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Chapter Text

Part One

            Mandy was not a teacher by any stretch of the imagination, but – being a Time Lord – she did have vast knowledge of the multiverse. Clarence required a tutor while he was traveling with her. An impressionable ten-year-old boy like him needed the proper education every now and then, and Mandy was the only suitable adult for the job.

            Of course, there was also Dr. Peyton Westlake, the newest addition to their little team of travelers, but his unpredictable mood swings (a side effect of his physical disfigurement) automatically disqualified him. That and he seemed preoccupied with perfecting his “synthetic skin” project, which he had more time and supplies with, courtesy of Mandy’s TARDIS.

            Becoming a tutor for Clarence meant establishing a classroom setting, which Mandy organized within the TARDIS laboratory (where Westlake worked). It also meant dressing the part, so she put on the most formal attire she could find in the wardrobe room – a white blouse, a tight black pencil skirt that was knee-length, and black high heels. It was the most conservative she had ever dressed, and it was admittedly uncomfortable.

            It didn’t help that Clarence was so distracted during their lesson on Saturn.

            “Clarence, honey, please pay attention,” she beseeched of her pupil. “This is important stuff we’re learning about.”

            “But I already know Saturn stuff,” Clarence proclaimed. “It’s that planet that looks like a Frisbee with an orange stuck in it.”

            Mandy tried not to laugh at his description. “Yes, but don’t you want to know what that ‘Frisbee’ part is called?”

            “Not really,” Clarence passively (and honestly) answered. “Hey, Mandy, when are we going back home? My mom’s gotta be pretty upset right now. She probably thinks I’ve been kidnapped and gots the police, firemen, and the President of the United States looking for me, which means we could get in a lot of trouble.”

            Mandy didn’t think he would ask this anytime soon. He was having so much fun that it seemed the thought of going back home never would cross his mind. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. “Uh, well…” She struggled with a reasonable answer, so the best she could come up with was “Recess!”

            That was just the distraction she needed. Clarence was so overjoyed with the announcement that he ran right out of the lab immediately, much to Mandy’s relief.

            “So why haven’t you told him the truth?”

            She heard Westlake pry from his workspace across the spacious room. He had been wearing a replica of his original face since he took up residence in Mandy’s ship. This meant dimming the lights more than they already were to accommodate Gizmo, as Westlake’s synthetic skin was photosensitive and would rapidly disintegrate after 99 minutes when exposed to light.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mandy deflected Westlake’s inquiry.

            Peyton scoffed. “Take it from a man who kept a big secret from the woman he loved – about his own face. You’re keeping something from our little friend…and it sounds like it’s pretty big.”

            Mandy sighed. There was no getting past this conversation.

            “I can’t take Clarence back to his world…because it no longer exists,” she confessed.

            This news stunned Westlake. “What happened?”

            Before Mandy could give any details, the cloister bell sounded.

            Anytime that it did, Mandy tried to remain calm, as it usually spelled trouble.

            And trouble was what she, Westlake, and Clarence found when they arrived at the console room. Standing there by the console itself was the purple stone statue of a winged angel in a chiton. Its hands were positioned over the console controls, which had golden energy seeping through the panel and into the angel statute’s fingertips.

            “Did Santa leave us this statue for a Christmas present?” Clarence asked.

            Mandy was frozen stiff. “Don’t…blink,” she instructed her companions.

            “What?” Westlake bafflingly inquired.

            It was at that moment the lights in the console room flickered on and off. As they did, the statue’s form shifted in poses, moving closer and closer towards Mandy, Clarence, and Westlake. Its facial features also changed, taking on more ferocious traits, such as fangs and claws.

            “Gah!” Mandy groaned. “I hate it when they cheat like that!”

            “What is this thing?!” Westlake exclaimed. “How is it moving on its own?!”

            Mandy had no time to explain. She was too occupied in dealing with the sentient angel statue that was only seconds from nearing her and her friends. She aimed her sonic screwdriver at the control console and shut down all the ship’s functions, including the lights.

            It was an idea that worked out better in her head, as they were now unable to see anything, including the angel that they were trapped in the darkness with. The whole point in the plan was to prevent the angel’s manipulation of the lights, which it had used as another form of “blinking.” In shutting them off, Mandy bought them just a short amount of time, but she may have also given the angel a further advantage.

            The only way to know for sure was by triggering the flashlight function of her sonic. To their horror, the angel had pounced right onto them the second that Mandy’s sonic lit up.

            In the blink of an eye, Mandy and her companions were transported out of the console room and in the middle of a desert. The climate was harsher than most deserts, the air was barely breathable, and the heat was intense. The fact that there were three suns in the sky hinted that this was not an Earth-based desert region.

            “What the hell just happened?!” Westlake panicked, his tone bordering on aggressive. “How did we get here?!”

            “That Weeping Angel put us here,” Mandy told him. “It’s different from the others I’ve seen, mostly being purple rather than slate grey.”

            “Mandy,” Clarence whimpered. “It’s too hot…and I’m getting thirsty.”

            Mandy noticed that he was already sweating up a storm. As concerned as she was for her youngest companion, she also had to think of her older one. Exposed to the intense light of more than one sun, Westlake’s synthetic skin was pushed beyond its limits. It was already beginning to bubble.

            Luckily, as her aquamarine eyes searched for any sort of shelter nearby, she spotted what appeared to be a crashed space vessel just a few clicks from their location. “This way,” she instructed Clarence and Peyton, leading them to their salvation.

            Arriving at the crash site, they found survivors.

            “Oh, thank God,” uttered one survivor, a young woman with short blond hair drenched in sweat and an outfit that consisted of a sleeveless naval blue top and matching pants. Approaching Mandy, Clarence, and Westlake, she seemed more than relieved. “Other survivors.”

