Epilogue: The Beginning of the End

            The T.A.R.D.I.S.es of the four Gladiators and the Doctor’s Type-40 model piggybacked each other once again. They all barreled down the swirling multicolored time-space energy that was the infinite dimensional corridor, until it metamorphosed into blue and red, fast-moving energy. This was indication of their arrival through the time vortex associated with the Doctor’s T.A.R.D.I.S.

            Within one of their conjoined console rooms, Gen and the Mystery Inc. gang thanked Tuck Pendleton, reverted back to average size, for succeeding in his mission inside of Alexis.

            “What was it like to traverse the inside of a human body?” Velma probed.

            Her question prompted a heavy sigh out of Pendleton. “Something I won’t ever forget…no matter how hard I try.”

            Close by them were Alexis and Jeff, who still remained in his Meteor Man outfit.

            “So…how does it feel to be a superhero?” she asked him.

            Jeff swelled with a sense of buoyancy Alexis had never seen in him before. “It felt…exuberating…like I’m a whole new man.” His enthusiasm then dwindled. “Of course, the Doctor says that it’s only temporary. The more I use my powers, the more I exhaust them.”

            “Well,” Alexis said, “we’ll just work on you using them sparingly.”

            “Does that mean we’re still…you know…together?”

            Alexis knew what incited him to question their future; she did herself, soon after she regained her Time Lord physiology. “Jeff, I’m sorry you had to find out the truth about me this way.”

            “You mean the truth that my girlfriend of four months is actually an alien from another dimension?” Jeff’s tone insinuated some humility over the fact, which was surprising to Alexis. “After being hit by a meteor and blessed with superpowers, you’d better believe I’m willing to go the next level.”

            Alexis was moved by his response. “You are such a wonderful man, Jefferson Reed.” She locked her lips with his and, for a brief moment, there was a literal spark between them – a discharge of meteorite energy.

            Further across from their kissing session, Bradlee waltzed his way into the Doctor’s portion of the console room. There he was, secluded from everyone, fiddling with the controls. As much as Bradlee appreciated the coral design of the room, it was rather dim, illuminated by the glow of green light from the time rotor column in the center and the lights in the hexagons on the walls.

            Bradlee took this moment alone with him to bring up a secret he and Neas hadn’t the courage to tell him: “The Time Lords ordered me to bring you back to Gallifrey.”

            “Did they now?” The Doctor didn’t sound the least bit concerned.

            “You’re not surprised that they’re even back?” the troubled Bradlee inquired.

            “You come from a point in time far beyond mine, whether it’d be the past, present, or future. To you, the Time Lords still exist. To me, they’re still gone. So, it wouldn’t matter if you bring me to them or not.”

            Bradlee accepted this logic with a subtle nod. “Fair enough. I mean, it wasn’t you they were after anyway – that is, not this version of you.”

            “I suppose I’ll have something to look forward to then.”

            Through this entire exchange, Bradlee sensed antagonism in the Doctor, and he had a feeling it wasn’t due to the Time Lords’ bounty. “What’ve you been hiding?”

            No matter the regeneration, Neas was a sharp-minded individual.

            They knew the Doctor better than most.

            “I have been hiding…and running…quite a bit lately,” he finally confessed.

            “From what?” Bradlee pressed, hoping to learn more.

            The Doctor stepped away from the control console, hands in his pants pockets, exhaling heavily. “My song is ending – at least, that’s what the message is across the universe. No matter where I go, it’s always there, reminding me that I have to die. I’ve been to Mars, met a man who I believed was my next self, and even married Queen Elizabeth the First!”

            Bradlee chuckled at that last one. “Seriously?!”

            “Yes,” the Doctor laughed. His mood turned somber again as he continued: “I don’t know what to do next. I’m scared…scared of the inevitability.”

            Bradlee saw that he was, and it was rare when he did.

            “Go on a long, quiet vacation,” he advised. “Maybe to Hawaii.”

            He got the Doctor started with a straw hat, sunglasses, and flower lei that he kept stored in the T.A.R.D.I.S. wardrobe room.

            Wearing them, the Doctor felt his spirits lift a little.

            “Thank you, Bradlee.”

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            After saying farewell to the Doctor and returning Pendleton back to his home dimension, the Gladiators dispersed one-by-one back to their respective points in their timeline with their companions.

            Alexis departed with Jeff.

            And Bradlee set off with Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems.

            Neas and Gen were the last two left, their T.A.R.D.I.S.es still piggybacking over each other back down the dimensional corridor. Gen, on the other hand, didn’t want to leave. She appreciated the company of her successor, who was as great of a man as she figured (when not under the influence of Regen-8).

            She prolonged her stay with casual conversation.

            “Scooby and the gang agreed this’ll be our last adventure together,” she told Neas, only realizing after that he probably already knew that, since her travels with Mystery Inc. were essentially in the past for him.

            That much was obvious when he replied, “Yeah…they’ve journeyed with us in earlier regenerations. But, hey, you got Craig and Willie to look forward to.”

