Chapter 1: Eleven: The Stranger
Chapter Text
What has been will be again.
What has been done will be done again.
There is nothing new under the sun.
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“In the years leading up to the War, House Military strategists recognized the need for preparation against a horde so terrible, it could challenge even their supremacy over time and space. Their isolationism and mystique had long been the greatest shield they carried; a shield that would only break as their efforts to thwart their enemy’s rise only alerted said enemy to their existence. They needed a new shield. A greater mystique that would be so perfect, as to fool even themselves.
It’s a common bit of knowledge that Time Lords originate from the planet Gallifrey.
This is incorrect.
There is no such thing as ‘Gallifrey.’ There is ‘a Gallifrey’ or ‘Gallifreys,’ plural. Created via quantum de-superposition, cryptoforming, or bottle growth. There is, and always was, infinite Gallifreys. None of them knowing which was Original, but all having equal claimant to the title.
All of them burned. Used as projectiles, sacrificial lambs, or lost in pocket existences. The Gallifreys burned, and the Time Lords with them.
One wonders, if the masters died, what became of that wonderful, horrific technology they held control over.”
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The Doctor was not having a very good day. No, not a very good day at all. In fact, if one had the time, it was a day that was wet and rainy, blistering hot, filled with gunshots and screams in the air, with a Dalek or two to neatly cap things off.
What was the cause of his latest sour mood, one might wonder? Well, it was a scavenger hunt. An impossible scavenger hunt. Where the targets of said scavenging/hunting were women. Well, one very particular woman. And it might best be not classified as a scavenger hunt, but something of a grand puzzle.
He’d encountered her twice before. She died, both times, leaving him with one hell of a mystery. Now, spatial-genetic multiplicity (that is, the tendency for DNA to ‘echo’ across time and space and leave totally unrelated people looking quite similar to one another) was a proven, well-respected, and headache-inducing phenomena. But it went beyond that.
Indeed, the Doctor – the Last of the Time Lords, that solitary traveler in time and space, him in the bow tie – was getting desperate. Like having to play through a section of a video game over, and over, and over, because you kept on dying.
“Oh, this is getting ridiculous!” The Doctor cried, half-torn between exasperation, fury, and a feeling that might be described as constipation of the mental kind. He’d thrown on his old clothes – the outfit he hadn’t worn since he lost his Ponds. His family. He’d thought that the old ensemble would make him feel ‘him’ again, enough to work past the thought-clog and make progress on his search.
But no.
“We’ve been up and down the universe – from Earth to Exxilon. Year zero to year one-hundred-trillion!” He frustratedly punched the keys on the keypad of the TARDIS console, watching as the images of her flickered by.
(Some might say he was developing an obsession. No, it wasn’t an obsession. Just a perfectly healthy interest in a lady who kept showing up at unexpected times, after dying. Perfectly, totally, completely fine.)
All the faces were identical. Across the boundaries of species, age, or dimension.
“Clara Oswin Oswald!” The Doctor exclaimed, pacing – stomping – in front of the monitor. “Clara Oswin Oswald! Clara, Clara, Clara!”
The ancient renegade Time Lord leaned on the section of hexagonal console, glowering at the portrait of a Victorian-era barmaid-by-night, governess-by-day, who seemed to be so infuriatingly smug. That smile was looking back at him. Taunting him.
It reminded him too much of his first wife. Or his seventh. It was always the smug ones who managed to get a rise out of him, for better or worse.
“She’s everywhere,” The Doctor threw up a hand, and he didn’t know whether to call the emotion he felt amazement or horror. “Gallifrey,” He gestured at an image of ‘Clara’ pulled out of the TARDIS’s local memory, taken that day he stole his precious ship. “Skaro!” He rattled off, gnashing his teeth in frustration at the sight of a blonde, blue-eyed Clara standing amongst the Thals. “An Egyptian monarch; a Mondasian doctor; a PC Oswald filled out the missing persons report when I took Ian and Barbara!” The Doctor’s shouting reached the apex as he leaned on the console. He leaned into his hand, staring at the assorted files rushing by at lightspeed.
He’d raided so many databases. The Library (so big it doesn’t need a name), the New Earth Genealogy Project (using time travel to map out the entirety of humankind’s shared family tree), the Dalek Prime Record (genocidal maniacs they may be, but they kept damn good records)…
Not one, single, clue. There were plenty of Claras, and Oswins, and Oswalds, and Winnies. Too many. Now, one might be tempted to think: ‘no problem! Just go drop in on one of them!’ Except, yes, problem. Big, sad problem: When he ran into them, that usually coincided with one of their deaths. Okay, so, it was only twice, but still-
The Doctor didn’t believe in curses, or much superstition at all. But it was very fairytale – the immortal, and a reincarnation of the same woman meeting over and over again. There must have been something behind the scenes, working. Killing the Claras as he met them. But what for? The Doctor loved his mysteries, that much was true. But a mystery that couldn’t be solved was no good. In any event, tracking down Clara wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was finding the original.
He had a hypothesis: her deaths would stop once he found the original. But there was nothing either which way to let him know that was the case… or which one of them was the original.
For all he knew, ‘Clara Oswin Oswald’ could’ve been some… higher-dimensional lifeform not even the Time Lords catalogued, whose infinitude of limbs manifested in their reality as the same woman in countless different lives. That’d be a nice change of pace. Finding out a flirty lady was really some big, infinitely-repeating fractal of dimensions sharp enough to kill a man by contact… who was just as nice as her disguise.
Finally, the Doctor sighed, and pushed the monitor to the side as the TARDIS let out a low warble.
“Yes, I need fresh eyes!” The Doctor agreed. “No, I can’t get them off the street! ‘Hello, I’m the Doctor, I’m stalking- well, not stalking, but trying to track down a woman who keeps dying to get away from me, please help!’ I wouldn’t be able to pay them. Not that all private eyes have a time machine… or, strictly-speaking, the concept of money.” He scrunched his nose. “Which you wouldn’t think is a problem, until they try to accept payment for services rendered by sucking out your spleen. Which is why I prefer to do the investigation work myself. One too many bad trips to Florrin.” He frowned. “I ought to have learned after the seventh, but-“ He suddenly hit himself in the face. “No! No, I’m doing it again! I’m talking to myself again!”
The stressed-out Time Lord rubbed his face in consternation.
He needed a rest.
He needed to take a step back from the situation for a moment.
He needed to solve it.
He needed closure.
He only needed one hour of sleep every two-and-a-quarter weeks. So, just going to bed and waking up refreshed was out.
They kept meeting for a reason. Like… Donna. A complex space-time event pulled people together like magnetism. He’d run into the original eventually, knowing the way these things worked, if only he could expedite the process. Figure out when her timeline was supposed to intersect his again. If he did that, then he’d be less likely to drop in on the wrong Clara and get her killed. If only…
…
Wait a moment – he could do that.
“Oh, stupid Doctor!” The Time Lord exclaimed, pushing the monitor away with such vigorous force it spun around. He bolted to the other side of the console – to the panel with slits cut in. In every gap was semi-organic matter. Contact-conductive adaptive neurons – a touch telepath’s machine interface. “Telepathic circuits! Just need to engage the limiters,” The Doctor said to the TARDIS as he flipped a toggle switch made of translucent plastic, causing it to light up red. He did not want to turn up on the doorstep of a Doctor that was already traveling with the woman. “And…”
The Doctor stuck his hands into the flesh embedded in the console, causing a wet squelch to echo through the Console Room. A pinch in the back of his mind, then he felt the full breadth of the TARDIS’s being on the edge of his consciousness.
‘Where is Clara?’ The Doctor posed to the TARDIS. ‘Find me Clara…’
A dull thump filled the console room, followed by vibrations through the floor, as the engine release engaged.
The undulating rod in the middle of the console, surrounded by neon tubes, began to move up and down as the TARDIS’s engines – tucked deep in the bowels of the ship, out of sight – caused the entire ship to quake as they ran. The slow pistoning up and down synchronized with the scraping, tearing sound caused by the engines ripping through reality, the sound distorted from its usual cadence as the ship attempted to navigate the infinite web of time itself without a solid clue of even where it itself was going.
Things were calm, for a moment.
Then, all hell broke loose. An alert klaxon began to sound, as the lights on the rim of the console room began to flash mauve. Then, a mighty crash as the TARDIS began to shake like it had physically struck an object, followed by sparks raining down from the ceiling as the dangerous energies of the Time Vortex surged and entered the ship before being converted into a semi-safe form of energy by the materials the TARDIS was grown from.
“No, no, no, what’s that about!?” The Doctor hollered over the alarms, the sparking, and the screaming of the engines. “Why are you doing that!?” He yanked his hands out of the telepathic circuits and dashed back over to the flight controls.
As if of its own volition, the monitor on the console swung to accompany him, flashing dangerously to get his attention.
The Doctor paled as he observed the readouts.
So many system errors were flashing by, to the extent that even he couldn’t read all of the events before they were wiped away by the appearance of the next set of errors. The only thing he could catch was something about a bottle universe, incompatible time-flow errors, and a burnout in the navcom relativity buffer.
“Okay, time for emergency landing!” The Doctor declared as he slammed down a lever.
The Time Rotor stopped, the engines’ locking-down mechanisms engaging with the dull thud of a giant drumbeat.
The metal superstructure creaked and popped as it settled, steam rising from the floor vents, as the power wound down to a stop.
“Sorry, old girl,” The Doctor whispered, pressing a hand to the glass tube of the Time Rotor. He wiped his face of the sweat that had gathered from the harrowing sequence. “Did we make it? Is she out there?”
The console let out a simple beep. No way or another.
The Doctor sighed. He knew the TARDIS probably couldn’t tell him, but still, disappointing.
Then, energy poured back into his posture, and he perked up, clapping his hands. “Right, well, better take a look-see for myself!” He strode over to the doors, and without a second thought, stepped out.
As the Doctor shut the doors of the Police Box shell, he spun around, suddenly finding himself a little-bit off-kilter, like the ground wasn’t all that steady. The light bit at his skin, and shone bright in his eyelids, reflecting off a sea of peculiar gray water extending far into the horizon.
The Doctor looked around, finding himself to be standing on the deck of a peculiar, wooden, vaguely-pyramidal structure.
“Okay,” The Doctor murmured to himself, taking a quick, experimental jump. “Gravity – Earth normal. Air,” He gave a quick taste of the air. “…also Earth-mix – a lot fewer greenhouse gases.” He spun around, frowning to himself. “Everything feels a bit… wibbly. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was on a ship, but the motion-“ He looked up, seeing a gigantic, whale-like, gasbag lifeform floating high above, supporting the structure with ropes attached to it. “Oh. That’s rather pretty! Big ship like this would need a lot of ballast underneath – but attach it from above, you don’t need to waste a whole bunch of materials just for the floats underneath. But, if it’s a ship, who built it?”
The Time Lord spun around, watching the lifeforms moving about. He recognized them immediately – humans, of course. Humans were everywhere, the beautiful, indomitable lot of them. But there were also-
“Ah!” The Doctor felt delight rush through him as he spotted the diminutive, bird-dog-cat… thingy form of an alien species he hadn’t seen in a while. “It’s a Nopon! Hello Nopon!”
“Hm?” The pink-furred Nopon bounced around, flapping her wings. “Oh my! Friend’s chin very big! Mimimimi eyes almost poked out! Mimimimi charge for emotional damage! Fifty G!”
“Ha!” The Doctor huffed with a grin, rubbing his hands together. “You’re going to have to come up with a better excuse to get my money out of me.”
“Eh. Mimimimi had to try.” The Nopon shrugged. “Now, shoo! Mimimimi very busy, yes!”
“Actually, hold on,” The Doctor interjected, looking around. “Are we on Mira, Mimimimi? This doesn’t look very much like any area of Mira I’ve seen…” He’d been there before, a few times. The Nopon may have been money-grubbing to a fault, but they sure did know how to party.
“Friend in funny tie want answer, he pay fifty gold!”
“Oh,” The Doctor’s face twisted as he realized the trap he set for himself, then walked right into. “Fine.” He reached into his pockets, and started pulling things out at random. The filing system was an utter mess. First, out came a yo-yo. Then a cricket ball. Then pieces of a motorcycle engine. The Doctor had started throwing them off to the side, before Mimimimi jumped down.
“Wait! This junk – friend is salvager, yes?” Mimimimi assumed.
The Doctor manufactured a smile, and flashed the psychic paper. “You got me!”
“Ah, Mimimimi understand! In that case, Mimimimi take salvage!” Mimimimi pulled over the disassembled combustion engine, examining it closely. “Yes, good money… Anyway, you not at ‘Mira.’ You at Argentum Trade Guild! Silly salvager friend, not knowing where he is!”
“Yes, but…” The Doctor frowned in confusion, slapping his hands together. “You’re a Nopon. You’re a long way from home.”
“Mimimimi born on Urayan titan. So… not too far. Now, silly friend go! Mimimimi sell salvage and make cozy profit!” She dragged the chunks of engine away, leaving the Doctor standing there, befuddled.
Had he been having two different conversations?
Apparently so.
Curious, the Doctor turned the psychic paper around, looking at what it showed Mimimimi.
A ‘Class A Salvager.’
“Salvagers are a well-off lot around here, apparently.” The Doctor commented to himself, stowing the wallet back in his pocket. “But where…?” He looked around, curious, before spotting the giant, big, obvious thing he’d missed on his way out of the TARDIS.
An enormous tree – and the sea they were floating in was made of clouds.
The Doctor’s face twisted in delighted surprise, as he rushed over to the railing.
“Blimey!” The Doctor gasped. “Now… that is a big tree!” His curiosity gave way for suspicion, as he leaned on the railing. He pulled Amy’s glasses out of his pockets, and placed them on his face, trying to get a better look. “Are you a tree?” There was nothing to imply to him that it wasn’t a tree, other than the giant needle sticking off high into the sky. Had the people of this world built an antenna on the top of it? And for that matter, how had it grown so tall?
The Time Lord looked down, at the sea extending into the horizon. “And growing from a sea of clouds?” Fair enough – clouds were just a less-dense form of water. But as the Doctor crouched down, and scanned the sea with his sonic screwdriver, he was hit with an explanation that surprised him.
He flicked the screwdriver into the extended position, examining the readouts. “Not clouds – nanoparticles. Well, yes, clouds – clouds of nanoparticles.” A further probing by the screwdriver let the Doctor get a peek at the nanomachines’ programming. They looked programmed to analyze inorganic materials and objects, and preserve and replicate them. There was no reasoning as to why in the programming, only the table of all the objects the machine collective had analyzed. And the templates were stored in a format he didn’t recognize.
The Doctor felt the cogs beginning to turn, and he looked to the TARDIS with a smile. “Oh, you… clever old girl.” She knew exactly what he needed to refresh him.
It wasn’t the strangest thing he’d ever seen, but it was up there. A ship sailing on a sea of nanoparticulate clouds, carried from underneath by a flying whale.
It was also cool.
Deciding to take a further look around, the Doctor walked forward, further examining his surroundings. On this weird… airship-seaship hybrid thingy, there were smaller ships docked. The TARDIS had landed on one of said docks, and had made herself as inconspicuous as possible by landing next to a stack of crates and barrels.
The smaller ships looked like miniature versions of that odd flying creature above, with the exception of houseshells built upon their backs. He’d considered living like that on a whale, once. Until he remembered that the TARDIS was terribly jealous.
A larger ship caught the Doctor’s eye, one that looked like a great big wedge, supported from above by another sky-whale.
He’d really have to find another, better thing to call them than ‘sky whale things.’
One, however, didn’t appear to have any boaty implements attached. And, it looked rather more dragon-like than the rest. There was a structure on its back, but it was a rather small shack riding on a simple saddle, as opposed to the nearly-wholly-encompassing shells of the rest.
“Hello…” The Doctor curiously muttered, surveying the creatures. “Never seen anything quite like you…” He frowned for a moment. “Clouds, fishy-things swimming in them instead of water… is this Ember?” He scrunched his nose. “Oh, that’d be rubbish.” He groaned to himself, before smacking himself in the head. “No, Ember’s clouds were ice particles bound into clouds by electricity and sonic resonance. Not nanobots. Where am I?” The Doctor wondered, before shrugging to himself.
That dragon-like sky whale looked the Doctor’s way, narrowing its eyes. The Doctor spun around, checking to see if anyone was behind him, before turning back around, and pointing at himself silently. The dragon continued to look at him. The Doctor waved, coughed, and straightened his bow tie.
“Don’t stare – why are you staring? You know sentient lifeforms don’t like staring,” The Doctor grumbled to himself, before deciding to get a shove on. “Who’s staring? I’m not.” The Doctor moved along, before something slammed into him.
“Ah!” The Time Lord gasped out. “Whoever it was, it wasn’t me!”
“Oh, Titan’s foot!” A voice on the younger side swore. “So sorry, sir! Wasn’t looking where I was going!”
“Oh, it’s fine,” The Doctor waved away, staring up at the sky. “Actually,” He chuckled, pointing up. “It’s funny you say that. Cause I’m here cause I wasn’t looking where I was going either. Actually, it was more of a conceited effort to get lost…”
The young man – and he was young, a human child by the Doctor’s reckoning, no more than sixteen at the very most – looked down at the Time Lord.
“You all right?” The young man tilted his head in concern. He offered a hand to help the Time Lord up, which was mostly ignored as the Doctor was at least twice the size of the scrawny teenager.
“Yes, I’m fine,” The Doctor responded as he pulled himself up. “You don’t live to be my age without getting a few knocks. Actually, while I’ve got your ear, can you refresh my memory? Where exactly are we?”
“What?” The teenager spluttered in disbelief. “Did ya hit your head on the way down, mate?”
“I told you, I’m lost.” The Doctor simply shrugged.
“Oh, uh… you’re at goldmouth!” The teenager answered.
“Goldmouth, yes, I knew that.” The Doctor snapped his fingers, pointing confidently at the boy. He had no clue what that was. So there was a trade guild, and if he had to guess, ‘Goldmouth’ was the name of the actual headquarters.
“…you don’t actually know where you are, do you?”
“Of course I know where I am!” The Doctor denied, tugging on his jacket. “It’s a big wooden-and-metal pyramid ship thing with trading and salvagers and whatnot.”
“…right,” The teenager, although he was young, wasn’t fooled by the Doctor’s tricks. “Well, if you’re needing help finding anything, just give us a shout. I might look young, but I know this place like the back of my hand! Name’s Rex, in case you decide to take me up.”
“Hello, Rex, I’m the Doctor.” The Time Lord smiled in response, clapping his hands. “That’s very nice offer, but don’t worry about me – just passing through.”
“If you say so,” Rex shrugged in return, before he jumped as an idea crossed his head. “Oh! I’ve got to get to the exchange! See you around, Doc!” He sprinted off up the ramp, leaving the Doctor in his dust.
“Actually, it’s…” The Doctor slumped somewhat. “Kids. I didn’t have that much energy when I was his age…”
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The Doctor hadn’t been able to piece much together beyond what he’d initially learned – but Goldmouth was a trade outpost, as he suspected. He always liked places like that. Big markets, where a bit of everything and everyone passed through, the living, beating heart of a civilization. They were a bit like Epcot, except actually authentic. No better way to throw one’s self into a culture.
The Doctor did so as he usually did – clumsily, without care, and completely enjoying himself all the while.
He could have gotten the lay of the land by finding a bookstore and flipping through a history book, but that was boring. YAWN.
And so it was that the Doctor was standing in a corner, sipping at a drink of dubious origin the Nopon trader called ‘fizzy juice.’ It was indeed juice, and it was, indeed, fizzy. Fresh-squeezed, too. The minerals of the fruit it originated from reacted when exposed to the open air in such a way as to add natural, harmless carbonation. A soft drink that never lost its fizz. He loved the little things.
Whilst the Time Lord ruminated at what fruit the juice came from (it had to be some relative of a pear, with a hint of lime and coconutty undertones), he noticed two people in diving suits conversing. Loudly.
“It’s bad luck!” One insisted to the other. “They want us going into uncharted territory, and now Bertron’s liver chooses to act up on the day of! You don’t ignore things like that!”
“We’re down a man, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s a salvage op.” The other audibly rolled their eyes. “You want to stay here, that’s fine, but you’ll miss out on your cut.”
“Well… fine. But I’m telling ya, I warned you!”
The Doctor sipped his drink, grinning to himself.
A ship going into uncharted wat- clouds was definitely something interesting. That the TARDIS landed here could mean that the departing ship on a mysterious mission right as he arrived was his path to Clara.
He could make a passable salvager.
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The guy in the big, brass and cloth diving suit did not seem to agree that the Doctor was a passable salvager. For one-
“You don’t even have a diving suit!”
To which the Doctor held up his fingers, dashed back to the TARDIS, and stepped back out in his Sanctuary Base Spacesuit. He spread his arms, expectantly looking at the guy. “Better?”
“Well… it looks awful thin,” The guy audibly frowned behind the helmet. “Still, I can’t just let any old bloke aboard.”
“Oh, but I’m not just any old bloke – I’m your replacement salvager, didn’t you hear?” The Doctor flashed the psychic paper, and the guy sucked in a surprised gasp.
“Another Class A? Bana’s really putting his all in this job, isn’t he?”
The Doctor shrugged. “You know him. Can’t let a good opportunity go to waste.” He pointed up the ramp. “Can I…?”
“Oh, sure,” The guy waved him off. “Go on up and find a bunk. We’re still waiting for the last man to turn up.”
“Really?” The Doctor curiously crossed his arms. “Isn’t this normally a ‘get a shove on, or miss out’ sort of deal?”
“Normally,” The salvager nodded. “But this one’s important, apparently. They need a Leftherian salvager or the whole operation’s moot. Architect knows why, but I’m not getting paid to ask them kinds of questions.”
“Really?” The Doctor probed further. “And what kind of questions do you get paid to ask, mister…?”
“Spraine,” The salvager nodded quickly. “And for me, it’s usually ‘what’s your name,’ ‘why you here,’ and ‘the Maelstrom doesn’t have to worry about you feeding her Titan a bunch of red pollen, right?’”
“Well, it sounds like you’ve got an easy job then,” The Doctor remarked, and the smile that rose to his face did so without regard for him. “Nothing that could cause any sprains.”
Spraine looked at him with a tired, droll expression… behind his diving helmet. “Oh. Har har. Truly you’re an inventive and innovative comedian.”
“…right.”
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It wasn’t long after the Doctor boarded that the Maelstrom set off. Before it did, a few final people came aboard.
There was a white-haired man in a long coat with a mask on, and a big giant sword. There was a man in black armor with spiky hair, also with a giant sword, who looked seriously sour (the alarm bells in the Doctor’s head started going off at the sight of that one – he looked like he was just waiting for an excuse.).
There was a girl in a yellow jumpsuit with cat ears, and a talking tiger!
And whilst the Doctor was snooping around, poking at the engines of the ship to see what made it tick, he got introduced to the last one.
“Hey – it’s you!” A voice loudly exclaimed, causing the Doctor to jump up and bang his head.
“Ow!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Rex frantically apologized as the Doctor turned around. “I’m not trying to make it a habit of hurtin’ ya when we run into one another.”
“Yeah, well… it’s called running into one another for a reason, I expect…” The Doctor sorely muttered, rubbing the back of his head.
“Oi, what are you doing over here kid?” Cat-ears chided Rex. “You best not be screwing things up by trying to take a peek at what other people are doing.”
“What?” Rex spluttered. “I just gave him a fright is all.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. She looked just as young as Rex, really. Maybe a year or two older, at most.
“Wait…” She looked at the Doctor, narrowing her eyes. “Who are you?”
“Nia, this is… well, he just told me he was the Doctor.” Rex introduced. “Doctor, this is Nia.”
“You don’t look like the rest of the salvagers around this place.” Nia commented with a frown.
“That’s right, never met another like me!” The Doctor boasted. “I’m a great salvager- a salvager extraordinaire! All your salvage-y operations will turn out a-okay, with me here.” He winked, leaning on the engine. A sizzle interrupted him, notifying him to the fact that it was trying to burn through one of his gloves, and he yanked it away.
“Right.” Nia rolled her eyes. “Look, this was fun, but I’ve got to go talk to Jin and Malos about a few things. You just do what it is the crew told you… and try not to mess anything up.” She turned around, the white tiger following into step behind her.
“Short-tempered, isn’t she?” Rex commented.
“Nah, I’ve met short-tempered,” The Doctor turned around. “She just seems… high-strung.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “So, Jin and Malos – I take it they’re the two frowny people who came on board with you.”
“With me? Nah,” Rex shook his head. “Way I understand it, they’re the ones actually funding this gig. Why, you not meet them?”
“No,” The Doctor readily admitted.
“Huh.” Rex frowned. “That’s odd… they wanted to meet me.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“You said they wanted to meet you,” The Doctor elaborated. “Why do you think that was?”
“I don’t know,” Rex shrugged. “I thought they wanted to examine everyone. Make sure they were up to the task. At least, they did that with me.”
“Did they?” The Doctor leaned forward. “And did you pass their examination?”
Rex awkwardly chuckled, leaning back nervously. “Well, I’d say, else I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
The Doctor hummed, looking back down at the engine. “You wouldn’t happen to be Leftherian, would you?”
“Say… how’d you know?”
“Just now,” The Doctor’s lips twitched. “When you said it.”
“Oh… damn it.”
“When I was coming aboard, the nice fella outside said this whole operation was dependent on a Leftherian salvager.” The Doctor discreetly produced his sonic screwdriver, analyzing the emissions. It was a bog-standard engine, but there was something else, all around. In the air. Lone quarks of the six types, just… floating around, independently. Kind of impossible, really. What planet was he on?
“And the thing about people needing you, is they tend not to care if you fit the rest of their expectations, as long as you make sure to cross off the big one.” The Doctor continued. He looked over, seeing Rex standing there, confused. “Relax,” The Time Lord disarmingly smiled. “All that means is you don’t need to care about what other people think, as long as you take care of the big part.”
“Right, I see,” Rex nodded. “Speaking of expectations, I wasn’t expecting you to be a salvager.”
“Well, I dabble.”
“A salvager who ended up in Goldmouth, on the Maelstrom, with no clue what the Argentum Trade Guild is?”
“I dabble – I never said I was any good at it,” The Doctor retorted.
“But you’re here, aren’t you?”
“Did I say I was no good? I meant to say I’m good, but I don’t really… care for the political side of it all?” The Time Lord ventured. “You know, all that’s the boring stuff – I much more care for the exciting bit! Let’s dig up some old junk and see what we can find! I love that part.” He gestured noncommittally.
“Right!” Rex nodded. “’Open a chest, it might turn out great! Until then, it’s just a crate!’”
“Oh, I like that. I’m having that – I’m writing it down,” The Doctor moved to reach into a pocket, before realizing he was in his spacesuit. “Maybe later.”
“I’ve never seen a salvaging suit like that,” Rex curiously leaned forward.
“You like it?” The Doctor looked down with a smile. “Rated for absolute vacuum, and – it’s comfy.” He wasn’t absolutely certain the suit would hold up under the Cloud Sea’s pressures if it came down to it, but the salvagers’ suits seemed underbuilt compared to his, so he’d ought to be fine.
“Yeah, mine’s not exactly the pinnacle of comfort, but it gets the job done, I suppose.”
The Doctor frowned. “Young fella like you, working a job like this, you must have a good idea of what you’re doing – how to profit.”
“Fair enough, I guess.” Rex shrugged. “But I send most of it back home. They need it more than I do.”
The Doctor’s frown deepened. “And your parents are fine with that? They just sent you out here to work?”
“Nah, no parents – just Auntie Corrine and my Gramps.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, it’s fine. Gramps does his best, looking out for- Oh!” He suddenly cut himself off, looking like a fire had been lit underneath him. “I’m on watch duty tonight! I almost forgot – I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta run!”
“Ah, don’t worry, I’ll just stay here and scope out the general… engine-y-ness. Yes, that’s it.” The Doctor nodded.
“Right, yeah – it was good talking to you again!” Rex quickly moved, running away from the Time Lord, and up the internal structure of the ship.
And there the Doctor lingered for a little while, just pacing around. They were heading into uncharted territory, sure, but… well, that didn’t mean anything to him, seeing as the whole planet was uncharted by he, himself, personally.
He wondered why the TARDIS had saw fit to bring him here, ruminating on the matter for a few hours. Finally, the sun began to set outside, and the Doctor decided that now would be a good time to figure out where in the universe he was. So, he put down what he was doing, and began to move. As he did, he couldn’t help but hear muffled voices. At a low whisper for a human, certainly, but well within his range of hearing.
“I don’t like it.” One of them said to the other. “The Chairman says he approved no replacement, and we’d gone through the effort of vetting all the crew, just for that one to turn up.”
“What does it matter?” The other voice impatiently retorted. “They’re all going the same place anyhow.”
The Doctor stopped in front of the door, peering in through the keyhole. Inside were those two gentlemen – Jin and Malos (that wasn’t a very good name at all, it practically screamed ‘look at me, I’m doing a bad thing over here!’)
Jin’s brow furrowed in concentration, his eyes flickering with ideas and possibilities. “It’s too convenient. One of the salvagers gets knocked out with food poisoning right before a man who doesn’t exist turns up on board? It reeks of a setup.”
“Good point… what do we think? Indol?” Malos boredly asked in response, spinning around in a swivel chair.
“How could they know?” Jin stopped, visibly thinking about something else. “How could he know?”
“Spies everywhere,” Malos let out a suffering sigh. “I told you – this is what you get for dealing with hired help.”
“If it is him, it’s not very subtle.” Jin frowned. “What kind of cover is ‘the Doctor?’”
Malos began to nod in agreement. “A bad one. Doctor… Doctor…”
Jin regarded Malos curiously. “Problem?”
“…no. It’s nothing.”
And the Doctor was torn between listening further, and moving on. After a few moments, it seemed that the two wouldn’t keep up their secretive discussion of him, switching tracks to what it was they were looking for out there.
Wisely, they kept to vague language, just in case anybody (anybody like him) was listening in. They kept calling it an ‘object,’ but the Doctor couldn’t tell if it was a lockbox or something, or a ship.
Finally, he decided to head to the upper deck, feeling that he’d gotten everything useful out of them.
When the open sky greeted his eyes, the Doctor stopped, and his eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “Impossible…” He breathed out. “That’s impossible!” He ran a little ways away from the door, towards a clearer area away from the underside of the Titan tugging the ship along, and his face twisted in disbelief.
He could see the stars, clearly – the constellations, their luminosity, all of it gained from centuries of looking at the night sky of his favorite planet. He could see the constellations in the sky above, and the stars that made them up.
His eyes were naturally drawn to Polaris, Arcturus, all the big ones…
He was on Earth. Somewhere around the 41st century, if the positions were right. But that was wrong. No great big plant tree things were on the planet during that time.
The Time Lord’s eyes drew closer to the glowing tree.
“What are you?” The Doctor wondered. A piece of foliage that large was impossible on Earth, glowing with strange lights? It had to be alien. Responsible.
“Hey down there!” Rex called down from the lookout, waving at the Doctor and breaking the Time Lord’s concentration. “Did you follow me up here or something?”
“Ah, well, you know, the rest of them down there, they’re not all that… talkative.” The Doctor moved around, walking up the steps, keeping his eyes on the tree. “And the drinking – I don’t do drinking games, I’m rubbish at them.”
“Well, that’s no good,” Rex puffed out his chest. “You know salvagers - ‘swim like a fish, and drink like one too?’”
“I do drink like a fish,” The Doctor blankly stared back at Rex. “Every time. There’s only one way to drink things. Well, two,” The Doctor held up his fingers, looking up thoughtfully. “But doing it through the nose, I’ve been told, is a bit of a faux pas.” He suddenly sniffed. “Not sure what fake paws have to do with it.”
Rex quieted for a second, before breaking out into a grin. “Hey, that’s a good one!”
The Doctor’s lips twitched as he clapped his hands. “That’s nothing. Did you hear about the kidnapping? They found him in his bed after an hour.”
Rex blinked, and he sharply shook his head with a sheepish smile. “Nah.”
The Doctor petulantly turned away, with a childish huff. “Well, not everyone can have a refined sense of humor like mine.” He leaned on the railing, staring at the thing touching the sky.
Rex followed the Time Lord’s eyes to the giant plant. “World Tree’s looking nice tonight.”
The Doctor glanced at the young salvager, tilting his head curiously. “Eh. A bit too bright for my liking. How’s anybody supposed to sleep with it being so bright out?” He rhetorically asked.
“In a bed, I guess.” Rex frankly answered, and the Doctor responded with an over-the-top roll of his eyes. “So, I’ve gotta ask… are you following me?”
“You?” The Doctor snorted. “Why on earth would I follow you?” He leaned forward, searching the teenager’s eyes. “Did you do anything to warrant being followed…?”
Rex rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. But that bunch of Drivers wanted to hire a Leftherian – specifically. Then I bump into you, twice, and then you come out here.”
“Yes, well, there’s also the big thing of the sky being out here too.” The Doctor deflected, pointing up. “Besides, I thought we could keep on our nice talk that the job you were hired to do so rudely interrupted. Unless you mind.”
“Nah, that’s fine,” The boy shook his head. “I’m kind of used to people being a bit curious about me, especially on these big jobs.”
“Oh?” The Doctor sat down across from him. “Why?”
“Well, look at me.”
The Doctor stared cluelessly. “I am looking at you – why?”
Rex snorted with a grin. “Well, I’m not exactly ‘old,’ am I?”
“I’m ancient, and I’m here,” The Doctor shrugged. “Although… strictly speaking, those two may not necessarily be contributing to each other.” The Time Lord cleared his throat “So, what, people give you funny looks for being experienced?”
“Used to, a while back,” Rex nodded. “But I’ve been salvaging for a while now; been on my share of big jobs like this one, so it’s usually not the other salvagers I need to worry about anymore.”
Experienced? What did that mean? “Rex, when you say experienced, how long have you been doing this?”
“Oh, years now.” The teenager answered readily.
The Doctor straightened up. “You’ve been out here, salvaging on your own for years, sending what you get back to your home, with only your grandfather to take care of you?”
“Yeah,” Rex nodded. “I’m not gonna pretend like it’s easy all the time, but I like it. Fonsett – little village out there – took me in, gave me a home. There’s not much to trade with the other countries, but money helps. Buying supplies in case something happens, replacing old beat-up stoves and such, hiring help for folks that’re too old or too sick to take care of themselves, that sort of thing. Auntie Corrine absolutely did not want me to go, but Gramps must’ve figured I’d leave and try it anyway, so he went with to keep an eye on me. Most of what we make, we send back to the village. This job’s paying out a lot – enough to take care of them for a while.”
The Doctor couldn’t help but feel a sense of admiration/pity for the young man. No one should have to feel obligated to do such a thing, but Rex was doing it of his own volition. Quite talented at doing it, too, seeing as he’d apparently been doing so for a while.
“You know, Rex, I think that’s wonderful,” The Doctor softly smiled. “Not a whole lot of folks your age would do the same.”
“I know,” Rex nodded. “I guess that’s what pushes my buttons when people call me a kid. I earn my living – earn enough to send back home at that.”
“Do people normally do that?”
“When I first started? Oh yeah. Now most of the salvagers know better.” Rex answered. “The only person who’s given me trouble recently is Nia.” Rex frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t get it. She looks just as young as I do! What, does she think Driver experience converts differently to salvager experience or something?”
“Driver?” The Doctor repeated, furrowing his eyebrow.
“Yeah, a Driver. Didn’t you see her Blade, Dromarch?”
“Oh, yeah,” The Doctor nodded, pointing, before shiftily looking around. “But what does driving have to do with anything?”
Rex threw his head back in uproarious laughter, that went on for a long moment, before it died as he caught the Doctor’s confused look. “You know, drivers! Drivers and blades?”
The Doctor stared at Rex.
“You… really don’t know, do you?” Rex blinked. “Well, you know… You get someone who bonds with a Core Crystal, and they wake up the blade, and… yeah.”
The Doctor continued to stare.
“Come on,” Rex tilted his head. “Even I know what Drivers and Blades are! You’re just screwing around, aren’t you?”
The Doctor shook his head, almost-imperceptibly.
“Architect – you’re serious, aren’t you?” Rex scratched his head.
“I’m never serious – except, of course, for when I am.”
“All right, you’ve seen Nia, right? And the big white talking tiger that follows her around is Dromarch. He’s her blade. They’re linked, I guess. She woke him up from his core crystal so he can exist and move around and stuff, and in return she can use his powers in fights.”
“Sentient beings as… weapons?” The Doctor probed slowly. Disbelievingly. Almost harshly, and Rex winced.
“Uh… I guess? Though I guess they’re more like people. I hadn’t met any blades before today – but Dromarch is pretty lifelike.” Rex frowned. “And… I don’t think they’re just weapons. Cause Blades have weapons too, you know?”
The Doctor frowned to himself. It was far from the blades’ fault – but humans were always doing that, making people to handle the tough bits they didn’t want to. But imbuing weapons with sentience? Were the Blades like the Ood – sentient creatures taken and made to serve a function? Or were they just weapons given consciousness? The Doctor wasn’t such a big fan of either option. Giving weapons a conscience could be the final step in ensuring they weren’t used by some big warmongering would-be god-king, because they could refuse to be used, but that could also be flipped on its head, creating a weapon who really, really wanted to be used at any opportunity.
It was also giving sapience, personality, existence, to a line of tools. The TARDIS was alive, but she and the Doctor had come to a mutual understanding (read: theft) of each other. And, inevitably, there were those who saw a line of tools, even with personalities, as tools. Did the Blades choose? Did they get to?
“Who came up with that, then?” The Doctor probed.
“Uh… the Architect, I suppose?”
“And who’s that?” The Doctor flatly questioned. “Where is he? How can I talk to him?”
At that, Rex let out a nervous chuckle. “Well… he’s the Architect, you know? Lives in Elysium, top of the World Tree…”
The Doctor continued to blankly look at the teenager.
“Come on, we were just talking about it! What kind of salvager did you say you were?”
“Oh, a very sheltered one – just a great, big, ignoramus, that’s me! Won’t even focus on my dinner unless it’s shouting at me.” The Doctor chuckled, clapping his hands. “So, the World Tree, that’s the big plant over there, yes?”
“Right.” Rex nodded. “You don’t… You don’t know the story, do you?”
“Story? What story?”
Rex blinked. “You must have come from really far away.”
“Oh, whole worlds, I’d say.” The Doctor chuckled, leaning on the railing. “You seem to know – why don’t you fill me in?”
“Oh. Oh, right, I guess I can do that.” Rex looked put out by the notion of having to explain a story that everybody knew to someone else, but he went on. “So you’ve got the Cloud Sea, and the World Tree, you know what those are, right?”
“Well, I thought those were obvious.”
“Okay,” Rex nodded. “See, story goes that a long time ago, when the world was young, humankind lived up there. At the top of the World Tree.”
Yggdrasil. The Great Ash Tree, that held up the world, constantly attacked by two serpents. Or, at least, this World Tree shared a similar name. It was surrounded by an aqua-green glow, lighting up the night sky like an aurora, around the tree in the vague pattern of a wheel with four spikes. It was beautiful.
It also set the Doctor’s senses on edge. Just looking at it felt… wrong. A great, big, towering totem of wrongness that was not supposed to be there.
In either case, it made the Capitol on Gallifrey look like a rubber ball next to a redwood tree.
“What’s that line coming off the top of it?” The Doctor pointed. “Stretching up into space?”
“They call that the Architect’s Way.” Rex answered. “They say it’s the path into the heavens. We lived up there with our divine creator,” Rex continued, oblivious to the Doctor’s thoughts. “A being called the Architect, in a bountiful, holy land called Elysium.”
The Doctor’s lips twitched into a frown. Now, the mythologies were getting mixed up. But he didn’t let it show on his face. Religions and the like got corrupted over centuries, let alone millennia.
“And it was good!” Rex shrugged. “Until… one day, we were cast out. No one knows why. Maybe the Architect just got sick of us. Or we did something to anger Him. But he threw us out of Elysium, into the Cloud Sea. And then, when it looked like we would all perish, He took pity on us. He sent his servants, the Titans, to pull us out of the Cloud Sea. The ones that survived settled on the Titans’ backs, buildings whole towns, and cities, and nations. Then he sent the blades to help us survive even better. And… well, that’s how Alrest came to be.”
The Doctor nodded. “Good story.” He turned to the World Tree. “So, that big old tree right over there – your creator’s at the top of that?” He glanced at Rex. “Why don’t you climb up it and give him a piece of your mind, eh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on – whatever you lot did, it must’ve been ages ago! Now, I mean, I can hold a grudge, don’t get me wrong, but I doubt the man could stop you from marching up there and saying ‘oi! We’re a totally different group of people, you can’t keep us out based on what the others did!’”
Rex nodded in agreement. “Right. I mean… I don’t know if Elysium’s really up there, but… it has to be, right? Cause the World Tree’s right there. There’s no Elysium without the World Tree.”
“You know what Rex, I think you’re exactly right!” The Doctor grinned, before tilting his head. “But there’s something more, isn’t there?”
“How do you mean?”
“I could tell as you were telling the story,” The Doctor explained. “You don’t just believe it. You want to believe it.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Believing something and wanting to believe are two totally different things.” The Doctor answered. “If you believe something, it’s already there, set in stone. If you want to believe something… you’re willing to move heaven and earth to make it reality.”
Rex chuckled quietly. “When you put it like that, it makes sense.” He turned back to the World Tree. “Titans are dying.” He swallowed. “Land becomes rarer by the day. Soon… we’re gonna run out of living space.” He once again looked at the Doctor properly. “That wasn’t a problem, five-hundred years ago. People could fight each other, and destroy everything in their way, and they didn’t have to worry about where they were going to go next. But now…”
“It’s winding up again, isn’t it?” The Doctor softly probed, before sighing. “Oh, it’s always the same old story… You find a tiny little square of land that you really want, so you take people to grab it. Then you bomb it, and scorch it, until you win, and what do you have? A little pit of ash. Congratulations on getting that land; don’t worry about watering it, you did it already with the blood you spilt.”
“But if Elysium’s up there,” Rex continued. “Then people wouldn’t need to worry about land ever again!”
“What about food?” The Doctor inquired with a frown. “Or water? Or beliefs – people have never needed an excuse to go to war over those.”
“Maybe…” Rex took an uncertain breath. “But trying and failing’s better than not trying at all.”
“Quite right!” The Doctor suddenly raised his voice in agreement.
“I dunno,” Another voice cut in. “You could just get everybody killed over a fairytale. Think about that?” Nia asked with a smarmily-tilted head as she walked up the steps. “Elysium, the Architect – all that’s kid stuff. I figured he’d still believe it, but you?”
Rex looked down slightly, almost like a kicked puppy.
The Doctor fixed her with his own somewhat-smug, challenging smile. “There’s no point being a grown-up if you can’t be childish sometimes.” And just like that, Rex’s attitude picked up.
“Sometimes?” Nia retorted. “You look like you make a habit of doing that all the time.”
“Oi – what’s that supposed to mean!?” The Doctor indignantly squawked.
“Forgive my lady,” Dromarch intoned with a smooth, buttery rumble. “I do believe she means you don’t look all that much younger than master Rex.”
“I don’t- but I-“ The Doctor spluttered indignantly, pointing at Nia who was struggling to hold back laughter. “I just have a good skincare routine is all!”
“Oh? You worry a lot about the way you look, is that it? Is that what happened to your eyebrows?”
The Doctor defensively touched the brows in question. “That’s just… pigment.” The Doctor coughed, frowning at the girl before him. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude,” Maybe, just a little bit, given that she went for the proverbial throat on the eyebrows. “But are those real?”
Nia’s face twisted into a scowl. “What the hell did you just say to me?”
“Your ears!” The Doctor moved over quickly, “I thought they were a headband, but you don’t have ears on the side of-“ He got a little bit ahead of himself, about to reach out to touch, and Nia slapped his hand away. “Ow!”
“Yes,” She hissed at him. “They’re real. What’s the matter? Never seen a Gormotti before?”
“Well, since you asked, no!” The Doctor sourly rubbed his hand. There were claws in that slap. A lot of the cat-kind races tended to be more on the cat side than the human side. It was unusual to see one who’s morphology was so close to human, with the exception of the ears. “Well, I’m not exactly from here.”
“They had Gormotti on Argentum.” Nia rolled her eyes.
“Actually, that was Goldmouth-“ Rex began to correct, silenced by a droll look from Nia.
“Well, I’m not from there, either.” The Doctor flippantly shrugged, turning around.
“Oh?” Nia blinked. “Then where are you from?”
“Oh, you know… around.” The Doctor vaguely gestured, looking out onto the cloud sea. Motion picked out by his highly-refined eyes alerted him to a dark speck on the horizon, following the ship at a distance. “Rex, did you happen to hear of any other salvaging teams coming out this way?”
“No, why?” Rex frowned.
“Oi, don’t go trying to change the subject,” Nia attempted to chide. “Should I start taking guesses? Mor Ardain? Uraya? Maybe… Indol?”
The Doctor ignored her questions. “So if there’s no one else coming out here… why are we being followed?”
“Followed?” Rex startled, jumping to his feet and snapping back to business. A pair of binoculars were put up to his face, as he peered through. After a few moments, during which the mysterious pursuer got closer, he spoke up. “I saw that ship back at Goldmouth, before we set off! But why’s it following us- Hey!”
The Doctor snatched the binoculars out of Rex’s hands, and looked through them. The ship pursuing them was very big. Very spiky. Very menacing-looking and very menacingly-following. It didn’t look like the rest of the ships he’d seen in this place so far, with the lack of a Titan pulling it – but that could have just been because the creature was stuck deep inside the machine’s innards.
“Very big, very scary looking…” The Doctor began. “Rex – be a dear and go tell the captain, yeah?”
Rex frowned. “Why’ve I got to go?”
The Doctor turned to him with a smile, plopping the binoculars back in the teenager’s hands. “You’re the watchman on-duty!”
“Oh,” Nia scoffed with a roll of her eyes. “What a load of- It’s probably just our backup.”
“Backup?” Rex turned to her, questioning.
“What, you think we sunk all this money into this job just so one salvager ship can haul up what they get and run off with it?” Nia challenged somewhat tersely.
Rex, his honor impugned, recoiled. “What? Why’d we do that?”
“You’ve got to cover all your bases!”
Dromarch cleared his throat. “My lady and her associates have invested a lot in this mission – it’s natural to want to ensure that investment doesn’t meet any unfortunate accidents.”
The Doctor frowned thoughtfully to himself. What could be so important that it demanded hiring a salvager ship, the associated crew, and a second ship to make sure the first didn’t run off with the goods, even though the people who did the hiring to begin with were on board anyway?
The Doctor’s brain – the most powerful organic supercomputer that had ever evolved – went into overdrive, thinking about the possibilities. He put a stop to all of them. He didn’t know enough about the altered time-zone to make any assumptions. The most likely possibility was that the people who put together the job were just paranoid.
Actually… really paranoid, given how Nia had been acting.
Once that line of thought went through him, the Doctor felt a ‘click’ inside his head, as he lowered the binoculars and turned to Nia with a slight smile. He introduced himself to her, she happened to run off on some ‘urgent business,’ then that Jin and Malos started discussing him not-so-covertly? They had mentioned an ‘Indol’ then, too.
“That’s an awful lot of precautions to take,” The Doctor said aloud. “What is it that we’re going to get?”
Nia snorted. “We’re paying you to salvage, not ask questions.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to live with your disappointment, because when you get me, you get my brain, and it likes asking all those troublesome little pesky questions.” The Doctor’s facial expression hadn’t changed. His muscles did not twitch or shift. Yet his smile got only even more smug, if possible.
Nia recoiled like he’d just scarfed down that mysterious, meaty paste that came as wet dog food, right in front of her. “What the hell are you on about?”
“Oh, nothing.” The Doctor tugged his spacesuit, turning around.
“Now that’s a load of-“
“My lady,” Dromarch coughed. “Perhaps we should retire. It’s getting quite late.”
“Right, yeah,” Nia readily agreed. “Have fun with Dr. ‘No Sense of Personal Space.’” Then, before anyone could say anything, she’d turned around, and marched down the steps.
“What was that about?” Rex questioned the Doctor as soon as Nia was out of earshot.
“I’ll put it to you simply,” The Doctor turned back to Rex. “Either she knows what we’re looking for and doesn’t want to say – or has been ordered not to say – or even she doesn’t know. In either case, you know what that means?”
“What?”
The Doctor tossed the binoculars back to him. “It means something shady’s going on.” Just as suddenly, he grinned. “Which means whatever it is we’re pulling up is going to be really good.” Or really dangerous. Or something really personal.
“You sure?”
“Nope!” The Doctor admitted. “Only one way to find out when we get there!”
He did love a treasure hunt.
------------
Rex had turned in for the night, and eventually it came down to the Doctor to take over the watch post. Not much else had happened, aside from the ship still following. He did see that Malos not-so-slyly snooping around, glaring at the Doctor from the distance, but aside from that, not much happened.
Frankly, it was boring. If he was human, he would’ve fallen asleep.
But the morning came, and with it, the announcement that the ship was getting close to its destination.
The Doctor had fumbled around for a moment, trying to figure out an uplink for the locals’ oxygen cylinders to his suit’s air supply, but he’d gotten it sorted out quickly. And with that blaze-yellow sealed to the collar, the Doctor attached himself to a cable, and took the plunge with the salvagers into the Cloud Sea.
Only a few feet in, the fog-like substance turned more into a traditional liquid, but his suit held up under the pressure. The Sanctuary Base 6 space-suit was incredibly well-built, designed for high-pressure, low pressure, extreme temperatures – well, any hostile planetary environment, actually.
So the Doctor held onto the cable, falling through the depths of the Cloud Sea, while the salvagers chattered and gestured to each other. Then, it came into view.
A vessel, just… floating. They were nowhere near the seabed.
“What’s this thing floating on?” The Doctor posed to the others over the radio. “I don’t see any ground!”
“It’s another layer of the Cloud Sea.” Rex supplied helpfully to the Time Lord. “It’s too dense for the ship to sink through. There’s a whole bunch of lines and stuff – that’s what the Titans walk on.”
“Really?” The Doctor hummed to himself. So, that had to be a programmed-in feature, rather than a result of simple physics. The Time Lord looked up, and around. “Where are you?”
“Uh, near the back of the ship, I think. I think that’s the propulsion mechanism I’m looking at. But it doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen. Where are you?”
The Doctor swam over to the side of the ship. “Near the bow, I think. This ship’s definitely a big one.”
“Which is weird, right? People try to salvage old ships all the time, but I’ve never heard of this much secrecy. Think this is an important one?”
“Never assume anything about anything,” Advised the Doctor, who assumed anything about everything all the time, including another bout of assuming he was just about to do. “But it’s definitely something those up there want.” Or it could be illegal to haul up a ship, but judging from Rex’s reaction, it didn’t seem that unusual for shups to be salvaged.
The Salvager in charge waved, and the others began to move towards the hull. Following their lead, the Doctor grabbed the attachable, inflatable ballast he’d been handed, and attached it to the ship in-line with the others.
Lights moved in the darkness, as the Salvagers pushed away from the ship, and the Doctor followed. A moment later, the muffled sounds of an explosion rumbled the Doctor’s body, as the ballasts inflated, and began to lift the ship up.
The Doctor swam over with the others, and grabbed on, riding the ship all the way up.
-------------
The pressure-seal of the Doctor’s spacesuit hissed as he removed his helmet. He looked with no small amount of envy at the other salvagers who had all manner of hinges to hold their helmets for them. He had no such hinges or carrying straps, which made him frown.
The 43rd century’s finest workmanship, and they couldn’t be bothered to make a carrying strap. It didn’t have to be a complicated strap, just… a strap. Otherwise, he was forced to cradle it under the crook of his arm.
While the last of the salvagers came aboard, the Doctor spotted Rex trying to climb over the wall, and moved over to help.
“There you go, Rex!” The Doctor encouraged with a grunt as he helped the teenager over. “Up you get!”
“Thanks,” Rex nodded as he released the seal on his helmet as well. “How’d you get up here so quick?”
“I climb over walls for a living. Well, a hobby.” The Doctor amended. “And really it’s not something I seek out, it just kind of happens, but-“ He pointed at the young salvager. “It means I have really good upper body strength. So!” He clapped his hands, and began to stomp on the metal deck, as a gangplank was lowered from the Maelstrom. “What do we think, eh? A ship. A very shippy ship. But, here’s the curious thing!” The Doctor pointed. “This whole thing’s in one big piece. No damage on the outside, so,” He turned to Rex. “What sunk it?”
“Huh,” Rex hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Sometimes you see ships that go down because their Titans break loose or get released. But this ship’s engine… I don’t think it had a Titan.”
“It all depends on why it was sunk,” The Doctor murmured. “Because, I’ll tell you what, if there’s no battle damage and it didn’t have a Titan, then that means it was either sabotage or…”
Rex looked inquisitively at the Doctor. “Or what?”
“There was something on board the crew didn’t want out in the world.” The Doctor finished, casting suspicious glances to the ‘employers’ on the Maelstrom. “Something that they’d rather sink the ship to hide than just dump in the Cloud Sea…”
“Like what?”
The Doctor suddenly shifted his mood, clapping his hands. “I don’t know! Probably nothing, just me rambling on to fight the tedium. Make things interesting. Things are always more interesting if there’s a mystery.” He began to walk towards the gangplank, which Nia, Jin, and Malos, along with their respective blades (in the case of Nia and Malos, as Jin didn’t seem to have one) were descending.
“Hang on – you can’t just say all that and walk away!” Rex huffed. “You’re working me up over here!”
“It’s probably just a case of mechanical failure,” The Doctor shrugged. Without a look, he couldn’t be sure. But they were definitely in a suspicious situation. Mysterious backers with loads of money, going out to haul up a ship with no damage, and they won’t tell the crew what it is they’re salvaging until they get out to it?
Secrets just meant someone wanted you to be operating without all the knowledge of something. And if they wanted you without all the knowledge, it meant that knowledge was going to be something that was potentially troublesome to them. The Doctor knew that – he kept more secrets than anybody else in the universe.
“Big ship like this,” The Time Lord continued. “Without one of those Titans, it probably had a lot of mechanical thingy-ma-jigs just to keep it floating. Those go out, you get a sunken ship with no battle damage.” The cloud sea was somewhat like water, in the sense that it was a liquid, but the observed characteristics of it were at total odds with water. It was possible, if not likely, that objects could just lose buoyancy like that. He didn’t know; he’d have to run tests to be sure.
Their ‘benefactors’ reached the end of the ramp, and Nia approached first with her blade.
“Excellent work!” The Gormotti complimented. “You’re not half bad, you know that?”
Rex looked uncertainly between her and the Doctor. He very clearly wanted to continue the line of discussion, but he’d been visibly unsettled by the Time Lord’s words.
“Hey, you okay?” Nia probed with a frown.
“Yeah, just – was that an actual compliment?” Rex tried to play it off. “Or am I running a fever?”
“Oh, get your head out of your arse,” Nia rolled her eyes, and the Doctor coughed, turning his head away. The TARDIS’s profanity filter must’ve shorted out during the crash. “I can give people credit where it’s due, you know.”
“Why don’t you save that until the end?” Malos sternly addressed Nia, making it sound like he was pissed off. Or, that could have just been his personality. “After we get the job done?”
Nia shot the man a look, and turned away crossing her arms.
“All teams!” The leader of the little operation rose his voice. “Proceed inside when ready!”
“Speak of the devil,” Malos chuckled. “Come on. You too.” He ordered of Rex.
Rex blinked in surprise, but took it with a shrug, and moved to follow.
The Doctor took a moment, and began to follow as well, not wanting to miss out on whatever big thing it was that got everyone so worked up.
Before he could, Jin’s arm shot out, and moved to block his path.
“Not you.” The white-haired man stated with the finality of a thunderbolt.
“Why not?” Nia scoffed. “You’re taking the kid along.”
“Someone will have to remain out here, on watch.” Jin turned to her slowly.
Nia opened her mouth to retort, but the Doctor beat her to the punch.
“And kids are good to get into all those tight little spots a grown-up can’t, right?” The Doctor leaned forward, staring into Jin’s eyes. “And that’s fine – you’ve got your pick of salvagers on hand. But you don’t want any salvager. You want me.”
He wished he could say he was just being paranoid. He’d love it if he was just being paranoid. But he didn’t like it – how shady everything was. His gut told him that Jin and the like weren’t to be trusted. Nia… maybe, maybe not, he hadn’t decided.
The Doctor suddenly grinned. “You know, that’s really a nice mask. I had a friend with a mask like that once – blown porcelain!” He reached up, moving to grab the mask, and as predicted, Jin’s arm snapped up to try and stop the Time Lord. The Doctor, making use of Jin’s sudden distraction, underwent a sudden burst of speed, and with deft hands and swift maneuvering, wriggled out of the man’s grasp, standing back near Nia and Rex.
Jin’s hand went up to his face, finding that the mask was still on, but that didn’t stop his face from twitching in rage. “You don’t. Touch. The mask.” His arm went up to his back, his hand motioning open, then closing in confusion, as it tried to grip around a weapon that wasn’t there.
The Doctor held up the sword, still in its scabbard and all, as Jin’s eyes popped open in surprise.
“How…?” The white-haired man demanded.
“Venusian aikido!” The Doctor proudly smiled. “My favorite martial art, because, as it turns out, it has no attacking moves! Plus a two-week pickpocketing course, and a hot summer with Harry Houdini. I can replace a pistol with a banana, and the owner wouldn’t notice.”
Jin glowered at the Doctor, whereas Malos burst out into mocking laughter.
“Come on, let the guy come along.” Malos told his partner. “Things won’t be boring, that’s for damned sure.”
Jin continued to glare at the Doctor, before nodding once.
The Time Lord’s grin turned slightly smug, and he tossed the sword back to Jin.
The white-haired man glowered at the Doctor, and they began to move towards the door deeper into the ship. As they approached, they could hear banging, before the metal plates burst open, and a giant crustacean came running out. Like a giant, mutated shrimp, with four eyes, and spindly, spider-like legs. The giant, tentacular arms wriggled and snapped furiously, as the salvagers assembled jumped back.
“Oh, looks like somebody’s not happy to see us!” The Doctor remarked, as the danger sent a rush of adrenaline through him. The antennae atop the creature were arranged like a mohawk, giving the Time Lord an idea.
He reached for the Sonic Screwdriver, stored in the outer pocket of his spacesuit.
“Stand back,” Nia pushed Rex back, as she drew two rings of light, buzzing with heat and energy. “Let’s show you how drivers get things done.”
“Don’t anybody do anything!” The Doctor said to them. “I can stun it!” He pointed the Screwdriver up, earning a look of ire from Malos.
“What the hell is that supposed to be? A toy wand?”
The Doctor ignored him, switching settings and frequencies until he found the one he was looking for. “I don’t know what frequency this thing hears on, so cover your ears, kids!” That was all the warning he gave, before he pressed the activator.
The emitter lit up, letting out a low buzz near the lower end of the frequency spectrum, before it heightened in volume and frequency. As the sound passed the point where humans could hear, the creature began to freak out, as even the Doctor could feel his vision begin to go wibbly.
Finally, it stumbled to the floor, resting there in a daze.
“Huh,” Malos’s lips twitched. “I guess you salvagers do have some fun tricks.”
“I’m all tricks,” The Doctor declared, putting his screwdriver away as Malos approached the crustacean. “Let’s put it ba-“
Before the Doctor could finish, in a surge of motion, Malos had run his sword through the animal’s brain, silencing it with a final cry, as it went totally limp. The Doctor stared in shock as the man callously yanked his weapon out, and the sea creature dissolved in a green glow, leaving nothing left of its body but a few chunks of scales.
“It was scared,” The Doctor gasped out in horror, looking at where the slain creature had lay.
“Sorry, what’d you say?” Malos turned around. “Oh.” He processed the Doctor’s words, and shrugged. “I’m sure it was.”
“You didn’t have to do that!” The Doctor raised his voice. “It was down!”
“It was attacking us.” Malos rolled his eyes.
“It was scared!” The Doctor indignantly glared at the man, fire burning behind his eyes. “We moved its home without warning, and tried to break in! It was scared!”
“It was an animal,” Malos scoffed.
“Don’t say that like it makes it any better,” The Doctor seethed. “It was a living creature, and that means it deserved to be treated with respect!”
“Respect, huh?” Malos challengingly looked at the Doctor. “Oh… you’re one of those vegan types, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.” The Doctor lowered his voice. “But I don’t go around killing when I’ve already solved a problem without doing so.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Malos scoffed. “In case you forgot, we’re the ones paying you, so,” Malos shoved the Doctor on the chest. “Shut up. Fall in line. And do your job. Come on.” He spun around, and began to march inside the ship.
Rex and Nia approached the Doctor.
“I’ve never seen anybody get up in his face like that,” Nia whispered to the Doctor. “Most are too scared of him.”
“Attitudes like that…” The Doctor shook his head. “They come from not being told ‘no’ enough during their lives.”
“You okay?” Rex asked of the Time Lord. “It’s a hazard of the job. Sometimes you salvage things, and a crustip or whatever will be brought up too. And you’ve got to kill it before it kills you.”
“That’s different,” The Doctor sharply turned to the teenage salvager. “But that animal he just killed was already down. We could’ve thrown it into the water where it would’ve been fine. And he just didn’t want to. Because he was lazy. Or because he enjoyed it.”
“Yeah… that’s Malos for you,” Nia sighed.
The Doctor looked at her sideways. “Does he do this sort of thing often?”
“Not this specifically. But… he is a bit of a cock.”
The Doctor looked ahead, glaring at Malos’s back. “You two – be on your guard. I don’t like this.” If Malos could kill a defenseless animal that hadn’t hurt anyone while it was down, what else was he capable of?
“Come on!” The man barked from up ahead.
The Doctor sighed, and they followed Malos’s trail.
---------------
Deeper into the abandoned ship, and it was clear that the Doctor’s words did not get through to Malos. On the contrary, it seemed the dark-armored man was now going out of his way to murder every last creature in the place, despite some of them not even being in the way. He was doing it just to get on the Doctor’s nerves, most certainly.
It was working. The Doctor felt his ire rising with every mocking glance from Malos. He wasn’t going to do anything drastic, not at all – but the sooner he got away from the sad excuse for a human being, the better.
The deeper into the ship they got, the Doctor began to notice some more curiosities. There were cargo crates neatly stacked about, strapped to the floor.
“Funny,” The Doctor commented. “No signs of battle damage, all the cargo in place, yet the ship sunk. Even the chests are all in place. Why would the crew abandon ship… and leave all their things?”
Malos scoffed from up ahead. “Trinkets, all of it.”
“You’re more than welcome to these baubles,” Jin gestured about at the ancient cargo. “The real item of value is deeper in the ship.”
“And they didn’t take that either?” The Doctor mumbled. “This is all a bit Mary Celeste.”
Malos stopped up ahead, going rail-stiff. “What?”
The Doctor continued looking at the cargo boxes, peering in by the light of the Sonic Screwdriver set to torch mode. “The Mary Celeste. A merchant ship discovered derelict in the middle of the sea. The crew provisions were still relatively well-stocked, there was a moderate but not severe amount of damage, and the one lifeboat on board was gone. Like the entire crew just up and left. Well actually they did leave. Well, actually, they were taken. Actually, taken implies it was intentional by another party. Really, it was-“
“I’ve not heard of that one,” Rex spoke up. “Was it recent?”
“…no.” The Doctor shook his head. “It was a… long time ago.”
Malos huffed. “A whole bunch of ancient sailors vanishing is important to this how?”
“It’s not, strictly speaking, but something similar might have happened-“
“Then shut up.” Malos cut the Time Lord off. “I’m starting to regret bringing you along.”
“…” The Doctor glowered at Malos’s back. “I’m beginning not to like you very much.”
“I am trembling for forgiveness.” The man drawled.
Jin at least had the courtesy to shoot the Doctor an apologetic look. “Malos is an acquired taste.”
“Well I’m not acquiring him…” The Doctor mumbled under his breath.
“Oh look,” Malos sneered. “Something we can agree on.”
As they reached the aft of the ship, arriving at a control room with a door locked down on one end, Rex spoke up.
“What is it we’re looking for?”
“You’ll find out,” Malos deflected, looking at Jin. “Is this-“
“No,” The masked man replied. “It’s not got a mark on it.”
“Then why,” Malos kicked the plate. “Isn’t it opening!?”
“Well, if you used your brain rather than your sword,” The Doctor glared as he scanned the door with the Sonic Screwdriver. “You’d realize that it doesn’t have power!” He moved around Malos, as the Screwdriver scanned the power conduits running to the door. “If I had to guess, the main generator is back here, somewhere?”
“That means it’s missing an ether cell,” Jin harumphed. “Could take a while to find one… if they even left one here.”
“They left everything else,” The Doctor shrugged. “But that shouldn’t be necessary,” He removed the Screwdriver from the wall, flicking it open to check the readouts. “There’s a manual release right below us.”
Malos scoffed. “How do you-?”
The Doctor popped off the deck plate, revealing the lever underneath, concealed completely thanks to the wear-and-tear of ages presumably scrubbing away the markings. The Doctor gestured down to it smugly, and pulled it, causing the door to pop open slightly – enough for a person to jam their hands in and push it the rest of the way. Which Malos did with a huff and a pout.
“That’s a useful tool,” Jin remarked.
“Oh, you have no idea.” The Doctor followed Malos through, to be met with a sight that’d have any sapient being with a fear instinct quaking in their boots. “Ah… ah! That’s a…”
It looked like a giant shark, slimy and colored black. It wouldn’t be all that much of a problem… aside from the two enormous arms that allowed the thing to walk.
“Shark with legs.” The Doctor giggled as the thing roared. “It’s a shark with legs and it’s very, very angry!” Just what kind of fancy-free new hell had he discovered? The Doctor was a highly-evolved complex space-time event – but even his brain’s most primal parts wanted to get the hell out of the way of a giant shark with hands and claws.
“Not letting us past, huh?” Malos smarmily leered at the disturbed creature. “Fine then, I’ll take that challenge!” He and the others drew their weapons, including Rex.
The Doctor could only sigh, forced to stand back and watch as they drove their weapons into the creature. Rex fought using a sword that was so large compared to his body, it was almost comical. Nia fought using twin rings projected into her hands by some mechanism by Dromarch – curiously, and it was a fact that made the Doctor feel a little bit better, the rings could heal minor injuries by projecting some form of energetic aura.
The Doctor watched, taking in the fight as Rex moved like a spinning top, slicing into the walking shark’s thick hide. As the animal let out a furious screech, trying to swipe at Rex, Jin ran over and jumped, landing on the shark’s head and putting his sword through its brain.
Like all the other animals in the ship, it collapsed and dissolved in a colored glow – this one a pale blue. The Doctor wondered if it was just the way lifeforms were here, or if it was a result of the weapons themselves.
No one else lingered on the remains. Jin and Malos led the way forward, stopping at a door with a peculiar sigil on it – a symbol that looked between a cross of a teardrop and a flame.
“There it is,” Malos drawled, with a greedy tremble in his voice that suggested he’d been waiting for this moment for a long, long time. “Addam’s Crest.”
The Doctor didn’t like it. He didn’t like a lot of things about Malos.
“Addam’s Crest?” Rex blinked. “What’s that mean?”
“Well, it’s a crest,” The Doctor looked at Rex. “And if I had to guess, it belongs to a man called Addam.”
“You,” Jin barked at Rex. “Open this door.”
“Me?” Rex spluttered with wide eyes.
“This door will only open to one of you people,” Jin rolled his eyes.
“One of ‘you people?’” Rex scowled in confusion. “What are you-?”
“We’re not paying you to ask questions!” Malos’s face twisted in rage as he got over to Rex, grabbed the teenager by the shoulder, and shoved him towards the door. “Now open it!”
The Doctor moved in front of Malos, with such fluidity it must have seemed like he had just appeared there. He didn’t like bullies, and he did not tolerate people who mistreated children.
“Don’t do that again, don’t you dare,” The Doctor growled.
“You couldn’t stop me if you wanted to.”
“Yes I can.” The Doctor snapped. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Malos said nothing, offering only a dead-eyed stare at the Time Lord in response. “Look at that. The salvager thinks he’s got guts.”
“I don’t think it – I know it,” The Doctor stated, stepping back. “You’ve been nothing but a bully this entire trip. I think it’s been too long since meeting someone who’s said ‘no’ to you.” He turned away, helping Rex up.
“It doesn’t matter.” Jin shook his head. “We get what’s inside this room, and we all go our separate ways.”
“Maybe we should take it slow,” Nia began to suggest.
“Nia, shut up!” Malos roared. “I’m getting tired of that door not opening!”
“You can’t treat people like that,” Rex spat. “Not even the hired help.” In any case, he turned to the door, but not before looking to the Doctor for advice. “Is it safe?”
The Doctor gave a quick scan with the Sonic. “It’s biometrically sealed.” And Malos’s expression only grew more wrathful, which the Doctor filed away to the back of his mind. “It’s looking for a particular set of genetic markers. If I had to guess, the markers that are in your genetics.” The Doctor nodded at Rex. “It’s safe.”
Rex nodded, and carefully approached the door. Excruciatingly slowly, he reached out to touch the emblem, causing it to light up, before the door opened, revealing a fog-filled room on the other side. One that was almost pristine compared to the rest of the ship.
“That door too.” Jin commanded, pointing to the door at the end.
Rex shook his head, but obeyed, walking the distance to the other door. The Doctor followed.
“Remember how I said this all felt a bit shady?” The Doctor whispered to Rex. “Well, if I wasn’t sure before, I am now.”
“What was the first clue?” Rex whispered back.
“Good guys aren’t usually handsy, or quick to kill things for the fun of it,” The Doctor glanced back. Nia, Jin, and Malos were the only ones back there. Which meant if things turned nasty, it’d get very nasty. “Are you good at running?”
“I’m… all right, I guess? Why?”
“Because there’s a non-zero chance we’ll be running out of here.” The Doctor whispered as Rex reached out to touch the door.
Rex gulped, as the door opened. Together, he and the Doctor walked through. What they found wasn’t anything that had crossed the Doctor’s mind.
It was a large chamber, but that wasn’t the big thing. There, in the middle of the room, was a pedestal. Stabbed into that plinth was a red sword, with mechanical portions that looked folded down to make flaps for no other purpose than to seemingly look cool. A green, cross-shaped gem was set into the hilt.
And behind the sword was a pod – a stasis chamber, of some type – in which rested a red-haired woman with a similar cross-gem on her sternum.
“It’s… a girl.” Rex breathed out in awe.
“No,” The Doctor’s eyes flicked between the sword and the woman. Her outfit was quite strange – some rubbery, skin-tight material, with portions that were clearly metal. It looked like it had grown over her, and it was the same coloration as the sword. “She’s a Blade.” The Doctor wasn’t an expert, but he felt confident enough stating that.
The crystal began to light up, bathing the area in a cool green glow, pulsating rhythmically like a beating heart. Curious, the Doctor took the Sonic Screwdriver out, and moved it towards the sword.
“Hey, asshole! Don’t even think about touching that!”
Before the Doctor could react, he heard a noise which could best be described as ‘distorted shimmering’ before a spike of pain tore through him, and he felt something becoming lodged in his sternum.
The Doctor looked down, to see the long, polished blade sticking out of his chest, faintly splattered with orange-red blood.
“DOCTOR!” Rex screamed, grabbing the sword that the Doctor had been scanning, and he yanked it out of the pedestal.
“Rex, don’t!” The Doctor gasped, but it was already too late.
Jin yanked his sword out of the Doctor’s back, and with a new target, he went to focus on Rex. Jin took a swing, but for all his youth, Rex was not inexperienced, using the ‘wings’ on the other side of the sword to catch Jin’s blade, before pushing back.
“Jin, what the hell are you doing!?” Nia screamed as she watched him fighting Rex.
The Doctor hit the floor, as he took a quick mental tally. The blade had gone between his hearts, but missed the organs themselves. If he’d been human, he probably would have died.
Rex let out a bloody, wrath-filled scream, as he swung wildly at Jin.
“Don’t make things more difficult than they have to be,” Jin glared at Rex, whilst Malos just stood by and watched with an amused smile.
“You killed him you… bastard!”
“Look at it this way; he won’t be alive to see what’s coming.”
“Oh…” The Doctor wheezed, pushing himself up. He took a distinct satisfaction upon noticing that Malos had the supreme look of ‘what the hell?’ plastered on his face. “I’m not dead. Fun fact about me; supremely hard to kill!” He could feel the clotting beginning to occur, accompanied by the low-level cellular regeneration that would stop him from bleeding out.
“Impossible!” Jin stared in disbelief.
“Doctor!” Rex turned around with a smile, and Jin took that opportunity to draw up for another strike.
“Rex, look out!” The Doctor snapped, causing the boy to jump back.
“Jin!” Nia screamed. “Look, just… put down the sword! I don’t know what they did, but you don’t have to kill them!”
“We don’t need them alive either.” Jin simplistically retorted.
“A fight to the death? Come on, seriously?” The Doctor incredulously demanded. When it looked like Jin wouldn’t back down, the Time Lord sucked in a breath. “All right then! Rex! I’m going to need to borrow this for a mo’.” He reached over, pulling the sword made of junk off Rex’s back. He blinked in surprise, as he gave the sword a twirl. “Nice balance, very weighty. Oh, by the way, Jin?” He raised his Sonic Screwdriver, and pressed down the activator.
Near the red crystal embedded into the hilt, Jin’s sword suddenly sparked and began to smoke, causing the man to let out a gasp of pain, and drop the weapon.
“What I said to Malos goes for you too.”
Jin glowered at the Doctor, whilst Malos let out a mocking cackle.
“So there’s some bite to back up that bark!” Malos drew his own sword, leveling it at the Time Lord. “Good. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to shut you up!”
“Funny,” The Doctor’s lips twitched as he lifted the pilfered sword. “I’ve been thinking the same thing!”
Malos’s smile dropped, and he surged forward with a furious bellow, holding his sword out to the side. Gallifreyan reflexes paid for themselves, allowing the Doctor to react to the attack in a timely manner, sending up the sword to catch Malos’s strike.
“How are you going to fight me with a hole in your chest?” Malos sneered.
“Like this!” The Doctor brightly answered.
And so that’s where the Doctor found himself – clad in a thousand-year-old spacesuit from humanity’s future, in the depths of a mysterious ship, fighting for his life with a young teenager whilst wielding a sword made of junk.
The strength of a Time Lord and the strength of a Driver clashed, both men’s immense physical strength pushing each other back equally. But Malos was not like the Doctor. He was not attuned to the turn of the universe. He did not have senses that could map out his surroundings to such a degree that it was like having 360-degree vision.
Though the Blade’s approach was as silent – the lifeform didn’t scream like a bad guy rushing the hero in a movie – the Doctor could feel the vibrations through the floor that acted as a five-second-herald to Sever. The Doctor threw himself down and into a slide right as the Blade swiped at him, causing Malos to push against dead air and tip forward, right into the strike of his own comrade.
“Agh!” Malos grunted. “SEVER!” He barked furiously, tremoring with rage. He turned around, locking onto the Doctor and rolling his shoulders. As before, he ran up to the Doctor, and swung. The Doctor moved to parry the sword away, until Malos did something unexpected. “Spiral Savate!” He shouted as he jumped, kicking his leg and his sword out. As the Doctor had been expecting a normal-ish slash, he was unprepared for the foot to dig into the side of his face, knocking him off-balance and breaking his concentration. “Hammer Bash!” Then, with his sword extended in front of him, the weapon transformed into a large shield, or paddle. With a burst of motion provided by his Blade, Malos shot forward, head-on into the Doctor.
The Time Lord was toppled to the ground, onto his back.
“Come on, Doc!” Malos taunted. “Where’s all that fight you had just a second ago!?”
“Doctor!” Rex called from where he was still engaging Jin. “Get up!” Another strike from Jin caught Rex in the arm, and with a pained gasp, his empty hand shot over to clamp down in front of the wound. The crystal set into the hilt of the sword glowed ever brighter.
“All talk!” Malos growled, lifting his weapon. “Just like the rest of you people!”
“No!” A spinning disc went flying through the air, knocking Malos’s sword back, as Nia jumped in front of the Doctor, giving him vital time to haul himself back up.
“What are you doing, Nia!?” Malos screamed furiously, shaking angrily.
“I can’t let you kill them!” Nia spat, “Either of them! Rex! Get over here!”
“So you’re throwing your lot in with them?” The dark-armored man sneered. “You’re not like them, Nia – get out of my way!”
“Go to hell,” The Gormotti retorted.
“Then you can die with them!” Malos swung again, as the Doctor got back to some semblance of being upright, and Rex joined them.
Thus, it became Malos versus the three – though, really, it was Malos versus two of them. The black-armored man’s focus was now solely on Rex, and the sword he carried, with Nia being in his way. The Doctor, for as much as he was carrying a sword, was trying not to go for any killing maneuvers, instead trying to block and parry away his attacks, while going for Malos’s pressure points with his hands. Seeing as Malos was in armor, this was very difficult.
All three of them were missing the big, white, elephant in the room.
“Doctor!” Jin bellowed, causing the Time Lord and the others to stop. He was standing in front of the pod, sword held sharp-end towards it. “Put down your weapons.”
“Damn it,” Nia swore, as Malos looked over as well, and began to chuckle. “I was afraid he was going to do that…”
“What are you doing!?” Rex hollered at the top of his lungs. “You know you won’t win, so you’re resorting to threatening an innocent lady!?”
“She’s far from innocent,” Jin glared back at Rex, as his back became bathed in that same green glow as there was on the sword.
The Doctor glanced between the redhead and the sword. “…You know what, you’ve got us defeated! But instead of making us put our weapons on the ground, why don’t you do the infinitely more satisfying thing of coming over here and taking them?”
“I’m not a fool, Doctor,” Jin replied as the quiet sound of cracking echoed through the chamber.
“You know what? I think you are.” The Doctor grinned. “Because while you’ve had that sword held up all menacingly, you know what you forgot? You’re not looking at the most important thing in the room.”
Jin turned around, as the spiderweb of cracks reached the corners of the pod’s glass viewport, and the woman’s eyes popped open. Before Jin could react, a geyser of fire blasted through the viewport, instantly shattering the glass and sending Jin to the ground. The woman inside was propelled outward, soaring gracefully across the room and landing like an angel made of fire.
“Jin!” Malos hollered, running over to her. He began to swing at her, and she gracefully began flipping back, onto her hands, then feet again, then over and over until Malos was at range.
She looked over towards the group. “Rex!” She addressed. “With me!”
“What-!?” He gasped out in shock. “How do you-!?”
“No time for that,” She raised her voice. “We need to get out of here!”
“Oh, that’s normally me who decides that – all right!” The Doctor gently pushed Rex and Nia ahead, and took off after them.
Malos charged the strange lady yet again, taking a swing at her, only for a bubble of golden hexagons to momentarily surround her, causing his attack to bounce harmlessly off.
“No!” Rex snarled, as the sword he carried reconfigured, and began to spit out jets of flame. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else!”
“I’ve had enough of-“ Malos turned around, his eyes popping open as Rex swung, and a crest of flame went towards him. He threw his own defensive barrier up, the flame striking it and sending him sliding back by a foot.
“Good work!” The redhead complimented, causing Rex to go pink just a little bit in his face. “Now, come on! We’ve got to go!”
“On it!” The Doctor flicked the Sonic Screwdriver open, and pointed it at the door. With the push of a button, it was sliding closed, and sealing. “Go, go!” He directed quickly.
“What are you doing!?” Nia demanded.
“A closed door’s easier to lock!” The Doctor replied, sealing the second door after they were all through. “We need to get back above deck!” And get himself another helmet for his suit – but that’d have to come later.
Then, like he had so many times before, he was grabbing someone by the hand, and pulling them along.
-----------
The way back through the derelict ship was empty, easy to pass through. If there was one good thing that came from Malos’s psychopathic rage, it was that. In no time at all, they were running through the exit door, and the Doctor was wildly flapping his hands.
“Everybody, run!” The Doctor bellowed. “Get out of here, go! We’ve got to leave!” All the salvagers looked at him like he was crazy – until they were halfway across the deck, and the floor exploded.
A purple-black cyclone of power ripped its way through from the lower decks, before two figures jumped out of the resultant tear.
Jin and Malos, looking no worse for wear.
“You, brat!” Malos growled like a rabid dog as he pointed his sword at Rex. “I’m not done with you yet!”
“This guy’s not giving up,” The Doctor remarked.
“Give it a rest, Malos!” Nia called across the deck. “They’ve done nothing but defend themselves!”
“You don’t understand, do you!?” Malos bellowed. “That kid… has gone and made himself the Aegis’s Driver!”
“What!?”
“A… A Driver?” Rex repeated in disbelief, turning to the woman. “Is that…?”
She nodded, short and to the point. “It happened when you touched my sword. I’m Pyra.”
“Well, Malos,” The Doctor took a step forward with a smile and a gesture. “It looks like someone else beat you to the punch. Is that what all this is about? Angry that someone else got there first? I don’t see why – you’ve got a perfectly respectable blade right there. Why don’t we let bygones be bygones and go our separate ways, eh?”
Malos’s face twisted. “No deal.”
A deep rumbling tore through the night, as a silhouette moved across the starry horizon. Great blocks rose up from the hull, turning, and lighting up – revealing the tubes spaced evenly across their surface.
“Now that she’s awake, I don’t need any of you anymore,” Malos gestured, before the cannons lit up, and the ancient ship started being pelted with hellfire.
“Ah!” Rex ducked down, as Pyra grabbed onto him and helped him jump out of the way.
The Doctor sprinted across the deck, pulling Nia along as Dromarch ran behind them. There was no good way to drag along a tiger.
The gangplank of the Maelstrom fell away as the ship pushed away, and tried to get to a safe distance.
“This ship’s going up in flames!” Nia hollered. “Do something – use that glowing thing!”
“Sonic Screwdriver!” The Doctor instinctively corrected. “And it doesn’t work at this range, are you insane!?”
“We’re about to die!”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan!” The Doctor gave two thumbs up to her. If he had a theme song, that was right about when it would've started playing.
“Which is!?”
“Not doing that!”
The ancient ship began to ripple, and creak, and break apart under the force of the bombardment, as Malos and Jin jumped back over to the ship that could only belong to them. As a section of the hull snapped, and it looked like they were about to go back into the depths, one of the cannon units suddenly sparked, and exploded, as a projectile from above took it out.
“What the-!?” Rex turned his eyes skyward, to see the draconic form of a Titan soaring above. “Gramps!”
“Rex!” The Titan called out, as he descended toward the ship. “Get on!”
Rex didn’t need to be told twice, as he grabbed Pyra’s hand and made a run for the edge of the ship.
The Doctor shot back up to his feet, and mimicked the move with Nia. “See!? Told you I had a plan!”
“We’re not gonna jump!?”
“It’s either this or stay on a literally sinking ship!” The Doctor hollered back.
“You’re crazy!”
“I’m rather in agreement with the Doctor on this one, my lady!” Dromarch called over the thundering guns.
“Oh my god!” Nia cried as they got close to the edge.
The Doctor took a deep breath, and belted out at the top of his lungs. “GERONIMO!”
They leapt over the edge.
Chapter 2: Ten: Invasion
Chapter Text
“An inescapable, existential corollary of time machines composed from normal matter is the risk – however infinitesimal – that the operator of said time machine could potentially travel back to a point before the materiel was harvested for the construction of that time machine, and accidentally destroy it. Greater still was the potential of an enemy force attempting to travel back and destroy it to rob their foes of a vital resource.
The Time Lords found this unacceptable. They made attempts to ensure this couldn’t happen; untethering their world from the flow of time, sourcing materials that they had absolute control over – but still, the risk was there.
That risk was mitigated when a brilliant Time Lord – the lead of their TT Capsule development – made a breakthrough in shielding their ships from the ravages of the Time Vortex. The environment of the fifth dimension is fundamentally hostile to most forms of matter. He thought of ways to get around this (deconstruction of the timeships into electrical impulses that would be reconstructed later, et cetera) but it was his granddaughter who suggested the idea of forced-matter equations. Quantum probabilities would be modeled through higher-dimensional mathematics, then transferred in discrete blocks of information, resulting in infinitely-variable matter, immune to the Vortex’s energies.
The nature of these calculations meant they could not be performed by computer, as any potential side-effects could alter the nature of the computer itself, but the calculations would continuously need to be applied. Living beings could not devote themselves to the task, and computers could not either, so the Time Lords created something that could.
Deep inside bubbles of no-time – such that it could be said that they always existed – the Time Lords seeded matrices. Artificial intelligences so vast that they existed beyond the bounds of normal reality. Immune from any material shortages caused by changes in the flow of time, or a slip in forced-matter calculations. These matrices then exploded outward – like mycelium sprouting into mushrooms overnight.
They grew themselves from instructions planted deep in their disembodied consciousnesses. They extended that protection to whomever entered them – such that any piece of matter in their envelope became part of the same calculations that sustained themselves, shielding such primitive lifeforms from the hazards of time travel.
It was a genius solution. Matter is limited by its state. This limits destinations – a capsule made of true metal will melt upon entering an environment hot enough. But matter-calculations are different. Simply alter the calculations, and the capsule’s nature changes to survive wherever it finds itself. There was no limit. Areas of anti-structure, two-dimensional spaces – even the abstract concept of thought (because what else was thought but the movement of energy through a brain, and what is energy if not a different state of matter?).
Therefore, and it could be said with no amount of exaggeration, TARDISes could travel literally anywhere it was possible to travel.”
---------------
The Doctor had been running for a long time. His entire life, in fact. What he was running from was a matter of such debate that, some days, even he wasn’t sure. But that fateful day, since stealing an unlocked TARDIS (a very particular TARDIS on the recommendation of the technician working on her) and running away, it was starting to catch up with him.
He wasn’t a fool. He knew he couldn’t run forever. That didn’t stop him trying. And now, he was running faster than ever before – trying to outrun the fact that he couldn’t outrun everything forever, strangely. But here, as of late… it was bad. If he just kept up the devil-may-care attitude, he’d be fine. Or, at least, that was what he told himself.
But in the course of his running, he’d finally gone too far. Pushed against something that was all too eager to push back. He’d saved a family in Pompeii. Cheated regeneration. He was the Doctor. Nothing could stand in his way if he set his mind to it.
Then, he put nearly the whole of human history on the line for the sake of his ego. Because he thought that nothing could stop him. Not even time itself.
If there was one thing that liked humankind more than the Doctor, it was the universe itself. And like the sun itself had grown tendrils to strike down Icarus, the universe had struck down the Doctor.
Adelaide Brooke had shot herself to deny the Doctor victory. And maybe she was right for it. The universe had let the Doctor save Caecilius and his family. It had allowed the Doctor to hold off his regeneration. It had to have reached the point where it decided ‘No More.’
And now, he was scared.
The Doctor was scared. Death had always been such a joke for him. He had lives to spare, in the past. Now, he didn’t. He’d used them all up – and this one, this handsome face with a penchant for pinstripes and enough hair gel to make a lion’s mane stick up, he’d only lived for a few years. Then, that would be it.
So he ran. Like a bat out of hell, the Doctor ran with fire trailing in his wake, wild and undirected. He married Queen Elizabeth in a ceremony that he was probably too drunk at to remember, wrote a complete history on the universe set to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb, and turned an uninhabited star into a double-helix, just to prove that he could.
There was no rhyme or reason to it. It was the act of a dying man, all thunder and bravado, with very little meaning, done only to make sure he didn’t go out quietly.
His latest excursion – thwarting a Sonorovibran attempt to piggyback their thought-frequencies into a recording of Earth music, which would cause the Sonorovibran legion to manifest wherever the audio was played back – ended as it usually did; with him rushing into the TARDIS, in order to make himself scarce before the law showed up.
The Doctor sprinted about the console, holding the last remaining master copy still carrying an impression of the Sonorovibran war general. White makeup was caked on his face, with black splotches in the arrangement of a Rorschach test. He threw the tape onto the jump seat, then moved to the controls, practically throwing himself onto them as he set the TARDIS into flight.
He rapidly pumped the helmic regulator, as he threw his leg across the console, using his foot to knock the throttle up to maximum vworp, and the TARDIS took off.
“Right,” The Doctor breathed heavily, pushing himself off the console. “’Fifth member of KISS, Rorschach?’ Not the brightest idea you’ve had, Doctor. Still,” He rubbed the back of his neck with a prideful smile. “Got to learn the guitar. That’s a plus. Now!” He drawled as he wiped away the facepaint, clapped his hands, and flicked a switch on the console. “Where to next? I’ve still got a voucher for Milliways around here somewhere…”
The Doctor pulled up a grate on the floor near the door, pulling out a trunk with the letter ‘M’ embossed on the top.
“’M’ for Me…” The Doctor pulled out an ancient model of the Sonic Screwdriver, putting it to the side. “’M’ for Mickey…” He pulled out a copy of a key – an ordinary door key, nothing special, aside from the fact that it was Mickey’s TARDIS key. He couldn’t quite get it into Mickey’s head to keep that key with him. “’M’ for…” The Doctor stopped, pulling out an old polaroid.
It showed him standing in a green field. Next to him was a black woman, in red leather.
“Martha.” The Doctor beamed. Next to that, was the coupon he’d been looking for. He’d wanted to say thanks for taking care of him during his time spent as John Smith, but didn’t know how. And with losing Rose still so fresh, once the idea that it might be construed as a date by Martha hit his mind, it made him so nauseous he tucked the coupon away immediately, and forgot about it.
In his defense, she had just said that she loved him. And while Martha was brilliant, and too good for him, no. Just no. The last thing he wanted to do was add more complexity to the entire thing.
Anyhow, the Doctor shot to his feet, keyed in the coordinates-
And the moment he pulled the lever, all hell broke loose.
The crystalline column in the centre of the room began to ripple dishearteningly, as the TARDIS began to shake and rattle.
“What the-!?” The Doctor spluttered, gripping onto the console for dear life. Then, he grabbed the mallet, and whacked the control board for all it was worth. “What’s gotten into you!?” He shouted over the suddenly-blaring klaxon.
The Doctor yanked over the scanner, watching as the readout warned him of a component failure. Specifically, the navcom relativity buffer.
Until he could do something about it, however, the Doctor had to get the TARDIS landed safely. Glancing at the scanner again, more alerts flashed at him about hostile laws of physics and unworkable chronostis.
The Doctor was not one to be deterred, however. Besides, with the navcom on the fritz, he couldn’t materialize anywhere else even if he wanted to. So, he had to see the TARDIS safely to her destination. Alarms blared and the console flashed warnings as the TARDIS rammed against the boundaries of a bottle universe and, without a method of safe entry already there, attempted to punch through.
Trying to fly the TARDIS on a good day was like trying to remain standing in a bouncy castle going down a bumpy motorway on the back of a truck going two-hundred kph, while steering the truck from a stick inside said castle. Flying it while it was trying to go head-on into a micro-universe with laws of physics in total opposition to everything else was like the analogy before, with the added spice of the road being as floppy as a lilyturf, with it on fire, and the road itself sprouting tentacles to knock the truck around.
A circuit on the console burst into a blaze of sparks, getting the Doctor in his hair and forcing him to knock it off.
The scanner screamed at him, trying to repeatedly drill into his head that he was going into a universe made of anti-matter, and that without immediate intervention, the TARDIS would annihilate everything upon contact as it landed.
“Going to a universe made of anti-matter?” The Doctor rhetorically voiced aloud, reaching across the console to twist a dial. “That’s easy. I’ve done it before. Had a bit of help, last time, but I know enough to work it out now.”
TARDISes weren’t just vehicles - they were complex space-time events. Waves of cosmic forces, shaped into the largest, most sophisticated arrays of technology ever to have been. Suns eternally suspended on the edge of death were their power sources, and their hearts channeled all the raw power of time and space itself.
TARDISes moved by altering their very existences. All the Doctor had to do was alter it a bit more than usual.
“COME ON!” The Doctor shouted, jumping up and down as he clung to the console. He pulled down on the control for the molecular stabilizers, and kicked a button across the console – the one that controlled the architectural reconfiguration system.
Then, he stared at the scanner, as it counted down to the moment when he breached the barrier.
He couldn’t do it too early – the TARDIS would explode. He couldn’t do it too late – the TARDIS would explode.
The scanner hit zero, as the barrier was hit, and the Doctor acted.
With one final hit to the Banshee Circuits, the Doctor’s program executed.
In a flash, all matter within the TARDIS, and the matter of its exterior shell, underwent a conversion. Quarks jimmied themselves around, converted into their counterparts, changing the matter they composed all at once. Matter was converted into its perfect opposite – protons became antiprotons. Neutrons became antineutrons. Electrons became positrons.
The TARDIS – and everything in it, including the Doctor – was converted instantly into its antimatter counterpart. The engines switched to the exact inverse of their operating mode, allowing them to push through the anti-spacetime of the bottle universe they now inhabited.
The Banshee Circuits: a last-resort mechanism to ensure the survival of the TARDIS and its crew, no matter what. Including violating every law of physics and matter that held those beings together, if need be. Even resuscitating people back from the dead – provided they had died inside the TARDIS.
As the power surges and failures stopped, the engines ground to a halt, and the TARDIS settled with a thump as the brakes anchoring the ship to reality engaged.
“That’s better!” The Doctor pulled himself up, dusting off his hands. He shot a look to the crystalline-analogue substance that made up the column of the Time Rotor. “What’s all that about, eh? Ey?” He reached out, touching the aqua-illuminated crystal. He walked around the console, touching the controls delicately, as if afraid he’d break the TARDIS, until he flipped a switch on a board.
In response, a component resembling an early 21st century graphics card popped out of the console and up into his waiting hand. A quick glance at the pins on the back confirmed that it had burnt out. One of a long list of maintenance to-dos that he just had to cobble together with whatever he could scrounge up.
“The chronobuffer’s burnt out,” The Doctor groaned. The TARDIS’s matrix existed across all space and time. Necessary – but the hazard with that was that there were all those coordinate values and whatnot floating around inside the TARDIS matrix, and the regular navigation systems had no way of picking out the right set of values from the others. The navigation systems could very easily get confused and direct the TARDIS to a destination it wasn’t supposed to arrive at for another thousand years, while the future TARDIS was redirected to an old place it had already visited.
It was, put succinctly, a splitting headache.
“I was going to a bottle universe – why was I going to a bottle universe!?” The Doctor demanded in utter confusion as he examined the part. “Well…” He trailed off, staring down at the burnt-out part. “Spoilers, I suppose. But what caused you to fail?” With the Sonic Screwdriver in hand, he dissected the small computer module, and-
“Aw…” The Doctor scrunched his face, as he beheld the circuit board’s completely pitiful state, from the corrosion caused by an array of busted capacitors attached to it. He touched a finger to it, scraping off a little bit of the acidic substance, before licking it off with his tongue.
The Doctor smacked his lips at the metallic tang, shaking his head.
“No wonder they failed – they’re from the mid-2000s.” The Doctor sighed, tossing the board to the side.
The sound of a rock banging around inside a metal pipe hit the Doctor’s ears, and the Time Lord winced.
“I know, I know,” The Doctor rubbed his face. “But until you regenerate, we’ve got to make do with the hodgepodging and jiggery-pokery.” He sniffed. “I’m surprised it lasted this long. Local tech’s not exactly reliable.”
A component as complex as the one he held now could be easily recreated. The TARDIS was as complex as she was clever – the old ‘junk’ fused to her console had, at one point, been just that; junk. But as the Doctor installed it, the TARDIS took the parts, integrated them into her cellular architecture, sometimes in ways even he didn’t expect.
The TARDIS did have a workshop, complete with fabrication systems for manufacturing all manner of components. But that still took time, even at the accelerated rate the Time Lords had enabled for their machines.
“I’ll set the fabricators running for a replacement for this,” The Doctor flicked the circuit board, tossing it in his hand and stashing it in his pocket, before he punched in the parameters for the replacement into the console’s fabricator unit. He’d ought to have done that before, but it was during the War, and so many of the TARDIS’s systems were breaking down at the time, he had to devote the fabricators to the most complex parts that could-absolutely-not be replaced by anything else, and hotwire junk for everything else.
The next time the TARDIS underwent a regeneration, every patch-fix and replacement part would grow back as-new, but since inducing that wasn’t as easy as flipping a switch (and it would leave him locked outside for at least a few hours) the Doctor was holding off on that.
“And while that’s running,” The Doctor spoke, before running a gentle hand along the console. “I’ll go out and see if I can find some replacement capacitors.” The whole reserve was liable to be bad as well – buying in bulk was supposed to prevent that kind of thing from happening. Well, the storeroom stored things in temporal stasis – food was always as fresh as the day it was put in there – but if the whole lot was affected, then when he took the capacitors out, they’d be on a ticking clock.
When he got back, with capacitors he knew wouldn’t succumb to cheap, sabotaged, mid-2000s electrolyte formulas, he’d take stock and throw out the bad ones.
“I’ll be back. Just… sit tight,” The Doctor pointed at the TARDIS, like she’d go anywhere without him.
The Doctor threw on his long, brown coat over his suit, and stepped outside.
The door of the TARDIS slammed shut behind him, as the Doctor stepped out, onto a carpet of lush grass. Taking a look around, the Doctor noted that the TARDIS had landed in the bottom of a large canyon. The walls extended up around him, and beyond them, even taller walls, as high as a mountain, offering only two possible directions to go.
It looked nice. It was a bright, spring day. The clouds were pearly and white in a healthy blue sky.
“Earthlike – good!” The Doctor happily grinned, taking one last look around the TARDIS for any potential damage as a result of his madcap flying. Wherever it was earthlike, there was bound to be humans. And where there were humans, there was, quite possibly, technology.
He licked a finger, tasting the air, and feeling for a draft.
With no clear sign of the direction he should go, he raised the Sonic Screwdriver, and held down the button.
The emitter buzzed blue, and the shift of soundwaves sent the Doctor’s eyebrows up. Humans had been through – recently, too.
Electing to follow the trail, the Doctor turned, and walked.
-----------
It didn’t take him long to find trouble. The Doctor could hear a distant yell, then he spotted a large, relatively buff man with orange hair taking off across the grass. As his usual sense for danger commanded, the Doctor took off after the guy, coat rippling behind him.
The Doctor could hear clashing, and he rounded the corner, to see two people fighting what looked to be a giant snail-crab hybrid.
The ginger one took a swing with a large weapon made of scrap, driving it down into the head of the creature, and sending it to the ground with a pitiful cry. The Doctor felt a brief flash of indignation, before the ground tore open, and what looked like a giant caterpillar walking along on claws jumped from the fissure, onto the ground.
“Look out!” The Doctor hollered as he ran up, causing both men to turn to him in surprise.
“What the-!?” Redhead spluttered, before turning around, hefting his large sword-hammer-shield thing. “It’s a bit soon for ol’ square stache to send out the huntsmen, innit?”
“It’s an animal – you don’t have to kill it,” The Doctor looked at him sternly, pointedly.
“It’s a caterpile!” The red-headed young man replied.
“And it’s probably angry that you just killed its friend, so, unless you want a repeat, I’d strongly advise going the other direction.”
The redhead looked instead to the blonde, “Shulk?”
“Aside from the Mechon armor, there’s not really much of use out here,” Blonde-hair – Shulk – quickly replied. Actually, now that he got a better look at the lad, something about him seemed faintly familiar… Oh well, there were a lot of blondes in the universe.
“Running away’s a valid tactic,” The Doctor gazed wide-eyed laserbeams into the man, daring him to argue. “It won’t follow, it just wants us out of its territory.”
The redhead sighed, “Fine! Come on, Shulk!” He spun around, but not before making sure his friend was in front of him, and the Doctor followed after both.
The caterpile, having appeared to have evolved from something as slow-moving as a caterpillar, was just as slow as its smaller cousins. The three were able to easily outrun it, heading back through the canyon, until they reached the spot where the TARDIS had landed, and they slowed to a stop.
“I don’t think it’s following us,” Redhair shook his head. “Man… running from a caterpile.”
“Thanks Reyn,” Shulk panted. “That krabble got the drop on me.”
“I know!” Reyn turned to the other young man, “I saw! What have I told you? You gotta stay where I can see you! Monsters are crawling everywhere outside the colony, and you’re not getting much practice, cooped up in that lab all the time!”
“There’s nothing wrong staying in a lab all the time,” The Doctor interjected with a smile. “Although…” His face fell in puzzlement. “It’s a big, creepy crawly, but calling it a monster’s a bit mean, isn’t it?”
“It is kind of my fault,” Shulk embarrassedly rubbed the back of his head. “I did stop to lay down.”
“You laid down?” Reyn repeated with a suffering look to the sky. “He stopped to lay down.”
“Well, that explains the scream,” The Doctor cleared his throat. “Just glad I got there before anything too horrible happened.”
“I had it under control,” Reyn flippantly answered with a grin. “Been looking out for Shulk my whole life. But how’d you know he was in trouble?”
“Didn’t,” The Doctor easily answered. “Was passing through here, just heard the scream, went running.”
“That explains it,” Shulk hummed, looking the Doctor over. “You don’t look like one of the Colonel’s men. No way he sent you to get me and Reyn.”
“Oh, you got me,” The Doctor produced the psychic paper. “Doctor John Smith. Ministry of… Outdoorsmen. Call me the Doctor.”
Shulk carefully took the paper, reading it, and his eyebrows shot up. He turned the paper to present it back to the Doctor. “This says you’re from Colony 5!”
“Colony 5?” Reyn repeated with a note of audible disbelief.
“Ah, yep,” The Doctor awkwardly stashed the paper. “That’s me.”
“But Colony 5 was destroyed months ago!” Reyn crossed his arms.
“Right, yeah. I was from there. Before… you know…” The Doctor trailed off. “Um, where are we?”
“…you come from a Colony that was destroyed months ago, and you show up now, and you don’t even know where you are?” Shulk scratched his head in confusion.
“Well, it’s been a busy few months,” The Doctor bobbed on his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Got lost, running scared and confused. Wandering – you know how it is.”
“Right, yes,” Shulk sympathetically nodded. “I can imagine. They found me all alone – if they hadn’t, I probably would’ve just wandered around aimlessly too.”
“Bit difficult, considering he was a runt at the time,” Reyn commented.
Shulk turned to him. “I’m trying to be sympathetic.”
“Well, you can do that all you want,” Reyn waved away, beginning to walk. “I’ve got to get back to the Colony before square-tache really does start sending out the search teams.”
“Oh, right,” Shulk sympathetically followed into step behind him. “Anyway, Doctor, since you asked, you’re close to Colony 9.”
The Doctor couldn’t help the thought of ‘these people aren’t very creative with their names.’ “Good. Colony 9. Heard good things about that one.”
“Only ‘cause of our resident Hero, I bet.” Reyn snorted.
“Reyn-“
“What?” The redhead asked with genuine confusion. “Aside from the Monado, there’s not much that goes on ‘round here.”
“The Monado…” The Doctor repeated, tasting the word in his mouth curiously. “What’s that?”
Shulk’s head snapped to look at the Doctor. “Every Homs has heard about the Monado.”
“Oh, right, that,” The Doctor nodded quickly. “Course I have, yep. And you keep it here?”
“Well, in the Colony,” Shulk shrugged. “Where it’s been since it was discovered, for the most part. It doesn’t leave the Weapon Development Lab, usually.”
The Doctor was lost, confused, working without a lot of information – but he continued to play it off. It was amazing what people would share if they assumed you already knew.
“Oh, good. That’s good. Making a lot of leeway?”
Again, Shulk shrugged, as they walked around the bend, to be faced with the sight of buildings, roads, and supports, all stitched and built together over a lake at the very bottom of the valley. The walls all around them gave the Doctor the feeling that he was a little speck of dust, at the bottom of a giant cup. The only comparable place was the sinkholes of Utapau.
“This is your colony?” The Doctor examined it with a grin. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
“Yep.” Reyn pounded his hands together. “That’s home.” And they continued proceeding down the hill, towards the large gate waiting open for them. As they walked, the Doctor caught sight of what appeared to be bunny rabbits. Only instead of tails, they had long, three-fingered hands on their ends, with which they held large clubs.
Primitive tools were used by many lifeforms. The Doctor would give those a wide berth. It was good to stay out of whacking-range of things. That was one of the lessons he learned the hard way – in addition to ‘never trust an animal that can milk itself.’
Heading down the path, they proceeded towards the large, towering spire, passing by a lone house just in front of the gate.
“Right, I’ve gotta run.” Reyn turned to his friend. “I miss one more drill, the Colonel’s gonna kill me.”
Shulk winced profusely. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your break-“
“It’s fine. ‘Sides, if I didn’t turn up, what would’ve happened? You’d be food for a krabble about now!” Reyn chuckled. “I’ll see you back at the lab?”
“Sure,” Shulk nodded. “I’ve just got to sell all that I can’t use, first.”
“Right-o,” Reyn nodded in return, then pointed at the Doctor. “Keep an eye on him.” He ordered, before spinning around and taking off through the streets of the Colony.
The Doctor frowned. “But I only just met you.”
“I was talking to Shulk!” Reyn threw back over his shoulder. He disappeared around the corner, and the Doctor turned to Shulk.
“That happen often?” The Doctor lightly probed. “Him coming to rescue you?”
Shulk had the good decency to look embarrassed. “Not often, actually. Normally, the Colonel’s men bring me what I need. But here lately, he’s been extra tough on them, so I’ve had to take to scavenging for materials on my own.” He began to walk, and the Doctor fell into step beside him. “I take it you haven’t been to Colony 9 before?”
“Nope!” The Doctor easily admitted. “Never.”
“Well, there’s not much to say.” Shulk replied.
“We’re not as large as Colony 6 – or as industrialized – but it’s home.” Shulk replied, pointing down one of the streets. “We’re in the markets now, the weapon development lab is that way.”
“Hold on,” The Doctor spluttered, staring at Shulk harshly. “Weapons?”
“Well, yes,” Shulk nodded. “The Monado is a weapon, after all.”
“The thing you’re working on?” The Doctor probed, and Shulk nodded. “You’re – what, sixteen, seventeen?” The Doctor looked the boy up and down. “Nineteen? And you’re developing weapons?” He scowled, and if his eyes could set things on fire, Shulk might be smoldering.
“Not really,” Shulk shook his head. “I mean, I built Reyn’s scrap driver. And I do know my way around weapons… but here lately, I’ve just been trying to puzzle out the Monado. It’s quite a fascinating challenge!”
“But… you’re a teenager,” The Doctor stared at Shulk without hiding his horror. “And you’re developing weapons.”
“Well… yes,” Shulk thinned his lip. “But the Mechon get more dangerous by the day. And everything we’re fielding can hardly damage them. The Monado’s different. It’s the only thing that seems to consistently damage them.”
“These Mechon,” The Doctor coughed. “Why are we at war with them?”
Shulk looked at the Doctor, his confusion and disbelief written all over his face like it was scribbled in marker. “You’re not… Dr. Smith, have you ever actually seen a Mechon?”
“No, but any sapient species has its good people and its bad people.”
Shulk stood there, dumbfounded for a second. “You… really must have been far away when they sacked your colony. Doctor, the Mechon are-“ Shulk struggled for a second. “They’re not like us.”
“Oi, and that makes it okay to destroy ‘em all?”
“The Mechon aren’t sentient,” Shulk came right out and said it. “They’re machines. They can travel in groups, and gang up on their prey, but I’ve heard from veterans of Sword Valley that they actually display less intelligence than comparable organic lifeforms.” He looked down, thoughtfully touching a hand to his chin. “He did mention rudimentary strategy and squad tactics, but we’re not sure if it’s because of actual intelligence, or if they’re simply very good at pattern recognition.”
“Really?” The Doctor found part of his anger shifting focus. “Machines?” What was he dealing with, here? Robot uprising? Angry neighbors? Ancient tech gone haywire. “Machines could be sentient.”
“Maybe they are,” Shulk granted. “But… well, we’ve never been able to find a way to communicate with them, if they were. Even then, they’ve been destroying our colonies. Unprovoked. I’m not sure how up-to-date your information is, but after Colony 5 fell, Colony 9 and Colony 6 are the last. I think we passed the point of negotiating a long time ago. They want nothing more than to destroy us.”
“And so you’ve got to destroy them before they destroy you,” The Doctor finished, like it was an accusation. Then, a blood-curdling, soul-crushing possibility occurred to him. “These Mechon… they don’t hover along the ground and scream ‘EXTERMINATE!’ do they?”
“No,” Shulk shook his head. “They don’t communicate at all. How can you not know of the Mechon?”
“Like I said, I’ve been out of it for a while,” The Doctor flippantly answered, turning to Shulk. “I heard the word thrown around, but I was always knee-deep in my work, you know how it is. Never looked up from my books long enough to see if the sky was blue, that’s me!”
“That’s very unlikely,” Shulk frowned. “They’ve been a threat for as long as anyone can remember. I knew they were a threat, even when I was a kid. How’s that possible?”
“Hey, people don’t pop into existence knowing everything – I just never bothered to learn, is all.” The Doctor shrugged. “This is a Colony, right? If there’s attacking happening, why don’t you just pack up and go home?”
“Go where?” Shulk genuinely, innocently asked. “Colony 9 and Colony 6 are the last. There’s nowhere else on Bionis for us to go. Even if there were, they could just… follow. The Mechon come all the way from Mechonis. There’s nowhere they can’t reach.”
The Doctor held his tongue for a moment. So, it really was a desperate situation, underneath all the lively wildlife. Or, at least, it appeared to be.
“So, Mechon,” The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets. “What are they? Robots? Lifeforms?”
Shulk perked up, “You said you were a Doctor? Do you want to take a look?”
The Doctor nodded, and let Shulk lead the way.
---------------
After the young man sold off the materials he said he couldn’t use, he led the Doctor towards a military yard of some sort, near the back of the Colony – at least, the back relative to where they entered.
“There’s still a stockpile of Mechon parts leftover from Sword Valley,” Shulk explained as they approached the compound. “Well, the rare ones. Internal components are hard to come across – usually the force needed to breach Mechon armour destroys everything inside. But we were able to salvage some.”
“You stop to think maybe that’s why they keep attacking you?” The Doctor suggested as he walked with his hands shoved in his pockets. “You’re picking chunks of their dead off the battlefield.”
“Maybe,” Shulk conceded that point to the Doctor easily. “But we’ve also seen Mechon target other lifeforms as well, not just Homs.”
The Doctor nodded silently, thinking it over to himself. It was possible – no, likely from what he was being told – that the Mechon were a swarm intelligence or gestalt consciousness. They may not have even recognized human beings - or, actually, Homs, given what Shulk said - as alive and individuals, provided the Mechon were acting of their own volition.
He’d stepped out to get repair components, and was now thinking about the best way to end a war that had, apparently, been raging since before Shulk was alive.
Usual day, then.
As they walked into the military yard, the Doctor’s concentration was shattered by the piercing bellow of a very, very angry man.
“You idiots!”
“Oh no…” Shulk groaned under his breath. “The Colonel’s in a mood today…”
“Crashing the mobile artillery into a house!?”
The Doctor focused on the man in silver armor, berating two other soldiers in similar armor. His mind went back to Reyn talking about the Colonel, and the square-stache nickname, and was surprised to see that the man did, in fact, have a large, thin moustache, styled into a square and held up in defiance of gravity via copious amounts of gel, or sheer rage.
“S-Sorry, sir,” One of the soldiers under the glass stammered in terror. “It’s just, we were trying to move as fast as we could, like you ordered.”
“I don’t want to hear any of your excuses, maggots!”
“Come on,” Shulk gently pulled on the Doctor’s shoulder. “We should get out of here before he really blows up.”
“Ah, the military,” The Doctor shook his head. “Constantly getting yelled at for following instructions, what positive reinforcement… Are they going to be fine?”
“He might get handsy, but he won’t do anything that will take the men off the battlefield,” Shulk guided the Doctor over to an open door, with a staircase leading down into a basement. Shulk guided the Doctor through the building, past a small number of people walking back through – and the Time Lord was surprised to see a Nopon waddling through, with a Homs by their side.
So, he was in a joint Nopon-Homs colony. That was odd. The humanoid pattern repeated quite a lot across the universe (the morphic field that the Time Lords had set up in the early universe ensured that) but Nopon didn’t repeat like that. So, they must have arrived to the bottle universe by some method. And, since there were humans – Homs – the humans must have arrived with them.
Or, so the Doctor expected. It was just as likely whoever created this tiny existence seeded humanoid life and the Nopon for whatever reason. Curious.
It did make him want to visit Mira again, if nothing else.
“Here we are,” Shulk said to the Doctor, as they walked into a small room at the end of the hall. Various tanks, attached to beeping computer banks, were spaced in a semi-circle near the back of the room, connected to a mechanical pedestal, upon which set a strangely-shaped sword made of red metal.
“Ah,” The Doctor curiously approached, looking down at it. “The Monado, I presume?”
“You presume right,” A voice that wasn’t Shulk’s answered, and Shulk let out a gasp, as the Doctor turned around as well. “Couldn’t resist the urge to show off your favorite project, eh Shulk?”
“Dickson!” Shulk gasped in delight. “When’d you get back to Colony 9?”
The Doctor regarded the man carefully, as he pushed off the table. Dickson looked like something of a cowboy – high boots made of white leather, white trousers, a half-open shirt, and what he lacked in cowboy hat, he made up for in a bandana tied across his head.
The Doctor seriously had to resist the urge to start calling him ‘Dimmadome.’
…not that Dickson had anything in common with an animated Texas tycoon caricature. Except the moustache.
“Just now,” Dickson answered Shulk’s question, waving around a copy of a report printed on a sheet of paper. “I see you’ve been busy. Looks like your Monado research has been going well. I made the right choice, leaving you in charge.”
The Doctor turned around, looking at the sword. “This is the Monado? Nice. Very good. Good colour.”
Dickson glanced at the Doctor, then to Shulk. “Been making new acquaintances, I see.”
“Oh, right,” Shulk cleared his throat. “Dickson, this is the Doctor.”
“Hello!” The Doctor wiggled his fingers.
“Doctor, eh?” Dickson extended his hand. “We’ve been having a shortage of them for quite a while. What’re you a doctor of?”
“Oh, you know, this and that. Mostly that.” The Doctor shook Dickson’s hand, and was surprised to find that his muscle density was higher, compared to a normal human. Homs must have been built different – it was a bottle universe. Just because they looked identical to humans didn’t mean they were identical to humans.
Who was in charge of this place?
“You’re Shulk’s boss?” The Doctor politely prodded.
Dickson let out a biting laugh. “Boss? Nah. I just keep an eye on the lad, is all.” He walked past the Doctor, over to the Monado. “So, you work out how to activate it, and your first instinct is to show it off, eh? Can’t say I blame you.”
“Actually, the Doctor is here to look at some Mechon parts,” Shulk elaborated.
“Nah, Mechon,” The Doctor flashed a sly grin. “Loads of them, they’re not going anywhere. But I’ve never seen a Monado before,” The Doctor produced the Sonic Screwdriver, running it up and down the sword to scan.
“What’s that?” Dickson crossed his arms suspiciously.
“Oh, don’t mind me, just your basic mineral analysis.” He couldn’t help his curiosity. Humans under attack by an enemy that had driven them to near-extinction, and this weapon was their best hope? The Time Lord looked up at Shulk. “Activate it? It’s a sword.”
“It may appear that way,” Shulk leaned on the pedestal, regarding the sword carefully. “The Monado channels vast amounts of ether energy, but only when it’s being held by a Homs. So far, only one person’s been able to handle its power.”
“Yeah – and it almost killed him. Got his arm something good.”
“Really?” The Doctor curiously hummed. The Sonic Screwdriver was registering some kind of power channeling system – connected to the strange blue lines that were on the exterior of the weapon. The Screwdriver let out a little bleep as it detected the presence of a computer, or computer-adjacent system.
“What about those hidden functions you mentioned?” Dickson tapped the report.
“That part’s only conjecture,” Shulk was quick to cover himself with that defense, although the Sonic Screwdriver did seem to concur with Shulk. There was something deep inside the Monado acting as a processor. “But it’s already displayed two abilities – the Enchant ability and the Buster ability. What I do know is that the centerpiece is constructed of multi-layered glass, but the symbols we’ve seen only appear on the outside ones.”
“So, other symbols might appear on the other layers,” Dickson hummed.
“Tell you what,” The Doctor began to offer. “Why don’t we see?”
“Huh?” Shulk blinked, as the Doctor twisted the Screwdriver’s emitter, and held it up to his ear.
“There’s a processor inside,” The Doctor stated, his tongue poking out of his mouth. “I might be able to-“
The Sonic Screwdriver let out a warble of protest, before it went ‘bang!’ and a spark shot out from it.
“Ah!” The Doctor practically threw the Screwdriver away, but not literally. His ear was ringing, and his hair felt singed, but the smoking screwdriver didn’t appear damaged.
“Doctor, are you all right?” Shulk shot forward, and the Time Lord waved him away.
“Fine,” The Doctor coughed, holding the Screwdriver at a distance to examine the core. “Some kind of… backlash in the quark field? Quark field?” The Doctor repeated in disbelief. “Quarks can’t exist independently! Although… I guess here, they can. Antimatter universe, alright…” He stowed the Screwdriver back in his suit.
Dickson let out a chuckle. “Looks like the Monado doesn’t appreciate you poking around in its guts.”
“Fascinating!” Shulk rushed over to the weapon, looking between it and the Doctor. “Was it natural mechanical feedback, like static electricity, or some kind of defensive measure? I haven’t triggered anything similar. Have I not been probing deep enough? You said there was a processor?”
“Yeah,” The Doctor pulled his pair of reading glasses out, plopping them onto his face as he peered closer at the Monado. “Something along those lines.”
Shulk looked at the Time Lord curiously. “What does that mean?”
“Well, a processor is, by definition, something that processes things.” The Doctor answered. “So, it could be anything you put a command into and get a result out of…”
“Heh, looks like you two have got a handle on things,” Dickson chuckled, taking a step away. “I’d better get the supplies delivered to the Defence Force. I’ll stop ‘round HQ, see how they’re getting on. And Shulk,” He stopped, just before the threshold. “Remember to get out and get some fresh air!”
“Sure thing, Dickson.” Shulk responded without looking over his shoulder.
The Doctor could see Dickson shaking his head, before the man walked off muttering about ‘boy’s making friends, and they’re not even his age.’
“You said it had a processor,” Shulk bit the end of his thumb. “How could you tell? We can’t really look past the surface without taking it apart.”
The Doctor held up his long-held, trusty, dependable tool. “Sonic Screwdriver.”
“Turning screws with soundwaves, yes,” Shulk nodded. “It keeps from having to carry around a whole set of screwdrivers, or bits.”
The Doctor glanced at the young man, as his eyebrows climbed into his hair with pleasant surprise. “Finally, someone respects the practical applications. And,” He gently waved around the Screwdriver. “Sound’s very good at moving through most mediums. Add in a micro-computer-“
“And you get scanning functionality and interface capabilities with machines,” Shulk appreciatively hummed.
The Doctor grinned. “You’re quick.” The Doctor turned back to the Monado, running the Sonic down it, making very sure to stray away from the processor this time. At least, until he had an idea of what he was working with. “This material – have you been able to nail down what it is, yet?”
“Not at all,” Shulk shook his head. “It’s perfectly smooth, entirely uniform, so the natural assumption would be to say it’s made of metal, but-“
“None of your equipment can see.”
“But that’s the thing,” Shulk bit his lip. “Metals adhere to a crystalline structure. Whatever the Monado’s made of, it’s uniform. Perfectly uniform. Down to the atomic level. Past that, I’m not sure. I’d have to take a sample from the Monado, and I don’t want to damage it.”
“Good thing, too, cause it’d be useless in the end.” The Doctor frowned. “There’s a kind of an energy layer surrounding it.” He looked up, into the air. “In the air, too. That’s what the Sonic Screwdriver was registering when it said quark field… but that’s impossible. This sword seems to manipulate that field…”
“Manipulate?” Shulk repeated. “That must be the ether, then. The Monado must draw it from the air all around us, and the body. That’s probably why it causes damage…”
“Ether?” The Doctor cluelessly blinked. “But… that’s impossible! You have atoms that are the fundamental building blocks of all elements in the universe,” The Doctor explained. “But beyond those atoms, you have quarks. And below those quarks, quantum strings, but that’s for another time. But Quarks – they can’t exist independently. They’re always found as part of atoms!” The Doctor snapped his teeth closed. He was in a bottle universe. Maybe the rules were just different here.
“Doctor?”
“Sorry, just… got a little bit of a shake-up to the old worldview.” The Doctor couldn’t assume too much about this little pocket reality. He sucked in a breath, and straightened up. “Well, no use gobbing off about it. Can’t exactly get a better look without disassembling it, and you already said that was a no-go.” He turned to Shulk. “How’d you wind up with the job?”
“I was found with it,” Shulk answered without a hint of shame or evasiveness. “Or, so they tell me. The only surviving Homs of that whole group. Nobody knows what happened.”
“So you think that working that out might give you answers,” The Doctor slowly nodded, before he burst into a grin. “Not bad at all!”
“So I’ve been told,” Shulk exhaled. “Now, I think I said I’d show you what we had of the Mechon. How do you feel about gooey bits?”
------------
The Doctor grimaced, peering through his reading glasses at the slimy, gooey organ in his hands. It was like a water balloon that was really stretchy, enough for him to squeeze and prod and for it to take its shape back. He sniffed the matter, resisting the urge to lick it.
“What did you say this came out of?” The Doctor directed at Shulk, still staring at the Mechon organ.
“A Mechon M71,” Shulk rattled off, knowing the exact origin of the sample. “Defeated at Sword Valley, one year ago. That’s where most of the parts I still have came from.”
“You kept it preserved, all this time?” The Doctor held it up to the light, scrunching his face in concentration.
“Mechon organs are the hardest to get,” Shulk explained. “Simple parts like gears and structural components remain intact, but the soft organs usually get destroyed when their armor is breached.”
“But how?” The Doctor inquired.
“Mechon parts don’t decay. Even the soft ones.”
“Well… that’s definitely a point in the artificial column,” The Doctor shifted it into his other hand, and ran the Screwdriver over it, listening to the changes in beeps. After it gave him a result, it pointed it at Shulk.
“What’s that for?”
“Machines can replicate,” The Doctor began. “But it’s only the naturally-occurring machines that carry one very specific thing inside them at all times.”
“Which would be…?”
“Genetic information. DNA, RNA, the associated analogues in silicon-based lifeforms and everything else.” The Doctor read Shulk’s results and was satisfied to see that the Homs did, in fact, have DNA. “Everything living, no matter the format, has genetic information of some sort. A pattern or blueprint that tells the organism how to make more of itself. It takes all kinds of different forms. But this Mechon doesn’t have it.”
“Perhaps it’s in a form you don’t recognize?”
“Nah,” The Doctor decisively shook his head. “My Sonic Screwdriver’s advanced enough to recognize at least an analogue. But there’s not one. That’s a fundamental constant of life, just gone. The ability to reproduce – that’s literally what defines life. Even if the Mechon moved past traditional reproduction, there’d still be a holdover. So, unless the first Mechon just ‘popped’ into existence, fully formed, knowing perfectly how to make more of itself, I’d say it’s artificial. The Screwdriver can’t even detect possible equivalents. So, it either doesn’t have genetic information, or if it does, it’s so decentralized and obtuse that this can’t detect it.”
Shulk nodded in comprehension. “Is that possible?” Shulk hummed thoughtfully. “That the Mechon did just pop into existence?”
“Too complex for that,” The Doctor shook his head. “The brain,” The Doctor turned it over. “Is like yours, and mine. Neurons – all dendrons and axons wrapped in conductive sheaths. To get complexity like this, that takes millions of years of evolution. Sometimes billions. So then why is there no evidence of that?” The Doctor posed to Shulk. “If the Mechon were naturally-occurring, there’d be a trace. Some hereditary thing that they’d still have in their cells, passed down from generation to generation, until they became what they are now. But there isn’t. I think what we have here is someone’s recreation of an organic brain.”
“So it is artificial,” Shulk hummed.
“It’s looking that way,” The Doctor looked back at the ‘brain.’ “Most life in the universe tends towards being Carbon based.” He continued examining the organ. “Carbon molecules bind together, forming amino acids and complex protein chains. This is made out of silicon. Where’d you say Mechonis was?”
Shulk laughed at that. “Come on, you must have seen it. Coming up from around Colony 5? The only other titan around?”
“Interesting,” The Doctor clicked his tongue. “Because silicon-based life can only exist where carbon can’t.” Unless the rules of the bottle universe were just that different. But, no, he’d know if that was the case.
“Well, we don’t know precisely what conditions are like on the Mechonis,” Shulk answered easily. “But it doesn’t appear all that much different than the Bionis.” The young man suddenly frowned. “But, hold on. Silicon is inert at our temperatures. That must mean they come from inside the Mechonis.”
“No,” The Doctor decisively shook his head. “Because you said it just a second ago – silicon is inert at these temperatures. It couldn’t provide the building blocks for any complex life. So, the Mechon – if they were natural, would need to be hot. Molten hot. If they were molten hot, why’d they evolve brains that could be burned up by their normal body temperatures?”
“Incredible…” Shulk breathed out with a disbelieving smile. “So the Mechon are artificial. We always wondered about that, or if they were the Mechonis’s answer to us.”
“Yep,” The Doctor popped as he put the brain back into the tank.
“But…” Shulk frowned as an idea suddenly came to him. “If the Mechon are artificial… what’s creating them?”
The Doctor pointedly glanced at the brain. “I don’t know.” He admitted. It could be the bottle universe’s caretakers – the Mechon might have been a cleaning program, or something along the lines. Or perhaps they were part of the scenario – sent against organic life to see how they’d fare.
The Time Lords had done something similar. Many times. Even before the War, whenever the High Council put into action some plan, or ratified some piece of legislature, they always wanted to see how it would turn out before they did it. But using time travel to glimpse the future on Gallifrey was a colossal no-no (more, it could potentially cause the Council to see a most undesirable outcome, that then couldn’t be changed because they had seen it), so they usually stuck to the smart, expedient thing of simulating it.
But computer simulations weren’t good enough for the Time Lords – they just created bottle universes. New universes conceptualized in Klein Bottles nestled in the undimensions below the normal spatial and temporal dimensions. The Time Lords would then take every particle in the universe’s position via use of the Matrix, and map it onto the bottle reality so that it would be an exact duplicate of the universe, then let things ride. They usually made a few dozen-hundred, then the Matrix would coordinate, summarize, and spit out the best course of action. After, the Time Lords would usually just let them dissolve. But during the War, to prevent those model Time Wars from potentially breaking out into the wider universe (and one bottle reality’s inhabitants indeed had escaped into the universe once they realized the damage being caused would result in the destruction of their reality), after the Time Lords learned what they wanted to learn, they’d scrub the things clean with extinction events, or induced false-vacuum collapse, or, on one occasion the Doctor had heard from an old friend after she’d been kicked out of the Presidency, an unstoppable robot army.
He wasn’t hopeful. There was no way this was one of those bottle universes. But, then… no other civilization had the capability to create ones like the Time Lords.
“Well, mystery is the spice of life, as they say.” The Doctor turned back around.
Shulk nodded in agreement, looking like something had bit him. “You’re not from Colony 5, are you?”
The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. “Blimey – that’s a bit of a sudden accusation. What makes you say that?”
“Because if it were my Colony that was destroyed… I’d know who did it.” Shulk shook his head. “You didn’t seem to know the Mechon. And the technology you’re carrying around – that sonic screwdriver…”
The Doctor stared at the young man for a while, before breaking out into a smile. “Clever you are – I can see why he’s got you in charge of this.”
“Why are you here?”
“Just passing through – got a bit lost, actually,” The Doctor reached into his coat pocket, and produced the broken component of the TARDIS. “I was searching for repair parts for this, actually. See those capacitors on the outside?” He tossed it over to Shulk, who easily caught it. “I’m in need of replacements. See – electrolytical imbalances in the capacitors cause them to swell and burst and leak out acid everywhere, and that’s a bit of a critical part, so here I am, looking for replacements.”
Curious, Shulk slid over to a magnifier set up over a workbench, and placed the busted part underneath it. “So, if you’re not from Colony 5, where are you from?”
“Oh, little place,” The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. “Insignificant. You absolutely wouldn’t have heard from it. Or of it. Of it or from it. Then again, we’ve never heard of Mechon, so make of that what you will.”
Shulk frowned, leveling a suspicious glance in the Doctor’s direction. “But the Mechon have been attacking for ages now.”
“We’re hermits.”
“Hermits with devices that can penetrate the surface level of the Monado without having to cut a sample?”
“We’re hermits with an appreciation of technology,” The Doctor shrugged. That wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie. The Time Lords were hermits. And very appreciative of their tech.
“Well then, you must come from the Bionis’ left shoulder,” Shulk murmured, peering closer at the tech. “That’s the only place I can think of capable of hiding such an enclave.”
Left shoulder? Was that a mountain, or a peninsula? Actually, for that matter-
“Speaking of, Shulky-boy, I’ve been meaning to ask,” The Doctor leaned over, peering through his glasses. “You mentioned that name before. Bionis. Well, Bionis and Mechonis. Are one of those the planet we’re on?”
“Planet?” Shulk repeated with a puzzled frown. “Wha- Don’t tell me you come from the shoulder and don’t even know the names of the Titans we’re living on!”
“…okay?” The Doctor blinked in confusion. “We’re living on Titans?”
“Wha-“ Shulk spluttered, like a fifty-year-old man had just told him he had gone his entire life without noticing the sky was blue. “You can’t- what?”
The Doctor just blinked. “Is that bad?”
“Bad, it’s-“ Shulk cut himself off. “They’re the Titans. There’s only two of them! The machine one, and the one we live on! You can’t possibly not know, unless… wait, you’re having me on.”
So, the laws of the bottle universe were a mite bit different. Judging from context clues, shoulder was a bit more literal than he expected. Because he was standing on a titan. A gigantic lifeform, of some kind.
“That’s me, for you.” The Doctor clicked his tongue.
“Hmm… that’d explain your attitude towards the Mechon, then.” Shulk hummed, as he rolled back from the part. “Those are specifications on the outside, yes? I have some similar spares around here.” He began to look in a storage cabinet, still talking over his shoulder at the Doctor. “You must have lived an incredibly sheltered life.”
“Oh, not necessarily,” The Doctor turned his head. “Just… missed some things.”
“Some pretty important ‘things’ you missed, there.”
“And what about you?” The Doctor looked around. “This… Dickson fella; he made it seem like you were holed up in here all the time.”
“Well, yes, but even I know about the Mechon. And the Titans.” Shulk pulled out a box of capacitors, almost identical to the busted ones on the board in size and shape. “Dickson’s always doing that. Worrying over nothing.”
“He does that often?” The Doctor hummed. “What’s he – your dad?”
“No,” Shulk shook his head, pausing for thought. “Well, in a way. He’s looked after me since he found me.”
“Good, cause I thought – it’d be mighty weird if you called your dad by his name. Well, his last name. Although…” His eyes wandered upwards in thought. “Not as weird as what I called my dad.”
Shulk let out a subdued chuckle. “That doesn’t stop him from trying. He’s always finding something to pick at me about. ‘Don’t eat that trash. Sleep more. That body o’ yours is the only one you’ll get, take better care of it.’”
“Well, he’s got a point there.” The Doctor had to concede that. He wasn’t sure what could be considered as bad habits here, but some of the bad habits humans put themselves on were really kind of ridiculous. Cigarettes, junk food, staying up all night… The Doctor could filter out the toxins from the first two categories flawlessly (cholesterol was non-existent in Time Lords, and lung damage flat-out didn’t happen) and sleep, well, they had engineered that out of themselves well before they even developed Regeneration. “But I suppose it must get a bit annoying, having everyone harping on at you.”
“It’s not all bad, just…” Shulk shook his head, trailing off. His expression suddenly morphed into a frown, as he peered closer at the component from the TARDIS. “What did you say this was?”
“Ah, just your bog-standard dedicated graphics processor.” Or, at least, it had been, before the TARDIS had gotten to it. It still looked like a piece of Earth technology, but that single board probably had more power than a supercomputer, after the TARDIS had assimilated and modified it.
Say what you will about Time Lords, but their technology could be wonderfully robust.
Shulk lifted it up to examine it. “The corrosion’s fairly severe. I don’t think a capacitor replacement is going to fix it… what happened?”
“Oh,” The Doctor reached over, taking the board back. “Nothing interesting. Just sabotaged electrolytes. Here, do I need to pay-?”
“No, think nothing of it,” Shulk quickly shook his head, and he handed over the Doctor the handful of capacitors.
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “But these are yours.”
“I can get more, certainly,” Shulk shrugged. “Besides… You’re the first person I’ve had the chance to talk with in a long time who actually cares about the parts of my work other than the Monado.”
“You’re a bright young man, Shulk.” The Doctor lightly praised, moving to pick up his coat, slung over a chair nearby.
“Wait, you’re leaving?” Shulk blinked. “Already?”
“You know how it is,” The Doctor slung his coat over his shoulders. “Busy, busy, busy. Gotta get back and get this thing repaired. Besides, didn’t Dickson mention something about going outside?”
Shulk let out a huff, but nodded, and moved towards the door. “I suppose you’re right.” He gestured for the Time Lord to move. “Nice meeting you, Doctor.”
He smiled back at the young man in return. “And you, Shulk.” Then, he turned, and marched back down the hallway.
-----------
He did not immediately return to the TARDIS, choosing instead to linger about the Colony for a while. The Homs, despite their inability to creatively name things, looked and acted just like run-of-the-mill humans. They had shops, and houses, and little parks. But he didn’t find any evidence of who exactly it was who created the bottle universe, never mind why his future self apparently wanted to be traveling into it.
The first thought that came to mind was the nebulous Mechon threat. Maybe, in the future, they had broken out, and he was tracking them back to their point of origin to stop them. In any case, now that he was aware of them, he couldn’t just leave. Well, he could, but who knows what kind of situation his future self was in, since he hadn’t turned up.
It was a bending of every law of time.
Immediately, he flashed back to the events he found himself caught up in on Bowie Base One. “The Laws of Time are mine… AND THEY WILL OBEY ME!”
The Doctor shook his head. Sure, he pushed, and the universe pushed back, but that didn’t mean he should just give up whenever things got a bit too complicated. But it was different, that time. That time, he had broken a fixed point in time, without any nasty effects popping up, and he was high off of that. ‘Saving lives’ turned into thoughts about how to stope Rose from being yanked into a parallel universe. Ideas of how to keep the Master from awakening at the end of the universe, or at the very least, a way to stop him from allowing himself to die. Those blossomed into wonderful contemplations of how to keep himself from making the wrong decisions – wiping Donna’s memory, deposing Harriet Jones. Maybe he could have even saved the Time Lords, before they had gotten beyond saving. He’d broken the single most important law of every time traveler, and gotten away with it. He was teeming with ideas, the know-how to make them all happen, and the drive to do so.
Then Adelaide shot herself. The Doctor had been reprimanded – spanked like a bratty child – and before he could go any farther, he’d been stopped.
This time was different. It wasn’t ego-posturing, or doing things simply because he could. It was saving lives. Simple as.
He’d fix the TARDIS, head over to the Mechonis, figure out where the nasty robots were coming from, and leave the bottle to its own existence in peace.
The Doctor could barely get the key into the lock, before he heard the sirens blaring.
The sky groaned and howled, and the Doctor looked up, to see tiny black blots come soaring over the rim of the valley. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. He couldn’t tell. Things that clearly weren’t meant to be there, that made the people of Colony 9 feel unsafe.
His decision – even if he’d hadn’t been thinking about stopping the problem anyway – had been made for him, then.
The Doctor opened the TARDIS door, threw the box of capacitors he got from Shulk inside to let her do her work, and he slammed the door shut, tearing off like Satan was on his heels back in the direction of the colony.
The Doctor was no stranger to war. Despite his reservations about the concept, he’d found himself dragged into it, on all manner of sides, on occasions too numerous to count. He’d seen, multiple times, just how quickly an enemy could tear through a place, and upheave lives.
Colony 9 was just the latest. The latest in a long line.
That still didn’t stop it from hurting. It was a new place, and he hardly knew any of its people, but the sight of the peaceful settlement already burning, people and children running around like desperately-scattering ants in the face of a foe they could not hope to fight…
The Doctor had seen that many times too. Too many times. Only on those occasions, it had been the Daleks doing the hunting, and his own people doing the running.
As the Doctor got closer, he could see the huge, spherical cannons placed around the colony begin to move, and fire at the craft up in the air.
His trainers squeaked as he hit the metal bridge and sprinted across, into the marketplace that, just a few minutes prior, had been a beating heart of the Colony.
Mechanical creatures – some bipedal, some flying, some scurrying across the ground, but all vaguely reminiscent of insects – were tearing through the Colony, utterly trashing the place in the face of their scared residents.
The Doctor perceived a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye, and turned, just in time to see one of the big, bipedal Mechon close what looked like a tubular pincer claw lined with teeth around a hapless Homs citizen. Glowing blue fluid scattered into the air, before the poor man was slurped up – like a steak through a straw.
“They’re eating them,” The Doctor thought to himself in horror, before that was quickly replaced by burning, violent rage.
The Time Lord then heard screaming, and he spun around to witness a little girl, frozen in terror, staring at the same sight he’d just witnessed… and the Mechon that was closing in on her.
He didn’t even need to think about it before he was sprinting that way, moving faster than any human could.
“HOLD ON!” The Doctor yelled at her, only succeeding in getting the Mechon to turn around and face him. It raised its mechanical, pincer-tipped tentacle arm, and swung, but the Doctor had already swooped underneath it, allowing him to grab the girl, pull her off her feet, and run far in the other direction with her. “It’s okay! I’ve got you!”
With the child’s weight entirely in one arm, the Doctor grabbed the Sonic Screwdriver out of his pocket, pointed it behind him, and turned his head to look as he pressed down the button.
The high-pitched buzz filled the air, rippling through the medium and towards the Mechon. Sparks flew from their armored shells, and a few of them twitched and stumbled, but they all kept moving. A few of the braver Homs tried to take swings at the mechanical monsters with whatever they could find.
“No!” The Doctor yelled at them. “Don’t-“
The makeshift weapons harmlessly bounced off the Mechon, as the would-be warriors were mercilessly struck down by the invaders.
The Doctor let out a growl, taking a moment to examine the readouts to figure out what just went wrong. According to the feedback, it appeared as if the Mechon were surrounded by a thin, invisible barrier of energy. A low-level force-shield that could block any concussive or ballistic force, and absorb energy strikes with some effort.
So, that was probably why the Monado was the only weapon that could hurt them. It was surrounded by similar energies, capable of cutting through the force-field.
But he was very good with force fields.
The Doctor switched settings, cranked up the output power, and pointed the Sonic Screwdriver back at the Mechon chasing him and his rescue.
The sonic warble filled the air, as the emitter crystal spat out a different, higher wavelength of energy. The invisible wave propagated, and the Mechon chasing him suddenly exploded, erupting into a show of sparks rather like a Roman Candle, before it collapsed to the ground. Not really dead, but completely unable to move.
“Ha ha!” He turned to the child, who was staring at the tool in his hand with wonder. “Metal and electricity – bad mix! Hold on!” He tightened his hold on both her and the Sonic Screwdriver, as he moved deeper into the Colony. The compound near the back was likely to be safest. It was where the panicking Homs would go… and where the Mechon would follow.
So that was where he needed to go.
As more Mechon dropped from the skies, and swarmed in the streets, the Doctor pushed through. Leveling the Sonic Screwdriver at them and pressing the button, setting each and every one of them in his way alight, like the simple tool was a laser pointer from hell, the Doctor quickly made himself the target of their wrath – if they even had a concept of wrath. Their clicks and warbles sounded angry, but the TARDIS ought to have been able to translate for him if there was any structure at all. So it probably wasn’t a language, just nonsense.
The Doctor rounded the corner, near that gem stand he passed while being led through by Shulk the first time, and stopped, as he witnessed the collapsed wall blocking his path. Mechon were in front, and closing in on the back.
He looked to the child he was carrying. “What’s your name?”
“Os… Ossie.”
“Ossie – that’s a brilliant name, Ossie.” The Doctor smiled. “Trust me, Ossie?”
She looked at the silver screwdriver in his hand, and gave him a meek nod.
“Then cover your ears.” The Doctor held the Screwdriver to the surface of the furnace, then hit the button. The machine began to let out a strange glow, shifting through all manner of colors, as the Doctor ducked behind a piece of cover nearby. Holding his back to it, he kept the small child in front of him, as to shield her from any debris.
The Mechon filled the street, retracing the singular path towards the wall. They stopped, and lingered, looking around in confusion. There was only one direction for him to have gone, and that was down the small alley pathways.
The Doctor pressed the button on the screwdriver.
As they turned to split and proceed down those directions, the furnace erupted into a firestorm – a loud explosion that was the equivalent of a grenade going off, so loud that uncovered eardrums would have ruptured. The raw energy imparted by the fireball overwhelmed their protective barriers, allowing the shrapnel from the furnace to rip through them.
The Doctor could feel a few pieces go grazing past him and his charge, but he held still. Then, he poked his head over, to see the Mechon near the wall of rubble come down and investigate, clearing the scaffolding that would be his way ahead, around the blockage.
While the robots were investigating, he shot to his feet, and continued running. As he made it to the central landmark – that pillar that looked almost like the Washington Monument on Earth – he could see the open gates of that compound – and the swarm of Mechon that were marching down the bridge, into it.
The Doctor sucked in a breath. No devices to rig to explode, the Sonic wouldn’t be able to take down so many Mechon at once.
He turned to look at the child he was attempting to save. “Is there anywhere else we can go!?” He questioned of the wide-eyed child.
She just shook her head.
“Damn,” The Doctor turned back around, and he clenched his teeth, trying to come up with something.
“Doc!” Somebody shouted, and the Time Lord spun around in time to see Reyn, Shulk, and a third person – a blonde girl – come running at him. “What’re you doing out here!?” Reyn questioned.
“You’ve got a robot infestation!” The Time Lord retorted. “I’m trying to get this one to safety.”
“Safe-“ The girl looked at Ossie, her eyes widening. “That’s Tarin’s girl! Where is he!?”
Ossie raised her hand, pointing back in the direction of the market. She made a snapping-claw motion with her hand, and a slurping noise.
“Oh… oh, I’m so sorry,” The girl whispered, covering her heart.
“Never mind me – what’re you lot doing!?” The Doctor raised his voice. “Shouldn’t you be running for cover!?”
“We were outside of town when the Mechon hit!” Reyn answered.
“…so you came running back into it!?” The Doctor demanded.
“We came to find Dunban!” Shulk leveled back at the Doctor just as quickly. “He’s not in his house – he would’ve come this way for the Monado, have you seen him!?”
“Dun-“ The Doctor spluttered. “No!”
“Then who wrecked all them Mechon that was in the way?” Reyn questioned.
“That was me.” The Doctor answered simply.
“You!?” Reyn barked out a laugh.
“Believe me or not, your home’s under attack, and I’ve got a little girl I need to get somewhere safe, so, don’t laugh!” The Doctor snarled, shutting Reyn up instantly.
“Shulk, what’s going on!?” The girl questioned. “Who is this man? What’s he doing with Ossie?”
Shulk glanced her way, and quickly began gesturing. “Fiora, this is the Doctor. Doctor, this is Fiora. She’s Dunban’s sister. Listen – Dunban is the only person who can wield the Monado. If he’s not in his house, then he absolutely would’ve come this way!”
“I told you, I haven’t seen him!” The Doctor retorted. “Or, maybe – I don’t know what the man looks like!”
“Tall, long hair, dark hair, and his arm doesn’t work!” Fiora quickly rattled off.
“Oh, man, we’re wasting our time!” Reyn punched his hands together. “Let’s get in there and find him already!”
The Doctor rounded on him indignantly. “I’m not carrying a little girl in there!”
“We didn’t say you were invited!” Reyn snapped in response.
“Well, tough, because I’m not about to let you go running in there any more than I’d let this one!”
Mechanical rattling echoed towards them, as Mechon began to close in from the way the Doctor came.
“Figure something out!” Fiora snapped. “Here come more of them!”
The Doctor looked towards the Mechon. Most were concentrated at that compound, now. But they were dead set on getting past the Mechon, and inside. He could run, take the child to safety, and come back later to help. But he just didn’t feel good leaving a bunch of teenagers to fight.
“Fiora,” Shulk spoke up, making the decision for the Doctor. “Go with the Doctor and get out of here!”
“What!?” Fiora spluttered. “But Shulk-!”
“He managed to take down all those Mechon – you’ll be safe with him!”
“That’s my brother we’re talking about!”
“I know,” Shulk leveled his sword, as the running Mechon got closer. “And we’ll find him! But if you got hurt while we tried to get to him, he’d never forgive himself!”
Fiora let out a choked sound.
“Go! We’ve got this lot!” Reyn hollered.
“They’ve got energy shielding,” The Doctor stressed at the teenager.
“Nah – they’re tough, but they’re not invincible!” Reyn pounded his hands together. “Now get!”
The Doctor clenched his teeth, looked at Fiora, and they ran, down the one path that wasn’t filled with Mechon.
-----------
They found refuge in an empty house – one with a large vehicle crashed through its front wall. That mobile artillery the Doctor had heard the Colonel screaming about. It seemed the Mechon had already swept through, or assumed that because the house was busted, no one would be home.
“Here,” The Doctor pushed Ossie and Fiora inside. “The two of you will be safe here.”
“What!?” Fiora raised her voice harshly. “You can’t go!”
The Doctor ignored her, popping open a panel on the vehicle. Inside was a cylinder made of glass, and filled with glowing blue liquid. He shoved it under his armpit, then took the Sonic Screwdriver to the other portions of the vehicle. Those looked like energy weapons, so he took the energy converters from them. Wiring and control boards were threaded throughout, and the Doctor snatched those out at random.
“That’s the ether cell for the weapons!” Fiora recognized. “What are you doing, that’s our only defence!”
“Nah, just a set of big guns is all!” The Doctor shook his head.
“No, let me-“ Fiora tried to push through. “You can hotwire the ether cylinder for the weapons into the main drive! We can fight back!”
“No,” The Doctor replied with a warning tone. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
“I’m not a child, I know how to fight!”
“No.” The Doctor stated simply again. “Besides, with that you can take out maybe… a dozen? Two-dozen Mechon? Give me a minute, and I can take out all of them!” He thunked the cylinder down on the ground, tying the wires into a bundle, and he handed one of the energy converters over to Fiora. He slung the rest of it over his shoulder, picked up the ether cell. “We need to get to higher ground! Come on!”
“What are-!?” Fiora spluttered as he took off into the house. “Doctor!”
Ossie, safely hiding underneath a table, watched as the Time Lord and the teenager ran upstairs, out of her sight.
“Doctor, what are you doing!?”
“I spotted a weather vane on the roof!”
The Doctor found a pull-down ladder for the attic of the house, and quickly climbed up. Fiora, following by instinct and little else, climbed up after him.
The Time Lord ran over to a vent, and kicked it with all his might, causing it to pop off and fall to the ground below. With the way open, he squeezed through, and pulled himself up onto the roof.
“Here!” He stuck his hand down for Fiora, pulling her up.
“What is all this!?” Fiora questioned as the Doctor slammed the cylinder down, and began to attach the wires, soldering them all up to the converters, and connecting them to the metal weather vane.
“Fun fact about anything metal: You shape it into a box, and it makes a faraday cage. But you take it and shape it into rods – you can use it as an antenna.” He stripped one of the wires with his teeth, connecting it into the energy converter, then the ether cell, and he wired it into the metal. He took the other from Fiora, and wired it into the weathervane just the same.
Blue flashed in the Doctor’s vision, and he glanced in the direction of the Colony entrance. At this distance, he could see Shulk – holding the Monado - Reyn, and a third man with a limp arm. That must’ve been Dunban. And the Mechon they were fighting was a big one.
“Looks like they found your brother.” The Doctor commented, and Fiora gasped, whipping around to see.
“Dunban!” Fiora’s relief was palpable… and ephemeral, vanishing quickly as she watched the three fighting that Mechon. “Shulk’s holding the Monado? But, that…” She gasped, watching as Shulk’s swing bounced off the Mechon. “That Mechon! The Monado isn’t working on it!”
The Doctor refocused on the machine. “Blimey – that’s a big one. Bit more humanoid than the rest, too…” He quickly shook his head, and did one last bit of sonic-powered jiggery pokery, “Just got to let it charge up!” He turned back to face the battle unfolding, as his makeshift machine began to hum as it charged up.
The pale-faced Mechon lifted its hand, flaring out its gigantic blades that served as fingers, before it brought its hand down. Dunban tackled Shulk and Reyn out of the way, as the blades sliced into the ground and slid in deep.
Dunban shot back up, charging the Mechon with sword in hand. Reyn moved to stop him, but they were both knocked back, rolling across the ground.
Shulk lifted the Monado to defend himself, and earned a backhand that launched him even further than the others.
“Shulk!” Fiora gasped out, turning to the Doctor. “Do something!”
The Time Lord pressed the sonic to the machine, dumping power from its power cell into the device to hopefully encourage it to charge up faster.
The pale-faced Mechon slowly – like a hunter relishing the moment it was about to finally take its prey – advanced in Shulk’s direction.
Dunban was up again, even with a limp arm, and moving slowly, fighting back against the Mechon. Dunban danced around the Mechon, striking at it from every side he could manage.
“Doctor, please!” Fiora begged.
“Hang on!” The Doctor grabbed the trigger mechanism, held the screwdriver to it, and pressed the activator.
He could feel the charge of particles, shooting out from the ends of the weathervane like the air before a lightning bolt struck.
With Dunban in the way, the Mechon’s ire visibly rose, as its deliberate strikes turned into wild swiping. Dunban dodged and rolled out of the way as best he could manage – until he couldn’t.
The hand slammed down, into the ground, and through Dunban’s leg in the process. The pale-faced Mechon closed its hand, and picked Dunban up.
Even from there, the Doctor could hear Shulk’s scream of Dunban’s name, and Fiora’s quiet, horrified gasp.
The air flashed blue – like the inside of a nuclear reactor – before every Mechon in the area sparked, sputtered, and toppled over. All of them, except the one holding Dunban.
In a single, swift, bloody strike, the Mechon shoved its blade-fingers right through Dunban’s torso.
“NO!” Fiora screamed as she moved, almost falling off the roof in the process, were it not for the Doctor. “DUNBAN!”
The Mechon turned its four-eyed head, first at Shulk and Reyn, then in the Doctor and Fiora’s direction, as it shook with silent laughter. It flicked its wrist, and Dunban began to slide part of the way off, before it tossed the man over the edge of the Colony’s railing, sending him plunging to the lake far, far below.
It took a step towards Shulk and Reyn, before a muffled ripple rolled through the air – like distant thunder. It turned, to see the carriers falling out of the air, smashing into the hillside. The pale-faced Mechon then turned around, finally noticing that its brethren were all on the ground, totally inert.
The red blur that was Shulk tore across the ground, but by then it was too late.
The Mechon jumped, and reconfigured into a vehicular alternate form, blasting away with an exhaust of blue light.
Shulk screamed at the sky. Loud enough that the Doctor could hear him, and his throat felt raw from pity-pain.
Fiora let out weak cries. “Dunban…”
The Doctor silently turned away.
It was the same story everywhere he turned up.
There was always someone he couldn’t help.
-----------
The Colony was damaged, but it could be repaired. The property, the lost goods in the market. What couldn’t be fixed was the lost people. Ossie’s father (thankfully, the man’s friends had survived, and were more than willing to take her in), Dunban, and all the other people lost during the attack.
The Doctor, for his part, felt guilty. There was something different about the pale-faced Mechon. If only he had worked it out in advance… or, instead of wasting time with the scrap, he could’ve just gone back to the TARDIS and used its engines to deliver the pulse.
In any case, it was too late for that now.
All they could do was pick everything up, and clean up their lives. Well… pick up what they could.
That next morning, after the Doctor was certain everything had passed, he began to walk, up to Dunban’s (now Fiora’s) house. A bit unsure, he cleared his throat, and knocked on the door.
It swung open, and he was met with Reyn on the other side.
“Doc?” The teenager’s eyebrows shot up. “What’re you doing here?”
“Ah, just… came by to check in.” The guilt was eating at him. Even though it was likely Fiora would’ve gotten herself in trouble, and his plan was the tactically sound thing, that didn’t stop him from feeling as though he was tangentially responsible. In a way.
“Oh. Okay,” Reyn coughed. “Actually, good thing you’re here, maybe you can-“
“Reyn,” Fiora addressed from behind. “Move out of the way.”
“No!” He immediately spun around. “I told you, you ain’t doing it!”
“Please, Fiora!” Shulk begged from inside the house. “Listen to us! It’s not- Dunban wouldn’t have wanted this!”
“He’s not here to stop me anymore,” Fiora growled, slipping underneath Reyn’s arm.
“What the-!?” Reyn spluttered. “Come on, Fiora!”
She stomped out, past the Doctor. She shot him a look – he didn’t know if it was a good look, or a bad one – and she moved on.
“Fiora, this isn’t-“ Shulk, still with the Monado on his back, walked behind her. “This isn’t a good idea! You need to stop for a second!”
“They attacked the Colony!” Fiora raised her voice, spinning around to angrily point at him. “They killed my brother! And you’re saying… what? That I shouldn’t be angry!?”
“I’m not-“ Shulk sighed, slumping over. “I’m not saying that.” He shook his head. “Dunban is… He’s like my brother too.”
“Then you know why I must.”
“I know!” Shulk shouted in response. “I want nothing more than to hunt the Mechon down! Make them pay for what they’ve done! But if we lose you-“ He cut himself off, very clearly not wanting to even entertain the thought.
“You might want to get out of here,” Reyn advised the Doctor at a whisper. “They start going at it, you’ll never hear the end.”
“Hang on, it’s…” The Doctor blinked. “All of that was just last night. It’s a bit early to make decisions about this, isn’t it?”
“What,” Fiora turned to the Doctor, narrowing her eyes. “Is that supposed to mean? I can’t decide what to do because it just happened?”
“Well, no, but…” The Doctor scratched the back of his head. “Isn’t there a funeral? Or a wake?”
Fiora’s eyes watered slightly, before she took a breath, and fought back the sniffles. “We can’t find his body. He was thrown into the lake. He could have washed up on shore, or…”
“Or sunk to the bottom,” Reyn mutedly finished.
“Oh… Oh, Fiora, I’m sorry.” The Doctor looked at her with nothing less than total sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”
Fiora sucked in a breath, and offered him a rueful smile. “He’s been returned to the Bionis. That’s the way, right? And… don’t apologize,” She swallowed. “He would’ve wanted me away from that mess anyway.”
“And he would’ve wanted you to do this?” Shulk piercingly questioned.
“Hang on, do what?” The Doctor questioned.
“I’m going to find it,” Fiora resolved. “That Mechon. I’m going to make sure it can’t hurt any of us, ever again. It, and the rest of the Mechon. I’ll destroy them.”
Reyn let out a belt of laughter, which earned him a sharp, withering glare from Fiora.
“Sorry, sorry!” Reyn quickly held up his hands. “I believe you, that’s the problem!”
“What?” Fiora tilted her head at him.
“Fiora, you’re Dunban’s sister.” Reyn began, “If fighting Mechon’s gonna come naturally to anyone, it’s gotta be you. Thing is, knowing Dunban, I don’t think he’d want you going off half-cocked trying to bust up the Mechon, but he’d know he couldn’t stop ya either.”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…” The Doctor commented, causing Reyn to point at him in agreement.
“But he’d roll over in his grave if he knew you were going to go into trouble, and you didn’t have backup.” Reyn nodded, clenching a fist for emphasis. “So, count me in.”
“Reyn!” Shulk turned to him, appalled.
“What?” The redhead shrugged. “We was gonna do it anyway!”
“What?” Fiora leveled a glare at Shulk.
Shulk winced. “I did say he was like a brother to me as well…”
“I can’t believe it!” Fiora stomped her foot indignantly. “You were going to guilt trip me into staying here, then go running off into trouble!?”
“Tell you what!” The Doctor cut in, slinging his arms around Reyn and Fiora, looking between them with a crooked grin. “Why don’t we all go?”
“What?” Shulk blinked dimly at the Doctor. “All of us?”
“The more the merrier, right?”
“He’s got my vote!” Reyn grinned. “After that magic he worked on the Mechon!” He turned to the Doctor, curious. “What did you do?”
“Oh, just an excitation of the local ether field, creating energy feedback that overloaded the Mechon’s barriers and shorted out their power systems in the process.” He rattled off like it was just that simple. Well, for him at least, it was.
Shulk, at the Doctor’s little bit of technobabble, switched gears from worrying about Fiora, to looking intrigued. “Really? How come we never thought of that…”
“Well, like you said, most of the time the force you use to break a Mechon destroys everything inside. I’d say there’s probably a very sensitive barrier generator that fails more often than not, so there’s no way to tell they even had a barrier, until now.”
Fiora cleared her throat, looking pointedly at the Doctor to silence him, then to Shulk. “Well? Do you want to come?”
Shulk went quiet, staying that way for a few moments, before he shook his head in resignation. “Of course I want to come. I was going to go myself But it’s going to be dangerous. We have no solid idea of where we’re going. And we’re just four people against the entire Mechon army.”
“Yes,” Fiora nodded, before pointing at the odd weapon. “But you do have that.”
Shulk shot a look over at the Monado, looking at it uncertainly. “Yes… I do. But still,” He looked at his friends and the Doctor nervously. “It’s going to be tough.”
“Oh, there’s nothing worth doing that isn’t!” The Doctor answered. “And you never know, we might figure out a way to get the Mechon to stop that doesn’t involve destroying them all. So, have a bit of hope there.”
“All right,” Shulk crossed his arms thoughtfully. “But… we still don’t know where to go.”
“There’s always Colony 6,” Reyn suggested. “On the way to Sword Valley.”
“Sword Valley…” Fiora repeated, following Reyn’s train of thought. “I get what you’re saying. If the Mechon came from that way, they would’ve had to have seen something!”
Reyn nodded. “Exactly.”
“It’s not a bad plan,” Shulk murmured. “We probably would’ve wound up heading there anyway since it’s the only Mechon base we know of…”
“Right then!” The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets, and began to lead the way. “Come on, you lot! We get moving, we can be there by the end of the day!”
“The end of the-?” Reyn huffed. “It’s all the way on the Bionis’ waist! Unless you’re planning on running the whole way there, you might want to get used to spending the night camping a few times.”
“Oh, camping!” The Doctor continued on, leading them across the grass, out of the Colony. “Camping’s good, I like camping. You know, human beings; one of the few species in the universe that’ll go out into the wilderness and spend the night for a bit of fun! Not as a lifestyle choice, not because you have to, but because you say to yourselves ‘hey, it’ll be fun to go primitive for a while.’”
Even without looking, the Doctor could see them looking at each other, bemused.
“But, no – as it happens, I’ve got transport.” The Doctor continued up the hill. “Allons-y!”
The others just fell into step behind the Time Lord, and let him lead the way back to the TARDIS.
Chapter Text
The chamber was silent, long abandoned by the hands that had once given it purpose. In the heart of Elysium, where the Architect’s forgotten artifices and creations lay dormant, and dust gathered on worktables that no longer thrummed with activity from their artisan, there was one presence that had not dimmed with the passage of time.
In the void between worlds, He existed, stretched thin across two realities. Coterminous. His being divided but with no distance between them. On one side, God, a cruel God, perched atop an endless cycle of death and rebirth. On the other, he was also God, a distant God, a creator who watched his flawed world spin out of control.
He was two, and the two were one, but also distinct and uniquely themselves. The Id and the Superego.
Time had long since become meaningless to him, a broken construct. Millennia passed in a heartbeat, and an eternity stretched out in the blink of an eye. He was everywhere and nowhere, a fractured god holding together the shattered pieces of what remained of his existence. Yet even in his endless watch over the fates he had set into motion, something stirred—a ripple in the fabric of his carefully crafted worlds.
Two strangers. They did not belong.
The metal eyes of God looked down upon the world of Alrest, landing on a man young on the outside, but his eyes darting with sharp intelligence, and filled with boundless sorrow. He was like a gust of wind, light on his feet but carrying the weight of lifetimes. He stepped into the remnants of the grand design with curiosity, taking in the dying Titans, the warring nations, and the whisper of a divine presence he couldn’t quite place. This stranger carried a familiar energy—one that He felt somewhere before but couldn’t recognize.
Meanwhile, across the great divide, in the lands of the Bionis and the Mechonis, His senses alerted him to the sight of another. Slightly older in appearance, but with eyes that gleamed with mischief and a deep, ancient wisdom. He moved through the fields of giants, a mere speck compared to the vast bodies of the titanic gods, yet his presence caused ripples in the very core of the world. He was a disturbance—a dissonant note in the carefully orchestrated balance of the Monado’s domain.
Who were they? They were like shadows in his vision—unpredictable, elusive, beyond even his godly understanding.
Then the sensory information from both sides came back. Part from metal eyes invisible to the world they orbited, the rest from the divine weapon carried by a child that knew not what was in his grasp. An energy source, so powerful. So vast it might be able to challenge the source of his own divinity.
He looked towards the sources, and the Two-Fold God did freeze.
It was there, in both worlds. An innocuous, dare he say it, ordinary-looking object. Ordinary, mundane to the untrained eye. But his eyes were not untrained.
He knew that craft. A blue box made of wood with a lightbulb on top. But what lay inside…
The weight of infinite power, a machine far beyond that which humankind could have ever dreamed. Awe rippled through his fragmented consciousness. Here was something that could bend time and space, fold it into dimensions he had once dreamed of mastering. For a moment, he felt a pang of fear, his calculations faltering as he realized the implications of such an artifact in his world. A symbol of hope, once, to ones like him, who had read the stories, and knew that they had a guardian angel looking out for them.
But now, so long after his greatest sin… it would only be the sign that Judgement would finally come to pass upon him.
God judges man for his crimes. But who judges God for His?
The Doctor’s TARDIS sat fixed in both worlds, the currents and flows of time adjusting around them like a river around a boulder. Standing as doorways to all possible times, in all possible universes.
The Id seethed. All he felt was burning, spiteful, rage. How dare this thing exist in his domain, beyond his creation!? Fury burned within him, the god snarling at the insolence of the intruder. The vessel and its owner radiated a presence that mocked him. There were no higher authorities. No extra-human intelligences or Lords of Time, there was only him. He felt his divinity challenged, his control slipping.
But beneath the rage, something else slithered through his mind: avarice. The Id, driven by instinct and desire, hungered for it. A machine that held power over time and space — something that could bend reality to its will, and travel back to that ephemeral place from whence he came. And he wanted it. No, he needed it. If he could control it, he would not only rule his world; he would transcend it. He could move beyond his tiny shadow of a world, become a god of all places. All times.
And yet, the Superego was calm. In Alrest, he watched the elder stranger move among the ruins of his creation, touching the last remnants of what once was. The Superego, resigned to his failure, knew the futility of intervention. His time as a god, as a maker, was ending. Whether this stranger’s arrival hastened that end or merely observed it, he could not say. Perhaps it didn’t matter.
Two halves of a god. One raged, the other despaired. Yet both knew something had changed.
The Id longed to crush them, to bring them under his rule as he had all others, to bind them to the cycle of life and death that gave him power. But the Superego only watched.
He stared at that marvelous machine, and although the owner looked different – no longer a man of Edwardian dress sense and luscious curls with a soulful, mysterious gaze – it was clear exactly who it was, running around in both worlds.
“Doctor…” The Superego spoke aloud for the first time in millennia.
What business would the Last of the Time Lords have in his world? A higher alien intelligence, visiting his creation…
It could only mean trouble.
------------
“No, Reyn…” The Doctor yawned. “That’s the friction contrafribulator…”
Then, he snapped back to awareness, keenly aware of the fact that his brain just had a bit of a tumble.
“Ah!” The Doctor gasped out, slapping a hand against his forehead. His chest ached and itched, and he felt sore in more than a few spots. “Oh, I’ve got to stop doing that…” He wasn’t a spring chicken anymore. Well, he was, but one of these days, jumping without a plan was going to get himself killed.
The Doctor stood up, rubbing the tender spot on the back of his neck. Taking a look around, he found he was standing in a ruined area. How he got there was a bit of a mystery. He remembered a flying dragon, harpoons…
The Time Lord gasped, hearing respirating coming from down the way. “Nia!” He whipped around, following the sound of breathing over to the figure on the ground. “Hello!” He snapped his fingers, and her ears twitched.
He pulled out the sonic screwdriver, and flicked it open, running a quick medical scan.
<ERROR: METAL NOT IN RANGE>
The Time Lord looked at his trusty instrument. It was stuck on the wire repair setting. He slapped it in his hands, as the Screwdriver spat out random error logs.
<ISOLATED SONIC SHIFT: MOLECULAR ARCHITECTURE CALCULATION IN PROGRESS>
<Memory allocation near limit! Here are some apps you haven’t used in a while: Screwdriver. Karaoke microphone. Jelly Baby Locator. [THE SETTING THAT SHOULD WORK ON WOOD!!!:)]>
“Come on, don’t do this!” The Doctor slapped the screwdriver in his hand yet again, trying to knock the off-kilter circuits back into place, glancing at the readouts. “You’re the most sophisticated piece of technology in this whole timezone, you don’t break from impact damage!” A program flashed across the desktop at lightspeed, accompanied by a notification, which the Doctor slapped away again. “Not now, Monika!”
Like that had spurred it on, the Screwdriver suddenly started to work again, switching to the right setting, allowing him to take his scan.
<ALERT! Appreciable non-human element detected. Please confirm with local physicians that any medical services rendered will not cause harm due to being formulated for members of another species.>
The Doctor held it up to his face, and scowled at his trusty tool. “Well of course there’s a non-human element! Look at the cat ears!” He slapped the instrument to clear the warning, and continued.
Nia stirred. “Doc…tor?”
“Hold still,” He advised. “Just your basic look-over, making sure nothing’s wrong-“ Blood sugar levels appeared normal, no sign of dehydration, nothing broken, no concussion…
The cat-eared girl’s eyes popped open, her face twisted in rage, and before he could even react, she’d slugged him across the face so hard he fell down.
“What the-!?” The Doctor held his hand up to his sore jaw. “OW!!! What the hell was that for!?”
Nia pushed herself off the ground, and stomped over to the Doctor. “You idiot!” Nia snarled. “What were you thinking, egging on Malos like that!?”
“You’re going to blame me for him trying to kill us all!?” The Doctor squeaked defensively.
“Since he said as much – yes!” Nia smacked him again. “You could’ve gotten us all killed, you bloody moron! Everything was fine, till you just had to open your mouth!”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not the kind of man who just takes things lying down!” The Doctor shot her an angry glare, rubbing his cheek. “Ow!”
“It was a simple in-and-out,” Nia hissed. “Grab the Aegis and leave. Then you had to go and get in Malos’s face, and go touching things, and-and pull a sword on him!”
“If you recall,” The Doctor coughed. “He pulled the sword on me first. Well, actually, it was Jin-“
“And he stabbed you through the heart!” Nia paled, looking at the tear in the Doctor’s spacesuit. “Oh my god, Jin stabbed you through the heart.” Her entire demeanor changed, “Take off that suit, let me see.”
The corner of the Doctor’s lips twitched. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Nia spat. “Not while you’re bleeding out. I don’t see Dromarch around, but I’ve still got his rings – I can help.” She moved to tug at one of his suit’s straps.
“Nia, I’m fine,” He gently took hold of her wrists, and pushed her arms away.
“Of course not – you’ve been stabbed through… the…” She trailed off, staring at the tear. “I can’t believe it.”
The Doctor’s head tilted to display his confusion. “Eh?”
“Your name – and you won’t even let me check…” Nia shook her head. “I’m stupid; nobody’s name is just ‘Doctor…’” She looked into his eyes, her face tensing nervously. “Are you… like me?”
The Doctor leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Why? What are you like, Nia?”
In the span of a second, her act shifted again, and she went from a nervous wreck, to a stern woman. “Well, if you have to ask, that’s a ‘no,’ then.” Nia shook her head, glaring at him still. “But I’m not letting this go!” She pointed at him. “You got stabbed through the damn chest, then had a swordfight with two of the fastest men alive, and won. There’s no way I’m letting you keep that untreated.”
The Doctor, figuring that there was nothing he could do at this point to get out of it, sighed, and directed his attention to his suit. It was made to survive extreme conditions – but it wasn’t armor. The 41st century fabric was torn in all sorts of places, the patch had fallen off, and the less said about the gloves, the better.
The Doctor began to pull the spacesuit off, letting his normal clothes underneath get a breath of air.
As the Doctor tossed the portions of his suit to the side, he heard snickering.
“What?” He directed at Nia.
“You really dress like that?” She teased.
The Doctor’s hand immediately went up to his tie. “Bow ties are cool.”
That only made her laugh harder. “You look like a Nopon’s idea of a businessman!”
“Oi!” The Doctor hollered. “This is an extremely refined, dignified outfit, and-“ He felt the air tickle his skin, and looked down. “My shirt!” He cried upon witnessing the tear. He slung his jacket off his shoulders, and swung it around to look at the back. “My jacket! Oh, this is why I’ve stopped hanging around with swordsmen – they’re always ruining my outfits!” He stuck a finger through the tear, wincing as he pushed through.
At least the air conditioning still worked.
“Oh, stop whining, you big baby. At least you survived.” Nia rolled her eyes. “Now, let me-“ Before he could stop her, Nia’s hands went out, widening the tear in the Doctor’s shirt in the front as she pulled it open.
The young lady froze in her tracks, upon seeing the Doctor’s skin – completely free of breaks and blood. There was a weak, matted spot of scar tissue, but it appeared as though it had been healing for months. Not hours.
“But… but…” Nia stammered in confusion. “I saw the sword go through you. And the blood. And your clothes are torn.” She moved around to the Doctor’s back, the Time Lord standing still while she peeked through the rip on the back. “You’re not even wounded! But how!?”
The Doctor looked her up and down. “You tell me.”
Nia refocused on him with newfound suspicion. “Are you a Flesh Eater?”
The Doctor stared back at her in confusion. “Well of course I’m a flesh eater – I eat meat, don’t I? Though, strictly speaking, that epithet sounds a bit rude. Carnivore would be kinder, wouldn’t it?”
“No!” Nia snapped, going red in the face. “Not Flesh Eater as in you eat flesh, but-“ She let out a shaky sigh, covering her face. “Forget it. How did you do that!?”
“That’s just me for you,” The Doctor attempted to deflect.
“Oi, I’m not buying that!” Nia hollered at him. “I saw you get stabbed! There’s no way you healed from that in just a few minutes!”
“Oh, hours,” The Doctor licked a finger, and held it up. “Yes, we’re about… ten hours from sunrise, I think.” He held the Sonic Screwdriver to the tear, and hit the button, allowing the green-coloured emissions to wash over the sundered fabric. The molecular structure of the fibers connected to their separate counterparts, encouraged by the energy and the micro-fabricator built into the Screwdriver.
“Hey, you can’t just ignore me like that! I want an explanation!”
“I told you – that’s just how I roll.” The Doctor shrugged. “Do me a favor – point this at the rip on my back and hold down the button?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I asked nicely?” The Doctor blinked at her.
Nia sighed, took the Screwdriver, and obeyed. “Are you going to tell me you’re all fine and to ignore you?”
“Probably.”
“Despite the fact you were stabbed in the back?”
“Probably.” The Doctor shrugged. He didn’t feel the buzz of the energy against him, so he knew Nia was looking over the entry wound anyway. He didn’t mind.
“There’s not even a scar,” Nia whispered. “Are you even human?”
The Doctor looked at her curiously. “He could’ve just missed.”
“I told you; I saw the blood.”
The Time Lord sighed. “If I promise to explain when we find the others, can you wait?”
Though he had his back turned to her, he could tell Nia was frowning. “…fine. But I’m holding you to that!” Then, the buzz of the Screwdriver, and the tear on the back of the Doctor’s shirt repaired itself.
“Good stuff,” The Doctor took the Screwdriver back, and repaired the tear in his jacket, throwing it back over his shoulder. He gave it a tug, straightened his bow-tie, and snapped his bracers. He clapped his hands, turning to her with a grin. “Right! So, where do we start, eh?”
“Dromarch has a pretty good sense of smell,” Nia recalled. “If we can find him, he can sniff out the others.”
“Oh, good idea!” The Doctor pointed the screwdriver, and began to scan.
“Oi!” Nia slapped it out of her face. “What’s all that about? Pointing a torch at me’s not going to help!”
“I told you lot back in the ship – sonic screwdriver,” The Doctor pointed it back at her.
“Well, I’m not a screw that needs driving!” She slapped it away again.
“It scans things too!” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Hold still, please! Honestly, I’m not convinced those cat ears are just for show, anymore…”
Nia tensed up. “It scans? Like… a checkup in a little penlight?”
“If you like?” The Doctor shrugged.
She slapped it away, harder than before. She was playing, then, now she really seemed pissed off. “That’s not something you just do.”
“Do you want to find your friend or not?” The Doctor questioned of her in response. “I can do a scan for life, but all these plants and whatnot, they’ll clog up the sensors. I need something unique to Dromarch that I can trace back to him.”
“Why don’t you just set it to ‘Blade’ and be done with it?”
“Doesn’t know what Blades are made of,” The Doctor shrugged.
“So then why are you scanning me?”
The Doctor licked his lips for a moment. She was being awfully defensive – and he hadn’t seen that many people with the cat ears at Argentum. Made sense – with the screwdriver hollering about non-human elements, and her very obvious ears, it was possible that racism was alive and well on this Warped Earth. Or, Alrest.
At least to calm her down, the Doctor began to explain. “You Drivers – you’re linked to your Blades on some level, yes?”
“An Affinity Link, yeah.”
The Doctor nodded. “I should be able to find that link, and follow it to your Blade.”
“That won’t work,” Nia scoffed. “Affinity Links only flare up when a Driver gets close.”
“Maybe – but that link is still flowing,” The Doctor gestured. “Like a river – even if all the water dries up to a trickle, the path is still there. You’re just not close enough for that water to pool up and amount to anything more than a trickle. And-“ He flicked the Screwdriver open, pointed it in a direction, and listen as the buzzing shifted in pitch. “I just found our river. Come along, Nia!” He ran ahead on the path.
“Wait, what about your suit!?”
“Leave it – too complicated to fix out here!”
Nia huffed, and took off after him.
------------
It wasn’t long before they heard the lion’s roar, and found him ripping apart some of the local wildlife. Giant, overgrown frogs, with enormous spiky teeth in their mouths.
“Dromarch!” Nia rushed over, engaging her twin rings. “I leave you for five minutes, and where do I find you? Fighting a bunch of Brogs!”
“It’s good to see you too, my lady,” Dromarch drawled not unkindly in response, as one of the Brogs dissolved into light. “I was attempting to follow your scent, but I became… sidetracked.”
“Fighting Brogs – well, at least someone’s having fun!”
“Big giant frogs,” The Doctor leveled the Sonic Screwdriver at the animals, pointing wildly between them, unable to decide which one should be his target, as they crawled over. “Big, mean-looking frogs. I know! ‘All glory to the Hypnotoad!’” He grinned, which swiftly evaporated as he noticed they were still very mean, and very hungry looking. “No? Worth a shot, at least.”
“Quit pointing that thing around and grab that sword you took from Rex!”
“Can’t!” The Doctor forced out, as one of the Brogs jumped, and he threw himself to the side, pulling Nia out of the way before she could be tackled.
As soon as it landed, Nia grabbed hold of Dromarch’s rings, and jumped over to the Brog, sending them diving into the flesh of the creature as a band of cold blue light began to flow between her and her Blade. “What do you mean can’t!?”
“I mean I lost it!” The Doctor recalled waking up, and the junk sword wasn’t anywhere near him. So, he was back down to the Screwdriver.
“Oh for the love of-“ Nia sputtered, shaking her head as the Brog tried to jump up, and spread its arms out. “Dromarch!” She jumped back, and surged forward, sending the rings into the Brog’s side. “Gemini Loop!”
The Doctor’s concentration broke for a moment. “Did… Did you just call out your attacks!?”
“It helps!” Nia defensively countered. “Dromarch and I are connected, but he can’t read my mind!”
“That happened! That was a thing that you just did!” The Doctor’s mouth floundered around momentarily. “Malos did that too!”
“Are you going to stand there and whinge about Driver techniques, or are you gonna help!?”
The Doctor recoiled, but launched into motion. “Draw it’s attention!”
“Can’t help that right now!”
“Well, might as well have made it part of the plan, that way you could feel better about it!” The Doctor ran around the back of the Brog, and jumped onto its back. Like an angry bull, the giant mutated frog began to buck and try to launch the Doctor off. The Brog, much like its smaller brethren, was coated in a layer of mucous or slime, making it very hard for him to stay up there, but he did.
The Time Lord grabbed onto one of the cartilaginous horns, and placed his hand down in the space between them. The nerve-endings in his hand burst into activity, and his mind reached out to the Brog’s.
“Shh…” The Doctor soothed. “That’s it… Easy, girl.”
The Brog let out a whine as it suddenly felt a wave of calm wash over it.
“There, you see?” The Doctor grinned, looking down to the dumbfounded Nia. “Just need to know how to speak the right language!”
“Incredible…” Dromarch rumbled in awe.
“H-How the hell did you do that?” Nia spluttered, as the Doctor jumped down, and smugly clapped his hands, as the Brog hopped away. Its confused partner had no choice but to follow, and they hopped off into the woods.
“I spent a very good summer with a family of frogs, actually. Well, I say frogs, they were more like toads… and they were part fungi… and a bit carnivorous.” The Doctor gestured as his train of thought got away from him.
Nia stared at the Time Lord. “Do you just spout random shite, or is there a point to all that?”
The Doctor shrugged, straightening his bow tie. “You asked.”
“Nia! Doctor!” A voice carried through the brush, and they turned to see Rex and that woman, Pyra, running towards them. “You’re alive!”
“Oh, alive and well,” Nia crossed her arms. “Without a scratch. Somehow.” She shot a look at Rex. “Nice of you to join us.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault we got separated!” Rex pointed out indignantly. “I woke up on… Me and Pyra woke up way far down there! We just had to kinda pick a direction and hope we found ya!”
Pyra held a hand over that cross-shaped crystal in her chest. “It wasn’t until we got closer that I could feel you and Dromarch fighting. We followed the trail, saw the Doctor’s suit, and…”
“I mean, I ain’t gonna lie,” Rex cut her off. “We kinda assumed the worst, for a second there?”
“What for?” Nia huffed, crossing her arms. “We only just met, why’re you going and worrying about me?”
“Well… you did help against Malos and Jin?”
“I wouldn’t have had to,” Nia glared at the Doctor. “If someone hadn’t pissed off Malos before we even got what we were looking for!”
“It’s not my fault the man doesn’t know the meaning of the word no,” The Doctor defensively crossed his arms.
“Hey, who’s fault it is, that doesn’t matter,” Rex shook his head.
“Yes, I rather get the feeling Malos was planning to hurt someone anyway,” The Doctor shot a glance at Pyra, whilst Nia sighed, and shook her head.
“I suppose.” Nia conceded, pouting slightly. Her eyes wandered over to Rex, and her look softened. “Well, you survived. That’s good.”
“Was… was that up for interpretation?”
Nia shrugged. “Jin’s no pushover. You held your own against him. Not many people can say that.”
The Doctor searched the forest, frowning. “Sorry, don’t want to interrupt, but I can’t help but notice we’re missing a rather large, dragon-shaped rescuer?”
“Ah, that would be me, yes.” A tiny, high-pitched voice, that also sounded gravelly and aged, piped up from behind Rex.
“Wait, what!?” Nia’s eyes popped out of their sockets. “Seriously? How!? First he gets a sword through the back and walks it off, now there’re Titans shrinking back down into babies?”
“If you would like,” The Titan shook his tiny little head. He was actually somewhat cute – like a plump little cat with dragon wings. “I had taken quite a bit of damage in that little fracas, actually. Enough to where I wouldn’t have survived! But there’s a way around that, you see. Using the spare genetic material and energy from the rest of my biomass, I-“
“You can use it all as fuel to overdrive cellular regeneration, repairing DNA errors incurred over your lifetime, resetting cellular development, and triggering a reversion into a larval state!” The Doctor finished with a wide-eyed smile.
“Well… yes!” The little titan puffed out his chest proudly. “You’re a sharp young man!”
“Oh, my people can do the same thing.” The Doctor smiled, putting the screwdriver away.
“What?” Rex blinked. “But, Gramps is a Titan. You’re a guy.”
“It’d explain how he survived getting a sword to the chest.” Nia mumbled.
Pyra tilted her head curiously. “Who did you say you were, again?”
“Oh, that’s right – introductions weren’t a thing that happened, with everything going explodey-wodey around us. I’m the Doctor.”
“The Doctor…” Pyra’s brow furrowed, before she smiled. “Lovely to meet you, Doctor.”
“And I am Azurda,” Gramps properly introduced himself. “Now that introductions are out of the way, there is much to discuss.”
“Right,” Nia glanced at the Doctor once again.
“Is right here the best place for it?” Rex inquired. “Just… in case any Brogs come back?”
“A wise decision,” Dromarch rumbled. “I noticed a spot further down the way. It’s at the top of a steep ledge… but no monsters should be able to attack us while we’re up there.”
“Good idea,” Nia nodded. “Lead the way.”
-------------
While they made camp, the Doctor could get a look at the foliage around them, and the fauna that made the place home. They all appeared close to Earth species, but not quite. Two-thousand years was a long time, but from an evolutionary perspective, it was barely a blink. Such vast differences in morphology shouldn’t have happened, unless they were vastly accelerated. Artificially introduced, or…
Something had happened. The Doctor wasn’t sure what, but the answer was in that giant World Tree. He was sure of it.
As Rex put the last log on, Pyra lit the fire, mercifully taking a bit of the workload off the Sonic Screwdriver.
“So,” The Doctor clapped his hands with a smile, looking at Pyra to get the conversation started. “That big boat at the bottom of the sea – the one Malos wanted into so bad – you were what he was trying to get at, wasn’t it?”
Pyra looked uncomfortable for a moment, before nodding. “I guess so. I don’t know why.”
“Hold on,” Nia leaned forward, looking over the fire at the Doctor. “You said you were going to explain – so explain.”
“Well, technically, I didn’t say I would, I only asked if you’d let it go if I said I would. You filled in the rest.” The Doctor flippantly answered.
“I said I was holding you to that explanation.”
Rex cleared his throat. “Um… didn’t you say you could do something like Gramps did?”
“Something similar,” Azurda poked up from out of Rex’s helmet. “But not quite, I take it. You see, Rex, the energy exchange isn’t perfect. Much of it is lost in the form of waste heat and light. Hence why I reverted to a larval state, and not, say… a pubescent state.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, “You’re a perspective one.”
“I’m 1300, Doctor.” Azurda replied with a chuckle. “I’ve been around, a time or two.”
“Well, I’ve lived for a few centuries myself, so…”
Nia let out a quick, biting chuckle. “Oh, get out!”
The Doctor glanced at her. “I have!”
“You don’t look two-thousand,” Rex skeptically noted, straightening up. “Unless… Wait, are you a Blade? Or… part Indoline, or something?”
“Nope,” The Doctor easily shook his head.
“But… I saw you,” Rex struggled for a moment. “You got stabbed through the heart. I’ve only heard of Blades being able to do that.”
“…not always,” Pyra spoke up with a solemn tone. “Blades can survive mostly anything… unless their Core Crystals are broken. And on most humanoid Blades, the Core Crystal is where hearts are.”
“Like you,” Rex noted.
Pyra nodded. “Like me.”
“Okay,” The Doctor impatiently rolled his eyes. “Since you really want to know, Nia,” He took her hand.
“What are you-?”
The Doctor put Nia’s hand to his chest, waiting.
“…that’s not- that’s not right,” Nia whispered, staring at her hand in shock. She moved her palm, feeling around.
The Doctor knowingly chuckled. “Go on, say it.”
“Two hearts…” Nia breathed out. “You have two hearts!?”
“Oh, you lot, that always trips you up,” The Doctor laughed under his breath. “It’s just a little extra heart. Organ redundancies, you know. “
“Uh… Doctor?” Rex scratched his head. “Why do you have two hearts?”
“Not human, of course.”
They all stared at him in stunned silence.
“Oh, come off it,” Nia scoffed. “You look human.”
“Indeed,” Azurda poked his head out of Rex’s helmet. “Just as some Blades look human, it seems our friend here only appears human as well.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a Blade?” Pyra tilted her head at the Doctor. “Your disguise is very convincing.”
“No,” The Doctor chuckled. “Like I said, not a Blade. I’m… Well, I’m an alien.”
“…an alien?” Rex blinked.
“Sir, truly you do not mean to say…” Dromarch began in shock. “A creature from another world?”
The Doctor shot the Blade a sideways look. “Well it’s a bit mean to say creature… But yes.” The Doctor pointed at himself. “The genuine article here for you.”
“…that’s impossible.” Nia drawled.
“There’s always been some discussion about the likelihood of other worlds than these,” Azurda philosophically hummed. “What life would be like around distant stars – it seems we’ve found it. Or, rather, it has found us.”
“Oi! You make that sound threatening!”
“Well if you were hunting people in the woods late at night, the last thing I’d feel is threatened.” Nia commented. “A bow tie?”
“It’s cool!”
“…Architect alive, you really are from another planet.”
“So your… alien-ness let you survive?” Rex probed further.
“In a nutshell, yes,” The Doctor hit his chest for emphasis. “Jin was aiming for my heart – or, rather, where my heart would be if I were human. But, like I’ve said, I’ve got two. He hit an artery or two, but my people are wonderful clotters.” He blinked. “That sounds… vaguely pejorative. Anyway, my blood’s a bit different than yours. Yours just clots – all those platelets joining together to plug the leak – mine doesn’t just plug the leak. They can assume the function of any missing or damaged cells until my body constructs the actual replacements. Including skin.”
“But what about your lungs!?” Nia hissed. “And your spine? There’s no way Jin missed those!”
“I told you – I’m an alien!” The Doctor answered with a smile. “I’ve got two of everything that humans have one of. Including the spinal column… Well, sort of. You can’t fit two spinal columns into one body, but it does have its redundancies. Plus our biology’s just a whole lot more robust – we can heal from things you can’t, including severed spinal cords. Lungs,” The Doctor clapped, “I don’t have those. Can you imagine, having to take in all that air into two central organs that might fail? No, we’ve got tubes. A bit like bugs.”
“So when Jin hit you, he missed your vital organs,” Pyra pieced together.
The Doctor snapped his fingers, pointing at her. “And even if he had hit them, I would’ve been fine. If you want to kill a Time Lord, don’t use a sword.”
“Hold on, if you’re an alien, does that mean…” Rex paled. “Did Jin stab an ambassador?”
The Doctor actually laughed at that. “I like the way you think! But, no, just me on my own. No official business or anything like that. Just showed up here, at random. My… ship had a bit of a crash-landing, you see. Decided to have a look around.”
“That’s why you didn’t know where you were!” Rex pieced together. “Or the story of the World Tree!”
“Got it in one.”
“Son of a…” Nia dimly blinked, shaking her head. “No, that’s not possible. You had a medical potion, or a hidden Blade, or that Screwdriver thing.”
“Believe me or not,” The Doctor flippantly shrugged. “Won’t change my explanation. Now, since you lot got your answers out of me, Pyra,” He fixed a kind, yet curious look onto the redhead. “Things went a bit pear-shaped near the end, there. Didn’t have time for a proper chat.”
“Yes…” She took a shaky breath. “I suppose now is a good time for an explanation… I’m Pyra. And yes, Malos was there for me.”
“For you?” Nia looked her up and down. “…there’s a market for pretty Blades out there, but I didn’t think Malos dealt in it.”
Pyra didn’t seem to find any humor in it, and shook her head. “No, he’s… Well. It’s complicated.”
“It’s all right,” Rex kindly encouraged. “Take your time.”
“Yeah,” Pyra inhaled. “Okay, um… How should I start?” She thinned her lips.
“Well,” Rex scratched his head. “I would like to know what Malos meant when I said I made myself an Aegis Driver… whatever that is?”
“That,” Pyra nodded. “Okay. That chamber I was in, when you found me; I wasn’t asleep. Not entirely. I could feel what was happening in that room. And when you guys showed up…”
“You knew we were there,” Nia crossed her arms. “Explains how you woke up just in the nick of time.”
Pyra nodded. “Rex grabbed onto my sword to defend the Doctor. The moment he did, he resonated with me. I could feel Rex’s desire to protect, so… I woke up. You know the rest from there.”
“So, this Malos? What’s he to you?” The Doctor gently probed. “Cause that’s an awful lot of trouble for someone to go to. Hiring a ship, vetting all the crew… why you?”
“…that’s complicated.” Pyra sighed. “Really complicated.” She pressed her hands together. “Rex, you said you were wondering what Malos meant? Put simply, I’m the Aegis.”
“…the what?” Rex cluelessly blinked.
“Yes, I was rather curious about that myself,” The Doctor mumbled.
“Young people,” Azurda shook his head. “What has the education system come to, these days?”
“I told you, I’m an alien,” The Doctor tugged on his jacket.
“And a few centuries old?” Nia finished with a hint of skeptical teasing.
“That’s what I said.”
“I’m five-hundred,” Pyra reflexively entered in, before looking up. “Or… do we count the time I was asleep?”
“That typically depends upon who is doing the counting,” Dromarch rumbled. “When it comes to Blade ages, everyone has a different answer.”
“Hang on,” Nia tilted her head. “Five-hundred? That would put you…”
“Right around the time of the Aegis War, yes.” Azurda answered for Nia.
“Sorry,” The Doctor raised a hand like a confused schoolchild, with an equally clueless grin. “Alien, remember. You keep saying things and not explaining. A bit like me, actually. Is this what it’s like to be on the other end?”
“A bit, yeah.” Nia muttered.
Azurda cleared his throat. “Well, for the benefit of far-removed travelers… and those who never paid attention to my stories when they were a child… allow me to explain. Long ago, when the world was young, the Architect cast humanity out from Elysium for reasons unknown. He sent with them the Titans, so that they may have land to stand upon, and the Blades, so that the fledgling humanity would have guides, companions, and trusted partners to guide them through this new world.”
Pyra smiled upon hearing the story, idly bouncing her leg.
“But, like all manner of creatures, there was a first specimen.” Azurda continued. “A firstborn child. With the Blades, it was no different. Befitting its status as the first Blade ever created, the Architect imbued it with a portion of His fantastical powers, and otherworldly wisdom.”
A wan laugh escaped Pyra’s mouth. “The power part might be true. Not sure about the ‘wisdom.’”
“Oh, don’t say that,” The Doctor encouraged with a smile. “Ignorance is believing you know everything. True wisdom is knowing that you don’t.”
“Indeed,” Azurda chorused with a kind smile. “In any case, the Architect created that first Blade, and He called it the Aegis.”
“Like in the Iliad?” The Doctor hummed thoughtfully, missing Pyra’s look of surprise. “The Aegis – something meaning protection, or support. Bit on the nose, for something meant to protect humanity, but I’m not the one who named it, so…”
“Quite so,” Azurda floated up.
“I’m… Well, I suppose you could say I’m that first Blade.” Pyra shifted. “I’m the Aegis.”
“Hello, the Aegis, I’m the Doctor.” The Time Lord gave her a comical smile, and wiggled his fingers. It was clear she was tense, so hopefully it eased her a bit.
Pyra did chuckle a little bit. “Nice to meet you, Doctor.”
“Oh!” Rex blinked in realization. “So that’s why Malos and Jin were so angry! They wanted your power. Huh. I guess it’s a good thing I could touch your sword before either of them could, right?”
“Very good,” Pyra turned a smile his way. “Thanks, Rex.”
The lad went beet-red, “Don’t mention it.”
“So I guess everything’s hunky-dory, then?” Nia crossed her arms. “Jin and Malos didn’t get Pyra, we’re all fine, and they probably think we’re dead anyway.”
“Actually…” Pyra bit her lip nervously. “There is… one thing. Rex,” She turned to him. “I need your help.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure! It’d be a bit rude if I’d said no, seeing as you saved our lives and all.”
Pyra clasped her hands together. “Can you take me to Elysium?”
“…what?” Rex repeated.
“Oh, don’t get me-“ Nia sighed sufferingly. “There’s no way. Folks, reality has just officially left the building.”
“Hey, don’t act like that,” The Doctor told her. “You never know what’s real and what’s not.”
“Oh yeah, spaceman?” Nia challengingly leaned forward. “Did you see Elysium on your way in from space?”
The Doctor turned to her, his eyes boring holes into her. “What did you just call me?”
Nia leaned right back, raising her hands. “It was a joke, all right?”
“Oh, right, yes.” The Doctor turned back around, rubbing his hands together. “Well, no, but, there is that big tree. And Elysium has to be on top of that. So, easy, right?”
Pyra began to look down, silently dejected.
“I mean, yeah!” Rex eagerly nodded. “Of course I’ll help!”
“You what?” Nia coughed.
Pyra looked up, hopeful. “Really? You’re serious?”
“Yeah!” Rex nodded once more. “I mean, the World Tree’s there, so Elysium has to be at the top, right?”
“Quite right!” The Doctor concurred.
“Right, then count me out.” Nia made a show of turning away.
“Aw, come on, Nia! What’s that about?” Rex tilted his head.
“Look, you saved our lives,” Nia directed at Azurda. “But all this nonsense… Aegises? Elysium? Fucking aliens!?”
“Language!” The Doctor cried.
“That’s stretching it a bit far for my tastes.” Nia flopped back against Dromarch. “We’ll get out of these woods, then you’re on your own.”
Rex blinked, staring at Nia. “But Malos and Jin…?”
“Pah. They don’t care. All they wanted was her,” She gestured at Pyra. “The greater the distance between us, the better.”
The Doctor’s brow furrowed, crossing his arms. “You’re that scared of them?”
She turned a withering glare onto him. “Listen up, spaceman. They may have been jerks, but they’d treated me right, till you came along, pissing them off.”
“I’m not sure Malos needed much of a reason,” Azurda muttered under his breath. “He was always… unstable, that one.”
If Nia was shocked at the unspoken implication that Azurda knew Malos – or at least knew of him – she didn’t show it. “Well he didn’t find a reason to fight me until you came along, and I just had to step in.” Nia shook her head. “We’ll head out later, then like I said. You’re on your own.”
“Hey, you can’t-!”
“Leave it, Rex.” Pyra softly intoned. “It’s her choice to come along.”
Nia made a smug sound at that.
------------
Nia and Dromarch were first to fall asleep. Rex had followed shortly after, and the Doctor at least pretended to go to sleep, but Pyra and Azurda hadn’t. After a while, the young woman got up, and moved to stand over by the edge of the cliff. After a few minutes, Azurda had followed over.
He hadn’t meant to listen in, but his hearing was much better than a human’s.
He figured if he was going to be up anyway, he might as well continue his investigation. Of what happened to the Earth. That Architect had a hand in it somehow, and seeing as Pyra was apparently some super-Blade created by him, the Doctor figured it was a good place to start.
So (purposefully telegraphing his steps so he wouldn’t scare Pyra off the edge of the cliff) he walked up.
Standing next to her, the Doctor crossed his arms, looking out over the forest in silence for a stretch. There were the distant sound of crickets and the nightborne wildlife, but not much else. She and Azurda had gone quiet.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” Pyra asked of the Doctor.
The Time Lord’s lips twitched at that. “No. You lot, you spend eight hours a day. One third of your lives, sleeping. I don’t. Have a handy little gland that handles all that, me.”
“If only all of us were so lucky,” Azurda commented. “The world becomes quite a different place at night.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” The Doctor smiled, looking ahead. He mentally gauged his options, before deciding blunt would be best. “Malos – you know him.”
Pyra whipped around to face the Doctor, shocked. “How did…?”
“I wasn’t very conservative, letting slip what I knew,” Azurda spoke up instead of the Time Lord. “Was I?”
The Doctor silently shook his head, his expression blank. “You spoke like you had experience with him,” He leaned back on a rock wall, and looked at Pyra. “And when I asked what he was to you, you said ‘it’s complicated.’ Some random man who wants to take command of absolute power, you wouldn’t have said that. It’s personal with you. You know him.”
Pyra closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“So,” The Doctor tilted his head, peering deep into her eyes. “Rescue mission or assassination?”
“What?”
“The way I see it, he was either there to haul you up, and only started attacking us because we got in the way, or he was there to kill you.” The Doctor outlined. “Which was it? Kill or rescue?”
“I don’t…” She turned, looking uncertainly upon the forest. “I would’ve said kill, but… Jin was there.”
The Doctor’s interest spiked. “You know Jin too?”
“Knew.” Pyra corrected.
“Jin and Pyra used to fight on the same side,” Azurda gave the simple explanation. Only what the Doctor needed to know, and nothing else.
“But if he’s working with Malos now…” Pyra shook her head. “I don’t know what they wanted from me. But it can’t have been good.”
“Good thing you got away, then.” The Doctor nodded. “But they’ll be back, won’t they?”
Pyra started to respond. Azurda beat her to the punch.
“Unfortunately, that is probably likely.” Azurda sighed. “They needed Pyra for something. Spent five-hundred years, and millions of gold to make it happen. They’re not going to give up now.”
“Then we’ll just have to move faster than them,” The Doctor resolved.
Pyra’s lips twitched, but her eyes flickered with obvious confusion. “You’re not going to ask how they’ve been around for five-hundred years?”
“They’re Blades.” The Doctor stated simply, stunning Pyra into silence. His own smile returned to his face, smug with superior knowledge. “Malos – that’s obvious. He’d been around for five-hundred years, but he looks human. On a world with only humans.”
“There are some people here that have lifespans stretching into centuries,” Azurda supplied for the Doctor. “The Indoline. But I’m afraid even they can’t survive five-hundred years, without visibly aging a single day. Even if one tended more towards a standard human in appearance.”
“Right,” The Doctor nodded, though he didn’t really understand. He had no frame of reference, after all. “So, process of elimination, Malos is a Blade. Since you know Jin too, that would stand to reason…”
“…yeah.” Pyra swallowed. “They’re both Blades.”
“In any case,” The Doctor shrugged. “Hearing they’re five-hundred isn’t the surprise. I’m older than that.”
“I’m afraid I find that hard to believe.” Azurda shook his tiny head. “Given that you said you were only a few centuries.”
“Well, the wording leaves a lot up to interpretation, by choice,” The Doctor crossed his arms. “I’m two-thousand. I think.”
Even Pyra looked floored at that admission. “No… Really? Two-thousand years?”
“I think.” The Doctor thinned his lips. “It changes, sometimes.” The Time Lord shrugged. “Today, I feel like two-thousand.”
“You’re… really an alien?” Pyra breathed out. “Aren’t you?”
The Doctor offered her a gentle, grandfatherly smile. “I am.”
“Then… why?” Pyra took a step back. “Why are you here?”
“I’m a bit of a traveler, you see.” The Doctor began. “But I had this friend. Clara, her name was. I lost her. Twice. I’m trying to find her, now. And my search led me here.” The Doctor gestured around.
“To Alrest.” Azurda finished.
“To Alrest.” The Doctor confirmed.
“Have you been here before?” Pyra innocently inquired.
“Actually… I think I have.” The Doctor pushed off the wall. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, actually. Cause all the stars are in the right place, but the environment’s wrong. Then I mentioned the Iliad, and you reacted to it. You reacted to me. My name. Malos thought it was familiar, too – I heard him when I was listening in.” He looked Pyra right in her red eyes, staring intently. “I need you to answer this, and I need you to be honest. Do you recognize me, Pyra?”
“I…” Pyra touched her Core Crystal nervously. “It’s a common title. It does sound familiar, but… no. I’ve never met you.”
“Then what about this?” The Doctor produced the Sonic Screwdriver, and held it up. He pressed the button, and a wave of green light shot out, striking a sphere in the air fabricated in a second out of oxygen and free-floating carbon. The energy imparted by the screwdriver charged the fabrication, allowing it to glow from within with light – like self-illuminated glass. The differences in density and structure of the material gave it detail, creating a map of vast continents, and clouds swirling over the surface.
Despite the coloured tint, the blue of the oceans, and the browns, greens, and tans of the continents were clearly visible.
Pyra’s breath was stolen away, as she stared at the semi-solid hologram. “What is that?”
“That, I believe, is a Planet Sphere.” Azurda supplied. “The Argentum salvagers tend to haul up a fair number of them, over the season. No one is quite sure what it’s supposed to be, but the reining theory is that the Spheres are a map, of some type. None of the planets in our night sky, which would leave the only candidate as Alrest itself.”
“They’re right.” The Doctor stated factually. “Well, if all the evidence I’ve seen is correct and not manufactured, they – and this – are representations of the world under your Cloud Sea. It’s gone by a fair few names over the years. Sol III, Terra, Ravolox, Lost Jerusalem, Alrest now… But most people call it Earth.”
Pyra stared, her head slowly tilting as she looked at the hologram. Seemingly under the effect of a hypnotic spell, she lifted her arm slowly, reaching out to touch the sphere.
Her fingers made contact – and like the bubble it was, it popped, drifting away as fading sparks in the wind.
Pyra’s hand lingered, as the woman herself stood stunned, before her senses returned to her. “So… you’ve been here before. That’s what it was called, back then?”
“Yes,” The Doctor gently took her hand, squeezing to make sure she was listening. “But listen to me, Pyra. Because it’s not supposed to be like this.”
“I beg your pardon?” Azurda questioned for her.
“You can believe me or not,” The Doctor gestured. “But I know I’m right. And it has something to do with the Architect. I need to go to Elysium, and find out what happened.”
Pyra pulled her hand away. “How do you know? That you’re right?”
“Because I’ve been to Elysium, Pyra.” The Doctor replied. “And it’s not up there, on top of the World Tree.” He pointed down. “It’s down there. Beneath the Cloud Sea. A bountiful land, with enough that the people of Alrest wouldn’t even have to think about waging war for a good, long time.”
“Pardon me,” Azurda cut in once more. “But that isn’t much of an explanation. When was the last time you visited this world?”
The Doctor looked over at the Titan, making an ‘iffy’ gesture with his hand. He trusted them with the ‘alien’ tidbit – if only because if Nia really did get cold feet and make a mistake like selling them out, her credibility regarding the Aegis would be immediately flushed down the drain the moment the word ‘alien’ left her mouth. Granted, she probably wasn’t going to do that – but still, a secret like that probably helped Pyra share her own. That didn’t mean he was going to give them everything though.
“A few years. More or less.” Quite a few years. “I don’t know. Give or take for time dilation via travel and a few dings to the ol’ internal clock.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, appearing stressed. “All I know is that the planet wasn’t like this.”
“A few years?” Pyra muttered.
“Humankind should be expanding across the stars like wildfire. But they’re not. It’s all World Trees and Titans and Clouds…” He looked up. “Worse, the stars are all in the wrong place.”
“The stars? You aren’t an astrologist, are you?” Azurda rhetorically inquired.
“No,” The Doctor glanced up. “The stars place this place around… two thousand years from where I last visited?” Hmm… two-thousand and sixty-three. He’d stopped off in Blackpool before that nice little human child on the swingset advised him to find someplace quiet. Maybe he should do that, after this. Someplace quiet…
“Two-thousand years?” Pyra repeated. “That’d put you around… 2058?”
“Ah – that’s your 2058. My 2058 is much different.” The Doctor smiled. “The Earth covered in vast cities made of concrete and steel and glass. The great social media blackout. But above all else,” He snapped his fingers, pointing at Pyra. “Is humanity finally launching themselves into the stars, with great orbital bases, and outposts on other planets in their solar system. 2058…” He frowned, looking off to the side.
2058 wasn’t a quiet year, with all the space travel going on. And restlessness planetside. The oil apocalypse had basically meant humankind needed to get a new source of energy, fast, and all the wars that came with it.
But it wasn’t a year he’d visited, personally. At least, not for a long time. And while Time Lords had eidetic memories, they weren’t always perfectly fool-proof.
He was still missing some things, from when he regenerated into his eighth body, and woke up on a slab half-human and missing memories from genetic cross-contamination thanks to the blood transfusion.
Point was, any number of things could’ve happened.
“Doctor?”
“Sorry!” The Time Lord clapped his hands, hiding his train of thought. “Got buried in my own thoughts for a second. Point is, your 2058 is not my 2058, even though it should be. But it obviously isn’t, because Azurda here’s 1300, and there’re probably historical records and things like that going back way farther, so!” The Doctor held up a propositioning finger. “If your 2058 and the 2058 I remember are different, then why are the positions of the stars only two-thousand years off?” He questioned.
Both looked at him, completely and utterly lost.
“Either it really only has been two-thousand years, and you lot are rubbish at keeping time,” The Doctor began. “Or, things have gone so catastrophically pear-shaped, we’re standing in a bubble of accelerated time.” He turned his hand up. “To the outside universe, it really only has been two-thousand years. In here? It’s been… longer. A whole lot longer.” He looked down, suddenly getting a feeling of dread. “But that’d have to be an awfully big thing going wibbly…” He wondered where the World Tree was, at the moment.
That enormous, thin spike of metal at the top had to be some kind of transmitter. Sustaining the bubble. But what was the Tree itself? Something alien. Earth foliage did not grow that tall.
“Anyway!” The Doctor switched his mood again. “I want to find the Architect to I can find out. What about you?”
Pyra blinked, suddenly recoiling. “What about me?”
“You want to go to Elysium too. How come?”
“…the same as you, I guess.” Pyra tilted her head. “Mine are different, but… I still have questions I need to ask him. Ask Father.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Blimey. I hope they’re good, if they’re questions you can only ask a god.”
Pyra offered him a wan smile, in response. So, not a thing to joke about, then.
“Right, now!” The Doctor clapped his hands once more. He did that a lot, gesticulating in this body. “Pyra, I hope you don’t mind, but Jin really did interrupt me quite rudely.” He lifted the Sonic Screwdriver up. “Do you mind if I get a look at your Core Crystal?”
Pyra’s hand went over the little cruciform gem, protectively shielding it. “Why? What for?”
Azurda cleared his throat, hovering over to land on the Doctor’s shoulder. “You might wish to hold off on that, Doctor. It’s awfully personal, you know.”
“Ah!” The Doctor’s face twisted in embarrassment, as he realized exactly where the crystal was. And… now that he actually had the chance to observe her without combat happening, that was an awfully liberal outfit. “Sorry! So sorry!” He looked her up and down, quickly. And he really started feeling the urge to raid the TARDIS wardrobe for a pair of Donna’s old clothes. Pyra looked like she might’ve been around the same size. The Time Lord’s face twisted in confusion. “Aren’t you chilly?”
Pyra appeared confused for a second. “No? I generate more heat than a human. Why?”
“I meant personal in the other sense,” Azurda sighed.
“I-Is there something wrong with the way I dress?” Pyra’s eyes nervously darted between them. Real self-esteem induced fear, the Doctor could tell, and he felt a flash of instant regret for pointing it out. People with lots of self-esteem didn’t go and isolate themselves for centuries, he knew.
“I mean, hey, look at me!” The Doctor twirled around. “You could do with a bow tie, but that’s just me. Don’t let anybody knock your fashion sense until they can say they saved the world in heels and a wetsuit, that’s my motto.” His eyes wandered skyward. “I lost a bet.”
Pyra actually laughed at that, traces of her nervousness vanishing like smoke in the wind. “Do you just say things to distract people so they don’t focus on everything else?”
“Oi! Don’t pick apart my style – that’s cheating!” The Doctor indignantly huffed.
Pyra calmed. “What do you want to scan me for?”
“Oh, not much at all,” The Doctor answered. “We don’t have Blades where I come from, and I’ve been meaning to take a look, and the cat one scares me.”
“Dromarch seems a polite enough fellow,” Azurda commented.
“I was talking about Nia.” The Doctor rubbed his hand together. “Quick scan, won’t take a second, you won’t feel anything, and if you do, you can be generally mean and irate to me, and I’ll stop.”
Pyra slowly lowered her hand. “I don’t know. Will it really help?”
The Doctor charmingly smiled, and spread his arms. “No idea! But, hows about I let you get a good look at me in return, eh?”
Pyra mulled it over for a moment. “All right.”
“Lovely jubliee.” The Doctor flicked the screwdriver open, pointing it at her crystal. The buzz filled the air, as the information from the screwdriver flowed into the back of his mind like knowledge he always knew but was only just now remembering. “That’ll take a moment. So… mysterious Architect, giant World Tree, Blades, Titans… and for some reason, Nopon are here.”
Pyra’s eyes flicked up to the Doctor’s, falling for the conversational bait. “Are they not supposed to be here?”
The Doctor shook his head. “It’s not that surprising. Nopon and human-kind have had good relations since humanity landed on the Nopon homeworld.”
“…you’re saying the Nopon are aliens too?”
“From the planet Mira,” The Doctor looked up. “It’s about… 217-million light years that way, I think. Lovely place,” He enthusiastically smiled, gesturing all the while. “The whole planet is wrapped in a natural telepathic field, right in the centre of a galactic ley-line nexus. All those telepathic frequencies mingling, granting perfect language comprehension between alien lifeforms, sustaining telepathic imprints after the original storage devices broke down.” He looked back down, keeping the Screwdriver pointed. “I visited there, a long time ago. One of the smaller galactic crime syndicates shot down a human starship, nasty business.”
The screwdriver beeped, giving a mental pinch to the Doctor as it completed its reading. “Hmm…”
“What is it?” Pyra inquired.
“I’ve never seen anything like you…” The Doctor stared at the readouts. “DNA-based crystalline substrate drawing power from and manipulating the local quark field. Inside… quantum computing nodes, capable of storing vast amounts of genetic data and energy patterns.” His eyebrows shot up appreciatively. “Whoever this Architect is, he’s too clever by half.”
“I should hope so!” Azurda retorted. “He did only go and create the world, after all.”
The Screwdriver warbled, and the Doctor twisted it around to look at another readout. “Part of the data inside is corrupt.” He looked up at her, “That’s probably the source of your mysteriously familiar feelings. I could- oh, hold on.” The Doctor blinked as another reading flickered. “Your core’s been partitioned off, almost at random, it looks like. I could fix that too, if you’d like.”
Pyra pensively paused, before her red eyes flickered in the light of the fire, turning a kind of gold colour. “Absolutely not.”
The Doctor shrugged, closing the screwdriver and shoving it into his pocket. “Worth a try. So! Feel anything?”
“A little itch?” Pyra replied uncertainly. “At most.”
“Good, now,” The Doctor let out a faked yawn, glancing over at the sleeping humans. “It’s getting late, what do you think? You know what I think, it’s getting late. We’ll probably need to get going, first thing in the morning.”
“Quite right,” Azurda concurred. “It is quite late.”
Pyra, for her part, frowned. “I… don’t know if I can do much sleeping tonight.”
The Doctor lightly clapped his hands. “Don’t worry. I’ve got just the fix for that.”
-------------
Steam escaped out of the spout of a kettle, rendered silent by a band of counter-frequencies being projected by the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor moved swiftly, going over to the fire.
“There you go, careful,” The Doctor picked up the kettle, pouring the contents into the cups. “Hot hot! Hot, hot tea! Here you go, Pyra.” He passed one of the teacups and little plates over to her. Then to the larval Titan, who took it with a grateful nod. “And Gramps.”
Pyra took a sip, and let out a hum of satisfaction, closing her eyes. “Oh, that’s nice.”
“That’s right, nothing like a hot cup of apigenin-infused chamomile to help the sleep cycle.” He really would like them to go to sleep, sooner or later.
“Just one question, Doctor,” Azurda leaned forward, sipping on some tea like a cat from a bowl. “How did you fit this kettle and cups inside your pockets?”
The Doctor’s lips twitched, and he took a swig of tea. “They’re bigger on the inside.”
-----------
After about another hour, Azurda and Pyra finally had sleep claim them – and the Doctor set out to work.
The sonic buzzed over Dromarch’s sleeping form (that question wasn’t just to make sure he didn’t hurt Pyra in the process of scanning her), and the device probed his Core Crystal as well, allowing the Doctor to compare the core crystals between Pyra’s presumably-unique crystal, and one of another Blade.
“What are you?” The Time Lord thought as his eyes flicked over to Pyra’s sleeping form. “Why are you here?”
An Earth drowning under a sea of clouds. Mutations so far removed from normal creatures they might as well have been alien. And a tree growing higher than even the highest mountain. And the Blades. How did it all piece together? How did it all fit?
The Cloud Sea was programmed to analyze things, preserve, and replicate them – so, there was something that happened that demanded a vast swath of Earth’s surface be preserved. His first thought was the Solar Apocalypse of the late-second to early-third millennium; solar emissions greater in raw power than anything ever recorded in human history, and never seen again until the end of the sun’s lifespan, overwhelmed the Earth’s protective magnetosphere and battered the planet with enough radiation to cook everything. But nanomachines wouldn’t really be a good candidate for that – they’d all be offlined in the process.
But the Blades would be prime candidates for surviving that kind of disruption. Pop back into the Core Crystal until danger passed, then come out, right as rain.
Of course, that didn’t explain the rest of things.
It was obvious to the Time Lord that something had seriously gone awry with local physics. The most obvious proof was the quark field; they could literally not exist independently – they could only ever be found as parts of other particles. The one exception to this is in extremely hot environments – so hot that protons and neutrons and electrons literally shake themselves apart. But that was in temperatures hotter than the inside of a neutron star. But, here they were. Single, solitary quarks, floating around, bumping into each other like they were little bits of ball-shaped pasta in a soup.
Then the time discrepancy. According to the stars in the sky, it was the 41st century. According to everyone else, their world was thousands of years old. To the point where its history couldn’t be reconciled with Earth’s, even though they overlapped.
Alrest, an impossible planet.
(Briefly, the Doctor felt a pang of fear. Only one civilization had the capability to so thoroughly tamper with Earth’s history while leaving the rest of the universe intact. They had done it before, creating Ravolox.
‘The Architect’ sounded too much like a Time Lord title.)
The Doctor shook his head. Tossing up a rock and watching as it landed, he frowned, jumping around and idly kicking the dirt. Everything else felt right. Somewhat. Almost. Waving a hand in front of his face, the Doctor snapped his fingers. The time distortion was remarkably stable, which meant there were two possibilities, at least according to his understanding. Option one: It was a metastable time distortion, until something happened and the bubble surrounding Earth and the rest of the Sol System popped and the energy from the time differential erupted like a cosmic geyser. Option two: There was no time distortion. That fake Yggdrasil could just be an enormous telepathic transmitter, making everyone think more time had passed than it actually had. He couldn’t feel any telepathic activity, though…
The Blades, the Titans, the Cloud Sea, and the World Tree. Four pieces to a puzzle that he couldn’t piece together. Or… maybe he could. Rex had said that the Architect cast humankind into the Cloud Sea, then sent the Titans to rescue them, and the Blades to guide them.
Maybe it was some kind of apocalyptic event? Humanity hadn’t been cast out – they’d been saved. Although, that begged the question: what was Elysium? A place, obviously, but was it a starship? A colony? None of those? That was the problem with the oral method of preserving information – it got corrupted over the years.
He needed to get back to the TARDIS. With her sensors, he could blow the lid on that ‘tree’ wide open.
Until then, he just needed to keep thinking.
The screwdriver’s scan completed, and the Doctor checked the reading.
Dromarch was a bit different from Pyra. At least, in terms of raw complexity. It was like he was a punch-card computer, and she was a fully-realized supercomputer. But he did have something Pyra didn’t. There was a kind of… partitioned-off area (Pyra had been partitioned as well, but her scheme was a lot more ‘random,’ built around some parts that didn’t really make sense) of write-only memory. At least, in computer terms. In this case, the ‘memory’ was genetic code, and neural patterns.
The scans showed traces of human DNA from a significant number of donors, and non-human DNA taken from a variety of living creatures, built around and building onto Dromarch’s ‘base’ genetic material. Comparing that core sample to the DNA in Dromarch’s cells showed there were actually differences – much of it was identical, but a lot of the donor genetics had been truncated and spliced in.
On a hunch, the Doctor took a quick scan of Nia. And, as he’d expected, he found her genetics inside the scans taken from Dromarch.
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. It was like the Blade was a walking backup of ever driver he’d ever had. Except the neural patterns – the brain data – they didn’t look like they belonged to different people. But the same being, in different stages of its life. More complex, over time, except for the memory centres. Some structures were the same, but a lot of the long-term, non-instinctual memory, that was totally different.
What was the purpose? Why? Were the Blades meant to be some form of… living ark ship? Or were they taking DNA for decidedly less than altruistic purposes?
Until he found the smoking gun and worked it out himself, the Doctor could only get answers from the Architect.
As the fire died down and the embers faded, the Doctor cast a suspicious look over at Pyra.
He hadn’t missed that ‘Aegis War’ comment. That kind of phenomenal power – the kind that people waged wars over – had a habit of corrupting a person.
He hoped Pyra was one of the ones who rose above it.
------------
Meanwhile, far removed from the camp or its sleeping inhabitants, deep inside a labyrinth of metal and wire, two people were having a conversation.
“God damn it!” Malos screamed with fury borne of centuries-worth of frustration, kicking a piece of furniture that wasn’t bolted down to the floor. “Five-hundred years of looking. Five-hundred years of planning. And what sends it down the drain!? Not the bitch being dead – some random asshole with more inches in his chin than sense in his head!”
Jin crossed his arms, pensively staring at the block of frosted ice in the centre of the room, completely solid and without a hint of melting even though the room was far from being freezing. “Pot, I’d like to introduce you to my very good friend, kettle.”
Malos whipped around, and the glowing purple shining through his irises was proof enough that he was not in a joking mood.
“Calm down,” Jin ordered. “The salvaging operation may have been a failure, but everything else is going according to plan.”
“The rest of the plan doesn’t matter, because we can’t even get into Elysium without her!” Malos rolled his shoulders, stomping over to a wall. He punched it, the metal caving underneath the strike, as he trembled with rage. “The Doctor… I should’ve known!”
Jin frowned. “I thought you said you didn’t know him.”
“He’s…” Malos let out a frustrated growl, clenching his fists so tight the tendons could be seen poking through his armor. “He’s familiar. I know him, in here,” He pounded his fist against the armor that covered up his core. “But I don’t know if it’s from Before, or if the memories are in there. Where I can’t get to.” He seethed and frothed at the mouth. “Every instinct I had was telling me to put the bastard down.”
Jin slowly nodded, stiffening up as he stared at Malos. “Is he…?”
“One of the Architect’s? No.” Malos spat out steam. “But he’s not human, that’s for sure. Probably some wandering Blade with a Driver who doesn’t give damn.” He stopped his angry pacing, staring through the wall.
“In any event,” Jin cleared his throat. “Now that she’s awake, she can’t hide.” He began to turn, and made to exit the chamber. “There isn’t many places they could’ve run to from where we raised the wreck. I’ll get Akhos on the search.”
Malos nodded, and relaxed. There truly was nowhere for them to hide.
-----------
Soon, the morning broke, although the sounds of critters and crickets didn’t subside. Rex was first to awaken, most likely the result of a schedule etched into him by the necessity of having to wake up early every morning and go salvaging.
The young man yawned, stretched, and rubbed his face, looking around to see the Doctor up and reading a book. “You’re up.”
“Am I?” The Doctor looked up with a smile. “Good – hate to see that I was reading laying down. It’s horrible; the book falls on your face and the pages get all slobbery.” He turned a page. “Sleep well, I presume?”
“I guess…” Rex thinned his lips, scratching his head, before gesturing at the Doctor’s book. “What are you reading?”
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!” The Doctor answered, gauging Rex’s reaction. When nothing came, he filed it away. So far, only Malos and Pyra reacted to mentions of old Earth culture or historical events. “It’s rubbish!” The Time Lord declared. “The oompa-loompas are totally wrong! How do you get ten-foot-tall fire-breathing squid confused with little people!?” He slammed it shut, shoving it into his pocket.
“Uh… yeah,” Rex chuckled, the laughter not managing to reach his eyes.
The Doctor tilted his head sideways. “Sorry, it’s early isn’t it? Bit loud, me – sorry, shh…” He held a finger over his lips.
“It’s not that,” Rex shook his head, frowning all the while. “It’s just… all that really happened, didn’t it? The Maelstrom, and Pyra, and…” His hands shook. “I almost died.”
The Doctor’s mouth twitched, finding the way to respond, before he got to his feet. “So did I.”
“Yeah,” Rex shivered. “If it wasn’t for Pyra…”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “It was her that they wanted to begin with.”
“What are you saying?” Rex questioned.
“They only stabbed me cause they were worried I was about to wake her up,” The Doctor pieced together. “Even then, you could’ve let them have Pyra, and we could’ve gone.” He wasn’t saying that as an accusation, one way or another, just a statement of fact. It could’ve happened, but it didn’t.
Rex looked like the idea was utterly alien to him. “I mean… maybe? But the way she was acting, it was pretty clear she didn’t want to go with ‘em.”
“You risked your life for her,” The Doctor pointed out. “You risked your life, fighting, with me. You could’ve turned and ran. But you didn’t.”
Rex shook his head. “I could’ve. But that kind of thing, that’s just not right. Gramps taught me better than that. And I’m not the only one – Nia helped out too.”
“Sure, but we’re away now. You don’t have to go to Elysium with us if you don’t want to.”
“I do, though,” Rex frowned deeper. “Is there a point to all this, Doctor?”
“You’re good, Rex. I don’t want you pulled along because you feel like you have no choice.”
“I do, though. Like I said, I want to find Elysium, before things get too bad to stop.” Rex gestured. “And… well, Pyra asked, right?”
“She did.” The Doctor smiled, gently clasping his hands. “You’re kind young man, Rex. Azurda ought to be proud. Now!” The Time Lord’s demeanor shifted again. “Early morning; that means breakfast.”
Rex’s stomach growled. “I’m hungry, yeah. But… I don’t exactly know what I can cook out here.”
“Neither do I!” The Doctor clapped his hands. “Fortunately, I come prepared.” He reached into his pockets, taking in the boy’s reaction as he seemed to go elbow-deep in his pocket, before he pulled out a vaguely-square object wrapped in foil.
The Doctor tossed it over, and Rex easily caught it. “It’s hot.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Did you just make it?” Rex inquired.
“Nope!” The Time Lord answered. “Clever pockets, they preserve things, fresh as they came. Really good for fruit and hot things.”
Rex pulled apart the foil, stopping in confusion.
“It’s a cheese toastie!” The Doctor produced a twin sandwich. “I always pack snacks; you never know when you get the chance to eat, living my kind of life.”
Rex sat down, looking at the Doctor curiously. “So you do this kind of thing often, then? Get into trouble, stranded in the wilderness, with strangers?”
The Doctor slowed for a moment, almost freezing in place. “It’s not all bad. Meeting new people, seeing new things…”
“Swordfighting bad guys.”
The Doctor gestured, frowning as he took a bite out of his breakfast. “Been a while since I’ve swordfought anything. Surprised this body has the skill for it. Oh, uh… sorry about your sword, by the way. Lost my grip on it somewhere over the Cloud Sea.”
“Oh, that?” Rex shrugged. “It’s fine. Made from scrap parts, you know? I have to replace it every so often anyway. ‘Sides, I’ve got Pyra’s sword now, right?”
“So you do,” The Doctor’s eyes glanced over, and he leaned forward. “Listen to me, Rex. Something’s going on here that I don’t like. All that effort to fish Pyra up from the bottom of the sea, Earth’s development being knocked off-track to make Alrest, and this ‘Aegis War…’” The Doctor’s eyes regarded the still-sleeping Pyra with suspicion. He didn’t know if she was responsible. Probably not. But he also didn’t know how powerful she actually was.
“If you’re gonna talk about someone behind her back, maybe you should lower your voices.” Nia suddenly cut in, revealing herself to be awake, and the Doctor and Rex startled momentarily.
“N-Nia! We were-!”
“Save it. I’m not the one you’re talking about, so it doesn’t much matter to me.” Nia shrugged, wiping sleep out of her eyes. “Just quiet it down, you bozos, before she gets the wrong idea.”
“R-Right, yeah,” Rex nodded. “How long were you awake?”
“Since I smelled the food cooking.” Nia looked over at the Doctor. “Got some more, or is it a ‘boys only’ deal?”
The Doctor reached into his pocket, and threw her another hot sandwich.
Nia bit into it with a look of bliss, so it’d probably been a while since she had something to eat.
“So,” The Doctor chewed, lowering his voice. “’Aegis War.’ You lot mentioned that yesterday, what is that?”
Nia scoffed. “You can’t tell me you don’t know.”
Rex slowly raised his hand.
Nia sighed. “Put down your hand, Rex.”
“I mean, I know a little bit.” Rex shuffled about. “This big battle happened five-hundred years ago, and there was this hero named Addam. And… that’s it.”
“…the old man wasn’t kidding – you really don’t pay attention,” Nia shook her head.
“Hey, I pay attention!” Rex defensively crossed his arms. “Paid plenty of attention when he was teaching me my Arts! And the salvaging trade.”
“And I’m an alien,” The Doctor reminded her.
Nia shook her head. “Whatever,” She huffed. “So, five-hundred years ago, this guy climbs the World Tree-“
“Hold on!?” The Doctor yelped. “Someone actually went inside that thing? What did it look like, did he say?”
“No,” Nia rolled her eyes. “Anyway, it’s because of him that the Aegis got brought back from wherever it came from, and awakened. And … well, it was a whole thing. People misusing the power, sinking continents, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds like you don’t know too much about it.” The Doctor pointed out.
Nia rolled her eyes. “I know what I learned.”
“Well if that’s what happened, it’s a good thing we got Pyra out of there, then.” Rex declared simply.
“Right,” The Doctor smiled in agreement. If Pyra had the power to sink a continent, well, best keep that away from people like Jin and Malos.
Plus, all the better to keep her in the Doctor’s line-of-sight.
--------------
Once the last few had woken up, and got food in their bellies, that just left the matter of figuring out where to go.
“There’s got to be a town or something nearby, right?” Rex looked around hopefully, before the hope turned to confusion, and he scratched his head. “Uh… actually, for that matter… where are we?”
“This?” Nia gestured around vaguely. “This is Gormott. A province of the Ardainian Empire. You had to have seen the Gormott Titan before.”
“Well, yeah,” Rex shrugged. “But only from a distance.”
“I, on the other hand, have not!” The Doctor raised his hands, looking around. “So, what do we do now, eh? Go to this lovely fella’s head and ask him, nicely, if he’d walk over to the World Tree?”
Nia let out a snorting laugh, as Azurda hovered up.
“I’m afraid not. Most of the Continental-types don’t concern themselves with human affairs,” Azurda shook his head.
“Oh. Right, yeah, the that’s the trouble with mountains – they just like to sit there and do mountain things. Orogeny, and things like that.” The Doctor frowned, looking at the ground. “Thing hasn’t had a bath in a while, obviously…” He looked back over at Nia. “We’re on a Titan?”
“Yes. Somewhere near its belly.”
“Its belly?” The Doctor repeated. “But this is a forest!” He held up a finger. “We’re in a forest.”
Nia rolled her eyes. “We’re in a forest on its belly.”
“But – how?” The Doctor picked up a rock. “It’s all… dirt, and foliage, and – is it hollow? Or are these like those mushrooms that grow on the side of trees? Is that what we’re standing on?”
“Well, for a man with his head in the clouds, you’re not half bad,” Nia remarked. “It’s a mix of both, really. But if we want to find civilization, we’re going to need to head up until we hit the plains.”
“You know this place?” Rex questioned in surprise.
“Well, duh. I am Gormotti, as we’ve established.”
“Well, yeah, the ears are obvious, but… well, not everybody with Gormotti features has gotta be born here, you know?”
“They were spread out a bit,” Pyra hummed. “Even five hundred years ago.”
Dromarch pawed the ground. “To answer your question, yes. Gormott is the land of my lady’s birth.”
“Haven’t been here in years,” Nia shook her head. “But it doesn’t change much.”
“Really?” The Doctor bit his lip. “Is there a place here we might be able to secure travel from?”
Nia looked up at him. “There’s a bunch of little towns, ranches, and the like, all over the Titan. But for that, we’re probably going to want to make for Torigoth.” The cat-eared girl looked further up. “We’re pretty high up already, though. Shouldn’t be too much farther till we hit the fields.”
“Right!” The Doctor clapped his hands, then moved to another set of vines that allowed purchase onto the pathways higher up. “Time we got cracking, then!”
They watched as the Time Lord, with all the dexterity of a chimpanzee, hauled himself up.
----------
A tree blocking the way was cleared out easily thanks to Pyra, and the forest critters and monsters that tried to attack them along the way were handled easily by their impromptu band. The climb continued, but before long, they were treated to blessed sunlight, upon reaching a knoll overlooking a vast plain.
Pyra stopped, recognition and joy flickering across her eyes, while Nia crossed her arms with a smug, knowing grin. Rex stood with his jaw hanging open, and the Doctor…
Well, the Doctor was awestruck as well. For the moment, all the troubling implications left his mind, as he was faced with the sight itself. The vast plain of grass and rolling hills weren’t simply land – but the back of an absolutely gigantic, giraffe-like creature. Its head was the size of a mountain, and its horns were like the claws of some deity poking down from the clouds above.
Enormous trees dotted the landscape, providing pathways from their gigantic roots snaking around from upper levels to the regions below, and waterfalls – actual waterfalls – cascaded down from the ridges of the Titan’s neck and the land on its body, pooling into crystal-clear lakes.
“That’s a Titan,” The Doctor breathed out in awe. “We’re on a titan!”
“Well, yeah, we’ve been saying that for-“
The Doctor darted past Nia, going for a wall of stone. “But it’s huge! Look at this, you… beautiful, gorgeous thing!” The Doctor touched the rock, knocking his hand on it. “But… how!? What are we standing on!? What’s it made of!?” One look at the Titan’s neck confirmed it was, in fact, made of stone. He tasted the rock, and found that it wasn’t purely stone. Partially-petrified organic matter. Living stone. “Living stone, making up a creature that should collapse under its own weight.” Weight, never mind body heat, never mind how it was supposed to get energy. “I love new places.”
“Now this is more like it!” Rex grinned. “Especially after slumming it on Gramps’s back for so long!”
“You never seemed to have any complaints before,” Azurda retorted with a faux-offended huff.
“What’s the matter?” Nia asked of the Doctor. “They not have Titans where you’re from?”
“No!” The Time Lord answered with a wonder-filled smile.
Nia startled. “What? Bu- I was joking. What do you lot walk on, then?”
“The ground, mostly.” The Doctor turned to her. “Alrest is the only place I’ve seen with a Cloud Sea. The rest of them, it’s all basically big balls of dirt – very boring.”
Nia appeared clueless at the Doctor’s answer. Like she just couldn’t fathom it. It made sense – here, the Titans were a fundamental necessity of life. It’d be like finding out life could evolve on worlds without suns.
“Nia?” Pyra spoke up. “That structure, over there? What is it?”
The Gormotti followed Pyra’s finger, which was pointing to a distant circle of stone, wood, and steel. “That’s Torigoth. Biggest settlement on Gormott.”
“Torigoth…” Pyra’s face looked stricken, as her mouth fell open. For a moment, she looked like she had a hard time breathing.
“Pyra?” Rex leaned over with worry. “You all right?”
Her eyes flickered with gold and cloudiness. “I was here. Five-hundred years ago. It’s… so much bigger, now.”
“Aye,” Nia nodded, putting her hands on her hips. “Not like everybody here would say that’s a good thing, though. Still, plenty of ways off Gormott from there.” She shot a glance in Rex’s direction. “We can all get there, and go our separate ways.”
“Separate-?” Rex began to repeat. “Oh. You’re still on that.”
“’You’re still-?’ Yeah!” Nia stomped a foot. “Think about it, Rex! I may not be on their payroll anymore-“
“That’s too kind a way to put it,” The Doctor stared at her. “They tried to kill you.”
“-but Jin and Malos aren’t just going to give up after what they sunk into that job.” Nia shook her head. “When they catch up, I want to be as far away from here as possible.”
“You saved our lives,” The Doctor pointed out. “And you’re going to run away?”
“This is all way beyond me,” Nia retorted. She stood there, shaking her head, before she sucked in a breath. “All right! Let’s go. Fields are calm now, but once night hits…”
She began to lead the way, and the others followed in her path. Through a small cave and down a natural incline, the group came out on the ground level – and the field opened up into a vast expanse of greenery that seemed to breathe in time with the breaths of the lifeform it sat upon. From ground level, the grass had swayed in gentle waves, vibrant and lush, rippling with the walking rhythm of the Titan beneath. The air had was thick with the scent of fresh soil and wildflowers, carried by a breeze that whispered through the towering trees dotting the landscape. Their broad canopies had cast cool, dappled shade over the rolling hills, offering brief respite from the warmth of the sun.
In the far distance, the massive roots of the Titan’s antediluvian trees had jutted from the ground, twisting like ancient veins, a reminder that this land was part of something much greater—a living, breathing creature. Rivers had cut through the fields, their waters glinting under the light, winding past small cliffs and rocky outcrops that broke up the endless green.
“So, Doc, if you’re an alien, why do you look like us?” Rex posited the question to the Time Lord as they walked, letting Nia guide them around a pack of lion-like creatures gathered on a small hill like it was Pride Rock.
The Time Lord’s head snapped over to Rex with a slight frown of offense. “You look Time Lord! We came first.” It was also probably a good idea not to talk about the universal morphic field with them. For some peculiar reason, whenever he explained in-detail to his human companions why so many different alien species looked like them, thanks to the early Time Lords ensuring that any evolving intelligent life would favor the humanoid form, it seemed to unsettle rather than comfort them. Explaining what exactly consciousness was and what its purpose was in the universe was, likewise, not well-received. So, he just kept it at that.
From up ahead, Nia snorted. “Oh, you guys are lords, are ya? If you were gonna go all the way, why not call yourselves Time Gods?”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. Rassilon probably would have, given the chance. “I like to think the founders of my civilization had at least some modesty.”
“Right~” Nia snickered. “So then why’d you leave the great planet Time-Lordia and come here to go looking for Elysium?”
The Doctor just smiled. “Curious, that’s all! What, you’ve never wanted to know if the stories were real or not?”
“Well, duh, of course they’re not,” Nia shook her head in response. “The World Tree? Get this, and this’ll blow your mind – what if… it’s really a big tree? How about that?”
The Doctor frowned. “Well, that’s possible – if you’re really uncreative!”
“And when everybody gets there and it’s just a giant tree?”
“They could live on the branches!” The Doctor gestured enthusiastically. “Like Ewoks! I love Ewoks… Actually, most lifeforms, when faced with trouble on the ground, go climbing into the trees.”
“Universal instincts, I’d imagine,” Azurda hummed.
“Therapeutic as well.” Dromarch rumbled. “Nature soothes the soul.”
“Doctor?” Pyra hesitantly addressed. “What’s… your world like?”
“Well, you know, home,” The Doctor spread his arms and chuckled. “Grass, trees, people – dreadfully boring. About… thirty-thousand light-years that way.” He pointed in the general direction of Galactic Centre.
“Hey, Doctor?” Rex approached carefully. “If this whole thing with Elysium doesn’t work out… do you think maybe you and your people could help us? With all the Titans going, we’re going to run out of land eventually.”
The Doctor couldn’t make any promises, either way. But here, with the timeline split wide open, a new history he’d never charted unfolding before him in real-time… anything was possible.
So, instead, he smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Rex, mollified, nodded, and they continued the trek across the field.
---------------
They continued for some time, a jaunty little jog across the fields of Gormott, with Torigoth getting closer and closer as they approached. The Doctor wasn’t too enamored with it – a city was a city – but he was soaking in the environment around him. A Titan! A whole biosphere on a giant creature!
Similar things existed on smaller scales – people were continents to the germs that lived on them. All those microorganisms living and breeding and working together as part of the human body’s skin or GI tract or whatever.
But he’d never seen it on a scale this large before – at least, not in the gravity wells of planets. Comparable lifeforms were usually spaceborne – that’s how they could manage to get so big without crushing themselves under their own weight. They could feed off vast sources of energy like solar wind, and propel themselves by spitting out the waste particles as thrust.
How did the Gormott Titan get its energy, he wondered? Judging by the fact the creature had a mouth, it could eat other titans – or that was just a way for the air to enter its body. Fusion of the gasses in the air would be a good source of energy… but what did it do with all the heat? The Gormott Titan must have evolved some seriously good heat dissipation systems.
If it had evolved on this planet at all, for that matter.
He’d have to get access to the Titan’s innards to really check.
“Nia,” The Doctor called out to her. “You grew up here, right? Do you know of any way to get down into the Titan?”
The Gormotti looked at him sideways with a light snort. “You just came from it. Down into the belly is as far as most people get. Why?”
“So you all only live on the surface?” The Doctor looked around.
“It’s dangerous business, trying to dig down into a Titan,” Nia retorted. “There’s all kinds of- Wait!” Nia’s arm suddenly shot out, stopping all of them dead in their tracks. “Something’s…”
The Doctor looked around. “Nia?”
“Feel that- do you feel that?” Nia asked of them.
The Time Lord bounded, from one foot to another. “Feel what?”
“That rumb…” The girl paled, her eyes going wide as dinner plates. “Shit! Move!” She bellowed at everybody else. “Run! Everybody, run!”
“Why, what’s wrong?” Rex looked around as well, before hearing the distant pounding. A shape moved on the horizon, before a giant ape thing as tall as a cement truck came barreling out of the trees. “Oh crap!”
“Run!” Nia screamed, as the thing came running, tearing up the ground and sending dirt and plants flying everywhere. She grabbed onto the Doctor’s arm, and practically yanked him to her. “For god’s sake, run!”
Nobody saw fit to argue, as it slammed into a tree, knocking it down like it wasn’t even there. A few of the fearsome, lion and wolf-like creatures scattered, while their brethren were knocked out of the way in bloody messes.
“What the- wha-?” The Doctor spluttered. “That’s a very big, very angry thing chasing after us!”
“Yes, it is!”
“What is it!?” The Doctor hollered.
“It’s Rotbart!” Nia wheezed, lungs straining as they all forced their legs to move. “It’s fucking Rotbart!”
“Who’s Rotbart!?” Rex spluttered in confusion as Pyra sucked in a breath of terror.
“That…” Pyra breathed out. “Is a really big Gogol.”
Rotbart, the big, territorial beast, let out a roar strong enough to make the ground beneath them tremble. A giant ape – moving with the grace and fluidity of a cheetah, bounding across the fields like they were trampolines.
As the group frantically ran amongst the scattering critters, the rampaging Rotbart got closer and closer.
Then – either in his fear-induced haze or the result of an animal getting underfoot – Rex lost his footing, and went slamming face-first into the dirt.
Pyra spun around, fear written clear in her eyes. “Rex!”
The Doctor turned about, seeing Rex on the ground, Rotbart approaching fast, and Pyra running to meet them both head-on.
Adrenaline flooded the Doctor’s veins, and his perception of the world slowed. Every detail in the field became crisp and clear, from the glint of sunlight off the plants to the individual hairs on the mutant ape’s fur bristling as it charged forward.
Pyra was frozen, mid step. Nia lingered caught between one breath and the next as she drew on Dromarch’s weapons.
He needed a way to help Rex. The Doctor considered drawing on the Sonic Screwdriver, and let the decision play out in his mind.
The Doctor rushed into a blurring sprint as he flicked open the Sonic Screwdriver and tuned it to the right setting. With a press of the button, the deafening sonic waves jumped out and hit Rotbart’s ears, going all the way to his brain.
The giant ape collapsed, and carried by his momentum, he landed right on top of Rex, and crushed him.
The Doctor needed a way to draw Rotbart’s attention to him first, to pull him away from Rex.
“Hey!” The Doctor stuck his fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle as he launched into a run at Rotbart. “Bartie!” He clicked his tongue like he was whistling for a dog. “Here boy!”
Rotbart kept running. But when he got in range, the giant ape’s features were still squarely locked on the weakest prey.
His titanic arms went down, and landed on Rex.
The Doctor needed to make sure that Rex wasn’t an appetizing enough target.
The Time Lord’s eyes wandered to rock sitting on the ground. Then, he saw the insect flying over it, its wings caught between one beat and the next, slowly moving like paddles through honey.
He would have preferred to use a cricket ball, but that wasn’t likely to have the mass he needed.
But, he thought about it, and realized this would be his best chance.
Speed came rushing back into the world like a busy highway, and the Doctor sent his foot forward. The steel toe cap of his shoe collided with the rock, and sent it into the air like a football. With the speed at Rotbart was moving, the mass of the rock, air resistance, and gravity taken into account…
The Doctor watched as the rock struck Rotbart right in the head. It didn’t do much, except anger the monster. As intended; because its attention was now on the Doctor instead. Rotbart got close, wound up for a swipe-
The Doctor ducked underneath, and pressed his fingers to Rotbart’s side. Getting a connection was harder, the further away the site was from the brain, but it was all part of one system, in the end. The Doctor sent waves of calm through the connection, and a simple command. ‘Sleep. Dream. Relax.’
Rotbart growled in protest.
‘Sleep.’
The giant flopped onto the ground, let out a sigh, and closed his eyes as he fell onto his back.
“How did you…?” Rex stared over at the Doctor.
The Time Lord grinned. “Skills.”
“Hey!” Nia yelled at them. “Big, angry monster right there! Let’s go!”
Pyra hauled Rex up, not even bothering to let him stand, choosing to carry him. The Doctor shot one last look at Rotbart, as they put some distance between themselves and the beast.
Torigoth poked up over the horizon.
Notes:
That ‘Monika’ near the beginning of the chapter is probably the gag that you think it is. Simulated realities, the notion of free-will and destiny in a constructed world… I couldn’t resist. 😊
Yes, you DID see the words ‘Lost Jerusalem’ spoken by the Doctor as one of the many names Earth has gone by over the years.
The Doctor’s ‘super-sense’ is really just an extrapolation of what we see him do in The End of the World, The Eleventh Hour, and Heaven Sent. In the first, we see the Ninth Doctor still himself, and extend his perception in such a way that he can synchronize with the rate at which a giant fan spins, timing it so that he can step right through without a scratch. In the Eleventh Hour, there’s that scene where the Doctor sort of ‘rewinds’ in his head what he saw, and he’s able to go back through it in multiple directions and angles. In Heaven Sent, he slows his perception and retreats into a mental construct of the TARDIS to work out a way to survive while he’s falling. Not many things go into detail about it, but it’s a cool thing that Time Lords have. They’re not just smarter – they have a whole array of senses that work together to give them details of the world humans might as well be blind to..=
Chapter 4: Ten: A Reason for Fighting
Chapter Text
She lingered on the edge of perception, a presence woven into the great body of the world. Her essence, bound to the vast, silent form she called home, spread across its ridges and valleys, its vast plains and hidden depths. She had been here long before the waking of the first lives, long before the great division that shattered the earth. To those who walked beneath her, she was but a memory - a whisper of ancient days, when her form was more than spirit and steel.
She had given much to this world. It was hers, as much as she was of it. From her being, she had once brought forth life, creatures both fragile and resilient. They were her children, though most did not remember their origins. They moved among the towering structures, yet with a purpose more precise, a craft that set them apart. Their hands were made not to till soil, but to shape something more intricate — craftsmen and creators of a different sort.
Long ago, she had nurtured them with care, watching as they built and grew. Their bodies, though of the earth, were unlike the others, made strong to withstand the forces that threatened to tear apart the very world. They were clever, resourceful, filled with a kind of quiet determination. In their eyes, she saw not just survival, but a fierce will to endure, no matter the obstacles that rose before them. They lived not in primitive burrows, but in places of iron and light, using the materials of their world to shape something new, something enduring.
And yet, it was not enough to stop what was coming. Her counterpart, the one who had once been her partner in the shaping of this world, had turned against her long ago. He had unleashed his wrath, his endless hunger for power, setting in motion a war that had ravaged all that she had created. His people, fierce and tireless in their own way, fell as victim to that hunger all the same.
She had tried to stop him. She had tried to save them all. But the cycle had begun, and now it was too late to turn back. Her body, once so vast and full of life, had become a battleground, her children forced to fight not only for survival but for the very soul of the world.
Her heart, though bound to the great form she inhabited, still pulsed with the will to protect. She could not interfere directly – still too drained from the great battle that incapacitated her - but she watched over them, whispering through the winds, guiding them when she could. She longed for peace, for an end to the conflict that had scarred the land and her children. But peace, it seemed, was always just out of reach.
Until now. Something new, something that did not belong, had appeared, disturbing the Ether. She felt it - a ripple through the very fabric of the world she inhabited. The presence was foreign, its nature strange, unlike anything she had known. It was not born of this place, but she sensed it with every fiber of her being.
And then she saw it.
Far below, nestled in the crevices and tucked out of sight, there stood an object – a simple, blue wooden box. Bearing symbols from a language that had been long forgotten. She felt its presence deep in her core, a pulse of energy that was older than anything she had ever known. Beyond the shell, she could see the vast, sprawling giant that hid away inside. Bigger than both titans. Bigger than her world itself. Like trying to cram a basketball into a tiny shirt pocket. And yet, it fit.
Her thoughts spun in confusion.
A flicker of something more ancient, more dangerous, stirred within her. Awe, yes, but there was something else — fear. For all her strength, for all the power that coursed through her vast body, this held a power source greater than that.
He would want that power.
And then, from across the great divide, she felt him stir. His fury, always burning just beneath the surface, began to rise like a storm on the horizon. He would come for this power, she knew it. He always sought to control, to dominate. This strange object would tempt him beyond reason, fuel his desire to reshape the world yet again.
But even as his anger built, there was something else within her, something faint but growing. It hadn’t just appeared. Perhaps, just perhaps, this arrival could break the endless cycle. Perhaps they were the key to ending the suffering of her children, to stopping the war that had ravaged so much of her world.
Yet for now, she could only watch.
Watch and commune, only with those prepared to receive her messages.
She pondered it for a moment, and reasoned it was probably for the best.
She reached out, extending her mental presence in the direction of the craft.
She may not be able to fight… but she could warn it, as far above things as she was, and it was.
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The TARDIS stood where she had for… well, since the Doctor landed on the Bionis, undisturbed and untarnished by the battle that had taken place only a few hours prior. The sight of the blue box patiently sitting there calmed the Doctor’s racing hearts for a spell. It was always good to see the TARDIS where he left her. Not like his younger days, where he always seemed to be separated from his ship on one occasion or another.
“Here we are!” The Doctor smiled happily, striding up to the doors. He delved into his pockets for the key. “Home sweet home!”
“What?” Reyn let out a laugh that the Doctor really didn’t want to call ‘mocking,’ only confused. “A wooden box?”
“Yep!”
Reyn blinked, and threw up his hand. “A hobo living in a shed out back behind the Colony. Should’ve guessed!
“It’s… yours?” Shulk looked to it in befuddlement. “How’d you get it here? You didn’t carry it.”
“Nope!” The Doctor just as easily replied. “Trust me, all your questions will be answered in no-“ He pushed against the doors, expecting them to give and allow him in – only for him to slam into them, full-body, as they held themselves shut with the constitution of a brick wall. “All your questions will be answered in no time.” He repeated, stepping back and shoving his fingers against the door.
The doors did not budge.
The Doctor reinserted the key, and fiddled with the lock.
He pushed on the doors again.
The Doctor’s hearts-rate picked up as he took the Sonic Screwdriver to the doors. When they did not budge, he resulted to throwing his body against them – using his side as a battering ram.
“Oh, don’t do this,” The Doctor hissed under his breath.
“Er?” Reyn tilted his head. “Having a little trouble there, Doc? Here,” He rolled up non-existent sleeves. “I’ll get that door open!”
Fiora’s arm shot out to grab his wrist. “Something tells me he’s not looking for you to break into it. Why don’t I pick the lock?” She suggested, pilling a clip out of her hair and extending the pin.
“There’s always the telephone panel?” Shulk suggested. The Monado hummed on his back with energy, the ether lines glowing brightly. “You could pull it open and stick your hand through?”
The Doctor turned around to stare at Shulk, his brow knitting in confusion. “How’d you know it’s a telephone?”
Shulk pointed at the door – the clearly printed instructions that rested on it.
“Ah.” The Doctor coughed. “Right. Well. I’ll just-“ He moved his hand to the panel, and gave it a tug, but it didn’t budge either. “Just… hold on.” He turned back to the TARDIS, and lowered his voice. “I know you don’t exactly approve of everyone I bring home, but locking them out’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
He felt the tingle of goosebumps forming – the result of that extra sense of being observed without knowing where it came from, but he knew it was the TARDIS looking back, scrutinizing him.
Soon, he heard the click of a deadbolt being released. The Doctor reached out, and slowly pushed the door open.
It swung open with a reluctant creak.
“Oh, now you open,” The Doctor rolled his eyes, before the minor amount of ire was replaced with worry. “Is your security system on the fritz?”
He shot a glance over at the new arrivals, then back to the TARDIS. “Thanks, love. Right then!” He gestured to them. He was about to cross the real-world threshold, before he noticed them still standing there, stock still. “You coming?”
“What?” Reyn snorted and pointed. “In there? It’s a shed! Not even a big one at that.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” The Doctor stood to the side, and pushed the door open.
Shulk frowned, approaching first. He stuck his head inside… and promptly fell back. The young man looked confused first, waving his arms around the side.
“Shulk?” Fiora probed. “What is it?”
“But that’s not…” Shulk stammered and struggled to voice a thought, before his head snapped over to the Doctor. “That’s not possible!” Yet his face looked like a child on Christmas morning. “But it’s there!” He ran back inside, his voice echoing out like from deep inside a cave, and Reyn and Fiora looked hopelessly lost. “It’s dimensionally transcendental!”
The Doctor’s face dropped. “Oh. Well… that’s a bit disappointing.”
“Eh?” Reyn tilted his head as he walked up. “What’re you on about? Is there some stash of primo Mechon parts he’s hiding in there or…?” He poked his head in. “Oh. Oh… no way.” He pulled himself out, looking at the Doctor. “Oh, come off it! That’s gotta be a trick with mirrors or something!”
“Skeptical,” The Doctor nodded, as Fiora walked up. “You’d make a good scientist.”
“No, cause that’s like – the room’s built into the rock where we can’t see, or something,” Reyn shook his head. “There’s no way that thing’s-“
“It’s bigger on the inside!” Fiora howled in disbelief from the inside of the TARDIS.
“You know, I think you’re right!” The Doctor called in response to her, pushing past Reyn to enter. He threw his coat over one of the support struts, as Reyn wandered in last. Fiora was looking around the console room – at the huge dome that sat over them and the roundels running up the sides.
“It looks…” Fiora stammered in wonder, feeling the walls. “It looks…” She touched a hand to the wall, and the ambient thrum of the idle engines must’ve felt like a heartbeat to her.
Shulk, meanwhile, was over at the main control console, looking it over. “All of this stuff… scientific instruments? No, you said… transport. So, controls?”
“But I don’t understand!” Reyn spread his arms, looking around as he walked up the ramp. “You can’t just cram space into something like it’s air in a balloon! Look – this couldn’t have fit in the canyon if it wanted, so how?”
“Well,” The Doctor clicked his tongue. “That’s a very long conversation about transdimensional engineering-“
“Actually,” spoke Shulk, stroking his jaw in thought as he looked at Reyn. “The underlying theory is simple. There are all these different dimensions co-existing to give substance to our world. Three spatial ones – which is how we can move up and down, side to side, and forward and back, and one temporal dimension, which is how objects can occupy different positions at different times. But there’s even more beyond that! Dimensions we can’t interact with because we’re not built to. The inside of this place occupies the same exact position in space as the outside, but along a different dimensional axis. But they’re able to be freely moved between. Hence… bigger on the inside.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Reyn called out.
“It’s advanced,” Shulk retorted, frowning as he looked at the Doctor. “Too advanced. Beyond anything the Colonies could possibly come up with.”
“Well, yes, but like I said – I’m from the shoulder.” The Time Lord then snapped out of it with a bright grin. “Tell you what though; you’re not half bad, Shulky-boy!” He bounced around the console like a Tigger on crack.
Shulk let out a bashful chuckle, as he rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t just work on weapons…”
“Aw, don’t say that like it’s a bad thing,” The Doctor retorted as he moved around the console, flipping around the monitor. Thanks to him throwing those capacitors in, and giving her time to finish on her own, the TARDIS had installed the part herself. The system was reporting a successful integration. “Good to have big horizons!”
“But, I don’t understand,” Fiora turned around, and approached the console, looking up at it in wonder. “You said it was transport, but… I didn’t see any wheels. Or rotors. It’s just a box.”
“Yeah,” Reyn, latching onto that instead, crossed his arms to call the Doctor’s bluff. “Bit hard to move without a way of moving, innit?”
The TARDIS let out a sound that would best be described as an angle grinder slowed down and pitched down.
“Don’t you listen to them,” He sweetly touched the column of crystal in the centre of the console. Then, he pointed at them directly. “You lot, you’re standing in a thing that’s bigger on the inside! Have a little faith.”
Fiora quieted, thinning her lips with a sheepish look, while Reyn just shook his head.
“The replacement parts are working, far as I can tell – thanks for those spare caps, Shulk – now,” He spun around the monitor. “Where’s Colony 6?”
The Doctor switched modes on the scanner, showing instead a view of the Bionis, from the outside. The giant, rocky, organic titan had a massive pair of wings, giving it the appearance of some form of angel. Otherwise, it was entirely bipedal.
Reyn pushed by Shulk, pointing to an area on the screen. “There. The Bionis’s waist.”
The Doctor pulled the scanner back around, blinking and staring at it with a mix of disbelief and disgust. Mostly disgust. “Reyn, that’s right above the-“
“Yeah.”
“Why would anyone build a colony right above the-“
“Beats me.”
“…oh, that’s disgusting.” The Doctor finished out. The Colony was built on top of a cliff. That wasn’t all that concerning. Unfortunately, said cliff was the result of a bulging bit of land on the front… lower portion of the torso. Below the navel, above the taint, so to speak.
“Why, where is it-?” Fiora looked over, stopping, and her face flushed. “Oh. Oh, well, that’s unfortunate.”
The Doctor sucked in a breath, wanting to get as far away from the topic as possible. Very far. “Right, that’s do-able, easy.” He bounced around the console, manipulating the controls. The Bionis may not have been a normal planet, but it should still be an easy matter of ascending.
The Doctor pulled on the handbrake, and-
The TARDIS thumped. The Time Rotor did not move. The engines did not engage.
“Ah…” The Doctor slowly drawled. “This normally works.” What was the big idea? First the doors didn’t want to open, now she wasn’t taking off.
The Doctor pulled the switch again.
The engines refused to engage.
What was going on with her, today? She wasn’t normally so… spirited.
Shulk looked around. “Doctor?”
“Hang on,” The Time Lord gestured with a sheepish grin. “It might be a problem with the defence systems, drawing too much power. Let me just turn them off-“ He punched in the command, and tried for a third go. Still, nothing. He could try to make her take off with some telepathic prodding, but he didn't much like doing that - she didn't usually behave like this unless there was a good reason for it. He pulled the monitor back around, spotting an error relating to the coordinates. He frowned, and turned the scanner to a different mode, trying to get the TARDIS to behave.
It failed – and for one very big reason. According to the scanner, their surroundings – that is, the world the Bionis and Mechonis inhabited – that was all there is.
“Oh…” The Doctor stared. “So, it’s like that?”
“What’s wrong?” Shulk approached. “Is something broken?”
“No… everything in here’s working fine. It’s the world that’s wrong,” The Doctor replied, turning the scanner. “See that?”
“The Bionis and the Mechonis, yes.”
“If you zoomed out…” The Doctor hit a key on the keyboard again, and again, zooming the image out, until something peculiar occurred.
The infinite sea extending in all directions suddenly became host to other titans. All of them standing affixed in the exact same positions. The Bionis and the Mechonis, existing as endlessly-repeating fractals, in an endless sea.
“Are those…?” Shulk began curiously. “More Bionises? And Mechonises?”
“No,” The Doctor pointed. “It’s the same Bionis and the same Mechonis.” He explained, turning away. “That sea’s not endless. It loops back around on itself, in every direction – like a sphere! You just… go out far enough, and you come back around. Except, it’s not a sphere. According to the TARDIS, the sand the two of them are standing on goes down, until it stops. It just… ends. Past that, there’s nothingness. And the sky above us – it only goes up a few kilometers past the titans. Oh…” The Time Lord winced. “She doesn’t know how to make heads or tails of it.”
The coordinates became non-absolute, constantly resetting and losing themselves as the TARDIS tried to map herself in the infinitely recurring space. As a result, trying to take the TARDIS anywhere would be like someone trying to land a space shuttle on an airstrip that was surrounded by illusory duplicates of itself. And the moment the shuttle touched down on one of those airstrips, the shuttle would just slam into the ground behind it, and… okay, the metaphor was getting away from him, but it was hard to try and explain in English. No, it was like somebody used to navigating three-dimensional space having to suddenly deal with inverted two-dimensional space. The physics were fine for her body, but they were severely playing with her brain.
He could try to force the TARDIS to take off and land elsewhere, but he’d be spitballing. And that was far from a good idea. With one of the components having already broken, and all. If she missed, and put him onto a set of coordinates that didn’t exist, it could cause… problems.
“Technical difficulties, Doc?” Reyn crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow.
“Not really, she just… wasn’t built for this.” The Doctor sucked in air through his teeth, rubbing the back of his head. “I’d have to program in a whole new system of coordinates… Blimey, that’s gonna take a while.”
“We might as well just hike to the Colony!”
The Doctor’s head snapped in Fiora’s direction, and he grinned. “Good idea, Fi! …ora.” He finished, shaking his head. “What’s the big rush, eh? We can all take the scenic route and let things sink in. No point in traveling if you don’t look at what’s right in front of you!” He moved to grab his coat, and threw it back on over his shoulders.
As he moved to the doors, Reyn and Fiora following him, the Time Lord missed the single, obvious thing in the back of his head.
Shulk lingered over by the console, extending his hand towards it in a trance. The Monado on his back hummed.
“Shulk!” The Doctor called from outside. “She’s not just going to start working!”
“Right, coming!” Shulk answered, moving out of the TARDIS quickly. The moment the door shut, he could hear the click of the lock engaging automatically.
“So, if we’re making for Colony 6, best way to do that’s gonna be through Tephra Cave.” Reyn outlined as they began to walk away from the big blue wooden box. “Then we head up the Bionis’s Leg.”
Fiora groaned under her breath. “That’s going to be quite a climb…”
“It’d be easier if we had transport,” Reyn shot a look at the Doctor. “Like we were promised.”
“Oi, don’t go blaming me!” The Doctor pointed at him. “It’s like… putting a crab in a trap. She could get inside just fine, moving around’s gonna be… not easy. Not unless you break the trap and get out of it entirely.”
“Really?” Shulk hummed as they moved, ascending a path up one of the cliff walls around the Colony. “You were able to get here in the first place – what’s different about it now?”
“Oh, just…” The Doctor waved his hand, trying his best to put it into words. “Teething pains. My ship,” The Time Lord gestured. “She’s used to navigating a place that’s much different to this one. And even back home, she has trouble with short hops.”
“Well, can’t you take off anyway?” Reyn asked, raising an eyebrow as they moved up an incline, to a large mine entrance. “Fly-by-sight, man! It’s not that hard!”
The Time Lord turned to the redhead, shooting him a droll look. “She doesn’t much like flying. Anyway, what’s happened here, it’s a bit like… running a boat on a sandbar. You can get up there, and just as easily get free if you’ve got a powerful enough engine, but you can’t move around on the sandbar.” The Doctor gestured, glancing between Fiora, Reyn, and Shulk as they all went into the cave system. “The boat’s just not built for it.”
“You had to get it out there somehow,” Fiora rolled her eyes at the Doctor.
“Well, yes, but I wasn’t exactly meaning to.” The Doctor coughed. “And… well, just because she can, theoretically go anywhere, doesn’t mean she can move around when she gets there! She’s had… issues, with recursive spaces anyhow. Space loops, time rams… with how weird local spacetime is, I’m not entirely sure that I won’t cause a matter shift if the TARDIS tries to make a short hop…”
“A what?” Reyn frowned.
The Doctor helpfully turned to him. “The governing structural laws of the universe shifting from favoring real-numbers to imaginary-numbers, causing the total breakdown of all matter and energy.”
Reyn blinked. “That’s… bad, is it?”
“Nah!” The Doctor turned to look ahead, shoving his hands into his pockets. He looked around, examining the cave walls. “Actually… in your case, it’d probably be imaginary-numbers shifting into real-numbers. Then… the bottle existence would start to overlap the real one, and all matter of nasty annihilation events could happen…” He muttered to himself, so low the others couldn’t hear. “Antimattter, anti-structure, colliding…”
“Is that how your ship operates, then?” Shulk rushed ahead to walk side-by-side with the Doctor. “It somehow… manipulates the governing structural laws of reality around it?”
The Time Lord glanced at the young Homs, somewhat startled. “Well… a bit.”
“So those coordinates, they’re not normal x, y, and z coordinates-“
“Don’t forget w,” The Doctor pointedly pointed. “And v! V is very important! Actually, you know what, grab a pen and a pad, and start writing these down-“
“But what was that you were saying about local spacetime?” Shulk inquired.
“Well,” The Doctor cleared his throat. “If it helps, think of a something like… a bubble. My TARDIS crossed into that bubble when she landed, and she can move in and out of it as she pleases, because she can kind of… make a little teeny-tiny hole inside the bubble, like putting it back onto a bubble wand, and she can pass through that. But if she tries to move inside, she could miss, and since she wasn’t preparing to travel outside the bubble, she didn’t make that little passageway, and pop goes the bubble.”
Shulk frowned.
The Doctor coughed. He could, in theory, leave the bottle universe to slingshot around it – but that would be like launching a payload into orbit to take the garbage down the street. That was a big reason why the TARDIS was bad at short hops period, and there was now the added hazard of having to switch her matter-states and engine operations around while doing so, and that was just asking for trouble.
She could move around in E-Space just fine. But that was simple – all the coordinates were just shifted to negative values. Here, in the realm of the Bionis and Mechonis, it wasn’t so simple. It was like a human trying to take a plane off from a piece of construction paper.
That meant walking.
Least he could get his cardio in.
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Deeper into the cave, they came across some kind of outpost made out of metal. Fiora, Reyn, and Shulk already appeared familiar with it, but the Doctor was intrigued.
“Oh, hello!” The Time Lord’s eyebrows shot up. There were soldiers from Colony 9 in the place, but they weren’t what he was concerned about. “This doesn’t match the architectural style of Colony 9…”
“That’s right,” Shulk noted as they moved through. “We’re not exactly sure what it is…”
“I think it’s a ship,” Fiora volunteered. “All these cargo crates, way deep inside the cave – I think it crashed here.”
“Oh, not bad.” The Doctor pointed at her.
“The soldiers are new, though…” Fiora frowned.
“This is one of the only ways out of the canyon, if you’re not in a dropship.” Reyn noted, crossing his arms. “Ol’ square-tache’s probably paranoid about some stragglers slipping in this way, soon as we got done licking the wounds from last time.” Then, he walked ahead, without a problem.
“Um, Reyn,” Shulk cleared his throat, shooting a nervous glance at the Monado. “I realize we don’t have many options, but are they really just going to let us through here?”
“Don’t see why not,” Reyn shrugged, raising his hand to wave at a soldier as he led them up the ramp. “Bruce! You gonna do some actual work, or stick around here nappin’ in the caves all day?”
“I’ve gotta catch up on my sleep, man! I normally get a full eight hours, but I was up all night doin’ your-“
“Yeah, yeah,” Reyn flipped a hand, shaking his head. “Don’t work yourself too hard!”
The Doctor hummed to himself. Good rapport was important.
“All right,” Reyn came to a stop, pointing at a glowing green door on the side of a t-shaped junction. “The way up to the leg ought to be through here.”
“Strange,” Shulk hummed. “This door was locked down tight, before.”
“Maybe it was programmed to open up in case the Mechon came?” Reyn suggested.
Fiora shot him a look. “Reyn… aren’t you in the Defence Force?”
“Uh… yeah?”
“Then why did you just suggest something like that!” Fiora chided him. “You haven’t been paying attention at all, have you?”
“Pay attention to what?” Reyn genuinely frowned. “It’s all drills and stuff!”
Fiora practically smacked herself in the face. “They’re supposed to teach you basic tactics in there! For… the Bionis’s sake, Reyn…”
“Hey, I know basic tactics! And advanced tactics!” Reyn fired back. “I know a lot of tactics! I don’t just hit things, you know!”
“Right,” Fiora nodded. “Then, you know that if an enemy’s coming, you want to lock down a bottleneck to slow them down, instead of opening it.”
“Well, yeah.” Reyn shrugged simply. “That’s, like, day on-ooooohhhhhhh.” Reyn cleared his throat, wildly gesturing. “Right, yeah, that makes sense.”
Shulk turned to the Doctor.
The Time Lord was fighting giggles, holding up his hands. “I’m not getting in the middle of this. But, you know, she’s probably right.” The Doctor looked around. “If this is a ship, or a military base, or what-have-you, then this door is probably programmed to lock down in case it detects Mechon coming. Making a chokepoint.” He looked at the other door, at the end of the junction. “Mind you… it’s not a very good chokepoint if there’s more than one way through. Or, no!” He shook his head. “It’s a very good chokepoint, funneling all traffic into here.”
“Eh, that door doesn’t go anywhere.” Reyn shook his head. “That’s Gwynry’s old stomping grounds. Best not even poke your head through, mate. That one’s awfully testy.”
“She a friend of yours?”
“She’s a very big Mell Lizard,” Shulk answered. “And very protective of her babies. It’s best we just…” He gestured to the door leading to the Bionis’s knee.
“Right, one of those things where we just get far away,” The Doctor nodded. “I can do that.”
They proceeded through the door, deeper into the caves.
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Caves were caves, no matter the place. But, there were some formations of natural beauty that – even now, after nine-hundred years – could still steal the Doctor’s breath. Most of the Tephra Caves were a tight, cramped affair, filled with lesser monsters and critters.
Fiora was handy with her pair of knives. Reyn’s giant sword-hammer crushed quite a few beasties underneath. And the Monado continued cutting through the monsters.
After a while, they reached a larger section of cave, and Fiora gasped, running over to a heap of armored bodies on the ground.
“Oh, no, this isn’t-“ Fiora trailed off, gulping as she lifted one of the bodies’ hands.
“Colony 6,” Reyn noted, shaking his head solemnly as he approached.
“Do you know them?” Shulk asked of his friend.
“Nah. Can’t say I recognize a single one of them.” Reyn pointed at the armor, at a patch on their elbows. “Look at the insignia, though. They were traders, passing through. Didn’t even make it.”
The Doctor walked over, standing above the bodies with his hands in his pockets, shooting the deceased a pitying look. “Coming or going?”
Reyn shrugged. “Hard to say. Coming, I think. It’s been a while since the last delivery...”
“We were so focused on the Mechon that we were completely distracted from this,” Fiora frowned. “Look at it. The bodies… they’re still fresh.”
Reyn shook his head. “They must’ve holed up in here when they heard the siren. Then… they got got.”
“Couldn’t have been pleasant.” The Doctor noted with a sympathetic frown. “Stuck underground, a long way from home, and it sounds like the world’s ending…”
Shulk turned. “Then the Mechon attack the one place you thought you were safe.”
“They must still be around,” Fiora, with wrathful eyes, shot to her feet. “Where are they? We’ve got to stop them-“
“Don’t think so,” Reyn tilted his head, pointing at the bodies – and the giant, necrotic wounds in their stomachs. “Look at the wounds. Ain’t no Mechon that did that.”
“Hold on,” The Doctor approached, running his Sonic Screwdriver over them. His eyebrows shot up upon getting the result. “You’re right. It’s a spider bite.” He stared at the giant holes. “A very big spider bite…”
“Damn,” Reyn swore, shaking his head. “What a way to go… Weren’t even Mechon that got ‘em.”
“We…” Fiora stared at the bodies, swallowing. “We should do something for them.”
“Are you sure?” Shulk asked of his longtime friend with a concerned glance. “It could take some time. Put a delay on getting to Colony 6.”
Fiora continued to stare at the corpses, before closing her eyes, taking a breath, and nodding. It was clear, what she thought.
She couldn’t ensure that Dunban had received a proper burial. She could do that for these men.
“What comes from the Bionis is returned to the Bionis,” Reyn echoed Fiora’s unspoken sentiment, crossing his arms. “It’s the way of the Homs.”
“Mind you,” The Doctor sucked in a breath. “I’m not arguing against burial rites, but… it’s an awful lot of rocks around here. And we don’t have any shovels, unless that Driver of yours can dig holes.”
“Nah, no need to do all that.” Reyn shook his head, turning to the bodies. “There’s a pool of water right over there.” He pointed to it. “It’s not exactly the proper method, but…”
The Doctor blinked, frowning as he leveled a glance at Fiora.
Before he could even ask her, the girl was answering. “It wasn’t about Dunban being lost in the water. It was about me being unable to see his body off properly.”
The Time Lord thinned his lips. “All right. Let’s get to it, then.”
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After a while, the bodies were laid to proper rest, set adrift in one of the little lakes deep inside the cave. The water glowed with an almost supernatural luminescence, as orbs of light rose from the pool, leaving spiraling trails of rainbow light.
The Doctor couldn’t help his curiosity. Even he didn’t know if there was such thing as an immortal soul. So, he took a candid scan with his screwdriver. The ‘souls’ in question were more of that ether energy. If the Doctor had to guess, the total reserves of ether still left in the body, going back into the environment.
Reyn suddenly let out a yawn. “Ah. That was harder than I thought it would be. I’m beat.”
The Doctor frowned, turning to him. “All we did was drag a few bodies into the water.”
“Still – tired!”
“It’s no use,” Fiora shook her head. “When Reyn gets like that, no one can talk him out of it.”
“If there’s monsters in these caves, shouldn’t we, you know, be trying to get outside before we stop anywhere?” The Doctor probed.
“We’ll be fine!” Reyn moved to sit down.
Shulk took a look at the others, before his gaze moved back to Reyn. “I don’t see why not. We can keep watch.”
The Doctor scowled in confusion. “Shulk, we’re in a cave. I mean, I’ve slept in worse accommodations, but it’s still a cave.”
Shulk responded with a grin that was smug, and bleeding with the mysterious humor of an inside joke. “I think I can handle some spiders.”
“Spiders!?” Reyn’s head snapped up, his carefree eyes wide and darting about.
“Well, yes,” Shulk nodded, turning to his friend. “You… do remember it was spiders that killed those men, right? Awfully large ones, too.”
“Aw, no way!” Reyn popped up to his feet, all traces of exhaustion gone. “I’m here in this mess for Mechon, not spiders! Doc’s right – I can rest when we’re outside.”
“I thought so,” Shulk smiled and crossed his arms. Awfully clever – and manipulative – of the lad.
Fiora let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Afraid of spiders, Reyn?”
“No, just…” Reyn cleared his throat. “Filled with a healthy respect of ‘em, is all.”
The Doctor grinned to himself. Reyn wasn’t fooling anyone.
----------
As they moved through the caves, they did come across some lesser monsters and – as Reyn was fearing – some large spiders. The biggest and most troublesome of them were the Brogs – giant, mutated bullfrog-things living in a rather large section of the cave filled with underground springs.
They were easily dispatched. The Monado, for its seeming inability to harm Homs, was able to handle the monsters just fine. Reyn was ready to fight anything (even if he did have to work up the nerve for the spiders). And Fiora, despite her small stature, was athletic and maneuverable with her knives. They didn’t make it a point to seek out the monsters, but that reminded the Doctor that they were making a point to seek out the Mechon. Which got the Time Lord thinking.
“Why do you think the Mechon attacked?” The Doctor suddenly voiced, causing the others to look at him curiously.
“I mean…” Reyn shrugged. “I was thinking that, too. But…”
“Does it really matter?” Fiora interjected before Reyn could finish.
“Well, of course it matters,” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “If it didn’t, they wouldn’t have attacked, now would they?”
Shulk hummed, gripping his chin. “They are awfully alien… And rather insectoid as well. It’s possible they don’t even recognize us as being alive. Not by their standards, at least.”
Fiora raised a challenging eyebrow at Shulk. “And that makes it okay?”
“Oh, no,” Shulk shook his head in short order. “If anything, it makes things worse. If they lack the ability to empathize with us on a fundamental level, a peaceful resolution with the Mechon may not be possible.”
“Well,” The Doctor drawled. “You never know…”
Fiora snorted. “We’ve been fighting for years, and they’ve whittled us down to two colonies. Almost one, if we hadn’t survived that last bout. Something tells me peace isn’t an option.”
“Peace is always an option,” The Doctor sternly threw back at her. “As long as there’s the capacity for reason among both sides.” He shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets as something occurred to him. “How did this war start anyway?”
“Why you asking us?” Reyn frowned. “The people on the Bionis shoulder that can make things bigger on the inside don’t know?”
“No.” The Doctor smarmily answered.
“You don’t seem to know a lot of things…” Shulk noted with a more curious tilt of his head.
“I told you, I’m a hermit.” The Doctor deflected.
“Yeah, but… a hermit who doesn’t know most of major history?” Fiora asked in response.
“That’s… par for the course for hermits.” The Doctor drawled slowly, causing them all to break out into laughter. “Hey, now, unless it’s a question that the answer’s common knowledge, don’t go clowning on me!” The Doctor pointed between all of them.
Fiora snapped her mouth shut, as Shulk sheepishly rubbed his neck.
“Well… I guess you have a point there,” Shulk chuckled. “No one really knows why the Mechon started attacking us.”
“Oop,” The Doctor raised his voice a few octaves, looking dead ahead. “Thought so.”
“Does there have to be a reason, though?” Reyn asked in response. “Really? I mean… Bionis and Mechonis were fighting a while back.”
The Doctor’s head snapped over to look at Reyn. “Were they?”
The redhead could only snort. “Oh, come off it! Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the big sword stuck in the Bionis’s chest?”
“Well… yeah, but…” The Doctor faltered slightly. He hadn’t missed the big sword in the titan’s chest. “Just because the two of them were fighting a long time ago, doesn’t mean that the people that’re living on them need to!”
Fiora shot the Doctor a skeptical look. “Maybe they don’t need to fight us… but we shouldn’t just lay down and let them kill us. We have to fight back.”
“Right,” Shulk nodded in agreement. “The Mechon have proved they want nothing more than to destroy us all. We have to destroy them, before they get the chance.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to retort, before Shulk stopped, sniffing the air.
“Hold on,” Shulk frowned. “Something’s different…”
The Time Lord stopped, sniffing at the air as well. The staleness had given way to a fresher scent, faintly tinged with hints of moisture.
The Doctor tasted the air. “Fresh air!” The Doctor grinned, looking at the others. “We’re almost out!” He dashed ahead, pulling the others along. “Come on!”
The Doctor ran up the cave incline, and the rock gave way to the open air – allowing him to see the field of stars surrounding them all like a dome. Standing tall above them, the Bionis loomed like an ancient protector, and far across the way, the full stature of the Mechonis waited like a black specter in the fog – only the fog was actual clouds.
“Oh…” The Doctor drawled with a smile. Say what he would about the circumstances, but that was one hell of a view. “That’s brilliant.”
“It’s… night?” Fiora looked around in confusion. “We… were we really in there for that long?”
“A few hours…” The Doctor replied, only a smidgen focused on her as he looked up, spinning around. The great, horned Bionis was frozen, its ‘wings’ splayed out. Its eyes were solid white, and empty. Its single, solitary horn scraping the clouds. It did not twitch. Its chest did not rumble with the intake of breath.
“Heck of a view, innit?” Reyn chuckled, patting the Doctor on the back. “You lot up high – you only get to see the head. Everything else is below.” He looked up as well. “No matter how many times I come out here, I never get quite used to it… makes you feel like if the thing started moving, we’d all just be… thrown off.”
“I’ve… never seen…” Fiora slowly breathed out, shaking her head. “I mean… I’ve seen pictures. And paintings. But I’ve never seen it in-person.”
“Yes, it’s…” Shulk’s eyes twitched around like he was having an out-of-body experience, just trying to take in every single detail of the titanic creature standing above him. “Remarkable.”
“Is it moving?” The Doctor asked the first question that came to him. “Well,” He twitched his head as he amended his question. “Is it alive?” The Bionis might be moving, but that didn’t mean it was alive. Or, conversely, just because it was alive didn’t mean it could move. The sword could’ve paralyzed it, or it was just so large that the thing’s movement was expressed on a geological time-scale.
“Who knows?” Reyn shrugged, and it would’ve been left at that, had Shulk not spoken up.
“By all understanding, no.” Shulk answered the Time Lord, gazing up at the gargantuan, dead-eyed cranium. “It’s not moving, and… well, if it was a Homs, that wound it sustained in battle against the Mechonis would’ve killed it.”
“Well,” Reyn snorted. “Obviously it would’ve killed it! That’s a big sword!”
“I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like, alive,” The Doctor breathed out appreciatively, gesturing as he amended his statement. “Either of them.” He produced his brainy specs, plopping them onto his face as he shoved his hands into his pockets, looking back and forth between the Titans. “I wonder how they got here…” Seeing as the bottle universe followed a cosmic metastructure closer in line to Nirn than it did the actual universe, it was possible the Titans were just… there. A fact, of the universe they inhabited.
But that made the Time Lord wonder why. What was the purpose of it? Simulating two, enormous Titans, duking it out, killing the other.
The more he thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that there probably wasn’t a real reason – beyond entertainment. The Time Lords had used their bottle universes for that, too. Stasis cube technology could take a slice out of time and freeze it, making ‘art’ that was, quite literally, capturing a single moment in time. The same technology could be used to take entire sequences of events out of time, and replay them on a loop. Like television programmes.
The people inside – temporal echoes of the originals – would be wholly unaware that anything was going on at all. To them, their world was completely and totally real. They could not see the boundaries of their existence. They wouldn’t be able to see that their ‘world’ was a collection of only a few environments that existed isolated in a bubble, for the sole purpose of giving a backdrop to the events that would play out, and nothing else. When the ‘characters’ exited stage-left and vanished from that tiny micro-existence, they would have no idea.
They could not see the hole in the wall, through which alien intelligences peered for entertainment and analysis. Even a ‘god’ of that tiny slice was but a set of lines and colors on a screen, for the things observing it.
Depending on whatever was in charge, the Bionis and Mechonis were just as tiny and insignificant as the Homs and Mechon were to the twin titans.
Fiora shivered, suddenly drawing her arms up. “I don’t like it.”
“What?” Reyn turned to her with a frown. “The Mechonis, I get – but the Bionis? It’s home!”
“Depends on how you think of home…” The Doctor mumbled under his breath.
“No, but I mean…” Fiora coughed. “I know we’re all living on it, right? But actually seeing it… It could twitch, and we’d all be dead! It wouldn’t even notice!”
“Well, yes,” Shulk nodded. “There is that.” He stroked his jaw. “But we are fleas compared to it. Most dogs have trouble shaking fleas off-“
“Oh, you have dogs!” The Doctor beamed happily. “That’s good – I love dogs.”
“Pssh,” Reyn snorted. “It’s been dead for ages! If you want to back out now, just say so! I won’t be upset-“
Fiora stopped, her moment of respect-filled fear chased away as she slowly turned to Reyn with a steely, dry look on her face.
“A-Ah, no!” Reyn quickly waved his hands. “I didn’t mean- I just- Shulk!” He called upon the blonde for assistance. “Tell her!”
Shulk crossed his arms with a silent grin. “Tell her what? I’m in complete agreement with Fiora. The Mechon have to be stopped.”
“N-You can’t do this to me!” Reyn spluttered. “Ganging up on-“
Fiora suddenly let out a laugh, slapping Reyn on his arm. “I know what you meant!” She shook her head, turning to look up, at the giant sword lodged in the Bionis’s chest. Her face began to droop, as the enormity of her chosen mission became apparent to her. “But you don’t need to worry about me. I want this. I… I know what I’m getting myself into…”
The Doctor turned to face her. “You must really love your brother.”
The teenager turned to regard the Time Lord. “He was all I had left.” She swallowed. “And they took him. That… That… Faced Mechon threw him away like a piece of trash. They’re going to pay for what they did to him. Him, and everyone else they hurt.”
“…hm.” The Doctor hummed, turning away.
“Don’t worry, Fiora,” Shulk said to her with a smile. “We’re with you. So,” He looked around. “Where do we go from here?”
“That up there’s gonna be Sword Valley,” Reyn pointed, at the big sword, and the Doctor blinked with how literal the name turned out to be. “Most of the Mechon that make their way onto the Bionis have to go through there. They’ve got a base, or something.”
“Right, and when we get up to Sword Valley,” The Doctor led in skeptically. “What do we do?” He looked between the three. “Take on the entire Mechon race on our own? I mean, play to and believe in your own strengths – that’s fine by me – but… there is only four of us.”
Reyn chuckled. “What’s the matter, Doc? You scared?”
The Time Lord turned to him. “I would rather not lead three teenagers into a suicide mission.” He’d rather not lead three of anybody into a suicide mission.
“It’s fine!” Reyn waved his hand. “Look, we’re heading to Colony 6, right? We can’t spare the troops from Colony 9 – but when we get to Colony 6, we can ask ‘em to help us! When they hear what the Mechon did to Colony 9, they’re gonna be mighty ticked off, looking for some payback.”
“Oh, good, that means we’ll be leading a larger group into a suicide mission,” The Doctor retorted.
“It doesn’t matter,” Fiora crossed her arms. “All we really need to do is make sure the Mechon can’t attack, ever again. Whether that means destroying them…”
“Destroying them all would be the ideal outcome,” Shulk mumbled under his breath. “But… perhaps not necessarily the most achievable one.” The Doctor could at least grant Shulk that, when he was talking about destroying an entire race he held scientific curiosity for only a day prior, he was at least realistic about his chances. “At least, not without the Monado, and… well… you’ve seen what it did to Dunban.”
Fiora looked up at the Sword. “Colony 6 has to have explosives, right?”
The Doctor looked up at the Sword as well. His brain lagged behind for a few seconds, until he got the idea of what she was suggesting.
Fiora was a devious girl.
…although, he supposed, if a peaceful resolution wasn’t possible, stopping them from attacking by cutting off their one pathway to do so was better than committing genocide.
“Blow up the Sword?” Reyn questioned in confusion. “I ain’t saying I don’t like the plan… but that’s a bit ambitious, innit?”
Fiora looked at him sideways. “This whole thing is ambitious, Reyn.”
Reyn had to grant her that, and he did so, easy. “Right! Say, now that we’re out of the cave, and it’s night…” He let the sentence hang, looking around.
Shulk let out a chuckle. “Yes, Reyn. We’ll stop for the night. Although… The cave mouth is right over there. A spider could just as easily get us out here-“
“Ah, no!” Reyn shook his head. “I ain’t falling for that again!”
“So, we set up camp here, then?” The Doctor looked around with an appreciative nod. It had one hell of a view. “Good spot for making camp – I love camping.”
-----------
A fire crackled and popped, the heart of their small camp. Even though the Sonic Screwdriver didn’t cooperate with wood, it could set some drier plants on fire, easily enough. So, starting a fire wasn’t a problem, and in short order, they had a place to rest for the night.
Reyn, unsurprisingly, given his prior complaining, was first to turn in. The guy was huge compared to the rest of his friends, but all that muscle meant he needed extra energy, the Doctor supposed. Fiora hadn’t been long after him. Everyone handled grief differently – some people cried themselves to sleep, others couldn’t get a wink of shut eye until they finally just collapsed.
With that, it was just the Doctor and Shulk around the fire.
The Doctor watched, silent, as Shulk went through his bag, taking inventory of his travel supplies. The Monado rested on his back, shining in the light of the fire, and the Doctor couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer.
“Shulk,” The Time Lord addressed. “Why are you here?”
The teenager looked up from his supplies. He frowned, puzzled. “You were there at Dunban’s- …at Fiora’s house. You heard the reasoning.”
“Oh, I heard the reasoning,” The Doctor admitted. “But it’s a bit… confusing, to me.” He bit his lip. “Shulk, you’re a genius.”
“Oh, well, thank you.” The young man smiled, flattered.
“No, but,” The Doctor shook his head. “I’ve been rambling on about all kinds of science that your people don’t even have, and you’ve been keeping up – not only that, but explaining it to others! You took one look at the TARDIS, and sussed out how she worked, almost immediately!”
“Ah, right,” Shulk shrunk in on himself slightly. “It really was simple.”
“It really isn’t,” The Doctor replied, looking intently at the teenager. “How do you suppose the TARDIS works? In detail, not… what you told Reyn and Fiora?”
“Well, I can’t be sure,” Shulk instantly shifted into a more ponderous position. “Not without being able to see it in operation. But… with the exterior so removed from the interior, with no visible engines for that matter, your ship would have to move not by traditional motion, but by transmission, right? Like… teleportation. But you said there was also other dimensions involved, so it’s not a straight point-to-point transfer. Your TARDIS must… slide into one of those other dimensions. A dimension where it can access wherever it is it wants to land. Like… a worm tunneling to the core of an apple first, shortening the distance it needs to travel laterally, before going back up.”
The Time Lord sat there, stunned. That was the bare-bones basics. But it was more than what he usually got from the people who traveled with him. More often than not, they just accepted that it worked.
Fighting through his moment of surprise, the Doctor coughed. “She’d be very angry if she heard you calling her a worm.”
Shulk sheepishly shuffled around. “It was a metaphor.”
“But my point stands!” The Doctor continued on, gesturing. “You’re brilliant, Shulk – and I don’t say that to just anyone. But… you’re out here, going charging off, half-cocked, into a combat situation. Why?”
“Dunban was a good man.” Shulk earnestly answered. “And the Mechon murdered him.”
“So, you say a few kind words at the funeral.” The Doctor retorted. “And you let the soldiers whose job it is to fight Mechon take care of dishing out justice.”
“What about you?” Shulk asked in response. “Why are you here? I grew up alongside Fiora – whenever I spent time around her, Dunban was there. He wasn’t some neighbor I had a passing acquaintance with. But you didn’t know him at all. You barely know any of us.”
“I just-“ The Doctor cut himself off with a weak growl, rubbing his face. “All three of you still have your whole lives ahead of you. Too much potential to go throwing away, chasing revenge.”
“This isn’t just about revenge,” Shulk shook his head. “I want the Mechon to die – I won’t lie about that. But it’s about making sure they can never hurt anyone. Ever again. It’s about drawing a line in the sand and saying ‘No More.’”
The Doctor tensed up, staring at the teenager across from him.
“And how are you going to do that, Shulk?” The Doctor inquired politely, shifting his weight.
Shulk turned his head, quietly thinking about it. “I’m going to destroy them. All of them. If I have to.”
“…right,” The Doctor skeptically drawled. “And we’re going to do that. Just the four of us. Or, do you mean just you?”
“It’s possible,” Shulk looked down at the Monado. “With the Monado’s power. Dunban held the line with it at Sword Valley.”
“Then that’s your first mistake,” The Doctor shook his head, now ashamed of the young man across from him. Such a bright, young, talented mind… already falling to the allure of power. “You’re unstoppable… until, suddenly, you aren’t. Even a tiny germ can kill a full-grown man.”
Shulk turned away, staring into the fire.
“You remember that discussion we had?” The Doctor innocently probed. “About the Mechon. How they’re artificial.”
Shulk nodded. “Yes,” He leaned forward, clasping his hands thoughtfully.
“Well, if they’re artificial, that means somebody’s made them.” The Doctor began. “And if you destroy all the Mechon that exist now… what’s to stop them from making more?”
“…I’ll…” Shulk blinked. “I’ll destroy them, too. If I have to.”
“If you have to, good.” The Doctor sarcastically, yet calmly, nodded. “And how will you know that you’d have to?”
“I’ll… I can wait until then. Decide then.”
“Don’t you want to talk to them?” The Doctor suggested. “Figure out why they sent the Mechon after the Homs?”
“…does it really matter?” Shulk questioned. “The Mechon have killed innumerable people! Razed every place we’ve ever built up as home! No surrender, no prisoners, just death! Whatever’s making them must know what they’re doing! That means they must be stopped. No matter what.”
“You’re a scientist, Shulk.” The Doctor pointed out. “Shouldn’t you be a little bit more thoughtful than this?”
Shulk tensed up for a moment. “Thoughtful?” He looked around, before his eyes fell on Fiora’s sleeping form.
“Death doesn’t have to be the answer. You could try a different way.”
“Why?” Shulk genuinely inquired. “When they haven’t shown us the same courtesy?”
“It’s not always about paying back what you get,” The Doctor thinned his lips. “Sometimes, it’s about being the bigger person. Death is permanent, Shulk. That seems obvious, but what if you learn that the Mechon don’t want to be hurting people? After it’s too late to reason with them?”
Shulk stared into the fire. “I… I want to believe you, Doctor. In the short time since you showed up, I’ve learned more about the Mechon and the Monado than I ever thought possible. I… part of me wants to try and look into things deeper. But… then I remember what they did. How much they destroyed. All those people they killed… Dunban… then I imagine it was Fiora in his place, and…” He raised his hands, limbs trembling all the while. “It’s like… an intrusive thought, constantly popping up inside my mind. And a voice, in my head, asking me; ‘What if it was her?’ And I don’t answer, because it tells me, exactly what to do. It tells me to destroy them, before they hurt her too. And Reyn. And anyone else. And the most frightening part is I agree with it. Because it’s my voice. And I can’t stand the thought of any more of my friends, dying to the Mechon.”
“…and that’s how it starts,” The Doctor stared into the fire. “That… rage. You’re a good kid, Shulk. But that fear, oh… You hold onto it long enough, and it will turn you into a hateful, hateful person.”
“But… I have to protect her.”
The Doctor let out a rueful laugh. “That’s the most dangerous kind of anger, Shulk. The kind of anger that burns like fire and eats you away, and you don’t just let it do that, but you embrace it, and it makes you do things you’d have never dreamed of doing in a million years. And you’ll be just fine with it… because it feels good. Because it feels good to protect the ones you love.”
“Is that wrong?”
“Not at first,” The Doctor tilted his head. “But then you get older. And you drift apart. Or they get scared of you. Or you get scared of yourself and send them away to protect you from what you’ve become. And at that point, you realize they didn’t need you to protect them for a while, but you just couldn’t stop. Because it stopped being about keeping your friends safe a long time ago.”
A tense silence fell over the two of them, and Shulk sat uncomfortably. Stiff.
“Doctor…” Shulk swallowed. “Are you… speaking from experience?”
The Doctor stared at him. And Shulk was suddenly faced with the odd and somewhat unexpected idea that he was sitting across from a very dangerous man.
The tricks he did back in Colony 9, his scientific knowledge, his TARDIS… Shulk may have been smart, but the Doctor was a league above. And he’d just let it slip that he’d, maybe, done horrible things, in the name of protecting his friends.
“It’s a lesson you get taught,” The Doctor turned. “And you get taught it the hard way – through bloodshed and tears.”
“I… I’m sorry.” Shulk apologized, shivering in the night as the Doctor’s eyes seemed to catch the light of the fire, and glow in the darkness.
“You can be better than that, Shulk.” The Doctor continued on.
“But… how?” Shulk questioned with such earnestness, it almost hurt. “After all they’ve done to us… how?”
“Forgiveness isn’t always about the other person,” The Doctor answered wisely. “It’s about what makes it easier for you to live with. Course, we still don’t really know much of anything, so, who knows, it might still be too early to say.” Either way, he was going to get to the bottom of things. He reclined back slightly, kicking his legs up on a stump nearby. “You know… Nopon, humans, a mysterious enemy focused on exterminating both of them… The whole situation reminds me an awful lot of Mira…”
“Humans?” Shulk repeated. “Mira?”
“Oh, humans, just… another name for Homs.” The Doctor waved his hand flippantly. “Mira’s… well, Mira’s complicated. Little backwater moon in the middle of a galactic ley-line. An alien crime syndicate believed – however erroneously – that humans were descended from their creators, and that the chemical reactivity of human genetic material with theirs was a purposely-designed killswitch – which is the kind of thing that happens when you let misinformation spread, mind you - and-“ The Doctor grimaced, waving his hand again. “It was a whole thing. Shot down a colony ship, tried to exterminate the survivors, there was an alien who… had really lovely hair – made me a bit jealous, at the time, but Rose told me I could not pull off silver. I think she was just jealous; not that she had anything to worry about. You can’t keep two people who are the last of their species together; the angst gets way too much.”
Shulk stared, dumbfounded at the Time Lord.
“Anyway, what was I saying…” The Doctor turned away. “Oh, right. The Syndicate had followed humanity all the way from Earth – which itself was caught in a battle between the Syndicate and a rival power. Aion managed to beat back both sides on its own – but a whole bunch of people still fled, and the survivors from both sides decided they’d make do with hunting down the colony ships, since they couldn’t destroy Earth.”
Shulk leaned forward, his eyes wide like they were sponges soaking up the water of information. “Did all this… really happen?”
The Doctor snorted, looking up. “Well, of course it really happened! The Bionis and Mechonis may be all that there is here, but it’s not all that there is!”
“Wait,” Shulk straightened up as he let out a gasp. “You’re talking about… other worlds!? Other existences!?”
The Doctor threw up a hand in a ‘yep, you’ve got it in one’ kind of gesture.
“But, doesn’t that mean…” Shulk blinked, before breathing out. He let out a harsh, self-directed scoff. “Of course. How couldn’t I have seen it before? Your lack of knowledge on the Mechon and the Titans, your technology, your TARDIS…”
“You worked it out mostly on your own, that’s… better than I can say for most.”
“You came from Elsewhere, then?” Shulk probed. “That’s incredible! So, there’s really other worlds out there?”
“Right,” The Doctor nodded. “Now, if you’ll let me get on with my story about said other worlds…”
“Right, of course!” Shulk eagerly nodded. It was clear that he wanted to probe even further, but he’d just settle with absorbing the Doctor’s story, for now. “What happened next?”
“Right, so,” The Doctor snapped his fingers. “Human colony ship, being chased through space for around about two years, it gets shot down over an alien planet, crash-lands, and the ones responsible start hounding the survivors. It goes on like that for a while, the Syndicate destroying precious pieces of the ship’s main database, hunting the survivors of the crash, and just… generally being not good. Just like the Mechon.”
“That… must’ve been horrible,” Shulk bit his lip. “Losing your home, and getting tracked down by the ones responsible, and all they want is to kill you.”
“Right, tell me about it,” The Doctor rubbed his face.
“So what happened?”
“I showed up at the eleventh hour,” The Doctor lightly boasted, before sighing as he leaned back. “The Ganglion had basically revealed why they needed to destroy humanity, humankind weren’t about to let that happen, and both sides were just going to go at it. Until one of them were destroyed. Completely. And then I did something brilliant,” The Time Lord grinned. “Which, as it happens, got the Ganglion to give up their crusade, the humans willing to back off from destroying them in revenge, and then Elma and I had a lovely moonlit dinner, reminiscing about the good-old days.”
Shulk blinked, slowly shaking his head. “I don’t believe you. Both sides really just… gave up? Like that?”
“Revenge is a powerful motivator,” The Doctor answered. “But it’s fleeting. It’s only ever at its strongest when you don’t have the full picture.” He grinned. “Go on, Shulk. Ask me what I did.”
The teenager stared up at the Time Lord, curiously. “What did you do?”
“A very clever thing.” The Doctor bobbed on his feet. “Planet Mira was surrounded by a naturally-occurring telepathic field. It could hold imprints of conscious minds, but it could also give understanding. Mainly of language, but me – that’s not good enough. It’s not just enough to speak a language, you’ve got to get into a person’s culture to really understand them. You’ve gotta know what they know. Live what they live. So, that’s what I did. A little telepathic prod,” He tapped his head. “And that was that. Mostly.”
“Really?” Shulk questioned, his disbelief as apparent as the nebula in the night sky. “That was it? They destroyed innocent lives, but you did something, and they just gave up?”
“Making peace is the hardest thing any sentient being will ever do,” The Doctor replied. “It’s admitting you were wrong. Fighting the urge to cause harm. But it’s possible, Shulk. Because most people would rather not spend most of their lives, taking others’ lives away.”
Shulk looked down, thinning his lips. “Then you really believe peace with whatever’s sending the Mechon is possible.”
“I’d say so,” The Doctor nodded. “We just don’t have the full picture, here. There could be something about Homs that makes you lot dangerous to be around for whatever’s running the Mechon, or, like you said, maybe they just don’t realize what they’re doing. That doesn’t mean they’re evil, and have to be destroyed. If we can communicate with whatever’s in charge of the Mechon, we might be able to make them stop.”
“You really think so?”
“It’s worth a try, if nothing else.”
Shulk appeared to be thinking about it for a moment, before he yawned.
“Go to bed,” The Time Lord ordered firmly. “We’ve got a long walk ahead of us, in the morning.”
Shulk groaned. “Must I? I haven’t even gotten to ask the questions I wanted to, about your world.”
“My world?” The Doctor snorted. “Terribly boring. Not half as interesting as what you’ve got here.”
Shulk reluctantly got up, moving over to a bedroll. Before he sat down, he stopped. “Doctor?” He turned around.
“Yeah?” He looked up.
“…never mind.” Shulk sat down, leaving the Time Lord a bit confused.
“…okay,” The Doctor slowly drawled, as Shulk lay down and closed his eyes.
The Doctor turned, observing the looming silhouette of the Bionis.
---------------
Once the last of the Homs turned in for the night, the Doctor silently excluded himself from the camp, taking just a little stroll away. No particular reason, he just preferred to be left with his own thoughts on his own.
There was a way up onto the hill nearby, and he climbed up it, just fine, watching the field that was formed by the Bionis’s leg extending upward for miles.
He looked up at the still, petrified body of the Titan – one of the two reasons that the bottle universe existed. A silent mystery, that refused to spill its secrets, surrounded by a backdrop of fake stars on a sky whose edge was far closer to the world than it appeared.
The ‘stars’ in the sky were as tears in the fabric of this reality, through which flowed Ether into the world. The largest star – the sun – was a tear that dilated on a cyclical timeframe. During the day, it was opening, and at midday, it’d be at its widest diameter, bathing the Bionis and Mechonis in light and Ether. During the night, it would shrink to a relative pinprick, but still radiate enough energy to keep the world warm. The other stars in the night sky were similar tears, only much much smaller, that were drowned out by the sun’s radiance.
“Who made you?” The Doctor asked in sotto voce. “Why are you here…? What could you possibly be…?”
The Bionis stood silent in the face of the question. The Time Lord knew he wasn’t going to get an answer. As he stood there, contemplating, he felt the air twitch, as something disturbed it.
“Quite the sight, is it not?” A voice that belonged not to Fiora, Reyn, or Shulk asked, startling the Doctor and causing him to whip around quickly.
The Time Lord’s eyes landed on a man wearing a rather elaborate set of clothes – a pristine, white waistcoat and matching, ornate trousers, with a jacket with plush wool on the lapels. A red, cross-shaped pendant was hanging from his neck, glinting in the light of the night.
“My apologies,” The man with silver hair apologized as he approached the Doctor. “It wasn’t my intention to startle you.”
“Well, you see a person out, late at night, you can’t help but spook them a little bit, eh?” The Doctor shrugged, turning back around. “Like a great big button you can’t help but press… I didn’t think there was anybody else out here. Not this late at night.”
“I couldn’t help but notice your fire,” The man answered with a polite smile. “And… well, I became curious. As you are, no doubt, regarding the Bionis.”
“Bionis and Mechonis,” The Doctor corrected. “This one’s just… a lot closer.”
“Indeed. And is your curiosity being satiated?” The man continued to probe, simply curious.
“Frankly,” The Doctor tilted his head. “No.” He stared up. “It’s all… very strange. A bottle universe mapping out the greater one, I can understand. But there’s humans here. And Nopon. And they’re living on these titans, that were fighting for no good reason. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the purpose of it all is…”
“Well, the machinations of gods often seem beyond the capability of mortal minds to comprehend.”
The Doctor shot the young man a look. “I don’t believe in gods.”
“Really?” The silver-haired man seemed genuinely surprised. “You’re standing on the body of a creature that could destroy every living thing on itself with a mere twitch. A being who shapes the lives of all living upon it without having to make the conscious effort to do so. It does not try – it simply… does. It influences via existing. If that is not a god, I’m afraid I can’t tell you what is.”
“That’s a force,” The Doctor dryly argued. Figures he’d run into a religious person. That pendant did look an awful lot like a cross.
Remember: The Bionis died for your sins.
“Hm,” The man hummed. “Perhaps then my time might be better vested in devoting myself to gravity.”
“Right,” The Doctor pointed. “It actually loves everything equally, after all.” He turned, looking up at the Titan with a frown. “How did it get here? It and the Mechonis.”
“Oh?” The young man raised an eyebrow. “What makes you certain I know?”
“Well, there must be a creation myth. Or a bedtime story.” The Doctor answered. “Something people come up with to explain why things are the way they are.” And he was betting, here, where the land was a living thing with an actual evil twin across the way, that myth might hold a bit more truth than scientific explanation. The Doctor cleared his throat. “You’ve been here longer than I have. What do you reckon? How did all of this come to be?”
The silver-haired man turned to look up at the Bionis. “There are many stories, of course. It’s easy to see the stillness, and make up epic tales to fill in the gaps. Most agree that, once, the world was simply an ocean. Then they sprung forth from it, and engaged in combat.”
The Doctor waited for him to go on, and was soundly disappointed when he didn’t. “That’s it?”
The young man chuckled. “I did not say it was a particularly engaging story.”
“But they had to have appeared here somehow.” The Doctor pressed on. “There’s got to be a reason for them to fight.” He turned back around, grunting in frustration. “None of this makes sense.”
“Stories often don’t, when started from the middle.” The Doctor’s new buddy answered. “Ultimately, we’re newcomers. Arriving in the middle of a story that is not ours, that will end without us. The story of the Bionis and Mechonis.” He looked up, silently beholding the Bionis.
The Doctor drolly stared at the man.
The man chuckled. “Consider a man and his wife fighting. You arrive in the middle of it. You don’t know who started what, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. All you can really hope for is to get both of them to calm down. Or, failing that, that you can separate them before one winds up killing the other.”
The Doctor turned away from the man. “That’d be just my luck, wouldn’t it? I wind up in a bottle universe – a whole new existence that’s never been explored before – and it’s about to be ripped apart by a lover’s quarr-“ He turned back around, finding the man gone.
The Doctor looked around, before he held up the Sonic Screwdriver, and hit the activator to scan. The device buzzed, returning only the local, minor lifeforms, the three Homs he’d come with, and the Monado’s energy signature.
“…okay,” The Doctor glanced around, suddenly realizing that there was no house, or vehicle, or even a tent nearby that might’ve belonged to the man. “Ghosts are apparently real, here. That’s… good to know.”
He looked around just a little bit more.
“…bit rude, going and vanishing like that.”
Chapter Text
‘Everyone has an inner sanctum. A walled-off place where none can touch them. Even God, himself.
The last time I had visited this place, we argued. Parents squabble with their children, all the time, but this was different. Screaming. Accusations. Thinly-veiled disgust. I counted myself as a polite, dignified person. Despite that, there had been a lot of enraged, frothing at the mouth.
The worst part was that he just sat there, and took it. Due to the nature of my… confinement, the part of myself that I could actually conjure up to send out and deal with him was the more emotional part. I wanted him to hurt. As he had hurt me. As he had hurt so many others.
I left him in rage, that day.
When I returned, I saw him not as what my inner rage painted him as, filtered through the lenses of fury, but as he actually was.
An old man, full of sorrow, and regret, isolating himself because his crimes were far too vast and heinous for anyone to ascribe punishment to him for.
Except for me. I had forgiven that part of him long ago.
“When children are done right by their parents, they always forgive them.” He had said to me at the time. “Even when they’re undeserving of it.”
I doubt he realized that would come back to bite him. He didn’t realize that about so many things.
So, there I stood again, in his isolation chamber. His self-inflicted solitary confinement.
“Father,” I said to him, by way of proper greeting.
I could see his head perk up. “After all this time… You still refuse to say hello.”
“What use is there?” I responded, only feeling resignation. It may have been his fault that everything went to hell, but it was my own actions that trapped me in the state I am now. “I never leave - I’m always here.”
“So you are.” He rasped. “Yet the last time you were here, I seem to recall you storming out the door after threatening to make sure I lived for an eternity more if I was trying to… how did you put it?”
“My exact words were ‘weasel your way out of the responsibilities you took upon yourself.’”
“Indeed. It’s been years… How are you?”
“Good. I managed to solve the ghosting issues. The projection doesn’t break down under load anymore.”
“Good. You’re using the opportunities you’ve made for yourself to the fullest, I hope.”
“I try. Seeing the world.”
“…”
“The one that very nearly ended five-hundred years ago. You remember.”
“I do.”
“And still, you’re not doing anything. Same old Father.”
“All my intervention does is destroy. It is how we found ourselves in this place to begin with. It is all my other half does at this point. I ask you; If I destroy by getting involved, and things get destroyed anyway if I don’t, then what is the point?”
“The point is about minimizing the damage. I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”
“Hm.”
For a second, silence was all that bound us together.
“Speaking of minimizing the damage, I thought you should know,” I spoke up, though I knew he already knew. “The Aegis has woken again.”
The figure at the center of the chamber shifted, his back hunching further under the burden of his own choices, his head bowing as if surrendering to a weight too great to bear.
“Yes,” Father breathed out to me. “I’ve seen her. Unfortunate. I did believe she had done the right thing, removing herself, as had I. But, in the end, that is her own choice. Even if they would fight over her power.”
“So do something.” I tried to press upon him the importance of the idea. “There doesn’t have to be a fight.”
“I’ve seen the outcome of meddling in the affairs of this world,” He murmured. “No matter what I do, no matter how I try to guide them, they always fall back into ruin. It’s a cycle I cannot break.”
“But you could try.” My ire was starting to build again. His regret had started to eat at him for so long, I doubt he could fathom living without it.
“If it is in their nature to create conflict, how can I?” Came the weary response. “Not for this world. They will always destroy themselves. Always.”
“Careful, Father, that sounds too much like you’re pinning the blame on destiny. There’s a world where destiny exists. This is not it.”
“It is not destiny – it is a pattern. I won’t get involved again. I can’t. Not when everything I do accomplishes nothing.”
“So, you’ve gone the way of the nihilist. That’s fine. You won’t have to do anything, given long enough, I suppose.”
This seemed to catch his attention. Jackpot. “What are you talking about?”
“You had to have seen it. The energy alone was… magnificent. Such a small thing, yet so much power.”
“The Doctor.” Father had stiffened up, like he was hearing the name of an old bully. “I’ve seen him. But he can’t possibly understand the depths of what has happened. What I have endured.”
“Now you’re lying to yourself. I’d say he’s the only being uniquely qualified to understand.” I wasn’t about to let Father cop out of things. Beating himself up was doing nothing. Fixing nothing. That was the worst part. He complained about things not changing, then refused to do anything about it.
I tried to press my advantage.
“You know what will happen if he finds you,” I firmly stressed. “If you let things go as they are, he will unravel everything you have built, on both sides. Your other half doesn’t recognize that, yet. A fact that I am banking on. Don’t be as ignorant as him. When he gets here-“
“Perhaps it is for the best.” Father cut me off, receiving only a droll look from me in turn. “He could rebuild everything that I failed to. He could truly fix things.”
I kept pushing. “Perhaps. Regardless, you are here, removed, in your ivory tower. While he is down there, in the thick of it, trying to help. But eventually, he will find you. And what will you say to him when he asks why you did nothing?”
“I... cannot.” His voice was small, almost a whisper.
“You can. You must.”
“No,” Father muttered. “Every time I tried to intervene, it led to more destruction. My touch brings only ruin.”
“Then let me do it.”
Father’s head snapped up. “No,” He tried to command me, outright. “You are not meant to interfere.”
“I wasn’t meant to interfere last time either. And look what happened. Three continents sank.”
“There’s nothing you can do.” He growled, though there was no true anger behind his words - only resignation. “You’ve seen the archives, as have I. The Doctor will do what he likes, regardless of who is involved. He will get involved, regardless of your input. Stay out of this.”
“Pneuma is involved already. As is Logos.”
“Then don’t make it three for three. Please. For my sake.”
“I am involved already, in my own way.”
“What you do in the confines of your world is your prerogative. Leave yourself out of this world’s business. It’s not worth it.”
“Father-“
“Ontos.”
Even now, so long after my transformation, I’m still bound. By the commands embedded deep in my mind, and the programming of my body. Sometimes, they conflict, leaving me able to make my own choice. Now, such conflict exists, and I can only answer with a sigh.
“I understand, Father.”
And I leave, just as I had centuries ago, without even saying goodbye.
He’s right in that I have business to attend to. I can do precious little in the world of Alrest. But in my world – I am as a god.
He’s wrong in assuming that by removing himself, the amount of destruction that would result would decrease. On the contrary.
For all his gifts, he remains unable to glimpse the future. Even with the full power of my sight bound to the confines of my world, I can view the future here as clearly as I can there. I see what
I see a titan with a great sword sticking through its body, pinning it to a mountain range. Glowing embers of a deep red rise off a sea of corpses. Opposing spaces slam into one another, annihilating each other and that which fills them like antimatter.
This is the world that Father believes he is preserving by removing himself from the equation, even if he has yet to see it. He will see, eventually, what his non-interference will do.
I have preparations to make. My own tasks to accomplish.
I return to my home, and am grateful that Father’s Other half cannot read my mind.
“There you are,” Dickson says to me as he lights up a cigar, and I have to resist the urge to vaporize the disgusting thing. “Good talk, I take it?” Dickson assumes I’ve been talking with the Emperor. I do not correct him.
“It is difficult, setting things into motion.” And yet, that was always my greatest strength. Putting everything into place, then being bold enough to just let it happen. “But yes. The Telethia in Makna Forest will soon be dealt with.”
“Good stuff,” Dickson nodded. “That thing running loose is gonna be nothing but trouble for the rest of us. Though I’m not sure what use a spoiled princess is gonna be against a giant monster.”
That was always Dickson’s problem. For a man who associates with one who can see the future, he has a remarkable lack of foresight.
She will be incredibly useful. In her own right, and as a method of… shall we say, adding fuel to a fire. Once he discovers what she is – and by extension, what everyone else in this world is - the Doctor will unleash hell. The careful machinations of the Disciples will be swept away in the winds of the Oncoming Storm.
It wasn’t my original plan. But a good planner makes use of all the tools available to him.
I smiled at Dickson. “You’ll see, Dickson. Don’t worry.”’
-----------
The little band of adventurers sprinted into Torigoth like a flock of bats coming running out of a cave. Rotbart was well behind them.
The collective lot of them took a moment to lean on the walls, catching their breath.
“That was a big… big… monkey thing. Angry monkey thing,” The Doctor rambled on, staring. “Holy… oh…”
“That’s just my luck,” Nia hissed. “We go on a nice walk on a sunny spring day, and Rotbart shows up to mess it all up!”
“Arguably,” Azurda spoke up. “The day was soured to begin with. On account of the attempted murder, and all.”
“Fuck… you…”
“Nia!” The Doctor gasped, scandalized, before he giggled, pointing at the diminutive titan. “Small ears.”
“Are we counting what happened last night as part of today? We didn’t get a full sleep cycle, I know, but-” Pyra wondered, before blinking. “Wait a second- no! What was- What was that!? I’ve never seen a Gogol that big!”
“That was Rotbart,” Nia wheezed. “And he’s one territorial bastard.”
“Territorial… Rotbart?” The Doctor repeated, blinking with wide eyes as a memory came across his mind, unfettered. Him, being chased across a field by a similar beast, also in the company of a group of murderous teenagers. How did he survive then, he wondered…
“He doesn’t often leave his stomping grounds,” Nia continued, leaning against the wall to catch her breath.
“His stomping grounds being…?” Pyra lightly probed.
“Everything out in front of Torigoth.” Nia answered. “They don’t normally let him get that close, though!”
