Lighting the Flame

This is the story of a man forged in fire, who abandoned himself for the greater good. This is the story of a man who fought in the name of peace and sanity, for the sake of all creation. This is the story of the Last Great Time War. By Styracosaurus Rider.

Prologue
The sky was aflame that night, as it had been for countless nights before. A terrible thunder crashed through the heavens, announcing the descent of yet another battle fleet on the charred and smoking earth. The ground itself was stained with the blood and tears of tens of thousands, innocent and guilty alike. Some would have said that it was the apocalypse. But in reality, it was nothing more than a tiny, meaningless conflict; a child’s playground game; a battle that would come to nothing as part of a vast, endless War.

This was his life now. He could never forget that.

Through the rubble of vast skyscrapers, a Man emerged: hardened, ragged, and armed. Already he could see a platoon, gliding down the ruined streets and ready to kill. These Daleks were bright and untarnished; no doubt a newly engineered batch. The hatred in their single eye was coldly innocent, in a way. They had yet to experience the true horrors of the War that the Man had faced every single day for as long as he could remember.

As they swept closer, the Man chanced a glance at his surroundings. He could see other soldiers around him: some Time Lord, some Graxnix, some who-knows-what-else. It didn’t matter to him. He preferred to be alone. If nothing else, they would be a mere distraction for the enemy, and an opportunity for him.

With a single “EXTERMINATE!” the first Dalek fired a shot, and a soldier dropped to the ground with a piercing scream and in a skeletal flare. Immediately, there was a hail of gunfire and explosions. The Man reached into his bag and pulled out a handheld missile. Cesium-coated, for good measure. A few moments later, the first Dalek blew open into a ball of flame and collapsed onto the street.

Ducking under a stray plasma bolt, the Man continued to fight. One after another, Daleks and Time Lords alike fell and died in a screaming agony, becoming lost souls, never to be found again. No doubt they would be soon tallied up as numbers. Mere casualties. Not as irreplaceable lives.

Soon, the Man was the last left standing. Another platoon of Daleks was already arriving; these ones were dirty and stained, veterans in the art of death and destruction. The Man pulled out a remote from his pocket. The remote was equipped with a large, mauve-colored button. And then he simply waited.

The lead Dalek glided up to him. Its sensory globes were colored a pitch black, and a green light emanated from its eyestalk. Another new and supreme breed, to be eventually destroyed outright for imperfection. They were all the same, in the end. It glared at the Man in a clear expression of recognition and rage.

The Man didn’t give it a chance to speak, and pushed the button on his remote. Around him, the remains of the city erupted.

A wall of flame spread from the epicenter like a burning wave from the ocean; buildings collapsed into a grave of smoke and dust; and, with an alien cry of agony, each and every Dalek within half a kilometer was cooked from the inside out like frozen meat in an oven.

When the carnage had subsided, the Man stood up. He had been protected from the blast, but he had still been knocked to his feet by the shockwave. He walked up to the lead Dalek. It was still alive, barely. Its crushed and mangled headpiece lay off to the side somewhere, and its midsection had been torn open to reveal the mutated creature within. It sat there bleeding, with its single eye closed shut. Yet it was impossible to feel sorry for it.

The Man took a gun from his shoulder bag. He loaded it and aimed it directly at the creature. Upon hearing the clicking of the gun, the Dalek opened its eye and stared at the Man, the exact stare of recognition it had used before. “DOC-TOR,” it whispered in an electronically treated voice of hatred.

“That’s not my name,” the Man said. “Not anymore.”

And the Man fired.

After a couple seconds, he popped the shells out and put the gun away. And then he walked off, towards the next meaningless battle, towards the next dying soul who would never be rescued. One day the War would end. But it was not today.

Although it was hard to believe, the Man knew that he was not always like this. There was a time where the War had not yet begun. There was even a time when he was happy.