As the familiar vworp-vworp echoed through the desert air, the TARDIS materialized in front of Nathan in its usual dramatic flair. The blue police box settled into the sand with a soft groan of old magic and ancient machinery. A moment later, the doors creaked open.
Out stepped a man in a long brown trench coat, pinstriped suit underneath, his hair styled in that eternally windblown mess that seemed to defy logic and time. Following close behind were two familiar faces—Amy Pond, red-haired and skeptical, and Rory Williams, looking slightly confused, as ever.
Nathan blinked in recognition.
"Well, if it isn't the Doctor," he said, offering his hand.
The Doctor grinned and shook it. "Nathan! Always lovely to see someone out of order."
"Doctor, who is this?" Amy asked, eyes narrowing.
"Oh, this?" The Doctor gestured to Nathan as if presenting a newly discovered planet. "He's an old new friend. Or maybe a new old one. We've met before—well, I met him later—but for me, this should be the first meeting. Only he's clearly met a future me already. Time travel: a real headache if you try to organize it alphabetically."
"Yeah, a future you showed up some time ago. Properly dramatic too." Nathan smirked. "But... what about you guys? Where are you in your timeline?"
"Ohhh, that's difficult," the Doctor said, scratching the back of his neck. "Last I checked, we were somewhere between accidentally insulting a Venetian duke and getting chased out of a girls' school full of solar-phobic fish vampires."
Amy gave him a sharp look. "You said we were going there for a romantic trip!"
"I did! And it was—for at least five minutes. Then came the plague warnings, undead girls, and the Duke with the crossbow... Honestly, Rory handled it quite well.".
Nathan chuckled. "Right. Anyway, as fun as this reunion is—we've got a problem. Highbreeds. Big ones. Paradox said you could help."
The Doctor perked up. "Oh? Interdimensional supremacists with wings? Sounds like a charming weekend."
Amy crossed her arms. "Wait, that's why we're here? You dragged us into another war?"
"Technically, Paradox dragged you here," Nathan said, turning to gesture toward where the time-walking professor had been standing moments earlier. His hand pointed to empty air. "Wait... where did he go?"
"Who?" the Doctor asked, half-distracted as he began to circle the TARDIS, flicking his sonic screwdriver open.
"Paradox. He was just here a second ago."
The Doctor's head snapped up, eyes suddenly gleaming. "Professor Paradox? You're telling me he was here?"
"Yeah, until five seconds ago."
"Brilliant!" the Doctor beamed. "I haven't seen him in ages. Last time we had tea, he was stuck ten minutes ahead of me and we kept overlapping in reverse."
Amy frowned. "That sounds horrible."
"It was confusing," the Doctor admitted, then turned to Nathan. "So—Highbreeds, time manipulation, and Paradox vanishing mid-sentence. That's all quite ominous. Do explain."
Nathan nodded. "Paradox dropped me here because the Highbreed are using fragments of the Time Vortex—weaponized precognition. They're seeing future outcomes before the battles even start. They've been using that edge to rewrite wars."
Rory blinked. "That's... cheating."
"Very," the Doctor agreed, suddenly deadly serious. "The Time Vortex doesn't like being siphoned. It screams when it's stolen. And anyone who tampers with it too long…"
He trailed off, his eyes unfocusing slightly, lost in some darker corner of memory.
Nathan stepped forward. "You can help, right?"
The Doctor straightened his coat. "Oh, we're not just going to help. We're going to crash their little future-seeing party and unplug them from time."
Amy exchanged a look with Rory. "Sounds dangerous."
The Doctor turned to her with a mad grin. "Amy Pond, everything's dangerous if you do it wrong."
Nathan followed them into the TARDIS, the doors closing behind him with that signature whooshing thud. For a brief moment, he had the overwhelming urge to say it—"It's bigger on the inside." He resisted, but the grin gave him away.
The Doctor was already at the console, hands dancing across controls with a kind of chaotic grace only he could pull off. Sparks flew, a lever was yanked, and the time rotor began to pulse.
"Hold on, everyone," the Doctor called, eyes locked on the central column. "We'll be there in a flash—give or take a minute or two, depending on how cooperative the universe feels today."
In less time than Nathan expected, the TARDIS came to a stop with a soft jolt. A greenish hue filtered through the windows—alien, unnatural.
"We're here," the Doctor announced, stepping toward the doors. "Hybrid homeworld, one of the less inviting vacation spots."
He pulled from his coat a strange contraption—roughly the size and shape of an old radio, with blinking lights and a twitching metal antenna.
