The Warmonger (comic story)

 was a comic story published in Doctor Who Magazine in 2018. It was the first Doctor Who Magazine comic story to star the Thirteenth Doctor.

Part one
In the City of Radiant Stone on the planet Gatan, a lost young girl of the local species walks alone through the destroyed and empty city, clutching a teddy and shouting for her lost mother. A couple of looters ransack a nearby house and knock her to the ground as she begins to cry. However, a nearby woman's voice calls out to her, looking for someone nice, and she identifies herself as the Doctor, alongside her friends Ryan, Graham, and Yaz. The girl begins to warm to Yaz, and reveals her name as Tondi. As Yaz promises to help her find her mum, called Parnia, the other three look around at the destroyed city. The Doctor states that it is odd, as she should have landed in the planet's "party era", and Ryan and Graham volunteer to scout the area from the roof while the Doctor helps out Yaz.

From the roof, Ryan and Graham survey the burning rubble of the city, before having to dive out of the way as what Ryan describes as a "flying robot lady" on a hover vehicle floats past, despite the planet supposedly having roughly the same level of technology as Earth. Curious, Ryan decides to follow her, despite having to cross a very high-up rope bridge in doing so. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Yaz stumble upon some more looters. The Doctor decides to ask them for information, but they immediately start attacking her. However, she stays very polite, dodging all of the punches of their leader, Gorny, before hurling him to the ground as the other two run away. Before he can talk, however, a golden streak of light hurtles towards the ground and makes impact. To Gorny's horror, from out of it comes a large bio-mechanical soldier, looking for an enemy to kill, and is quickly followed by another elsewhere. Despite the chaos and really wanting to help the Doctor, Yaz continues to carry Tondi to safety. The second soldier emerges, less mechanical than the other, and lunges at the other soldier, shouting that it will die in the name of its Kith-kind, with the Doctor and Gorny caught in the crossfire.

Part two
As the two soldiers prepare to clash, the Doctor calculates their heights, weights, and movement speeds. As she does, she discovers a maintenance hatch below her feet, opens it with the sonic screwdriver, and pulls herself and Gorny down it, all with 0.13 seconds to spare. On the roof, Graham and Ryan continue to watch the robot lady as she reports that she will get some good footage of the soldiers fighting and will go live very soon. The two continue to fight, revealing the first soldier's name as Tumat and the second's as Kraytos, as they smash each other through walls with no signs of damage to themselves. The violence is escalated by the arrival of the local army, who decide to use one of their newest weapons on them, but the explosion of the pallodium shells does nothing to stop them. With nothing left, they begin to consider nuclear weapons as their only remaining choice.

Underground, the Doctor discovers that the destruction of the city was not caused by an army, but only by Tumat and Kraytos' fight, which has been going on for months. Trying to save himself, Gorny runs off and is crushed by the collapsing roof of the sewer. Above the fighting, the robot lady flies over with a microphone, revealing her name as Sandola Dell, appearing to be broadcasting a report of the battle to viewers. Upon spotting Graham and Ryan, she recognises them not to be local and teleports them away. Meanwhile, Yaz continues to run away from the fighting with Tondi in her arms, and the two decide to try and find Tondi's aunt, who lives nearby. However, they are stopped by having to hide from a group of drunken revellers who have apparently given up hope and are trying to live the ends of their lives in happiness.

Graham and Ryan are teleported onto a huge spaceship above Gatan that Sandola identifies as The Eye Above - the headquarters of The Freedom Thoughtcasting Network of which she is a reporter. Their cashing in of the fight even involves getting a duo of actors called Bastian and Fortunio to do commercial links as them for the cameras. As Graham attempts to contact the Doctor, Sandola takes notice, and a woman who is watching them tells her to find the Doctor.

Back on Gatan, the Doctor finally decides to leave the maintenance hatch and dodges several attacks before being grabbed by Sandola. She teleports her off to her headquarters, where the Doctor finally meets the woman who wanted to find her - the daughter of an old enemy of hers: Berakka Dogbolter.

Part three
As Berakka introduces herself to the Doctor, she steals her sonic screwdriver from her. Graham and Ryan finally stumble upon the Doctor, all stating that they do not know where Yaz has gone, before Berakka commands Sandola to take the "trained humans" away. In Berakka's private quarters, she explains to the Doctor that while she initially wanted to take revenge on the Doctor for her father's fate, she instead thanks her for being able to forge her own empire. She reveals how she formed FTN to report on Tumat and Kraytos' battles to trillions of viewers, raking in money from the audience's subscription fees, merchandise, and bets on the battle, while their reports on the collateral damage to Gatan draws in another different audience.

