Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who

Modern Crusaders

Prologue/Chapter 1

"Imagine
Our planet floating silently in space
Around it, a white dove flies--
Forever circling
Every one hundred years, the dove's wing
Gently touches the face of the earth
The time it would take for the feathered wing
To wear this planet down to nothing
Is eternity

Within eternity, time passes
Within time, there is change
Soon, the wing of the white dove
Will touch our world again
The dawn of a new Century
Time for a new beginning"

Secret Garden- Dawn of a New Century

London had never seen such chaos.

Well, not this London, anyway. Not the London of this universe; with its soaring dirigibles and high-tech gadgets. This London had been safe. This London had been free. This London had seen prosperity and growth, and so much wealth.

But not anymore.

This London was a wasteland.

It had started with the cybermen… all those many years ago. A madman, sick with death, hoping to rebuild the human race in his own image. He had turned hundreds upon thousands into heaps of lifeless metal; removing anything that might have made them seem even slightly human.

Immortality; that is what he had been striving for …how ironic it was that he would come to die within mere hours of claiming his empire.

"The age of steel", they had called it.

But even that was forgotten now. Because then it never stopped. Like a stack of dominoes, the monsters came one after another after another. The Axons with their false gifts, the Slitheen family with their sick emissaries, the Daemons, the Autons, the Carionites… and finally, the Daleks.

They lost, before they could even raise arms.

Torchwood.

UNIT.

All had failed.

Everyone they trusted, everyone they looked to for comfort, for safety…no one could have prepared them for the devastation that would come to rule their planet.

The human race were mere slaves, now; with no agriculture and no shelter, their planet cannibalized and stripped of its nutrients.

They died slowly, one by one, helping to expand the Dalek Empire. Some died of starvation; many of suicide. Some died from the labor, and some from disease. Either way, no one could do anything. The battle was lost.

Oh, there were those who tried. Those rare humans, starting up their little groups. The freedom fighters, hoping to stand up for their planet. But alas, it was useless. They all died in the end. Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate…

High upon the heaps of garbage, upon the masses of corpses, rotting in their own flesh; there sat the man responsible.

Because he had done nothing.

Rose was dead.

So he did nothing.

Upon his face slept the shadow of a once loved and well-respected man. His previously lush-brown hair was now thin and graying, messy around his head; not neatly styled as it had once been. His skin, once warm and tan, was now a milky pale, unshaven stubble working its way onto his cheekbones. His hands were frayed and worn, dirt nesting under his fingernails. His clothes looked quite similar; a simple black V-neck, with brown slacks that had become far too loose on him due to his lack of nourishment; both were torn, covered in filth.

Huddled atop the rubbish, he sat placid; his stone features blank and unfocused, staring into space. His knees were brought up to his chest, where his head lay; his arms wrapped around his knees. Even in this state he had never been one to stay completely still, though, and he fidgeted with his shoelaces; white string against blue converse.

He was dying.

Starvation. It was as simple as that. This human body could not last much longer, and he knew it. He expected it. He wanted it.

Because had he tried hard enough, he could have found food. He had always been resourceful, after all. He knew how to survive in such conditions.

But he simply did not care anymore.

He had nothing left to care for. What did this universe matter to him? Or it's inhabitants? They did not belong to him, just as he did not belong to them; much as he did not belong anywhere else, in any place, in any time. He was nothing. He was no one. He did not belong.

He rocked back and forth, bringing his face closer to his knees, and hummed to himself. "Oh, unto Rassilon's Tower we go. We must choose above, between, below." Several more quiet notes. "Oh, above, between, below…"

Above, Between, Below.

Pain, Time, and Death.

He wondered which of the Menti Celesti were waiting for him, once he died. Was he still Time's Champion, even in this form? There was no matrix for him to be uploaded into, only the dark. Once he died, this was it; his soul surrendered to the will of the gods; not that he believed in any of that crap.

And yet still he hummed.

"Oh, unto Rassilon's Tower we go. We must choose…"

"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"

The metal voice rang loud through the air.

"…Above, between, below. Unto Rassilon's tower, I go."

The Dalek came into view, staring (if it had eyes to stare with) up at The Doctor.

"HALT!-CEASE-TALKING-OR-YOU-WILL-BE-EXTERMINATED!"

"Unto Rassilon's tower I go, with neither friends nor my foes, nor my sorrows nor my woes, to Rassilon's tower, I go…"

"EX-TER-MI-NAAAAAATE!!!"

"…nor my sorrows, nor my woes…to Rassilon's tower… I go…"

And the Dalek fired.

Author's Notes: The nursery rhyme the Doctor is singing is featured in the classic series episode, "The Five Doctors" with the first verse being canonical and the second verse being made up by me. The Menti Celesti were a group of deities that the Time Lords once worshipped during the rule of the Pythia, namely Death, Time, and Pain.