(MAIN RANGE): Time Will Tell
(MAIN RANGE): Time Will Tell
From a Prompt by Riley
Starring Dame Judi Dench as The Doctor, Sir Patrick Stewart as Roman and Scarlett Johansson as Cherry
Featuring Whippersnapper Paradox
The Beginning
The universe is owned by Faction Paradox. It happened at the beginning of time. Well, it happened last Thursday when the Faction travelled back in time before the Big Bang, and bought the location of time and space from a trans dimensional marmoset that flowed with the power of fifteen extra dimensional realities. As such, once the Big Bang finished, the universe was owned by faction paradox.
There are many who wonder if this still holds up in court.
The Faction enjoy being shadowy and obscure, but still, most of them are vain enough to have plaques in their offices about how they own the universe and whatnot. During special office rallies, they will sometimes auction off bits of useless land, such as the planet Clom, or The White House.
The Faction own the universe. Every second of time and space is theirs to administer as they please. Only one question remains:
What the heck are they going to do with the thing?
* * *
The Doctor and Roman nudged eachother uncomfortably at the TARDIS console. They were both trying to cancel out pretty much everything the other one did. They were both squabbling about how the other one of them didn't know how to fly this thing.
Cherry was sitting nearby, picking off the frosting from a pop tart. "Well, guys? Where are we going exactly?"
Roman and The Doctor grumbled their own respective replies of "Somewhere decent for once" and "Disneyland" and so Cherry returned to nipping at her Pop Tart, as she didn't often feel like one to argue.
The TARDIS suddenly stopped.
"Well. There we are. Which one of you landed us?" Cherry asked.
"Um..Regrettably neither." The Doctor said, walking towards the door. She selected a few cloaks from the hatstand and passed one to Cherry, who found it fit very nice with her beret.
Roman stomped towards them. "Well, then where are we exactly? Did you even bother to check the scanner? Honestly, I-"
The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors to discover a infinite mass of nothingness. Time before the big bang. In the center of this nothingness was a cosmic vortex, and on top of it was a cartoonish wooden sign that was labelled "Property of Faction Paradox"
The Doctor slammed the door, walked back into the TARDIS, collapsed her face into a couch cushion and began to impetuously scream.
* * *
"Who are Faction Paradox?" Cherry asked.
"Heaven knows," Roman replied, "Especially considering they only exist in dark circles of shadow and ominousness. At some point there is a War In Heaven, a sort of war between the Time Lords, who are called The Great Houses, and The Enemy, who are who the fuck knows. The Faction are a neutral party in this war, but they're bad news. They like causing weird and strange paradoxes. And also whether this is related to the time war, is the time war, or- Look, I have no fucking clue. Absolutely none. Why I'm telling you this is incredibly questionable, because you know, I find it incredibly confusing and don't understand a bit of it. Whenever the Faction show up, I put my fingers in my ears and go Lalalalalalalalalala until they go away. Which may be why the Faction hates Gallifrey so much... AH, LOOK. NO IDEA. ASK THE DOCTOR."
The Doctor was still shoving her face in the pillow and screaming. She stopped a moment to say: "No clue either."
"What? You met them all the time in your eighth self!"
"You think I remember ANYTHING my eighth self did?" The Doctor yelled, annoyed.
"Touche." Roman finished.
"For someone who knows nothing about the Faction, you seem awfully knowledgeable." Cherry said.
Roman said nothing, but accidentally dropped his phone, which Cherry could see he had been reading the Faction Paradox Wikipedia page from.
"All the same! Whoever these guys are, we have to stop them! We can't let them own existence! It means they would retroactively own us. Because...we exist."
Roman rubbed his forehead. "Aw, fuck-" He growled, before suddenly everything around them dissipated into a gigantic paradox.
* * *
Whippersnapper Paradox was in a very happy mood. He owned existence. He owned all of it. The Time Lords...The Daleks, The Enemy, he owned all of it.
