(MAIN RANGE): We Who Are Many

 

(MAIN RANGE): We Who Are Many

This Story Stars Sir Patrick Stewart as Roman and Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield

Follows on from Timeship In A Bottle

Chapter One

"Dimensional Instability," she said, as Roman woke up. 

"What?" He mumbled, half awake.

"Dimensional Instability," she insisted. "There's a Dimensional Instability."
"So I gathered." Roman muttered in response. 

"No, really. You have to come and see this." 

"Who are you, exactly?" Roman sputtered. 

"Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield." She stated. "Come on!" 

"Bernice Summerfield?" Roman spat. "Bernice Summerfield?" 

Roman got up out of his bed, and doing so, observed the room. 
It was a medical facility. He had been tied up to several fluid links, but for some reason, he wasn't anymore. He wished he knew what they'd done to him while he was unconscious.

He raked his brain for information on Bernice Summerfield. She first came into Gallifrey's attention as a companion of the Doctor, which of course, gave them a natural bond, but after departing from the Doctor, she became famous in her own right for not really needing him/her whatsoever.

And as far as he could remember, they had not met. Perhaps in some short backup in DWM. But he was unaware of it. 

"Oi, come on, Romanadvoratrelundar!" 

She pronounced it perfectly, which annoyed him. 

Roman wandered into the next room.

"What the-" He sputtered.

"Dimensional Instability." Benny said, pointing at the Doctor. But despite the same suit, he didn't seem to be the same Doctor that had fallen out of the time vortex with Roman, and he was floating in the air, in a sort of vortex that had opened up out of nothing.

Chapter Two

"That's the Doctor?" Roman asked. 

"All of our scanners say it's him. But here's the kicker. It's a divergent timeline." Benny said. 

"He's not from our universe. He's not our Doctor. But I travelled with David Warner, so I won't hold that against him." 

"Well, he's at the moment asleep, floating in a vortex of interstitial dimensional energy." Roman said. "I wouldn't hold a coffee mug against him, it could shatter the universe."

"I was speaking metaphorically. I wouldn't hold anything against him physically, but-

You know, I'll get back to you on that when I decide if I fancy him or not." 

"Oh, ha, ha, very funny." Roman muttered. 

"So, what do we do?" Benny asked.

The Doctor fell and hit his head on the floor. "WHEW!" He cheered. 

He got up. "Hello there, I'm the Doctor. How do you do? Ooh, my brain's fizzing. Haven't made my mind up if I'm going to be hyper or serious yet, what do you think? I'm a personal advocate of hyper, but serious has it's perks too, Ooh, Lemons!" He said all of this in basically one second. 

"Oh, I'm going to hate him." Roman mumbled. 

The Doctor went over to the side table and had a lemon. 

"You know, actually. I. feel kind of. sorry if I overwhelmed you there." He said, still very quickly. "If you would just care to- Oh, dear Rassilon, where have I gotten too now. Last thing I remember, I was in an imploding universe. Possibly with Airabella Weir. I hope not." 

The Doctor suddenly switched tunes. 

"Look. I'm still breaking my head in here. I must stay calm. I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh, good grief, the dimensional fracture is still open!"

He got out his sonic screwdriver and fizzed the fracture into nothing.

"What happened to the one I like? David Thewlis?" Roman asked. "Where's that Doctor?" 

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. He suddenly spoke softly and quiet, almost petrifyingly smoothly. "I seem to have had a mishap with my regeneration. Something else is in my head with me. I simply don't have the energy to restrain him all the time. I was exposed to tylothenic exlansmia in my home dimension. Do you know what that does to a time lord body? It's a type of Fungus. It enters the time lord brain and retakes bio-functions. Attempts to imitate the host, and kill the other side of their brain, replacing them on a subconcious level, and no one will ever notice. Once it does so, it will replicate itself and attempt to spread the infection, and keep more beings under it's control. Fortunately, a swift regeneration can confuse the cycle and allow the body to recognize the imposter and remove it. Which I’ve done, unfortunately whichever one of us is fake is holding on...”

"Until then, we don't know which one of these two personalities is in control?" Benny asked.