            Gen’s gaze widened at that spoiler. “Really? Huh.”

            “Don’t worry. You’ll grow to love ‘em.”

            “Oh, I already do. They’re great fellas. Craig always has my back – even if he is a little headstrong, and I’ve grown pretty fond of Willie’s barbecue. Can you believe he fed it to me, thinking it’d awaken my ‘inner brotha’?”

            Neas frowned at the term. “Inner brotha?”

            “That means you.”

            As ludicrous as it sounded, Neas sincerely deliberated on the idea. “I dunno. In some circumstances, regeneration can be strongly influenced by the subconscious mind.”

            “Well, whatever the case, I’m glad that I’ll one day be you.”

            “And I’m grateful for the time that I got to be you.”

            Gen couldn’t help but to discern a hint of solemnity in his voice when returning his gratitude. “Why do you sound so sad?”

            Neas naively shrugged. “Feelin’ nostalgic, I guess.”

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            Gen’s T.A.R.D.I.S. detached from Neas’s, dematerializing away successively.

            Neas was left with the companionship of Jane, Suzanne, Al-Lee, and newcomer Fawn. Everett and Chanley stayed on briefly to say their goodbyes. While they did so, Suzanne took Neas aside to give him a hug and a kiss.

            “What’s that for?” he asked.

            “For coming to Themyscira and saving my butt, silly,” she said. “If it weren’t for you and your friends, we would all be dead right now.”

            “But I almost helped cause it!”

            “Oh, nonsense. You were just as much a victim as I was.”

            In talking to this new regeneration of his father’s, Neas took notice in how she stood at near-perfect eye level with him. “I suppose congratulations are in order, Pop. You’re now the second tallest member of the crew. You got Al-Lee beat by a few inches.”

            Suzanne giggled just as Chanley and Everett approached them.

            “Welp, it’s our turn to go,” Everett said.

            “Need a lift back?” Neas offered.

            “Nah,” Chanley declined. “We’ll just use my vortex manipulator.”

            Seeing the device on her wrist helped Neas come to a realization: “So that’s how you got aboard my T.A.R.D.I.S., you lil’ sneak!”

            Chanley teasingly batted her eyes to him.

            Neas could only smile, admiring her ingenuity.

            “Bro,” Everett addressed him. “I got somethin’ for ya.” He presented Neas with a vial of a glowing gold liquid – the same type of vial LeMarier once bestowed upon him. “I know what you’re thinking. Why am I giving you the very thing that caused us all so much misery in the past hours? That’s ‘cause this is an even more concentrated, stabilized version of the formula…and I think you know what you have to do with it.”

            Neas looked on the vial in Everett’s proffered hand for a long minute.

            He readily took it from his twin brother and somberly agreed, “I do know.”

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            The lush purple planet of Bloverus was a place Neas once visited before, though he vaguely recalled it ever happening. As he dematerialized his Type-Z T.A.R.D.I.S. right beside another on a field of violet-colored flowers, it dawned on him why his memory of the planet was so hazy.

            Stepping out, he spotted a pigtailed Caucasian blonde wearing a black eyepatch across her left eye and a white, frizzled dress adorned with print of various fowls, quills, and birdcages. Atop her head was an actual birdcage. She sat there on the field with not a care in the world, plucking the pedals off a flower and humming a random tune.

            It was odd and a little depressing for Neas to see Gen in this state, having only crossed paths with her younger, more sensible self moments ago. A victim of the One Ring, it was a miracle she still knew how to fly her T.A.R.D.I.S. between dimensions.

            The second she noticed him there, she was overjoyed. “Return,” she muttered in her severely limited vocabulary – another casualty of the Ring’s influence.

            “Yeah, it’s me,” he told her. “This moment between us is something that’s haunted me every day since you regenerated into me. I can never tell if this is how it started or how it ended…I just know it’s something I have to do for either possibility.”

            From out of the left pocket of his hoodie, he pulled out a syringe.

            It was loaded with the last of the Regen-8 formula Everett gave him.

            He stuck the needle into Gen’s neck and injected the formula into her system, following a fleeting moment of hesitation. She passed out instantaneously thereafter, the flower dropping out of her hand as she hit the plum-colored dirt.

            Hours later, she awoke. Neas and his T.A.R.D.I.S. were long gone.

            Everything felt different to her. Her senses were sharper than ever, her normal brain functions restored or perhaps heightened. Beneath her eyepatch, she felt a brand new eye moving. She validated this by taking the patch off, seeing the world of Bloverus with excellent peripheral vision.

            She was whole again, despite the exact source of it being a mystery.

            This astonishing miracle would have been cherished for eternity…had she not looked down at her hands.

            To her horror, they irradiated with regenerative energy.

            What she perceived to be a miraculous recovery was in actuality the first stages of her regeneration.

            Or, as Gen gravely put it herself, “The beginning of the end.”

INFINITE DC: REGENERATION