Fitz decided the best plan of attack would probably be surprise, he found the nearest door to hide behind, and added a table leg to his armoury. One of the most basic human instincts, when in trouble find a big stick and hit whatever's causing the problem until it went away or died. If you were lucky, it died and you got live to bash something else over the head. He peered out through the glass of the centre's front door, which wasn't really giving him that much of a surprise element as it was mainly just frosted glass. Over to the right, the truck was bouncing its way towards him. That was good, as it was full of armed soldiers. The bad thing was coming right for him, and he liked the look of it less and less as it approached. If you just looked at her, it wasn't so bad. She was just a tiny figure running towards him pushing a glowing ball ahead of her. That; he could cope with quite easily. What was really disturbing him, was the shadowy figure towering over her. It was like you could only see the edges of a glass figure. Everything else was completely transparent except for a slight waviness like a heat haze over a hot tin roof during the summer. It looked like a special effect from a movie Sam had taken him to see back on Earth during the early nineties. The shape of it implied arms, legs, possibly stubby wings and far too many tentacles on something that was obviously not an Octopus. And the towering wasn't just towering. The thing was half a mile away, and already looked half a mile high. He looked at his broken table leg, and sighed. "I hope this doesn't hurt too much."

Neelam, and his motley crew of freedom fighters, presidential bodyguards and one terrified dictator, were once more having their bones shaken loose by what was left of the trucks suspension. The fabric roof had been torn off by the earlier wind coming from the thing Cassandra, he shook his head; no not Cassie, had been holding. Most of the suspension was shot, the front engine cowling had been ripped off and the radiator was beginning to overheat. Not to mention, both headlights were out and it was getting dark. He glanced out of his window, to see the shadow of something very, very big and nasty, lumbering towards the tourist centre. He returned his attention to driving a damaged truck full of armed soldiers in the dark, without headlights, and discovered that the brakes weren't working. He took a pointless glance at the speedo, but the needle was wobbling around erratically in the smashed display. It felt like he was doing about fifty, but he could just as easily be doing ninety. His comm. pinged, and Jaxxson's voice came in on a private channel. "I know that look. What's wrong?" Neelam stole a glance back at his old friend. "The brakes are out, and we're going way to fast to stop with the gears." The centre was looming in the windscreen. Neelam asked his suit computer for a public channel. "Listen up! Everyone bail out now, the brakes are dead. I'm going to pull this truck around and try and run that thing down. Everyone out now!" Behind him there was a scuffle, as he wrenched the steering wheel around. Everybody started leaping from the truck, letting their combat armour lock them into a protected foetal position as they struck the ground. "God, just let us stop this thing." He whispered, forgetting that his comm. Channel was still open. "Which God?" Said a voice behind him, just before he felt himself getting thrown out through the ripped off door. Thompson grabbed the wheel of the truck, and jammed his foot down on the accelerator. "This is my world!" He screamed. "Mine! Mine!" Neelam got up as his armour released him from an emergency crash position. Over the comm. Thompson was screaming insanely at the monster as he cannoned into Cassandra. There was a bright flash; and the surrounding landscape was lit up by the ensuing fireball as it reached high into the darkening evening sky.

Neelam watched the flames turn to black smoke, as they engulfed Cassandra and her attendant God. He carried on watching. Something in the back of his mind knew that it wasn't going to be as easy as crashing a truck into Cassandra. Simply killing her to cut off the creatures' link to this Universe was way too simple. The thing thought it was a God. Of course it had thought of this. He unclipped his fusion plasma rifle from its holding pack on his back, and started the power cell pumping Helium3 from the magazine into the miniature fusion chamber. The rifle made a hissing noise, and then it started emitting a high-pitched whine as the chamber ignited. "Jaxxson, get over to the visitor centre. Find the Doctor. I'm going to try and slow her down." The smoke was clearing, and as he had expected Cassandra was still running towards the centre. Behind her the creature's crystal-glass like outline was growing stronger and more distinct by the moment. "Cassandra! Stop where you are!" As one, Cassandra and the creature turned to face him. It was simply an acknowledgment of his presence there, nothing more. Neelam calmly raised his rifle, and fired the quivering weapon. A solid beam of brilliant white plasma left the tip of the rifle and bridged the gap between them in an instant. He missed. For a moment, it didn't register. He had her lined up in the rifle's crosshairs. His armour's targeting computer had placed the crosshair over her heart. The beam should have vaporised her heart and cauterised the wound in its twenty-five thousand degree heat. Instead the beam had lanced off at a tangent, and then spiralled up into the atmosphere. He fired again, and the same thing happened again. "Damn!" He started running towards her.

