And then there was light.
And the Donald, Imran, and Alryssa who’d been at the beginning of Cyberspace stumbled into the Pro-Fun TARDIS’ bar.
“Well, that was fun…” Imran said happily.
Alryssa groaned. “And just what was the point of that?”
Alryssa nodded. “And where the hell did you come from?”
Donald looked up into the face of a twenty foot tall rabbit, and said something that would have shocked his mother.
Imran blinked. “Oh. I thought… never mind. Anyway… you’ll be happy to know that Cyberspace is safe, and Alryssa’s temporal rifts have been dealt with.”
He looked at the expressions on the Alryssas’ faces, and backpedaled. Quickly.
Compassion interceded. “It was the anti-headache pill. By taking it when she did, Alryssa generated a temporal rift at the beginning of Cyberspace… which linked to the network of temporal rifts here, releasing enough temporal energy to cancel out the Time Lords’ alteration of history, and throwing you to the present time…”
Alryssa stared at Compassion. “How did you know about the pill?”
It’s hard for a twenty-foot rabbit to shrug. Compassion managed it. “I looked in your timeline. It wasn’t as if you were keeping anything important in it, were you?”
The two Alryssas looked at each other. Then they started advancing on Compassion.
“How did you know it’d work?” Donald asked.
Imran shrugged. “I didn’t. I guessed.”
The Alryssas’ expressions promised unspeakable doom for Imran.
He ran for the exit.
“Would this be a good time to mention you guys helped create Cyberspace…?”
“Well, that’s that done,” the sixth Doctor said. “Now all we have to deal with are that ‘artifact’ and Failyard back on Gallifrey…”
Eloise resisted the urge to say, “That’s all?”, and instead asked, “What would’ve happened if Imran’s plan had gone wrong?”
When the eighth Doctor told her, she wished she’d gone with “That’s all?”.
“What about Alryssa?” Thomas asked in concern.
“She’ll be fine…” the eighth Doctor said absently.
Shouts and screams came from outside the Pro-Fun TARDIS.
“…Like he said…” the second Doctor added.
“There you are,” said Donald. “While the Alryssas are dealing with the Imrans, shall we deal with Fitz? It’s two to one in our favor.”
“If Fitz is what happened to you,” Donald said, “then most certainly… erm, that rabbit,” he added, whispering behind his wing, “you, um, you didn’t try to peddle any of that Hare Restorer, did you?”
“Don’t worry, in this case, we had nothing to do with it!”
“Well, that’s a relief!”
And they went off, stalking Fitz.
“What about the Blinovitch Limitation effect?” Eloise asked. “Shouldn’t we keep the different ‘selves’ apart?”
“Eris informs me that that effect has been cancelled until the end of this story and to, and I’m quoting: ‘GET THE HELL ON WITH IT!’”
Hearing the voice of a goddess bellowed through the mouth of a twenty foot bunny can certainly leave the ears ringing, especially when they’re sensitive troll ears.
“Found it!” announced the sixth Doctor, from the TSV. “We are now locked onto the Fallhard’s little plaything.”
“Right,” Eloise said, with as much authority as she could while standing in the shadow of rabbit 17 feet taller than she was (well, 15½ feet, if you included her birthday hat). “I’ll go get my zero room ready. I can lock it from the outside, and pipe in the sonic field. If you can send it there directly, it should be safely away without any of us having to come directly in contact with it.” She paused. “Do you think you can do that?”
“For the sake of moving this story forward,” the sixth Doctor said, eyeing Compassion warily, “yes.”
“Then, let’s do it, people!”
The eighth Doctor started emptying his pockets. Thomas looked at him enviously.
“Wish my pockets could do that,” he muttered.
The eighth Doctor looked at him, blue eyes twinkling.
“I’d have a look if I were you…”
Thomas frowned, puzzled, but obeyed. He began finding objects in his pockets that by all natural laws should not be in them. A solid grey cat, for instance.
“Meow!”
“Oh, hi, Josie. Sorry…”
Thomas set the kitty down. It looked at him in mild annoyance, then went to Alryssa and rubbed up against her legs. Thomas kept looking. A pair of ping-pong bats and a ball. An Anfield banner.
“Good grief. Anything really is possible here.”
“You said it,” responded Eloise, not without a sigh.
The eighth Doctor stared at the banner for a moment.
“That’s it!” he yelped, snatching the red, white and green flag from Thomas’s hands.
“Hey!” Thomas looked miffed. “I wanted that for the wall, too…”
“There,” the eighth Doctor pronounced after a few minutes of effort. “With the flag, we’ve managed to convert the TSV into a Time Scoop. Now, all we need is… Here, boy!”
He whistled. The Hand of Omega came over from where it had been sniffing at Josie’s tail.
The Doctor patted it. “Good boy… Now, if you could… Thank you.” He stuck the power cable in the Hand of Omega and switched it on.
“So where was the thingie?” the second Doctor asked.
“The whatchamacallit was in… I don’t believe this… the Chancellery canteen,” the fourth muttered. “Nice to know Gallifreyan security doesn’t change that much between then and now…”
“Activating Timescoop… now!” the eighth announced.
The whatsit disappeared from the TSV’s screen.
The sixth Doctor dusted his hands off. ”Good. With that nullification field in effect, our ‘alternate timelines’ should be fading out any time… now.”
Fitz stared at the ducks moving determinedly toward him, supporting a large custard pie between them. This was it. He was cornered. There was no escape. He shut his eyes and waited for the inevitable…
…nothing happened. He cautiously opened one eye, and saw that one of the ducks had disappeared, leaving the other staggering under the weight of the pie.
“Here,” he said. “Let me take that…”
“And then,” Compassion said, “we deal with the Valeyard. On his home turf.”
The Doctors stared at her.
She shrugged. “Eris’ decision. Something about ‘dramatic necessity’…”
The Doctors set off to round up all the party guests who had wandered off during the main action.