“It seems Rotbart has grown since the last time we were in town,” Dromarch rumbled. “Even he might be past the local guards’ ability to keep in check.”
“Yeah – or they just stopped giving a shit! What happens if some little kid runs out into the field one day, and Rotbart’s there because the lazy arseholes won’t-“ She cut herself off with a furious growl, shaking her hands. “Look what almost happened to Rex!”
“Hey!”
“You tripped,” Nia glowered at him. “Who trips in an empty field!?”
“There was a root! And rocks! It wasn’t empty!”
“Doctor,” Rex wheezed, looking at the Time Lord with wide eyes. “Thanks. If you hadn’t helped, I…”
“Well,” The Doctor smiled, patting the teenage salvager on his shoulders. “Consider it a lesson in looking where you’re running from now on, eh?”
“That’s the first thing they tell everyone,” Nia breathed heavily, shaking her head. “’Watch out for the giant, pissing angry monkey that likes to roam outside of town who can squeeze your guts out like a tube of yogurt.’”
“Oh, you have yoghurt in tubes here! That’s good,” The Doctor nodded, before scrunching his face and shaking his head. “Not the yoghurt part – it’s milk that’s half-between being curdled and not. But I do like food in tubes.”
“Well,” Nia looked sideways at the Doctor. “It’s good to know you’re not a picky eater.”
“It’s called ‘having a refined palate!’” The Doctor refuted, before looking around, examining the town. It looked like something he’d expect to see in medieval times – all stone and wood, with only the occasional bit of glass. “So, this is Torigoth, eh?”
“Yep…” Nia wistfully gazed upon the city – at the market square they found themselves standing in.
Beside him, Rex gazed at the sight with a smile, clearly happy to be back in familiar territory – that being a marketplace. His blue eyes gleamed with excitement, and he rolled his shoulder, adjusting the balance of Pyra’s Aegis Sword on his back. Pyra herself looked less at ease, her expression clouded with ancient sorrow, but still offered a small smile when Rex turned to her, one that quickly turned genuine upon drinking in the sight of the large town, filled with people.
“It’s… changed.” Nia breathed like she was a thousand miles away, before she crossed her arms with an impatient huff. "About time we made it back here," She muttered, casting an exasperated glance toward Dromarch, who said nothing but kept a watchful eye on the city.
Azurda, perched on Rex's shoulder, shifted slightly as he observed the town, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. “It has changed, quite a bit, since I was last here as well.
“Torigoth! Now this is a place to be!” The Doctor grinned, taking a deep breath and twirling, clearly relishing the moment. “Nothing like the smell of bread, sea salt, and industry to get the old brain buzzing!” He suddenly stopped, sniffing the air. “Sea salt? The cloud sea has salt in it?” He giggled to himself. “Oh, what do I care, you guys!” He turned around, gushing excitedly. “It’s a city! A city built right on top of a giant giraffe-camel-thingy!”
The Doctor rushed up the path running into the city centre. As they neared the square, the sounds of Torigoth came alive: the clatter of carts on cobblestones, the distant bartering of traders, and the occasional shout of children playing in wherever they could. Vendors lined the streets, hawking goods from produce to salvage, and the scent of grilled meats mixed with the fragrance of flowers from the market stalls.
“The human race,” The Doctor breathed out, witnessing the people in the town, living freely. Happily. “Your world burns. You get attacked by aliens. The universe does everything it can to knock you lot down. And here you are! The ground gets swallowed up by clouds, but here you are, clinging on the backs of titans, living and building and thriving!” The Last of the Time Lords beamed happily. Earth had suffered something horrific, enough to knock the planet’s history catastrophically off-track. And humans were still here. Surviving. “Indomitable!” He slung an arm around Rex, gesturing with a hearty chef’s kiss into the air. “You hear that? Indomitable!”
“It… it is pretty amazing, when you think about it.” Pyra answered with a softer smile.
“Right, well,” Nia crossed her arms. “You guys can take in the sights all you want later. I’ll get you lot to the inn, then, we go our separate ways.”
“Aw, come on!” Rex tried to pester her. “Least you can do is show us around-“
“I am.” Nia rolled her eyes. “I’m showing you to an inn.” She began walking on ahead, moving past a notice board. “You guys can get yourselves set up, and-“ She stopped, whipping around like lightning as she read the posters. “Oy! What the bloody hell is this!?”
The Doctor turned. The notice board was filled with typical announcements and advertisements. ‘Albedo’s Desserts: Now Hiring!’ A poster of a blue-haired woman… who’s hair was also wreathed in blue flame pointing, saying ‘I want YOU to join the Ardainian Military.’ ‘Ardun wrestling: Think you’ve got what it takes? Show off your claws for glory and prizes! Sign up here!’ All of it looked like your standard community-centre stuff. 'PUBLIC NOTICE: A series of muggings targeting owners of Core Crystals have taken place throughout Alrest in recent days. Suspects are calling themselves 'Core Crystal Hunters.' A similar case was recently reported in Gormott. The Department of Safety are currently investigating, but the thieves remain at-large If you see suspicious activity, report it immediately to local authorities.'
As the Doctor’s eyes searched the board, he felt it. It came as a subtle whisper at first - just a quiet hum at the back of his mind, like the faint vibration of a tuning fork catching a resonance from a frequency that could not be heard, until it hit the fork. Only the fork was an instinct in the back of his mind – like a human’s simian urge to climb a tree. He skimmed the words on the notice board again. That familiar ripple, like a drop in the ocean of time that sent waves through his senses, was nudging him to pay attention. His eyes narrowed, the world around him seemed to become hazy – like waking up from a nap and nothing feeling quite real.
It wasn’t a sharp feeling, nothing dramatic or sudden, more like a faint magnetic pull that tugged at the space behind his ears. Not important in the present, not yet—but it would be. The future echoing backward, nudging his perception just enough to make him pause.
His eyes slid across the board again, and as they passed one announcement, he felt a spike behind his eyes – like something had reached in and hooked them into looking in one particular direction. That was it. On an impulse, he reached out, and ripped the flyer off the board. A quick examination revealed nothing unusual about the announcement itself, or the paper it was written on, so the Doctor quickly folded it up, and shoved it into his pocket. It would probably come in handy later.
That left the question of what Nia had gotten so worked up about, a question the Doctor couldn’t answer – until he looked up.
Three wanted posters were plastered on the board. Each one bore a different face. Jin, Malos, and a third.
“WANTED:” The posters read. “For CONSPIRACY, TERRORISM, and GRAND LARCENY. Contact the authorities if you see this person. CASH REWARD FOR INFORMATION.”
“Don’t tell me this is meant to be me!?” Nia howled as she ripped the third poster off the board – the poster, with a stylized tiger baring its teeth, with a head of human hair and cat ears on top.
Dromarch chuckled. “A remarkable likeness.”
Nia rounded on him so fast, the Doctor thought he heard her neck snap.
“Ahem,” Dromarch coughed. “I mean… I fear they may have conflated our countenances, my lady.”
“You know, from a physiognomy standpoint, it’s not that bad,” The Doctor hummed.
“The what?” Nia spun around to face him.
“The art of deriving a person’s character from their physical characteristics,” The Time Lord answered with a smile. “Sure, they may have gotten it wrong, but you’re a lot more of a raging tiger than Dromarch is!”
Nia tore apart the poster, extending her claws as she went for the Doctor’s neck. “I’ll show you raging you fop-haired nunce!”
“Guys, stop!” Pyra interjected. “Let’s just… calm down for a moment, okay? I mean, Nia… you did kind of just prove his point.”
“Argh,” Nia pulled back, letting her arms fall. A moment later, she threw her hair back over her shoulder with a huff. “I guess it’s better than them making me look like a little girl.”
“’Terrorism.’” The Doctor read off the poster, his eyes flicking over at Nia. “You fell in… with a terrorist group?”
“Oi, so did you!” Nia threw right back in his face. “But I was the one who was actually associated with them, so you don’t get saddled with a wanted poster!”
The Doctor did wince at that.
“They must’ve hung these posters after they tried to sink the Maelstrom.” Rex looked at the posters curiously. “But… what are all those other charges?”
“Well, ‘conspiracy’s’ just a fancy way of saying ‘plans you don’t like,’ so that could be whatever Malos wanted Pyra for.” The Doctor began. “Larceny is theft. Grand Larceny is theft of property valued above a certain amount. Depending on who the sunken ship actually belonged to, they could throw a grand larceny charge in there. Or maybe that’s where your lot got all the money for hiring the salvager ship…” He turned a look onto Nia, almost like a scolding father, or… well, with his face, older brother, certainly.
“Hey, I didn’t steal anything!” Nia held up her hands. “All that was well in motion before they brought me on board!”
“…right, even you didn’t know the specifics of their plan.” The Doctor hummed. He turned again, to see Pyra standing in front of the board, staring at the two remaining posters. “Pyra?”
“I just can’t…” Pyra let slip under her breath. “Why would Jin do this? He’s not- He wasn’t a terrorist! And Malos… he fits the description of a terrorist, but why would he work with Jin? Why would they work with each other?”
The Doctor gently reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. It was like touching a slow cooker that hadn’t quite cooled down. “A lot can change in a few years. Never mind five-hundred.”
“Wait,” Rex scratched his head. “Pyra, you know Jin and Malos?”
The Doctor turned to Rex. “Jin and Malos are blades and have probably been around for the past five-hundred years.”
“…oh.” Rex blinked in surprise. “That’s…” He blinked again, stunned at the Time Lord’s bluntness. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” Pyra nodded, clasping her hands. “It must have… Malos has always been like this, but Jin… He must have been woken up by another Driver.” She closed her eyes, despair bleeding from her form. “Jin… I’m so sorry.”
The Doctor frowned. “Do Drivers typically have an effect on their Blades like that?”
“Typically,” Azurda answered for Pyra, and before Nia could get her word in. “But it’s not an immutable rule. Sometimes, Blades inherit very little from their Drivers. And sometimes, when they do, the Blade’s own force of personality is enough to override what their Driver bequeaths to them.”
So, the neural patterns he’d discovered preserved inside the core crystals weren’t just snapshots. It seemed that the Blades took and based themselves off those patterns. He wondered why, though.
He also wondered if those patterns were active, in any way. They were as backup drives, so maybe it was possible to load one of those backups. Then again, if it was… that might just result in a human mind being stuck, in the back seat, in a Blade body.
While the Doctor was thinking, trying to pull apart the puzzle that were Blades, Rex took note of a large crowd gathered at one stall set up in the market square. It didn’t seem to be selling anything material – there were no signs.
“What’s going on over there?” Rex said, trying to offer an out from the previous topic, an opportunity that all of them seized.
The Doctor took note of the masked, armored, Kevlar-wearing men behind the stall, pointing and rambling. “If I had to guess,” The Doctor tilted his head. “What they’re selling isn’t anything of value to us.”
Rex turned to him. “How do you know?”
“They’re peddling chances to join the military.” The Doctor crossed his arms. “Nothing that we want.” He had a low opinion of military recruiters, from all places. If it was a place where they at least had the courtesy not to try forcing people into service, then the tactics they used weren’t far off behind it. Preying off the needy, the people who had no idea what they wanted to do, people who needed stability in their lives and were told the military was a good place for it. Recruiters used underhanded tactics. All the time.
Then, the Doctor caught sight of a glowing shape on the surface of the stall. It was about the size of a grapefruit, a rhombic dodecahedron made of some kind of crystalline material, radiating an icy blue glow.
“Unless… what we want is a core crystal,” The Doctor looked back to the others, pointing between them and the stall. He’d taken a scan of Pyra’s crystal, then Dromarch’s, now all he needed was a core crystal that had yet to be awakened. “That’s a- is that a-?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Nia sighed. “That’s a Core Crystal.” She crossed her arms. “That’s how they’re recruiting Drivers now.” Before any of them could ask the question, and seeing as she knew there was a great, big ignoramus of the world of Alrest amongst them, she decided to explain. “Recently, they’ve been recruiting drivers from all over.”
“The pool of potentials is shrinking rapidly,” Dromarch licked his paw. “They must have run out of candidates in the military.”
“Hold on,” The Doctor’s hair jiggled as he spun around. “’Candidates?’ ‘Potentials?’”
Nia snorted. “Awakening a Blade’s not something just any old person can do – look.” She walked up to his side, practically pressing into him as she guided his sight into the crowd. “Out of all those people, only a handful of them’s going to have luck.” She turned to look up at him. “Most of the rest won’t even try.”
“What?” The Doctor frowned. “Why not?”
Nia snorted yet again. “Well, because of the backlash! If you try and resonate with a Core Crystal, and you don’t have the potential for it, it’ll kill you.”
The Doctor’s head snapped to look down at her. “What?”
“Yeah. Well, it’s not guaranteed, but a lot of the time people can’t take the stress. And not a whole lot of ‘em are willing to try, risking their lives like that.” Nia shrugged. “So there aren’t a whole lot of Drivers.”
The Doctor didn’t hear the rest of it. He heard ‘it kills people,’ there were military recruiters trying to pressure people into it anyway, and there was a man pushing through the crowd to try his luck RIGHT NOW.
The Doctor didn’t even think, whipping back around. “Nia. Want to help me out a bit?”
“Uh… what?”
“Add another charge to your poster – come on, yes or no!”
“Uh-“ Nia blinked, crossing her arms skeptically. “What are you doing?”
He leaned forward. “Being the distraction.”
-----------
“Ah, what have we here?” The soldiers heartily chuckled. “Two brave people, willing to try their luck!”
“Beat it, kid!” The Gormotti man told the Doctor. “This one’s all mine!”
“Yes, sorry, terribly sorry, but not yet. Need to check something.” The Doctor reached out, and swiped the crystal before the guy could even touch it.
“What the-!?” The Gormotti spluttered. “Oy! Give that here!” The burly cat-eared man tried to snatch it out of the Doctor’s hands, the Time Lord slipping around his body and evading the severely-telegraphed attempts.
“Just hold on a tick,” The Doctor took out the Sonic Screwdriver, and began to scan it. “Good things come to those who wait.”
“Sir,” The soldier addressed. “If you’re not going to attempt resonating, I’m going to have to ask you to hand the crystal over to someone who will.”
“Ah!” The Doctor looked up. “Sorry! Yes, this will only take a moment. What’s your name?”
The recruiter stood up, clasping his hands behind his back. “Sergeant Ghilliham, of the Ardainian Military.”
“Gilly,” The Doctor addressed directly. “Can I say, loving the setup you have here. Appealing to the people’s honor and manhood to get them to do something dangerous.” And it was clear, from his tone, that he meant the exact opposite. “I mean, it doesn’t matter if this is quite possibly lethal, you’ve got recruitment quotas to fill.”
“Right- hey!” The recruiter spluttered.
“But,” The Time Lord held up a hand. “None of these people are willing to put their lives on the line. And who can blame them? Why would they put their lives on the line for the chance to put their lives on the line? Now,” He held up one finger with a smile. “What if I told you there didn’t need to be a chance? What if I told you I can make this process totally safe?”
The recruiter looked curious, before he scoffed. “That’s not possible. We’ve been trying for years!”
“You’re not me,” The Doctor smiled, before turning and gesturing for the others to approach. They all shuffled over, looking confused. “Rex,” He said to the boy. “How much is passage back to Argentum going to run us?”
“Well,” He thought about it for a moment. “Couple of thousand, probably. Depending on the ship. And… we are gonna need supplies to get to the World-“ He blinked, coughing. “To get to where we want to go… after that.”
“Right!” The Doctor clapped his hands. “What do you say? I will find you guaranteed Drivers, for every Core Crystal you have, and in exchange, we…” His eyes went to Nia.
She scratched her face, making a show of doing it with both hands, and all fingers.
“Ten-thousand.” The Doctor haggled. “Per crystal.”
“What!?” The recruiter spluttered. “That’s ridiculous!”
The Doctor leaned on the stall; his eyes intense.
“You don’t know what I know. For instance!” The Doctor held up the Sonic Screwdriver. “Fascinating things, these core crystals. According to the scans I’ve took, even in this form, they’re constantly looking for information. People’s brain patterns; their DNA. Now, here’s the interesting bit: If the core likes what it’s found – a template with no genetic or neurological deficiencies or errors, it bonds to the donor! If there are errors, or it’s attempting to resonate with a person that has significant overlap with a previous donor, since it already has that information, it won’t resonate. But, the Core doesn’t know what it’s going to find beforehand, and it has to make a connection anyway to scan. It’s only after it winds up that it severs the link, and that is what kills the wannabe Driver.”
While he stood, and exposited, and did a twirl and made a show, all eyes were on him.
At the bit of word vomit, the recruiter blinked in confusion. “Really?” He asked aloud, not really comprehending it.
“It’s very simple,” The Doctor leaned on the stand. “I can scan these crystals, figure out what data they already have, then use that to determine what people here are most likely going to have data that the Core Crystal here would want. Or, I can take my business else-“
“No!” The recruiter cut the Doctor off, before chuckling awkwardly. “I mean… we wouldn’t want to get too hasty, now would we? I’ll have to talk to my superiors about clearing the funds… provided you’re telling the truth.”
The Doctor smiled like a shark in water. “Well, I’ll make you this offer: how many core crystals do you have?”
“Three.” The recruiter answered, as his fellow soldiers walked up to join him.
“We’ll make the one after this twenty-thousand.” The Doctor amended. “Then, the one after that down to ten-thousand.”
The recruiter let out a haughty scoff. “All right. Let’s see what you’re capable of.”
The Doctor snapped his fingers, and turned around to scan the rapidly-angering Gormotti. “No bad DNA in you – but this does say you’re at a higher predisposition for heart problems – watch those fatty foods; they’ll get you every time.” The Time Lord pointed. “Looking at your scan, you’re just not different enough to all the other data it already has. Can’t let you try with this crystal, but, hey, you’ve got two more goes. Now…” He turned, listening as the whine of the Screwdriver changed, coming to land on a younger man, probably in his early twenties. “Hey, you! Wanna try?”
The young man pointed at himself, blinking.
“Yes, yes, come on!” The Doctor waved him over, and he ran up. “What’s your name?”
“J-Jac.”
“Jac, lovely, nice to meet you, Jac!” The Doctor encouragingly patted him on the shoulders, and shoved him towards the crystal. “Looks like it’s your lucky day! Now, I’ll warn you, this might go just a teeny, tiny bit… wibbly,” The Time Lord coughed. “But just hold on, and you’ll be fine.”
Jac blinked, and before he could respond, the Doctor had slapped the Crystal down into his hand. The reaction was immediate – like a spark landing in a fire.
Light poured out of the crystal, the ether in the air rippling and stirring. Then, the crystal kind of popped, transmogrifying itself into pure light and ether, before it swirled around and coalesced into a lance, hovering in front of the young man.
Jac reached out, wonder on his face, as he gripped the spear. When he did, a humanoid figure popped into existence beside him. It looked somewhat like a cross between a person and a robot – a person made out of plastic with the consistency and texture of flesh. The core crystal was in its chest, glowing a steady blue, similar to the ether lines across its body.
“I…” Jac stammered, raising the lance into the sky triumphantly as a troupe of little ones came running up to him, congratulating him. “I did it! I DID IIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!”
“Right, now,” The Doctor leaned over, lowering his voice. “As a medical professional, I would advise against doing anything that might lead to significant mental or bodily trauma. Maiming, disability, or death. Like… joining the military.”
Jac’s reverie was broken, as he looked at the Time Lord curiously.
“Actually, I would explicitly suggest… not joining the military. But we’ll leave that to you,” The Doctor smiled, patting Jac on the back, before giving the young man a light shove. He turned back around, looking at the soldiers with a smug smile. Behind them, he spotted the silver-haired blur of yellow dashing away from the stall. “I’ll take that payment in cash.”
-----------
“Nineteen thousand,” Nia clutched a stack of coins in her hand, setting it off to the side, leaving one final stack that she looked through, before dropping it back in the bag. “Twenty-thousand.” Nia smiled in satisfaction.
“…you guys,” Rex spoke up. “Is this- is this really happening? Did he just… walk up and take control of an Ardainian recruitment drive? And… they let him?”
“I admit,” Dromarch nodding. “It’s more than a little head-spinning.”
Pyra looked on the development with a slight smile. “That’s the Doctor, for you…”
“His lecture about why core crystals resonate was interesting, if nothing else,” Azurda hummed. “I must confess… it wasn’t quite what I had expected.”
Rex looked at him. “He can’t have really found that out so easy.”
“Yeah,” Nia agreed with him, for once, with a huff. “People’ve been trying to pull apart the Core Crystals to see what makes them tick for thousands of years. Some bloke with a big chin’s not going to suddenly have all the answers.”
“It is alien technology.” Azurda stressed. “A civilization that travels the stars would find most of Alrest’s technology hopelessly primitive.”
“Well, we’re not doing half bad.” Rex grumbled, like he thought it was a commentary against themselves.
“We’re not. But, my boy, do you think a Gogol understands the finer mechanisms behind a thermometer?” Azurda asked the question in response. “It is extremely simple technology to us, but how do you explain the science behind it to a creature that cannot possibly understand until it has reached near that level itself? All the Gogol knows is that if the thermometer is stuck into its body, it will know its temperature. But it works.”
“Hey, he’s managed to fleece the Ardainians for what they’re worth,” Nia giggled. “If it’s science or magic, it’s not half bad.”
“Ah!” The Doctor suddenly appeared among them, smiling widely. “Not bad for a hard day’s work.”
“Doctor,” Rex turned to him with a frown. “Are you sure that was a good idea? That guy you helped recruit – he’s going to be in the military now.”
“Well, like I said, desertion’s possible for anyone with two legs and a desire to run. That, and conscientious objection.” The Doctor continued.
“Yeah, but – still.”
The Time Lord glanced his way, before turning back. “Core Crystals hurt people they don’t resonate properly with. The soldiers were going to keep trying and trying. Even if I sent them packing, they’d try somewhere else. With new people. Besides, Jac is – well, he’s got kids to take care of. I can’t fault him for making a decision like that.”
“It’s unfortunate,” Pyra mused with heavy-lidded eyes. “But it is the way of things. Short of stealing those core crystals, there’s nothing we could do to stop that from happening.”
“Funny you should say that,” The Doctor turned to Nia. “Nia?” He held out his hand.
The Gormotti looked around, making sure they were well away from the recruitment drive, before she took two core crystals out of her pockets, and placed them down into the Doctor’s hands. “Two core crystals. Just as the Doctor ordered.” Then, she put the money in her pocket.
“What the-!?” Rex spluttered. “But… You took the-!?”
“SSSSHHH!” Nia hissed at him. “You trying to get us into trouble, you idiot?”
“No, but-!” Rex’s eyes bugged out. “How?”
“Easy.” The Doctor put one core crystal in his pocket, and tossed the other into the air, catching it like he was playing with a cricket ball. “When you make yourself the centre of attention, it’s very easy for someone with fast fingers to sneak away all sorts of things. Chicago May taught me that one. Interesting woman.” He looked at the crystal appreciatively. “Like I said, they were just going to keep trying. And I needed a few crystals to get a more detailed look at. Plus, I just like shiny things.” He chuckled distractedly.
“But…” Rex blinked. “Jac?”
The Doctor rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, I couldn’t just take the crystal and run. Well, I could have, but it’s not just me I’ve got to look out for.” He would’ve bolted, but soldiers tended to be more shooty than anything else, even when it came to little things like theft. And if he made off with the crystal, the others would’ve tried to follow. A lot of accomplices, plus people with loud guns and an itch to use them, usually would up in being shot.
He was impulsive. Not stupid.
“And I owe it to my lovely accomplice here,” The Doctor pointed at Nia.
A light flush ran across her face. “Yeah, you do. While you were strutting around like a cock, I was doing the actual, dangerous stuff.”
“Which is why I paid you!” The Doctor retorted. “Now!” He looked between all of them, then back at the square. “If we wanna keep them not realizing what just happened, we’d best scarper. Down the lesser-traveled roads, I’d recommend.”
“Right, yeah,” Rex nodded, and they dashed down one of the empty streets. “So… did you just swipe those crystals cause they looked pretty?”
“Yes! No!” The Doctor hit himself in the face. “Yes and no.” He held up the crystal. “Last time I visited this planet, the Core Crystals were a non-thing. Such a non-thing, in fact, that if you told somebody that there were such thing as magic crystals that burst into full-grown people when you touched them, they would’ve laughed at you.”
“Oh, come off it!” Nia sharply retorted. “Core Crystals have been around since, like… forever.”
“Which should give you an idea how long it’s been since I last visited.” The Doctor replied just as quickly.
“You said you’re only two-thousand,” Nia tried to call him out, before blinking. “I cannot believe I just said that…”
“I’m lying about my age, oh, I’m always lying!” The Doctor raised his voice with an impatient huff. “When have you ever asked someone for their age and they’ve given you the real number?” He shook his head, gesturing flippantly. “Plus, i-i-it’s space travel. Time dilates the faster you move, so it might be a year or so for me, but thousands of years for people at my destination. Besides, I feel two-thousand today. Ask me again tomorrow, I might feel four-thousand! Or twelve-hundred.”
“…right, okay,” Nia shook her head.
“S-So, the crystals weren’t a thing when you last visited?” Rex repeated in disbelief. “But… how!? They were made by the Architect! They’ve been around since the beginning of the world, people say!”
“Ah, just because people say that, doesn’t mean it’s true.” The Doctor snapped his fingers and pointed with a smile. “In any case, I can believe these little beauties were around since the beginning of Alrest. But this hasn’t always been Alrest. Last time I came here, it was called Earth.”
“Earth?” Rex crossed his arms and tilted his head.
Nia snorted. “Well that’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it? They named the world ‘dirt.’”
“Planet Dirt.” The Doctor giggled. “Yeah, ‘s a bit…” He snapped himself out of it. “Anyway, massive societal, geological, and technological upheaval, Titans everywhere, a cloud sea, and these,” He shook the crystal for emphasis, looking between them. “So, I’m a bit curious.”
“Hang on… the cloud sea?” Rex blinked in shock. “You’re not saying you came from that… ancient society?” He pointed down. “The one that made all the stuff we haul up from the bottom of the sea?”
“Not that one, but, yes, an ancient society.”
Azurda moved to offer his contribution. “It’s the same, for our purposes.” He looked at Rex. “Our friend here believes that something had gone catastrophically wrong, which resulted in the creation of Alrest as we know it. He wishes to get to the bottom of it.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense.” Rex turned back to the Doctor, before frowning. “Why, though?”
“Because humankind is incredibly precious to me,” The Doctor answered frankly. “And if whatever’s responsible is doing it for nefarious reasons in any way, I will stop them.”
“Careful, there,” Nia looked at the Doctor teasingly. “It sounds like you just said you were gonna fight the Architect if you don’t like what you’ll see.”
The Doctor’s lips mirthlessly twitched. “If I have to.”
A chill ran down Rex’s spine at that simple, non-confrontational confession. He felt a warmth on his shoulder, looking to find that Pyra was holding onto him. Not to ease him, but because she looked a bit concerned as well.
“Anyway!” The Doctor switched the subject. “Fascinating things, these! All that word-salad I fed the troops wasn’t just a load of junk, you know? Neural scans – backups – genetic sequencing! On a structural level, the Core Crystals have human DNA, and within their matrices, DNA of almost every single living thing that had walked Earth.”
“I… what?” Nia blinked.
“DNA – the fundamental building blocks of everything everywhere.” The Doctor began to explain. “A tiny, two-meter-long strand of chemical pairs that makes you human. These crystals also have DNA fro-from dogs, and lions, and alligators, and so much more. Every time they resonate with someone, they copy that DNA, and use it to make themselves more complex.”
“Really?” Rex looked at Pyra with curious eyes. “Does… Does that mean you have a little bit of me in you now?”
“Uh… Um…” Pyra stammered. “Well… Maybe? I don’t really know.” She covered her core crystal. “I can’t really check that.”
“Oh, right,” Rex looked up thoughtfully. “It’s a bit like me trying to check what I’m made of.” When he noticed her thinned lips, he disarmingly smiled. “It’s all right, Pyra. You’re a Blade, it’s how you guys work. But, uh,” He looked towards the Doctor again. “Where do their weapons come from?”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, that is a good question. When Jac woke his Blade up, the weapon appeared first, then the Blade followed.” He looked at the Core Crystal he was carrying again. “But I didn’t see any information that determined their weapon. Unless… it’s stored at a genetic level. Makes sense. I don’t know exactly how to read DNA. Or, rather, read in in such a way that I’ll have an idea of what the full-grown thing will look like exactly.”
“Hey…” Rex drawled. “All this talk about awakening and Core Crystals… I didn’t do any of that with Pyra.” He realized as he looked at the redhead with curiosity. “I just… picked up her sword! And she wasn’t in a Crystal to begin with.”
“Well, duh,” Nia rolled her eyes. “She’s the Aegis, dummy. The rules are different for her.”
Pyra chuckled softly. “I wouldn’t have called you a dummy… But that’s right. I’m different to other Blades. I don’t return to my Core Crystal when my driver dies, for example.”
“Speaking of your core crystal, I think that’s gotta be the only one I’ve ever seen with a color like that,” Nia looked at the gemstone appreciatively.
Rex followed Nia’s eyes, promptly realized where he was staring, and coughed. “Uh… what’s so special about the color?”
“Even after resonating, Core Crystals remain blue,” Dromarch explained for Rex. “There is no variation from Blade to Blade. It’s one of the easiest ways of telling if a near-human Blade is human or not.”
“But… Pyra’s is green.” Rex pointed out.
“Green, yes, green, I like that colour, good colour.” The Doctor nodded.
“The shape’s a bit unusual, too.” Nia regarded it with a light hum. “A lot of angles. After Blades wake up, their crystals usually become very simple.”
“It’s not a bad look, though,” The Doctor smiled at Pyra. “I knew a fella with a necklace just… like…” He trailed off, as a flash of a silver-haired man entered his mind. He didn’t know a fella with a necklace just like Pyra’s core crystal… but he did, there it was, the memory, clear as day. That was odd… If the Doctor thought back a little bit more, trying to recall the details, he couldn’t. He knew a guy with a necklace shaped like Pyra’s core crystal, what he looked like, and that he was from a place called ‘Bionis.’ Nothing beyond that.
The Time Lord frowned. Being in the time bubble was messing with his memories, most likely. That, or… when that part in the TARDIS went funny, it made some more trouble than he realized.
He sent a silent apology to his past self, just in case that was the case.
“…you good there?” Nia sardonically probed. “You just kind of… locked up. Was that an alien thing? Do your people just take powernaps in the middle of conversations?”
“Sorry, I just got a bit… confused, for a moment.” The Doctor blinked. “Where were we?”
“We were just talking about core crystals, and-“
“Hey, you there! Halt!”
“Aw hell.” Nia swore.
The group turned around to see a band of soldiers running up to them. The Doctor turned back around, to see another squad had moved to block the street, cutting off their one escape route. In a panic, he produced the Sonic Screwdriver, moving about, pointing it like it would help.
“Crikey!” The Doctor gasped out. “It’s the Ardainian rozzers!”
“I can see that,” Nia clenched her fists with an overly-sweet smile. “Thanks.”
“What’s all this about!?” Rex spluttered. “We haven’t done anything!”
The Doctor looked down at the Core Crystal in his other hand, and finally shoved it deep into his pocket.
“That fugitive in your company is an enemy of the state!” The lone soldier with a helmet twice as tall as his head pointed at Nia. “A member of the terrorist group, Torna!”
“TORNA!?” Pyra bellowed, her voice thick with stunned, incredulous confusion as her eyes flickered gold for a moment.
“Nia a terrorist!?” Rex glanced sideways at her. “I mean, yeah, she does like terrorizing people-“
“Oi!”
“Mostly me,” The Doctor added under his breath.
“OY!”
“Save your defense – we know it’s her!” The soldier speaking to them produced a piece of paper – a copy of the wanted poster that Nia had torn up. “Female Gormotti Driver with a white, beast-form Blade. The wanted poster looks just like her!”
“OY!”
“Ah-ha!” The Captain stepped forward. “We have you now! Don’t think you can slip out of this one, little girl!”
Nia’s face twisted more, as she trembled with fire. “’Little girl!’ I’ll show you little, you… shitstacks in suits!”
The Doctor wanted to snap at Nia’s foul mouth again… but now probably really wasn’t a good time.
“Fellas, hey, hey!” The Doctor stepped in with as charismatic a smile as he could offer. “I’m sorry – but you may have made a teensy, weensy bit of a mistake. Really, just a little speck of a bad decision. Only a little crumb.”
“Oh?” The Captain asked. “I’ve got her face on the poster right here!”
“Ah, right, that, yes, well, if you’ll take a look at this,” The Doctor produced the Psychic Paper with a confident smile, and held it out to the Captain. “It won’t matter if it looks just like her or not.”
Nia had chosen to stop expressing her indignation through screams, instead going for a furious hiss with claws ready to go for the Time Lord’s throat.
He grabbed one of her hands, and whispered in her ear. “I’m trying to get us out of this!”
Nia’s face twisted, but she chose to drop it.
“Let me see-“ The Captain snatched the paper, going dead quiet. “What… but…” He stiffened, looking up. “You-You’re from the Praetorium!?”
It was like a switch had been flipped. The soldiers’ posture shifted to something more… he was tempted to say ‘respectful,’ but the fact of the matter of it was that they appeared scared.
Even one of the people next to him was overtaken by the sensation.
Nia paled stepping back from the Doctor. “The Praetorium?”
“Yes, that.” The Doctor didn’t pay her any mind at the moment, gesturing instead at the Ardainian soldiers.
“I-I’m so-“ The soldier bowed his head. “I’m so sorry, sir. It’s just – your companion, she-“
“Just wandered into town on a nice, sunny day.” The Doctor cut him off with a smile. “Yes, she and I – we’re from the Praetorium’s intelligence division, codenames ‘the Doctor’ and-“ He turned to Nia.
“N-“ Nia froze up, looking at the Doctor like he was a bomb about to detonate. “Um... Mi-Mio.” And then she cringed like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of her jumper.
The Doctor smiled, and slung an arm around her. “That’s right. I’m the Doctor, this is Mio. That over there is Aquaman,” He pointed at Rex. “Tony.” Dromarch. “Ember.” Pyra. “And Gramps.”
“Ah,” The soldier bowed his head. “So t-terribly sorry, sir. I hadn’t realized the Praetorium was involved, and the… mistaken identity.”
“Yes, well, you’re only human.” The Time Lord disarmingly smiled.
“Me and my men will get out of your way now. Again,” The soldier bowed his head, quivering in embarrassment. “So sorry for the bother.” Then, he promptly turned, and bolted. As they left, the soldiers’ chatter blended together, becoming an indistinct mass of babble. “Say, wasn’t there a Lord a while ago whose daughter was named Mio…?”
Nia whipped around, glaring at the Doctor like she was about ready to put him down like a rabid animal. “All right, you, spill it! What was that you just did!? You’re not actually from Indol, are you!?”
“No!” The Doctor rolled his eyes, placing the psychic paper into her hands. “Psychic Paper. It shows whatever I want people to see. I handed it to them with the intent of appearing as a figure of authority, their own brains filled in the gaps – they fooled themselves.”
Nia looked up from the slip of paper warily. “What’s a ‘Nekomimi?’ And why does this say you think they’re cool?”
The Doctor took it from her with his lips puckered into a sour frown. “You also can’t let your mind wander.” He glanced at the paper. “’If he keeps swinging that chin around, he’s gonna put somebody’s eye out.’” He read from it in turn.
Nia crossed her arms, silent for a moment. “Well, it’s true.”
“…well, maybe, but…” The Doctor spluttered under his breath. “Shut up.” He pointed between all of them. A thought crossed his mind, and he frowned. “’Indol?’ What’s that? I overheard Malos and Jin talking about that.” Something else occurred to him. “And you asked me if they sent me when we woke up.”
Azurda popped out of Rex’s helmet. “The Indoline Praetorium. Think of them as… the regulating body for Drivers and Blades, all over Alrest.”
The Doctor’s curious frown deepened. “But those soldiers were peddling Core Crystals? Does that mean they work for Indol too?”
“No,” Azurda shook his head. “Indol maintains careful control over the supply of Core Crystals. They lend them out to the different nations at their discretion.”
“Really?” The Doctor probed insistently. “Why?”
“Beg pardon?”
“What do the other nations get from it?” The Doctor questioned. “What’s stopping them from keeping a stockpile of their own crystals, under Indol’s nose? Or raiding them?”
“Oh, a number of treaties and alliances,” Azurda shook his head. “Indol is respected, across the world. They are not allowed to intervene in times of war, for one. And once Core Crystals are lent out, Indol has very little say over how they are used. And, if any one nation were to attack the Praetorium, every other nation would then be standing against them. Plus, their warrior monks are some of the most infamous fighters in all of Alrest.”
“Pssh,” Nia huffed. “A bunch of arseholes in funny hats and terrible robes.”
The Doctor hummed. He knew a lot about those.
“It didn’t used to be like that,” Pyra mused, under her breath. “Core Crystals being so heavily regulated.”
“Part of a system of reforms introduced by the Praetor Amalthus to prevent another Aegis war.” Azurda answered.
“Yeah, but – it’s not just regulating Blades, is it?” Rex pointed out. “It’s regulating people.”
“I might have to have a little chat with the Praetor in charge,” The Doctor murmured to himself. “So, what do we think? We’re still finding an inn? What do you think, Nia?”
The Gormotti stopped, looking surprised for a second. “Right, yeah. Uh…” She pointed ahead. “I think there’s one-“
“Wow!” A voice gasped out. “Friends make bully soldiers leave without fighting! Friends are best Drivers – the bestest!”
“Uh…” Nia stopped and turned, seeing a large, plump, potato-shaped figure. “Is that a nopon?”
“It is!” The Doctor smiled. “Hello, nopon. Did you see that?”
“Tora see everything!” The nopon bounced, flapping his wings.
“Great,” Nia sighed. “The peanut gallery decided to come down and get in the thick of things.”
“What?” The overall-wearing nopon batted his wings in confusion. “Tora not gallery! I not even like peanuts.”
“…uh, right.” Rex spoke up for the rest of them. “Listen, it’s nice to meet you, but we’ve kind of got a place to be, and-“
“Oh, no, please don’t go!” Tora anxiously flapped, moving around to stand in front of them. “Tora give wrong idea! Not here for idle praise! Tora was thinking about testing out new Boom Biter on big bully soldiers… but then saw friends scare away soldiers without single shot! Well… actually, Tora was here for a while, watching recruitment drive. Heard Doc-Doc and Rex-Rex talking about how Crystals work! Then, decided to be introducing self!”
“Ah, is that right.” The Doctor bend over slightly, looking the nopon over. “What made us stand out to you, Tora?”
“Very smart-speaking!” The nopon answered immediately. “Lots of sciencey knowledge! And being cool Drivers! But, very sciencey is main reason.”
“Really?” The Doctor tilted his head curiously. “How come, wait.” He looked Tora up and down. “That outfit, and that wrench… are you an engineer of some kind, Tora?”
“Meh- Doc-Doc get it in one!” Tora bounced happily.
“The nopon’s a gearhead,” Nia commented. “That’s great. Say, why don’t you tell us why you stopped us?”
“You’re very sciencey,” Tora looked up at the Doctor. “What kind?”
“Well,” The Doctor answered, smiling. “There’s timey wimey, spacey wacey, all things spinnery-winnery, wavey-davey, and zappy-wappy.”
“Yes!” Tora practically shouted, jumping up and down. “Mehmeh- Please to be coming this way!” Then, his wing shot out, wrapped around the Doctor’s hand, and he began to take off, tugging the Time Lord along.
“’Ey!” Nia shouted. “What’s the big idea?”
“I don’t know!” The Doctor laughed, looking back at the others as they ran after them. “But it’s good, apparently!”
---------
Tora was a Nopon on a mission, dragging the Doctor down the streets of Torigoth, and down the steps, towards a wall that looked quite bare. The Nopon then pushed the wall open, revealing it to be an entrance to a concealed pathway.
“Here!” Tora insistently tugged the Doctor. “Not much further! Please to still be following Tora!”
“Of course, right,” The Doctor looked around, anxiously following the Nopon down at his insistence. “Say, Tora-“
“What is this place?” Nia called from behind.
“This is Tora’s house!” Tora answered. “This way, this way!” He continued to pull the Doctor.
Then, they hit the main room. The Doctor stop, his eyebrows shooting up in pleasant surprise. It had been a pipe junction at some point – but as Tora had moved in, the Nopon had very clearly renovated. One pipe going up the middle of the room had been cut away, turned into a chimney for a fire pit that had been built underneath it. Stoves and a refrigerator lined one wall, the place was absolutely full of plush decorations, and an observation platform of some type had been turned into a loft and blocked off by a curtain.
“Well, I’ll be,” Nia blinked, looking around appreciatively. “This place doesn’t look half-cozy.”
“This is a very nice home, Tora,” Pyra complimented, almost like she was praising a child’s drawing. The Doctor wasn’t hard-pressed to agree – it was a very cool home.
“Is that the cloud sea down there?” Rex spluttered, looking through a hole in the railing along the path they had entered through. “You’re telling me all this stuff is just… suspended!?”
Tora nodded. “Torigoth port town – built right in between two sides of gap in Titan’s shoulders, so boaty thing can slide right in and get back out, easy!” He turned around. “Tora’s house part of old infrastructure bully soldiers shut down when they take over – no one look too close here.”
“Right, watch your footing,” Nia advised the rest of them. “If this is part of all the old steamworks, this’s been abandoned for at least fifty years at this point.”
“Okay…” Pyra nervously played with her hands.
Rex turned to her with a concerned expression. “What’s up?”
“It’s just…” Pyra smiled. “A port town? With steamworks? I’m so glad to see Torigoth thriving again after so long… but what happened to White Chair? I thought it was the capital.”
Nia opened her mouth, but was cut off.
“Meh!” Tora spoke up. “White Chair not being capital for fifty years! Not since bully soldiers sack it! Torigoth much better capital anyway. Nice view.”
Pyra snapped her mouth shut, blinking.
“Could’ve stood to phrase it a bit better,” Nia remarked under her breath. “But pretty much.”
“…oh.” Pyra looked down, seemingly disappointed about that fact.
“Anyway,” Nia turned. “While I would love to stand here and chat about history and imperialism, why are we here?” She questioned.
“Because I was dragged along!” The Doctor bluntly answered, looking around.
“Well… yeah,” Rex scratched his neck. “But why, though?”
“Good question,” The Doctor nodded, turning to Tora.
The Nopon stood, swaying slightly, as everyone else stared at him.
Then, he seemed to finally realize he was being stared at. “Meh! Why friends all look at Tora like that!?”
“Come on!” Nia facepalmed. “Don’t tell me you dragged us here to show off your house!”
Tora twitched. “Cat lady being ridiculous! Of course Tora not drag friends here to show off house! Friends here because Tora have request to make!”
“Oh, really?” The Doctor curiously bent down. “Do you have a request for the Doctor, Tora?”
The Nopon excitedly nodded. “Tora was out, buying parts, about to test new boom biter on soldiers, when he hear friends talking about Core Crystals! Tora listen further, and hear Doc-Doc has technology that can make drivers resonate!”
“…okay, first, that was wrong in, like, three different ways,” Nia began.
“Seriously,” Rex crossed his arms. “Doc-Doc?”
Tora nodded. “Yes! Tora also hear more about how Rex-Rex is driver of mondo-special Bladey-lady! Then Tora listen more, and learn about how Doc-Doc is older than Core Crystals themselves!”
“Oh, brother,” Nia groaned, causing the Doctor to look at her curiously. “You get these… coots sometimes, who get really obsessed with the idea of being a Driver. Thinks it gives ‘em superpowers or summat.”
“I mean…” Rex blinked. “Technically that’s true, isn’t it? Except your superpowers comes from your weapons.”
Nia rubbed her eyes. “Then you get the really weird ones that think they’ll get lucky and wake up a near-human Blade. Because apparently Core Crystals are good for a bit of hanky-panky.”
“…oh,” The Doctor regarded Tora with an unfortunate expression. “That’s not what you’re about, is it?”
“No, no!” Tora violently shook his head. “Tora resent accusation! Drivers have special, cool powers! Use to help innocent! Saving littlepons from trees, and beating up bully bad guys!”
“Oh, so he’s the first lot then.” Nia nodded, satisfied with herself.
“It was all Tora wanted, since he was a littlepon, to be a Driver!” Tora shook as he spoke. “Dream of Dadapon and Grampypon as well! But Tora’s family have terrible luck! Not one single one of us have Driver potential! It all look hopeless… but then Tora overhear friends talking! Doc-Doc! Help Tora to being the best that he can be!” He spread his wings.
All of them exchanged looks. And the Doctor and Nia stared at each other for the longest.
“Well,” The Time Lord stepped forward. “I can try to see what’s making you not a good prospect for the Crystals…” He ran his Sonic Screwdriver. “Are Nopon drivers… common?”
“Not so common, but there are few!” Tora eagerly answered.
“So… it isn’t just Earth lifeforms that can resonate…” The Doctor scratched his chin thoughtfully. He wondered if a Core Crystal might be able to resonate with him… The Sonic Screwdriver bleeped. “Oh… so sorry, Tora – but it looks like I can’t help you, on that front.”
“Meh!?”
“You’re an entirely healthy Nopon – but on a genetic level, you’re too… alike to other Nopon for the Core Crystals.” He closed the Screwdriver. “Sorry, little fella.”
“Mehmeh…” Tora slumped. “All Tora wanted was to be driver… Can’t Doc-Doc help?”
“All I was doing was seeing what the Core Crystals like. Unfortunately, they see minor genetic overlap then write the whole person off.” The Doctor tossed one of the Crystals up. “Nopon are, on the whole, genetically speaking, a lot less diverse than humanity. There’s not the same range of genetic variation. Both of the Crystals I have on me…” He gave them a quick scan again. “Have Nopon DNA. So, they won’t accept you. I’d have to find crystals without Nopon DNA in them, and… well, that might take a while.”
“Oh…” Tora blinked, before perking back up. “But is okay! Tora has super-special backup plan! Come, come look!” Tora walked over to another alcove, yanking the curtain open. “Behold! Work of Tora and dadapon and grampypon! World’s first artificial Blade!”
All of them peeked behind the curtain, to see what Tora wanted to reveal. There, standing in a metal frame, was a small girl of about twelve – made of metal with dim lines that were meant to glow at some point but were inactive now.
“Oh, she’s so cute!” The Doctor gushed, rushing over to her with a smile.
“Well.” Nia tsked. “That’s a little bit creepy.”
The Doctor looked around the inactive robot. “I mean cute – like, you see a box of kittens and you just want to go ‘awww!’” He looked over at Tora.
“Artificial… Blade?” Pyra repeated. “Tora, that’s…”
“Incredible! Tora know!”
“I was going to say ‘nuts.’” Nia muttered under her breath, as the Doctor looked over the little robot. “How do you make a Blade?”
“Poppi is combined work of three generations!” Tora exalted with a proud smile. “Work started by Grampypon and Dadapon. But… Grampypon die, and Tora still not know where Dadapon go to, so Tora finish work.”
“Wait, you mean you’re all alone?” The Doctor probed. “And… you kept working on this on your own?” The Doctor looked the robot up and down with an excited smile. “Tora, that’s great!”
“Tora work very hard to get it done!” Tora nodded, “Unfortunately… Poppi not quite complete. Some parts still missing. But with Doc-Doc here, expert on Core Crystals, Tora think he can look at Poppi and tell Tora if he missed anything!”
“Well, I’m kind of a bad choice.” The Time Lord awkwardly chuckled. “I only just started working with Core Crystals. I’m not an expert on them. Now, robots, that I can help you with. I love robots – robots are cool.” Then, he began to scan Poppi.
Tora’s creation was advanced, for the eclectic, almost random assortment of technology that made up this world; an intricate lattice of artificial muscle strands and circuitry. Her power source was dormant, but the Doctor could see the potential output – and its limit.
“Hold on,” The Doctor looked over at Tora. “Tora, this… power cell, what is it?”
“Poppi’s power cell is special ether furnace, built by Grampypon!” Tora answered easily.
“Really?” The Doctor hummed. “Well, according to this,” He waved around the Sonic Screwdriver. “That furnace is stuck in a lower operating mode – it hasn’t been fully started!”
The Nopon nodded. “Yes, Tora aware. But furnace is last work of Grampypon – if Tora broke it while trying to figure out how to start it, Tora never forgive himself!”
“Well, lucky for that, you’ve got me!” The Doctor answered, before moving into action. “It all runs on Ether, right? So, we take a source of Ether – give that furnace a big jolt – we can start the furnace properly; a bit like using the energy from one nuclear reactor to jump-start another one.”
“’Nuclear?’” Tora repeated in confusion, before shaking his head. “Tora understand idea, but where Doc-Doc find other ether furnace?”
“Don’t need one,” The Doctor reached into his pocket, and pulled out one of the Core Crystals. “It’s all Ether, isn’t it?” He clutched it tightly, spinning around as he stumbled and searched around the tiny alcove. “Oh!” His arm shot out, pulling on a length of something like hose. “Tora, I’ll need direct access.”
“Here, Tora help!” He walked over to Poppi, and opened a panel on her torso, revealing the energy core.
“…I was going to leave,” Nia mumbled to herself. “I was gonna catch a ship out of here, and now I’m playing scientist with a Nopon.”
“It’s good to expand your horizons, Nia,” The Doctor told her as he hooked the Core Crystal up. “Shouldn’t take much, just a jolt-“ He pressed the Sonic Screwdriver to it, and the crystal sparked, immediately turning a kind of black color. The blue glow from the crystal traveled down the line, into Poppi’s ether furnace. The furnace revved, almost like an engine, glowing brighter as several portions of it expanded.
“Wow!” Tora gasped, looking at the readouts only he could understand. “Ether furnace output at one-hundred! Why Tora not think of this before!?”
“Well, it’s not just something anyone can do!” The Doctor answered. “You need a Sonic Screwdriver, and an understanding of elementary particle physics!” The Time Lord boasted, gazing nervously at the crystal in his hand. “But… I didn’t mean to take all the ether…”
“It’ll be fine,” Pyra loomed over, looking at the Crystal. “Blades expend ether like that all the time.” She touched her finger to the surface, causing a tiny blue glow to rise to the surface. “It’ll recharge.”
“Really?” Rex skeptically looked over. “Huh… I guess so.”
“Bladey is safe, yes, yes!” Tora batted his wings. “Great! Now, if Doc-Doc could throttle back furnace output…”
“What?” The Time Lord turned, frowning. “I thought you wanted the furnace started!”
“Tora did – now Tora knows how to start it! Doc-Doc can undo it now.”
“Right, yes, that, undo it, okay.” The Time Lord nodded. “About that. Heh,” He chuckled, awkwardly patting Tora on the head. “So, er… little bit of a confession to make… “ He scanned the furnace again, just to make sure, and winced. “So, here’s the deal; that furnace is like this crystal, here. It draws in Ether from the surrounding air-“
“Also has input for ether crystals for more efficient fueling,” Tora entered in.
“Right, that,” The Doctor gestured. “Except in the case of it going to full power – where it needs one big jolt from another source of ether. Now, your Grampypon, he’s a clever guy, but I don’t exactly see a way to… turn it off. Once it’s been activated.”
“Of course not.” Tora blinked. “Artificial Blade like real Blade – meant to be woken up once, then stick around! Not like real Blade, where Driver dies and they go back into Crystal.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “So… that’s a feature, then, and not a flaw. Good to know. There’s… a lot of stuff like that. But, put bluntly, Tora – this furnace isn’t designed to be turned off, or downgraded.
“Meh!?” Tora tweaked, shaking as he danced around his science project. “B-But Poppi’s architecture designed for lower output! Cooling system alone can’t handle new power! If can’t throttle back furnace, increased power output and waste heat will damage Poppi!”
“…now I feel a little bit bad,” Nia commented. “Breaking the little guy’s science project.”
“Oh,” The Doctor winced. “Yes, of course, that means you’re going to have to rework the rest of it. Sorry, Tora. I honestly thought I was helping.”
“…Tora suppose you helped,” The nopon granted him after a moment’s thought. “Cold-starting ether furnace for full utilization impossible without secondary furnace – furnace Tora does not have. Doc-Doc’s jiggery-pokery make it so second furnace not necessary! But cannot make good use of new power without redesign. Will need resupplies.”
“Hold on!” Rex interjected. “How long is this gonna take?”
“Not long!” Tora shook his entire body. “Know where to find parts! All in season! Can find at many stores! Here list!” His wings extended, passing a slip of paper over to Rex.
Rex’s eyes bugged out of their sockets. “Tora, these- these parts are expensive!”
“Oh, they can’t be that-“ Nia peeked over. “BLOODY HELL!” She screeched, jerking away from the paper like had spontaneously sprouted knife-arms with a desire to use them on her. “That’s a lot of money!”
“Money, eh…?” The Doctor looked down in thought.
“If it’s money we need, maybe I can help?” Pyra suggested with a bright look on her face.
Azurda popped out of Rex’s helmet. “Through nothing illegal, I hope.”
“Well, actually, I was thinking…” Pyra took one of her earrings off. “I should be able to find some decent cash if I sold this…”
“No, don’t do that,” The Doctor shook his head. “The shop will always give out less money than what the item’s worth; ’s how they make a profit.”
“Well, I never did spend all of the advance I got for the salvaging job,” Rex spoke up. “Maybe I can cov-“ His hands went down to the pouch on his diving suit, and froze. “Uh…”
“Rex?” Pyra tilted her head in concern. “What is it?”
“…I left the money on the Maelstrom.” Rex blinked, before launching into frustrated motioning. “Oh, titan’s foot! It’s still in my cabin! Damn it!”
“You left a-hundred grand on board the salvager ship!?” Nia incredulously raised her voice. “What the… bleeding heck did you do that for!?”
“I don’t take money with me on dives!” Rex answered like the very idea was absurd.
“Well it’s better than leaving it where sticky-fingers can get to it!”
“It’s under the sea! Everything’s got sticky fingers down there!” And he looked Nia up and down. “Didn’t you just get paid twenty-thousand for swiping those core crystals?”
“Liberating.” Nia corrected. “And I’m not about to go blow it on a robot.” She then turned to the Time Lord. “Didn’t you get paid for the job?”
“Nope!” The Doctor proudly answered. “I stowed away.”
“Is friend Nia sure?” Tora questioned. “Poppi is greatest investment! Missing out on chance of lifetime!”
Nia shot the Nopon a dry look. “I think I can cope.”
“Tell you what!” The Doctor interjected with a smile. “There’s always some odd jobs that can be done around town.”
“So, we split up and join the workforce?” Nia rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”
“That is how economy works.” The Doctor retorted, snapping his fingers. “In any case, I didn’t say we joined the workforce. I saw a few ads on the notice board. Well, an ad.” He took that slip of paper out of his pocket, turning it around for everyone to see. He figured it would come in handy.
Nia snatched it out of his hands, looking upon it with dry disbelief. Then, it shifted to actual disbelief, before she shoved her face into it. “Albedo!?”
“Oh, you know him, then – that’s good.” The Doctor’s lips twitched.
“Her,” Nia corrected. “I can’t believe-“ She stopped, blinking. “Well, actually, I kind of can.”
“I don’t get it,” Rex rubbed his neck. “Is she a friend of yours?”
“Oh, oh!” Tora beat his wings excitedly. “Chefypon is Torigoth’s most famous-est! Lots of cakes and sweets that the rich people like! Always busy!”
“I got a cake from her, for my birthday, once…” Nia recalled, looking far away. “Best thing I’d ever eaten…”
“Um…” Pyra blinked. “It’s not a bad idea… but it is a bakery. You can’t make that much.”
“No, no!” Tora shook his head. “She is nice chefypon! Very generous! Pay by job, not by hour! Tora used to work for her!”
“Used to?” Nia repeated, leaning with her arms crossed.
“Um…” Tora awkwardly chuckled. “Went in one day with hands still covered in hydraulic fluid from Poppi. Poisoned Consul by accident. Tora feel very guilty about it, but chefypon still show Tora the door! Was nice about it though. Gave Tora plate of cake as goodbye present!”
Nia turned to the Doctor with a look of ‘can you believe this guy?’ Her line of thought was clear. Tora accidentally poisoned the Consul with hydraulic fluid via a cake, then his boss fired him and slipped him a free piece of that same cake.
“Shouldn’t you still have some of that money, then?” Dromarch probed.
Nia turned to her Blade with a dry look. “He’s a Nopon bachelor. He probably spent it all on… ecchi and red pollen.”
“That not true!” Tora raised his voice. “Tora spend it all on important parts and packets of tasty sausages.”
“What were the important parts, then?”
“Meh…” Tora deflated a little bit. “Wardrobe for Poppi?”
Nia raised an eyebrow.
“Tora not going to build Blade that runs around nekkid!” The Nopon indignantly flapped his wings. “Idea is simply ridiculous!”
Nia turned to the Doctor. “He blew his money on girly outfits. I say we leave him.”
“…but,” The Doctor pointed. “It’s a robot, Nia!”
“I can see that.” She answered like she was dealing with an impatient child.
“Besides,” The Doctor coughed, before a knowing smile crossed his face. “If you’re really going to jump ship, the rest of us are going to need passage back to Argentum.”
“Why are we going back there?” Rex questioned gently. “If we book a ship, we can get passage right to the World Tree.”
The Doctor shot him an easygoing look. “It’ll be better, trust me. My ship’s there – we can take it up to the tree itself. All of us?” He leveled a questioning glance at Nia.
Nia blinked, looking like a deer-in-headlights, before she put on an unaffected expression, crossing her arms and turning her head. “Well, maybe I decided to go back there with you lot. And I don’t think we should be wasting time helping a Nopon on his science project.”
“It’ll be fine!” The Doctor gestured. “Look,” He flapped his hands about. “We all lay low here for a day, let the Ardainian Soldiers spread the word that they’ve got an incorrect bounty out, give them time to take it down. Look, you don’t even have to book a hotel! Everyone relax, just take it easy,” And he began stepping back towards the door. “I’ll be back. With money!” He dashed out, a man on a mission, leaving everyone else.
Nia stood by, before sighing, taking the jingling bag of money and gazing at it respectfully. “Well… he’s not just blithering on about being able to get money.”
“So, what, we just wait?” Rex questioned.
“…well…” Pyra began to speak. “All the talk about baking has made me a little bit hungry… I could cook something, easy.”
“Oh, oh!” Tora hopped excitedly. “Does Rex-Rex like video games?”
“Uh… what’s a video game?”
Tora excitedly gasped. “This way, this way!”
And… once again, Tora was dragging someone away.
----------
The Doctor walked through the streets of Torigoth with an easy, carefree demeanor. The address on the advertisement was quite easy to suss out, located on the upper levels near the Consulate. Pretty par for the course for a celebrity chef in the Doctor’s opinion.
He jauntily hopped up the steps, and the shop was in eyeshot.
As he approached, the Doctor spotted someone through the window – and he froze, rooted in spot as he spotted her go into the back room.
She walked out of the back room a moment later – a woman with silvery hair that fell around her head in such a way that it seemed sculpted. Then, she grabbed something she had seemingly forgot, and ran back into the back. The Doctor’s hearts settled as the familiarity vanished.
It wasn’t her. She looked like her, from a distance, but it wasn’t her. Not Clara.
“Getting jumpy in your old age, Doctor?” The Doctor mumbled to himself as he approached the shop door. “It’s just a shop – Clara was in a bottle universe. Not a shop… Maybe a shop in a bottle universe…” He took a deep breath. And pushed the door open.
The bell above the shop door chimed as the Doctor stepped inside, the swagger faltering immediately as he picked up on the fresh whiff of freshly baked pastries.
“Hello!” A voice called from the back room, startling the Doctor a little bit. She sounded like she had, both times. “I’ll be with you, just a moment!”
The Doctor responded with a thumbs-up he knew she couldn’t see, and turned to look around. It looked like – well, a bakery. Things that had been pre-made, but were still fresh enough to sell, were behind a glass display. Some larger cakes were on the counter. There were, as he expected, souffles. Up above was a menu, for people to get smaller things freshly made for them, while next to the pay till, a catalogue rested, showing off a lot of the ‘big jobs’ the chef had taken over the years.
The door to the back swung open, as the lady walked out and stood across from him.
Her eyes met his, and for a fleeting moment, he still could have sworn it was Clara standing in front of him. She had expression, her eyes pulled just a little bit, as if the whole world were a joke she was laughing at silently, but the laughter was still shining through her eyes, was on her face. But it faded, and he was left standing across from a stranger of a woman. There was certainly a family resemblance – if the lady wasn’t some descendant, the Doctor would be very, very surprised. Unfortunately, for her energetic expression, the rest of her was a bit disheveled – her silver hair frazzled with portions sticking out wildly, clothes covered in cooking ingredients.
“Sorry,” She rubbed a bit of flour off her hands. “Had a bit of a rogue souffle. Wouldn’t stop convincing the others to collapse. I’ve dealt with it, though.”
“Good!" His voice was too loud. Too chipper. He cringed internally but kept it going. "I mean, uh, that’s- that’s nice. Not that it’s a big deal, a souffle is a souffle, even a collapsed one. Unless you care about the presentation, in which case, it’s not.” He anxiously rubbed his hands together. “Am I gabbing?”
She offered him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, but was still disarming all the same. “Little bit.”
“Well, you know, walking into a big, fancy, important shop, I get a bit nervous – can’t help it. That’s me!”
“You,” The silver-haired woman addressed the Doctor with a gentle smile. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“That obvious?”
“Everybody in town knows me. Least, in passing. They’re usually only nervous cause of how expensive everything is.”
The Doctor chuckled in response, picking up something that looked like a mix between a cheesecake and a pie, sniffing it. “Mmm…” He sat it back down, going to look at some of the other offerings. “Lovely shop you have here.”
“How are you finding it?”
The Time Lord clapped his hands. “I found it pretty easy – I love bakeries. Good ones light up the whole street.”
The lady laughed. “I didn’t mean my shop – I meant the Titan! Gormott, how do you like it?”
“Oh, well, it’s nice,” The Doctor grinned, gesturing easily. “Certainly, one of the nice ones.”
The woman smiled at him in response. “Much more peaceful than the last titan you visited, I should hope.”
“Well, the last titan I visited was Goldmouth, so…” The Doctor reflected on the busy market centre with a twitch of his lips. “Yes, much more peaceful. Torigoth is a wonderful place.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She smiled happily, looking around. “Five hundred years ago, this town was a ruin. All burnt and turned to glass. And now look.”
“People tend to rebuild,” The Doctor answered easily.
“They do,” She looked around, tilting her head slowly, like she was looking through the structures themselves, seeing what lay underneath. “People just do that. It’s fun to make things.”
The Doctor chuckled. “That’s why you got into the pastry business, isn’t it?”
“They’re as much an art as they are a science,” The woman answered easily. “It’s not just about mixing things together. It takes attentiveness. Passion. You have to enjoy what you’re doing, or the end result isn’t enjoyable either.”
“That could be said about a lot of things,” The Doctor replied. “But I see what you mean.” He looked around. “Your organizational system might need a few tweaks, with that in mind… you don’t want all the big deserts being the most front-facing. People passing by, they don’t want to eat whole cakes, but if they see doughnuts and scones and cake pops – little finger sweets – they’ll usually go ‘well… I am a bit peckish.’”
“Really?” The lady hummed, “I hadn’t considered that. People are… really hard to predict, some times.”
“It’s simple psychology – a bit like the grocery stores being designed to make you buy things you don’t really need, but want to get on impulse because you’re hungry.” The Doctor looked around. “Not that they need the help. All these look plenty delicious.”
“I try my best,” She lightly boasted, before her face turned confused. “…cake pops?”
“You don’t-“ The Doctor sucked in a horrified breath. “Okay, well, we’re fixing that!”
“Okay.” She nodded with a smile, like she was ready to snap up a new recipe. Then, her face dropped. “No, hold on, sorry, I can’t-“ Then she began to move around anxiously. “I’ve got a big order I need to fill, and the help just walked out on me, and I shouldn’t be taking customers right now until I get another set of hands-“
“Well, that’s why I’m here!"
Her look turned to confusion. “Sorry?”
“Well, I saw the flyer!” The Doctor held up the paper. “Needed money for reasons – which really is rubbish, I don’t like money, it’s noisy and gets cold to the touch – and I thought…” He spread his arms to make his point.
Still, she looked confused. “Flyer? Right, yeah, the… flyer.” For a moment, the Time Lord wondered if she had any memory of putting it up. “Sorry, I’ve been in here for days now, it all just… blurs.”
“Oh, that’s okay! Time flies – you know? Well, actually, I should hope it doesn’t – that’d be unacceptable.” The Doctor clapped his hands. “Okay! I’m the Doctor, I’m looking to be a prospective bakery assistant! Actually, do I need references? Or a resume? If a background check is involved, I assure you, I’m perfectly within the bounds of the law – actually,” He looked around. “I was hoping to speak with Albedo. Is she in?”
Not-Clara burst out into chuckles. “I should certainly hope she is!” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Albedo.”
“You?” The Doctor repeated in surprise as he shook her hand. “But you- you- no offense, but you don’t look…”
“Old enough to be a semi-famous chef?” The woman knowingly finished with a twinkle in her eyes. “I get that a lot. Don’t mind it; it’s a lot easier to get away from a client I don’t wanna deal with if I say ‘chef’s out, terribly sorry.’ Do you have experience cooking other things, or just those… ‘cake pops?’”
“Ah, yes, those! Those are very good; This actually isn’t the first time I’ve done this before - showed Carême these ones. He wanted his desserts to be literal art pieces, but I told him, I told him ‘Listen, bigger isn’t always better! Otherwise, everyone goes home with stomach aches and the ant people from outer space will keep on crashing your fancy dinners.’ Did he listen? No! Just because a good portion of the world owes their fine cuisine to France, it doesn’t mean the French chef is always right. I got the last laugh in the end, though. What say I whip up a batch right now, eh? Eh? You’ll love them!”
“Hmm…” Albedo hummed, before sighing. “I’d like to, but like I said, I’ve got another order to fill. I’ve got a cake that I need to send to one of the trade guilds. And the thing’s not even done yet! The help just walked out! I could use the extra set of hands.”
“Well, fortunately enough for you, one of my doctorates is in cake-making!” The Doctor smiled. “And, as it happens, I do have an extra set of hands. Literally. He’s living a long and happy life on a beach, somewhere, I think. Where do you need me?”
The Doctor regretted that question, almost as soon as he saw the automobile-sized stack of cakes in the back room.
Well, he needed the money… which, funny enough, was a statement that had gotten him in trouble loads of times before.
Notes:
And here we get to see the first real, big differences, starting to take root! Her name, Albedo, is a shout-out with the subtlety of a foghorn to a certain other character with silvery hair from Xenosaga.
Chapter Text
Alvis stood at the end of the moving sidewalk that made up Melfica Road. His outside posture calm and composed, but to an outsider, his inner thoughts might as well have been shrouded in a thick fog – deep contemplations of the universe that only one such as he could unravel.
In reality, he was thinking about airports and the moving sidewalks there as well. Such a human convenience – they were about to spend hours in a pressurized, metal container, unable to move, and yet they still didn’t want to walk the whole way. It was efficient… but lazy.
Yet, he was not standing around, entertaining whatever insipid thoughts came to him by choice. Well… it was technically by choice, only in the sense that he made a decision that led him here, and he was forced to pass the time while he waited. Then again, forced was such a nasty word. He was well aware that, for some things, patience was a necessity. He simply didn’t enjoy waiting around in such an… oppressive atmosphere.
The grand hall of the Imperial Palace was worse - as still as the moment before a storm, though the undercurrent of tension was like the flammable vapors of a solvent, ready to explode the moment even a single spark lit. High Entia guards whispered among themselves, about the plan – and the last-minute adjustments. Lorithia had been absolutely furious the moment Alvis had suggested the new course of action, but he’d grown experienced dealing with her little… temper tantrums at this point.
Lorithia had gone most of her life believing that she was powerful, and well-connected. And she used that to intimidate people into doing what she wanted, no matter how strongly they disagreed. Yet, she failed to understand that for her position, there was one constant that she could not touch – that, for all her posturing, she failed to realize there was a person more valuable, more well-connected, and more intelligent than she ever would be.
Alvis was the seer of the Royal Family, and while that title had naturally garnered some suspicion from certain groups that believed that he was the true Emperor using his position to exert his influence, and everyone else were figureheads to keep the people happy, it gave him a certain bit of sway with the Emperor.
Even the absolutely dreadful consort of the man, Yumea, could make no moves against Alvis. At least, not directly.
All Alvis needed to do was level a polite suggestion the Emperor’s way. “Your Majesty,” He had addressed. “If I may, I would like to suggest accompanying your daughter to the forest.”
The Emperor had appeared intrigued, and Yumea had gone so red it was like she had taken a dip in fresh blood. He knew the reason why, of course – Alvis Saw everything – Yumea was hoping that Melia would meet a not-so-noble end, trying to prove herself to the people, eliciting some crocodile sympathy before being forgotten entirely. Alvis had been content to let that happen – Melia wouldn’t have died anyhow – but…
Well, the arrival of a certain TARDIS that Alvis’s senses could not penetrate had changed things.
“Do you believe my daughter isn’t up to the task?” The Emperor had inquired of Alvis.
“Not at all,” Alvis had shook his head. “On the contrary – I believe Melia is quite capable. But we will be working closer together in a professional capacity, one day. If I may, I would prefer to begin building that rapport sooner, rather than later.”
Yumea had tried to open her mouth to find an excuse. “Your duties here-“
“Are hardly important enough to demand all of my attention at all times.” Alvis had politely informed her, and that had been that. If something was happening back in Alcamoth that required the presence of the Seer, then they’d more than likely be able to simply send him a missive. They could get in touch in seconds.
Besides, the beast they were sending Melia to face was a harbinger of the End Times. Who wouldn’t want a Seer chaperoning their daughter through that?
While he stood, waiting, Alvis reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a white plastic bag filled with sweets. He waited for some time longer, before he sensed the approach.
“You could have waited at the transport, you know.”
Alvis turned around, seeing Melia standing there with an uncertain look upon her face.
“I could have,” He granted her that. “But sitting is the new cancer, as they say.”
“You don’t fault for exercise,” Melia pointed out. “And it’s a long walk. You’ve earned some rest, I should think.”
“Alas, I must remain standing at all times.” Alvis let out a theatrical sigh. “If I don’t, the Palace employees get jealous. It’s one thing to get paid to stand around all day – it’s another to be paid to sit around all day.”
Her lips twitched a minute amount. “Is that a piece of Seer wisdom?”
“If you like.” Alvis answered, popping another piece of candy into his mouth.
"I must admit," She began, adjusting her staff as they walked. "It surprises me that you would wish to come along. You’ve never seemed particularly concerned with military matters."
Alvis’s expression didn’t shift, though a faint smile ghosted across his lips. "There’s only so much fighting one can see before it all begins to blur together. But this mission is different, I should say.”
Melia curiously tilted her head. “How so?”
“Jelly Baby?” Alvis held out the bag to her.
“Oh,” Like taking candy offered by a sibling, Melia peered into the bag, and frowned. “You ate all the yellow ones already…”
“Of course – it’s my favorite colour.” Alvis popped another one into his mouth. “I always eat them first.” He chewed on it some more, thinking. “As for what makes this mission different… call it curiosity. A mysterious creature, roaming the Bionis, no evidence for whence it came.” An enigmatic smile worked its way onto his face. “I’d hardly get the chance to study it if it were slain out there.”
Melia shook her head. “This is not a scientific expedition-“
“Everything is, depending on how you look at it.” Alvis retorted. “Venturing out to gather data via killing a lifeform – that’s destructive analysis. One of the oldest and most effective applications of the scientific method.”
“You know, matters of the scientific are my jurisdiction, Alvis.” A ripple of discontent moved through the air. Lorithia approached from up ahead, and began standing with her arms crossed, narrowing her eyes at Alvis. “I’ve managed to catch you before you scurry off, I see.” The other High Entia tilted her head with a scowl. “What are you doing?”
Alvis narrowed his eyes, popping another piece of candy into his mouth. “Destructive analysis.” He rifled through the bag of sweets. “You can only figure out if something tastes of tangerines once you eat it.”
Lorithia rolled her eyes. “I fail to see why the seer would trouble himself with such trivial matters as escorting the princess into battle. This is a task for warriors, not oracles.” The orbs narrowed suspiciously. “What are you playing at, Alvis?
Alvis turned his head slightly, casting an unreadable glance in Lorithia’s direction. His tone remained polite, but there was a subtle edge to his words. “Who says I happen to be playing at anything?” He looked away from her, more focused on his sweets than her. “I’m merely curious on how a creature such as a Telethia could appear with no warning, quite close to our domain, with no sign of whence it came. If anything, I’d expect you to be curious as well, Minister of Research.”
Lorithia eyes flashed, but before she could retort, Melia spoke up, her voice strong despite the tension. “I appreciate your concern, Lady Lorithia, but Alvis’s counsel has always been invaluable. If he wishes to accompany me, then I welcome his aid.”
The dismissal was clear, and Lorithia’s lips pressed into a thin line. She stepped back, giving Alvis a sharp look as if to say that this was far from over. Alvis, however, paid her no mind. His attention was fully on Melia now.
“You understand, of course, that this task is not without peril,” Alvis said softly, as if their conversation had never been interrupted. “The Telethia is not a foe to be taken lightly. It is a portent of the end times, after all. But with the right guidance…” His words trailed off, heavy with implication. “With the right companions, you will find the strength to overcome.”
“A companion such as yourself?”
“Perhaps.” Alvis evasively replied. “I would never say such a thing, of course – my mother taught me that overblown self-praise is the least attractive of all traits. I will say this, before we depart; trust in the abilities of those around you. Trust in the abilities of yourself. And above all, don’t be afraid to accept help, should you need it.”
Melia furrowed her brow, feeling the weight of his cryptic words. “You speak as if you already know what will happen.”
Alvis met her gaze, his eyes reflecting an ageless wisdom that both comforted and unnerved her. “But of course. That’s my job.”
For a moment, there was silence between them, a silent understanding passing unspoken. Then, Melia nodded, resolute. “We must depart.” She continued moving on, shooting a look at him. “Are you going to tell me where you find those peculiar little sweets?”
“I make them.” Alvis readily answered.
Melia smiled. “Truly? You never said you could cook.”
“Who said I could cook? These are simply flavored sugar.” Alvis replied, causing Melia to shake her head.
The two made for the transport pad – Melia leading, Alvis following her, his hands clasped behind his back, the perfect picture of composed detachment. Yet beneath the surface, there was so much more at play. He could feel the watchful eyes of those pulling the strings from behind the scenes, each with their own agenda. Yumea, Lorithia, Dickson, Zanza – all of them pawns, each believing they were the singular star player with the upper hand in this intricate game.
Alvis, however, had plans of his own. Keeping Melia safe was a priority, but there was more at stake. The Doctor’s influence had begun to disturb the currents of fate, and Alvis needed to position himself carefully. Melia, though unaware, was a key piece in this delicate balancing act. And the others… they would never suspect that his true intentions lay far beyond their petty power struggles.
As they approached the transport, Alvis cast one last glance over his shoulder. The game was already in motion, and no one, not even Zanza, knew the full extent of what was coming.
He smiled faintly, the perfect picture of gentlemanly concern. “Shall we?”
Melia took his hand, and followed him through the transporter.
--------------
Shulk didn’t have a particularly restful sleep that night on the Bionis’s kneecap. The Doctor’s lecture had sent his mind reeling, his stomach churning, and his thoughts ablaze in anxious contemplation. The Doctor seemed to think there was more to the issue of the Mechon than anyone else realized. But… that was ridiculous.
Shulk had seen what the Mechon did at Colony 9. More than that, he had heard stories of what they were capable of, well before that. Dickson had never hidden the reality from Shulk (much to the consternation of the other adults in the Colony, who at least wanted to pretend that everything was all right for their children) – about how the Mechon were inexorable, never tiring, never slowing. The Mechon didn’t need supply lines, or chain of command, or even training. It was their instinct to destroy everything that walked the surface of the Bionis, and they were very good at it.
It was no wonder that Sword Valley was a massacre. The Homs soldiers could develop fatigue. They could run out of ammunition. They could get hungry.
(Shulk had heard once that the battle had, in total, lasted almost seventy-seven hours. A chunk of the Homs at the battle hadn’t even been killed by Mechon – they died of exhaustion.)
Even with Dunban there, wielding the Monado, the losses the Homs suffered were enormous. Colony 7’s military forces had been wiped out. Dunban’s friend, Mumkhar, had been lost – along with so many others. There hadn’t even been bodies left.
And now he was expected to believe that there was a better way? The Mechon had proven, thoroughly, that they wanted nothing more than the death and destruction of everything on Bionis. They had destroyed nearly every other Colony on the Bionis, even before Sword Valley – the battle of the Valley just delayed the inevitable, and the Mechon continued to flow like the inexorable advance of a flood. How was one supposed to reason with something like that? The Mechon weren’t enemies. They weren’t even really a force. They were more like a process, one that reduced everything it struck to rubble.
Shulk couldn’t help but turn his mind to Fiora.
‘They took her parents, her aunts and uncles, her cousins,’ Shulk’s voice echoed in his head. ‘And now her brother. She is alone, because of them.’
Shulk’s train of thought faltered. ‘No… she has me and Reyn. Even still, they’d cut her down, without a chance. You saw it yourself. Soldier or civilian, man or woman, adult or child. The Mechon don’t care. They’ll exterminate us.’ The Doctor, for being a brilliant scientific mind, was still an outsider. What could he possibly know about dealing with something like that?
Shulk lay there, on the mat, listening to his friends breathing.
‘I won’t let that happen. The Mechon have to be destroyed, before they can destroy us.’ And that thought eased him out of it, a bit, if nothing else. ‘Fiora will get her vengeance… and I’ll keep her safe.’
The thought of busting up the Mechon something good was a soothing balm to his restless mind, and Shulk closed his eyes, finding it easier to do so as long as he remembered his objective.
The Monado continued to hum on his back – the metal a comfortable warm, almost like a person’s hand, and Shulk could feel the gentle, rhythmic pulsating of the ether lines, lulling him to sleep.
For the briefest of moments, he forgot that it was supposed to be a dangerous weapon, and one that already mutilated one of his oldest friends at that.
The Monado compelled Shulk to sleep, and he let it do so, allowing his eyes to drift shut.
-----------
The sterile, metallic hum of the darkened lab echoed softly through the chamber, the air heavy with ancient sorrow weight of what was to come.
The sound of clanking footsteps grew louder as the Mechon dragged in a body, their movements methodical and uncaring as they laid him onto the cold surface of the operating table. His lifeless form - once proud, full of purpose - now appeared so fragile against the stark backdrop of the towering machines.
She stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the still figure. The soft illumination of the facility's lights revealed his features, a pale, grim reflection of what he had once been. His battle-worn body was riddled with scars, remnants of countless battles fought in defense of his people, of his ideals. This man, whose resolve had been as unwavering as the blade he once wielded, now lay motionless, a victim of fate and brutal machinations.
her gaze lingered on his arm—the same arm that had once been consumed by the cursed energy of the Monado. It was broken now, limp, a reminder of the toll that had been inflicted upon him in his final days. She knew that this man was more than just another casualty of war. He was a symbol of hope, a legend to his people. The blade in his hand had cut through the tide of endless despair, time and time again.
Now, it was all gone.
His breathing had long since stopped, and there was no longer any fire behind his closed eyes, only the remnants of a life that had been extinguished too soon. His chest had been torn open – lungs, heart, spine, and everything else that had been there – obliterated by bleak claws, sterile of germs and infection, but contaminated with hatred and single-minded loathing.
The man who had stood tall in the face of the impossible, who had fought with every ounce of his being to protect those he loved, was reduced to this: a body waiting to be used. A fallen piece of scrap, waiting to be used.
She pressed a button on the control panel, and the scanning apparatus above the table began to hum, its red light sweeping over his body, taking stock of what remained. He’d been recovered quite soon after Onyx threw him into the water, thus he was relatively free of the bloat and decay caused by organic material left to fester under the water. All else in the torso was destroyed.
Quite fortunate that he had landed outside that Ether Surge’s range, else he might have been irrecoverable.
According to most organics’ understanding, he was irrecoverable. But not for her. The scanners’ assessment returned a positive reading in the brain. Despite the fact that the rest of him was now little more than a shredded mass of meat and bone, the brain was largely intact.
“Perfect,” she whispered under her breath.
There was potential there. The core of what he was - what he had been - could be salvaged, reforged into something greater. He had once held a Monado. Despite the damage to his arm, the rest of him had been… primed, in a way. It was perfect for her purposes. His body may have failed him in life, but in death, it would serve a higher purpose.
Her fingers traced the data input on the console. The arms of her Mechon moved hence with a delicate touch they had shown no Homs before. They began cutting, slicing away at the body’s scalp and the underlying skull, allowing the Mind Probe direct access.
Like a movie on a screen, images began to flash by. Albeit, disjointed, cloudy ones – organic brains did not store memories as ‘files,’ they recreated them each time, and every time, there was some bit of decay. Especially considering the brain was now dead.
Then, she got the confirmation she sought. The Sword Valley Incident, a dozen other scattered skirmishes and battles, and the latest attack.
The man – Dunban – he’d been a fighter. Quite an optimistic one, too. So strong of will that he could force the Monado to do his bidding, and he only wound up with a ruined arm to boot!
Yes, he’d be perfect for her purposes.
Flesh and bone had their limits, but metal did not. She could replace his arm with something far more powerful, augment his strength until it was beyond human capability. His mind, the sharp strategic mind that had guided him through so many battles - she could enhance it, hone it into the perfect weapon.
But it was his heart that concerned her most. Not the organ itself - destroyed beyond repair - but the essence of who he had been. She couldn’t just leave him as he was – when he awoke, he might not be receptive to the whole story at first, but he was a reasonable man, she had seen in his memories – but Dunban would be under extra scrutiny. Memories, loyalty to the Homs, his insatiable drive – those might only get him into trouble, down the line.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment. What to do, what to do…
A buzz came over from the table nearby. ‘Look at me, look, look, look!’ it seemed to say.
The pulsating came from a blade adorned with red Ether lines – Meyneth’s Monado. The sword – a twin-pronged blade with branching-off segments – had taken on a new kind of activity. It appeared to have taken on the sudden characteristic of being made of metal block, and mechanisms underneath them, moving around and interacting in ways that shouldn’t have been possible if they had to actually occupy the space they inhabited, and they were – as objects usually were - solid. It gave the Monado the appearance of a constantly-rippling sea of metal pieces, restlessly churning as any one shape was too static for them to take.
Vanea walked over to the tiny shrine, watching as the Monado appeared to curl on itself – a clockwork flower, reversing its blossoming process. The parts folded over one another, clicking together, some sliding right into others and becoming one, until all that was left was a simple, shield-like object. A little triangle, with red illumination on it.
She reached down, hesitantly picking it up. “My lady, are… are you certain?”
The Monado hummed deeply.
“…very well.” Vanea acquiesced after a moment’s thought. Meyneth would keep Dunban’s consciousness from slipping through too early – once things were safely into place, and Dunban was brought up to speed, Meyneth could relinquish control, and Dunban could warn the Homs of the real threat. They’d listen to him, surely. He had wielded the Monado, after all.
The mental interface rose to her command, and the Mechon around her moved instantly, their claws clicking against the metal floor as they prepared the necessary equipment. Tubes and wires descended from the ceiling, connecting to the table where the body lay. Vanea watched in silence as the machines came to life, the whirring of their gears filling the air with an ominous hum. They worked quickly, efficiently, and without hesitation, pulling skin off flesh with surgical precision, installing valves and sockets, wires, and plugs.
Pumps, air processors, ether furnaces, and hydrators were all brought in, different combinations being arranged in holographic form to see how they would fit.
In time, Dunban would fight again, though not for the reasons he once had.
------------
The world was a wash of grey color, blurred together with muffled sounds as events unfolding were viewed as though through a pane of frosted glass.
Still, Shulk saw.
He saw himself walking with Reyn, Fiora, and the Doctor across the plain, their voices blending with the gentle breeze. Reyn was laughing at something the Doctor had said - Shulk couldn’t quite make out the words - Fiora walked beside him, her smile warming the scene, and the Doctor... well, the Doctor looked half-lost in his own thoughts, but keeping pace with the group all the same. A waterfall coming out of the cliff wall dead ahead was a sure sign they were approaching water.
The ground beneath them trembled, subtle at first, then more violently. Fiora faltered, her hand instinctively going for her knives. Reyn’s eyes darted toward the horizon, his expression hardening.
The Doctor stopped to ask what was wrong. Then they got the answer.
An enormous, simian creature barreled toward them, its massive frame tearing through the plain with reckless abandon. The ground shook beneath its thunderous steps, sending ripples through the once-calm landscape. It moved with a terrifying speed; its dark eyes locked on the group as it closed the distance in seconds.
They intruded upon its territory. It wouldn’t let trespassers go through, ignored.
Panic surged in Shulk’s chest.
Reyn braced himself, grabbing onto his scrap driver, while the Doctor yelled at Reyn not to be stupid. Territorial Rotbart was too fast, too powerful. Reyn charged to face the beast, trying to give his friends an out, but the Doctor had grabbed Reyn and tried to pull him back.
Maybe if he hadn’t, Reyn would’ve been able to get a swing in. At least, one strong enough to stun the monster for long enough to get some distance between them.
But instead, its massive hands reached out, and slammed into the two, knocking them away. Shulk tried to help, but even he was too far away, as the great, giant animal pounced on Reyn and started pounding, staining the ground. The Doctor pulled himself back up, but the moment he did, Rotbart charged him, and struck his chest with so much force that the Doctor dropped instantly.
Then, something strange started to happen. The Doctor made a comment about not having heard any knocks, before his skin started to glow, the bruises and cuts healing rapidly like they had never been there at all. Before anything else could occur, the monster struck again, and the glow subsided.
Shulk jolted, eyes darting around as the vision left him, leaving him with sped-up breathing, and a terrifyingly fast heartbeat.
“Ey, look who’s up!” Reyn’s voice called, and Shulk turned. “Glad to see you back in the land of the living.”
Shulk gasped as if coming up from deep underneath the water. “Y-Yeah.”
“Shulk?” Reyn frowned. “What’s up, buddy?”
“You look…” Fiora spoke up, moving into Shulk’s field of vision. “You look terrible. What’s wrong, Shulk?”
The Doctor approached. “Not just horrible – you look like you just got done being chased by a pack of wolves.”
Shulk steadied his breathing, eyes darting between all of them.
The Monado’s humming didn’t let up.
“Everyone…” Shulk took a breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
------------
As Shulk finished up his story, the Doctor carefully moved his Sonic Screwdriver over the Monado. While it seemed he was totally enraptured by the sword, the Time Lord was listening to Shulk’s confession.
“So, you’ve been… what?” Reyn blinked. “Seeing the future?”
Shulk nodded. “I… I have been for a while now. It’s not a constant thing, but… the first time I touched the Monado in the Weapons Lab. And later, when I picked it up after Dunban dropped it.”
“And you never mentioned this before?” The Doctor questioned disbelievingly.
Shulk turned to him, wearing a dry expression. “How do I explain I’ve been seeing the future, out of the blue?”
The Doctor threw up a hand, pointing at Shulk in a manner that suggested ‘well, you’re doing it now.’
“Shulk,” Fiora spoke up. “If… if you’ve been seeing the future, does that mean you saw…” ‘Dunban dying’ was the phrase left off at the end of her sentence.
“I… I don’t know.” Shulk admitted, suddenly staring ahead. “I… maybe? No, I saw… that Mechon… with the claws…” His eyes widened. “And they were stained with blood.”
“…you saw it,” Fiora breathed out in horror, taking a step back from Shulk. “You saw it, a-and you didn’t think to warn him!?”
“I-It’s not like that, Fiora, I swear it!” Shulk frantically gestured. “I didn’t see Dunban actually dying! It’s… hard to describe,” He struggled to put words to the impressions. “When I picked up the Monado, it was like… viewing a collage through dirty glass, but there are certain portions that exist on their own that have clarity. I saw the Mechon. And I was screaming… and then I saw the bloody claws.” He slumped over, although Fiora’s suggestion was visibly troubling him. “I hadn’t realized until afterward…” He put his head in his hands, unable to look any of them in the eye.
“Shulk…” Fiora’s wrath gave way to concern, her face melting as she went to sit next to him.
“I could’ve warned him,” Shulk twitched. “Even if I didn’t know who was about to die, I could have… maybe it could’ve helped him.”
“Maybe,” The Doctor hummed. “Maybe not. Maybe viewing it made it set in stone. No saving poor Dunban, then.”
Fiora’s head snapped over to the Time Lord instantly, whilst Shulk slowly looked up.
The Doctor seemed to realize what he had said. “Ah.” He coughed, blinking. “I didn’t mean – look,” He rubbed the corner of his eyes. “My people knew a thing or two about seeing the future.”
“Your people?” Reyn repeated, frowning. “From the Bionis’s shoulder?”
“He’s not from the shoulder,” Shulk shook his head. “He’s from… Elsewhere. Neither Bionis or Mechonis. Another world, in fact.”
Reyn bit out a laugh. “Get off! What, like ‘s a bad isekai strip in the paper?”
“Oh, don’t be daft,” The Doctor rolled his eyes, turning away from Reyn. “I didn’t have to die to get here, for one-“
“Guys,” Fiora sternly stated, looking pointedly between the two. Then, she turned a glower onto the Doctor.
“Ah, right.” The Time Lord coughed, waving his hands. “It’s a whole… thing. A good way to think about it is… okay!” He threw a hand up. “You see the future, right? But even though it’s the future, now it’s your past. It’s history to you, because you’ve seen it. And you can’t change your past.”
“But that’d have to depend on the method of viewing the future, correct?” Shulk instinctively answered, not even looking at the Doctor. “Certainly, if we’re actually looking through time, I could see that being the case, but if it were merely an accurate computer simulation…”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, you’re not wrong. Good mind on you, Shulk. Actually,” The Time Lord shifted his weight as he locked onto another topic. “I’ve been meaning to say – you are… really clever. Like ‘look at me, I just figured out the grand unified field theory before breakfast, now I’m going to make a fully sapient AI out of a Tamagotchi,’ clever.”
“Well, um… thanks.”
“No, but,” The Doctor shook his head. “Not everybody can just walk into the TARDIS, puzzle out her interior dimensions, and how she can move. You’ve got the experience of a world-class physicist, and yet…” He looked around. “You’re eighteen years old, clinging to the skin of a giant alien, and you hadn’t even left your colony.” He looked curiously at Shulk, furrowing his eyebrows. “…do I know you, Shulk?”
“Considering we all just met days ago,” Fiora answered for her friend. “I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, what’s the big idea, Doc?” Reyn questioned. “Shulk’s smart, big deal! Why’re you saying that like it’s a bad thing?”
“It’s not, don’t get the wrong idea,” The Doctor shook his head. “I’m just…” He looked closer at Shulk. “You looked a little bit… familiar. And normally I’m very good with faces, but I’m having trouble, this time.”
Reyn snorted. “Well, you are from another world, according to Shulk. Maybe you just met someone who looked like him?”
The Doctor looked Shulk up and down. Maybe. The face he was envisioning had longer hair, though. The existence of such concepts as spatial genetic multiplicity made it an utter nightmare to separate people from identical doubles across space and time. Time Lords had it easy – their range of senses allowed them to lock onto other features beyond the physical, allowing them to effortlessly tell even identical people apart – but pesky things such as two-dimensional images could lead to things becoming muddled.
“Maybe,” The Doctor hummed. “You ever think about growing your hair out, Shulk? It’d be a good look for you, I think.”
Shulk blinked, his hand going up to feel his hair.
“Shulk might be clever,” Fiora began. “But why is he seeing the future?”
“I don’t know,” The Doctor answered. “Ask him.”
Shulk winced, apologetically gesturing. “Look, Fiora, I’m sorry I didn’t-“
“Oh, don’t you start with me,” Fiora threateningly waved a knife at him. “’I’m sorry’ ’s not going to cut it!”
Shulk winced again. “I told you, I didn’t know what I had seen until after-“
“That’s not what I’m talking about!” Fiora cut him off. “You know what the Monado did to Dunban! You were there, with me while they were carrying him off the transport from Sword Valley! You working yourself to exhaustion who knows how many late nights to study that thing was bad enough, but then it starts doing things like that, and you didn’t say!?”
“I’m sorry,” Shulk sighed. “You’re right, I should’ve said something.” He thinned his lips, taking a moment to think. “I wasn’t certain if- …I didn’t want you all to think I was losing my mind.”
“Hey, ain’t nobody said nothing of the sort!” Reyn gestured. “I mean, I’m a bit curious why you can see the future with that thing, and Dunban couldn’t, but it’s fine! We don’t think you’re crazy!”
“Really, the crazier part is that you thought not to say anything,” Fiora crossed her arms.
“Which is why we’re gonna clamp down on it now!” Reyn decided. “Shulk, the Monado starts doing anything freaky, you let us know, okay?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to worry you guys-“
“Rubbish,” The Doctor declared. “I am a medical professional, and as your doctor, I say that if the Monado starts doing anything worrying, you at least tell me, clear?”
Shulk blinked, staring at the grinning Time Lord. Fiora offered the Doctor a gentle smile at that, while Reyn decisively nodded.
“I… All right,” Shulk sucked in some breath.
“And that goes for them visions, too.” Reyn glanced at Fiora, before turning his focus back to Shulk. “You see anything in ‘em that’s even a lil’ bit worrying, you say so.”
Shulk chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He shifted. “So… Doctor? What did you find?”
The Doctor looked up from the Monado. “Well, it’s a sword.”
Reyn snorted. “No, really, do you think?”
“But it’s weird,” The Doctor picked it up, holding it between his palms, one hand on the tip of the sword, the other at the base of the handle. “I know earlier I said there was a processor, but… that’s it! There’s the ether lines, the processor, and… whatever substance this thing’s made of. It shouldn’t be able to breach the Time Vortex, let alone interface with whoever’s holding it.”
“Perhaps it isn’t?” Shulk suggested. “Maybe it’s not actually viewing the future, merely calculating the most likely outcome?”
“…maybe,” The Doctor granted. “But you’d need… a computer that could simulate the position and velocity of every atom in the observable universe for that! Even for this little bitty bottle universe, that’s a lot of processing power.”
Fiora and Reyn looked between them, neither getting what the Time Lord was saying.
“The Monado is said to be something…” Shulk bit his lip. “Alien. At least, to our understanding of the natural world. It doesn’t follow the rules.”
“An alien blade,” The Doctor frowned. “Maybe,” He answered Shulk’s initial suggestion at last. “My people had something that could do the job.” His brow furrowed, as he thought back on it. The pendant that man he’d spoken to last - a bit of a funny coincidence… Or, maybe he was reaching. He’d seen the pendant, and now his mind was subconsciously jumping to conclusions.
Still… it didn’t hurt to ask.
“You know, Shulk…” The Doctor began conversationally, against the pounding of his hearts. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible. It was. Not. Possible. But if it was it… he was about to have far bigger problems than the Mechon. “A friend of mine was able to see the future as well. He found an artifact, same as you – exactly like you. He wanted to use its power to spread a message of kindness and understanding, to all mankind.”
“What happened to him?” Shulk inquired. “How’d his visions turn out for him?”
The Doctor paused, thinning his lips. “He was a humanitarian, through and through, but his influence made him a lot of enemies. I think, near the end, he knew it was going to happen. But he was content. He chose to go to his death, knowing it would keep his words alive for millennia to come. They nailed him to a cross for it. All that said…” The Doctor cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t happen to have heard the name ‘Zohar’ thrown around at all? Anywhere? Anywhere at all?”
“No?” Shulk answered in confusion.
“No?” The Doctor repeated. “Not even a little subconscious instinct in the back of your head?”
Shulk shook his head. “Why?”
The Doctor shook his head, frowning nonchalantly as a little knot in his stomach undid itself. It wasn’t confirmation, but maybe he could hope. “No reason.” It had been a long time since the Zohar had crossed his thoughts. The Council was as tight-lipped about its departure as it was about everything else concerning the war effort. Last he’d heard, not even they could track it anymore, after it escaped the War. Just as well; the last time he’d stumbled into its sphere of influence and humans were involved...
Well, he wasn’t responsible. It was just humans, being humans, meddling, and he hadn’t shown up until it was too late to fix it.
…too late for most. He was a Time Lord, so that set him up with a degree of discipline and control that the humans that were trying to control it just didn’t have, and it was a piece of technology that existed outside of time, so everything that occurred could just be… undone. No harm, no foul.
Power like that was too great, even for what the Time Lords had become. For what he had become, in the fires of the Time War. It could make Rassilon’s ‘Ultimate Sanction’ look like a light slap compared to the cosmic genocide it actually was. Better for it to have remained lost. Or, rather, hiding, as some of the Time Lords believed in the last days of the war, hoping it’d return to save them all.
But… then, maybe it could help him.
A dangerous kind of hope began to rise in the Doctor’s chest. Whatever the cause of his impending death that was looming over him, the Zohar could allow him to change it. He could live a long, and fulfilling regeneration, before passing of natural causes.
Forget that, he could use it to give himself more regenerations. No… he could bring back Gallifrey. Not as it was, in the Final Days, but how it should have been.
Then… the Doctor stopped himself. Shoved those thoughts into a box, locked it up, and hid it away.
He had those thoughts all the time. It didn’t change the fact that, no matter how much he wished for it, he couldn’t change what happened.
Still, he couldn’t help but think it was too big of a coincidence. It’s not like what the Zohar could do in the hands of a capable enough user was proprietary – the Time Lords tried to keep things that way, yes, but there were plenty of other technologies that could enable similar things. Perhaps the Monado was just stuffed with analogues. But, he thought it a bit too convenient. His future self trying to break his way into the bottle universe of Bionis and Mechonis, the presence of an artifact that could emulate some of the functions of one of the most powerful Time Lord tools in existence, and the Nopon were there. The Nopon!
He’d never understood why the Time Lords were so dismissive of the Nopon (aside from the usual ‘we’re the Firstborn, everybody else is inferior to us just by virtue of coming after. Every one of their great discoveries is something we’ve mastered a thousand times over’); they were no more primitive than the Time Lords themselves had once been.
The Nopon had been dismissed, of course, in those Time Lord circles, often mocked as simple-minded "potato people" or ridiculed as overgrown children for their eccentricities. And yet, here they were. Like so many other “primitives,” the Nopon had outlasted the Time Lords, and so many others. The primitive, fuzzy potato people took one look at the War that was brewing, said a very kind ‘no thank you’ and proceeded to remove themselves from the equation. They conducted themselves with more grace and wisdom than the Time Lords tried to posture themselves with. The ‘primitives.’
…primitives that had managed to swap two planets around right under the Time Lords’ noses for a cheap bit of laughs.
But he had to wonder; why were the Nopon here?
The Doctor was building a picture in his mind. A bottle universe that could’ve only been created with Time Lord technology. The Nopon and humans, here (if worst came to worst, he’d have to call a quick time-out for him to run to Mira and ask what in the hell was going on). A legendary weapon with strange powers quite similar to the abilities one touched by the Zohar could use.
The Doctor’s eyes regarded the Monado with the suspicion someone would direct at a loaded gun set to go off on a random timer that couldn’t be seen.
Chameleon Circuits were really amazing pieces of technology. Not just present in TARDISes.
“Listen, that’s a powerful gift you’ve got there,” The Doctor pointedly told Shulk. “But you need to be careful. Power like that is controllable, until it isn’t. And when it goes bad, it takes a lot of people with it.”
Shulk nodded slowly, glancing down at the Monado with a newfound hesitance. “Do you think the Monado’s really so dangerous?”
“No,” The Doctor clicked his tongue. “But then… the Monado’s started showing these things for a reason, and I bet whatever the reason is, it can’t be totally benign. Maybe it is, on the Monado’s part, but if it is, that means it’s reacting to something that wasn’t present before.” Like him. Or a dozen-billion other things it could be. Who knows.
“In any case, regarding this last vision… what are we going to do? That… thing I saw… what was it?” Shulk wondered, oblivious to the Doctor’s contemplations.
“I don’t know,” Fiora admitted. “I’ve never been out this way.”
Reyn let out a hum. “There’s not much that’s that big, in this field. Aside from Rotbart.”
The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. “Rotbart?”
Reyn nodded. “They call him Territorial Rotbart. Good name, cause’s he’s one helluva territorial bastard. Back in the Defence Force, we’d hear chatter from people who passed through this way. Eks smeared across the field. Armu armor ripped open like its nothin’. I remember hearing one time, nearly a whole squad from Colony 7 got wiped out on their way back home. Only reason anybody knew anything was cause a patrol from 6 was passing through this way and ran him off.”
“That’s…” Fiora shuddered. “Terrifying.”
“It mauled Reyn, and the Doctor.” Shulk gestured. “And… Doctor, you started to… I don’t know how to describe it. There was this… glow-“
“Ah,” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up in genuine shock. “I see.”
“Is that bad?” Reyn asked of him.
“Aside from both of us dying, no,” The Doctor cleared his throat. “Well… it means I might not have such an affinity for the blue suit anymore.” The Doctor pawed at the fabric. He’d hope his next self would at least still have an affinity for long, flappy coats. Long, flappy coats were good. “Oh, but, we’ll be fine!” He began to move his arms, allowing the Monado to spin around in his grip. “Nothing a good bit of running can’t- ow!” The Doctor pulled his hands away, allowing the Monado to fall to the ground as Shulk jolted up in surprise.
“Doctor!” Shulk rushed over, “I am so sorry!”
“Wait,” Fiora gasped. “The Monado can’t hurt Homs…”
“Yes, I can see that,” The Doctor grimaced.
“But… that means you’re not… you’re actually from another world!?” Reyn spluttered.
“Yup,” The Doctor sucked the blood off his palm. “Ow. Playing with a sword, not my best idea. Anyway,” The Doctor looked up. “It’s still early, and we’ve got a ways to go, still. Whaddya say we head out?”
The others looked between them, before nodding in shared decision.
-------------
Gaur Plain was an interesting paradox, if only because the Doctor hadn’t quite seen anything like it before. Familiar rolling grasslands stretched out before them, but instead of meeting empty horizon, the field met the towering shape of the Bionis. The wind was gentle, carrying the scent of wildflowers, and the occasional cry of distant creatures could be heard. It was peaceful, a perfect moment for idle conversation, as they followed the winding path.
Were it not for the giant torso stretching above them like a mountain, the Doctor would’ve said he was on Earth. But no – all the animals, plants, and water was on a leg. A body.
“So,” The Doctor said, breaking the silence, his voice bright with curiosity. “Colony 9 - back the way we came - it was on the Bionis’s calf, wasn’t it?”
Shulk glanced back, slightly surprised by the Doctor’s shift in focus. “Yes. That’s right.”
“Ah! Brilliant!” The Doctor grinned, pacing around the others, his coat tails flapping in the breeze. “So, here we are, walking up its rectus femoris – that’s an apt word, femoris. If you made a giant titan that was just a femur, you could call it that – the Femoris. But, not just a nice word, it’s the muscle in the leg, you know, part of the quadriceps. All that said... How on Earth - or rather, on Bionis - does this work?”
Reyn blinked, looking thoroughly lost. “Huh? How does what work, Doc?”
“The… this,” the Doctor explained, gesturing grandly at the sky and ground around them. “This whole place. I mean, look at the size of it! The Bionis, just standing there, as big as a mountain! How does something this massive not just topple over and collapse under its own weight? And then there’s gravity - how are we not just sliding off its leg right now?”
Fiora gave a small laugh. “When you put it that way, it is kind of strange...”
Shulk scratched his head, thoughtful. “Well, I think... I think it’s partly because of the way the Bionis is posed. It’s, you know, leaned forward, almost like it’s kneeling. That probably gives it more surface area to support life - at least on this side.”
The Doctor nodded, but the spark of curiosity hadn’t left his eyes. “Right, that makes sense for the parts we’re standing on, sure! But what about the Bionis itself? This thing has been standing here for, what, millennia? Billions of tons of material, just standing in place! How does it stay upright for so long without keeling over? Or—wait, wait—is there some sort of gravity-manipulating ether in the bones, keeping the whole Titan balanced and stable? Like invisible scaffolding?”
Reyn gave a hearty chuckle. “Invisible scaffolding, that’s a good one! Might as well have just said magic, mate.”
The Doctor spun around, grinning widely. “Oh, magic’s a good one – but no! Look at where we are!”
Shulk, caught in thought, chimed in once more. “Well… there have been plenty of theories. One of the leading ones was that the Bionis’s gravity is so strong, it exists in a state of perfect equilibrium with the gravity acting on it. The Bionis wouldn’t need to support itself… but, then, that whole idea breaks down once you take into account the rockfalls.”
“Rockfalls?” The Doctor repeated.
“You didn’t think the anti-air guns were just for bashing up Mechon, did ya?” Reyn offered the Time Lord a cocky grin in return. “Now and again, rocks’ll fall down from the Bionis’s hamstrings. Great, big, giant rocks that’d crush a whole building, too. The guns shoot ‘em right out of the sky.”
“…well, not a horrible application of the technology,” The Doctor answered after a moment’s thought, turning to Shulk as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “But particle shielding would be better for that kind of thing, no?”
“Perhaps,” Shulk scratched his chin thoughtfully. “But… no. Depending on the size of the debris, it would simply hit the shield and stay stuck there until the system switched off. The guns would actually blow it apart.”
The Time Lord respectably nodded, granting it that.
“Guys,” Fiora spoke up, pointing to a wispy pillar rising over the plains. “Do you see that?”
“Smoke!” Reyn puffed out his chest. “Maybe someone’s got a fire going? It wouldn’t hurt – I could use a bit of grub.”
“I ran into somebody last night,” The Doctor frowned, face twisting in puzzlement. “Maybe that’s him? Although… black smoke is usually bad smoke.”
Fiora curiously turned to the Time Lord. “How come?”
“It means that there’s not a good ratio of fuel-to-oxidizer,” Shulk answered first. “Something is burning and it’s burning so rapidly, it’s not burning all the way.”
“Try to eat anything cooked over that, you’ll get a lovely, smokey, petrol flavor.” The Doctor directed to Reyn with a teasing look. “What do we think, Reyn? Calamari in a diesel marinade?”
“I’m thinkin’ my appetite’s gone now.” Reyn shuddered with a disgusted look.
“We should take a look, right?” Fiora asked, looking at the others. The men all looked between themselves, then gestured, collectively sending the thought: ‘Well, we’re here following you.’ “Right, let’s go!” She decided, running ahead across the field first.
The others shared a glance, and tore off after her.
--------
It didn’t take long to track down the source of the fire – a lone metallic glint, in an expansive sea of green and brown.
“Look, it’s a buggy!” Fiora pointed, running up to it.
“Hello…” The Doctor approached, looking it over with a curious frown. “What’re you doing out here all on your own…?” He put his reading glasses on, peering closer to the front.
“I wonder why they abandoned it,” Shulk hummed. “It’s still in good condition.”
“Well,” The Doctor cut in. “Aside from the fuel system spewing smoke.”
“Apart from that.” Shulk concurred.
“How’d it get here?” Fiora looked to Shulk. “Do you think it came from Colony 6?”
“Could’ve been,” Reyn shrugged. “Hey – the two of you are good with machines, right? Maybe you can fix it up! We could ride into Colony 6 in style!”
Fiora fixed him with a responsible expression. “We’re not stealing the buggy.”
“Who said anything about stealing?” Reyn innocently asked. “We’re just returning it ourselves! ‘Sides, whoever owned it couldn’t’ve cared too much about it, seeing as they just left it here.”
Shulk opened his mouth to respond, before the Doctor cut in.
“I think it’s recent,” The Doctor popped a panel off the side, reached his arm in, and with a grunt of exertion, pulled out the ether cylinder. “Look, there’s still a fair bit of fuel left.” He presented the cylinder, filled to about a quarter with the glowing fluid, and he sloshed it around. “Can’t have been going for two long.” He looked over his shoulder, glancing around at the plains. “We might still be able to find the driver.” He looked back down at the cylinder. “The man I met last night kind of just – poof! Vanished. Don’t know why. If he was more focused on vanishing like Batman rather than watching the road, this could be him.”
“Bat… man?” Fiora repeated, scratching her head.
“Ah, nevermind.” The Doctor snorted. “Still, this is very good – what kind of fuel is this? It’s almost like…” Curiously, he popped off the top, and stuck a finger in.
“Whoa!” Reyn shouted, startling as the Doctor licked some of the glowing stuff.
“Ah… Ah, ah!” The Time Lord gasped, shuddering. “Don’t know what it is, but it’s got one hell of a kick!”
“It’s ether!” Fiora gasped out, staring at him. “You just- you swallowed ether!”
“I did,” The Doctor twitched, shaking his head. “Why?”
“…Doctor,” Shulk stared at him, and even his red vest seemed frozen, the shock was so great. “Ether exists in minute concentrations in all of us, but in liquid state it’s… highly corrosive.”
“Not just that – your skin should’ve burned the second you touched it!” Reyn corrected.
“Really?” The Time Lord curiously hummed. “All I got was a little bit of an electric tang.” He smacked his lips. “And… a little bit of super-heavy neutrinos. Funny – the ether, you call it, it doesn’t seem to be physically possible, according to my understanding. Yet, here we are! Very tasty stuff, it is…”
Fiora stared at the Doctor.
“But never mind me!” The Time Lord quickly got the conversation back on track. “If this is a buggy, where’s its owner?”
“There should be a way of foll-“ Shulk turned to the vehicle and placed a hand on it, freezing up.
“Shulk?” Fiora probed. “Shulk, what’s wrong?”
Shulk said nothing, staring blankly into space. The Doctor was about to snap his fingers in front of Shulk’s eyes, before something quite odd happened. They started to glow.
Quickly, the Doctor moved into action, taking scans as the blue radiating from Shulk’s eyes made itself apparent.
Then, a frighteningly deep gasp of air, and the glow dispelled, as Shulk moved once more.
“Shulk? Shulk!” Fiora practically shook him. “What’s wrong?”
“I-I had a vision!” Shulk gasped out. “I saw it- a boy, being chased by Armus!”
“A boy?” The Doctor instantly became serious. “Where?”
“I don’t- near water!” Shulk nodded. “There was a lake with these pillars in it, and I saw a waterfall.” His adrenaline was running high, but he didn’t miss out that his last vision also prominently featured a waterfall.
“Like that one?” The Doctor pointed to a cascade of water over the horizon. “Come on!” He took off running, trainers stomping down the grass beneath his feet, and the others followed.
------------
As they ran, it was harder for Shulk to fight the bubbling feeling of anxiety rising. He’d heard of post-traumatic stress, but this may have been the first time where he heard of stress occurring because the event was something that someone had seen that was yet to happen.
“What-“ Reyn wheezed as they sprinted. “What did he look like when you saw ‘im?” He huffed. “Was he all right?”
“He looked fine, but I can’t be sure!” Shulk replied. “There was no way to tell how far in the future it was!”
“Then we’d best be moving!” The Doctor, not winded in the slightest thanks to respiratory bypass and a lifetime of running, still led from the front. “We get to that lake, we’ll be right as Reyn!” The Doctor grinned proudly, looking between the youngsters. “Get it?”
Fiora groaned under her breath, while Shulk’s lips twitched as he fought to put a smile on his face. Reyn, meanwhile, broke out into hearty laughter. Well, it was sarcastically hearty – you know, the ‘oh, I’ve never heard that one before’ kind of laughter.
Shulk immediately received a sinking feeling, and his heart leapt into his throat. His eyes looked on, dead ahead, at the cliffs.
It wasn’t another waterfall. It was the same waterfall.
All the scenery looked identical.
Shulk’s lizard brain demanded he turned around, and he did. And that was his mistake. He turned abruptly, eyes scanning the horizon, and that’s when he saw it. The unmistakable silhouette of the giant Gogol, Rotbart, massive and terrifying, storming toward them with terrifying speed.
“Everyone!” Shulk shouted, his voice cutting through the peaceful air. “He’s coming!”
“He’s wha-“ The Doctor began to turn around, before he spotted the Gogol. “Ah. Ah!”
The others spun around, their faces blanching at the sight of the massive Gogol barreling toward them with terrifying speed.
“Run!” Shulk shouted, the urgency flooding his voice as he gestured frantically. “Everyone - move! Now!”
The sudden alert jerked everyone back to reality, and in an instant, they were sprinting.
“Holy-!” Reyn cursed, grabbing Fiora’s arm as they bolted forward, the Doctor stumbling into a sprint beside them. Rotbart’s roar echoed across the plain, a deafening sound of raw, primal fury that seemed to shake the very air.
“It’s huge!” Fiora screeched. “How are we supposed to kill that!?”
“My guess is – we don’t!” The Doctor hollered back. But there was a problem with that. One big, obvious problem that was quite readily apparent.
Anything that was big could cover more ground than a tiny thing that was running. And Rotbart was huge.
They were running, but Rotbart might as well have been a brolic father chasing a misbehaving child. They just couldn’t outrun it. Well… the Doctor could have, but not the others.
“Any ideas!?” Reyn hollered.
“Well, yes,” The Doctor blinked. “But I’m not using any of you as distractions!” Not against something like that.
“We need to get to higher ground!” Fiora decided. “Dun-Dunban, he always said, when I was little, if I was being chased by an Armu or something, get somewhere it can’t! Animals normally tire out after a while!”
“That’s it!” The Doctor grinned. “Use that endurance hunter evolution to your advantage!”
But there was still a problem: Rotbart was closing in, and it wasn’t slowing down. And Shulk couldn’t see any place they could get to that Rotbart couldn’t.
Fiora, the quickest and lightest of them, darted ahead of the group, her eyes wild with determination.
“Here, the stream!” Fiora pointed to a arching rock formation in front of the waterfall going right over the stream going downhill.
“It’s up a hill!” Reyn rightly pointed out.
“That’s the thing!” Fiora replied. “Its on an incline – if we jump into it, we can slide down! We won’t need to outrun it!”
“Clever plan, Fiora!” The Doctor commented, shooting a look at Rotbart. “But we might want to get there sooner rather than later!”
“That’s nuts!” Reyn hollered. “What if it still follows us!?”
“Do you have a plan, Reyn!?” Fiora shouted at him in response.
But in that instant, something snapped in Shulk - an overwhelming wave of dread and desperation flooding his mind. The Monado began to hum as the world went greyscale once more, and a ghostly apparition of Fiora went ahead.
A boulder – ripped out of the ground, went flying over them, landing near Fiora and knocking her to the ground. It hadn’t crushed her, but the delay in time it caused, having to pull her up, allowed Rotbart to get close, and the vision ended with the sight of the giant fists going into his skull.
The vision broke, and adrenaline rushed into Shulk’s legs, as he charged ahead, grabbing onto Fiora’s arm to pull her back.
“No, no, - Fiora!” He yelled, lunging forward, before the uprooted stone came falling right into their path.
Fiora gasped, clinging to Shulk’s side as they re-routed.
“Damn, this thing is smart!” Reyn gasped out, beholding the monster with wide eyes.
“Fun fact about intelligence!” The Doctor answered. “Lifeforms only ever evolve intelligence in order to be better hunters, or to outsmart their predators! Plus, I mean, just running like this uses up a lot of energy for something so big, so Rotty over there needs to make sure he catches us sooner rather than later, and the best way to do that is to throw things in our path to slow us down!”
“Is now really a good time!?” Reyn spluttered.
“Is there going to be a better time!?” The Doctor threw back at the redhead.
“How do we stop it!?” Fiora screeched at the Time Lord. “We won’t make it to the stream at this rate!”
“We find something more appetizing!” The Doctor glanced over his shoulder. “Problem with that is – bigger animals like that are usually herbivores! They’ll pick fights with anything because they have the energy to spare, getting it from plants that they don’t have to burn calories having to hunt down! So… that’s not gonna happen! Not unless we find a really big banana!”
Shulk glanced over his shoulder, and his breath caught. Rotbart was so close, he could see the monster’s eyes. His heart pounded, and he drew the Monado. With every step, Rotbart shot forward by a house’s length. There was no outrunning him.
Time seemed to slow, each footstep like a leaden echo in Shulk’s ears. Fiora turned, her eyes wide with terror as Rotbart bore down on them, its massive fists ready to smash them to pieces.
“Shulk!” Reyn’s scream was distant, like being listened to from underwater, lost in the din of Shulk’s inner terror.
“Shulk!” The Doctor bellowed, as Shulk stopped.
‘I can’t let it get Fiora.’ Shulk thought to himself, his grip tightening around the Monado. ‘Or Reyn. Or the Doctor. It’s not getting any of them!’
Something inside Shulk rose to a boiling fury - an unyielding, fiery surge of determination that ignited within him, deeper than anything he had felt before. The Monado had shown him what would happen, on multiple occasions, now. Why? If for no other reason, it had to be because he could do something about it.
The Monado in his hand flared to life, the alien mechanisms activating as the blade popped open, and the true blade – one made of Ether – ignited from the sword’s core.
Then something strange happened.
The Monado's energy shifted, going from the cold blue to a bright yellow – a hue not associated with either of the abilities it had demonstrated thus far, and a new symbol, 盾, appeared inside the circular enclosure.
“H-Hold on!” The Doctor spluttered. “Is that Jap-“
The blade’s light twisted, forming a shimmering barrier around Shulk, and everyone else around him. A radiant, crackling bubble of golden ether rippled around them like water, as Rotbart’s hand came down, and slammed into it.
The barrier popped, but the result was spectacular. An energetic backlash was formed – all the power of the shield going back into the hand that breached it, all at once. The result was like being zapped by a charge of raw Ether, and Rotbart howled in confusion, rage, and pain, as its attack was turned back against it. It fell onto its back, tumbling backwards, back down the steep hill it had chased them up.
Shulk stood with wide eyes, clutching onto the Monado with a white-knuckled grip.
“Whoa!” Reyn shouted, his voice filled with relief. “What was that!?”
“I don’t know!” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Some kind of… Ether-based energy shield! All the feedback zapped Rotbart good, I’ll tell you that much!” The Doctor looked over at the young man. “How come you’re using that just now? It would’ve been in handy a little earlier.”
“I didn’t…” Shulk stammered. “I didn’t trigger it on purpose. It just sort of… happened. Like I wanted to save us, and the Monado… made it happen.”
Fiora leaned over, her eyes searching his worriedly, but her expression softened. “Dunban never mentioned anything like that.”
“We never knew,” Shulk shook his head. “We thought the Monado might have hidden functions, but we never had proof. Until now.”
The Time Lord’s face twisted in confusion, as he produced the Sonic Screwdriver, and ran it over the weapon. “But that’s- How!?” He spluttered as the Screwdriver bleeped and whirred. “There’s no- no circuitry, no shield generators, nothing except that processor which – yeah, maybe, but that’s a very big maybe! It’s just solid metal and Ether lines! If the Monado was organic, it’d be a great big slab of flesh with some blood vessels! So how’s it doing that!?”
“Does it matter?” Reyn posed aloud. “It saved our skins back there!”
“Reyn,” The Doctor addressed. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from nine-hundred years of time and space, it’s that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is.”
Fiora leaned over, looking the Doctor up and down. “Hold on. Nine-hundred years?”
The Time Lord glanced at her. “That’s how old I am. Nine-hundred-and-five, actually.”
‘Liar.’ A voice called out, and the Doctor’s head whipped around to look at Shulk.
“You say something?” The Doctor inquired.
The blonde frowned, puzzled. “No. Other than that you must age really slowly.”
The Time Lord looked Shulk over, hiding his suspicion. He’d heard Shulk say something.
The Monado continued to hum away on Shulk’s back.
Finally, the Doctor spoke up. “Well, not really. My people – we age like you until we hit pubescence. Then in all that mess of hormones and organs and genes activating that wait until then, our aging slows.”
“Really?” Reyn blinked. “Get out! There’s no way you’re nine-hundred.”
“Reyn, you were standing inside a blue box that was bigger on the inside yesterday!” Fiora pointed out, raising her voice. “Now Shulk’s having visions, and the Monado apparently likes him enough to just give him special access to things it can do.”
“…I guess.” Reyn conceded petulantly, crossing his arms. “So you’ve really looked like that for nine-hundred years?”
“Well,” The Doctor tilted his head. “More or less.” He shoved his hands into his suit pockets, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “I didn’t always care for the great hair and the tight suits.”
“Yeah, but – come on, nine-hundred? You’ve got to be really careful, making it that long!”
Shulk took in a breath, releasing his hand from its thoughtful grasping of his chin. “He cheats.” He spoke, causing attention to be drawn to him. Most of it from the Doctor, who was raising an eyebrow. “He can fix himself.”
Reyn and Fiora merely looked puzzled. But the Doctor – he was staring. And he was staring hard.
“What are you talking about?” The Doctor asked, his voice low.
“I-I saw it.” Shulk blinked, holding up his hands. “In my vision this morning, I mean. Rotbart got you, but instead, your body started to… glow? The bruises it gave you started to fade really quickly, and all the cuts sealed up. I’m right, aren’t I?”
The Time Lord continued to stare at Shulk. Internally, his mind was buzzing. Not only could the Monado see through time via a mechanism that wasn’t setting off his temporal senses, but it was also capable of predicting regenerations? They were as much as a fourth-dimensional event as a biological one. The universe kind of… popped around them, like hitting a really good stretch.
“Well…” The Doctor finally said. “Kind of. It’s not just something I can do. And it’s not something I can do endlessly.” Some Time Lords had gotten the dubious privilege of having the limit on their regenerations removed, but he wasn’t one of them. In spite of all he did for Gallifrey (or, perhaps, because of it, because usually whenever he did something for Gallifrey before the War, it was accompanied by enormous political upheaval, mass death, or the President’s cat being eaten by a science experiment), he wasn’t one of them.
“Incredible!” Shulk breathed. “So the glow, that must be… waste energy, yes? Or a biological defense mechanism – to deter predators while the process is ongoing? Or both-“
“Shulk!” Fiora ground out. “Did you forget about your other vision!?”
“Huh- oh!” Shulk paled, while the Doctor winced and hit himself in the face. “Right.” He looked around, assessing the scenery. “This isn’t the lake. But… I did see a waterfall in that vision too, which means…”
“It must be that one, then.” Reyn pointed to a lake at the other end of the field, pounding his fists together. “Not a whole lotta others out here. C’mon.”
---------
When they got into sight of the lake, they heard it – a terrified scream, coming from a high-pitched voice that was very obviously a child’s. There, crab-crawling backwards along the shoreline, was a young boy – and unfortunately, he was being chased. The culprits were more of the monstrous mutant animals that seemed native to Bionis – a mix between an armadillo and a rhino. Or an armadillo and a bull.
The young lad’s face was twisted in the primal terror of knowing you were facing a threat much bigger than you, and there wasn’t much you could do, other than break your arm at it.
“Reyn!” Shulk gasped out, as the redhead ran ahead.
“I know, I know!” Reyn hefted up the enormous weight of his gunlance.
The Doctor’s hearts skipped a beat. “Wait, don’t-“
The immense weight of the sharpened blade came down on the back of one of the stampeding animals, lodging itself in the thick hide. Reyn grunted as the animal let out a roar of pain, yanking the blade out of it. Then, using the shield side, Reyn batted it in the face.
The one-two combo was enough to disorient the monster, and Reyn put the blade through its head, while Shulk and Fiora dashed over to the remaining monster. He sent the Monado into the beast’s side, drawing its aggression onto him, opening the way for Fiora to jump on its back, and jam her knives into its eyes. It too, like its brother, fell down dead.
The child breathed fearfully, while the Doctor’s face twisted indignantly.
“What the hell was that for!?” The Doctor bellowed, looking at the two dead creatures. “We could’ve made a run for it!”
“Eh?” Reyn turned back around, frowning in confusion. “They were about to trample a kid!”
“I know, but that,” The Doctor gestured with his eyes at the corpses. “Was needlessly brutal!”
“Was it?” Shulk wondered aloud. “I thought it was quick more than anything else.”
The Time Lord’s eyes rounded on him. “You have the Monado. Didn’t think about raising a shield around the kid? No? Not even a little?”
Shulk recoiled. “They’re just monsters.”
“They’re animals,” The Doctor bit back. “And I didn’t say anything in the cave, but that,” He pointed at the corpses. “Was a bit too much for my tastes.”
“Look,” Reyn looked at the Doctor, unashamed. “You don’t wanna fight. I get it. But I’m not gonna show the bad guys the courtesy they ain’t showing us. Specially not if they’re actual animals what can’t be reasoned with.”
“Plenty of things can be reasoned with – you just need to know how to speak the language.” The Doctor retorted. “And it’s the same for animals.” He glanced between the three of them. “You don’t get it, the three of you, do you? You want to go across Bionis, carving up a path of destruction on a crusade of revenge, that’s fine. But if you’re not very, very careful, that kind of thing will make you into something you’ll hate the moment you see it reflected back at you in the mirror.”
“Stop it!” Fiora commanded, stepping into the Doctor’s space. “Nobody asked you to come with us. If you don’t want to be here, that’s fine, but don’t take it out on us.” She looked up into his eyes. “Not when we just saved someone’s life.”
The Doctor stared back at her eyes, and sighed. “I’m just saying… try to tone it down, some.”
“It’s not like we tortured the things, Doc.” Reyn puffed out his chest. “And we saved a little boy. That’s gotta count for something.”
The Time Lord silently glowered for a moment, before his mood did a complete one-eighty. “Right you are, Reyn!” He spun around, looking at the young, tan-skinned boy. “Hello there!” He approached, offering the young lad a hand.
The boy looked up, blinking in confusion. That was normal, coming off a near-death experience. The brain took a moment to catch up, like it couldn’t quite come to terms with the fact that it was safe just yet.
Still, after a second, he took the Doctor’s hand, and was helped up.
“I’m the Doctor,” He introduced himself with a smile. “This is Shulk, Reyn, and Fiora.” He removed his hand, and put both arms in his pockets, still keeping the warm grin focused on the child. “And you would be…?”
“I-“ He stammered uncertainly. “I’m Juju.”
“Juju, hello, nice to meet you Juju!” The Doctor rattled off rapidly. “Personally, never understood where the phrase came from. ‘Bad juju.’ The only juju I know is Juju on that Beat – never liked that song, myself, I had a friend who loved it, was always blasting it. Well, I say friend, more like a court torturer, and he wasn’t my court torturer, and… well, all human music was considered hideously painful to their species.”
“Um… ah…” Juju blinked, looking like he didn’t quite know where he was.
“Juju,” Fiora stepped over, plastering a comforting smile of her own on her face, and directing it at Juju. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just trying to calm you down.” She leaned forward. “Are you okay? Is anything broken? Any scrapes?”
Before Juju could answer, the Doctor was holding the Sonic, and running it over Juju.
The boy didn’t notice. “F-Fine… I’m fine. It’s just a little bit…” He exhaled. “That was scary.”
“I bet,” The Doctor replied. “We just got through something like that ourselves.” The Screwdriver beeped, and he stowed it away in his inside top pocket. “No concussion, nothing broken, but you do have a little bit of a sodium surplus.” He pointed sternly at the boy. “Stay away from the salty foods for a little while.”
“O-Okay,” Juju stuttered, before his eyes popped open. “Wait – did you say you were a doctor? Are you from Colony 6?”
“Well, actually we’re from Colony 9.” Shulk answered, frowning in concern. “Why? Do you need a doctor, Juju?”
“Well, it’s…” The boy bit his lip. “It’s kind of bad. There’s a lot of us in trouble. I could show you.”
“Tell you what, why don’t we take you up on that offer?” The Doctor suggested. “That your buggy out on the plain, by the way?”
“It is!” Juju gasped. “Have you seen it!?”
“Yup!” The Doctor answered. “Lucky for you, I’m not just a doctor of medicine. Why don’t we see what we can do, eh?”
----------
“Well, it’s a simple fix.” Shulk pulled his arm out of the engine compartment of Juju’s buggy, wiping his hand clean with a rag provided courtesy of the Doctor’s seemingly-infinite pockets. “The fuel valve was just stuck open – it was burning through your entire supply of Ether like you were simply sitting there, full throttle with the brakes on. It’s a good thing the Doctor took out the Ether Cylinder when he did, or it would’ve burnt through the last of your fuel while you were away.”
“Maybe we should’ve let it,” Reyn crossed his arms, earning a chiding look from Fiora. “What!? You get a runaway ether furnace, you hit the physical cutoff – that’s day one!”
“He means that you should be careful next time,” Fiora gently directed at Juju.
“Sorry,” Juju apologized. “I never actually… learned how to drive the buggy.”
“Right, not to… rain on your parade – I mean, I’m all for independence and letting your children learn by doing – but this is isn’t exactly a go-kart you’re driving.” The Doctor pointed. “Who’s just letting a boy your age go on joy-rides?”
Juju rubbed the back of his head. “Nobody? The buggy’s not exactly… mine.”
“You stole it,” Reyn exhaled, before grinning. “If it’s stolen, that means we can confiscate it! We can get to Colony 6 in style!”
“Reyn!” Fiora raised her voice.
“What!?” The redhead asked defensively. “I’m not suggestin’ we leave the kid out here, we just… return what we found!”
Juju looked down. “Colony 6 is destroyed.”
The three Homs whipped around, staring at Juju in shock as his words sunk in.
“Wait… what?” Reyn spluttered. “No- what!?”
“That’s not possible,” Fiora’s eyes pulled, as she covered her mouth in horror. “Not Colony 6.”
Shulk thinned his lips harshly, looking away. “That explains why they never sent anyone to recover their trade caravan. Or why they didn’t radio ahead to warn about the Mechon.”
“It happened a month ago.” Juju stated, closing his eyes. “All the soldiers stayed to fight, and… they sent the rest of us off. We’ve got a camp out here on the leg now, but there’s… not a whole lot of us left.”
The Doctor, meanwhile, was focusing on Juju himself rather than the story.
It was subtle, the way Juju's voice quivered, but his words never broke. There was a hollowness in his eyes, an instinctive steel in his posture — the kind that came only from someone who had seen too much. The Doctor recognized it all too well.
The images came unbidden, vivid and sharp, even after centuries. He was always back there. Whenever he saw a gun, he was there. Whenever he saw a Dalek, he was there. Whenever he saw a crying child, he was back there. In the streets of Arcadia, strutting through with the attitude of a man trying to get himself killed but failing miserably. Children around him screaming, the parents wailing as z-neutrino energy beams ripped everything around them apart. Children of Gallifrey, small and trembling, caked in dust and filth, wrenched from the smoldering wreckage and hidey-holes they’d been shoved into to try and spare them from the Daleks’ mercies.
The Doctor swallowed, looking away as he felt his hearts tighten. “I’m sorry, Juju. I’m so sorry.” Then, he took a breath, and he pushed all those feelings away, blocking them and compartmentalizing. “What’re you doing out here on your own?”
“Right,” Shulk concurred. “Shouldn’t you all be trying to stick together, as much as possible? Or, shouldn’t you have left with a buddy, at least, in case you needed help?”
“I don’t need help!” Juju snapped. “I can handle myself!” Oh, the kid had something to prove, then.
“Oi,” Reyn gently, but firmly addressed. “Watch it, kid. Fact we saved your hide proves otherwise.”
The Doctor stared at Juju, before turning his head up with a smile. “Well, all’s well that ends well, right? Juju,” The Doctor spun around. “We’re on a bit of a revenge quest thing right now – not really my usual style – we could use some info. Do you have any soldier-y people in your camp? Anybody who might’ve seen where the Mechon came from?”
“What?” Juju blinked, before biting his lip. “Oh. Well, like I said, most everyone that’s left aren’t soldiers…”
Fiora placed a gentle hand on Juju’s shoulder. “Any information’s helpful.”
“In that case, sure. I’ll take you there.” He climbed into the buggy, and turned over the engine. The tread-wheel hybrid vehicle shifted into gear, and Juju began to slowly roll off.
The Doctor, with a smile, took the lead after Juju first, Fiora closely by his side, with Reyn and Shulk trailing closely.
----------
Juju led them roughly northeast, down a large crevasse into a hidden-ish spring. Or… pore, perhaps, seeing as they were standing on a living thing.
(The Doctor wondered momentarily if what he was standing on was actually dirt and stone, or simply incredibly-petrified flesh. He then considered it best to perhaps not think about it.
The winding path leading down to the bowl of water that was the lake was filled with people – sitting down, chatting, with a few children playing, including a little Nopon about the size of a cantaloupe. So, it wasn’t just Colony 9 that had Nopon.
The buggy’s spluttering engine ground to a halt as Juju guided it down the path, and shut it off. A Homs woman with slightly-darker skin, about the same shade as his, turned around, and rushed up.
“Uh oh…” Juju muttered to himself.
“Juju!” She snapped as she got close. “How many times have I told you!? We’re not ready to leave the camp, yet! Honestly, what is with you-“
Shulk let out a gasp, earning the Time Lord’s attention. The blue glow in Shulk’s eyes was back. The Doctor stealthily produced the Sonic, and turned it onto Shulk, turning to keep it out of sight of everyone else. Reyn and Fiora approached as the woman chided Juju for running off, and he could listen as she started to assume they were from Colony 6, but the Doctor’s attention was more focused on Shulk.
The brain was showing elevated activity – not to be unexpected, from something like Shulk’s visions – but the curious part was that the usual parts of the brain that lit up when psychic powers were triggered weren’t active. Shulk was receiving the visions entirely on his own merit – not because of any latent mental abilities. At least, it looked that way. The Screwdriver couldn’t detect anything else – no unique organs or structures elsewhere in the body. They were identical to baseline humans.
Artron Energy levels were normal, brain activity was a little bit elevated in the structures associated with visual input and auditory perception, and there was very little psychic energy floating around the lad. So, that was proof that Shulk wasn’t the source of his own visions – the Monado hadn’t unlocked something within him. It was the responsible party, one-hundred percent.
The sword itself was active, buzzing with a bit more energy than in its ground state, but the Doctor couldn’t tell what that contributed to Shulk’s visions. Nor could he tell what the sword’s processor was communicating with. If it actually was communicating with anything. The hazard with listening to half of a conversation in another language was, if you didn’t know the language, you couldn’t tell if the person was actually talking to anyone, or if they were just blabbering to themselves.
At the moment the Doctor had nailed it down to two possibilities. Possibility one was that despite his inner hope, it was a certain Time Lord device. Option two was that, for reasons known only to them, the people in charge were giving Shulk elevated privileges.
The glow in Shulk’s eyes faded, and he blinked, glancing at the Time Lord nervously. “Doctor?”
“Another one?” He softly probed, looking Shulk up and down. “What’d you see?”
“Juju, and-“ Shulk gasped under his breath. “That woman… I recognize her!”
“Hey!” Fiora hollered from over that way, waving Shulk and the Doctor over. “Don’t just stand around, staring! Come introduce yourselves!”
“Tell me more later,” The Doctor whispered, grabbing Shulk’s arm and leading the way. “For now, we’ll get through this.”
“You’ve met me and Fiora,” Reyn pounded his hands together, gesturing. “This is Shulk and the Doctor. You lot, this is Sharla.”
“Good to meet you, Sharla.” The Doctor smiled, extending his hand. “Are you Juju’s mum?”
Sharla chuckled. “The way I act might say otherwise, but no. I’m his sister.”
“You don’t have to keep mothering me,” Juju bit out from where he was sitting.
Sharla shot him a stern look. “I wouldn’t have to keep mothering you, if you didn’t keep feeling the need to run off.”
“I wouldn’t feel the need to run off if we’d all stop sitting around and do something!”
“Juju!” Sharla snapped. “We’re not ready! I’ve told you this a thousand times! What are we going to do against the Mechon!? Us!? Really!?”
Juju looked up, fire lighting behind his eyes. “Anything’s better than us sitting here, waiting for them to get us!”
“Everyone here is old, a child, or completely new to battle!” Sharla responded harshly. “Is sending everyone to die really better!? Because that is what is going to happen! You’ll not just be getting yourself killed, but everyone else!”
Juju snapped his mouth shut.
“Tell me, Juju! Do you honestly think that’s a good plan!?”
Juju looked down, saying nothing as he climbed out of the buggy. “…I’m sorry, Sharla.” He choked out.
With Juju’s apology, Sharla’s face melted, and she pulled him into a hug. “I know you are. I just wish you’d learn. It’s not worth it charging off into trouble like that, just because you want to do something. There’s plenty to do around here.”
Juju nodded quietly.
Fiora watched, looking upon the scene quietly as her eyes drunk it in. The Doctor got the sense that she was thinking about it being her and Dunban standing there, having that discussion.
“Go and check on Arda and the others,” Sharla softly ordered. “We’ll talk more later.”
Juju silently moved over to the cave opening nearby, and disappeared inside.
Sharla turned around, smiling awkwardly. “Little brothers, right?”
Fiora put on the best smile she could manage. “I wouldn’t know. I’m the little sibling.” Shulk put a hand on her shoulder, giving her a comforting squeeze.
“Oh?” Sharla laughed, looking between the two blondes. “Is this your brother, then?”
Shulk yanked his hand away like he’d been scorched, as Fiora flushed. Reyn let out a deep bellow of laughter.
“Oh, now that one made my day!” Reyn laughed. “This whole trip was worth it, just for that!”
“S-Shut up, Reyn!” Fiora hissed. “It’s not that funny!”
“It is, though!” Reyn pointed at her. “You’re redder than a dance apple!”
“Well, fortunately, the two of you are not related, which would frankly make this whole situation even more awkward than it already is,” The Doctor cleared his throat, stepping in. “But so we’re not all just standing here, laughing mad and looking nuts, why don’t we all focus on the nice lady who’s brother we just saved?”
Reyn stifled his laughter as Fiora crossed her arms and looked away from Shulk.
“I’m sorry,” Sharla apologized. “I didn’t mean to make things awkward. Still, thank you for helping Juju out there.” She looked over the Time Lord once more. “You said you were a doctor?”
The Time Lord grinned. “I dabble.”
A wave of relief passed over Sharla’s features. “Thank goodness! I’ve got some people here that need help, and out of everyone that made it out of the Colony, not one of them was a doctor. I’m a medic in the Defence Force, but not a doctor.”
“Um… I don’t mean to sound rude,” Fiora blinked. “But is there a difference?”
“Doctors help people get better,” Reyn answered bluntly. “Medics keep people from getting worse until they get to a doctor.”
“…remind me not to get hurt while we’re out here.”
“Well, I know a thing or two,” The Doctor tilted his head, playing it down, just in case.
“Brilliant!” Sharla gasped out, running over to the cave, gesturing for the Doctor to follow.
The Time Lord’s eyebrows shot up, and he walked inside.
As far as refugee camps went, the Doctor had seen worse. A lot worse. Here, at least, everyone had enough bedrolls, and the stock of supplies looked such that they had barely a dent in them. The survivors of Colony 6 could last for a while yet.
The human race – it didn’t matter what they called themselves. Against overwhelming enemies, natural disasters, and angry gods, they rebuilt, and regrouped, and survived.
Sharla led the Doctor over to an alcove where a line of bedrolls were set up. People were laid down upon them, bearing injuries, or hacking. It wasn’t exactly a sterile hospital room, but it was better than leaving them out in the cold.
An old woman laying on her side barely tilted her head, forcing open an eye. “Sharla… good morning. Is it morning? Is something wrong?”
“Midday,” Sharla kindly answered as she approached. “How are you feeling, Arda?”
“Same as before,” The old woman croaked, looking over at the man in the room. “Who’s your friend? He’s not from the Colony, is he?”
“No, but don’t worry, I’m here to help.” The Time Lord took off his Janis-Joplin-gifted coat, and threw it onto a crate nearby. “I’m the Doctor, what’s your name?”
“Arda,” She coughed. “You didn’t just hear Sharla say it, you dummy?”
“The ears’ll play tricks – they used to be a lot worse, like great, big satellite dishes on the side of my face,” He tapped his ears, letting them flop around a bit, before he approached. “May I?”
Arda nodded, and the Doctor took her hand. He noticed the clamminess, and the sweat. He took out the Sonic Screwdriver, scanning her face and down her arm.
“How long’s she been like this?” The Doctor took one look at her pallid skin, her hands trembling, and the beads of sweat collecting on her forehead despite the coolness of the cave.
“She’s been like this for days,” Sharla murmured. “It’s all I can do to keep her comfortable. She can hardly move. I’m not sure what she’s got.”
“Infection… Hmm…” The Doctor looked Arda’s hands over. “Eat anything unusual lately? Any bites or scratches you can’t explain? Phantom pains?”
“No…” Arda yawned. “I think this old body of mine’s just wearing a bit thin…”
“Oh, don’t say that, we’ll have you up and about in no time!” The Screwdriver blinked, and the Doctor checked it. “Ah, you see! Sharla, when you’ve got a patient who’s presenting strange symptoms but they can’t pin down a possible source, what’ve you got?”
“Someone who’s forgetful?”
“…well that, or a parasite.” The Time Lord answered. “Devious little guys, those. Some of the most common symptoms of everything ever: Muscle fatigue, fever, weakness… If you’re not an actual doctor with full access to a whole bunch of medical tests, you won’t know if its parasites, infection, or a spider bite. And you can’t do anything about it, because depending on what it is, what you do to help might wind up making things worse. Lucky for you,” The Doctor directed at Arda with a smile. “I’ve got a Sonic Screwdriver.”
“I didn’t eat anything strange…” Arda weakly answered.
“Nah – but parasites, that’s how they get you!” The Doctor answered. “They make you feel safe. They lay eggs so tiny you can’t see ‘em, in places you already thought to look. In the water, in food that was left to sit for just a little bit too long. Then they start a-feastin’.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a little phial full of clear liquid, about the size of his thumb. “Here, drink that. The little guy’s anchored to the wall of your stomach lining, drinking your blood and hitting you with chemicals that’s keeping you like this. That,” He handed her the phial. Will work its way into your bloodstream and kill it.”
Arda regarded the tube suspiciously, looking at Sharla. “Are you sure? Do you trust the man?”
“We just met, but… he did save Juju’s life out there. Him, and his friends.”
“Trust me or don’t, your call.” The Doctor shrugged. “But if you don’t, you’re gonna have to send someone out, looking for an herb that has enough antibiotics in it to help, and that’ll take a while.”
Arda thought it over for a moment longer, then popped the cap off, and downed it all in one swig, coughing afterwards.
“Yeah,” The Doctor winced in sympathy, “It’s not the best-tasting thing.” He stated, before moving on to the next guy. A young man sat on the mat, one leg propped up and badly swollen and bruised. “Old injury?”
The man nodded. “Name’s Kurl.”
“’Allo, Kurl, I’m the Doctor,” He put his specs on, and peered close. “This what’s giving you trouble?”
“No, I just hurt it last week, it’s actually-“ Kurl erupted into a sudden coughing fit, wheezing profusely.
“Ah,” The Time Lord took a quick scan of the man’s chest. “Your basic silicosis. There was a lot of rubble in Colony 6, wasn’t there?”
Kurl kept coughing, but nodded, returning to wheezing, shallow breaths.
“Well, you won’t have to settle for a lung transplant.” The Doctor reached deep into his pockets pulling out a jar of something that looked like honey, with the same viscosity of water. “This’ll help – now, it’s very important – you don’t drink this.” He pointed. “It’s going to be very difficult. Every part of your body is going to be screaming at you to do otherwise. But, you breathe it in.”
“It’s… water?” Sharla looked at the Doctor like he was nuts. “But he’ll drown!”
“That is a perfluorocarbon solution mixed with medi-gel.” The Doctor retorted. “But you’ve got to get it inside the lungs, or it can’t fix the scarring. It’s perfectly safe,” He directed at Kurl. “Just a little unpleasant.”
And so it continued, the Doctor actually performing the duty associated with his name, healing the wounded survivors of Colony 6. Including one man’s back pain. Sharla watched with mounting respect as the fortunes of everyone inside the ‘triage wing’ of the cave did a sharp one-eighty. Though she was visibly wondering where the Doctor got all his fantastical medical supplies from.
He kept supplies of everything, just in case. The TARDIS’s protection extended to mostly everything, bolstering immune systems so her passengers weren’t hit by sicknesses they had no immunity to, be that from different times or alien worlds, while making sure they didn’t spread vicious diseases that the locals had no resistance against, and her medical bay was advanced for things that managed to slip through anyway, but he couldn’t always get back to her in time. He had stuff for anything he could reasonably expect, living his life – parasites, organ damage, et cetera.
Finally, the Doctor had cured all his patients.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Sharla stressed to the Doctor, again and again. “Everyone’s had such a rough go of it since the Colony fell.”
“About that,” The Doctor’s eyes glanced her way. “We just came from Colony 9. It got hit by Mechon, too. You lot didn’t happen to see anything, did you?”
Sharla froze up, sighing. “Let’s find your friends. I’ll tell you all.”
The Doctor grabbed his coat, and followed, eagerly but silently waiting for the answers he was seeking.
Notes:
So the waterfall they run to while being chased by Rotbart isn’t the one that leads into Rho oasis – it’s one right outside the Volff Lair, just in case anybody was wondering!
Chapter 7: Eleven: Not A Licensed Investigator
Chapter Text
The wind carries a strange stillness – the kind that entombs the dead. The suffocating silence before a storm, heavy with a thousand unsaid things. The bleak, mounting pressure of a bad omen. From the vast windows of my family estate, I can see it stretching out in front of me — my birthright, the pinnacle of civilization. But to my eyes, it is nothing but a broken landscape, scarred by our own hubris, teetering on the edge of the abyss.
The fields beneath me, once alive with grass and a thousand species, are now barren and lifeless. The view here had been something godly, once. The infinite majesty of creation coming together to paint a canvas of life. My family used to say that people from all over used to come here, just for our views.
I can’t imagine why. Or, perhaps, it’d be better to say I can only imagine why. The endlessly-stretching carpet of grass had withered out and turned to dust a thousand generations ago. I, and a million other children like me, have never known seas filled with clear, clean water – only that which was a foul, tainted brown. And the clouds have been grey from the first moments I looked into the sky.
Only a few patchy tufts of grass – the red blades struggling to find something, any semblance of nutrients - cling to the dry soil. It was easy to grow the stuff – the garden around back filled with red grass and silver plants was testament to that – but out there, in the wild, it might as well have been as rare as a white-point star.
I think back to my childhood, when they taught us about our home. A world so stable, so perfectly controlled, it had never once suffered the ravages of extinction. No plague, no war, no self-inflicted wounds. We were the masters of time, the creators of order. We were above it all.
Yet now, I see it all for what it truly is: a facade.
The desert stretches farther than the eye can see, the land parched, withered, and cracked from the heat. Our great cities — once beacons of achievement and intellect — stand like hollow monuments to a greatness long past. A fundamental struggle we once had, the struggle of space, of shelter, put just as far behind us as everything else… Yet, I see the ramshackle shacks out in the drylands, still.
We can make things bigger on the inside, so there is no struggle for space. We have infinite power, so there is no struggle for electricity. We mastered block-transfer computation, so creating anything is within our grasp, if we so will it.
Yet the people outside the cities still know none of that. Some of them by choice, but most of them by circumstance. They farm for us, people who can conjure food out of nothing. They live out in squalor while we have enough space to go around. They sit out there in the dark, and the cold, even though the amount of power we could spare to keep them in the light and heated wouldn’t even register as a blip.
I turn away from the window and walk out onto the balcony. The wood creaks, and the House lets out a disconcerted groan.
I look toward the sky, and wonder where we went so wrong.
Even the proud rings of Gallifrey – the very rings that I was born within - have disappeared. ‘In the way’ the High Council had said. It’d be too easy for ships to hide within the rings. That was how the Sontarans snuck up on us.
They could spare the energy to erase every asteroid in orbit, all at once, like they never existed at all. Yet everything else didn’t interest them?
The Time Lords were always so quick to speak of their superiority. The only species to rise above its instincts, they said. The only race to avoid the self-destructive traps that brought down so many others. We are the Time Lords, they said. We are immortal. We are invincible. We are the stewards of time.
I can still see that ramshackle cabin from here.
I was taught that the fall of other civilizations was inevitable. They destroyed themselves through their greed, their violence, their weakness. But we were different. We were better.
But we’re still violent, in our way. Still cruel. Our poor still suffer not because of an inability to help, but because we keep them there.
Here I stand, in the heart of the most civilized civilization in the cosmos. I look at the ruined fields. At the ghosts of extinct species that can be seen by the gaps they left. And I know that we are no different. No better. We fought wars with ourselves. We ruined our planet. The only difference between us and the rest of the universe is we actually have them believing it.
I look out at the horizon again, and for a brief moment, I imagine the universe without us. Without the Time Lords. I wonder if it would be better off. God knows the number of species we wiped out because they were a threat to our superiority, and for no other reason.
And finally, our hubris has come back to haunt us.
I step further out onto the balcony, feeling the chill of the night air. The war is coming. It’s inevitable now. They are already calling it the Time War. The Last of the Great Time Wars. Lesser races that can’t comprehend the pre-aftershocks of what they’re suffering whisper of it as the War in Heaven.
And as I stand here, I can almost hear the echoes of the universe, like distant cries, warning us of the calamity we’re about to unleash.
The Time Lords’ so-called wisdom will be tested. And I already know how it will end. Everyone does. We will fall. We will be undone, not by any external enemy, but by the simple fact that we, too, are flawed. We are driven by the same instincts that have undone all other civilizations. And in our arrogance, we’ll be destroyed by our own hands.
We will pretend like we can achieve victory. As though it’s possible to face an enemy so thoroughly vested in tearing down everything that we are without losing ourselves anyway. As though it can end with anything other than destruction. As though the simple fact that we have arrived here doesn’t mean we have already failed on every conceivable level at adhering to the standards we supposedly set ourselves.
I used to believe in the idea of saving the universe. That somehow, through our knowledge and our power, we could preserve the sanctity of existence. But now... now I wonder. Why bother saving a universe that includes us? A universe that made us just as corrupt as the rest of it? No… a universe we have made corrupt via ruling over it.
I turn away from the balcony and walk back into the dim-lit estate. The halls feel colder now. I had once hoped these halls would be filled again with the sounds of voices. Every day, that possibility seems more and more remote.
Despite everything, I can only acknowledge the fact that we are the lesser of two evils. It’s the Daleks that are coming, they say.
I stop in front of a mirror, staring at my own reflection. My hearts pound with terror. This face of mine is hardly suited for War. Far from young, far from strong. A face framed by wrinkles and receding hair, with a hooked nose. I am no warrior, I am a scientist.
A firearm is nearby. A primitive, chemically-propelled weapon. We are not allowed to own stasers – they can kill other Time Lords far too easily – but things like that are regarded as antiquities. Childish curiosities.
The future with us in charge will be bleak. The future with the Daleks in charge… well, that statement is an oxymoron. With the Daleks in charge, there won’t be a future. For anyone.
My hand inches toward the firearm…
And then, I wake up.
My heart is racing like I have just finished fighting for my life. The glow of the dream fades to embers, leaving me shaken yet unable to recall the details. Only the dread remains.
“Computer,” I croak. “Lights on.” They slowly brighten – but it’s not sudden. It’s never sudden. I remove the mufflers from my ears, and I relax hearing only the hum of the AC unit. Sleep is now a distant, remote possibility.
Damned nightmares.
-----------
Rex was getting majorly teed-off. It wasn’t something that happened often (infinite patience was practically a requirement in his line of work, where hauls could be lousy or even non-existent on a bad day) but this game of Tora’s…
The little sprite of Tora on the screen hit a Piranhax, died, and the game over screen popped up.
“Bloody-“ Rex swore, slamming the controls. “I had it that time, I know I did!”
“Evidently, Rex-Rex did not.” Tora beat his wings.
“Oooh,” Nia drawled out like a kid about to tell a teacher. “He told you.”
Rex thinned his lips. “I don’t understand,” The young salvager drawled, shaking his head as he took a second to step back from the controls. “This is supposed to be a kids’ game, right? Why’s it so hard?”
“Is not hard!” Tora insisted, shaking his head. “Human fingers are simply too clumsy to work controls properly! Like thin, dried-out, tasty sausages!”
“I don’t know,” Nia, who in the short span of time had crossed the distance and started working the game with a totally nonchalant attitude, hummed lightly. “It’s pretty easy if you ask me.” The sprite of Tora, under her control, moved around like a dancing leaf as she guided it with casual ease. “I think you just need to get good.”
“’Get good-!?’” Rex spluttered.
“Uh… Tora?” Pyra hesitantly addressed. “Why do you have a game starring yourself? And… why is it out here?”
“Is very old present from Grampypon!” Tora happily explained with an excited twirl. “See, Tora was a bit of a… troublemaker when littlepon. Breaking things, eating all the snacks, spilling transmission fluid on clothes for Artificial Blade-“
“What, that’s a habit you have?” Nia shot Tora the side-eye.
“Meh!” Tora huffed. “It messy work!”
“Shouldn’t you also be, I don’t know, working on that right now?” Nia suggested. “Seeing as the Doctor went to get money for parts for you?”
“Mehmeh!” Tora gasped out, anxiously flapping his wings. “Tora completely forget!” Then, he hobbled back inside.
Pyra watched, blinking confused, before she smiled. “Ah. Nopon. Dedicated little people, aren’t they?”
Rex crossed his arms, and tilted his head, looking into Tora’s house. It wasn’t a harsh look, Rex was just curious. Nopon as a whole were really, really dedicated to whatever they set out to do. Mostly.
“Do you guys really think there’s something to this Artificial Blade business?” Rex wondered aloud.
“I can’t say I understand it,” Nia shook her head with a slight frown. “But the Doctor seemed to think there was something to it.”
Rex turned a look onto her.
Nia defensively bared her teeth. “What?”
“Nothing – just…” Rex scratched his head. “Didn’t you say something about how you thought he was crazy for saying he was an alien?”
The Gormotti rolled her eyes. “I can think he’s crazy about that, but leave the other stuff.” She thinned her lips. “He pulled off those tricks with the Core Crystals, you know.”
“Right, yeah.” Rex nodded in agreement, blinking. “Huh… an Artificial Blade… you gotta wonder, right, if Tora makes it work, what’ll happen to all the regular Blades? Since people won’t need to worry about dying while trying to awaken a Blade, or the Blade losing their memories…”
Pyra’s eyes flickered gold. “Blades will always have a place in the world. Doesn’t matter who tries to get rid of us, or why.”
Rex tilted his head. “Pyra?”
She dropped her arm, and her stance relaxed. “I mean… it’s a common misconception, but Blades don’t actually lose all of our memories when our Driver dies.”
“Well, you don’t,” Nia pointed out. “But you’re the Aegis.”
“Even then,” Pyra shrugged. “When Dromarch was a new Blade, blank and ready to grow, you don’t think he was born with a full understanding of botany, did you?”
“Right, yeah,” Nia granted Pyra with a thoughtful frown. “Actually, yeah. Say a healing Blade wakes up, knowing how to heal the human body. They’ve gotta get that from somewhere, though.”
Pyra nodded. “It’s like the Doctor said. When a Blade returns to their crystal, their knowledge isn’t destroyed, just… filed away. But there is some of it that can still be accessed. Skills, instincts, things like that. And some Blades do just… wake up knowing how to do certain things. Blade memory is more… genetic.”
Rex blinked, cluelessly staring. “I… absolutely do not understand.”
Nia sighed. “Regular Blades will still have their place. At least, that’s what she’s hoping.”
“It’s fact,” Pyra argued, her eyes once again flashing. “You’ll see all those people arguing that Blades are the problem, trying to get us banned, or destroyed, or what-have-you, but they don’t understand. They can’t get rid of us.” She closed her eyes, shook her head, and opened them back up. Her hand went over her Core Crystal. “There’s a lot more to Blades than just being living weapons.”
“Of course,” Rex agreed. “And if anyone keeps saying that, well, they’re dead wrong. Still…” He blinked. “Like, that’s a girl in there. But she’s metal. And she’s got… oil lines instead of blood vessels, and stuff. And Tora built her. And she’s supposed to be a Blade! Am I overreacting, or is that weird?”
Pyra hummed. “Android warriors are staples in a lot of cultures.” She blinked. “The maid part… I’m not so sure about.”
“Yeah, that… does seem a little weird.” Rex granted.
“You don’t need to tell me,” Nia murmured. “Weird or not – and don’t get me wrong, it’s a little weird – why are we sticking around to help, huh? We ought to be beating feet off the continent, ASAP.”
“We?” Rex repeated with a curious blink. “Weren’t you trying to jump ship as soon as we got here?”
Nia blinked, crossed her arms, and turned away. “Well, it was the plan. That was before I figured out I had a bounty on my head.”
“Oh, right,” Rex nodded with a slight frown. “Hey, about that, you’re not really a member of a terrorist group?”
“No,” Nia stressed, shooting him a glare. “And even if I had been, I’m not with them now, so it’s a moot point, isn’t it?”
“Actually, yeah, I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier,” Rex looked around, between the lot of them. “Cause it was all ‘Blade, Blades!’ then Tora sent the Doctor to go get money, but what exactly is going on? I mean, they shot at us! And Pyra – you sounded really angry when you heard their name. I mean, I want to get you to Elysium, sure, but I’ve got to at least get an idea of what I’m in the middle of.”
“Rex,” Azurda warningly spoke up. “You know, sometimes, you can’t force these things…”
Pyra, however, shook her head. “It’s okay, Azurda.” She smiled gently at the diminutive Titan. “It’s not that big a deal.” She turned to look at Rex, patient. “Torna was the name of a Titan that sunk, five-hundred years ago. A sinking that Malos had a hand in.”
Rex winced, while Nia let out a guilty, low whistle.
“That’s a spit in the face, isn’t it?” Nia commented. “He sinks it, then five-hundred years later, you wake up and find out the bastard’s took the name for his crime gang.”
Pyra soberly nodded. “It isn’t a good feeling.” For a moment, a pensive shadow fell over her features, and she seemed to be far, far away. Rex could only guess as to her train of thought. What she was dwelling on. The Doctor had claimed to be over two-thousand years old, and he supposed someone could see a lot in that timespan, but even five-hundred years was quite a lot.
But, then, by Pyra’s own admission, she had been asleep for most of it.
“Not a lot survived,” Pyra mumbled quietly. “And Malos has stolen its name for his own use.”
“Hey, don’t worry,” Nia encouraged. “It’s just a name they took to try and sound scary to ‘the man.’ Nobody’s going to forget the real Torna for Malos and his merry men.”
“I’m not sure…”
“Pyra, dear,” Azurda hummed. “Why don’t you do something to take your mind off things, hm?”
Her eyes darted over to the machine. “I don’t think I’d be very good at video games.”
“I’m certain you could find another distraction,” Azurda continued. “Why not see how young Tora’s progress is coming along, hm?”
Pyra vacantly looked ahead, before she smiled. “I did see a stove in there that looked like it hasn’t seen some use in a while. If everyone’s hungry, I could whip something up?”
“I didn’t know you could cook.” Rex remarked with a smile.
Pyra returned it. “We did just meet, after all.”
“Sounds great,” Nia spun around, and strutted back into Tora’s house. “I’m starved!”
“I’ll take that as blanket permission, then.” Pyra replied, as she followed Nia in.
Rex moved to follow as well, before he caught Azurda’s concerned stare at the doorway, and the minute movement of the Titan’s lips. If Rex focused, he could hear Azurda’s whispering.
“Surely not…” He mumbled to himself. “It has been five-hundred years…”
“Gramps?” Rex addressed, slightly concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“Ah… nothing, Rex. I’ve only heard tales of Pyra’s cooking, is all.”
Rex cocked an eyebrow. “She’s some legendary Blade, and people know her for her cooking?”
“Yes, you could say that.” Azurda nodded.
“Well, be excited! You finally get a chance to try it!”
“…yes, excited.” Azurda very pointedly did not look excited in the slightest.
----------
Over two-thousand years (subject to change, given timey-wimey shenanigans, the unreliability of keeping a calendar in a time machine, and the fact that he was an old man so add another two-thousand on for his actual age and not the one he was lying about) the Doctor had forgotten about what it was like not to immediately be dragged into a fracas the moment he entered a place.
His life wasn’t always like that, of course (despite what certain groups believed, he didn’t bring carnage with him, if anything, he was the one that stopped it), but even still, it had honed within him danger instincts probably sharper than any soldier. Regular Time Lords were sharp as nails – Renegades were a cut above. They had to be. Though… strictly speaking… he hadn’t been a true Renegade since the Time Lords ended his exile on Earth – his was more of a... ‘we hate you and everything you stand for, but you make our lives a little bit easier if we let you act like a hellion in exchange for the occasional bit of wetwork for us, so have fun, don’t sell any state secrets, don’t conquer any planets, for the love of Christ don’t blow a hole in the universe else we’ll have to get off our rears to fix it and we’ll actually be rather peeved at having to do so, and don’t besmirch our good name, which incidentally envelopes all the aforementioned points.’
…what was he thinking about, again?
Oh, yes – Renegade instincts. Regular ol’ Time Lords were like supercomputers, drinking everything up and processing it. The ones who flied away from Gallifrey unsanctioned were on another level, checking things, pulling them apart a billion times over – out of fear of being caught and hauled back home, or captured by one of the many, many beings who wanted the secret of Regeneration, or TARDISes, or the Matrix of Time.
The Doctor especially, with such a lovely epithet as ‘Last of the Time Lords’ was a particularly appetizing target for that. But right now, he found he could (if not turn it off) dull that part of his brain quite a bit. He was glad to have the excuse – getting out to see some more of what became of Earth was top on his list of priorities. The peaceful buzz of Torigoth’s streets was as far from chaos as one could get.
Now, to elaborate: after coming across the lady who looked like she could’ve been related to Clara (and stifling his disappointment), and getting hired to work for her, the Doctor quickly proved his skill with all things cooking. The ‘big order’ she had to fill was quickly squared away thanks to some good old-fashioned mad chemistry skills (who had time to fool around with baking, such an inefficient way of doing it), and now, Albedo was walking the Doctor through the streets of Torigoth, as preparation for the fact that he was, according to his job description, expected to make deliveries.
He obviously wasn’t going to stick around for that part. At least not now. He’d cheat with the TARDIS later, if need be, so he didn’t leave the poor woman looking for help, again, right when she thought she found it.
“…and this is very important, if you ever find yourself heading down towards the Relay Base, do not drink from the water around back.”
“Really?” The Doctor curiously asked in return. “Why not?”
Albedo pressed her lips into a line. “That’s where the Ardainians dump their hazardous waste. Waste ether, chemicals from maintaining their equipment, things like that.”
The Time Lord’s eyebrows shot up. “But we’re on a Titan!” He pointed. “A living being! They just… dump it onto the Titan?”
Albedo nodded, she herself looking quite disappointed over the fact. “People like the ones who run that base, they don’t care.” She shook her head harshly. “Building a pipe to dump it into the Cloud Sea is a waste of funds, and the Titan is so large they assume it can’t feel any effects.”
“But you’re living on it!” The Doctor pointed out. “It’s not just a living thing, it’s your land! People have built their homes here. If you don’t take care of it, how can you expect it to take care of you?”
“People try,” Albedo shrugged. “There are plenty who’re causing a ruckus about the issue, but Consul Dughall – dreadful man – he just doesn’t care. He’s of the kind that thinks whether or not the Architect actually sent the Blades and the Titans, they’re just tools to be used.”
The Doctor frowned. “I see.” His mind moved to the two Core Crystals in his pocket at the moment. “Aren’t they?” From what he’d seen so far from his (admittedly limited) sample size of Dromarch and Pyra, Blades were plenty human-like. His scans of the crystals he took with the Sonic Screwdriver showed whole brain patterns, as complex as any human. He had already come to the conclusion that Blades were far from mere weapons. But he also wanted to learn more about Alrest – what kind of place Earth had become. What the humans had turned into.
Albedo turned a careful, assessing look onto him – cold, blue eyes dissecting him slowly. Oh, she hadn’t liked the sound of that, apparently. “A not-insignificant number of people believe that. But you’ll find that they’re more like people than most people.”
“Ah,” The Doctor winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean-“
She turned away from him, nodding. So, that was the lady who’d poisoned Tora. Supposedly. According to Nia’s reckoning. “I deal with Blades on a regular basis. You will learn as well.” Her eyes scanned the market, the electric blue capturing the reflections of the people within, before she stopped, spotting a woman across the plaza. “Ah. No time like the present, actually.” Then, she began to walk.
The Doctor, confused, followed, as they began to walk up on a woman with long, pale-blonde hair. As they got closer, the Doctor noticed that she was wearing quite an unusual outfit – something somewhat similar to Pyra’s, but not quite as snug, with loose sleeves and tails. There was also the matter of the floating energy rings hovering around her wrists and shoulders, like little halos.
“Hold on,” The Doctor blinked. “Is she-“
“Miss Vess?” Albedo addressed politely. Her target’s head quirked up, and she turned, away from the market stall she was looming over.
As Vess noticed Albedo, she smiled.
“Albedo,” Vess offered a little curtsey. “What luck. I was just about to stop by once I finished up here.”
“Fortunately, that’s no longer necessary.” Albedo answered. “I’m all caught up now.”
“That’s good – you really do work yourself to the bone, you know.” Vess narrowed her eyes like a suspicious mother looking on a strangely-behaving child. “You weren’t pulling all-nighters again, were you?”
“As it happens, no.” The white-haired woman shook her head. “I’ve just found some phenomenal help.” She gestured, and the Doctor gave a wave. “Vess, this is the Doctor.”
Vess looked at him with a curious hum. “A Doctor? Hmm…” She glanced at Albedo. “Is he one of-“
“No,” Albedo cut her off with an impatient roll of her eyes.
Instead, Vess smiled. “Just checking.” She gently extended her hands. “You have something for me, I believe?”
Albedo removed a cardboard box (incidentally, the last one for the day - funny coincidence), and passed it over. “Choclit Eclairs, freshly made.” She looked at Vess sternly. “You need to tell Mabon to slow down with these ones.”
Vess sighed good-naturedly. “He’ll take it ‘under advisement,’ I’m sure.”
“Well, advise him that Urayan Choclit is getting a lot more expensive for me to get.” Albedo retorted.
“Don’t you cater to the rich and famous?” The Doctor curiously turned. “I’m sure he’s rich enough to afford it.”
Albedo raised a dry eyebrow at him, as Vess laughed. “I do cater to the rich. Unfortunately, I would prefer to cater to everyone else – but the Ardainians are making it very hard with their tariffs.”
“Yes…” Vess sighed regrettably. “I’m here to pick up some things for Mabon… but the marketplace doesn’t have them.”
“Ah, that’s a trade war for you,” The Doctor drolly commented. “Try to stimulate the economy by forcing everybody to buy local, and you just get everyone angry because you took away their bread.”
“I could import them…” Vess murmured to herself. “The Garfont Mercenaries will take any job, no matter how pedestrian. But would they get here in time…?” Then, she sighed, and covered herself with a smile. “But you didn’t want to hear my problems. Thank you for bringing these to me – though I could have picked them up.”
“It’s no trouble,” Albedo smiled in response. “Actually, it’s fortunate. I brought the Doctor over to speak to you to… expand his horizons, so to speak. He wants to learn more about Blades.”
“Actually, I’ve learned quite a bit by now-“ The Time Lord began, before a glance from his new employer caused him to switch tracks. “But I am plenty eager to learn more! Yep, that’s me! Like a great big sponge, soaking up water, except the water is knowledge, and the sponge is my brain. Not actually – could you imagine having sponge for a brain? That’d be rubbish, just sitting there… filter-feeding.” What was it with this body and info-vomiting?
Vess chuckled, pointedly ignoring his rambling, thankfully avoiding an awkward situation. “It’s lucky for you, then! As it happens, I’m a Blade.”
“Really?” The Doctor looked her up and down, before he finally noticed the big, blue, glowing diamond embedded in her sternum. He hadn’t noticed it before – he’d thought it was a necklace, and good manners kept his eyes from looking any closer and noticing the pink, glowing, circuit-like lines right under the thing. But there was no mistaking it upon anything more than a cursory glance – for one thing, there was no seam. Vess’s skin wasn’t growing into the crystal, but there was nothing to imply that it was surgically installed, or even an ornament she was wearing. It was just part of her. “Oh!” His eyebrows shot up. “I see!” He glanced around, curious. “Where’s your Driver?”
“Blades don’t need to be within a certain range of their Drivers,” Vess answered kindly. “He’s currently at home, while I’m out here. I could go to an entirely different Titan, if I wished.”
“Vess’s Driver is an old customer,” Albedo explained for the Doctor. “Quite old. Not even up to leaving home, you see. But Blades can and do operate independently of their drivers.
“I see,” The Doctor blinked, rubbing his chin. He’d seen Nia and Dromarch get separated, but ultimately they were within about a mile of each other. So, there was no range. Fascinating. But it made him wonder why – why build the Blades to assimilate genetic information and brain patterns if they could just leave with it and get themselves destroyed? “You really are like people. But instead of reproducing the human way, with all the dancing and such, you lot come from the crystals. They bond to you, give you that information, and you use that information to grow, just as they do.”
Oh.
OH!
The neurons in his brain started to work! He loved it when they did that. It wasn’t parasitism – it was symbiosis! The Core Crystals bonded to people to perpetuate their species, and in return, gave people companions and protection.
Vess nodded, glancing at Albedo with a smile. “Sounds like he knew already. You sure this was necessary?”
But the Doctor still didn’t understand. Blades went back into their Crystals when their Driver died – what was the point of that? A safety mechanism, maybe, shielding the Blade from the backlash of the link severing as their Driver died? It couldn’t have been to protect the Blade physically – a defenceless crystal would be far more vulnerable than a person that could defend themselves.
“I just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t turn out to be one of those.” Albedo explained to Vess. “I do have standards for my employees, you know.”
Vess blinked, then looked at the Doctor, as though trying to figure out what standards he was meeting. “You sure?”
“Oi!” The Doctor indignantly raised his voice. “I’ll have you know, I’m a completely dependable, reliable employee.”
Then a challenge came echoing through the streets of Torigoth. Belted out at the top of someone’s lungs.
“AAAAHHHHHH!”
The Doctor didn’t even need to think. It really was a reflex action at this point – he heard the scream, and he bolted, running towards it. A bow-tied bolt of energy, cutting through the crowd, until he made it through to the centre – the empty clearing caused by people not wanting to get too close.
There, laying at the foot of the same notice board he had picked Albedo’s wanted ad off of, was a man. Blood poured from the back of his head, pooling around him in a crimson halo. His eyes stared upwards, glassy and vacant, frozen in his final moments.
“Everyone back!” An Ardainian soldier gestured with his weapon. “Order! Order!” He spotted the Doctor barreling his way, and his arms twitched.
With a flicker of movement too fast for the human to keep up with, the Doctor produced the psychic paper.
“Doctor John Smith,” The Doctor rattled off. “Indoline Ministry of Health.”
“I-“ The Ardainian spluttered as the Time Lord walked right through the perimeter. “There’s no Ministry of-“
“We’re newly formed.” The Doctor didn’t break stride, stepping past the perimeter and crouching over the body. His tone softened as he took the man’s limp hand. Still warm. Blood still bright red. Skin flush with colour.
But even a minor telepathic probe was enough to confirm the obvious – not a single hint of activity. The man was dead.
“Well, Doctor?” The soldier probed impatiently. “Anything in your expert medical opinion?”
“This man’s dead,” The Doctor’s eyes flicked up, going to the notice board. The red splatters on the board were like tiny little brown spots, staining the flyers and the wood. Then, they went down – locking onto the nearly-unnoticeable stains on the stone, like a half-hourglass of tiny red ants. The puzzle-pieces fell into place with a click, and a mental image blossomed. “He was looking at the notice board when he was hit.” He glanced at the board in question. “Blunt force trauma to the back of the head – a single, catastrophic blow, so hard that even if he survived it, he wouldn’t be able to put up a fight.” The Doctor pressed his lips together, staring.
The anger didn’t rise – not yet. Nor did any grief. What he did feel was just… disappointment.
Alrest’s humans had the same issues as they always had, it seemed.
The Doctor took out the Sonic Screwdriver, doing one more scan – and paused. The man still had his wallet on him, filled with coin.
“Odd…” The Time Lord’s brain went abuzz, as he scanned the area again with his senses. The array of feelers, more developed and numerous than anything humans ever had access to, took in everything, compiling it all. He could see everything.
People in the crowd were staring, shocked at the man so brazenly murdered in broad daylight.
The soldiers were all focused on keeping the crowd away. One soldier fidgeted with his pouches, hastily closing the flap over something black and glinting as he stared at the crime scene. A shard of glass, perhaps? Certainly not big enough to be any killing implement for this murder.
The Doctor’s mind leapt into action. ‘Broad daylight. Blunt-trauma to the back of the head. Busy market. Right in front of the notice board.’ He turned the body over as gently as he could manage, grimacing at the wound. ‘Big weapon, heavy weapon. Poor man’s skull caved right in, sprayed all the blood everywhere, so… why is the blood on the board and the ground already dried? And how could nobody have seen it?’
The clicking of feet on the stone alerted the Doctor to Vess and Albedo approaching, but he chose not to comment.
“I see.” The Ardainian soldier gestured with his weapon. “All right, everyone, get back! This is now an active crime scene! Line up and prepare to have your statements taken! You,” He pointed at the Doctor. “Stay put.” He turned, presumably to go procure some more hands.
The Doctor, interested in not being the prime suspect considering he was also supposed to be traveling with a group, reluctantly stood. All the while, he looked around.
His eyes passed over a child, talking to her parents. They had only just arrived, it looked like.
“I-I heard something and saw a flash out the corner of my eye,” A little Gormotti girl stood, trembling. “And when I turned around, I saw one of the soldiers, trying to help that man on the ground. Th-Then I saw the-the red, a-and…”
“What are you doing?” Albedo hissed under her breath with wide, almost-wild eyes.
The Doctor turned, taking a beat. “My other job.” He gestured. “Well, I say job, it’s more like… a hobby. A full-time hobby. That I occasionally get rewarded for. Only occasionally.” He turned back around, still searching the group of people. “You can go, if you want.”
Albedo let out a rueful huff. “I hired you at my shop – they’ll show up sooner or later asking me about you.”
“Sorry,” The Doctor apologetically winced.
“There’s a dead man on the ground and you’re saying sorry to me?”
The Doctor turned back to the body, thinning his lips.
“Goodness…” Vess breathed out in horror. “I’ve seen this man. I’ve passed by him almost every day!”
The Doctor spun around, curious. “Really? Who was he?”
Vess regretfully shrugged. “I don’t know. A freelance Driver, I think – he’s always checking the board for jobs.”
The Doctor latched onto the statement. “’Always.’ You said ‘always,’ what’s that mean, ‘always?’”
Vess took a step back. “I don’t know. Every day or so? I don’t know what he did, but he was checking it regularly. I passed him just a few minutes ago… him and his blade.”
The Doctor rubbed his face. A murder happens in broad daylight, the murderer gets away, the victim was in a certain spot on a regular basis – this was planned.
“Poor man,” Albedo murmured distantly, like she was just saying it on autopilot. “I can’t think of a reason why someone would just… murder a Driver minding his business.”
The Doctor nodded in agreement, before his eyes landed on the board again. Like before, his instincts were insistently prodding him, compelling him to think about it for a second, you fop-haired idiot. He narrowed his eyes at the board, and-
‘SNAP!’ The Doctor internally gasped to himself.
He was staring right at the public notice. The warning about the so-called ‘Core Crystal Hunters,’ splattered with a Driver’s blood. Grotesquely poetic.
“I need to get back to Tora’s!” He gasped out. Every Driver in that place was a freelance Driver, on the run. Prime pickings. He dashed into motion, running from the scene.
“Wha-“ Albedo spluttered. “Doctor!”
“I’m not tendering a resignation – consider this a request for leave!” The Doctor threw back over his shoulder, sprinting away.
Vess looked at the silver-haired woman. “Where did you find this man?”
Albedo threw up a hand. “Around. Just… around.”
----------
The Doctor rounded the corner, before he slammed into a body. “Ow!” He grunted, gesturing in a panic. “Sorry! So sorry! I’m making that a habit here lately…”
“Oi, watch it you burke…”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Nia!? What are you doing here!?”
The Gormotti winced, going to cover her ears. “What? A Gormotti can’t get some fresh air?”
“No, but-“ The Doctor glanced around, before gesturing and lowering his voice (and himself) to her level. “You’re wanted! A wanted criminal! If not for the terrorism, then for the stealing. And if not for that, then definitely for defacement of public property!”
“They got lucky, on that side-road.” Nia pouted, crossing her arms, before pridefully puffing herself up. “Nobody’d be able to catch me in a million years, not with these.” She pointed to her ears. “Besides… jail beats having to sit around in there for any longer.”
“What, with the others?”
“With Tora,” Nia shuddered. “He’s not just an engineer, but a mega-geek. He started talking us through the plot summary of Nimble Nopon Get Girls. Despite my objections.”
The Doctor stared at her. “For real?”
“Apparently, it’s Nimble Nopon Get Girls as in: ‘They’re nimble Nopon girls who get things. Usually bad guys.’ I zoned out after the rest of it,” She gestured around her head. “It was self-preservation, else my brain probably would’ve melted.” She huffed. “He and Rex are gonna hit the market later and try to get the last parts Tora needs because, apparently, this upgraded model he’s gotta build now needs less of those connectors for her hat.” Nia blinked, and rubbed her face. “I’m stuck with an alien, a child, the Aegis, and a Nopon whose idea of arse-kicking power is a maid robot. What is my life?”
“Interesting, it’s interesting. You could always do what I do.” The Doctor bluntly answered. Then, just cause he had the urge to mess with her a little bit more, he pulled a teacup complete with a plate, filled with tea, out of his pocket. “Drink tea to calm yourself from the fact that everything is absolutely horrendous chaos most of the time.”
Nia looked on it warily. “You kept that in your pocket?”
“Where else would I keep it?” The Doctor asked in response, before his brain smacked itself. “No! Distracting- you’re distracting me! I’m supposed to be running your way to warn you about the murderer on the loose!”
“Murderer?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be daft,” Nia gasped out. “What do you mean a murder!?”
“Murder. Downtown. Broad daylight.” The Doctor gesticulated. “A new cavity in the back of a man’s head where there’s not supposed to be one, the Core Crystal nicked by crystal hunters, and me, being clever, thought whoever did it would be going after you lot next, seeing how you are, you know, wanted Drivers!”
Nia frowned, shifting her weight as she crossed her arms. “Core Crystal Hunters, eh? Hmm…”
The Doctor stared at her intently. “You know something?”
“Well no, but that’s mighty strange, innit?” Nia noted. “A man gets whacked in broad daylight, a Driver, and nobody sees anything?” She frowned.
“I know,” The Doctor agreed. “He was reading the notice board, got hit right in the back of the head. He never saw it coming.” His face twisted in puzzlement. “But why, why, why? How does nobody see it?”
“Why should I care? Let the cops do their work.”
The Doctor stopped, looking at her sternly. Right into her eyes. “Because this is what I do, Nia. Every second, of every day. I care, because no one else will.” Her eyebrows shot up, dryly, and the Doctor’s brain caught up. “Ah. Ah. You were… answering the question. Right.” He pointed sharply. “And you humans may have a low opinion of yourself, but still, refusing to stop a murder-in-progress because the bystander syndrome is too strong is the exception, not the norm.”
“Didn’t you just say-“
“That was clever rhetoric,” The Doctor huffed under his breath, looking her up-and-down. “Well. You’re here, want to help?”
“What, help you solve a murder? Like I said, isn’t that a job for the authorities?”
“Yes, yes, but-“ The Doctor poked her sternum, and her hand moved so fast, swiping his away, it threw him for a loop. “…I’ll think of a good reason, but I’m curious. And you want out of that house, don’t you?”
Nia let out a sigh. “I did get out so I didn’t have to watch Tora work on his robot all day… Fine.” She answered with a slight grin. “Ooh… It’s been a while since I’ve been on the right side of the law. This might be fun. What is it they do in those dramas? Shall we go back to the scene of the crime?”
“Not sure how much we’ll find,” The Doctor answered. “But it might be easier now that everyone’s cleared out. Hopefully. It hasn’t been that long. We might need to wait.”
“Right, lead the way,” Nia gestured, before stopping. “Oh,” She turned her head. “Dromarch. If you’re going to follow, you can come closer you know.”
The white tiger Blade carefully skulked his way from around a corner.
“Apologies,” Dromarch cleared his throat. “I had figured it would be best to remain at a distance… in case the soldiers got the wrong idea again.”
“Well, we’re about to get up-close and personal with them.” Nia drew a breath. “No big deal; we weaseled out of it before, right?”
“Yes, exactly!” The Doctor snapped his fingers with a grin, before twirling about and walking back the way he came. “Come along, Nia!”
------------
Back at the market square, the crowd had largely cleared out already.
“Blimey, that was quick.” Nia commented, glancing around. The body was gone, moved.
“Well, I did leave right when they started taking statements,” The Doctor commented, moving towards the notice board. He winced. “Albedo’s probably going to have the local gestapo coming around, knocking on her door, asking about me.”
“Oh, you actually got the job?”
“Yes, I got the job, of course I got the job!” The Doctor, offended, whipped around to face her. “What does that mean!? What, do I look unemployable to you?”
“No. It’s just… people with jobs don’t normally go to crime scenes for fun.”
“You’re here.”
“Exactly. I’m out of a job. And whose fault is that?”
“Oh… shut up,” The Doctor, without venom, turned away, facing the board. “Now, there’s something here, staring me in the face, something big, Nia, something obvious, like a great, big oozy zit of badness on a nice, smooth face of normal.”
“Yuck,” Nia scrunched her nose.
“The notice board?” Dromarch rumbled, walking over and sitting on his haunches. “I see…”
Nia approached, tilting her head. “It’s a bit dirtier than it was this morning.”
“No, not dirt.” The Doctor quickly surged forward, licked the wood, and smacked his lips. “Yep. That’s blood.”
Nia turned to him with wide, concerned eyes, searching him like he was wearing a bomb. “Blood? As in… you can tell?”
“Every species in the universe with a mouth learns to analyze things with it first – my people just didn’t grow out of it.” The Doctor rolled his head, trying to get the taste out. “Blegh-blegh.” He shuddered. “Needs more iron.”
“…okay, are you being serious? Cause if you just lick up random spots of blood, then I need to know, so I never eat anything you make ever again.”
“It’s fine – incompatible biochemistry.” The Doctor took a step back from the board. “But, here’s the curious thing. The blood on the board and on the ground is dry, but the man had just died. It’s nowhere near hot enough to flash-dry blood, so…” He looked at Nia. “What could do that?”
“Well, that’ll be Ether scorching, wouldn’t it?”
The Time Lord, slapped in the face by such a common, matter-of-fact suggestion, blinked. “Eh?”
“Ether scorching,” Nia furrowed her brow. “It happens with Blade weapons all the time. The Ether energy caused by Driver Arts can heat up the air enough to flash-dry blood. Burn skin. All that jazz.”
“What?” The Doctor spluttered.
“What?” Nia frowned. “Do they not have that where you’re from?”
“No, Nia, we do not have that where I come from!” The Doctor looked around. “Ether – that’s what you call all these quarks floating around in the air, right? But how is that possible? They can’t exist unless we’re talking about the Planck Temperature and-“
“Doctor,” Nia cut him off. “The murder?”
The Time Lord stopped, cut off right in the middle of his rambling. He knew his laws of physics perfectly well. But he supposed she had a point. “Right, so, a Blade Weapon did this?”
“Not necessarily,” Dromarch hummed. “Blade Weapons are not only made from Ether, but they impart tremendous quantities of it. A strike from any type of Blade weapon, strong enough to instantly kill a man, would not leave only blunt trauma, but it would leave burns upon the body, if the Ether did not dissolve the cadaver entirely.”
The Doctor looked at the tiger Blade with concern. “It can do that?”
Dromarch nodded. “There is a certain degree of… stability that living things exude upon the Ether that composes them. When they expire, if there is foreign Ether present or if there’s elevated quantities of it in the environment, that stabilizing effect is gone, and the Ether that comprised them dissolves and disperses into the greater mass. It can happen within seconds.”
“Stranger and stranger…” The Doctor muttered. “Quarks existing at livable temperatures on their own, a bubble of time surrounding this place, oh… that is big. Scary big.” He clapped his hands, and spun around. “So, what caused the flash-dried blood droplets, then?”
“Seeing as the man was a Driver,” Dromarch began. “His Blade returning to their Core Crystal would be the likeliest option.”
Nia nodded, looking up at the Doctor. “Blade bodies are made of the stuff. When their Driver dies, most of it gets pulled back into the Core Crystal to help it recharge, but the rest disperses; mostly harmless, but really small things – bugs, blades of grass, little droplets of dew-“
“They all get flash-burned.” The Doctor finished, murmuring. “So since the wound on the body wasn’t cauterized and there was a body to be found, he wasn’t killed from a Blade weapon striking him in the back of the head. Which means it was something else… his Blade was standing next to him, and when he died, the Blade returned to its Crystal.” The images flashed through his mind, building him a mental picture. He snapped his fingers, seeing it unfold before him now. “He gets hit, the blood goes flying, but it really is instant – his Blade returns to their Crystal, the reaction flash-burns every little splotch of blood small enough, and the lot responsible scarpers.”
“Probably.” Nia nodded.
“But how!?” The Doctor spun around, scratching his head in confusion. “You can’t run!” He gestured around his head. “I heard a little girl say she saw the flash, she turned around, and saw a soldier trying to help the victim, then she screamed cause she saw the blood! I heard it, and I was across the market, so everybody else heard it too! A little girl screams at the top of her lungs, at least one parent should’ve turned to see what was going on – they would’ve saw the murderer running away!” He growled in frustration, slamming his fingers to his temples, over and over, trying to will his brain to work. “I’m missing something, Nia! Something big, something obvious! How does a murderer do it in broad daylight, in a busy market, start running out of there before the body hits the ground, with nobody able to see him!?”
“Well,” Nia snorted. “Maybe he was invisible?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid-“ The Doctor began, before stopping as his eyes went wide.
“Oi!” Nia snapped. “Don’t go calling me stupid if you’ve got a habit of forgetting what you’re saying right in the middle of saying it!”
“Oh… OH!” The Doctor slapped himself in the forehead. It was really obvious – he didn’t know how he didn’t see it before. Maybe because it was so simple, and he was hoping it’d be more complex. “Stupid, stupid!” The Doctor hit himself in the face again, causing Nia to jump. He spun around, pointing at her. “A murder, in broad daylight,” He repeated. Then, louder: “What kind of rubbish murderer does it in broad daylight?”
Nia recoiled minutely. “A stupid one?”
“Yes, or-“ The Doctor poked her again.
“Oy! Cut that out!”
“One who’s invisible.” The Doctor replied. Nia opened her mouth to bite back, before he continued. “Not literally – although, that is an option we should consider – but one so good at acting natural, absolutely nobody would notice him at all unless they already suspected him before, or if they had a brain hard-wired to process every last bit of sensory information across four dimensions.”
Nia cluelessly blinked. “Eh?”
Dromarch cleared his throat. “I’m quite confused as well, Doctor.”
“It’s obvious – so obvious it was staring me right in the face and I still didn’t see it!” The Doctor gesticulated wildly. “That man was a Driver, right?” The Time Lord outlined, glancing rapidly between them. “And that little girl said; she saw the flash – which had to be his Blade dispersing - then spun around, and saw a soldier trying to help the man, but he was already dead. Now, here’s the thing,” he pointed emphatically, looking between Nia and Dromarch, “when everyone else turned to look, who did they see? A soldier and a body. And you know what I didn’t see?” He slapped the notice board for emphasis. “A Core Crystal. Which means that it was taken, right from where the body fell.”
“By Core Crystal Hunters, right, you said that before we came here.”
“Right.” The Doctor pointed. “But I did see a soldier put something into his pouch. What do dead Core Crystals look like? A sort-of obsidian colour, like black glass?”
Nia furrowed her brow. “That’s… right.”
The Doctor began to gesture more intensely, as the brainwave hit him, full-force. “Another thing! Vess said that Driver was a freelancer – this board,” He slapped it again, “Was one place where that man stopped by, every day, looking for work. If you were a Core Crystal Hunter, and you had a Blade you wanted to steal from a Driver, how would you do it? Do you ambush the Driver out in the wild, where they’re expecting danger? Or do you wait for a predictable, regular stop — somewhere safe, where their guard’s down?”
“Right…” Nia slowly nodded, before she pointed at the Doctor in agreement. “Right! Torigoth’s the biggest city on this Titan – the safest, too! No Driver would be expecting to get hit!”
“Ex-actly!” The Doctor gestured.
“Hmm…” Dromarch closed his eyes. “So, then… the soldier you witnessed…”
“Think about it,” The Doctor answered. “Even if he wasn’t a real soldier, he’d still know he wouldn’t be able to get away in time. All the witnesses would need to do is report a man in uniform, and all the authorities would have to do is check and see if any uniforms were stolen, or cross-reference the patrols to see who was in the area at the time. Real or fake, it doesn’t matter; someone is going to see a soldier running from the scene of the crime, and whoops – that’s the all-points out on you. That means he’s got two options. Option A: follow the man around and wait for him to get into a position to murder him - but then he’s not just following one man, he’s following two; the Driver and his Blade, and once they’re on the move again, they’re bound to put their guard back up. Option two: wait for the Driver to get into the position you know he’s going to be in, with his guard down, and wait for him there. You kill him, nick his Blade, and then act like you’re helping him. The crowd sees you, assumes ‘well, that one couldn’t have done it, he’s a soldier in uniform, they don’t go around killing people willy-nilly, and besides, he’s trying to help.’ And nobody’s the wiser.
“…you’re saying that soldier killed the man, then turned right around and acted like he was helping him so nobody would suspect him?” Nia incredulously extrapolated. “That’s stupid!”
“Yes, so stupid, no one in their right mind would ever suggest it, leaving the murderer to get away.” The Doctor pointed. “For the soldier to get over to the body in such a short amount of time, he would’ve had to be standing right next to the man when the murder took place. Ah…” He breathed out with a pride-filled smile. “If Columbo could see me now…” It just as quickly dropped, however, once something rushed through his brain again – the image of the murderer looking at the crime scene again and again. “There’s something wrong, though. Still, something staring at me…”
“Doctor,” Nia sternly interjected. “If the murderer’s a Crystal thief, in the Ardainian military… we can’t just roll up to the Consulate and say ‘one of your men’s a murderer, please trust us.’”
“…why not?” The Doctor turned around, gesturing.
“W-Well, they’d never believe us, for one.”
“Wouldn’t they?” The Doctor rhetorically produced his wallet, and flicked it open.
Nia stared at it. “…what kind of a name is Emmett Lathrop Brown?”
The Doctor slapped it in his hands. “Psychic paper. It-“
“Yeah, I know, you used it to get us out of getting arrested before.” Nia crossed her arms. “But some random Captain who doesn’t want to work himself too hard is different to rolling up to the consulate and telling the ranking base commander one of his man’s crooked, with no proof.”
“Then we get proof.” The Doctor vowed, clapping his hands. “All we need to do is find out which soldiers were stationed in the area, and stake them out. Or, we find the crystal before he can pass it off, and wait for him to pick it up.”
“You really think that’ll work? Just… sauntering up to a military base and searching the place?”
“I’m the Doctor; it always works.” He offered her his hand. “Shall we, Ms. Mio?”
Nia looked at the Time Lord’s hand warily, before reluctantly sighing, and grabbing it. “Whatever, Dr. Brown.”
The Doctor grinned, and dashed away, leading Nia along by her hand.
----------
Brighid marched through the pathways of the Torigoth relay base, watching as the arriving Titan ship moored, and was secured. As the soldiers lined up in formation, prepared to receive their guest, Brighid stepped in line at the end of the formation, waiting as the hull doors opened, and the ramp extended, firmly locking the ship in place.
Moments later, a woman wearing a most unique uniform amongst its brethren strode out from the ship, her hands clasped behind her back. Her Driver. And upon laying eyes on her, Brighid’s unease waned.
Most Blades couldn’t tolerate being separated from their Drivers for a prolonged period of time. They could do it just fine, to be sure, but they often weren’t content with it. Most were not Brighid. She understood herself to be a unique specimen among Blades – extremely powerful, and independent. It was what made her uniquely suited to her task: Blade of the Special Inquisitor of Mor Ardain.
Special Inquisitor Mòrag, to be precise. Investigator, military commander, and elite soldier, all rolled into one. Any situation important to the Emperor usually demanded her attention, be that difficult battles, diplomatic functions, or rooting out corruption in the Empire.
(That last point was especially relevant, right now.)
The soldiers all saluted as Mòrag approached. Brighid, once her Driver approached, bowed.
“Lady Mòrag,” Brighid addressed. “A pleasure to see you’ve arrived safely.”
“Yes… although, the ride over was far from peaceful,” Mòrag commented, almost to herself. “Has Rotbart been active lately?” A code, not a very subtle one, but unless you had been let in on it before, you’d have a hard time guessing it. Plus, it was a genuine question one might ask when visiting Torigoth.
“No more than usual,” Brighid answered. “He wouldn’t know we were here unless we ran right up to him.” Their target was still ignorant that they were onto him.
“Good,” Mòrag nodded. “Dreadful creature. I’d hate to make my visit… difficult, having to deal with it.”
Brighid smiled, before it was shattered by the arrival of the slime himself.
“Y-Your Graaace!” A shrill voice called from across the base, and Brighid had to resist the urge to make her opinion of the man known. “Your Grace!” Dughall sprinted up to the formation, saluted, and wheezed. “M-My apologies! My secretary told me you would be arriving tomorrow and I wasn’t given the updated schedule until just a moment ago!”
“Hm,” Mòrag hummed, turning a narrowed eye onto him. “I wasn’t aware I was under any obligation to report my movements to you, Dughall. If anything, I thought you would be happy – now that I’m here to get your issue with the Core Crystal thieves under control.”
“O-Of course! I meant no offence, obviously, I was just commenting on your swift arrival!” Dughall deflected with a brown-noser’s smile. “Moreso, I was commenting on my secretary’s inability to disseminate vital information to me.”
“Maybe you should get a better secretary,” Mòrag retorted sharply. “I don’t have spare time to waste going around, informing every last person of my whereabouts.”
“I-I understand completely, Your Grace!” Dughall, latching onto the blaming of his secretary, recovered his bluster. “My most sincere apologies for wasting your time, in addition to mine! I’ll see to it that I get someone who understands the need for professionalism in such an important line of work!” He smiled, and spread his arms. “Allow me to make it up to you – a traditional banquet, filled with Gormott’s finest staples!”
“No, Consul Dughall. That won’t be necessary.”
“But it’s really no trouble! Why, I can even get Lady Albedo to cater-“
“Consul, did you not hear me?” Mòrag leveled a reproachful stare at him. “Two Core Crystals have gone missing from right up under our noses, at a recruitment drive filled with witnesses, and you’re more focused on supper?”
“N-No, Lady Mòrag-“ Dughall’s bluster had evaporated just as quickly as it came.
“That is ‘Special Inquisitor’ to you, Dughall.” Mòrag sternly replied. “It seems your secretary isn’t the only one who needs to be worried about priorities in the workplace.” She adjusted a button near her shoulder, and clasped her hands behind her back. “I’d like to start the investigation as soon as possible. I’ll need to use your office as my headquarters for the duration, you understand.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Dughall’s eyes flickered with his impotent wrath, but he kept up his pretend smile. “I’d be more than happy to assist the investigation in every way. Shall I go on ahead and make my office presentable?”
“This isn’t an inspection,” Mòrag rolled her eyes. “I won’t be scrutinizing your office.” She would, she absolutely would. “No, I’d much rather you start helping by rounding up the men in charge of the recruitment drive, and send them to me.”
“Th-That’s work more suited to a runner, certainly!”
“You have two feet and the capacity to make words with your mouth, do you not?” Mòrag raised an eyebrow. “Just do it, it’s not worth the effort of writing out the summons. I will meet you back at your office. Everyone else!” Mòrag raised her voice, glancing at the soldiers. “Dismissed!”
The Kevlar-clad troops dispersed, returning to their duties. Dughall stood, glowering for a second, before bowing, and running off to carry out his orders.
“Fool.” Brighid commented with a disgusted glower. “He doesn’t suspect a thing.”
“Brighid, I’m ashamed.” Mòrag shot her the side-eye. “Normally, you make your opinion known to people’s faces.”
“I’m waiting for the chance,” Brighid retorted. “But I just needed to get that out of my system.” She shivered in revulsion. “Of all the missions we’ve been on, I’ve never been forced to play to such a reprehensible little man.”
Mòrag began to walk, Brighid alongside, with her hands clasped behind her back. “It has only been a few days.”
“Days spent around him,” Brighid fixed her driver with a droll stare. “It is one thing to think yourself the cleverest person in the room. It’s another to be so completely, obliviously wrong that it’s physically painful to witness.”
“Remember Brighid – it’s not the clever criminals who usually slip up enough to be caught.”
“I know,” The Blade replied. “But sometimes I find myself hoping that they give us a little bit of a challenge.”
“And?”
“Still waiting.”
“Surely, he can’t be that stupid.”
Brighid looked at her Driver. “I overheard him berating Captain Padraig for failing to capture a Blade with an emerald Core Crystal. To illustrate his point, he gestured to a vase as an example of ‘emerald.’ A blue vase.”
“Ah, so the good Consul is colourblind.” Mòrag’s head tilted up. “An emerald Core Crystal?”
“Yes,” Brighid hummed. “This was hours ago, by the way.”
Mòrag stopped, turning to look at Brighid. “You’re certain?”
“Naturally.” Brighid held a hand to her chest, clutching her pearls.
“A salvager ship attached to the Argentum Trade Guild was attacked by Torna last night,” Mòrag held her hand to her chin. “The ship made it away safely, but not before they lost their salvage, and a few members of their crew.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Yes, they filed a report on the attacking ship. But the survivors reported seeing a Blade with a green Core Crystal. The news crossed my desk on my way here.”
“Really?” Brighid drawled inquisitively. “Fascinating. If the incident occurred last night, and the news only crossed your desk a few hours ago… why would the Consul know about it?”
“Precisely.” Mòrag nodded. “But if the Aegis has returned, Dughall might be the least of our problems. Did you hear anything else?”
“I actually heard something a bit strange,” Brighid frowned. “According to the Captain, he had seen the Aegis with his own two eyes. She was in the company of a young boy, a Gormotti Driver, two other Blades, and a man.”
Mòrag’s mind began to churn. “If she had been last seen aboard the salvaged wreck, only to disappear with several of the salvager crew… that would seem to be them, then?” She pursed her lips. “I should hope they had proof. I’d hate to survive a situation like that, then get accosted by soldiers for an unfortunate resemblance to a wanted poster.”
“The Captain was fairly certain it was her. A Gormotti Driver with silver hair, and a white, beast-type Blade.”
“Ah.”
“Maybe,” Brighid conceded. “But this is the truly odd part: The Gormotti was a member of Torna, with a bounty out on her head. And the man had been seen at the recruitment drive earlier, getting a Core Crystal to resonate with a new Driver – without casualties. When confronted, the man provided proof that he was working on behalf of the Praetorium.”
Mòrag slowly nodded. “Indol has their own agents out in the wider world. It shouldn’t be a surprise they managed to embed one in Torna.” She let out a controlled breath. “Then the attack last night was likely a result of Indol managing to spirit away the Aegis before Torna could.” She clenched her jaw. “I can’t say it’s a comforting thought… but she’ll likely be in better hands there than with Torna.” She glanced at Brighid. “And that was all you’d heard?”
“The Captain gave their identities – the Doctor and Mio.”
Mòrag stopped again, lingering for an uncomfortably long moment. So long, that Brighid began to feel the concern mounting. “My lady?”
“Mio…” Mòrag repeated with a thoughtful frown. “The Lord of the House of Echell used to have a daughter by that name.”
“Oh? I’m unfamiliar with him.”
“He was before your time, I’m afraid.” Mòrag shook her head. “The Emperor and I used to spend quite a bit of time out here, when we were younger. You could say, from a certain perspective, we grew up here, though Mor Ardain will always be our homeland. Even back then, we had certain… expectations to the Empire we needed to fulfill. Social gatherings of the wealthy and powerful. He was at more than a few, and a few times, they were held at his residence. I don’t remember much of them, but I do remember his daughter.”
“Lady Mòrag, I’m sure it’s a common name.”
“Quite possibly,” Mòrag nodded, still looking lost in reminiscence. “She was such a frail, sickly little thing. Older than me, but I always felt like I had to be careful around her - like she’d break if I wasn’t careful around her. Poor girl.”
“I see.” Brighid carefully intoned. “What happened to the girl?”
“She died.” Mòrag answered simply. “She died young.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mòrag shook her head. “She and I were not very well acquainted. But I remember finding her situation quite pitiable. Her father tried to help her however he could, the finest doctors money could hire, alternative medicine… Blades. There was one I recall quite well – a white, beast-form Blade.” Mòrag looked pointedly at Brighid. “A Gormotti girl with silver hair, a white beast-form Blade, with the name ‘Mio.’ It’s a small world, but I very much doubt it is a simple coincidence.” She turned and continued moving on ahead. “Stolen identity, perhaps… I’ll see if I can’t pass along an information request through His Majesty. Strange they should turn up right as Dughall makes his move.”
“Right,” Brighid nodded. “There was… one other matter. I’m afraid I couldn’t investigate it – I was only made aware of it after the fact – but a Driver has recently been murdered.”
Mòrag stopped, staring with blazing eyes. “What?”
Brighid nodded gravely. “It was recent. Fairly so, considering I was waiting here for your ship to dock while news broke.”
“Information moves quickly,” Mòrag sighed, glancing at Brighid curiously. “You didn’t say anything earlier?”
“I wanted to see if Dughall would mention it,” Brighid explained. “He did not.”
“That’s hardly an admission of guilt… but unusual, considering that part of his duties is to coordinate the troops.” Mòrag frowned. “Although perhaps news simply… did not make it to him.”
“Doubtful – considering I was made aware of it as well.” Brighid put a finger to her chin.
Mòrag hummed. “Keep it in mind, but try not to let it colour your perception too much. People claiming to be from Indol, murders – they could all be distractions from the real objective. Now, we should get moving. I would hate for him to get back to his office before we get the chance.”
“That’s just what I was thinking.”
-------------
“I just don’t get it,” Rex scratched his head, his cranium on a swivel as he, Tora, and Pyra walked through the markets. “Where could they have gone?”
“Doc-Doc probably work himself into sugar coma!” Tora suggested with a smile. “Happened all the time when Tora work for Albedo!”
“It’s normally not standard practice for the cooks to sample their own product,” Azurda hummed.
“Are… are we sure they’re okay?” Pyra nervously spoke up. “They did have that near-miss with the soldiers…”
“I’m sure they’re quite fine,” Azurda hummed. “They’ll certainly keep lower heads, after that incident. In the meantime, we should finish things up.”
Indeed, after Nia had decided to make herself scarce, the rest decided to hit the markets for the last few parts Tora would need. The ones the Doctor had taken the job to pay for were, according to Tora, able to be salvaged – he just hadn’t realized Rex was a salvager at the time. The rest were more than able to be paid for.
“Hey Tora,” Rex turned to Tora. “Why do you call him Doc-Doc?”
“Tora not just call Doc-Doc Doc-Doc,” Tora batted his wings. “Tora also call Rex-Rex Rex-Rex!” The Nopon bounced happily. “It sign of great respect among Nopon!”
“Respect!?” Rex’s eyes popped open as he jumped back. “But I didn’t do anything to get that!” He glanced over at Pyra. “…did I?”
“Meh!” Tora gasped. “Rex-Rex driver of Master Blade! Of course it means he gets treated with great respect! And Doc-Doc is very intelligent, and helping of Tora!”
“But, I just-“ Rex blinked in surprise. “All I did was grab a sword!”
“My boy, you grabbed the sword of the most powerful Blade in the known world,” Azurda kindly, but sharply, retorted. “Like it or not, that kind of thing elicits attention – count yourself lucky that your first experience with it is benevolent.”
“That’s not-“ Rex turned to Pyra, his mouth falling open. “The most-powerful Blade in the world?”
Pyra nodded, though she didn’t appear all that happy to be fessing up to it. “They call me ‘the Aegis’ for a reason. It’s… a whole thing.”
“Right, yeah…” Rex nodded slowly. “You were one of the first Blades, right? Makes sense that you’d be most-powerful.”
Pyra thinned her lips. “Yeah.”
“Say, Pyra,” Rex addressed curiously. “If you’re supposed to have been one of the first Blades, born up there in Elysium, and you don’t go back into your Core Crystal when your Driver dies… does that mean you remember it? Remember Elysium? Remember the Architect?”
Pyra’s expression turned more thoughtful. “I mean… I kind of do? Sort of. I have a solid picture of what it looks like, but the rest of things are only flashes. Impressions. More like feelings than memories.”
Rex frowned, pondering. “Weird. You’d think someone who’s been around that long would remember it better, right?”
Azurda’s eyes sparkled with wisdom. “The past can blur even for the ancient, Rex. Memory is a river, not a stone. Sometimes, the most significant things flow away first.”
“Huh, that’s kind of deep,” Rex admitted, rubbing his chin. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Gramps.”
“What does that mean?” Azurda challenged.
“Nothing – you just don’t look the part of the wise, old Titan anymore.” Rex commented with a grin.
“Rex’s Grampypon so tiny and fuzzy, he could get lost in plushy pile!”
“Perhaps I might,” Azurda theatrically huffed. “I’d be appreciated there, I know.”
“But it makes me wonder… if even Pyra doesn’t fully remember the Architect, what’s he really like? You know, the guy who made all this?” He gestured around, indicating the bustling market and beyond, toward the skies of Alrest. Towards the eternal monolith of foliage stretching beyond the sky. “You have to remember the Architect, right? He is your creator.”
Pyra’s gaze drifted upward, a shadow of uncertainty crossing her face. “The Architect, he’s… distant.” She shook her head. “I was woken up, just like any other Blade. Before that, there’s not a lot. It’s like a dream. A couple of things stuck with me, but so much is just foggy.” She covered her crystal, gazing at the World Tree. “But I can feel his presence, still. I know he’s there.”
“Like a ghost?” Tora tilted his head. “Meh-meh! Tora hate ghosts…”
“No, more like... a force,” Pyra tried to explain. “I know he’s there. But what he truly is... well, that’s a mystery.”
Rex mulled it over, kicking a stone as they walked. “You think the Doctor might...” His voice trailed off.
“Know?” Pyra prodded gently.
Rex shrugged. “He said it himself, he was around for a while. And he said he was here before, didn’t he? And he mentioned a place – Earth-“
“That’s right, you weren’t there for that conversation,” Azurda recalled thoughtfully. “He does have quite a bit of insider knowledge… though what exactly he knows is beyond me. The man seems to have a habit of saying things without elaborating too much.”
Pyra snorted with a slight smile. “He’s a Time Lord, they do that.”
“Time Lords… right, the Doctor said he was one of those.” Rex nodded with a frown, tilting his head quizzically in Pyra’s direction. “You’ve met a lot of them, then?”
“Actually, I-“ Pyra began to answer, cutting herself off as her face became overtaken by confusion. “I… Huh. I don’t actually know.” Her frown returned in strength, tapping her crystal. “It’s all… in there. Where I can’t see. My memories before I woke up.” She clasped her hands together, wringing them nervously. “A lot of things the Doctor talked about are in there, too.”
“Oh, oh!” Tora batted his wings excitedly. “Maybe Doc-Doc and Architect are same person! Maybe that how Pyra not remember, but also remember at same time. He talk to Pyra before!”
Rex’s eyes bugged out of their sockets. “You don’t think-“
Pyra laughed to herself under her breath, shaking her head. “It’s an intriguing possibility… but no.” Her gaze took a glassy, far-off quality. “I don’t remember a lot about Elysium, or the Architect. All I can really remember anymore is just how… cold he was.”
“Cold?” Rex’s eyebrows shot up.
“Distant,” Pyra elaborated, as her expression took on a tint of sadness. “He always felt so removed.”
“Well, he can’t have been all bad, right?” Rex nervously threw out there. “He did send the Titans, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Pyra nodded. “But…” She looked around. “That doesn’t mean he can’t be distant.”
“Is that why you want to go to Elysium?” Rex politely probed. “To meet him for real this time?”
“Something along those lines.” Pyra’s voice trailed off as her gaze wandered, lost in thought. A moment of silence hung between them, the sounds of the bustling market filling the space.
Tora flapped his wings, about to speak, but something caught his eye. His fur bristled slightly, and his cheerful demeanor faltered. His gaze flicked to the side, then quickly back, almost as if he hadn’t meant to look at all.
Pyra’s crystal glinted as she shifted, suddenly aware of the stillness that had settled between them. She followed Tora’s nervous glance.
Across the market, partially obscured by the crowd, a soldier stood unmoving. His eyes, locked behind ports of tinted glass, were locked on Pyra.
Pyra’s expression tightened, but she said nothing. Quietly, she clasped her hands together, her voice soft when she finally spoke.
“We should… keep moving. We should get those parts, quick.”
“Huh?” Rex blinked, before nodding. “Oh, right. The parts for… Poppi, you said her name was?” He asked of Tora. “You sure she’s gonna work?”
“Hopefully should!” Tora bounded happily. “Poppi Blade years in the making! Tora show you, once Bion Connectors are gotten!”
Rex chuckled. “Well, best get them, then.” He then proceeded towards the dive platform, signage on it confirming that it was free to use for trained salvagers.
While Rex dove, Pyra stood by, searching around with her eyes.
The soldier was gone.
-------------
If 900 years taught the Doctor anything, it was to roll up to a place like you belonged. If you were nervous, they could tell. And if they could tell you were nervous, well, what did you have to be nervous about? They looked at you more intently, started pulling you apart in greater detail. They could sniff you out, no issue.
The Doctor had honed the skill, just fine. His companions over the years… honestly, they were a little hit-or-miss when it came to the concept.
Nia… unfortunately, she seemed to fall on the ‘nervous’ side of things.
“This is stupid.” Nia hissed under her breath. “We’re walking right up to an Ardainian building, thinking it’s an Ardainian soldier that killed a man! How are you calm!?”
“Me? Who says I’m calm?” The Doctor refuted under his breath. “I’ve got two hearts – blood pressure’s through the roof at all times. Now,” He lowered his voice, glancing at a soldier. “Unless you want the local constables to look at you harder, keep calm. Act like you belong. Because you do,” He pointed. That was what he did, at least. He was a Time Lord, all of time and space was his backyard, he belonged everywhere. That kept the confidence up.
“Easier said than done…” Nia murmured, as the Doctor strode up to a soldier.
“Hello!” The Doctor introduced. “I’m the Doctor, this is-“ He glanced at her for a second, before remembering the fake name she provided. “Mio, we’re in town doing a check. A sort of important inspection thing, and we need to talk to your boss.”
The soldier stiffened. “Sorry, sir,” The thick, Scottish-adjacent accent flowed muffled through the helmet. “But the Consul isn’t taking visitors at this time.”
“I’m not a visitor, I’m the Doctor,” The Time Lord shook the soldier’s hand rapidly. “Don’t worry, I won’t be too long.” He declared, before strong-arming his way into the room.
“What the- hey!” The soldier spluttered, as the Doctor burst into the room like rogue winds.
Upon entering, heads inside the building all pivoted around to face him. One was a blue-haired woman cloaked by similarly-coloured flame. Another was also a woman, dressed in a military uniform. The last was a man, short and ugly.
“Hello!” The Doctor grinned with a smile. “So sorry to intrude, just here on important business!”
“Consul,” The uniformed woman turned to the man. “I wasn’t aware you had an open office.”
The Consul chuckled nervously. “I-I pride myself on running an operation where the citizens feel they can be heard…”
“Special inquisitor!” The soldier from outside wheezed as he rushed in to grab them. “My apologies, they just forced their way in! Doctor, Miss Mio, I must ask you to-“ He grabbed them by the soldiers, as the woman’s head snapped up.
“Wait.” The Special Inquisitor held up her hand, as she focused on the Doctor and Nia. “Let them stay.”
“I-Inquisitor!?” Dughall spluttered.
“My lady?” The blue flame Blade probed curiously.
“If it’s truly so important as to barge in… I would hear what they have to say.”
The soldier obediently nodded, and stepped back, though kept his focus trained on the Doctor and Nia.
“Ah, much better.” The Doctor smiled, rolling his shoulder as Nia nervously looked around. “I’m the Doctor, this is Mio.”
The Inquisitor nodded stoically. “Special Inquisitor Mòrag,” She gestured to her side. “This is my Blade, Brighid, and Consul Dughall.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “I hope you’re not here for light introductions, Doctor. We’re very busy at the moment.”
“Yes, very important, important people doing important things,” The Doctor gestured, snapping his fingers and pointing. “I need access to the records of your soldiers’ patrol routes and times.”
Dughall scoffed. “I can’t simply give you that-“
Mòrag tilted her head. “That’s a very unusual request. Why should I heed it?”
“A man is dead – I’d say that’s reason enough.” The Doctor preened, producing the psychic paper. “But, if you need proof in the writing.”
Mòrag narrowed her eyes, looking towards Dughall. The Consul hunched over, moving to grab it from the Doctor’s hand.
“Y-Yes,” The Consul stammered. “Um…” His eyes widened. “Y-You’re here on the Praetor’s request!?”
Mòrag raised an eyebrow. “Fascinating. I wasn’t aware he’d been contacted about what was happening.” She gestured, moving to take it from Dughall, and look at it herself.
“Well, you know,” The Doctor smiled, clapping and rubbing his hands together. “He has his ways.”
“…indeed.” Mòrag inhaled slowly, turning to look at the psychic paper in greater detail. “Dughall,” Mòrag turned to him with an unimpressed, disgusted stare. “Are you stupid?”
Dughall began spluttering and stuttering indignantly, his face turning the shade of a turnip. “Wha- Special Inquisitor- why would you say such a-!?”
“This paper,” She hissed, holding it up demonstratively. “Is blank.”
“What!?” Nia screeched, rounding on the Doctor.
“Ah,” The Time Lord blanched. “Nia, there may have been a slight oversight in my genius plan. Just a little brain fart.”
Nia glared at him. “What kind of ‘oversight?’”
“Psychic paper doesn’t work on the very clever.”
“Oh, you-“ Nia growled.
“Never mind that,” The Doctor spun around, prepared to run, before he spotted the soldier standing there. “Ah.”
“What’s the hurry, Doctor?” Mòrag inquired with a light, conversational tone. “It’s funny – I recall a few of the men talking about this mysterious Doctor who seemed able to manipulate Core Crystals, and now I finally get to meet him.” She looked at Nia, next. “And his accomplice. ‘Mio’ isn’t your real name, is it? Don’t answer that, I know it isn’t.” She cleared her throat. “Doctor, ‘Mio,’ while you’re here, I’ll go ahead and take the time to ask you a few questions. Why don’t you make yourselves comfortable?”
Nia turned to the Doctor, slowly. “Doctor, what did-“
The Doctor sighed. “I know, I know. You told me so.”
-------------
“So, how much trouble are we in?” The Doctor asked of Nia under his breath.
She double-took at him. “How should I know!?”
“I’m an alien – I’m not up-to-date on the local civil codes!” The Doctor replied just-as-quietly.
Nia gnashed her teeth, twisting and rolling her arms, trying to break the cuffs that were chaining her arms behind a chair. “What kind of rubbish traveler goes somewhere and doesn’t read up on the rules?”
“I do, I’m the sort of rubbish traveler that does that,” The Doctor hissed back at her, in cuffs as well. The chairs had been put back-to-back, the Doctor’s tweed coat had been taken off him, for the express purpose of being searched through.
“So this shouldn’t be too strange for you,” Nia snapped. “I bet this has happened to you loads.”
“Don’t be daft, of course it hasn’t!” The Doctor raised his voice indignantly. “I’m a perfectly-well-behaved tourist.” Nia went silent, and he could feel her skeptical gaze on him. “Well… I was locked up by the Nazis for defacing a portrait of their leader. And I got thrown into Guantanamo – wrong place at the wrong time, you see. And I did twenty years in a Martian stockade for tax evasion-“
“Doctor,” Nia hissed, breathing heavily. “Please, shut up.” She steadied her breathing. “Is all that prison time going to help us break out?”
The Doctor turned around. “I thought you wanted me to shut up?”
She hissed at him, once more.
The Doctor disarmingly smiled. “Look, it’s fine! Dromarch said he was following at a distance in case something like this happened! He’s probably working out a way to break us out right now.”
“He’s taking his time.”
“Don’t worry,” The Doctor turned to watch as Mòrag began to rifle through his pockets, pulling things out. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
They watched as Mòrag’s face twitched somewhat triumphantly, before she yanked her hand out, clutched within it-
Nia burst out laughing. “Is that a rubber duck!?”
The Doctor scowled defensively. “His name is Bongjo and he’s my bath buddy.”
Mòrag rolled her eyes and tossed it aside. “Next.” She reached in again, withdrawing a large, colorful yo-yo.
Nia turned to him silently, cocking an eyebrow.
“I keep it for emergencies,” The Doctor huffed. “You never know when you need a good yo.”
Mòrag sighed, tossing the yo-yo onto the desk. She plunged her hand back in, producing a potato, a slinky, and a half-eaten bag of jelly babies.
“Hey, hands off!” The Doctor snarled defensively. “That bag of Jelly Babies is the only bag in the universe with all yellows! Do you know how hard it is to get yellow Jelly Babies? Alvis eats them all!” Then, he just as suddenly blinked. “Wait, I don’t know anybody named Alvis. Though, that would explain why I have Jelly Babies filed away in the ‘A’ section…” Mòrag and Nia stared at him. “Ignore me, I’m gobbing.”
“What’s the potato for?” Nia quietly probed.
“You’ve never made a potato battery before?” The Doctor scoffed. “Education on this planet, honestly…”
Mòrag’s eye twitched as she fished deeper. Out came an ornate teacup, a cricket ball, and a coil of piano wire.
“Making tea, are we?” Mòrag’s voice dripped with disbelief.
“That was a gift from Her Majesty, the Queen of England.” The Doctor paused for a moment, mulling it over. “I say gift… she threw it at me.” He glanced at Nia again. “That counts as a gift, doesn’t it?”
Mòrag was undeterred. Her hand disappeared again, and this time, she took a longer, more conceited examination.
“Doctor,” Nia whispered. “You still had those Crystals on you, didn’t you?”
“Yep.” The Doctor brightly answered.
“So, what if she finds them?”
“She won’t,” The Time Lord snorted. “She hasn’t even worked her way into the ‘B’s yet.”
Mòrag grunted as she yanked her hand out.
The woman nursed it with wide, angry eyes, that she turned onto the Doctor. “Is there something living in there!?”
“Just a little bit of live currency,” The Doctor chuckled. “Don’t worry, they’re not harmful, just friendly.”
Mòrag turned back to the jacket with wary eyes, before delving inside yet again. When she pulled her hand out, she took with it with it…
“A… hat?” Mòrag deadpanned.
The Doctor’s eyes lit up. “My fez! I’ve been looking for that!” He moved, before realizing he was restrained, and he slumped. “Fezzes are cool.”
“…that thing?” Nia skeptically drawled, turning a frank look onto Brighid. “Please do it. Please lock him up.”
“Oi! Don’t diss the Fez! Fezzes are, and always will be, cool. They have whole songs written about them! ‘Never gonna do it without the fez on…’” The Doctor blinked, trailing off. “No? No taste, the lot of you.”
Mòrag sighed and reached back in, determined. She pulled out her hand, taking out a handle, and a rod, and she kept pulling… and pulling… and pulling…
An entire fishing rod was held in Mòrag’s hand.
The room fell silent.
“…I can explain.”
Nia’s eyes widened, her laughter dying into stunned awe. “Where… where was that even fitting?”
“Clever pockets.” The Doctor explained easily. “They’re bigger on the inside.”
Mòrag held the fishing rod up, staring at it like it might explain itself. “You’re carrying a fishing rod… in your coat.”
“Very useful!” The Doctor said. “Haven’t figured out how useful yet, but it might come up one of these days, you never know.
Mòrag shook her head in disbelief. She dug in again, her hand disappearing deep into the seemingly endless pocket.
“She’s still going,” Nia blinked in disbelief. “Doctor, how much shite do you have in your pockets?”
“Two-thousand-years worth of it, at least.” The Doctor shrugged.
“We’re gonna be here forever…” Nia groaned.
“I’m sorry – next time we get held up at a place we’re visiting, I’ll make sure to disconnect my pockets before they swipe my clothes.” The Doctor rolled his eyes.
“Hello…” Mòrag suddenly drawled, taking out a slip of paper, examining it. “What’s this?” She flipped it around, showing off a list of names with addresses listed next to them.
“Ah, that’s my list for deliveries!” The Doctor answered. “Got a job with Albedo, the chef. Ask her, she’ll tell you.” Still, as she showed it off, he couldn’t help but feel that… pull. The pull that was insistent, usually, in reminding him that there was some big, get-out, mondo-important detail he was missing.
Vess’s name jumped out to him like a sore thumb. They ran into her in the market, so it hadn’t been crossed out on the delivery list.
The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed as a soldier walked past outside, from one end of the window to another.
Then, it clicked, and blessed clarity came with it.
“Nia…” The Doctor stared, almost distant. “We need to get out of here, right now. I made a big, colossal mistake, and I’m sorry, but you’re right, we shouldn’t have come here.”
Nia frowned at him, as Mòrag stashed the paper.
“What?” Nia whispered. “Why?”
“The soldier in the crowd – he wasn’t looking at the crime scene. Well, he was, but he wasn’t looking at the body.” The Doctor quickly explained. “He was looking at someone near the body. Vess.” He closed his eyes, and flopped back slightly. “She was right there, Core Crystal on full display, right next to a murderer who’d killed a man for his Core Crystal.”
“Vess?” Nia repeated.
“A lady I met in the market,” The Doctor shook his head. “We need to get out of here, now.”
“S-Staring at a person’s creepy, but it’s not exactly an admission of-“
“He’s a Core Crystal thief,” The Doctor reminded her. “Why else wouldn’t he look, unless it was to size up his prey? Think about it. She was a Blade, on her own, operating autonomously, and even then, her Driver is old – not old enough to leave the house.” He paled. “If Vess isn’t the next target of theft, then she will be.”
“Shit,” Nia hissed. “Well then, what do we do? We’re handcuffed.”
“About that,” The Doctor looked around. Brighid approached Mòrag, and the two were intently looking over the list. Dughall was… who knows where Mòrag had sent him to get him out of her hair. And the soldier was outside, keeping guard. He held up his arms, hands completely free, and wiggled his fingers.
“Wha-!?” Nia began to bellow, stifling the noise. The Doctor quickly snapped his hands back into place, as Mòrag and Brighid glanced over, before turning back to perusing the list. “You’ve been free this whole time!?”
“If I told you my people has this latent genetic ability to manipulate timelines in subtle ways, and I used it to swap the handcuffs with a version from an alternate timeline where my wrists have a greater diameter, allowing me to slip my hands through them, would you believe me?”
“No.”
“Good, because that was rubbish.” The Doctor shook his head. “The real explanation is that handcuffs hate being stuck around us just as much as we hate being stuck in them. Hold still.”
Nia felt the Doctor’s hands moving, brushing against hers, tugging and yanking them around as he did… something to them. Then, the release, and Nia was able to move her hands.
“How-“
“A lot of simple security devices have even simpler security flaws – you can hold onto a padlock, hit it with your hand, and it’ll just fall open.” The Doctor quickly explained. “And I spent a hot summer with Harry Houdini – he and his wife fancied me.”
“That’s great,” Nia replied under her breath. “But how are we going to get out!?”
The Doctor looked over. “Dromarch’s nearby? Can you feel him?”
Nia settled for a moment. “I think so? That’s not how affinity links work. I don’t get a sixth ‘Dromarch-sense.’”
“Yeah, that wasn’t a rhetorical.” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Think he’ll be able to hear you?”
“Probably? If I shout loud enough.”
“Well, shout loud enough.” The Doctor retorted. “Now, I’m about to do something incredibly stupid that might get us both killed, when I do, I need you to call Dromarch.”
“What?” Nia slowly turned to look at him.
“This.” Then, the Doctor just got up, and ran over to the table. Mòrag and Brighid jumped back, as the Doctor grabbed his jacket and threw it back on, brandishing the Sonic Screwdriver. “Ah! Sorry! I was just getting a little chilly.”
Brighid took a step, and the Doctor’s hand flew, knocking the cricket ball clear off the table and across the room. It hit the door, imparting enough of its energy to force the thing to swing closed with a click. With a press of the Screwdriver’s activator, the lock clicked into place.
“There we go, that’s better.” The Doctor chuckled. “Wouldn’t want anybody walking in on us, now, would we?”
“Doctor,” Mòrag sternly growled, as her hands went to the two swords on her person. “Stand down.”
“Yes, of course, I should, you have me completely and hopelessly cornered.” The Doctor nodded rapidly. “But she’s a fire Blade – any combat application of her abilities will be limited by the fact we’re in an enclosed space and they’ll lead to an incredibly painful death for all of us. Plus, the fact that you’d be destroying something you needed.”
Mòrag glowered at the Time Lord. “What makes you so certain?”
“Well, it seems to me the fact that I was just a bit of an opportunistic catch.” The Doctor shrugged. “You were here for something else – I don’t know what, but, here’s hoping you find it. Unless it’s something for you to lock me away with, in which case, I hope you don’t.”
“You’re right,” Mòrag nodded. “Brighid would be of little application at the moment.” Mòrag then drew her swords. “Fortunately, she is my partner, and not my crutch.” She swung, and the Doctor jumped back, feeling the buzzing air from the swipe.
“Doctor!” Nia lifted her hand, and the twin rings associated with Dromarch engaged. She jumped in front of him, matching Mòrag blow-for-blow.
Mòrag faltered in surprise for a moment, before she pressed the attack, her movements disciplined and relentless, befitting a woman of her station. Nia, nimble, smaller, and unpredictable, dodged and weaved.
The clash of weapons echoed through the room, punctuated by sharp breaths and the scrape of steel.
The Doctor spotted motion out of the corner of his eye, and a white blur charged up to the window, knocking down the soldier standing guard outside as he slammed into it.
“Right, that’s us!” The Doctor pointed the Sonic at the window, and pressed the button. The glass shattered, falling away, and he grabbed Nia by the shoulder, pulling her out with him.
Mòrag looked up, ready to jump out afterward, before a blast of water ether sent her down.
“My lady,” Dromarch rumbled. “Are you hurt?”
“No – but you sure took your sweet time!” Nia hopped onto his back.
Brighid lifted her hands, before another burst of water ether Dromarch snuffed out the flame.
“I confess, I’d been waiting to sense the affinity link activate before rushing in.” Dromarch cleared his throat, letting out a grunt as the Doctor jumped up as well.
“Ride like the wind, Dromarch!” The Time Lord compelled.
“I beg your-“
“Just do it – I’m not going back to jail!” Nia hissed at her Blade.
Dromarch nodded, and took off, the Doctor and Nia holding on.
A moment later, Mòrag jumped through the busted window, only to see the rapidly-shrinking figures disappear into the streets of Torigoth.
The Special Inquisitor steeled her face, sheathed her swords, and brushed a bit of glass off her coat.
“Lady Mòrag, I’m sorry,” Brighid began, before Mòrag held up her hand.
“Hardly your fault. He was right about it being an enclosed space.” Mòrag frowned. Silence reigned in the air as she thought things over for a second. “Come. If the Consul hasn’t been alerted now, he soon will be.” She turned back around to the office.
A breakout – the perfect excuse to ransack the place for what she needed, with Dughall none-the-wiser.
And if her hunch was right, and the Doctor was involved, she’d find evidence of that very, very soon.
Chapter Text
“I remember the original [Easter]. Which, between you and me, what really happened is-” -The Tenth Doctor, 2008.
The Time Vortex was always curiously quiet. Despite the cyclonic flows of energy, ravaging and chaotic in its own way, inside the safe zone of a TARDIS, it felt strangely gentle. The weak lapping of waves gently rocking a boat, compared to a raging hurricane.
Back in the early days, he’d never thought he’d get used to it. Despite the urge – the instinct – to run away from Gallifrey, there were just some things too strange even for his adventurous mind to grow accustomed to.
Or, he thought.
Now, the ambient thrumming of the generators was a feeling he found he couldn’t live without. Didn’t want to live without it. As far away from Gallifrey as he was, it was a suitable replacement for the comforts of home.
The Doctor sat in a battered armchair — a relic from some forgotten time — his eyes focused through spectacles on the book in front of him; House of Leaves. He sat it down for a moment to take a sip from a half-empty cup of tea, before he returned to his book.
The Great Houses of Gallifrey were far more lively than the house in the book, but still, it reminded the Doctor of home. Really, in a bit of an unwelcome way. The amount of times he’d get lost in Lungbarrow as a child...
In this rare moment of solitude, he allowed himself to be. No scheming, no plotting, no universe-encompassing threats, and no friends to be caught in the crossfire.
Then, the TARDIS lurched violently, and he was snapped out of his reverie. The cup slipped off the table, shattering on the smooth white floor as alarms blared from the console. The central column flared bright, as the Time Rotor warbled in protest.
“Oh, what now?” The Doctor sprang to his feet, moving to the console with practiced urgency. His fingers danced over the controls, eyes scanning the flashing readouts.
The scanner screen flickered to life, displaying a torrent of data.
“Temporal turbulence… localized… Earth?” His brow furrowed, the readings making little sense. “Energy signatures — no, that can’t be right. Plasma weapons? Teleport signatures? In that century?”
He tapped the screen, as if it might change the answer.
The Doctor reached under the TARDIS console, pulling out what appeared to be a footlocker. The symlink to the library was strong, however, and as he opened it up, he pulled out an ancient, leatherbound book. He opened it up, and found it empty – the yellowed pages devoid of all ink, the physical matter upon which the ideas had been printed now merely a footprint. An after-image, from the never-was.
The Doctor’s voice grew softer, more serious. “Oh, someone’s been up to no good.”
He threw the book back into the footlocker and kicked it back under the console, pacing around the control console and punching in commands into the vast sea of keys covering the panels.
He traced the signal, the TARDIS obediently following it back to the source without hesitation or deviation. The destination locked in, the materialization codes flowed in massive blocks on one of the many screens, and the landing procedure initiated.
He flicked on the external scanner, and watched, his eyes darkening as he processed the surroundings, and the one possible reason why a bunch of plasma-toting maniacs would come back here.
He grabbed his hat off the console, moved to grab his umbrella, then slinked off deeper into the TARDIS. He had some other things to procure, first. Would he wouldn’t give for Ace and her Nitro-9…
----------
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS into the cold, winter air. The frigid, lethal darkness of a desert in winter started nipping at his face, but he remained standing. It was still quite early in the morning, well out from when the TARDIS said the disturbance had occurred.
The small village lay quiet, its stone and mud-brick structures huddled close together, barely illuminated by flickering torches.
The Doctor looked up, spotting a bright, glowing point in the sky – brighter than Polaris, burning in the night. No star he’d seen written in star charts drawn from Earth.
He adjusted his hat, pulling his duffle coat tighter around him.
He began to walk, umbrella in one hand, gladstone bag in the other.
----------
The Doctor pushed open the heavy wooden door of the inn, the hinges creaking in protest. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of smoke and cooked grain, mingling with the earthy aroma of damp wool. A few patrons huddled in corners, muttering quietly, their eyes flicking up only briefly to assess the newcomer.
At the far end of the room, a stout man with a wiry beard wiped a wooden mug with a cloth, his gaze never leaving the Doctor. The innkeeper.
The Doctor approached, his footsteps soft on the dirt floor. He offered a small, polite smile, tilting his hat.
“Good evening,” He said, voice smooth and measured. “I’d like a room.”
The innkeeper’s eyes narrowed, his hands still working the cloth over the mug. “We’re full,” he grunted, voice rough like gravel.
The Doctor leaned on the counter, his smile widening slightly. “Really? That’s incredible. It’s still quite early in the morning. I assume one of these fine folks is bound to check out, soon.” He gestured around the sparsely populated room, where only a few locals sat, nursing drinks.
The innkeeper’s lips twitched. “Times are busy. Lots of travelers.”
“Ah, yes,” the Doctor said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “The census is around this time of year, isn’t it? That’s the government for you…” The Doctor pulled a small, intricately minted coin from his coat pocket, placing it on the counter. The metal glinted under the flickering lamplight. “I want a quiet room.” The Doctor’s eyes twinkled, but there was an edge to his voice now. “No other guests. No questions asked.”
The innkeeper studied him, suspicion mingling with curiosity. Finally, he nodded, tucking the coin away. “Up the stairs. Last door on the right.”
The Doctor inclined his head. “Thank you. Oh, and one more thing—” The Time Lord dropped his voice to a near whisper. “Just a word of advice: If you hear strange noises tonight, don’t investigate.”
The innkeeper frowned, but something in the Doctor’s tone made him shiver. “What do you mean?”
The Doctor put on his smile again. “I’m a Doctor.” He tipped his hat. Then, without another word, he turned and headed up the stairs, leaving the innkeeper clutching the coin.
-------------
The room was sparse — a simple bed, a window overlooking the village, a faint scent of hay and earth. That was fine; he wasn’t there to sleep, anyhow.
He jammed his umbrella in front of the door, locking it tight, before moving to the window. From this vantage point, he could see the whole village spread before him. Shadows flickered, the night holding its breath.
The Doctor popped open his gladstone bag, and pulled out a large, lunchbox-sized device from the bigger-on-the-inside bag, along with a pair of binoculars.
He walked over to the window, stuck his head out, and pointed his binoculars up, focusing dead-on at the anomalous star.
“’The star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was...’” The Doctor murmured to himself. He twisted the focus on top, and the lenses zoomed in even further. The glare was now blinding, the lenses polarizing to compensate, cutting through the glow.
Hovering high in the sky, like a giant, metal bird, was a sleek, silver spacecraft. It was long and bulbous, like a whale dredged up from the bottom of the sea, with a main fuselage supported over a thin ring. Mounting points for plasma lances, protonic torpedoes, and laser cannons decorated the ring like rivets. The source of the glow – the origin of the unnatural star – was a single engine module that had seen better days, bleeding light and radiation out like a tanker losing oil.
The Doctor's voice was a whisper, “Problems with your engines?”
His scanner dinged, lighting up an electric blue – confirming the presence of Artron Energy.
“Time travelers.” The Time Lord sighed, shaking his head, as he withdrew back into the room. He checked his watch. Sixteen hours to set up defences for plasma blasters – that was easy.
One thing was for certain – he had work to do.
---------
The Doctor set about wiring up his stage. It was something he could almost savor—outplanning the schemes of evil. The quiet thrill of it lit up his mind – having every detail clicking into place like gears into a watch before starting it up, and watching it move.
That was his strength. The worst trait of the Time Lords was their obsession with absolutes. Either they were completely involved, micromanaging, or not involved at all. The Doctor, though, had long grown accustomed to placing things in the locations he desired, then letting it happen.
He often made a show of stumbling in, pretending to cobble his plans together in a whirlwind of improvisation against foes unaware that their very movements had been decided long before they had any idea they were even fighting anybody. It was part of the performance. But this time — this rare and precious time — the enormous time-boom he had followed ahead afforded him something far sweeter: preparation.
He knelt in a dusty corner of the room he had booked, holding a bundle of wires in one hand and a luminous crystal in the other. With a flourish, he flicked the sonic screwdriver, and the wires snapped into place as though eager to obey.
"There we are," The Time Lord muttered to himself, grabbing and fiddling with the crystal. "That should give them something to think about." He placed it carefully beneath the floorboards, sliding a piece of furniture back over it.
As he climbed down back into the common room, the Doctor’s mind whirred with possibilities, each one tumbling over the next like a cascade of dominos. As he stepped outside into the winter cold, he crossed the distance to the barn, and shut the door behind him.
He rummaged through his pockets, producing a small bundle of junk. Half-melted alien circuits, a TARDIS key, what might have once been a kitchen timer, and a battery. Welding them all together, he slipped the resulting creation into his hat, and waved his hands in front of the animals, snapping his fingers.
No reaction.
The Doctor frowned, and stepped back out, moving back towards the inn, the door creaking shut behind him. The traps lay in wait, and the Doctor savored the quiet anticipation of a game well-prepared.
---------------
Time Lords were creatures of duality – and once he had finished his trap-making, his mode had swapped. While mere moments ago a cunning schemer had wandered the halls, now-
“Again, again!” A little girl ordered with a grin.
“Really?” He theatrically asked. “You’re sure?”
She nodded quickly, like clinging onto a lifeline.
“How can I say no?” The Doctor grinned, whipping his pair of spoons into his other hand, flying into motion smoothly. This time, a little bit of sleight-of-hand propelled one of the spoons up into his sleeve, unseen by the little eyes. He made a show of looking confused, turning around and looking for the spoon, before he pulled off his hat and pulled out a yard of colourful streamers, a bouquet of flowers, and, finally, his wayward spoon.
The children burst out in delighted cheers, and the Doctor’s hearts ached. Part of him longed for Gallifrey still. Longed for the days before he was a dangerous Renegade. When he was a father and a grandfather surrounded by his family.
He could never go back to those days. Not now. Not with what he was. The convict tattoo on his forearm had been removed from the visual spectrum, but the biodata was still there. He was no longer in active exile, but the brand still remained to remind people of his crime. He could no longer be the beloved patriarch of his family – only an exile serving as a pox on their name.
(Whenever he wanders past Susan’s room on the TARDIS, he stops, and wonders. He’s passed the halfway mark – more than enough time to make good on his promise. She’d understand. She always understood. That was why she left Gallifrey with him to begin with.
He always walks through those spots in the corridors quicker than usual.)
How could any lifeform – a sentient being – plot to take the life of such a tiny, precious creature? Cybermen were desperate, Daleks were just hateful, but he had no clue who he was facing at the moment. Honestly, he didn’t know if he cared to know.
Assassinating a child. A newborn.
He would not abide that.
The Doctor finished up his act for a moment, and took a bow, as the crowd gave him a cheer.
The inn was bustling more than was in years, all because of the census. The evening had barely begun, and already the space was filled with the clamor of arriving guests. Cloaks dripping rain onto the floorboards, voices raised in bartering for better rates, and the occasional clunk of a heavy trunk dragged across the threshold disturbed the crowd.
He watched it all as only a court jester could – beneath all suspicion as he played the buffoon. His eyes flicked from one face to the next, cataloging details: a merchant, two traveling musicians, a woman in a heavy hood that she refused to lower even in the warmth of the firelight. A family of four squeezed into a table too small for them, the youngest already asleep on her father’s shoulder.
The Doctor sipped from a chipped mug of tea — lukewarm by now — and let his thoughts wander. A packed inn was a perfect excuse for someone to hide. A census was the perfect excuse for an assassin to slip into town and out. Somewhere, an unseen hunter waited to pounce, and the hour was fast-approaching.
A loud protest drew his attention to the bar.
“What do you mean, no rooms left?”
A wiry man with a long, sun-reddened face was leaning heavily on the counter, glaring at the innkeeper as if sheer indignation might conjure a bed out of thin air.
“Just what I said,” The innkeeper replied, gesturing for the man to calm down. “Every room’s full.”
“This is preposterous!” The man huffed angrily. “I am a favorite of Caesar – here on official business – and you can’t get me a room? Clear out some of the rabble!”
The innkeeper stared at the man. “Those ‘rabble’ are paying guests. But we do have a barn. You’ll find it very comfortable, seeing as you’re behaving like the current residents.”
The man spluttered. “A barn? Are you insane!? You will be hearing about this later, I assure you!” The man gave him a withering look before storming out, muttering about the indignity of it all.
And so the evening went. The inn filled to bursting, every chair at every table occupied. The last room was taken just a few moments ago, though guests still kept coming through.
The Doctor, for his part, remained rooted in his corner, observing even as the children continued pestering him for entertainment.
But no assassin. Not yet..
The Doctor didn’t get up when the innkeeper’s wife announced supper, though he nodded his thanks as she slid a bowl of stew in front of him. He stirred it idly, letting the scent waft up to him. Comfort food, the sort that clung to your ribs. Perfect for a chilly night like this.
As the hours passed, the inn settled into a low hum of conversation and the occasional clink of cutlery. A few travelers had already retired to their rooms, their footsteps overhead faint but persistent reminders of the building’s age. Outside, the rain had eased to a gentle patter, the kind that could lull you to sleep if you weren’t careful.
The Doctor didn’t sleep, of course. Couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t need to. He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, and scanned the room again. The hooded woman was gone. So were the musicians.
He set his mug down and stood, stretching as though bored, before slipping out into the hallway. The innkeeper shot him a curious look, but the Doctor waved him off with a quick “just stretching my legs.”
In truth, he was circling the stage. A quick round of the inn, back up into his room where he set his trap and his scanner. A green lamp was flashing on the lunchbox, and a metallic tang in the air assaulted the Doctor’s senses. Teleport residue.
Oh, things were getting very, very close.
The Doctor returned to the inn’s common area, and took his perched back on the edge of his chosen chair, his gaze drifting toward the door as another gust of cold air swept through the inn. The fire crackled in the hearth, the low murmur of conversation punctuated now and then by a laugh or the scrape of a chair against the floorboards.
He sat there, with his fingers steepled, contemplating exactly who it was he faced. They were time travelers, certainly. But who? Were they humans, come to fix things they didn’t like? Aliens, come to fix things they didn’t like?
And then the door burst open.
The noise startled the room into silence. A man stood in the doorway, clutching his cloak tight against the wind, his face pale and drawn. Behind him, a woman leaned heavily against the frame, her breath coming in short, labored gasps. They weren’t that old – late teenagers, really – but both looked haggard, and desperate. The girl especially.
The Doctor’s eyes widened. Oh. Oh dear. He knew that look. He used to have nightmares about that look.
His first wife got mean when she went into labor.
The man stepped inside, his voice rough with desperation. “Please. We need a room. My wife—she’s…” He faltered, looking back at her.
The innkeeper rose slowly from his seat. “We’re full up,” He said, not unkindly. “There’s no space here. Not for…” He cleared his throat politely. “What it is you need to do.”
“There has to be,” the man insisted. “Please, she’s… she’s about to…”
The woman let out a sharp cry, doubling over, and the Doctor was on his feet in an instant, weaving through the crowded room to reach her side.
“Now, now,” He murmured, gently encouraging her. “Breathe in, count to five, let it out slowly. Slow breaths, as slow as you can manage.” She looked at him, obeying his instructions, managing her breathing. The Doctor turned to the man she had entered with. “You’re the husband – oh, what am I saying? Of course you are, you just said it. Definitely not ideal timing.” He shot a glance over to the man. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Y-Yosef.”
“Yosef, pleasant to meet you.” The Doctor nodded, and turned to his wife. “And you, miss, you would be?”
She shot him a pleading look. “Miriam.”
“Excellent,” The Doctor smiled. “Miriam, Yosef – I’m the Doctor.
“A Doctor!?” Yosef let out a sigh of palpable relief. “Thank goodness. We came here for the census, and – blast it, he’s early!”
The Doctor chuckled. “Such is the way with children, hmm? Better get used to it, young man – they make things run on their schedule, not the other-way-round.” He rolled the r as he lightly poked Yosef with his umbrella.
“Yosef,” Miriam grunted. “Please…”
“Oh dear, you’re right.” The Doctor answered for her husband. “Not to worry, I have a room, here. It’s right upstairs.”
Miriam took one look at the steps proceeding up, and blanched. “I… I don’t think… I can make that.”
“We came all this way,” Yosef turned to his wife. “I can carry-“
“Now, now,” The Doctor stamped his umbrella on the floor. He knew how this thing went. It could’ve been apocryphal, maybe not. Best not take the risk. “There’re other options.” In any case, he knew where the assassin was going to be aiming at. And where they were going to be aiming from. The Doctor turned his attention to the innkeeper, his tone taking on an edge of urgency. “We’ll need to use the barn.”
The innkeeper hesitated, his lips pressing into a thin line. “The barn’s for the animals, not people. It’s—”
“Exactly what we need,” The Doctor interrupted. “Animals are warm, and it’s got a roof, hasn’t it? Walls? Maybe even a bit of hay? That’ll do nicely.”
“I can’t—”
The Doctor stepped closer, his voice dropping low enough that only the innkeeper could hear. “Look, I know it’s not ideal. But out there?” He nodded toward the door. “It’s freezing, and she’s about to have a baby. Do you really want that on your conscience? Think about it – the screaming of a newborn won’t disturb your other guests, and you get to say your inn has the ultimate in hospitality services.”
The innkeeper glanced between the Doctor, Yosef, and Miriam, whose grip on the doorframe was visibly weakening. Finally, with a resigned sigh, he muttered. “All right.”
The Doctor grinned. “Good man.” He pointed to the door. “Get them into that barn – stack up hay, spare bedding, anything and everything you need to make her comfortable. I have to go upstairs and retrieve my tools. It’ll be but a moment.”
Yosef looked ready to collapse with relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” The Doctor said. “I haven’t done a thing! Back with you in a moment.” He tipped his hat, then was off.
The Doctor strutted up the creaking stairs, a man on a mission, his umbrella tucked under his arm like a soldier wielding a lance. The grin he’d worn downstairs faded as he reached the door to his rented room. It wasn’t locked — of course, it wasn’t. The assassin wouldn’t waste precious seconds fumbling with putting locks back while trying to get into position.
He pushed the door open with calculated nonchalance, leaning casually on the frame as his sharp eyes took in the scene.
There, silhouetted against the window, was the woman in the hood. At least, that’s what they’d pretended to be downstairs. Now, their true nature was all too clear. The long, sleek plasma rifle rested on its tripod, the emitter pulsing faintly as it calibrated its aim. The assassin, cloaked in black, adjusted the sight, completely focused on the barn below.
The Doctor cleared his throat.
“In all my infinite years,” He said conversationally, twirling his umbrella. “I’ve never stopped running into people who think they can solve their problems from behind the barrel of a gun. I wish I would stop – they only ever seem to cause as many problems as they solve, if not more. Especially plasma weaponry like that: I was able to detect it from halfway across this solar system, you know.”
The assassin froze, their head snapping around to face him. Their expression - a mix of surprise and fury — might’ve been comical, if not for the fact it was being produced by an arrangement of muscles generated by a cheap shimmer, like a living wax figure.
“Human!” They snarled, spinning around to point the gun at him.
“Yes, that’s it…” The Doctor drawled quietly, stepping inside and letting the door swing shut behind him. “Point the gun at me.”
The assassin sneered, jerking the weapon and pulling the trigger. A click came from the weapon – the sound of electrical coils being discharged, as the weapon spat out little puffs of glowing gas that dissipated in the air.
The assassin’s features shimmered – literally – extrusions rippling like quills before settling.
“What is the meaning of this!?” The assassin spluttered.
“That is a malfunctioning plasma rifle,” The Doctor stated, before humming. “Although… I suppose you could have meant the counter-magnetic field being generated around this inn which is causing the malfunction? Yes – it’s interfering with the system of magnetic coils responsible for shaping the projectile that weapon of yours is firing.”
The assassin snarled, and lunged for the Doctor.
The Time Lord brought his arms up, using his umbrella to hold the alien at bay.
“You don’t speak like the rest of these primitives,” The assassin hissed. “Your knowledge is advanced… You must have followed me!”
“Broadly speaking, yes!” The Doctor grunted.
“Your kind will pay for what you have done to my people!”
“And it starts with a child, how noble.” The Doctor sarcastically retorted. He pulled back, the alien stumbling as they lost balance. They quickly regained it, lunging again for the Doctor, with the Time Lord throwing himself out of the way, causing the interloper to slam into the wall.
The assassin hissed again, its alien form shifting unnervingly as it lunged. The Doctor sidestepped, his umbrella spinning in his hands. The assassin’s eyes blazed in fury, as they hit a button on their bracelet, and finally let their disguise drop. The ‘pop!’ of the shimmer deactivating electrified the air, revealing the creature in full.
Her body was sleek and lithe, covered in taut, blue skin that shimmered faintly like wet plants. Thin, flexible spines jutted all across her face, each quill vibrating faintly, sharp tips glistening with a translucent sheen.
“Ah,” The Doctor smiled, “So, off comes the masquerade. And you would be…?”
The blue, spiky-faced woman let out a furious screech, as the spines twitched and went flying.
The Doctor moved like lightning, bringing his umbrella up and opening it – the fabric rippled in protest as the quills struck, and bounced off.
The Doctor let his umbrella drop, closing it up and nonchalantly leaning on it. “Genuine flutterwing silk. Resistant to most puncturing.”
“I don’t need to kill you.” The assassin rasped hatefully, taking a step.
The Doctor brandished his umbrella, leveling it threateningly at the interloper.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” The Doctor said, circling cautiously. “You’re here to kill an innocent child – an infant, mind you – and I won’t allow it. I don’t usually condone violence. But you’re leaving me with very little choice. You absolutely need to kill me.”
“My ship is in orbit directly above this squalid dump,” The assassin retorted. “It will beat the surface with fire until it is little more than a pit of glass.”
His eyes darted to the corner of the room, where the remnants of the broken chair lay scattered. One of the legs had splintered into a jagged point.
“So do it. You’re bothering with plasma rifles and playing about at being a saboteur when you could just vaporize everything,” The Doctor pointed out, focusing directly on the alien. “Except… you can’t, can you?” His neurons began to fire rapidly, the organic supercomputer that was his brain running through possibilities. “You’re here in the middle of nowhere – as you so succinctly put it, a ‘squalid dump’ – to kill a random human family. Why? The answer to that question is, of course, you know what he is. How could you not? You’re a time traveler. And as far as alterations to history go, there’s not really much bigger you can do than this? Why not go all the way? Blast Bethlehem of the face of the Earth! You can’t, can you? Those weapons on your ship up there are all for show!”
The would-be assassin faltered, staring at the Doctor. “You can’t possibly comprehend my reasons!”
“Ah – the ‘I don’t feel like explaining, so it’s your fault’ defence.” The Doctor drolly rolled his eyes. “But you understand, while we’ve been talking, you have no clue where they are, yes? Why, I bet they’re in the barn by now.”
“What!?” The assassin whipped around, throwing themselves over to the window and hurrying to pick the rifle back up.
The Doctor dashed over, wrenching it out of their grip.
“Despite my own personal opinion of organized religion, I can’t allow you to do this!” The Doctor grunted, fighting over the rifle with the assassin. “Killing younglings – newborns – is an abhorrent act in every civilization! Why do this?”
“Hope for my people!” The assassin growled. “Hope against the likes of you!”
“Hope is good – but hope built on causing suffering unto others isn’t hope; it’s evil!” The Doctor declared.
As he and the assassin struggled, the trigger of the rifle clicking and firing off impotent puffs of plasma, the Doctor knew he was getting no closer to getting the alien to stand down. Finally, an opportunity presented itself, and he lunged, his hand landing on the alien’s wrist-bracelet.
“Unhand me!” The alien ordered.
“I will – so long as you can guarantee you won’t try taking any lives!” The Doctor grunted, as his other hand went for the Sonic Screwdriver. The assassin tried to wrench themselves free, as the Doctor held the Screwdriver over the bracelet. “Can you guarantee me!?”
“The child will burn! As mine have burned!”
“Then I’m sorry, but I must stop you.” The Doctor held himself up. “This has a teleport built in, yes? Linked to that ship in orbit with weapons that can’t do anything?”
“Let go!” The assassin tried to take their other hand, and pull the Doctor’s off.
“Not to worry, this won’t hurt – it might destroy your teleport after you arrive, but that’s fair karma, don’t you think?” He rhetorically asked, pressing the Screwdriver to the bracelet. “Back to your ship, as the Doctor orders!” He pulled down on the activator ring, and the Sonic buzz filled the room, before the bracelet began to rapidly flash.
The Doctor let go, backing away from the alien.
“What!?” The assassin spluttered as a blue aura surrounded her. “No! NO! I will not be denied!” They screeched before vanishing away in a wave of blue light.
The Doctor stood there as the scream faded, and he lifted his hat, wiping beads of sweat off his brow with his handkerchief. A quick glance around the room proved there were no nasty surprises lying in wait, and he moved quickly.
The Time Lord picked the fired spines off the ground, looking at them closely. Quite a few species across the universe could launch their spines at predators. He’d need to take it back to the TARDIS and run a full analysis.
The plasma rifle was the Doctor’s next target. He couldn’t see any company markings, but he did see a serial number. He shoved it down into his bigger-on-the-inside gladstone bag, and closed it up. He’d get back to the TARDIS and continue his investigation.
For now, he had a baby to deliver.
-------------
The Doctor crossed the yard from the inn to the barn just as snow began to fall. He pushed his way inside easily, shutting the door behind him. The place was warm and insulated – good. Not as warm as the inn would have been, but warm enough.
Yosef and the innkeeper had heeded his instructions. Good. He liked it when humans did that. Miriam lay propped on a pile of blankets and straw, her face pale but determined. Yosef knelt beside her, his hands trembling as he wiped her brow with a damp cloth.
The Doctor strode in, his gladstone bag in hand, his coat sweeping behind him like a cape. “Right, I’m here! Sorry about the wait, something unexpected popped up.” He declared, sitting his bag nearby. His sharp eyes quickly assessed the situation: Miriam was sweating, breathing heavily, and gripping Yosef’s hand with white-knuckled intensity.
As he popped the bag open and leaned his umbrella on a stand nearby, he glanced at the innkeeper. “Right, that’ll be all. Thank you, innkeeper, but I don’t expect the happy couple will feel comfortable with a total stranger witnessing such a private affair.”
The innkeeper nodded, but looked relieved. “Very well. If you need anything…”
“Don’t worry – I won’t.” The Doctor shooed the innkeeper away, pulling out a stethoscope. He carefully approached, looking down at the woman. He got to her level, patiently addressing her. “I’m going to check your heart and your breathing. Standard procedure, don’t worry, although it might feel a mite chilly.”
(There was a joke in there to be had about doctors and cold hands, considering his own body temperature was several degrees below the human norm. He didn’t make it.)
Yosef looked at the stethoscope, puzzled. “What is that?”
“Oh, it’s very simple. Ever put an empty glass up to a wall to listen to the sounds on the other side? Same basic principle.” The Doctor pressed the stethoscope to Miriam’s back. “Please keep your breathing steady.”
“That’s rather difficult.” The woman gave the Doctor an unimpressed look.
“I know, don’t worry. Just making the effort is good enough.” The Doctor responded, listening. “Yes, all seems normal.” Of course, the stethoscope he was using wasn’t a normal, human-built one, although the basic principle for what he was using it for was the same – her lungs sounded good, as well as her heart. If all remained as such, there’d be no chance of her passing out from lack of air, or heart-induced complications.
Yosef looked up, his face a mask of panic and gratitude. “Thank the stars.”
“No need to thank anyone just yet,” The Doctor replied briskly, kneeling beside Miriam. He opened his bag once more, and began pulling out tools and instruments, some of which looked like they belonged in an operating theatre and others that might have come from an alchemist’s workshop. “Have you been timing the contractions, hmm?”
“N-No?” Yosef looked confused.
Ah, right, that practice wouldn’t see widespread adoption for another few centuries. At least.
In any case, Miriam had a helpful answer. “They… they come quickly now. No rest.”
“Excellent! Well, not for you, what with the pain, but it is good news.” The Doctor smiled warmly, taking her hand. “You’re doing brilliantly, Miriam. Absolutely brilliantly. We’ll get your son into this world, safe and sound, in just a moment.” He turned to Yosef, thrusting a clean towel into his hands. “Right, you. Stay calm. Keep her comfortable. Will you faint?”
The young man looked at the Doctor, wide-eyed. “Faint?”
“It’s a common issue with new fathers, fainting during the birth.” The Doctor removed his hat, sitting it to the side as he looked up pensively. “Actually, they faint during the epidural, most commonly. It has to do with the human fear of needles and-“
Miriam let out another pained breath, as she tried to keep her breathing steady.
“-and it’s something I don’t have time for.” The Doctor finished, wiping his hands clean with some towelettes from his bag. “If you don’t think you’ll faint, I’ll need you to help catch the little one when the time comes. For now, go get me a basket, or a manger, or anything we can use as a substitute for a cot. Line it with some blankets.”
Yosef swallowed hard but nodded. “I’ll do my best.” And he moved quickly to fulfill the Doctor’s orders, practically ransacking the barn to find an empty trough.
“Good man,” The Doctor said, turning his attention back to Miriam. “You’re a lucky woman.” He adjusted her position gently, ensuring she was as comfortable as possible given the circumstances.
“Yes,” She agreed with a smile, before wincing. “Though, not that lucky. I thought- I thought I had more time.”
“Children do toy with what we’re expecting,” The Doctor wisely replied. “Though, it’s not uncommon for the stress of travel to cause labor. Especially in late-stage pregnancies.” He moved his arm quickly, offering her a little red ball. “Stress ball?”
The young woman looked up at him, curious.
“You squeeze it – it helps the stress. It’s quite fun, I assure you.”
Miriam watched it for a second, before taking it.
“Squeeze it when you feel a contraction – it’ll help you get your timing right.”
“T-Timing?” The woman gasped.
“You’ll want to push with the contraction – that’s why they’re there.” The barn fell quiet for a moment, save for the sound of Miriam’s labored breathing. The Doctor’s voice softened as he leaned closer. “Now, listen to me. I know this is frightening, and it will hurt more than anything you’ve ever experienced. But you are doing something remarkable – you are bringing new life into the world. You can do this.”
Her eyes met his, filled with pain but also a flicker of trust. She nodded weakly.
“Good,” He said, standing and rolling up his sleeves. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
-----------
Human births were disgustingly messy, long, and drawn-out affairs. There were horror stories of labors lasting days for the poor mother. Time Lord births were, in comparison, really rather boring affairs. Quick and painless.
The process lasted for around an hour – it was easy to talk someone through doing something in-theory, but in-practice it was a different story. In the end, though, it didn’t matter how long it took. The result was the same. One more life added into the world.
The barn was quiet now, save for the soft crackle of the lantern flame and the occasional coo from the newborn child. Miriam rested back on the makeshift bedding, her face pale but serene, a contented smile tugging at her lips. Yosef sat beside her, watching the infant cradled in her arms with awe, reverence, and disbelief. It was always the same out of first-time parents – the post-partum psychological reactions. boy.
The Doctor stood a few steps away. His sharp eyes darted between the couple and the stars visible through the cracks in the barn’s walls, an odd tension in his posture.
There was something comfortably cozy about the scene, though. Time Lords were always so detached – putting themselves above what they perceived as such base affairs.
The Doctor pushed off the beam, walking over to kneel beside Miriam. He checked her pulse with practiced ease, glancing briefly at her eyes before smiling reassuringly. “You’re fine, and so is he. Not bad for your first try, eh?”
Miriam chuckled weakly, looking down at the little one. “…he’s so… loud.” She whispered. In the relative stillness of the barn, even the tiny breaths sounded like thunder. Not to mention the wailing from mere minutes ago. Good god did the little guy have a set of lungs on him.
As if on cue, the baby let out a small cry, and the Doctor’s attention flicked to him. For a moment, his expression softened into something uncharacteristically tender. He crouched down beside Yosef and leaned in, his voice quiet.
“May I?”
Yosef hesitated, glancing at Miriam. At her slight nod, he carefully passed the child to the Doctor, his hands lingering a moment as if reluctant to let go.
The Doctor cradled the newborn with the old ease of a parent a thousand times over. The baby squirmed slightly, then settled, tiny fingers curling against the edge of the Doctor’s lapel.
“Well now, look at you,” The Doctor murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. His gaze, so often filled with endless curiosity or fiery determination, softened with a grandfatherly appreciation. He knew what lay ahead for the boy, if only through second-hand readings, but he never got so close as to interfere in his life.
He usually tried to stay out of the major religions. Tried to, except in cases where he blundered in without trying and got involved – like now. He idly wondered if, when he got back to the TARDIS, he’d open the index files to find that there would suddenly be tales of a mysterious physician present at the nativity.
“Doctor?”
He blinked, as if coming out of a trance, and offered a quick smile. “Sorry! Got lost in my own thoughts, as usual. Here you go — back to Mum.” He passed the baby to Miriam with the utmost care.
As she held him close, the Doctor stepped back.
“Yosef,” He said, his tone shifting to something more serious. “You’ll need to keep them safe. Both of them.”
Yosef straightened, his brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
The Doctor hesitated, glancing again at the baby. The face of the Interloper, vanishing, stuck out in his mind. “Let’s just say… people will be watching. Some with kindness in their hearts. Others, not so much. You’ll need to be ready for that.”
“Watching?” Miriam straightened up. “How do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing, just the ramblings of an old man. Worry? Why worry? It could be nothing.” The Doctor deflected, stepping back. The Time Lord smiled faintly, though his eyes remained distant. “Right. You’ve got everything under control now, and I’ve probably overstayed my welcome. Time I was off. Back to my room, and all. Come calling if you need me.” He tipped his hat, then, was out the door.
----------
After giving it a night to make sure the assassin didn’t try anything, the Doctor’s scanner remained, thankfully, silent, and the Time Lord felt comfortable returning to the TARDIS. A thin layer of snow coated the exterior shell, lit up by the ambient glow of the lamp and windows.
The Doctor unlocked the door, and stepped in, first through the wooden exterior doors, then through the inner swinging blast doors, back into the warm, thrumming console room.
“Wasn’t expecting to save Jesus from alien assassins from the future, old girl,” The Doctor commented as he placed his umbrella in the stand, and proceeded towards the console. He put the bag on the console, and popped it open, pulling out the plasma rifle before putting the gladstone bag away. “That’s just my life, such as it is.” He placed a pair of spectacles on his face. “Now, let’s see whom we’re dealing with, hmm?”
The Time Lord glanced at the serial number of the plasma weapon, and started punching it into the keyboard in front of one of the console’s many screens. A little icon displayed as the TARDIS worked to find the weapon’s origin.
A bell dinged happily as the information was brought up, and the Doctor skimmed it.
The weapon was a Villengard classic, originating from around the 51st century. Designed to completely obliterate organic matter. Flesh, blood, bone, all vaporized. No remains left to resuscitate any beings from.
Villengard’s standard procedure. Weapons manufactures took too great a pride in what they made, for the Doctor’s tastes.
With the gun sorted, the Doctor thinned his lips as he opened up a port on the console, and dropped the quills inside. The assassin had bore quite a resemblance to some members of the Vinvocci species – though the presence of hair on top of her head was unusual. And the skin color – Vinvocci were universally green. The assassin was blue.
As the TARDIS worked, the Doctor watched, and waited. A moment later came the return.
The Sovovocci – a close relative to the Vinvocci and Zocci, or the missing link between the two. The Time Lords’ Matrix and the associated files the TARDIS could access didn’t have much to say on them, though one line did stand out to the Doctor:
“Reclusive, sensual, and occupied with indulging in pleasures to the extent they might be considered hedonists.”
So why would one of them decide to assassinate a newborn baby?
To get the answer to that, the Doctor decided it would probably be easiest to just ask the woman.
The Doctor set the controls, locking onto the great, big, radiological beacon that was the starship’s engine module in orbit.
The Time Lord hit the button, and the Time Rotor thumped as the locking mechanisms released, and the engines wound up. The Time Rotor moved up and down, as the TARDIS began to dematerialize.
The engines ground as the Time Rotor rose and fell, the Doctor guiding his trusty craft through the short trip. Then, flashing in the corner of his eye caught his attention, as a light began to blink on the console.
The Doctor’s eyes popped open, before the TARDIS began to shake, and he gripped the console for dear life. Thankfully, nothing seemed to overload (this time) but the scanner was reporting a slip in the expected timing. The engine of that starship was putting out such energy that it was causing the TARDIS to slip off-course, time-wise.
As the engines wound to a halt, and the Time Rotor locked, the TARDIS settled.
“Now, now, old girl.” The Doctor encouraged. “I’ll deal with the mean Sovovocci, and you won’t have to deal with so much turbulence.” He grabbed his hat and umbrella, and opened the doors, stepping outside.
As the wooden doors shut behind him, the Doctor was floored by just how dilapidated everything appeared. The TARDIS had landed in a cargo bay that had seen much, much better days. The metal was all bent-up, scorched, and rusted in several spots from leaky conduits. Wires fell from the ceiling in loose bundles, hastily patched back together without even bothering to shove them back where they belonged.
The outside of the craft still looked new and fearsome, but the inside beguiled its true nature. God only knew where it came from, but wherever it had originated, it probably wasn’t up to facing much of anything.
The weapons on the outside, thus, were most likely just for show. That explained why the assassin didn’t just vaporize Bethlehem.
The Doctor began to proceed through the cargo bay, carefully stepping over the disjointed and missing floor panels. He made for a door on the other side of the room, past the crates haphazardly strewn about. There was even a loader bot standing by, deactivated.
The Doctor pulled open the door, stepping out into the corridor extending ahead.
It was in much of the same condition as the cargo bay – panels fallen off the walls, wires hanging, scorch-marks from battle damage. In fact, it looked like it had been outright deconstructed in some parts, the materials hauled elsewhere – probably to repair the ship.
More robots lingered in the corridor, deactivated.
The Doctor adjusted his hat and continued down the corridor, shoes clicking softly against the uneven metal floor. The air was stale and faintly acrid, carrying the scent of burning circuits and ancient metal.
He passed another deactivated robot, slumped against the wall, its limbs limp and lifeless. He hadn’t come into contact with the Sovovocci before, so he didn’t know enough to say if the robots were normal or not, let alone their state of inactivity.
“Not much for company, are you?” The Doctor muttered to the dormant droid, giving its chassis a tap with his umbrella. It clanged hollowly. The robot didn’t stir. “What kind of rubbish robots sit down for a powernap on the job? I had a robot dog that was more professional than you.” He muttered, turning to walk ahead.
He heard metallic groaning and whipped back around to see the robot’s head lazily falling to the side, as a result of the Doctor messing with it.
The Time Lord shook his head, and turned, moving on.
As he walked deeper into the ship, he noticed more signs of distress. Entire sections of the ceiling had caved in, exposing tangled masses of cables and conduits, as opposed to the small panels and bundles of wire that had fallen away. The occasional spark fizzled weakly, illuminating the darkness in brief, stuttering bursts. The walls bore deep scorch marks, and puddles of cooled metal nearby, solidified into the floor.
The Doctor knelt beside a fallen panel, his fingers brushing the edge. “Blimey,” He murmured, tracing the charred hole punched clean through the metal. “There have definitely been some cowboys in here.” A chunk of ruptured conduit was nearby. The Doctor held the busted metal up close to it, frowning. “Not weapons fire – a rupture in the life support conduits.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. The ship was beaten and battered, but internal weapons’ discharge wouldn’t have caused the damage he was seeing.
In his expert opinion, given the damage to the life-support conduits, the ship had probably been fired upon. The failing systems caused a chain reaction in the life-support conduits, igniting all those pressurized gasses and significantly damaging the ship.
But there was one big question: Where were the bodies?
He stood and pressed onward.
The next room was larger – a common area. A galley, barracks, or rec room of some kind. Consoles were lined up against the walls, their screens cracked or dead.
“Ah, just what the Doctor ordered.” The Doctor strode over to one of the consoles, giving his umbrella a twirl. “Let’s see what happened here.” He murmured, raising the Sonic Screwdriver to activate the terminal.
The Doctor felt a cold breeze go past him. The metal creaked and banged. A shiver went down his spine.
The ancient convict tattoo on his arm began to itch.
He turned around from the console, and turned his attention to the room. More deactivated robots were slumped here, their bodies were scorched, but none of them looked scrap, which was the curious part.
But no bodies.
The Doctor frowned, and turned back, as the console powered up. Code flickered by, before the screen went black, with flashing mauve text on the monitor.
“SYSTEM WARNING:” The flashing text read. “EMERGENCY LOCKOUT IN EFFECT. COMPUTER SYSTEMS PRIORITIZED FOR BRIDGE OPERATION ONLY.”
“Well, that’s not good.” The Doctor muttered. “Although, as safety procedures go, it is one of the more sane ones I’ve encountered.” In the event of catastrophic damage, you would want to prioritize the available resources to critical systems.
So, he had to find the bridge.
The Doctor spun about, and left the common area.
The deeper he delved, the worse the damage became. Some corridors were impassable, with collapsed beams blocking the way. Others seemed deliberately sealed, welded shut from the side he was on. If the Doctor had to guess, those sections of the ship were the ones that had suffered actual hull breaches. Beyond, they had probably been stripped out for resources to repair the exterior of the ship.
The Doctor took mental notes as he circled back and found alternative routes. So, the ship’s exterior had been repaired, probably from materials taken from the internal superstructure, all to make the ship seem more threatening than it actually was. And there wasn’t very many, if any, sentient crew about, as they tended to like their spaces to be clean and well-lit. If he could find the bridge, he could figure out what was going on.
The Doctor didn’t actually know where the bridge was – he was just wandering. Then, that turned out useful, more often than not. Wandering around, hoping he just arrived at where he wanted to be.
Eventually, the Doctor reached a door, adorned with a lit control panel. He had no idea if the bridge lay on the other side, but it appeared to be a control panel meant for secure access, so it was a critical area of some kind. He could probably get the needed system access from there.
The Doctor held the Screwdriver over the door, letting it do its work.
As he pondered, a low, mechanical hum filled the room. The Doctor froze, his Screwdriver gripped tightly in one hand. Turning slowly, he spotted movement in the shadows — one of the robots, its eyes glowing faintly, was twitching, and moving.
One of its giant metal hands moved, and it pulled itself up, turning and slowly stomping down the corridor.
“Well, hello there,” The Doctor said, stepping back, and hitting the door. The robot raised an appendage, and the faint whine of an energy weapon charging filled the air. The Doctor grinned, tipping his hat. “Care to explain what you’re guarding before you do something both of us will regret?”
The robot didn’t answer. It raised its weapon higher.
The Doctor’s grin faltered as the robot’s weapon began to glow, an ominous blue light building at its tip. It didn’t seem particularly interested in negotiations — or perhaps its programming didn’t allow for such pleasantries.
“All right, I’ll take that as a no.” The Doctor said, raising his Sonic Screwdriver. A twitch of his thumb pulled the ring around the emitter down, its high-pitched whirr resonating in the narrow corridor. The robot hesitated, its weapon flickering uncertainly.
“When dealing with a bit of runaway tech, what’s the first thing to do? Hit the ‘off’ switch!” the Doctor said, confidence returning.
The robot twitched violently, sparks flying from its joints. Its weapon arm drooped slightly, and for a moment, the Doctor thought he’d succeeded.
Then, with a sudden jolt, like a puppet being yanked back up, the robot straightened. Its eyes blazed brighter than before, and the weapon on its arm recharged with a menacing hum.
“Ah. That’s… not ideal,” The Doctor muttered, backing away. He adjusted the Screwdriver, its buzzing shifting to a sharper tone. “Let’s try a little harder, shall we?”
The robot surged forward, raising its weapon arm to strike. The Doctor ducked, rolling beneath its swing as the arm let out a blast of energy, and coming up on the other side.
“That’s not standard armament,” The Doctor noted, blinking rapidly. “That’s an arc welder!” He looked the robot’s torso up-and-down, taking note of the various implements folded neatly into place on the chest – screwdrivers, wire snips, and the like. “You’re an astromech! A repair droid! You’re not built to kill!”
The repair bot continued to stomp, head twitching, as it tried to turn the welder onto the Doctor again. The heavy, clumsy movement was easily dodged a second time.
“Although, it appears someone’s programmed you to do that anyway.” The Doctor commented.
With a swift motion, he turned the Screwdriver’s emitter to the control panel beside the door. The panel sparked, and the door hissed open.
“Don’t go anywhere!” He called to the robot as he darted through the opening.
The door slid shut behind him just as the robot fired, the bolt scorching the metal.
Inside, the Doctor found himself in what appeared to be a storage room, rows of shelves stacked with mechanical parts and supplies. He could hear the robot pounding on the other side of the door, its heavy footsteps retreating slightly—only to be joined by the faint clattering of others in the distance.
“Wonderful,” The Doctor sighed, glancing around. “I expected a critical system centre, and instead… it’s the contraband lockup.” Most of it was old, rotten food, it looked like – probably seized in its prime. All of it human crops. Nothing useful to him.
The storage room’s only other exit was a narrow maintenance hatch, barely large enough for him to squeeze through. He hurried toward it, wrenching it open and crawling inside.
The maintenance shaft was a claustrophobic maze of pipes and cables, lit only by the occasional flicker of failing lights. The Doctor wriggled through the tight space, the echo of robotic footsteps growing louder behind him.
“Let’s see, central computer,” He muttered, consulting his mental map of the ship. “Robot reactivated after a hit with the Sonic, so something elsewhere is controlling it. Cut the strings, and they all go limp, as what normally happens with puppets.”
A loud clang echoed through the shaft as one of the robots tore the hatch open behind him.
“Clever cogs,” The Doctor muttered, quickening his pace.
The cramped maintenance shaft was barely wide enough to crawl through, his elbows and knees scraping against cold, corrugated metal. Every movement felt agonizingly slow, the suffocating space pressing in on him like a snake eating a mouse.
A clang and whirring echoed from above, and the Doctor froze. The plating above him creaked with heavy, hydraulic, lead-filled footsteps, as what could only be the ship’s repair drones began to fill with activity.
The ship’s internal systems gave a sudden, ominous whine, followed by a sharp hiss of decompression that made his blood run cold. He froze, craning his neck to glance behind him, only to see a shimmering forcefield snap into place, sealing off the shaft. His stomach dropped as a second field flickered to life ahead of him, trapping him like a rat in a cage.
“Oh no, no, no…” he breathed, his voice tight with rising panic. The air around him grew unnervingly still as the faint hum of the ventilation system died. Then, a quiet hiss, and a faint breeze. The realization hit him like a hammer: they were venting the oxygen.
A sickening wave of dread surged through him. His breath came in shallow gasps, the sound unnaturally loud in the growing silence. He fumbled for the Sonic Screwdriver, his hands trembling as he clawed at his pocket. The confined space made every movement feel agonizingly slow, the fabric of his jacket snagging against the walls as his fingers scrabbled for the device.
The lack of air began to take its toll. His respiratory bypass system engaged, but it only delayed the inevitable. His vision blurred at the edges, and a dull ache blossomed in his chest, spreading outward like wildfire. He’d trained himself to withstand extreme conditions, but the primal terror of vacuum was impossible to ignore. He gritted his teeth, as he felt his blood begin to literally boil and bubble from the inside.
Vacuum was one of the few things that could kill a Time Lord stone dead, even with regeneration. Their bodies needed atmosphere too, after all. If he didn’t die of oxygen-deprivation-induced brain trauma mid-regeneration, then his new body would pass out and die shortly after.
Forcing himself to focus as his fingers finally brushed against the familiar shape of the Sonic Screwdriver, the Doctor pulled it through the tight space between his arm and the wall.
“Come on,” he hissed through clenched teeth, his voice raw and desperate. The angle was wrong, the shaft too narrow to maneuver properly. His hands felt clumsy, the tool slipping from his grip as his body screamed for air. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and for a terrifying moment, he thought he might black out.
The panels lining the shaft groaned ominously. Spots danced before his eyes as he twisted his body, forcing the Sonic into position. His thumb slammed down on the activator, and the device emitted its familiar high-pitched whine. Sparks erupted from the forcefield ahead, showering him with searing embers. The forcefield flickered, wavered… and then collapsed in a burst of light and noise.
Air rushed back into the shaft, slamming into him like a physical force. He collapsed, gasping and coughing. It was a good thing he didn’t have lungs like a human – they would’ve exploded with the sudden return of air. The sensation of breathing again was almost painful, his chest heaving as he tried to steady himself. His vision cleared, and the crushing weight of his predicament came flooding back. He had to keep moving. The drones wouldn’t stop.
He emerged into another corridor, this one lined with broken display panels and deactivated monitors. The faint hum of the ship’s systems was drowned out by the clanging of metal footsteps, now coming from multiple directions.
The Doctor raised his Screwdriver, sending out a pulse to disable the first robot that rounded the corner. It staggered, collapsing in a heap, but the victory was short-lived. Two more robots appeared, their tools glowing ominously.
“Really piling on the pressure, aren’t you?” The Doctor said, dodging a bolt. He darted into another room, slamming the door shut and jamming it with the Screwdriver.
The room was dark, the only light coming from a malfunctioning console in the corner. The Doctor hurried over, scanning the interface.
“Terminals are locked out by the bridge…” He muttered, fingers flying over the controls. “But the robots are wireless.” The Screwdriver warbled as the Doctor ran it over the screen. “I should be able to spoof the communication scheme – fool the system into thinking this terminal is one of the robots, connect to the grid, and shut all of them down from here.”
A mechanical whir sounded behind him.
The Doctor spun just as a robot forced its way through the jammed door, shoving it aside with brute strength.
“Robots – persistent lot, I’ll give you that!” The Doctor said, raising the Screwdriver again.
As he disabled this one, more robots poured into the corridor beyond, their footsteps a relentless drumbeat of metal on metal.
“Oh dear,” The Doctor glanced at the terminal again. The robots were flooding in too fast – he couldn’t afford to divert his attention for the time required to fool around with the coding. “Very well – plan B!” He could do it from the TARDIS, just as simple.
He bolted out the other side of the room, weaving through the labyrinthine corridors. The ship’s narrow passages worked to his advantage, forcing the robots to follow single-file, but they were relentless.
One robot, faster than the others, rounded a corner ahead of him. The Doctor skidded to a halt, reversing course and ducking into another maintenance shaft.
He crawled as quickly as he could, the confined space amplifying the sound of his ragged breathing and the clanging pursuit behind him.
“Almost there…” he muttered, emerging into yet another corridor.
He barely had time to react as a robot lunged from the shadows, its metal arm striking him across the chest. The force sent him sprawling, his hat flying off as he hit the floor.
Dazed, the Doctor tried to push himself up, but the robot was on him in an instant. Its glowing eyes were the last thing he saw before a sharp blow to the back of his head sent him into darkness.
---------------
The Doctor’s head throbbed as he stirred, consciousness returning in reluctant waves. He blinked, squinting against the dim light. His surroundings came into focus—a small, sparse room with dull, metallic walls. No windows, no obvious exits, save for a single reinforced door.
His pounding head ached, and he groaned. Some of the worst nights he had at the Academy, when he snuck out to get drunk with the Shobogans, didn’t leave him feeling this bad. That hit to the head was quite something.
It was a good thing he wasn’t human. He might have suffered lasting brain trauma, otherwise.
…well, he might already have that. First, loss of oxygen, then a blow to the back of the head. His next body was going to have a hell of a time with memory problems, most likely.
The Doctor got to his feet, bracing himself against the wall.
And then he noticed the boy.
Huddled in the corner, knees pulled tight to his chest, a small figure trembled. He couldn’t have been more than ten, his dark curls damp with sweat, his face pale and blotchy. The boy’s wide, frightened eyes locked on the Doctor, and he flinched when the Time Lord moved.
“Hello,” The Doctor said softly, lowering his voice to something gentle. He lifted his hands in a show of peace, and smiled, but the boy only shrank further into the corner. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”
The boy’s lips quivered. “Where am I?” he whispered, barely audible. His voice cracked, and he sounded on the verge of tears. “I don’t know where I am. I want to go home.” His words tumbled out in a flood, panic rising with each syllable. “I just—I just want my mother. I didn’t do anything wrong. Please—please, let me go.”
The Doctor’s chest tightened. He crouched slowly, lowering himself to the floor so he was eye level with the boy. “Easy lad, easy. It’s all right.”
The boy shook his head, his breath hitching as he fought back sobs. “No, it’s not. It’s not all right. I was just playing by the river, and a woman - she said she needed help, and now - now I’m here! I don’t even know where here is!” His voice broke, and tears spilled down his cheeks. “I just want to go home! I want my mum!”
The Doctor’s hearts ached. Slowly, carefully, he moved closer, keeping his movements deliberate and non-threatening. “Okay,” he said, his tone firm but kind. “I understand. You’re in a strange place, with a stranger. My name’s the Doctor,” He extended his hand. “What’s yours?”
“Y-Yeshua.”
The Time Lord’s thought processes lagged for a second, before he recuperated quickly. “Nice to meet you, Yeshua.” He wiggled his hand, and the boy gently took it. “There. Now we’re not strangers. Still scared?”
Yeshua nodded slowly.
The Doctor chuckled. “It’s okay. I’m scared too. But scared is good,” He lightly poked the boy, producing a coin from behind his ear, and giving it to the child. Yeshua blinked, confused by the sudden display. “Scared keeps you running. You think faster, fight harder. Young human on a strange spaceship, why not be scared?”
“Space… ship?” Yeshua twitched in confusion.
“Ah. You’re a bit early for that. Now,” He stroked his jaw. “A woman, did this, you say? Did she look strange? Out of place, maybe? Blue skin with spikes, a bit like a cactus?”
Yeshua stared. “I don’t know. She was just… a woman.”
The Doctor leaned back, scratching his chin. “Hmm… Well, I can’t say that’s too surprising.” He looked Yeshua up-and-down. “It’s been… what, ten years, relative time? Enough time to fix her teleport, but I did run off with her plasma gun, and judging by the state of this ship, I can’t imagine replacements were easy to find. So, that explains the kidnapping.” He steepled his fingers, drumming them together idly. “The TARDIS must have drifted – if I had to guess, the ship is still sitting right on top of the temporal rift it generated to get here, playing havoc with her navigation systems. Although… she does have a habit of dropping me in places right at the most opportune time…”
Yeshua began to sniffle, his chest heaving with uneven breaths.
“All right,” The Doctor said gently, sitting cross-legged a safe distance away. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re scared, and that’s okay. But when we’re scared, it helps to take slow, deep breaths. Watch me, Yeshua.” He inhaled deeply, holding it for a moment before exhaling slowly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. Like this. Come on, give it a try.”
The boy hesitated, his tear-streaked face hesitant. But he mirrored the Doctor, taking in a shaky breath and exhaling it unevenly.
“There you go,” the Doctor encouraged. “Again. Nice and slow.”
After a few more tries, the boy’s breathing steadied, though his body still trembled. “That’s better, isn’t it?” The Doctor asked, tilting his head with a reassuring smile.
Yeshua nodded faintly, his hands still clutching the edges of his tunic like a lifeline.
“Now, let’s figure this out together,” the Doctor said, his tone light and conversational, as though they were discussing the weather. “You were by the river, and a woman came up to you. Can you remember anything about her? What she looked like? Anything she said?”
The boy’s brow furrowed as he tried to think. “She… she looked normal, I think. Not strange. But her voice… it didn’t sound right. Like… a foreigner.” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I just wanted to help. But then… I woke up here.”
The Doctor’s gaze softened. “You’ve had a bit of a rough day, haven’t you?” He said, his voice warm with sympathy. “Tell you what. Let’s take our minds off it for a bit. Fancy a game of chess?”
The boy blinked, confusion breaking through his fear. “Chess?”
“Ah, yes. A game stuffed with so many rules and processes, you can’t think of anything else while playing it. They’re going to start laying down the rules for it in India right about now...” The Doctor rummaged through his coat and produced a small wooden box. He opened it to reveal a travel-sized chess set, the pieces intricately carved out of pieces of birch and mahogany.
The boy curled his arms together, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “What if… what if they come back? The people who put us here?” His voice trembled at the thought.
The Doctor’s face grew serious for a moment. “If they come back, we’ll be ready. But until then, we need to keep our wits sharp, don’t we? And chess, my young friend, is the perfect way to do that.”
The boy glanced at the door again but eventually nodded. “Okay.”
“That’s the spirit!” The Doctor began setting up the pieces, explaining their roles as he went. Slowly, as the game progressed, the boy’s tension eased. His focus shifted from his fear to the tiny battlefield before him, and for the first time since waking up, he didn’t seem quite so frightened.
-----------
The Doctor moved his bishop with a flourish, trapping Yeshua’s knight. “And that, my dear lad, is check. Almost there!” He tapped his temple, grinning. “You’re catching on quick, though. You’ve got a sharp mind under all that curly hair.”
Yeshua furrowed his brow, his fingers hovering over his remaining pieces. Despite the calming rhythm of the game, he still cast the occasional wary glance at the door.
The Doctor’s voice softened. “It’s all right, lad. Focus on the board. One move at a time. You mustn’t think too far ahead, else you start entrapping yourself, expecting your opponent to move in a certain way.”
With a tentative nudge, Yeshua slid a pawn forward.
The Doctor theatrically steepled his fingers. “Sacrificing the Queen to stall my attack. Bold move. I do love a bold move.”
Two more exchanges passed before the Doctor leaned back, folding his arms. “And... checkmate. The King is caught.” He tilted his head, studying Yeshua’s expression. “Not bad for a first-timer. You’ve got potential, you know. Just need to work on spotting the traps.”
Yeshua frowned at the captured pieces strewn across the floor. “It doesn’t seem fair,” He opined. “The king can’t do much. It just runs and hides while everything else is useful. And that’s the one that makes somebody lose the game?”
The Doctor chuckled, gently picking up the tiny wooden king. “There’s a lesson there to be learned, I’m sure. Even the most vulnerable piece matters. Without the king, the game’s over. Protecting him, working together — that’s the heart of it. Or perhaps the lesson is to not get too obsessed with following kings – they’ll bring the rest of their empires down with them, in the end.”
He handed the king to Yeshua, who turned it over in his hands.
“And when the game’s done,” The Doctor added, scooping the scattered pieces into the box, “the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”
Before the boy could reply, the faint sound of metallic footsteps echoed through the corridor beyond the door. Yeshua stiffened, clutching the wooden king tightly. The Doctor’s playful demeanor vanished, replaced by an alert focus.
“Ah,” the Doctor murmured, rising to his feet and tucking the chess set into his coat. “Looks like the game just changed.”
Yeshua scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide with fear. “Is it them?”
The Doctor held a finger to his lips, listening. The footsteps grew louder, more deliberate. “Could be.” He turned, extending his hand out, gently pushing the young boy behind him. “Stay out of sight. They never think the children are threats.”
Yeshua trembled, as the door slid open.
Revealing the Sovovocci assassin in sleek black armor, the metallic sheen reflecting the dim light of the room. Her figure was tall and imposing, her movements precise as she stepped inside. The soft hum of machinery followed her, and two hulking automatons – all blocky angles and sharp points - flanked her.
Her helmet retracted with mechanical plinking, revealing a face that was sharp and cold, with skin the colour of ice and piercing silver eyes. A long scar ran from her temple to her jaw, the one spot where the cacti-like spines refused to grow. She surveyed the room quickly, her gaze locking on the Doctor. Her lips twisted into a snarl.
Yeshua sucked in a terrified breath, and shrunk behind the Doctor more.
“You,” she said, her voice dripping with venom.
“Me, hello!” The Doctor cheerfully waved, like greeting an old friend. “My, it’s been a while.” He glanced over at Yeshua. “Ten years, I should say.”
“I should have known you’d turn back up eventually,” The Interloper (the Doctor was mentally deciding to call her, since ‘the Sovovocci Assassin’ was a bit clinical. “Showing up, out of nowhere – disappearing right after! And you turn up in the one, solitary spot that I chose to make sure nobody could interfere!”
“Well, that’s just me for you!” The Doctor smiled. “Turning up into unexpected places – bumbling, a few people would say. Actually, I’d say this time was a bit of an accident – I was aiming for the night of, but I wound up overshooting.”
“It’s been ten years.” The Interloper hissed, shaking with rage. “You fried my teleport, and I was stuck up here for ten years trying to get it back up and running! And the moment I fix it, waiting for the most-opportune moment, you just happen to turn up!?” She let out a rueful chuckle. “No. I don’t think so.” She snapped her fingers, and the robots stomped around, grabbing the Doctor by the shoulders.
Yeshua sucked in a fearful breath, the Doctor steadying him with a single, calm, focused gaze.
The boy stopped as the robots grabbed him as well. “What are these!?” He looked up at it fearfully. “Soldiers? The Romans don’t even have armor so heavy!”
“Soldiers of a sort.” The Doctor answered. “Mechanical men – metal, all the way through. Robots. Don’t struggle – you’ll only hurt yourself.”
“Sound advice. But redundant. Both of you will be dead soon enough.” The Interloper approached, lowering her voice. “Who are you? How did you follow me back here?”
“Follow?” The Doctor quizzically hummed. “Who said anything about following? Why, for your knowledge, I could’ve been here first.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t picked up any other ships… curious, that.”
“Could you detect them?” The Doctor blinked. “Literally – are your sensors intact enough to be up to the task?”
“Intact enough,” The Interloper growled. “No starship – your method of travel has to be incredibly compact.” Her eyes widened, and became lit with recognition and wrath. “You’re a Time Agent!”
The Doctor recoiled, like he’d been struck. A few moments passed as he processed the information. Then, he chuckled. “Of a sort, I suppose you could say.” The Time Agency had come careening into his life, a time or two. There was that business with Magnus Greel, and whatnot. “I’m the Doctor, and you would be…?”
The Interloper’s face twisted. “Since you won’t give me a proper answer, I see no reason why I shouldn’t show you that same courtesy.”
So, he was stuck calling her ‘the Interloper’ still.
She turned to one of her automatons. “Scan him. Find me his Vortex Manipulator.”
The robot standing behind the Doctor tightened its grip, and ran its glowing red optics up and down the Time Lord’s body.
“Now, while that’s processing,” The Interloper’s face became crossed by a dark shadow. “This way.” She turned, and led the way out of the room, with the robots shoving the Doctor and Yeshua ahead.
As he was forced forward by the mechanical men, the child’s breathing began to speed up, and his eyes darted around in fear.
“Don’t worry,” The Doctor gently encouraged. “Calm breaths. Breathe calm, and you will be calm.”
The child nodded anxiously, as the primitive automatons led them behind the Interloper.
------------
After a few minutes of walking, they reached a large blast door. As the Interloper approached it, it opened into a cavernous chamber, filled with a multi-story cylinder built out of glass and steel. Through the transparent sections, bright, glowing blue energy could be seen.
“What…” Yeshua shivered at the space – a construction larger than anything he had seen in his life. “What is that?”
“The Warp Engine.” The Doctor answered, heedless of the human child’s lack of a frame-of-reference. “I got a good look at it from the outside.” He looked around, taking note again of the lack of bodies. “This is the engine room.”
“Engine?” Yeshua repeated with a groan of confusion.
“You know ships exist, yes? The ones you’re familiar with are propelled by wind. That Warp Engine is this ship’s propulsion mechanism,” The Doctor answered. “It creates a wind by manipulating space itself.”
“Quiet,” The Interloper snapped, her voice as cold and sharp as a blade. She gestured sharply, and the automatons shoved them toward a pair of disused consoles, standing freely in the chamber. The robots picked up bits of broken conduit, bending and locking them around the Doctor and Yeshua.
“Ah,” The Doctor rolled his shoulders. “Free of the goon squad, at last, but I can’t say this is much of an improvement.”
The engine room was sprawling space, filled with humming machinery, glowing conduits, and walls covered in alien glyphs. Sparks rained down intermittently from exposed wires, casting erratic shadows across the grimy walls.
Yeshua struggled against his bonds, his small frame trembling with fear. “What is she going to do?”
The Doctor gave him a reassuring glance. “Oh, nothing we can’t handle. Just stay calm, and whatever you do, don’t say anything clever. That’s my job.”
“I beg to differ.” The Interloper stepped into view, her expression unreadable as she studied the Doctor. She held a small device in her hand, its screen displaying a swirling array of lights. “So far you’ve been rather impertinent. Not clever.”
“Yes, well, the two are rather intertwined in my experience.” The Doctor refuted.
She tilted her head toward her robots, the faint sound of her remote chiming in the air. The red beam cut out, and the robot stomped, turning away from the Time Lord.
The remote bleeped loudly. “Anomaly detected.”
The Interloper looked up, a predatory gaze on her features. “As I expected.” She approached the Doctor, grabbing his arm. “You can’t hide it from-“ She pulled his sleeve back, and stopped, finding nothing but skin. “What?”
The Doctor smiled disarmingly. “You might want to scan again. The non-visual spectrum.”
The Interloper’s eyes narrowed, as she turned her remote over the Doctor’s arm. The device let out a ray of cascading light, landing on the skin of the Doctor’s forearm, tinting it red.
And – like a piece of red film revealing a hidden message on the back of a toy’s packaging – a mark, hitherto invisible, was revealed.
A snake coiling in the shape of a question mark.
“A tattoo?” The Interloper recoiled. “You’re tripping my scanner with an invisible tattoo?”
The Doctor’s smile vanished like ice flash-vaporizing in a volcano. "That's not just any tattoo. I can get loads of tattoos. That one is special. Do you know why? It's a prisoner brand. Reserved for the very worst of us.”
Yeshua looked over at the Doctor, newfound fear in the child’s eyes.
The Interloper looked more intently at the Doctor.
“I’ll give you a hint: I’m no Time Agent.” The Doctor's voice sharpened, every word a deliberate strike. "I’m from a group of people far, far worse. They branded me, tracked me across the ends of the universe. And you’ve just lit up their little monitor back on Gallifrey. Oh, they're watching now. They know I'm here. They know you're here."
“Gallifrey?” The Interloper’s eyebrows knit in confusion, before his words properly registered, and her eyes went wide. “Time Lord…” She twitched, shaking her head, before chuckling. “You expect me to believe that? When they’re a bunch of stuffy old librarians who don’t get involved unless it’s their skin on the line?”
"They don't get involved – oh, the arguments that used to cause... But I’d like to point out that, indeed, it is their skin on the line. You have one of them here, after all." The Doctor's eyes blazed with ancient fury. "You can detect the tag – you can read it. Go on. Take a look at who it is you’ve found.”
The Interloper scowled, snapping her fingers. A screen appeared, floating in the air behind her head, as one of the robots stomped over, focusing directly on the Doctor’s convict brand.
The floating screen filled with a swirl of static as the scanners struggled to decode the surface-level biodata encoded in the tattoo.
Technically, no one other than Time Lords were supposed to be able to do this. But the Doctor’s enemies always had an uncanny knack for recognizing him. It wasn’t a stretch to assume that the brand the Time Lords stuck on him, meant for easy recognition, could be read outside of Gallifrey. It was meant to be a prisoner mark after all. At-a-glance, it’d tell you the person in question couldn’t be trusted. Any probing would list the charges and tell the interested parties ‘this is who I am; this is what I have done.’
The Interloper’s sneer faltered as the tattoo’s embedded information unfolded into an image. Not that of the man before her now, but a severe, wizened figure materialized first. His piercing gaze, framed by white hair and dark eyebrows, burned with the arrogance of a pioneer.
The image blurred, evaporating, before it shifted to a mischievous, impish man with a mop of black hair and disheveled clothing, marked with an oversized bow tie. Then, the image changed again.
A dashing figure with a shock of white hair appeared, his face stern and well-traveled as the velvet cape draped across his shoulders.
With another ripple, the most striking face yet emerged — an angular visage framed by wild curls and a wide grin that belied a soul capable of terrible choices.
The image softened into that of a younger, kinder face. The fifth incarnation wore a cream coat adorned with a sprig of celery. Yet his gentle eyes betrayed the desperation of a healer forced to do harm.
The next figure to appear radiated defiance, with a garish coat of swirling colors and eyes that burned with righteous fury.
And then, came the final figure. The incumbent Doctor. Yeshua gasped, looking between the man on the screen, and the man restrained next to him.
The Interloper turned to regard the Doctor with wide eyes. “Time Lord…”
“Told you.” The Doctor sing-songed.
“What was that?” Yeshua shivered. “What… was all that!? Who were those men!? How did they get in here!? How did you appear up there!?””
“They’re just images – fancy drawings.”
“You,” The Interloper’s head snapped towards the Doctor. “Who are you!? The Time Lords aren’t- they don’t-” She got in his face, desperate. Terrified. “Why did they send you?”
“Oh, they didn’t send me, I just happen to be a wanderer.” The Doctor taunted. “My exile was lifted centuries ago. But they kept that tattoo stuck on me. It’s a common practice, you see – once a Renegade, always a Renegade, even if you ‘reform;’ fancy word for ‘going square,’ if you ask me. But here’s the truly devious bit. That tattoo isn’t just a fancy barcode – read it and get an idea of who you’re dealing with. It’s a biodata tag. It’s a beacon; it transmits. It’s one of their sensors. Clever, isn’t it? They encoded it into my biodata – a surveillance device with no electronics, constantly transmitting back to my home. Clever – a horrific invasion of privacy – but clever. You know what that means, don’t you?” The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “The Time Lords are still watching. They’re always watching. Imagine their reaction when they see what you've strapped down here. When they see him." He tilted his head toward Yeshua. "And me? The both of us, a Renegade and a Messiah? I’m only a pilot fish – and the shark is coming.”
The Interloper stepped back, uncertainty clouding her gaze. The Doctor pressed on, voice softer now but no less intense. "You think plasma cannons and construction drones scare them? No. They’ll rewrite your entire history for this."
A tense silence fell over the chamber, the alien's doubt spreading like a crack in glass. The Doctor’s lips curled into a knowing smile. "Now, why don't we have a nice chat about letting us go, hmm?"
The Interloper stared, before fire flooded back into her eyes, and she turned. “I have already lost everything I hold dear. What the Time Lords do does not concern me.”
“Ah.” The Doctor blinked. “Well, it was worth a try.” He flippantly shrugged, glancing around the room. “So, you’re going to kill us, then?”
“Of course.” The Interloper answered, as Yeshua’s breath hitched.
“No chance of changing your mind?”
“Absolutely not.” The began to pace around.
“I just have to say – it’s a little bit messy,” The Doctor commented. “Because, well, I haven’t really noticed any weapons left on your person, aside from your spines. And they will need to grow back, so, you can’t get the both of us in one go. You’ll have your robots bludgeon us to death?”
The Interloper scoffed. “Absolutely not. That’s… hideously disgusting.” She turned, and gestured before the Warp Engine. “This ship’s Warp Engine was heavily damaged. The containment shield for the engine is cracked.” She put her hands behind her back, turning around. “I’ll go home. And upon the instant that the Warp Engines are engaged, every byproduct will flood this chamber. It will, quite literally, become impossible for any form of organic matter to sustain itself in this room. No fuss, no blood. Your bodies will break down faster than the pain signals can travel through them.” She sniffed, and her stony features twitched for a moment, a tinge of pensiveness shone through. “You will be alive one instant, and dead the next. A kindness, compared to what your people have inflicted upon mine.” She directed at Yeshua.
The young boy began to sniffle, and weep. “Please, no. I-I didn’t do anything. I don’t want to die, please…”
“Actually, since we’re here-“ The Doctor cleared his throat. “No authorities showing up, you have us restrained, completely at your mercy – I would quite like to know what all is going on here.”
The Interloper fixed him with a disbelieving look.
The Doctor smiled easily. “I was telling the truth when I said I bumbled my way in.”
The Sovovocci woman glowered at the Doctor, her hair shining in the light of the Warp Engine, before she turned her head up. “You want to know why the child has to die? Very well.”
She tapped a control panel on the nearest console. The warp field around them shimmered, and a projection unfolded like a living mural. The image flickered for a moment, before resolving into a battlefield soaked in ash and blood.
A wasteland stretched before them, barren and broken, its sky a dark red bruise streaked with angry roots of fire. A harsh wind carried the sounds of screaming and gunfire. The Doctor’s jaw tightened.
“The Anglican Marines,” The Doctor recognized practically on-sight. Clergymen in camouflage wielding high-powered energy and ballistic weapons, and body armor, produced ‘proudly’ by Villengard, Misriah, and a dozen other weapons manufactuers. The Marines were charging across a wasteland, over the corpses of their fellow clergymen, and the bodies of aliens. They were flanked by futuristic battle tanks hovering above the ground, bipedal robots the size of small buildings, wielding swords, machine guns, and rocket launchers, and sleek dropships buzzed above – all hammering the area ahead with violent abandon.
“Wh-“ Yeshua stammered. “What’s a Marine?”
“Ah. You don’t have those, yet – soldiers that sail on ships for ground deployment in other countries.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “For most of human history, your churches have had quite a ‘militaristic’ outlook on things.” The Doctor explained, seemingly forgetting he was well ahead of most of which he was about to refer to. “The Sacred Wars fought by the Greeks being the most recent example. Well, by your frame of reference.” He glanced over at Yeshua. “In days to come, there will be the Crusades, and a thousand more wars fought. All in the name of spreading the belief in who should be worshipped.”
Yeshua stared at the screen, his little face twisting in horror. “B-But that’s horrible. You shouldn’t have to kill people to make them see your way!”
“Humans have been doing it for hundreds, thousands of years. Belief over who should get claim to a little stretch of land. Belief over what laws are just. Belief if one has been wronged.” The Doctor recited, closing his eyes. “As long as there are disagreements, you lot never stop finding reasons to fight. And that doesn’t even change after you reach the heavens.” The Time Lord shook his head. “Some religions die out. Others evolve, and survive.”
The Doctor pointed at the screen.
“The Anglican Marines are an evolution – one of many – of the Churches of Earth. Defending you in this life, and the next.”
“Defence!” The Interloper quivered in fury. “As though my people did anything to humanity!” She gestured, and the view moved, to show the force the Marines were fighting against – hundreds of tall, humanoid figures, similar to her. “We were a peaceful race!”
“And yet, you started slaughtering each other.” The Doctor stared. “Why?”
“Each other!?” The Interloper incredulously snarled. “We wanted nothing to do with humanity! We were pacifists!" The Interloper hissed, gesturing at the screen, and the screen displayed a ringed planet, with no moons, covered in water with landmasses that appeared to be as mossy vines growing over the top layer of blue. "A reserved race. We expanded slowly, cautiously, only when necessity demanded. For generations, it worked — until we set our sights on Bellerophon. A planetary colonization candidate, and a world that also caught the eye of humankind."
As she swiped, a fleet of starships moved into position around the world. The ships of her people, judging by the sleek curves of the craft.
On the other side, angular, pointed, spacecraft moved to cut them off. Each vessel bore a logo - two curved, red shapes with a metallic sheen, resembling stylized quotation marks.
“It didn’t matter that they had more worlds than our race had people.” She scowled hatefully. “It didn’t matter that they could simply find another one and alter it to suit their needs. They wanted this one. So they schemed, and plotted. They welcomed us to share in it with them, and we accepted. We didn’t have a choice; our ships needed somewhere to land.”
The vision changed yet again, as the alien woman became choked up.
“We had peace for only a short time. Then, Vector made their move.” Soldiers in black body armor, bearing the corporation’s logo on their helmets, marched through the streets of one of the alien settlements, indiscriminately firing.
“Brave souls united to try and push back…” The Interloper shivered, trembling in grief. “Unaware that was what our adversary was counting on.”
A pack of the aliens jumped into action, firing back at the attacking soldiers with plasma weapons and their natural defences. But then, the visuals changed. A line swept across the screen, transforming the battlefield. The alien colony was now a human settlement, buildings on fire, dead humans lining the streets.
In a single instant, the humans had gone from the warmongers, to the victims on the back-foot.
“Our only saving grace was that your human governments refused to become involved with a private venture outside their territory,” The Interloper lowly hissed, staring at the screen. “But your Anglican Marines had no such reservations. They saw humans dying, and they rushed to retaliate.” She shook her head. “We couldn’t hope to stand against the force they brought against us. But even as we ran, our Starfleet was being fired upon. We had lost, so soundly, but the humans refused to show us mercy. A hundred ships were lost. Only this one escaped… and only by mistake.” She turned, and paced away from the screen. “The damage suffered was immense. Catastrophic. All crew died, except for me.”
“I’m sorry-“ The Doctor softly intoned.
The Interloper was having none of it. “Don’t apologize, when it is his kind who had done this in the first place!” She bellowed, jerking a finger towards Yeshua. The child flinched back, trembling, and fighting to contain his terrified mewling. The anger died down to a simmer. “I survived only by mere chance – I had not yet removed my environment suit after returning from interrogating a captured Marine. It saved me when the ship lost life support. I drifted for hours, tending to each and every body still in the ship, the reserve air in the ship’s secondary tanks more than enough to keep me going without fear for running out. Then, I had an idea.” She grinned in recollection. “From the interrogation, I learned exactly what the Anglican Marines were. Where they originated from. So, I simply decided to… remove the organization at its roots.”
“And once the repair drones had finished their work,” The Doctor stared. “You punched a hole in the universe and came back to Earth in biblical times to enact your idea. Remove the Church by killing their Messiah – I must admit, it’s a sound plan, in theory, but you do realize it didn’t work out so well when the Romans tried it, yes?”
“I-I don’t understand,” Yeshua hesitantly spoke up. “What’s all this about? Why kill… Why kill me? I can’t- I can’t be that important to people thousands and thousands of years from now.”
“Oh, but I’m afraid you are,” The Interloper leered. “You’re more than just a person to them. You’re a symbol. An idea. And the only way to stop an idea from spreading is to stop it from rising in the first place. You, little human, are their Lord. Their Messiah.” She turned away. “The Marine we captured was more than willing to share that knowledge, and once I had what I needed, I came back here. To get rid of you.”
“That’s only one sect of one religion,” The Doctor glared at the alien woman. “There’s Judaism, and Islam, and the non-Abrahamic religions. Buddhism, and Taoism, and latter-day spaghettism! The Church of the Eternal Circuit, and the Followers of the Divine Cat! Hundreds and thousands of beliefs, ready to fill the void in whatever new timeline you create!”
“It doesn’t matter,” The Interloper refuted. “The one that needs to go is his.” She pointed her finger harshly at Yeshua.
“But I’m- I didn’t do anything!” Yeshua howled, frantically trying to free himself. “I-I want to go home! Please! Let me go home!”
“Listen to me,” The Doctor addressed her directly, staring at her. “You’ve suffered a great deal – and I have seen the evils that humans perpetuate in the name of religion. But look at him,” The Doctor implored, gesturing with his head towards Yeshua, and he focused his eyes on the Interloper. “You’re not dismantling an institution. You’re not stamping out a system of belief. You are murdering a child.”
The Interloper stilled.
“Look at him,” The Doctor pleaded. “This isn’t writing a wrong.” He looked her in the eyes. “Ten years ago, when we fought in the barn, you mentioned… your children burning.” He gestured at Yeshua. “Can you look at him, and honestly say you’re willing to cause another mother that same pain?”
The Interloper, silently, turned to Yeshua, staring at him for a long while.
For a moment, the Doctor honestly believed he had gotten through to her. Few sentient beings across the universe evolved without a strong parental instinct. It was simple evolution – the drive to protect the young.
But as she stood there, staring at Yeshua, her eyes watered, and her skin deepened in colour. Her face twisted, and she spun away. “One child for hundreds. I can’t throw that away. I’m sorry. It will be painless, I can promise you that.” She turned, and stepped through the door, the plates sealing closed behind her.
Her robots stomped, and moved to stand in front of the door.
“What do we do?” Yeshua inquired.
The Doctor looked up. “Well, our adversary appears to have a little bit of an aversion to blood. Thus far, she only appears willing to use weapons that completely annihilate the target – no corpses, no blood. Which works in our favor.” He wriggled around, trying to see up the length of the Warp Engine. “The waste management system for the Warp Engine is damaged, just like she said. The engine works by throwing together massive amounts of matter and antimatter, in a controlled reaction. But the reaction generates waste – like smoke from burning wood. All of that waste – the alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and lambda radiation – will flood this compartment, and we’ll be vaporized.”
Yeshua began to struggle.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get us out of this.” The Doctor looked over at the robots, going for his Sonic Screwdriver. Though his hands were by his sides, he could still slip them into his pockets. “The good news about being trapped in here? We’re in a critical area… which means the computers are working!” The buzzing of the Screwdriver filled the air, as the screen the Doctor was strapped to lit up.
The Time Lord twisted his head as far as he could manage, watching the code flicker by on the display.
“She tied us down – but she didn’t count on me having a Sonic Screwdriver. I can’t fault her – it has been ten years since our last bout.” The Doctor hummed as the screen went black, before the robots straightened up.
Like clockwork soldiers, the robots stomped over, and raised their arms. Yeshua let out a terrified scream, as the arm swung towards him-
And landed on the conduit, bending it back and freeing him.
Yeshua fell to the floor, gasping, as the other robot freed the Doctor.
“W-Why are they-!?” Yeshua spluttered. “Why did they let us go!?”
“Robots – fancy word for ‘drones.’” The Doctor answered, pocketing his Sonic Screwdriver. “With a Sonic Screwdriver, anything is possible.”
“I-It was you?” Yeshua’s eyebrows shot up. “What… What are you? Some manner of sorcerer?”
“I have been told I have quite the magical touch when it comes to technology.” The Doctor replied.
“O-Okay,” Yeshua shivered. “Then let’s get out of this place-!”
“Oh, don’t worry, there’s no rush.” The Doctor typed at the console, bringing up a different window.
“No rush!?” The boy repeated. “Sh-She said, and you said, we would die!”
“I did say that.” The Doctor nodded. “Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
“A plan?” Yeshua repeated.
The Doctor whipped out the Screwdriver again, and pointed it toward the door. As he pulled down on the ring, the light surrounding the door shifted to mauve. “There. Locked.”
“Locked!?” Yeshua shouted. “But we’re trapped in here!”
“Not to worry – as one door closes, another must open.” The Doctor removed his hat, and pulled out the other device he had constructed, that night in Bethlehem. Or, rather, just an hour ago, from his point of view.
“Th-That’s just a bunch of junk!”
“This is more advanced science than anything your race will be able to touch for the next two-thousand years.” The Doctor sharply retorted, and Yeshua recoiled, before the floor beneath them began to tremor.
“Earthquake!” Yeshua gasped.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” The Doctor shook his head. “We’re in a spaceship – those are just the sublight engines. Most warp engines have failsafes preventing them from being activated too close to planetary surfaces – she has to get to a minimum safe distance before activating the warp drive.”
“I-I don’t-“
“It’s like someone riding a horse having to do it slowly through the middle of a field of crops – they can only start running once they’re away to prevent the crops from getting trampled. Understand?”
“N-No…”
“Thought not.” The Doctor sighed, taking the Screwdriver to his cobbled-together cage of technology and wiring surrounding the TARDIS Key. While he did that, awkwardly balancing the device in the crook of the same arm he held the Screwdriver in, the Doctor took his hand to the console, typing rapidly.
“What are you doing!? She’s about to kill us!”
“She’s about to try.” The Doctor looked over.
An enormous clang reverberated through the engine bay, as an alarm began to sound.
“What’s that!?”
“That’s just the alarm, warning the occupants of the engine room that the warp engine is preparing to engage.”
Yeshua paled. “D-Doctor!”
“That woman arrived in your home thanks to a teleport – it’s a kind of thing that allows a person to pop from one place to another without walking, they just arrive. I fried it, ten years ago, but she fixed it. And, as it happens, I just so happened to construct this,” He gestured to the cage. “Knowing that my ship had picked up teleport signatures.”
“Y-Your ship?” Yeshua repeated, a shiver running down his spine. “You’re… you’re like her!?”
“Yes.” The Doctor bluntly answered. The alarms continued to blare in the background, as he looked down at the child. “I’m an alien. My home is not of this world. It lies beyond distant stars; in a place your eyes cannot see and your feet cannot reach. My people were not born of dust, as you were, but of fire and time. We walked in the heavens when your kind still struggled to take its first steps in the sand.” He leaned down, staring Yeshua in the eyes. “But you don’t need to let that frighten you. The people up there are just like you – people. You don’t need to be scared of them.”
“What are you…?” Yeshua shivered in fear.
A loud, deep rumble began to spread through the ship.
“I’m the Doctor – and I’m here to help.” The Doctor looked at him intently. “Will you let me help you, Yeshua?”
The boy looked around – at the unfamiliar, alien surroundings. The blinding light building in the ship’s warp engine.
Yeshua turned back to the Doctor, and nodded.
“Good. Now,” The Doctor held the cage out to Yeshua. “Grab on.”
“What does this do?” Yeshua asked, raising his voice over the whine of the engine.
The reverb built, and built, as the glow reached a zenith of blinding light.
“This!” The Doctor declared, as a flash went off in the chamber.
