Disclaimer: Do I have to go through this again? Marvel Entertainment or the BBC owns the principle characters, backdrops, and backstories. I'm just borrowing this stuff for entertainment purposes and not to make money. Send no money now (or ever) and I won't get into trouble. This is the continuation/conclusion of "Mission Into the Unknown", based in a possible future of the "Pendragon" Fanficverse. You can read Book One at http://www.aric-dacia.com/pendragons/legacy.htm

Herein is a tale of love, angst, anger, desperation, confusion, misdirection, sinister intentions brought to light, and carefully laid plans seeing fulfillment. I can't promise there won't be a bit of sex or hints of stuff that might considered morally questionable. If you feel uncomfortable with unconventional pairings or relationships, or if your intestinal fortitude is insufficient to stomach the aftermath of good ole ultraviolence GO AWAY. I'm not apologizing later. Comments can be sent to yankee_pendragon@hotmail.com

What has come before: Finding themselves trapped inside a bottle, held captive by an unknown enemy, Franklin Richards and his team now seeks to escape. Discovering a vast cache of technology buried underground, Franklin manages to summon help in the form of the renegade Time Lord known as the Doctor.

War of The Worlds: Mission Into The Unknown

Book Two

By Joseph Connell

Issue two: realizations

"You're right, Franklin," the Doctor declared, his deep voice echoing in great chamber as he addressed the younger man standing nearby. "This is all quite...weird."

Richie groaned aloud. "Again with the 'weird' label?"

He had accompanied the pair back underground, shifting this time into a pancake-shaped form that emitted a brighter florescent glow from its underside. He hadn't even tried to name or conceive of how such a creature would operate or could even exist. Contrary to the assumptions of both family and friends, his shape-shifting abilities did not operate on the intuitive basis as pure-bred Skrulls did; he needed to have at least a working idea of how whatever shape he assumed might have evolved or developed. He was actually finding this kind of fantastic shape-shifting easier than when he consciously thought about it.

Right then he was especially concerning how many laws of evolution and basic biology he was cheerfully breaking. His focus was entirely upon the two figures moving about underneath him. They made for weird-looking pair themselves: the disheveled younger man in jumpsuit and vest shoulder-to-shoulder with the older man in immaculate yet archaic suit, cape and scarf. The former held a hand-torch, the latter a small lantern every bit as old-fashioned as his clothes. Richie remained where he was, seriously considering lowering his phosphoresce out of pure spite.

Not that the pair he was presently assisting would likely even notice. It was really just the principle of the thing, really. So instead he continued to float there and let the pair under him bicker and prod each other as they had since the Doctor's arrival.

"I say," the Doctor had declared, staring upwards at the clear sky and curving barrier beyond it. "Quite the scene. Yes. Quite the scene."

"Any ideas as who that might be up there?" Franklin asked, sounding decidedly tense.

"Hmm? Oh, no idea, I'm afraid. This certainly doesn't look like the work of Gods or the Agency." He did not elaborate on either title or group. "I'm surprised I didn't detect any spatial or dimensional distortions when I arrived...here."

"So you detected nothing unusual?" Franklin asked with a faint air of disbelief.

The Doctor gave him a measured look, then strode back to his blue box, opening one of the doors and saying "Would you care to check the readings yourself, Master Franklin?"

Richie and others could see what looked like an impossibly vast chamber directly beyond the doorway. There was a central column and multisided console in the center of it all, a wide circular staircase rising upwards around it and the scattering of antique furniture in sight. The whole chamber was bathed in light from the column, which cast shadows that seemed to move with their own purpose.

The offer more than the light acid of the older man's tone had Franklin raising his hands in surrender. "I'll take your word on it, thanks."

"Right then," the Doctor said, shutting the door again. "First thing I think is to...well..." His aura of certainty, projected so clearly only moments ago, had suddenly become utter uncertainty. He appeared every bit as lost as the rest of them.