"Rather Jekyll and Hyde, isn't it? No, My Dear, you would have simply no idea. And...They won’t let me tell you. Or maybe...I won’t let them..." 

The Doctor switched tracks. "Cookies!! I want Cookies! I simply must have them, you understand, I simply must!" 

"One of them's a sociopath and we don't know which, and if we don't find out it will replace us, and we'd never know?" Roman asked. "Ah, I thought I got out of this sort of thing." 

Chapter Three

The Doctor spun around the room, dramatically swirling his suit coat. “The atomic variance of a chocolate box when placed underneath an inverted hydroxill emitter matrix is 7.24.” The fast bubbly one said. 

He then switched again, suddenly brooding. “Am I Good or Am I Bad? I simply don’t know.”

“Haha, why would that matter if you can dance??!? Dancing’s great!” Said the bubbly one. 

“Oh, come now, man. If I am evil, than you are good, and if you are evil, than I am good, We are Yin and Yang! You must think about it!”

“It’s fascinating,” Roman said to Benny. “I find them both incredibly annoying in different ways. One has to wonder...”

Benny shrugged. Her communicator beeped. “Oh, damn. Ruth is messaging,”

“Ruth? Ruth Clayton, The Doctor’s alias??”

“No, Ruth, my bestie, who is coincidentally also a badass black woman. She works with Jack on the-“

“Jack Harkness?”

“No, Spring Heeled Jack. There’s more than one person in the universe named Jack! He works with Braxiatel on the-“

“Braxiatel? Irving Braxiatel? From Gallifrey?”

“No, it’s an alternate timeline Braxiatel.”

“Oh for fucks sake”

“Look, Roman. Ruth is saying there’s some kind of...thing, orbiting the city!” 

“....This day just gets better and better.”

“Ooh! Let me help, let me help, I want to help,” Yelled the Overexcited Doctor.

“Can we trust him?” Benny asked.

“We can always trust the Doctor.” Roman responded. “Doctor, what did you say about the swift regeneration dispelling the virus-“

“The virus should dispel naturally, that is, eventually unless it has found another way to take hold. Unless... No, I can’t keep my head straight...” The Doctor’s serious voice commented, gripping his head in an attempt to stifle the pain. The joyful voice called out. “No, no! This will not do, you must let me be!”

“Which one of them?” Roman asked, when a voice descended from the clouds. 

“YOU WILL BRING US THE DOCTOR OR WE WILL DECIMATE YOUR CITY.”

Benny growled. “Oh, great! That voice... hmm, what is that? Familiar...is it Cybermen? Grel? Epoch?”

“I recognize the species!” The Upbeat Doctor said. “Oh yes, that is a problem! We are under attack from one of the most dangerous species in the cosmos! The Hoothi!”

Chapter Four 

“The Hoothi!” Yelled Benny, “That can’t be! There’s no way the Hoothi could be back from extinction! Plus they’re far too obscure for a general audience like the NCJDDAS, they at minimum require context from Love and War!” 

“Ah, but nonetheless, the Hoothi. You know their ability, Professor Summerfield.” The Serious Doctor said, ranger in his voice. “They shall annihilate us without a prudent action, and quickly. You must patch me into your communications network!” And Then he switched. “No! This guy is evil, he wants to replace all of you! Patch me in!” 

“Which one do you think?” Roman asked. 

“Both of them sound very much like the Doctor. ...but one sounds a little too much like my Doctor. I think it’s the upbeat one. You?”

“Oh, it has to be the serious one, the other guy sounds positively baby like.” 

“He’s recovering from a regeneration while infested by a Mind parasite!”

“Tick tock, tick tock!” Yelled the Upbeat Doctor. 

“...Fine. Patch him in.” Roman muttered.

 

And the Doctor rushed to the communications system, and with a whip, he unscrewed the wiring. And tore out bits and pieces, like a flash.

“What’s he doing?”

The Upbeat Doctor pulled up, revealing a gun. “Wrong choice,” he Snarled, and then he fired to his other self’s fearful screams.

TO BE CONTINUED... 

This Story (Hypothetically) Starred 

Cilian Murphy as The Doctor (Both of them)

Sir Patrick Stewart as Roman

Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield

Nicholas Briggs as The Voice of the Hoothi