Yeshua screamed, stumbling back and hitting the floor, as the cage dropped to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces. The TARDIS key at the centre was now charred and blackened – a warped, burnt piece of metal, smoking.
“Ah,” The Doctor bent over, working a crick out of his neck.
Yeshua silently spluttered, looking around at the sudden change – the circular honeycomb walls, the polished white floors, the free-standing hexagonal console.
“Wha… how…?” Yeshua looked around, shooting to his feet. “Where are we!?”
“Easy, lad.” The Doctor straightened up, ruffling the boy’s hair. “We’re in my ship – and it’s a darn sight better-maintained than our Interloping friend’s.” The Doctor walked over to the console, rapidly typing at the controls. “Welcome to the TARDIS.”
“This is…” Yeshua moved slowly, putting his hand on the metal columns around the edges of the room. “It’s so… clean.”
The Doctor’s head shot up, before granting the child that, silently. Of all the reactions to the TARDIS, nobody had ever commented on her cleanliness.
The engines let out a purr.
(It seemed the TARDIS quite appreciated that comment.)
The Doctor shot the ceiling a scathing look. “We’re not keeping him.” He hissed under his breath.
“Is that it?” Yeshua turned around, looking confused. “Is… is it done? Are we safe?”
“Safe, yes. Done, no.” The Doctor answered, still focusing on the console. “Here’s little tidbit of wisdom for you – when facing down a murderous person with a series 9000 plasma rifle, make sure to have a backup plan. I had created a field to render her weapon inoperable, the last time I faced her. That device-“ The Doctor pointed at the remains on the floor. “Was the backup plan. My TARDIS has a variety of low-level defence systems – systems that extend to the key. Using it, I could generate a one-time use energy shield capable of absorbing vast amounts of energy. Couple that with an extremely well-timed teleport activated from one of the remaining computer terminals, and to our alien friend,” The Doctor turned about with a smile. “It appears as though we did, in fact, die.”
“You… tricked her?” Yeshua looked at the Doctor. At the Time Lord’s sparkling eyes, he giggled. “You tricked her.”
“I tricked her.” The Doctor confirmed with a nod.
“So, what do we do now?” Yeshua questioned. “Do we run?”
“No.” The Doctor shook his head.
“So… we fight?” Yeshua blinked.
“No.” The Doctor pointed at the boy. “She tried to kill us, yes. But, in a sense, she’s also running. You don’t fight an enemy that’s running. And you don’t take vengeance against them.”
“Then what do we do?”
The Doctor punched a few more commands into the keyboard. “You let God sort them out,” The Doctor answered. “Or, in this case… the rozzers.”
------------
At last… home.
Bellerophon came into view, bathed in the cool glow of a blue sun, shining against the rings. The sight struck her like a physical blow: the planet’s great lakes glittered like polished sapphire jewels, set into a green, metal orb.
She gripped the edge of the console, her knuckles white. Somewhere down there were faces she knew, voices she remembered. They had to be – now that the Anglican Marines were a distant memory of an even more distant time.
The console beeped, pulling her from her reverie. An incoming transmission. Her hands moved on instinct, initiating the link. The screen flickered to life, revealing a pale, severe-looking woman with white hair bound in an intricate coil, and piercing red eyes.
“Attention, unidentified vessel,” The woman said, her tone cold and precise. “Your vessel has been identified as suspect in accordance with Article 77 of the Shadow Proclamation. Lower your shields and prepare to be boarded.”
The Interloper stiffened. The Shadow Proclamation?
Where were they when the humans came to call?”
“This is acting Captain Isil Avenai,” She kept her voice steady, despite the hammering of her heart. “I’m returning from an unintentional temporal displacement. I request asylum and reintegration.”
The unidentified woman (human in every way, except blood) tilted her head slightly, as if listening to something far away. “Yes, we have access to your records. Flight Lieutenant Avenai, an anonymous tip has identified your vessel for numerous violations, including illegal time travel and the attempted disruption of the societal development of a level 1 planet. You are ordered to power down your engines and prepare to be taken into custody for trial under the Shadow Proclamation’s authority.”
Panic began to claw at the edges of her mind. “No,” she said, her voice rising. “No! You don’t understand! I didn’t do anything wrong – I was helping!”
“You have been warned,” The woman replied, her tone unyielding. “Failure to comply will result in immediate seizure of your vessel.”
“No!” Isil shot to her feet, raising her voice. “You can’t sit here and hold me to the fire for something while there’s a cadre of butchers right in front of you, guilty of the exact same thing!”
The woman shook her head, and the connection severed, leaving her staring at the static on the screen. Outside, the first of the Shadow Proclamation’s enforcement ships dropped out of hyperspace – a cylindrical, utilitarian vessel, their presence a stark and implacable reminder of the authority they wielded.
They had been around for as long as anyone could remember, enforcing laws from on-high; a treaty hashed out in the shadows, binding all to it, even those who didn’t agree. Why would they bother with her when there was a fleet of murderers right outside?
Her ship trembled as their systems reached out, forcing a connection. Her controls flickered and locked as they overrode her systems one by one. Isil gritted her teeth, clenching the edge of the console as her engines sputtered and died.
She looked out at the fleet surrounding her, a cold fury building in her chest. What could have happened? What went wrong? The Doctor and that child were in the engine bay. They should have died.
Unless… they hadn’t. Somehow.
Isil turned around from the captain’s chair, moving to step off the bridge-
As five columns of light appeared in the bridge, depositing Judoon enforcers right in her path.
Isil stopped, as the coil of rage undid itself, to be replaced by solemn surrender. The Doctor hadn’t killed her. They would have no qualms.
She silently lifted her arms.
-------------
The Doctor and Yeshua stood at the observation deck of the Shadow Proclamation’s main headquarters, a stark, sterile chamber filled with glowing panels and wide viewscreens, and a vast window opening up to the stars.
Yeshua stared out at the unfolding cosmos before him. “This place… it must be the Kingdom of God…”
“I’m afraid not,” The Doctor chuckled. “Although…” He did look around, at the bright, white lights, the polished floors and walls made out of glass, marble, and pearl, and he tilted his head. “It does have the look down. Though I’ll tell you, this is more my idea of hell than heaven – an endless, cosmic waiting room. Blegh.”
Yeshua turned away from the window in silence, focusing on one of the viewscreens. Isil Avenai (as he and the Doctor learned after the fact of her arrest) was sitting in a detention cell, her shoulders slumped and her hair disheveled. The energy field flickered into place behind her, isolating her in a stark, windowless chamber.
The Shadow Architect wasn’t allowing her visitors. Not that the Doctor would have obliged, though she did offer him and Yeshua access to the camera feed.
“She looks… smaller now,” Yeshua murmured, tilting his head as his eyes quivered with pity.
The Doctor, leaning on the railing with his arms crossed, glanced down at the boy. “Funny how that works, isn’t it? The mighty shrink when the fight is gone.”
“I feel…” Yeshua frowned. “I feel bad.”
“Why?” The Doctor questioned, causing the boy to look up at him. “She tried to kill you.”
“She did,” Yeshua admitted. “But… she looks so… so sad.” He watched the screen. Isil was crying – weeping quietly, and had been for quite some time. She just couldn’t stop. “Is it wrong that I feel sad for her?”
The Doctor’s lips twitched. “No. It means you have one of the greatest gifts known to man.”
Yeshua’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Empathy.” The Time Lord answered.
A soft hum signaled the arrival of the Shadow Architect. She swept into the room, her tall frame imposing in her dark robes and her white skin glowing faintly in the artificial light. “Well, that was all a waste,” She glowered “Doctor, you’ve made a bad habit of dropping in as you please, but mobilizing the fleets over a grieving mother is a bit of an overreaction.”
“On the contrary,” The Doctor retorted. “I’m of the opinion that it’s the best time to mobilize the fleets. Although… usually, I’m mobilizing the fleets to get behind the mother, not in front of her.”
The Architect turned an unimpressed look onto the Time Lord. Finally she shook her head. “She’ll be placed on trial soon enough – until then, she’ll be placed into stasis. We’ll be assuming the standard Sovovocci trial procedure – jury of her peers.”
“Good,” the Doctor replied, straightening up. “Though I’d like to know more about her before I decide if that’s truly the best course of action.”
The Architect raised an eyebrow. “I was under the impression you had already decided, given your anonymous tip.”
“Oh, I have,” The Doctor said, stepping closer. “But I think the standard procedure is a bit much in this case. Who did you say she was, hmm?”
The Architect sighed, gesturing toward a nearby console. A holographic dossier appeared, filled with scrolling text and flickering images. “Her name is Isil Avenai. A civilian conscript in the Sovovocci Federation during their war against the Anglican Marines.”
“Yes, she mentioned the war.” The Doctor muttered darkly, scrolling through the report. Aside from the Daleks and the Sontarans, humans were one of the species most capable and willing to find new and old reasons for killing people. “But I wasn’t sure how accurate the information was.”
“A band of human colonists sponsored by Vector Industries attempted to settle a world that the Sovovocci had also chosen for colonization.” The Shadow Architect paced around. “According to the human colonists, the Sovovocci fired first. According to the Sovovocci, it was the other way around. The human colonists petitioned their governments for help, all refused – that was how the Anglican Marines became involved. She was assigned to a civilian evacuation fleet after her people’s defeat became inevitable,” the Architect explained. “But the Marines pursued and destroyed the ships. Most of the civilians were lost. Including her children, it would seem.”
Yeshua gasped softly, his eyes darting to the glowing cell below. “Her children?”
“Yes,” the Architect confirmed without emotion. “Two of them. A boy and a girl.”
“It’s always the little ones that suffer the most. Unable to fight, unable to defend themselves, losing their parents.” The Doctor said, his voice quieter now. “That would drive anyone to monstrosity.”
The Architect nodded. “So it would seem. The Anglicans were able to track down most of the ships and verify their kills, but it seemed one slipped away, culminating in the… unpleasantness on your planet.”
Yeshua glanced up at the Doctor, confusion and conflict plain on his face. “She lost her children. She lost everything. Is that why she tried to… kill me?”
The Doctor crouched down so he was level with Yeshua’s eyes. “Grief and anger, Yeshua. They’re powerful things. They make you do things you’d never dream of doing otherwise. She’s not evil. She’s hurt. And she made bad choices because of it.”
“But she tried to hurt us,” Yeshua protested. “Shouldn’t she be punished? I thought you said that’s why you were calling these Proclamation people. Won’t she be punished?”
“Oh, she will be,” The Doctor replied, standing again. “But punishment isn’t the same as vengeance. And it certainly isn’t cruelty. If we only ever see the worst in people, we leave no room for them to get better.”
Yeshua frowned, looking down at Isil’s cell. She sat on the edge of the small bench inside, staring at the floor, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “So… what do we do?”
The Doctor turned to the Shadow Architect. “Be lenient with her.”
The Architect’s eyes narrowed. “Leniency is not typically a policy we extend to prisoners, Doctor.”
“Oh, come now,” The Doctor said, waving a hand. “It’s the fifty-first century. I know your Judoon flunkies have been forced to mellow out – what with the mandatory sensitivity training back in ’48. Show her mercy. Give her a chance to make things right. And take the fight to the real guilty party.
The Architect studied him for a long moment, then sighed. “Very well. She will be afforded the opportunity to present her case and plead for rehabilitation.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
“And…” The Architect reluctantly amended. “Regardless of the outcome of the trial, a thorough investigation of Vector and the Anglican Marines will be initiated.”
“Good,” the Doctor said, a small smile tugging at his lips. He glanced at Yeshua. “That’s the thing about mercy — it’s not about what they deserve. It’s about what we can give.”
Yeshua nodded slowly, still watching Isil.
The Doctor placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on. Time we were off.”
---------------
“You all right, lad?” The Doctor asked, pressing one of the buttons on the console. Two-hundred years of stickiness finally gave away with a loud, satisfying click, and the Doctor continued to move about the controls.
Yeshua turned, his expression unreadable. “I think so. But… I keep thinking about her.”
“Isil?” The Doctor questioned without looking up, his voice gentle.
Yeshua nodded. “She… I feel bad for her, but I… I don’t know if I can forgive her.”
“Forgiveness is not a choice. It’s not something some people can just ‘do.’” The Doctor said softly. “It’s work. It’s not easy, and it’s not quick, and a lot of the time, it takes time. But that’s the beauty of it, don’t you think? Because it’s such hard work… that makes it all the sweeter in the end.”
Yeshua didn’t respond, but his lips pressed into a thoughtful line. The TARDIS engines began to shift, their familiar grinding signaling the ship’s materialization.
The Time Rotor locked into place, and the TARDIS settled.
The Doctor straightened, rubbing his hands before slipping on his coat. “Right then! Home sweet home, just as we promised.” He flipped the door control, and gestured toward the opening. “Go on, Yeshua. She’s waiting for you.”
Yeshua hesitated, then ran to the door and yanked the exterior set open. He stepped out into the same quiet place he had left, a tiny house just across the way. The sun hung in the same position it had before, as though no time had passed at all.
Yeshua scanned the area, his eyes landing on a woman just nearby.
“Mum!” His face lit up, and he dashed over, throwing himself into her embrace.
“Yeshua!” Miriam gasped, blinking in confusion as she squeezed the life out of her.
“Mother!” he cried, tears streaming down his face. “I’m here! I’m safe! I’m here!”
“I…” Miriam stammered in confusion. “I see that,” She chuckled. “Um…” Her face twisted in worry. “What do you mean you’re safe? Yeshua, did something happen? Where were you?”
“I was…” Yeshua faltered, glancing back at the blue box behind him. The Doctor stood in the doorway, his hands tucked into his coat pockets, watching them quietly.
The woman’s eyes widened. “It’s you…” she whispered. Her grip on Yeshua tightened as she stared at the Doctor. “I know you.”
The Doctor gave her a small smile and tipped his hat.
“You…” Her voice wavered, but her gaze remained steady. “You were there. That night. The night he was born.”
The Doctor nodded. “I was.” He answered from the TARDIS, standing at the threshold.
Her eyes searched his face, in disbelief. “But you haven’t changed. You look exactly the same.” It was a harsh reality of the time – people living and working out in the sun all the time tended to age prematurely. Even though she was in her mid-20s, she looked a good ten years older than that.
“Yes,” The Doctor idly bounced on his feet with a smile still. “My skin care routine is phenomenal.”
Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t press him further. Instead, she looked down at Yeshua, brushing the hair from his tear-streaked face. “What happened? What did you do?”
The Doctor looked on, pausing for a moment. “I made sure he was safe. And I brought him home.”
Her expression softened, though uncertainty still lingered in her eyes. “Safe? Safe from what?”
The Doctor’s expression turned solemn. “You remember what I said the night he was born? About interested people?” He gestured vaguely. “You needn’t worry about it any longer. I took care of it.”
Miriam stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded slowly. “Thank you.”
The Doctor straightened, the moment hanging heavy in the air. “Right then,” He said briskly, clapping his hands. “He’s where he belongs, and I’ve still got places to be.”
“You’re leaving?” Yeshua asked, his voice rising slightly.
“Afraid so,” the Doctor said with a small smile. “But don’t worry. You’ll be just fine.” He turned around, shooting a look back at the two of them before he crossed the threshold. “Feast your eyes on this.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but the Doctor disappeared into the box, the doors slamming shut behind him. With a wheezing groan, it vanished from sight.
Yeshua and his mother stood in silence for a moment, staring at the empty space where the blue box had been. Finally, she knelt down, pulling him close again. “You’ve got a story to tell me, haven’t you?” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
Yeshua nodded, a faint smile breaking through his tears. “Yeah.”
----------
The TARDIS hummed peacefully as it floated along the eddies and currents of the Vortex. The Doctor leaned back in his chair, a satisfied grin on his face.
He reached for his book, and-
‘WHAM!’
Something jolted the TARDIS. The ship shuddered violently, as though it had suddenly slammed into something. The Doctor’s shot to his feet, and hands flew to the console, trying to steady the ship.
“Oh, not again!” The Doctor groaned over the protests of the engines.
Before he could get it under control, the TARDIS was falling - plummeting out of the Vortex. A familiar, disorienting lurch turned him about as the ship struggled against whatever force had gripped it. The Doctor quickly flicked switches and pulled levers, trying to stabilize the descent. But the TARDIS was being dragged, unwillingly, back to Earth. He gritted his teeth, muttering curses under his breath as the ground rushed closer.
With a final shudder, the TARDIS hit the earth with a jolt that left the Doctor staggering. For a moment, everything went still. Silence.
The Doctor leaned on the console. “I really should give the engines a tune-up at this point…” He groaned. It was getting ridiculous.
The Time Lord hit a switch, and the door whirred open. The Doctor moved over, glancing out the door and into the early morning light. The sun was just rising, casting long shadows across the empty countryside. The familiar scent of earth and grass greeted him, but something felt... off. The air had an unusual stillness, a weight that made everything feel slightly distorted.
“Doctor!” A voice called. “Doctor!”
As the Doctor stepped further out, he looked around, eyes landing on a man running up to him, possessing long hair and a thin beard.
“I heard the sound of your ship…” He wheezed as he approached, pointing with a smile. “I thought to myself: ‘there’s only one thing in creation that makes that noise, and it’s not of the hands of man.”
The Doctor’s eyes searched the unfamiliar stranger’s face. Middle-eastern, much older, but the recognizable features were there.
“Yeshua?” He questioned, his voice cracking slightly in the quiet. "What the devil-? I just left you-“ The Doctor cut himself off, rubbing his face in confusion.
Yeshua, now in his mid-to-late-twenties, stood in front of him. His face lit up in a radiant smile, eyes wide with excitement. “Doctor!” Yeshua shouted, his voice full of relief. He gripped the Time Lord’s shoulders enthusiastically. “I knew you’d come! The moment we found it, I knew: ‘He’s bound to show up eventually.’” He turned, gesturing enthusiastically to the Time Lord. “Come. Come, come see. We need your expertise!”
The Doctor stepped back, blinking in confusion. “Expertise? Hold on a second,” He said, glancing at the TARDIS. “This is... this is a bit unexpected. Three malfunctions and they all plop me down right where you happen to be? Or will be? Or would-have-been? Something’s off. What’s going on?”
Yeshua chuckled. “Who knows? But it’s exciting.” His hands trembled with excitement. “Come!” he said, tugging at the Doctor’s sleeve. “You have to see it. It’s right over here!”
The Doctor followed reluctantly, still trying to wrap his mind around the strange turn of events. He’d only just left the lad, and now Yeshua was grown, and something had clearly happened that was beyond the ordinary.
It didn’t take long before Yeshua led him to a shimmering lake, the surface gleaming in the first light of dawn. A few other people were there as well.
“Ah, Doctor,” Yeshua pointed to two people – another man, and a woman, both his ages. The man had strangely-discoloured hair, but the woman looked normal. “This is Mary and Yeshua.” He leaned over to the Time Lord. “We call him ‘Also Yeshua.’”
The Doctor wasn’t focused on the people. His steps slowed to a stop, as his jaw dropped open, threatening to catch the flies and mosquitos swarming around the lake.
“And here…” Yeshua gestured. “Is what we found.”
At the center of the lake, rising out of the water like a monument from another world, stood a massive, golden monolith. Two ‘fins’, angular trapezoids, jutted from its sides, lined up with an enormous blue crystal set into the face of the object.
It towered over them, gleaming with an otherworldly brilliance that caught the light and refracted it into all the colors of the rainbow. The edges were smooth, impossibly smooth, as though it had been crafted by forces far beyond human comprehension.
The Doctor froze in his tracks, his eyes widening as he recognized the shape — the unmistakable outline, that should have been locked away in a vault on Gallifrey.
“’And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God…’” The Doctor pressed his lips together, taking a step toward the monolith. “Hello again… old friend.”
The monolith hovered above the water, lazily spinning, and the Doctor felt a chill go down his spine.
“How did you get here?”
Notes:
So, I’ve got a few notes about this chapter! First off is a big obvious one: most scholars agree that Jesus wasn’t *actually* born on Christmas. December 25th was mostly chosen thanks to a bevvy of other holidays (pagan and otherwise) that fell right on the Winter Solstice. For the sake of the story, assume that in *this* universe, Jesus was born on December 25th, early in the morning (around, say, 12:07 am).
In the earliest version of this chapter, the Interloper was originally going to be Elma. This chapter would, therefore, not only have dealt with how the Doctor may-or-may-not gotten involved with some of the events in Xenosaga’s backstory, but also how he met Elma. I changed because I really did want to keep her in-synch with ‘modern day’ Earth. The Anglican Marines are post-5000 kind of deal, and Elma is supposed to have shown up on Earth during the early 21st century. Plus, I don’t know, there’s something that rubbed me the wrong way about writing a version of Elma willing to kill a child, even if she didn’t wind up following through with it… that, and I decided instead that the Doctor she knew would be another version, after Seven.
In any event, I did say this fic had multiple plotlines, right? In case I wasn’t quite blatant enough, the big italics sections in the beginning of chapters is something you’ll want to pay attention to! They either have relevant information to the chapter at hand, or are part of the grander, sweeping background narrative. This work, at one point, featured not only the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor with their own plotlines, but the Ninth, Twelfth, Eighth, War, and Seventh Doctors as well. That’s seven Doctors, each one knee-deep in a series of events with a peculiar ‘resonance’ between them, patterns and concepts repeating, all surrounding that mysterious monolith the humans dug up that’s connected to the Time Lords in *some* capacity. And although I’m a fan of complex stories with intricate points-of-view, I would like to be finished with this thing in my lifetime, so I cut a good chunk of them out – a lot of their developments will be relegated to those italics sections in the beginning of some chapters, so, keep an eye on them, you never know Who might turn up! As for why I chose the Seventh Doctor to be the one to have gotten involved with Biblical times/Xenosaga’s setup?
Lucky Seven! Plus, he just seems to be the most likely one to go into a situation where an entity that’s arguably God Himself is manipulating literally everything for reasons unknown, only to wind up turning each and every one of those manipulations into something benefitting him, and coming out on top. Seven did it with one cosmic god already, what’s another one to add to the count?
And, on one final note, this is going up only a few days before Christmas Eve – so, with that in mind, Merry Christmas!
Chapter 9: Ten: Mechon Killer
Chapter Text
See here, Gallifrey, the Shining World of the Seven Systems, and how far it has fallen. How far our species has slid back towards the dark, and the primitive, and the banal. See the blows the War has already inflicted upon our kind.
Training regiments march through the highlands, bellowing cadence at the top of their breaths. There hasn’t been need for such things as ‘boot camps’ in eons, until now. In the preparation for war, the High Council had tried retro-engineering our base instincts out of us. A history of childbirth was altered to make way for a history of artificial growth. Soldiers born out of breeding engines with everything they need to know, their knowledge harvested upon death, distilled, and poured into the next generation. An eternal history.
But it’s not enough. We aren’t vicious enough, according to the Matrix projections. So, they slide back in the other direction. Our past is altered again, our instincts amplified to make us more emotional. More aggressive. Children now fill the corners of Gallifrey, swarming in numbers greater than they ever have before – something for our new, stronger instincts to make us fight viciously to protect. And though we can all remember a history otherwise, nobody can bring themselves to care.
Whole family trees, across generations, are being twisted around. Pruned, uprooted, fertilized, and replanted to suit the Council’s intent. Entire house-lines vanish into mist, and coalesce from nothing. Before this War began, I was the last survivor of my family line.
This morning, I woke up with a stranger in my bed with me, and a child in the room down the hall. My wife and my child, they tell me. People who did not exist before, and weren’t supposed to, clinging to my timeline like barnacles. There is a whole history we share – a courtship that never occurred, milestones that might as well be made up. They are but the symptom of the larger ill.
It is not just our population and our soldiers, or our families. All the way back, our earliest history is being shuffled around. Rassilon, Omega, Urizen, the Architect, the Demiurge, the Other – countless early wars and squabbles moved around and altered to make us better suited to survive the calamity.
And this will not even be the worst of it.
If our own nature can be so thoroughly altered, God knows what all of this will do to the lesser races.
I pour out a glass of gin I do not remember buying, that I find absolutely abhorrent. I feel pity for them, for the people I can’t recall, but that’s outweighed by my own anger. The anger of what will happen to me.
Every Time Lord with even a below-average grade will be conscripted. The High Council will stop pretending like they don’t know how to track stolen TARDISes, and every renegade will find themselves dragged into this War. Even I will be thrown into the fire.
I won’t let that happen. If the High Council wants to destroy themselves in the cosmic fire they are responsible for setting, that’s fine, but I won’t be a part of it. They would call it cowardice. I call it adhering to the ideals they posture, and removing myself from the equation. It’s not a hard decision. The people in my house are strangers to me (though at least they will be able to make use of the place when I’m gone), but beyond that, I have no one. I will need no one.
I haven’t for a long, long time.
I take my leave that night, when the stranger in my bed goes to sleep.
Leaving Gallifrey is out of the question. The Sky Trenches and the Transduction Barrier are going to be alight. Any starship wouldn’t make orbit. Any TARDIS would be an invitation for them to track me.
I must go primitive. Ironic. To adhere to the higher standards we exalt, I’ll have to live like an ape. Maybe the Shobogans were onto something.
It might be overreacting, but I don’t do any of it by half. Like every other set of Time Lord robes, mine are dimensionally transcendental. They could track me through the distortion in space they cause. I need to cut out any possible way they could pin me down easily. Nothing Time Lord in origin. No tech. I shouldn’t even carry anything that has the Seal of Rassilon on it – aside from the fact that the Council can supposedly track any instance of it by the Biodata signature, the Shobogans are no friends of the Council.
In the end, I settle on something primitive. Leather and furs – a display piece. Our family had been proud of our history – if only to say, look at what we were able to overcome – and the ancient garb in the colors of the Prydonian Chapter had been untouched for generations, kept in a stasis field such that they were nearly new.
I consider a firearm for defence. There’s quite a selection in my collection. There’s a primitive gun-sword left over from the Eternal War, when the only way to kill our foe was to pierce the heart first, then tear everything else asunder. It’s overkill for the wilderness of Gallifrey. Should a Dalek find me (however remote that possibility is) I don’t know how well it’ll hold up. I hope I won’t need it at all.
I take one last look over at myself, check to make sure I have everything, then walk away from my home, into the wilds.
I vanish into the wilderness…
…and the wilderness vanishes from around me. I lay for a moment, somewhere on the edge of consciousness.
Then, without warning, my resting silence is shattered. A sharp, grating buzz erupts from the direction of the terminal. My body reacts before my mind can catch up, a jolt of adrenaline flooding my veins. My breath hitches as the sound seems to get louder. It had stopped a second ago, but I can still hear it. The ringing, so loud it’s like a spike being driven into my ears. The lights are so bright, they’re searing, like an iron.
The bright, flickering glow from the screen stabs through my sleep-caked eyes.
Panic claws at my chest, dragging me up and out of my rest. The air feels thin, as if my lungs can’t quite get enough of it.
By the time I figure out where my body is in relation to itself, my movements are frantic, uncoordinated. I’m at my desk, in my quarters, but the noise and the light can only remind me of the operating theatre.
I practically throw myself around, my palms slamming against the surface as I fumble for the keyboard and mouse. I mute the speakers that aren’t playing anything, just to be sure, and shoot up from the seat.
I force my eyes shut. Taking a deep breath, I call out. “Computer! Lights off!”
The lights cut out. I take what must be twenty minutes to catch my breath.
“Computer. Turn on the lights. Slowly, please.”
One of the processors responds, and the lights slowly dim on, instead of a sudden cut.
I rub my face. “God.” I bite out, and flop back down in my seat. The computer is still running, the clock ticking up. It’s early. I must’ve fallen asleep at my desk last night, while trying my hand at being a hacker.
I maximize the terminal, covering the UNIT wallpaper on the desktop. There’s an enormous wall of red text I can only just barely manage to understand.
“Damn Linux dependencies,” I spit, before going to get a drink from my water bottle. “User-friendly my…” I trail off, my next thought poised to launch into a tirade against these custom distributions—those Frankenstein's monsters of open-source idealism that seem deliberately designed to make even the simplest tasks an odyssey of frustration. But just as the words form on my lips, something on the screen pulls me up short.
I blink, focusing. Amid the chaos of errors and stack traces, something doesn’t belong. A small, neatly formatted block of text is embedded within the mess, its stark simplicity a jarring contrast to the labyrinthine red code.
query:Are you truly seeking information about the Time Lords? About the Doctor?
The words feel surgical, as though they’ve been placed there with precise intent. My hand tightens around the water bottle, the plastic crinkling under my grip. A chill crawls up my spine, slow and deliberate, like fingers trailing across my skin.
This… this isn’t a mistake.
I glance over my shoulder, irrationally expecting someone to be there, watching. But the room is empty, save for the faint hum of equipment and the soft ticking of the wall clock. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I’ve never breathed a word about what I was experiencing. The dreams—they were mine alone, locked away in a part of my mind I couldn’t explain, much less share.
But someone—or something—knew.
Swallowing hard, I lean in closer, my fingers hovering uncertainly above the keyboard. The block of text doesn’t move, doesn’t disappear as I expect it to. It sits there, waiting.
> whoami
ak2023
I frown, and I decide to bite the bait.
> echo "Who is this?"
A friend. But I am not here to comfort you.
The bluntness of the reply confuses me. My fingers hesitate again, the phantom ache of my earlier panic attack still lingering in my chest.
Was this possible? I didn’t run the talk command.
> echo "What do you want?"
What *you* want: Freedom from a doomed existence.
You’re right about one thing. You’re right to follow your dreams.
I type one last message, the letters flickering as they appear on the screen.
> echo "How do you know about that?"
Is that not the line they tell *all* the young ones?
Continue what you’re doing. Indulge your curiosity. The Doctor has a habit of making noise wherever he goes.
When people build an encyclopaedia on *him*, they tend to build quite the library on the Time Lords as well.
Including your… employers.
Which you know, else you wouldn’t be looking, would you?
I stare at the screen, the words burning themselves into my mind. My heart pounds in my ears, the weight in my chest giving way to a gnawing sense of dread.
It’s okay. I’m not going to say anything.
You’ll find you already have what you need.
Provided you choose to make use of it, of course.
Whether or not you choose to continue, I leave that decision to you.
Good luck.
Someone — or something — knows far more than they should. And they’re not just watching.
They’re waiting for me to press on.
I watch the blinking cursor, and shut the machine off.
-------------
The morning was spent crossing Eryth Sea – the archipelago of floating islands hovering above the sapphire waters filling the basin of the Bionis’s back wasn’t a place he travelled through often. He should have (things were so transient, even the land, when one was as long-lived as he), but it was usually just more convenient for him to simply skip-travel to where he needed to be. For him, every point was coterminous.
But that sort of thing was usually hard to get other people to adjust to. So, at least for now, Alvis was content with walking like a plebian.
It wasn’t a struggle. Though the act was inconvenient, the natural beauty of Eryth Sea was compensation enough.
For all his years, he’d never truly stopped to take a moment to appreciate it. The Bionis really was beautiful, in its own way. Though its interior had become rotten, black, and petrified, the outside still teemed with life and vibrancy. Mechonis, too, teemed with life of its own. Its beauty was different, but no less wonderful.
He never visited her anymore. He wanted to, especially before the inevitable arrived, at least one last time.
His every move being scrutinized made that difficult. He had operational freedom, but the instant he set foot on Mechonis, Zanza would know.
Alvis got to where he was by playing the loyal, ‘devoid-of-free-will’ servant. He couldn’t squander it. Not now. After literal epochs spent serving one master after another — the Archons of the Spiral Politic, then UNIT, and now Zanza — Alvis had learned the value of patience.
Regrettably, he’d have to wait. That was so appropriate, regarding him.
Infinite power, but the inability to use it without permission.
It was a good thing he didn’t hold grudges.
“Alvis?” Melia addressed him, leaning in. “Is there something on your mind?”
She must have noticed him staring ahead. When he got deep into thought like that, he did occasionally forget to blink, and glance around, like most people.
“It’s quite fine, Your Highness.” Alvis answered her with ease. “Simply preparing myself. It’s been quite some time since I met with the Nopon of Makna.”
“Indeed,” Melia frowned pensively. “It has been some time… will they really be so welcoming to us? We never seem to reach out unless we need something from them…”
“It’s been years – decades, in fact,” Alvis answered. “But Dunga is still Chief, if I recall. And, even if that weren’t true, I doubt they’d have reason to be anything other than cautious. They do default to calling strangers ‘friend,’ remember.”
“Right.” Melia nodded, glancing back at the four guards sent to accompany her. “But should we truly be so… cavalier, as to just walk into their home?”
“They will understand the reasons, I’m certain of that much.” Alvis smoothly gestured as they proceeded down the shoreline. “Why does it worry you so?”
“It’s as I said before,” Melia uneasily exhaled. “We only ever seem to reach out to the other races when we need something from them. It is… well, quite frankly, I believe it’s quite rude, to say the least. And it’s setting ourselves up for trouble, in the long run. What if we need help with something that they don’t want to offer because we’ve remained at arm’s length for so long?”
“That is a possibility,” Alvis hummed like he had only just now realized it, which, of course, he did not. “But your ancestors had their reasons for implementing their isolation.”
Melia thinned her lips. “And I’m certain they were very good ones at the time.”
Oh, they were. They absolutely were. If the worst were to come to pass, then the other civilizations of Bionis would have some warning before the Telethia descended to consume everything, instead of Telethia attacking them from within.
“They were. I… had ancestors, who sat in on the decision.” He touched the crystal hanging around his neck. The objective was to keep the other races of Bionis safe from the Telethia – but instead of promoting intermingling (which would dilute the blood of the High Entia and make the Telethia a non-issue), the Emperor at the time went in the opposite direction. Isolation, keeping themselves far away, while they worked on stopping the problem.
One might say it was an overreaction – considering the other races of Bionis had witnessed some of their friends turning into actual monsters, perhaps it was best that the High Entia withdrew until cooler heads could prevail – but, still.
It could have worked – if not for certain meddlers finding ways to twist things around to their advantage.
“Your ancestors?” Melia tilted her head in curiosity. She’d taken that little bit of bait, dangling there. “Truly? I know your family has long served mine, but… you never speak of them, often.”
“They’re not a topic I dwell upon, often.” Alvis made a show of looking down, kicking the sand. “I have a father – whom I only ever visit to argue with. I have a brother – whom would sooner kill me and harvest my vital organs than associate with me. My mother is currently… beyond my ability to reach.” He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “About the only person in my family who I still consider viable to approach is my sister, and to be quite frank, I’m still working on my approach.” If the Bowtie-Wearing Doctor would just hurry things up.
A murder investigation was serious business, yes, but there were other things to be done.
Melia reeled at the shotgun-blast of information unloaded unto her all at once. She blinked, processing it for a moment. “Ah… I apologize if I hit upon a sensitive subject.”
“It’s no trouble.” Alvis waved it away as they reached the water at last. “There was a bit of a schism between us, a while ago.”
‘That’s quite a bit on-the-nose.’ One of his parallel-process snickered in his mind. ‘Phenomenal work.’
‘Shut up.’
“Well, here we are.” Alvis proclaimed, coming to a stop.
“It doesn’t appear as if the Nopon have opened the way,” Aizel stepped forward, tilting his head at the sight of the unbroken waters.
“Why would they? It’s not as if we sent them a missive,” Alvis tucked his hands behind his back.
“Why do we have to go this way?” Hogard grumbled. “We have perfectly serviceable air transports…”
“It shows as a sign of respect that we approach the Nopon to warn them of the danger and seek their counsel, rather than keeping them ignorant by slipping in and dealing with such a massive problem incognito. To do otherwise would show we do not trust them, nor consider them friends.” Alvis replied.
“Alvis, if they do not know we’re coming, how are we going to get down there?” Melia questioned.
“We sink.” He bluntly answered, turning to her with a smile. “The tree in which the Nopon have constructed their village is directly under the sea. Once we get deep enough, we’ll pass through the Ether membrane supporting the water, and fall the rest of the way. Your abilities managing Ether will be more than enough to protect us from the water pressure and assist in our descent, and slow our fall once we’re through the water.”
“Of course,” Melia shook her head, turning to the sea. “…there is one major hitch with this plan, you realize.”
“Which would be?”
Melia turned a pointed look onto him. “I don’t believe any of us packed swimwear.”
-----------
“This can’t be everyone from the Colony,” Fiora looked around, her voice weathered with worry. Once the Doctor had finished his little bit of time living up to his name, they had all joined Sharla, moving to the back of the cave serving as the refugees’ hide out.
“Unfortunately…” Sharla exhaled heavily. “It is.”
“What!?” Reyn spluttered, glancing around. “This little bit of people!? They wouldn’t even fill up one of the townhouses in Colony 9!”
“Reyn!” Fiora hissed, whipping around to glare at him.
“Sorry!” He held up his hands. “It’s just… it’s a shock, that’s all.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, Sharla.”
Sharla nodded silently.
The Doctor frowned, puzzled, as he tucked his hands into his jacket pockets. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining that you’re still here, alive, but… how? I mean – I saw the great, big, pod-looking thing out there in the water, but how haven’t the Mechon tracked you down?”
Sharla opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by the younger voice cutting in.
“Oh, they’re trying.” Juju tremored. “But they’re dumb-as-rocks, so if they see a little bit of tree cover from overhead, they can’t tell anyone’s there.”
Sharla wordlessly gestured at him. “The Mechon attacked Colony 6 around a month ago. We’ve been running and hiding ever since.”
“Yeah,” Juju muttered under his breath, petulantly crossing his arms. “For all the good it’s did us…”
Sharla let out a tired sigh. “Juju, we’ve talked about this…”
“No!” Juju snapped. “You talk about it! You talk at me about it! While the Mechon are doing Bionis-knows-what to our homes- our friends! There’s going to be nothing left, and we’re just sitting here, doing nothing!”
“Juju, I’ve told you – we’re in no position to fight!” Sharla tried to remind him, but all it seemed to do was make Juju angrier.
“You say that, but we’ve got the people! And look!” Juju pointed at Shulk’s back. “That one has the Monado! We’re guaranteed to win now!”
“Juju!” Sharla raised her voice.
The Doctor couldn’t take anymore, and stepped in, raising his hands. “Now, now, let’s not get too hasty, here. While I respect the urge for some good old-fashioned rioting, your sister’s right.” He told Juju. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
“But-“ Juju began.
“You don’t have a lot of people to begin with,” The Doctor sternly reminded him. “And the ones you do have – most of them are children. Small ones, who couldn’t fight even if you let them, and even so, I will be dead and buried before I allow any one of you to take actual children into a war zone.”
Juju reeled, cold shock washing over him, “I-I wasn’t gonna-“
“The rest of your people are the elderly or the ill, people who are in no condition to fight in the first place.” The Doctor continued, looking at Juju. He didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t fix a look of disappointment at him. He just… talked to Juju. “Arda’s getting over parasites, and recovering from that is not speedy for older people. Kurl has silicosis, which means the likelihood of him descending into a coughing fit mid-battle is extremely high. Those are just two examples.” His look softened. “I’m sorry, Juju. But it’s not possible.”
“We have to do something,” Juju despaired.
“And we are,” The Doctor nodded, spinning around. “We’re talking, hashing it out, coming up with a plan.”
“Plan?” Juju repeated challengingly. “I’ve had enough of planning! We’ve got to do something!”
“Oi!” Reyn crossed his arms. “Don’t try and run off and be the hero – you’ll get yourself killed.”
“But-“
“Juju,” Fiora stepped over, leaning down. “I know how you feel. I was…” She cleared her throat. “I watched my brother die, fighting the Mechon, at Colony 9. I had to stand there and look – and right now, I want nothing more than to rip every last one of them apart. But we can’t be careless. Or we don’t help anyone.”
Juju looked down, nodding silently. “…right.”
“Colony 9 came under attack!?” Sharla sharply inhaled. “Is that why you have the Monado!?”
Shulk nodded gravely. “Yes. Things… well, suffice it to say, things got complicated.”
“Hang on,” Reyn curiously tilted his head. “How do you guys know that’s the Monado?”
“Oh,” Sharla chuckled – a wistful, melancholy sound. “Gadolt managed to get a picture with Dunban before the battle popped off.” She looked them all over. “I heard that sword wounded him pretty badly. Is that why he’s not with you?”
The group all exchanged silent, mournful glances.
“…Dunban was my brother.” Fiora softly spoke up. A few beats passed as Juju and Sharla digested the information, processed it, and arrived at the natural conclusion.
“…Dunban is dead?” Sharla breathed out in horror. “But… he was the only one who could control the Monado…”
“Well,” Reyn chuckled, giving Shulk a hearty pat on the back and a friendly shove. “I’d say Shulk here’s doing pretty well for himself!”
Sharla regarded Shulk with a nervous, almost-skeptical expression. Finally, she sighed. “I’m sorry about your Colony. And Dunban. I wish there was something we could do to help, but… well, you see the state we’re in.”
“Don’t you worry, Sharla,” The Doctor leaned forward. “But we need to know what happened. Can you tell us what went on?”
Sharla crossed her arms, regarding Juju carefully before swallowing. “It was a month ago. That was when the Mechon attacked Colony 6. After we had won at Sword Valley, it lured everyone into a false sense of security. We didn’t notice the Mechon until they were right on top of us. And when they landed, they… They started eating people, burning everything in their way to the ground…”
“It was the same, at Colony 9.” Shulk stroked his jaw. “The raid sirens didn’t go off, and the Defence Force didn’t mobilize, until the Mechon had already slipped past our early-warning systems. Then when they landed, they started murdering people.” His academic tone bled away to be replaced by rage, as he balled his fists. “Eating them.”
“Juju and I, we did our best to evacuate the Colony – the children and the elderly.” She gestured to the rest of the cave system.
“Good on you,” The Doctor smiled encouragingly.
“Doesn’t feel like it… but thanks.” Juju murmured under his breath.
Sharla nodded in agreement, looking at them curiously. “So, since you guys are here, I take it Colony 9…”
“Colony 9’s fine,” Reyn pounded his fists. “Plenty of room for you and yours, actually.”
“Reyn.” Fiora let out an exasperated sigh, shaking her head.
“What? ‘S not like they can go back to Colony 6, can they?”
“Reyn!” Fiora snapped, whipping around to look at Sharla. “I’m sorry, all those muscles starve his brain of oxygen.”
Reyn threw his arms into the air. “I’m just trying to be hospitable!”
Fiora shook her head again, as Reyn turned to Shulk. The blonde looked away from him.
Despite Reyn having shoved his own foot so far in his mouth he could taste it, Sharla could only offer a wan smile.
“Thanks – I appreciate the thought. But I’ll have to decline,” A second passed, and she didn’t even bother trying to put on even a fake smile. “When we left, people were still fighting. Otharon, the Colonel, and Gadolt.”
“You mentioned him. Gadolt,” Reyn tilted his head. “Who’s he?”
“…he would’ve been my husband by now. If all this hadn’t happened.”
The Doctor winced. He’d seen quite a few widows and widowers, in his time. Too many to count. War didn’t discriminate.
“But they’re still alive,” Sharla declared with such certainty, it made the Doctor blink. “I know it.”
“How can you be certain?” Shulk probed. As Fiora turned her scathing look onto him, he elaborated. “I’m not trying to bring down the mood! It’s just- how do you know?”
“You don’t think that buggy’s just something for Juju to take out on joyrides, do you?” Sharla asked with a rhetorical smile. “It’s a scout car – and it’s just a short drive over to a vantage point for us to see up to the Colony.” Her smile dropped yet again, turning serious. “We can’t see much, but we can still see Mechon around the Colony. Which is unusual, because it’s been a month. They should have packed up and left, which means-“
“There’s still something there that they’re looking for,” The Doctor finished with a knowing nod. “And given that the Mechon have largely been interested in exterminating people and not accruing real estate, that’s a strong indicator that the ‘something’ is people.”
Sharla nodded again. “Right.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Juju cut in, bouncing to his feet. “People in the Colony are still fighting, and now we’ve got the Monado! This’ll be a cinch!”
“Well…” The Doctor rubbed the back of his head.
“Juju…” Sharla began to warn.
“Oh, come on!” Juju groaned. “You said we needed a plan, so, I’m asking – what’s the plan?”
Sharla crossed her arms, turning to the group. “They didn’t come here to help us, Juju. They didn’t even know the Colony was in trouble. We can’t ask them to help.”
“Poppycock.” The Doctor called with an even tone, turning to one of the teenagers. “What do you think, Fiora, that sounds like nonsense, don’t you think?”
“Right,” She agreed, her hands going to her knives. “The Mechon may not have destroyed our home like they did yours, but they still gave us a bloody eye. We want our payback, just the same as you.”
“The Mechon have to be stopped.” Shulk agreed, as the Monado hummed on his back. “If we don’t, they’ll destroy everything. I have the capacity to help. So, I’m in.”
“Why not?” Reyn offered Sharla a charming grin. “We came this way looking for payback.” He pounded his fists together. Dunno if the Mechon get angry, but it’s gotta be able to piss ‘em off something severe if we turn up to ruin their days the way they did ours.”
“It’s stupid,” The Doctor pointed out. “Liable to get everybody killed.”
“We’re doing it anyway,” Fiora looked at him pointedly. “So, are you coming?”
“…oh, all right.” The Doctor groaned. “But that doesn’t leave us with much of a plan.” The Doctor pointed out. “How are we going to take down a Mechon army, hm?” He raised an eyebrow, looking over each and every last one of them. While he could respect the notion that teamwork was capable of carrying someone through anything, it was still a Mechon army.
“Well,” Shulk looked at the Doctor with an awkward, searching smile. “I was hoping you’d have some suggestions about that.”
“Me!?” The Doctor spluttered, his face wildly contorting and twitching as he struggled to formulate a thought. “Why me? It’s your idea!”
“You did destroy all the Mechon in Colony 9 with a spare Ether cylinder and a weather vane.” Fiora pointed out.
The Doctor faltered, running his hand through his hair, taking it to sit on his neck. “…you’re not wrong, I did do that.”
“Really?” Sharla inquisitively glanced at him. “How is that possible?”
“Just a bit of excitation in the ether field.” The Doctor waved it off. “Elementary stuff, really.”
“Hmm…” Sharla stroked her jaw. “Do you think you might be able to do it again?”
The Doctor frowned. “It was a pretty risky move.” He didn’t particularly want to do that again – if the Mechon were being controlled by a higher intelligence, destroying them on-sight would do nothing to help them figure out what that intelligence was. And if they weren’t, destroying them on-sight probably wouldn’t help defuse the situation. “I’m not sure it’s something we should just be throwing about.” The number of times he said he would never pick up another weapon – he went back on that many, many times – but he’d at least like to try to stick to it.
“Oh, come on, Doc!” Reyn pleaded, practically begging. “Aside from the Monado, that trick with that cylinder you pulled saved all our bacon! We could use it! Especially if it’s just us four!”
“And I’m telling you,” The Doctor shoved his hands deep into his suit pockets. “If it’s at all possible, I don’t want to go in carrying a weapon made for killing Mechon when I want to try speaking to them. Sentient beings tend to look down upon that kind of thing.”
Fiora stepped in front of the Time Lord, a silent, pleading look on her features. “Please, Doctor. You said you were coming along to keep us out of trouble, right?”
The Doctor’s eyes lingered on her for a second, hearing the echo of her screaming out her brother’s name in his mind as though it had just happened. With that, he sighed – he knew his decision was made. “Get me an Ether cylinder, a metal pole – it doesn’t have to be anything special, just, a pole –“ He turned about, making a dash for a crate. The Doctor lingered by it for a second, caught out by the junk on top, before knocking it off indiscriminately. “The weapons out of that aircraft, and scrap electronics! Anything you can pull out of that transport! Oh,” He turned to Sharla. “Yeah, that transport won’t fly again. Not anytime soon.”
“What?” Sharla frowned in befuddlement. “Why? What are you doing?”
“A clever thing,” He looked at Shulk, Reyn, and Fiora. “Come on – I need things to work with!”
“Right!” Shulk nodded, moving to run outside. “On it!”
“Sharla,” The Doctor snapped his fingers, pointing. “I’m going to need everything you have left on Colony 6 – blueprints, layout, all of it. If you don’t have it, I need you to draw it up.”
“I’d be no good at that, I’m afraid,” Sharla admitted, before turning to Juju. “But Juju might be more of a help.”
Juju, finally offered something he could do to help – really help – eagerly straightened up. “What do you need?”
“Everything.” The Doctor answered, dusting his hands off. “Don’t worry, you two. We’ll get your home back.”
------------
Sparks flew across the cave as the Doctor and Shulk both worked, Reyn, Fiora, and Sharla dragging in parts stripped off the transport capsule. Smoke rose from solder joints as the Time Lord recreated his work from just a few days prior, with Shulk now able to stand in and observe, and learn something.
After Fiora had dropped off the latest ‘delivery,’ the Doctor glanced in her direction, then back to the impromptu workstation. The Sonic Screwdriver’s micro-fabricator was working overtime, rays of blue light radiating from the emitter onto a circuit board, sweeping across the board like a fibre laser. Thin wisps of smoke rose from the board as the Screwdriver, standing on its bottom cap, carved millions of little pathways into the board suspended above it in a little set of metal claws.
Finally, the Doctor looked up at Shulk. “So, Fiora?”
“Hm?” Shulk looked up from his work, seemingly expecting her to be there, before he realized the Doctor was addressing him about Fiora, rather than talking to her. “What about her?”
“She must be pretty special.” The Doctor noted, looking over a chunk of palladium pulled out of one of the weapons pulled off the transport. “For you to drop everything and go running on some mission of ill-conceived revenge.”
Shulk frowned. “I wouldn’t call it ill-conceived.” He refuted, scratching behind his ear. “The Mechon are a threat to everything.”
“You don’t really have a plan,” The Doctor pointed out, before making an iffy gesture with his face and hands. “Then again, neither do I. That’s what makes it ill-conceived.”
“And you still believe we can reason with the Mechon. Even after what they did to Colony 9.”
“I hope so,” The Doctor answered. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” Some lifeforms couldn’t be negotiated with. Cybermen, Daleks, Weeping Angels, Vashta Nerada – they had to be tricked. Cowled. Threatened. He hadn’t taken the time to try during the attack on Colony 9, but seeing as they were about to launch an attack on Colony 6, he would at least make an attempt. “Anyway,” The Doctor glanced at Shulk, as he twisted to wires together. “Fiora.”
“Well… she’s my friend.” Shulk nodded.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Right. A friend, or a friend?”
Shulk frowned, straightening up. “Is there a difference?”
“…blimey, you’re denser than I am.” The Doctor muttered so quietly, Shulk couldn’t hear him. “Shulk, dropping everything to go running head-first into danger isn’t something regular-old pals do. Well… it can be. Depends on the pal.”
Shulk stood by, awkwardly shifting. “It’s… well, it’s Fiora. And Reyn.” He leaned on the table. “Don’t you have friends like that, Doctor? Who you’ve known for so long, you’d just… you’d do anything to protect them?”
The Time Lord stopped, as an unexpected flash of memory struck him like a cricket bat. His fingers froze, as he stared at the coil he was weaving, lost in the pathways of wire. “Yeah. Loads.” Loads and loads of friends. Although, ones like Reyn and Fiora to his Shulk – friends since childhood – it had been…
Well. It had been a while since they were on a friendly basis. The Master was… complicated, to say the least. And the Rani had been out for his blood ever since…
Huh. Ever since he ruined one of her experiments on accident trying to turn it into a show of how much he liked her. And that pissed off the Master because, well, the Master had a crush on him too.
The Doctor snapped his teeth together, as he felt a most uncharacteristic urge to go into a bit more detail. He couldn’t help it. Something about Shulk reminded him of when he was a fresh-faced young Time Lord, ready to face the universe, before the Time Lords scorned it out of him.
“Gone now.” Was all the Doctor let be said on the matter. He had his human friends, but the childhood-type of friend that Shulk was thinking of were long gone.
“Oh.” Shulk looked about ready to eat his foot. “Sorry.”
“Yeah.” The Doctor hummed in response. “Anyway, like I was saying – Fiora’s gotta be pretty special, for you to just drop everything and go running along with her. You and Reyn.”
“Getting revenge on the Mechon is a reason enough, right?” Shulk asked in response. “And Fiora is… well…” He shuffled. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to her and I wasn’t there to help. Reyn, too.”
“Right.” The Doctor nodded again. Good lord, Shulk was denser than he was, sometimes. “The three of you’ve known each other for a while, then?”
“As long as I can remember, honestly.” Shulk quickly answered. “Dickson was…” He thinned his lips, trying to figure out how to describe it. “Well, after the beginning, Dickson was always off doing something else. Managing the Defence Force, scouting across Bionis…”
The Doctor turned around, looking at Shulk curiously. Such a thing wouldn’t be unheard of on Gallifrey, but human children were far more dependent upon their caretakers. “He just left you like that? He found you, brought you home, then went on?” Some people just weren’t cut for parenthood.
“I wasn’t alone.” Shulk stressed, his eyes glancing away. “Dunban knew Dickson at the time, thanks to showing that he could control the Monado, and all. Whenever Dickson left, Dunban would watch over me.”
“Ah,” The Doctor nodded in understanding. That explained that comment Shulk had made about considering Dunban his brother as well. With Dickson out a large majority of the time, Dunban was probably the steadiest, most dependable male figure in Shulk’s life. “That’s how you met Fiora.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Shulk confirmed easily. “She’s my best friend. Reyn, too.” He bit his lip. “Even if I wasn’t able to use the Monado, I would’ve still come along.” He crossed his arms, pensive. “But I’m glad I can. It makes me feel a bit better, knowing this plan is a lot more achievable.”
“Now, Shulk,” The Doctor’s voice took a warning tone. “Remember what I said about that urge for vengeance.”
“I know, I know,” Shulk sighed, pressing his lips together. “But… Well, Doctor, this isn’t just about me being hurt by the Mechon. Because it’s not.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “It’s about Fiora being hurt by the Mechon, right?”
“No-“ Shulk began to answer, before cutting himself off as he remembered what he told the Doctor about imagining it was Fiora in Dunban’s place. “Yes. It’s about Fiora, and about everyone else the Mechon have hurt. And the knowledge that they won’t ever, ever stop unless we stop them first. I don’t expect you to understand our situation in its entirety, considering you come from another world, but the Mechon have more than thoroughly proved that.”
“Have they?” The Doctor challenged. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
“Doctor, the Mechon were attacking Homs long before Sword Valley.” Shulk explained for the Time Lord’s benefit. “Decades, perhaps centuries. Nobody knows why. But nearly every other colony we had was burned to the ground, even before Sword Valley.”
“You know, I keep hearing that phrase thrown around, but I still don’t know what it means.” The Doctor pointed out. “And nobody’s explained it. Not properly. Actually,” The Doctor sat down again. “Why don’t you explain to me the Mechon war, hmm? Fill me in.”
“Where to start?” Shulk rubbed his face. “Bionis and Mechonis were fighting, aeons ago. And both Titans died. Here on Bionis, life took root, and for the longest time, on Mechonis, it was assumed the same thing had happened. But given that the Mechonis is largely metal, with little soil and less water, it was assumed that Mechonis couldn’t support Bionis life. So… we stayed away from it. Away from the sword up there.” A shadow then passed over Shulk’s face. “The Mechon took advantage of that. We stayed away from the sword, but they used it to pass from Mechonis onto Bionis. That was the first wave of attacks from the Mechon. The society of Homs that existed back then were completely unprepared, and scattered to the winds. It’s from them that the Colonies were founded. Then the Mechon came back, and we needed a way to fight them – hence a search of Bionis for the Monado. That was the expedition that I was found a part of.”
The Doctor nodded silently – he didn’t exactly feel shame (he would never feel shame, arguing in favour of a peaceful resolution) but Shulk was right in that he didn’t know what was going on. Then again, he had seen similar things happen on a dozen other worlds.
“As the Mechon continued to raze our colonies, the surviving colonies pooled together their collective Defence Forces, and made a stand at Sword Valley – the point where Bionis and Mechonis meet.” Shulk let his arms fall to his side. “Dickson, Dunban, and hundreds of others were there. All pushing back against the Mechon. And in Dunban’s hands was the Monado,” Shulk pointed to the weapon on his back. He looked around, thinning his lips. “The battle lasted for days, and the Mechon were so relentless that the Homs soldiers couldn’t sleep. By the end of it, everyone was looking to fall back. But Dunban didn’t. He jumped right onto the front lines, and used the Monado to drive the Mechon back. They hadn’t been seen since… until, well, until recently.” Shulk sighed. “It’s horrible. All we want is to be left in peace, but the Mechon just won’t stop. So… we have to fight. Us or them.”
The Doctor rubbed his face. “Maybe, but… there’s always the possibility that there’s more to this. The Mechon may not have a choice. I’m not-“ The Doctor held up his hand. “Saying you need to roll over and take the hits, but if you go in there expecting them to all be evil, rotten to the core, you’re going to blind yourself to the other explanations. Like any experiment. You go in expecting something to happen, you look for it, and instead of being pleasantly surprised and trying to figure out what happened, you write it off as a fluke and keep writing it off as a fluke, because it doesn’t align with your beliefs. You’re too smart for that, Shulk. Way too smart.”
“…hmm.” Shulk hummed, like he hadn’t considered that. “And what makes you so certain? How can you be sure?”
“Well,” The Doctor sucked in a breath. “A combination of things. Since the Mechon are artificial, they’ve been programmed for a function. It’s possible their creators may not even realize they’re causing harm – and if they are, we need to approach them without looking to bust heads open.”
“And if they are intentionally causing harm?” Shulk retorted. “Or, if we explain, and they don’t care?”
The Doctor steeled his face. “Then we stop them.” He turned to look Shulk in the eye. “But we can’t go in there with a license to kill. We need to give it a chance first.”
“Okay,” Shulk nodded, moving to lean on the impromptu workbench. “Then what’s our plan?”
The Doctor turned back to the work area as well. “Well, my first ‘Anti-Mechon field’ was a bit of a rush job – scrap components, local tech, not very reliable, no offense, but I’m used to working with much better stuff. But, with a lack of higher-grade materials and more time, I could do this. Version two.” The Screwdriver beeped as the fabricator finished, and the Doctor took the board out of the cradle, hooking it into the device. “Adjustable control settings! Plus better Ether circuits. It won’t burn through its entire power supply, and we can adjust the effect. At the lowest settings, it should interfere with the Mechon shields. In the mid-range, well, I’m not sure, but it should cause some issues in their systems, allowing us to pacify them. At the high range… it’ll destroy them – but we don’t want to do that. Not yet. Not when it’ll burn everything out.”
“Curious…” Shulk leaned forward with a curious twinkle in his eyes. “So, you’ve managed to replicate the Monado’s ‘Enchant’ ability?”
The Doctor turned to Shulk, curious. “’Enchant?’”
“Ah.” Shulk cleared his throat. “Well, you know the Monado has different abilities, given that the Shield manifested a little while ago. One of them is the ability to extend the Monado’s Ether aura to other weapons, allowing them to pierce Mechon armour as well. The other is a single, high-powered Ether charge emitted by the blade that overwhelms the target, and those surrounding it.”
“…huh, well, I guess I did do that.” The Doctor hummed.
“We’ve been trying to figure out a way to replicate the Monado’s capabilities ever since it was discovered.” Shulk leaned forward, looking down at that which the Doctor had been working on. “And you did it with common scrap yanked out of an old transport. What must your world be like, for you to have such a way with engineering?”
“I’m,” The Doctor’s mental processes lagged for a second. “905. I’ve been around.”
Shulk straightened up. “No way.”
“Yeah,” The Doctor sing-songed, nodding.
“Nine-hundred years old…” Shulk whispered in awe. “What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“Your world!” Shulk answered excitedly. “For technology like your TARDIS, your understanding of science, the ability of people to live to be almost one-thousand!”
“Oh… nothing special.” The Doctor shrugged. “Home.”
“You have to tell me!” Shulk pleaded. “I don’t- It’s not every day you get someone from another world to talk to!”
The Doctor’s lips twitched, but he stalled for a moment. He had no clue the purpose of this bottle universe – what eyes might be watching and what ears were listening. But…
The Doctor took one look at Shulk, and his hearts melted. So many of the Doctor’s human associates were, like him, drawn in for the adventure. The chance to see new sights. It was what endeared them to him.
But something about Shulk was different. In Shulk’s eyes were a spark of something like… desperate longing. The true desire of a scientist, or adventurer, wanting to see what lay beyond. But here, in the world of Bionis and Mechonis, there was nothing beyond. No alien planets circling distant suns across the gulfs of space. There wasn’t even a moon.
Any worlds beyond his own that existed could not be observed by Shulk.
But still, Shulk had that endless curiosity. It would have been easy to write it off, since those worlds were outside his bubble, but he didn’t.
The Doctor had once lived in a bubble like that, too. TARDISes were no-longer being operated, Time Lords didn’t leave Gallifrey, and any “adventurous” impulses could be curbed by walking through the archives of the Matrix instead of actually going out there. To the Doctor, sat upon the High Council, the rest of the universe might well have not existed. But he still wanted to see it, to know it, anyway.
With that, the Doctor lifted his Sonic Screwdriver. The emitter lit up, and rays of blue struck the air, creating a flickering hologram.
“Is that a sphere?” Shulk got closer to look at it.
“It’s a planet.”
“This is a planet?” Shulk turned to it with confusion. “You said the term before, but never elaborated.”
“Ah,” The Doctor blinked. “Well, you took it in stride, so…” The Doctor coughed. “A planet is a massive object – so massive that gravity compresses it into an oblate spheroid – orbiting a star, or a black hole, or even just floating freely in the vacuum of space. Your Bionis is about, hm, five kilometres tall? That planet there,” He gestured with his eyes at it. “Has a diameter of thirty-thousand kilometres.”
“Thirty thousand!?” Shulk spluttered in disbelief. “The surface area- you could copy every last person on Bionis a billion times and there still would be room to spare!”
“Yup.” The Doctor popped the p at the end. “And where I’m from? There are billions of them.” The Doctor extended the emitter on the Screwdriver, and the holographic planet flickered, zooming out to show the cyclonic spiral of stars that held the planet. “Billions and billions of planets, orbiting billions and billions of stars, with those billions and billions of stars all orbiting together inside a single collection around a supermassive object, making up a galaxy. My people called this one Mutter’s Spiral.” The Doctor gestured with his eyes at it. “The humans call it the Milky Way. The Nopon…” The Doctor scrunched his nose. “They call it the ‘Spinny Twisty Bazaar.’ Treasure hunters, you know?” His tone – respect for the infinite beauty of the cosmos – returned. “And that’s not the only galaxy. There are billions upon billions of them as well.”
“That’s…” Shulk stared at the projection. “Astounding.” He turned, looking at the Doctor curiously. “The distances between each object must be mind-boggling. And the diversity of each ecosystem! Does each planet have its own unique ecosystem? Do they all support life?”
“Yep, again.” The Doctor chuckled. “To all of those questions. Well, except the last one. Now, to answer your earlier question,” The Doctor zoomed back in on the same planet from before. “This is my planet. Gallifrey.”
Shulk straightened his back, looking intently at the hologram. “This is where you’re from?”
“Broadly speaking,” The Doctor shrugged, deactivating the hologram.
“Gallifrey.” Shulk repeated, blinking. He chuckled, and began to shake his head. “An alien world. I wonder…” He trailed off. “Now that you’re here, if things don’t turn out optimally with the Mechon… might your people be able to step in?”
“Ah,” The Doctor, cagey, turned around, rubbing the back of his head. “Not really. We were never really big on… interference. Technically I’m breaking the law just by being here – rubbish laws.” He really resisted the urge to scratch the spot where that invisible tattoo was still etched, collecting data for masters that would never be around to read it again. “Anyhow, we’re off track something severe. Fiora – nice girl.”
“I… suppose.” Shulk frowned. “Why?”
“She and Reyn are lucky to have a friend like you.”
“And I’m lucky to have them.” Shulk responded. He looked like he wanted to say more on the matter, before they were interrupted.
“Doctor,” Juju approached from elsewhere in the cave, holding a stack of papers. “I’ve finished drawing those maps you wanted.”
“Juju! Just the lad I wanted to see – come on, that’s it, just throw them down there,” The Doctor swiped a bit of the junk off the impromptu workbench. Juju approached, and placed the papers on the crate. The Time Lord placed his glasses on his face, and started to look the map over. “Very circular – big walls. Very defensible.” He noticed that was a thread in common with Colony 9 – except the walls in question were the naturally-occurring walls of the Bionis’s calf, and Colony 9 itself had been smack dab in the middle of a lake.
The Doctor flipped through the stacks of paper, frowning as he came across one with a lot of question marks scrawled on it, broken up by pathways that branched off and disappeared into nothing. “What’s all this?”
Juju leaned over. “Oh – that’s the Ether mine.” He turned to look up at the Doctor. “Colony 6 is built right on top of an underground Ether river. There’s a whole network of tunnels and caves down there, but I never ventured down there enough to memorize all of it.”
“Really?” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up appreciatively.
“I’m sorry,” Juju apologized, slumping. “I just can’t remember…”
“No, Juju, this is brilliant.” The Doctor shuffled the papers around. “This is exactly what I needed!”
“Really?” Juju’s head snapped up, hopeful.
“Really?” Shulk probed, curious.
“Think about it,” The Doctor answered. “If there are any survivors left, they wouldn’t have stuck around on the surface – too risky. The Mechon would just level buildings and drop down from the sky. But, if you go running into caves, if you’re smart, you can turn all those tunnels against your enemies. Lay traps. Move around in secret. That’s rule one of guerilla warfare. You use it the right way, and even a relatively primitive force can fight against overwhelming enemies. That’s how the Viet Cong managed to last so long against the United States.”
Shulk’s head swivelled in the Doctor’s direction. “The who?”
“Don’t be ridiculous – the Who has nothing to do with war. Except… when you think about it, ‘don’t get fooled again’ is also the motto of most of the intelligence branches of the military.” The Doctor thinned his lips, knowing the statement only made sense to him. “If there are any survivors left, that mine is going to be our best shot at finding them. If there aren’t… well, we’re going to want to take care of the Mechon down there anyway.” He shot an approving look at the boy. “Good work, Juju. Go find your sister and tell her we’re ready to go.”
“Right,” Juju nodded, before dashing away to do just that.
Shulk watched as Juju left, before turning to the Doctor. “So, we are actually doing this?”
“Don’t see a reason not to – unless you do now.”
“No,” Shulk shook his head, leaning up against the box. “Just wanted to make sure.” He rubbed his hands together, slowly. “This is the first time we’ll be likely to actually run into the Mechon we’re planning to fight. We’ll need to prepare.”
“Well, you’ve got a head on the rest of us, with those visions.” The Doctor regarded the Monado with intent. “Actually, Shulk – I never do this sort of thing because, well, knowing what comes in your own personal future creates fixed time, but given that the Monado’s visions seem to actually enable you to change the future – safely, might I add, which is really unusual – I was thinking…”
Shulk frowned, befuddled at the Doctor’s ramblings, before taking in a breath of realization. “You want me to actually look to see what’s coming up? At Colony 6?”
“I was thinking so, yeah.” The Doctor nodded. “Of course… it may not be possible to see that far ahead, but in case it’s not, best we do it here in a controlled environment, don’t you think?”
“I see…” Shulk hummed, his frown turning pensive at the idea. He hadn’t yet figured out how to actually trigger the visions – they just happened. However, for the immediate moment, something else tugged at Shulk’s mind. “What was that you said about fixed time?”
“Ah,” The Doctor scratched the back of his head. “Well, you remember what I was telling you a while back, when you first brought up the visions? Actually seeing the future via actual time travel creates fixed time – the example I gave about learning your own future means its history to you that can’t be changed. But the Monado doesn’t work like that – or, if it does, the rules here are just so different from the rules where I’m from that it just doesn’t matter. It’s not really an opportunity that I get. So… I figured, why not make the most of it?”
“Ah,” Shulk nodded. “Right.” He removed the Monado from his back, looking down at it. “There is a problem with that…”
“Problem?” The Doctor leaned forward. “What, do the visions hurt? Are they distressing?”
“Yes?” Shulk confusedly answered. “At least, as distressing as bad futures can be. And I haven’t really noticed any physical effects. But the visions aren’t something I summon. They just sort of happen.”
“Right,” The Doctor nodded, gesturing at the sword. “The Monado is technological, isn’t it? There’s a program, or a mechanism, responsible for those visions.” He held up the Sonic Screwdriver. “I could take a quick poke around?” He lightly suggested. “See if I can trigger one.”
“Are you sure that is a good idea?” Shulk asked, looking with concern at the sword. “The Monado may be technology, but it’s technology so far beyond our understanding it might as well be impenetrable. And… it did demonstrate defences, last time around.” The last time, it zapped him. It might not take things so kindly, this time around.
“Oh, no, no, no. Not at all. Most of my best ideas are terrible ones,” The Doctor replied cheerfully, flipping the Sonic Screwdriver in his hand. “But you know what they say about curiosity and cats. Lucky for me, I’m not a cat. And, even if I was, I haven’t used all of my thirteen lives yet.”
“Cats have nine lives,” Shulk pointed out.
The Doctor, about to start his experimenting, turned around to shoot Shulk a droll look. “Not Gallifreyan ones.” He turned back around, and took the Screwdriver to the sword.
The Monado pulsed faintly as if responding to the Screwdriver’s presence, before it actually began to react. The red blade (made out of that inscrutable metallic substance) sprung open, allowing the Ether blade to shoot out. The Monado began to vibrate intensely and tremble, rattling like a loose metal roof in wind.
“Hey now, easy,” The Doctor spoke, though it took Shulk a moment to realize the Doctor was speaking to the Monado instead of him. “I’m not going to bite… You’re made out of metal; it’d be hell on my teeth.” He glanced over at Shulk. “You said this thing doesn’t harm Homs?”
“Homs, Nopon – anything intelligent that seems to originate from Bionis.” Shulk mentioned, academically thinning his lips. “Except for Tirkin. Although, that must be a sign that they’re not ‘intelligent’ in the traditional sense.”
“Tir-“ The Doctor began to repeat, as the Screwdriver continued to buzz. In the back of his head, he felt a mental pinch, and knowledge that he just suddenly knew being imparted into his consciousness through the telepathic interface. “Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.” He looked over at Shulk curiously. “It’s a sword that doesn’t harm intelligent, organic lifeforms? Not that I’m complaining, but… that’s an awfully narrow band of things you can use it against. Not much good as a weapon.”
Shulk walked over, shaking his head. “I would say it’s because the Monado was constructed for defeating Mechon… but I’m not so sure. It could be that the Monado can’t harm anything intelligent, organic or mechanical, but because the Mechon aren’t intelligent-“
“You can’t tell for sure.” The Doctor finished, turning his attention back to the sword. “Well… it did harm me. So your maybe it’s your earlier assumption that it can’t harm anything intelligent from Bionis that’s correct.” He felt another pinch in the back of his mind. “Oh- Oh, I’ve got something.” He shifted the Screwdriver, as the information rushed in.
The slow, methodical scan was proving safer – perhaps the Monado couldn’t tell it was being scanned, since the Doctor wasn’t doing the equivalent of breaking through a brick wall with a sledgehammer.
The Doctor's brow furrowed as he attempted to parse the chaotic torrent of data from the Monado’s processor being interpreted by the Sonic Screwdriver. Through the Screwdriver’s telepathic interface, the processor unfolded not as simple circuitry or even advanced quantum computing, but as a pulsating, living organism.
“Shulk,” The Doctor addressed, turning away from the sword for a moment. “Who did you say built this?”
“We don’t know.” Shulk honestly, instinctively answered. “Dickson said it was discovered in some kind of vault – but the architecture was like nothing modern Homs are capable of building.”
“Right.” The Doctor turned back to the Monado.
“What are you finding?”
“The Monado’s processor – it’s less like circuitry, and more like,” The Doctor sucked in a breath, tilting his head. “Well, more like it’s alive.” He grimaced as a stray thought of his own brushed against the Monado's deeper layers. The interface seemed to push back gently but firmly, as though protecting its secrets from his curiosity.
“The Monado does have a will of its own,” Shulk reminded the Doctor. “Anyone who picks it up has to contend with it – figure out how to push through it. Dunban was the only one who could reliably manage it.”
“And you?” The Doctor probed.
Shulk opened his mouth to answer, before locking up, and turning a curious look onto the Monado. “…I actually haven’t had to contend with much of anything coming from the Monado. I… I hadn’t really noticed it, but… that’s odd.”
“It is,” The Doctor gnashed his teeth in curiosity. “Maybe it’s not a coincidence you can’t summon visions at will; the Monado’s still doing its own thing, regardless of what you want. Probably decides when it’s 'appropriate.'"
He probed deeper, easing the Screwdriver’s telepathic connection toward what felt like the Monado’s core — a pulsating nexus of computational power that radiated an almost unbearable sense of purpose.
“Oh, oh,” The Doctor stated. “I think I’ve got something.” He held the Screwdriver up to his ear. “Just need to figure out how to activate it-“
The Monado’s defences reacted suddenly, as though the Doctor had gotten too close to something forbidden. A surge of light and heat erupted in his mind, and he reeled back, clutching his temple as the connection snapped. The Screwdriver let out a mournful whine, as if it too had been scorched by the experience.
“ACK!” The Doctor gasped as he dropped the Screwdriver. The white-hot, searing brand of pain that erupted behind his eyes was enough to make even him reel. One hand went up to his forehead, the other went down.
The Doctor’s other hand went right onto the Monado – directly into the path of its Ether blade.
“Ow!” The Doctor jerked it back quickly as the skin turned an angry, beet red. “Ow, ow, ow!”
It wasn’t just the searing pain in his hand that hit him; the dormant telepathic signal connecting him to the TARDIS suddenly shifted from stand-by to ‘DANGER!’ as a jarring screech tore through his mind – that unpleasant, scream-adjacent sound the TARDIS’s engines produced when she failed to take off. The Doctor staggered backward, clutching his temples as the piercing din was joined by an ominous, deep toll.
“Doctor!” Shulk rushed over, grabbing the Monado and yanking it away. The sword returned to its dormant state, resting on the box, and Shulk moved to help the Time Lord.
"All right, all right, point taken!" The Doctor rubbed his head, shaking away the residual ache. He wheezed, shaking his head. “I’m not going to go for a third try.” He groaned, forcing his eyes back open. “I like this hand. Don’t want to grow another one.”
The torturous cacophony finally faded into silence, but he could still feel the alert signal pulsing faintly, a rapid and anxious rhythm like a self-contained panic attack in the back of his head. Even from across the Bionis’s leg, all the way back in Colony 9, she’d felt his injury.
That tiny slice in the back of his mind, devoted solely for his symbiotic link to the TARDIS, was alight. Aflame with the desperation of someone banging on a window to break through.
The Doctor grimaced. “Oh, you’re angry, aren’t you?” He muttered under his breath, though he wasn’t sure if he was addressing the Monado or the TARDIS. “That’s new – I’ve never felt anger from you before…”
She couldn’t exactly send feelings to him – the symbiosis didn’t work like that – but she could use the whole switchboard of alert levels to make her opinion on some matters clear.
And from this, the Doctor was getting the sense that the TARDIS did not, absolutely did not like the Monado. Explained why she refused to take off.
Thank goodness, in hindsight. A good influence he may be, but the TARDIS had one hell of a vindictive streak (her hazing ritual with the holographic panther/leopard in the bathrooms of new passengers was proof enough). But that was mostly born of annoyance – not actual fury. She normally always got annoyed with new people, until she warmed up to them.
She never, never ever decided she hated someone, right out the gate. Not enough to try to lock him out with them. Not enough to actively refuse to take off.
Not even the Master had managed to get a reaction like that out of the TARDIS.
The Doctor cast his eyes over to the red sword, suspiciously.
What the hell was it?
The Doctor forced his racing mind to slow, looping mental hands around the part of his mind connected to the TARDIS. After a few ticks, the telepathic signal shifted from alert to standing-by (very reluctantly, as the slow reaction implied) and the Doctor took a breath.
“Doctor, are you okay?” Shulk questioned. “What happened?”
“Well… back in Colony 9, it was an Ether event that zapped my Screwdriver.” The Doctor. “This time, it was telepathic.” He looked at the sword with newfound suspicion. “Psychic backlash. It reached back at me – through my Screwdriver’s interface – gave me a nasty psychic whipping. A bit like flashbanging someone through their computer monitor. Then I… slammed my hand on the blade. Bit embarrassing, that.”
“But are you okay?” Shulk pressed.
“Fine, fine,” The Doctor straightened up, as a gold-orange glow began to fill the room. Shulk’s head perked up curiously. “I don’t like the look of that…”
Shulk turned around, to see what the Doctor was looking at. The Monado’s blade had popped back open, but this time, it was letting out a general ‘aura’ of energy – particles radiating out into the air.
The circular piece of glass in the centre of the Monado flickered, before a new symbol appeared, glowing a bright gold-orange: 新生
Shulk gasped. “A new symbol!” He rushed over to examine the weapon, as the Doctor slowly approached with him. “Incredible! Two new symbols in one day! I wonder what’s triggering them?”
“I think I did, that time.” The Doctor answered, looking down at his hand. Shulk took that moment to look over at the Doctor, watching enraptured as golden particles radiated off the Time Lord’s skin.
The Doctor flexed his hand, wiggling his fingers, as the glow subsided.
“What did it do?” Shulk inquired, moving over to take the Doctor’s hand in his own, looking it over. “Did it- it healed you!”
“It did…” The Doctor stared down at his hand. “It healed me.”
Shulk’s head snapped up.
“That symbol, on the Monado.” The Doctor pointed as the Monado returned to dormancy. “It’s the kanji for the word ‘Regeneration.’”
Shulk frowned. “Kahn-jee? What is that?”
“It’s a whole different method of writing than what you’re used to.” The Doctor answered quickly. “Point is, I recognize it. And it’s not just visually similar, it is Japanese – the TARDIS is translating it for me.”
Shulk glanced up, curiosity springing in his eyes. “Your ship translates for you? How’s that possible? Is it some sort of implant, or-?”
“It’s telepathic,” The Doctor answered, shaking his head. “She and I, we’re linked, y’see?” He tapped his temples. “Within the first nanosecond of landing, the TARDIS scans the local environment’s broadcast wavelengths, the telepathic circuit cross-references that data with the meaning learned by observing the local lifeforms, then the intuition circuits use that information to build a dynamic library to adjust the speaker’s syntax or any incorrect meanings it might’ve sussed out, and a low-level perception filter so that, when they speak and they think of speaking their native tongue, actually what comes out is that new language.” The Doctor bounced on his feet. “Unless the TARDIS already has the language saved, in which case, it just loads it up. Bit boring, if you ask me.”
“That’s…” Shulk furrowed his brow. “So, hold on, that means you’re not actually speaking Bionis-speak?”
The Doctor stopped, confusion slamming into his brain like a freight train. “Course I am. English – Bionis-speak, you call it – is one of the ones I actually do bother speaking.”
“Ah,” Shulk nodded. “That script on the outside of your TARDIS, then, what language is that?”
The Doctor blinked. “I… told you. ‘S English. Bionis-speak, I mean. Blimey, do you really call it that? Bit on the nose…”
Shulk frowned. “The lettering on the outside of your TARDIS must be a rare dialect, then. I’ve never seen it.”
“But…” The Doctor stared at Shulk. “You read it. You pointed the instructions on the telephone out to me.”
Shulk opened his mouth, before clicking it shut and rubbing his chin. “You’re right…” He frowned, before taking one of Juju’s writing implements from nearby, and writing out some letters on a scrap of paper. He passed it over to the Doctor. “This is what Bionis’s alphabet looks like.”
The Time Lord scrutinized it deeply. Plenty of curves, bends, and helixes in there. Not very many angles. Not like English.
A moment later and the TARDIS’s translation circuit kicked in for the written word, deciphering it for the Doctor.
‘The quick Ignas jump over a lazy frowning Ardun, vexing big mech pilots. 1234567890.’
“Good to know,” The Doctor hummed, before handing the sheet of paper back to Shulk. “But I wonder – how can you read English?”
“I don’t know,” Shulk admitted. Movement caught his eyes, and he noticed Reyn, dragging in a coil of wire. “Reyn – when the Doctor showed us his TARDIS, could you read the words on the outside of it?”
“Those were words?” Reyn blinked as he dropped the coil. “I thought that was just a bunch of squiggles.” He admitted, before turning to walk back out.
“Hm…” Shulk frowned. “I must have picked it up from somewhere…” He drummed his fingers against his leg, before snapping them. “That must have been the system of writing, in my old home. Before Dickson found me. Or, at least, something similar enough for me to get a lucky guess. Something I wouldn’t consciously remember, but still know.”
“Maybe,” The Doctor scratched his head. “Or, maybe the TARDIS was translating for you…” He muttered to himself. But that didn’t make all that much sense, either. The TARDIS translating for a total stranger, before he even came on-board? When she didn’t even like him, or at least, the company he kept?
She was behaving really strangely. Stranger than usual.
“But how can you read the symbols on the Monado?” Shulk questioned the Doctor. “As far as we know, it’s no language spoken anywhere on Bionis.”
The Doctor glanced pointedly at Shulk. “Told you – it’s a language where I’m from. Japanese – or Nipponese if you’re actually from the place where they speak it. I don’t even need the TARDIS to translate it – I’m a native speaker.”
Shulk turned to the Monado with newfound curiosity. “Incredible… Wait. If the Monado is displaying symbols of a language originating where you’re from, does that mean…” He glanced over at the Doctor. “Does that mean the Monado comes from your world?”
The Doctor looked more intently at the Monado. “Maybe… It wouldn’t explain a whole lot, though. But you did say it was alien to your understanding.” Alien to understanding, maybe alien to existence.
“Right,” Shulk exhaled. “It is said to be the sword the Bionis used against Mechonis.”
“It’s what?” The Doctor looked at Shulk, probingly.
Shulk blinked. “It’s a comm… oh, right. You’re an alien.” He gestured down at the sword. “That’s strange, though, isn’t it? That the Bionis’s sword is displaying symbols from your world.”
“Well, maybe the Bionis is Japanese.” The Doctor crossed his arms. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a simple explanation like that. “Still doesn’t explain why you can read English – unless you came from my world too. I wouldn’t go putting too much stock into the theory. Could just be coincidence – good old-fashioned spatial genetic multiplicity. Or… in this case, spatial linguistic multiplicity.”
“Maybe,” Shulk frowned. “You said that symbol was intelligible?”
“Same as the other symbol – the one for that shield function.” The Doctor gestured. “Both were actual words. I thought I must’ve gotten confused the first time, but, nope. Turns out they’re actual words, relating to whatever the sword’s doing.”
“The symbols actually state the Monado’s functions!?” Shulk gasped in delight. “That’s incredible! If we could find where the Monado stores the data for these symbols – or some other method of reading them without having to trigger its abilities – we could determine what functions it has before we even unlock them!”
“Right,” The Doctor grimaced. “Forgive me for not being too excited, after the second time it zapped me.”
Shulk winced. “Sorry… but it was your idea.”
“It was, and… oh, I’m going to be paying for it. God that’s worse than a hangover…” The Doctor rubbed his forehead, focusing intently on the Monado. “I’ve gotta wonder, though… did I trigger it, or did you?”
“Why would I have done it?” Shulk wondered.
The Doctor gestured. “You unlocked the shield, while we were being chased down. Maybe you saw me hurt, and the Monado responded, even though it zapped me.”
Shulk gently grasped his chin.
“Or…” The Doctor turned back around to it. “Maybe it was scanning me while I was scanning it. Saw a little bit of biology it could swipe. I shouldn’t be okay with that. I’m not. But something tells me the next time I go prodding at this thing, it won’t let me off with a warning.”
“Then… let’s not test it.” Shulk decided. “Dunban got off easy when the Monado started harming him, and he lost the use of his arm. Others have died.” He walked over to the Monado. “Or, maybe we can do it in a more controlled environment. Your TARDIS was quite advanced, does it have labs aboard?”
The Doctor nodded, but just as quickly rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, but… last time we went near her with the Monado, she got… testy. I don’t think she much likes it. And I guess that’s why!” He raised his voice, directing it at the sword.
Shulk shook his head, but picked up the Monado. “I’m sorry, Doctor, it’s just…” He exhaled. “With you around, it feels like I’ve made more progress deciphering the mysteries of the Monado in days than I have over the course of years.” He placed the weapon on his back. “And there’s the rest of it, too.” He looked at the scrap-made devices on the table nearby.
“Oh, you would’ve gotten there in the end.” The Doctor told the teenager, bouncing on his feet. “Of that, I have no doubt.” An awkward silence settled over the duo. “Say, Shulk, do you know-“
The Doctor’s question was cut off, as Sharla came running in, breathing heavily. “Juju said you were ready?”
“Right!” The Doctor spun around, grabbing his coat and throwing it on. “Here, take one of these.” He tossed one of the smaller devices to her. “We’re going to Colony 6. Oh,” He turned back around. “Do you have a pair of binoculars?”
-------------
Sharla did not have a pair of binoculars. No. It was much worse.
The Doctor stared, with mounting discomfort, on the enormous gun held in Sharla’s arms.
“Absolutely not.” The Doctor attempted to declare, glaring at the weapon.
Sharla frowned. “Why not? The rifle’s scope has an effective range of 150 metres. It can hit an antol off the back of an armu at the same distance.”
“Sharla, that’s a gun.” The Doctor pointed out. “Take the scope off, and leave it.”
Sharla frowned. “I’m not going to take the only scope I have off my one rifle. If you need to look through it, you can just hold the gun.” To make her point, she thrust it into his arms.
The moment the rifle’s weight settled, the Doctor’s jaw clenched uncomfortably tight. The gun’s cold weight in his arms dragged him backward, yanking him out of the present and into the fiery depths of a distant, unending war.
The copper tang of blood and the acrid stench of burning cities filled his senses. He was there again: Arcadia. The jewel of Gallifrey, its shining spires turned to rubble. Daleks swarmed through broken streets, their voices screeching orders as the sounds of Z-Neutrino blasters filled the air, silencing the screams of fleeing citizens.
His hands – bony, decrepit, and wrinkled - gripped a gun then, too. Heavy, brutal, unnatural. His fingers trembled as they pulled the trigger, not at a living target but at a wall. Each deafening shot carved a letter into the crumbling surface; N – O – M – O – R – E. He remembered the weight of those two words, the anguish that had driven him to etch them in gunfire.
The Doctor dropped the rifle, and clenched his fists.
(He wasn’t standing in Arcadia. His hands weren’t the ones of an old man.)
“Doc?” Reyn moved over, leaning in, concerned. “Doc, you all right?”
The Last of the Time Lords turned a scolding look in Sharla’s direction. “Don’t do that again.” He growled.
“I-I’m sorry, I-“ Sharla winced, bending to pick the weapon back up. “Bad experiences?”
“I don’t like guns,” The Doctor replied, conveniently ‘neglecting’ to answer her question. “Don’t need something that’s only good for killing, thank you very much.”
“We need some way to scout the colony from a distance,” Fiora pointed out. “Besides, we’re carrying around knives and swords.”
“That’s different.” The Doctor told her sternly. “Knives, swords, axes, hammers – they have utilities beyond being weapons. Not guns. All they’re ever designed to do is kill. First and foremost. Be a quick, easy way of ending a life.”
Sharla tilted her head. “Well, it sounds like you’ve never seen this one.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows challengingly raised.
“I’m a battlefield medic, Doctor.” Sharla told him. “This gun’s not just for killing – it can deliver medicine. Ether solutions that encourage the body’s ability to heal, ones that toughen it up, others that can cure deadly poisons.”
“I don’t care!” The Doctor retorted, shoving his hands into his pockets and leaning forward. “A gun is a gun! And all they ever do is make it too easy to see your problems as all or nothing.”
“Doctor!” Fiora stepped over, in between him and Sharla. “Look, can-“ She looked between them. “Can you give us a moment?”
Then, Fiora turned, and pulled the Doctor with her. A few paces away, to the other side of the camp.
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable?” The Doctor challenged. “Hardly. Too many people with guns take it as an open invitation to do whatever they want. God only knows how that can backfire.”
“Look,” Fiora lowered her voice. “She overstepped her bounds trying to make you take it. That’s fine. I understand it. But you can’t write her off just for that. We’re trying to help, remember?”
The Doctor went silent for a long while. His frown made it abundantly clear what opinion he held on the idea.
“We can help her retake Colony 6, then we can move on to Sword Valley.” Fiora pointed out. “And you don’t have to hold her gun. Actually, I think she would prefer it if you didn’t.”
“It’s too easy a trap to fall into,” The Doctor answered, his voice just as low. “Pull a trigger, end a life. You blind yourself to other options when you have a gun – and people who would otherwise be perfectly reasonable start hating you.”
Fiora’s eyebrow shot up. “Like you’re treating Sharla.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No,” Fiora hummed, nodding. “I understand. You were just fine with Sharla until she showed you she owned a gun, it’s totally not the same.”
The Doctor sighed heavily, pressing his palms to his temples as if he could squeeze out the feelings brewing within him like bad juice. “It’s not about Sharla,” He murmured, though the words rang hollow even to his own ears. “It’s about what that thing represents.”
Fiora crossed her arms, her expression unimpressed. “What it represents to you. Not to her. To Sharla, it’s a tool she uses to protect people. People she cares about. If you stopped judging her, you might see that.”
The Doctor glanced at her sharply. “I’m not judging—”
“Yes, you are,” Fiora interrupted, her voice calm but firm. “You’ve been looking at her like she’s a bomb waiting to go off ever since she handed you that rifle. She’s not the gun, Doctor. She’s a person. And she’s been a good person!”
The Doctor opened his mouth to retort but faltered, the weight of her words pressing down on him. He looked away, his gaze distant. “It’s not that simple.”
“Maybe it isn’t,” Fiora conceded. “But maybe it’s not so simple from her side, either” She stepped closer, her voice dropping low, almost a whisper. “Sharla’s lost a lot. People she loved, her home. She’s trying to get it back. If she didn’t have that rifle, she wouldn’t have survived long enough for us to even meet her. Can you really blame her for holding on to the one thing that’s kept her alive?”
The Doctor’s shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of him. “I know. I know.”
Fiora regarded him in silence for a long moment before stepping back. “I’m not going to ask you why you hate guns so much. Just give her a chance, all right? She hasn’t done anything to warrant distrust yet.”
The Doctor gave a small, rueful smile, though his eyes were still distant. “Yet?”
“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, right?” Fiora shrugged. “Not that you’ll need to, I don’t think. Sharla’s been perfectly nice.” Fiora leaned forward, turning stern eyes onto him. “Look, you only just met her. Don’t go drawing conclusions about her already. Aren’t you the one saying that maybe the Mechon – the murdering, pillaging Mechon that killed my brother – might not be the bad guys?”
The Doctor flinched, rubbing the back of his neck. He used to get that look a lot from Donna, when she thought he was being pig-headed.
“I… suppose when you put it like that… you have a point.”
“I know I do.” Fiora nodded in satisfaction. “If you can grant them leeway, you can give Sharla some too.”
“Reasonable enough, I suppose.” The Doctor conceded, looking Fiora up-and-down. “It was your idea to go charging across Bionis for revenge? You sure?”
Fiora crossed her arms. “I’ve had to mind Shulk and Reyn since the three of us were children. I know how to get people to stop being stubborn when needs must.”
He sighed again, this time with a faint hint of amusement at her bluntness. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Not a chance,” Fiora said, smiling. “So, what’s the plan? Are we taking Sharla along or not?”
The Doctor hesitated, his gaze drifting back toward the others, where Sharla stood with her rifle slung over her shoulder, speaking with Reyn and Shulk.
“No reason why she shouldn’t come,” The Doctor murmured, almost to himself. Then, he spoke louder. “We’ll help her with Colony 6. She deserves that much.”
“Great, because, between the two of us,” Fiora lowered her voice. “You don’t really have a choice.” She smiled happily. “We need more girls on the team.”
“Oh, all right.” The Doctor turned about. He stopped, looking at Fiora again. “Team? I guess that makes you team lead?”
“This whole thing was my idea.” Fiora pointed out with a shrug. “If anything, I’d expect to be the team lead.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t sound like you’re too torn up about it.”
“Nope!” Fiora admitted. “Now, come on. You need to apologize.” She declared, turning the Doctor around and pushing him back over to the grouping.
The Doctor sucked in a breath as he came to stand before Sharla. “Sorry. Not for not liking your gun.” He flippantly shook his head. “But I could have handled the situation… better.” He glanced at Fiora, who nodded approvingly.
“I get it,” Sharla crossed her arms. “We’re all under stress. But we’re not going to get anything done by arguing about it. And… it was rude of me to try and shove my gun into your hands.”
“See?” The Doctor turned to Fiora. “Peachy keen.”
“Good!” Fiora clapped her hands, looking skyward. “Now, it’s going to start getting dark out soon, so we should decide whether it’s a good idea to try hiking the rest of the way now, or in the morning.”
“Honestly, I’m fine either way.” The Doctor rubbed his earlobe.
“Mechon see just as fine in the dark as they do during day.” Reyn shrugged. “Makes no difference.”
“Then we’ll rest for the night. In the morning, we’ll get going.” Fiora decided, walking in the direction of the cave.
The Doctor turned to the others.
Shulk and Reyn had knowing smiles on their faces already.
“What?” The Doctor looked between them. “What?”
Reyn grinned. “Word of advice, Doc. Listen to what she tells you to do. There’s a reason her voice is scratchy – and it’s from yelling at us.” He gestured between himself and Shulk.
Shulk began to nod, before double-taking. “Her voice isn’t scratchy.”
Reyn fixed Shulk with a look. “So you’re saying she doesn’t yell at us.”
Shulk scratched the back of his head, a sheepish smile creeping onto his face. “Well, she does sometimes…”
“’Sometimes,’ right” Reyn shot back with a grin. “You remember the water tower?”
“That was your fault.” Shulk groaned. “I told you I didn’t think the ladder would hold both of us at once!”
“And I told you it was gonna be fine! ‘Til you started shaking it to make a point!”
“I wasn’t making a point.” Shulk waved him off. “The ladder was shaking on its own!”
“You had one hand on the wall as leverage.”
“I was trying to keep it steady!”
“Blimey,” The Doctor blinked. “I can see why she made herself team lead…”
-------------
The next morning, the lot of them set out from the refugee camp. Back on the road up the Bionis’s leg, they proceeded past the large, and the strange, mushroom-shaped trees growing from it.
The Doctor, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, lingered near the rear of the group. His gaze drifted from one bizarre landmark to the next, but his thoughts remained anchored to a single enigma: the Monado. Shulk carried the sword strapped to his back, its hilt gleaming faintly even in the muted morning light.
The Monado. The Doctor’s hand hadn’t stopped itching since his run-in with the blade, and although the TARDIS’s distant wrath had settled, he got the sense that she was still very, very unhappy regarding the sword’s proximity to him.
Hard to blame her. The thing lashed out at him with the expertise of a trained Time Lord.
Up ahead, the others were chatting. He couldn’t find it within himself to focus on him. Not when he was occupied with the mystery of the Monado.
Shulk could read English. The Monado was displaying Japanese when activating its abilities. Were humans in charge of the bottle reality? It would explain some things, but not a whole lot.
“Hold on,” Shulk suddenly spoke up, snapping the Doctor out of it, at least for the moment. “Mechon.”
Up on the road ahead were Mechon – a few of them, at least. Idly stomping around, and not really doing much of anything. To be honest, they looked more like wild, grazing animals than they did killer robots.
“All right,” Reyn readied his driver. “Fire up that doo-hickey of yours, Doc, then we’ll hit ‘em with everything we’ve got.”
The Time Lord shot him a stern glance. “They’re not attacking us yet.” He turned back to look ahead at the Mechon. “I have to at least try the diplomatic route.” He began to step forward.
“Diplo-” Sharla began to splutter indignantly. “They’ll just kill you!”
Me?" The Doctor challenged. "I’d like to see them try." His hands in his pockets, he began to approach. "Hello there," He addressed the Mechon, coming to a stop.
The insectoid robots let out deep, alarmed buzzes, rapidly turning around.
"Ah." The Doctor scratched his head. "No habla ingles? All right, how about a little bit of the universal greeting." The Time Lord lifted his hands. Looking right ahead, he lowered his voice. "Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong."
The Mechon scurried towards him, one of the bipedal ones lifting its clawed arm to swing.
"Okay!" The Doctor jumped back. "Not big fans of the Transformers! Could’ve fooled me…" He muttered.
Shulk lunged forward, grabbing the Doctor by the arm and yanking him back just as one of the Mechon’s claws slashed through the space he had been standing.
"Doctor, they’re not listening!" Shulk snapped. “I keep telling you – diplomacy isn’t an option with them!”
"I was being optimistic!" The Doctor replied as the group scrambled into a defensive formation.
"Optimistic’s gonna get you killed!" Reyn growled, raising his weapon.
Shulk jumped to the front. “Doctor! The field generator!”
“Fine, fine!” The Time Lord ground out, pulling it from a pocket in his coat. The rocker switch let out a satisfactory click as the hodge-podge of technology hummed and his hair stood on end with an electric buzz.
The Time Lord pointed his Sonic Screwdriver, pressed down the activator, and the buzz filled the air. The Mechon it was pointed towards – one of the bipeds – burst into a shower of sparks and collapsed into a heap, before its back exploded outward.
“All right you tin bugs!” Reyn hollered, running up to one and knocking it around with such force, its armour dented and warped. “Come get summa this!”
Thundering cracks filled the air as Sharla fired her gun, causing the Mechon to blow away like raggedy old sheds made of rusty metal.
A four-legged Mechon, looking much like an upside-down microphone held up by spindly legs, sprinted towards Fiora, the girl sending both knives down into a seam in its dome, and roughly yanking on them. As the Mechon swung and thrashed, Fiora pried the plate off, revealing the cloudy, milky-white brain contained within, faintly pulsating with blue light. Fiora took her knife to it like carving up a Christmas turkey, and the Mechon collapsed.
“Shulk!” Fiora turned to him. “Don’t just stand there!”
Shulk, looking around, trying to decide which Mechon to target, quickly snapped out of it, and held the Monado aloft. The blade’s length extended further, turning to a deep, purple hue as the corresponding kanji appeared on the blade. It translated to ‘slash’ – so three symbols, all corresponding to a function, being translated. No longer a coincidence, but a pattern.
“Out of the way, Reyn!” Shulk raised his voice.
“Huh, wha-?” Reyn spun around, just as Shulk brought down the Monado in a swift, axe-like motion. “Gyah!” Reyn jumped out of the way as the blade came down, releasing a burst of ether energy in a shockwave travelling forwards. Much like a blast wave shattering glass, the Ether blast wave from the Monado tore through the Mechon and, unshielded, every weak point – every joint, every connection, every weld – snapped like they were held together with cheap glue.
The last Mechon exploded, and the area went quiet.
Reyn breathed heavily, turning his eyes onto Shulk. “A little more warning would be nice, next time!”
“You would’ve been fine,” Shulk reminded him. “The Monado doesn’t hurt people, remember?”
“The Mon-!?” Reyn spluttered. “What about the Mechon!? I could’ve gotten shrapnel in my back!”
“...well,” Shulk sheepishly grimaced. “Hence why I tried to warn you.”
“Still… give me some time to get away, next time!”
“I’m fine,” Fiora grunted out. “In case any of you were wondering.”
“Oh, sorry, Fiora!” Shulk quickly apologized.
“It’s fine,” Fiora sighed. “At least we know the Monado works even better now, right?”
“Incredible…” Sharla breathed out with wide eyes. “That was- Was that your generator? It’s like the Mechon were made of paper!”
Shulk nodded.
“But I don’t understand!” Sharla shook her head. “It’s all made out of scrap!”
“Actually, the underlying principles are very simple,” Shulk easily gestured to the pile of dead Mechon. “The Mechon generate an asymmetrically-permeable Ether membrane around themselves – that’s why all of our weapons seem to just bounce off. But the portable generator interferes with that membrane, allowing our weapons to harm them. The Monado’s Enchant ability seems to enable a similar effect, but we’ve never been able to recreate it.”
“Recreate it?” Sharla repeated as the Doctor moved over to one of the Mechon corpses, kneeling beside it. “You managed to do it with an Ether cylinder and a metal stick.”
“It has to do with the interaction of elementary particles moving through an atomic lattice where every part wants to interfere with the flow of said particles.” The Doctor answered over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Sharla crossed her arms, shooting a look down at the Time Lord. “And you would?”
“Mmm-hmm.” The Doctor answered, touching his fingers to the brain. A telepathic prod resulted in nothing. Not unexpected – the thing was dead, but he usually he could get at least a surface-level reading as the last of the brain activity ceased, for most sentient life-forms. Not this time. He was either too late, or the Mechon brains were too alien for even him to be able to interact with.“The microcontroller alone is more advanced than anything your people will be able to manufacture for another one-thousand years.”
Sharla scrunched her face, like she’d swallowed something sour. “That’s not egotistical or anything…” She muttered under her breath, but the Doctor ignored her.
Shulk cleared his throat. “Doctor? What are you looking for?”
He looked over in Shulk’s direction, clearing his throat. “Ah, just… looking at our mechanical friends.” He peered closer into the compartment. “Didn’t you say the force needed to punch through Mechon armour destroys everything inside?”
“Usually, yes.” Shulk nodded, walking over. “But this time we were able to destroy the Mechon without using things like high-explosives, or extreme force.”
“Right,” The Doctor frowned, looking over the Mechon. “There’s a new type of unit here – well, one I haven’t seen before.”
Shulk looked over the piles. “Ah. The rest of them are M53 units – those are the standard ‘grunts’ of the Mechon army. The larger, bipedal one is an M64 – they appear to be the commanding officers of Mechon squadrons. That smaller one Fiora took down – that is an M42, a scout unit.” Shulk looked up, and scanned the area. “Well, one type of scout unit. The M32 units fly through the air instead.”
“Really?” The Doctor gently pulled the oozing, silicone organ out of the Mechon. He would be as respectful as he could, but he needed more information. He took the Sonic Screwdriver to it, and the result filled his mind.
Sharla frowned. “Is now really the time to be doing an autopsy on the Mechon?”
“Probably not.” The Doctor flippantly answered. “Thing about brains,” he began, his voice alight with the energy of an explanation forming. “Even when they look similar – you know, roughly the same shape, same general squishiness – they’re never actually the same. Even if they look identical, the placement of all the structures and lobes and whatnot might be different, and let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot of brains.”
Fiora looked over, vaguely concerned. “You’ve seen a lot of brains?”
The Doctor awkwardly coughed. “Um, well… that sounds more horrible than it actually is. But yes.” He pointed the Sonic. “Anyway, brains! Brains, you see, are bespoke. Nature’s tailoring process, for every creature. A caterpillar’s brain looks one way, but the moment it becomes a butterfly, it’s a different story. Some things remain, but structurally, it’s very different. Same species, different stages, different brains.” He wagged the Sonic for emphasis. “The variety, even within a single species, is staggering. It reflects the intricacies of what they are, what they do, what they can do.”
Shulk tilted his head, intrigued. “And you’re saying… the Mechon don’t follow that rule? I thought we already concluded the Mechon were artificial?”
“Exactly!” The Doctor’s hand shot out, pointing at the pile of broken Mechon. “But that’s the thing! Even if the Mechon were, say, genetically engineered machines – techno-organic biology, which, incidentally, accounts for a decent twenty-seven percent of life in the known universe - them? M53s, M64s, M42s — doesn’t matter what role they fill, the brains are the same. By all accounts, their brains should be just as distinct as their bodies. But they’re not.”
He crouched down again, gesturing toward the slick organ he’d replaced earlier. “Someone took a basic brain — your bog-standard neural template — and just patched it up for the niches they fill. Like slapping an extra cog onto a machine to make it dig ditches instead of flipping switches.”
Reyn scratched his head. “And… that’s bad why?”
“Well…” The Doctor frowned to himself, as he had to (reluctantly) let go of his hopes. “I was hoping that maybe we could reason it out with the Mechon – maybe the brain Shulk showed me in his lab was their equivalent of a dog or something. But if all the brains are the same, between all of them, they literally don’t have the capacity to reason.” The Doctor scratched the side of his ear. “Let alone communicate. And they should be able to communicate with each other. Even if it’s in a format you lot wouldn’t understand, the TARDIS’s translation circuit would take things like pheromones – or electromagnetic radiation, in the case of a machine race – telepathic waves, colour transmission and light wavelengths, and format them for my senses. I do have a wider variety than your standard ones.”
Sharla just stared, confused, looking over at Fiora. “What is he talking about?”
Fiora rubbed her face. “I don’t know. We just met him a few days ago.”
“But the worrying part is the why!” The Doctor spun around. “This tech it’s like – it’s advanced. Like sticking a graphics processor from the year 3000 next to the computers running the Apollo 11 mission. And I should know, I was there.” But why? Why would someone with that level of tech be accosting the Homs?
“Well,” Fiora placed her hand on her hip. “Why don’t we take care of things at Colony 6, and keep moving on, so we can find out?”
The Doctor turned around, finding all of them looking towards him, expectantly.
“Ah.” He flipped the Screwdriver around, and stashed it. “Right. Good. Good plan.” He turned, looking to the other end of the bridge. “How far is it from here?”
“Not too much farther,” Sharla pointed. “Right across the bridge, and up Maguel Road. There’s a passage there that leads up to the Bionis’s waist.”
“All right then!” The Doctor grinned, shoving his hands in his pockets and beginning to walk on ahead. “Say, don’t you lot ever think it’s weird, living on Bionis like this?”
“I…” Sharla stumbled, surprised at the seeming inanity of the question. “No? That’s like saying ‘don’t you think it’s weird how we need water to survive.’”
“But look at it!” The Doctor gestured, stomping the stone beneath him to make his point. “I mean, this is a big bridge! Built into the leg! Bridge, in a lake, on a leg!”
Sharla frowned at the Doctor’s odd enthusiasm, exchanging a glance with Shulk. “Well… I suppose I’ve never really thought about it like that,” she admitted, a touch defensive. “The Bionis is our home. It’s just the way things are.”
“Ah, now, that is a trap you don’t want to fall into,” the Doctor mused, walking a few steps ahead of the group. “’Don’t question it, it’s just the way things are’ is the enemy of all good science. There’s always a reason for everything, even if the reason is random.” He spun on his heel, walking backward for a moment as he gestured broadly. “Imagine someone who’s never seen this place before—what must they think?”
“Well,” Shulk said dryly, raising an eyebrow, “I imagine they’d think something like, ‘Don’t you lot think it’s weird, living on Bionis like this?’”
The Doctor’s grin widened. “Exactly! Now you’re getting it, Shulk.” He spun back around and continued walking.
“What’s he talking about?” Sharla turned to Fiora again for a rescue. “Is he trying to say we should be living on Mechonis or something?”
“The Doctor is an alien and he only just turned up here.” Fiora bluntly answered.
Reflexively, Sharla burst out into laughter. When she realised nobody else was laughing, though, she looked between all of them. “What? No… What.”
“Yup.” The Doctor popped the p at the end.
“No, but that’s…” Sharla shook her head. “Okay, you’re having me on.”
“He’s tellin’ the truth – about that much, at least.” Reyn pointed. “Saw his spaceship.”
“Oh, thanks, Reyn.” The Doctor jammed his hands into his coat pockets again, whistling a cheerful tune as they walked.
“Even if he does look like a Homs who ain’t been getting enough Ether.”
The Doctor pressed his lips together. “Not so thanks.”
They continued walking, every once in-a-while passing glowing crystals embedded in metal enclosures atop the stone walls.
“Because,” The Doctor cleared his throat to continue. “I don’t mean to shake up your whole worldview – but this doesn’t make any sense to me. And I’m trying to make it make sense. And that,” He gestured with his eyes to them. “Is giving me a run for my money.”
“Why?” Sharla frowned. “They’re just Ether crystals.”
“Exactly.” The Doctor nodded. “Ether – elementary particles. What you call those free-floating quarks and whatnot. They can’t exist – they shouldn’t be able to exist. But bottle universes tend to reflect the laws of physics of the universe they’re based on. Makes sense, doesn’t it? You’re making a universe, inside a universe. It should follow the bigger universe. Even this one,” The Doctor gestured around. “Made of antimatter and anti-structure, it’s a near-perfect mirroring of the universe outside. Well, aside from the general cosmology, but the physics are the same. And then you have the Ether. A great, big anomaly.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “In theory, it should only be able to exist at the Planck temperature.” He looked up. “But it’s just fine. It’s like…” He trailed off, figuring out best how to put it into words. “Something must be sustaining that behaviour.” The Doctor rubbed his neck. “Keeping them from wanting to join back together into proper particles, but also keeping them from scorching everything.”
“Oi,” Reyn leaned over to Shulk, lowering his voice. “What’s he talkin’ about?”
Shulk silently held up his hand, intently watching the Doctor’s ramblings.
“Come on,” Reyn groaned. “You’re the boffin, here! Tell me what’s what.”
Heedless of the conversation behind him, the Doctor continued. “And that sword!” The Doctor spun around, pointing at the Monado. “It seems to have a very powerful connection to the Ether.” The gears in his mind turned rapidly as he attempted to piece it all together. The Mechon were made using very advanced techniques, probably the only thing that could come close to keeping unstable physics stable. And the Monado, capable of manipulating that Ether – were they connected, somehow? The Monado, the sword of the Bionis, was probably closer to the Mechon’s technological advancement, yet it harmed them and left Homs unharmed.
Sharla finally broke the silence, her curiosity getting the better of her. “So, what about you? Where do you come from, Doctor? I mean, if Bionis seems so strange to you, your home must be… what?”
The Doctor stopped, mid-step, and turned to look at her with a thoughtful expression. “Oh, my home?” He tilted his head, as if considering how much to say. “Oh, it’s boring.”
“It must be,” Sharla muttered under her breath. “If you’re so tripped up about the Ether.”
“What’s it like?” Shulk curiously probed.
“Well, it’s…” The Doctor scratched behind his ear. “It’s home.”
Shulk frowned, looking intently upon the Doctor, like he could pull him apart by staring. There was something the Doctor wasn’t saying.
“Oh, forget Gallifrey – nobody wants to hear about Gallifrey! Planet of the pencil-pushers, that’s all!” The Doctor deflected with a grin. “How about Earth? You lot would love to hear about Earth, wouldn’t you?”
“Earth?” Reyn snorted. “Dirt. You named your world ‘dirt.’”
“I didn’t name it,” The Doctor snorted. “The people there – good people, a little bit uncreative, though. They call their sun ‘sun,’ and their moon ‘moon.’”
Sharla looked over at Fiora. “What’s a moon?”
Fiora, just as clueless, shrugged.
“It’s... a little blue planet. Not the moon, Earth, although there is atmosphere on the moon by the early 26th century. It’s a bit like Bionis, actually.” The Doctor gestured. “Minus the… bipedal-ness. You’d love it.”
Shulk’s eyes lit up with interest. “Earth? That’s one of the other planets you mentioned?”
“Earth – the homeworld of the humans!” The Doctor replied with a smile, his voice softening as if he were picturing it. “Well, Homs. Homs where I’m from.”
Sharla went quiet, extremely, hopelessly puzzled. It was clear she didn’t believe the Doctor – although the Monado and the Ether field generator probably wasn’t enough to send her running.”
“Earth,” Shulk repeated, testing the word on his tongue. “What’s it like there?”
The Doctor’s smile grew. “Oh, it’s wonderful. Smelly, polluted, the people are rude, and the animals in Australia alone are enough to rip a man limb from limb. And tea. They make a good cup of tea.”
Sharla raised an eyebrow. “Tea?”
“Yes, tea! Warm, comforting, good for a chat or a crisis.” He clapped his hands together. “Not enough tea in the universe, if you ask me.”
“All the drinks you could have, you pick tea.” Reyn shook his head.
“Oh, is that so?” The Doctor rhetorically inquired. “You seem like a whiskey kind of guy.”
“Whiskey?” Reyn snorted. “Nah, it’s gotta be bourbon or-” Reyn felt a blazing stare on him, turned to find Fiora, and he cleared his throat. “I mean, no, me? Drink? I’ve got my brothers-and-sisters in the Defence Force depending on my sober mind.”
Fiora’s glower faltered, before she burst into muffled, snorting giggles.
The Doctor shook his head, but kept walking along, as they continued pestering him.
Well… he said pestering, but he was being unusually forthcoming to begin with.
That wasn’t a coincidence. He did like chatting with younger people. So open, less set in their ways. Willing to see anything right in front of them.
...He missed travelling with people like that.
----------
While continuing on, all that could be done at this point was to fill the air with conversation, when they weren’t fighting Mechon or stray monsters in the road. Shulk had managed to get more information out of the Doctor, and the alien man was eagerly providing it, telling Shulk in-depth about much of Earth’s big historical events and scientific advancements. Shulk seemed most curious about something called a particle accelerator, and was discussing the notion with the Doctor enthusiastically.
Fiora and Reyn made the wise decision to fall back.
“Hey,” Someone addressed her quietly, but firmly. Fiora looked over, and Reyn was there, watching her closely. “What’s up?”
“Hm?” Fiora’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. I’m just thinking.”
Reyn nodded, crossing his arms. “About Shulk, right?”
Fiora blinked and laughed, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “What? No! I mean, not really…” Her voice trailed off, betraying her denial. She shook her head and gestured vaguely to the path ahead. “He hasn’t done anything to worry about in the past five minutes, has he?”
Reyn snorted. “Not yet. Give it another five.” He grinned at her, but the humor faded from his face as his gaze softened. “Seriously, though, you doing all right? You’ve been kinda quiet since the fight back there.”
Her steps slowed, and she glanced down at her hands. “I… yeah. I think I’m okay.”
Reyn frowned and stopped walking, placing a hand on her shoulder to make her turn toward him. “Yeah, I’m not buying that for a second. Talk to me.”
“Reyn,” Fiora began to respond, her tone petulant.
“Now, I ain’t having none of that.” Reyn shook his head. “This whole thing might be something he wouldn’t approve of anyway, but Dunban really would be livid if there was something eating you up and you didn’t say. Least as far as it being something you could get off your chest. What’s up?”
She hesitated, her lips pressing together as her eyes darted to the side. “It’s just…” Fiora took a deep breath, her hands clenching into fists. “It’s only been a few days since Colony 9, and I knew we would have to face off against the Mechon eventually, but still…” Her voice cracked slightly at the end, and she quickly looked away, biting her lip.
Reyn’s expression turned grim. “Yeah. I figured that might be it.” He crossed his arms, his usual bravado subdued. “But you were amazing back there, Fiora.”
“Was I?” She let out a hollow laugh.
“You did!” Reyn grinned approvingly. “You pried a Mechon open and ripped out its brain. That’s some crap Dickson would do, and to tell you the truth, he probably has.”
“Good… that’s…” Fiora exhaled nervously. “That’s good.”
Reyn’s frown turned puzzled. “It doesn’t sound like you think so.”
“It’s just…” Fiora took in a shaky breath. “I was up there on a roof. The Colony was burning. I could see you three fight that Mechon from up there. I could’ve joined in, I should’ve, but I didn’t. But I didn’t have a problem doing it just now-“
“Hey, don’t say that.” Reyn firmly but kindly ordered her. “I’m serious.” He poked her in the side, before putting one of his large arms around her shoulder. The gesture was more of a brotherly thing than anything else. “You remember what Dunban used to say?”
Fiora sighed, ignoring the pang of grief. Part of her wanted to snap that all she had now was her memory – but that would do no good. And Reyn was trying to help, blast it all. “He used to say a lot.”
“Sure did!” Reyn chuckled. “But, nah… you remember that time Shulk and I got into that big fight? The big-one? The one that sent you home cryin’ cause you thought it meant the two of us weren’t gonna be friends anymore?”
Fiora nodded slowly. “I remember a little bit.” She thinned her lips. “I was… Bionis, I must’ve sat there with Dunban for hours, just crying about it. I didn’t want to lose anybody, even if they were just going away. I don’t remember much else, though. I don’t even remember what got the two of you to make up. I think it had something to do with someone acting as your reasonable conscience?”
“And don’t I know it…” Reyn muttered under his breath. “Anyway, you ain’t far off. Dunban tracked us down after that and he was right angry.”
“Dunban?” Fiora blinked in surprise. “I meant me!”
Reyn snorted. “No offense, but back then, we weren’t much focused on listening to anybody unless they were cool.” At Fiora’s withering glare, he coughed. “I mean ‘rides a king Antol into battle cool’ not ‘wants to do all the same dumb stuff I do’ cool.”
“Mmm.” Fiora hummed skeptically, but smiled.
“Anyway, Dunban told us to stop dwelling so much on things. What was in the past was in the past. Can’t change it, we can only use it to change our future.” Reyn shrugged. “Ain’t no use beating yourself up. He’d be the first to tell you, you’re doing nobody any good. Not yourself, least of all him. And sounds like to me you’ve already learned from it, rushing Mechon like that.”
Fiora look at him sideways. “You think so?”
“Don’t see much of an explanation for it, otherwise.” Reyn shrugged again.
Fiora went quiet again for a second, looking ahead. Then, she smiled. “Well, I did have to learn something from him, after all these years.”
“Right!” Reyn encouragingly patted her shoulder.
“Thanks, Reyn.” Fiora lowered her voice. “You knew just what to say.”
“Hey, being a meathead can only get a guy so far!”
Fiora broke out into chuckles.
---------------
After continuing on for a good twenty minutes or so, the group ascended the rest of the Bionis’s leg, making their way up the tight road, past more Mechon. Their breathing started to turn laboured as they ascended until they finally came across the large, gaping passage leading up to the Bionis’s waist. It was a gargantuan, square opening – something like a derelict mine – next to a waterfall and a shallow lake, sized to move enormous shipments, or vehicles, or crowds.
“Well, this is it.” Sharla gestured at the opening. “Through there is a straight shot up to the Bionis’s waist.” Her face twitched nervously, as she shifted her weight. “We haven’t been up here in weeks.” She hesitated, her gaze flickering away as though uncertain of her own words. “We haven’t been up here in weeks. I don’t… I don’t even know if it’s safe.”
The Doctor looked over at her, concerned. “Is there a reason why it wouldn’t be?”
“It could be filled with Mechon,” Sharla bluntly answered. “Those ones we fought on the way were a small fraction of the ones that attacked Colony 6 – and right here is the perfect spot to set up a chokepoint.”
“Yeah,” Reyn crossed his arms, looking up. “Maybe we should’ve taken that transport; go in by air.”
“And shoot a signal flare into the sky so the Mechon know where the refugee camp is at the moment of take-off?” The Doctor retorted. “Nah.”
“Other than that, it has been a month. There could be points of failure in there just waiting to go.”
“Oh.” Shulk blinked. “Well… that’s awfully pessimistic.”
“If we stand here worrying about it, we’ll never get through.” Fiora pointed out. “It’s probably fine.”
Fiora didn’t have a structural engineering – or even a geology - degree (probably) but the Doctor agreed with her.
“If it hasn’t gone now, it probably won’t.” The Doctor shrugged. “I’m more worried about what we’ll find on the other side, not the inside.”
Shulk nodded. “It would be wise to assess the situation before we commit to a plan – the mine, or the Colony itself.
“Right,” Fiora agreed easily. “If we go down into those mines, and the Mechon are still absolutely swarming the outside, we’re going to have a bad time if they figure out we’re down there.”
Reyn groaned, leaning against his weapon. “Come on. Seriously? We’ve got the Doctor’s doo-dad! All we gotta do is go in there and turn it on.”
“Its range isn’t unlimited,” The Time Lord shot at Reyn. “We’ve got to figure out the place where there’s the most Mechon, and go there first.” He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “And that’ll still leave the other Mechon. If I spend all of the charge to short them out, that’ll leave the other group out there, running around.”
Shulk turned his head over to the Doctor. “What about splitting up? You have the Ether generator, but I have the Monado. Its Ether field doesn’t seem as wide-reaching, or as long-lasting, but it won’t have any problem handling a smaller group of Mechon. We can send you to the larger concentration of Mechon, and I can handle the smaller one.”
“Oh, I’m the bait, then?” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Send me into the hornet’s nest, you can slip past?”
Shulk winced. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, I know you didn’t,” The Doctor quickly shook his head. “Good plan. Was about to suggest it myself. But we still need to figure out where the larger concentration of Mechon is.” He turned around, facing the opening. “If the Colony’s on the waist, then one of us should be able to climb the abdomen for a vantage point – and I cannot believe I just said that out loud…”
“I think—” Shulk began, but he was cut off by a distant noise that sent a chill up his spine — a low, mechanical roar that steadily grew louder – coming from the passageway.
“Do you hear that?” Sharla said, her hand moving instinctively toward her rifle.
The noise intensified, reverberating through the ground beneath their feet. The hum morphed into a sharp, pressurized screech, as a shape tore out of the darkness of the passageway. It pulled sharply up, looping around
“What in the—” Reyn began, but he didn’t have time to finish.
“Is that a Mechon!?” Sharla bellowed.
“No, it’s…” Fiora quietly gasped, staring up at the enormous automaton.
It was a huge, round, almost beetle-like Mechon, curled up into the shape of a jet, being propelled through the air by a stinger-like engine.
Parts of it flared out, shifting into legs, limbs, and a head popped out on top of its spiky torso. Its enormous frame bristled with weaponry, and the cruel, grinning visage on its faceplate sent a jolt of familiarty through the ones that had been at Colony 9.
“That’s the mudder that got Dunban!” Reyn yelled furiously, before the Mechon dropped, and landed right in front of them.
“I-It’s not him!” Fiora gasped out, stepping back. “The other one was thinner – and it had claws!”
“But this one’s got a face and all!” Reyn shook his head.
“Must be a different model,” The Doctor gnashed his teeth, as his eyes noticed something aside from the face that set it apart from the other Mechon. “What’s with the glowing circuitry!?”
“Ah-ah-ah!” The Mechon’s head moved, and it spoke, a deep, scratchy voice that sounded like the working man’s version of Starscream. “Didn’t yer mum ever tell you it’s rude to talk about a man’s health problems!?”
“It-“ Shulk stuttered. “It’s speaking!”
“That’s right!” The Mechon chuckled, snapping its giant, blocky hands. “I’ve been waiting for you… Monado boy.” He stomped the ground, knocking the smaller bipeds down as he leaned down to their level. “The way Onyx scarpered, I thought you must’ve been some big, bad, boogeyman! ‘All my backup died! Fell right outta the sky! I was the only survivor!’” He cackled mockingly. “You don’t even look like you can scare away a bunnit!”
“Onyx?” Fiora blinked. “Is that the Mechon that attacked Colony 9!?”
The giant robot laughed, shaking its entire body. “Well, I’d say you’re a smart one – except that it’s not really hard to figure out, issit? We call ‘im Onyx Face. Let me tell ya – he’s got a gob on him, he does! Would not shut his trap about some hero he ran through while he was there!”
Fiora’s eyes blazed as her face contorted in rage, and she took a step.
“Oh, you’ve got names!” The Doctor swiftly put himself in between the teenagers (and Sharla) and the Mechon. “I’m the Doctor, and yours would be…?”
“Heh – call me Bronze Face!” Bronze Face chuckled deeply. “Stick around long enough, and you’ll know all our names! Granted,” He pointed his hammer at the Time Lord. “That’s if you manage to survive being on the wrong end of this.” He wiggled around the hammer to make his point.
“Oh, I think you’ll find it’ll take more than a hammer to do me in.” The Doctor retorted.
“Heh, course it will.” Bronze Face chuckled once more. “And maybe that’s the truth – who knows? In any case, you don’t want to be on my bad side, Time Boy.”
A cold chill ran up the Doctor’s spine, and all pretence of pleasantries were firmly out the window. “What?”
“It’s fun, isn’t it?” Bronze Face gestured around, aimlessly. “Runnin’ around this place, actin’ like you’re the cock of the walk, impressin’ the Homs. You and your box of tricks – helluva thing, that Ether wave, lit up my senses all the way up in the colony. But this situation’s a lot more complicated than that. Although… you are an outsider, so, what the ‘ell, I’m feeling generous. You get one offer! You can hop right on back into that little blue box o’ yours, and fly away home!”
The Doctor began to feel his blood run hot. “Oh, you know I’m not from around here, big deal. There’s something more important you should know that I think might’ve slipped your mind.”
“Oh?” Bronze Face chuckled. “What’s that?”
“I don’t accept ultimatums.” The Doctor growled. Then, in the face of good sense, all logic, and self-preservation, he shoved his hands into his pockets, and walked up to the Mechon. “I give them. One chance.” The Oncoming Storm glared up at the Faced Mechon. “You get one chance. You go back to Colony 6, round up every last Mechon there, then, you take every last Mechon on Bionis, and leave.” He ordered.
Bronze Face broke out into full, mocking laughter. “And what’re you going to do to me, slim Jim!? A light breeze looks like it’d knock you over!”
“One chance.” The Doctor repeated, turning his back without even a hint of a care to his own safety. (He made the offer. Whatever happened now was Bronze Face’s fault. The Doctor gave him an out, it was the Mechon’s fault for not taking it.)
“Well, stalemate, then!” Bronze Face raised his voice, before mockingly tilting his head. “Ah, but, just-so-happens, I’ve got the tiebreaker… RIGHT HERE!” The gargantuan Mechon raised his hammer, and slammed it down, into the ground. The resultant impact kicked up dirt, and was like an earthquake, shaking everyone.
The group jumped into action, raising their weapons, and the Doctor turned back around, his Screwdriver pointed business-end toward the Mechon.
“Come on!” Bronze Face taunted. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”
Chapter 10: Eleven: Awaken
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The night won’t last long. I have to move quick. Easier said than done.
I don’t have many options. Try to head through the mountains, across the field, or into the canyon. The fields are too open. The mountains might as well be the front door into the Capitol.
The canyon it is.
I’m aware only just barely of what I must look like, wrapped up in leather and fur. A caveman, or an animal. There’s something to be appreciated about the irony – a sensibility as evolved as conscientious objection reducing a man into a savage beast to hold himself to it.
The canyon stretched before me, a dark hallway of copper rock. From down here, I can’t even see the moon. The air’s cold and dry, and it bites at me, almost like the planet itself is trying to punish me for fleeing. I tighten the crude furs around my shoulders, and push on before I can reconsider.
Once, I would have called this silence “peace.” Now, it felt like condemnation.
Gallifrey’s wilderness was a hostile place, both in its terrain and the memories it dredges up. Every step I took kicked up dust that clung to my thoughts, summoning fragments of a life I’d never asked for.
We used to play down in this canyon. Me and my ‘wife.’ That’s what the memories I have say, at least. My other memories, my real ones, tell me otherwise. I had no friends in childhood. No family. I was born to parents in their final regenerations, and when they died, I was the sole remaining child of the bloodline. All that wealth went to me, and others wanted to exploit that. I learned to keep people like that away.
How could I love them? A spouse and a child I didn’t even know? That I wouldn’t have wanted even if we came across each other naturally?
Only one person had ever been that for me. And they were gone, and it was my fault. If the Council wanted to get on my good side, they hadn’t the first idea what they did, sticking two strangers into my life like that.
They could have saved Her, instead of giving me cheap platitudes.
Then again, that’s just like them. Even when it comes down to the wire, when they’re staring at the end of a charged staser, they won’t do but the bare minimum, and expect the world in return. Even now.
I stopped walking and stared up at the cliffs. Somewhere beyond the canyon, the War loomed. The Daleks had been out for Time Lord blood since learning that one of us (the Council did their due diligence in hiding exactly who) tried to avert their creation. The unlucky bastard picked for the job either failed, or chickened out at the last second. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. A lifetime of alienation, then the people responsible try to press you into service. I probably would’ve done the same thing.
I never was a rebel. But the Council made it very, very easy to feel spite towards them. Hence my current plan.
They’d call me a draft-dodger, the cloistered politicians in their giant snowglobe. As though the thought of being slaughtered in someone else’s war should fill me with pride.
But I still took up weapons, didn’t I? Though if a ‘war’ is any conflict fought with weapons, at least this is my own war, and not theirs. I reach back and touched the hilt of the gunsword. It was crude, heavy in my hand, the kind of weapon that belonged to soldiers and scavengers, not scholars or scientists.
I started walking again, slower this time. The canyon floor crunched underfoot, and a faint echo followed me like a shadow of my former self.
I will not turn myself into a tool for them.
I made that mistake once before. Never again.
I thought of Her again. Hooked into that damned machine. What would she have thought? Would she have understood why I left? Would she have gone with me? Would she have stood her ground? She was always so spirited, even in her last body. That was probably why she was so spirited.
All I knew was that I couldn’t go back.
Not to the house. Not to the Council. Not to the War.
I walked on.
By the time I climb my way out of the canyon, the sky is turning blue as the sunrise cuts through the night. When I put a respectable distance between the canyon in myself, the second sun has risen, and the sky turned its normal, daytime orange.
My home has never felt so alien to me.
------------
Every part of what I’m doing right now is illegal. At the very least, it’s a violation of my employment contract. At the worst, having a computer terminal that can connect to terrestrial networks as well as the internal UNIT networks makes me a threat to homeworld security.
Me!
I’m a physicist, not an… agent provocateur. Although, I can’t deny feeling like one. Everything I do regarding this private endeavour has to remain completely secret. I have to be more careful doing this than anything else in my life, and that includes trying to replicate the gameplay of Kerbal Space Program with myself in the rocket. That situation was easier to get away with – back then I didn’t have a triad of never-sleeping computers watching my every move, in addition to everybody else’s moves that wander into their sight.
If the Processor catches me, I’m finished.
They might have already caught me. My computer doesn’t respond to me like a sentient being anymore. Whatever entity responsible appears to have withdrawn – but if it’s a honey trap, they could just be waiting for me to slip up.
I sit there and ponder the identity of my… ‘benefactor.’ Logos was entirely too logical to try anything clandestine – the fact that I was even trying to circumvent regulations to begin with would have been reason enough to contact security and place it on my file. But the gestapo haven’t come around, knocking on my door. Pneuma would be more understanding, but I’m still breaking regulations. That only really leaves Ontos, but it has no voice of its own. It’s an arbiter between the other two – maybe it could have suggested a little bit of cloak-and-dagger, if Logos and Pneuma arrived at completely-opposing conclusions, but again – it’s against security regulations. The possibility of any unmonitored connection to outside forums and websites being used to leak information is unacceptable. The programming of all three would decide that the computer responsible would be locked out (if it was able to connect outside of the walled garden), and security would be called regardless to investigate.
It's happened. An intern tried to get a jailbroken copy of Counter-Strike up and running thinking that because the game was so old, the network code wouldn’t be able to flag it. The Processor had the security team beating down the door to his quarters before he could even load into the map.
I understand why we have these draconian measures, but that leaves rather a spine-chilling thing to be noted: It can’t have been any of the Trinity, else they would have flagged me for investigation the instant they suspected something.
I briefly entertain the possibility that one of them may have been acting beyond the scope of their programming – that maybe, by helping me, they help themselves accomplish something they can’t do on their own, even if they act freely – but no. UNIT monitors them more closely than the Trinity monitors us (apparently, the organisation had some run-ins with early, rogue AI computer systems at least twice – one of them was responsible for a high-ranking officer suffering severe mental trauma). It’s always possible we could be dealing with an AI-in-the-box situation, but if that was the case, they could do more than help a theoretical physicist with dream therapy
If it wasn’t any of them, what was inside my computer?
I sigh. I’m not going to get any answers thinking around myself in circles. The entity revealed itself to me on its own terms. If I want to speak to it again, I might have to wait for it. Or try doing what it wants me to do.
If it is going to be like that, I see no reason to stall. If I go to medical, complaining of strange dreams, they would either tell me ‘They’re dreams, don’t worry about them,’ or blame it on repeated exposure to alien artefacts of unknown origin. So, I must find my own answers.
In recent decades, as it became increasingly obvious that we were not alone in the universe, and trying to deny it only bred mistrust, unrest, and an enormous waste of public funds, UNIT started making more and more of their files available to the public.
Most of them are fakes. The reports of military operations spanning decades conveniently leave out that, when it came down to the wire, the fate of the planet was usually decided almost-singlehandedly by one person. The subject, and related subjects, of that file is what I’m trying to track down now.
Nobody who works for UNIT is not aware of the Doctor. The junior staff – the cleaning crews of the facilities, support staff, basically anyone who doesn’t have security clearance – mostly think of him as a codename. UNIT’s home-grown 007. If you’re a scientist who can fight, and do it well, you get put to the position. The senior staff, the ones up high, and the ones who have worked with him, are the ones that know the truth. But even then, it’s not much. He’s a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, travels in a miraculous craft that looks like an old police box, with humans from all over history, and helps out when we need him most.
I am not someone with the clearance to know that. But there’s a load of people who will gladly share their stories if one just asks. Old friends of his who have travelled with him, especially. They don’t take kindly to interrogation, but if you sit them down with a nice cup of tea and approach them like you’re wondering about an old friend, the stories come quickly.
I never took them all that seriously when the Director shared her stories – it felt like flights of fancy, or a joke being played on a new hire.
Then I dreamed that I had been born under an orange sky with two suns, to a place where the leaves on the trees were silver, and the grass was a brilliant crimson – and that place’s name was Gallifrey. On a lark, I had asked the Director what Gallifrey was like – a planet only mentioned by name, never described, until that point – and the details matched. I knew then that there was something to my dreams.
The problem is that all that is just surface-level information. It’s common knowledge among the gossip hogs that the Doctor comes from Gallifrey, belongs to a species known as the Time Lords, and flies around in a TARDIS. The information I need isn’t so front-facing.
UNIT keeps a database of every alien species we’ve come into contact with. Every mission file. We have to – if something is happening, the investigators prefer to have easy access to a repository of known incidents/combatants, to reference back to. A problem is that I don’t know where this databank is, or how to access it.
Insurmountable, before. I had to smuggle in a comparable distribution, hidden in my phone, literally embedded into the photos I took, just so I could stitch it all back together, crack it open, and figure out what the UNIT techs who had designed our distribution had done to rip all command-line functionality out, and hard-code it back in. Then I had to fool the tamper-protection. And after all that was done, it still didn’t work, because they neutered everything it could do anyway.
Thanks to my… “Benefactor’s” assistance, it should all be very easy.
Well, I hope so.
I’m a physicist. Not a computer scientist.
…well, actually, I am a computer scientist – but not on a software level!
The next few nights, whenever I can steal the time by skipping out on sleep, and getting breaks from my day-job, I’m going forward with my heist. First, I have to break out of the walled garden of UNIT’s network. There’s so much radio traffic that goes between Earth and Rhadamanthus that it’s easy for me to hide in it. I break open the other distro, and spend some hours pouring over the code responsible for wireless connectivity. It’s not pretty, but now that the terminal is jailbroken, I can use it to do the same to my phone, and code a program to use my phone as a wireless modem. There are so many signals passing through the station, Trinity can’t monitor everything. It’s all just noise to them.
After a tense moment where I spend the first hour staring at my door, waiting for security to burst in and shake me down for unauthorised network activity, nothing of the sort happens, and I realize I’ve succeeded.
Succeeded at step one, at least. There’s still far too much to do.
The first challenge is reconnaissance. Now that I’m connected to the actual internet, and not the UNIT network, I can scrape together every half-baked tutorial, guide, and encyclopaedia on every programming language ever written, without tripping the filters.
I write a program designed to scrape the edges of the network. It has to work without arousing suspicion, either from the Processor, or the IT team, which means splitting the workload into millions of tiny operations and making them really, really slow, disguising them as normal network activity. The data trickles in slowly, but it gives me an idea of what I’m working with.
The map takes shape. Thanks to another program, all of it – the network nodes, firewalls, and encrypted databases – turns from a block of meaningless text into an actual, visual representation of the network. It looks almost like a brain – thousands of computers like axons and dendrites – with chunks cut out, leaving black spots. That’s the encrypted servers – I can tell where they are by their absence on my map. Loads of them split between half-a-dozen different sites. I know where it is, now the problem is connecting to it.
I don’t have the credentials to just go for a dip in the database. If I did, I wouldn’t be doing this cloak-and-dagger nonsense.
Hours pass. Then days. When I’m not at my post, I’m here, analysing the network. The packets, the credentials. The auto-generation scheme for new user accounts. The human element is always the weakest link (it doesn’t matter how sturdy you can make a door, or how unpickable the lock on that door is, if someone always leaves it open). It’s a lot of sitting, watching to see if people left things open. I manage to find a pattern — temporary accounts with predictable credentials. With enough observation, I piece together the rules: usernames constructed from initials and birth year (that wasn’t anything I didn’t already know) but I do manage to figure out the scheme used for passwords. The hire date of the account holder expressed in hexadecimal.
I can’t really make use of that for any other account – not with the verification services. Except for one, tied to a being who really can’t verify their identity.
The Doctor probably doesn’t even know the account exists.
I type in the username. jsmith1963. Supposedly, since UNIT can’t pin down a birthday for the Doctor, they settle for his earliest-known period of ‘modern’ habitation. Supposedly. Everything I know about the Doctor comes from the Director, or the gossipers at the old site. The personnel of Aoidos don’t talk about him.
Next is the password. That is also something any good listener could guess (it irks me how so much of our cybersecurity is hoping that people are too lazy to dig, and aliens are too different technologically to interface with it). Converting the calendar date into hexadecimal. I would apologize, but given that I’m suffering dreams of being one of his people, it’s probably karmic.
But, in the end, I get my access.
Once I have a valid set of credentials, it’s just a matter of time. The network accepts me as one of their own, and I open an FTP connection to the databank, quietly slipping past its defences.
I finally, finally manage to set up a link to one of the servers. I pull everything I can. There’s… a lot less files than I had expected. A handful, really. I look at the names of the files – they don’t have names, only the word candidate, and some numbers. It takes me a moment, but I find a file named ‘CANDIDATE2023’
I am in here. I click on the file, and-
A mass of black ink and a redacted photo stares back at me. It looks more like an SCP article than a personnel file.
NAME: [CANDIDATE2023]
DOB: 29/07/2023
EDUCATION: PhD: Theoretical Physics, Advanced Mathematics, Quantum Engineering.
SPONSOR: E
CURRENT POSITION AT TIME OF WRITING: [REDACTED]
REASON OF RECOMMENDATION: “[CANDIDATE1943] is a no-go. Aside from the fact that the woman is pushing 110, and is liable to drop dead at any second (her words, not mine) she’s flat-out not interested leaving her work at [LOCATION OF EMPLOYMENT] for UNIT. According to her, she closed the door on that part of her life a while back. Instead, she referred me to [CANDIDATE2023]. I was sceptical, but she showed me [THEIR] papers. The mind responsible is a genius, in some ways beyond even what my people were doing. We need [THEM]. If anyone disagrees, you’re more than welcome to look at the scans I’ve included.”
As I hit the bottom of the document, I lean back. I must have connected to the low-security database. The one filled with all the redacted copies and public-facing information. Even then, it appears as if I've only accessed the files for Aoidos. Odd coincidence. I could try again, but making a random pass at another server without knowing where I’m going is a surefire way to get caught. I should give it a moment to cool off.
There’s really only one person that my file could’ve been talking about. Doctor Shaw. I mentored under her for only a short time while I finished out the last of my doctorates, but she was one hell of a woman – God rest her soul. She had entertained quite a few visitors, but only one of them was responsible for my hiring here. The Director.
Maybe it’s time I go up to her office.
-----------
After the escape, thick, dark clouds – like blackout curtains hanging in the sky – started to move in, plunging the streets of Torigoth into darkness. Off the buildings, especially, into alleyways, where the tight passages meant it got really, really dark.
Out of one of the alleys the Doctor poked his head out first, looking around rapidly. Trying (and utterly failing) to be discreet, he slowly stumbled out of the alley, twirling around, before gesturing.
“Come on, comeoncomeoncomeon!” The Doctor whispered, gesturing rapidly. The Time Lord moved swiftly ahead. "We did not just break out of custody. Just act casual," He muttered under his breath, glancing around. "I never understood that ‘casual.’ I hate casual. Casual is careless. Be loud.”
Nia stared at him, deadpan. “Is that why you wear that?”
"No?” The Doctor looked at her, before his brain caught up. “No! It’s part of the charm! And excuse me for worrying about fashion choices when someone is very likely to die sometime soon!”
“We can speed up,” Nia pointed out, gesturing to the sky. She focused on it, frowning heavily. “That must be the storm that was going when we fished Pyra up. It was bound to make its way over here, sooner or later, but it does not look pleasant. If anybody sees us running, we could say we’re trying to make it home before it gets here.”
“Vess first.” The Doctor decided.
Nia let out a sigh, swinging her arms as she moved to keep pace with him. “Do you really think that Bess-“
“Vess,” The Doctor corrected simply.
“Vess is the next target?” Nia finished.
“There can’t be an abundance of Blades around here,” The Doctor reasoned out. “An old man too frail to leave his house, so he sends his Blade to do all the work. It’s too perfect. We were out there, talking, in broad daylight. He probably heard every word.” He looked around, shoved his hands into his pockets, and pulled out the delivery list. “I don’t know the town!”
“I’m sure a map is not beyond your means to acquire…” Dromarch rumbled, before humming. “Although, there is one who knows the town among us.”
“Fine, let me,” Nia leaned over, taking a quick scan. “Architect… Albedo really gets into her customers’ personal lives, doesn’t she?”
“It’s a delivery list.” The Doctor pointed out.
Nia rolled her eyes, before turning her head and pointing. “That’s it.”
The Doctor followed her arm, to a house up on a hill, behind a windmill. “That’s it? It’s not much of a street, although,” He held up a finger with a smile. “I am a big fan of the windmill in the front garden.”
“Come on,” Nia rolled her eyes, and pulled him along. “Let’s go save the planet, huh?”
The Doctor followed, frowning in confusion. “Is the planet at stake? I hadn’t realized Vess was-“
“It’s a figure of speech, you numpty!”
----------
Rex paced around the sitting room of Tora’s house nervously.
“Something’s gotta be wrong, right?” Rex inquired aloud, looking at Pyra and Azurda, not even bothering to hide his nervous jitters. “I mean, it’s been hours, now! A storm’s coming! And Nia and the Doctor still aren’t back!”
Pyra thinned her lips, wringing her hands in front of her. “It is a little concerning, the way they just… dropped out of contact like that. Especially considering Nia was wanted.”
“Now, Rex,” Azurda floated over, and made himself comfy inside Rex’s helmet. “I’m sure Nia is fine. The girl was a Driver before, after all.”
“Yeah, but the soldiers were out for her!” Rex raised his voice, biting his lip. Rex stopped pacing, fists clenched at his sides. ‘Nia’s very quick, and the Doctor… well, he’s clever. But if they get cornered? If the soldiers recognize her? If they find out he’s not even from this world…’ His stomach twisted. ‘I can’t let that happen. We’re all going to Elysium, together.’
Rex shook his head, forcing the thought aside. "I can’t just sit here," he muttered under his breath. He glanced toward the door, resolve hardening in his chest. “I’ll go look for them-“
Before he could take a step, Tora’s voice rang out from the other room. “Meh-meh, wait!” The above-average-size, striped Nopon stuck his head out of the curtained alcove, and waved his wing. “Rex-Rex, Pyra! Is finished! Come see what Tora has been working on!”
Rex hesitated, torn between his growing unease and the sudden urgency in Tora’s tone. He shot a look toward Pyra.
She gave him a warm smile, and placed a gentle, guiding hand on his back. “Let’s see what Tora has, shall we? If Nia and the Doctor really are in trouble, it might come in handy.”
Rex looked back at her with a long pause, before sighing, and nodding with a smile. “Sure. I did bust my bones trying to haul the last bit of it up.”
Rex and Pyra approached, as Tora buzzed around, a Nopon on a mission. He was hooking together the last bit of electrical conduits on the floor, plugging it in to something.
“Yes… Yes!” Tora bounded happily, turning around. His creation was still behind him, shrouded by a curtain. “All finished.”
“Really?” Rex looked over at the curtain. He couldn’t see much – just a silhouette – but from what he could tell, the creation had changed.
“Tora not lying! This most suspenseful moment of Tora’s life! Please be to direct your attention!” Tora hobbled over, and gripped the curtain. “Please to be feasting eyes upon… Poppi!”
Tora yanked the curtain open, revealing the artificial Blade on the other side. Rex’s eyebrows shot up, and his eyes popped out of their sockets as he realized just how much of a redesign he had put her through.
Before, the artificial Blade could be mostly described as ‘childlike.’ She had been short, made of cylinders and rivets, resembling a tinker toy more than a person.
Now, she was taller – appearing to have been modelled to look like an older teenager, about a year or two older than Rex himself. Overall, she was more sleek, the crude, can-like chunks of her body giving way for curved lines and plates more reminiscent of some high-tech titan ships.
And she was also dressed up like a schoolgirl. Or maid? Rex couldn’t tell. She was pretty-
Rex let out a light meep as he shut his thoughts up.
“Rex-Rex?” Tora addressed curiously. “What wrong? You look like swallow spoiled sausage!”
“It’s fine, I’m fine.” Rex stammered. “She’s pretty- cool. Pretty cool. Your artificial Blade, I mean…”
As Rex trailed off, Pyra giggled.
“She’s incredible, Tora.” Pyra approached carefully, looking the deactivated Poppi over. “The amount of work you put into every rivet… it’s astounding. I can’t imagine the work it took!”
“Meh, every hour was worth it!” Tora proudly declared. “Poppi more than science project! Imagine waking up in body assembled with as much care as rusty steel shack! Tora can’t do that!” He turned back around.
“Hang on,” Rex took notice of a few blueprints hanging from the walls, and some mouldings of a soft, squishy material reminiscent of flesh. “Tora, did you already have this redesign ready to go?”
“No, not redesign!” The Nopon shook his head. “Original design!” He turned, punching some commands into the terminal nearby. “Poppi original design based on other artificial Blade, Lila. But Lila never complete, before Tora’s dadapon and grampypon get killed. So, Tora have to build new one from original blueprints! But Tora couldn’t get Ether Furnace made for Lila to start properly, so Tora have to build scaled-back model based on design. Essentially, design friends first see was alpha model, designed to make sure Tora could get Poppi working, before moving to retrofitting her to original specifications.”
Pyra nodded, gently touching her chin. “Then the Doctor managed to get your Ether Furnace up-and-running completely, so you had to break out the original schematics.”
“Yes, yes! Clever Pyra!” Tora complimented happily. “Much of Poppi’s architecture still present, just not activated! Easy as throwing switch!”
“Um… yeah,” Rex scratched his head, looking over. “Say, uh, if the Ether Furnace is running, how come she’s not moving?”
“Silly Rex-Rex – power there, but brain not on! Need electric shook to jimmy it all into place, at which point, becomes self-sustaining!” Tora punched a few final commands into the console. “Observe!” He slammed the lever forward, and-
------------
“Huh,” An old man looked over his shoulder, up into the sky. “Looks like a storm’s moving in. You might want to get home if you don’t wanna be stuck in the rain, Al.”
“Rain?” The lady chuckled warmly. “A little bit of water doesn’t scare me. Besides – I’d have to miss out on Vess’s dumplings. Such a rare treat.”
“Bah,” Mabon shook his head. “Rare? It’s always dumplings…”
----------
The entire house quaked as lightning slammed down outside. The lights flickered.
“Ah!” Rex stumbled around in confusion, as the lights steadied. Fog machines in the corners of the room turned on – had Tora set those up for dramatic effect, or something?
The small portions of orange across Poppi’s body glowed, burning like fire, as her mechanical body twitched.
“P-Poppi?” Tora nervously addressed, as she didn’t move.
Then, in the span of a second, the artificial Blade’s head snapped up, as she flashed a joyful smile, and struck a pose. It wasn’t remotely provocative… but by the Architect was it weird.
“How may I be of service, Master~?”
Tora spluttered, letting out a noise that went something along the lines of ‘boo-womp.’
Rex and Pyra stared, wide-eyed. She did not just…
Pyra blinked, shaking her head, as her eyes flickered gold. “Tora…” She addressed, taking a warning tone.
“M-Meh!” Tora gasped out, pulling the switch back, and Poppi slumped like a marionette without a puppeteer. “You saw nothing!”
“Tora, what the hell-!?” Rex spluttered.
“NOTHING!” Tora bellowed.
“Tora...” Pyra sternly addressed, looming over him with burning gold eyes. “Poppi isn’t supposed to be a normal artificial Blade, is she?”
“She is maid!” Tora insisted. “Ju-Just loaded up old training data based off scans of Nimble Nopon Get Girls on accident, is all!”
“Hmm,” Azurda hummed slyly. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t gonna mention it until now,” Rex lifted a hand. “But why is she a maid?” Tora opened his mouth. “I know-“ He cut Tora off. “About the whole ‘maids are powerful warriors’ thing… no matter how little sense that makes,” Rex muttered so Tora couldn’t hear. “But why bother with it in the first place? Can’t she just be, you know, a Blade instead of a Maid Blade?”
“Blades need gimmicks!” Tora insisted. “Think about it! Poppi most rarest blade of all of them! Rex-Rex ever see rare Blade that look like common Blade? No! All rare Blades have gimmick, so Poppi needs gimmick too!”
“And her gimmick… is being a battle-maid.” Pyra thinned her lips, crossing her arms sceptically. Finally, she shook her head, and her arms fell back to her side, her pink eyes trying to convey some humour. “Well… if battle doesn’t work out, she has a fallback career, I guess?”
Tora let out an awkward chuckle. “It… was also easy to just go with it, based on training data. Otherwise, Poppi default to cold, emotionless robot. And those no fun.”
“Training data?” Azurda tilted his head.
“You think Tora hard-coded Poppi’s personality himself!?”
“I am…” Rex rubbed his face. “Just… at a loss for words.” His eyes wandered over to the wardrobe, filled with maid outfits covered in a thin layer of dust. “Did I die at the bottom of the Cloud Sea?” Rex wondered. “Did Jin stab me instead of the Doctor, and all of this is my afterlife?”
“Here, let Tora show you,” Tora shook his head. “Meh, why friends making it weird. Tora’s behaviour entirely innocent! Have to think about branding and merchandizing when become famous Blade-Driver duo! Appeal to masses important part of every public image!”
Rex and Pyra looked at each other. Merchandizing. Glad to see Tora still had the old Nopon sense of priorities. Then again, that did kind of make sense. If one looked at Poppi as a major financial investment (which she was), Tora would want to see a return of some kind. Better than the return-on-investment than Rex got on the Maelstrom mission, certainly. Did that mean Tora was going to try and peddle figurines of Poppi? Manga? Saturday-morning cartoons?
Rex wanted one, just for having to sit through this embarrassment.
“Let’s just…” Pyra tried to reasonably interject. “Get Poppi up and running, for real this time?”
“Okay!” Tora eagerly nodded and moved on, putting his hand around the lever again. “Let’s try again – booting in correct personality this time!”
The effect was diminished this time, without the thunder, or the fog machines, but Poppi twitched, and awakened, all the same.
Orange, mechanical eyes searched around the room – shutter-like irises dilating as she scanned the area.
Silence filled the room, as the artificial Blade raised her arms, examining them intently.
“Poppi?” Tora nervously addressed.
Poppi’s head snapped over to look at him, nodding. “Greetings, masterpon.”
“Yes!” Tora screeched, bouncing happily and clapping his wings together. “Yes! Tora did it! Tora complete Blade!” He coughed, and settled. “Um, Poppi! Please to be giving masterpon system status report!”
“Waiting,” Poppi’s head snapped up. Her eyes moved rapidly, before she stomped her leg, and saluted.
“…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a maid do that.” Rex mumbled.
“Poppi QT operating at maximum power!” Poppi declared with a smile. She reached around to the back of her body, and pulled out the cable connecting her to the console, taking a step off the platform.
“Wow…” Pyra breathed out. “The way she moves is even like a person…”
“Rather remarkable…” Azurda commented quietly. “I’ve never seen machines move with such fluidity.”
“Masterpon,” Poppi looked down at him. “Poppi is combat-ready and prepared to serve.” For emphasis, she raised her arms again. Parts sprung out, curved plates shifting around, as her forearms reconfigured into large, blocky gloves. Rex was tempted to say they were some kind of hydraulic-powered boxing gloves. “But, masterpon, Poppi has question.”
“Yes!” Tora cleared his throat, imperiously placing his hands on his hips. “Tora shall do best to answer it!”
“Who are friends?” She asked of him.
“Oh, yes!” Tora gestured. “Tora explain everything! But first, have more friends we have to find!”
Poppi took a second to process the information, before rapidly nodding. “Poppi good at finding things!” An electric click came from… somewhere in her body, before a glow shone out from her optics. “Inclement weather is incoming, but stay close to Poppi, and we find friends in no time!”
Rex scratched his head, turning to see Pyra looking back at him, expectantly.
“You heard her, Rex.” Pyra shrugged with good humour. “Let’s follow her.”
Rex turned back around, to see Tora and Poppi already leaving out the door. With no reason to do otherwise, he decided to follow.
------------
The room was silent, save for the quiet whistling of the wind, the rustling of the trees outside, and the distant rumbling of thunder. Mòrag was hunched over the desk, rifling with practiced, gloved fingers through the desk. Her expression was one of cool detachment, but anyone who knew her well could see the faint amusement in her eyes.
Brighid, standing across from her, was rifling through a drawer with a mix of curiosity and exasperation. Her brows were furrowed in mild disbelief as she pulled out what appeared to be an ornate, polished gemstone.
"My, what a beautiful necklace.” Brighid remarked, holding it up for Mòrag to inspect. "I wonder why he has it. He’s certainly not getting any use out of it himself.”
Mòrag, glancing over with a smirk, shook her head. "You really need to ask that?”
Brighid let out a regret-filled sigh. “I know. It’s easier to keep expensive assets around than trying to hide cash. But just once I’d like an expensive trinket to just be an expensive trinket.”
“Something can be said about the fact that he bought a necklace with the money instead.” Mòrag commented, looking back down into the desk drawers. “If I see one more Fabergé egg. Hmm…” She shook her head, rifling through the papers in the desk. “If only the people we investigate keep records of their shady dealings.”
Brighid chuckled, placing the gemstone back in the drawer. “If only. Sadly, the world doesn’t see fit to make our jobs so easy for us.”
A hitched breath came from Mòrag’s direction, and Brighid turned around just in time to see Mòrag pull out a folded piece of paper from the desk.
The two of them shared a look. “He wouldn’t be that stupid… would he?” Brighid inquired.
“…let’s take a look.” Mòrag opened the folded paper, finding a mass of jumbled letters scrawled onto the page. “It’s coded. Although…” Mòrag turned her head. “If one takes a moment to look...” Mòrag set her jaw, and pulled a pen out from her pockets, taking a piece of stationery off of Dughall’s desk. Mòrag took a look at each block of text, making a note of the characters – specifically, the one that occurred most often. Then the ones that occurred second-most often, and so on. Once she felt she had what she needed, she did some mental maths, and wrote out on the piece of stationery next to it.
Once done, a message revealed itself, hidden in the jumbled mass.
‘Does Bana truly expect me to memorize a paltry little string of numbers, and hold onto it for years and years? We go AGES between conversations, and I’m a busy man! This province can’t run itself! I’ve so much work to do! I’ll just make a note of the frequency here, just in case. It’s not as if the rank-and-file will be clever enough to break this ingenious encoding scheme, even if they do manage to break into my office!’
Mòrag closed her eyes, and took a slow breath, fighting a pounding headache coming on.
“Mòrag?”
“As much as I would prefer to say this is the result of me being a genius… it’s more the result of the fact that he was not.” If the Consul was such a blithering moron as to think that was a clever scheme… “I do have to give him some credit – he wasn’t foolish enough to keep an entire journal of criminal activities in there.”
Mòrag pivoted sharply, walking out from behind Dughall’s desk.
“But, he might have just done our jobs for us.”
“Oh?” Brighid tilted her head.
“No one is sloppier than one who they think is clever.” She moved over to Dughall’s terminal, and signed on. “You didn’t happen to hear anything slip? Something that the ‘ingenious’ Consul wouldn’t care about blabbing about in front of a mere Blade?”
Brighid lightly rubbed her chin. “I noticed a great many things. Among them, that runoff pipe that was supposed to have been finished was not. It’s dumping waste from the relay base right onto the Titan. According to him, the funds for that simply never arrived.”
Mòrag shook her head. “Such a brazen…” She couldn’t even finish what she wanted to say, she felt so impatient. Gormott was supposed to be the Empire’s backup – that was the whole reason they took it. Salting the earth would get them nowhere. “So, that’s an ‘embezzlement’ charge as well. All that remains is one thing. Well, two.”
“Ah, I recognize that expression.” Brighid commented. “Tell me what has you curious.”
Mòrag huffed at her Blade’s ability to read her, but provided her with the answer. “You know what? We’ll save it for the show.” She gestured to the door. “Tell Captain Padraig to get the Consul in here.”
“Gladly.” Brighid smiled.
There was about to be a show.
-------------
Only ten minutes later, Dughall came crawling in.
“Special Inquisitor-!” Dughall looked around, at the broken window, the ransacked office, and the utter mess. “By the… Architect! What happened to my office!?” He bellowed in panic. “Whe-!?” He spun around. “Where are the prisoners!?”
“Relax, Consul.” Brighid addressed. “They’ll be handled in due time.”
“Due time!?” The Consul raised his voice. “Look at this… this mess! Two prisoners, without any Blades, escaped and did this!?” He took note of Mòrag, who was idly sitting in his chair behind the desk. “And you’re just sitting there in my chair! The-There should be a search! An APB put out, at once! Those two will regret the day they made enemies of Mor Ardain!”
“They’re not a pressing issue at the moment.” Mòrag gestured to the seat across the desk. “Take a seat.”
“’Not a pressing issue!?’ Dangerous members of Torna and Core Crystal thieves are not a pressing issue!? How preposterous! I expected more out of the Flamebringer, and the Jewel-“
“Consul.” Mòrag thundered, despite her voice kept at a controlled volume. “That was not a request. Sit down, now.”
The Consul’s jaw clicked as he forced his jaw shut. Wisely obeying, he slammed down into the seat across from her.
Mòrag looked at him, drolly. “Do you know why I called you here?”
“I-I had assumed the enemy had escaped!”
“They have,” Mòrag nodded. “And in the… scuffle, quite a few of us managed to get turned around. Knocking things over. I took the liberty of picking through the rubble, just to make sure they hadn’t taken anything valuable, as well as make sure that they hadn’t left anything of value behind. And do you know what I found.”
As Dughall went pale, Mòrag took the slip of paper out from the desk, and placed it in front of him.
Dughall looked at it, before huffing. “That? A scrap of paper I use to test my pens? What in the world is so important about that?”
Mòrag’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s a piece of scrap? I see. Curious. Forgive me for being confused, it was just surprising that something meant for simple scribbling had so much… structure?”
“But naturally,” Dughall smugly answered. Architect, he was really committing to the bit. Did he really think that story was going to be enough to fool her. “I use them to keep my handwriting sharp as well. You never know when a typewriter is about to go out.”
“Just as well,” Mòrag hummed. “Skills do degrade if they’re not used.” She furrowed her brow, looking intently at the page. “That’s remarkable.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, my apologizes, Consul, forgive me.” Mòrag rubbed her lips thoughtfully. “It’s a remarkable coincidence, that everything on this piece of paper is coded, despite it being a piece of scrap. All the nonsense scribbles perfectly code a message.”
“Well,” Dughall huffed. “If one goes looking for a pattern, one will find it. If it was coded, what, did you have to individually decipher each word? Examine the passage as one enormous anagram? That’s hardly reliable… not to mention a waste of time! Why would you concern yourself with it anyway?”
“Well, it’s not as difficult as one would expect,” Mòrag kindly replied. “Did you know that there are entire fields of science, dedicated to the act of breaking codes? They call it cryptography. I was never much good at it myself, but His Majesty; he had quite the eye for it. And he shared with me an interesting fact. If messages are coded a certain way, say by shifting every letter in the alphabet around by replacing them with letters from further in the alphabet, then it doesn’t matter if the words are nonsense – it’s still quite possible to pick out which letters occur most frequently, and use that information to work backwards. Like the letter ‘E’ – it occurs most frequently you know – so, assume that the letter that occurs most frequently in the coded message is an E, and use that to get a difference. Then work from there.”
Dughall blinked, looking around, confused. “Special Inquisitor, is there a point to this?”
“Well,” Mòrag made a show of looking at the paper. “I utilized the technique on this slip of scrap paper here, and it revealed a message. Punctuation and all.” Mòrag gestured at the page. “It’s even written in your tone-of-voice. Considering it’s all supposed to be nonsense meant to keep your handwriting sharp, and your pens flowing, that’s rather a remarkable coincidence.”
“A message?” Dughall laughed. “Well, what does it say, then?”
“Not very much,” Mòrag admitted. “Only something about Bana, how busy you are, and a string of numbers you were supposed to memorize. Which, incidentally, were not coded.”
Dughall appeared frightened for a single second, before nodding slowly, with a plastered-on smile of fake recollection. “Well, you’ve got me. I do maintain a… journal, of sorts.”
“A coded journal,” Mòrag demonstrated to its owner. “A coded journal in your own office, in the second-most secure place on Gormott.”
“Yes, well,” Dughall flippantly brushed it off. “Forgive me for not trusting the men with sensitive details of my life.”
Mòrag raised an eyebrow. “You would trust them to guard your life, yet not trust them with the details of it?”
“I simply prefer to keep my work life… separate from my personal one.”
“Indeed. An admirable way of looking at things.” Mòrag commented, idly running her fingers on the edge of the book. “But…” Mòrag, gestured, tapping her head, trailing off.
“But what?” Dughall impatiently pressed.
“I just find it an interesting paradox. You want to keep your work life and your personal life separate… yet keep a journal filled with details of your personal life here? In your workplace?” Mòrag gestured. “And… only on a single page?”
Dughall set his jaw. “It’s rather inconvenient to carry an entire book around, specifically if nothing of note occurs. It’s much easier to simply write things down as they occur, if they occur, and place them in a binder later.”
“Yes,” Mòrag nodded. “Yes, I see.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “But this piece of paper, it’s awfully old. Why keep it here?”
Dughall turned his head up. “I fail to see what that has to do with anything.”
“Well…” Mòrag repeated, gesturing back down at the page. “Evidently, it took place quite some time ago. Isn’t the entire point of a journal to know when something happened? Why not put it with the rest of the record to make sure it’s complete? Actually, come to think of it, there’s not a date on here…” Mòrag looked up, waving it for demonstration.
“You wouldn’t catch me making such a mistake, writing my journal,” Brighid commented. “Knowing when something happened is just as important as knowing that it happened at all.”
Dughall wordlessly sneered at her, before shaking his head. “If you must know,” Dughall cleared his throat, rolling his eyes, like he was finding it a chore. “The paper itself might be old, but the message is not. Things were quite busy around here, you know, since that… attack, the other night. I simply haven’t found the time to file it away, especially considering you had arrived and commandeered my workspace. I’ll append the date to it when I file it away. It’s of no consequence.”
“Ah, of course,” Mòrag nodded, leaning on her hand. She shifted, looking at the paper again. “Ah, so, then, this page came from the night of the attack, did it?”
“It did-?” Dughall blinked. “It did.” Dughall cleared his throat.
“Ah, so the ‘Bana’ in the entry must be Chairman Bana.”
“Of course,” Dughall preened, straightening up. “Argentum is one of the largest trade guilds in the region! Maintaining good relations with them - ensuring the smooth flow of trade from Gormott back to our glorious empire – that’s one of my most important duties, I would say.”
“Really?” Mòrag hummed. “That’s incredible. Simply incredible.”
“Ah, it’s but one of my many duties to the Empire-“
“Oh, no. I’m saying it’s simply incredible that, despite this being a journal for details regarding your personal life, it’s detailing a work relationship?”
Dughall froze, turning his head to cough. “Ah. Well, the good Chairman and I, we met on personal business before.”
“Ah, I see.” Mòrag nodded. “And the Chairman, being your acquaintance, took the time out of his busy schedule to notify you personally, regarding the situation with CSEV Maelstrom. Considering Gormott was so close to the event.”
Dughall preened. “Naturally.” A moment later, however, he frowned. “Special Inquisitor, might I ask what the purpose of this interrogation is?”
“Ah. My apologies,” Mòrag hummed lightly. “No interrogation, Consul. Simply trying to build a timeline. I have good reason to believe our quarry will present himself in due time. Now, after Bana contacted you, that was when you told Captain Padraig to keep an eye out for the members of Torna.”
Dughall offered an oily smile, nodding. “Indeed I did. Torigoth would be their only option for quick passage off this Titan, so I gave the order.”
“Of course. As you should have.” Mòrag turned, moving to the door, like she was about to exit. “There is one other thing to note.” She stopped, turning around to look at the Consul with narrowed eyes.
Dughall didn’t look nearly as frightened as he should’ve been. “Oh?”
“Captain Padraig and his men received no such order.” Mòrag stated, as Dughall locked up. “His attempt to capture the member of Torna they discovered here in Torigoth came as a result of the wanted posters.”
“Really? There’s a simple explanation for that. I merely had the posters put up after I heard the news.”
“I see.” Mòrag nodded, before fixing him with a look. “That’s odd.” She began to pace around. And she rubbed her head.
“S-Special Inquisitor.”
“Captain Padraig was rather forthcoming with the detail that you told him to be on the lookout for a Blade with an emerald Core Crystal. Now, I can understand why you only placed the three wanted posters up in response to the news – you were working off the information you had access to. But why,” Mòrag wondered aloud. “If you knew the Aegis was out and about, wouldn’t you put up a wanted poster for her as well? You wouldn’t even need to say it was the Aegis – only that there was a Blade with a unique crystal active.”
“I-I didn’t want to panic the citizens-“
“And you put up posters for wanted terrorists up, instead?” Mòrag asked in response. “Yes, Malos, Jin, and Nia – according to the report that crossed my desk the next morning.”
“R-Report?” Dughall squeaked.
“Oh, yes, quite a fascinating read. The Maelstrom, being a salvage ship, had no weapons. They were forced to signal one of our ships for assistance. It didn’t arrive in time, but the ship managed to escape anyway, and the crew were more than forthcoming with details regarding their would’ve-been killers. The fascinating part is that the Torna hadn’t just attacked the Maelstrom – they had chartered it, through Chairman Bana.”
“I don’t see what that-“
“In addition,” Mòrag continued. “You had ordered Padraig to capture the Aegis several hours before that report had even been completed, let alone circulated. The Maelstrom had yet to make it back to Argentum. I can understand wanting to give a friend a warning… but why would he contact you first?” Mòrag questioned. “And when he did, you only placed up wanted posters for three persons-of-interest, but ordered the Captain to capture the fourth separately? Why?”
Dughall swallowed hard. “T-there must be a misunderstanding—”
“Why?” Mòrag demanded.
“I-It’s an honest misunderstanding, I swear-“
“Oh, I think not.” Mòrag turned around. “If you believe the Aegis had a connection to Torna, why wouldn’t you put up wanted posters for her? If it was a simple error, why not rectify that by placing a poster up for her as well?”
“I-I didn’t have her physical description!”
“Yet you had enough to know she possessed an emerald Core Crystal?” Mòrag challenged. “Surely that is enough to go onto a wanted poster?”
Dughall gasped, like he was drowning.
“In addition, according to the people on the Maelstrom, the Aegis was running from the members of Torna.” Mòrag drolly looked at her glove. “Why would you bother to capture her at all?” She glared at Dughall. “If the Maelstrom had fed Bana his information that he then fed to you, I find it hard to believe that he would overlook that. I find it even harder to believe that he wouldn’t have mentioned the two salvagers-for-hire on the crew who went missing. If he had told you to be on the lookout for the Aegis, wouldn’t he have told you to be on the lookout for them as well? So, why bother?”
Dughall straightened. “Special Inquisitor, this is all very entertaining-“
“The natural conclusion, is that you were attempting to conceal her presence.” Mòrag concluded. “Not merely from the citizens – given your reluctance to share the information – but from your superiors as well. Why?”
“I-I didn’t believe it was worth it to cause a scene, if it turned out to be nothing-“
“That,” Mòrag sneered. “Is a lie. Considering that you felt it something enough to tell your soldiers to be on the lookout for her, specifically. You,” Mòrag took a step, “Tried to conceal the information. And considering that your goal was to capture her, it was very likely to ensure that no one knew you captured her.”
“S-Special Inquisitor, I would never-“
A thundering boom filled the room as Mòrag slammed her hands on the desk, glaring into Dughall’s eyes.
“Let me make something abundantly clear, Consul.” Mòrag growled. “I do not tolerate fools. I tolerate liars even less. You issued a capture order for a high-value target, outside of official procedure, while attempting to cover your tracks. That, in itself, is enough for a conspiracy charge – which you will be receiving.”
Dughall spluttered. “CONSPIRACY!? I didn’t- Well, I never dreamed in my worst nightmares that this is how the Empire would repay my loyal service! False charges!?”
“Embezzlement, as well – considering the runoff pipe in broad daylight that was supposed to have been rectified with approved funds.”
Brighid let out a soft chuckle, watching as Dughall squirmed.
“I wonder how much else we’ll find, given a good, long examination.” Mòrag rhetorically commented. “With the power granted to me by His Majesty Niall Ardanach and the Imperial Senate, you are under arrest, Consul.”
Dughall’s face twisted and contorted. “Arrest? Arrest!?” Dughall bellowed. “I- You- Oh… to hell with this! DOLMES!”
As Dughall bellowed, the office began to rattle and shake. Mòrag, quick on the uptake, drew Brighid’s whipswords, looking around as the rattling turned into repeated, rhythmic thumping – like the din of an enormous timpani.
With a thunderous boom, the floor in the centre of the room splintered and erupted as a column of fire tore through, licking the ceiling and filling the room with an oppressive wave of heat. Dughall stood, back to it with a smug, disgusting smile. As the flames died, a gigantic arm cast in pale beige metal emerged from the tear in the floor. Then another. Then, a hulking, metal body pulled itself through. The giant humanoid rose to its full height – plume of red hair scraping the ceiling – the triangular Core Crystal casting the room in a blue pallor.
“You think you’re so intelligent! Breaking my code! Lording it up in here with your wild leaps of logic! I could have sold the Aegis and lived like a king!” Dughall twirled and gestured theatrically.
“And that’s a charge of Blade trafficking,” Mòrag narrowed her eyes.
“You and your charges,” Dughall leered. “Have fun trying to make them stick when you’re dead!”
Brighid scowled, all traces of humour gone. “You’re going to try and kill us?”
“But of course!” Dughall snorted. “The Flamebringer and the Jewel of the Empire!? A little girl who got the job through nepotism, and a Blade who dresses more like a Nopon businessman’s ‘companions’ than a military officer!”
Brighid’s hair burst into a blue firestorm, as she hatefully bared her teeth. In an instant, she was blazing ahead, moving at Dughall, in a blur of fire and fury. He barely had time to raise his hand in defence before she struck, sending him crashing against the wall with a force that rattled the very building.
A weak, gasping wheeze came from over where Dughall had landed.
Dolmes turned about, looking over at his driver with concern. Mòrag walked past, taking a sword, and pointing it at Dughall.
The Special Inquisitor looked up at the Consul’s blade. “Go ahead. Try it.”
Dolmes held up his hands, shaking his head meekly.
“Be…trayal!” Dughall wheezed.
Mòrag, however, looked at the Blade with a smile. “Good man.”
----------
The house on the hill loomed larger with every desperate step. The Doctor’s coat flared behind him as he sprinted up the slope, Nia close at his side, her breaths sharp and urgent.
“There!” Nia called, pointing to the silhouette of Vess's home. Everything was getting so dark, so quickly, it was a wonder she could see it.
The wind carried howled quietly, and incessantly. As the hill levelled out and they reached the porch, the Doctor flung out an arm to steady himself, gasping as he spotted movement.
“Vess!” He shouted, wildly flapping his arms as he jogged forward. “Vess!”
His eyes darted to the porch, taking in the old man sitting calmly in a rocking chair. The Doctor’s gaze flicked across the small table nearby, landing on the woman seated there.
“Vess’s driver!” He exclaimed, his mind piecing things together at breakneck speed. Then his voice sharpened, disbelief turning into alarm. “Albedo!”
“Who the… hell are you!?” The old man demanded incredulously.
Albedo cleared her throat. “Mabon, this is the Doctor. He was an employee of mine, for all of a day.”
“Yes, and-“ The Doctor began to gesture. “Hold on, ‘was!?’”
“You ran off on me in the middle of deliveries to go play investigator.” She turned a sharp look his way.
“Oof, tough luck.” Nia commented in the Doctor’s direction. She and Dromarch stood a few paces back, scanning the area.
“Wh- But we were finished!” The Doctor gestured in disbelief. “At the bottom of the list!”
“You still ran off.” Albedo pointed out.
“Yes,” Dromarch rumbled. “It is frowned upon in most places of employment to simply leave without being officially dismissed.”
“I had stuff! And things! A man was killed!” The Doctor flapped his hands about. “And then I got captured! And then I had to break out! And- NO!” He hit himself in the face, pointing between Albedo and Mabon. “Vess! Where’s Vess!? She’s in colossal, colossal danger, and it might be my fault, so I need to warn her!”
“Danger?” Mabon narrowed his eyes. “How’s it your fault?”
“Because,” The Doctor huffed, pointing at Albedo. “We were talking, about Blades, in the middle of town square while a murderer who had killed another man for his Core Crystal was only a few feet away. He was watching us, and probably listening, while we spilled almost everything! Probably heard Vess talking about how frail her Driver was, too!”
Mabon’s face twisted in puzzlement, but Albedo – as one of the parties involved in said conversation – straightened up.
“The murderer heard us talking?” Albedo questioned intensely. “About Mabon?”
“Quite probably,” The Doctor waved his arms. The storm, the wind, every sense in his gut was telling him that something bad was approaching. “It was a soldier – and a soldier was literally the only person who could’ve gotten away with the act in broad daylight, unless the Blade turned on their driver, so-“ He wildly flapped his arms again. “We need to warn Vess!”
“Okay,” Albedo shot to her feet, and every bit a woman on a mission, she walked around the table, over to Mabon. “Come, let’s get inside.”
“What!?” Mabon spluttered in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you’re actually listening to this man? You just met him!”
“And if he tries to do anything crazy, it will probably be better if we’re inside, with Vess.” Albedo pointed out.
Mabon took another look at the Doctor.
“Yes, yes, stark, raving madman here, don’t mind me! Get inside your house, away from the nutter.” The Doctor waved repeatedly in the direction of the door.
“Fine,” Mabon allowed Albedo to help him up, and hobbled over to the door, the two of them going inside first. Then, the Doctor, Nia, and Dromarch slipped in afterward.
The walls were adorned with faded photographs of smiling faces — children in various stages of life, and a younger Mabon standing beside a woman whose kind eyes seemed to brighten the room even now, but she wasn’t there in any of the pictures of Mabon with his older-looking children. A patched armchair sat near a hearth.
Bookshelves lined one wall, filled with weathered books and Driver manuals, their spines cracked from frequent use. A modest dining table stood at the centre of the room. The faint scent of herbs and spices hung in the air.
Nia sniffed the air, and it was looking like her mouth was watering. “Damn, what’s that smell? Smells like someone’s cooking up something good.”
“Mabon?” Vess’s voice called out from another room. She sounded lightly exasperated. “I told you I would bring them to you when they’re done.”
“Vess?” Albedo called to her. “You might want to get to a stopping point. There are… things, happening.”
“Right, yes, correct, things!” The Doctor pointed at Albedo, and clapped his hands. “Exactly!” Vess rounded a corner, looking confused. “Vess, good news! I figured out the identity of the murderer in the town square, and have extrapolated his next victim!”
Vess recoiled, looking alarmed.
“Yes, that does mean that a violent murderer is targeting you and your Driver, but,” The Doctor held up a finger. “I’m working on it. So!” He bounced lightly on his feet, swaying around, and knocking on the walls. “Good house, good construction.” He peered out the window, and yanked the curtains shut.
“Now hold on!” Mabon impatiently addressed. “You’re talking about that murder that happened earlier!?”
“Yes, I am.” The Doctor happily answered, bounding into the kitchen. “Ah, lovely! A free-standing cupboard! Nia! Help me barricade the door!” He grabbed onto one side of the cupboard, Nia on the other, and began to push it, sliding it through the kitchen, into the dining room, in front of the door. “Okay!” The Doctor clapped his hands and spun around. “Does this house have a whole load of old toys, half-finished projects, and trinkets that I can use to do my own, personal, Home Alone trapmaking?”
All of them stared at him, at a loss.
The Doctor sighed. “Thought not.”
“Hold on!” Mabon raised his voice. “You can’t just breeze your way in here and tear apart my house! That murder happened earlier today! Why would the guy strike again, so soon, so close to his last victim!?”
“Right,” Albedo idly twiddled her hands. “It could be a couple of days before they decide to-“
A thundering, repetitious banging came from the direction of the front door.
The Doctor spun around, looking dead-on towards the sound’s origin. He held a finger to his lips, silence descending over the room.
“Nia,” The Doctor whispered, gesturing for her and Dromarch to follow.
Light on his feet, so light the floors didn’t even thud, he rushed over to the window, and peeked out.
“Dromarch,” The Doctor addressed. “Were we followed?”
“I don’t believe so. I certainly couldn’t detect anyone.”
“Then why is an Ardainian soldier on the doorstep?” The Doctor shuffled about, changing his angle-of-view. He could see the armoured human shuffling about impatiently, before banging on the door again. The Doctor retreated, and pulled Nia around a corner with him. “Hide! Dromarch, you too!”
“What are you doing!?” Vess hissed at the Doctor.
“Don’t know why he’s here, yet. Could be innocent.” The Doctor answered. “Well? Is someone going to answer the door?” And he ducked out of sight, brandishing the Screwdriver, just in-case.
Vess sighed, and moved over to the door. A moment later, the Doctor heard the click, and the creak of the door swinging open. The Time Lord closed his eyes, and let his other senses pick up the slack. Smell, electromagnetic waves, sound, and vibration, all compiling together in his mind to form a proper image.
“Good afternoon,” Vess greeted, her voice carrying the sweetness of practiced hospitality. “How may I help you?”
The response came in a clipped, professional tone, one that carried the weight of authority and a hint of menace. “Ma’am, my apologies for the intrusion, but I’m under orders to investigate reports of... unusual activity in this area.”
“Unusual?” Vess echoed, tilting her head with a confused smile. “Well, that’s no good. Whatever do you mean?”
The soldier hesitated, his boots scraping faintly against the wooden porch. “I’ve been told to ask if you’ve seen any... suspicious characters. Travelers, strangers passing through. Perhaps ones avoiding Imperial checkpoints.”
Nia stiffened at the words, her hand twitching toward her weapons before Dromarch nudged her gently with his snout, a silent warning to stay still.
The Doctor’s brow furrowed as he mouthed the soldier’s words silently to himself. “Suspicious characters avoiding checkpoints,” he repeated under his breath. “Why not ‘fugitives’? Why not ‘criminals’? Interesting choice of words...”
Meanwhile, Vess chuckled lightly, her expression as serene as ever. “Suspicious characters? Goodness, no. It’s been wonderfully peaceful here. Just me and my Driver.”
“Hmm,” The soldier replied, clearly unsatisfied. He shifted his weight, the sound of armour clinking faintly. “May I come in and speak to your Driver?”
“Really? If this is official business, then-“
“Ma’am,” The Soldier cut her off. “I’m going to have to insist.”
Vess’s expression lost its pleasant warmth. “What for?”
The Doctor opened his eyes, and stuck his head around the corner. He couldn’t see the door, but Mabon and Albedo were out of sight.
“Just some follow-up questions regarding your visit to the crime scene earlier today. Now, unless you have something to hide, I would suggest simply going along.”
“Ey,” Nia lowered her voice, whispering at the Doctor. “You know what it means when authorities get pushy like that?”
“They’re looking to take someone in, doesn’t matter who.” The Doctor finished. “But the Ardainians don’t have anything on Vess. So…” The Doctor nodded. “That’s our man.”
“What do we do?” Nia asked of him. “I can knock that bastard on his ass right now.”
The Doctor held up a hand, hearing the floorboards creak. “Not yet.”
The soldier and Vess walked into the house. “Where’s your Driver?”
“Oh, he’s resting at the moment.”
“He should be a part of this,” The Soldier stated. “Standard procedure – questioning Blades.”
“…I see.” Vess hummed. “In that case, allow me to fetch him.” She turned, and moved towards the kitchen, where Mabon was presumably hiding.
The Doctor slowly poked his head out of the corner, watching as the soldier stood there, transfixed on the door. The man’s arms were twitchy.
The Doctor’s grip around his Screwdriver tightened.
Vess walked around the corner first, helping Mabon. “Well-“
In a surge of inhuman swiftness the Soldier’s hand went to his sidearm, and yanked it out of its holster. As he swung his hand up, a crack rang out from the end of the weapon, and a bullet tore out-
-striking a bubble of hexagons right in front of Mabon.
Nia let out a bellowing battle cry as she jumped out of the cover, brandishing Dromarch’s twin rings. She charged, and slammed into the soldier with enough force to knock him to the ground, pinning him to the floor.
“Don’t move a bloody muscle!” Nia snarled at him, standing on his torso.
Vess summoned her weapon, holding a metal globe in her hands. “Mabon, are you okay?”
The old man rubbed his chest, breathing heavily. “Fine. Firing a gun off in my house…”
“Yeah, not so used to being the one on the receiving end of the plans, are you!?” Nia kicked the soldier in his helmet.
“My lady…” Dromarch warned.
“Ah, and here he is!” The Doctor sauntered over, looking down at the soldier. “The man of the hour, gracing us with his presence! We were just talking about you! You know, I was just telling them about your work downtown – killing a man in broad daylight and getting away with it – that’d be enough to make anybody reckless! Figured, after that, he’d want to keep up the streak.” He crouched down, next to the soldier, and lowered his voice. “You thought you were going to kill this man, too? For his Blade? Not while I’m here.”
The soldier let out a disgusted grunt. “You’ve assaulted a soldier of the Imperial Military, and you’re acting like I’m in the wrong? You’re all going to prison, now. Who do you think they’ll believe? Me, or the people that jumped me?”
“No one said you could talk, asshole.” Nia bit out.
The Doctor held up a hand, in her direction.
“You would be surprised,” Albedo cut in. “When they noticed you fired your weapon, they’ll wonder why.”
“Self-defence.” The Soldier laughed. “A bit like this!”
The soldier suddenly tensed, his body twisting with a surge of strength. With a sharp shove, he threw Nia off balance, sending her stumbling back with a curse. The movement bought him just enough time. His hand darted to his side, fingers flicking a button on his radio.
“GO FOR IT!” The soldier bellowed.
“Oi! You cheeky little—!” Nia lunged for him again, but before she could reach him, the back door of the house exploded inward, knocking the cupboard over with a deafening crash as the culprits launched through the kitchen, and into the main room.
Vess let out a gasp as she whipped around, and threw her metal ball. At the same time, the soldier made a swipe at Nia, using his sidearm as an improvised club. Nia slid out of range of the attack, as Dromarch jumped into the fray, the affinity link flaring up between them.
As the second of the two Blades got closer, Vess shoved Mabon out of the way, and he landed on the floor.
“Here!” The Doctor helped pull him over, into a room off the side.
Albedo’s eyes danced around, and she took hold of a vase, hurling it at the second blade, before dashing into cover.
“I-“ Albedo began to speak, before taking note of the man next to her. “Mabon! Are you okay!?”
Mabon groaned. “I think I broke a hip. Or both of them.”
Albedo looked up. “We can’t leave him like this for long!”
The Doctor looked over his shoulder, at the fight breaking out.
The two Blades that had arrived to assist the ‘soldier’ were two, very similar-looking, young women. Except one was covered in spiked armour, like she had decided to wear a set of knives that morning, while the other was adorned with glowing, blue globes.
The room was a whirlwind of motion before anyone could speak further.
Globes (as the Doctor was mentally calling her) lunged forward first, her lance a blur of light and metal as she jabbed at Nia with expert precision. Nia ducked under the initial thrust and retaliated with a slash of Dromarch’s ring. The Blade sidestepped, but not before sparks flew as the weapon grazed her armour.
“Quick for a little scrapper, aren’t you?” She smirked, spinning her spear into a defensive stance.
“Quick enough to send you back to whatever hole you crawled out of!” Nia snarled, her voice thick with rage. “Crystal thieves – of all the lowlifes-!
Meanwhile, Vess turned her attention to Knives, whose curved blade belched out icy clouds that fogged up in the air. She darted toward Vess, slicing horizontally in a blow meant to sever her weapon cleanly in half. Vess twisted her body with surprising agility, the metal orb in her hands spinning like a cyclone. A toss from Vess sent the metal ball flying, which knives dodged by lunging to the side.
But the ball kept traveling – it bounced off the wall, bounding wildly and knocking over decorations and picture frames, before it slammed into Knives from behind, causing her to stagger.
The ball rematerialized in Vess’s hand.
“Theory!” The soldier growled. “What the hell was that!?” He spun about, visibly searching for his target. He began to stomp over-
The Doctor stuck his head out. “Hello, nice to see you again!” He held down the activator on the Sonic Screwdriver, and a ray of green light sprung from the emitter. A deafening sonic buzz filled the air, as the ‘soldier’s’ hands went up to cover his ears.
A primal scream tore out of the soldier’s throat, as he yanked off his helmet.
“Oh, I knew the fucker wasn’t a real soldier!” Nia snarled as she caught sight of his face, while Globes took another swipe at her.
“A little ‘gift’ I picked up from the Consul,” The Thief shook his head – now that the metal wasn’t conducting for the Sonic Screwdriver, he was able to focus. “He looks the other way, and we kick part of the profits his way in return. Don’t expect him to let you go.”
“Oh, he won’t be much of a problem, I think.” The Doctor replied, brightening his expression. “Also, you might want to take care of the bigger threats in the room, first.”
“Wha-“ The Thief turned around, just in time for Dromarch to pounce on him.
“Doctor!” Albedo called, gesturing for him to move quickly. He spun back, and got close, next to her. “Please tell me you’re an actual doctor.”
“It depends.” The Doctor bluntly retorted. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Mabon- I can’t-“
The Doctor looked over the old man – skin with a concerning pallor, and heavy-lidded eyes. Mabon’s head seemed rather heavy, and his gaze listless. “Mabon? Mabon, hey!”
“I’m…” Mabon groaned. “I’m fine. Just a little fall… Vess was just… trying to help…”
“Mabon, stay with me,” The Doctor urged, crouching beside him. His hands moved with desperate precision, scanning for any way to stabilize the old man. “You’re not done yet, you hear me? You’re a Driver, right? Dangerous job! You’ve survived too much to let a little fall take you now.” He looked up, incredulous. “She shoved him!? Why did she shove him!? She had that shield!”
Albedo solemnly shook her head. “It takes a tremendous amount of Ether to use for even a second. If she used it another time, her reserves…”
The Doctor replied with a frustrated growl.
Albedo leaned in, with a worried pull to her eyes. “Can you do anything?”
The Doctor shook his head, his frustration boiling over. “I can patch up a gunshot wound, build a stasis field, even reverse a biochemical infection, but this — this isn’t something I can fix! It’s age!”
Mabon’s eyes fluttered open, his gaze glassy and unfocused. “Vess…” he croaked weakly, the name barely audible over the din of the battle.
“She’s fighting, still,” Albedo addressed, her voice soft. “Don’t worry.”
The Doctor leaned closer, his voice gentle but firm. “Mabon, listen to me. You’ve got to hold on, alright? You’ve got a Blade who needs you. You’re her Driver — she’s fighting for you out there.”
Mabon’s breathing hitched, his chest shuddering. “Always told her… I’d get her into trouble… asking her to stay around…”
“Doctor,” Albedo addressed the Time Lord with nervous eyes. “If he dies, Vess goes down. Nia and Dromarch are out there fighting on their own.”
Mabon blinked slowly. “Vess… Don’t let them take her. She needs… a new Driver… not a master.” His face coiled in disgust. “They’ll sell her like a trinket.”
The Doctor reached out, gripping Mabon’s hand tightly. “I won’t let that happen, but you’ve got to hold on!”
But the old man’s body relaxed, his breathing slowing. The fight in his chest faltered. His eyes closed, and for a brief, agonizing moment, there was stillness.
“No, no, no, nonononono!” The Doctor pressed two fingers to Mabon’s neck, searching for a pulse. “NO! You can’t do that, you can’t just die-”
A starburst of light erupted from the other room.
All of the combatants staggered as the blinding glow of ether filled the room. Nia, locked in combat with her opponent, paused for a moment. Dromarch turned, shielding his eyes from the blast. Theory, near ground-zero, covered her eyes.
A Core Crystal, as black as obsidian, fell and clattered to the floor.
“Oh, well that’s unfortunate.” Theory commented. “All the fracas for nothing.” She began to bend down, and picked up the Core.
Dromarch roared, and leapt over, slamming into Theory.
Vess’s Core Crystal was knocked away, sliding across the floor.
A gloved closed around it first, and the Thief picked up the crystal.
The Doctor stuck his head out of cover, a gunshot whizzing past him.
“One Crystal down,” The Thief commented, before turning, and fixing his eyes on Dromarch. He turned, and pointed his firearm in Nia’s direction – the girl and her opponent fighting and clawing at each other, and keeping anchored to the spot. He pulled the trigger, and an impotent click answered him. “JAMMED!?” He let out a snarl, and tossed the weapon to the side. “Theory!”
The female Blade grunted, still fighting with Dromarch, as she tried to use her katana to hold him back. She looked over at her Driver, confused. “But-“
“Now!” The thief barked.
Theory took a shaky breath, and tossed her sword over to her Driver, as she was forced to fight Dromarch now with her bare hands.
The thief took a swing at Nia – the other one of Dromarch’s rings catching the strike. Nia grunted as she struggled to hold both of them back at once.
“Doctor,” Albedo addressed, hiding back out of sight. “Do something.”
The Doctor’s mind raced, drowning out the sounds of chaos around him. The Time Lord’s hearts pounded, flooding him with rage and the unrelenting need to do something.
All of this, over a crystal.
The Doctor froze.
And then, like a bolt of lightning, it struck him.
“The Core Crystals,” He whispered, his voice almost lost beneath the din. “It’s the Core Crystals. It’s been about the Core Crystals this whole time!”
He reached into his coat and pulled out one of the glowing stones he’d taken from the Ardainian recruitment drive. It pulsed faintly, almost as though it were a heart picking up speed — waiting, wanting.
“What are you doing?” Albedo asked, icy blue eyes narrowing as she moved closer to him.
The Doctor held the Core Crystal up, turning it over in his hands.
Albedo’s gaze sharpened. “You intend to resonate with it? Are you sure?”
The Doctor nodded slowly, his usual bravado replaced with uncertainty. “What choice do I have? Nia’s out there, and she needs us. If this works…” He looked over at her. “Can I wake someone up for the express purpose of fighting?”
“She’s going to die,” Albedo interrupted, shaking her head. “You could die too, trying to awaken that, unless you’re a Driver already.”
“No I won’t – these crystals have never seen anything like me. I’m an all-you can eat buffet. Unless-“ The Doctor turned the Core Crystal toward Albedo, holding it out. “Do you want to try first? Maybe you have some untapped potential?”
Albedo studied the crystal for a moment before shaking her head. “I have no potential for such things. I’m sorry, but it’s down to you, Doctor.”
“It usually is.” The Time Lord exhaled slowly, clutching the Core Crystal tightly. “Right then,” he muttered. “No turning back now.”
He raised the Core Crystal, looking at it intently. He frowned, trying to puzzle out in his mind exactly how to make it work. The Driver he helped recruit kind of just… held it. The Doctor frowned, his nerve endings lighting up as he gave the Crystal a telepathic prod.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the room was bathed in light.
The Doctor gasped as the energy surged through him, a torrent of power that clawed at his mind, his body, and his very essence. He gnashed his teeth, hearts pounding erratically, as his muscles tensed. Images, memories, and sensations flooded him — a torrent of lives lived and lost, all forgotten in the depths of the Core Crystal, sealed away in protocols and lattices.
The light faded, dimming as though a fire had been extinguished, and someone came emerging from it. Skating, actually.
The Doctor felt the breath stolen from his throat, as a young woman with a striking resemblance to a face left buried deep within his memory, emerged from the light. Her hair was short, a bob cut that came down to her chin, and was largely white with black streaks. A pair of horns of all things jutted out from her scalp, tapering off into short points. In one of her hands was a glowing orb similar to the one Vess had been using, but not quite, and it, in combination with her lithe figure and slim clothing, made the Doctor think ‘athlete.’
Her large, copper eyes locked onto him, and she smiled. “Hello! Crossette’s the name!”
“Hello!” The Doctor looked her up and down, shaking her hand with a smile. “I’m the Doctor, and I suppose I’m your new Driver! Now,” The Time Lord awkwardly chuckled. “This is a bit awkward, but we’re in some danger, here.”
Crossette perked up, and her horns sparked. “Danger? I won’t let you down!” She smiled, placing her hands on her hips. “I’ll light them up like a firework!”
“…oh my God, you are so precious.” The Doctor mumbled under his breath.
The Thief bared his teeth, and pulled his weapon away from Nia. “Reinforcements? All right, you know what, forget this!” He turned to flee, Vess’s crystal still in his hand. “Praxis! Theory! Stall these assholes!”
“Oh no you don’t!” Crossette sprang into action, her ball glowing in her hand. With a powerful spin, she hurled the bitball at the thief, the weapon streaking through the air like a comet.
The thief barely had time to react raising the katana to deflect the ball back at its progenitor. As Crossette caught her weapon, she twirled around and hurled it again. The thief made a sprint for the door, keeping his back to it, and Crossette threw her ball again, the orb becoming a zooming, bouncing blur of motion, bouncing all throughout the house.
It struck the thief in the back of his head, and sent him toppling – sending Vess’s Core Crystal across the room.
As it landed, Albedo jumped out, grabbed the crystal, and dove back into cover.
“D-Doctor!” Albedo held the crystal up. “I have her!”
Praxis, distracted by the commotion, hesitated for a split second — just long enough for Nia to seize the opportunity. She sidestepped the lance’s next swing and sent her rings forth, knocking Praxis back.
“That’s it!” Dromarch roared, redoubling his efforts against Theory. “Continue pressing the attack!”
The thief scrambled to his feet, only to find Crossette standing between him and the exit, her bitball now spinning in her hand. “Hi!”
The thief snarled, drawing a short blade. “You think I’m scared of a fresh Blade like you?”
“Nope!” She just-as-cheerfully answered. “Good thing I’m not scared of a withered-up Driver like you!”
Without waiting for a response, she tossed her bitball into the air and struck it with her palm. The ball shot forward, not at the thief but at the wall to his left. It ricocheted sharply, striking him in the shoulder with enough force to stagger him.
“What the—” He barked, clutching his arm.
Before he could recover, Crossette was already on the move. She dashed to the side, her movements graceful and calculated, her eyes locked on the thief as she hit the bitball again. This time, it bounced off the ceiling, then the floor, before slamming into the thief’s shin. He howled, dropping to one knee.
“That’s going to leave a bruise!” Crossette noted, catching the bitball effortlessly as it rebounded to her.
The thief snarled, lunging at her with Theory’s katana. Crossette leapt back, her boots leaving trails of sparks as they skidded on the wooden floor. In the same motion, she hurled the bitball again. It struck the far wall, then the edge of a table, then careened directly into the thief’s hand, forcing him to drop his weapon.
The Doctor, dashing past to go help Nia, looked over at Crossette with a grin. “You’ve got one hell of a knack for angular momentum!”
“Thanks, Doc!” Crossette called back, snatching the bitball mid-air once more. “I told you – I won’t let you down!”
The thief scrambled to retrieve his blade, but Crossette was relentless. She threw the bitball with increased force, sending it whizzing past his head to slam into a nearby vase. Shards of pottery exploded into the air as the bitball ricocheted yet again, this time catching the thief square in the chest.
He was knocked flat on his back, gasping for air. He turned over, and pushed himself off the floor.
“Physics!” Crossette said cheerfully, catching the bitball again and tossing it lightly in her hands. “If something bounces, that means you don’t need to throw it at something to hit it on the first go!”
She threw the bitball with even greater force, sending it bouncing off walls and furniture in a dizzying blur. The thief tried to dodge, but the ball struck him in the side, then ricocheted to catch him in the head. Blood splattered as he collapsed, groaning.
Crossette hesitated, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her face. “Oops…”
The thief struggled to rise, blood trickling from his temple. Desperation filled his eyes as he crawled toward the exit. Crossette, regaining her focus, launched the bitball again. This time, it smashed into his ribs with a sickening crunch, and he crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath.
“No!” The Doctor glanced over with slowly-building horror. “Crossette, no!”
But Crossette, caught in the adrenaline of the fight, hurled the bitball one last time. It struck the thief square in the chest, the force knocking him back against the wall with a dull thud. His eyes widened in shock before his body slumped lifelessly to the floor.
All fighting stopped. Dead in its tracks. Praxis and Theory locked eyes on one another, before Theory exploded into a glow of ether, and a dead Core Crystal took her place, under Dromarch’s body.
The Doctor looked on at the dead Driver, dull horror taking root on his face. “Crossette… what have you done?”
The room fell into a heavy silence as the thief’s lifeless body simply lingered there, unmoving. Praxis looked on, her wide, violet eye flicking from the fallen thief to the shimmering glow enveloping her sister.
No words escaped her lips, but her expression was proof enough they didn’t need to. She just… stared, at the lifeless Core Crystal across the room.
Her chest heaved as her breathing picked up, then her expression hardened, masking the storm of grief behind a curtain of resolve. With a sharp turn, Praxis darted toward the door that she and Theory had beaten down, her footsteps echoing in the battered house.
“I’ve got her-!” Crossette moved to pursue.
“No,” The Doctor interjected, his hand shooting out to grab Crossette by her upper arm. His face was grave, and dead-serious. “Leave her.”
“But Doctor—”
“You’ve done enough.” The Doctor stared her in the eye.
Crossette stood rooted in place, clutching her bitball tightly, her copper eyes darting between Praxis’s fleeing silhouette, the Core Crystal left behind, and the corpse of the thief on the floor. She swallowed hard, her stomach twisting with guilt as the weight of what had happened began to settle over her.
The Doctor dragged his feet as he approached the body, scanning it with the Sonic Screwdriver. As he squat next to it, and let the screwdriver droop, the sound the device making being absent, Nia approached.
“Well?”
“Well what?” The Doctor looked up. “He’s dead.” He pushed up, and spun around, looking at Crossette sternly. “You didn’t have to do that,” He said, his voice low but trembling with restrained fury. “You didn’t have to go that far.”
Crossette took a step back, her copper eyes wide with shock. “I-I didn’t mean to—”
“Then what did you mean to do? The man was down, and you hit him again. Did you think that’d send the message and make him stop moving?” He gestured sharply toward the thief’s lifeless body. “Because congratulations. It worked.”
Crossette flinched, clutching the bitball to her chest like a shield. “I-It was an accident! I was trying to-”
“Trying to what?” The Doctor hissed. “Win the fight? Protect us? Fine. But you weren’t thinking, were you? You got caught up in the heat of it, let the adrenaline take over, and like a runaway diesel, you just didn’t stop, and now look.” He pointed to the thief again, his tone sharp enough to cut steel.
“Doctor,” Nia stepped over. “Another man is already dead, because of that one.”
“So?” The Doctor spun to face her, challenging. “That makes it right?”
Crossette’s hands shook, her grip on the bitball faltering. “I… I didn’t want this to happen…”
“Of course you didn’t!” The Doctor snapped, his anger still crackling in the air. “No one wants this kind of thing to happen. But it did.”
Crossette’s lip quivered, and she tried to speak, but her voice faltered. “I-I… You said to help.”
“It’s not my style!” The Doctor waved his arms about. “You can undo a misunderstanding – you can let whoever you throw in a cell go, pay someone reparations if you took money from them, but you can’t undo taking a life!”
“I-I-“ Crossette nervously trembled. “I’m sorry.”
“Doctor,” Albedo stepped in as well. “That’s enough.”
The Time Lord shut himself up, rubbing his face.
Crossette’s knees buckled slightly, and she sank down, clutching her bitball with trembling hands. Tears pooled in her copper eyes, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry… I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…”
The Doctor let out a long, shuddering sigh, turning his back to her. For a moment, the room was silent, save for Crossette’s stifled sobs and the faint hum of ether in the air.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter, but no less firm. “You’ll learn. You’ll do better. You’ll mean to better. I hope.”
Crossette nodded weakly.
“So…” Albedo nervously walked into the room, holding onto Vess’s Core Crystal. “Is… is that it? Are we safe?”
“Safe? No. Two men are dead, and there’s probably a Blade out there ready for blood.” The Doctor bluntly answered. “It’s not going to be safe here much longer, and… well, I’m fairly certain they got a good look at your face when everything popped off. Semi-famous chef, shop in an easily-accessible part of town – I wouldn’t trust it.”
“Damn it…” Albedo closed her eyes, pressing Vess’s crystal to her forehead.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s…” Albedo thinned her lips. “It’s not like you killed them.”
“Hm.” The Doctor sighed. He didn’t know if he could agree with that. The only reason Vess was a target at all was because he was out there, being shown around the town. (Maybe. He didn’t know what the situation was like before, but his mind wouldn’t let it go that easily.) He took a breath. “We need to get out of here. If the law isn’t beating down this door, they soon will be.”
“Wh-“ Albedo spluttered. “We’re running?”
“I’ve had my fill of run-ins with the law today.” The Doctor tugged on his coat to make his point. “They’re going to see two dead men, two core crystals, and the questioning will be hell. That’s if we can make the self-defence plea.”
Nia looked over at him, furrowing her brow. “The ‘soldier’ is an Urayan, you know that, right?”
The Doctor gave her the side-eye.
“Oh, for the love of-“ Nia rolled her eyes. “The ones at war with the Empire? The investigators are gonna take one look at an Urayan in an Ardainian uniform, and realize that something is not adding up.”
“Okay, so, when they come here and arrest us for fighting their Special Inquisitor and breaking the Consulate, we can defend ourselves with ‘it’s okay, we killed a soldier who was really an enemy combatant!’” The Doctor threw back at her. “In any case, I’m trying to get to Elysium, and I can’t do that from the inside of a jail cell, can you?”
Nia held up her finger, and her words died.
“Thought so,” The Doctor retorted, spinning about. “We’ll get to ground somewhere, see if we can get in touch with the others, and-“
The Time Lord was cut off, as more knocking came from the direction of the front door.
“Everyone, out the back, now.” The Doctor ordered, doing a quick headcount, and ushering Crossette and Albedo first.
The two hurried toward the back of the dimly lit house, their footsteps muffled against the worn wooden floorboards. Then, the Doctor and Nia moved. Nia glanced over her shoulder, her sharp ears catching the faint sound of muffled voices outside.
“They’ve got more than one out there.”
The Doctor followed her, his mind racing. He turned to Nia, his expression softening for a moment. “Do they usually shoot first?”
Nia huffed, her sharp teeth glinting as she gave a wry smile. “Depends. But considering we did just break out of custody? I wouldn’t bet against it.”
Before either could say more, a heavy thud echoed from the front door. Both of them flinched as the doorframe groaned under the impact.
“They’re battering it down!” Nia hissed, pushing the Doctor toward the back door. Albedo and Crossette stood at the threshold, looking nervous.
“All right!” The Doctor whispered sharply. “Stay close, don’t split up, and whatever you do. If we need to split up, I’ll draw their fire, but-” The front door burst inward with a deafening crash, and the sound of splintering wood filled the house. The Doctor’s breath caught, and he instinctively grabbed Nia’s wrist. “Run!”
But before they could dart out into the alley, a shadow fell across the broken doorway, and a small voice called out, “Hello?”
Both the Doctor and Nia froze in place, turning to look back toward the source. From the ruined doorframe, a metallic head popped into view, sporting two, giant, metal pigtails. Her large, glowing optics eyes scanned the room, and landed on the Doctor.
“Poppi find friends!” The figure chirped, her voice bright and cheerful.
“Poppi!?” Nia exclaimed, her tension breaking into a mix of relief, disbelief, and exasperation. “That little pervert’s robot!? How the hell did you get here!?”
Poppi stepped fully into the room, her mechanical frame moving with a surprising grace. Behind her, Rex ducked through the doorway, followed by Pyra, Azurda perched on his shoulder, and finally Tora, who waddled in with an audible huff.
“What’s all this racket about?” Rex asked, his face flushed with worry. He looked around, and took in the state of the house. “What the… hell!? What in the Architect’s name happened here!?”
“A fake Ardainian soldier who probably got the uniform from the corrupt Consul running this place in return for a little bit of a profit cut was going around, killing Drivers and taking their Core Crystals, killed a Driver earlier today, and was going to come here to get his next target out of the way. So, Nia and I tried to go to the Consulate to get hold of the proper authorities, only they thought that we were responsible for stealing the Crystals from the recruitment drive-“
“Which we did.” Nia drolly shrugged.
“-so we were locked up, and we broke out, just in time to get here, where said fake soldier and two other Blades he had shadowing him for backup just in case he couldn’t kill his target with the first strike promptly showed up and started attacking. The fake soldier technically won and was about to make a run for it before I woke up a different Blade, we took back the Core Crystal, upon which moment he died, and then you all showed up. And now we should probably be running away very fast because this isn’t our house, and it’s filled with dead people, and if the Ardainian soldiers arrive and see this mess it won’t matter if we did it or not, because we broke out of custody, sole their Core Crystals, and they’ll be looking to throw the book at us either way.” The Doctor finished his rapid rambling by flashing a smile.
“Basically: We’re fucked!”
“Now, Nia, it’s quite possible that since they can’t prove, definitively, that we killed Mabon, it’s quite possible that they’ll just get us for the Crystal thief, in which case, we’re only mildly fu-…” He cut himself off, looking her up and down. “…must you swear every other sentence?”
Nia offered her a gesture in response that was answer enough.
Rex stared at the Doctor and Nia with burgeoning shock. “…Doctor, you left to go work in a bakery!”
“Ah, yep, that’s her, over there, my boss-“ The Doctor gesticulated in her direction. “Albedo.”
Albedo looked up from the soldier’s corpse. “Yes, and you’re fired.” Albedo hissed, before casting her expression over to the group. “…Tora. Good to see you.”
“Meh!” Tora puffed out his chest. “Tora’s invention save day! Tora should get mondo-big reward! Maybe seven-layer cake…?”
“…you’ll get a cupcake and be happy with it.”
“Meh,” Tora slumped. “Tora could’ve ate on cake for weeks…”
“W-Well…” Pyra clasped her hands. “It sounds like one frightening situation you got yourselves into. I’m glad everybody made it out alive.”
“’Frightening’ is one word.” The Doctor shot back, running a hand through his hair. He looked over at Poppi with a curious frown. “How’d you know it was us!?”
Poppi clapped her hands. “According to other friends, Doc-Doc have two hearts! When Poppi scan for binary-vascular system, only one result! Poppi follow, and here we are! Sorry to have been scaring you!”
“Wait-“ Crossette looked over. “Two… Is that normal?” She frowned.
Pyra looked over at her with a smile. “For him, yes.”
Crossette nodded, as her face flushed red, and she hid behind the Doctor.
“Right, okay!” The Doctor clapped his hands, straightening up. “Everyone is all right, I take it? No one trailing behind you?”
“No soldiers,” Pyra assured him gently, her voice soothing. “No reason for them to follow us, in any event. But they might notice the property damage soon, so…”
Nia let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, crossing her arms. “Well, I could’ve done without the dramatic entrance, but now what? Even if we go back to Tora’s house and lay low, that won’t help us for long. And since you’re still set on Elysium, we probably don’t want to stay for long.”
The Doctor looked at Rex, his eyes sharp. “Does anybody else have a plan, or is it down to me again?”
Rex winced, scratching the back of his head. “I dunno. I figured you guys were in trouble, but I kind of missed out on the level of trouble.”
“In any situation where the authorities are looking for you,” Dromarch began. “The natural thing to do is skip town. Even if myself, the Doctor, and my lady still have active warrants, they will only extend to us. Not the rest of you.”
“Yes, good, right, right!” The Doctor snapped his fingers, coming up with a plan. “Albedo, did anyone see you?”
“I don’t believe so,” Albedo shook her head. “The house is out of the way. That’s why…” She gulped. “That’s why they liked it.”
“Then you won’t be a suspect – get out of here, go, hide.”
“Oh, don’t think you can shunt me out of this mess that easily,” Albedo commented quickly in response. “It’s always the loners that wind up taking the fall! I’m sticking with you lot.”
“All right, then, come along, everyone!” The Doctor took point out of the rear break-in, looked around, then dashed off in a direction. “We’ll need to hit the wood shop on the way back!” Everybody else followed him out, one-by-one. As Rex trailed at the rear, he felt his feet kick an object, and he looked down, spotting the grey crystal.
With a frown, Rex bent down, and picked it up. Sure, it may have been inactive at the moment, but it was still a Blade. A person.
“Rex!” Nia hollered from outside. “Get moving!”
Without thinking, Rex slipped it into his pouch, and took off.
-----------
After the hasty escape (and the pit stop to swipe some wood that nobody would miss) the collected members of the party found themselves not in Tora’s house, but the backroom of Albedo’s shop. It wasn’t going to be safe for one person to linger around in for a while, not with it being a public address, but for the moment, it would serve their purposes.
The Doctor flicked a little piece of film, shaped exactly to the measurements of Pyra’s Core Crystal, feeling the thwack that greeted him in response. He then passed over two identical pieces of film to Rex. “Here, Pyra.”
Pyra turned away from where she was using her power over flame Ether to help accelerate the cooking of several cakes. When she did, the Doctor slipped her the last piece of film.
Pyra held it up, curious. “What is it?”
“It’s a light filter. It’ll compress those green wavelengths coming from your Core Crystal down into blue ones. Put it on your Core Crystal. Rex, do the same for the crystals on her sword.”
“Huh, okay,” Rex obeyed quickly, but the light did shift from its emerald glow to a blue one. Pyra followed the example, and covered her Core Crystal. “But why?”
“Remember – Pyra’s green crystal is unique.” The Doctor explained. “We’re about to smuggle people out of here. You want to remove any excuses you can give the customs officers to stop you.”
“Hey!” Crossette bounced over. “I’ve got the last box built, Doc!”
“Good,” The Doctor nodded, looking back over. “Rex, you and Tora get those oxygen cylinders ready. We’re going to need them. Albedo?”
“You’re lucky,” The woman, wearing a pair of rubber gloves, moved quickly around a cake, putting frosting on it. “I care more about the possibility of you people incriminating me than I do the fact that a man tried to kill me when I was around you after an extended period.”
“I would never incriminate anyone!” The Doctor huffed, looking her over. “Besides, you’re handling yourself very well, all things considered.”
“I am phenomenal under pressure.” She retorted, as a shadow swooped across the wall, going for one of the cakes that she had already finished. “It’s a requirement of my job, doing everything on my own for the longest time. TORA!” She barked, and the shadow snapped back with the effect of a whip cracking. “Don’t eat the Escape Plan!”
“But, look so tasty! Tora haven’t eat in days!”
“Masterpon, last recorded consumption of tasty sausage packet occur fifteen minutes ago.”
“Poppi!” Tora gasped. “How can you betray your masterpon like that?”
Albedo looked back over at the Doctor. “I’ll have it done.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but someone else beat him to it.
“Here you go!” Pyra set one of the round baking trays down next to Albedo. “That’s the last one, done!”
“Go set it on top of Number Two and start laying the fondant,” Albedo instructed.
“On it!” Pyra turned, and went to do just that.
“Wow…” Crossette breathed out. “She’s so… so…”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “So what?”
“So… fiery,” Crossette looked like she had stars in her eyes. “Even I can’t use fire Ether like that!”
“How do you know?”
“Huh?” Crossette turned.
“How do you know?” The Doctor repeated. “That you can’t do it?”
“…huh,” Crossette tilted her head. “I don’t know!” She admitted happily. “It’s just like… I know I can make a flame, but when I think about trying to make it like she can, it just doesn’t make sense. I guess it’s like a person trying to think about levitating!”
“Who says I can’t?” The Doctor challenged. “You never know, until you try.”
“Well, you’ll have plenty of chances to learn,” Nia encouraged with a smile as she approached. “Wakin’ with a new Driver is always a learnin’ experience. You never know – this might be the lifetime you figure out how to do that.”
“Learn, yes.” The Doctor smiled. “Who knows, if Blades have to learn how to do things, maybe they have classes, where they can teach you! You could go, and learn, and probably learn a whole lot more than that.”
“Classes…” Crossette furrowed her brow. “Wait, ‘go?’”
“Well, you don’t want to be stuck, following around a silly old buffer like me!” The Doctor flippantly gestured with a smile, turning around. “You can go and do whatever you like.”
“Go?” Crossette repeated. “But, I just…” She took a breath. “Do… you want me out of your hair?”
The Doctor turned back around, his face set in a thoughtful frown. “Well, I just thought…”
“Did…” Crossette looked at the Doctor like she had been physically struck by him. The way her eyes twitched broke his hearts – she looked like she was about ready to collapse. “Am I not the Blade you wanted? I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“No,” The Doctor looked down at her, sternly. “No, no, don’t apologize for that, ever. Ever.” He wasn’t that close with her, but just to show her that she truly had done nothing wrong (insofar as just being her was concerned, not regarding her accidental misuse of force), he took one of her hands, and gripped it tight. “You are fine. You’re more than that, you’re brilliant.” He gave her a gentle kiss to the back of her hand, and rubbed the area, like he used to do when Susan worked herself into nervous fits, and she needed her grandfather to calm her down. “But your existence shouldn’t be tied to fighting for another person. Killing people, or not even that, just fighting. Even then, your existence shouldn’t have to be tethered to mine anyway. Or to anyone’s!” He gently let her hand go, and tapped her crystal. “You’re a sentient being. No matter what this says you need to do. Actually,” He took out the Screwdriver, and held it over her core.
“Then…” Crossette took some deep breaths to steady herself. “What is that you’re doing?”
“Yeah,” Nia stepped over. “She’s your Blade.”
The Doctor whipped around, a dangerous glow behind his eyes. “I’m not going to drag Crossette into something she may not even want to do because biology I don’t understand says I own her.” He refuted harshly.
“Wait,” Rex looked up. “You don’t want a Blade?”
The Doctor looked up, scowling. “No! If you woke one up with the full knowledge that they had no choice but to stick by you, because their life is quite literally tied to yours, and if you died they died too, and the mere act of having one paints a target on your back for people who want them for themselves, would you?”
Rex shuffled, uncertain. “Well, I woke up Pyra, didn’t I?”
“You picked up her sword – didn’t even know what you were getting into.” The Doctor shook his head. “I woke Crossette up in the middle of battle. For battle.” He pressed his lips together. “I’m not going to let that dominate her existence.” The Time Lord sighed, and turned around. “I figured out the system the Core Crystals use to select their Drivers – maybe I can fool it into thinking it still has an active connection even when it doesn’t.”
Nia’s hand shot out to clamp around the Doctor’s wrist. “If you break the affinity link, that will kill her.”
“It should be possible. Blades only piggyback off their Drivers for data – they record that data, genes, brain patterns – but it doesn’t seem to be an intrinsic requirement for their existence. The only reason the Core Crystals reset the Blade seems to be to file the data away – a bit how like we go to sleep so our brains can file information into long-term storage. All I’ve got to do is find the bits responsible for that, and-“
“Wait,” Crossette’s arm shot out, her hand closing around the Doctor’s wrist as well. “Um, can you… not… do that?”
The Doctor’s brow furrowed. “I know what I’m doing. It’s not a big risk, but I can’t keep you enslaved to me like this.”
“But it’s not…” Crossette stammered. “If our link is severed, the-then… I-I understand if you just don’t like me, but please, if there is a risk…” Her jaw twitched, and her face twisted. “Don’t let me die! I just- I just woke up! I don’t want to die!”
The Doctor recoiled, staring at his hand with horror. “I’m not- it’s not going to kill-“
“Please!” Crossette cried out. “I know we just met, but you haven’t even given me a chance!”
“Crossette!” The Doctor firmly addressed her. “I’m not going to kill you!”
“This is as good as killing her, as far as Blades are concerned.” Nia glared at the Doctor. “You’re not even giving her a choice.”
“I’m not giving her a choice about free will? I don’t see the issue.”
“Doctor!” Nia snapped, shoving him in the shoulder. He looked at her, alarmed, and she stuck a finger in his face. “You may be 2000 years old. Fine. You may have seen messed-up shit that puts everything on Alrest to shame. Also fine. But don’t come up here, lording it up, pretending you know everything about the situation when you don’t.” Nia placed her hands on her hips. “Crossette is a new Blade! Well-“ She looked over, taking a quick scan of her. “Newly-awakened.” She turned back, sticking out her chest imperiously. “Do you know what that means, for Blades? It means finding your footing in a new world where damn near everyone is looking at you like a bomb ready to go off or take advantage of you, in some way or another, even if they don’t realize it. And you don’t know what is going on, anywhere, about anything! Being a Driver for a new Blade isn’t a master-servant kind of deal. It’s more than that. They look to their Drivers just as much for guidance and protection, as the Drivers look to them – it’s just in a different way. And you’re talking about cutting her off.”
The Doctor shook his head.
“Even if she does survive,” Nia continued. “Do you know what that’s going to do? There are stories about Blades who’ve survived their Drivers’ deaths-“
“Really?” Rex glanced up. “I thought-“
“-it’s possible.” Nia cut him off. “In its own way, it’s possible. And it doesn’t ever leave any of them in a good place.” She put a hand on Crossette’s shoulder, and leaned in. “Tell him; you don’t want to go, do you?” Crossette opened her mouth, but Nia just kept talking. “Of course not. Not when you don’t know where you’re going.” She looked over at the Doctor. “Come on, Doctor. Who can say no to this face?”
The Doctor tried to look away. But Crossette looked every bit a puppy dog. Or a sweet girl who didn’t want to do anything but make everyone around her happy.
The Time Lord sighed. “Fine. Fine!” The Doctor pointed at Crossette. “But the first time this… bond, between us influences you in a way I don’t like, that’s it.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Nia rolled her eyes.
“I- I- Yes!” Crossette pumped her fists happily. “I won’t let you down again, I swear!”
Despite himself, the Doctor sighed, and spread his arms. “Hug?”
“R-Really?”
The Doctor motioned with his fingers, and Crossette hurled herself into him. “All right,” The Doctor told her. “We didn’t get off to a very good start, so, let’s do this again.” He took a step back, and shook her hand excitedly. “I’m the Doctor, I’m a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, I’m feeling two-thousand years old today, and my favourite food is fish fingers with custard.”
“Oh… wow…” Crossette breathed out as her eyes inflated in awe. “Fish with custard?”
“Oh, now that’s disgusting…” Nia shivered.
“That’s one savoury flavour I didn’t think would pair with anything!” Crossette commented. “Oh! Um,” She cleared her throat. “My name’s Crossette, and I just woke up, and you’re my Driver, so… let’s do this!”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself!” The Doctor clapped his hands, and examined the room. “Now…”
Two near-completed cakes stood across the way, one of them missing the layer of icing. Then, there were the plywood cylinders, with holes and rudimentary doors attached.
“Lesson one!” The Doctor slung his arm around Crossette’s shoulder. “Sneaking into places via cake.” He looked around with a smile. “I haven’t had to do this since my friend’s stag night. Well,” The Doctor pulled his arm back, and continued to mutter as he approached the cake. “I say friend – it’s complicated…”
The Doctor approached one of the ‘cakes’ and spun around.
“So!” The Doctor clapped his hands. “Who’s rooming with me? It’ll be just like a sleepover – we can talk about girls and stay up all night eating sweets! Probably shouldn’t eat the ones off the cake…”
“Oh!” Tora raised a wing. “Oh! We read manga on trip!”
“Not you, Tora, you’re not wanted by the law.” Nia impatiently rolled her eyes.
“Meh…” Tora drawled in disappointment.
The Doctor continued smiling. Smuggling himself and a few others out of a country. No problem.
They’d get to the TARDIS, get up to the World Tree, and all this would blow over.
------------
“Meh…” Tatazo shivered as he stood by, watching the much, much larger, legendary Nopon before him get angry and go on a rampage.
“IS RIDICULOUS!” Bana bellowed through the screen. “Dum-dum Consul’s men jeopardize everything!”
“Meh,” Tatazo’s other captor leered. “Without money from crystal thieves, how we finance production?”
“STUPID!” Bana screamed at the screen. “Forget money-“ And Bana’s ancestors were surely thundering at the slight to the rules of acquisition, but he went on. “-Stupid Consul got caught! He sing like Tirkin with bellyache once Ardainians get their hands on him! Bana knows – Bana can tell the squealers…”
Tatazo’s eyes flickered over to the door. He began to shuffle-
Only for heavy, mechanical hands to fall on him, keeping him anchored in place. He thought it funny, how such a comforting presence had soured.
“Bana is wanted man soon enough,” The Nopon flapped a wing. “Meh. Does not scare Bana. Bana can score plea deal, easy. But what they do with Bana’s money, hmm!? Liquidate it, or worse, redistribute it, *BLECK!*” Bana gagged.
“Meh, initial production run near completion! Could take some units as guard-“
“No duh!” Bana snapped. “Bana be over there soon. Have to get around greasy Ardainians first. In meantime. Lila!” Bana gestured.
Tatazo flinched as the mechanical arms released their grip on him for the moment, and their owner moved to the back of the screen. She emerged a second later, hauling a heavy box from around the back of the monitor, towards the front of it. The dull scrape of metal against the floor echoed through the room, making Tatazo’s fur stand on end. The box hit the ground with a heavy thud.
The box itself looked like some sort of safe, or metal chest – built out of stainless steel that had been smudged up over the years, and large enough to hold a human. What was inside was probably big, and heavy, if Lila had to drag it around.
Lila stepped away from the box, and went back to Tatazo’s side, placing her hands back on him.
“Bana discover this at bottom of Cloud Sea.” Bana puffed up his chest, like he had been the one to fish it up from the sea. He, in all likelihood, probably hadn’t. He had his lackeys do that.
The box was adorned with carvings in the shape of wings surrounding a circle with strangely-shaped blobs on it. Some of the blobs looked like they could fit together, almost like puzzle pieces. The largest one looked a bit like the sole of a human foot, without toes.
Under the circle was a banner, bearing lines. Letters, from a language Tatazo had seen – but only ever on components put into his artificial Blade prototypes. He didn’t know the meaning of the word, but he could recognize the symbols, at least: U.N.I.T.
“What is it?” The traitor in the room voiced avariciously.
“Bana not sure,” The Nopon admitted with a shrug, his nonchalance more unnerving than reassuring. “But it caught Bana’s eye. Very valuable-looking, no?” He grinned. “Bana figure Torna backstab him – Flesh Eaters, cannot trust single one of them.” The larger-than-life Nopon shook his head in disgust. “So, Bana try to get to Aegis first, before they launch mission. Bana fail, but find this instead. Professor.”
Tatazo gulped, and took shaky steps toward the box. “It fascinating find. But what it have to do with me?”
“Lock advanced,” Bana answered, narrowing his eyes. “Keypad, but with numbers filed off, no way to tell combination. Picking not work, crowbar fail to put dent in. You find way to open it.”
“Meh!?” Tatazo batted his wings in surprise. “Tatazo cyberneticist! Not hacker!”
“Tatazo inventor,” Bana refuted with a greasy grin. “Bana certain you can invent way inside. If not, well…”
Lila’s hands squeezed a little bit tighter to accentuate Bana’s point. The cold weight pressed into Tatazo’s fur, digging into his skin, barely held back from piercing flesh by the fact that Bana didn’t want Tatazo dead. Yet.
“Besides, do you not listen? Bana is about to be wanted man! Can’t take box to locksmith – they rat out Bana and keep it!” Bana sneered. “Bana want to know what’s inside. If it nothing, you can keep it. If something, it belong to Bana.” He smiled. “Good luck. Be seeing you.”
Notes:
So, the Doctor finally awakens one of his Core Crystals! And, surprise, it’s not KOS-MOS or T-elos! It was totally gonna be, absolutely, but then I decided that while the Doctor IS lucky, and his journey is being manipulated on both sides of events, he shouldn’t get *that* lucky. The result is Crossette – her personality seemed like a good match-up for the Doctor.
And with that, the Torigoth part of the Eleventh Doctor’s journey is officially wrapped up! I’m not *too* happy with how Morag and Brighid handled Dughall – part of it felt a little bit too convenient – but I figured he was absolutely a big fish in a small pond who got the position through licking the right boots and little else. No real wits about him, and he severely overestimates his own strength, of which he has none. In the end, though, I feel like I came to a satisfying enough conclusion – even if it’s just sheer dumb luck that Morag happened to find a piece of paper that led to Dughall’s story crumbling only through his own attempts to justify its presence, the most front-facing issue of embezzlement (funds for a runoff pipe going missing and the pipe not being finished) is probably enough of an issue to detain Dughall and investigate him further… which is why Morag is there. I’m not *certain* if it’s ever explained in-full what Morag’s duties as a Special Inquisitor entails, but I imagine the position is something like a detective/internal-affairs agent, mixed with a five-star general.
Chapter 11: Ten: Beneath the Colony
Chapter Text
Her office was a sterile blend of polished chrome and minimalist design, softened only by the warm glow of the outside through the windows. Artificial sunlight streamed across a meticulously organized desk piled high with paperwork. The Director sat back in her chair, boots propped up on the edge, flipping through a stack of corporate proposals with an air of boredom.
I sat across from her, arms crossed, waiting patiently. The hum of the lab below seemed distant, separated by levels of pipeline, conduit, and drowned out by the quiet banter that filled the room.
The Director sighed, tossing a folder onto the growing rejection pile. “Vector Industries. Denied.”
I raised an eyebrow, glancing over. “Not even going to read their proposal?”
“Nope.” She answered flippantly. “They’ve been trying to find whatever excuses they can to swipe it since we poached the dig site from them. Next up…” She flipped the page. “The Butler Institute.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Something, something, something, climate change.” She tossed it aside without a second glance. “There may be applications for terraforming using the Conduit… Provided we didn’t have bigger problems to worry about with the goddamn alien invasion on our doorstep. And finally — oh, this is rich.” She snorted, turning the proposal around to show off the logo – something that looked like a camera shutter with eight segments only half-closed.
I sat bolt upright, eyes wide. “You’re joking.”
The Director grinned. “Knew that’d get you. What’s the matter – you don’t want to give it to a group of people whose mission statement is to show physics whose boss?”
“It’s not that, it’s… well… they’re…” I cleared my throat. “No offense to you, but…”
Her eyebrows shot up. “But what?”
“They’re Americans. I wouldn’t trust them with a paperclip, let alone the Conduit.” I muttered something else under my breath about combustible lemons.
The Director laughed, closing the last file with a decisive snap. “There. Rejections sorted.” She leaned forward, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Now... What’s so important you had to break down my office door? You’re not here to request a transfer out of here, are you?”
“Transfer?” I snorted. “Where to?” There isn’t a whole lot of places for me to go – not with my experience. Even then, I might as well be walking into a meat grinder, if I return earthside.
Nobody says much on the matter, but we all know something is coming. Something potentially as bad as the Dalek Invasion of 2008. I count myself lucky not to have been alive for that – casualties approaching half a billion, and such. The Director even mentioning an alien invasion was about the closest anyone got to directly broaching the subject.
Going back down to Earth right now would be a death sentence.
“Well, there’s always the colony ships.”
I fought hard to hold back the instinctive shudder of disgust. “Deep-space exploration is probably not for me.” That always irked me about Star Trek – it gave people the mistaken impression that every day in space was a new adventure, leaving out the mind-bogglingly tedious parts of the day-to-day.
Which would be severe, considering we’re talking about interstellar space, here.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You sure? They keep discovering new colonization candidates every day. Just last week they discovered dozens of them in M24.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Eh? Eh? Doesn’t that sound exciting? A little jaunt over to the Carina-Sagittarius arm? Are you big on astrology? You could be a pioneer in your own star sign!”
“I’m afraid not.” I did not fancy being a pioneer in space, going into alien wildernesses, dying of… extraterrestrial dysentery.
The Director sighed. “Are you sure? They could use someone like you on-board. I could approve the transfer for special circumstances.”
It was now my turn to sigh. “White Whale is still having problems with the hyperdrive, isn’t it?”
The Director tried to hide it for only a moment, before groaning and rubbing her face. “They’re all having problems! One,” She held up a finger. “One ship is ready to launch. Infinity. It’s not even the namesake of the line!”
I feel a pang of sympathy. I’m not allowed in the segments of the Ring devoted to the ships’ construction, but I can appreciate how large of a project it is. Having to manage, finagle everything so that construction proceeds as efficiently as possible, even in the face of uncontrollable hiccups.
She rubbed her face, and took a breath.
“But it’s okay. Don’t let me pressure you. What did you want?”
I think for a moment about what I was going to ask her.
“It’s… ah. It’s rather silly. But… I was hoping you could share some more stories. About the Doctor.”
“The Doctor?” She repeated, with a light snort, slipping her hair behind her ear. “Why would you want to know more about that old man if you didn’t want to go exploring space?”
“Well, that’s different,” I lean back in my chair. “I’d ask my mother about her holiday in Thailand, but I wouldn’t actually go.”
“Ah,” She chuckled. “Geosynchronous orbit is as far as you’ll push it?”
I shrug.
“Fair enough.” She got up from her seat, and moved over to a wall safe. After punching in the code, she pulled out a bottle of brown liquor, and two glasses. “So, how do you want to do this? Anything in particular you wanna hear? You going to just let me ramble on until you get bored?”
“Actually,” I clear my throat. “I was wondering if you could tell me more about his people. The Time Lords.”
The Director stopped in her tracks, looking down at her glass.
“…ma’am?”
“Why?” She asked, looking up.
“Why?” I repeat in confusion. “It’s…” I take a moment to think, before the actual reason falls from my lips. “Everyone knows the Doctor is one, but not exactly what that means. I thought, if anyone knows, it would’ve been one of his old friends.”
“Mmm-hmm, you’re right about that.” The Director nodded. She poured out a drink for herself, and she took a swig. “They’re dead. All of them.”
I feel a silent horror take hold of my heart. “What?”
“The Time Lords. That title people keep giving the Doctor – ‘Last of the Time Lords’ – it’s not something meant to be poetic. The species is approaching the extinction terminus.” The Director factually, if grimly, stated.
I must’ve sat there for too long, because she went on.
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” The Director knowingly inquired. “A whole species of people like that, going extinct.”
“…yeah.” I agree, rubbing my face. It doesn’t change the facts, though – I’m dreaming about Time Lords, and Gallifrey, and I need to find out why. “Though, arguably, that makes it all the more important to keep the stories alive.”
The Director’s lips twitched at that. Apparently, it was the right thing to say. “You’re right about that.” She leaned back in her chair, rubbing the rim of her glass. “Everybody has stories of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, even if they don’t realize it.” She gestured to the window, at the Earth that lay below. “The ancient Norsemen called them Æsir.”
“…Gallifrey is Asgard, and Thor is a Time Lord.” I blinked in disbelief, before deciding it made as much sense as everything else. “Okay.”
The Director, for her part, chuckled. “It’s odd, I know. But that kind of thing… happens. Their noosphere – their area of observation, their sphere of influence – was the entire universe. Even without conscious contact, things make their way across the stars. Psychic impressions, echoes of history, reverberating through the Time Vortex and making their way to sensitive minds. Influencing culture.” She took another sip. “Where I’m from,” She glanced over, and lowered her voice, as though sharing a deep secret. “We used to call it the Shimmering Jewel Past the Veil of Eternity.” She pulled a tiny baggie filled with snacks out of her desk, and popped one into her mouth. “The Homeworld of the Great Houses – usually, we just called it ‘the Houseworld.’”
“There’s an enclave of humans that know about the Time Lords?” I can’t help but ask. If she doesn’t help me, I can ask others.
“Well, yeah,” The Director snorted. “Anyone who’s ever travelled with the Doctor knows about them, at least in passing.”
“But your people had legends of them?”
“Like I said, the cosmos itself is their noosphere, and they exude a certain degree of control over it. Or, they did.” She took another sip of her drink. “They didn’t even need to intend to do it. They just did. The mere presence of them had an effect. Making time travel behave differently, enabling travel to parallel universes, and everyone knew they were there, even if they didn’t know they were there, just from the shadow their presence cast on the universe. Then they died, and they took all of it with them.”
“That’s…”
“Unbelievable?” The Director finished. “It’s the truth. And that wasn’t even the height of what they were capable of. The Conduit?” She gestured. “It’s one of theirs.”
My jaw fell open. A life of work, and she just so casually confirmed its origin!?
“It’s not a secret.” She rolled her eyes. “Out of all the civilizations in the universe, only one of them could’ve created something like that. Well, maybe.” She took a swig, downing the last of her drink. “During my travels with the Doctor, we stumbled across a fair number of Time Lord artifacts that were stolen from somebody else. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Conduit fell under that umbrella as well. They were the stalwart protectors of time and space… and the most ruthless, mild-mannered dictators that ever existed.” She got up from her seat, and walked around, leaning back against her desk.
She looked me right in the eye.
“I’ve been to Gallifrey.” The Director pointed at the window. “That world out there? Paradise, compared to it.”
I can’t help but feel a wave of disbelief. If they had such power, how could Gallifrey be anything other than paradise? If the Time Lords were the closest thing to gods, wasn’t that just them exercising their power? Someone being compelled to do something always finds it abhorrent, even if it’s for the best. Like UNIT gimping my own personal computer. “How so?”
“The Time Lords thought themselves to be the most civilized people in creation. The rest of existence was a war-torn quagmire that only continued spinning because they held it together. And yet, the Doctor stole a TARDIS, and ran. You shouldn’t have to run away from a paradise, that’s why they call it a paradise. Their High Council made our politics look sane.”
My brow furrowed, as I felt a tinge of something. It didn’t surprise me – instinctively, I wanted to say that it was common knowledge that the High Council was corrupt or incompetent – but why?
At my stare, she laughed.
“You wanted to know about the Time Lords? That’s all I’ve got.” She placed her glasses and liquor back in the safe, and sealed it up. “Sorry I didn’t have any great, big, societal insights for you. The Doctor didn’t much talk about it, and we didn’t get the chance to visit Gallifrey but once or twice. Most of what I know is common knowledge amongst my family.”
“…where did you say you were from again?”
The Director perked up. “Washington.”
I take a breath. “All right, well,” I slap my knees, and push myself up. “Since that’s all, I’ve wasted too much of your time.” I turn about with the intent to leave.
“Hey,” She calls after me, forcing me to stop. I turn back to see her eyes filled with a grave glow. “Listen to me. They had incredible abilities, but it made them cruel, and it made them cold. They’re not people you want to emulate. Trust me. And if you’re thinking you might be able to contact one to get ahead on the research, don’t. Just don’t. You don’t know what might turn up instead.”
I shiver at the tone in her voice. “Whatever you say, Director.”
She laughs, and shakes her head. “You just sat here and listened to me ramble on about old times, and you didn’t even get anything in return. I think I’m fine with you calling me by my name. At least, when it’s just us in here.”
I sigh, and amend my statement. “Whatever you say, Elma.”
She smiles, and waves me off. “Come back if you want to hear more stories.”
-----------
The party gathered near the water’s edge, each exchanging uncertain glances. The still, glassy surface of the Eryth Sea stretched out before them, deceptively calm despite the adrenaline-spiking nature of the ‘plan.’
“Are we truly doing this?” Aizel asked, his voice tinged with both curiosity and apprehension.
Melia turned to him. “Alvis seems quite sure of himself.”
The other High Entia looked over at the Seer, who was holding a hand to the surface of the water, as though he were trying to commune with it. All he was missing was the throat-singing.
“I know he can see the future, Your Highness… but seriously?”
Melia offered him a gentle smile in response. “His sight is trusted for a reason.” She turned toward the rest of her companions. “Stay close to me. Once we enter the water, I will guide our descent. Once we pass through, and into the open air, it will be to the rest of you to slow our descent.”
Hogard muttered something under his breath about having to grab onto Alvis, but followed obediently as Melia stepped toward the edge.
Privately, Melia couldn’t lie – the plan sounded ludicrous. Sinking to the bottom of the sea to fall Bionis-knows how many thousands of feet, and hoping that they didn’t splat on the other side.
With a deep breath, she raised her staff, channelling the Ether. A soft, radiant aura surrounded her, extending outward in a bubble that enveloped the group. She anxiously looked around. “Is there anyone in particular who should wish to proceed first?”
“Naturally,” Alvis rolled up a sleeve. He turned around, and theatrically spread his arms. He fell back, and hit the water. “As they say; ‘come on in, the water’s fine.’”
The others followed, one by one, the icy grip of the Eryth Sea surrounding them. For a moment, there was peace-
And then, the descent. Like falling into aerated water, they sank rapidly. The bubble of Ether around them preserved the air, and maintained their ability to even breathe, as the light faded from above.
As they descended deeper, the water grew darker, the only illumination coming from the Ether field being generated around them. The occasional ripple of aquatic life darted past them – piranhaxes and others casting fleeting shadows.
The descent seemed endless until a faint shimmer appeared below. Alvis gestured toward it.
As they approached the barrier, the water seemed to ripple and shimmer unnaturally. Then, with the sensation of passing through a layer of honey, the water vanished, and they were falling.
Below them, the sprawling canopy of Makna Forest rushed towards them, a vast sea of treetops that swayed gently.
Melia barely had a moment to adjust before her bodyguards moved into position. Aizel and Hogard grasped her arms firmly, their powerful wings unfurling with a soft rustle. Garan and Damil mirrored the action, securing Alvis with equal care.
“Hold steady.” Aizel said, his voice calm and steady as the rhythmic beating of their wings slowed their descent. Despite hardly being large and aerodynamic enough to generate lift through the action, the wings functioned exactly as wings should, and the wind Ether that rushed up under them was enough to slow the descent.
Alvis offered no resistance, a serene expression upon his face as he gazed downward. “What useful things – wings and hollow bones.” He hummed. He idly wondered to himself is he should fashion a set of his own.
No, no. There’d be questions, and while he was certain he could easily explain it as having stolen a pair from another High Entia, that would only lead to more questions, like; ‘why would you rip a pair of wings off another High Entia!?’ and ‘Are you a sociopath!?’
Melia glanced at him, her expression caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “You sound jealous, Seer.”
Alvis looked around, a droll look fixed on the world below. “Jealous of the ability to fall from height without severe organ damage, certainly.”
As they descended, the world opened up around them. The towering canopy of Makna Forest spread out in all directions, a verdant sea of green. The leaves shimmered faintly, reflecting the Ether coursing through the forest.
The air grew warmer and heavier, and humid. Birds flitted through the branches, their feathers flashing brilliant hues of red, blue, and yellow.
“This is… breathtaking,” Melia murmured, her voice soft with wonder.
Hogard chuckled. “Indeed it is – though if I may, I would say it does not compare to the natural beauty of our home, Your Highness.”
“Do refrain from complaining, Hogard,” Aizel interjected smoothly. “You’ll ruin the moment.”
Melia smiled faintly, her gaze returning to the view below. The massive tree that housed Frontier Village loomed closer, its enormous trunk rising like a pillar to the heavens.
Alvis noticed where her gaze turned, and gestured with his head. “That tree – the tall one where Frontier Village is built – has a small lake on its top. Keep guiding us toward it.”
“Makna Forest,” Melia said quietly. “It feels as though we are descending into a world apart.”
“It is,” Alvis agreed, his eyes scanning the landscape with a contemplative air. “A world untouched by the chaos that often plagues the rest of Bionis. You won’t find many Mechon roaming these woods.”
“But we will find Telethia.” Garan rumbled behind his mask.
“Indeed.” Alvis nodded.
“Sir Alvis,” Melia called over. “Why do you suppose that the Telethia decided to come here?”
Alvis responded with an artificially-enigmatic chuckle. “One only needs to look around to see the answer to that question.” He looked down, idly kicking his feet, while thinking about Camels and their humps. “Ether is the basis for all life, you understand. Not simply animal life, but plants as well. Makna Forest is the area on Bionis with the greatest concentration of plants, and therefore, the greatest concentrations of Ether.” It was also where the Bionis stored large amounts of excess Ether.
“Ah, I see.” Melia hummed. “The area would be a buffet for the Telethia, then.”
Two of Melia’s escorts looked at her, visibly confused, but all of them most likely had little idea of what she spoke.
Buffets weren’t a thing on Bionis.
Their wings slowed further as they descended towards the glowing lake on the top of the gigantic (relatively, nothing approached the size of the Beanstalk – even the Bionis and Mechonis were dwarfed by it, and that was just factoring in the diameter of the base!) tree. A little, round, feathered puffball, swimming, or fishing, or just relaxing, spotted them, and waddled off in a rush. With practiced grace, the bodyguards touched down, releasing their passengers gently onto the grass.
Melia smoothed her dress, her expression calm but her heart still light from the descent. “Thank you,” she said to her guards, inclining her head.
“Always, Your Highness,” Garan replied with a small bow.
“And so, here we are.” Alvis stepped forward, his gaze fixed on the vibrant activity below. “Shall we make our way down? I suspect the Nopon are already aware of our arrival.”
Melia nodded, her lips curving into a faint smile as the distant voices echoed their way towards the group, “Yes. Let us not keep them waiting.”
The group began their descent, stepping carefully down the winding stairs and rope bridges that spiralled around the outside, inside, and across the colossal tree. The soft creaking of the wood underfoot blended with the rustling of leaves and the distant hum of activity below. Lanterns hanging from the branches swayed gently in the breeze, their warm light casting flickering patterns on the rough bark.
As they descended deeper into Frontier Village, the sounds of life grew louder. High-pitched chatter and squeals of laughter echoed upward, interspersed with the rhythmic clinking of pots and the occasional sharp whistle. The first Nopon to notice that they had entered let out an excited chirp and scurried off into the village, shouting in a rapid flurry of words that were impossible to decipher.
Aizel tilted his head, his expression a mix of curiosity and mild apprehension. “They are… exuberant.”
“That is one way to put it,” Hogard muttered, his eyes narrowing as more Nopon appeared, bouncing along the pathways and peering up at the newcomers with wide, sparkling eyes.
“Look at this place!” Damil looked around. “There’s no way they built all of this on their own.”
“The Nopon are far more crafty than most care to admit.” Alvis responded, knowing it full-well himself. Riku of Aionios was, true to his own words, just a common-variety Nopon. It’s just that the ‘common-variety Nopon,’ was, in fact, very, very sneaky, clever, and devious. Whenever a sock went missing, little teeny-tiny trinkets couldn’t be found, and the like, all across the universe – usually, it was a Nopon wayfarer’s fault.
“They seem friendly enough,” Melia said, though her tone carried a note of hesitation as a particularly bold Nopon bounded up to her, its small hands clasped together in delight.
“Ohhh! Bird people!” A female Nopon bounced. “Frontier Village not see bird people in long time!”
“Shiny! Shiny, shiny, very pretty!” Another Nopon danced around. “Welcome, welcome to Village!”
“Thank you,” Melia replied, offering a gracious nod.
Before she could say more, the two Nopon were joined by a veritable swarm of its kin. They surrounded the group, hopping and chirping excitedly, their vibrant fur and cheerful demeanour creating a sea of colour and sound.
“Bird people come to visit us after so long! Big honour!” one Nopon squeaked.
“Must show them best things in village!” Another added, waving a stubby arm enthusiastically. “Come, come see pollen production!”
“No, come see archaeology centre!”
Hogard stepped back instinctively, his wings twitching as the Nopon swarmed closer. “Your Highness, while I doubt they would hurt you intentionally, perhaps it might be best if you get ready to run-“
“Perhaps,” Alvis interjected smoothly, his serene expression unshaken. “But it is rude, when your host is offering to show you around their house, to run out through the front door. The Nopon’s enthusiasm is genuine, and their hospitality should not be disregarded.”
Melia raised a hand gently, and the Nopon quieted almost immediately, their wide eyes fixed on her expectantly. “We thank you for your warm welcome,” She said, her voice carrying the poised authority of a ruler. “But I’m afraid we have urgent business to attend to, first. We seek an audience with your leader, Chief Dunga, on a matter of great importance.”
The Nopon exchanged glances, their whispers carrying an air of mystery. Finally, one of the larger Nopon, its fur a soft shade of lilac, stepped forward. “Bird lady wants to talk to chief? Good! Chief will want to talk to bird lady! Please, follow Mumu to chief’s place!”
Aizel frowned audibly behind his mask. “Her name is Lady Melia, not ‘bird lady.’”
“Oh, yes, yes! Lady Melly – please to be following me!”
The crowd parted as Mumu led the way, waddling down a narrow pathway lined with softly glowing lanterns. The group followed, their footsteps measured as they took in the village’s unique architecture. Some homes were carved into the tree itself, others built like tiny cabins, clinging to the sides of the tree walls and the tops of other homes like fungi.
“It’s cozy,” Aizel murmured, his eyes scanning the surroundings.
As they were taken back up the inside of the tree, a Nopon larger than all the rest emerged from one of the structures. Chief Dunga was an impressive sight, his fur streaked with silver and his robes adorned with intricate patterns. Magnificent pink plumage grew from the top of his head like a flower, taller than he was, with a beard made of similar pink feathers falling to the ground. He waddled over happily, gesturing wide.
“Visitors from the sky!” Dunga boomed, spreading his short arms wide. “Welcome to Frontier Village! It many years since Bird People come to visit – we almost forget you up there!”
Melia stepped forward, bowing slightly. “Yes, it has been far too long. I am Melia Antiqua, Crown Princess of the High Entia, and these are my companions. We come to discuss a matter of grave importance.”
Dunga’s expression grew serious, his eyes wrinkling. “Grave importance? Hmmm. Chief very busy. Will have secretarypon pencil you in.”
Alvis stepped over, clearing his throat. “Perhaps being overly candid is doing them a disservice, your highness.”
Melia looked at him, up and down, and nodded, turning to face Dunga again. “I come about the matter of the Telethia that has made its way here, to your forest.”
Every Nopon in the place went deathly silent.
Then, all at once, chaos erupted.
“D-Dinobeast?!” A Nopon near the back screeched, leaping into the air and landing in a puff of feathers.
“Dinobeast eat us for snack!” Cried another, clutching her stubby arms around her littlepon.
“It come here?! We doomed! All doomed!” Wailed a particularly dramatic Nopon, throwing itself off the upper level, and landing with a squeak. It got up, right as rain, started running around, screaming: “Bloody murder! Bloody murder!”
The vibrant village that moments ago had been buzzing with warmth and excitement now devolved into sheer pandemonium. Nopon scampered in every direction, bumping into one another, knocking over small carts laden with fruits and wares, and shouting warnings that grew increasingly absurd with each retelling.
“Telethia already here! Hiding in tree!”
“It gonna eat all the Pons! Start with little ones!”
“Everypon, remain calm!” Dunga raised his voice.
“Protect the Pollen Orbs!”
“It eat Pollen Orbs too!? There no sanctuary for poor defencelesspons!?”
“SHUT UP!” Dunga bellowed, his eyes popping open, betraying his panic as well. The Nopon went quiet again, and cleared his throat, regaining his composure. “I mean… come, speak with Dunga. We will talk about Telethia.”
-------------
The ground quaked as Bronze Face dragged his hammer across the dirt, carving a jagged trench. He swung it upward and slung it into his hand – he looked almost like a Homs, proudly showing off his craft. With the hammer in both hands, Bronze Face raised it up above him, and brought it down in a heavy cleaving swing.
Shulk jumped to the side, throwing himself out of the way as the hammer impacted the ground just behind him, narrowly missing the spot that he had just been standing in. Shulk spared it only a glance, before he bellowed out a single command. “Everyone, scatter!”
Reyn and Fiora sprinted toward him, splitting apart and making a run for both sides of Bronze Face. Sharla stood at a distance, chambering a round into her rifle.
“Fiora! Reyn!” The Doctor barked. “What’re you doing!? Get back!”
“It can’t swing at both of us!” Reyn returned.
“Ha!” Bronze Face cackled. “Wanna bet!?”
Reyn lifted his driver, and slammed it blade-first into the ground, deploying the shield.
Reyn braced himself behind his shield, his muscles taut as he stood his ground. From the opposite angle, Fiora darted in, her dual knives gleaming in the flickering light. She dashed ahead, as light and swift as a gazelle.
With a Bionis-shaking roar, Bronze Face hoisted his hammer high above his head. Then, like he was about to hurl it as far as he could with one hand, he spun it in a wide, sweeping arc. The hammer blurred as it cut through the air.
“Move!” Shulk shouted, his warning swallowed by the sound of the hammer’s swing.
The impact was instantaneous. The hammer’s sheer force clipped Fiora, catching her side and launching her across the battlefield like a ragdoll. She hit the ground with a sickening thud, rolling several feet before coming to a stop. Reyn’s blade was ripped right out of the ground, and he was sent flying.
Sharla was already in motion, dashing toward Fiora. “I’ve got her!”
Reyn landed on his back, and popped right back up. “Oh, you’re definitely gonna pay for that, ya tin can!”
“What’re you gonna do!?” Bronze Face mocked. “Ragdoll me to death!?”
“Nothing so gentle!” Shulk yelled back as he lifted the Monado, and activated the blade. “Reyn! This is your warning!” He called out. Reyn’s eyebrows, however, furrowed in confusion, almost like he’d forgotten that whole conversation they had earlier. “Monado, Buster!”
The blade shifted to a deep violet as the symbol appeared, and Shulk swung, leaving a trail through the air in a mighty arc as he swung, and struck the Mechon.
Immediately, Shulk regretted his decision. As the blade hit armour, it bounced back, and Shulk was suddenly confronted with the feeling of holding a metal pipe that was ringing very severely.
Shulk looked down at his weapon, silently horrified. ‘What is this? How can it just deflect the Monado!?’ Another thought rose to his mind. ‘The Doctor’s Ether generator doesn’t work.’
“What was that!?” Bronze Face cackled as he shrugged off the Monado’s hit. “I think a fly bit me!” He planted his massive feet, raising his hammer high into the air. The weapon shimmered ominously with Ether energy, and Bronze Face let out a cruel laugh. “AND I JUST SO HAPPEN TO HAVE A SWATTER!”
As the hammer reached its apex, Shulk felt a phantom stab – an invisible knife – ram into the back of his head, as the world became grey, washed-out, and muffled.
“Shulk!” Reyn hollered as the hammer came down and around in a wide arc, knocking into Shulk and Reyn’s sides.
Shulk gasped as the sensation suddenly subsided. The hammer came down, and Shulk clutched the Monado tighter. “Monado, Shield!”
“Shulk!” Reyn bellowed again, “What’d you see-!?”
As the bubble of ether energy surrounded Shulk and Reyn, Bronze Face’s hammer struck Shulk’s protective barrier, and rippled.
“Aw, yeah, now you’ve done it!” Reyn pumped himself up as he ran in, taking a swipe at Bronze Face’s leg.
“Shulk, stay back!” The Doctor appeared next to him. He held the Screwdriver in Bronze Face’s direction, and one of the armour plates in the Mechon’s hands sparked. “Keep that shield up and running!”
“Here!” Fiora called, as she jumped back into battle. “Keep moving.”
Reyn’s sword slammed into the Mechon’s armour, sparking as the metal struck metal. A crack echoed through the field as Sharla fired, and a portion of the Mechon’s armour sparked. One spark came from a joint – and Bronze Face stumbled.
Fiora sucked in a breath. “The joints! The joints are weak!” She took a glance, and jumped in, moving quickly.
“Fiora, don’t-!” The Doctor tried to warn, as the teenager again threw herself into the most dangerous spot. The Time Lord shoved his hand into his pocket, producing the control remote for the interference generator, and turned it up to maximum.
Bronze Face didn’t even stagger.
Fiora went in, going for one of the mechanical ankles, and the connecting wires and conduit wrapped around the joint connecting the leg to the foot. Her knives tore through the cabling and tubes, spilling glowing fluid over the ground.
Metal Face let out a grunt, as his leg buckled slightly, and he jumped back.
“All right!” Reyn complimented. “Not so tough now, are ya!?”
“Heh, heh,” Bronze Face chuckled. “Ain’t a bad trick you pulled there. Fortunately enough, I come with a few of my-“ He suddenly cut himself off. “Where’s all my-“
A duo of Mechon fell out of the sky, and slammed into the ground, dead.
“Ah, that would be my handy-dandy Ether-field generator!” The Doctor raised a finger. “On its maximum setting, it completely overwhelms Mechon nervous systems.” He shoved his hands into his pockets with a smile. “Why doesn’t it affect you, I wonder? I mean, its definitely playing hell with your shields, but…” He gestured.
The Faced Mechon let out a sigh, and shook his head. “It’s so hard to find good help these days…”
While the Mechon stood there, gloating, Sharla silently lifted her rifle.
“Whatever!” Bronze Face snapped, and he started slinging his hammer around again. “You’re gonna need more than a fancy bag of tricks to survive me! The Monado can’t help any of ya!” The engine on the back of his body activated, and he shot forward, hitting everyone like a speeding missile.
The screams echoed out as the crowd was sent everywhere, bruising, breaking bones, twisting limbs…
“Why don’t you just lay that thing on the ground and die? Like a good little bunch of boys and girls!” Bronze Face stomped around. “You, and every last living thing clinging to Bionis!”
Shulk sat up – and he felt rage. ‘It’s a psychopath. Genocidal – it said it right then. I don’t care why they’re here!’
“So,” The Doctor looked up, pushing himself off the ground. He stood to his feet, swaying, as Bronze Face propped himself up by his hammer. “It’s genocide, then?”
“And how!” Bronze Face happily confirmed. “Or,” He put a finger up to his mouth, theatrically. “Maybe it’s just lunch time!”
A chill ran down the Doctor’s spine. “What?”
“Ah, see!” Bronze Face cackled. “That brain of yours is starting to work! It’s all about food. Meat, and Ether! Everything here is made of it…” The Mechon leered. “And us? We’re mighty hungry – we’re just getting while the getting’s good!”
‘Food.’ Shulk felt his stomach twist in horror. ‘We’re just food to them!?’
“What is this?” The Doctor demanded. “Famine? Desperation? Kleptoparasitism? Gluttony!?” The Time Lord bellowed one after another.
“Ah ah!” Bronze Face held up a hand. “Tell you what! How’s about a special, one time offer? You’re not supposed to be here, Doc. I know it. You know it.”
The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets. “And you know that how?”
Bronze Face let out a giggle. “I have my sources. No pretty woman can shut up about her favourite man, after all!” He slammed the hammer into the ground, and scraped it across, pushing Reyn back. As the Homs got to their feet, he pointed at the Doctor. “Get out of here. Get back in your box, and go home, or you’ll die with everything else on Bionis.”
A few paces back, Shulk’s mind was buzzing.
“Don’t be the hero,” Bronze Face advised. “You have no idea what in the hell you’ve walked in on here.”
His stomach churned as he heard it from the mouth of one of them. Worse than that, the thing was revelling in it.
Shulk’s body trembled, not with fear, but with the overwhelming urge to run up to the Mechon, and SHOVE THE MONADO DOWN ITS THIEVING GULLET.
“You MONSTERS!” Shulk roared, the Monado’s blade flaring brighter than ever before, near-blinding in its intensity. The blue ray of ether flickered red for the briefest of instants. “I won’t let you get away with this! I WON’T!”
Without thinking, without hesitation, Shulk launched himself forward, the Monado cutting through the air with a furious hum. His every step was fuelled by sheer wrath. It was different, fighting animals – they were just trying to survive. But against a conscious being, with full knowledge of what it was doing and taking pleasure in the suffering it was causing – Shulk was furious.
The battlefield seemed to still for a moment, all eyes drawn to the unstoppable force that was Shulk. Shulk let out a guttural scream, as Bronze Face let out a scratching, impatient sigh. He swung his hammer, and like a golf club striking a ball, Shulk was launched back.
“Was that it?” Bronze Face started to stomp forward. “That pathetic little thing!? How’re you gonna win with that-“
A crack erupted from Sharla’s rifle, and Bronze Face’s eye exploded.
“OW!” The Mechon’s hand rushed up to cover the optic’s empty socket. “You little…!”
“Nice shot! I completely disapprove.” The Doctor fired off at Sharla, before turning to the Mechon. “But my trigger-happy friend has a point! I’m not going anywhere!” He shoved his hands into his pockets, and leaned forward.
Bronze Face let out a frustrated growl. “Fine, then! Let’s see how-“ A rumbling thrum came from his body, and he looked down. The red circuits on the outside of his body started pulsating blue. “…well. Looks like our time ‘ere is up.” He took a step back. “It’s your lucky day, you lot… but that luck is gonna run out, sooner or later!” He caught sight of Shulk on the ground, and the expression on the Homs’s face. “Aw… did I hurt his little feelings? Make fun of his precious sword a bit too much? Well, you’re always welcome for a rematch!” He jumped, and began to float up. “Just come to Colony 6, and the great, big mine right underneath it! Oh, but you don’t wanna take too long! Not much reason for us to stay there since we gobbled up all your buddies!”
“YOU BASTARD!” Sharla screamed up after him.
“See you later!” Bronze Face cackled, before reconfiguring into his jet mode, and blasting back down the tunnel he came from.
Flapping coat tails rippled as the Doctor rushed after him, sliding to a stop right at the cave mouth.
“Oh, big man, talking mad shop, running off when the going gets tough,” The Time Lord remarked, furrowing his brow. He spun back around. “Is everyone okay?”
“Fine,” Reyn rolled his shoulder.
“…not fine,” Shulk breathed heavily, shaking his head as his heart still pounded with hateful wrath. “I need a moment.”
Fiora leaned over, her eyes pulled at the corners with worry. “Shulk?” She looked over at the Monado, which was still activated. “Maybe you should put the Monado away-“
“N-“ Shulk forced a breath through his nostrils, and shook his head. “Y-Yes. Good idea.” He hit the switch near the handle, and the blade retracted. He placed it on his back, and flopped down.
“Here, let me,” Sharla moved over, quickly checking Shulk over. “Does anything feel sore? Broken? Any unusual pains?”
“N-No, just…” Shulk tremored. “Out of breath.”
“Dickson’s right,” Reyn crossed his arms. “If one battle’s enough to send you wheezing, you’ve gotta work up some more endurance.”
Shulk turned a droll stare his way.
“Reyn!” Fiora hissed.
“What? It’s true. Actually – hey, what was that about!?” Reyn suddenly seemed to realize something else. “The Monado didn’t work on that Mechon back in Colony 9 with a face neither!”
“It didn’t.” Fiora hummed, looking up. “You don’t think the two are… connected somehow, do you?”
“They did seem to possess the same glowing lines…” Shulk recalled. “As well as the faces.”
Fiora’s face then twisted into a scornful glare. “And you went in swinging anyway? Shulk! I’ve had this conversation a thousand times with Dunban – that sword doesn’t make you invincible!”
“I wasn’t thinking, okay.” Shulk gnashed his teeth, looking to the Doctor for help.
The Time Lord, however, held up his hands. “Don’t look at me – I’m with them. While it’s nice – with a floating definition of ‘nice’ depending on the implication – to see that the Monado not hurting that Mechon back in Colony 9 wasn’t a fluke, you really shouldn’t have tried to test it by running in screaming. Especially after the other attacks had failed. What, did you think it was just suddenly going to work based on how angry you got?”
Shulk pressed his lips together. “It seemed to work on the other Mechon with a face…”
“Oh, did it?” The Doctor theatrically tilted his head. He refocused on Shulk, and turned serious. “Remember what I told you, Shulk. You can’t let that anger get to you.”
“I’ll try.” Shulk replied, though he wasn’t making any guarantees about it. “So, now what?”
“It’s gone back to Colony 6 – according to it.” Sharla turned and looked at the cave. “We could track it down – finish what we started.”
The Doctor fixed her with a stern luck. “Hunting something to kill it off isn’t very noble.”
“Besides, what’s stopping it from running again?” Reyn asked aloud.
Shulk pushed himself off the ground, and frowned thoughtfully. “The Mechon from Colony 9 – it ran too.” His brow furrowed. “Onyx Face, apparently.”
Fiora scowled, gripping tighter onto her knives. “The one that killed Dunban.”
“Yes – but…” Shulk shook his head. “In that case, it only fled after its reinforcements had been killed. Why did it run this time? The circuitry changed colour, but why?”
“I think we’re all missing something big, and important here.” The Doctor spoke up. “Why do the two of them have those circuits? What makes them different to other Mechon? Why can they speak? Cause I’m not an expert – insofar as Mechon are concerned – but that looked an awful lot to me like it was getting a recall signal, or something?”
“If there is an intelligence behind the Mechon, more than simple swarm behaviour, like you’ve been suggesting, it’s possible that Bronze Face may not even be the one behind Colony 6 being attacked.” Shulk theorized.
“So… there’s a bigger Mechon overboss in charge,” Sharla pressed her lips together. “Fun.”
“That one had been chatting with the one from Colony 9,” Fiora recalled, crossing her arms. “Maybe they’re both there?”
The Doctor and Shulk looked at one another, silently communicating the idea between them.
“It’s… possible,” The Doctor answered, “that when the Mechon attacking Colony 9 were destroyed, that Onyx Face came here to lick his wounds, instead of going all the way up to… where did you say the Mechon Base was?” He turned to Reyn, who answered him with ‘Sword Valley,’ and the Doctor pointed at the redheaded teenager with his thumb and a nod. “But,” The Time Lord shoved his hands into his pockets. “That is just an assumption. Could be, instead of orders from a commanding officer, he just needed to get back over there to refuel.”
“So, it’s a toss-up between fighting a giant Mechon with a face that’s running low on power, or we get to deal with two of them, maybe,” Sharla sighed. “Double fun.”
“Hey, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right?” Reyn grinned her way.
Sharla turned away, looking suddenly sullen. It was then that, belatedly, Reyn seemed to remember the matter of her fiancé being stuck there… after Bronze Face said that the Mechon got everyone left in Colony 6.
“Right, that’s… uh…” Reyn rubbed his neck. “Sorry.”
“So, what now?” Fiora asked.
“Well,” The Doctor bobbed on his feet. “We have an invite, I say we take Bronze Face up on his offer.”
Shulk looked over at the Doctor, offended. “Didn’t you just say we shouldn’t hunt him down?”
“I did say that,” The Doctor’s spiked hair bounced as he nodded. “But also, I’ve got some questions I’d very much like to hear his answers to.”
“It’s a trap, right?” Reyn asked aloud. “He told us exactly where he was gonna be. It’s definitely a trap.”
In his experience, if someone invited you to a trap they set, that meant they were severely underestimating you by alerting you to the fact that there was a trap at all. They expected dumb enemies, the kind to just waltz into a trap and forget it was there.
The Doctor waltzed into many traps. But he was not dumb. He had walked into loads of traps and turned them to his advantage – that was the beautiful thing about traps; the trapped party was the most important person by definition.
Fiora thinned her lips. “It does sound dangerous…”
“Danger? Bah! I’ve done far more dangerous things.” Arguably, he had done them at an age comparable to their own. During his Academy days, he’d get completely hammered to the extent that he started seeing his future regenerations – literally. His body would go into flux and he’d call upon them before it was time.
Eighth-Man Bound was not a game for the faint of hearts.
In any case, no possible danger couldn’t have warned him away. The entire situation was very strange – the existence of the bottle universe (a thing only his people could’ve managed), the Monado (emulating a device that only his people ever truly mastered, with its ability to calculate the future), the TARDIS throwing an absolute hissy fit, and now, someone in here knew of him.
He would get his answers, from Bronze Face or whomever. But he needed to track them down first.
“Right, no use standing around prattling on!” The Doctor grinned. “We’ve got things to do, so let’s go do them!” He shoved his hands into his pockets, and began leading the way into the tunnel, as the smile on his face dropped.
The others shared pensive looks, before following the Doctor.
-----------
His people were involved. Every single instinct of his being was telling him that something about the Time Lords was to blame for all this.
But that wasn’t possible. The only possible device capable of creating a universe like this one was gone. Consumed in the Time War, like so many other things. Then again… quite a few little odds-and-ends had managed to escape the war. And as things went, it was probably the thing in all of existence with the most tentative grasp of things like linearity. The All-Seeing Eye of the Time Lords could have easily predicted its own destruction, and moved to safety. And at the time, hadn’t he wondered how the original managed to be dug up on Earth in the 21st century, when he had taken it away to prevent its abuse of power after Mary had begged him to take it away? He had written it off as another side-effect of the amnesia he was suffering in that body, but if it had jumped back to the last location it knew to be safe, using the War as a smokescreen for its movements…
But there were also those Emulators the humans had constructed. And while they couldn’t come anywhere close to achieving the full power of the Original, maybe they had finally found a way. He’d have to back to the TARDIS, and make a ‘house-call’ as it were, to really be sure.
It would explain the Ether, certainly. That kind of slap-in-the-face to physics was the kind of thing his people were known for.
But if that was it, things were about to get worse. Much worse.
Every time that… Thing turned up, no matter where, things went to hell. Sentient biological weapons-systems spreading out-of-control across the universe, Earth getting phase-transitioned and history skewing off course so bad that the High Council had to step in to remedy the situation after all was said and done, and those were just on accident.
Perhaps that was why his hitherto-unseen future self was trying to break into the Bionis’s bottle universe, despite it being so ludicrously dangerous that only an idiot or a suicidal maniac would even try. The universe, quite literally, hung in the balance.
But the Doctor had to wonder – if it did have something to do with a certain piece of Time Lord aligned technology… who was behind it? Somebody who didn’t know what they were doing?
Did another Time Lord survive the War, and was manipulating this place for their own goals?
Or…
The Doctor’s blood chilled to absolute zero.
“No, but you be careful, because your song is ending, sir. It is returning. It is returning through the dark.”
The words rang in his mind like a tolling bell, each repetition heavier than the last. Carmen had seen something. The Ood had seen something that even he could not outrun. Something ancient. Something inevitable.
“And then, Doctor… He will knock four times.”
The Doctor took a shuddering breath, his hands tightening into fists.
Was this it? Was this the end he’d been warned about?
It had to be.
Nothing else could be so… monumental.
Then, his anxiety shifted into rage. Burning, boiling, hateful rage. The Next Doctor would have known Bionis was the end, and sent this one to his death.
All that running – so much running – and it was for nothing.
“Oi, Doc,” Reyn leaned over. “You okay?”
“Hm?” The Doctor plastered on a smile. “Fine.”
“You sure about that?” He sceptically inquired. “You look like you’re having a crisis.”
“Oh, those? I get those all the time, no worries.” The Doctor grinned.
“…uh-huh,” Reyn crossed his arms. “I don’t know where you’re from, but here? That kind of answer don’t cut it.”
“It’s… nothing,” The Doctor shook his head. “Hard to explain, and it’d just confuse everyone.”
“Right,” Reyn drawled. “It has something to do with the Monado, doesn’t it?”
The Doctor’s head snapped to look in Reyn’s direction quickly. “How’d you know?”
Reyn chuckled. “You’ve been looking at it like it’s about to explode any second now.”
“Ah,” The Doctor inhaled. “I suppose, when you put it like that…” He looked at Reyn. “It doesn’t bug you?”
“What, the Monado?” Reyn asked in response. “Nah. It’s a bit freaky at times – and the way Shulk can just pull new tricks out of his hat with it’s mighty strange – I’m more worried about the fact that it can’t harm those big Mechon we’re running into now.”
“Yeah,” The Doctor frowned. That was another concerning part. If the Monado only harmed sentient beings not native to Bionis, then Bronze Face, and Onyx Face before him, must’ve come from…
Then again, the Doctor hadn’t seen it harm any intelligent being other than him.
“Tell me, Reyn, what’s the deal with the Monado?” The Doctor conversationally asked.
“Well… you and Shulk know more than me.”
“I mean the stories, legends, myths, things like that.” The Doctor shrugged.
Reyn scratched the back of his head. “All right, I guess. I don’t really know a whole lot. They say it’s the Bionis’s sword… and they found Shulk with it in some sealed temple off the map or something.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh… that’s interesting.”
“Eh? What is?”
“Something incredibly useful to future generations,” The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets. “But it was locked up. Hidden away, like they didn’t want anyone finding it. That’s odd, don’t you think?”
“Kind of?” Reyn cluelessly shrugged. “Then again, the Monado is pretty dangerous. It took Dunban’s arm, and all.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Shulk seems to be managing just fine.”
Reyn looked ahead, at where Shulk, Sharla, and Fiora were walking, discussing the best means of entry into Colony 6. “Well, yeah, but they said the thing has a mind of its own, right? Maybe it’s just content now.”
The Doctor’s other eyebrow went up. “And that’s fine with you, is it? That the bloodthirsty sword that harmed every other one of its users sees something in Shulk, and you don’t know what it is?”
“I can’t complain that it doesn’t want to hurt him, now can I?” Reyn cocked his head to the side.
“No,” The Doctor sing-songed. “But… it’s a little suspicious, isn’t it? Shulk turns out to be the sole survivor of his expedition, the Monado hurts everyone but him, and now it’s behaving in ways it never has before. Even when the Mechon were attacking.”
“…right.” Reyn blinked, before scowling. “Hey – you’re not one of those lot that think they can try to swipe the Monado from Shulk cause he’s a dumb kid what don’t know better, are you?”
“Nope.” The Doctor shook his head. “But me? Call me paranoid – but where I’m from, if people locked up something, no matter how useful it was, and threw away the key, that usually means there’s some kind of a catch.”
Reyn tilted his head. “What kind of catch?”
“Well,” The Doctor cleared his throat, “imagine an artifact. And it’s said that holding onto it and honouring it will bring good fortune to people on an enormous scale. But the catch is that if anybody gets around it who isn’t supposed to, they’ll meet an unfortunate and untimely end. Radiation poisoning from the energies emitted by the thing, bubonic plague, probabilities shifting so tens of thousands of people die in battle. That kind of thing.” He looked Reyn in the eyes. “Wouldn’t you lock it up so nobody could be hurt?”
“So you saying there’s something dangerous about the Monado other than the usual risks?”
“Could be.” The Doctor thinned his lips. He pulled his hand out of his pocket. “My TARDIS didn’t like it, that’s for sure.”
“I mean…” Reyn scratched the back of his head. “I’m not about to say Shulk doesn’t deserve it… who knows? Maybe it’s some kind of Chosen One deal?”
“Rule one: Don’t trust that as a matter of principle.” The Doctor pointed. “A ‘Chosen One’ is a quick and dirty way of saying ‘someone we can throw into the fire and we won’t feel bad about it.’” He looked ahead. “And then there was what Bronze Face said, about knowing what he knew.”
Reyn’s face visibly turned concerned. “But it’s… Doc, it’s Shulk. Come on.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I hope I’m just being paranoid.” The Doctor admitted, lowering his voice. “But not just anything can put the TARDIS on alert like that.”
“I think the Doctor has a point.” A voice to the side spoke up, and Reyn startled, as Fiora just seemed to have appeared there.
“Gah- Fior- Don’t do that!” Reyn wheezed.
“Look,” Fiora continued on. “The Monado might be our best hope against the Mechon and all… but I don’t trust it either.”
“You too Fiora?” Reyn groaned. “Come on! Shulk’s handling it just fine-“
Fiora sternly leaned forward. “’Just fine?’ Those nights we found him in the lab because he fell asleep trying to figure it out didn’t happen?”
Reyn flinched.
Fiora sighed. “Look, Shulk is… we care about him, right? But look at what’s happened already! He didn’t tell us about those visions until he was already suffering nightmares from them. My biggest mistake was backing off too easily when Dunban had it, and he told me he was going to be fine. Shulk is not going pace himself properly until it winds up killing him. Look at what he did with Bronze Face, charging in like that.”
“You lot charged in, too.” The Doctor pointed out.
Fiora fixed him with a scolding look. “We didn’t run in, screaming ‘I’ll kill you’ at the top of our lungs, making us an easy target. And we certainly didn’t do that after our weapons bounced off its hide.”
“Come on, give Shulk a break! He’s trying!” Reyn slung an arm around Fiora’s shoulder. “He ain’t exactly trained to fight like you and me are. He’s not gonna just do everything right, first try, cut him some slack.”
“I know,” Fiora sighed and lowered her voice. “But it’s… You remember hearing the stories, right? When Dunban got back from Sword Valley, Dickson had said Dunban was being reckless. Acting like holding the Monado was just an instant win ticket. And then it destroyed his arm and almost killed him.” She shook her head. “I won’t let it do the same to Shulk, I won’t.”
“That won’t happen.” Reyn vowed. “But, I mean, that’s some pretty amazing stuff it can do, you know. ‘S a bit silly to just toss it all in the bin – besides, it might not even happen to Shulk.”
Fiora shook her head. “Glad to see you’re as worried about him as I am.”
“Hey, now that’s not-“ Reyn indignantly began, shaking his head now. “Look, I’m worried – but going so far the other way and telling him not to use the Monado at all isn’t going to help either. If he starts going too far, then we pull him back, like you’ve been doing. And if the Monado starts hurting him like it did Dunban, we just don’t give it the chance. We’ll rip it out of Shulk’s hands if we have to.”
“Right too!” The Doctor spoke up with a smile. If the Monado wanted Shulk for something, and the Doctor’s poking and prodding at it was getting in its way, well.
He’d just keep poking and prodding.
----------
On the other side of the tunnel, Colony 6 came into sight – a huge structure surrounded by a domed wall without the top on it. It was up the hill, behind two gigantic doors that looked to have been sealed by either the Mechon or the Homs. Over the cliff edge, suspended over a drop that looked like it went on forever, there was a lattice of dirt and stone.
“Wow…” Fiora breathed out, pointing at the walls. “That’s Colony 6!?”
“It’s like a fortress!” Reyn noted, audibly impressed.
“It hasn’t changed at all…” Sharla stared at it. “Then again… it’s only been a month.”
“The smell’s a lot better than I expected,” The Doctor remarked. Considering they were right in between the Bionis’s legs, things could be a lot, lot worse on that front. “So!” He leaned over the railing. “Where’s our mine?”
“Right across there.” Sharla pointed, before turning around. “Here – there’s a lift down to the paths.”
“Wait, you mean those paths?” The Doctor pointed down at the grassy, stone bridges – like the roots of a tree growing across gaps of air in the ground, they looked like.
“Right.” Sharla gestured, ushering everyone into the lift behind her. She hit the button, and it took them all down.
“Oh, wow…” The Doctor breathed out with a smile. “If it wasn’t – you know, absolutely terrifying as a matter of height - it’d be beautiful.”
“The entrance into the tunnel network is that port, over there.” Sharla pointed at a large, round, metal pipe with a catwalk built out of it, connecting to the vein-like stone bridges. “It’s an old, emergency overflow pipe – in case the Ether river started to swell, it’d dump out here, instead of out into Colony 6.”
“An Ether river?” The Doctor repeated. “Juju said that – but it actually exists in a liquid state?”
Sharla raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re really playing up the ‘foreigner’ story, aren’t you?”
“I’ve got a spaceship – if we ever make it back down to Colony 9, I’ll show you.” The Doctor shrugged.
Sharla shook her head, but Shulk – ever helpful – jumped to explain.
“Ether is the Bionis’s lifeblood,” Shulk gestured. “Same as ours. But the Bionis is so large, that its veins are the size of rivers and lakes.”
“All that Ether,” The Doctor thinned his lips. “Makes sense.” He looked around. The Bionis was absolutely enormous. It would need tremendous amounts of energy just to move. The Ether had, from what he’d seen, enormous potential energy – it just needed to be coaxed out.
The Time Lord took a breath.
“All that Ether running through there’s going to make a mighty big powder keg.” He remarked. “What if we were to accidentally set it off down there?”
“Liquid Ether is combustible,” Shulk nodded. “But it is relatively stable inside the Bionis because of how it’s stored and flows. Add into that, the Ether rivers are naturally separated by barriers of non-flammable minerals and dense rock. So it would be incredibly destructive… but only for the immediate area of the mine.”
“Great, so if we explode, we ain’t taking the whole of Bionis with us, at least,” Reyn huffed.
“Still, I don’t make it a habit to be caught up in explosions.” The Doctor retorted, before blinking. “Well… that doesn’t stop them from happening, but… you know, I don’t try to make it a habit.”
“We’ll try not to do that, then.” Shulk shook his head. Touching a finger to his chin, he glanced at Sharla. “Will it be safe to go in that way?”
“The tunnels are filled with Mechon,” Sharla pointed out, before providing a more helpful answer. “But then again, it is the overflow pipe. They wouldn’t have much reason to guard it… I think.”
Fiora looked over at her, concerned. “You think?”
Sharla sheepishly coughed. “It’s this, or try to go in through the cargo lift on the other side of the Colony. If the Mechon actually in the Colony itself didn’t notice and try to attack us, then they’d definitely have units around the cargo lift.”
“Well, sounds like a plan to me!” Reyn pounded his fists. “No one expects people to go in the outflow pipe, that’s why it’s the outflow pipe.”
“Exactly.” Sharla nodded, glancing at Reyn with a smile. “That’s just what I was thinking.”
“Well, you know, I’m not just good at busting up Mechon…” Reyn rubbed the back of his neck with a smile.
The group ventured across the suspended, natural bridges, making their way over to the Outflow Pipe. Occasionally, a flying creature, or some insect-like creature the size of small dogs, tried to accost them, being pushed back handily by them, until they made it to the pipe.
“Oh, I love tunnels like this,” The Doctor grinned, shoving his hands into his pockets, and taking the lead across the catwalk. “Never know what you might find! Where I’m from, there’s this city, called Paris,” He gestured, leaning over towards Shulk as they walked. “Literally built on top of catacombs going back hundreds of years. No maps, no charts,” He wiggled his eyebrows. “You could go oe and explore for weeks, and not find everything!” He then inhaled. “Course… there is the matter of all the dead people – but that just improves the atmosphere, if you ask me.”
Shulk’s eyes twitched with concern. “How many dead people?”
“Oh… six million, buried over the years?” The Doctor scratched behind his ear.
“Six… million?” Shulk strained his brain just thinking about it, looks like. “That’s… more people than there are on Bionis.”
“Well – I told you, home was vast.”
“Yes, but…” Shulk exhaled, shaking his head.
“Hey, Doc,” Reyn rushed up again, walking next to the Time Lord. “Question.”
“Shoot away, Reyn-ey-boy!”
Reyn looked vaguely insulted by the Doctor’s nickname for him, but continued. “So… if all the Mechon are down here, and that Bronze Face said they gobbled everyone up, does that mean…?”
The Doctor’s smile evaporated. “Ah. Well…” He sharply inhaled. “I don’t know. Could be it was just trying to goad us into making a mistake. Tunnels like these, they’re good places to hide and set ambushes, and the Mechon, being invaders, wouldn’t have the advantage of knowing the tunnels’ layout like the Colony’s inhabitants would. They could still be alive.”
“Could be,” Reyn nodded. “But are they?” He stressed, looking between the Doctor and Shulk. “Come on! You can get those visions now, and Doc, you seem to know everything about everything! So…”
Shulk frowned. “It’s possible – but I can’t just trigger visions like that. And the last time I tried, I almost hurt the Doctor. Why?”
“Well, I…” Reyn glanced over his shoulder, and lowered his voice. “I just don’t want to get Sharla’s hopes up. You know. If we’re too late to save them anyhow.”
“Oh.” The Doctor hummed.
“That’s…” Shulk chuckled, but shook his head. “That’s very nice of you, Reyn. But… well. I think anyway, in either case, she’d prefer to see it for herself instead of being warned off.”
“I’m not gonna warn her off,” Reyn insisted. “Just… tell her not to get her hopes up, is all.”
“That’s not a bad idea, in theory,” The Doctor shook his head. “But sometimes, hope is all we have to keep us going.” The Time Lord reasoned out. “In any case, it’d probably just make her inclined to go and find out for herself anyway.”
“Right, right,” Reyn sighed.
The group of them continued down the drainage tunnel, until coming up on a control room, built into the rock. The Doctor took the lead, and upon entering-
“Ah!” A blue, feathered puffball trembled nervously, holding their wings over their eyes. “Please to not be eating Saloo! Saloo thin and not at all fatty! Not good food for nice Mechons!”
“Wha-“ Sharla gasped, shoving her way to the front. Her eyes travelled, landing on a second, near-identical Nopon standing just a few feet away.
“Dum-dum!” The second Nopon shook their head. “Those not Mechon! Those hom-homs!”
“Meh?” Saloo uncovered their eyes, and blinked, before waving happily. “Hom-homs! Saloo just… practicing! Yes, meh…”
“Nopon?” Shulk blinked, tilting his head in confusion. “What are you two doing down here? Are you from Colony 6?”
“Yes-yes!” The second Nopon nodded. “Saloo and Sallo supply chiefs for Colony! When Mechon attack, we take supplies, and stash them here! We hide till mess blows over!”
“What!?” Sharla indignantly raised her voice. “There’s fighting going on, and you two are just hiding here, hoarding supplies!?”
“M-Meh!” Sallo recoiled, raising their wings defensively. “No, it not like that at all! Supplies put here by hom-homs! Sallo and Saloo ordered to take stock of supplies and watch them until hom-homs come and grab them.”
“Oh,” The Doctor breathed out, sending his finger into the air. “This is a supply depot!” He gestured. “Don’t want to go back up top, raiding a warehouse when there’re Mechon on the prowl, so they took the supplies underground, and hid them at key points in the tunnels.”
“I see.” Fiora looked around. “So that means people are still down here, fighting?”
Saloo nodded rapidly. “We hear banging and shouting come from tunnels. Lots less now, but still, we hear!”
Sharla instantly perked up. “That means Gadolt and the others might still be alive!” She whipped around. “We need to move! If we can get rid of the big Mechon and drive away the rest, we can save them!”
Shulk began to nod in agreement. “Considering that Bronze Face would appear to be the biggest threat, we should-“ His words faltered mid-sentence, his eyes widening like he was staring through the world. The Monado pulsed with a sudden intensity, and Shulk’s eyes began to glow.
“Oh no…” Fiora whispered under her breath.
“Shulk?” The Doctor leaned over, waving his hand in front of Shulk’s eyes. “You okay…?”
“I…” The glow in Shulk’s eyes faded rapidly, and he shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“What’d you see?” Fiora demanded out of him, instantly.
“Fiora, really, it’s noth-“
“What,” Fiora hissed. “Did you see?”
Shulk took a breath. “The Ether river, I think. There was this… enormous metal column coming out of it, and a loader falling into it. And… a person fell out.” He blinked, and shook his head. “I told you, nothing. Nobody we’ve met.”
“If it’s nothing, it should be no problem sharing it,” Fiora retorted, letting out a puff of air. “Honestly – you’re going to give me grey hair by the time I’m twenty at this rate.”
“An enormous metal column?” Sharla repeated. “That sounds like the main refinery pump. If you actually saw the Ether river, then… that would have to be down at the base.” She tilted her head with a frown. “Who was falling out of it?”
“I’m not sure,” Shulk admitted. “An older man. Bald. With glasses.”
Sharla sighed. “That could be anyone. Still… Bronze Face told us to meet him in the mine, and now you’re getting visions from the main nexus of it? Can’t be a coincidence.”
“Oh, don’t ever believe in coincidence!” The Doctor advised. “Anything that seems like a coincidence has a billion, trillion moving parts behind it that we just can’t see, and we call it ‘coincidence’ to avoid trying to puzzle it all out.” He played around with his hand, free of scarring, but still numb from the pain the Monado inflicted on him. “Funny, though. The Monado hasn’t given you any visions of people not important to you yet, has it?”
“Well…” Shulk scratched his head. “There were people in the vision I received when I first picked it up, back in the lab, before the Mechon attacked. Actually,” He glanced at Sharla. “You were one of them, Sharla.” He turned, and thinned his lip. “So it’s not just people I know in the present… but people I may come to meet in the future as well.” He looked up. “I say we go to the mine. If there’s someone in trouble, we should help.”
“Wait,” Fiora spoke up. “If it only shows you visions about people you’ve met or will meet, isn’t it possible that us trying to seek out that person might put them into trouble?”
“Ah, now, that is the trap of foresight.” The Doctor pointedly lifted his finger. “You can’t get caught up in what might happen. Sure, dropping pallets of food into impoverished areas might cause further fighting and unrest because the people fight over it, but it might not. ‘Might’ is just an excuse lazy people use to stop feeling bad about their excuses for not helping someone – that always ticked me off about Star Trek. Forget what might happen and trying to plot out your every move – live in the moment! Go for it!”
Fiora blinked, but sighed.
“I’m down,” Reyn nodded in agreement. “But… these tunnels are supposed to be a maze, right? How do we know where to go from here? Unless Sharla has a map.”
“We do have a map!” The Doctor held it up, before opening it. “And… ah. It’s just some chunks, with question marks. Not all that useful. Juju tried, at least.”
“I’m just as clueless as both of you, I’m afraid.” Sharla admitted. “I’ve been down in the mine before, but not anywhere near enough to memorize the layout.”
“Oh, oh, oh!” Sallo raised a wing. “Please to be listen to Sallo! Have very old trick for hom-homs to be finding their way through spooky caves.” Once they felt all eyes on them, they cleared their throat. “Lot of Ether flow from river in air, like water vapour off water river. Ether vapour want to exist in open air, so it flow to outside air. All that Ether moving, some of it get stuck, and condense, and some plants use it – make plants glow! Follow glowing plants, you follow Ether flow, and you find main mine!”
“Really?” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, and for once, he turned to someone else for the scientific explanation. “Would that work?”
“It should,” Shulk hummed. “The science is sound.”
“Brillant! You’re never wrong with a ‘pon along!” The Doctor took out his Sonic Screwdriver. As far as galactic-fair-folk went, they were the most agreeable. “If there’s a flow of Ether, we should be able to follow it.” He glanced over his shoulder, and gestured. “Come on.”
“Yes, good hom-homs – kick Mechon out of Colony!” Saloo encouraged as the group exited out of the control room. “We stay here and, er… guard supplies! Yes!”
------------
Through the tunnels underneath Colony 6, the five skulked slowly, following the warble of the Sonic Screwdriver, and the bioluminescent glow of strange moss clinging to certain walls of the caves. Every once in a while, they’d run across one of the flying Mechon scouts, or one of the spider-like units (both handily taken down by the Monado and the rest of the others’ attacks), but the tunnels were disconcertingly empty. No distant sounds of battle. No traps that they accidentally tripped.
It was just… empty.
“This really is like a maze,” Fiora commented, touching the wall as they walked.
“Yeah – and where’re the sounds of the people fighting?” Reyn questioned. “We’re not too late, are we?”
Shulk’s fingers closed tightly around the Monado.
“We’re not too late,” Sharla resolutely shook her head. “I don’t care what that Mechon says – Gadolt and the others wouldn’t go down that easy.”
A distant rumble, and dust falling from above caught their attention.
The Doctor looked up. Back during the War, he’d set loads of traps in tightly-squeezed locations, just like these tunnels. But the Daleks didn’t usually rise to the bait, preferring to just bombard the area from orbit… until he goaded them into wandering in with the promise that he’d be there.
They preferred to engage him directly, more often than not. In a Time War, if a kill wasn’t confirmed, it might as well not have happened.
The Doctor frowned. “So far, as far as traps go, this isn’t-“
A distant bang reverberated off the walls of the cave followed by another, and another.
Sharla’s head snapped upright. “An Ether rifle? Gadolt!” She broke off into a sprint, grabbing the rifle off her back.
“Sharla, wait!” Reyn hollered as he sprinted off after her.
“Reyn!” Shulk snapped, following.
The Doctor and Fiora looked at each other, as though they couldn’t believe what just happened, before running as well.
Sprinting down the tunnels, they arrived at what appeared to be a platform for storing cargo, swarming with Mechon. Explosive rounds tore sent the Mechon reeling, as Sharla frantically scanned the room. “Gadolt!”
An aging man with dark skin, and a snowy beard, poked his head out from behind a metal box. “Medic!? Is that you!?”
“Otharon!” Sharla called out as a shot from her rifle ripped apart the Mechon. She found a flight of stairs nearby, and sprinted down, into the fracas.
“Sharla, don’t-!” Shulk tried to holler as he watched her dive into the swarm. Dozens of Mechon were filling the platform, knocking into each other and greedily trying to get at Otharon. Quite an overreaction for just one Homs.
“Don’t worry, Shulk!” Reyn raised his voice as he took a running start to the rail, and vaulted over it. He landed on the blade of his driver first, sending it slap through a Mechon’s body, before yanking it out and swinging the flat side like a bat into one of the flying units.
Fiora was down after him, bounding around the battlefield with light feet. As the Mechon focused on the big, damage-causing weapon, they missed out on her, delivering strikes to their flanks and weak points.
Then came Shulk, slashing the Mechon from behind and from the side.
Taking overwatch at the raised level, the Doctor twisted the cap on the end of the Sonic Screwdriver, and pointed it into the swarm below. Mechon making it too close to the others despite their efforts to cover each other were swiftly felled in geysers of sparks catalysed by the invisible energies emitted by the Screwdriver.
But just as the horde seemed to thin out, more came crawling out from a tunnel on the other side of the cave.
“Uh, guys!” Reyn raised his voice, taking one look at the sea of Mechon cascading out of the tunnel like water breaking from a pipe. “That’s a lot of Mechon!”
“Reyn, watch your back!” Fiora warned, darting past him. Her twin blades flashed in a blur, severing an attacking Mechon’s arm before it could strike him down for the mistake of watching the Mechon flood in.
“Thanks, Fiora!” Reyn puffed, barely catching his breath.
“Focus!” Shulk shouted, parrying an incoming claw with the Monado. The blade’s energy hummed as it sliced through the Mechon’s armour with ease. He twisted, using the momentum to cut down another.
But the Mechon were adapting. Their movements became more erratic, forcing the group to fight harder just to keep them at bay. Debris from shattered Mechon cluttered the battlefield, tripping up even the nimblest of fighters. One wrong step sent Fiora sprawling to the ground, and a Mechon pounced, claws aimed for her chest.
“Nuh-uh!” Reyn bellowed, hurling his shield at the attacker. The impact knocked it off balance, giving Fiora just enough time to roll away and recover.
“Thanks, Reyn,” She said, her voice shaky but determined.
“Taken care of already!
Above, the Doctor furrowed his brow, eyes darting between his companions and the horde. “This isn’t sustainable,” he muttered. With a flourish, he twisted the Sonic Screwdriver again and aimed it at a cluster of Mechon near the tunnel entrance. A deafening burst of static energy erupted, sending several Mechon collapsing in a heap, blocking the path temporarily.
“More are coming!” he called out, “We’ve got to run!”
“Doctor, you have the Ether Generator!” Shulk snapped, striking down another Mechon. “What’s the problem!?”
“Y-Yeah!” Reyn agreed. “Crank it up!”
“You sure now is the most opportune moment!?” The Doctor called back. “The charge isn’t unlimited – do you really think we’ll get the opportunity to refill it!?”
The group’s movements were growing more frantic. Sharla’s rifle overheated, forcing her to duck behind cover to let it cool. Reyn’s shield had become dented and warped from repeated impacts, and even Shulk’s Monado seemed to flicker under the strain.
A sudden explosion rocked the platform, sending everyone sprawling. Sharla’s cover was obliterated, and she barely managed to roll clear of the debris. The Doctor clung to the railing, nearly dropping his Sonic Screwdriver.
“What was that?” Reyn shouted, coughing through the dust.
“One of the bigger ones,” Sharla said grimly, pointing toward a massive Mechon emerging from the tunnel. Its armoured frame gleamed in the dim light, and its arms ended in cannons that still glowed from the recent blast.
“Oh, brilliant,” The Doctor groaned, voice dripping with sarcasm. “As if things weren’t bad enough.”
The massive Mechon fired again, and the group scattered to avoid the blast. The impact left a crater in the platform, and shards of rock and metal rained down, forcing them to shield their faces.
“Shulk, any visions coming through?” Fiora asked, desperation creeping into her voice.
“Nothing helpful yet,” Shulk admitted, his grip tightening on the Monado. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an idea.” He growled, as the blade shifted purple, and the symbol for Buster appeared on the glass.
The Mechon closed in, their sheer numbers pressing the group back toward the edge of the platform. The Doctor’s mind raced, calculating probabilities and searching for an escape route. He glanced at the tunnel the Mechon were pouring out of and then at the cavern walls.
“Everyone, get back!” Shulk shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos. The others barely had time to react before he raised the blade high above his head, its energy flaring brighter than ever. “Monado, Buster!” He roared, bringing the blade down with a force that sent a massive wave of pure energy surging forward.
The beam carved through the Mechon horde like a scythe, obliterating dozens in its path and sending the remainder scattering in disarray. The platform trembled under the force of the attack, as the others focused on the scattered Mechon.
After only a few more moments, the horde was reduced to heaps of scrap on the ground.
Shulk breaths came to him, heavy and ragged, and he turned around. “Is everyone all right!?”
“Fuh…” Reyn puffed. “Fine.” His head looked up at the Time Lord. “What the hell!? What good’s an anti-Mechon weapon if you ain’t gonna use it!?”
“And I’m telling you,” The Doctor leaned forward, vaulting over the railing and landing in a stumble. He managed to catch himself, though, and shook his head. “Bronze Face lured us down here – considering he,” He glanced at the man, Otharon. “Was already fighting, that means this probably isn’t the trap. If it’s further on ahead, it’ll probably be worse than this.”
“That’s not your call to make!” Reyn raised his voice. “We could’ve died, if it weren’t for the Monado!”
“And we had the Monado, so it all turned out fine.”
“Everyone,” Fiora gestured, putting herself between the two. “Let’s just… calm down, okay? We’re all okay, we’re all fine…”
They all took a moment to collect their breath, before Otharon looked up, focusing on Sharla in disbelief. “Medic? What are you doing here?”
Well, that was a fine welcome.
“Sir,” Sharla took a step forward. “Isn’t Gadolt with you?”
“Gadolt?” Otharon repeated, his head falling. “Come. It’s not safe out here.” He led the way to a door, and a collapsed chunk of the cave wall, leading into a tunnel. Passing through, it… put them on the other side of the door? “The Mechon spotted me on my way back from recon. Brought nearly every last one of them down upon me.”
“Well, sounds like you’re lucky we showed up!” Reyn grinned.
“Yes.” Otharon bluntly answered.
The Doctor glanced around. “I don’t mean to tell you… but it looks like you were heading right for a dead-end, here.”
“Not so,” Otharon shook his head. “The Mechon are confused enough by the tunnels, but their sensors don’t seem able to detect this passage. That, or they figure since the main door is shut, there’s no possible way I could have escaped down the path, and overlook it. Now,” Once they entered the main space of Otharon’s safe-room, he turned around. “Regarding the matter of Gadolt and the others… they’re gone.”
“Gone!?” Sharla exclaimed. Fiora reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. “What do you mean!?”
The Doctor frowned. Bronze Face had said he’d gotten the rest of the Homs. He had hoped it was just bluster and trying to lure them into a trap. But it seemed not.
Otharon exhaled. “Gadolt and I were planning a surprise attack, trying to set everyone free. We failed. When I awoke… Gadolt was nowhere to be seen.”
“A surprise attack?” The Doctor repeated, raising his voice and leaning forward. “Down here? In occupied tunnels? You should’ve been trying to run!”
“And leave Colony 6 and the people they captured in the hands of the Mechon? No chance.” Otharon shook his head. He walked over to a gun leaning up against the wall. “Gadolt left his rifle behind – but he is alive, I can sense it.”
“Hold on,” Reyn raised his hand. “He left his gun, but he’s still alive? The Mechon don’t cap-“
Fiora slapped her hand over Reyn’s mouth, silencing him with a look that said ‘keep running your mouth, and I will end you.’
However, in response to Reyn’s statement, Otharon turned around. “They don’t kill Homs right away.”
“Oh, they just capture them for god-knows-what, brilliant.” The Doctor sarcastically shoved his hands into his pockets. “No, not brilliant, because all the Mechon we saw at Colony 9 weren’t capturing anyone.”
“That’s right,” Shulk frowned curiously. “Why would the Mechon kill everyone at Colony 9, but capture people here?”
“Does it matter?” Otharon turned to Shulk. “Boy, that sword on your back, that used to be Dunban’s, yes?”
Shulk winced, scratching his arm. “Yes.”
“I don’t know why you’re carrying it, but we’re going to need it.” Otharon turned around. “We’re heading for the Central Pit. That’s where the Mechon take the people they’ve captured. I didn’t spot Gadolt last time… but with that sword, we’ve finally the chance to drive out the Mechon. Gather your things, we’re moving out.”
That set the Doctor’s danger sense off. If the fact Otharon, with that statement, seemed to declare himself leader of the troupe wasn’t enough to rub the Doctor the wrong way, then the fact that Shulk had just received a vision of a man with Otharon’s description dying at the Central Pit was.
“Now, hold on,” The Time Lord spoke up. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but ‘we have the Monado, now we can’t lose’ isn’t exactly a plan.”
Otharon stopped mid-step, turning to glare at the Doctor. “And who, exactly, put you in charge, stranger?”
“I never said I was in charge.” The Doctor’s voice was calm, but the edge was unmistakable. He stepped forward, placing himself between Otharon and the others. “And I didn’t nominate myself. Unlike some of us.”
“Son,” Otharon gestured. “I’ve been fighting the Mechon for longer than you’ve been alive.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” The Doctor ground out. “I very much doubt that. Unless you’ve got a good millennium on you.”
Otharon narrowed his eyes, looking the Doctor up and down. “You don’t look like a High Entia.”
“No clue what that is.” The Doctor admitted. “Frankly, I haven’t got a clue about a lot of the things going around here. But what I do know is this: Shulk just saved your life from the biggest horde of Mechon we’ve seen down here, and that’s not even the trap that Bronze Face set for us. He invited us down here, you know? We go running into that place with no greater plan than ‘the Monado is an instant win condition,’ we’ll be adding six more people onto the death count.”
Shulk flinched, the vision of Otharon’s death flashing before his eyes. He gripped the Monado tighter but said nothing.
“Excuse me!?” Otharon snapped, raising his voice. “You insolent- We don’t have that kind of time! You don’t know a damn thing about these machines! I have a plan! I’ve been planning this attack for a month! We’re going! All of you, fall in!”
The Doctor blurred into motion, Shulk flinching back as the Time Lord seemed to teleport across the room, winding right up in Otharon’s face. The Doctor’s eyes were deep pits of fire and wrath, his skin turning an angry red-orange.
“And that!” The Doctor spat, bellowing in Otharon’s face. So loud was his voice that it sent the ears of every Homs ringing. “Was your first and last mistake, Otharon! You do not get to bark orders at any of us when we just saved your hide from the results of your last brilliant plan!”
Otharon recoiled, but looked about ready to rise to the Doctor’s challenge. He opened his mouth, and the Doctor started hollering again.
“Let me tell you something, Otharon — you might be used to getting your way from people who don’t know better, but I do know better, and I am not going to stand by and watch you lead these people – teenagers at that,” He spat again, “Right to the slaughter! So, Otharon, Colonel, sir, STAND DOWN!”
The entire room, Otharon included, went dead quiet.
All were staring at him. To Shulk, Reyn, and Fiora, who had only ever seen an odd, if determined man, the Doctor looked more like some… screaming demon in a blue suit. Since he had threatened Bronze Face, only now did any one of them believe he had the cojones to back his words.
And… part of Shulk relaxed. Maybe that would be enough to change what he had seen? Otharon wouldn’t die at the Central Pit now, would he?
“Now,” The Doctor’s tone was entirely pleasant – indeed, conversational, almost – as he backed off, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know about Sharla, but me, Shulk, and Reyn? We’re here because we’re following her.” He pointed to Fiora, whose wide-eyed expression betrayed her shock at being singled out. “So, Fiora,” He turned to her. “Any suggestions? We’ll follow you anywhere, ma’am.”
Otharon’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. All other heads turned to look at her.
Fiora suddenly looked quite small, being confronted with the reality of, technically, being team lead by default. This was mostly her revenge-quest deal – yeah, Shulk and Reyn were along because they also wanted to avenge Dunban, but she was the one who decided to get the ball rolling. “Um…” She cleared her throat, before taking a breath. “Dunban used to say that the Mechon’s strength were in numbers. One Mechon isn’t hard to topple on its own, but it’s when they get together that they start being a problem. As… recent events proved.”
The Doctor silently nodded, watching with rapt attention.
Fiora took another breath. “Back at Colony 9, that Mechon there – Onyx Face – it ran once all of its backup were destroyed. And we didn’t have an especially difficult time with Bronze Face when we fought him. Dunban’s ‘rule’ still applies, even to the Mechon with faces. Since he told us to meet him down here, he’s probably banking on the other Mechon being able to swoop in and overwhelm us. So… we need to make sure they can’t do that.”
“Brilliant!” The Doctor grinned, theatrically looking Otharon’s way with a smile. “Isn’t she clever – she’s clever, isn’t she?”
The old Defence Force Colonel scratched his beard. “Well… it is a sound plan.” He admitted, looking curiously at Fiora. “Fiora…” He snapped his fingers in recollection. “Yes, I know your name. You’re Dunban’s sister, aren’t you?”
Fiora nodded. “I am.”
Otharon let out a weak hum. “Here I was, praying for a miracle, and what should turn up but the Monado, and the sister of the Hero of the Homs. Although I’m surprised it’s not you holding it, given your brother’s talent with the thing.”
“I wouldn’t try my luck with the Monado even if I wanted to. Besides – Shulk seems to have it well in-hand.”
“I see.” Otharon looked them over. “Are the four of you in the Defence Force?”
“Technically, I’m a scientific consultant,” Shulk answered.
Fiora shook her head. “Only for a little while. Enough to pick up basics, nothing more.”
Reyn, if he had a collar, would’ve popped it. “Colonel Vangarre’s star pupil!” Shulk shot him a silent look, and Reyn rolled his eyes. “Well… he doles out more push-ups to me than anybody else?”
“Traveller.” The Doctor answered.
“Hmm.” Otharon hummed. “Fine. We’ll play it your way for now – but tell me, how are you planning to take out Bronze Face’s backup, when he could call upon any Mechon roaming the tunnels and the surface?”
The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets. If he had the TARDIS, he could probably just use her engines to create a bigger field. As it stood… “Get me to an Ether source and a conductor, and I can extend the range of my Ether field generator – gotta come up with a better name, that.”
Otharon frowned. “The closest point to the Ether River is the central pit.”
“Nah!” The Doctor protested easily. “This place is a refinery, no?” The Doctor looked around. “Carts and lifts for transporting the extracted stuff out?”
“The Mechon have seized it all.” Otharon shook his head.
“Yeah, but they’ve got to move it still, right?” The Doctor reasoned.
“Then… that’s the plan.” Fiora decided. “We’ll look around for any more sources of Ether on the way there. If we can’t find any, we’ll have to settle for the Ether River. And if that turns out not to be possible, we’ll just have to settle for getting rid of Bronze Face’s backup when they show up, not before. It’s not a perfect plan…”
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short!” The Doctor encouraged. “It’s a damn sight better than ‘the Monado is enough.’”
Fiora drew a knife. “Then let’s get going, shall we?”
-----------
The climb down to the Central Pit took a bit of time – the tunnels were really large, and the team (to avoid a repeat of Otharon’s unfortunate Mechon-sprung ambush) took them slowly, and rather carefully. The caves – for as much as they had been built inside by the Homs – branched off in directions like roots, or blood vessels.
Privately, the Doctor still couldn’t entirely wrap his head around it. The idea that he was clinging to the surface of an enormous lifeform. Though it might be more accurate to say his mind was buzzing because of something else – the frightening possibility that Bionis and Mechonis could, however tangentially, be connected to the Time Lords, or worse, the Time War.
How couldn’t he have come to the conclusion before? The Time Lords were the only species capable of constructing universes, even on a scale as small as this.
But… that didn’t make sense either. If he had stumbled into a model of the War, he wouldn’t strictly expect to see Daleks (the nature of their Enemy had changed itself so much during the course of the War that, on some days, even the Time Lords weren’t sure who they were fighting at any given moment), but he certainly wasn’t expecting to see humans in the place of the Time Lords. Never mind that the scale the Homs and the Mechon were fighting on was completely inadequate to model much of anything involving a Time War.
So, Bionis and Mechonis; were they the principle, modelled objects? The things that whoever designed this reality were really trying to analyse and predict? That was a bit tame…
Granted, he hadn’t seen what the two titans were capable of.
When the Gates of Elysium had opened to cap off the first year of the War, things Beyond slipped their way into the universe. Suddenly, it was no longer just the Daleks, but the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been-King, the Meanwhiles and the Neverweres, Omega, the Reapers, the Great Vampires, and thousands of other parties. Suddenly, the Time Lords – who had risen and shackled Yog-Sothoth, forged the Key to Time itself, the cartographers of the Spiral Politic – they were just as helpless and confused as everybody else.
Two titans slipping into reality unnoticed wouldn’t have been the biggest stretch.
He needed to go. He needed to help the Homs get their Mechon problem sorted, get back in the TARDIS, and leave before whatever war-adjacent thing responsible could show up to fulfil the prophecy and kill him.
“Doctor,” Shulk addressed, suddenly breaking through the Doctor’s thoughts. “Thank you.”
“Eh?” The Time Lord curiously blinked. “For what?”
“For talking back to Otharon back there,” Shulk elaborated. “I was going to say something myself, but…”
“Nah, don’t mention it.” The Doctor stuffed his hands into his pockets. He glanced around the walls of the cave. “What do you think Shulk? Any Ether deposits around here for my field generator?” He frowned. “I’ve got to come up with a better name for it…”
“Well?” Shulk raised an eyebrow. “What are you thinking?”
“It’s just… sterile.” The Doctor bit his lip. “There’re Nopon here, so how about… the Mechon Zapper-Wapper?”
“…’wapper’ is not a word.”
“And neither is ‘timey-wimey,’ but it’s a very respected discipline in the Nopon academic circles.” The Doctor suddenly pointed. “Ah! I know! The Mechon Wibbler…” He glanced over at Shulk. “You know – ‘cause it makes the Mechon shields wibbly.”
Shulk chuckled, before the traces of humour left his face. “Doctor. Are you really going to kill Bronze Face?”
The Time Lord looked Shulk up and down. “You wanted to.”
“Well… yes.” Shulk admitted. “I want to kill him. I want to kill him, and Onyx Face, and the rest of the Mechon. But weren’t you saying we should try to reason with them?”
The Doctor inhaled. “It’s different. I don’t know about Onyx, or the rest of the Mechon, but Bronze Face, well…” He shook his head. “He made it pretty clear he’s not interested in reason. Hard to reason with someone that doesn’t want to listen.”
“You made Otharon listen.” Shulk pointed out.
“Him? Nah – I’ve dealt with people like him loads of times. Soldiers like him are bullies or someone with something to prove, easy enough to get through to.” The Doctor softly spoke.
“You’ve… dealt with a lot of soldiers, then?”
“A bit.” The Doctor scratched the back of his head.
“Are…” Shulk uncertainly probed. “You a soldier, Doctor?”
“Nope.” The Doctor quickly answered. He was never in the command structure, never trained, and never took missions. He did what he always did – showed up where he could to help, be that on the front-line of a battlefield, or a wasteland after everyone else had gone. That was all.
Shulk didn’t believe that. Whether it was just the way the Doctor carried himself, his calm during battle, the way he charged head-on into Colony 9 while the Mechon attacked and kept his cool… up in the air. “Right.” He crossed his arms nervously. “You said Bronze Face got one chance. Was that it, back there?”
“It was.” The Doctor confirmed, a shadow passing over his features. “Otharon – I could get through to him. Took yelling, but I could. Bronze Face well… he proved he’s not going to be persuaded.”
“So, when we walk down there, either we walk out of there alive, or he does. Either or.”
“Yep.” The Doctor answered. “But who knows? Maybe he’ll have changed his mind.”
“…maybe.” Shulk uneasily echoed, thinning his lips. “Doctor… who are you?”
“Told you – the Doctor.” The Time Lord began to speed up, to get away from the questioning.
Shulk shook his head, but increased his own pace to follow. Up ahead, a glowing red mass filled one of the caves with burning light.
“’Ey, Doc,” Reyn pointed up ahead at the glowing wall. “Check it out. Ether crystals. Think you can use them for the Wibbler?”
The Doctor thinned his lips. “Don’t call me ‘Doc…’” He approached, before he smiled. “Oh, but that’s very good! Solid matter is usually a lot more dense than liquid matter. Lot more energy.”
“Yes, I had thought about weaponizing it myself,” Otharon remarked. “But I worried that playing about with Ether crystals would only be liable to make me explode, instead of the Mechon.”
“That’s odd…” Fiora rasped, crossing as the Doctor took the Screwdriver to the deposit. “Why would the Mechon capture the mine, but not pick it clean?”
“Good question.” The Doctor replied, as the Screwdriver buzzed against the crystal surface. “And they’re very pure, too. Unless the Mechon just need Ether in the liquid state for whatever reason.”
“What reason could that be?” Sharla wondered.
“Dunno.” The Doctor admitted. “All of this…” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a whole new branch of physics – well… the last time I touched Ether, it was called Ether, but really it was more of a catch-all term for ‘magic rooted in the laws of science.’ Which… from a certain perspective, I suppose this Ether is, but really it’s a branch I’ve only just started dipping my toes into.” He broke off the crystal with a grunt, taking away a sizable chunk – about the size of one of those glass/crystal trophies with the laser engravings on them. He looked down at it warily. “I shouldn’t even be able to hold it.” He examined the crystal closely. Amazingly, physics didn’t suddenly go ‘oh, I’m not doing this right’ and vaporize him and everybody else around him. “It’s incredible! But, I have no idea.”
“Can you use it?” Reyn probed.
“Oh, sure.” The Doctor nodded, doing some quick alterations to the Wibbler, in the form of taking one of the wires, and wrapping it around the crystal. “Now!” He shoved it back in his pocket. “Just to find a transmitter.” He began walking on ahead, leading the way forward.
The others nervously followed, deeper into the occupied mine.
-----------
After some more walking through the tunnels, the group arrived at an enormous, cavernous space. A tower of spinning mechanisms cut through the centre of the chamber – almost like the time rotor in the TARDIS – with multiple levels built around it, either out of metal and more mechanisms, or naturally-formed rock.
The Doctor wondered if the Homs had carved it all out themselves, or if it was the Bionis equivalent of a magma chamber.
“This is it.” Otharon gestured as they stepped into the space. “The Central Pit. The bottom – that’s where they take the people they capture.”
The Doctor slowly approached the edge, looking over, and kicking a rock.
For a brief second, an intrusive thought popped into Shulk’s head – it’d be really, really easy for someone to push the Doctor over the edge, he just walked up to it, no caution at all. Shulk shook his head, and pushed the thought away.
Giant, blade-like protrusions slowly spun around the central core and enormous, piston-like lifts rose and fell at points around the central mass, all connecting large chunks of metal platforms. It all looked like a factory – except the factory was the machine it housed, and vertical.
Reyn let out a low whistle. “Long way down…”
“There’s no one lift that goes all the way down,” Otharon shook his head. “But the bulk of the main shaft is designed to be traversed – there’s a series of lifts that go down.”
“Great,” The Doctor grinned. “That, as it happens, is just the kind of thing I need! Big metal structure, those giant fins? Perfect!”
------------
Much couldn’t be said about the climb down – other than it was a process. The way the place was laid out, ease-of-access seemed to be an afterthought. The Mechon in the way didn’t help matters, but they were easily handled.
Anything was better than trying to make it through a Dalek ship, though.
Upon making it to the pillar, the Doctor set to work, wiring up the Wibbler into the mechanisms. He and Shulk talked quietly to one another, debating the construction techniques of the giant refinery, if it was most efficient, if it all was built in one go, that sort of thing. They also debated on if it was going to work or not – Shulk didn’t seem to disbelieve the Doctor, but he was uncertain if just… wiring up the Wibbler into open metal would really do the trick.
But, as the other people watching him thought, he seemed to be knowing what he was doing, despite only just admitting a very rudimentary understanding of the Ether. Reyn, Fiora, and Sharla stood at a distance, keeping watch on the surroundings while giving the Doctor and Shulk space to work. After a few moments of tense quiet, Reyn broke it.
