Links and love

"They call me the Doctor," the Fourth Doctor begins, "and this is Romana...."

There are several guards who try to come forward to try to arrest Romana for abandoning her post, grand theft TARDIS, and intervening in outside cultures when Dr. Who steps between her and the startled looking Time Lady.

"This is NOT the Romana of this universe," he says softly. "Bring in the scanners and actually examine her Signature.....you'll see that it's different from ours."

This would have lead to more arguments and maybe even something ugly until one security guard, afraid that his involvement with Borusa would be revealed (he should have moved sooner to put those scrolls in the Castellan's quarters as Borusa had ordered him), decided that if....just if the kidnapped Time Lord's existence was snuffed out due to a...."power failure" (since the Time Scoop was apparently drawing more and more power to keep the five Doctor's existence intact.....despite the building paradoxes.....)..... Well, then he'd be safe and nobody would know (according to a remote terminal link, his fellow conspirator had been swallowed up by a backlash and Rassilon only knows where he ended up).....

So a guard who, in another universe, killed Castellan for "drawing a weapon" and "attempted escape" in one universe severs the power feed to the fell machine. The Five Doctor moans as his eyes roll up into his head and he hits the floor...and begins to fade away.

"NO!" several people shout, diving for the Time Lords shout as they attempt to somehow hold back whatever is happening. Fortunately, the Champions out in the Death Zone as well as in the Capitol are those who are diving and catching the Doctors. The Doctor, sensing his brother's fading life force, attempts to do a noble thing and give him one of his own regeneration....only to find that there's a slight problem here. The other Champions touch the Doctors and a link forms....the Five Doctor being the link.

In the Death Zone....

Astra, finding that her audience had gone and collapsed on her before she could even begin, instead reaches out and catches the First Doctor while Fred is able to dive and prevent the Fifth Doctor from hitting the ground. They bend to examine them, only to shout in surprise as the Doctor's begin to fade. Instinctively, they reach out....and they find themselves elsewhere....mentally.

Susan, Turlough, and Tegan, find Astra and Fred glowing a soft warm glow as they are bent over the Doctors.....

Somewhere in between reality and unreality, several Doctors feel their very essence being pulled upwards towards a bright light....only to come to a jarring halt as the Dr. Who and several Champions somehow latch on and halt the analogs from fading to nothingness. The other Champions grab hold and grit their teeth as they also try to hold back whatever is happening.....to pull the Doctor analog back to reality....to life.

"This.....isn't working!" Dr. Who screams in agony as he continues to grapple with whatever has a hold of his charge.

Romana, who somehow reached the Fourth Doctor at the same time as the others and somehow got caught up in this event, points towards a glowing link that stretches out an immeasurable distance from where the fourth is and several other bodies.

"You're not holding one......you're holding five back!" she shouts, the matter at hand overcoming any awe of this wondrous place. "You're holding five!"

"What do we do!?" comes another shout from off to the left.

The other Champions look to the left and suddenly the Champions in the Death Zone are seeing the Champions in the Capital. Astra is holding onto the her Doctor while Fred is holding onto his. They both look to be having a hard time of it.

"I don't know how but their anchor to reality/time has been severed!" shouts Sigin in dragon form, flapping his wings frantically to add a bit more pull to this mad tug of war (his relative size is approximately the same as the other Champions.....since size has no meaning here). "I've never heard of something like this!"

"Chronomagery!" shouts E'ysha, suddenly having a word and concept pop into her mind from nowhere (actually a small snippet of information from her who'd been "time orphaned" when a mage had attempted to access her memories....her sister could get nothing from her mind, but the same wasn't true for E'ysha in getting info). "They've been 'time orphaned' and their Matrix wasn't altered to handle the shock! I've even got a bit of details about it in my mind.....god knows how!.....but.....we need a LOT of mages to attempt a repair before we lose them!"

"Inquirer!" Sigin shouts, knowing from his magical studies that somehow this realm shares features that Inquirer was born within. "Use your Codesword on me after you've created a link with us and the other Champions!"

Romana watches frantically as softly glowing lines form between the female AI/golem (how did she know that ?) and the other Champions (?)....and then blinks in befuddlement as the link form between the one called E'ysha and herself.

"Wait...." Romana begins to protest in part to the line and in part to the female AI pulling a rather odd looking sword and driving it into Sigin....who howls as he bleed not blood......but information......

Information flows like electricity from each champion down the line and into their minds. It was a glancing blow that Inquirer gave her mentor, so the scrambled speech fades almost immediately. Betty and the others find, however, that the AI had drawn forth from Sigin the spells repertoire she enjoyed, duplicated it and sent it forth into those down the line. The line had been intended for only the Champions (even the new ones....Champions know Champions on sight). But the nature of the hasty link had ensnared Romana as well!

Suddenly, she finds spells dancing on the tip of her tongue....begging to be used. Suddenly, the equation that she'd seen and thrown her out to sea for a time (since it had refuted so many of those wonderful equations and theories she'd been so proud at understanding so quickly....making her question whether graduating triple first was such a grand thing......her confidence then kicked in and said yes......but as she'd already learned......sometimes what you "think you know" isn't actually what is).

"Wooooow!" she hears herself gush, dizzy and euphoric at the same time.

"Now, we need to form a Herinic Trenis," Sigin shouts, fighting off the last of the binary effect trying to creep into his speech, "This is only a wild guess, since I still only have a theory from second hand knowledge....as it were. We need to anchor the Doctor.....and his other five."

"Now!" he shouts.

Well, it works, but not as intended.

Instead of anchoring the Five Doctor's to this universe, instead it anchored their origins in other universes....right at the moment where their twin is in the beginning stages of Regeneration to their next incarnation. Several mages find themselves involved in the some of the scenes as well!