            “Definitely not a scouting party by the looks of them,” another survivor observed. He was a curly-haired man wearing a uniform that had the name of “Johns” printed on it.

            “Which one of you is the captain?” Mandy asked.

            “I am,” the young blonde said.

            “And you are?”

            “The woman who saved all our asses,” another woman survivor answered. She was a dark-haired Australian in the accompaniment of an aboriginal man who added to the woman’s response, “She landed what was left of our ship, mate.”

            “Carolyn Fry,” the captain introduced herself.

            “Pleasure to meet you,” Mandy said. “My name’s Amanda – ‘Mandy’ for short – and these are my friends, Clarence Wendle and Dr. Peyton Westlake.”

            “A doctor?” a Muslim man remarked in regards to Westlake. “We could’ve used one much earlier when the first officer was gravely injured.”

            “I’m not that kind of doctor,” Westlake refuted, his impatience rising.

            Noticing the way in which he nursed one side of his face (the side that the synthetic skin bubbled on), Fry inquired, “Are you hurt? Lemme check.”

            “NO!” Westlake viciously reflected. His sudden outburst terrified the survivors.

            Mandy quickly spoke in his defense before whatever comradery developing between the two groups was lost. “He has a bad skin condition. Being out in this heat’s only making it more irritable. Do you have any bandages inside the ship he can use to cover his face?”

            Fry understandably yet cautiously eyed Westlake as she answered, “Very few. Most of the medical supplies were lost.”

            “What about fresh clothes and water?” Mandy added.

            “You can find all the clothes you want,” Johns told her. “As far as water, all we got is booze, courtesy of that gentleman there.” He gestured to a bespectacled survivor who sat comfortably atop one large piece of wreckage under an umbrella with glasses and bottles of alcohol next to him.

            “Can I have some booze, Mandy?” the parched Clarence requested.

            “Most certainly not!” Mandy restricted. “We’ll find you some fresh, clean water to drink, sweetie, I promise.”

            Fry looked uneasily on Clarence before she mentioned to Mandy, “One of the passengers was Richard B. Riddick, so be sure to watch out for him – he’s dangerous.”

            Mandy shrugged. “Who’s Richard B. Riddick?”

            Her question drew curious gazes from the survivors.

            Apparently, this “Riddick” had quite the reputation in this dimension.

            Mandy’s teaching attire was already uncomfortable enough; under the harsh climate of the desert planet, it was downright insufferable. So, upon rummaging throughout the wrecked ship – named “Hunter Gratzner” after the company that owned it, Mandy managed to find clothes suitable for expedition: a black jumpsuit with an adjustable zipper in front, a black cap, sunglasses, and peach-colored tennis shoes.

            After changing, she checked up on Westlake. She was surprised to see that he found himself clothes that were identical to his “Darkman” persona, including a fresh supply of bandages that he wrapped around his entire head. “I’m so sorry,” she lamented to him.

            “It’s alright,” he sighed. “It’s the price I paid for joining you. An endless existence of worlds to explore – none of which I can find peace on. Of course, I’d be no better off in my world. I just hope Julie hasn’t moved on.”

            “You told me that the only purpose you had in returning to your world was getting revenge on the men who disfigured you,” Mandy reviewed. “Is that still your goal? Or have you decided against it?”

            Westlake didn’t supply her with a definitive answer.

            Instead, he averted and asked, “That statue that sent us here…you called it a ‘Weeping Angel’. You’ve encountered one before?”

            Mandy shook her head. “No…but I’ve read about them in ancient Gallifreyan manuscripts. In all my travels through time, space, and reality, whether it was with the Doctor or on my own, I’ve encountered so many bizarre creatures. But the Weeping Angels are on a whole different level.”

            “In those manuscripts you read, did they say anything useful?” Westlake asked.

            “Just a warning in High Gallifreyan with a single translation.”

            “What did it say?”

            “It’s behind you.”

            Suddenly, the sound of gunshots rang, followed by a woman screaming.

            Mandy and Westlake rushed outside to see what the commotion was. They saw Shazza – the Australian woman – crying over the dead body of her aboriginal husband, Zeke. He had been shot dead, evident from the bullet holes riddled over his head and torso. The culprit was still at the scene: a bald man wearing welder’s goggles.

            Mandy guessed this to be the dangerous criminal Fry and the other survivors warned her about.

            Richard B. Riddick.

Chapter Text

Part Two

            Not this shit again!

            Riddick knew where this was heading. He had been through this scene before.

            Zeke was dead again, but not quite the same as last time. It wasn’t a Bioraptor that got him; it was something else that preyed in the darkness. Of course, there was no way to prove that, especially not with him standing over the dead body in front of Fry and the rest of the survivors.

            Just like before, he tried to run away from the scene of the crime.

            Shazza opened fire on him in a fit of rage.

            As he ran, he remembered something important – something that happened in this same scenario that he was prepared for this time.

            Johns.

            He sprung out from behind a rock to trip him with his baton.

            But Riddick was ready, leaping over the baton. How the hell did he see that coming? The thought rang through Johns’ mind, as he was now standing face-to-face with Riddick. Something was different about him. He didn’t seem like the same man he lost track of, mere seconds ago.

            Prepared to tussle with Johns, Riddick was suddenly blindsided by a dark figure that tackled him from the left. He was stronger and fiercer than Riddick himself, covered in bandages for reasons Riddick couldn’t figure nor cared. All he knew was this guy was the reason he was caught yet again.

            Of course, the bandaged stranger nearly opted on snapping his neck, until a hot redhead dressed in black quickly stopped him. “No, Peyton!” she told him. “We still need him alive!” It was her intervention that kept Riddick breathing.