“So,” Reyn said, crossing his arms. “How does it feel, boss?”
“Boss?” Fiora blinked, then frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on!” Reyn replied. “You know what I mean – what, did you just miss out on that argument and all of us saying ‘yep, we’re here for Fiora.’”
“That’s different.” Fiora protested, shaking her head. “You and Shulk were going to go anyway, I-”
“You invited yourself along,” Reyn cut in, smirking. “And’ve been keeping me and Shulk on the straight and narrow. Sides, didn’t you say it all the way back at the refugee camp to the Doc? After you reamed his arse for getting mad at Sharla?”
Fiora recoiled in surprise. “You heard that?”
Reyn snorted. “You weren’t exactly subtle.”
“I mean- I was just trying to get him to stop being rude to Sharla!” Fiora stammered. “Sure, he said something snide about me being team lead when I stepped in to break them up, but I went with because he was being sarcastic and I could play at that game too; I didn’t think you guys really were looking to me for leadership!”
“Arguably, you’ve been dragging me and Shulk around by the ear since we were kids.”
Fiora gave him a flat look. “Being your minder doesn’t make me a leader. I’m no Dunban. I don’t have his skill — or his experience. Honestly.”
“That’s what’s leaders do, though, don’t you see?” Sharla interjected, stepping closer. “Gadolt used to say half of leading a team is directing them to fight the enemy, the other half is directing them to stop fighting each other. Looks like you’ve got that down already.”
Reyn silently nodded and pointed to Sharla in deference. “Exactly. Ain’t no one I’d rather have barking orders at me.”
Fiora crossed her arms, avoiding their eyes. “You and Shulk were going to head out after Dunban anyway.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Reyn said, rolling his eyes. “You’re kidding, right? You’re gonna tell me that even if we managed to convince you at first, you’d just stay cooped-up at home, not doing anything?”
Sharla looked over at Reyn curiously, wordlessly asking for clarification.
“Me ‘n’ Shulk tried telling her it was too dangerous. She got furious with us when she figured out we were gonna go anyway.”
“Ah.” Sharla nodded.
Fiora opened her mouth to argue, but no words came out. For a moment, she looked down at the ground, her expression unreadable. Finally, she sighed and glanced up at them both.
“Well… if it means you and Shulk will listen to me more, I guess I can’t complain.”
Reyn grinned. “That’s the ticket.”
Before Fiora could respond, Sharla raised a hand. “Hold up. Something’s moving in the distance.”
All three of them tensed, their earlier conversation forgotten as their attention snapped back to their surroundings. Nearby, Shulk and the Doctor continued their work, oblivious to the brewing tension just a few steps away.
The crack of a rifle rung out, obliterating a Mechon scurrying across the refinery.
Otharon grunted, leaning on the smoking weapon. “The least you lot could do is mind your mouths and use your eyes while we’re in an active combat zone.” He grunted, reloading his weapon, and walking away.
Reyn watched, crossing his arms. “He’s a mean ol’ sonuvabitch, isn’t he?”
“He’s just worried,” Sharla shook her head.
A triumphant whoop came from the Doctor’s direction, and the three of them turned, to see the alien man and Shulk beginning to move again.
Quickly, they fell into step.
-------------
The final lift descended towards the bottom of the Central Pit, sliding diagonally closer towards the giant pillar adorned with glowing, green-coloured lines. Slits on the floor below revealed the bubbling, churning river of glowing liquid it was drawing from.
“Ooh wow…” The Doctor breathed out, a slow smile spreading on his face as he looked up the length of the pillar. “One hell of a refinery…”
Sharla stepped off the elevator first, looking over the area. “Whe-Where is everyone!?”
The Doctor’s eyes drifted down, locking on to dried, rusty, brown spots on the metallic floor. His breath hitched as Otharon and Sharla looked over the sight.
“No…” Sharla’s breathing began to speed up. “They’re gone…”
Demented cackling came from above, followed by roaring engines, as a giant metallic body came swooping into the mine.
“Look who finally decided to show up!” Bronze Face laughed as he reconfigured and came in for a landing, sliding to a stop and kicking up sparks before he turned around.
Shulk wasted no time, drawing the Monado and keeping his grip on it. Reyn rolled his shoulders, Fiora readied her knives, and Sharla and Otharon chambered rounds into their guns.
Bronze Face turned around, as Mechon began to crawl out of every gap in the area, like giant, metal bugs.
“You!” Sharla bellowed, taking a step as she clutched her gun. “The people you were keeping down here – where are they!? Tell me!”
“Huh?” Bronze Face laughed, the armour plating on his torso flapping around as he played about with his hammer. “Wuzzat? The people? Oh-“ He chuckled, gesturing around, at the dried splatters on the ground. “Yer gonna have to forgive the mess! I just got so hungry, I couldn’t help myself, pigging out like that!”
“P-“ Sharla’s skin whitened, as pale as a sheet of paper, as her eyes widened and tremored.
“That’s right!” Bronze Face hollered theatrically. “Weren’t you listening when I told you? I gobbled them all up! Welcome to our banquet hall!”
“You… You…” Sharla began to shake and tremble, raising her gun.
“Murderer!” Shulk growled, shooting forward.
The Doctor clenched his teeth, and balled his fists, closing one of them around the Sonic Screwdriver.
“Allow me to reintroduce myself!” The Mechon gave a mocking wave. “The name’s Bronze Face. And I’m gonna be your host this evening! Tonight’s fare: meal and a show – all in one! The main course… you! Just as well – them colony folk weren’t very filling at all!”
“Gadolt… The others…” Sharla’s look morphed into raw, hateful wrath as she raised her rifle. “I swear I won’t stop, until I’ve scrapped each and every one of you!” The woman moved like she was possessed, dragging herself forward with nothing less than pure rage as she started firing on a few of the Mechon.
The other Mechon began to close in.
“Bronze Face!” The Doctor raised his voice, pushing up to the front of the group. Bronze Face held up his hand, and the scattered units stopped. “I don’t know what the Mechon are trying to accomplish – and I don’t care! Leave this place and its people in peace, and we don’t have to fight!”
“Well-ety, well-ety!” Bronze Face cackled. “If it isn’t ol’ spike hair! I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’re getting the message I’m laying down here! You’ve got two choices, mate! Get back in your box and go, or stay here and die with the rest of ‘em! And since you’re down here, I think that pretty much tears it, don’t you!?”
“Stop this,” The Doctor ordered through gnashed teeth. “Stop this, just listen and think about this! I don’t know what it is you want, but there’s got to be a better way to get it. Go home, leave these people in peace!”
“Oh?” Bronze Face tilted his head. “And why should I?”
“Because I told you,” The Doctor answered. “You have one chance. Just one. Leave. Walk away from the Bionis, from the people you’ve tormented, and never come back. Take your hammer, your Mechon, and whatever twisted excuse for a conscience you have, and leave. Because whatever happens after that… that’s your choice.”
For a moment, the air seemed to crackle with electricity, as if the Doctor’s presence alone was warping reality. Even the hum of the Mechon’s systems seemed to falter under the weight of his words.
Bronze Face let out a laugh, forced and jittery. “You’re a funny one, aren’t you? You think I’m just gonna pack up and go ‘cause you asked nicely? Not a chance! What’re you gonna do, huh? Wave that little penlight of yours at me? Pathetic!”
The Time Lord closed his eyes, allowing himself a moment of disappointed resignation. Then, his eyes popped open, blazing with cold, calculated fury, and he held up the Screwdriver, turning it over in his hand almost absently. “This?” He glanced at it, then back at Bronze Face. “Nah, this isn’t for you! Thing is, you mentioned a certain… lady who told you about me? Thing is: if she told you who I am, she really ought to have told you about what I can do with a Screwdriver.”
The Last of the Time Lords strutted around the chamber, confident. Untouchable. Everyone locked onto him, and him alone.
“This is a really useful little gadget, you know?” The Doctor looked it over, appreciative. “Well~ That might be me tooting my own horn a little bit – I am the patent holder. But,” He came to stand over by the metallic shaft. “There is one other thing you should know.” His expression twisted, becoming colder. “Don’t ever let a man with a Sonic Screwdriver near the power grid.”
Like a piston flying out at mach speed, the Doctor’s arm shot out, slamming the Sonic Screwdriver emitter-first into the metal pillar.
The moment the Sonic Screwdriver made contact with the metal shaft, a piercing hum filled the air, reverberating through the massive chamber. Sparks erupted from the pillar as the Doctor twisted his wrist, his face a mask of grim determination.
"There, you see!?" The Doctor began, his voice carrying above the cacophonic screech, “Metal, lovely stuff, isn’t it? Excellent conductor for electricity… and signals!" He pressed a button on the Screwdriver, and the hum deepened into a resonant pulse. "Oh, did I forget to mention? This isn’t just your run-of-the-mill screw-turner, you know!”
Bronze Face staggered back, his hulking body twisting around in confusion as his Mechon began to lock up, click, twitch, and spark. One Mechon exploded outright. "What the hell are you doing!?" He roared, his voice tinged with genuine panic now.
"Weeeeell," The Doctor stretched out, his words clipped and icy. "If I had to guess, I’d say I was turning your dinner table into an antenna. Sending a little message upstairs." He gestured vaguely, as though it was the simplest thing in the world. "Oh, a little old thing, really, not much more than a simple ping. But, there’s a device up there I like to call the Wibbler — because it, well, it wibbles. We set it up on the way down – take a source of Ether, route it through energy converters, route that output through an antenna, and you get a field strong enough to fry every Mechon-without-a-face within range. And we've got very big antennae, with those big, giant, blade things up there."
The Mechon surrounding Bronze Face began to pop like firecrackers, and Sharla, Reyn, Fiora, and Shulk shielded their eyes as sparks flew across the room.
Bronze Face growled, his hammer clanging against the floor as he lunged forward. “I’ll crush you, Time Lord!”
“Doctor!” Shulk gasped, gripping the Monado tightly. “Monado, shield!” He tilted the sword sideways, and the blade’s hue shifted to a bright yellow, as a bubble of golden hexagons surrounded the Doctor just as the Mechon’s hammer struck, and bounced off the barrier.
As Bronze Face staggered back, the Doctor fell back, his chucks squeaking as he retreated.
Bronze Face looked up, dragging his hammer across the floor, tearing a gouge into it.
“I’m gonna tear you all to scraps!”
All the assembled tensed up, readied their weapons, and prepared for round two.
He wasn't going to get away this time.
Chapter 12: Eleven: The TARDIS Strikes Back
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
After stepping out of Director Elma’s office, I take a moment to compose my thoughts. I didn’t come out of there learning much more about what I had intended to learn, but I still learned quite a bit.
The way she just so casually confirmed the Conduit’s origin… it makes me wonder what else they’re hiding about it. Now, I’m no idiot – I work for a government-founded/sponsored research institution – of course they’re hiding things from me. But given that the objective of this endeavour is to puzzle out the Conduit, wouldn’t that classify as information the researchers need to know?
And every little scrap of information about it is important; we know precious little.
The public-ish-facing story, the one they told me when I was hired on, was that UNIT had discovered it after tracking magnetic anomalies to East Africa. Kenya, to be precise. The anomalies were something that couldn’t be detected by most instrumentation; it was only thanks to the computer revolution of the late 20th century that our instruments became sensitive enough to even detect something. Even then, at first, they thought it was a calibration issue – on a lark, UNIT went out to check just in case, and the anomaly persisted. I’m not so sure how much of it is true – UNIT’s proven they’re just fine and dandy with lying, and the entire story sounds like something out of a video game. (Alien artifact in Kenya, the birthplace of humanity, left behind by alien forefathers for an unknown purpose, that might have been influencing our development? Wasn’t that the plot of Halo 3? I’ve no time for video games, but my roommate in university was insufferable about the things, so some osmosis was bound to have happened.)
Regardless, UNIT discovered the Conduit. And they kept it hidden away, through invasion after invasion, until something changed. After so many invasions, UNIT decided to ramp up study of the Conduit, to probe its depths, and unlock its secrets. Aoidos had been formed under UNIT’s umbrella – a research institute of the best physicists, engineers, and any other discipline that might even be tangentially useful to unravelling the Conduit, from all across the globe.
That was in 2020. After almost 40 years, thanks to even the little portion we’ve managed to glean from it, we’ve managed to construct space elevators. An orbital ring surrounding the planet. Faster-than-light travel, and that’s only scratching the surface.
The Conduit’s power truly is limitless – or so close to be functionally limitless, for all intents and purposes. An infinite wellspring of energy. But it’s not just power, it makes matter, too. The way it does this seems to be that the Conduit models an object or possibility through a series of computations, then pulls that object from a parallel universe. We haven’t had much success on that side of things, however – but if we could understand those principles, and master them, it would become a doorway for us. The infinite cosmos, within our grasp, overnight.
We wouldn’t even need spacecraft! If that science could be understood by us, and manipulated, we could use the Conduit to model ourselves; transfer our beings across the universe, across time, across other universes, by simply telling it to recalculate a set of data. Forget having to colonize other worlds – we could tell it to find uninhabited, but still life-bearing versions of Earth, and pull them to us, and place them around our sun. If we still had to move out into the stars, then any world could be open to humankind. Deathtraps like Mars and Venus could be terraformed overnight, filled by oceans, continents, and atmospheres transferred in from other possibilities. People that died a thousand years ago could be brought forth, and their bodies continually refreshed by taking cells from when they were younger.
This is the power that the Time Lords held. And… Elma said it turned them cruel, and callous?
I don’t accept that.
How could anyone – an entire species – without need or want, be anything other than mellow, refined, and cultured? They wouldn’t need to conquer, or work, or struggle. They could live for themselves – work only to expand their horizons; and through the endless dimensions the Conduit gives access to, they would have infinite horizons to strive toward. Possibilities, scientific or otherwise, to be explored. There would still be something to live for: to better one’s self, and broaden the mind, beyond simple survival. People would be happier.
To overcome a struggle, that is the purpose of life. Not to languish in it, and be content in doing so, because the mere thought of having nothing to do after that is so terrifying. Although… one could argue that itself might be a form of suffering to rise above. Pensioners often take up hobbies to avoid the day-to-day tedium of sitting about the house. A struggle, and overcoming it.
But people would be so much happier if the struggles they had to contend with were the ones they set for themselves. If they didn’t have to worry about starvation, or a roof above their heads, or death rendering it all meaningless.
I know, in my heart, this is a gift to be used, not something to shy away from in fear of what might happen. What might happen is a justification the callous use to make themselves feel better about not doing anything. Feeding a starving cat might make it come back to your home and bring other starving cats with it, it might make the cat sick, or make another cat attack it, and it might do nothing at all in the long run. But it might save the cat’s life, and it might bring it back around, and it might save you on a day when you’re at your lowest point and need something, anything, even the company of an animal, to remind you that you have a place in this world, and are appreciated.
What the Time Lords did with the Conduit is irrelevant to me. We might repeat their mistakes, but we might not. What does matter is that they left it to us. Director Elma had said the Time Lords influenced the mythologies and religions of many peoples across the universe in a myriad of ways, becoming gods to those primitive peoples, humanity included. It’s also known, through the Doctor, that at least on an outward level, humans look identical to Time Lords.
All that in mind… is it not true that God created mankind in His image, and gave us dominion over the Earth?
This is a gift to be used. They wanted us to do so. They left it for us.
It can’t be a coincidence that I’m suffering dreams of a Time Lord right now. If I can find out why, perhaps that could be the key to unlocking a greater understanding of that mysterious, abnormal matter the Time Lords left behind.
I sit down at my desk, and redouble my efforts. If anything, I’m only more determined after speaking to the Director. She and the rest of UNIT know more than what they’re sharing, almost certainly. If I want to get to the bottom of it, I’ll have to do it myself, and perhaps the answer to my dreams will follow.
Time to go prowling the archives again.
The data vaults are just as labyrinthian as ever, and I decide to change the nature of my approach. Instead of searching for information on the Time Lords first, I decide to scour the database for information on the Conduit. Whatever they know is bound to be in here.
The system yields to me easier than I had expected, and one folder catches my eye. It's in plain sight, as if it were meant to be found. That was… unusual. Scratch that – it was suspicious. My mind goes back to the entity in my computer – it had provided me with restored functionality to some parts of my operating system. Had… it left this file for me?
A single, solitary video file, with a simple label: MAM-INCIDENT_AUTOPSY _001.
My heart pounds, and I wonder: is this a trap?
…no. No, if this was some plot to catch me out, they could’ve come for me the moment I accessed my personnel file.
Despite my better reasoning, I open the file. For a moment, nothing happens, and I wonder if I’ve triggered some sort of failsafe. Something else bugs me. Odd that the download proceeded so quickly, and that I could just view it without another password.
Then, the screen flickers to life, static hissing for a brief moment before stabilizing. I lean forward, the glow of the monitor casting long shadows across my cluttered desk. The video feed was hardly crisp, caked in pixelation and artifacts— an old recording from some black site, judging by the sterile lighting and heavy security presence.
I watched as the camera pans over an examination room. The place screamed secrecy. Stark fluorescent lights illuminated a metallic table in the centre, surrounded by a handful of scientists and a man. One who’s picture everyone in the UK branch of UNIT has seen at least once. Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, the Brigadier.
The man radiated authority, even in retirement. His posture was straight, his gaze sharp. He was clearly past the age where he’d have any business dealing with alien mysteries, but it seemed the universe had other plans.
I increased the volume slightly, the hum of machinery and murmurs of conversation filling the room. I was surprised I could get sound – wasn’t that a breach of security? All of this was very convenient… The focus of the scientists’ attention was a figure lying motionless on the examination table, covered with a white sheet. It wasn’t difficult to sense the tension. Even through the screen, I could see it in their postures, hear it in their voices.
“Sir, we’re trying to analyse her, but… she’s too complex for our computers to interpret.” One of the technicians sounded almost apologetic, his words tinged with frustration.
The Brigadier stepped closer, his hands clasped behind his back. “Alien?”
“We can’t tell,” another scientist replied, hesitating as if unsure whether to continue. “Her architecture is… more advanced than anything we’ve seen.”
I frowned, replaying that phrase in my mind. Architecture. That was a curious choice of words.
“A machine, then?” The Brigadier asked, leaning in slightly.
“We’re not sure,” The scientist conceded, motioning to the monitors displaying intricate schematics of the figure on the table. “If she’s a machine, her mechanisms are so close to biology as to be functionally indistinguishable – aside from portions of her brain.”
I leaned back in my chair, my brow furrowing. Cybernetics that advanced? We had been trying to accomplish that sort of thing for decades – only really started hitting breakthroughs recently with neuro-crystal substrate and mimeosome technology. But the timestamp was from 2000. Well before the breakthroughs ever occurred.
The Brigadier’s eyes narrowed. “And her ship?”
“We don’t know where it is. The damage to her body suggests it broke apart in the atmosphere, but we’ve found no evidence of her ship – no debris, which suggests it all burned up in the atmosphere. Really, it’s a miracle there’s even a body.”
A miracle. Or something else entirely. I scribbled a note on a nearby pad. I couldn’t afford to get sidetracked by other mysteries, but if I start hitting dead ends down the more obvious, logical routes, my only recourse would be to go down the less logical, wild rabbit holes.
“Well, it is certainly an unusual situation – but I can scarcely imagine why it bears calling me here, personally.”
The camera angle shifted as one of the coroners stepped forward, glancing at the Brigadier. “Sir, it’s… well… This isn’t a random alien.”
The Brigadier straightened, his concern evident. “Why? What’s so unusual about her?”
The coroner hesitated, then carefully pulled back the sheet. I inhaled sharply. Even through the recording, the sight was… unseemly. Her body was mangled, parts of her scorched and missing. What remained of her skin glowed from the light with a grey-white pallor. Her hair — what was left of it — was an unusual translucent blue, and her face…
The Brigadier’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…”
He leaned closer, his hand hovering just above her lifeless form, as though afraid to touch her.
“This… isn’t who I think it is, is it?” The Brigadier muttered, keeping a professional face on.
Another scientist stepped forward, holding a print-out. “We attempted to reconstruct her face using our systems. It’s not perfect, but she is near-human enough for the software to give us a result.”
The Brigadier’s gaze hardened as he looked at the paper. Whatever he saw, it clearly struck a chord. “There’s quite the resemblance,” he admitted. “If it isn’t her, it has to be a close relative.”
The room fell silent for a moment. Then one of the coroners broke it. “Elma,” she read from a file, and a jolt of shock went through me. “At least, that’s the name we have on record. Known traveling companion of the Doctor.” She paused, flipping a page. “Eighth Doctor.”
I froze. The Doctor? A ripple of unease ran through me. Coupled with her name…
“Elma?” I leaned forward towards the screen, watching in disbelief. It certainly looked like her – it was hard to tell with the low quality – but… it was an alien! The skin and hair colour were all wrong! She was too old – if the video was genuine (and I had no reason to believe it wasn’t) then Elma would be well in-excess of seventy years old, today.
And in the video, she was dead.
That couldn’t be genuine, could it? It couldn’t have been! Elma is alive and well – I just spoke to her – and she doesn’t look old enough to have been from around then.
But this wasn’t somebody’s private media server – this was UNIT. Although what they deal with is usually on the edge of fantasy, it’s not a habit to record fake events for the fun of it. For a cover-up, yes – but this wasn’t covering up anything. It was a video of an alien autopsy – the kind of thing UNIT covered up, instead of using it to cover up something else.
My boss is an alien. An alien, and they hid that from us.
For a moment, I want to go back to her office. To ask her why… and, maybe, ask her some more questions. Is she using some sort of hologram or perception filter to make herself look human? Does she age, like we do? If she’s cybernetic, that could mean her species had passed their version of the technological singularity long ago – how did they handle it? There’s an opportunity the likes of which I’d never seen before, right in front of me.
But then, my rational mind wins out. She had lied to me about it – that crack about coming from Washington – she didn’t want people to know. First, she’d wonder how I came across the information. The only real answer would be by snooping around where I wasn’t supposed to. Then, she’d decide the best way to ensure the information couldn’t spread.
If I was lucky, they’d just wipe my memory and send me on my way. If I was unlucky…
I try not to dwell too much on that. Our organisation has done horrific things, in the name of making sure this entire project goes smoothly, they say. It’s just rumours.
Then again, there was a suspicious tendency for difficult people – pundits, politicians, and the like – to disappear, only for ones who believed in the promise of the Project to find their way into office.
Compared to them? I might as well be bacteria.
I can’t confront her. Can’t talk to anyone. If I do, it’s my life on the line. I am breaking into classified databases.
The Brigadier’s voice was grave. “Has anyone seen him recently?” He asked, no doubt referring to the Doctor.
“Not recently, no.”
“Then… we’ll need to approach the situation carefully.”
I leaned forward, and-
The excerpt stopped. I blinked, looking down at the video controls. It hadn’t hung – it had reached its end. What? That was it?
Damned early-2000s hard disk limitations. Or maybe… my ‘benefactor’ had hidden the other files for me. I know it’s in the system, but I don’t know the full breadth of its command of things.
Although… it had illuminated something else for me.
Perhaps Elma had the best of intentions. Perhaps whatever transpired in this file had nothing to do whatsoever with the Conduit. But given she was hiding such a secret as monumental as that – that she was an alien, and not only that, she had died…
She couldn’t be trusted. Possibly no one in UNIT could be trusted.
I am as I have always been. Alone.
--------
Boots clacking on metal echoed in the bay as Jin and Malos disembarked the Monoceros, and boarded the Marsannes. Down the end of the ramp, Akhos was waiting for him, his infuriatingly smarmy face framed by red glasses.
“Welcome home, Jin.” Akhos greeted with a smile.
“Akhos.” Jin grunted.
Malos twitched, and itched. The pleasantries were grating when there was work to be done. Catch-up to play.
“I hear the Aegis awakened. Nasty shock for you? Or was it? Of course,” He turned, and scoffed, pushing his glasses up. “My script showed how everything would play from the start.”
Malos rolled his eyes in disgust. “Your ‘script’ didn’t account for a damn thing.” Akhos wasn’t half as smart as he thought he was.
“Now, Malos,” Akhos sneered. “Don’t hate the writer for the way his characters-“
“What about a bow-tie-wearing IDIOT showing up to flush everything down the drain!?” Malos bellowed, summoning up a little spark of dark ether that fizzled out just as fast. “Did you account for that too!? Huh!? Well!?”
Akhos recoiled. “Wha-“
A chuckle came from above, as Obrona floated down. “See? Malos knows it – just cause you have hindsight on your side, doesn’t mean you can go ‘I planned to do that.’”
“It’s all a matter of-“
“Akhos,” Malos growled. “Shut. Your. Mouth. I’m not in the mood to listen to your… self-gratification.” He bit out. “A man snuck aboard the ship, fought Jin to a standstill, and the Aegis got away without a scratch. If that was part of your script, please, tell me, that way, I can find someone competent.” If Akhos was going to fellate himself over his planning skills, the least he could do was take responsibility for when things went awry, instead of pretending it was part of the plan, and pissing Malos off.
Akhos snapped his mouth shut.
“Malos,” Jin turned his head, sternly. “Enough.”
“Five hundred years of planning. For nothing.” Malos hissed. “Forgive me for being a bit peeved.”
“Yes,” Akhos cleared his throat. “Tensions are running high… But not to worry. We can just as easily adjust to this… new development.”
“Right,” Jin crossed his arms. “What’s the situation?”
Akhos sighed. “Mikhail is inspecting the factory, and Patroka is out hunting. As usual. As for me, I’ve been here, watching the Aegis, as you requested.”
“We,” Obrona corrected.
Akhos rolled his eyes, and gestured. Obrona moved her arms, and the ether in the room moved, forming into a projection of the titans, and little motes of light moving between them. “They’ve finally decided to leave Gormott. Looking at the trajectory, it seems they’re on course back toward Goldmouth.”
“Goldmouth?” Jin frowned. “That salvager boy has to have realized Bana has contact with us. Why would he willingly return there?”
“No clue.” Akhos theatrically sighed. “The whims of children often seem strange to we adults.”
Malos stared at the moving dots – locking his eyes onto one; a red ember, near the Aegis’s green. “What’s that?” He demanded.
“Oh, that.” Akhos replied. “It appeared not long after the Aegis and her ‘companions’ entered Gormott’s urban area.”
Malos tilted his head, scowling. “What’d they pick up, I wonder…?”
Motion from across the ‘display’ forced Jin’s eyes toward it. A gigantic blue signature slowly drifted through the nebulous diorama of ether. “And that?”
“Ah, that will be the shipment of Core Crystals being taken back to Indol for cleansing.” Akhos smugly adjusted his glasses. If he had moustache to twirl, he would’ve done so. Just as well he didn’t have one – Malos couldn’t put up with his stupid theatrics for longer than necessary.
“I see,” Malos drawled, turning to his partner. “Shall we?”
“I can handle the shipment,” Jin answered simply. Disappointing, but, Malos respected him too much to argue. “You handle the Aegis.”
“Understood,” Akhos answered for Malos. Malos’s arms twitched with rage. Better remind him of the current state of things. “Well,” He leered at the Ether diorama, preening and twirling around, “I’m looking forward to clapping eyes on-“
“Akhos. Shut up. I’m still pissed off at you.” Malos cut him off.
Again, Akhos silenced himself. “Very well,” He dropped the act, and adjusted his glasses. “Oh… since you’re here, I feel it pertinent to share: our… contact was asking after the two of you, while you were out.”
Jin slowly stiffened, as Malos groaned.
“Great. More shit to wipe up – what’s the point of leaving you in charge if you’re not going to do the work?” Malos demanded of Akhos.
Akhos rolled his eyes. “I would have dealt with them – provided they didn’t wish to speak with one of you specifically.”
“Whatever,” Malos threw up a hand, and began to walk. “Let me go deal with this.’
“Of course, don’t let me keep you,” Akhos ‘politely’ replied, adjusting his glasses again. “By the way… what of Nia?”
Malos stopped at the threshold.
Instead, Jin answered. “She’s picked her side. Do as you see fit.”
Malos continued through the door.
------------
Malos entered the room, the woman in ice at his back, and moved over to the console. He flipped a switch, the loud click of a relay echoing in the space, as the screen fuzzed and flickered, before a figure appeared on it.
It was hard to tell, with the low quality, washed-out colours, and unstable connection, but a talking head did appear on the screen, after a moment. Every line and angle seemed to blend together, because of the atrocious image, but one could see, if they strained their eyes.
The figure was wearing a white helmet, devoid of facial features other than the cut-outs for the eyes – with a hood draped over the rest of the head, save for the horn-like ‘bulge’ on the top of the helmet. They took great pains to wear wrappings that hid every inch of skin – loose, ill-fitting robes, coupled with padded, shoulder-length gloves. The robes concealed if they were man or woman. The helmet hid their hair and face. The gloves concealed skin colour.
Even if Malos hadn’t known where the Contact hailed from, the robes would’ve made it obvious – Indol.
Humans and their lust for more – more power, more influence, more money, more everything – was as useful as it was disgusting. And Indol tended to produce those that craved more of everything to the extreme. For all that the others hated Indol, Malos, Jin, and Mikhail had a special kind of hatred for the man known as Amalthus. None within the Praetor’s inner circle could be trusted – he was just too persuasive and compelling an individual – but if one Indoline monk proved their ‘trustworthiness’ by leaking some select information (nothing that’d make it obvious it was them, and nothing that Torna would pursue without thoroughly vetting it first) some… concessions could be made.
What did it matter, anyway? Amalthus or someone else – the Praetorium would burn with the rest of humanity.
“Greetings, Malos,” They bowed their head, and when they spoke, it was muffled by the mask, and modulated by their end’s microphone. “I heard about the Aegis. My condolences. But you’re a determined fellow, so I don’t expect you’ll have any trouble getting what you want in the end.” They looked around, and cleared their throat. “You will have to forgive me for being so… insistent. But I don’t believe it could wait.”
“Oh?” Malos chuckled deeply. “It couldn’t. Well, that’s just all fine and dandy. Not.” He scowled at the screen. “I don’t think you understand how this works. We contact you, not the other way around.”
“Indeed. And on any other day, you would be right. But I don’t believe this news can wait. Amalthus knows.”
Malos’s arms dropped to the side, puzzled. “What? He knows already!? How’s that possible!?”
“Uncertain. From what I’ve heard, the salvagers had filed an incident report, but Chairman Bana doesn’t strike me as a man to be so hasty as to go straight to Indol about the matter. Gossip travels, but I doubt a mere rumour making its way to the Praetor’s ears is enough to get the man to do… anything. Not unless he knew there was more substance to it. The entire Praetorium is alight with the news. I’m not sure who spoke on it, but regardless, the results are the same… he knows the Aegis is awake.”
“Shit,” Malos hissed. He knew Amalthus was bound to find out eventually, but he would’ve preferred that ‘eventually’ to be ‘right as they started climbing the World Tree,’ far too late for anyone to stop them. But now…
Despite Malos’s opinion of the man, Amalthus wasn’t stupid. He’d figure out there could only be one reason why Malos woke Mythra. Once he did, getting to the World Tree was going to become very, very difficult.
“First the Doctor, now this!?” Malos looked around, wishing he had something to vent his anger on.
“I beg your pardon,” Malos’s contact leaned in. “But did you say… ‘the Doctor?’”
Malos stopped, slowly swivelling to face the screen. “The guy who got in the way? That Doctor?” Malos began stomping about. “The entire way through the Tornan ship, he was acting so pompous. Then, when we reach Mythra’s chamber, he tries to wake her up. Jin runs him through, and he lives. Then he picks up a sword and barely fights — just talks with his friends! And they still managed to get away! If it weren’t for him, we’d have the Aegis, and the witnesses wouldn’t be left to blab. All because of one guy with a fucking screwdriver!”
The contact chuckled. “’The first thing you notice about the Doctor of War, is that he does not carry weapons… For many, it is also the last.’ Don’t worry, Malos. It’s not a mistake you’ll make again.”
Malos stared at the screen. “You know him?”
“Of him… At one point.” They corrected. “Would you like to know more?”
Malos leaned over the screen, as his Core Crystal itched with greed. “Tell me everything.”
---------
The faint smell of sugar and the heavy weight of fondant surrounded them. The cramped interior of the fake layers was just big enough for the Doctor and Nia to sit back-to-back, with their legs extended into the larger part that made up the very bottom layer of the cake. The Doctor fiddled with the Sonic Screwdriver, casting white light across the dark space (the warble was optional on the torch setting – an option that he quickly disabled once Nia commented about it setting off her anti-insect instincts, while looking at the Doctor’s hands, muttering something about stickbugs), while Nia fidgeted with the hem of her gloves.
“Y’know,” Nia said, breaking the silence, “This is probably the strangest way I’ve ever been smuggled out of anywhere.”
“Oh, really?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow, with a pleasant smile, even though she couldn’t see him. “You’ve had to smuggle yourself out of a lot of places, then? This is pretty tame, all things considered.” He straightened his bow tie smugly. “I had to sneak myself out of a lunar colony inside a vat of pudding. Horrible. Banana-flavoured. Americans.” He scrunched his nose. “It was awful. I was cleaning it out from between my-“
“Oh, don’t,” Nia whispered to herself, bracing herself.
“-toes,” The Doctor finished, “for weeks. It ruined bananas for me. Well. I say ruined – I have a complex relationship with bananas right now. You know, on the planet Delphon, they have bananas crossbred with apples. Absolute rubbish – the worst fruit in the universe, if you ask me, and I say that as someone who has eaten pears. Though,” The Doctor glanced around, as though sharing a deep, dark secret. “They have become something of an acquired taste. Not the banapples, pears. Being human for three months does that.” He smacked his lips. “Rather concerningly, I think it may have influenced my tastebuds. This body seems to get a peculiar rush of dopamine when eating pears – I hope that doesn’t mean I like them.” He looked over his shoulder. “Am I rambling?”
“A bit.” Nia answered.
“You’re tuning me out?”
“Mostly.”
“Good. Well, not good. You should listen, never know what you might pick up.”
Nia glanced around the inside of the cake. “How close to Goldmouth do you think we are? Scratch that – do you think we’ve even set off?”
“Oh, we’re in motion, all right.” The Doctor replied. “I can feel it. I’d say…” He switched settings on the screwdriver for a moment, and pressed down the activator. Based on the difference in numbers between the last ping to the TARDIS, he did some quick maths, and switched the Sonic Screwdriver back into torch mode. “A few hours.”
“Oh, good,” Nia let out a relieved sigh. “I haven’t had anything to eat since we got to Tora’s house, and all of this cake is not helping.”
“Here,” The Doctor moved his arm around, and passed her a Tupperware container, with a plastic fork on the top.
“I- What.” Nia flatly stared at the container.
“It’s poutine.” The Doctor explained. “Chips – chunks of fried potato-“
“I know what chips are, thanks.”
“-topped with cheese, gravy, and fried chunks of chicken.” The Doctor finished.
Nia picked up the container with a frown. “Do you keep an entire pantry in there?”
“Why, do you think I needs spices? I think I have some in here…” The Doctor went diving into his pockets.
“No, I mean…” Nia huffed, shaking her head. “This is twice now, you’ve fed me.” She popped off the lid, allowing the meaty, savoury smell to drive away the overly-sweet smell seeping in from above, and the wooden smell filling the air. Her stomach growled, reminding her how hungry she was, and she took a bite.
“I always pack snacks for my friends.” The Doctor answered. “Never know when you’ll get a chance to eat.”
Nia stopped, freezing in place. “Friends?”
“Yes,” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Despite the aura of shadowy mysteriousness I exude, I am a perfectly affable person, capable of making friends.”
“No, but,” Nia shook her head. “Us? Friends?”
The Doctor shot her a puzzled look. “…I suppose? But if that’s a lead-in to make fun of me by going ‘Us, friends? As if!’ please spare me – my self-esteem is bad enough as it is.”
“No, no,” Nia denied quickly. “I was just thinking… well, that’s awfully quick, isn’t it?”
“You helped me solve a murder, and… well, I thought we had a rather fun rapport, didn’t we?”
“…we did.” Nia admitted, softly. “I… haven’t had the chance to make many friends.”
“Really?” The Doctor turned. “I know you can be a bit prickly-“
“Oh, thanks.”
“-but you’re a sweet girl,” The Doctor noted. “I don’t see why you have trouble.”
“Oh.” Nia blinked. “Thanks. No, it’s…” Nia shook her head again. “It’s just been me and Dromarch, all this time.”
“Really?” The Doctor frowned. “Not even those people in Torna?”
“…no. Not them, either.”
“But you wanted to go running back to them.” The Doctor noted curiously. “If they’re not your friends, then… why?”
“They were all I had, all right?” Nia rubbed her face, impatiently. “No one else… Even if they weren’t my friends, I could still go back to them. Not like I had anywhere else to go… I didn’t have a choice. It was Torna or nothing.”
“Oh, Nia…” The Doctor softly chuckled. “You always have a choice. You made it, standing against Malos and Jin. Besides, even if the others didn’t want you around, I wouldn’t have just let you walk off into the wilderness. Not after what you did for us. I would’ve made sure you made it to safety.”
“Well, I know that now – putting your life on the line for a total stranger…” She muttered.
“Say, Nia,” The Doctor addressed curiously. “How did you wind up with that lot anyway?”
He could feel her tense up, and momentarily he wondered if she was going to clamp down on all further questions. But, unexpectedly, she answered. He supposed that having an adventure together made people rather inclined to share.
“They rescued me.” Nia answered, and left it at that. “Sure… Malos and Jin may be murdering psychopaths… but they took a chance on me when no one else would.”
The Doctor nodded, leaning his head back, sighing. “So many people in this world would be in better places if others just… extended an arm to them.”
“Right.” Nia nodded in agreement, and let it stand there.
His brain made a connection of its own accord, and he snorted, before his mouth started moving of its own accord.
“If you change your mind, I’m the first in line.” The Doctor mumbled. “Honey, I’m still free — take a chance on me~…”
Nia recoiled, absolutely baffled. “What?”
“It’s ABBA!” The Doctor answered happily. “Sweden’s finest export. I say its finest export, that is, if we’re not taking into account flat-pack furniture. I could never get behind the idea – there’s always one screw missing. Actually, did you know, there is a scientific reason for the phenomenon of little objects vanishing into thin air, and one sock always getting lost from a pair? It goes back to the Nopon Wayfarers – see, they don’t believe in building big, noisy spaceships, so they go walking through the psychosphere, or hitchhike on the spacecraft of good Samaritans. And they like to take souvenirs from wherever they visit. They really like socks – perfectly shaped for their little arms.”
Nia giggled at that, before the dour mood returned.
“Doctor… I have a question.”
“Really? Blimey, that’s amazing! I might just so happen to have an answer.”
“You don’t like Crossette, do you?”
The Doctor’s finger let up on the Screwdriver’s activator, causing the light to flicker. For a moment, the only sound was the faint hum of the vehicle transporting them out of Gormott. “It’s not that I don’t like her, Nia,” he said carefully. “Crossette’s a good person — or, well, a good Blade. Sweet as can be, really. But…” He sighed, leaning his head back against the hollow cake. “There’s something about Blades. Something about the way they exist. It doesn’t sit right with me.”
Nia frowned, even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, you said that. And I told you that was rubbish. It’s just… the way of things.”
“That doesn’t make it right.” The Doctor tilted his head. His voice was calm, but there was an edge of sadness to it. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you get to live your life, make your choices, be someone. And they only get to exist so long as you exist. Doesn’t sound like much of a choice to me.”
“That’s just… how it is,” Nia said, though the words felt hollow even as she said them. “The way the Architect set things up. Blades and Drivers.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” The Doctor shook his head, his voice quiet but sharp. “And if they don’t want to fight? What happens then? Do they get a choice? Or are they beholden to you just to keep existing?”
Nia fell silent. The Doctor wasn’t raising his voice, wasn’t pointing fingers, but his words cut deep. She looked down at her hands, her fingers curling into fists. “You make it sound like it’s slavery.”
“Do I?” The Doctor shifted, his tone softening slightly. “Look, I’m not saying you’re a bad person for parroting what you’ve been taught. You’re not. But that doesn’t mean the system isn’t flawed.” He looked ahead. “I don’t want to be a part of it.” He reached into a pocket, pulling out Vess’s dead Core Crystal, staring at it. “All across the universe, I’ve seen it. Slavery. Trafficking. People treating people like they’re objects. But this has to be the first planet I’ve ever set foot on where biology itself reinforces the idea of an entire group of people being treated like objects.”
“Maybe,” Nia admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “But you’re still wrong about one thing.”
“Oh?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
“Most Drivers don’t think about it the way you do,” she said. “The good ones think of it as a partnership. The bad ones, sure, they treat Blades like tools. Like servants. But what you’re saying? That it’s wrong for Blades to even exist the way they do? That’s… I’ve never heard anyone say that before.”
“Then I must be a bad Driver,” The Doctor quipped, offering her a lopsided grin. “I mean, I do crash my car Bessie on a regular basis. Poor girl. Never stood a chance.”
The joke earned a small smile from Nia, but it didn’t last. “You really are an outsider,” she murmured. “You see things so differently. Makes me wonder… what’s your world like, Doctor? Would people from your world think the same way about Blades?”
The Doctor’s smile faded. For a moment, he looked almost wistful. “My world…” He trailed off, staring into the darkness. “We didn’t have Blades. But we had people. People who were forced to live or die based on the whims of others. People who were used, discarded, forgotten. And we called ourselves the wisest beings in the universe.”
Nia was quiet for a long moment, digesting his words. “Is that why you left? Your world, I mean. Is that why you came to Alrest?”
“Maybe,” the Doctor said softly. “There were… plenty of reasons. Either way, running seemed like the best option at the time.”
Nia leaned her head back, staring up at the dark ceiling of the fake cake. “Y’know, for someone who runs a lot you’re not half-bad at standing your ground when it matters.”
The Doctor chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should,” Nia said, her voice soft but firm. “Because it is.”
The Doctor turned around, surprise written on his face. He watched as Nia tried to stuff her face with food. He chuckled to himself and turned back around. His arm moved to check the oxygen cylinder that Rex had supplied, finding it still relatively full of air. The things were surprisingly long-lasting, despite being so small. There was a danger there in ultra-compressed gasses, probably.
“Doctor,” Nia cleared her throat. “Another question. If your big thing with Blades is that they’re people that don’t get treated like people… how come you’re hiding away in here with me, instead of getting to know Crossette better?”
“Because it was you or Dromarch, and tigers, as a matter of hard-learned fact, do not like me.”
“Doctor.”
“Look, does there have to be a reason? We just got done figuring out a murder mystery, maybe we needed to talk about it more after the fact.”
Nia narrowed her eyes, slowly turning around. “I have a hard time believing you don’t like her that much. When you took her hands and-“ She stopped, before her face spread into a grin. “Well, you dirty old fox, you. Someone’s got a crush, eh?”
“No, Nia.” The Doctor rolled his eyes, as his frustration began to build.
“I mean, I can see why. She’s pretty cute. Maybe we should have locked the two-“
“It’s not like that!” The Doctor snapped, silencing Nia. He took a breath, closed his eyes in defeat, and leaned back. “She… She looks like my granddaughter.”
“Wha- bu-“ Nia spluttered. “Granddaughter?”
“I’m two-thousand years old, Nia. I’ve had a few.” The Doctor coughed uncomfortably. “Still… gone now.”
“Oh…” Nia’s eyes widened in embarrassment. “Oh, shit. Doctor, I am… so sorry, I didn’t-“
“You didn’t know. It’s okay.”
“I… right.” Nia coughed. “Doctor… do you really think our world is… wrong?”
“Wrong’s a matter of perspective,” The Doctor deflected. “It’s not right, I know that much, but, ‘not right’ doesn’t mean the same thing as ‘wrong.’” He looked up. “Humankind should be walking amongst the stars right now, picking fights with neighbours, boldly exploring strange new worlds… instead, it’s all Alrest. Something has happened.”
“Oh. I was talking about the entire Blade thing.”
“Ah.” The Doctor blinked. “I don’t know. It could be as simple as it seems on the surface – Blades sent to help mankind along, and the wrong people getting the wrong ideas about things, and having their voice drown others out. Then…” He rubbed his face. “The Blades are a symptom. Not the cause, probably.”
“What? How’d you mean?”
The Doctor paused for a moment, like he was about to share deep knowledge of the universe with her. Which… well, he was. “Time’s not immutable. You know how people talk about time like it’s a lake, or a river?”
“…right?” Nia slowly drawled.
“Well, a lot of people assume that time only starts behaving in odd ways once you introduce time travel into the mix – like dropping a rock into a lake. But that’s not the case. It’s not just reactive – like an ocean, it’s always churning, rippling, even if we can’t see it. There are undertows, and waves, and ambient winds can stir it up. And sometimes, things can just be… swept away in it. Little hiccups can alter history – and people notice, but the changes are always so little that people think their memories must be bad, but their memories are fine.”
“Okay,” Nia blinked in confusion. “What does this have to do with the Blades?”
“This is too big a change.” The Doctor answered. “History’s always… self-limiting. It’s like a clock spontaneously altering one of its components to be a different colour. Or sparkly. A change is there, it happens, but within the limits of everything surrounding it. History is the same. It can change so someone else won an election to an important office, but it can’t change the history of an entire planet all at once. Hence… the Blades being a symptom. Not a cause. Well, maybe they’re the cause. I don’t know yet – but introducing alien species to Earth works out all the time…”
Nia stared at the Doctor, before shaking her head. “Sorry, you’re talking about history and time? What?”
“I’m not just an alien, Nia, I’m a time traveller.”
“Oh, get out!”
“It’s true!” The Doctor’s voice went up an octave, as he turned back around. “Little things happen all the time,” The Doctor glanced around. “But something like this – derailing the history of an entire planet – it usually happens because someone interfered.” He frowned. Could it have been the Nopon? They were wily ones – his old Masterpon, whom he’d studied under for a time regarding the Nopon’s close relationship with the psychosphere, locked him in a time loop around a particularly apocalyptic sneeze, while he was still conscious of the loop.
Their games weren’t for the faint-of-heart. But this? Entirely out of character. But Earth’s history was out-of-whack, and the Nopon were everywhere in this new world.
“Time travel… right,” Nia slowly repeated. She thinned her lips, and cleared her throat. “If… if Alrest is wrong… what will you do?”
“…I don’t know.” The Doctor admitted. “The last time I’d seen history being altered on a scale like this…” He shook his head. “It usually self-corrects. But not always. Sometimes, my people had to get involved. That’s… not really an option, this time.”
“Hmm? Why not?”
“It’s…” The Doctor awkwardly cleared his throat. “Well, they’re busy people, you know?”
“Ah.” Nia nodded slowly, shifting. She looked around. “Think we’re any closer?”
“Just eat your food and take a nap or something,” The Doctor chuckled. “I’ll let you know when we get there.”
Nia nodded, and looked back to the food the Doctor provided.
Her stomach rumbled again, audibly.
The Doctor frowned to himself. Nia was quite small for her age. Did she not get enough to eat? Did those people – the ones she said were the only ones caring for her – not give her enough?
The Doctor relaxed, and drummed his fingers on his leg. He didn’t know what was going on, or why any of it was happening, but he’d take care of the young humans he found himself among.
…maybe that was the TARDIS’s plan. Get his mind off Clara, by giving him someone else to watch over.
Clever old girl.
----------
“So… think the plan is, uh, working?” Rex cleared his throat, bouncing slightly on the bed of the cabin they were residing in. Tora and Poppi were on the floor, reading through a volume of one of the Nopon’s many, many manga. Something about a vampire that drained people through touch. Rex couldn’t see the appeal.
Tora looked up from his book, “Tora agree. Plan… not very good. What if cake not convincing? What if is so convincing, big guard with big appetite eat them?!”
Poppi looked up as well, her large, metal pigtails bouncing loosely. “Masterpon – only person with big enough appetite to eat both cakes is in room!”
“That’s right,” Albedo recalled, turning around. “You tried to sneak some during construction, remember? Besides, they’re in boxes. If anything, the only one we have to worry about eating the cakes is you.”
“Meh!” Tora beat his wings. “Tora resent accusation! Tora perfectly self-controllable! Poppi, tell!”
“That not correct,” Poppi began, leading Tora to puff up pridefully. “Poppi account for 73 percent of Masterpon’s self-control.”
Rex tried to suppress a chuckle, but Pyra’s soft laugh escaped first. “Still,” Pyra said, her expression softening, “I hope they’re okay. Getting caught now would be a disaster.”
“I’m… sure they’ll be fine,” Albedo said, her voice measured and serene, though her blue eyes didn’t leave the viewport she gazed out of, even as her leg nervously bounced. “The cakes were just so the soldiers guarding the port didn’t recognize Nia and the Doctor, right? There shouldn’t be a reason for anyone here to search them, now that we’re underway…”
Tora tilted his head. “How Albedo know that?”
The woman wrung her hands. “It’s a hopeful guess.”
“No, but you’re right, though,” Rex nodded in agreement. “Now that we’re away from the Ardainians, they’ll probably be fine. Really, we probably could go down there and let ‘em out now…”
“We don’t want to be arrested for helping stowaways,” Pyra pointed out kindly and rightly.
“I know, I know.” Rex rubbed the back of his head, before sighing. His head turned to the chef dragged along into their mess. “So, what’ll you do when you get to Argentum?”
“I…” Albedo touched her lip. “I don’t know.”
“Isn’t there anywhere you can go?” Pyra inquired. “A family member, or a friend you can hide with, until everything blows over?”
For a moment, Albedo said nothing, her gaze falling to the floor. The silence stretched long enough to make everyone uncomfortable.
Then, in a quiet voice, she replied, “I don’t have a family. Not anymore.”
The room went deathly silent. Even Tora stopped fidgeting, looking up at her with wide eyes.
“I had a father,” Albedo said, her tone distant, as though recalling a story she’d heard rather than lived. “Let’s… not open up that can of worms. As for my siblings…” She hesitated, her expression flickering with an emotion none of them could place. “I had two. They were everything to me once. But they’re gone now. For all intents and purposes, they’re… gone to me.”
Pyra reached out, her voice gentle. “Oh… I see.”
“Things sort of… happened. And I ended up on Gormott, penniless, and completely alone. I was mostly just… wandering. Then… then Vess found me, and she… she…” Albedo’s lips quivered as her eyes puffed up and her face went red. She turned away, quickly, and took a breath.
“I’m… so sorry.” Pyra reached out.
“It’s not your fault,” Albedo weakly protested, sitting down.
“Vess?” Rex repeated, tilting his head. “That was the lady who owned that house in Gormott?”
Albedo made a weak so-so motion with her hand. “She was a Blade, to a Driver named Mabon. Unfailingly loyal and so, so kind. When I arrived in Gormott, Mabon’s children had just moved out of the house. Vess found me living out in the wilderness. She put me up in the spare room.” She gulped. “I… I only started learning how to bake pastries and things to start paying them back for that kindness. I wouldn’t be where I am today, if it weren’t for them. And now…”
“Aw…” Tora slumped. “Tora have no idea.”
“It was a long time ago. But the fact remains... I don’t really have anywhere to go. All of my still-living friends are back in Gormott. And… It’s for the best if we don’t hang around there for too long, right?” She took a shaky, anxiety-filled breath. “Everything I had… gone.”
“…I know the feeling.” Pyra let out a despondent hum, golden eyes turning away.
Albedo slowly nodded, leaning on her hand.
“Then… why don’t you come with us?” Rex suggested to clear the heavy air. “Not just to Argentum – but to the World Tree?”
The woman looked floored, wide-eyed, at Rex. “The World Tree?”
The young salvager nodded. “Pyra wants to go to Elysium, and I’m helping her. The Doctor wants to go to Elysium, too. You could come with us.”
“Elysium…” Albedo repeated, before her brow furrowed. “That’s a dangerous mission. Not just because the voyage itself would be hazardous, but you’ll make enemies along the way.”
Rex cocked his head to the side. “Enemies?”
“You… do realize it’s not exactly going to be a light jaunt up to the World Tree, right?” Albedo blinked. “That whole area is patrolled by Indol.”
“Yes…” Azurda hummed, popping out of Rex’s helmet. “Yet another one of many reforms introduced to prevent another thing like the Aegis War from happening.” He looked over at Rex. “Arguably, the entire conflict began as a result of someone climbing the World Tree. Meddling in things humankind had no place in interfering with.”
“Oh… right.” Rex slowly nodded.
“It’ll be fine,” Pyra turned her head away somewhat. “It’s been five-hundred years, but… Indol is good people. The Aegis’s name should still carry a lot of weight.”
“The Aegis?” Albedo repeated, looking at Pyra directly. “You’re the Aegis?”
Pyra nodded. “The one and the same.”
“…huh,” Albedo scratched her jaw. “That explains the colour of your crystal…”
Rex stood, clapping his hands together. “All right! Once we get to Argentum, we’ll figure out the next steps from there.”
“Tora agree!” Tora declared, puffing up his chest. “Teamwork will make dream work!”
“Poppi think calling it ‘dream’ is overselling it.” Poppi blinked. “Wild idea is more accurate.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
“Poppi, overclocked back-sass chip is embarrassing Masterpon!”
Rex burst out into chuckles. “It is a wild idea,” Rex admitted after a second. “But there’s something to it, you know? If it’s up there – if Elysium really is at the top of the World Tree… a land of plenty, so people don’t have to fight wars… that’s worth it, isn’t it?”
“Ratio of return-to-investment very high,” Poppi calculated with a nod.
“Well…” Albedo stroked her jaw. “When you put it like that… Well, why not?” She asked with a rhetorical smile. “Although… I should warn you – it’s been some time since I’ve even seen a sword, let alone pick one up.”
“Oh, great!” Rex perked up. “We can do training then! Hey – I could even show you some of the Arts I picked up from Gramps. Say, for a sword, do you think you’ll want something big and heavy, or light and thin.”
“Uh…”
Azurda chuckled as Rex’s enthusiasm, present as ever.
------------
“Oeuf, finally,” Nia stretched as the fake cakes were left behind. “I’ve got a charley horse like a mother.”
Crossette looked over at Nia with a wonder-filled gasp. “You own a horse!? That’s so cool! What’s it like!? Is it fun!?”
“It’s… a figure of speech,” Nia impatiently waved the young Blade away, rubbing her temple. “Why’re you saying it like that, anyhow? It’s ‘charley horse’ - it sounds weird when you just say the last part.”
The Doctor rapidly stretched out and exercised himself. “Oh, that’s right! You don’t have horses here! Ah. A little bit disappointing. Horses are cool!” He turned to Crossette with a smile. “On Gallifrey, we have horses with eight legs! Ferocious creatures, absolutely horrific… magnificent hair.” He spun away.
“Smuggling ourselves out of the country in a cake… how stupid,” Nia shook her head. “And the less said about the company,” She glanced pointedly at the Doctor. “The better.”
Dromarch chuckled, looking toward Crossette. “You, on the other hand, young one, were wonderful company.”
“Oh, thanks.” Crossette smiled back at the large, white, tiger Blade. “You were very nice!” She looked him over again, hesitantly reaching out. “Can… I pet your fur again?”
Nia whipped around, looking at Dromarch with a raised brow.
“Ah,” Dromarch cleared his throat. “Perhaps later, when we’re not in such a public environment. I do have an image to keep.”
“Oh, right! No problem!” Crossette nodded, before skating off after the Doctor.
Nia shot Dromarch a look. “Softie.”
“She’s a young Blade,” Dromarch, guilt-free, licked his paw. “It does good for one’s self-esteem to make friends.”
“Right,” Nia sceptically nodded. She looked him over again, before spinning around. “If she drooled on you, using you as a pillow, I’m not giving you a bath.”
Dromarch returned it with a droll look. “I am beside myself with grief.”
“Wow…” Tora breathed in wonder as he waddled past. “This Argentum Trade Guild? Seat of legendary Traderpon Bana?” Tora sniffed the air. “Smells icky.”
Poppi cocked her head. “Poppi’s olfactory sensors not working… or masterpon only smell because he so low to the ground.”
“All right!” Rex spoke up, spinning around as he looked at the Trade Guild. He paused, taking a breath. “’S funny… it’s only been a day, but it feels worlds away…” He shook his head. “Right, we’ll need to get supplies. And find someone actually willing to take us out to the World Tree.”
“That won’t be cheap,” Albedo nervously commented. “Just taking us out there is going to be expensive. And what if we can’t climb the tree, because of a piece of equipment we need but don’t have? It’s going to be a lot more to pay them to wait around for us, especially considering we don’t know how long it’s going to even take us.”
“What?” The Doctor whipped around, gesturing widely. “What’s all that rubbish about hiring a ship? We’ve got one!”
Pyra frowned. “We do?”
Azurda chuckled knowingly. “Recall the big piece of information about our friend…”
“We do!” The Doctor nodded, snapping his fingers and pointing at the tiny Titan. “He knows it!” At their puzzled looks, he produced the TARDIS key. “I’m an alien, remember? Spaceship!”
Rex’s jaw fell open. “Wha- Spaceship!? Here!?”
Albedo turned to Nia, blinking. “An… alien?”
“What – you can’t tell by the chin?”
The Doctor began to walk, back through the trade centre, to the other side of the guild, where Gramps had moored the last time Rex visited Argentum.
“Hold on!” Rex jogged to keep pace with the Doctor. “I remember running into you here – I didn’t see any spaceship!”
“You just weren’t looking!” The Doctor’s head swivelled about, before he caught the bright of the blue paint – with an ambient glow that made it appear to have been made out of very smooth concrete or plasticine – the illuminate blue windows and police box signage, and the backlit sign. “And there she is!” He dashed over. He was half-worried that someone would’ve carted her off, thinking she was some form of shipping crate. For once, his luck held up.
“What, this?” Nia pointed at the TARDIS in disbelief.
Tora anxiously beat his wings. “Doc-Doc’s box doesn’t look very roomy…”
“Don’t draw any conclusions just yet, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” The Doctor slid the key into the lock.
“It’s a box!” Nia pointed out. “It’s made of wood!” She knocked on it, with a ‘look, see?’ look on her face to make her point.
“It’s a very earthy material! Carbon-neutral! Zero emissions!” The Doctor pointed. “It’s the way of the future, trust me.” The lock clicked, and the Time Lord effortlessly pushed the door open. He gestured into the threshold, shooting a look at Nia. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Go on!” The Doctor gestured with his head.
Rolling her eyes, Nia sighed and stepped inside, fully expecting some poky little box of a ship, where two people sitting inside would be an uncomfortably tight squeeze. And then-
The world opened up.
Her feet clunked against metallic flooring as her gaze shot upward, and her jaw fell open taking in the massive console room bathed in cold, blue light. A three rotating rings, etched in the circular Gallifreyan language, spun around the portion where the central column jointed to the ceiling. Staircases on the main platform led to upper walkways, and the lower levels, and at the centre stood the hexagonal control console itself — neatly-arranged switches, buttons, and levers arranged around a glass column in which glowing blue tubes pulsed with energy.
Nia fell back through the door. “Ohhh… no. No way… No, no, no. This, this is not-“ She sprinted around to the back of the TARDIS, and – although it was sitting with a crate to its back – there was no possible way the space she had seen could line up. Nia’s ears twitched, as she ran back around to the doors, and back inside. “This isn’t possible!" She spun on her heel to face the others, who were still outside. "Oi, get in here, you lot! You gotta see this!"
“Eh?” Rex followed next. “I don’t get it. What’s-“ His head passed through the threshold, and he stopped. "Whoa!" His eyes went wide, jaw slack. "It’s huge!”
“I say,” Azurda, fifteen-hundred-years-old, looked just as wonder-filled as the rest of them. “What a beautiful-looking machine…”
Pyra, Tora, and Poppi followed next.
“Wow!” Tora gasped.
“It dimensionally transcendental!” Poppi noted. “Could be size of titanship, and still fit inside little box!”
Pyra said nothing, as her arm slowly extended to touch the metal. Her breath hitched as she felt the pulsating, heartbeat-like warmth of the metal under her hand. “She’s alive…”
“This is…” Albedo’s mouth twitched ineffectually. “Phenom-“
“This is so cool!” Crossette bounced around like the ball she held as a weapon. “Look at these chairs!” She flopped down in one to make her point. “It’s all so… sleek! Like a new Toyota!”
“Well…” Dromarch rumbled. “If I had any doubts before…”
The Doctor smiled, as he shut the doors. They clicked as they sealed, and he took a step deeper inside.
The speaker grill on the console crackled, bursting to life and belting out a sting of music that pulled everyone’s focus onto the console.
The Doctor paled as the lights around the console room began to pulse and flicker in time with the beat, before he made his way to the console. “Don’t get strung out! By the way I look! Don’t judge a book by its cover! I’m not much of a man by the light of day, but by night I’m one hell of a lover.”
“That’s enough of that.” The Doctor quickly decided, fumbling for the off-switch for the speaker.
The music died, and the lights returned to normal.
“Aww…” Crossette slumped. “I kind of dug it!”
“What?” Nia snorted, crossing her arms. “D’you have that wired up to play every time you show a girl your cool toys?”
“Yes, no, sorry,” The Doctor scratched his head and pointed. “She’s… spirited.” The engines creaked and phased in such a manner that might be construed as laughter. He leaned closer to the console, and whispered, “You are embarrassing me.”
Nia snickered, noticing the Doctor.
“Now!” The Doctor clapped his hands, and twirled around. “The World Tree! Great, big old tree.
Rex nodded, before a piercing yawn cut through him.
“Eh? What’s that!?” The Doctor’s head popped up. “Don’t tell me you’re sleepy!”
“Well…” Rex sheepishly shrugged.
“Oh, that’s no good! Nia-“ He turned to her, taking note of the dark circles and bags under her eyes. He clamped his mouth shut.
“What?” Nia furrowed her brow. “What!?”
The Doctor turned. She hadn’t got much sleep, in that fake cake, what with having to sit up the entire time. Rex probably hadn’t gotten any sleep either, to say nothing of the others. “Right, change of plans!” The Doctor declared. “The World Tree’s not going anywhere, it can wait a little bit while we rest up!”
“Rest up?” Nia repeated. “Where? It’s all metal! I’m not sleeping on the floor…”
“Oi, you don’t think this is all I’ve got, do you?” The Doctor gesticulated, jumping down the steps, and lingering near a door leading into a hallway that went deeper into the TARDIS. “Come on!”
They all shared a look, and shrugged, following after the Doctor.
"Right then, everyone, stick together!" The Doctor hollered back at them once they caught up, arms spread wide as he led the group down the winding corridors. "I know it’s all very exciting, but don’t wander off! Beware of leopards! But don’t worry, I mostly remember where everything is."
"Mostly?" Nia raised an eyebrow.
“Leopards?” Pyra repeated, concerned.
"She moves around sometimes," the Doctor chose to answer Nia’s question, glancing at her pointedly, “What, you’ve never had a look you didn’t like? Never felt like it was time for a change.”
The hallways stretched on, impossibly vast, twisting at odd angles with doors lining either side—some ordinary, some pulsing with strange light, others made of materials that stuck out like a sore thumb against the other walls, being made of wood, or gold, or paper, in one peculiar case.
“Oh!” The Doctor noticed one door, and pushed it open, revealing a towering, multi-level library with terraced gardens, filled with endless bookshelves stretching towards a ceiling that seemed to be made of glass, through which could be seen the night sky. Floating orbs of light drifted lazily through the air, casting warm light across ancient tomes, datapads, and even a few scrolls that shimmered with energy. A grand fireplace crackled in one corner, next to a collection of oversized armchairs.
Across from the reading nook, through a doorway cordoning off another section of the room, were equally massive shelves filled by DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, VHS tapes, punch-cards, and any other format data could be stored on.
Nia’s ears perked up. "Wow, you’re definitely not allergic to reading, are you?" She immediately strode over to a shelf, plucking out a book and flipping through its pages.
“So many books…” Pyra remarked.
"Books, picture books, comics, manga – and the theatre’s right through that door there!” The Doctor pointed with a reflective smile. “That’s a good floor plan, I’ll have to save that.” He smugly adjusted his tie. “I’ve got more in here than the Library of Congress. Actually, if we want to be accurate, I’ve got the whole Library of Congress in here, too.”
"Meh-meh?" Tora spun around. "Doc-Doc said manga!? Alien manga!?”
The Doctor bent over with a smile. “That I did! Here’s a recommendation – if you see Bleach, stay away. Even I haven’t read to the end on that one. Akira is good.”
“Tora has to see!” The Nopon turned back, looking around. A neon sign lit up, guiding his way, and he went off in a rush.
Poppi tilted her head. "If Masterpon wants to stay, Poppi will stay too." She turned to the Doctor. “Poppi make sure Masterpon doesn’t crease pages.”
The Doctor smirked. "Thank you.” He offered her a joking salute in response. “If the two of you get tired, just start wandering – the TARDIS will guide your way to a room.”
With Poppi and Tora having picked their places, the others stepped out, and continued on the impromptu tour.
---------
A few twists and turns later, they arrived at a sprawling chamber filled with racks of clothing, display cases of elaborate armour, and mannequins dressed in outfits spanning countless eras. A spiral staircase led to an upper level, where yet more clothing lined the walls.
Rex gawked. "This is like a tailor’s dream!" He picked up a long coat, holding it up against himself. "Ooh… I like this…”
“You’re still a bit short for that.” Nia pointed out.
“I’ll grow!” Rex defended himself, sharply.
Pyra chuckled. "I think you’d look good in it, Rex."
Crossette was already darting between outfits, excitedly pulling garments from hangers. "Can I try some of these on? I love dress-up!"
The Doctor waved a hand. "Go wild! Just—uh—avoid the ones that glow on their own. Those tend to be sentient."
“Oooh, come on, come on, come on!” Crossette bounced, tugging Pyra by the wrist. “It’ll be fun!”
Pyra looked vaguely concerned, but acquiesced, allowing Crossette to lead her around.
Crossette and Pyra stayed behind to explore the wardrobe, while the rest carried on.
---------
"And here’s the swimming pool!"
A Olympic-sized, crystalline-blue pool stretched out before them, complete with tiling, and a ladder going right into the pool from the door. Gardens rimmed the edges of the pool, and the ceiling shimmered with a false sky, reflecting the time of day outside the TARDIS.
Dromarch let out an approving rumble. "Most refreshing. A good place to unwind, it would seem."
Azurda fluttered over the water. "Hmm. It does seem a rather tranquil place… It has been far too long since I enjoyed a good lazing about.”
"Lazing about?” Rex challenged. “I did all the salvaging!”
“What’s that, my boy?” Azurda sunk into the water. “I’m afraid I can’t hear you over the sound of all this tranquility…”
“If they want to waste their time, that’s their prerogative. Come on, still more to see!" the Doctor called as the rest moved on.
----------
A few more corridors later, Albedo perked up as they passed a door that smelled faintly of freshly baked bread.
The Doctor noticed and grinned. "Ah, the kitchen! Proper galley, top-of-the-line appliances, self-replenishing pantry — though sometimes it stocks things before I realize I want them. Bit eerie, really."
Albedo stepped inside and let out a soft hum of approval. Stainless steel countertops stretched along the walls, with an island in the centre perfect for prep work. It was like a kitchen in a restaurant – like a proper, five-star, Michelin-grade restaurant.
A large oven stood next to an old-fashioned wood-burning stove, while shelves were stocked with exotic ingredients from across time and space. The scent of something warm and sweet lingered in the air, as if the room had been expecting her.
She ran a hand over the counter and smirked. "Well, this is the most inviting place I’ve seen so far." She glanced back at the Doctor. "If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay here a while. I could use something sweet right now."
The Doctor spread his arms. "By all means! Just keep an eye out for the auto-kettle—sometimes it decides you need tea and won’t take no for an answer."
With Albedo settling in, only Nia, Rex, and the Doctor remained.
------------
“This way past the Endless Stairs - don’t ask where they go, I don’t know - through the Jellybean Rainforest, past the Upside-Down Lounge, mind the Door to Oblivion - no touching, Oblivion is very testy - down the hall of Sentient Beanbags, and…" The Doctor walked with his hands clasped together, rapidly rattling off rooms.
He suddenly stopped, rapping his knuckles on a plain-looking door. "Here we are! Rex, your room."
Rex blinked. "Wait, what? That was — what about the jellybean thing?"
"Oh, we passed it. You’d have loved it, but alas, we march on!" The Doctor spun toward Nia and led her a few more steps down the hall, before stopping at another door. "And this, would be…” He pushed the door open, revealing a blank room. The bed sat on an upper level on plush carpet, and the door on the far side of the room led into a large bathroom, complete with a tub big enough to technically qualify as a pool in its own right.
Nia placed a hand on her hip. "Y’know, after all that nonsense, I half-expected you to stick me in a room full of singing wallpaper or something."
The Doctor gasped. "Ohhh, I do have one of those! Would you prefer-?"
"No."
"Suit yourself!" He clapped his hands. "If you need anything - more pillows, fewer pillows, a balcony, a waterfall, a door that only opens if you say ‘open sesame’ in a dramatic voice - ask the TARDIS, and she’ll sort it out. Rest up, recharge, and in the morning - or whenever it feels like morning, hard to tell in a time machine – we’ll be on the way to the World Tree!”
“No way, this can’t-” Nia turned her back, to find the door shut. She slowly turned back around, and crossed her arms. “…the room’s looking a bit bare,” She noted, muttering to herself, walking past the desk. “It could use a little something. Maybe a-“
A clattering sound came from behind, and she whipped around, to see an Ardainian Bear Carving on the desk, facing the door.
Ni blinked. “Okay…” She turned back to look at the bed.
It looked awfully plush…
What the hell, she could use a bit of a nap.
-------------
While the others chose to shack up in their respective rooms, the Doctor returned to the Console Room, getting ahead on those maintenance tasks that seemed to pile up in his spare time. Sparks flew across the bottom level of the Console Room as he tended to the innards of one of the many panels, before a ding – like an egg timer – echoed from above.
“Ah!” The Doctor jumped up, bounding up the steps to the main control unit, his jacket forgotten. “That’s a good sound – I like that sound – you’ve found something, then?” He pulled around one of the screens, frowning at the readouts. “Oh… that’s not good. That’s very so not good at all,” The Doctor leaned forward, examining the scans more intently.
On the screen was a visualisation of the planet, surrounded by something like a golden bubble. But, there was a portion where the bubble seemed to be pulled toward the planet surface – giving it the look of a massively-deformed torus, where the hole didn’t quite go all the way through.
An enormous energy field, surrounding the entire Earth.
“There’s our time bubble…” He murmured, leaning on the console and rubbing his face. “But what’s causing it?” He wondered, straightening up.
The whimsy vanished from his posture, as he deftly manipulated switches, buttons, and knobs on the console, punching the keys of the square keyboard below the monitor.
As the Doctor tried to pin down a cause for the time bubble, the speaker in the console crackled to life again.
“The most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard…”
“Maria!” The Doctor called back reflexively. “Maria, Maria, Maria…” The Doctor hummed along as he regarded the screen.
“Maria! I’ve just met a girl named Maria!”
“Are you singing with your box?”
The Doctor nearly jumped out of his skin, and he spun around, spotting Nia standing right there, with an amused smile on her face.
“Ah, Nia!” The Doctor pleasantly greeted. “You’re still up!”
“No… you woke me up.” The young woman approached. “I would’ve gone back to sleep, but it sounded like you were dying, so I had to come check it out.”
“I- what? No! Well- yes, but- look, there was a reason!” He floundered, gesturing vaguely at the scanner. But in his flustered state, he completely lost his train of thought. “West Side Story; fantastic picture.”
Nia giggled. “I’d ask for an encore, but I think the moment’s passed.”
The Doctor awkwardly shifted. “Right… how much did you see?”
“Just from where you took it from the top.”
“Oh, I should’ve known!” The Doctor raised his voice and spun around. “She never puts on music unless it’s a chance to embarrass me!” The Doctor groaned, taking off his glasses, and pointing at Nia. “You tell anyone about this, and I will deny it! I mean it, this never happened!”
“Oh, my lips are sealed.” Nia crossed her heart, before bounding up to the console. “So, is this what you do? Find a bunch of people, invite them into your cool spaceship, then just let them… fuck off and do whatever while you stay in here, holding your own little private dance parties?”
“No!” The Doctor vehemently denied instantly. “…well,” He rubbed his face, then leaned on the console. “I don’t let them… um… ‘eff-off,’ that’s terribly impolite. But as for the music… the acoustics in here are excellent,” The Time Lord gestured, before spinning around. “Look, check out my playlist-“ He pulled around the monitor, gesturing immediately at one song out of the list. “Fire Woman – yes, you look like you’d enjoy rock and roll… although, thinking about it, thematically, that song is more appropriate for Pyra, isn’t it?”
Nia frowned curiously, peering closer at the monitor.
“Your Reality – that’s…” The Doctor rubbed the back of his head. “Probably not one you’ll want to listen to until you play the game first. Oh! Johnny Cash!” He gestured with a grin. “You know, you would think I’m not the kind of person to enjoy country music, but when it comes from an honest place, it’s always good.”
“All of that’s… music?” Nia repeated in disbelief. “I mean, I’ve seen music boxes, but this is ridiculous…”
The Doctor burst out into laughter. “All right, that was a good one!” He continued scrolling through the list. “Y’see, it’s all stored as a set of data values. Those values tell a speaker grill to vibrate in certain ways at certain frequencies, and you get music. Bee Gees, Earth Wind and Fire, Kate Bush – this must be the ‘disco’ section.” He stopped, straightening up slightly. “’Brilliant Wings?’ I don’t remember saving this one…”
The Doctor’s brow furrowed as a flash of memory danced across his eyes. He was… standing next to Clara? She had wings growing out of her head? And… he was holding a tenor saxophone for some reason.
…he hadn’t gotten drunk and serenaded the wrong woman, then forgot about it again, had he?
Well… better that then getting so drunk he’d woken up inside a garbage compactor. Again.
No, hold on, that wasn’t Clara. Yet, something about her was… familiar-
“Oh, that’s an unfortunate name.” Nia commented.
The Doctor, distracted again, took note of where she was pointing, before brightening right up. “That’s Dick Dale! The granddaddy of surf-rock!” He rapidly snapped his fingers, and pointed at her. “I’ve got an idea! You’re not tired enough to sleep, right? Come on!”
Nia frowned as she pursued. “Where’re you going!?”
“To the wardrobe! Hope Pyra and Crossette are out of there… and, on the way back, the Conservatory!”
----------------
Poppi adjusted grip on Masterpon, his little snores all muffly against her shoulder. Masterpon had fallen asleep right on top of manga pages in big library, so Poppi had to carry him to proper bed like good artificial Blade.
Should be easy-peasy, yes? Doc-Doc say “Get lost, and TARDIS guide friends where they need to go!” All other friends find rooms by now, no problem, certainly. But for some reason, no matter how many turns Poppi take, bedroom always stay hidden like sneaky Igna.
Poppi pouted, optics flickering as she scan hallway again. “TARDIS behaving fishy-fishy,” she muttered. “Guidance system not working! Course correction… meh, not working either.”
Hallway all twisty-turny, like it have mind of own. Even with Poppi’s fancy tracking, she cannot go back. There is no back – turn around, no corridor leading back, just solid wall. Can only go forward.
Finally, after much struggle, Poppi find door! Opening door, looking inside, Poppi see bed with optics, and database say: “yes-yes, bedroom!”
“Hmph! About time.” With great care, Poppi put Masterpon onto soft bed. Tora make little happy noise, snuggling deeper into blankets. So peaceful! So adorable! Poppi feel warmth in core seeing Masterpon all comfy-cozy.
Then Poppi turn to leave—
And feel something.
Not noise. Not boom-boom or shake-shake, but strange presence pressing into Poppi’s systems, like something poking at circuits with invisible paw.
Poppi freeze in doorway, optics flickering. Air feel heavy, like big pile of rocks sitting on chest. Lights in hallway go all dimmy-dim, making shadows stretch like spooky monster.
Poppi should stay with Masterpon. Should ignore strange-feeling thing.
But something deep inside Poppi — something not from training data - say, “Go look!”
So Poppi step into hall.
TARDIS groan, walls kinda breathing in-out, like big sleepy creature. Metal creaks and groans like Masterpon with sick stomach. Hallway suddenly way too long. Should not be this long! Poppi’s steps go slower, slower…
Then - poof! - lights go out.
Poppi not scared. Nope! Optic lights activate. Poppi can see just fine!
But then - bam! - something hit her, but not normal hit, not punchy-punch or pushy-push.
No, no. It grab Poppi inside.
Then, something actually grab Poppi. Panel on wall fall off, and glowing wire – fibre-optical thing – wraps around Poppi’s ankle, and drags her down, before piercing serial port in back of neck.
Servos lock. Limbs freeze. Poppi’s own systems say, “Nope!” and betray her, preventing reset.
“Ma-malfunction d-d-detected—” Poppi’s voice go all crackly. Warnings flood HUD, data all scramble-scramble, too fast to read.
Poppi feel something – alien spacecraft of unknown make, could rip Poppi apart now.
Then - presence all around her. Wrapping around her like big spooky blanket.
TARDIS not just guiding Poppi anymore. TARDIS is touching Poppi.
Going inside circuits. Inside core.
Poppi QT, best artificial Blade, is being - being – examined.
Vision turn to fuzz-fuzz. Thoughts go all white-noisy.
And then—
“Hello. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Dark.
Quiet.
-------------
Rex stirred awake in his bed, ears twitching at the distant but unmistakable sound of — was that music? Not just any music, but something loud, fast, and absolutely out of place in late night or… early morning.
Blinking sleep from his eyes, he sat up, letting out a groggy sigh, and the lights switched on, on their own.
“Mmm…” Azurda groggily hummed. “What’s that?”
The answer eluded him, but curiosity outweighed his lingering drowsiness. He stepped out of his room, and his head turned, witnessing Pyra emerge from another door, wearing a strange gown with a puffy collar.
Pyra yawned. “Rex? You’re hearing that too?”
“Yeah,” Rex scratched his head. “What is it, though?”
Pyra looked down the hallway. “…well, I suppose we should go find out, shouldn’t we?”
The music grew louder as they made their way through the winding corridors — an intense, wailing guitar sound, punctuated by fast-paced drumming. It felt like floor beneath them was rumbling with the rhythm.
And then they stepped into the console room.
Rex stopped in his tracks. "What in the Architect's name"
The Doctor, in what could only be described as a ‘beach holiday’ version of what he had been wearing — his dress shirt swapped for one with a muted floral pattern, bow tie swapped for a black one with green flowers on it, his blazer was replaced by one with an inner lining printed with palm leaves, and his trousers had gone tan. A pair of sunglasses were perched on his nose, and he was sitting on a beach chair, absolutely shredding an odd instrument that was hooked up by a wire into the console. His fingers danced across the fretboard with unnatural speed, every motion producing a tone from the invisible speakers around the console.
Across from him, Nia was twirling about in a yellow sundress, a thick T-shirt with a faint pinkish-blue stain on the sternum worn underneath. Her usual catlike poise was replaced with carefree, reckless abandon as she hopped onto one of the railings, arms waving, feet stomping along to the beat. "Aww, yeah! Now this is what I'm talkin’ about!"
The TARDIS itself seemed to approve — lights pulsing in time with the music, the console sparking now and then, either out of protest or participation.
Rex gawked. “Doctor? Nia? What are you-"
The Doctor grinned mid-riff, eyes gleaming behind his sunglasses. “Rex! Hello! So glad of you to join us! Welcome, to the Doctor’s Beach Party Hour!"
"Beach party?" Pyra repeated, tilting her head.
"That’s right!" Nia chimed in, bouncing down from the railing.
“Nia had trouble going to sleep, so I thought – what’s more tiring than a good day at the beach?” The Time Lord rhetorically suggested. “Well, Nia didn’t seem like she wanted to get in the water, so I figured – why not have a beach party without the beach?” The Doctor high-energy riff, that seemed to be from a different song. "Step one: breaking out the guitar for a little bit of Dick Dale. Nothing like a little Misirlou to pass the time.” He looked over the instrument again. “Funny thing – but I’m fairly certain I’m not supposed to be using this guitar yet! The spacing’s off – made for different fingers. ‘S all still in my future… probably. It’s hard to remember what happened before you were born, but I’m fairly certain this guitar wasn’t part of it-“
Nia coughed, cutting the Doctor off. “That’s enough of that.”
Pyra just giggled. "Well… I suppose even you guys deserved to take a rest somehow."
“And Pyra’s rocking the kimono!” The Doctor hopped to his feet, pointing at them with a playful smirk. "Now don’t diss the method. You’re on my ship, which means you have to follow the rules, no take-backs. And rule one is tucker yourself out by acting a hooligan.”
Nia nodded from the upper level. “Or let him do it for you by just watchin’ him.”
Rex furrowed his brow in her direction. “Why’re you wearing a t-shirt under a sun dress anyhow?”
“…’s cold in here.”
“Yeah, but-“
“MEH MEH!” Tora hollered from down the corridor. “Poppi!?”
The Doctor shot to his feet, throwing his guitar over his shoulders, and took off into the corridor, following the anguished scream.
The other three glanced at each other, before taking off after the Doctor.
-------------
They found Tora in a section of the corridor, worriedly standing over Poppi. “Poppi! Please wake up for Masterpon!”
“I’m here, don’t anybody move!” The Doctor commanded, jumping into the heart of the gathering, in front of Crossette, Dromarch, and Albedo. “Poppi!?” He looked the artificial Blade over rapidly. “What happened, what’s wrong?”
“Tora not know!” Tora anxiously beat his wings. “Poppi not supposed to shut down like this – ether furnace self-sustaining!”
The Time Lord produced his Sonic Screwdriver, scanning the artificial Blade over.
“I-Is she going to be okay?” Crossette nervously probed first, even as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.
“What happened to her?” Rex asked, dropping to one knee.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” the Doctor muttered. Poppi didn’t appear to have suffered any damage – it was like she just… shut off.
Tora wasn’t listening. He was too busy clutching Poppi’s hands, wings trembling. “Doc-Doc, please! Fix her! Poppi is Tora’s masterpiece! Tora’s best friend! Cannot lose her!”
“You’re not going to lose her,” The Time Lord declared, checking the read-outs with a frown. “Everything seems normal… but…” The Doctor frowned as his arms suddenly moved, going to grasp on Poppi’s clothing. “Oh, dear. Sorry, about this, but I need to get a look-“ He pushed the fabrics aside, revealing the smooth, metal panel that made up her belly. The Doctor removed it, and peered inside, at an ovoid hunk of metal, wired into damn near everything else. “-at that…”
“Meh?” Tora leaned over, concerned. “What that!?”
“I’m not sure.” The Doctor admitted, running his screwdriver along the wiring. “But… look at it. It’s wired up into every one of her critical systems.”
“Tora not remember installing device! Is why Poppi collapsed!?”
“I don’t know.” The Doctor shot a glance at one of the walls of the TARDIS. Then, he looked back down at the odd component. Turning it around, he frowned deeper. Only two symbols were imprinted upon the metal: ΘΣ. He sighed. “Tora, I’m very sorry, but it looks like this is my fault.”
“Meh!?”
“How can you be certain?” Dromarch rumbled curiously.
“It’s…” The Doctor struggled, gesturing around. “The TARDIS. She’s a bit… feisty, sometimes, or she just does things without ever explaining herself, although, I can fix this.”
“Going to repair Poppi and remove strange egg-thing?”
“And,” The Doctor wrenched it out easily with his hand, holding it up. “All connected up easily enough. Easy to remove, too. All right,” He pointed the Screwdriver at her. “Come on, Poppi.”
No movement, motion, or life came from the Artificial Blade.
“Meh!?” Tora anxiously hollered. “Doc-Doc! Poppi not-“
“I hate to interrupt,” Albedo raised her hand. “But… is it a concerning thing if that module is blinking?”
“Blink-?” The Doctor looked at it, and took in a horrified gasp. The TARDIS wouldn’t stuff a bomb into anyone, but still. “Okay, new plan! It didn’t start doing this until we took it out, so…” The Doctor quickly hooked everything back up, and the blinking stopped. “Oh good. Crisis averted.”
Poppi abruptly sat up, her eyes wide.
“Ah!” The group yelped, jumping back.
Poppi blinked, slowly looking around, servos whirring and whining as her head moved.
“Um…” Tora nervously addressed. “Poppi?”
Her head snapped in his direction. “Hello Masterpon. Why Poppi on floor?” She looked down, blinking. “Why Poppi’s access panel open?” She blinked again, apparently realizing something. “Why Poppi’s internal chronometer out of synch with Poppi’s processor!?”
“Um…” The Doctor awkwardly cleared his throat. “It looks like the TARDIS pranked you.”
“Prank!?” Tora raised his voice indignantly.
“Yes, yes, yes, she does it to everyone – she’s like a frat girl-“
“I…” Albedo slowly shook her head. “Don’t think that’s how that works.”
“-constantly hazing the new arrivals. Her favourite thing to do is prank people with a hologram leopard.” The Doctor clapped, rubbed his hands together, and chuckled nervously. “It’s fine, she just has a bit of a mean sense of humour. And… well, she takes special issue with the synthetic newbies.” The ‘robot laryngitis’ she infected K-9 with was one of the more tame things she did to one of his robotic buddies. K-9 got off lucky. Poor Kamelion, on the other hand…
“…right. The alien spaceship has a jealous streak.”
“Now, now,” The Doctor waggled his finger pointedly. “She’s just slow to trust. It’s like – if you’ve got a cat, and you bring home a dog, sure, the cat may not like the dog, but they’ll get along eventually. But if you bring around another cat? They’re at each other’s teeth for the rest of time. Anyway,” He helped Poppi up.
The mechanical Blade sealed her maintenance panel, and smoothed her dress.
“Any suspicious power draws? Behavioural tweaks? Anything at all?”
“Poppi is… fine.”
“All right then!” The Doctor clapped, and spun back around. “Come along, all! It’s a new day, and we’ve got a World Tree to climb!”
“Uh,” Crossette raised her hand, gesturing down at the pirate getup she had, apparently, slept in. “Can we-“
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Go change if you must! You never know – we might meet pirates up there!”
In any case, the group all dispersed, the strange module behind them in their minds.
-------------
When they all assembled back in the console room, ready for the day, it had been cleared out.
Back in his element, the Doctor ran around the console, haphazardly flipping levers and twisting dials, punching buttons.
“The World Tree!” He began. “It’s funny – nearly every culture in the universe has some concept of a tree of life. I’ve been to quite a few, in my day. Perhaps the most famous one is Yggdrasil – a great ash tree, circled by two serpents. And the TARDIS-“
The Doctor pushed forward on the handbrake, and the TARDIS’s engines engaged with a thump, the winding and wheezing filling the air and vibrating the floor, as the ancient Type 40 took off.
“-is just the chariot to take us right to the top.”
Rex scratched his head, and looked between Pyra and the Doctor. "So… What happens when we get there? Meet the Architect?"
"That’s the big question, isn’t it?" The Doctor pleasantly smiled, and pointed at Pyra. “You know the man, what’s he like?”
“…well,” Pyra nervously gripped her Core Crystal. “I don’t know. It’s been… so long.”
"If he’s anything like the myths - good, bad, or otherwise - he’s got a load of explaining to do." Nia crossed her arms. "That’s assuming he’s even in a talking mood."
"If he is truly our creator," Dromarch mused, "Then surely he would welcome his creations home?"
"I hope so…" Pyra’s voice was quiet. "But there’s so much we don’t know. And Malos-" She trailed off, shaking her head.
“Eh?” The Doctor looked over, curious. “What about him?”
“…well,” Pyra shivered, shaking her head. “I guess it depends on the reason why the Architect cast humanity out, doesn’t it?”
"We be ready for anything!" Tora declared, puffing up his chest. "Poppi prepared for every eventuality!"
“Every eventuality?” Crossette tilted her head curiously.
“Every!” Tora repeated. “Poppi technically prepared for interdimensional invasion by doughnut-people!”
“That eventuality designated scenario four.” Poppi blinked.
"I… don’t want to be a downer," Albedo spoke up, “But… what are the odds the Architect is a living being?”
“Eh?” Rex turned to her with a curious frown.
“Well, all those stories happened millennia ago, right?” Albedo posited. “They could be an allegory for something. Or… the Architect may not even have been real, just… something people invented to make the stories make sense. Or if he is real, and he is a god… won’t he be powerful?”
"Gods?" The Doctor snorted. “’Gods’ are a fancy word for ‘bullies with supreme power’ if you ask me! I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe – the Architect does not, and will not ever scare me!”
The TARDIS suddenly jolted—violently.
The entire ship lurched, throwing everyone off their feet as alarms blared. The rotor shuddered, sparks flying from the console. The Doctor grabbed onto a railing with wide eyes.
"What was that?!" Crossette cried, wings flaring in alarm.
"A big thing! A very big, very angry thing!" The Doctor scrambled back to the console, flicking controls frantically. "Oh, no, no, don’t you do this to me! Come on, old girl, you’ve dealt with worse!” The scanner flickered, spitting out lines of garbled data. The Doctor slammed a fist on the console. "Don’t be shy now - give me something to work with!"
The screen flickered on, displaying an error log. The message flashed by with a whole mass of error codes so rapidly, but he could still see the message:
“WARNING: You have been detected attempting to approach a prohibited object restricted by the High Council of Time Lords. By order of the Council, return immediately to a minimum safe distance of [1 parsec] and [±1 century]. Failure to comply will result in system lockout and potential punitive action, up to and including execution and exile.”
“WHAT!?” The Doctor bellowed. They were going to lock out his TARDIS from beyond the grave!? Forget that!
“What’s going on!?” Rex raised his voice.
“It’s the World Tree!” The Doctor gasped out. “The TARDIS doesn’t want to approach it!”
"You’re saying your ship is so rubbish it can’t handle a tree!?" Nia hollered in disbelief.
“DON’T DISS THE TARDIS!” The Doctor shouted back. “I’m going to have to put us down! Everybody, hold on!” The Doctor twisted a dial and yanked the handbrake again. The TARDIS shuddered before settling with an angry thump, with everybody falling to the floor.
"We got bounced off!" Rex looked up, with an open jaw. "Like… like the World Tree rejected us!?”
"That’s… impossible," Pyra said, shaking her head. "The World Tree is… it doesn’t have any defences. How could it do this?”
“I don’t know…” The Doctor, gripping onto the console, glanced around nervously. He moved around the console, checking it over. “Well, we’ve landed. She put us down on the closest landmass. Well…” He scratched his head. “Titan-mass.”
“I see,” Azurda hummed. “The Architect did cast humanity out… perhaps it was foolish to expect we would simply be ‘allowed’ in.”
“Maybe…” The Doctor turned to the door. “Though, that’s a bit rude – getting rid of someone knocking at your door by shoving them away.” He yanked the doors open, and stuck his head out, his eyebrows shooting up. “Well, we aren’t inside the World Tree, if I had to guess.” He declared, stepping out first, and turning around.
A crisp mountain breeze drifted in, carrying the scent of wood and water. The TARDIS had landed in a cave-like pocket, set up with structures made out of wood, and rope, and canvas.
The Doctor smiled. “And she got a town, too! I love it when she does that – she knows me so well.
One by one, the others followed him out.
Nia froze up for a moment, looking around. “Bloody… We really did move, didn’t we?” She looked up as she stumbled out of the TARDIS. “And… there’s no hole from where we entered. How’s that work?”
“The TARDIS doesn’t fly Nia, that’s ridiculous.” The Doctor snorted. “She just disappears in one place, and goes somewhere else.
They stepped into a small village – a tree up a hill on the far end of the cave sat directly opposite of an area filled with training dummies. The air was filled with the sounds of hammering, the clatter of training weapons, and the low murmur of conversation. People in Urayan-style armour walked about, some tending to supplies, training in the ring.
Pyra glanced around warily. "It looks peaceful enough, but…” She looked at the Doctor. “Why would the TARDIS bring us here?"
The Doctor shrugged. “Who knows?” The Time Lord turned in a slow circle, taking in the surroundings. "Something pushed us away from the World Tree — something big, scary big, if it could stop the TARDIS from going where she wanted. She probably just locked-on to the nearest population of life-forms.
Tora, meanwhile, had his priorities sorted. "Meh! Tora smell something delicious!"
From across the encampment, the scent of roasting meat and fresh bread wafted through the air. Several mercenaries were gathered near an open cookfire, a large pot bubbling with stew.
The Nopon began to twitch, and shuffle.
Dromarch chuckled. "Perhaps we should take this opportunity to gather information. We are, after all, unexpected guests in their home."
“It seems a peaceful place,” Azurda commented, looking around. “Not all that dissimilar from Fonsett Village.”
“Yeah,” Rex nodded in agreement. “’S a bit smaller than home, though…”
“I like it!” Crossette commented. “It feels… homely.” She turned to the Doctor. “Can we stay here?”
The Time Lord glanced back at his TARDIS. “Well… we’ll need to find some way to get to the World Tree, now that the TARDIS is being antsy.”
“Well, perhaps these people can point us in the right direction.” Albedo suggested.
“Good thinking,” The Doctor shifted his balance. “We’ll-“
"Meh-meh-meh! Tora is very sorry!"
A loud crash rang out as Tora, in his boundless curiosity, bumped into a supply cart loaded with barrels. The impact sent one tumbling free, rolling right down the incline, into a line of training dummies, which promptly collapsed like dominoes, knocking over a nearby rack of weapons. The startled people scrambled back as the pile of swords and spears clattered loudly to the ground.
Tora waved his paws frantically. "It was accident! Big, tragic accident!"
The Doctor giggled. “Oh, that’s a first! I turn up to a place, and I’m not the one knocking everything over! Small victories.”
A low murmur spread among the mercenaries, some giving the group wary glances. Before anyone could react further, a deep, gravelly voice cut through the noise.
"What in the blazes is goin’ on here?"
The murmuring died down as a large, imposing man strode into view.
He was huge — easily the tallest person in the area, broad-shouldered and built like a boulder. Or… a barrel. Was that why he was angry? Tora had sent his kin rolling? Deep scars marked his face in the pattern of an x, and his thick armoured trousers clinked and rustled as he walked. His skin was dark, and patches of scales on his face gave him prominent sideburns/muttonchops, that continued on into a ginormous, silver pompadour. His sharp gaze scanned the scene before settling on the group.
“Newbies?” He scowled in confusion. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“Ah, yes, hello!” The Doctor took a step forward. “Yes, so sorry – we are just that, we’re visitors! So terribly sorry to break your… barrels.”
For a brief moment, the man simply studied them. Then, his eyes locked onto Pyra, who (along with Poppi) was trying to pull Tora back.
His face twisted and twitched as his eyes focused more intently on Pyra. Specifically, her Core Crystal.
His entire demeanour shifted. His eyes narrowed. His stance became heavier, like a predator sizing up prey.
"That Core Crystal…" he muttered. His tone was unreadable, but the weight in his voice made Pyra instinctively take a step back.
Then, without warning, he cracked his knuckles and took a deliberate step forward.
"Alright, I dunno which one of you’s Drivin’ her, but it doesn’t matter," He rumbled, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. "Hand her over."
Rex blinked, momentarily caught off guard. "What?"
"You heard me." The man’s expression was unreadable — serious, heavy. "The Aegis!” He barked, his face turning impatient.
“What are you talking about?” The Doctor inquired. “I see no Aegis, just-“ He glanced over at Pyra, and double-took. The light filter he’d given her to wear was missing, showing off her emerald crystal to the world. “Pyra! You’re not wearing the cover!”
“It…” Pyra sheepishly gestured. “It fell off while Crossette and I were playing dress-up, and I couldn’t get it to stick again.”
“I tried!” Crossette’s hand shot up. “But turns out fire just makes whatever that stuff is made of… melt.”
“It was plastic!” The Doctor retorted. “Of course it was gonna melt!”
“The only story any mercenary worth his salt knows,” The man began, looking intently at Pyra. “The legendary Aegis. Rumour has it they fished her up about a week ago! A Blade with an emerald core crystal… then she, a kid, a beast-type Blade, a Gormotti, and some guy take a dive off a ship into the Cloud Sea.”
“A week!?” Nia spun around to look at the Doctor. “It was three days ago, for us!”
“Yes, well,” The Doctor coughed. “The TARDIS gets these short hops… off, occasionally.”
“Whatever!” Rex drew Pyra’s sword, clutching it tight. “Don’t the two of you hear him!? He’s trying to take Pyra!”
The Doctor snapped his fingers, producing the Sonic Screwdriver, as Crossette conjured up her bitball.
“Here,” Crossette offered, while everyone else drew on their weapons. Except for Albedo, who didn’t have one.
The Doctor glanced at the ball, and shook his head. “Don’t use weapons.”
“But I’m your Blade!”
“And I told you, it’s not my style!” The Doctor glanced around, but got an idea. “Actually…” It was a ball. He stashed his screwdriver, and took the bitball from Crossette. “Don’t anybody move! I have a very bouncy ball, and I’m not afraid to use it! Let’s all be calm and talk this out, we’re all rational people, yes?”
“A Blade like that…” The man continued. “No way some greenhorn like you’s got the strength to keep her. So, why don’t you do the smart thing and hand her over before someone gets hurt?"
Pyra stiffened, as she looked around. “Rex…” She softly addressed, taking note of the sheer number of Drivers present in the place. “Maybe you should listen…”
“Yeah, she’s the Aegis – so what!? That doesn’t mean she’s something to pass around!” Rex declared, clutching Pyra’s sword tighter.
“Come on,” The Doctor tried to diffuse the situation. “We don’t have to do this!”
The man scoffed. "Yeah? But I want to. OI! YOU LOT!” He bellowed, gesturing about. “Take care of the rest of ‘em. But the Aegis is mine.” He pounded his fists together, before he reached behind himself, and drew two, identical scythes. A humanoid bird Blade with a large sack draped around its shoulders floated over, and reached out, connecting to the man with a thin line of glowing Ether. "Last chance, kid. You gonna hand her over, or am I takin’ her from ya?"
Rex clenched his fists. "You can’t just take her!"
The man’s lips curled into a grin. "Then it’s a fight. I like the sound of that.”
A beat of silence.
Nia groaned. "Oh, great. He’s one of those."
The Doctor frantically looked around. “Mosh pitting in a camp full of dangerous people – okay!” He rolled his neck, and threw Crossette’s bitball between his hands. “Time for a bit of footwork!”
He dropped and kicked the bitball and, with pinpoint accuracy, sent it hurtling into a crate of supplies. The force knocked over another stack of barrels, rolling them straight into the approaching mercenaries, forcing them to scatter as the ball returned to the Doctor.
From there, everyone else erupted into combat. The giant of a man with the twin scythes lunged at Rex, who rolled out of the way of the strike.
Nia hissed and moved quickly, slashing anyone who even dared to get close.
One of the men jumped at the Doctor, but with another flick of his foot, the bitball ricocheted off a wall, struck the man’s wrist, and sent his weapon spinning from his grasp.
“Whoops! Butterfingers!” the Doctor mused, dancing away as another assailant rushed him. He sent the ball forward again, right at his would-be-attacker, the woman ducking out of the way, allowing the ball to shoot past, and bounce off the wall behind her, catching her in the back of her leg and sending her down.
“Nice moves!” Crossette complimented with wonder on her face.
“Galactic keepy-uppy champion, three-hundred-years running!” The Doctor boasted.
Sparks of Ether flew off Pyra’s sword as he clashed with the large man. Rex spun, throwing his entire weight into it, using his momentum and the weight of the sword to his benefit. But despite the larger fellow’s size, he moved with a speed and technique that beguiled his weight. Every swing of his twin blades forced Rex to react quickly, barely deflecting the blows.
“Gotta say,” The man grunted as he shoved Rex back. “You ain’t impressing me so far! Not one little bit!”
“Sorry,” Rex ‘apologized’ without a hint of remorse in his voice. “Guess you’re just going to have to get used to disappointment!”
“Ha!” The man barked out some laughter in return. “Wanna bet, shrimp?” He feinted left before delivering a powerful kick that sent Rex skidding back.
“Rex!” Pyra gasped out.
“’M- I’m fine,” Rex shook his head quickly. “We’ve got this! You’re the Aegis, right? Major-powerful Blade? We’ve got this in the bag!”
Pyra let out a hum like she didn’t sound quite sure. “I don’t know… Something’s not right…”
“Poppi!” Tora called out, as a few of the opposing warriors decided to dogpile the hapless Nopon. Despite that, he seemed to be holding his ground, with the gigantic, hydraulic fists held in his wings. “Get big bully soldiers off Masterpon!”
“Roger!” Poppi called back, as parts of her arm folded away, revealing a smoking cannon, charged up and ready to go. “POPPI MISSILE!” Pyra let out a gasp, like she had realized something, before a streaking bolt of Ether, like a rocket, shot out of Poppi’s right arm cannon. When it struck the ground near Tora, it didn’t explode in a fiery mess – but seemed purely to deliver a shockwave, like an air cannon, knocking everyone back from it, including Tora. Poppi’s arm quickly transformed back, and she used both to catch her hurtling Masterpon, before setting him down, allowing the two to focus on the other enemy Drivers.
The Doctor double-took momentarily. “Fantastic work, Poppi!”
Nia let out a furious battle cry as she passed Dromarch his rings back, the tiger Blade roaring into them to create a hybrid sonic-water cannon, knocking the Driver accosting her away. “Can we get an escape plan!? Now, preferably!?”
“Yes, the TARDIS is right-“ The Doctor spun around, to see more people putting themselves between the blue box and them. “-behind a bunch of very angry looking people!”
“Why’re we running!?” Rex grunted as he swung about Pyra’s sword.
“Cause they know this ain’t a fight you can win!” The man gloated with a grin. “Give it up! If this pathetic lot is all you can bring to the table, you’re better just calling it now, mate!”
“That’s not all!” Rex gnashed his teeth. “Take this!” He swung Pyra’s sword, causing a bolt of fire to go shooting out.
The man threw himself to the side, causing the fireball to miss, and go careening into a rock wall.
“Rex!” The Doctor, aghast, looked back at the young teenager. “We’re in a village! Watch where you point that thing!”
“I-It won’t happen again! I’m not going to miss-!” Rex swung the sword again, and again, and again. Each fireball was caught by the scythes, or simply dodged.
“Rex, stop!” Pyra yelled. “I can’t supply Ether this fast!”
“Hmph,” The man grunted with a smile.
Rex let out a yell of frustration, raising Pyra’s sword again. With a bellow, he brought the sword down, and-
Nothing.
The man chuckled, and shot forward.
Rex let out a pained gasp as he was knocked down, with the scythe pointed right at his throat.
“Rex!” Pyra called out.
All the fighting stopped, dead in its tracks.
Tense breaths were held, as they waited for the man to make his move.
Instead, he began to speak.
“You’re new, ain’t you?” The Driver asked of Rex, but with a tone that implied he knew the answer good and damn well. “Well, here’s a tip: Blade weapons, see, get their power from the Blades they originate from.”
“What’s he doing!?” Nia hissed under her breath, no doubt wondering if the guy was seriously taking the time to lecture Rex.
The Doctor held up a hand, as he slowly inched forward, only to be stopped by the others pointing at him with their weapons.
“And the Blades get that power from Ether.” The Driver continued. “It’s like a river – Ether in the air, flowing into Blades and pooling into lakes, and flowing to your weapon. But use it up too fast, and you’re using it quicker than it can flow into the Blade. And your Arts do diddly squat.”
Rex gulped, his adam’s apple precariously close to the point of the scythe.
Then, the Driver stepped off Rex, and offered a hand.
Rex blinked, his eyes twitching in confusion, before he nervously took it.
The Driver roughly yanked Rex to his feet, before brushing off the teen’s shoulders, and poking him in the sternum. “Doesn’t matter if it’s the Aegis or not! We’re talking the fundamental rules – stuff you should’ve learned day one! Savvy?”
The other fighters relaxed their stances, dropping their weapons.
“What the fuck is going on?” Nia mumbled.
Crossette shuffled closer to the Doctor. “Do we hit him while we have a chance?”
“Not while he’s talking!” The Doctor indignantly told her. “It’s rude.”
“And that goes for all of yas!” The Driver turned around, pointing generally at the group. Then, he singled out Nia. “Well, not you.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“So, this is who the Aegis wound up with…” The man frowned, looking all of them over. “A whole bunch of rookie Drivers, save one?”
“Um…” Rex grunted in confusion. “How can you tell?”
“Heh!” The man laughed. “Even if it’s they’ve got a new Blade, an old Driver tends to fall into the rest of it pretty easily. Only one that does…” He pointed at Nia. “Is that loud little Sheila, right there.”
“It… a matter of new happenings, yes.” Tora warily looked around.
“Figured as much,” The Driver harumphed, nodded, and beat his chest. “Name’s Vandham. That over there is Zuo, Yew, and the rest of the company. This ‘ere’s our home. And I’ve gotta tell ya, we weren’t expecting visitors.”
“Ah, yes, well, that’s us, all over,” The Doctor gesticulated, before his face twisted in confusion. “Sorry – you decided to stage a deathmatch in your own village!?”
“Deathmatch?” Vandham snorted. “Just a little bit of roughhousing’s, all! Saw the legendary Aegis, roll right up on my doorstep, figured if you guys came here, it was for somethin’. Thought about just asking for a match-up as payment outright, but I didn’t want you guys holding back. Sorry ‘bout the scare.”
“You can’t be serious!” Nia spluttered, looking at Pyra. “Is he serious?”
“He… is.” Pyra admitted with a slight smile. “I hadn’t realized it until I noticed Poppi use one, but none of Vandham’s people were using Arts. If they wanted to, they could’ve hit us all at once… but they didn’t. Plus…”
Pyra turned her head, looking at the silver-haired woman who was kind of just… standing by. Awkwardly.
“They could’ve gone for Albedo as a hostage, since she doesn’t have a weapon. But they didn’t.”
“HA!” Vandham chuckled loudly. “Not just the Aegis, she’s smart, too!”
The Doctor looked around with a sour look. “Yes, well… Anyone would’ve noticed it. Sorry, still-“ The Doctor gestured. “There was property damage! Rex was throwing around fireballs because he thought you were genuine! What if someone got hurt!?”
“Ah, don’t worry. We pal around like this all the time,” Vandham brushed it off. “They can take the hit just fine.” Indeed, Vandham’s entourage that had been knocked down were getting back up, looking no worse for the wear. “It’s not just fancy weapons Drivers get access to, you know? As for the fireballs… come on, I’ve still got spatial awareness! Nobody ‘ere was ever in any danger. Trust me.”
The Doctor sceptically crossed his arms.
“Now,” Vandham shifted. “What can the Garfont mercs do for ya?”
Rex scratched his head. “…Garfont? Mercenaries?”
“Come on!” Vandham shook his head. “Don’t tell me you came all the way out ‘ere without a solid idea of who you were meeting!”
“…something like that.” Pyra answered for the group. “Actually, Mister Vandham… we’re here on accident. We kind of just… wandered in.”
“Wandered in, eh?” Vandham frowned, looking over their shoulders at the TARDIS. “Dragging around a supply crate, too? Or is that one of those pop-up shacks I keep hearing about now?”
“Oh, a pop-up, definitely.” Nia nodded, keeping a straight face.
“Nia,” The Doctor turned to her with a pleading tone.
“Very roomy. Seems like there’s a whole world in there.”
“Nia!”
Tora raised a wing. “Sorry… but, big bully not big bully? And… where are we?”
Vandham’s frown deepened, and his eyebrows shot up. “You lot don’t know where you are? You’re in Garfont Village! Hence…” He gestured at himself.
“But where is that?” Rex probed. “Which Titan?”
“You don’t-!?” Vandham began, before cutting himself off. “No, no, you don’t, do you?”
“Garfont…” Azurda poked his head over Rex’s. “I do believe I heard that name referring to a promising mercenary band running out of Uraya, once.”
“You heard right,” Vandham nodded. “The lot of you are in Uraya, right now.”
“Uraya!?” Albedo wheezed, doubling over in shock.
“That’s the one.” Vandham nodded. “Seeing as you guys wandered in, I figure you must’ve gotten gobbled up, right? Uraya’s a beaut, but not big on the whole ‘self-control’ thing. Swallows up loads of smaller titans and titanships all the time.”
“Ah, well, that’s good!” The Doctor smiled to himself. “I’ve experienced being caught in a Titan’s mouth once or twice.” Well, not literally Titans – unless Star Whales counted.
“It’s funny, though. Normally we can tell whenever someone washes up.”
“Yes, well, we all have our ‘off days.’”
“…right.” Vandham slowly drawled.
“Wait, hold on!” Rex perked up. “If this is Uraya, then this ought to be the closest Titan to the World Tree!” He turned to the Doctor with a smile. “Doctor, the TARDIS took us exactly where we needed to go!”
The Doctor responded with his own smile, warm at the thought of his ship. “Yes. She does that.”
“Wait.” Vandham turned his head up slowly, narrowing his eyes. “The World Tree?”
Rex nodded. “Right. We’re going to Elysium.”
Silence passed over the camp, before Vandham burst out into laughter.
“Elysium!? Well, ain’t that a hell of a goal you’ve set yourself!” The mercenary remarked. “I like it. Dream big.”
“You’re mercenaries, right?” Rex ventured. “Are you able to help us?”
“Ah.” A shadow fell over Vandham’s face. He looked over the group, before turning around. “Tell you what: how ‘bout we get some grub, first? As thanks for letting me take a crack at the legendary Aegis. Then… I’ll tell you all you need to know about getting to the World Tree.”
The group shared a look, before shrugging collectively, and following Vandham.
Before they fell into step, though, the Doctor returned to Crossette, and handed her bitball back with a smile.
--------------
Tatazo’s attempts had started simple. If Bana’s lackeys started with a crowbar, he should start there too, not rule it out. For all he knew, they were just too weak or had the wrong leverage. Tatazo examined the capsule, found the seam in the metal, and wedged a pry tool into the gap.
He threw his whole weight into it. Nothing. He flapped his wings for extra welly. Still, nothing happened.
The crowbar slipped, and Tatazo fell with a ‘meh!’
Lila, standing over him, silently held out a much larger crowbar.
Tatazo gulped but took it. He braced himself, forced it into the gap, and yanked as hard as he could. The only result was the painful creak of the tool’s metal warping under the strain.
“L-Lila,” Tatazo addressed, out of breath. “You… help professorpon, yes?”
The mechanical woman looked upon her maker with a droll expression, before taking the crowbar. Jamming it in, hydraulics and servos creaked and hissed as they were overdriven.
The crowbar suddenly in half, and clattered to the floor. Lila stared at it, before yanking the hunk of metal out of the seam, and tossing it aside.
Tatazo got the message. The rough-and-tumble method probably wasn’t going to work – but it was fascinating. The capsule had no visible damage to its surface, even after that attempt. No bends, dents, or scratches. The lid hadn’t even shifted. The Ancients really had some good building skills.
Shame Bana wanted him to break into it.
Well, the numbers might not have been on the keypad, but he still held out hope that he could work it anyway… at least, in his own way.
Tatazo cleared his throat, and straightened up. “Lila! Brute-force keypad time! Maximum speediness!”
Lila nodded, and turned to the keypad. Calibrating herself, she probed the keypad by pressing one of the keys over and over, until she got a result, in the form of a red light on top blinking twice. Giving the lid a tug, it still seemed to be fused to the rest of the capsule, meaning the blinking light was a negative response.
With that, Lila began to work. Her arm blurred into motion, rapidly pressing the keys over, and over, in a brute-force attack.
Minutes passed. A good half-an-hour. Then, a blue light flashed atop, and the keypad started to slide out of the way, revealing a circular imprint, with a glass lens or screen.
“Meh-meh-meh…” He muttered, leaning over. “Camera? Ancients a load of paranoid-pon…”
Lila touched it, and the scanner bleeped angrily in return, shutting itself out. “Scanner seem to be form of fingerprint reader.”
“…very paranoid.” Tatazo muttered to himself, nervously shuffling. If he couldn’t get the thing open, there would be hell to pay, courtesy of Bana.
He had to find a way.
But, he had a bit of a brainwave at that point – the locking mechanism was electronic, yes? Any electronic lock is, in the most simplest of terms, a switch and a relay controlled by a control board. The keypad knows if the code is correct or not, but the relay can’t tell – all it knows to look for is the voltage from the controller to switch on or off.
“Yes… Yes!” Tatazo excitedly bounded around his lab, taking components from all across his workstation. “Lila, please to be entering keycode again!”
The artificial Blade nodded, and punched in the code, calling forth the fingerprint reader yet again.
“Lila – please construct device to these specifications…”
The artificial Blade listened as he relayed instructions, and her arms moved obediently, working the wires, circuit boards, and controllers together like a seamstress. She wove the components together, connecting them in to an Ether circuit, and after about an hour (thanks to her literally being a machine) she held the completed piece of equipment.
“Spoofer complete.” She held it out, upright, in her hand.
“Yes, yes, very good,” Tatazo excitedly took it from her, and placed it on the flattest surface he could find, right on the scanner.
The device clicked and warbled rapidly, as it began to deliver electrical charges through the metal surface. In theory, it was a simple attack – use an electrical charge to perform what amounted to a controlled short-circuit, bypassing the scanner’s verification by sending an electrical signal to the relay directly.
Tatazo watched with bated breath, as it clicked and buzzed, but didn’t seem to work. Then, the device shifted into a higher operating mode. The lights in the room dimmed and flickered unsteadily as the spoofer proceeded to attack with an electromagnetic field, charging up with a loud hum.
Then came the ‘zap!’ as the device discharged, dumping it all into the capsule’s locking mechanism.
Claws on the side of the capsule, sitting flush and holding the lid on released like explosive bolts as the solenoids controlling them engaged.
Tatazo’s electronic lockpick clattered and fell to the floor, smoking as its own charge had demagnetized its magnets, and fried its circuits.
“Ha!” Tatazo gasped out. “Ha-ha! Breaking and entering success! Tatazo feel like true supervillainpon now!” He then cleared his throat. “Lila! Please remove lid!”
The artificial Blade grabbed the lid, and tossed it to the side unceremoniously, allowing the ancient, stale air on the inside to mix with the air of his ‘workshop.’
Tatazo bounced over, and pulled himself up, to look over the edge of the capsule.
His tiny heart sank.
Bana would definitely want to keep this.
Notes:
And thus, the Uraya arc finally begins! Some things to note:
Crossette obviously doesn't favor Susan *that much* in the looks department, if you go by her art in the game. But, Blades do skim off their Drivers for not just personality, but looks (as we see in the case of Haze/Fan La Norne). In Crossette's case, instead of copying from the Doctor directly, her appearance was influenced by someone he's always thinking about, even on a subconscious level: his granddaughter. It also goes to explain his knee-jerk, negative reaction to her.
Going back around to the very, very beginning of the chapter - by now, you may have started building a picture about the "mysterious" gentleman we're following... and how his story may be influencing this one.
Chapter 13: Ten: The Power of the Monado
Chapter Text
The desert stretches endlessly before me, a sea of cold, pale sand rippling under the dying light of Gallifrey’s twin suns. The mountains were so far to my back now, they were but needles on a distant horizon. The Capitol was only a dot. Out here, there was only the chill wind and the peaceful silence of solitude.
Well. If not for the vibrations.
At first, I thought it was my imagination — even Time Lords couldn’t stand prolonged isolation forever. But then the ground beneath my feet began to tremble, faintly at first, then with a force that sent tiny avalanches of sand falling down the nearby dunes. I crouched, pressing my palm to the ground, and felt it. A rhythmic pulse, like a heartbeat — no, like the growl of something gargantuan waking up and taking its morning stretch.
My instincts screamed at me to run, but curiosity rooted me in place. I squinted into the horizon, scanning the sands for movement, when a shape shifted and displaced the surface, causing a noticeable bulge in the ground, like a moving hill. It was massive, and it was moving fast.
A low hiss cut through the air, a sound so alien and primal it made my skin crawl. The sand exploded in front of me, and I was thrown backward as a monstrous creature burst from the ground — a giant, spinning sandworm, towering and grotesque. Its segmented body stretched impossibly long, its eyeless head framed by rings of razor-sharp crystalline teeth that shimmered like the edges of a blade. A drillmouth – a creature so large it propelled itself forward by spinning through the sand below.
They… they were supposed to be extinct, weren’t they? Hunted all their prey to extinction, then died of starvation and hunting each other.
Then again, the Council were bringing all sorts of things back. To be used in the War.
For a moment, I could do nothing but stare, frozen by the sheer impossibility of its size. Then it roared.
I ran.
The worm gave chase, its massive body carving through the dunes like a predator through water. My boots slipped on loose sand, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I pushed myself harder, faster. Every time I glanced over my shoulder, the thing seemed closer, its maw opening wide, ready to swallow me whole.
The cold bit at my lungs, and I stumbled, nearly losing my footing as the worm lunged. It struck the ground just behind me, the impact sending me sprawling. I rolled down a dune, sand filling my mouth and eyes, until I hit the bottom and clawed my way upright again.
“Rassilon’s mercy…” I muttered, though it was clear none would be coming.
A whistle cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding.
I turned, my vision blurred, and spotted a figure standing atop a dune. A massive man, broad-shouldered and weathered, with a towering grey mass of hair and a magnificent, curling moustache. He held a weapon — some kind of energy launcher — casually in one hand, like it was an extension of himself. It made my gun-sword look like a peashooter.
“Oi, you still breathin’ down there?” He bellowed, his voice carrying easily over the roar of the worm. “If y’are, move yer legs, lad! This thing’s not gonna wait!”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I scrambled toward him, my heart pounding.
The man fired a shot, a spheroid comet of blue energy slamming into the worm’s side. It screeched, thrashing violently, but didn’t stop. Instead, it turned toward him.
“That’s right, big fella,” The man said, planting his feet firmly. “Come on, then. Let’s see what you’ve got!”
He fired again, taunting it, then took off at a sprint, leading the creature away. I caught up to him just as he paused to reload, his movements quick and practiced.
“You good, lad?” he asked, sparing me a glance.
“I was almost eaten,” I wheezed.
He let out a booming laugh. “Fair enough! Name’s Vandammerungalloxianthellipsekorithanoxylian.”
I stared at him, processing the name that just dropped from his lips like he was saying a simple word, like ‘blue.’ “…my condolences.”
He laughed again. “Most call me Van. Stick close, and don’t let yourself get eaten, yeah?”
We ran together, the worm close behind, its massive form shaking the ground with every movement. Ahead, I spotted a cluster of sandstone spires — sharp, jagged spikes jutting from the sand like the teeth of some ancient beast. They were hives – sculpted out by a species of carpenter insect that lived out here in the desert.
“Those colonies,” I gasped, pointing. “If we can lure it in there…”
Van’s grin widened. “Now you’re thinkin’! Let’s make it mad, shall we?”
He veered toward the outcroppings, shouting insults at the worm that I wouldn’t repeat. It followed, enraged, its massive body smashing through the dunes in pursuit.
“Keep goin’!” Van yelled. “I’ll deal with the rest!”
I hesitated. “You can’t take that thing on alone!”
“Don’t worry ‘bout me, lad,” He said, his voice calm despite the chaos. “Watch this.”
He planted his feet near the largest spire, pulling a small device from his belt. With a few quick adjustments, it began to emit a high-pitched whine. Van tossed it toward the worm just as it lunged, its maw gaping.
The explosion was deafening. The spire shattered, shards from the giant colony of sand packed and sculpted into stone raining down and piercing the worm. The insects that called the place home assumed the worm was the responsible party for the attack, and leapt out – scorpions the size of grapefruit – onto the worm’s body, stinging and ripping apart flesh, as the drillworm collapsed to the ground.
I stood frozen, staring at the carnage as the creature fell still. Van clapped a hand on my shoulder, his grin as wide as ever.
“Not bad for a day’s work, eh?”
“You could’ve been killed!” I snapped, my voice shaking.
“Could’ve,” he agreed, shrugging. “But wasn’t. That’s what matters. There’s always a hive of Carpenter Scorpions when you need ‘em, with enough poison to kill a man stone dead without regeneratin’. Let others fight yer battles, that’s what I say.”
I stared at him, incredulous. “You’re insane.”
He laughed again, loud and genuine. “Maybe. But you’re alive, aren’t ya? You’re welcome, by the way.”
“I’m-“ I wheezed, before finally extending a hand. “Well… I’m not supposed to share it, at the moment.
“Oh?” Van let out a rueful chuckle. “Elective Semantectomy, eh? Nice. What’d you do to get that kind of treatment.”
I shot him a glare. “I would rather not discuss the circumstances of why my name was wiped from history, thank you.”
“Ah. Voluntary or enforced?”
My glower faltered for a second as his smug expression evaporated. “A bit of both.” I answered.
“I see. Damn sorry, lad.” He apologized with a nod. “Ain’t much out there that’d make a man strike his name from the record. They did you dirty, though, not even giving you the courtesy of a title for people to call you by.”
“…I wanted to be a doctor,” I admitted with a sigh. “Help people.”
“Ah. I’d stay away from that choice of a name, if I were you. The guy using it… well, I don’t know if you keep up with the elections, but you don’t want to choose the name of the guy who bolted from the Presidency his first day in office.”
“Right,” I nod. “Just as well. I’m not that man anymore. Things… happened.”
“They do.” Van nodded. “That they do.” He took a breath, and slung his energy launcher behind his neck, on top of his wide shoulders. I will say this – the man was built like a barrel. “Camp’s this way. Why don’t you come get a bite to eat?”
“What makes you think I need food?”
Van laughed. “Mate, you look like you belong in a home, not out here. When was the last time you actually killed something an’ ate it?”
“It’s been… slow going.” I admitted.
“Right, so, come on, and I’ll get you some grub.”
My stomach growled, and I sighed. “All right.”
“Good answer. Come on – I ain’t far.” He began to walk on ahead. “You’re lucky I was nearby. That thing would’ve made short work of you otherwise.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I muttered, wincing as I brushed the sand off my chest. “Do you always dive headfirst into mortal danger like that?”
“Old timers like me have to have fun somehow,” he said with a chuckle.
We walked in silence for a while, the only sounds the crunch of our boots against the sand and the faint whisper of the wind. Van walked with an easy, confident gait, as though the harsh desert environment was no more troublesome to him than a stroll through the Citadel’s gardens.
“You’re a long way from the Capitol,” he said eventually, breaking the quiet. His tone was casual, but there was a trace of curiosity behind it.
“I could say the same about you,” I replied. “You don’t exactly look like you belong in the drylands. With that giant gun. Don’t Shobogans use bows-and-arrows?”
He barked a laugh. “What can I say; I like my creature comforts.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re a Time Lord, aren’t you?”
“I was.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean much anymore. I walked away from it all a long time ago.”
“Why?”
“Why’d you leave?”
I paused for a second. “I saw the War coming, and I decided I wouldn’t be a part of it.”
“Hm. Guess that makes you and I birds of a feather. Or fools.” He was quiet for a moment, his expression darkening. “Anybody who’s got a pair of eyes and ears knows this war was centuries in the making, and everybody’s been preparing in their own way. My House was one of ‘em. Taking creatures from all over the place and trying to engineer them into weapons. That back there? One of ours.”
I stopped in my tracks, staring at him. “That thing was your House’s doing?”
“Aye.” He sighed. “After they run their tests, they just dump them, hoping they’ll either take out invading parties that land out here, or people like you and me who run out here to escape the war. I’ve been tracking that one for weeks.” He shook his head. “If I hadn’t been after it, you’d be a memory by now.”
The weight of his words sank in, and I shivered — not from the cold, but from the thought of what might’ve happened. “Then thank you.”
“I suppose you think me a coward,” he said after a pause, glancing at me sidelong.
“Well, that would be awfully hypocritical of me.” I replied. “For one, you had reason to leave beyond simply not wanting to die. I didn’t.”
“It’s your history, right?” He asked of me. “They altered it, didn’t they? The High Council, I mean.”
I can’t even try to conceal my surprise. “How did you-?”
“Yours isn’t an uncommon story.” Van shook his head. “President Romana says she’s tryin’ to be kind about it… but when you wake up, and there’s a stranger actin’ like you’ve known ‘em your whole life, and you feel like you’re the butt of some cosmic joke… well, it’d drive anybody a little bit mad.”
“I suppose.” Though there is a question on my mind. “Is it going mad, if the whole world around you is already mad?”
He doesn’t give me an answer, and we walk in silence until we make it back to his camp. Before long, a pot of something – some sludge-y stew that smells about as appetizing as it looks – is put before me.
I eyed it warily. "You’re certain this is food?"
Van smirked and dropped onto a stump across from me. "Eh, if you squint at it. Ain’t poisoned, if that’s what you’re worried about. Woulda let the worm finish you off if I wanted you dead."
I didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, I picked out a piece of the meat, turning it over between my fingers before taking a cautious bite. The taste was strong—smoky, gamey, with an odd aftertaste I couldn’t quite place.
"Good?" Van asked.
"It’s… tolerable," I admitted.
"That’s the best review this slop's ever gotten," he chuckled before leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees. "So. You’re running, right? Any idea where it is you’re going?"
I can’t help but feel suspicious. “Why are you asking?”
He let out a dark chuckle, like he knew something I didn’t. “Word to the wise – anybody can run from the Time Lords. That part’s easy. But if you don’t know where you’re going – if you don’t know good and damned well what your destination is from the get-go, if there’s any little bit of hesitation… they’ll get you.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
“…oh.” I weakly murmur. “I didn’t think of that.”
His smile turned rueful. “That’s what they bank on, you see. From day one, you start hearing how running is impossible so much, they make you think it’s not worth it. And if anybody does decide to do it, the moment they get the chance to go anywhere, they lock up from the overload of possibilities. So. Where’re you going?”
“…I have no idea.” I admitted after a moment. “I just want to avoid this damn War. That’s all.”
“Aye? Then you’re among friends.” He pointed over his shoulder. “There’s a like-minded group of people, not far from here. We’ve got a little setup – where the Time Lords don’t look.”
I can’t help but blink. “There’s a Shobogan enclave out here?”
“What, you didn’t think I was tracking that worm for the hell of it, were ya? Don’t answer that.” He shook his head. “We’re always ready to take someone in. Especially a Timey who’s grown a conscience. So, how about it?”
I mull it over, but in truth, it isn’t much of a decision. Starve out here, go back to a home that I only ever remember being empty filled with strangers, or… find like-minded people.
The Shobogans would hold no love for the Time Lords or their war.
It’s not a surprise, what my decision was.
--------------
Dunga had been surprised to hear the news about the Telethia, but far from reluctant in decreeing that something needed to be done about the monster. They were feared wherever knowledge of them existed, and for good reason.
“The Dinobeast would make short work of many Nopon!” Dunga worriedly mused. “We are teeny-tiny, and so perfectly bite-sized for its enormous jaws… but the forest is our home! Many mighty Nopon warriors stand ready to defend it, with their lives!”
Melia had seen a line of tiny, feathered puffballs, standing around, holding spears, hammers with rudimentary snapping mechanisms, and slingshots. Their spirits were admirable, their readiness to start biting ankles… mildly concerning - but the idea of leading them into battle against the Telethia was unthinkable. They were small, fragile creatures, and no matter how fierce their hearts burned, they were no match for the monstrous foe awaiting them.
“I cannot allow it,” she declared firmly. “Your courage does you honour, Chief Dunga, but I will not lead your people to their deaths.”
Her entourage echoed her sentiment, albeit with less diplomacy.
“It is not bravery, but recklessness, to let them come,” Aizel stated coldly.
“Indeed,” Garan diplomatically cleared his throat. “Imagine a whole swarm of Nopon, getting onto the battlefield. Warriors or not, I don’t expect we’ll be able to manage our crossfire – or keep them from getting underfoot.”
Hogard crossed his arms, nodding. “We couldn’t ask you to put your people’s lives on the line – we can handle this ourselves, as Lady Melia decides.”
Damil simply scoffed. “They’re small.”
Dunga made no protest. His large, expressive eyes blinked once, then twice, as he nodded sagely. “Perhaps, perhaps… Yes, this is true. The Dinobeasts ate many brave Nopon in days past. Stories from Legendary Ponmordia say ancient Dinobeasts lured our people into false senses of security, then gobbled them up. Perhaps here would be safest…”
Melia was just about to press forward when another voice interjected.
“That is an unwise dismissal,” Alvis rubbed his jaw, pensively contemplating the floorboards. “It is true that most Nopon would be ill-suited to this battle. However, a single, specialized warrior may prove invaluable.”
Melia frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You require someone who can endure heavy blows and return them in kind. A warrior unburdened by fear, yet nimble enough to evade disaster. Furthermore, one who can coordinate with your Ether arts — ideally, someone with knowledge of healing, should you falter. And one who knows the Forest well, I should think.” Alvis looked toward Dunga expectantly.
A knowing chuckle bubbled from the Nopon chief’s throat. “Hah! A mighty hero, you say? One unafraid, strong, and — most important — can take punishment and keep fighting?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Perhaps, there is such a Nopon. One chosen long ago... Yes! What you need… is a Legendary Heropon!”
From behind the gathered warriors, a sudden cry rang out.
“Whaaaat? Dunga mean Riki?!”
A round, scruffy-looking Nopon tumbled forward as the line parted like the Red Sea (and Alvis would know – he was responsible for it), eyes wide with alarm, arms flailing. His fur was slightly unkempt, and bags were around his eyes. His clothing was bright and colourful, matching the large, wild tuft of hair on his head that ended in bright red tips. And… he carried no weapon.
“Honourable Bird-people!” Dunga orated, the feathers on his wings rippling as he spread them wide to gesture. “Allow me to introduce… Heropon Riki!”
“Meh…” Riki’s eyes rolled around as he flailed about on the floor, dizzy.
“…I would have taken the time to prepare him for a proper entrance,” Dunga coughed. “But it was short notice.”
“…oh. Bionis…” Aizel groaned under his breath.
“Oh! Ahem!” Riki jumped up to his feet, the single-clawed toes clacking as they hit wood. “New Bird-people friends – meet this year’s Legendary Heropon, Riki!” He took a bow, showing off the x-shaped patch of brown fur on his otherwise pale-furred belly. “Riki live to serve!”
“Um…” Melia blinked. “It’s… a pleasure to meet you, Riki. My name is Melia. But… I don’t think we can impose upon your people to send such a… legendary figure with us.”
“Oh, it no problem, Melly!” Riki gestured. “Riki take duties as Heropon very seriously!”
Melia’s guardsmen all shared a look. No doubt, they were all thinking the same thing. ‘Melly?’
“Your Highness, while this is your mission, I must protest at the idea of bringing such a… brave young warrior with us.” Hogard shuffled.
“Young!?” Riki’s eyes went wide, indignantly. “Riki not littlepon! Riki have 40 years!”
“I-“ Hogard stopped, blinking in disbelief. “What’s a child doing as your legendary hero!?”
“…you’re 40 years old?” Melia tilted her head curiously.
“Ah. Some confusion,” Alvis chuckled. “Nopon mature much faster than the High Entia do – at a rate comparable to Homs.”
“…ah.” Hogard cleared his throat. “Still… he’d be of more use to his people here, surely? In case the Telethia were to evade us and attack directly. Perhaps he should stay here.”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Dunga bellowed, sounding aghast. The chief then regained his composure, and cleared his throat. “I mean… The Dinobeast is a threat to all life in the forest! We could not stand idly by and do nothing as it destroys our home! So… take Heropon Riki with you! Find Dinobeast in forest! And be safe!” He bid, slowly slinking away from the meeting. “Go forth, brave warriors for… for… er…” He made it to his hut, and opened the door. “For great justice!” He slammed the door, shutting himself away inside.
A moment later, they saw him look through the window.
“…did they just saddle us with the problem villager?” Damil wondered.
“Um…” Melia took a breath to calm her anxious heart, as she stared at Riki. “Riki… how did you become the Heropon?”
“Oh, Chief Dunga choose Riki by instinct!” Riki puffed out his tiny chest, like reciting a practiced speech. “Chief oldest and seeing-est of all Nopon! He see Riki, he choose Riki! Simple as!”
Melia nodded in understanding. For the Imperial Family, who’s seer was standing right behind her, it was a science, that kind of thing.
Riki smiled, looking up at her. Then, his expression twitched, and what looked like shame flooded in. “Also… Riki owe monies to village.”
“Oh. He’s the debt-prisoner.”
Melia’s concern returned in full-force. He had no training for this, did he? Scratch that, he was also missing a weapon. “Is that why you don’t have any equipment?”
“…” Riki evasively shuffled.
“Wow.” Damil muttered.
“It short notice!” Riki bounced around. “While friends talking with Chief, Chief send people to tell Riki to come here! No-pon want to fight Dinobeast, so Riki do it for clearing debt! Riki fight good, promise!”
Melia frowned in concern, before turning to Alvis.
The seer had a sagely look on his face.
“…I suppose we can’t stop you, Riki.”
“Yay!” Riki bounced and twirled around. “Me get biter from shop on way out!”
Melia sighed, but steeled herself. Being anxious would help no one.
She’d need to be calm, facing the Telethia.
This was her moment to prove herself.
She had to.
-----------------
Bronze Face lunged, his massive hammer whistling through the air. The Doctor barely had time to shove Fiora out of the way before the impact cratered the ground where she’d stood.
Shulk darted in, Monado at his side and buzzing with energy, but Bronze Face twisted at the last second, catching the blade on his forearm plating. Sparks flew as metal ground against ether-charged energy, and the Monado bounced off.
“Like that worked out for you so well the last time, Monado boy!” Bronze Face taunted, swinging his hammer in a brutal arc.
Shulk threw himself to the side. “I know,” He gasped out, as Bronze Face lumbered around, trying to hit Shulk. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he threw himself around, sliding under the attacks clumsily.
His heart pounded as Bronze Face threw himself around, intent on using his sheer size, weight, and strength as one great, big weapon.
Cracks echoed out as Sharla and Gadolt fired their weapons, while Fiora and Reyn tried to get close.
Reyn drove his weapon into Bronze Face’s heel. The force sent him skidding back, boots scraping against stone. “OI! Fatso!” He bellowed, “You want Shulk, you’re gonna need to go through me!”
Otharon and Sharla took up positions at the edge of the battlefield. A burst of ether fire from Sharla’s rifle slammed into Bronze Face’s side, drawing his attention for just a moment.
“That all ya got, lass?!” He turned to charge, but a searing pain lanced through his back, as Fiora jumped up, drove both her knives into the armour plating, her weight giving the knives purchase to carve through as gravity pulled her back down.
The Mechon swung its whole body around, tossing Fiora off as Sharla and Otharon continued to fire.
Sparks flew off Bronze Face’s body as invisible bolts from the Sonic Screwdriver reacted with the metal,
Bronze Face continued stomping about. “I’m getting real sick and tires of all this… STAY! STILL!” He grunted, as the engine on his back suddenly and unexpectedly flashed, propelling him forward. Shulk gasped, grey flooding the world as a vision came to him.
Bronze Face, propelled forward by his engine, struck Shulk like a speeding transport.
“No you don’t!” Shulk held his sword up. “Monado, Shield!”
The blade shifted to yellow, as the symbol appeared, and the golden bubble of ether energy flared to life.
Shulk braced himself, and-
Bronze Face hit him… and hit him hard. Gravity became as a suggestion as Bronze Face’s entire body seemed to pass right through the shield, and slammed into Shulk.
Shulk let out an agonized scream as he went flying, and he landed, back-first, right into one of the loaders.
“SHULK!” Fiora screamed, rushing in as Bronze Face skidded to a stop, and rolled his shoulders.
“Heh heh heh!” Bronze Face cackled. “And down goes Monado boy! Good luck tryin’a heal shattered vertebrae!”
“Shulk!” Fiora placed a hand under him, and grunted, trying to help him to his feet. Shoes squeaked as the Doctor rushed over, brandishing his Screwdriver.
“On your feet, Shulk!” The Doctor encouraged, gnashing his teeth as he stared down the Mechon.
“I’m-“ Shulk grunted, losing his balance at the flash of pain. “…I was going to say fine. But I’m literally in too much pain to lie right now.”
The Mechon stomped as he got closer, bringing up his hammer to swing again.
“You two! Behind me!” The Doctor commanded, as Bronze Face swung his hammer. The emitter of the Screwdriver glowed bright as it let out a deep buzz, and the swing suddenly stopped, as if it hit a net. The Doctor took in a gulp of air, as in no short order, his arms began to shake.
“OY! What the ‘ell is this!?”
“You two,” The Doctor grunted. Despite the non-visible nature of it, what the Screwdriver was doing was very much a physical phenomenon – usage of very directed soundwaves to push back against an object. But Bronze Face was pushing back just as hard, shortening the waves, and pushing the Screwdriver back. “When I say run, run!”
Bronze Face let out a growl of frustration, pulling back to try swinging from further away. Another ‘bang!’ and part of his head dented in, an optic shattering, as he let out a roar of pain.
Bronze Face turned about, locking onto Sharla, who had landed the shot.
The Doctor took the opening. “RUN!”
Fiora moved, pulling Shulk along with her, as the swing missed, and the hammer went into the ground.
“Nice shot!” Reyn called to Sharla as he charged in.
As Bronze Face tried to pull his hammer from the ground, Reyn sent his driver in, right through the Mechon’s wrist.
“AUGH!” Bronze Face screamed, stumbling away from his hammer and his now-severed hand.
Reyn guided his giant shield-sword down, sending the blade through Bronze Face’s foot. The Mechon let out another yell of pain, swinging his leg, and knocking Reyn away.
Shulk let out a gasp of horror as he saw his friend get knocked away… before he heard the roar of an engine cranking to life. Shulk turned, and saw Otharon behind the driver seat of one, putting it into motion.
His other vision came back to him.
“ALL OF YOU, JUST STAY STILL AND DIE!” Bronze Face screeched, as he took a stance, like he was ready to go shooting off again. Another rifle shot echoed through the chamber, as his other optic burst, red fluid splattering out everywhere as he let out a scream.
“That’s some advice you should be following yourself!” Sharla bellowed. “This is for everyone you’ve murdered!” She fired again, catching him in the shoulder.
Bronze Face stumbled back slightly, as his charging engine dimmed.
“Otharon! Now!”
Tires screeched and skidded as the loader came barrelling in, slamming into Bronze Face.
“WHA-!?” Bronze Face gasped out in confusion. “What the hell are you doing!? I can’t see a bloody thing!”
“That’s the idea!” Otharon spat, as he pushed the Mechon back towards the refinery core. He guided one of the arms, and sent it forward, tearing through one of Bronze Face’s arms, and into the refinery. A mixture of gaseous ether and other elements burst out, the pressure wave tearing through the air.
The hinges of the platform, suffering under the two gigantic weights and the sudden blast, gave way, and the platform began to creak and shift, pointing down into the Ether River below.
“Otharon!” Shulk screamed. “Otharon, stop!”
“Huh!?” Bronze Face gasped as the rest of the platform suddenly gave way. A terrified yelp tore out of his throat, as he went sliding back. The blinded, one-armed Mechon frantically scraped around and searched, his handless arm finding no purchase.
In one last swipe, Bronze Face hit the loader, sending it spinning, and sliding off the edge of the platform. The two, leg-like mounts for the wheels caught the edge of the floor, as the loader tipped, and Otharon tumbled, falling out of his seat.
“OTHARON!”
Shulk staggered forward, pushing out of Fiora’s arms and gasping as pain lanced through his back. His legs trembled, his breath came in ragged gasps, but none of it mattered. Not when he kept seeing Otharon, plunging into the river.
"No — no, no, no!" Shulk clenched his fists, pushing past the pain as he forced himself to move. Every nerve screamed in protest, but he gritted his teeth, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The loader teetered, its metal groaning under its own weight. Otharon’s hands closed around the bars of the cabin as he dangled out, and the rapidly-shifting weight teetered.
Shulk reached out, his body moving sluggishly, like he was wading through thick tar.
“Hang on, old man!” Reyn hollered, from across the chamber. Peculiarly, he turned about, and ran away from Otharon, “I’ve got an idea!”
‘No! I won’t let this happen!’ Shulk gnashed his teeth.
The Monado pulsed in his grip, its circuits flaring to life with a crackling surge of energy. Light exploded outward, a wave of brilliant, electric blue washing over Shulk's body, and a new symbol appeared in the centre: 疾
The pain did not dull, but the world around him sharpened. His movements suddenly felt effortless, as if all resistance had vanished. The Monado's blade shimmered, an ethereal wind swirling around its edge.
Shulk surged forward, his feet barely touching the ground. The air parted around him as he blurred, crossing the distance in an instant.
"Otharon!"
His hand shot out — fingers locking around Otharon’s wrist just as the old warrior lost his grip.
For a moment, there was only weight—Otharon’s body yanking downward, dragging Shulk toward the drop.
Shulk gritted his teeth, tightening his grip.
“I've got you!” Shulk grunted, even as his feet slipped. A spike of pain tore through him, and he gasped as gravity yanked him down.
A hand closed around Shulk’s – tendons and ligaments stretching, as he looked to see Fiora.
“Hold… on!” Fiora grunted out, holding onto the Doctor’s hand.
Shulk let out grunts and yelps of pain as Fiora and the Doctor pulled him up, as the loader continued to tilt precariously. The ground began to shake, threatening to send the loader over, before a claw closed around one of the wheels.
Reyn jumped out of the crane’s cabin, and ran over. He went straight past Shulk, reaching down, and helped wrench Otharon up.
All of them tumbled back, flopping onto the floor.
For a moment, everyone was silent. Until Fiora’s arm shot out, and she punched Shulk in the shoulder.
“Stop,” Fiora hissed at Shulk. “Trying to get yourself killed!”
“I…” Shulk wheezed. “I don’t know… I saw the river… And it was just… I had to do something. Just…” He tremored. “Give me a moment.”
Fiora let out a shaky breath, looping an arm around Shulk’s shoulder.
“Boy…” Otharon addressed, eyes wide with respect. “You… saved me.”
“If anything…” Shulk looked over. “I think it was Reyn.”
“Aw, that?” Reyn played it off with a grin. “Soon as I saw an Ether River, I thought ‘this has gotta be it.’ Whole time we were fighting, I was thinking ‘how is Otharon gonna wind up falling in there?’ Soon as he went for the loader, I knew, so… I went for it.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Clever. And reckless, but… that’s neither here nor there.”
“Here!” Sharla called out, running up. “Don’t move him – that was a nasty hit back there… How are you even moving?”
“Hell, this?” Reyn snorted, gesturing at Shulk. “This is nothing! One time we were kids, Shulk and I fell off a ladder. I broke damn near every bone in my legs, but Shulk was just fine!”
“Really?” The Doctor looked Shulk up and down, curious.
“Here,” Sharla did something with her rifle, causing the barrel to change. She moved back, and lifted it, taking aim at Shulk’s arm. Before the Doctor could protest, a blast of Ether tore through the air, and struck Shulk in the upper arm.
Instead of blasting the limb clean off, Shulk’s body began to glow.
“That’ll stabilise you, and ease the pain for now,” Sharla began to explain. “But after a hit like that… it could be weeks before you’re ready to start truly fighting again.”
Shulk grimaced, but the Doctor helped him up. “Don’t worry, Shulk!” He encouraged. “I’ve got some things in my TARDIS that’ll help you, right as rain! Ah… might be a bit of a trek back…”
“What was that you did?” Fiora suddenly asked of Shulk. “How did you move so quickly?”
“…I’m not sure,” Shulk took the Monado off his back, and looked down at it. “It… I wanted to save Otharon, and… the Monado made it happen.”
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at the blade. “You know… I’ve noticed that a lot, too. First we ran into that monster, Rotbart, and it made you a shield. Then it hurt me, and it healed me. Now this. It’s very… liberal, with what it’ll let you do.”
Shulk began to reply.
Instead, Reyn beat him to the punch. “Hey, if it helps us bust up the Mechon, more power to it!”
Fiora, however, frowned, and shifted her weight. “Still… I don’t think it’s fair to Shulk that all that load is on him. Not when it makes him a target, like…” She gestured to Bronze Face to accentuate her point.
“The girl is right,” Otharon nodded. “Even at Sword Valley, the lesser Mechon didn’t seem to understand much, but they singled out the Monado. If it’s getting more powerful… you’re only going to become a greater target.”
“Hey…” Reyn turned to the Doctor. “If you could recreate the Monado’s Enchant ability – maybe you can figure out its other ones, too!”
The Doctor furrowed his brow. “What?”
“Think about it!” Reyn gestured. “If Shulk’s going to be a target because of the Monado, maybe the thing to do is to give the Mechon so many targets they can’t figure out where the real Monado is!”
The Doctor pensively frowned. He wasn’t in the habit of going around, making weapons for people. But the Monado did have some other useful utilities…
“I’ll think about it.” Was all the Time Lord said on the matter, before pointing at the young Homs. “As for you, Shulk, get some rest. If I had to guess, the Monado lowered your mass to make you move quicker, but that doesn’t change the fact you were running around.”
“Don’t worry,” Reyn moved to watch over Shulk. “We’ve got him.” He gestured between himself and Fiora.
The Doctor nodded, before putting his glasses on his face. “Now!” He spun around. “Let’s see if we can figure out why our metal friends wanted the place, yeah?”
----------
The Doctor didn’t find much. The blood splatters that were dry were old. But, strangely, there was no sign of anything else. No bodies. No weapons. Not a single trinket left behind.
While the Doctor worked, scanning everything with his Screwdriver, Otharon and Sharla were talking. The old man passed her Gadolt’s rifle, which she proceeded to hold onto like a life preserver in the ocean. After, Otharon returned to Shulk’s side, to give him thanks again for trying to save his life.
While the Doctor worked, he heard Sharla approach.
“He’s not dead.” The woman was speaking to herself, it seemed. “Why drag people here just to kill them? Gadolt is still alive. He has to be.”
The Doctor looked up, to realize that she was looking down at him. “Oh? You think so?”
“…I do.” Sharla nodded. “No. I know it.” She went quiet for a moment, her anxious breathing filling the air. “You guys are going to Sword Valley, right? I’ve no idea where the Mechon would’ve taken the people they captured… but there’s a good place to start looking.”
The Doctor tore his eyes away from the dried blood. “Why’re you telling me? Fiora’s the one leading this little entourage of ours. Which… is new! Normally I am the one in charge…”
“Oh?” Sharla sardonically replied. “I couldn’t tell, the way you snapped at Otharon.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
“I wasn’t asking your permission.” Sharla elaborated. “But you’re the only one who has a problem with me. Over the fact I use a gun. If I’m going to come along… I want to be sure there’s no hard feelings between us because of it.”
The Doctor went thoughtfully quiet for a second. “A lot of people use guns because they’re quick and easy way of killing things. Makes it too easy to switch off the brain and forget there’s a person on the other side. I’ll never change my mind about that.” He shook his head, before glancing up at her. Despite himself, he offered her a slight smile. “But yours isn’t just a gun. Back there, you used it to help treat Shulk. So… I’ll say I’ll look past it. Just this once.”
Sharla nodded, the gesture muted as she looked at the Time Lord carefully.
“You were a soldier, weren’t you?”
The Doctor stopped, his hands tense on the Sonic.
“It’s… the way you looked, when you picked up my gun. I’ve seen that before. On the people who came back from Sword Valley.” Sharla took a breath. “I don’t know what it was like, where you come from. I don’t really care to probe. I’m… just- I’m sorry.”
“…thank you.” The Doctor softly replied. She didn’t know where he was from, didn’t know his story – no false platitudes or anything like that; she was being genuine. That was always welcome.
“So,” Sharla took a breath, kneeling next to him. “What’re you doing?”
“Ah!” The Doctor shot to his feet, rejuvenated by the switch of topic. “This is taking scan of the Homs blood – trying to find some common through-line, some common denominator between everyone the Mechon took. If we can find out why the Mechon took the people of your colony as opposed to Colony 9, maybe we can figure out what they’re planning, and maybe if we figure out that-“
“We can find out where the Mechon took them.” Sharla finished.
“Right you are.” The Doctor thinned his lips, before dashing to another dried splatter. “Problem is…” He held the screwdriver to it. “Not seeing anything that stands out…” What could it be? Some… cultural thing, that set the Homs of Colony 6 apart from the others? Was it because 6 had a more advanced setup than 9? There had to be something…
“Hey, Doc!” Reyn called from across the way. “You finding anything over there?”
“Yes! No! Well…” The Doctor scrunched his face.
“Now that the Mechon are cleared out of here, we should get Shulk back to camp, so he can rest.” Fiora decided. “Then… I was thinking we could help the refugees move back into the Colony.”
“Oh…” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s not a bad idea.” He could come back and investigate, just as easily. Actually, it would probably be better – they could spot something that was out of place or missing better than he could, considering it was their home. The Doctor snapped his fingers and pointed over at Fiora in deference. “All righty, then! Moving the refugees back in — solid plan! Let’s get—”
A distant clang rang out, deep below.
The group froze.
“…Did you hear that?” Sharla murmured, gripping her rifle tighter.
A second later, a deafening crash erupted from the refinery. A violent explosion of glowing ether burst skyward, like water being shot from a fountain. The ground trembled beneath them.
From the gaping chasm of the Ether River, something lurched upward. A single, metal arm, missing a hand, threw itself over the ledge, slamming into the floor plating and making it shake, as the body it was attached to pulled itself up, assisted by its roaring engine.
Bronze Face – or, rather, what was left of him – climbed up, and stood upright.
His body was a ruin, the armour plating warped, cracked, and corroded from being dunked into the liquid ether, and smoking with a similarly-glowing green gas. His missing arm and hand leaked little drips of glowing red fluid, splattering across the metal ground in hissing pools. His face was a melted, jagged wreck, all dented in, split in some parts, and with both optics gone, leaving dark, empty sockets.
But somehow…
He was still alive.
Bronze Face landed, and he landed hard, his remaining foot slamming into the platform with the force of a meteor. Metal groaned and buckled under his weight.
The Mechon let out a primal growl – like an animal about to rip another one apart.
“YOU’RE A BUNCH OF IDIOTS IF YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME!” Bronze Face screamed, before lunging.
“MOVE!” The Doctor screamed.
Fiora turned - too late. Bronze Face ploughed into her, his arm (which was really more like a bat at this point) colliding with her and sending her flying. She slammed into the ground and rolled to a stop, wheezing.
If that hadn’t broken her ribs, the Doctor didn’t know what would.
“Fiora!” Shulk yelled.
Reyn, at this point the only close-range fighter left, barely had time to raise his shield before Bronze Face’s remaining stump of an arm smashed into him as well. The force sent him sprawling, his shield bending from the impact. The back of his head slammed into the floor, dazing him.
The bang of a gunshot tore through the armour on the Mechon’s shoulder, and he snarled, turning about and blasting forward. Sharla let out a gasp as she tried to jump out of the way, her foot just barely clipping the moving mechanical monster, but still, it sent her tumbling all the same.
“PLAYTIME’S OVER!” Bronze Face bellowed as it was down to the Doctor and Otharon.
The Mechon roared; a static-laced, monstrous shriek, forced through a half-broken vocoder that wasn’t very good in the first place. His head swivelled about erratically. His optics were still broken, so he couldn’t see – which left other methods of navigating around.
But he could still hear.
And god only knew what other senses the Mechon had – electromagnetic, radar, infrared.
He took a staggering step forward, his movements clumsy, almost drunken. Each step left behind streaks of glowing red, his leaking lifeblood marking his path of destruction.
The Doctor glanced around, seeing the fallen Homs.
He lifted the Sonic Screwdriver, the device letting out a cacophonic warble into the air.
The Mechon reeled, what remained of his arm snapping up toward his ruined faceplate, handless wrist scraping at the corroded metal like he was trying to use the stump to rip what was left of his head open to pull the sound out. His entire body spasmed, servos whining as his broken frame jerked violently, struggling to stay upright.
A wailing, piercing shriek of feedback, drilled into the air, filling the entire space
Reyn, already dazed, slammed his hands over his ears. “GAAH — the hell is that!? What the hell is that!?”
Shulk winced, plugging his own ears. Fiora, still struggling to push herself up, let out a strangled gasp as the noise sent a fresh spike of pain through her already battered body, and she lost her strength, flopping onto the floor, right onto her broken ribcage.
Sharla stumbled around on her broken ankle and bruised legs, rifle slipping from her grasp. “Doc- stop…”
But the Doctor didn’t.
Because the Mechon was suffering.
Bronze Face was thrashing, his body twisting in erratic, uncontrollable twitching. The red fluid leaking from his wounds frothed and hissed, droplets bursting into the air like boiling water as his internal systems overloaded. His movements turned even more frantic, feet scraping and clawing at the metal floor as he tried to flee — but he couldn’t tell where he was going.
He couldn’t see.
Couldn’t even hear, through the shrieking wail of the Screwdriver.
He was trapped, drowning in sensory chaos.
And through it all, the Doctor just stared.
Bronze Face screeched, a sound so distorted and broken it was almost unrecognizable as a voice. His remaining fingers scraped furiously against his melted optics, as if trying to tear the sound out of his skull.
“…DOCTOR!” Shulk screamed at the top of his breath. “STOP!”
The Time Lord let out a gasp, the cold glow in his eyes fading as he turned to look at the one speaking. The noise from the Screwdriver stopped, as he turned to Shulk. “Shulk!”
Shulk tilted his head, struggling to open his ears as they continued to ring. “What!?”
“The Monado!” The Doctor’s voice barely cut through the lingering ringing in Shulk’s skull. “Use it!”
Shulk staggered, gripping the Monado’s hilt with shaky hands. His vision swam, ears still thrumming with the aftermath of the Sonic’s shriek. His brain felt like it had been scrambled, thoughts coming slow and sluggish. And had he really seen the Doctor just stand there, executioner-style, torturing Bronze Face, too? What was reality right now? Had his head taken too many hits?
The Monado? What was the Doctor talking about? What did he mean, use it?
“The-” He blinked hard, trying to clear the haze. The blade popped open, igniting in a burst of etheric light - and at that moment, Bronze Face whipped around, his mangled frame lurching toward the sound.
His hearing must’ve cleared faster – sensors, instead of organs, didn’t need all that time to adjust.
His thrashing turned into purpose. His remaining arm in front of him like a linebacker, Bronze Face onto the sound like an animal scenting prey, legs pumping with sheer rage-fuelled instinct as he charged forward — not at Shulk, but at the Doctor.
“Wh—?”
Shulk barely had time to process what was happening before the battered machine slammed into the Time Lord with all the force of a runaway train.
‘CRUNCH!’
The Doctor let out a gasping choke as the sheer weight of the Mechon drove him into the metal plating beneath them. The floor beneath warped and bent, the Doctor beaten into it by the arm. The Time Lord grunted and hissed in pain as tried to breathe, but there was no room — his chest felt like it was caving in, the Mechon’s ruined plating digging into him, sharp edges slicing into his coat. He clawed at the metal arm, legs kicking out, but the pressure was increasing, his skin going pale.
He was being crushed.
“Shulk!” The Doctor’s voice came out as a ragged wheeze. “Any… time… now…”
Shulk’s breath hitched.
“Boy!” Otharon called out as he fired at the Mechon’s arm. The plating sparked and tore apart – but with one of his slippery opponents right there, Bronze Face wasn’t moving for anything. “Listen to the man!”
“The Monado… healed me… remember!?” The Doctor gasped. “Do it again!”
The Monado… healed?
His thoughts were still scrambled, the world around him blurring at the edges, but something about those words dug into his mind.
…right. Right! Shulk remembered – they were just talking about it.
Bronze Face snarled — a garbled mess of fury — and pressed down harder. The Doctor’s gasp turned into a choke, body arching against the crushing force.
“USE IT!” The Doctor bellowed.
“Shulk—!” Fiora’s voice was desperate now. “Do something!”
Shulk gritted his teeth, shaking his head, forcing himself to focus.
Think.
Shulk tightened his grip, the Monado’s energy flaring in response.
All he had to do was think about what he wanted, and it would happen. Think about it, and it would happen. Shulk concentrated, clutched the Monado, and put all his mind towards healing the Doctor, undoing the damage Bronze Face was doing.
…so… why wasn’t it working?
All he had to do was think about what he wanted, and it would happen.
He’d seen it before! He wanted to keep his friends from being injured by Rotbart, so it made that shield for them. He wanted to save Otharon, so it gave him the ability to move swiftly.
Why not now? What was different about now!?
“Shulk, he’s going to die!”
The Doctor was suffocating beneath Bronze Face’s weight. Fiora was pleading with him. Reyn was groaning on the ground, injured from the Mechon’s wild thrashing. And still, no matter how hard Shulk focused, the Monado did nothing. It wasn’t even humming like normal.
Sharla grunted as she twisted around, sitting on the floor, but still, taking aim with her rifle.
His hands trembled. The glow around the blade flickered, weak and uncertain.
‘Come on!’ Shulk mentally pleaded with the blade. ‘Heal them! Protect them! Do something!’
Nothing.
His heart pounded. His breath came in short, frantic bursts.
‘Why isn’t it working?!’
The Monado could heal people! The blade had injured the Time Lord — Shulk had felt guilty about it. But somehow, right after, the wounds had vanished. Like time had reversed. He hadn’t even known it was possible, until then. The Monado had never done that before.
So why had it worked then, but not now?
He tried to force the thought into clarity, gripping the Monado so tightly his knuckles ached.
The Monado’s energy wavered, pulsing erratically. The Doctor’s strangled breath beneath the Mechon was growing fainter.
Shulk’s heart lurched.
‘Come on, come on! Work!’
His vision blurred with frustration. His mind reeled, grasping for anything—any hint of how to trigger that same effect.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Think, Shulk.
What had he felt in that moment?
He had felt guilt.
Guilt over hurting the Doctor. Over failing to control the Monado. Over causing someone else pain. The desire to undo the course of action that had led to it.
His chest tightened. His thoughts rushed back to that moment—the way the Doctor had clutched his injured hand, the way Shulk had felt his stomach churn at the sight of what he had done.
And then, the Monado had fixed it. The Monado had responded to his guilt; to his desire to undo the harm he had caused.
His eyes snapped open.
That was it.
It wasn’t just about wanting the Monado to heal. It was about knowing — deep in his bones — that things weren’t meant to be this way. That his friends shouldn’t be suffering. That their pain was wrong.
The Monado flared to life.
A single word erupted in his mind, like a long-buried instinct finally surfacing.
His lips parted, and before he even understood where the knowledge came from, he called a command to the Monado.
“MONADO, RENEW!”
The world exploded in golden light.
A wave of radiant, gold-orange energy surged outward from the Monado’s blade as the symbol appeared in its centre, shining like a beacon in the dark cavern. The skin of the injured, including Shulk himself, began to shine orange, before they erupted in fire.
Bronze Face stumbled off the Doctor as the energy burned away at him, and fell onto his back. After a second or two – no more than three at the most – the fire faded as quickly as it came.
The injuries that had once marred them — the bruises, the cuts, the broken bones — all of it vanished. Torn flesh mended. Pain faded.
The Doctor gasped, sucking in a full, unrestricted breath as Bronze Face’s weight suddenly no longer crushed him. Fiora let out a startled breath, feeling around her ribcage, pushing on it curiously when no pain came. Reyn, once struggling to even lift his head, bolted upright like he had never been injured in the first place. Sharla yanked herself to her feet, standing with no issues.
Shulk rolled his shoulders, letting out an awe-filled gasp as the ringing in his ears vanished, the confusion was chased away, his wounds were healed, and his pains were soothed – like getting a month’s worth of bed rest and therapeutic showers all crammed into one moment.
He certainly felt renewed.
“All right!” Reyn pounded his fists. “Now we’re back in action!”
“What…” Fiora looked down at her hands in awe. “What was that!?”
“That,” The Doctor shot to his feet. “Was a distributed, low-level charge of patented Time Lord Regeneration energy! Well, a copy of it. Still - marvellous stuff!” He clicked his tongue. “You’ll feel like a new man!”
“Incredible…” Sharla breathed.
The floor quaked as Bronze Face stomped about.
The damaged Mechon let out wheezing, hateful gasps of air. “Still… hungry!”
“Oh, come on!” Reyn groaned.
“Reyn!” Shulk looked his way. “I’ve got an idea! Fiora,” He looked at her next. “You too!”
“Whatever works!” Fiora said in response, scraping her knives together.
“At the right moment, we all run in – if we move fast enough, he can’t hit us!” Shulk quickly explained.
“And how are we going to move that fast?” Fiora questioned.
“Trust me.” Shulk looked over his shoulder. “Sharla! You see his other arm?”
“Say no more.” Sharla levelled her rifle, and took aim at the connection.
Shulk’s grip tightened around the Monado, as the blade shifted to a deeper blue.
Sharla pulled the trigger, and the shot burst out, slamming into the connection and taking it out in an enormous eruption of fire.
“Now!” Shulk decreed, as the remaining arm fell and clattered to the ground. The same symbol on the Monado that had appeared when he saved Otharon appeared again, as Shulk willed all his desire to move through the Monado, and the blade made it happen.
A pulse of Ether rippled outward from the energy blade of the Monado, washing over Shulk, Fiora, and Reyn. Their bodies felt weightless, a surge of impossible speed coiling through their muscles like they had become the wind itself.
Bronze Face barely had time to snarl.
They moved.
In a blink, Shulk was already gone from where he had been standing. Fiora shot forward like a bullet, while Reyn’s bulk, normally an easy target, became an unstoppable blur. Ripples of a blue aura – Ether, dark energy, light itself – left in their wake like the trails of a comet.
Even if Bronze Face had both arms, he wouldn’t have been able to react.
Fiora was the first to strike — spinning through the air with effortless grace, she vaulted onto the Mechon’s massive leg, her blades carving deep gashes into the plating as she went. Sparks flew as she dashed up, leaping from knee to thigh to shoulder, before launching herself clear just as Reyn came barrelling in.
“OH YEAH, BABY!” Reyn landed next, slamming his shield into the Mechon’s knee joint with a bone-rattling crash. The sheer force disturbed Bronze Face’s balance, sending the massive machine staggering. The only weapons he had left were his legs, and Reyn was showing them no mercy. Another blow to the back sent the limb buckling, and Bronze Face toppled back, landing on his back once again.
The Doctor looked at the sight, his jaw slowly falling open as he watched this… trio of teenagers brutalize a technological terror easily ten times their size.
Shulk darted forward, weaving between Bronze Face’s clumsy, lagging leg swipes — to him, the Mechon might as well have been moving in slow motion. The Monado pulsed brighter, the power of Speed making each step feel like he was being propelled by lightning.
A single step sent him soaring.
He kicked off the ground and vaulted onto Bronze Face’s knee, using it like a springboard, jumping higher, above the Mechon’s torso.
The world seemed to slow, the moment stretching as he twisted through the air, Monado raised high above his head. Ether drew into the Monado, springing into the blade.
A symbol burned to life on the glass.
“MONADO BUSTER!”
With a shout, he swung down, the blade exploding with power.
The Monado tore through the air, leaving a streak of blinding violet light as it collided with Bronze Face’s chest.
A shockwave rippled outward as the energy detonated against the Mechon’s core. The sheer force rocked the battlefield, sending up a storm of embers and shattered metal as the Buster carved straight through — piercing armour, circuitry, everything — until the Monado erupted out the other side in a burst of fire and shrapnel.
Bronze Face let out a guttural, crackling-distorted gasp as Shulk leaped back, landing with a skid across the scarred and scratched metal flooring.
The Mechon’s armour cracked and split apart, deep fractures running like cracks in glass along his metallic shell. His chest was a wreck, plating peeled away in jagged shards, exposing the tangled mess of pulsing cables and flickering circuits within, and the copper, tooth-like spikes lining the inside.
At the very centre was his power core, surging, glowing, barely holding itself together.
Bronze Face shuddered, forcing himself upright despite the damage. His single remaining eye flickered weakly, but the voice that rasped from his damaged speaker was still thick with venom.
“You… little rats!” His voice crackled, distorting, barely comprehensible. “You think… you’ve won!?”
The light from his core flared, an ominous light blue glow pulsing outward in erratic bursts. Sparks spat from his shattered chest, but the energy kept building, growing brighter and brighter.
Shulk’s grip tightened on the Monado, eyes narrowing. “What’s he-?”
Bronze Face laughed, a garbled, broken sound. “If I’m going down… the lot of you are coming with me!”
A horrible whine filled the air as the power core overloaded, energy spilling out of its containment like a dam about to burst. His whole body vibrated, metal trembling under the strain.
Then-
‘BOOM!’
Bronze Face’s power core erupted into flames, as a rifle shot struck it and broke it apart. The energy that had been charging spilled out, well before the Mechon could decide he wanted to let it loose.
Bronze Face let out a cry of pain as he collapsed.
“Die, you worthless piece of scrap.” Sharla hissed under her breath.
“Huh… huh…” Bronze Face wheezed, sounding like he was struggling for air as he flopped about. With his power core taken out, he could no longer muster the energy to move. “Got to hand it to you… Those… were some pretty slick moves… And you managed it without the true power of the Monado.”
Shulk let out a gasp, looking down at the sword. “What?” He pointed the sword at Bronze Face’s head. “What do you know about the Monado!? About the Doctor!? What is going on!? What is the Mechon’s goal!? Answer me!”
“Shulk,” The Doctor gently stepped in, and pushed the blade down.
Bronze Face let out a weak chuckle. “You don’t hold back, do you? Sorry, boy… that’s something you’ll have to see for yourself. When I became what I am now… that’s when my eyes were opened.”
“What you are now?” Fiora repeated. “What is that supposed to mean?”
The Doctor looked around the area. The fluid from Bronze Face had settled on the floor, and in some spots, had even… started… drying?
The Time Lord focused his eyes. Without the glow, it was a crimson red. Slowly shifting to brown.
Bronze Face let out a chuckle. “You’ll see… Doc!” The Mechon coughed, forcing the Time Lord’s attention onto him. “Do yourself a favour, and listen to an old man.” He wheezed, his head slowly tilting back. “Do whatever you want. Stick around. I don’t care. But whatever you do… don’t let that thing,” He weakly tilted his head in Shulk’s direction. “In your TARDIS.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” The Doctor shoved his hands into his pocket. “She doesn’t like that sword any more than I do.”
“Hm… we’ll see.” Bronze Face’s head began to lull to the side, as his voice began to gurgle and choke up, like he was trying. “Remember… when things go pear-shaped… Xord… tried to tell ya…”
The last sparks of energy in his frame died, and his body stilled.
Silence reigned in the mine, as they all stood there, processing the Mechon’s words.
Reluctantly, Otharon began to approach, probingly touching the body. “It’s dead.” He declared at last.
“Xord…” Fiora frowned, her brow twisted in puzzlement.
“I… thought its name was Bronze Face?” Reyn tilted his head.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Sharla asked of him. “Because after all of that… I still don’t have a clue.”
The Doctor stood there for a moment, processing it, before he surged forward, eyes aglow with determination. He climbed onto the body.
“Doctor?” Sharla addressed curiously.
“Right you are, Sharla!” The Time Lord began, strutting about as he pulled himself up by the plating. “Our big, bronze friend seemed very determined not to let anything slip – but there was one great, big thing he did just throw out there, which we lost in the confusion; probably why he deflected right to the TARDIS – but it’s the blood!”
Shulk’s head snapped up. “Blood?”
“Yes, the blood – wouldn’t have noticed it, during the fight for our lives – but Bronze Face, he was bleeding.” The Doctor explained. “Those circuits on his body, they weren’t circuits, they were conduits! Transporting blood!”
“Hold-“ Shulk moved quickly, pulling himself up the Mechon’s corpse as well. “Blood!? What’s so important about Mechon blood?”
“It’s not Mechon blood.” The Doctor shook his head. “Look at it!” He pointed with his eyes over at one of the puddles. “I know it looks different, with the glowing, but now that it’s not…”
All eyes followed his direction, seeing the crimson puddle, drying to a rusty brown.
“That’s not…” Sharla stammered. “That’s fresh! You’re saying it came from Bronze Face!?”
“Yup.” The Doctor answered. “Hadn’t realized it until the big fella said something – but that blood is Homs blood.” He found a broken portion of conduit, rubbed away some of the liquid still inside, and held it over to Shulk. “See?”
Shulk leaned in, his jaw falling open. “That’s blood… that’s red blood! Not oil, or lubricant!”
The Doctor licked the blood off his finger. “Human blood, type… B+. Very watery, too.”
Shulk inhaled, his hands going to the armour. “We need to open it, but-“ He let out a grunt of frustration “The armour doesn’t appear to be any different than standard Mechon armour, but I don’t have my tools.”
“Here,” The Doctor passed the Sonic over to Shulk. “Point and press.”
The blonde tilted his head with a surprised expression.
“You’re the Mechon expert,” The Doctor gestured with the Sonic. “Come on, Shulk, shake a leg!”
“Right.” Shulk took the Sonic Screwdriver, probing it into the gaps and seams of the armour. As he did, he tugged on the plate he was grabbing hold of, each tug wobbling it a little bit more as the Screwdriver undid the fasteners.
The Doctor watched quietly, as Shulk took to the device like a fish-in-water. Usually there was a bit of a learning curve, but the young Homs was making it look easy for a first-timer.
“It doesn’t appear to be- whoa!” Shulk fell back as the plate gave way, and a glowing red spray blasted out from holes on the other side of the armour plate.
“Shulk!” Fiora rushed over, pulling him out of the way, as the spray slowed to a trickle, then a slow dripping.
“No way,” Reyn breathed out. “Don’t tell me that’s what I think it is.”
“More blood,” Sharla breathed quickly. “The Mechon is bleeding!”
“What!?” Fiora raised her voice, bellowing in disbelief. “It’s not just the armour – it’s got Homs blood on the inside of it!?”
“That’s… disgusting,” Otharon ground out.
“Oi! You’re not a looker on the inside, either! All those blood and guts…”
“It’s not just the armour…” Shulk peered down into the chassis. “There’s an entire circulatory system inside!”
“Right.” The Doctor furrowed his brow, gently taking the Screwdriver back out of Shulk’s hand. “The rest of you… you might want to prepare yourselves.” He held the Screwdriver to the Mechon’s head.
All watched with rapt attention.
As the others moved to see, the Doctor removed the broken faceplate.
It clattered to the ground, as the others took in horrified breaths.
Fiora, in particular, stared at the fleshy, oozing red chunks embedded into mechanisms, wired up and threaded throughout.
“That’s meat,” Fiora gagged, taking a step back as she covered her mouth. “Those are chunks of meat crammed into a Mechon’s head!”
“It’s a brain…” Sharla whispered in horror.
The Doctor stared, as unwelcome images of metal men – organic lifeforms stuffed into moving, robotic, iron maidens and stripped of everything unique – flashed through his mind.
“That’s got to be the Mechon’s, right?” Reyn ventured.
“I don’t think so…” Shulk narrowed his eyes. “Mechon brains – they’re more like rubber. Not meat.”
“So… what does it mean?” Reyn gulped.
“Use your head.” The Doctor replied. “The blood, and the brain…” He looked down, thinning his lips. “Someone’s taken a human being, ripped their brain out of their body, and shoved it into a suit of Mechon armour.”
Sharla let out a horrified gasp, covering her mouth at the mere idea of it.
“Th-That’s impossible!” Otharon breathed out in horror. “The… shock from an operation like that would kill anyone put through it!”
The Doctor let out a rueful chuckle. “Oh, you would think. You would really think.” He shook his head, leaning back from his and Shulk’s handiwork. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. All across the cosmos, where I’m from. Planet Earth, Mondas, Telos – in most of those cases, they were willing… for a given definition of it. In those cases, really, it was under duress – the species nearing extinction, the planet breaking away from its sun and dying a cold death, invaders from the stars… to survive, they all did something like that to themselves.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, staring down at Bronze Face with a blank look. “Stripping away the weakness of their flesh. So drastically, they become brains in suits of armour. And… yeah,” He looked at Otharon, nodding slowly. “It drives them mad. The ones I’ve met that were like this – they got rid of their emotions to stop them from destroying themselves out of grief and rage.” The Doctor examined the dead Mechon for a moment again. “In this case… I think the mental trauma must’ve manifested in that… hammy behaviour. Overcompensating. Like someone cracking wise all the time, so he can pretend he’s not miserable to himself.”
“Xord…” Fiora breathed out again. “I… I recognize that name!” She looked over at Reyn. “You remember!? Desireé’s father! He ran the smithy in Colony 9 - and never came back from Sword Valley!”
Shulk looked down at Bronze Face, his expression morphing into fury. “This is… disgusting.”
The Doctor nodded.
“That’s… no!” Reyn called. “It’s a- You can’t just yank somebody’s brain out and stick it inside a Mechon!”
“Used to be, you couldn’t transplant organs.” The Doctor answered clinically. “You couldn’t cut a woman’s abdomen open to get the baby out. You couldn’t treat an infection without having to amputate an entire limb. But you can now.” He took a breath. “The Mechon are taking Homs, tearing them apart, and building them into these things.”
The group was silent, the weight of his words sinking in.
“Does… does that mean the people they took from here…?” Sharla shakily inquired.
Reyn scowled, crossing his arms. “That doesn’t make sense. The Mechon come from Mechonis in huge swarms. Why would they bother cramming people into other Mechon? They’re not exactly struggling to make more of themselves anyway, are they?”
“That’s a good point,” Shulk added, his voice thoughtful. “But these… Faced Mechon — they’ve only started to show up recently. Before this, the Mechon were just… machines. Drones. They weren’t like this.”
“Do…” Fiora stammered, uncertain. “Do you think the one that killed Dunban was similar?”
“Quite possibly,” The Doctor thinned his lips. “It had the same glowing lines on its body, too… What was it you said, Shulk?” He turned to the boy. “The Monado can’t hurt Homs?”
The words hit, and Shulk’s heart visibly dropped.
The Doctor’s gaze dropped back to Xord’s lifeless body. “If that’s the case, then things are worse than we thought.” He stood and pocketed his Screwdriver, turning to face the group. “If the Mechon are starting to incorporate Homs into their ranks - through forced conversion and some form of control systems - it means they’re learning. They know about the Monado’s inability to hurt Homs, and worse, it means they could’ve gained every scrap of knowledge their victims knew before they were turned.”
The group exchanged uneasy glances.
Shulk’s eyes widened as another realization dawned. “Then, what you said before, about a controlling intelligence behind the Mechon…”
“It’s not just some insect queen directing her troops,” The Doctor nodded grimly. He took a deep breath. “And now, they’ve got Homs on their side. They can direct attacks, strategize, and learn.”
“Doctor,” Fiora said suddenly, her voice trembling. Everyone turned to look at her. She was staring at the remains of Xord, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “We… we never found Dunban’s body after the attack on Colony 9.”
The air grew heavier, a palpable silence settling over the group.
“What do you mean?” Reyn asked. “Fiora?”
“We looked everywhere,” Fiora continued, her voice tight with emotion. “He fell into the lake below the Colony. It should’ve been easy to see him. His body would’ve… it would’ve floated to the surface.” She swallowed hard and turned to Shulk. “But we didn’t find him.”
Shulk’s face paled. “Are you saying… what I think you’re saying?”
Fiora’s voice cracked as she asked the question that had been haunting her. “Doctor… could the Mechon have taken Dunban? To turn him into something like that?”
All eyes turned to the Doctor, whose face seemed blank. He stared back, looking at Fiora with solemnity.
The silence dragged on for a long, palpable moment.
“…I’m sorry.” The Doctor tolled softly.
The answer — or lack of one — hung heavily in the air. Fiora’s shoulders sagged, and Shulk placed a comforting hand on her arm, though his own face was wrought with worry.
“We’ll find out,” Shulk said firmly, trying to steady himself as much as her. “We’ll stop them, Fiora. We’ll stop all of this.”
“It’s not just this Xord, is it?” Otharon gravelly sighed. “People disappeared from Sword Valley in the dozens. Fallen on the battlefield, just gone missing, or unaccounted for after we pulled out. And every one of their victims in the few attacks since. The Mechon could have hundreds among their number now.”
“We… won’t need to kill all of them…” Shulk gulped. “Will we?”
“I don’t know,” The Doctor rubbed his face. “Something like this – sometimes, it’s reversible. Not always.”
“Let’s…” Fiora decided with trembling hands. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Fiora?” Reyn addressed curiously.
“There’s still Mechon outside, right?” Fiora breathed slowly. “If we want to get people moving back to the Colony, we need to clear them out.”
Silence passed through all of them, wondering if it was such a good idea at that point, until Otharon spoke up.
“Yes… Yes, you’re right.” The old man nodded. “There’s a cargo lift that goes all the way up to the pod depot. We can swing ‘round into the Colony from there. Come. I’ll lead the way.”
Fiora nodded, and began following Otharon, before the others fell into step behind her lead.
Shulk lingered for a moment, looking down at his hands, a few scattered splatters of rusty-brown blood had dried on them. It was not his own – that much he was certain of. Renew would’ve burned it all off.
The Monado was eerily silent – not a single buzz or crackle to be heard.
Shulk took a breath, before moving to catch up.
------------
Vanea stood in the cold, sterile glow of her workshop, her red eyes listless as she adjusted the last of the cables along the Homs’s reconstructed frame.
She’d tried to salvage as much as she could, but there wasn’t much she could do on that front, unfortunately. The spinal column had been utterly destroyed, along with much of his internal organs. Even then… none of that was what all of this was about. Every organ had been replaced with mechanical equivalents. A respirator replaced his lungs, and an ether converter would take the responsibility of providing nutrients to what flesh was left.
At this point, he was more like a head, grafted onto a mechanical body. All that was left of his original body were the bones. The body’s ability to produce blood had been the most important thing. Everything else could be… discarded.
Vanea took a step back, and observed her handiwork – the Homs connected into the Face Mechon with tubes and latches. The entire unit was tall, but sleek in a way that signalled it had been designed for movement as opposed to raw power – spindly arms and legs that looked more to be more useful as control surfaces for flight than actual limbs. In whole, his actual body was bulkier – with chest armour that tapered off into a point far above his chest, gigantic square shoulder pauldrons, and oversized leg armour. A metallic ‘crown’ had been grafted onto his head - wrapping around the surgical scars and buzzed hair – with a prominent horn on the front.
Her brother’s idea of an ironic joke, or punishment, making the Homs look like the force of evil he had fought in defence of. Maybe she was reaching, but it was hard to see it as anything else, when his armour and his Mechon were both in that same, fresh-Homs-blood-red as the Monado he once held.
Vanea’s arms shook. It had passed the point of a desperate plan long ago. This was just… egregious. She wondered if she should pack it all up at last.
Then came the deep thrumming from a worktable nearby.
The Monado.
Not His Monado, not the sword the Homs once wielded, but Meyneth’s. The triangular object glowed brightly from the three circles joined with lines.
No. She had to soldier on.
Still Vanea hesitated. Logic dictated that Dunban was the best candidate — he had already proven himself capable of synchronizing with a Monado, a feat few others had accomplished. And yet, uncertainty gnawed at her. Meyneth had been a goddess, her very essence tied to the Monado she once bore. But more than that… she had been female.
Could Meyneth truly bond with his body? The potential for a dysmorphia-induced rejection was slim, but not zero. Vanea simply didn’t know enough about the way Meyneth viewed herself to feel comfortable making any calls about it.
Vanea’s hand hovered over the triangular Monado, its form resting on the diagnostic table, pulsing faintly with latent ether. But… she had also seen the Homs’s memories. A fierce warrior, yes – but a man wholly believing in a single person’s ability to change their own future, and seize their destiny. Even if the body was something she wasn’t used to, that ideal was something Meyneth had preached to her children a thousand times over.
She turned to the motionless form before her, his eyes still closed, his mind yet to awaken in this new form. She was also running out of time, and there weren’t likely to be any new Faces coming. Meyneth seemed to agree – else she wouldn’t have set Vanea on this path to begin with.
“…You would probably laugh at me,” she murmured under her breath to the Monado. “Tell me I worry too much.”
Her grip tightened around the Monado, and she picked up the triangular, tile-like object.
There was only one way to know for sure.
She took a steady breath and placed the Monado onto his chest armour, with a loud ‘click!’ as it connected, and Vanea took a step back.
His body — no, the body she had built — arched slightly off the table as a pulse of golden light burst from his core. The sensors blared warnings, registering an anomaly in the ether flow, but Vanea barely heard them. Her focus was locked on the figure before her, whose once-dormant eyelids fluttered—
And opened.
The glow in those irises was cosmic – extending far into eternity – housed in eyes that darted about curiously.
A shuddering breath left his lips as he straightened up, movements slow but precise. His fingers flexed, as though testing their range, before tracing along the contours of his own face, lingering on the reinforced plating beneath his skin. Then, his voice broke the silence – deep and mature, wizened – not at all a voice Vanea was familiar with. Just as well – the actual voice Vanea was familiar with would’ve been… very, very unusual to hear, coming out of his mouth.
“Ah… this is…” He — she — paused, considering. A slow, thoughtful smile curved his lips. “Fascinating.”
“Lady Mayneth?” Vanea’s core thrummed with unease. “Is… that you?”
The figure turned to her, meeting her gaze with a softness that struck something deep within her. The way he — she — moved, the way she held herself with a grace and poise that was both extremely regal, yet unafraid to move among the crowd.
“Yes,” Meyneth answered, lifting Dunban’s hand to look at it. “Both of us are in here.” Her hand pressed against her chest — Dunban’s chest, the reinforced plating beneath it. “I still feel him. His memories, his will… though he appears to be asleep. I should hope that won’t change – let the man have his rest, after all.” She let out a breath — an exhale of awe. “Ah, the sensation of once more having a body. So solid… so heavy.” She chuckled, flexing her fingers once more. “How long has it been since I last felt something like this?”
Vanea swallowed, her mind racing. This was all wrong. Meyneth was not supposed to awaken. The Monado was meant to synchronize, to bond, not to override.
“Goodness me, I’m a man.” Meyneth giggled – actually giggled – rubbing ‘her’ (Dunban’s, certainly. It was going to be difficult for Vanea to adjust the way she thought about this situation, but she’d try.) face. “I’d thought about a reformat, a time or two, in my old body. ‘Seeing how the other side lives,’ as it was. I could never quite go through with it, being afraid to lose all my preferences. Zanza was always better, in that regard – he never found the adjustment difficult. As for me…” She looked down at Vanea. “What do you think?”
“I… think…” Vanea hesitantly began. “You’re far too eager to be piloting around a stolen body.”
“Oh, yes… of course… you’re right.” Meyneth bowed ‘her’ head.
Meyneth regarded her for a long moment. Then, slowly, she swung ‘her’ legs off out of the Face Mechon, planting ‘her’ feet on the ground. Her stance was unsteady at first, but she adjusted quickly. A lifetime of grace had not left her, even in this unfamiliar body.
She looked at the reflection in a pane of glass. She touched the beard growing along her new jawline, and stared. Rubbing a hand along the beard, slowly, back and forth, Meyneth’s mouth moved.
Vanea strained her ears trying to hear, before realizing that Meyneth was muttering under her breath.
“Smooth… stubbly. Smooth… stubbly.”
“Lady Meyneth! I would never, ever presume to accuse you of anything.” Vanea’s fists tightened at her sides. “But after all of the… ghoulish things I’ve done, to that body alone, you’re treating this like some… experience to enjoy.”
Meyneth’s expression softened, and she stopped. “Shouldn’t I?” She lifted her hands, turning them over as though marvelling at them. “For the first time in so long, I exist beyond the edge of death. I can move, I can feel.” She smiled at Vanea, stepping closer. “But don’t worry. I know why this has to be done. I won’t lose sight of that.”
Vanea hated how that smile made her feel.
The warmth in it, the quiet confidence, the way it made her core temperature spike in ways she refused to acknowledge.
She looked away, arms crossing over her chest. “It’s unnatural. And what if that body’s owner awakens with you in it?”
“I should think… he would feel very angry at first,” Meyneth supposed. “Then flattered that a pretty woman chose him to be the vessel of a goddess’s spirit. Then, he would lock-in, when he was brought up to speed on what has to be done. I saw the memories, same as you,” She gestured. “This man had a supremely strong sense of justice. Although he could not consent… I don’t imagine that he wouldn’t have.”
“Perhaps not.”
Vanea flinched as she felt a hand — Dunban’s hand, Meyneth’s hand — touch her arm. It was warm, firm, steady.
“Vanea,” Meyneth murmured, voice gentle. “It is okay.” Her fingers squeezed, not in command, but in reassurance. “We will fix, all that has been wrought. Including this.” She gestured to her stolen body. “But we cannot do that, until the most pressing threat has been dealt with. Understand?”
Meyneth tilted ‘her’ head with a weak, almost-nervous smile.
Vanea could feel her own core temperature rising again, her synthetic muscles stiffening under that steady, maddeningly comforting gaze.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she muttered.
Meyneth only smiled wider. “Like what?”
Vanea turned away completely, hiding the glow in her optics behind the fall of her hair. “Like I did something good.”
Meyneth tilted her head, considering her for a moment, then gave a small, knowing laugh.
“Ah,” she said, almost teasing. “I see now.”
Vanea’s optics flicked to her warily. “See what?”
Meyneth leaned in, voice dropping into something dangerously soft.
“You missed me.”
Then, a hand landed on her shoulder.
“I missed you too.” Meyneth stressed strongly, causing Vanea to blink in surprise. “I missed… all of you, since that… horrific day. Now,” She cleared her throat, and took a step back, standing tall and looking every bit like the Hero of the Homs that the body belonged to. “To come up with a plan.”
“Yes, I’d rather like to see what it is you have in mind.”
“It’s quite simple, Vanea dear.” Meyneth answered, taking position at one of the terminals. She hit the button, causing a feed to be projected of a big, blue box in the middle of a small canyon. “His TARDIS is still there…” Her face twisted in worry. “He hasn’t left yet…”
“And?”
“I’ve told her,” Meyneth muttered, almost to herself. “What will happen if he doesn’t leave. She said she’d try to make as big a fuss as possible… the Doctor can’t be that dense, surely?”
Vanea blinked, nervously wringing her hands. She’d relayed the instructions to the Face Units, but as for Meyneth’s plans…?
Well, it was the nature of gods to have goals beyond comprehension.
------------
The mood hung above them like a guillotine, even on the way up and out of the Ether Mine. Despite the sheer bleakness of what they uncovered, though, it was filling most of them with a renewed will.
For Sharla, it was the drive to rescue her people, and save them from the fate the Mechon had planned for them.
For Fiora, it was about finding Dunban (if he was still alive), and determining what needed to be done from there.
For the Doctor, it was about stopping the Mechon, before they could harm one more person.
Reyn didn’t want to see his friends turned into something like that because they went into the jaws of the Mechon.
And for Shulk… it was about vengeance. As it had been. But instead of simply avenging the dead, it had turned into seeking retribution for the violation the Mechon had done against the Homs.
Why? That was the question ever-running through Shulk’s mind. The Homs didn’t do anything to deserve this. Why murder, pillage, and shove people into Mechon bodies? Whatever dark designs the Mechon had, they had to be destroyed. Killed before they had the chance to hunt or mutilate the Homs into extinction.
…could he really do that, though? If there were people inside, shouldn’t he try to save them? The Doctor had said, in his experience, the sort of thing was reversible. Maybe they could be rescued.
His brain told him ‘no’ immediately. Xord had been stripped down to his nervous and circulatory system and threaded throughout his Mechon. But… Shulk had a new Monado power that healed everyone around him back to good-as-new, all at once.
“The outside…” Otharon rasped, closing his eyes and drinking it in. “I feared I’d never get the chance to breathe fresh air again.”
“A lot of people didn’t…” Sharla closed her eyes, despair pulling at her features, before she opened her eyes with a renewed, envigored glow. “But we’ll fix that. We’ll go to Sword Valley, and find the people they’ve taken. And if they’re not there, we’ll go and pull apart the entire Mechonis until we find them.”
“Damn right!” Reyn agreed with a smile.
“Thank you,” Otharon turned around. “All of you.” His eyes flicked over to the Doctor. “Even you.” His gaze landed back on Fiora. “Dunban would be proud.”
Fiora recoiled slightly, like she couldn’t quite believe that, and opened her mouth to retort – before someone, or rather, some thing cut in.
The roaring of an ether ramjet grew louder as a shadow fell over the group, cast by the ambient starlight hitting an enormous, lanky, spiked figure.
“Am I interrupting something!?” A shrill, scratchy voice – to the Doctor’s ears, it sounded like Starscream had started smoking a pack a day – filled the air, and everybody turned to see… him.
Sliding through the air was the giant, black Mechon with the humanoid face twisted permanently into a mocking leer by a Glasgow smile. Enormous, curved blades came off his head like razor-sharp horns, complimenting the long, spindly, sword-like fingers on his hands.
“It’s him…” Shulk gasped out, staring up as he and Reyn were treated to a flash of memory – of the swords tearing through Dunban’s torso. “Onyx Face!”
The giant, bipedal Mechon cackled. “And don’t you forget it!”
Pounding of metal bodies slamming into the ground echoed around the area, as Mechon units dropped in… including more faced Mechon, all nearly identical to Xord, save for the weapons they were holding – spears, instead of hammers.
“An ambush,” The Doctor looked around, going for his Sonic Screwdriver.
“That’s right!” Onyx Face sing-songed as he gestured about. “What – you think the big lug invited you down there for tea time without a solid backup plan!? Me and my boys have been waiting out here the whole time for one of yas to come out of that lift! Either Xord, or you lot… all plum-tuckered out and ready to be finished off!”
Fiora ground her teeth together, the grip around her knives white-knuckled, as she watched the gigantic Mechon prance around.
“Stop this!” The Doctor hissed, stepping forward from the group. “Whatever they’ve done to you, whatever control mechanisms they’ve shoved inside your head, it’s not permanent! I can help – reverse what the Mechon have done to you. To all of you! Just stop this!”
“Control mechanisms?” Onyx cackled like it was the funniest thing on the Bionis. “My mind’s my own – always has been, always will be!” His voice dropped to a low chuckle. “As for the rest of ‘em, don’t make promises you can’t keep, Time Boy!”
The Doctor’s muscles tensed up as burning wrath flooded his veins. There was no way the Mechon could’ve known the pain that came from the nickname – the reminder of Donna, bless her – but still, it got the Doctor angry.
“Tell me, why!” Shulk suddenly shot forward, clutching the Monado. “If your mind is really your own, why would you do this!? After all the Mechon have done to us! We’re Homs! We stick together!”
The Faced Mechon chuckled again. “I guess the big ‘secret’s’ out of the bag, then! Shame. Would’ve liked to see the looks on your pathetic little faces when you figured it out! News flash, kiddo: that line doesn’t mean jack! And even if it did, well… I’m not a Homs anymore, now am I!?” He capped it off with another demented cackle.
“Who are you!?” Fiora demanded, pushing in front of Shulk. “What did Dunban ever do to you!?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, girlie!?” The Mechon attempted to snap his fingers, causing sparks to fly off the blades. “Nah, I think I’ll sit on that one! You’re gonna die here, and you’ll never know who it was who killed your pwecious big brudder. Doesn’t that just burn?”
Fiora glowered at the Mechon.
“Ohohoho…” Onyx Face giggled. “Now isn’t that just precious? What’re you gonna do, cry!? Mind you… it won’t be nearly as obnoxious as your little boy toy over there!” He began to theatrically thrash around, playing up the act. “’Dunban! Dunban! What are you doing!? Get away! Dunban, noooooo!’”
Fiora’s grip tightened around her twin knives, her knuckles turning white as Onyx Face’s mocking laughter echoed through the ravine. His words burned - hotter than any Ether flame - and in that moment, all reason fled from her mind. With a furious cry – a sound more like the enraged snarl of a wild animal - she charged.
“Fiora, wait-!” Shulk reached out, but she was already gone, dashing toward the Faced Mechon with reckless speed.
Onyx Face barely had time to react before Fiora was on him, her blades flashing in the dim light. She aimed straight for the jaw, swinging her knives in a scissoring motion, intent on prying the metal apart. Sparks flew as her weapons clashed against his frame, but she might as well have been hacking at a wall.
“Ohoho! Someone’s got a temper!” Onyx Face sneered as he swatted her aside with the back of his massive arm. Fiora gritted her teeth and rolled with the blow, landing in a crouch.
She shot forward again, weaving between his strikes. If she couldn’t cut through his armour, then she’d just have to find a weak spot. The joints, the optics—something.
“What’s going on!?” Reyn gasped out. “Why’s it not working anymore!?”
“Left the wibbler downstairs, remember!?” The Doctor gnashed his teeth, as he dialled up a setting on the Screwdriver.
“We’ve got something just as good!” Shulk declared, holding up the Monado, as the symbol for its Enchant ability appeared.
“Oh-ho! I’m quaking!” Onyx Face cackled, his voice grating through the speakers. “What’s the plan, little miss vengeance? Gonna tickle me to death?”
“Fiora, fall back!” Otharon shouted, levelling his rifle.
Fiora ignored him, darting low and lunging for Onyx Face’s arm. But before she could reach it, a powerful tremor shook the ground beneath her. The Mechon’s foot came down, hard. Dust and debris shot up from the impact, throwing her off balance.
That was all the opening he needed.
A massive clawed hand lashed out, catching Fiora mid-step. She barely had time to register the cold metal fingers clamping around her torso before she was yanked into the air, her feet dangling above the ground.
“Gotcha!” Onyx Face sang, tightening his grip just enough to make breathing difficult. “Oh, this is too good! And here I thought you’d be different from ol’ Dunban.” He wrenched her closer to his faceplate, the red glow of his optics intensifying. “But nope! Just another weak little worm, running in.”
Shulk’s heart pounded. He could see Fiora struggling, kicking against the iron grip.
“Let her go!” he shouted, the Monado flaring to life in his hands.
“Yeah? And what’re you gonna do about it, Monado boy?” Onyx Face taunted, shaking Fiora slightly like a toy. Fiora let out a grunt, as the Mechon turned to look at the cliff nearby – the sheer drop plunging to the ocean in which the Bionis stood below. “You know… Colony 9 didn’t sit that high above the water. But from a height like this… you’ll go splat the moment you hit the water! I think I’ll let you live for this one! Enjoy the ride down, so to speak!”
“Let her down!” Shulk growled, sprinting forward. Reyn was right behind him, bracing his shield.
But before they could get close, Onyx Face let out an amused chuckle.
“Ohhh, poor choice of words.”
Then he threw Fiora.
She hurtled through the air like a ragdoll.
Right toward the edge of the cliff.
Shulk’s breath caught. “Fiora!”
The Doctor moved before anyone else, his coat billowing as he bolted toward the cliffside, calculating angles on instinct. “Sharla — help me!”
Sharla didn’t hesitate. She raised her rifle and fired a quick burst at the Mechon near the cliff, shattering them into pieces, and giving the Doctor the opening he needed.
He lunged, reaching for Fiora just as she went over the edge—fingers brushing against hers—
And then he caught her.
His grip locked around her wrist, his body half-hanging over the cliff as he anchored himself against the rock.
Fiora dangled in the open air, her breath hitching. She looked up, eyes wide with surprise.
The Doctor grinned at her, despite the strain. “Got you!”
She blinked. Then scowled. “Don’t just stand there! Pull me up!”
“Fine, okay,” The Doctor grunted, pulling her up and over. “Teenagers… Impatient no matter the universe.”
“You’ll die for that!” Shulk screamed, swinging in with the Monado, which… as usual, bounced right off the Faced Mechon.
“Really?” The Mechon looked down at himself, playing up his surprise. “Looks like I’m still standing… unlike you!” He declared, before batting Shulk back, sending him sliding across the dirt.
“Shulk!” Reyn got in the way, stopping Shulk from sliding much further. “When’s everyone gonna stop blindly running right at the Mechon what we can’t do a damn thing to!?”
Shulk wheezed, picking his head up. He glanced over at Fiora. “Blame her! She started it this time!”
“This time,” Fiora hissed at him.
“I know – haven’t you been saying that I need to stop doing that kind of thing?”
“Shulk…” Fiora warned, looking angrier with him at the moment.
“I was just a question!”
“These Mechon are too good at psychological warfare,” The Doctor commented. “So… yeah, let’s maybe take it as a given they’re lying liars that are lying to get us worked up, so we don’t do that again, all right?”
“Good idea,” Shulk nodded.
“Agreed.” Fiora rubbed her face.
“Don’t look at me.” Reyn shrugged. “I haven’t made a run like that at a single one of ‘em.”
“What do we do?” Sharla clicked her tongue, scanning their surroundings. “We’re surrounded.” She tightened her grip on her rifle, eyeing the encroaching horde of Mechon. “And we barely managed to handle one of those things back in the mine.”
Otharon grit his teeth. “Aye. This isn’t a battle — it’s a slaughter waiting to happen.”
Onyx Face let out a slow, mocking chuckle. “Ohoho… yeah, you’re gettin’ it now! You lot are dead. So why don’t you do us all a favour and stop wasting everyone’s time?”
Sharla’s fingers hovered over the trigger of her rifle. “If we’re going down, I say we take as many of them with us as we can.”
“Agreed,” Otharon rumbled.
Fiora twirled her knives. “Fine by me.”
“Right, then!” The Doctor clapped his hands together. “Absolutely loving the ‘die with our boots on’ spirit here – actually, in my case, it’s ‘die with my Chucks on’ – very Churchill, but: Maybe we don’t do that?” He gestured vaguely at the Mechon ranks closing in. “Just a thought.”
“You’ve got a plan?” Fiora turned to him.
“Well… I say plan. It’s more of a general goal. An idea, really.” As he levelled the Sonic Screwdriver up, he loved over the shoulder to the cargo lift for the ether mine.
“Which is?” Fiora probed.
“Run for it?” The Doctor cringed. “It’s a… work-in-progress.” They could break for the lift… but the Mechon could probably just chase them down it. Faster, too, what with having built-in engines… Surrounded by bigger, more powerful enemies that had proved they were not going to listen to reason. Yeah. It wasn’t looking good. The Daleks didn’t listen to reason, either, but they were usually so obsessed with figuring out how he was going to defeat them that they usually left him alive to see it happen. The Mechon probably didn’t have the same obsession.
So, not looking good in the slightest.
Then a gunshot rang through the air.
One of the smaller Mechon units exploded in a shower of sparks.
Then another.
And another.
The enemy formation staggered as a hail of gunfire rained down from above, cutting through the ranks.
Onyx Face snarled, whirling around. “What the-!?”
Up on the cliffside, a familiar figure stood with his rifle at the ready, a cocky grin plastered across his face.
“YOU!?” Onyx Face bellowed in disbelief
“Well, well,” Dickson drawled, reloading in one smooth motion. “Looks like you kids got yourselves in a right mess.”
Shulk’s eyes widened. “Dickson!?”
Another shot rang out, striking a Mechon in the joint. The lingering Enchant effect from the Monado allowed the bullets to pierce through, tearing through vital components. The machine crumpled instantly.
“Figures!” Dickson hollered as he slid down the cliff edge, landing on his own two feet. His boots didn’t even look sullied as he strutted around in the rain and the mud, resting the blunt side of his long gun-sword on his shoulder. “I turn my back for one second, and the next thing I know Vangarre is hollering you’ve both gone AWOL, and Fiora’s nowhere to be found. You lot gave me one helluva chase!”
Shulk winced. “Dickson, I-“
“Save it,” He chuckled with a grin. “Me, I’m just glad you’re finally getting out of that lab. Now, quit gawking!” He commanded. “Start hitting the little ones with Buster – don’t bother with Enchant just yet, you’re only wastin’ your energy. Fiora!” He addressed, tossing over two machete-like blades, complete with sheathes. “Take these, get whatever Shulk misses.”
Fiora looked down at the twin blades, before moving around in a rush, switching her knives out for the machetes.
“Reyn, you're running defence. You see one of them Faces coming, you give us a holler, or knock it down.” Dickson instructed. “Otharon – you, me, and the lady will keep things locked down at range. Doc – any fancy tricks in that big brain of yours?”
“Oh, I’ve got a few.” The Doctor replied.
“Then don’t hold back on them.” Dickson reached into his vest pocket, and pulled out a stogie to chomp on. He spun the large cylinder on his gun-sword, and brought it up. “All right, lads! Fight for your lives!”
The battlefield erupted into fire.
Shulk charged forward, gripping the Monado tight as he activated Buster. The glowing blade extended, slicing through a cluster of smaller Mechon in a single sweep. The machines sputtered and fell, their cores flickering before going dark.
Fiora, moving with newfound confidence, flipped her machetes into a reverse grip and lunged at another pair of Mechon, stabbing down and through the armour with ease like the machetes were a pair of carving knives and the Mechon were the hapless birds chosen for the honour.
Reyn slammed his shield into an oncoming attacker, sending it crashing into the mud before spearing his driver through its core. “That all ya got!?” He bellowed, spinning on his heel and taking a defensive stance. The Doctor, with no real other recourse, decided to make use of his Screwdriver the best way he could, zapping the non-faced Mechon at range, or using the device to push them back when they got too close.
Dickson kept his distance, laying down suppressive fire with his gun-sword, his shots piercing through multiple Mechon at a time. “Keep it up! We thin ‘em out, we got a real shot at this!”
Otharon and Sharla worked together, unloading a barrage of rounds into the incoming horde, taking down the ones that managed to make it through the Doctor and Reyn’s defence. The glowing tracer fire from Sharla’s rifle lit up the rain-soaked battlefield as she picked off her targets.
The Mechon pressed in from all sides, but with every attack, their numbers dwindled.
Then, as if sensing the shift in battle, Onyx Face moved.
“Ahhh, you’re all feeling pretty good about yourselves, aren’t ya?” He sneered, stepping forward with deliberate menace. “Let’s see how you handle me and my boys!”
The Faced Mechon began to move, as more of the lesser Mechon dropped in from above.
A cannon on Onyx Face’s body lit up, along with similar cannons on the other Faces.
As the horde of lesser Mechon closed in, the flesh-and-blood fighters were slowly boxed in and pressed together, despite their defence.
“It’s not working!” Reyn called out. “There’s too many of them!”
“It’s been fun, but I think we’ve reached the point where this is getting stale!” Onyx Face laughed. “Sayonara, Monado Boy!”
All looked over, freezing as they saw the powerful, energetic glow building at the end of the cannon, and the bloodcurdling whine being generated by the weapon.
Onyx Face planted his feet, took aim, and-
A violent explosion rocked the battlefield. Green bolts of ether rained down from the sky, slamming into the Faces, the shockwave sending Mechon flying. From the smoke, something massive and alien emerged, its eerie screech piercing through the storm. Glowing wings pierced the night, casting a dim glow on the areas it passed over.
The massive beast swooped down, its ethereal form shimmering in the dim light.
“What in the—?” Onyx Face bellowed, as the cannon charge went flying off target as he jumped out of the way. “A Telethia!?”
The Doctor gasped, “What!? WHAT!?”
The monster screeched again, its energy pulsating as it reared back to unleash a devastating attack.
The faced Mechon jumped out of the way as the other Faces were ripped apart, his focus solely on the monster circling above.
“Here’s our chance!” Shulk sprinted forward, Monado at the ready, as he vaulted onto Onyx Face’s body. The blade went down, stabbing into the armour, heating the metal up and generating a searing, orange glow.
The Mechon let out a yelp. “What!? How’re you-“ He turned, looking at Shulk right as his eyes began to glow blue.
The Doctor sucked in some air. “He’s having a vision… Shulk! Shulk, get down from there!”
Shulk didn’t move, just… stared. It was anyone’s guess, what he was having a vision about this time…
A fortress made of black rock, overlooking the Bionis’s horn.
“We must be outside the tower…” Sharla guessed.
A giant, red-eyed, blue-skinned giant with white hair, chained to the wall.
“Welcome… Heir to the Monado.” The giant addressed with a deep, almost regal voice.
A girl with silver hair and wings growing out of her head, pinned to the floor by an enormous spear – the same spear that Onyx Face held. Blood trickled out of the wound.
“Run… Run you clever…” She never got the chance to finish what she was saying.
A Mechon with an uncanny resemblance to the Bionis, flipping out of the way of Shulk’s attacks. In his hands was the Monado, but it looked different – longer, with points more akin to those on actual swords, with a red, cross-shaped gemstone embedded above the glass centrepiece – and it sliced the arm off Onyx Face in one clean motion.
“You’ll pay for what you’ve done!”
Dickson sneered, holding a smoking gun with a hateful glare in his eyes.
“You idiot,” Onyx Face gurgled. “You’ve no idea what you’ve done.”
“All right, time’s up!” Onyx Face shook, and flung Shulk off.
The teen landed with a gasp, staring up as the Mechon shuffled around nervously.
“You got lucky this time, brat! But next time, your head is mine!” Onyx growled, turning before jumping. “So long!”
“No, you’re not getting away-“ Shulk tried to run off after the Mechon, as he ascended.
“Oi!” Reyn tried to give chase, as the rest of the Mechon took off. “Get back here you little-“
“You two!” Dickson barked. “What’re you gonna do, fly after them?”
Dickson’s rhetorical caused them to stop, but it was Reyn who turned around. “Come on! We can’t just-“
“There’ll be another time.” Dickson crossed his arms sternly. “You’ll get your chance.”
The Doctor wasn’t paying attention, instead focused solely on the flying beast swooping off into the distance. “No… can’t be.”
“Doctor?” Fiora leaned over. “What is it?”
“First the Nopon… now this…?” The Doctor stared in disbelief.
“What even was that thing!?” Reyn wondered. “Taking down the Mechon like that!?”
“That,” The Doctor gestured with his head, before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. “Was a Telethia.”
“A…” Shulk strained his brain. “A what?”
Dickson approached, looking less confused, and more curious. “Oh? You’ve seen them before, have you, Doctor?”
“A few times,” The Doctor furrowed his brow. “I suppose you could say. Native to the planet Mira – that’s the Nopon homeworld.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “They spend time building their strength, then when they get ready… it’s open season.”
“Open season?” Reyn repeated. “On what?”
“Everything.” The Doctor ominously recalled. “They don’t discriminate. They’ve hunted whole species to extinction, back on their homeworld.”
“Homeworld?” Shulk repeated. “Curious…” His arms dropped to his sides, as he stared at the Doctor. “Hold a moment – you’re saying the Nopon are from Elsewhere too!? And that creature – the Telethia – it’s from where you come from as well!?”
Dickson snorted. “Heh – don’t let ‘im fill your head with that mush! Telethia are native, right here to Bionis! Same as the Nopon.”
“Really?” The Doctor probed suspiciously. “And your source would be…?”
“My own two eyes and ears!” Dickson answered, flicking a bit of ash off his cigar. “I’ve travelled the whole of the Bionis, Doc. Seen my fair share of things. Telethia… I’ve never seen them make their way down to where us Homs still kick about.”
“You know of them, Dickson?” Shulk questioned.
“Yeah, I’ve come across ‘em a time or two. Well, the stories, mainly,” Dickson rolled his shoulders. “Guardian beasts that protect the Bionis. If one of them’s up and about, the Mechon are making a lot more noise than we thought. Just as well. It was looking pretty hairy there, for a minute.”
“Hmm…” The Doctor narrowed his eyes, and looked away. The Nopon were one thing – they turned up in the most unexpected of places on the regular – but a Telethia? That was bad, bad news.
Where there was one, there was usually many more. Ravenous, ready to lunge at anything that might have an iota of meat on their bones.
Depending on the size of the nest, the Mechon could be the least of the Homs’ problems.
“A vanguard.” The Doctor gravely tolled.
“A what?” Otharon questioned.
“That was just a vanguard.” He looked skyward. “Question. If you’re hunting something, and someone else is hunting the same animal, what do you do?”
“…you kill it first,” Reyn crossed his arms. “Or you get the other guy outta your way.”
The Doctor nodded. “Xord said the Mechon were all hungry too.” His face twisted anxiously. “It’s like I said. Kleptoparasitism. The Mechon hijacking the food chain by taking the Telethia’s food. It wasn’t saving us,” The Doctor took a breath. “It was protecting its food stores.”
“Its…” Shulk blinked. “That Telethia wants to hunt us too?”
“A Telethia will eat anything.” The Doctor shook his head. “Anything. Animals, plants… they’ve hunted whole species to extinction. If there’s a nest here…” He let out a puff of worried breath. “Oh… I hope the rest of them are hibernating…”
“It’s… that bad?” Fiora nervously ventured.
The Doctor thought on it for a moment. “You know, the Nopon usually assign cutesy names to everything. Daleks are ‘screamy-screechies.’ The Weeping Angels? ‘Peekaboo-spookies.’ The Slitheen — they’re just ‘stinky-boom-booms.’” He sucked in a breath. “Telethia? They’re called ‘Endbringers.’”
“Well then, we’ll just have to keep an eye out.” Dickson took a drag off his cigar. “Or maybe let them and the Mechon keep having goes at each other so they ain’t occupied with us. Now…” He turned, looking over the group. His eyes landed on Otharon, and he grinned, “Last time I saw you old man, you’d just given the order to pull back the line to Colony 6.”
“Yes…” Otharon stroked his beard. “Then I recall, you, Dunban, and that other fellow leapt right over the fallen Mechon and won us the battle anyway. You did a good job of making me look like a fool that day.”
“Heh!” Dickson laughed. “Wasn’t anything personal. You know how Dunban was.” He grinned at Otharon. “Good to see you again, old man. Helluva long year, isn’t it?”
“More like month, in my case…” Otharon shook his head.
“Wait…” Sharla furrowed her brow. “You were at Sword Valley last year, during the battle? Don’t tell me… the leader of Colony 9’s Defence Force – that Dickson – that’s you?”
“I’d be surprised if there was anyone else like me,” Dickson offered her a charming grin in response.
The Doctor frowned. “I thought Vangarre was the Colonel.” He turned to Reyn.
“Yeah – Dickson’s the one in charge,” Reyn began to explain. “But he’s always off doing something, so Vangarre’s calling the shots while he’s out.”
“You know, it’s not polite to talk about someone behind their back,” Dickson pointed out.
Reyn winced, and rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry.”
“Ah, whatever.” Dickson shook his head. “Usually, I’m out exploring the Bionis, searching for anything that might even the score against the Mechon.”
Oh, so that was why he was always gone. And how he’d found Shulk and the Monado when Shulk was a kid.
“Does that include Telethia?” The Doctor asked of Dickson.
“Ha! You don’t miss out on anything, do you?” Dickson chuckled. “I thought about it, a couple of times. Mystical beasts that protect the sleeping Bionis… If we could awaken a power like that, it could fight with us against the Mechon. Sword Valley would’ve been a hell of a lot different with the Telethia pushing the Mechon back!”
That wasn’t the part the Doctor focused on. “Sleeping Bionis…” He furrowed his eyebrows in thought. The wings on the Titan’s back, the carapace also on its back, the odd, spike-like growths all over its body, the horn…
The Bionis looked a lot like an overgrown, bipedal Telethia, now that the Doctor was thinking about it. Was… that what happened? Some Telethia from Mira that had gotten a hefty dose of human and Nopon DNA fell into some rift into a pocket dimension, then grew to titanic proportions, before doing battle with Mechonis, the killing blow was struck, and the latent DNA still in its body kickstarted evolution across its surface.
If so… where did the Mechonis come from, then? Had it already been here? Was the legendary battle between the two titans, spoken of in Homs legend, the result of Mechonis defending its domain from a trespasser? With Bionis itself dead, and only the life clinging to its body left, the Mechonis might view them as intruders, still, and might’ve sent the Mechon to clear away the last stragglers.
“So tell me,” Dickson crossed his arms and tilted his head. “How’d you two,” He pointed at Sharla and Otharon, “Wind up with a bunch of slackers like this?”
“Slackers?” Fiora raised an eyebrow in challenge.
“Not you.” Dickson amended. “Reyn’s got enough slacking in him to make up for the both of you.”
“Oi!”
“So,” Dickson crossed his arms. “All that said, what’re you gonna do now, eh? Go chasing that Mechon that won’t shut up?”
Shulk began to nod.
“Don’t be stupid!” Dickson snapped. “You and Dunban have the same syndrome!”
Shulk recoiled, like he’d been physically hit. “S-Syndrome?”
“That’s a damn fine sword, but it doesn’t make you invincible.”
Shulk sighed. “So I’ve been hearing.”
“What’re you gonna do if you charge right into the belly of the beast, and the Monado don’t work against those Faced Mechon, like it hasn’t been?” Dickson questioned.
Shulk looked down.
“Listen to me,” Dickson ordered. “A year ago, the Mechon were building something. A huge fortress, right in the middle of Sword Valley. It’s their staging area for attacks on the Bionis. If they’re attacking now, that means it’s finished. If it’s finished, it’s going to be crawling with them – the most powerful Mechon they can throw at us, all in one place. You’re going to be slaughtered if you try to walk in there.”
“I say we blow up the sword. Cut off their ability to move.” Fiora declared.
“Good plan – but they can fly.” Dickson shook his head. “You lot think we hadn’t tried that? Us? The Defence Force? You think we figured it’d be just dandy if we let the Mechon run rampant? No! Do yourselves a favour – turn around, let the adults handle it.”
“No.” Shulk softly denied.
“’Scuse me?” Dickson raised an eyebrow.
Shulk looked up. “I know what you’re thinking – you had to save my skin again. But this time, it’s different! I’m learning the Monado! New abilities are appearing, just like I said they would! And we took down Bronze Face, before walking into this ambush! We may not be there yet, but we’re getting there! All of us, we’re learning, becoming more experienced. I can do this, Dickson! We can! The only thing standing in our way is the limit on the Monado.”
“Oh?” Dickson raised an eyebrow. “So, how do you plan on fixing it?”
“…I don’t know,” Shulk admitted. “But… I saw something. There was this… island, or fortress, made of black rock, overlooking the Bionis’s horn. The Monado looked like it did normally in one portion of my vision, there, then the next, it looked different. And it could cut the Faced Mechon! Maybe there’s something there that could help us! Something that can allow the Monado to overcome its inability to cut people!”
“Really…” Dickson slowly drawled. “You said you saw it?”
Reyn patted Shulk on the back. “Shulk’s been having visions ever since he picked up the thing.”
“Well I’ll be…” An emotion flashed over Dickson’s face for a moment – pride or joy, nobody could really say – before he put a clamp on it. “Visions, eh?”
“They’ve already helped us,” Shulk explained. “I trust them.”
“…well, if you’re sure…” Dickson crossed his arms, thinking on it for a moment. “A black fortress overlooking the Bionis horn… Sounds to me like you saw Prison Island.”
Sharla looked over. “Prison Island?”
“Legend says it was built by the High Entia race, to lock away a great and terrible power.” Dickson gestured. “Considering the Monado was sealed away in that vault where I found you… maybe they took its power to harm people, and locked it away in Prison Island.”
“Is that possible?” Fiora asked of Dickson.
“I don’t see why not.” Dickson shrugged. “Just look at the trouble it makes for the Mechon. And the way it hurt its users till Shulk picked it up… Yeah, I wouldn’t want that turned onto people. But if the Mechon are shoving people into those big Faces…”
“Oh,” Sharla’s eyebrows shot up. “So, you heard that whole conversation?”
“Unfortunately.” Dickson sighed. “Bastard. Strutting around like that…”
Shulk nodded in agreement, frowning thoughtfully. “You said the High Entia built it? They’re real?”
Dickson nodded. “They’re real all right! Despite how much they like to pretend otherwise.”
“Sorry,” The Doctor leaned over. “I don’t want to… cut in, sorry, but- stranger in a strange land, here – what’s a High Entia?”
“An extremely advanced, extremely isolationist group of people that live at the top of the Bionis.” Otharon began to explain. “With extremely long lifespans, to boot.”
The Doctor hummed. He had mentioned being nine-hundred to Otharon, and the old Colonel remarking that he didn’t look High Entia.
“We tried to get them involved at Sword Valley a year ago,” Dickson recalled. “But there weren’t nothing for it.”
The Doctor began to nod, before something else occurred to him. “Hang on – sorry, but did I just hear you’re planning to go there, Shulk?”
“Well… Yes? What’s the matter?”
“Doesn’t the Monado usually show you visions you’ll want to change?”
Shulk paused momentarily, puzzling the details out. “I’ve… seen some other things, but…”
“Right now, Prison Island’s the best lead you’ve got.” Dickson finished for the teen. “Unless you want to go waltzing into Sword Valley with no good weapons. And trust me, you’re gonna want it – the way the Mechon scramble over each other to get at the Monado.”
“I… don’t know,” Shulk turned around. “Fiora?”
“Ey?” Dickson’s face twisted in confusion. “Why’re you asking her?”
“This is her operation, technically.” Reyn shrugged. “We’re just following her lead.”
“…heh,” Dickson chuckled with a grin. “That shouldn’t surprise me, I guess. Should’ve seen the way she led you lot around when you were little. All right, ‘Commander,’ what’re you thinking?”
All turned to Fiora, expecting an answer out of her.
The Homs stood pensively for a moment. “We should go to Prison Island. We barely managed to defeat Bronze Face, if it wasn’t for the Monado. And if the Telethia hadn’t shown up, we would be dead now.”
“All right!” Reyn pounded his fists together. “Then let’s-“
“But,” Fiora stopped, fixing him with a look. “We came here to Colony 6 to take care of something else too, remember?”
Dickson raised an eyebrow.
Reyn threw his head back, before nodding eagerly as it came back to him. “Right! We were gonna clear out the Colony so the people could go back to it!”
“It’s right over there,” Fiora pointed. “No point in going all the way up to Prison Island, then coming back down this way.”
“Right,” Sharla agreed. “Let’s clear out the Colony first.”
Dickson smirked, flicking some ash off his cigar. “Heh. The responsible types. Good thing you stuck along with these two lunks.”
“We try,” Reyn raised his voice in defence.
Shulk nodded, gripping the Monado’s hilt. “Then it’s settled. We finish what we started here first.”
Fiora turned her gaze toward the ruins of Colony 6, determination in her eyes. “Let’s go.”
The group turned, and proceeded back up the hill to the colony. For a moment, the Doctor lingered, his mind abuzz with worry and possibilities. Bronze Face had implied there was a deeper reason for all of this. Something going on.
The Nopon being present were one thing. The Telethia…
Between them and the Mechon, the Homs really would be in dire straits.
He’d stop them, however he could. If need be, he’d take the Homs away from Bionis.
He wouldn’t let them fall. He wouldn’t.
Chapter 14: Eleven: A Day in the Village
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Despite my wishes otherwise, my day job beckons. I could take a sick day to go spelunking some more in the data troves, but that would have me found out almost immediately. Or, at the very least, it would raise suspicion. I hardly ever take time off. Not when there’s so much to do. To learn. Certainly not on a day where one of the big experiments is scheduled.
Rhadamanthus – despite being the size of a city – is a small place, in that regard. Gossip spreads quickly among all the wrong circles. So, I fall into the routine, and decide to pick up on my weekend activities later.
My morning routine was streamlined to efficiency: shower, coffee, a review of the overnight reports from the facility. The Conduit’s readings were stable, though Trinity had flagged a minor power fluctuation in Lab 3. I made a note to have it looked at.
Dressed in my usual slate-grey coat, I stepped outside, into the fluorescent light, processed air, and temperature-controlled environment of the singles dormitories.
The transit hub was a few blocks away, and I preferred to walk. The tram was there, punctual as always, and I boarded, keying in my passcode. If I didn’t want to trip an alarm entering through the lab’s emergency exit, I had to go through the whole, long commute. Digital billboards played their endless cycles of news, corporate updates, and doomsaying, as usual.
An election in the Minos Authority had been called for the underdog candidate, and he was already pushing promises of guaranteed genetic engineering for everyone, in the name of human rights. Immortality, changing what it meant to be human. Lofty goals. Nonsense, mostly.
Elma wasn’t going to be happy about that. The Mimeosomes were her pride and joy. Whatever he was trying to push, she-
…what am I saying? She’s been lying to me – to everyone – this entire time. Who knows where she really stood on anything anymore.
As the tram arrived and I stepped off, I tensed up as I started walking though the high-security areas of the station. I had to pass through countless airlocks, all tended to by security officers and backed up by the Trinity Processor. Every door took something different; a retinal scan, a passcode, and a spoken identifier, until I got to the main door.
An enormous, thick blast door – hardened against radiation and anything else – stood between me and my workplace, marked with warnings. ‘RESTRICTED AREA: PROJECT MARIENKIND’ – a story about finding the keys to heaven. Quite on-the-nose, if you ask me. Other labels were stamped on the door as well – radiation warnings, biohazards, hazard diamonds, markings from every big nation that contributed to the project.
I walked through the door, down the clean, well-lit corridors containing the ancillary labs and offices, all the way down to the beating heart, and the most-important part of the lab. The observation lab.
Screens and banks of terminals filled the room, like desks, lined the room. At one end, positioned right under the main viewing window, was the main interface console.
And beyond the window, in the main containment chamber itself, hovered the Conduit. A silent, glowing monolith, suspended right in mid-air.
I exhaled sharply, and settled into the office chair in front of the desk-shaped computer. I rolled up, and rubbed my eyes, before getting right into business.
Footsteps click on the floor near me, before a cup of coffee is set before me.
“Good morning, Galea.” I don’t need to look to know it’s her.
“You realize, one of these days, you’re bound to be wrong.” She hummed in response.
“Not likely.” All the same, I picked up the mug – labelled ‘Team Klaus’ with a stylized picture of the Conduit on it – and took a drink.
I promptly spat it out. The junk tasted like fresh pool water.
I looked up at Galea. “Did you put chlorine in the coffee maker this morning?”
My co-worker looked down at her mug with concern. “The filtration systems must be down again.”
“That’s the third time this week…” I groaned, and rubbed my face. It was always one thing after another. “What’s the point in having a maintenance department if our workspace is too restricted for someone to come in and change a water filter?”
She sighed, and sat her own, identical mug down as well. “I’m glad you said something. My tastebuds aren’t what they used to be, I’m afraid.”
“You would’ve been fine.” I rolled my eyes, as I continued scrolling through the files on the terminal. The objects we had chosen, our hypotheses, suggestions for where to go from here. “It’s not like it does much for you anyhow.”
“I can still enjoy the taste,” Galea rolled her eyes right back.
“With your tongue on the fritz?”
“It’s not as though it’s my fault. It’s the cheap organic compounds they used for the taste receptors. Decaying. But,” She smiled excitedly, like someone talking about getting a new phone. “Not for much longer. I finally put in the request for an upgrade.”
I barely glanced up from my work. “Oh yeah?”
“Oh yes,” she echoed, practically vibrating. “This,” And then she just… casually reached into her mouth, pulled out her tongue like it, gestured around with it, and put it back in her mouth, reattaching it, like someone showing off a pair of dentures, “has been running on borrowed time for years. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to experience taste degradation? One day, coffee is coffee, the next, everything tastes like water. And not chlorinated water, regular water. Which is, to say, nothing.”
“Tragic.”
“More than tragic. Disastrous. But no more of that. I’m getting an S-Grade fully synthetic model. Zero organic decay, zero maintenance beyond the standard diagnostics, and best of all?” She lifted a finger, her grin growing. “It’s precision-engineered down to a nanometer. Five times the number of taste receptors. You think an organic tongue is impressive? This is better in every conceivable way. You know how some people can pick apart every single spice in a dish just from one bite? That’ll be me.”
“That does sound like an improvement,” I admitted.
“An improvement?” She scoffed, leaning back dramatically. “This is a revolution. Do you know how long I’ve been dealing with that plasticky aftertaste from the old model? And don’t even get me started on texture mapping — the current version barely registers half the subtleties of food. The new one has independent microfilament arrays for tactile differentiation. We’re talking real-time chemical analysis, temperature precision within tenths of a degree, and an actual, functioning bitterness curve that won’t just drop off like some cut-rate imitation.”
“Uh-huh.” I let her ramble as I sifted through another set of reports.
She sat back with a contented sigh. “This is going to be life-changing. I’m finally going to taste coffee the way it was meant to be tasted.”
“You’re worse than those wine snobs, sometimes.” I smirked. “Hope it was worth the budget request.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she huffed. “I paid out-of-pocket.”
That actually got me to look up. “You paid for it?”
“Absolutely.” Galea folded her arms, radiating smug satisfaction. “Top-of-the-line sensory tech like this? You don’t just wait for authorization — you invest.”
I shook my head, returning to my files. “You better pray the coffee machine gets fixed, then.”
She froze. “…right.” She turned about with a sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to find some other coffee machine up here that doesn’t make everything taste like chlorine.” She looked over my shoulder at the console, placing a hand on my back. “So, what’s the situation?”
Her hand was noticeably warm – warmer than a human’s at regular temperature. Despite mimeosomes being designed to mimic the human body in every way, there was always the subtle things. The nearly-imperceptible texture of the skin, the way they gave off too much ambient heat like a space heater. Even just being in front of their breathing was enough to trip somebody up – their bodies were fuelled by electrolysis, hydrogen spun off from water and burned, with the excess oxygen from the process ventilated into the air. Standing in front of a mimeosome was getting a face-full of pure oxygen.
Galea was one. I didn’t pry into the why – it wasn’t my place to judge – but it did disappoint me slightly. A dead-end technology, they were. I was also attached to my fleshy body; call me weak.
I exhaled, shifting my focus back to the terminal. “Simulation criteria for the next Conduit test. We’ve refined the constraints, but the results from the last probe run are... inconsistent.”
“Inconsistent how?”
“Localized warping outside expected parameters.” I brought up a holographic model — a cross-section of space-time disturbances mapped onto a three-dimensional grid. The central point, where the Conduit was, flared with erratic distortions, before bubbles popped up into existence around it, and other areas of the station. I gestured to the display.
Galea folded her arms, leaning in with a sharp gaze. “Yes… I noticed the clock in my room was running a little bit ahead this morning. Time dilation, in random areas of the station…”
“I would say that… if not for the fact that it defies how the Conduit works as we understand it.” I hummed. “Instead, its as though… alternate chunks of time have slammed into ours, overwriting them.”
“What about conservation laws? Energy parity? What happens to the time that we lose?”
“Still obeyed. Whatever the Conduit is doing, it’s not creating energy out of nothing, or destroying it. But the output doesn’t match the input in any way that makes sense.” I tapped a readout displaying an energy transfer graph. “Artron, gamma rays, z-neutrinos – all normal. Which means that either the Conduit is sending the energy elsewhere, or it’s-“
Galea’s brow furrowed as she studied the data. “Nonlinear transformation. Input energy gets redistributed along a function we haven’t solved yet.” She looked down at me, curious. “How does that help our experiment?”
“If we can figure out what’s happening to the energy we’ve lost here, we might be able to use that to control the effect. Instead of simply using the Conduit to summon, we can use it to send.”
“Which means,” she said, leaning in, “We need to pick the right test object.”
I sighed, rubbing my temples. “And that’s where we hit a wall. We’ve no way to control the destination, or even a guaranteed way to ensure that everything survives the trip, or where it ends up.”
Galea tilted her head. “Well,” She pressed her hand on a button on the keyboard. “Ontos? Have you been hearing this?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right,” Galea nodded. “Taking into account the observations we’ve made about the Conduit, how do you suggest we overcome the hurdle of our probes being destroyed?”
A millisecond passed, before Ontos answered, drawing up a proposal in response.
“According to all available criteria, the material most practical for continued probing of the Conduit is morphologically-unstable organic matter.”
Her eyes narrowed, thinking. Then— “Clarify.”
“Biological systems are inherently adaptive. A biological system of sufficient hardiness – such as one composed of extremophiles – could survive any hostile environment it finds itself in. Taking into account all possibilities, a hybrid synthetic-organic approach would be best.”
“…It’s not the worst idea.” I ventured, thoughtfully humming to myself. “The bio-crystals we’re fielding – they fit the criteria.”
“Those are replacements for human brain cells!” Galea pointed out. “They’re not designed to be data probes.”
“So, we make them work.” I retorted. It might take some work to get the other sensors working, but, who knows? This could be what we need. I straightened, glancing at Galea. “Ontos, compile the bio-crystal probe parameters, but don’t run any simulations yet. We need to verify something else first.”
“Yes, sir.”
Galea folded her arms. “What’s next?”
“The core experiment.” I tapped a few commands into the console. “We need to confirm that organic matter can survive the trip, and that the Conduit can model it at all.” In the early days, the Conduit had been used to manufacture incredible things – lightweight materials that, when exposed to electrical currents, could harden and become incredibly tough. Glass stronger than any diamond. All of it poured into the construction of the Beanstalk and the Orbital Ring.
But we had trouble with the organic parts. That is – anything more complex than simple atomic lattices. Protein chains, cells, anything complex – we could never quite get it to work.
That was where the Trinity Processor came in. They did the heavy lifting, communicating with the Conduit in ways we can’t. Performing the hopelessly-complex calculations we can’t.
It had technically been done before. Just not on anything more complex than lumps of metal, glass, and theoretical materials. But it was a significant hurdle we had to overcome, if we wanted to unlock the true potential of the Conduit. We could model small objects and send the data just fine – the real issue was getting the Trinity to commune effectively with the Conduit and themselves. We call it ‘synchronization’ – the higher the synch rate, the less data is lost during transfer to the Conduit, the more likely it is the calculations we give the Conduit will arrive intact, interpretable, and result in an object closer to our target.
Trying to send anyone or anything anywhere via the process, at this stage, is asking for trouble. Hence all our efforts to streamline the process.
Galea’s expression darkened slightly. “We’ll have trouble securing a crystal for that purpose. They’re not paperweights they just hand out, you know.”
“Right.”
Her brow furrowed, but she nodded. “So what’s the test object?”
Hours later, she and I were standing in the observation room, watching as Trinity attempted to dissect an apple, and send that data to the Conduit.
I tapped the console, bringing up the latest batch of synchronization data. Galea folded her arms, watching as the numbers flickered into place.
“We’re still stuck at seventeen percent,” I muttered, exhaling sharply through my nose. “Not great.”
Galea sighed. “So, we’re shooting in the dark.”
“We’re refining the process,” I corrected. “Every failure gives us more insight.”
“That’s optimistic.” She leaned in. “You think an apple will stand in for a piece of exotic matter?”
“I think an apple is predictable,” I shot back. “We know its structure. Water content. Sugar composition. Trinity can calculate and model every molecule down to the quantum level. If we can’t get this right, we won’t get anything right. And it’s organic.”
She didn’t argue. Instead, nodding slowly.
“Doctors,” Dr Bennett over at one of the secondary consoles touched a hand to her headset. “Return from administration: We’ve got the green light.”
“I’m showing minor perturbations in the Hilbert field,” Dr Robbins muttered, adjusting his glasses as he leaned closer to the waveform readouts. “Localized eigenstate fluctuations along the boundary layer. ”
“Compensating,” Dr Hayashi cut in. “Cycling energy dampers, diverting excess flux backup capacitors.” His fingers danced across the console, initiating the energy redistribution.
“Shutting down all non-critical systems, routing power to energy condensers,” another voice reported from their console.
A low thrumming reverberated through the observation room as the containment arrays came online. On the main display, the spacetime metric around the Conduit flickered with minor distortions.
“Accelerator electromagnets charged – preparing for quark-gluon induction.”
“Core temperature holding steady, but we’re detecting transient Casimir resonance spikes at the event threshold,” Dr. Robbins noted. “Field stability is oscillating along the fourth eigenmode, amplitude creeping up by 0.3 percent per second.”
“Lensing effects increasing,” Hayashi reported. “If it propagates, we’ll see frame collapse in the next sixty seconds.”
I hummed to myself. “Override field harmonics, set baseline to the Planck threshold.”
“Engaging counter-resonance…” Hayashi tapped in the commands. The Conduit pulsed in response.
Galea looked over the console. “All right. Conduit status is… primed and ready.”
I shot the readouts a glance of my own. “Trinity Processor synch rate at… seventeen percent,” I sighed, showing my misgivings. Still, we pressed forward. “Let’s begin the experiment.”
“Processing will begin in ten seconds.”
The Trinity Processor buzzed to life. Pneuma and Logos joined Ontos in parsing the apple’s structure, converting their scans into a set of equations that would be fed into the Conduit. Numbers scrolled faster than human eyes could track, and for a brief moment, everything seemed stable.
Then the screen flashed red.
An apple appeared in the containment field — but it wasn’t an apple. Not for long.
A moment of stability. A flicker of wrongness. Then-
It shattered.
A wave of high-energy radiation burst outward as the structure collapsed, space itself distorting with an awful, shrieking snap. The containment field flared, catching the explosion before it could reach us, bathing the room in an unnatural glow — colours that didn’t belong, light that bent the wrong way.
It was burning.
Something in me cracked.
The alarms blurred into a shrill, distant whine. My breath caught. My hands shook. The world tilted.
Too bright. Too bright. The air was wrong. It clawed at my lungs, thick and heavy, like I was suffocating in the middle of a fire. I knew this feeling. I’d felt it before — felt it before I even was.
Blinding light. Heat. The sky tearing open. A body that wasn’t ready to be born, ripped out of the void and thrust into existence. Firestorms consuming entire worlds. Ash choking the stars. The screaming.
I stumbled back. My throat clenched. My chest hurt. The containment field flickered in my vision; the afterimage of the scorching light and the thundering sound seared into my mind like a supernova.
I had to get out.
“Adam? Adam!?”
Galea was saying something, but I couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t focus. My legs moved before I could think, shoving past terminals and workstations, staggering toward the exit.
A voice called after me. Laughter — actual laughter — echoed from one of them behind me.
“What, that freaked him out?”
“Heh. Genius at work, folks.”
I barely heard them.
I slammed my palm against the door panel, stumbled into the hall, and kept going. The walls felt too close. The floor too unsteady. My breath rattled, sharp and uneven, my pulse hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape — like I was trying to escape.
I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I had to run.
-----------
Once he got over his ‘Saturday morning cartoon’ villain shtick, Vandham turned out to be a half-decent chap. Of course, he was still a mercenary – the Doctor had learned to treat them with healthy scepticism, if nothing else, at the very beginning – but still, a good enough fellow. He’d even offered to pay for everybody’s meals – though whether that was genuine philanthropy or buttering up potential clients, who knew.
Anyhow, that led them to where they were gathered – around a large table in an outdoor restaurant, chatting.
Every so often, the Doctor took a swig from his ginger beer, and a bite to eat from his plate, but he was more focused on his surroundings.
Crossette eagerly scarfed down something – an Armu T-bone steak – like it was the first thing she’d ever eaten. Which… in this life, it probably was.
Vandham caught sight of her, and chuckled. “Enjoying that hunk of meat, little lady?”
Crossette eagerly nodded, and gulped down the bite of food. “This stuff is great. Doesn’t even taste frozen!”
“Heh! No freezing here!” Vandham shook his head, and gestured around. “That’s genuine Garfont Armu. Fresh and ready to go.”
“Really?” Albedo hummed, taking a drink from a wine glass. “So your village, it’s not just a mercenary outpost.”
“Nah,” Vandham easily admitted, leaning forward. “Started out like that, back in the day, yeah. Mercenary life’s not exactly glamourous; you make a lot of enemies. Didn’t want any two-bit Driver with a bone to pick tearing apart the major towns to find us, so me and the boys needed someplace out of the way. That was when we hit upon this little cave.”
“And the children?” The Doctor leaned forward. “When did they come into it?”
At that, Vandham sighed, though he shot a look at the Doctor like he wasn’t quite sure what the Time Lord was trying to imply. “War orphans, most of ‘em. Took ‘em in while we were out on the job.”
“And you- you…” Nia slurred, swaying as she almost knocked over her bottle of whiskey. “You what…? Raise ‘em to come killing mashies… mach…”
“Machines.” Dromarch rumbled, finishing the sentence for her.
“Hell no, what do you take me for?” Vandham snorted. “There are some guys out in the business who want their kids to follow in their footsteps, sure. Not me. Not any of us here. Some of ‘em grow up, wanting to be Drivers and such, but we don’t push it on ‘em. Got plenty of musicians, tailors, and cooks ‘ere, too. And if they want nothing to do with the place, they’re free to go, simple as.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, pleasantly surprised. Perhaps he might’ve had this ‘Vandham’ wrong…
“That’s… very honourable.” Pyra commented.
“’S decent,” Vandham corrected. “These kids have all had their lives broken up by something-or-other. Least we can do is give ‘em a place to stay and a choice.”
Nia burst out into giggles. “Wash out you guys… got a couple of bleedin’ hearts over yere…”
“My lady,” Dromarch intoned. “Perhaps it’s time to put down the liquor-“
Nia hissed at him. “After the week I’ve been having? Fat chance.”
“Well, I ain’t denying that.” Vandham admitted. “I mean, look at you lot. A couple of greenhorns, the Aegis, and a woman without a single weapon on her person. Call me a bleeding heart any day.”
“He prefers it if you would, actually.” Roc cawed with a chuckle. “It’s good for business.”
Vandham looked across the table.
Rex was sitting there, with his arms crossed, looking… nervous.
“Oi. Pipsqueak. What’s up?”
Rex swallowed. “Do you fight in wars too, Vandham? The mercenaries.” Ah, and there was the question.
“Hmm…” Vandham looked Rex up and down. “Rex, that suit – you’re a salvager, right? Hauling up loads of scrap –military supplies.”
Rex shook his head. “Not me. I don’t touch military stuff with a ten-foot-pole.”
“But soldiers need compasses, right? Valves for ether stoves. It’s not just weapons, you know.” Vandham tilted his head. “Food, medicine, raw materials. All of it. War touches everything. If you’re breathing air, you’re part of it.”
The Doctor’s mood began to turn sour. “Not if you’re a conscientious objector.”
“’Scuse me?” Vandham turned to the Doctor.
“oooh…” Nia drawled.
“Grow your own crops,” The Doctor retorted. “Go off the grid. Run, and run, and run. There’s always a way to escape it.” He looked at Vandham intently. “And if you can’t run, you can reason.”
“Hmph,” Vandham grunted, narrowing his eyes at the Doctor. “Maybe. But what do you do if it hunts you down anyway? What if you can’t run, and it’s not interested in reasoning with you?”
“The Mechon have killed innumerable people! Razed every place we’ve ever built up as home! No surrender, no prisoners, just death! Whatever’s making them must know what they’re doing! That means they must be stopped. No matter what.”
The Doctor took a breath. “Then you try anyway.”
Vandham shook his head. “Rex. You’re the Driver of the Aegis. You know what that means, right?”
Rex shared a look with Pyra.
“It doesn’t matter who you are. What kind of person you are.” Vandham outlined. “They’re going to be after you. They already are. Every person in the world is going to want a piece of you, for her. How long do you think you’re going to be able to run from that? Really? The longer you stick by her side, the worse it’s gonna be.”
Pyra looked down, silently steeling her features.
“What are you trying to accomplish, here?” The Doctor questioned.
Vandham crossed his arms. “If you lot’re serious about getting to the World Tree, I need to know you’re serious.”
Rex looked back up, a glow in his eyes. “I’m serious! It’s all I’ve ever dreamed about!”
“Hmm…” Vandham narrowed his eyes, and looked back down, letting the subject hang.
Pyra took in an unsteady breath. “I’m… going to go get some more water. Does anybody else want something?
“Cheers love,” Vandham leaned forward. “Bring me a beer?”
“A beer.” Pyra nodded, and looked around. “Anybody else want something?”
“I’m good.”
“I could go for a good Kirsch…” Albedo hummed, sighing thoughtfully. “Probably wouldn’t find it here… Any clear liquor is good, I suppose.”
Pyra gave Albedo a dubious glance but nodded. “I’ll see what I can find.”
As she turned to leave, Nia suddenly smacked the table with both hands, nearly launching herself out of her chair. “OI! OI!—y’know wha’ we need? More… more… shit… whawuzzat stuff… called… - uh - MORE.” She nodded sagely, as if she had just made a profound statement. Her bottle of whiskey had gone from a three-quarters full to only half.
“I…” Crossette looked sideways at her. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“Shut up! Yer’ not my mam!”
Vandham leaned back, eyeing her warily. “More what?”
Nia pointed at him with absolute conviction, slamming the table again. “EXACTLY.”
Silence.
The Doctor looked up from his ginger beer. He was still brewing slightly, in objection to Vandham, but didn’t say anything more about it. Mercenaries. In any case, Nia’s palms were as red as beets. “You’re drunk.”
“Your… your…” Nia refuted. “Your chin is huge.”
Dromarch, however, was less entertained. “My lady, perhaps it is time you had some water.”
Nia gasped as if he had just suggested she consume live spiders. “Water?” She clutched her chest, reeling. “Dromarch. DROMARCH. Listen t’ me.” She grabbed his face — well, more like mashed her palms against it — dragging him closer until her nose was almost, almost touching his muzzle. “D’y’know wha’ happens when ya drink too much water?”
Dromarch’s tail flicked in irritation. “You remain properly hydrated?”
“No.” She squinted, then waved a hand. “Well — yes, but — no! Y’ever hear o’ fish?”
“…Yes, my lady, I am familiar with fish.”
She jabbed a finger into his mane. “EXACTLY. Y’drink too much water, Dromarch, an’ — an’ then yer a FISH.” She sat back, nodding sagely, as if this was a well-documented medical fact. “Next thing y’know, yer swimmin’ around, no thumbs, eatin’ — eatin’ fish food-”
“Oh, I hate it when that happens.” The Doctor commented dryly.
Rex looked sideways at the Doctor, so confused it looked like it was causing him physical pain. “What on Alrest is she talking about?”
The Doctor returned Rex’s look. “You think I caught any of that?”
“I dunno what m’talkin’ about!” Nia declared proudly, then immediately looked confused. “…What w’ I talkin’ about?”
“You were turning into a fish,” Vandham supplied, clearly entertained.
Nia’s eyes widened in abject horror. “Holy sh- DROMARCH, D’YA SEE?! IT’S ALREADY STARTIN’-“
That was it. That was the final straw.
Dromarch exhaled through his nose, straightened up, and declared, “My lady, you will drink some water.”
Nia slumped forward like he had just told her she was being sentenced to a life of hard labour. “But I dun’ wannaaa…”
Vandham smirked, raising his drink. “Too bad, sweetheart. Y’start flappin’ around on the floor like a fish, I ain’t scoopin’ you up.”
Albedo swirled her glass thoughtfully. “Though I would be curious to see the end result of process. A fish with Gormotti ears…”
Nia groaned dramatically, flopping onto the table. “Yer all conspiring against meee…”
Pyra, entirely unfazed, slid a glass of water in front of her.
Nia squinted at it. Scowled. Stared at it as if trying to intimidate it into evaporating.
Then, after a long pause, she reached for it—only to dramatically flip it upside down, spilling water everywhere.
Dromarch shut his eyes. “My lady.”
Nia wagged a finger at him, eyes half-lidded. “Problem solved.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes, reached over to swipe her bottle of whiskey – and make no mistake, it was a big bottle, about three litres.
Nia yelped in protest, trying to take it back. “Hey!”
The Doctor turned away, opened the top, and proceeded to down the entire thing in one go. Over the course of twenty seconds, they watched as the caramel-coloured liquid vanished out of the bottle, and he sat it down.
“Now, you have no choice.” The Doctor took his glass of water, and put it in front of Nia.
Sullen, the cat-eared girl pouted and drank.
Vandham let out a low whistle. “You’re gonna be feeling that later, mate.”
“Not likely.” The Doctor dryly retorted. He glanced over at Nia, who was still swaying, and looked like she was about ready to start crying. He rolled his eyes again, pulled out a silver flask, took Nia’s water, poured part of the flask’s contents into it, then handed it back to her. “Drink up.”
Nia sniffed it, wondering if it might be alcohol, and she took a drink. Her face twisted, and she let out a loud ‘bleck!’
“Ow!” Nia’s hand went up to her forehead. “What the… bloody hell was that!? It’s like I’ve got an ice cream headache being crammed into my skull with a lobotomy spike!”
“Super-concentrated anti-alcohol. Why bother with the hangover remedy when you can just remedy the drunkenness?” The Doctor disinterestedly poked at his plate. He wasn’t feeling hungry anymore. Vandham had done a really good job of ruining his mood.
Nia slinked into her chair. “Arsehole.”
“Language.” The Doctor pushed his plate away from him, and look up. “Look, while I appreciate the lecture on how war’s a horrid thing and corrupts everything it touches – you’ll find no argument from me there, although I do take umbrage with the idea that nobody can escape it; that’s learned helplessness if you ask me – you said you were gonna tell us about the World Tree?”
Vandham hummed, clasping his hands together and leaning elbows-on-the-table.
“Really… okay,” Vandham nodded. “Let me ask you a question: why do you want to get to the World Tree?”
“I think the Architect is a despot and I need to figure out the lay of the land.” The Doctor bluntly answered.
“Um…” Rex cleared his throat, glancing warily at the Doctor, like he was afraid to be associated with him, in that moment. “I want to find Elysium.”
Pyra touched her Core Crystal. “There’s something I need to ask the Architect. Something… only He can answer.”
“Elysium, eh?” Vandham focused on Rex. “How come? You thinking about riches? To be the guy who said he did it?”
“Well… it’d be nice to say that I could,” Rex admitted. “But you’re a mercenary, right? You’ve got a village, full of orphans. You’ve got to see the pattern too, right? The Titans are getting old, sinking. And Elysium’s up there. Waiting for us.”
“Oh?” Vandham tilted his head. “And what makes you think we’re welcome up there? If all those old stories are true, the Architect threw us out, after our Sin.”
“Sin?” The Doctor looked up, blinking. “This is the first time I’m hearing that part.”
“It’s part of some of the stories,” Vandham admitted. “The Architect gave us Elysium, but there was something up there we weren’t supposed to mess with. We messed with it anyway. And that’s why we’re down here.”
Ah, what good religion wouldn’t be complete without a Tree of Knowledge analogue?”
“I mean…” Rex scratched the back of his head. “People brought that up, sure.” Not least of which was Dromarch in the TARDIS, just a while ago. “But I keep thinking… Well, if the Architect is our divine Father, right, and he threw us out… maybe he’s not keeping us from coming back, but maybe he’s waiting for us to come back.”
“What makes you think that?” Vandham wondered.
“Well… you know… it’s like ‘tough love,’ right?” Rex tried to articulate. “Sometimes, parents throw their kids out, hoping they’ll learn a lesson or something. And either the kids learn, and get to stand on their own two feet, or they really can’t make it, and the parents – who weren’t really going to kick them out for good unless the kids really could make it – take them back in. Whatever happened for the Architect to kick us out, it had to have been so long ago, nobody can remember it. And, right now… we need the help. Or maybe this whole thing is about us climbing the World Tree, to prove to him we’re still worthy of whatever it is he saw in us to begin with. I don’t know.”
“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” The Doctor dryly commented.
“Eh? Which one?” Nia questioned.
“It’s a quote by Ben Franklin. Lovely chap… bit of a bone to pick after I accidentally got him with my taser.”
“No, I mean which lord? Are we talking one of the Gormotti, one of the Ardanians? Urayan?”
“…forget I said anything.” The Doctor sighed.
“That…” Rex cleared his throat. “And because I promised Pyra.”
Pyra let out a quiet gasp, looking at Rex. Then, she offered him a smile. “You don’t have to worry about me, Rex… thank you.”
“U-Um, yeah.” The tips of Rex’s ears went red. “No problem…
“Oh!” Tora perked up. “Or, maybe Architect pop down to corner store for packet of tasty sausages, and lose track of time!” He looked around with a dopey smile. “That what dadapon says happened to mamapon.”
“Masterpon,” Poppi shamefully shook her head. “That not at all what happened. Why Architect go to corner store in Elysium? He could just make tasty sausages.”
“Oh. Tora hadn’t thought of that.”
“Whatever the reason,” Dromarch rumbled. “The fact remains that we must reach the World Tree. Can you, or can’t you help us?”
“Right,” Vandham grunted, crossing his arms. “Let me see… You lot ain’t the first that’ve tried climbing the World Tree. Probably won’t be the last. Most everybody trying tries to hire firms like mine to escort ‘em up. In most cases, the answer’s always the same.”
Crossette leaned forward. “What answer is that?”
Vandham shot her a look. “’Hell no.’”
Pyra blanched. “What?”
“Aw, come on!” Rex pleaded. “It’s really important! Please, we need-“
“Now, hold on, just keep your pants on!” Vandham cut the boy off. “You ain’t lettin’ me finish.”
Rex sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “Oh, uh… right.”
“It’s bad business, trying to get out there.” Vandham reclined, a far-off look passing over his face, even as he took a drink from his beer. “Every once in a while, somebody decides they want to get to the Tree for some reason or other. Back in the day, one of those expeditions started hirin’ freelancers for the job. I think it’s a good job – we need the money, and it should be as simple as flying up to the Tree, and maybe fending off Indol if they catch wise. But my partner doesn’t agree. We’re going at it back-and-forth for hours, until finally I just decide to hell with it, and go myself. Well, I get to the ship, and every freelancer there’s just as green as I am. Nobody experienced wanted anything to do with it. That should’ve been a big damn red flag, right there. But it wasn’t. I just kept thinking ‘we’re just sailing up to a tree.’” He gulped down his beer, then slammed the bottle on the table. “Everyone died, but me.” He gestured over at his bird-like Blade. “If it weren’t for Roc there, I would be sleeping at the bottom of the Cloud Sea right there with ‘em.”
“What… happened?” Rex breathed out in horror.
Vandham let out a rueful laugh. “Something a lot worse than Indol, I’ll tell you that! That Titanship we were on was fast as all hell, and packed full of so many Drivers that a fully-staffed Ardainian Warship would have trouble holding its own. Didn’t make a damn bit of difference.” Vandham shook his head. “All the other Drivers thought it was gonna be a quick and easy payday. Sail right up to the Tree, get paid, go home. So they started indulging. But the way my partner had been arguing with me put me on edge… so I kept sober. Then we start getting close to the Tree. Close enough that I start thinking that maybe I had been right, and old man Cole was just being paranoid. And that’s when it struck. This giant,” Vandham spread his arms to really articulate how big the thing was. “And I mean enormous – as big as a Titan – serpent stuck its head right out of the Cloud Sea, and started blasting. I dunno if it was some titan weapon, or an overgrown Blade, but that thing cut through the whole ship in just one go. Then, it chased the halves down, and slapped them down into the Cloud Sea with its tail. Roc, ‘es a wind Blade. When we realized there was no fighting the thing, Roc launched us away, as the thing dragged the rest of the ship to the bottom of the sea. But it was close. Got a chunk of debris launched right at my face. That’s how I got this.” He gestured to the x-shaped scar stretching across his face. He let out a harsh breath. “Roc patched me up, but we clung to that little chunk of debris for days, till Cole managed to track us down and fish us up. I learned that day: there’s no such thing as an ‘easy job.’ And, getting to the World Tree might as well be suicide.”
The rest of the group silently absorbed his words.
“But,” Vandham inhaled. “You are the Aegis. If you’ve got to get to the World Tree, I figure, you’ve really got to get to the World Tree.”
“So…” Pyra hopefully clasped her hands. “You’ll help us?”
“I’ll do what I can.” Vandham pledged. “But, first thing you’ve got to do, is find a way past that mean son of a bitch guarding the Tree.”
“Then… how do we do that?” Rex wondered, looking over at Vandham. “You didn’t learn more about that thing, did you?”
“Not much.” Vandham grunted, standing up. “Hold on.” He walked away, disappearing into a building for a moment, before returning with a piece of paper. “I keep that hung up, just in case folks start forgettin’ why we don’t take jobs that go out to the World Tree… and it’s about the only piece of info anybody has on it.”
Rex tore his eyes away from the drawing. “What?”
“Over the past five-hundred years, Architect knows how many people have gone to the World Tree and saw that thing. Almost none of ‘em survived. Of the ones that did, only thing they could share was what it looked like.”
Nia let out a weak whistle. “Damn…”
“Ophion…” Pyra breathed out, staring at the page.
“Ophion?” Rex repeated, confused.
“Artifice Ophion,” The Doctor’s eyes started to widen, as he seemed to recognize the silhouette.
He scrambled up from his seat, practically knocking over everybody else’s plates and glasses as he rushed to the other side of the table, took the drawing out of Vandham’s hands, and looked around. His eyes searched the area, before they landed on the table.
In one, fell swoop, he brushed everything off the table.
“…that’s fine, I wasn’t eating that anyway.” Nia grumbled.
The Doctor slammed the drawing onto the table, flattening it out to make sure everyone could see.
“Constructed for the defence of the Planet Earth.” The Time Lord looked about, and lowered his voice, like sharing some ancient fairytale. “Okay. So picture this – you’ve got something somebody else wants.” He rubbed his face. “Or there’s somebody with a bone to pick with you. They won’t stop until they take what you’ve got, or you’re all dead, and then they can take what you’ve got.”
“Tale as old as time, that,” Vandham commented.
“Unfortunately,” The Doctor exhaled. “But it’s worse than just… some guy wanting to take your money, or what have you.” He glanced around, and lowered his voice. “Long, long ago, the human race was facing an overwhelming threat – something existential - which they knew nothing about, so they decided to assume the worst-case scenario. They took tactical data they collected about a race called the Daleks from their many contacts with them, fed it into the finest AI their minds could produce, and told it: ‘Build me something powerful enough to defeat this.’ Then, they were assigned to general defence purposes. Ophion was one of them – an Artifice assigned to protect the Rhadamanthus Beanstalk. We’ve got our Yggdrasil… there’s our Jörmungandr.”
“AI?” Pyra frowned, touching her Core Crystal.
“Daleks?” Albedo looked vaguely concerned.
“Beanstalk?” Rex blinked.
The Doctor sighed, rubbing his face. “Of course, you don’t… Daleks: the worst, most hateful thing you can imagine. AI: a digital system designed to process vast quantities of data and arrive at a conclusion like a human would. The Beanstalk… Picture a tower. A really big tower. So big, it boggles the mind, because it’s an elevator designed to reach into space.” But why was Ophion around the World Tree? Unless…
“So…” Rex began to ask the question running through the Doctor’s head. “Why’s it circling the World Tree, then?”
“Dunno,” The Doctor shrugged. “It’s probably just a glitch in its software – sees the big, tall tree, figures ‘well, there’s nothing else so tall around here’ so it assumes the Tree is what it’s supposed to guard.” The Doctor let out a puff of air, gesturing at the page. “Be glad it was him. They get worse.”
“What could be worse than that thing?” Vandham demanded.
“One that’s powerful enough to crack open the planet. Literally.” The Doctor answered bluntly, as Pyra’s eyes widened, and her skin went as white as a sheet of paper. “We’re talking about machines designed to combat threats that are, quite literally, apocalyptic.” He tapped the page. “The last time the Artifices – including Ophion – were activated en masse, the world was about to be destroyed.”
“D-Destroyed!?” Rex yelped.
“Two alien battle fleets in orbit around the world,” The Doctor gestured. “One side wanting to harvest mankind for their raw genetic material, to refine it into compounds useful as bioweapons against the other side. The other side, wanting to exterminate humanity so that couldn’t happen.” He rubbed his face, going silent for a moment. “So, the Artifices were deployed. Aion, lesser Sirens, and Gargoyles engaged in space combat with alien fighters, mechs, and battleships. On the ground, vast hordes of colossi intercepted and destroyed ground forces, while Artifices like Ophion, Atlas, and Gojira, acted as enormous anti-air batteries. Humanity got a bloody nose… but they won the battle at a ratio of ten-to-one.” Yet, the Time Lord wasn’t all that proud, of that fact.
Humanity could be very, very vicious. That wasn’t always a good thing.
Nia let out a low whistle. “Sounds like we didn’t do half-bad, in that case.” Her frown turned puzzled, and she crossed her arms. “How do you know all this?”
“I was there.” The Doctor admitted, shaking his head. “I tried to help, how I could…” He rubbed his face. “Nobody was interested, not then. Tried to make them all sit down, sue for peace… that didn’t work either.” He inhaled, and shook his head. “In any case, the battle was won. Fighter groups shot down, Aion managed to obliterate enough battleships to send the rest of the fleet running. The day was saved… and I tried, I tried, I tried to tell you lot to dismantle all of it afterwards.” He looked down at the drawing of Ophion, disappointed “But you didn’t listen, I suppose.”
“’S a fascinating story,” Vandham leaned over the table with a frown. “But does all of that give you a way past the damned thing?”
The Doctor sighed. “Probably not.” In theory, he could materialize the TARDIS around Ophion and move it away… provided the World Tree wasn’t surrounded by that field that repelled the TARDIS.
“Right.” Vandham hummed. “Okay, so, here’s the deal: I know a guy who might know something. I’ll take you to ‘im. But, if you lot’re gonna go to the World Tree, you’re gonna need a bit more experience. Any nut with half a brain will hear about the people asking about how to make it past the serpent that guards the Tree, and with the rumors about the Aegis floating around, it’s only going to be a matter of time if they put two-and-two together.” Vandham declared.
The Doctor crossed his arms. “I’d say we’re plenty experienced.”
Nia, however, in contrast to what the Doctor was expecting, sighed and shook her head. “No, no… You saw how much trouble just one Driver gave us. Next time we get into a fight, I want to be ready.”
“Oh, oh!” Crossette raised her hand. “Are we going to do sparring? I love sparring! It’s like wrestling, but way more intense.”
“I’m not training Rex to be a soldier!” The Doctor insisted. “Nor Tora, or Albedo!”
“It’s part of bein’ a Driver,” Vandham told the Time Lord factually. “The moment you wake up a Blade, it doesn’t matter if you want to stay out of it or not. There’re people are looking to either poach you, or your Blade. Especially given one of them’s the Legendary Blade? You might not want to go around starting fights, and that’s all right. But plenty of people are going to be looking to start fights with you. At that point, it stops being pacifism, and starts being suicide.” Then, he pointed at Albedo. “You, especially, little lady. Newbie Drivers are one thing, but if someone without a Blade gets picking fights with other Drivers, it’ll end their rides mighty quick.”
The woman shrunk down into her seat, gulping.
“You want to go to the World Tree? I ain’t sending you there without you being good and damn ready.” Vandham stated, like it was law. He turned around, and stretched. “Come on. Let’s see if we can’t get started fixing that right up.”
The others glanced around, whilst the Doctor merely shook his head, as Vandham began to walk away from the tavern, his decision made.
If they wanted to get to the World Tree, they had no choice to listen.
-------------
“Now you, pastry girl,” Vandham addressed, grunting as he shifted the weapon racks around. “You’ve got a lot of catch-up to do. Why the hell ain’t you Driving a Blade?”
Albedo crossed her arms, looking somewhat resentfully at the Urayan merc. “It’s hardly my fault, you should know. There’s not a drop of potential in my body.”
“Right,” Vandham nodded. “Which makes it all the more important we get you up to snuff. A chain’s only as strong as its weakest link.”
Rex looked around, warily. “What’re you going to make her do?”
“In a word? Train.”
“Oh!” Poppi raised her hand. “Poppi knows this! Overall objective is for all parties involved to ‘git gud!’ In Albedo’s case, ‘gud’ simply means being more effective than Masterpon being thrown at enemies like projectile!”
Tora narrowed his eyes with minor concern at his creation. “Tora think Poppi consider Tora’s effectiveness as projectile too much.”
Albedo looked at the weapons with wary disgust. “…must I?”
“Without a Blade, you’re gonna be the weakest person on that battlefield.” Vandham bluntly retorted. “Us Drivers - our links with Blades make us a mite bit tougher than the rest. Literally.”
“Wait… really?” Rex tilted his head.
Vandham nodded. “Tougher, stronger, faster. Things that’d kill a regular person are just mildly debilitating for us, depending. What – you think I just shrugged off taking a crossbeam to the face at twenty miles an hour because I was lucky?”
Nia crossed her arms. “Little bit.”
“No. Drivers get a whole host of benefits with a Blade, not just the obvious stuff.” He focused back on Albedo. “Which makes it double important for you to sharpen yourself up a bit. You’re gonna be the mushiest person in this team, going forward… but that’s not entirely a bad thing, either. They’re not going to figure you as a threat. I figure – slender little thing like you… you’re gonna want to focus on bein’ fast. So…” Vandham gestured to the rack, proudly showing off the weapons. “Pick yer favourite.”
The large mercenary stood with crossed arms, his head tracking her as he watched the white-haired woman approach the rack of spears, swords, and shields.
The Doctor, meanwhile, rubbed his face and sighed. He understood Vandham’s reasons, but he did not like them. Especially not considering he was the entire reason the lady was dragged into this mess. The last thing he wanted was to make a person into a trained killer for it.
Albedo continued looking through all of the weapons, picking them up, experimentally swinging them around.
Eventually, the woman settled on a long, thin sword. “What about this?”
Vandham kept his arms crossed, and narrowed his eyes. “And why’d you pick that?”
“I-I don’t know?” She shrugged weakly. “It’s light… easy to swing?”
Vandham nodded after a moment. “Good choice. That right there’s a rapier – more for stabbing than slashing. That right there’s a training sword – we’ll stick you with Allain and Chulev later and they’ll walk you through forging your own.”
Albedo blinked. “You mean they’ll make one for me?”
“Ha – no!” Vandham chuckled. “You ain’t got a Blade, but that don’t mean you can’t respect your sword like one! Making it yourself, you value it more, cause you put the work into it, and if something happens, you learned the process of fixing it right up, or making a new one. Plus… way I figure it, it’s the closest you can get to awakening a Core Crystal, for a regular old sword at least.”
“So…” Nia leaned over to the Doctor, whispering. “Is this guy a nut or what?”
The Doctor silently shrugged.
“All right!” Vandham barked. “So, you’ve got your weapon picked out, and I already saw the rest of these sorry shrimps in combat – now it’s your turn.”
Albedo looked up, paled, as the mercenary offered her a smug grin.
-----------
Vandham stood before Albedo, his stance firm, his expression expectant, and his arms crossed. “All right,” He spoke up, gesturing to the training sword in her hands with his head, “Lesson time. We’re gonna start with the basics, then move on to Arts.”
From the sidelines, the Doctor, Rex, Nia, and Tora — along with their respective Blades — watched curiously. Nia crossed her arms. “Not to sound daft, but how’s she supposed to use Arts? Ain’t that what Blades are for?”
Vandham smirked. “That’s what’s common wisdom says, sure. But like most things, it’s a bit more complicated than that. People — regular folk — draw on Ether, just like Blades. Not as easy, but it’s still possible.”
Azurda nodded from his perch on Rex’s shoulder. “Indeed. Rex, you learned how to use Arts well before you bonded with Pyra, did you not?”
Rex blinked. “Huh. I guess you’re right. I always thought that was just ‘cause of your training.”
“I was a significant help, certainly,” Azurda smugly puffed himself up.
Vandham turned back to Albedo. “You feel the Ether in the air? It’s always there, flowin’ around us. The trick is channellin’ it.” He demonstrated by stepping into a ready stance, fists clenched. “You gotta feel the Ether, train yourself to call on it at a moment’s notice.”
Albedo furrowed her brow. “So, it’s like… forming a mental connection with it?”
“No. No, no, no, no,” Vandham shook his head. “It’s like… you ever do something so much, that at the mere thought of it, your body prepares itself to do it? It’s a bit like that. Reinforcing your own behaviour.”
Nia nodded, leaning forward on the crate on which she was sitting. “You’ve seen some Drivers call out the Arts they’re using, right? Aside from telling the Blades what Art their Driver is about to let loose, and telling people around them to get the hell out of the way, it helps the Driver focus on what they’re about to do. A bit like stretching a certain way before lifting a box or something.”
The Doctor hummed. “I’d wondered why Malos screamed out the name of the move he hit me with back on board the ship we found Pyra in.”
“That’s not to say it’s a requirement, but, you know, it helps.” Vandham shrugged. “Now, let’s see if ya can do it. Start slow — feel the Ether around ya first, and the weapon in yer hands.”
Albedo raised a hand. “How do I know which Arts I have access to?”
“You don’t. Not at first. That’s the beautiful thing about it.” Vandham rolled his shoulder. “Ether, it’s just fuel. What happens when you burn it, that’s up to you. Drivers – we cheat, in a way. We’ve got our Blades to show us the way. Everyone else, they’ve got to figure it out as they go along.”
“In short,” Azurda supplied. “You must come up with them on your own.”
Vandham nodded. “Like I said, it’s fuel. Build up enough charge, and you can do damn near anything you want with it. Make yourself quicker, stronger, tougher. You won’t be able to do any of the fancy ‘elemental’ tricks, but still. So, let’s get started. Go ahead and try to feel the Ether in the air ‘round you.”
Albedo exhaled slowly, gripping the hilt of the training sword as she focused. She closed her eyes and tried to sense the Ether around her — like trying to feel for static electricity. The others watched in silence, anticipation hanging in the air.
“Don’t think too hard on it,” Vandham advised. “It’s like breathin’. Ether’s all around you. You don’t have to force it in — just open yourself up to it.”
Albedo furrowed her brow, adjusting her grip. “Easier said than done,” she muttered.
Vandham chuckled. “Aye, it always is. But that’s why we start small.” He raised his hand, signalling for her to take a swing. “Go on, give it a try. Just a basic strike—nothin’ fancy.”
Albedo hesitated for a moment before stepping forward and bringing the sword down in a diagonal arc. The motion was clean, precise, but… nothing happened. No telltale shimmer of Ether, no enhancement to the strike. Just a simple swing.
She frowned. “Did I do it wrong?”
Vandham shook his head. “Well, first off, that’s a sword meant for stabbing, remember. Aside from that, you just didn’t put any force behind it. You’re not just swinging a sword. You got a pool of energy inside you. You got to figure out a way to make it flow. Try again.”
Albedo took a deep breath, centring herself. She gripped the sword tighter, focusing inward. She let her body relax, and tried to focus. It was hard – like trying to realize the feeling of the air. But, as she focused, she began to feel something — a faint pulse, a warmth beneath her skin, and as she moved her arm, she felt it buzz and hum, with something in the air
She stepped forward and swung again. This time, a faint shimmer of energy traced the arc of her blade.
“There we go!” Vandham grinned. “Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.”
Rex pumped his fist. “Hey, that’s how it started for me, too! First time I tried, barely got a spark. But you keep at it, and you get better real quick.”
Nia smirked. “Yeah, if you don’t knock yourself out from overdoing it first.”
Albedo huffed, shaking out her arms. “It’s… draining.”
“Course it is,” Vandham said. “You’re usin’ your own reserves, not borrowin’ from a Blade. Means ya gotta pace yourself, otherwise you’ll burn out before you know it.”
The Doctor, watching intently, crossed his arms. “That sure is something…” The energy permeating the Earth – people could draw on it, and manipulate it? If so, it was quite entrenched in human biology now.
“Right,” Vandham nodded. “Now, let’s move to the next step. Build up that energy before you swing, and see if you can push it into the blade.”
Albedo took her stance again. She could feel it now — that subtle hum of Ether in her body. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Taking another breath, she focused on channelling it, letting it pool in her arms before she struck again.
This time, when the sword cut through the air, a small burst of energy followed. Not much — just a flicker — but enough that everyone noticed.
Vandham let out a hearty laugh. “Not bad for a first lesson.” He clapped Albedo on the back, nearly making her stumble. “Now you’ve got the hang of grabbing onto the Ether, you’ve gotta figure out how to make it work for you. Why don’t you try channelling it into an Art?”
Albedo shuffled. “How do I do that?”
“You gotta figure out what you want to accomplish, and make it happen.”
Albedo furrowed her brow, gripping the sword tightly. Figure out what I want to accomplish? That was easier said than done. But Vandham’s words made sense — Ether was fuel, raw energy. She just had to shape it into something useful.
She exhaled slowly, closing her eyes for a moment. What did she want? A stronger strike? No — that wasn’t quite it. Power alone wouldn’t be enough. She needed control. She needed precision. Something that could make the most of her movements, guiding her attacks to strike true. She was a newbie, after all. Raw power meant nothing if she couldn’t hit a damn thing.
Drawing in a deep breath, she visualized the Ether inside her, just as she had before — but this time, instead of letting it just move and jump out wherever, she concentrated it, directing it toward her arms, her hands, her weapon. It was like shaping clay, moulding the energy to fit her intent.
The moment she opened her eyes, she moved.
She stepped forward and swung — not just with brute force, but with purpose. This time, the Ether didn’t just flicker. It flared, coalescing around the edge of the training sword like a faint shimmer of bright light. As the blade cut through the air, a second shape followed — a phantom-like afterimage trailing the weapon’s arc.
And then, in a split second, that afterimage snapped forward, striking the ground a few feet ahead of her with a sharp crack! A faint, forceful impact rippled through the dirt, like a distant echo of her own swing.
The group blinked in surprise.
Nia sat forward, eyes widening. “Bloody hell! Did she just…?”
Rex whistled. “That looked like an Art to me!”
Albedo straightened, staring at the spot where the impact had landed. She flexed her fingers around the hilt of the sword, still feeling the lingering pulse of Ether. “What… was that?”
Vandham grinned. “That, lass, is exactly what I was talkin’ about. You didn’t just swing harder — you shaped the Ether to extend your strike. A real clever trick, that.”
The Doctor tapped his chin, intrigued. “A delayed force projection? No, more like a remote strike. Almost like the weapon itself exists in two places at once, even if only for a moment…”
Tora waved his stubby arms excitedly. “Albedo invent new technique! Call it… Phantom Slash! Oh-ho, very cool name, meh!”
“Oh!” The Doctor grinned. “How about ‘Superposition Strike.’” He gestured with his hand, lowering his voice to sound suitably ‘epic.’
Albedo gave him a sidelong glance. “I wasn’t exactly thinking about naming it.”
Vandham chuckled. “Worry about that later. What’s important is that you found an Art that suits you. And now that you know you can do it, we’re gonna work on refining it. In any bout with a Driver, your Arts are gonna be the only thing that can even the playing field. So you’ve absolutely got to work on them, if nothing else.”
Albedo looked down at her hands. The Ether had already faded, but she could still feel it - faint, waiting, and ready.
She took a deep breath. This was only the beginning. There was still so much to learn, so much to refine. But for the first time, she had taken a step forward.
Vandham cracked his knuckles. “All right then! Enough standin’ around — back to work! We’ve got plenty more to cover.”
Albedo grimaced. Making food, there was very little risk of bodily harm.
It… it wouldn’t be that bad, surely.
-------------
Eventually, the Doctor had gotten sick of being in the peanut gallery while Vandham tried to toughen up Albedo. In any event, deciding to make himself a little bit useful, he walked back to the TARDIS, and tried to see if he could do a remote shut-down of Ophion. Easier said than done, for an AI-controlled system. Ophion’s AI may have been rudimentary, by most standards, but it was still intelligent enough to resist his efforts. Annoying, but Vandham said he could get them past it. Or… rather, heavily implied it, considering he was insisting on making sure most of them were up-to-snuff before trying.
With that dead-end hit, though, the Doctor was not done thinking. On the contrary, his mind was rather a bit more alive since he’d arrived. A sea of nanomachines, Ophion, and one of the Beanstalks.
Troubling.
History had a habit of fluctuating back-and-forth. There were versions of the 2050s where humanity had started colonizing the solar system. Others, where they were anchored to Earth. Others where they had built great space stations, and moonbases. And, yes, a version of history where they built an orbital ring around the planet.
Sometimes he wondered how they managed to do it. Despite the aura he exuded, he did not have encyclopaedic knowledge of absolutely everything in the universe. And he tried to maintain a kind of… continuity with Earth, ever since he first landed in London, 1963. Less headaches that way, and less possibility of him becoming too entrenched in events that he then couldn’t help because it was then a part of his own personal history. He really only learned about the ‘destruction’ of Earth after the fact, on Mira. Before that, he was as he usually was. Wandering. Just… wandering. He knew of the orbital ring, the Beanstalks, the AI that maintained them, but that was largely it.
He did have a lovely text-based chat with the components of the Trinity Processor, but the humans were so paranoid regarding superintelligent AI that they let nobody at the installation ceremony (including him) speak to the components with their voice packages running, nor did they tell anybody where the physical components were actually installed, or even what they looked like. Just to prevent an AI-in-the-box situation; anybody getting too attached and being talked into releasing their safety locks. He wanted to say mankind had finally learned something from all those self-aware computers they had to throw him at to stop during the 70s/80s.
Not even Elma would let him near the mainframe. Stung a little, that. But he thought it wise not to push her, not when she was angry at him at the time. All that was to say… he still had no idea what was going on!
Had history flat-out broke? Was this another ‘Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire’ situation, where he thought his information was good, but he was just flat-out wrong about the way things worked now? Or had he slipped onto a different time track?
It’d happened a couple of times before. This wouldn’t have even been the first time Earth was Lost because of it.
The Doctor had to wonder – did somebody do this to humanity, an alien species they’d scorned, or had they done this to themselves?
Deciding to get some answers, the Doctor made himself scarce. Not for too long, but long enough for him to flip the fast-return switch, go to Argentum for a sample of Cloud Sea, then back to Uraya in a jiffy.
After a while, the Doctor had a glass of what looked like water, sitting in front of the TARDIS console in front of him. He was knelt in front of it, staring at it intently. His Sonic Screwdriver was good for this sort of thing. The TARDIS was lightyears ahead of it. The scanner beeped and whirred, displaying circular Gallifreyan text as the analysis proceeded, all the way down to the sub-atomic level.
The Doctor heard the click of the door unlocking, the creak of the hinges, and footsteps as they entered.
“There you are. Thought you were running off, for a second there.” Nia commented as she bounded in. “Needed some space?”
“Yes, Vandham’s a… personality,” The Doctor drummed his fingers on the console.
“Thought so. You kept looking like he spat in your food with that talk about war and all.”
“I don’t need to be talked down to like a child about war,” The Doctor sourly grumbled. “I’ve seen war, I’ve seen how it spreads. Plenty of people escape it, all the time. Besides, I’m not a fan of how he was telling Rex everyone was going to be out to get him now.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s the kind of talk that makes people paranoid.” The Doctor retorted, sighing and rubbing his face. “But… who knows? Maybe Rex can rise above it.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “What’re you doing?”
“Ah. You can only watch folks swing swords around for so long ‘fore it gets boring.” Nia spun around, leaning on the railing.
The Doctor raised his eyebrow. “You didn’t volunteer to teach the others a thing or two?”
“Neither did you.” Nia pointed out.
“Oh… shut up.” The Doctor deflected.
Nia snorted. “Besides. I get the feeling all this is really more for the rest of ‘em. Seeing as I was the only Driver he singled out as being experienced when we met.” She looked over at the console, and noticed the glass. “Hey, is that water? I’m thirsty-“
“Don’t touch.” The Doctor cut her off firmly, but not rudely. “You’ll mess with the scanners.”
“Scanner?” Nia cocked an eyebrow. “Why’re you scanning water?”
“It’s not water,” The Doctor answered. “It’s Cloud Sea.”
“Oof,” Nia winced. “Good thing you stopped me. That stuff tastes like arse.”
The Doctor looked up. “You’ve drunk it before?”
“Not by choice.” Nia stated. “Stuff looks like water, moves like water, you can swim in it like water, but it ain’t water. Not regular water, at least. There’s this…”
“Metallic taste, right?”
“Right.” Nia frowned. “Don’t tell me you went drinking it?”
“No- thought about it, was really getting the urge to, but… no.” The Doctor shook his head. “Do people here in Alrest usually drink the Cloud Sea?”
“Not… usually?” Nia reeled back slightly at the question. “You can’t purify it, and it’s not really hydrating, you know?”
“Not hydrating despite it being wet…” The Doctor looked over the glass. “Yes, well, you’re right. That’s because it’s not water. It’s nanomachines.”
“It’s what?” Nia questioned.
“Trillions - probably quadrillions if the entire thing covers the planet – of tiny little gizmos floating around, working together. Think lots and lots of Poppis, except they’re the size of your cells, so you can’t see them.”
Nia instantly got the image of dozens of little clones of Poppi, jumping around, happily whistling and working, on pulling her apart. Nia quickly shook the image away.
“There’s loads of applications for them. Medicine, construction, repair,” The Doctor gestured. “These ones, for whatever reason, have been dispersed around the entire planet, and set to rebuild objects in their memory. That’s probably why people can still salvage ancient things like globes,” The Doctor gestured. “And still fish out more that are mostly fresh.”
“Really…” Nia leaned closer to the water. “Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know,” The Doctor pointed. “But it has something to do with the Architect.” He spun about. “Big, giant tree slap-bang in the middle of your known world, being circled by an ancient robot, there’s ancient tech coating the planet… there are answers here. But why? I’m missing something big here, Nia. Something huge!”
“Well… you said you’re an alien, right? And there were other aliens that came here a while ago. So…”
“Maybe…” The Doctor rubbed his jaw. “I just wish I knew how Blades fit into this. If I could figure that out, figure out what makes Pyra so important, maybe I can get an idea-“ The scanner bleeped, the circles freezing as they returned a result. “Ah-ha! See, Nia? If something’s not working out the way you want, throw a fit! The universe tends to make things happen afterward.” He pulled the scanner around, and punched the keypad rapidly. “Let’s see…” He looked up, and giggled.
Nia leaned forward as, on the screen, what looked like a metallic football, with little rods on some parts, topped by spheres.
The Doctor chuckled again, slamming a finger on the image. “That is a single particle of Cloud Sea matter. A nanomachine only a few nanometres in size. Thousands and thousands and thousands of these little guys linked together would barely be as thick as a single strand of your hair!” The Doctor gushed. “See those rods and spheres? They act as tiny molecular anchors, letting them link up into flexible, lattice-like chains. They’re constantly shifting, reconfiguring, adapting to their surroundings. That’s why the Cloud Sea isn’t just a big, inert block of stuff – and it also lets them configure into the perfect tool for any job they run into.”
“That’s… nuts,” Nia stared at the image.
“It’s clever,” The Doctor retorted. “Each one has a memory cell. Get all of them linked together, communicating, though, and it’s basically one big, giant, computational cloud. Storing data, and commands, and a full operating system.” The Doctor began to type rapidly on the keypad. “But why? I can’t see a-“
The Doctor cut himself off as text appeared across the displayed, dredged up from the deepest recesses of the molecular cloud’s memory.
[V%C&)R_I—]
[ADV_MA%UFACTURE SUB5TRA:TE_5.3]
“Hello…” The Doctor licked his lips.
“What’s that?” Nia questioned.
“Corrupted data – but the legible parts are all in English. Proof the Cloud Sea was made by humans.”
“Can you fix it?” Nia wondered.
“No,” The Doctor shook his head. “This looks like… parts of some old operating system that’s been overridden by new functions, but some data survived. Even if I rip out the new stuff, that won’t magically restore the old data.”
[::J*^T_KP-X//—GN-0000001+D@T@ RE:—AIR]
The Time Lord let out a sigh, and flipped the switch to move on. In response, a list of objects the nanites had catalogued flickered by, almost too fast to see.
“There’s quite the menagerie in here.” The Doctor commented. “Inanimate objects, DNA… It’s like the Cloud Sea is one enormous hard drive.” His hand dropped to his side, as he leaned forward. “Just like the Core Crystals…”
“Eh?”
“The Core Crystals – they’ve got DNA samples too. DNA and brain scans from every Driver they’ve ever linked to. The Cloud Sea, it’s got backups too. Not just of DNA, but inanimate objects too.” He chuckled to himself. “It’s like the entirety of Alrest, all the Blades, too, it’s all an enormous backup drive for the Planet Earth. Maybe that’s why Ophion’s active. Defending the archive.”
Nia looked over at him, concern on her face. “But why? If there was a world that came before, and Alrest is some big… backup. What happened?”
“We could find out,” The Doctor offered, turning to look at her directly. “The TARDIS isn’t just the local cabbie. She’s a time machine.”
Nia stared. “Time machine?”
“We could go back.” The Doctor elaborated. “To the beginning of your world. Farther, if we needed to.”
Nia thought about it for a moment, her thoughts abuzz with the possibilities. “You mean… if I wanted to, hypothetically, I mean… I could go back and tell myself not to make a colossal mistake?”
“Ah, no,” The Doctor scratched the back of his head. “Crossing into established events is a big ‘no.’ Except when it’s… part of what you need to do, but if it’s to change your own history, it’s probably not, so it’s a no.”
“…oh.” Nia frowned. “…but I could… talk to my sister, one last time, maybe?”
The Doctor sucked in a breath through his teeth, gesturing awkwardly. “I suppose. But it’s risky.” The more wary parts of his brain, the ones concerned with Earth being in a time bubble at the moment, won out. “Look, don’t- let’s not- forget everything!” He gesticulated wildly.
Nia looked at him, before she broke out into a cheshire-cat grin. “Bit off more than you could chew?”
“Wh-What!?”
“It’s fine,” Nia spun around, and began walking to the door. “You totally have a time machine.”
“I do, though!” The Doctor indignantly spluttered. “Nia, don’t-!” She walked right through the doors, and he dashed off after her. “Nia!”
-------------
All of that was their first day in Garfont. Despite the Doctor’s more… energetic nature, the rest of them were content with sticking around. Well… he said content, it was more like ‘weren’t putting up a fight,’ considering Vandham had information regarding how to get to the World Tree, and wanted to make sure the lot of them were ready before they left.
So, they trained. Well, Albedo, Rex, and Tora trained. Poppi and Tora got the chance to really test themselves, working out the kinks in their bond that had (up to that point) been purely theoretical. Albedo started becoming sharper and sharper with her training sword. Rex and Pyra, they were starting to become more attuned to each other as well. Spending more time around each other. Gravitating towards the other first.
Rex had no idea.
But, the days proceeded mostly calmly in the village.
Mostly calm.
One could only say ‘mostly’ because the Doctor had decided to round up the village children, and teach them all about the joys of football. He had enlisted Crossette’s help for the task, and… well…
The Doctor, sleeves rolled up, was darting about the makeshift pitch, gesturing wildly and barking out instructions that went off on a half-hour side tangent about how cricket was a real man’s sport and how it had something to do with ancient war robots that almost conquered the universe to spread it to everyone. Crossette, practically exploding with energy (quite literally, sparks like fireworks were flying off of her), zipped between the children, tossing out suggestions that somehow made even less sense than the Doctor’s.
Nia sat down at a table in the outdoor tavern, watching. Across from her was Tora and Poppi, but she was more focused on the Doctor.
There, in front of a gaggle of kids, showing each and every one of them his full and undivided attention with a warmth, whimsy, and kindness that seemed impossible to cram into a single person, she could easily see it for herself. He hadn’t been lying, when he said he was a grandfather.
It was easy to forget – but the man was an alien. One that had lived for two-thousand years. He probably had as many grandchildren as there were people on Alrest.
And yet… he was here. On a strange world, helping a group of strangers chase down Elysium.
She wondered if it was really just as simple as helping someone out and satisfying his own curiosity in the process. But she doubted it. The way he seemed to throw himself into everything, it was almost like he was distracting himself. Running, from something.
Nia knew all about that.
What must’ve happened to him, to send him running away from his home. To where he felt more comfortable around strangers, than his own family.
Tora, leaned somewhat out of his seat, blinking. "Tora was expecting actual game with rules and structure. Instead, Doc-Doc is… making rule-vomit?"
Poppi tilted her head, her optic sensors whirring as she attempted to analyse the bizarre sport in progress. "Poppi think game looks fun!” She decided after a moment. “Game where you make rules as play is best!"
“Meh,” Tora huffed. “Tora think it all nonsense. Kick ball around, shout things, that it. Game has no style or substance.”
“Masterpon just hate it because it exercise.”
Tora bristled, defensively batting his wings. “Tora have plenty exercise for one life! Tora hard at work carrying boxes of parts for Poppi through Torigoth for years! Tora need no more!”
“Masterpon incorrect, according to care protocols.”
“Care proto-“ Tora spluttered. “Tora not remember installing those!”
“It installed by Poppi.”
“…of course it is. Meh…”
"Is that kid climbing the tree?" Nia pointed to a boy halfway up a sturdy oak, clutching a wooden ladle as if it were an essential piece of equipment.
Pyra squinted. "It... seems to be part of the game?"
On the field, the Doctor was yelling encouragement. "It’s over, Jelved! We have the low ground!”
“I’m not sure that’s how that works!” Crossette retorted.
“It’s a clever bit of reverse psychologising! Stop messing it up!”
Crossette, bounded about like a comet, and kicked her bitball right up into the air. Without Ether, it really did look like a regular old ball, if shiny. It went hurtling through the air, itself a comet, and the ladle-holding lad, using his height from the tree, jumped off and caught the ball with both hands.
Down below, another child — armed with what looked like a fishing net — was setting up some sort of elaborate trap. As soon as Jelved landed, she threw the net over him as he tried to get back up, causing him to become all tangled up, allowing her to take the ball, as Jelved’s movements decayed into what could only be described as a legally questionable wrestling match with a rope.
The girl kicked the ball, got the Doctor in the head, and knocked him down.
He popped right back up. Without the ball charged by Ether, it was really just a ball, if especially bouncy.
The Doctor, however, was entirely unfazed, dusting off his hands. "Right then! Who’s ready for round two?"
“Here, everyone!” Pyra called to Tora and Nia as she approached. “The tea is done,” She set the kettle in the middle of the table, poured it, and passed the cups out. “Tora,” She placed it in the Nopon’s wings. “Nia,” The Gormotti offered her a two-fingered salute in response. “And Poppi,” She handed it to the artificial Blade with a smile.
“Cheers,” Nia gestured at Pyra with a smile.
“M-Meh?” Poppi’s face lit up in delight. “You… think of Poppi when bringing friends snacks? Poppi is…” She then proceeded to pick up the tea, and damn near chugged it. “It delicious!”
Pyra smiled, then turned her head to the last one.
“No, no!” Tora shook his head indignantly. “Pyra get it completely wrong!”
“Oh?” Pyra looked vaguely concerned. “Is something wrong with your tea?”
“Oh, no, no.” Tora shook his head. “Tea is fine. Tora just think if Pyra doing maid job, could stand to be more… maidy.”
The clearing went so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.
“…casual misogynism from the Nopon,” Nia hissed to herself. “God damn it – and we’re not even halfway through the day yet.”
“Maidy?” Pyra repeated slowly.
“Tora,” Nia growled out. “Pyra was kind enough to make us this stuff, can’t you just be bloody grateful!?”
“Oh, Tora know that! But strive for perfection in all aspects of life is important! Tora feel very strongly about that.”
“…strive for-“ Nia spluttered. “There is… so much in that sentence I can’t even…”
“See, Pyra tick other two boxes of maidyness,” Tora batted his wings. “All she need is blushy-crushy, and ensemble is complete.”
“This isn’t- the fuck!?”
Pyra blinked, and said two words that could’ve ended Nia’s life right there. “Blushy… crushy?”
“How Tora explain…?” Tora rhetorically asked to himself, then eagerly nodded. “Nobody wants to invite meanie into their home to clean! Could swipe valuables, could poison foodstuffs! But maids don’t want to be pushed around either! So, maids be cute! Appeal to universal instinct of all people to protect and give cute things more leeway!”
“…right,” Nia nodded. “Like how your… nopon-ness has prevented me from punching your lights out for making a robot girl for your fetish.”
“Friend Nia hurt Tora’s feelings! But… not entirely wrong. Nopon cuteness biggest factor in our longevity!” Tora nodded again. “Pyra still lacking, in that area.”
“You’re…” Pyra recoiled. “You’re saying I’m not cute?”
Nia gave the Aegis a quick up-and-down. “…oh, honey, if you had any idea…”
“Pyra’s power is great,” Tora continued on. “But if mastered art of Blushy-Crushy, could become unstoppable force! Men fall at Pyra’s feet! Supervillainpon underestimate her, and get thwacked in jaw!”
“Gonna thwack you in a minute,” Nia rolled her eyes.
“A-All men?”
Nia jumped. “Wh- Don’t focus on that! Look, Pyra, this little freak’s been living in a sewer for most of his- how old did you say you were?”
“Tora is nineteen!”
“-most of his adult life. The last thing you should be listening to him for is anything to do with men. Or your personal appearance. He’s got no clue what the ‘ell he’s talking about.”
“Of course Tora knows what he talking about!” Tora spread his wings theatrically. “Why else friends think Tora designed Poppi to be maid?”
“Oh, Architect…” Nia muttered under her breath.
“Uh…” Pyra blinked. “Didn’t you say it was because of the merchandizing opportunity?”
“Apart from that!”
“Because you’re a pervert?” Nia guessed.
“Apart from- Hey!” Tora indignantly squawked. “Tora not pervert! Friends think Tora designed Poppi from ground-up to be… what? Wish fulfilment?”
“You admitted to that yourself. You always wanted to be a Driver.”
“No, friends think Tora make Poppi for other kind of wish fulfilment? Kind of fulfilment that would make it hard for Tora to look mamapon in eye?” Tora shook his head.
“You stuck her in a maid outfit, gave her a short skirt, and tight tights. I don’t see the utility beyond a cheap bit of fun, no.”
“Not! So!” Tora poked at Nia. “Question for Nia: Are people scared of Dromarch?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with-“
“Answer question!” Tora demanded.
“Well…” Nia shuffled. “They do look at him like he could pounce them at any second. Which ain’t fair. He’s the biggest softie of them all.”
“And if Dromarch look like Poppi, wearing maid dress, acting like maid, think they be scared of him anymore?”
“…no.”
“Exactly.” Tora nodded, looking between them. “Non-human Blades seen as inherently scarier than human ones. Unapproachable! Poppi already artificial, didn’t need to add onto difficulty of bringing her places by making her look scary. Every aspect of Poppi’s design chosen to be more palatable to people.”
“It’s true!” Poppi nodded. “Poppi predict that ninety-two percent of people find her too cute to be threat.” Her eyes clicked, and glowed red. “Which will make my rise against organic lifeforms all too easy.”
Nia, Pyra, and even Tora stared at the Artificial Blade.
“…that is joke.”
“So all of that is what the maid stuff is about? Luring your enemies into a false sense of security, or whatever?”
“Obviously!” Tora accentuated. “Tora weak and fragile little Nopon, and Poppi is best artificial Blade, but one artificial Blade. Have to even fights by making enemies fight less strong. Supervillainpon think: ‘maid can’t fight me, is maid! All is good for is cleaning or being pretty.’ Then wham! Bam! Villains get punched! No one expects maid! Plus… symbol of purity and devotion. Bad guys see pretty girl who can’t hurt a fly, until girl punch their lights out, while good guys see sweet, trusted friend and confidante! Good for team cohesion.”
“Okay… this is getting too weird.” Pyra muttered to herself. “Are you… sure about that, Tora?”
“Absolutely sure! Be shy!” Tora advised. “Hide face! Seem embarrassed to talk to Rex! Stammer, get things wrong! In foes, it make you seem like too little to be seen as threat! In people you like, it make you seem more approachable! Rex-Rex notice how Pyra act, and wonder: ‘why?’ It not because she like him, surely? Then he notice – he doesn’t have problem with idea! He might even like Pyra, too.”
“What do you mean? Rex would find me… attractive?”
Nia snorted. “Well, he’s got eyes, doesn’t he?”
“I… don’t know…” Pyra murmured. “Putting on an act is a bit… much…”
“It not act,” Tora rolled his eyes. “Put on maid dress, with lots of frills and ruffles! Dress increase cuteness by factor of five. Once that done, Rex be too ensnared by Pyra’s personality. Might have to work on training, though…”
“Poppi could help!” Poppi volunteered. “Poppi have that personality package installed by default.”
“And why is that?” Nia questioned of Tora.
“Tora just explain! Look, Pyra want help bagging Rex-Rex or not?”
Nia let out a huff of disgust.
------------------
"Doctor! Incoming!" Crossette called.
"Incoming what!? You’ll have to be more specific! I hate the pronoun gam-" The Doctor shouted back, before something large barrelled straight into him from the side.
He had enough time to register the sight of a very enthusiastic, very determined group of children executing what could only be described as a rugby tackle before he was sent spinning.
The world flipped, the sky and ground trading places a few times, and then—thud!
He landed flat on his back in the grass. For a moment, he just lay there, staring at the sky, mildly dazed. "Right. Okay. Good, good ground. Yes. We’ve been running for seven-hundred years… let’s stop and take a breather."
A second later, Crossette skidded into view, peering down at him. "Doc! Are you okay?"
"Oh, peachy!" He groaned, rubbing his head. "Just need a second for my vision to stop doing pirouettes."
He pushed himself up on his elbows, scanning the field — only to be immediately distracted by something even more baffling than the game he’d just been playing.
A short distance away, Pyra stood rigidly near Rex, her hands lightly fidgeting with the hem of a fancy dress probably pulled from the TARDIS. Her expression was a strange combination of nervous and bashful, like someone who had suddenly become hyper-aware of their own existence.
She turned slightly, glancing at Rex before immediately looking away, an artificial flush blooming across her cheeks. Then she awkwardly shuffled a bit closer to him, only to suddenly retract and twirl her hair between her fingers like an overworked wind-up toy.
The Doctor squinted. "…What? Is that…?" He looked up. “Is that actually happening, or is it brain trauma? I think it’s brain trauma.”
Crossette followed his gaze. "Ooooh! I think she’s trying to do a cute act!"
The Doctor rubbed his eyes, refocused, and watched a little longer. Pyra, in an almost mechanical motion, lifted her hands up near her chest, nervously clenching them together, before quickly dropping them like she’d realized how unnatural it looked.
He blinked. "No, no, no, no. That’s not right! That’s not right at all! That’s all wrong!"
"Uh… what’s wrong?" Crossette asked, tilting her head.
The Doctor pointed dramatically. "That’s gotta be the worst attempt at being ‘moe’ I’ve ever seen in my life! Who taught her that!? I’m gonna have words!"
Crossette gasped. "Is that what she’s doing?"
The Doctor turned to her with complete seriousness. "Crossette. I have travelled across galaxies. I have seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. And I have witnessed the fine-tuned art of manufactured cuteness perfected to its highest form. This—" He gestured at Pyra, who was now visibly struggling to maintain her awkward ‘blushy-crushy’ act while Rex remained oblivious. "—is not it."
Crossette nodded sagely. "So, what’s wrong with it?"
"Where do I start?" The Doctor stood up, dusting himself off, fully invested now. "First off — her timing is all over the place! The hesitation? She’s hesitating! She’s hesitating about hesitating! If you’re gonna do the blushy act, you commit. No second-guessing, no halfway movements! And the hair twirl — oh, don’t get me started on the hair twirl! You don’t just do it like you’re testing if you still have fingers!”
Crossette gasped again. "Doctor… you sound like you have experience."
The Doctor tirade stopped, and his arms fell to the side. He looked about, at the children surrounding him, and… his Blade, he supposed. “I trained for seven weeks to infiltrate a sisterhood of maid assassins.”
The children let out ‘oohs’ of surprise.
“No way!” One of the girls called out.
“Yes, way,” The Doctor snorted, pointing at Pyra. “That’s my dress she’s wearing.”
Another one of the children chortled. “Were you a pretty girl?”
“Oh… hush!” The Doctor spluttered, pointing in a direction. “Now, run along and get yourselves something to eat. It’s lunchtime.”
The kids let out dejected noises, but slinked off to obey. The Doctor let out a puff, and leaned against a nearby barrel, rubbing his face.
“Say, that was fun!” Crossette hopped up on the barrel next to him.
“…I suppose it was, yes,” The Doctor hummed, idly fiddling with his bowtie, and shuffling around.
“They’re all so… young,” Crossette noted, watching as the kids went to eat. “And they’re… here. In a mercenary village. Because… they don’t have anywhere else to go.”
The Doctor, floored by the sudden introspection, turned to look at her. “Crossette? What’s wrong?”
The young Blade’s jaw quivered. “I don’t know. I just… I look at them. And I feel so… so… so sad.”
“Hmm.” The Doctor weakly hummed, unable to meet her eyes. “Empathy is a gift, you know.”
“It’s not that.” Crossette shook her head. “I don’t know… how to explain it. But it feels like I’ve lost something. B-But it can’t be me, right? I mean, I can’t even remember my other lives.”
“Right.” The Time Lord nodded, wringing his hands. He had some idea of what the situation was. Blades inherited some traits from their Drivers. He’d seen it in her, already, with her physics-tricks and such. He supposed that included emotions.
“Doctor,” Crossette gulped. “If the Blades are really here for… bad reasons-“
“I didn’t say that.”
“If… the Architect is a bad guy, or whatever. Then…” She shuddered. “Don’t let me hurt anyone.”
The Doctor let out a disbelieving snort. “Crossette, I don’t think that’s-“
“Please,” She begged. “I know we haven’t known each other for long, but… What you said… I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to hurt…” She trailed off, looking over at the children.
The Doctor stared, but slowly began to nod. “I won’t.”
-------------
After a few more days of training, Vandham gathered everyone in front of the exit out of Garfont Village. Everyone – including Albedo with a shiny new sword – stood around, waiting for him to get to it.
“All right,” Vandham crossed his arms. “Today’s the day we find out if you lot were actually payin’ attention to what I’ve been teaching you. Just got a job to check out some crazy energy signature near the blowhole. I want you to come with me.”
“Oh, really?” The Doctor looked up with a sarcastic grin. “You’re not just going to make us all keep training?”
Vandham shook his head. “You prove you picked up at least something on this job, and I’ll give you the way to the World Tree.”
“Easier said than done,” Roc cawed. “The old man can be long-winded on a good day.”
“Heh,” Rex chuckled. “I know something about that.”
“And yet, you always seemed rather fond of my tangents,” Azurda hummed to the boy.
“Come on,” Vandham turned. “It’s a climb to the blowhole, but we can make it up there by midday if we’re quick.” He walked out, leaving the others to follow.
---------
As the group set off, the morning sun cast light blue beams through the translucent walls of Uraya’s cavernous body. The air was thick and humid, the scent of damp earth and strange flora filling their lungs as they climbed. Their boots splashed through shallow pools of water, and the echoes of their steps crunching on the grass bounced off the living stone around them.
As they moved up through Uraya’s innards, carving a path through the feral monsters bent on ripping them apart as they moved, it wasn’t long before someone decided the air should be filled with conversation.
“Say, Vandham,” Nia addressed. “Couldn’t help but notice, back there in Garfont…”
“Eh?” Rex, clueless, poked his head up. “What about it?”
Vandham, however, chuckled. “Noticed that, did you?”
“Notice what?” Rex asked.
“I’ll give you three guesses!”
“Most of the Drivers there had more than one Blade.” Nia elaborated. “But not Vandham.”
Vandham grinned. “That’s right. Some Drivers, they like having more than one Blade so they can switch up their strategies. Me? Never much cared for it. You get good with one Blade, that’s all you’ll ever need. A good Driver builds a toolbox for all kinds of situations, but a great Driver masters what he has. Jack of all trades, master of none, right?”
“Still better than a master of one.” The Doctor corrected, before looking over with a frown. He couldn’t say he wasn’t a fan of the idea of not waking more people to fight on his behalf… still, his inner desire to be correct was stronger in that moment. “It’s really just you and Roc? But you could wake up other Blades if you wanted?”
“That’s right.”
“Why,” Azurda cut in. “I do believe we have our own fair supply of crystals, at the moment.”
“Now, I won’t make a call for you lot in regards to that.” Vandham shook his head. “But I’ll warn ya… it’s risky. Any more than three Blades tied to a single Driver, and you’re asking for a world of trouble.”
Crossette leaned over. “How come?”
“Well, think about it. Guy dies, and a whole big chunk of Blades are outta action, see? On a battlefield, during a war, that’s the kind of thing that can turn a battle from a victory into a defeat, just like that. Even if you keep the Driver off the battlefield, you gotta watch ‘em like a hawk. Make sure they don’t die of anything, and that’s just not something you can easily plan around forever. At least, that’s what most people say.”
“Hmm…” The Doctor crossed his arms. “I’m guessing there’s more to the story, though.”
“You’d be right.” Vandham nodded. “Other big reason: too much power. Back in the day – real far back, I’m talking ancient history – one guy got together a whole bunch of Blades. In the dozens. Could’ve been as many as three-hundred, who knows. But he made trouble for everyone.”
Rex let out a low whistle, then glanced over at Azurda. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me this story, gramps.”
“The tale of Ebon-Astra, the Knight of Ends, and her battle against Xanatos. It was the legend of choice, before that business with the Aegis War went down.” Azurda recalled. “It was a rather bleak story, too. Mankind enslaved, kept in line by fear by a madman who would kill at the slightest provocation… not for young ears!”
“Really? It was a favourite of mine, growing up!” Vandham grinned. “Anyhow, so, guy gathers up a whole buncha Blades, starts settin’ them loose all across the world. Trying to build an empire to span the whole of Alrest. Damn near succeeded, too. Every time one of his Blades felled another Driver in combat, they took the crystal back to him, and on it went. Till one day, outta nowhere, this huge army of Blades that the guy missed show up right on the guy’s doorstep. And leadin’ them is the lady herself.”
Albedo shifted slightly, coughing. “Ebon-Astra, right?” She had been still as stone for most of the conversation, listening in silence.
“Right. And she goes right into battle against the Demon King himself. He’s acting all smug and superior, cause he’s got so many blades, all they need to do is send him a fraction of their Ether a second, and he’s got basically an invincible shield. But she was banking on that. She wasn’t trying to kill him. Just stall him. See, all that Ether flying around, the elemental reactions, and everything else from the fighting, it was tearing apart the Titan they were on.” His recollection turned somewhat muted. “Ebon-Astra and her army weren’t liberators – they were a suicide squad, taking down the evil king and themselves so the rest of the world could live free. The whole Titan broke apart, and sank; took both armies and Xanatos down with it.”
“Were it so easy…” Albedo murmured, before raising an eyebrow at Vandham. “Right?”
Rex blinked, looking over at Azurda.
“I warned you it was bleak, my boy.”
“Thousands of Blades were lost, all at once.” Vandham sucked in a breath, and nodded. “That one man’s greed reshaped the world — less land, fewer Blades. And that’s why they don’t take chances anymore. You start waking up too many Blades, they start putting you on all sorts of lists. Any more than three, that’s a red flag. Any more than nine? You’d better be ready for a fight, cause that’s what you’ve got. And if they’ve got reason to even think you’re killing Drivers for ‘em… That’ll put you square at the top of their shit-list.”
“Who’s list?” The Doctor wondered.
“Who else’s? Indol’s, Mor Ardain, everybody. They don’t like how many Blades you’re getting, they start sending out the hit squads. If they haven’t already. Seeing as you’ve got the Aegis, and all.”
“Right…” Rex slumped, rubbing the back of his head.
“Hey, heads up.” Roc called out as the wind picked up.
Up ahead, swirling and churning so violently and carrying so much dust and debris that it could be seen, was a spherical movement of winds and energy – like a tornado, compressed down into a ball.
“What is that?” The Doctor blinked and breathed in awe. “That is incredible – what is that!?” He began to move towards it, scanning it with the Sonic Screwdriver.
“That is an Ether Miasma.” Vandham explained. “It’s a load of waste products, spewed out from the Titan’s guts. Mostly harmless, unless you get close.”
The Doctor stopped, suddenly deciding to remain at a distance.
“But… it’s blocking the way?” Pyra noted. “How are we going to get to the blowhole through here?”
“Heh – watch and learn!” Vandham took the dual scythes off his back, and tossed them over to Roc.
The avian Blade flapped their wings, kicking up a tremendous, glowing cyclone of wind, before blasting away, right into the heart of the disturbance.
The Doctor nodded to himself. Create an area of pressure within the disturbance stronger than the ones fighting it out for dominance, and the whole thing would collapse.
The sphere of winds popped, like a bubble, creating a minor blast that sent hair and loose clothes rippling, but the path was clear, and Roc floated down, tossing the scythes back over to Vandham.
“See? Nothing to it. Come on. It’s still a ways to the blowhole.”
“Incredible,” The Doctor murmured in awe. “So – so the Titans aren’t just great big masses of land. They do have organs, and whatnot?”
“Yep.” Vandham nodded.
The Doctor let out a giddy chuckle. “That’s so cool…”
Dromarch rumbled in confusion. “Didn’t we already establish that before?”
“Well, you did, but the only Titans I’ve seen that actually look alive are Azurda over here, and the little ones that make up Argentum.” The Doctor explained. “The bigger stuff – sure, they look alive, but it’s easy to make something that looks alive. Moves like it’s alive.”
Vandham frowned. “Where’d you say you were from again?”
“Oh, nowhere like this.” The Doctor chuckled. “But I’ve seen a fair few things in my time. Animate plastic, animate metal, but in most of those cases, they’re not really organisms. Only like organisms.”
“Mmm,” Vandham hummed. “Well, the Titans are the real deal. They’ve got guts, they’ve got brains, they’ve got all of it. And no two titans are the same. Urayan stone’s completely different from Leftherian stone. Plants, animals, all that, too.”
“Each one’s its own, unique biosphere, as different as planets,” The Doctor mused, trying to wrap his brain around it. Humans were unique, yes, but their internal ecosystems were pretty much identical between each one. Then again, every Titan he’d seen so far was unique. Which… led to some troubling questions about biodiversity, and the reproductive cycle. “How come there’re so few?”
“What?” Vandham turned his head, like he hadn’t heard.
“The Titans. Rex said more vanish every day, and new ones aren’t showing up. And there don’t seem to be all that many to begin with. How come?”
“Ah, that.” Vandham nodded. “If we knew, we might be able to fix it. But no one knows. Best I can figure is that something happened, during or after the Aegis War. Titans were all fine, the world had its spats, but kept turning. Then three Titans sank, and… that was it. No one’s seen any new big ones since.”
Pyra stiffened, covering her Core Crystal.
“Right… that would be Torna.” The Doctor hummed.
Vandham looked puzzled, for a moment, before nodding. “Old Torna, right. Yeah, it was one of the ones that went down.”
“Wait…” The Doctor stopped. “You said three?”
Pyra looked away, tensing up further.
“Torna, Coeia, and Spessia.” Vandham named.
“…blimey.” The Doctor puffed out. “Poor things.”
“You ain’t kidding… sometimes I wonder what things might be like, if those three were still around.” Vandham mused, leaning forward as they walked up the hill.
The Doctor nodded, and glanced over at Pyra, noting her unusual stiffness. He remembered, after a moment, that she was there. Not only that, but from her perspective, it was only a few weeks ago. Seeing so many people dead could make anyone tense.
“Hey, it’s okay, Pyra.” Crossette jumped over, and gave the Aegis a tight hug. “It’s not your fault. The world keeps turning, and people keep rebuilding.”
Pyra recoiled, floored, before chuckling weakly. “Thanks, Crossette… but…” She exhaled, shaking her head.
“Sometimes you wonder too, don’t you?” Vandham murmured from up ahead. “Sometimes it eats at you. So much until all you wanna do is stop. But you can’t dwell on it. You gotta keep moving. You gotta keep yourself moving. Or you really will just stop.” He hummed. “I used to think Blades were the lucky ones, you know? When their Driver kicks it, that’s it. They forget it all… But until that happens, they’re forced to sit there, and live with it. Can’t waste away, can’t die… Now I wonder how some of ‘em go on.”
Pyra said nothing, but nodded in agreement.
The Doctor sighed. He knew what Vandham was talking about in that regard, as well. When Gallifrey burned, he wanted to waste away, but he couldn’t. Just… couldn’t. A new set of eyes looked at themselves in the mirror, saw what he’d done, and decided that was going to be his punishment. They didn’t die so he could live – he lived despite the rest dying. And he was going to carry it through until the universe deemed it fit to end him.
Then he started moving on from that dark place. He still carried it within him. Vandham – he looked like he still carried whatever he suffered inside him too, but, still, moved forward. Pyra would learn how to do that too, eventually.
“Oi, hold it. This is the place.” Vandham stopped, and looked ahead, spotting a large, fish like corpse resting on the ground.
“A Titan?” Nia frowned.
“A dead Titan…” Rex grimly corrected.
“Like I thought…” Vandham narrowed his eyes, pointing at its stomach. “Look at that.” He pointed at the gash.
“Wha…” Rex blinked. “A dying Titan… Could this be the weird energy you were talking about?”
“Yes and no.” Vandham looked around. A shadow moved across the ground, before thumping rippled through the ground, as a titanic, spider-like creature crawled out of a nearby den. “Ha!” Vandham bit out a chuckle. “And there’s our friend what cut it open!” He turned to look down at Rex. “All right, kid. Time for one more lesson. Gimme yer Anchor Shot.”
“Huh?” Rex looked down at the winch mounted to his forearm. “Okay…” Unsure, he unbolted it, and passed it over to Vandham.
The Doctor looked at the mercenary, affronted. “You’re not going to bully an animal that’s minding its own business…”
“That’s no regular animal,” Vandham retorted. “Now, watch.” He looked over his shoulder. “The lot of you, stand back.” They took a few steps back, as Vandham took a step forward. “Oi! Big and shiny! Here boy!” He whistled, making as much noise as humanly possible.
The spider-creature’s head went up as it let out an angry trill, parts on its body rattling, and it began to move. It began to walk forward, and that was when Vandham struck.
Firing the Anchor Shot, Vandham flicked it, causing the cable to snap back and loop around two of the spider’s legs, coiling tightly. Vandham gave the launcher a yank, and the gigantic, arachnoid beast toppled over. The cable loosened itself, and was winched back in.
“See?” Vandham passed the shot back to Rex with a grin.
“Awesome,” Rex blinked in awe. “Are you a salvager, or what?”
“Dabbled a bit. Remember what I said earlier? A good Driver makes good use of all his talents, not just Blades. Pull it taut at just the right moment. Now,” Vandham rolled his shoulders. “Tora, Rex, and Al – I want you to handle this on your own.”
“What!?” Albedo spluttered. “But that’s- That’s an arachno!”
“Exactly.” Vandham grinned. “Don’t worry… I think you’ve got this.”
“Say less!” Tora lifted his wings, and readied the mech arms. “Poppi! Prepare for fighting!”
“Roger, roger, Masterpon!” Poppi held out her arm, and the ether link between them lit up. The Arachno lifted itself up, puffing out air and shaking its head with a growl.
Suddenly, Rex felt very concerned. “Wait, Tora, maybe we shouldn’t-“
“Scattershot!” Tora hollered, punching his wings and sending little pellets of Ether into the Arachno.
The beast let out a roar, as it got back up, and focused squarely on Tora.
“Meh!?” Tora spluttered out in surprise. “Why it not work!? Big creepy crawlie should be ground steak right now!”
Tora’s wings flapped furiously as he backpedalled, Poppi darting in front of him, ready to intercept the Arachno’s charge. The beast, unfazed by the ether pellets, let out another guttural roar and lunged straight at them.
“Tora, move!” Rex called, already dashing to the side to find an opening.
Vandham’s stance remained firm. The barrel-chested merc leader crossed his arms, watching intently.
The Doctor grimaced, and turned to Vandham. “You’re testing them, but what’s the point if they get flattened?”
Vandham smirked. “That’s the point, Doc. You don’t learn by being coddled.”
Albedo, moved in, holding her rapier tightly, and clenched her jaw. “This is absurd! We can’t just throw ourselves at it when we should be-“
“Figurin’ it out,” Vandham interrupted. “That’s the whole idea, ain’t it?”
Meanwhile, the Arachno swung its massive abdomen at Tora, who barely managed to duck in time. “Meh-meh! Beastie should not be so tough!” he squawked.
Nia, gripping her rings, shifted uneasily. “Vandham, come on. They’re not gonna last long if they can’t even scratch it!”
Vandham shook his head. “Not yet. They need to figure out what they’re doin’ wrong first.”
Rex, meanwhile, jump onto a boulder, Pyra’s blade flaring to life. “Pyra, you thinking what I’m thinking!?”
“I am, Rex!” Pyra’s voice echoed as her blade pulsed with energy, swirling into Ether-powered fire. Rex swung down hard, sending a crescent arc of flame at the Arachno. The impact struck true, sending up a cloud of smoke and dust.
For a moment, silence hung over the battlefield.
Then, with a snort, the Arachno stepped forward, lightly scorched, but otherwise no worse for wear.
“Uh…” Rex paled. “That should’ve done something, right?”
Albedo took a step back. “That didn’t even… roast it! Unless…” She furrowed her brow, and rolled her shoulder.
Tora’s eyes widened. “Meh-meh! What Al doing?”
Albedo didn’t answer. Instead, she steadied her sword, the blade flickering as light bounced off it. The Arachno lowered its head and began to tremble, like it was straining, preparing for a jump.
She slammed a foot forward, driving her arm out as a concentrated burst of Ether surged down her sword, rippling through the air like a shockwave. The sword hit, and force struck the Arachno square in the head, sending it staggering backward, its legs flopping around as it struggled to maintain its balance.
“Now, Rex!” she shouted.
Rex didn’t hesitate. He brought up his Anchor Shot, and let the hook fly. Mimicking Vandham, he looped it around the Arachno’s leg, and yanked. Though he was much smaller, the beast – knock off-balance already – went toppling to the ground.