"I say, Stephen?" he suddenly asked, focusing upon the former Sorcerer Supreme as if seeing him for the first time. "Shouldn't you be somewhere else right now? And...Agatha? You haven't looked this spry in at least a century."

"Longer, actually," Agatha smiled at him, much the way she did at everything else: hungrily. Franklin rolled his eyes and very nearly laughed when the Doctor simply nodded to himself and took to staring upwards once more. Agatha herself looked vaguely put out by his evident lack of interest.

"Something is definitely off here, lad," he confided to Franklin in a stage whisper. "I just can't put my finger on what, exactly."

Stephen, Richie, and Franklin all shared a dubious-incredulous look between themselves. Stephen looked as if he were about to begin sputtering incoherently, while Franklin paled to a shade of dirty chalk. Richie himself simply declared "You mean, apart from us standing around with a bunch of dead people...and all of us are inside a huge bottle?"

"Eh? Yes, yes. Apart from that."

Franklin's brow furrowed in concern. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you're alright? You haven't regenerated recently or anything, have you?"

Now it was the Doctor's brow that furrowed. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean...well, you're behaving more like that other incarnation of yours."

"Which one?"

"The white haired one that helped my dad with an uncontrolled Negative Zone breach. You looked like a concert pianist at the time."

"I did? Wasn't traveling with anyone at the time, was I?"

"How would I know? I was still in diapers."

" Hmm...must have been my first or third. You don't remember how I was dressed back then?"

Franklin shook his head, purely from renewed frustration rather than as an answer. "Look, we're getting off subject here."

"Oh, I agree."

"Good!" Even Franklin looked mildly embarrassed by his outburst. He took a breath and continued in a somewhat calmer voice. "How about you take a look at the equipment we found underground and go from there?"

"Eminently sensible," the Doctor agreed, allowing himself to be lead over the to crater by Franklin, May and Richie trailing close behind them. Franklin took up the webline lying at its edge, quickly gesturing for May to remain topside, then began his descent. The Doctor watched him go for a half-minute, then tutted something about 'beneath my dignity' before following him.

Richie exchanged another look with May, then stepped up to the edge and jumped, transforming into a phosphorescent pancake in mid-air, following the other's progress down.

The technobabble that was shouted back and forth between Franklin and the Doctor began the instant their feet hit the floor of the cavern, and continued unabated until one or the other was simply out of breath. Sometimes even past that point.

The Doctor was speaking again, his strangely dry voice ringing out through the chamber. "A Halsync sensory grid connected to the detonation core of an Osirian Warspear, which in turn is plugged into the hypershunt filter of Badoon teleportation pad, said pad itself acting as the stabilization platform for what looks suspiciously like the photonic cells of a Zigma cabinet."

"And lashed together to do...what?" Franklin asked aloud.

The Doctor seemed more interested in continuing his cataloguing of the various pieces of hardware under their feet. "Hmm...never thought I'd see a Thalek hypercore ever again...oh, eh..." The Doctor shook his head and frowned. "No idea. None of this makes any sense."

"That's not encouraging."

"Sorry, lad. Its just most of these components are too different in terms of function and origin to see them working in this fashion."

Franklin shook his head. As if he needed to be told that! "And we don't dare try to shift or disconnect anything for exactly the same reason?"

"Eminently sensible."

"That was a question, actually."

"Ah," the Doctor nodded, still playing the distracted eccentric. "Well, actually...I think I can fiddle at the edges and still keep this technological dogs breakfast from doing anything nasty."

"Like dematerializing permanently or dragging us all through the Zigma Contour?"

"Er, yes. Like that."

Franklin clearly wasn't convinced. "I assume you've some idea how to bypass the fact the Caltonic Regulator is acting as the buffer to those transduction circuits and the Karinthi fusion pods?"

"Actually I was planning on redirecting the neutron flow into a feedback circuit..."

"To do what? Blow us all to smithereens instead of tearing our atoms apart?"