            Johns chained him up in the same place as before: in the main cabin of the wrecked Hunter Gratzner. He smiled at the twisted sense of déjà vu he experienced, sitting with his shackled arms suspended and his goggles removed, exposing his eyeshine. No irises, just huge black-pool pupils and a jewel-like eyeshine (hence the name) from deep within stared towards the floor, waiting expectantly.

            “Where’s the gun?” He smirked when he heard the commanding (and yet inexperienced) voice of Carolyn Fry address him. “You shot Zeke six times – twice in the head and four times in his body…and yet we didn’t find the gun on you. So, where is it?”

            Riddick didn’t say a word.

            “That’s fine – you don’t want to talk to me, that’s your choice,” Fry warned. “But just so you know, there’s a debate—”

            “…on whether you all should leave me here to die,” Riddick finished for her.

            Fry was startled by his clairvoyance. “How the hell did you know that?”

            “Because I’ve been here before, Carolyn…on this crazy-ass planet…with all of you. And just like before…you got the wrong man.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but we saw you with Zeke’s body.”

            “I mean, you got the wrong Riddick.”

            Fry scowled questionably at him. “What do you mean ‘wrong Riddick’?”

            “This is gonna sound batshit insane, but I’m not the Riddick of what you’d call ‘the present.’ That guy is history.”

            “So, you’re saying that you’re…What? Future Riddick?”

            “Exactly.”

            “Bullshit!”

            “Hours from now, this planet’s gonna have a big-ass eclipse that’ll trap us in infinite darkness. Before then, there’ll be another dead body: Ali. Then it’ll be Shazza, Hassan…”

            “Stop it.”

            “…Paris, that asshole Johns…”

            “I said stop it!”

            “…Suleiman…”

            “SHUT UP!”

            “…and you too, Carolyn.”

            Fry’s pulse raced with anxiety. It took everything in her just to regain composure and a sense of control over this interrogation. “You can’t possibly know all of that will happen.”

            “You’re right…I don’t…because too much is happening now that’s different from before. Zeke didn’t die the same way. Something else got ‘im…something that lives in the shadows.”

            “The Vashta Nerada.”

            Fry almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Mandy’s voice speak out from behind her. She didn’t hear her walk in. “Get out,” she ordered her, but Mandy wasn’t even listening to her. She was too lost in what Riddick’s wild fable.

            “You’re right about those holes in Zeke’s body,” Mandy told him. “They weren’t made by bullets. Something chewed into him.”

            “I know you,” Riddick analyzed every inch of her curved, slender figure, accentuated by the black jumpsuit she wore. “You’re the Gladiator of Gallifrey.”

            Mandy’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember ever meeting you.”

            “Not this version of you,” Riddick elaborated. “One of the later models.”

            “Can we get back to what you said about not being the Riddick of our time?” Fry demanded. “If any of what you said has any truth, then where is he?”

            “I don’t know,” Riddick said. “He probably had the same encounter I did with one of those angel statues. I found one on Furya, thinking it was just a regular statue – Furya’s full of them. Once it touched me, I found myself back here on this fuckin’ planet, and the younger me missing.”

            Fry relayed Riddick’s story to Johns and the other Hunter survivors.

            Johns, obviously, didn’t believe a word. “Give me a break. Time travel, statues, shadows that eat you? He’s either lost his damn mind or he’s making the whole thing up to scare us.”

            “How does he know specifically which of us dies?” asked Abu al-Walid, a Muslim Imam who survived the crash of the Hunter with his three acolytes: Suleiman, Hassan, and Ali. “He mentions all of us by name, except for me, himself, this one…” He motioned to the one survivor named Jack, a boy who was the same age as his acolytes. “…and this woman and her two companions.” He lastly gestured to Mandy.

            “Because he is who he says he is,” Mandy supported Riddick’s story. “The statue that he’s talking about is called a ‘Weeping Angel.’ Peyton, Clarence, and I encountered one that sent us to this planet.

            “Wait a sec,” Johns’ guard was suddenly up from what Mandy just said. “I thought ya’ll crashed here with us.”

            Mandy modestly smiled. “You assumed we were… we never claimed to be.”

            “MANDY! MANDY!” She heard Clarence cry repeatedly. He ran up to her, clinging onto and sobbing into her hip. “He’s gone, Mandy!” He looked up at her with pitiful, teary eyes and snot running from his nose. “Mr. Darkman is gone!”

            “Mr. What-Now?” Shazza heard the name, frowning.

            “It’s a nickname he came up with for Peyton,” Mandy briefly explained before crouching to Clarence’s level and cleaning the tears and snot from his face with a black silk handkerchief. “Just relax, sweetie. We’ll find him.”

            Together with the Hunter survivors, they journeyed out to search for Westlake, trekking across the harsh alien climate – a blue sun setting, yellow and red suns rising.

            “What’s his deal?” Johns asked Mandy, along the way. “This Westlake fella. His skin’s ultra-sensitive to light, so he wears those bandages? What’s wrong with him? Was he born with some sort of skin disorder or somethin’?”

            Mandy deflected on her answer and merely advised Johns, “We have to search the shadowed areas…whatever caverns, holes, or trenches we can find.”

            They followed on her instruction, with Mandy and Fry searching the nearest cavern in some spired hills. Shafts of daylight bore down in caves. Old bones littered the floor. A clicking sound put both women on guard. “What the hell is that?” Fry wondered, her crystal blue eyes searching along with Mandy’s.

            Something was there in the caves…something just beyond the cusp of light.

            The clicking increased, getting louder and more intense.

            Mandy and Fry made a silent agreement to leave while they still could.