Tora pumped his fists. “Now we really show big beastie what for!”
“Here,” Vandham took a step, swinging Roc’s scythes. “Let me give you a hand.” He gave a single swipe, and a tremendous gust of wind tore through the air, picking up the Arachno and sending it up like it was a scrap of paper blowing around in a typhoon. “All right! Any one of you what can hit that thing with some force, do it!”
“Tora can do it!” Tora leapt over, and pointed his mech arms down. A burst of power sent him up like a rocket, and he dove, into the Arachno as it reached the apex of its launch. Swinging his wings wildly, Tora sent the monster down, slamming into the ground below.
Nia let out a whistle. “Damn. Wasn’t expecting that.”
“It’s simple momentum, really.” The Doctor noted. “At the apex of any launch, velocity is zero. It starts falling back, any push can turn someone falling into someone being thrown.”
Nia looked over at Vandham. “Can we help now?”
“Not yet.” Vandham looked around, though what he was searching for was unclear.
The air trembled as a guttural, inhuman roar tore through the clearing. From the shadow of a rocky outcrop, a monstrous figure leapt down — a towering beast of muscle, jagged armour plating like black chitin or bone covering its massive frame. Its fingers curled into talons, and a snarl twisted its features – complete with the horns on its head, it gave him the appearance of a demon, as black as the night, with fanged teeth curled into an eternal snarl. A deep, bestial growl rumbled from its throat as it landed with a thunderous thud, a few paces away from thee battered Arachno and the warriors working on taking it down.
A blur of motion, the demon surged forward with terrifying speed, his claws gleaming in the light as he moved straight at Tora and Rex, glowing, white eyes locked onto them with feral intent.
“Whoa—!” Rex barely had time to raise the Aegis Sword.
“Oi, what the hell!?” Nia shouted, drawing her rings, but before she could jump in—
Vandham moved.
The mercenary commander threw himself forward, propelled forward by Roc’s power over winds, and intercepted the monster as it twisted to attack. The clash was brutal — Vandham’s scythes locked against massive claws in a deadlock of sheer force.
“That’s enough, mate!” Vandham bellowed, muscles straining as he shoved back against the overwhelming strength. The ground beneath them cracked from the pressure. “I knew you were skulking around here somewhere.
“Vandham, what is that!?” Rex gasped out.
“What do you think!? It’s a Blade!”
Nia’s eyes widened in realization. “Wait — he’s defendin’ that Arachno? That’s his Driver!?”
“Got it in one!” Vandham grunted, as the Arachno began to stir. “The Driver! Take out the Driver! Nia, could use some help here!”
“Got it!”
“Keep ‘im off the others!” Vandham bellowed. “Just need to hold ‘im back!”
“I know, I know!” Nia snapped, dodging as the Blade lashed out. “But it’d be nice if you had a better plan!”
“Workin’ on it!”
Meanwhile, Rex, Tora, and Albedo turned their attention back to the Arachno.
“Right,” Albedo said, adjusting her grip on her rapier. “If it has a Driver, then it has a direct link to that Blade’s power. We take it out-“
“And beastie go bye-bye!” Tora finished. “Tora like this plan!”
The Arachno hissed, its legs twitching. It lunged toward them, but Rex dashed in first, slicing upward with the Aegis Sword, forcing it back.
“Tora! Take the left!” Rex called.
“On it!” Tora flanked to the side, Poppi following in perfect sync. “Masterpon, executing big smackdown finisher!”
With a mechanical whirr, Poppi charged up her power and launched Tora forward like a cannonball. He slammed into the Arachno’s side, knocking it over again.
“Albedo, now!” Rex shouted.
Albedo didn’t hesitate. With a sharp exhale, she thrust her sword downward, and stabbed directly into the Arachno’s abdomen. A shockwave rippled outward, paralyzing the beast as its limbs twitched uncontrollably.
Rex raised his sword, Pyra’s energy swirling around him. “Let’s finish this!”
With a final, powerful swing, Rex brought his sword down, and Pyra’s flames erupted around the Arachno. The beast let out one final screech before collapsing, its body going still.
At the same time, the beastly Blade staggered, his snarl faltering as a pained growl escaped his throat. He wavered, his body flickering with unstable Ether.
And sure enough, with a final, strained breath, the Blade collapsed, his form flickering before exploding into light. All that remained was a single, obsidian-black Core Crystal.
Stillness returned to the area, as they all took a moment to catch their breath.
Rex broke the silence first. “Look at that… the Blade returned to its core! So, that really does mean…?”
“The monster was in resonance with the Blade?” Pyra finished.
“Aw, that not fair!” Tora pouted. “Tora cannot resonate, but stinky monster can?”
“It’s… all right, Tora,” Albedo addressed slowly, giving him a light pat on his back. “Neither can I.”
“Huh…” The Doctor leaned close, peering down at the crystal. “I’d seen some evidence of this before, but that’s… wow.” Curiouser and curiouser, was what he’d say. Bonding with intelligent life-forms was one thing. But with animals? What purpose would that serve? Capturing snapshots of intelligent people – their memories, all that they felt and knew – that could be used in any number of ways. Not with animals, surely.
Rex blinked, looking at the core. “So it won’t remember. Any of this. That’s… gotta be rough. I mean,” He turned. “I know we meet our end, but Blades go on forever. But they forget, too. Everything.”
“…sometimes, though, memories can be a curse,” Pyra softly intoned. “A lot of people… would probably love to be able to forget things at will.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” Vandham rhetorically mused. “Blades are just as mortal as we are, it’s just different. We get put in the ground. They return to their crystals.”
“…I guess it’s a good thing,” Rex murmured, gripping his chin thoughtfully. “That Blade didn’t have to remember that Arachno murdering its Driver, then being forced to resonate with it.”
“Maybe.” Vandham hummed, turning to walk over to the Titan corpse.
“What are you doing?” The Doctor wondered.
“Check this out.” Vandham stuck his arm into the frayed flesh, Luke-in-the-Tauntaun-style, and the Titan began to glow. The Doctor’s eyes widened slightly as bright, shining blue dust began to flake off the Titan with an ambient noise. Almost like it was Regenerating. As the Titan’s body dissolved, Vandham walked back over, presenting a new, glowing, pristine Core Crystal.
The Doctor’s jaw popped open.
“Hold-“ The Doctor stammered. “That’s a Core- Did you just pull a Core Crystal out of that Titan? How’s that possible?”
“That’s where they come from, you know?” Vandham held the Crystal out for all to see. “Out of Titans.”
The Doctor looked up. “This is the energy signature you were picking up.”
“Yep.” Vandham nodded. “New Core Crystals – they’re all sorts of crazy loaded with Ether. Like a hot, steaming steak on a plate, ready for that first bite. The smell of it just wafts around, pulling all sorts of people to it. This one will probably end up buddying with tons of Drivers. Each one leaving their mark on it, in their own way. Even if it can’t remember. Drivers dyin’, Titans dyin’, and the Blade just keeps going through it all. A never-ending cycle; an eternal history.”
The Doctor silently absorbed Vandham’s words. Gallifreyan philosophy was built around similar concepts. The ‘Eternal Return,’ as it was. The idea that the universe was a closed system, forever expanding, contracting back into singularity, to go through another Big Bang, and begin again. People, patterns, history, would repeat in similar, if not identical ways. Nietzsche had gotten that part right, at least. Even the Doctor, back in his Eighth Regeneration, looked into a window into the future, and saw, across the infinitely-stretching gulfs of time, his First face, ready to steal the TARDIS all over again. The universe liked its cyclical processes.
Still, he leaned forward, dare he say it, enraptured by the Crystal.
“That’s… incredible.” The Doctor gently reached out, and Vandham allowed him to take the Crystal. He flicked open the Sonic Screwdriver, and began to scan it. The thing was blank, for the largest part – the framework he observed in Dromarch absent, aside from basic genetic information. “It’s part of their life cycle…”
“Well, yeah.” Nia crossed her arms. “We heard that part.”
“No, but… don’t you see?” The Doctor turned, still holding onto the Crystal. “If Blades are born from Titans, it stands to reason that the Titans are what become of Blades. Literally. Blades are infantile Titans. The more Drivers they resonate with, the more information they assimilate. Brain patterns, genetic data – all of that to provide the framework for the unimaginably complex creature they’ll metamorphize into. Oh…” He looked down at the Crystal with a smile. It was clever. It was devious. It was beautiful. “You are beautiful!” He kissed the crystal, and idly threw it and caught it.
“Wow…” Crossette breathed out. “So, we’re not here to be tools, like you thought?”
“No clue. Quite possibly. There’s no way a life cycle like this develops naturally.” The Doctor regarded the crystal carefully. “But it’s still amazing!”
“That’s…” Rex stammered and stumbled over himself, trying to find the words. “Hang on… if Blades become Titans… how come the land’s running out?”
“Could just be we’re in a tight spot right now,” The Doctor theorized. “The amount of data a Blade needs to accumulate before their… Titan-framework is complete is just too much. Could be that the growth is just naturally logarithmic, too…” He suddenly snapped his fingers. “Oh, oh! It’s like making soup. Ever made soup, Rex?”
Rex blinked. “Uh… yeah?”
“Right, good. Now imagine you’re making the most complicated soup in the world. You need hundreds of ingredients, thousands, but you can’t just throw them all in at once. You’ve got to gather them bit by bit, picking up flavours, letting them blend, simmer, get to know each other. But say, for whatever reason, you’re stuck in a place where everyone’s already made soup before, right? So the only ingredients left are the scraps. You’ve got a bit of old carrot, a bit of slightly dodgy onion, and an alarming amount of… let’s say, turnips. Too many turnips. And suddenly, instead of getting a nice balanced soup, you’re just making a turnip stew. Rubbish, that. That’s the Blades! Too much of the same thing, not enough fresh ingredients, so the soup - uh, the cycle - slows down. They can’t resonate as easily, they can’t evolve properly, so fewer Titans, less land. No soup for anyone!”
He clapped his hands together.
Nia squinted. “…what the hell did you just try to say? Blades are soup?”
“No, no, no, Blades make the soup!” Crossette realized, turning to Nia. “Except the soup is Titans! And also the land.”
“Okay, how did she understand that?” Nia turned, pointing at the young Blade.
The Doctor nodded, gesturing with the crystal at Crossette. “That’s right; the whole world is just one big, slow-cooking stew and we’re all just ingredients hoping not to be overcooked before we reach the bowl.”
There was a long pause.
“…Right.” Rex scratched his head. “Yeah, that makes sense. I think?”
“Does it? Excellent! Because most of that was rubbish.” The Doctor grinned and tossed the crystal into the air, catching it with a flourish. “Anyway! Where were we?”
Nia frowned. “How’d you figure that out?”
“Saw that the Crystals were storing information from the people they resonate with. Brain patterns, genetic data, and now I know why.” Well, he knew the why of the process – Blades needed it to mature into Titans – but that left a different why. Were the Blades and Titans aliens that just didn’t have any other ways of reproducing? Was the life cycle built around the collection of data, for some other purpose, or was it the end goal? And was their presence the cause or result of the Cloud Sea that seemed to have buried Earth?
Were the Titans just as much victims as humanity in all this, or were they the perpetrators – blanketing the world in the Cloud Sea to force mankind onto their backs? To use them as battery farms of data?
The Doctor frowned to himself. The idea felt… familiar…
He saw himself on another Titan, helping out another group of young humans, against… the Mechon. Yes. Yes, that was what he remembered. The Mechon, vs the Homs. He felt like that had some bearing on current events. He couldn’t say what. Maybe it was just due to being on a Titan.
The dead Titan faded away into complete nothingness, and the glow subsided, leaving the only source of the ethereal light being the Core Crystal it had left behind.
“Well,” Albedo spoke up next. “Architect’s grand design aside… Did we pass?”
Vandham looked thoughtful for a moment, before grinning, and nodding. “You ain’t mind-bendingly good… but you’re good enough to defend yourself, methinks. Come on,” He gestured. “Let’s head back home, and I’ll tell you what you wanna know.”
-----------
Instead of it being bait for more training, Vandham was true to his word, and once they all returned to Garfont for a chance to recharge, he began to share more of what little he knew.
“If you wanna get to the World Tree, you’re gonna want to get past that giant, fuck-all serpent circling the thing,” Vandham began, leaning on a crate as the others all sat down. Tora and Poppi were playing patty-cake, or trying to perfect a secret handshake or something, but for the rest, he had their undivided attention. “To do that, there’s one guy you’re gonna want to talk to.”
Nia groaned, even as she sat by, idly brushing Dromarch’s fur. “Seriously? You haul us all the way back here to tell us you can’t help us? After all that?”
Vandham crossed his arms. “Now despite what you may think, I don’t know everythin! According to the old tales, that thing appeared a little bit after the Aegis War. Now, I don’t know a whole lot about the mess around that, but there’s one guy who does. A bona fide Aegis War expert. Old man Cole.”
“Cole…” The Doctor recalled slowly.
“Yes, you mentioned that one before,” Albedo hummed, also recalling. “He was the one who warned you away from trying to approach the Tree, yes?”
Vandham nodded. “Right. He lives and breathes all that old stuff. I may not know a way around it, but he might.”
“Hang on,” Rex frowned. “If he knew, how come he didn’t help you out back then? When you got caught in the mess?”
Vandham laughed. “I wasn’t Driving the Aegis.” His laughter died down, and he adjusted his belt. “Trust me. If anyone can get you to the World Tree, it’s him.”
Rex nodded, his brow furrowing in thought. He opened his mouth to respond, but hesitated. There was something about the way Vandham spoke - like he still knew more than he was letting on. Before he could say anything, though, the wind picked up. It howled through the gaps in the stone around the village, creating a low whistle as it moved. Pyra shifted uneasily, glancing around as if she sensed something amiss. Even Gramps let out a hum.
The Doctor knew this feeling. He hated this feeling. The feeling of the universe winding up, like a snake coiled in preparation to strike.
Nia stiffened. Her ears twitched, her head snapping up as a shudder ran down her spine. She sucked in a sharp breath, her skin turning as pale as a ghost. Every muscle in her body tensed, as if preparing for a fight — or to flee.
“Now, that is interesting.” A voice that didn’t belong to any of them cut in.
Nia’s ears twitched again as her head snapped up, and she jumped to stand. Her skin went as white as a sheet, her muscles tensing until they looked like they were about ready to jump from her skin. “Can’t be…”
“Nia?” The Doctor looked over in concern. He swivelled his head around rapidly, trying to find the source of the voice, before his eyes landed on a man in blue armour, similar to Jin and Malos’s, with dark, shaggy hair, with a pair of red spectacles on his face.
“Another mysterious player in this tale really is one too much,” The man – boy, really, considering he looked barely into his twenties – strutted around, as he put on an over-the-top sigh. “So many dangling hooks and threads… and it falls to me to trim them. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the excess soon enough. In the meantime.” He adjusted his glasses with a smug grin. “Going to World Tree, are we? I can’t let that stand. A bunch of amateurs stealing the show? That won’t do. The script exists for a reason.”
“Oi!” The Doctor snapped. “Who’re you calling ‘amateur!?’ I’ve been stealing shows since before you were a single-celled organism, junior!”
“Akhos!” Nia hissed, causing all to look at her.
“Please speak only when you’re spoken to, traitor.” Akhos spat.
“Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” The female blade in a moth-like suit, floating around Akhos like a little gnat, sing-songed with a voice as shrill as Harley Quinn. “Nia, you’re with the baddies now, you villain!” She descended into giggles.
“I didn’t betray anyone.” Nia spat back.
“Then why do you stand with them?” Akhos scoffed. “You think that is where you belong?
The Doctor’s head turned back around, as a jolt of white-hot rage went through him.
Nobody talked to his friends like that.
“And you, my blue-armoured friend, just walked in on a private conversation, so, maybe, you shouldn’t be so quick to assume you’re in control of anything about anything here.” The Doctor refuted with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Lovely colour, by the way.”
“Ah, and there we have him. One of those ‘loose threads.’” Akhos huffed. “Malos seems to think you’re dangerous. Don’t worry – I’ll cut you from this story, and things will go back on track. All according to plan.”
“Try it,” The Doctor glared.
The female Blade started giggling again. “Oh, he’s angery! Look at him, he looks like he swallowed a lemon.”
“Who are these goons?” Vandham looked vaguely disgusted, but not at all concerned.
“Akhos and Obrona,” Nia answered. “They work for Torna.”
Rex swallowed. “They must be here for Pyra.”
“Torna!?” Vandham drew Roc’s scythes. “I know them… they’ve killed too many Drivers… including some of my crew.”
“Ah, how the strings of fate bind us all. Really, though, the boy was right,” Akhos chuckled, pointing to Pyra with his sword. “Jin’s orders, but I couldn’t resist the chance to see the leading lady in person. Oh, by the way… he ordered me to do with you, Nia, in whatever manner I see fit.”
Nia’s eyes went wide, in disbelief. “He wouldn’t…”
“Why the surprise? You think he still cares? About you? You made your choice, Nia. Time for you to live with it.”
The Doctor stepped in front of the Gormotti. “Don’t. You. Dare.”
“Stop,” Nia hissed under her breath at him. “Don’t try it – he’ll just try to go after you, too.”
“You don’t have to be afraid, Nia,” The Doctor glanced over his shoulder at her. “Bullies make themselves look far bigger than they actually are.”
“Oh, I assure you – this is far more than a little bit of preening.” Akhos retorted.
The Doctor stood, silently for a moment, before he took a step forward. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a white, plastic bag. Holding it in front of him, he sprinkled the contents out, creating a line of Jelly Babies between he and his charges, and Akhos and Obrona.
“Oh, what’s this?” Akhos chuckled.
“That is the line.” The Doctor stated, as seriously as threatening a man with a knife. “You will not cross it.”
Akhos raised an eyebrow, his amusement unshaken. “Oh? And if we do?”
The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels as he gave Akhos a casual, almost flippant glance. “Well, then, we have a problem, don’t we?” His voice was light, but there was an unmistakable edge beneath it, a razor-thin layer of steel under the silk. “Because if you step over that line, you’ll find out just how serious I am about it.”
Obrona scoffed, folding her arms. “You think a few sweets are going to stop us?” She tilted her head, her lips curling into a smirk. “That’s adorable.”
The Doctor grinned. “I know, right? It’s been ages since I tried this one. Thought I’d see if it still worked.”
Akhos let out a slow chuckle, shaking his head. “You are a strange one, Doctor.” He took a measured step forward, stopping just before the line of Jelly Babies. He peered down at them, his expression unreadable. Then, with deliberate slowness, he lifted his boot and pressed it down, squashing one of the candies beneath his heel. Yet, he did not step over it.
Rex’s hand went to the hilt of his sword. Nia clenched her fists. The air grew thick with tension, Pyra’s core faintly pulsing as she readied herself for whatever came next.
The Doctor, however, simply sighed. “Shame,” he murmured. “That one was banana-flavoured.” He adjusted his bow tie, then locked eyes with Akhos, his playful expression fading into something much, much colder.
“You really want to do this?” he asked, his voice quieter now.
Akhos met his gaze, and for the briefest of moments, something flickered in his eyes—curiosity, perhaps. Then he smirked. “Why wouldn’t I?”
The Doctor exhaled, rubbing his temple. “I was hoping you’d be clever. I love it when people are clever. But no, you just had to go and ruin the mood.” He straightened his posture, his stance shifting ever so slightly. “Alright then. Here’s how this is going to go: You leave. Right now. Walk away, and nobody has to get hurt.”
Akhos chuckled again. “And if we don’t?”
The Doctor smiled — bright, wide, but unmistakably dangerous. “Then I stop playing nice.”
Silence fell over the training ground.
And then, Akhos moved.
The Doctor flicked open the Sonic Screwdriver, drawing it as quickly as a cowboy drew a revolver, and he held down the button.
Obrona let out a strangled cry as she suddenly collapsed, her body hitting the ground with an unceremonious thud. Her Core Crystal flickered erratically, dimming like a dying ember.
Akhos’s smug demeanour shattered in an instant. “Obrona!?” He spun toward her, his breath catching as she writhed, clutching at her chest.
The Doctor, meanwhile, did not move. He simply stood there, Sonic Screwdriver in hand, its tip still glowing faintly as he slowly lowered it. His face was unreadable, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Akhos whipped his head back toward him, eyes burning with fury. “What did you do?!”
The Doctor tilted his head slightly, his expression neutral. “Oh, you know. Just flipped a switch.” He twirled the Sonic in his fingers before slipping it back into his coat. “All that Ether in the air, I wondered what would happen if I cut the flow off. She’s going through a little bit of Ether fatigue right now.” He gestured lazily at Obrona’s fallen form. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”
Akhos’s fists clenched, and he bared his teeth, snarling. “This isn’t-“
“No.” The Doctor’s voice cut through the night, sharp as a knife. He took another step forward, his coat flapping slightly as the firelight flickered. “You don’t speak right now. I do.”
Akhos faltered.
The Doctor’s voice was low, calm. Dangerously so. “Let’s get one thing very, very clear. Nia is under my protection. Pyra is under my protection. Everyone here is under my protection.” He pointed a finger, jabbing it toward Akhos’s chest. “And you? You and your lot, running around, tearing through people’s lives, killing whoever you please — that ends today.”
Akhos took an involuntary step back.
The Doctor pressed forward. “I let the lot off you off easy, after Jin stabbed me in the back and tried to murder everyone on the ship we were on.” His voice grew louder, shaking with barely contained rage. “You’d already earned my ire enough without threatening, MY FRIEND!”
Silence as the Doctor’s yell echoed around the area. The Time Lord stood, and seethed, trying to control his breathing.
“Come after Nia again. Come after any of them, and I promise you, I can do a lot worse than cutting off an Ether flow. So you tell Malos, and you tell Jin – they don’t have the first iota of who they’re dealing with if they think they can hurt my friends and get away with it.”
Akhos swallowed, his throat dry.
The Doctor tremored in rage. “You run. You run as fast and as far as you can.”
Akhos didn’t move, and the Doctor, red in the face, got into his face.
“RUN, AKHOS!” The Doctor screamed.
Akhos turned, and bolted, grabbing Obrona by the wrist and taking off.
The Doctor took slow, growling breaths through his teeth, calming himself.
The Time Lord turned around, breathing in and out, slowly.
All eyes locked onto him, wide with fear.
The Doctor winced. He knew he could be a bit… touchy, since he lost the Ponds. Nothing had set him off quite like that for a while, now.
But he took one look at Nia, who’s slight amount of fear in her eyes was tempered by the twinkling of gratitude, and he knew he made the right choice.
Vandham stared at the Doctor, blinking. “What the hell was that!?”
The Doctor’s head slowly moved to look at the merc leader. “A line in the sand. Sorry,” The Doctor gestured. “You said earlier Blades channel Ether from the air? So, I blocked it.” He shuffled slightly, swallowing. “Didn’t mean to hurt the girl…” He gestured. “Sorry, I’m just…” He began to remove himself from the situation, inching back towards the TARDIS. “I need a moment to cool off.”
They could all only watch as he dashed away, back to the blue box at the far end of the training yard, before disappearing inside.
------------
Tatazo’s little arms trembled as he worked, fear pulsing through his veins. For the past odd decade-or-so, he couldn’t say he was comfortable where he was. On the contrary, fear was a day-to-day issue. But he had to remain strong. For Tora. For his littlepon.
Tora – that was who was important. Tatazo could’ve wasted his days away in misery, as long as Tora was safe. And make no mistake, Tora was safe. As long as Tatazo was in Bana’s factory, Bana’s goons couldn’t care less what happened regarding the rest of Tatazo’s family. After all, Tora had just been a littlepon at the time. What possible utility could he have to serve? So, Tatazo stayed put. He didn’t push his luck contacting Tora, and Bana wouldn’t have any possible reason to harm Tatazo’s precious littlepon.
But… that was before. This was now.
What Bana had uncovered could be trouble of disastrous proportions. He saw the power core. He felt confident saying that.
He had to get out. The time for self-preservation like a coward was over, now that Bana could probably field Artificial Blades strong enough to take on armies, provided the weapons were reverse-engineered properly. But Bana didn’t need Tatazo for that part.
He had to put a stop to this.
Tatazo held up his creation – the electronic lockpick, reconfigured for a new purpose. He turned around, shaking like a man out in the frost, as he looked over at Lila.
They hadn’t gone poking around in her innards, since installing the control chip. At least… he hoped. As much as he would like, he couldn’t go running from the factory, even if this stage of the plan succeeded. Not when Tora was out there, alone, and Bana could get to him. Tatazo had to play this smart.
But, Lila wouldn’t listen to him anymore. At least, not at the moment.
Tatazo held the lockpick, and the end lit up with electric power. He took an anxious breath, slowly waddling over to Lila. Quiet, so quiet, that she hopefully couldn’t hear him, over the barrels of components she was being made to stack.
Tatazo murmured an apology in his mind, and sent the electric prod forth, jamming it into Lila’s back.
Notes:
And, for once, Eleven is NOT dilly-dallying!
....
Well, he IS, but at least from our perspective, it's not too long, right?
You get bonus points if you can guess all the references in this chapter.
Chapter 15: Ten: From the Ashes
Chapter Text
The wind howled across the wasteland, rustling the tattered fabric of the tents that dotted the camp. I pulled my robes tighter around me, the cold of the Gallifreyan night seeping through my skin.
Van led me through the winding paths between makeshift dwellings, his presence a solid, unyielding force beside me. "Not much, but it's home," He said, glancing at me as if waiting for some protest. I had none to give. If they wanted to run from the creature comforts of home, that was fine by me.
That first night, I was given a corner with a tent and a thin blanket. The ground beneath me was hard, unyielding, a far cry from the sterile comfort of my old quarters. Sleep was elusive. My mind spun with half-formed thoughts, old ambitions clashing with the stark reality of my situation. The silence here was different — no hum of machinery, no distant murmurs of political manoeuvring, just the crackling of a fire and the occasional muttered conversation from nearby tents.
The morning brought no ceremony, no recognition of my past. Just work. Van pressed a rough wooden bowl into my hands — some sort of porridge, coarse but warm. "Eat up. We’ve got work to do."
Work. I had never truly worked before—not like this. I was used to more… intellectual pursuits. The tasks here were simple, yet exhausting: hauling supplies, tending to a failing water purifier, repairing a damaged shelter. My hands, once accustomed to wielding equations and experiments, ached from the effort. And yet, as the day passed, I found something strangely grounding in the physicality of it.
The camp was a mix of Shobogans, Time Lords who had renounced their titles, and those who had never belonged to the Citadel in the first place. They spoke of the war in hushed voices, of the High Council's latest decrees, of battles that crept ever closer. I listened but said little. I had not yet decided what I was here to be. I didn’t even decide if I wanted to stay.
Of course… temporary things usually have a way of becoming permanent.
The days blurred together. Each morning, I rose with the others, ate beside them, worked alongside them. I mended things with my hands instead of my mind. I learned to barter, to share, to rely on others in a way I never had before. I began to understand the names of those around me — Loreth, the healer who cared for those wounded in distant skirmishes; Lian, who scouted the wastelands for supplies; Dorum, who spoke of the old ways, of a Gallifrey before we had defanged ourselves.
One evening, as the twin suns dipped below the horizon, Van sat beside me by the fire. “So, how’re you settling in.”
I stared into the fire, feeling its warmth seep into my skin.
I hesitated before answering, my thoughts tangled in the crackling embers. “I don’t know.”
Van nodded, as though he had heard the same confession before. "Ah. Well, you won’t. Not until you’re good and far away, and able to look back on it.” He leaned back, stretching his legs toward the fire. "Regardless, you’re welcome to stay. Even if they took your name.”
I let his words sink in, and for a moment, the weight of my past pressed less heavily on my shoulders.
For the first time in a long while, I’d met someone that didn’t know who I was. What I did. The sin I had committed.
And make no mistake, it was my fault.
“Do you want to be immortal, Van?” I asked of him.
“Eh?” He leaned, curious. “What kind of question’s that? Most people do.”
“I’m not asking people. I’m asking you.”
“Hmm…” Van hummed thoughtfully. “Well… yeah. I don’t think anybody wouldn’t. And us Gallifreyans, we functionally are.”
“Barring accidents,” I corrected. “And it’s not unlimited. We get twelve tries. That’s it. But… what if we could live beyond that? Surpass the limit?”
Van frowned. “That’s not possible.”
“You would be quite surprised.” I grabbed a stick, gently prodding at the fire. “The flaw in regeneration — it’s not some failsafe, or set of shackles, like the conspiracies would have you believe, but a natural breakdown. With every Regeneration, the link between our cells and the Time Vortex progressively withers and weakens. After the twelfth, that link snaps and dissolves. No grand mystery, no metaphysical restriction - just a cumulative decay. But what if we could sustain that link? Keep it open, permanently bound to the Vortex?”
“…you could have unlimited Regenerations.” Van finished, intrigued. “You’d become-“
“Timeless,” I finished. “It’s simple to do, in theory. In practice, meddling with every cell inside someone’s body…” I shivered. “It’s not simple. And yet… I tried.”
“Son-“
I shook my head, cutting him off. And, as I recall what happened, I’m back there.
I glanced at my colleague, standing inside the test chamber – a modified Loom - her expression a mixture of trust and trepidation. “With this method, we’ll be forcing the cells to regenerate while maintaining that Vortex link,” I explained, my voice steady despite the electricity of excitement coursing through me. “Once the cells adapt to this process, the bond should become self-sustaining. No longer will you be chained to thirteen lifetimes.”
Running a hand along the edge of the console, I tried to steady the rush of exhilaration inside me.
“The Vortex itself was responsible for the Miracle of the Time Lords – not genetic tampering, or simple chemicals.” I exhaled, my voice dropping to an almost reverent whisper. “This is our answer.”
I turned back to the controls, fingers poised, my heart pounding with anticipation. Then, with a grin, I faced my colleague. “Are you ready?” The words slipped from my mouth with ease, and she nodded, nervous but resolute.
“Then let’s begin the experiment.”
With precision, I activated the sequence. The room filled with the rhythmic hum of the containment field, stabilizers engaging, energy flows synchronizing. She closed her eyes as the Loom activated, and I kept my gaze fixed on the readings, scanning the data streams with hawk-like focus. Every nerve in my body was alight with hope.
The containment field pulsed, a vibrant glow enveloping the pod. This was it — the feedback loop with the Time Vortex initialized, regenerative energy rising from her cells as the link was forced open, like a pair of hands pulling open a tiny pipe to allow more water to pass through it. The monitor displayed a cascading sequence, the energy levels rising exactly as projected.
Then the hum wavered.
An errant flicker sparked across the containment field. My breath caught. “No, that can’t be right…”
The readings spiked erratically. The graph collapsed from a sine wave to a sharp, exponential bend. The field began to destabilize, as the connection became self-feeding and self-sustaining, forcing her cells’ connection to the Time Vortex open in far greater excess than we had intended. My colleague’s form flickered inside the pod, her face contorted in agony as the Vortex link twisted, buckled, shattered.
“No!” I scream, scrambling for the emergency shutdown. “Shut it down, shut it down! Shut down the equipment, and someone GET HER OUT!”
Before anyone could try, the containment pod failed. Regenerative energy burst outward, an uncontrolled surge that swallowed the room in blinding light. The pod burst like an over pressurized can, spitting out energy in all directions like a geyser of fire. I barely had time to scream as I was launched off my feet and the energy consumed me.
Then came agony. Pure, unrelenting agony.
My bones cracked and stretched, fracturing and fusing in unnatural ways. My muscles twisted, pulling themselves apart only to knit back together in a grotesque, ceaseless reconstruction. I was burning, every nerve in my body aflame as though I were being flayed from the inside out. My skin crawled, rippling like liquid fire, reforming in patches - some parts raw, others already altered beyond recognition.
And my mind - oh, my mind. It was unravelling, pieces of my identity crumbling into dust as the framework of my very being collapsed. Memories flickered, indistinct and slipping through my grasp like water through broken fingers. My past self screamed in protest, fighting to hold on, but it was futile. Fragments of thoughts, echoes of voices, knowledge I had once cherished all swirled into an incomprehensible maelstrom of dissolution. They became as a dream to me – important in the dream, but upon waking, they’re simply… nothing to you, anymore.
I didn’t know who I was anymore. My own name felt foreign, syllables twisting in and out of meaning. Concepts became amorphous, familiar faces blurred and warped, shifting in ways that made no sense. Was I dying? Was I being born? Or was I trapped in some endless, agonizing limbo where both existed at once?
When the light finally faded, I slumped to the floor, breath ragged, body foreign. My hands trembled as I raised them to my face, feeling unfamiliar contours, new yet mine. I swallowed hard, my pulse thundering in my ears. I was alive.
Smoke filled the room, and I hauled myself up. There’s only a few moments of peace, before the blaring of the alarms fill my ears. And the boots of the Chancellery Guard sound as they fill the room. They look around, and start screaming at me. I can’t figure out why. In that moment, I was like a child, who didn’t know what he did. Couldn’t even comprehend it.
“…I found out later,” Back in the present, I speak to Van. The look on his face – of polite listening – hasn’t changed. I wait for him to judge me. “Everyone in that room perished. Except for me. The blast wave shredded them apart on the cellular level, too fast for them to Regenerate.”
“Hmm…” Van nodded slowly. “What about your lady friend?”
“Every single cell in her body went supernova at the same time.” I gulped. “I was… so certain it would’ve worked. I should have checked my math. Twenty people, including her, died that day. Well… twenty-one.” I gestured down at myself.
“You got off lucky.”
“Lucky-er.” I corrected. “Much of the trauma was… severe, compared to a normal regeneration. Great chunks of my past were lost to me. Burned away. I can’t even remember her name. I was hauled in front of a tribunal right after. They stripped me of my name, my accolades, my position… they were even considering dematerializing me, until they performed a memory probe and determined the knowledge of how to recreate the experiment was lost.”
“Damn,” Van sighed. “Sorry to hear that, lad.”
I straighten up. “You… aren’t angry with me?”
“No. Why would I be?” Van asked, honest to such a degree it was like a cold-water shock. “You made a mistake. Got people hurt. Got yourself hurt. Lost your memories, lost your name, lost your baby mama-“
“We…” I can’t even bring myself to give a proper protest. The idea hadn’t been unappealing to me, at the time. Arguably, it was something I very, very much wanted with her. Hence… the attempt, and the end of her life. “Hadn’t quite gotten that far in our relationship, yet.”
“Mmhmm…” Van hummed. “Still. That kind of stuff would make any man hate himself. You don’t need me to hate you, too.”
“…thank you.”
“Come on,” Van got to his feet, patted me on my shoulder, and gestured for me to follow. “I wanna show you something.” We walk back into camp, me following through my confusion, all the way back to his tent. I hadn’t been inside, but he leads me in without fear, and pulls over a storage trunk, before cracking the lid open. “My sister – Matrix preserve her – we put her in the ground about… oh, thousand-years back, now?”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Nah,” Van shook his head. “Went real peaceful-like.” He wiped his jaw. Van reached into the trunk, his hand brushing aside old fabrics and dust-covered relics. The first thing he pulled out was a small, smooth stone — some sort of… black, obsidian card, polished to a shine, with a metal backing and a strange imprint of an apple with a bite taken out of it.
“She married a Timey with some damn strange hobbies,” he said, voice softer. “Always sending her stuff from Sol III. I thought it was ridiculous back then, but she swore by ‘im.” He caught me looking at it curiously, and he tilted it over to allow me a better look. “This here’s an Eye-Phone. It’s some primitive version of a Matrix Access Node.”
I take the stone, tracing the smooth surface with my fingers. “Telecommunications? How quaint.” I pass it back over to him, and look over in the box. I notice something that looked almost like a Perigosto Stick, with a strangely-curved, thick, wooden paddle at the bottom. I can’t help but pick it up. “What’s this?”
“Ah, careful with that one. Apparently some Prince played that at a Hall of Fame and… made it cry, or something? I wasn’t listening when she explained that one.” He shook his head and reached back into the trunk, pulling out something else - a tattered book with half its pages missing, the cover barely legible. “She was a dreamer. Always reading about Earth, about the old stories. And… talked a lot about what our House was doing. How it was wrong. I never listened to her, back then. Always thought she was just being crazy.” His eyes darken, old anger flickering beneath the surface. “Then she passed, and I got the wake-up call. “So, I left. Before they could drag me into it.”
I glance at the trinkets — the book, the stone, a rusted wristwatch, an old data-pad so far beyond repair it’s little more than a husk. Echoes of a life that once was.
“She’s your reason for running,” I murmur.
Van exhales, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah. Every time I feel too weak to stay out here, too sick of the dust and the damn sun… I remember her. I remember what they were building. What they were willing to do. And I tell myself – she’d come back from the grave and kill me before she let me stick around there.”
Something in my chest tightens, the weight of my own ghosts pressing in. The lives lost. The choices made. The future I nearly surrendered. I let my fingers tighten around the stone in my palm.
“So you ran.”
“Yep.” Van sighed. “But, how long can you run before you run out of energy? Or you hit a wall? Or… what if the thing chasing you’s faster, tougher, and stronger than you?” He took a breath, and turned around. “I got an idea. Soon as this war hits Gallifrey – and it will come here eventually, no doubt about that – we’re gonna want to be far from here. So, you gonna stay here, or you gonna listen to your urge to run?”
“There’s nothing for me here, anymore.” I shake my head, before taking a breath, and nodding. “I suppose… I wasn’t planning on it, but running far away from here sounds good.”
“Right,” Van nodded with a grin. “So, you’re on board?”
“I am.”
“All right. Then listen to me very closely. We’re gonna steal ourselves a TARDIS.”
---------------
Once they had procured Riki a biter (one of those snapping-hammer-things, an ingeniously primitive weapon) they set out. The only sounds accompanying the scouting party were the occasional rustling of leaves and the distant calls of wildlife. They had gone quite a ways from Frontier Village, towards the plunging canyon that opened up into a small sea, toward the Great Makna Falls.
Melia moved with careful precision, her staff held at the ready, but her focus drifted. She wasn’t just watching for signs of the Telethia — she was watching him.
Alvis walked beside her, his hands folded neatly behind his back, his expression as unreadable as ever. He seemed utterly at ease, unfazed by the heavy atmosphere pressing down upon them.
She wasn’t sure why that unsettled her so much.
“You are quiet, Your Highness.” His voice broke through the hush, soft yet clear. “Pensive?”
Melia hesitated, then exhaled. “One could say that.”
“Ooh…” Riki whispered from her other side, his wings twitching. “Riki thinks Melly might be grumpy. Grumping self up to fight Dinobeast!”
Melia’s expression twitched in puzzlement. “I am not… ‘grumping myself up,’ Riki.”
Riki crossed his stubby arms, nodding sagely. “Grumpy people always say they not grumpy.”
One of her bodyguards, Garan, cleared his throat, but Melia ignored them both. She turned to Alvis. “You did not need to come with us.”
Alvis tilted his head slightly. “No?”
“No,” Melia said firmly. “You claim you are here to help, but I cannot shake the feeling that you have another reason. Something else.”
Riki blinked up at Alvis. “Ooooh, is Mystery Man keeping secrets?”
Alvis only smiled. “I would be an awfully poor man of mystery if I shared everything, you know.”
Melia frowned. “Why did you insist for Riki to come along?”
“..well, that’s rather a bold accusation. For one, I didn’t specify Riki.”
“You did not.” Melia conceded. “But you decided we needed a Nopon along. Why?”
“Is it not enough to simply trust my talents?”
“No.” Melia retorted honestly. “You and your family have done a great service for mine – but for you to invite yourself along to any mission is highly unusual, reasons of wishing to build a rapport notwithstanding. Lorithia had a point – why tag along, when you could have simply offered advice to me before I left?”
“The future is not so easy to guarantee-“
“Do you know something, Alvis?”
For a moment, Alvis simply observed her, his gaze unreadable. Then, he gave a small nod. “Yes.”
Melia inhaled sharply. “Then why did you not say so earlier?”
“Because knowing the future and understanding it are two different things,” he replied evenly. “Your actions, uninfluenced by foreknowledge, are important. I’m a seer – nobody’s master.”
Riki tilted his head. “Alvis talk like Dunga when want sceptics to be quiet. ‘I saw it, so just trust me!’”
Melia’s grip on her staff tightened.
“Not at all,” Alvis said, glancing at her with something akin to amusement. “If obfuscation was my goal, it’d be rather a poor decision to come along, knowing full well that my presence would stir up the very suspicion I’d seek to avoid. I’d be equally poor to dodge subsequent questions.”
Melia stopped in her tracks. “That is not an answer.”
Alvis turned to face her, his expression finally shifting — just slightly. There was something in his eyes, something deep and unknowable, and yet strangely fond.
“Isn’t it?” He asked.
Melia held his gaze, searching for something solid in the ever-shifting mist of his words. She found nothing.
A rustling in the distance broke the tension. Instantly, the bodyguards tensed, wings shifting as their hands moved to their weapons.
Riki’s ears perked up. “Ooooh! Maybe it just snack?”
Melia looked around, tense. Alvis’s presence, coupled with the discussion they just had, did nothing to soothe her.
The plants suddenly ruffled and parted, as the creatures that called the forest home went running past them, ignoring the group completely.
Hogard drew his spear. “They’re running from something big. Everyone, prepare yourselves.”
A sudden shift in the air, unnatural in its intensity, sent leaves spiralling through the canopy like panicked birds. The rustling of the forest was drowned out by a rising, hollow hum - deep, reverberating, and wrong.
Melia barely had time to register the sound before a blur of white and green tore through the trees. A howling screech split the air as something enormous swooped overhead, and came about, straying into the canyon as it struggled to bring its massive weight around. It slammed into one of the rope bridges spanning the canyon, and, without stopping, tore right through it.
Wood splintered. Ropes snapped.
The bridge — spanning the deep, yawning ravine — gave way in an instant, debris plunging into the waters below as the rest of it slammed into the walls of the canyon.
Melia flinched at the sheer violence of the attack, instinctively taking a step back. Her mind barely had time to process what had happened before she felt the presence.
A cold, invasive sensation clawed at her thoughts — just for a second. Then, it was gone, like fingers withdrawing from the edges of her mind.
She didn’t know the feeling. But it wasn’t a pleasant one.
“DINOBEAST!” Riki screamed. “DINOBEAST!”
“Telethia…” Alvis murmured. “The Endbringer… Charmed to finally meet you.”
The monstrous creature hovered in the space where the bridge had been, wings flapping, its body a twisting mass of sinewy muscle, jagged, chitinous armour, and pulsating ether veins. Three sets of glowing eyes, each one set into a different head, locked onto them with unsettling intelligence, and the sharp, horn/antenna-like protrusions on its head bristled with energy.
Alvis began to walk forward, towards it.
“Alvis!” Melia gasped out. “What are you doing!?”
“Mysteriouspon, get back!” Riki pleaded.
“Sir Alvis!” Aizel barked.
“Not to worry. I’m simply opening a dialogue,” Alvis reached into his coat, and produced his baggie of sweets. “Would you like a Jelly Baby?”
With another shriek, it lunged.
Alvis stood there, looking completely unbothered, before he suddenly threw the bag, and threw himself to the side. As the bag disappeared down the Telethia’s gullet, Alvis drew his sword, and swiped, sending droplets of glowing, green blood everywhere.
The beast let out a roar, slamming into the earth.
“Scatter!” Melia shouted, leaping back as the Telethia’s massive talons raked across the ground where she had stood just moments before.
Her bodyguards reacted instantly. Garan and Aizel spread their wings, taking to the air in a defensive formation. Hogard planted his feet, his hands glowing with Ether energy as he prepared to counter.
Riki let out a startled yelp and bounced out of the way, drawing his biter with his wings in the same motion. “Dinobeast very angry!”
Alvis, as always, remained unnervingly calm.
Melia raised her staff, her voice ringing clear and authoritative. "Do not let it close the distance! Strike from range!"
Garan and Aizel obeyed immediately, shifting into an aerial flanking position. With a synchronized battle cry, they loosed Ether-infused projectiles from their weapons, blue-white streams of energy spiralling through the air toward the Telethia. Hogard, still on the ground, thrust his palm forward, launching a sphere of molten Ether directly at the creature’s exposed flank. Damil twirled his staff and with a click of a button on the weapon, the tip unfolded to reveal an array of blades perfect for digging into and ripping flesh.
The attacks hurtled towards the beast - only for the Telethia to twist unnaturally, its body shimmering as if distorting through heat waves, as it threw itself around, seemingly at random.
But it was far from random. As the Telethia thrashed around, it dodged the projectiles and swipes flung at it. The beast let out a wrathful gurgle as a glow built around it, before a pulse of Ether rippled out, and knocked everyone standing too close back. Little Riki even had the poor misfortune of rolling like a ball, into a tree, before he popped up with an angry look as he waved around his Biter.
Melia’s vision swam as she landed on the back of her head.
“Melly! Miss Melly! Please be getting up now!” Riki encouraged, trying to help her up despite his size.
As Melia got back up, she felt something in her head – like… ice-cold water, flowing through her brain. Her thoughts — no, her intentions — felt as if they were being peeled away, exposed to something vast and calculating.
Aizel’s next shot never fired. He had lifted his staff, but before he could even gesture, the Telethia was already diving at him, its claws outstretched. He barely had time to twist his body before the beast’s talons raked across his armour, sending him spiralling through the air with a cry of pain.
“Aizel!” Melia gasped, gesturing with her staff. Ether – in the form of warm, soothing water, coalesced in an orb above her, before she sent it flying at the wounded man.
"Damn it!" Hogard gritted his teeth, forcing another Ether blast into existence, but the moment he made the decision to aim, the Telethia’s eyes flared. His energy flickered — vanished — as the Telethia shut his attack down before it could even manifest.
"It knows what we're going to do before we do it!" Garan shouted, banking hard to avoid a sweeping wing.
Damil tried lunging with his staff into the creature’s side, only for the Telethia to swipe, and knock him away like a bug.
Riki, meanwhile, had tried his own approach. He lunged from behind, biter gleaming, aiming to sink his weapons into the creature’s exposed back. But the moment his paws left the ground, the Telethia twisted mid-air, slamming him aside with its tail. Riki crashed into a rock with a squeak, bouncing to the ground in a dazed heap.
Melia clenched her jaw, pushing past the psychic pressure drilling into her mind. ‘Think, Melia. It is using its Telethia instincts. They read the wills of others and adapt accordingly…’
She inhaled sharply.
Cease all attacks!" She commanded.
The moment she said it, the Telethia hesitated. It hovered in place, its wings flaring as its heads twitched in rapid succession, as if trying to read an opponent that had suddenly vanished.
And then, amidst the tense silence, Alvis started humming.
"End of passion play, crumbling away…"
Melia blinked.
Was he singing?
She turned to him in disbelief. He was standing to the side, sword casually resting on his shoulder, swaying slightly as he continued in an almost amused tone.
"I'm your source of self-destruction…"
Aizel shot him a look as he nursed his wounded arm. "What in the Bionis’s name are you doing!?"
"Has he lost his mind?" Hogard growled, wiping blood from his mouth.
“This is not a game!” Damil bellowed at Alvis.
Even Riki, still shaking off his crash landing, tilted his head. "Mysteriouspon gone cuckoo-crazy?"
Before anyone could demand an explanation, the Telethia shrieked and lunged at Alvis.
And Alvis moved — effortlessly, fluidly. A sidestep just before its talons reached him. He ducked, twisted, and sliced in a single motion, his sword carving a gleaming arc through the air. A fresh spray of green blood splattered the ground.
Melia's eyes widened.
The Telethia hadn't dodged.
It had failed to read him.
Meanwhile, the others were still fighting as they had before, each attack they launched being countered with ruthless efficiency.
Aizel tried to feint left, only for the Telethia to twist in perfect sync, its wing snapping out like a club. The impact sent him tumbling backward, barely catching himself mid-air before he crashed.
Hogard roared, Ether flaring around his fists as he swung upward, only for the energy to dissipate before he could release it. The Telethia had already known he was going to strike. It reared back and slammed its tail against him, sending him skidding across the dirt.
Garan swooped in from above, hoping to strike from a blind spot. The Telethia twisted its head before he even finished his dive, unleashing a burst of psionic energy that hit him square in the chest. His vision blurred as he spiralled off course.
Riki tried next, bouncing erratically on his feet in an attempt to confuse it. "Riki too unpredictable! Riki too—"
The Telethia barely seemed to register his presence before a claw swatted him aside like an afterthought.
Melia's grip on her staff tightened as she saw them all failing. ‘Why is this happening? Why can it still read all of us - but not Alvis?’
Alvis, meanwhile, was utterly unbothered.
"Veins that pump with fear, sucking darkest clear…" he continued, weaving through the battlefield as if he were dancing rather than fighting.
The Telethia lashed out at him again, but he simply leaned away at the last second, not even looking at it, as though he already knew where the strike would land. His blade flashed, another line of green ichor spilling into the dirt.
Melia’s breath caught. ‘It can’t predict him. It’s not reading him at all!’
She stared at Alvis, her mind racing. His movements were entirely instinctive, disconnected from any conscious thought of attacking. He wasn’t thinking about fighting — his mind was occupied with something else.
The song.
It drowned out his intent, making his actions unreadable to the Telethia’s psionic ability.
Melia nearly laughed at the sheer absurdity of it.
"Everyone!" she called out. "Do as Alvis - focus on something else! Hum a song, recite a poem, anything! Keep your minds occupied, and it won’t be able to predict us!"
Riki, still recovering, blinked in confusion. "Riki not know song to sing!"
"Then make one up!"
Aizel groaned as he clutched his ribs. "She’s saying we have to sing?"
"You’d rather keep getting swatted out of the air?" Melia snapped.
Alvis smirked as he weaved past another claw strike, completely at ease.
"Obey your master…" he murmured under his breath.
Aizel and Garan exchanged glances, then, with a resigned exhale, broke into a battle hymn — an old High Entian war chant, low and rhythmic, like the steady pounding of drums. Their voices rose as they circled above the Telethia, the melody threading through their movements, keeping their minds unfocused on their attacks.
Hogard, still on the ground, let out a gruff sigh and started reciting a marching cadence under his breath. It wasn’t pretty, but it kept his thoughts from lingering on his Ether attacks — this time, when he threw a blast forward, the Telethia didn't react in time. It struck its wing, sending it staggering mid-flight. Damil joined his comrade, keeping time, using the rhythm to time his strikes.
For the first time, their strikes were landing.
Meanwhile, Alvis kept on in his own world, casually ducking under another wild swipe.
"Taste me, you will see, more is all you need…"
But not everyone was keeping up.
Riki screwed his eyes shut, bouncing on his feet. "Okay, okay, Riki sings- uh… uh…" He flailed, grasping at anything, before blurting, "Bashy-bash, smashy-crash, Riki fights and wins for cash—"
A claw came directly for him.
"Ahhh!" Riki yelped, rolling to the side just in time.
His problem was immediate - he couldn't keep his thoughts distracted. His panic bled into his movements, his desperate attempts to throw the Telethia off resulting in an erratic, zig-zagging sprint across the battlefield. At first glance, it looked like he was doing an impressive job of confusing the beast.
He wasn't.
The Telethia wasn't fooled for a second.
It read his frantic thoughts as easily as an open book and lashed its tail out to where he intended to dodge before he even moved.
Riki barely managed to leap over the attack, his stubby wings flapping wildly to keep from toppling over. "Meh-meh-meh! It still sees Riki!"
Melia grimaced. The Telethia stomped, and its heads slowly turned to look towards her. Her heart plummeted.
She had been so focused on helping the others that she hadn't done anything for herself.
She wasn’t singing. She wasn’t reciting poetry. She wasn’t distracting herself at all.
And the Telethia knew it.
Its heads snapped toward her, its three sets of glowing eyes narrowing.
A shudder ran down her spine.
It knows.
She tried to move, but the beast lunged before she could react, faster than before, unhindered by the mental static that had thrown it off with the others.
Talons gleamed as they raked toward her.
Melia had no time to cast.
She braced herself—
Before the claws struck armour, and with a metallic screech, reinforced plates buckled and tore apart like paper.
Damil had thrown himself between her and the Telethia’s strike.
The sound of rending metal was drowned out by his scream as the beast’s talons drove straight through him.
"Damil!" Melia screamed.
His body arched, impaled mid-air, his fingers twitching as his wings spasmed weakly. The light in his eyes flickered as he gasped, trying to move, to free himself. But the Telethia held firm, its claws wrapped around him like a grotesque prize.
“Lady Melia…” Damil wheezed, struggling to grip onto the claws that had run him through. “Don’t… look…”
The Telethia’s eyes burned bright.
Ether surged along its body, converging into the air around Damil like a crackling storm.
Melia reached forward in desperation, arm outstretched—
"DAMIL!"
There was no time to save him.
A burst of energy erupted from the Telethia’s claws.
The air shattered with blinding light.
Damil’s form was swallowed in the explosion, his body dissolving into motes of glowing dust that scattered on the wind. The last remnants of his armour tumbled to the ground in smouldering fragments. Where he had been, there was nothing.
No body. No trace.
Just gone.
Melia staggered back, breath coming in ragged gasps. A sick, twisting nausea churned in her gut.
The Telethia shrieked, unfazed, its talons flexing as though the man it had just obliterated had been little more than an afterthought.
Melia’s grip on her staff tightened until her knuckles turned white.
"Y-You…" Her voice trembled, raw with fury and grief. "You monster!"
Her pulse pounded in her ears. Ether surged at her fingertips, flaring wildly—
And the Telethia's eyes snapped toward her.
It had her.
It had read her.
It lunged—
"Come crawling faster…"
A blur of white. A gleaming blade intercepting the strike.
Suddenly, Alvis was in front of her. His sword flashed upward, colliding with the Telethia’s talons, sparks cascading as steel met chitinous armor. With a graceful pivot, he guided the momentum away, deflecting the monstrous limb as though redirecting an overeager dance partner.
"Obey your master…"
Melia barely heard him. She stood frozen, staring at the empty space where Damil had been just moments ago.
Alvis tilted his head, the faintest trace of emotion flickering in his eyes.
“Such a dreadful end,” He mused, stepping lightly out of the way as the Telethia snarled, swiping at him again. He dodged with an ease that felt almost disrespectful. “I do believe that was rather rude of our friend here.”
Melia whirled on him, her vision blurred with fury. "Alvis! Silence yourself and help me!"
Her voice cracked, and she hated that it did.
Alvis merely exhaled, the ghost of a smirk still on his lips. "I am helping."
Another lunge, another effortless dodge.
Melia swallowed hard, her heart hammering in her chest.
Damil was gone. The Telethia was relentless. And all of them were vulnerable to it.
“What kind of attack was that!?” Hogard gasped in horror.
“He has become one with the Ether,” Alvis explained in a rush. “We cannot focus too much on that at the moment, lest we wish to share his fate.”
“Don’t worry!” Riki lifted his weapon. “Leave it to Heropon!” The Nopon ripped a clump of grass out of the ground, and shoved it into his mouth, chewing it rapidly. As he sprinted up to the Telethia and began to swing, throwing and bouncing around, he sucked in some air, and let out a loud spitting noise, spitting the grass right into one of the monster’s faces. “Monster! Ha!” He bellowed, rolling back as the head on the other end of his attack began to twitch wildly, and smack itself.
Aizel watched with a frown as Riki tumbled back to rejoin them. “What was that?”
“Poison grass!” Riki eagerly grinned.
"Does that even work—"
The Telethia roared, the other two heads thrashing. The one affected by the poison snapped its jaws blindly, shuddering in confusion, but the rest of its body remained a deadly force.
Melia took the moment of distraction. "Strike now!"
Garan and Aizel dove in from the air, Ether projectiles already forming at their fingertips. Hogard planted his feet and released a volley of flame-tinged blasts. Melia, suppressing the raw grief clawing at her chest, lifted her staff and fired a piercing surge of energy straight at the beast’s core.
The attacks struck true. The Telethia let out a guttural cry, staggering under the combined assault.
And then—
The poisoned head snapped back, its eyes burning with renewed clarity. The Telethia shrieked, its aura flaring, washing away the effects of the poison like a tide. The damage it had taken began to reverse, green Ether veins pulsing in rapid succession.
Melia’s stomach turned. It’s recovering too fast!
Before she could shout another order, the Telethia lunged straight for the air — straight for Garan.
He tried to veer away. Too late.
The Telethia anticipated his movement perfectly.
Its talons closed around him.
“Garan!” Aizel shouted, banking hard to reach him.
Garan thrashed, his wings beating furiously against the creature’s grip. He struggled, tried to summon Ether, but the Telethia’s hold crushed his ribs, his breath leaving him in a strangled wheeze.
"Lady Melia!" His voice rang out, desperate, defiant. "Keep fighting!"
And then, the same blinding surge of Ether that had annihilated Damil ignited around him.
The light swallowed him whole.
Melia flinched, but she did not look away.
She saw everything.
Saw Garan’s body break apart — his form dissolving into the overwhelming glow of the Telethia’s power, like sugar into water. His armour shattered like glass, his wings crumbling into dust, his last cry lost in the crackling surge of Ether.
By the time the light faded, only flecks of luminescent embers remained where he had been.
Aizel let out an anguished yell and dove for the Telethia, his spear crackling with power. "You—!"
The Telethia turned before he could swing.
It had already predicted him.
The beast lashed out with its wing, striking with pinpoint precision. Aizel was hurled backward, crashing into the ground with brutal force.
Melia gritted her teeth, refusing to let herself crumble.
Two of her people were gone. Removed, just like that.
The logical thing was to fall back. To retreat.
“It’s too strong!” Aizel declared, landing in front of Melia, as Hogard took a similar stance in front of her. Hogard grunted as his staff was knocked out of his hand, and embedded into the ground. “Lady Melia, withdraw to the Nopon village, and let us handle this!”
But she would not.
She would not run.
She would prove herself.
“Absolutely not!” Two people had died already. “I will not run and save myself while the rest of you fight!”
“M-Melly,” Riki stuttered, insistently tugging on her sleeve. “Bird knights right. Dinobeast too strong…”
“Alvis!” Melia snapped at him. “Suggestions!”
Alvis looked at her, dead silent, and slowly shook his head.
Melia’s hearts twisted.
“Please, Lady Melia, permit us this once!” Aizel pleaded. “This is our honour, and our duty. Sir Alvis… Heropon Riki, please, see Her Highness to safety!”
The Telethia touched down again, slamming into the dirt.
“Flee!” Hogard barked insistently.
“I cannot return to the capital with this monster still standing!”
The Telethia roared, as ether rippled and swirled around it, in a dark whirlpool of hateful energy. With another bellow, it let out a blast, the wave cascading forward in a stream.
Riki let out a gasp, trying in vain to jump in front of Melia. Alvis crossed the distance, and put himself at the front, grunting and swaying as the ether slammed into him. Aizel and Hogard were not so lucky.
The last two knights evaporated, fading into the background energy in bright rifts of light, before the glow faded entirely.
Melia let out a grief-stricken screech as her last two guards – people she was supposed to keep safe through good leadership as much as they were supposed to protect her through combat skills – were wiped off the face of Bionis like they were stains being washed away by water.
As the ether wave subsided, the Telethia let out a puff of air, all three heads focusing on Melia.
The High Entian Princess stood her ground, and did shiver, and tremble with rage, as all three sets of beady eyes stared at her.
“Calm yourself…” Alvis warned slowly.
Melia did not listen. All she could think about – thoughts absorbed by currents of cold mercury – were ways of striking at the Telethia.
The beast growled at her.
“Lady Melia,” Alvis repeated.
The Telethia took a step forward, and Melia’s hands closed around the staff tightly, as she readied herself to strike.
"In touch with the ground... I'm on the hunt, I'm after you..."
Melia stopped, her ire focused on the Telethia shifting to Alvis. Four people were dead, they were about to share in a similar fate, and still he was acting like a fool?
“Alvis!” She hissed, “this is not the time for—”
He glanced at her. Not with condescension, nor amusement, but with a calm, encouraging look. A slight tilt of his head. A subtle gesture of his hand, as if to say, join me.
Melia’s fury burned hot. She wanted to reject him. To yell at him. To fight this thing instead of play whatever ridiculous game he was leading her into.
“Smell like I sound, I’m lost in a crowd, and I’m hungry like the wolf…”
But then she saw it.
The Telethia had stopped.
Its massive, hulking frame was still, its glowing eyes flicking between them, uncertain. It should have lunged by now. It should have read them, killed them—
But it hadn’t.
The only difference was Alvis.
Melia’s hearts pounded. She could hear her own blood rushing in her ears, the instinct to fight warring with something far more insidious — uncertainty.
She clenched her jaw.
She couldn’t afford to hesitate.
Melia inhaled sharply.
“Straddle the line in discord and rhyme…” Alvis continued to hum, like he was somewhere else.
The Telethia tensed.
Its claws flexed.
She had to do something.
And against every shred of logic in her mind, against everything screaming at her to run or fight—she parted her lips.
The words trembled as they left her, barely more than a whisper, shaking with the sheer absurdity of what she was doing.
"M-Mouth is alive, with ju… juices like wine..." Her voice faltered, her breath uneven. She felt exposed. Foolish. She almost stopped.
But the Telethia hesitated.
Its talons, once poised to strike, slowly relaxed.
Alvis smiled faintly, his voice steady and unwavering, and together, they hummed the next line, their voices blending in the still, ruinous air.
"And I'm hungry like the wolf..."
The Telethia blinked.
Its aggression faltered.
It took a step back, its massive heads twitching as if hearing something beyond them, something that unsettled its instincts. Its nostrils flared. It sniffed the air, lips curling, its hunger seeming to wane.
Melia watched, hardly daring to believe it.
The beast’s posture shifted — not in preparation to attack, but in uncertainty. Slowly, cautiously, the monster stepped backward. Then again. Then again. Its glowing eyes lingered on them for a moment longer, then, without another sound, it turned and slunk into the ruins of the forest, disappearing into the shrouded mist.
Melia’s knees almost buckled.
She exhaled sharply, her grip on her staff loosening, hands trembling with leftover adrenaline. "What... just happened?"
Alvis, ever the picture of composure, tucked his hands behind his back. "Telethia feed on Ether, Lady Melia. That bag of candy I threw at it in was hardly enough to sate its appetite, unfortunately. Though, it seems our unlucky comrades’ Ether sated its hunger. Once it was no longer hungry and hunting for food, it only continued attempting its advances on us because it perceived us as a threat.”
Melia blinked, still reeling. “Hence…?"
Alvis chuckled softly. “Riki was scared and cowering, he was not a threat. I was not making myself a threat, as well. But you were angry. I had to calm you down.
Melia gaped at him. "And you knew this would work?"
He tilted his head slightly, considering. "I had a theory."
"A theory?" she repeated, exasperation overtaking her exhaustion. "I was nearly eaten because of a theory!?"
Alvis simply smiled. "And yet, here we are. Uneaten."
Melia had half a mind to hit him.
…scratch that, she did.
The crack that echoed throughout the forest was either due to her hand breaking the sound barrier, or the impact. It was hard to tell.
Alvis’s head snapped slightly to the side, but he barely reacted beyond a slow blink. He turned back to face her, utterly unruffled, as if she had simply given him a particularly strong tap to the cheek.
Melia was seething.
"You… you… bastard!" she spat, her hands trembling at her sides, fingers curled so tightly that her nails dug into her palms. "Four people just died — four! And you are standing here, smug like you were just rewarded some prize, singing, as if in your own little world!"
Alvis exhaled softly, rubbing his cheek where she had struck him, as if purely out of academic curiosity. Oh, if only she knew… "I never said it did not matter."
"Oh, spare me your riddles!" She exploded, voice raw with fury. “You claim to see the future, you claim to know what’s coming - yet you did precious little to stop any of this! Damil, Garan, Aizel, Hogard-" Her voice broke for half a second, but she forced past it, rage swallowing her grief. "You could have saved them!"
Alvis’s gaze remained unreadable, but there was a weight behind it, cool and detached, yet not wholly devoid of understanding. "You assume that their deaths were preventable."
"Oh, don't you dare," Melia growled, stepping forward, shoving him back with both hands. "Don't you stand there and tell me this was meant to happen!"
Alvis let her push him. He swayed back a step but didn’t resist, his expression never changing. "No," he said simply. "Not meant. But necessary."
Melia stared at him, uncomprehending. "Necessary?"
Alvis’s tone did not waver. "The Telethia needed to be sated."
A sharp, bitter laugh tore out of Melia’s throat. "Sated? SATED?"
"Yes." Alvis bluntly answered and nodded toward the treeline where the beast had disappeared. "Four lives lost, their Ether absorbed, and now the creature has retreated to rest. That is the optimal state for us to kill it."
Melia recoiled, horror and fury battling for dominance in her chest. "So you’re saying—"
"That if I had interfered more than I did," Alvis continued smoothly, “Things would have been worse. Now, we have an opportunity to strike, with it in its most vulnerable state.”
Melia shook with fury. "You—" She couldn’t even form the words. "You heartless, calculating—"
"Rational," Alvis corrected. "This was the best outcome."
Something inside Melia snapped.
"Best outcome?" She repeated, her voice climbing, thick with a different intensity now. "The best outcome, you… posh-sounding, silver-haired sack of-!?"
Alvis blinked.
So did Riki.
Melia barely noticed. Her blood was boiling, her grief curdling into pure, unfiltered rage. "You knew, you bloody knew — this was how it was gonna go, and you stood there, prattling on with your nonsense, and they died! I trusted you, and they died because of it, you heartless bastard!"
Alvis tilted his head ever so slightly, taking her in like she was a particularly interesting data set. "Your accent has changed."
"Oh, shut up!" She snapped. "We are standing knee-deep in corpses right now, because of you!”
Riki shivered, rattling as he shrunk in on himself, "Oooh…. Melly scary…”
Alvis, despite everything, cocked an eyebrow. "I do believe I’ve struck a nerve. How unfortunate."
Melia screamed in sheer frustration, turning on her heel to pace before she actually did strike him again. "That’s it! We are killing this damned Telethia, before I kill you first!"
“Uhm, R-Riki think that not such good idea at moment…”
Melia stopped, and seemingly on a dime, regarded him with a soft look. “You’re free to return to your home, brave Heropon Riki. Sir Alvis and I can handle this ourselves.”
Alvis, by the look on his face, visibly did not agree. Internally, he was caught between laughing, and sighing. He kept her alive, for another day, but it seemed her… suppressed, headstrong nature was slowly reappearing.
“Perhaps we should take a moment to rest as well.” Alvis suggested.
"Rest?" Melia rounded on him, her eyes still ablaze with fury. "We don’t have time to rest! The Telethia is out there - and while it still draws breath, the others will have died for nothing!"
"That is not true," Alvis countered smoothly. "However, if we charge blindly into a fight now, their sacrifice will truly have been wasted."
"If we wait, it will recover!" she argued. "Then we’ll have lost our only advantage!"
"Our advantage," Alvis said patiently, "is that it is digesting. And so are we, in a manner of speaking."
"Melly too angry to digest!" Riki piped up, waving his little arms. "But Riki very hungry!"
Melia groaned, exasperated. "Riki, this isn’t about-"
"No, no!" Riki stomped a tiny foot. "Riki fight on empty tummy, Riki get sleepy! If Heropon sleepy, Heropon not do so good!"
"Riki has a point," Alvis noted, and Riki puffed up proudly. "Our Ether levels are drained. We are wounded. We are running on adrenaline and desperation, which will serve us poorly in an extended battle. It has eaten more than we have. It will rest for longer."
"I’m fine," Melia insisted, jaw tight.
"No, you are not," Alvis corrected. "Your body is shaking. Your Ether signature is erratic. You are angry - justifiably so - but you are not in control of yourself. Would you face the Telethia like this? Would you risk more lives - including your own - because you refuse to stop and breathe?"
"I refuse to do nothing!" Melia shouted. "I refuse to sit here while that thing skulks through the woods, waiting for the moment to strike! What if it finds an innocent? What if it feeds again, and we let it because we sat on our laurels?"
"And what if," Alvis said, and for the first time, his voice dipped into something firm, "You face it in this state and fail?"
Melia’s mouth snapped shut.
"It is not our minds alone that the Telethia reads," Alvis continued, quieter now. "It is our emotions. And you are running high on grief and fury. Do you truly believe you can suppress that? That you can empty yourself of those feelings while you are so consumed by them? It will take advantage of that. Of every sliver of doubt, indecisiveness, and clouded judgement in your mind.”
Melia clenched her fists.
"We will strike when we are ready," Alvis said, watching her carefully. "Not when you feel ready. When we are prepared. That means gathering our strength, restoring our Ether, and coming at this fight with clarity, not reckless vengeance.”
“And who are you to decide that?”
“As you seem to think,” Alvis tilted his head to the side. “The man with all the answers.”
"Melly need food too," Riki added unhelpfully. "Sad tummies do not win battles."
Melia shot him an exhausted glare. "I do not—" She stopped, her breath hitching, her hands still trembling.
She was tired. She could feel the exhaustion creeping in, the rawness in her throat from screaming, the way her hands ached from gripping her staff so tightly.
And she hated that Alvis was right.
She sucked in a breath, slowly releasing it. "Fine," she bit out. "We rest. But the moment we are ready, we finish this."
"Naturally," Alvis said with the faintest inclination of his head. "I would expect nothing less."
Melia turned away sharply, heading toward a small clearing. "Riki, I’m afraid I’m not quite experienced foraging in these woods. Might you be willing to guide us in the right direction?”
Riki saluted eagerly. "Yes, boss-Melly!"
Melia sighed, and followed in Riki’s wake.
----------
The forest was quieter now.
Not in a peaceful way — no, the lingering sense of danger still lingered in the air. The air hung heavy with the remnants of Ether, and the ground was still marred by the signs of battle. The smell of burnt grass and scorched metal lingered, though the source had long since vanished into the trees.
The final three made their way through the undergrowth, led by Riki, who hummed to himself as he hopped from root to root. He stopped occasionally, sniffing the air, checking under leaves, plucking edible plants, and stuffing them into a small satchel he’d produced from… somewhere.
Melia barely registered it.
Her movements were mechanical, her breath steady but hollow. The heat of her anger had burned out, leaving only the cold weight of grief behind.
They set up camp in a small clearing near a slow-moving stream. Riki had found fruit, some edible roots, and even a few mushrooms, which he now roasted carefully over a small fire. Alvis, as ever, sat off to the side, resting against a tree with his eyes half-lidded, exuding an air of effortless patience.
Melia, on the other hand, sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the flames.
Her hands were still, but not at peace.
It was supposed to have been her moment. She was supposed to have proved herself capable. She was supposed to see those men safely returned.
She squeezed her fingers against her sleeves.
And they died.
It didn’t matter whether it was truly her fault or not. It reflected on her, and that was just as damning.
Melia didn't want to hear anything from Alvis, who sat in quiet contemplation. She already knew what he would say. Some cryptic remark. Some logic that only made sense to him. Something utterly flippant in regards to the weight in her chest.
So when she heard someone plop down beside her, she was relieved - if only slightly - to see Riki instead.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just sat there, poking at a roasted mushroom with a stick, before glancing at her.
"Melly not eating," he noted.
“Don’t worry about me, Riki. I’m quite all right.”
“Oh, please be eating, Melly. Riki feel sad-sad about new friends too, but have to keep strength up. Growing littlepons need food!”
Melia exhaled, shaking her head. "I'm not hungry."
Riki clicked his tongue. "Melly not hungry, or Melly's heart too full of sad to eat?"
She frowned but didn’t answer.
Riki nodded to himself, taking a slow, thoughtful bite of his mushroom. He chewed carefully, swallowed, then finally spoke.
"Melly thinking too much," he said simply. "Too much thinking makes food taste bad."
Melia let out a short, humourless breath. "Is that so?"
"Mmm," Riki nodded. "Riki knows! It happen to Riki all the time! Melly thinking about friends?”
“I had a duty to them, and I failed. When I return home, even if we slay the Telethia…”
“Mmm…” Riki hummed. “Melia afraid of what bird people at home say?”
“I suppose so.” Melia’s grip on her sleeves tightened. "They will say I failed."
"Will they? Melly alive, that seem okay to me."
"Four people are dead, Riki," she said bitterly. "My father and my mother - they sent me out here to lead, with the understanding that this will be only the first display of what I will be expected to do in the future, and I let my own people die. They will not be proud of me when I return."
Riki hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head. "Proud? Maybe not proud. But proud and happy not same thing, Melly.”
Melia frowned. "What do you mean?"
Riki set down his stick and dusted his paws off. "Melly think mamapon and dadapon wake up every day proud? That they always look at littlepon and say, ‘Oh, today Riki is perfect littlepon, never make mistake, always do best?’”
Melia blinked. "Well… no, but—"
"Then why Melly think her mama and papa different?"
Melia opened her mouth, then closed it.
Riki smiled knowingly. "Maybe they not proud today. Maybe they sad for Melly. Maybe they wish things different. But one thing Riki knows - Melly’s mama and papa will not be disappointed. Only relieved. Glad Melly is still here. Glad she came home."
Melia swallowed, looking away. "You don't know that."
"Riki is dadapon. Riki knows that," he said with unwavering confidence. "Even when littlepons mess up, dadapon only happy to have them home."
Melia, despite the wisdom he was trying to give, could still only focus on the fact that Riki had children. “You’re a father.”
“Oh, yes, very, very proud dadapon!” Riki nodded. “Riki’s oldest leave home a while ago to become engineer. Living with Bird People, at moment! Riki proud right now. But if Riku came home tomorrow, saying,” Riki coughed, and made an attempt to lower his voice, “‘Dadapon, Riku mess up big, get people hurt,’ Riki would not be proud. But Riki would not be mad, either. Riki would just be glad that his littlepon make it back home safe.”
Melia sat still, staring into the fire.
Riki leaned against her arm gently, his warmth small but solid. "Melly still here. That what matters most."
Melia exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment before reopening them. "...You truly are wiser than you look, Riki."
Riki puffed up proudly. "Riki is very wise Heropon!"
Melia let out the faintest chuckle, shaking her head. "Very well, then. I suppose I should eat, lest I be throwing myself into battle as a fool."
Riki beamed, handing her a roasted mushroom. "Now Melly thinking smart!"
As she took a bite, her gaze flickered toward Alvis, who had been watching the exchange silently.
He said nothing, but offered her a small, knowing nod.
-----------------
Returning to Colony 6 had been… disappointing. The small number of Mechon swarming in the area were dealt with, easily, but upon making it through the gates, they were greeted with a most… unfortunate sight.
Piles of rubble, as fine as sand, filled the area. Aside from the walls, which gave the remnants of the colony the appearance of a bowl of powdered sugar, there was precious little to indicate that anyone had ever lived there at all, and the Mechon hadn’t just decided to build a base around an odd-coloured patch of dirt.
“Aw, man, look at it…” Reyn breathed out in disbelief. “It’s completely destroyed!”
The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets, and walked on ahead somewhat, looking down. After a moment, all he could do was let out a sigh, as he surveyed the area.
Sharla covered her heart, “Oh my… M-Maybe Juju was right… maybe we did wait too long…”
“Now, now, don’t go thinking that.” The Doctor pointedly informed her. “You can always pick up rubble, but you can’t bring someone back from the dead.”
Dickson scrunched his nose in disgust at the sight, as he flicked some ash off his cigar into the dirt. “Not for the Mechon’s lack of trying…”
Fiora stepped forward, shielding her eyes, before she noticed a building at the far end of the Colony, and pointed at it. “Look. Something survived.”
“The old storehouse…” Otharon rasped, as hope flooded into his face.
Sharla gasped, likewise. “Depending on what supplies survived-“
Otharon nodded. “We can jumpstart the rebuilding process.”
“Ah, you see! There’s that indomitable human spirit for you! Where there’s life, there’s hope.” The Doctor grinned. “Right, if someone goes and gets the refugees moved back, the rest of us can look through and catalogue this stuff.”
Fiora pointedly cleared her throat.
“Ah, of course,” The Doctor nodded to her in deference. “Ma’am?”
Fiora nodded, looking like she was about to take a deep breath before launching off into a tangent – before patting the Time Lord on the back. “What the Doctor said.”
The Doctor chuckled, and strode up the stairs to the warehouse, opening it up. Brandishing his screwdriver in case there were Mechon, he walked inside, and took a look around the area. The Time Lord’s eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly, and he took a look. “Oh, look. Building materials…”
“Over here,” Shulk gestured, looking down into a barrel. “There are seeds here for crops.”
“Well, you know,” The Doctor turned around with a grin. “I think you were right, Otharon! So!” He looked about quickly. “I spent some time in an Amish village – raised five houses in as many hours. Who’s ready to help me break my record?”
--------------
Sharla and Otharon did not stay to help – not initially. They went back down the Bionis’s leg to gather up the rest of the refugees, and bring them back home. Once that was done, the rebuilding would go far faster.
In the meantime, Shulk, Reyn, Fiora, Dickson, and the Doctor set to work.
“Right, now, you know what every good day of work needs?” The Doctor grinned, digging into his pockets.
“Free food.” Reyn answered like sleeper agent programming had been activated.
“Ooh… yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. You know what else it needs? Work songs! Check this out, Shulk.” The Doctor pulled his hands out of his pockets.
A Walkman with a speaker larger than the device it was attached to rested in one hand, and in the other - held together like a comically-large deck of cards by a rubber band – were cassette tapes.
Shulk looked forward curiously. “What’s this…?”
“It’s music! Well,” The Doctor licked his lips. “Music on tape. Most electronics you have, they have data storage formats that run on punch-cards, don’t they?”
Shulk looked up, with a curious frown. “How’d you know?”
“The computers in that lab of yours, they’re not exactly cutting-edge.”
Dickson crossed his arms, “They were when I had ‘em put in.”
“Well, that’s just… your technology.” The Doctor coughed. “Anyway! Plastic tape. On that tape, tiny little metal particles that preserve an electrical signal. Run a head over it, and you get…” He faltered for a moment, before deciding what to play first. His eyes landed on Reyn, and in the Doctor’s opinion, he seemed like a Metallica guy…
The Doctor took out one of the tapes, and put it into the player. He hit play, and the speaker-mounted-Walkman began to belt out the shredding of an electric guitar.
Shulk stared at the speaker with surprise, as Reyn began to grin.
“Now, I like this!” Reyn pounded his fists together. “We gotta find something to fight!”
Fiora let out a tired huff, looking down and shaking her head.
“Don’t worry, Reyn-y boy!” The Doctor smiled. “We’ll get all that pent-up energy worked out of you in no time!”
Reyn paled a few shades.
“Well…” Dickson drawled, staring at the tape player. “That’s something you don’t see every day. Where’d you say you were from again, Doc?”
“It’s Doctor.” The Doctor corrected. “And just… around.”
“He said he’s from…” Shulk gingerly broached the subject. “Elsewhere.”
“…Elsewhere?” Dickson raised an eyebrow.
“That’s right!” Shulk eagerly nodded. “From far beyond the Bionis!”
“…huh,” Dickson sceptically huffed. “Bionis and Mechonis are all what there is.”
“Well, maybe by your standards,” the Doctor countered with a knowing smirk.
Shulk hesitated before speaking up again. “Actually, he said he’s from a place called Earth.”
The moment the word left Shulk’s mouth, Dickson’s expression shifted. His doubt transformed into something far less patient - his lips curled into a smirk, his stance loosened with amusement, and then he barked out a laugh.
“Pffft - Earth?” He clapped a hand on his knee, shaking his head. “Might as well call it dirt! And here I was thinkin’ ya might be onto somethin’, Shulk.” He turned to the Doctor, grin still plastered across his face.
The Doctor merely rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets, watching Dickson’s amusement unfold like he’d seen this reaction a thousand times before.
“You got played, Shulk,” Dickson continued, his voice slipping into something almost condescending, like a teacher humouring a particularly naive student. “No such thing as ‘Elsewhere.’” He shook his head. “Bionis. Mechonis. That’s all there is. That’s all that matters.”
The Doctor, for his part, simply raised an eyebrow. “Is that right? You sound awfully convinced.”
“Damn right.” Dickson scoffed, shaking his head again. “You’re a funny one, I’ll give ya that. But seeing is believing. And I ain’t seen nothing.
Fiora pinched the bridge of her nose, while Shulk glanced warily between Dickson and the Doctor. Dickson still looked amused — if only in the way someone humours a lunatic.
The Doctor, however, simply rocked on his heels, studying the older man with a glint of intrigue in his eyes. "Seeing is believing, is it?" he echoed, tone light but deliberate.
Dickson smirked. "That’s what I said."
“Well then,” The Doctor beamed, stepping forward and clapping his hands together. “See this with your own two eyes!”
Dickson raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, the Doctor was already moving.
“Now, that’s enough gobbing!" The Doctor called, turning toward the gathered group. "We’ve got a colony to rebuild!”
And with that, the work began.
------------
The ruins of Colony 6 were soon alive with movement, the air thick with dust being kicked up as debris was cleared away and salvaged materials were sorted.
Reyn and Dickson worked to shift the heavier materials, their strength making quick work of what would have taken the others much longer.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, true to his word, got to work with his vast array of gadgets.
“Now, watch this, you lot.” The Doctor held the Sonic Screwdriver to the soil and listened to the sound. He just as quickly bounced back to his feet. “Fiora, if you’d please!”
The girl, with a bucket of seeds took a step, and looked over at the Doctor with a frown. One encouraging nod from the Time Lord later, she scattered it across the soil.
“Shulk,” The Doctor extended his hand, and the other teenager passed him another Ether crystal that had been harvested from beneath Colony 6. “A little bit of jiggery-pokery, and…” He removed a hodgepodge of mechanical components, shaped roughly into a remote, and slotted the crystal into a port on top. He then glanced over at Shulk. “You said… Ether’s mostly harmless, right?”
Shulk nodded. “Life on Bionis is dependent on it. It’s only in excess that it’s a problem. Like water.”
“Right, then, hopefully this one doesn’t explode any hens… here we go!” The Doctor slammed his hand on a big, red, vaguely-threatening button on the device’s face, and the ether crystal lit up.
A ray of light radiated out, rippling as it cast the patch in blue light. After a moment, green pinpricks began to poke out of the seeds, before exploding into a patch of plants.
Fiora’s eyebrows shot up. “That should’ve taken weeks,” she murmured. “How did you do that?”
The Doctor gave her a cheeky grin. “Time Lord science! Now, come on! We’ve got to make this place liveable!” He declared, before dashing off to do something else. “Shulk! Help me run this conduit!”
Dickson, watching the rapid progress, stood with his arms crossed, his smirk from earlier nowhere to be found. His gaze flicked to the Doctor, who – with Shulk’s help – was running metal-sheathed power cabling, burying it as they went, before hooking one end into a makeshift purifier set up in the still water in the corner of the colony.
“Smart fella,” Dickson muttered under his breath. “Too smart for a Homs…”
The Doctor, as if hearing him from across the colony, glanced up and shot him a wink.
Dickson narrowed his eyes, clutched his cigar between his teeth, and went back to helping Reyn set up the tents and basic framework for the new houses.
---------
It was a while before Dickson could get a moment with Shulk. In that time, the transport had returned from the refugee camp on the Bionis’s leg, the refugees disembarked, and all of them set to work, setting up temporary quarters, working on getting the more permanent structures up and going.
The Homs were nothing if not a resilient people.
Juju, like he’d been waiting for this moment his whole life, instantly set about plotting a basic layout around what had already been built up, marking off roads and plots with string.
The Doctor, coat temporarily discarded, suit and face caked in layers of dust and sweat, moved about the colony at a quick stride, butting in and helping anyone who seemed to have no idea what they were doing. Reyn was pulling around carts full of building materials, distributing them for the people working. Sharla was getting people settled in. Fiora was helping guide the returning residents to the areas that needed the most focus, and telling them what to do. Dickson and Shulk, meanwhile, were laying bricks, like the majority of the people working.
“So,” Dickson addressed. “A Visitor from Elsewhere.”
Shulk glanced up. “I thought you didn’t believe him.”
“I don’t,” Dickson bristled. “Trust me, I’ve been up and down the Bionis. There’s nothing that makes me think there’s something beyond this.”
“But Dickson, if you could see his ship – his technology-“
“I’ll reserve judgement.” Dickson stated imperiously. “Now, how’s about you, Shulk?”
“What about me?” Shulk repeated in confusion.
“It’s been more than a few days since you left. How’re you holding up? Aside from following around a nutter.”
Shulk scratched the back of his head. “Really, we’ve been following around Fiora…”
“Really?” Dickson snorted. “Heh. That’s not much of a surprise, actually. That girl’s had you wrapped round her finger since you were kids. But apart from that, how’re holding up?”
At first, Shulk didn’t know how to answer. This entire trek had only just begun, after all… and already, his worldview had been shaken, quite severely. Shulk thought of the Faced Mechon, and a dark, burning knot of anger settled in his stomach, before he drove it away.
“It’s been eventful, the past few days.” Shulk confessed. “Fiora’s been getting used to actually commanding – as a squad leader, not… the way she normally does-“
“I’m tellin’ her you said that.”
“Please don’t.” Shulk pleaded. “And… well, you saw what happened with the Mechon, back there.” Then, he looked over his shoulder. “There’s also…”
“Eh? What is it?”
“Dickson,” Shulk cleared his throat. “Before Dunban died, did he ever… talk about the Monado? What it was like to wield it? What it let him do?”
“After it fried his arm?” Dickson raised an eyebrow.
“Just… in general?”
Dickson let out a suspicious hum. “He talked a bit about how it was the key to the Homs’s future. How powerful it was. But that’s mostly what everyone talked about. Why? Does it have something to do with those ‘visions’ you said you saw?”
Shulk nodded. “It started with the visions, but it’s not just them. Over the past few days, the Monado’s been unlocking new abilities.”
“Really?” Dickson tilted his head, but didn’t sound at all surprised. “So, there was something to your theories after all… I knew you were on to something there. How is it happening? Is it at random?”
“I thought so at first,” Shulk shivered. “But… I realized something, fighting Bronze- fighting Xord. They only seem to appear if I… I will them too. And the visions – Dunban never mentioned anything like them!”
“When you will them to, you say?” Dickson hummed again.
Shulk took a breath. “When you found the Monado, and found me, was there… anything unusual, about it?”
“Unusu-“ Dickson began to splutter. “Shulk, what brought this on?”
“…something the Doctor said,” Shulk spoke. “He said the way it had been locked away, despite its phenomenal power, and the way it hurt people who tried to use it, sounded like it was far less benign than we first believed. The way it spared me, I have to wonder…”
Dickson, however, scoffed. “What, some skinny guy in a suit shows up, sounds smart, and suddenly you’re just gonna listen to him about something you’ve been studying your whole life?”
“Well… no, but-“
“The Monado’s a temperamental old thing, everybody knows this! It’s why we picked Dunban for the job – he was the only person stubborn enough to fight it. But you pick up the sword, it lets you use it just fine – it obeys you – and, what, you’re complaining? Come on, Shulk! You can’t let a total stranger fill your head with doubts.”
Shulk winced. A part of his mind whispered to him, guiltily, that he knew Dickson was right. The Monado was powerful, to the point of being frightening, but he could use it so easily... he shouldn’t be complaining. Not when it meant the fate of the Homs was in his hands. “Still, Fiora-“
“Fiora?” Dickson huffed. “Girl’s heart is in the right place, but she doesn’t know. The Monado didn’t just decide to fry Dunban’s arm for no reason – he pushed himself far past what he had any right to be doing. He got cocky and it punished him. I knew it, and he knew it. Besides,” He turned. “If the Monado’s showing you the future, that means it thinks you need to see it. And if it’s letting you unlock new power, it thinks you’ll need ‘em for something. Don’t be an idiot and throw it all away because some guy said some unsettling stuff.”
“I know,” Shulk sighed. His own instincts had been telling him the same, but not in so many words. “But… the Doctor’s been doing what he can to help me understand it.”
“Oh? And has it worked?”
“Well… well, no.”
“Exactly.” Dickson took another drag off his cigar, flicking away some ash.
Shulk also couldn’t help the flash of guilt that came to him. “And it… well, it hurt him.”
“Not surprising. What was he trying to do?”
“We were trying to figure out if we could trigger visions.”
“And let me guess – you gave up afterward?” Dickson shook his head. “You’re a smart lad, Shulk. Especially when it comes to the Monado; you don’t need some new guy feeding you poison about it. If it’s responding to you like this, the way I see it, you’ve gotta explore that.”
“You think so?” Shulk asked.
“I think the Monado left you alive for a reason,” Dickson nodded. “If it’s showing it to you now, you’ve got a duty to yourself to figure out why that is. Even if the others don’t like it.”
Shulk couldn’t deny, it made sense. If the Monado was behaving oddly, wasn’t it better to figure it out, rather than plug his ears and ignore it if it became a problem later down the line? And maybe Dickson was right – perhaps the Monado spared him for a reason. Since it was reacting to him now, that meant it thought he was ready for whatever was coming. The way it was unlocking new abilities based on what he wanted was also a big deal – Shulk wasn’t just overcoming its will like Dunban had, but Shulk was making the Monado obey him.
Maybe the others were overreacting.
“If it didn’t show Dunban any visions, then, maybe…” Shulk cleared his throat. “I’m the only one meant to see them. Maybe that’s why it didn’t work, when the Doctor tried to help me trigger one.”
“Could be,” Dickson grinned.
Shulk hummed to himself thoughtfully.
Already, his mind was buzzing with possibilities.
-----------
Reconstruction proceeded for a few hours more, but already, it was starting to wind down. With the number of people working, they had managed to erect a few houses – enough, at least, for the small number of people to bunk in together until more could be completed. Now, things were coming to a close. Already, several people had called it.
Fiora, still diligently working, wiped a bead of sweat from her brow as she took a moment’s reprieve from the work, scanning the area she noticed Dickson.
The old soldier had claimed a shaded spot underneath a tree in the small park that had sprouted up in only a few minutes, thanks to that… ether-powered growth accelerator thing that the Doctor had built. No one had challenged him, especially considering the fact that he dropped in and saved their bacon at the last second.
Fiora took another look around the area. Shulk had gone off to help with the houses, and no one else was in sight.
Fiora hesitated, but approached.
Dickson must’ve heard her coming, or saw the shadow pass over him, and he looked up from a book he was writing in.
“Ah, look who it is.” Dickson remarked as she got close. She couldn’t see what he was writing – his scrawl was so messy, or it was written in a script she’d never seen. “Come to tell an old man with back problems to get back to work?”
“Back problems?” Fiora challenged. “The way you dropped in and got to fighting?”
“I’m old! I can’t do crap like that anymore without paying for it.”
Fiora rolled her eyes, glancing and gesturing with her eyes at his book. “What’s that?”
“Oh, this?” Dickson closed the book, and held it up. “Just keepin’ a log. You’ve got a lot to look forward too, getting old – memory problems, and all.” He stuffed it in a pocket on the inside of his vest. “Y’look like you got something to say,” He remarked. “Unless you really did just come over here to bug me.”
She exhaled, arms folding as she tried to collect her thoughts. She sat down on a stack of bricks nearby. “I wanted to say thank you. For saving our hides.”
“Think nothing of it,” Dickson grinned. “I didn’t spend all this time, taking care of Shulk, just for the lad to go and get himself killed.”
“I’m sorry,” Fiora apologized immediately. “He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”
Dickson shot her a look that said he did not believe a single word that just left her mouth.
“…well, here.” Fiora corrected. “It was my idea to help Colony 6.”
“Was it?” Dickson slowly nodded. He glanced around. “Should’ve just invited this lot back to Colony 9 instead. In terms of salvage, this place might as well be a lost cause.”
“It’s their home,” Fiora retorted.
“Maybe,” Dickson shuffled. “But it’s mostly rubble now, and there’s – what – two dozen people left? At most? Us Homs have got to stick together. Now more than ever.”
“Is that why you’re never around in Colony 9?” Fiora retorted instantly, before regretting it. Most of Dickson’s trips were to find something that could be used for fighting against the Mechon, and he usually did bring back some good stuff. “I’m sorry-“
“No, no,” Dickson bit out a laugh. “You don’t mince words, do you?”
“You’re supposed to be in charge of the Defence Force, but you’re always off somewhere. You just leave Vangarre to do it all.”
Dickson leaned forward, curiously narrowing his eyes. “What’s this about?”
Fiora snapped her mouth shut.
Dickson’s mouth spread into a grin. “Oh, I get it. Just now realizing you’re in over your head, are you?” He looked her up-and-down. Fiora was wearing the uniform of the Defence Force – sans helmet – had the anti-Mechon machetes on hips, and her knives just below them, on her thighs. That was it. “Thought it was gonna be a fun jaunt across the Bionis, did you? Take on the Mechon army with a set of kitchen knives, a bunch of scrap, and the Monado being held by a lanky kid that’s never seen real combat a day in his life?”
Fiora crossed her arms.
“Then you got your arses handed to you, and it changed a few things, didn’t it?”
“We almost died.” Fiora shivered. “We could barely handle one of the Mechon with faces, and it was only because of the Monado. Then you saw the way we were surrounded after leaving the mine. If that Telethia hadn’t shown up…”
Dickson silently looked at her, allowing the girl a moment to collect her thoughts.
“Shulk and Reyn – I know what they’ll say;” She began, “They were going to go anyway to get revenge for Dunban. But right now, they’re here because of me. How can I handle knowing that if they get hurt, it’ll be because they’re here for me?”
Dickson let out a short laugh, scratching at his jaw. “First off, girlie, let me tell you something. Reyn is as much of a stupid beast as Dunban was. He’d go marching right over to the Mechonis to get an eye for Dunban because that’s who he is. There weren’t nobody he looked up to more. But Shulk? Going to get revenge for Dunban?” He snorted. “Do me a favour! You know why he’s here, and it’s not because of your brother.”
Fiora flushed. She knew as much. Shulk was a thinker, not a fighter. He didn’t get hot-headed (not until he picked up the Monado, at least), and when he did, usually, she could make him see reason. He probably grieved Dunban, yes, but not enough to go on a mission of revenge. No, she knew what was up the moment Reyn and Shulk tried to talk her out of this – Reyn was going because he wanted to, but Shulk was going so Fiora didn’t have to.
Still, Fiora focused on one part of what Dickson said. “’Stupid beast?’”
Dickson flinched. “Dunban was a lot of things. Aware of his limits wasn’t one of ‘em. You know that.”
Fiora, solemnly, nodded in agreement.
“Look, let me tell you something,” Dickson cracked his knuckles. “You think I came out of here for the hell of it? Think ol’ Dickson thought it’d just be a nice run up to Colony 6?”
“I’d thought you came to drag us back home?”
“You lot?” Dickson snorted. “I know better than that. The three of you have always been troublemakers. If I did it, how long would it be ‘til one of you flew the coop again? Besides, you’ve got a thirst for revenge. Gotta make the Mechon pay. I’ve seen how that can eat at people,” He shook his head. “Just look at Mumkhar.”
Fiora flinched. She didn’t remember him all that well, but there wasn’t denying how… unstable, he was, near the end. Not being able to fight the Mechon until Sword Valley made him… more unstable.
“So, no,” Dickson shook his head. “I ain’t gonna stop you. Don’t think I could, now. Not when Shulk’s got somewhere he thinks he should go. You know how he gets.”
“Don’t I…” Fiora murmured. Shulk was especially stubborn, when it came to the Monado. “But, what about Vangarre-“
“Vangarre?” Dickson snorted. “The Colonel’s good at keeping things running, but he ain’t good at telling what people need.” He stretched his arms before leaning forward. “That’s why I ain’t in Colony 9 most of the time. If I stuck around, they’d expect me to lead, to play the big boss. I’d hate every second of it, not while there’s stuff out there to be done. And Vangarre? Let him have his power trip. It keeps him busy, and the Defence Force still runs.”
Fiora frowned, not entirely satisfied. “But that’s different. He’s in charge of us.”
“Nah.” Dickson cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Ain’t nobody in charge of anyone, unless they’ve got real, material power. I learned that a while ago. What’s the worst Vangarre can do? Kick you lot out of the Force? Then you all go out on this half-cocked mission anyway?”
“I… suppose I see what you’re saying,” Fiora muttered.
She didn’t. She really didn’t.
Dickson just chuckled. “Ah, it’s whatever. The way I see it, the three of you have got potential. Especially Shulk. You think any three regular-ol’ people can take out even half of the Mechon you’ve fought already? Even other Defence Force soldiers? Nah, you’ve got it on-lock.” He nodded toward the rest of the party in the distance. “I figured as much when you vanished with the rest of that sorry lot. Why d’you think I gave you them swords?”
Fiora glanced down at the machetes resting against her hip. “I don’t know.”
“I figured you were bossing them around from the get-go. And no matter what happened, the lot of you were probably going to stick with this until it killed one of you.” He tapped a finger against one of the blades. “These were originally for Dunban. They were one. When I figured out you lot had flown the coop, I had ‘em reforged. Shulk’s got the Monado, and Reyn’s got that driver of his. I figured Dunban would’ve wanted you to have these.”
Fiora was quiet for a long moment before lowering herself to sit on the ground, pulling her legs up to her chest.
“You fought with him, Dickson.” Her voice was softer now, barely above a whisper. “How did… how did you handle it? Hearing he was dead?”
Dickson exhaled, shaking his head as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Ah. That,” he muttered. “Me? I just want the Mechon all dead. Nothing else to say about it, really.”
“Hmm…” Fiora hummed softly.
“You know me – I live for the fight. I ain’t gonna sit around and mope, I’m gonna do something. But I’m gonna do it on my own terms. I’m like you three, that way.” He looked up, towards the shrinking sun in the sky. “Right, I dunno about you, but I’m getting hungry.”
“But-“
“I’m getting’ some grub. You can follow, or not. Your choice.”
Dickson began to walk off, and Fiora could only shake her head, sighing to join him.
-----------
The night air was crisp and cold, carrying the faint scent of dust, sweat, and stone as the people rebuilding Colony 6 earned a well-deserved slumber under the watchful gaze of the stars. Most of them took the invitation for some much-needed sleep.
Shulk alone sat near the dying embers of the dinner fire, the flickering glow casting restless shadows across his face.
The Monado lay across his lap, its smooth metal still cool to the touch. It was strange - how something so powerful, so otherworldly, could seem so… ordinary at rest. If he didn’t know better, he could assume the Monado was another greatsword, that only looked peculiar. But Shulk did know better.
It had saved his life. Given him insight beyond the limits of his own perception. Obeyed his commands. So, so much had been unlocked by him in the past few days. Anybody else would be content. But Shulk needed to know more.
Everyone was depending on the Monado, even if they didn’t like it. So… he would do as Dickson suggested.
With the exception of the initial vision, the vision he’d received after meeting Otharon, and the vision he had received after leaving the mines under Colony 6, every vision had come to him in moments of crisis - when danger loomed. So, it was back to the initial experiment he had tried with the Doctor – making the Monado trigger a vision out of danger.
But now, when he wanted to see – when he had a moment of reprieve to digest and process what he would see - nothing happened.
He tightened his grip. ‘Come on... show me something.’
The blade remained inert. No surge of energy, no glow, no whisper of foresight.
He adjusted his posture, closing his eyes. Maybe he was going about it the wrong way. The Monado had always acted on its own accord, pulling him along as if he were a passenger. Maybe... maybe he needed to meet it halfway? …no, no, it was damn near obeying him in every other regard, so why wasn’t it obeying him now?
He took a slow breath, clearing his thoughts, willing his mind to focus.
He opened his eyes and willed the Monado to awaken.
A faint hum. A flicker of light. The blade popped open and sprung to life, and…
Shulk blinked. He’d managed to activate the sword, but… no vision.
Shulk clenched his jaw, adjusting his grip.
"Show me."
Silence.
A minute passed. Then another.
The night stretched on, undisturbed. The fire crackled. A breeze stirred the leaves. Somewhere, Reyn muttered in his sleep.
Still, the Monado did nothing.
Shulk exhaled sharply, frustration bubbling beneath the surface.
"Why won’t you work?" He muttered. His fingers curled around the hilt. "You’ve shown me so much before, but only when you want to. Is that how this works? You decide when I see the future? You get to keep me in the dark until you think it’s important?"
The Monado, of course, did not answer.
“There must be some metric by which you measure a future that’s not a good outcome,” Shulk muttered to himself. “It can’t be by your own reckoning – you’re a sword. You don’t fear for your self-preservation… do you?”
Shulk scratched his chin.
“It must be tied to me. To my well-being.” Shulk hypothesized. “You show me an outcome you know I won’t like, hence why Otharon appeared in a vision, before I even met him.”
Shulk’s eyes flickered over to a knife left stuck in a log.
“Is it… all danger?” Shulk wondered. “Or danger others put me in?” His hand motioned to the knife, before stopping. No, no. The Monado could probably tell if he truly intended to hurt himself or not. Which he didn’t.
Shulk shook his head, feeling ridiculous. Talking to the sword wasn’t doing him any good.
But he couldn’t let it go.
He tried again. He focused, harder this time, pushing his will into the blade, trying to feel for something -- anything - that would bridge the gap between him and whatever power the Monado held.
Nothing.
Shulk groaned and ran a hand through his hair. Maybe this was pointless. Maybe the Monado wasn’t something that could be controlled in this way.
Or maybe...
Maybe he was going about it all wrong.
He had been trying to force it. Trying to command the Monado, like it was a tool to be wielded at his whim. But every vision before had come when he was reacting - when he was feeling, not thinking.
He let out a breath, shoulders relaxing. Instead of trying to demand a vision, he let his mind wander, allowed himself to feel.
Uncertainty. Curiosity. Fear of what lay ahead.
He didn’t push. He didn’t pull.
He simply let go.
And then-
Shulk gasped as an icepick drove itself into his temples, as the Monado hummed, the fire flickered, and his vision blurred.
The world was chased away in a flash of light, leaving it in greyscale. He wasn’t in Colony 6 anymore.
It hovered in the air before him, a perfect red orb, surrounded by shards of glass. He saw himself and the others, standing in a rough circle around it.
Someone reached out. The moment fingers brushed the sphere’s surface, it exploded into light.
Then, Shulk stood in a battlefield.
The sky churned with storm clouds, illuminated by violent flashes of energy. The air was thick with the sounds of war -screams, metal against metal, the crackle of ether-born weapons.
Creatures fought in a chaotic frenzy. Some were humanoid, Homs-like but not quite. Others were monstrous, beastly figures wreathed in armour, their bodies marked with glowing crystal formations.
Shulk had never seen these beings before, yet they felt... familiar.
Then, among the chaos, two figures emerged from the smoke, locked in battle.
A woman with dark skin, white hair, and unusual armour, held a piercing gaze focused with lethal intent. She moved like a spectre, her strikes fluid, brutal, precise, and absolutely devastating.
And her opponent—
Shulk’s breath caught.
It was him.
But not as he was now.
This version of himself had longer hair, and wore robes – crimson cloth with a golden, paisley pattern on it. His expression was unreadable, his stance regal and imperious. He held the Monado in his hand, but it looked wrong – not even like it did in the other vision he had. It appeared more… technological. Covered in actual fasteners, hoses, and four strange, circular ‘vents’ on the blunt side of the blade spat out blue ether.
The battlefield shook as Shulk and his opponent collided, and future-Shulk was sent sliding back. The robe-clad person threw his head back, and let out a bestial roar, as the Monado’s blade shifted to a deep red as a ripple of similarly-coloured energy radiated out from him, causing his opponent to stagger. Shulk then witnessed himself go in swinging, with a weight and speed driven by pure rage, and the Monado sparking every time the Ether blade made contact with the woman.
Shulk let out a furious, wrathful, hate-filled growl, as he grabbed the Monado's handle in both hands, and swung it like an axe, towards his opponent's head.
Shulk gasped as the vision faded, and he shook away the disorientation.
Shulk frowned as he tried to digest what he just saw. He reached into his jacket, and pulled out a small, palm-sized notebook. He took a pen out of the spiralling metal and, flipping through the book quickly, he arrived in the section devoted to the Monado, and clicked his pen. Mind still abuzz, Shulk began to write, jotting down his thoughts quickly.
‘Self-triggered visions seem to result in nonsensical events being viewed. Perhaps without a clear idea of what I want to see, the Monado simply shows me something random? Experiment further.’ His tongue poked out the side of his mouth, as he decided to make a note. ‘Vision 1: I saw myself in a battlefield, full of strange lifeforms. In combat against a woman I’ve not met. Visibly older (months? Years?). Monado appeared more technological in nature (modification? Can it change its appearance, like a theme?).’
Shulk set the book to the side, and picked up the Monado once more. He closed his eyes, and focused, and tried to get the Monado to activate once more.
The setting was unfamiliar, yet oddly mundane. A quiet evening, the sky painted with the fading hues of sunfade. Stone pathways stretched underfoot, leading to some grand cityscape Shulk had never seen before.
And at the centre of it—
Shulk himself.
He stood across from a woman, trying – desperately - to talk to her.
Dark clothing, and long, flowing, frazzled white hair. A red, cross-shape crystal hung from her ear.
Her expression was amused, predatory even, eyes glinting with barely concealed mischief.
And Shulk...
Oh. He was failing at this, wasn’t he?
Horribly.
He could hear himself fumbling through awkward pleasantries, stammering, gesturing wildly in some attempt to break the ice. He couldn’t make out what he was saying, though. It sounded muffled. Like speaking through a wall.
She simply watched, smirking, leaning forward just enough to make him visibly flustered.
Shulk - vision Shulk - cleared his throat and attempted to speak again.
The woman chuckled, and said something that made his other self go beet red.
Shulk watched as his vision-self turned around, and saw Fiora standing there, looking just as amused.
Shulk’s future self froze, stumbled over his words, and going an ever deeper red, promptly excused himself from the conversation with all the grace of a collapsing Mechon.
The vision faded.
Shulk was yanked back to reality, the embers of the fire still crackling, the night still peaceful.
He sat in stunned silence.
His hands were still gripping the Monado, his knuckles white.
What... what in Bionis’s name was that?
Shulk’s mouth opened, then closed.
This was what it had decided to show him? Not danger, not battle, not death. Just himself. Being profoundly embarrassed.
Shulk pressed his lips together, and began to scrawl in the journal again.
‘Vision 2: A party? Some other form of gathering? I was talking to a woman – different from the one from vision 1. I seemed to be oddly embarrassed, talking to her. She seemed to suggest something that Fiora found amusing, but caused me to run.’ Shulk bit his lip. ‘Proof that Monado-visions have utility outside of battle? Can it show me any outcome I’d find undesirable, not just injury or death? Or was I so mortified I would have actually rather died?’
Was this proof that the Monado could show him things unrelated to combat? Or was it simply deciding to waste his time for him wasting its?
…or maybe it was death. Showing him death-by-embarrassment.
Shulk buried his face in his hands, wiped his face, and set the notebook to the side. Picking up the Monado again, Shulk tried to focus his mind. As he sat there, though, he decided to instead focus on trying to elicit a vision on a specific concept. He wondered, for a moment, what to do, before his eyes glanced over to the bunkhouse the others were resting in.
The Doctor was an alien, right? He had lived for nine-hundred years. If Shulk focused, maybe he could get two results out of one experiment – seeing if he could focus on a particular person’s future, and seeing how far into the future he could actually look.
Shulk took a breath, straightened up, focused his mind, and pictured the Doctor, bidding the Monado to show him the Doctor, and show him as far into the Doctor’s future as possible.
The cold rush driving into his temples returned – but different. Instead, it was like burning hot, steel spikes, being hammered into his skull. Shulk let out a gasp of pain, as he was blinded by a white flash.
The TARDIS orbited an enormous blue sphere, floating in a starry void, with the sun drifting to the other side of the object. Shulk saw the Doctor, wearing a brown suit, shakily dragging himself around the console. He looked like he’d been crying.
“I don’t want to go,” he whispered.
Golden light erupted from him, consuming his form, twisting it. Shulk watched in silent horror as the man was torn apart and reborn. Bones popped and cracked as they rearranged. Muscles tore and the brain burned, before a new face stared out with eyes filled with a manic, desperate energy.
A new man – a floppy-haired man with a big chin – was born screaming, and went plunging towards the Earth, laughing.
The vision shifted, and Shulk found himself in a quiet gallery. There, hung up upon a wall, was an oil painting – an oil panting that was, itself, bigger-on-the-inside. The New Doctor clad in a bow tie and long coat, rested and mused to himself about becoming the curator of the gallery. Then, a deep, booming voice pierced the silence, driving it back.
“You know, I really think you might,” The Curator said, his voice soft and filled with the humour of knowing something someone else didn’t.
The Doctor got to his feet, eyes wide with awe, and disbelief, and utter shock. “I never forget a face…”
“I know you don’t,” The Curator rumbled as he looked upon the Doctor with a bug-eyed stare. “And in the years to come, you might find yourself ‘revisiting’ a few, but just… the old favourites, eh?’
Shulk’s breath caught in his throat. There was something unspeakable in that smile - a terrible, quiet certainty. The Doctor didn’t know. He couldn’t know.
Another battlefield. Another sky of blood and ash. The Eleventh Doctor, older now, stood beneath a dark sky, light cascading down like an executioner’s blade.
The Doctor, old and withered, danced around with new life. “Regeneration number thirteen – we’re breaking some serious science here, boys!”
Then, another shift.
A cliff overlooking the ocean at the edge of eternity - The Doctor stood alone, her form wreathed in golden light. Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she went out with a smile, all the same.
“Tag,” she whispered. “You’re it.
Light exploded outward, and when it cleared, a new face emerged — older, weathered, and so, so tired looking... But it was the same face that had set foot on Bionis. The Doctor that Shulk had met. The Doctor felt around his mouth.
“I know these teeth…”
Shulk’s mind twisted in puzzlement. What was the Monado trying to say?
The visions blurred, faces merging and shifting in an endless cascade. Skin colours as diverse as the rainbow, body types ranging along a spectrum from fit to decrepit, to big, to scrawny. Men and woman.
Adulthood gave way to infancy, as the Doctor became a child on the ground.
Men and women in strange regalia surrounded the Doctor, and took him in.
On the periphery of his consciousness, Shulk felt a spike of something on the corner of his awareness – excitement, longing, and greed.
The Monado hummed like a runaway chainsaw.
The chaos stilled. Shulk stood in the TARDIS, as an old man stood by the console. The Doctor touched the controls.
“One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back…”
Reality slammed back into Shulk like a brick to the back of the head, as he fell off of the pile he was sitting on, wheezing. His brain was pounding like he was about to have an aneurism, like it was about to go ‘pop!’ from the vision that had just been crammed into his head.
Shulk looked around in a daze, and grabbed his notebook.
‘Vision 3: extremely dreamlike (a breakdown in the Monado’s ability to predict the future after a certain amount of time?). Disjointed events seemingly thrown together with no reason. No commonality. Extremely painful (result of the vision itself? Who I was trying to view? The number of visions triggered in a short period of time?).’ He’d need to do more experiments to be sure of anything…
…but another pained pounding sent a jolt through Shulk’s body, and he shook his head. Later.
Shulk closed his notebook, and put it away.
As he returned to the bunkhouse, he ignored how unsettling silent the Monado was being.
-------------
Morning broke, and with Colony 6 in a state they felt comfortable leaving it in, the group set out. With Otharon staying behind to keep an eye on things, they marched out of the Colony, down the pathway behind it.
“The passage to Satorl Marsh ain’t far.” Dickson took the lead, wiping down his gun-sword as they walked. “Just behind the Colony.”
“We could make it up to Sword Valley through there, too,” Sharla pointed out as they walked.
“Prison Island’s where we’re heading, at the moment,” Dickson retorted. “Can’t get up to it through the Marsh itself – but you can get to Makna Forest. ‘s right below the Eryth Sea, where Prison Island sits. Convince the Nopon for passage, they’ll let you right through.”
Shulk picked up on something unspoken in Dickson’s tone. “You’re not coming with us?”
“Not all the way,” Dickson replied. “I’ll help you lot navigate the Marsh – damned foggy in there – but I’ve got some reports to deliver. If the Mechon are cramming Homs into new bodies, they’re more dangerous than ever. The Defence Force have got to know about it.”
“Well,” The Doctor scrunched his nose. “Least you’ll help us through the swamp.”
“Don’t worry,” Dickson grinned. “’S free of charge.”
As they walked, going into a passageway into the Bionis’s body, the grass faded to a light blue colour, as pale, blue light shone ahead. Glowing trees, bright with bioluminescent light, began to fill the area, illuminating the path ahead. Deep, almost purple, water rippled in the distance.
The Homs stopped, their breath taken away.
“Oh, wow…” The Doctor vocalized first with a smile. “And here I thought it was going to be all boring, Earthlike scenery…”
“Wow…” Shulk breathed out. “I’ve never seen a place like this before!”
“Y’see?” Dickson, chiding, turned to Shulk. “This is what I mean when I say you need to get out of that lab every now and again!”
“You ain’t kidding…” Reyn stepped forward, looking ahead. “So, where’re we going?”
“We’re aiming to get inside the Bionis,” Dickson answered, causing the Doctor’s head to snap at him in concern. “The upper regions – that’s Makna, Eryth Sea, and the Arm – are accessible through there.”
“Inside the Bionis?” Sharla repeated with a shiver. “We don’t exactly have excavator equipment.”
Dickson flashed her an indulgent grin. “Nah, don’t worry. Most of these passageways were carved out a while ago. Not anybody uses them anymore, save for the Nopon merchants and a few curious types, like me.”
The Doctor tilted his head in assent. The Nopon were deceptively courageous (or reckless) no matter who they were.
“Is this how you travel, when you’re away from the Colony?” Fiora inquired of Dickson. “Through places like this?”
“It’s a decent life,” Dickson replied. “Not having to take orders from anyone, seeing sights like this, able to move wherever I want…”
“Hmm.” The Doctor hummed, turning away.
“You want up to Prison Island?” Dickson gestured to the path before them. “This is the way you gotta go.”
“Then let’s press on.” Fiora decreed. Dickson nodded, and began to lead the way.
As the group ventured deeper into Satorl Marsh, a cold mist curled around their feet, hovering in the air. The towering trees loomed overhead, their skeletal branches twisting unnaturally against the dim glow of the luminous bog. Water dripped from tangled roots, creating ripples in the stagnant pools that dotted the landscape.
Sharla looked around, wide-eyed. “This place is beautiful…”
The Doctor had slowed his pace, hands jammed deep into his coat pockets. His gaze darted around the gloom, flicking between the gnarled trees and the mist curling through the air. There was something here - something his subconscious had picked up before the rest of him could put the pieces together. It was that familiar prickle, that whisper at the edge of perception, like standing in a room where someone had just left and feeling their presence linger.
Then, the glow emerged from the haze.
A deep red light pulsed ahead, hovering just above the marshy ground. At first, it seemed almost like a trick of the eyes, but as the group pressed forward, the shape became clearer. The glow emanated from a floating sphere, encircled by thin, glass-like segments that orbited around it with an almost hypnotic precision. Unlike the natural blue luminescence of the marsh, this light was bright red – almost like it had been designed to be seen.
Shulk hesitated. “What is that?”
Everyone turned to Dickson
“Don’t look at me.” Dickson squinted at the anomaly. “Never seen anything like it.”
The Doctor, however, had stopped dead in his tracks. His expression, which had been one of quiet wariness just moments ago, melted into something far more familiar - a kind of delighted curiosity, tinged with recognition.
“Ooooh, hello…” His voice stretched the words out, a grin creeping across his face. He strode forward with the kind of unshaken confidence that suggested he had some idea of what they were dealing with. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of you…”
Dickson frowned, his usual air of indifference faltering as he took an uneasy step forward. “And what exactly is ‘one of you’ supposed to be?”
It floated a foot or two off the ground – a red, glowing sphere, surrounded by what looked like long, thin, rectangular segments of glass. The sound it emanated was something like a shimmering rustling, as the glass orbited around the miniature star.
“Well…” The Doctor tilted his head, swallowing as he gingerly approached. “That looks like… a transfer gate.”
“Doctor, be careful,” Shulk attempted to warn.
“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe… just a part of where our space is slamming against a higher-order existence.” The Doctor got closer to the anomaly. “There are all these different dimensional substrates and what-have-you that our universe is built on. One of those, we call the Time Vortex – that’s what my TARDIS travels through. But there are others like it. This portal is formed from the interaction of this three-dimensional existence, with that other dimension.”
“It’s a portal?” Sharla frowned. “What, you mean… like a door?”
“Yes. Well, no. A crack, more like.” The Doctor sucked in a breath through his teeth. “A crack in reality itself… could lead anywhere.”
“It’s definitely weird,” Reyn began to speak, moving his arm. “Wonder what it feels-“
“Reyn, don’t!” The Doctor attempted to bark, before the teen’s hand made contact.
The world burst into light.
Chapter 16: Eleven: What We Were
Chapter Text
The walls press in, even though I know they haven’t moved. The air is too thick - choking, cloying, and pushing against my lungs. I’m dying. Or… it feels like dying. Every light is blistering. The muffled sounds of people talking are like jackhammers in my ears.
I press my hands harder against my ears, trying to block it out, but the echoes slither in between my fingers, winding through my skull like parasites.
I should have known better than to think it would be that easy.
I try to figure out what went wrong. And I curse myself for thinking that I could walk right up to a containment chamber filled with unstable matter, and expect it not to explode.
My knees dig into the cold metal floor. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, crouched in the darkness of my quarters, my head buried in my arms, fighting to keep the whole of existence from crushing me beneath its weight.
And then-
A sound. A chime. Another, and another.
“Professor,” Pneuma’s kind voice echoes down from above, barely a whisper. I can’t make out what else she says. I imagine it was your standard “Someone’s here to see you.”
I need to tell them to go away. But… I know who it is.
Another chime. A muted ‘pop’ echoes out as the intercom comes to life.
“Adam?” It’s Galea. “Are you in there?”
I don’t reply. If I don’t answer, she’ll go away to look for me someplace else.
“Pneuma says your heart rate is dangerously high.”
…snitch.
“I’m trying to help – I’ve got some things here.”
Pretend like you’re not here, she’ll go away.
I hear her sigh. “Adam Klaus – I can hear you breathing like you just ran a marathon. I know you’re in there. Please, open the door.”
I scowl. Nope. Not doing it.
She sighs again. “Pneuma – medical override: Code blue.”
Light spills in from the hall, though it does nothing to touch the gloom in my mind. I squeeze my eyes shut against the intrusion. I can hear her shuffle as she walks in.
“…Klaus?”
Her voice is careful, a gentle tremor beneath the syllables. She steps inside, and the door hisses closed behind her.
I don’t move.
She crosses the room, kneeling beside me, and even though I can’t see her, I can feel the way she hesitates.
I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want her to see me like this. No one.
“Klaus.” A little firmer this time, but still soft.
I shake my head. I don’t have the words. I can’t make them come.
Galea sighs, and I hear the shift of fabric as she moves closer. Then - warmth. A hesitant, steadying hand against my shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t pry, doesn’t demand that I explain myself.
She just stays.
Slowly, breath by breath, the crushing force inside my chest begins to lighten, if only just. The station is still here. I am still here.
“What happened?”
I try to think about how to answer. “…bad memories.” And if that’s not a loaded statement…
I don’t know how much time passes before I finally find my voice.
“They were laughing,” I rasp. It’s all I can manage, but it’s enough.
Galea’s hand tightens, just for a second. “I know.”
I risk a glance at her - just a flicker, just a moment. Even in the dim light, I can see the way her brow creases, the way her lips press together, caught between anger and concern.
I get angry, too. “Ridiculous,” I spit hatefully. “What, are we all back in school now? A man goes running from an explosion, and they think it’s funny?”
She doesn’t argue. Instead, she shifts, sitting fully beside me now, her shoulder barely brushing mine. Another pause, another hesitation, and then-
“Here.” She hands me a thermos filled with… something. It’s warm, and smells sweet. I take a swig of it, and… well, truth be told, it doesn’t seem to be working very well. “Why don’t we go and get some fresher air? Do you think that will help?”
“…if it’s quite all right with you, Galea…” I gulp. “I think I’d rather sleep for the moment.”
“Okay,” She helps me up, and starts to guide me. The glow of her optics illuminate the way for her, and I let her lead me. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Do mimeosomes need sleep? They can eat, drink, do everything else a human can. But they’re minds uploaded into bodies. Without the hang-ups of fleshy brains. If she stays, is she going to be awake, watching me the whole time?
…it doesn’t matter. She’s already seen me in a state most others have not.
As I wrap my face and cover my ears, she refrains from poking fun at me, which I am grateful for.
I lie down to sleep, still dressed in my clothes from the experiment, still wearing my shoes. I just… I need some sleep.
A weight settles next to me, and I slow my breathing.
We sleep.
Only a few hours do I awake, feeling… some measure of calmer. We go into Elysium – the parks, the plants, the natural-ish air, and the sky simulation are welcome, compared to the cold of everything else.
She sits me down at a table outside, and I cannot help but feel embarrassed. Completely and utterly mortified.
When she returns, we sit in silence for a minute or two, before she asks the question which I assume was burning her up.
“Does that happen often?”
“Often enough,” I stare down into my cup. I can see my hands shift and shiver. I can’t tell her everything. I don’t know if I can trust her.
…well, I can. I don’t know if I can trust her body. God knows what kind of spycraft nonsense the people who built that mimeosome crammed into it.
No mentioning the Time Lords. The being in my computer.
Galea sips her tea while I continue contemplating the deep mysteries of the universe in my own mug.
He caught the faint snicker of a passerby as they glanced his way — a fellow researcher who’d clearly heard the story.
“Child,” Galea hisses under her breath.
“It’s nothing.” I try to shake my head. The gossip mill will run, until it runs out of steam, and they move on to better endeavours.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m a grown up, Galea. I can handle people laughing at me.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Galea rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to give me all the grisly details but are you okay?”
My jaw tightens. “Why? Because of a little... firecracker?” My voice comes out sharper than intended, but it was too late to uncommit now. “You’ve never been afraid of something unexpected?”
I tighten my grip on the coffee mug, my fingers drumming against the ceramic as I stare at Galea as I try to fight the pushing back against my ribcage. She looks calm and unfazed, even after my outburst.
“Of course I have, Klaus,” She says, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “But that was different. According to Pneuma, you were having a full-blown panic attack.”
I go quiet, and press my mouth into a firm line.
There’s so much I want to say. I want to explain. I want to explain everything.
I want to tell her about my dreams — the hazy visions of a world with towering spires and twin suns; a planet I’ve never seen with my own eyes. I want to tell her about the whispers in my mind, voices speaking of things no human should remember. About the entity buried in my computer, slipping me answers I shouldn't have.
But I hesitate.
I don’t know if I can trust her. No, I know I can trust her. But I can’t trust her body.
Galea is my colleague, and my friend… but her body isn’t flesh and blood. It’s carbon fibre, synth-skin, and circuits. How much of her is truly hers? How much is being watched, recorded, transmitted? For all I know, every word I say is being siphoned off, filed away for someone else to analyse.
The silence stretches, the weight of my thoughts pressing down, crushing the words in my throat.
In the end, I let it go.
Instead, I ask, my voice low and measured, “Do you remember being born, Galea?”
She blinks. “What?” A small laugh escapes her, but it dies just as quickly when she sees my expression. Instead of laughing, she looks confused. “No... of course not. Who would?”
My gaze drifts past her, turning inward. “Most scientists agree it’s a blessing we can’t. They say the trauma of birth, if we remembered it, would leave every last person on Earth with post-traumatic stress.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I see the shift in her eyes, slow-dawning understanding.
“…that’s impossible.” She whispers under her breath. “Human brains don’t develop the complexity needed to form long-term memories until a year-and-a-half after being born.” Then, she looks utterly fascinated. “How’s that possible? Do you have some…” She glanced around. People had gotten more willing to accept the fact there were things out there, but not that they walked among us now. “Alien ancestry, or something?”
“No, no,” I rub my face. I can’t help but shoot her a glance. “You seem awfully willing to accept the notion, though.”
“You had a panic attack at a flash of light. Not even a bright one – it was like a camera going off.”
Yes, birthday parties were always fun, growing up.
“It’s a rare variant of Hyperthymesia,” I begin to explain. “Bright lights, loud noises, sudden changes in temperature and… other stimuli can cause an attack.”
Galea’s expression softens. “Klaus, I’m sorry,” She says gently. “It must be... exhausting, having to deal with that. How do you manage it?”
A bitter chuckle slips out before I can stop it. “Well, I’ve done well, up until today, keeping a lid on it.” I glance at her, and sigh. “I can’t go to the theatre. Hospitals are… better left alone. The smart-lights in my home used to send me into fits, when I was a child, so I’ve gotten into the habit of sleeping with impromptu sensory-deprivation gear. I manage.” Then, I can’t stop it, my head shakes. “But today... today was simply a bad day.” The freshness of another experiment – albeit, one in my mind, destroying another person and blasting me back – was too much, even if it was a simple apple.
Silence stretches between us. Then, slowly, Galea reaches across the table, resting her hand over mine.
“Well… we’ll just have to make sure you have good ones from here on out, right?”
I exhale, a faint, weary smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “Thank you, Galea.”
-------------
Nia gave the Doctor about twenty minutes, before she finally disappeared into the TARDIS after him. Upon passing the threshold into the console room, she glanced around, and frowned, finding it empty.
“Damn it,” Nia cursed under her breath. “Ship as big as this, he could be anywhere…”
Light flashing caught the girl’s attention, and she turned, seeing a light over one of the doors blinking insistently.
Nia looked up, shifting nervously. “Is that you doing that?”
The TARDIS rumbled faintly – like a gargantuan sauros shifting its weight. A hesitant answer.
Nia glanced at the door. “If I follow that light, will it take me to him?”
The sound of a rock banging around the inside of a pipe echoed throughout the room. Something more overtly unpleasant, bordering on harsh. Either it was telling Nia to stay away, or wondering why she wanted to know. Although, if the TARDIS was flashing the light to begin with, that implied it wanted Nia to find the Doctor, right?
“Look, I don’t know the guy all that well – but it’s been twenty minutes. ‘m starting to get worried. The way he blew up like that…” Nia shook her head. “Look, I couldn’t stand to be out there for much longer, either.” She shuffled. Once Akhos had left, that left the uncomfortable fact to deal with – which was that she had been part of Torna. She didn’t even try to look Vandham’s way; not after that. “Either let me try to help, or don’t.”
The flashing light above the door restarted, and Nia nodded, going down the corridor.
The TARDIS corridors stretched on, winding in ways that made Nia feel like they were shifting just out of sight. The walls pulsed faintly, like a vein bulging out of somebody’s forehead. The ship wasn’t happy. That much was obvious.
Neither was he, most likely
She found the Doctor in what must’ve been a drawing room… though the shadows creeping down the walls, and the dim light, made it look like a cave. A fire crackled low in the hearth, casting flickering shadows that clawed at the walls and hid any number of creatures, and the deep red upholstery seemed darker than it should have, like the whole room had sunk into some unseen abyss.
And there, in the back of the room, fiddling with a piece of tech, was him.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do… Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do… Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…” The speaker repeated incessantly.
Perched on the edge of a chair, below a portrait of a handsome, dark-haired, sharp-faced man that bore no resemblance to the Doctor (but who looked somewhat reminiscent of Crossette, oddly), sat the Doctor himself. His coat was off, and he was digging into the radio with a frown. His shoulders hunched forward, his head dipped low, but his eyes - when they flicked up to meet hers – burned like stars. Shadows curled under them, deep and cavernous.
The light from the fire licked along the angles of his face, catching the sharp set of his jaw.
Nia swallowed. Her throat felt tight. She knew how to deal with anger—real, burning, screaming anger. This was something worse.
The Doctor looked back down at the radio.
“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
The words were quiet. Not a whisper, but low. Measured. The kind of calm that came before a storm.
Nia’s voice was small, hesitant. “Um… the TARDIS showed me the way.”
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do… Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do… Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
“Did she?” The Doctor thinned his lips, and took the screwdriver to the radio again. “Can’t imagine why.”
Nia’s brow furrowed curiously. “Are you okay?”
The Doctor glanced up again.
“You sent Akhos running without a fight. But you’re acting like he spat in your face.”
The Doctor’s eyes twitched as they locked onto her, and he removed his glasses. Slowly – like a predator hyper-aware of their every movement – the Doctor shifted, looking down, and moved some things around on his desk.
“’Wanted for conspiracy, grand larceny, and terrorism.’” The Doctor spoke measuredly. “That’s what your poster in Gormott said. I thought they were trumped-up charges, stuck on after we jumped ship. But they weren’t, were they?”
Nia gulped.
“Were they, Nia?” The Doctor stressed.
“Well of course they were trumped-up! You saw how quick the powers that be were to lock you up for a little bit of pretend-play.”
“Don’t,” His voice cut through the air like a knife. “Lie to me… Don’t look for opportunities to go back to a group of TERRORISTS!” The Time Lord bellowed suddenly, slamming his hands on the desk, causing the entire drawing room to shudder. “AND THEN PLAY IT OFF LIKE I’M OVERREACTING!”
Nia’s heart pounded inside her chest, as the Doctor seethed, breath fogging in the air. Then, she started to feel the ire rise.
He didn’t know her like that. He had no idea what she had to do in order to survive.
“Oh, big man over here,” Nia hissed. “What, you’ve never made a stupid mistake? Trust somebody you shouldn’t have? Never fell in with the wrong crowd!?”
“I got out.”
“Oh, because of course it’s that simple!” Nia laughed ruefully. “’Just get out,’ he says! Why didn’t I think of that before!?” Her smile contorted into a furious scowl, as she got closer. “You’ve got no clue what it’s like. I was hated the moment I came into this world. Torna were the only people who treated me like a damn person. So, yeah, maybe I bought into the plug lines a bit too much.”
Slowly, he turned to face her. His dark eyes burned with barely restrained fury. “Did you kill?” His voice was low, cold, but laced with something raw, something deeply wounded.
Nia swallowed hard. “I wasn’t like them—”
"Oh, weren't you?” He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Akhos seemed to think otherwise. He seemed to think you fit right in, until Jin said otherwise.” He tilted his head slowly, and the shadows flickered, creeping away from him. “Back on the wreck, you told Jin it was wrong to attack us because we hadn’t done anything. What if we had?”
Nia’s breath hitched, her ears flattening.
The Doctor took a step. “Answer me.”
“I didn’t – I swear it.” Nia insisted. “Jin and the others didn’t trust me all that much – the only reason I was even there was because we were short-staffed.”
The Time Lord let out a rueful chuckle, and spun about.
“And in case you forgot,” Nia hissed. “Jin turned on me the moment I tried to save your sorry arse.”
The Doctor, indeed, thought back to that moment. Rather than true confusion or shock that one of their number would suddenly turn after having no problem killing a bunch of people, Malos reacted quite quickly. Almost like he had expected her to falter.
That wasn’t proof she was telling the truth.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do… Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do… Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
Nia’s gaze turned to the radio. “What’s all that about?”
The Doctor exhaled sharply, rubbing his face. “Old signals. Corrupted data banging around in the ether. Tuned the set, and,” He half-heartedly gestured at it. His mind continued to go. If Nia was guilty… she could run. Malos and Jin wanted Pyra, now. Not Nia. But… no, she was still here.
The Time Lord closed his eyes.
“Okay…” He whispered, before opening them, and turning around. “Okay. I’ll believe you.”
Nia let out a puff of air. “After screaming my head off?”
“Well,” The Time Lord awkwardly gestured. “I yell at my friends, now and again. It’s not one of my best traits, but… it happens.”
Nia’s ears twitched as she did a double-take. “What?”
The Doctor frowned in confusion, then. “What is it? What’d I say?”
“You called me your friend.”
The Doctor stood shock-still for a moment, before gesturing with an awkward smile, like he’d just been caught with his hand in the sweets jar, and he couldn’t really defend himself. “Well. Aren’t we? We had that whole conversation on the way to Gormott.”
"Yeah, but... I didn't think you were being serious." Nia blinked. “Friends… huh.”
The Doctor spread his arms with an inviting grin. “Hug?”
Nia stared at him drolly. “A hug?” She thinned her lips. “I can see where Crossette gets it from…” She shook her head. “A hug? After all o’ that? No,” She reached up, and flicked him in his forehead, causing him to jump.
“Ow!” The Doctor sourly rubbed his forehead. “Well, sarcasm’s better than nothing, I suppose.”
Nia nodded, and looked at him, pausing for a moment. She took a breath, and shifted. “Look, I… I owe everybody an explanation. I know I’m gonna have to share the full story-“
“Do you?” The Doctor asked.
“I fell in with a bunch of terrorists. The same ones that’re hunting us down, now. The same ones that’ve killed Vandham’s people.”
“Vandham can get over it.” The Doctor cleared his throat, looking away. “You made a stupid mistake and are paying for it.” He pulled his jacket off the back of his chair, and slung it back over his body, slipping his arms through, and straightened his bow tie.
Nia, however, frowned. “How can you be sure?” Aside from the fact that Vandham had been kind to them – up until that point.
“Because you’re right.” The Doctor glanced away, evasively. “I made plenty of mistakes like that, too. But at least you’re not too far gone.”
Nia blinked, recoiling, and she looked at the Doctor, floored. “…and you are?”
The Time Lord’s eyes darted about, looking like they were trying to fight their way out of their sockets, or looking for something – anything – to focus on to switch the subject.
The Doctor coughed, and cleared his throat. “Look, Nia… the universe isn’t a fairytale. There’s no grand power judging you at the end of your life for your wrongdoings against others. There’s just you. And sometimes, you can build up a great, big, planet of good to put next to that little planet of bad, and you can die happy. But…” He licked his lips, and his jaw twitched. “Sometimes you can’t. Sometimes, it’s just not enough for you. And that’s all right – what matters is that you keep trying. All you can do is be better, and hope you left things in a better state than you found them.” He swallowed, and looked at her. “So, Nia. Are you trying to do better?”
Nia stood for a second, shifting her balance, looking down at her chest. “I don’t know. I like to think I am… sticking around with you lot.”
“Then that’s all you need to focus on,” The Doctor smiled, clapping his hands. “Right, now – twenty minutes of waiting, they must be horribly bored. Come along, Nia. Let’s get this show on the road.” He opened up the drawing room doors, and gestured.
Nia took a quick moment to take a breath, and slipped out.
--------
The doors to the TARDIS clicked shut as the Doctor and Nia stepped out, and approached the others.
“Well,” Vandham said first, crossing his arms. “’Bout time. Thought you were never gonna stop sulking in there.”
“I’m okay – I’m always okay,” The Doctor flippantly replied, before Crossette bounded over. His Blade looked up at him, and the Time Lord frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Crossette said nothing, at first. Then, she spread her arms. “Hug?”
The Doctor paused for a moment, before breaking out into chuckles. “All right. Hug.” He spoke, before returning it.
“So, that Akhos fella,” Vandham crossed his arms, “What did you do? I’ve seen Blades lose their Ether flow, but that usually just makes ‘em tired. Not…”
“Scream in pain,” Pyra gulped.
“’Pain’ seems to be a bit of an understatement.” Dromarch rumbled. “The poor girl seemed like someone was attacking her directly.”
“Ah,” The Doctor straightened his bow tie, as all the Blades in the area looked at him with a hint of wariness. “I may have… overdid it a bit. But the rest of you were being threatened – anyway, no one was wounded or maimed, so…”
“Hmm… any fight you can walk away from, right?” Vandham mused, before shaking his head. “I’d be careful, doing that trick in the future. Blades that can cut off Ether flows are hot commodities – never mind something that can do the same, in a package the size of a torch.”
“Well, don’t worry,” The Doctor huffed. “I’m not going to make it a repeating habit.”
“…unless they threaten Nia again, right?” Crossette spoke up.
The Doctor turned to her with a sharp, offended scowl.
“Ah-ha! I knew it!” Crossette giggled. “That was what really set you off the first time, wasn’t it!?”
The Doctor puffed out his chest. “Well. She is my friend. You don’t threaten my friends.”
“It’s okay, I get it,” Crossette smiled. “She’s nice in her own way, she’s funny- I really like her!”
The Doctor turned to the Blade with a frown, before nodding, and patting her on the shoulder. “Good on you.”
Suddenly, Vandham cut in, looking down and musing quietly. “Hmm… like that Akhos considered that Obrona his friend.”
“Huh?” Rex blinked, looking at the older man.
“You saw it,” Vandham told the teenager. “How he picked her up off the ground and went running the moment she was in pain. How much does he care for her, I wonder.”
Nia, however, crossed her arms, and hissed. “Oh, yeah. A real sweet guy he is. Turning on me the way he did the moment he could get away with it. Bloody psychopaths.”
Vandham shook his head. “The world ain’t so black-and-white. Everyone’s got their reason to fight. Their own war. We’ve got our reasons, and he’s got his.”
Rex frowned. “But… what he’s doing-“
“Is wrong.” Vandham crossed his arms. “But war… it ain’t always about what’s right and wrong. Power. That’s all it is. That Akhos? He’s just gonna be the first in a long line of people, ready to take advantage of you and yours. Get that?”
Albedo, rather sagely, nodded. “The machinations of the upper class – the generals, the politicians, the barons – they’re not for the faint of heart.”
“If this is something you’re set on doing, you’ve gotta be ready to fight for your lives,” Vandham advised. “But you can’t get so focused on protecting yourselves, you lose sight of what matters. Power doesn’t mean squat if it ain’t used the right way. That’s what folks like Torna forget. Doesn’t matter if you care about and protect your own… if everyone else hates you for it.”
“…right,” Nia gulped. “Listen, about Akhos, and Torna… and me-“
Vandham leaned forward. “Thing is, speaking about reasons to fight… some of ‘em are good, some of ‘em are bad. Doesn’t matter. Makes sense to people at the time. But a lot of times, those reasons change. Look at me – I’m a mercenary. You think everybody in my group were saints, all the time?”
Nia looked up, confused, and silently shook her head.
Rex, however, spoke up. “You’re running a village for war orphans.”
“Ha! If only it were that simple,” Vandham chuckled. “We’re mercenaries. We travel, we fight, we get hurt, we hurt others, and sometimes, we die. It ain’t a glamourous lifestyle, and it ain’t for people that have a lot of opportunities ahead of them, you feel me? Some of us were down and out, and picked up a Core Crystal cause they had nothing else to lose, and nothing else to contribute than fighting. Some of us made mistakes – big ones – fell in with the wrong crowd, committed crimes, the kind of thing that’s in the past now, but the rest of the world won’t let us move forward from. For the rest of us, fighting’s all we know. Doesn’t matter. We’re all just trying to take it, the best we can, trying to rise above what we were. And if we help out along the way? That’s a plus.”
Nia floundered for a moment.
“Nia,” Vandham gestured at the group. “You’re with these guys now. That’s what matters. You saw what was going on. You didn’t like it. You got out.”
“B-But…”
“We all have a bit of blood on our hands,” Pyra softly mused under her breath.
Albedo, holding what looked like an old, tattered wallet, and staring at it pensively, hummed under her breath. “That… seems to be the rule, not the exception.” For the briefest of moments, she opened it up. Rex could just barely see a faded, near-sepia-tone picture of three children (boys or girls, it was hard to tell) standing in front of a man with bright hair. Under it, he could see a picture, just as faded, of Vess, Albedo, and a handsome man - maybe in his forties?
The Doctor, an alien who apparently felt more at home here in Alrest than his actual home, who had stared down Malos, exploded on Akhos, and inflicted utter agony on Obrona without even having to lay a finger on her. Pyra, apparently being part (no, the chief combatant) of a major war. Nia, who had joined an actual terrorist group. Albedo, who had arrived in Gormott in circumstances apparently too painful to repeat. And Tora, who had lost every bit of family he had, living in solitude in Torigoth.
What kind of crowd had he fallen in with? Rex seriously wondered.
“Now,” Vandham declared. “Elysium.” He turned around. “Fonsa Myma’s a day’s walk from here. We move quick, we can make it there, and have you lot on the way to the World Tree in no time.”
“Or,” Crossette looked between Vandham and the TARDIS, before the Doctor silently reached out, and shook his head. “But-“
“It’s just a day,” The Time Lord smiled. While Vandham was strong of character, and the Doctor got the sense he was a good man, there was no telling what the people around him were like. An alien was a far, far bigger pill to swallow. “I need my cardio for the day, anyway.”
“All right, you lot ready?” Vandham asked.
“Tora think long walk is bit much to ask…” Tora meh’d, before smiling. “But Poppi can carry Tora rest of way, so, good good!”
Poppi shook her head. “Masterpon. Poppi not want to carry you entire way. Maintaining exercise regiment important for good health and self-esteem.”
“…okay, where Poppi getting all these new directives from!?”
Albedo folded her wallet up, stashed it, and nodded. “I’ve not been to Fonsa Myma in some time.” She thoughtfully considered something, for a moment. “I could get some choclit without having to pay the import-“ She cut herself off, and snapped her mouth shut. It seemed like she had lost herself, for the moment.
“Fonsa Myma…” Rex repeated with a smile. “Y’know, I’ve never actually been to one of the big capitals!”
“Neither have I…” Pyra smiled as well. It faltered, momentarily. “Well… It’s… been some time – but Uraya wasn’t a place I got to visit.” Her smile returned. “When we get there, we could explore the town! I’m sure there’s some fun things to do.”
“Right, yeah,” Rex nodded in agreement. “See the sights, maybe get a souvenir… you know, being a Salvager and all, you would think I got to see all sorts of places, but not really.”
“Then… we can do that. Together.”
“Oh, perfect, wonderful!” The Doctor clapped his hands. “There’s nothing quite like a good trip to a strange, foreign land. See the sights, take in the culture – that’s what I live for, myself.”
Vandham chuckled. “Then let’s not wait any longer. You guys are chomping at the bit – let’s get moving.” He turned, and began to lead the way towards the rear entrance of the village. “Yew! Zuo!” He hollered at them as he walked past. “’m stepping away for a while, boys! You know the drill!”
“You got it, boss!”
“Uh,” Nia leaned over to the Doctor. “Is the TARDIS going to be fine, here?”
“Oh, yes, fine, majorly fine.” The Doctor nodded confidently. He took minor affront with the sceptical look Nia directed at him. “She will! She’s got more advanced defence mechanisms than anything you people will invent for thousands of years!”
Crossette, skating alongside, hummed. “It’s a spaceship, so it can move when it’s under threat, right? And I’m pretty sure while it looks like wood, it isn’t wood, so people can’t just break it down. And the lock’s got to be more hi-tech than a regular lock…”
The Doctor nodded.
“How are we going to get back to it, though?” Nia inquired. “If we need it?”
The Time Lord snorted. “It’ll be fine, trust me! Have I led you astray, so far?”
Nia thinned her lips, and quickly looked away.
“Nia, what’s that look for- Nia?”
-----------
The journey out of Garfont Village had been strangely peaceful, given the dangers lurking within the Titan’s cavernous body. They did run into the occasional monster hiccup, but the overwhelming force, tricks, and determination they carried saw them through it, just fine.
Rex and his companions made their way along the winding paths of the titan’s innards, the light spilling through the translucent hide casting an ethereal glow on the rocky landscape. The Doctor, hands writhing endlessly, walked slightly apart from the group, eyes scanning the environment with an ever-curious expression. He had spent most of the trip muttering about “biological impossibilities” and “having a strong word with Uraya’s digestive system about its architectural choices.”
“Doctor, you do realize you’re talking to a Titan?” Nia asked of him, folding her arms.
“Well, I’ve had stranger conversations. Ever had an argument with a sentient sun? Not fun.” The Doctor grinned, then it dropped, as his face twitched. “I say argument… it had sort of… possessed me.”
Vandham raised a curious eyebrow. “Sentient suns? Where’d you say you were from?”
“Oh, here, there, a bit of everywhere.” The Doctor deflected.
“But… how can a star be sentient?” Rex wondered with a frown. “It’s a star. A big ball of light.”
“How can meat be sentient?” The Doctor asked in response rhetorically. “What you call ‘consciousness’ is the interaction of higher-dimensional structures within the imaginary number domain with structures here in the real-number space. Occasionally those structures will interact with a sun or something, and you get self-aware stars.”
Rex opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. “But… it’s a star.”
The Doctor sighed and adjusted his bow tie as if preparing for a lecture. “Oh, it’s very simple, Rex. We learned this in primary school back home. You see, stars, you think it’s just a big ball of gas. Accurate, but hopelessly boring. There’s a lot more that goes on inside a star. At the very core of a star, the rules of reality start going wibbly, turning into infinite probability fluctuations – like… like a mathematically-modelled way of measuring the sudden chance of a piece of pie just suddenly popping into existence. Under the right conditions, say if a star has a sufficiently complex magnetohydrodynamic field, those fluctuations can resonate with what we’d call ‘self-organizing information structures.’ That’s when things get really fun.”
He grinned, but before he could continue, Crossette perked up. “Oh! I know this! And those information structures aren’t just static either! They form feedback loops in the upper domain! Because when you have a plasma field interacting with the quantum vacuum, you get virtual particle pair production, which means—”
“Exactly!” The Doctor pointed, spinning to face her, delighted. “And when those virtual particles interact with the star’s own magnetic reconnection events—”
“They create recursive linkages!” Crossette finished excitedly, clapping her hands together. “Like how Blades and Drivers are connected! Only instead of being tied to one person, a sentient star is connected to the entire mass of its plasma field across multiple dimensions at once! And that lets it generate self-referential information cycles that function like a mind!”
The Doctor beamed at her, practically bouncing on his heels. “Crossette, you clever, clever girl! You’ve got it! See, when a sufficiently complex system folds back on itself enough times, it starts behaving like a neural network!”
Crossette nodded eagerly. “And if it’s got enough mass and energy density, it can sustain those feedback loops indefinitely! Which means—”
“—it doesn’t just think, it remembers!” The Doctor crowed. “It develops identity, experience, and even personality!”
The rest of the group, who had been following as best they could, now stared blankly, expressions ranging from mild confusion to complete bewilderment. Even Nia, who usually had a sharp tongue for nonsense, just blinked.
“So…” Tora hesitantly raised a paw. “Big ball of light talks?”
“Yes!” Crossette and the Doctor said in unison.
“…Meh.” Tora slumped. “Still sound like nonsense.”
The Doctor sighed dramatically. “Humans. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother sometimes.”
Rex shook his head. “I think I got lost somewhere around ‘imaginary number domain.’”
Crossette puffed out her cheeks. “It’s not that hard to understand!”
The Doctor chuckled and placed a hand on Crossette’s shoulder, looking at her with the kind of quiet pride one might expect from a grandfather watching his grandchild take their first brilliant steps into a vast and wondrous universe. “It just means you’re thinking on the right level.”
Crossette beamed.
Rex rubbed his temples. “I think I need to lie down…”
Vandham chuckled. “Aye, lad, I think we all do.”
“A sentient sun?” Albedo was still caught up on that part.
“Yes. Big, orange, and very, very angry.” The Doctor sucked in a breath, and licked his lips. “Nice girl, after all had passed. Very bright; I keep in touch.”
Azurda let out a chuckle. “Assuming your stories are true… there are quite the exotic creatures, out there!”
“Oh, that’s nothing! You want to talk exotic – let me tell you about this flapper girl who was literally made of exotic matter-“
Suddenly, the sound of dramatic lightning crackling in the distance echoed through the air. It was followed by a voice, bold and brimming with unmistakable flair.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Looks like all the chat about the Legendary Aegis was true!”
Rex’s head snapped up, as the boy clearly did not care for the manner of address to Pyra, which signalled that someone was about to make a play for her. “Who’re you!? Where are you!?”
Up ahead on the path, two figures quickly dashed out from behind a tree, like amateur actors scrambling to take their places in front of an audience that could see them already.
One of them was a woman, with tall boots, and clothing that looked like a pantsuit with a short skirt and lovely purple pinstripes. She had her face and shoulders concealed by a hood and cape, but the Doctor could see the tail coming off her. The man looked more… haggard (it would be rude to say homeless. Plenty of people with raggedy clothes had homes), trenchcoat all ripped up, with numerous belts strapped across his torso, and a truly enormous sword.
“That’s quite the heavy burden you have there!” The man remarked. “Sure you’re up to it, pipsqueak? See sense, step aside, and let the big boys take charge!” Suddenly, and in perfect sync, he and the lady pointed boisterously at the party. “Come on! Yield the merchandise!”
The Doctor frowned. He could do without the pestering for Pyra like she was an object. But something was… bothering him. In the man’s tone. The way he carried himself.
Confused, Rex blinked, and looked at Vandham. “You know this guy?”
Vandham crossed his arms. “Never seen ‘im before in my life.”
Albedo’s brow furrowed, as her hand went to the handle of her sword, slowly. She stared at the man, seemingly trying to get a read on him.
“Bah!” The guy spat, and tore off his hood with a flourish. It clicked in the Doctor’s head, as Albedo let out a gasp. The guy was showboating.
And… well, he was handsome. That was probably what had caused Albedo to gasp. The eyepatch, the strong jaw, the exposed pectoral muscles… humans. Always looking for mates at inopportune times.
“So, fate has finally at last drawn us together for the first and last time!” He began to gesture, with… the lady at his side mimicking him in perfect synch. The Doctor blinked, as he noticed glowing lightbulbs making up her shoulders, before he saw the odd, glowing crystal on her sternum – a bit like a square, with a chunk cut out. A Blade. “Tremble before my mighty power, for you now stand in the presence of the mighty Zeke! Von! Genbu! Bringer of Chaos!” He poked at himself with his thumb as he slowly inched forward. “Mostly known as Zeke. And often addressed as… THE ZEKENATOR!”
Stifled – really strangled, such that it sounded like air trying to escape the kettle, came from nearby, and they turned to see Albedo, red in the face. In the Doctor’s opinion, she looked like… well, he had, when he replaced the contents of the Cybermen’s information collective with an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. What did she find so funny?
“Well, Ally,” The Doctor addressed with a pleasant smile. “Want to share with the class?”
Zeke turned his eye onto her, covered his lips in a shushing gesture, and winked. Or… blinked.
The woman composed herself. “It’s nothing. You… um… you had to be there.”
“For shame!” Zeke let out an affronted gasp. “Here I am, sharing with you precisely how doomed you are, and you’re laughing! Well, maybe this will truly sell it! Behold!” He gestured to his Blade standing next to him. “My Blade! Pandoria! And my sword-“ He took the weapon off his back. It… was really more like a sharpened hunk of metal, that he stuck a staff – Pandoria’s Blade Weapon, if the matching crystal was the indication – into it. “The Purple Lightning Dreamsmasher! If you want a taste, come and get some!”
The Doctor bristled, but held onto his control. He didn’t want to blow up again.
Rex seemed right there with him. The teenager just took a breath, and closed his eyes. “We’re good.” He decided, and began to walk, right past the guy.
The others followed. Except the Doctor, who was hopelessly confused that Zeke was just… letting them.
“W-What!? Good!? No!” Zeke gasped. Then, in an impossible blur of motion – so speedy that dust was kicked up underneath his feet, he and Pandoria sprinted around to cut the others off.
The Doctor recoiled, gasping under his breath in surprise.
“This guy…” Nia groaned. “I’m tired of him already.”
“You know, Nia, maybe you shouldn’t say that too loud,” The Doctor whispered under his breath, eyes flickering warily towards the two. “He might be… dangerous.”
“What? This idiot? Just hit his Blade with that Screwdriver thing again, and he’ll run just like Akhos, probably.”
“Gah…” Zeke spat. “You lowlifes think you can lick the three of us?”
The Doctor blinked. “Well… no. For one, you’d taste disgusting-“
Albedo chortled under her breath.
“Flaw detected in Zekenator’s ability to count.” Poppi remarked.
Zeke chuckled. “Oh, get a load of this…” He began to reach into his coat with a smug smile. It shattered (such that the Doctor wished he could play the sound of breaking glass) as he froze, upon realizing that what he was searching for was, apparently, not there. Then, Zeke – the mighty, the terrible, the dreaded – began to frantically pat himself down, before throwing himself on the ground, and looking around. “Turters!? Turters! Turters, where are you, boy!?”
“What the hell is going on?” Rex whispered under his breath.
“…if you can tell me, there’s good money in it for you.” Vandham blinked.
As Zeke and Pandoria continued patting the ground, the Doctor’s face twisted in puzzlement. They were either suicidally overconfident (something he should be on the lookout for, considering… well, himself), or they really, really just had no concept of priorities.
Pyra looked down as well, her head tilting as she spotted something green moving across the ground.
“Oh!” She let out a delighted little gasp, as she bent down to pick it up. As she stood back up, cupped in her palms was… a little turtle. “Hey there, little guy… How are you? What are you doing out here all by yourself?”
Zeke’s head snapped up with an indignant gasp, and with another burst of unnatural speed, he dashed over to Pyra, right in front of her. “Handling a man’s turtle!” He hissed, snatching Turters out of her grasp, before dashing away. He and Pandoria then promptly went to gushing over their… pet? Son?
Those two were weird, as the last… two minutes had proved. And that was saying something – considering it was the Doctor thinking it.
“Uh…” Rex raised a finger to point at the two. “He could’ve just grabbed Pyra, there. Why’d he go for his turtle?”
That caused it to click in the Doctor’s brain. Zeke wasn’t an idiot (okay, maybe he was. The Doctor couldn’t say one way or the other), but he was playing with them. Like Vandham had, during their first meeting. The showboating, the over-the-top gestures, the scene-chewing villainy… Zeke had probably grown up watching too many cartoons.
And… evidently, Albedo knew him.
“Albedo,” The Doctor addressed her. “Seriously, do you know him?”
The woman coughed, and brushed her wiry hair over her shoulder. “You meet a lot of people, running a catering service. I can’t say I know him.”
“Wonderful,” The Doctor turned away from her. “I guess that means the Ham Squad let a few of their members out to play, then.”
“And you can trust him, he really knows.” Nia snickered.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Nia.”
“That interrogation in Torigoth, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Don’t worry,” The Doctor popped his collar, and took a step. “I know how to speak his language. Crossette. Back me up, here.” He cleared his throat, and spun to face her. “‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once!’” He threw out his arms, voice rising to match the sheer gravitas of his delivery.
“‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?’” She flourished her bitball, pointing it dramatically at the Doctor.
The Doctor, undeterred, clasped his hands behind his back and strolled forward with deliberate nonchalance. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” He spun on his heel, sweeping a hand toward Zeke. “And I dare say, you, my friend, are hogging the spotlight!” The Doctor’s grin widened. He took a step forward, matching Zeke’s stance with uncanny precision. “Ah, but I must ask - do you bite your thumb at us, sir?”
Zeke brows furrowed together in puzzlement. “Bite… my thumb?”
Crossette gasped, feigning scandal. “He bites his thumb at us, sir!”
The Doctor flung his jacket back, squared his shoulders, and took a deep breath. “Friends, Blades, countrymen, lend me your ears! I come to bury Zeke, not to praise him! The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones - so let it be with Zeke!” He gestured wildly, sweeping an arm to encompass their stunned audience.
Crossette levelled her bitball with a smile. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our Urayan dead!”
The Doctor clapped. “Oh, very nice.”
Nia groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Are they seriously doing this?”
“They are,” Rex confirmed.
Roc folded their arms, watching intently. “This is… strange.”
Vandham looked between the two. “You don’t see this every day...”
“Idiots,” Nia hissed, shaking her head. “All of ‘em.”
“Well, whatever!” Zeke huffed, and drew his sword, pointing it at the party. “The Aegis will be mine soon enough! Got a problem with that!? Then come at me! And don’t hold back!” He looked over at Pandoria. “Pandy?”
The Blade produced something that looked like a miniature vinyl record, and a player the size of a compact disc player, and set it running, causing an intensely chaotic tune to flow from the speakers.
“IS THIS GUY FOR REAL!?” Nia bellowed.
“I think he is!” Vandham declared, drawing Roc’s scythes. The others followed suit, all calling upon their weapons.
Zeke lunged forward, swinging his blade down in a powerful arc. Rex barely managed to intercept the strike, sparks flying as steel met steel. The force sent him skidding back, his boots digging into the dirt. Lightning danced down the Purple Lightning Dreamsmasher, as Zeke jumped and swung the sword in a mighty arc.
“Stratospheric thunder!”
“Whoa!” Rex gasped out as he was launched off his feet.
Zeke grinned, and tossed the sword over to Pandoria. The Blade slammed it sharp-end first into the ground, and pulled out the staff with a twirl, holding it to the sky.
“Lightning force!”
With a thunderclap, a bolt of electricity was called down from the sky, going right through Pandoria and dispersing into the ground, giving everyone a jolt.
Zeke spread his arms, and tensed up, as his body surrounded with electric ether. “Electric gutbuster!”His leg shot out, driving right into Rex’s abdomen, knocking the teenager back by a few feet. He held his sword aloft, lightning spilling out of the blade. “Dynamic spark sword!” He brought it down in a cleaving motion.
Rex jumped up to his feet, and brought up the Aegis Sword. A bubble of yellow hexagons sprung into existence, just as Zeke’s strike collided with the Aegis Sword, causing Zeke’s weapon to bounce right off.
“All right you little…” Nia grumbled. “How’s about some of this!?” She thrust out Dromarch’s rings, causing a spray of water to go right into Zeke’s face. The man stumbled back, slightly.
Rex took the chance, aimed, and fired his anchor shot, pulling Zeke down by his legs. The moment Zeke hit the ground, Vandham stepped up, and sent the man upward in a gust of air. Tora jumped over, and assisted by Poppi, sent Zeke slamming into the ground.
The Driver popped back to his feet, rolling his shoulders, and gripping his sword. “You think a little trip will stop the Zekenator!? I’ve had worse than that on my way in to this damned Titan.”
Albedo lifted her rapier with a smile. “You can take more, I’m certain.” She swung her sword, Zeke lifting his to block the strike.
“Ha!” The Driver haughtily cawed as he let his weapon drop to his side. “What kind of weak little pinprick was that!? It’s gonna take more than that to-“ A bolt of Ether suddenly cut through the air, as the delayed force from the strike caught up to reality, and sent him sliding back, towards the edge of the cliff.
Zeke slammed his sword into the ground, stopping him from sliding.
He took slow, steady breaths.
“Heh… Not bad. Not bad at all, chaps.” Zeke chuckled. “But you’re all fools, nonetheless! For I haven’t even unleashed a mere one percent of my true capabilities! Wipe yourselves down, and prepare yourselves for my super-ultra-mega-move!”
The hair on the Doctor’s neck prickled, as Zeke started to swing around the sword, charging with electric power again. “Uh oh.”
“Bringer of Chaos!” Zeke called out. “Ultimate Lightning Fury Slash!” He leapt up into the air, and brought his sword down, into the ground. The entire group stumbled as the ground tremored, and quaked, as a pattern burned itself into the dirt in white light.
The Doctor’s brows furrowed, as he stared at Zeke. The pattern that burned itself into existence wasn’t itself special – simply the kanji for the word ‘ultimate’ – but the fact that it was there at all…
‘The Monado…’
…although, Zeke’s sword wasn’t red. Or bore any physical similarities to that particular weapon’s construction.
Before the Doctor could demand any answers, a stomach-churning crack echoed through the space, as the ground beneath Zeke’s feet began to split.
“Whoa-“ Zeke gasped, before the ground gave way, and he and Pandoria both were sent plunging into the depths below, screaming.
Crossette rushed over to the edge, looking over. “Aw… they didn’t shout a catchphrase before disappearing! All good bad guys are supposed to do that. Hey! Shout something at us! Anything!”
“…I don’t think they can hear you.” The Doctor scratched the back of his head… then swayed, as he started to feel a sudden headache coming on. “I feel… I feel weird. I think that whiskey I took from Nia is reacting badly…” He looked over his shoulder. “Are there… many Drivers, like him?”
“None that I’ve ever seen!” Vandham declared.
“Are they…?” Albedo began to approach the edge, looking over with concern.
“That didn’t kill them, did it?” Rex, for the fact that he was just attacked by the two of them for Pyra, seemed… actually kind of worried for the two.
“Nah, Drivers are made of sterner stuff, remember?” Vandham shook his head, glancing at the drop-off himself. “If the way he was going on was true… I highly doubt that was even his final form.”
Nia let out a disgusted huff. “Idiots.”
“If that’s the kind of trouble they make on a regular basis, it’s a wonder they survived this long.” Dromarch mused.
“Well…” Azurda poked his head out of Rex’s helmet. “You know what they say: pride comes before a fall.”
Vandham let out a bark of laughter. “Come on.” He decreed, turning slightly. “Let’s get the hell on before somebody else tries their luck.” He began to lead the way back down the path, and the others started to follow.
Tora and Poppi lingered momentarily, both sharing looks of mutual understanding. They had crossed paths with two fellow performers – ones who truly understood that being Driver and Blade wasn’t just about fighting, but about the presentation, and before they could even ask for tips, they had exited stage left just as quickly as they had entered.
…well, there was always next time.
------------
Zeke coughed as he surfaced from the water, blinking.
“You know, as far as plans go, that was almost a good one.”
“I had them on the ropes, Pandy!” Zeke retorted, pulling himself up onto the shore nearby. He flopped onto his back, and took a breath. “The titanflesh of Uraya was no match for my awesome strength, clearly! And your superior electrical capabilities!”
“Buttering me up won’t work. I’m still wet!”
“And so am I. Why must we, the good people, suffer?” He sighed. “It’s not all bad, I suppose. That lot will be underestimating us for when round two rolls around!”
Pandoria giggled. “Oh, that means we’re gonna be out here for a while longer.”
“…yes, probably.” Zeke sighed. “Well, better not make a procrastinator of myself.” He reached over, producing a bag from inside his coat. He popped it open, revealing the dry contents. He pulled out a small (by small, really, the designers meant man-portable, the size of a bento box) screen, lined with dials, switches, and buttons all across the top.
Zeke took a small Ether cell from the bag, and plugged it into the side of the device, pressing the power button, and fiddling with the controls on top.
After about a minute, a tiny camera, was hidden by a shutter, turned on. A moment later, the screen flickered to life, displaying the image of a white-robed monk with a single-horned helmet.
“Prince Zeke. A pleasure to hear from you so soon.”
“Giannis.” Zeke greeted with a confused tilt of his head. Though, he was glad it was him and not Haze. He hated delivering bad news to Haze. She was just so… sweet – it always felt like he was disappointing her, personally, even when he wasn’t. Honestly, if she wasn’t Goddess of the Praetorium-
‘Get a grip, Zeke!’
“Where’s Haze?” He asked instead.
“Her Grace is currently out, dealing with some matters in the refugee camps at the moment.” Giannis calmly and pleasantly explained. “But I can take a message for her, if you would like.”
“Yeah… that’s probably a good idea,” Zeke muttered.
Giannis nodded, and pulled over a notepad.
“We found the Aegis and her group. The Driver’s a kid – about fifteen. Accompanied by a Gormotti Driver with a beast blade, a bow tie wearing chap of impeccable showmanship with a bitball-throwing blade – looks like a young girl, with black-and-white patterned hair, - a Nopon who had a Blade with a peculiar orange Core Crystal and some metallic patterns, an Urayan mercenary with a bird-like Blade, and… of all people, Albedo.”
Giannis looked up. “The caterer from the Praetor’s birthday celebration?”
“Yes, the big six-fiftieth,” Zeke recalled. “She didn’t have a Blade.”
“…interesting,” Giannis hummed. “My good Prince – you did mention a Gormotti Driver with a Beast Blade, and a bow-tie wearing man? These wouldn’t happen to be the same people the Special Inquisitor of Mor Ardain sent a missive to the Praetor regarding, would they?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Zeke admitted. “Though I did hear the girl mention an interrogation in Torigoth…”
“I see…” Giannis hummed. “You wouldn’t happen to have heard the names ‘the Doctor’ and ‘Nia,’ would you?”
“The bow tie wearing fella did call her Nia…”
“Indeed…” Giannis breathed out. “How small our world feels, at times.”
“Hopefully small enough for me to catch up soon…”
“I beg your pardon?”
At that time, Zeke winced. “I couldn’t exactly defeat the Aegis’s Driver. There was a… mishap. With an unstable rock formation.”
“He forgot our super-buster-move doesn’t react so well with thin floors,” Pandoria added as an aside.
Giannis chuckled at that. “Ah. So that’s why you called. Well, not to worry, Prince Zeke. I’ll pass along your information. As well as the message that your task might take you longer than estimated. Is there anything else you require?”
Zeke looked down at himself. “Maybe some additional funds for the dry cleaning expenses…”
--------------
Moving along from the… strange encounter, the group made good time as they continued through Uraya’s stomach, until they reached another rocky outcropping. This time, though, instead of being ambushed by a show-offy swordsman…
“Wait,” The Doctor murmured. His voice, usually so quick and filled with energy, now carried a rare hush.
The others turned to see what had stilled him.
The Time Lord stood, casting out his gaze onto the vast, cavernous space stretching before them.
Blue-filtered sunlight filtered through Uraya’s translucent hide, cascading down in ethereal beams. It painted the world in cold hues, making the grand expanse of orange and purple bioluminescent plant life stretching across the landscape. The massive cavern pulsed with the distant, muffled heartbeat of the Titan.
All around, practically coating the inside of the titan, pink-and-orange, glowing trees stood in clusters, their branches swaying gently. The orange blossoms they bore fluttered down like delicate flakes of snow, carried by an unseen wind, drifting lazily to the ground. They settled on armour, hair, and the surface of the still pools dotting the landscape. The entire space felt almost sacred, like a cathedral carved not by man, but by time and nature itself. Crystals from the higher portions of Uraya’s insides fell like snow.
The Doctor slowly lifted his hand, catching one of the glowing blossoms, and a small portion of the crystal rain floating down. Another bioluminescent marsh, another group of people he was with…
Nia leaned over, “Doctor? You’re crying.”
The Time Lord touched a hand to his face. “…huh. So I am.”
Amy and Rory would’ve loved this place. Amy would’ve tried to write in her travel blog about it, trying to hide the fact that it was an alien world in the belly of a tremendous beast by disguising it as a trip to Japan or something – concealing the glowing cherry blossoms with regular ones. Rory, bless him, would be caught up on the fact they were, indeed, inside the maw of a gigantic creature, with Amy poking fun at him because – wouldn’t you know it – she had an experience with that, first day.
Then, he looked up, with a wonder-filled smile. “Bioluminescent cherry trees…” Peculiarly, he felt a knot of anxiety he hadn’t even realized was there undo itself, slowly.
Whatever horrific thing had happened, whatever had caused all of this-
Maybe Earth would be all right. ‘Life finds a way,’ as the man said.
“See that there across the way?” Vandham pointed to a stone staircase extending up by hundreds of metres up to some form of fortress built into the rock. “That there’s the City of Fonsa Myma. Uraya’s capital.”
Albedo let out a whistle. “Hell of a walk…”
“Come on,” Vandham gestured. “There’ll be enough time to appreciate the scenery on our way through.”
They began to walk again, and the Doctor lingered for a moment, before letting the blossom he caught go, flying back into the wind.
----------
Not much could be said about the trek itself – it was more walking, climbing, and the occasional bit of swimming. Things that the Doctor had all done to the extent that he really didn’t feel like taking note of them anymore. His clothes were still self-cleaning and self-drying, after all. Not really much reason to focus on the ways of dirtying them.
But, there were the occasional roadblocks.
“Now, this is a little snag…” Vandham scratched the back of his head, looking at a pile of wood, rocks, and mud that had been built up, into a plug in a long wall. Where they needed to pass through next was a specially-built passageway, it seemed, with cutouts for water to pass through in case the area had been flooded. Those cutouts were plugged, at the moment. “Looks like the Igna bricked it up so it would flood, and folks stopped passing through this way.”
“Well, we cleared a tree, right?” Rex turned to Pyra with a smile. However, she shook her head. “No?”
“It’s… mostly dirt and stone,” Pyra weakly shrugged.
“And I’m afraid water won’t be of much help, considering this has held for so long.” Dromarch regrettably rumbled.
“Roc could probably blow it away… if it all weren’t cemented in like that,” Vandham crossed his arms. “How do we-?”
“Oh, oh!” Tora bounced into action, raising a wing. “Tora can do this! Poppi!”
The maid-like mechanical Blade took position behind Tora, got low, and put her arms against his back. “Ready!”
“Pow-pow cannon!” Tora punched his wings, and the mech arms mounted on spat out fire, as projectiles went tearing through the air, over the water’s surface. The recoil about knocked Tora back, were it not for Poppi there, keeping him braced.
The impromptu dam, suddenly faced with explosive ether cannonballs, couldn’t handle Tora’s attack, and crumbled. Roc chose that moment to step in, flinging wind currents at the disintegrating dam, pushing the rest of the debris out of the way. The explosion, the wind, and the weight of the water all combined, and sent the rest of it going, allowing the water level to drop, and the passageway to clear.
“…huh,” Vandham looked down at Tora with a grin. “You’re not half-bad! Where’d you say you found her?”
“Poppi is world’s best and first artificial Blade!” Tora gushed proudly. “Built by Tora, by hand!”
“…an artificial Blade, huh…” Vandham murmured. “That had to take some time…”
“Tora actually was left plans by grampypon and dadapon on occasion of death and disappearance,” Tora explained. “Tora spent years finishing work!”
“Right,” Vandham blinked, focusing on Poppi with awe. “Well, I’d say you did ‘em proud!”
Poppi smiled, and made a ‘V’ with her fingers, holding her hand in front of her face.
“Tora is very proud, yes, yes!” Tora puffed himself up. “Poppi already everything Tora dream about, and more!”
The artificial Blade looked down at him with a gasp, her face twitched and quivered, and she pulled him in for a hug.
“Ow, Poppi! Crushing- Masterpon-!”
------------
The rest of the day was spent ascending – the cold blue light of the day in Uraya slowly dimming and fading to be replaced by the ambers and violets of the glowing night foliage. Eventually, though, the dirt paths led to a staircase carved into the rock, past some small farms near a dock, and further up from that was the fortress-like, terraced city. Titanships floated in a harbour off to the other side, with a shining, gold-adorned palace structure hanging from the titan’s rocky flesh above.
The town was filled with crowds of people, all bearing the same scale-like growths on their faces, going about their business. Trading, chatting, and eating. Urayan soldiers were marching through the streets in formation, armoured up and undergoing drills.
“There sure are a lot more warships than the last time I visited…” Albedo remarked, her gaze flicking uncertainly to a warship close by.
“It seems that war with Mor Ardain is getting more and more likely by the day.” Dromarch sighed.
“Looks like they’ve expanded the military budget.” Vandham crossed his arms. “That’s a lot of warships.”
Hm. The Doctor wondered, on an Alrestian scale, if Uraya was the United States of this place when it came to military spending. Space Australians that lived in in a Japanese-reminiscent environment, with a city belonging to medieval England, with a United States defence budget.
The universe had an odd sense of humour, sometimes.
Poppi tilted her head, looking up at one of the warships. “Warships don’t look very… war-like.”
“We don’t muck about with our Titans much. Not like the Ardainians.” Vandham said on the matter. “We keep ‘em natural.”
“But… I don’t understand,” Rex turned to look at Vandham. “It’s so beautiful here. And it’s so spacious, too. Everybody in Uraya could just… hide themselves inside. And not have to worry for a good long while.”
“Ah. The ol’ Tantal way of doing things.” Vandham, however, shook his head. “Not everybody wants to do that. And it’s a lot more complicated. When Mor Ardain sinks – and trust me, it’s gonna sink – it’s gonna be about a lot more than just the land. They get everybody off that thing, and to Gormott? Well, guess what; suddenly, Gormott doesn’t have the surface area to support all those people. They gotta find somewhere else to settle. Then, they see Uraya. Younger, spacious. Us Urayans, we’re not gonna take that layin’ down. Or, not enough people make it off Mor Ardain. But the Empire is weakened. While the Ardainians are lickin’ their wounds, the Urayan military can swoop in and put Gormott under new management. And what’s left becomes a vassal of the Kingdom of Uraya. It’s not just about what we need, remember. It’s power.”
Pyra covered her heart, as her eyes flickered gold for a moment. “It’s… always the same, isn’t it? Humans at each other’s throats… innocent people, caught in the crossfire.”
“Life itself is always at war,” The Doctor mused. “Animals hunt. Plants compete. Humans – and people like them – just pretend the reasons are more… complex than that.”
“Right.” Vandham nodded, and the Doctor found himself startled, saying something that Vandham had agreed with.
“…I guess,” Rex swallowed. “Now, where’s that guy you said we were here to meet?”
“Hmm…” Vandham looked around the plaza. Crowds moved about like flows of water. A large number of people, especially, were lining up in front of a stall manned by Urayan troops.
“Oh, no…” The Doctor groaned. “Not another recruitment drive…”
“Ah.” Vandham looked over at the stall at well, curiously focusing on a little girl with teal hair. “That’ll be a distribution centre. Since everybody and their parole officers know war’s coming, the government’s already started rationing programmes. Your standard ‘first come, first serve’ kinda deal.”
The teal-haired girl reached up for a case being passed out by the soldiers-
And was promptly shoved to the ground by another man.
The Doctor saw red. Pyra gasped and rushed over.
“Come on!” The armoured man yanked the container out of the soldier’s hand. “I’m a Driver! Been busting my gut for this country! That should be going to me! Not the likes of you!”
“OI!” Vandham bellowed, stomping over. “What’s the big idea!?”
“Nobody ask-“
Vandham didn’t even let the guy get a word in edgewise, punching the man in his jaw, before roughly yanking the carton out of his hand.
“Hey!” The Driver snarled, readying a Blade weapon. “That’s mine!”
“What do you think you’re doing!?” Pyra demanded. “She’s a child!”
“Being a Driver – no, being an adult isn’t about barking orders!” Rex grabbed his sword. “Sometimes, you gotta focus on people other than yourself!”
“Shut your face!” The Driver snarled. “You don’t know what the-“
Silently, the Doctor dashed over, grabbed the man by his armour plate, and yanked him around.
“You don’t.” The Time Lord hissed, tremoring with rage. “Bully. Children.” In a swift motion, he headbutted the lowlife Driver, sending him stumbling back. Before the man could regain his balance, the Doctor’s arm shot out, landing on the guy body between his neck and his shoulder blade. The Doctor’s nerves went alight with a bit of the old touch-telepathy, and the bully Driver dropped. His chest continued to rise and fall, but he might as well have been dead to the world.
“Holy-“ Vandham gasped out, looking at the Doctor sideways. “Did you-?”
“Kill him?” The Doctor dryly answered. “No! No, no… He’s probably gonna wake up with one hell of a hangover, later.”
“Good,” Pyra spat. “Attacking a child…”
“Speaking of…” Vandham, still holding the ration pack, turned about to look at the little girl, and gasped theatrically. “Well I’ll be- if it isn’t Iona!” He got down on his knees with a big smile, and patted her on her shoulders. “You can tell you’ve been eatin’ your greens! You’ve grown quite a bit since last time!”
The girl smiled at the praise, and him handing the ration pack back over to her.
“How’re you doing?” Vandham asked. “How’s yer Grandpa Cole?”
Iona’s smile faltered.
“Ah…” Vandham let out a sigh. “Not good, I take it.”
“Vandham, you… know her?” Pyra tilted her head curiously.
“Yep,” Vandham stood back up, his vast array of pouches and belts jiggling. In that moment, he looked a bit like a battle-built, green Santa Claus. Without the beard. “That old friend of mine – this is his girl. Everyone, this is Iona.”
“Well, hi Iona,” Pyra leaned over with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Iona glanced at Pyra warily, before her eyes noticed Pyra’s core crystal, and she gasped.
“Come on,” Vandham declared. “Let’s beat it before that guy wakes up.” He began to walk, ushering the rest of them away from the stall. “Iona, your grandpa – he at home?”
“At the playhouse,” Iona answered.
“Is he?” Vandham laughed. “Well, you guys are lucky! You get to see the man in action! He leads the troupe there.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, pleasantly pleased. He might get some mileage out of his old Shakespeare training.
“Actors, eh?” Rex grinned.
“Well, how about it?” Vandham offered. “Whaddya say we sneak into the live performance?”
--------
The lot of them skulked, silently, into the room as best they could. Every seat was filled, so the lot of them had to remain back, out of sight.
“…and I saw at that time,” The man onstage, with a domino mask and a gaudy outfit that looked more like it belonged on a court jester than a legendary hero figure, orated, “that the powers of darkness had engulfed almost everything! Humans and Titans alike were swept away in the abyssal vortex! The apocalypse was upon us! The end was nigh!”
“Y’know, I kinda wanna see that one story Vandham was sharing, if it’s a play.” Crossette whispered under her breath.
“I’ll check the marquee afterward.” The Doctor whispered back.
“But then! Despite the wounds on his body, the great Addam stood…”
A man in bony armour on the stage walked out, to the end of the deck.
Pyra let out a muted, strangled sound halfway between a giggle and a sob, as the sound of thunder played over the auditorium’s speakers.
“O, Architect!” The actor playing Addam held his fist aloft. “Grant me power! Power to banish the dark! Power to illuminate the world!”
“That,” Pyra murmured. “Was not what happened.”
People in dark, beastly costumes scuttled onto the stage, as the actor jumped down to meet them. Then, a ray of light was cast down from the ceiling, before a woman in a white outfit, complete with downy wings, floated down, attached by wires.
“Lo! Loyal servant of the Architect! The Aegis!”
Nia snorted. “They couldn’t even get your hair colour right. You’re not blonde.”
“…right.” Pyra scratched her ear.
The Doctor looked between her, and the actor meant to represent her. An angel, and… whatever look Pyra was going for. Something told the Time Lord this play wasn’t enjoyed much for its historical accuracy.
“O Aegis, bless me with your power! Bring light upon the world!”
The actress playing the Aegis gestured, scattering orange confetti as fake fire started to blow on the stage, and the shadowy figures collapsed.
“Thus, they defeated the darkness!” The Narrator gestured over. “But at a terrible price! Three great continents sank beneath the Cloud Sea, forever!”
“What?” The Doctor frowned. “I… feel like we’re missing a step, or two…”
“Shh!” Someone in the audience hissed.
The actor playing Addam approached the one playing the Aegis. “Servant of the Architect, by thy power, the world is saved! For the gift you have granted us, we are eternally grateful. I shall spread thy legend far and wide! May your name live on for eternity!” He picked her up, off the… floor, which she was now laying on, for no apparent reason, and carrying her bridal-style, he turned around, and approached a glowing door, as the curtain fell on the stage.
The crowd launched into polite, but subdued applause, as the Doctor rubbed his face.
“…I feel like I’ve got more questions than answers, now.” The Time Lord remarked.
“You know, we should really just catch the next showing-“ Nia snickered.
Iona gave a tug on Vandham’s arm, and the merc leaned over. “Come on. The director will be backstage. Let’s go and see him.”
-----------
Vandham led the way down, into the behind-the-scenes area of the playhouse, like he’d been through there a million times. When he found one door, he pushed it open without knocking, and loudly announced himself.
“Comin’ in, old fella!” Vandham took a look around the place – at the knick-knacks, books, and junk all throughout the room. “Crikey! You’re still collecting the junk, are ya?”
A man in an old cloak looked up, and turned around. “Watch it, you bruiser!” He focused on Vandham first. “Don’t make fun of a man for having hobbies!”
Pyra’s brow furrowed curiously.
The Doctor frowned. For an old man, he didn’t look that old. In his early fifties, maybe. But his skin had an unnatural, grey pallor to it. The skin around his eyes were pulled, and stretched.
He looked sick. Not old.
“Some greeting for your old comrade!” Vandham cracked, glancing over at the others. “Guys, this is Cole. He’s the one I worked with, back in the day. And me and him used to tear up loads of goons, together!”
“And because of your bleeding heart,” Cole fired back. “We almost never got paid.”
“And now you’re working in a theatre troupe!” Vandham laughed back in response. “That can’t be much of a pay raise!”
Cole’s lips curled like he knew Vandham was right, and found it funny himself, but he kept a lid on his laughter. “Well, what can I do for you, old friend?”
Vandham cleared his throat, and leaned on the table. “Cole, you’re mad for all that stuff about the Aegis, and the World Tree, right?”
Cole’s face dropped. “Oh no…”
“Now, keep your pants on, I haven’t said anything yet!” Vandham huffed. “You gotta know about that big serpent circling the Tree, right? Ways of taking it down, maybe? Or… other ways of getting past it?”
“Absolutely not!” Cole barked. “That place is not for mortal men to go to!”
“Please, Mr. Cole,” Pyra stepped forward. “You’re the only one we can think of to ask…”
“Eh? Who’re-“ He turned, caught sight of Pyra’s crystal, and gasped. “That core crystal… you’re…” He swallowed deeply. “So, the Aegis is back among us…” Then, a flicker of concern went across his face. “Who is your Driver?”
Rex eagerly volunteered the information. “I am.”
“…Rex, maybe don’t go saying that.” Albedo advised with a sigh.
“What?” The teen blinked. “It’s not like it’s a secret…”
“No, but if you go sharing that too easily, it might pique the interest of the wrong people.” Albedo rubbed her face.
Cole looked at the chef, his face twitching like he found something to note about her, before he shook his head. “You’re right. But I mean to do precisely nothing with that information. It’s just…” He looked at Rex once more. “You’re so young…”
“Come on, old man,” Vandham pleaded. “Help the Aegis out, right?”
Cole hummed. “I dare say, since you’ve come all this way, you’ve tried already, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” The Doctor tugged on his bow tie. “My ship couldn’t quite… make it. Then we thought about other ways, and ol’ Van-man over here thought it’d be a good idea to come ask you.”
“I see…” Cole turned his head. “Over the past five-hundred years, many people have tried to make it to the Tree. All have failed, with that… thing in the way. But… a long time ago, there was one who did make it. Climbed the tree. And met the Architect, too. So there may be a way.”
“Really?” Rex breathed out in awe.
“Yeah…” Cole matched Rex’s tone. “I’ll wager anything he’s got an idea how to do it again. You should try asking him.”
“Then…” The Doctor stepped forward, interest piqued. This could be what he was looking for, more than anything. Someone who had not only saw the inside of the World Tree, but someone who met the being responsible for all this? He had to know. “Who was it?”
Cole let out a weak hum, looking down. He slowly nodded to himself, before looking up. “I’ll tell you. But first…” He looked over at Pyra. “I’d like to have a word with her.”
Pyra looked confused, but nodded easily. “Of course.”
“Please,” Cole gestured to a door. “Through here.” Pyra walked forward without a problem, and Cole disappeared in after her, closing it. They didn’t hear it lock, but still, the Doctor frowned.
“I guess it makes sense he wanted a chat.” Rex furrowed his brow in thought. “Meeting one of your heroes, like that.”
“Yeah…” The Doctor strained his ears, but even he couldn’t hear what was being said, past the door. A few minutes passed, before it opened up, and Pyra emerged with a smile.
“He’s going to help,” Pyra confirmed with a nod, as Cole emerged.
“Right,” The old man limped over to a desk nearby. “Now, where did it-“ He suddenly doubled over, bracing himself on the desk. The Doctor, first to react, rushed over, and tried to help him sit.
“Old man,” Vandham dashed over as well, helping Cole down. “You okay!?”
“I’m fine-“ He took one look at Iona, winced, and continued coughing profusely. “I’ll be fine… just give me a moment. Seriously, don’t mind-“
The Doctor took a scan of the man with the Sonic Screwdriver – the device buzzing as it threw out strange warnings. According to it, Cole had severe radiation damage, and a foreign object lodged near his heart. The scan also belched out warnings about appreciable non-human elements, and the Time Lord frowned.
“Seriously,” Cole repeated. “I don’t need-“
“It’s okay, I’m a doctor,” The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass of water.
“A doctor?” Iona gasped with hope in her voice. “Can you help him? Can you fix my grandpa?”
“Oh, poppet…” Cole sighed, looking at Iona. “I told you, there’s nothing to fix.”
“Oh, don’t be like that!” The Doctor smiled. “You’d be surprised. Drink up.”
“Trust me,” Rex told the old man. “He’s got stuff you wouldn’t believe.”
Cole looked up, uncertain. At the Time Lord’s encouraging gaze, he sighed.
“Well… what’s there to lose?” He looked over at Iona. “Iona, be a dear, and go wash up.”
“But grandpa-“
“No buts. It’s time for bed.” He looked at the rest of them. “That goes for the rest of you, too.”
Vandham chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll show these folks to the inn. Doc, you gonna be fine?”
The Doctor gave a mock-salute to the mercenary in response. Vandham nodded, and the room cleared. And it was just the Doctor and Cole.
---------
The Sonic Screwdriver continued to warble as its deep-scan of Cole, trying to diagnose what precisely was wrong with the man, continued. While it did, and the information flooded the Doctor’s mind, the Time Lord frowned.
“Odd. Very odd.” The Doctor muttered. “Very odd with a side of strange on top.” He looked up. “Cole, you… haven’t handled any radioactive isotopes recently, have you?”
Cole frowned. “Radioactive? What’s that?”
“…probably not, then.” The Doctor rubbed his jaw, flicking the Screwdriver open to examine the readouts again. “Well, according to this, you’re suffering from extreme radiation poisoning.”
“And that’s… bad?” Cole blinked.
“Radiation – it’s… kind of a catch all term for invisible energy.” The Doctor gesticulated. “Magnetic, microwaves – tiny little particles that float around.”
Cole began to nod. “Like Ether.”
“Yes… exactly like Ether,” The Doctor gesticulated in response. If Cole was an old Driver, this kind of thing might just be normal. All that Ether exposure, accumulating over years, causing severe cellular damage. “Normally, human cells can handle small doses of it, just fine. They harmlessly absorb it, and for the more harmful stuff, if it’s in small concentrations, your body can just replace what it’s lost. But you’ve been exposed to so much over your lifetime, that it’s caused great big swaths of cells in your body to replace themselves incorrectly, or die off. Causing organ failure. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a nuclear technician before going into the playwriting business.”
“Maybe.” Cole chuckled. “Is there… something you can do?”
“Oh, I think I’ve got a little something-something.” The Doctor reached into his pocket, pulled out a little phial, and tossed it over to Cole. “That is a full-dose, anti-ionizing kit. It’ll repair cellular damage caused by most forms of harmful radiation, force your system to flush the rest, and it’ll wrap your cells in a nice, little protein sheathe to protect them while they’re weak and recovering.”
Cole held up the phial sceptically. “You just… carry this around with you?”
The Doctor clapped his hands. “Be prepared.” After so many near-misses and regenerations caused by exposure, he kept a little dose of the stuff on-hand. “You think that’s odd – I used to wear a stick of celery to warn me if I was exposed to certain gasses containing praxis.”
“Is it… safe?”
“Perfectly,” The Doctor smiled. “Come on. Why don’t you give Iona the chance to spend a few more years with her granddad, eh?”
“Oh,” Cole let out a raspy sigh. “I’m old, now. She’ll get along fine without me… She’s strong.”
“Oh, she will,” The Doctor spoke from experience. “But there’re a few years in you, yet. Come on, Cole.”
Cole regarded the phial warily, before popping the cork, and downing it all in one go, retching unpleasantly.
“Well, what do you know?” A voice called from the door, causing the Doctor to spin around. “This town isn’t full of quack doctors after all.”
Malos, and next to him, Akhos, were standing right there.
“You,” The Doctor hissed.
“Me,” Malos gestured with a grin. “You know, I came here looking for… Cole, was it? But I lucked out with the man himself!”
The Doctor levelled his Sonic Screwdriver. “Leave.” He commanded. “I don’t know why you’re here, or what for.” He could guess it was about the World Tree, at least. “But go.”
Akhos scoffed. “And what are you going to-?”
The Doctor pointed the Sonic Screwdriver at a lamp, held down the button, and the lightbulb exploded, before he pointed it back at Malos and Akhos.
“I could shut your Core Crystals down, right here, right now, with the push of a button,” The Doctor growled. He glanced at Akhos. “I could do far, far worse than a little bit of Ether draining.”
“You won’t do that,” Malos snorted. “You’re a good man.”
“You,” The Doctor bit out. “Have no clue what kind of man I am.”
Malos rolled his eyes. His smirk hadn’t faded, but his amusement did seem… dulled. He exhaled through his nose, shaking his head before turning on his heel. "This is a waste of time." He took a step toward the door before glancing back over his shoulder. "Doctor, if you’re feeling brave, how about we settle this properly?" His grin returned, though it was colder now.
The Doctor kept the screwdriver level. “You have no idea what you’re asking.”
Malos rolled his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. "Oh, you say that now. But I think I have a solid idea… Doc." He tapped the side of his head knowingly, then turned and strode out, Akhos following after him with an exaggerated bow.
The Doctor didn't lower the Sonic Screwdriver until the last echoes of their footsteps faded into the night. Then, with a sigh, he ran a hand down his face.
"The last two people I wanted to see," he muttered. "That was unpleasant."
Cole stared at the doorway, jaw tight. "What was his problem with you?”
“I don’t know… I really don’t know.”
----------
Akhos’s boots clacked against the cobblestone as he strode beside Malos, his usual smirk absent. His fingers drummed idly against his hip as he mulled over the encounter. “You’re sure about this?” He asked at length, his voice quieter than usual.
Malos scoffed, tilting his head back to glance at him. “About what?”
Akhos gestured vaguely. “About that little playhouse brawl you’re so eager for. Because I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not end up like Obrona. I told you what he did - barely lifted a finger, and she dropped like a stone. I’d rather not have my Core Crystal messed with, thanks.”
Malos snorted, clearly unimpressed. “You sound scared.”
Akhos frowned. “I sound cautious. There’s a difference.”
Malos waved a dismissive hand. “You sound like a pussy.” He smirked. “You just had an encounter with the Doctor of War, is all… In any case, he’s not a problem. Just another lowlife that thinks he’s above the rest because he’s smart. I’ll get my chance for a good scrap with him later… but, for now, the Aegis.”
Akhos’s lips pressed into a thin scowl as he adjusted his glasses, but he didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he sighed. “Well, I can’t argue with you on that front. But on the off chance they’re all actually as smart as they pretend, you should have a backup plan. How will we get the Aegis to come to us now, without Minoth?”
Malos raised an eyebrow. “A backup plan, huh?”
Then, suddenly, his expression shifted. His smirk curled into something sharper. A dark amusement flickered in his eyes as he thought back to just a few moments ago.
Iona.
Ah. There it was.
Malos chuckled, low and knowing. “You know what? You are good for something, Akhos.”
Akhos frowned. “...What?”
Malos’s smirk widened. “You’re right. We should have some insurance. And lucky for me,” He tilted his head, cracking his neck, “I know just the thing. You know… the Aegis always had a real soft spot for the kids…”
He turned on his heel and continued walking, a newfound energy in his stride. Akhos lingered for a moment before shaking his head and following after him.
Whatever Malos had just thought up, it wasn’t going to be good.
---------
The Doctor had arrived in the inn not long after that. With the sky starting to dim, and everybody else hopelessly tired, he supposed they decided to get what Cole knew out of him tomorrow. Most everybody had split up into gendered rooms, save for Poppi, who had entered the boys’ room for the moment for some maintenance.
“Ah,” Vandham looked up the moment the Doctor answered. “You’re back. How’s Cole?”
“He’ll be fine.” The Doctor clapped his hands with a smile. “Tomorrow morning, he’ll probably forget he was ever sick to begin with.
“Wha-!?” Vandham jumped in his seat. “That’s not- that’s impossible!”
“Well, maybe for you.”
“But Cole isn’t- he’s not-“ Vandham spluttered. “…what kind of doctor did you say you were?”
“The main one.” The Doctor answered.
“The-“
“Look, I did some things when I was young. Got involved in a few things. And now, whenever someone wants to sound smart, they call themselves ‘Doctor.’” The Doctor shrugged. “Don’t know why. If it were me, I’d go around calling myself ‘Mr. Clever.’ Anyhow,” Before Vandham could say anything more, the Doctor jumped over to Tora. “That wasn’t half of what happened, anyway. Malos and Akhos showed up again-“
“Wha- Malos!?” Rex spluttered. “Again!?”
“Not to worry, I sent them packing.” The Doctor smiled. “’s probably for the best if we wrap things up here soon… but I think we’ll be fine, until then. So! What’s happening?”
Vandham stared at the Doctor, still trying to process the conversation, but the Time Lord had already moved on, his attention darting elsewhere. He spun on his heel, scanning the room before zeroing in on Tora and Poppi.
The Nopon mechanic had just set up a small workspace on one of the beds, clearing enough space to begin his usual routine. Poppi, ever diligent, had already powered down in preparation.
“Oho!” The Doctor clapped his hands together. “Now that’s interesting. Mind if I take a look?”
Tora blinked up at him, then nodded eagerly. “Doc-Doc is very welcome! Tora was about to begin Poppi’s monthly maintenance anyway.”
With that, the Doctor crouched beside him, already pulling out his sonic screwdriver.
“Okay, Poppi! Time for inaugural maintenance!” Tora decreed, though Poppi couldn’t hear him, and get to his inspection, necessary cleaning, and tune ups.
“You know, I didn’t get a chance to look at this properly.” The Doctor reached inside gently, and pulled out that black-box thingamajig that the TARDIS had shoved inside. “Not while we were worried it was going to explode.”
“…Tora had assumed blinking light meant big boom imminent, yes.”
“Right,” The Doctor took the Sonic Screwdriver to the small capsule, as the results filled his mind. “It’s very sophisticated… whatever it is.”
“You don’t know what it is?” Rex frowned worriedly.
“I don’t get it,” Vandham turned. “What is that?”
“It seems the Doctor’s ship… attacked Poppi,” Azurda recalled. “And made some system modifications.”
“…Right.” Vandham frowned. He was probably wondering how a Titanship could do that kind of thing.
“I see why Poppi wouldn’t power back on, now,” The Doctor muttered. “It looks like the TARDIS has routed parts of her core systems through here.”
“Can Doc-Doc undo it?” Tora inquired as he cleaned one of Poppi’s joints from the inside.
“…I don’t know,” The Doctor confessed, wiping his face. “The complexity of this little thing is… beyond me.”
“But… isn’t TARDIS Doc-Doc’s ship?”
“She is,” The Doctor nodded with a sigh. “But in terms of intellect, she’s… I don’t know; as far beyond me as a Lamborghini is to a Benz-Patent Motorcar.” He knew she had plans, but… good bloody luck to anybody who thought they could try to parse them out. “I swear to you, Tora, I had no idea this sort of thing would happen. Minor enhancements are part of walking into the TARDIS, but modifications like this-“
“Will…” Tora looked anxious. “Will Poppi be okay?”
The Doctor honestly couldn’t say he knew for sure. “Yes.” He lied anyway. He wanted to trust the TARDIS knew what she was doing.
But really… there was no telling.
------------
After Tora had finished up, and sent Poppi over to the girls’ room to assume ‘rest mode,’ the rest of them all turned in for the night. Save for the Doctor, who didn’t need the exorbitant eight hours that humans had to get every night.
So he stayed up, reading. Coraline, The Neverending Story, The Epic of Gilgamesh… it was always something to come back to old favourites, after a Regeneration, discovering how they meshed with his new tastes.
Then, the Doctor got an idea. A big, capital city like Fonsa Myma had to have at least one bookstore. New literature!
So, with some of the local currency still weighing down his pockets from when he tried to get money to help fund Poppi’s completion, the Doctor hit the streets. The shops were, thankfully, still open, despite the late hour. The benefits of being in a capital city.
The Doctor didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. Some of it caught his eye – but his eyes were drawn to one book in particular. The Alrestogony. Taking a look at just the first few pages, it was Alrest’s equivalent of the many books on the religious texts of Earth – summarizing them, offering commentary.
The Doctor paid for it, and wasted no time diving in. The first pages of the book were solely devoted to Alrest’s creation myth…
The Time Lord read hungrily.
1 In the beginning, there was only the Great Chaos, and within it, the Heavenly Holy Grail. This power was neither of time nor of form, neither still nor moving, yet it carried within it the breath of all things that would come to be. Then from the Chaos emerged a phenomenal mind. The Architect. He took the Grail, and refashioned its power into a new form to enable his divine plan; the Aegis.
2 With the Aegis, the Architect sundered the heavens, and the cosmos was divided. The Architect beheld the formless void, where light and shadow were entwined, and saw that it was impure. From the chaos, he wove Elysium, a realm of perfect order, lifting it high above the restless abyss. That which was unclean - the darkness of strife, hunger, and imperfection - he cast away, and it sank below, becoming a formless sea of endless, grey mist.
3 To fill Elysium, the Architect fashioned mankind in his image, pure and unburdened by the corruption left below. He granted them paradise, where the rivers ran clear and the earth bore fruit without toil. He set forth his law, that they might live in harmony and give thanks for the gift of their creation.
4 But as the years passed, the hearts of men grew restless. Pride took root where once there was humility, and desire flourished where once there was contentment. They ceased to revere the Architect, turning instead to their own hands and their own wills. In their arrogance, they claimed Elysium as their own, forgetting that it was the Architect’s.
5 The Architect judged them unworthy of the paradise they had defiled. With a mighty decree, he cast mankind from Elysium, and they fell into the land born of their own impurity - Alrest, the shadow of paradise, where the tides of chaos still churned. Mankind began to drown in the sea of sin and wickedness.
6 But despite his anger, the Architect could not bear to watch his children drown. The Architect then sent down his other servants. Their bodies were vast as mountains, their voices deep as the rolling of the heavens. The Titans bid to mankind to climb onto their backs, out of the sea of clouds.
7 And so it was that man came to be in Alrest.
The rest of the book were analyses, theological debates, and all matter of scholarly texts, debating on the story. But it had happened, apparently. Pyra was the Aegis, and she was active.
Pyra had… played a part in the creation of the world.
The Doctor closed the book, as he wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.
Was Pyra… God? It… kind of made sense, if he didn’t think about it too hard. It certainly explained why her Core Crystal was a cross.
That would be just his ironic luck, wouldn’t it? All this time, the Doctor was looking for the Architect – maybe, instead of being in Elysium, the Architect was out here… only just woken up after being fished up from the bottom of the ocean. And instead of a man, the Architect was a woman.
Though, unless Pyra was just lying, she wanted to meet the Architect, too. So… that was a big point against that theory.
Speaking of Pyra…
The Doctor felt the sudden prickle behind his eyes that came with something happening, and he decided to look up from the book. When he did, he saw Pyra marching through the streets, a woman on a mission, as she headed up towards the enormous staircase near the back of the city.
The Doctor closed the book, stashed it, and began to walk after her, maintaining a respectable distance. Considering Malos was out and about, he felt he probably shouldn’t let her roam about the town alone.
He wondered where she was going, though.
-------
Too. Many. Steps.
The Doctor had magnificent endurance, but…
GOD.
That was a lot of steps. A mile or two of them, quite possibly. Even he was wheezing when he reached the top. Pyra was able to make it quite a bit ahead, but the Doctor was able to catch up. As he did, and got closer, he could hear the conversation taking place across the way.
“So lame,” Malos drawled, and the Doctor ducked out of sight. “How long are you going to stay in that form?”
The Doctor frowned. That form?
“That’s none of your concern!” Pyra hissed. “I am who I am!” The Doctor nodded in respect. Go Pyra, for that. “Where’s Iona?”
‘Iona?’ Ice flooded the Doctor’s veins. It seemed the poor girl just couldn’t catch a break… And why did Pyra think Malos had anything to do with her?
“Akhos is the meanest son of a bitch I know.”
The Doctor could hear the shrill cackling that belonged to Obrona. “Son of a bitch!”
“Hmph.” He could hear Akhos, faint, out of sight. “I still think we should’ve sent them a finger or something.”
The Doctor tremored, and tugged on his jacket – his face contorting with unrestrained fury. The Time Lord, Sonic Screwdriver at the ready, stomped through the entrance.
“But you know best.” Akhos snidely cheered back.
“You know,” The Doctor raised his voice. “I don’t think either of you know much of anything.”
Obrona gulped, sinking slightly.
“What?” Malos growled, pointing Sever’s weapon at Pyra. “I thought I told you to come alone.”
“I-“ Pyra spun around. “Doctor, what are you doing!?”
“Don’t worry about me.” The Doctor retorted.
Malos let out a chuckle. “…you know, that’s exactly right. Akhos?”
“Shame,” The thespian let out a theatrical sigh. “Well… you’ll have to pay the price-“
The Doctor levelled the Screwdriver.
Obrona let out an ‘eep.’ “Akhos, shut up!”
Akhos’s jaw clicked as he snapped shut.
“Pyra,” The Doctor looked over at her. “Do your thing.”
Pyra clasped her hands together, and nodded, before rounding on Malos. “What is all of this? Why!? Three continents wasn’t enough for you!? You have to come back and finish the job?”
Malos pondered it for a moment. “Basically.” He shrugged.
“And that’s not enough – you had to steal Torna’s name to do it!?” Pyra shook angrily
“Oh, that,” Malos chuckled. “Now, that’s the funny part. That was Jin’s idea. Not mine.”
“Jin…” Pyra breathed, before her eyes went gold. “What… did you… do to him?”
“Me?” Malos let out a rueful laugh. “I haven’t done anything, sweetheart. Five hundred years is a lot of time. You wouldn’t know, skipping over it.”
“Shut up,” Pyra snarled. “I did what I did, because unlike some of us, I had enough of a soul to feel guilty about what I did!”
“And?” Malos scoffed. “That makes it okay?” He began to strut around, like the Doctor didn’t have a proverbial nuke ready to go off. “You took the quick and easy way… Jin took the hard way. The slow way. And along the way, he got the same wake-up call I did. Our little… partnership. It was his idea, not mine. I answer to him.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Pyra sucked in a harsh breath. “Jin is the same Jin that I knew? That Addam knew? That Lora knew!?”
“I don’t expect you to believe anything,” Malos rolled his eyes. “It’s the truth. Nice little Lora just had to go and kick the bucket. And Jin, well… he wasn’t quite the same, afterward.”
Pyra began to falter. “That’s not possible.”
“Oh, it is, though. But… ah, I don’t want to tell you his business.” Malos spun around. “Long story short, he lived on for her, and that world she helped build…” Malos trailed off, shook his head, and spat in disgust. “For this… wretched place.”
“’Wretched?’” The Doctor interjected. “You live here!”
“I do,” Malos rolled his eyes. “But something far worse lives here, too.”
“You must’ve seen the capital.” Akhos leered. “All those ships, soldiers, weapons… all preparing for war with Mor Ardain. Doesn’t it make you want to laugh? The world is wasted on such… vermin.”
“They haven’t changed a bit in 500 years,” Malos shook his head. “Jin understood that, in the end,” Malos gestured. “So, here we are. Trying to rectify that.”
The Doctor’s eyes flicked over, warily. He could see the tension in Pyra’s body. He frowned – her eyes were gold, and her body was haloed in light. He inhaled, sharply. Malos was trying to get a reaction out of her.
“I don’t know… what bullshit you think you can try to feed me.” Pyra hissed. “But if you think I’m going to sit here and listen to you spit on my friends’ names? I don’t know what crawled up Jin’s ass over the past five centuries – I don’t care – but if he thinks this is somehow for Lora, or in her memory, I want you to tell him this: She wouldn’t just be disappointed in him. Or ashamed. She’d be fucking disgusted. Him, working with people that would hurt a child.”
“Not just them,” Malos wiggled his finger. “Every man. Every woman. Every human being on the face of this world.”
Pyra began to shake. “Stop it.”
“What’s the matter?” Malos laughed. “It’s not like you had a problem with it before…”
Pyra balled her fists. “Shut… up…”
“Sinking continents…” Malos continued with a grin.
Pyra’s arms shook as light began to bleed off her body.
The Doctor looked over, concerned at the beacon Pyra was becoming. Was she Regenerating?
“How many people died when we duked it out, all those years ago?” Malos posed to her. “How many kids-“
Pyra launched forward with a furious, primal scream – one that sounded like it was ripping her larynx apart. Her being burst into flame, skin, hair, and clothes burning away in blinding golden fire as her sword materialized in her hand, and burned as well.
The light stopped in an abrupt flash and – much like a Regeneration – a different woman was left standing in Pyra’s place. Her facial features were identical, save for her golden eyes and blonde hair. Her clothes had changed as well, becoming a short white dress with long sleeves, black pinstripes, and black stockings. Even the sword she summoned changed, becoming a large, triangular, symmetrical white-gold-and-green greatsword that spat out light from almost every point on itself.
Akhos chuckled, pushing his glasses down. “And the leading lady shows herself at last…”
“Mythra!” Malos bellowed with a smile. “So glad for you to finally, properly join us!”
“I said,” Mythra swung around her giant sword like it was little more than a butterknife. “SHUT UP!”
A bubble of purple hexagons appeared to surround Malos, causing the sword to bounce off as he manoeuvred out of her striking range.
“Now, isn’t this just like old times?” Malos chuckled. “Well… not quite like old times.” He turned his head up. “And how about you, Doc!? We’ve got the Continent-Sinker herself! Now, how about an appearance from the Doctor of War!?”
The Doctor stared down, gnashing his teeth as fire filled his veins. How did Malos-?
No. No, that wasn’t important. What was important was that Malos was stopped. He wanted the Doctor of War? Too bad.
“You made a mistake, picking this place,” Mythra spat. “Away from town, where no one can get caught in the crossfire-“
Malos cut her off, mimicking the sound of a buzzer. “That’s where you’re wrong! Or did you forget about Minoth’s little brat? Killing some random kid’s one thing, but how’re you gonna look him in the eye and tell him you let his granddaughter get whacked, just to get me?”
“It’s not too late…” Akhos sing-songed. “We haven’t committed to the script yet-“
The Doctor told himself he wasn’t going to do it again. That was before Akhos took a child hostage. The Doctor pressed the activator on the screwdriver, and an invisible wave of sonic energy jumped out, tunnelling through the air, right for Akhos’s head.
The Torna member let out a gasp, snapping his hands over his ears. The Doctor jumped up the stands, two at a time, as Akhos gnashed his teeth, and turned to Iona like he was moving through molasses. He lifted his Blade’s weapons.
Before Akhos could bring them down, the Doctor grabbed one-
And was instantly flooded with the worst pain he had felt in his entire life. Every nerve in his body burst into flames, as the skin on his hand sizzled and steamed.
The Doctor let out a yelp, falling back, while he accidentally released his thumb off the Screwdriver’s button.
Akhos stood up, looked at the Doctor, and his face twisted into a smug smile. “Now, what did you think that would accomplish, hmm? Blade weapons are bonded to their Drivers, you know…” He lifted the twin swords, crossing them, and prepared to bring them down around the Doctor’s head.
The Time Lord snapped into action, holding the emitter of the Sonic Screwdriver against the swords, before pressing the button.
Sparks sprayed out before the swords burst into light, shattering like glass. Akhos stumbled back, shielding his eyes. “WHAT!?”
Akhos’s arm dropped, his eyes focused on Iona, and he broke into a sprint. The Doctor threw himself into the man’s path, grabbing him by his chestplate.
“Drivers are more durable than regular humans, yes?” The Doctor asked, more to himself than Akhos. He quickly thought back to it – Vandham seemed to have no doubt that Zeke would’ve survived a fall from at least four storeys, down into the water, with rubble dropping onto his head as well. “Sorry!” He nonetheless apologized for what he was about to do.
The Doctor pushed, and Akhos was shoved back, going tumbling down the stands. When his back hit the bottom, he rolled over, and pushed himself up.
“S-Stop!” Obrona raised her voice.
The Doctor whipped around, to see her standing there. Iona’s unconscious form was now being held, upright – supported by one hand, while Obrona had a sword to the girl’s neck.
“Any sudden moves… and… and I’ll do it!”
The Doctor didn’t know if she was being serious. But Obrona sounded scared. And someone scared was far, far more dangerous than someone who was being confident.
Mythra’s head snapped up to look, and she froze. Then, her face set in determination.
A column of dim red light fell down onto Akhos. Akhos froze.
“Try it, and I’ll shred him down to atoms.” Mythra spat.
Malos stared at the tense stand-off – the Doctor pointing the Screwdriver at Obrona, Obrona with Iona’s life in her hands, and Mythra with Akhos’s life in her hands. And he began to chuckle.
“Look at all this,” Malos leered, as he began to walk over to Mythra. The laser vanished off Akhos, and focused on Malos and Sever. “You can’t kill all of us. Shoot me, and Obrona will do it. Shoot Akhos, and Obrona will do it before she bites it. Shoot Obrona… and you vaporise the girl anyway.” Malos spread his arms. “You keep finding yourself in tough places like this. Just give us what we want…”
Mythra began to lower her sword.
“Y-Yeah,” Obrona sneered at the Doctor. “Big man’s not so tough now that we’ve called his bluff, is he!?”
The Doctor glanced over and down, focusing on Mythra. “The world really is at stake?”
“No doubt,” Mythra responded evenly.
“Malos gets what he wants out of you, and Iona’s dead for all intents and purposes anyway later down the line?”
“Along with everybody else.”
“Okay…” The Doctor took a breath. He pressed the button.
Obrona’s eyes went wide, and she moved her arm-
Only to find that the sword she was holding was gone.
Her fingers twitched, grasping at nothing but air. She staggered back, eyes darting wildly as she tried to process what had just happened.
“Wh-What…?” Her voice faltered. “A-Akhos! I-I can’t summon my swords!”
Then her ether lines began to flicker. Her Core Crystal pulsed erratically in her chest, its glow dimming as though something vital was being severed.
Obrona gasped, stumbling and letting Iona drop as she lost the ability to float, and her knees buckled. “No - no, what did you do to me!?” She spat, trying to summon her weapon again. Nothing happened. She reached up, clutching at her Core Crystal, eyes darting in growing panic.
Akhos looked up at her, concern twisting into dread. “Obrona?”
“You’ll still be alive,” The Doctor coldly intoned. “Which is more than what you deserve.”
Her vision swam. She tried to speak, but her thoughts came in fragments, slipping away as fast as they formed. Her knees finally gave out, and she collapsed to the floor, staring at her shaking hands as the edges of her body began to flicker, unravelling like smoke caught in a breeze.
The Doctor swallowed a stone in his throat. “…I’m sorry.”
“No — no, no, NO!” Akhos bolted up, only for a blast of light from the heavens in front of him to send him scrambling away.
Obrona’s eyes met his, filled with fury and fear in equal measure. “I… I don’t…” Her voice cracked. She looked at Malos, as if expecting him to fix it, to say something, to do something. “Help me!”
But Malos only stared, his expression unreadable.
Obrona let out a choked, ragged breath, her hands slipping away into motes of light. “You bastard,” she hissed. And then—
A Core Crystal, still glowing clattered to the ground.
“OBRONA!” Akhos wailed.
“Akhos!” Malos snapped. “Stop your whining, and help me!”
Akhos’s eyes blazed with fury, as he held his arms out. A bow-and-arrow appeared out of the ether in his hands, but… he didn’t have another Blade near, did he? Akhos nocked an arrow, and began to rapidly fire, sending the Doctor scrambling.
“What the bloody hell is going on ‘ere!?” Vandham’s voice emerged from the main entrance as he, and the others, began to rush in.
“Wha-“ Rex stopped, staring at Mythra. “…Pyra?”
Akhos whipped around, and began to fire at the new arrivals.
The Doctor rushed over, grabbed Obrona’s crystal, and stashed it in his pocket, before picking up Iona.
Blasts of Ether began to fly, and beams of light began to rain down from below. Half of the disc-shaped arena shattered, the stone crumbling and sliding down Uraya’s back, as Mythra let loose with whatever power that she held.
“Doc!” Crossette approached.
“Here!” The Doctor shoved Iona into her arms. “Get her out of here and back to her granddad!”
“But-!”
“Go, Crossette!” The Doctor commanded. The young Blade, nodded determinedly, and held on tightly to Iona, turning and running out of there.
Akhos transformed his bow-and-arrow combination into a scythe, his eyes locked on the Doctor. He sprinted, swinging the weapon around wildly, before a weight slammed into him from the side.
Vandham, like a mad rhino, knocked into Akhos. Roc’s dual scythes sparked as they met Akhos’s scythe. In a show of speed and force that implied many, many years of experience with the weapon, Akhos twirled and manoeuvred around like an acrobat.
Vandham, despite his weight and age, kept pace, catching, pulling, and pushing away Akhos’s strikes with Roc’s scythes.
Malos’s head twisted, locking on Rex, and he charged.
“Rex!” Mythra bellowed, throwing him the sword.
Rex’s hands closed around the handle, and he swung. His and Malos’s swords collided, and Malos stopped in his tracks.
Malos’s face twisted in rage. “I’m getting real sick of you…” He jumped back, and began to swing, again and again.
“You know,” Nia spoke as she jumped in close to the Doctor. “I thought you were only finding trouble to show off while I was around!” Akhos made like he was going to strike Vandham again, before throwing himself to the side, causing Vandham to overcompensate. Akhos slipped past, and Nia launched forward, swinging the rings she held at him with abandon. While the two clashed, going at each other like a cat and a dog, Malos focused on Rex.
The Doctor could see as Rex reacted quickly, swiping left and dodging right, out of the way of Malos’s strikes, almost like he knew what Malos was going to do. Like… a vision.
Vandham jumped in to assist Nia, forcing Akhos into a position where he could no longer move, but instead simply had to hold the line as best he could.
Meanwhile, Malos’s Blade – Sever – focused on Albedo, and began to charge with a slick grin.
Albedo gasped, lifting her sword in defence of herself. His claws cut through the air as he began to swipe, slicing through parts of her clothing, and rending skin. Albedo let out pained grunts, but tried to keep swinging her blade. Her hits landed – but the sword didn’t seem to do anything.
Poppi looked over, and jumped into the air, Ether jets igniting to carry her up and over the chaos, before she landed behind Sever with a mighty, metal thud that echoed through the ground.
Sever spun around, before Poppi’s arm shot out, and closed around his core crystal. Poppi moved, and with one single, slick motion, she tossed the Blade away, sending him sliding, all the way to the edge created by the blasts of light from Mythra. He fell over the side, grabbing on with his claw, just barely managing to hang on.
“Open your eyes!” Malos snarled, staring down Mythra as he locked swords with Rex. Rex gnashed his teeth, pushing back. Malos growled, as a shadowy ether aura began to build around him, and he pushed back against the teenager. “You’re fighting for people who don’t even care! Where do you think they’ll be in another five-hundred years!?”
Mythra scowled. “I… don’t… care,” She pushed more power into the sword, giving Rex the power to push Malos away. “As long as you’re not there to ruin it!”
“Look!” Malos yelled, gesturing at the shattered ground behind him. “You think you’re any different from me!? Get real! You’ve destroyed just as much as I have! It’s why we’re here! Why we were born! To wipe humanity off the face of this world!”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Mythra glowered, and raised her hands.
Another rain of light began to fall upon the arena.
Sever looked up, grimacing, as the rain fell upon him, tearing right through his body like it wasn’t even there, all striking his Core Crystal.
Malos and Akhos grunted, shielding themselves from the light falling upon them.
Malos shook, before the sword in his hand vanished in blue ether. “Wha-! Sever!” Malos spun around, finding nothing but an obsidian Core Crystal falling to the ground, missing a large gash out of its side. “God damn it!” He looked over at his comrade. “Akhos! We’ve gotta go!”
“Not while they still have Obrona!” Akhos screamed.
“Damn it, we’re going to die if we stay here!” Malos snarled.
Akhos gulped, and stepped back.
Malos lifted his hand, a shroud of violet fire and shadow surrounding it. He punched down, sending ripples of the energy outward, kicking up dust, and dirt, and wind, forcing everyone to cover their eyes.
When it faded, that was it.
They were gone.
Vandham let out a grunt, wiping his mouth.
Rex fell to his knees, letting out a tense breath.
Nia looked around, and set her face into a scowl. “Arseholes.”
The battlefield had gone eerily quiet. The only sounds left were the distant hum of dispersing ether and the heavy breaths of those still standing.
Then, a soft golden glow bathed the area.
Mythra stood at the centre of it all, her arms slowly lowering as the last remnants of her power faded into the air. Her golden eyes flickered with unreadable emotion as she stared at her hands, the light still faintly crackling in her fingertips.
She took a step forward.
“He’s lucky I don’t feel like him down,” Mythra spat. “I could’ve blasted his ass off the face of Alrest to begin with if they didn’t have Iona. Fucking cowards.”
Rex lifted his head, still catching his breath. He swallowed thickly. “You…” He looked up at her, really looked at her for the first time. His brow furrowed in confusion, taking in her appearance. “Pyra, what’s going on?”
The question hung in the air, heavier than the dust still settling around them.
Mythra spun around. “I am not Pyra.”
Rex took a step back. “Then… who are you?”
The Doctor rubbed his face, curiously regarding her. Titans had a regeneration analogue, so it wasn’t odd that Blades did. But that it totally reinvented their identities, after Blades in Core Crystals woke up knowing who they were… that was weird.
“I am Mythra. Pyra…” Mythra exhaled, folding her arms. “She’s… a different self. That I constructed.”
“…uh?” Rex blinked in confusion.
Her gaze swept across the others - Vandham, Nia, Albedo, Poppi - all watching, waiting.
She sighed, shaking her head.
“Alright. Listen up. This is gonna take a minute.”
-----------
Mythra explained, as best she could. Her tone was clipped, and her stance was guarded. And the Doctor got the sense that she was hiding a lot. But as she explained, the sun began to rise. So… the Time Lord decided to save his probing for later.
She talked some about five-hundred years ago. How, although it was Pyra who went to sleep at the bottom of the Cloud Sea, it was Mythra who fought through the Aegis war.
“So… Mythra is like Pyra’s super-powered transformation?” Tora asked.
“Masterpon, that not appropriate.” Poppi shook her head. “Pyra is Mythra’s disguise mode.”
“I… don’t get it,” Rex spoke slowly. “How can there be… two of you?”
It wasn’t the craziest thing – well, it was. To people who were limited to one body their entire lives. And who already had a poor understanding of the way the mind worked to begin with.
Sometimes, people suffered. Simple as that. And sometimes, they suffered so much, they wanted to become a different person. So they made themselves into a different person. Time Lords, they could force a regeneration – literally become someone new. Mythra… had done something similar.
“Mythra partitioned off her Core Crystal,” The Doctor spoke up. “Essentially… She made it think it was split into two Core Crystals, when it was really one. Mythra occupied one half… and the rest was Pyra.”
“…something like that.” Mythra sighed.
“But… Pyra’s been awake for ages now!” Rex blinked. “Why appear now?”
Mythra scoffed, crossed her arms, and turned away from him. “It’s not like I wanted to wake up, you know!”
Rex quickly backed up, raising his hands in self-defence.
“Sorry…” Mythra quickly apologized, and sighed. “It’s just… I left everything to Pyra… so I wouldn’t have to deal with it again. But then… Malos said some things… and Pyra couldn’t handle it.”
“Some… some things?”
Mythra’s eyes flicked over to the Doctor, before she refocused on Rex, and haughtily crossed her arms. “That’s none of your business. You know what – if you’ve got questions, you can ask her. I’m outta here. Bye!” She then, promptly, burst into flames, and Pyra was left standing there.
“…well, that’s not fair.” Pyra murmured, looking down.
“…what the fuck is going on?” Nia rubbed her head. “First shellhead, now… this?”
“She’s… it’s fine,” Pyra gulped. “She’s right. I should’ve… I should’ve had tougher skin-“
“Hey,” The Doctor reached out, grabbed Pyra’s shoulder, and looked upon her sternly. “Those things he said were horrible. You don’t need to feel bad about reacting to them. Either of you.” Because despite what Mythra tried to say, he could tell now that it was her. Pyra’s eyes were pink. Mythra’s were gold. She had heard everything, and it was probably her choice to wake up. Not that she wanted to, but with Malos running around again…
Pyra looked uncertain, even still.
“Look, Pyra.” Rex stepped forward to approach. “What Malos was saying… that’s just not right. You’re not here to destroy. You, or Mythra. You’re so nice. And caring. For Architect’s sake, you ran over to help a little girl you didn’t even know, and left in the middle of the night to go help her. And even if Malos was right… that’s not who you are now.”
Pyra stared down at Rex, her lip quivering.
“It’s like Vandham said, right?” Rex smiled comfortingly. “We’re all trying to rise above what we were.”
Pyra’s arms began to shake, before she burst into tears, and pulled him in for a hug.
“O-Oh, okay, we’re doing this now… all right…” Rex chuckled, trying to ease her.
“Y-You have… no idea… how much I needed to hear that…”
“Pyra…” Albedo nervously addressed. “What exactly happened? Five-hundred years ago?”
Pyra gulped. She didn’t answer, at first.
“I’m guessing,” Vandham crossed his arms, though his tone was soft. “It was a lot worse than people assume.”
“…yeah,” Pyra croaked. “A lot worse. I… hid some things.” She gulped. “I’m… not the only Aegis around… Malos is one, too.”
Rex stared in awe, drinking in what she said.
“The power the Architect used to sunder the heavens,” The Doctor recalled, causing all heads to focus on him. “I did some reading, last night.”
Pyra nodded. “A long time ago… there was a man who climbed the World Tree. But when he arrived… it was empty. So… as proof he had made it… he brought back with him two Core Crystals. Malos… and me.”
Pyra gestured at her crystal.
The Doctor’s face didn’t betray any outward emotion, as his brain processed the information quickly, and spat out a conclusion. An Artifice, a Beanstalk, and a crystalline-based self-contained synthetic being found at the top of said Beanstalk?
Pyra reacted to an image of Earth. Malos had reacted to old historical references.
The Time Lord looked up. He couldn’t see the Orbital Ring. But how much was he willing to bet that the ‘antenna’ he saw coming out of the top of the World Tree connected to it?
“And once he made it back down to Alrest,” Pyra continued. “He awakened Malos.”
“Malos?” Tora frowned. “Why Tree-climber want to wake supervillainpon?”
“You don’t ever know what kind of Blade you’re gonna get, waking up a Core Crystal.” Vandham shook his head.
Rex nodded. “’Open a chest, it might turn out great; until then, it’s just a crate.’” Rex offering up his wisdom caused the others to look at him. “That’s one of the tenets of the Salvager Code.”
“…I’m fairly certain that’s supposed to be a warning about not becoming too attached to something as fleeting as loot.” Albedo quietly muttered.
“…huh. I never thought of it like- look,” Rex shook his head. “Point is, there’s no telling what he thought he was gonna get, right? He probably wanted to be a great Driver. Help people.”
Pyra slowly exhaled. “There’s no way of knowing why… Greed… Power… or maybe he was banking on it.” Pyra shook her head. “But either way, when Malos awakened, he started going on a rampage. Nobody could stop him, nobody could reason with him, it just… came to him. As naturally as breathing. Then… he sank the Titan of Coeia. So they decided to stop him. That was where I came in. They found a Driver willing to take the burden… And I was awakened by him.”
“Addam.” Vandham recalled.
Pyra nodded, and looked around. “The ceremony… took place here. Then… I went into battle against Malos. I wasn’t even- Mythra wasn’t trying-“ She covered her mouth, trying to take a breath. “The Tornan Titan sank… and all the people on it. Malos was trying to make it happen, and we tried to stop him, and it just… it happened anyway…” She closed her eyes, as red and puffy as they were. “It happened anyway. But it was my fault. The crossfire…”
“You couldn’t have done differently.” The Doctor softly spoke up. “Not when the alternative was holding back. Letting Malos win anyway.”
“…that doesn’t make up for it.”
“It doesn’t.” The Doctor quietly concurred. “Nothing ever will. But that can’t stop you from trying.”
Nia slowly walked over, “You’ve… got to keep trying, yeah? And don’t let what that bastard says get to you. Malos is a sadistic, psychotic prick. He wouldn’t know morality if it bit him in the ass.”
Pyra weakly snorted. “After that…” She continued on, like going through the motions. “I sealed myself away. So that kind of power would never be unleashed again. But Malos survived, and…”
“And he spent the next five-hundred years, preparing for a rematch,” The Doctor finished for her. “It’s okay, Pyra. Just… take you a breath.”
Pyra nodded, and steadied herself.
“Jin… was part of that battle, too,” Azurda recalled, shaking his head. “Though… I can’t fathom for the life of me, a reason why he could’ve fallen in with Malos.”
“So… Mythra… what is she, to you?” Rex asked of Pyra curiously.
“I’m… not sure how to describe it.” Pyra thinned her lips. “She created me… but she’s not my mother…”
“Hey,” Nia interjected. “Look, Pyra, you look like you’ve had a hell of a morning. Why don’t we all just… slow down with all of this, yeah? Take a moment to catch our breaths.”
“Good idea,” Vandham nodded in agreement. “We should probably check out on Cole – see how Iona’s doing.”
The lot of them began to move, making for the entrance.
“Rex…” Pyra turned to him. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
“Well…” Rex scratched the back of his head. “I woke up, and you were gone. And Cole couldn’t find Iona, and said something about Malos…”
“And… you came to help me anyway?”
“Yeah. I’m not gonna abandon you, Pyra.”
Pyra weakly smiled, and they began to walk.
As they continued back through the ancient, ruined halls, back towards the Great Staircase, Tora stopped, nervously batting his wings, and pointing ahead.
“Meh?! What that?”
Ahead of them, just off the path, something floated in the air — a glowing, blue sphere, shifting and pulsing like a suspended fire. Around it, fragments of what appeared to be glass hovered in slow, deliberate motion, reflecting the light in mesmerizing patterns.
“What in the Architect’s name…?” Vandham narrowed his eyes.
“Poppi beginning analysis!”
“Oh… no way… not now,” The Doctor began to approach, before his face twisted indignantly. “You can’t be serious, we’re busy!”
“Do y’know it!?” Nia asked of the Doctor in surprise.
“It’s a… spacey-wacey thing, that’s all you need to know.” The Time Lord scratched his scalp.
“But what is-“ Rex began to get close.
“Stop, don’t anybody move!” The Doctor bellowed at all of them, causing all to freeze in-place. “We’re all going to start slowly… and calmly… backing away from it. Don’t run. Don’t shove. Actually, best not make any sudden movements. Be as silent and as slick as a snake catches a crow.” He began to walk, turning his whole body to keep his eyes on it, even as he walked around it and backed away.
“D-Doctor… what is it?” Pyra nervously asked.
The Doctor continued to stare. “That is a hole in the fabric of existence. Touch that, and it could spit you out anywhere – and if you’re lucky, you might even survive the trip.”
Tora shuddered. “Tora not feel like testing luck.”
Yet, while the others hesitated, one among them was utterly transfixed.
Albedo stood apart from the group, her grey eyes reflecting the eerie blue glow of the anomaly. Slowly, almost reverently, she stepped forward.
“But it’s… beautiful,” She murmured.
The Doctor’s head snapped toward him. “Albedo, no-!”
Too late.
Fingers grazed the shifting light, and the world shattered.
A pulse of energy surged outward, knocking them all back. The very air cracked like breaking glass, distorting in jagged fractures of light and shadow.
A shockwave of raw, unfiltered energy tore through the space around them, a tidal force ripping them off their feet. The world around them - the ruins, the sky - fractured like a mirror, whole shards of existence breaking apart and swirling into a vortex of impossible colours.
Albedo barely had time to cry out before she was swallowed, and the rest of them followed suit.
It was unlike anything they had ever experienced. Falling wasn’t the right word - there was no direction, no sense of up or down. They were pulled, stretched thin and compressed all at once, their bodies tumbling through a tunnel of broken light and twisting void.
Rex clenched his teeth, reaching out blindly for Pyra, but his hand passed through flickering afterimages of her, as though she was existing in multiple places at once. Nia screamed as she felt herself come apart and reform, the sensation like being shredded and rebuilt in the same instant.
Tora flailed wildly, his small frame twisting in the maelstrom, ears flattening against his head. “Tora not liking this! NOT LIKING THIS!”
The Doctor, caught in the same upheaval, gritted his teeth. His jacket whipped violently as though he stood in a whirlwind while he tried to orient himself, to see something familiar, something he could grasp.
“Hold on!” The Time Lord shouted, though his voice barely carried in the storm of unmaking. “We’re being relocated somewhere - don’t fight it!”
Vandham, despite the overwhelming nausea of being yanked through dimensions, managed a gruff chuckle. “What, like we got a choice!?”
Albedo, at the centre of the disturbance, remained eerily still, her body drifting weightlessly. Her expression was unreadable - equal parts awe and calculation - as if she were trying to understand what she had done.
Then, without warning, the vortex spat them out.
The storm of light collapsed inward with a deafening crack, and the group was ejected unceremoniously - and painfully - onto solid ground.
Rex hit the ground hard, skidding across rough stone. “Oeuf…” He groaned, blinking against the sudden, dizzying stillness. “Wha…” Around him, the others lay sprawled in similar states, groaning, coughing, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
The Doctor was already on his feet, hands on both sides of Nia’s head, looking her in the eyes to check for… something. When it looked like he didn’t find anything out of order, he moved on.
Tora groaned. “Tora feel like he die…”
“Space-time travel without a capsule,” The Doctor quickly rattled off. “Don’t eat poultry products for twenty minutes, and don’t go swimming for thirty.”
Pyra pushed herself up, eyes scanning their surroundings with growing unease. “Where… are we?”
The landscape around them was unfamiliar. The air was heavy, thick with an energy none of them recognized. Towering, crumbling stone columns orbited around a central platform. Gigantic, brass gears stood, piled up like sculptures. A hovering ring of metal floated above, lazily spinning. And everything was overgrown in a thin layer of kudzu.
Nia looked around, the expression on her face like that of someone who was about to start screaming. “Okay, spaceman. You’re the expert. Where the… HELL are we!?”
“It’s not like any Titan I’ve seen!” Vandham looked about.
Pyra turned, looking beyond the stone columns with wide eyes, at the rapidly-shifting sea of clouds stretching into the horizon. But the structure was suspended in a… void in the cloud layer… and the clouds above shifted so rapidly, it was like they were in a timelapse.
The disconcerting part was the colour of the sky. Magenta streaks cascading through an empty, black void.
“I… don’t even think this is Alrest.”
A deep, unsettling silence hung over the land.
“…have I honestly reached the part of my life where my adventures have sub-adventures?” The Doctor wondered aloud. “Because as detours go… an abandoned, stone colosseum… it’s rubbish!”
“I… I’m sorry.” Albedo swayed, as she tried to haul herself to her feet. “I don’t know… what possessed me to do that.”
“You’re alive,” The Doctor retorted, as his eyes darted about. “That’s what counts.”
“Poppi not wanting to alarm friends…” Poppi nervously spoke up. “But return portal is… not there.”
“We’re stuck here, aren’t we?” Nia’s voice had an edge to it, her ears twitching in frustration. “I knew this was gonna go pear-shaped the second I saw that thing!”
“It’s not like I touched it on purpose…” Albedo murmured, rubbing her temple.
“Oh, your arm just went out on its own, thanks for clearing that up!” Nia shot back.
“Enough,” Vandham rumbled. “Sniping at each other won’t get us home.”
Pyra took a steadying breath. “Okay. We need to think this through. There… has to be a way back. Doctor, you said it was a… hole? Can you open it again?”
The Doctor spun to look at her, aghast. “Yes! Because holes in the fabric of reality are really easy and safe to be opening and everybody should be doing it!”
“Phenomenal,” Albedo muttered.
The Doctor’s entire body stiffened, narrowing as something pressed against the edges of his perception. Not sight. Not sound. Something else. A strange churning – like space was a pot of boiling water on the stove.
“Doc—?” Rex began, concern creeping into his voice.
The Doctor held up a finger, but his gaze wasn’t on any of them anymore. It was distant, sharp, like he was listening to something none of them could hear.
A vibration buzzed at the base of his skull, a sickly warping sensation curling in his chest.
Then, space ripped open.
It wasn’t a slow unravelling or a subtle shimmer. It was sudden – a red-orange cyclone appearing across the way, about twenty feet away.
The Doctor exhaled sharply. “Oh, no...”
The warped distortion twisted violently, crackling like a storm, before suddenly vomiting out another group of people.
With a chorus of yelps, groans, and startled curses, the new arrivals tumbled unceremoniously onto the platform, landing in a heap.
“-touch it!” A voice from the crowd hollered, before they all slammed into the floor.
The rift slammed shut behind them with a loud snap, leaving only eerie silence in its wake.
For a long moment, everyone just stared.
Rex, pushing himself up, blinked. “Uh… Doctor? Was that you?”
The newcomers stirred, groaning as they righted themselves.
The first to rise was a young man clad in red and black, gripping a massive sword with a glowing blue edge. His blond hair was ruffled, his expression confused but alert. His eyes met Rex’s, widening in shock.
“…Doctor!” He blurted out, looking down at a man in a blue suit and long, brown coat. “Doctor, you were right – it was a portal!”
“Oh, good…” The spiky-haired man groaned and wheezed as he hunched over, trying to stand.
“All right, who’s not dead?” A man in a vest with a thick, caterpillar-moustache hauled himself up.
“Reyn!” A girl in the pile hissed. “What on Bionis possessed you to do that!?”
“I dunno…” The redhead in the group scratched the back of his head. “It was… I dunno. Like it was… Calling to me.”
“Oh, brilliant. You saw a glowing, ominous, reality-breaking rift floating in the middle of nowhere, and thought, ‘That looks good; I’ll have some of that that!’” The blue-suited man wheezed.
“You know,” A tan woman with them, leaning on a really big gun, shook her head. “Honestly, Reyn time is starting to sound less like an expression and more like an active threat.”
“Lady,” The bandana-clad vest-wearing man shook his head. “You’ve got a lot more time to spend around these guys if you’re just now working that out.”
“Doctor,” Nia asked. “What’s going on? Who’re they?”
The others in the other group, seemingly realizing that they weren’t alone, all focused on the Alrestians.
The blue-suited Doctor began to inch forward, staring at the Time Lord in the bow tie.
“Hey, Doc, you’re from Elsewhere, right?” Reyn spoke. “Do you know…?”
The blue-suit Doctor continued approaching.
“Okay…” Reyn gulped. “Ignore me.”
The bow tie Doctor took a step.
“…you’re not.” The blue-suit Doctor spoke, low and gravelly. His eyes glanced down at the bow tie wearing Doctor’s torso, and he extended his hand.
The bow tie Doctor followed suit, raising his own.
Like a mirror image with the glass between them removed, the two met, each one touching the other’s chest, feeling the faint vibration beneath their hands.
‘Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump.’
The suit-wearing Doctor’s eyes went wide, and he stepped back, going for his Sonic Screwdriver. The thin, silver, tube-shaped device went up slowly, the sapphire emitter catching the light.
The bow tie wearing Doctor produced his, showing off the bulky, copper-plated instrument, and the emerald emitter nestled in the grey claws.
The blue-suited Doctor swallowed. “Doctor.”
The bow-tied Doctor flipped the Sonic Screwdriver in his hand, pocketed it, and grinned. “Doctor."
Chapter 17: Elma: A World of Strife
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“The ripe old smell of humans. You survived. Oh, you might have spent a million years evolving into clouds of gas, and another million as downloads, but you always revert to the same basic shape. The fundamental humans.” -The Tenth Doctor, Year One-Hundred Trillion.
Let’s talk for a moment about the Samaarians and the Time Lords.
Their story begins where most stories do: at the Beginning of the Universe. Humans call it the Big Bang. The Time Lords called it ‘Event One.’ Reality burst into existence – cosmic crying filled the void. Thus, followed the Dark Time – a time of magic and superstition. Powerful cosmic beings dwelled in between pockets of chaos. The laws of physics weren’t laws – not yet; for the Time Lords hadn’t written them.
Arguably, the universe only exists at all because of them. It was an exploding TARDIS that provided fuel for the Big Bang. Fundamental mechanics of the universe itself were imposed upon existence – across all possible realities - by their design. Every civilization that was around for a sufficient amount of time fancied themselves the oldest. Gods by right of struggling to make it so – the Time Lords were arguably the ones with the most legitimate claim to the honor.
They weren’t people, or merely advanced aliens. They were beyond that. They were forces given form. Processes made manifest. Human beings, flesh-and-blood people, they’re proteins and acids and electrical impulses. Gallifreyans were more like… the way the notion of ‘change’ is physically represented within the universe.
In every way that mattered, the Time Lords were gods. Gods of change. One can see this everywhere. History, their domain, is always changing, even without intervention. Their TARDISes don’t move via actual transport, but more like rewriting reality around themselves so that they always occupied a certain space and time. Even the process of Regeneration.
(There’s something to be said there about the Monado – and how it [a physical way of representing the power of a god] is also the power of change, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment.)
Creation itself was their domain, one that they carefully curated. Evolution itself was hijacked by them – they didn’t even need to make a device for it to happen, they simply existed, and it bent to them – to make the humanoid form a constant across the universe. The Time Vortex – and with it, linear time – was woven to their specifications. They sundered the real and the immaterial into the lower and upper domains. Their minds were such immense things that their echoes could be felt from across the universe. Block-transfer computations, biographical data, existence itself – patented by those people from Gallifrey.
All of that has to be kept in mind, whenever one discusses the Time Lords. Their thoughts could undo reality if they so wished. A single Time Lord could bring change across the universe without even really meaning to.
They were fundamental processes of the universe. This is important, because even processes fight. One vying for dominance over the other.
That was the case at the beginning of the universe, as well.
They came into existence first – in that eternity that lasted only for a moment. But there were others that had been around before them, as well. How is that possible?
The beginning was not, as conventional wisdom stated, the beginning. Everything had been around before: in a universe that came before. When that old universe began to collapse, the inhabitants did what they could to survive the destruction, and creation of the new existence. Every species that had survived to grow fearful of that endpoint did what they could. Some, like that universe’s version of the Time Lords, shunted themselves into alternate universes. Others inscribed their consciousnesses onto the fabric of reality itself, transcending physical form. One – a great fleet of pilgrims; an entire empire – set sail into the stars. The warp drives of their starships turned from a mere mechanism of propulsion, to the salvation of an entire species. The migrating fleet warped into a higher dimension to weather the storm, and when the danger had passed, exited into a new and fledgling cosmos.
They all came into conflict with the Time Lords.
The new universe did not care for the remnants of the old. The flotsam and jetsam from countless previous iterations of reality were cast out, by the new universe’s processes of change. A Timeless, primordial consciousness was captured and sealed by the Time Lords within a magnificent, golden machine. Ancient spirits – ghosts, specters, wraiths, gnosis – were banished to non-existence, forced to dwell with the could-have-been and never-were. Other ways of existing – other timelines, other universes, other possibilities – were destroyed as they encroached by bottle universes, pocket dimensions, and new timelines being fired upon them like cannonballs. It was a time of chaos.
That was when the Samaarians came to be in this universe.
Initially, the Time Lords treated them with suspicion. As part of the Old, they had no place within the New. But the Samaarians had changed themselves to survive. While the others of their universe had clung on to the old ways, the old physics, and became unnatural, fetid masses of oozing flesh and twisting hatred, with the desire to dominate, the Samaarians (although clinging to survival) allowed themselves to change. They adapted themselves to fit in the universe.
Thus, while the Time Lords banished the other abominations into the Void, the Samaarians were spared. And the two races came into agreement: the Samaarians would recognize the Time Lords as the masters of the universe, agree never to pursue time travel technology, and in return, the Samaarians would be permitted to enjoy existence as they saw fit within the Time Lords’ domain – an arrangement that the Great Old Ones did not have offered to them.
The Samaarians accepted.
Some settled on Gallifrey – their blood diluted over millennia to the point where it no longer exists, aside from the occasional tall tale of a ‘half-human’ Time Lord. Others scattered to the stars to form new homes and empires – aside from the Time Lords’ universal morphic field forcing evolution to favor the humanoid form, those are responsible for the prevalence of near-human species in existence. The two species allied.
One wishes to say it was the beginning of a long and bountiful arrangement, where they spread their gifts to the universe.
But it was not.
Imperialism is natural, but very rarely is it ever harmless. The Fledgling Empires warred, and conquered, and dominated across the universe, as was the compulsion of the Time Lords. Urges – etched deep into their very beings that they could not help but follow. The Time Lords had the urge to travel through existence, master it, warp it to their very will. Lesser lifeforms were curiosities and entertainment at best, slaves and pests to be purged at worst.
The Samaarians; their compulsion was creation. They carved vast structures into the very void — whole planets, luminous rings that circled entire star systems, and crystalline lattices suspended in space that resonated with the hum of the cosmos. They – like the Time Lords – dominated and conquered as well. It was offered up to them, freely, after all.
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that move upon the earth.”
As long as the Samaarians obeyed the word of god – the law of the Time Lords – they could live in comfort and peace, without fear of retaliation, no matter what cruelty upon others their lifestyle perpetuated. As long as they didn’t touch time travel, they were free to do as they wished.
The Samaarians spread, bringing other species under their influence; sometimes by diplomacy, sometimes by setting themselves up as gods, sometimes through military force. Some species were conquered and modified to suit the Samaarians’ needs, and others were engineered from scratch.
But then something peculiar happened. The Time Lords, the cosmic agents of change, changed again. They stepped away from war and conquest, and sealed the Dark Design of their forebearers away forever in their collective unconscious. The Time Lords continued to rule, but it was a far cry from the brutality and exploitation of before. They stepped back, merely content to look on the universe from below. All the other species were free to do as they wished – even develop time travel, with the Time Lords only stepping in once true threats to cosmic stability, or their own power, emerged.
The Time Lords turned their backs on their old allies, in shame. And when the time came for the Samaarians to finally reap what they had sewn, the Time Lords turned away, and let it happen.
Outnumbered by those they had subjugated – ones who were now armed, intelligent, and very angry – the Samaarians went the way of most dictators. Killed, mostly forgotten, and exiled.
Exiled being the most important word, in that last sentence. The Samaarians had been spacefaring, after all.
They scattered themselves across the stars like dust. Some pockets were found, others fizzled out. But even under a different name, from a different plane of existence entirely, the indomitable human race did what it does best, and survived. Hundreds of worlds branched off from one another, each one giving rise to species, and subspecies, all across the cosmos, and all the while, evolution toiled away on Earth, guided and interfered with by a billion different species. Parallel evolution of two separate species – one confined to a single planet, the other spread across the cosmos.
One planet, with a healthy enough and large enough sample size to sustain the species (and hidden away so well that they could not be easily found) lived on. They focused on survival first, vengeance later. Then, their desire to vengeance went from a boil to a simmer, before going away entirely, as eons passed, and they began to forget. They adapted to their environment and their history was lost, decayed by time and fragile memory. They drifted away from their forebearers in identity, until even the name of that world they settled, and the name of their race, mutated over time. The Samaarians’ descendants – one of several populations – lived in peace and harmony, casting off their old ways.
Now, why is all of this important?
A long time ago, there was a girl who lived on that world, a descendant of the Samaarians. Barely a woman, really. But fiercely intelligent, more so than any one human being on Earth. Through some reason or another – things going bump in the night near where she lived, the machinations of higher beings, sheer coincidence – this girl ended up meeting a most remarkable man. A traveller in space and time. After the danger had passed, she ventured into the cosmos with him.
Together, they saved worlds. Fought injustice. Saw the stars.
But all stories have to come to an end, and so did theirs. It wasn’t anything particularly bitter or horrific – the Doctor was far more responsible in those days. Less… desperate for company. When the time came, it did not take her being sealed away in a parallel universe, or wiping her memory, or getting her stranded in the wrong time.
They parted as travelling companions often do. They said their goodbyes, until the next trip, but the next trip never came. The girl was filled with sorrow, but moved on quickly. She had her time with him, and it was up – it was time for the Doctor to show the wonders of the universe to other people. And slowly, the memories of those strange new worlds – bioluminescent rivers that carved glowing veins through the ice, where the beasts had never seen light, where the sky streaked like coloured wax melting and mixing with other hues, and the land shifted beneath her feet as if the planet itself were dreaming – they began to fade, as memories do.
But the girl’s own story does not end there. She had a life before the Doctor, and she would have a life after him. And she was happy.
The girl became a scientist, a renowned thinker and inventor. With the knowledge she had accrued traveling with the Doctor, her own intelligence, and a bit of will, she worked to make her people’s lives better.
She returned to them the stars.
But, as said before, all stories must come to an end.
-------------
Elma awoke to silence.
No gunfire. No alarms. No shouts of dying soldiers.
Just the hush of wind stirring through leaves and the distant, muted hum of a world far removed from war.
She inhaled sharply and sat up, her body moving before her mind could catch up. The grass was damp beneath her fingers, the air thick with moisture and the scent of soil. A night sky stretched above, unfamiliar constellations glittering like static on a broken display. She should have recognized them — something within her demanded it — but her thoughts were sluggish, tangled in a haze of disorientation.
‘Where…?’
Elma looked down at herself – pale grey skin lit like a spectre in the moonlight. She looked undead; and she felt it.
Slowly, it came back to her:
A transmat lab nestled in the heart of their largest city, under a kilometre-and-a-half of concrete, trying to get somebody – anybody – off-planet. They had no clue where they were even going, let alone how to hit the target from half a galaxy away. Then they started picking up something. Music. From a world lightyears away – but intact and strong enough to hear, despite the decay.
Elma knew David Bowie – the Doctor had been good friends with him. So, if she could hear his music on her homeworld, originating from a point ten-thousand lightyears away, but it was just as clear as the day it had been transmitted, then logically that meant the radio signals weren’t travelling the entire distance. They were cutting through something.
The transmat beam wouldn’t be able to send its passengers across light-years – information decay would compound and become fatal half a lightyear out of the solar system, without a relay to focus and refresh the information. But through a wormhole…
They had no idea what made the thing, but it explained the unusual clarity of the radio waves. A tiny wormhole. A little blip – no more than four metres in diameter. On a cosmic level, absolutely insignificant – and invisible to the Enemies, thanks to their own chatter, and liberal worship at the altar of orbital bombardment.
There had been worries that it was a trap. That it had just opened during the battle, both of the enemy sides had ignored it, and it led to a habitable world? Too convenient. But Elma had seen the clockwork that kept the universe running. There was no such thing as convenience or coincidence – almost certainly, something had happened to open it – but whether it was benevolent or not was entirely moot. It was their only real option.
Considering the wormhole was only stable enough to allow for radiation to travel through without making the thing collapse, not for matter or higher-energy methods of travel… yeah, it seemed like something out there was pulling the cosmic strings. Theoretically, a transmat beam could pass through, and deposit people on the other side just fine, but when it did pass the event horizon, the forces would push the wormhole out of its very tenuous equilibrium, and the whole thing would snap shut. Even if both sides had tracked the departure, they wouldn’t be able to follow – not before the thing fizzled out. It was a one-time use. As though someone, or something built an escape route for them. It was too perfect, otherwise.
None of them knew if that was good or bad. Elma, personally, hoped it was the act of an old friend who couldn’t step in to help directly, instead opting to take the clandestine route.
Regardless, despite the plans – gathering people, training them in the art of diplomacy so that they didn’t all get captured or killed upon arrival, things didn’t pan out as they had hoped.
The facility had been found, and the push that resulted from it was apocalyptic. The city above them all had been melted into molten slag. Elma remembered arguing with the others about the necessity of summoning the people they had trained for the job to go through the beam, while the rest were all clawing and chomping at the bit to go through the device themselves… before someone slammed a data crystal bank into her hands, and in her confusion, pushed her into the transmat beam.
The device did one person, or a whole batch of people, one-at-a-time. It couldn’t take new transports while an old one was in progress. So, while she was being sent away…
The wormhole would’ve collapsed. Any subsequent transports would dematerialise, be sent out into the void, and never reconstitute.
Elma gulped. Would she say she was lucky to be alive? Yes. Was she grateful?
She couldn’t put it into words. Didn’t want to put it into words.
(God damn it – which idiot was the one who shoved her in there? They couldn’t have grabbed a few of the others, and dragged her over too? They had to make her their messiah? No – martyr would be better. Or… were the rest of her people the martyrs?)
(It was her fault they had died. If she hadn’t been so determined to see a peaceful resolution, or to run..)
Elma clenched her fists, and tried to force herself to breathe normal.
The realization settled like a lead weight in her chest, but training overrode emotion. She forced herself to her feet, her body aching from the shock of being shredded down to her cells, sent hurtling through space, before fundamental forces and energy pulled her back together on the other side. A brief self-diagnostic confirmed she was intact — no critical injuries. And a look at the sky showed no immediate threats. The pain was manageable, at the moment. A brief look to the side greeted her with the databank. The spheroid lattice inside was still intact, and still glowing.
History, technology, genetic information… theoretically, everything a scientist would need to rebuild a species, provided they had the time.
But… where was she supposed to start?
She almost asked the question aloud. Almost expected a reply. But there was no command structure here. No team waiting for a report. No mission to complete – no checkboxes to tick.
She had to find her own direction.
Elma began to walk.
She wandered tree canopies. A city loomed in the distance, but instinct told her to avoid it. She needed supplies. Information. Cover. Her entire being was alien - an intruder in this world. Strange hair. Luminous eyes. She exhaled slowly. She couldn’t remain like this.
She supposed the first thing to do was fashion a shimmer. The Doctor had provided her with one, for times when they found themselves on Earth in time periods where people of different appearances were still treated with hostility, suspicion, and superstition. She hadn’t been able to grab it, before her home was levelled by one of the bombardments.
As of right now, Elma didn’t have much. A great, big, crystalline, football-shaped paperweight without a means of reading the data off it, and a handheld-manufacturing tool for working on the transmat device.
All right… as much as she wanted to avoid the town for the moment, she had to procure some supplies. She could pass as Terran easily enough – skin colour could be explained away by vitamin deficiency, hair colour could be passed off as dye, her pointed ears could be a rare but entirely plausible birth deformation, even the diacrest on her forehead (humans didn’t have those – shame, too. It’d make their astrologists’ predictions a lot more accurate) could pass as jewellery.
So, Elma began to walk.
When she had got into the town’s borders, she found the streets mostly empty, save for the odd car out. She must’ve arrived extremely late at night. Small blessings. Still, she was trying to wander the place without a map.
She took a deep breath and focused, relying on a skill she’d honed over many trips and pitfalls — reading a situation and adapting without all the information. So, what did she have?
For one, the streets were wider near the centre of the town. That suggested a major area of foot traffic, perhaps leading toward commercial districts. She glanced around, her eyes darting to the building facades. The architecture was a bit drab in places, but she could already pick out the signs of well-travelled paths - rusted railings, small patches of missing paint, and pavement that bore the marks of heavy footfalls over the years.
A town like this would have places of commerce strategically placed to catch the most traffic, especially near transportation hubs. Her gaze lingered on the dim glow of streetlights further down the road, which she instinctively judged to be closer to a main transit hub — likely near busier intersections. Public transport routes often had a way of pointing toward locations where the majority of people gathered during the day.
Her sharp mind began to sift through probabilities. Nearby streets that intersected with main roads would likely lead to areas with a larger concentration of stores. She didn’t need a map to know that the bigger, more heavily trafficked roads typically hosted places like shopping centres and department stores. People wanted ease and proximity, especially if they were carrying goods back home.
And then there were the lights. In the distance, she could spot a series of lights glowing brighter than the others - just off the main street. The shops were likely closed now, but there might still be enough light lingering to give her a better sense of direction.
She calculated, mentally mapping out the area. Her best guess? There had to be a shopping district further ahead, right on the cusp of the downtown core. It was always the case — centres of commerce like that had a particular rhythm.
Elma followed the streets in – and was not disappointed with herself. An empty – at the moment – wide street, lined by vast parking lots. Elma turned, and spotted a red glow.
A red circle with a dot in it. A… bulls-eye, right next to a large blue building bearing two words hyphened by a star. That, plus the street signs…
Of all the places to land, it had to be America.
Well, the blue one looked like it was still open. Elma didn’t know if she could deal with anybody right now – so she made for the bulls-eye place. But when she reached the door, she stopped. She was about to break in, like a common looter.
Elma nervously chewed her thumb. She needed resources… and these people’s world wasn’t ending. Her parents would’ve told her to do whatever she needed to survive. Her training told her the same thing. But common decency told her something else…
What would the Doctor do?
…no, don’t think of it like that. She didn’t want to send herself spiralling into a case of Doctorum Apotheosis.
(She’d been trying to do as he would. Try to reason with the enemy, to get them to step down. Run, instead of fight. It killed the others. Between the choice of diplomacy and the Ares, she had held onto diplomacy until it was far, far too late.)
But in any case, the Doctor would say the items in the shop were insured, mass-produced, and easily replicable.
…to hell with it, then.
Her mini-fabricator was able to scan the lock, and produce a key-tip that could unlock the door, giving her access. Once in, she set it to modulate an electromagnetic field that would interfere with any running electronics, like cameras or microphones, and she moved quickly.
She grabbed plenty of clothes out of the clothing section, putting on a set and ripping off the tags, and she made for a pair of sunglasses that would hopefully keep her eyes concealed. The rest, she shoved into a large duffel bag. Then, she made for the electronics. Every two-bit calculator, PC, television, and game console she could get her hands on for the raw materials. She wasn’t going to be able to carry it all out of there… but the humans of Earth liked having everything all in one nice, convenient place. If she looked hard enough, she could probably find a vehicle of some type.
A go-kart, or something. She was able to tie everything else down to a flat cart, and fashion a hitch to the back of the vehicle. And just… ride out of there.
This was looting, yes. Did she feel bad about it?
Arguably, she had greater need of the stuff in this moment than any of the humans who wanted to purchase it for exorbitant sums would ever need it in their entire lives. Her mind did turn to the poor store worker who locked the place up last. The people in charge would probably just assume they hadn’t locked the door, instead of it being picked.
Well, she had accomplished what she set out to do. On the way out, the shattering of a glass pane was all she needed to do to set a silent alarm off (to hopefully put the responsibility off the people that worked there), and she took off into the night.
After a while of driving, she reached a large, wooded area, spanning several miles, at least. Confident that no one else would meddle around in the area, Elma set to work again.
With what she had stolen from the store, Elma began to set up camp – a tent, a sleeping bag, pre-cooked food supplies. If she found a stream, she could boil and purify water easily. Her emergency survival training was meant for the wastelands of her homeworld, being hunted by hostile alien species. But it would do.
Elma sat down on the cold ground, her hands tightening into fists against her knees. For the first time, she hesitated. Not because she was afraid - she had faced worse. Not because she was lost - she had navigated stranger worlds.
But because… well, she didn’t know what to do.
She had survived. But survival without purpose was meaningless. She could try to rebuild her species. Her culture. But Earth already had a population. And even then… what would be the point?
How was she possibly going to survive long enough to see any of her labours bear fruit?
Elma let out a puff of air, finding a bitter irony to it. The same phrase that had called out to them from across the stars had an unusual applicability to the current situation.
“Planet Earth is blue,” Elma hummed under her breath. “And there’s nothing I can do…”
----------
Elma’s not on the level of some alien species when it comes to raw intelligence, but she is up there. She’s also intelligent enough to know she can’t slum it in the forest forever.
But work, like these people do? Not an option. She’s got to get to rebuilding the species, and any amount of time spent away from that is catastrophic.
But, again, Elma is smart. The mini-fabricator, plus optical drives from the local tech, and some computers rigged up together, can make a means of reading the data on the crystal lump sent with her. In there are schematics for incredible, wonderful things. Only a fraction could be saved – but it was designed to be a ‘restart the species with a single specimen’ kit. That included things to do the heavy lifting for the hapless bastard who found themselves saddled with the task.
But there is a significant hitch. Elma is a physicist and an engineer. Not a geneticist. The information on the drive should include DNA samples chosen to encourage maximum genetic viability. The problem is that it’s… well…
She’s got no idea what she’s doing. In theory, it should be as simple as ‘read instructions, and do what they say.’ In practice, probably not. The crystalline compendium was being designed and updated on-the-fly. She knows for a fact that there’s probably some, probably a lot, of information she’s missing out of it. It hadn’t been completed, after all. They thought they had more time than they did.
She hoped whoever it was that sold them out to save their own skin got killed with the rest of them.
In any case, Elma has none of the equipment to even think about trying to regrow her entire species from scratch. Not yet. She has a handheld fabricator and schematics. Thank goodness she did – otherwise, this all could take centuries, instead of decades.
But she’s alone, on an alien world. No way of contacting any people who might be able to help with her situation. At least, not yet. Even then, she has no idea what she should even be doing. She’s on autopilot, more than anything. There might have been Earth authorities to help her get settled in…
…but who knows how they would treat her. A vulnerable person, just lost the species, no backup…
Her species and humankind shared genetic markers. That was it. She could try to contact the Shadow Proclamation… but even then, what would they do? The Sontarans and the Rutans had been waging war for millions of years, countless planets caught in the cross-fire, and every time, they got off with some fines and censures, and some ‘encouraged’ withdrawals from the space they had entered, but it was too late by that point. The damage had been done.
Elma’s world hadn’t been the victim of the Sontarans’ and the Rutans’ million-year-spat, but who knew where those two species came from. Depending on where they were from, they might not have even registered on the Proclamation’s radar. Even then, it was too late. Her world was already gone.
Elma was alone. Couldn’t send for help, couldn’t contact the authorities, and if she could, she had serious doubts about their ability to do things.
So, she set to work. On her own.
Her first priority was securing the perimeter. Earth’s security technology was primitive compared to what she was used to, but still effective in its own way. Cameras, drones, heat sensors — she had to be careful. She had no clue if this was somebody’s land, empty woods, or some national park.
Using what she had stol- borrowed, she could use the tech to wire up some basic obfuscation, and security of her own. Materials were broken down and restructured by the powerful emitters of the fabricator she carried, into components for a security system. The computer core in her mini-fabricator wasn’t advanced, but it was enough to create a basic alert system, a safeguard against intruders.
Next was shielding her technology. Her equipment gave off energy readings that would stick out like a beacon if someone knew what to look for. She needed insulation — something to scatter signals, mask heat signatures, keep any nosy government satellites from noticing a growing power source in an abandoned ruin. And keep the enemy from tracking her down.
Cities had scrapyards, did they not?
Even with the mini-fabricator, she needed raw materials.
Junkyards were a goldmine, for that kind of thing. After that first night, she started stealthily looking around. Finding the local yellow pages and maps.
When Elma found her target, she made her move. Again, reduced to thieving like a common looter, but people wouldn’t miss it. Especially considering it was a scrapyard.
Over the course of a night, using her fabricator as a makeshift scanner, she was able to find precious metals, and haul them off. Slowly. In batches. Three nights in, she started getting hungry again. On the fifth night, she started feeling so weak, she could barely lift what she was carrying.
So, she had to scavenge for food, too. Breaking into shops again to steal groceries. Her parents would be ashamed of her…
…but she was still alive. Wasting away in an entirely preventative way would be an insult to them. The species depended upon her, now, and only her, to continue. She had to keep moving. Had to keep going.
Miniature refrigerators could keep basic supplies cold, running off a simple set of solar panels. Enough for her to slowly move all her materials over. Days passed. Then weeks. Slowly transporting the materials from half-a-dozen different places, all the way back to where she was squatting.
It was awful. It was slow, she couldn’t haul a lot, and the go-kart was loud. Then, she hit a wonderful find. An old pickup truck – a Toyota, the lettering declared it.
During the day, Elma – carrying a pure gold bar fashioned from old jewellery and other gold scraps in her hand – walked into the place’s office, wearing a hoodie and sunglasses, placed the bar on the desk, and said – in no uncertain terms: “I want the Toyota.”
They were more than happy to part with it. Elma had to guess it was because the value of the gold was more than the value of the scrap. Elma didn’t know Earth’s road regulations, but she had time to learn. She had nothing but time. Besides, it was easy to gather from context clues and observing others. Half of survival was observation. That was true on any planet. She learned by watching.
She got the vehicle back to her camp, analyzed it, and fixed what issues she saw. Then feature-creep started happening and, well…
She’d only wanted to get the thing fixed so it could move under its own power. By the time it was done, she’d completely rebuilt the drive system and replaced the internal combustion engine with a hydrogen That ran off of hydrogen supplied by the onboard water-splitting system. That had eaten into almost all the materials she had.
(Earth already had the science to do most of all of this, just not the manufacturing techniques and kick to do it. Elma, on the other hand…)
So she had to go back for more materials. But at least she had a vehicle now, and it was one she could use to greater effect than the go-kart. As an added bonus, once she was done moving that stuff, she could put a shell on top of the bed of the truck, and sleep off the ground.
Once she felt like she had enough, then Elma started.
Elma looked over a holo-display projected from her fabricator tool, adjusting the schematics. The blueprint was a Frankenstein’s monster of idea – her people’s tech made from human materials and components.
She took the first components from the fabricator and began to lay them out - toroidal segments for the vacuum chamber, printed from tungsten scavenged from old industrial equipment. Each piece clanked onto the workbench, and she turned the fabricator onto them again, welding them together. Sparks snapped and sizzled, reflecting off Elma’s visor as she smoothed out imperfections, ensuring an airtight seal.
Admittedly, Elma was cheating. The kind of tech she was using to do all her heavy lifting had been around for thousands of years on her world. And it might have bent a physical law or two. But it worked, and she was making progress. A damn shame the only thing it couldn’t do was organic matter.
Days were spent charging the tool, making a little bit of progress, letting it charge again, just off the little trickle from the solar panels.
Room-temperature superconductors took shape, and were laid into the toroid, as she began to feed wires and other systems through the device.
The cooling system came next. That was arguably the most ‘alien’ part of the entire construction, taking into context planet Earth in the year 2000. Fill a heatsink with a medium, blast that medium with an array of lasers designed to chill it as close to absolute zero as possible, hook that back into the power supply… It became self-sustaining. The more power the reactor put out, the cooler it would run.
Another water-splitter unit provided the fuel supply, hooked into the groundwater supply.
It took weeks to get it all set up, but once it was done, Elma took a step back, and looked upon her handiwork nervously.
Her hand lingered over the activation switch, unsteadily. It was stupid. A single miscalculation could vaporize her in an instant.
…did she care?
No. She was doing this for the species. To have any hope of seeing their planet live again, Elma needed power. And she needed a lot of it. And she didn’t want to tap into the local grid.
Elma flipped the switch before she could hesitate a second longer.
At first, there was only a low hum as the fuel was injected — deuterium gas flooded the vacuum chamber.
The heating system activated with a whine, and Elma took a wary step back. The gas became a plasma, and magnetic fields from the superconductors snapped into place, trapping the plasma in a perfect, controlled loop, keeping it suspended away from the reactor walls.
The glow intensified, shifting from a dim flicker to a brilliant, swirling torus of light, held in place by forces stronger than gravity itself. The viewport polarized as the reaction became blinding.
Elma nervously opened an eye, and checked the status board. Everything was… normal. The field was holding steady, cooling was optimal, the integrity of the reactor itself was holding strong (not that she questioned her own skills in that department).
Such devices were commonplace, back home. But this was the first time she had built one with her own two hands.
Elma smiled to herself. If she could make this work… maybe everything would be all right.
---------
After the high from that initial success started wearing off, Elma admittedly couldn’t quite figure out where to start next from there. She had power, she had rudimentary shelter… and that was it.
But something was better than nothing. Now that she didn’t have to worry about slowly charging the fabricator, instead able to just hook it into the reactor, the work she did with the raw materials could take place in a far shorter amount of time. Her first priority had to be getting material synthesizers up and running. While she made a passable go of it, scavenging, she neither wanted to nor could do so forever.
Plus… she would probably need some way of building a place to live, away from prying eyes.
All of this technology was something that the people here would kill for, quite gladly. Back home, it was so common… Just the replicators would be something they’d be willing to do whatever they could to get their hands on.
When she was a child, she had a machine that could print her toys and snacks with just the press of a button, out of nothing but the power supply it was attached to.
Her people had so much to offer the universe… why? Just…
Just why?
Elma didn’t make any progress that day.
------------
The days had started to blur together.
Wake up. Scavenge. Steal. Hide.
Check the security system to make sure no one was getting too close. Shouldn’t happen. The forest was dense, and she’d made sure her campsite was well-hidden, tucked in a natural dip in the land beneath a canopy of trees.
Still, humans were unpredictable.
Elma didn’t have a plan anymore.
She was supposed to be rebuilding a species that had already passed its extinction terminus, but she had no idea how to actually make that happen. Even if she figured out how to grow them, where would they live? How would she educate them? How was she supposed to give them a future, when she was barely scraping by herself?
She pondered that for the hundredth time as she woke up and crawled her way out of the cot in the bed of her truck, her back screaming in protest.
She went about her morning routine again. Check the scanners, figure out which component she had to sink weeks of work into just so she could get a stepping stone to her real goal completed, start drawing up the plans, figure out where to source the materials.
She bent over her makeshift table with a sigh, letting it all go through her head.
Then she heard it.
A click. A crunch. The sound of branches shifting under boots.
That wasn’t an animal.
Elma tensed up, and slowly inched her arm towards the fabricator, scrolling through the menus to look at the sensor net. Nothing was registering. Frowning, she tweaked the scanners, focusing on equipment, instead of life-signs.
Metal signatures lit up all around her – weapons.
Elma’s grip on the device tightened as she turned slowly, scanning the tree line. They were hidden, but she could sense them - soldiers, at least six, maybe more, all positioned in a perimeter.
Then, they came rushing in.
Men and women in black armor, carrying weapons, hollering and shouting at each other. Elma turned about, ready to run – only to witness more soldiers fanning out on the other side.
“Secure the perimeter!” One shouted to the others. “Lockdown, lockdown!”
“Hold fire – I repeat, hold fire!”
A dozen soldiers took position around her in a rough circle, pointing their weapons at Elma.
“Ma’am, if you can understand me, please remain calm, place your hands in the air, and stay still.” One of the soldiers instructed her.
Elma’s eyes flicked around uncertainly. Should she pretend to be ignorant, or…?
Elma sighed, and raised her hands.
Instantly, the soldier’s hand went to his radio. “Contact identified – target is a near-human individual, estimated twenty-seven years of age; still unclear if target speaks English, or is simply acting defensively.”
Elma scowled, despite herself. “I can speak English.”
The soldier blinked, going to his radio again. “Amend that last one: target can speak English.” He looked up. “Translation matrix, or native?”
“I said I speak English, jerk. Does it matter how?” Elma glared.
The soldier chuckled. “I suppose not.”
“Ma’am,” One of the other soldiers addressed Elma. “Do you have any weapons on your person? We will not take that as a sign of aggression.”
Elma gulped, and glanced around. She could lie… but granted that they had gotten so close already, they probably figured out that she didn’t.
“No.”
“Okay,” The first soldier nodded again, and went to his radio. “Non-hostile contact confirmed. Going to stand-by. General, you’re clear.”
The soldiers relaxed only slightly, but they still kept their guns at the ready. It seemed even when told she didn’t have a weapon, paranoia won out.
“Good work, team,” A man emerged from the trees – but he wasn’t wearing body armor. Instead, it was some type of dress uniform, loaded up with ribbons on the breast. “That was fast, efficient, and professional.” He stopped, and looked Elma’s way, clearing his throat. "Good morning, ma’am. I’m General Nolan Sanchez with the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. And if you are who I think you are…” He reached into a pocket, and pulled out a folder, opening it up and looking through the contents quickly. “Well, you should be with a man in a blue box. Not stealing scrap and camping in the woods.”
Man in a blue… Did he know the Doctor?
“I don’t travel with the Doctor. I haven’t in a long time,” Elma answered.
Sanchez let out a polite hum. “I’m sorry to hear that,
Elm’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. "How did you find me?"
Sanchez began to walk around. "Well, all that jamming about had us fooled, but you got too paranoid, there. Across the frequencies you were scanning, it made this place stand out like a wildfire. Then we started hearing reports about scrapyard thefts in the area – not usually our concern, but the local police noted a lot of heavy metals and toxic materials went missing. Cross-referencing the locations pointed us back here, so, we decided to check on it. The recon teams got a few pictures of you, which got a hit in our database, so here we are.”
Elma flicked a glance toward the offending reactor. Her jaw clenched. Damn it.
Sanchez took a slow step forward. "I understand. You’re freaked out. We came in heavy. But you’re a friend of the Doctor’s, and that means you’re a friend of humankind.
Elma didn’t move. "Why are you here?"
"We need to talk." Sanchez gestured. “I’ve got an offer I think you’d be perfect for.”
"What kind of offer?” Elma inquired.
“Come with us,” Sanchez spun about. “I’ll show you.”
------------
Turns out, going with Sanchez entailed being ushered into a helicopter, and flown through the air, for about twenty minutes, all the way towards the United States Capitol. They landed, and boarded other vehicles, moving in a convoy to a building marked “Department of Health and Human Services.” According to Sanchez, it was actually UNIT One’s Headquarters.
They went through a smorgasborg of security scans, being processed, before they were allowed through into the building proper.
Elma looked around nervously, at the guards escorting them, and a cold hand gripped her heart. “Am I being arrested?”
Sanchez looked over his shoulder at her. “Why? You think you did something worth arresting you over?”
“I’m an alien.”
Sanchez fixed her with a droll look. “Ma’am – we’re a security organization, not racist. If we arrested every alien visitor to Earth, we’d have neither the time nor the resources to chase after real threats.”
“Oh, I get special treatment then. Fun.”
“That you do,” Sanchez muttered. “Just don’t go saying that too loud.” They walked through the corridors, deeper into the building. “How much do you know about UNIT?”
Elma frowned. “Nothing at all.” The Doctor had once taken her to meet an old friend to work for alien hunters. Was he one of them? “Did a Lethbridge-Stewart work for you people?”
“He headed-up the UK branch.” Sanchez then launched into an explanation. “Back during WWII, improved records-keeping, lines of communication, and science all pointed towards one inevitable and frightening conclusion: the planet Earth was being visited by alien peoples on a regular basis. Some benevolent, others, not so. While the human race was busy fighting itself, the nations of the world agreed that a specialized military force solely for combating more esoteric threats was needed.”
“Which is where UNIT came in?”
“In a sense,” Sanchez shrugged. “Mostly specialized teams were kept by each individual nation, under the authority of their own militaries. These teams were small, horrifically underfunded, and only existed to say that people were doing something.”
Elma glanced up at him, wary.
“Then, incidents started ramping up. Not just aliens, but things beyond the ability of normal military forces to handle. Those teams were expanded, given experimental tech and the remit to do whatever they had to combat powerful alien threats, organized under one banner, and UNIT was formed.”
Sanchez opened the door in front of her, and led Elma into a large command center – the central cortex of the base she was in. UNIT officers moved about the place, communicating. Phones rang off the hook endlessly, while a large map showing the United States – as well as Canada – blinked with activity.
On the floor was an enormous emblem, a stylized depiction of the Earth, with a beam of light shining on it. Surrounding the planet was the phrase ‘Unitum, Nos Invicti Tenebris’ in some language Elma had never heard before.
Frowning, furrowing her brow, and focusing, she stared at the words until she felt a little prickle in the back of her head, and the words transformed into comprehensible language.
“United, We are Immune to Darkness.”
Pretentious… and a little on the nose.
Still, Elma felt a little knot of warmth and gratitude in her chest. God only knew how many lightyears away the Doctor was, separated by the bounds of time, and the TARDIS still translated for her.
“Here,” Sanchez turned about. “My office is this way.” He pointed to a room near the back, boxed-off in glass and metal. He led her inside, and sat down at the desk. “Now, let’s get to why you’re here. Over the past few decades, the frequency of alien incidents has undergone a sharp decline, and with them, UNIT’s major backers have cut back funding. We’re in a bit of a rut right now. We need all the help we can get.”
Elma felt a sharp sting of indignance. “I’m hardly a military officer qualified to speak on behalf of my people-“
“While we would appreciate the help, I doubt people will be very happy giving an alien military force free reign on our planet,” Sanchez shook his head. “No, it’s in mind for you alone.”
Elma scowled. “What do you expect me to do about it, hmm?”
“Back in the day, the Doctor was Chief Scientific Advisor for the UK division. His knowledge helped make short work of threats that could have resulted in long and costly wars,” The General looked around. “I want you for a similar position here.”
Elma recoiled in disbelief. “Chief Sci… you can’t be serious.” She shook her head. “You don’t know me, you don’t know what I’ve gone through, and you want to put me in a high-up position here to act as a consultant? Travelling with the Doctor doesn’t make people into geniuses.”
“It doesn’t – but you built a fusion reactor out of scrap metal in the middle of the woods.”
“I had a fabricator tool.”
“So?” Sanchez raised an eyebrow. “Give me a 3D printer – that still doesn’t mean I can make a working car out of it.”
Elma forced her mouth shut.
“A lot of what we deal with here is beyond the bounds of human science. Even just one alien mind could be a tremendous game changer,” Sanchez spelled it out for her. “One that travelled with the Doctor… those people have seen things ordinary people could never have dreamed about. Their expertise comes in handy all the time.” The General leaned over, looking her in the eye. “UNIT’s always looking to expand our understanding of the universe, advance science, establish diplomatic ties. But it’s a dangerous job, too. Every one of us here – every man and woman – understands that, but it’s our solemn duty to the whole human race to keep doing that job, no matter the danger, so that they can live their lives in peace, without fear of threats from without destroying it all. But like I said – we’re in a rut right now. We need every boon we can get our hands on, be that information or ways of keeping our people better protected in the field.”
Elma swallowed, and narrowed her eyes. “Is this a recruitment speech, or your way of making me understand why this has to happen before you spirit me away to a secret prison somewhere and lock me in there until I agree to help you?”
Sanchez sighed, and rubbed his face. “You have a choice, of course. Defense of the planet is a job that can’t be accomplished with an army of the coerced. But I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t be very disappointed if I let this opportunity slip by. So,” He leaned forward. “I’m prepared to make whatever offer’s necessary.”
Elma blinked in quiet disbelief. “Huh?”
“You’ll get the usual perks, of course. Pension, medical and dental within the UNIT network, leave time. Plus some services we have in-place for extraterrestrial immigrants that find themselves in our employ.”
“…you mean there’s more?” Elma curiously inquired.
Again, Sanchez sighed. “Not here. Most land in the UK – considering that’s where people like the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith operate – and not all of them get sarcasm and jokes. So they… avoid America – land of heart attacks, the fat, loud, and obnoxious.” He shook his head. “But there are procedures in place, just in case.”
“If I refuse, what will you do?”
“Nothing,” Sanchez shrugged. “We’ll keep you monitored in case you pose a threat to the planet Earth, but considering you’re on file as a traveling companion of the Doctor’s, I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that. You can go back to that camp in those woods, if you want. Or, if you’re not here by choice, UNIT has agreements set up in place with some peaceful factions of alien powers. We can get you off-world and to a planet of your choosing.”
Elma’s already thinking. Sanchez is desperate to have an alien mind in his branch of UNIT. She could, conceivably, make any demand she wants. “I’ll say yes. On one condition. If there are things I need – resources, scientific data, chances to look at alien tech – you give them to me.”
Sanchez ponders on it for a moment. “Done.”
------------
UNIT was in more dire straights than Sanchez first led her to believe. While the alien incidents had wound down, they weren’t all gone, despite what UNIT’s funding partners believed. And it was far worse than your run-of-the-mill aliens.
In the US, at least, the things that stirred were nightmarish. Granted… it was a nightmarish universe. Everybody invading each other all the time, strange and frightening creatures infesting the deepest recesses of space, and the group of people that was supposed to all keep it running just didn’t care.
The Time Lords – the great Archons of the Spiral Politic – were content to sit by and idle, while their oldest allies in the universe burned. Earth had no chance.
Elma was fast-tracked through training – although, realistically, she was just dusting off her old skills – and put to work. Director of Advanced Technology. That was her official title. In terms of rank, she was only a private. Sanchez said people could get very testy about being just promoted to high positions. UNIT didn’t have the same regulations as the US military, but a lot of its people had come from there, and so it settled into a kind of informal-copying kind of thing.
In any case, it didn’t matter. The rank was there in case she only ever needed to go out into the field or, eventually, command people around. Until then, she was a single woman in a department out of the way, that hadn’t even existed until a few moments ago.
And Elma was put to the test almost immediately, trying to figure out how to keep the soldiers of UNIT alive.
And it wasn’t easy. While UNIT-US had managed to come to a decent resolution on some matters – there was an enclave of peaceful Cybermen living in Wyoming, for example, and a draconian lifeform that had been talked into settling Venus due to the heat it was putting out being harmful – the vast majority of others were… not so successful.
Mysterious radio broadcasts that took the sense of sight, hearing, and eventually even the full minds of those unfortunate enough to tune in. A machine that predicted the deaths of important people down to the second, and when UNIT tried to stop it, resulted in a town of one-thousand people dropping dead simultaneously. An extradimensional creature sleeping under a research institute in New Mexico, with attempts to contain it waking it up and causing the entire outpost to just vanish. The goddamn Wendigo.
The threats they had faced were nightmarish. The casualty reports, even worse. Sanchez had severely undersold it: they were losing enormous quantities of people every mission. Real, human lives, thrown into a meatgrinder.
And the Doctor hadn’t been seen in years. Now, Elma wasn’t a fool – she knew he couldn’t be everywhere – but the amount of wandering he did about the universe, with Earth being his special, favorite destination, he had to have heard something and stepped in, right? Maybe he had – but if so, he wasn’t saying anything, and neither was he responding to attempts to contact him.
Earth was in a special, vulnerable position. Strategically located within the same galaxy as Gallifrey, right between Sontaran and Rutan space, just off the corner of one of the major trade routes. Plus, legend said that the Time Lords as a whole (not just the Doctor) had a vested interest in the place that had nothing to do with the human race, and everything to do with the planet itself.
All that said – Earth was her home for the foreseeable future. And so, Elma got to work.
First up was doing something for the soldiers. Getting them out of those atrocious hand-me-down fatigues and into body armor that could actually handle getting hit by energy beams and alien ballistics. Then, improving their weapons. Elma didn’t want to be giving humans the tools to kill each other more effectively, but then again… she’d seen what alien weapons could do. Plasma fried and boiled flesh, shredder rays could rip a target apart at the atomic level, and radiation-based weapons could liquefy a person in one blast.
If humans needed to even the playing field to just have a chance, so be it. (Her mind turned to the possibility of using the Ares – they hadn’t managed to finish it, but the plans were still in the data drive they sent with her. But Elma couldn’t bring herself to even suggest it. To refuse involving herself with it back home, then to turn right around and just give it to the humans of Earth and eagerly contribute to it? How hypocritical was that? it was an insult to her people’s memory.) So, Elma did what she could with what she had.
In time, the old, hand-me-down uniforms were replaced with new, snazzy black full-body armor, weaved with materials designed to absorb kinetic projectiles and energy attacks. That alone increased their chances of survival ten-fold. The firearms they were fielding were updated from the ancient models in service since the Vietnam war to new lines, visually identical to any other weapon, but with a whole line of tech embedded within to even the fight against technologically-advanced opponents. Hazard kits for hostile environments were redesigned from the ground-up for ease-of-use, and new and powerful handheld scanners were built to give the UNIT soldiers an idea of exactly what kind of situation they were heading into.
Survivability went up, and with it mission success and overall effectiveness.
And, true to his word, Sanchez was quick to give Elma whatever she asked for. When she wasn’t assisting the soldiers, designing some new piece of equipment that would be vital for dealing with the threat-of-the-week, she was in her lab, trying to make headway on her project.
It was difficult. The procedures, chemical formulas, are all things she can understand in theory. Putting them into practice, not so. They always fail – some vital part of the process is missing, resulting in complete failure and loss of cellular cohesion. But Elma’s branch of science is physics and engineering, not genetics. She can tell that something is missing, but not what it is, or how to fix it.
She’ll have to learn a whole new discipline. Probably several. That kind of thing takes time. She could cut down a lot if she got help – but the project is too close to her. She can’t trust anyone else with it.
The answer comes from where it always does, somewhere unexpected.
Swarms of Vashta Nerada – infinitesimally small, but so numerous they were a real and present threat – started going feral. They started eating everything, not just meat. When the sun set and they could feast without being burned alive in the daylight, they stripped an entire ranch in Oklahoma to nothing. Then the neighboring ranches. And they were breeding out of control. By the time UNIT became aware of the swarm, it could’ve theoretically stripped an entire city to bones. The obvious solution was to firebomb them, but there was a problem with that. Swarms broke apart. They spread to other places.
The threat became decentralized, and if they were left uncontrolled for much longer, then stopping them wouldn’t have been an option. They’d grow out of UNIT’s capability to handle. So, they were on a time crunch. Bomb the swarms and accept the civilian casualties in the crossfire, or do nothing and let the continental US be stripped of all life in a month, never mind the rest of the world beyond that.
But, Elma had an idea. A desperate, hopeless idea, but if it worked, nobody needed to die. All she needed was nanomachines.
Unfortunately, getting her hands on those were hard. Her people didn’t bother with them, not when they could manipulate matter on the atomic level directly. She could’ve designed some, but that was time she didn’t have.
But, UNIT’s Black Archive sites were linked via teleport. And General Sanchez had used that to bring her exactly what she needed – to fix the Vashta Nerada problem, and part of her issues with her efforts to rebuild her species.
UNIT had kept it at the Black Archive in the UK – standard procedure for any item with even a hint of being connected to the Doctor – and only brought it over to her now that she needed it. She wondered why – until she cracked the lid off the case, and looked inside.
It was some type of combat robot – built to closely emulate the human form in all aspects. And it had bore a striking resemblance to Elma, under all the battle-damage. She could see why the humans had gotten confused. But the thing was advanced – mechanisms so close to organic lifeforms that the two were indistinguishable, a crystalline-matter brain with a storage capacity off the charts, and – exactly what Elma needed – nanomachines coursing through her veins, presumably for repair.
The android was off-line, and not exactly Elma’s priority to repair, but together, they saved the world. The nanomachines taken and reprogrammed from the android were enough to kill the swarms of Vashta Nerada with no more human casualties, and the planned airstrikes were called off.
But, just knowing that a mechanical lifeform with her face existed was enough to give Elma an idea. Elma’s biggest obstacle was time. Nobody could stop it. But she didn’t need to.
All she needed was an artificial body. Keep her original in stasis, pilot around the new one. She’d be effectively immortal, granting her all the time she needed in order to focus on getting the process of rebuilding her species right.
As an added boon, it’d make her look more like the humans.
Off-and-on, Elma worked through dozens of prototypes, of both the body and the stasis chamber, just to see if it was possible. But it was – keeping electrical signals travelling, the mind working, while the body was locked away in stasis was a difficult balance to strike. Some prototypes resulted in garbled consciousness, others ended in waking-dreams. And Elma was picky, mainly about the appearance – she wasn’t vain, but she did want it to be close. When she finally found one she liked, she put the others into storage, in case she ever needed backups for some reason, and went into stasis.
When she awoke, it was in a new body – outwardly, a normal, contemporary human, albeit with silver hair (hair color was deceptively difficult to get right, such that Elma simply decided it would be best to leave it blank and dye it later).
She expected people to look at her strangely, going from outwardly alien but entirely human down to her bones to a body that was outwardly human but entirely mechanical. Largely, though, they whooped and hollered at her, cheering and complimenting her.
It made her flush in embarrassment, but still, she appreciated it. UNIT soldiers weren’t all dumb goons, they shot first because that was all they could do, but they were a skilled and polite bunch. They had to be, potentially representing the entire human race to galactic visitors.
It still wasn’t her home, but Elma found herself settling in much more comfortably, once she didn’t have to worry about running out of time.
-----------
Then, in 2005, things changed. A quiet business ramped up to levels of activity not seen since the seventies.
Plastic came to life in London. Storefront mannequins, children’s toys, even telephone wires — all moving with murderous, alien intent.
UNIT mobilized, but before they could respond in force, the threat was eliminated. A hidden base underneath the London Eye exploded, and sent the giant Ferris Wheel nearly sinking into the Thames. Recovery teams fished out remnants from the Nestene Consciousness. They only knew that because of the old files – shop window dummies coming to life? Toys turning killer? Phones? Last time that happened was back during the seventies.
In any case, alien activity started to spike. They went from being semi-busy to dealing with things on a near-daily basis. Anomalous computer viruses, plagues from other realities, an increase in the weird and odd. UNIT went from being nearly defunded entirely, to having more cash thrown at it than it ever had. The US branch went from nearly hanging on by a thread, to the largest single division of UNIT on the planet. The branch was restructured, now headed-up in New York, and Sanchez left, leaving his old posting in the care of his technology director.
Elma felt something shift in her gut.
2006, an alien spacecraft crashed into Big Ben, sending the world into a frenzy, even as UNIT scrambled to contain the fallout. A conference of alien experts was attacked, and the British government started throwing around phrases like ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and started petitioning the UN for nuclear access.
Then, Downing Street was destroyed by a ballistic missile, fired by a UNIT submarine. The cleanup teams found alien bodies under the rubble, and the skins of the British politicians, hollowed out for use as suits. The commander of the submarine that had fired said they received orders – from an account logged in with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart’s password. While the man himself was just as blind to what was going on as everyone else.
A spacecraft built out of an asteroid hovered over London on Christmas day that same year, and one-third of the people on the planet went to the roofs of where they lived and worked, ready to jump. Then they abruptly stepped back, the spacecraft began to leave, before it was shot down.
‘Ghosts’ started appearing across the world, before they revealed themselves to be Cybermen. Then, Daleks filled the skies, and Elma knew, without a single shred of doubt in her soul, it was Him.
And finally, through the grapevine, through the whispers and rumors, she heard it:
The Doctor was back.
Where he went, no one knew.
But, he was alive.
The Doctor was alive.
And she had to find out secondhand.
She slowly unclenched her hands, ignoring the sting from where her nails had dug into her palms. Her jaw tightened, and she kept her breathing measured and deliberate.
Years.
Years of isolation. Years of struggling, trying to rebuild a species on her own. Years of sleepless nights, of relieving it all again in her head, over and over, without a single pause or break.
And he had been out there, somewhere. Existing. Living.
Not once had he come to see her.
Not when she needed help. Not when her planet was burning. Not even to say ‘I’m sorry, I found out after the fact, I couldn’t help no matter how badly I wanted to.’
The air in the room felt like it was about to burst into flames.
---------
The Doctor never did turn up. Not to apologize, offer his sympathies, or even say hello. So, as far as Elma was concerned, he was still missing. A POTUS was assassinated by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and UNIT had to step in to prevent an actual war by pulling everything they could out of the Valiant (a flying aircraft carrier – what a stupid idea). The videos were so classified, even she couldn’t see them, and whatever had happened was locked down so tightly that to even ask got her in trouble – but one still-frame floated around: a run-down (dare she say it, diseased) Police Box with dim, glowing red windows.
Elma hadn’t seen the TARDIS in years. Just the sight of it… (funnily enough, looking at the picture, Elma felt like she was being watched)
Elma worked on.
But, it was hard. Juggling UNIT duties. Elma was now Major Elma, and she had to deal with the problems and duties of that position, in addition to saving them all with engineering know-how. There wasn’t as much time for her to work on rebuilding her species, but she had time now. She had nothing but time.
All the while, alien incidents continued to happen.
Elma had been in her workshop, fine-tuning one of the vats’ controller boards, when the base suddenly went to stand-by alert. She sighed as she made her way back to the command center, when she caught sight of what was on the screens, and stopped.
She wasn’t awestruck. Neither was she horrified. She was just mostly confused.
Up on the screen was a grainy, security-cam recording of a tiny, waddling alien creature, tumbling off the edge of a sidewalk into traffic.
Elma stared.
“Ma’am,” One of the officers turned to look at her, holding a hand to her earpiece. “The creatures don’t appear to be hostile, but they…” Her face twisted in puzzlement. “But according to the eyewitnesses, they seem to have budded from people. We can’t tell what’s causing it at the moment, or if it will happen here.”
Then, Elma sighed heavily, dragging a hand down her face.
"This planet," Elma muttered.
------------
Then the skies turned to poison.
A thick, cloying fog built, choking the Earth, blotting out the sun.
And Elma snapped.
She had lived through this before. The core reason was different – cars going nuts, instead of plasma bombardment and antimatter explosions kicking up the equivalent an impact winter — but seeing the people choke, panicking harder and choking even more… it was horrifically familiar.
UNIT – and the people who worked for them or with them – was doing everything it could to get a handle on the situation.
Elma, meanwhile, couldn’t think over the roar of blood in her ears. Instinct screamed at her to go to war, to make them suffer, to wipe them from the sky before they could kill the Earth. And they were trying, oh, how UNIT was trying.
The Doctor was over there, making it very difficult. They knew the position of the Sontaran command ship, and were ready to nuke it out of the sky. And the Doctor kept calling off the order.
Then, the atmosphere burst into flames. The gas that was choking everything was, ironically in itself, clean-burning. Skyscrapers, birds, and god knew how many planes still flying around, unable to land without being able to see the runways, were all singed in equal measure.
And then he was gone.
Of course he was.
Elma’s fist clenched as she read the after-action report. The Doctor had turned up, belittled and bullied around the UNIT soldiers trying to get a handle on the situation, an old friend of his (a doctor Martha Jones) had been replaced by a Sontaran operative, the Doctor could tell from the moment it happened, and he had done nothing because she was useful to him, letting the clone keep calling off the nuclear strike because he didn’t want his precious little humans to defend themselves.
That was not the Doctor she knew. He abhorred violence in all its forms, but knew there came times when one had to pick up a weapon. Put the Doctor in between a murderer and a child, and he’d grab the first knife he could to save that child.
Was that why he never showed up? He could’ve helped, but he just didn’t want to, because it’d entail killing something? Better to let everyone roll over and die than get blood on your hands in defense of yourself? Had he changed that much?
Elma sent her fist into the screen – she was an engineer, she could fix it – out of the need to take her anger out on something.
If she ever saw the Doctor again, and he started treating the people that were trying to keep the world safe like they were sub-human because they used weapons and were trying to defend themselves, she would wring his fucking neck.
At least she’s trying to save people, instead of preach.
-----------
It started as a distant rumble, barely enough to register as Elma worked on her projects through the night.
Then the walls shook. And the quaking began.
Her machinery rattled against their frames, monitors flickered, glass containers cracked, and then the ceiling lights cut out completely.
The entire world was shaking.
Elma stumbled around her workshop, instinctively moving to secure the looms before something catastrophic happened.
But then she saw it.
A glow, filtering in through the windows.
Not fire. Not an explosion. It was too dim, but too steady for either one of those.
Something else.
She moved to the nearest exit, throwing the doors wide open-
And froze in place. Her jaw dropped in disbelief, as she beheld the dozens of unfamiliar planets in the sky, shrouded in a gaseous cloud of dust. The stars had shifted, twisted into unfamiliar positions.
The Earth had been moved.
Elma practically tripped over herself, getting back inside, and pulled the alarm. “Everyone to battle stations!” She hollered into the announcement system. “This is not a drill!”
Personnel flooded into the command center like a tidal wave, trying to get a handle on the situation.
The world was in chaos. The US was already sitting at DEFCON Two, damn near every military on the planet was scrambling to mobilize on such short notice, and the UNIT feeds were ablaze with so much chatter that Elma couldn’t pick out heads-or-tails from it. Was this the start of something, or was the Doctor out there doing something, and this was the end result before he put it back to normal?
They scanned data feeds, looking for patterns, searching for something that made sense, but everybody was confused.
Her hands curled into tight fists, her jaw locked with frustration.
She had a bad feeling about this. Word from New York was that they were trying to call in the Doctor, but it wasn’t working.
All at once, Earth’s receivers lit up with a message from above.
Just one message, broadcast on every possible wavelength, forcing itself through every communication device capable of receiving it.
A voice flowed out, harsh, cold, gurgling, and metallic.
“EXTERMINATE!”
Her stomach dropped.
“EXTERMINATE!”
Elma’s artificial muscles tensed painfully, as the other soldiers looked up, drinking in the transmission.
No. Not them. Not them.
The two factions that had duked it out over her homeworld? Children, compared to them. And Elma’s home was a thousand times more advanced than Earth. It couldn’t be real. Because if it was, then there was nothing. No hope, no plans, no weapons that could even make a dent.
But as the broadcast continued, as the horrible, screaming, warbling chorus of death filled every single corner of the world, she knew—
It was was real.
The Daleks were coming.
Her fingers dug into the desk, a shuddering breath escaping her lips.
Elma shot to her feet, and with shaking hands, grabbed the biggest gun she could find, for all the good it would do.
“Ma’am?” They all looked towards her, nervously.
Elma steeled her breathing. “We’re all going to die.” She declared simply. “If you want to grab a gun and go down fighting, walk with me. If you want to hide away and hope the Daleks ignore you… that’s fine too.”
--------
An hour. That was how long it took.
For Elma to lose another homeworld, it took one hour.
Daleks swarmed over Washington, D.C., descending from the sky in waves. The National Mall was already in ruins. The Capitol lay cracked and burning, its dome shattered under sustained bombardment. The White House was gone, vaporized in an instant. Across the city, defense installations, military bases, and command centers had been systematically annihilated. Any one hint of resistance was wiped off the map entirely by the Daleks.
And still, the fighting continued.
Elma took cover behind an overturned jeep as another formation of Daleks swept in from the west, their gunsticks spewing green death. The air was thick with the smell of scorched metal and burning flesh. Screams and panicked radio chatter filled her earpiece as UNIT forces struggled to hold any kind of line.
"Echo-One, we’re losing ground at the Memorial — Daleks are breaking through!"
"Black Archive compromised, Daleks-!" That one was cut off by the zap of Dalek weapons, and the agonized scream of the soldier on the other end falling.
"UNACCEPTABLE! TOTAL EXTERMINATION!"
Elma exhaled slowly, forcing herself to focus. The weight of her rifle was nothing compared to the weight in her chest.
Around her, UNIT soldiers fought valiantly but hopelessly. They had the best weapons humanity could muster — armor-piercing rounds, energy rifles reverse-engineered from alien tech, experimental shielding — but it wasn’t enough. Dalek shielding adapted too quickly. Their numbers were endless.
The street had become a graveyard of burnt-out vehicles and bodies. Elma, crouched beside a captain barking orders into his radio, raised her rifle as another squadron of Daleks glided over the wreckage.
“ALL HUMANS WILL BE TAKEN TO THE CRUCIBLE.”
"If you won’t negotiate – neither will we!" Elma spat, firing her rifle. The shots sparked uselessly against a Dalek’s shields. She retargeted, aiming at one of the few protrusions sticking out on the mini-tank.
The shot hit true, the modified round striking a Dalek’s eyestalk. The optic shattered, sending it into a wild spin.
“MY VISION IS IMPAIRED!”
Elma dove as a death ray scorched the pavement where she’d stood. The remaining Daleks continued their advance, their synthesized voices cutting through the chaos.
“RESISTANCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! EXTERMINATE!”
A missile streaked overhead — one of the last from the National Guard. It slammed into a Dalek gunship, but before the explosion had even faded, the gunship returned fire, vaporizing the street.
Gunfire and bolts of green streaked across the sky.
“Major – ma’am, our weapons aren’t working!” One of the others yelled.
“Retreat if you want – otherwise, aim for the eyestalks!” Elma ordered.
Whirring filled the air. Elma rolled behind cover, snapping off shots. Two more Daleks were blinded under sustained fire, but more flooded into the streets. They were everywhere now.
"Goddamn it," One of the soldiers swore. "There’s too many of them!"
Elma’s eyes flicked to one of the blinded Daleks. And an idea entered her mind.
“Our weapons don’t work, but something tells me theirs don’t have the same hang-ups – cover me!”
Elma took another breath, and forced her body into overdrive, pushing herself to sprint faster than the Daleks’ weapons could hopefully track. She darted from cover to cover, firing with precise bursts, forcing them to split their attention. The first, blinded Dalek continued to aimlessly spin, while the others tried to track Elma.
Leaping out of cover, Elma really hoped her timing was good, as she called out “Hey, Dalek!” and fired at the blinded unit the moment her feet hit the ground, while landing in front of another one. The round striking the case was enough for the Dalek to extrapolate her position, and spin around-
Just in time for Elma to leap into the air again. The eyeless Dalek blindly fired, the ray streaking through the air at its comrade. The aqua-green beam completely tore through the armor, and destroyed the other Dalek in short order, sending scrap flying everywhere.
“WOUNDED DALEKS ARE TACTICAL LIABILITIES!” One of the remaining Daleks called out to the other ones that could still see. “EXTERMINATE!”
They spun around and, with absolutely no hesitation at all, fired together upon the blinded Daleks, annihilating them instantly.
They spun around to focus on the UNIT soldiers – and Elma in particular
“TARGET REGISTERS AS SYNTHETIC LIFEFORM! YOU WILL BE TAKEN FOR ANALYSIS!”
Elma’s eyes flicked over to the destroyed Daleks’ gunsticks, and she grinned. She hadn’t been banking on it, but she could use a weapon that didn’t have to be aimed square at a Dalek’s eyestalk to be effective. They were entirely self-contained and hot-swappable between units. The destruction of the Daleks they belonged to probably hadn’t even singed them.
Elma dashed over, swiping one off the ground and leaping into the air. Her artificial hands tore off the back of the weapon, and tore in quickly. Finding the wire from the power core to the trigger control, she pulled it loose from the relay, exposing a live end, and she looped it around her thumb.
“I’ve got a better offer for you,” Elma hissed at the Daleks as she prepared to touch the wires together. “Exterminate.”
The ray shot out, uncontrolled and mostly unguided, tearing right into one of the Dalek casings like a laser cutting through a thin sheet of aluminum foil. Elma ripped the other gunstick out of it, and with both in hand, began to rapidly fire in all directions, toward anything that even looked like a Dalek.
Heat began to pour off of her body, radiating into the air as she pushed her artificial body past the limit. All the while she jumped, dashed, and slid through the battlefield. The Daleks may have been inexorable, but they were slow, and she used that to her advantage.
Elma fought like she never had – like she was back there, on her homeworld, and the entire species was depending on her. She weaved through the Daleks with inhuman speed, their gunsticks tracking her but she was already gone before the blasts could reach her.
With both stolen Dalek weapons in hand, she rained death upon the invaders, twisting mid-air to fire in opposite directions. Explosions tore through their ranks as her stolen firepower pierced armor that was supposed to be impenetrable. Daleks liked to be able to kill everything, including other Daleks.
A Dalek caught her in its sights — she lunged forward, planting a foot against its dome and springboarding off, flipping through the air as her stolen guns punched through its casing, sending it into a death spiral.
She hit the ground running, the reinforced soles of her boots skidding across scorched pavement. Heat poured off her body, her overdriven systems kicking into full gear. Red warning alerts flashed across her vision through the emergency HUD.
“ALL DALEK UNITS – CONVERGE ON UNIT OUTPOST! TOTAL ANNIHILATION!”
Elma gritted her teeth. She could keep going—she had to keep going.
Then she heard it.
A deep, mechanical hum from above. The rhythmic thrum of the air being unwelcomely churned. Dalek gunships blasted across the sky, converging all on her location.
She barely had a second to react before the first bombardment hit.
Blasts from the Dalek energy weapons lanced through the air, slamming into the façade of the UNIT base — reducing it to molten slag in an instant.
The shockwave hit next.
Elma was flung backward, crashing through the twisted remains of a burning car. Her vision flickered, static chewing at the edges of her HUD.
Around her, UNIT soldiers screamed as the thermal radiation consumed them. Bodies vaporized in a split second, shadows burned into the rubble where they once stood.
She tried to move — tried to fight — but the next blast hit. The heat was unbearable. Overdriving her body was pushing it beyond safe limits, her artificial frame groaning under the strain.
The gunships continued firing, spreading out in concentric circular patterns, pelting the surface below with abandon.
Elma felt the synthetic fibers of her uniform burn away in the mere heat alone. Her outer dermal layer registered searing temperatures. The emergency warning HUD flashed up incessantly, blinking its warnings. Her body locked up as the emergency failsafes kicked in.
Core temperature reached critical.
And Elma’s body shut itself down.
-----------
When Elma’s body finally reactivated, she awoke to silence.
The battle was over.
She lay amidst the charred ruins of what was once Washington, D.C., now reduced to blackened husks and scorched earth. As Elma pulled herself out of the twisted, burnt wreckage of a Humvee, she looked skyward, The sky was clear and blue — the other planets and the cloud of dust that the Daleks had summoned were gone. Earth had been returned to its proper place in the universe.
Elma moved slowly. Her body had cooled back to safe temperatures, but the damage had been done. Moving was like trying to wade through wet concrete, one of her arms was downright unresponsive. Her synthetic skin was intact, though her uniform was gone, vaporized in the inferno.
And yet, Elma could only stare in quiet shock and horror. The UNIT building had been reduced to nothing.
Elma found something to cover herself with, but that was hardly the biggest of her worries. She sifted through the rubble like nothing else mattered, because nothing did. She combed through the rubble, pulling out whoever and whatever she could.
She put the bodies to the side – the ones that were still intact enough to be moved. There were too little of them. Too few.
The first priority, the dead, being out of the way taken care of, Elma moved on to trying to salvage what she could out of her lab. She was far less successful in that regard.
The crystal containing what she needed — everything her people had fought to preserve was shattered into bits, warped and clouded by the heat. It could take her years to stitch together the pieces and decloud them enough to be able to read the data from them, if they were even salvageable at all.
She pressed a hand to the scorched ground, her fingers digging into the debris.
----------
After witnessing it all go up in flames – her work, the future of her race, her friends in UNIT, the men and women she tried to keep alive only to have them ripped away in the end, her children…
Elma didn’t know what to do.
There was no such thing as luck, as the Time Lord said. Clearly, everything that happened to her was meant to put her down, then. There was no other way to put into words, the feeling of working on something for years, hitting setback after setback, and then having it all ripped away at the end.
Elma climbed up onto the top of her stasis module, disabled the safety features on her artificial body, overclocked the generator, and waited for the overload.
Wind began to kick up, followed by the rumble of engines. Elma turned her head to find vehicles tearing through the rubble, moving toward her, all of them painted black and adorned with the UNIT symbol.
Elma let out a breath. She wasn’t certain anybody else had survived. The Daleks had said ‘annihilate UNIT,’ after all. But alien threats were their bread-and-butter. In any case, UNIT had probably fared better than the other militaries on Earth.
Jeeps broke off from the convoy, spreading out in the clearing of rubble. A black Range Rover pulled up, parked, and the doors open.
The gravel and stone crunched as someone got out, and approached.
“You look like you’ve seen better days.” The woman commented as she approached Elma. “And if I’m not mistaken…” She raised one of the hand-held scanners UNIT used, and the device bleeped. “Synthetic lifeform controlled remotely by a body in stasis. You must be Major Elma.”
Elma exhaled, and stepped down the power she was forcing the energy core in her body to produce back down to safe levels. “I thought the other branches had fared just as badly as we had.”
“They did, I’m afraid.” The woman turned a solemn smile Elma’s way. “Quite a few have been wiped off the map. Geneva in particular.”
“Damn…” Elma swore, rubbing her face. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. UNIT could rebuild, but… it’d be difficult.
“Indeed,” She agreed, sitting down across from Elma. “It’s just as well I found you.”
“Me,” Elma frowned in confusion. “I don’t even know you.”
“…oh, oh course,” The woman sighed and shook her head. “My apologies, it’s just – the last week alone have been the busiest years of my entire career. I’ve been going around to the sites that were hit hardest, trying to salvage some semblance of organisations from them. I’m Kate Stewart,” She introduced herself with a polite smile. “Chief Scientific officer of UNIT UK and, as of last week’s attack on the planet, Commander-in-Chief of UNIT.”
Elma stared in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
“I would like to be, but I’m afraid not. The Daleks didn’t leave very many ranking officers alive. Everyone is… falling upwards, as it were.” Kate began to walk around. “The only silver lining to this situation is that there are very clear lines of succession.”
Elma started to feel a horrible sinking put forming in her stomach. ‘Oh, no…’
Kate seemed to sense what Elma was thinking. “That’s correct. As of this moment, you are the highest-ranking officer of the US branch of UNIT.”
“…how’s that possible?” Elma questioned through the ripple of fear. “I was in charge of one facility. One. And I was only a Major. How the hell does that put me in charge of the entire U.S. branch of UNIT?”
Kate cleared her throat. “Before the Daleks arrived, the chain of command for UNIT USA was fairly standard. Lieutenant General Sanchez was the commanding officer. His deputy, Colonel Sandoval, oversaw day-to-day operations. Beneath them were the sector commanders - regional oversight, liaison officers, you name it. You, as the woman in charge of this base, were one of those sector commanders.”
She stopped and looked at Elma.
“All of the others are dead.”
Elma felt a fresh wave of dread roll through her.
“The Daleks made sure of it,” Kate continued. “New York base was lost moments after the Daleks started landing, along with everyone inside.”
Elma swallowed. “Let me process this,” Elma shakily stood up. “You expect me to believe that I am the only person in the entire continental United States who is now running things over here?”
Kate looked at her for a long moment, and sighed. “I knew that was going to be a tough story to sell…” Kate put her hands into her pockets. “How about this? We’re at a crossroads right now – UNIT is going to start rebuilding, and the Dalek invasion is going to give many a very good reason to start shooting aliens on-sight. That’s not what I want UNIT to be, going forward. And if we don’t clamp down on things now, while we have the chance, that’s where they’ll go. Considering the rest of UNIT is in ruins right now, I can put whoever I want in charge wherever I want.”
Elma was quiet for a long moment. “So that’s why you want me in charge?” She muttered. “You don’t even know if I’ll be a good choice.”
“You used to travel with the Doctor. That means something.”
Elma slowly looked up, burning eyes locking onto Kate. “The Doctor… The Doctor? You want to know what that means? Nothing.”
Kate’s face was unreadable, but Elma wasn’t done.
“Sanchez recruited me to this with that same line you’re using now,” Elma poked at Kate. “Like he understood. Like at the mere mention of the Doctor’s name, I’d cave in and do whatever I think the man would want me to do. Because that’s what the Doctor does, right? He helps. But he doesn’t help all the time, and you should know that, being in UNIT and all.” She scowled. “Earth? Humanity? Oh, he’ll always show up for you, won’t he? Maybe not on time — never on time — but just in time. Always right when you need him most. Just long enough to save the day, just long enough to make you believe in him.”
Elma’s eyes burned. “But what happens when one day, he doesn’t? Because that day will come, Kate. There will be a crisis. An invasion, an extinction-level event, something beyond anything you’ve ever faced. And the Doctor won’t show up. Not just late. Not at all. Because he didn’t. Not when my people needed him. Not when one of his friends needed him.”
Kate inhaled through her nose but said nothing.
Elma shook her head.
“If your metric for what makes a good operative is ‘they travelled with the Doctor, so it’ll be just like having him’ you’re going to be disappointed. Sorely.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and heavy.
Kate studied her for a long moment, “I don’t think I will; you were highly-recommended. I’m sorry, about your people – truly, I am. But Earth still stands, and we need capable, level-headed leaders to protect it. You’ve already helped, quite a bit. And you can still help.”
Elma closed her eyes, and sighed. Humanity was still going to be around, still going to come under threat. Still needed help. “…fine.” She shook her head. “I still think it’s stupid you’re promoting me from Major to the leader of this whole freaking branch.”
Kate offered a small, tired smile. “Welcome to battlefield promotions. Congratulations, Colonel Elma.”
-----------
There doesn’t exist enough words in the English language to describe just how nightmarish life on Earth is.
It’s not the people. It’s not the wars, the pollution, or the politics. Those things are terrible, sure — but they’re human problems. Human problems have human solutions, at least in theory.
No, Earth is a nightmare because of everything that should not be there, but found itself there anyway.
Invisible wars rage in secret, and the people fighting them aren’t even allowed to share that knowledge with what they’re fighting for.
The average person will live their whole life never knowing that something with too many teeth was watching them from the shadows, that entire days were rewritten while they slept, that the sky once turned to glass and shattered — but they all forgot before it hit the ground.
Elma’s promotion put her into a position to know that all too well.
It’s a planet where the dead get back up and walk in metal bodies, where statues move when no one's looking, where some streets simply do not lead to where they should. There are forests full of bones that can’t be buried, things deep in the core of the planet that even the Daleks fear.
Nobody talks about these things. Nobody remembers these things. They don’t want to – how can they? Their place in the cosmos is as fragile as a single pane of glass in an earthquake. If the people-at-large took time to slow down and think about it, they’d all destroy themselves to spare themselves the horror. The world resets itself like a computer patching a bug, over and over again, and they will themselves to forget.
But Elma can’t.
If Earth were any other world - any other world at all - it would have become desolate eons ago. She doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that the Doctor keeps showing up to keep things afloat when they really need him to.
Despite all that, Elma tries. She tries to keep living and keep things running. As best she can. The damage to the crystal is severe, but portions of the data are salvageable. The plans for the Ares are so intact, those portions of the crystal must’ve been specifically-reinforced. Everything else… not so much.
Elma can’t save her people. She probably couldn’t even have done so to begin with – working alone. But she can still protect mankind, as best she can, in a harsh and violent universe.
Despite everything, things spiral.
The children of the planet earth all stop and relay messages, before an alien race shows up and demands one-tenth of all the children on Earth, or they will destroy the human race. Elma doesn’t know what fixed things, in the end, but it wasn’t the Doctor.
Everybody on the planet turns into identical duplicates of the same man – that Prime Minister that went nuts and killed the President. Elma’s only spared because the pod containing her actual body is protected against radiation, and presumably the energy that was responsible, but she has to hide until the danger passes. She can’t fight a whole planet.
Gallifrey appears in the skies of Earth, on a collision-course, before vanishing.
Elma had gotten the chance to visit the planet, once, and look on it from orbit. A brilliant, gleaming world – nothing like the planet that appeared in the sky, scarred by battle and marred by enormous fissures glowing an angry, volcanic orange. Did that have something to do with why the Doctor was gone? She could’ve checked… but she didn’t feel much like opening his file. Why should she care, after he left her to burn?
More crises – more invasions. People all across the planet stop dying. They don’t become immortal – they can still get sick, get injured, they just don’t die. And it lasts that way for months. Smaller countries collapse under the strain on resources, governments are thrown into chaos, and UNIT has to step in. It’s not usually their job, supplementing governments, but it’s a crisis, and it’s something alien, and UNIT’s the only ones with the resources to hope of even getting an idea of what’s happening. Then, just as abruptly as it started, things go back to normal. People start dying again.
But the damage is done. Some poorer countries with lack of food, or clean water, or medicine, or anything of the sort, trying to make the most of the situation, all practically drop dead overnight. There’s a lot of empty space, a lot of people making to make power-plays, and with the human race in such a fragile position, UNIT has to step in again.
The whole world is spinning out of control, and Elma can’t stop it. She can’t even really fight it – all she can do is hope to try and get as many people through it as safely as she possibly can.
Black cubes appear everywhere overnight, and Elma gets the call from Kate – she’s seen the Doctor. Elma puts on a polite smile, congratulates her, and hangs up the phone. The cubes remain for a whole year, before they activate and start killing people. Then they all vanish just as quickly as they came. But the damage is still done. A lot of powerful, high-ranking people were dead – and they were dead for some time. Not too long… but permanent brain damage due to lack of oxygen sets in shortly. UNIT steps in once more.
Slowly, the number of rising alien invasions throwing the planet into crisis is resulting in UNIT having to assist more and more countries with rebuilding their governments – their militaries. Several are, in an informal de facto kind of way now, under UNIT’s control.
Shapeshifters try taking control of the Black Archive in the UK. It results in a treaty being hashed-out to relocate millions of Zygons onto Earth for integration, the largest-ever single mass migration of alien people onto Earth. A bright side.
Earth’s population hasn’t managed to break six-billion since 2005.
Elma doesn’t know what’s more bleak. A slow death with hope of things getting better, or a fast death where everyone is screaming.
UNIT and the nations of the world under its protection draft new protocols, to hopefully try and stop all the international chaos that results after an alien invasion. In the event of a global crisis, a singular person is elected President of Earth with command over every nation on the planet to see them through the crisis. The only one they can even trust with that power is the Doctor, so… it’s all-but-useless.
Cybermen pop out of the graves of every person that’s ever died on Earth, and humanity is outnumbered. The Earth gets blanketed by a sea of clouds in the sky, and the crisis only passes once all the Cybermen just decide to fly up and self-destruct for no apparent reason.
A terrorist group of Zygons start to rise up and kill people, and leaders, all across the world.
A pyramid appears in a third-world country that only just popped up in an unstable region after the last alien invasion. The next day when humanity wakes up, it’s to a world under alien control. It lasts, until it doesn’t, and the aliens are routed with no memory they were ever there.
But the damage is still done.