He whipped out his phone and decided to call the enemy up. As the phone rang, eventually someone picked it up. It was one of his agents.
"What?" Whippersnapper asked. "What happened to the Enemy?"
"Well, when we discovered the enemy's base, and arrived to tell them we bought out existence, all we found were a bunch of sheep. This either means that we caused a paradox, they glitched out and are now all sheep, or they were always Sheep. We are simply not sure."
Whippersnapper hung up. It didn't matter. He had control of the entire universe anyway. He picked up his phone again. "Hi, Cousin Pink?" He asked.
Orson Pink picked up the phone. "Yes, Whippersnapper Paradox?"
"Well, we own the universe, and well, I want to have some fun with it. Can you put the Centuries on Shuffle?"
"Yes, sir." said Cousin Orson Pink. "I'll put Cousin Kelsie Hooper right on it."
* * *
The TARDIS fell out of the sky and into 18th Century London. It was apt to do that.
The Doctor got out. "London!" She exclaimed.
"There is nowhere else in the universe." Roman said in a deadpan.
"Woah! Weren't we dissapated into a giant Paradox three seconds ago?"
"Yes. Something seems to have happened to us. We're now owned by the Faction. They aren't just going to let us go...they'll obviously try to make us into bigger paradoxes. Quick, don't kill your grandmother."
"We can't step on any butterflies either," Cherry chirped knowledgeably.
"Do nothing." Roman advocated.
The three of them slowly began to creep around the corners of London to discover where they were.
17th Century London
"Oh my gosh!" Yelled The Doctor, suddenly. "We're in 17th Century London now! We just jumped backwards in time!"
"Yes. My time senses are tingling..." Roman said ominously... and Marvel Comics sued him.
"We've been thrown backwards in time! The TARDIS is gone!" Cherry exclaimed, reiterating what they already knew. "Doctor, what can we do?"
"Roman, check the Faction Paradox Wiki again." The Doctor said.
"I can't. We don't have any bars." Roman said. "Can't you try and remember something about them?"
The Doctor struggled for a bit. "I seem to recall the Faction building a base out of eleven days that didn't happen due to a Calendar switch in 1752. Of course, those days don't exist, but the Faction doesn't care about internal consistency."
"You know, honestly everything I'm hearing about these guys makes them more and more appealing." Cherry commented. "Like holy crap, they came up with that with a Calendar Switch? That's exactly what I'd do if I had to write a novel!"
"Remember, Cherry. They're the antagonists. Even if they're virtually identical to how we are characterized, we can't join the faction." The Doctor commented sagely.
The Doctor, Cherry and Roman all sulked for a moment.
"Anyway, if they could claim a base out of 11 nonexistant days, I guess they probably could claim the abstract moments of time before the Big Bang." The Doctor suggested.
"Well, funny we jumped back in time to the 17th century. Can't we visit the 11 day-"
"You're confusing Centuries with Years."
"Well, what should we try to do while we're here, then? We can't just wait out and find the TARDIS."
"Well, sending us back in time 100 years seems small fry for the Faction. We'll wait a few seconds and then something really crazy will happen. I'm certain of it."
A few seconds passed and Throughout time and space at that very moment, Cousin Kelsie Hooper activated the Universe's Spotify app and placed the centuries on Shuffle.
19th Century London
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" yelled The Doctor
18th Century London
"WHAT'S GOING ON"
522nd Century London
"We're hopping through time and space! Throughout us the world is being remade and rewritten so quickly that the universe doesn't even have time for descriptive text!"
29th Century London
"Quick! Let's try and get inside one of the buildings for Cover!"
11th Century London
"Oh wow, this building is a Sheep Farm!"
51st Century London
"Oh wow this building is an interdimensional sheep farm made out of the fabric of existence!"
32nd Century London
"Ooh my god my face is made of time"
96th Century London
"Oh wow! I can see through the universe and beyond physics! Everything in the universe can be consolidated to one unifying truth!"