            They bolted for the exit, only to have it blocked by a ravenous creature with a cross-shaped, eyeless head that looked to be made of hard, chitinous material. Its body was thin, streamlined, and covered in thick, leathery skin. It possessed wings capable of some form of flight, and a twin-forked tail with sharp points at the end.

            “Shit!” Fry cried out, and her expletive seemed to have been what signaled their presence to the sightless creature, as it lunged straight for them.

            Mandy and Fry’s instincts were to run.

            That was before the creature passed through one area that was darker, more shadowed than the other parts of its domain. Emerging on the other side, all its flesh was picked clean off its bones, clattering at the feet of the two women that would have been its prey.

            Now they were prey to a different predator that dwelled in the darkness:

            The Vashta Nerada.

Chapter Text

Part Three

            It was the perfect trap.

            There was no telling which shadow was a regular one and which was the Vashta Nerada. Neither Mandy nor Fry ventured the risk of sorting them out. Still, they had to escape from the cavern before the one column of light they stood within shifted and left them to the shadows.

            Suddenly, a line dropped in front of them. “Grab hold!” a voice echoed through the spire above.

            It was Johns, who gave Mandy and Fry a way out of the domain.

            They wasted no time in climbing to freedom.

            Realizing Riddick was right about the Vashta Nerada – the real culprits of Zeke’s murder, he was immediately exonerated and released. Mandy enlisted in his help, along with the other Hunter survivors, to find Westlake. “There’s an abandoned geological research settlement not far from here,” he told Mandy and the group.

            “And how the hell do you know about it?” the suspicious Johns questioned.

            “Because I found it with the rest of you assholes the last time I was here,” Riddick divulged.

            “You still feedin’ that bullshit about bein’ from the future?” Johns ridiculed.

            “First of all, would you gentlemen mind your language with a child present?” Mandy addressed with Clarence clinging to her side. “Mr. Johns, I think we’ve established the possibility of Mr. Riddick telling the truth with the Vashta Nerada on this planet, in addition to those creatures that almost attacked me and Captain Fry.”

            “Don’t worry about the Bioraptors,” Riddick advised. “They’ve already been devoured by the Vashta. Watch the shadows once we’re at the settlement…and then we can get off this planet as soon as freakin’ possible.”

            “Other than the obvious threats, what’s your hurry?” Johns inquired.

            Riddick pointed towards the horizon, indicating the larger planets that orbited the one they were on. One such planet – that reminded Mandy and Clarence of Saturn – was the biggest of them all, and it began to eclipse one of the three suns. “Pretty soon, all three of those suns are going to be blocked out by the other planets, putting us in a prolonged eclipse. When that happens, we’ll be easy pickings for our shadow friends.” He then added as a reminder, “Oh, and be sure to bring power cells for when we get to the settlement.”

            It took close to two hours to reach the research settlement Riddick spoke of. It was exactly as he described, especially the “abandoned” part. The only one there was Westlake, secluded in the shadows (the ones that weren’t yet claimed by the Vashta Nerada), driven even madder from the harsh environment of the planet. “I DON’T BELONG HERE!” he bellowed through his bandages. “The light…it doesn’t stop…too much…there’s too much!”

            “I know, Peyton, I know,” Mandy calmed him. “But you can’t hide in the shadows – it’s too dangerous.”

            “Yeah, Mr. Darkman,” Clarence pitched in. “You’ll get eaten up!”

            “Then where should I hide?!?!” Westlake roared.

            In the midst of Westlake’s rantings, Imam had wandered about the settlement in search for one of his missing acolytes. When he had no luck on his own, he approached Riddick, Johns, Fry, and Mandy and asked, “Has anyone seen the young one? Ali?”

            Suddenly, a scream rang out from another part of the settlement.

            It was soon followed by another.

            Fry noticed in that moment that Shazza, Suleiman, Paris, and Jack were also absent among them. The screams could have come from any of them. And then, Paris and Jack emerged from around the corner, running as if their very lives depended on it. “We’re being attacked!” Jack alarmed.

            “By what?” Johns asked.

            “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Paris huffed.

            “Try me,” Johns challenged.

            “Alright – we’re being attacked by moving statues…angel statues, to be precise,” Paris told him. “Angel statues with wings.”

            Johns scoffed. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”

            Hearing Paris’ description of the attackers, Riddick and Mandy responded accordingly. “We need to leave now!” the latter suggested.

            “And go where?” Johns balked. “What can a goddamned statue do to us?”

            Just as he asked that, the statue itself materialized seemingly out of nowhere close nearby. Mandy and Riddick got an eyeful of it, neither of them blinking once. It was the same purple angel statue that they both encountered. “You know how they say ‘It can only get worse from here’?” Riddick asked before pointing skyward.

            Mandy noticed how quickly it started to get dark.

            The eclipse arrived much sooner than expected.

            “How long is it supposed to last?” Johns found himself consulting with Riddick.

            “60 years,” Riddick said.

            Johns frowned. “You kiddin’ me?!” In his frustration, Johns unholstered his handgun and opened fire on the angel statue. None of his shots had any effect on it; every single bullet simply ricocheted off the angel’s heavily durable structure. Johns could barely believe it. “What the hell’s this thing made of?!”

            The angel was the only thing blocking their access to the Skiff, a light-duty vehicle of hybrid technology – part bush plane, part space craft. It was in a state of disrepair with wind-torn fabric wings but an intact hull. It had no power cells, which was why Riddick insisted on some being brought along – he knew the Skiff (their only way off the planet) was there.

            There was only one place in the outpost for them to go: the coring room. It was the area with the most resilient doors.

            “Into the coring room now!” Mandy instructed.

            They rushed inside with her, following her lead.