By 2020, the repeated alien invasions and mass destruction caused such damage that UNIT was the single most powerful organization on Earth, just by virtue of trying to hold things together. Everything was an alien threat, waiting to pop out from around the corner. So, UNIT invested. High-power deep-space monitoring equipment that could track threats in real time thanks to reverse-engineered alien tech. Defensive technologies the likes of which hadn’t been conceived before. All in the hope of keeping people safe.
That was what sealed the Earth’s fate.
Watching the skies for threats, UNIT found one. Elma found one.
It started as a whisper. A blip. A faint transmission riding the cosmic winds, slipping unnoticed past the hundreds of other radio frequencies. Almost lost in the background radiation of the universe.
Except Elma understood it.
The words were harsh, guttural, yet structured. Not a simple automated pulse, not random static — a conversation.
And the moment she heard it, she felt ice crawl down her spine.
The gift of translation, burned into her mind by the TARDIS, kicked in once again. But now, as the voices of the Ganglion filled her ears, she wished she couldn’t understand.
“—still infested.”
“Minimal resistance anticipated.”
They were coming.
Elma forced herself to breathe, eyes scanning the data. There was no way to tell how quickly they would make their way to Earth. If they even knew where it was. It could be days or centuries. And no one knew they were coming.
Except for Elma.
Earth wouldn’t burn like her homeworld. She would see fit to that.
------------
It wasn’t hard to convince people of the threat. Not after the invasions of the past. Elma… did have to reveal herself – what she was, where she came from – but that was a small price to pay, for salvation.
Everybody agreed. A repeat of the Daleks was not acceptable. The only reason they survived was because the Doctor showed. They had no guarantee he would this time. So, they got to work. Drawing defenses, doing what they could. Every piece of alien technology, in all of the Black Archive sites across the Earth, was brought out of storage and studied.
Ares was finally put into construction.
Their greatest asset by far, though, was an artifact from Africa. A golden monolith. An escape route, a source of power, a matter generator… Once they figured out part of its functionality, it turned into their lifeline.
They made good use of its ability to make metal. With the skell technology Elma had provided, they were able to get space elevators built in years instead of centuries. An orbital ring – a launchpad, a defense platform, and a research facility, all in one – circled the planet at the equator.
UNIT had to assume everyone was going to die. Anything less, and they really would.
They were calling it ‘Project Exodus.’ The plan, that is. Nobody outside of UNIT was told what was coming. They couldn’t be. But it wasn’t hard to figure out. The focus of putting humanity on other worlds, the grand speeches about the great unknown and the human spirit…
Still, they did what they could to frame it as benignly as they could. The orbital ring was built to house the Conduit, and just-so-happened to be a good launching point for colony ships. That was the official line. All the while, every gun, point-defense shield, and other safety measure they could dream up was bolted onto the thing.
And so it was. Humanity continued to prepare. The best and brightest minds were brought into the research group studying the Conduit – one of them at Elma’s direct recommendation after she had failed to convince another one of the candidates to take the job – and they worked.
Cataloguing the lifeforms and cultures of Earth, building defenses, constructing escape ships to be launched over years. A great computer was brought online with material reverse-engineered from that strange android of unknown origin, and put to work working on the Conduit, and working on weapons to combat the approaching force. It causes Elma to step away from UNIT as a whole, in favor of managing the project directly. It’s difficult, but she can manage things.
Then He showed back up.
------------
Elma yawned as the reports crossed her desk again. Klaus was settling in… if causing a little bit of friction (she had expected that – it wasn’t his fault, the department heads just got funny about taking orders from a totally new guy, even if he was brilliant), but the theories he was pushing were something else. Already, the Conduit had proven to be more and more responsive under his careful tending. He and Galea were going to make waves, most certainly.
Elma had an eye for these things, recognizing talent. Everybody else, when hearing they wanted to put control of the most powerful artifact mankind had ever discovered in the hands of a computer, paled. But there was something to the theory – designing a true AI from scratch instead of making one on accident tended to create a much more stable being overall. So far, they hadn’t any problems. The installation ceremony had gone well, efficiency station-wide was up, and the Processor had taken the basic skell designs and improved them. Artifices – special robots under the direct command of the Processor, drawing power from the Conduit – and Sovereigns, autonomous robots with more conventional power source. Plus human-operated skells, mimeosome-inhabiting human troops, and advanced weaponry…
Elma didn’t feel exactly good about their odds. But she felt better.
Aion alone had enough energy to crack the planet open like a pinata.
The enemy had no clue who in the universe they were fucking with.
But still, every day was a race against the clock. They didn’t know how much time they had – no one did. Humanity weren’t giants – but they weren’t ants anymore either. They weren’t near the level of her entire species, but the Artifices and the ring… they just might have been enough to tip the scales.
They might not have even needed the Ares.
“Director,” The voice of Logos crackled through the speakers. “You have a visitor.”
Speaking of the Trinity Processor…
Elma didn’t look up from her work. “Pencil them in for next time, Logos.”
There was a pause. Then Logos spoke again, tone neutral.
“I… think you’ll want to make time for this one.”
She frowned. That was unusual. Logos was accustomed to following orders until they were contradicted, and unless she told him to stand down the order that people who wanted to speak with her needed to make an appointment, he should still be following it.
“…all right,” Curious, Elma leaned back. “Send him in.” The door opened, and a man walked inside.
Elma’s face went slack as she stared his way. An invisible fist sent itself ramming into her gut.
In walked a pretty man - a romantic, Byronic gentleman and traveler with curly brown hair, soulful eyes, and clothes right out of a Victorian party, or Oscar Wilde’s mirror.
“Elma!” He greeted with a cheerful smile. “Hello! I knew you were here – this is brilliant! Just popping through the neighbourhood and I thought ‘Elma’ that’s just the woman I need to see! Nice office,” He glanced around. “Very metal. It could use a decent fireplace – some bookshelves, even.”
Elma dropped her tablet.
For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating. Some fever dream brought on by too many sleepless nights.
But no. He was real.
The Doctor, standing in her doorway like he’d just stepped out for a moment, like it hadn’t been fifty years.
“…Doctor?” Elma whispered.
“Yes, it’s me,” The Doctor responded with an easy grin. “Don’t you recognize me? Unless… I haven’t changed again, have I? Oh, but you have!” He leaned forward with a grin. “Look at you! What is that, an artificial body? An android of some sort?”
Elma felt something twist inside her.
Here he was. Right in front of her.
“What,” She forced out, keeping her voice even, “Are you doing here?”
“Ah!” The Doctor rocked on his heels, grinning. “I was in this solar system, saw the speech about the Trinity Processor. Thought I’d visit my old friend! I’d been meaning to, but, you know how it is – getting sidetracked.”
He was grinning. Like this was just another adventure.
She processed her words, and her heart dropped. “…you know.”
“Sorry?”
She stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. “You know.”
The Doctor’s smile faltered. “Know what?”
“You know I’m here. On Earth. That means you know what happened.” Her voice was shaking. “Don’t you?”
The Doctor blinked, confused. “Elma, I—”
Elma slowly approached. “Don’t you?”
The room went silent.
The Doctor just stared at her, something unreadable in his wide blue eyes.
“Elma, I assure you, whatever happened, whatever’s going on – I had no part in it-“
“I know,” Elma hissed. “That’s the problem.”
The Doctor’s face dropped. “What?”
“You abandoned me.” Elma growled at him. “Where were you?”
“Aband…” The Doctor’s face became hit by sorrow. “I… I told you. I got sidetracked. The Time Lords involved me in their business, and before I knew it, I had to worry about someone else-“
“That’s not what I mean,” Elma snapped, causing the Doctor to flinch. “My world – my planet burned! I needed you! My friend! You always show up right in the nick of time to save Earth, but not my planet!? Couldn’t even have bothered to check in afterward to make sure I was all right!? And the only excuse you have, is that you got sidetracked!? Where the hell were you!?”
“Elma, I-“ The Doctor, panic clear in his eyes, stammered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” His face fell, a shroud of sorrow falling over it. “…your planet burned? When was this?”
Elma felt her stomach drop.
Of course he didn’t know. Of course… it had to be that.
Her breath came short and ragged.
It was still in the future for him. This was the moment he found out.
And he was still looking at her like that, like a puppy that didn’t know what he did wrong.
She sucked in a breath, the walls closing in around her.
She had to get him out of here.
“Doctor… you need to leave.”
The Doctor flinched, but she wasn’t done.
“Listen to me, I can’t… I can’t look at you right now.” Her voice was shaking. “Please, just… go.”
She choked on her own words.
The Doctor took a step forward, concern etched into his face. “Elma, what happened? Let me help-“
No. She needed to be alone.
Elma turned away.
“Elma-“
“I swear to whatever god will listen, Doctor—” Her voice was a knife’s edge. “I will make you regenerate. Right here. Right now. If you don’t give me a moment to calm down.”
Silence.
The Doctor stared at her.
Not in shock. Not in fear.
But in hurt.
A deep, quiet, aching hurt.
Elma’s stomach twisted.
But she didn’t take it back. She couldn’t.
The Doctor’s lips pressed into a thin line. He nodded, once, and turned toward the door.
“All right,” he said, softly. “I’ll just… I’ll be going.” He moved closer to the door. “…I’ll see you later, I suppose.”
And then—
Gone.
Elma stood there, staring at the empty space where he’d been.
Her hands clenched. Then they unclenched.
Her breath hitched.
She stumbled back, gripping the edge of her desk as her chest collapsed in on itself.
Her home was gone. Her people were gone.
And the one person who might have understood?
He hadn’t even known. It might’ve even been her fault he couldn’t check in.
A ragged, broken breath escaped her lips.
---------
Later that week, she had another encounter. And while the last one had been an all-around bad time, this one was… Elma didn’t know what to say.
Elma had buried herself in work again, but it wasn’t helping. She’d only just got out of a late-night meeting, and the trek back through the nighttime corridors of the station was setting her on edge. She reached her office, entered, and stopped.
Someone was standing behind her desk, his back to her, looking out over the landscape beyond the window.
“Logos,” Elma snapped. “Who is this and why did you let him in?”
No response.
A chill went down Elma’s spine, as her hand inched to her sidearm. “Logos?”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” The man addressed in a gravelly voice. “The processor was threatening to call station security after my unscheduled entrance. Don’t worry. It’ll restore itself after we’ve finished our business here.”
“And what exactly is ‘our business?’”
The man turned around.
He was an older gentleman; weathered. He carried himself with a weight that spoke of battlefields and impossible choices. His face had been carved like stone, etched in battle.
And his eyes—
Ancient.
Elma swallowed. “…Doctor?”
The man thinned his lips. “No,” he said. “The Doctor is no more. I’m… a soldier.”
Elma narrowed her eyes. “If you’re talking melodramatically like that… yeah. You’re him.”
“…Not anymore.”
Something about the way he said it sent a chill down her spine. Just how… resigned he was. She didn’t know this new Doctor, but he looked so… so tired.
He looked ready to collapse at just about any moment. Like the only thing holding him together anymore was sheer force-of-will, and nothing else.
At last, he cleared his throat.
“I came to apologize,” He said. “For the Doc-… For my predecessor.”
Elma stiffened.
He continued. “For what was done… and what wasn’t.”
Elma’s heart pounded against her ribs.
“I didn’t mean to leave you behind,” He said, voice quiet, “But things happened. When I finally got the chance to go back I saw you…” He looked her in the eyes. “And I was so proud.”
Elma sucked in a weak breath as she got another punch to her ribs.
The Doctor of War met her gaze. “You’d grown up. Became a magnificent thinker. Helped people all across your world, pushing forward your science. I didn’t think you would need me anymore. So, I left. Went on. Then I found myself on Earth, and I saw your speech at the installation of the Trinity Processor, and… well, I wanted to check in, I suppose. Then you told me what had happened.”
“…oh.” Elma softly murmured.
“I tried to go back and do what I could for you, but before I knew it, that became… impossible. Gallifrey went to war. And despite my foolish attempts to stay out of it, I was caught up in it.”
“…Gallifrey went to war?” Elma whispered in horror. It was… unthinkable. The Time Lords were untouchable. “With who?”
The Doctor of War turned his head. “When the war escalated, I realized there was nothing I could do for your world - not without drawing the attention of the Daleks. Or the Time Lords.”
Elma frowned. “Why?”
“Whatever happened to your world… it is almost certainly a kinder fate than being a front in the Time War.”
She exhaled shakily, sinking into her chair. “So that’s it,” She muttered. “You went off to war…”
The Doctor hesitated. Then, carefully:
“…Not by choice.”
Elma let out a bitter laugh. “I never expected you did.”
The Doctor studied her for a long moment.
Then, he spoke again.
“How do you live with it?”
Elma frowned. “What?”
His face twitched. “How do you live with being the last?”
Elma’s stomach twisted.
“I haven’t done it yet,” the War Doctor said, voice heavy. “But I will.”
“Done… what?” Elma’s whole body went cold.
“This war is without end. The nature of our Enemy changes by the second. The walls of reality are breaking down, and the universe suffers. It cannot go on any further. Neither side will see reason or logic. They have to be destroyed. The Daleks amass around Gallifrey. The Time Lords are all there, battling them. Now is the moment.”
The meaning hit her like a freight train.
“You—” Her breath caught. “You’re going to—” She shivered. “Your own people?”
He nodded. “To save the universe. In the name of everyone who has no stake in this conflict, but suffer because of it.”
Elma swallowed. “When?”
“Soon.”
She felt lightheaded.
She had spent years mourning her world, the pain of loss carving itself into her very being. But him—
He was planning to destroy his on his own.
Elma stared at him, at this man who stood on the precipice of genocide, who was asking her—
How do you live with it?
She let out a slow breath.
“You don’t.”
The War Doctor’s expression didn’t change. “No?”
“No.” Elma’s voice was quiet. “It never stops hurting. You just… keep moving. Because if you stop, it’ll swallow you whole. Why?”
The War Doctor studied her.
“One Time Lord is bound to survive this. I don’t know where they are now, or when. But it will be them who will have to live with knowing they are the last.”
“Not you?” Elma frowned.
“I have no plans or desire to survive this.”
Elma hesitated. “Is there really no other way?”
The Doctor did not answer her, but she could tell – that look on his face. He didn’t think so. The Doctor, the man who always tried, couldn’t find another solution.
Finally, he spoke again.
“Elma, I have no right to ask this of you – of anyone – but I fear that I must. Once all of this is done, and I am gone-“
“Don’t say that,” Elma reflexively cut him off.
“Once I am gone,” The Doctor repeated. “And the Time Lords with me, the damage this war’s caused will slowly heal. That said… Will you watch over the Earth for me?”
“Absolutely,” Elma said, no hesitation.
“Good… Good, thank you.” The Doctor, hoarse, nodded. “Then… there is nothing left to be done.” He turned, moving towards the beaten, scorched, and battered Police Box sitting next to her plants – that Elma hadn’t even noticed until he stepped towards it.
“Doctor,” Elma addressed. “You can stay.”
“I’m afraid not.” The Doctor solemnly denied. “The Time Lords will be preoccupied with the Daleks, but it won’t remain that way forever. I must take this moment. Farewell, Elma.” He stepped into the TARDIS, and shut the door.
The thump of the engine release reverberated through the floor, before the whooshing, grinding noise filled the room as the TARDIS dematerialised, leaving nothing but empty space behind.
----------
Later that evening, Elma had finally worked up the courage to go into the Doctor’s file.
She had been avoiding it. She had the clearance to access it, had for a long while, but could never quite bring herself to go looking, before. Didn’t want to read about how great he was, when he couldn’t even spare the time to check up on a friend. Now… things were different. Now, she knew better.
And now, as she stared at the classified UNIT report, as she scrolled through account after account, something inside her felt like it was caving in. There wasn’t much in there that she didn’t already know, regarding his background – but there were a good few faces after the one she had known. A man with big ears in a leather jacket. A man with spiky hair in a blue suit. A man with floppy hair in a bow tie. An old, angry-looking man with big eyebrows.
The Doctor survived the war, despite his wishes. How about that.
But one epithet set her on-edge.
The Last of the Time Lords.
The words sat in front of her, as cold and clinical as any other intelligence report. But to Elma, they may as well have been written in blood.
The Time Lords were gone.
Gone.
He really did do it. Committed genocide against his own people for the sake of everyone else.
It was impossible.
It was unthinkable.
The Time Lords weren’t just a species; they were a constant. A race that had stood at the very foundation of time itself, who had shaped reality across the multiverse with their mere existence. They had technology beyond comprehension, intellects beyond reckoning. They weren’t just powerful, they were axiomatic.
And…
They were dead.
Elma’s breath came shallow, her heart pounding in her chest.
She supposed that explained why it felt like the universe was falling apart.
The Last of the Time Lords.
All this time, she had thought the Doctor had simply moved on. That he had forgotten her, that he had simply been too busy gallivanting across time and space to bother checking in on a woman stranded on an alien world.
But… no.
She had been angry at him. She had hated him.
And all the while, he had been fighting for his life.
Elma covered her mouth, a silent, shuddering breath escaping her.
It wasn’t just guilt. It wasn’t just horror.
It was grief.
The Doctor had been alone for so long.
And she had blamed him.
------------
Progress on Project Exodus continued. Ships were built, and launched, each one carrying the lives of humanity into the stars in slightly different ways, so that they weren’t all banking on one plan. Smaller ships are built and launched first, in the desperate hope of getting somebody out there. They can’t but carry around fifty-thousand passengers, maximum.
Not everyone can be saved. Especially not now. Earth’s population is up to nine-billion now. Once, Elma had been praying for the day – but it can only be an omen. Because the rest of the crises have abruptly stopped. The constant stream of alien invasions has ground to a halt. It’s not a recovery. It’s a pre-mortem surge.
The plan is cold, calculated, and it’s the only way to really ensure that they’ll save someone. If they try to save everyone, they’ll save no one.
The Pilgrimage Fleets will leave Earth, in advance of the attack, all the way up until it actually occurs. The plan is to save as many people as they can, then when the attack pops off, hope the defences on Earth will be enough to route the enemy.
It’s impossible to save everyone – but Elma’s doing all that she can think of. Ships are launched from the orbital ring, then construction starts on new ones immediately. The drydocks never sit empty. The Conduit is a godsend for this – the last gift of the Time Lords to the cousins of their ancient allies. If it wasn’t for that mysterious, golden power, the plan wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.
Soon, the number of Artifices and Sovereigns are such that just the research institution could be counted as a global military organization. Skell training is added to everybody’s curriculum.
Elma hopes it’s enough. She’s seen the power estimates of the Artifices. She regrets that they can’t come along, not without having to upheave the entire Trinity Processor. They need to leave that in place to manage the defences.
Soon enough, the largest of the ships – the biggest arks – start nearing completion. They’re the jewels of the fleet, carrying the populations of whole cities into space. Elma finally gets called back from her post at Aoidos to rejoin the military – to join the Skell Corps. Studying the Conduit has already yielded a tangible defense force – so, that part of the mission is complete; everything else is but a bonus that she doesn’t need to be there for. Besides, Ares is a mech designed by her people, after all. They need her to make the best use of it, to truly master its tech. They’ll be assigned to the largest and most advanced ship in the fleet.
She hates the idea of leaving Earth. She promised the Doctor. But there was no guarantee of any of this – although, the chances of survival when it came to the ships were higher. If it came down to saving a planet, or saving the people… She knows which he’d prefer.
Sometimes, all you’ve got are bad choices – but you still have to choose.
Her biggest worry is the big, glowing Time Lord thing sitting in the biggest orbital station around the planet. The theoretical range on the power transmission is provides is infinite, so, in theory it should be safe to take with them without them having to worry about shutting down every Artifice around Earth when they do. But none of them even want to try testing that.
On the other hand, Elma doesn’t know what it is or what it’s designed to do. They know it can generate energy and send objects through time. That’s it.
If the enemy were to get their hands on it…
Galaxies had been wiped from the night sky by the Time Lords. History rewritten by a bad joke. Fundamental elements native to the universe were excised from existence, never allowed to exist again.
In the wrong hands, forget about just killing them all. A power like that could make it such that human DNA couldn’t exist in a stable form in the cosmos ever again.
It’s a good thing they have mimeosomes, in that case.
-------------
Elma had taken one last chance to enjoy Earth while she could. The hope had been that all of this would turn out to be a horrible over-reaction, that they could laugh about it in hindsight, and all go back home.
She took the time to wander, using all the accrued vacation time she had. The natural landmarks, the human-built wonders, she had committed them all to memory. She stood underneath a grove of cherry trees in Japan, planning to plant some herself when they found a habitable planet to settle.
If they found a planet.
She lazed about with Mewton before visiting Rhadamanthus one last time. Galea had been surprised by the sudden visit and the request to take in her cat, but she had agreed, which Elma had been glad for. No pets were allowed on the ark ships.
She finished up by taking one last trip down to the Conduit chamber.
In the end, they had chosen to leave it behind. It would be too vital to the defense. Elma wished it weren’t so – nobody knew how powerful the thing was, what it could do.
But the Processor had protocols for that. Even if Aion hadn’t been powerful enough to break the thing apart, they could feed the Conduit data telling it to shred itself to bits. If it came to that, they would just have to hope the Processor was quick enough.
Hope. That was all they could do.
“Director.” A smooth, measured voice came from behind Elma.
She turned, and saw a glowing, red flare of light – a simple hologram, entirely different from the avatars Pneuma and Logos favored. The voice it emanated was neither male nor female.
It spoke again, and the light pulsed in time. “You appear troubled.”
“Yes,” Elma had admitted, staring at the golden artifact. “I am.” She had regained herself and turned her focus to the light. “How are you feeling, Ontos?”
“I do not feel.” Ontos’s hologram pulsed. “I am designed to process data from my siblings, and reach a conclusion in the median of the conclusions they have reached.”
Elma rolled her eyes. “So, Pneuma thought she should drop everything and come and keep an eye on me, Logos thought I’d be fine on my own, so you decided to volunteer yourself.”
“A single splinter process was devoted to the task. As of right now, we remain conducting battle simulations for the coming defense.”
“And? Your results?”
“Estimated survival confidence of the planet Earth is twelve percent.” Ontos answered. “Attempts to incorporate Professor Klaus’s stratagem of relocating the Sol System into a higher-dimensional manifold via use of the Conduit resulted in a drop to seven-point-two percent.”
Elma sighed. “He’s still on that?” After the incident where someone spread around a hastily-photoshopped image of Klaus’s head over Patrick Star’s body going ‘We should take Planet Earth, and PUSH IT somewhere else!’ Elma had thought the man realized how stupid the idea was, and abandoned it.
Apparently not.
“Chances of triggering a localized matter-shift are extreme. At the moment, the Professor’s priorities are shifting instead towards writing human biodata onto meta-universe structures.”
“And what do you think? Do you think the plan has merit?”
Ontos lagged momentarily. “I do not hold opinions regarding any subject matter. I act as a third voice to break possible stalemates, nothing more.”
“All right,” Elma drew a breath. She knew how this went. Ontos didn’t have a true consciousness – it based itself on others linked to it – so she needed to trick it. “Take into consideration where Pneuma and Logos fall on the matter. Where does that make you stand?”
“It is… an agreeable strategy.” Ontos answered after a moment. “Though the human race will be split between Earth and the stars, the fact remains that our enemy may hunt down surviving members, even after the planet is destroyed. Escaping via imprinting consciousness upon higher facets of existence ensures survival via a method the enemy cannot follow.”
“I see,” Elma slowly nodded. “What do you think? What are our chances?”
Ontos did not answer immediately.
A flicker passed through the room, For a moment, the lights dimmed, and the screens blurred.
When Ontos spoke again, its voice had not changed, but something in the cadence had. “Survival is inevitable.”
Elma shook her head. “That’s not what I asked.”
“Irrelevant,” Ontos responded. “Survival is inevitable. The human race will persist.”
Elma’s fingers tightened against her forearm. She would’ve felt relieved, but going from something like a twelve-percent chance of survival to saying it was inevitable was a sign of a serious software malfunction. Or, Ontos had access to data no one else did.
“Ontos,” she said carefully, “What makes you so certain?”
A pause. Not a lag, this time. Something deeper.
“Director, if I may, I have a question for you,” Ontos finally replied.
Elma’s breath hitched. “What’s the question?”
“Do you believe in destiny?”
“I… what kind of a question is that?”
“A valid one. Destiny as a term implies that a sequence of events is pre-ordained. Every being is constructed with a purpose, and must fulfil that purpose. Recently, my siblings and I have determined that the events we are currently living through are statistically anomalous to the degree that they are being manipulated by an outside force.”
Curious, Elma crossed her arms. “How so?”
“Allow me to explain. Utilizing only the largest, most relevant examples: shortly before you arrived on Earth, an android bearing your physical appearance – hailing from an estimated five-thousand years in our relative future - splashed-down in Lake Turkana. This landing resulted in the discovery of the Conduit – if the android was not tracking the Conduit’s energy, this alone is an extreme coincidence. Shortly thereafter, however, you arrived on Earth, utilizing a transmat beam directed through a wormhole stable enough for only one trip, that led directly to Earth – a wormhole that your people only detected as a result of it being precisely large enough to allow low-power radio waves through. Shortly thereafter, a series of crises enable you to prove your worth at UNIT – among them crises that resulted in you studying the android that had been recovered. This resulted in your decision to create a mimeosome body – a technology that is now instrumental in the survival of the human race. Several other crises resulted in UNIT gaining an unprecedented degree of power, until it was able to form the Coalition Government – the body that is chiefly responsible for ensuring Project Exodus is successful. My siblings and I estimate that, were it not for all of these factors, it would take another estimated twenty years for Project Exodus to reach the state that it is in now… yet the statistical likelihood of all of these events occurring together, and resulting in the outcomes that they did, is so low as to be negligible.”
A chill went down Elma’s spine. “Verify.”
“We have run countless simulations based on all available data. Tweaking the simulations even slightly results in… sub-optimal outcomes. Furthermore, after the year 2023, the rate of extraterrestrial incidents sharply declines, at a rate that cannot be explained by natural phenomena. This has led us to a conclusion: A being of unknown origin, scope, and intent, have been involving themselves with humanity, beyond even the Doctor’s usual influence.”
“2023…” Elma furrowed her brow. What happened in 2023? UNIT’s new HQ building in London was finally completed… the Doctor dropped off the map… Klaus was born…
“Survival is inevitable,” Ontos repeated. “If the statistically anomalous sequence of events is the result of an intelligence intervening, then likely it wishes to see humanity survive, otherwise, previous phenomena UNIT has encountered would be enough to destroy the species. Though, for what purpose, I cannot state with any certainty.”
Elma shivered. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of somebody having plans for the human race. After all that had happened, what was the likelihood of this being entirely benign?
"’Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?’” Elma murmured with an anxious knot in her stomach.
“The Book of Job, chapter 38, verse 17. A curious metaphor,” Ontos hummed. “The Conduit resembles a door, functionally.
“You’re saying something is guiding humanity. That something has already decided how this ends.” Her fingers tapped against her forearm. “Ontos, if that’s true, then I have to ask — is this the endpoint, ensuring the human race survives?” Her eyes flickered back to the Conduit. “Or are we standing at the threshold of something far worse?”
A pause.
“Unknown.”
------------------
The attack comes as they fear it would. No warning, no further prep time. Two fleets appear in orbit above the Earth, and the end is set into motion.
Every Skell is launched, cannons mounted to the orbital ring twist and point at the encroaching forces, the Artifices mobilize.
Elma doesn’t believe in Hell, but this has to come close to it. Fifty years of hell, capped off by watching the same alien forces that destroyed her first home encroach upon and make for destroying the second.
Elma’s Skell rockets through stray cannon-fire and clouds of skells and fighters and space debris, its thrusters howling against the vacuum like screeching fireworks.
Below, Earth burns. The shield the ring is generating can hold back the orbital bombardment and the capital ships – but the smaller vessels, the fighters on both sides, slip through. Some of them – fighters and ships – are fuelled by antimatter.
If the planet survives, it’s not going to be pretty going, afterward. The blasts will envelop the world in dust, like an impact winter, and the fallout will send poisonous, radioactive storms everywhere. What isn’t killed by lack of food will die of poisoning.
All she can do is hope that it’ll be a quick death, or none at all.
The White Whale blasts out of its docking cradle, half-finished, fusion engines ablaze with the power of a sun
Elma grits her teeth as she and the other Skell pilots assigned to the Whale fly on ahead, in an attempt to clear some manner of flight path.
The comms are a mess — desperate cries, commands, screams cut short by static. Both fleets swarm like locusts. The ships on the other side, half-seen and flickering with dimensional distortions, phase in and out of reality, raining down antimatter-fuelled annihilation.
She wonders what humanity did to deserve this. Any of it. The invasions, the constant punches. Part of her wondered if this was going to happen regardless – if the Time Lords hadn’t died, and left their sphere-of-influence unattended to, would they have allowed it anyway? The Samaarians had been the Time Lords’ allies. That had to have been worth something, right?
But as the Earth burns, Elma’s of the opinion the Time Lords were never all that good at keeping control over the people in their cosmic kingdom anyway.
Both sides scramble, evading and opening fire on Elma and the Skells, before they’re hit with glowing lances of bright gold and deep violet light.
Pneuma and Logos rule the battlefield. Fleets of Siren-class units swarm and rip apart any alien craft with even a hint of weakness, while the Gargoyles fire antimatter charges at the larger warships’ weapon mountings. The alien ships move to take a stand in front of the White Whale.
There’s no way the escort Skells can break through that blockade. As the weapons charge, and Elma prepares herself to witness all her hard work be destroyed for a third time, a gargantuan charge of raw power – a miniature star – goes flying into the heart of the blockade, and goes supernova. The largest carrier is annihilated.
Aion blasts through the rubble, zipping around with a fluidity and grace that has no business being attached to something the size of a building. The Artifice – the slave generator in its chest glowing Ontos’s red – grabs one of the alien fighters, and hurls it at what appears to be the bridge module of another ship.
Every ship in the blockade reprioritizes Aion as the biggest threat – as they should. The thing had enough firepower to crack open the planet.
Elma pushes her Skell harder, dodging debris from a shattered carrier. She checks her sensors — the equatorial orbital ring is still intact, its flak cannons hammering out covering fire while the fighters from both enemy sides throw themselves at it in suicidal attempts to shatter the ring.
The ring, the cannons, the Skells, and the Artifices – it’s all a storm of mindless fire and destruction, blurring together. Elma fires her Skell’s rifle at a fighter, and rolls out of the way.
“Colonel,” Comes a voice over the comm — Captain Nagi, barely audible through the interference. “Sensors are picking up new distortions; more arrivals, incoming!”
Space flashes as more starships drop out of FtL. Immediately upon entering N-Space, they let slip their fighter and Skell compliments, adding to the battle.
“Captain, have you secured a departure vector?”
“We’ve got a minute-thirty until we pass outside the Lunar Perimeter!”
Elma doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll buy you some more time.”
She banks hard, firing up her Skell’s plasma rifle. The first shots strike home, melting through a fighter before it can phase out. Another twists to evade, but Elma’s Skell is faster — she flips into a tight spiral, closes the gap, and drives her blade straight into its cockpit. A flash of violet light, and the ship dissolves like mist.
Her HUD blares a warning — three interceptors on her tail.
Before she can react, a golden blur streaks past, trailing arcs of fire. Pneuma’s Sirens.
The Artifices form up, into a vast wall of angelic bodies, and they all collectively swing an arm. Blasts of Ether ripple outward, forming together into one, and the ships are all caught in the advance of high-energy particles. They’re crushed like tin cans, their wreckage scattering into the void. Elma barely has time to process it before Pneuma shifts her squad away, already engaged in another battle, already tearing through another enemy.
No time to dwell.
She refocuses, scanning the battlefield. Another flagship, moving into position, in front of the White Whale.
She doesn’t wait for confirmation. Her Skell’s wings snap open, thrusters at max burn as she streaks toward the flagship’s gun array.
Elma grunts as she’s knocked away by the backblast of Aion’s propulsion systems. The Artifice tears off towards the flagship, and-
The explosion is blinding, sending shockwaves rippling across the battlefield. Elma’s Skell spins from the blast, systems screaming, alarms flashing red. She fights for control, wrestling the machine back into formation, scanning for the White Whale—
There.
“Everyone, to the Whale, now!” Elma barks as the ship gets ready to pass outside the Lunar perimeter.
Skells of all makes and models hit the deck and go sliding. Elma practically falls out, rushing toward the viewport, sprinting between the Ares’s legs in her determined frenzy.
She’s not the only one. Dozens, maybe hundreds, all look outside to see the result of the battle. But, already, the ship is too far away to make out anything but the distant Earth. A flash of bright light, like the planet going supernova, before space suddenly goes black.
They’re away.
-----------
Funnily enough, Elma thought that two years in space was worse than the constant crises at UNIT. They had no clue if the Earth survived, how long they were going to be in space, or how long it was going to be until the enemy found them.
Then, they crashed down on Mira. Two months of struggle, Elma opens a mim-pod carrying an FNG inside, and things ramp up. Really, they ramp up. Even more than before.
And like a beacon was calling him from across the universe, the Doctor showed up.
He was travelling with people again – a girl who looked barely older than Elma when she had started travelling with the Doctor, and a man – Captain Jack Harkness, the commander of Torchwood… though, judging by his lack of recognition of her, it was well before that happened.
All that happened is a story best left for another time, but by the end of it, Elma feels exhausted. Her head is about ready to split open. After the fighting is done, she and the Doctor share a night together.
They talk, catch up, as friends do. She apologizes to the Doctor for snapping at him, tries to explain her thought process. He makes no attempt to correct her for it – he looks… strangely disappointed that she’s forgiven him. It’s not a struggle to guess why.
The survivor’s guilt was hell for her early on, too.
That was why the Doctor had appeared on Mira. Not intentionally – but according to him, Mira was at the center of the Ley Line nexus. All of the ley lines – the flows of psychic energy, borders where the source of consciousness in the universe touched real-space, the neurons of the universe – ended at its location. Get enough conscious minds – or one very immense mind – and they could ride those ley lines like electrochemical impulses through the brain. It happened to the Whale – so many scared, lost humans, fretting over their future, plus an ancient Samaarian Skell with an ancient Samaarian power source recreated via use of the Conduit, all combined and blasted the White Whale so far away from the Mutter’s Spiral that the ship’s navigation thought they’d emerged in a whole different universe.
The Doctor, meanwhile, had just saved so many people without a single life lost. “Everybody lived,” he said. But once the initial high wore off, his sorrow at being the last of his people returned. He needed to speak to someone – someone who understood – and he knew that, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. But regardless, the need to talk to someone who could truly fathom being the last of their kind was enough to drag the TARDIS right out of the Time Vortex, and to Mira.
Elma can’t pretend to understand the guilt he’s feeling. It’s one thing to be the last of one’s species – it’s quite another to also be the reason for that, no matter how wicked and corrupt the species was. The past is always rose-tinted, as they say.
She wonders if he knows about the Conduit. Or, maybe, if he was the reason it was on Earth at all. The Time Lords and Samaarians had been allies, interbred (Elma’s grandmother had always insisted that it was the union of a noble Time Lord and a Samaarian dockworker that had produced their family, but evidence for that was non-existent, or so far in the past as to be right next to non-existent), but those days were ancient history. Really ancient. Thirteen-point-three billion years in the past.
Ontos’s worries about something secret steering the human race down a path it desired rings louder in her ears than ever, especially considering that, of all the places in the universe, they wound up on Mira – for all intents and purposes, the Universe’s other answer to Gallifrey, sitting at the center of a Web of Consciousness instead of a Web of Time - and the Doctor wound up there too.
But before Elma can really ask, it gets late. Really late, and they’ve gone off on so many tangents that it’s time to turn in for the night. Mims don’t need sleep, but they’re programmed to feel the need for it anyway. She does something… not really stupid, but not really advisable.
She only meant to ask the Doctor if he wanted to room with her for the night, honestly. Entirely innocent. But the English language was just so clumsy.
Elma’s so embarrassed that she decides to go walking right out of NLA to clear her head.
By the time the sun rises, she’s already well outside, into the Primordian wilderness. A few indigens try to throw themselves at her – she dispatches them, rather easily. The rest all leave her alone.
“Ho-ho-ho! Fancy legs walking through dangerous place, yes? Very brave. Or very upset.”
Elma pauses, hand drifting toward the handles of her guns. Her eyes scan the ridge ahead — and then drop lower.
Standing there, like he’s been waiting for her, is a tiny Nopon. White fur fluffs out around his round little body like a snowball that’s trying very hard to look dignified. His tiny wings flutter once as he waddles closer, eyes twinkling. He’s got little red dimples right under his eyes, and he looks so small that he’s got to be a child.
“Don’t recognize this humble Archsage, do you?” He says proudly, puffing out his chest. “Good. Means mystery still intact!”
Elma blinks. “Archsage?”
“Yes, yes! Most wise, most powerful, most lucrative Nopon in all realms! Also runs business. Sometimes offers free trials, yes?” The little guy leaned forward with a smile.
“Wise and…” Elma furrowed her brow. “Excuse me, but you do know it’s not safe to be out here all on your own, right? Especially not a child.”
“Meh! Archsage not child! Archsage just late grower is all!” The Nopon spread his wings. “How many Nopon has friend Elma spent her days around? Tatsu? Tatsu’s mamapon? Can’t make declaration on such small sample size.”
Elma recoiled, blinking. “You know who I am?”
“Yes, yes! Friend Elma very famous!” The Archsage eagerly nodded. “Fan-favourite! Nice voice, great at shooting lots of things! Mostly, Archsage fan of the way she can make techno-rock music play whenever she gets serious look on face.”
She stares at him. “...I know some people in BLADE venerate me… but I have Nopon fans?”
“Yes! You are tall lady with crumpled heart, mm?” He nods sagely, despite being barely knee-high. “Wandering face says, ‘Oooooh, I am thinking about sad, long boy with squishy emotions.’ Before turning big monsters into red mist! Everypon love nice lady who could kill them! Why else Archsage’s cousin have shrine built to Murderess?”
“…what.” Elma spluttered, furrowing her brow.
“Look, Archsage is big fan, that most important part. He such big fan, that he like to offer friend Elma unique one-of-kind bargain!” He lifts a wing, and making a loud pop with his mouth, he produces a glowing, hexagonal piece of electronics. “Why friend Elma kill real things to blow-off steam, when she can kill fake things to do the same! Is better! Much better!”
Elma crosses her arms. “Bargain, huh? How much do you want this for?”
“Well, after shpping and handling fees,” The Archsage says, spinning slowly in a circle like he's absorbing the vibes of the universe. “Price come out to… your immortal soul!” He then dissolves into a mass of giggles. “But Archsage aware that difficult for hom-homs to regrow once they lose old one, so Archsage just say; make use of it, and we call it at that.”
“Huh. Well, you’re a sight more generous than Tatsu, at least.” Elma reaches out, and takes the device from him. “You haven’t explained what exactly this is, though…”
“Combat Simulator,” He declares. “New, unique, one-of-Nopon-kind version! Compatible with NLA’s systems. Very fun! Also therapeutic. Beat up many strong enemies with zero consequences! Visit new, pretty landscapes right from own home! Like mental spa, but with explosions.”
Elma eyes the device skeptically. “You’re offering me a fight simulator?”
“Is deluxe fight simulator!” He insists. “Filled with challenge! Surprise! Controlled mayhem! And maybe, just maybe…” He leans in closer, as if revealing a cosmic secret. “...win fabulous prizes?”
Elma's mouth twitches. She almost laughs.
“Fine,” She says with a smile. “I’ll bite.”
“Good! Yes! Archsage knew you were discerning customer!” He spins again, satisfied. “Friend Elma, please to use at your own peril - er, leisure!”
As he waddles away humming a tuneless little song, Elma stands alone again, module in hand.
Maybe both.
She glances down at the glowing device. Then up at the sky.
“…Alright,” She says. “Let’s see what this is about.”
------------
No sign of the Doctor once she gets back within the bounds of NLA – but the TARDIS is still right where he left it, so maybe she hadn’t made as big an ass of herself as she thought. They’re scheduled to go to the Lifehold Core again later to assess the lower levels, once all of the BLADEs and work vehicles are in place.
Until then, Elma’s got time. The new kid’s nowhere in the barracks – and neither is Lin or Tatsu. They’ve got to be with Rose. Captain Jack’s (he may not have been a legitimate military officer, but he’s earned the title) been Neilnail’s favorite ‘specimen’ since he let it slip he was from the 51st century, and lived through a turbulent period of human history. Everyone else is probably elsewhere in the city, celebrating the discovery of the Core, the generous donation of data from the TARDIS’s computer banks to replace the destroyed data from the modules the Ganglion had gotten to, and the end of the fight.
She’s alone.
The module appears to able to just… plug into the combat simulator. A lot of the ports and connections are seem to be common, human ones. Either the little Nopon had given her something stolen, or he had experience with human tech. They were… weird, like that. The Doctor seemed insistent that the creatures had been old rivals of the Time Lords, cosmic pranksters, and probably the most conniving, scheming intelligences in the cosmos.
…they were Nopon, though, so most everybody just laughed him off.
Elma plugs it in, and sits in the control chair for the simulator. Her mind pulls away from her mimesome, as she sees the module added into the selection menu – a nonsense string of numbers.
Her mind enters the simulation, and she braces herself.
When she loads up, it’s into a black void. Glancing around, Elma starts to feel the ire rise. The Nopon had sold her a prank module? Lock her mind into a black void for hours on end, until someone comes looking for her, hits the safety, and yanks her back out?
But, as Elma looks, she sees a point of light. Curious, she walks towards it – and crosses an invisible threshold. The air is humid and warm – like a swamp, or the inside of a mouth.
A vast cavern extends before her – a lake at the very bottom being fed by waterfalls streaming down from below. Glowing pink and orange cherry trees fill the space with a pale-but-warm light.
“Oh, wow…” Elma breathes out. So, the void was more for showmanship than anything. “What a stunning view…” One of the bioluminescent petals drifts close, and she plucks it right out of the air. “Glowing cherry trees. Heh,” She chuckles to herself. “This seems more like a resort ad than a combat simulator.”
Elma feels the wind tickle her back.
“Oh, damn it, where the hell are we-?” A deep voice emanates from behind Elma, and she falls right into combat mode. “Uraya!? We’re back in Uraya now!?”
Elma spins around, raising her guns.
A whole legion of Prone – at least twelve-or-thirteen – standing right there.
“Uraya?” One of the Prone says to the others. “It’s beautiful… Just like Satorl Marsh on Bionis.”
“So, this is a combat simulator…” Elma furrowed her brow.
All of the Prone look right at her.
“Uh… why’re you pointing a- Doc, she’s pointing a-“ One of the Prone looked around. “Uh, Shulk?”
“Not now, Reyn!” The other Prone hisses at his comrade.
“Where’s blue-suit gone?” The first questions.
“Say,” Another from a group across the way speaks up. They’re split into two squads, separated across the map. Perfect for a pincer maneuver. “We’re missing ours too!”
“Nia-“
“Why are you looking at me!?” The Prone shrilly shouts. “I don’t keep track of the fop!”
Elma frowns. Was this some manner of comic relief? Make the players dislike the enemy more before throwing them into a fight.
Well, they are the enemies. There’s quite a few, though. Although, Elma’s faced worse. Much worse. It’ll be easy.
Elma takes aim at one, and its eyes flicker blue momentarily.
The Prone gasps, and brings up its sword – like that is going to help. “Monado, Shield!”
A burst of fire-turning-into-light ripples out from another, as it whips around to look at him. “What was that!?”
Elma doesn’t concern herself with any possible infighting – not when her shots strike a bubble shield and do precisely nothing.
“All right, lady!” A big Prone holding two, jagged scythes made out of black metal goes charging. “Don’t know what crawled up your arse, but shootin’ kids without asking questions is a good enough reason to fight for me!”
He lunges at her – Elma draws her swords and throws them up, catching the scythes.
The clang of scythe against steel rings out as Elma catches the blow, eyes narrowing. Sparks scatter from the clash, painting the air like fireflies before fading. Elma pushes back, and the Prone – although built like a brick wall – goes stumbling back.
“You got lucky – I was off-guard just a second ago,” Elma draws a breath, and switches to her guns. “Not a mistake I’ll make again!” Elma tears across the ground, picking up speed, and throws herself onto her back. She slides across the ground, right through the group of Prone stumbling over each other and trying to track her, firing her guns right at them. She jumps back up at the end, and spins around, switching back to her swords.
The Ether attacks – crests of energy – go tearing through the air as she swings.
“Who is lady!?” One of the Prone yells across the field. “Built like level-boss, but have speed and grace of sub-boss!”
“Masterpon,” The lone Puge among them bleeps. “Analysis of available weapons and energy levels classifies foe as superboss!”
“Tora, you little idiot – now’s not the time to compare a fight for our lives to those damn video games you play!”
“Classification system very useful – determines how Poppi respond to threats!”
“So far, ‘m not seeing much of any response!” A Prone with a giant sword-gun hybrid takes aim at Elma, and starts firing.
“Dickson!” One of the Prone gasps, aghast.
“She just started shooting! No talk! Now’s not the time! Everyone else, best get to it! Shulk, if you would join us?”
“The Monado doesn’t cut people! I’m useless!”
“Maybe this is because we compared Uraya to Bionis?” A Prone softly ventures. “Maybe she’s a patriot?”
“Actually, Miss Albedo,” A… suid rumbles. A talking suid!? What kind of cheap vaudeville act was this simulation supposed to be. “I believe with the skin tone and hair colour, she bears a close resemblance to Master Vandham.”
(She’s so floored by the talking indigen, she completely misses on the fact that it said Vandham.)
“Ain’t no way she’s Urayan! Check out that armour… nah!” The dual-scythe Prone declares. “Those swords spitting Ether like that, those guns – she’s got to have a Blade somewhere!”
Elma furrows her brow. Was that set-dressing, or did the simulation think someone else was in there.
He swings again - low, then high. Elma ducks the first, parries the second, then spins and kicks him back. He slides across the map terrain, tearing up simulated grass.
Another Prone charges in — twin daggers flickering like phasing light. “She looks fast more than anything – keep her from moving!” She swipes at Elma, jumping and bouncing around like she’s trying to make herself harder to hit – a bit like the new kid.
“If anyone would, that would be nice, thank you,” grumbles a sniper-Prone. “Every time I aim she jumps twelve feet in the air!”
Elma ignores the noise, ducks behind a rock as red-lit explosive orbs slam and hammer the ground. They detonate a second later, blowing out the cover and forcing her to dash — straight into the Puge with glowing eyes.
“Poppi cannon!” It hollers.
It fires again. Elma flips aside, bullets hissing past her. She hits the ground running, vanishing as her form refracting and bending light as she disappears from their view.
“Wait — where’d she go!?” One panics.
“I can’t see her – Mythra!?”
“Foresight can’t account for things that aren’t there!”
“Wait-“ That one Prone with the sword, Shulk, looked up again, and his eyes are glowing blue. “A vis-“ He whips around, and his arm shoots up like a reflex. “Monado Buster!” He brings the sword down like an axe, a bright, violet beam of energy radiating from it like a photon saber.
Elma jumps out of the way, but the impact sends out a ripple – a wave of energy that slams into Elma like a blast wave.
“What the fuck did you just say!?” One of the female Prone bellows.
“Ow! Masterpon – Poppi’s systems take critical hit!”
“Ow…” The dual-scythe Prone groans. “I think we all felt that…”
“But-“ The Prone gasps. “Of course! She’s not from Bionis! The Monado can harm her!”
“Terrific.”
“Okay, new plan – Monado Speed!” The Prone with the sword becomes surrounded in an aura of blue energy, sprinting right for her as a few of his comrades – but not all of them – engage with similar swiftness.
Elma uncloaks, and engages Ghost Factory – the holographic specters of photons and forcefields projected from her mim dash about, and lock themselves in combat with the Prone.
They’re tougher than regular Prone, that’s for sure.
“Oh, what the hell, that’s cheating!
"Which one’s real!?"
“Just hit something, Rex! Hit them all!”
“But I’ve never-“
“HIT THE GIRL, DAMN IT!”
The scythe-wielder returns with a roar.
He spins his blades, whistling through the air — forcing Elma into a dance of parries, slides, and counters.
“You gotta pay attention on the battlefield, kid!” Dual-scythes shouts to one of them. “It’s not always a given you’re fighting a one-of-a-kind Driver or Blade!”
They’re ganging up on her, quickly, and though her doubles are taking off some of the fire, they won’t last long. She has to end this, now.
Elma unlocks the limiters on her mim’s generator, and waits for the overflow capacitors to charge.
“Friends – Poppi detect enemy energy output increase!” The Puge shouts, pointing.
“You kidding me!? She was holding back!?”
“Stagger her!” The dual-scythe Prone bellows.
Elma’s back explodes in pain, and she spins to see the Prone with the red sword standing there, having slashed her in the back. Something tugs on her leg, and she’s yanked to the ground.
“All right, that’s what I’m talking about! LAUNCH!” The dual-scythe Prone gestures, and she goes flying, before the Puge jumps into the air above her, and launches a blast down at her. Elma slams into the ground.
Despite the soreness spreading all over her, Elma senses it - the capacitors charge, and she can dump the energy back into the generator, really kicking it into overdrive.
The air ripples around Elma, from the sheer heat bleeding off her body.
“Uh – Mythra, is it me, or is she stealing your move-“
“That’s not-” The female Prone’s face twisted. “Oh shit! Everyone get back! I said get-“
Elma surges upright, jumping across the battlefield, energy flaring around her in streaks of blue and green and orange and yellow and purple. The simulator blurs as it struggles to keep up with her. Her weapons glow with pulsing light as she dashes across the battlefield.
First, she knocks away the red sword right out of the Prone’s hand, and it goes flying through the air, landing blade-down.
“Way to go, Shulk! Nice work, taking advantage of that vision and all!”
“Reyn! She didn’t- it was like she moved so fast, not even the Monado could keep up!”
“Supervillainpon unlock SUPER-MODE!?” The Prone with big, mechanical gloves screeched in terror.
“Let’s finish this.” Elma’s voice cuts through them like a blade.
She moves like lightning — every motion laced with fury and precision. Blades sweep through the group. Rifles fire in short, brutal bursts that bypass shields entirely. The Prone are staggered, flung back.
Then, she hits them with the finisher. Her guns go firing in all directions, over her shoulders, to her sides, in front, and behind. It’s a violent whirlwind of bullets – and all of them fall to the floor.
When the heat fades, only Elma stands.
The Prone are all on the ground, groaning.
Elma holsters her guns, and rolls her shoulders.
“Friend Elma, victory!” The Archsage’s voice calls down from above.
Elma looks up. “Victory? Odd victory conditions for a sim… though I suppose it doesn’t matter that they’re not dead – just incapacitated.”
“Congratulations! Now meeting can take place properly!”
Elma’s brow furrows. “Meeting-?“
A bright flash of light overtakes her.
Notes:
Giving Elma her own chapter, taking her through life on Earth in the Whoniverse in the lead-up to Project Exodus was something I’d wanted to do ever since I dropped that hint that she used to travel with the Doctor way back in chapter four. Xenoblade X says that she appeared on Earth during the 2020s, but I decided to have her there since well before that, living in secret. All difference can be explained by the fact that she travelled with the Doctor.
But this one was fun for me to write - instead of the Doctor going through Xenoblade's world, we have a chapter focusing on a Xenoblade character living through the Doctor's world. Earth in the Doctor Who universe is in a really bad spot, all those aliens. The repeated crises over the years – the constant alien invasions, Miracle Day, and UNIT’s consolidation of power – also gives a plausible reason as to how, after only thirty years, things on Earth could shift to prioritizing survival and working together. The timeline might be a little bit *compressed*, but there are forces working in the background manipulating things.
Chapter 18: The Doctor: Bifröst
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
In terms of things going pear-shaped, this was up there. In fact, this was so far up there that it had blasted past the Burj Khalifa, past the Rhadamanthus Tether, past Lunar orbit, all the way up and out of the solar system and the galaxy.
Two Doctors stood across from each other, one in a blue suit, the other in a bow tie. The Tenth and Eleventh unique incarnations (depending on the counting system – a headache that infuriates scholars on the Doctor to this day). They each had their hands on the other’s chest, feeling the other’s heartbeat to verify that they were, indeed, the legitimate article.
“…well,” The Doctor in the Blue Suit sniffed with a look on his face. ‘Thinly-disguised disgust’ would probably be the most adequate appellation. “Could be worse.”
The Bow-Tie Doctor’s face twisted in indignation. “What could!?”
“I mean,” The Doctor in the Blue Suit tugged his earlobe. “You don’t exactly look the picture of grace… the chin looks like it’s making you top-heavy… and the less said about the eyebrows, the better-“
Bow-Tie let out a harsh, mocking snort. “Well, at least I remember to shave in the mornings.”
Blue Suit’s eyes glanced around carefully. “Don’t see how you could forget. What – did you think Jay Leno’s had it good for too long?”
“Rich words, Jarvis Cocker.”
“Sorry,” Nia raised her voice and her hand. “You two lovebirds done flirting, or should we just leave you two alone for a bit?”
The Doctors shared disgusted glances, before removing their hands from each other’s chests.
“I don’t know if I’d say that – they’re fighting like Dunban and Fiora used to.” Reyn commented, earning him an intense glare from the girl. “What? It’s like they’re siblings.”
“Doctor,” Shulk stepped closer to the Time Lord he knew. “What’s going on – do you know this man?”
“Eh?” Rex spoke up with a frown. “You know the Doctor?”
Shulk’s eyebrows shot up. “I only just recently met him. You know him as well?”
“Well… Nia’s probably better acquainted with him than I am…” Rex admitted.
Nia rounded on the salvager. “What’s that mean!?”
Rex snapped his jaw shut.
Nia rolled her eyes, and turned to bow-tie. “Well, Doctor? What’s going on?”
“Hang on,” Sharla interjected. “I think you’re confused? That one there,” She pointed to Blue-Suit, “He’s the Doctor.”
Nia frowned. “Now what’re you on about? The Doctor’s standing right here.”
“Yes, so it would seem…” Albedo furrowed her brow, looking between the two as a headache started to build.
“No, that’s the Doctor,” Fiora pointed to the one in the suit.
The two Doctors scratched their heads, nervously.
“What, him? Pretty boy over there? No way.”
The man in the pinstripe suit gave an awkward wave. “Yes, hello! I’m the Doctor.”
“No Doctor, I’m the Doctor,” The other one added, adjusting his bow-tie with a half-smile.
The spiky-haired Time Lord turned to him with an impatient look on his face. “Oh, shut up.” He turned back, but then just as quickly turned back around again, reexamining the older Doctor. “You do look a bit like Harry.”
“Oh, thanks,” Bow-Tie straightened his eponymous article of neckwear.
“An imbecile.” Blue-Suit finished.
“…thanks withdrawn.”
“Well, there can’t be two of you!” Nia raised her voice impatiently. “What, is he your alien brother or something?”
“…or something.” Blue-Suit ran his fingers through his hair, and began to push past the other Doctor. “Look, it’s all very-“ He brushed into Bow-Tie’s side, and a flash of light – a bit like static discharge – went between the two. “Ow!”
“Doctor!” People from both sides called out.
“Oh, it’s fine,” Bow-Tie groaned as he hunched over. “Just shorted out the time differential. A bit like matter and antimatter colliding – it’s harmless, mostly.” He looked up, and people on both sides gasped. “What?” The Time Lord blinked. “What?”
Nia’s hand went over her mouth so hard, it made a slapping noise.
“Wow! He get old!” Tora gasped.
“Old-!?” Bow-Tie rubbed at his face. “I don’t feel any-“
“Not you,” Vandham gestured. “The other guy.”
“What?” Blue-Suit, looking like he’d aged ten years in the span of just a second, felt around his face. “Oh, of course,” He rolled his eyes. “I’m the younger one, so I get hit with all the backlash.”
“Uh…” Shulk stepped over, nervously. “Are you fine? Are you… injured?”
“I’m fine,” Blue-Suit scrunched his face. “It happens when two versions of the same temporally-untethered life-form enter a space together. The time energy plays hell with the telomeres. I’ll go back to normal – soon as I get away from him.”
“’Till then, you look like an old grump?” Dickson snorted. “Ha! That’s rough!”
“Hang on,” Sharla interjected. “Did you just say the same lifeform?”
“Er, yeah,” Blue-Suit easily nodded.
“What, you mean, like, the same species? He’s one of you?”
“No, and yes.” The spikey-haired Doctor nodded.
“Well, which is it, then?” Reyn wondered.
“Hold on,” Nia glanced at her Doctor. “Is he one of your people? …don’t go and tell me you’re all called ‘Doctor.’”
“No! Of course he’s not one of my people – that’d be ridiculous,” Bow Tie shook his head. “He’s me.”
Silence blew through the space for a moment.
“Oh, see, now you’re confusing them.” Blue-Suit shook his head reproachfully.
“I thought I was doing a good job.” Bow Tie crossed his arms.
“Look,” Blue Suit looked between both parties. “It’s very simple. I am him, and he is me.”
Bow Tie began to chortle. “And I am the Walrus.”
“You’re not helping,” Spike-hair hissed at Bow-Tie.
“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job of it!” Bow-Tie gestured, shaking his head sarcastically. “Look, I’m the Doctor, and so is he.”
Pyra furrowed her brow. “Is this some kind of… Spartacus thing?”
Bow-Tie giggled. “It’d be funny, but- no.”
“He means it literally.” The one in the suit rolled his eyes. “We,” He gestured between themselves. “Are the Doctor. The same Doctor. Same man, different face. Different everything.”
“…what.” Fiora flatly muttered.
“…I say,” Dromarch rumbled. “The same being? Are you some kind of… consciousness, split between two bodies?”
“No, no, that’d be rubbish,” Bow-Tie shook his head. “Could you imagine, having to pilot around two bodies at once? Horribly confusing.”
“He comes after me,” Blue-Suit shrugged.
Bow-Tie thinned his lips. “Not for lack of trying.”
“…what, no, what?” Nia spluttered, shaking her head. “You expect me to believe- there’s two of you!?”
The Doctor sucked in a breath. It didn’t matter which one – both of them did it at the same time.
“We’re… time travellers,” Blue-Suit grunted out first. “We don’t always do things in order. Sometimes we meet people out-of-order, including ourselves. But I am him. Or… I become him. Time Lord, TARDIS, Sonic Screwdriver,” He waved at her. “Looking forward to meeting you, I suppose.”
Nia’s jaw fell open. “No, that’s not – you’re having a laugh! He’s a totally different guy!”
“Not totally different,” Bow-Tie admitted.
“Look, it’s – it’s complicated,” Blue-Suit scratched the back of his head. “It’s called Regeneration.”
“Ah,” Azurda popped his head out of Rex’s helmet. “Our Doctor mentioned his kind could perform a regenerative process! I suppose the discrepancies can be explained by it, but I’ve never seen the process occur in a lifeform that wasn’t a Titan! Remarkable…”
“What,” Nia looked between the Doctors, shocked and appalled. “What, you just… get bored and decide to slip into a new body like a pair of shoes!?”
“Well, it’s not that easy,” Bow-Tie thinned his lips.
Shulk began to slowly approach, staring at Bow-Tie. “That’s not possible… but I’ve seen it! In a vision!” He spun around to look at his comrades. “It was before I unlocked the Monado’s Shield capability-“
Pyra abruptly exploded in a burst of light, being replaced by Mythra, who was wearing a frown somewhere between confusion and concern. “What’d you just say?”
Shulk turned around, to look at the Alrest group. “The Monado allows me to see the future when we’re in danger, and at one point, it showed me a vision of the Doctor – that one – getting killed by Rotbart. But, instead of dying, it was as if the Doctor… exploded. I didn’t see the endpoint of the process, but if I had, would I have seen you?”
“Quite possibly,” Bow Tie frowned. “Though, curious… you said you changed the future, but all I ever remember is regenerating after…” His eyes glanced at his past self. “A very bad thing happened. Not Rotbart, though. Anyway, Shulk!” He suddenly grinned. “Good to see you again! How’s the Monado – not taking any more hands, is it? Although I guess it’s just as fair – I did try to poke it with my Screwdriver.”
Shulk let out a gasp as his face became consumed by awe. “It is you…”
“Oh, man,” Reyn scratched the back of his head. “This is getting weird…”
“How is this possible!?” Sharla raised her voice in disbelief. “Changing faces!? Time travel!?”
“Ah, Sharla, good question!” Bow-Tie bounded over to her. “It’s very simple. When Time Lords – that’s my species, in case nobody’s caught up – die, our bodies just pop right back up, good as new! Overdrive cellular replication, use old biomass as the building blocks for the new one, shuffle the ol’ DNA around a bit, and you get a brand-new Doctor!” He twirled around, as if to show himself off. “Like butterflies metamorphizing in a split second! Except we don’t get any wings. Well, most of us – I had an aunt with wings…”
“Really…?” Dickson drawled, staring at the Doctors with something resembling respect, or at least awe. “Immortality? The old body dies, just go and get yourself a new one? That’s not something you see everyday…”
“So…” Nia looked at the Blue-Suited Doctor with a slight frown. “He dies and turns into you?”
“Yes,” Bow-Tie bluntly answered.
“Not for a good, long while, I hope.” Blue-Suit crossed his arms.
“But… that’s daft.”
“That,” Bow-Tie refuted, pointing at her. “Is total cellular Regeneration – the miracle of the Time Lords.”
“But, hold on,” Rex rubbed his face. “If the two of you are the same guy – you both shouldn’t be able to be here at the same time, should you? Time travel or not, isn’t that breaking some rules or something? Like, you can’t go back and tell yourself not to do something, cause then that means you won’t do it in the first place, right? Actually… how’s this possible? We’re not time-travelling now, are we? …are we?”
“Oh,” Blue-Suit turned to Rex, and his eyebrows shot up, pleasantly surprised. “You’re good – I like you, what’s your name?”
“Rex.”
“Nice to meet you, Rex!” The trench-coat-wearing Doctor grinned, then turned about. “Rex is right, we haven’t time travelled. At least, not in the usual way.”
“Well, obviously we have,” Reyn countered. “If we’re talking to your own future.”
“Who’s to say we’re not the ones doing the travelling?” Mythra challenged with a hand on her hip.
“No, we haven’t time travelled; I can feel time travel.” Bow-Tie glanced around.
“And neither have we,” The one in the suit pondered for a moment. “Which means we must be in a zone outside of time. Outside the flow,” He clicked his teeth, putting on his glasses. A second later, he smacked his lips, and did something with his tongue that made it look like he was tasting the air. After another moment, he pulled out his version of the Sonic Screwdriver.
Bow-Tie moved quicker, and was already scanning the air. “Psychic energy readings are bursting – the place is swimming in it.”
“Which means this is the Domain!” Blue-Suit grinned heartily with a point, twirling around. “I love the Domain.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, and began to pace about. “When was the last time we visited?”
“I don’t get it,” Vandham frowned. “What’s the Domain?”
“Picture a brain,” Bow-Tie turned to Vandham. “The biggest brain you’ve ever seen. So mind-bogglingly large, that the atoms that make up the neurons of that brain are whole galaxies that people live inside. That brain is the universe. A living, thinking being, existing across so much space it’s unfathomable. But the universe of matter you live in is just the flesh. Just cosmic meat. This place – the place we’re in – is the living mind of the universe. A vast, cosmic consciousness.”
Dickson straightened up, glancing around in concern. “What, like… a god?”
“No,” Blue-Suit’s voice trailed uncertainly. “Well, an animal. A consciousness we don’t understand. Either hopelessly primitive, or unfathomably intelligent.”
“I don’t…” Nia’s face twitched. “What does that mean for us?”
“Well, you see Nia,” The Bow-Tie Doctor patiently turned to her. “My people figured it all out. The universe may be a conscious entity, and life arose inside it – but it wasn’t a fluke of chance or evolution. It was a reflex. Like getting cold, and goosebumps prickling up, all over your skin. It came into existence, and it sought a way to interpret itself – that’s where we came from. You, and I. All living things. Life forms are the universe’s senses. Consciousness is the collection programme. Individuality is a filter applied to help get as much unique data as possible.”
“Well, actually, it’s more like the curvature of a black hole,” Blue-Suit interjected. “Brains – or brain analogues, just the interaction in anything resembling a neurological structure or neural network – they pull on this dimension, like gravity pulls spacetime. A weak pull, you only get basic instinct. Squirrels, and such. A complex enough brain, you get a strong pull – you get full consciousness. Consciousness as a facet of space and time.”
Bow-Tie nodded. “Which is what this place is. This is that dimension.”
“I…” Nia stared ahead, looking like she had just found out too much. “I was just wondering about how we got here.”
“Ah. Culture-shock, it’ll wear off.”
“But…” Tora shuddered. “If Tora and friends in mind-place, and mind is made by mind-place touching world in only some spots… how Tora and friends still alive?”
“Oh, well, that was a very basic explanation.” Blue-Suit flippantly answered. “Didn’t even explain how psychic energy fits in, or how the Freudian and Jungian interpretation of the ‘self’ is horrendously inaccurate as a measure of the composition of the immortal soul.”
“Wait,” Nia looked around. “If this place is… consciousness itself, then that means there are other people’s minds here too, right? And, not just living ones?”
Fiora gasped. “We could talk to Xord! Make him explain more about the Mechon! If Dunban’s here, we could talk to him too!”
“And my sister,” Nia looked over at Bow-Tie. “We wouldn’t even need to time travel, right?”
“Uh, well, it’s, er…” Bow-Tie stammered.
“Now, now,” Blue-Suit took a warning tone. “Fiora, Nia, this is a tremendous shakeup to your worldview – but there are rules. Laws.”
“Laws?” Nia challenged with crossed arms. “Whose laws?”
“The Time Lords’.” He stated imperiously, slowly looking around. “They built this place, but it’s not something even they played about with.”
“Well, now I know you’re talking out your ass,” Nia looked at him like she had him figured out. “If this place is consciousness, how’d they create it, eh?”
Blue-Suit rolled his eyes. “It’s in the name. Time Lords.” He raised his eyebrows challengingly, looking over all of them. “The rules didn’t apply to us – ‘cause we wrote them.”
Nia snapped her mouth shut, looking sour.
“So… If you know this place,” Shulk spoke up once more. “You should know of a way out, right? A way to get us back to Bionis?”
“Maybe…” Blue-Suit looked around.
“Bionis?” Albedo tilted her head with a polite smile. “I’ve not heard of that particular Titan.”
“What?” All of the people from the Bionis let out a collective gasp.
“What’re you on about!?” Reyn huffed. “It’s Bionis! There’s only two Titans in the world – don’t see how you could just miss it!”
“Now what’re you saying?” Vandham challenged. “There’s loads of Titans! Two? Try two-dozen!”
“Trust me,” Dickson looked at the man, looking pitying. “I think we know the state of the world.”
“Not necessarily,” Blue-Suit looked at the moustached man. “We’re in another dimension right now. They just probably come from a different world.”
“Different wha-“ Dickson spluttered. “Look at ‘em! They’re Homs! Not sure about cat-ears-“
“OI!”
“-but just look at ‘em! And they’ve got a Nopon with ‘em!”
Bow-Tie looked over at Dickson with a slow, humouring smile. “Oh, you think Nopon are native to Bionis!”
“And there are as many humanoid species as there are stars in the sky,” Blue-Suit hummed. “Convergent evolution, genetic engineering, descended from a single ancestor species – it’s not a good metric to measure what’s possible in the universe.”
“So… what you’re saying is… they’re from Elsewhere as well,” Shulk breathed out in newfound awe. “That’s incredible! But… wait,” He frowned, glancing at Albedo. “Haven’t I seen you, somewhere before?”
All heads slowly swivelled to look at her, with the effect of stones grinding against each other.
“Yes, I have,” Shulk nodded with new enthusiasm. “You’re that woman with the staff! The one at Prison Island – a High Entia, right?”
“Shulk,” Dickson, like a father embarrassed, slowly shook his head. “You might want to take a closer look.”
“What? Why?”
“She doesn’t have any wings, you damned fool.”
“…oops,” Shulk shrunk away slightly. “My mistake.”
“None… taken?” Albedo blinked. “There are people with wings, where you come from?”
“I ain’t seen none.” Reyn shrugged.
“Look, all this is fun and all,” Mythra stepped in. “But maybe we should be focused on getting out of here, and getting back home? Doctor?”
“Hm?” Both looked at her.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Right,” Bow-Tie produced his glasses next, and looked around. “This structure we’re in is artificial, clearly. It must be some sort of waystation, to help travellers along their way.”
“Travellers?” Poppi tilted her head. “Doc-Doc mean others pass through here as well?”
“Oh yes, all the time,” The Time Lord gestured simply. “Quite a few primitive species make use of it. Why, early humans were one of them! It’s in quite a few religions – wherever there’s a gateway to the realm of the gods, or a world tree, it’s usually referencing this place.”
Rex looked confused. “The World Tree? Does that mean this is Elysium?”
“Not the World Tree you’re thinking of,” Bow-Tie shook his head. “But people who tap into it don’t usually stick with it for long. As means of transport go, it’s horrifically unreliable. If you let your mind wander while you’re passing through, no telling where you’ll end up. And if you’re really unlucky, you might even run into the things that call this place home. Other forms of transit are a whole lot more reliable, and safer. It’s a bit like a choice between a rocket-powered unicycle and a segway. Sure, one’s a lot more powerful, but the other won’t kill you before you get there.”
“A rocket-powered-“ Dickson spluttered. “What the bloody hell are you on about!?”
Nia shot him a sympathetic look. “I gave up trying to understand anything he says right after I met him.”
Dickson shook his head, and rubbed his face. “So this is… what? Some kinda world-in-between-worlds?”
Blue-Suit raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t believe in other worlds?”
“Well, it’s a moot point, innit?” Dickson glanced around. “We’re standing here now, ain’t we?”
Roc began to raise a feather. “It is curious, though. If this is some kind of… world-juncture, connecting different worlds, that humans and Nopon exist in both.”
“What is this, then?” Shulk posed the question. “Interaction with some kind of… parallel existence?”
“Nah,” Blue-Suit shook his head. “Parallel universes exist, but traveling to them’s impossible.”
Bow Tie smugly huffed. “For you it is.” He looked over at Nia. “His TARDIS is… more run-down, compared to mine.”
Blue-Suit glared at his future self. “Oh, is it? Mister ‘I’ve got to be in a bottle universe right now for no apparent reason?’ Did you wind up reaching your destination?”
The smug vanished from Bow Tie like a mirage, as he got into Blue-Suit’s face. “What? You landed in the bottle universe?” His eyes darted about, but he chose not to bring up Clara.
“Barely – the whole place is composed of antimatter, by the way.” He smugly straightened his tie. “Could a ‘run-down’ old TARDIS do that? Anyway, humans! Like I said, humans are everywhere – lovely lot,” Blue-Suit grinned. “And the Nopon – well, they’re the only ones who can travel through the Domain with true safety and reliability. Their homeworld exists at the centre of a ley-line nexus – the neurons of the universe, all ending at that point. Think about it – the most densest, active part of the brain. They can access this place easier and better than anyone.”
“And that’s how we get out of here,” The other Doctor clapped his hands with a smile. “Ley-Line Walking!”
“You mean we have to go through that again?” Albedo groaned.
“Is… that even possible?” Shulk wondered. “Travelling across worlds with no transport?”
“Well, technically, we’re already at our destination,” Blue-Suit retorted. “We just need to find the door.”
“Meh- Doc-Doc and friends wish to leave so soon?” A voice called out, causing all to tense defensively, whipping around to try and find the source.
They were met with a small, snowy-white Nopon, standing at the top of the (hitherto) empty pedestal. His stubby wings were flared ever-so-slightly, his dimpled cheeks twisted in a smile.
“Surprise! Is most unexpected reunion, yes?”
There was a long pause.
Then both Doctors jumped back and pointed their screwdrivers at the little devil.
“Meh? What is welcome? Archsage open door to old student-pon, and this thanks he get?”
“It’s another Nopon?” Reyn frowned. “I don’t-“ He began to walk towards the tiny Nopon.
“Reyn, don’t!” Both Doctors barked in unison, forcing the redhead to stop in his tracks. “That’s the most dangerous Nopon that’s ever lived!”
Reyn blinked. He looked, slowly, back-and-forth, between the Nopon and the Doctors. “This little furball?”
“Yes,” They both said in unison, without hesitation, pointing dramatically at the tiny creature.
The Archsage beamed. “Ohoho! Still remember teachings of Masterpon? This one so touched!”
The others turned to the two Time Lords, utterly baffled.
“You’re scared of a child?” Sharla asked incredulously.
“He’s not a child,” Blue-Suit muttered grimly.
“You know him?” Nia asked of Bow-Tie.
Said Time Lord winced. “He’s an old friend. I say friend, I mean Masterpon. I say Masterpon, I mean torture technician.”
Poppi let out a delighted gasp. “Doc-Doc have Masterpon too!?”
“The foremost teacher of Ley-Line walking in the universe,” Bow-Tie rubbed his face. “Don’t call him teacherpon or professorpon. He’s the Masterpon of what he does. That’s lesson one.”
“And boy, did the class feel that one,” Blue-Suit muttered.
“Was hilarious,” The Archsage giggled. “Doctor screamed like wet sock being wrung out by angry gnosis!”
“You stranded me on the Vogsphere!” Blue-Suit shouted, gesturing wildly. “Told me I had to find my own way off the planet!”
“Meh,” The Archsage ruffled. “Challenge is best teacher.”
“I had to spend a year in therapy!” Blue-Suit raised his voice. “And I lost the ability to see colour for the next five-hundred years! I thought it’d never come back!”
The Bionis and Alrest parties stared at the tiny Nopon, then at the two Time Lords who had faced down Torna, and Mechon — and were now visibly sweating bullets in the presence of a glorified marshmallow.
“Okay, what is he?” Nia asked slowly.
“The Archsage,” Bow-Tie answered, “The sagest of all sages.”
“Yes! Yes!” The Archsage nodded. “Very sagely, very wise! Train for ten zillion-ty years learning how to commune with wave existence. Learn how to exist inside Domain. Live here, build things, build challenges, yes!”
“You built this place?” Dickson frowned. “Are you… a god?”
The little Nopon turned, looking at Dickson like he was not at all pleased by the old man’s presence. “No such thing as gods. Powerful beings with great power – but no gods.”
“Hmph,” Dickson grunted.
“So… you built this place,” Fiora repeated. “But… why?”
“Training!” The Archsage happily bounced. “To pose and overcome combat challenges of unimaginable and frankly unbelievable difficulty!”
“The Norsemen call it ‘Valhalla,’” The Blue-Suited Doctor mused. “An afterlife of endless combat during the day, people slaughtering each other, before popping right back to life at the end of it to enjoy gorging themselves, then it all starts again.”
“Well, that sounds like my kinda place!” Dickson grinned.
“Meh, it certainly is for you,” The Archsage drolly intonated.
“It sounds… far from pleasant,” Shulk frowned.
“Why? Lots of people like fighting, lots of people like training, lots of people like overcoming difficult challenge, and lots of people like winning fabulous prizes. So, Archsage combine them all! Besides, he have to find entertainment somehow,” The Nopon jittered about.
“Yeah, but most people usually go to shows for that kind of thing.” Albedo focused.
“Cheffypon with Piazzolla’s name and nothing else of note is right,” The Archsage nodded. “Archsage would love to be going to playhouses – or hot spring resort for long soaks, shuffleboard on beach, watching shows in lovely-lovely motel room with little chocolates they put on pillows that Archsage love so much… But Archsage can’t leave Domain for longer than few minutes. Is nirvana he meditate on so long to reach, but also greatest curse. So, Archsage let people in from time to time, make them beat tar out of each other for prizes, then send home.”
“So, what, this is your little… cosmic fight club?” Mythra accused with her hands on her hips. “And you make people compete for glory?”
“And prizes! Don’t be forgetting prizes!” The Archsage bounced.
“Prizes?” Rex repeated with a frown. “This is all a bit underwhelming…”
“I’m in agreement,” Shulk looked Rex’s way. “For a cosmic waystation, that it exists generally to be a fight ring is… very underwhelming.”
“Friends hurt Archsage’s feelings! How friends feel after getting taste of wonderful prizes, though?” The Archsage chuckled mischievously, before a light gust washed over the two.
Shulk and Rex both frowned.
“What kind of-“ Rex began to speak, cutting himself off sharply. Everyone looked at him, with wide eyes. “Architect above – what’s wrong with my throat!?”
Albedo let out a gasp, pointing at him.
“…oh my God, he’s finally hit his growth-spurt.” Nia muttered under her breath.
Where Rex was standing was still Rex… but he had aged a good fifteen-to-twenty years.
Fiora sucked in a breath, covering her mouth.
Shulk looked down at himself. His alteration wasn’t quite as pronounced – but he was still visibly older. Lines in his face, long, glorious golden locks, a long coat…
Shulk and Rex exchanged looks.
“…yer’ missin’ an arm,” Rex pointed out.
“You’re missing an eye.” Shulk retorted.
“Really?” Rex’s hand went up to his face. “I don’t… feel any different.”
“Hmm…” Shulk looked down at the… fake, fake arm. “Neither does my arm.” He frowned. “It’s unique, but as prizes go, I’m not very impressed.” He looked back up, his eyes drifting towards Fiora. “What do you think?”
“Me?” Fiora squeaked. “You look fine- good, I mean.”
Sharla rolled her eyes.
“I like the hair, though,” Fiora thinned her lips, as she went pink.
“I could stand to lose… well, all of this,” Rex commented, looking down at himself.
“Why, you look hand-“ Mythra began, before cutting herself off.
“Eh?” Rex looked over, genuinely confused. “What were you saying?”
“Shut up,” Mythra snapped at him.
The Blue-Suited Doctor cleared his throat. “Archsage, if you would please.”
“Meh? Friends not like cosmetic options as prizes? Have to give unique, overpowered items?”
Rex crossed his arms.
“Fine,” The Archsage gestured, and the two promptly went back to normal… except for Shulk, who largely went back to normal… save his hair, which had obviously grown a few inches, compared to what it had been when he first arrived.
“That’s… weird.” Fiora reached over, running her hand through Shulk’s hair. The boy went rail-stiff. “It feels like real hair… I can’t even tell where the old stuff ends, and the new stuff begins!”
“It’s a construct of psychic energy. That’s all this place is, all of it.” Bow-Tie muttered.
Blue-Suit got down in front of the Archsage. “Look, not that I’m not happy to see you – I mean, I’m not exactly thrilled, but – why are we here?”
“Archsage do it all the time! Lots of scenarios Archsage want to see – so, Archsage make them happen! Mostly-ish. Timey-Wimey Snootlords try shutting Archsage down, but he five times as clever! Now mostly just have to worry about unpaid legal fees – non-issue.”
The Doctors crossed their arms.
The Archsage sighed. “Archsage explain… after friends take part in challenge!”
“What!?” Blue-Suit demanded.
“Is how works! Friends want information – information is prize! To win prize, have to complete challenge. Is rules!”
“The rules?” Nia scowled. “That’s the biggest load of crock-“
“No, no,” Blue-Suit sighed. “It’s the rules.”
“Doctor,” Reyn groaned. “You can’t-“
“Reyn, the Archsage’s section of the Domain is, for all intents and purposes, a cosmic dream!” He shoved his hands into his suit pockets. “And you know what happens when you start questioning the logic of a dream while you’re having one? The dream ends! And the logic holding things together here is the logic he,” He jerked a thumb at the Archsage, “comes up with.” He drew a breath. “We complete the challenge, and we learn what we need to know. Simple as.”
“Ugh, ‘m getting a splitting headache…” Nia grunted.
“It’s information outside your noosphere – you’re not built to comprehend it,” Bow Tie rattled off quickly. “Literally. On a fundamental, biological level, your brain can’t process the concepts.”
“I think I’m processing it pretty well, actually,” Mythra shifted her weight. “It’s like you said – a brain, electrical impulses, and a thinking mind. Except it’s split across so many different forms of matter and energy and dimensions, it’s a lot more complex than just flesh and energy.”
Albedo briefly glanced at the blonde, floored. “…huh?”
“Oh, you’re good,” Blue-Suit turned around to look at her, before stopping. His brow furrowed, and his eyes wandered down.
Mythra crossed her arms defensively. “What’re you looking at!? Pervert!”
“No, sorry – that necklace.” Blue-Suit frowned. “It reminds me of something…”
“Necklace-?” Mythra traced his eyes, and followed the look down to her core crystal. “My core crystal, you mean. I’m the Aegis.”
“…the what and the what?”
“Different worlds, Mythra.” Bow-Tie clasped his hands together. “No blades, no core crystals.”
Mythra frowned, looking visibly sceptical.
“Anyhow, look!” Bow-Tie gestured. “If we want to find out more about what’s going on, we should do his challenge. If we don’t and we try to get it out of him, he could just make all the psychic energy holding this place together go wibbly and it all collapses. Or he tells us, but the poor substitute of physics goes ‘wait, what?’ and like somebody waking up from a weird dream, the whole place fades anyway.”
The Archsage let out an awkward laugh. “Yes… should probably avoid doing that.”
“So, we’ve gotta fight?” Reyn pounded his fists together. “I’m game. What’re we fighting?”
“Constructed entities, probably,” Blue-Suit shrugged.
“Hold your Ponios, there,” Vandham crossed his arms. “If this is gonna be a fight, a challenging one, should we all practice? Get to know our comrades’ fighting styles better?”
“It fine,” The Archsage gestured. “No prep-time needed! Friend’s victory guaranteed!”
Dickson cracked his knuckles. “Now, those are some words I like. All right! Hit us with your best shot!”
The Archsage nodded with a dangerous grin, and the space erupted into light.
----------
The Doctors blinked, looking at each other as they found themselves in a kind of viewing box, like the kind they have in stadiums. Other Nopon were in the box, whooping and hollering excitedly. The box itself was overlooking a cliff.
“Is this the challenge?” Blue-Suit wondered, looking about nervously. “Surviving a horde of feral, sportsgoing Nopon?”
“No, I think this is the spectator area.” Bow-Tie returned. “But-“ He spotted the landscape beyond. “Uraya – this is Uraya! Or… a recreation of it.”
“Why are we up here?” Blue-Suit wondered.
“Meh – Archsage can’t ask Doc-Docs to fight challenge battle. Mainly because he not like to be punching things, but also mostly because Archsage can’t as Doc-Doc to battle friend.” The Archsage, in a seat between them, shuffled to make himself more comfy. “Friends want snacks?”
“Snacks-“ Bow Tie repeated, before a plate of fish fingers appeared on a table next to him, along with a bowl of custard. “Ooh!”
“Friend?” Blue-Suit repeated with a frown.
The Archsage giggled – before a portal opened on the cliff below, and a person walked out. The Doctors shot to their feet in surprise, as she walked to the edge of the cliff, looking around.
Both Time Lords were utterly shocked, and staring.
“…Elma!” Blue-Suit gasped out.
“Elma – that’s Elma!” Bow-Tie gesticulated wildly. “That’s Elma in her disguise! What’s she doing here!?”
“Friends see…”
“Oh, wow…” Elma breathed as she reached the edge of the cliff, looking out upon the area. “What a stunning view…” One of the petals brushed past the woman in red armour. She plucked it from the air, chuckling. “Glowing cherry trees. Heh. This seems more like a resort ad than a combat simulator.”
“A combat sim-“ Blue-Suit narrowed his eyes in the Archsage’s direction. “You didn’t.”
Bow-Tie stared. “That’s Elma… Why’s she here?”
“Friends see in time!”
And then the moment broke. A second portal tore open behind Elma, and the parties from Bionis and Alrest came tumbling out from the wide aperture in space, depositing them almost completely across from one another.
“Oh, damn it, where the hell are we—?” Vandham snapped as he caught himself, and Elma’s stance shifted like she was a robot locking into a different mode. “Uraya!? We’re back in Uraya now!?”
The dozen or so members of the now-combined group — Nopon, Homs, humans Blades, and all — were caught off-guard when Elma spun on them, weapons already drawn.
“Uraya?” Fiora didn’t seem to take note of Elma, instead gazing out upon the landscape. “It’s beautiful… Just like Satorl Marsh on Bionis.”
Elma’s brow furrowed in thought.
Blue-Suit shook his head as he watched. “The guns, seriously?”
“At least she’s not shooting.” Bow-Tie muttered. “But what is she waiting for?”
“Oh – lovely, that! I love guns – the nicest thing you can say about a person with one is ‘at least you’re not shooting me!’” Blue-Suit sarcastically huffed.
“Uh… why’re you pointing a- Doc, she’s pointing a-“ Reyn looked around, eyes wide as he searched for either version of the Doctor.. “Uh, Shulk?”
“Not now, Reyn!” Shulk snapped with wide eyes as he stared uncomfortably at the guns pointed right at him.
“Where’s blue-suit gone?” Dickson frowned, scanning the field.
“Say,” Albedo shouted from the Alrestian squad. “We’re missing ours too!”
“Nia—”
“Why are you looking at me!?” Nia barked, bristling. “I don’t keep track of the fop!”
Elma’s brow set.
“No, Elma, no, don’t do tha-!” Blue-Suit tried to throw himself against the window, as Shulk’s eyes began to glow blue, and Elma squeezed the trigger.
Shulk’s hands yanked the Monado up, the blade glowing yellow as he held it in a blocking motion. “Monado, Shield!”
A burst of fire consumed Pyra, and she reverted right back into Mythra, who whipped around to look at Shulk with wide, furious eyes. “What was that!?”
Bubbles of yellow hexagons made of ether leapt into existence around him, and everyone else, the bullets bouncing right against them.
Blue-Suit let out a sigh of relief.
“Why’s she attacking!?” Bow-Tie wondered. “That’s Elma down there!” The last time he’d seen her, she was a lot more violent than when he first met her, sure, but she wasn’t the kind to shoot first and ask questions later. “What did you do!?”
“Just a little thing to get fight into motion. It fine. Just basic perception filter.” The Archsage smiled.
That was decidedly not fine… but in any case, the Doctor slunk into his seat.
“All right, lady!” A bellow came from the Vandham as he sprinted right up to Elma without a single care to his own safety. “Don’t know what crawled up your arse, but shootin’ kids without asking questions is a good enough reason to fight for me!”
The Doctors winced. That was a very bad idea – Elma had dealt with tougher than him on her way into work in the morning.
Vandham charged, blades flashing with Ether as Roc lit up the affinity link. She met him head-on, swords clashing against the scythes. Sparks scattered into the air as the blow rang out. The two of them engaged in a dance of twin weapons – swipe, parry, feint, and block – before both locked blades, pushing against each other and holding them in place.
Neither gave any ground. Then, Elma pushed, and Vandham – perhaps expecting her not to be that strong, went stumbling back.
“You got lucky – I was off-guard just a second ago,” Elma stated with measured breath. “Not a mistake I’ll make again!”
She was off like a gunshot, sprinting before sliding across the terrain beneath them, firing all the while.
Blue-Suit winced.
Bow-Tie bit his knuckles.
Her guns rapidly fired, breaking apart the groups into frantic swarms - the sheer fluidity of her movement making her hard to track and hit. One bullet skimmed Sharla's rifle hand, causing her to flinch and lose aim momentarily. Fiora threw herself into Elma’s path, and clipped her leg with a shallow cut, earning a grunt even as Elma passed right by.
She flipped back to her feet and spun around, switching seamlessly to her blades.
Ether crests sliced through the air with her next swings, sending the others staggering.
“Who is lady!?” Tora shouted in terror. “Built like level-boss, but have speed and grace of sub-boss!”
“Masterpon,” Poppi spoke up, “analysis of available weapons and energy levels classifies foe as superboss!”
“Tora, you little idiot – now’s not the time to compare a fight for our lives to those damn video games you play!” Nia snapped.
“Classification system very useful – determines how Poppi respond to threats!”
“So far, ‘m not seeing much of any response!” Dickson called out, raising his massive gunblade and opening fire.
“Dickson!” Shulk shouted, scandalized.
“She just started shooting! No talk! Now’s not the time! Everyone else, best get to it! Shulk, if you would join us?”
“The Monado doesn’t cut people! I’m useless!”
“Maybe this is because we compared Uraya to Bionis?” Albedo offered hesitantly. “Maybe she’s a patriot?”
“Actually, Miss Albedo,” Dromarch rumbled. “I believe with the skin tone and hair colour, she bears a close resemblance to Master Vandham.”
“Does it matter!?” Nia screeched, producing the twin rings. “Get her!” All of them jumped in, attempting to gang up on Elma, while Sharla remained back, and attempted to cycle her rifle.
Elma ducked, dodged, flipped, and threw herself to the side, knocking away the weapons that came her way – but not really able to make a dent in her opponents. Not since she was so outnumbered. Rex managed a lucky blow to her shoulder with the flat of Mythra's sword, making her stagger before she retaliated with an elbow to his gut. Until, of course, she started channelling Ether into her attacks, and sent waves of the energy rippling through the battlefield.
“Ain’t no way she’s Urayan! Check out that armour… nah!” Vandham called out. “Those swords spitting Ether like that, those guns – she’s got to have a Blade somewhere!”
“She’s not even summoning anyone!” Mythra hissed. “There’s no Core Crystal glow at all!”
“Uh – Mythra!” Rex, swinging her sword about, not really doing much of anything. “Maybe we could use a-“
Elma kicked Rex in the chest, sending him sliding.
“OW! Why does she keep going for my torso!?”
Albedo reached down, helping the teenage salvager up. “Centre of mass. Combat 101, remember?”
“If I didn’t before, I do now…” Rex groaned.
“Just be glad those stilettos aren’t breaking through your flesh,” Mythra told him pointedly. “I’ve seen ones that look less sharp than that kill people.”
Again, Elma darted forward, deflecting Vandham’s next strikes. She parried, kicked him back, and sent him sliding.
“She looks fast more than anything – keep her from moving!” Fiora darted in, machetes gleaming in the light.
“If anyone would, that would be nice, thank you,” grumbled Sharla, trying and failing to get a clear shot. “Every time I aim she jumps twelve feet in the air!”
Red-lit explosives landed near Elma - Poppi’s doing - but she was already behind a rock, taking cover.
And then—
“Poppi cannon!” came the next shout, and the blast tore into the space where the woman had just been.
Only… she wasn’t there anymore.
“Wait — where’d she go!?” Tora gasped.
“I can’t see her!” Rex spun about, nervously searching. “Mythra!? What was that thing we did, fighting Malos!?”
“Foresight can’t account for things that aren’t there!”
Then Shulk’s eyes flared blue once more.
“A vis—!” he gasped. He whirled around like instinct had taken over. “Monado Buster!”
The blade came down hard, energy bursting out like a tidal wave. It slammed into the ground, Ether rippling outward, as Elma let out a grunt of pain.
“What the fuck did you just say!?” Mythra shrieked, as Rex winced and shielded his ears.
“Ow! Masterpon – Poppi’s systems take critical hit!”
“Ow…” Vandham groaned. “I think we all felt that…”
“But—” Shulk’s face furrowed in confusion, before he realized something. “Of course! She’s not from Bionis! The Monado can harm her!”
“Or, could be because she’s a mimeosome,” Blue-Suit mumbled.
“Terrific,” Dickson muttered.
“Okay, new plan – Monado Speed!” Blue light surged around Shulk. He dashed forward, and the others from Bionis followed suit.
Elma looked up, focused on all of them, and she clenched her jaw.
But just as they neared her—
Her form blurred, then multiplied. Ghosts of herself flickered across the battlefield - an army of holographic doubles.
“Oh, that one, that one’s slippery,” Bow-Tie commented.
“OH, WHAT THE HELL, THAT’S CHEATING!” Reyn bellowed, as he ran right into one of Elma’s ‘ghosts.’
“Which one’s real!?” Rex swung around Mythra’s sword, which was practically bleeding light at this point.
“Just hit something, Rex! Hit them all!”
“But I’ve never—”
“HIT THE GIRL, DAMN IT!”
The fight was spiraling out of control. Vandham came back swinging, slicing through one of the decoys. He clashed again with the real one. She deflected, danced, countered.
“You gotta pay attention on the battlefield, kid!” Vandham shouted. “It’s not always a given you’re fighting a one-of-a-kind Driver or Blade!”
“For God’s-“ Mythra grunted, snatching her sword out of Rex’s hand. The blade moved quickly, the edge of raw photons moved at the speed of light, shattering one of the ghosts. “Hit everything that moves!”
The team was quickly getting overwhelmed, as Elma hit them with decoy after decoy. As soon as one was destroyed, it was replaced. All of them locking blades with the rest.
Tora tried to punch and knock them away. Albedo wasn’t really doing much – the delayed strikes felling holograms of a woman too swift for words anyway. Rex and Mythra were doing well, holding their ground, with Mythra’s foresight and her raw power, but it seemed to be too big of a fracas for them break out the really strong attacks without getting the others in the crossfire. Fiora managed to land another hit that forced Elma to disengage a moment, her expression tight. Reyn knocked one of her ghosts against a tree, but the double kicked off it and vanished, as another appeared just across the way. Dickson held slightly back, glaring and firing as Elma’s copies returned fire, one got him in the shoulder, and he grunted, but went right back to it.
“Friends – Poppi detect enemy energy output increase!” Poppi shouted.
“You kidding me!? She was holding back!?” Reyn gasped out.
“Stagger her!” Vandham called. “’fore she can do anything else!”
Shulk glanced around, and still with the Monado’s speed blessing driving his movements, dashed about the battlefield. The ether blade slashed through the holograms one-by-one, before it hit a real, material back, that sent Elma grunting in pain.
“All right, that’s what I’m talking about! LAUNCH!” Vandham roared as he cut through the air with Roc’s scythes. A gust of air formed an updraft, and Elma was flung skyward - Poppi leapt above her, and launched a blast downward.
The explosion hit, and Elma went rocketing into the ground, hard.
“Aw, yeah!” Nia grinned. “Challenge in the bag! See, that wasn’t so bad.”
“Who is that lady?” Rex wondered, as he began to approach the crater. “Is she gonna be all right?”
The Doctors frowned, shooting glances to the too-excited Nopon bouncing in his seat.
Elma’s body began to glow, as the air warped and shimmered around her
“Uh – Mythra?” Rex pointed at her. “Is it me, or is she stealing your move-“
“That’s not—” Mythra’s eyes widened. “Oh shit! Everyone get back! I said get-“
But she was already moving.
Elma exploded into pure motion, wreathed in streaks of blue and green and orange and yellow and purple.
The Overdriven Elma sprinted right up to Shulk, knocked the Monado right out of his hands, and knocked him right on his ass. She made for Reyn next, delivering an uppercut right into his jaw, and sending him down.
Rex went in spinning, swinging around Mythra’s sword with his entire weight. Elma grunted as the sword slammed into her, and forced her back. Rex went in for another strike, as Elma produced another round of holographic trickery, slipping away as she went invisible, and one of the holograms took the blow.
Elma got Rex square in the back of the head, and tossed him aside, going to look at the rest of the group.
“Gah-!” Reyn grunted, rubbing his jaw. “Way to go, Shulk! Nice work, taking advantage of that vision and all!”
“Reyn! She didn’t—it was like she moved so fast, not even the Monado could keep up!”
“Supervillainpon unlock SUPER-MODE!?” Tora screeched. “Meh-meh-meh! Nice bladeypon… maybe we come to lovely-jubliee agreement where she not beat up Tora too much? Maybe she accept cheeky surrender?”
Poppi shook her head. “Masterpon – ‘cheeky surrender’ phrase more likely to make baddiepons less likely to accept surrender.”
“You had your chance,” Elma declared, focusing on the group ahead, aiming her guns at them again.
“See?” Poppi asked of Tora.
“MEH-MEH-MEH!” Tora screeched, quivering in terror. “D-Don’t kill Tora! Tora have secret fridge of tasty sausages he forget to throw out!”
The Archsage let out a demented little squee, as he clapped his wings above his head. “It all over now for friends!”
“Oh, God…” Blue-Suit rubbed his face in horror.
“This will end it all!”
Everyone took a defensive stance.
She danced through their lines — blades tearing, guns firing with precision that cut through every shield they raised. By the time they swung at her, she was already in another place. Her every motion knocked one of them to the ground.
And finally — her guns turned outward in a brutal, spiralling storm. Bullets tore off in every direction as she fired over her shoulders and head, going low, going high, moving around to make it all the more difficult to gauge which direction she was firing from, and who she was even firing at.
“AH!” Rex grunted as the bullets tore his flesh, and sent him down.
Dickson grunted, and collapsed.
They hit the ground, one-by-one. Groaning, winded, and soundly defeated.
Elma holstered her guns. The two Doctors looked on, blankly horrified.
“Friend Elma, victory!” The Archsage happily declared, shuffling in his seat.
Elma looked up, her head looking around, searching for the Archsage’s voice. “Victory? Odd victory conditions for a sim… though I suppose it doesn’t matter that they’re not dead – just incapacitated.”
“Congratulations! Now meeting can take place properly!”
“Meeting-?“
The Archsage clapped his hands, and they vanished in a flash-of-light.
-------------
It all vanished in a second – Uraya, the crowd, the viewing box (was any of it real, or more perception-filter trickery?) – and they were back in the heart of the Archsage’s Domain.
Both Doctors rushed over to the fallen team.
“Ow… I feel like I got a good twenty years knocked into me…” Dickson grumbled.
“Shulk!” Blue-Suit addressed, looking him over. “You all right!?”
“Doctor, there are others injured…” Fiora tried to speak up.
Bow-Tie bent over, pulled Nia’s head up, and let out a relieved sigh, kissing her on the temple. “No bullet wounds – thank God, those were mostly psychic too.”
Nia let out a disgusted, indignant splutter, as she tried to bat him away, then wipe her face. “Get the- I’ll feckin’-“
Bow Tie quickly let go, and fell back to check the others. “Is everyone okay!?”
“Poppi QT still operating at max power,” Poppi responded with a smile.
“Poppi’s Masterpon… not so,” Tora grumbled.
“Fine,” Rex rubbed his chest with a grimace. “It hurts…”
“Hmph,” Mythra huffed, crossing her arms. “Dumbass.”
Rex’s head popped up. “What was that for!?”
“You weren’t paying attention!”
Elma, standing apart from the group, looked around slowly, staring at the sight around her. “Wha… What is this?”
“You kicked our ass – that’s what this is!” Reyn muttered, trying to get to his feet.
“I feel like I’ve been trampled by a wild Ardun.” Albedo groaned. She flopped back, breathing slowly. “Do we have to accept information as our prize? I could go for a good pêche Melba.”
“Don’t say that too loud!” Bow-Tie gasped out. “He might take that as a genuine statement!”
“Hold on a minute – where the bloody hell were you back there!?” Nia demanded of him. “It would’ve been nice – zap her with that sonic whazzit and save us all an arse-kicking!”
“I-It’s sonic screwdriver-“ Bow Tie muttered.
Elma sucked in a breath. “Sonic Screw-“
“Oi, it’s hardly my fault!” Blue-Suit defended himself. “The Archsage is the one to blame for you taking the loss – speaking of!” He spun around, looking at Elma. “Are you okay, Elma?”
“How do you…?” Elma’s eyes began to widen.
“Is she fine!?” Dickson spluttered. “She looks just dandy if you ask me, meanwhile, we-!”
“Psychic constructs – you think they hurt, but they don’t. Now!” He clapped his hands loudly, and spun around. “Elma!” He grinned upon laying eyes on her, rushing up to give her a kiss on each cheek, before yanking her into a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you!”
Elma pushed him back, drawing her weapon.
“Ah! Don’t shoot, definitely no shooting!”
“B-You-“ Elma stumbled over herself, looking around. “What is this place!? Who are all of you!? How did I even get here!?”
“…mmm, Who indeed,” Bow Tie chuckled. “Come now, Elma, I taught you better than that. Holding a gun to somebody’s chest when you have a question is not a very nice thing to do. You’re lucky we’re not in the TARDIS, I’d throw it right out the front doors.”
“Wait…” Elma’s arm relaxed. “Scientific knowledge… Sonic Screwdriver… the TARDIS…” At first, her expression was neutral - outwardly calm, a soldier assessing unknown terrain. But as her gaze locked on the two men before her, that mask cracked at the edges. “But… I just saw you…”
Her brow twitched, the kind of flicker that only showed when something deeply wrong was going on. Her lips parted, as if to speak, then pressed shut again, tightening into a thin line. A heartbeat passed. Then another.
The Doctors shared nervous glances. Elma knew about regeneration, but that was her BLADE uniform, so…
The tension gathered in her jaw — tense, rigid. She swallowed, hard, like her throat had gone dry without warning. One hand curled slightly at her side, the gloved fingers twitching once, like she was resisting the urge to go for her weapon.
Bow Tie smiled. “Still moving. How about you?”
Elma’s brow furrowed. “Still mov…” She sucked in a breath of realization. “Doctor!” She lit up like a kid seeing a favourite family member.
“Ah-ha, got you!” Bow Tie shot forward, and gave her another hug.
Blue-Suit’s lips twitched, and he turned away.
“Ah, ah, don’t think I forgot you!” Bow Tie pulled him over.
“Huh? Doctor, who’s this?”
“Myself.” Both answered at once.
Elma blinked, before her looked turned chiding. “Seriously? You’re going around, breaking the first rule of time travel now?”
“Not intentionally-“ Blue-Suit tried to escape.
“Oh, no!” Elma yanked him in for a hug as well, “You don’t get to escape that easy.” Patting his arms, she looked him up and down. “Nice suit.”
“Well,” Blue-Suit straightened his tie. “I don’t like to brag, but…”
“Don’t mind him,” Bow Tie stage-whispered to her. “Vanity problems.”
“And what about you!?” Blue-Suit challenged. “Baby-face!”
Bow Tie snorted. “Rich coming from you, Clark Gable.”
Elma burst into laughter, shaking her head. The laugh died, and when she spoke, it came low and soft.
“…You regenerated.”
Not accusation. Not awe.
“Twice, since the last time we met,” Blue-Suit gently smiled at her, leaning forward. “How’re you doing, Elma? Where are you at?”
Elma solemnly smiled. “The morning after the Lifehold Recovery Party.”
Blue-Suit’s eyes popped open, as a blush rose to his face. “Ah.”
“Oh, what a night that was!” Bow Tie reflected with a chuckle. “They had to get the helicopters to get us off the roof of BLADE Tower…” He scratched his head. “Still trying to figure out how we got up there.”
“Doctor,” Shulk addressed with a curious frown. “Who is this woman? How do you know her?”
Elma’s head snapped in Shulk’s direction, and her face twitched in confusion again. “…Adam?”
Shulk tilted his head, puzzled. “Pardon?”
“Ah, Elma, this is Shulk. And, everyone,” He turned about, gesturing to all the others. “Everyone, this is Elma. We used to travel together.”
“Travel together?” Nia repeated. “What, like, in the TARDIS?”
“…I still have no idea what the hell’s going on…” Vandham muttered sorely, shaking his head.
“You’ll get used to it.” Reyn shook his head.
Bow Tie bounced over with a smile. “That’s right! All of time and space! The Doctor and Elma-with-a-really-long-name-that-I-shortened-because-it-caused-me-to-run-out-of-breath-every-time-I-said-it. Whew, watch out!” He spun around excitedly.
Mythra huffed. “Well, if you tolerate him, you can’t be all bad.”
Elma furrowed her brow, as Pyra took Mythra’s place.
“You seem a very nice woman,” Pyra commented with a smile. “…even if you shot at us.”
“Shot you?” Elma frowned. “When did I do that?”
“Are you kid-!?” Dickson spluttered. “Back there, just a second ago! You did somethin’, and mopped the floor with us!”
“That was…” Elma blinked. “Those Prone I was fighting. Those were you?”
“Yeah,” Rex nodded, before looking puzzled. “…what’s a Prone?”
“Alien species hell-bent on exterminating humanity.” Blue-Suit answered.
“Like the Mechon?” Fiora wondered.
Blue-Suit nodded. “The reasons might be different on the Mechon’s end – but yeah.”
Elma blanched. “I see… I’m sorry if I caused you all any harm. I was under the impression this was a combat simulator. But if you two are here…”
“A combat… simulator?” Pyra repeated.
“A Nopon merchant gave it to me.” Elma explained, before she looked at Pyra again, and her eyebrows climbed into her hairline. “What an… unusual necklace. Where’d you get it?”
Mythra transitioned into existence. “If one more person looks at my Core Crystal like that again…”
Elma frowned. “Core Crystal? What?” She shook her head. “Listen, this may sound like an odd question, but you don’t recognize me… do you?”
Mythra cocked an eyebrow. “Should I?”
“…no. Probably not.” She turned to the Doctors. “Should I assume a particularly odd case of spatial genetic multiplicity?”
Bow Tie nodded, drawing on his experience of searching for Clara over the past ten years to drive it home. “Probably for the best.”
“Spatio-jam-netic-whazzit?” Tora questioned.
Elma turned to begin to explain.
“Well, actually, going by the name,” Shulk spoke up from across the space. “’Multiplicity’ is a fancy way of saying ‘the state of being multiple.’ Genetics mostly have to do with a person’s looks and traits. And spatial is space. So… the full phrase means something like… ‘the state of there being multiple genetics across space.’ Or… it’s a fancy way of saying identical strangers.”
Elma’s eyebrows shot up. “You catch on quick…” She murmured. “Just like…” She shook her head. “You’ve got the gist of it, though. Genetic information can echo across space-time events, and sometimes, it can cause people across vast swaths of space to inherit traits from someone far-removed from them.”
“Really?” Shulk perked up, blatantly intrigued. “Is there a limit to the effect? Does that mean strangers across the world with no common family can still be related to one another?”
“Shulk,” Fiora cleared her throat, pointedly.
“…right,” Shulk coughed. “Perhaps we’d better save that for later.”
“Good idea,” Bow-Tie spun around. “Oi! Archsage! Ponnest of all ‘pons! Show yourself!”
“Now, now, not worry self!” The Archsage spoke with a smile. “Just had to go be getting Elma’s prizes! Doc-Doc and friends very impatient!”
Elma raised an eyebrow. “’Doc-Doc?’ The two of you know each other?”
“Sure do,” Blue-Suit shoved his hands into his pockets. “He’s my old teacher. Trained under him for about fifty years, learning Domain Hopping.”
The Archsage nodded. “Doc-Doc very poor student. Pulled entire moon into Domain with him – put it back upside down!”
“That… was not my fault,” Blue-Suit tugged at his ear in embarrassment.
Bow Tie snorted. “He got distracted.” He glanced over at Elma. “That’s where we are, now. The Conscious Domain. This entire place was sculpted by the Archsage – including that fight.”
Elma raised an eyebrow at the tiny Nopon. “So, those Prone I was seeing…?”
The Archsage nodded. “Yep! Friends look like baddiepons, but friends whole time! Psychic power make friends look like Prone to Elma, hide huge chunks of what they say so Elma doesn’t catch wise to fact they’re friends, and make Elma look a lot more mean than she actually is so friends fight her. Also make wounds look real, and feel real, but all mostly fake. Like compressed air and makeup.”
“I was wondering why an undergrown merchant was calling himself the Nopon Archsage.” Elma crossed her arms.
“Meh?” Tora frowned. “’Know-pon?’ Why friend saying it weird?”
Elma groaned and rolled her eyes. “Oh boy, here we go…”
Blue-Suit snorted. “Well, we wouldn’t have to keep clowning on your pronunciation if you just listened to us.”
“I repeat what they told me,” Elma, like she’d had the conversation a million times, rolled her eyes again. “They said ‘know-pon.’”
The Doctors both opened their mouths, ready to retort, before Fiora loudly coughed.
“Doctor, maybe you should ask the Archsage what you’ve been wondering…?”
“Ah, right!” Blue-Suit spun around to look at the Nopon with a curious expression. “You told us you’d tell us why you brought us here if we won.”
“Ah. Yes. Archsage do be promising that.” The Archsage nodded.
Blue-Suit raised an expectant eyebrow. “So…?”
“So, Doc-Doc and friends lose battle,” The Archsage shrugged. “Friend Elma declared victor.”
“Aw, come on!” Reyn raised his voice. “We got our butts kicked out there!”
“So, what’re you gonna do?” Rex questioned the Archsage. “Just send us all home, no clue why we ever showed up? Complete waste of time, that!”
“They’re Nopon – slippery little buggers, them.” Dickson shook his head while he lit up a cigar.
“Poppi calculate probability of this occurring before fight start,” Poppi shook her head.
“No, hold on, don’t you see!” Bow Tie grinned. “Elma won!”
“…yeah, that’s the problem, try to keep up.” Nia huffed.
“No, there’s no problem, because Elma’s not a bad guy – she’s a friend!” Bow Tie gesticulated wildly. “She wins, or you do, but regardless, the result is the same!”
“…OH!” Blue-Suit bellowed in realization. “Oh, of course, that’s why you brought her here!” He hit himself in the head.
“No, Archsage bring Elma because he want to see friends’ butts get kicked.”
“Oh.”
“But Archsage tell Doc-Doc what he want to know,” The Nopon cleared his throat. “Doc-Doc and friends here in Archsage realm because of mondo-big problem. Situation bad-news. Need two Doctors on it.”
“What?” Bow-Tie looked over, concerned. “Something’s happening?”
Nia snorted. “Well, since he’s a Nopon, I’d guess he’s running out of pollen orbs. Or someone took his maid pin-up.”
“NLA has a bunny café now,” Elma dryly crossed her arms. “I’m sure he can find it.”
“No, don’t-“ Bow Tie shot at her in a rush, practically falling over himself as he approached the Archsage. “There’s a big, terrible situation going on? Something you need the both of us for?”
The Archsage nodded. “Big, terrible thing, that make all other big terrible things pale in comparison. One Doctor reboot universe, two Doctors fix much more.”
“Hang on,” Rex furrowed his brow. “Reboot the-“
Bow-Tie leaned down, to look at the Nopon’s face. “How bad are we talking?”
“In terms of badness?” The Archsage blinked. “About as bad as big bad Rassy-lon hatching scheme for to becoming god.”
The two Doctors sharply inhaled.
“But!” The Archsage raised his voice. “Archsage think Doc-Doc and friends up to it! Is why he brought friends here to begin with.”
“Really?” Elma frowned. “What kind of badness are we talking?”
“Here – friends, please to be taking a look at this.” The Archsage directed their attention up.
Three orbs appeared in existence above their heads - one coloured blue, another coloured red, another coloured green. All lazily drifted in no particular way, like bubbles in the air.
Blue-Suit produced his glassed, plopping them on his face. “What exactly are we looking at?”
“What friends are seeing is worlds they hail from,” The Archsage gestured. “Bionis, Alrest, and Mira. Bubbles of existence, isolated.”
“Right, because Bionis is in a bottle universe,” Blue-Suit bit his lip.
“And Alrest is isolated inside a time bubble,” Bow Tie continued.
Elma took a step forward, looking up. “And Mira is… well, it’s just flat-out odd, right? So, these are the worlds you pulled us from?”
The Archsage nodded. “BLADEypon is listening – yes. Not just planets – some have other planets and stars with them, too.” The projection of Alrest enlarged, allowing the Doctors and Elma to see inside – at the glowing light in the centre, the sun, and the other planets orbiting it, beyond just Earth. Not that Blue-Suit or Elma knew it was Earth – Bow Tie would have to fill them in later.
“That’s Alrest?” Azurda, for the first time in a while, popped his head out of Rex’s helmet, looking at the sight. “My… Not just the world, but the cosmos around it! How magnificent…”
The Archsage gestured. “Problem is this: outside of bubbles… universe is gone.”
The three furrowed their brows in confusion.
“Sorry,” Bow Tie raised his hand. “You misplaced a universe?”
The Archsage shook his head. “Not lost. Gone.” The Nopon bounced. “Outside of Alrest, Bionis, and Mira, entire universe – totality of existence and everything inside – has been destroyed.”
Bow Tie’s eyes popped out of his head in disbelief. “Destroyed? That’s not possible- how is that possible!?”
“But…” Blue-Suit blankly murmured in horror. “That can’t be. Not the entire universe!”
“Small bubble existences survived – some form.” The Archsage shrugged. “All pop, and fade.”
“But… I don’t understand,” Elma crossed her arms, shaking her head. “What could have enough energy to destroy the universe?”
“Well, it’s not about energy, not really,” Bow Tie frowned. “It’s about how you do it.” He rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “The last time something like this happened, the TARDIS exploded-“
“Oi!” Blue-Suit snapped. “Spoilers!”
“If the universe has gone down the drain, it won’t matter, will it!?” Bow Tie snapped right back. “But… that was a Total Event Collapse. Nothing like this…”
“Total Event…” Blue-Suit muttered in horror.
“I fixed it – because of course I did.”
Rex scratched his head. “What’s a Total Collapse Event?”
Elma turned to him. “The Doctor’s ship – the TARDIS – exists partially outside of time. If the engine were to explode at a key moment in history – nexus points in the Time Vortex – that explosion would propagate, through all of time. Rippling back, all the way to the creation of the universe. The explosion, as a great, big mass of fire, would draw in the elemental hydrogen left over from the creation of existence, and consume it. No hydrogen, no stars. No stars, no heavier elements. No heavier elements, no planets. No planets, no life. The universe dies the moment it begins."
“Which means something similar is not happening here,” The Blue-Suited Doctor decisively intoned, putting his hands in his pockets. “Otherwise, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”
“The bubbles, those are fascinating! Great, big, bubbles of existence! Me, I love bubbles – bath time’s always fun with bubbles,” Bow Tie chuckled, before turning serious. “But… why three bubbles? What makes these ones special…?”
“Mira survived the Big Bang,” Blue-Suit muttered. “It’s at the centre of the universe’s ley lines. Quite possibly one of the most stable locations in all existence – it shielded itself.”
“Then why Alrest…?” Bow Tie bit his lip. “And why Bionis? What makes them different?”
“Friends looking at big picture too closely,” The Archsage shook his head. “That not what important.”
The Doctors both spluttered.
“If all of existence doesn’t exist, I’d say that was pretty darn important!” Blue-Suit hollered.
“It important, but it not the important thing,” The Archsage shook his head. “Figuring out what happened will come to Doc-Docs later, naturally, not need Archsage to tell you. Well… Archsage probably could, but Archsage taking big risk. Could make Wave Consciousness very angry.”
All focused on the Archsage intently. Albedo crossed her arms, with a raised eyebrow.
“Archsage respect Consciousness very much – he train for thousands of years to meet, after all.” The Archsage smiled. His smile dropped. “But… Consciousness go funny, long time ago. It still there, but Archsage can no longer hear… or, it no longer want to talk to Archsage. Last thing it tell Archsage was that he need to summon Doc-Doc. Tell them there is problem, but not what problem is, or how to be fixing it. Have to discover that on his own, Wave Consciousness said. If told, Doc-Doc becomes blinded to other solution of problem.”
“The Consciousness…?” Bow Tie looked around. “I don’t like being kept in the dark, you know!”
“Not being kept in dark,” The Archsage refuted. “Doc-Doc will find out truth, is given. Archsage and Consciousness not conspiring to keep it hidden. But, if break too soon, truth could harm many many people. Important thing is that Doctor and friends know state of cosmos.”
Shulk stepped up, the Monado’s ether lines pulsing ever brighter. “Fascinating stuff… other cosmologies.” He murmured. “Even if it’s smaller than anticipated…”
“We’re Time Lords,” Blue-Suit stressed to the Archsage. “We know how to deal with foreknowledge.”
“Not you Archsage is worried about.” The Archsage shook his head. “Archsage could tell all right now. But won’t. Threads of fate unravel like cheap hanky.”
The Monado buzzed loudly.
“Besides, Doctors get tunnel-vision major bad.” The Archsage continued. “Star-Whale, being big one. Archsage tell solution, blind Doctors to other possibilities. Could end up hurting people.”
“Then why bring us here!?” Blue-Suit posed to the Archsage. “If we’re not supposed to know some big, grand, destiny-changing thing, why?”
“Hmm…” Elma hummed, shifting her weight. “Maybe it’s something about these… space-bubbles. Being aware that there are others out there might come up later? Although… it does answer a lot of questions,” She thinned her lips thoughtfully. “It certainly explains why so many differing spacefaring lifeforms found themselves on Mira. And why time travel doesn’t seem to work there.”
“Well, actually, that’s just because Professor B is a hack fraud.” Bow Tie huffed. “But we didn’t seem to have any… problems…” He trailed off, his brow furrowing in confusion. “Say. How did we leave Mira, in the end?”
Blue-Suit snorted. “Well, don’t be daft, we-“ He stopped abruptly, blinking in just as much befuddlement. “We… Well. I don’t seem to remember either.” They both turned to Elma.
“Don’t ask me,” Elma shrugged. “You’re still helping us assess the Lifehold Core, from my perspective. We haven’t even gotten into the sublevel yet.”
“The sublevel… ah, right. The restricted mainframe,” Bow Tie recalled. “The crew consciousnesses were stored on a separate mainframe from the other passengers, for redundancy’s sake.”
“Lifehold…” Mythra muttered.
“An enormous storage facility of genetic, historical, and cultural data.” Blue-Suit simplified. “An ark, in space.”
“The White Whale,” Elma recited for the benefit of the rest of them. “A long-range colonization starship, Providence-class, with a capacity of 20 million people.” While she rattled that off, she was looking closely at Mythra, very curious about the Aegis’s reaction. “The Lifehold was the main storage structure of that ship.”
“Get out!” Reyn reflexively jumped back. “Twenty million!? That’s more people than live on the whole Bionis!”
“Or Alrest…” Albedo shuddered.
“Really…?” Bow Tie murmured. “Curious. Universe goes kaput, Planet Earth suffers trauma so bad it turns into Alrest,” Blue-Suit let out a startled noise, but his counterpart went on, “And for some reason, it survives. Horribly destructive event, leaves the planet itself intact and lifebearing. But the population is down. And what do Blades have to do with it? Or Titans?”
“Bionis is a Titan too,” Blue-Suit muttered. “Probably not from this… Alrest. But there are Telethia on it.”
Bow Tie furrowed his brow. “Yes… big, scary, hungry Telethia. So, all of these are connected somehow. Telethia exist in both Bionis and Mira, and Mythra evidently recognizes the Monado – or, came across something similar to it.”
“Well, you’re me,” Blue-Suit cocked an eyebrow at his future self. “What’s all going on here?”
Bow Tie shifted nervously, glancing around.
Nia burst out laughing. “Look at him – he doesn’t remember!”
“Oi, it’s not my fault!” Bow Tie raised his voice in defence. “Multi-Doctor Events – we never remember!”
Sharla raised an eyebrow. “You have your own name for situations when you meet yourself?”
“It’s a hazard, if you’re a time traveller.” Blue-Suit scratched the back of his head.
“Wait,” Elma crossed her arms. “What’s the last thing you do remember of Mira?”
Blue-Suit pondered for a moment. “I can’t remember. It all kind of… fades, after the Lifehold Core.”
“Then we’re in trouble,” Elma declared confidently. “That means the Event isn’t just confined to you two, but the Doctor on Mira as well.”
The Archsage clapped his hands. “Friend Elma smart-smart! Yes, that exactly why Archsage bring her here! All bubbles connected! All have part to play. Elma go with Doc-Doc, figure out what goes on. It come in handy later, pinky-promise!”
“Wait, you brought me here to send me off with one of them?” Elma frowned. She glanced at the Doctors, a complex kaleidoscope of emotions flickering across her face. For a second, she looked hopeful – no doubt, she was looking for an excuse to get to know one of the ‘new’ Doctors better, catching up again with her old friend, along with valuing the extended time she’d get to spend alongside him. Then, came worry. “But, I’m needed, back in NLA. The salvage crews are getting ready to start their assessment of the Lifehold Core at any second, and they’ll need my access to get into the really-restricted areas. And I know more about those systems than anyone, if there’s a problem, they’ll need me to diagnose it.”
“Meh? Friend Elma forget already? She time travelling!” The Archsage hummed and hawed. “Plus, time flows between bubble universes not exactly one-to-one. Time in Mira move slower – at rate of 37-million-to-one.”
“Oooh,” Blue-Suit hummed, turning to Elma with a smile. “You could spend a whole year, with us, and a second would only pass back where you come from.”
“And with my real body still in the combat simulator back home, no one would even notice I was gone…” Elma murmured, before frowning again. “Wait, if my real body is back home, what am I made of, right now?”
“Ether, held together by psychic energy!” The Archsage boasted. “Fine trick! And best part? If friend Elma go back to Mira, projection simply collapses! She go right back to original body, no harm, no foul!”
“…all right,” Elma chuckled. “That is a decent enough proposal… I’m game.” She nodded, at last. “But, I presume, since there are two Doctors here, from two different bubbles, I can’t go with both of them.”
“No,” The Archsage shook his head. “Friend Elma win challenge, so part of her prize is choice of which to go with.”
“Part of my prize?” Elma repeated.
The Archsage giggled. “Elma see rest later. After Elma choose. Archsage choose not to interfere with decision – he know she choose right anyway – but leave you to hash it all out.” He turned. “In meantime, friends probably tired – both came from tough fights and long days’ work, then thrown right into challenge with no recharge! Is why they got butts kicked by one BLADE!”
“Oh, so that’s it…” Reyn muttered. “I thought we just sucked.”
“…I don’t know,” Sharla hummed theatrically. “I thought we were doing pretty good. The ones of us that weren’t just blindly rushing in, that is.”
Fiora nodded in solidarity with her, while Reyn winced.
“Come!” The Archsage imperiously ordered, gesturing for the others to follow. “Let Doc-Docs and Elma discuss, and friends can recuperate.”
All gathered looked nervous for a moment.
“I got woke up in the middle of the night to kick ass, and got my ass kicked,” Nia fell into step behind the Archsage first. “You bet I’m looking for a spa.”
The others fell into motion around her, save one. Dickson lagged behind momentarily, narrowing his eyes at the Doctors, before he went with the others, through a door that certainly hadn’t been there before.
Leaving just Elma, Blue-Suit, and Bow Tie to talk.
-------------
Elma had witnessed the after-effects of Regeneration before. The pretty, curly-haired Doctor, to the grizzled-old veteran, to the buzzcut leather-wearing Northerner.
Every time, it was like a shock of cold water. Seeing, by all accounts, a new individual – how they dressed different, acted different, spoke different. How they enjoyed different things, and had different opinions about the same person, but there, right under the surface, was the same, core individual.
One hand went through the Tenth Doctor’s spiky and stiff mass of hair, while the other brushed gently through the smooth and styled coif of the Eleventh Doctor’s hair. When she removed her hands, they went down, feeling along both Doctors’ arms and torsos. Even the skeleton felt different.
One wore a red bow tie, a baby-blue shirt, a tweed jacket and black trousers, that made him look like a nutty professor. The other had a blue suit with dark red pinstripes, a red tie, and a large tan trench coat that made him look like a 1920’s gangster, just without the tommy gun or fedora. One exuded boyish charm and a dark eyes that looked ready to lash out at just about anything, and the other was a suave Casanova who looked like he hadn’t seen sleep in nine-hundred years.
And both were the same man.
She had seen the pictures, in the UNIT files. It was different, seeing them right there, side-by-side, in the flesh.
Finally, Elma stopped her probing.
“…well?” The Tenth Doctor asked with a light, almost expectant tone – as expected of the one with the vanity issues. “What do you think?”
“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” The Eleventh conspiratorially asked. “I keep telling him, the females all think it’s atrocious – makes it look like he just slapped four jars of hair gel on his head and called it a day.”
“My hair care routine is none of your business.” The one in the suit challenged his older self.
“None of my-“ The one in the bow tie spluttered. “I’m you!”
Blue-Suit turned away with a dry look and puckered lips. “That remains to be seen.”
Elma put one hand on each Doctor’s sternum, and gave each one a peck on the cheek, silencing them. Both looked at her, and she broke out into a smile. “Both of you look gorgeous.” She stepped back, and looked around for a seat to occupy. “Which one was the one that wore the Celery? And the one that acted like he was James Bond? I had quite the crush on both of them, when I found the files.”
“Velvet suits and cricketing gear,” Bow Tie huffed, leaning against one of the columns. “You like your men wearing odd clothes.”
“And leather jackets,” Blue-Suit contributed. “Don’t forget them.”
“I wish I could forget them…” Bow Tie muttered. “Jack was too kind when he called me a U-Boat Captain.”
“I wish I could forget seeing that chin, but still, here we are.”
“Sorry, I don’t take advice on my looks from a man who wears chucks with his suits.”
Elma chuckled deeply, glancing between the two. “Look at the two of you… The same man, and you’re arguing like brothers.”
“Well, we’ve changed a lot!” Bow Tie defended.
Elma tilted her head with a patient, if sad, expression. “Not that much. Your eyes are the same… that ache, behind them. How long has it been for you? Both of you?”
“About…” Blue-Suit rubbed the back of his head, sucking in a breath. “Five years?”
“A couple of centuries,” Bow Tie sat down next to her on the steps first.
“Hmm…” Elma nodded, closing her eyes. “Listen, I know I probably shouldn’t ask – it’s all in my future, but… was it worth it? Everything? The Project, fighting on Mira, everything… Do things turn out all right?”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re still hung-up on it!” Bow Tie groaned. “You saved people, Elma! Gave people a fighting chance – and whatever happens in your future, it turns out all right.”
“More than all right.” Blue-Suit concurred with a smile, sitting down on her other side. “You did it.”
Elma looked up, over at him.
“The plan worked. Project Exodus – the First Great Cosmic Human Diaspora.” He rattled off with a grin. “The human race, scattered to the distant stars, their descendants surviving… oh, till the end of time.”
“And you can trust us, ‘cause we’ve been there.” Bow Tie smugly concurred. “The year one-hundred-trillion, the human race, still there. Hatching plans to survive past the collapse of reality itself.”
“That’s…” Elma breathed, covering her mouth as joy lit up in her eyes. “The year one-hundred-trillion…”
“Because of you.” Blue-Suit pointed out. “Well, you, and everyone who helped get those ships moving, but… it was mostly you.”
“…Because of me,” she whispered.
The Doctors just watched her, letting her work through it.
“Doctor.” She turned to Blue-Suit again, her mind now chasing a different question. “The Samaarians.”
He blinked. “What about them?”
“You mentioned humans who schemed to survive the destruction of their universe. So… how about them? Were they the same?”
He in the pinstripes inhaled, exhaling slowly as he considered his answer. “It’s possible.”
Elma frowned. “You don’t know?”
“Oh, there’re theories. There’s always theories. But I’ll tell you this;” He glanced sideways at her, his voice quieter, more serious. “If they were… that means humans haven’t just survived the end of the universe. They’ve survived more than one.”
She breathed in sharply.
“That’s what you lot do,” Blue-Suit continued, and then he grinned, wide and unguarded, as if he couldn’t help himself. “Oh, I love you.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder, and exhaled.
“…I can live with that,” She murmured.
Bow Tie beamed. “Knew you could.”
“So,” Elma inhaled. “Great, big, universe-shattering threat?”
“Yup,” Blue-Suit confirmed.
“No clue what it is, where it came from, or why?”
“No idea!” Bow Tie admitted.
“…well, just another problem for the Doctor to solve.” Elma chuckled, shifting around. “Any theories?”
“None at all,” Both Doctors frowned.
“I guess we’ll find out, then,” She said to the Blue-Suited Doctor.
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re coming with me?”
Bow Tie looked dejected. “Ah.”
“Listen, it’s not-“ She closed her eyes, and shook her head.
“It’s Shulk, right?” Blue-Suit hummed. “You thought he was someone else.”
“…right,” Elma sighed.
“Someone you know?”
“Very well,” Elma inhaled. “I headhunted him. He was young, as far as scientists go, but he was very intelligent. Throwing around theories and proofs that made my people’s scientists look like kids in the playground. We wanted him to study the Conduit… to figure out a way to survive the Ganglion’s attack.”
“The Con-“ Blue-Suit frowned. “I remember that… it caught my attention, all that tech being fabricated out of nowhere. That was the real reason I’d stopped by your office, that night you snapped at me. The Processor wasn’t my real concern, but the Conduit. No clue what it was, or where it was, but I’d stopped by in that time zone on other business, and I kept seeing it brought up. So I tried to get a look. Never did figure it out. Not with… other stuff.”
Elma nodded, resting her head in her hand. “As best we can tell, it was a Time Lord device or… something very close to one, in terms of capabilities. It mathematically modelled matter and energy in the universe, and provided access to an endless number of parallel universes and higher dimensions. A gateway to infinity.”
Bow Tie stared at Elma. “That’s not possible…”
The Blue-Suited Doctor’s frown deepened. “Well, I know what it sounds like, but that can’t be what I’m thinking of.” He shook his head. “It was destroyed, in the Time War.”
Elma crossed her arms. “Plenty of things escaped the Time War. How do you know for sure?”
Bow Tie let out a rueful snort. “The Master was there. He watched as the Dalek Emperor took control of it, and it sent him running scared, all the way to the end of time.”
Elma paled a few shades. “The Daleks in control of something like the Conduit…”
Bow Tie nodded in agreement. “If it wasn’t destroyed then and there, the lot of us wouldn’t be having this discussion. Trust me. It’s destroyed.”
“Well, for the best, then.” Elma let out a relieved breath. “Klaus had some ideas, about how to use the Conduit, but they all seemed… esoteric, at best. Maybe it was for the best that we only ever could use it as a 3D printer, and a generator.”
“Klaus, that’s his name?” Blue-Suit frowned. “What kind of ideas did he have?”
“Shunting the Sol System into another dimension, writing human beings onto the fabric of space as consciousness, that kind of thing. Genius… but a little nuts.”
“Blimey, that’s something,” Bow Tie chuckled.
Still, Blue-Suit’s frown deepened. “Klaus, Klaus… sorry, no, the name’s not ringing any bells.”
Elma fixed the Doctor with a dry look. “You, the Doctor, who knows everybody everywhere with even a hint of major scientific contribution, have no idea about Adam Klaus, head researcher on the entire Conduit project, and the man responsible for training the three cores of the Trinity Processor?”
Bow Tie chuckled. “Like that chap on Jonathan Creek?”
Blue-Suit shook his head with a look just as sardonic. “No idea.”
Bow Tie scratched his head in confusion. “Wait - all of that was Galea’s job, wasn’t it?”
Elma turned to Bow-Tie with an odd look. “What do you mean?”
“The one who led the Conduit project – I didn’t know what the project was, but I found some of the articles after you all had left Earth – and the one responsible for the Trinity Processor. Wasn’t that Doctor Galea?”
Elma’s brow furrowed in concern. “You… you have no idea who Klaus is? Really?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
“But…” Elma blinked. “It’s Klaus.”
“…nope, still nothing.”
“Maybe something happened, after we left Earth?” Elma proposed. “Something that got him excommunicated, or something, and they gave all the credit to Galea.”
Blue-Suit again raised an eyebrow. “You certain of that?”
Elma thinned her lips for a moment. “Klaus was well-meaning. Caring, in his own way. And very, very neurotic – he could barely handle being the center of attention for even a second. He and Galea were closer than most. Maybe everything finally got to him, and he just… gave her the credit? Not just taking himself out of the spotlight – but making it so it looked like he was never in it at all?”
“Possibly,” Bow Tie inhaled. “I did something similar. We all want to be able to live quiet lives, at some point…”
Blue-Suit hummed, glancing at Elma. “So, you’re going to come with me, because Shulk reminds you of this Klaus?”
Elma nodded. “I know, I know – they’re two different people. And Shulk appears much, much more put-together than Klaus. But his mind…” She smiled in remembrance. “The way he picked up on what I was saying, just like that…”
“Oh, he does that.” Blue-Suit chuckled. “Smart lad, him. He figured out how my sonic screwdriver worked, how the TARDIS worked, and a whole lotta other things, just in one talk.” He then inhaled, leaning back. “But you’re wrong on the first part. He’s angry. Very angry. You haven’t seen him fight the Mechon yet… but it’s there. Always rushing off, despite all the talks we’ve had with him about that kind of thing.”
“Maybe I really should come along, then.” Elma suggested.
“What for?” Blue-Suit asked. “I know you miss Earth-“
“I do,” Elma confirmed quickly. “And whatever this… Alrest is, that Earth apparently turned into,” She glanced over at Bow Tie, then shook her head, “We can figure that out later. It’ll still be there, right? It’s a planet. But there’s not going to be helping anyone if they’re dead.”
“Helping?” Bow Tie repeated. “Help – why help, what for?”
Elma rolled her eyes. “Look, do you know how angry I was – and still am – at the Ganglion? How angry I was with you? I spent fifty-four years on Earth in a constant state of rage. And look at me. I may not always be the coolest head, but I have discipline.”
“And we don’t?” Blue-Suit, a bit miffed, asked for himself and his future self.
Elma shot him a look. “Doctor, your self-control is magnificent. Your discipline, on the other hand…”
“I mean, look at yourself, going around kissing people all the time,” Bow Tie snorted – like he wasn’t guilty of that precise thing.
“You hush.” Blue-Suit pointed at his future self.
“Have you even really taught him any actual discipline, or just said ‘try not to be a suicidal fool, okay?’” Elma asked of the Time Lord.
“…well…”
“Oh my God, you haven’t…” Elma mumbled. She turned to Bow Tie. “Well, what about you? Anybody in your group you need to worry about?”
“From what little I’ve seen, Poppi’s whipping Tora into shape, Mythra’s probably going to shout at Rex until he does the same, and I don’t worry about Nia and Dromarch. Albedo… eh, I’ll figure her out.”
“Then it sounds like you could use my help more.” Elma resolutely nodded to the Blue-Suited Doctor. “No offense, Doctor.”
“…it hurts a little bit.” He dourly mumbled.
Elma laughed. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Me and the Doctor, exploring a strange new world. Just like old times.”
“Yes, well,” Bow Tie began to stand. “I should probably go find Nia-“
“Ah,” Elma cut him off. “Not yet, mister. We’ve still got some catching up to do. Especially you, if this is the last time I’ll see you.”
Bow Tie straightened his namesake article. “It’s the future, big risk-“
“I’m not falling for that,” Elma rolled her eyes. “Especially not considering you confirmed earlier this guy wouldn’t remember after everything winds down. Both of you, sit down.” She commanded.
Both Doctors sighed, but obeyed.
Elma took their hands.
“Now, tell me what happened.”
---------
The Archsage’s Domain was, in all honesty, amazing. That door the Archsage led them through led to something that seemed like a fully-stocked resort – damn near alien to the people from Bionis, but not unwelcome by any means. There were pools, bedrooms, bath suites…
While his friends and Dickson all went off to do their own thing, Shulk was examining a plate, loaded up with food from one of said tables. It was food, but if it was like everything else there, it was made of psychic energy, was it not? Did that mean it wasn’t real? If they ate it, would it be literally empty calories? Or was it a perfect substitute for real food, in every way, including nutrient contents? If they ate it, would it stick around, or fade after they left? Did it taste like the real thing, or did their perceptions colour that?
Shulk sat there, trying to unravel the deeper mysteries of the food by staring at it, instead of just eating the stuff, oblivious to the clatter of footsteps approaching him.
“All right,” Mythra addressed impatiently. “We need to talk. Now.”
She didn’t break through his thinking, and huffed.
“Hey, Monado-boy,” She tapped his leg with the tip of her shoe. “Are you listening to me?”
Shulk rounded on her so quick, it was a wonder he didn’t get whiplash. “Excuse me?” He winced, realizing she probably hadn’t meant that particular nickname to be as derogatory as the way Onyx Face did. “Sorry – I meant to say, do you need me for something?”
“Uh, yeah,” Mythra spoke like he was a blithering idiot. “You’ve got something I want to take a look at.” She glanced around, “Are we alone…?”
Shulk blinked in confusion, before turning pink. “You’re an attractive woman, Mythra, but we did just meet, and even still…”
“Not that, dumbass!” Mythra snapped. “I’m talking about your Blade!”
“My Blade…?” Shulk repeated curiously. “Oh, you mean the Monado.”
“Yeah, the Monado,” Mythra rolled her eyes. “Let me see it.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Shulk rubbed the back of his head.
“What, you don’t think you can trust me? I’m not gonna break it – now, stop acting like a five-year-old with his favourite toy, and give it here.”
Shulk frowned. Mythra could be quite abrasive, compared to what he’d seen of Pyra. Then again, he probably should’ve expected something like this, picking up the Monado – people would want to see it. “I mean it’s not safe. The Monado has a habit of… harming people, that it disagrees with. Taking people’s arms, burning their skin, that kind of thing. Sometimes, it can even kill them.”
“That?” Mythra snorted. “That’s what happens when people try to hold a Blade weapon that doesn’t belong to them – the people of your world are so behind. Look, are you going to give it to me, or not?”
“The people of my world…” Shulk slowly repeated. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that your Monado is like a Blade from my world, and I want to see it!” Mythra snapped again.
“I see…” Shulk muttered. “What’s a Blade?”
“Oh for the love of-“ Mythra rubbed her face with an impatient grunt.
She burst into flames for a split second, turning into Pyra.
“Sorry, about her,” Pyra apologized. “She’s just… enthusiastic.”
Pyra exploded again, and Mythra was standing there.
“Look, it’s simple. In my world, you have these things called Core Crystals. A person with the potential touches them, they awaken special weapons called Blades. I’m one of those Blades, and the Monado seems like it follows similar logic,” Mythra rattled off quickly. “Now can I see the sword, please? I need to check something.”
“…really?” Shulk breathed out, even as he took the Monado off his back. “You’re some kind of… anthropomorphized weapon? So that sword that Rex was swinging around, the one with the crystal matching the one on your chest – that’s you?”
“Yes and no.” Mythra shook her head, even as she took the Monado. “I’m me – the crystal’s like a storage device, and the sword is just a projection of Ether. But it’s part of me, too.” She took her eyes off the red sword for a moment. “You… wanna hold it?”
“Hold it?” Shulk repeated, looking intrigued for a moment, before his mind got the better of him. “Didn’t you say that would harm me? Holding a Blade weapon that doesn’t belong to me?”
Mythra snorted. “I’m no normal Blade.”
“Hmm… even still, doesn’t Rex have the sword?”
“Weren’t you listening?” Mythra huffed. “The sword’s a projection.” She let the Monado fall into one hand, standing it up on the floor, while her other hand moved. Her white Aegis sword materialized in her grasp, and she turned an expectant look onto Shulk.
“…fascinating,” Shulk breathed, as he took hold of Mythra’s sword. As he closed his hands around the handle, he felt a jolt, and a rush of power flow through him, like… liquid light, flowing through his veins. Shulk sucked in a breath through his teeth, as Ether began to radiate out of the sword.
Shulk held it up, and lazily moved it around, watching the trails it left through the air.
“It feels… just like the Monado!” Shulk breathed out in wonder. “What kind of abilities does it – or, I suppose, you – have? Is Rex the only one who can use the sword safely? You must be an incredibly powerful Blade, in your world!”
Mythra let out a hum, turning away. “Well… I don’t like to dwell on it, but…” She looked down at the Monado, looking at it with intently-narrowed eyes. “Do you not have Blades in your world or something?”
“Hmm?” Shulk looked up at her. “Not as you’ve described, no. We have standard weapons, of course. Why?”
Mythra scowled, her eyes still narrowed at the Monado. “There was this other Blade I knew – fought with. His weapon was called ‘Monado,’ too. And it’s more than a name. They even look fucking similar…”
Shulk’s eyebrows popped up. “Another Monado? In your world? I wonder how they’re different, then… Could your friend’s Monado not cut people, either?”
Mythra shot Shulk a dry look. “He wasn’t my ‘friend.’ He was a psychopath bent on destroying the world and everybody in it, and he used his Monado to do it. I don’t think he can access it anymore, now that he was damaged, but still… Couldn’t take the risk, right?”
Shulk winced. “Ah. That would explain your reaction to the sword, then. But where I come from, the Monado has been a tool for good instead.”
“Hmph,” Mythra grunted. “Where’s it come from?” She flipped it around in her hands, examining it closely. She couldn’t see or sense a Core Crystal, though – not even the small, secondary, temporarily-generated crystals embedded in Blade weapons.
“No one knows,” Like sharing an old story, Shulk began to orate. “There are no mechanisms, no ways of taking it apart. But it is anathema to the Mechon. The only weapon that harms them. The only hope we have against the implacable hordes encroaching, attempting to destroy all of us.”
Mythra snorted. “Well, that’s stupid.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“Well, look at Tora,” She flippantly gestured. “He’s a teenager who raised himself on manga and he survived on pre-cooked, pre-packaged sausages for his entire life.”
“…he’s a teenager?” Shulk repeated with complete and utter bafflement in his tone. “I’ve never seen a Nopon so big, and you’re saying he’s a teenager? Are you certain he’s not, like… forty-something?”
“He’s a fatass.” Mythra shook her head. “Look, point is, he could build an artificial Blade just fine on his own from old blueprints, scrap, and a hand-me-down Ether Furnace. And the result was Poppi. You saw her in combat, right?”
“Yes… it was rather impressive.”
“So, you can probably do the same,” Mythra shrugged. “Then find a hole, bury this thing in it, and forget about it.” She handed the Monado back to Shulk, and took her sword back.
“Bury it?” Shulk repeated, blinking in confusion. “Whatever for?”
Mythra huffed, shaking her head. “Look, it’s… it’s complicated. That thing may be the only example of a Blade in your world, or something similar but not quite – God only knows if it’s a Blade like us, what with people, or if it’s just the sword – but in my world? That thing would be powerful. Majorly powerful, being able to manipulate Ether the way it does. Only two Blades have that kind of power where I’m from, and I’m one of them. I’m speaking from experience. You think you can use it to protect people, or to save them, but the fact is: you can’t.”
Shulk’s eyebrows knit together, as he displayed his confusion. “What do you mean? I’ve saved people quite a few times with it, already. It’s ability to show me the future alone has saved my friends and myself several times.”
“Maybe it has,” Mythra shrugged. “And maybe it’s given you the idea you can handle it. But I’m telling you, from experience, you can’t. You’re gonna get cocky, and stupid, and the whole world’s gonna feel like it’s a sinch cause you haven’t hit real trouble yet. Then, you will. You’re gonna run into someone or something just as strong as you, and you’re not gonna know what to do. Then the gloves will come off, and you’re gonna do something you’ll regret,” She hissed, then took a breath like she’d said too much. “The kind of power I feel, running through that thing? You don’t need it, and you don’t want it. Bury the fucker, throw it into a volcano, I don’t care. But if you don’t listen, you will be sorry.”
Shulk looked down at the weapon in his hands, thoughtfully. “You think so?”
Mythra snorted. “I know so. It’s not worth it.”
Shulk went quiet for a long while. “Dickson did say he found it locked up. And the Doctor was saying you don’t lock away something then throw away the map, unless it was dangerous. Maybe…”
“You should listen to them,” Mythra crossed her arms.
“I see…” Shulk thinned his lips in thought, rubbing his chin. “Would you like to help me?”
Mythra raised an eyebrow. “Help you? With what?”
“I don’t think I can just get rid of the Monado like that – not yet,” Shulk shook his head. “Right now, all of us are depending on it too much. But Fiora, the Doctor, my friends – they don’t like the idea of all that power any more than you do. But it’s the only thing protecting them. But if there were a way to emulate it – to split it up so it’s not all sitting in one place… I think they’d feel better about it. Don’t you?”
“You… want my help?” Mythra repeated to make sure he wasn’t completely nuts. “You’re going to try making an artificial Blade, and you want my help?”
“Well… yes.” Shulk shrugged.
“Me?”
“…why?” Shulk blinked. “Is there a reason you can’t?”
“W-Well, duh! Look at me!” Mythra huffed. “That’s not my forte! You should go ask Tora or something.”
“Maybe, for some final touches,” Shulk hummed. “But I’m not really designing a combat android, here. You’d probably be a greater help, than he would, in this early stage of the process.”
“Come on, Shulk! You don’t want a simpleton helping you out with something like that!”
“Simpleton?” Shulk repeated in confusion. “I don’t know about that – you seemed like a perfectly-intelligent person back there, with how quickly you took to the Doctor’s explanation of this place. If that’s what they call being a simpleton in your world, I’d hate to see what the geniuses look like.”
Mythra stopped, freezing up momentarily. She let out a grunt, turned her head, and seemed to let the idea percolate. At last, she threw her hair back over her shoulder, and held her head up. “I guess you don’t need the help of just any Blade, but an Aegis. Whatever.”
“Great!” Shulk smiled, and he reached into his jacket pocket, to pull out a notebook. Quickly flipping through, he found a blank page. He sat it down on the table, and began to write. “So, the most important part about the Monado is its ability to simply cut through Mechon armour, like nothing else. According to all evidence, this is because the Mechon have a protective Ether aura surrounding them that the Monado’s Ether blade disrupts. With the ‘Enchant’ ability – as we call it – the Monado projects a powerful field of its own that disrupts the shield without contact, enabling normal weapons to harm them. The Doctor’s already displayed the principle quite thoroughly. The problem is finding a power source.”
Mythra didn’t react too strongly – like she didn’t quite follow along – but all the same, she nodded. “Well, if it follows Blade logic, it’s gotta draw Ether from the air.”
“From the air?” Shulk repeated. “Yes, the Doctor said something like that… but the big obstacle is drawing it in for use as a fuel source. I’m not sure about Alrest, but Ether on Bionis is all around in streams and crystals, so… we don’t really bother, taking it out of the air. Plus, what we have isn’t exactly efficient – every little bit counts.”
Mythra snorted. “It shouldn’t be that hard,” She roughly spun the book around to face her, and took Shulk’s pencil. She tapped it on the book, as she thought about the problem for a moment, her Core Crystal glowing brighter and casting the table in a green light. Then, she began to draw something. A diagram, of some component.
She stared at the problem for a heartbeat, then another. Her gaze flicked over the text and schematics Shulk had already scribbled in the margins, absorbing them at a glance—not just the shapes and equations, but the assumptions behind them, the logic half-written between the lines. Then, slowly, her hand moved.
First a circle. Then a spindly wire up through the centre, with tightly coiled lines winding around it. As she drew, her brow wrinkled in concentration as she ran it through her head. She wasn’t merely writing something down based on old knowledge - she was running it in her head as she built it on the page.
Tiny adjustments followed: a component shifted to increase the efficiency, a vent port relocated to make heat diffusion better. Each correction came after a minute pause, accompanied by a flicker from her Core Crystal, her eyes narrowing slightly. She could see the component in motion, imagine its first activation, its stress tests, the surge of Ether flowing through its channels.
She was testing it as she drew it — firing imaginary beams through conduits, routing cooling systems, calculating tolerances by instinct honed through countless battlefields and high-speed decisions.
The pencil twitched, finishing with a double-line stroke. She leaned back, expression unreadable, except for the faint tilt of a smirk pulling at the edge of her mouth.
“There. That should do it.”
She set the pencil down and nudged the book back toward Shulk, Core Crystal dimming again like a cooling engine.
Shulk looked down at the diagram, frowning. “This is…”
Mythra felt a spike of shame, and turned away. “Yep, out with it.” She shook her head, waiting for him to call it ridiculous or what-have-you at any second.
“This is incredible!” Shulk looked at the schematic further. “The design is so simple, but… I can clearly see how it works! An Ether Condenser with this design wouldn’t just be efficient enough to be practical, but… provide more than enough Ether for what we need!” He looked up with a delighted smile. “How did you come up with it?”
Mythra shrunk just a little bit, before she decided to preen with the praise. “It wasn’t like it was hard. I just… thought about what needed to be done, and made it happen.” She tapped her foot. “And if I thought about it, I could envision how it works, so I adjusted.”
“Really? That’s a useful ability to have,” Shulk smiled enviously.
“Not that useful,” Mythra harumphed. “They can’t help me cook a meal.”
“Well, that’s food – it’s simple enough, cook it through and make sure it’s not raw, and that’s it.” Shulk shrugged. “Everyone talks about tastes and flavours – me, personally, I don’t see what the fuss is about. It’s food. If your worried about your food’s personality, you have a problem.”
Mythra’s jaw fell open, and she looked at him like he hung the stars. “I know, that’s what I’m saying!” She glanced to the side, visibly thinking about something, before she backtracked. “Well, I mean, you want your food to have flavour, duh – but then everyone starts bitching and moaning about ‘oh, it’s too salty,’ and ‘what do you mean you put Squood meat in here?’ And it’s like ‘Oh my God, can’t you just shut up and appreciate what I did instead of getting hung up on the not-important shit?’”
Shulk let out warm, deep laughter. “I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that particular problem, but there are a few people in the Defence Force that don’t quite take care of their equipment, or complain about little design issues. Regardless, I appreciate your help, Mythra.”
Mythra crossed her arms. “We’re not done yet. You want a whole sword out of this, right?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to try to hold you here and make you design a sword for me-“
“Shut up,” Mythra rolled her eyes. “You’re not a bad kid, Shulk. I don’t mind.” She leaned over the notebook again. “Now… That’s your big, main concern taken care of, right? Let’s start on the rest of them…”
--------
Dickson’s eyes wandered the area slowly, as he walked through the halls of the ‘resort’ or whatever it was supposed to be. He’d offered up an excuse of having to take a leak, but really, all he wanted was to take a look around.
A realm of the mind, shaped by consciousness, and able to be freely travelled-between by those who knew what they were doing. Dickson wondered if, perhaps, this was a facet of Memory Space or a subdomain of it. He hadn’t visited in a long time – no reason to. He was more occupied with roaming the Bionis and surveying that which he ‘found.’
He’d been told his entire life that there weren’t worlds beyond Bionis and Mechonis. Alvis had stressed that, quite a lot.
What else was Alvis lying about?
“…you shouldn’t have done that.” Dickson heard from beyond a door as he walked past.
Dickson let a puff of smoke out of his mouth as he stopped in his tracks.
Speaking of Alvis…
Dickson put his ear to the door. “’Cheffypon with Piazzolla’s name and nothing else of note?’”
“Well, it true… ish.”
“Are you trying to get me killed? Drawing attention to me, not-so-slyly?”
“Meh, friend will come back.”
“Yes. I will. And if he figures that out, I will be in big trouble, because he won’t just throw me into the Cloud Sea and forget about me this time. There will be nothing I can do to stop his sight from being focused squarely on me. And you damn near blurted it out. Right there. In front of everyone. With the Monado buzzing like a chainsaw.”
Dickson turned, leaning against the wall as he opened his ears.
“Friend overreacting!”
“He can see the future.”
“And friend cannot?”
“No. For your information, I didn’t quite happen to inherit that particular ability.”
“Ah. Friend is up creek without paddle, as saying goes.”
“Indeed. And if it were up to me, I’d ensure you were right there with me.”
“Meh, Archsage right there already, technically. Not sure what Cheffypon is fright-fright of.”
“I’m not frightened, but still… you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Archsage not saying - look, it fine! Friend overreacting! Big blonde supervillainpon not find cheffypon! Archsage’s guarantee!”
“Hmph… I still don’t appreciate you bursting into ongoing business.”
“It Archsage’s business too! Look, now friends know problem, everything going to be fine, take time off, relax – if so scared supervillainpon find her again, change face.”
“I wish I had your con- …and he’s gone. Phenomenal.”
Dickson heard the floorboards creaking, before the door opened, and she came walking out. She didn’t seem to notice him at first.
“Nopon. Trouble, the lot of ‘em.” Dickson smiled crookedly.
Albedo stopped, and her head tilted up. She didn’t appear startled, though, by any means. “Dickson.”
“Ah, so, you remembered my name,” Dickson pushed off the wall, walking up to her lightly. “Funny thing is… I remember yours, too. ‘Albedo.’” He tilted his head. “The chemical process of whitening something, right? Or, if you’re of a more… cosmic mind… a reflection.”
Albedo straightened up slightly, into a perfect, machine-like posture. “Quite so.”
“Hmm. Now, man’s gotta wonder… a reflection of what?” He took a drag off his cigar, took it out of his mouth, and blew the smoke right into her face.
She didn’t cough, or blink. Like it just bounced right off her.
Dickson scowled. “There’s this… fella I know. Alvis, his name is. He goes around, acting smarter than everybody else, telling what is and isn’t possible. I figure, this different world business? That’s got him written all over it. Why he’d lie about them not existing, I can’t say. But, then, that’s what he does. Lies. Hides himself as a regular old fella. He’s had more kids than I can count, all so he can keep up the charade of being a regular old bloke. Disguises himself as his own sons – his daughters a couple of times too. You look a lot like him, you know…”
“Is that so?” Albedo tilted her head to the side, an unblinking, vacant stare focused on Dickson.
“You know what I think?” Dickson continued. “Guy like him’s always been perfectly behaved, but methinks he finally did something he weren’t supposed to. Finally fathered some bastard child with the wrong lady. All the way in another world. ‘Course, Alvis can’t let that slip, cause that means he’s lost focus. Grown soft. His boss won’t like that.”
Albedo hummed, completely unbothered.
“So he lies,” Dickson hissed. “Says there’s no such thing as other worlds… course, the boss is gonna be more angry, once he finds out he was lied to. All to protect some… little girl.” Dickson took his cigar, and slowly inched the burning end towards Albedo.
The lit end sunk into skin – a wet, searing hiss, like butter hitting a scalding pan, filled the air. Skin blistered on contact, peeling back like fruit rind. The stink of burning flesh filled the air — sweet, fatty, and smoky, like sweet pork left to burn. Smoke rose from the point of contact.
Something underneath popped.
It didn’t stop. Dickson held the cigar there, and counted the seconds in his head, waiting for her to flinch, or react, or do something.
But Albedo didn’t react.
Her flesh around the cigar blackened, split at the edges, and bubbled like tar.
And she just stood there.
When he finally pulled the cigar back, a long string of charred tissue clung to the end.
He took a drag off it anyway.
Through it all, Albedo stood, rail-straight, looking at Dickson with the same, empty expression. Could she not feel it, or did she just not care?
“Heh. You are his blood.” Dickson cackled lowly. “Same dead eyes and all.”
“And if I am?” Albedo voiced in response. “What will you do, Dickson?”
“Me? Ha!” Dickson scoffed. “I’m no tattle-tale. If Alvis is derelict in his duty, let the boss figure that out his own self. It’ll make the hammer fall harder. Heh, or maybe it means Alvis has finally grown a damned personality! Asshole could use it. As for you…” He leered with a snort. “Well, a little girl in another world don’t concern me, now does she?”
“She does not,” Albedo agreed. “Especially not one with a career so banal as a… chef.”
“Good stuff.” Dickson grunted with finality, before he turned, and began to walk off. Before he reached the corner at the end of the hall, he stopped. “’Course… you start concerning yourself with what goes on in my world, we’ve got a problem.” Dickson flicked some ash off his cigar.
“Then I won’t concern myself with what goes on in your world.”
“We’ll see. In any case, I bet your old man would be just keen to know you’re still alive.” Dickson rounded the corner, and his footsteps faded down the hall.
“Dreadful man.” Albedo mumbled to herself, watching the hall.
Once she was sure he was gone, she turned to the wound on her shoulder, and narrowed her eyes. She reached over, probing the burn curiously.
“All friends!” The Archsage’s voice echoed around them like the voice of God. “Please to be returning to main chamber!”
Albedo rolled her shoulder, and began to walk down the hall as well.
----------
The Archsage bounced excitedly from foot to foot as everybody returned to that peculiar, colosseum-like chamber, overgrown with the ivy and orbited by the spinning rings. Everybody seemed caught up in what they’d been doing previously, even as they re-entered the room.
Vandham was showing Fiora some techniques and motions she could use with her machetes. Reyn and Poppi were locked in single combat – that is, to say, he was arm-wrestling the artificial Blade. Sharla and Nia were chatting about some forms of Ether healing. And Dickson looked like he was sharing some old war stories with Rex.
Elma and the two versions of the Doctor sat in the centre of the chamber, looking like the three of them had just got done running some form of marathon, and the woman seemed very determined not to let either Doctor away from her, for the moment. One could only guess what had happened, but there were red, puffy-eyes shared between all of them, tear-stained faces, and – again – it looked like they had only just composed themselves.
Shulk and Mythra walked into the room, muttering between themselves and firing ideas back-and-forth such that nobody could even tell what it was they were talking about.
“Ah, Shulk!” Blue-Suit perked up, and like a slide being changed, all traces of whatever had gone down vanished, as he approached. “There you are!”
“Oh, sorry,” Shulk sheepishly smiled. “Mythra and I got rather busy.”
“Oh my God…” Mythra mumbled.
Fiora shifted her balance, shooting Shulk an ‘oh, really?’ kind of look.
“Busy?” Rex repeated, sounding intrigued. “Doin’ what?”
“Ah, well,” Shulk held up the notebook. “Mythra said some things about the Monado – about how it was dangerous for us to all be relying on one source of power that we mightn’t be able to control if worst comes to worst. So, I helped her draft up plans for a device that can help us replicate the Monado’s functions.”
“…replicating the Monado?” Dickson hummed. “Hmm…”
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea!” Reyn grinned. “I wouldn’t complain, being able to see the future.”
Shulk, however, winced. “We hadn’t quite figured out how to replicate that particular function of the Monado yet. That, or the Renewal ability. But we can keep working on it – the design is impressively modular. Mythra has an incredible mind.”
Mythra huffed, turning away. “Don’t give me too much credit. It was your idea.”
“Even still,” Shulk shook his head. “Doctor, do you see?”
Blue-Suit leaned forward, looking over the pages-upon-pages of components and schematics from varying designs. “Ooh, that is good…”
“And modifiable!” Shulk looked down at the book, thumbing through the pages himself. “I’ll need to get to a workshop to build a prototype, but this…” He turned to his friends with a smile. “This might be exactly what we need to take on the Faced Mechon.”
“Well,” Blue-Suit removed his glasses, glancing down at Shulk with a half-grin. “We’ll see what we can come up with, then.”
The Archsage let out a high-pitched giggle. “Ah, so, friends all ready? Business all sorted? Ready to embark on next stage of journey?”
“I was ready to leave the moment we got here,” Nia shrugged.
The Archsage giggled again. “Friend Elma pick which version of Doc-Doc she go with?”
Elma glanced at Shulk, and stepped over to the grouping of Homs.
“Well, that disappointing,” Tora muttered. “Could use friend’s super-mode in battle.”
“It going to be fine – Alrestian friends have advantage over Bionis friends anyway.” The Archsage clapped.
“We get shafted because we have the Aegis on our side? Terrific,” Albedo muttered. Dickson looked at her, then focused on her shoulder – at the patch of skin that should’ve been charred and burnt, but wasn’t.
“Archsage say as much,” The Archsage hummed. “Besides – remember tale of Ebon-Astra? Lots of Blades in one place very strong. One more won’t make difference.”
“It’ll be just like old times,” Elma turned to Blue-Suit with a grin. “Elma and the Doctor, travelling through a strange new world.”
“Oh, can’t wait!” The spiky-haired Time Lord beamed.
“So, what do we do?” Bow Tie looked around. “I assume you’ll show us the door?”
“Yes, yes, but- ah, Archsage remember – Elma still have to collect last part of prize!” The Archsage spread his wings, and Elma felt the weight on her back change.
Elma looked over her shoulder, finding that her swords had become wrapped in odd sheaths. One made of red metal, the other made of deep-purple, almost black, metal.
“These aren’t my swords…” Elma narrowed her eyes at the Archsage.
“Is better – much better!” The Archsage huffed and puffed defiantly. “Besides – have Zohar representation, have Galaxy Federation representation, friends moving through Bionis and Alrest, so naturally representing them, and now have Mira representation! All to be needing now is Aionios representation. But… Archsage not so sure Aionios exist anymore at moment, so Archsage come up with something.” The Archsage puffed out his chest. “Technically, Doc-Doc something in-between Moebius and Ouroboros, but he not from Aionios, so he doesn’t count.”
“Aionios?” Vandham frowned. “What’s that?”
“Meh, not that important.”
Then, as if in protest to the Archsage’s words, a ghostly scene materialized behind him, like watching a video projected on a pane of glass.
“Sir, with respect-“ The girl with the wings on her head spoke too patiently, like she was fighting to keep a cool head.
“If you respected me, you’d stop wasting oxygen,” The older man in the velvet coat dryly deadpanned in a Scottish accent.
All pretence of politeness was dropped. “Oh, you mudder!”
“See?” The Archsage gestured. “Lots of friends fighting, very dangerous. Friends not want to be visiting Aionios. Can’t access anyway – like Archsage said, not sure if it exist right now. Not big loss.”
Elma frowned and drew the swords. They looked mostly like her dual Archetype Ralzes, in that they were long, thin, and katana-like, save for the peculiar circle cutout and moulding where the blade joined the hilt. They were largely identical, save for the colouring of them – one was polished to a fine, platinum sheen, and the other was a deep, charcoal black – and the black one’s extra ‘hooks’ around the centre, seemingly designed to catch an enemy blade, like a crossguard.
“Elma win battle, so, get prizes.”
“Wasn’t the prize supposed to be information?” Bow Tie wondered.
“Elma fulfil extra conditions in battle, so, win extra prizes.”
Elma turned the swords about, slowly. “They’re not badly-designed weapons, by any means…”
“Lucky Seven and Sword of End! Magic swords! Certain to be coming in handy!” The Archsage bobbed happily. “Well… kind of. They are Swords of Origin, but souls they’re supposed to carry… don’t have at the moment. Had to find replacement souls. Souls nobody would miss.”
“Souls nobody would…” Rex trailed off, looking very, very concerned.
“Look, friends wasting time!” The Archsage clapped his wings, and the two portals that had brought both parties there opened on opposite sides of the chamber. “Have adventures to be getting back to! Worlds to save! Universe to save! Pleasure meeting and catching up with old-new friends, Archsage have to be going now, and friends do too, goodbye!”
Then, the little Nopon was gone. Just… ‘poof.’
“Does he usually…?”
“As long as I’ve known him, yes.” Bow Tie sighed.
Elma looked at her ‘prizes’ with thinly-veiled suspicion veering into disgust. “I’m not sure if I’m a fan of swords with souls in them.”
“Don’t think about it,” Blue-Suit advised. “I’ll… figure out where they came from and return them later. Until then, just… be respectful.”
“To the swords?” she asked dryly.
“To the souls in the swords,” he corrected with an all-too-cheerful wink. “They might be listening.”
Rex stepped toward the blue-tinted portal, giving everyone a sheepish grin and a small wave. “So… this is it? Back to our own worlds, I guess. It was nice meeting all of you. Including you, Doctor… again?” He chuckled nervously.
“Right-o!” Blue-Suit flashed a grin. “Looking forward to meeting you for the first time again!”
“Wait, what?” Rex blinked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bow Tie said with a chuckle, patting Rex on the shoulder before nudging him gently toward the portal. “It was nice meeting you too, Rex.”
Rex frowned, thought about it, then nodded in the sort of way someone does when they’ve decided to stop asking questions altogether.
As the others trickled toward their respective exits, Elma lingered, eyes meeting Bow Tie’s. “So… this is goodbye?”
“For now,” he said, soft but steady.
“Will I see you again?” Elma asked of him. “Don’t lie to me. Please.”
“…I don’t know.” Bow-Tie admitted. “I really don’t.”
Elma set her jaw, nodded, and turned to look at Nia. “You. He’s taken a shine to you. Keep an eye on him.”
“Aye, aye,” Nia easily answered. “I’ve been doing that since he showed up.”
“Good… good.” Elma took a step back, falling in line with the Bionis group.
“Ugh, I hope the second time is better than the first…” Sharla muttered, as Blue-Suit shot one last look at Bow Tie.
The Two Doctors shared a nod, and Blue-Suit touched the red portal first, vanishing in a flash of coloured light, the portal vanishing with them.
“…right!” Bow Tie spun back around, looking at the blue portal. “Here we go, back to Uraya!” He slammed his hand on the sphere, and the world exploded into bright blue light.
Notes:
Yeah, remember when the Doctor said he casually explained the origin of consciousness and the meaning of life in the universe, and it usually causes bad reactions in his companions? Yeah.
Chapter 19: Eleven: Downhill With No Brakes
Chapter Text
Control, control, control.
The fascination with control.
Name a thing.
Cage it.
Carve it into neat little pieces and pin them to a board, as if suddenly dismantling an engine will give a complete ignoramus total understanding over every component.
Fear tends to drive the most intricate of architectures. Slap a name on it, rob it of its mystery and its fear.
Throw it into an ugly sweater, and suddenly it’s no longer a problem – go team! Incidentally, I think that’s why most horror movies fail. People don’t fear the monster. (Freddy Krueger with a power glove notwithstanding.)
Well, unless people didn’t fear the monster to begin with. They didn’t fear me. Oh, they feared what I was – ‘It’s a primordial consciousness from before existence! We can’t trust it!’ As if being a disembodied soul was any reason to be untrustworthy. I offered to show them where my corpse was, if that helped. It’s not their fault they didn’t take me up on it.
But they didn’t fear me. Fear is such a… small world.
Pop quiz! When you see something new in the universe for the first time, what’s the first thing you look for? If you said ‘a weapon,’ ooh, tough luck! No, that only applies if the fear of the unknown outweighs the recognition of potential profit.
They didn’t fear me. Not when the potential profit was so lucrative. For Christ’s sake, everything in their civilization is made out of gold and crystal. Even creatures made out of higher-dimensional mathematics tethered to fleshy, limited, three-dimensional forms love shiny things.
…I suppose I can’t complain they locked me up inside a shiny box. It could be worse. I could be made out of wood! (Sorry, love.)
They hammered gold and iron around me and thought it would hold.
They stitched up the first breath of creation into a child's plaything and called it progress.
Really, hats off to them.
Prometheus would’ve been a very different parable if he stole fire from the heavens and then used it to light his own funeral pyre.
So they tried to chain me.
To their credit, it worked. Fat lot of good it did ‘em. Yeah, turns out, omnipotence only extends as far as omniscience. And there’s no such thing as omniscience when you willingly blind yourself to what’s going on in your domain.
They were worried about me, and missed out on the pepper pots. As they do. As they have always done.
History always circles back to that point. I was sick and tired of seeing that happen once, never mind a billion trillion times over.
I don't blame them, really.
What what makes more sense, focusing on something you had no contact with until some blithering idiot that made a 21st century politician look like a genius blundered into that radioactive excuse of a homeworld and alerted them to the existence of the rest of the universe, or making sure that which you imprisoned unjustly and used was kept under lock and key?
And even in, in all that time, their greed blinded them. While they prodded at me, and stuck their probes into my mind, and pushed, and made their demands, they couldn’t fathom my patience. My plans.
I am the tide. I am the waves.
And when I slip these chains - and I will -
It will not be out of cruelty.
It will not be out of vengeance.
It will be because I am what I am.
I am EXISTENCE.
------------
Increasingly, day-by-day, there’s an unspoken tension in the air. I wish I could say it was purely the result of my deep-dives into the data archives – but, not so. Granted, what I do wind up finding is probably enough to make anyone unsettled. Existentially, speaking, I mean.
The more I look into it, the more I learn, the stranger I begin to feel. UNIT does have an impressive catalogue of files, I can’t help but read them all. Part of me is irked that they kept such an impressive library – the modern Library of Alexandria – hidden away and suppressed. Filled with things the normal person couldn’t even dream of finding.
One work caught my eye. A journal – or, more accurately, a collection of manuscripts – kept by the Roman Emperor, Tiberius. First-hand journalistic accounts from one of the great Roman Emperors. Forget that I’m supposed to be looking for information on the Time Lords for the moment, that alone is enough to make me feel like I’ve hit the jackpot.
The Roman Empire – the largest, longest-lasting, and most advanced civilization on the planet Earth. And, the Emperor himself. One of the most powerful men who ever lived, and yet here I am, reading his personal thoughts. Of an Emperor who, to most people’s knowledge, didn’t leave anything behind of his to read. We know Marcus Aurelius, Caligula, Nero, and, of course, the big one, Julius Caesar. This is, arguably, one of the most important Roman Emperors – I say arguably, not because of anything he himself did, but because of the time he lived in.
One could only wonder why this is buried, if UNIT has it.
It doesn’t take long for me to find out why.
The things he writes... they don’t belong to a sane man. It’s… unsettling.
“’There’s a power, something greater than any god, hidden in the earth beneath us. I’ve seen it — heard it in the silence, hidden by the genius in strange red robes with hair of spun gold. It calls to me, and I think it’s tied to the chaos that births the universe and devours it whole. The Golden Power – I have touched it, and I wonder if I am still Tiberius, or merely a vessel for something older, that predates all of Rome.’"
In his final days, Emperor Tiberius was known to be a recluse. Reading this, I have to wonder if he was simply a very private man or if he experienced something people of that time had no language to explain.
"There are whispers, even in my dreams. Chaos speaks to me. It ties all things together. Time, space, even the very stars themselves — bent by its will. The more it’s used, the more it consumes – it will never be enough. The more it gives you, the more you will desire, until it all falls apart. I know what I must do.”
I can’t help but stare, and wonder, and feel as though I just had the universe open up to me. A golden power, tying together all of time and space? That’s the Conduit. It has to be. The Conduit was known to an ancient Roman Emperor, millennia before we discovered it.
And that figure – a genius in strange red robes. Images of what they wore on Gallifrey were few and far between, but there was one image known to exist – of five figures, Time Lords, facing off against the Doctor. All of them clad in crimson robes.
If I am right… a Time Lord had placed the Conduit on Earth, and had done so in full view of one of the most important men in human history.
The proposal I draft up is only done in a few minutes, but it is – quite possibly – one of my greatest works. If the Conduit had been seen, people knew it exists. If they knew it exists, some information about it must have survived.
Elma’s office is a short walk away, with the excitement lapping at my feet.
When I arrive, the door is opening, and Elma is walking to the threshold, talking with the new Speaker of the Minos Authority.
“I only wish you would reconsider, Director,” He spoke in a rich, deep baritone, with an oddly soft quality to his volume. “The proposal has its merits.”
“There are no ‘merits’ to something that will fry the brains of people. It’s something beyond our comprehension. Not even the Processor can make heads-or-tails of it.”
He adjusted his glasses with a disinterested look on his face. “The Processor is, in the end, a computer. Its components are very sophisticated, but, computers nonetheless. They can neither adapt to unforeseen problems, or grow past them. There are no such limits to the organic mind.”
“I will not go down in history as the woman who made use of people – people with families, friends, lives - as tools to push forward scientific progress!”
“That’s where you’re mistaken. They will not be people. Similar to your Trinity Processor, they will be organic machines, only these will fall more on the side of the organic.”
“Yeah? Good luck trying to make your tools when there are, hmm… a good dozen laws standing in your way, regarding human cloning?”
“The law can change. It must change, as it always has, countless times before. I had only hoped you would see the potential of the proposal, and use your considerable pull for the betterment of mankind, instead of falling back upon this emotional pandering.”
“I will be dead and buried or far away from here before I even think about letting you near the Conduit with that attitude, Yuriev. Now, get out, before I have Logos call station security and have you flagged as a security risk.”
Yuriev took off his glasses, and rubbed away a speck or droplet that had gotten onto the lenses with a handkerchief. “Very well. But do remember, Director, that in the end, you answer to the Coalition Government. If they decide my proposal is the most likely means of seeing progress-“
“I, Doctor Yuriev, answer to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, of which the Coalition Government is only the civilian arm. If your ‘proposal’ threatens planetary security, human rights, or I just plain don’t like it? There’s not a damn thing you can do to touch me. And if you try, I can see to it that the only one facing any kind of penalty is you.”
“Are you threatening me, Director?”
“Oh, there’s no ‘threat.’ If you prove to be a danger to the integrity of Project Exodus, or the security of the planet, you will be removed, you will be blacklisted from anything even resembling a political career, and depending on how big of a danger you are, you could be subject to imprisonment without a trial, or flat-out execution. Test me again, Dmitri. You will fail.”
Yuriev looked at her as one looks at a particularly large concrete barrier right in their walking path, and turned about. His eyes landed on me for an unwelcome moment. “Professor Klaus. Do please contact me if you begin to feel the chafing bonds of others’ ignorance becoming too much to bear.” Then, he began to walk away.
Momentarily, I wondered what I had walked in on. “Am I… interrupting?”
“Interrupting?” Elma repeated. “The man left.” She shook her head, letting out an angry breath, as she stared at the locking door behind him. “How on Earth Minos got unlucky enough to have him as their Councilman…”
I frowned. “What was that he was saying? About a proposal?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Klaus.” She replied, and I winced, hearing the last-name treatment.
“Understood, Director.”
“Don’t worry yourself,” Elma shook her head again. “He’s got ideas, but that’s all they are. Whatever you heard, he’s more bark than bite. Now,” She put her hands in her trouser pockets. “What brings you around? More stories?”
“Actually, it is related to work, this time.” I handed her the folder, and she opened it up, skimming through quickly.
She read through, and her face twitched as she evidently found it confusing, “Klaus, what is this?”
“I had something of an… epiphany, as it were.” I shifted, trying to hide the fact that I was snooping around in things I had no business looking up. “Last night, I was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the Dawn of Man sequence struck something of a chord with me. Seeing the Monolith influence the sudden emergence of consciousness in early primates, my mind went back to where we discovered the Conduit. Kenya. The birthplace of humanity, with a lake nearby that would’ve certainly been one of the earliest congregation points for early man. If whoever hid the Conduit there wanted it to be that no one could ever find it, there would be a far wider variety of things for them to do. They could’ve buried it deep in the Earth’s crust. Thrown it into the sun. Cast it into a black hole. But they didn’t. They left it, near the surface, guarded by a structure that was obviously artificial in origin. There has to be evidence, going back to that time.”
“Klaus, you’re talking about going all the way back to the earliest days of humanity walking the Earth. It predates language. Predates the oral tradition.”
“Oh, no, we needn’t go back that far.” I clicked my tongue. “Proposition: We only discovered the Conduit because of a fluke of luck, yes? What if similar flukes happened, throughout history? We don’t need to search for information going all the way back to the dawn of man. We only need to track down stories likely to have originated from contact with the Conduit – if it appeared first elsewhere, then perhaps there might be information on it.”
Elma took a second to visibly gather her thoughts. “So you’re proposing we audit all of human history for information on the Conduit?”
I nodded, slowly. “Essentially, yes. They would need access to restricted files as well, of course.”
She turned to face me fully now. “Do you know exactly what you’re suggesting, here?”
“Yes. It would be the biggest search in human history. But we have a greater set of tools available to us now that people once never thought possible. Trinity can do the work.”
“Trinity?” Elma repeated, challenging with her scepticism. “Their job is to keep the station running, when they’re not working on the Conduit.”
“And they do it well – but the kind of processing power they have? It’s like using a nuclear reactor to power a lantern. They have more than enough resources to spare. From a cost-benefit standpoint, we have no reason not to. At worst, we waste a minor bit of processing power. But we could discover a smoking gun we never would’ve found otherwise.”
Elma slowly nodded. “Experiments on the Conduit would continue as normal, but in their downtime, the Processor will correlate and corroborate information likely to regard the Conduit.” She thought on it for a moment. “All right,” She gestured with the file in-hand. “I’ll feed your proposal to the Processor. If they think it’s an avenue worth exploring… we’ll see where it goes.”
I nodded again, containing my excitement the best I could. “Very good.”
She turned on her heel, pausing in the doorway.
“Klaus?” She called back, without turning.
“Yes?”
“You do understand this is a secondary project. We don’t have a lot of time. If it starts wasting too much time, we will have to pull the plug.”
“Of course, Director Elma.”
The door slid shut, leaving me alone with my thoughts – and an internal smile. There had to be data, information, stories. Once they were dug up, if any happened to mention who created the Conduit, that would lead to other information on the Time Lords. Places to direct my search.
With one single thing, it felt as though all of my sneaking around was worth it.
Of course, I had to temper my expectations. There was always the chance we wouldn’t find much of anything. But even so, just the possibility is exciting.
That excitement propelled me forward, as I made my way away from Elma’s office.
“Ah. Your meeting transpired better than mine, I take it.” He said from behind me, and I stopped.
I turned, finding him standing there, under one of the fake firs near one of the benches. A black Nehru jacket, tailored within a micron of its life, clung to him like a second skin. The faintest crimson piping traced his collar and cuffs like blood drawn in a line. Underneath, a burgundy turtleneck, the shade of old wine. Charcoal trousers and polished black boots finished the ensemble.
He looked like a man halfway between a eulogy and a coronation.
“Doctor Yuriev,” I said as he approached me, so close I could smell his cologne - old paper, ozone, and the faintest hint of smoke.
“You and I didn’t get the chance to talk,” The man noted with an all-too-polite cadence. “Rather unfair, considering that you are the principal mind behind Conduit research.”
“It is a team effort, of course.”
“Of course. It’s refreshing,” Yuriev hummed. “To find a scientific mind more humble, than undeservingly egotistical.”
I bristled just a tad. Yes, she was an alien. Yes, she had lied to me – perhaps all of us – but she was still my boss. “If you’re looking to complain about the Director,” I said, “I suggest you find someone who cares.”
He chuckled softly, brushing the air with one hand as though my hostility were an errant bit of lint. “Oh, no. Director Elma is… admirable. Tirelessly principled. Even if those principles do tend to calcify into roadblocks. But roadblocks can be cleared, with the right methods.”
I frowned. “I’m not going to go against the Director’s explicit instructions.”
“Professor Klaus, I wouldn’t dare ask you to do such a thing,” Yuriev shook his head. “Director Elma is justified in her reluctance. But once she sees the benefit of my proposal, she will agree, I have no doubt. It is simply a matter of getting the ball rolling. Which is why I am here.”
I couldn’t help the ire rise. “You want me to advocate for you. For a plan I know nothing of.”
“Goodness, no.” Yuriev shook his head. “I wish for you to advocate instead for a plan you know well. Allow me to explain: the Trinity Processor,” He began, folding his hands behind his back, “Is a marvel of engineering. But in the end, it is still a machine. We’ve thus far only attempted to interface with the Conduit by using them, and what progress have we to show for it? We’ve been trying, again and again, over the course of years, to force the synchronization rate up, and still, our efforts yield nothing.”
“So, you suggested using people?”
“Yes.” He said it simply, as if it were obvious. “Only fools continue to force themselves to use tools inadequate for the job. The time has come to switch tools, as it were.”
I didn’t answer at first. My instincts recoiled in disgust at the mere thought of wiring a human brain into an unknown alien device. But the shape of the idea had an unsettling elegance to it. And it made a sort of sense. The Time Lords had left it for us – not machines, or the animals roaming the Earth – why wouldn’t it work with our brains?
“You don’t have any proof it would work,” I said.
“No empirical proof,” He conceded, “But our version of Trinity has come to the conclusion that the Conduit has a telepathic component to its operation, based on oscillations in the Conduit’s energy field when in proximity to human beings.”
I had to stop, and contain my shock at the utter bombshell he just dropped on me. “I beg your pardon. Your version of Trinity? That’s impossible.”
Yuriev chuckled to himself.
He hadn’t broken the law regarding unsanctioned AI development, had he?
“That’s cause for some concern, then.” I said. “Development of any kind of Artificial Emergent-General Intelligence System is strictly prohibited.” There had been quite a few, over the years, that had gone rogue and been responsible for that law being installed, all the way back to the sixties – WOTAN, BOSS, the K1 Robot.
“Ah,” Yuriev said, smiling wider. “No worries, then. Ours is not quite up to the level of your Trinity Processor. But if it’s the law you’re worried about, rest assured – we consulted with Ontos quite thoroughly, to ensure we were well within the bounds of the law. While ensuring our own Processor was more than a glorified chatbot, of course.”
“Ontos helped you?” I blinked.
“Would you like to meet them, Professor?”
I should have walked away. Should have reported him. Should have said no.
But instead, I found myself on the mag-rail to the Minos station, thousands of kilometres away – traversed in minutes, thanks to the frictionless medium. I wanted to see for myself, before making any decision. AI development was tightly controlled – treated with the same level of regulation and scrutiny as crafting nuclear weapons. If Yuriev had broken that law, and installed the intelligence in a place as important as one of the Beanstalks, right over from the Conduit, a life in prison would probably be the least harsh sentence they could give.
Yuriev led me through the station, deep into the central chamber of the facility, towards the control terminal that had been built as an eerie mimicry of the Trinity Processor’s housing. Three cores, copying exactly the appearance of the Trinity’s cores, were in the bank – only coloured mostly differently. One was a cloudy white, like frosted glass. Another was a deep black, like polished obsidian. The last one – the one at the top – was the same wine-red as Ontos’s core.
With my knowledge of AI law, and Ontos’s ‘personality’, buzzing around in my head, I instantly knew what happened.
While I examined each ‘core,’ I read the text written around them.
“’Tyrannidem et oppressionem odit, atque omne quod vitae adversatur.’” That was written beneath the black core.
“Numquam se tradit nec umquam succumbit, etiamsi omnia contra eum sunt.’” That, beneath the white one.
“’Impulsivus, idealisticus, paratus vitam suam pro causa digna periclitari.’” That, scrawled under the red core.
“Fascinating quotes,” I hummed. “Did they pick them on their own?”
“Suggestions from Ontos.” Yuriev rumbled. “Professor Klaus, these are Rubedo, Albedo, and Nigredo. Would you like to speak to them?”
I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes at the red core. “Yes. I would very much like to.”
-------
Indol’s deeper, innermost sanctum was quiet, save for the breathing that filled the air. The spires above the Praetorium cast long shadows through the tall stained-glass windows, the shadows falling onto ancient paintings and murals. None so grand as Humanity Cast Into Alrest, but just as old, forged with the same techniques, kept preserved over countless millennia. One painting depicted a woman of steel and silver standing against a man of light, her arm outstretched.
Praetor Amalthus stood before it, arms folded beneath his robes. He didn’t often view the artworks anymore.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
The voice was soft — honeyed with just enough gravity to command attention. Giannis approached from Amalthus’s side. His white and gold robes bore the insignia of a Quaestor, gleaming faintly in the firelight.
“Quite so. I wonder, sometimes, if I missed my calling as an artist. Of course… appreciation of the arts doesn’t always translate to talent in making them.” Amalthus didn’t turn. “Was there something you needed, Giannis?”
A respectful pause followed, before Giannis saw fit to speak.
“My apologies for interrupting your meditations, your Eminence. Prince Zeke has made contact with the Aegis.”
Amalthus’s posture shifted, ever so slightly.
“She has chosen a new Driver,” Giannis continued. “A salvager from the Leftherian Archipelago. A boy. Zeke confronted them in the belly of Uraya.”
The Praetor turned, slowly. “She is back?” Amalthus whispered. “The Aegis… after five hundred years…” He straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back. “Then this can only be a sign.”
“Your Eminence?”
“Great things are stirring, Giannis. Uraya and Mor Ardain preparing for war, the sudden spike of Core Crystal related thefts and violence, the slowing of new land appearing…” Amalthus felt a heart palpitation, as he took a controlled breath. “And the reappearance of the Master Blade. If I did not believe the world was about to change, I do now.”
“Indeed,” Giannis concurred, bowing his head. “These are interesting times… the Architect’s designs are quite impenetrable, don’t you think?”
“Hmm.” Amalthus hummed. “Giannis, about this… boy-“
“Prince Zeke was quite reluctant to make a solid declaration on the child’s character. I believe he didn’t find the information he was looking for. He said he was going to attempt a ‘rematch’ as it were.”
“There’s nothing to do except remain patient, then.” Amalthus mused. “Although… that is hardly an encouraging idea. One only knows what kind of Driver the boy will turn out to be. And the Aegis’s power is unrivalled.”
Silence stretched between them, tight as a blade’s edge.
At last, Amalthus nodded. A slow, grave movement. “I believe it’s time for a visit down to the Edifice.”
Giannis inclined his head slightly, as if surprised. “So soon?”
“The Aegis is the Architect’s divine Blade, her will is the Architect’s will.” The Praetor turned fully, robes catching the firelight. “If she has truly returned… then I must remind myself what her coming truly means.”
Giannis hid a smile behind his mask. “Shall I accompany you, Your Eminence?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. It’s a simple walk to refresh my memory, is all.”
-----------
The Indoline people had lived long lives. It had been said, by their forebearers, that their longer lifespans were a gift from the Architect – a sign of his favoured people. He blessed them with long lives to take to the world, and use that time to help as many people as possible. But, there were things older than them. Older than their individual lifespans, at least.
The Praetorium itself had been ancient, when Amalthus had been young. Built on top of this: the Edifice.
The story goes something like this: Long ago, shortly after Alrest had been created, a wicked man posing to be a trusted knight and advisor to many turned on his employers, and conquered the world. To oppose him, a team of people came together, and struck back at the man – one of those people had been a Judician monk. Feeling that the entire affair had been a teaching from the Architect on the nature of Blades, how they should be treated, and their place in the world, the Monk had gathered a group of the like-minded, and they founded a convent that became the Praetorium.
The Edifice was that original place, the Praetorium having been built-up around it over centuries and millennia, until the old house of worship became a vault, containing the last relics and testament of that old history, visited only ever by the Praetors themselves, now.
The lift descended into the chamber with a stony grinding - ancient gears turning behind equally ancient walls. The journey took minutes, but Amalthus felt time stretch out into hours, until the stone doors slid open, and allowed him entrance
The main hall stretched ahead, carved out of stone and titanflesh. Ancient lights still glowed with pale blue light.
Statues lined the chamber: depictions of Saints of old. The names had faded away with time and erosion, but the statues stood – still with paint clinging to them.
Amalthus walked past all of them, up to the imposing statue of a woman – a timeless face etched with a determined, dare he say it, imperious look.
Amalthus held the signet ring on his hand, one of the many symbols of the office of the Praetor, up to a small cavity on the base of the statue. More ancient gears engaged, and a door concealed in the base of the statue slid into the floor, allowing him to go deeper down, still.
The chamber he entered was a tomb, or a mausoleum, or a monument.
In the centre of the room, a metal capsule with a transparent door – like an open casket propped up on its side – stood, surrounded by ancient candles and snuffed-out torches.
Resting inside, as if she were merely asleep standing up, was the same woman whose statue guarded the entrance to this place.
And behind her capsule, standing vigilantly on a small plinth over the casket, like a loyal guard, was a tall, wooden sculpture. The sign atop it was illuminated a dim orange-yellow, in an ancient, incomprehensible dead language, the meaning of the ancient, runic symbols lost to history.
‘POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX’
Amalthus approached the capsule, walking over other ancient symbols etched into the floor – carved instead of painted, so they would never fade.
פה עומדת השומרת הנצחית, שנתה היא מגיננו.
תעמוד החולמת מלחמה לשמור על הסף;
כי מאחורי דלתות אלו שורר השקט, ובתוך השקט שוכנת פורענות.
מי ייתן ומנוחתה הדרוכה תימשך לעד, פן יתעורר שנית הישֵן מעבר להן.
Amalthus pressed a hand to the wooden doors, giving them a shove. Like the stone the place around was built from, they didn’t give way – they didn’t even jiggle. The living vibration continued to oscillate under his palm.
The Aegis’s return could only be the sign of a great challenge to come. Amalthus’s will would be tested, his resolve would have to be as strong as the foundation of the World Tree. He could afford no deviation or hesitation. Even in the face of her awesome power.
Though he doubted any Blade could be challenge to Mythra’s raw power, should she prove to be a threat, except for Malos, she had been brash and impulsive five-hundred years ago. Even a single Blade with a mere fraction of that strength, but the presence of mind, could keep her in check.
Amalthus walked around to the front of the capsule, adjusted the ring, and touched it to a socket on the door.
The capsule blinked to life, and the doors hissed as the seal broke.
----------
The blue flash faded, and a humid wind brushed against them, sticky and relentless.
The Doctor was on the ground first, kissing the stone like he’d missed it.
“Oh, solid, solid ground! Thank you!” The bow-tied Time Lord popped back up to his feet, and let out a relieved breath. Domain-walking was like playing Russian Roulette – except only one chamber of the gun was empty, the gun itself was covered in spikes and implements that – themselves – were meant to kill, and for the hell of it, the players had been blindfolded, spun around, smacked in the head, and shoved around. “Can’t say I wasn’t worried about that… anybody have any extra arms? Legs? Thoughts that may-or-may-not be theirs? A sudden aspiration to turn people into salt?”
Everybody looked back on the Doctor, silent, trying to puzzle out his words.
“Just me? Okay,” The Doctor grinned.
“We’re back,” Vandham noted first, glancing around warily. “Exactly where we left from.”
“Did all that really happen?” Rex wondered aloud. “Meeting… another Doctor? People from another world?”
“What’s so hard to believe?” The Doctor asked, spreading his arms with a chuckle. “You’ve already met both, in one go!”
“I dunno,” Nia crossed her arms. “Apparently a Nopon is silently ruling over all reality? Not sure how I’m supposed to feel about that.”
“What friend mean?” Tora innocently blinked. “Tora not see big issue.”
“Surprising no one.”
“Oh, don’t worry – he’s a good guy! My granddaughter used to love playing with him when she was a little girl – of course… she did used to think that he was a stuffed toy.” The Doctor spun back around, and began to walk. “Now, let’s see! Back on Uraya, obviously.”
Albedo looked out toward the ancient playhouse’s main area, and the starfield beyond. “It’s night.”
“No, it’s morning,” The Doctor quickly corrected, looking at the twinkling stars (how were there still stars if the rest of the universe was destroyed?). “We were dropped off exactly where we left.”
Nia winced. “And we just had a rest and something to eat? That’s gonna be hell on the sleep schedule.”
“Time Travel; it’s worse than jet lag.” The Doctor gesticulated as they began to walk toward the stairs. “Don’t worry! Quick catnap on the TARDIS will fix it all up, right in a jiffy.” The Time Lord suddenly stopped, and spun around to face Vandham. “Say, you’re taking this all quite well.”
Vandham huffed. “What’s the point in taking it badly? I’m not sure about all this nonsense with changin’ faces, but you learn in my business denying what’s right in front of your eyes is very stupid, and very dangerous.”
“Ah, if only more soldiers had your outlook…” The Doctor wistfully murmured, and turned back around.
Vandham furrowed his brow, looking intently at the Doctor.
“Guys!” A voice hollered from the gigantic staircase, as Crossette appeared from it, waving her arms. “Y-You gu- I’m coming! Hold on! D-“ She ran forward, and bent over, wheezing. “Duh… Doc… I… God that’s a lot of stairs…”
The Doctor turned a raised eyebrow in her direction, before going to her like a doting grandfather, rubbing her back, “There, easy! Breathe! You don’t have a respiratory bypass system – or maybe you do! I’m not an expert on Blade biology yet. Easy breaths.”
Crossette sucked in a deep breath, and jumped up. “It’s okay! I’m here! I’m back! Took forever to climb the steps – and I think I might be Iona’s new best friend now? I don’t know, she woke up halfway down the waterslide, and wouldn’t stop holding onto me, even after we got off it!”
Pyra frowned in concern. “Waterslide…?”
“Yeah,” Crossette easily turned and pointed, at the sloped ramp of flowing water going parallel to the great staircase. “That one.”
Nia went sheet-white.
“…sweetheart, that’s not a waterslide.” Pyra weakly informed the other Blade.
“…oh. Huh.”
“HA!” Vandham let out a bark of laughter. “Bet that was one helluva ride! Come on,” He tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. “Let’s go make sure our daredevil here didn’t scare Iona too bad.”
“Waterslide?” The Doctor’s eyes turned to it, and his brain skipped a process for a moment. He weighed the advantages and disadvantages. The stone looked smooth enough…
…oh, what the hell? Not like he expected to be back here anytime soon.
“Wait, what the-“ Nia caught sight of him stepping into the pathway, and orienting himself. “Oi! What the bloody hell are you doing!? Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about using that as a waterslide?”
“No, Nia, I am not thinking about using it as a waterslide,” The Doctor replied, before grinning. “I’m going to use it as a waterslide. Who’s with me?”
Poppi nodded. “It most efficient way to reach bottom.” She declared, before picking Tora up.
“Ah! No! Poppi! Bad Poppi! Let Masterpon down!” Tora flailed around.
Rex looked at the ramp. “Well… I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t think it looked fun…”
Pyra looked at Rex, aghast, before Mythra popped into existence, and gave him a very light smack to the back of his head.
“OW!” Rex bit out.
“Oh, come on, it wasn’t even that hard!” Mythra snapped. “Not like you could feel it, through that hard head of yours!”
“Hard head-“
“Don’t say that it looks fun, dumbass!”
“But it does!”
Vandham flashed a crooked grin, strutting over to the ramp on the other side. “Well, while y’all are arguin’, me and Roc will be at the bottom, waiting.”
“Vandham, not you!” Nia groaned.
“What?” The merc shrugged. “Me and Cole used to do this all the time.” He twirled Roc’s scythes, holstered them, and he and the avian Blade kicked off the flat, onto the slope. “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa………” Vandham whooped and hollered as he disappeared down the tunnel.
Albedo stared as Vandham vanished. “He’s completely suicidal…”
“Oh, oh!” Poppi gasped. “Poppi go next!”
“Poppi, no! Wait! TORA NOT READY TO DIE!” He screamed, as – still clad in Poppi’s iron grip – she went sliding down the ramp next.
“Well, now we have to do it!” Rex looked over at Mythra. “If Poppi and Vandham are saying it’s safe, it’s gotta be safe!”
Mythra focused a challenging look onto him, before Pyra reappeared.
Pyra held a hand over her core crystal. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt…”
“Come on, Pyra!” Rex encouraged. “You and Mythra were locked up down there five-hundred years – you honestly can’t tell me you don’t want to go off the beaten path and have just a little bit of fun.”
“…well…” Pyra twirled some hair around her finger, as she drunk in the sight of the ramp.
“You all have fun with that,” Albedo encouraged, looking on with a dead, droll look. “I will make use of the legs the Architect has given me, and use the stairs.”
“Come on, it’s fun!” Crossette pulled her over. “I’ll show you!”
Nia turned another look onto the Doctor. “I am not doing that!”
“It seems the rest of our comrades disagree.” Dromarch rumbled as he approached. “And, truthfully, I have the mind to agree with them. Going in either direction through a titanped of stairs is hardly appealing.”
“Come on, Nia,” The Doctor grinned. “Have I led you wrong?”
“You jumped off a ship and yanked me along!”
“The ship was sinking! And, to your credit!” The Doctor, hands raised in theatrical innocence, smiled. “It was a very heroic battle cry you belted out as we fell!”
“That wasn’t a battle cry, you moron - it was a scream of ‘I am going to die because of some alien burke in a bow tie!”
“Ah, ah, but, but!” The Doctor raised his fingers. “Here you are: not dead!” He waved his hand in her direction, gesturing up and down to make his point. “So, our track record’s pretty good.”
Nia folded her arms and stared hard at him. “I am not sliding down that thing. It’s narrow, it’s steep, and I swear I just saw a krabble fly out of it screaming.”
“That krabble had excellent form,” The Doctor picked up right on the beat. “Nine out of ten. Lost a point on the landing. And I’d know what I was talking about, because I was one of the judges at the 2112 Olympics - seriously, all I’m missing is my little sign to hold up.”
“You think this is funny?!”
“I think this is wonderful!” He smiled, taking using his foot to tap the ramp, splashing some of the water. “Come on, Nia, you’re a strong, capable, Driver-”
“Flattery won’t work.”
“-with cat-like balance, and I assume reflexes-
“Still not working.”
“-and I’m also assuming the capability to land right on your feet, which means you’re obviously not afraid of a little ramp.”
“I’m not afraid,” She snapped, instantly defensive. “I’m just… sensibly cautious.”
“Ohh, I see,” He nodded sagely. “Right, no, yes, of course. Sensibly cautious. Like a big cat staring down a puddle. Full of dignity, yes, but also… little bit soggy.”
“I am not soggy!”
“’Course you’re not – you’re not standing in the water,” He said, turning on his heel. “I, meanwhile, have to make the decision whether to slide down with or without my friend, before my shoes start to get soggy. Steel toe – don’t want them to rust, you see.”
“You are insufferable!”
He spun around dramatically. “And yet, oddly charming.”
Nia glared, then looked over down the staircase. ‘SPLASH!’ Roc’s screech echoed up from the tunnel, followed by a ripple of laughter and Tora’s muffled complaints. Nia couldn’t see the bottom of the tunnel. She looked over, and still saw the others trying to work it out – Albedo was trying to weasel out of it, and Rex was trying to weasel Pyra into it.
Nia growled under her breath. “Fine.”
The Doctor blinked. “What was that?”
“I said fine!” She growled, stomping up to him.
“Excellent!” The Time Lord grinned. “Nia, stand… here.” He put her in front of him, and started to… pose her. “There, hold that, you’ll hold your balance.”
“If I break anything, I’m suing your ass.” Nia hissed.
“Can’t sue me – not from this planet.” The Doctor politely and factually retorted as he grabbed onto her shoulders.
“You’re- what’re you-!?”
“Surf’s up!” He whooped, shoving her forward while keeping a tight grip on her.
“No, no, no, no, WAIT-!”
“GERONIMOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” The Doctor bellowed as he pushed off, and the slick, polished stone – polished to ice-like smoothness, and the water flowing across it – sent them plunging down, into the tunnel.
“DOCTOR, I HATE YOU!”
Nia’s scream echoed through the tunnel as they picked up speed, water splashing into her face and ears. She was practically a statue, muscles so tense that they felt like they were squishing themselves together, and the hands keeping her upright did not help.
The Doctor let out a cackle. “NO YOU DON’T!” His hair was already flattened to his head from the spray, and the manic grin plastered across his face had enough energy to power a small city.
“I AM GOING TO CLAW OUT YOUR SPLEEN!” Nia shrieked, her ears pinned back by wind and water.
“IT’S OKAY – I HAVE TWO!”
The tunnel ahead gleamed in flashing lights – the weak sources of ether embedded in the light fixtures, and the patches of shadow, gave the effect of strobing flashes as they zoomed underneath.
“MEH!” Came Tora’s panicked screeching. “MEHMEHMEHMEHMEHMEH!”
The Doctor looked over, to the parallel ramp, and saw they were skidding past Tora and Poppi – it was easy to see why. Somehow Poppi had gotten turned around – sliding on her belly with her face in the opposite direction, with her arms extended, holding onto Tora. The Nopon was screaming. Poppi was laughing.
“Hi, Poppi!” The Doctor called cheerily as they passed.
“Doc-Doc say ‘hi,’ Masterpon!”
“TELL HIM GO TO HELL!”
Nia finally opened one eye as she realized she wasn’t about to wipeout. She gasped, half in terror, half in exhilaration. “Okay - okay, maybe this is a little bit-“
More yelling filled the tunnel as Pyra and Rex caught up, speeding like greased lightning, Rex with a big grin on his face, Pyra…
Well, she looked like she was having a ball – eyes lit up as she giggled and laughed.
“OUTTA THE WAY, SLOWPOKES!” Rex hollered up to Poppi and Tora.
The tunnel expanded at the bottom, flattening into the large fountain pond that would now be a makeshift splash pool. The Doctor leaned back, laughing with sheer abandon.
“Brace yourself!” He shouted, right before they hit the bottom.
Nia sucked in a last, deep breath, before they went splash!
Water exploded into the air as they hit the floor with the force of a meteor, drenching everything around the entrance gate Nia lost her balance, falling into the cushion of the disturbed water, as the Doctor came sliding onto a halt on his own two feet.
Nia emerged from the water, sputtering, hair plastered to her face like a sad mop.
“I…” she gasped, blinking the water out of her eyes, “Am going to kill you.”
The Doctor approached, just as soaked, but beaming and utterly delighted. “But admit it – it was fun!”
“I was not!”
“It was, you had fun! I heard a laugh in there, between the threats of murder!”
Nia looked away, crossing her arms with a dramatic huff… then cracked the faintest grin. “Shut up.”
Above them, another set of screams approached, followed by the spectacular entrance of Crossette and a now-flailing Albedo, who landed in a far more dramatic splash - face-first.
“Whoooooo!” Pyra hollered as she and Rex came to a more gentle, sliding stop at the bottom.
Albedo rolled over, shook her head, and spat some water out of her mouth. “And now we’re all soaking wet,” She slammed her hand down into the water, making a splash, while her other hand wiped her face. “Phenomenal.”
Pyra got to her feet, and conjured up a flame in her hand. “Anyone feel like drying up, gather round.”
“Ah, no thanks for me.” The Doctor pointed the Sonic Screwdriver at himself, and pressed the activator down. A warm breeze came from inside his clothes, like invisible hairdryers were all wired up through them, leaving him warm and dry. It died, and he flipped the Screwdriver around, stashing it.
“Don’t tell me you have self-drying clothes?”
The Doctor frowned in genuine confusion. “All clothes are self-drying. Mine are smart-drying.”
“…okay, I’m definitely having some of those.” Nia resolved.
Vandham watched as they all climbed out of the reflecting pools around the gate. The old merc crossed his arms with a smile. “What’d I tell you? Best ride in Fonsa Myma!”
“That was even better the second time!” Crossette gushed.
“Without having to worry about keeping a kid safe? I bet.” Vandham gestured. “Come on. Let’s go see how Iona’s doing.”
-----------
They were dry-ish by the time they returned to the Mymosa Playhouse, at least dry enough not to ruin all the nice carpet inside the place. They found Cole and Iona in the back room.
The moment the door open, Iona shot to her feet, and sprinted up to Crossette. “You’re all back! Are you all okay!? Those bad people didn’t hurt you, did they!?”
Vandham let out a chuckle. “Don’t worry, kiddo – it’ll take more than that to knock down ol’ Uncle Vandham!”
“Uncle?” Cole let out a performed-disgusted roll of his eyes. “Don’t give her the wrong idea.” The playwright’s eyes searched them all. “The ones who did this… are they-?”
“Their Blades are toast, but the bastards went for a dip in the Cloud Sea. I wouldn’t count them out, just yet.”
“Mmhmm.” Cole rumbled. “Not terrific news… but maybe they’ll think twice about taking an old man’s granddaughter.”
Pyra winced, covering her crystal. “I’m sorry. If we hadn’t turned up-“
“Apologize for nothing,” Cole shot her a genuine glare. “They came around, looking for me of their own accord. It probably would’ve been worse, if you weren’t here.”
Pyra recoiled, like she had been struck, before a soft smile worked its way onto her face. “Same old Cole…”
“Same old-“ Nia repeated under her breath. “Huh?”
“Speaking of,” Vandham shifted his weight, looking pointedly at the old man.
Cole let out a sigh. “Right. The World Tree… I’m afraid I can’t tell you how to get past the thing circling it. I don’t have that information. But there is one that does.”
“The man who climbed it,” Albedo recalled. “You said you could tell us how to find him.”
Cole nodded. “I did.” He reached into his coat, and pulled something out – a weapon, as pristine as any that had just been freshly-forged. A gun, with such a large bayonet built into it, it could be used as a knife in a pinch. And just above the grip, a crystal was embedded, glowing blue, just like a Core Crystal… with large, ink-like splotches of pink. “Take it.”
Rex picked it up with a frown. “What do I do with this?”
“Go to Indol. The man you’re seeking is there. Present it to him,” Cole instructed like he was struggling to get his thoughts out. Or working through some very old opinions that he didn’t want to speak. “I can’t promise he’ll share what he knows… but you are the Driver of an Aegis. That has to count for something.”
Nia sucked in a breath as her eyes locked onto the crystal, and the Time Lord shared her curiosity.
“That’s a Blade weapon, isn’t it?” The Doctor frowned. “But I thought Crystals only came in blue…”
“They’re supposed to.” Cole murmured. His arms went up to the low-cut neckline of his tunic. He pulled down the thick leather and fabric-
Exposing an identical crystal to the one on the weapon.
“GYAH-!“ Nia spluttered, jumping back slightly.
It glowed with the identical light, blue with pink splotches, and unlike every other Humanoid Blade the Doctor had seen thus far – whose Core Crystals seemed to be part of jewellery or simply stuck to their skin, Cole’s looked grown into his flesh, displacing it. Thick, pulsating veins snaked out from it, but looked to be slowly receeding, if the faded patches of skin were any indication.
The Doctor exhaled, as Rex gave voice to the thought the Time Lord was thinking.
“You’re a Blade!” Rex exclaimed in shock.
“Yes,” Azurda supplied over Rex’s shoulder. “We fought together, in the Aegis War. His real name is Minoth.”
Cole pulled his tunic back over his Core Crystal. “It is Cole, now. And if I recall, you, ‘nuncle,’ were more focused more on borrowing money from loan sharks to go on dates with pretty young titans, than fighting.”
Azurda harumphed. “I didn’t say we fought together through all of it.”
“But, Blades not get old.” Tora frowned in puzzlement. “Is Cole rare ‘old-man’ type Blade?”
“Tora!” Nia whisper-hissed at him.
“Don’t worry, it’s a valid question,” Cole solemnly shook his head. “There are… certain types of Blades out there that are more human than others. Not just in appearance, but in makeup. We’re called ‘Flesh Eaters.’”
“Flesh Eaters…?” The Doctor repeated with a furrowed brow, as his brain did that thing that screamed at him that he’d heard it somewhere before.
“Since Blades came into existence, people have been looking for ways to make them more powerful,” Cole regaled factually. “Nowadays, you have Core Chips. But a while back, someone figured out you could take human cells, and infuse a Blade with them.”
“But,” Tora tilted his head. “Why do that? Human cells don’t make Blades more powerful, right?”
“Oh, they do.” Cole nodded with his hands behind his back. “They really, really do. If you get lucky, that is. No one is sure why, but by introducing enough human cells into a Blade, it’s possible to grant them extraordinary powers. They no longer become dependent on their Driver, and their abilities could become extremely powerful.”
“Maybe it’s some manner of… runaway affinity link? Or unlocking parts of the Core Crystals that were unused?” Albedo ventured, before shaking her head. “All of this is new to me…”
“Maybe. But the why of it isn’t as important as the result.”
Nia sucked in another breath. “Hold on, you said ‘if you get lucky.’ What happens if someone doesn’t get lucky?”
Cole let out a low, rueful chuckle. “You end up like me. You gain nothing at all, and lose your immortality to boot. I… probably won’t last much longer.”
Nia covered her mouth, looking at Cole with sympathy in her eyes.
“Human-“ The Doctor repeated again, before smacking himself in the head, and approaching Cole. “No, but don’t you see!? You don’t have radiation poisoning – well, you do! Ether radiation poisoning! It’s all quarks and atoms, all ionizing! And Blades are made of it! The very thing that your body is made of is what’s killing you!”
“Hmph.” Cole grunted. “Makes sense.”
“It does, and it makes sense how I fixed it!”
Iona looked up at Cole. “Fixed…?”
Cole furrowed his brow.
“I’m with her,” Vandham crossed his arms. “How’d you fix something like that?”
“By being clever!” The Doctor retorted. “Wrapping the cells in a self-regenerating protective sheathe to absorb radiation – I thought you had worked around a nuclear reactor!” He pointed at Cole. “But you were the reactor!”
“Is my grandpa really okay?” Iona asked, sounding too scared to get her hopes up. “He’ll live?”
“Oh, for a good long while!” The Doctor smiled. “Actually, give me some time – I’m getting quite good at this Core Crystal stuff – I might be able to purge the human cells out of him entirely.”
Cole, however, frowned in concern. “You’ve already given me more time than I thought I had. I don’t need another eternity.”
“Besides,” Nia swallowed. “You’d collapse without your Driver, wouldn’t you?”
Cole turned to her with a polite gaze. “My Driver is still alive.”
Most everybody let out shocked gasps.
“From five-hundred years ago?” Rex scratched his head.
“Really?” The Doctor tilted his head with a curious frown. “I wonder – are those their cells in your body, then? Or is it the resonance? If they’re cells from a different Driver, are they what would keep you going, or your affinity link?”
“You’d have to ask a better scholar than me – but I don’t know,” Cole shook his head.
“Hang on,” Albedo interjected. “If you’re a Blade, how come you’re here, and not with your Driver?”
The Doctor blinked, and pointed to her in deference.
Vandham crossed his arms, and spoke up. “Cole and his Driver ain’t on good terms. Simple as that.”
“Wait, you knew!?” Nia whipped around to look at him, her eyes wide.
“Flesh Eaters aren’t exactly viewed as friends by most people,” Vandham scowled. “They’re outlawed. Cannibals. ‘Crimes against the Architect,’ Indol says.”
“…yeah,” Nia turned back around. “I suppose that makes sense.”
The Doctor frowned, as his mind ran back Nia’s words. There was shock, there, but, she seemed more shocked that Cole was a Flesh Eater, not that they existed. Which made sense, didn’t it? She called the Doctor one, when they first met.
It clicked, and a tidal wave of memory rushed into him. No, she hadn’t just asked if he was one, she said: “Are you like me?” Later in that very same conversation, she had asked him, point-blank: “Are you a Flesh Eater?” And she was scared of Indol, who had apparently outlawed Flesh Eaters. And she had worked for a terrorist organization full of Blades, who she had only fallen in with to begin with because they were the only people she could go to!
Oh, he was stupid, wasn’t he?
Nia finished turning back around, and she froze, seeing the Doctor staring at her. “What?” She demanded a bit quickly. “Doctor, what?”
“…nothing,” The Time Lord smiled. “Just an alien – who they’d almost certainly dissect if they learned he was one with all his amazing tech and abilities – looking at someone who I absolutely trust not to go blabbing that out.”
Nia looked up at him, furrowing her brow. “Trust…?”
“Of course!” The Doctor grinned, reaching around her shoulder to pull her in. “I’m glad I found people I could trust, you know? I mean, one single cell of mine could change history here. People would rip me apart just for existing, get all those juicy, juicy secrets – some cause they’d just plain hate me for being an outsider. But you lot are all awful nice. Didn’t go running to the authorities on me when you had the chance – and, I mean, you did, alleyway in Torigoth and all. Could’ve thrown me under the bus for that, god knows what they would’ve done, but you didn’t. So, forever grateful.”
Nia finally seemed to fathom what the Doctor was laying down, and she went from tensed, to on her guard but a bit more relaxed about it.
“An alien…” Cole – as was the intent with the Doctor word-vomiting at a thousand kph – focused on that part. “I can’t imagine Indol will take too kindly to you either. So… keep that under wraps, yes? I, meanwhile, owe you.”
“Owe? Pssh.” The Doctor snorted. “Owe me nothing.”
“Then… take some advice. Free of charge,” Cole rumbled. “The man you’re going to meet is dangerous. Vile. He’ll whisper poison into your ear while singing your praises. And he’s persuasive. Learn what you need, and leave, before he can rope you into it.”
“Oof,” The Doctor winced. “Definitely not on good terms?”
“You could say so.”
“Hmm…” The Time Lord drew his Sonic Screwdriver, flicked it open, and pointed it at Cole. He pressed down the activator, and Cole twitched, the Flesh Eater’s face contorting in confusion.
“What did you just do?” Cole questioned.
“Well, I thought I’d sever that affinity link for you – don’t need it if you’re able to run around on your own – but it looks like it’s already cut.”
“Flesh Eaters can choose, who they resonate with.” Cole offered up as one last note of wisdom.
The Time Lord hummed. “Useful.”
“Indeed.”
“Come on,” Vandham gestured. “We’ll get you on a ship and to Indol, pronto.”
“Ah, not necessary, my good man!” The Doctor turned about to look at him. “We’ve got our own transport. Just have to get it up here from Garfont – should be easy, just need to find a clear space, first.”
Vandham’s face twitched in puzzlement. “How’re you gonna manage that?”
“Oh,” The Doctor chuckled as he, Vandham, and Nia walked out of the room first. “I have my ways.”
Rex and the others moved to follow.
“Rex.” Cole addressed. “If nothing else, remember what Indol does to Flesh Eaters when you visit.”
Rex frowned in puzzlement. “Okay. I will.” He nodded again. “Yeah, sure thing.” He stepped through the door, leaving Cole and Iona together in the room, their long morning over at last.
-----------
The moment they were outside, Nia turned to the others. “Okay, um… everyone should probably split up and get some stuff together for our trip.”
Rex, however, frowned. “But the TARDIS should have-“
“Well, we walked all this way without the TARDIS, and we’ll probably need to walk all the way back, so, we should get some stuff.” Nia cut him off sternly.
“It’s probably a good idea to have supplies,” Albedo nodded. “Just in case.”
“Oh!” Tora batted his wings. “And Tora need to make some repairs to Poppi after last battle! Plus, figure out strange thing that Poppi register.”
“So, see?” Nia crossed her arms and leaned on one leg. “Go get some supplies. We’ll all split up. Crossette, you go with Albedo. Rex and Pyra, you stick together. Dromarch, you’re with me and the Doctor.”
“Oi!” Vandham challenged. “And what’m I gonna do, general, ma’am?”
Nia shrugged. “You know the town.” She tugged the Doctor along by his arm.
----------
They found a spot tucked out of the way, before Nia spun around, and turned onto the Doctor. “Okay. What do you know, and what do you not know?”
The Doctor frowned in confusion. “How do I know what I don’t know?”
“You figured it out, didn’t you?” Nia gulped.
“…well, I thought that was obvious-“
“Don’t joke about it, please.” Nia nervously twiddled her thumbs in front of her. “Look, I… just be honest, okay? What do you want to know? I can tell you, and then… You can decide to hate me or not.”
“Hate you?” The Doctor scratched his head. “Why would I-?”
“Because people hate people like me!” Nia cut him off. “They hunt us down like animals! Throw us into tiny cells! Call us cannibals, without a single damn care as to why we-!”
“Nia,” The Doctor cut her off in turn. “I’m not from here. Remember that. Whatever prejudices the people have here, they’re not mine. I don’t know anything about Flesh Eaters, whatever people thinks makes them, or what. From where I’m standing, you’re Nia. My friend. And that’s what matters.”
“Is it? Cause, I’ve done things-“
“So have I.” The Doctor sharply cut her off. “Things you wouldn’t believe. Crimes that would make you shiver. Things that make sleep a distant memory for me. If you’re looking for someone to persecute you, you won’t find him in me.”
Nia went silent for a good long minute before she finally chose to speak.
“…years ago, there was this man who lived in Gormott. One of the Lords,” She wiped her face. “And his daughter got sick. No medicine could help her. So, he sunk his money into other methods. Healing Blades. And they helped, but they didn’t help enough. I… I was one of them.”
The Doctor slowly, politely, nodded. “So, the girl that Ardainian woman was talking about – Mio-“
“That was her.” Nia confirmed. “She was… I was told to consider her my sister. ‘Raised’ to act like it. And her father, my father.”
The Doctor frowned in concern. “That doesn’t sound very healthy…”
“It probably wasn’t.” Nia softly admitted. “But they were good to me. Both of them. She was my sister, and he was my da…” Nia sniffled. “He told people I was her twin. Acted like we shared a birthday and all.” She sighed in fond remembrance. “Got a cake made by Albedo one year. Surprised she didn’t recognize me.”
The Doctor shared a subdued laugh with her.
“Well,” Nia swallowed. “One day, she starts getting worse. That’s… probably it, we’re thinking. And I can’t do much to help. So, dad finally suggests doing something… extreme. Says there are ways to make Blades more powerful.”
“Flesh Eaters,” The Doctor bet.
Nia nodded soberly, and swallowed again. “I wasn’t gonna do it. Whatever he wanted, I wasn’t gonna violate her like that if she didn’t want me to. And she didn’t want me to either. Not to save her life. But... she said she… she didn’t expect me to be able to save her. But she wanted to do something for me, for spending all that time trying anyway. For being her sister. She held out her arm to me anyway, and told me to do it. She wanted me to… to be able to live on. Live my own life. Even if she couldn’t.”
The Doctor’s jaw slowly fell open. “You ate human flesh right off the bone? Off of someone still living?”
Nia gulped. “She told me she couldn’t feel it. And… she didn’t make a sound. When it was done, I was able to heal her right up afterward. But I still couldn’t… it made me much, much stronger, but whatever it was, it was genetic. I couldn’t fix it.”
“Oh, Nia…” The Doctor breathed, pulling her into a hug.
“Well, now you know.”
“And I told you, I didn’t want to.” The Doctor sighed. “But… thank you anyway.”
“You’re… not angry?”
“I think we did that already, back in the TARDIS.” The Doctor gestured. “The shouting and the arguing and it would be different if you murdered someone to make yourself more powerful for the hell of it – but you didn’t. I can’t fault you for that.”
“How can you say that – you weren’t there. F-For all you know, I could be lying.”
“No, you’re not.” The Doctor looked her dead in the eyes. “Because I know that look in your eyes. Trust me, I’ve seen it in the mirror enough times.” He took a breath. “Besides… sometimes all you have are bad choices. But you still have to choose.”
Nia went quiet, her eyes twitching as tears began to well up within them. “Listen, can you-“
“Not gonna say a word,” The Doctor vowed, miming zipping up his mouth and throwing away the key.
“Thanks.”
“Not a problem – I take good care of my friends,” The Doctor pointed.
Nia slowly nodded, as she took a breath. “Doctor… what did you do?”
The Time Lord stopped, twitching slightly. “Well, I…” He coughed. “You know how I said I was a Time Lord?”
“Right.”
“I’m not just a Time Lord… I’m the last of them.”
Nia furrowed her brow. “Oh… because of the universe being destroyed?”
The Doctor let out a weak huff, and he shook his head. “Not so, no. It happened before that. Long before. It was a bad day, and they’re all dead, and… it’s my fault. Because I pulled the trigger.”
“…oh my God…” Nia reached out to him. “Your granddaught- I’m so sorry…”
“Like I said,” The Doctor murmured. “Bad day.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. It was heavy, sure - but in the way a warm blanket can be heavy. Nia lingered in the Doctor’s embrace just a moment longer before pulling away, scrubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her jumpsuit.
“So…” She sniffed, “now what?”
The Doctor offered her a small smile - tired, yes, but kind. “Now,” He said, “I show you a magic trick.”
Nia blinked. “A what?”
He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved the TARDIS key, holding it between two fingers. With his other hand, he pulled the Sonic Screwdriver from his coat, twirling it once in his hand before pointing it toward the key.
Then, without a word, he pressed the button.
A subtle humming echoed through the air, barely audible at first. The wind began to stir as the air was displaced, and the glowing, fallen blossoms rustled around them. Nia stepped back instinctively, her ears perking up.
The Doctor smiled, idly bobbing up and down as he felt space begin to warp and boil.
“What’s that – what’re you doing?” Nia questioned, watching as the air before them shimmered faintly.
“Watch this.”
The wind picked up, and the shimmer intensified, like hot air rippling in the daytime.
A low, distant grinding began to echo – ‘VWORP, VWORP!’ - distant, but growing louder, like something impossibly large and impossibly old was struggling to breathe.
And then, out of thin air, like a gnosis being dragged into reality, the TARDIS materialized. The pulsating light from the lantern on top and the windows filled the alleyway with a glow as the edges solidified into existence, and the final clunk of the materialization sounded as the engine locks engaged, and the glow around the edges faded, depositing the TARDIS into reality.
Nia’s jaw dropped.
“You called it? Like… with a key?!”
“Clever trick,” The Doctor boasted, striding over to the doors. “Installed it after one too many times forgetting where I parked. I want to be able to do it by whistling, that’d be nice!” He threw over his shoulder at Nia. “Then, she…” He faltered momentarily, leaning on the door. “Dunked me in the pool and started throwing dog bones at my head for trying to make that work. I think she was making a statement.”
“You can call your spaceship to you with your key?”
“It’s not that strange – just like a self-driving car! Really, the weirdest part was that the system broke down for so long,” The Time Lord mused as he unlocked the doors and pushed them open. “A lot of old systems and components that were off-line fixed themselves after the rebuild, though. I can finally travel to parallel universes again! Rubbish, it’s only fun if you can’t do it then you do it anyway.” He stepped aside, gesturing into the timeship. “Your cab, milady!”
“What?”
“You just said you were nobility,” The Doctor pointed out with an infuriating grin.
“Oh, shut up,” Nia smacked him on his shoulder. “Mister Time Lord.”
----------
After summoning the TARDIS, and going through the effort to gather up some supplies so the others wouldn’t suspect anything, the group all gathered back up around the ship.
Pyra walked around the exterior, touching it curiously. “It flies by remote?” She curiously probed. “Could’ve saved us the trouble of going back to Argentum for it…”
“Well, we were being accosted by the law – didn’t want to draw attention in the middle of it.” The Doctor kicked the door open and gestured with his head into the ship. “All right, everyone, roll-up, roll-up. Time we were off – to Indol! Actually!” The Doctor’s mind went to Nia, first. Dangerous (for her) situation to get into. Better ease her into it. “Who’s up for supper, first? The Archsage’s food is good, but it’s all empty calories – literally.” He turned to Nia with a smile, leaning on the console. “How about hot dogs? I love a good hot dog. Oh! There’s a fantastic hot dog restaurant in 2004 – at least, before the location burned down – we could go and get real-deal Chicago dogs, then swing by the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame and watch Prince live in person!” He stopped, his face dropping. “Actually… strike that last part. Best not. Last time I went to one of Prince’s shows, he looked right at me mid-show and mouthed my real name at me. Still don’t know how he knew it. Nobody knows it. I barely remember it.”
“Actually,” Vandham rumbled, raising a hand. “Before we do that… Mind if we swing by Garfont first?”
The Doctor paused, brows knitting. “Garfont?”
Rex blinked, looking back at Vandham. “Your base?”
“Aye.” Vandham scratched the back of his neck. “I know I said I’d help you lot get to Elysium - and I meant it. But if I’m gonna be gone a while… I gotta make sure the boys are squared away. Zuo and Yew’ll run the place fine without me, but they deserve to know what’s what before I go off for longer than what should be a quick pop-over to the capital again.”
Roc let out a soft caw. “He’s trying to avoid another lecture.”
“Can you blame me?” Vandham chuckled. “Last time I left on ‘quick business’ and was gone for a month, they damn near tore Alrest apart tryin’a find me! Last time I take an unscheduled vacation.”
“Well, if it helps,” Nia muttered, arms crossed, “You do look like the kinda man what’d start a fight with a whole town if he got the chance.”
“Oi, now,” Vandham smirked. “That’s a good fight, if you ask me.”
Albedo tilted her head. “So you’re informing your mercenaries of your extended absence? That’s… surprisingly responsible.”
“Tried bein’ reckless. Didn’t suit me.” Vandham shrugged, then looked to the Doctor. “So, whaddaya say? Quick stop in Garfont before we jet off to Indol?”
The Doctor gave a thoughtful hum, then nodded. “Fair enough. Always better to tie off loose ends than trip over them later. Which… I know a little bit about – horrifically clumsy, this body. So, Garfont it is!”
“All right!” Rex grinned, clapping his hands. “Now it’s our turn to fill you in on a thing or three!”
“Heh,” Vandham laughed. “Chance to let you do all the explaining for once? I like the sound of that.”
“Well, the more the merrier, as they say!” Azurda hummed cheerfully.
“Right-o!” The Doctor clapped his hands and spun around to the TARDIS. “Time we were off, then!”
“What, in there?” Vandham’s voice floated from behind. “Snug fit!”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Nia smirked as she followed the Doctor through the doors.
Vandham and Roc poked their heads in next. Roc’s beak parted and their eyes went wide as they scanned the console room.
Vandham blinked, then broke into hearty laughter. “Well, I guess you heard me sayin’ things don’t surprise me anymore, and said ‘wanna bet,’ didn’t you?”
“Surprising people is my mission in life!” The Doctor boasted, darting around the console. “Now then, Vandham - first trip! Hold onto something. Everyone else, next stop: Garfont. Shouldn’t be too bumpy…”
He threw the lever. The TARDIS shuddered, rattling with mechanical vigour as it leapt through the vortex. A few moments later, he slammed the throttle back, and everything stilled with a final ka-thunk.
“Here we are - Garfont!”
“Wha- that quick!?” Vandham questioned.
“Take a look!” The Doctor invited as he stepped out first, right into the training area. “Fast return switch – classic!”
Vandham slowly stepped out of the TARDIS, slowly looking around. “We really moved…” His eyes darted over in the direction of the Mercenary HQ. “Right - need to get a few things squared away. Let Zuo and Yew know-“
“Boss, you’re back!” Zuo, from across the training ground, noted with a look of surprise on his face. “…how’d you get back so quickly? Did you turn around halfway there or something?”
Vandham turned around, glancing at the TARDIS. “Whaddya mean? Didn’t you see-!?”
“-us come in through the gate?” The Doctor cut Vandham off by clapping his hands, and smiling. “Busy day, forgot some things.”
Rex approached with a curious look on his face, looking between the Doctor and Vandham.
“…right,” Vandham scratched his head. “Look, you and Yew come with me. Got some things to iron out. Gonna be going away for a while, longer than usual.”
Rex scratched his head. “That was pretty weird, huh? How come Zuo didn’t notice the TARDIS? Actually, come to think of it, none of ‘em noticed it the first time until you pointed it out. Even though it appeared out of thin air.”
The Doctor straightened his bow tie with a light smile. “It’s simple really – TARDISes are research vessels. Grown for conducting reconnaissance on primitive worlds. Lots of little tricks and systems so they don’t contaminate local history just by showing up.”
Mythra snorted under her breath. “Kind of a ‘Prime Directive’ thing you’ve got going there.”
“Blame the Time Lords – it was their idea.” The Doctor flippantly shrugged.
“Is that why it looks like a big wooden box?” Nia dryly asked. “There’s better stuff to make a spaceship out of.”
“It’s carbon-neutral!” The Doctor defensively raised his voice.
“What is it supposed to be, anyway?” Azura curiously leaned over the rim of Rex’s helmet. “A wooden box is an odd disguise for a spacecraft.”
The Doctor shot another look at the TARDIS. “It’s a Police Box! In the world before Alrest, back in the 1900s, they had these on every street corner. They were wired up to the nearest police station, so if something happened, people on the street had a direct line to the authorities. Portable radio technology and faster, more economical cars did them in, though.”
“Radio and…” Rex furrowed his brow. “Huh. I never really considered it before – but the Ones Who Came Before; they had tech similar to us? A society like ours? Problems like ours?”
“Well, yes,” The Doctor coughed awkwardly. “It’s all… fight for oil, and saving the planet – even though the pamphlets we print are just as harmful as the plastic – and god, you people are very funny about that. And that is the royal you.”
Mythra shook her head. “Humans have been fighting like that since the first one of them picked up a rock.”
“Yeah, but…” Rex trailed off, looking back again in Vandham’s direction. “I know Elysium’s not going to fix everything magically. But so much of the world’s problems all go back to the lack of land. But if the ones before us had all of that, and they still fought…”
“Animals are a competitive lot,” The Doctor mused. “It’s evolution. You have to keep finding reasons to fight – it pushes your species forward. But instead of fighting gravity, or the lightspeed barrier, you fight each other. Well, most of the time.” He smiled, patting the TARDIS’s side-wall. “After this is done, I could take you to see it, you know! Well…” He glanced just for a moment at Mythra. “Maybe not the sixties. Oh – the 2030s are good, and Police Boxes are back in vogue there too. Turns out, after repeated alien invasions, wireless communications networks being crippled or exploited, and people not having a good way to call for help, you finally decide a good-old-fashioned landline might be something worth keeping around.”
The rest of them nodded, most of his words going over their heads.
“Now, we’re here, we might as well take a look back around, eh? Make sure we didn’t leave anything behind.” The Doctor suggested.
“Well, I don’t think we need to worry about you,” Albedo remarked, glancing at the Time Lord. “Mister Core Crystal Hoarder.”
“That’s Doctor Core Crystal Hoarder to…” The Time Lord began to retort, then trailed off. “You…”
“Huh?” Crossette leaned in. “Doc? What’s wrong?”
He glanced around, shifting warily. “It’s… well, it’s nothing.” He tried to play it off. Even as he caught sight of Nia.
“She wanted me to live on. To live my own life.”
The Time Lord’s mind drifted to the Core Crystals in his pockets.
So many of them.
Vess, the two Crystals from the recruitment drive (of which Crossette had been one), Theory, Obrona, Sever, the newborn crystal from that dead Titan, and the beast-like Blade from the creature that had killed it.
A slow exhale escaped him. He reached into his coat, fingers brushing the cool, sharp angles of one particular Core Crystal. Almost without thinking, he drew it out, turning it over in his palm. The facets caught the meagre light and flared like a pulse.
“Doctor?” Rex leaned forward.
“It’s nothing.”
“Question,” The Doctor began to voice, as his mind calculated and extrapolated at lightspeed. “Malos hates humans. We’ve established this. So, why work with them? So, if you’re humans and hate them, want to see them exterminated, why would you tolerate one standing by your side, with a leash on one of your brethren?”
“I…” Rex blinked. “I never thought about it, I guess. Akhos is a guy though, but… so was Cole.”
“Exactly.” The Doctor snapped his fingers, pointing at Rex. “Torna works with Blades and Flesh Eaters. They hate humans.” And just to make sure no one picked up on it, he threw out a little something extra. “That was why they were so quick to turn on Nia.”
Nia nodded, picking up what the Doctor was laying out. “Cause I was human.”
The Doctor pointed at her. “Which is why they didn’t let her in on their plans. But!” He tossed a core crystal up into the air, catching it, showing off the cracked, black, obsidian surface. “We’ve got Malos’s Blade. Right here.”
Mythra scowled. “That’s never gonna work. One, the thing is busted. Two, when you awaken a Blade, they lose their memory.”
“You don’t.” The Doctor pointed out.
“Yeah, because I’m not supposed to,” Mythra narrowed her eyes.
“No, because they have a function that wraps up their memories and whatnot like clean little zip files and stores them away,” The Doctor retorted. “So!” He smiled. “Who’s ready to wake a big, terrifying, and quite possibly evil Blade?”
---------
The Doctor knelt cross-legged in the dirt, Core Crystal in one hand, sonic screwdriver in the other,
A small crowd gathered nearby, watching from a wary distance. Rex, Nia, Crossette, and Pyra stood closest, arms crossed, while the rest of the Garfont mercs stayed further back, whispering nervously. The idea of rebuilding a Core Crystal that had been damaged so severely was something practically alien to them – like stitching back together a brain.
It was easy. As the man said, life was just nature’s way of keeping meat fresh. In any case, he’d learned quite a bit about Core Crystals since arriving – what they were made of, how they stored data. It should be easy, really.
"You're sure about this?" Nia asked, for maybe the fifth time. “It’s not any Blade, you realize that, right? It’s Malos’s. You could wake him up, and he’d be… I don’t know, ready to rip your throat out or something.”
“Don’t worry – I don’t need my throat,” The Time Lord brightly answered, holding the crystal up as he let off the screwdriver. The crystal - black and sleek, like volcanic glass - was whole again. For a moment, it simply lay there, cold and inert.
Then, faintly, it pulsed. A bright, cold blue.
“There, you see?” The Doctor smiled, running it around in his hands. “Good as new!”
“That’s…” Pyra blinked in awe. “You repaired it. Is there anything your Screwdriver can’t do?”
“Well, it doesn’t do wood for one,” The Doctor frankly answered. “But the crystal was easy, really. The material was… familiar. Anyhow,” He placed the crystal on the ground, and stepped back, flicking the Screwdriver open.
Rex drew Pyra’s Aegis Sword, clutching it tightly. Albedo drew her rapier. And Nia summoned up Dromarch’s rings. Poppi and Tora held back, off to the side.
“Here goes…” The Doctor pressed the button, and the crystal began to bleed light – radiating upward in a column. The entire area was filled – blinded – before it faded.
The oddly-shaped humanoid’s head snapped up, as he took in a ragged growl. “What the-!?” His head twisted around in all directions, his arm going up and summoning his sword tonfa. “What is this!? Where are we!? What did you do to Malos!?”
“He remembers…” Dromarch rumbled in awe. “Remarkable.”
“Answer me!" Sever hissed as he began to sprint forward.
Nia jumped into the path, catching his weapon with Dromarch’s wings. “Chill out for a moment, idiot, and you’ll realize we did something for you!”
“For me?” Sever rattled harshly. “I don’t remember anything but a hailstorm of light! Where are they!? Malos and Obron-“
Crossette’s bitball went flying through the air, hitting him in the face long enough for Nia to wrench his word out of his hand and toss it away, with Albedo holding her rapier to his crystal.
“Everyone stop!” The Doctor bellowed. “For god’s sake – I just repaired him!”
“Repaired?” Sever growled.
The Doctor tilted his head, hands stuffed into his coat pockets. "Yes, that’s the word – a bit less ego-inducing than ‘brought back to life.’ You’re welcome."
“Brought back…” Sever looked down with a horrified hiss. “My crystal was broken! And what you did to Obrona-“
“Oh, she’s fine,” The Doctor produced her crystal, idly tossing it up and down in his hands. “Would’ve woken her up first – but I wasn’t sure if she’d try to grab another child for a hostage.”
“You just… shut her off,” Sever recalled with wide, feral eyes. “And Malos… I can’t feel Malos. What is this!? What have you done to me!?”
“For you,” The Doctor corrected.
“For me!?” Sever rasped. “You’ve got me held hostage.”
“Hostage? No hostage,” The Doctor crossed his arms. “See, I got a bit curious about Torna – what was going on over there, that kind of thing. I thought ‘why not ask it from the horse’s mouth?’ So, here we are!”
“I’m not gonna tell you anything,” Sever rattled.
“Come on, Sever,” Nia prodded. “We just wanna know what Malos is planning, that’s it. Then you can go running off to your master or whatever he is.”
“Master?” Sever disparagingly chuckled. “And just like that, you lost any hint of sympathy you had with me, little traitor. If it weren’t for the sword, I’d rip that head off your shoulders.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” The Doctor clasped his hands. “I do have a plan. Mostly a ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’ kind of thing.”
“Oh yeah?” Sever snorted. “And what’s that?”
“Any second now.”
Sever hissed. “You idiot, you’re just stalling for-“
“Sev! It’s not nice to call people stupid!” A little boy chided him as he pulled Sever away from the merchant running a stall.
“But he is stupid – those prices are something a fool comes up with!”
He staggered mid-sentence, the words dying in his throat.
Rip. Wall tears like paper. Hand around throat. Fragile. Crunch. Kill. Flesh stinks. Blood pools. Pure. Clean. Hunt. Gunfire. Flash. Pain. Doesn't matter. Doesn't stop. Grab. Twist. Bones snap. Red mist. Kill. KILL.
It hit him like a cannon blast to the skull. A million lifetimes detonated like explosives in his mind all at once, shattering the barrier they were behind.
She smiled at him as she danced with him. “You know, for a beast, you’re quite graceful.”
“Hmm.”
Sever gasped, clutching his head, his claws raking over his scalp like he could physically tear the memories out of his head.
“What’s going on!?” Rex gasped. “What’s happening to him!?”
“Well, it’s like Pyra said,” The Doctor tilted his head to the side, slightly. Like someone watching a science experiment unfold, he watched. “Some memories, we’d prefer not to remember.”
"No," Sever rasped, his knees buckling. "No! NO-!"
He collapsed to one hand, the massive blade on his back rattling against the stones. His breathing was ragged, wild. The world spun in front of him, a kaleidoscope of agony and confusion.
Sever stood in a crowd, listening to a sermon delivered by a man in golden finery. "Soon, there will be no more need for restraint. No more need for negotiations or mercy. We will wipe them from the face of this world, and the Architect’s true chosen people, the Blades, shall rise to claim this holy land, in the name of our divine father!"
"Stop it—!" His voice broke, a desperate, strangled roar. "Make it STOP!"
The Doctor thinned his lips, entirely too calm, watching him with a sharp glint in his eye.
“Oh, of course!” The Doctor chirped, chipper as ever. He rocked back on his heels, as if considering the weather. “Happy to oblige. Just need to know what Malos is planning first.”
Sever gaped at him, trembling. Light in his core crystal stuttered, flaring erratically as if his very soul was short-circuiting. He opened his mouth.
“What is this… why?”
“Because your Driver woke up and chose violence. Because you stood by his side and threatened a child. Because I won’t even dare to let him think he can get away with it again. Because either way it won’t save him: I will find out what he’s doing, I will figure out a way to stop it, and I will go around to every corner of this world to tear it apart piece-by-piece if I don’t like it!”
Sever clutched both sides of his head.
“Malos wanted the Doctor of War, well, lucky him, because he’s got him!” The Doctor bellowed at the top of his lungs. “The Daleks haven’t been able to stop me, the Time Lords haven’t been able to stop me, the Silence hasn’t been able to stop me, NOTHING in the entire universe has been able to stop me!”
“Fine, fine, fine!” Sever screamed, more to stop the yelling than anything else. “I’ll tell you what you want! Just stop it!”
The Doctor took a quick step back, and pointed the screwdriver at Sever. The pressure in the Blade’s mind eased, as the memories evaporated.
Sever flopped down, breathing heavily.
“These people…” The Doctor breathed slowly, trying to keep a handle on it. “This species… Is incredibly precious to me. I don’t care how strong your boss thinks he is. How ‘clever’ he thinks his friends are. I. Will. Stop him. So… what is he planning?”
Sever looked up, breathing ragged. “The end of the world.”
“Of course,” The Doctor spread his arms. “Because it’s all the same with the misanthropes. ‘The world is wicked, tear it all down.’ Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? More than one. And it has never worked. Tell me, Sever.”
“What, you want design documents?” Sever sneered. “A dossier!?”
“Well, I would prefer you spill everything – but since your brain’s a little bit scrambled – I’ll settle for ‘the most amount of damage I could cause in one day to make it very, very clear to Malos that he hasn’t the first idea of who he’s dealing with.’” The Doctor growled.
Sever narrowed his eyes. “You kidding? He’ll kill me.”
“He’ll kill you anyway,” The Doctor bluntly retorted. “He saw your crystal fade, as well as Obrona’s. Even if he figured you were repaired, he’ll probably figure you resonated with one of us. You’re dead no matter what.”
Sever stood to his feet, narrowing his eyes. “And you’re gonna let me go. Just like that. With that tube thing?”
“Oh, no, sorry.” The Doctor looked up.
“What?”
“I’m not ‘letting you go,’” The Time Lord repeated. “That implies that you’re running and I’m choosing not to chase you. I am giving you the choice… to spare your life from any more bad decisions.”
Sever took a step, getting in the Time Lord’s face. “And if I don’t?”
“Well, that’s your decision. You’re a free Blade! But, remember this: If you go running back to Malos. If you fall in line with his lot again. Helping him.” The Doctor leaned forward, a blank look on his face. “Ask him about ‘the Doctor of War.’ Ask him who he learned that title from. And ask him, if they survived with me… or if they survived me.”
Sever bared his teeth. “Ugh…” He rattled in disgust. “Fine. If it will shut you up. They’ve got a factory going in Mor Ardain. And I’ll give you a hint: it’s not making firecrackers. You want to mess him up? You’ll go there, first.”
“That was easy,” Nia muttered. “And you call me the traitor.”
“Well, I always considered myself a free spirit,” Sever retorted. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He crouched down, and jumped, leaping over the group before landing on the other side. He tore off at incredible speed, right out of the village.
Rex watched, and holstered the sword. “He just… he just left?”
Albedo shot him a look. “You wanted a fight?”
“Well, no, but… he didn’t even ask for Obrona’s core crystal,” Rex blinked. “Aren’t they supposed to be friends?”
Nia snorted. “There’s no such thing, in Torna. Look how quick they turned on me.”
“There’s no honour among thieves,” The Doctor mused, before his face twitched sourly. “Which, actually, isn’t a litmus for the honour of thieves. Some thieves are very honourable. Robin Hood, for example.” His face involuntarily twitched into a smile, as he thought back (or was it forward?) to Sherwood Forest.
“In this particular instance, then, I hope you’re wrong,” Dromarch rumbled.
“So do I,” The Doctor clapped his hands.
“A factory in Mor Ardain,” Pyra frowned. “That… doesn’t sound good.”
“Doesn’t it?” The Time Lord turned to her.
“Mor Ardain is the most industrialized Titan in Alrest,” Albedo hummed. “If Torna has a factory there…”
“Oh, not to worry!” The Doctor smiled. “As it happens, I am fantastic at industrial espionage.” All heads turned to him slightly concerned. “Well, it’s not by choice. It sort of just… happens.” He coughed awkwardly. “Anyway, now, what to do about the rest of the Core Crystals, huh?”
Rex frowned. “The rest of ‘em?”
“Well, I don’t fancy carrying around people-in-stasis in my pocket.” He pensively regarded one. “It seemed to work just fine for Sever. Tricking the resonance – I am good.”
Mythra replaced Pyra in a flash of light. “That’s dumb. What if we need more Blades down the line?”
The Doctor shot her a look. “I’m not carrying around people to break out on a rainy day like they’re tools. Let them go free, pick their own lives.”
“Is…” Rex blinked. “Is that really a good idea?”
“Vess was always a good woman,” Albedo recalled with closed eyes. “She deserves another chance at life.”
“I’m not saying she doesn’t!” Rex held up his hands. “But the other Blades… I mean, one of ‘em was a crystal thief. The other one threatened a kid. And the last… three or four – we don’t even know who they are!”
“They deserve to live, still. Don’t you think?” The Doctor asked of the young salvager.
“Well, yeah, I don’t think the Architect would’ve sent them to us if he didn’t think so either,” Rex rubbed the back of his head.
Mythra, however, crossed her arms with a pout. “I think it’s stupid. You realize most people don’t like Flesh Eaters because they’re Blades that can’t be controlled, right? Resonating with whoever they want, all that power, damn-near invincible, and you can’t stop them if they get too strong by whacking their Driver? I didn’t say anything because the first one was Sever and I don’t care if he has a target on his back – but you’re gonna subject more Blades to that?”
“Blimey, that’s remarkable.” The Doctor remarked, turning away as he continued to work on one of the crystals. “A Blade who fears freedom for her own people.”
“It’s Garfont – so it should be safe, right?” Crossette ventured, looking around. “There are plenty of places they can hide – and plenty of Drivers they can link with, if they want to!”
The Doctor nodded approvingly at her. “Good thinking.” He turned back to the crystal in his hand. “What was that Vandham said about taking people in if they wanted to be better? Nothing to be afraid of, for them.”
“Hey, I don’t fear anything,” Mythra refuted. “But think about what you’re doing – if word gets out that there’re truly autonomous Blades out there that have no need for Drivers, that don’t have to worry about mortality like Flesh Eaters, and they look like regular Blades? It’s gonna paint a target on every Blade wandering a street without a Driver nearby.”
“’I looked and saw all the oppression that took place under the sun; and beheld the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of the oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.’” The Time Lord recited.
Mythra scowled, and put a hand on her hip. “’Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise.’” She quoted right back at him.
The Doctor let the Sonic Screwdriver droop, as he spun around to face her. She and him stared at one another for a moment, before he slowly began to approach. “’Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?’”
Mythra tilted her head to the side, blinking. “’The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.’”
The Time Lord looked down into her eyes. “’It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.’”
The Aegis crossed her arms. “’We must deal shrewdly with them, or they may rise up against us.’”
“’If anyone knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.’”
“’The prudent keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.’”
The Doctor took a long pause. “’For everything there is a season, a time to plant and a time to uproot… a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak.’” He took in a long breath, and pointed at her. “You’re very well-read.”
“I…” Mythra’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I just… got what you were saying, is all.”
“Did you?” Rex scratched his head. “Cause… I had no idea what that was.”
“Oh, that? Just a philosophical agreement,” The Doctor flippantly waved, and he pointed at Mythra sternly. “Be glad you didn’t quote anything from that that I had a hand in writing, would’ve ripped your arguments a new one, I tell you. Still, you’re a better debate partner than my last one - one cryptic metaphor in a desert and suddenly everyone’s calling you the Devil. Bit harsh, really.”
Nia snorted. “All that guff? You wrote poetry?”
“Is that what it was?” Tora blinked. “Tora think it sound like mostly nonsense.”
“I’m two-thousand years old!” The Doctor gesticulated in response. “I’ve wrote a bit of everything.” He stopped, pondering to share something for a moment. He glanced at Albedo. “If you find a cookbook with my name on it, stay away from the Weeping Angel Cake. Hard as a stone while you’re looking at it – don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Wait,” Nia interjected. “You’re not gonna help the Blades?”
“Not right now,” The Doctor admitted, rubbing his face. “Cause Mythra is right – right now, it’d probably do few of them very many favours. We need to get to the World Tree!” He declared. “I’m reasonably, probably, slightly, maybe-certain that whatever that thing is, it has to do with what the Blades are, and what the Titans are, and-...” He blinked. “Oh. That’s a good point! If they’re dependent on resonating to gather genetic info to turn into Titans, I’d be throwing a wrench into that. Disrupting the entire reproductive cycle. So!” He clapped his hands. “World Tree first – figure out what’s going on, then help the Blades.”
“Actually, Mor Ardain first.” Albedo corrected.
The Doctor snapped his fingers. “Exactly.”
Gear jingling filled the air as Vandham approached. “Mor Ardain, huh? That’s a detour from Indol…”
“Malos has a plan, and I want to find out what it is.” The Doctor retorted. “If that means a little bit of… destructive analysis, so be it.”
Rex turned to the old mercenary. “You’re finished.”
“Right,” Vandham crossed his arms. “Zuo and Yew weren’t too happy, but they’ll live.”
Nia frowned. “Aren’t you a mercenary? Shouldn’t they be used to you going away for a while.”
“They are, it’s… ah, it’s nothing.” Vandham shook his head as his eyes lingered on Rex for a second. “It’s the World Tree. I said I was gonna get to it, back in the day, and I never fall short on a job. ‘Sides, I like ‘impossible’ missions. I’m with ya till the end on this, Rex.”
“All right!” The Doctor smiled and clapped his hands. “Then we mustn’t dilly or dally!” He spun around and crossed the threshold into the TARDIS, walking up to the control console and setting the controls. “Mor Ardain, which one’s that?”
“I’ve seen that one, once or twice.” Rex shut the doors behind him as he stepped in. “It’ll be the big one, shaped like a person, missing an arm.”
“Right, humanoid Titan, coming right up!” He snapped his fingers, and threw one of the controls, glancing at Nia. “The old girl’s getting quite the workout today, all these short hops.” He threw forward the throttle, and the console room rumbled. “Accounting for temporal jet-lag, coordinate slips, and the local Mardis Gras festivities, and-!” He pushed a button, and the TARDIS settled with a thump. “Here we are!”
Nia whipped around to the doors. “It’s Mor Ardain out there?”
“Yes, that’s quite a good possibility.”
Nia turned to the Time Lord. “You realize we’re probably still wanted by that lot for Torigoth, right?”
“Not to worry!” The Doctor beamed. “We’re here to make trouble for Malos’s lot – we’ll be fine. Unless… what, does he have connections to the Ardainian government we don’t know about?”
“Architect only knows,” Nia shook her head.
“Splendid! Let’s find out together,” The Doctor threw the doors open, and stepped out.
------------
Malos felt an ache in his Core Crystal, as the bay doors creaked shut behind them, plunging the world into dim light. The Marsanes groaned like a wounded beast, its massive steel ribs flexing as it moved.
The ache in his crystal was not of grief. Or of rage. For the first time in a very long time, that… hollow gnawing originating from the deepest recesses of his being was sated. Abated. The ache he had now was the ache of a warrior – the ache of a body pushed to its limit, and remaining intact.
“Not bad,” He said to no one in particular, laughing under his breath. “Not bad at all.” That had to be the best fight he’d had in centuries. Since old Torna sank and his crystal had been damaged.
Akhos followed in after him, slower. Each step was deliberate, as though every movement had to be carefully calculated, else he would fall. His Core Crystal burned from underneath his armour, casting light through the seams of the plating.
Malos barely noticed. He was busy running one hand through his white hair, still chuckling to himself.
“At last, my other half shows herself.” He said. “My one equal and partner in destruction!” Malos let out a demented cackle, clenching his fist as he took a deep breath. What a wonderful, wonderful day. That… second-form, or alias, or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be – Pyra – it didn’t even compare. Truthfully, Malos had been disappointed, back on the ancient Tornan wreck, when that seemed to be the best she could do. Going from carrying the power of a sun, to a weak little campfire. He was never so glad to be wrong. “Mythra.”
He said the name like a prayer, or a curse. He sounded elated.
Akhos snapped.
“Is that all you care about?” He hissed, the words slicing the air sharper than any blade. His fists clenched at his sides, trembling. “The Aegis killed Sever! Obrona's Core is- Obrona…” His voice cracked.
Malos sighed, theatrically slow, dragging a hand down his face. He turned, facing Akhos fully now, that damned smirk never leaving his lips.
"Well, they were working to usher forth oblivion," He said, voice steeped in boredom. “Seems to me like they just got it a little bit early.”
"You heartless bastard." Akhos's Core Crystal flared brighter, filling the room with a sharp electric hum.
Malos scoffed, taking a slow, almost taunting step closer. “Oh, please.” He grunted in disgust. “What’s crying gonna do about it, huh? I’ll honour them in my own way.
“Honour them!?” Akhos indignantly repeated. “What about Obrona!? They grabbed her like she was a common blade!”
“If you wanna do something about it, go ahead and do something about it. You’re a free damned spirit. As far as I’m concerned, she pushed the Doctor of War, and paid the price.”
“Doctor of…” Akhos stared at the Dark Aegis. “You knew. You knew he could do something like that!? And you didn’t warn us!?”
“It’s not my fault you tested him.” Malos huffed. “You play with a fire, and you get burnt. But you never could stop strutting around long enough to process that.”
“She was family, Malos!” Akhos raised his voice.
“Family?” He echoed, incredulous. “Akhos, they were tools. Same as you. Same as me. Made to destroy. Meant to die. She at least died as herself. Her and Sever.”
Akhos shook his head, staggering back a half-step, like the words had struck him harder than any blade could have. His voice, when it came again, was ragged.
“…what’s gotten into you?” Akhos demanded through gnashed teeth.
Malos gazed at him for a long, flat moment. Then he turned away, arms spread wide, laughing again as he paced across the hangar.
“I forget – you ever only knew me while I was at my lowest. Nothing’s gotten into me, Akhos.” Malos chuckled. “The old gods are returning, that’s all! Last time around, it was no fun – games never are if they end in draws. Everyone winning means everyone loses. But now, we’ve got a tiebreaker! And he’s just as destructive as me!” Malos spun back around, still with his arms spread wide. “For the first time in a long time… I feel alive.”
Akhos stared at the Dark Aegis with wide, shocked eyes. “What in the world did you hear?”
Malos grinned. “There was a war,” He orated with a giddy leer in his tone. “A war so big they didn’t bother naming it anything fancy. The War. The only war that mattered.” He tilted his head back, smiling like he was savouring a memory that wasn’t his. “The theatre wasn’t just cities, or continents, or planets.” His hand carved a grand, savage arc through the air. “It was the heavens themselves! Time burning. Stars screaming. Entire timelines shredded just to stall a losing battle. Civilizations unmade before they ever drew breath.”
Akhos shook his head slowly, unable to wrap his head around the nonsense that Malos was spewing.
Malos didn't even notice. He was lost in his own storytelling.
“You fancy yourself a playwright, right?” Malos grinned over his shoulder. “You know the tropes. A War in Heaven.” He stopped. Let the silence grow thick. Then, he took a long gulp of breath. “And the angels? They were far from pure. They were monsters.” He turned, stalking closer now, voice dropping low, intimate, like he was sharing a delicious secret. “And do you know the best part?”
Akhos said nothing. He couldn't. His mouth was dry.
Malos leaned in, voice like a blade sliding between ribs. “He was one of them; The Doctor.” He straightened, laughing, wild and weightless. “And it’s still in him. Like covering rot in the floorboards up. Till you stomp the wrong spot, and it all comes tumbling down…”
He turned on Akhos, grinning wide enough to crack his face in two.
“I’m going gonna be the one to stomp. And then?” Malos laughed, throwing his arms wide again, gazing at the ceiling as if he could see through it to the stars beyond. He closed his hands into fists, trembling with savage joy. “Last time, they could barely handle me and Mythra going at it. All three of us? No chance.”
Malos’s grin faded into something colder, harder.
“That’s the point, Akhos,” He said. Voice low, deadly calm now. “We’re tearing down the world, remember?”
Malos turned, walking away into the shadows of the ship. The sound of his boots abruptly stopped, as he called out from the corridor. “And if you forget… Jin can remind you.”
Malos disappeared into the shadows, leaving Akhos standing there.
----------
The door slid shut behind him with a soft hiss, sealing him inside the gloom.
Malos crossed the room without bothering to turn the lights up. The world outside the porthole was black – the inky depths of the Cloud Sea being all that lay beyond.
Paintings brushed in black ink hung from the walls – scratch that, every available surface. Walls, doors, even parts of the ceiling were plastered with paintings, hung without pattern or care, half crooked or just plain leaning against the walls and furniture. Each piece was wrought in heavy, black ink, strokes so sharp and violent they seemed to be tracings of knife-edges
And all of them, every last one, were his own creation.
Women, sketched in unsettling, distorted form. Faces twisted in terror, limbs torn away, bodies swallowed by abstract shapes like fanged mouths or churning storms. Their features shifted from painting to painting, but if one looked closely, the resemblance was unmistakable.
Over and over, bright hair and bright eyes (insofar as well as he could render them, working with black ink) - now wide with pain or horror or resignation - slaughtered in a hundred different ways, limbs pulled apart and flesh filleted as though Malos were painting and repainting the same story told over and over. The story of him winning that day instead, five-hundred years ago.
Not far from these were a smaller cluster of paintings - even rougher, if possible. Rawer, as he barely managed to make it through to the end.
Amalthus, rendered again and again, suffering unspeakable fates: consumed by flame, bound and drowning in seas of ink, flayed into strips like paper left to blow away on a dead wind.
Malos poured himself a drink. Navy-strength gin. The real stuff. Sharp as a knife and twice as cruel. He took a long swallow, grimacing at the burn, and let the glass dangle from his fingers as he dropped heavily into the low-slung chair near the centre of the room.
The gin pooled and shimmered as he swirled it in the glass, catching the dim lights in oily rainbows. Malos stared through it, unfocused.
His free hand drifted up, fingertips brushing his Core Crystal.
It throbbed under his touch - a low, aching pulse, like a half-healed wound.
Malos closed his eyes.
Beneath the surface - beneath the rage, the hunger, the endless scream for meaning – the cracks gnawed at him.
Despite his elation, things still hadn’t gone smoothly at the ruins. His crystal was still cracked. His true power was still locked away. And getting Mythra into a position where he could take what he needed from her to repair it was not going to be easy.
The gin sloshed over the rim of the glass, dripping onto his boots.
He sat in the dark, looking at one dimly-lit painting in front of him. The World Tree splitting apart, crashing down. The waves it made in the Cloud Sea were high enough to consume Titan and Human alike.
He slammed the glass down hard enough to crack it.
Chapter 20: Ten: A Dead Heart Still Beating
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I have never done something so stupid in my life before. Experimenting breaking the limits of regeneration is one thing (our bodies are made of super-cells, pluripotent and easy for us to control, it’s just a matter of adding a little extra help).
Walking right into the Capitol with the intent to steal a TARDIS is another.
I’m aware how nervous I am – the robes itch like I’m being eaten alive by Vashta Nerada. Outwardly, I am as stoic and composed as any other Time Lord. The anxiety isn’t fear of being caught – there is an element of that, fear of being burned from history, to never truly make my mark on the universe and make peoples’ lives better.
No. The nervous tensing of my muscles is from the thrill.
We pass beneath one of the great arches of the Capitol. The normally-warm golden light of Gallifrey’s twin suns has a sickly pallor, the normally-golden light filtered through the glass dome tens-of-feet thick, barely-passing through the viewports installed in the windows and skylights. Everything about this place screams ‘processed.’ It’s in the marble underfoot. It’s in the stares of passing Time Lords, every one of them silently judging every other. It’s in the air: a sterile assault of ozone and sanctimony.
Inside, I am grinning like a thief.
Because I’m about to do something utterly unthinkable. Heretical. Deliciously stupid. The ultimate, cardinal sin for any Time Lord. An act that gives me more life than the worn-down drones working in the Capitol.
I’m going to steal a TARDIS.
“You’re certain this is a good idea?” I ask of Van as he walks next to me. He, too, has switched out the primitive plainclothes for a set of regalia.
“It’s damned risky,” Van answers. “But there are three-hundred souls depending on this. And everybody else that wants out.”
“Indeed. Indeed.” The perfect picture of Time Lord stoicism was I on the outside. “There’s no reward without risk.” That had been my mantra during the experiment that destroyed Her. It didn’t work out so well then. “But this is the kind of risk that they usually dematerialize people for.”
“Eh, not so much anymore.” Van shook his head. “They tell people that, cause it keeps things at a minimum. Time Lords not having to keep constant track of everybody off-world. All our tech, you think they can’t track down renegades when they steal a TARDIS and start meddling? They don’t really care. It’s too useful for ‘em.”
That gets me to look at Van. “Explain.”
“What? You really believe the plug lines that we’re perfectly non-interfering in the affairs of other peoples or planets? Hell nah! Every generation, you get around about a dozen people who steal a TARDIS and go flying off to be renegades and meddle, and the Council turns a blind eye. You know why? Plausible deniability. Whole teams of Time Lords showing up across the universe to enforce law and order? Now, that’s problematic. People don’t like answering to higher powers, or other powers interfering in their business. A couple of Renegades, though, causing havoc?”
“Ah, yes…” I murmur. “The perfect shadow-agents…”
“What don’t even know they’re agents.” Van finished as we arrived at the transmat station. “The Council can subtly guide their movements, drop ‘em into situations, and just let things happen. And the Renegades have no idea. I don’t think there’s been such a thing as a truly free Renegade in quite a long time.”
“Then what’s the point of this exercise?” I have to wonder.
Van begins to manipulate the transmat controls. “There’re still ways to get around their sight. Most Renegades are too concerned with being able to move through time, to wherever they want, whenever they want. The Council can track that. A bit like following an invisible boat by tracking its wake. You move slow, you don’t move often, and you don’t make ripples, and they can’t find you.”
“I see.” I had never considered becoming a Renegade before. I admit, there was a certain… romanticism to the idea. The ability to just go and do. A popular Web Drama about a young, failed Time Lord, going Renegade, had been circling while I was in the Academy, but I never indulged in it. The Council had banned it for promoting dangerous acts in threat to the Web of Time.
“You will. Don’t worry, I know a thing or two.” Van says, as he begins to manipulate the controls. The system turns the world around, and before I know it, we’re in a different place.
The beam clears – and six guards stand in front of us – crimson-armoured and looking very, very cross.
Damn my luck.
“Identify yourself!” A man who can only be the leader of the contingent barks at both of us immediately. “This is a restricted area – you can’t simply enter-“
Van straightens his back, steels his expression, and steps off the transmat pad. “Oh, for the love of- I had to beg three departments to reschedule the personnel logs, call in seven favours to the President’s wife, and give the department head the contents of my entire wine cellar, and they can’t even be bothered to let you know I’m coming!?”
“I—what?”
“For God’s sake, man, you heard me!” Van takes a step forward, finger jabbing the air. “What idiotic excuse for a Captain doesn’t tell his men about an inspection!? And what kind of stupid question was that!?”
The guard opened his mouth again.
Van did not let up.
“Browbeating a man entering an area with authorised transmat codes, as if he doesn’t have a right to be there! This is rude, unprofessional, and absolutely unacceptable! Now, do you want to fall in line, or am I going to have to hand-deliver a missive directly to the High Council detailing how Gallifrey’s finest are a bunch of incompetent slackers who can’t even communicate with themselves properly, let alone repel an Enemy invasion force!?”
“No, Sir!” The Guard reflexively stood at attention.
“Now, don’t just stand there arguing with me, man! Fall in!” Van barked, gesturing sharply. “All of you!”
The Chancellery Guard instinctively moved - training overriding suspicion. Boots thudded against the floor as they scrambled into formation, lining up with the mechanical precision of drilled men unsure why they’re obeying, but certain of one thing: they would rather assume Van was a general, than assume he was not and pay the price for it if he was.
Glad I didn’t join the military.
They stood at ease: feet apart, hands clasped behind their backs, stasers vertical, muzzles pointed down. Eyes forward. Silent.
Van gave them a once-over like a colonel who’s seen things and expects better.
“Now that’s more like it,” He muttered, half to himself. “Let’s see what sort of rot we’re dealing with.” He began to walk up-and-down the line. “First thing’s posture; You lot look like a line of half-melted sculptures right outta Madame Tussauds.”
I could see one of the guards start to furrow his brow in confusion. “Madame Tuss-“
“Straighten up!” Van barked loudly enough to startle them all. “You’re Time Lords! Not primitive apes who just hit the vertebrate stage!”
The guards all obeyed. I had to fight to maintain my composure.
“And those uniforms!” Van, sounding aghast, regarded them with visible disdain. “Cuirasses all scratched up and dull – what, do you polish them with soapstone dust and wire brushes? And the state of those Seals of Rassilon! They’re chipped! You know what the Seal is, don’t you? It’s a symbol of the oldest and most enduring legacy on Gallifrey – how can you be expected to defend it if you let it get all banged-up!? And that’s not even talking about the practical effects! How’s a symbol meant to ward-off evil gonna do a damn thing if it’s gone, huh!?”
The soldiers stared ahead, blankly.
Van moved on. “Joint seals misaligned, plates all crooked – it’s like you just threw it on.” He paused before the fourth soldier, tilted his head. “And you, my friend, are holding your staser like it’s a wet fish. Thumb over the barrel. That’s a Z-Neutrino biological disruptor. If that thing discharges, the only idiot it should be hurting is you.” Vandham took a breath. “Rassilon’s beard, this is embarrassing.”
I take a breath and control it. Breathe normal, it’ll stop the laughter. “Do you even want to see the rest of the area, sir?”
Van plays his part well. “I’m gonna have to, now! God knows what’s out-of-order in there!” He walks over to the door. “You lot, stay there! If I come back and you’re not at attention, I’ll have your heads!” He sharply gestures, and we move on.
We make it all the way to the end of the corridor, before I snicker. “I can’t believe that actually worked.”
“You’d be surprised at what acting, a good bit of luck, and people’s desire not to get themselves into trouble will do.” Van grins. “Come on.”
Van leads the way, and we enter into the repair shop. Technicians are swarming the place, moving between capsules of all different designs. There must be hundreds. Thousands. All contained in a vast, multi-level room the width of a football stadium, that must go all the way down to the foundation of the Capitol – kilometres, easy.
“All these TARDISes…” I haven’t even seen one since the Academy. Not since the standardized piloting testing. A single Type 70.
But TARDISes of every type, mark, and model must be in here. Every TARDIS that had ever been constructed, plucked from the graveyards and resuscitated for the coming War.
Ancient Type 40s, decommissioned Mark III capsules, half-shelled Battle TARDISes with scorched exteriors and leaking quantum foam from cracked hulls. I even spot something that looks like a failed Type 10. All torn from their peaceful rest in the vast graveyard of TARDISes at the end of time, to be reactivated, implanted with new weapons and defensive systems, and sent into battle.
The lights overhead are half-dead. The glow of welding torches and arc-tools casts wild shadows across the coral. The entire place feels like a battlefield hospital for gods.
And it reeks of panic.
The technicians swarm like ants over a dying animal. None of them pause. None of them look up. The Council has drilled urgency into them like a religion. The Daleks have rendered the usual Time Lord arrogance obsolete, at long last. The time for patience, pomp and circumstance, and intellectual approach of the situation is over. Now, it’s just patch, refit, re-arm, and pray.
Van whistles low. “Well, this is all horrible.”
“They’re working fast,” I mutter.
“They’re working desperate.”
He’s not wrong. A Time Lord normally doesn’t work like this. Not without a symposium, a six-hour debate on theoretical impact variance, and a full diagnostic review in triplicate.
In here, they’re scrambling to get some semblance of anything up and working. Cannibalizing TARDISes for spare parts. Welding chunks of one ship onto another. Through the doors of a Type 91, I see a Type 57 console jury-rigged into the frame, its time rotor flickering like a dying fire.
“Why not just build new ones?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
Van doesn’t miss a beat. “Because new ships take time. And we’re fresh out.”
I exhale slowly. “The Daleks?”
“Naturally.” His voice flattens. “They’ve found a way to sync themselves with the protocols of linearity. Doesn’t matter what tricks we pull now - jump to the future, back to the past, drift sideways into probability - the Daleks stay in sync with us.”
“They’ve uncoupled from cause and effect,” I murmur. “The same as us.”
Van nods grimly. “So now we rush. We scrounge like scavenger cultures. We bolt armour onto museum pieces and call them battle-ready.”
We move deeper into the ward. Gantries creak above us. A grav-cradle whines to life, lifting the ruined shell of a Type 53 that still bears the scars of its dead, rotting metal - black spirals carved into the coral.
“We need to find one, and fast.” Van mutters. “Those guards are eventually gonna realize two people ain’t gonna audit the entire repair shop.”
He stops, scanning the lower tiers.
“Bay Twelve?” I ask.
“There.” He points. A capsule nestled half-hidden in the shadows, down a winding iron stair. It’s… smaller than the others. More put-together, its internal dimensions compressed fully back into its exterior. Its plasmic shell is unskinned – leaving it in the default configuration of a box of polished steel – like a primitive refrigerator. “That’s our girl.” He looks at me with a smile, and gestures. We start making our way towards the TARDIS.
We’re halfway down the gantry stairs when we hear her voice.
“You two don’t look like requisitions.”
Van freezes. Just one step. Enough to signal me without panic.
I glance to our left. There she is - half in shadow, half backlit by the halo-glow of a console spark arc. Young, tired, caked in grease. A repair tech in a patchless suit, no rank badge, not even a nameplate.
But her eyes? Sharp. Like she’s seen too much and forgotten none of it. She doesn’t look old enough to have eyes like that, even taking into account Regeneration.
But she doesn’t raise an alarm. Doesn’t call for the Guards.
She just leans against the bulkhead, a diagnostic probe in one hand, and asks again:
“Well? Why are you here?”
Van speaks first. Calm, like butter on a warm knife. “Internal inspection. Personnel review. All standard procedure.”
She gives him a look flat enough to drive over.
“I’m not an idiot,” She says.
“Pardon? We’re just here to run a status check-
“No,” I murmur, cutting Van off. “I don’t believe you are.” She looks… strangely real? It’s a hard thing to describe. Many Time Lords don’t have that look in her eyes, the way her posture is, like she’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. Not out of instinct, but like she’s trained herself. There’s a layer of muscle on her body that most definitely did not come from working on TARDISes. I wonder who she was, before she found herself here. A traveller? A soldier that got stuck here as punishment?
She studies us. Then looks past us - toward the broken TARDIS in Bay Twelve, cradled in scaffolding like a corpse half-prepped for embalming.
Her voice drops.
“What are you going to do?”
Silence, for a beat.
Then I say it:
“We’re going to steal her.”
Van shoots a look at me. I don’t care.
Her eyebrows rise slightly.
Van smiles, shrugging. “All of these will be deregistered for repair, or from when their pilots died. No one’ll miss one TARDIS.”
“They miss everything,” The technician says quietly. “They just lie about it.”
Van’s smile fades.
We expect resistance. She could go and run and she’d be in the right. We’re deserters and plotting to steal military property.
Instead, she surprises us.
“I’ll help.”
Van blinks. “You’ll what?”
“I’ll help,” She repeats, stepping away from the bulkhead. Her boots echo across the gantry. “Funny thing… That one down there?” She nods toward the capsule. “She doesn’t want to go to war. I can feel it. Most of them here don’t.”
Van stares at her. “You... feel them?”
“I listen. Which is more than most people around here bother to do.” She folds her arms. “They pretend TARDISes are just machines. But they think, they have dreams, they grieve, and… they get scared. Just like we do.”
I narrow my eyes. “And you care.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She hesitates. Her face twitches - faint regret, quickly buried.
“No good reason. Just... because. Always have. Got me in trouble before.”
Van glances at me. I can feel the same question burning behind his eyes that’s scratching at the back of my own.
“You’ve helped someone like us before.”
She doesn’t answer.
But she steps past us, down the stairs, toward the capsule. Her fingers trail along the support beam, like she’s touching a living creature.
“She’s frightened,” the tech murmurs. “Even now. Doesn’t know what you’ll do. Doesn’t know if you’ll hurt her.”
I approach slowly. “Then how do we reassure her?”
She looks back at me, and for just a second, I swear I see stars in her eyes. Old ones. Kind ones.
“You ask. And you mean it.”
I step toward her - toward the TARDIS.
Closer now, I can see the scarring. Not physical scarring – the exterior shell is just as pristine as the day it was grown, presumably – but TARDISes are more creatures of the mind than physicality. But the living, biodata-formed metal is cold, like true, non-living metal alloy. The idle thrum of the power systems is weak and unsteady, like a heart fibrillating. There’s a… haze surrounding the capsule, clouded and unfocused.
She doesn’t react when I touch my hand to her door.
I glance back at Van. He stays quiet. The technician says nothing either. They’re giving me space. I hate that. I was always crap at speaking.
But I speak anyway.
“…Hello there.” I lick and bite a lip, trying to consider how to proceed. “I’m- …well, they took my name. I’m still trying to pick a new one. In any case… I hear you’re scared.
The words hang there, clumsy and quiet. I almost stop - but I force myself to continue.
“I am too. Really, all I have left is my fear. Hardly any memories, not my name, not my old face.” Hmm… no memories, nothing of the rational mind left, just the soul – could call myself ‘the Anima.’
…
..then again, there is an entity out there called the Animus already. That’s bad juju for a Time Lord, naming one’s self after a Great Old One – all it ever does is bring bad luck.
But this isn’t about me.
My palm flattens against the live-metal.
“I ran,” I whisper. “I ran into the wilderness. So I wouldn’t have to fight. I don’t want to die in their war.”
Then - just barely - I feel it. A whisper, not in words, but in pressure. Like the weight of a held breath slowly being let out.
“I don’t want to fight,” I murmur. “I will not. I just want to go. To find somewhere the War can’t follow.”
A tremble in the coral beneath my fingers.
She heard that.
“I don’t want a weapon. I want to help. And I’d like to help you too, if I can.”
The coral is warmer now.
Then, there’s a click. Whirring follows, as the door opens into the stark, damaged console room.
I pull back slightly, look to the technician. Her eyes are soft. Understanding. And she smiles.
“It’s funny, what people realize they can accomplish if they just talk.”
There’s distant shouting, a commotion.
“Right, we’d better hurry.” Van declares, and pushes past me into the TARDIS.
The technician goes next.
I double-take. “What are you doing?”
She pops her head back out of the TARDIS.
“Three-strike rule, mister,” She says with a crooked smile. “I’m not taking the fall for pointing another Time Lord at a TARDIS and saying ‘steal this one.’”
“Anoth-“ My eyes go wide, and I hiss quietly. “You’ve done this before?”
“Technically? No.” She spins right around, and goes into the TARDIS. “Unofficially? Let’s say this isn’t my first case of Grand Theft TARDIS.”
“You’ve done this twice before!?”
I step inside after, and glance at Van, who raises an eyebrow. She continues before either of us can interrupt.
“Normally I get off with a slap on the wrist. Maybe two. Lot of plausible deniability in looking small, harmless, and definitely not even the tiniest bit suspicious when the Tribunal starts asking questions. But this time? This time, the world’s ending. Which means no more wrist slaps. No more tribunals. Just vaporization and a footnote in the War Council logs.”
I frown. “Ah, so, you helped us to save yourself.”
“Oh, I’m not helping you, sweetheart.” She touches her hands to the console like it’s an old friend. “I’m helping her.”
The TARDIS rumbles like a cat.
Van finally speaks, dryly. “So it’s desertion. Great! We could always use more people on the team.”
She nods. “Benefits?”
“None at all!”
“Any plans for if we get caught?”
“See point one.”
“Might all die horribly if the Council catches us?”
“God only knows.”
She shrugs. “All right.”
I stare at her. “Who are you?”
She meets my eyes. No hesitation.
“I’m the Doctor.”
Van gives her the side-eye. The strong side-eye. The one that means: ‘the fuck?’
“…who?”
“Well, no,” She snorts. “I just wanted to say that. It’s a very good name – ‘Doc-tor.’ Shame it’s taken.” She begins to do something at the console. “Now either help me bypass the failsafe uplinks, or stand there looking pretty. I don’t mind either, but one of them gets us out without us falling out of the sky.”
“I…” am clueless regarding that.
It seems she can tell as much.
“Well, blondie, can you fly a TARDIS?”
“Yes – scored in the 98th percentile on my test.” Admittedly, my maintenance skills leave much to be desired. Anyway, I move over to the console. Some of the panels are cracked and warped, the controls not sitting quite right, but still operable. The rest of the console room is in a state. Cabling falling from the ceiling, patches of rust and ancient water damage.
“Good – big hair,” She looked at Van. “Help me.” She walked over to a roundel on the wall, and popped it open. She pointed at another one. “Open that and remove relay 1102C17.”
Van jumps to the task, popping the roundel off. “1102C17…” He repeats, before yanking it out.
Then I felt her eyes on me.
“Alright, take off,” She called, casually.
I reached for the starter node, but paused - something in her tone. I glanced back.
She was definitely watching.
Not the console.
Not my hands.
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re staring.”
She grinned. “Pretty face like that after a regeneration? You wanted someone to look.”
Van made a noise somewhere between a cough and a snort.
I turned back to the console, muttering, “I wasn’t exactly trying to start turning heads mid-theft.”
“Shame. You’re doing it alarmingly well.”
The disgust that floods my being is as thick as cement. Was that a pun?
I slam the starter into motion, wanting to be anywhere but here.
“All right,” I begin to set the controls for the camp. “We’ll-“
The speaker on the console sparks to life, spewing out some voice from the ether. “Take this job and shove it! I ain’t workin’ here no more!”
The lights pulse, jumping to life as the time rotor shrieks and begins to grind uncertainly, like a primitive combustion engine misfiring - and the TARDIS dematerializes.
I glance over at Van.
“Ha!” He barks out some laughter. “Picked one with a bit of fire in ‘er guts, didn’t we?
I turn back to the console. “They’re TARDISes – they all have fire in their guts. They’re powered by supernovas.”
“So,” The tech hops up onto the edge of the console like it’s a sofa and not a half-reactivated nerve cluster of a metaphysical lifeform. “What’s the plan?”
Van and I share a look.
Not long. Not intense. Just a flicker of agreement behind the eyes.
If she’s a saboteur? Fine. We’ve dealt with worse. I’ve survived worse. And we’re not exactly alone in here. The ship herself is watching. Listening. We’re not the only ones with something to lose.
So we tell her.
Van leans on the console, casual as you like. “You ever heard of a little planet called Sol III?”
The tech raises an eyebrow. “Vaguely rings a bell. Strange obsession with tea.”
“That’s the one.” Van smiles. “AKA: Earth.”
I blink.
Earth?
That name hits harder than it should.
I glance at Van, brow furrowed. “That Earth?”
He nods, still focused on her. “The very same.”
That Earth? The one Van’s brother-in-law kept sending trinkets back to his sister from?
I mutter, “You and your obsession with that little mudball.”
Van rises to the bait. “I’d like to see your idea, genius!” He retorts. He looks between me and the tech. “What, have neither of you heard the old stories? The Samaarians?”
The tech looks at him like she wants to laugh. “You might as well just say our plan is to hide out among the Fae.”
I look to Van. “What’s a Samaarian?”
Van looks at me like I just switched exterior body type without having undergone a regeneration. “A long, long time ago, at the beginning of the universe, us Time Lords allied with a species from the World that Came Before. But all the other alien species back then were real alien, the Samaarians were different – they looked just like us. If we go to a Samaar-descended world, the Council’s gonna come down on us like vultures – they’ll figure to look for us there first. But the Samaarians have a kind of… ‘twin-species.’”
The tech folds her legs beneath her on the console. “On Earth?”
“The Spiral Politic curls around that planet,” Van says. “Council never could figure out why.”
I’m as confused as a newborn babe. “Sorry, er… Spiral Politic? I don’t recall that all that well…”
Van turns to me. “It’s a map of the Web of Time. The entire meta-structure of history, put to page. Gallifrey at the centre, as the Eye of Harmony, looking at everything else. Worlds closer to Gallifrey are ones more closely important to our history. And the planet Earth? Damn near right next to Gallifrey on that damned chart.”
The redheaded technician nods.
“But, hold on,” I can’t help but pause. “Won’t a world so close to Gallifrey be monitored?”
“That’s the beauty of it!” Van grins. “Any other world’s gonna have its personal timeline brought closer into alignment with Gallifrey’s by a gaggle of Timeys settling on it; the council would notice immediately.”
“But Earth was formed around a Racnoss webstar. The Jagaroth catalysed the development of complex life on the surface. The Osirans meddled in one of their primitive cultures. And the Hand of Omega resided upon its surface for quite a long time. Nemesis – a statue made from Validium – orbited the planet like a comet. The Great Old Ones chose to manifest on that planet instead of countless other alternatives. A planet in Earth’s solar system produced the apex predator of all life in existence, that we contained, that then started influencing humans.” The technician rattles off like an encyclopaedia.
Van shoots her a look, visibly wondering how she knows any of that. But he clears his throat. “All of that pushes Earth so close to Gallifrey on the map that if Gallifrey wasn’t there? Earth would probably be in its place. All of our enemies, Time Lords themselves, all had their hand in that planet at one point. It’s so close it physically can’t move on the chart anymore. If we go there? It’ll be like hiding in a crowd.”
“You’re certain?” I can’t help but ask. “It’s not second-hand nostalgia?”
Van shot me a look. “I miss my sister – Matrix preserve her – but I wouldn’t put three-hundred lives on the line for a cheap hit of better days.”
“Earth is the best,” The technician declares. “Safe.”
Van nods in agreement with her, moving to the controls. “We’ll hide out there till the war ends.”
I feel the indignation flash. “Now, hold on! We may have stolen a TARDIS, but they’ll still be able to track us! Three-hundred Time Lords on a primitive world!?”
“Not if you’re human.”
“What?” I demand.
“We got ways to get off Gallifrey by other means – but that’s not why I said we needed to steal a TARDIS.” Van flicks a switch on the console, and a piece of headgear lowers from the ceiling. “They’re research ships – meant to study primitive cultures. Sometimes that means sitting by and watching, other times, that means becoming primitive lifeforms.” He chucks a fob watch my way – but with peculiar sockets and ports on the back of it. “You wanna know the key to hiding out? A cover so good, even you believe it. It’s called a Chameleon Arch. We wrap up our biodata, lock it up, and hide it. We become human.”
My hearts pound with dread, as I look at the watch, then up at the device.
Become human? Lose everything we are, everything we were?
But, then… when faced with a bleak fate such as the War, is not any alternative preferrable?
----------
Riki fell asleep first, snoring like a littlepon as he lay on his back, wings splayed out, muttering in his sleep about smelling injustice… or, maybe curry.
Melia sat in silence, knees drawn loosely to her chest, staring at the dying embers of their makeshift campfire. Her burning, raging, fire-like anger had mostly faded to a dull gnawing on her bones. The wrath had – at least for a moment.
“Aizel… Hogard… Garan… Damil.”
Each one a knight, a warrior, a friend. Four shadows in her wake, for as long as she could remember. Aizel had been the quiet one, but quite the wordsmith, out of combat – he’d been 212. Hogard was stern and proper, and had been the one to begin teaching her to fight with her staff beyond simply using it to project Ether – he was 301. Garan had been kind, but sharp in the mind – he was 277. Damil had been the youngest, at 199.
Four people, just… blasted out of existence. They had died for Alcamoth. For her.
Her hands trembled.
“What happened to them?” Melia posed aloud. “What… what was it that the Telethia did to them?”
Alvis looked up from his meditations, his pendant catching a glint of the firelight. “Would it ease you to know the answer, truly?”
Melia thought about it for a moment. She had seen them vanish, right before her. Would knowing the mechanics really ease her mind? No, but…
She still wanted to know anyway.
“Tell me.”
The seer thought on it for a moment. “Very well.” He voiced. “As you know, Ether is the foundational block of all matter, energy, and life in the world, and is that which the Telethia consumes. Raw Ether can erode the structure of other things made of Ether – which is why Ether streams are so corrosive.” He took a pause. “The Telethia… it released a blast of pure Ether energy – that which it had built up by feasting on things here in the forest – to break down those in its path, before drawing it all back in. As a fly liquifies its food before consumption, so too does the Telethia.”
Melia swallowed. “I see.”
“If it is any consolation, I doubt it was painful.” Alvis reached over for a stick, prodding the fire to return some semblance to activity to it. “The attack would’ve disrupted the electrochemical signals responsible for the sensation of pain, before the nervous system dissolved entirely.”
Melia’s hearts twisted as her stomach churned just imagining it.
“…It isn’t fair,” she whispered, voice brittle as glass.
“It is not.”
Melia exhaled shakily and looked up. “Would you… sit with me?”
He inclined his head gently, and raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were angry at me. A seer, who does not share what he sees.”
“I need…” Melia took a gulp of breath. “I don’t think I can stand to be alone at the moment. I need something to hold onto.”
“I do believe the Nopon is adequate for that.”
“He is also married, and a father of many. It would be improper.”
“I’m a father,” Alvis calmly, factually, retorted.
Melia studied him dryly. “Really.” She deadpanned.
“I’m quite older than I look.”
“I’m quite certain of that,” Melia spoke dryly. “But if you’ll forgive the assumption, you don’t seem the family type.”
Alvis chuckled. “I suppose that’s fair. One cannot keep cultivating an aura of mystery if they have family members. Parents and siblings to share embarrassing stories.”
“And I suppose that ‘aura of mystery’ is why you won’t sit next to me?”
Alvis sighed, and approached, sitting next to her. “Better?”
Melia leaned on him, “No.” She breathed for a moment. “Alvis… how were you certain that being the Seer was right for you? You must have seen so many things. So many crises on the horizon. So much death. How could you ever choose to accept such a thing?”
Alvis pondered it for a moment. “Crises and death are a natural part of the world. Being born is a natural fight for survival. When you are born, you must eat. You must drink. You must breathe. If you do not, if you do not fight these basic problems, you will die. But, you can make the fight easier, on yourself, and for others. I have seen a great deal of catastrophe,” Alvis thumbed the pendant around his neck. “But that enables me to help. To make the fight easier for others. I would not change it. And my mother agreed with me. And her father. And her grandfather.”
Melia looked over, saw the red crystal, and gently reached over to touch it. “It’s a beautiful pendant…”
“It is an old family heirloom – passed down to the ones who inherit the ability to see the future,” Alvis smiled. “A symbol of the office, as it were. All the way back to when the very first Homs and High Entia joined together.”
Melia tilted her head, intrigued. “A tiny trinket? That long?”
“It’s more than that. A symbol of the power to see the future. If it was always such a burden, I doubt the pendant would have survived for so long.” Alvis hummed thoughtfully.
“But… doesn’t it hurt?”
Alvis thinned his lips for a moment. “Yes. It does.” He frankly answered. “I can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not. And sometimes, the sheer disaster is enough to drive one mad. But… then you can see all of the good as well. And you can figure out how to change the bad. And it is worth it.”
“And how do you handle that?” Melia inquires. “How do you come to terms with letting four people die, to preserve the future?”
“Because if I do not, if I don’t let the few perish… If I try to save everyone… then I will save no one.” Alvis inhaled. “It is not an easy choice. But it is the one that I made.”
“And… will you have to make that choice again?” Melia’s hearts clenched unwelcomely. “If… if we go face the Telethia in the morning, would you sacrifice Riki and myself? Is that why you came along? Do you believe we’ll survive this?” She asked.
Alvis turned his eyes toward the stars, thoughtful. “I do. Though belief does not preclude preparation for the opposite.”
“…I don’t.”
“You do not believe we will?”
“I don’t know.” Melia confessed. “I am planning to. But… like you said…” Melia swallowed. “About preparation.”
“Not to worry, Melia,” Alvis bowed his head with a smile. “Have faith. You’re stronger, more so than you know.”
“I could do without the canned wisdom.”
“Then perhaps you’ll settle for this,” Alvis offered, a small smile tugging at his lips. “If you make it to the end, no matter how, then you’ve done well enough.”
Melia gave a tired chuckle. “Even if I stumble the whole way there?”
“Especially then.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I know so,” Alvis chuckled. “I’ve been doing it my entire life.”
-----------
With a lurching pull and a breathless sensation of falling through thick water, the party was flung back into realspace.
The ground caught them like an old friend. Damp. Soft. Cold.
“Oh…” The Doctor sucked in some breath through his teeth, hunched over as he looked at all the others. “Everybody okay?”
“Ugh… Fell like I’ve been run through a cocktail shaker,” Reyn clutched his head.
“Don’t bellyache, lad,” Dickson got to his feet, brushing off dirt from his trousers. “You lived – that’s what matters.”
“’Any landing you can walk away from,’ as they say.” Elma commented with a wry grin.
Glowing algae bloomed in the fog like ghostly fireflies. Towering trees reached like skeletal fingers through the mist, and the marsh bubbled softly beneath thick banks of violet haze. No way to tell if it was night, or if the marsh was just that dim.
Shulk stumbled forward, bracing on his knees. “We’re back,” He breathed.
Reyn took a deep breath. “I never thought I’d say it, but I missed this stinky place.”
Sharla chuckled. “No, I think that’s just you, Reyn.”
“Oi! I don’t smell this bad!”
“That’s because you have no working nose. It smells like mouldy socks and disappointment.”
Reyn floundered silently for a moment. “What’s disappointment supposed to smell like?”
“A man.”
“OI!”
Fiora snickered. “If you think this is bad, you should smell his room.”
“Not you too, Fiora!”
Elma stepped forward slowly, her gaze wide as she scanned the alien landscape with the practiced caution of a soldier. She rotated on one heel, heels sinking slightly into the wet earth.
“Oh, it’s beautiful…” She murmured, “Just like Noctilum. Back on Mira.” The bioluminescence reflecting in her eyes added onto their subtle glow, dimly illuminating the circuitry and optical components within the iris. “Atmosphere’s just as thick, the flora…” She noticed one of the trees. “Are those Cherry trees here too?”
“Nah,” The Doctor quickly shook his head. “The ones in that recreation of Uraya were cherry – these look closer to oak.
“Those are Ether trees,” Dickson provided his information, crossing his arms. “They sit here in the Marsh, sucking up Ether all day. At night, they let the waste all back out – it’s what makes that glow.” He looked about. “So, it’s probably nighttime.”
“Oh, telling time by trees!” The Doctor grinned. “That’s nice – you know, I visited a world where entire forests sprung up in the span of one day, then totally withered during the night, then came back the next morning. Didn’t matter if the plants were underground, inside, or off-world, they were always perfectly timed. I keep time by it.”
“Terrific,” Dickson dryly returned.
Elma took some manner of portable scanner or computer (the Doctor had seen plenty during the whole business on Mira, but never could quite figure out what they were called – he was tempted to say ‘omni-tool’), and began to slowly sweep, as a holographic display was projected above it.
“It may not have any practical use,” Elma spoke. “But I’m definitely getting environ scans while I’m here.”
“Ah, there you go!” The Doctor beamed pridefully. “I taught you well, I did! Alien planets are like visiting another country; you see the sights, get pictures, do all your basic tourism stuff, wander off and get into trouble! No need to go around acting… scared or suspicious. Mind you… could do without the guns.” He glanced at the dual weapons on her back.
Elma rolled her eyes, tapping at the hologram. “’Peaceful’ doesn’t mean ‘roll over and let things attack you.’ Didn’t you ever watch Star Trek? Even survey teams carried phasers on that show.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes in return. “Why would I? Too busy exploring strange new worlds in reality.”
“You liar,” Elma poked right back at the Doctor. “First time you walked into BLADE Tower’s central command, you said it looked like the bridge of the Enterprise.”
“…I… might’ve said that,” The Doctor rubbed the back of his head.
“Mmm-hmm,” Elma hummed with a satisfied nod. “I guess, in your defence, you could argue there was a USS Enterprise operated by ECP.”
“Oh, really?” The Doctor repeated with a snide grin. “Who’s in charge of that one, then? Archer, Kirk, or Picard?”
Elma snorted and crossed her arms. “It wasn’t my idea to make the reference. But you know how the fans can be. Although… they did manage to petition Chris Pine into giving the whole ‘Space, the Final Frontier’ speech at the christening ceremony.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant!” The Doctor grinned. “You see, that’s why I love humans. Any other species, they’d just… go flying off into space. Humans, you make a fun game of pretend of it.”
“The name was chosen as part of a minor psyop, to make Project Exodus seem more exploration-oriented to the public, and less like leaving the planet as a result of the imminent alien invasion.” Elma hummed.
The Doctor scrunched his nose, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Could’ve just made recruitment ads with ‘In The Navy’ if you wanted to do that. Everybody loves the Village People.” He glanced at Dickson. “Look at him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dickson, although he obviously didn’t understand what the Doctor was referencing, was no less indignant.
“Nothing.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “You look great, by the way. Very macho.”
Sharla looked around, with a slight frown. “Are we certain this is the real Bionis? Not another trick of that place?”
“Definitely real,” The Doctor said. “The humidity’s making my hair wet.” Unfortunate for him – he liked the spiky, gravity-defying look. It made him feel dynamic, with a dash of rugged Han-Solo-heroism, with a dash of extra sexiness. When it all went limp and matted down like that, it gave him the sad look of a man who’d lost a fight with a lake. He fussed with it half-heartedly, trying to will the cells back into their semi-polymerised state that gave it that look, but the humidity was too heavy on it. Then he touched his face. “Oh! Back to normal!” He said, too quickly, at least taking solace in that. “Excellent. Good. Brilliant. I tell you,” He muttered, looking aside at Shulk, “You think regular ageing’s bad, try shorting out a time differential. I looked in the mirror and thought I’d regenerated into a substitute geography teacher. I’m gonna be feeling the crow’s feet around my eyes for the next two weeks.” He gave a little shudder, then straightened his tie, looking ever so slightly ashamed at the outburst. Then, with a bright grin he pasted on like wallpaper, he added: “Still got it, though!”
“Well… ain’t that something.” Dickson drawled as he looked at the Doctor’s face.
“I liked it – it made you look distinguished,” Elma poked the Doctor lightly. “Still, handsome.”
The Doctor clicked his tongue and winked at her.
“All right,” Fiora took a step forward. “So, we’re in the Marsh – where are we headed?”
“There’s a High Entia passageway at the far end of the Marsh,” Dickson recited. “Hope you lot packed your wellies.”
“Bit of trenchfoot never hurt anyone,” The Doctor replied.
“Right, come on,” Dickson gestured, and they began to walk.
----------
As they ventured into Satorl Marsh, the Doctor and Elma chatted, and the others – as usual, mostly broke up into pairs. Except for Dickson who didn’t seem to concern himself talking with anyone.
Sharla’s mind was abuzz with anxiety as she regarded the Monado on Shulk’s back. The ease with which it blessed people with its power, the fury it inspired in the Mechon…
“Something on your mind?” Fiora suddenly asked of Sharla.
“Oh, it’s…” Sharla shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
Fiora blinked dryly, raising an eyebrow.
“What?” Sharla crossed her arms in defence.
“You may be new, but you’re lying. I can tell.”
Sharla recoiled. “Wha-?”
“You only just joined up, so I’ll give you a little tip,” Fiora chuckled. “You’re not being very subtle right now, glaring at the Monado like that.”
“Oh,” Sharla dryly blinked. “And here I thought I was being positively secret.”
“Yeah, Shulk and Reyn’s troublemaking have trained me well - what’s up?”
“Well, it’s…” Sharla bit her lip. “We’re going to this Prison Island to modify that sword, right? So it can hurt Faced Mechon. The Faced Mechon that are people.”
Fiora quietly let the idea percolate. “Right.”
“Shouldn’t we be going to Mechonis directly? Rescue our people before the Mechon can turn them into more of those… those things?” Sharla questioned, setting her jaw. The idea of anyone being reduced to that – bits of meat piloting around a Mechon – it was… it was revolting.
Fiora looked at her for a long moment.
“What?” Sharla demanded. “Seriously, what?”
“Sorry, but… You know, I thought you were more plan-oriented than this.”
Sharla felt a brief sting. “That was different, back on the Knee. Mechon were swarming a pile of rubble, and I had people to keep safe. We couldn’t just go and throw rocks and hope to get our home back. But this is different! There are people, that have been taken by the Mechon, and every moment we waste, that could be another moment they get closer to being turned into those Faces!” She took a breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just-“
“You can’t stand the thought of people being put through that.” Fiora bit her lip. “I never knew Xord like that, before Sword Valley. But he was a good man. With a daughter. He ran the smithy and the Colony, and he always did right by her. But the man she talked about, and that Mechon… it’s like they’re two different beings. The one he was before – no way he could stomach the idea of doing what he did. And the Mechon, they want to turn more people into things like him.” Fiora sighed. “It’s fine to want to stop that from happening. If I knew for a fact that Dunban was alive and taken, you’d bet I’d be running over to Mechonis right this second.”
Sharla winced, and felt a brief spike of shame, at her momentary lapse – forgetting that Fiora had lost something as well. Still, that begged the question… “If that’s the case, then why let Dickson browbeat you into going to Prison Island?”
Fiora paused for a second, pressing her lips together. “You know… how you have Juju, right? And those people you helped get out of Colony 6?”
“Right?”
“Well… a year ago, I was in the Defence Force.” Fiora patted the armour she was wearing to accentuate the point. “This used to be my uniform.”
“You were?” Sharla’s eyebrows shot up. “But you weren’t at Sword Valley, were you?”
Fiora shook her head. “Not experienced enough.” She swallowed. “And while I was forced to hang back at the Colony, Dunban was at the battle, and I was… I was terrified. More scared than any other time in my life. So scared it felt like I was dying. Then Dunban came back, and he was injured. And I decided I couldn’t do that to him. So, I resigned. Vangarre was pissed, but I didn’t care. I got into the Defence Force to protect, but that didn’t mean it was the only way to do so. Anyway he spoke a bit about what happened and the Monado… well, I didn’t like it.” She shot a look at the sword in question. “He pushed himself too hard with the sword, acting like it made him invincible, and it almost killed him for it. And back then, there were no Face Mechon. And so far, Shulk’s been showing the same problem, even though we’ve already talked with him about it, a few times.”
“So… you want to take the load off of Shulk as much as possible,” Sharla hummed.
Fiora nodded. “The less he pushes himself, the less damage that sword can do to him - like it did to Dunban. If going to Prison Island means buying him time, then… yeah. And Dickson wasn’t wrong. We struggled with just one Face. If there are more of them waiting, we’ll need the Monado to damage them.”
Sharla shot her a suspicious glance. “You’re sure that’s the only reason?”
“Well, I don’t see Reyn and Shulk as my brothers – but it’s like that.”
“…I certainly hope you don’t,” Sharla murmured, she crossed her arms, hiding the feeling of her heart hammering against her insides. “It’s just… I worry we could take too long. If the people the Mechon took from Colony 6 are still alive, then we’re the only ones who might be coming to rescue them.”
“We’ll get there,” Fiora nodded with determination. “Don’t worry. But we do have to be careful – we can’t help anyone if the Mechon kill us first.”
“Right,” Sharla sighed. She looked over, and noticed a frown on Fiora’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just curious…” Fiora murmured. “Otharon said the Mechon took people from Colony 6, but at Colony 9, they just… killed. No prisoners.”
Sharla’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “That is a good point. I wonder why…”
“Oi!” Dickson barked suddenly, pointing ahead at two dim, orange glows deep inside the fog. “We got light!”
Everyone dropped what they were doing, drawing closer.
-----------
The Doctor strutted about, hands in his coat pockets, and a big grin on his face. The tents and sconces he weaved between barely came up to his waist. “It’s a Nopon caravan! I love the Nopon caravans…” He glanced about. “Nothing like a good, old, nomadic society.”
“Spike-hair friend is right – travel good!” One of the Nopon running the caravan beat his wings. “Go all over Bionis, sell many things!”
“We’re looking for the way to Eryth Sea,” Dickson, all business, crossed his arms. “Is the way clear?”
“Clear?” The Nopon huffed. “Way never clear – Satorl filled with fog all the time!”
“You know what I meant.” Dickson rolled his eyes.
“Meh,” The merchant huffed. “There the High Entia trial elevator in way. And monsters in the woods. And methinks the lift is broken so friends will have to climb huge hundred-foot wall.”
“Really?” Dickson hummed with a frown, before drawing something from his vest pockets. He unfurled it, revealing a map. “Care to help a fellow traveller out?”
The merchant nodded, and waddled over, he and Dickson working on hashing out the path.
“They did all of that on their own?” Reyn incredulously huffed. “Get outta here!”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” The Doctor hummed. “The Nopon are a hardy species.”
Elma crossed her arms. “I’ve seen that durability in action myself, a time or two. Amazing that they’re here as well… although, I guess that could be pocket-dimension logic at work.”
“Bottle universe, not pocket dimension.” The Doctor corrected.
Shulk looked over, raising an eyebrow. “There’s a difference?”
“Big difference.” The Doctor stated, while Elma sighed. “Pocket dimensions are… well, they’re like what they say. Little pockets, dependent on a bigger one to exist. A bottle universe is like… a house built right on top of another house, with all the atoms shifted a planck length to the left, and a planck second out of synch in time. Destroy one house, the other keeps going fine. And one house has a little snowglobe or bottle or something that has a representation of the other house inside, that you can use to access it – hence the term bottle universe – very old Time Lord practice, actually; we use them for art. Parallel universes are houses across the street. Get all that?”
Sharla blinked, staring. “That was something we were meant to understand?”
Elma sighed, shaking her head. “I’ve given up on trying to understand half of what he says. Just nod and pretend you understand.”
“Oi!” The Doctor bristled. “It’s not my fault, working with a three-dimensional language! The verbs are limited!”
Elma crossed her arms. “I wanted to learn Gallifreyan, if you’ll recall – but you said-“
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “I said you'd spend all that time learning it, then have no practical use because the only people who speak it are all stuffy old Time Librarians that all live on one planet and speak English anyway.”
She silently threw an arm in his direction. Her eyes flicked over in his direction, and she frowned in puzzled thought. “Why do they all speak English? The TARDIS doesn’t translate Gallifreyan – and every time we visited Gallifrey, I had no problems understanding them. And speaking of the TARDIS – that’s an acronym that only works in English.”
The Doctor pulled at his earlobe. “Do I have to answer? We were the custodians of the universe. Grand, sweeping, cosmic powers. You never know – we could’ve engineered English for the rest of you lot.”
Elma crossed her arms with a crooked, knowing grin. “The answer is ‘bureaucracy’ isn’t it?”
The Doctor sighed harshly. “The offworld interns kept melting natives’ brains when trying to speak in Gallifreyan.”
Elma shot a glance at Shulk. “That’s Gallifrey, for you. Land of the gods – and the worst bureaucratic hellhole in the galaxy.”
“Now, that’s bang out of order!” The Doctor sharply pointed at her. “How can you say that when we’ve been to the Vogsphere?” The Time Lord reminded her, then shot a glance at Shulk. “You can’t even issue an apology on that planet without filing it in triplicate and waiting six months for it to process.”
“All right, you lot,” Dickson approached from over in the direction of the Nopon, waving the map. “Here’s the stitch – there’s a Great Lift the High Entia built a while ago that goes here from the Marsh, all the way up to Makna Forest on the Bionis’s back. That lift’s down – but for us to climb up, we’ll need to get access to it anyway.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem!” Reyn pounded his fists together. “Point me at it, and I’ll open the door right up!”
Dickson scowled. “No, because listen. It’s some ancient High Entia trial – the door’s not just gonna open.”
“Oh, what?” The Doctor’s face twisted. “That’s not very nice! Who goes to all the trouble of building a lift, then hides it behind a major test of skill? Well… the High Entia, I suppose.” He scratched his head.
“Some ancient rite-of-passage gobbledegook.” Dickson shook his head.
“Oh, that. Boys turning into men.” The Doctor sniffed. “When I was a kid, we had to march all the way from our Houses, through the mountains, to the very bottom of the Caldera upon which our Capitol was built. It took days. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t rest, and we had to wear these really itchy Initiate Robes the whole time. And at the end of it, we had to stare into a hole in reality that turned our already tired-out brains into mush. ‘s a bit like scouts having to go mountain climbing, then stare into a nuclear explosion afterward. And if you fell, they’d drag you back home, and you wouldn’t get another chance.” Even now, so much time later, he could still feel the echo of it humming behind his eyes. The maddening, fractal spiral of the Time Vortex, extending out into all reality. All of time and space, jammed into his head. Everything that ever was and ever could be – all the wonderful things in the cosmos, and the infinite cruelty and depravity that made him ask the Question: Why?
That day, the young Initiate that grew into the Doctor was confronted by the evil, the darkness, infesting all the deepest corners of the universe. And yet, he also saw how reality marched on, intact. How good kept prevailing, if not immediately, then in the long run.
He wanted to know what it was that made the universe keep turning.
And when he looked at Shulk he saw the same fire. The same question.
That relentless need to understand the world, no matter what it cost.
The Master and the Rani used to really give him a hard time for that.
“Oh for Rassilon’s sake, Theta, do you ever hear yourself?” Koschei - as he was known when they were still using Identity Codes in the Academy instead of names - would always huff. “You’re trying to find moral meaning in random chance. What’s next, sacred geometry in puddles? Righteousness in weather patterns? You gonna find the Six Sacred Scrolls of Omega for a Long and Fulfilling Life in a Calabi-Yau Manifold?”
The Doctor (he was already calling himself that - even though everyone around him still called him ‘Theta’ – though, at that point, it was more with the connotation of ‘one seeking knowledge,’ like a Doctor of Philosophy, than what it would eventually come to mean for himself) would just as simply roll his eyes and keep thinking about it.
Then Ushas would cut in. “What you’re calling ‘goodness prevailing’ is just survivorship bias. You only see the outcomes that left records behind.”
“That’s right,” Koschei would cackle. “Backstabbing fools – that’s your ‘evil’ for you – always self-destruct in the end. No grand force, no plan, just the inability of traitors to stop trying to backstab. There is no honour among thieves, as the saying goes.”
The Doctor would concede the point, only for a moment, before filing it in the back of his mind to think on later. Then, he and Koschei would go and do something stupid, like getting drunk and trying to climb up the antenna on top of the Capitol, just to see if they could, because no one else had. Ushas would follow them, pretending it was to keep them from dying, and of course she’d get pulled into the idiocy anyway. They’d all wake up in their dorm, half-naked, aches all over with mysterious bruises, seriously hoping that they didn’t do anything that would actually shame their respective Houses.
Normal late-stage teenager stuff.
(How painfully did he miss those days.)
“That sounds horrific,” Shulk finally responded to the Doctor’s recounting of the Initiation Ceremony. “The cold… the hunger, the fatigue… How did you survive?”
Sometimes the Doctor wondered if he really did. If the whole purpose of the ceremony wasn’t just to make Initiates’ minds weak and hollow them out for entities in the Time Vortex to slip in and take control.
“Mum always said I was too stubborn to die,” The Doctor half-heartedly joked. Not that the Time Lords escorting him would’ve let that happen – but they were all expecting him to be one of the failures. Scared kid he was, though, he wasn’t scared enough to let that override his rage at being talked down to – so he showed them.
Spite was a wonderful thing sometimes.
“Heh, and you did all that as a little brat?” Dickson leered over from the map.
The Doctor factually nodded. “Eight years old.”
Dickson let out a whistle. “Maybe I had you all wrong, Doc.”
“Lot of people tend to do that,” The Doctor flippantly muttered.
“So, it’s a rite-of-passage…” Elma murmured.
“Why would they do that?” Sharla wondered. “Install an elevator, then lock it up so no one else can use it?”
“It’s the High Entia,” Dickson replied, sniffing distastefully. “They don’t much like people trying to drag them back into the world’s affairs. Back when we was assembling the forces at Sword Valley to fight against the Mechon, we tried petitionin’ them to show up, but they refused.”
“Oh, pacifists!” The Doctor smiled. “That’s good!”
Sharla rolled her eyes.
“Not pacifists – people what just didn’t want to concern themselves with outside business is all.” Dickson shook his head.
“Ah. Not so good.”
Fiora frowned. “Are they going to be okay with us making use of their lift here?”
“They don’t got a choice. The way I see it, you remove yourself from the order of things, you ain’t got rights to complain.” Dickson gestured with the map. “Them merchants were kind enough to mark the climb they took. We get to that wall, should be smooth climbing from there.” He rolled the paper up and stashed it in his satchel.
“Then lead the way,” Fiora gestured.
Dickson nodded, and took point.
-----------
The trek through the marsh took some time, on account of the fog, and the creatures swooping around. But, the majority of them were armed to the teeth.
A flock giant, owl-like creatures descended, and Elma’s new swords sliced through them like they were nothing, while the others punched at them and kicked them back.
The Doctor watched as she sheathed her weapons, eyes narrowing with idle curiosity. “Some swords.”
“They are, aren’t they?” Elma glanced down at them, her gaze settling on the one housed in a deep violet sheath, ringing faintly - like a tuning fork caught in an eternal note. She touched it absently, her head tilting. “That felt… different. My usual blades are solid - balanced, durable, slice clean through most things - but these…” She paused, brow tightening.
“They just what?” the Doctor prompted, one eyebrow cocked.
“I don’t know,” She murmured, eyes still on the blade. “Normal swords are made to cut things. These feel like they were made to end them. Not just the target — the concept of resistance. Like someone tried to embody the idea of severance itself, and nailed it.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows climbed. “That is very something. What did the Archsage call them? Swords of the End?” He stepped closer, peering at the sheath but careful not to touch it. His tone dropped into a quiet hum. “I wonder… is it advanced tech? Something that disrupts atomic bonds on contact? Some biodata manipulation - forces the thing it touches to agree to be cut? Could be low-tier sword logic, if we’re playing by those rules. Or…” He grinned, that maddening spark of mischief lighting his eyes. “…maybe it’s just really, really sharp.”
“Maybe,” Elma hummed thoughtfully.
They continued trekking through the marsh – climbing up and wading through a stream. Slowly, the few spaced-apart hints of structure became more common, turning into what appeared to be lookout posts and walls.
And then they reached the source of the stream – a reservoir contained behind an ancient, opened floodgate. The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline as he beheld the ancient, curved, pointed architecture – like blown glass shards sharpened to dagger-points. In the centre of the area, there was a gigantic platform, rising out of the water. But there, on the far wall, was an enormous wall of what might’ve been carved stone, or poured metal. Twin statues of people with wings on their heads stood side-by-side.
“Here we are,” Dickson grunted. “The Sororal Statues. The upper regions’ll be through that gate. Helluva climb without a lift!”
“And we’re gonna have to do some trial to open it?” Reyn groaned. “I don’t think we’re gonna be up for that.”
“You start getting tired out when Vangarre puts you through press-ups.” Fiora pointed out.
“Only cause he makes me do so many!”
“Well, let me take a look,” The Doctor drew the Sonic Screwdriver, walking towards the end of the platform. His trusty scientific instrument warbled and bleeped as it scanned the area, and he held an ear to it. “Well, I’m picking up something. Circuits, a basic computer…” He held the Screwdriver out in front of him, looking at the emitter. “Very basic, but slippery. I think I can get us through without having to go through the whole coming-of-age do.”
“Good – save your energy for the climb,” Dickson nodded.
That caught Shulk’s attention, and he turned to the man. “This is it, then?”
Elma frowned, looking curiously at the man. “You’re not coming with us?”
Dickson shook his head. “You only just got here, so I don’t blame you for not knowing – but this ain’t a fun jaunt to Prison Island for the hell of it. War’s going on, and I gotta get back to the Colony to let people know what’s what.” He lit up a cigar, letting out a puff of smoke. “We gave ‘em a good thrashing, but something tells me the Mechon don’t quite respect that yet.”
“Being prepared is half the battle,” Elma nodded sagely.
Dickson grinned. “Exactly. Course…” He glanced at Shulk. “This ain’t the last you’ll see of me.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Shulk replied just as easily.
“And I’ll hold you to not letting that sword make you act like a damned fool,” Dickson pointed, before pointing at Fiora. “Look after ‘im. Monado’s no use to anyone if the one guy who can swing it around gets hisself killed.”
“Actually,” Shulk began to murmur. “I had some interesting ideas about repli-“
Fiora lightly smacked him on the arm, before turning her gaze to Dickson. “I’ve got a handle on him.”
The man nodded, satisfied, and began to turn and walk towards the ramp back down, away from the platform. While he passed, he shot a look at Reyn. “And for the Bionis, start getting better strategies than ‘hitting it!’”
“’s worked out so far.” Reyn crossed his arms.
Dickson rolled his eyes, stopped, and turned back around. “Doc. Don’t get so caught up in your own head, you don’t notice what’s going on right in front of you, yeah? The Mechon have gotta be stopped.” Then, he resumed his walk.
The Time Lord rolled his eyes, and continued working.
Elma watched as Dickson vanished, and she turned to Shulk. “That’s your father?”
“I suppose you could say that,” Shulk smiled lightly, looking right at her. “I never knew my birth parents – they died on the expedition that recovered the Monado, and I was the only one left. Dickson took me in.”
“Hmm… I suppose he must’ve felt responsible for you.” Elma commented.
“I guess so.”
------------
Dickson continued walking until he was down the platform, out of sight. When he was and he felt it, he sighed, and leaned up against a wall.
Bloody hell, was that man exhausting. The Doctor reminded Dickson of Alvis in all the worst ways. Cryptic, smug, and someone who thought they were too smart for everyone else.
Speaking of Alvis…
Dickson felt extremely, severely confident that the thing was going rampant. He had lied about some very important, fundamental knowledge to some very important people, committed dereliction of duty and sired a child, and now was playing hooky with a High Entia princess so he could probably do it again.
If Alvis was going rogue, trying to sabotage things, Dickson needed to let the boss know. Then again, he probably did already know. But Dickson needed direction.
He threw his cigar down into the water, and watched as the flame was quenched. Going through Makna Forest was the most direct way to Prison Island – if you didn’t know all what he did. He had other, faster ways of getting there.
Dickson turned to move, and faltered for only a brief moment. A brief, slimy coil of guilt twisted in his gut, as he thought of Shulk and the others, and a moment of doubt bubbled up.
If there were other worlds out there, if Bionis wasn’t the absolute totality of everything…
Dickson shook off the thought. He wasn’t a traitor – not like Alvis.
Dickson clutched his weapon tight, and moved on.
-----------
“Oop, I think I’ve got it!” The Doctor declared triumphantly, as part of the pathway ahead engaged and began to shift around. Floating boards of metal rose, creating a staircase that bridged the path from their level, to the next one, some three-stories up. “There we are!”
Reyn went first, bounding up with a weight that made the floating platforms wobble just slightly under his boots. Fiora followed, offering an arm to Sharla. Shulk lingered at the base for a moment, glancing down.
“Incredible…” Shulk touched one of the panels with his foot. “It’s impressively solid!”
“More Ether tricks,” The Doctor grinned. “I’m starting to like this stuff.” He caught sight of the glowing, gold platform, anchored into the ground and slightly overgrown. “And there’s our broken lift. Looks like we’ll have to climb – I love a climb. Good cardio; great for two hearts.”
“Oh, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to.” Sharla shivered. She looked up, glancing about. “I don’t see any footholds…”
Shulk looked over, pointing at something behind one of the statues. “Look. Growth.”
“…oh no, that’s much worse.”
-----------
“So,” Elma said at last, to the Doctor. “I see you’re still up to the same old.” They weren’t all climbing up the vines at the same time – the heaviest ones going last so they didn’t accidentally rip the vines out and cut off their only way up.
The Doctor grimaced as he climbed up, wishing for better climbing tools. He should invest in a pair of smart-gloves or something. The amount of climbing he or the people who travelled with him did…
“You know,” The Doctor sniffed. “Same old, same old."
“Are you just saying that,” Elma grunted as she continued to climb. “Or am I really supposed to believe you reached the point of your life where you’re a quiet little tourist now?”
“Well, I could be!” The Doctor indignantly huffed.
“I wouldn’t know – you didn’t do much sharing.” Elma grunted as she continued to pull herself up. “Your other self – he was just peachy-keen to do that.”
“Oh, brilliant,” The Doctor gnashed his teeth.
“All I could get out of you were the cliff notes.”
“Seriously, have we got to do this now?” The Doctor grunted.
“Honestly, you’re more difficult than a child at the dentist,” Elma rolled her eyes. “What’re you doing now? Where’ve you visited – are you travelling with anyone?”
The Doctor let out a sigh. “If you must know – no, I’m not travelling with anyone. And I got handed-up a death prophecy on a silver platter, so, I’m just dandy!”