"Hardly! I can divert the flow, bifurcate it so the Regulator remains active while canceling out the magnetic lines of force to the transduction circuits. That should allow us to regain normal size..."

"What makes you think we aren't already at normal size?"

"We're in a bottle, Franklin. Its rather a given this is a miniaturized environment."

Franklin blew a frustrated breath. "Do you see anything resembling a molecular compression generator here?"

"Erm..." Richie snorted aloud. "Could I ask something?" Both the Doctor and Franklin looked up at him, neither looking terribly focused or interested. "Well," Richie persisted. "If its so dangerous to go foolin' with any of this stuff...well, why don't we all just pile into the Doc's blue box and hightail it out that way?"

They stared at him for several long, silent seconds.

Eventually the Doctor turned to Franklin and asked rather archly "You two weren't switched at birth, were you?" Franklin returned the stare, but said nothing.

May had refused to leave the tunnel entrance since the three had made the descent. Strangely, the lethargy that had been eating at her energy had alleviated since the Doctor's arrival. If anything, she was feeling positively juiced and jumpy; even the warm memory of finding Franklin and Rachel at the hanger (was it really just a few days ago?) didn't quite match. She'd taken to pacing the edge of the crater just to do something with the extra energy.

She'd been less than pleased that Franklin's plan had called in another time-active renegade, but at least this one seemed willing to actually help them. The fact both Dr Strange and Agatha immediately recognized him shored up his bona fides. He'd listened patiently to their stories, made disapproving noises at Franklin's description of the machinery underground, and asked to see the equipment himself. Franklin actually sounded eager to get below again, and Richie insisted on keeping an eye on him.

And so down they'd gone, which was seemingly hours ago, leaving the rest of them to their own devices. Rachel was still weak as a kitten just out of the womb, and it took both Wanda and Clea to nearly carry her back to a hut. Strange and Agatha waited along with her for a short bit, but soon drifted off, her to bother their small flock for a bit and he to check up on Rachel.

Left to her own devices, May could only pace up and down and all around the edge of the crater, debating whether or not to follow them down. The trio's quick re-emergence from the pit rendered this point moot.

Franklin was the first one out of the pit, follow closely by the Doctor, with Richie floating up and out a few heartbeats later. All three were clearly excited, with Franklin grinning and Richie looking unusually smug. The Doctor was a bit harder to read, looking more inscrutable than before.

"Have fun down there, boys?" she asked tartly. Franklin's grin just got wider. "You swallow a canary or something?"

"Get everyone together, May," he breathed. "We're getting out of here!"

May actually had to do comparatively little to get everyone together. She'd only needed to rouse Wanda and Clea, who once again helped a barely-coherent Rachel to her feet, and loudly call for Strange and Agatha to join them. Everyone was soon gathered before the Doctor's blue box. She wasn't surprised to see the mages came only with the simple tunics they wore.

"Alright, everyone," the Doctor piped up. "Its been suggested we simply evacuate in my TARDIS. Given what an insane mess it is in the basement, I agree." He nodded back towards the pit just a few metres away, then quickly moved to open the time capsule's door. "Alright. Miss Summers and her helpmates first, followed by Stephen and Agatha, then the rest of us. This way we can see if the interior dimensions of the old girl can mitigate whatever is that affecting you all."

"Interior dimensions?" May asked, still trying to get her head around this sudden turn of events.

"The TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental," the Doctor began, only to have Franklin barrel in a moment later.

"Basically the blue box is a physical capsule designed to accommodate a transdimensional conduit bridging our five-dimensional continuum and the neighboring eleventh-order sub-space pocket the capsule's interior actually resides in. Once in, we'll be in a space of temporal grace that should shield us completely from external ambient effects as we'll effectively be removed from linear existence."

Everyone conscious stared at this lengthy sounding recital.

"Er," Clea began.

"You mean it's bigger on the inside than the outside, right?"

"Exactly, Richie."

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

"I...never mind."

