“…Temporal compression technology!” whispered the Doctor. “But…how?!” asked Rassilon. “You’ll get your explanations later,” replied Tsukasa. “Right now, we need to get you to safety.” He pulled out a strange device, then put it to his waist. The device then created a belt around him. He then pulled out a card as he opened the device. “Henshin!” he said. He then slid the card into the device. “Kamen Ride!” it announced. He then closed the device. “Decade!” Armor then appeared around him. It was magenta and his helmet looked like cards with green eyes. “Kamen Rider Decade,” said the Doctor. Plas-Keito then put his strange watch device to his waist. It entered him, surrounding him in dark energy, then he turned into a monstrous creature that vaguely was modeled after a red and black digital watch with teeth and horrid eyes. “GEIZ!” came the demonic voice. On the shoulder was “Geiz 2068”. “Another Geiz, huh?” scoffed Decade. “Shouldn’t be too much trouble.” The two then fought. “You don’t possess the Geiz Ridewatch,” said Another Geiz. “You cannot defeat me now.” “No, but I bought time,” replied Decade. Another Geiz then noticed that the Doctor and her crew were gone, along with the control sphere! “Locate and destroy thieves!” ordered Another Geiz. “Destroy Enemy Autons as well!” Decade went off in pursuit of the Doctor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The TARDIS crew ran as fast as they could, but then more Autons approached, led by someone in gray robes and a scarf. “Control Unit located,” he said as he pulled out a device like Another Geiz’s! “Destroy. Total destruction.” He pressed the button. “Woz!” said a demonic voice. He then put the device to his waist and, like Another Geiz, he was surrounded by dark energy. The energy dissipated to reveal a monstrous white and green-trimmed monster with teeth and horrid eyes, modeled after a smart-watch. “WOZ!” This one had the words “Woz 0000” on his thigh. “Another one?!” asked William. “What’s going on here?!” asked Rassilon. “How did the Nestene Consciousness get ahold of temporal compression technology?!” “I have theories, none of them are good,” replied the Doctor. “Hey! Another Woz!” called a voice. Everyone turned to see another high-school boy. “You leave them alone!” “Target: Tokiwa Sougo,” droned the Auton Commander known as Another Woz. “Eliminate.” “I don’t think so! Those people are too important!” retorted the kid, Sougo. He then pulled out yet another device! “No! Kid! That’s dangerous!” urged the Doctor. “Don’t worry, Ma’am,” assured Sougo. “I have a feeling it will work out!” He then rotated the face of the device and attached another machine with a slot on either side to his waist. It formed a belt strap like Decade’s. Sougo then pressed the button. “Zi-O!” announced a more normal voice. Sougo then inserted the circular device into the right hand slot, then pressed a button on the belt. The belt tilted so the attached device went down. Sougo then posed. “HENSHIN!” he called. He then spun the belt and it rotated once until it returned to its horizontal position. “Rider Time!” it called. It then sang “Kamen Rider Zi-O!” Armor then appeared over him. It was dark blue gray with a wristwatch theme. The helmet looked like an analog watch with the kanji for “Rider” in the middle of the clock face. “…A Kamen Rider using temporal compression technology?! But that’s impossible!” said the Doctor. “…Unless…of course! The device and belt were meant to be paired!” “You guys get out of here!” called Sougo, now Kamen Rider Zi-O. “I’ll handle Another Woz and his dummies!” “But Decade’s fighting Another Geiz and his Autons!” protested Rassilon. Speaking of Decade, he arrived on his motorcycle, modeled after his helmet. “Everyone, get ready for transit!” he called. Another Geiz and his Autons arrived. “Enemy Commander!” he called when he spotted Another Woz. The two Another Riders then fought each other. “What the-?!” The Doctor’s question was cut off as a curtain of gray energy swallowed them up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The group arrived at an abandoned warehouse. The two Kamen Riders cancelled their transformations and resumed their civilian identities. “Sorry for the Aurora Curtain, but we had to make our escape,” explained Tsukasa. “Don’t worry,” said Sougo, “this place was cleared a while ago.” “Then, perhaps,” said the Doctor, “someone could kindly explain why two Auton Commanders attacked one another?! The Nestene Consciousness won’t allow Autons to fight Autons!” “There’s no Nestene Consciousness controlling them, Doctor,” replied Tsukasa. “They activated after the passing of the Nestene, when we both dealt with them in 2013.” “…Those Autons,” said the Doctor, “are acting independently?” “The signal never fully cut out in 2013, Doctor. It’s been