and hundreds if not thousands of Daleks.
The bubbles were opaque enough that the Renegade and Flavia could not see each other. Their communicators did not work, and none of the weapons or tools that they could try within the close confines of the force fields without maiming or killing themselves could free them. They tried shouting, but the orbs were sound-proof from within. Nothing to do but sit and wait.

At last they arrived in the control/throne room at the center of the ship. The force fields around the Renegade and Flavia dropped as invisible holding cells rose up around them.

"WE ARE MEETING FOR THE LAST TIME, DOCTOR," said the Dalek Emperor. "THE TIME OF GALLIFREY AND YOUR MERCENARY ALLIANCE IS OVER. THE THIRD WAR IN HEAVEN DRAWS TO A CLOSE. THE DAWN OF THE DALEKS IS BREAKING. THE LIGHT WILL CLEANSE THE UNIVERSES OF ALL INFERIOR FORMS."

"That's not gonna happen," said Flavia. "Our 'mercenary' alliance it going to rid the universes of the most inferior species there is, namely, you."

"I've seen you come up with a million plots to conquer time and space and purge the cosmos of so-called inferior forms," said the Renegade. "How will this be any different?"

"BECAUSE WE HAVE YOUR MIND."

"You're going to try to extract it again?"

"NO. EXTRACTION WAS PREFERABLE, BUT UNECCESARY. WE WILL EXECUTE THE PLAN WITH YOUR BRAIN STILL IN YOUR BODY."

"What plan?"

"YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THIS PLAN IS NOT REQUIRED."

"What harm could there be in telling us if we can't escape?"

"WE KNOW YOUR WAYS TOO WELL, DOCTOR. THEY WILL NOT SAVE YOU THIS TIME. SPECIAL UNIT -8/66, COMMENCE WITH THE OPERATION."

Four black Daleks appeared. These were not like other black Daleks. They were a much deeper, truer, shade of black. So dark that all that could be seen of them was their silhouettes.

"GOODBYE, DOCTOR," said the Dalek Emperor as the light-absorbing Daleks shot the Renegade and Flavia with beams of darkness.

The Renegade felt the unmistakable sensation of being forced through the walls of reality into a different universe. Once the dizziness and spots in his vision cleared, he saw that he, Flavia, and the Daleks were in a vast, gloomy, cavernous room lined with machinery operated by hundreds of Daleks of the same type as the ones that brought them in. All of this machinery was wired into a circular raised platform at the center of the room. On top of the platform was a black crystal two or three meters high, roughly identical to the one underneath the panopticon on Gallifrey.

This was the place that all of the Dalek's enemies had been searching for since the beginning of the War, the place that had been besieged many times in many timelines but never captured. Inside the crystal just a few feet ahead of them was the Eye of Discord.

The Renegade and Flavia were marched forward until they were up against the crystal. Their arms were bound behind their backs with bands of cold forcefield. They were flanked on all sides. There was no escape.

Two of the black Daleks pressed their plungers against the sides of the crystal. The ones behind the Renegade and Flavia forced them to touch the crystal. As their skin made contact, an alien presence did a partial scan of them.

"THE FEMALE IS USELESS," said one of the Daleks touching the crystal.

"Wait, no I'm not," said Flavia. "You still need me, I-"

The Renegade watched, immobile, as the Dalek shot her with a beam of darkness and turned her into nothing.

"PROCEED WITH THE OPERATION."

The Dalek behind the Renegade pushed him closer. Then, the crystal opened.

It was like looking into the core of the brightest star in the universe, except the Renegade was not blinded or burned up. It was a different kind of light, one that must be seen to be understood. He could see the singularity, and see how the time vortex itself bent and swirled around the spatio-temporal anomaly caused by the immense gravity of said singularity. The weight of all that matter and all that history in one infinitesimal point, combined with the vortex swirling around it to create immense power over time and space, not only fueling the Dalek's engines of war but forming the central point of the Dalek's Web of Time. The Renegade could see all of the fixed and semi-fixed points in time connected to it that turned the stream of history in the Dalek's favor. He could see the zones of conflict with the Time Lord's Web of Time, where the Eye of Harmony was asserting mutually exclusive fixed and semi-fixed points, throwing the stream of history into rapids and whirlpools and tearing dimensional walls to shreds.

And, as the Renegade looked into the Eye of Discord, the Eye of Discord looked back. It was sentient! It had a mind of its own, totally alien to virtually all life and experience in the physical universes.
He could feel it pulling him in. The normal world, the world outside the crystal, was almost forgotten. The Renegade could no longer feel his own body, and could barely remember his own mind. All he could experience was this strange meta-world, the Eye of Discord pulling him into its depths to consume and assimilate his mind and knowledge. It was about to devour its master's greatest enemy, and know all of his secrets. With this, the Daleks would have far fewer obstacles on their path to total victory.