            She used her sonic screwdriver to unlock the doors, allowing herself, Riddick, Clarence, Westlake, Johns, Fry, Imam, and Jack inside. Paris lagged behind; unfortunately, before he could reach the coring room doors, he was claimed by the darkness rapidly falling over the outpost. In seconds, his clothes and flesh were wiped clean off his bones.

            With Paris claimed by the Vashta Nerada, Mandy was left with no choice but to leave his skeletal remains out in the dark, sealing off the coring room with her sonic. There was a single overhead light that kept the room illuminated; however, there was a feeble amount of electricity running through it, causing it to blink in and out. At the center of the room was a vertical coring drill, a relic of the outpost’s former purpose.

            “We can’t stay holed up in here for sixty years, with those things outside!” Johns grumbled. His tone managed to frighten Clarence more than he already was, weeping into Mandy’s hip.

            “Mr. Johns, compose yourself!” she ordered him. “Not all hope is lost.”

            “OH, SHIT!” Fry suddenly yelped. Everyone turned her direction to see what she was so jumpy about, discovering that the purple angel had somehow breached the coring room. She and Johns attempted again at firing, and again it had no effect.

            The overhead light blinked out momentarily.

            When it blinked back on, the survivors found themselves swarmed by more angel statues – ones that were slate grey. They were average Weeping Angels to Mandy, and they were just as dangerous as the purple one – the Anti-Angel. Initially, Mandy believed all the Angels were leagued in together.

            That was before the Anti-Angel unleashed a wave of Nuage Energy that rendered all the Weeping Angels to dust. It was a perplexing attack, one that convinced Mandy that the Anti-Angel was acting as a rogue. Before she could analyze on it further, the Anti-Angel sought advantage from the blinking overhead light, moving in on the survivors.

            In one blink, they were sent away from the coring room and back outside.

            And yet, something was different about the atmosphere.

            The eclipse was gone. The neighboring ringed planet no longer orbited from the horizon. And instead of three suns, only one hovered in the sky, scorching another desolate planetary surface.

            “This isn’t where we were, a second ago,” Fry observed.

            “Which begs the question: where the hell are we?” Johns asked.

            Riddick, on the other hand, recognized the new planet they were stranded on. Sullenly, he answered Johns, “Not-Furya.”

Chapter Text

Part Four

            Not-Furya?

            Mandy didn’t find it to be much of an original name and obviously something that Riddick himself thought up. Regardless, it clued her on the fact that they were still in the same dimension, following the Anti-Angel’s latest attack – albeit much further in the timeline. It was an unusual method to Mandy. A Weeping Angel had never been known to send someone forward in time. That just made the Anti-Angel an even more special case for Mandy to look into…if she could survive long enough.

            “We need to take shelter now,” Riddick advised, indicating the peculiar vultures that circled several feet above them, anxiously waiting for one of them to die.

            “You seem to know your way around this place,” Johns retorted. “You lead.”

            Riddick gave an amused smirk at Johns’ consent. He had to be desperate to trust him of all people to take leadership.

            Recounting his last time on Not-Furya, he brought them to a cave that looked to have been previously lived-in. “You’ve taken shelter here before,” Fry deduced from the somewhat roomy atmosphere. “How did you end up here?”

            It wasn’t a topic Riddick particularly wanted to discuss.

            But he made an exception for Fry.

            “After I was made Lord Marshal of the Necromonger Empire, I became a target to my own commanders,” Riddick recounted. “Each time they failed, and each time I felt like I was losing my edge. I had to get back to Furya, my homeworld. So, I wound up here on Not-Furya when this asshole named Krone stranded me…left me for dead. I spent six months on this rock.”

            “Six months?!” Mandy gasped. “Jesus…it’s a miracle you didn’t go insane.”

            “I welcomed the challenge,” Riddick told her. “Everything on this planet wants to make you its bitch – and I relished every second of it.”

            “Well, I’d rather not expose Clarence to it,” Mandy disputed. “Is there somewhere else we can go that’s more fortified?”

            “A mercenary station on the other side of the planet,” Riddick said. “Getting there on foot will be a pain in the ass though.”

            “How long’s the walk?” Westlake inquired.

            “A month at best,” Riddick answered. “And that’s if you’re not trying to find it.”

            A month on a deadly planet like Not-Furya was out of the question, but the group had no other choice. It was unanimously decided that Riddick’s cave was adequate shelter for the next few days, until they were better prepared to make the journey to the mercenary station.

            In that time, Riddick’s knowledge of the planet and its vicious wildlife proved beneficial to their survival. With Johns and Westlake’s assistance, he went out on hunts that supplied meat for everyone to consume. Riddick ate his raw, whereas Mandy made a fire spit to roast the food on for herself and the others.

            “Tastes like the barbeques we’d have at my house,” Clarence beamed, his mouth covered with meat bits that Mandy cleaned off. Her black cap had to serve as a suitable napkin for Clarence, but it was worth the sacrifice.

            “I cannot eat this,” Imam respectfully declined.

            “Not good enough for you?” Riddick belittled his refusal.

            “It goes against my religion,” Imam excused.

            “I’m sure the Quran didn’t have this in mind when the rule was written, Imam,” Mandy eased his burden.

            In response to Imam’s discomfort, Riddick took an eel that he fished out from one of Not-Furya’s mud pools, stripped it of its skin, and tossed its raw remains over to Imam. “See if that tickles your fancy,” he offered begrudgingly.

            Gazing at the eel remains in disgust, Imam reconsidered his initial decision. “I’ll take what I already have.”

