Just Like Old Times

Chapter 7

The Doctor gazed around the main room as the guards escorted him, Jo and Doctor Tyler inside. It was quite lavish given its location, almost akin to a palace throne room.

He glanced over at Jo who appeared as impressed as he was. "It's fabulous."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, most impressive. I must admit that."

Tyler seemed amazed as well. "Almost worth the trip just to see this place."

Jo nodded. "Yes, but who brought us here, and why?"

"I did," a voice suddenly boomed. The Doctor lifted his gaze to find a figure standing at the top of a short staircase. "I am the one who brought you here."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes as he scrutinized their captor. Something about him seemed oddly, vaguely familiar, but his identity was still a question in the Time Lord's mind. "Who are you?"

"In the legends of your people, I am called Omega," he answered.

The Doctor's eyes widened as some old memories suddenly resurfaced in his mind. "Omega?" he breathed. "But that's impossible. Omega was destroyed."

"No, brother Time Lord," Omega returned, his voice a bit patronizing. "I was not destroyed, as you can see." He then turned to his guards. "Take the man and the girl," he ordered, pointing to Jo and Tyler.

"Where are you taking them?" the Doctor demanded.

Omega held his hands up in a placating manner. "They will not be harmed, Doctor. They have no part in my revenge."

The Doctor watched as several guards escorted Jo and Tyler out of the room and then turned back to Omega, quirking an eyebrow at him. Revenge? For what?

"You see, I have been grievously wronged, Doctor. And now it is time for my vengeance!" he bellowed.

"Your vengeance ..." The Doctor repeated, staring incredulously at him. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

"How dare you question me!" Omega retorted angrily. "Without me, there would be no time travel. You and our fellow Time Lords would still be locked in your own time, as puny as those creatures you now so graciously protect." He spit the last few words out in an exaggeratedly scornful way.

The Doctor glared at him, his jaw set. "You knew your mission was dangerous."

Omega gave a slight nod, as if conceding this. "Dangerous, yes, but I completed it and did not expect to be abandoned. Many thousands of years ago when I left our planet, all this was then a star until I arranged its detonation."

"You were the solar engineer. It was your duty," the Doctor reminded him.

"It was an honor, or so I thought then," Omega continued, a telltale bitter note in his voice. "I was to be the one to find and create the power source that would give us mastery over time itself."

The Doctor still had trouble understanding exactly what his problem was. "Well, you succeeded and are revered for it."

Omega scoffed derisively, the sound reverberating off the walls of the throne room. "Revered? Here? I was abandoned!"

"The histories say that you were lost in the supernova."

"I was sacrificed to that supernova," Omega returned, his voice rising in anger. "I generated those forces, and for what? To be blown out of existence into this black hole of antimatter?" He paused a brief moment, but his anger had not subsided. "My brothers became Time Lords, but I was abandoned and forgotten!"