"What Franklin is trying to communicate, in utterly unnecessary and incomprehensible detail I might add, is that the TARDIS's interior is another dimensional space completely removed and shielded from our present surroundings."

"Right. What he said."

"Okay, so we all go in and hopefully get better? What about you?" Richie asked.

"I'll be right behind you, lad." He nudged the now-open door ajar and stepped aside to allow the three ladies to approach. "Now, in you go," he urged.

Rachel, who to that point had been limp and unresponsive, seemed to suddenly come to life and stood upright under her own strength. To everyone's surprise, she took two steps forward and pushed the doors fully open, revealing...a small, empty space barely one meter around and two and a half high. The blue box was just that now: an empty blue box. No vast chambers within it. Just...an empty space between the four sides.

Everyone stared for several seconds.

"I don't think we're all gonna fit," Richie finally said, scratching his head.

Rachel was still standing, muttering something that might have been "All wrong." It could also have been "All gone." Or something completely different. Franklin, the Doctor, Strange and several others were too busy staring to really pay attention. The ones who weren't staring were looking upwards again as the sky cleared enough to remind them where they all really were.

"So much for that idea," Franklin muttered as the Doctor took a single, stumbling step past Rachel and into the box. He looked as if her were in utter shock, the sort caused by loosing an entire limb so suddenly the blood hadn't even had time to start spraying. He waved his arms about inside the empty space, looking for a moment as if he might actually burst into tears. "Anything like this happen before?" Franklin asked.

"Never in my experience. There are stories..." The Doctor spoke as if he weren't actually there; as if he were miles distant and simply hadn't remembered his body was there with them. "I don't understand...I just don't..."

"Doctor?" Franklin put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Doctor!" he barked.

The older man didn't start or jump, but he did appear to come back to himself. "What?"

"The other idea you had, about fooling with the neutron flow to the Caltonic Regulator? Do you still think that would work?"

"Maybe, perhaps...I think I could do it..." He gave a quick shake of his head, clearing away the cobwebs. "Yes, yes. It could be done."

"Looks like that's our way out now."

"Oh, joy," Richie drawled. "Back down the hole." He however was the first one to spin on his heel and head back to the crater.

"What will that do, exactly?" May broke in before either could follow. "This rerouting the whatsit to the whatever an' all?"

They both looked at her, eyes strangely alight. "The Doctor thinks it will return us to normal size." Franklin stated.

"Yes, thereby freeing us of this miniature environment."

"But...what a minute..." May shook her head. "Us getting shrunk down may explain a few things, but that doesn't explain what happened to your ship, Doc. I mean...are we just imagining things here?"

Whatever strength had held Rachel upright to that point chose that moment to flee, causing the redhead to collapse against May again and nearly send them both sprawling. Strange and Franklin exchanged a look before the former knelt beside his patient and the latter set off after his cousin. The Doctor lingered for only a moment longer, then turned and headed away himself.

The three of them were back down the hole and atop the machinery in literally no time flat. Richie had once again transformed into the floating, glowing pancake while Franklin and the Doctor had resumed their technobabble exchanges.

"Which should go first? The Badoon hypershunt or the flow regulartors to the transduction circuits?" Franklin asked.

"Neither," the Doctor shook his head. "We need to completely switch off the main conduits to that Thalek hypercore and make sure the energy trace follows through to the Regulator itself."

"Simple bypass?"

"Hardly. We also need to arrange a secondary flow to immediately step in." He blew a frustrated breath and planted both fists on his hips, his feet planted wide apart. "This entire thing is simply insane, lad. There's no redundancy built into any of it!"

"You yourself described it as a 'dogs breakfast', Doc," Franklin reminded him, eyes fixed on one of the smoother-looking pieces of hardware at his feet. "Redundancy hardly seems a priority."

"Its more than simply that. Its like...all of this is simply too..."

"I know, I know." Franklin sounded no less frustrated. "It shouldn't work, but it does."

