//------------------------------//
// prologue 
// Story: The new and the old 
// by gkst 
//------------------------------//

The doctor watched alone in his TARDIS as the universe began to shatter around him. A thousand species all gathered in one place all after one thing. War. And they’d gotten it. His attempts at negotiations had gotten the one friend he had left throughout all of time and space killed and he himself missing a rather sizable chunk of his chest. He was getting careless. At the very least he usually managed to save someone. Anyone! Even a single soul would be better than this. Alas it wasn’t to be. This time no one lives. This wouldn’t be a war that could be won, it would be far too large and there would be far too much at stake for everyone involved.

On the planet in-between these thousands of species was the solution to the skasis paradigm. All that anyone could possibly need to take over the universe and bend it to their will. If the Daleks got there “hands” on it they would destroy every other creature in the universe. The Cybermen would make every creature alive one of them. The Sontarans would force every being into a last great war with themselves in the centre of it all. The doctor had to stop them. The question was how?

Normally the obvious answer would be get to the solution to the skasis paradigm first and destroy it. Unfortunately his death was drawing near. He would almost certainly be far too distracted and possibly unconscious to do much during his regeneration so he had to do something now.

“Come on think! Think! THINK!” The doctor clutched his chest and let out a gasp of pain before continuing “You have maybe 90 seconds to save the universe. plenty of time! All the time you could possibly need before you regenera…. Oh that’s good. That is very very good.” The doctors pained muttering became excited pained mutterings as he began flipping switches and bits of the TARDIS began to engulf him. His thought process was relatively simple. When he regenerated he let off power and a lot of it. More and more after each and every regeneration. With the right tool that much power could punch a hole in the very fabric of the universe and a rather sizable hole at that. Say a hole large enough for a relatively small completely uninhabited planet were a very smart man had hidden away the solution to the stasis a paradigm only for a daft old twit to discover and declare the existence of to the universe. He could hide it in the in-between state in-between universes (try saying that ten times fast.). The doctor was laughing as he pointed the sonic at the controls to the TARDIS setting it up to close the tear in the fabric of reality as soon as the planet passed through it.

He was still laughing when he died.