Six years. Relatively, it had been six years since the event that brought Constant to where he was now. A wanderer. A being without purpose...
…A refugee.
In the large control room of his TARDIS, the Monitor, Constant paced, thinking of the events that brought him to what his life was then and there. The dreaded Time War. Actually, to him, “dreaded” wasn’t even close to his opinion. He was drafted for that war, and he seethed with anger every time he thought about the end result…the destruction of his home.
Constant sighed as he watched over the view screens in the control room. Everywhere, status updates popped in and out showing the probability of a paradox occurring. So far, nothing seemed to indicate that one would, but that did not keep him from staying alert. “I swear, this would all be much easier if I wasn’t doing this alone,” he muttered.
Convinced that no paradox would occur for a while, he decided to set a course to Earth in the current time he was in before going down to the living quarters he had set up for himself. He picked up a book. It was a journal full of schematics based on the designs for the Monitor. “Let’s see…Original type 77 schematics,” he muttered to himself, “Weapon systems…dismantled that, so now I have to find out what I can do with the materials…and speaking of which…material analysis…propulsion system schematics…hmm…” He kept reading until he reached a section he had written himself.
This section was full of schematics and notes for a series of probes he would leave in every corner of the universe so they could record events over a long period of time. When they reached their limit, Constant would then collect them at their time of expiration and replace them before downloading their data. This would ensure that Constant had information about what was supposed to happen should someone try to change history for their own reasons.
For the past six years, that is exactly what he had been doing. He had been using this type 77 TARDIS, which he himself had called the Monitor, watching to make sure that history was not changed and that no universe-ending paradoxes would occur. The only problem he had with this task was that there was another certain Time Lord in a certain blue box doing his own work for who knows what reason. Because of this, he found himself having to correct not the actions he took, but his own records to account for them.
But that was going to be the least of his problems.
Constant took in more of the notes he had written in the journal before taking out a quill to write more and draw more schematics. It seemed that using his engineering skills to design and build new gadgets was the only thing he could do to keep himself calm whenever he got bored or nervous. When he felt he had written enough, he stood up and walked back, and opened another drawer.
There lay two of his most important gadgets, a sonic screwdriver, which had multiple functions, and a laser screwdriver. Normally, he would use the laser screwdriver as a welding tool or a cutting tool, but there were very rare moments when he would have to use it for self-defense. If he was ever going out, he would always carefully consider whether or not he would bring it with him.
Constant looked these two devices over very carefully. He listened to the sonic emissions that his sonic screwdriver made in test mode. “Okay, good,” he said, knowing that he had properly calibrated it. “And…” he switched his laser screwdriver to test mode as well and tried firing it at a panel on the wall next to him. For a few moments, the laser fired smoothly, but after a few seconds, it started flickering and shifting directions. “Hmm…” He took apart the device and checked inside it. The focusing crystal lens was cracked, so he would either have to repair it or get a new one. He was lucky that he had the kind of crystal he needed if it came to that.
He got up and walked down the hall toward a cargo room he had set up to hold fresh materials. He only took seven steps away from his living quarters when the floor shook lightly. “What in the—“ he started as he grabbed a support beam nearby. At that moment, an alarm sounded and the whole chamber shook more violently. “Oh what now?!” he groaned. He rushed back to the control room and checked the status displays, only to see static on all of them. “What is going on?!” he yelled. At that moment, he fell to his knees, holding his head. “AGH! WHAT—WHAT IS GOING----AUGH!” When he looked up, everything seemed to double as if he was crossing his eyes, which he wasn’t. Even his hands seemed to double, and whenever he moved, the duplicate seemed to move in exactly the same way.
At that moment, a few of the screens started functioning properly and he checked them. “The power core!” he exclaimed. He fiddled with the controls, correcting the Monitor’s course of navigation and bringing it into temporal drive. After traveling through the time vortex for about two minutes, the doubling effect was gone, but Constant was still in a state of panic. “Darn it! Why the dimensional stabilizer of all things?!” He rushed to where that section was and used his sonic screwdriver at just the right frequency to get the stabilizer working again. At that moment, the quaking stopped, but lights turned dim all around him and screens flickered. “Monitor,” Constant said, “When are you NOT going to have problems?! Okay, never mind, this is the first time this has happened, so who am I to complain, right?” He snarled as he went to the control stations. He grew annoyed as he saw static on the screens.
He went to a panel and typed in a basic command code. This turned off power being used for non-essential systems. This gave him enough power to access the navigational system. He tried to get a map of the area, only to get an error message, “Error; Quantum variation.” Constant realized that he was probably in a different universe. If that was the case, it was probably why the Monitor was low on power.
After fiddling with the controls, he finally got the main view screen working. He requested an external view, and when the view screen showed it, he saw that he was headed toward a planet, and he wasn’t on the verge of stopping. “Collision course!” he exclaimed. He rushed to the navigational controls and tried changing course but to no avail. He used his sonic screwdriver on the section below the controls. This time, he was able to move the ship, but not before it penetrated the planet’s atmosphere. “Too late to avoid the planet!” Constant exclaimed. As the outer shell of the Monitor started burning up in the atmosphere, he set a course for the Monitor’s computer to follow. He hit the execute button and held on to a support beam for dear life. He watched the view screen as the Monitor collided with a hill. From there, it leaped and tumbled down. Constant lost his grip as its cylindrical outer shell rolled down like a loose pipe. When it rolled up the next hill, Constant watched the view screen in shock as he saw that the Monitor was going to land in a pile of rocks. “This will not be a soft landing,” he thought to himself. And he was right.
CRASH!
Constant was thrown into a wall by the landing and lost consciousness.