"No, no! It works. I can believe it all works...but it works so, so perfectly, as if every piece is exactly designed to fit together in this configuration and no other." He turned a complete circle in place, wonder and disgust mingling in his gaze.

Franklin stood and faced him now. "You're saying this won't work now?"

"I'm saying I can't believe any of this is actually functioning so seamlessly. There's something...off here."

"You've said that too. Back on the surface, you said the same thing."

"And I still can't put my finger on it."

Richie had taken to floating off on his own, admiring the elegance of it all from his otherwise unique vantage point. The Doctor was right: ignoring the individual shapes and simply looking at it in total, it was like a vast jigsaw puzzle, every piece fitting perfectly into every other piece. He couldn't begin to comprehend the function of more than a tiny fraction of any of the components, but it was nevertheless a sight to behold. An old joke sprang to mind.

He murmured it aloud. "Geez. Everything's down here except the kitchen sink." As soon as he said it, he realized both the Doctor and Franklin had gone silent. Turning back toward them, he noticed they were both staring at him. "What? I just said..."

"Say it again," Franklin ordered, pulling a glow-stick from his vest and shaking it to life.

"Er, everything is down here except the kitchen sink?" Franklin nodded, then suddenly threw the glow stick towards him. More accurately, he tossed the stick under him, doing so with sufficient strength and speed that it skipped and skidded against the floor to rest on something somewhere just behind him. Almost against his will, Richie followed its progress under him, then behind him. He nearly morphed back into his normal, humanoid shape in shock at the sight that greeted him:

The stick was resting against the chrome basin of a kitchen sink, its antique faucet and handles a perfect match for the one back in the house they all shared in Little Midgard. The pipes for both the faucet and drain were somehow plugged into distinct pieces of technology underneath it, as if the object were a natural part of this otherwise impossible machine.

"That's..." Richie began, only to find there weren't words sufficient to even begin describing the sight; 'impossible' didn't work, 'insane' was inadequate, and 'ridiculous' didn't seem appropriate. He looked over at Franklin and the Doctor, both of whom were still staring at the sink as if daring it to continue existing at the risk of their mutual displeasure.

They all remained like that for a long time; a very, very long time.

Perhaps the whole of thirty seconds.

Franklin suddenly spun on his heel and marched back towards the webline leading to the surface. "We've got to wake Rachel up," he declared to no one in particular, his voice carrying clearly in the chamber.

"Agreed," the Doctor stated, his voice strangely deepening, as if an unfamiliar accent were creeping in.

"Whu...?" Richie stumbled. "Why?"

"Because she's the one who affecting things the most!" Franklin nearly screamed as he began climbing back to the surface. The Doctor again followed close behind him, muttering something in a language that sounded heavy on hard consonants and only the occasional vowel thrown in for spice. Not wanting to be left behind, Richie likewise began to climb. He made a game effort at keeping up, but Franklin and the Doctor soon pulled far ahead.

Rather than try to keep up, Richie paced himself and simply hoped he didn't completely miss the fireworks that were sure to follow.

Stephen and May had managed to carry Rachel back Wanda's hut, the task which somehow strained both to their limits. By rights the slender red head should have been lighter than a toothpick for her enhanced strength, and Stephen himself was no lightweight in the muscles department.

So why were both of them literally on their last legs dragging her just a dozen feet? May desperately felt like a nap herself at that point, yet something kept her from just lying down and closing her eyes. She didn't know what, but it was there all the same. Franklin's earlier words came back to her, his terror that if any of them gave into this bizarre lethargy, they'd never awaken.

There was nothing she could do for it, save sit at Rachel's side, holding and stroking her limp hand and praying for her to open her eyes once more. Nothing else mattered to her. She barely even heard the commotion that started outside.

May jumped half out of her skin when Franklin suddenly stormed in, his boots stomping loudly on the floorboards and expression murderous. She was further surprised when he shoved her out of the way and froze in shock when he bent down and hauled the unconscious red head upright. "Wake up," he all but screamed, shaking her as he held her by the collar. "Get up! Get the hell back up, goddamned you! WAKE UP!"