Fitz had a dilemma. The rest of the soldiers had arrived, armed to the teeth with futuristic weapons of all kinds. His table leg was feeling ever more inadequate as they pulled evil looking plasma rifles from their backs. Behind them, one soldier was running towards the woman after firing his weapon at her. It hadn't appeared to be too accurate, as the lightning white beam had shot off into the air making beautiful spiralling shapes before winking out high above them. The huge, nasty, monster calmly bent down and flicked him away from the woman. The figure went flying, and landed in a ball close by. One of the soldiers ran across to him, and picked the prone body up from the floor. "We can't beat this thing, and there's something wrong with the weapons." Came a voice, hissing with pain, over the nearest soldier's radio. "Anyone who can close enough needs to kill Cassandra at point-blank range. I want you all to fan out and attack. That thing can't stop everyone from getting through." There was a loud wheezing. "Does anyone know where the Doctor is?" Fitz went over to the wounded man. He removed his helmet, as Fitz approached. "You." He wheezed. "Where's the Doctor?" Fitz turned his head, and glanced back at the centre. "He's inside somewhere, doing stuff. He said he had an idea, and to give him five minutes." Behind him, the soldiers had fanned out and were running at full speed towards Cassandra. The creature reached down and picked up the glittering sphere, thrusting it forward as the old God walked towards the glowing aurora. "THIS UNIVERSE IS AT AN END. WITNESS THE BIRTH OF THE NEW AS YOU EXPERIENCE THE DEATH OF THE OLD. I COMPLETE THIS CYCLE AND START ANEW WITH THE DESIGNS OF THAT WHICH HAS GONE BEFORE." At its feet, the soldiers skidded to a halt as Cassandra collapsed into a heap. Released from the monsters control, the exertions of running for two miles caught up with her. Fitz looked down at his table leg and threw his it at the monster, just for effect. "There goes the Universe." He sighed, craning his neck as he joined everyone else in looking upwards. High above them all, the stars began to wink out as the sky turned from light purple to black and the Universe finally went dark.

The Doctor sucked his fingers, as more sparks leapt out of the control panel he'd pulled the back off of. He worked quietly and efficiently, pulling wires and re-routing the cables, and controls, of what was basically a three-story tokomak. Perched precariously on top of a coffee mug was his small notebook, with the calculations he'd made earlier. He blew on his burnt fingers, and scratched out an equation. "Hmm… Thought that was the wrong way around." He turned it upside down. "Ah." His head disappeared back inside the machine he had open. There were more sparks, and the smell of singed plastic wafted across the room, mingling with the vast amounts of ozone being generated by hastily patched power lines and connectors. He backed out of the machine, wiping his hands down his jacket leaving silver streaks behind. He walked back to the main computer, and started up his hastily written program. "Cross your fingers, this should actually work." He pressed the enter key, and started the program.

Outside, the sky had turned completely black. No light from any stars could be seen. It was if they had never existed. Fitz sat down, and was trying to wonder what oblivion was going to be like. The monster was howling its victory, and shouting in a strange language that the TARDIS translator obviously wasn't familiar with. Just as well, he thought. Suddenly he felt a shiver run down his spine, as an intense vibration started rattling his body. The others were looking around as well, as behind them the visitor centre started emitting a high-pitched squealing noise. The ancient God suddenly stopped shouting and starting screaming in pain. The main doors crashed open, and a dishevelled Doctor hurtled out and across the green. "Run! The whole thing is going to implode!" Everyone watched, as the Doctor disappeared off towards the horizon. Around Fitz, the others were swearing and dumping whatever they had to hand and starting to run as fast as their powered armour would let them. Neelam looked up at his friend. "Get Cassandra out of here." He hissed. Jaxxson nodded resolutely, and sped towards the prone body, scooping it up in a single smooth movement and following the others. Fitz looked down. "Come on." He lifted Neelams body into his arms, armour and all. "Can't leave you here now can I?" Neelam looked mildly surprised at being lifted up by what appeared to be a normal civilian, and even more surprised at the amount of speed Fitz achieved as they raced away.

Behind them the visitors' centre was rippling with energy. In the geo-magnetic well above it, the event horizon surrounding the macro-particle started to unwind, whipping backwards and forwards revealing its nature as a string. At the edge of the centre, the old God was tearing into the building, ripping out huge chunks of concrete that were lifted up into the maelstrom forming above it. Released from its bindings the strange-matter particle shone with a strange coloured light. The dark traceries that were being emitted from it gradually started to arc around, enveloping the brilliant pinprick, the God and the visitors centre.

The Doctor slowed to a stop, and turned around. Half a mile away the huge black sphere glowed with its unearthly light and started shrinking. The other joined him, and turned to watch tornadoes develop around the shrinking object, lifting up the earth in a shower of boulders and rock. Beneath it, the ground split and molten lava was sucked into the departing particle. The object gradually shrank too small to be seen, and winked out. Silence descended upon the group. Fitz sidled up to the Doctor. "Wow! What did you do?" Above them the stars shone, as if nothing had happened. The Doctor looked up, and smiled. "That was close." He looked back down at the devastation. The visitor's centre had disappeared, replaced by a pinnacle of cooling rock. Debris was still raining down around it, splashing into pools of lava that remained. "I introduced an interference pattern into the particles information output." Fitz sighed. He should have known better. The Doctor patted him on the back. "I reprogrammed it with a recursive temporal loop. Basically it wrapped itself up in its own little Universe, and fortunately our friend went with it." He looked around at the ragtag group of soldiers. "I fancy a cup of tea." He waggled his eyebrows knowingly. Fitz grinned. He couldn't believe this guy. He saves the Universe, and all he fancies afterwards is a cup of tea. Typical. "Whatever you say Doctor. Whatever you say." He stole another glance up into the clear night sky as they walked away. High above, the planets natural aurora glowed softly, adding subtle colours to the twinkling ice-chip stars.