48th Century London
"Well, what is it?"
21st Century London
"Something to do with Crabs."
3rd Century London
"OH GOD ROMAN HELP I HAVE THE PLAGUE"
93474917th Century London
"This is starting to get really quite disconcerting. I have no clue who anyone is. I have no clue who I am. All I am aware of is this endlessly shuffling universe that won't stop moving. It's been sheer moments but it feels like forever. I don't know what I look like. Everything is shuffling. Nothing is real, nothing is constant in this universe of pain."
80th Century London
"I don't know whether we're three people or one person anymore. We're like Scherzo, but less well written."
Before the Big Bang
"Ah!" Yelled the woman, falling out of time and space. "Okay. Ah. I'm Cherry. Okay, that's good. Was a bit confused there."
The Doctor, and Roman fell out of time after her. "Huh. Seems the Centuries accidentally shuffled us to before the Big Bang. So now we can stop these events from ever happening." The Doctor said.
"We'll have to move quickly." Roman commented. "Look!"
Duggan from City of Death was floating in the void, and suddenly he was expanding and filled with stars and about to explode.
"Duggan's the universe?"
"No! It's just putting the imagery of the universe being created in the closest things our mind can comprehend! Which is Duggan from City of Death evidently!"
Suddenly Whippersnapper Paradox appeared with the wooden sign labelled "Property of Faction Paradox" and was about to stake Duggan in the heart with it.
"Quick! We have to stop him!" Yelled The Doctor.
"You are too late. I have the power of god and anime on my side," said Whippersnapper Paradox, quoting old stale memes like any good young Whippersnapper would.
"How can we defeat him?" Roman yelled, as Whippersnapper Paradox cackled, but the Doctor had an idea.
"Let's join hands!"
"What?"
"It worked in Scherzo and it worked in the Power Rangers!" The Doctor yelled, and as the Doctor, Roman and Cherry joined hands, they fused into a cosmic horror.
"Aaah! Holy Shit!" Yelled Whippersnapper, dropping the sign.
"The Influence of Your Time Shuffle still holds influence on the cosmic scale. By tapping into this recent cataclysm we can make ourselves together and shuffle the scales of reality in this universe. We see the beginning of the universe, and we make it so." Echoed the Lovecraftian being that was once the Doctor, Roman and Cherry.
"I'm sorry, huh?" Whippersnapper Paradox asked, confusedly.
"The Universe shall be made in our image from our influence. We shall become the very fabric of existence itself. Life shall flow from our twenty billion fingertips into the whole that is matter."
"I'm sorry, you've lost me completely."
"Let the Universe be born! Let there be light!" The Doctor, Cherry and Roman exclaimed, accidentally retroactively causing the Big Bang and giving birth to the Universe in the first place.
Whippersnapper Paradox was very, very confused.
* * *
Whippersnapper Paradox returned to his home in the Eleven Day Empire with a splitting migraine. He stepped into his room decorated with MCR posters and shoved his head in a pillow.
Auntie Paradox came into the room. "Are you okay, dear?" She asked.
"Please go away." Whippersnapper grumbled. "I had everything, Auntie. I had the entire universe under our fingertips and then it was taken away from me by time travellers!" He whined.
"Well, wouldn't that cause a bigger Paradox, dear? Because how could they go back in time to stop it if it didn't happen in the first place?" Auntie Paradox asked, lovingly.
"Well, it didn't!" Whippersnapper Paradox complained, muffled by his pillow.
Auntie smiled. "I'm sure you'll get your dues in the sequel, dear." She said, tucking him into bed and turning out the light.
"Sequel?!" Whippersnapper screamed, horrified at the mere possibility.
"Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the great vampires bite!"
And Auntie Paradox clicked off the light and left Whippersnapper lying in bed restlessly, looking for answers where there were none, and hoping to god this whole debacle was never mentioned again.
The End
Dame Judi Dench as The Doctor
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