The desperation in his tone broke her paralysis, letting May spring forward and wrap a strong hand about his wrists. Franklin's head snapped around, eyes ablaze and boring into her own. May felt herself shake under his glare, yet somehow managed to pry his hands from Rachel's throat. She winced at the sound of Rachel collapsing to the mattress again, lying there as though she were boneless rag doll. Franklin's glare however held her eyes to his, as surely and tightly as his hands now grasped her own, suddenly too-weak shoulders.

He was speaking to her, his lips moving but the words lost under the rushing of blood in her ears. She was still shaking from his proximity, terrified and aroused as never before in their relationship. She had seen him literally crackling with raw power in the past, had literally been burnt by that same power, yet she would have sworn he'd never appeared so powerful as right then and there.

May quickly shook her head clear, rallying herself and refusing to be overcome so easily. "Whu...what?" she ground out, trying to make out his words.

"I said, we need her to wake back up. Fast!"

"Why?" In response he drew her closer to him, his lips near to her ear. His quiet words, murmured into her ear, caused her eyes to go saucer-wide. "You're joking!" Franklin shook his head helplessly. As he pulled back, May noticed over his shoulder they now had an audience. The Doctor, Agatha, and Richie were all watching them from the doorway.

Franklin was talking again; babbling, really. "We need to wake her up. Somehow wake her up. Get her conscious..." An idea suddenly gripped her, something certain to generate the sort of psychic chatter Rachel couldn't ignore.

She shook off his hands from her shoulders, then cupped his cheeks in her own and brought their lips together, hard.

Very hard, with tongue.

The only thing keeping her from throwing her legs around his sides and tackling him was the danger they'd end up atop Rachel. Well, that and the fact his younger cousin, his apparently immortal nanny, and a centuries old time traveler of at least passing acquaintance were all standing just a few meters away. Anna May Parker would never claim to be a prude, but neither was she the wonton exhibitionist. Performance anxiety didn't begin to cover it, especially now.

Unfortunately, this effort garnered no reaction from Rachel beyond her shifting just a bit at their feet and her starting to grin. "This isn't working," Franklin growled as they finally broke their kiss. May nodded in agreement but needed another moment to steady her voice.

"Any ideas?"

"Yeah," Franklin muttered, taking an reluctant step backwards. He didn't seem able to look up, to meet her eyes.

The next thing May knew, she was literally flying across the room, her left cheek stinging hard from the backhanded blow Franklin unexpectedly gave her. She landed in an instinctive roll, standing just in time to be grabbed once more by Franklin and shoved hard against the nearest wall.

"Oh, very clever," she heard the Doctor murmur. A quick glance over saw both Richie and Agatha ready to charge forward, only to be stopped by the Doctor's outstretched arm. "No! Look!" his quiet voice urged. May risked a look at Rachel, who was now frowning deeply and shifting about, as if in the grips of some nightmare. Hopefully, that was precisely what she was seeing.

She returned her attention to Franklin, who still had one had around her throat, and the other balled into a fist. His own shoulders were fairly shaking from the tense energy he struggled to hold down now; but his eyes told a different story.

"Do it," she whispered, the words barely more than a breath. Faster than her eyes could track, his fist came up and cracked across her jaw. She didn't try to stop the cry of hurt that came with it, the taste of her own blood on her tongue. At the same time he abruptly let go of her neck, allowing her to fall gracelessly to the floor. Oh, that's gonna leave a bruise, some part of her mind giggled almost hysterically. This thought was quickly lost in the din of a raptor's screech that erupted and tore the room quite literally apart.

DON'T TOUCH HER! So commanded The Phoenix, whose fiery corona surrounded Rachel's now-levitating form. It waved its flaming wings and Wanda's small house blew apart, its timbers and minimal furnishings thrown upwards in every direction. May counted herself lucky she was already lying down, otherwise she'd be scurrying off like the Doctor and others had.