Meanwhile, in the back streets of Gatan, Yaz and Tondi have to turn down some beggars before Yaz runs into a thug threatening an old man. Putting her training of command presence to good use, she intimidates the thug into letting the man go, and he runs off. Despite how the bridge leading to Tondi's Aunt Vela is destroyed, she appears out of a crowd anyway, and embraces Tondi, crying about how Parnia was on the bridge when something terrible happened.

Back on the space station, Sandola locks Graham and Ryan inside a dressing room as she complains about her job. When Ryan asks how much she is being paid, she replies that she was constructed by Berakka and is working for free until she pays off the cost of her manufacture. With Graham convincing her to leave and take a hard-earned break, he states that he has found a fast way out of the room.

Meanwhile, the Doctor asks Berakka about Tumat and Kraytos. Berakka reveals that their fight is nothing to do with her, but shows the Doctor a documentary about their history. It is revealed that Kraytos' Shango tribe and Tumat's Ha'loss tribe had been battling for thousands of years until a quantum bomb was created to end their war. With the two warriors at the centre of the explosion, they were the only survivors, and their atomic structure changed, being thrown outside of reality as they continued their battle. Now immortal and with their bodies reflecting all energy that hits them, they rematerialised one million years later to fight on Gatan. As the Doctor mourns their fates, Berakka states that they are the perfect objects for an entrepreneur, and prepares to kill the Doctor to keep her business going. The Doctor blocks some of Berakka's sword swipes with the frame of a painting of Josiah, but is countered when trying to use Venusian aikido on her, and is thrown to the ground, winded and in the face of Berakka's sword.

Part four
As Berakka prepares to finish off the Doctor, Graham and Ryan suddenly burst through the doors wearing huge Tumat and Kraytos outfits, and as Ryan is unable to control his, he knocks Berakka to the ground, allowing the Doctor to stun her. They explain that their outfits came from a couple of actors whose dressing room they happened to be locked in, and with Berakka out of the way, the Doctor resolves to find Yaz and stop the fighting.

A new day dawns in the City of Radiant Stone as Tumat and Kraytos continue battling. However, as the two are knocked away from each other, Tumat is distracted by Ryan, in full costume as Kraytos, and gives chase - while Graham disguises himself as Tumat and does the same to the real Kraytos. With the Doctor and Yaz reunited, everyone works together to lure the soldiers onto a giant FTN logo on the ground, where the Doctor teleports them away. However, they quickly re-emerge on exactly the same spot together; the two beings merged into one as a result of their previous quantum entanglement. Dubbed 'the Chimera' by the Doctor, he suddenly feels the memories of Tumat and Kraytos combined and understands the full extent of the destruction and the amount of people whose lives were destroyed. The Doctor declares the war a draw, and gives the Chimera a second chance to redeem himself.

Suddenly, the Doctor teleports herself, her companions, the Chimera, and Tondi onto The Eye Above and forces Berakka to show them her thoughtcasting set-up. Plugging Tondi into it, the trillions of clamouring viewers suddenly feel her pain, anguish and fear at the loss of her mother, and they are all changed. The Doctor promises that she will make sure they, including Berakka, do not do this again.

Back in the city, the Chimera, knowing he cannot help with rebuilding, teleports himself away on good terms with the Doctor. As Yaz and Tondi bid a heartfelt farewell to each other, the Doctor explains that although the city can be fixed in the long term, it is healing the people's hearts and minds that will take the most work. Finally, the team returns to the TARDIS and takes off for another adventure.

Characters

 * Thirteenth Doctor
 * Graham O'Brien
 * Ryan Sinclair
 * Yasmin Khan
 * Berakka Dogbolter
 * Sandola Dell
 * Tumat
 * Kraytos
 * Tondi
 * Gorny
 * Bastian
 * Fortunio
 * Vela

Original print details

 * (Publication with page count and closing captions)


 * 1) DWM 531 (8 pages) Next: The Eye Above!
 * 2) DWM 532 (8 pages) Next: Eternity of Hatred!
 * 3) DWM 533 (8 pages) Next: Killed in the Ratings!
 * 4) DWM 534 (8 pages) The End

Continuity

 * Ryan has to climb up a ladder again. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument, et al.)
 * The Doctor mentions craving a kronk burger. (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Iron Legion; TV: The Long Game)
 * The Doctor recalls hiding underground during the Blitz. (TV: The Empty Child)