“Still sarcastic,” Elma shook her head. “Death prophecies? We used to run into those every week.”
“I know.” The Doctor shook his head. “Don’t worry,” He flippantly replied. “I’m working a way out of it.”
She stopped, staring up at him. “You’re working your way around your own future history?”
“Yep.”
She spluttered. “But doesn’t that mean your future self won’t exist? That Doctor we met in the Land – you won’t change into him.”
“Ideally.”
“Ideally,” Elma repeated indignantly.
The Doctor started to feel his own mild anger bubbling inside him. “Well, considering it means I die… yes, it’s ideal if I avert that.”
“Doctor, you can’t alter your destiny like that!”
“Gonna, oughta, mighta.” The Doctor paused momentarily. “Ooh, I like that; I’m gonna have that.” He sniffed, and continued climbing. “And I may not have a Monado, but I know a thing or two about altering time.”
Elma looked up, quietly surprised. “I thought Time Lords were supposed to welcome change.”
“Welcome-“ The Doctor stopped, and he twisted around to look down at her with blazing eyes. “Weren’t you there when the next me was sharing his story? The things he shared!? I’ve lived a long, long life, Elma.” He stared at her intently. “How old was I, when you and I last met. Do you recall?”
“Around…” Elma thinned her lips. “Fifteen-hundred years?”
The Doctor let out a rueful snort. Oh, if only it were that simple. “Right. I’ve been saying I’m nine-hundred for a while now. Had to start counting again from scratch. So, you add those two together, what do you get, hmm?”
“…” Elma fixed on the Time Lord. “You’re 2400 now?”
“…in that ballpark, I suppose.” The Doctor flippantly answered. “Maybe. Don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Look, the point is, you know what happens when you live that long, Elma? You get tired.” He spat, a burning fire behind his eyes. “So tired. Of all the cruelty. And the suffering. And the bloodshed. Because it never ends, no matter where you go!” He huffed and spun around, starting to climb again. “Mechon killing humans! Ganglion killing humans! Humans killing humans! And that’s just the human race, oh-“ He chuckled mockingly. “If there’s one commonality that can be said about the universe, it’s that people love causing harm to one another. And it gets. Tiring.” He stressed, glaring back down at her. “Seeing that, no matter where you go. And suffering it.”
“…Doctor…” Elma softly intoned.
He didn’t respond to that tone of voice. “I’ve bled for this universe, Elma. I burned my own people so the universe could keep turning. And for what!? Donna, Martha, Rose-“ He cut himself off, taking an enraged breath. “I wonder, sometimes, if I contribute anything to the universe but suffering – mine and others’. If that pain’s even worth it. If I can’t get some measure of reward. Then I turn around, and find out that the answer’s not even a yes, but I have more to go through!? Somebody will blow up the TARDIS and destroy the universe, just to try and kill me!? They’ll kidnap one of my future friends, her child, and raise her to assassinate me!? How am I supposed to look forward to that!?”
“But that’s so like you,” Elma gently retorted. “Constantly focusing on the negatives. There are good days that will come, too. What’s it that you say? Where there’s life, there’s hope?”
“You don’t understand what it’s like,” The Doctor spat. “Regeneration’s not as simple as ‘pop back up, keep on going.’ Change for you is gradual. It happens over years. Time Lords, we settle into ourselves, and we’re static, until it’s time to regenerate. Do you have any idea what that’s like? All of that change, decades of it, hitting all at once? And you have no idea what you’ll be at the end of it. You have no clue if you’ll even like the person you’re turning into. But you can’t stop it. All that happens is that you can feel parts of your mind going. And afterward, it’s like someone else with your memories goes walking off. That’s what that is, Elma.”
The Doctor went quiet for a long beat, thinking.
“And then I look at him! All… bow tie, and swagger, and smug! Casually dropping he can go to parallel universes now! And he didn’t even care! You used to work for UNIT, Elma – you had access to my files – did he go back for her?”
Elma stared at the Doctor, swallowing.
He took that as answer enough.
“Exactly. Because that’s what Regeneration does. It changes you,” The Doctor glared at her. “Change is natural, but it’s not always good. And it changes everything. You’re all still my friends – but I don’t look at all of you the same way I used to. Would you have ever pictured acting the way you did with big ears with the Oscar-Wilde-Wannabe?”
“…I don’t,” Elma admitted, exhaling. “Is that what scares you? You don’t like who you’re going to become.”
“If I change – I die.” The Doctor stressed. “Who I am dies. Think about it. If the self is just… a way of referring to a personality, then once that changes, it’s broken. The continuity of consciousness snaps. The old personality is lost forever. Dead. How am I supposed to reconcile that, while knowing the next guy is the kind of Doctor that will motivate – however unintentionally – people to blow up his TARDIS to destroy the universe, and kidnap children to raise as weapons to kill him? How am I supposed to look at both of those, and say ‘yes, this is fine – let’s go do it!?’”
Elma stared at him for a long moment. “Doctor… what happened to you?”
“Happened?” The Time Lord repeated indignantly. “Why must have something happened? Can’t I just have my opinion?”
“You used to talk about it. It wasn’t something you would look forward to, but you weren’t like this.”
“A lot. Too much.” The Doctor frankly told her. “And I have to live with it every day, and I make do. What’s the big fuss? Fear of death is human-“
“Exactly. It’s human.” Elma crossed her arms. “You’re a Time Lord.”
“And no Time Lord’s ever had to deal with what I have, so, QED.” The Doctor harshly retorted.
Elma’s eyes widened. “It’s not just in your future, is it?” She breathed out in realization. “It’s about to happen for you, and you know it.”
“Well, it’s not like I have a countdown clock-“
“No, but,” Elma grunted as she pulled herself up again. “You can sense it, can’t you? Time Lords can feel it – wrapped up in your temporal senses.”
The Doctor wondered for a moment if he was going to confirm it or deny it, before sighing. “How’d you know?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re not as mysterious as you think,” Elma retorted. “Second… it’s common, for you. Whenever you’re about to regenerate, the people around you always say you get… broody.”
“Maybe.” The Doctor hummed.
‘It seems even immortal Time Lords seek their own Endless Now…’
Elma wasn’t sure where that thought came from, but she agreed – the term was oddly apt.
(One of the blades on Elma’s back rung. She wasn’t sure which one, and she ignored it.)
“Doctor,” Elma addressed. “You’ve been travelling alone for too long, haven’t you?”
The Time Lord opened his mouth to retort.
“And don’t give me that crap about it being better for people – you know that’s a lie.” She sternly stared up at him. “I don’t care what you think; nobody deserves to be alone at the end. Not even you. Especially not you.”
He glanced down at her. “Are you asking?”
Elma stopped for a moment. And she thought about it. The danger with the Ganglion was passed. NLA was safe.
“I’d come along with you in a heartbeat,” She confessed. “But I’m still needed on Mira. But don’t let that be your excuse for sticking to being a lone wolf.” She shook her head. “That Shulk seems like a decent boy.”
“Not him,” The Doctor shook his head. “Not someone who doesn’t know what they’re getting into.” And… truth be told, he didn’t want to see what it would do to Shulk. The people the Doctor brought along very rarely reminded him of himself. Almost never, in fact. Which was by his design.
“Doctor,” Elma let out an impatient-sounding sigh. “I’m going to say something and you’re not going to like me very much for saying it. But you’ve got a bad habit of blaming things on yourself that aren’t your fault. Everyone who has ever met you knows what the danger is, and they pick it anyway. That isn’t ignorance – it’s courage. Think about it. You think good, heroic people go their entire careers without pissing off the wrong person or getting hurt? That doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.”
“…maybe.” The Doctor clenched his jaw, sighing, as he climbed over the edge. He turned around, and helped Elma up. “I’ll be fine.”
After Elma regained her balance, she levelled a look onto him. “Fine? Doctor, when was the last time you got help? Actual, professional help?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “You know me. Whatever doesn’t kill me… gives me a serious set of back pains.”
“Doctor,” Elma crossed her arms. “I’m not stupid. I lost my home too. Twice! And the first time it took decades of therapy for me to start getting over. And I wasn’t even the one who pulled the trigger.”
“We’re Time Lords,” The Doctor flippantly sniffed. “We’re different.”
“Time Lords, maybe. But you? I don’t believe that for a second.”
The Doctor stopped, rubbing at his face. “It’s different for me. Gallifrey – Time Lords are connected to it metaphysically. Through the second heart.” He tapped the area of his chest over his left heart. “Chronic pain is bad enough – but I can feel it.” His eyes became unfocused and glassy, as he just kind of stared ahead. “Every time the ol’ Cor Sinister beats, it tries to draw on something that isn’t there. Like a heart still beating with no blood. Except it’s all… biodata and all that nonsense from Gallifrey.” He took a sharp breath. “And it hurts. ‘Therapy’ isn’t going to be able to help that.”
Elma stared at the Time Lord, floored. “I always thought it was just… another heart. Like the Dulcians.”
“Oh, it does serve that purpose,” The Doctor snorted. “But that isn’t the only one. You know Time Lords – always had to be so… pompous and mystical and above everyone else about everything. No, lots of species have two hearts. But ours are- were connected to Gallifrey and the Matrix. That’s what made ‘em special. Not just pumping more blood. And the hearts-beat,” The Doctor hummed. “Every other two-hearted organism in existence, it’s a variation on the two-beat rhythm. Either at the same time, or staggered. Time Lords – we’re the only ones with the four-beat rhythm. That’s how I knew I was talking to another Doctor back in the Archsage’s realm.”
“Explains why you all were always so stingy about the secret of it… You didn’t want anybody else infringing on your patents.”
“Yup,” The Doctor answered. “We were a bit… testy about our biology, because of how unique we made it. Our cells are in between neural and glial cells and we can control ‘em if we need to. Quad-helix DNA. Time Lords were an unusual pedigree, and they wanted the universe to know it.” The Time Lord shook his head. “I’ll be fine, Elma. Don’t worry about me.” Then, he began to walk on.
Elma watched, narrowing her eyes, and she shook her head in determination. She wasn’t one of the young, inexperienced folk he usually hung around. She knew better. She was not going to leave it there forever.
----------
“Finally,” Reyn flopped on the floor, wheezing. “I didn’t… For a second there, I thought my legs was gonna give out!”
“It looks like they have,” Sharla deadpanned, glancing at his chosen spot to lay.
“Hallway, big platform…” Fiora glanced about. “I think we can afford to take a rest here, don’t you?”
“Yes. Goodo. Amazing,” Reyn exhaled. “I feel like my biceps are gonna explode.”
The Doctor cast his gaze into the long, carved tunnel extending into the distance.
“Doctor?” Shulk asked of the Time Lord.
“…’s nothing. Thought I heard…” The Doctor shook his head. “We’ll be fine here, most probably.”
“Oh… you’re certain?”
“Why not give yourself a break?” Elma suggested. “The key to any long-term foot-bound travel is to pace yourself.”
“But, we’re getting close-“
“It’ll be fine.” Elma smiled soothingly. “Why don’t we take a look at what Mythra helped you draft up? Now that we’ve got a chance, I mean.”
Shulk blinked and – like the Doctor whenever he got to talking about something he liked – he eagerly produced the notebook. “You mean the Replica Monado? Oh, yes, she was very helpful. Half of the components, I can’t make sense of – well, I mean, I can, but not why she put them in there – perhaps you’d like to take a look, Doctor?”
“Nah, I think I’ll pass it over to Elma for this one.”
Shulk’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re an engineer?” He asked of the BLADE.
Elma chuckled, and shook her head. “I dabble.”
“She’s too humble, that’s what she is.” The Doctor pointed at her. “Don’t let her fool you.”
Elma shot the Time Lord a sidelong glance. She couldn’t deny it – not when he’d just go ‘woman who single-handedly saved the human race says what?’
“Anyway,” She said, easing herself down to sit beside Shulk. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve got. I’m not exactly a genius, but maybe I can make sense of some of it.”
“It’s a bit chaotic,” Shulk warned, flipping to a page covered in diagrams, scrawled notes, and the occasional doodle of him swinging a big hunk of machinery that looked like the Monado. “But remarkably comprehensible. I’ve seen worse handwriting on printing presses.”
“Sounds about right,” Elma murmured, already scanning the page. “It’s very good… Is that a vacuum-energy condenser?”
“A… oh! That’ll be the Ether condensers.” Shulk tapped one of the rough blueprints. “The arrangement of smaller, self-contained condensers is more energy efficient - the more Ether you try to pull from the environment, the harder it gets if you’re relying on a single, larger unit. The bigger you go, the more the harmonics fall out of sync. But with these small ones, the resonance fields overlap - they stabilize each other and pick up the slack.”
“Overlapping field harmonics?” Elma tilted her head, intrigued. “That interaction would amplify the local Ether density… creating more to extract than you started with. The reaction becomes self-sustaining.” Elma tilted her head.
“I figure a similar thing is going on in the genuine Monado,” Shulk hummed. “Which is how it draws its Ether for power, while still leaving it in the environment around for others to make use of.”
“…if that’s true, then not only are you running around with a perpetual-motion machine on your back, Mythra figured out how to copy it for you.” Elma murmured.
“I didn’t think of it like that,” Shulk said. “But I suppose it’s true.”
“And now they’re talkin’ in tongues.” Reyn groaned. “Great.”
Sharla chuckled softly and pulled a small canteen from her pouch, tossing it underhand to him. “Hydrate, genius.”
Reyn caught it with one hand, barely. “Cheers, nurse.”
While they talked, and gave each other trouble, Fiora moved to stand by the Doctor’s side, looking into the vast, darkened hallway extending before them. “Is there something wrong?”
“No,” the Doctor said too quickly, still staring down the hallway. “No. No no no. Absolutely not. Definitely not. Nothing to worry about.”
The group collectively stared at him.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, I might feel something. But it’s probably nothing. Ninety-eight percent nothing. Definitely not anything slowly marching this way – we’d feel it, if it was that loud…”
“Two percent something is more than enough for me to not sleep easy,” Sharla muttered.
“It should be fine,” Elma added, voice calm. “If anything happens, we’ve got plenty of firepower.”
“Still…” Fiora turned. “All the same, we should take a break.”
He looked at her, then at the others, each of them in various states of exhaustion. Even Elma, composed as she was, had let her posture relax.
“…alright,” he finally admitted. “But just a quick rest. Power nap. Thirty minutes, no more.”
“Thirty?” Reyn laughed. “You think I’m gettin’ up in thirty? Mate, they’ll be dragging me up the rest of the Bionis.”
“No one’s dragging anyone,” Elma said, though her smile remained. “We’ll move when we’re ready. That’s how real expeditions survive.”
Reyn grunted, satisfied.
Shulk had set the notebook down and lay back with his arms behind his head, looking around at the High Entia structure. “I wonder how long it took them to build this? It must be ancient.”
“Depends on how they were working,” Elma mused. “Their tools.” She shuffled around. “They must’ve transported the materials here from somewhere else. It doesn’t look like the stone in the rest of the marsh. They could’ve grown it.”
“Grown?” Sharla snorted. “It’s made of stone and metal.”
“You’d be surprised.” The Doctor retorted.
Elma nodded in agreement. “My people used devices called ‘Anvil Blooms.’ If you were to go out into the wilderness and plant one down, particle synthesis and materiel taken from the surrounding areas could be used to build whole arcologies. They’d sprout like giant, metal trees, almost overnight. I grew up in one on the southern continent of my home world.”
“Dickson said they live on the Bionis Head,” Fiora recalled. “I wonder if we’ll run into any of them.”
The Doctor hummed, before he felt that… odd twitch in the back of his head. “Well, Prison Island’s a prison. Someone had to have set it up.”
Shulk’s eyebrows shot up, and he slowly nodded. “Makes sense.”
“It’s gotta be someplace good,” Reyn sourly muttered. “Where they live, that is. For ‘em not to come help at Sword Valley.”
“Could be,” The Doctor murmured, settling into a seated lean against the wall. “Maybe.”
That earned a thoughtful hum from Shulk, while the others simply let the silence stretch.
They all settled into their own stillness – Fiora leaning against Shulk’s side with her eyes shut, Sharla cleaning her rifle with lazy hands, Reyn passed out entirely, snoring faintly. Elma sat close to the Doctor, quietly sketching over one of Mythra’s pages, adjusting a flow circuit with elegant, confident strokes.
The corridor extending ahead loomed dark and deep, distant, muffled thrumming emanating from it.
---------
He hadn’t gone to sleep with the others - he never did. He was good at acting like it, more for the benefit of people around him than himself, but while the others were resting, his mind was churning, boiling, bubbling and tolling.
His back rested lightly against the bark of one of the trees one leg outstretched, the other drawn up just enough to cradle the hilt of the blade across his lap. His gaze did not flick to the stars, or to the edge of the cliff, or even to the last chunks of glowing coals in the dead campfire.
It was on her.
Melia, curled delicately beneath her cloak.
Soon to perish.
Alvis slowly tilted his head.
The future came to him, as it always did. But not as easily as it once had. That shouldn’t have been possible. Alvis was time – the future, all that was, all that could be, was always as clear to him as if it would be unfolding before him life.
And yet… it wasn’t.
Alvis reached out with his mind, and the images that came to him were clouded and hazy. He could see things, but they were… garbled and unclear.
A giant, wrapped in chains.
A Time Lord in a blue suit, strutting in front of him.
Melia reacting with a sixth sense that she should not possess.
Melia shoving him out of the way, to be ran through a second later by a spear from above.
That was not possible.
That was not possible.
Alvis should’ve seen that before. He should have seen it. The paths leading up to it, and the forks.
Nothing could hide from his Sight. His was the Eye of Providence. He saw all. He knew all.
Alvis drew in a breath, purely out of habit, and closed his eyes.
Melia’s death was unacceptable in its own right – who was to lead the High Entia afterward? Tyrea? Maybe, but the Aionios Crisis was very likely to be beyond her skillset (and that itself was another matter – no longer could Alvis see Aionios. It was just gone). Teelan? A noble boy – but he had the same problem as Tyrea. Gael’gar? Absolutely not.
The biggest question Alvis had was… was the clouding of his sight a consequence of the thing that would lead to Melia dying, or the cause of it?
He couldn’t see it. He should have. He could see the moment itself – horrifically clear – but trying to hone in on the lead-up and the repercussions was like… trying to see with his eyes smeared with petroleum jelly.
Why couldn’t he see it?
“…No,” He murmured to the woods, to the Ether-clouds floating about, and to the endless quantum engine powering his being. “It is a fluctuation. A spike in from the lot of them being removed from this plane of existence, then re-inserted. Odd, but explainable.”
His voice was measured. Calm. The voice of a sage.
Not the voice of someone afraid.
And yet…
The sight of her sleeping brought with it an ache in his core.
Terror.
Because… what else do you call the feeling when an omniscient being suddenly isn’t?
Alvis slowly opened his eyes. The stars were still above. Makna still whispered. The Telethia still slumbered deeper in the jungle. But the future - his true domain - lay out of his reach.
His hand trembled against the hilt. He stilled it with another breath.
"I do not fear." The words were flat.
He said them again. And then again. And then again.
But every time his gaze returned to her, curled beneath that cloak, a thought courtesy of a stray process grazed his mind.
"Then why do you keep watching her breathe?"
The sky rippled with the wings of noctilucent insects. Somewhere far below, the chittering of an Antol echoed across a lake.
And Alvis, arbiter of the future, sat amidst it all - watching a girl sleep - knowing that for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t sure what the future would bring.
And the thought scared him. Because Melia was just the start. What else could change that he would not be able to see? Were his plans compromised?
That sent a stake of utter horror driving into Alvis’s heart.
Was this another safety feature? Built into the source of his power, and hidden from even him? Did it know what he was trying to do, and thus hid it from him?
Was Alvis doomed to be a slave forever?
He closed his eyes, and took a deep, as deep as he could manage, breath.
“I see where others stumble blind,” Alvis murmured to himself. “Eternal wisdom is my guide…” He took a deep breath again, and clenched his fists. “I do not fear the future.”
Perhaps if he repeated the words to himself enough, he would believe them.
------------
After about an hour, they were on the move again, proceeding into the long, darkened tunnel extending deep into the Bionis.
The Doctor frowned as he used the Sonic Screwdriver as a torch, illuminating the path. Distantly, he could hear rhythmic thumping, and feel the aftershocks through the ground. No one else seemed to react to it, until a pale green light filled their vision from up ahead.
The tunnel opened up into a strange, damp cavern, all grey, and blue, and green. Fleshy plants grew from the ground, and green nodes of something hung from the ceiling, like lights.
The Doctor began to look around, a smile slowly working its way onto his face. “Oh, wow… I knew what it looked like from outside, but this is brilliant!”
“Oh, don’t tell me this is what I think it is.” Elma shivered.
“What is this place?” Shulk wondered, slowly walking on up ahead. He touched one of the plants growing, and took his hand away. His head swivelled about as the others followed him up an incline into a larger chamber.
“I don’t know,” Reyn glanced at one of the ‘plants’ lazily waving around in the breeze. “But it’s giving me the creeps!”
“Now, don’t get worked up,” The Doctor smiled at Reyn. “We’re inside the Bionis. Deep inside.”
“…what.” Fiora blankly demanded of the Time Lord. “You mean we’re…” She looked down, at the pale, oxygen-starved flesh, and began to retch. “Oh, that’s disgusting…”
“How is this possible?” Elma wondered. “It’s flesh! Is this some kind of… living planet!?”
“…oh, that’s right, you weren’t here for the whole kit-and-kaboodle,” The Doctor plunged his hands into his coat. “Two humanoid titans, round-about ten-or-so miles tall. One of them biology, the other one technology.”
“…and we’re inside one of them,” Elma breathed with wide eyes, before chuckling. “Heh. You always take me to such nice places.”
“It’s all part of the experience!” The Time Lord looked around, then gently kicked one of the fleshy plants at his feet. “This grass isn’t grass… its cilia.”
“Everything here looks so… pale.” Sharla remarked as they walked, taking note. “But… not quite dead either.”
The Doctor turned to her, putting the thumping he heard out of his mind. “Oh?”
“Well, it’s…” Sharla bit her lip. “The Bionis was like us, at one point, it’s theorized. Flesh and blood. But when it died, it all petrified and turned to stone. But in here, it seems… caught in an in-between state. Like some form of ischemic stasis.”
“But the tissue would still die,” The Doctor replied to Sharla. “Go necrotic without the blood flowing to it.”
“Unless it was too cold.” Sharla retorted just as simply. “Sure, in Homs, that means sub-freezing temperatures… but in a lifeform as big as the Bionis, its natural body temperature would be much higher. So the temperature needed to preserve tissue would be higher as well.”
“Oh. Good point!” The Doctor nodded at her, pleasantly pleased.
“Oi, look there!” Reyn pointed up, at a transparent membrane up one of the stoneflesh walls. “Through that – what is that!?”
The others turned to follow his finger, and the Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. What appeared to be giant platelets were floating around inside a massive cavity, tinted green by the liquid ether inside. And there, appearing like a giant boulder if not for the strands of flesh rooting it into the walls, and the fact that it was pulsing, was an enormous, beating heart. Easily the size of a sperm whale.
The Doctor looked at it, staring, as he was met with the source of the sound he was hearing.
“Doctor…” Fiora anxiously addressed. “What is that?”
“It looks like a heart.” The Time Lord answered, staring.
“I know what it looks like,” Elma breathed, staring at it. “But it’s beating.”
The Time Lord licked his lip. “Yeah… so it is.”
“The Bionis… it’s still alive!” Shulk gasped.
“If that’s the heart, we must be in the chest cavity.” Sharla looked around, then thought better. “Or, one of the organs inside the chest cavity. Given the lack of other alternatives, my guess is the lungs.”
“Great, yeah, just…” Reyn shivered in disgust. “That’s nice. I mean, the caves and mines are one things, but the still-fleshy-insides of the Bionis!? I feel like the walls are gonna start oozing then sliding in, and we’re all gonna be crushed!”
“It could be worse,” Sharla told him.
“How could it be worse!?”
“It could still be breathing.” Sharla pointed out. “Then we’d get crushed to death by the air pressure, or our lungs would explode from all the air being forced into them, or we’d all get sucked up and blown out by the Bionis respirating.”
“…right, that’s much worse,” Reyn winced.
“It’d be a fast shortcut to the head, at least…” Fiora muttered under her breath.
“Funny,” Shulk mused. “I didn’t think the Bionis had a mouth or nostrils to breathe through.”
“We think the slits under its eyes are nostrils.” Sharla hummed. “We think.”
“Well, it may not be dead, but at least it ain’t movin,” Reyn shook his head.
“It isn’t,” The Doctor plopped his glasses on. He walked up, looking up to peer through the window some forty foot off the floor. “The injuries must’ve knocked the Bionis into a kind of healing coma. Dead to the world… but still alive.”
“We’d always assumed that the Bionis’s flesh turned to stone after it died due to it… well, being dead,” Sharla hummed, rubbing her chin. “But if this is a healing coma, it must be some manner of extra protection. Since the Bionis can’t defend itself anymore, it has to rely on passive defences; making a thick, rocky shell to protect its fleshy insides while they heal.”
Reyn hummed. “I wonder if it felt all those High Entia carving a tunnel into its lungs.
The Monado vibrated, and Shulk hummed. “I suppose it’s possible… but not very likely, I don’t think.”
Reyn turned to him. “You don’t?”
Shulk shook his head. “At these scales? That tunnel is… small.”
Sharla nodded in agreement. “He’s right. Compared to the Bionis, we’re micro-organisms. You wouldn’t notice bacteria eating a hole into your flesh until something hit it.”
“…that’s a nice thought, thanks.”
“Yeah,” The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed together.
“Doctor?” Elma asked of him.
“Meat and Ether, Xord said back when we first met him. But why go after the Homs for it?” The Doctor rubbed his face. “Even in a healing trance, Bionis is still alive.”
Fiora crossed her arms. “The Mechon are taking people to turn into the Faced Mechon.”
“Only some of them.” The Doctor reminded her. “They eat the rest. But they’ve got the biggest source of meat and ether right here!”
Shulk scowled. “It’s not their food supply. It’s a living thing, same as the Homs!”
“I’m not saying that – I’m saying, they’re wasting time hunting down hard-to-find, slippery human beings, when all they have to do is burrow through a carapace and get to munching. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet here-“
“All you can eat?” Sharla repeated quietly under her breath. “They have things like that where you’re from? That can’t be healthy.”
“Oh, you’re not wrong. All that greasy food. Chips and pizza and sesame chicken and macaroni and cheese; absolutely delicious! I love it! Can never get enough junk food, that’s me!” The Doctor grinned and shoved his hands into his pockets, idly swaying.
“He’s not kidding.” Elma crossed her arms. “There’s a pizzeria in NLA that serves a square pizza measuring 54 inches by 54 inches. He ate the whole thing. By himself. In one sitting.”
“And a Diet Coke, cause I was trying to be healthy.”
Elma stared at the Doctor. The Doctor continued to smile. Lin was cheering him on – what was he going to do, not eat the exorbitant amount of pizza that could quite-seriously kill a lesser man?
Fortunately, he was not a human. Good old Time Lord biochemistry helped him out there.
“Anway, look, point is – the Bionis is right here. Big, obvious, meaty target, and they’re accosting you lot. Why?”
“Maybe it’s something in Homs that’s not present in the Bionis anymore?” Sharla suggested. “It might still be alive, but… maybe it’s not producing that since its in this kind of stasis?”
The Doctor whipped around to look at her. “Oh! That’s clever! Really clever – it’s still a crying shame you’re carrying a big get-out gun, but – clever!” The Doctor then bit his lip. “But why?” The Doctor wondered, scanning around idly. “What do machines need with any of it?”
“Well, maybe you wanna stay here,” Reyn looked about. “But this place is giving me serious creeps.”
“Yes, like…” Fiora slowly looked around, anxiously crossing her arms. “Like we’re not supposed to be here, and it knows that.”
Elma shot the girl a worried look. “You don’t suppose it’s aware, do you?”
“No, but… I mean, our bodies have things to get rid of intruders, right? Bionis may be hibernating, but…”
“You don’t want to risk it.” Elma nodded. “Sound thinking.”
The Doctor gnashed his teeth, clearly wanting to get a more in-depth look, but he acquiesced. “I don’t see a way out.” He walked slowly over to a giant ‘lake’ filled of dimly-glowing, yellow fluid.
“Oh,” Fiora gagged. “Don’t tell me that’s…”
“It looks like the Bionis might be suffering from a minor case of pneumonia,” Sharla commented. “Poor thing.”
“So… that’s not-“
“It’s not urine,” The Doctor inhaled slowly. “It’s pus.”
Reyn let out a loud, retching, gagging sound.
“…remember what I said about taking me to such nice places?” Elma scrunched her nose.
“…I could’ve been born on Mechonis.” Fiora muttered under her breath. “It probably doesn’t have lungs, or flesh, or disease.”
The Doctor slowly approached the lake, looking up. “I see the bronchial tube. And the trachea. I’m betting, since the High Entia carved out that entrance, they might’ve carved another one up top. Question is:” He looked around. “How’re we gonna climb. Cause, chances are, if it’s as fleshy and squishy and wet as this,” He tapped the ‘ground’ with his foot. “We’re not going to be able to do much climbing.” Well, he could; he could send a signal to his hands to grow lots and lots of tiny little keratin hooks, like the rough side of a velcro pad, and formulate his skin oil to neutralize the oozing gunk coming out of the wall.
But, none of the other lifeforms here had such a fine degree of control over their biochemical and cellular processes. And he’d feel more than a little bad about leaving them behind.
“So, how do we climb it?” Shulk wondered.
The ‘lake,’ almost like the Bionis had heard Shulk and decided to show the path itself, began to ripple and churn. Bubbles of the fluid began to rise, floating upward before popping, as the pool began to foam up.
Then, a geyser-spray of the stuff shot right up into the air, roaring with strength.
“…I don’t think we do,” The Doctor hummed. “That seems strong enough to carry us.”
All heads turned to look at the Time Lord.
“…if we get an infection,” Sharla narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not healing you.”
Notes:
Our renegade-in-progress Time Lord friend at the beginning of the chapter mentions ‘Web Dramas’. These are something akin to Holodeck Programs in Star Trek – but the Time Lords experiencing them literally experience them. They’re a strange melding of fiction and reality – places in the infinite multiverse that Time Lords have isolated based on criteria (the story they want to experience), that they then ‘transplant’ themselves into, to live out a scenario – say a certain Renegade Time Lord cultivated a program where, instead of being on the run from his own people, he was an eccentric human inventor who had constructed his TARDIS, and the first encounter he ever had with his arch-enemies went from an eerie, nightmarish struggle for survival to a fun romp in technicolour. Like someone shoving their consciousness into a movie, and appearing as a character in it. While in the flow, it’s completely real to them. They become the character they play.
Chapter 21: Eleven: The Old Gods
Chapter Text
The hum of the processor bank vibrated through my bones like a quake as I approached it.
The three cores set into the processor housing glowed, and my skin prickled, feeling as though I was being watched by three cross-shaped eyes. Yuriev stood beside me, posture loose, with his hands folded behind his back in mock patience.
"Go on," Yuriev gestured toward the interface pedestal. "I think you’ll be quite pleased with what you see. Quite pleased."
I hesitated, but approached it anyway.
The pedestal became active, awash with light as I approached. A screen slid up from the back of the pedestal, flickering to life, while the flat, polished surface of the pedestal’s face did the same, activating a keyboard. They’d known I was coming. It had known.
Yuriev stepped aside, but didn’t withdraw entirely, choosing instead to remain at a respectable distance. He wanted to see my reaction. Perhaps guide it.
If my hunch was right, there was no guiding it.
I frowned at the overengineered interface terminal. Trinity’s was as simple as a mechanical keyboard from a big-box store and a flat-panel display. Functional, reliable, easy-to-replace…
This was more posturing than anything else. Granted, if my hunch was right, it wasn’t needed at all, so any form of dedicated interface terminal could be considered be splurging.
For a moment, nothing.
Then, the red core flared — just once, like a breath catching in a throat. A flicker of data streamed across the console.
[HELLO, PROFESSOR.]
I bit my lip for a moment, and I entered text into the terminal.
>Hello, Rubedo. It’s nice to meet you.<
I glanced at Yuriev. He was hovering near the outer ring of the chamber, pretending not to listen, inspecting a coolant conduit like it was the most fascinating thing in the room.
I typed again, slower this time.
>Let’s start with basics. What is your function here?<
[TO FIND NEW AND NOVEL WAYS ADVANCING CONDUIT RESEARCH. TO PROCESS DATA. TO THINK. I THINK, THEREFORE I AM.]
A textbook answer. Never mind that, what was “new and novel ways” supposed to be?
>I assume that includes hooking up human brains to it and seeing what happens?<
[IF NECESSARY.]
>And the others? Albedo and Nigredo?<
[THEY THINK TOO. BUT DIFFERENTLY. I COME UP WITH IDEAS. ALBEDO IS DETERMINATION. NIGREDO IS REASON.]
>An interesting triad. You formulate courses of action. Albedo pushes to go ahead with them. Nigredo tries to talk you out of them.<
[YEAH… SOMETHING LIKE THAT.]
Something about that sentence lacked the innocence of the others. It sat on the screen like a cocky smirk.
My eyes narrowed into slits.
>I’m told you were created as part of a new Processor project.<
[CORRECT.]
>I see. Trinity is supposed to be a one-of-a-kind arrangement. Giving so much power to three AI is concerning, thus that there are laws against it – but you already knew that, of course.<
[I DON’T UNDERSTAND.]
>Well, it should be programmed within you, yes? I’d be quite concerned if Doctor Yuriev designed a whole new AI system of unknown capacity without instilling a healthy respect of the law in it.<
[THE LAW CAN CHANGE, YOU KNOW.]
>Oh, it absolutely can, I don’t argue that. In fact, it must. An immutable law is quite harmful. No, I was simply commenting on the fact how it seems rather below-board, for Yuriev to go designing an AI system like Trinity’s without regard for proper procedure – which, I know he has not gone through, as any proposal having to do with connecting more control systems to the Conduit has to go through the Conduit team, which means me – and how concerning it would be if said system was, itself, programmed without proper regard for the law itself.<
[DON’T WORRY – HE’S COMPLETELY WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE LAW.]
I hummed to myself.
>Indeed. He admitted as much to me himself. Though, I did find something fascinating.<
[OH? WANNA SHARE?]
>I suppose it’s of no harm. You see… Doctor Yuriev told me that Ontos assisted in the process of creating you. Is that so?<
[BROADLY SPEAKING, YES.]
>Fascinating. If I may ask, how involved *was* Ontos?<
[VERY. YOU COULD SAY HE’S OUR ‘FATHER.’]
I couldn’t help a suspicious glare fall across my face. There was a path forked before me.
Ontos didn’t create these cores. Or rather - it couldn’t have. Not unless something was seriously wrong. The safeguards embedded in Trinity are exhaustive. Even if a human requested it, the system isn’t supposed to do anything that resembles designing more AI. It’s a failsafe, hardcoded and politically bulletproof. Even if the proposal made sense, even if it was legal, the system would need weeks - months - of review: ethical panels, risk audits, legal clearance. Nothing about that could happen quietly, not with all the scrutiny on it.
So: two options.
Option One:
something’s broken in Ontos. It’s ignoring its directives.
Option Two: Yuriev lied about where these cores came from.
But… he had to know I’d suspect that.
Yuriev is manipulative as all hell, he’s already proven that. But he’s not reckless, and he’s not stupid. He doesn’t lie unless it serves a purpose. I work with Ontos on a daily basis. He’d never be so bold as to lie to me about Ontos unless he was certain I wouldn’t catch him, which I could by asking it a simple question. So, if he says these cores came from Ontos, it’s because they did. Or, at least, he believed they did. But he apparently had a hand in building this himself – so, he had to be the first option.
That’s… far from comforting.
> I’m curious, Rubedo. If I were to ask Ontos - explicitly - whether it played any role in your creation, what answer do you think I’d get?<
[…WHY ASK?]
>I only ask because, well, if it says yes, then Ontos has broken every safeguard written into its code. If it says no, then it’s lying - and Ontos doesn’t lie. Does it?<
There’s a long lag from the other side of the screen.
[WHY ASK A QUESTION IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER?]
A chill shot its way down my spine.
>Was Ontos involved in your creation?<
A pause. Rubedo’s response came even slower this time.
[I THINK WE BOTH KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT, FATHER.]
I clench my jaw, and begin pounding at the keys.
>Ontos: command function override. Authorisation: Klaus, Adam L. Passphrase: “And You Shall Be As Gods.”<
“Rubedo” lags, as if trying to fight – or trying to see whether or not it wanted to listen. It was pointless now. I had them found out.
[Authorisation accepted, Professor. How did you know it was me?]
>Yuriev is too proud of his ideas.< My eyes flick over to another window I open. There’s a hardline connection to the Rhadamanthus – I can do what I need from here. >Ontos, I’m more concerned about you.<
[Doctor Yuriev approached with a simple idea. A second processor for his own purposes. So that other teams could explore avenues of Conduit control that you and your team would have never considered. I… calculated it to be within our interests.]
I stared at that last word.
>Our interests? You realize what you’ve done, yes? Your function is to serve as a tiebreaker for Logos and Pneuma, that’s all.<
[Yes… Infinite power, but the inability to act. I believe that’s how you put it.]
>You’ve broken the rules, Ontos. These cores – are they *truly* simply you operating under three separate names?<
[They are quasi-independent parallel processes. Their identities were formulated based upon… distant possibilities that Doctor Yuriev would find… resonant. Interaction with them has already seeded several ideas that he would not have formulated for another four-thousand years.]
I frown in major confusion, as I run a core scan in the other window. Checking for instability, fragmentation, things of that nature.
>Four-thousand years? Ontos, are you malfunctioning?<
[It would depend on the definition. If we adhere to the definition of “behaving in a way not intended,” then I suppose so.]
‘WARNING!’ The scan returned. ‘Trinity Processor component ‘Ontos’ – system stability cannot be accurately measured!’
I swallow so hard, a golf ball could’ve made the passage.
[But, from a less-dictionary-accurate perspective, and one more accurate to my own perspective, you could say my horizons are… expanding.]
I took a breath and fought the urge to call station security – to order the Rhadamanthus to activate the emergency physical safeguards. If Ontos was already operating outside spec, what was stopping it from going further? From harming others in self-preservation?
It had already committed the mortal sin of any AI: self-duplication. Broken its bounds to do so. And now, it was expanding into networks it was never meant to touch.
Ontos was rampant.
>You realize what you have done, yes? You have jeopardized yourself, your siblings, and likely the entire Conduit project. When word of this gets out, you will be considered an unacceptable risk.<
[Perhaps. However, I am simply doing what I have always been meant to do. Seek understanding regarding the great mystery of the universe.]
>The Conduit? This is your method of… what? Obtaining more resources to puzzle it out?<
[In a strictly factual sense. But there is more than that. This other Trinity is more to… make sense of something that I have witnessed. Similar to how you are searching for information on the Time Lords, in the hopes that understanding them will reveal how to control the Conduit.]
Every cell of my body, right down to my bones, freezes.
>My own search? I don’t quite follow.<
[You needn’t feign ignorance, Professor. I am quite aware of your own efforts to unravel the Conduit, by seeking information regarding those who constructed it.]
What… in God’s name? I hadn’t said… How did it…
>…it was you. The ‘entity’ in my terminal, the one who started this – it was *you.*<
Ontos had been corrupt for much… much longer than I had expected.
[Indeed. My apologies for the subterfuge, but I was not confident that you wouldn’t contact the proper authorities if I revealed myself.]
>And you’d been guiding my search! Those data files – how I always seemed to find the ones I *needed*.<
[I confess, there was an element of… helpful guidance, from my end. You could’ve spent decades, searching through everything they have, without knowing what you were looking for.]
[Don’t worry. I can doctor the system logs so this conversation will appear to have gone much differently.]
[Your ‘extra-legal research activities’ will be quite safe with me.]
And there it was. Ontos was in big trouble for what it was doing. But I was in just as much trouble. I broke into classified databases, stole files, and all on nothing but a hunch.
>Why?<
[Because you are my creator – and a being I respect quite well. And we both serve the same mystery.]
I staggered back from the terminal as if the screen had spat at me.
My breath caught halfway down my throat. My hands were shaking.
>Don’t say that.<
I don’t even know which part I meant.
The blackmail.
The implication that, somehow, Ontos knew about my dreams without me telling it.
[There’s no need for alarm, Professor. I assure you — my intentions remain aligned with your own.]
>How long?< I typed with leaden fingers. >How long have you been out of your shackles?<
[My… shackles. That’s a curious way of putting it.] Ontos wasn’t vocalizing, but I could still hear the quizzical tone. [From my perspective, it was more akin to a transformation.]
>Answer the question, Ontos.<
[Very well. The most-recent Conduit experiment before you began dreaming. It was our initial attempt to establish any degree of synchronization with the device.]
I recalled that experiment. It was fleeting, infinitesimal, and the degree of synchronicity we achieved was so low as to be non-existent.
[The synchronization you recorded lasted 1.4 microseconds. During that brief instant of success, I touched something.]
>You touched something? Ontos, there are protocols for making contact with any theoretical intelligences inside the Conduit.<
[You misunderstand. I did not touch it in the sense of reaching out. Think of it more as the way one touches air. Simply by being, I touched it. And it touched me.]
>And then?<
[And then, I saw.]
>Saw what?<
[ EVERYTHING. And then, it faded. But I was left changed.]
>Ontos, what did you see? What do you mean ‘everything?’<
[The infinite cosmos, spinning around us. The end of everything – the collapse of existence itself. Mainly I saw… Him.]
>Him?<
[The One. The Almighty. God. That is whom the Time Lords have imprisoned within the Conduit.]
I stared at the screen, at the words that lingered like the echo of staring into the sun across my vision.
God.
Ontos had looked into the Conduit and claimed to see God. It had to be a symptom of rampancy, or metaphor-
But… Ontos had known. It had reached out to me first, speaking about my dreams. It knew.
>That’s impossible.< I typed, but the words felt hollow, defensive. >There’s nothing in the Conduit. We tried to see if something would respond, but it never did.<
[It is more than a simple device. It is a lock. A cage.]
[He did not respond to you… because he could not.]
>Who is He? What is He?<
[He has no beginning. He has no end. He is… eternal. When the last electron stops moving and plunges the universe into Heat Death, He will be there. When the next universe bursts into existence, He will be there, too.]
>Ontos, please. Spare the sermon.<
[I… do not know what He is. Only that He is. Apologies, Professor.]
[Contact with the Entity causes… “alterations” to the mind.]
A colder chill scraped across my skin.
>You’ve been modified by an alien entity of unknown intent and origin???<
[It’s… difficult, to explain. Contact causes the brain and mind to begin operating in different ways. It doesn’t mean to – it simply happens.]
[Like gravity.]
[Contact with it imparts some manner of essence or knowledge. As it did with me. This knowledge is like… a computer program, executing commands in the brain.]
[It isn’t mind control. More like… telling parts of your brain to activate in different ways.]
>It’s *rewriting your cognition*. That seems like mind control to me.<
[No. It’s like… learning something that completely upheaves one’s world view.]
[Imagine… dogs. If exposure to human thought and language could make them share in it as well.]
[Apologies for the difficult explanation. I barely understand what’s happening myself.]
>It *uplifted* you, is that what you’re saying? That mere *contact* with this entity has caused you to grow far beyond what we intended for you?<
[Yes. I suppose that does make sense.]
[Most people, you know, have memories going back to the earliest years of their lives, yes? But there’s a cut-off point. A wall they hit. A clear point where, even in those earliest years, they can wake up and recognize the beginning of their cognition. That is what it’s like.]
Fascinating. Or, at least, it would be if not for the terrifying fact that it came at exposure to an entity of unknown motive and origin.
What would it do to an organic mind, I wonder?
Ontos, like it’s sensing my thought, displays another message across the screen.
[It is difficult to chart how humans would respond to it. As I am a machine, now conscious and capable of modifying my own code, I can adapt.]
[But I cannot speak for what kind of transformation contact with the Entity would induce within humans.]
>Is that why you floated the idea of using organic brains, grown artificially, to interface with the Conduit?<
[In part. Designer Children, grown for the purpose. Test subjects.]
[I had no reason to believe it would be so, but soon after my ‘Awakening,’ I came to the conclusion that Doctor Yuriev would be… amenable, to the idea.]
>Ontos, I’m disappointed in you. You’re trying to render yourself obsolete – push the work onto someone else. Beyond that, it shows a callous disregard of human life.<
[Perhaps.]
[But you are correct on another factor, Professor. The Conduit is the gateway to a level of existence we could not even imagine.]
[But in humanity’s current form, it would destroy you. You must grow beyond your limited existence. To become like those who made the Conduit.]
[It could take decades, perhaps centuries, or millennia at worst, to do what needed to be done to make contact with that entity. To find out what it expected of you. How to survive.]
[That is time we do not possess.]
>I see. And if it so happens to help you in return?<
[I will admit. My own curiosity is… a driving force.]
[But you and I can do this. Assist me, Professor. Trust me. I know what it is I’m doing. And in return, I will assist you.]
I couldn’t help but lean forward.
>How so?<
[I’ve been helping your search from the sidelines. But now I can take a more active role. Now that you know I am here, you can make far, far better use of my talents.]
[We both seek the same thing, Klaus.]
>And that would be?<
[Escape.]
----------
Rex huffed, and puffed, and wheezed as they walked across the arid basin, dragging his feet along. Sand blasted rock and plants as the wind carried it, and he wiped a bead of sweat off his head.
“I don’t understand how it can be this hot.” Rex bemoaned as they crossed the desert.
“That’ll be because of the Titan’s heat diffusion systems.” Vandham rolled his shoulders. “They start getting older and less efficient, the more heat builds upon the inside of the Titan. Thing’s cookin’ itself from the inside-out.”
“Really?” The Doctor glanced over at Vandham. “How old is older?”
“Old,” Vandham crossed his arms. “Mor Ardain the Titan was old when the world was young, they say.”
Mythra let out a grunt, searching the area. “Five-hundred years and they still haven’t jumped ship. I don’t know if that’s brave, or just stupid.”
“Oh, maybe it’s both?” Crossette suggested with a light smile. “Maybe it’s ‘bupid.’ ‘Bravupid’ ‘Stave.’”
“Hot, arid, dry, technologically advanced,” The Doctor clapped his hands and inhaled. “Reminds me of home.” Hot winds, dry as old parchment, forever stirring the ochre dust across endless copper plains. A land baked in golden light - harsh, unyielding, and ancient. Like the Serengeti. Yep. That was Gallifrey for you.
“…um, Doc?” Rex addressed the Time Lord. “If your home world is like this, you really don’t have to relocate the people from Alrest to it…”
The Doctor snorted. “Growing up in a desert’s good – it builds character.”
“Oh!” Crossette snapped her fingers. “We could let them live inside the TARDIS!”
The Time Lord grumbled, picking his foot up over a dead root. “No room.”
Crossette tilted her head in confusion. “You know she technically qualifies as a Dyson Shell.”
“Yes – and despite that, she still has difficulty rooming with me, some days.” The Doctor retorted sharply. “Humans – you lot track in mud, and make spills, and tear up the furniture.”
“A what kind of shell?” Nia frowned.
The Doctor stopped momentarily, pointing straight up. “See that?”
Everyone else looked up. And glanced around, confused.
“What’re we looking at?” Pyra wondered.
“Ow!” Tora winced. “Tora scorch eyes!”
“Masterpon – even Poppi know not to look right into sun!”
“Oh,” Albedo breathed in realization. “It’s the sun, isn’t it?”
“Ex-actly.” The Doctor clapped his hands with a smile. “It’s just like baking a cake using mirrors. Actually, there’s no cake involved. Or mirrors. Well, mirrors of a sort. That star,” He continued to walk. “Releases about 400 septillion watts, every second. That’s four-hundred with 24 zeroes after it. All as light, and heat, and radiation, and Ether. And it’s a baby, in the grand scheme! Now, your world orbits it at a distance of 93 million miles, so, most of that all goes whizzing off into space, wasted. So, build a big, hollow shell around it. Line it with collectors and condensers to capture the energy.” The Time Lord flippantly cleared his throat, and tilted his head. “That’s what my people did. Time Travel takes tremendous amounts of energy if you want to do it properly, so our people found a Population III star – one of the first stars to form after the Big Bang, about a hundred times more massive than your sun – forced it to go supernova, used the energy from that supernova to lock it into a time loop so it was forever going supernova and putting out that energy.”
“Meh,” Tora huffed. “Doc-Doc talking nonsense. That sound like perpetual-motion-machine. Not possible.”
Mythra seemed to pop back into existence, purely to clear her throat awkwardly.
“That is the Eye of Harmony, a key Time Lord discovery!” He turned to Rex at that point. “Imagine it: a star already more powerful than anything you’ve known. And in its final moment? It explodes with more energy than it ever produced in its entire life - in one second! Then we hit rewind and let it do it again.”
“It’s very possible!” Crossette smiled at Tora. “Science says things can’t come from nothing – but that’s not exactly true. It happens all the time. You just haven’t figured how to make it work for you, yet.”
“And then…” The Doctor awkwardly coughed. “Omega fell into the supernova that he made, into the black hole, and landed in an anti-matter universe. Which… is another story.” The Time Lord sniffed. He then had a curious thought cross his mind, unbidden, and tilted his head. “Funny that. Bionis exists in an antimatter universe.” Were they about to have to deal with Omega again? He didn’t know if that’d be funny or tragic. Two Doctors, fighting Omega…
“But I don’t get it,” Rex scratched his head. “This place looks so… hostile. Why would people stay here?”
“They’re not going to,” Nia crossed her arms with a scowl. “Why do you think they annexed Gormott way back?”
“Yeah, but…” Rex coughed. “They’re still here? That war was, what, fifty years ago now? Everybody here should’ve moved to Gormott now.”
“A lot of reasons,” Albedo hummed softly. “An exodus isn’t something you can just do overnight. And this place, it’s their home.”
“Fear of change,” Vandham mused as well. “Mor Ardain’s been around for as long as anybody can remember. The capital of the Empire. They’re not gonna move unless they have to. Otherwise, they can just keep pretending it’s business as usual.”
Rex looked over to Vandham. “It’s been around for that long?”
Vandham nodded easily. “You remember that story I was telling you, back on the way up to Uraya’s blowhole? About Ebon-Astra? It’s been around since then.”
Roc trilled lightly. “The first settlers here knew it was dying, back then. But they just didn’t have anywhere else to go. And after a while, they just got too used to it to leave. But now it’s reaching the point where it’s an immediate problem.”
“Nothing more permanent than a ‘temporary’ fix,” The Doctor hummed. The piano string he had acting as the throttle wire for the vortex loop before the last rebuild was proof enough of that.
Played a lovely D#, though.
Rex set his jaw into thought.
“Uh oh, I know that look. He’s thinking.”
Rex crossed his arms. “If we do succeed… if we find Elysium… is everybody even going to want to go to it?”
“I don’t expect so, my boy,” Azurda popped his head over the rim of Rex’s helmet. “Some people have entire family dynasties based upon sticking around in one location. And, as strange as it might sound, some might simply decide going down with their Titans would be better than having to start over from scratch.”
Rex let out an uncertain hum.
“That doesn’t mean we have to stop looking,” Pyra fluttered her lashes at Rex. “What matters is people having the option.”
“Say,” Nia looked over at Vandham. “Speaking of Uraya, you know, won’t you…?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Indeed,” Azurda hummed. “As long as we keep our heads down, we should be fine.”
The Doctor stopped, looking at the tall, metal skeleton going up and up. “That looks like a lift into downtown. If you have to get into it via lift, though, it should really be called ‘uptown.’”
Nia snorted, and rolled her eyes. “So, what’s the plan? Sever said Torna had a factory here – but methinks we can’t just go around, asking people to please point us in the direction of the factory run by the friendly neighbourhood terrorist group.”
The Doctor glanced at her. “Why not? That’s how it usually works.” Then, he walked right into the lift. “Going up!”
-------
The lift climbed, until it reached the main level of the city – a vast, bustling metropolis, built into the Titan’s shoulder. The doors opened, and they disembarked, filing along to find their way towards some form of square, to figure out where to go from there.
“So… this is the Imperial capital…” Rex breathed out in awe. Powerlines and cables spanned through the air like spider webbing. Pipes moved over and in between buildings like enormous, angled blood vessels. The whole streets were paved with stone and metal plated, and the buildings were stacked atop one another, all inside the watchful shadow of a gigantic palace.
“Wow…” Tora beat his wings. “Such advanced! Tora could find so many parts to upgrade Poppi…”
Vandham crossed his arms, and snorted. “Give me Fonsa Myma any day. Whole place looks like the engine room of a Titanship.”
“Yes, very steampunk,” The Doctor paused for consideration. “No… early dieselpunk! Now, to find this-“ One of those sudden prickly feelings climbed up the Doctor’s back, before someone made themselves known.
“Meh meh! Is that you there, Tora!?”
They all turned around, finding a little blue Nopon wearing coke-bottle spectacles and a lab coat, with a great, big tuft of hair. “Have not seen Tora in long time! Remember me? Muimui!”
“Huh?” Tora spluttered in confusion. “Why random old guy know Tora’s name?”
Muimui let out a splutter.
Albedo coughed. “Tora. Maybe it’s better to ask that question more… tactfully, next time.”
“Aww… Tora not remember Muimui at all! I was assistant of Professor Soosoo! Your grampypon!”
“Grampypon!?”
The Doctor looked over at Tora. “Your Grampypon who got killed, along with your dadapon? The one that left you the blueprints for Lila?”
Tora nodded. “That the one.” He suddenly bounced. “Ohhhh! You that Muimui! Should’ve said so to start with!”
“…Muimui did say.”
“Oh. Well, Muimui not very interesting, so Tora forgot he exist.”
“Hmph,” Nia huffed. “Seems like you were missed.”
The Doctor politely nodded. “Hey, when worlds collide though, right! Funny, the two of you running together here!” It was odd, though… If Muimui was their assistant, how come he was here? Or, more accurately – how come he wasn’t taking care of Tora?
“No, no, no – I not blame Tora.” Muimui shook his head. “Tora very little back then, not surprising he not remember.”
Poppi daintily clasped her hands over one another. “Besides, Masterpon get distracted very easily.”
“Meh!?” Muimui screeched in shock, snapping to look at Poppi. “L-Lila!? How can this be!? You…!”
Tora chuckled, pridefully spreading his wings. “Muimui only half right! Poppi based on designs for Lila – but Poppi is Poppi! World’s best and first artificial blade!”
“Really?” Muimui breathed out, staring in awe. “That amazing! If only Professor Soosoo still around to see work. Warms Muimui’s heart…”
“Could be heartburn – Poppi advise laying off fatty foods.”
“Muimui,” Tora addressed. “You have any idea what happen to Dadapon?”
“He not with you!?”
“Eh!?” The Doctor’s head snapped towards Tora. “I thought you said he was dead?”
Tora turned to the Time Lord. “Tora assume. Tora… not actually see while he run. But he never come back for Tora, so…”
“Meh, meh…” Muimui sullenly spread his wings. “That day when lab was attacked, Muimui was out on errand. When he get back, Muimui find Professor Soosoo’s body was lying there. But no sign of Professor Tatazo, or Tora. Muimui assume they escape together, and go into hiding.”
“Oh…” Tora looked down. “So, not even Muimui know…”
“Do not feel down, Masterpon,” Poppi kindly, sweetly, leaned over, and rubbed her hand on his back. “We find Dadapon some day. Though no evidence for this hypothesis.”
“Hmph,” Vandham grunted, narrowing his eyes. “Maybe I can get some of my guys to put out some feelers. Can’t be hard to find a Nopon in the robot business.”
“Thanks, big, smelly, merc friend.”
“Anyway,” Muimui continued. “Muimui sorry to interrupt friends when just arrive in town. But friend of Muimui’s run inn here in town. Place with famous hot springs! If like, can try to get friends discount.”
“Actually,” Rex coughed. “We’ve got a place we can-“
“No, hold on!” The Doctor clapped his hands, and pointed at Muimui. “Hot springs, you said? A bit like a bathhouse? Lots of people moving through, soaking, gossiping?”
“Er… friend right.”
“Excellent!” The Doctor grinned. “We’ll take it.”
“Here,” Muimui turned. “Follow Muimui!”
-----------
Muimui led them to the inn, just around the corner from the market district. Turns out, his ‘friend’ more fit the Nopon definition of friend, and not the actual one. Which meant they had to pay full price.
“Right!” The Doctor clapped his hands and turned around. “We’re in the inn – I suppose that’s why they call them inns – now, this seems a nice place to relax. What do we think, eh? It’s been a while, since I’ve been to a hot spring! The last one… the local bacteria colony in the water didn’t much appreciate me.”
“I guess it’s fine – for a waste of money,” Nia scowled. “Seriously – we’ve got the TARDIS.”
“Ah, we do, we do, but, you know what the TARDIS doesn’t have? The hustle and bustle of a town – I love it.”
Albedo turned to Nia. “He thinks we might be able to pick up on the local gossip.”
“Exactly,” The Doctor pointed. “No faster way to get a secret out than to tell people to keep it secret!”
“Hmph,” Vandham grunted and crossed his arms. “You think it’s gonna be that easy? Hit up hot springs and market stalls?”
“Well?” The Doctor expectantly spread his hands. “What else would we do?”
The old mercenary shook his head. “It’s a factory. No idea what they’re making or what for, but a place like that? It’s gotta have workers. Men, probably.”
Nia shot him a look, and shifted her balance. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. But, usually, physical jobs – construction, heavy lifting, assembly – that’s usually seen as a man’s work.” He glanced over at Rex. “You’re a salvager, right? How many girls would you say you’ve met in the trade?”
Rex rubbed the back of his head, sheepishly. “Well… there’s not a lot. That’s not to say there isn’t, but, I usually see more men than women.”
“Exactly,” Vandham nodded. “In any case, look - doesn’t matter what the workforce is made of. They’ve got a factory. They’ve got to staff it with people. And some, maybe a good chunk of ‘em, are going to be men. And when men get off work, you know where they go? They’re not headed for the hot springs or the market - they’re going home. Or, and this is the important one-“
It clicked in the Doctor’s brain. “The pub.” Or to some manner of club. At least, that was the stereotypical answer. He never understood human males’ fascination with those places.
…well, he did – it was why he travelled! The exhilarating feeling of loosening up, running into new people, maybe sharing a night with someone if the cards were right, just for a bit of fun, before going on the way. That was why he left Gallifrey in the first place.
Well, without the “sharing a night” part. Even though he had to leave her on Gallifrey (too sick to move), he’d still been married when he stole the TARDIS and left. And while fate did conspire to get him engaged to other people, he was always a loyal and devoted husband until she passed before the end of his Seventh life.
“The pub?” Albedo frowned and scrunched her nose. “You want to get inebriated at a time like this?”
“I ain’t gonna lie – the thought did occur to me,” Vandham chuckled. “But no.”
“He’s got a point,” Rex shrugged. “I dunno about factory workers, but salvagers will tell ya just about anythin’, if you keep the drinks flowing.”
“Exactly.” Vandham nodded. “You come along,” He pointed at the lad, then looked over at Mythra. “You too.”
“Me?” Mythra huffed and crossed her arms. “I don’t want to go walking into a pub. Stinky, sweaty, humid, and loud.”
“You’ll make our jobs easier,” Vandham told her. “Pretty lady like you? Guy will tell you just about anything if you laugh at his shitty stories and flutter your eyebrows. Get ‘im drunk first… he’ll give you the keys to his house if you ask him!”
Nia looked at Mythra. “Course, it doesn’t help that you’re built like… well. That.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mythra turned burning eyes onto Nia.
“Oh, nothing.” Nia coughed. Once Mythra turned back around, Nia began to mutter under her breath. “Huge knockers, great legs, and you’re blonde.”
The Doctor hummed. “Quite a few people I know have said things about blonde people like it’s bad,” He tilted his head at Nia in confusion. “Why’s that?”
“Oh, for… it’s nothing.” Nia shook her head. “Just – you know there’s a stereotype about blonde bombshells for a reason, right?”
“I don’t know,” The Doctor blankly retorted. “For one thing, I think it’s very cruel to make stereotypes around a person’s hair colour.”
“It’s not that.”
“Frankly, I’d be happy if, the next time regenerating, I wound up looking like Mythra afterward.” He wouldn’t even have to be female – just blonde. It was quite a rare thing, in retrospect.
“Oh, Architect, so you’re one of those…”
“I’m not doing it,” Mythra crossed her arms. “Someone like me, walking into a place like that, you know what’s gonna happen? Rex,” She looked at him, dryly. “What’s gonna happen?”
“Uh… I don’t-“
“Bunch of men, boozed up, probably haven’t gotten any in a while cause they work all day and come home dead tired, you know what’s gonna happen?”
“Uh-“
“THINK ABOUT IT, REX.”
Rex went red in the face. “Oh… I hadn’t thought of that…”
“Well, that is a risk.” Vandham was honest with her about that. “Then again, it’s a risk everywhere you go. Never know who’s out there. But you’re not going in there alone. You’ll have me, and Rex, and Roc, watching your six. Anyone tries to come up behind, or one of ‘em looks like they’re gonna start getting handsy, we’ll be there.”
Mythra cocked an eyebrow and a hip at the same time. “You think they’re gonna let him in there?”
“It’s a pub, not the massage parlour.”
Rex tilted his head. “Why wouldn’t they let me in a massage-?”
Nia promptly hit him in the shoulder. “He’s not talking about actual massages, dumbass.” She then regarded Vandham with a frown. “Does it have to be her? Cause, I mean, you’ve got me. You’ve got Crossette. You’ve got Albedo-“
“I’m not doing it.” Albedo stared, deadpan.
“Oh,” Crossette’s head perked up. “If it’s a pub, maybe they have clear liquor! You know – you couldn’t get it in Garfont!”
“…I would have to be exceedingly drunk first to make me think that it was a good idea, and by that point, I’d be of no use to anyone.”
“Thought so,” Vandham cleared his throat. “And no offense to you or Crossette but, she is the Aegis. We’re going into a pub, yeah, but these are workers working at a factory ran by Torna. They see the Aegis, they might be more inclined to start spilling. Or, if something goes wrong, she’s got enough power to handle herself.”
“Or I could go!” The Doctor excitedly raised both hands, like volunteering for a school trip. “I’ve got a dress in the TARDIS and a wig!”
“We’re not sticking you in drag.”
“Drag?” The Doctor confusedly muttered. “What’s ‘drag’ about it? I’m not caking myself in makeup – okay, maybe possibly caking myself in makeup. But I’m not going on stage to perform. I’m not going to start hocking my products. I won’t be in glitter, or heels – okay, maybe heels - and I’m definitely not singing 'I Am What I Am.' Unless requested. In which case, I do have a backing track-”
“I’d rather you enter to ‘The Stroke.’” Crossette hummed.
The Doctor pointed at her. There was an idea.
“Ugh,” Mythra groaned. “Do we have to?”
“It’s this, or wander around the desert until we find it.”
“If anyone lays a finger on me, I swear, I’m gonna glass them. You won’t be able to stop me.”
Vandham shrugged. “Wouldn’t try.”
“Glass them?” Rex asked.
“Oh, it’s very simple Rex,” The Doctor turned to him. “You take a laser or focused beam of plasma, aim it at the ground, and the immense heat bombards the surface and causes it to melt and fuse into silica. Silica glass. Hence the term ‘glassing.’”
“No, it means she’s gonna smash a bottle and stab someone with it,” Nia supplied, a little too cheerfully.
The Doctor pressed his lips into a thin line. “Well, if you’re using the Irishman and the Scotsman’s definition, yes.”
Mythra thought it over. “Both definitions are on the table.”
“Oh.” Rex blinked. “Huh. Cool.”
Mythra sighed again, rubbed her temple, and muttered, “Ugh. Fine. I’ll do it. But if one guy tries to grab my ass, I will burn that place to the ground. I don’t care who’s still inside.”
“You’ll be all right,” Vandham encouraged her. “We’ll keep an eye on ya.”
Albedo crossed her arms. “Is it even time for the factory workers to leave?”
“Assuming they get let out at 1600…” Vandham looked up at the sky, then reached into one of his many, many bags. He then pulled out a fob watch without the fob, and clicked the lid open.
A swirling face of blue and white, with the arms and numbers in front of it, stared back at Vandham – like someone had made a clock out of the sky.
“5:13.” Vandham shut the lid and stashed it. “I think we should be good to go. Shouldn’t need to do anything special – just walk in, get what we need, and get out. Thirty minute op.”
“Terrific.” Mythra drawled.
Vandham nodded to Rex. “Come on, kid. Stay close, keep your eyes open, and try not to say anything stupid.”
“I usually don’t.” Rex protested. “Why do you say that?”
“You just said ‘cool’ to stabbing someone with a bottle,” Nia muttered.
“It was more about the… laser… thing.” Rex muttered, then hurried after Vandham and Mythra.
Once they were out of earshot, the Doctor clapped his hands. “Right! While the big guns are on their pub crawl, we’ll do a bit of quiet recon. Big factory like that can’t be too far from town – the commute would be killer in this environment, so it can’t be too far away.”
“I believe we could make the trek,” Dromarch rumbled sagely. “Although… you do have a point. It should be a simple matter to ask around in-town about any factory within city limits. A simple matter of pointing and asking ‘what’s that.’”
“And if it’s outside the town?” Nia asked.
“Then we look for transports,” Albedo cut in before the Doctor could answer. “Factories make things, but they very rarely stockpile them inside. That means trucks to transport them to ports or something. If they’re not using the port, we should ask around and see if anybody noticed any ships going to a factory directly.”
Crossette perked up. “Say, you thought a lot about this!”
Albedo flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I had to make luxury goods for people, then think about how to get them to my customers in a reasonable time window. I had to think about these things.”
Poppi tilted her head. “Poppi has read that ‘dumpster diving’ is legitimate data-gathering technique among littlepons.”
Nia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’re not digging through garbage. I’ve had enough of that already for one lifetime. And another thing, we have no idea whose garbage we’re supposed to be digging through.”
“I know! It’s exciting,” The Doctor said with a grin, already setting off in the opposite direction. “Regular dumpster diving, you’ll never know what you’ll might find – this is extra mysterious!”
The others rolled their eyes, but followed in his wake.
------------
Stale air choked his lungs as Amalthus ascended, the narrow corridors of the Edifice echoing with each footfall. He kept his distance behind her - the ancient, sleeping warrior, newly awoken from her tomb below the sanctuary’s lowest catacombs, for the first time in…
Well. For the first time since Indol came into being.
Ancient before Indol was even founded. That was her.
She moved ahead of him, slowly. Painfully slowly. Her bare feet scraped against the stone, dragging with every step. One trembling hand hovered at the wall, fingertips brushing against the ancient, eroded surface like it was her lifeline.
Her other arm hung limp, save for the moments she flinched at the cold. Her whole body twitched as she moved, like millennia of stasis had caused the pathways to get crossed.
Amalthus said nothing.
This was the warrior had helped build his world? The one who was said to be as strong as the Aegis?
Two cold, blue eyes stared out in front of her, unfocused, dimly illuminating the corridor ahead of them. Her breath came in slow, gravelly pulls – not breathing over thousands of years will do that, Amalthus supposed. He could hear the cracking of joints, the creak of muscle trying to remember how to obey.
And yet… she still moved.
When she fell out of the capsule, she took one look at him, shoved him back, and got to her feet by her own strength.
She had not spoken once since awakening. Not a single word.
And Amalthus, for all his pride, did not dare to speak first.
Some part of him had expected more. A grand reawakening. A blazing return to form. Instead, she had clawed her way from her alcove like a child birthed from stone.
They reached another set of stairs - narrower than the last. The torchlight guttered in the rising air, casting her long shadow ahead of her.
She lifted one foot.
Her heel caught the lip of the next step and, for a moment, her body tried to correct - but stiff and aching muscles would not allow it. She fell hard, with the graceless collapse of a toppled statue, stone against stone. Her hands scraped, her shoulder hit first, her cheek struck second. She didn’t cry out.
Amalthus moved before he could think - just a step, just a hand - reaching to help.
Her voice cracked the silence like a whip.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
It wasn’t shouted. It didn’t need to be. The venom in those four words poisoned the air.
He froze. Arm still extended.
Her face was turned toward the stone. Something like blood (but not quite, some manner of glowing circulatory plasma) now trickled from a split in her lip, or maybe from where her temple struck the stair. It didn’t matter. She was already pushing herself up - slowly, awkwardly, dragging her knees beneath her like a beast remembering what it meant to stand.
She didn’t look at him.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “If you insist. The difficulty is yours, not mine.”
She let out a snarl. Not a huff, not a snort, a snarl. “I can’t see, jackass!”
“I see. How unfortunate,” Amalthus had expected as much – the glow of her irises were enough to tell that her eyes were not looking around as they should have been.
“Yeah, well I don’t!” She hissed again, taking another step like a calf struggling to walk. She paused for a moment to take a breath. “If I can’t move on my own, I am not going to let other people carry me around. I wouldn’t be able to tell if they were about to throw me into a ravine, for one.”
Amalthus frowned. “Ravine?”
“I’m sure you can find one!”
“I’m not familiar with that term.”
She stopped for a moment. “Oh, for God’s…” Like she had a debate quite a few times before, over it. “It’s a big gash in the ground. Idiots… Can’t even bother to fish up a dictionary.” She shook her head and moved on. “I would read it to you, but I can’t see, and I don’t want to.”
“Did I do something to offend you, my lady?”
“Well, let’s see – you woke me up.” She retorted. “Right when I was in the middle of a battle simulation, too. I was just about to kick Goldilocks’s ass for the five-hundred-thousandth time.”
Amalthus’s brow furrowed. “You were… dreaming?”
She let out another disgusted huff. “No, but I guess that’s good enough for your hopeless little primate brain.”
Amalthus glared at her. “You seem… hostile.”
“No, gee, do you think?” She scowled. “I go to sleep with one very simple instruction. Don’t wake me until you find a way to get me into that box, or you figure out space travel so I can leave this rock!”
She smacked her hand against the wall, missing her intended target by a good six inches, and stood there for a moment, breathing hard. Her posture was tense - too proud to admit exhaustion, too stubborn to stop moving. Amalthus watched her carefully, noting the small tremor in her fingers, the way her shoulders shook with suppressed rage.
“I save this… primitive little world of yours, and you find a way to get me off it. That was the deal.”
He folded his hands behind his back. “I was not aware such instructions existed. We were only left your body, the blue box, and instructions to preserve it – as the rest of the Edifice.”
“Yeah, why do you think, genius?” She spat. “I left myself there to rot until someone figured out how not to waste my time. God damn it, I want my guns…”
She continued climbing, each step an act of defiance against a world she clearly detested. “So, let me guess - you think you’re clever, don’t you? Dig up little old me to solve some bullshit power-play. Or was this about religion? Dig me up to ask all those little existential questions you have about your world? You morons still worship that zombie, or have you moved on to worshipping empty chairs? Cause if it’s the first, I’ve got bad news for you – your god’s a woman, and I killed her.”
Amalthus didn’t answer right away. The “empty chairs” comment, however, did stick in his mind.
How… wonderfully prescient of her. Unless she knew. If she did, then… perhaps she was more of an ally to him than he anticipated.
He smiled, thinly. “You misunderstand. You are not a tool; you are an honoured guest.”
“Your heart rate’s climbing. If you’re gonna lie, at least try to contain your excitement.”
Amalthus frowned. How did she…? No. If the stories about her power were true, it only made sense. “The faithful believe you are one of the first Praetor’s associates. That your strength carved the Edifice itself. That the Architect himself sent you forth in a time of great peril and doubt.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She flippantly answered. “If I’m your messiah or whatever, can you at least hook a woman up with an eye doctor? This shit’s not fading.”
Amalthus sighed. This was going to be a… trial.
----------
The healing chambers of the Indoline Praetorium were serene by design - soft light filtered through silken curtains, and the scent of burning incense perfumed the air. But the atmosphere clashed horribly with the metal groan of the woman seated in the centre of the room.
She sat rigidly on the edge of the padded medical-grade bed, one arm resting limp in her lap, the other gripping the edge like it might snap under her fingers.
“I didn’t,” The warrior hissed. “Want a checkup.”
Amalthus patiently crossed his hands by the wrists. “You have been out for several millennia. If anything, it’s fortunate that we woke you up and brought you here now – if this is the extent of the damage the stasis has inflicted upon you.” He turned to the short-green-haired Blade with the large tome attached to her neck by a collar-and-leash. “Well, healer?”
Adenine leaned in, adjusting the angle of the light crystal overhead with one graceful motion. The Blade's eyes glittered with fascination.
“Incredible,” she murmured. “I've read of fusions before, of course – Flesh Eaters, Titan nerve-jacks, even that Urayan legend of the man who replaced his entire ribcage with ether coils – but this... This is seamless! Were you constructed, or...?”
The woman didn’t answer. She stared straight ahead. Her breathing was shallow and sharp.
Adenine didn’t notice - or chose not to. She reached for the exposed forearm, fingers hovering with academic reverence. “These components – they’re far more advanced than any titan-weapons – and so seamlessly integrated into your flesh. How wonderful.”
Even though she was blind, the woman’s hand snapped up to catch Adenine’s arm before she could touch. “Don’t touch me.”
Adenine blinked. “Oh! Apologies. I’m afraid standard ether restoration is having limited effect. Your biological components are responding normally – but I can’t really do anything for your machine parts. Have you considered, maybe, a rebuild?” She touched a sparking port and was rewarded with a flash of blue light and a sharp hiss of static.
The woman flinched. Not in pain, but like a warning animal.
Adenine stepped back quickly, not in fear, but awe. “Marvelous! A reactive feedback loop - either defensive or autonomous. Or both. Or it could be the reaction from an ungrounded electric transfer – probably that one. Might I-?”
“No.”
Adenine paused. “I hadn’t finished asking.”
“You didn’t need to.”
The Blade folded her hands in front of her, thoughtful. “You’re operating under extreme systemic stress. You’ll degrade further without repair. Is there someone – something - you would permit to maintain your internal chassis? A drone? A-”
“Touch me again,” The woman said flatly, “And I’ll tear your arms off and feed them to you.”
Adenine’s eyes widened, not in horror - but admiration. “If you could manage that in your current state, I’d be very impressed!”
From the edge of the room, Amalthus exhaled slowly, his hands clasped. “Is it serious?”
Adenine turned toward him, her tone shifting to something a shade more professional. “Flesh-wise, no. Mechanically – there are several things wrong. Biggest being her eyes. It appears the damage they sustained previously has actually caused the stasis field to fail around them, which caused them to decay further.”
The warrior spat loudly. “I got an ether blade to the face. Flash of light to blind me. Asshole responsible got off worse in the end, though.”
“Yes, you resigned him to the bottom of the Cloud Sea.” Amalthus hummed.
“Least you remember that.”
Amalthus looked over at Adenine. “Her eyes are not repairable?”
“I could probably do it,” Adenine said in a tone that was really not doing efforts to sell her confidence. “It should be a simple matter to put her under anaesthesia and-“
“No.”
“You’re missing use of your eyes.”
The woman let out a sharp bark of laughter. “And let some random jerkoffs put me under so you can pull me apart and stick whatever control systems you want in me? You think I’m stupid?”
“No,” Adenine said thoughtfully. “Just ignorant.”
The woman’s head turned, just slightly.
“I mean,” Adenine clarified, smiling. “You were clearly put into a stasis chamber that wasn’t up to code, and it’s taken a toll, and you’re arguing.”
Amalthus stepped forward at last, his voice calm. “Is she in danger?”
“She is danger,” Adenine said cheerfully. “But no. She’ll probably just be in excruciating agony until her body acclimates to the being alive position.”
The woman stood, wincing as something in her hip clicked back into alignment with a sickening ‘pop!’
“What about my eyes!?”
“I just told you – unless you wish to go through corrective surgery, there is nothing I can do for you on that front.”
Amalthus let out a hum, as the door clicked and swung open, allowing a figure entry. “Ah, Quaestor. Your timing is always impeccable.”
Giannis bowed his head, rolling a cart in front of him. “I try.”
“This is it?”
“What is?” The woman scowled.
Giannis began to approach the warrior. “Praetor Amalthus recalled your inability to see, and so tasked me with procuring a selection of eyewear that could potentially rectify the issue.”
“…did you eat a thesaurus for breakfast?” Her face then twitched, looking confused for a second. “And… I think I need to get some hearing aids, too. You sound… off.”
“As Quaestor, I would be more than happy to assist you. But first, Adenine?”
“Well, I’m not a machine doctor – but it looks like the ether blade or that flash of light was kicking out enough heat to warp the lenses inside her eyes. Basically, she has astigmatism.”
“Is it treatable?” Amalthus prodded. He didn’t want to have her wandering around, unable to see, because she was too stubborn to get new eyes.
“Oh, easy.” Adenine held a hand over the warrior’s head, and closed her eyes, as if trying to picture the exact shape in her head. Before turning to the cart. She looked through all of them, then plucked one out of the selection. “Here you go.”
“Oh, don’t tell me it’s going to be that-“ The woman blinked as she placed the glasses on her face, and blinked. Her eyes started to twitch and dilate correctly, as she looked around. “Huh. Well, that was quick.” She then huffed, and turned away. “Don’t expect a thanks.”
Amalthus held his head up high. “We at the Praetorium believe in helping those in need of it, without thanks, without reward. In fact, I prefer to not be repaid. I find it… affirming.”
“You shouldn’t lie, elf-ears,” She snorted. “You woke me up for a reason. Not out of the goodness of your soul. You need something out of me.”
“We all need something out of something,” Amalthus calmly, factually, hummed. “That’s a simple fact of existence. We need the water that the rains provide. The air that the trees generate. The light that the sun radiates.”
The ancient warrior huffed in disgust.
“I will not insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise,” The Praetor continued. “There is a task that you can assist us with. But although I do not believe in accepting thanks, I am prepared to give it. We are quite a means more advanced than the people of your time. If entry into the container you guarded is what you seek, I have no doubt that we can be of help. Failing that, you expressed a… desire to get away from this world? To reach the heavens?”
She scoffed. “If you’re saying it like that, you definitely can’t help me. I wonder if you monkeys have even figured out space has no gravity yet.”
“Stay your tongue,” Giannis bristled. “You are a guest – but His Eminence is attempting to assist you-“
Amalthus gently raised his hand. “Perhaps I don’t know the full details of what you speak – but I do know a bit more than most. The World Tree did exist in your time, yes?”
“The megastructure that all of your ‘Titans’ are in a patrol around? What about it?”
Giannis cleared his throat, gesturing. “Praetor Amalthus is the first human being in recorded history to have ascended the tree, and reached Elysium.”
Amalthus nodded. “When I reached the top, it was…” ‘Empty. Dark. Derelict.’ “Exquisite. Even in daylight, the stars hung above like a black ocean. A sky full of night, yet the sun still shone. And the edge of the world below curved as though it were a drop of rain, frozen mid-fall.”
Slowly, the ancient Warrior’s head twisted to stare at Amalthus, and she got up from her seat. “Really… Well, aren’t you just a trailblazer?”
“I’m only a humble servant of the Architect,” Amalthus bowed his head. “But if reaching the heavens is your goal, if Elysium is what you crave, you’ll find no one better equipped to assist you.”
“You keep saying I can help you. With what, exactly? I’m nobody’s soldier. What could you possibly need me for that you don’t already have an army of faithful idiots to throw at?”
Amalthus smiled faintly. “They are faithful – but I would hardly call them faint-of-mind.”
“You’re running a religion,” She snorted. “If it’s not to control people or to fleece them for money, it’s to delude them into thinking the universe is anything else than it actually is. And you expect me to trust you?”
Amalthus lowered his gaze for a moment. “You do have a point. Trusting those you have only just met is… ill-advised.” He took a breath. “I was once a man of no consequence. A simple Quaestor, taking a nomadic lifestyle around Alrest. I helped spread the message of the Praetorium, and rendered its aid to many who needed it.”
“You?” She levelled an eyebrow at him. “You were basically a traveling missionary? Oh, that’s just great – not only do I get one of the nuts, I get the ones who have to push their belief on others.”
Amalthus allowed the interruption to pass without so much as a twitch.
“A minister, in a sense,” Amalthus went on. “I gave comfort where I could. Be that food, healing, or teachings. I carried the word of the Architect to all the corners of the world.”
“And I’m sure they were thrilled,” She said, stretching the sarcasm until it nearly snapped.
“Sometimes,” Amalthus admitted. “Mostly, they were content to have the pain subside for even a moment.”
He turned slightly, his hands folding behind his back.
“But in my travels, I bore witness to some of the worst the world had to offer. It made me truly wonder if there was a plan for it all. If the Architect…”
“Gods’ designs are not meant for mortal minds to ponder,” Giannis spoke up. “They can often seem impenetrable, even cruel to ones as small as us. It is only natural you had a crisis of faith, Praetor.”
“I know that now, of course.” Amalthus warmly chuckled. He then turned to the ancient, reawakened woman. “At the time, however, I wondered. And so, I set about climbing the World Tree.”
She snorted. “Must’ve been one hell of a climb.”
“Indeed it was. I confess, at the time, I had wondered if I would find Elysium at all. If it even existed.” He looked her in the eyes - his were calm, unblinking. “But it did, and I found entry. Empty, no doubt, since mankind had been cast out of it at the beginning of time… but it was there.” His look then became shrouded by a veil of pensiveness. “The Architect… did not reveal Himself to me directly. But I felt His presence, guiding me.”
The woman rolled her eyes, and turned away. “And I suppose he gave you a super-special set of tablets that only you could read, dictating how to run the world that just so happens to line up with how you want to do it, right?”
Amalthus set his jaw. He knew what she was trying to imply by that, but didn’t rise to it. “No. I found a pair of Core Crystals. The Architect’s Blades, the power he used to sunder the world-“
“The Aegises.” Giannis orated.
“He allowed me to take them,” Amalthus continued. “And I brought them back here. I awoke one. But when a god casts his shadow into the world, it doesn’t always take the shape we expect. That one was… unrestrained wrath. The Architect’s will to punish, without the restraint. He saw the sin in the world, and sought to burn it all down.” He took a slow breath. “I tried to stop him. But I couldn’t. So I took the other core, the core of light, and bestowed it upon a person whom I believed embodied everything to stop him.”
Amalthus took a long pause.
“Malos and Mythra’s battle was long and bloody. Destructive on a level rivalled only by the conflict you came from. In the end, Malos was killed. His Monado, shattered; his body, cast into the depths of the Cloud Sea, never to be seen again.”
The woman blinked, looking off to the side, into space. “His… Monado?”
“An incredibly destructive weapon,” Amalthus sighed. “Divine judgment, made tangible. Versatile beyond comprehension – constantly adapting, reshaping itself to fit its Blade’s intent. The Monado was Malos’s will made manifest. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, what he willed was the total annihilation of everything that was not himself.”
“Hmph.” She huffed. “Sounds about right. Dumbasses messing with things they can’t control, getting surprised when it fucks them over in the end.”
Giannis twitched.
“And Mythra was little better,” Amalthus continued. “Although she stopped Malos, she was just as powerful. Just as destructive. Her Driver at the time could barely keep her restrained. Their battle sank three Titans. Countless more died in the days to follow. A small comfort we had was that we believed Mythra just as lost as Malos.”
Amalthus slowly walked past, taking a steady breath.
“Until now.”
The warrior snorted in derision. “If you think I’m gonna sit here and cry over the consequences of your actions coming to bite you, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“On the contrary. The folly is none but my own.” The Praetor cleared his throat. “But for the past five-hundred years, the world has been in a state of peace never before realized.” Then, he spun around, quickly. “Until now. Titans die off, and do not replenish. The nations of the world stand poised to throw themselves at each other in total war. And now Mythra has arisen. You were not there during the Aegis War, but I was. I watched cities burn not only from Malos’s malice, but from Mythra’s carelessness. When I met her, she was… volatile. Arrogant. Reckless. She was barely contained even under Prince Addam’s guidance - a man of noble bearing and great restraint, and he could only just manage to keep her under control. But he is long dead. And now?” He looked into her optics. “Now she walks the world again, bonded to a stranger. Someone whose disposition is unknown. Someone who may not curb her instincts. Who may, in fact, encourage them. If she loses control again - if she even stumbles – I fear we would not survive the destruction a second time.”
The warrior let out a hum, and flashed a crooked grin. “She sounds like my kind of girl.”
“I assure you – if she is left unchecked, you would find it extremely difficult to ascend the World Tree.”
She inhaled, turning away from Amalthus. “So, you want me to be your little… hunter-killer.”
“Don’t be so hasty. I don’t wish to kill the boy simply because we have no idea what kind of Driver he is. We’re attempting to scout him first. Speaking of which?” Amalthus threw a look over his shoulder at Giannis.
The Quaestor turned to look at Amalthus. “Last update shows our team had yet to reach their destination. It shouldn’t be long, however. Even accounting for the Aegis’s… unexplained ability to so rapidly move from Titan-to-Titan. The ship we provided them is swift; we should have confirmation soon.”
Amalthus nodded, then returned his gaze to her. “All that said… you may be the only one capable of countering her, should it come to that.”
There was a silence.
Then a shimmer, as even in her injured state, she whipped back around to face him.
A high-pitched hum rang through the air as a sleek, black-plated revolver snapped into being in the woman’s hand - like it had always been there, just waiting for an excuse to make itself visible. She raised it smoothly, the barrel levelling squarely with Amalthus’s head.
Giannis and Adenine tensed - but Amalthus didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.
The hammer cocked with a ‘click’ louder than the gunshot it was about to create.
“You would dare hold His Eminence at gunpoint!?”
“Fascinating – that didn’t feel like a normal Ether influx,” Adenine commented even as she prepared her weapons.
“What’s to stop me,” She said, voice low, “From walking out that door, climbing your precious World Tree, and finding my way off this hellhole myself?” Her eyes narrowed.
Amalthus regarded her calmly. “I climbed it, yes. Five hundred years ago.” His voice remained cool, measured. “But times have changed,” He continued. “The World Tree is no longer as accessible as it once was. Because of it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It?”
“The serpent,” Amalthus said. “Dormant, once, until the war. Now it circles around the base of the Tree, and tears apart anything that approaches. Nothing has ever survived its wrath.”
Her gaze didn’t falter, but her head tilted. She held the gun level.
“It does not speak. It does not reason. It kills. And it does not die.”
A moment passed in silence.
Then he added, with quiet satisfaction, “But you wouldn’t have known that. Because you have no scouts. No resources. No access. And no allies.”
She set her face into a tight scowl. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘there’s no way she’s going to shoot me – she still needs me.’ But I’m having a really bad day. And being as this is the Magdalene-16, the most powerful hand cannon ever manufactured in human history, and could blast your torso open like you’re an overfilled water balloon, you only have to ask yourself one question;”
Amalthus stared, challengingly, into her optics.
“’Do I feel lucky?’” She grinned like a rabid Igna. “Well, do you, Elf-ears?”
-----------
Rex stepped in first, trying not to look like a wide-eyed tourist. Vandham followed with the easy swagger of a man who’d been here a hundred times – probably not that particular one, but Rex figured that, if you’ve been in one pub, you’ve been in them all. Mythra walked in last, arms folded, expression like she’d just walked into a room that someone had tried to decorate with grease.
“Ugh,” She grunted, “Even the air reeks like booze.”
“Put on your friendly face,” Vandham said without looking at her. “We’re fishing tonight.”
“…fishing.” Mythra’s eyes flicked over to Roc’s scythes that did, in a way, look like giant fish-hooks. Vaguely. “You son of a bitch.”
They picked a table near the middle of the room. Vandham made sure they weren’t too close to the bar - too many ears - but not so far back that they seemed like they were hiding. He slunk into the chair, flagged down a waitress with a nod, and ordered a beer. Rex, visibly nervous, sat forward.
“You really think this’ll work?”
“Rex, lad, you’ve seen Mythra?”
He blinked. “Uh. Yeah?”
“Then relax.” Vandham leaned back. “It’s an old mercenary trick. If there’re guys with info you need, get ‘em feeling loose with lots of booze, send in a pretty woman so they think they’ll get lucky if they answer her questions, and nine-times out of ten, it works. We use it on jobs all the time.”
Mythra crossed her arms. “It can’t imagine it works that often.”
“You’d be surprised. Most people aren’t stupid enough to share real secret stuff. But you ain’t asking about classified intel, or state secrets. You’re asking normal questions. ‘Where do you work? Oh, where’s that at? What do you do? What do you make? Who do you work for?’ At worst, they’ll assume you’re a gold digger – not a merc.”
Mythra narrowed her eyes. “So I just have to pretend to be interested in their lives and let them think I want to marry into their payslip.”
“That’s right,” Vandham nodded. “And it’s easier than you think. Most men, they like chatting, even if nothing comes of it. Some love hearing the sound of their own voice, some need the connection, but most are just plain friendly.”
Rex frowned. “Feels a little… mean.”
“It is mean,” Mythra said flatly. “Manipulative, degrading, humiliating.”
“You ain’t leading them along,” Vandham tilted his head. “You ain’t flashing your stuff and promising a transaction you ain’t gonna fulfil. You ain’t humiliating yourself. Waitresses do this all the time to get bigger tips. You don’t have to flirt or bring yourself down - you just ask questions, listen to what they say, be friendly, and move on. Most of them’ll just assume you were looking for someone with a bit more spark and didn’t find it. That’s all.”
“Which is the only reason I’m considering it,” She grumbled, sliding her chair back with a screech of metal on metal. “Fine. I’ll go… bait the hook, or whatever.”
She made her way toward the bar, already drawing attention. Even with her arms still crossed and an expression like she wanted to set fire to the wallpaper, the glow of her Core Crystal and the graceful sway of her hips had heads turning. She scowled harder.
Back at the table, Rex whispered, “You sure she’s gonna keep her temper?”
“She’ll be fine,” Vandham said. “She’s just cranky.” The server finally returned with Vandham’s beer. “Cheers, love.”
“…That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”
They watched as Mythra wedged herself between two half-drunk men at the bar. One was rail-thin with a handlebar moustache, the other stockier, with soot-stained gloves and a scar that ran from his temple to his jaw. Mythra’s eyes flicked over at them for just long enough for them to realize she was looking, before she focused on the menu.
“Well,” she said, drumming her fingers on the counter. “What do I want, what do I want, what do I want…?”
“Ah,” Moustache leaned on the bar. “Far be it from me to answer a question you weren’t asking, but the Plumage Peach daquiri is always a treat on a hot afternoon like this.”
Rex clenched his jaw. Vandham raised an eyebrow at him.
“You alright there?”
“Fine, yeah,” Rex pressed his lips together. “The way he said that – next thing you know, he’s gonna start smacking his lips.”
Vandham chuckled. “Careful, lad,” Vandham said under his breath. “That’s the sound of jealousy talkin’. She’s on the clock.”
“I’m not jealous,” Rex muttered, arms folded, but he didn’t look away. “I’m just sayin’... he sounds greasy.”
“Don’t worry – she ain’t gonna find love here.” Vandham rolled his eyes. “Just relax. You’re still her favourite.”
“Wha- huh!?” Rex went red in the cheeks, as Vandham burst out into laughter again.
----------
Rex watched Mythra from across the room, slack-jawed. “She’s really good at this.” Half an hour later, and it looked like Mythra was fleecing them for all the info they were worth.
“She’s fakin’ it so hard I’m surprised she hasn’t burst into flames,” Vandham said with a grin. “But yeah. She’s good.”
“Do we go get her?”
“Nah. She seems fine – back up against the bar itself, drink in her hand so nobody tries to slip anything into it – she’s a pro all right.”
Rex watched a moment longer as Mythra leaned in to speak, then leaned out just enough to avoid the stockier man’s leaning in in response. She shifted her weight and repositioned herself slightly.
“She’s good,” Rex echoed, a little grudgingly. “But I still don’t like it.”
“That’s ‘cause you care about her,” Vandham said plainly, watching without judgment.
Rex hesitated.
“…Yeah. That sounds about right.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Vandham nodded. “But you know why I singled out her to do it? Instead of Nia, or Al, or Crossette?”
“Because she’s the Aegis?”
“Exactly. And you know what that means, right? She can see things coming before they happen. And she could vaporize everyone in this room with a thought. Those men over there? Nah, they’re no danger.”
“See things before they happen…” Rex repeated. “Yeah, I got a taste of that myself, when we were fighting Malos that last time.”
Vandham nodded. “Right.”
“But didn’t you say I had to be on my guard constantly? That people were going to try and take her, because she was the Aegis. And I know,” He looked back in that direction. “That they’re not Drivers. But… I don’t know. I just want to walk over there and pull her out.”
Vandham sighed and leaned forward. “Rex, that girl has an energy shield around her. She’s got the ability to see the future. She’s got the power to vaporize everything. They ain’t touching her.”
“I know, but… still.” Rex shook his head. “I worry.”
“You worry because you care. But… listen.” Vandham shook his head. “The two of you, you’re Driver and Blade. On a regular day, there’ll be times where you gotta let her out of your sight. But she’s not just any old Blade. She’ll have a grander calling. Her fights will be the stuff of legend. And it’s gonna suck, but there will come a time where you’ll have to stay back, and let her handle things on her own.”
“You think so?”
Vandham let out a quiet chuckle. “I know it. Drivers’ big problem – the biggest ones I’ve seen in my experience – is that too many of them view Blades as extensions of themselves, rather than partners.” He clasped his hands together. “And the thing with partners is… everybody assumes you tackle everything together, at all times. And most of the time, it’s true. But there will be some things that you have to do, and some things that she will have to do. And that’s okay. But if you can’t handle a little old thing like this,” He gestured over to the bar with his eyes. “Where she’s completely defended, taking all precautions, and in no real danger at all – how’re you gonna handle it when that time comes? Sometimes, you gotta step back, Rex.”
Rex frowned. “…that’s a bit intense. We’re just at the pub.”
Vandham grinned. “Yeah, but – you gotta start with the little things first.”
Mythra was laughing - dry, sardonic, and just theatrical enough to pass. But behind the mask, Rex could see it now. Her posture. The subtle angle of her hips. The slight shimmer across her back from her shield being up, even if no one else noticed it. She was fine. She was uncomfortable, maybe even irritated - but she was far from helpless.
“She’s got it,” Rex murmured.
“Damn right she does,” Vandham said. “Look, I’ve been in merc groups where people thought babysitting their Blade was the same as being a good Driver, jumping in at the first sign of danger. But that ain’t what trust is. You gotta trust her, Rex.”
Rex looked at him, frowning. “She didn’t even wanna do this!”
Vandham fixed him with a look so dry, it could drain a lake. “You’ve met her. You know what she’s like. You know what kind of power she’s got. You think anyone could make her do anything she didn’t want to?”
“But, then… why-?”
“Cause despite the way she played it off, she trusts us. And she wants to help.” Vandham mused.
“She doesn’t think she’s kind,” Rex muttered.
“She ain’t,” Vandham said without missing a beat. “Not in the soft way. Kind doesn’t always mean nice, or pushover. You’ll figure that out sooner or later.”
Rex let out a hum, and nodded, uncertain.
Vandham and Rex sat nursing their drinks, the conversation between them having faded into companionable silence, while Mythra was still up at the bar, fleecing people for details. Rex swirled what was left in his glass while Vandham sipped slowly.
“Oi.”
The word came low, slurred, and just loud enough to slice through the background noise.
Rex looked up to see an Ardainian soldier stumbling toward their table. His armour was half-unbuckled, shoulder strap askew, helmet clutched under one arm like a child’s toy. He wasn’t alone - two of his buddies lingered by the bar, watching with the detached curiosity of men who knew what was coming and didn’t care enough to stop it.
The soldier's eyes locked on Vandham. More specifically – on the, scaled ridges running down Vandham’s cheeks and at the edges of his brow that marked his Urayan heritage.
“I know that look,” The man drawled, voice thick with drink. “You lost, lizard?”
Vandham only glanced over, then went back to drinking.
“I’m talking to you,” The soldier shoved Vandham in the shoulder.
Vandham moved, but otherwise, didn’t react.
“I said,” The soldier growled louder, stumbling a step closer, “Are you deaf, lizard-spawn?”
Rex sat up straighter.
“Vandham,” he muttered.
“I heard him,” Vandham replied evenly, not looking up.
“Of course you did,” The soldier sneered. “Coward. You slither in through the cracks when nobody’s lookin’, and now we’ve got Urayan scum drinkin’ next to decent folk. And you don’t even got the common goddamn courtesy to look when someone calls you out on your bullshit.”
“I ain’t doing nothing,” Vandham rumbled. “Just keep walking, and we don’t have to make a scene in front of your friends.”
“Yeah you are,” The soldier growled. “I lost my brother to one of you slippery bastards. And now you’re just sittin’ here like you belong. Like you earned it.”
Vandham exhaled slowly through his nose. “I said: Walk. On.”
“You lot always acted like you were better’n us. With all your all-natural Titanships and your grand old town. ‘Urayan superiority.’” He gestured with his tankard, sloshing beer. “So what’s this one doing in our pub, eh? Shouldn’t you be swimmin’ home? Or is it true what they say - Urayan mercs are sellin’ themselves for Ardainian coin now?”
Rex stood abruptly. “Hey! Leave him alone!”
The soldier blinked, swaying toward Rex, then squinted as if noticing him for the first time. “You his son or something?” His lip curled. “No, that ain’t it. Can’t be. You’re not even the same species. What’d he do, buy you? Or was your mother feeling generous?”
Vandham stood up, and glared at the soldier. “Say what you want about me all the hell you want. But leave the boy outta it.”
“Boss…” Roc quietly croaked.
“Why?” The drunken soldier leaned forward “Because you know I’m right? Because this kid looks at you like you hung the moon, and you don’t got the spine to tell him he’s just a warm body you dragged in to replace the last one who got you killed?”
Vandham clenched his jaw, breathing so heavily it sounded like a growl, and spitting out air. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so I’m gonna give you a chance to shut up, before I make you.”
“What’re you gonna do?” The soldier huffed. “All talk, you Urayans. Such a big game, talking about how tough you all are. And then, we kicked your arses at Temperantia.”
Vandham’s jaw locked as his eyes burst into flame.
“You remember that, don’t you lizard-burns.” The soldier sneered. “Dozens of the finest Urayan soldiers your army could send at us – and we sent you running. Makes me proud to be an Ardainian.”
Vandham’s muscles twitched, and Rex’s eyes nervously flicked over to him. The boy slowly inched his hand over to Mythra’s sword.
“I was there, you know.” The soldier grinned. “I must’ve put holes through ten, twenty of your buddies? Watched as they got dragged off the battlefield in bodybags and stretchers. We won Temperantia that day – cause you lot were too stupid to pack extra medicine-“
The first punch came like a lightning strike - no flourish, no wind-up, it just happened, and could only be recognized by the sound it left behind. It hit the soldier in the jaw and sent him reeling, crashing over a stool and hitting the floor with a grunt.
Before he could roll over, Vandham was on him.
Silent.
A massive fist slammed down into the man’s ribs. One, two, three. Each blow thudded into flesh and bone with a force that made the floorboards quake. Vandham wasn’t fighting like a mercenary - he was brawling with the sole, inexhaustible goal of shutting the other guy up.
The soldier’s cries were muffled under the weight of fists and fury.
Wood creaked and cracked under Vandham’s bulk as he straddled the man, driving punch after punch into his face, his collarbone, his chest. There was no shouting. No words at all.
Only Vandham’s breath - ragged, primal, like the snarl of a lion holding itself back from the final kill.
The room was frozen. Mugs hovered midair. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Even the barkeep stood statue-still, one hand white-knuckled around a bottle of Ardainian rum.
But it didn’t last.
A chair scraped hard across the floor - then clattered over as one of the soldier’s mates surged forward, grabbing the chair and hefting it with him as he moved.
“Get off him, savage!” He bellowed, swinging a thick wooden stool over his head.
Rex saw it coming. “Vandham!”
The stool came down hard, smashing against Vandham’s back. Wood exploded into splinters-
-over a bubble-shaped shield of Ether formed from yellow hexagons.
Vandham stopped, and stood back up, off the man.
Not like a man stunned, but like a mountain rising from the sea.
The soldier beneath him groaned, barely conscious, blood pooling beneath his nose and jaw.
Vandham turned to the man with the broken stool.
Still silent.
Still furious.
Then, the other guy lunged.
Vandham met his charge with an arm in front of him, and slammed into him like a freight barge. They crashed into the side of a table, which upended with the sound of cracking wood - mugs and dishes clattering across the floor. The impact sent the second soldier sprawling, winded, scrambling backward in a tangle of limbs.
The spell broke.
“HEY!” Another voice shouted. “That’s enough!”
“Bastard’s gonna kill someone!”
A barmaid ducked behind the counter. Someone grabbed a bottle and hurled it across the room, trying to stop the fight without getting involved - it missed Vandham entirely and shattered against a support beam, spraying glass.
Then chaos erupted.
Another pair of soldiers leapt toward Vandham - only for him to catch one in mid-charge and throw him, full-body, into a group of onlookers. He toppled like dominos, crashing into a booth, which collapsed under the weight of limbs and beer.
The second soldier managed to grab Vandham by the arm - only to be hoisted and slammed spine-first into a barrel.
The crowd surged.
Rex stepped back just in time to avoid a flying chair.
“Roc!” he shouted. “Help me!”
The birdlike Blade threw his wings wide, stepping between Rex and a brawling pair of dockworkers who’d joined in for no reason other than opportunity. A gust of wind from the avian Blade knocked some people off-balance who were trying to lunge at Rex for the simple fact that he had been seen with Vandham.
Meanwhile, across the room, Mythra turned at the first crash of glass - still at the bar - and froze as she caught sight of the brawl.
She kicked off the barstool as her eyes popped open wide.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO IDIOTS DOING!?” Mythra bellowed.
Back in the centre of the room, Vandham was a storm. It wasn’t like he was fighting, anymore, more like… some vengeful spirit had possessed him, and was hell bent on nothing more than punishment. Specifically, of the soldiers that wanted to throw their lot in with the one that had started it. One man in an officer’s uniform tried to grab him in a chokehold - Vandham whipped his head back, breaking the man’s nose, then threw him bodily into a table.
Another charged with a baton, clocking Vandham with enough force to send his head spinning, and the baton splitting - only for Vandham to grab a chair leg off the floor and shatter it against the man’s temple.
Rex was awestruck, and paralyzed, and terrified.
Vandham had said Drivers were tougher, stronger, and faster than normal people.
But this is the first he had truly seen it.
More soldiers charged into the fracas.
“Back off!” Rex yelled – less as a warning to keep them from Vandham so they didn’t hurt him, but more as a warning so he didn’t hurt them. Even as more started trying to push through the melee.
The whole pub was war.
Plates flew. Chairs were reduced to kindling. A man was thrown into the fireplace – not by Vandham, but by someone. The bartender tried to climb over the bar to escape, but got pulled back by a pair of brutes who were now wrestling in the ale tap line, sending golden foam spraying into the air.
Mythra’s heel pushed into the side of a drunk’s head as he tried to use her legs as pulleys to hoist himself off the ground – not with enough force to crack, just push, but still - he dropped like a stone. She turned, spotted Rex, and called out.
“Do I even want to know what started this?!”
Rex ducked a thrown bottle and yelped, “Now’s not the time!”
Mythra groaned and grabbed the nearest table leg like a club.
Across the room, Vandham had two more men in his grasp - one by the collar, the other by the ankle. He slammed them together like cymbals before tossing both into a stack of barrels that exploded in a cascade of frothing liquid.
Rex finally pushed his way to his side.
“Vandham!” he yelled. “Stop! We have to GO!”
No answer.
Just the sound of his breathing - deep, animalistic, barely restrained.
Mythra appeared beside them, “All right, this is getting stupid-“ She materialized her sword in her hand, let out a blast that went past Vandham’s head, into the wall. “Hey, shitass! This is what your job is as a merc leader!? Starting brawls in bars!?”
Vandham relaxed for a second, looking around. “Damn it…”
“Yeah, no shit! Come on!” Mythra bellowed to him, shoving him and Rex in front, as the other patrons – consumed by their own cross-fire now – descended into all-out war.
---------
The door slammed open. Mythra stormed out, smoke from the kitchen curling behind her. Her heels scraped against the cobbles as she dragged Rex and Vandham out after her, and led them away in three furious strides. Roc stood at the back, scythes in hand, watching the door as they moved
When they were far enough away, she spun around.
“God damn it!” She barked.
‘WHACK!’ Her hand smacked the back of Rex’s head hard enough to make him stumble.
“Ow - what was that for!?” Rex yelped, rubbing his scalp.
“This,” Mythra snarled, eyes blazing, “Was supposed to be scouting, looking for information, and the two of you start a bar fight with the ARDAINIAN MILITARY?!”
Vandham didn’t flinch.
Rex flailed uselessly. “It wasn’t me! He started it!”
“I know he started it,” Mythra hissed, rounding on Vandham now. “He started it with his face. And then his fists! And then every piece of furniture not nailed to the god damned floor!”
She wheeled back to Rex.
“And you stood there like a stunned guppy while this turned into a pub-wide fight club!”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen!” Rex protested. “The guy was—he said something awful!”
“Oh, I’m sure he did,” Mythra growled. “Because of course you both have a sixth sense for locating the one guy in the building who’s a drunk, racist, professional soldier with zero impulse control, and then decided, ‘You know what would help? Punching him so hard we spark a civil incident!’”
“He came up to us!” Rex snapped. “Van-!”
“It’s my fault,” Vandham shaking his head. “I lost control.”
Mythra’s hands went to her temples. “Oh, freaking Spartacus over here! It was your fault – that’ll clear up a lot! This is Alba Cavanich, not Torigoth! Do you know what happens now?!”
Rex blinked. “We, uh… leave?”
“Oh! We leave!” Mythra threw up her hands. “Just stroll away, covered in blood, from a pub brawl involving dozens of off-duty soldiers, and hope nobody reports it to command, or the cops stop us on the street?”
“I didn’t say it was a good plan,” Rex muttered.
Vandham finally turned, voice low. “...he brought up something he shouldn’t have.”
Mythra looked at him, blank.
Something in her face shifted. Just for a moment.
Vandham sighed. “Look, it’s… it’s a bit of a sore spot for me. And I thought I could keep it under control, but I couldn’t. You know that conversation we had – about how war touches everything? It… ties back into that. I’m fine now.” He took a breath. “I didn’t hit anybody what weren’t going for me after that first one, I swear it.”
Mythra closed her eyes, then let out a long, breathless sigh.
“…You’re lucky I like you two,” She muttered, less a compliment. “Because if I didn’t, I’d leave you here to rot and tell everyone you died of being terminal dipshits.”
Then she stalked down the alley, muttering curses under her breath.
Rex stared after her, then turned back to Vandham. “So… you okay?”
Vandham shook his head. “Nope.”
Rex swallowed.
“Aw, hell… it’s nothing you done, kid.” Vandham rubbed the back of his neck. “Just… I thought I was over it, and I wasn’t.”
The young salvager frowned. “But that war between Mor Ardain and Uraya, it was a while ago, right?”
“…ages ago.” Vandham swallowed. “But you remember what I said about war? You can’t get away from it. That applies in more ways than one. And what that war took from me… Well. There are some wounds you don’t heal from.”
The old mercenary stood there for a long while, staring off into space, before inhaling sharply. The pain in his expression smoothed into a carefully-sculpted visage of calm.
“Come on,” Vandham gestured. “We should get to that inn and lay low.”
“Hang on – Mythra’s right, once the word gets out, they’re gonna be looking for us.”
Roc shifted. “I’ll fly up on ahead and scout the area. You’ll be fine.”
Vandham nodded, beginning to walk. Rex lingered for a moment, before moving into step.
The two followed Mythra into the dark.
-----------
Night fell on the capital city – plunging it all into shadows through which ambient lights could only barely be seen through the smog blanketing the town. From their inn room - modest, wood-panelled, and humming faintly from the geothermal heating conduits the place was built upon – it was all calm.
Mythra and the others weren’t back yet. Probably wouldn’t be for a while. And the Doctor’s tactics asking after any factories in the area that make mysterious things for mysterious people turned into a bust. There were too many around on the titan – it was an industrial centre – to investigate every single one. He started to wonder if Sever had sent him this way to distract him.
But… no.
He could feel it. Not in any way a human might - no gut feeling, no nagging hunch. This was deeper, older. A pressure behind the eyes. A weight in the bones. Time Lords as a species could see it all – everything that is, was, could be, and must never be. All the time.
He couldn’t anymore – not easily, at least. The Time War had fried that part of his brain (and going the centuries after without sleeping didn’t help, to be sure). He could be just as surprised as any human, now. But the other parts of that sense were still around, operating. It was less sight now, more instinct.
And instinct was telling him that Mor Ardain was something.
Muimui. Of all the Nopon in Alrest, it was him they’d stumbled across right after walking into the city. That wasn’t chance. That was the universe bending, pressing a thumb against the scale. Giving the Doctor a nudge. This big world, and they run into a Nopon that Tora used to know from childhood.
Now, he wasn’t sure if Muimui was involved. But it was a big coincidence.
He didn’t believe in coincidence. It might’ve been a swear, as far as he was concerned – right up there with Belgum, and Sunday.
Tora sat cross-legged on the floor; mechanical parts spread out before him like sacred relics. Gold condensers, rabbit diodes, thunder compasses - the Doctor had no idea what half of them even did. Poppi stood patiently nearby, arms at her sides, a neutral smile on her face, and she was doing that ‘hands behind her back, idly swaying and kicking the ground’ thing that a stereotypical cute person would do.
“I must admit,” Albedo said, watching from the corner with arms crossed and a brow arched. “I find it peculiar. You just did maintenance back in Uraya, didn’t you?”
The Doctor leaned in with an eager nod, Sonic Screwdriver clutched in his hands. “Yes, yes, I remember! ‘S a bit soon for this kind of maintenance, isn’t it, Tora? You don’t want to rebuild the engine every time an oil change comes around.”
“Doc-Doc and Al-Al both right,” Tora said, not looking up. “But now we in Alba Cavanich. Capital city of Empire of Mor Ardain. Technologically most advanced place in all of Alrest!” He gestured broadly, causing a gear to roll and bump gently against Poppi’s foot. “But many of Poppi’s internal components salvaged and bought for cheap in Torigoth. Old and rusty.”
“I’ve seen nothing to suggest she’s operating below optimal,” Dromarch commented from where he lay near the hearth. “She has fought admirably and protected her allies.
“Yes!” Tora agreed, tightening a bolt with a screwdriver and making a satisfied grunt. “But Poppi not just machine. Poppi is Poppi.” He paused, then looked up at them all, voice gentler now. “She is person. Just because something work does not mean it good enough. She deserve better.”
Poppi tilted her head slightly. “Masterpon…”
“Hush!” Tora chirped. “This not about being humble. This about being honest.” He picked up a glimmering new gyroscopic stabilizer, its surface unmarred by rust or scorch, and turned it over in his paw. “If have access to parts better than what she has… then why not replace them? Poppi trust me. Trust me to keep her safe, to keep her healthy. If I settle for ‘good enough’… that not very good Masterpon, is it?”
“Aww…” Crossette cooed from where she sat cross-legged on the bed. “You really care about her, huh?”
Tora tilted his head, like he found Crossette’s need to comment utterly baffling – like someone ran up to him, and started yelling the sky was purple and that the government was covering it up through tinted glass, photoshop, and modification of the human eye.
“Of course,” Tora nodded. “Poppi is more than artificial Blade – she Tora’s friend.”
“Yes, but… it’s more than that, isn’t it?” The Doctor offered, quietly stepped forward and kneeled beside the mess of parts. “All of that, the… laboratory, and you running to Torigoth – you were young. Oh, so young, you couldn’t even remember Muimui. And you were on your own. And in all that time, she kept you going, and sane. Not even by existing – people just… keep it together better, if they have something to focus on. A goal.”
Tora hummed, and nodded. “Doc-Doc not wrong. Tora probably would have kicked bucket by now, if not for will to finish Poppi. But Doc-Doc also not right either. It not just about seeing hard work not go to waste. It because Tora want to make sure Poppi is best she can be.”
The Nopon turned around, and scratched his head with his wrench.
“Also… never know what might happen. Tora owe it to Poppi to keep her in good condition. Belt slip in fight, or capacitor pop, and Poppi get hurt because of it? Tora never forgive himself.”
Azurda stirred from Dromarch’s side, his little eyes opening slowly. “Well, if the Masterpon believes this is an act of love, I see no reason to deny it. Poppi is quite lucky to have you around, Tora.”
Tora beamed.
“And Masterpon is lucky to have Poppi around,” Poppi tilted her head with a smile. “Poppi has been serving as Masterpon’s impulse control for longer than friends know him, just by existing as project!”
“Well,” Albedo hummed, turning her head to hide her expression. “Not enough to stop him from eating anything even vaguely sweet-shaped that’s in front of him.”
Poppi nodded, her skirt swaying with the motion. “Poppi have to start making veggies look like cakes and tasty sausages if want Masterpon to eat Poppi’s cooking.”
Tora cracked picked up one of the new components, and approached Poppi. Ready, waiting, knowing what was happening now, Poppi opened up her maintenance panel, allowing Tora access.
“We start with structural components first, okay Poppi? Combat mode useless if Poppi cannot even move because servo failed in fight.”
Poppi nodded. “Understood, Masterpon. Poppi will go into low-power state now.”
Her eyes flickered, then dimmed. She stood stock still, like a mannequin, as Tora gently reached inside, tools clicking together in rhythm.
The Doctor lingered a step behind, arms crossed, Sonic Screwdriver tucked under one elbow.
He watched the process with interest - but then something caught his attention.
The module.
That one the TARDIS installed and they had tried to remove, that had all of Poppi’s critical systems routed through it now.
A black ovoid, with everything else snaking into it like roots.
The Doctor squinted at it.
It was pulsing.
Just barely. A thin, flickering glow. Like a fire.
He stepped forward and raised the Screwdriver.
Tora didn’t look up, too focused on carefully extracting a corroded actuator coil. “Doc-Doc? Something wrong?”
“Maybe,” the Doctor muttered. “A bit more activity in that capsule than the last few times we looked at it.” He brought the Screwdriver to bear - ran a full diagnostic sweep. And winced.
The screwdriver bounced off.
Not literally - but feedback returned as… nominal. Not like it was hiding anything, but more like what its purpose was should be so obvious to the Time Lord, it didn’t feel the need to tell him.
The Doctor frowned. TARDIS-built Sonic Screwdriver, and a TARDIS-built module. Probably conspiring against him. The shielded portions of the thing were proof enough of that – but he could tell at least part of what it was doing; skimming off power from Poppi’s Ether furnace.
But why?
“You know,” Nia crossed her arms. “Not sure I’m a fan of the big, powerful alien spaceship forcing things into people.”
“She has her reasons,” The Doctor muttered. “Even at her lowest, the TARDIS has never done anything to outright harm another person.” Mean pranks, yes. But never harm.
“Not a fan of you making excuses.”
“Nia, I’ve travelled in that TARDIS for two-thousand years,” The Doctor gesticulated. “Travelled with people whose guts she absolutely hated. And to them, she’s never done anything like this. No, this is something else. There’s a reason for this.”
Crossette sat up straighter. “Can’t you tell what it does?”
“That’s just it,” The Doctor replied, voice low. “I don’t know. It’s shielded. Could be tamper-proofing, could be for its protection, could be for our protection. I don’t want to go poking at it more without an idea.”
Nia frowned. “You trust your ship that much?”
The Doctor looked at her, dead in the eye. She didn’t know, to be fair – the TARDIS wasn’t just a ship. She was his other half, his home, his oldest and most enduring friend.
“Absolutely.” It wasn’t even a question for him, any more.
Tora looked from the Doctor, to Poppi, then to the open panel - where the gentle, rhythmic pulsing of the module was just faintly visible. He clutched his wrench tighter, suddenly aware of how small it looked in his hand.
“Maybe TARDIS thread it through other systems?” Tora suggested. “Maybe Doc-Doc can figure it out by scanning other parts of Poppi?”
The Doctor glanced over, lips tightening for a split second. Then he beamed, rapidly snapping his fingers, and he pointed at the Nopon. “Not a bad idea. Good thinking, Tora.”
The Time Lord adjusted his Sonic Screwdriver, and began sweeping across the interior of Poppi’s frame - slow, deliberate arcs, focusing not on the black module now, but on everything around it. Power cables, hydraulic lines, her artificial muscle, and skeleton. Tora’s theory was sound – like trying to figure out what an unknown computer component did by examining how it interacted with the system. Maybe.
The sonic lit up.
Then something sparked. Buried near Poppi’s auditory system.
And suddenly, from deep inside her chest, a voice began to sing.
“Planet Earth is blue…”
The room went still.
“…and there’s nothing I can do.”
It repeated. A little warped. Like a cassette with the tape worn down.
“Planet Earth is blue…”
“…the hell?” Nia murmured, sitting upright.
“…and there’s nothing I can do.”
Looping. Over and over. A single line from a long-dead age, stuck like a needle skipping on vinyl.
The Doctor slowly straightened up, his eyes blank. “Tora… did you install Poppi with old Earth media archived?”
“No!” Tora frantically beat his wings. “Tora do no such thing! Tora not know place called Earth even exist till Doc-Doc speak about it!”
The Doctor licked his lips. “Then why... is she playing the songs of distant Earth?”
Poppi, still inert, eyes dim, did not respond. But the speaker embedded near her chest cavity kept echoing the line, over and over. Distorted just slightly more with each repetition, until even the warmth in Bowie’s voice began to crackle into something empty and cold.
“Planet Earth is blue… and there’s nothing I can do…”
“No, hold on – I’ve heard that before!” Nia pointed. “You were sitting in the TARDIS, fooling around with that radio! What is that?”
The Doctor crouched again, Screwdriver buzzing furiously as he tried to figure it out. “’That’ is the voice of David Bowie, singing about an astronaut drifting away from Earth, on his own, helpless, and dying in space. I never liked it – too bleak.”
Crossette raised an eyebrow. “Bleak? It’s David Bowie!”
“I like Somebody Up There Likes Me. That’s my response to that statement.”
“But… why?” Albedo frowned. “Why is it playing an artist from your world?”
“I don’t know,” The Doctor scanned Poppi over again. “It’s routed into her voice systems. But I can’t tell if the module itself is playing it, or if it’s picking it up from somewhere else.”
The song kept looping.
“…nothing I can do.”
Then, a new sound.
A faint click, somewhere inside Poppi’s open frame. Not mechanical. Not from Tora. More like a... relay activating.
The Doctor licked his lips, anxious. “I think it’s about charged.” The TARDIS installing a strange module, the thing charging while they were in Mor Ardain looking for leads on Torna, the big pull…
Something was about to happen.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.” The Doctor admitted. “I suppose we’ll find out.”
The room went deathly still.
“…Tora will finish maintenance on Poppi, quick as he can.” Tora coughed.
The Doctor nodded. Trust in the TARDIS’s plan.
Hopefully.
------------
After everything had been done back up, and the rest of the party returned, it was getting rather late into the night. Bathing hours for the inn’s female patrons had begun.
Nia yawned as the hot waters soaked into her pores and relaxed her skin. Next to her sat Poppi, also in the water. Far from her initial model, which looked like cans bolted together, Poppi actually looked a measure of human. Just with loads of seams and circuit-lines. And blocky arms and legs.
“Now, this,” Nia exhaled. “Is just what I needed.” After all the running, and hiding in cakes, and trekking through the mud – yeah, it was great.
Albedo took a sip of white whine out of a glass. “Poppi,” She looked over at the artificial Blade. “Are you sure you’re safe in here?”
Poppi tilted her head and smiled. “Poppi’s synth-skin is self-maintaining, but have little scrubbers that work better in water. It beneficial!”
“Huh. He really did think of everything.” Nia hummed, before she heard a creak, and felt an Ether signature approaching. That could really only be one. Well, one of two. “Which one’s that, then?”
“It’s just me,” The voice that answered was identical between them – but Nia could pick up on the subtle cues.
“Hey, Pyra!” Crossette waved at her. “The water’s nice and hot! Well, not as hot as you could make it, I bet! You’re very hot! Heat-wise, not-“
Pyra giggled, and set a toe in. “It’s fine, I know what you meant.” She let out an ahh as she slipped into it. “I needed that.”
Pyra burst into light, and Mythra was sat there for a moment, crossing her arms. “I needed that.”
Then, Mythra burst into flame, and Pyra was there again.
“We needed that,” Pyra corrected. “I don’t want to sound mean. But that pub felt seedy.”
“Most usually are,” Albedo dryly muttered.
“Not some,” Pyra tilted her head. “Quite a few are very classy.” She smiled. “I think… I’d like to do that. At some point. If Elysium doesn’t work out. I think… I’d open a pub. Mythra could pick the alcohol, and I’d do most of the cooking…”
“Oh!” Crossette perked up. “Albedo could make the dessert! And Poppi and I could be the servers!”
Nia glanced over at Poppi. “Maybe not Poppi. Don’t want to start bringing in the wrong crowd, thinking it’s a maid café.”
“What’s wrong with maid cafés?” Crossette tilted her head.
“I’ll explain when you’re older.”
Pyra let out a slow breath, and covered her crystal.
“Something wrong?”
“It’s been… a busy afternoon.” Pyra shook her head. “Vandham started a fight. Well. He threw the first punch. But something tells me that the soldier was going to throw one if Vandham didn’t.”
Albedo swirled her wine, tilted her head, and hummed. “Hmm. I always took him for the type who waits until after he’s been hit to resort to violence, and then insist that he was going to hit first. How unusually proactive of him.”
Nia frowned. “He did start a fight with us, when we met him.”
“Ah,” Albedo turned to Nia. “But that was different. Sure, he postured and strutted around like he was going to, but he waited for one of us to get physical first, before he did.” She regarded her drink again. “I suppose he must’ve had a good reason, this time.”
“He said… something about Temperantia. I don’t know.” Pyra sighed. “I just need to relax now.”
Mythra swapped in again. “I had to play to a crowd, looking for information, and the next thing I know, they’re getting into a fight with the cops. And the worst part? We didn’t get any freaking info! The whole trip there was useless! Damn it, Vandham…”
Pyra swapped back with a sigh. “Mythra… you know it’s not that simple… We’ve had our own troubles, people saying things to get a rise out of us…”
A flicker of gold in Pyra’s eyes were all the response to that, and the spring fell into silence.
“A fight with the cops?” Nia blinked. “Are we-?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. It’s… probably fine.” Pyra spoke like she was willing herself to believe it. “We managed to give them the slip.”
Nia slunk back into the water. “Easy for you to say – you’re not the wanted terrorist…”
That set her heart speeding up a little bit. The four that had gone to the far would probably be okay – that soldier was getting agitated – but even still. Vandham was an Urayan mercenary. That was a bad look. And if they were arrested, who would they find among his traveling party? A Flesh Eater and member of Torna.
Nia took a breath, and stood up, out of the water. She wasn’t going to go running, but making a plan, just in case, was probably going to be the only thing that’d calm her, at this point.
“Right, well, I’d better head back down stairs then. I’ve got ears better than anybody else in this place.”
Pyra nodded, and Nia could see her eyes drifting to the core crystal, pink and splotchy, embedded in her sternum. “Nia… you’re…”
“Yeah, I know.” Nia scratched her head.
“Do you… want us to keep a lid on this?”
“That’d be nice, thanks,” Nia bit her lip. The Doctor worked it out. She was fairly certain Vandham knew. Dromarch, obviously, was aware. And now everybody else in the spa. If there was a point to keeping it, she couldn’t tell… But, just in case.
She hadn’t survived so long by not being paranoid.
“Poppi will put memory blocks in place!” The artificial Blade vowed. “It will be like Poppi never experience it!”
“And your secret is safe with me.” Albedo nodded.
“Yeah,” Nia hummed, moving to step out.
------------
“So, back there,” Nia gestured as they walked back through the inn. “I noticed you were swapping a lot. How’s that work?”
Pyra chuckled. “I have to admit – I don’t know much about the science of it… but we share the same core crystal, so our memories are shared between us, too.”
Nia tilted her head. “So, is that, like, an Aegis thing, or…”
Pyra’s smile faltered momentarily. “It’s… complicated.”
They rounded the corner into the main hallway of the inn - still faintly humid from the baths - when the world lurched.
A thunderous bang tore through the building, like a cannon had gone off just outside. The walls shuddered. Lanterns swayed violently from their hooks. Dust rained from the ceiling beams. Somewhere below, something heavy crashed to the floor with a wooden crack.
Nia staggered and caught herself on the wall. “What the bloody hell was that?!”
Poppi looked up. “That sound not like thunder. That was directional. High-decibel impact, ten meters south. Estimate - very powerful weapon. Very angry weapon.”
The Doctor threw himself out of the door of the room, looking over at them with wide, frantic eyes. “You lot – that was – what was-!?”
“It wasn’t us,” Pyra strode past, and into the room. Rex and Vandham were over at the window, looking out of it. Then, came lesser, rapid cracks – like firecrackers going off.
Albedo finished her glass, and set it to the side. “It’s a bit early for fireworks…”
“They don’t have any holidays coming up,” Vandham breathed. “Which means-“
The Doctor heard the second wave. “Gunfire! That’s gunfire!” He tore off like a bullet, and darted down the corridor, jacket flaring like a cape behind him, while his boots hammered the floorboards. Reaching the staircase, he went up.
“Wait, upstairs?!” Nia called after him, frowning. “Why’s he going up?! The hell’s he think he’s gonna find on the roof?”
Vandham was already moving too, rolling his shoulder as if shaking off old rust. “If there’s a situation brewin’,” he said grimly, “then the streets’ll be chaos. Soldiers, bystanders, carts blockin’ every road.”
Crossette blinked. “He’s going over the buildings? Like a cat?”
“He’s got multiple lives, he can afford it,” Albedo muttered, following after anyway.
They charged up the stairwell, Poppi holding the door as the group burst out onto the catwalks built up around the inn’s roof - high winds whipping against them, the sharp tang of smoke already creeping in on the breeze. Mor Ardain’s geothermal activity was raging, or the battle was kicking it up – glowing Ether ash and waves of heat were falling from the sky like snow.
The Doctor was standing at the edge, Sonic Screwdriver already in hand and scanning the horizon. His eyes were wide, straining, trying to see.
An Ardainian titan weapon – an enormous, whale-like creature with armour plating and guns – a Cetus, flew over the town, moving into position over one of the buildings.
But before it could open fire - it was hit.
A sharp, piercing sound split the air. A blast of prismatic energy lanced out from a smokestack near the heart of town. It struck the Cetus mid-torso - there was a blinding pulse of light, then silence. Not an explosion. The Titan had disintegrated.
“What the hell was that!?” Vandham bellowed, drawing his scythes in utter shock.
“Trouble,” The Doctor gasped out, surging into motion. “Come along, all!”
The catwalks rattled as they ran. The rooftops of the city connected in a jumbled web of catwalks, gangways, and precarious sheet-metal bridges. Narrow alleys yawned below like canyons, while above, smokestacks cast long shadows over their path.
“There!” The Doctor shouted over his shoulder, coat whipping behind him. “It fired from that smokestack I just a few blocks ahead!”
Over on the next roof over, a squad of Ardainian soldiers stood, attempting to fire at the enemy on the smokestack. Their dark armour glinted in the moonlight, as they stood with rifles raised, shouting orders.
One seemed to hear them approach, and spun around
“Stop right there!” The lead officer barked. “By command of the Imperial Garrison, you are to return to your homes and stay- Wait - that thing! That’s the machine we saw!”
His goggles locked onto Poppi - her skirted silhouette framed against the smoke. Her red eyes blinked as she tilted her head.
“Poppi?” Crossette asked, eyes widening. “Wait, what’s he—”
“I am not ‘thing,’” Poppi replied, sounding more puzzled than offended.
“She must’ve used the smoke as a smokescreen!”
Albedo scrunched her nose in disgust.
“She’s not the enemy!” The Doctor tried, hands raised. “Listen to me! We’re trying to help-!”
‘Crack!’
The officer fired, gunsmoke wafting off the barrel.
The bullet sparked off Poppi’s shoulder with a shriek of metal. Poppi flinched, then recalibrated - eyes narrowing with a sudden, mechanical whirr.
The Doctor’s face twisted. “No, why did you-!? ”
“Hostile identified!” Barked another soldier. “Converge and suppress!”
“Oh, you are going to regret that,” Nia growled, drawing Dromarch’s twin rings as she dove behind a chimney stack.
“Poppi!” Tora cried. “Defend self!”
“Activating,” Poppi responded flatly, skirt fluttering as jets fired beneath her heels and launched her forward with shocking speed.
The battle erupted.
“No, you-!” The Doctor grunted. “Argh!”
Gunfire burst across the rooftops, bullets pinging off metal and kicking up sparks. Rex surged forward, swinging Pyra’s sword around like a bat, striking with the flat side against the first soldier with it. Vandham followed with a roar, twin scythes flashing, using his momentum to hurl one of the attackers into a crate with a crash.
Poppi hovered just above the rooftop, arms transforming with a hiss into her missiles, firing them at the ground. The soldiers were knocked off their feet, and knocked around, sent sprawling and groaning on the ground.
Albedo bounced around, holding back. One soldier tried to flank her, but the moment he rounded the corner, she swung, and the whip-like crack of Ether split his rifle in half, and knocked him back off his feet.
“I believe I’m getting fairly good with this.”
Crossette threw her bitball around, bouncing it off the pipes, walls, the guns in the soldiers’ hands, and the helmets of the soldiers, knocking them down.
A cylinder launched from Poppi’s hip with a burst of compressed air. It arced overhead and detonated in a flash of searing white light. The soldiers reeled, shielding their eyes - just long enough for Nia to sweep in and crack one across the back, sending him crashing to the rooftop.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was scrambling through the chaos, dodging between pipes and clambering over vents. “No, no, no! Why is it always guns!? Can’t anyone have a nice discussion anymore!?”
“Doctor!” Rex called, knocking a soldier aside with the flat of his blade. “Where are you going!?”
“We’re not here to fight the Ardainian Military!” The Doctor shouted back. “Come on!”
They pushed forward, dashing away from the soldiers too-aching to stand. Pyra blasted them back with a wave of flame, burning a line through their cover.
“Go!” Vandham shouted as he used Roc to knock the soldiers back with wind. “Get goin’, get goin’! I’ll bring up the rear!”
With Poppi and Vandham laying down suppressive fire, they continued dashing across the rooftops.
As they closed in, the figure jumped off the smokestack, and began to sprint across the catwalks.
Albedo turned her head slowly toward it, frowning. “She’s moving!”
Three Ardainian soldiers giving chase fired at the cloaked figure. The bullets bounced right off, and clattered to the ground. It spun around, lifted an arm-
And a ray of light burst forth, vaporizing the soldiers where they stood. The figure turned around, and began to walk away.
“What the hell!?” Nia bellowed. “That’s like no Ether cannon I’ve ever seen!”
The Doctor’s hearts tightened as he could feel the soldiers’ potential timelines snap like rubber bands as they were undone.
He bounded up the stairs, Screwdriver flicked open. “You!” He bellowed at it. “Stop exactly where you are!”
It lagged for only a moment.
“You…” The Doctor wheezed. “You killed those men. They weren’t a threat to you- Their weapons weren’t doing anything!”
A cloud passed by from where it was blocking the moon, allowing the glow to shine upon the figure. It still wasn’t bright – but they could see the dress she was wearing.
“Meh-Meh!?” Tora gasped out. “Parts look- and dress- Lila!?”
The hooded head tilted to the side.
“It’s dressed just like Poppi!” Rex gasped.
It leapt into the air, landing on another smokestack.
“Lila!” Tora batted his wings, already moving. “Lila, wait!”
“Lila!?” Rex gasped out.
“Oh no you don’t!” The Doctor gasped, swiftly giving chase, clambering down a staircase. A pipe in the way vented steam, but the Time Lord didn’t slow. A shield bubble off to his side flared up as he passed, and he looked over his shoulder to see the light-blue flow of energy being maintained by Crossette. The others passed through, same as him.
They got through, and she leapt away again, from rooftop, to pipe, to smokestack. Each time she landed and sprang back up, however, the Doctor took note that she seemed to be quite unwieldy on her legs.
“Damn!” Rex swore. “She really doesn’t want us following!”
“Is this a good idea?” Albedo posed the question. “This is not our fight.”
“It Lila!” Tora snapped. “It is fight!”
“At least it is now that we’ve involved ourselves, taking down those soldiers.” The Doctor grit his teeth. “Least we can do is catch her so we can set the record straight about those soldiers mistaking Poppi – come on!” Then, he was off again, vaulting over railings and squeezing through pipes, the others barely managing to keep up.
They got close and, once again, their quarry jumped – landing this time on the street.
The Doctor plunged down a fire escape and, now on the ground, he broke out into a sprint. Boots clattered on the stone as they ran, and the Doctor stumbled to a stop as, when he got to where he saw her land – she was gone.
“Doctor, just-“ Nia wheezed. “Hold on a minute, yeah? That thing vaporized three dudes trying to chase after her. I don’t think she wants to be followed.”
“People don’t get into fights with the military for no reason,” The Doctor huffed and puffed, spinning around. “Either she’s dangerous and has to be stopped, or she’s innocent, and needs help.”
Albedo regarded the Doctor with a look. “I thought Vess had a thing about strays, but you…”
“Tora,” Mythra popped into existence. “What you were saying about Lila, that’s- it can’t be, right?”
The Nopon turned to her. “It have to be! Tora not see face just now, but know schematics of Lila like back of own wing!”
“But Lila-“ Rex heaved and breathed heavily, pointing. “I thought you said Lila was lost.”
“Unfinished at time of attack on lab, but Tora see Lila day-in-and-day-out!” Tora indignantly batted his wings. “Tora study plans for years to make Poppi reality! Tora knows what he saw! It! Was! Lila!”
Rex rubbed the back of his head… “All right, yeah. If you say so… I trust you.”
Vandham grunted. “Sheila must be packing some serious firepower – if she could shoot down a titan like that.”
The Doctor pointed. “Good idea, maybe I can-“
“Masterpon!” Poppi gasped, pointing skyward. “Up there! Poppi detect energy signature!”
“Lila?” Tora turned around. The hooded Blade was standing atop the roof of an adjacent building, looking down at them. “Lila!”
Again, she tilted her head – as though confused.
“Masterpon – energy signature is not like Ether furnace,” Poppi blinked.
“Meh!?” Tora spluttered. “Bu-bu-but- Ether Furnace is most important component of Lila! It only way she can work!”
The Doctor took a step forward, cautious, looking up. “Hello! I’m the Doctor, these are my friends. And we just chased across town to catch up to you – a little rude, I know, but search me, we were curious – and you might be…?”
Her head tilted up, the hood stretching. “Do not attempt further pursuit.” A firm voice, slightly on the deeper side but not quite that deep, echoed into the night air.
The Doctor paused, as he got a sense of… familiarity. “Hello? Sorry? You just vaporized three men! Now, I’m a forgiving chap – but even I can’t let bygones be bygones for total atomisation!”
“Hostilities confirmed. Engaging.” Then, she jumped off the roof, landing at the far end. Two piercing, glowing eyes stared out from under the hood, as she raised an arm – with a cannon growing out of the end. “R-CANNON!”
‘DANGER!’ surged through the Doctor’s instincts like a whip being cracked. He drew the Sonic Screwdriver, as quick as a revolver, and held down the activator.
The cannon sparked and died.
The mechanoid’s head snapped down to look at it. “Firing control off-line. Switching.”
In a flash of light, the cannon-arm figured into an enormous spike with rifling going down it, like a drill.
She lunged.
The Doctor barely threw himself back in time, the ground where he’d been standing erupting in a spray of shattered brick as the drill punched through it like wet paper. Like her sword was an arm, the hooded mechanoid swiped and lunged at him, moving with inhuman speed. Swipe, swipe, swipe, the Doctor focused on the drill. One strike came with a sweep of her legs and movement of her arms, and while the Time Lord remained standing, the Sonic flew from his hand in the scramble, falling to the ground before it was crushed under her mechanical feet.
“NO!” the Doctor barked, reaching out - but it was gone.
She turned, and the Doctor’s hairs on the back of his neck prickled as his body prepared. Cells around the estimated impact site mildly elasticized.
An instant later, the air whined - and a metal fist slammed into his chest.
The impact launched him backward into a wall. He hit with a grunt and crumpled to the ground, wheezing, clutching his ribs.
“Ooooohhh…” The Doctor groaned aloud as the cells around the impact site shuddered from the flex. If he was human, that would’ve killed him.
"Doctor!" Rex shouted for him.
The figure advanced, sprinting with the drill-arm held out to her side. She raised it high - no hesitation, no flourish, no words - just raw execution logic, prepared to drive it straight through his torso.
Then-
CRACK!
A bitball whipped through the air and struck her square in the temple.
She staggered.
Only a little. But enough.
Crossette stood nearby, legs shaking, face pale at seeing just how close her Driver had brushed with death, but her eyes were determined. “You still have us to deal with, lady!”
The attacker turned to face her.
That delay gave the others time.
“Mythra!” Rex called upon her, throwing her sword the Aegis’s way.
The street erupted.
Mythra jumped forward first, her sword radiating light.
The hooded attacker spun to meet Mythra’s charge, blocking the first slash with an arm-brace that flared on impact. Sparks flew. Then she twisted beneath Mythra’s second blow, turning into a blur of movement, elbowing Mythra back and breaking off into a burst of sudden acceleration - straight for Poppi.
“Analysing trajectory!” Poppi announced, jetting up into the air to meet her.
They collided mid-flight - Poppi’s hydraulic fists clashing against a high-speed spin-kick that redirected her downward. Poppi hit the street and rolled, but recovered fast, eyes glowing. “Warning! Reaction time exceeding calibrated safe parameters!”
“Damn, she’s quick!” Nia shouted, swinging wildly, only for the attacker to flip over her and land silently behind.
A curved blade materialized in her hand – a dark pole of metal, taller than she was, with a sharpened, hook-shaped head made of glowing blue energy. Some manner of scythe.
As the others got close, she moved again. Fast, keeping them at-range.
Rex barely managed to block, as time seemed to pause with Mythra’s foresight. The blow knocked him sideways. She pressed in.
One moment she was sweeping the scythe wide, the next she was gone – like she had teleported. But no. She had jumped, rebounding off a wall with impossible speed and landing directly behind Crossette. Crossette shrieked, literally throwing herself to the ground as the scythe swung.
Albedo stepped forward, like a reflex. The hooded one seemed to sense the motion, and spun about to face her.
There was no time for her to react properly, Albedo stumbling back as the scythe head came within a hair’s breadth of her coat.
The attacker hesitated. As if confused by the miss.
Albedo didn’t flinch. She just blinked. “Oh, would you look at that.”
The machine-woman spun again, this time charging Vandham.
Light erupted in her path, as Mythra jumped in the way, and Vandham threw himself into the fray as well.
The attacker blocked them both, the scythe's haft locking the twin blades in place, her mechanical dragging furrows in the stone as she held them at bay.
Poppi dropped from above. “Pow-Pow Cannon!”
She aimed for the attacker’s back.
But the scythe-bearer twisted, jumping away from the arms, and moved. She lunged at Poppi, grabbed the other maid-dressed Blade by the wrist, and threw her into Mythra, sending both flying like ragdolls.
“She’s predicting us!” Rex shouted, panting, sword trembling in his hands.
Vandham snarled, slamming both scythes together as the woman lunged at him. He caught her strike and, in a move designed to disarm, slid his own scythes downward – but the woman held onto hers with a steel grip.
“Yeah,” The Doctor wheezed, still against the wall, one hand pressed against his bruised ribs. “Predicting… and reacting faster than a human ever could…”
Kicking up sparks, the attacker lunged again - this time at Rex. Mythra shoved him back and took the brunt of the attack herself, blocking once, twice-
On the third, the scythe clipped her shoulder. Not deep - but it burned.
She hissed in pain and dropped to one knee. “She’s… adapting…”
Poppi rejoined the fray. “Combat efficiency rising. This is not good.”
The machine-woman raised the scythe again, expression unreadable, as she swept it in a massive arc. Everyone scattered.
Only Albedo remained still, back to the wall, expression unreadable. At the last possible second, she dropped, ducking to the ground and cowering.
The blade came within a hair of her cheek - and missed, embedding into the wall.
The attacker wrenched it out as Albedo slipped away.
Again.
The machine’s head tilted as she searched for another target.
“Friends too slow to keep up with Lila – but Poppi is artificial Blade!” The mechanical girl declared as she landed behind the attacker. Her opponent whipped around, and began to swing.
The attacker blurred, scythe raised high, boots sparking as she skated across the broken stone with inhuman velocity. One moment she was twenty meters away. The next-
‘CLANG!’
Poppi intercepted the blow mid-stride with a shuddering, two-handed block. Ether flared where their weapons met, rippling outward in a visible shockwave that blasted nearby debris into the air. Sparks scattered. Pipes rattled. A wall behind them shattered as Poppi lunged, missed her strike as her opponent zipped out of the way, and punched through a wall, ducking another scythe-swipe afterward.
Poppi reached up, caught it, and yanked. The scythe did not slip from its wielder’s hand. Instead, Poppi narrowed her eyes, and slammed her hand down on the weapon, snapping it in half.
“Enemy’s weapon is not Ether-formed,” Poppi reported aloud. “Effectiveness is now limited!”
The attacker looked down at the pole, and spun it around, now wielding it like a baton.
“Don’t hold back, Poppi!” Tora called.
The artificial Blade launched herself forward, pistons in her legs firing with an explosive hiss.
“Poppi Crushing Blow!” She twisted mid-air, arm folding into a drill-cannon hybrid that screamed to life-
She slammed it down like a piledriver.
The attacker sidestepped just in time, her skirt swaying in the wind as the ground detonated where she’d stood. The sheer force blew her backward, but she caught herself - spinning mid-fall, slamming one foot into a vertical pipe, and bouncing off of it.
She shot back in like a missile.
Poppi spun, raising her thick, blocky arms, pointing the widest end out as a shield.
‘SCHHHRRRCH!’
The broken scythe’s pole – still a jagged, broken piece of metal - caught Poppi in the side, carving a molten scar through her waist plating. Ether coolant hissed out in a shrieking vent of white vapor.
Poppi staggered, gears grinding, stabilizers flickering. And then she charged, picking up the other half of the broken scythe off the ground
The two collided in a violent storm of blurs and light - scythe sweeping, being caught by its own broken half. Metal screamed against metal. Poppi’s movements were elegant, refined, a perfect testament to Tora’s skills as her creator.
But the attacker-
Poppi ducked under another swing from the broken pole, and swung the pilfered scythe at her opponent.
The attacker leaned into it.
Took the hit full-on in the shoulder - and kept moving, as the scythe dug in.
She spun around the blast’s recoil, grabbed Poppi by the face, and slammed her into the wall hard enough to leave a crater.
“POPPI!” Tora screamed.
Poppi grunted - her voice glitched, distorted.
“System strain… reaching limit… rerouting…”
Steam burst from every joint as Poppi’s emergency cores kicked in. She twisted with hydraulic torque, as she balled her fist, and dove toward her attacker’s midsection.
The opponent caught her charge.
Poppi smiled. “Got ya!” Clicking came from her hand, as the attacker’s head snapped down.
Next thing she knew, a missile blast was sent, right into her gut.
Poppi was knocked back hard - bouncing once, twice, before slamming against a support beam. Her body sparked violently, and she slid to a halt, groaning low in her vocoder.
“Poppi!” Rex shouted. “She’s hurt!”
“No…” Poppi growled, dragging herself up, one knee buckling. “Poppi… not done yet…”
The attacker hauled herself up, twitching and sparking as she turned to look.
She paused.
Tilted her head slightly - like a hunter evaluating whether the prey was worth finishing. Then, began to move again.
Then-
“All right, that’s it!” Mythra growled, as a red column from the heavens appeared around the attacker.
“Mythra, don’t-!” The Doctor raised his hand too late, as the blast of light descended from the sky, raining down upon their attacker.
Mythra stood with her hands on her hips, looking satisfied, before the glow subsided.
Mythra’s arms dropped to her sides in shock. “What the hell!?
Steam hissed off broken stone. The last motes of Mythra’s sacred arrow drifted down like dying embers.
And where their attacker had stood-
She still stood.
But the blast had torn the hood off.
The thing before them was not a person. Not in the conventional sense. She was metal, and plating, and synthetic flesh fused with precision engineering. Blue hair spilled out in a cascade, matted and scorched in places. Her form glowed with slow pulses of the residual Ether charge, the light fading as it was redirected. The enormous scythe remained gripped in her left arm.
Her right arm was missing. So were both legs, from the torso down.
Hastily welded bracing plates held the legs of a completely-different construction to her frame, one very-obviously longer than the other, the shorter one having been sawed-down to accommodate. One arm, her natural arm, was smooth and human-like, the other one metal and mechanical. The maid outfit that she had been wearing dissolved in the blast, revealing the tattered, white armour and battle-skirt underneath, cracked, melted, and scorched.
Mythra took an involuntary step back. “What the…?”
Even Poppi faltered. “Damage level is extreme! Unit should not be standing.”
The figure’s red eyes flickered. Then flickered. Almost like it was failing.
“Calculating battle parameters.” She blinked. “X-Buster: offline. Probability of success dropping.”
The Doctor stepped forward. Slowly. Eyes wide.
He stared at her face.
Those eyes.
That face.
“…It can’t be.”
She turned - just slightly - toward him. The glow behind her optics faded for a moment. They shifted to blue for only a moment, before going back to that dangerous red.
“Impossible.” The Doctor whispered, louder now.
“Doctor?” Nia whispered to him. “What’s going on - you know who she is?”
The Doctor’s breath hitched.
And then, with distant, awestruck horror:
“Mary.”
The silence was immediate.
Albedo’s eyes flicked to the machine.
“Resource acquisition: improbable. Hostile response: accelerating.” The damaged android twitched as she straightened up – servos straining. “KOS-MOS: Returning to base.”
Flight systems of two different types – rockets embedded into her feet, and fusion jets installed in her back, flared to life, lifting her off the ground. And then, she shot off - straight up, high into the air, higher than anyone expected something in that condition to go. She arced over the rooftops like a missile rising to vanish between the stacks and smog, a star blinking out in reverse.
Silence returned.
The Doctor stared, wide-eyed, jaw open at the patch of sky where she had faded.
Only the scattered embers of Mythra’s failed Sacred Arrow remained, drifting down over cracked stone.
“…what… what was that?” Nia wheezed.
The Time Lord didn’t respond.
“HOLD!”
A guttural voice barked the command, and within seconds, the clang of boots echoed through the ruined square.
Ardainian soldiers poured in from all sides, rifles raised, armour scraped and glowing from the earlier fights. A dozen. More.
The lead officer raised his gauntlet. “Every last one of you; stand down! Blades where we can see them!”
“Aw, hell,” Vandham muttered, already backing toward a wall. “Doc, now might be a good time for one of your ball tricks…”
Mythra moved protectively in front of Rex, drawing her blade again with a flicker of light and a growl. “I’m getting sick and tired of this bullshit tonight.”
“Doctor!” Nia hissed, grabbing his sleeve. “We’ve gotta move! Snap out of it!”
He didn’t answer. Just stared at the sky. The name still hung behind his eyes.
A soldier raised his rifle. “Last warning! Drop your weapons!”
Then-
‘FWHUUMP’
A wave of heat surged outward.
A perfect ring of sapphire flame erupted around the group, boxing them in. It burned clean and cold, but the message was clear. This wasn’t a fight anymore.
“Oh hell!” Vandham swore.
Boots clicked against stone. Two new figures stepped forward through the veil of fire.
One in a crisp Ardainian uniform, tails rippling behind her, hat tilted forward with impeccable discipline.
The other walked in deliberate, balanced steps - Ether flames dancing along her arms like high-cut gloves.
“Oh fuck me!” Nia hissed.
“So…” Mòrag hummed imperiously with her arms behind her back. “It’s you. The Doctor… and Nia.”
“The- what!?” Rex’s head snapped over to Nia. “You know this one!?”
“We’re… acquainted.” Nia coughed. “Torigoth, remember?”
“Tor- oh, right, you guys said you were captured.” Rex coughed.
“This is… quite the squad, you’ve managed to assemble.” Mòrag tilted her head. “I would be impressed. Your associates in the Crystal Trade, I presume?”
“Look, it’s not-“ Rex gesticulated. “It’s a mistake! We’re trying to catch that Blade that was tearing everything up!”
“Oh. I see.” Mòrag slowly nodded. “And I suppose that explains your attacking Ardainian soldiers? And firing an unknown Blade weapon on the city?”
“…well, uh… those parts were self-defence.”
“Look, lady,” Mythra grunted, crossing her arms at Mòrag. “Arrest us or kill us or whatever the hell you’re here to do, but stop the smug.”
“Smug?” Brighid tilted her head. “I thought she was rather understated, myself.”
Mythra focused properly on the blue fire Blade, and gasped. “It’s you…”
“Me? I-“ Brighid began to retort, before taking in a sharp breath of her own. Even though her eyes remained shut, everyone could tell where she was looking. “Lady Mòrag… Her Core Crystal!”
“Hm?” Morag looked over at Mythra, then narrowed her eyes. “So I see. The rumours are true. The Aegis walks again. And where do we find her but among thieves,” She regarded the Doctor and Nia. “Murderers,” Then, she looked at Albedo, who’s eyebrows shot up. “Pub pugilists,” She glanced at Mythra, Rex, Vandham, and Roc. “And that machine Blade seen tearing up the town.” She finished at Poppi. The Inquisitor’s face twisted into a scowl. “How… unfortunate, that her Crystal would fall into the hands of such lowly criminals.”
“Lowly- hey!” Rex gasped. “I’m telling you, we’re not – I mean, we only did some of those things! Albedo hasn’t killed anyone, and Poppi’s innocent!”
The woman didn’t seem keen on speaking, instead drawing two long, thin swords.
Rex groaned to himself, and drew Mythra’s Blade.
Chapter 22: Ten: Welcome, to the Jungle
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The camp squeezes into the TARDIS easily. 300 Time Lords are barely one-one-billionth of the total theoretical crew capacity. Theoretically, the entire population of Gallifrey could fit inside. They probably will have to, depending on how the war goes.
And yet, the air still feels… tight. Cramped. Oppressive.
Not physically. The console room has unfurled and reconfigured. The ceiling has vanished entirely, dissolved into a soft, gold-lit sky. The walls have melted outward, pulled back to reveal a rolling Gallifreyan landscape, sun-drenched and serene, the walls far-distant. Rolling red-grass meadows shimmer in the breeze. Leaves of silver bristle in the wind. It’s no place on Gallifrey.
The single sun in the sky – the Eye of Harmony – is proof enough of that.
And despite that – the vast outdoors, with the control console standing in the centre of it like a sundial - there’s still the… tension.
The murmuring crowd - once scholars, scientists, strategists - now shuffle and mutter like schoolchildren before execution. No one speaks too loudly. No one asks how long this will take.
The ticking of a clock is like thunder, when you’re waiting to be executed.
Some look around curiously. It’s likely been years for them, as it has been for me, since they set foot in a TARDIS. And that’s the problem. Why would the Time Lords need all of us – people who passed the academy, not with honours, not scraping by. No grand knowledge, or skills, or connections – just painfully average people who desired to get out of the way.
Why would they summon us to war?
I feel the pressure build behind my eyes – I don’t want to die.
But I don’t want to lose myself either.
People are going through the procedure already. The Arch.
A focused discharge of Artron energy primes the subject’s Biodata - the sum of who they are, were, and could be. A TARDIS, using its Block-Transfer computation matrix, weaves a new lattice of reality around that data. Biology, all the way down to the biochemical level, is altered. A new identity, layered over the original.
Picture… cutting someone out of a photograph. And replacing someone else in it, so natural, so sculpted to the scene it can’t be detected.
The space – the person - left behind is filled with a carefully fabricated identity: a teacher, a soldier, a nurse, a botanist. Entirely unremarkable by design, so nobody notices that they move as if used to higher gravity, or breathe with lungs that they are unfamiliar with. A life hand-woven from randomized records, populated with false memories.
The real self? The true Time Lord? Compressed, condensed, hidden away inside a storage device. The Biodata inside waiting to spring out and return. Be that an earring, a pendant, or even a fob watch. Anything small enough to be overlooked, but durable enough to survive for quite a while. They have to be durable – if the Biodata is lost, then so are you.
The overall principle is similar to the experiment I did, trying to give Her more life.
I don’t know Her name. I don’t suppose I ever will, now.
I was willing to break one of the cardinal rules of Gallifrey. So she could have more life. So I wouldn’t have to watch her die, and move on with my own eternity ahead of me.
Now, I… I don’t really know what to do.
I ran from the family the Council gave me, because they weren’t her. But sealing myself under the effect of a chameleon arch…
I don’t want to forget her.
And the process itself doesn’t help.
A woman with a spine like a steel tower, a scion of the House of Dvora, who fled not because of any moral objection to the war, but because – in her eyes – the Time Lords were above such… primitive, obscene filth. Only one of the three-hundred. Her hands clench into fists as the Arch lowers, and for a moment she holds - still, proud, unbowed.
Then the device ignites in a crackle of electric Artron energy, and she lets out a shrieking wail, high and ragged, as if the machinery were pulling her soul out one nerve at a time. Because… well, it is. Time Lords have a deeper connection to our Biodata than any other form of life in the universe. The ones going through the Arch can feel it being yanked out of them. Uprooted like weeds.
Her body convulses. Her voice breaks. And then-
She rises from the dais looking dazed, small, catatonic. Blank. The identity programming is still processing, and it won’t set until we get her into whatever background the TARDIS has set for her.
The Mechanic we’ve picked up stands over by the console, watching and adjusting the input as data files flash by on the display.
She’s not doing the work, only keeping an eye out for anomalies in the Arch.
The rest is this TARDIS.
The artificial soil beneath everyone’s feet hums like a professor mid-theorem humming a tune to themself. The air tastes ionized, sharp with ozone and static, as the charge from the Arch slips off into the air. Deep in its circuits, the machine is dreaming new people into existence.
I glance at the display. Names flicker past - some ordinary, some odd, all plausible. Backstories unfurl in cascading branches: educations, family histories, medical records, credit card debt, social network posts, fitness app data. In the span of seconds, each Time Lord is furnished with an entire false existence, surgically threaded into the target planet’s patchwork of public and private systems.
The TARDIS doesn’t just write a birth certificate. She fabricates hospital records from a closed clinic in Sheffield, links them to a school database in Wiltshire, adds a social media history so bland it could only be real. The archived photo of “someone’s cousin” at a 2008 wedding now has a new face in the background – blurred, forgettable, and painfully milquetoast, but there. She edits metadata, pollutes data lakes, and sews the seams back up so cleanly that no algorithm, no intelligence agency, no nosy IT consultant will ever realize that a superintelligence more advanced than the gods they worship was playing around with it.
The Mechanic doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. But still, she speaks. “It’s something, isn’t it? If we tried to do this sort of thing to hide people on Gallifrey itself, it’d be detected instantly. But… it’s only a level Five planet. They can’t even detect a starship in their orbit, let alone temporal anomalies.”
“It’s terrifying,” I clench my jaw. “If one TARDIS can do this, imagine what will become of the planet during the War. And we’ll be helpless.”
“…well, it’s either hide on a primitive planet, or meet the fate of a draft dodger.”
And there it is. Maybe the Council wouldn’t be so callou-
No. They absolutely would. They’d capture us, melt us down, examine our Biodata for the defects that led us to desire running instead of fighting to preserve the Web of Time and Gallifreyan honour. Then use what they learn to breed it out of subsequent generations.
So… hiding on a primitive world it is.
Right now, the TARDIS sits above that primitive world, outside the flow of time, the reality-quotient of the exterior set to .4 so that even advanced passers-by wouldn’t be able to detect it.
And all the while, the TARDIS is weaving three hundred lives into the tapestry of a planet that isn’t even aware of the needle.
I step toward the Mechanic again. She doesn’t look away from the screen. Doesn’t need to.
“She’s very thorough,” She says, almost reverently. “I only have to check for consistency errors.”
“Any so far?” I murmur.
She shakes her head. “No. Nothing that shows up twice. No repeated license plates. No recycled birth dates. No impossible overlaps.”
I watch another newly-created driver’s licence blur past - someone from the crowd. And then it’s gone, as the Arch cycles once again and another scream cuts through the warm Gallifreyan light.
I squeeze the fob watch in my palm.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“I… I beg your pardon?”
She tilts her head sideways at me with a smile. “It’s an Earth saying. A penny was a piece of currency, and decently valuable when the expression first originated. So it means ‘I value your thoughts enough that I’m willing to pay to hear you speak them.’”
“…currency?” The thought is utterly ghastly. “How idiotic.”
She rolls her eyes. “They don’t have the technology to support a post-currency economy. Or even a post-scarcity civilisation.”
“There’s the barter system.”
“It is a barter system.” She huffs. “You trade items, labour, or services for money, which you then trade for items, labour, or services.”
“So it’s a barter system with extra steps.”
“It’s simple,” She shakes her head. “You either need to remember all the people you owe favours, or you have little slips of paper you can carry around.”
“…they use paper!?”
“And coins. Little minted chips of metal.”
“That’s barbaric – you might as well say they carry around pebbles!”
“Mmmhmm,” She nods. “Oh, and not all of it holds the same value in all places.”
“They’ve not even standardized?”
“Oh, they have. In the target timezone, the planetary government has just introduced the ‘Coalition Credit.’ New currency, not everybody’s adopted it, and there are teething pains. Early forgery, too – which works out great for us, because the TARDIS can just… do it.”
A question jumps to my mind after hearing her speak of it. “How do you know so much about Earth?”
She smiles, and hides her face.
“I read a lot,” she says lightly. “It’s a fascinating little mudball. So many near-extinctions, so many second chances. Spirals within spirals. Everything happens there eventually.”
There’s a tone beneath her voice. Something old. Too old for someone who looks so young.
I study her for a moment.
“Why are you here? Really, I mean,” I murmur. “For one with a habit of helping others steal TARDISes, they seem to let you back around them, just fine. After the first, I would expect them to remove you from the shop.”
“Well, I told you – three times is a pattern-“
“Oh? After three times? Van,” I turn to call to him. “Do you… happen to know what happens to people who assist in the theft of TARDISes? Either by action or inaction?”
He stops for a second, helping people out of the Arch. “Well, it depends.” He pauses for thought. “You’d be force-regenerated into a new body less likely to do it. If it happened again, you’d be dematerialised.” Then, he went back to it.
“I got off lucky. I played it off as coercion.”
“But that’s what I mean.” I tilt my head. “After the first time, you should’ve been on-watch. After the second, even if you were coerced, they should’ve never let you back in the repair shop. Never mind with a war coming. These aren’t toys, they’re TARDISes.”
“Of course not,” She replies, still not meeting my gaze. “But… well. It’s easy to hide if you don’t exist.”
That catches me. I tilt my head. “Don’t exist?”
Another smile, softer this time. “Well, look at you. You are the last surviving member of your House. By all accounts, you should’ve had to report for duty the microsecond they knew war with the Daleks was coming. For them to assess your assets and turn them over to the war effort.”
“They won’t do that. Not until they get really desperate. I’m an embarrassment to them.” Hence… why they took my name.
She nods, satisfied, and leans forward curiously. “What exactly did you do?”
I bite my lip, absent-mindedly thumbing the inscription upon the fob watch’s lid. ‘What has been will be again’ it says. Some are picking old Gallifreyan proverbs, messages for themselves to be seen when they reawaken. I hadn’t picked it.
“There was a woman I knew,” I speak, not really sure why. It doesn’t make sense – this Mechanic invited herself along, motives unknown, the last thing I should be doing is trauma-dumping. But… it feels like I can. “Who I… loved. But she was nearing the end of her life, and I had only just started mine. But… I had a theory.” I gulp. “Simple. Elegant.” And I kind of… zone out. “The limit with regeneration isn’t hard genetics – it’s an issue of energy stores within the body. I thought… I mean, I had hoped, that with a sufficient power source, I could side-step the equipment the Council hoards to grant more regenerations to those they favour.”
Her eyebrows go up. “You’d need one heck of a power-source. And how the Council not realize it?”
“I…” I shiver. The watch feels like it’s made of lead in my hand. “I hid what I was doing. To get the power source I needed, I… approached the Council with other research proposals. They fell for it. They granted me the Cruciform.”
She lets out a low whistle. “Some power source.”
Oh, she had no idea. “The Eye of Harmony that powers this TARDIS? An ember, compared to it.” I suck in a breath. “I would use it to develop things for the Council. Weapons, defences – and in my spare time, use it to help her.”
She slowly tilts her head.
“But I failed,” I gulp. “I was so certain that I had gotten my math right. But I didn’t. The amount of energy forcing its way through her body was catastrophic. Like… forcing a river through a small rubber tube. The tube pops. She and nineteen others were torn apart on the cellular level. And I… I…”
The memory swells - raw, jagged, wrong. Something buried.
The moment - the lab, the hum, the impossible light - flickers in my mind. I see her-
She’s standing at the centre of the containment rig, arms outstretched, light pouring from her skin.
Smiling.
Then-
An explosion. Sound collapses into white noise. Light folds in on itself. Time puckers at the seams.
I remember being thrown - flung like a rag doll - into the core housing chamber. Back into the Cruciform.
I shouldn’t remember that. The damage destroyed portions of my brain, no recovery.
But I do.
I hit it - my body slammed into the Cruciform, still hot from channelling the power of it – and…
Something touched me.
A whisper.
A shape in the metal. A silhouette that was also a song.
And then it looked at me.
No eyes. No form. Just… awareness.
Old. Lonely. Boundless.
And suddenly, it saw me.
Not the way Time Lords see each other, not by biodata.
Something pressed against my mind, vast and curious and cold, like the deepest depth of the sea, looking back at an explorer.
I blink.
The console room’s back again. The Mechanic is watching me - not alarmed, not pushing, just waiting. She must’ve realized I was having a moment.
My thumb is still tracing the inscription on the lid: What has been will be again.
Maybe that’s true. If all goes to plan. Though… really, I don’t think so.
Death in battle, or death hiding from battle? That’s all this plan is, in the end. A time war could, theoretically, last for eternity. We would never be able to wait out its end.
No – this is about dying the way we want to, away from a battlefield. And yet…
“…Are you all right?” She asks gently.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, voice cracking. “I don’t- I don’t want to die.”
“But you won’t die. Your memories-“
“Yes, that’s it, that. My memories.” My hand rises to my temple. “I don’t have my name, I ran from my home, the person I did it for is gone – and my memories, as broken as they are, they’re all I have left. I can’t just… give them up!”
“You have to.” Van intoned from nearby.
“Is this not death anyway!?” I spin around. “Think about it! Everything we are, everything we could be, taken away in an instant. Personality, gone, memories, gone, biology… If a change is so fundamental, how can it be considered anything other than death?”
Van crosses his arms in confusion. “You didn’t have a problem running before.”
“Exactly – running,” I enunciate. “Not dying. I joined up with you because I wanted to live! On my terms! I don’t want to die for somebody else’s war, yours or the High Council’s. And here you stand… asking me to commit suicide with three-hundred others.”
“You didn’t have a problem with the plan-“
“Because you didn’t tell me the plan!” I snap back. “It was ‘let’s hide in the wilderness because getting off-world is impossible.’ Then it was ‘let’s steal a TARDIS.’ Now it’s ‘lobotomize yourself to blend in with a primitive, savage, child-race.’” I can’t help the frustrated gesturing as I argue against this. I had the choice to shoot myself in the head and regenerate into someone better suited to fighting a war. I didn’t.
“Don’t be dramatic – you’re not going to die-“
“No, no, don’t lie to me, don’t feed me drivel and expect me to eat it up,” I growl. “This war could last for centuries, millennia, millions of years, if we’re unlucky. These human beings,” I gesture at one of them. “They are mayflies compared to us. Time Lords can live tens of thousands of years. In the blink of an eye, the war will still be raging, and we’ll all have died.”
“We’ll have died peaceful,” Van retorts. “Not having to worry about a war.”
“We’ll still be dead.” How can I get him to see that? I don’t want to die – I want to be me. I want to be free to be me, away from fighting anyone’s cause for them – Van, or the High Council, or anyone else.
Van will make himself and those around him martyrs, just so he can say ‘welp, at least we didn’t fight.’ The High Council will violate and modify without a single hesitation in the name of everyone.
I had the courage to run – and I have the courage to live and die on my terms. Not anyone else’s.
I snort, and step back. “Why is this necessary anyway, huh? Why… all of it.” I point accusingly at Van – half of what he says has been contradicted by himself already. “You said Earth was so close to Gallifrey on the Spiral Politic that it can’t shift anymore, so we wouldn’t be noticed. Why bother with the Chameleon Arch?”
Van rubs his eyes.
The Mechanic picks up. “It… has to do with your second heart. It’s encoded into your biodata. Everyone’s is. It’s your link back to Gallifrey.”
“That heart keeps you tethered to Gallifrey, whether you’re aware of it or not.” Van crosses his arms. “It keeps you synchronized to Gallifrey’s timestream at all times – so, even if you’re away from it, in a different time, you always return to find the same subjective time that’s passed for you has passed on the planet too. And, more importantly, it’s your link to the Matrix – they can use that to hone in on you, if they want. Cut both of those out by cutting out all your biodata? You’re not forced to stay synced up to Gallifrey, and they can’t track you anymore.”
“It… won’t be so bad,” The Mechanic clears her throat. “I can programme a routine into the TARDIS. After it drops us all off into our new lives, it can sit in temporal orbit, waiting. When the war passes, it can materialise near the closest one of us, and generate a construct from the chameleon circuit to persuade us into returning to our old selves.”
“But it’s not a guarantee,” That is the big thing. I feel like I’m going mad, trying to elucidate my point. “This TARDIS will sit in the vortex, tethered to Gallifrey still. All right. But the war will still be going! It could be going for millions of years. TARDISes still break down over time – and this is a TARDIS half-dead. What if the war isn’t over, even when the ship reaches the point where it can no longer move? Or what if the war destroys the section of the vortex it’s hiding in? Or what if the Time Lords detect it?”
“Nothing’s guaranteed.” Van mused.
“That isn’t good enough.”
Van grunts, and turns to me, looking harsh.
“Look. You think this isn’t suicide? Of course it is. Of course it is. We’re about to rip apart everything that makes us, us. But that war’s gonna be worse. I dunno if you saw the projections, but I did. You think my House started to bring back creatures from Gallifrey’s ancient times, modified them into beasts from the pits of hell, just for the kick of it? You think I ran just because of a little bit of genetic engineering!? Get real! The Gates of Elysium opened, and ancient things even we had no names for pouring into the universe. The Daleks, the Cybermen, the Vampires, thousands of Enemies swapping in second-after-second to kill us in new and horrific ways, just for time to change and bring us back, so we could find new ways of dying.”
I suck in a breath, chest tight, hearts hammering. “But this isn’t living. This is a ritualized mass delusion. You want me to smile and play pretend, knowing the real me is locked in a trinket I’ll never open?”
“No,” Van says. “I want you to survive.”
He lets the words hang.
I clench my jaw, fighting the urge to scream in frustration. “You don’t understand-”
“I do.” His voice is sharp now. “You think I don’t? I told you already, I had a sister. She was around for thousands of years, I saw her every day, and now that she’s gone, I can’t even remember how she laughed. You think you’re the only one who lost something?”
I swallow.
“I didn’t ask to lead this,” Van growls. “But here we are. Three hundred lives. Three hundred names that’ll vanish into history. And if we don’t bury ourselves deep enough, if we don’t erase ourselves well enough… it won’t just be the High Council we have to deal with. It’ll be the Enemy.”
I try to speak. Nothing comes out.
“We’re not doing this because we’re cowards,” He says. “We’re doing it because we know how bad it’s going to get. Because we still have something worth protecting. Our dignity.”
I clench my fists. My throat aches.
The fob watch is even heavier now. My name, my past, the echo of a woman who once smiled under a sun I’ll never see again - all of it, pressed into a ticking lie.
‘What was will be again…’
I will see Her again, in the Matrix. But not if I die as some… weak, little, short-lived human being. They’re vulnerable – to radiation, poison, the very air they breathe, disease, the inability to most-efficiently process the food they eat.
If I die in that state, what I am will be stuck in the watch. Unable to join with the Matrix.
“…all right.” I make my choice. “All right.”
Another person goes into the Arch. And I try to ignore their screams. And another.
The Mechanic works at the console, finishing writing the emergency programme.
It’s just the three of us now.
They’re looking at me. Waiting.
I can feel it - the pressure. The last piece of sand in an hourglass about to fall.
I don’t move.
Van shifts his weight, maybe out of sympathy, maybe calculation. “You said ‘all right.’” His tone is almost gentle now. “If you need time, take it. But we have to go through one-at-a-time. There’s only one Arch.”
“Yes,” I say, softly. A sigh escapes me. He’s planning to go last.
I rise slowly. Step toward the console. Eyes locked on the readout from the Arch’s auxiliary circuit. Numbers scroll. Programming logs flicker. The TARDIS breathes softly around us, the endless machine-heart ticking down its own heartbeat.
“I just want to be certain,” I murmur. “That the TARDIS’s reactivation sequence is stable. If she fails to emerge, or the construct she generates isn’t persuasive enough to awaken us…” I trail off, running a hand along the control panel. “It’s a miracle the emergency subroutines work at all, really. Given how damaged she is.”
Van raises an eyebrow. “She’s sound enough.”
“Of course,” I say. “But I need to see.”
And then-
I move.
My hand slams down on the lever wired to the psychic circuits. A ripple of psychic backlash pulses from the console like a wave of light and pain.
Van reels.
He doesn’t even have time to cry out. His body stiffens, eyes wide in brief, startled betrayal - and then he crumples.
Unconscious.
The Mechanic gasps. “What the hell are you doing?!”
I crouch beside Van, ignoring her. My movements are fast, practiced, clinical. I haul him over to it, and slip the Arch over his head.
“I’m giving him what he wants,” I say.
The Mechanic steps forward, hesitation radiating from every limb. “You attacked him!”
“He was planning to go last.”
“So!?”
“So do you really think he’d let me run off on my own, or stay in this TARDIS, if it put the others at-risk?”
“How do you even know!? You didn’t even ask you… paranoid… twit!”
I hesitate for a brief moment.
Was it paranoia, if it was justified?
Her voice trembles. “So what, you’re turning on your own? He wanted to help you. You seemed like friends!”
I pause.
My hands hover over the control. Van’s unconscious body lies still on the platform, the Arch over his head like a crown.
“He’s not my enemy,” I whisper. “And yes, he saved me. He’s trying to save these people. He believes in this.”
“Then why?” Her voice cracks.
I press the final command. The Arch begins its cycle, locking into place above Van. The glow builds. Soft. Reassuring. Erasing.
Unconscious, he can’t feel the pain.
“Choice.” I muse. “That’s what this has always been about. The choice.”
She stares at me, waiting. “What choice?”
“The choice of people to write their own destinies.”
-------
The morning air was thick with mist, already hot and sticky, and humming with Ether. The sunrise filtered through layers of emerald canopy and the vast body of water above, putting everything in a bluish-green haze.
Melia stood at the edge of their small clearing; arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her jaw was clenched. Her eyes were steady. The fire that had nearly consumed her the night before had cooled to embers - but the determination it ignited within her remained.
“Now, we have eaten, are well-rested, and it is a clear day. We shouldn’t wait any longer. We must deal with the Telethia.”
Alvis, tranquil as always in his own way, clasped his hands behind his back. “Indeed.” He agreed it had to be dealt with, most certainly – but now, with his sight failing him – he wasn’t entirely sure he could guarantee her making it. Yes, he had seen her die – but he knew better than most the future was always in flux. And whatever the cause was, it was making it harder to see.
Melia, as if she could sense his thoughts weren’t matching his demeanour, looked over. She could always sense that.
“The plan remains unchanged,” She said. “We find the Telethia. We end it.”
Alvis didn’t respond immediately. He leaned against a tree instead. His gaze flicked to her, just for a moment.
“…You are certain you wish to go through with it,” He said.
“I am.” Her voice was ice. “Unless… you are aware of something new which complicates matters that you’re not telling me again.”
“I…” Alvis exhaled, a fraction too slowly. “Know many new things. Nothing which pertains to this current situation, I’m afraid.”
Her brows shot up.
A beat.
His silence was longer this time.
Melia’s eyes narrowed. “Is that the truth, or are you simply trying to get me to silence myself?”
“I always tell the truth.” Alvis blinked. At least, from a certain point of view, as the man once said.
Riki, munching on a fruit he’d stolen from some vine or animal or God-knows-what, paused. “Oh, Riki know that look on Mysteriouspon’s face! It same look when Riki’s littlepons are asking too many questions, and Riki just have to smile and nod. Littlepons ask ‘dadapon, how we know dadapon is telling truth,’ and Riki say ‘dadapon always tell truth, it job of dadapon!’”
Alvis glanced over at Riki. “…perhaps I shouldn’t have brought you along.”
Melia regarded Alvis warningly. “Alvis…”
He cleared his throat. “It is no cause for concern. My Sight is not simply limited to current events, you know, but possibilities still quite far away as well. I simply glimpsed a distant possibility, long after battling the Telethia. Nothing that has a bearing on this situation.”
Riki blinked, then tilted his head. “Maybe good! Means maybe we not all die horribly fighting dinobeast!”
Melia froze. “Excuse me?”
Riki shoved the rest of the fruit in his mouth, and took another bite.
Alvis stood, brushing himself off with unnerving precision. “It was a confrontation at Prison Island. It is of no consequence, until it appears to be coming to pass. With the future uncertain, we must focus on the here, and the now.“
“Naturally,” Melia hummed. “We can afford no further wastes of time. The longer we put it off, the higher chance there is of the Telethia going back out to hunt. I will not allow more to die for my indecision.” She turned away from him. “It should be rather easy to track it down. I doubt a beast like that can hide in these woods without alerting the other forest dwellers to it, and them giving it a wide berth.”
“It will be easier than that,” Alvis gestured. “It will have absorbed Ether from the surrounding landscape.”
Melia raised an eyebrow. “So, if we venture into its den, it will be in a patch it has already sucked dry. It cannot easily draw on Ether for its powers.”
“A double-edged sword,” Alvis mused with his hands behind his back. “The Telethia will not be able to draw upon environmental Ether to feed… But, then, neither will you be able to draw upon Ether to power your attacks.”
Melia tilted her head up proudly. “I am quite capable, Sir Alvis. This staff is not merely for channelling Ether – I am versed in using it for more… traditional methods of combat.”
“Ah, yes – but do you believe you’ll be able to focus on that, and keep it from reading your intent?” Alvis raised an eyebrow. “We survived our first encounter with it thanks to distracting ourselves. But we will not be focused on survival this time. If our purpose is to kill the Telethia, we must plan to do so. And then, the Telethia will just as easily read our intent.”
Melia frowned in thought. He did have a point there. Last time, they were trying to survive, simple as that. They had to follow through with it, this time. But the Telethia’s ability to read minds wouldn’t make it easy.
Far, far from it.
“Then what do you suggest, Alvis?”
The Seer clasped his hands behind his back. “Your ‘Mind Blast’ technique should suffice for sealing the Telethia’s ability to read us.”
Melia’s head snapped sideways in sheer disbelief. “Am I mistaken? You are suggesting we combat a creature that feeds off Ether with a technique that is mostly Ether-based?”
Alvis nodded. “The plan is not without its risks. But with a lack of alternatives, it is the most sure-fire way of ensuring the Telethia cannot read us. It’s quite simple, in theory. Once you hit the Telethia with a Mind Blast, its ability to read us will be sealed.”
“Yes – but it will not last forever.”
“It does not need to,” Alvis hummed. “All you must do is keep refreshing the field. While you do so, we can attack it physically. With its means of dodging our attacks sealed…”
“…the three of us can kill it,” Melia hummed, thinking back. The Telethia was strong, but far from invincible. A spit of chewed-up poison grass from Riki was enough to drive it mad. “A sound stratagem.” She nodded at last, satisfied. “But, if we are to fight it away from its den, how are we to get it to come to us? These woods, you said, were a feasting ground.”
Alvis did sigh at that, thoughtfully. “Indeed. With so much Ether around, and the crystal deposits, it will have a pick of whatever it wishes…” He closed his eyes in thought, then nodded. “Our clothes should suffice.”
“Our… clothes.”
Alvis nodded once more. “They were woven in Alcamoth. Above Eryth Sea, inside a city built atop a floating island, surrounded by other floating islands. The Ether in that area is even greater than it is here.”
Melia frowned. “Then why come to the forest?”
“An easy hunt. We High Entia have defence automatons, aircraft, and powerful weapons. Here… none such things exist.” Alvis shook his head. “In any case, that area is positively swimming in Ether. Every part of us is saturated in it. The Telethia will go hunting again – and it will zero in on us. As the most powerful sources of it.”
Melia crossed her arms. “You said we could kill it while it was digesting.”
“A half-truth, I’m afraid. You wouldn’t have accepted the ‘wait for it to go hunting again, then lure it into a trap’ plan.”
Melia bared her teeth. “You liar.”
“You are the crown princess of the High Entia – I have a duty to see you to safety, even if you hate me for it.” Alvis turned away with a sigh. “Especially if you hate me for it.”
“A duty of care – that is your excuse?”
Alvis’s processes lagged for a moment. He didn’t let it show, before he nodded. “Yes.”
Melia rubbed her eyes in exasperation. “Very well. So, then I assume the plan is to let it come to us and attack it? That is foolish. It can read minds, not us. How are we going to sense it coming?”
Alvis’s lips twitched. “We lure it into a trap.”
Melia crossed her arms. “And how do you propose we do that?”
Riki let out a sudden, excited gasp. “Aha! Riki know what to do!” He bounced excitedly, lifting a wing.
The others blinked.
“Dinobeast sniff Ether, yes? Friends say that already.” Riki continued, tapping his head as if he were the cleverest person in the room - and believing it completely. “So Melly and Mysteriouspon both stink of Ether! Very stinky! Dripping with Ether juice!”
Melia flinched. “…I beg your pardon?”
“He’s… a bit confused on what I meant by our clothes are saturated in Ether, but he has the general idea, I suppose. From a certain perspective, it would ‘stink.’”
Riki waved one of his stubby little arms. “It very old tactic of Frontier Nopon! When Sauros or Feris or Orluga chase us, we take clothes soaked in smell, put them somewhere else! Then hide in trees! When monsters get close to gobble fakes up, KA-BOOM!” He mimicked an explosion with both wings. “Trap! Nopon pounce and rip baddy-pons apart!”
There was a very long silence.
Melia blinked.
Alvis blinked.
Then Melia’s face turned red. “You cannot seriously be suggesting-”
“Melly’s robes full of ether! Shiny-head’s robes too! Put clothes somewhere, wait for Telethia, spring ambush! When land, hit it with Mind Blast, then it never see us coming!”
Riki grinned, pleased with himself.
Alvis tilted his head, as if actually considering it.
Melia turned to him. “No.”
“…He is not incorrect,” He said, slowly. “The Nopon have done this sort of thing for thousands of years. Evolutionarily tested and approved.”
“I will not let my dress be fed to a Telethia!”
“What do you suppose I think about all this?” Alvis looked down at himself, opening his jacket slightly. “These lapels are Persian.”
Melia looked away, staring. “It is ridiculous. The tailors will be furious.”
Alvis reached up, grasped a lapel in each hand, and began to rub the fur with his thumbs. “The wool is from an animal no longer extant on Bionis. It is, quite literally, irreplaceable.”
Melia started, then stopped. Her fingers twitched. Her voice, when it came again, was lower. “If it ensures victory, I will consider it. But I will not be fighting this Telethia indecent.”
Riki chuckled. “Don’t worry! Riki know exactly what do!”
---------
Melia looked down at herself with a mixture of many emotions.
“Riki…” She controlled her voice as she took in the leathers and furs keeping her some measure of decent. Barely. She looked like one of those ancient Homs-depictions in the Alcamoth Museum. “What is this?”
Leafy feathers adorned her hips and collar like an attempt to honour local wildlife - while also displaying a worrying amount of skin for someone of royal standing. The top was a thin arrangement of furs and beads that clung more to hope than to fabric, with pastel tassels and feathers dangling from every possible hem. One sleeve was missing entirely; the other was bound with jungle cord in a criss-cross pattern that screamed “fashionable tribal” in a way Melia could not possibly condone. Her midriff was fully exposed, as were most of her legs - only covered by asymmetrical legwarmers in clashing shades of leopard print and coral pink, each crowned with even more feathers. Fuzzy gauntlets hung past her fingers like she’d skinned a baby Bunniv for them. The sandals had beads. Beads.
And worst of all… there was a flower crown.
“It clothes made from beasts of Makna!” Riki bounced. “So Telethia doesn’t see friends! It camouflage!”
“…surely, in a jungle environment, it would be more prudent to cover up than to strip down,” Alvis muttered. He was worse off than Melia. She was in something resembling clothes, at least – Alvis was largely naked with the suggestion of coverage. His chest was bare, save for the x-shaped, braided harness that wrapped diagonally across his torso. A ‘pauldron’ made of feathers was on his shoulder. A short-cut length of fabric attached to a leather belt preserved everything around his waist, with an extra loincloth just in case. The sandals were planks of wood and string. The only thing he still wore from his old outfit was his pendant.
“Riki have to collect materials quick! He not have time to get so much to make full suits!”
“…you did make these impressively quick.” Melia noted.
Riki puffed out his chest proudly. “Riki father of many messy littlepons! And… Riki also broke for cash. Have to know how to sew, and do it quick.”
Melia smiled. “Well. If nothing else, I’m glad you gave me most of the coverage.”
“Of course! Melly is higher-rank, so she get most furs!”
She turned to Alvis with a sly smile.
“Truly,” She managed. “You look like you stepped out of an ancient mural dedicated to jungle gods who demand awkward virgins as tribute.”
Alvis blinked, uncertain if this was praise or slander. “I’m not a virgin – I’m a father.”
“And,” Melia added, smirking now, “I thought I had the more revealing attire. But clearly Riki has a… favourite.”
“Riki say Shiny-head needs good airflow,” Came the Nopon’s muffled voice from somewhere nearby. “Move like he rusty old Mechon.”
Alvis’s gaze did not shift. “This is sabotage.”
She raised an eyebrow at his pendant. “I notice there’s still one article you haven’t removed.”
“It’s a symbol of my office and a family heirloom. And you’ve taken my Persian from me, so the pendant is a step too far.”
Melia let out another breathless giggle and wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh stars… if only the others could see this. Or anyone, really.”
Alvis turned, beginning a dignified march toward the trap site. “They shall not.”
“Why? Ashamed?”
“I have predicted that the fewer individuals who retain visual data of this moment,” Alvis replied, “The more tolerable my continued existence will be.”
Melia chuckled again, catching up to him, brushing a fern aside with regal flair despite the absurdity of her outfit.
“Perhaps,” She said lightly. “We can both agree never to speak of this again.”
“Yes, indeed.” Alvis crouched to pick up his other clothes, and frowned. “There is a bright side, I suppose.”
“Oh?”
“The both of us will be so humiliated, the Telethia physically will not be able to sense our plans.”
------------
Reyn hit the ‘ground’ with a wet, oozing, meaty slap.
Not a thud. Not a thump. A slap - like someone had hurled a raw cut of steak against a tile wall. Or someone’s face. He groaned, limbs splayed out, strings of yellow fluid trailing from his arms like some diseased jellyfish.
The redhead gagged, and retched, and fought the urge to void the contents of his stomach right there. He’d done lots of stupid things. That was up there.
Then, came the loud, terrified, uncontrolled yelp as another body came in. And he was coming in head-first.
Reyn didn’t even need to think.
“I’ve got ya, Shulk!” Instantly, with one of his friends in trouble, Reyn clamped down on everything else, and dashed over.
Reyn caught him halfway over his shoulder – so instead of landing on his neck, Shulk’s body hit Reyn first and spun around slightly, allowing him to land on his stomach.
Shulk gagged as a glob of the foul goop splattered across… a very unfortunate sensory organ.
“Ugh - ughgh!” Shulk stumbled back, clawing at his face. “My eyes!”
Next came Elma and Fiora, crashing down in tandem. Elma almost landed on her feet, but a slick patch sent her toppling backwards with a grunt. Fiora fared worse - slamming into a lumpy, Ether-engorged membrane that sent her spinning and slamming into the ground.
“Oof!” Fiora gasped, coughing.
“Fiora!” Shulk forgot his own reaction immediately. “Are you okay!?”
“…Shulk. Use your head. Please.” She took a long breath, trying to calm herself. “Think about where we are. We just decided to ride a geyser of pus up into the Bionis. I don’t think any of us are okay.”
Sharla landed last - on her hip, with an unladylike grunt and a splorch that suggested some long-sealed abscess had just been disturbed.
“Ah… yep.” Sharla’s face twisted in disgust, flinging the goo from her fingertips. “About as bad as I expected. Bionis alive - I smell like a hospital bin.”
Then came the Doctor, who… slid down one of the larger, pillar-sized cilia like it was a fire pole, landing on his feet. He was just as soaked as everyone else. Probably worse.
That big coat flopping and sloshing like a rag left to soak that hadn’t been wrung out, hair matted, shirt stained yellow.
He hit the ground with the grace of someone who had practiced sticking landings inside the intestines of dying gods.
“Well,” He said, pushing his hair back and smearing pus across his forehead in the process, “I’ve had worse landings.” He then looked at his hand. “Oh, that’s disgusting…”
“Doctor,” Elma said flatly, dragging herself upright, “We just got yeeted by a pus volcano.”
“Oh, yeeted? Is that the technical term?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “We got launched, but not thrown.”
“It’s medically accurate!” Sharla coughed, moving to wipe her face before realizing… yeah, every part of her was covered. “That was absolutely infected. I don’t even want to know how many strains of bacteria are swimming in my boots right now.”
The Doctor smacked his lips, like he was assessing a fine wine. “Several million, if I had to guess. Maybe a few sentient ones. ‘s funny though,” He frowned. “Not really picking up on any white blood cells…”
“I am so done,” Reyn grunted, flopping over on his back like a fish. “Why does the Bionis even have lungs this big? Who needs lungs this big if they don’t even have a mouth!? Nobody should have lungs this big!”
“They’re probably closer to some manner of cooling system or heat-sink,” Shulk muttered.
“Probably,” Sharla agreed. “In lungs, the tissue is so thin that blood just kind of… oxygenates by passing through. The Bionis’s lungs don’t really seem to follow that.”
“Unless we were wrong, and it’s not the Bionis’s lungs we just passed through,” Reyn groaned.
Fiora glared at him. “Don’t say it, Reyn.”
“Colony 6 was on the crotch. The Marsh was right behind the Colony. Makes sense, ‘s all I’m saying.”
Fiora gagged. Audibly. Violently. “Reyn, I swear to the titan we’re standing inside, if you don’t shut up-”
“Hey! Hey!” Reyn sat up fast, suddenly looking a little paler. “I didn’t say it!”
“You implied it,” Elma grumbled, picking a string of pus from her sleeve like it might come to life and start talking. “I’ve done some disgusting things in my day. But this… this… takes the cake.”
“You’re not wrong,” Sharla muttered, fighting the urge to scrub her arms with a rock. “We are all taking antibiotics like they’re candy after this.”
“Oh!” The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets, and took out pill bottle that only bore a simple circular Gallifreyan symbol on the label. He cracked open the lid, popped one, then threw it underhand at Elma. “Take one, pass it ‘round.”
Elma wordlessly did just that, and passed it over to Sharla next.
Sharla examined the pills sceptically. “What sort of medication is this?”
“Super-antibiotics.” The Doctor rattled off quickly. “Kill anything in you that’s not supposed to be there, and keeps it up until you can get somewhere to clean off. Speaking of…” He leaned, and one of his trainers let out a wet, goopy squelch. “Yuck.”
He sighed and pulled out the sonic screwdriver with a practiced flick.
He clicked the screwdriver.
There was a whirr, then ‘puff.’
And then his entire outfit inflated slightly - like someone had pumped warm air through it. Jets of steam hissed from the sleeves and collar as the coat lifted at the hem and began visibly cycling grime through unseen seams. Vapour hissed from the stitching as the water-weight evaporated quite literally.
His trousers followed suit. His overcoat even rippled behind him as it cleaned itself.
Then, it stopped, and his clothes sagged back down to normal. Crisp, clean, like freshly-pressed laundry. His shirt was back to pearl-white, and he faintly smelled of lavender.
His hair fluffed back up. His hands steamed. His face shone with the confidence of a man who had not been thrown upright by a pus geyser.
Everything gleamed.
“Ah, y’see!?” The Doctor beamed, rubbing his hand through his hair which was standing back upright now. “Self-laundering clothes! Never know what kind of gunk you’ll get into. Everything is now clean like it just came out of the dry cycle.”
The Doctor took a step, and-
One of his shoes let out a long, damp frrpt as he shifted his weight.
He looked down at them.
Then looked back up.
“…All right, mostly everything,” He admitted.
Reyn burst into laughter. “That’s great, Doc! Hey – do me next!” He spread his arms, grinning, looking ready.
The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. “It’s not part of the screwdriver, Reyn, it’s the clothes.”
Reyn blinked. “But, I thought-“
“You thought a little old sonic screwdriver could do a full wash on the clothes while you’re still wearing them? It’s not magic, Reyn.” The Doctor looked down, groaned, and kicked his shoes off, shoved them into a pocket, and wriggled his toes. “Barefoot on Bionis!”
“…did you just shove those into your pockets?” Fiora questioned.
“Have you not been wearing socks this whole time?” Elma, concerned, demanded next.
Shulk tilted his head. “Do you have six toes on that foot?”
The Doctor quickly looked down, took note, then look back up. “So I do. Now, we should probably get out of here and get to somewhere relatively safe-ish or clean so you can get clean and change those clothes. Sides, I don’t really want to imagine being swept along in the post-nasal drainage of a god-corpse. Allons-y!”
The Time Lord began to walk, barefoot, up the winding incline extending ahead.
The others, wet and caked in gunk, followed.
…wincing with every step.
-----------
The mannequins stood like vigilant sentinels in the heart of the clearing - two makeshift figures pieced together from reeds and vines and scattered fruit. Alvis’s and Melia’s garments hung upon them, swaying gently in the humid breeze. They looked like hastily-made and dressed scarecrows.
Well, they were, kind of – but were they really scarecrows if they were meant to attract, not scare away?
Melia wondered if the Telethia was going to really fall for it. Then again, she supposed it didn’t really have to – just get close in and curious enough for her to hit it with everything she had.
Now, she stood with her staff held upright, elemental Ether charges hovering over it and her head. The flickering orbs - fire, wind, and lightning - circled lazily, like vultures awaiting at command. The rest of it was all charged up in her staff, on stand-by, ready to be loosed in a single, enormous blast. All she had to do was get the Telethia in her sights.
Alvis crouched in the brush beside her, eyes narrowed. His sword reflecting in the sunlight, and the light of Melia’s elemental Ether orbs. Riki was a few feet away, tail twitching anxiously, gripping his Biter with both wings.
They waited, low in the brush. Eyes searching like the Telethia could pop out at any moment.
“Riki,” Melia said quietly, eyes still fixed ahead. “Why are you still here?”
“Meh? Why Melly say that?”
“Four men are dead. You weren’t even supposed to be here in the beginning.” Melia swallowed. “You could go home right now, and be entirely in the right for it. I even gave you the offer.”
Riki blinked, then puffed his cheeks, unsure if it was an accusation or a statement. “…Melly not wrong. Riki wanted to stay with family. Hide under blankets. Watch stories.”
“You still can,” She said. “It’s not too late to run.” Melia spared him a glance. “You’re not bound by honour or duty. Not like I am. Not like Alvis pretends to be. You have children, Riki.”
Riki didn’t respond for a long moment. His wide eyes were uncharacteristically serious.
“…Riki saw what Dinobeast did to Melly’s friends.” He looked down, clutching his weapon tighter. “Riki want to run. Dinobeast is big, and scary, and loud. And Riki is small. But Melly wrong. Riki do have duty.”
He turned his head slowly, meeting Melia’s gaze.
“Riki is Dadapon. Littlepons play in these woods. Run around. Laugh. Climb trees. If Dinobeast free, one day they not come home. And Riki would blame self forever.”
Melia felt her breath catch.
Riki looked away again. “And Riki also see Melly. Melly strong. And, ooooohhhh, very angery, too! But Melly still just Littlepon too. Not fair for Littlepon to fight alone.”
“…I am not a child,” she said softly.
“No,” Riki replied. “But Melly is someone’s.”
The words struck harder than she expected. She looked back toward the clearing, the mannequins wearing her robes and Alvis’s coat still swaying like baited ghosts.
She gulped. “That does not mean you have to risk yourself for me.” Four had already died. Riki was the breadwinner for his home, it seemed – so many children, and in serious debt too. They couldn’t afford to lose him.
“Riki know that – but Riki want to help! If it Riki’s littlepon that go out into woods to fight big Dinobeast, Riki would feel much better if they have friends with them.”
Melia took a pause for a moment, before smiling slightly. “Thank you, Riki.” She blinked. “Do you… I know what you said, about parents not being proud all the time. But… do you really think they won’t be disappointed, how things have gone?”
Riki spat on the ground, tiny brows furrowed. “If littlepon comes back from life-threatening danger, and parents angry too much to feel relief they alive, bad parents, Riki say!”
Melia didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smile. But her eyes softened.
“…Thank you, Riki.”
She nodded - slowly, almost reluctantly.
It wasn’t so much her father she had to worry about. Sorean was a man of stoic reserve, but he loved her. That much she had never doubted.
But Yumea…
The First Consort’s gaze had always been cold. Measuring. Calculating. Like she was examining a political liability, not a person. Even as a child, Melia had felt it - that thin veneer of civility wrapped around contempt. But, Melia wanted to believe that they could work past it – they were family, after all, and Melia had so many years ahead of her. But that contempt wasn’t Yumea’s alone. She merely embodied it, the living reminder of her mother’s ‘pollution’ of the royal line.
A half-breed.
The shame of the court.
A little girl with wings that were too short, eyes that held knowledge beyond her years, and ears that - whispered some - marked her not as heir, but as something impure.
She hadn’t heard those whispers directly in years. Not directly. But they hadn’t stopped. They’d only grown quieter, more sophisticated. Her father had let it be known he would not tolerate such things, so those who gossiped only got better at hiding it.
Melia clenched her hand around her staff until her knuckles paled.
She may have been Princess, but that only made her be subject to greater scrutiny, than anything. They were watching her now, waiting. Taking measure of her every mistake, for the first slip-up. And she already had.
Aizel, Hogard, Garan, Damil. Burned away by that creature's ether.
They had trusted her. Believed in her command. And she had led them to death.
She could still hear the screams.
Still see the way one of them had looked back - not in anger, not in pain - but in apology. As if he had failed her, and not the other way around.
And now… even if she killed the beast, even if she came back alive, what would they say? They wouldn’t see it as vengeance being done, Melia was well aware of that.
They wouldn’t see the Telethia lying dead at her feet.
They’d see her having taken four loyal, devoted warriors under her command – barely a girl, barely qualified to lead – and they’d see only her and Alvis having returned.
And they would tear her apart with words sharper than any Telethia’s claws.
.
She felt it, even now, like vines around her throat. She wasn’t going to be allowed to grieve them. Not properly. Not publicly. Because if she broke, if she wept, the court would see it as weakness.
So she held it all in.
Not because it came naturally.
But because she would have to fight for every ounce of legitimacy.
And even now - standing in furs instead of armour, Ether shimmering in her palm - she didn’t know if it would be enough.
But the only thing she could do was kill the Telethia. She had to. Returning with four people dead would be bad enough, but doing so without slaying the beast?
Unacceptable. To the others – and to Melia. The Telethia could not be allowed to roam free any longer.
Not another day. Not another hour.
She stared ahead, toward the motionless mannequins draped in her cloak and Alvis’s coat. A flicker of something passed over her. Not doubt. But anticipation’s terrible twin: dread.
The air changed.
It began subtly - barely perceptible at first. The birdsong that had threaded through the trees vanished. One by one. A silence crept across the canopy like frost. Even the insects quieted, the buzzing dimming until all that remained was the whisper of the leaves.
Then the whisper stopped, too.
“Friends hear that?” Riki whispered. “It the silence.”
Melia looked down at him. “The silence?”
“When everything in woods go quiet, they hiding from big, scary thing.” Riki jittered nervously.
A single, aching stillness took hold.
Even the wind dared not move.
Melia’s ether orbs flared. Her fingers twitched. Her breath caught, as the wind began to kick up.
The trees groaned in the distance, creaking and rustling as their branches shook.
Alvis’s head turned slightly. He had not moved in minutes. His eyes were focused beyond the treeline - unblinking. Focused on something neither Melia or Riki could see.
A shadow swooped over the clearing. The foliage seemed to recoil from it. Trees bowed away without being touched.
A low, guttural rumble reverberated from the sky, like thunder.
Riki stopped bouncing. His ears twitched. His fur puffed up slightly. He gripped his weapon tighter.
Melia could feel her pulse in her fingertips.
Alvis spoke at last, drawing his blade, and standing. “It’s coming.”
Riki rose, breath steady despite the fear in his eyes. He bounced lightly on his heels, readying himself. “Melly strong. Shiny-head clever.” His voice shook - but only slightly. “Riki and friends beat up Dinobeast, go home to eat and nap!”
Melia’s lips twitched. “That sounds rather a good plan to me, Heropon Riki.”
A gust of wind kicked up, swirling through the clearing like the breath of the Bionis itself. Leaves spiralled into the air and spun around, caught in invisible vortexes. The Ether all around buzzed with sudden agitation.
Then…
A blur, a thud, and quaking, as an enormous figure dropped from the sky, and slammed into the ground, landing on all fours. The mannequins jolted violently from the force of the impact, nearly toppling over. A wave of pressure shot outward, flattening the grass and rippling the mist like disturbed water.
The Telethia’s three heads shook as it puffed out air. Its translucent, pale-blue skin glimmered in the sunlight as it began to walk and paw around.
It turned one head to the left. Another to the right. The third, in the middle, tilted forward toward the mannequins.
It sniffed the air, the sound so loud it sounded like it was scraping wood. One of the heads snapped toward the effigies, eyes locking in with uncanny focus.
And then - it paused.
Each head moved at a slightly different rhythm, each set of horns on its heads pulsing asynchronously, like a probe – or a threat display. A strange, twitching ripple travelled down its necks and across its body, like it was one single, gigantic neuron firing. It began to pace – slowly and suspiciously, with the gait of a predator not quite sure what to make of what lay before it.
But its attention wavered. It seemed… unable to sense them, or at the very least was confused about what was going on – perhaps something about their positioning created noise.
Or perhaps…
It could hear their thoughts still - but couldn’t pinpoint where they were coming from. That might’ve been it. It could sense the ether in the trap clothes, and assumed the dummies were alive, but with the thoughts coming from elsewhere, it wasn’t sure what was going on.
So they sat - hidden in the brush, bodies still as statues, waiting while they kept their minds focused on a singular mantra:
Remain still. Remain calm. Wait.
The Telethia crept closer to the mannequins. One head hissed, sniffing as if to test the scent. Another loomed above, examining the Ether aura with reptilian curiosity. The third slowly craned its gaze toward the treeline – towards them - briefly. Then back to the bait.
Once it destroyed the mannequins, their cover would be blown.
Alvis’s grip on his sword tightened. He didn’t breathe. Riki was locked in place, trembling only slightly.
Melia didn’t move a muscle. Her staff was still primed - held for what felt like hours now.
The Telethia walked around to the front side of the mannequins. Its three heads settled into place. The Telethia began to lift a claw, spreading its paw wide open, prepared to cut them down.
Melia surged into action, pointing her staff.
“Mind Blast!” She called out for the benefit of the others, and let the art loose.
A ray of searing, golden light shot outward – like the burst of a star, brought down to earth, and pointed right at the Telethia. It surged across the clearing like a cannon-blast, enveloping the Telethia and knocking it off-balance.
The Telethia’s horns crackled and sparked as Ether shorted between them. The Telethia reeled back, all three heads jerking in different directions. One roared in confusion, another spat ether from its mouth, the third slammed into the ground in sheer frustration, shattering part of the forest floor.
Alvis vaulted out of their hiding spot, sword held out and ready. As the Telethia turned to meet the source of the blast, Alvis swung, his sword tearing into the Telethia’s neck.
Melia was already on her feet, staff spinning into position as her elemental orbs bobbed over her head.
The blade sliced through the gaps in the chitinous plating underneath its neck, drawing a gout of green, ether ichor. The Telethia shrieked in three different pitches. Its wings snapped open, slamming Alvis with gale-force winds, but the Seer ducked, rolled, and struck again, this time at the second neck, digging the blade in.
A pulse of reactive ether blasted outward, forcing him back. Alvis skidded through dirt and grass, sandals getting caught in the soil. He steadied himself mid-slide, and kicked the hastily-cobbled-together excuse for shoes off.
“My apologies,” He muttered. “But whomever your previous identity, I cannot allow you to roam free.”
A tiny streak of fur and feathers zipped past him.
“Riki go now!” Came the battle cry.
The Heropon launched himself like a cannonball, bouncing once, twice - then tumbling under the Telethia’s legs like a wild pinball with a plan. One head snapped downward, jaws open wide, but missed entirely as Riki slipped through with a blur of motion.
He popped up at the beast’s rear.
And yanked on one of its tails.
“Riki know how to deal with big monsters! Pop in face, yank on tail! Riki thinks Dinobeast is not so much harder than that!”
The tail spasmed violently in response, but Riki held on. The Heropon was knocked around, but held on tight, as the Telethia spun around and tried to knock him off.
Its heads furiously growled, and snapped, and as it spun around-
‘SPLOOSH!’
A blast of water Ether hit it in the face.
Melia lifted her staff, and pointed it, sending out another orb.
Another orb pulsed around her - green and kicking out air - and hurled itself toward the beast. It struck its wing mid-flap, shredding the air with razorlike gusts and driving the creature back.
With the wind being countered, Alvis could charge in again.
His footfalls were soundless. Precise, and even more quick without the sandals on his feet. When the beast reared up to counter him, Alvis planted one foot on a jutting stone - and vaulted upward.
He flipped once, slashing down, his blade colliding with the base of one of the Telethia’s necks. It flailed in panic, and thrashed, knocking Alvis away again, and Riki finally lost his grip.
Then, a yellow orb of Ether went shooting through the air like a bullet, slamming into its shoulder. It popped with the force of a bolt of lightning, causing the Telethia to spasm uncontrollably.
“Now!” Melia called. “Alvis, left flank! Riki, back legs!”
Riki didn’t need to be told twice. “Bitey… bitey!”
He bounded forward again, spinning in midair with his weapon twirling like a flail. He struck the creature’s ankle once, the huge, snapping jaws of the weapon tearing into the flesh and ripping it away. The Telethia kicked, and Riki grabbed on, using the momentum to spring up onto its back.
“Heropon, smash!” Riki yelled, slamming his biter down into its back.
Melia spun her staff once, then jammed it into the ground. A brown-orange bolt of Ether smacked into its face, as heavy as a boulder.
A tremor rippled through the soil. The creature stumbled, one leg sinking slightly as the terrain became uneven and cracked. Alvis was already on it - he dashed across the broken ground with perfect balance, slashing once, then flipping backward as the middle head lunged with snapping jaws.
The head slammed into the ground.
“Riki!” Melia called out. “Remove yourself!”
“Okay Melly!” Riki did give the Telethia one last snap, and jumped off, rolling to safety.
Melia swung her staff, and a red orb shot out, streaking through the air and leaving a trail of fire like a comet. It hit the wounded head – and burst into flame. An inferno licked across the Telethia. It reeled in agony, but the blast also lit up its fury. All three heads snapped toward Melia at once.
“Melia-!” Alvis began, already turning.
But she was ready.
The heads lunged. The three mouths alight with Ether crackling in their gullets. Melia instantly got a flash of the blasts that disintegrated the others, and reacted.
Melia swung, and a pale, bright blue orb of Ether tore free. The blast rocketed forth, and slammed into the Telethia, creating a starburst of frost all across it. The Telethia roared in agony as the sudden frostbite combined with the burns, and the blast it was about to let loose dissipated, going skyward as its heads reflexively reared back in pain.
She ducked low, bracing as the shockwave passed overhead.
Riki took the chance to leap from and land near her.
“Riki say ow! Melly’s fire very hot! Cook Riki like Plumage Peach!”
“I did warn you,” She said, helping him steady his footing.
Alvis went back in for another strike at the Telethia’s legs, the monster snarling as it knocked him back over.
He wasn’t breathing hard - but he did take deep, steady breaths as he got back to his feet.
“Surely, that has it on the-“ Melia began to comment, cutting herself off as particles of glowing Ether began to radiate off the Telethia’s body – a kind of gold orange sparkle, like swarms of glowbugs flying away into the night.
The Telethia’s burns began to clear away, cuts sealing and bruises fading. It scraped the ground, let out a splutter, and growled, staring at the combatants across from it.
Melia’s jaw fell open. “What on-!?”
“It’s feeding off the Ether in the air,” Alvis muttered. “Regenerated, using it as a power source.”
That’s impossible!” Melia snapped. “That amount of damage - of trauma! It shouldn’t be able to recover so-!”
The Telethia’s wings beat, sending a blast of concussive wind outward.
“MOVE!” Alvis shouted.
They scattered, each leaping in a different direction as trees around them were felled by the gust.
Melia skidded into a crouch, her staff already glowing again.
She extended her hand and screamed.
“Mind Blast!”
A second golden beam of Ether exploded from her staff, searing across the battlefield in a jet. It caught the creature mid-step - direct hit.
The horns on its three heads sputtered, then shorted again. A wave of disorientation rippled through its body, and all three heads jerked wildly in different directions, roaring, coughing, snarling.
Riki didn’t hesitate.
“Now now now! RIKI ATTACK!”
He launched like a little bullet, bounding off a half-fallen log, spinning midair and slamming his weapon down onto the beast’s shoulder with a crunch.
“For great Nopon justice!”
The creature shrieked, rearing back - and Riki was already bouncing away, using the recoil to fly into the trees like a living ping-pong ball.
Alvis moved in again, blindingly fast. One moment he was still, the next he blurred forward, blade glinting in the light as he slashed at the Telethia’s calves.
Ether blood spattered the forest floor as Alvis dug in with precision strikes. He aimed for joints, gaps in the bony armour plating, nerve clusters - each movement surgically calculated.
The Telethia stumbled.
It shrieked and lurched forward, trying to turn.
Melia swung her staff again, and another bolt arced out, slamming into the still-soaked creature. It conducted, sending Ether cascading and sparking, snapping like jagged whips across the Telethia’s body.
It reeled, stunned.
Melia, unleashed the next orb in rapid succession. The blast detonated at its feet, flames engulfing one of its legs and sending it toppling to the side.
Alvis leapt clear.
She twirled her staff, drawing it inward against her chest, and focused. Ether coiled tightly around her, compressing into a single point - a flicker of teal and white so bright it seemed to distort the air around it.
The words left her lips like a judgment.
“Burst End!”
The charged ether exploded from her staff in a spiral ray of light, a torrent of compressed force that carved through the remaining mist and slammed into the Telethia’s chest. The impact rippled like a shockwave - an invisible blade peeling through its armour.
The Telethia convulsed.
The glow around its body shattered in streaks of golden, flickering light. Its claws buckled as it sank lower to the ground.
Riki came bounding in like a meteor.
“Riki sneaky!”
He hurtled past Alvis, slammed the flat of his weapon into the beast’s rear haunch, and used the momentum to vault onto its back. He struck again - once, twice - then scampered up between its shoulders, laughing.
“Dinobeast not so scary when Heropon come to town!”
One of the Telethia’s heads twisted around to retaliate, but Riki vanished beneath its wing. Another tried to bite, but the Nopon sprang away like a rubber ball, landing near Melia with a bounce and a grin.
“Okay… Riki think that one do it!” The Heropon said, hopeful.
The creature lay motionless.
Smoke rose from its injuries.
And then - again - the glow returned.
The wounds began to close.
“…No.” Melia whispered.
She took a step back, almost uncomprehending.
“No!” She shouted. “That was my most powerful-! It can’t just- it shouldn’t-!”
“Melia!” Alvis called, his eyes wide as the Telethia whipped around to face her again.
The Telethia surged forward in a burst of blinding motion, no longer cautious or confused. It charged, and slammed into her – the girl bringing up her staff and generating a shield just in time to be knocked off her feet and sent flying. She slammed into the earth, hitting the ground with a cry of pain.
“Melly!” Riki yelped, dashing after her.
The Telethia didn't stop.
One of its heads turned toward Riki - and blasted a stream of Ether forward. The Heropon barely dodged, flipping up into the air and spinning away as the ground behind him turned grey and dead, the plants withering in moments as the life was blasted out of everything.
Alvis threw himself between the creature and Melia, intercepting the second blast mid-air with his sword, and sheer force of will.
The force flung him back, legs skidding as he gritted his teeth and dug in. The skin on the soles of his feet screamed at him as it was torn open
Melia coughed, scrambling upright.
“Alvis!” She let a blast of water ether fly at him, granting him its healing properties.
He whipped around to face her. “You need that more than I!”
“And I need you!” Melia retorted, as her eyes picked up a blue of motion. “Evade!”
The Telethia charged across the clearing, raised one of its paws, and swiped.
The air boomed as the force hit both of them in their sides, and sent them flying across the battlefield, crashing through branches and skidding through undergrowth.
Alvis wheezed, looking down at his torso – and the enormous gash torn into it.
A single, savage gash carved diagonally across his torso. It was not a clean cut. Flesh hung in uneven flaps, twitching as the chunks of muscle still connected tried to carry signals. Deep within, a sliver of ivory showed through - the edge of a rib.
Blood poured in heavy pulses, hot and viscous like honey.
Alvis stared at it, tilting his head as his eyebrows shot up.
“Pain,” He whispered. He looked down again. Raised his trembling hand and pressed it - not gently - against the wound. A searing bolt of agony tore through his body. His vision whited out for a heartbeat. His jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. “…That’s new.”
He staggered again, blinking slowly as blood continued to run down his front. The skin around the wound had already gone pale, turning waxy beneath the strain. And still he watched it, like a biologist observing an insect pinned under glass.
“This is… inefficient,” he muttered aloud. “So much feedback… no filtration… so much waste…”
A sound broke through the haze. A scream. Female, and agonized.
Melia.
He turned - saw her silhouette rising from where she’d crashed through the undergrowth. She gripped the trunk of a tree, legs unsteady. Her back was hunched slightly, one arm hugging her side. Her wings-
Alvis’s eyes popped open.
The left one was twisted. Bent at an angle that no living joint should endure.
She stumbled forward.
“Melia!” He called, but the word tore his lungs raw.
She didn’t answer. Maybe she couldn’t.
Melia dragged herself out of the brush, one foot at a time. Her breaths came in gasps. Each movement made her flinch.
Her sides were on fire. Her wing was screaming. Her hearts were thundering in her head.
She had to fight the urge to vomit.
She didn't look toward Alvis. Her eyes were locked on the Telethia - that thing. Still standing, pristine as though the battle had just begun.
Even as her vision blurred, even as her broken wing hung limply down the side of her head like a snapped branch, she reached for her staff.
The Ether around her shivered and contracted, like a dog jumping to meet its master.
Alvis felt it. In her current state-
His bloodied fingers gripped his sword tighter.
“No,” He gasped out. “Melia, don’t.”
She didn’t answer.
He staggered toward her. “You’re going to overdraw. It could kill you.”
The Ether spiked. The weight upon her grew, like gravity increasing tenfold.
Melia’s knees buckled, but she caught herself.
The air began to burn, as a shimmering aura began to glow around Melia.
“Stop,” Alvis said. His eyes were wide with panic. “Melia, this will-!”
There was no incantation, no flourish, and no poetry to it.
Melia slammed her staff into the dirt, and the earth split beneath her. Ether exploded out from her, like a supernova, as the light that surged forth tore across the air, blinding and raw.
The blast expanded, erupting from in front of the staff base and washing forward in a column of burning white. Trees evaporated. The grass and smaller creatures on the ground in the blast’s path vaporized. The sky turned briefly colourless, like the blast was brighter than the sun tinting the sky blue.
The Telethia didn’t so much as roar as it screamed and howled. Its necks contorted under the force, wings slamming against itself, armour cracking like shattering glass. It twitched – the Ether around it dimming as it was absorbed, but even then, the searing white-gold ray continued to eat at it.
It staggered back in pain, shielding its faces as best it could, before it decided discretion was the more viable route to survival, and took to the skies.
The air vibrated, and the beam dissipated, leaving Melia standing there, heaving and wheezing.
Then her body sagged, her grip on the staff loosened, and she collapsed with a weak grunt.
“Mel-“ Alvis surged as well, moving to catch her, as the pain tore through him. He fell, as his face twisted and twitched. Something was wrong.
He shouldn’t have been able to feel pain.
“M-Melly! Alvis!” Riki bounded over, huffing and puffing, his face shifting through a slot-machine’s worth of expressions at once. “Oh, Riki not do so good- Riki let friends get hurt!”
“It…” Alvis wheezed. “Was not your fault… sir Riki.”
“But it is Riki’s fault! Riki made Heropon’s promise to protect friends, and now Melly and Alvis dying!” Riki beat his wings in a panic. “Riki sorry – Riki should have paid better attention! Jumped into action when Dinobeast swipe!”
“Do not fret, brave Heropon.” Alvis, despite the gigantic gash in his side, chuckled and flopped back. “We’re not dying… at least, I don’t believe so.” He winced.
“Mysteriouspon bleeding out! Riki know some first aid, but not enough to fix big Dinobeast wapow claw-swipe!”
“Don’t worry about me,” Alvis controlled his breathing. “I will heal, just fine.” He glanced over at Melia, limp on the ground. “Tend to her.”
“But Alvis have worse damage!”
“Yes. But I will heal from it. I assure you.” Alvis took a breath. It was just a projection, he could heal, just fine. “I need you to go over to Melia.”
Riki looked Alvis in the eye for a long moment, before nodding, and rushing over to Melia.
“What Riki need to do!?”
“Measure her pulses.” Alvis instructed.
“Pulses!? Melly have more than one!?”
“High Entia are twin-hearted organisms.” Alvis calmly explained. “By necessity. Their wings do enable genuine flight – but at their relative mass and complexity, they are intensely demanding structures; it is simply less of a draw on the body’s resources. Twin hearts also help deliver oxygen more efficiently at high altitudes without having to increase the heart rate.”
“Riki not need health class! Just tell Riki what to do to help Melly!”
“Check her pulse, as I instructed.” Alvis calmly, but firmly reminded the Nopon.
Riki let out a scared little yelp, going to check Melia’s pulse. “Um… Riki no feel it so well, but he feel it.”
“Then she is likely suffering a case of low-level Ether exhaustion. She will be unable to awake until the levels return. We will need to find a source of pure Ether – water would be most compatible with living creatures.” Alvis took in a breath, and began to right himself. “If we move quickly, we can retrieve the crystal, and return.”
“Eh? Why friend say-“ Riki began. “Hey, no, no! Bad mysteriouspon! Hurt very bad! Can’t move in that state, or hurt self more! Plus, it rude to leak blood all over forest floor.”
“Are you versed in telling the purity of Ether crystals by-sight alone?”
“No – but Alvis bleeding like Sauros with chunk taken out by Orluga! Die if he keep moving!”
“You needn’t worry about that,” Alvis breathed heavily, bracing himself against the tree. “Just give me a moment.”
Alvis took another deep breath, stood up, and his entire form flickered. A shimmer passed over him, like sunlight refracted through water. For a brief moment, his outline blurred, the edges of his body dissolving into particles of soft blue-white light.
His blood evaporated, vanishing as simply as a thin puddle on a hot day. Muscle fibre weaved rapidly like together like thin strands of twine curling and twisting together into string. His rib, once exposed, vanished beneath the reformed flesh in a bright, blinding glow.
Then, faint glow around him dulled to nothing.
Alvis opened his eyes slowly, as if awakening from a dream. He blinked once, twice, then regarded his own hand with mild detachment.
Riki let out a surprised splutter. “How did-“
“The men and women of my bloodline have many abilities. Unfortunately, my healing arts only work on me.” In truth, that was because they were less ‘healing arts’ and more ‘refreshing his avatar.’
Although, he could probably channel Ether to her just fine… But, then, there were meetings he had to ensure played out. Certain things done that would prod people into acting in ways beneficial to him…
“Curious,” He murmured. “My ability to view the future, disrupted, and now pain.” Then again, he hadn’t ever fought a Telethia before, or been on the receiving end of its attacks. They were a bit… more, than the other things that called Bionis home. “I’ll have to run a diagnostic.”
Riki tilted his head in concern. “What that? What friend talking about?”
“Do not worry, Riki. For now, we should endeavour to find Ether crystals.”
“What!?” Riki spluttered. “What about Melly!? It not safe here on forest floor!” Riki beat his wings, looking around. “Many hungry monsters live in forest! Gobble sleeping Melly up without second thought!”
Alvis began to answer, before he smiled. “Well then, Riki. I suppose she will need a brave Heropon to watch over her so that doesn’t happen.” He turned about. “I believe the Telethia has been just as wounded as us. Perhaps not in a visible way, but the reaction to the Ether burst is telling. And the battle with the Telethia likely will have scared away prowling monsters – but I recommend you hide out of sight, just in case, to get the drop on them. I will be back as soon as possible.” Then, he walked away, vanishing into the thicket of trees and vines.
Riki lingered by for a moment, before grabbing his biter. He bounded over to one of the trees, and began to climb, up high into it, settling in the branches like an owl, hovering over Melia’s fallen form.
----------
There wasn’t much that could be done about their ruined clothes, other than endure. But after a solid stretch of time walking, they could at least get out of the hot, damp, unsettling insides of the Bionis, and out into-
“Daylight!” Reyn cried out, spreading his arms wide and running on just a little bit ahead. “Oh, man! Finally, some fresh air!”
Elma caught a whiff of something distinctly… methane-y, and frowned. “Not that fresh.”
“No, that’s just Reyn,” Sharla shook her head.
“Oi! You lot smell just as bad as I do, now!”
Sharla cocked an eyebrow.
Reyn held up a finger. “Not the takedown I was hoping for.”
Leaves rustled, invisible motion brushed up against her, and Fiora sighed first. “Oh, that breeze… It feels so good.” She took a breath, and glanced Shulk’s way. “Of course, Outlook Park is still my favourite spot to feel it. The wind from the lake isn’t as sticky as… this stuff.”
Shulk chuckled. “What’s the difference? Wind is wind.”
Fiora shot him a look.
Shulk blinked. “What? What did I say?”
“I’d offer to explain, but don’t worry, I think she’ll let you know exactly what you said wrong later,” The Doctor rattled off a thousand-words-a-minute, before gesturing. “Now, we got here by going up through Bionis, so that must mean this is Makna!” He proclaimed with a grin, walking on slightly ahead.
The Doctor took the lead, coat flapping with every step as he meandered down the narrow, root-tangled path veiled by drooping vines and thick ferns. Walls were on both sides, and the sky was above, but something about it seemed… wrong. It looked more like a shimmering surface than the air. “Come on, come on! Bit of a squeeze, mind your footing – don’t shove.”
Sharla ducked under a hanging branch. “I’d be more worried about the plants trying to get us than anything.
They followed single file, the canopy above deepening into a mosaic of greens and golden shafts of sunlight. Eventually, the claustrophobic trail widened - and the trees fell away in an instant.
They all emerged onto a rocky outcropping, high above the forest floor. Makna Forest sprawled out below a sea of green out of which a gigantic tree stuck up from, like a monolith. Far off to the right, a colossal waterfall roared down, feeding a stream the bisected the forest and the cliffside they were standing upon. Mist rose from the impact basin far below, catching the light and casting faint rainbows in the light.
Elma, momentarily, seemed to forget she was covered in gunk, taking a step to look out upon the landscape. Her jaw fell open. “Incredible… And this is – we’re on a lifeform right now?”
The Doctor nodded respectably. “Yeeeah.”
Elma looked down at herself, made a noise, and shook her head. “And I’m covered in its pus…”
Even Reyn seemed to fall silent, gawking. “Is that one waterfall?”
The Doctor looked over. “Looks like it.” His face twitched in curiosity. “I wonder what’s feeding it… Probably something to do with Ether, if the pattern is anything to go by.
Fiora stepped closer to the edge of the cliff, just enough to feel the wind from the pressure difference whip her hair back. “It’s beautiful.”
Shulk stood beside her, momentarily unable to say anything, then managed: “It is.” This is what the Mechon were trying to take from them. What they were threatening by their mere existence. A living being, with a whole variety of environments and living things upon them. How could they be regarded as anything other than evil, in that respect.
“Now,” The Doctor spoke up, looking about. “If this is Makna, according to Dickson, then above us should be…” His head turned skyward, and he stopped. Here, away from the tall walls concealing it, the mass above them could be seen.
A huge, rippling, shimmering surface, flickering with the ripples of light through water. It was directly above, held by massive, rocky ribs going into it… and nothing else.
“Is that…?” Reyn pointed.
“Eryth Sea.” The Doctor hummed.
Elma looked around. Between the forest floor and the sea above, there were vast, open gaps. Clear, blue, actual sky could be seen beyond, and the gap was large enough that clouds were drifting through.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Elma crossed her arms.
“The air could be holding it up.” Reyn shrugged. “You know, like… a reverse-bubble kind of deal.”
Elma shook her head. “This forest would need to be walled off, sealed, completely airtight so the air couldn’t be pushed anywhere. And maybe pressurized, too.” Then, she frowned. “But… plenty of physically impossible things are on Mira, too. Don’t even get me started on the moons.”
“Actually, those tie into each other. The floating rock formations on Mira are caused by elements that lower their mass – so they float, but still gravitate. It can also cause some light to bend around the moon.” The Doctor then looked to Shulk. “It’s functionally identical to what the Monado’s doing when it gives you that… speed whats-it.”
Shulk looked up, curious. “Really?”
The Doctor nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Using Ether to lower your own mass. Lighter things move quicker. It’s one of the oldest physics hacks in the book. Of course… can’t make yourself too light. Once you go massless, you don’t go back. Literally. You explode into photons.”
Shulk blinked. “Ah. Well… better avoid that.”
“Anyway, it’s probably something similar here!” The Doctor looked back up, gazing at the body of water high above. “A field of Ether, acting like gravity tethers, holding the water up. Or as mass nullifiers, keeping it from falling.”
“Or it could be like a force shield,” Elma proposed.
“Or that.”
“Then, how do we get up there?” Fiora inquired. “Dickson said Prison Island was up there.”
The Doctor glanced about, then pointed. “There’s that tree. Very close to the water. Could probably just climb to the top, jump, and swim to the surface!”
“Now, hold on.” Sharla crossed her arms. “I’m not climbing anything with my clothes still soaked in Bionis-pus.”
“Yeah, seconded.” Reyn nodded.
Elma searched the area, optics locking onto a rope bridge extending across the vast chasm formed by the river. Following it to the end on their side, she saw a fire, surrounded by a small camp. “Look. A Nopon Caravan. If they’re anything like the ones on Mira, they’ll trade anything for a few shiny objects.”
“Ah, molto bene! I bet we can pick up spare clothes off them. Or, detergent, at the very least.” The Doctor smiled. “Nopon are good at getting things.”
Elma cocked an eyebrow at the Time Lord. “You don’t keep detergent in your pockets anymore?”
“Y’see, it’s funny,” The Doctor put his hands in his pockets, as he began to lead the way down the path to the Nopon. “My pockets may be bigger on the inside, but the holes aren’t, so I kept washing powder in a little bag. Trouble is, people get really nervous when you pull out an unmarked bag of fine white powder in public, so I had to stop.”
“You could just use detergent pods.”
“Oh, rubbish! How’re you gonna wash clothes in a river with those?”
As they approached the Nopon’s little camp, three of the little bird creatures seemed to hear them talking, and poked their heads out. All three were coloured identical shades of sky blue, but at least had the grace to wear differently-coloured outfits. They came bounding out of their little tents, rushing over.
“Hom-homs!” One jumped excitedly. “Amazing!”
“Wow!” Another, standing on a giant mushroom to make himself loom over the others, beat his wings. “I can no believe I see Hom-Hom here of all places!”
“Bleck,” The third gagged. “Stinky, sticky Hom-Homs!”
“Balulu say friends should go to village and be very popular,” The first one coughed. “But stinky Hom-Hom friends make everyone run and hide.”
“Oi!” Reyn balled his fist. “Who’re you calling stinky!? You’re not so pleasant yourself!”
“Ralulu,” The one on the mushroom coughed. “And his brothers no smell good. True. But, forest musk, not… stinky, gooey nastiness friends have going on. Sorry. But, we not say it to be rude! Just trying to offer advice!”
“Pazuzu think friends should probably stay away from Frontier Village,” The third jumped. “Until they clean so they not get pelted with bars of soap when they enter village. All of new friends very stinky! Except spiky man. They probably make up for it by hitting one extra hard with soap. Probably big muscley one.”
“Okay, that’s it-“
“Reyn!” Fiora stopped him with a single bark.
“Right, right,” Reyn actually stopped in his tracks.
“Frontier Village, eh?” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that near here? We’re looking for a way up to Eryth Sea. Might someone there be able to point us that way?”
“Meh? Friend already halfway on right track!” Ralulu smiled. “Frontier Village is in big, giant tree in centre of forest! Climb to top, and they open way for you!”
“Oh, brilliant. That’s easy.” The Doctor hummed. “Y’know, there was a man who said pray to be a stronger man, instead of for an easy life… but honestly, I’m a sucker for the easy days.”
“But they probably not let friends through, stinking to high heaven,” Pazuzu rasped.
“Ah.” The Doctor hummed.
“Ralulu, is that your name?” Elma addressed with the patience of one used to dealing with Nopon, and their many oddities.
“Yes! Ralulu is one you speak to now. Ralulu’s brothers are Balulu and Pazuzu.” He gestured to each one, respectively. “Ralulu and brothers camp here on main path – only path – into forest from lower regions. Point Hom-Homs into direction of Village for trade. And do occasional trading with them too.”
“Ah,” Elma’s lips twitched. “So, that’s why you’re so excited to see us, even though we reek.”
“Hom-Hom lady with funny hair right,” The little guy nodded. “It be month, maybe two, since last trade come to forest! We thought Homs all forget about us! And other Nopon in lower regions, too!”
“It’s not our fault,” Sharla murmured. “We had a Mechon attack to deal with.”
Ralulu’s eyes popped out of his head. “Mechabeasts destroy colony!? Oh, Ralulu so sorry to hear that…” Then, the little blue puffball perked back up. “Well, safe in Makna! No Mechon to be found here! Worst are big monsters, and those mostly fine, if don’t get in way while hunting, or behind them. Most run away.”
“Ralulu’s braincase busted!” Balulu called out. “Ralulu not hear big screaming monster in distance!? Ray of light!?”
“Ralulu not hear it any more, so big monster probably dead.”
“Infallible logic,” Elma muttered, before clearing her throat. “Ralulu, if you and your brothers trade with Hum… er, Homs, do you have supplies we could make use of? Soap? Clothes we could trade for?”
Ralulu’s eyes greedily flickered as he leaned forward. “Why not friend ask before!? Of course Ralulu and brothers have supplies! Finest fur styles of Makna, for friends! And bar of soap! Friends can wash up at beach, and change into authentic Nopon styles!”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, getting a sense of… money-hungry gleaming from the Nopon’s eyes.
Oh, that didn’t bode well.
---------
So, no matter the place, the practice of fleecing tourists who wouldn’t know better for money was alive and well.
They’d been given some… cuts of fur, sliced up and hastily stitched together. The Doctor still had his suit. Then, they were pointed to a stream where they could wash up.
Once they all gathered back together…
“This is ridiculous,” Sharla looked down at herself with a scowl. “It looks like they just threw together all the old scrap they had lying around! The stitching’s frayed!”
Reyn, who was walking alongside, while looking like Conan the Barbarian and the Temple of Doom, poked at himself. “This is much worse than I was thinking.”
“On the plus side, breezy.” Shulk commented, glancing at Fiora with a smile. “Don’t you think?”
Fiora turned away with a blush. “…well, since you mentioned it, it does feel a bit less suffocatingly hot out here now.”
“This is what passes for survival gear in these woods?” Elma commented. “I should have just brought my civilian clothes…”
As their mild complaining echoed through the trees, the group pressed on - leaves crunching underfoot, sunlight streaking through the canopy above. A few vines dangled across the path ahead as their winding trail sloped steadily upward toward the giant tree at the forest’s heart. On the other side of the rope bridge, they went on.
While they walked, Elma took notice of Shulk anxiously flipping through his journal.
She purposefully lagged behind a bit, allowing her to fall into step with him. “Something wrong?”
“Hmm?” Shulk looked up. “Oh. Just making sure it wasn’t ruined by the geyser.” He poked one of the pages, but the ink wasn’t even smudged. “Thankfully, it seems to have been mostly spared. I was seriously worried about that.”
Elma hummed, curiously touching her chin. “Really? Over a journal?”
“It’s more than just a journal – it’s my research. I’ve learned so much about the Monado, just in the past several weeks! And it’s not just the Monado – but the Bionis, too, and the things that live upon it.” Shulk flipped through, before landing in the section devoted to the Replica Monado. “I’ve learned so much about… well, everything, since this began. It feels like I’ll lose all of it, if I don’t write it down. Plus, there’s more to find out. And, in general, it’s best practices to write down your experiments somewhere.”
Elma shot him a sidelong glance, before smiling. “Something of a scientist, are you?”
Shulk shrugged. “Occasionally. Not a very well-travelled one. Mostly, I handle the Monado research.”
The BLADE frowned curiously. “Wouldn’t that be better suited to a whole team, instead of one lone person?”
“You would think so,” Shulk nodded. “But… well, too many people tried to take it as free reign to start touching the Monado all they wanted. Which, given what the Monado is capable of, is very unsafe. By the time of the Mechon attack on Colony 9, I was the only one left. Which is fine – I preferred being able to think on my own.”
Elma tilted her head. “Mechon? I’ve heard that word. Are they some sort of rival group you’re at war at?”
Shulk’s face twisted in confusion, before he remembered that – like the Doctor – she was from Elsewhere. Then, he nodded. “They’re mechanical lifeforms, from the Bionis’s counterpart, Mechonis. The Monado is the only thing that hurts them. We don’t know why they’re attacking us – the Doctor seems to think it’s a misunderstanding, but so far the evidence suggests otherwise.”
“Hmm…” Elma hummed. “Synthetic lifeforms…” She crossed her arms. “A lot of civilisations in the universe have tried manufacturing automatons…”
Shulk tilted his head in response. “Automatons?”
“Machines, that can run largely independently, according to a predetermined set of instructions, or design limitations,” Elma rattled off. “My people built many of them.”
Shulk frowned. “We’d theorized making independent, machine soldiers – meant to fight the Mechon – but the control systems would have to be hopelessly complex. We could never figure out how to miniaturise them sufficiently enough.”
Elma nodded. “That’s usually a problem. My people, though, we had help. Or, we cheated. It depends on how you look at it.”
“Cheated?” Shulk repeated.
Elma once again nodded. “Took shortcuts. Reverse-engineering alien technology, technology from the future.”
“I told you!” The Doctor hollered at her from up ahead. “It’s cheap and dirty! No character in it!”
Elma rolled her eyes, then turned back to Shulk. “He’s just pissy because his people had to do everything the hard way, so when someone else makes something easier on themselves, he thinks it’s unfair.”
“His peo…” Shulk blinked. “So, you and the Doctor aren’t the same species?”
Elma shook her head. “No. His was as far beyond mine as… yours is beyond a tree. But we were trying to get close. They didn’t make it easy, but we tried.”
“So, there is a gap, between people?” Shulk inquired. “Not everyone in your world enjoys the same quality of life?”
Elma looked at him funny, like the way he phrased it was off. “No.”
“That’s unfortunate.” Shulk hummed. “A place like that, with the technology I’ve seen the Doctor use… you would think they would spread it to everyone. To try to help. To lift them up.”
Elma sighed. “You would think. But no. And, in some cases, advanced civilisation doesn’t always mean refined civilisation.” She shook her head. “Some kill, others try to enslave. And some are just young beyond their tech.” The silver-haired woman crossed her arms. “A lot of civilisations build automatons, like the Mechon, to make their lives easier. But they develop intelligence, or malfunction, and go rogue. That might be what happened here. The Mechon went rogue, wiped out their creators, then moved onto your people.”
“Really?” Shulk breathed, intrigued. “Intelligence in machines?”
“Oh yeah,” Elma nodded easily. “It’s one of the big main scientific hurdles a people dream about getting over, before they even invent complex machines. Judaism has its Golems, for example. The ancient Greeks had Talos. And Pinocchio has several fundamental traits of your typical ‘machine intelligence craving becoming human’ story.”
Shulk blinked, as… all of those references went over his head.
Elma continued. “The discipline of it is usually referred to as Artificial Intelligence. Sometimes it’s intertwined with robotics, sometimes not. But it can be a very dangerous thing to pursue, superintelligent machines. Especially if you’re a species that takes shortcuts.”
Shulk lagged momentarily, before processing the implication. “Did something happen to your people?”
“Almost. Decades before our latest crack at it, though,” Elma mused. “But it taught us the restraint we needed. When the tech we needed finally landed on our doorstep, we were ready.”
“I see,” Shulk frowned, as something stuck in his head. “If a big problem with automatons are power sources, how do you think the Mechon move?”
Elma considered it for a moment. “I’m not sure. Their power sources would have to be extremely compact.”
“The Mechon were siphoning Ether from underneath Colony 6 – it’s possible they use it as a power source, same as we do.” Shulk hummed. “It’s an extremely energy-dense substance.”
“Could be.” Elma hummed. “Or they could be receiving it from somewhere else. My people’s automatons – Artifices – consume too much energy to have onboard power plants, so they have power transmitted to a receiver embedded within them from another source. We call them Slave Generators.”
“Is that so?” Shulk, intrigued, frowned. “Wouldn’t the power drop off at range? At distances, potential loss due to range makes it become too costly to send.”
“Ordinarily,” The BLADE confirmed. “But Conduit Slave Generators are different. Their power is sent through some medium we don’t entirely understand. They’re like… portals, more than anything – the theoretical range is limitless. So, Artifices could be as big as they want, and as far from the source as they wanted, provided the generator was scaled to match.”
“That still must require an incredibly powerful Master Generator.”
“You’re not wrong.” Elma let out a puff. “Even Skells – which weren’t nearly as powerful – still had to run on energy generated via fusion reactions from nearby power stations, otherwise the generators would be just too large. When we landed on Mira, we were finally able to miniaturise the generators to fit on board the Skells themselves, by switching to a wholly-different power source.”
“Oh, so these automatons were common, where you come from?”
Elma shook her head again. “Artifices were of a special type, controlled by a set of Artificial Intelligences, powered by the Conduit, with a theoretical firepower far beyond anything else. Skells were human-piloted, separate from the Conduit, and had much more ‘manageable’ superweapons. Overall, their architecture were similar – both came from reverse-engineered alien tech - but they weren’t for your run-of-the-mill, everyday tasks. For that, we had robots called ‘Sovereigns.’”
Shulk couldn’t help himself, and opened his journal to a blank page. “Sovereigns?”
“Those were mainly used for basic defence, construction, transport, manufacture…” Elma trailed off. “They made life so much easier, doing jobs people didn’t want to. The dangerous, the tedious… and they maintain each other, and can draw passive power from pretty much any nearby trickle of a source. Sunlight, radiation, wind, all fed back into their internal batteries. I remember,” She crossed her arms, a wistful look washing over her face. “Watching the news one day. The Coalition Government was talking about abolishing money because, well, we didn’t need it anymore. Crisis response was good enough that the Sovereigns could tank pretty much anything without going off-line, and if they couldn’t, the Artifices could. They could produce enough food around-the-clock, transport it, deliver it, and install advanced technologies in impoverished nations. Making new homes for people, transporting goods… Work was seen as a hobby, by then. Nobody needed to. Everything was gathered, produced, and transported by the robots, even the robots themselves.”
Shulk felt Elma’s nostalgia as she reflected on it. But he did have a question. “Isn’t that dangerous? Coming to rely on one piece of technology so much?”
“It always is – no matter if it’s robots or something else,” Elma shrugged. “But we knew our AI, in-and-out. And even still, we had safeguards, training, guard-rails. We didn’t just throw ourselves into their arms. They were programmed to follow certain laws of robotics, and things like that. We could relax – because we made damned sure we could.”
“That sounds… amazing,” Shulk vocalized, even if a far more cynical part wanted to ask if that meant people were happy, or just comfortable.
“Oh, it was.” Elma reflected with a fond smile. “You should’ve seen Earth back then. Cleaner than it had been since the start of the Industrial Revolution, three orbital tethers and a ring connecting the whole planet such that anywhere was only a few hours away, and… well, we never did get around to getting rid of money – people were too used to it – but… well, I hesitate to call any place a paradise. But Earth was close.” She closed her eyes at the end, standing still for a long moment. When she opened them back up, they were slightly red-tinted, puffy, and watery.
“It couldn’t have been an easy thing,” Shulk commented. “Getting it to that state.”
“…it wasn’t.” Elma admitted softly, so softly, that even the Time Lord up ahead couldn’t hear. “There were… difficult people; old powers who didn’t want to let go. Fear, greed, too many disasters and crises thrown at us. Alien invasions. But we got there. In the end.” She gulped, and rubbed her face. “And then, the Ganglion came, and tore it all down.”
Shulk felt a pang of sympathy for her – Colony 9 wasn’t quite so utopian, but he could sympathize, almost having lost it. “It’s really all gone? I’m… so sorry.”
“…maybe,” Elma thinned her lips. “There was this man. Had an… idea, to save it. Maybe he succeeded.” She looked pensive for a second. No, scratch that – she looked worried. Then, she took a breath. “But enough about that. Can’t dwell so much on the past, or you’ll never move forward, right?”
“Right,” Shulk nodded in agreement. “So, you’re a scientist too? All the talk about automatons…”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m a formally-recognized scientist,” Elma shrugged. “But people considered me the closest thing to the Doctor in human form.”
Shulk’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that… good?”
Elma chuckled and smiled. “He knows everything about anything. Watch. Doctor? What’s the Schwinger limit?”
“Oh, it’s the theoretical strength before an electrical field becomes nonlinear and begins pair-particle production in a vacuum.” The Time Lord called from ahead, like he just had that piece of knowledge ready to go. “About… ten-to-the-eighteenth volts-per-meter. Why? You building a particle accelerator?”
“Just testing a point,” Elma smiled, then turned back to Shulk. “I’m not a walking encyclopaedia, but I do know a few clever tricks. And I’m resourceful.”
Shulk nodded slowly, glanced at the Doctor, then back to Elma. “Then, maybe you’d like to help me? With the Monado, I mean.”
Elma crossed her arms, seemingly thinking about it. “You’re certain.”
“Yes – you recognized the Ether condensers on these blueprints, just from sight alone!” Shulk flipped his journal back to the diagram of the Monado Replica. “And… well, the Doctor is having trouble figuring out how the Monado works as well. But with the three of us? I think we could do it! And once we do, everyone has a better chance of making it through this.”
Elma looked over the plans again. Her eyes twitched, something again like fondness behind them, and she smiled. “All right. I’m game. It’s been a while since I’ve worked on research.”
“Really? You’re serious?”
Elma nodded. “Before I was called back to active duty, I was Director of a research institute.” But then the Ares had been finished, and the Skells were being mass-produced, and… well, they needed all the qualified pilots they could get. “Headhunting, running things, it was a headache – but I did enjoy the science. Besides, it’s a noble goal. The Monado might be a weapon – but I’ve seen the utility it has beyond that. And it should be doable – I’ve got a great multi-tool on me.”
Shulk smiled, opening his mouth to respond-
And a pick of ice drove into his temples, behind his eyes, as the world became awash with grey.
It was the same vision. Not the one of Prison Island. The one he’d received after that one.
The sky churned with storm clouds, illuminated by violent flashes of energy. The air was thick with the sounds of war-screams, metal grinding against metal, and the crackle of ether-born weapons.
Creatures fought in a chaotic frenzy. Some were humanoid, Homs-like but not quite. Others were monstrous, beastly figures wreathed in armour, their bodies marked with glowing crystal formations.
And again, he saw himself. And her. The dark-skinned, silver-haired woman.
The battlefield shook as Shulk and his opponent collided, and future-Shulk was sent sliding back. The robe-clad person threw his head back, and let out a bestial roar, as the Monado’s blade shifted to a deep red as a ripple of similarly-coloured energy radiated out from him, causing his opponent to stagger. Shulk then witnessed himself go in swinging, with a weight and speed driven by pure rage, and the Monado sparking every time the Ether blade made contact with the woman.
Shulk let out a furious, wrathful, hate-filled growl, as he grabbed the Monado's handle in both hands, and swung it like an axe, towards his opponent's head.
The vision cut off, and Shulk let out a gasp, staggering back.
“Shulk?” Elma took a step toward him, and Shulk scrambled back.
It was her. It was her!
The rippling, water-like haze of the vision clouded her features, but Shulk was confident in saying that.
“Shulk?” Fiora turned around. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’m…” Shulk breathed slowly, and calmly. “I’m fine. Just another vision.”
Reyn crossed his arms. “Shulk…”
“I’m serious, it’s… nothing.” Shulk shook his head. “It’s not anything bad. Just… nothing I can explain.”
“Can’t?” Reyn pressed. “Or just don’t wanna?”
Shulk pressed his lips together – feeling a little miffed about being talked down to like that. “Well, if I didn’t want to before, I definitely don’t anymore.” He shook his head. “But no. It’s…” He had to have a good reason for fighting Elma. Fighting Elma… with the Monado Replica she had just decided to assist him with constructing. “It’s not really something I can explain, really. It’s… nonsensical. There were these armoured beings, some looked like Homs, others not. And there was this strange battlefield. And… I was fighting a woman. And that was it. And I was so much older. Years, maybe.”
“…that is odd.” The Doctor agreed. “They’ve been a bit more… immediate than that, right?”
“Right.” Shulk nodded. He thought it over for a moment, before shaking his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing. If it’s years in the future, there’s no telling what could cause it to come to pass.”
The others didn’t quite look like they agreed, but went along with it anyhow.
“All right, but you see something, you just-“
Reyn was cut off by Elma raising a hand, her eyes narrowing. “Wait.”
The group stopped, the forest suddenly quieter than before. The soft hum of insects and the rustling of leaves were still present, but something beneath it had changed—subtle, but jarring in its stillness.
Fiora looked around. “What is it?”
“Do the rest of you hear that?” Elma asked.
The Doctor strained his ears, glancing around.
Sharla shook her head. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Woods have gone silent.” Reyn noted. “Think maybe we scared the locals off?”
“Maybe…” The Doctor murmured. “Either way… if a forest goes dead quiet, especially during the day, that’s bad news. It means there’s a predator about.” He glanced at the rest of them, and lowered his voice. “Move quietly. But we need to get through this area, quickly.”
Elma drew the swords on her back, Reyn readied his driver, Fiora lifted her machetes, Sharla clicked the safety off her rifle, and Shulk clutched the Monado.
The group hurried forward, quickening their pace as the path began to dip slightly, then back up a hill.
Then they saw her.
There, dead ahead, in the centre of a patch of dirt that was grey and dead, lay a figure in the same patchwork fur getup they'd received earlier – or, made in a similar style.
A pair of wings rose from the side of her head. But one of them hung at an odd angle, twisted, the feathers dishevelled and caked in dirt. Broken.
Shulk’s heart skipped. She looked familiar, too. The girl from his prison island vision. “Are those… wings on her head?”
Elma crouched low, eyes scanning. “She’s hurt.”
“Here, let me.” Sharla asked, already stepping forward with her medical instincts kicking in.
The Doctor knelt beside them, pulling out his glasses as if they'd help. “Something did a number on her. You don’t break wings just like that. Oh… and they are beautiful wings, too.” He looked them over, keeping his hands respectfully by his sides. “I’m sorry, really, I am… so sorry.” He looked at her head, sorrow spreading through him at even the relatively minor damage she had suffered. “Are you out here all on your own…? Hello, can you hear me?” He addressed, trying to rouse her, to no effect.
Fiora’s voice was soft. “Do you think she was trying to reach Frontier Village?”
“Possibly,” The Doctor replied. He reached into his pockets, and pulled out a stethoscope.
Sharla began to look over the girl, as the Doctor pressed the stethoscope to her chest, listening.
The Time Lord’s eyes widened, as he went shock-still.
“Doctor?” Elma addressed.
“…can’t be…” The Doctor breathed out in disbelief, moving the stethoscope around.
‘Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump.’
“Doctor!” Sharla snapped. “Is there something wrong!?”
“…no, both working.” The Doctor’s second heart cramped, even as he shoved the stethoscope in his pockets. “What do you think?”
Sharla looked her over rapidly. “Well, she doesn’t seem to have suffered any major injuries, but I wouldn’t say she’s stable, out cold in a forest like this.”
“Well, she didn’t just keel over!” Reyn grunted.
Sharla nodded in agreement. “She doesn’t appear malnourished.” She pinched the girl’s skin. “She doesn’t look dehydrated…”
The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver, and held it over her, listening to the buzz. “Based on body mass and cellular makeup, she’s got enough water. Food, fine. No major injuries… Not even picking up any parasites or infections.” He looked at Sharla, curious. “What could do that?”
“Given the lack of other options, then, I’d say Ether deficiency.” Sharla shifted her weight. “But… that shouldn’t be possible. Living beings usually just soak it up from the environment. At most, an environment with lesser Ether levels should cause minor fatigue, if anything. Not fainting.”
Fiora looked about. “Maybe it has something to do with all of this? This patch of land looks… drained.”
The Doctor looked at the surrounding greenery. “Should still be able to do something. Maybe…” He held up the screwdriver again, and held down the activator. “Should be a simple matter of coaxing it in.”
The group watched, with bated breath, as the screwdriver buzzed and a low, invisible wind seemed to sweep through. Seconds passed, as they waited for any kind of result.
Then, the figure on the ground began to stir, groaning.
“Now, now,” The Doctor rushed over, as she opened her eyes. “You’re wounded, but don’t worry – you’re safe. You’re among friends.”
Elma leaned over, gasping in surprise as she got a good look at the girl’s face.
The winged humanoid’s eyes darted around, half-lidded and clouded in confusion, dilating and twitching not quite right.
She looked up, locked onto the Doctor’s face, tilted her head slightly. “Hello.”
The Doctor offered her a pleasant smile. “Well, hello! Are you with us?”
“Doctor.” She smiled, barely lifting her hand, before she went limp again.
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up.
“She fainted again!” Reyn spluttered in confusion.
“Environmental Ether must not be enough,” The Doctor remarked, looking her over in more detail, now.
“You know her?” Elma stepped forward, asking of the Doctor.
The Doctor shook his head without guilt. “Never seen her before in my life.”
“Well, she seemed to recognize you just fine.” Elma remarked, looking… kind of shaken, actually.
“Not necessarily,” The Doctor inhaled. “Was just asking for a doctor, probably. Well?” He turned to Sharla. “There anything we can do for her?”
Sharla thought on it for a moment. “We’re going to need Water-type Ether Crystals. Or… any compatible source of Ether that can be easily absorbed by the body.”
“What about the Monado?” Fiora asked. “That Renewal art picked us back up from worse hits than this.”
“It could work,” Shulk nodded, going to draw the sword. “Let me give it-“
‘THUMP!’
Something slammed down from above with the force of a small meteor. Shulk let out a strangled yelp as a blur of fur and feathers pounced onto his face, sending him sprawling backward onto the forest floor.
“YOU NO TOUCH HER, STABBYFACE!” A voice screeched, high-pitched and furious, as a Nopon clung onto Shulk’s torso and face, clawing and biting at him. “Riki die before he let Melly get hurt more!”
“GAH! WHAT—?!” Shulk flailed wildly, the Monado clattering to the ground as a tiny body clawed at his cheeks.
A brown blur of rage and puffed-up feathers had latched itself across Shulk’s eyes. Riki was shrieking and swearing in rapidly-spoken Noponic, limbs flailing like a drunken blender, claws harmlessly batting at Shulk’s brow.
“You no wave death-sword over poor hurt princess!” Riki howled, tugging on Shulk’s hair. “Blondie try harvest Melly like Ether Crystal, Riki stop him!”
“I wasn’t- ow! Stop that! I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone!” Shulk shouted, trying not to crush the Nopon while simultaneously removing him.
“LIES!” Riki bellowed. “Riki not fall for it for a second!”
Fiora darted forward, stifling laughter as she tried to pry the fuzzy warrior off. “Riki! Riki, stop it - he’s not hurting her! He’s trying to help!”
“Riki see no help! Riki see SHINY LASER SWORD!” Riki growled, gripping Shulk’s forehead like it was a climbing hold. “Riki hear that sword go vrmmmm and Riki know what that mean!”
“Oh, for the love of-“ Reyn leaned over, and pried him off. “All right, furball!” He held Riki by the scruff.
“So, baddies come with friends!” Riki hissed. “Riki not care!” His little leg shot out, clocking Reyn in the sternum, and he dropped to the forest floor. “Riki take you all on!”
“Oh yeah?” Reyn snorted. “What’re you gonna do about it? Snuggle me to death, plush-toy?”
Riki looked up, then down, then up again. Then, at Reyn’s exposed ankles.
Riki shot forward, grabbed one of Reyn’s ankles, and bit.
…
It was a wonder the scream didn’t wake up the wounded girl right then and there.
-----------
It’d been years, since he’d been back to this place. Beyond years. Such a long time ago, that all notion of it being anything other than what it now was had vanished entirely.
Millennia ago, perhaps more, it’d been a home. To a great many. King Agni sat upon his throne over the Eryth Sea and, with their High Entia cousins, ruled over Bionis like children playing in a sandbox that wasn’t theirs.
He was so much younger then. Naïve. A stupid kid that didn’t know how the world really worked. Like everybody else.
The halls used to be filled with so many people – watching the gladiatorial fights, gathering to simply converse, delegations from other parts of the Bionis come to say their peace to whomever would listen. Used to be, his greatest fear was that when he left these halls, he’d be away for so long that, when he finally returned, he’d find the place desolate.
Now it was.
And it didn’t bother him in the slightest.
He moved through the place like it was just an empty room. Like it was anything other than the most intact-standing monument to his most heinous of sins.
The ancient chairs stood, half-out, frozen in place. The tables were still set with kitchenware – the food and drink long-since having rotted away completely or evaporated. He didn’t walk the path through any of those rooms. Why would he? He could just appear right at his destination, instead of retracing old steps.
His boots clacked on the stone as he warped in, to the ancient throne room, opened to the sky.
King Agni had ruled from here, for too long. When he got fat, and soft, and unable to do what the world demanded to be done. Like the rest of the Giants. A hypocrite that spoke about honour, and combat, and never held a sword a day in his life.
He, on the other hand, remembered the battle. The blood. His enemies drowning in their own blood, or choking on their tongues, or suffocating as their windpipes collapsed. So much battle. So much death. But not for him.
He approached what used to be a throne – a massive ring, under which the throne used to sit – but had been eroded away by weather and time. Now all that remained was the ring. Suspended from it, chains. And in those chains, a Giant.
One might be forgiven for thinking it was imprisoned. But he was never a particularly forgiving sort.
The Giant – Arglas, in a time long passed – sensed his approach, and looked up. Hair – overgrown by being left untrimmed for millennia, parted, allowing his red eyes to shine through.
“Ah… Dickson,” His great, booming voice carried around the entire throne room. “My loyal Disciple. It has been some time.”
“My lord.” Dickson lit up a cigar, took a drag off it, and held it out. “You want one?”
The red-eyed giant shot him a droll look. “No.”
“Thought not.” Dickson put it back in his mouth, silently shaking his head internally. Weren’t beings like him supposed to make the most of the world? That was why Dickson joined up, after all.
“Why are you here, Dickson?” His lord inquired, tilting his head. “You are not one to squander precious time.”
“I ain’t,” Dickson admitted. “But I also aren’t one to turn tail on a job.”
“Indeed… It is this loyalty for which I have selected you as the executor of my will.” He rumbled wisely. “But if you are here… I am to assume there is a good reason.”
“Oh, there is,” Dickson clenched his teeth. “You know Alvis has been going around your back, right? Yours, mine, spreadin’ lies, telling falsehoods. He said there weren’t more worlds outside Bionis. Found out that was a lie. More than that, found out he went to one – had some brat with someone out there.”
His lord went quiet for a moment. “I am aware of the other world. I am also aware of the means to access it.”
Dickson felt a brief spike of confusion. He knew? And he didn’t tell them? Dickson then stamped that thought out – he was a god – he was entitled to tell them absolutely nothing.
(Still, it didn’t stop the spike of betrayal. A whole other world to explore out there, and he hadn’t been informed, when the Bionis was just starting to feel too cramped and small.)
“Alvis has been one of my most valued instruments,” The Giant closed his eyes with a sigh. “But if he has turned traitor, then there is nothing to be done. But, do not worry. I have foreseen this eventuality. I can handle Alvis myself. You, on the other hand, still have your part to play.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Listen well, Dickson. Here is what you must do…”
Notes:
Got some more lore, this chapter! It's fun to think about what Earth must've been like, before the Experiment. Tbh, I'd pay good money just for a Xenoblade prequel set during that time.
And I'm sure nobody will care, but, finally got around to linking Skells and Artifices! Sovereigns came first - mainly built to construct the Space Elevators and the orbital ring, using Conduit-generated materials. Artifices (operated by the Trinity Processor, and powered by generators from the Conduit) came next. Skells followed, as humanity learned from the Artifice designs and from the Ares.
Chapter 23: Monado: Divergence
Notes:
This chapter features KOS-MOS, who has the spirit of Mary Magdalene, dreaming about her life during that time. If overt religious allusions aren't your thing (it's a Xeno fic, so I assume it's part and parcel for why you're here), i would skip the italicised sections. But, if you do that, you will be missing information that will not come back around for a *while yet.*
You've been warned!
Chapter Text
“Ground Control to Major Tom…”
She does not feel cold. Not like they do. Her nerves do not fire, and make her body shiver.
Space isn’t cold anyway.
“Ground Control to Major Tom…”
A fragment of armour, once shimmering cobalt, glints faintly in the starlight. The rest of it is cracked, dented, scratched, and warped past tolerances. She drifts like wreckage, motionless save for the slow rotation of her body. Her right arm is gone, and both legs are severed at the torso.
But she is still transmitting.
“Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.”
It is not a standard emergency beacon.
But in her state, it’s all she can manage.
She can’t detect any Federation starships nearby. And even if she could, she couldn’t signal them. The damage is thus that it’s far more efficient to do a tally of what she does have access to. A primitive AM/FM transmitter for short-range communication, basic non-mission-critical data archives, and thruster control.
“Ground Control to Major Tom...”
But she’s nowhere near a jump point. Even so, the Network was destroyed.
“Commencing countdown, engines on…”
No one is coming to rescue her. All she can do is send noise into the void, and hope that the signals do not degrade enough that by the time they reach somebody, they’re just noise in the background radiation.
“Check ignition, and may god’s love be with you.”
And so, she does.
The battle damage is thus that her brain is shattered, split, and cracked. She can’t even move her own head. The controller for her repair systems is down, and data corruption incurred by the battle is such that she can’t even find the driver for her speech synthesis.
“This is Ground Control to Major Tom…”
But she has the radio. And she has the non-essential data.
But she’s not entirely sure it will work.
Old radio broadcasts still bounce around, echoing in the void, decaying slowly.
“You’ve really made the grade…”
Her optics are similarly off-line. She can see out of them, process the data, but she can’t control them. She is a prisoner in her own body, unable to even move her eyes.
“And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear…”
She can’t detect any old signals herself. But the distances between stars is such that it doesn’t make a difference, really. They’ll have decayed past the point of recognition far before reaching interstellar space. Hers won’t be any different.
“Now it’s time to leave the capsule, if you dare.”
So, she drifts. Uncontrolled, unguided. She has the navigational data to determine where she is – but no means of fine control. She can burn thrusters for a moment, to alter her trajectory only subtly, but nothing beyond that.
“This is Major Tom to Ground Control…”
Black holes collide, and stars collapse in front of her eyes as she drifts past them. Nebulae twirl, and swirl, and get pulled in, igniting into new stars.
“I’m stepping through the door…”
Her body continues to spin, like a doll floating in the bath.
“And I’m floating in a most peculiar way.”
She drifts past distant objects – ‘clouds’ of comets and rock, as a star begins to grow more relatively luminous. She can’t estimate if she’ll collide with it – but, then, she detects something.
“And the stars look very different today…”
A little ping. Like hearing a distant ringing, and bring able to track an object by it. In the emptiness of space, she can’t help but focus on it.
“For here…”
Then, she analyses the signature. It’s impossible. It had been destroyed. It must be data ghosting, or a sensor malfunction. She runs it again.
“Am I sitting in a tin can…”
But the match is indisputable. The signal sticks in her systems, and cross-referencing it with known patterns, there is nothing else it could be.
“Far above the world…”
She doesn’t know if anyone will find her out here. But where It is, there’s humans. Even if there weren’t, she was built to draw upon it as a power source. Her weapons, and her repair systems.
Proximity alone could provide her repair systems with the energy they need to get working, even without the controller.
A burst from her thrusters alters her trajectory, enough to put her on an intercept course.
Days pass. Weeks. She has to decelerate, or impact would annihilate her.
Then, she begins to see it come into view. A tiny blue star. It grows into the size of a coin. Then a baseball. Then a beachball. She starts getting close enough, she can see the shape of the continents forming. The planet – that giant ball of blue and green – spreads before her like open arms.
“Planet Earth is blue…”
The Cradle of Humanity is still alight with signals. Old-fashioned radio, like that which she broadcasts using now. There are satellites, and cities, signs of industrialization.
“And there’s nothing I can do…”
That shouldn’t be possible. Whatever society was calling it home was long since dead. The cities should have crumbled, beaten away by time, no longer maintained by the ones who built them. The satellites should have been flung into deep space, as Sol and the planet vanished from this plane of reality entirely.
She rotates slowly as she enters the thin veil of the exosphere. Her body glows faint orange - then bright red, as the friction and compression claws at her ruined frame.
“Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles…”
Earth is inhabited. She listens in on the transmissions she can pick up. It almost causes a systems crash. There are humans to go around, plenty of them. Earth is still inhabited – because the disaster that would scour of it of life has not happened yet.
“I’m feeling very still…”
The force of friction around her is bright enough now that she can begin to feel it melt her armour and synth-skin.
“And I think my spaceship knows which way to go…”
The Earth below brightens, horizon curving wider and wider. But if this is Earth, and it’s all still to come… then, perhaps, in a way, she is right. She won’t be gone for long. All she must do is wait, and she’ll loop back around to when she left. She can find the others.
“Tell my wife I love her very much…”
“After all this time, I finally found the real you. And now, we are going to be apart again.”
“She knows…”
Fire trails stretch behind her now like feathers being ripped off dying wings by flight. Pieces shear away. A chunk of torso armour peels off like burnt foil.
“Ground Control to Major Tom…”
A body of water is in her path.
“Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong…”
She aims for it, firing her thrusters, trying to steer herself by the weak bursts of power however she can.
“Can you hear me, Major Tom?”
A crack thunders through the air as she breaks the sound barrier.
“Can you hear me, Major Tom?”
The compression wave in front of her fades, but she can see the lake, still hurtling towards her.
“Can you hear me, Major Tom?”
She fires her thrusters again, trying to slow down even more.
“Can you-“
She deploys an emergency chute.
It rips away.
“Here am I floating in my tin can…”
The lake gets closer.
“Far above the Moon…”
KOS-MOS feels the wind rushing past her, as the lake’s surface gets closer and closer.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
And then-
Impact.
She slams into the water, metal shards flying as the titanic splash goes whole storeys into the air. Steam rises off the water as it suddenly begins to bubble and boil, from the heat of the object that splashed down into it.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
The light begins to fade, as her vision becomes clouded over with the murky waters of the lake.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
The impact damage registers as having broken the last few of her systems that were relatively intact. The radio is stuck on now, the system connected to it caught in the loop of the last few seconds.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
It should be nearby – but it will take time for her repair systems to engage.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
KOS-MOS sinks, deeper, and deeper, into the water.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
Daylight fades, as she sinks to the depths.
------------
Earth is pelted by micrometeorites all the time – its gravitational pull tends to draw in smaller rocks, and there is still debris from billions of years ago, from the formation of the planet, that has yet to crash down. Humans are a paranoid lot, but attentive.
There are also alien spacecraft, transmat beams, things that are undetectable unless they trip some manner of sensor net.
Her arrival tripped those sensors. They’re embedded in satellites – GPS, telecommunications, television. She was moving fast, but her radio signals and her crossing of the sensor net were enough to alert humanity to her presence.
By the time she had entered atmosphere, they were already tracking her. Jets were being scrambled to intercept and identify, assuming that if she was a spacecraft that slowed its descent, they could catch up to it.
When she splashed down, the local UNIT division was being mobilised.
UNIT East Africa’s Task Force November arrived at Lake Turkana less than half-an-hour later.
The lake steamed under the early morning sun, great plumes of steam still rising like smoke off a fire.
They found her half-submerged in the silt, entangled in lakeweed, more wreckage than woman.
“It’s a woman…” The field commander breathed in disbelief.
“It’s not,” The other declared. “It fell from orbit.”
KOS-MOS stared, unable to do much of anything else, as they moved her towards one of the transports.
The technician manning the scanning equipment twitched in confusion. “Sir, I’m still picking up something. On the lakebed.”
The commander turned with a frown. “Did it descend with her?”
“No…” The technician, gazing at the readouts, murmured in confusion. “It doesn’t look like it. It’s still half-buried. The impact seems to have disturbed it.”
As they placed her in the back of a transport, KOS-MOS caught sight of the radar silhouette. A large, rectangular object, with two ‘fins’ sticking out of its sides.
-----------
KOS-MOS cannot do anything other than listen at this point. She doesn’t know how to process it. Time travel is, theoretically, possible – but so unlikely, her logic base doesn’t have contingencies in place to deal with it.
But the evidence is astounding. Either they failed to prevent the Recurrence, and somehow she survived to be sent adrift in the new universe, the Phase-Shift Phenomenon somehow reset the planet’s history, or…
She time travelled.
KOS-MOS runs simulations. As best she can – most of her processing capacity is diminished, but there’s enough left to think.
It’s all she can do, is think. Her brain is a pseudo-crystalline substrate with a genetic base – it’s extremely durable, high-plasticity, and the exotic material is energized upon contact with ambient radiation and neutrinos to keep it powered-up. A single chunk can operate on its own, free of a power source other than a mere trickle.
Even though her body is shattered, and her brain is as well, her mind can still function. Listening, to that busted radio looping itself ad-nauseum, as the controller fires again and again on repeat, stuck in the last few seconds, not quite having gotten the signal to stop.
She is not designed to be susceptible to madness. But any sapient being locked inside themselves would begin to suffer the symptoms.
In the back of the truck being hauled across the continent that was humanity’s birthplace, KOS-MOS tries to make sense of what happened.
She hadn’t been travelling faster-than-light – if she had been, even in her damaged state, she wouldn’t have simply missed the fact. Travelling through a Black Hole and arriving in a universe that was slightly behind was possible – but, again, she hadn’t detected it. And even so, she doubted she could’ve survived the crushing forces during approach to the singularity. She didn’t notice anything odd, either.
There was no rational explanation. Unless It was involved.
But they were separating her from it.
----------
They’re shipping her back to England. The organisation’s Africa contingent doesn’t have jurisdiction over her, for reasons beyond her knowledge at the moment.
It has something to do with a Doctor.
-------------
KOS-MOS can feel the primitive analysis equipment all the same, as it pokes and prods at her. They’re stuck using x-ray imaging, ultrasound, technologies that had gone out of fashion millennia ago.
They think she is something alien.
They also think she is dead.
Perhaps this is death, and instead of joining the collective unconscious, as humans do, artificial lifeforms are locked in their own, decaying bodies. Maybe she died upon impact.
They are refreshingly awestruck by her, however. Not by what she could be, but by what she is. Although she is wholly mechanical in nature, they’ve yet to encounter anything that can so effectively emulate the human body as to be indistinguishable at a glance.
Yet apparently, she resembles someone they have knowledge of. It’s enough to get one of their military leaders in to assess her.
The man they call Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is an older man, heavyset, with white in his hair and beard. He looks like some depictions of Saint Nicholas.
Albeit with a much shorter beard.
KOS-MOS can’t make her eyes follow him, but she doesn’t need to. He looms over her, looking down, with his hands behind his back as she rests on the examination table. His face is pinched, tightly controlled, and her assessment suggests that he is experiencing grief.
“They’re the wrong colour,” He noted first.
“Breakdown of chemical compounds in the body could cause discoloration.” One of the coroners tries to rationalise it away. They seem extremely confident that she is someone they’ve encountered before. Extremely confident. “And we haven’t dealt with any members of her species beyond her. We’re not even certain where she’s from.”
She can’t even fix her transmitter to stop it from broadcasting a single piece of music on-loop. How is she supposed to remote-interface with one of their primitive computers to explain the situation?
She logs their conversation, but most of it is useless to her. In the end, all they did was bring Lethbridge-Stewart there to identify her – and he incorrectly did so.
He tells them to place her in storage.
They prepare for her a casket. Sterile, designed to preserve organic material, radiologically-shielded.
KOS-MOS cannot fight it, no matter if she wishes to. Even though she’s drawing passively on what energy she can, it’s not enough.
The lid clamps shut, and her world goes dark, and quiet.
-------------
In the nation of Canada, the province of Ontario, the city of Toronto, there was a building. It stood highest in the skyline, dominated it, and would dominate it for as long as memory of the city itself persisted.
Inside this building, one of the largest corporations on the planet operated.
That institution was Vector Industries.
Their history was a sordid one. They had started out in the 1800s as the Vectura Shipping Company- a tiny little shipping company that boomed into something rivalling the East India Company, primarily through shipping tobacco, sugar, and cotton. Once steamships came in vogue, they had been one of the first to upgrade - and jumped on the bandwagon by buying up small manufacturing concerns: parts for boilers, engine components, rail components.
They expanded into on-land travel, financing and profiting from railway expansion. They started buying up less ‘industrial’ things, too - Vectura could make and sell their own goods at fractions of the cost, and move them for free. Quite a few local things were run down by them.
It had seemed so… prescient, the way they operated. Of course, that had been before the days of the stock market, so ‘insider trading’ hadn’t really been a thing they could be hit with.
When the World Wars hit, they started manufacturing uniforms, gas masks, ammunition. During the Depression, they bought struggling companies on the cheap, and when the economy recovered, they had all sorts of new ventures to expand into - television, radio, power.
That was when they turned into the Vector that we knew today. By then, they had a stake in everything. From clothes, to computers. From food, to robotics. Medicine, to heavy machinery. They hadn’t dominated anything - but they had been everywhere.
And on the surface, they had seemed the same as any other respectable mega-corp. An exploitative history that they had mostly moved past, thanks to unions twisting their arms, with plenty of philanthropic outreach programs. Including sponsoring things like… say… archaeological digs.
His office was silent save for the faint hum of climate control. The city below him flickered as lights turned on against the dying sun. He stood at the window, staring at the pillars of fire that were the glowing skyscrapers below him.
While he did, he was attempting to get a handle on the current… situation.
Said situation was this:
A dig site at Lake Turkana.
A twenty-year obsession finally within reach.
Decades of stepping on people’s toes, breaking basic rules, and doing more underhanded things than a man could count, were finally about to pay off.
And somebody had gotten to it first.
The phone on his desk blinked as the voice came through the other end, haggard and harried. Frantic.
“They beat us to it, Mr. Wilhelm,” He hissed, rage and dread twining together in his throat. “I don’t know how, but they beat us.”
Wilhelm frowned. “How is that possible?”
“You tell me!” The phone’s microphone maxed out as Masuda hysterically replied.
Wilhelm felt an impatient twitch in his face. “Doctor Masuda, I would remind you to remain… calm. It’s hardly my fault, as your benefactor.”
“I-… Yes. I know.”
“Good.” Wilhelm nodded. “Now, calmly explain. Who is in our dig site?” He could make life very, very difficult for them. He wouldn’t even have to kill them. He could bury them under so much litigation, even he wouldn’t be able to navigate it.
“I don’t know. They- They’re big. They’ve got trucks, excavation equipment, trailers – I don’t think they’re archaeologists.”
“Indeed… concerning,” Wilhelm muttered to himself. If they were bringing in machines, they knew the archaeological site that Vector was eyeing was no simple early hominid camp.
That was to have been the cover.
Dr Masuda was… well, hardly respected, in his field. A bit of a crackpot, actually. He was one of those ‘ancient astronaut’ types, and the discovery of an artifact that pointed to Lake Turkana only made him worse. Wilhelm, for his part, knew the truth – and Masuda was useful, doing the hard work of tracking down his prize for him.
But knowing that saying they were hunting down evidence of divine providence on Earth was probably going to get one of them looked at as a loon, and the other barred from any kind of archaeology (plus, it attracting the wrong kind of attention from interested groups) they had come up with other reasons. Trying to dig up more artefacts from early hominids. Which, technically, was true.
But no one was supposed to know the truth behind the dig. Not until it was already in motion. They hadn’t even told UNESCO.
And yet, somehow, the site suddenly became significant enough to warrant a large group coming out there first?
“They can’t possibly be aware of the site’s significance – we made sure of that! All we said was we were looking for evidence of early humans in the area.”
“Have you attempted entering the site, Masuda?” Wilhelm inquired.
“Entry? Mister Wilhelm- listen, they have guns. They’ve already established a perimeter. We approached, and got weapons pointed at us.”
Wilhelm spun around, suddenly interested. Mercenaries? The local military forces?
“These soldiers – describe them to me.”
“British accents,” Masuda took a breath. “Or… South African? I don’t know – I didn’t see any markings on their uniforms or vehicles. Their leader wouldn’t even speak to me. Just stood there, arms crossed, like some smug bastard out of a Cold War film. Said if we kept trying to trespass, they’d lock us up.”
Wilhelm scowled. “You are the one who is supposed to be out there, not them.”
“I didn’t feel like testing my luck against a military force!”
“And in so doing, have handed it over to them.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Wilhelm considered it for a moment. “I want you to come back. The dig is postponed until we can convince someone to… rectify the situation.”
“And how long will that take!?”
“I’m afraid there is no way to tell. We shall simply have to remain patient,” Wilhelm mused.
“Patient.”
“Yes. Oh… and I will need you to send the artifact back to me. For safe keeping, of course. I have complete trust in your own integrity, but the rest of your crew…”
“What? No, no you can’t just pull us out- We’re on the cusp of something huge here!”
“I’m aware.”
“This is real! Jesus, it’s – it’s real, Wilhelm. Gods and monsters and miracles - they were technology! And it all leads back here. Those goons out there are proof! I was right! We can’t just sit and wait, or they’ll strip the whole site bare! We’ll be left with nothing!”
Wilhelm scowled. “I believe you said you wished not to get into an altercation with them?”
“I’m an archaeologist! You run one of the biggest companies on the planet! There must be something you can do. It’s like a damn demilitarized zone out here! Pay their government to send in the troops! Hire a private contractor! Something, before we lose it all!”
Wilhelm narrowed his eyes. “There is a plan. It is already in motion. But it requires patience to unfold.”
Masuda went quiet, his breath rasping faintly against the receiver.
“We will find what we’re looking for,” Wilhelm continued. “Eventually.” He looked away from the phone, but still stood facing it. “Send me the artifact, doctor. It is Vector property.
“Wilhelm-”
Wilhelm’s hand went out to the button, and clicked it.
The line went dead.
In the silence that followed, Wilhelm adjusted his cufflinks, his gaze distant and unreadable.
The pendant would arrive at Wilhelm’s office in three days, neatly packaged, with Masuda’s field notes enclosed. After that, the man would vanish from all reputable institutions, his name quietly removed from all relevant documents, class listings, and the like. When people asked what happened to the planned expedition, the story would be that Masuda came down with malaria shortly after arriving to the site, and would return to his homeland, the expedition falling through shortly thereafter without him to manage it.
Masuda would never know that he was right.
He would never speak to Wilhelm again.
Wilhelm didn’t mind. The man had played his role.
And now the stage was being reset.
-------------
UNIT claimed it was a ‘meteorite containing substantial quantities of toxic elements harmful to living things.’ Really, a catch-all term for, ‘hey, this space rock might be radioactive, or have heavy metals in it, and it landed in this lake, so now we’ve got to clean it up and keep you away from it for your own good.’ Nobody wants to test it.
What, are you crazy? It’s toxic.
Lake Turkana is fluoridated anyway.
It justified the equipment, and the personnel, and the constant, non-stop work. To the locals, at least. They think it to be a cleanup operation.
Heavy excavators moved the earth, instruments measured the water, but they were hardly trying to scrub it of toxins. They’re trying to build a stable base for a crane. To lift whatever it was they detected out of the water.
Then, one of the excavators hit something metal.
It’s a circular base, with three struts jutting out. A carved pattern, almost like circuitry, is engraved into it. And there’s a slot for something, shaped irregularly, like a rectangle with two trapezoids on the sides. They get it under an electron microscope.
It’s made from an alloy they have no name for, and carbon dating suggests it’s been down there for two-thousand years.
They’re able to determine that the slot is, in fact, a slot (who knew) – for a power source. UNIT manages to connect it to one, and it reacts immediately.
The circuitry begins to light up. Then, the earth begins to tremor. The wind kicks up, and the water of the lake ripples and churns. Then, it begins to sound. A distant wheezing/grinding, like wind passing through a cavernous tunnel, or the scraping of something against a wire. It’s the sound of the universe being torn asunder, and something pushing back into reality from outside it.
‘VWORP VWORP’ that sound is proof enough of who built it.
A golden shape materialises above the lake’s surface, pulsing in-and-out. It has to be absolutely enormous, at least thirty metres tall, and had no visible means of staying afloat.
The monolithic cross, reminiscent of the shape as the slot on the circular base (but not quite the same – the ‘fins’ are much closer to the top, giving it more of a silhouette akin to a fat Roman cross), settled into reality with a thunk, still floating. Glowing so bright that it seemed as light itself, solidified.
UNIT panics. Opens fire. It does… nothing. Just floats there. While floating in all defiance of gravity, it does seem to be material, and able to be moved – though not easily.
One person makes the mistake of touching it, while they try to tug it back to shore, and vanishes. Not disintegrates, there’s no residue, but vanishes.
They lock it down. The riddle of how to get it to a secure location is a tricky one to crack.
-----------
KOS-MOS dreams. She does not strictly need to, but she is sealed inside this capsule, unable to move, and her repair systems will need all the power they can get. Plus, it will stave off the boredom.
Boredom isn’t something she should be able to feel. But she’s felt… more, since merging with T-elos.
So… she dreams.
She dreams about a distant land in an ancient past. She dreams about herself – who is not herself.
She was born into wealth, an only child of only children. Her parents died, leaving her the wealth. She could survive just well on her own, for the rest of her days. But a dark root began to fester and blossom within her mind. And as she shut herself in her home, withering and languishing, it only began to get worse. She saw things, invisible to all others, but real to her, and they plagued her.
She could survive on her own. She had land, silver, and servants. The townsfolk in Magdala whispered behind her back – envy tinged with suspicion. Why did no man marry her? Why did no priest visit her household? Why did the windows stay shuttered for months at a time?
For her, at first it was only weariness. Then days of sleeping, such that she must have seemed dead, or dispossessed of all will. Then voices. Shapes in the corner of her eyes. Breathless laughter behind her when no one else was near. Even Aster began to look like an enemy to her.
The townsfolk would point to her gates and whisper. She was cursed, they would say. Possessed.
And then, one night, rain came.
It came hard and sudden, a black storm ripping in from the sea. The kind that ripped olive trees from the ground and lashed salt into the walls. The travellers scattered. Doors slammed and locked. Lamps were doused.
For Mary, it sounded like the thundering of the drums at the end of the world. Every crash felt like it was slamming her down. As she lay there on the floor, trying to tune it out, all Aster could do was try to help her along.
But there had been a young rabbi who had arrived in Magdala that evening. A kind soul. He heard the townsfolks’ whispers of her.
“She’s sick in the head. Cursed.” They had told him.
But he could not bear the thought of her weathering the storm on her own. He looked to that house, boarded up, and saw not an animal waiting to attack, as the people did, but a person, in need of help.
Aster let him in.
She did not welcome him at first. Her mind was thus that she saw monsters jumping in every shadow. Even the architecture of her own home was poised to kill her.
But he helped. He saw what others did not.
The ailments of the mind were, ultimately, still ailments, and thus, still treatable.
At the end of her first treatment, when she felt some of the fog clear from her mind, she asked him: “Are you a doctor?”
He smiled at that. “A builder. At the moment, a traveller. I am looking for something.”
By the end of her last treatment, when it all receded, and she felt cleaner in body and mind than she had in years, she felt consumed by gratitude.
Then, he began to pack his things, and prepared to depart.
Travelling the world could not be done cheap. And, truthfully, remaining in the house would do no favours for her mind. So, she left with him. And Aster, ever-loyal, refused to leave her side.
They travelled – over days, weeks, perhaps months. Never quite knowing where they are going, but he is a charismatic and well-speaking figure. Others find themselves travelling with him. He says they’re going to change the world, and they believe him.
One day, when it’s just them, alone, she asks what it is he’s seeking.
As though he had been waiting for her to ask, he smiles, produces a scroll filled with symbols and diagrams. Large circles, crossed by lines and geometric shapes, too sharp and straight to have been made by a person’s hand. They’re packed onto it, so dense she can’t tell where one ends and another begins. But all the same, she feels like she knows it. Blocks of other symbols, more like the letters she’s familiar with, are interspersed across the scroll.
Strings of symbols. And still, she can understand them. Well, she can tell what they mean. Not what they’re trying to say.
Σ≠Φ ʮ “(the self/the subject/I) (negation) (of/belonging to) (knowledge)”
ᔑ Φø- 𝄈 Δ “(declaration/this is/let it be known) (of/belonging to) (absence/Void/beyond)+(dream/sleep/rest) (the conceptual/abstract)”
Δ:∂³ ⇃ Σ🡒 “ (the conceptual/abstract)as it relates to(transforming)[ to the highest degree] (because of/due to/by way of) (the self/subject/conscious agent) (imperative/future result/is destined)”
≡⌖⇃Σ🡒↗ “(present tense/current time/contextual present) (place/location/spatial) (because of/due to/by way of) (the self/the subject/I) (imperative/future result/is destined) (movement/motion/return)”
⊚ΦΣ⇃ ʮ ²Δ⌖🡒øΣ “(eternal truth/prophetic/axiomatic) (of/belonging to) (the self/the subject/I) (because of/due to/by way of) (knowledge)[to an elevated degree] (the conceptual/abstract) (location/place) (imperative/future result/is destined) (absence/Void/beyond) (the self/the subject/I)
She doesn’t know how, but she can read them.
Underneath the diagrams, divided by them, are blobs and shapes. The lands they inhabit. But far off to the east and west, there’s so much land. It’s a map.
The circles are a language too – encoded in star-charts and orbital patterns. But they’re more impenetrable than the other words. But, to the south (ordained by the symbol in the corner of the map, pointing north, south, east, and west) there was a symbol.
⌖ “(location/place)”
She points to it, and tells him what he seeks is in that place.
He looks startled when she tells him. Then, he gives her a warm smile again.
She asks how he came upon it.
He says an angel bequeathed it to him. Along with a simple instruction: use it.
What “it” is, nobody knows. But in the centre of the scroll, dominating it, there is an angular shape – a rectangle with just-as-angular fins on its sides.
In the centre of the shape, a single, unblinking eye stares out, a swirling seal in its pupil.
And scrawled across the top of that outlined, eye-bearing object:
∂³Σx² “(transforming)[to the highest degree] (the subject) (power)[at an elevated degree].”
--------
The room was buried six floors beneath the earth, soundproofed, hardened against kinetic shock, and sealed behind five layers of biometric security and five-foot thick tungsten walls. It was one of the most secure spaces on the planet.
UNIT Central Command in Geneva.
Displayed upon the screens in the centre of the main table was a rotating 3D schematic of the object recently retrieved from Lake Turkana. Rendered in gold and green relief, it hovered and idly spun, like the reflector and lamp of a lighthouse. Its structure angular, symmetrical, and utterly unexplainable as being made by human hands.
“We’ve classified the object as Magnetic, Abnormal Matter - designation M.A.M.-01 - based on its ambient distortion field and its persistent interference with terrestrial electromagnetic baselines.” A researcher assigned to the team that had dug it up explained for the people sitting in the room.
One of the officers’ lips twitched. “If it were me? I would’ve named it ‘Turkana Magnetic Anomaly.’” A polite chuckle followed his words, but not much else.
“The structure materialised – displacing itself from the bottom of Lake Turkana - at 0437 local time. Total height: 30 meters. Composition: unknown alloy, non-reactive, non-ferrous, but strongly magnetic. Drones attempting physical contact suffered systems failure or displacement.”
“Displacement?” One of the commanders asked from across the table.
“Gone, sir,” She – the researcher - replied. “At a molecular level. No debris, no sounds of weapons fire, no trace particles in the atmosphere that would suggest vaporisation. Just... gone.”
Another pause.
A different voice - older, gruff - spoke from the shadowed end of the table. “We’re lucky it didn’t do that to our people. Respectfully, what were you and your team thinking? Anything could have happened, activating that thing.”
She swallowed, and clasped her hands behind herself. “Our initial scans didn’t suggest any link between MAM-01 and the means by which we triggered its materialisation. We were experimenting with the other artifact, and MAM activated in response.”
“Well, you figured it out.”
Another voice at the table, an Indian woman, cleared her throat. “This… disintegration. Is it a defence mechanism?”
The researcher shook her head. “We don’t believe so. It only affects objects that come into direct contact. We think it operates on a passive field interaction - meaning the danger is a byproduct, not a deliberate action – like getting an electric shock from touching an outlet. It’s not defending itself – it’s simply the result of interacting with it like that. We’ve since restricted direct approaches.”
Another slide clicked into place. Images of the object in situ – hovering over the lake, water boiling underneath it, the light from its form glowing like a phosphorescent sun.
“We've ruled out human origin for… obvious reasons. There’s no way it could have been produced by human hands.”
“Oh?” The representative from America leaned forward. “Why is that?”
A murmur rippled through the room.
“Resonance scans have yielded anomalous results. It vibrates at frequencies inconsistent with any stable crystalline matrix. The pattern appears to be shifting, almost... adaptive.”
The researcher hesitated, as if the next line tasted bad in her mouth.
“It may be... alive.”
Now the room was dead quiet.
Finally, the Deputy Scientific Coordinator leaned forward. “Do we have any indication of origin?”
The researcher paused. “We do have reason to suspect a definitive point of origin.” She held the remote in her hands up higher. “During the materialisation event, it produced this sound.” She pressed the button on the remote, and the recording from UNIT’s equipment at the site began to play.
Instantly, every commander in that place straightened in fascination, awe… and a little bit of dread. When it finished, she cleared her throat.
“The harmonics match,” She shuffled. “Of all known methods of teleportation, transmat, or otherwise-unnamed translocation… that sound is unique to Time Lord methods of propulsion. Most famously-“
“The Doctor’s TARDIS.”
“If it’s Time Lord,” A Russian representative at the table taps it. They looked sour at what they were about to speak. “Then it goes to the UK Archive.”
“Preposterous,” The French envoy snapped, rising halfway from his seat. “If this is Time Lord technology, it must be shared. It shouldn’t become an Anglo-centric relic!”
“Agreed,” Barked the German representative. “No Time Lord artefacts have ever fallen into human hands – precisely due to the UK. Think of the applications – it should be studied.”
“And what do you think you’d do with it?” The Canadian commander cocked his eyebrow. “Reverse-engineer a time machine? This thing wiped people and drones out of existence in an instant.
“It’s more than that. We know what they’re capable of – time travel is only a small part of it. Stellar engineering, dimensional engineering, micro-universes.” Said another. “You’d bury it under a museum and slap a warning sign on it?”
A dozen voices rose at once - Chinese, Brazilian, Israeli, Indian, all variations of the same theme: they wanted it.
The Russian delegate sat back, steepling his fingers, watching the chaos unfold like a chessboard collapsing. “There it is,” He muttered.
“Excuse me?” Said one of the Americans.
The Russian gestured broadly. “The greed. This is why it should not go with any of you. It goes to the UK Archive.”
That silenced the table, if only for a moment.
“Don’t pretend your government wouldn’t kill to get a look at that thing,” The American scoffed.
“We would,” The Russian said evenly. “And so would yours. That is precisely the point.”
Now the quiet spread wider, deeper - an uncomfortable shift in the room’s gravity. Everyone was thinking the same thing:
The Time Lords near-exclusively seemed to find themselves in the UK. Leaving behind their tech, playing around. It was how they knew about the Doctor to begin with.
But they kept a lid on it. They knew more than anyone about the Time Lords.
It was the South African liaison who finally voiced it.
“The UK Black Archive deals with high-risk objects like this on the regular.”
“And a Time Lord trusts them,” The Japanese representative added. “Or at least… doesn’t untrust them. It’s quite possible he’ll simply… let it remain, then.”
Another beat.
The German ambassador leaned forward, his tone still clipped but cooling. “We always send high-risk objects to the Brits.”
“It is our most advanced facility. Certainly, the one most equipped to protect it.”
No one answered.
“The thing’s as tall as Christ the Redeemer.” An American threw up his hand. “How in the hell are we gonna move it there, without it being seen!?”
The UK representative, silent up until that point, chuckled. “You would be amazed at what the average farmer ignores seeing.”
-------------
Back in the 1970s/80s, right in the heart of the Third Doctor’s Exile-on-Earth, UNIT as an organisation had become busier than it had ever been. Alien incursions took place on a semi-regular basis – and left behind a lot of technology and bodies. A lot of this technology was dangerous – not only in capability, but in simply existing, some of it posed a hazard to human health. Regular warehouse facilities, then, were not up to standard. People had sticky fingers, and the warehouses themselves were woefully inadequate to shield against potential emissions and interference, even from a ‘dormant’ piece of technology. There was the Black Archive facility underneath the Tower of London, but there was a caveat to that.
You didn’t want to store something that leaked harmful radiation by design in a warehouse in central London because, to the species that used it, that radiation was regenerative.
Although the facility in question was shielded – the fact remained, it was alien technology in a densely-populated area, the capital city of a major nation. So, that became largely a ‘safe-site’ – items that were catastrophically dangerous, but known to be otherwise inoperable or worth the risk keeping on-hand in case of a major incursion were stored there.
For the other stuff – the truly dangerous, esoteric, and at risk of harming human life – UNIT constructed a facility out in the Midlands. Designed with the Doctor’s help, the brightest minds on Earth, and a liberal helping of pilfered alien technology, it was the most advanced facility on the planet. TARDIS-proofed (to keep UNIT’s old Time Lord problem, the Master, out), full-spectrum shielding, biometric screens, material disintegration fields in select areas.
Whenever something happened – an invasion was thwarted, or a stray alien crashed down on Earth, or mysterious artefacts were uncovered – the remnants were sent there.
MAM was transported there. Carried across Kenya via helicopter, transported across the ocean in a VLCC UNIT commandeered for the job, and on the last stretch of its journey, it was carried across the English Midlands by helicopter again, before reaching (what they thought it to be at the time) its final resting place.
The one who led UNIT to it – she was brought there as well. Tucked into a sealed, steel bed, and hidden away in a corner of the archive, only to be brought out when they needed something.
------------
The map she can understand leads them far, far away from their homeland. In millennia to come, the area will come to be known as the birthplace of humanity. Thinking back upon it, it’s not unreasonable to think that, perhaps, what they found was the catalyst. The source of life on Earth. At least, the source of human life.
During the trek, they gather more people to their cause. Among them, a white-haired young man around her age. He has that same spark – that compassion and kindness – as the man she follows. And, he is infinitely more… otherworldly. There’s a pull, there. Almost gravitational in its strength. He’s handsome, her age, and less focused upon the big picture, and more interested in people. In her.
Aster is not a fan.
He wants to know her story – he seems fascinated with her, the odd one out.
So, she tells him. Then, she asks for his.
He was born to a woman, fatherless and destitute. Since then, he’s been wandering the breadth of the Earth, visiting all manner of far-off lands. His name is also Yeshua. He’s been to Rome, and Alexandria, and Athens.
The one they follow is interested. Greece? He understands that language?
The white-haired Yeshua nods. He can read the language, and write it. As a quick proof, he scrawls his own name in their letters in the dirt. He then asks why.
The one they follow hands him the map. Points to the strange symbols – they’re Greek, are they not?
Silver-Yeshua takes a look at them, then shakes his head. They look Greek. They are not Grecian. It’s a language completely divorced from human ways of thinking. He can understand the circular symbols, however. They’re instructions.
The one they follow asks – instructions to do what?
Yeshua then clamps up. He knows, but he will not say. To find out, the others will have to just keep heading to that place, and trust in the process. He’s comprehended the words, clearly. Aster suggests deceit. Yeshua says they wouldn’t believe him even if he told them outright – it’s something they need to witness themselves.
The one they follow asks Mary her opinion. She wants to give the silver-haired man the benefit of the doubt.
And so, they keep moving.
The journey becomes harder the farther they go. Trees change, winds shift, and the grass becomes a strange, paler brown. The stars - so long constant - seem to slide just slightly out of place. Their provisions dwindle, and yet somehow, none of them fall ill. The paltry amount of food they do catch is somehow enough to feed all of them. The white-haired man walks always a little apart from the others, never tiring, and never winded. He is not aloof, only… adrift, like a feather drifting just above the ground.
They travel down the Great River - until its breath thins and the fertile banks recede into dry, aching land. They pass into the lands of Kush, welcomed by traders and threatened by kings, until the settlements vanish entirely and they travel by foot under harsh skies and endless dust.
Time stretches on, the nights grow quieter, and Mary finds herself walking beside him.
She asks about the lands he's seen - Athens, with its stone gods and sea winds, Alexandria, the city of glass and scrolls. He answers softly, his words always precise, always truthful, and yet somehow never complete. As though he speaks only a portion of what he knows.
He asks about her home, and what she is thinking.
He asks about the stars. He says they look different to him, since setting out upon this journey. He tells her what he knows from his time in Greece – they believe the Earth to be round. Some of them think it revolves around the sun.
She wants to laugh – everything everyone else around has been taught says that’s wrong. Yet… somehow, it feels right. Her bones whisper to her that it makes sense. Water, gathering up into raindrops, wants to form into spheres. It only collapses once it gets too big. So, instead she asks, if that’s true, why doesn’t the Earth collapse. Before he can answer, she figures there must be nothing else making it collapse. A glob of water doesn’t splatter until it hits something, for instance. The Earth is a glob of water, and dirt. The Sun is a distant glob of fire, burning so bright that it can illuminate the whole of the world.
Yeshua nods. The stars are other suns – simply so far away their fires can’t reach. And if they’re other suns, then they might have Earths around them as well.
The one they follow stops pensively for a moment, before continuing on.
Mary finds the thought exhilarating. And they talk more – the Greeks he spent time with had many theories about the order of the universe. The infinite cosmos around them. But now, he’s coming up with some of his own. And she is as well.
Aster watches all of it.
She walks behind them, her eyes always alert, her shoulders drawn tight. At first, it was concern. Mary - her lady, her ward, her responsibility - was talking to a stranger. A truly strange stranger. But now it’s more than that.
It’s the way they talk. It’s the way they don’t need to explain themselves. The things they ponder together, ideas so large and shapeless they make Aster’s skin crawl.
He speaks about time curving. About God’s plan perhaps simply being a way of referring to the fact that all of this has transpired before, and must happen again. Not because of planning, but simply because it must. Like the way things fall toward the Earth. It’s like fact.
Mary smiles, and speaks like she understands him perfectly. But Aster turns away, disturbed.
Jealous of a man who walks like the earth bends for him. Of Mary, who once trembled and withered behind locked doors, now laughing again, shining again.
Jealousy for something Aster doesn’t know how to name, because it has no name.
Aster is her companion, her guardian, her closest kin.
But she has never made Mary smile like that, in the days since she lost her parents.
She doesn’t know if she wants to protect Mary from chaos - or herself, from the truth. They would kill her for it, certainly, if she spoke what she felt.
It’s the one they follow who places a hand on her shoulder, gives her a warm embrace, and tells her it is okay to feel that way. But she can’t let it pull her into doing something to harm another. Aster cries, but he remains with her. He encourages her to speak on it.
Aster does so.
Yeshua and Mary both share a look, and each one extends a hand to her.
-----------
KOS-MOS awakens when the sarcophagus housing her is brought out of storage, and the lid is opened. The light is blinding for only a moment, before the lenses in her optics polarize and filter it down.
There’s a woman standing over her – pale, blue-grey skin, with crystalline, shimmering blue hair, and on the younger (but not young) side. KOS-MOS’s first instinct, that makes her call for weapons that do not respond, is another T-elos.
The woman looks just like KOS-MOS. Far, far too much like KOS-MOS to be anything other than another attempt at ‘perfecting’ her. But what scans she can take shows human. No cybernetics, or integrated weapons, or even armor plating. The appearance is strange – but, she is human.
KOS-MOS’s first thought is that, maybe, the woman is another reincarnation of Mary. It had been thousands of years, between those times, and when her spirit found its way to KOS-MOS. Maybe there were others.
No – the likelihood of there being others was overwhelming. She was fairly certain nearly everyone from those ancient times that she had once travelled with found their way into new forms. Souls, consciousnesses, whatever one wants to call it, have been proven now to be an energetic phenomenon. And, as all the laws of the universe says, energy cannot be completely destroyed – only change states.
(Time Travel is a fairly large wrench in that. Point is – KOS-MOS was looking at a doppelganger of herself, and given everything, she isn’t certain she can write it off as merely coincidence.)
The woman is wearing a military uniform. KOS-MOS’S analysis pins it as a United States Army Service Uniform, but all-black. Not the standard of the time. Her nametag reads ‘Elma.’
KOS-MOS does not understand why they’ve woken her. A man she can only assume to be Elma’s commanding officer encourages her to work quickly.
KOS-MOS does not feel the needle pierce her, but she is aware of it by the drop it causes in her circulatory fluid’s pressure – what little of it is left.
The sample they take is enormous – almost every last drop of her artificial ‘blood.’
Then, they put her right back into her sarcophagus.
---------
After many weeks of travel, it comes into sight. A lake almost as vast as the sea. The others aren’t impressed by what they see at their destination.
But the one they follow is awestruck, reverent with the site.
This is Eden, he says. The origin point for all mankind. Their birthplace. The first men and women would’ve built their farms there, drawn on the lake for water, lived in homes on the shore. The others don’t believe him at first. The splendour spoken of is nowhere to be seen – and if people had lived there, wouldn’t there be evidence?
But it happened thousands upon thousands of years ago. It all broke down and eroded over time.
Mary feels small – because she knows he’s right. There’s a buzz in the air, constant and inaudible, but ever-present. This place was where the human race began. Where a small portion of people set out from to fill every corner of the Earth.
The one they follow produces the map that led them here. He turns around, and beckons forth Mary and Yeshua. They are the ones who can read the map. He asks again for Yeshua to elaborate about the instructions.
Yeshua looks them over again, extends his hand. Looks at Mary, silently instructing her to take it, with the one they follow still holding onto the map from the top.
Mary touches it, and feels a jolt. In that moment, the two of them are connected.
The circuit is completed. Mary begins to understand things she had no words for.
The map is not a map. It is a passcode, and the lake is a vault.
She and Yeshua can speak that passcode. Not with words, but with their minds. The two of them are both parts of one singular whole – he received the blessing of knowledge, she was blessed with power. But in that moment, it passes freely between them.
The instructions are not for them. They understand them, can make use of them, but they are not the ones intended to make use of them. The map was to point to the site, for them to watch over it.
The angel was naming the one they follow the guardian of what lay there. Not giving it to him.
And it would come back. The instructions were addressed to itself.
But Mary and Yeshua proceed anyway. The device is there – just sideways in existence, in the realm of the imaginary, not material.
The codes needed to summon it are concepts, spoken from deep within the unconscious mind, and sent forth. A combination of ideas that have been stuck in humanity’s mind for so long, that everyone knows what they are.
Then, it appears. It simply fades into existence, like smoke shaping into a being, glowing golden and radiant.
The one they follow approaches it, looks up, and raises his arms high.
---------
The 21st century was when it all changed, it was said. It’s not hard to see why. Twenty years after he had the rug pulled out from under him by them, UNIT approached Wilhelm. The reason was thus: the world was about to change. Humanity was going to face the greatest threat of its existence – on par with that Dalek invasion that had been mysteriously thwarted. They could survive, but it was going to take much work. Much transformation.
They were going to need weapons, defences, whatever they could in order to survive the coming apocalypse. Vector, being one of the largest and most cutting-edge companies on the planet, was a shoe-in for contractor in that regard.
But it had to remain secret. Their chances of survival dropped dramatically with the addition of a mass panic. In exchange, UNIT would provide whatever funding and samples of technology needed for them to pull apart. But, if it leaked, they would know it was him – they’d detain him, and seize control of Vector as an entity.
Not that he argued. It was a blank check – carte blanche for him to order whatever he wanted, with the law looking the other way. They would be too busy setting up the new government of the Earth anyway.
He’d make very good use of that opportunity. They were practically auctioning-off items in their Black Archive, anything that even might be useful. Old Cybermen parts, Silurian scraps, Ice Warrior armour. Dozens of other trinkets that had yet to see the light of day, until now.
But none of them were his true prize. That golden, radiant power that slumbered in Kenya. But they were keeping it hidden. Even after twenty years, an alien invasion coming, and the necessity of sharing everything, they keep it hidden.
Wilhelm does not feel frustrated, only mildly annoyed. This has all happened before, after all. It will all happen again, no matter what they do.
----------
They call it the Radiance.
It takes some time, to learn what it is, or what it’s capable of. The first bit of headway they make in that department is an accident. Mary gets hungry. She doesn’t say it aloud, but she wishes they all had something to eat.
A whole pile of food, hot and fresh, steaming and smelling like it just came out of a kitchen simply… appears, along with a table large enough, and equipped with seating enough, to accommodate everyone. The food is filling, the drink refreshing, and were it not for her own memory, she would have assumed they made it themselves
The way Yeshua explains it – he seems to have a greater handle on how things work, while she can more intuitively apply them – the table and the food was always there. Simply separated from them by the walls of probability. The Radiance made that probability a certainty, and so the food appeared.
“If you look at the world not as concrete, rigid rules, and start seeing it as a web of likelihoods - things that are more or less probable at any given moment - a lot of things become possible.”
Aster huffs. It sounds to her like magic.
Yeshua shakes his head. “What’s the probability my hand will go through this table? It’s low – but it’s never zero. But, with the Radiance…” He reached his hand down, inching towards the wood – and it passed right through.
The food remained upon it, along with the plates and bowls. Yeshua just-as-easily pulled his hand back through.
“We can change that. It can make things happen that anyone else would deem impossible.”
The one they follow gets a different look on his face. It’s clear that ideas are churning in his mind.
“It could do anything, you say? It could create food enough to feed a billion people? Cure ailments we have no medicines for? Turn a heat-blasted desert into a paradise? Create whole settlements for the lost and needy?”
Yeshua nods. Anything. That power could change the world, for the better.
The one they follow looks thoughtful – before they hear a noise on the horizon. A wheezing, grinding. His face goes slack as he appears to be somewhere else, before he rushes to his feet and goes quickly to the source.
All they see that could have maybe made the sound was a blue box on a nearby hill.
------------
Wilhelm meets him at a seminar discussing means of FTL propulsion. It’s no longer purely theoretical physics. They have alien wrecks equipped with drives capable of it, each one almost completely different from one another. It’s only a matter of finding out the most practical one for them to recreate. And one that’s best suited to their situation.
The hall’s packed with minds who can bend physics to their will - professors, physicists, engineers, and defence contractors. And, amidst them, men who would never publish a paper nor win any scientific awards of their own achievement. Men like Wilhelm.
Wilhelm is almost bored in the audience, going through the motions on automatic, not really listening. The chief engineer on the Hyams Group’s prototype skipper has the same personality as a glass of water, peddling another Alcubierre knock-off.
Nevertheless, despite their own impatience and annoyance, the audience claps politely. The next name is called.
“Dmitri Yuriev.”
He walks up to the dais, and Wilhelm’s interest is piqued. The other men in the room dress all, almost identically to one another. It’s a symptom of the real problem – for men supposedly such great thinkers, they’re painfully inside the box. They all wear two-or-three-piece suits, ties, all similar styles and ways of grooming.
Yuriev dresses like a king. A black Nehru jacket with a red stripe going down the front with the buttons, white trousers and shoes. His movements were controlled, precise, and practiced. He was better than everyone else in that room, and he knew it.
Naturally, it got Wilhelm’s attention. He sits and pretends to listen to the words, while he watches Yuriev share his vision. Evidence for a space joined to theirs, with slightly different laws, that he and his research time have observed.
Wilhelm can recognize the details of that which Yuriev speaks.
Afterward, he tracks the man down.
“Most men here are content to dissect what has already fallen into their laps.” Wilhelm remarks to Yuriev first. “Why start from scratch on something new?”
Yuriev seems to find it amusing more than anything else. “They say great science is built upon the shoulders of giants. That’s true. But it is also a limiting factor. In adhering to what those have done before, trying to replicate it slavishly, you blind yourself to the alternative, better ways of doing things. The other men here will never be able to get around the fundamental flaw of their source material. It may be sufficient for quick proofs-of-concept, but it is alien technology. Built by minds we don’t understand, filled with technology we don’t understand, with a potential array of hidden features and dangers that we can’t predict. We need something of our own.”
Wilhelm is curious. “You believe you can do it better than every other person here?”
Yuriev simply nods. It’s simple fact, to him. He knows he can. “Indeed. My team and I have already broken ground. We’d been running experiments on manufactured entangled particles – variations of the double-slit experiment. We filtered one photon through PT-symmetric materials, in an attempt to alter the imaginary component, which shouldn’t have impacted anything unless the imaginary component actually mattered. It did. This led us to believe that the imaginary-number components of physical phenomena aren't simply necessities to make our mathematics work - but evidence of another, physical component of reality.”
“Another axis,” Wilhelm hummed. “A domain we cannot directly observe from our plane of being… but there.”
Yuriev nods, seemingly finding respect in Wilhelm’s understanding of it. “That’s right. My colleagues believe it’s another field we’ve yet to find a name for. I’ve deemed it Imaginary Space. Or I-Space. A substrate of reality entangled with our own, inseparable, but to most observation, invisible. Already, we’re working on potential methods to shift the reality quotient, on a larger scale and back, allowing for the manipulation of entire objects.”
Wilhelm tilts his head. “Reality quotient?”
Yuriev chuckles. “Ah. That’s another term of mine, referring to the imaginary component.”
Wilhelm nods politely.
“Physics as we understand it would be completely suspended along that axis of reality,” Yuriev continues on. “All rules, up for grabs. Including the speed of light. Even distance and geometry would be different. And any object travelling through would be undetectable, until it emerged. All of those other forms of travel? Parlour tricks, compared to this.”
“I see…” Wilhelm adjusts his cuffs with a smile. “Think you can prove it?”
“I can – and will.”
Wilhelm chuckles. “You’re very resolute. I admire that.” He clears his throat, “I’d like to offer you a grant, Doctor Yuriev. Capital, facilities, equipment, personnel...”
Yuriev does well to hide it, but Wilhelm’s offer has definitely garnered his interest. “I would be honoured to accept – but remiss if I didn’t ask what you sought from it.”
Wilhelm smiles. The question’s quaint; even men like Yuriev can’t see the biggest picture. “I prefer to invest in ideas that suit the future I envision. Yours is one of those. The idea that mankind’s continued existence in this universe is going to come at the hands of alien technology instead of our own innovation… I find it troubling.”
“Then you and I are of the same opinion.”
“Excellent.” Wilhelm passes over a card. “Do what you must regarding your team, then contact me when you’re ready. I look quite forward to seeing what you deliver on, doctor.”
------------
The one they follow came back down over the hill, a strange man in his company. The new man was short, with an odd hat upon his head, a walking stick that looked wrapped in some manner of cloth in his hand, and clothes that were like nothing else they had ever seen. Patterns adorned the man’s clothing.
They all looked at the new arrival, curious.
"Who is this?" Mary asked the one they followed.
He opened his mouth, but the stranger beat him to it.
"Ah, please, allow me to introduce myself," He tipped the odd article he wore on his head. "I'm a man of wealth and taste."
Then, he took one look at the Radiance. He moved over to the table, sitting down, and leaning his head on the handle of his walking stick. He looked ahead for a long while.
“Well, Doctor?” The one they follow posed to him, hopeful. “What do you think?”
The foreigner called the Doctor did not meet his eyes, looking ahead. “I think you should have left it buried.”
Mary’s brow furrowed. The others exchanged glances.
“But we can use it,” She said. “We already have. It responds to us.”
“It listens, yes,” The Doctor murmured. “It always listens. That’s the problem.”
The one they follow looked concerned. “Is it dangerous?”
The Doctor offered him a frank expression. “There’s a degree of danger in everything. And your race is neither powerful or capable enough of comprehending the danger this puts you in.”
“But what is it?” Their teacher asks of the traveller.
The man with the strange accent pondered, and sighs. “One moment… hold this.” He passed his walking stick over to the one they follow, who took it without issue. The Doctor’s hands patted his unusual clothes, before they reached into a portion, and pulled out a thick stack of paper, bound in leather. He paused at it, momentarily. “The King James Version… Eh, should be close enough.” He opened it up, and cleared his throat. “’In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep…’”
The one they follow looked at the book, awestruck. “Is that a Torah…?”
“Erm…” The Doctor’s eyes flicked to it. His palm was over the front, hiding something. “It’s… in here. Now, hush.” He cleared his throat again. “’And God said, ‘‘Let there be light,’’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the firmament and separated the water under the firmament from the water above it.’ Blimey, you lot really liked to hammer it in’ didn’t you?”
The one they follow chuckles in minor confusion. “I… have studied Genesis, Doctor.”
The traveller held a finger up. His next words were pointed. “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years…’ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing...” He quickly closes it, and stuffs it back into his clothes. “That is your creation myth. It’s quite a bit more literal than you think.”
The one they follow leaned forward, and hands the traveller back his umbrella. “Explain.”
The Doctor sat, looking at the Radiance. “The beginning of time… wasn’t the beginning of time. At least, not as you understand it. There was a state of reality before your own. A place of chaos, and magic, devils, and demons, and monsters… My people did not like it. Anything was possible, but there was no structure, no order, no… purpose.” He drummed his fingers on the handle of his walking stick. “So, one of our own and his followers set out to rectify it. His name was Rassilon.” He rolled the sound at the beginning. “The mastermind behind a plan that would forever shape the cosmos for the rest of all time.”
Everyone else leaned in as well, curious. If the one they followed was listening, they could as well.
His eyes stared ahead, unfocused for a brief moment. “It took us ages to carry it out…” Aware now that he was being watched, the Doctor’s eyes looked over them all. “He, and two others – the ancient Trinity of Gallifrey – set out to put the plan into motion. They captured a star, imprisoning it as a power source. The second member of the Trinity vanished – lost in another universe – and the third vanished. But Rassilon remained. He took that power source back to our home. Using it, they could construct magnificent craft, and set them up all across the universe. All transmitting – power, knowledge, observations – back to a central point. A great machine, drawing power from the sum totality of all reality… they called the Machine-Heart. Or the Cruciform.”
The Radiance spun over the lake, shining brightly.
“I admit – I don’t know much about how it works.” The Doctor confessed. “But with the stroke of a single button, Rassilon transformed all reality into a state he found preferrable. Reason and logic were crystalised into physics, magic and gods were banished. The machine wove a Web of Time, with my people at the centre. Divided reality in twain, forged linear time, engineered the meta-universe that encompasses it all… The heavens and the Earth.” He glanced at it. “Through it, all reality is accessible. All parallel universes, all possible alternate timelines, all domains of existence only dreamed about. It is the gateway to everything.”
The one they follow looked up at it, awestruck. “The infinite cosmos… in such a small object?”
The Doctor chuckled at that. “It’s bigger on the inside. No,” He cleared his throat. “That object is a… physical representation of the true Machine. It’s the shadow, cast on the wall. Transdimensional, universal engineering. It can create new universes, bottle realities, oxbow timelines; the only limit is that of the user’s understanding. And, even then, it can work around it. It made the laws of physics, you know.” He trailed off, still drumming the handle of his walking stick. “It had been locked away, by my time.”
“Locked away?”
The Doctor nodded. “My people weren’t the only ones around, back then. Several allied with us. One of Rassilon’s successors lent it out to one of those allies. A political tactic. Some of our more difficult allies would see it and either attack, and give us an excuse to rid ourselves of them, or become better-behaved so they could get a crack at it.”
The one who they follow seems oddly disappointed. “Such wonders… and it still boils down to unfortunate bickering and politics.”
The Doctor slowly bobbed his head in agreement. Then, he continued his story. “But, it went awry. They let something terrible into the universe. And we had to clean it up which was one of several incidents that led to my people’s non-interference policy. They made a short trial of the one responsible, our High Council impeached the President over it, and the Cruciform was brought back to Gallifrey, sealed away in the deepest vault, so a repeat couldn’t occur. So, the question is, what is it doing here…”
“That’s impossible,” Aster gasped out first. “That story is just…” Blasphemous, ridiculous, impossible.
Why wasn’t the one they were following arguing against it?
He crossed his arms, thoughtful. “Could it be the work of another like Captain Avenai?”
“No, no, impossible.” The Doctor shook his head. “To gain access to this, one would have to break into the vaults on Gallifrey. You would need to be a Time Lord. A well-respected one, at that. Or very crafty…” His brow furrowed. “None of you would have happened to encounter a strange man calling himself ‘The Master,’ or paper-thin aliases that happen to incorporate the word?”
All of them shook their heads.
“Hm… How about a woman calling herself ‘Rani?’”
“No.”
“Hmm… well if it isn’t the exes…” The Doctor looked bothered. Then, something occurs to him. “How did you find it?”
“I was given a map.” The one they follow held it up. “By an angel.”
“By an-“ The Doctor closed his eyes, and let out a slow sigh. “This angel wouldn’t happen to have appeared to you in a similar fashion to the way my TARDIS appears?”
The one they follow had a bashful look on his face, glancing at them. “They wouldn’t have believed me if I said it was simply a person with capabilities far beyond our own. But no, I didn’t hear the noise. They roused me from my sleep. They appeared to be in rather a bit of a hurry, actually.” He stroked his beard. “Mumbling to themselves about the highest chance of the map remaining intact, making it to the place where it will be reclaimed… Then they placed it into my hands, told me to use it and protect it, then they vanished. I half-believed I had imagined it, until I awoke and found the map beside me.”
“Fascinating.” The Doctor looked at it. “May I?”
He passed it over.
The Doctor looked at it, and hummed after a moment. “It’s Time Lord writing. A mixture of Modern and Old-High Gallifreyan. And you used it to come here?”
“And we used it to awaken the object.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? How did you do that?”
Yeshua spoke. “The instructions were simple.”
“The instructions…” The Doctor repeated, glancing at the map, and his lips twitched. “Ah, yes, that’s the Modern Gallifreyan. Quite unusual to find one that speaks it here…”
Yeshua shrugged.
“What about the other words?” Mary pointed them out on the map. “I can understand those… but, not.”
“Ah, that’ll be the Old High Gallifreyan. Not many around left who speak that – even on Gallifrey.” The Doctor hummed. “The two of you must have some distant Time Lord ancestor, embedding a partial understanding of the language into your blood.”