"This should help us locate the Time Vortex fragments," he explained, giving it a shake for emphasis.
Rory squinted. "That looks like it barely works."
"Oh, it does," the Doctor replied breezily. "It's just allergic to being inside the TARDIS."
As soon as they stepped outside, the antenna sprang to life. It spun rapidly, clicking until it locked in one direction—toward a massive black tower rising like a spine out of the alien skyline.
Amy folded her arms. "Let me guess. The ominous evil-looking tower in the distance?"
The Doctor gave her a lopsided grin. "Where else would it be?"
With cautious steps, they began making their way across a narrow bridge, keeping low and quiet. The landscape was harsh—jagged architecture, strange fog rolling across broken terrain, and no sign of life that wasn't built for war.
They didn't speak much. Every noise was a potential threat. Silence was their safest bet.
But as they neared the halfway point of the bridge, Nathan suddenly paused.
A gentle chime echoed in his mind—faint, like a windchime in a quiet room.
[Notification: You've received a message from the Shop]
He blinked. That was… rare.
The Shop didn't usually initiate contact. Most of the time, it just waited—appearing when called, if it felt like it. So a proactive ping? That was something worth checking.
Not dangerous. Just… uncommon.
He glanced ahead—Amy and Rory were focused on the tower, the Doctor muttering to himself as the device in his hand jittered like an excited squirrel.
Nathan let the mental window open.
Let's see what you're up to now…
[Required Amount of Spatial Ore Detected.]
Oh. One of those notifications.
Nathan exhaled quietly through his nose, his boots still planted mid-step on the bridge. That particular phrasing was familiar. Some Shop items came with unusual price tags—materials, curiosities, things that had to exist around him to be tradeable. Not credits. Not points. Just... stuff. Sometimes cosmic. Sometimes mundane. It depended on the item.
Some Shop items came with strange price tags—rare minerals, organic samples, or concepts Nathan didn't always recognize on sight. After all, the Shop assumed a lot of things… but its user wasn't omniscient. If it demanded "two units of crystallized thought" or "a native atmospheric compound," it had to help locate them. That's what the detection alerts were for. A quiet assist for buyers who didn't have a cosmic encyclopedia wired into their brain.
Nathan focused, letting the familiar interface unfold across his mind—soft, almost dreamlike. The Shop shimmered into being in the mental space he'd long grown used to.
{The Shop}
Everything can be bought here—as long as you can pay for it, and you're lucky enough to see it on display.
Display resets in: 3:21:09
---
Pocket Archaeologist
A small square device that can reveal the complete history of any item it touches.
Note: It despises anything less than a hundred years old—including the user—and will shock you when displeased.
Price: An item with at least 1 million years of history
---
Chibi Beam
Anyone hit by this beam gains Toonforce and transforms into a chibi version of themselves. They can no longer cause serious harm to any living being...
However: Collateral damage increases by 500x what they should be capable of.
Price: Pass a test set by the Toon God
Note: Fail the test, and you'll become a Lego.
---
Cosplay Kit
Think of an outfit. Any outfit. It'll appear inside this kit within 72 hours.
Price: 100 unique pictures of yourself in different cosplays
---
HM: Judgment
A Hidden Machine that teaches your Pokémon the move Judgment, previously exclusive to Arceus.
Note: HM moves cannot be forgotten. Use wisely.
Price: 6 tons of bamboo wood
---
Ultimate Skill: True Hero
Sub-Skills
Banner of the Supreme King: Allows the user to call upon their fallen allies and replicate their abilities, memories, and experience inside the user.
Hero's Action: Guides the user's allies down the path of becoming heroes, eventually making their name famous.
Hero's Blessing: Bestows the user and their allies with immense "luck." In practice, this results in normally lethal attacks dealing significantly less damage, while the user and their allies' attacks always deal the maximum possible damage. This also causes all actions of the user to be viewed in a positive light—no matter what they are.
Lucky Field: In response to the user's happy mood, it grants a luck correction field that bestows tremendous divine protection upon allies. Allies with an Existence Value over 100,000 receive the lowest-tier divine protection necessary to face Ultimate Skills.
Hero's Charisma: Empowers the user's allies with immense courage, enabling them to fight even in the most desperate situations. It also has the effect of turning defeated enemies into allies. This effect applies to monsters—with the notable exception of undead.
Hero's Haki: Imbues the user's aura with a Spiritual Interference effect that allows them to bend target(s) to their will, potentially converting them into allies.