            It was agreed that two of the adults in the group would serve as lookout during the nights they slept. During Riddick’s previous stay on the planet, he sealed himself under two large stones whenever he slept. Unfortunately, with as many people as they had now in the cave, that was no longer a luxury. Jack and Clarence were excluded from the lookout position, due to their adolescent status, although Jack (the oldest of the two boys) made a heavy plea to shoulder the responsibility.

            On the eighth night, Clarence felt the unbearable urge to pee.

            He wiggled himself from Mandy’s embrace, which was even more protective when she was asleep, and went to the mud pool in the cave that functioned as the only available bathroom. However, he forgot the most important rule that the adults established for the kids: to not go alone.

            The mud pool where he urinated was much further in the cave where it was darker and murkier. Had either Westlake or Johns – who both served as the night’s lookout – noticed Clarence going alone, they would’ve been able to prevent what happened next.

            Everyone was alarmed once they heard Clarence howl in pain, the noise being loud enough to echo throughout the cavern.

            “Clarence!” Mandy shrieked, just as her ten-year-old companion rushed back.

            Tears streaming from his eyes, he repeatedly cried, “It hurts! It hurts!”

            “What hurts, honey?” Mandy asked, seeing how he was nursing his left arm. “Let me take a look.” As soon as she was able to, her aquamarine eyes flared when she spotted a small creature clinging from Clarence’s arm. It resembled a scorpion, its tiny yet razor-sharp teeth biting into Clarence’s skin and drawing blood. Mandy pried it off him before it could’ve done any further damage.

            However, the damage seemed to have been done, as Clarence suddenly stopped crying and collapsed into Mandy’s arms. “Clarence? Honey, can you hear me?” She placed the back of her hand against his forehead, beads of sweat already starting to form along it. “He’s running a fever!”

            “Speaking of ‘running’…” She heard Johns trail on.

            Looking up, she noticed how tense everyone had become.

            She soon realized why when multiple adult versions of the creature that bit Clarence emerged from the mud pool, snarling and advancing on them. “What the hell are these things?”

            “Mud Demons,” Riddick growled.

Chapter Text

Part Five

            The Mud Demons measured their human prey for near a minute before one of them finally decided to spring. Fry and Johns opened fire, taking the ravenous creature out instantly. Their shots only encouraged the other Mud Demons to attack in retaliation, putting Fry and Johns on the defense with Riddick and Westlake. Imam and Jack took cover with Mandy, who carried the unconscious Clarence in her arms.

            Riddick made short work of the one Mud Demon he focused on, knowing where its weak points were. He was able to withstand a venomous bite to his leg, decapitating the Mud Demon while its jaws were locked on him.

            After a while, the Mud Demons were no longer able to stay out of the pools.

            They retreated back into the waters to avoid the risk of drying out.

            Johns, however, had a different take on the circumstance: “Looks like we scared them off. But, for how long, who the hell knows? Except for obviously you, Riddick.”

            “You really think we scared them?” Riddick scoffed. “Nothing scares anything on this planet. We just got lucky.”

            “Lucky?!” Mandy barked, cradling Clarence. “Look at this poor child!”

            “It’s just a little venom,” Riddick casually dismissed. “He’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”

            “A little venom?!?!” Mandy roared, not accepting Riddick’s dismissiveness in the least. “We need to get to that station! They must have some medicine there, right?”

            Riddick let out an aggravated groan. “Yes, they do.”

            “Then we need to go there now!”

            “Let the kid ride it out, Red. He’ll eventually develop an immunity to it.”

            “Is that another guide from ‘Wilderness Riddick’? Did you have to go through something like this the last time you were here?”

            Riddick detected the obvious sarcasm in her tone, understandably spurred from her deep concern of Clarence. “As a matter of fact,” he began.

            “HE’S NOT YOU!!!” Mandy bellowed, her crystal blue eyes glaring daggers into whatever amounted to a soul inside of Riddick. Her stance on the argument was clear: they were taking Clarence to the mercenary station right that very second.

            The trek lasted close to a week.

            By then, Clarence’s condition had worsened, just as Mandy feared.

            Along the way, the survivors came upon a jackal – another member of Not-Furya’s wildlife. Its look and behavior were similar to Earth-based jackals, with the notable exception of the quills on its back. The heterochromia of its eyes was evident, as it glowered on them, guarding the entrance to the station.

            “Riddick…” Johns beckoned, his hand inching towards his holstered gun.

            Riddick held his arms out – one to his group, the other to the jackal. “It’s O.K.,” he reassured. “This guy’s an old friend.” He held his hand out to the jackal, only to have it nearly bitten off when the jackal snapped its sharp teeth at it. Riddick’s quick reflexes were what saved his fingers, although he was more than a little pissed over the lack of loyalty from his “old friend.”

            “Old friend, huh?” Fry derided. “She doesn’t seem to remember you.”

            “That’s ‘cause he’s not the one she’s grown accustomed to.”

            It was Riddick’s voice that the other survivors heard make the remark, but the words weren’t coming out of Riddick’s mouth. For a moment, Mandy wondered if he had taken up ventriloquism; but then she and the others witnessed someone step out of the mercenary station…another bald man wearing welder’s goggles…another Riddick.

            “Ho-lee shit!” Johns reacted, baffled and astonished just as much as everyone else – including their Riddick himself.

            This other Riddick appeared younger and even hungrier.

            The jackal went to him with more respect than the elder Riddick, licking the palm of the same hand that it almost bit off him. “You’re probably asking yourselves all the same question right now,” the young Riddick coolly said. “The answer’s simple: I’m the Ghost of shithole Past.”

            It didn’t take long for Mandy to deduce the situation. “The Anti-Angel brought you here, replacing you with the Riddick from this time.”

            “If you say so,” the young Riddick shrugged. “All I know is that I was crashing on the Hunter one second. The next second, I’m here for six months, dealing with one bad day after the next.”