slowly building power since we shut it down beneath Tokyo Tower.” “…Then I wasn’t as thorough as I thought. And now the Autons have control over temporal compression technology.” “Doctor, what IS temporal compression technology?” asked William. “I’m a bit lost in the Time Vortex here myself,” admitted Amy. “Temporal compression technology,” explained Rassilon, “steals timelines and historical events around a certain person, putting it all into one device, creating a harmful causal loop, a Bootstrap Paradox, if you will.” “Unless, of course, you’re a time traveler yourself,” said the Doctor. “If you make a device based on YOUR history, your power, theoretically, is amplified, but it would cause damage to your body and cause a time paradox that would rend you and all you love asunder…unless you had something to handle and correct the paradox, such as Sougo’s belt. Sougo, where did you get that belt?” “It came to me from an old future version of me where I became a king of time known as Ohma Zi-O,” replied Sougo. “Ohma Zi-O?” asked Rassilon. “…I think I tried to recruit him for the Time War. He refused and sent me and my soldiers away.” “Serves you right, frankly,” remarked the Doctor. “So, it’s a paradox that eventually erased him…but the technology can be made in the present.” “So how did the Autons find that tech?” asked William. “The Autons would have to keep the people they copied alive so they could access the twisted powers of their Rider forms,” replied the Doctor. “…And there’s a massive paradox right now. Those Another Riders shouldn’t exist, yet they are.” “Therein lies why we’re here,” said Tsukasa. “Doctor, we need you to take us back to 2013 and eliminate the Nestene Consciousness utterly.” “Out of the question!” barked Rassilon. “That’s against the laws of time!” “I already looked into the past with my Time Mazine,” said Sougo. “There’s too much damage to the timeline there thanks to the original Geiz and Woz being captured. That’s why the Autons are independent.” “And they know that one of their Control Units,” said Tsukasa, “is a segment of the Key to Time.” “…So they’ll try to use its latent chronon field to become the new Lords of Time, but one has to become the new Nestene Consciousness, hence the Auton civil war,” theorized the Doctor. Her brow furrowed in thought. “…Doctor?” asked Rassilon. “…Tsukasa, you’ll need to help me retrieve the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “It’s in Tokyo Tower, one of the lower levels,” replied Tsukasa. “So, you’re going to help us?” “…It looks that way,” muttered the Doctor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The group made its way to Tokyo Tower with Tsukasa disguised as an employee there. He flashed his badge to the guards and explained the situation. The guards nodded and let them through. He led them down to the lower levels where a cauldron stood. It looked like it could hold something. Nearby…was the TARDIS! “There she is!” called the Doctor. “Halt!” called Another Geiz’s voice. He and his Autons arrived. “The Control Unit. You will not be asked again.” Just then, everyone heard muffled voices. William turned to see what looked like Plas-Keito and the Woz Duplicate tied up and gagged. They were mumbling something. William first headed over and pinched their cheeks, confirming they were real. The two protested through their gags. “Had to make sure you weren’t plastic,” he said as he untied them. “Move away from them!” called Another Woz’s voice. William didn’t listen and freed the real Keito. Just as Another Woz was about to grab him, Keito decked the monstrous Kamen Rider. He then reached for something as William freed the real Woz. “NO!” called the Doctor. “Not now! Quick! Into the TARDIS!” Everyone dashed into the time machine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Ridewatch using Riders goggled in surprise. Tsukasa, on the other hand, just looked around with mild interest. “You’ve redecorated,” he said. “…I don’t like it.” The TARDIS then rocked, causing everyone to fall to the floor or hold onto something. “What’s going on?!” yelped Sougo. “The Autons are firing on the TARDIS,” replied the Doctor. “That’s the trouble with encountering a race that hates your guts!” “But the TARDIS is indestructible!” argued Amy. “You said so yourself!” “I said it was VIRTUALLY indestructible!” countered the Doctor. “I think the Autons are taking advantage of the temporal com…the Ridewatches!” “What do you mean?!” asked William. “They’re using the paradoxical energy to weaken the TARDIS shields!” “That kind of temporal stress will crack the outer shell!” yelped Rassilon. “And collapse the internal dimensions!” finished the Doctor. “An implosion with us inside?!” asked William. “A violent one!” confirmed the Doctor as she worked the console feverishly.