Tiredly, the First Doctor has managed to get into his TARDIS. Now is just to wait and.....

He blinks in honest confusion as he sees a mirror image come into being in front of him.

"What?" both say at the same time, "Who are you and what are you doing on my TARDIS?"

The mirror image's eyes go wide as he feels his worn out body being flooded with renewed strength and vigor.....as if he was at the beginning of this Regeneration instead of the end......

The Doctor utters a surprised oath as his mirror image glows and seems to drop years off his appearance.....to become what some would call Hartel as something like thirty.

The mirror image vanishes, leaving the Doctor to be wondering what that was about.....and to feel the first onset of Regeneration.

The guards are taking the prisoner to the facility where his Regeneration will be induced, bring about his fourth life.

"Maybe this time you'll become somebody with better taste in clothing," one guard quips to the shabbily dressed man.

The Doctor, knowing that any remarks will earn him a beating from these thuggish guards, only grits his teeth and walks on......nearly running into a twin of himself!

"Great Jumping Goobstoppers!" they both shout in surprise. The other vanishes.

"Wha....did you see that?!" one guard asks the other, wide eyed.

"No.....and neither did you!" his wiser counterpart says harshly. "We don't need to be thought going luney....now do we?"

"Uh....right," is all his counterpart can say on the matter as the prisoner is again prodded into walking again.

"He'll be a bit......scrambled....." the monk was saying....only to trail off in silent bemusement as an exact twin of the Doctor is looking down at his unconscious (dead?) self.

"What....what happened?" the Third Doctor asks, shocked at seeing "himself" in such a way.

"Radiation damage from the cave of those Spiders on that planet," the woman begins, confused. "What on earth is.......?"

She'd ask more, but the Third Doctor vanishes as his counterpart begins to change into a person with a sweet tooth, curly hair, and a fondness for 20 foot long scarves.

The Fourth Doctor shouts in surprise as he suddenly finds himself hanging from a girder from what he sees is an Earth radio telescope! He then watches in mute shock as he sees a man who looks just like him fall.....and hit the ground WAY below. He then feels himself slipping......only to find himself standing on the scaley head of Sigin, who'd popped in a second ago, seen the Doctor's dilemma, and had rushed over and stopped the Time Lord's fall. The Fourth Doctor blinks and stares down at the dragon who's gently lowering his head down to the ground, at what appears to be the gently smiling third incarnation of himself!....then over at a set of people he's never met before (some kid with a star on his shirt, an airline stewardess, and some brown haired woman that the Doctor thinks is royalty for some reason). Dragon, Doctor Who, and the Fourth Doctor vanish before the startled Companion's eyes.

They look at each other, then blink as they remember the Doctor!

"No...." Nyssa whispers as they rush over, and then sees the Watcher approaching the prone Doctor......

The Fifth Doctor collapses, after administering the last of the antitoxin to his companion, Peri.

He feels the end of this life coming, and the eventual start of the next one......

A gasp and a patter of feet tell the Doctor that he's not alone!

He looks up into the confused eyes of....himself?!

"What happened?" his other self asks, concerned (and a bit frightened, truth be told, by seeing "himself" so near death). "Can I help?"

"No....." the Doctor smiled, slightly amused, only to blink in slow surpise as he hears two woman's voices.....

"He's been poisoned, that's what's up," Betty says quicly as she rushs over to the prone Doctor. "He only had enough antidote for one, so he gave it to Peri over there to save him."

The Fifth Doctor looks over to where the brown haired woman pointed, and sees an unconscious young man who's breathing slow but steadily.

"Ah....but there is something I can do," Ragan chuckles, pulling forth a spell that practically was dancing in her mind to be used!

The other Doctor gasps and shudders in surprise as he feels his approaching death.....fade away and vanish. He sits up, looking down and feeling his chest in surprise, feeling fine!

"Miss, what....who?" he begins, only to find his unexpected guests have vanished.

"Seeing things?" he asks himself, not quiet able to get himself to believe it. He was alive and well (and should not be by his reckoning). No matter for the moment. Peri still might need his help!

But the Doctor was going to be awake late at night, wondering just what had happened.

The Champions awaken, groaning and feeling like a semitruck just ran over them all!

Medical technicians back at the Capital read the readings from the Doctors (both the Fourth and Dr. Who) and just shake their head in wonder at the strangeness. The Fourth Doctor appears to be in his FIRST life cycle (i.e. the one PRIOR to the first Regeneration). As for Dr. Who......the readings just don't make any sense! It's almost like his life span between Regenerations.......stretches forever. At least the techs are able to affirm the statement of Dr. Who that Romana (who's still unconscious but grinning like mad for some reason) that their "Quantum Signature" is indeed from a different universe!

"Romana," the Fourth Doctor croaks upon awakening, reaching out for the Time Lady. He felt his heart being touched, ensnared, and transformed by the very embrace of the wild, fey thing that Romana's heart has become!

See, Romana had been falling for the Doctor back on Earth before this all was happening. Her touch through the link with E'ysha had brought about a transformation not in body, but in one part of the spirit where love is found. The now elfin heart that Romana had reached out and ensnared the quary that it knew was the one it was it's match. It reached out and transformed it....uniting them both.

"My love," Romana whispered passionately as she opened her eyes (which had a rather alien....wild and fey look to them now), "I have so much to show you......"

"Oh voy," E'ysha mutters, realizing what had happened here and with the others. And the process had taken all of five minutes.

1. As for those in the Death Zone, they were wondering just what the #$%^ had happened to the First Doctor (who was now MUCH younger) and the others......

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