Franklin, amazingly, stood his ground even as the great Avatar approached. "Glad to see you're finally up, Ray."

SILENCE! The Phoenix hissed like a hurricane, nearly knocking him over.

"Oh, give it a rest, will you?" The Phoenix merely flared brighter, its talons opening and extending towards him.

SILENCE!

This time, Franklin did stagger a few step backwards, as much by the raw power of the Avatar's command as its sheer radiance. Still, he managed to raise his eyes and glared at the slender figure at its center. "Goddammit, Rachel! Calm down for a second!" The Avatar actually seemed to falter and pause for a moment. He quickly pressed his advantage. "Just calm down and look around you for a moment. I mean really look!"

Amazingly, the Avatar did as bade, its head swinging this way and that, ultimately looking straight upwards. The ground began to tremble beneath their feet as it did so.

Eyes still fixed on the Firebird and its host, Franklin bent down and helped May back to her feet. "Keep behind me," he hissed.

May only shook her head, refusing to be moved so easily. "No, no. You stay behind me. She won't hurt me, remember?"

"That might not work this time," Franklin ground out, their footing becoming increasingly precarious as the tremors grew in strength. He quickly looked around, sighting Richie, the Doctor and the rest all having similar difficulty even as their eyes were fixed on the Phoenix hovering above them all. Further above them the sky took a sudden and stormy turn: the clouds had thickened and darkened, lightning streaking across their length in unusual patterns.

Stephen and the Doctor seemed the only ones remaining reasonably calm about this sudden turn of events, both watching the sky with a sort of curious detachment, as if seeing patterns with the clouds and lightning. The rest were clearly terrified by all this; Wanda and Agatha clinging to each other, Clea pressing close to her husband, her face pressed into his neck, Richie himself leaning heavily against the great table near the firepit.

The Phoenix's 'head' swung back down, its eyes fixing upon Franklin again.

THIS PLACE IS A LIE! was its only declaration.

"No shit," Franklin muttered, joining hands with May, who pressed close behind him.

Brace yourselves, came Rachel's psi-voice next, sounding every bit as calm and collected as the rest of them decidedly were not. This is going to get loud! With that, the Phoenix let loose another roar and shot skywards, its fiery beak aimed directly towards the thickest, heaviest mass of clouds swirling overhead.

Franklin quickly pulled May into his arms, suddenly and utterly terrified at what might come next. "Everyone..." he called out, but unable to think of anything to say. He could see all the lovers held each other close in these last moments. Richie had somehow stumbled his way over to them, while the Doctor stood apart from them all, his pale eyes fixed on the Avatar's flight. Franklin blindly reached out for his cousin, pulling him into their embrace just as the Phoenix Avatar reached the clouds, parting them easily and continued on towards the curving glass sky beyond.

A final raptor's roar, easily strong and fierce enough to tear a star asunder, split the air.

The world convulsed and split under their feet.

The Phoenix roared, shattering the glass encasing them.

The world shattered, falling away into a thousand tiny fragments.

The Doctor woke suddenly, finding himself buried under a small mountain of clothing and wire hangers. He squeezed his eyes closed against the pounding pain that threatened to split his head open. Struggling to sit upright, he cradled his head in both hands for another moment, fingers feeling all around his close-cropped hair for any signs of injury.

Finding none, he slowly stood, wincing all the while. Catching sight of himself in a full-length mirror, he couldn't help but smirk at the lean figure in a battered leather jacket that stared back at him. He poked at his pronounced ears for a moment, as if to reassure himself they were real. His smirk only deepened and he nodded to his reflection.

"Fantastic dream," the Doctor muttered to himself as he made for the door. No doubt his latest companion was looking for him. Best get to her before she blundered into somewhere more sensitive.

To be concluded

Confused? Afraid? Trust me, it'll all make sense (and get considerably worse) from here on!