Dear Diary,

We looked down at the gun that was being brandished at us by my old school colleague and latter day foe, Elton John, or, as he preferred to be known these days, the Dominator. He is a time tinkerer and sought to cause as much chaos as possible by altering recorded history as much as he could given the resources and opportunities available to him. Which, given that he had a time and space machine which we had followed him to, was a lot of both.

"You’ve saved me a job, Butch" he snarled.

"Have I?" I asked.

"Dammit, Butch, just agree with him" hissed John. "If he thinks you’ve done him a good turn he might let us all go. Or at least Pen and I go if you’re the one he’s after. So butter him up a bit, for our sakes. I’m too young to be vaporised by a ray gun and Pen is too pretty."

"I’m surprised you were able to follow me back to my time and space ship – it must be a long time since we last met" said Elton.

"Surely we only met a few months ago in Tudor England, in the court of King Henry when I… we foiled your dastardly plan to kidnap Anne Boleyn and prevent history taking its rightful course" I told him.

"Wait" interrupted Elton. "You were there in Tudor England?"

"We were."

"You mean you’re not the Butch Maitland from this time and this place?"

"No – I am Butch Maitland from the future."

"Damn and blast. You’re the wrong Butch Maitland. Which I suppose means you're the wrong Penny Danger too."

"I am" confirmed Penny.

"I’m the wrong John too" added John.

"Whatever" replied Elton dismissively.

"How do you mean I am the wrong Butch Maitland?" I asked, trying wheedle his plan out of him piece by piece.

"I came here to change the time line by removing first Carol Richmond and then you yourself from history. I tried just removing Carol in the hope that it would stop you intervening in my plan to remove Anne Boleyn from history but you simply replaced Carol’s skill at drugging the food served at the King’s banquet with Penny’s brute force and hand to hand combat skills. It wasn’t enough simply to dispose of the useful member of the team so I had to come back, persuade my earlier self not to bother kidnapping Carol, kidnap her myself and then track you down to wherever you are right now. With two of you in my cryogenic tubes there would be no chance of your stopping me."

"Dammit, John – nice name by the way, you’re doing a fellow down. Even without Carol or Butch I reckon I would be able to do my fair bit to stop you in your tracks. I may appear a bit confused at times – can anyone else smell bacon by the way? – but that unpredictability makes me a dangerous and unpredictable foe. I may well be more than capable of putting a stop on your mockers."

"Do you really think you could defeat me?" asked Elton pityingly.

"Dammit, that’s not a fair question. I can’t possibly answer it without appearing either boastful or bashful – neither of which is likely to go down well if Carol Richmond is listening. I have my suspicions that I could have you if we were left to our own devices but I wouldn’t want to seem arrogant as personality is almost as attractive to birds as wealth and personality. I’ve not got any wealth on me – it’s all back on the ship in secret nooks that I never talk about but I’ve got a lot of personality for the right little lady. Dammit, someone, stop me talking as I don’t appear able to. I think you pulling a gun on me as caused me to douse my brain in adrenaline and that never ends well. I’m going to go over there as I'm sure that’s where the bacon is coming from."

John tried to leave but Elton stopped him with his ray gun.

"Inside my machine" he ordered. John, Penny and I were ushered into his miraculous time and space machine – as far as we knew it was one of only three in the entire universe and may have been built by the Doctor just as his son’s had been. We saw Carol Richmond in a statis tube and knew that was the fate that awaited us as long as he didn’t decide to kill us. There was another occupied tube but the gases and condensation meant we weren’t, for the moment at least, able to see who was inside.

"I suppose we are to be frozen like that poor girl" said Penny.

"Oh no, my dear, I only have a limited number of cryogenic tubes and cannot afford to waste them on the likes of you. I need to remove your earlier selves from history, not your future iterations."

"Dammit, John, you could just put the whole King Henry thing down as a bad job and go off to change some other bit of history. You could kill Hitler – I don’t think any of us would try and stop that, would we?"

"Erm…" began Penny.

"Ah" I agreed.

"We probably should" said Penny after a moment’s thought.

"Yes – that would, on balance, be a bit of a disruption to the time line" I agreed again.

"You see – they are always going to be a menace to my plans. I’m afraid I have no alternative but to kill you all before I lure your earlier selves into my trap and begin phase B of my plan."

"If we are to die, may we at least know what your plan is?" I asked. Luckily he fell for my clever psychological trick.

"I can’t see there is any harm in that" he said smugly. "I intend to capture and freeze the present day Butch Maitland and – to prevent INNER simply replacing him with some other management drone who will blunder around in the same misguided way – I intend to replace him with someone I know will not interfere."

He pressed a button on his control panel and the mysterious tube began to clear.

"Oh my word" gasped Penny when she saw who was inside.

"But you can’t unleash that upon our universe" I pleaded.

"Dammit, Butch, that geezer’s got your face on him. Is he an earlier you, a later you or is that just a really funky mirror?"

"It’s none of those – it’s a parallel me. I don’t know how he’s done it but Elton has managed to bring Flash Maitland into our reality."