The Doctor and the Ridewatch Riders intercepted Decade before he went deeper into the sublevels of Tokyo Tower in 2013. “Decade, please, listen to me!” urged the Doctor. “Get out of my way!” shouted Decade. “Decade, it’s not going to turn out the way you think it is!” urged Woz. Decade wasn’t listening. He slashed again with his Ride-booker still in sword mode. “I can’t believe I’m doing this against an elder Kamen Rider!” groaned Zi-O. He then summoned a strange device that looked somewhat gun-like. “Zikan Girade!” said a voice. Zi-O then pulled something on the device forward so it looked like a sword with a clock hand style blade. “KEN!” Zi-O slashed. “No! Sougo! Don’t escalate this!” protested the Doctor. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “And Sougo’s brought his weapon out,” grumbled Rassilon as everyone saw the goings-on outside from the scanner. “Hoo boy, we sure he ain’t American?” joked William. He then spotted something. “Hey, what’s that?” he asked. He pointed to a phial of a liquid on the floor. Rassilon picked it up and had the TARDIS scan it. “…It’s anti-plastic!” she said. “Made by one of Tsukasa’s allies! Hang on, I think I have a theory.” She ran the figures through the TARDIS computers. Her eyes goggled when she saw the readings. “…It was an insurance policy!” she whispered. “What do you mean?” asked Amy. “Tsukasa was going to use it on the Nestene Consciousness in this time,” explained Rassilon. “But the Doctor and Tsukasa of this time will already use theirs. AHA!” “Rassilon?” asked William. “William, how many tests does a vaccine have to go through?” asked Rassilon. “Millions of-.” William’s eyes popped open. “…The anti-plastic of this time would have failed somehow?!” “It’s the chronons of 2025! They can’t be used against the native chronons of 2013!” “…But Decade doesn’t know that!” realized Amy. “I know how to deescalate the situation!” said William. He then snatched the anti-plastic from Rassilon and left the TARDIS! “WILLIAM! GET BACK IN HERE!” protested Rassilon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Doctor was still trying to get the Riders to stop fighting. “Everyone, please!” she pleaded. “There’s no reason to-!” “STOOOOOOOOOPPP!!” called William’s voice. Everyone turned to see William holding the anti-plastic phial above his head. “William, get back in the TARDIS!” protested the Doctor. “Tsukasa, tell me, does this look familiar?!” asked William. “My anti-plastic?!” he yelped. “How did you-?!” “You dropped it in the console room!” replied William. “Interesting that you’d use 2025 anti-plastic on a 2013 Nestene Consciousness! Now you listen to the Doctor or I smash it here and now!” “You’re going to regret that threat!” snarled Decade as he got ready to slash. “NO! Decade, wait! Just wait a minute, please!” begged the Doctor. “Let William smash it to the ground!” “What?! Why?!” demanded Decade. “Because that’s how there were remnants of the Nestene that created the Autons of 2025! That’s how the paradox started! We brought back a weapon that would fail! The leftover signal would reside in the chronons and wait until they aligned with 2025 again!” “You…You’re lying!” “Why on earth would I lie about that?! We’re sitting on one gigantic time paradox here and you’re the key!” “Th…The Key?!” “I thought it was the Ridewatches, but it’s YOU, Tsukasa!” “I…I can’t be-!” “William, smash the phial! Smash it to pieces!” “Way ahead of you!” called William as he threw the phial to the ground. That’s when time went crazy! Everyone was moving in painful slow-motion! “HUUUUUURRRRRRYYYYYYY!” called the Doctor. “GEEETTT BAAACK IIINNN THEEE TAAARRRDDIIISSSS NOOOOOWWW!” “WHHAAAAAATTT’SSSSS HAAAAAPPPPEENNNNIIINNNNG?!” shouted Decade as he and the Riders made for the TARDIS. “IIIITTT’SSS THEEEE PAAAARRRRAAADOOOOXXXX!” guessed Geiz. “IIIITTTT’SSSS REEEESOOOLLLVVVINNNGGG IIITTTSSSEEELLLFFFF!” “YEEEEESSSSS!” confirmed the Doctor. “MMMUUUSSSTTTT GEEEEETTTT TOOOO THEEEE TAAAARRRRDDIIIISSSSSS!!!!!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Come on, guys! Come on!” begged Amy. “If they stay out there any longer-!” shuddered Rassilon. Thankfully, she didn’t need to find out. Everyone made it inside. “Right! Back to this location in 2025!” declared the Doctor. “What about the Another Riders?!” argued Decade. “They were never there, hopefully,” replied the Doctor. She got the TARDIS to take off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Over in 2013, a man with curly blonde hair and a coat made up of a patchwork of fabrics was making the final adjustments to a machine, dodging tentacles from a tank all the while. “You won’t find me so easy to ensnare this time!” taunted the man, one of the previous incarnations of the Sixth Doctor.” “Doctor, come on!” called the Decade of 2013. He then inserted a card into his white Decadriver. “Final Attack Ride: De-De-Decade!” it called. Three rings of cards appeared and Decade sailed through them, his foot outstretched and striking the Auton Copy of himself. It exploded. “Do you mind not Rider-kicking here!” protested the Sixth Doctor. He then switched the machine on. “OUT!” The tentacles then thrashed in pain! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right at the entrance to Tokyo Tower, Evelyn Smythe was looking anxiously at the door, not sure if she liked the rumbling. She breathed a sigh of relief when the Doctor and Decade arrived. “Oh, thank goodness you’re alright, Doctor!” she sighed. “Only just,” replied the Sixth Doctor, rubbing the cat lapel pin in relief. “But that should do it. The Auton menace of Japan is over!” “That’s a relief,” replied Evelyn, “because, with all the young men making flying kicks and turning into martial arts bug people, I think you could do with a bit of a sit-down!” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Over in 2025, the TARDIS arrived at the base of Tokyo Tower. No one left the TARDIS just yet. “Doctor-!” hissed the present-day Tsukasa. “Sh!” replied the Doctor. The console beeped at a certain frequency, then the frequency lowered and lowered until… “…Safe to talk?” asked Keito. “Temporal Paradox: resolved,” replied the Doctor. “No bumps in the time track and no killer window dummies. The signal is nonexistent. …Erm, yes, everyone, safe to talk.” “…Could I get some sort of explanation or will you be high-handed and Time Lordish like you were with that ugly coat?!” hissed Tsukasa. “Try me,” said the Doctor. “Where are the Autons?!” asked Tsukasa. “Oh, they died before they find Geiz and Woz and duplicate them,” replied the Doctor. “You see, the prolonged fight between us is what prompts the Autons to duplicate them, not just being plucked off the streets like that. That’s just what starts the paradox.” “I…see,” said Tsukasa. “And…” “…Yes?” “William, what did you intend to do with the anti-plastic?” “Oh, smashing it to the ground WAS my intention,” replied William. “Rassilon gave me the idea.” “You see, if the anti-plastic of 2025 touched the Nestene Consciousness of 2013,” explained Rassilon, “the latent 2025 chronons would have waited in the remains of the Nestene Consciousness and then propagated throughout the Autons the instant 2025 began.” “So, in the correct version of history, the machine the Doctor rigged up was all that’s necessary?” “…It’s…not so much that there’s a correct or incorrect version of history,” said Rassilon. “It’s more something to do with the survival of the universe. The paradox was triggered by us bringing the 2025 anti-plastic to 2013. It caused a dangerously high release of temporal energy.” “Which damaged an already weakened part of the space-time continuum,” guessed Keito, “making it a bad place to have a paradox, like the Doctor said.” “Erm…sort of,” replied the Doctor. “But Tsukasa solved the potential problem of the Nestene already in 2013.” “So…it never happened?” asked Sougo. “…Um…not quite. You see, the real center of the paradox was caused by the 2025 anti-plastic coming back with us and us mistakenly using it on the sly. The anti-plastic would have failed and the Nestene Consciousness would have fractured and implanted those fragments into the chronons, thus sparking the Auton Civil War.” “But you and William forced me to realize in time that I was the one that caused the Autons of 2025 in the first place!” said Tsukasa, exasperated. “Hope for you yet, hm?” chuckled Rassilon. The Doctor then saw Amy’s face. “Amy? What’s wrong?” she asked. “…Doctor, Rassilon,” said Amy, “none of what we just discussed makes any sense!” “…Well…how should I put this…time paradoxes very rarely do. That’s why they’re paradoxes.” “…You really think that’s clever, huh?” scoffed Tsukasa. “I’ve had enough.” He then summoned an Aurora Curtain. “What have I told you about using those things in the-!” The Doctor didn’t get very far as Tsukasa stepped through and the Curtain vanished. “…Oh, never mind!” “I think we’d better go,” Sougo suggested to Keito and Woz. “We still have things to do.” “Agreed, Waga Mao,” replied Woz. “Let’s go home.” Woz, Sougo, and Keito then left the TARDIS. “…Wait a minute, if the Autons aren’t here, and they were after the control unit-!” gulped William. Amy dashed to her room and checked something. She then sighed in relief and returned to the console room with the control unit in her hand. “Doctor, does the TARDIS have special time shields?” she asked. “It does,” replied the Doctor, sighing in relief, “but it’s the control unit’s original nature as a segment of the Key to Time that protected it. Speaking of which…” she took the tracer and touched the control unit with it. It then turned into its real shape of the third segment. “There we go! Halfway there! Now, let’s see where the next one is!” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As the Doctor worked on the console, Rassilon returned to her room. Her hand was glowing again. She concentrated hard, but the glow was taking longer to go away. It finally faded. “…I can’t waste this body!” she begged herself. “I need more time!” “Erm, Rassilon?” asked Amy’s voice. It was then that Rassilon realized she went into AMY’S room with the hedgehog girl in it. “…You saw nothing!” she hissed. “The heck I didn’t!” retorted Amy. “Why was your hand glowing?!” “That’s not important right now!” “Rassilon, if there’s something wrong-!” “Amy Rose!” Amy backed up from Rassilon at that sudden bark. “…Amy, I’d rather the Doctor not find out, otherwise she’d forget the quest and focus on me. She needs to apply her bleeding hearts on the entire universe instead of one person.” “…All right, but you WILL tell her one day,” insisted Amy. “…Come on, let’s get you back to your room.” Amy helped Rassilon back to her room.