Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book One)

E2 Part 1: A Police Box in Japan

Another place. Earlier.

The Doctor stood in the control room, staring into the air. The cloister bell started to ring.

"No," he said, and pulled the lever.

His mind was in turmoil, but he knew this much: No one else. No one else would pay for his mistakes. No one else would suffer or die because of him today. This ended - right here, right now.

It was a rift this time. A tear in reality straight into the Void, it looked like. Bit larger than Belgium. It was still forming on Mars, at the center of the casual breach - but soon enough it'd be heading straight to Earth, right on his trail. If he intercepted it in orbit, though...

City of New Tokyo-3. August 2015.

The Doctor had recently developed the habit of talking to himself. Hardly the healthiest of habits, he knew - but he just go so bored, not talking all the time now.

He could feel it coming on before it started - an itching disapproval in the back of his mind. He sighed. "Right. If you've got something to say, just say it."

He switched into a rough Lancashire accent. "So you just left him there, did you?"

The Doctor went back to his own Estuary English - well, Rose's, technically. "In his apartment, yeah. Take it you have a better idea?"

"Of course I do!" His Ninth incarnation crossed his arms. "Not that that's saying much, mind you."

The Doctor was standing on the roof of a one-level grocery store in the older section of town, where he'd rigged up a few more energy collectors. He'd kept them in passive mode ever since the attack on the train, of course - which was a bit like trying to fill a swimming pool with a thimble, really, but he couldn't risk the collector being the factor that had allowed that... entity to manifest. Below him, his TARDIS sat in the alleyway behind the store, hidden between two dumpsters that belonged to the diner next door. (Oh, what was the place called - it was one of the American ones, with the waitresses and the uniforms. He'd only seen the sign maybe five minutes ago, flew straight out of his head...)

"So what would you have had me do?" the Doctor snapped. "Just leave him there alone on the park bench? In the middle of an invasion?"

"I would have left him by the train." His Third incarnation pulled up his cloak in irritation. "The situation was under control. The authorities were on their way. You should have let the matter rest there."

"Oh, the authorities!" The Doctor kicked an errant soda can across the rooftop. "Because they so obviously have his best interests in mind, do they?"

"And you do?" The Third retorted. "Skulking about on the backroads? Playing at therapist?"

The Doctor looked at him in disbelief. "So you would have had me say nothing?"

"Exactly."

The Doctor shook his head. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. Back me up here, will you?"

"We couldn't have just left the boy there," his Fifth incarnation said quietly. "Not in that psychological state. It wouldn't have been right."

"Need I remind you gentlemen that this is not our reality?" The Third pointed his finger towards the sky - where, far above the city, the dimensional rift twisted and gyrated and skittered about in nonsensical patterns. "Don't you think we've already done enough damage here? This state of permanent summer these islands are in, for one - the people of this planet blame it on that Second Impact event. But you know as well as I that it's the Void. Pouring in the energies of a thousand dying universes, raising global temperatures. The biosphere here may never recover. The sooner we get the TARDIS operational and seal the rift, the better!"

"See, that we can agree on," said the Doctor. "Which is why - wait. Wait, hold on. Is that singing?" He shot a look at his Second incarnation. "That isn't you again, is it?"

The Second shook his head and pointed upwards.

The Doctor looked up. Above his head - above the city - an immense crystal the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza floated across the sky. It made a strange chiming noise as it moved, which sounded vaguely like the cries of a distant chorus.

The Doctor stood alone on the rooftop. "Yeah." He swallowed. "That... doesn't look good."