Related Arts
Einherjar: Near-perfect replications of the original person, possessing all their memories and experiences and appearing in their "perfect form." They are capable of acting independently from the user and are entirely digital in nature. Even the weapons the original person wielded in life are replicated at full power using Material Creation, which allows them to persist even after the Einherjar is dispelled.
Price: 1.6 Billion Tons of Spatial Ore (80%+ Compatibility with Space and 75%+ Affinity with Space)
Note: The ore will be detected by the Shop when you are within a certain distance.
---
Aleha — The Last of the Darkest Void Phoenix
Aleha will descend to become your guardian. For 10 years, she will protect you, hunt your enemies, heal your allies, and aid you in matters of great importance.
Price: You must become a Dark Void Phoenix
Note: During the 10-year contract, you are immune to bloodline and racial suppression.
Nathan instinctively reached out.
"Raphael?" he asked in his mind.
No answer.
Just silence. Not even static—just a hollow, echoing quiet that reminded him she was still gone.
He felt it stir again—that creeping dread like cold hands around his thoughts. The same slow corrosion that had been eating at him ever since she vanished.
But he forced it down.
Focus. You've survived worse.
And this—this was a stroke of luck. That kind of absurd, cosmic, absurdly specific luck that only ever showed up when the Shop was involved.
Nathan's gaze dropped to the ravine below, still lit faintly by the glow of dormant machinery and alien tech. The shop notification echoed again in his mind like a soft chime:
[Required Amount of Spatial Ore Detected.]
The timing. The item. The ore. It couldn't be coincidence. And if it was?
He was done questioning his fortune.
"Hey Doc," Nathan called, turning to the Time Lord still fiddling with the antenna on his not-a-radio. "Mind if I go down there and grab some of that Spatial Ore?"
The Doctor barely looked up. "Well, I'm sure the Highbreed won't mind a few missing rocks—once they notice we've stolen their precious Time Vortex fragment, of course."
Nathan cracked a grin. "Right. Good trade."
With a tap of the Omnitrix, he shifted—his body elongating, his skin glowing crimson and gold as wings flared wide. Jetray.
No more random shuffling. With Master Control synced from Ben's Omnitrix, every transformation was just a thought away.
He launched off the cliff's edge, slicing through the dense air in tight spirals until he landed at the bottom of the ravine. His feet crunched against alien stone and processed ore—rows of deep violet and obsidian blocks stacked like precious bricks.
Spatial Ore. Dense. Heavy. And humming with some kind of silent pressure, like compressed dimensions waiting to unfold.
Nathan landed, his form shifting back to human as he approached a slab nearly the size of a truck. As he reached out to it—
[Spatial Ore Confirmed: 1.6 Billion Tons. Compatibility and Affinity Requirements Met.]
[Item Exchange Approved.]
[Exchanging: Ultimate Skill - True Hero.]
He didn't press anything.
The Shop didn't need him to.
The moment the transaction completed, the world changed.
There was no light. No dramatic fanfare. No voice in the sky declaring him a hero.
Instead, reality… tilted.
Like the universe had been holding its breath and suddenly noticed him.
Something ancient, abstract, and mathematical locked onto his soul—like the laws of probability themselves decided they liked him. Or feared him.
He could feel the universe reorganizing around him. Like a billion tiny threads realigned to pull in his favor. Like the edges of fate now bent toward him rather than brushed past.
The darkness that had been clouding his mind—the fog of guilt, the weight of doubt—was suddenly pierced by a kind of stillness. A clarity. The Mark of Cain on his arm pulsed once, violently. Then again, weaker. The corruption didn't leave, but it recoiled. Shrinking back like a shadow afraid of dawn.
His breath hitched. For the first time in weeks, he didn't feel… haunted.
Not just by Raphael's absence. By anything.
He looked up.
Above the ridge, the Doctor had frozen. The antenna in his hands drooped as he stared at Nathan with eyes that had seen entire timelines unravel.
"…Something's changed about you," the Doctor said, quietly.
Amy and Rory looked over the edge next, puzzled but watchful.
"Did he just glow or was that just me?" Rory asked.
The Doctor didn't answer. His gaze was still locked on Nathan.
Nathan exhaled slowly. And for the first time in what felt like forever… it didn't shake.
He stood up, dusted Spatial Ore residue off his jacket, and said with an almost casual smile, "Right. Let's go ruin the Highbreed's day."
In the back of his mind, he reached out again.
"Raphael?"
Still silence.
But he wasn't hollow anymore.