            “Making you more of a vicious bastard than you already were,” Johns remarked.

            Ignoring the topic of discussion, the elder Riddick stared rigidly at his younger counterpart and asked, “Did you activate the beacon?”

            The young Riddick smirked. “Now, why would I do a thing like that?”

            “DID YOU ACTIVATE IT?!?!” the elder Riddick shouted impatiently. Mandy and the others looked on him, seeing a side of this Riddick that they had yet to see – a man who acted as if he was backed into a deadly corner. There was intense desperation on his face, and they didn’t have to see his eyes to know that it was there for certain.

            The young Riddick continued playing coy with his future self.

            This merely drove the elder Riddick to charge at his past self.

            The two Riddicks brawled, both equally matched – although the elder possessed some extra tactics that the younger lacked, which left him dependent on speed and agility.

            While Johns relished watching Riddick attempt to kill himself, Fry and Mandy worked together in putting a stop to the counterparts’ brawl. It only ended with the thundering of ships overhead. Looking up, they watched as two disparate vessels descended – one branding a spotless militaristic design, whereas the other was battered and disused.

            “Well, I’ll be,” Johns approved of the sight. “Your young self did something that was actually worth a damn, Riddick.” His demeanor quickly shifted to dismay once he witnessed a familiar man walk out of the militaristic ship with his crew. “Dad?!”

            Colonel R. “Boss” Johns gazed on the young mercenary, frowning.

            “William?” he said in surprise. “I thought you were dead.”

            “What?!” Johns reacted with same frown as his father. “What the hell’s going on?”

            “What’s going on is that we’re here for that asshole right there!” The captain of the other vessel pointed directly to one of the two Riddicks. He stepped forward with his seven-man crew, all of whom appeared as scruffy and barbaric as him, and did a double take once he realized there were two Riddicks in front of him. “Uhh…why’s there two of him?”

            Mandy leaned in on the elder Riddick and whispered in reference to the scruffy, barbaric captain, “Who’s he?”

            “Santana,” Riddick told her. “And, yes, he’s as dumb as he looks.”

            Hearing that, Santana drew his gun on him. “I don’t know which Riddick you are – the real one or an imposter – but that little comment just earned your head a place in my box!” He held up a translucent box that did appear big enough to fit a human head.

            “Two Riddicks, two crews, and one bounty,” Boss Johns surveyed the situation. “Sounds like an equal share with the bonus for my son coming back from the dead.”

            As the two crews made claim on the Riddicks, the elder Riddick took notice in something that no one else did: the night and the rain began to fall on Not-Furya. He also sensed something near that crept on them. It was too late to have warned the junior Johns, who was suddenly impaled by the tail of a Mud Demon. His father watched him instantly die, as his body was ripped in half by the creature.

            The Mud Demon didn’t come alone.

            Behind it stood the Anti-Angel, flanked by dozens more Mud Demons, as well as Bioraptors that had been brought to Not-Furya, all for one purpose:

            To kill.

Chapter Text

Part Six

            To have William back just to watch him die again was unacceptable for Boss Johns. Blinded by raging grief, he retaliated against the Mud Demon that claimed his son’s life. He fired round after round on the creature, not realizing that everyone else had been pushed back into the mercenary station while he remained where he was. He would have joined his son’s fate had the elder Riddick not grabbed him and brought him inside the station.

            Not everyone made it inside, regrettably.

            Santana and some of his crew perished along with two men from Boss Johns’ crew: Moss and Lockspur.

            Dahl and Diaz, both the second-in-command to their respective captains, were the only pair to successfully make it inside the station with the other survivors. Diaz was himself enraged by the lost of Santana, his best friend. “I’ll kill every last single one of those suckers!” he avowed.

            “What good it’ll do you, if you get killed yourself?” Dahl rationalized.

            Elder Riddick gazed in her general direction, relieved to see that she made it in with the rest of them. A Nordic bounty hunter of German descent, Dahl was like a taller, buffer version of Fry, particularly as Riddick saw them standing side-by-side for the first time. Both women had the same bob-style hair that slicked back in their sweat-drenched state. The only real difference between them was Dahl’s short temper.

            As the walls off the station buckled from the creatures demanding to get inside, Jack suddenly confessed to the group, “I’m not a boy.”

            “What?” Fry turned to him, frowning.

            “I’M NOT A BOY!” Jack repeated with more vigor and tears. “I didn’t want you to leave me there...back at the ship...that’s why I didn’t say anything....”

            Fry noticed the elder Riddick smirking over Jack’s tearful confession; another future factoid that he knew about but kept to himself, either to spare them or to amuse himself – or both. It angered Fry to think how he toyed with their fates in such a way. Was Johns even meant to die on Not-Furya to that Mud Demon? Is she meant to die herself?

            She only felt some semblance of agency by confessing herself, “When we were crashing in the Hunter, I was going to blow the passenger cabin…sacrifice everyone while they were in cyro.” She glanced again at the elder Riddick, fuming. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

            The elder Riddick neither confirmed nor denied it.

            He didn’t have to. Even through his stoic demeanor and those welder’s goggles of his, Fry could tell that he knew her secret. She wanted to punch him in the face but held back. In spite of their current predicament, Fry felt somewhat relieved after confessing, presumably as much as Jack did. If they were going to die, they would die free of the guilt that weighed on them.

            Hard, raspy coughing directed attention to the cot where Mandy settled Clarence, whose condition was not improving. His skin was paler than it was before, he was sweating profusely, and his breathing was arduous. “Kid should be getting better – not worse,” the baffled elder Riddick observed.

            “I told you – his immune system is different because he’s not from the same world as you!” Mandy scolded, tears streaming from her crystal blue eyes and running her mascara. She crouched beside her dying friend, devastated at the thought of losing him. In what could be their final moments together, she whispered to him, “I’m sorry, sweetheart…I’m sorry I wasn’t able to protect you…I’m sorry I couldn’t protect your world. You lost everything because of me – your family, your friends…more than a sweet lil’ fella like you should ever have to lose.”

            She gave a gentle kiss on his forehead – the last one she would ever give him.

            The banging over the station walls intensified, the creatures managing to put some massive dents against the steel structure. Suddenly, the battering subsided, just as a sound familiar to the ears of Mandy and Westlake reverberated across the space. “Is that what I think it is?” the latter inquired.

            Mandy looked up with hopeful eyes as her TARDIS materialized right in the middle of the station. The Riddicks and their fellow realm natives looked on it in perplexing awe, whereas Mandy and Westlake did so with overwhelming joy. “Everyone inside now!” Mandy instructed, permitting access into the ship with the appropriate bio-scan from her palm that opened the door.

            Without understanding what her TARDIS was or how it would save them from the league of monsters outside the station, the survivors followed Mandy’s instruction under the reasoning that anywhere was better than where they were. None of them were prepared for the bigger space inside, resembling the cockpit of a ship. Mandy went to work on the central console, while Westlake carried Clarence further inside. “I’ll get to work on a cure right away,” he reassured Mandy, who maintained composure long enough to dematerialize all of them to the Infinite DC and away from Riddick’s realm.

            “I don’t know what the hell just happened, but I’m glad it did!” Dahl exhaled a sigh of relief.

            “What just happened is that I saved your ass,” Mandy told her.

            “Or did you?!” Fry cried, her attention fixed and gun drawn on one corner of the console room. Suddenly, all guns were pointed in the same direction.

            Mandy wasn’t sure why until she looked past the time rotor of the control console and saw the Anti-Angel. Alarmed, she stepped away from the console and stood in between the angel and the individuals she supposedly saved from it. Before the Anti-Angel could make another move on any of them, Mandy kept her eyes open for as long as she could and deduced, “It was you who brought my TARDIS back, wasn’t it? What do you want?!”

            “You’re trying to communicate with it?” Fry cringed. “It’s a statue!”

            “A sentient statue!” Mandy elaborated, not taking her eyes off the Anti-Angel. “If it can think, it can sure as hell talk!”

            Her hypothesis was verified as soon as static came over the speakers built around the console room, followed by an ethereal voice that said, “I’ve been searching eons for you, Gladiator…long since your birth. You are like me – a creature not meant to exist in this world or any other.”

            “The hell is that supposed to mean?!” a deeply offended Mandy barked.

            “We were bred for purpose, Gladiator,” the Anti-Angel continued. “I serve as the Guardian of Lost Souls. It was your guilt that had drawn me to you. It satisfied our hunger – a hunger that we’ve retained for ever so long. Those of the others here with you were even more gratifying.” Mandy’s gaze finally left the Anti-Angel when she glimpsed over to Fry and Jack.

            “I don’t believe this!” Boss Johns roared. “My son’s life was taken because some junkie statue was trying to get a hit?!”

            “Fear savors the guilt like salt to meat,” the Anti-Angel equated.

            “Good people died for your meal!” Fry stormed.

            “Really poetic when you think about it,” said the elder Riddick, amused. “Some of the lives that were lost in all this were predestined. Others were spared in the new turn of events…like yours, Fry.” She gave him a longing look, conflicted as to whether she should feel grateful or guilty.

            “Survivor’s guilt,” the Anti-Angel relished on Fry’s behalf. “That is the tastiest guilt of all!”

            “SHUT UP!!!” In her rage, Fury fired on the statue.

            Just as before, it had little to no effect.

            However, as each shot blasted from Fry’s gun, a Weeping Angel popped into the room. Each one touched the person they were positioned by: Imam, Jack, Dahl, Boss Johns, Diaz, the two Riddicks, and lastly, Captain Fry.

            In one touch, they were all sent away from Mandy’s TARDIS.

            “Where did you send them? When did you send them?” Mandy asked.

            “They have been returned to their realm within their proper places in the timeline,” the Anti-Angel disclosed. “To live how they choose.”

            Mandy felt her eyes burning, trying not to blink with all the Weeping Angels inside her TARDIS. Any one of them could pounce in one blink. After a few more seconds, the urge became too unbearable – she had to shut her eyes.

            To her surprise, the Anti-Angel and its acolytes had disappeared when she did.

            She was still in her TARDIS, alive and well…but also alone.

            Haunted by the events of her latest journey, she was left to ponder whether or not she would see the Anti-Angel again. There was more guilt festering inside her – a mountain’s worth.

            Of course, there was no dwelling on that now.

            She needed to check on Clarence in the lab where Westlake brought him. She arrived there, expecting Clarence to have been dead. But, sure enough, the impressionable ten-year-old was sitting up on the examination table, happily sucking on a lollipop. Westlake stood at his workspace, putting on one of his spare synthetic skin masks (molded after his original face) that enabled him to give a satisfactory smile, having saved Clarence with an antidote cobbled together in minutes. “Hi, Mandy,” Clarence greeted her like none of what he had been through the last few days ever happened.

            “Clarence,” she said in a hushed voice. She was so relieved to see him healthy that she nearly collapsed in tears. She went to him, taking his hands into hers and not caring how sticky they were from the lollipop. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

            “Sure, I am, Mandy,” Clarence said. “What happened to all the friends we made in our adventure?”

            “They all went home,” she told him.

            “You saved the day again!” Clarence cheered.

            While that couldn’t be further from the truth, she repentantly told Clarence, “Yes, honey…I did.”