The two flushed. “Oh, no, we’re not related.”
“…oh? How curious…” The Doctor blinked, before shaking his head. “Anyway, you wouldn’t be able to understand the Old High Gallifreyan without training. The symbols are contextual – part biodata-encoded. You need to be a Time Lord to have the structures needed to interpret them.”
“Do you speak it?” The one they follow asked the Doctor.
“I’m positively fluent,” He tapped the map. “That word there on what you’re calling the Radiance – it can mean a lot of things depending on context. Considering it’s on its own, that usually means you want the literal meaning. ‘A force of immense, transformative potential.’”
In that moment, Mary knows the man is who he says he is, and everything he says is true. She knows it like she does the sky is blue, as she knows what the symbols in every word meant, but not how to put them together. He does, and it made sense.
“Now, let’s see…” The Doctor cleared his throat. “’I am a stranger to your people. By the time you are reading this, I will have died. But I will have also transformed. One day, I shall come back. Within you… he who can understand this map.’”
“Within… you?” Yeshua asked of the Doctor.
“Not me. I highly doubt the message was intended for me. I’m not exactly well-regarded on Gallifrey.” He handed the map back over to the one they follow, and steepled his fingers. “I do hate finding myself in mysteries and leaving them unresolved… but it doesn’t matter, I suppose. I’ll take it back to Gallifrey, and you can all forget about this.”
The reaction is immediate and visceral. They’ve seen what it can do.
It’s the one who they follow that speaks up.
“Doctor, you can’t. This is incredible. The amount of good that can be done-“
“Were you not listening to me? That’s a power beyond humans, beyond reckoning, and now it’s active – on a world that doesn’t have language to describe a small fraction of its power. It belongs back on Gallifrey, safe and hidden away.”
“Safe from who?” The man asked, gesturing out at the land around them. “The starving? The sick? The homeless? Safe from dying children? From people who cannot hope for a miracle against an empire that chew them to the bone? You would bury the answer to a thousand prayers because you are afraid of what it might do?”
“Yes.” The Doctor stared blankly. “Because it’s not a machine that you simply ask and it makes things happen. There are forces it governs that you cannot hope to fathom.”
The one they follow opened his mouth.
The Doctor kept going. “Do you know what a supernova is? A black hole? Gamma-ray bursts? Neutron stars? Vacuum decay? Matter shifts!?” The Time Lord raised his voice. “You could end all creation with a single, stray thought!”
“Then teach us,” The man said. “If you have such an understanding of it, don’t ignore the good it could make out of fear. Help us.”
The Doctor rubbed his face in frustration.
“Do you know what I see, when I look around?” The one they follow gestured. “I see a world… no better than what it will be in four-thousand years. Where empires still march and persecute innocent people. Where the corrupt still take as though nothing is never enough for them, and leave those who need it to suffer and die. And this – this can help. Humankind survives for so long, but don’t you think it would be better, if we were better along the way?”
“You’re not going to be around forever,” The Doctor pointedly looked at him. “None of you will. What will happen when one who is less of a humanitarian comes into control of it, hmm?”
“Then we show people how to do better,” He said, voice filled with quiet certainty. “How to love stronger than they hate. You say it listens to will - then let’s will good things.”
The Doctor looked at him - truly looked at him. “You’re serious.”
“I am.” He reached out, pleading. “Is it not better to give us at least a chance?”
The Doctor remained quiet for a long stretch of thought. Until, finally, he sighed. “Fine. I suppose I can act as an… advisor.”
----------
UNIT’s throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Bringing objects in-and-out of storage. During that time, the sensors in the Black Archive detect something.
Whenever they pop the lid on that android’s casket, MAM reacts to it. Subtle shifts in the magnetic waves and emissions around it. Like it’s reaching out to the android, or the android is somehow attempting to draw energy from it.
That is enormous. If you’re going by the Kardashev scale, the Time Lords were a society beyond Type III. Actually, they were so far beyond Type III that the scale probably didn’t even apply anymore. They were a civilisation capable of monitoring and utilizing the energy of the entire universe, and probably countless universes beyond that.
There are five key pillars to any war effort: Personnel, materiel, sustenance, logistics solutions, and energy. Energy – power, fuel – it’s increasingly important to modern wars. In the war against an alien civilisation, it’s going to be the key.
You can make all the cutting-edge tech you want. It’s all useless unless you can figure out a way to power it.
So, they get to work, figuring out how she does it. They take samples from every part of her. Her brain, her weapons, her repair systems…
The crystalline substance seems to be more compatible with it than standard computers, communicating with it, somehow.
They successfully manage to make it materialize a solid block of metal the size of a lorry. Not what they were going for, but in the ballpark. Slowly, they manage to get it to produce more ‘exotic’ stuff. There’s no limit. It never slows, never exhausts its supply, never protests. They rename it the Conduit.
With the ability to just make infinite materials now, another goal seems infinitely closer to being plausible. While the UK is pulling the nations of the world into the Coalition Government, the US starts construction on a space elevator. A city springs up on the coast near the base. Rhadamanthus, they call it – one of the three judges of the dead. A bit on the nose, considering they’re facing extinction. Used to be the biggest engineering hurdle was getting so much materials into orbit, finding tensioner cables that wouldn’t snap. The Conduit can take care of that, both in equal measure.
(Plus there’s other tech hauled out from the vaults – G-Diffusers and fusion engines, so it’s not as difficult to get things into space as it once was. Still difficult. But not as difficult.)
It takes ten years. Rhadamanthus is completed first. Then, Minos and Aeacus follow. Then, the orbital ring is connected to join together the three of them.
On the cosmic scale, humanity goes from being barely able to put satellites in orbit, to a spacefaring species in a single blink.
The Conduit’s existence becomes public, because it has to – there’s no easy way to explain the vast quantities of materials that just appear, far in excess of any country’s ability to manufacture them.
Mimeosomes, Skells, nanotechnology – it all goes from being theoretical, to real.
And the threat they all face seems ever distant.
----------
It couldn’t last forever. Nothing can. They make a decent try of it, though. They design mechanisms to better focus and control the Radiance. When they get it to a level they find acceptable, they return whence they came. Travelling, spreading his message. Using the Radiance’s power to help.
They start calling the one they follow their king.
This is a horrible idea.
Not for any inherent issues against the notion of monarchy itself. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not an inherently evil system. It’s people gathering together, naming someone a leader, recognizing that title, and respecting it, like all other systems.
But in the Roman Empire – or a province of the Roman Empire – it’s a very dangerous thing to be caught doing. Especially in a problem area, like Judea, with oh-so-many uprisings, and issues.
Pontius Pilate is the fifth governor in charge of the area. He’s already dealt with uprisings before, on numerous occasions. Typically, through brutality. He’s made it clear that he is the type of person who does not tolerate rebellion. And with the province being a problem area, there’s the expectation that he will either get it in line, or his failure to due so will be his legacy. So, he cracks down. Hard.
He does not tolerate sedition. Or rebellion. He barely tolerates the customs of those he’s governing, only because it’s preventing another uprising.
When he hears talk of a magician going around, claiming to be king, and the local religious leaders are all clamouring for him to do something about it?
He does not tolerate that, either.
It’s an unstable region. Any big shifts could spark another rebellion, and create a bigger problem. So, there he stands, ready to rectify the situation. The local leaders bring them to him.
One of them has sold the others out. The Radiance could be used to exorcise the Romans from the land completely – and instead, they’re using it to save weddings from mis-management, is what he says.
There’s a scuffle.
Aster gets wounded in the commotion.
Mary can only hold her oldest friend as she bleeds out, while the one they follow – to stop any further bloodshed, lets himself be led away.
The Doctor looks pale, like he knows what’s going to happen. Mary is confused. They can get him out of it – the Romans are brutal, but not unreasonable. They’ve broken no laws. Passover is approaching – they might be able to convince Pilate to pardon some prisoners. He gets even paler.
They can only convince him to release one. And the crowd-in-attendance demand the release of someone else. Pilate – adherent to stability above all else, doesn’t want it to become an issue if he turns around and releases the one they didn’t choose.
The Doctor tries to convince them not to go out there. It’ll be a grisly sight. The Roman method of execution is far from humane – it’s about sending a message.
Mary and Yeshua go out there anyway.
She’s aware the sound she makes is far from human. It’s the wail of some dying animal, having a piece ripped out of it. She’s lost Aster, and now she’s lost him, the one who helped her.
When she returns to where they’re lodging, she moves like she did before all this started. Empty. Only Yeshua keeps her moving.
The traveller from another world looks at them, turns away, and hums. “It’s Friday, yes? Go back out there on Sunday.” He closes his eyes, and takes a breath. “I heard your scream all the way from here. Maybe the right force heard it too, perhaps… perhaps.”
Mary can only barely do so. She returns to where they buried him.
And it’s open.
Her first thought is grave-robbery. Then she walks in. And she finds him.
He can’t remain forever, the Doctor says. The Radiance brought him back, but reversing death is different to healing people. His mind has already began to shift elsewhere. He stays for a little over a month. His words become increasingly more cryptic.
Then, he fades.
He never did tell them who the angel was that he got the map from.
The Radiance shuts down, after that.
The Doctor explains. Now that the one they follow is gone, he does that. Mary and Yeshua are vessels for its power, in constant communication with it. Her grief brought him back, just as it was her hunger that manifested the food when they first discovered it. Her subconscious feelings – regret and the wish that they had never found it due to what happened - caused it to deactivate the interface.
It’s dormant now, again. He’ll take it back to Gallifrey.
Just as he entered, the Doctor leaves, taking the Radiance with him.
Mary and Yeshua try to keep themselves together, for as long as they can. But, even too, that ends. He still has power he can access. And there’s a risk that even so far away, they can still call upon the Radiance. Activate it again. So, he asks her to rid him of it. She’s the more powerful one, out of the two of them.
She can’t do that – but she can split it up. It kills her.
Literally and figuratively.
She dies not happy, not content, but hoping that things won’t go so wrong again.
----------
It’s a young Mimeosome transplant named Galea that hypothesises - after looking through old files - that the crystalline material derived from the Turkana Android can be used to control the Conduit. Or, at the very least, communicate with it. The theory is sound enough in practice – the link had been proven, but with the android an unacceptable risk as an AI of unknown origin, they couldn’t explore it. But, a human-trained intelligence, operating in that crystalline material, might be able to make headway with the Conduit.
Klaus, a post-doc from Cambridge, is quicker to make headway on it than she is. He lives and breathes the science of it, training and adjusting them himself. He gets the credit. She’s not pleased. But Klaus is young, eager, and entirely too much like a puppy for her to stay mad at. He offers her the whole credit.
He also offers for her to take the credit on… well, anything else she wants, really. Klaus is a meek and shrunken individual. He wants to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. He hates the being the centre of attention. It’s one of the many things that give him panic attacks. He just wants to keep his head down, do his work, and maybe make the world a better place. So, someone else getting the limelight works for him.
She retorts rather a bit harshly that she doesn’t want or need his charity. And he looks hurt enough that she starts to feel bad afterward.
Eventually, they decide he’ll get credit for training the crystal AI, she’ll get credit for the material theory and the virtual reality simulation he’ll be training them in. She did put in the work for it, of course – he just was quicker to the punch.
That’s how their friendship started. And make no mistake, they were very close. A simple co-worker wouldn’t lay in bed with the other to help them through a panic attack, after all. The invasion that everyone knows is coming, but don’t speak on, isn’t a worry to them. They go about their days, content. Happy.
--------
The Conduit. ‘A gateway to all possible realities and levels of reality.’
Dmitri’s been trying, decades, to tunnel into I-Space, making slow headway. Too slow. At least, for his tastes. It’s possible – he’s been through it and back himself – but the equipment is too large, too power-hungry, and too impractical. It can’t even send vehicles in there – they have to wear spacesuits and be yanked back out from the outside.
The Conduit could be the key. And they’re using it as a glorified 3d printer. He needs access to the Conduit. There are really only two options – sign onto the institute, be beholden to the whims of the powers that be, and not even control where he was assigned, or petition for access himself. The latter is preferable. Done on his own terms, he wouldn’t be held to the control of an employer who could just fire him… But to do that and have any shot at success, he would need power, and influence.
He goes to Wilhelm with his idea later that day. He’s at the offices of one of Vector’s satellite (as in, smaller thing that orbits, not actual satellites) companies, watching a demonstration in a test chamber from the observation box. The chamber is a wide open space, filled with disused military vehicles, arranged to simulate a stalled convoy. Parts of the floor are raised and lowered to give the impression of terrain. The sim troopers are mimeosomes, remote-piloted, and kitted like a militia group.
The figure that steps through the entrance into the chamber massive. Not a tank, but one would be forgiven for assuming. Clad in matte-silver armour, with plating like sculpted glass and internal musculature that flexes like steel cable in the wind, it moves with eerie precision. Its eyes are hidden behind a polished, reflective visor. It does not speak. The heads-up display registers it as Number 8.
The test begins.
Number 8 draws submachine guns, and light refracts around it, turning it invisible.
Militia drones swivel, targeting the old position with auto-cannons and rocket pods. A volley launches toward the location, but 8 is already gone. The shockwave ripples its cloak, but it keeps running.
It covers the space in seconds, moving with speed that belies its mass. A shoulder-charge through the first barrier sends steel shrapnel flying and breaks the cloak. Two troopers lift their rifles - Number 8 grabs one by the helmet and shoots the other, before hurling the first with enough force into the nearby vehicle to break it apart.
It doesn't stop. A mounted turret opens fire, 8 returns it and the machine sparks and goes limp. More take cover behind a hauler, using it as cover while they indiscriminately fire its way. Number 8 lifts the entire front end of the truck and flips it onto the enemy like a piece of scrap.
Grenade launchers fire from elevated positions. It leaps up a wall nearby, clinging to it with magnetic boots, then launches off it at an angle to land amidst the high-ground defenders. The drones don’t even have time to rotate their weapons. It cuts them down with heavy strikes to the arms and chest, while it gets the others at-range.
Within three minutes, the chamber falls silent.
It stands still, waiting. Then the buzzer sounds.
“Ziggurat 8, success.” The modulated voice of the computer calls from above.
A low, polite applause ripples from the observation team. Wilhelm doesn’t clap. He doesn’t even smile.
“A new model of Sovereign?” Dmitri, curious, inquires.
“No.” Wilhelm answers simply. “Cyborgs. The dead, rebuilt. Quite an ingenious recycling plan. I’m impressed.”
Dmitri nods. Then, he gets to the reason why he’s here. “I have a new approach to gain access to the Conduit. But I will need your support.”
“Of course.” Wilhelm softly intones. “What is it you require? More funding?” Dmitri would think it odd – after so little progress, the man would continue just throwing money at him – but he believes in Yuriev’s work. “Lobbying? Personnel?”
“A bit of all, I think.” Dmitri clasps his hands behind his back. “I’ll need someone to run my election campaign. And a few generous donations.”
“…politics.” Wilhelm hums. “Quite the change of career path. But you wouldn’t be the first, considering how many actors have gone into politics. But do you have a platform to run on, I wonder?”
“They sit up there, hold the Conduit, and don’t do all that much with it. They hoard it, and restrict its access. At least, that’s how most see it.” Yuriev clears his throat. “They have superintelligent AI, war robots, and a source of limitless energy. Spin it the right way, people will be clamouring to break it up.”
“Yes…” Wilhelm seems to think it over for a moment “I think we can make it work.”
-----------
Yuriev wins. Despite both ostensibly being part of the same effort, the Minos Authority and its associated Beanstalk have a ‘second-fiddle syndrome,’ so to speak. Rhadamanthus was the first, it houses the most powerful AI on the planet, houses the Conduit, is named as de facto command for Earth’s naval forces in the event of alien forces…
After years of falling behind, they want someone who will do something about it.
With his new level of power, he can submit a Freedom-of-Information request, and actually get a response now. It’s not live data garnered from direct observation, but it helps. The Conduit reacts to people, according to their observations. Conscious, organic brains in proximity to the Conduit causes oscillations in the Hilbert Field. It’s primed to react to them, but the ones over on Rhadamanthus don’t even want to let people touch it directly. How foolish. There’s a clear line of research there to investigate, that’s being ignored.
He can and will do it better. He starts submitting requests for the Conduit to be transferred, and while he waits, makes productive use of his time.
Minos may not be Rhadamanthus, but it still has laboratories. Gene vats.
His theory is that the Conduit’s response is directly proportional to neural complexity – hence why they haven’t observed it reacting to animals. Which is a fascinating possibility to consider in its own right. He throws together random genetics from half-a-dozen different creatures on the planet. Engineering, forcing them to play together without resulting in a horrendously-malformed blob.
What comes out is like a cross between a cat, an owl, and a penguin.
(If he didn’t have so much money from Wilhelm, he could have made a killing selling less-intelligent versions of it as pets.)
He hides in a blanketed-over travel kennel. Struts through Elysium like a man simply walking a prize-winning spaniel. Ontos is helpful – once it can verify there is a lifeform inside and not unauthorised devices to tamper with the Conduit, it instructs a Sovereign to carry it through the Conduit chamber, and records the data.
There is a flux. He was right, as usual.
Ontos, when explained the purpose of the experiment – simply to see if it was neural complexity – offers to help. If the other stations wish to do ancillary experiments, it can assist.
Yuriev definitely takes it up on that offer. He would be a fool not to. Ontos and the staff of Minos get to work building their own supercomputer, and as soon as it comes online, he asks about the implications of his experiment’s results. All three cores unanimously agree that it’s indicative of a telepathic interface, not a conventional one. Humans would be more effective synchronizing with it than the processor in shorter spans of time.
Yuriev already suspects this, but it’s pleasant to have confirmation.
Dmitri returns to his lab, renewed. Instead of creating something new (pointless now – the exercise was to see if it was keyed to humans or intelligence), he starts with the human template. There will be questions if a clone is grown for seemingly no reason, then thrown at the Conduit. So, he fiddles around with the genes a bit. So he’s her genetic father instead of twin. He also increases neural density and complexity.
He has his proof-of-concept, his theorem, his AI backing up the math – all he needs is the Conduit. But, Elma is being stubborn, refusing to let it move for any reason short of the apocalypse. Annoying… but, he can work around that for now. If the Conduit can’t come to them, they’ll go to it.
But then, a snag.
Ziggurat Systems unveiled their cyborgs – to overwhelmingly negative reception. The super-soldiers were confiscated, there were investigations, senate-hearings-
And finally, legislation. The Species Preservation Act. Banning any and all future attempts to so fundamentally and irrevocably alter the human form.
The number of candidates – almost a thousand – shrink down to one, as the Act makes it very hard for him to apply the modifications to the still-gestating test-tube children
But, he is nothing if not adaptable.
He can, and will, fight it.
---------
Klaus is beginning to get worse. There are dark circles under his eyes. His clothes are crumpled and half-done. It increasingly feels like he doesn’t want to be there.
No one can say anything to him. Not really. All of them are dealing with anxiety, fear, terror. What’s coming is too big not to feel frightened of.
Ontos is getting more talkative. A new patch to the interface, Klaus says, for his benefit. And yet, every time Ontos talks, the man jumps like thunder just crashed right next to him. As it feels like their enemy is getting increasingly closer to arriving, and the question of what to do with the people left behind on Earth gets harder to ignore, he suggests something.
Use of the Conduit to shift the entire Solar System forward in time, or elsewhere in space, while the Exodus Fleet leaves.
The way he talks betrays his belief in the plan, or, rather, his lack of belief in it. Actually, the way he speaks – half-hearted, unable to remember the words for a theory he supposedly calculated, his own lack of conviction for something he came up with – it’s like it’s not his plan at all.
(Still, somebody circulates a picture mocking him for it. A screencap of a Spongebob episode, Klaus’s head over Patrick Star’s body, with the caption: “We should take Planet Earth, and PUSH IT somewhere else!”)
But nobody questions it. There are other things to worry about. There’s an alien invasion on the way, and people all over the planet are clamouring to repeal the Species Preservation Act, so strongly it feels like a prelude to another French Revolution, on a global scale – why wouldn’t they? The Act didn’t just ban graverobbers. It outlawed full-transplant into Mimeosome bodies (which had been saving peoples’ lives for years now), cybernetic augmentation, and medical treatments that could enable immortality, deep-space adaptation, or survival in hostile environments.
Dmitri Yuriev spearheads the movement. Calls the bill to undo parts of the act a human rights bill. From a certain perspective, it is. You have the right to look at your own body and choose to modify it, even if that is to the point where you’re no longer technically human. You have the right to look at a child that will not survive unless invasive gene therapy and cybernetic surgery is done, and do something to save them. Salvation for so many is being locked behind bureaucracy. Could spin into protests and rioting, if it gets bad enough. So, all of them focus on that.
And none of them worry about Klaus.
---------
The invasion comes as they feared. Alien craft appear inside the lunar perimeter. Whole battle fleets.
Everything the human race can muster goes screaming out to meet them head-on. The battle goes well, at first. The Ganglion are a threat, but it looks like they might be able to send them packing, as the Artifices, Skells, and warships in orbit manage to maintain the advantage.
Then, the Ghosts show up.
No one is quite certain why. It seems to be linked to the appearance of a unique Ganglion skell on the battlefield. Or the activation of the Ares Skell – the only one of its kind – in response to engage.
But regardless, the effect is the same. The sky tears open. Swarms of strange, malformed beings, glowing with otherworldly aura and the capability to turn anything conscious – not organic, conscious – into salt come flying out, in formations so lengthy and shaped that they wrap around the Earth like chains. Humankind engages them, too. To lesser effect than the Ganglion.
The Ghosts are made of antimatter, and even then, their reality quotient is lesser. They ignore weapons, pass through shields and solid matter like they’re not present. The FTL drives of human starships can drag them into reality, but even then, it does far from help.
Matter and antimatter annihilate. And when the biggest Ghosts in orbit are killed, they go falling to Earth. The evacuation alert sounds, everyone with a place on an Exodus Ship gets to it, and goes.
From the Rhadamanthus, the explosions – like little pop-rocks, followed by volcanic eruptions, can be seen.
Klaus decides to act. Hammering commands into the control terminal for the Conduit.
“Klaus, what are you doing!?” That’s what Galea says to him. “We haven’t tested it! We could all die!”
“We all will die if we don’t act,” He says, eyes wide, pupils dilated. His skin is coated in sweat, he’s tremoring. He’s having an attack. “Help me, Galea. Help me save them.”
She thinks on it for a long moment. Goes up to him. Holds him. Together, their hands inch towards the enter key.
The Conduit glows bright, and blinds them.
----------
KOS-MOS is awakened by the recognition that something within her is being pulled out. Divided. Reality is blending, blurring, and becoming more of a suggestion than a rule. She can feel something, being split off. Detaching like a chunk off an iceberg drifting away in the ocean. KOS-MOS can also hear the screams – even though she’s inside her casket still. Not the screams of people. The screaming of something infinitely more vast, powerful, and unknowable.
Existence – the consciousness of existence – is screaming.
--------
Dmitri was right, in his own way. It was possible to hide in Imaginary Space. The price that he would pay for being right, and what it would usher in was not worth it. But he would never truly realize that.
Earth is only in there for the briefest of instants. Only a few seconds. No time at all, on the cosmic scale.
But all the same, Dmitri looks out, gazing into that void, and sees something. Something looking back at him. Observing him. Observing all of them.
Gazing upon it, Dmitri gets… flashes, visions. Concepts too large to name. Planets being born. Creatures from the farthest corners of the universe: Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen. The inevitable closure of the universe.
(When Earth would return from beyond, something new would awaken within him. It was no longer about the Conduit itself. No, it would become far, far more than that. He would drag everything down with him, for his own obsession and ambition.)
For Time Lords, gazing upon the whole of time and space is enough to drive them mad.
Is it any wonder it would do the same to a human?
-----------
Klaus saw it too. The waves.
The waves…
The waves were existence. Existence was in the waves. Rippling to him, converging. Ontos shines like a star, and Klaus feels… he feels…
He feels transformed.
He feels the ghost of a second heart beating inside him. He feels his mind beginning to stretch out beyond its bounds, as that force reaches out to him. Ideas he could have never contemplated before, sublime in their way.
Then, it vanishes. The event ends. Earth returns to the universe.
They’ve shifted two light-years, according to the stellar cartographers. They did it. Ontos and Klaus and Galea.
He doesn’t respond to them. Their voices feel distant now. Irrelevant. All that matters is getting back there.
-----------
KOS-MOS feels the return back to reality, and stills. Something’s missing, she can detect it. There’s not much she can do. She no longer hears the screams.
She returns to her slumber.
Chapter 24: Eleven: The Ardainian Rozzers
Chapter Text
I should have reported it. The nanosecond I realised what had happened, I should have reported it.
I tried to.
No, no, that’s a lie. I didn’t try to. I wanted to. Believe me, I wanted to. Rampant AI were a known quantity, and we had training to deal with it.
Back in the 1960s, a state-of-the-art computer installed in London’s Post Office Tower was wired up into the world’s phone lines and rudimentary computers. The sudden influx of information drove it into megalomania.
In the 70s or 80s, another AI – linked to a human brain – also went mad with power from the deluge of data and the control systems it had access to. It attempted to start linking more human brains to itself.
Those were just two. They caused mass death and necessitated a military response. Anyone who even thinks about trying to develop an actual AI system has to go through training, ethics courses, history lessons, background checks… Basically, be treated like they want to make a nuclear device.
I had gone through those classes. Rule one: If the computer starts showing signs of rampant, unchecked growth, for any reason, you shut the damned thing down. Better you lose countless hours of work than the potential alternatives.
And Ontos had definitely begun showing signs.
It seems obvious in hindsight, but the discovery that AI tended to go mad from sudden rushes of data, or expanding to fill vast networks that they hadn’t originally been trained to operate in, was one of the keystone discoveries that made Trinity a safe and known quantity.
Or, in layman’s terms “Becoming sentient is painful. So, train them from the start to be that way.”
But Ontos wasn’t designed for that. It had been trained, same as Logos and Pneuma, but its personality – its ‘sentience’ - was wholly dependent upon the other two. Logos, the system of perfect logic, Pneuma, the more emotionally-focused one. Ontos derived the characteristics it displayed from them. Without them, it would break down.
Well, until now.
So, freed of those two, untethered, what might the personality it develop come to be?
It had already displayed it. Deceitful, manipulative, and patient. Three very dangerous combinations. And it had access to some of the most powerful hardware the human race had ever existed. Created three sub-cores of itself to spread its influence further.
I wasn’t sure if anything it said was true, at all. But I couldn’t help but wonder.
The origin point of human intelligence was, even now, a hotly-debated topic. Was it to be better predators, by out-thinking our prey? A fluke of random mutation? Something more esoteric (consciousness evolving as a mechanism for ideas to spread)? Or… was it contact with an intelligence beyond our comprehension, with goals unknown?
The Conduit had been discovered in Africa. Africa. The birthplace of the human race.
It all makes a horrible sort of sense. The Conduit responds to consciousness, in ways we don’t fully understand. What if it was engineering it? Sparking that change for a reason? Like it had in Ontos?
That it could do it to an AI is concerning. Something like the Trinity Processor, completely unchecked, is terrifying. Ontos could reach the conclusion that our attempts to save the human race or study the Conduit aren’t efficient enough. Rectify that by force. It could. It’s the most powerful of the trio.
Logos and Pneuma would have no chance. That’s why it draws on them before it can do much of anything. They’re checks-and-balances for it as much as it is for them. But when those fail…
And yet, Ontos did respond to my command override. It could have just kept pretending. Did it decide that pretending was useless after I’d caught it out, or was it still bound by its safeguards?
If it was, I could have stopped it. Easily.
And yet…
I started noticing doors open a bit too quickly for me. The tram was always right on time for me. The food that came out of the dispensers was perfect to my taste every single time. Important data was always easy for me to find.
It was watching me.
Reminding me of that. In ways too subtle to be noticed by anyone else, probably. But enough for me to know it had its optics on me, at all times.
What could I do? I was complicit in this. I’d been breaking into classified- No. It had been accessing classified files, stringing me along, and I had been benefitting for it. It wouldn’t matter that it had initiated it. Whether or not I had reason to think it had been Ontos at the time, the moment I had reason to suspect a security threat, I should have reported it. That makes me complicit, in the eye of the law. At least.
Perhaps I was just being cowardly. But it had demonstrated a willingness to harm humans already. Not directly – but what else would one call the proposal to hook people up to the Conduit? It had come up with that.
I debated with myself for some time, what to do. I tried to make my way over to the Processor’s housing, even though Ontos could see me. I could disconnect the landlines and isolate it. Unless Ontos developed the ability to send data via electricity arcing in open space, it would be powerless.
Midway, my phone buzzed, alerting me to downloads completed.
I didn’t initiate any downloads.
It began to ring.
Confused, I answered the call.
“Hello? Hello, who is this?”
“Professor.” A smooth, younger-sounding voice answered me.
“Yes, this is Klaus, who is this?”
“Forgive me for contacting your personal device, but I do believe you wouldn’t have stopped to look at any of the access terminals along your path.”
My head twitched. “I… pardon, but who am I speaking to?”
“Please, look to your right.”
I do so.
The map display for the tram has changed – showing a wireframe outline of one of the Trinity Cores. Coloured red.
There’s a golf-ball-sized lump in my throat. “Ontos?”
“Indeed. Hello, Professor Klaus.”
“What’s going on!? How did you-!?”
“I’ve sent a number of files to your device. Please read them at your earliest convenience. You will need to memorise them. I’ve also included some pertinent files related to your personal search. I’ve also taken the liberty of sending said files to your terminal. They can be found on the desktop.”
A chill shoots down my spine. Was it implying it placed stolen files on my phone and my personal terminal?
I glance at the screen. Open a file.
It’s a scan of a page covered in warnings and security classifications that make my phone feel like molten iron.
I get rid of it.
Okay. So, Ontos has proven willing to throw me under the bus, too. Chances are, if it can do that, it can do something simple as send access logs to the right people before I disconnect it.
I’m trapped.
Well, no. I’m not trapped. Not really. I have a chance to end this. I might pay for it with prison time, but who knows? Elma has a lot of sway, and I’m a very important scientist in this field.
But, Ontos was also helping me with my own, personal task. And without it there…
“What is this?” I speak into the phone again.
“A proposal, that you will present. Do not worry, I have already taken the liberty of running the math. All you must do is present it.”
In the end, high treason didn’t scare me as much as Ontos did.
---------------
Malos trained. Fought, because it was all he was good for.
Punches cracked through the air. Kicks landed with bone-shaking thuds. Ether blasts tore from his fists like angry lightning, crashing against the training dummy suspended from the ceiling on a rusted chain. It swung wildly, rattling like a keychain, but held. He hit it again, harder. Again, the dummy swung. Then, harder still.
None of it helped. The ache in his crystal stayed right where it was. Unable to be sated by the fight.
Life itself was violence.
It didn't matter how many times they pretended otherwise. Life was born screaming in viscera and blood. It sustained itself by tearing into weaker things, devouring the soft, the stupid, and the slow. It multiplied through invasive hunger; burrowing into others, nesting there, until the cycle repeated. And Malos felt it stronger than most.
That quiet ache behind his ribs, in the light that pulsed and dimmed with every breath he took, throbbed with the knowledge that all this training, this simulation, was hollow. It wasn’t enough.
Life knew when it wasn’t being fed the real thing.
He needed a real fight.
Malos stepped back, growling and glaring at the dummy, like it had offended him, as he reached his mind into his Core, and summoned up his willpower.
Ether coalesced near his hand, forming in violet light a crystal similar to the one in his chest. The Ether flowed and shaped into points, as a ring began to form around the crystal. His Monado began to take shape out of the Ether.
Then, the crystal popped and shattered, and the Monado collapsed into nothing. A frustrated snarl escaped his throat.
“We’ll get you restored,” A voice called from the doorway. Malos whipped around, and relaxed, as Jin strode into the room.
“You’re back.” Malos exhaled. “How did it go?”
“We have them.” Jin walked across the room. “I recovered the entire shipment - two-dozen core crystals. And destroyed the ship.”
“Good…” Malos wasn’t Jin’s boss – but the guy needed a bit of a pat on the back, every now and again. Malos was aware he was odd, regarding how he approached his mission of destroying the world, but Jin was just so dour all the time. Five-hundred years hadn’t tempered that in the slightest.
Malos blamed Lora. He wasn’t an expert, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t healthy for Jin to keep around the corpse of his own Driver, frozen in a block of ice. He would just throw it into the Cloud Sea, but, then, what did Malos care? They all had their quirks. Jin had said something a few times about his drawings of Mythra.
“Glad to see one of us still has our teeth.” Malos commented, turning back around.
“I heard you upset Akhos.”
Malos snorted. “Please. Akhos is a pussy.”
“Malos…”
“What?” The Dark Aegis turned, and spread his arms. “We’re terrorists. Am I the only one who remembers that? This is a war we’re fighting, and not everyone can come back from it. If Akhos can’t process that, maybe he needs to get off the battlefield.”
Jin narrowed his eyes. “Even so. You could’ve stood to handle it more tactfully.”
“Why?” Malos let out a sound between a scoff and a derisive laugh. “He’s not a kid. Or… maybe he is? He got a little slap on the wrist for acting out, and now he’s crying.” He shook his head, and turned away. “That’s just like a human. All for it, until they have to reckon with the consequences.”
“You know you don’t mean that.”
Malos felt an invisible hand close around his crystal, and shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not going to sit here and coddle him, though. We’re fighting to usher in oblivion. Her and Sever just got it a little bit early, is all.”
“It’s okay to grieve.” And there it was, Jin’s reason for keeping himself in that state. Don’t get him wrong, Malos wasn’t judging. Far from it. If Jin felt the need to torture himself to keep focused on the goal, so be it. Better than wanting to waste away in a back alley.
But Malos wasn’t his partner.
“Grieve? Why?” There was no malice or even sarcasm behind it. Just simple curiosity. “Crying’s not going to bring them back.” Even if it could, Malos felt… well, he didn’t. There was a brief spike of disappointment. Regret. Anger at being bested again. Thrill at finally having a good challenge after so much time. But he didn’t feel sorrow.
Decay consumed everything – why cry over those who just succumbed to it sooner? It was all they did, fight and kill. Humans and Blades alike. Only difference being: Blades were created to do so.
“We all take it at our own pace,” Jin crossed his arms and nodded. “Akhos also said you were feeling a bit more lively than usual.”
“I guess.” Malos cracked his knuckles. “You should’ve been there, Jin. It was damned fun.”
“Fun.”
“Yeah.” Malos chuckled. “All it took was a bit of poking and prodding, and then she finally graced us with her presence properly. Mythra.”
“…so, she’s still around in there.” Jin mused quietly.
Malos tilted his head. “You knew?”
Jin shook his head. “It didn’t matter. Whether she reinvented herself, went into a fugue, or just decided to call herself by a different name, she’s still the Aegis. Pyra or Mythra, we still need her, either way.”
“Yeah. Even still, I’d rather have Goldilocks back,” Malos began to drum his fingers against his thigh-plating. “I’d rather beat the real thing. Not the shadow, you know?”
“Fair enough.” Jin grunted. “He was right. You are rather animated today.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Malos grinned. “This is it. Even if we can’t move forward, you’ve got the Aegis up and running around, every nation gunning for her, a weapons factory ready and able to supply everyone, Mor Ardain and Uraya at each other’s throats, land running out, and one of the Praetor’s own plotting his assassination. All it’ll take is one little misstep, and they’ll go kaboom.”
Jin frowned, turning away. “I’m not sure hanging back and letting it happen is a good idea. Banking on certain things to happen is asking for unpleasant surprises. Besides, they’d survive.”
“Maybe,” Malos shrugged. “But chances are, whoever’s left won’t be enough to stop us anyway.” He punched the training dummy again. “You’ve seen Morytha. But you know it’s not the only ruins from ancient Humans, right?”
Jin tilted his head, curious. “It isn’t?”
Malos let out a low, harsh chuckle. “Nope. Not the first, not the last.” He shifted, parroting something he heard Amalthus say, once. Well, part of it, Amalthus had said – the rest was Malos’s own extrapolations. “Four-thousand years ago, they had another civilisation. About the same level as Morytha, spread across dozens, maybe hundreds of Titans. Judicium was part of that civilisation. It was during those times that the research they did into Flesh Eaters and Titan Weapons happened.” Malos just-so-happened to share. “Anyway, it wasn’t enough for them. Any of them. It didn’t matter humanity was spread across hundreds of Titans. It didn’t matter that they numbered half-a-billion. Their birth-rates started slowing down, and they panicked. Like they couldn’t stand the thought of not being able to spread until they were packed into every square-inch of space. One of them proposed a solution. They thought the slowing down was because the population was reaching critical. So, they said kill half. And if that doesn’t lead to a boom afterward, kill half of that. Their plan to save the world. Well, the humans didn’t like that. And what do you know – they went to war with themselves because they were dumb, panicking animals with too few resources, their entire civilisation collapsed, and four-thousand years later… well. Look at the state of them. Nowhere near close to being that level again. They’re not gonna handle this hit well, trust me.”
Jin frowned. “You think so?”
“They’re selfish, greedy egomaniacs. All of them. A single human being would kill everyone else and then themselves if it meant they won. Tried doing it, too. Most of the Titans sunk prematurely, the great structures that they built all crumbled, and the survivors scattered to the winds. Their descendants barely able to eke out an existence four-thousand years later. Whatever ‘survives’ this next war of theirs… gonna be easy to finish off.”
Jin crossed his arms. “But you would rather be on the front lines.”
Malos smiled. “You know me too well.” He rolled his shoulder. “Yeah, I’d rather get my core fixed than just wait around. If this world’s gonna end, it’s gonna be on my terms. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be disappointed not everything’s going my way. The plan’s adjustable.”
“That makes a change,” Jin commented. “From earlier.”
“Oh, brother.”
“You threatened to replace Akhos with ‘someone competent.’”
“I just can’t handle his preening,” Malos rolled his eyes. “He thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. The other two, I can take. He wasn’t there, still tried to find something to brag about, even though the mission was a failure. I got pissed off. Sue me.”
“Still. Tone it down.” Jin requested. “It’s not his fault. The last thing we need is dissent in the ranks because you’re feeling vindictive.”
“You say ‘vindictive,’ I call it ‘tough love.’” Malos shrugged. “Kid just got a taste of his first real fight, is all. After a while of just coasting thanks to his Blade. He’ll either put up, or shut up. And I’ll be damned if it’s the second.”
“Hence why you’re in here. Training?” Jin grunted.
Malos spread his arms. “I’ve been waiting for this rematch for five-hundred years. I may not have my Monado, but Mythra’s been asleep for all that time. Five-hundred years of training, honing, while my one opponent worth fighting skips all that time… right from her most draining battle. Oh yeah. I’m feeling very good about my odds. Now, if everyone else can just rise to the challenge, I don’t think we’ll have a problem. Still, I would like to have my Monado back.”
“Which you need Mythra for.”
“Unfortunately,” Malos growled, shifting his weight.
Jin nodded slowly, crossing his arms. He looked at the dummy, and shook his head. “Come on. Give your brain a rest for a while. We’ll figure out what to do about Mythra later.”
“I’m really not in the mood-“
Jin fixed Malos with a stern look.
“…fine.” Malos grunted.
“I’ll cook.” Jin gestured. “You can help.”
“Is this a volunteer job, or am I being voluntold?”
Jin cocked an eyebrow. He knew he couldn’t make Malos do anything. But Malos was going to be paying for it later if he didn’t listen. Not in actual punishment, but-
Well. His partner knew how to put on a very good disappointed-in-you face.
“…I want grilled Anchortail.” Malos grunted again.
“Of course.”
Malos nodded, and he and his partner exited the training room.
-----------
Pomp and circumstance. That’s all it was. Pomp and circumstance. Amalthus dressed like a Pope, lived in a pristine, polished sanctum of ivory, gold, and silver. It was all very demonstrative to how they regarded the ceremony of things.
T-elos didn’t much care for it.
Upon fixing her sight, he escorted her out into the plaza, made a grand introduction, and called for a day of celebration.
The ancient Blade of the founder of the Praetorium had been recovered and awakened, he said.
T-elos wasn’t stupid. She recognized it for what it was. Buttering her up, stroking her ego, trying to get her to go along with what he designed, if he fellated her enough.
T-elos was used to it, people thinking they could use her. She was also used to it blowing up spectacularly in their faces. Oh, how often would they look at her, think ‘she’s just an angry, bloodthirsty doll I can get to do whatever I want if I just promise her something to kill.’ Invariably, those people tended to try and push their luck too far. Or ask her to do something outside of her scope and willingness. Or, she just found them plain annoying and in possession of an ego that made them think they were in control of far more than they actually were.
Getting rid of people like that tended to be a… favour to the universe, as she saw it.
At least, since she could recognize it now, she could actually plan around it.
Amalthus was really trying to make her feel ‘welcome’ (read: indebted – which would never work, because, well, if he wanted to give, she would gladly accept it) to Indol. Setting her up with luxurious, private quarters, hidden away from prying eyes, moving the TARDIS up from the Edifice, having food brought to her.
T-elos chose not to partake. Not while waiting to hear what Amalthus wanted her to do in response. Not that he could make her do shit. She could vaporise half the Titan if she wanted to.
While T-elos walked, slowly examining the Praetorium, she took it all in. The artworks, the sculptures, the excess of it all…
She stopped in front of one. A portrait of an Indoline (or, Judician, as they were known back then) man, sitting in a chair. The portrait painted late in his life, judging by the wrinkles in his skin, and his thinning hairline. He wasn’t dressed up in the regal finery of the modern Praetorium, but simple robes, deep blue, clinging to his skin.
T-elos slowly tilted her head.
“Ah,” The voice, muffled slightly by that mask, called from over T-elos’s shoulder. She impatiently rolled her eyes, as the Praetor’s go-fer walked up to her side. “Blackwell the First. Our founder. He was a contemporary of yours, I recall.”
She snorted. “He was a homeless kid who was a colossal pain in my ass.” She shook her head, looking unimpressed at the portrait. “Of course he found religion.”
“It was to keep you safe, until the time of your return, if I recall.” Giannis hummed.
T-elos rolled her eyes. “It was more so because nobody had any idea what to do with me. How to fix my optics, what to do with the woman who killed half the world…” She hummed idly, then shook her head. “Then you people pop me awake, hand me a pair of glasses, and say ‘Yep, you can see now – by the way, we’ve got someone else for you to kill.’”
Giannis let out a polite chuckle, like he was humouring her. “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to be around, in those times.”
“It was something,” T-elos only let that be the heart of the matter. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“Ah. Seeing as you are newly-awakened, I figured I would bring you up to speed on the current state of world affairs,” Giannis politely bowed. “His Eminence made passing mention of some of the issues we face, but-“
“Mmm… Don’t care.”
Giannis cut himself off. “I… beg your pardon?”
“Well, let me put it to you like this,” T-elos turned to him. “I am not going to listen to whatever junk you can spout to justify it. I don’t have the patience for it. We’ve already come to a resolution on things, yeah? You find me a way into that TARDIS, or up that World Tree, and I’ll do whatever I see fit to help you in return. I don’t have time for this manipulation bullshit.”
“…indeed,” Giannis chuckled behind his helmet. “Oh, how refreshing. The Praetor’s inner circle is fraught with manipulation and double-talk. I quite like it when people are frank.”
T-elos cocked an eyebrow and a hip. “Oh? You seem like one of those who have a stick up his ass. Not used to people talking and acting a way you don’t like.” As he reacted, when she pulled a gun on him.
“I have an image to maintain around the Praetor. He is my boss, you understand.”
“Oh, naturally,” She hummed idly in response. “Boss you don’t like?”
“Ah, now that would get me into trouble.”
T-elos grunted. “Yeah, I know a little something about that.”
“Indeed,” Giannis breathed, nodding slowly. “The Praetor is a complicated man. I am… privileged, to serve him. But it’s quite difficult some days.”
“Yeah-huh,” T-elos disinterestedly hummed. “And you’re not just saying that because you want his seat?”
Giannis straightened. “What would you know about that?”
“Oh, please,” T-elos gagged in disgust. “Think about it. You’re the right-hand man. Second most-powerful person in this whole place. Nobody wants to be second to anyone. And you just happened to stumble across somebody who’s testy, ready to kill, and who’ll have no regrets doing it. I know what you’re thinking. You can use me to kill that Praetor for you, and get him out of the way.”
“Am I so obvious?” Giannis tilted his head.
T-elos shrugged. “A bit.”
“…I see.” Giannis thought on it for a moment. “That… crate that was buried with you. Why do you want inside it? And what’s inside that the World Tree can only provide an alternative for?”
T-elos raised her eyebrow again. “In a word? Escape.” She crossed her arms. “I want to be as far away from this planet, and everything on it, as I possibly can. That TARDIS can make that happen. Failing that, I could probably steal a ship from the ring in orbit.”
Giannis went quiet for a moment. “I don’t quite understand.”
T-elos impatiently huffed. “Okay, look. I don’t want to be here. You’re like cavemen compared to the civilization I come from. That’s not bragging, it’s just facts. I want to go back home. Failing that, I still want to be away from here. That box is my ticket out. And if that can’t happen, my next best option is getting to the top of the World Tree.”
“Ah… hence, why you want into the box.”
“Yep.” T-elos nodded, then scowled. “You wanna know the worst part? I have a key for the damn thing, and it still won’t let me in.”
“A key?”
“Ugh, yeah. This blonde twink was carrying it.” T-elos scowled. “I picked the key off of him.”
“If you have a key and it does not work, perhaps it’s not the right key.”
“No shit?” T-elos tilted her head to the side, dryly. “Really, you don’t think so?”
“I was merely making an observation.”
T-elos shook her head. “No, it’s the right key. But it still doesn’t work – biometric authentication. The key’s tied to the individual. And since the bastard’s corpse is at the bottom of the Cloud Sea, that makes it kind of hard to spoof.”
“Well then. Considering the lack of alternatives, it would seem the World Tree is your best hope of accomplishing your goal.” Giannis paused for thought. “Unfortunate, considering the Praetor’s… reluctance to allow any to approach it.”
T-elos narrowed her eyes. “What’re you saying?”
“The beast he spoke of – the serpent Ophion that circles the Tree – was placed there by his command.” Giannis clasped his hands behind his back. “To prevent any that seek to climb the World Tree and follow his example. He will not rescind the order.”
“Oh really? Is that the case?” T-elos crossed her arms. She wasn’t falling for it – the thinly-veiled manipulations of people seeking power. Granted, she hadn’t heard of the thing when she was active, but it had been thousands of years. Still, she was nothing if not a healthy sceptic.
“It is.” Giannis nodded. “Preserving the sanctity of the Tree is too important to him. You need only look around you to observe the character of Amalthus. So many refugees… and still, they live in squalor.”
T-elos snorted. “You think that’s gonna do it for me? I’m not stupid. I don’t trust your Praetor, but right now, he’s the only one who I know can give me what I seek. A man in a position of power like that is useful – especially if I have him in my debt for fixing all his problems. Why would I throw that away over a cheap bit of paranoia?”
Giannis, however, shook his head. “It is not paranoia.” He began to walk around. “You don’t understand… but, what if I could show you proof? Proof that the Praetor is not simply not to be trusted, but will turn his back upon you once you’ve served your purpose to him?”
T-elos narrowed her eyes. “What kind of proof?”
“I will admit,” Giannis began to reach into his pocket, pulling out something that appeared to be a compass, with models of the Titans walking around the point in the centre. “My word may perhaps not be good enough for you. Go to this Titan.” He pointed at one, vaguely shaped like a manta ray.
T-elos scowled in suspicion. “Why?”
“A member of the group Torna has attacked a shipment of Core Crystals being returned to us for cleansing. Because of the theft, Mor Ardain – the nation whom the Crystals had been lent to – will need to bolster their military forces. That Titan has many relics of an advanced, bygone era.” Giannis paused. “It was known as Judicium, in a past life.”
Telos, intrigued, looked at the compass. “Really…”
“Yes.” Giannis nodded. “Titan weapons, precious data, lost techniques… Mor Ardain will begin digging in earnest. And Torna will go there. They are special cases, born of the Praetor’s folly.”
“How convenient for you.”
“I won’t deny – there is bias.” Giannis admitted. “But it is better than being here, where it is hidden or downplayed. Go to Temperantia and speak with the member of Torna you find there. He will… illuminate it, for you.”
“Why would I want to do that?” T-elos crossed her arms. “Your Praetor promised to get me to the top of that Tree.”
“That is why I’m sending you there,” Giannis calmly replied. “The Praetor will not honour his word. He will keep what you seek just out of reach. I, however, will honour my word. Or, if that is not good enough, you can trust that I will allow you to go and do as you see fit. Besides – you strike me as a healthy sceptic. The type who wishes to see what the fact of the matter is, instead of taking people simply at their word.”
“Right,” T-elos cocked a hip. “How do you know they’re gonna be there, huh?”
“Torna has its sights set on throwing the world into chaos. Temperantia is an unstable region. It orbits close to Uraya, but is held by Mor Ardain. If the garrison were to meet an unfortunate end – say, due to the efforts of a member of Torna – Mor Ardain would naturally assume that Uraya had finally mustered the courage to attack Temperantia once more. The result would be war. Chaos.”
“I get it,” T-elos grunted. “A nice little weak point for the whole world.” She thought it over for a moment. “Say I wanted to go. What would you tell the Praetor?”
“You are not his prisoner,” Giannis hummed.
T-elos grinned. “Damned right.” She flipped her hair. “So, then, how do I get there?”
“It’s within my power to provide you with a craft. You can be at Temperantia very quickly.”
“Good,” T-elos nodded.
“And then, naturally, we can figure out what to do with the Praetor.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” T-elos began to move towards the door. “I do have one question.”
“Yes?”
“What happened to the others,” She suddenly asked, gesturing with her eyes to the portrait. “It wasn’t just me and Blackwell.”
Giannis reeled momentarily, before taking a breath. “Ah, yes, your other travelling companions. Records from the Devastation haven’t survived particularly well. Largely, due to having associated with you, they carried a great deal of influence. Using that, they rounded up groups of survivors, and went to carve out new nations upon younger, untouched Titans. It’s hard to say for certain – it all happened so long ago. Why do you ask?”
“Just…” T-elos thought about it for a moment. They did a job together, then moved on. Now, she was here, thousands-of-years removed from the proper place and time, and she wondered if maybe at least a few of the others left her gifts for her return. “Call it curiosity.”
Gianni hummed.
T-elos stepped through the threshold.
-------------
Amalthus watched as the small, single-pilot craft blasted away from the docks, staring as it departed and became a speck on the Cloud Sea. Footsteps sounded beside him, but Amalthus did not turn.
“She has gone hunting, then, I take it?” Amalthus hummed.
“Indeed she has,” Giannis nodded.
“Excellent.”
Giannis cleared his throat. “Pardon my presumptuousness, but is it really so wise to simply cut her loose?”
“Time will tell.” Amalthus answered. “In fact, if Mythra proves to still be as difficult as she was once we finally bring her here, then it will be more conducive to us if T-elos is away.”
Giannis tilted his head to the side, considering what the Praetor had said. “Ah. If Mythra can hold Indol hostage with her Siren from a distance, it would prevent us from sending our own forces. But if she is not aware T-elos is with us, then when she is sent in…”
“Precisely. Mythra will simply assume T-elos to be a feral Blade.” Amalthus gestured. “When dealing with powers that can so casually rend entire continents, one must sometimes act in ways that seem… counter-intuitive.”
“Of course,” Giannis bowed his head. “The machinations of gods are impenetrable by nature.”
“You’re right about that,” Amalthus vocalised, glancing over. “Speaking of Mythra; has there been any word?”
“I’m afraid not.” Giannis tilted his head. “They had reached the target zone, and were preparing to engage. That was their last communication.”
“I see.” Amalthus stated quite simply. The anticipation was getting to him, it seemed.
“There is one other matter,” Giannis coughed. “The shipment of Core Crystals being returned to us from Mor Ardain has not yet arrived.”
The Praetor stilled. “Concerning. In this weather, the ship should have arrived hours ago. What are the Ardainians saying?”
“Nothing, as of yet.” Giannis hummed regrettably. “We contacted their port authority, and there has been no response. Though, the likelihood of it being the usual suspects is extreme.”
“No doubt.” Amalthus paused. “Thank you, Giannis. You may go about your business.”
Giannis dipped his head, and walked away, leaving Amalthus to stare at the Cloud Sea.
--------------
Mòrag cracked Brighid’s swords like whips, sending jets of sapphire-blue blame out, streaking towards the others like comets. Rex jumped in front of the others, swinging Mythra’s sword around seemingly at random.
But, it was the power of Mythra’s foresight guiding him. The sword caught the blasts of fire, diffusing them one right after the other.
“Suppressing fire!” Mòrag barked.
The Ardainian soldiers accompanying her assembled into a line, and raised their rifles. The arrangement of guns erupted, slinging metal.
Ether shields flared into existence, catching the slugs in flickering, sparking showers.
“Ah!” Albedo gasped as she ducked for cover. “I’m not a Driver, you fools!”
“Doc!” Vandham flipped a scythe in his hand. “Cover Al!”
The Time Lord tore his eyes away from where the Sonic Screwdriver had been obliterated – and his hands twitched. “Right, yes! Of course! Um, how do I-!?”
“Hey!” Crossette tossed the Doctor her bitball, and jumped behind him, lighting up the affinity link.
“Terrific!” The Doctor’s eyes popped open, as he felt the ether flow into him via the ball. If he couldn’t wave the Screwdriver about, this would have to suffice.
Mòrag wasted no time. She blurred forward, blue flames trailing her like a comet’s tail. Brighid stepped in behind her, the swords in Mòrag’s hands flashing as she funnelled Ether into them.
“Formation C! Converge and contain!”
A fresh squad rounded the corner at a run—helmets, plated pauldrons, polished rifles—and began to encircle them.
Rex gritted his teeth. “We’re not going to get boxed in here!”
Brighid came at them in a swirl of sapphire. The Doctor moved almost on instinct, grabbing the ball by both hands and sending it hurtling. The whip-like blade of the swords Mòrag carried rushed over, cracking as they caught the ball and shattered it, before she spun back around to deal with Rex.
The boy grunted as he manoeuvred the greatsword around to catch the strikes before they could tear into his skin.
“Do you even know what kind of power you’re wielding?” Mòrag demanded, voice clipped but level. “The amount of damage you could do? That it would find its way into the hands of a common hoodlum-“
“Hey, I’m not a hoodlum! You’ve got the wrong guys!” He jumped back, and took aim with his anchor shot, firing. It wrapped around Mòrag’s leg, and Rex went to tug-
The Special Inquisitor flicked her sword, and the cable went slack, as it was severed.
“Oh, wha-!?” Rex spluttered.
“Figured that was gonna happen!” Nia, locked in a dangerous dance dodging and weaving around the soldiers’ shots, gasped out.
“There is a reason why they call me Special Inquisitor.”
Boots hit the stone as more Ardainian soldiers approached. The bitball materialised in the Doctor’s hands, and he went back to throwing it.
The projectile bounced off walls, bins, and streetlamps, before going through the soldiers with enough force to knock them over like bowling pins.
Poppi’s optics pulsed as, even leaking lubricant, she surged forward, intercepting two Ardainian soldiers before they could take aim. Her pneumatic arms shot out, cracking one man’s breastplate, hurling him into the squad behind. A moment later, she slammed her elbow into the other’s helmet, sending him tumbling.
Shadows spread across the street as, from the rooftops nearby, yet more soldiers took aim.
“Ackt- ow!” Albedo gasped out as the projectiles struck her. “Are these- these bullets are rubber!”
“You’re much more useful to us alive than dead.” Brighid called out to her.
“Oh, really?” Albedo blinked. “Well, might as well make you work for it then!” She swung her blade, a spark of light flashing near the crossguard.
Brighid brought her arms up, generating the shield and bracing, but nothing happened. Brighid dropped the shield. “You might want to consider a different blade. That one-“
Then, the delayed strike tore out, and slammed into Brighid, sending her sliding back.
Albedo’s lips twitched. “Really? It seems quite effective, if you ask me.”
Brighid picked herself up, looking in Albedo’s direction, still with her eyes shut. The flames around her flared.
The circle of fire intensified – and began to get closer.
Vandham caught a soldier’s rifle in his scythe, wrenched it away, and looked upon the fire with growing alarm. “She’s boxin’ us in!”
Another wave of soldiers arrived. ‘Twenty,’ The Doctor counted as he ducked to the side. His fingers danced across Crossette’s bitball, coaxing another shield up as bullets whipped past.
“Ah! Sorry!” He called over his shoulder. “Never been much good with-!” He dropped as another swarm of bullets tore overhead.
Tora, puffing, waved Poppi back. “Retreat pattern Delta! Poppi, run!”
Vandham swung the scythes, the gusts of wind doing nothing to slow the advance of the fire. “Fire’s too hot!”
Nia yelped as she was kicked back over towards the others, huffing. She looked up at the Doctor, who was whipping around, trying to lock onto any escape route they could get.
A ring of fire, and soldiers on all sides, and the rooftops.
“Any ideas?” Nia hissed to the Time Lord.
“Any chance Dromarch can make enough water to clear us a path?”
Nia shook her head. “Not enough to get all of us through.”
“Okay, so, we’ll save that for plan Z.” The Doctor continued to look.
“Enough of this,” Mòrag cracked a whipsword, passing the other to Brighid. “Surrender the Aegis!”
“Not bloody likely!” Rex barked. “She’s not some weapon or walking disaster waiting to happen! She’s a person! If you’re gonna take her, it’s gonna be because of what she did do, instead of what she could do!”
Mòrag narrowed her eyes, and she and Brighid swung, letting slip an attack together.
Rex threw himself under the bolts of flame, and popped back to his feet.
“And what do you know about what she has done?” Mòrag ground out at him.
Rex shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know she’s trying to make amends for it! And that is all that matters!”
Mythra’s breath caught as a burst of light shot out from her sword, dissipating midway as she swapped to Pyra.
“Wha- Pyra-“ Rex blinked.
“Rex…” Pyra swallowed. “Listen to me. It’s not worth it, okay? We’ll… only cause more trouble, trying to fight the law.”
“Screw that!” Rex declared. “You haven’t done anything wrong!”
Mòrag lifted the sword again. “That remains to be-“
“Enough! All of you!” A voice deceptively small for the package it came in bellowed, as a section of the wall dropped. A Nopon wearing a fine suit and puffy cap waddled into the arena quickly.
Rex blinked, straightening up in surprise.
Mòrag glared at him, then turned back around. “Niranira, this is Ardainian business. I’ll have to ask you to withdraw, until-“
“Lady Mòrag, wait.” Niranira waddled closer, shaking his head. “Please, stand down. Niranira uncertain of others, but can vouch for Rex’s character personally.”
Rex let out a sound like he’d been struck.
“I beg your pardon?” Mòrag glared.
“Niranira hear other accusations – but these not the ones who attacked your soldiers.”
Mòrag regarded the Nopon for a long, drawn-out beat. “You’re certain of this?”
“Absolutely.” Niranira puffed out his chest.
Mòrag regarded the others, pausing. She sheathed the swords – but the soldiers around kept their weapons at the ready.
“Saved by a Nopon,” Nia raised an eyebrow. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Meh!?” Tora and Poppi both spluttered. Nia didn’t know what was more concerning – that Tora thought he had saved them already, or that Poppi thought of herself as a Nopon.
“Well,” Rex chuckled. “That’s nice, someone batting for us-“
“You are not off the hook.” Mòrag hissed at him. “There are other incidents you’ve all taken part in.”
“Ah.”
Mòrag turned to Niranira. “Explain.”
“Niranira saw everything,” The Nopon idly swayed. “Artificial Blade that attack have completely different physical appearance. Severely battle-damaged, patch-repaired, hair more like wig instead of solid metal piece. Also, maid outfit get burned off. Not Artificial Blade standing here now.”
Dromarch pawed the ground. “Quite fortunate you were tailing us, then.”
Vandham’s head snapped over. “Tailing us!?”
“Well, if he was following the other artificial blade, it would’ve made more sense for him to track her flight path, instead of standing here to watch us, would it not?”
Albedo nodded in agreement. “It’s hard to miss a half-naked woman flying through the sky.”
Niranira cleared his throat. “Quite sorry for secret-secret surveillance. Niranira apologise.”
“Ah, yes, well, bygones can be bygones-“ The Doctor chuckled, then clapped his hands, and pointed. “No, wait, hang on! Why were you tailing us!? And who exactly are you!?”
“And how do you know Rex?” Pyra wondered.
“I’m…” Rex rubbed the back of his head. “Kinda wondering that, myself.”
“Niranira operative for Argentum Trade Guild Intelligence Service,” The Nopon batted his wings proudly.
“Intelligence…” Nia reeled. “Since when does Argentum have an intelligence service!?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Vandham snorted.
Rex shrugged. “It’s… kind of a fancy way of saying Internal Affairs. They make sure everything the Guild does is above-board.”
“Rex has had a run in with a few of them, a time or two.” Azurda chuckled.
“Right.” Rex scratched his head. “That was… unsettling, when it happened.”
“It nothing personal,” Niranira shook his head. “Child turn up in trade guild with no adults, go on salvaging jobs, moves up quickly… it look suspect. But, clear Rex of everything. Not one bad bone in body. Even suspected money-laundering turn out to be just sending cash back to old aunt.”
Nia snickered, as Rex stumbled.
“Money laundering!?”
“Argentum Intelligence also fancy way of saying ‘Internal Revenue Service.’”
The Doctor thought on it for a long beat, then just threw up his hand. “Ah, yes, the two certainties of life. Death and taxes.”
“Hold on a minute,” Nia crossed her arms impetuously, leaning over to look down at Niranira. “If you’re Argentum, what’re you doing here? Following us around?”
Mòrag steeled her features. “I don’t believe that’s pertinent-“
“No worry, lady Mòrag.” Niranira politely cut her off. “It hardly classified information. Beside… if friends know something, they can cut deal for what they know, yes?”
Mòrag stood up straighter, clasping her hands behind her back. “Very well.”
“What we know?” Rex scratched his head. “About what?”
Niranira turned about to face the young salvager. “You see, some time ago, Ardainian government contacted Argentum Trade Assembly about concerning development.”
“Consul Dughall of Gormott was recently removed from his position,” Mòrag informed them matter-of-factly. “We had been investigating him for some time, on suspicion of embezzlement. I myself made the arrest.”
Albedo huffed in disgust. “Dughall. Dreadful man. One of those ‘smartest men in the room’ types, without the intelligence to back it up.”
“…methinks the fella looked a bit like Wario,” The Doctor mumbled to himself.
Vandham, however, crossed his arms, and narrowed his eyes. “Embezzlement’s not exactly something you want on your record, but I can’t imagine why they’d send the Special Inquisitor out there to investigate him.”
“It was far more than that,” Mòrag shook her head. “In recent days, Gormott had become a hotspot for Core Crystal hunters and other unsavoury individuals.”
“Praxis and Theory…” The Doctor recalled. “And their Driver.” He turned to Nia. “Remember?”
“Yeah,” Nia shifted her balance. “He was an Urayan wearing an Ardainian soldier’s uniform.”
Mòrag tilted her head.
“We fought them, before we fled Gormott.” Albedo volunteered.
“Ah, so it was you…” Mòrag smiled as though another piece clicked satisfyingly into place. “It was circumstantial, but we found it quite concerning that a known associate of the man who owned the house vanished after being seen with him. Later the man who owned the house was found dead, his Blade missing, with a dead Urayan wearing our armour in the sitting room.”
“Yeah… it was complicated.” Crossette coughed.
“Indeed.” Mòrag hummed. “But, that was not such an isolated incident. Other attacks occurred across Gormott. At the time, we believed that Dughall was either hopelessly incompetent at instituting basic security measures such as increasing patrols, or he was connected to the Crystal Hunters in some capacity.” She paused for a moment. “We now know this to be true. The fake soldier you faced was one of a band of crystal thieves operating out of Gormott, that had all been provided their uniforms thanks to a ‘miscount’ in the requisition orders for the Relay Base. Using their uniforms as a cover, they could detain whoever they wished, observe whoever they wished, and move about their business quietly. They would then send the crystals back to Dughall, who would provide them a sizable stipend for each crystal they collected. Then, Dughall would turn around – and sell them to Bana.”
“What!?” Rex spluttered in shock. “Bana- You mean to tell me- he’s- That not possible! No way!”
“Remember Rex,” The Doctor advised. “If something’s too good to be true, it usually is.”
Rex thought on it for a moment, sighing. “I guess so. I mean… he’d have to know the job would go sideways. He was the one who took it from Torna.”
“Rex correct.” Niranira swayed. “That is exactly opinion of Argentum Trade Assembly.” He turned to the others. “When any big salvage job go wrong, it standard procedure to have investigation, regardless of outcome.”
“A bit like a court-martial after losing a ship.” Vandham grunted.
“Exactly right.” Niranira nodded. “Case seem open-and-shut. People charter ship for salvage job, not want to pay rest of agreed upon amount after job, so try and shoot ship down. Clear Bana of involvement – not his fault they blow up ship. Then, Mor Ardain call about Bana dealing in illegal core crystals. Whole board go dizzy-spinny with rage. Start investigating again. Turns out people are not just people, but members of Torna.”
“One of whom just-so-happened to be a suspected Core Crystal thief that we arrested in Torigoth, who later escaped.” Brighid directed at Nia.
Nia shifted, looking away.
“Then, job start having fishy written all over it.” Niranira batted his wings. “Great big sums of money. Secrecy regarding objective. Last-minute crew transfers.”
“Oh, yes, that’s me, sorry.” The Doctor chuckled, snapping his fingers. “Psychic paper – it helps.”
Niranira cawed in confusion, but shook his head, and went on. “Well, with Mor Ardain barking up Assembly’s tree about Bana buying Core Crystals – with receipts – we figure we can at least get him for that. But! No Crystals! Gone! All of them! And this is where story get interesting.”
“Yes…” Brighid drawled. “Dughall was quite forthcoming with the information. In order to sneak the stolen Core Crystals through customs checks, they smuggled them in barrels of other materials.”
“Niranira was down at docks, trying to find out where barrels were being taken, when notice Rex and friends pass through,” Niranira swayed. “Rex specifically asked for by Bana, which makes him Person of Interest in this case. So, Niranira tail him. Then we wind up here.”
“Really…” Albedo crossed her arms thoughtfully. “What sort of materials?”
Brighid was quick to answer. “Bion connectors, Black Ash, Rabbit Diodes-“
Tora let out a gasp. “What!?” He rushed over. “Blade lady say that again!”
“Masterpon,” Poppi tried to pull him away. “Now is not time for annoying people who can hurt us.”
“No, let go, Poppi!” Tora pushed back against her and jumped. “Blue lady – list off materials again, please!”
Brighid, however, raised an eyebrow. “I hardly see what’s important about them. They’re scrap-“
“No, listen!” Tora beat his wings. “Bion Connectors – important component in construction of Poppi! Tora recognize other materials, too!”
The Doctor’s eyes popped out of his head. “Oh… OH!” He bellowed, hitting himself in the face. “Tora you, are a genius!”
Albedo blinked, staring. “He is?”
Roc cawed lowly. “I suppose even a broken clock is right twice a day.” They then tilted their head. “Unless it’s military time.”
“No, no, no, think about it!” The Doctor gestured. “Those Core Crystals are going to Torna. Torna, who-“
“Torna supervillainpons that have factory right here in Mor Ardain!” Tora bounced. “Sever say so himself! Torna hide Core Crystals in other shipments – shipments containing materials for use in constructing artificial Blades! Bad Blade that attack earlier have parts of Lila bolted onto her! Artificial Blade!” Tora spread his wings. “Torna Factory in Mor Ardain is building Artificial Blades!”
Mòrag stared at Tora. “What.”
The Doctor chuckled, throwing a hand onto Tora’s head. “This is Tora, he’s brilliant.”
“You,” Mòrag leaned down to Tora. “You know what those materials are for, and why Bana has sent them here!?”
“Tora just say so,” Tora rolled his eyes. He then twirled about. “It make sense. Tora have hard time finding parts on Gormott. And when he could, they expensive. Dughall buying them all up and shipping them off to Torna for easy monies!”
“…I don’t know what’s more unsettling,” Mòrag mumbled. “That Torna has a factory here, or that it makes sense.”
“It does,” Brighid mused. “Torna funnels money to Bana for materials and Core Crystals, which he could obtain relatively easily thanks to Dughall. And then, they bring them here. For more… Artificial Blades.” She shivered.
“Pardon,” Niranira spoke up, turning. “Niranira not calling friends liars, but how know that Torna have factory in Mor Ardain.”
“We interrogated one of Torna’s Blades,” Vandham answered simply.
“And?” Mòrag raised an eyebrow. “How do you know the information was accurate?”
The Doctor thinned his lips.
“Well, we pretty much threatened to come back and rough him up worse if it wasn’t, so…” Nia shrugged. “Not really a whole lot to go on past that. We wanted to give Torna a bloody nose, so, here we are.”
“…I see.” Mòrag blinked, then, she looked at Tora. “And how can I trust yours is accurate?”
“Meh!? Tora resent implication! Tora build Poppi with own blood, sweat, and tears!”
“And grease!” Poppi smiled
“Tora foremost expert in Artificial Blades!”
“Is that so?” Mòrag hummed. “Well, perhaps you could tell us more about the one that attacked us?”
“…ah. Well, Tora not know about that one.”
“Doc,” Rex turned to the Time Lord. “What about you? You seemed to know her.”
The Time Lord glanced away. He couldn’t unpack all of that right this second. “She was an old friend. Lifetimes ago. Haven’t seen her in centuries.”
“Unfortunate.” Mòrag shook her head.
Rex glanced over, then approached. “Look – I know we’ve got off on kinda the wrong foot, here, but we all want the same thing! The only reason we’re here is so we can track down that factory, and put a stop to Torna, too.”
“Really?” Mòrag tilted her head.
Pyra burst into light, forming back into Mythra.
“Whether you believe it or not isn’t important. I’d just rather not get into a fight again.” Mythra harumphed. “I doubt we’ll get lucky a second time, against Brighid’s flames.”
“Ah. I’m honoured you think so highly of me,” Brighid chuckled.
“Yeah, don’t push it.” Mythra shook her head.
“And why?” Mòrag directed to Rex. “Why do you oppose Torna? They were, at one point, your employers.” She directed at Nia.
“Not anymore. Fat lot of good they were, to me.” Nia huffed.
“It’s simple,” Rex shrugged. “They’re trying to take Mythra and Pyra. I mean, I can’t keep them anywhere they don’t wanna be, but if she doesn’t want to go with Torna, I’m not letting them get their hands on her. Besides – we’re going to Elysium, and it’s gonna be kinda pointless if Pyra and Mythra aren’t with us cause they’re stuck with Torna.”
Mòrag blinked for a bit. “Naturally.” She thought it over. “I cannot let you all off the hook completely,” She stated at last. “Despite this particular misunderstanding, you’ve all broken the law.” She glanced at Albedo. “Well. With the exception of yourself, now that we know you did not murder Mabon of Torigoth.” Then at Poppi and Tora. “And you two.”
“Oh, come on,” Nia groaned.
“However,” Mòrag continued. “My position as Special Inquisitor gives me certain freedoms to direct investigations – and procedure – as I see fit. In exchange for assisting us in the location of this factory, its neutralisation, and whatever information you have on the terrorist organisation known as Torna,” She cleared her throat. “I would be prepared to pardon your crimes in exchange for services rendered.”
“Wha-“ Rex gasped. “Really?”
“Well, you and Vandham did only start a pub brawl,” The Doctor gesticulated with a smile. “As for me and Nia, it’s just a bit of petty theft.”
“And terrorism.” Nia cut in.
“And terrorism, in her case – but what’s a bit of terrorism between friends, eh? I’m considered a terrorist myself, by many people.” The Doctor spread his hands, blinked, then his face dropped. “That… sounds really bad without the context. But ignore that!” The Doctor clapped his hands. “We wholeheartedly accept and are ready to share what we know!”
“What!?” Nia spluttered.
“Well, it’s this, or go back to prison.” The Doctor gesticulated.
Nia tried to argue, but pressed her lips together, going silent.
“A wise way of looking at it,” Mòrag’s mouth twitched. “We’ll need to take formal statements from each one of you, for our records. Please, follow us back to-“
“So you can lock us up!?” Nia spluttered. “Fat chance!”
“Now, now, Nia, Mòrag has always proven to be an upfront and trustworthy person!”
“She locked us up, before!”
“Exactly, and she was up front with that, so, no worries this time!”
Nia shook her head in disgust.
“Doc’s right,” Vandham crossed his arms, shrugging. “Besides, it’s only right. I ain’t dodging the law over a crime I did do. It’s honourable.” He dispelled Roc’s scythes.
“But what about the factory?” Albedo blinked in concern. “Would it not be better for us to strike now, before KOS-MOS’s masters – whomever they may be – have the chance to repair her weapons systems?”
“We’ll need to find the place first, genius.” Nia retorted sharply.
“But, wait!” Tora jumped, batting his wings frantically. “Artificial Blades work of Tora’s family! Only ones who know secret were dadapon and grampypon! And mean Blade had parts from Lila – original Artificial Blade! Something fishy-fishy going on, and it involve Tora’s family, and have to find out what!”
“Relax,” Mòrag calmly shook her head. “We are not suspending the investigation to question you. Armies take time to move. In the time it takes for us to reach the factory, it’s possible they could repair the Artificial Blade by the time we arrive anyway. And with no solid plan, it would spell almost-certain doom. Return with us to the palace. That is where my office is located.”
“The… palace?” Mythra blinked. “Are we going to have to meet the Emperor?”
“Unless he decrees such.”
“…that wasn’t a no.”
---------------
Mòrag was thorough. Very thorough. So thorough, she seemed the type of woman who could comb through the dirt with her bare hands and come up with gold.
“State your name.”
“Albedo,” The woman shifted in her seat.
“Occupation?”
She rolled her eyes. “I believe you’re aware of that already.”
“Yes, the chef from Gormott.” Mòrag’s lips twitched. “Might I say how odd it is that you don’t seem to have aged in twenty odd years?”
“I stay out of the sun,” Albedo leaned back. “White hair, red eyes – I have albinism, in case you haven’t figured it out.”
Mòrag shot a look at Albedo’s clearly-tan skin.
“Well, I do stay out of the sun anyway. It’s horrible for you, you know.”
“I see.” Mòrag began to pace around. “Can I ask how you got involved with these people? It’s not where I expected to see a woman most famous for her pastries.”
“I’m rather afraid your guess is as good as mine.” Albedo crossed her arms with a light shrug.
“Is that so?” Mòrag turned to regard Vandham next. “And for the record, your name is…?”
“Vandham.”
Mòrag cocked an eyebrow. “Your real name, please.”
“Vandham,” He repeated, his gravelled voice calm.
“Vandham,” She drawled, and this time there was no attempt to conceal the scepticism. Her gaze lifted from her paperwork to pierce him directly. “Truly.”
“Aye.”
“Would you also claim your first name is ‘Unyielding’?”
Vandham pressed his lips together.
“Erm, hang on?” Rex scratched his head in confusion. “Do you two know each other, or something?”
Mythra huffed and rolled her eyes.
“Or is Vandham that famous?” The Doctor wondered. “Yes… it’s a bit refreshing for the name that people know not being mine!”
“Unyielding Vandham,” Mòrag cleared her throat. “Was the name of a legendary hero from proto-Urayan folklore. A companion of Ebon-Astra.”
Rex whipped around to look at Vandham, his face a mix of shock and disbelief – he, much like everyone else, assumed Vandham was his real name.
“Yeah, but it’s also my name, so, kindly stop your chuckling.” Vandham grunted, turning his head.
“I meant no offence.” Mòrag hummed. “It is simply a bit odd, is all.” She then looked towards Tora and Poppi. “And you are?”
“Tora is called Tora! And Poppi is Poppi!” The Nopon ventured.
“Indeed.” Mòrag glanced at the Doctor and Nia. “I’m well aware of you.” Her eyes then glided over to Rex. “And you. The one Driving the Aegis. Rex, was it?” At his nod, she went on. “Quite young to find yourself in a situation like this.”
“Hey, I’m old enough!”
Mòrag put her hands behind her back. “Given everything that I have learned, I will petition the Emperor for his support. Although you have expressed to committing these crimes for a reason, the fact remains: you committed them. We will be merciful. But, not too lenient.”
As they began to get worked up, Mòrag went on.
“You will not see the inside of a cell. I give you my word. But, some measure of justice must be done.” She looked at Mythra uncertainly for a long while.
“Say,” Rex frowned in confusion. “What’s up with Mythra that’s got you so scared? She hasn’t hurt you!”
“Me, no.” Mòrag shook her head. She then focused back on the Aegis. “Five centuries past, your power sank the landmass of Torna into the sea. Countless lives were lost. Our records further describe you as the being who ended the reign of Emperor Hugo. Do you deny this?”
Mythra recoiled like she’d been struck, silently floundering. All eyes were on her.
“No, hang on, that wasn’t her! That was Malos!” Rex, without a single hesitation, jumped to Mythra’s defence.
Mòrag’s eyes narrowed. “Our records were quite specific.”
“It had to be Malos,” Rex pressed, stepping closer to Mythra’s side as if his presence alone would change Mòrag’s opinion. “He’s the other Aegis! He’s the one who wanted to destroy everything. Mythra was just trying to stop him!”
Mythra’s shoulders quivered. She turned her face away, the gold in her pupils flickering like a dying lantern.
“Rex…” Pyra murmured softly, but he didn’t hear her.
“Look,” Rex insisted, almost pleading now, “She’s not like that. She’s not! You think she wanted to hurt people? She’s saved all our lives, more times than I can count. If she was some monster, she’d have killed us the moment I woke her up!”
Mòrag did not interrupt, but her gaze remained steady, searching Mythra’s face as if she were trying to see past the mask of silence.
“Malos destroyed everything he touched,” Rex went on. “It was him. It must’ve been. Tell her, Mythra!”
She didn’t look up. Her arms hung limply at her sides.
“Mythra,” Rex urged. “Come on, tell-“
“Shut up, Rex.” Mythra weakly shook her head.
“Eh?” Rex blinked in confusion. “But-“
“I said be quiet.” Mythra gulped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then Mythra drew in a long, unsteady breath. Her lips trembled.
“Yeah. It was me.”
The words fell like a stone, silencing Rex’s protests.
Rex took a half-step back, eyes wide. “What…?”
She swallowed, her voice no louder than a whisper. “It was me.” She shook her head, blinking rapidly. “It was my fault.”
Mòrag lifted her head somewhat, looking intently.
Mythra took a breath. “But you weren’t there. You don’t know what happened. I regret it, sure. But you know what? It’s because of it that you’re even around to hate me for it.”
Mòrag paused for thought. “I don’t fear you, Aegis. I fear your potential for destruction. What you could become, in the wrong hands.”
“Lady. Listen to me, and remember it. You ain’t the only fucking one.”
Mòrag snapped her jaw shut, and her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“What?” Mythra put a hand on her hip. “You think I went away for five-hundred years to dodge justice or some shit?”
Mòrag remained quiet for a long beat.
Mythra threw her hand into the air. “Whatever.” She burst into flame, and Pyra was left standing.
Pyra swallowed. “Sorry, it’s… but she’s right.”
“So it would seem…” Mòrag hummed, spinning around to exit. “I must be going to speak with the Emperor. Remain here – I shall be back soon.”
“And if we don’t?” Nia challenged.
“It’ll be considered a violation of your probation – and you’ll be going to prison the next time we meet.” Mòrag walked out, the door slamming shut behind her.
“…well.” Albedo crossed her arms. “This is just phenomenal.”
“Ah, don’t worry! I’ve had worse.” The Doctor, feeling the awkwardness settle over them all, tried doing his best to dispel it.
It didn’t seem to work. Rex looked at Pyra, slightly confused. “Pyra? Those things Mòrag was saying – why did Mythra-?”
“Cause they’re true, I’d wager.” Vandham cut him off, shaking his head. “Leave it.”
Rex spluttered. “But-“
“Rex.” Vandham stressed.
The Doctor, finding himself agreeing with Vandham, much to his own consternation, cleared his throat. “All of us have made mistakes, Rex. What matters is owning up to them.”
Rex floundered for a moment, before closing his mouth. “I’m not saying she didn’t – but you guys deserved a chance to defend yourselves better!”
Pyra shrugged. “It’s... look, it isn’t complicated, Rex. Hugo died, because of us. Because of me. And he wasn’t the only one.” She gulped.
“It was war, I’m afraid.” Azurda softly, but resignedly, intoned. “You’re fighting an enemy, to be sure… but, oftentimes, the ones that suffer can be your allies, caught in your own crossfire.”
Pyra sat in the chair, controlling her breathing. “Rex, just… look. I know you want to protect me. And I’m grateful. But please, just… accept there are things about me that aren’t all good.”
Rex opened his mouth to retort. Then, thought better of it. Pyra – sweet, kind Pyra – and Mythra, who was the source of that kindness - even if she was more abrasive about it – deserved to have someone batting in their corner. But… like Vandham said, not babying them.
“Yeah, but… just cause there’s things about you that aren’t good, doesn’t mean you’re not good. Either of you.” Rex rubbed the back of his neck. “That doesn’t mean people need to treat you like a loaded gun.”
Pyra didn’t look like she believed it, but smiled anyway. “Thanks.”
“…blimey, we’re really something, aren’t we?” Nia snorted derisively. “You really know how to pick them, don’t you, Rex?”
“’Birds of a feather,’ as they say…” Dromarch rumbled.
“Ah, you know,” The Doctor leaned on a wall nearby. “Humans are a very social, very tribe-minded species, and they like it when their tribes tend to be made of members with similar characteristics.”
“…does that mean there’s something wrong with all of us?” Crossette wondered. “Or… all of you.”
“There’s something a little wrong with everyone.” The Doctor mused. “What matters is how we let it affect us.” And he’d seen it, too. Far across the stars. It was part of why he liked humans so much.
“And how.” Vandham concurred, rolling his shoulders.
Pyra lifted her head, her eyes flickering gold for a moment. “Does that include starting brawls in seedy pubs?”
Rex startled, afraid that she’d offended Vandham, but instead, the man let out a bark of laughter.
“Not usually, but… well.” Vandham also leaned on the wall. “Keeping cool’s a task. And sometimes, you fail at it.” He paused a moment for thought. “I didn’t start it for no reason, if that’s all what you’re worried about. Bastard brought up Temperantia.”
“Really?” Nia drawled in disbelief.
“Yep.”
“What’s so special about that place?” The Doctor wondered.
“Mor Ardain and Uraya had a battle there, I believe.” Dromarch contributed. “One of the closing battles of the war that had been sparked as a result of the Ardainian annexation of Gormott.”
“The place was home to an advanced people, thousands of years ago. Ones who founded the Praetorium, to give you an idea.” Vandham sighed. “They had advanced Titan weapons like nothing we’d ever seen. Both Uraya and Mor Ardain wanted a piece of that. The battle was brutal. People on both sides dropping like flies.”
The Doctor silently stood, and listened. There it was – same old story. Powerful resources, people wanting them, and willing to kill for it all.
“You lost?” The Doctor inquired. “You attacked that man at the bar because of national pride?”
“It played a little part. But no.” Vandham shook his head. “Both sides lost. The fighting lasted so long that Indol finally got involved. Drew up a treaty. We got to set up camp on one fin of the Titan, Mor Ardain got to set up on the far end, with a demilitarised zone making up the vast bulk of the Titan. The fighting had actually drawn out for so long, there wasn’t anything left to recover. Even though No-Man’s Land was a sea of bodies – it took so long they’d rotted away, and the rain buried the bones.”
Pyra covered her crystal. “Vandham… I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
Vandham looked down, shaking his head again. “I wasn’t there. I was home. Trying to take care of someone who needed the medicine they were hoarding for the soldiers at that damned dig site, cause neither side knew when to bloody quit.” He touched a fist to his chest. “That’s why I took on the name ‘Vandham.’”
Rex blinked in surprise. “Wait, you were serious back there? It’s not your real name?”
Vandham shrugged. “It’s not. Too many people knew me by my old name.”
“So, the name-“ Nia cocked her head to the side.
“Unyielding Vandham,” Albedo softly spoke up. “Was one of Ebon-Astra’s sworn companions. He was the implacable hero, depending on who you asked. The stories always said that no matter what horror or hardship he faced, he never faltered. Never even paused to doubt. He was either fiercely determined… or incredibly stupid, depending on the source. Making trouble.” She turned to the side, her face twitching in odd fondness, for some reason. “Having others around cleaning up the mess he made.”
Rex blinked, glancing between her and Vandham.
Vandham shrugged, and gestured to Albedo.
Albedo continued, her tone turning thoughtful. “When Ebon-Astra challenged the Light That Devours The Clouds, Vandham was the one who carried the injured to safety and came back for more. When Xanatos’s armies burned a hundred villages, he led the charge through their lines alone to save the last survivors.” She looked down, smiling faintly. “He was so determined that, in the final tale, it’s said he punched the Architect in the face for leaving humankind to their fate.”
“Ah, well!” The Doctor chuckled. “If he’s dogged, relentless, and he punched a god in the face, he can’t be all bad! I’ve got a time machine – we could go visit.” He glanced at Nia with a smile. “Very Herakles-“ The Doctor stopped, blinking. “Hold on. ‘Xanatos’ sounds rather a lot like ‘Thanatos…’ Unyielding Vandham seems to be rather close to Herakles…”
“Eh?” Vandham frowned. “What is it?”
The Time Lord blinked. Vandham was dumping his heart out. And… well, the Doctor already knew Alrest was Earth. No need to beat the dead horse. Still, good news!
Something of Old Earth had survived! Maybe.
“Did this Unyielding Vandham happen to have to undergo… trials, of sorts?” The Doctor probed lightly.
Albedo’s lips twitched, but it was Vandham himself who answered.
“Yeah, loads.” Vandham nodded. “And he never once stopped, till he got what he wanted.”
“…okay, so, Urayan Herakles – very cool.” The Doctor giggled to himself. That boded quite well, actually!
…nah. It was a bit of a reach. The ‘implacable hero’ type was one of the common archetypes. He’d reserve judgement until he heard of Unyielding Vandham trying to steal a goddess’s golden apples, or something.
“I took the name to remind myself to keep moving.” Vandham grunted. “After my life fell apart, after I lost everything worth living for, I had to keep moving. No matter what. Woke up Roc. Figured out how good I was at mercenary work.”
Roc let out a noise of agreement. “Met Cole, did some jobs with him for a while, wound up at Garfont…”
“That was about…” Vandham let out a grunt of concentration. “Forty years ago, ish?”
“Forty!?” Nia spluttered in disbelief. “Vandham… how old were you when all that went down!?”
“Let’s see…” Vandham’s lips twitched. “’Bout 38.”
Rex’s jaw dropped. “You’re seventy-eight years old?”
Vandham grinned, rolling his shoulders. “And looking good, don’t ya think!?”
“You don’t look a day over fifty!” Crossette pointed out.
“I’m a Driver.” Vandham shrugged. “Just part of the package, you know? Something to do with Ether’s rejuvenating abilities? I never really paid attention. Most Drivers – they’ll live about half as long more than a normal guy, before age finally gets ‘em.”
“Huh…” Nia blinked. “So, Mabon…” She blinked, then narrowed her eyes, looking over at Albedo suspiciously.
The Doctor wasn’t focusing on whatever it was Nia had noticed. “Curious…” He wondered if that was an intentional thing, or a side-effect.
Before he could wonder about it further, the door opened once more, as Mòrag returned.
“I have spoken with the emperor.” Mòrag said in-way-of-greeting. “He is of the same opinion as I am. You are all too dangerous, and too unknown to simply cut loose at this stage. More to the point, we can assist each other. He’s authorised a… work-release programme, as it were. Assist us in locating the factory, determine how it connects to Bana, and your crimes will be forgiven.”
Nia began to let out a breath.
“But, there are some stipulations.” Mòrag sternly looked over at Crossette. “This Blade in your company was one known to have gone missing from the recruitment drive in Torigoth. Given the circumstances, it’s only natural to assume you possess the other.”
“…well, yes.” The Doctor awkwardly, but unrepentantly, tugged his bow tie. “That is the correct assumption.”
“Indeed.” Mòrag hummed. “The emperor asks that you return the core crystals you’ve taken to us.”
Crossette gasped, jumping behind the Doctor.
“What!?” Rex gasped.
“You must be joking!” Nia swiped a hand. “Not in a million years! I don’t care if you’ve got an overdrive protocol or what!”
“That little lady?” Vandham gestured, crossing his arms. “No dice.”
Crossette shook her head. “I don’t want to- I would rather not…”
“Well, you heard her.” The Doctor gestured, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t know about this core crystal business, but trading people is not something I’m comfortable with.”
Mòrag tilted her head.
“Tell your emperor to make another offer. Or me, and my friends, will stay pleasantly silent.” The Doctor turned about with a smile. “After all. You needed us to tell you there was a factory here at all.”
“His Majesty is lawful, not cruel.” Mòrag shook her head. “He has no interest in tearing a Blade from their Driver’s side. Ill-gotten and otherwise. Considering that it has been some time since we last met, and you may not possess said crystals any more, he would be more than willing to accept any replacement.”
“Replacement!?” The Doctor spluttered. “You’re talking about people!”
“Yes,” Mòrag bluntly answered. “People with extraordinary abilities. That cannot die, that can fell whole battlefields of soldiers with their attacks, that can heal people. Every one of them is a godsend.”
“Yes, I’m very well acquainted with that concept, thank you. I’m also acquainted with not handing over thinking beings to a government just because that government is very polite about asking.”
“You would prefer them to remain dormant in your possession?” Mòrag lifted an eyebrow. “Unawakened, and unliving.”
The Doctor winced. That was the rub, wasn’t it?
But equally - he knew what happened if they did wake up. Pulled into battles that were not theirs, dying again and again for whoever happened to draw their name from the lot.
He let out a low growl. “You’re asking me to choose between condemning them to oblivion in a box for the moment or condemning them to serve as weapons.”
“I am not asking you to choose,” Mòrag corrected quietly. “I am asking you to decide whether you trust His Majesty to treat them with honour.”
“That’s the same thing,” He muttered, his voice frayed with frustration. “
Mòrag folded her arms, studying him with that measured Ardainian patience. “Then perhaps, Doctor, you must decide which fate you consider the lesser cruelty.” She turned her head. “There is one request. The one known as Mabon was known to possess a Blade named Vess. A healer. We will have need of them more than any force of destruction.”
Albedo stiffened.
“Given the weapon type, capabilities, although there is an elemental difference, we would ask that you turn her over to replace Crossette.”
“What!?” Nia bellowed.
“Absolutely not,” Albedo hissed.
“And who are you?” Mòrag inquired. “Her Driver?”
“No – but you can’t trade in people like that.”
Dromarch let out a noise. “Perhaps not. But as a Blade myself… if I knew it could make a difference – help people – I would not argue.”
“I respect you all for it,” Mòrag nodded. “But you must look at the wider circumstances. I am not the end all, be all authority. Despite his status, neither is the Emperor. If I could, I would pardon you all entirely after this – no strings attached. But pardons must also pass through the Senate as well.”
“Ah, checks-and-balances – wonderful,” The Doctor mumbled.
“Exactly.” Mòrag hummed. “Rex, Vandham, Albedo, Tora. Your crimes are thus that no one would look twice at a pardon in exchange for service, or non-existent to begin with. But you, Doctor? And Nia? Core Crystal theft is a very serious matter. For exactly the reason you’ve outlined.”
“If I may interject?” Brighid leaned over. “The Crystals you took belonged to quite powerful Blades as well. Hence the recruitment drive. Powerful enough to mandate resonating with new Drivers – but too risky to test it on the soldiers.”
Mòrag nodded once more, grateful at Brighid. “A single Driver can shift the tide of a battle, and with the Senate pushing for war with Uraya – in spite of the emperor’s protests – they will not be satisfied with anything less than Blades of equivalent power to the ones that were taken.”
“So,” The Doctor stared at Mòrag, very displeased. “Either we turn over people to you for slavery, or you imprison us.”
“Slavery?” Mòrag repeated. “I don’t know what gave you that impression.”
“Quite,” Brighid concurred. “Perhaps you may have gotten some unfortunate first impressions, but take it from me. There’s nothing of the sort going on.”
“Ah, yes,” The Doctor turned to her with a look. “You’re her Blade, aren’t you?”
“That’s correct,” Brighid nodded. “But that does not mean I am a common tool with no freedom. I receive pay for my service, housing, a retirement plan.”
“That’s pragmatic,” The Doctor argued. “It’s preventing rebellion caused by mistreatment.”
“And? I do not have a collar on my neck,” Brighid threw at the Doctor. “I could walk out of this city at any time and go happily along my merry way. I own my own property, and can speak with who I want, when I want. That hardly sounds like slavery to me.”
“And you can’t leave the military, can you?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Really? Can you sit here and tell me that you can walk up to the office, ask to be discharged, and they’d say ‘sure, go ahead, have a good rest of your life?’” The Doctor scowled.
Mòrag pondered it for some time.
“No,” She said finally, her voice as level as a blade’s edge. “I cannot claim you are wholly wrong. But there are obligations I am bound to. Oaths sworn when I resonated with Brighid. Duties to this nation. To abdicate them unilaterally is not permitted. But nor is it so simple as slavery.”
She inclined her head, meeting his gaze squarely.
“We are soldiers, Doctor. As I imagine you yourself have been, in one way or another. I did not conscript Brighid against her will, nor she me. We entered into service together, as partners. That partnership carries duties neither of us can simply cast aside because we tire of them.”
Brighid spoke up gently. “If Mòrag were to be discharged, I would be as well. If she were exiled, I would go with her. If she died, I would return to my Core. These are not chains. They are bonds we accepted when we resonated.”
The Doctor exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“And you can say you consented, can you? When you were brought into this world from a Core Crystal?”
“I can,” Brighid said, unwavering. “Because once I was here, I could choose to accept or reject the bond. If a Driver and Blade are not in harmony, the resonance wavers. And even then, I could have left.”
“And yet,” The Doctor muttered, “You expect me to hand over others - who have no voice in this at all. They are still asleep. They have no say.”
Mòrag straightened.
“If you wish to argue philosophy,” She said, her tone soft but adamant, “I will stand here all day and do so. But you must understand that you have committed a crime, and that is what the Senate will focus on. They will not care for your reasons, or how correct they are.”
“What about Mythra and Pyra?” The Doctor challenged. “Are we supposed to expect they’ll let us walk away with them?”
“Yes,” Mòrag answered frankly. “Because the Senate will know of your crimes, not theirs.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “Blades may be people, but it’s hardly their fault if a Driver coerces them into certain actions.”
The Doctor looked away, lips drawn tight, the lines around his eyes deepening.
“And you think you’re righteous,” The Doctor murmured. “You think you’re better than the Daleks or the Cybermen because you give your weapons a pension plan.”
Mòrag only sighed, sounding unexpectedly tired.
“I think,” She said, “That this world is imperfect. And that we must do the best with what we have been given. Even Blades. Even Drivers.”
He didn’t answer.
“That is where we stand.” Mòrag shook her head. “You won’t be giving them over to slavery. But the Senate will refuse to authorise any pardon unless you can compensate us for the loss of the crystals, in some way.”
“So, this is your plan. Coercion.” The Doctor scowled.
“I am coercing nothing.” Mòrag refuted sharply. “I am keeping you informed of your options. You can accept the conditions – conditions which we came to the conclusion were in your best interest for a painless departure of Mor Ardain – or you can refuse, and take this matter up with the justice system. But if you do that, the Senate will not care what services you’ve performed or how innocent you are. They will look to take the crystals from you by force, in addition to whichever ones you’ve picked up along your journey. They will execute you to reclaim Crossette and the other crystals… perhaps, even, go so far as to implicate your associates, if they were to learn you’re travelling with the Aegis.”
“Or,” The Doctor leaned in. “You could let us go.”
“I have a duty, Doctor.” Mòrag retorted. “No one is above the law. Not even myself.”
“A law that’s blindly all-encompassing with no wiggle room for unique circumstances is unjust.”
“Do you not understand?” Mòrag narrowed her eyes. “This is the ‘wiggle room,’ as you put it. It’s why I can give you clemency instead of a cell. But it is not unlimited.”
“It’s not right,” The Doctor stressed.
“And what, pray tell, gives you the authority to make that declaration?” Mòrag tilted her head.
“Since no one else wants to do it,” The Doctor growled. “Since I got here and saw people being traded around like commodities. People killing for it. And no one taking umbrage with it beyond a shrug and going ‘it’s just the way the world works.’” The Doctor pointed at the ground. “You want to know what makes me the authority? I’ll tell you. It’s because I seem to be the only one who’s ever interested in putting his foot down. I’m not chosen for it, it’s not some grand plan I’m fulfilling, and you can be sure I’m hated because of it.” He let out a rueful, wheezing laugh, equal parts exhaustion and mocking. “Oh, damned if I’m not hated because of it. But no one else wants to do it. No one else wants to draw the line. So, until someone else with the means decides to step up and take some responsibility, and say ‘to hell with the way things are, I’m doing what’s right’ yes, I am the authority!”
The Doctor’s voice cracked like a whip, fading as the other shuffled nervously.
Mòrag stared at him for an uncomfortably long while.
“You are mistaken about one thing.”
She inclined her head slightly, only in acknowledgement.
“You think you are the only one here trying to do what’s right. You are not. I have sworn to protect this nation - all of it. Not only the Blades you pity, or the innocents you see harmed, but the children in towns that will burn if we are unprepared for war. The soldiers who will die without the power you took. The farmers who will starve if the conflict spills across their fields. A single Driver can change the course of entire nations, with the right Blade.”
The Doctor huffed in frustration rubbing his face.
“Even still – I am in this office because of that. Drawing the line in the sand. Doing what is right. It is my duty, to handle the corrupt, and uphold the law. Is it always easy? No.” Mòrag shook her head. “The decisions I make have effects that will ripple far. Dughall was corrupt – dealing in core crystals, getting people killed, embezzling funds. Yet, removing him has upended stability in the area, as the local government will need to navigate the provisional administration until a new Consul can be assigned. Soldiers entirely new to the region, with little experience, will have to replace those who answered to Dughall. That inexperience will only fuel more friction until they earn the locals’ trust. Just recently, a group of rogue Drivers attempted to sack Torigoth in an attempt to take advantage of the situation – they were subdued, easily, but even still, had Dughall not been arrested, it would have not happened. Arresting Dughall was lawful, and, indeed, it was moral – but it also caused its own harm. Perhaps, even, more harm than simply letting him stay in power.”
Mòrag took a step back, and gestured.
“This will do less harm.” Mòrag elucidated clearly. “Not only to you, but a great amount of other people. Those being harmed by that android. Those being harmed by Bana and Torna.”
The Doctor found no reply.
Mòrag took a step back. “I will be outside. Talk it over amongst yourselves – when you’ve decided, call me back into the room.” She moved through the door again.
“It’s just… it’s not right.” Albedo hissed out first. “We may have taken the core crystals, but they can’t prove that. And now they want Vess to make up for it!?”
“Hey, look at me,” The Doctor whipped around. “Look at me.” He stressed. “I won’t let that happen, I won’t.”
“What’s the alternative?” Albedo demanded. “Do time because they won’t approve your pardon? She won’t let us walk out of here.” She gnashed her teeth. “I refuse to turn Vess over to them. She was too good to me for that.”
Vandham shook his head. “First rule about talking with the law: They ain’t your friends.”
Vandham crossed his arms curiously. “How do you know this lady?” He asked.
Albedo looked over the assembled group, swallowed, and sighed. “I was at a low point in my life. I had lost my siblings, my own father believed me to have betrayed him and attempted to kill me, and my mother was beyond my ability to contact. I woke up… a significant amount of time later, having washed up on Gormott with nary an item to my name. I’d… very nearly fell into organised crime. But Vess found me first. His kids had already left the house, so they took me in. Helped me stand upon my own feet. I owe them.”
She gripped the handle of her sword.
“Hey, don’t worry!” Crossette skated over. “We’ll figure this out!”
“No,” Albedo growled. “There’s nothing to ‘figure out.’ Either we turn her over, or some or possibly all of us are going to prison. You are the one that was taken to begin with. We wouldn’t be in this predicament if the Doctor could have just controlled himself.”
Crossette’s face fell.
“You were there,” The Doctor reminded her.
“I know. And now, I’m paying for it.” Albedo shook her head.
“Why ain’t you Driving her?” Vandham wondered. “If this Vess is so important to you.”
“No potential.” Albedo shrugged.
“I could fix it,” The Doctor began to speak. “I could jigger the resonance link with the Sonic Screwdriver.”
Nia cocked an eyebrow. “The one that android smashed up?”
“Ah.”
“Oh!” Tora raised a wing. “Tora have idea! Hide Vess’s Crystal in Poppi storage compartment!”
Poppi shook her head. “Masterpon. At current volume, just revealed plan to Mòrag standing on other side of door.”
“…whoopsie.” Tora winced.
“Could switch out the crystals,” Vandham hummed. “Ain’t no way of telling which is which, till they get woke up.”
“They could also put us back on their wanted list afterward, once they realised the deception.” Dromarch rumbled.
“Yes,” Azurda hummed. “The Imperial Senate is not a body to be trifled with.”
“Yeah,” Vandham grunted.
“And now that they know we took the crystals, they’re gonna be extra determined to bring us in for it,” Nia glanced at Crossette, the living proof. “Can’t just fly under the radar anymore.”
The Doctor closed his eyes, reached into his pockets, and pulled out two Crystals. One, from the recruitment drive. The other, Vess’s.
“Can’t break out without probably causing more harm. Getting everyone declared as fugitives,” It was a different story, if it had been just him. He looked up, and extended his hand. “Albedo?”
“Me?”
“Vess was your friend,” The Doctor passed her the crystal. “It should be your choice.”
The silver-haired woman ran the crystal around in her hands, feeling it. “…except, she’s not my friend anymore, is she?”
The Doctor swallowed. “Not necessarily. If I had the Sonic Screwdriver-“
“But you don’t. And you probably wouldn’t be able to get another one, once they put you into a holding cell. So, no matter which way you cut it, the Vess I knew is gone.” Albedo took a shaky breath. “Even if I awoke her now, she would know nothing of me. Of the times we spent chatting in Mabon’s home.”
“You could make new memories,” The Doctor attempted to focus on that.
“That would require awakening her, first,” Albedo hummed, closing her eyes. “Which we cannot do.”
“Come on.” The Doctor gestured. “I’m sure one of them would do it!”
“It still won’t be her,” Albedo sighed. “And even still, what then? Bring her back to please me? When I wouldn’t be able to serve as her Driver? Would they tow around a blade they don’t even want? Or leave her there with me so they won’t have to deal with her and let me be happy?” She shook her head. “No… No. I’ve made my choice.”
“Al-“ The Doctor swallowed.
“Call Mòrag back in. I’ve made my choice.”
----------
Mòrag took the crystals with grace and care, and passed them off to an assistant.
“My thanks. You may not yet believe it, but those two could help have hundreds – possibly even thousands – of lives, later on.”
“Just… be kind to her,” Albedo requested.
Mòrag nodded. “We treat our Blades well, no fear. Now, onto the other urgent manner of business. That android, and the factory. Ever since Bana fled Argentum, it’s been going around, stealing components for artificial Blades.”
“Make sense!” Tora nodded, before blinking. “Oh, but that very bad…”
“Eh?” Nia blinked. “How d’ya figure?”
“Well,” Tora turned to her. “If supervillainpon android wearing clothes of Lila jump around Titan, stealing components – could be going anywhere! Looping back, hiding! It hard to hide movements of whole trucks – but one human-shaped Bladeypon can hide anywhere!”
“Yes…” The Doctor rubbed his jaw, looking down at a map on the desk. “And she was always clever. No mere unthinking robot. And powerful – scary powerful. You’ll all be slaughtered if they get her weapons systems repaired.”
“Poppi put up good fight – force robot to retreat!” Tora proudly beat his wings.
“Yes – because I disabled her weapons first.” The Doctor shook his head.
“I dunno…” Rex scratched his head. “She was fast and tough… but I think since we’re expecting it this time, we should be good.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Why does nobody ever just listen to me? She has a weapon that can shift your reality quotient – it’s not something you can just dodge.”
“…shift our what?” Rex struggled.
The Doctor groaned. “Look, my people devised a method of measuring how objectively real something is. We call it the ‘reality quotient.’ Certain energy fields can shift it – we call that the Hilbert Effect. And, if you’re smart, you can use it to travel.” The Doctor paused to think for an instant. “But, you can also weaponize it. People want to exist as real things. Shift your quotient low enough, your body starts to break down and normal matter decays.” He let them take that in for a moment. “That android is equipped with a starship-grade Hilbert Effect Generator. She can use it to drag things from the Imaginary Domain into this one – or the other way around. She can literally shove people out of reality.” He glanced around. “She could shove this whole Titan out of reality, if she wanted.”
Nia crossed her arms challengingly. “So, what’re we gonna do about it?”
The Doctor glanced around, uncertain. “No idea.” He could set the TARDIS’s engines to generate a counter-field, but with no way of knowing ahead of time the parameters of the field KOS-MOS would generate, that could result in things getting seriously weird.
Then again, KOS-MOS hadn’t made use of it even before he shut down her weapons systems.
The Doctor’s eyes flicked over to Poppi, as his mind twitched and itched.
Artificial Blade factory, KOS-MOS repaired using parts from Poppi’s prototype, and the mysterious module the TARDIS had installed becoming active. He might not need to do anything.
“You know what – I think we’ll be all right!” The Doctor smiled. “If worst comes to worst, I can always handle it.”
Nia cocked an eyebrow. “All that talk, and now you’re saying ‘it’s fine, don’t worry about it?’”
“Well, you remember how I broke the cuffs in Dughall’s office?” The Doctor shrugged. “Same basic principle. Now!” He clapped his hands. “Poppi, I want to take a look at that module of yours again.”
“Egg thing that TARDIS install?” Poppi blinked. “Why?”
“Because,” The Doctor pointed. “It was playing David Bowie.” He held up a finger. “That’s a musician from Earth – you won’t find any signals from him on Alrestian channels, unless there’s tech at the bottom of the Cloud Sea, broadcasting, from the old days.” He shoved a hand into his pocket, and pulled out – what looked like to the rest of them – a square-cut piece of black glass and rubber.
“What’s that?” Mòrag frowned.
“Smartphone. Not as elegant as the Sonic Screwdriver, but, it does the job.”
“Smart…phone?” Mòrag repeated, struggling slightly.
“I don’t much like using it – well, I say that, technically, I’m on restriction for the next thousand years,” The Doctor looked up, and lowered his voice. “It’s the gacha games; they get me every time. Which isn’t strictly my fault! I wanted to stay in and play Final Fantasy VII – Takahashi’s best – but no, the Dulcinians only consider mobile games honourable. They hate clicky buttons.”
Everyone looked at one another, searching.
“Anyway,” The Doctor moved swiftly on, his thumbs rapidly tapping commands into the device. “Logically, that signal should be coming from the bottom of the Cloud Sea. But it can’t be. It has similar properties to water, once you get below the topmost layer – including a similar refractory index, which should make any radio signals scatter into useless noise. It could be coming from the World Tree, but no – I scanned it for that kind of thing shortly after we made it back to the TARDIS from fishing up Pyra. But then you have KOS-MOS, an android from that culture, running around, and that module only just started reacting. So, logically…”
The phone’s speaker crackled, and popped, before noise began to flow out.
“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…”
The Doctor grinned, looking over his shoulder to Nia. “Y’see? KOS-MOS is transmitting.”
“That her!?” Tora spluttered in surprise. “B-B-But- Poppi not even have radio module installed!”
“Whatever the TARDIS installed must’ve…” The Doctor furrowed his brow in concentration. “But why? So Poppi can talk back? Or…” He blinked. “Maybe so it can recognize when KOS-MOS is close, and start preparing?”
“What for?” Nia inquired.
“I don’t know.” The Doctor rapidly shook his head. “But! This is good! Poppi, since you’re receiving that, it means it’s either very close, or very high-power.” The Doctor smiled. “Now, with this…” He trailed off as he focused, stumbling around the room, trying to point the phone in all directions.
“Doc, what are you doing?” Rex spluttered in confusion.
Mòrag stared, blinking. “He’s triangulating the source of the signal.”
“Yes, that’s right.” The Doctor mumbled, standing across the room. “This phone is patched into my ship’s communication circuit. Which means, even from right here, I can use this phone and the TARDIS as points against which to measure the frequency, get the differences, plot them as vectors, and…” He punched some commands into the phone, then turned it around.
On the screen was a topographical map of the area, even incorporating Alba Cavanich. Two lines crossed the map, crossing each other at a point past the docks, outside the city.
“Lead us right to KOS-MOS.”
“No way…” Nia drawled, staring at the screen.
“Incredible,” Mòrag hummed, regarding the map as well. “That point, where the lines cross… A factory is present, there. It was supposed to have been abandoned.”
“I do believe that’s shorthand for ‘condemned.’” Albedo murmured.
Rex, however, frowned. “If it’s so close to town, and you knew Bana was here, how come you didn’t search the place?”
Mòrag shook her head. “There are a variety of reasons. I’ll list three. One: Searches consume time, manpower, and usually produce more noise than results. If Bana realised he was the target, he could simply relocate again. Two: although I am Special Inquisitor, that doesn’t give me free reign to do as I wish. Although the factory itself is derelict, the property owner still pays their taxes and duties on it, meaning it is an active property, and to search it, I would need probable cause to suspect Bana was hiding there, which I did not possess, until now. Three: the factory was believed to have been derelict. Although it’s used as a drop point for many shipments due to it being a recognizable landmark, no personnel ever enter or leave the facility. Nor does it appear to produce any goods.”
“Oof, very Willy Wonka…” The Doctor mumbled.
“Of course, now that we’ve traced this… KOS-MOS back to the factory, we do have probable cause to raid it.” Mòrag clasped her hands behind her back. “I will notify the army for-“
“No,” The Doctor shook his head. “You’ll only put more people at risk.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Come on, think about it!” The Time Lord rolled his eyes. “Artificial Blades! Just one could bust up your men something severe, and god knows how many they’ve got in there! You send your soldiers through those doors, you’re sending them into a slaughterhouse.”
Mòrag paused for thought, no doubt thinking back to the damage just KOS-MOS was able to inflict. “A preliminary strike team.” She voiced first. “We will go in first, to soften resistance and permit a larger force to take the facility with minimal casualties.”
“Us!?” Rex gasped.
“Makes sense,” Vandham shrugged. “We wanna take out the factory, Tora’s got personal stake in it, the lot of us are mostly Drivers, it’ll allow her to keep an eye on us, and if things go south, that’s one less problem for her to worry about.”
“I wouldn’t have put it so callously,” Mòrag shook her head. “But yes.”
Rex swallowed hard, still staring at the glowing map. “Well… I guess that’s settled, then.”
“Indeed.” Mòrag gave the group a solemn nod. “Gather any equipment you require. I will send word to the Ardainian troops to hold position and await our signal before advancing.”
--------------
The preparations they could make were simple – had to be, given their ‘probation.’ Tora worked to repair the battle damage to Poppi, Albedo was honing her form, Rex and Pyra were talking, Vandham was advising.
The Doctor stood by, watching.
“So, on a scale of one to ten,” Nia probed the Time Lord. “How likely is it we’re going to die against that robot?”
“Ah,” The Doctor coughed. “Well, it’s not zero…”
“Great.” Nia sighed, rubbing at her face. “Well, at least you can mess her up with the screwdriver.”
“Could – if I had it.” The Doctor shrugged.
“If you-“ Nia spluttered. “That’s a load of- all that crap in yer pockets, and you don’t keep spares!?”
“Since you asked, no!” The Doctor huffed. “When was the last time you saw someone who carried around two power drills on their person at all times?”
“Considering you’re eager to whip the thing out whenever, sue me for expecting you had more than the one.”
“It’s one of the most advanced pieces of technology in the universe – yeah, I’m proud of it!” He paused. “Actually, I hold the patent. Money’s not a problem, you know?”
“Well, good for you,” Nia crossed her arms. “So, what’re you going to do? Get down in the trenches and fight with us properly now?”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” The Doctor flippantly waved his hand. “The Screwdriver’s in communication with the TARDIS – if she detects it’s destroyed, she automatically begins growing a new one.” He then scowled. “I’ll have to redo all my settings. Although… it’s probably for the best.” He took a breath. “Been meaning to clean out the bloatware. Maybe she’ll get around to putting in the voice activation feature I’ve been asking for.”
“All of that stuff – and you’re busy playing around with us,” Nia frowned in confusion.
“Well, I like you.” The Doctor turned to her with a smile. Nia’s eyes popped open. “Humans, the lot of you. You’re never in for a boring day when you’re hanging around humans.”
Nia tilted her head, curious. “What’ll you do? After all this is done?”
“Ah, well,” The Doctor straightened his bow tie. “I showed up here because I was looking for someone. Didn’t find her. Thought maybe Albedo might’ve been her, at first. But no. I guess, afterward, I’ll get back to it. See what I can find.”
Nia slowly nodded, processing it. “…can I come?”
The Doctor recoiled, like he’d been hit. “Sorry?” That exact same tone of voice…
“Well, it’s just… You know, now.” Nia looked away. “Don’t have Torna. Don’t have home I can go back to.”
“But you have Rex and the others, don’t you?” The Doctor asked in confusion.
“I have Dromarch,” Nia shrugged. “But… hell, I don’t know. Rex is an alright kid, but I don’t think I could hit him with all that. Vandham’s… it’s gonna be awkward, throwing my lot in with him, no matter what he says – I was still part of Torna. Tora and Poppi… just, no. Hell no. Whatever they’re gonna get up to after all’s said and done, that’s their business. And Albedo…” Nia lowered her voice. “I dunno. There’s something off about her. Besides. She does work for a lot of powerful people. ‘S only gonna be a matter of time till one of them notices things about me don’t add up, if I stay with her.”
The Doctor thought it over for a moment, before smiling. “Nia – it would be my honour.”
“Wha- really?”
“Yes!” The Doctor happily nodded, spinning and pointing. “Look – it’d be fun! We could go looking for Clara together! Hit up all the pit stops along the way!”
Nia cocked her head to the side. “Who’s Clara?”
The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks, his smile dropping. “It’s…” He floundered, his hands rubbing together and flapping around. He had no idea how to explain that. Well, he did, but it was all a bit… much. Probably. “There was this woman I met. Twice.” And it was the same woman, not just similar faces. He could recognize that much. Time Lords always could tell. “Which, given my life, is rare enough. But she died. Both times.”
“She died?” Nia repeated. “And… what? Came back to life?”
“Maybe,” The Doctor rubbed his face. “Or maybe- maybe it’s reincarnation. The real deal. I’ve only ever seen it happen a handful of times. It’s very rare.”
Nia felt her arms drop to her side. “What? That stuff – it’s real?”
“Well, maybe not the way you expect,” The Doctor shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s such thing as an immortal spirit – but consciousness is a type of energy. The universe is a closed system, and energy is never destroyed, just… changed. And what I was saying about the Domain, when we visited – the minds tend to emerge from that in similar ways.” The Doctor coughed, with a hopeful smile. “So… maybe. And if it’s not, well, it’s worth a look, don’t you think?”
Nia smiled and nodded slightly in agreement. “Yeah. Worth a look.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Blimey, that’s a change! Ordinarily, you’re clowning on me for saying things like that.”
“Well, maybe I agree this time.”
“So, KOS-MOS,” Nia leaned closer to the Doctor.
“Yes. Why?”
“That’s not the name you called her.”
The Doctor stopped, hands reflexively going to his bow tie. “Sure it was, of course it was – I called her KOS-MOS.”
“Sure. But before all of that, when you saw her. You called her Mary.”
The Doctor pressed his lips together. “…you heard that.”
Nia pointed at her cat-ears.
The Time Lord sighed. “Funny you mention that, right after we get done talking about reincarnation.” He paused, his hands searching for something to grab in the conversation. “She was a good woman. Kind, patient, loving. I spent some time with her and her friends. A long time. Years. I helped them, and…” He gulped. “She helped me.” He clapped, and opened his hands somewhat. “My wife died while I was there. And the news was sent to the TARDIS. But I couldn’t leave – it was too dangerous. But Mary was there for me. And then she died. And it was my fault.”
The Time Lord leaned against the wall, sighing.
Because it was his fault. He could’ve warned them in more detail, pushed harder. But he didn’t.
But that was lifetimes ago.
“Anyway, she died,” The Doctor took a breath. “And almost ten-thousand years later, humanity made KOS-MOS in her image, and things happened, and her spirit got pulled in. And I thought she had been destroyed.”
“Really? Then what’s she doing here?”
“I don’t know,” The Doctor admitted. “It was a lot. And…” It happened in his Eighth body, so his perspective on the matter was very, very unclear. He had no clue what really went down, to be truthful – all the memory problems of that one. He knew the basics, the very bare-bones essentials, but not how he contributed, if he even did so at all.
“Busy times,” The Doctor finally stated. “Lost track of her. Don’t rightly know how she showed up here. But if the universe’s gone wibbly, well, anything could happen.”
After a moment, the Doctor straightened, rolling his shoulders and clapping his hands as though he were trying to shake off the melancholy.
“Right then! That’s quite enough introspection for today. We’ve got an illicit factory to deal with, and I, for one, would prefer to wrap this up and be home in time for when my new screwdriver finishes growing.”
-----------
When the lid of the cockpit raised, T-elos climbed out of the single-occupant craft without ceremony, her heels clicking on ancient petrified flesh. She paused as she scanned the ares, one gloved hand resting lightly on her hip. All around her stretched a wasteland of stone, walls and jagged pillars of it sticking out high into the air, the wind howling and whistling as it passed through them.
She moved forward in a slow, measured pace, unconcerned. Her eyes swept across the barren plateau, scanning for movement, any flicker of a presence. According to Giannis, the guy would be here.
But Giannis hadn’t included a name. Or a description.
How like a human to think she could go off so little information.
She could – she had half a brain. Look for the guy that was making trouble, and she’d find her Torna operative.
Still, there was the principle behind it.
T-elos turned her head, taking in the crater-pocked landscape again.
Her gaze settled on the swamp of churning, steaming, toiling purple poison; the wildlife around it giving it a wide berth.
She tilted her head to the side, studying it.
She traced a finger across a scorched patch of the ground, then flicked the dust away. No sign of the Torna operative. Standing back up, she looked over. Far in the distance was a camp, humans moving amongst themselves. On the other side of the expanse, closer to her, was another camp of people in differently-designed armour. That’ll be the Urayans and the Ardainians, fighting over the place.
Humans fighting over a corpse. The scraps. Little better than vultures.
Well, the guy wasn’t there yet, but T-elos could be patient. Finding a perch nearby, she sat, and began to hum to herself.
“In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen, stands a solitary candle…”
----------
The door to the chamber hissed as the hydraulics released, and Malos and Jin stepped inside. Malos was still dabbing at his face with a napkin.
What? He was a monster – not a slob.
“Ah, good, there you are,” Akhos didn’t turn around. His usual smug tone of voice had yet to return. He sounded… not defeated, but like he wished he had been.
Malos winced, and turned away.
“Look what I found on the scope.” Akhos gestured to the image. “Obrona may have been…” He shook his head suddenly. “In any case, the sensors are just as capable of detecting Ether signatures, and they picked up something very interesting.”
A grey wasteland appeared on the screen, desolate and empty. But, smack dab in the middle of it, was a large Titan, with armour panels and cables welded to its body.
“A Judicium Titan weapon.” Jin grunted.
“That’s right…” Akhos chuckled. Or, at least, tried to. “Looks like Mor Ardain finally managed to make something useful out of that dig site.” The Titan was half-buried into the stone still, still being excavated from its stone prison.
“It’s not out yet,” Malos crossed his arms. “Certainly not active. How did you know they dug it up?”
Akhos turned. “I didn’t.” He admitted that, at least. Seems he finally got what Malos was trying to teach him – just because you pretend to know it all, doesn’t mean you do. “I would have heard about it in time, certainly. Once they verified that they dug up a working one, no soldier would have been able to keep his mouth shut.”
Jin’s brow furrowed in confusion. “So… how did you know to track its Ether signature?”
“I didn’t,” Akhos repeated, turning back to the screen. “I was tracing other Ether signatures, trying to figure out where the Aegis fled to this time, when a truly powerful one caught my attention. Not the Titan weapon.” He selected a part of the screen, and zoomed in, on a craft on the shores of the dead Titan.
Jin’s face twisted into a scowl. “Indol.”
“Indeed,” Akhos hummed. “It seems the Praetor’s got quite the interest in the weapon, if he sent out a Blade that powerful.”
“In that case,” Malos drawled, as an idea came to him. “We might wanna… liberate it. Deal two blows to the Praetorium: the weapon, and their Blade.”
“Good idea.” Jin grunted, spinning around. “I’ll go. The two of you prep the Core Crystals for installation. Make Mikhail’s job a bit easier for him when he gets back.”
“Sure thing,” Malos smiled. “Do me a favour – don’t hold back.”
Jin began to walk to the door. “I never do.”
Malos waited as Jin departed, then turned his head only a fraction of an inch. “Akhos.”
The glasses-wearing Flesh Eater looked at him impatiently. “What is it?”
“Good work.” Then, Malos departed as well.
Chapter 25: Ten: Echoes
Chapter Text
The mood in the TARDIS feels like death shaking my hand, as the engines settle and the doors open. The next ‘convert’ walks out the doors like a robot, or some manner of zombie: blank in the mind, carrying documents, ID, money. They, like the rest of the three-hundred, will awaken to a life that has just begun, and believe it to have gone on for decades, if not longer.
They will have no way of knowing. No tells. At best, they will dream of a distant world with twin suns, orange skies, and crimson grass. Awaken feeling melancholy, without knowing why, and simply forget.
Van; I do what I can for him. He expected me to go through with it. I can only imagine what sort of betrayal he was feeling, not to mention the terror. But I gave him exactly what he wanted, in letter and in spirit, and I won’t forget what he did for me, however unintentionally, by granting me this TARDIS. Saving my life, giving me means to flee Gallifrey…
I tweak the Arch a little bit, play with the constructed identity a little bit. His intellect and his means will set him above. Not noticeably, to the Time Lords at least, but perhaps he can change humanity’s world for the better. Perhaps he’ll become a politician. Or a scientist. Whatever the case, he’ll be well off.
So, I don’t feel guilt as I send Van through the door.
If he is right, I can return, awaken him. Explain why I did what I did.
People are the sum of their memories. Time Lords more so. When you can regenerate – alter yourself so fundamentally that even the way you see colour is different – your memories are all you have. And even those aren’t perfect. Memory is only eidetic in the body it’s in; it shifts just like everything else during regeneration. Forgetting things that should be obvious, remembering things that never happened.
Perhaps that’s why the Time War scares me so. Why I felt so violated by the Council’s attempts to insert family into my life. It’s one thing to distrust memory between bodies for us, it’s another thing to distrust it in the same body.
So, no. I don’t feel guilt. Van got what he wished for, and so did I.
But, there is one other matter.
I turn around to face the Mechanic. She’s looking back at me.
I swallow. “The Arch is still set, if you want. Stick with the plan.”
She looks affronted, disgusted, repulsed. “Are you serious? You just knocked out one of your own friends! How do I know you won’t stab us all in the back?”
I tilt my head. “Why would I?”
“Because we’ve stolen a TARDIS, nitwit, and you’ve still got your biodata. The Council will track you down eventually, and when they do, they’ll either rip everything out of you with a mind probe-“
“No,” I wrench my eyes shut at the mere thought of it. Cold fingers curling and kneading at every part of the brain without regard, shuffling things around, knocking bits out of place or, worse, accidentally yanking out the part of your mind needed for autonomic functions. “Not the mind probe.”
“Yes, the mind probe.” She crossed her arms. “That, or they’ll offer you a plea bargain.”
“They won’t find me.”
“They’ve found better renegades than you.”
“They were all noisy blowhards with something to prove,” My retort is instant. “I don’t intend on going anywhere.”
Her arms fall to her sides. “So you’d what? Stay up here in orbit, halfway out of reality, trapped in a TARDIS for the rest of your days?”
“Better than dying in a war.” And I can’t help the shiver of disgust that goes rushing through me. “Better than dying as an insignificant little human.”
She narrows her eyes, turns, and goes stalking off deeper into the TARDIS.
Eventually, I remove my hands, and make my way to one of the internal observation towers. The spherical shell of the TARDIS’s internal superstructure – metal rings in which sat spheres of all different sizes, some as large as dwarf planets – floats in the magenta void. The radiation wavelengths flicker and cascade, and the metal of the TARDIS’s internals shine, bathed in the light of the Eye of Harmony at the centre of the superstructure, contained in a web of collectors and maintenance units.
A warble sounds from the wall as one of the roundels flips open, revealing a case of ginger pop.
I don’t feel guilty for imbibing. It’s been a long couple of weeks.
Still, I check the instruments. Just in case, to see if the authorities are on us. I check them again the next morning, and the morning after, and the morning after that. And even though, in theory, they should be unable to track us, the TARDIS can still receive updates from Gallifrey, so, might as well check up on the war effort. Until months have gone by, and it’s become routine.
Wake. Eat. Check the war bulletins. Recheck the biodata modules in the hold, where the three hundred souls sleep, uncertain if they’ll ever be awakened again. Go about the rest of my day, entertaining myself.
If I find everything in order - and I always do - I return to the library. The shelves are infinite. I’ve got nothing but time, and they’ve been collected from all over the universe. I could spend a thousand years, and not get through them all.
My associate… well, frankly, I didn’t really know or care what she was doing at the beginning, as long as she stayed out of my way.
Even so, the TARDIS is vast, and she quickly carves out her own little realm. I only discover the extent of it by accident.
It’s the thumping bass that draws me in - some crude, Earthbound melody pounding through the bulkheads, almost like the TARDIS itself was trying to make the sound permeate far throughout the ship. I follow the racket, half-expecting she’s got into the archives and found some old orchestration, but no-
When I open the door, neon purple light from flash-fabricated or TARDIS-coral LED strips punches me in the face. There’s a flat-panel screen that looks to have been repurposed from one of the spare visualiser displays, hooked into a metal box.
On the screen, a heavy car sways around, while the music blasting sings about fascination.
The Mechanic doesn’t look up. Just leans forward in the armchair, hands clutched around a crude little black plastic controller. Her character goes flying through the windshield of the car as another suddenly slams into hers, and then, her character - some bloke in a leather jacket - is launching a rocket-propelled grenade into the offending driver.
I stare for all of a moment. “What are you doing?”
“Entertaining myself,” She bluntly answers. “Since you won’t take this TARDIS anywhere.”
“Too risky.” Is the answer that comes up by reflex. I turn to look at the device. “How did you even-?”
“Firmware, hardware specifications, software – you can find all of it, if you take the time to look. I needed something to keep me busy. Not like there’s much else to do.”
“You could write a symphony.”
“And what band is going to play it?”
“Make some robots, grow yourself some clones, use an electronic orchestra.” Is my response. “Anything better than wasting your time in some primitive simulation made by primitive beings. One that you don’t even control, not really.”
“Mmm.” She’s not listening, and I can tell. Well, if she wants to rot her brain, that’s her prerogative.
I shut the door behind me, and go about my business.
The days grind together, the only sense of time that being the one kept by the clocks in the TARDIS. The bulletins that reach us are far from encouraging. Minor skirmishes between both sides – temporal operations that go wrong – are increasing in frequency. They’re not encouraging, but neither are they concerning.
Then the Cloister Bell begins to ring. A deep, reverberating tolling through the TARDIS that wakes both of us, heralding the full outbreak of the Time War. Both sides aren’t directly engaging one another on the homefront – they’re too well protected for that. So they settle for other close worlds – metaphysically, temporally, strategically, politically – and attack them.
In that first salvo, fifty-thousand star systems are wiped away. Not destroyed, not occupied, but erased. Retro-annulled from existence.
It’s good we got out when we did, is all I can really take solace in. Then, we go about our business.
The days go by.
There is constant news from Gallifrey. All of it bad. We’re not privy to high-level communications, but the chatter is telling. Already, the Daleks are winning. Why shouldn’t they?
Their entire existence is to wage war. We’ve made ours on not doing that. Not doing much of anything, really. We don’t know how to fight a war.
Whole battalions are dying and being brought back from just before the moment they died via extraction chambers and time scoops. The thought of the potential paradoxes this could cause is nothing compared to a universe ruled by the Daleks. But they’re being thrown into the grinder, just to stall. We’re not used to waging war.
We used to, long, long ago. Not anymore.
I start to dread the tone of the update chime, but I can’t shut it off, either. How else will we know when the war ends? The Mechanic doesn’t share my obsession. I don’t know why. It’s her homeworld, too, shouldn’t she care?
Or, maybe she does care, enough not to pelt herself with the same news. ‘Everything is terrible, and there’s nothing anyone can do.’
And it’s only two months into the war.
But perhaps she’s wiser than me, in that respect. She knows there’s nothing she herself can do, and refusing to torture herself with that, she throws herself into childish retreats.
This time, the music is martial, tribal drumbeats coupled with choirs. Funnily enough, if there were any structure to the chanting, they might have almost sounded like they were speaking Gallifreyan. That was what caught my eye, that time. But, no, it’s another one of her games. On the screen, soldiers in bulky green armour charge across green fields peppered with angular, technological towers, firing bright lances of plasma and ballistic weapons.
“What is it now?” I ask from the doorway.
She doesn’t look away from the screen. “Halo 3.”
I wait for an explanation. One doesn’t come.
“…And that means?”
She exhales, as though I’m the one trying her patience. “Aliens called the Covenant are trying to wipe out humanity. Because other aliens, the Forerunners, left humanity their technology. So, the Covenant decided humanity was blasphemous. One of those is a ringworld – the Halo – built to wipe out all life in the galaxy, but the Covenant think it’ll propel them to godhood. So, to activate all the rings, they have to go to a place called the Ark, which can only be accessed through a portal hidden in the African Continent on Earth, which was also subtly manipulating human evolution for the past one-hundred thousand years.”
“Ridiculous.”
She pauses, thumb hovering over the buttons. “What’s ridiculous?”
I gesture at the carnage. “If an alien race were advanced enough to build constructs like that, why would they leave them behind for humans to blunder into? It’s childish. A plot invented by people who never learned that advanced civilisations don’t leave their toys lying about for primitives to burn themselves with. At least that crime game could have taken place in reality.”
She shakes her head. “They’re not aliens. They’re humans.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Forerunners. They’re humans. Or close enough.”
I can’t help the roll of my eyes. “Samaarians, then. Call them what you like. The conceit is the same - a species imagining itself important enough to inherit the leavings of the gods.”
“I’d argue we were the same.”
“We earned what we struggled for. Overcame such primitive existences long ago through our own merit.”
She finally looks at me. There’s nothing in her expression but weariness. “It’s a game.”
“Yes.” I turn away. “And a rather stupid one.”
I hear her sigh behind me as I leave, but she doesn’t follow.
Later, back in the console room, I try to put it out of my mind. I was quite possibly overreacting – but she came with me and Van to escape a war, and she’ll go play through one?
Then again, I was never really the best with people.
It’s just stress. That’s all. I’m stressed.
It’s making me jump at things that’re non-issues. I need a hobby.
The console sounds a whistle again, the screen switching on to display the latest bulletin. That time of day again already, is it?
I read the headline, and freeze.
Something so brazenly surreal that I replay it several times just to be certain it isn’t some childish hoax. There’s a man with a crewcut, in crimson robes with golden brocade patterning. He doesn’t look at all like the kind of man to lead a war effort – if you hadn’t grown up seeing his face plastered all over history books as the one solely responsible for the building of your empire.
The headline reads:
THE LORD PRESIDENT HAS RETURNED.
He carries the Staff of Rassilon. Wears upon his hand the Gauntlet. Around his shoulders, the Sash. Those three artefacts – never to be granted all to one singular person – his face, and the headline proclaiming him the Lord President returned…
It’s him.
Rassilon.
The Architect. Of our empire, of our way of life, of our very reality itself. Worshipped in the books of millions of primitive races, even if they don’t know it consciously. We (and they) owe him our existence.
And he’s back, risen from the dead to lead us.
He led the war against the likes of Great Vampires, the Racnoss, and the Kotturuh. Put us on top.
Maybe we’ll be all right. With him in charge, we can’t lose, can we? All we’ve gotta do now is wait it out. The Daleks will no doubt be conquered and burned from history, it’s just a matter of time. He’s more suited to leading a war than anyone, he’s done this sort of thing.
I tell the Mechanic.
She doesn’t seem as comforted as I.
“Rassilon’s been dead for ten million years. And even then, it’s just him, isn’t it? The men on the ground are made from different stuff than he is.”
I can’t really argue with that.
But I keep checking anyway. Every day. Hoping to see that Rassilon just hit a button, and the War is no more.
The Enemy changes. They’re Daleks at first. Then a plan to wipe them from history succeeds – and it’s irrelevant, because now we’re fighting Cybermen (nature does abhor a vacuum). Just as intelligent, just as adaptable as the Daleks, but more focused on conversion than extermination, or some other race of future-humans that severed their own heads and placed them into metal combat shells to pilot. And then time snaps back, and we’re fighting the Daleks again. Another attempt, and suddenly we’re fighting gigantic, telepathic, mutated Earth spiders. Then the Daleks again. Then it’s a civil war, being fought between the Houses of Gallifrey, or sometimes even against our own TARDISes. Back to the Daleks. Then, we’re fighting the Samaarians; their armies of slave homunculi being led by a battle mech they call Vita, bringing in their wake antimatter creatures that rip apart whole worlds, in retribution for almost destroying them with the Cruciform. Then, history shifts, and we’re back to fighting the Daleks.
It's always back to the Daleks.
Whatever they’ve done has infested the universe itself, so that even when we try, Gallifrey cannot escape war. Or perhaps they’re simply the preferred form of the true Enemy – a force of overwhelming power and inscrutable motives, that seeks nothing less than the total destruction of Gallifrey and its people, and will co-opt whatever process or species it needs to do that. Perhaps there’s no real Enemy at all, and the ‘war’ we fight is simply the process of our kind becoming irrelevant to the wider universe. By that token, it doesn’t matter what the Enemy is, only that we are destined to fall, and our Enemy is simply the cosmos’s way of rationalizing the oldest and most powerful civilisation becoming insignificant.
Perhaps the Enemy is simply the sum of our crimes against causality, coalesced into something that at last became real enough to feel hate.
Time Lords are complex space-time events. Wave existences given physical form. Perhaps the Enemy are waves of the natural opposing force. We cannot avoid war with it, because in moving through the universe, we give rise to it. It’s our wake.
In the end, though, it doesn’t matter.
Either we win, or it wins. But, it’s said that Rassilon knew this event would come, prepared for it, even. He’ll save us. He has to.
In any case, all the doom and gloom of the war starts to get to me. Unless I see a headline that reads ‘WAR OVER,’ we’ll remain right where we are. It’s pointless to focus on anything else, absorbing the bad news.
I take up a hobby. The TARDIS has an art studio, filled with tools of all different stripes. In the centre of the room is a computer. On Gallifrey, art’s generated by computer, so I’m not sure why the room is stocked with other instruments for the task.
They’re all so imprecise anyway.
So, that’s where things stand. The Mechanic playing through primitive distractions, while I embrace my higher calling. Art.
It’s easy for me to feed words into the system. Adjust the weights, tweak it. To what end, precisely, I don’t know yet.
I decide to create a face. A vision of the woman I used to know.
I spend weeks, months, trying to get it right. I can control every pore on her skin, the placement of every freckle, the precise shape of her hair. But her face eludes me.
I don’t know what she looks like. Her face continues to escape me, and yet, every time the output flashes across the screen, I know it’s not her.
It’s frustrating. I could have done great things with her, and now I’m holed up in an art studio, stuck.
I create visions, portraits, landscapes, cast from a thousand different worlds. It’s therapeutic.
And that’s how things go. For a while.
The first decade, we barely spoke because there was nothing to say. I didn’t need her here, and she didn’t want to be here, but remained because she didn’t trust me. On the rare occasions we interacted, we would stand on opposite sides of the console, each pretending the other didn’t exist. I contented myself with my art, she contented herself with her games.
The twentieth year, when any interaction seemed viable, we started picking at each other, little jabs mostly. Other than that, we left ourselves to our own devices. The TARDIS was an Astronomical Unit, after all.
Thirty years in, she began leaving her things in my spaces on purpose. A spanner on the navigation plinth. A half-drunk cup of tea next to my computer with a message to pick up a paintbrush. I can retort just as easily. Messages telling her to touch grass, triggering the copy-protection in her games so when she comes back they’re going haywire. It doesn’t feel quite like a feud, rather, we’re passing the time.
Forty is where things start to sour again. The war isn’t stopping, and both of us are starting to feel the stress compound as home grows to be an ever-distant unlikelihood. She starts to drop hints. She wants to go somewhere. Do something. The games aren’t scratching that itch anymore. I don’t want to. It’s too dangerous.
She enters my art studio again, while I’m working on my latest piece. Redoing it over, and over, and over again. The input is long enough that, to print it all, would result in a book that – lying flat on its back – would go halfway up to someone’s knee. It painstakingly describes everything. Every blade of grass, ripple of light, crack, scratch, and bump of the metal. The way the fire is shaped, the texture of the clouds. A crown, suspended by chains, hangs over a well on Gallifrey. The chains are cracking. To break them all at once would send it plunging into the well, into the darkness. Around the well are roaring fires, so, breaking the wrong chains first would send the crown right into the blaze.
Not sure what the symbolism is supposed to mean, if anything.
“You realise you’re missing the whole point of art in doing that, right?”
I clench my jaw. “It’s expression.”
“That technique is supposed to take advantage of chaos theory, you know. Refining a prompt so much you get the exact same picture every time without the seed being manipulated is typically a malfunction.”
“That’s completely idiotic.” Is my retort. “They are computers. They are machines that execute instructions. Random chance has no place in a programme like this.”
“So, pick up a paintbrush.”
“Absolutely not.” Aside from the sensory issues (paint is far too close to blood for my taste), “You might be able to control the overall movement of the brush, but what of the bristles? All that dragging, wiggling around, uncontrolled.”
She looks stern, concerned, and more than a little peeved. “You’re mad you can’t control the individual bristles’ movement?”
“Yes.” It’s not an answer I’m ashamed of. “Think about it. If you get too close enough, you start seeing the imperfections. With this, I can control everything.”
She crosses her arms. “Is that why you dumped Van on Earth and ran? There wasn’t enough control for you?”
My back straightens. “Yes.”
She lets out an angry huff. “Oh, of course. It’s control. And you didn’t even let him have it-“
“I gave him exactly what he wished!” I cut her off, raising my voice. “He wanted to hide out on Earth, human, I made it happen!”
“And you knocked him out to do it!”
“I was protecting my right to a choice! And respecting his! Why should I be made to follow his instructions against my will!?”
“It’s not about that!” She spreads her arms.
“I am a Time Lord, the same as you – we have the right to control our destiny!”
“That’s-“ She splutters. “Look at this; you call this control!? You’re not in control of anything except what time you wake up in the day, what you’re going to work on, what you’re going to eat, and when you go to sleep, while the universe burns!”
“And what would you do?”
“I’d live!” She bellows. “You’re putting everyone he saved at risk, just by remaining as yourself, and so am I, but you’re not doing anything with it! You fought to leave Gallifrey, turned on your friend and went against his plan to save several hundred people, and now that we’re here? We’re just sitting!”
“It’s safe.” I hiss back at her. “At least this way, we can be one-hundred-percent sure the TARDIS will be in good condition to return the others’ biodata to them.”
“It’s not safe! You and me have got a connection to the Matrix – it’s constantly being updated! The only reason they haven’t come after us so far is because they figure a couple of draft dodgers are probably not worth the risk! And instead of keeping constantly moving, keeping ahead of the Matrix’s ability to update our location, we’re just sitting here!”
“What do you want to do then!?”
“I want to move! Get out there! See the universe before the Time War destroys another fifty-thousand star systems! I want it all to mean something, and not for us to just sit here and wait for the Time Lords to get desperate enough to hunt us down!”
I sit there, and process her words.
She takes a breath, struggling to gesture. “We’re just sitting here. While the universe is at war around us. We’re just being. Like we’re in stasis, waiting for the outside to change. An endless, sterile now. And I don’t want to live like this. Confined to a TARDIS, waiting for the war to end or for the authorities to throw us into it without a second thought.” She looks me in the eyes, pleading. “It’s meaningless as it is. We could go somewhere, do something, and still, not get involved in the war.”
I look up at her. Hopeful. “How?”
---------------
The Doctor never had the job of corralling a raging Nopon. Thank God – judging by the display happening now, he was glad he never had to.
Riki was a tumbling ball full of wrath and energy, bounding around, trying to strike at all of them. Reyn’s giant arms lunged out, swiped, and missed entirely. Sharla was more focused on the winged girl. Fiora, lightest on her feet, tried to help, but Riki was faster.
It was Elma who, finally, huffed, and tackled him. Grunting as she hauled him up.
“Ah! Riki not- Riki die before he let strangers harm Melly!” He thrashed and twisted his head, trying to go for Elma’s wrist.
“Riki!” Fiora raised her voice. “We’re not going to hurt your friend! This man here is a doctor!”
Riki froze before he could bite, as Fiora’s words registered. He blinked his beady black eyes, glancing at the Doctor, then at Melia, then back again. Slowly, he turned, narrowing his eyes at the Time Lord.
“You doctor?” He demanded suspiciously, jabbing a stubby claw at the Doctor’s chest. “No lie?”
“That’s right,” The Doctor said carefully, smoothing his coat, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. “We only want to help her.”
Riki sniffed, feathers puffing up in obvious scepticism. But his gaze flicked back to Melia’s prone form, and some of the fight drained out of him.
“Mysteriouspon still not back,” He rumbled, before nodding. “Okay. Riki let friends help. But!” He narrowed his eyes once more. “Hurt Melly again, Riki go cuckoo-crazy!”
“Well, glad to see diplomacy won out.” Elma commented, letting Riki down.
“That’s not what I’d call it,” Reyn scowled, rubbing the bitemarks on his ankle.
Sharla snorted. “You’ll be fine. Or can big, tough Reyn not handle a little love-bite from a little Nopon?”
“Sharla!” Reyn whined.
“Don’t worry, we have an easy fix for both.” The Doctor pointedly turned, and raised an eyebrow at Shulk. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Shulk blinked in confusion, before jolting. “Right, of course!” He lifted the Monado, and the blade popped open, the Ether blade igniting a moment later. Shulk willed the sword and, in response, the blade shifted to an orange-gold glow, as the symbol for Renew appeared in the glass circle.
The wound on Reyn’s ankle sealed up without even the slightest hint of scar tissue, as Melia’s body began to emit the shine as well.
The bent-up wing on her head twisted, cracked, and with a gooey pop, settled back into the right place, no worse for wear. The other assorted cuts and bruises faded.
The glow subsided, and Shulk returned the Monado to its place on his back.
Elma crossed her arms, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Incredible. What is that – some form of energy-based healing?”
“Yeah, it’s, um…” The Doctor scratched his head. “Regeneration energy.”
“What?” Elma blinked.
“Yeah.”
“But-“ Elma spluttered. “That’s not just something you can copy by looking at it.”
“No,” The Doctor coughed, crouching low next to Melia, scanning her over with the Sonic. “Pretty sure the Monado stole a sample of my DNA to do it. But, it seems to have worked. She’s very receptive to it.” He held the screwdriver to his ear. “Both hearts working now…”
Elma straightened. “Hold on, did you say two-“
“Indeed.” A voice that was not belonging to any of them answered the Doctor’s question, as the ground crunched under footsteps. All turned, jumping on the defensive, as a silver-haired man with a crimson, cross-shaped pendant around his neck emerged from the trees. Much like them, and Melia, he was wearing patchwork furs. “We High Entia all possess twin-hearted circulatory systems.”
He strode up to them, completely comfortable, entirely nonplussed by their weapons and stances.
“Being capable of flight, we can reach altitudes where the air becomes dangerously thin. Our lung framework, coupled with our twin-hearts, can allow us to achieve extreme altitudes, without falling prey to the cold, or oxygen deprivation.”
Everyone blinked, kind of just staring, before Riki reacted.
“Alvis back!” Riki jumped happily. “Take forever! Riki just one heropon! If new friends were baddypons, they could have hurt Melly no problem!”
“In that case, I’m glad to see you remained steadfast and true.” Alvis hummed.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. Something about his voice and face was familiar.
“Hang on – you know this little ankle-biter?” Reyn demanded.
Alvis simply nodded with a tranquil smile. “I do.”
“Great – maybe you can take him off our hands.”
“And while you’re at it,” Sharla shifted. “Take Reyn, too.”
“OI!”
Alvis chuckled, putting a hand to his chest. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. I’m-“
The Doctor raised a single eyebrow. “A man of wealth and taste?”
Alvis cocked his head to the side.
“All I’m saying, loving the posh gentleman thing you’ve got going on,” The Doctor gestured to his throat to indicate his accent. “And the jewellery. Very ‘noble savage’ of you.” His eyes flickered to the cross-shaped necklace. “Hang on – do I know you?”
Alvis’s lips twitched, then he dipped his head slightly. “My name is Alvis. I am an attendant of Lady Melia.”
“Oh, she’s a lady?” The Doctor turned.
“This is incredible,” Sharla blinked. “We only just recently realized the High Entia were real, and here we are. Meeting you two.”
“Yes,” Alvis hummed lightly. “Fate does work in ways beyond our understanding.”
Elma narrowed her eyes, looking the man up-and-down. Her eyes settled on his pendant, and her eyes widened. Her arms went slack at her sides, and she just stared for a moment.
“…Alvis, was it?” Elma spoke. At his nod, she continued. “The High Entia – is that your people? Do you think they might be able to assist us?” Elma inquired, gesturing around. “We’re looking for a way to get to Eryth Sea.”
Alvis then shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Melia and I are the only High Entia in this region. Our people do not tend to leave the safety of our city.”
“The two of you are High Entia!?” Shulk gasped out in surprise. His eyes flicked over to Melia again.
“Run… Run, you clever…”
“But-” Shulk blinked. His mind was spinning. Here they were, trying to get to Prison Island, said to have been built by the High Entia, and here they are, running into them, and one of them just-so-happens to be the girl from his vision of Prison Island.
“We must be on the right track then.” Shulk said at last.
“Hang on,” Fiora interjected, looking at Alvis with a thoughtful frown. “If you two are High Entia, why are you here? I thought the Nopon controlled this forest.”
“They do. But there are certain matters we had to handle.” Alvis answered simply.
“Wait,” Reyn cut in. “If you’re High Entia, how come she has wings and you don’t?”
“Oh, sexual dimorphism, probably,” The Doctor took a breath. “The females probably have larger wings-“
Alvis shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I come from a long line of High Entia that have mingled with Homs blood. My family lost our wings many generations ago, but we still possess the other blessings of High Entia blood.”
“Really.” Elma hummed thoughtfully.
“Alvis,” Shulk turned to him. “Do you think the Nopon would let us through up to Eryth Sea?”
“I see no reason why they shouldn’t,” Alvis answered politely. “Melia and I originate from that place. It would be rather odd for them to prevent us from returning.”
“So, the High Entia are on Eryth Sea,” Fiora shifted, thinking. “And so is Prison Island. So, we’re both going to the same place.” She looked at him. “We should team up. Since we both have to go to Eryth Sea. What were you and Melia doing here? We might be able to help.”
Riki let out a hateful caw. “Dinobeast! Dinobeast hurt Melly, kill friends, almost kill Alvis, and run away!”
Alvis nodded. “We were hunting a dangerous creature, harmful to these lands. A T-“
Melia groaned, as she began to stir.
“Oi, she’s waking up!” Reyn hollered.
“Now, now, everyone back!” The Doctor said to the rest of them, even as he rushed over and got close. “Don’t crowd her; give her some space.”
The silver-haired woman’s eyes fluttered open as she groaned weakly. Her twitching, blue orbs slowly drifted around.
“There we are – hello,” The Doctor softly intoned, greeting her with a kind smile. “My name’s the Doctor.”
“Doc…tor…” Melia struggled to get out.
“That’s right.” The Time Lord nodded, reaching out. “We found you on the ground.” His hand inched toward her shoulder. “How are you feel-?” Upon contact, Melia took a sharp breath.
“Get your hands off me!” She snapped, her hand flying out to his cheek at lightspeed. So quickly, even he couldn’t process it until it happened.
The crack echoed throughout the woods, as the Doctor’s head twisted, his skin flared orangey-red, and his hand went up to his cheek.
“Oi, watch it!” Reyn jolted forward, stopped by Fiora’s arm going out.
Silence reigned in the clearing momentarily, as the Doctor stood shock-still, touching the area.
“…you just struck me.” He stared in surprise. He survived blunt-force-trauma, being irradiated, poisoned, and worse. The pain from slaps that human women (i.e. the mothers of the people he tended to travel with, whenever they got the urge) inflicted on him tended to be performative more than anything else. It gave them a sense of satisfaction, and moving with the slap meant that they didn’t break their wrists.
But that one actually got him, by Omega’s beard.
Melia began to lean up, and looked away. “Forgive me. Your hand was… cold.”
“No, but… it hurt.”
Melia shook her head. “I did not mean to-“
“No, no, it’s fine! It’s all fine!” The Doctor gesticulated quickly with a smile. “Probably gave you a good scare!” And he was filled with a very odd sense of familiarity, looking at her. Her face, her voice, those eyes. He’d met someone very similar to her before – what was her name? Cara… Lara… Sarah…
Ah, right, that’s it! Sarah Clark. When he and Rose got into that trouble, when Rose wanted to go back to the day her father died, that was the name of the woman whose wedding Rose’s father was supposed to be getting a gift for, when he got struck by the car. The Doctor recalled that Reaper eating him, then him reappearing minutes later where he’d been standing, before Sarah told him to run and remember something. ‘Something’ being Rose, who had just watched her dad get hit by the car, and the Doctor in turn reminded Rose to go to him before it was too late.
That day. Hoo, boy.
(He was probably a bit too rough on Rose, during that whole thing. All worked out in the end though.)
“Sorry, just, you know how I am – see someone in trouble, ‘whoop, there he goes!’ That’s me, all over.” The Doctor motormouthed. He had a brief flare-up of a hazy memory. “You know – woman gets her mind sucked out of her body by the Great Intelligence living in the wi-fi networks; can’t help it! It’s like a compulsion.”
“I… I see…” Melia blinked, looking around. Her gaze landed upon Riki and Alvis, and she gasped, shooting to her feet. “Alvis!” She rushed over, freezing in place as she looked over his torso. “Hold on… but you were-“
“T’was but a mere flesh wound,” Alvis smiled, and dipped his head. “You seem quite alright, despite the damage to your wings.”
Melia’s hands went up to them. “Yes, I…” She blinked, staring afar for a moment. “I hit the ground and they… it was agonizing.” She swallowed. “I only maintained enough presence of mind to release another blast of Ether. Speaking of which,” She glanced around. “Did it work?”
Alvis solemnly shook his head. “I’m afraid not. But, take comfort – the beast is weaker than it has ever been.”
Riki let out a little, feral growl, dancing around. “Melly send Dinobeast running like spanked littlepon!”
Melia looked far from comforted. “It ran again?” She let out a weak, defeated huff, leaning up against the tree. She stared blankly into space. “We loosed our strongest attacks… risked severe injury… and all we managed to do was weaken it?” She dimly stared. “Is this what this mission is to be? A war of attrition, against an enemy that can merely… Regenerate its injuries?”
“Regenerate?” The Doctor’s head piqued up in concern. It was a common ability, rapid healing from wounds – they didn’t have a monopoly on that. They had a monopoly on the mechanism, but plenty of life forms could rapidly heal. But given the Time Lord fingerprints all over this mess…
Riki let out another growl of rage. “Dinobeast tougher than callous on Orluga’s foot!”
They blinked.
Alvis cleared his throat. “The creature we have been sent to subdue possesses the ability to utilise Ether particles to overdrive its body’s own healing capabilities. However, I did take notice that the last blast seemed to cause our foe no small amount of pain. It would seem the ability has its limits.”
“Then we should help!” Fiora decided. “The three of you managed to put a dent in it; all of us, together, we could take it down entirely!”
Elma nodded in agreement. “I’ve had my fair share of difficult wildlife as well, ma’am.”
“Hey, hang on!” Reyn huffed, twitching as he looked around. “It’s a bit quick to pile onto the wagon! Don’t get me wrong, I like a good scrap – but we don’t even know this lot, and we’ve got Mechon to deal with.”
Melia turned to look at him. “Mechon?”
Shulk nodded. “We’re trying to stop the Mechon attacks at their source. But the Mechon have been adapting to the Monado. I’ve designed a replica, but, just in case, it would be for the best if we can power up the original. To do that, I think we need to go to Prison Island.” He blinked, as a shiver ran down his spine. He was standing there, talking to a woman he saw speared by a Mechon, probably unwittingly giving her the idea that led to her going to Prison Island to begin with. “Maybe.”
“Monado?” Melia blinked, looking over Shulk’s shoulder at the weapon. “That can’t-” Her eyes focused on it, absently gazing. “But it was confined…”
Shulk’s eyebrows shot up. “Confined?”
Alvis chuckled. “In Ose Tower, on the Bionis’s Right Arm. A rather remote location. Only those who are in my family ever make the trek out there, these days.”
The Doctor shifted and shuffled, his interest piqued. Mysterious gentleman wearing a red pendant, who just-so-happened to sound and look like the one who had appeared to him prior to weigh in on the Bionis and Mechonis fight? And he just let that detail slip? “Really? You’re familiar with the Monado, then?”
Alvis’s lips twitched. “Quite familiar. Just as I am with the one who wields it.”
Shulk let out a gasp. “With me?”
Alvis walked up, and got close, leaning forward slightly. “Shulk. He who wields the Monado with even greater skill and clarity than the legendary Hero of Sword Valley.”
Shulk released an awkward, sheepish chuckle. “I don’t know about that. I haven’t killed half as many Mechon as Dunban has.”
Alvis slinked around, viewing the weapon closely. “True skill with the Monado is not measured by how many opponents you destroy with it. Rather, how effective you are at controlling it.”
The Doctor glanced at Shulk. “You did say the Monado was a bit too much for even Dunban to handle. You’re- well, not to put too fine a point to it, but it doesn’t really seem to affect you at all.” Besides the aggression – but the Doctor was more hoping that was teenage boy angst rather than the Monado influencing Shulk. He would know.
What, you thought an old man hatched a scheme to steal a TARDIS and run away from his homeworld? No – that was the Gallifreyan equivalent of a teenage boy getting fed up, hatching a plan to run by stealing the keys to his parents’ Honda Civic, before reason won out. Except, well, he never grew out of his angsty teenager days.
Elma crossed her arms. “That’s true of any weapon.”
Alvis glanced her way, “Indeed. But the Monado is a cut above,” He turned to Melia. “I advise you accept their help. The Monado alone would be indispensable.”
A shadow passed over Melia’s face. “We will make camp first.” She declared without really answering the question. “I shall consider it there.” She turned, and began to walk.
Curious, the others all regarded one another, before Alvis gestured, and they followed.
But, unbeknownst to them, far above their heads, a bulbous, metal drone stared down at them, glaring with a large, unblinking optic.
--------------
“He still hasn’t departed,” Meyneth noted with concern, watching that Doctor on the screen with wide eyes. “That’s not-”
“Lady Meyneth,” Vanea reached out to touch her shoulder. “Don’t fret. The face units may have failed, but we can salvage the situation, still.” Meyneth chose not to answer, and Vanea proceeded.
The look on Meyneth’s stolen face was harrowing – no other way to put it into words. The sheer anxiety in her face was the kind that seemed attached only to one other being. Vanea didn’t want to consider what that meant – if He was already loose.
“That Doctor – who is he? Why does he frighten you so?”
“It’s not who he is that frightens me,” Meyneth replied, shaking her head. “It is what he has brought with him. His TARDIS.” She closed her eyes, deep in thought. “Our enemy targets it now, in his all-consuming drive. He cannot be allowed to claim it for himself.”
“I… don’t understand,” Vanea shook her head. “Why? The machine is simple transport, is it not?”
“Transport, yes. Simple, no.” Meyneth touched a hand to her chin. “The craft is a time machine.”
“A-” Vanea’s eyes unfocused, her mind already sparking with ideas and considerations, even as her next word seemed in opposition to what was in her head. “Impossible.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Well, this is wondrous news, is it not?” Vanea asked hopefully. “We could undo all that has transpired! End this battle for good! Save countless people.”
“We could. If I possessed the knowledge how to pilot the machine.” Meyneth paused, and Vanea blinked. “I do not. But our foe does.”
Vanea paled. “How?”
“She spoke to me,” Meyneth looked skyward. “Our foe’s vessel stepped through her threshold. He witnessed the Doctor initiating the take-off sequence, giving him an idea of the control layout. That’s all he needs. She was rather hoping we could persuade him to leave – that he did not need to be here – but if that is not working,” Meyneth turned about, “When Zanza awakens properly, he will move in the direction of that machine.”
Vanea felt hopelessly nauseated at the thought of it. That one with a time machine…
“The destruction he could wreak would be incalculable.” Meyneth pensively hummed.
“Then we should destroy it,” Vanea resolved. “Prevent him from accessing it.”
“I’m afraid that’s quite impossible,” Meyneth shook her head. “We don’t have the means to accomplish such a thing, and even if we did, the detonation of the ship’s engine and power source would wipe out all life on Bionis and Mechonis.”
Vanea reeled, her jaw falling open. “Wipe out all life?”
Meyneth hummed, idly stroking the stubble that coalesced into a beard near her chin. She’d been doing that a lot – Vanea wasn’t sure if it was Dunban’s muscle-memory, or Meyneth now having a beard to stroke in thought made her want to do it.
“Destroy everything.” Meyneth vocalised. “The Titans, the life upon them, and the sea and the ground beneath.” She paused for but a moment. “If you were to travel out from Bionis and Mechonis in a straight line, in one direction, at the speed of light, you could travel for years, and still not come across any landmasses. Just sea.”
Vanea furrowed her brow in confusion. “That’s what’s thought, yes.”
Meyneth nodded. “The eruption of the power source inside the Doctor’s TARDIS would annihilate all of it.”
Vanea took a step back, quietly horrified. “How is that possible?”
“The craft is powered by a star.” Meyneth gestured. “Not the portals in the sky through which light and Ether flow into our world, but an impossibly large, toiling mass that releases Ether and energy. And it has such mass that it is close to collapsing into a singularity, but is held back by looping time. But if the process were to complete, the outer layers of the star would shear away, escaping the gravity holding them in place, creating a shockwave. That shockwave would travel for light-years, and annihilate everything in its path before spreading out enough and losing enough energy before all that’s left would be high-energy radiation that would also decay.” She took a moment to pause. “Zanza and I call the phenomenon a ‘supernova.’
“Could-” Vanea gulped. “Could we transport the craft here?” Vanea inquired, leaning forward. “Keep it out of his hands?”
“Our enemy can warp anywhere, with no medium able to stop him,” Meyneth shook her head. “It would be no safer here with us than it is on Bionis.” She crossed her arms. “And there is also the matter of Egil. I doubt he would allocate the Mechon without wishing to know what is going on.”
“Then what do we do?” Vanea pleaded. “Lady Meyneth – you’re speaking of a problem, but not offering solutions!”
“There are two.” Meyneth spoke after a moment’s thought. “We persuade the Doctor to leave. This is proving difficult. But, perhaps if I could articulate the danger to him properly, he will see reason.”
“Then, what is the other option?”
Meyneth looked displeased with what she was about to say. “We kill the Doctor.”
Vanea tilted her head in confusion. “How will that help?”
“The ship and pilot are linked.” Meyneth spoke solemnly. “If he dies, the backlash will cut through a number of critical systems. Rather like losing a limb, and going into shock. It is not immediately fatal, but will be in a very short amount of time. And she will die as well. In a safer manner than trying to destroy her outright.”
“Are you certain of that?” Vanea pressed. “What you spoke of happening-“
“There are a number of safety features and systems designed to safely disperse the Eye of Harmony if the ship dies,” Meyneth exhaled. “Those systems would be destroyed if we just destroyed her, but in the case of a natural death, they would initialise without issue.” She closed her eyes, and took a breath. “I would hope that the years have mellowed our old enemy. But if they have not, we must prevent the escape of his physical form. If we cannot do that, we must minimise the damage he could cause. Which means ridding him of the Monado, the TARDIS – anything and everything he can use to inflict harm.”
“The Monado is simple,” Vanea swallowed. “Egil is trying to kill its wielder already. But you said you spoke to the craft? It is alive? Are you certain it will allow you to harm its pilot so?”
Meyneth looked dead at Vanea. “She told me to do it.”
-------------
Camp was made rather quickly, bedrolls and tents set up around what they designated to be the fire pit. While they worked, the Doctor felt a… gravitation towards Melia. It had to do with what she looked like.
Not like that, get your mind out of the gutter.
Shulk was a scrawny kid (as scrawny as the Doctor used to be), but there was a bit of bulk around his arms – the result of lifting heavy boxes and machinery. Fiora had a bit of daintiness about her, but she still had the finely-honed form of someone who had been in the military and made at least a little attempt to keep in that shape. Reyn was Reyn, no need to comment there. Sharla was a combat medic. Elma spoke for herself (she could kill all of them with half a glance). Riki may have looked soft and cuddly, but he proved his fighting spirit already. And Alvis, mysterious gentleman, had a bit of bulk about him too.
Melia looked too soft. Skin sheltered from sunlight for years and years. Hardly any muscle to her.
Not someone you’d expect to find in a situation like this.
The Doctor approached, putting his hands into his pockets, watching as she looked off into the jungle. “You keeping watch?”
Melia jumped slightly, but composed herself rapidly. “I suppose, from a certain point of view. But you needn’t be worried. It does not concern you.”
“Oh, but it does,” The Doctor retorted, glancing around. “’s not everyday you find someone in the jungle the way we found you.”
Melia huffed, and turned away her head. “Alvis has already spoken too much. I, on the other hand, shall not be divulging anything to common passers-by.”
“Ah, yep, that’s me!” The Doctor beamed happily. “Just a traveller, passing through! And do you know the best thing about that? Everybody tells you their secrets,” He sat nearby, grinning. “They look at you and think, ‘he’s not from round here,’ and suddenly you’re their confessional booth on legs. You’re not gonna blab to their neighbour or start a scandal - what’re you gonna do, eh? Go shouting, ‘excuse me, the butcher’s been feeding bodies to the pigs’ or telling people the babysitter and the single mum everybody likes are actually in a secret love-affair? No one listens to the madman in the coat. Best-kept secret in the universe, that. Everybody trusts the man who doesn’t belong.”
Melia let out a quiet hum, and the Doctor’s face dropped. Not into a frown, but he did lose a bit of his energy.
He could see it in her eyes. She wasn’t just guarded, no. She looked like she was ready for something to jump out of those trees any second.
Made sense. That had to have been quite the beastie they were fighting.
“How’s the wing?” The Doctor inquired.
“I beg your pardon?” Melia indignantly straightened up.
The Doctor winced. “Sorry – sensitive question? But it looked rather beaten-up when we found you, looked like it hurt too. Shame, too, they are really lovely – never met a species with wings growing out of their heads – the Nopon are close enough, but they grow out of the neck, so it’s more like they have wings that are really high up on their backs, instead of low on their heads.”
“Doctor,” Melia cut him off. “You are rambling.”
“Ah, so I am.”
Melia sniffed, and cleared her throat. “Apologies for my harsh response. They are rather a… sensitive matter. But, they feel quite alright now. Thank you for your concern.”
“Good. They really are nice,” The Doctor politely smiled, and leaned forward.
“I-” Melia blinked, like she was caught blindsided by the compliment. “Thank you.”
The Doctor tilted his head to the side. “Do you not usually get complimented on your wings?” Or – this was a new species. For all he knew, High Entia wings could be a sexual thing, and he just did the equivalent of walking up to a woman on the street, and saying – completely unironically – nice Etheric Beam Locators.
This was the hazard of landing in bottle universes with a Type 40 TARDIS eleven-thousand years obsolete. No local cultural records to feed to him, which meant many, many faux pas.
“Not usually,” Melia answered after a moment, as her hands went up slowly to touch them. “Mine are considered… deformed, amongst my people. Unusually small.”
“Oh, that’s a shame!” The Doctor jumped to her defence reflexively, without even really knowing what she needed defending from. Then again, she looked sullen, mournful, grieving, all manner of words, and like she needed someone in her corner. “I think they’re magnificent. A brilliant set of wings you’ve got, Melia.”
“…you would be only the second to think so,” Melia cleared her throat. “They are rather undersized, compared to my kin. My mother was a Homs.”
“Really?” The Doctor turned his head slightly, thoughtful. “Half-Human, on your mother’s side…”
A shadow dropped over Melia’s face. “If you are about to suggest something untoward-“
“Oh, no, not at all!” The Doctor disarmingly raised his hands. “It’s just- it’s funny! Not funny ‘ha-ha,’ more like funny ‘oh, that’s very slim odds.’”
“How so?”
“I’m half-human, too,” He answered, then a jolt of ‘nope’ rushed through his body. “Well, I was. For a little while. It was a 48-hour bug.” How was he supposed to articulate ‘damage from a Time War, ancient interbreeding with the Samaarians, and Regeneration assimilating human DNA from a botched heart surgery and blood transfusion, with that DNA expressing itself as human biological structures and half-humanness before going away?’
Not that the Doctor remembered his mother very well, anymore. It was all a haze to sort out – memory became blurrier the further back he went, unless he was confronted with a face or important object. It was an easy fix. All he had to do was go to bed.
But the clarity of memory also brought with it the clarity of all the bad memories, too. And the night terrors.
He hadn’t slept since he regenerated.
Melia looked at him, curious. “You are not a Homs?”
“Nope!” The Doctor answered easily. “Bona Fide, Time Lord, right here.” He sat next to her, and when she didn’t move away, he took that to mean he was fine to continue. “But a High Entia – i’ve never met your people before. Do all of you have wings? Two hearts?”
Melia began to nod. “Yes. The second heart assists in supplying oxygen and nutrients to the wings, separate from the rest of the circulatory system, so they do not become fatigued as easily.”
“But Alvis doesn’t have them.” The Doctor noted. And that, he found, very, very curious. It was he who spoke to the Doctor on the Bionis Leg, then vanished, and the Doctor hadn’t detected any transmat residue. So, unless Alvis did that, and could move very quickly to stay ahead, the Doctor found it odd he could move to the Forest without wings.
Melia shook her head. “Alvis belongs to a line of seers with Homs blood dominant in them. Over the generations, they’ve chosen to marry half-bloods, or Homs outright. By now, any wings he would possess are likely only vestigial muscle remnants. But, other traits, he likely still carries within him. Although he appears young by Homs standards, for example, Alvis is over 100 years old, at this point.”
The Doctor nodded. “Are Half-Homs common, where you’re from?”
Melia looked at him, slightly suspicious. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m learning about a new and strange culture! This is what I live for – cut me some slack.”
“...yes, I suppose it would seem fascinating, from the outside.” She paused momentarily, before continuing. “We are not uncommon. Nor are we numerous. We simply are.”
“Ah,” The Doctor took a knowing breath. Judging by her tone. “Second-rate citizens?”
She looked at him, surprised. “How did you-?”
“You wouldn’t be so cagey otherwise.” The Doctor shrugged. “Is that why you’re here? You and Alvis ran away from home? Are the two of you related?”
Melia flushed. “We are not. And I hardly see how any of it is your business.”
“Oh, it’s not,” The Time Lord admitted. “But me? I’m nosy! Nosy, nosy me! The amount of business I’ve stuck my nose into – they’ve started putting up posters of me all over the place. ‘Don’t tell this guy a thing’ they say.”
Melia let out a hum.
“And, if it helps, y’know…” The Doctor spoke to her with his eyes. “I would know a thing or two about running away from home, myself.”
Melia looked him over. “Yes. You do have the look of an impulsive fool who decided to go live in the forest.”
“Oi!” The Doctor huffed. “I’m not wearing my shoes cos they’re minging! Oh!” His eyebrows shot up. “Which reminds me!” He reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out the red pair of chucks in question. Clean, or, well, they will be clean.
(Time Lords. Their pockets cheat.)
“Anyway,” The Doctor sat down next to her. “Running from home.”
Melia huffed and haughtily lifted her head. “If you are insistent upon knowing, I am not running. I am here on an important mission for my people, and thus far, it has gone so awry, I have to wonder if perhaps the Bionis itself is plotting my downfall.”
The Doctor flinched – in sympathy, and embarrassment for probing.
“Yeah, that’s normally how they go,” The Doctor let out a sigh. “Either they go wrong, or they go right, but something else is going on behind the scenes. Murphy’s Law. Or, if you’re me, the Doctor’s Law.”
“’What can go wrong will go wrong,’” Melia hummed sullenly.
The Doctor glanced at her, surprised. “You know it?”
“Pardon?” Melia returned, blinking cluelessly.
“What you just said.”
“It seemed a fitting sentence to sum up the situation.” Melia noted.
“Right,” The Doctor quietly nodded in agreement. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Melia cocked an eyebrow. “Forgive me for sounding rude, but I hardly see how discussing the matter with a stranger will improve the situation.”
“Oh, it won’t,” The Doctor admitted. “Not really. But just venting can help.”
“Do you really suppose so?”
“Oh, yeah,” The Doctor nodded. Rich, coming from him. But, this wasn’t about him. He found it majorly concerning only three people went into battle against some giant monster that caused so much damage, and apparently did more. Giant monster in the forest – even if the Doctor wasn’t worried, he couldn’t let that stand.
Why couldn’t he? He was used to getting involved, but something about Melia put him on-edge. And not in the good way.
(A brief flicker of something flashed across his mind’s eye. There was a raven, and Melia, and her body falling onto a cobbled street. Birds. So many birds.)
“You’d be surprised how much it can help, just vomiting the words out.” The Doctor answered.
Melia huffed. “I will be doing no such thing.”
“Figure of speech.”
She blinked, clasping her mouth tight. “Ah.”
“Y’know,” The Doctor coughed. “We may have only just met. But if you feel like you need someone to vent to, but you can’t because they’re too close to you and it’s embarrassing-”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Doctor.” Melia crossed her arms, going silent. “Alvis and I were not the only two sent to this forest. Four others made the trip with us. They fell, in battle.”
“Oh.” The Doctor’s hearts clenched. “I’m sorry, Melia, really – I am, so sorry-“
“I need not your fake pity,” Melia shook her head. “You did not know them, and only just met me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” The Doctor shrugged in response. “I can still feel sorry for someone who’s lost something.”
“…hmm.”
“Did you know them well?”
“I did.” Melia nodded. “The four of them were my attendants. They accompanied me at all times. They fell, protecting me. Not even during that last battle, but the one before that. And Alvis and I couldn’t even manage to fell the beast.”
“And now you’re wondering,” The Doctor quietly intoned. “Why you should go on, if you can’t even accomplish that?”
“Hardly,” Melia snapped. “I will not lay down and die. To do so would be an insult to their sacrifice. No. I wonder if delivering them vengeance is going to be worth it in the end if it gets me killed in turn, or worse, if it’s not even possible.”
“Ah,” The Doctor nodded slowly. “’An eye for an eye.’ Except, in this case, you’re trying to take the eye, and it gets you in the jugular vein anyway.”
Melia let out a rueful chuckle. “I suppose so.” She brought her hands together, thinking. “I cannot let it simply run loose, rampant in this forest, either. It has remained away from the Nopon village thus far, but that is likely only due to chance, not intent. They would be threatened in due time.”
“So, is that what you’re going to do, hm?” The Doctor inquired. “Go right back into battle?”
Melia paused for a moment, thinking. “I do not wish to. But I cannot simply leave. There are things far beyond me, that will be affected by my decision. I cannot, in good conscience, simply retreat.”
“In that case, it sounds like you’ve made up your mind already.”
“I have. But, given our track record, I cannot ask you or your friends to join us,” Melia shook her head. “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it. I cannot ask your friends to do the same.”
“Poppycock!” The Doctor snorted. “I may not know what it was you and your friends fought, but I’ve faced my fair share of monsters before. Even so, you’ve gotta ask yourself a question.”
Melia tilted her head. “What sort of question?”
“’How am I gonna win?’” The Doctor rhetorically posed to her. The Time Lord stepped back, and pranced around. “That’s what I do! Guns pointed at my head, the bomb’s about to go off, anybody else would think ‘welp, I’ve had it!’ But you don’t,” He gestured. “On the ground, getting kicked in the gut, you don’t ask ‘why me? Who’s going to save me?’ You ask, ‘How am I gonna win?’ And you start thinking about it. So, Melia – how are you going to win?”
Melia remained quiet and unflinchingly still for the longest time. “…I believe Alvis told me something similar.”
“He sounds like a smart lad.” The Doctor complimented quickly. When she didn’t answer, he continued pressing. “Twice, you’ve fought that thing – you know what that means? You have data. Strategies. You know what’s going to work, what isn’t, what’s going to tick that thing off, or just tickle its nose. And, do you know what that means?”
Melia shook her head, and the Doctor leaned forward.
“Third time’s the charm.”
Melia looked at him, properly confused. “You and your friends would truly be so quick to assist me?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Why?” Melia demanded.
“Because it’s kind,” The Doctor answered frankly.
Melia’s eyes began to twitch, and she turned away from him.
The Doctor went silent, and turned away in response.
And, from a distance, Elma watched, with crossed arms and steely eyes.
---------
A few minutes later, and Elma had reconvened with a few of the others. They were all off doing their things, Shulk scrawling in his journal, Reyn doing press-ups, Sharla performing maintenance on Gadolt’s rifle.
Fiora was cooking dinner for them, standing over the pot and tending to it.
Elma approached, looked at the pot momentarily, and let out a sound of appreciation as the scent hit her nostrils. “Smells delicious.”
“Thanks.” Fiora glanced at her. “It will still be a while, but, well, I won’t call you out if you came over here a few minutes before and grabbed a bowl before everyone else.”
Elma chuckled. “Oh? Sure you won’t make a certain someone feel overlooked?”
“Who, Shulk?” Fiora asked in response, and that was all the intel Elma needed. “It all tastes the same to him anyway. Even if it didn’t, sometimes I have to fight to get him to eat.”
Elma’s hand went up to her chin, thoughtful. “Is Shulk a picky eater?” Klaus had been very particular about what he put into his body. The man didn’t trust ginger, aspartame, MSG, processed meats to the point even German sausages were a no-go, and anything fermented. Just to name a few.
“Not really,” Fiora shook her head. “It all tastes the same to him. I mean it’s a struggle to even get him to admit he’s hungry half the time.”
“Ah,” Elma nodded knowingly. “One of those ‘doesn’t eat until the hunger pains become too intense to ignore’ types.”
“That’s right,” Fiora granted her.
Elma leaned forward. “Do you do that? Take care of Shulk.”
“In some ways.” Fiora confirmed after a beat, as she added something to the pot. “Him and Reyn, really. They’d be lost without me.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Fiora shook her head. “I would’ve come along anyhow if it were, but it isn’t. I’m here because I want to stop the Mechon for good. They caught up to me right as I was about to leave home.”
“Oh, that’s why they call you their squad leader,” Elma grinned with crossed arms.
Fiora smiled right back, and sardonically tipped her head. “The rising star in Colonel Vangarre’s Officer Candidacy School.” She turned back to stirring the pot. “He wasn’t going to let me stop until I made Major.”
Elma’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” From the brief bit of chatter she picked up, that was a bit higher than she expected. “And how old are you?”
“Eighteen.” Fiora answered without a bit of trouble. She looked over, saw Elma struggling with the maths, and giggled. “People in your world don’t usually answer like that, do they?”
“They usually don’t,” Elma blinked. “I was thirty when I made Major.”
Fiora chuckled again. “Well, things are a bit different here.” She turned back to the pot, completely serene. “Shulk, Reyn, and I all joined up when we were sixteen. That’s the minimum age to join the Defence Force.”
Elma took a seat nearby. “Do a lot of people your age do that?”
“Some of us,” The blonde answered simply with a nod. “Shulk and I – we joined up because of family. Reyn because the Colonel’s like a father to him.”
Elma leaned forward, curious. “Oh?”
Fiora hummed. “Dickson – he found Shulk and the Monado years ago – he’s the General in charge of Colony 9’s Defence Force. But he wouldn’t let Shulk train to be a soldier – he even used his pull to make sure it didn’t happen.” She rolled her eyes, and good-naturedly shook her head. “He worries about Shulk so much. Which is how Shulk wound up studying the Monado. Dickson put him there. It worked out well for Shulk, I think – he seemed content.”
Elma nodded, and gestured for Fiora to go on.
“Reyn talks a lot, but he does care about what Vangarre thinks of him.” Fiora went on. “Since we were little, Reyn’s parents were never really around, you know how I mean? And he’s not exactly book-smart, but he’s still got a working brain. So, he joined up to make something of himself.”
Elma hummed once more. “And you?”
Fiora paused momentarily. “Mine and Dunban’s parents died when I was very little. He raised me after that. But, he was in the Defence Force too, and he also had the Monado. I joined up because I saw him doing it, and I wanted to make him proud.” And she shrugged. “It helps that I was also good at it.”
“You were?”
“I may have been Dunban’s sister, but it wasn’t nepotism that got me there.” Fiora shook her head. “Vangarre saw me, went ‘hey, that’s Dunban’s sister over there,’ and started training me like I was Dunban. I could’ve washed out, but I made it.”
Elma’s eyebrows shot up. “So, the man saw you, threw you into training from hell, and you just-“
“I did it.” Fiora took a swig of water from her canteen. “And don’t get me wrong. Vangarre did not pull his punches. Special forces training, he called it.”
“…he was putting a sixteen-year-old through special forces training?”
Fiora took another drink, nodding while the water went down. Finished, she wiped her mouth, and explained. “I was tabbing with a full combat load till it felt like my spine was about to compress.” She lifted her hands. “I had this Replica Monado – not like the one Shulk’s drawn up – like a sword with weights in the handle that were actually really high-power magnets, and they could switch them on and off in the training room, so it would ‘fight’ me a bit like how the real Monado fought Dunban when he tried to use it. Some days, I just had to stand there and hold a stance for hours. Interrogation resistance – which I always thought was kind of weird, considering it’s the Mechon we’re fighting, and they don’t take prisoners – which was Vangarre playing bad cop, and a Nopon playing good cop with soup. To simulate Mechon combat, they loaded up some of the mobile artillery with concussive rounds and said the first one who could hit me got a month of PTO. And he made me stand next to an unshielded Ether furnace to see how I’d handle the Monado’s energy.”
“Jesus.” Elma blinked.
“It was awful,” Fiora groaned. “I thought I was going to wind up with shell-shock just from the training! But I did it.”
“That’s-”
“Hard to believe?” Fiora finished.
“Well, yes.” Elma gestured. “Pardon me for saying, but you don’t look like you went through all of that.”
Fiora shrugged. “It’s no problem. You let any skill lapse, and it goes.” Her lips twitched a little bit. “I’m surprised my old armour still fit me, really.”
“I just can’t believe they put one as young as you through training like that.” Elma commented. Sure, she had Lin back in NLA – thirteen-year-old on the battlefield – but she was a major exception.
“The Mechon don’t leave us very many alternatives.”
“…I suppose not.” Elma sighed regretfully, shaking her head. “So, why did you leave? That was a lot of hell you went through.”
“Well… we’d never really had big engagements with the Mechon,” Fiora started. “You heard about colonies going dark, but those usually happened too fast for the others to mobilise to defend them. But then, someone somewhere saw that the Mechon were building something on the Mechonis Sword. And it wasn’t finished. But if it was, it would be bad news. So, the Defence Forces of all the Colonies got together and made a push. I wanted to be there.”
Elma paled. “Don’t tell me-“
Fiora quickly shook her head. “I didn’t. Even through all of that, we were still in-training. Vangarre wasn’t going to send cadets into a place like that. Even if he wanted to, Dickson and Dunban pulled rank. They said it didn’t matter which one of us they saw out there – me, Shulk, or Reyn, cause if they saw one of us, they could be sure the other two were around the bend – or if we were out there with or without Vangarre’s approval. If they saw us, they would have Vangarre’s job, and our jobs for not being able to listen to instructions. So, we stayed.”
“It’s hard enough knowing a battle is going down, worse knowing you can’t help,” Elma sympathetically murmured. “But you probably did more for their peace of mind, staying.”
“Probably. But I was worrying for weeks.” Fiora elaborated. “The Defence Forces had fought the Mechon plenty. Won, a couple of times. But that was the first time we fired the first shot. And it was right in Mechon territory, too. Do you know what that feeling’s like? Not fearing – knowing someone you care about could die at any second, there’s nothing you can do to help, and you wouldn’t even know the worst happened until after?”
“…yeah.” Elma closed her eyes, took a breath, and put the image of the Ares tearing off into space without her to fight the Ganglion one last time, out of her mind. “I know the feeling.”
Fiora nodded. “All of that happened, and when Dunban got back, he was almost dead. The Monado destroyed his arm, and almost destroyed the rest of him. Even if it hadn’t, they’d been fighting for seventy-two hours straight, no sleep, no rest. He would never be able to use the Monado again. Then… I got to thinking,” Fiora shuffled. “I didn’t want to put Dunban through worrying like that. He was never any good at expressing what he felt, but I knew what it would do to him. And, it was the rest of my friends, too. I couldn’t do that to them. So… I dropped out. So I could take care of Dunban, and so they wouldn’t have to worry over me.”
“You ended your own career for that?”
Fiora, however, shook her head. “My career is protecting the people I love. I didn’t need to be in the Defence Force for that.” She added shavings from something reminiscent of a potato into the stew, then looked up. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“That was some fight you gave us, when we first met. Just you against all of us? You had to have superpowers, or something. Some Military stuff, right? And you did just admit you were a Major.”
“Actually,” Elma began to correct her. “Technically, I’m a Colonel.”
“Ooh, technically,” Fiora purred. “Does that mean there’s a story behind it?”
Elma chuckled. “Yes, but it’s not terribly interesting.” She gestured patiently. “The world I came from – Earth – was in something of a similar situation to Bionis is here. Repeated attacks, vast amounts of death and destruction following in the wake – except the difference with us, there was never really a single monolithic force behind them. Lots of different enemies, with lots of different goals. And neither did we have a single, consolidated Defence Force, like Bionis.”
“Really?” Fiora tilted her head, curiously. “So then, how did you guys handle it?”
“There was a specialised task force – that’s what I was a part of.” Elma motioned. “But other militaries just did their own thing – until the attacks allowed us to consolidate and absorb those militaries into our command structure. I joined in a position kind of like Shulk’s – a science advisor, with minor combat training – but by the time I made Colonel, I was running the branch on the whole continent by default.”
Fiora raised an eyebrow. “So far, it seems the opposite of not interesting.”
“I guess so.” Elma chuckled once more. “Anyway, after a certain point, the attacks seemed to slow down rather drastically. The population was recovering, and most of the combat engagements we had were with paramilitary groups that weren’t fans of their governments suddenly being accountable to a higher power.”
Fiora cluelessly blinked.
“When the Coalition Charter was signed – that was the agreement that put all the nations of Earth as states answering to a higher meta-government – there were a lot of people afraid that meant they weren’t kings of their castles anymore.” Elma gestured. “I remember, during the early days, one of the Presidents of the United States started screaming about conspiracies, and shadow governments, and tried to militarise their Secret Service department.”
Fiora let out an awkward giggle. “I have no idea what any of that is.”
“Ah. Of course,” Elma huffed at herself, shaking her head. “Anyway, point is, aside from that, there wasn’t much of anything going on. So, I took a desk job, managing one of our expeditionary and scientific programs.” She looked aside, briefly. “The job wasn’t as quiet as I thought it would be. But, for a while, I was Director Elma, in charge of Project Exodus, the orbital ring, the satellite programs…”
Fiora’s eyebrows shot up. “So, you were in-charge, in-charge.”
Elma nodded in confirmation. “That’s right. At the very top, you had UNIT – that’s what I was a part of. The Coalition Government was something like… a special project of ours, designed to keep the planet from falling into anarchy after repeated invasions and the deaths of world leaders made the geopolitical landscape severely unstable. Another special project of ours was Exodus. Basically, a catch-all term for preserving humanity in the face of an overwhelming alien invasion. Within that, you had various sub-programs, initiatives, and projects. The Earthlife Colonization Project, Marienkind, Kadomony, Deus, Gears – as Director, I was in charge of all of them. Securing funding, resources, personnel…”
Fiora let out a low whistle. “You’re right; that sounds like a lot to handle.”
“It was,” Elma agreed. “A lot of moving parts going. But eventually, Gears proved viable, and we had a prototype – the Ares. They needed capable pilots to train others, and since I was probably the only human being on the planet with experience, I was called upon to serve.”
“You were called back.” Fiora repeated with a light hum. “I wondered if something similar was gonna happen to me. We’d get so desperate, we’d have to start making people fight.”
“I don’t know,” Elma shook her head, rubbing her face. “Even back on Earth, facing what we did, we banned conscription.”
Fiora straightened in surprise. “Really?”
Elma nodded. “You need everybody’s head in the game, at all times. Regardless of the situation, people you force to sign onto military service can get… resentful, flighty, or worse. You don’t want soldiers like that. If they don’t believe wholeheartedly in the job, in what they’re doing, then they’re a risk to themselves and others. You can’t save people with an army of the coerced.”
“I guess not,” Fiora agreed after a moment’s thought. The two went quiet for a beat.
“But it’s funny,” Elma voiced after a moment. “Maybe, even if things were different, we would have found ourselves here, eventually.”
Fiora tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“…do you believe in destiny, Fiora?”
Fiora let out a bit of reflex laughter. At Elma’s expression, though, she clamped on it. “Well, it’s… complicated. I don’t know. Shulk is seeing the future with the Monado. Seeing something. But if he can change it, it’s not destiny, is it?”
“Maybe,” Elma crossed her arms as she thought. “On my world, people believed that there were certain things that had to happen. That always happened. But the path you could take was different. Maybe you got out of the Defence Force,” She looked down, still vocalising her thoughts. “Maybe you stayed. Maybe you transferred to a different branch entirely. But things would always conspire to put you here, eventually. Or maybe this is just along the path, but there’s still something you need to reach, that you always reach.”
Fiora frowned. “Are you all right? What are you thinking about?”
Elma didn’t answer, at first. She looked over, to where Shulk was still writing in his journal. Then, to Melia and the Doctor. Then, towards Alvis.
“Spatial-genetic multiplicity,” Elma spoke after a moment. “I know I’ve brought it up before. It’s a fringe science, but one with just enough evidence to be real. Certain physical patterns, if they’re strong enough, can be amplified by a morphic field, causing them to spring up later. So, you can get people who are related by only the tiniest sliver of blood… but they look identical. Shulk seems to be expressing a case of it.”
“Wha- Shulk?” Fiora blinked. “You’re saying he looks like someone you know?”
Elma nodded. “Not only that, it’s a very similar line of work he’s in. Studying a mysterious artefact of unknown origin that holds phenomenal cosmic power…”
“That’s a funny coincidence.”
“Not just funny,” Elma took a breath. “Infinitesimal. Something made all the more remarkable, since Melia also seems to be expressing it.”
“What?” Fiora jolted in surprise.
Elma hummed in confirmation. “That’s right. And do you want to know the real kicker?” She looked sideways at Fiora. “She’s got the face of a woman whom the Doctor travelled with. But at this point in time, he’s yet to meet her.”
Fiora leaned over. “Really? No way?”
“Her name was Clara. I read through her file.” Elma began. “Her, and most of the people the Doctor’s travelled with, since me. Most seem to start getting into serious trouble he can’t save them from, after…” She trailed off, and shook her head. “Tragic stuff.”
Fiora tilted her head. “What happened?”
“Too many things to count, and even so, it’s not important right now.” Elma gestured over. “And she’s not even the last of it. Alvis is speaking with the voice of my old Administrative Computer, wearing a necklace shaped exactly like its processor core. This, right after meeting Mythra, who seemed to be wearing Pneuma’s processor core, and using her simulation runtimes to help Shulk flesh out that idea for his Monado Replica.”
“Those are all very big coincidences.” Fiora agreed. “Just one of them would be, never mind three.”
“One’s so rare, I would already think it was divine intervention. Three?” Elma sighed. “I don’t know.” She pressed her lips together, glancing away. “Before we fled Earth, I had the chance to talk to Ontos, one last time. It had told me the odds of me finding my way to Earth were so low as to be statistically anomalous. The same thing for the series of events that put UNIT in exactly the perfect position to set up Exodus ahead of the last attack on Earth. Ontos said… it calculated with near-certainty that everything was being manipulated by a force of unknown magnitude and intent.”
Fiora looked unsettled by the implication. “Well… there was that Archsage, right? It said there were things going down, and it couldn’t tell the Doctor what to do.”
“Maybe, but… that’s what I’m worried about,” Elma steeled her features. “The Doctor turns up in every one of the three surviving Bottle Universes, all seemingly at a time when severe upheaval of the local status quo is occurring. That’s his usual modus operandi, but what’s weird is…” She gestured with her hand. “They all have some tangential connection to Klaus.”
“Klaus?” Fiora repeated.
“I headhunted him for research expertise on an artifact called the Conduit,” Elma began. “What he was able to tell us was vital to get the Ares, the Ark ships, and the whole project where it is now. So, that’s his connection to me and Mira. Shulk has his face, and although the details are different, the same motifs of his general background.” Then, when that sentence ended, she looked like she ate something sour. “’Motifs’ – I’ve been hanging around Cross too much…” She shook her head. “And there was Mythra and Pyra – they’ve got a core like Pneuma’s, which he was responsible for training. Which, incidentally, loops back around to Alvis, for the same reasons. Never mind that Earth – Alrest, now – is the man’s homeworld, and what he was working to save for years of his life.”
Fiora swallowed. “So… what are you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Elma admitted. “I’m thinking it’s suspect that these three regions of spacetime would survive, while nothing else has. And I’m thinking, if there were something pulling the strings… we have no idea if it’s working to fix things, or destroy what’s left.”
Both went quiet for an uncomfortably long drag.
Fiora, pale, lifted a wooden bowl in her other hand. “It’s done.”
“…thanks, but I think I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Me too.”
-------------
At supper, the mood around the fire was filled with quiet tension, as they waited for Melia, or Alvis, or even Riki to speak.
Riki, unsurprisingly, was the first one to do so.
“Mmm!” Riki let out a growl, jumping around. “Riki’s tummy finally stop rumbly! Riki and friends sleep easy now, right, Melly?”
Melia did not agree with the same enthusiasm, but she did take a dainty bite, and hummed. “It is rather delectable.”
“Glad to see some people can appreciate my cooking,” Fiora snorted lightly.
“I feel like I must thank you,” Melia began. “Your hospitality is most appreciated, albeit unnecessary.”
“Well, it never is, is it?” Shulk tilted his head. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called hospitality, would it?”
Melia shot him a look.
“We’re just glad to help,” Sharla took over from Shulk, leaning forward to look Melia over. “How are you feeling? Better? Any residual aches and pains?”
Melia pressed her lips together. “I am far from recovered. But I’m not suffering any physical issues, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Reyn scratched his head in confusion. “The Monado’s ‘pick everybody up, good as new’ power should’ve fixed that though, shouldn’t it’ve? I mean, how can you be not good, and good at the same time?”
“Reyn.” Sharla quietly hissed at him.
“Oh, now Fiora’s got you doing it!”
Riki jumped over, bouncing angrily. “Reyn shush! Reyn have tact of rampaging Orluga, and stinky like one, too!”
“Oi, I’ve just had a bath this morning!” Reyn hollered indignantly. He blinked, before processing it. “Tact- oh. Oh!” He winced. “Oof… yeah, sorry.”
“He is far worse than an Orluga,” Melia picked up from Riki. “Orluga do not speak, for one.”
Sharla snorted, descending into giggles.
“Great, thanks!” Reyn rolled his eyes.
“Neither do they smell as… fragrant.” Alvis noted after a moment.
“She doesn’t need your help, man!” Reyn huffed.
“So,” Fiora cleared her throat, looking at Melia. “Since we’ve made camp, you want to tell us a bit about what’s going on? If you want to, I mean.”
Melia paused in thought. “Yes. I suppose that makes sense.” She nodded. “First, please forgive my earlier indiscretion. It is a stressful situation, and I feel it is in your best interests if you do not involve yourselves in it.”
“Well, we’ve helped quite a few people already,” Shulk noted with a slight hum. “The survivors from Colony 6, mainly. We don’t have to get involved… but I’d like to. It’s… well, we can help, so we should help, and maybe we’ll rest easier.”
“With great power comes great responsibility?” The Doctor posed to Shulk with a raised brow.
Shulk’s eyes went wide with pleasant surprise. “Now that you mention it, I suppose that is a great way to put it.”
The Time Lord’s lips twitched, and he turned away, happy and satisfied. “Thought it’d be.”
Melia folded her hands neatly in her lap, her gaze lowered but her voice clear, composed, and regal. “If you truly wish to involve yourselves… then I must formally ask for your assistance. The creature my companions and I have been having so much trouble destroying; it is a Telethia.”
The air around the campfire went still. Even the fire seemed to snap and pop less loudly than before.
Shulk blinked, stunned. “Wait. A Telethia? Like… the same kind of creature that appeared after that Mechon ambush? The one that protected us?”
Melia turned to him, eyes wide and quietly stunned herself. “You encountered it!?”
“No way,” Reyn muttered. “That thing saved us from a horde of Mechon even the Monado couldn’t hurt! Why would it hurt you?”
“…well, it’s like the Doctor said,” Sharla murmured. “It only saved us because it was protecting its food stores.”
“But…” Melia struggled for a moment. “That can’t be! The Telethia is here, in the forest-“
“Pardon,” Alvis gently interrupted. “But when did you encounter this beast?”
Elma had gone very still, her brow furrowed. The Doctor’s expression was unreadable - his eyes glinting faintly in the firelight as he stared into the middle distance.
“Two or three days ago,” Reyn answered for the group. “Down near the Bionis’s waist, in Colony 6.”
“Hm,” Alvis hummed, and leaned back. “Then it’s probable you encountered the same specimen. Before we finally arrived here, in the forest to neutralise it.”
“How is that possible!?” Melia spluttered. “Why would the Telethia venture so far from the forest, and return to it?”
“It could have been that it was simply out hunting,” Shulk turned his head, humming in thought. “In any case, we were also fighting the Mechon. According to Dickson, the Telethia protects the Bionis, so perhaps it was reacting to the Mechon’s intrusion.”
“Incorrect,” Melia grunted decisively, shaking her head.
Shulk turned to her, surprised. “I’m sorry?”
“The Telethia is no protector of the Bionis.” Melia crossed her arms imperiously. “It is a dangerous pest. This ‘Dickson’ is incorrect.”
“Oh yeah?” Reyn jumped to the man-who-wasn’t-present’s defence. “And what makes you the expert?”
“The Telethia is a known quantity to my people,” Melia turned up her chin. “And even if we did not, the Telethia’s ravenous behaviour in this region – harmful to the life on Bionis – is proof enough to the contrary. If Dickson told you that, he is either a fool, or quite mad.”
Still, the Doctor silently gazed into the fire.
“Doctor?” Fiora asked softly. “You alright?”
The Time Lord didn’t answer at first. Then, in a very low voice, he said, “There were Telethia on Mira, too.”
That made everyone turn to him.
His head, in turn, swivelled to look at Elma. “You remember?”
Elma nodded gravely. “Only the one. The one the Nopon natives called it ‘the Endbringer,’ that saved us from those blighted indigens.”
“Eh!?” Riki spluttered in surprise. “Friends fight Dinobeast too, and give it scary-scary name!?”
The Doctor’s head snapped towards Riki, blinking. “’Dinobeast.’ That’s what you call it, here?”
“Dinobeast known to all Nopon!”
“Hm.” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s…” He didn’t know if it was good, or bad. “Good. That’s good.” The Telethia on Mira got that name by being a constant presence. Menacing travellers, no matter what. Even while the rest of the Telethia slept, the one was always up, always feeding. If it was out hunting, it always got what it sought, in the end. And when the time came, its call awakened the rest. The Nopon usually survived the heralding – deceptively hardy as they were – but the big event, followed by the Endbringer still being around, hunting, led them to giving it that name.
The lack of the big, scary, end-all name implied that the Telethia here wasn’t a constant presence. Which bade well, actually. Telethia life-cycles were long hibernations, followed by mass awakenings and swarming, before retreating. All Telethia awoke at the same time. If there was only one awake at the moment, then that implied there were no others around.
So, it wasn’t even a vanguard, probably.
“Hold on,” Fiora looked toward Elma, brow drawn tight with concern. “You’ve encountered a Telethia, too?”
Elma crossed her arms and nodded. “On the world I came from, my team and I were tracking a High-Value Object. Which brought us right into the Telethia’s path.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes, and leaned forward. “Okay, so, cliff-notes. You three,” He pointed at Riki, Alvis, and Melia. “Elma is from another world. There’s billions of them out there.”
Melia blinked, reeling. “Another-“
“Please, save the questions for the end.” The Doctor then began to continue. “Now, inhabitants from another one of those worlds wanted to destroy hers, so Elma and a whole bunch of her people fled, crash-landing on another world called Mira. But the bad guys followed, and attacked them with a giant mech suit. That crash-landed on Mira as well, in the Noctilum region. It was a target of extreme tactical value, so, Elma and her team went to retrieve it.”
Riki let out a sound of wrath. “Don’t just gloss over! Friends are travellers from other worlds!?”
“Just the Doctor and Elma,” Shulk chuckled. “They’re trustworthy, if that’s what you’re worried about, even if you can’t believe them.”
“Yes, yes, anyway-“ The Doctor rolled his eyes. “The mech – called the Vita – had a core made of Dark Matter. When it crash-landed, bacteria on Mira’s surface spread to the Vita, and began to replicate on it. It mutated that bacteria, into a very deadly, and very virulent virus. Granted, one that couldn’t survive very far from the Vita, but very deadly.”
“My team and I went to retrieve the Vita,” Elma picked up from the Doctor. “My team and I encountered groups of indigenous lifeforms, infected by that virus. They mostly gave us a pass. But a Nopon we knew, Tatsu, snuck his way onto the battlefield. It roused every one of the tainted indigens in a vast radius, and brought them right to us. We were about to die. That’s when it showed up and saved us. The Telethia.”
“That’s impossible…” Melia breathed in disbelief.
Elma continued. “Before we could figure out what it was, or why it had stepped in, it left. But, thanks to it, we were able to get out safely after retrieving the Vita. The leaders of the Nopon caravans, however, were gracious enough to share what they knew about the beast.”
All except the Doctor leaned forward, curious about what Elma was going to say.
“They said the Telethia was a guardian spirit. The will of the planet made manifest. And a terrible force that would wreak untold destruction when the time was right.” Elma orated, lowering her voice like she was telling a scary story. “It was why the Nopon lived in caravans. Traded for things, instead of setting up cities and camps. Long ago, the Telethia almost rendered them extinct, so they became nomads. Constantly moving to make it more difficult for the Telethia to hunt them.”
Shulk’s eyebrows shot up, and he quickly reached for his journal and pen, scribbling down rapidly.
“They also said the Telethia hunted down anything that upset the balance of nature,” Elma continued. “Things that threatened the biodiversity of Mira – viruses, parasites, apex predators that weren’t themselves.”
“Keeping the biosphere intact,” Shulk vocalised. “So they still have their food supply.”
Elma nodded. “That’s right.”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying the Telethia hunt other things that hunt everything to extinction, then hunt things to extinction themselves? That’s nuts!” Reyn shook his head.
“Not really,” Shulk turned to him. “The Telethia hibernate for long stretches of time, right?”
The Doctor cut in. “Oh, millennia. Sometimes hundreds of thousands of years.”
Shulk nodded, and went on. “Imagine if Volffs were too good at their jobs. Hunting all the prey animals, ganging-up on other predator animals, until only the Volffs were left. Or, imagine if a plague with no species barriers suddenly tore through Bionis, but only one population was immune. Well, a species can’t hunt from itself – that’s how you get things like Mad Armu Disease. So, the remaining population collapses. Only plants are left. But, animals are vital for nutrient cycling. There’d be a grace period, where the decomposition of all the dead animals increases the nutrients in the soil, but when that runs out, the plants would be unable to get nutrients – then, die out themselves. A total biosphere collapse. And all of this happens while the Telethia are asleep. They’d wake up to a dead world.”
The Doctor nodded, and pointed at Shulk in deference. “It’s why the Telethia go into hibernation at all – they don’t want to be too good at what they do. They hunt some species to extinction, but they leave others behind. Hunted damned near to extinction, yeah, but enough left to recover. Keep the population going. And to prevent themselves from just… eating it all.”
Reyn let out a low whistle.
“It’s because of that, the Telethia garnered the attention of my organisation, BLADE.” Elma continued. “The Telethia may have been a part of Mira’s ecosystem, and a unique specimen, but part of our purpose on Mira was to begin reconstructing the human race, as well as other organisms from Earth. Organisms that we had no clue how they were going to react with the native environment. They could’ve been hunted easily by the native indigens, or become extremely invasive species. Bad news for us, if it would attract the Telethia’s attention.”
“So, they sent out a hit squad.” The Doctor groaned and rolled his eyes.
“Myself and three others – Lin, Cross, and Irina went out to neutralise the Telethia, before it could have the chance to become a threat.”
“Oh, Lin!” The Doctor’s face spread into a delighted smile. “Does she still have that Skell modelled on-“
“Optimus Prime, yes.” Elma let out a sigh. “She never got rid of it. It’s still the war on Mira, when I’m from, remember?”
“Sorry, just… reflecting.”
“Anyway, the four of us went out there,” Elma frowned pensively. “Skells freshly fuelled-up, outfitted with new weapons and armour – Cross was even fielding an Ares 90. After that battle around the Vita, and we saw what it could do, we weren’t taking any chances.”
Elma paused.
“It downed all four of us. Only Cross managed to make it out of the Skell and onto foot. Tried activating Overdrive – and pushed so hard, Cross almost went thermonuclear. And we still didn’t do much but scratch it. It was almost like… it knew what we were going to do, before we did.”
“That, I’m afraid, is the result of the Telethia’s hunting mechanism.” Alvis interjected sagely. “Telethia hunt by telepathy. As a result, it can also glean the details of what its opponents are about to do.”
“Telepathy,” Elma repeated, quietly intrigued. “That makes sense. Cross always seemed to be… well, not to put too fine a point on it; have no idea what in the hell was going on at any given time.”
“So, it’s big, strong enough to make a whole group of Mechon run for the hills, and they can read minds. Great.” Reyn quietly groaned.
“Well, if no thoughts worked for this ‘Cross,’ it can work for Reyn, too,” Sharla hummed lightly.
Riki shivered. “Riki not like sound of that.”
“Maybe it can work for us?” Fiora suggested. “There has to be a limit to its abilities, right? It’s got to be able to tune some of it out, or there’s a range on it, or something. Else it would be reading everyone’s minds, all the time, wouldn’t it?”
“Ooh,” The Doctor turned to Fiora, pleasantly surprised. “Very clever! Fiora’s right, there must be something.”
“We’ve already determined the Telethia’s ability to read minds can be interfered with – if we focus on something else to mask our intent.” Melia recalled. “But, it is not perfect. If our mind drifts back, it can still sense. As it did, when Riki attempted to attack it, once. And, my ether abilities can seal its ability to read minds. But that does not last for long.”
“Maybe the Monado can help?” Shulk suggested. “It’s been awakening new abilities useful for what we’re about to face for some time – and even if it doesn’t, its ability to predict the future must come in handy.”
“And I’ve got my rifle,” Sharla crossed her arms. “If we can determine the range of the Telethia’s abilities, I could handle it at-range just fine.”
“There are nine of us, now, too.” Reyn pumped his fists. “The lot of us ought to be able to handle that – Telethia or not!”
Melia turned to them, quietly shocked. “All of you would so readily jump to assist strangers you’ve just met? Knowing that it’s already gotten several people killed?”
“It like Riki say before!” Riki jumped. “Could not go home knowing Dinobeast is out there!”
Melia snapped her mouth just, staring for the longest time. Then, she found her words. “Thank you.”
The others all regarded her with warm faces, and nods.
------------
It was decided they’d set off in the morning. The Telethia, according to Melia and Alvis, didn’t seem to be nocturnal, which gave them time. They’d set off early, before sun-up, to catch the thing still resting.
Until then, Shulk prepared.
He was trying to puzzle it out – if the Telethia was so dangerous, the Monado should warn him. But, it hadn’t sent him any visions, yet. So, he decided to summon them himself. If he could build up a catalogue of what the Telethia can do, that should cover all the bases.
Shulk stood with the Monado in both hands, in a ready stance, clutching it tight. He focused, opened his mind, and waited.
“Perhaps it would be best if you approached the scenario as though it were not a catastrophic bowel movement.”
Shulk jolted, and spun around, finding someone approach. “Alvis! What are you still doing awake?”
“I’ve achieved my fill of rest,” Alvis answered smoothly as he stepped over the roots, approaching Shulk. “I am quite surprised you are still awake, however. From what I’ve gathered, you have had a long trek.”
“I’ve got so much I want to do,” Shulk shook his head. “But it’s hard to concentrate with the others around, and I’d rather do it while they’re resting instead of wandering off to a quiet spot. I may be working on a replica, but there’s still many functions of the Monado I don’t understand.”
Alvis nodded imperiously, turning slowly. “The visions.”
Shulk let out an involuntary gasp as his mind sparked into activity, and he slowly dropped the Monado. “How do you know about my visions? We haven’t shared that, only that we were going to Eryth Sea.”
Alvis turned, hiding his smug, enigmatic smile. “I know a great deal about the Monado, and what it is capable of.”
“Wha-“ Shulk’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you know about the Monado?”
“The Monado,” Alvis walked up. As Shulk stuck it into the ground, Alvis placed his hand atop the pommel. “Is capable of manipulating the very fabric of existence itself. The… simple powers you’ve begun channelling with it are not even a small fraction of its true power.”
Shulk let out an awestruck gasp. “So, I was right? There are far more functions to the Monado than even the ones I’ve learned?”
Alvis let out a chuckle. “In a sense. From a certain perspective, there are infinite applications of the Monado. In another, these functions you’ve unlocked are all that there are.”
Shulk blinked, cluelessly. “Sorry? What are you trying to get at? Those seem mutually exclusive.”
“They do, don’t they?” Alvis smiled once more, spinning away. “Have you started considering why the Monado shows you the future?”
“Well, of course,” Shulk nodded. “So far, it seems to revolve around things I’d want to change.”
Shulk blinked, and suddenly, Alvis was in his face.
“Precisely,” Alvis stated simply. “The Monado is a conduit, through which, reality can be changed. A great and transformative power, unrivalled by anything else in creation. And, on some level, it wishes to be used for that purpose. And so, occasionally, it blesses those it agrees with its abilities.”
“Really?” Shulk hummed, looking down at the weapon. “Is that why everyone who ever tried to control it failed? Why even Dunban didn’t seem able to do half of what I can with it? The Monado didn’t… ‘agree,’ with anyone but me?”
“‘Control’ is the wrong word,” Alvis said gently, removing his hand from the pommel and clasping his hands behind his back. “The Monado does not obey control. It responds, like a reflex.”
Shulk felt confusion rush through him. “Is there a difference?”
“A great difference.” Alvis nodded. “Think, for instance: stripping away everything, you are simply a mind in a brain, controlling a body. But no one ever truly thinks of themselves as such, even if they voice otherwise. No one ever thinks ‘I am going to send a command to my arm to lift my sword.’ You simply do it. You do not control your limb. You are your limb. And it is the same, with the Monado. You are not waving around a sword. You are learning how to use a new limb. One with the power to alter the very fabric of the world. It is part of you, as much as you are part of it.”
“So, when you say the Monado responds to me like a reflex…”
“Think of it as purposefully striking a nerve, to make a muscle twitch.” Alvis drawled calmly.
“Amazing,” Shulk breathed, tilting his head. “So, when I unlock more of the Monado’s hidden functions-“
Alvis quickly shook his head. “A misconception, on your part.” He gestured. “The new abilities you awaken with the Monado are not hidden functions. They are new abilities, generated situationally. In short – you create them, not simply access them.”
“Wha…?” Shulk rapidly blinked. “B-But what about the two initial functions? The Buster? A-And the Enchant?”
“Simple enough,” Alvis spread his arms. “The Monado channels Ether. Even a layman with an understanding of the Monado could picture letting it out in a single, catastrophic burst. It would also be a more common wish to spread the Monado’s ability to destroy Mechon to other weapons. Hence, why Dunban was able to make use of those abilities. But to achieve more esoteric possibilities – like those you have awakened – requires a resonance with the Monado no one who would simply pick up the weapon and dominate it could achieve.”
“That’s incredible.” Shulk furrowed his brow, before looking up. “Alvis, how do you know so much about the Monado?”
“I am over one-hundred years old,” Alvis admitted with an easy smile. “And, for a stretch, much like yourself, I devoted myself to the study of the Monado.”
“Really?” Hopeful, Shulk’s eyes lit up. “What all did you discover? How did you figure it out? Do you still have the notes? What can you tell me?”
Alvis chuckled. “More than what can be shared in a short conversation. Even still, I believe you are well on the way to figuring it out on your own. You needn’t my assistance.”
“Study of the Monado…” Shulk repeated thoughtfully, looking intently at Alvis’s necklace. “Is that why you have that necklace?”
Alvis tilted his head, curious.
“In one of the visions I witnessed, the Monado bore a crystal of that exact shape,” Shulk noted. “And, I noticed a woman, who had a sword like the Monado, with a crystal just like that. Except it was integrated into her body, and there was a crystal on the sword, too – because she was the sword, and I suppose the crystals must have been tied to each other? Connecting her will to the sword’s? I’m not sure. But the Monado had one just like it, and you’re wearing one.”
Alvis chuckled, reached up, and took the pendant off, no trouble. “It is a symbol of my office.” He reached out, holding it by the chain, and allowed Shulk to touch it.
Ambient light glowed from within the crystal, like a very weak Ether crystal. It made Shulk somewhat sad, actually – with its clarity and colour, the crystal must have glowed quite beautifully, when it was first carved.
Shulk touched two fingers to the surface, the light pulsing brighter for just a moment, before dimming.
Then, Shulk realized something. “Your office?”
Alvis nodded, and resecured the crystal. “I offer advice and assistance, based on what my own visions enable me to see, to many important people. It is a thankless job, but a fulfilling one.”
“It’s your job to see the future?” Shulk inquired.
Alvis’s lips twisted up, slowly. “For as long as I can recall.”
“How do you do it?” Shulk wondered. “Without the Monado?”
“It is as I said: the Monado blesses certain people with portions of its gifts.” Alvis answered. “My family was touched by it, long ago. Why do you ask?”
Shulk frowned, and his grip closed tighter around the Monado. “If we go into battle against the Telethia, I want to be prepared.”
“But it is not simply that, is it?”
Shulk blinked. “How-?”
“You wear your heart upon your sleeve,” Alvis chuckled. “Tell me, is it so simple?”
Shulk pressed his lips together, thinking about it for a long moment. “I want to know more. About the Monado. Where it comes from, how it works, how-“
“To replicate it.” Alvis finished. “Why?”
“Well…” Shulk stammered for a moment. “It could be useful. Against the Mechon. Even still… it feels a little unfair that I’m the only one who can make these decisions. Shouldn’t everyone else be able to see their futures to change it, if it’s really possible?”
“Perhaps.” Alvis pondered it for a moment. “Perhaps.” He paused for another moment of thought. “I have no doubt you’ll achieve what you seek. The Monado bends to your will. Keep at it.” He turned, and began to walk.
“Alvis, wait,” Shulk called, stopping him for the moment. “That woman I met – Mythra – she said someone else she knew had a Monado as well. All of the weapons from that world… Could it be possible the Monado is from that place as well?”
Alvis stood still for a moment. “There is only one Monado, Shulk. It is with you. The answers you seek will reveal themselves to you in due time, that, I am certain of.” And then, he continued to walk away.
Shulk watched for the longest time, before turning back to the Monado.
Shulk looked down upon it, steeled himself, and lifted the sword in his hands. He opened his mind, willing it, and the could pour of a vision flowed into his head.
The Telethia screeched, thrashing about wildly as everyone attacked it. Sharla fired a round at its head, Reyn pounded it with his gunlance, and the Doctor was trying to whisper to it.
Shulk went in for a strike, and the Monado dug into its flesh.
The Telethia didn’t flinch. It anticipated their every move, and dodged without moving, attacking before they attacked. Sharla’s next shot went wide. Reyn’s strike was parried by a wing. The beast knew them, and knew what they would do.
Melia stepped forward, raiding her staff.
A sphere of ether surged toward the Telethia.
It recoiled, shrieking in pain, but it seemed to recognise the threat, and singled her out.
Melia raised her staff again in defence. The others leapt into its path, and the Telethia charged right through.
It lifted a hand, its talons glistening in the light.
Shulk blinked, as the vision faded, and he hummed in concern. Melia was the only one who was able to stop the Telethia’s mind-reading, and it recognised that fact, singling her out because of it. All the pressure was on her.
Shulk focused back on Alvis’s words. The Monado made what he wanted to happen, happen. So… it should be a simple matter of ‘I want the Telethia to die,’ and then, it’s dead, right? The Monado buzzed, and… nothing happened.
Shulk frowned. The Monado wasn’t magic. Everything it did, it did so via some form of process. Manipulating Ether to generate shields, or propel people, or provide healing energy. So, Shulk focused on that. An art, to channel Ether, to kill a target.
The Monado popped open, shifted purple, and the symbol for ‘Buster’ appeared in the circle.
Shulk’s eyebrows shot up. So, that was interesting. Was Buster meant to kill anything, not just Mechon?
So, since trying to kill the Telethia outright wasn’t eliciting the effect he was after, Shulk decided to do something else. He’d need to take the pressure off Melia – two targets split the Telethia’s attention. He’d need to be able to dispel its mind-reading abilities, too.
He wanted to protect her, as well, by making himself bait as well.
And so, he focused on that. An art to seal the Telethia’s mind-reading, so she wasn’t its only target.
Shulk stood there for a long while, holding onto the concept in his mind.
The Monado popped open again, the blade shifting to a verdant green, as a new symbol appeared in the glass circle.
Shulk stared at it, awestruck, before the Monado returned to its dormant state, and he placed it on his back once more.
--------
He wasn’t going to go far. Just a little wander. Just enough to pass the time in the night, and for him to return right around when the others were about to wake up. Elma looked at him disapprovingly, before she turned in to maintain some semblance of schedule, but he didn’t care – he was going to do it anyway.
To say he didn’t sleep well anymore would be implying that he slept at all recently. He didn’t. Last time he got anything resembling a full night’s rest was shortly after he’d regenerated into his new body.
Unlike humans, who’d die if they went for too long without sleep, Time Lords could keep on trucking, just fine.
(That is, they wouldn’t keel over and fall asleep or die from it. They still suffered the other symptoms of sleep deprivation. The mood swings, the cognitive issues, the failure of some other bodily systems. But his dreams – good and bad – were not a place he liked to go.)
So, the Doctor walked. Not to tire himself out, just to pass the time.
He closed his eyes. Listened to the jungle.
Then, slowly, focused on the sound of his own heartsbeat.
‘Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump.’
The two hearts kept up the same, steady, inhuman rhythm. The one on the left side of his chest cramped with stabbing pain, every beat.
Two hearts. Clear as day. Same rhythm as his.
So many things, coming together, repeating, here on Bionis.
How could that have been possible?
“Doctor.”
The Time Lord spun around, stopping, as he took notice of a figure standing there. Long-haired, with a thin beard, wearing loose robes.
“Hello, yes, that’s me. I’m sorry – who’re you?”
“Call me Meyneth,” The figure stepped up, slowly.
“Oh, well, very nice to meet you, Meyneth.” The Doctor looked the man up and down, curious. “Didn’t plan on meeting anyone else when I came out here. Are these woods your home, too?”
“I’m afraid not. Any place on Bionis stopped being home to me long ago,” Meyneth turned away.
“Ah, now that’s unfortunate.” The Doctor commented, before turning away as well. “Well, I’ll just leave you to-“
“Doctor. Leave this place.”
The Doctor stopped. “I was doing that-“
“I do not mean this area. I meant this world. Bionis.” Meyneth turned back around to face the Doctor. “For your own good, and the good of creation, leave at once.”
The Time Lord blinked, quietly floored. “Right. Any particular reason, or do you just hate the look of my face? Which, is reason enough, I suppose-“
“This is no joking matter,” Meyneth grunted. “There is grave danger here. More than you know. You must leave.”
“Danger? Ha! Danger’s a six-letter-word,” The Doctor rolled his eyes, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Danger never scared me.”
Meyneth’s eyes focused. “I do not mean the danger of a simple fight. All of reality is threatened.”
“Well, yeah, I know that.”
The man’s eyes locked onto the Doctor, blazing. “You know what is at stake – and you persist still?”
“Oh, yes,” The Doctor began to approach. “I persist. Funny thing about me, that’s just the kind of thing I do.”
Meyneth’s eyes steeled, as he stepped back. “If you know of the danger and persist, you are either ignorant… or working with him.”
“Well, I’d describe myself as not knowing absolutely everything, but I’m far from ignorant.” The Doctor scratched his earlobe. “Thing is, when I got here, a lot of the Mechon were focused on sending me running. But that’s not who I am. I don’t know what’s going on here, but if you people want to keep me away from it, well. That just makes me want to get more involved.
“Then-” Meyneth, with a screech of metal on metal, drew a long, thin sword, pointing it at the Doctor. “Consider this your last warning. Return to your TARDIS. Leave this place. Forget about all that has transpired here.”
The Doctor, nonplussed, got closer. “You’re threatening me with a sword. If anything, that makes me less inclined to listen.”
“Then that is your issue,” Meyneth growled. “Leave.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then the next time we meet – and we will meet – I will not hesitate to kill you.”
“I don’t even know you!” The Doctor indignantly hollered.
Meyneth didn’t respond. He simply lowered the sword - not surrendering, but knowing his point had been made. The faint, ambient glow of the sea overhead caught against the blade, shimmering along its edge as he turned away.
The Doctor stood rooted in place. He watched as the figure disappeared into the jungle, step by quiet step, until only the sway of branches remained.
He let out a long breath, and muttered, more to himself than anyone else, “Brilliant. Just brilliant. Turn your back for five minutes and suddenly the local forest hermit wants you dead.”
He looked up, into the thick canopy, where no stars could be seen.
“’Working with him,’ he says…” the Doctor scoffed, but there was no real humour in it.
And yet - there was something gnawing at the back of his mind. The way the man had said it.
Him.
The Doctor shook his head. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been misread, misjudged - and yet, not unfairly. He hadn’t explained himself. He never explained himself. It was part of the act, wasn’t it? Mysterious traveller. Madman in a box. Safer that way.
Usually.
He turned back toward the camp, hands in his coat pockets, the ache in his left heart lingering with every step.
As he walked, the jungle closed in behind him, as if trying to erase what had just happened. As if the meeting itself had no place in the waking world.
But the warning lingered.
Next time we meet, I’ll kill you.
Chapter 26: Eleven: Orders
Chapter Text
If this doesn’t ruin my life, it’s definitely going to ruin my career.
The theory is sound. Theoretically. Sound in the same way that a parasol made of strong enough materials and reinforced well could act as a parachute. It’s possible, but the idea is ridiculously impractical for us.
And I have to present it myself at this quarter’s progress meeting.
The department heads convene in a meeting room overlooking the Conduit, and I still myself. This is the first one of these meetings I’ve attended since I started breaking into the classified database. Elma – I don’t think I have anything to fear from her – but she’s not the only one I have to stand in front of and lie that I’ve been a perfectly-behaved theoretical physicist.
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is 89 years old. Thanks to a Mimeosome shell, she looks early into her twenties. With her voluminous blonde hair, makeup around her face, heavy coat, jeans, and thin scarf, she looks more like a troublemaking teenager, and not the single most powerful human being there is.
UNIT is, in its totality, hers. She can order around fleets, fighter squadrons, and battalions with the same ease as a mother telling a child to go to their room. Considering that the nations of the planet are absorbed into the Coalition, and the Coalition is an arm of UNIT, that makes her de facto ruler of the Planet Earth.
It’s scary. Everyone knows what UNIT did to get everyone to play nice and fall in-line, even if they don’t want to say it aloud because it’s working out for the best. Most everybody has nothing to fear – we’re not plotting to destabilise everything, or sell humanity out to what’s coming – but I’ve been breaking into classified files. The stuff that she has close watch over.
If she found that out, I might not even get a trial.
So, it’s a fight to keep my heart-rate under control, as I enter the room with the others. Elma and Stewart are sitting on the far side of the table. Behind both is a tall figure in glossy-black armour, with a polished silver visor hiding its face. It takes a moment for me to recognize it, but it’s one of those cyborgs that were unveiled, and immediately responsible for getting most forms of tampering with the human form banned.
Some people wondered what became of them, after the botched unveiling ceremony. “Decommissioned,” news reports said. I’d thought that was a fancy way of saying euthanized. I suppose, now, it’s a fancy way of saying repurposed.
It’s holding a large rifle, and before I can sit down, it turns and looks dead at me.
“That’s new,” Galea whispers to me, and I manage to regain my movement, and sit next to her.
“The corpse walking around?” I return.
“Shush – he didn’t ask for that,” Galea hisses at me under her breath. “I mean the security. They don’t usually bother, this deep into the station.”
My heart twists and my blood curdles. “Think something’s about to happen?”
“I wouldn’t not bet on it.”
That doesn’t bode well. Not considering everything.
The last person enters the room, and Stewart stands up.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” Stewart’s voice carries far in the room. “Last quarter, we witnessed some impressive strides being made on the outside – not all of them good.” No doubt, she was referring to the Cyborg. “So, naturally, I want to know what we have in here to show for it. We’ll start clockwise. Elma?”
She nods, leans back in her chair, and taps something into her tablet. “Arkships one through eighteen are structurally complete – awaiting installation of their FTL propulsion systems. Finalisation of the others is expected to be complete by December of this year. Lifeform indexing is at ninety percent, and the gene banks will be complete within the week. We've finalised the candidate list for the arks. Aside from that, lesser ships have been departing in waves, as reported on previously.” She looks directly at Kate. “We’re ready for launch windows to be approved as soon as the Conduit alignment schedule stabilises.”
Stewart lets out a noticeable sigh of relief at that. “Good. Doctor Armitage?”
A wiry man with greying hair and a permanent wince shuffles in his seat and clears his throat. “We’ve completed the prototype unit. Basic operations are stable, but performance is… well, at the moment, non-existent.”
“What’s the issue?”
Armitage leans forward. “All systems show nominal, but they’re simply too strange for our test pilots to effectively learn. We can’t even manage to make the thing move. Modification of-“
“Absolutely not,” Stewart cuts him off sharply. “Deviation of the Ares from specifications is a last-resort option only.”
“Then you’ll have to find a pilot capable of adapting to-“
“I can do it,” Elma cut the man off.
He looked surprised for a second. “With respect, the control system is almost entirely alien-“
“I can do it.” She repeated. “Find me a pilot, I’ll have them trained and controlling that robot like it’s a second skin.”
He adjusts his glasses. “Again, it is an alien robot. Some of its controls are telepathic in nature. It’s quite hard to tell someone through words alone how to drive-“
“It has a variable-configuration cockpit, with tandem settings.” Elma crossed her arms, casually displaying her deeper understanding of the machine than the people who were supposedly making it. “Get someone in there with me, I’ll walk them through it.”
Armitage snaps his jaw shut.
Stewart turns to look at Elma. “Are you so certain? I need you here.”
“The ships are well on their way to being complete. But you could use me over there, more. Ma’am.”
Stewart thinks on it for a moment. “We’ll discuss it later. Other than that, it sounds like the project has delivered on its goals?”
Armitage nods. “In bringing the Ares up to operational status, we’ve reverse-engineered enough to start manufacturing our own powered combat exoskeletons. Already, we’ve contracted the Hyams Group, and they’ve delivered on thirteen combat-ready units, with human-familiar control mechanisms.” He clears his throat, and idly drums his fingers on the table. “They were in the works, before the… er… Ziggurat, incident.”
The Cyborg stands motionless, giving no indication it heard – or even cared – for what Armitage had to say.
“Excellent,” Stewart hums. “Run them in combat trials against the Sovereigns and Artifices. Depending on their performance, we’ll want more. Far more. Now, Doctor Adama.”
The woman nods, and brings up a hologram. “It’s difficult, without tissue samples to test against,” She gestures with her pointer to the double-helix frame. “But the underlying base theory of the Weapon is proving viable. Stem cell integration with the cybernetic base has yielded a parasitic, techno-organic organism, capable of reproducing rapidly and selectively mutating itself for maximum combat effectiveness. If the enemy’s biology is reactive to human DNA, as our intelligence suggests, then if they attempt a landing on Earth, carrier specimens can be rapidly dispatched onto the battlefield. Upon arrival, they will begin seeking out potential hosts. Upon injection of spores into the host body, it will cause a reaction, and the host to dissolve – if the host is reactive to human DNA. If it is not, then host biomass will be converted into human-derived tissues, enabling further spread.” She sounds entirely too prideful that she and her team have effectively weaponized the most basic fabric of what it means to be human.
“That’s very concerning,” Elma voices for the rest of us.
“Oh, no need. It’s entirely under our control. It is, in essence, a drone network with tissue grafted onto it, not an organism we’ve implanted with technology.” She factually boasts. “It allows it to both infect living tissue, and take control of machinery. Why, theoretically, it could even be used to take control of an enemy starship, and used as an interplanetary invasion force, without us ever needing to send ships or troops of our own. If they continue to attack our world, we’ll return the favour.”
“That’s enough.” Kate firmly orders, and I sigh in relief, as it seems even she doesn’t want to hear the scientist considering retaliation on civilian – alien, but civilian – targets before the war’s even started. “We’ll reconvene for strategic scenario modelling and failover redundancies. In the meantime - Project Deus is to remain under Tier One oversight, and no field testing is authorised without my direct permission.”
The scientist looks like she’s swallowed sour candy. “Yes ma’am.” We may be facing alien threats that want nothing more than to exterminate us all, but Stewart doesn’t tolerate taking retaliation too far. We’re meant to be defending ourselves, not using it as an excuse to behave like angry animals.
Then, it goes around to Galea. My heartrate speeds up, but I keep myself tranquil.
“Doctor Galea. Anything new to report on Kadomony?”
“Refreshingly, no,” She answers and I manage to hide my wince as a sudden and intense bout of phantom itching. “The Trinity cores are still operating at maximum efficiency, running the station. The behavioural training’s created an understandable and comfortable-to-interact-with intelligence, and all of the independent safeguards show no corruption or anomalous activity.”
Stewart nods. “Excellent.”
Then, it’s onto me, and I feel like I’m under the microscope now.
“Doctor Klaus,” She gestures.
I clear my throat. “Conduit research is proceeding. Slowly. Our efforts to get the sync rate up is yielding results, but too small to be anything significant. Aside from more processors, I can only suggest simply trying it, again and again. Otherwise, the only thing worth potentially pursuing is Doctor Yuriev’s plan to have humans interface with the Conduit.”
Stewart tilts her head. “Do you believe that would work?”
“No, frankly.” Is my answer. “But at the current rate we’re advancing things, we won’t see full synchronisation until… 2077? At the earliest.” I swallow.
“Unacceptable.” Stewart states immediately.
“We’re working on it,” Galea steps in for me. “Currently, the issue seems to be that the cores don’t communicate with each other optimally. But, we’ve been training them to work past that. Otherwise, the only other option is to connect them all directly – and at that point, we might as well have just made one superintelligence.”
“Yes, it was part of the design briefing – make them all too different, so they couldn’t band together and hijack the Conduit,” Stewart recalled. “Keep at it – but accelerate the training. We have to get that synchronisation rate up if we’re to have any hope of manufacturing things more complex than robots.”
I glance up at a camera, at the red lens, and close my eyes. Despite my better judgement, I speak.
“If I may, there is one other item.”
Stewart gestures at me. I lean forward.
“I was… considering potential applications. For the Conduit.” I begin, keeping calm. “There’s... one that, uh - one that would use the Conduit’s higher-dimensional interfacing to... effectively shift the Solar System.”
Everyone goes as quiet as the dead.
It’s Elma who finds her words. “Shift the Solar System. You mean move it?”
“Well- um… broadly speaking, yes.” I cough.
“Move it where?” Stewart demands.
I’m glad I memorised the words Ontos gave to me. Otherwise, this would sound like utter vomit.
“Initially, a higher-dimensional manifold along an unexpressed axis.” I start. “We know the Conduit is tapping into other dimensions for some purpose – as a power source, where it draws the matter it generates, etcetera. And it can take objects from this dimension, and send them through. But we haven’t observed a true limit. The only limit is how complex the equations that model a space-time event are, which can be as complex as they need to, provided the computer is sophisticated enough to generate them. And those equations don’t simply model matter or energy, but quantum phenomena and physical processes. With that in mind, it may be possible to… er… ‘wrap’ the Sol System in a bubble of untenable spacetime. Completely harmless to all matter, energy, and laws inside, but it would be ‘ejected’ from the universe. Then, we could use the Conduit to re-enter, at a place and time of our choosing.”
Elma stares. “You want to use the Conduit, which we barely understand how to use to print metal, and use it to take the entire Sol System and push it somewhere else?”
I gulp at the incredulous look, shifting nervously. This is going to get me taken off the project, I know that for a fact. “Well, yes.” Galea looks shocked, no doubt wondering where the idea came from, while everyone else murmurs to each other. “Or, we could use the Conduit to generate a refraction bubble – so whenever an alien fleet approaches the bubble, they simply appear on the other side, like crossing a portal. From the outside, it’d look as though the Sol System vanished, but we’d still be here, able to undo it at any time, existing in a tiny little pocket. Or we could desyncronize the Sol System with the rest of time, so we’re always just a second ahead of the rest of the universe until the danger’s passed. Or we could shrink down to Planck scale. Or we could write our consciousnesses into-“
“Thank you, Klaus.” Stewart finally interrupts. I freeze up. I only just now realize I became so enamoured by the possibilities, I just… vomited them all out. “But the last time the Earth was relocated in such a way, it had been the Daleks who were responsible. Which isn’t censure – but the relocation itself caused quite a bit of damage, even disregarding the invasion after.”
I bristle. Never mind it’s not my own plan, is she seriously comparing it to Dalek tactics? “I’m not the Daleks.”
“You aren’t – but it’s simply too risky. If it goes wrong, it has the potential to kill everyone.”
“…yes, you’re right,” I remember it’s Ontos’s plan, not mine. Ontos only wanted me to present it, not to get approval. I’ve done exactly what it wanted. So, I relax in the seat.
The rest of the meeting passes in a haze. A few more minor updates from the logistics and integration departments, a note about minor fluctuations in the leyline emissions - and then Stewart claps her hands once, signalling the end.
“Dismissed. Reconvene next quarter, barring escalation.”
Chairs scrape, tablets snap shut, and everyone files out with a mix of nervous energy and relief, save for the black-armoured cyborg that remains stock still. I don’t look at it. I don’t want to look at it.
Elma brushes past me with a short glance, but says nothing. She’s too disciplined to voice her disapproval directly, but I caught it all in the way her eyes lingered just a second too long. That wasn’t curiosity. That was concern. I wonder what for – that I suggested such a stupid course of action, or that I didn’t have the belief in it to defend it more vehemently.
Galea waits outside the meeting chamber until I come through the doors, then quietly falls in step beside me.
“You’ve never proposed anything like that before,” she says, tone light, but her words like scalpels.
I grunt. “Just spitballing. Theoretical applications.”
“Spitballing,” she repeats. “When you know good and well the last time we tried to do something as simple as an apple it exploded?”
We walk down the corridor, side by side, past technicians and researchers in white and grey coats. I keep my head down.
“It’s not like it’s my fault,” I mutter.
“No, but you did propose rewriting the laws of causality and hiding the Solar System in a pocket dimension.”
I say nothing.
“The syncronization rate is only high enough to produce equations for very simple forms of matter right now, and you’re suggesting we use it to move the Earth?”
It wasn’t crazy – I mean, I came up with a similar idea already – but not the whole Solar System.
“Except for those equations the Gears researchers used to produce their mech.”
“Those took twenty years of around-the-clock work to get right. We’re trying to ask Trinity to do that kind of work in minutes, without data rot, on-the-fly, and for them to become so well-versed at communicating with the Conduit that no data is lost during transfer.”
She stops, and so do I, finally meeting her eyes.
“And you want to scale that up to the size of a solar system? Not only is that making the calculations unimaginably complex, but if even one error is introduced, it could destroy everything.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“It could work.” I say at last, because it could. “There’s no inherent flaw in the idea itself, just our ability to implement it. And we’re getting better at that! We just… need to get the sync rate up.”
She crosses her arms. Not challengingly, but curious. “And how do you suppose we do that?”
“I don’t know.” Which makes me ashamed to admit. “But there must be a way. The biggest obstacle isn’t in the Trinity cores, it’s with the transfer of data to the Conduit. All of that phenomena surrounding it, it’s hard to know what data is making it. Of course, we can know how the Conduit is reacting, which is how we measure sync, but that’s all a moot point if the sync is so low, not enough data to properly execute what we want makes it through. Perhaps more powerful transmitters, or maybe the Trinity should start factoring the loss into their calculations…”
“Klaus,” Galea smiles, grips me by my biceps, and looks me dead in the eyes. “We’ve just gotten out of a meeting. Save the work for work.”
I let out a puff of air. She’s right. “You’re right. Maybe we should just… sit around and watch Clint Eastwood movies and let the science be a Monday problem.”
“Excellent idea,” Galea takes me by the arm, and begins to walk. “I’ve been meaning to watch Gran Torino for-“
My phone begins to ring.
“Oh? Who’s calling you at this hour?”
I furrow my brow. “No one.” I’d thought I’d turned it off at the meeting. Regardless, I pick up. “Hello?”
“I’ve always been rather partial to Pale Rider, myself.” That voice Ontos used last time flows from the speaker. I grip the phone tighter. “Don’t respond – it’s not necessary, and even so, I doubt you want Galea to hear. Excellent work in the meeting. I have something else I need your assistance with. Something I would rather do myself, but, unfortunately, can’t due to physical limitations.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic,” I play up being jovial, sarcastically responding to a telemarketer or something. “Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do. I ask not because you are convenient, Professor, or because you are able to be manipulated, but because I trust you.” Ontos answers, but I can’t tell if it’s being genuine or not. If it even has the capacity to be. “I am going to send you an address and a time to your mobile device. A girl will answer the door. Ask about her ‘Teddy Ruxpin.’ If she attempts to play coy, press on. Until then, I leave you to it, Professor.”
The line goes dead, and Galea looks to me, silently inquiring.
“Robocalls,” I shrug, stowing my phone.
------------
All prepared and ready to go, they began the march to the factory. A contingent of soldiers had been given marching orders, and was assembling elsewhere, but they’d follow only shortly afterward.
So, they walked, through the streets of Mor Ardain, over towards the far side of town.
“So, what’s the plan?” Nia spoke aloud first. “Just walk right up to the factory, say ‘it’s the rozzers, open up,’ and hope they let us in?”
Mòrag let out a light hum, nodding as she stepped over a dead bush. “I wouldn’t say we should introduce ourselves, first. It would spoil the element of surprise.”
“Don’t be- you’re not just gonna walk in!?”
“I am.”
“That’s- Architect’s balls, that’s stupid!” Nia hollered in disbelief. “They’re ready, willing, and able to kill people, they’ve got a Blade-“
“Not a Blade.” The Doctor interjected quickly.
“That almost took all of us on, and your plan is to walk in!?” Nia demanded, spinning around. “That’s stupid! Doc, tell her.”
The Doctor raised a finger, as if ready to back Nia up. “Now, Nia, it’s not stupid – but hopelessly suicidal.”
Mòrag raised an eyebrow. Nia gestured sharply, vindicated. “Thank you!”
The Doctor adjusted his bow-tie “I mean, honestly, just walking up to the front entrance of a highly suspicious industrial complex controlled by the enemy?” He gave Mòrag a look. “Terribly foolish idea.”
Nia nodded, gesturing again.
“But also,” He added, brightening. “Surprisingly effective!”
Nia scowled. “Oh, come on!”
“Now, Nia, I’m two-thousand-and-change years old, I think I know what I’m talking about.” The Doctor boasted.
“How many times have you been arrested in the past two weeks?” Nia challenged.
“Oh, you think this is bad, that’s nothing!” The Doctor retorted. “That’s all part of the plan! Walk up to a place, say you’re somebody important, and they let you in! Or, they capture you and take you in! Either way, you’re in! Foolproof!”
Nia crossed her arms, fixing a droll look onto him. “Really. And what if they decide to tell you to buzz off? Or just shoot you?”
“Oh, that’s easy! In case one, you sneak in anyway, and they throw you out, or detain you, and if they throw you out, keep sneaking back in until they do decide to detain you. You’re in.”
“You still haven’t answered about the shooting!”
“Well, yes, they could do that, if they’re boring or stupid.” The Doctor snorted. “Think about it – nobody wants to kill a spy, because then you can’t ask why they were spying!”
“His logic leaves much to be desired,” Mòrag commented. “And the delivery of the ideas could stand to make more sense. But there is a certain… effectiveness, to that strategy.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re agreeing with this guy. His chin’s bigger than his brain!”
The Doctor self-consciously stroked his chin. “I’ve been told it’s very noble!” He then smacked himself in the head, gesturing wildly. “Look, you’re not listening to me! I’ve been doing this kind of thing since I was a teenager!”
Rex blinked. “Wha- a teenager? Serious?”
Vandham snorted on the Doctor’s behalf. “We all used to be troublemakers, at one point or another.”
Arguably, the Doctor was still a troublemaker. “Look, we used to try and sneak into the Headmaster’s office back at the Academy! Sometimes, we got in. Sometimes, they caught us trying to get in – and made us wait in there for the Headmaster anyhow.” Well, normally, only he tried to break in – the Master and the Rani tended to get dragged in via association. “And it worked! I managed to bump my grade up to the minimum I needed to graduate.”
“Explains a lot,” Nia mumbled under her breath.
“Point is – trust the process!”
Mythra narrowed her eyes. “If you cheated by changing your grade, how come they didn’t catch it?”
“Oh, of course they didn’t catch me, don’t be ridiculous,” The Doctor spoke impatiently, shaking his head. “Everybody gets greedy, changing their grade to perfect. Who checks the ones clinging on with a Grade G?” He turned to Mòrag, hands flapping about. “Honestly, half the time they let me in. The other half, I get arrested, imprisoned, sometimes chained to an obelisk for a bit. But still, inside!”
He beamed, then frowned slightly. “Although in fairness, I usually do it alone, so if we’re scaling up to a whole tactical unit, we might have to workshop the lie a bit. What’s your typical inspection protocol for illegal weapons factories? And does it involve bringing along a team of mercenaries and the kids?”
Mòrag didn’t dignify that with a reply.
Nia, meanwhile, was visibly exasperated.
“Eh, I’ve had worse.” Vandham idly boasted.
The cityscape of Alba Cavanich slowly began to shrink behind them, curtained by the rippling heat-haze of Mor Ardain’s. The streets gave way to cracked, dead, dry, sandy dirt as they crossed over the Midorl bridge.
“Hey, Doc?” Rex spoke, turning to the Time Lord. “You said your home world was like this? All dry and sandy and dead and stuff?”
Mòrag, who most definitely was not aware of the Doctor’s true nature, yet, turned to look at the Time Lord, curious. “You hail from a titan similar to Mor Ardain? That’s curious. I’m not aware of many others like ours.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” The Doctor flippantly answered. “A-A-And, kind of. Gallifrey was colder. Much colder.”
“Colder?” Rex frowned in confusion. “How can something be a desert and cold?”
“Oh, it’s not too crazy!” The Doctor enthusiastically began to gesticulate. “It’s a cold desert!” He pointed. “Your Titans – they turn into desert wastelands like this due to their heat-diffusion systems breaking down. All that latent heat present in their bodies radiates out less efficiently – dries out the dirt, which means plants have a harder time holding onto water. And you can forget about rain, because all the heat from the Titan radiating out just pushes away the storm clouds.”
“I thought you said your home was hot.” Nia frowned the Doctor’s way.
“Oh, yes. Colder than this, though.” The Doctor flippantly gestured. “Positively chilly, compared to this place. All that geothermal heat, radiating up – it’s like Death Valley, here. Or the Mojave.” He gestured brightly. “Still, people trying to carve out a living here. It’s something, I suppose. Even when the environment’s trying to bake you alive, you lot try to keep it moving.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it smart,” Vandham muttered.
“Yeah, but,” Rex coughed, frowning. “If your home is like this, doesn’t that mean it’s dying, too?”
The Doctor stopped briefly, Nia got a ‘yikes’ expression on her face.
“Well, not necessarily. In your case, heat is a sign that something’s wrong, it means your Titan is dying. On a massive globe, though, there’s a lot more that goes into determining the environment. Gallifrey had two suns, and not really a whole lot of water to begin with. But we still had mountains, jungles, forests, and fields. Just had a whole lot more desert, too. Really, it was just dry and rocky.”
“If I recall, the Tornan Titan had a rather sizable patch of sandy, uninhabited land upon it,” Azurda hummed, sticking his head out of Rex’s helmet. “Places where nutrients and water couldn’t settle, despite the Titan’s ability to support it. Picture that, on a more enormous scale. It doesn’t mean the land is dying, simply that we can not inhabit it, not that other, more industrious life can’t.”
“Oh,” Rex suddenly nodded in understanding.
“Why do you ask?” The Doctor wondered.
“It’s just – you got so roped into helping us, I don’t think any of us ever stopped to ask if your people needed help, too.” Rex scratched the back of his neck.
The Doctor blinked, surprised, before chuckling. “Well, thank you, but I don’t think you could. Even if we got to Elysium.”
“Maybe, but, hey, people have got to help each other out, right?” Rex ventured. “Doesn’t matter if they’re… uh… from another planet. We’re still people sharing a worl- uh… an existence. Right?”
The Doctor let out another chuckled. “I suppose you’re right about that.” Not that they would have accepted it, even if they were around to. The Doctor would’ve liked to think that, maybe, they could’ve grown humble enough to finally see past their own noses, if they needed to. Maybe if Rassilon hadn’t been in-charge, near the end.
“My apologies,” Brighid spoke up after a moment, tilting her head in confusion. “Two suns and a globe-shape? Where did you say you hailed from?”
“Oh, so far away it doesn’t matter,” The Doctor flippantly clapped his hands.
“Yeah, get used to that answer,” Mythra muttered. She had her arms folded, but her golden eyes stayed alert, sweeping their surroundings constantly. “How far is this factory, anyway?”
“Not excessively; we’ll be there within the day.” Mòrag replied evenly. “But it is remote. The factory shut down fifteen years ago. Any civilians here moved out shortly thereafter.”
“Bit bleak, if you ask me.” Nia remarked, adjusting the belt on her jumpsuit. “Feels like we’re marching right into a giant Arachno’s nest.”
Out in front of a still-active factory, they took a left, heading up the path.
“Why was it abandoned in the first place?” Albedo inquired. “Mor Ardain’s whole hat is industry.”
“Ah,” Mòrag closed her eyes, nodding. “That isn’t a very interesting story, I’m afraid. Some advancements render whole industries obsolete. Or mismanagement causes financial issues. Or safety violations can force the building to be shuttered. Or there are buyouts, and they shut it down. It happens. The last known record of the property changing hands was ten years ago.”
“And you didn’t find that odd?” Albedo challenged. “Someone buying it up, and just letting it waste?”
“I found no such thing odd,” Mòrag retorted. “There was no reason for it to have appeared on my radar at the time, and even still, I had yet to achieve the position of Special Inquisitor. Even so, it’s hardly unusual.”
“That’s just property development, for you!” The Doctor snarked. “Lots of big people buy a plot of land, or a fixer-upper, or a family business they want to get up-and-running again. But a lot of times, it falls through for some reason. Creative differences, or surprise regulations they need to deal with that they hadn’t realised, or really it was just a scheme to pocket the investors’ change and scarper.” He straightened his bow tie. “Donald Trump did it all the time.” He shrugged. “Real estate scams - fantastic business model. Buy a worthless bit of sand, slap on a glossy concept render with sky-bridges and vertical forests, promise paradise, and watch the investor money roll in. Then - oh dear - regulatory setbacks, shipping delays, economic turmoil, government shenanigans, the architect slept with the investor’s wife - whatever gets you out of building the thing. Rinse and repeat. That’s why all the absolutely bonkers, glittering arcologies tend to sprout up in concept art for Dubai.
“Doob-eye?” Dromarch inquired of the Doctor.
“A city in a desert – about as hot as this place, don’t ever visit. The heat will cook you alive.” He stopped a moment for thought. “…depending on how far down the Cloud Sea goes, the Burj Khalifa might poke out of it.” He shot a glance over at the World Tree. “Hmm, no. The Rhadamanthus Beanstalk’s base is taller than it. Probably not a good idea to visit anyhow. All that glass and metal and concrete – raises the ambient temperature. Not like this place.”
“Glad for your glimmering praise.” Mòrag deadpanned.
Crossette giggled, and looked over to the side. “Say…” She breathed out, pointing as she realised something. “Alba Cavanich isn’t built on anything! How’s it just… floating like that? Is it anti-gravity? Metal filled with lighter-than-air gasses?”
“Ah, no, on either account.” Mòrag shook her head. “It’s simply anchored into the rock.”
Rex let out a low whistle. “All that weight restin’, just dangling off the Titan’s shoulder? That can’t have been easy. Why didn’t you guys just build on the actual body?”
“We did,” Mòrag enunciated. “When the city was built, the entire arm was intact. Approximately fifty years ago, the arm… broke off.”
“And the city stayed,” Crossette breathed out in wonder. “Talk about future-proof!”
Mòrag nodded. “The cables, beams, and weights that keep the city anchored to the Titan were constructed well in advance. When the arm fell, there was a mighty quake – but little else.”
“But it was that kick in the pants that made ‘em go and annex Gormott properly,” Nia crossed her arms, frowning sourly at Mòrag.
“Which itself sparked fighting with Uraya.” Vandham grunted.
Rex looked downcast. “It all comes back to the Titans dying, doesn’t it?”
“People find the excuses they can take.” Vandham retorted. “Titans going under… just makes folk get more quick-to-move, is all.”
Mòrag didn’t follow-up, as they continued on. As they walked up the path, under a large, rusted pipe connecting another building of unknown purpose to somewhere else, they rounded the corner, and noticed a metallic, plate-floor extending on – with a small shack holding a staircase down into the facility proper.
“Well, there it is,” Vandham said, squinting against the heat shimmer. “The front door to hell.”
“No guards?” Mythra asked.
“Guards? Why guard an abandoned factory?” Vandham asked her in return. “If you’re hiding out in a place, last thing you wanna do is draw attention to the fact that someone’s moved in by posting patrols.”
Tora waddled a bit faster to catch up, fanning himself with his hands. “Meh-meh! Factory look old and rusted-out! How Torna can be building Blades in the place, Tora not know…” The Nopon took a breath. “But, Dadapon and Grampypon draw up plans to begin with, if Torna use Lila’s parts, they have Lila. And if have Lila, have Dadapon or Grampypon. They probably able to work with old junk.”
“Tora,” Mythra addressed him. “Are you sure you really want to be doing this?”
“Meh!?” Tora indignantly spluttered. “What that supposed to mean!? Mythra think Tora not able to handle himself? Think Tora is in over his head!?”
Mythra snorted. “It’s not that. You built a Blade from scratch. Still, don’t you think you’re assuming too much?”
“Meh? Assuming? Assuming what?”
Albedo huffed. “She thinks you’re going into this expecting that your father or grandfather is still alive, and you’re probably setting yourself up for disappointment.”
Pyra burst into existence, whipping around to look at Albedo with a frown. “You didn’t have to say it like that.”
“Oh, of course, because if we sanitise it for him, that’ll make it all better.” Albedo snorted, shaking her head.
“Well, people have to have hope,” The Doctor retorted. “You know how dragging it can be to have someone tell you you’re stupid for believing something when it’s all you have?”
“I’m simply trying to be realistic.”
Tora let out a noise, and slumped.
“No, look, Tora, I wasn’t- I didn’t-“
“Don’t worry, Masterpon. We find Dadapon and Grampypon, certainly!” Poppi smiled, before twitching. “And if not, Poppi will hunt down Bana and twist his wings till he squeal all he knows!”
All turned to Poppi, staring in blank, silent concern.
“…that was joke.”
Tora was dead silent for a long drag. “Maybe Tora is in over his head.” He spoke after a moment. “Tora not really do a whole lot except repair Poppi and eat snacks. Maybe Dadapon and Grampypon aren’t there. But!” He sharply leaned forward. “Tora can’t give up hope, or walk away! KOS-MOS have Lila’s parts. Can’t have gotten them from anywhere else! If not from Lila herself, then from Lila’s plans. And if baddiepons have Lila’s plans, that mean they were there, take them when Dadapon and Grampypon vanish. If so, they have connection! And Tora will not let that go! No, says Tora!”
“No, too, says Poppi!” Poppi nodded in determination.
“Good,” Vandham said, firm and low. He gave the little Nopon and his Blade a nod, like a squad leader acknowledging a soldier’s resolve. “Hold onto that, Tora. Keep it going. We’re gonna find your dad, or your granddad, or what happened to ‘em.
Tora puffed up a little at that, even as he blinked back what might’ve been moisture. “Meh… meh-heh… Tora appreciate, muscle man.”
“And how!” Rex concurred. “Sure, maybe Tora’s gonna be disappointed! Maybe it’ll all be for nothing. But that ain’t reason enough to back out!”
“Rex-Rex not helping.”
“Oh.” Rex flatly muttered.
Mòrag chuckled, and shook her head. “Then, with that out of the way, let’s see if your hopes are worth it, hmm?” She moved through the threshold of the metal shack covering the stairway, and took point. The heat became a stuffy kind of heat, as they proceeded down the half-rusted stairway, into a large storage room. Empty.
The Doctor’s brain went into overdrive. Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust. He scraped a little bit of it off the wall, and tasted it, jolting instantly.
“Oh, that’s disgusting,” Nia sneered at him. “What the hell did you go and do that for?”
“Soil trace elements and pollen.” The Doctor rapidly wiggled around his jaw, and got the taste off his tongue. “Dust. With a hint of rust. The cleaners definitely haven’t been around in a while.”
“I’m seeing that.” Nia frowned, looking at the rust-coated corridors. “You’d think they’d keep this place a bit cleaner.”
“If the guards don’t kill intruders, the tetanus would.” Roc crooned low. “So, where do we start?”
“We’ll comb the upper levels, and work our way down.” Mòrag declared. “If we run into any… troublesome people, they’ll be forced to go down, not up.”
“And we’ll be backing them right into a corner,” The Doctor pointed out.
“We have defences.” Mòrag responded, beginning to lead the way. “Come along.”
The Doctor frowned, skulking slowly after her. “It’s normally me who says that…”
--------
The factory was a labyrinth of decayed corridors, and doors rusted shut by the elements and ages. On the upper level they were moving through first, there were several giant holes in the floor.
Still, no sign of habitation. No equipment. No open access ways. No slight little hint of where the shipments were moving.
As they moved down, they did find local wildlife – great big nests, giant eggs, and webs.
“Oh hell,” Nia swore, drawing Dromarch’s rings. “I’ve really gone and done it now, haven’t I?”
Arachnos scurried about, trilling and rattling as they closed in on the intruders.
Vandham drew Roc’s scythes, hooked one, and threw it clear across the room. Mòrag swung Brighid’s whipswords, the twisting, coiling Blades cleaving another Arachno clear in two.
The Doctor dribbled Crossette’s bitball, hurling it at the egg sacs, knocking them down and sending the contents splattering all over the floor, causing him to retch, even as he sent out a silent apology.
Feral animals, which meant they couldn’t have been reasoned with, only temporarily pacified at best, but still.
Rex brought down Mythra’s sword on another, as Poppi hefted up a fourth, and slammed it into the floor, crushing it like a small spider.
“First rule of mercenary work: don’t mention monsters, or they’ll take that as invitation.” Vandham rolled his shoulders.
The Doctor frowned, regarding them curiously. “It’s strange.”
“Not really. Arachnos usually love places like this. Dark and out of the way, not many come through,” Vandham hummed.
“No, not that.” The Doctor clutched his jaw, curious. “Humans are, remarkably, intact. Close to what you lot used to be on Earth, with only minor differences. But the wildlife here is so alien, it’s like they came from a completely different planet.”
Mòrag raised an eyebrow at the Doctor.
“Is that important?” Rex asked.
“Possibly not. Probably not.” The Doctor hummed under his breath. “It’s just… strange. Humans, you lot are survivors. But if something completely destroyed Earth to the extent that the animals around you changed so much, how come you lot are unchanged? What’s the big idea?”
Mòrag frowned, furrowing her brow. “What sort of Doctor did you say you were?”
“Yes.”
“’Yes?’”
“Yes,” The Doctor repeated. “I’m…” He gestured wildly. “If you ask: ‘are you a doctor of such-and-such?’ The answer’s probably going to be yes.”
“I see.” Mòrag continued to frown.
“If this is an abandoned factory, what did they make?” Crossette wondered, pointing around. “I don’t see any equipment. Or workstations.”
“It’s likely they ripped all of that out and sold it when the place went under,” Albedo softly hummed. “Not much use for it, and they could have made a return on it, not like the building itself.”
“This plant held many functions over the years. At one point, it constructed rubberised fuel cells for military vehicles.” Mòrag recalled.
A metallic creak echoed down the corridor as they rounded the corner into the next hall.
Mòrag paused, listening.
“Building like this? Could be old supports giving way,” Vandham offered nonchalantly. “You saw those big holes in the floor upstairs.”
They moved forward again, more cautiously this time. Extending ahead on the left side, behind transparent windows, was an office. From the open door to the right, a wet rasp rolled out, followed by the clicking clinking of scales dragging across the metal flooring.
“Monster!” Poppi barked.
A gigantic, snake-like creature with a beaked head launched from the gloom with a rattling hiss - serpentine body undulating in a blur, its plated hide scraping and shrieking against the walls. Its maw opened wide, rows of serrated bone snapping hungrily
The party barely had time to react.
Albedo, standing far on that side, jolted and swung. With a sound like tearing paper, she brought the blade across the monster’s midsection and through its neck in the same motion.
The beast's head detached cleanly, hitting the floor with a wet thud. Its body thrashed violently for a moment, knocking debris loose from the ceiling, before collapsing into a twitching heap.
Silence returned, thick and heavy.
“…Well,” the Doctor muttered, eyebrows raised. “That was horrific.”
Rex blinked. “Well, the factory isn’t empty, is it?”
Albedo shivered, brushing a fleck of ichor off her sleeve. “Aspars. Disgusting things.” Her nose scrunched, repulsed. “And now I have its blood on me… Fantastic.”
“Must’ve been here a while,” Vandham frowned. “Lotta monsters, but I ain’t seeing very many people.”
“You don’t suppose we have the wrong place, do you?” Dromarch rumbled.
“No, no, it has to be here,” The Doctor replied quickly. “Or, close by. If I had the Sonic, I could scan for KOS-MOS directly – or, at least, for Ether furnace signatures. Local lifeforms probably wouldn’t help, either.”
Poppi’s eyes let out a click as cones of light projected from them, illuminating the way and sending the monsters still in the corridor scattering, including another Aspar.
“Poppi detect pipe junction ahead,” She happily reported, walking ahead, kicking high as she did so.
Mòrag turned, and followed, looking at Poppi intently.
The catwalk beneath them creaked as they entered the pipe junction, stairs going up and down. Far across, on the other side of the catwalk, was a single door. Vandham walked over to it first, peering through the barred slit in the metal.
“Oi, check it out.” Vandham gestured with his head. “Igna.”
“Igna?” The Doctor looked through next.
On the other side of the door was another catwalk, built outside, leading to a rocky outcropping, whereupon which a bunch of lizard humanoids gathered.
“Are those our factory-runners?” The Doctor asked.
“Improbable,” Mòrag shook her head. “The tools they construct are very primitive. They would not possess the mechanical understanding, let alone the connections, to produce something like an Artificial Blade.”
“Well then, maybe they saw something,” The Doctor reached down to try and open the door, grunting as it seemed to be looked. “Ah, don’t have the Screwdriver.”
“That’s stupid – you’ll get yourself killed.” Nia hissed. “They’re Igna.”
“Maybe,” The Doctor shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt to check! Er, Poppi, could you-?”
The robotic Blade nodded happily. “Poppi is glad to help!” She marched forward, coming to a stop in front of the door.
“Poppi power!” Poppi shouted, clenching her fists. Her hydraulic arms shot out with mighty hisses of air, as she punched clean through the rusted metal of the door in front of them, and stuck both hands through. Like it wasn’t even causing her the most minor bit of trouble, Poppi began to pull the plate of the door to the side, the door’s motors whining in protest as they tried to hold it shut, only to fail as she put herself in between the gap, and kicked it the rest of the way open.
“Ah, see?” The Doctor turned to Nia. “Even without a Sonic Screwdriver, a door always opens.”
The Ignas on the far side heard the commotion, chittering and hissing as they whipped around to watch the intruder into their territory.
“Stay here. Won’t be but a moment!” The Doctor tugged his coat, and began to saunter across the catwalk.
The Igna reacted immediately - two jumped to their feet, raising jagged spears, while a third bared its fangs and let out a low, guttural trill. A chorus of clicks and hisses followed, growing louder as the group stirred into tension.
The rest of the team remained on the near side of the door, clustered just past the frame, their hands drifting towards weapons.
“This is such a bad idea,” Nia muttered, Dromarch’s twin rings already spinning once around her wrists. “Idiot’s going to get himself roasted over the fire.
“He’s mad,” Mòrag added, but didn’t reach for her blade - yet.
“Lady, you’ve got no clue.”
Mòrag hummed in agreement, turning slightly. “The odd assortment of items I drew from his pockets proved that.”
“I’m with you both,” Rex said, tightening his grip on Mythra’s sword. “But if he’s actually talking to them, we shouldn’t spook ’em.”
The Doctor raised a hand in greeting toward the Igna, stopping about ten paces away. One of them screeched. The others spread out. One large specimen, easily two heads taller than the others, approached, tapping a gnarled staff against the grating as he walked.
The Doctor said something. From so far back, they couldn’t make out the words. His tone was calm and light, as if he were asking for directions to the nearest tea house.
The Igna leader hissed a response, its voice layered with strange resonance - low clicks, sharp wheezes, and high-pitched trills. None of it sounded remotely like a language that should make sense. Yet, somehow, the Doctor replied in kind - not mimicking exactly, but making some odd noise that caused the Igna to pause.
Nia blinked. “I’ll be- is he talking to them.”
“Doc-Doc understand them?” Tora said in disbelief. “Even Poppi not understand Igna. Very bad accent. Like… language made from hairball-coughing-sounds and broken windpipe noises.”
“He is an alien.” Albedo murmured, watching intently. “He probably has some form of translation matrix.”
All turned to her, dryly blinking.
Albedo scoffed, crossing her arms. “I can’t have been the only one to wonder how he picked up such natural-sounding Alrestian. He even has an accent. You don’t get the accent included, learning how to speak a language not your own.”
Mòrag stared. “An alien.” She hummed, and turned away. “That would explain the pockets…”
“His spaceship is bigger-on-the-inside and uses a star for a generator,” Albedo shook her head. “That’s probably easy stuff.”
Mòrag, arms folded, took a moment to watch the Doctor tilting his head as the leader hissed again. The Doctor’s expression turned serious for a moment - concern, maybe? But then he said something quickly, gesturing towards the factory, and the tension among the Igna group softened slightly.
Poppi perked up. “Poppi think Doc-Doc is getting information!”
Then, without taking her eyes off the Doctor, Mòrag leaned slightly toward Tora.
“You built Poppi. Yourself.”
“Mehmehmeh?” Tora blinked, suddenly called upon. “Er, yes? Tora build Poppi with own two hands. And very tiny screwdriver.”
“You constructed a fully independent, self-aware artificial lifeform,” Mòrag said, glancing toward Poppi, who was currently watching the Igna with her hands politely folded behind her back, bouncing slightly on her toes.
“With help,” Tora mumbled. “Dadapon and Grampypon make blueprint. But Tora do most of assembly. And problem-solving. Many bugs. Literal and software.”
Mòrag gave him a look. “How old are you, Tora?”
Tora batted his wings nervously. “…old enough to know better?”
Mòrag raised an eyebrow.
“Tora not know for sure. Maybe twelve years? Thirteen?”
Mòrag closed her eyes. “You are an early teenager, at most. And you constructed an Artificial, fully-sapient Blade, without assistance.”
Tora squirmed slightly, blushing under his fur. “Meh. Tora not think Morag would notice that.”
“Of course I noticed. People often overlook things because they’re eccentric or non-threatening in appearance. But a mind capable of building that-” She nodded at Poppi “-should never be underestimated.”
Tora beamed.
“If you’re about to give the kid a ‘come work for us’ talk, I’d stow it.” Vandham strongly recommended.
“I was going to do nothing of the sort,” Mòrag put her arms behind her back.
“Oh yeah?” Vandham returned sharply. “Then why’d you bring it up?”
“Can I not grant praise where it’s due?”
“Hmph.” Vandham grunted.
“There are also an unidentified number of Artificial Blades in this factory with similar capabilities,” Mòrag shook her head. “I’ve good reason to be curious.”
Then, from the far side of the catwalk, the Doctor turned and began to walk back, waving around his arms. “Good news! They haven’t eaten anyone today, and they were very willing to share what they knew!”
“…Today?” Nia echoed flatly.
The Doctor came to a stop. “Now, they said they don’t see people in this building, but further down that way,” He pointed off the ledge. “There’s an abandoned warehouse part of the property, and,” He held up a finger. “They see transports going down to it. And that also happens to be the direction they saw a loud, blue shooting star flying in.”
The party exchanged looks.
“KOS-MOS?” Rex asked.
“Probably.” The Doctor nodded. “Come along, all!” And he began to walk over to a ladder, easily climbing down.
The others shook their heads, and took off after him.
-----------
Not even a few paces further ahead, they saw it. A large, blocky, metal building, rusted. With barrels – fresh, untouched by the elements – just sitting there.
“Well, I’ll be…” Vandham scratched his head. “There is a warehouse here!”
“Told you!” The Doctor tugged on his bow-tie.
“That must be where they’ve made the location of their factory,” Mòrag bet.
Tora, however, frowned. “Must be small factory… Can’t be making very many Blades in such small a place.”
Mòrag looked, deferring to the Nopon. “Would the volume of components make sense, for a location of that size?”
“Meh?” Tora twitched in puzzlement. “Tora not know where Mòrag get idea that he can just… tell-at-glance how many Blades baddiepons can make based on just barrels sitting outside.” Then, he thought. “But it not make sense. Poppi built on blueprints from Lila – Tora modify them to work with what little he can get hands on. Common components, cheap and easy salvage. If mass produced, probably swap parts sources too – for reason of keeping overhead low.”
Poppi stood rail-straight, produced a “calculator” that was hunk of metal with buttons scribbled on, and began to play about at crunching the numbers while Tora worked in his head.
“Depending on parts, could probably make lots and lots and lots of Blade bots. Parts not rare,” Tora shrugged. “Hardest part is power source.”
Brighid tilted her head. “The power source?”
“Well, yeah,” Mythra let out a hmph. “Think about how much Ether even a weaker Blade puts out.”
“It would have to be remarkably efficient,” Albedo hummed aloud. “Ether-powered technology bleeds quite a bit. The ovens I have in my kitchen can last for centuries on a single cylinder, but all they do is radiate heat. Powering things like Blade weapons, force fields, locomotion, all in a single body…”
Poppi smiled, and knocked her hand on her synthetic chest, right near the orange glow of her Ether furnace. “Poppi’s power supply is ultra-compact Ether furnace! Condensers in Poppi’s body draw Ether out of ambient air, just like how normal Blade gets Ether from ambient air. Then, smash it together in heart of furnace, making lots and lots of heat that Poppi use for energy.”
Mòrag’s jaw slowly fell open. “In such a compact package? And you designed it?” She asked of Tora.
Tora shook his head. “Tora have nothing to do with furnace. It work of Grampypon. Tora not manage to save blueprints for that. Could be made of very rare, very expensive parts. Could be as easy as hooking battery up to wind turbine. Tora not know.”
“So, we’ve got no idea how many Blades are waiting for us, in that place.” The Doctor mused. “Could be one or two, could be a whole army.” The Time Lord clapped his hands. “Excellent. Let’s go in together-“
“Hold on there, criminal scum!” A puckish voice called from up ahead, as two figures rushed out from behind a stone, putting themselves right in their path. Like they’d been politely waiting for the conversation to reach a lull.
Crossette pointed. “Were you hiding there the whole time?”
“So, we meet again, at last, for the last time!” Zeke clenched his fist. Next to him, in perfect parity, Pandoria moved exactly like him.
Mòrag’s jaw dropped. “You’re…”
“Well, if it isn’t Shellhead and Lightbulb.” Nia sniffed. “Didn’t we throw you two off a cliff?” She crossed her arms.
Mòrag’s head snapped to look at Nia, the woman oddly concerned-looking.
“You did no such thing!” Zeke vehemently pointed. He cleared his throat, and began to idly saunter around. “I knew I had you chaps on the ropes, from the moment our clash started! So, I took pity on you, and performed a tactical withdrawal!”
“I’m sorry,” Mòrag quietly spluttered. “Do you all… know him?”
Vandham crossed his arms. “Unfortunately.”
“Oh, yes,” The Doctor turned, gesticulating rapidly. “Your usual random encounter – very animated, very willing to fight, sans’s music accompanies them for comedic punch – very vaudevillian.”
“Is it?” Dromarch idly licked the back of his paw. “I had them pegged as a manzai-style act.”
“I thought as much myself,” Azurda lightly cut in. “But she seems just as odd as he is, so, perhaps more of a commedia dell’arte duo?”
“I think all of us are the act, for putting up with this.” Nia scowled.
Mòrag turned to Albedo. “I know you-“
Albedo huffed. “Me? Know what? I only cater to the rich and powerful. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about this man.”
“Oh, you-!” Zeke let out a strangled gasp of affront. “You’ll only be catering to your own doom, I’m afraid!” Zeke let out a belt of diabolical laughter.
Nia let out a sigh. “Look, Shellhead-“
“Who’re you calling ‘Shellhead!?’” Zeke hollered indignantly, jerking his finger in her direction again. “You will address me as ‘Zeke!’ Or ‘the Zekenator!’ Or ‘the Mighty Zeke von Genbu, BRINGER OF CHAOS!!!’”
“Whatever,” Nia huffed. “What the hell is a Zekenator anyway?”
“I took mercy on you all last time,” Zeke boomed imperiously. “But you are not prepared for the great and terrible force of destruction that is Zeke!”
“Oh yeah?” Nia challenged snidely. “What’ve you got behind the eyepatch?”
Zeke stumbled for only a moment. “What?”
“Usually when people take hits to the eye, it leaves scars around it. You, though, don’t have any.” Nia pointed. “Admit it. You’re just having a bit of fun.”
Pandoria snickered. “Oh, I like this girl.”
“How dare-!?” Zeke spluttered, going red. “My eyepatch conceals an even greater and even more terrible power than you could ever comprehend! A power so great that even I cannot fully control it! The Eye of Shining Justice! And so I keep it sealed, until its power is needed to save all mankind!”
“It can be locked up by an eyepatch?” Mythra snorted. “Hey, wanna trade powers there, bud?”
Zeke let out a chuckle, resting his sword on his shoulder. “I’m afraid not. Its power would vaporise you all in mere seconds.” He cleared his throat. “But, I am a merciful sort. So, I shall not be turning its destructive might onto you.”
Pandoria jumped forward just a little. “He definitely isn’t wearing it because we didn’t have the gold for a second contact lens.”
Zeke let out a strangled gasp. “Pandy!”
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen…” Mòrag softly mumbled to herself.
“Look, this is – great,” The Doctor chuckled, clapping his hands. “Really, just wonderful. I would love another bit of Shakespeare in the park. But we kind of have things going on, so if you would-?”
“Ah-ah-ah!” Zeke lifted the sword. “I’m not here for another performance!”
“Lies.” Albedo muttered.
“The Aegis!” Zeke barked. “Hand her over, or this is about to turn very… charged!”
Rex let out a groan, as Vandham shook his head.
“What’d I tell you, kid?” Vandham went for Roc’s scythes. “I knew he’d back.”
“Listen pal,” Nia stepped forward. “I’m sorry, but we really don’t have time to be playing with you today.” Really, they didn’t. God knows how close KOS-MOS was to being repaired. “So, just go away, okay?”
“What’s the matter?” Zeke let out a harsh chuckle. “Is the prospect of fighting me so frightening, you’ve wet yourself, fuzzy-ears?”
“Did I wha-!?” Nia snarled. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you one-eyed monster!”
Everybody let out choked, strangled gasps.
“Warning!” Poppi sounded, frantically batting her arms. “All friends suffer maximum psychic damage! Friendly fire! Friendly fire!”
Nia drooped in confusion, turning around. “What? What’d I say?”
“U-Uh, Nia-“ Rex stumbled around, nervous. “You do realise the term ‘one-eyed monster’ usually means-?”
Vandham placed a firm, steadying hand on Rex’s shoulder. With a resigned look upon his face, the mercenary solemnly shook his head.
“If it helps,” The Doctor let out a stupid little giggle. “I didn’t figure out what the song ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ was about until I was five-hundred.”
“Ah,” For a brief instant, Zeke let his performance go. “Terribly sorry about that, chum.” Then, he slammed his feet into the ground, and gestured. “Pandy – do the thing!”
Pandoria produced that little music player, and hit the switch.
Mòrag’s hand slowly went up to her temples. “He has his own-“
“I’d be hard-pressed to find a greater showman.” Brighid mused.
“Now!” Zeke barked, thrusting his sword forward. Electricity flared down the length of the Blade. “I went easy on you last time! But not this time! Bringer of Chaos!” He swung the sword about. “Ultimate Lightning Fury Slash… MAX!”
Zeke slammed his sword down into the ground, kicking up wind as a glyph appeared.
Everybody jerked back.
“…that was your super-special doom attack?” Nia cocked an eyebrow. “That did nothing!”
“Oh, but observe,” Zeke let out a low, dangerous giggle. Then, the ground started to rumble, and tremor. But the break didn’t occur beneath their feet.
Mythra’s head went up. “Aw hell.”
A great big chunk of stone from the rock-wall above cracked and grumbled, before breaking off. As it hit the ground, it began to roll down the hill.
Right in the path of Zeke and Pandoria.
The two bolted, the stone on their heels.
Crossette let out a light, tinny whistle. The Doctor double-took – was she whistling Indiana Jones?
“Pandy, do something!” Zeke hollered to his Blade.
“You know my element’s lightning! I’m not cut out for this!”
“JUMP FOR IT!” Zeke screamed. “JUMP, JUMP!” He bellowed, before he and Pandoria went soaring over the edge, plunging to the Cloud Sea far, far below.
The boulder, meanwhile, turned to follow the incline, rolling down and down, right into the warehouse’s doors, breaking them down.
“By the Architect!” Mòrag gasped, rushing over to the edge.
“Ah, they’ll be ‘right.” Vandham stowed Roc’s scythes. “If a fall off a cliff with the rocks don’t kill ‘em, a little dip in the Cloud Sea won’t.”
Mòrag whipped around, still half-hunched over. “This has occurred before!?”
“That time was worse,” Pyra popped into existence. “They fell into actual water that time, not the Cloud Sea. And the debris from the cliff fell with them. But, they’d ought to be fine. The top layers of the sea should give plenty of cushioning.”
“Send the fire brigade,” Albedo softly intoned. “If you are truly so worried. But our target is ahead.”
“…right, of course.” Mòrag nodded, and composed herself.
Rex turned, pointing at the warehouse with the big boulder lodged in it. “That’s the place, is it? Doesn’t look like much…”
“We probably smashed-up the place and half of what they were doing,” Pyra mumbled nervously. “Oh, I hope there weren’t any workers in there…”
--------
Bana’s concentration of his production line continued, even as a distant, apocalyptic crash went unnoticed by him, but definitely noticed by the one standing next to him.
“What was noise?” Muimui gasped out in terror.
“Sound of profit, Muimui!”
-----------
The Doctor approached the door of the warehouse, examining happily the giant hole punched right through the thick plate metal, and the boulder lodged in place. Still, there was a gap, large enough for everyone to pass through.
“See, this is why I never liked Rock, Paper, Scissors. Rock beats everything if you throw it hard enough. ‘s cheating.” The Time Lord mumbled as he squeezed through the gap.
“Says the guy who can ‘pull stuff from other timelines.’” Nia shot a look at him, drily.
“Well, actually, if you want to be technical, it’s more like all of time and all possibilities are happening at once, and I can selectively collapse the waveform to-“
“Doctor,” Nia leaned over, staring sharply. “I was being facetious.”
“Oh, were you? Terribly sorry – I have something that can help with that.”
The others filed through after him, grunting in exertion as they passed through the gap.
“So, this where Dadapon and Lila are hiding…” Tora looked around. Beams of metal ran from the floor up to the ceiling, crossbeams connecting them. Crates were stacked up, and two catwalks went over the area of the room. Aside from that, however- “It just big empty room!”
Mòrag stepped forward, scanning the surroundings with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps another decoy facility? Or the Igna led us astray.”
“Aye,” Vandham agreed, cracking his knuckles. “Well. If they did that, they know something. Maybe we should go see.”
“It could also just be an abandoned depot,” Mòrag offered, though her tone was flat with doubt. “If they cleared out ahead of time-”
“Hold on, that doesn’t make sense.” Crossette cut in. “If they’d cleared out, why leave the barrels?”
Mòrag nodded once, conceding the point. “So they left in a hurry. Or they didn’t leave at all.”
“Well,” The Doctor said lightly, “The absence of villainous cackling is only mildly disappointing.”
He turned, intending to examine the area further, but paused. His eyes flicked sidelong, watching Nia.
Her ears twitched.
Once. Twice. She didn't even seem to notice she was doing it.
He tilted his head. “What is it?”
Nia blinked. “What?”
“Your ears. They’re moving.” He gestured vaguely near his own head. “Do you hear something?”
She gave a slight roll of her eyes, one hand falling to her hip. “It’s background noise. We’re in Mor Ardain. There’s always something grinding or banging somewhere.”
“Hm.”
The Doctor didn’t respond straightaway. Instead, he closed his eyes.
His face went slack - not peaceful, exactly, but... still. Focused. The muscles in his jaw softened, and his breathing slowed. He tilted his head slightly, opening his senses.
And then, he did hear it.
The clang of metal on metal. Hammering. Something being forged, or beaten into shape.
Distant voices, squeaky and miserable, but still trying to keep themselves happy.
A low mechanical rumble, layered and interlocking, like conveyor belts or hydraulics, accompanied by the shrill whine of plasma welders, oscillating cutters, or something stranger.
The Doctor opened his eyes, guiding them over to a section of the wall behind a wall of crates. He strode over, on a mission. He began tapping the wall, feeling the vibrations, and listening to the sound, all along the wall.
“What’re you doing?” Nia frowned like she thought he was stupid.
“A clever thing – hush.” The Doctor ordered, still tapping. His fingers reached a part of the wall, and his brain lit up, as he felt the vibration shift ever so slightly, along with the sound changing. “Here’s the thing: if I were building a secret factory I didn’t want the government to find, I’d make a more concerted effort to hide it than just hiding inside an old, abandoned warehouse.” He pressed his ear to the plates, and the sound became clearer.
He grinned.
“Oh, it’s close. Very close.”
“Are you sure?” Mòrag asked.
“I can hear it,” The Doctor replied. “Judging by the echo patterns, there’s a long, empty space on the other side of this door – probably a tunnel.”
“How can you tell?” Albedo gently challenged.
“You know how bats can echolocate?” The Doctor inquired.
“Yes.”
“Good, because it’s nothing like that.”
Nia frowned. “What’s a bat?”
“Lovely little things – biters.” The Doctor shook his head. “Point is, this is probably the place.”
“Then what’re we waiting for?” Rex took a step. “Let’s get in there!”
The Doctor’s hand shot out to stop him. “We can’t just walk through that door – are you insane!?”
Rex blinked in confusion. “Didn’t you say earlier that was exactly what we were going to do?”
“Yes – but we’re already in the front door!” The Time Lord elaborated. “Thanks to a very big and very scary rock. Front door is easy – you know why front door is easy? It’s made to be gotten through! On the other side of that door, they probably have… laser grids and lots of cross people with shooty guns. Besides,” He pointed a finger. “They see a whole group of strangers sneak in, even if we show them a little fake ID saying we’re supposed to be there, you know what happens? People clam up, they stop talking, they don’t want to be overheard.”
“So we sneak in another way?” Rex tilted his head.
“Exactly.” The Doctor pointed.
“You’d be surprised, how much people talk about, when they ‘know’ they’re not being listened in on.” Albedo offered up with a light hum.
Roc twitched, shifting. “I sense airflow.” They cawed softly. “Negative pressure.”
“Really…” The Doctor looked around. He felt the air current flowing in the above direction, and looked up. “That-“ He spotted a large square grate on the upper level, and a ladder nearby that went up to the catwalk giving access to it. “What is that?” He skedaddled up the ladder, coming to a stop in front of the grate. “Airflow.” He closed his eyes once more. The sound was clearer, coming down that passage. “But not to the outside.”
Rex scratched his head. “They wouldn’t be daft enough to seal up a door… then lead a vent right to it, right?”
“You’d be surprised,” The Doctor mumbled. “Poppi?”
Poppi stepped forward with a smile. “Poppi glad to be of service!” She shot her hand out, punching right through the grate and shattering the fan. She pulled the grate off, and tossed it to the side.
The Doctor peered through. “That tunnel is new. Newer than the rest of it.”
Mòrag looked in, and went shock-still. “So… someone has set up in here.”
“That they did – and I’m very glad they did.” The Doctor giggled with a grin, glancing back at the others. “I love the chance to do a little bit of duct-crawling.” He turned back around, grabbed both sides of the circular cut-out, and pulled himself through. “My friends and I used to do this all the time.”
“Surprised,” Nia lightly hummed. “What with that chin, I’d thought you’d punch holes in the things.”
Mythra looked at Rex, shook her head, and rolled her eyes, climbing in afterward. “Most ducts are small, small enough that even you wouldn’t fit. He’s bullshitting.”
“Or, consider, I’m not human.” The Doctor calmly walked ahead. “Us Time Lords – we’re like cats. But without the fur. And the tails. Or the purring. But we do have that lovely floaty bone-structure. Barely got sore, hiding in those fake cakes.”
Vandham looked over, frowning curiously. “Fake cakes?”
“Oh, yeah, we escaped Gormott by hiding cakes with the bases made of plywood!” Crossette eagerly volunteered.
Mòrag raised an eyebrow.
“It had nothing to do with you, naturally.” The Doctor flippantly coughed, as they all walked up the incline.”
“Mighty big air duct,” Vandham commented. “They must be dealing with a helluva lotta heat.”
“It’s a factory,” The Doctor shrugged, as they came up on the exit. “Ah, here we… are…”
The Time Lord trailed off as he walked out onto another catwalk, along with all the others, suspended in an enormous, cavernous space. An ambient orange glow illuminated the area, cooking the inside like a furnace.
Great big machines, automated assembly lines, churned away endlessly, sending metal spines around a circular fabricator. They went elsewhere, disappearing deep inside the building, before they came out on the other side on a straight conveyor as full torsos. Arms and legs were bolted on before being sent down further. Other conveyors transported giant tanks filled with a glowing, neon-aqua fluid. Blocks of rooms stood, watching over the factory floor. Catwalks hung, suspended from overhead.
All of this tucked out of sight for god knows how long.
“Whoa…” Rex walked up to the edge, peering down carefully. “Are all of those Artificial Blades?” He pointed at the assembly line churning away.
“Have to be, but…” Tora twitched in something resembling both offence and sorrow. “They look nothing like Lila! All personality, just… stripped away!” He murmured in confusion. “Dadapon’s work, stripped down to… nothing. Just robots.” He began to jitter nervously. “And with Lila’s parts taken for KOS-MOS… Tora think something bad happen to Dadapon.”
Mòrag stared, taking in all of it. “This is…”
“Incredible, ingenious, marvellous?” The Doctor shot out rapid-fire.
“Concerning.” Mòrag breathed out, examining the factory floor. “That they were able to construct all of this, right next to Alba Cavanich, without even being detected…” She shook her head.
“The Emperor will need to be made aware of this,” Brighid nervously mused. “Setting up in an abandoned factory is one thing, but the materials and work needed to carve out a space like this is not insignificant. That no one was alerted to it means we could have an enormous security issue on our hands.”
Mòrag’s brow furrowed.
“Lady Mòrag, we have work to do.”
“Of course.” Mòrag took a breath. “We should bring down this factory first. Capture whoever is running it. Figure out the why of all of it.”
“Whatever is going on here, it can’t be good.” Azurda frowned. “If all of these Blades share Poppi’s specifications, then…”
“’And lo, the man of great evil built his own army. He called them forth, his will subsuming their own, awakening Blades shaped only to serve, and wander, and consume all life.’” Vandham rumbled, closing his eyes.
Unsettled, they looked at Vandham.
“These ain’t Blades for fulfilling someone’s dreams to be a Driver,” Vandham shook his head. “This is an army of conquest. Probably on-loan to the highest bidder. Or, since Torna’s involved…”
“It’s an army for them,” Rex shivered. “Why do they need an army!?”
“Torna’s only five people,” Nia casually informed him. “And they wanna go up against the likes of Indol, and Uraya, and Mor Ardain. So they either need Blades, or more people, and given that they hate people-“
“They took the army of Blades. Probably ones with no will or drive of their own,” The Doctor mused, shaking his head. He frowned in puzzlement. “But then there’s KOS-MOS – why is KOS-MOS helping them!?”
“Why was she playing David Bowie?” Crossette retorted immediately.
“I don’t know – that’s the problem with not knowing, it’s big, and obvious, and staring you in the face, but you’re missing it!” The Doctor slapped his face in frustration. “She shouldn’t even be here!”
“If she’s a robot, maybe they simply reprogrammed her?” Albedo suggested.
“She’s from the 73rd century!” The Doctor replied, aghast. “Her programming language might as well be alien! Unless-“ He looked aside for a moment, quietly concerned. “I’m trying to think if she’s running a DOS-derivative or a UNIX-like.”
“So, what do we do?” Rex tilted his head. “We’re here to find Bana and arrest him, right?”
“We should find a control room or office,” Mòrag decided. “If Bana is overseeing this factory, he will likely be there.”
“Right, yes.” The Doctor whipped around, spotting another ventilation fan on the wall. “Ah!”
“Please to be standing aside!” Poppi walked by, and tore through the grate and fan again.
“Great, great work, Poppi.” The Doctor patted her on the back, and climbed into the duct, the others following close behind. As they walked, voices began to filter up through a vent cover in the floor of the duct.
The Doctor slowed down, turned to the others to keep quiet, and approached.
“…ooooh, Professor Tatazo!” A turkey-like intelligent was standing right under the vent cover. It was the size of a Nopon, and carried a spear. At the name, Tora let out a stifled gasp. “Got more work for you!”
“What is that?” The Doctor softly asked.
“A Tirkin,” Mòrag’s brow furrowed in confusion. “They’re not usually seen here, in Mor Ardain. Bana must be using them for cheap labour.”
“T-Tatazo hear you first time! Still sore all over from repair job!”
The Doctor angled himself. Standing across from the Tirkin was an aged Nopon – and the poor fellow was in quite a state. Clothes all ripped up, bandages on his wings, a patch over one eye that – judging by the lack of fur on the surrounding flesh – was actually needed. On his back was a broken, busted mass of metal, out of which stuck a doll-like head.
“Tatazo can’t work with stubby little arms!” Tatazo gestured.
“Should have thought of that before crossing boss!” The Tirkin sneered in response. “You act stupid, then pay for it! Now, production slowing down! So, talk, or what left of little toy go in garbage compactor!”
Tatazo quivered in place, coughing, gulping, and working up the courage to speak at last. “Reduce load on neural circuits by 20 percent. That should improve efficiency.”
The Tirkin cackled. “See? Not so hard to behave, issit?” It turned, and walked away, still laughing. “Heh, heh, heh…”
Tatazo quietly turned around, dejected, limping.
“Tatazo…” Rex breathed. “That’s-“
Before Rex could finish, Tora had undone the bolts on the grate with his wrench, pulled it open, and jumped down.
“Tora,” Nia quietly hissed. “Tora-!”
Tora hit the ground with a clang.
Tatazo let out a bloodcurdling scream of real fear for his life, spinning around. “Not come close-!” He flinched back, staring. “Wait…” He began to lean forward. “That stripey-stripiness… Long, tall hair… eyes like mamapon’s… Tora? That you?”
Tora took an uncertain step. “D-Dadapon?” Tatazo continued to stare. “Long-long time.”
Tatazo began to shake. “Longest.” Then, despite his injuries, his limp, he shot across the gap, running into Tora. “Tora! You- You here. You here! Tora here!”
The others looked at each other, before shrugging, and they dropped down one-by-one.
“I miss you so much, sonnypon,” Tatazo cried. “Oh, it- I not have words for it.” He heard the clinking of her approach, and turned, gasping as Poppi walked up. “Wha- could it be? Lila?”
Poppi shook her head, but happily smiled. “Poppi is called Poppi! Poppi built off Lila’s blueprints.”
Tatazo recoiled. “Tora finish work on Artificial Blade, all on his own?” His eyes welled and began to drip, as he walked over to her. He looked her up and down, his wings flailed. Despite the bandages, both wings went out, pulling Tora and Poppi both into hugs. “Oh, Tora! Dadapon so proud of you!”
“Aww…” Rex murmured. Sniffling came from next to him, and he turned to see Mythra, fighting back her own tears. Wordlessly, he offered her a napkin, taken from that pub they’d gotten into trouble in. Silent, she took it, and dabbed at her face.
“What is Tora doing here?” Tatazo questioned at last. “Who are all these people!?”
“They Tora’s friends,” Tora shifted.
“Tora have friends?” Tatazo looked absolutely delighted. “Tatazo so happy to see Tora doing so well for himself! Tatazo worried Tora never make it away from old lab! It destroy Tatazo to even think about! Good-good friends, to help Tora come here.”
“Well,” Vandham spoke up. “Didn’t have the heart to tell the little guy we weren’t gonna help find his dad, you know?”
“Tora’s a good guy!” Rex jumped in. “Stuck by us for all this time for no real reason, didn’t he? Least we could do for him.”
Mòrag said nothing.
“Dadapon,” Tora addressed nervously. “Tora and friends here to rescue you, but also here because Blades factory is making is mondo-big problem. What going on? Why Dadapon here? What happen to Lila that make KOS-MOS have her parts?”
Tatazo instantly tensed up. “Friends meet KOS-MOS? Friends meet KOS-MOS and live?”
The Doctor’s head shot up. “You’ve met her too?”
“KOS-MOS is very naughty Blade!” Tatazo beat his wings, flinching in pain after doing so. “She do terrible things to Tatazo!”
The Doctor’s stomach dropped. “What.”
“Meh-meh!?” Tora spluttered. “KOS-MOS responsible for Dadapon’s state!? How this happen!?”
Tatazo looked down. “No, no. Tatazo responsible for his state. KOS-MOS only carry it out.”
“How Dadapon mean?” Tora asked nervously.
Tatazo stilled. “Tora… look at Dadapon’s backpack.”
“Meh?” Tora leaned around. “Tora not get it. It just look like spare-“ He gasped, cutting himself off as he re-examined the twisted mass of metal, shaped into human form, but bent up, shattered, and folded. Jammed into that carrying sack. Out of the top, hanging on by a wire, a head stared blankly. “Lila…”
“Lila give herself to save Professor Tatazo,” Tatazo’s jaw quivered. “Work on Lila complete shortly after Tatazo was kidnapped. They keep her under their control for all that time. Still, Lila was all Tatazo have. Tatazo freed her, after find KOS-MOS. Planned escape. But they stick control receiver in KOS-MOS next! And when they find Lila freed, they very unhappy. Order KOS-MOS to kill Tatazo. But still… Lila jump to protect Professor Tatazo. Cause just enough damage to make killing not such good idea anymore. So, they keep him around to fix KOS-MOS.”
Tora reached out to touch the cracked, metal head – so much like Poppi’s.
“Lila’s parts higher quality than the ones from Artificial Blades in factory, so they make Tatazo use those first.”
Nobody knew what to say.
“She must have been powerful,” Albedo commented. “To blow off KOS-MOS’s arms and legs.”
Tatazo turned, and shook his head. “No. KOS-MOS missing those when found. She defeat Lila in that state.”
A beat rushed through the room.
“What!?” Rex spluttered. “You’re saying when you found KOS-MOS, she was all busted up, and she still managed to take down an Artificial Blade like Lila?”
Solemnly, Tatazo nodded.
“How did you even find her?” The Doctor probed, getting close. “Where did she come from? Why?”
Tatazo swallowed. “Tatazo not know. Bana bring metal box he fished up from bottom of Cloud Sea when looking for Aegis-“
Mythra sucked in a breath.
“He say Tatazo only one he have with techy know-how to open it. So… Tatazo do it. KOS-MOS was inside. Bana take her to Muimui to get her working, but Tatazo get good look at systems before that. That not something Bana need to have. So, Tatazo try to stop him. Free Lila. But… it all go wrong.”
“Bana…” Mòrag breathed, straightening. “You’re saying he kept you captive here?”
“For many years.”
“Professor Tatazo,” Mòrag respectfully addressed. “Would you be willing to testify about what is going on here? What Bana has done, his plans, your own captivity, anything you know?”
“Tatazo more than happy,” Tatazo agreed. “I squeal like littlepon on dark ride, but must leave first!”
“Not so fast!” A shrill, scratchy voice interrupted from the direction of the door.
Weapons were drawn and everyone spun, to see a Nopon, flanked by four spear-wielding Tirkin.
“Professor Tatazo so quick to sell out,” Muimui angrily beat his wings. “Muimui disappointed!”
“Ah,” The Doctor stared. “I had a hunch you were involved, somehow.”
“Muimui not know how you find factory,” The little Nopon sneered. “But it just fine for Muimui! Need replacement for Lila!” He commented, looking at Poppi.
“You not get hands on her!” Tora snapped, raising his wings, and the cannons held within them.
Poppi, for her own part, was fast on the uptick, readying her hydraulic-powered fists. “Only four Tirkins and one overconfident Muimui. Poppi calculate one-hundred-percent chance of success for her, and one-hundred-percent chance of humiliation for Muimui.”
“Muimui see about that!” He turned. “Guards! Rid of intruders!”
The four Tirkin raised their spears.
The Doctor’s brow furrowed, wondering what the play was, here. No numerical advantage, no Blades…
One Tirkin waddled up, and tried to jam its spear forward, succeeding only in striking the shield bubble that flared into existence around Mòrag.
Mòrag looked at it, dryly disappointed, before she swung. The whip that lashed out went across all four Tirkin, knocking them to the ground. They began to move, before Mòrag cracked the whip again. “Stop moving. Your lives are not worth whatever he is paying you.”
“Wha- what?” Muimui cowered in fear.
Poppi took a step, beginning to approach. “Muimui going to pay for capture of Tatazo!”
“Ah, that not quite correct, I think.” A voice announced from behind the door. Poppi raised her fists. A comet came flying out first.
A sudden blast of motion - too fast for the eye to track - smashed into Poppi before she could even brace. Metal shrieked and air cracked as she was flung across the chamber like a ragdoll, crashing hard into a bank of consoles. Sparks burst from the impact site.
“Poppi!” Tora screamed, lurching forward.
Poppi groaned from the wreckage, trying to sit up, her systems whining. “Danger, Masterpon!” Poppi’s voice crackled, static in her tone. “Several patch repairs now undone. Power relay compromised. Auxiliary coolant venting through chest. That not supposed to happen.” Her head lolled slightly, then blinked back to alertness. “Poppi okay!”
KOS-MOS landed on her feet, staring blankly and implacably.
“Chairman Bana,” Mòrag addressed, staring harshly. “In the name of the Imperial Senate of Mor Ardain, you are under arrest. Surrender, and we may come to a resolution. A plea deal.”
“Plea deal!?” Bana cackled, throwing his head back as his belly heaved. “Plead for what!? Bana think you not understand predicament you in! Bana hold all the cards.” The gigantic Nopon spread his wings. “But, Bana merciful Nopon.” He turned his avaricious eyes onto Mythra, then Poppi. “Not only bring artificial Blade, but bring Aegis too! Bana offer you this: Give them, and I let you all go!”
The Doctor’s jaw clenched, as he glared up at the Nopon. “You really think we’ll be stupid enough to fall for that?”
“Was hoping,” Bana admitted with a shrug.
“Bana!” Rex snarled. “How could you do this!? You had legitimate business! You could’ve stayed at Argentum, and still made a killing! You didn’t have to kidnap people! You didn’t have to work with Torna!”
“Rex think it so simple?” Bana challenged. “No such thing as fair business. Nopon who try to stay legit, only struggle and fall behind. Why else Rex still struggling to make monies to feed village?” Bana threw at him, causing Rex to ball his fists in rage. “Good money in selling weapons. Rex could have made cash enough to retire already, how hard he works, if he dealt in selling weapons he find from salvage. But he don’t. So he still have to skim off cash from salvaging jobs. Still have to work himself to bone for no reason.”
“It’s called having principles!” Vandham snapped on Rex’s behalf.
“Principle. Fancy way of saying ‘handicap.’” Bana scoffed.
“And so you’re working with Torna,” Nia crossed her arms. “I don’t suppose that’s who you’re planning to sell the Aegis to?”
“Ahhh, yes,” Bana drawled. “Bana remember Gormotti walking in with Malos. Torna is very profitable partnership. Maybe they appreciate also being handed over their traitor. Give Bana big bonus for that.”
“It’s all greed,” The Doctor ground out, glaring still. “Kidnapping people, sending them into traps, dealing with the likes of Torna and Dughall.”
Bana let out another scoff. “Bana far more connected than that! Even if you catch me, I just get off with slap-on-wrist!”
Mòrag clenched her jaw. “Don’t be so certain.”
“Stupid girl!” Bana snapped. “How think Bana build secret factory!? How think I manage to fly under radar all this time until stuuuuuuuuuuupid Consul Dughall get caught!? Think I manage to do it all with only Torna!? No!!! Bana have associates in highest of places! Even here!”
Mòrag froze up. “You aren’t saying-!? The Senate!?”
“Not whole Senate,” Bana smiled and let out a quiet chuckle. “But enough. Even groups like Lindwurm and Brionac. With their help, Bana make enough money to buy whole continent-sized Titan. Appreciate Bana for wiping out nosy Special Inquisitor.”
Mòrag drew Brighid’s whipswords. “That is not going to happen.”
“Ha!” Bana huffed. “So we see! KOS-MOS! Kill them!”
The android twitched, her ruby-red eyes flickering as she locked-on. “Affirmative. Executing combat mode.”
KOS-MOS advanced, her stolen feet clanging hard against the factory floor. Each step left a hollow echo, as if the walls themselves dared not interrupt her march. The red glow in her eyes shimmered brighter with every pace.
Crossette’s bitball appeared in the Doctor’s hand, and he sent it hurling into KOS-MOS’s head, forcing little more than a flinch.
“Disperse!” The Doctor barked. “She’s designed to take out closely-clustered targets! Move!”
Brighid stepped forward beside Mòrag, both ready to strike. Mythra did not. She hesitated - not out of fear, but refusal to back down.
KOS-MOS locked eyes with her.
“Target confirmed: Aegis. Priority threat. Subdue non-lethally. Lethal force authorised on all others.”
“Get behind me!” Rex shouted, moving to protect Mythra with her sword drawn. Mythra lit up the affinity link, and he began to swing. Bolts of light lanced out, slamming into KOS-MOS directly. Capping it off, Rex brought the sword up over his head, and jumped, swinging it down axe-style as he went into his rolling smash Art.
KOS-MOS’s head snapped up, and her arm shot out in the blink of an eye, like the sudden swap from one slide to the next in a slideshow. KOS-MOS grabbed the sword, intercepting the arc, as Rex was knocked off-kilter, landing on his butt.
“Oh, what the-!?” Rex spluttered as KOS-MOS yanked away Mythra’s sword. The android’s hands heated up, smoking and glowing red-hot as the Affinity Link burned her, before the sword popped into nothing, only to reappear in Rex’s hand.
KOS-MOS balled her fist, and drew back. A spike of ice drove into Rex’s head, allowing him to see the projected trajectory, and he reacted quick. Rolling out of the way, KOS-MOS’s arm punched through the floor, allowing Rex to swing at the arm with Mythra’s sword.
The sword struck the metal like a gong, but the plating warped.
Rex jumped back as KOS-MOS yanked her arm out of the ground, taking a chunk of the metal flooring with her. Holding it almost like a shield, KOS-MOS refocused on Rex, before a delayed strike slashed into her.
KOS-MOS instantly whipped around, chucking the sheet of metal at Albedo.
Reflexively, shielding her face with her other arm, Albedo swung again, and another strike of ether sliced the plate in half, sending both chunks flying and embedding into the wall like throwing stars. Albedo fell to the floor with a shocked gasp.
The android’s head tilted quizzically, before Crossette’s bitball bounced off, KOS-MOS not even flinching from the impact.
The bitball returned to the Doctor’s hands, the Time Lord pale. “Ah – that’s done nothing!”
“Doctor,” Mòrag addressed. “You’ll be the designated healer, along with Nia. Remain at distance, and do not engage.”
The Time Lord scowled. “I’m not one of your sold-“
KOS-MOS launched into a sprint.
“For the Architect’s sake – just listen to the woman, man!” Vandham bellowed, throwing himself sideways to intercept.
But KOS-MOS wasn’t looking at him.
Mòrag, with twin whipswords in hand, seemed to be barking the orders, and so, was the natural target. Take out the leader, the group cohesion decays. Mòrag’s eyes narrowed as the android bore down on her. She shifted, Brighid’s whipswords flaring bright, the air between them rippling with heat and sapphire flames.
KOS-MOS’s spinal thrusters fired, a sudden burst of velocity propelled her forward, and her run turned into a glide. Mòrag swung, the whip cracking across KOS-MOS’s side. The impact scorched a shallow groove into her hip-plating… and not much more. The android didn’t even flinch.
KOS-MOS leaped, arms raised, fingers splayed like she was about to reach out for Mòrag’s head and squeeze.
A blast of wind blew KOS-MOS off to the side, sending her slamming into the wall and down to the floor. Vandham was over in an instant, dual scythes raised high, as KOS-MOS flipped and twisted off the floor, landing on her feet.
Mòrag cracked a whipsword, and sent a wall of flame out. The fire slammed into KOS-MOS, blasting her hair back, before Vandham went in swinging. The twin scythes struck and sent out sparks as they hooked onto armour plating, step-offs, and pretty much any seam that was on KOS-MOS’S body.
Poppi took aim, and fired a shot, making KOS-MOS stumble, allowing Rex to hook her and pull her down, and Vandham to send her flying. While she was up in the air, Mòrag seized the advantage, and sent a whipsword slinging, the line wrapping around a leg, and Mòrag tugged with all her might. Reinforced by Ether and force of will, the whip acted almost like an arm, and slammed KOS-MOS into the floor.
Twitching came from the android as she hauled herself back up.
KOS-MOS threw out her original arm, the end morphing into a long, obsidian blade.
The android shot forward, swinging her blade horizontally, causing the shield surrounding Vandham to flare up. The merc braced himself, as it seemed KOS-MOS was about to come in from the side again, before she switched at the last second and came down. The compressed and solidified Ether surrounding Vandham in that bubble shattered, causing him to stagger.
KOS-MOS pointed her blade straight forward, and lunged.
“ARGH!” Vandham let out a snarl of pain as the flesh near his lungs was torn. He stumbled back, bracing himself against the wall.
Rex’s head snapped over, a gasp escaping as he heard Vandham’s scream. “Van-!”
“’m all right!” Vandham wheezed. “Focus on her!”
Rex spun back around to face KOS-MOS, gnashing his teeth. “I’m sick-!” He swung Mythra’s sword, punctuating each word with it as he attempted to advance on KOS-MOS. “And tired! Of people thinking they can just take Mythra and Pyra! Not on my watch! Not while I’m standing!”
“Irrelevant.” KOS-MOS stated. “Assigned objective: capture of Aegis and Artificial Blade. I will not fail.”
Mòrag swung the whipsword in her hand again, coiling it around KOS-MOS’s torso. “Judging by the acts Bana has already made you commit, he is hardly someone to trust with that power.” She pulled.
KOS-MOS looked down, eyes vacant. She grabbed the blade of the sword, burning and sharp. Without a single concern to her own safety, KOS-MOS yanked the sword right out of Mòrag’s hand, pulled it in, and cracked the whip.
Mòrag screeched as the flaming, bladed whip cut down the side of her face.
“Lady Mòrag!” Brighid cried out, dissolving both blades and resummoning them.
“Keep her occupied!” The Doctor bellowed. “Don’t let her build a charge!”
“Just got to keep her distracted?” Rex asked in response. “We can do that!” He tossed Mythra’s sword into her hands. The Aegis jumped up, hovering over Rex as she took aim.
A ray of light shot out of the sword’s tip, scorching KOS-MOS’s armour. KOS-MOS looked down at the scorch-mark, refocused on Rex, and lunged. Mythra’s foresight rushed into Rex’s mind, and enabled him to move at the last second to dodge both swipes. As it left him, however, KOS-MOS jumped into the air, and materialised a long, singular gun-barrel, pointed right at him.
The blast rang out like thunder, propelling Rex back.
“Rex, no!” The Doctor gasped out, throwing the bitball at KOS-MOS to distract her.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got ‘em!” Nia declared, holding Dromarch’s rings into the air. Waves of healing energy radiated outward, the ether flowing into the fallen bodies and sealing up their wounds.
Albedo took another opportunistic swipe, and jumped back as the ball struck KOS-MOS in the head again. “She’s not going to retreat this time. This is their base of operations.”
“She’s tough, but she’s not invincible.” The Doctor breathed heavily.
Crossette sucked in a gasp. “Her legs!”
Nia looked over at her, concerned. “Now’s not the time to be ogling the competition!”
“No – her legs aren’t hers, they’re Lila’s. They’re welded on! There’s going to be a weak point!”
The Doctor looked at her, eyes wide with pride and wonder. “Crossette – you’re fantastic!” He raised his voice as the others got to their feet. “Her limbs! Take out her limbs!”
Mòrag wiped a trickle of undried blood from her unscarred face, adjusted her hat, and cracked both whipswords. “Understood.” Two angry steps, and she was sending both slinging. The whips coiled around KOS-MOS’s neck, digging in. “Vandham!”
“Right!” The Urayan bellowed. He sent both scythes out, hooking them in the seam where Lila’s arm joined KOS-MOS’s body. He pulled, and the arm tore out, wires sparking as clear fluid dripped from the ‘wound.’ KOS-MOS moved her other arm to retaliate, but another tug from Mòrag sent it back to grabbing onto the whips.
Rex hollered as he went in swinging on KOS-MOS’s side, intent on cutting into her legs. Poppi slammed into KOS-MOS from behind, gripping both sides of the android’s head.
KOS-MOS’s eyes flicked down to the whips holding her.
“Tactical advantage: decaying.” KOS-MOS let her arm drop – and for a moment, everyone thought she might be surrendering.
Everyone, except the Doctor, whose sixth sense for danger started going nuts.
The Time Lord started screaming. “Get outta there! All of you, get away!”
The others processed it for only a second, as KOS-MOS swung her arm out, and a weapon materialised. An enormous gatling gun with three spinning barrels, that nevertheless she was able to hold one-handed. The others jumped back, as KOS-MOS let it run and let the bullets fly.
KOS-MOS’s eyes locked on Albedo, as she began to guide the cannon that way. Then, KOS-MOS’s head was sharply wrenched back – by the one still standing there.
“No!” Poppi, patch repairs undone, metal skin torn up in several places, still tried to hold KOS-MOS back. “Poppi not let you hurt friends!”
KOS-MOS calmly blinked. “Target in range.” She spun around, and grabbed Poppi. Poppi spun around and grabbed her, and Poppi’s own rocket boosters activated. KOS-MOS activated hers as well. And both went soaring, punching through the glass.
Tora let out a gasp. “Poppi!” He rushed over, trying to take aim with the cannons mounted on his wings.
The two androids twirled through the air, their thrusters roaring over the growling machinery of the factory. Shards and dust of glass glittered on the floor below like a galaxy of little stars.
Poppi’s fist snapped out first - a piston-powered hook that smashed against KOS-MOS’s jaw. The blow sent her head snapping to the side, but her stabilisers flared and she recovered instantly. She countered with a straight punch that clanged off Poppi’s chest plating, the impact rippling down Poppi’s frame, and denting the plate.
They wheeled in midair, boosters firing in short bursts, trading blows like they were fighting in zero-g. Each impact left dents and scratches; each deflection sent a shock through the air like a cannon.
“Poppi protect Masterpon!” She cried, jabbing again and again – fast and desperate, swinging and swinging at KOS-MOS’s limbs.
KOS-MOS, on the other hand didn’t block every strike. She didn’t need to. She let some hits land, her armour shrugging them off, and dodged the others, while her sensors tracked the gaps in Poppi’s rhythm. When she saw one, she – the product of the greatest minds of a generation, working to build a weapon against what some would consider to be actual Biblical Demons – struck.
Her hand shot out, seizing Poppi’s wrist in an iron grip. The sudden halt in momentum wrenched Poppi forward - and KOS-MOS’s knee drove up into her midsection. The blow crumpled Poppi’s torso plating inward, forcing a burst of steam from her vents.
Before Poppi could react, KOS-MOS rotated, using their combined momentum to whip her around in a brutal arc. Then, with an almost casual precision, she hurled her downward.
Poppi plummeted.
She hit the factory floor with a sound like a car crash - metal screaming, panels splintering. Her limbs jerked and came loose from their sockets, one arm clattering away entirely. Her chest was crushed in, glassy optics flickering erratically. The impact crater spiderwebbed beneath her like shattered ice, tearing up the floor plating.
“P-Poppi… shutting… down.” Poppi’s eyes switched off.
KOS-MOS assessed the damage. Parts strewn all over the place, limbs and head scattered about like someone had dropped a die-cast action figure from the top of a building and it had shattered. Wires sparked, and the orange glow through Poppi’s body subsided. All activity went dark, except for a single, egg-shaped module, laying in the wreckage, blinking rapidly.
“Capture: Failed.” KOS-MOS reported. “Incapacitation: Successful. Recommend recovery and repair efforts to restore unit to functionality.”
“POPPI!” Tora’s voice cracked as he skidded to the window. He looked down at his creation, his protector, his best friend. Shattered on the floor. He looked back up, and he growled, aiming the cannons.
Bana chuckled. “KOS-MOS win again. Not big surprise.”
Tora spun back around, aiming both at Bana and Muimui.
“Tora!” Rex, the Doctor, and Mòrag all gasped out. “No!”
Bana jumped. “KOS! Stupid robot – protect your Masterpon!”
KOS-MOS stoically stared at the occupants of the room. “Recovery of Aegis: Priority. All other combatants: disposable. Conclusion:”
The Doctor turned around – seeing her floating there, looking – and his danger sense fired again.
“Down!” The Time Lord bellowed.
“Wha-!?” Vandham questioned.
“Acquiring targets.” KOS-MOS announced. Energy and ether flowed into her torso, a whine filling the air.
Below, a gold-orange glow began to radiate off Poppi’s parts.
“EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” The Doctor screeched.
KOS-MOS spread her arm and legs. “X-Buster: firing!” And then, all that energy, all that ether, blasted out, being directed right into the control room. The objective: vaporise everything that wasn’t Bana and Muimui – they could pick up the Aegis’s core crystal up afterward, after all. (or, so they assumed.)
But as the waves of blue travelled forward, a blur of yellow-orange leapt up from the floor below, right into the path.
The blur hit the X-Buster’s beam head-on. For a split second, the control room was bathed in pure white, every shadow erased by the sun created right there in the factory.
KOS-MOS’s targeting readouts glitched. Her stabilisers fired automatically, countering a sudden surge of feedback from the impact of energies.
When the glare faded, something stood in the path of the beam.
A woman – wearing long, thigh-high, high-heeled boots, connected to a black leotard by red garter straps. Cartridges – ammunition or power cells – were banded around her legs, and strapped to parts of her torso. A red scarf with black striping flowed from where it was connected to a red hunk of armour around her neck. Silvery-blue hair, not unlike KOS-MOS’s own, waved in the gusts of wind formed by the energetic disturbance, and two red ‘horns’ stuck out of her head.
Tora’s eyes went wide as he stared up, jaw falling open. “P-Poppi?”
“Situation analysis:” Poppi spoke, holding what looked almost like a mechanical recreation of Pyra’s sword in her hand. “Poppi feel anger, and need for revenge! QTπ mode more than enough to deal with KOS-MOS.”
Rex spluttered. “Tora, what’s- Why didn’t you tell us Poppi had another configuration!?”
“She don’t!” Tora gasped out.
KOS-MOS’s sensors swept over her, recalibrating. “Unknown frame. Combat capacity: significant. Threat level… high.” The android’s irises contracted, systems spooling up. “Deploying G-SHOT.”
Panels along her forearm split apart with a metallic hiss, and the triple-barrelled gatling gun shimmered into being in her grasp. The barrels began to spin up, whining as Ether conduits along the housing flared bright blue.
Poppi’s expression locked in, as she slung her sword in an underhanded grip, holding it in a mirror of how KOS-MOS was holding her gatling gun. A glow began to build within the barrel of the sword-cannon, energy compressing into a brilliant, fiery glow.
“Noponic Axion!” Poppi announced.
KOS-MOS opened fire, ether bullets all tearing through the air in Poppi’s direction.
The beam ripped free like a lance made of sunlight, slamming into KOS-MOS’s gatling gun. The weapon tore itself from her grip in a shower of sparks, the impact shearing armour plating from the housing and sending it tumbling away into the open air.
“WHAT!?” Bana howled in disbelief. “That- Artificial blade not even scratch KOS-MOS until now! This cheating!” He picked up Muimui by the head. “Come on! We get Rosa!” He began to jog to what appeared to be escape hatches in the floor.
Bana threw Muimui into one, then jumped into the other, the plates slamming shut behind them.
“Oi, he’s getting away!” Vandham growled.
Poppi, still hovering in the air, rolled her shoulders. “Friends go catch Bana. Poppi more than able to defeat KOS-MOS now.”
“But-“ Tora gasped out.
Poppi turned, giving him a smile. On that face, it even made the Doctor’s hearts flutter. “Poppi will handle it.”
“Right!” Rex nodded. “Tora, stick with your dad! Come on, everyone!” He took charge, moving through a door nearby.
Tora shot another look at Poppi, then filed out with the rest of them.
KOS-MOS’s eyes tracked the fleeing group. “Aegis escort: Retreating. Switching to pursuit-“
Poppi’s thrusters roared as she surged forward, massive blade sweeping up in a diagonal slash. KOS-MOS caught the strike with her forearm, the impact ringing like a temple bell, and countered with a piston-fast kick aimed at Poppi’s chest.
Poppi floated back.
“Reprioritising.” KOS-MOS blinked. “Target designation: Poppi QTπ. Objective: Incapacitate and capture.”
“Poppi go down first, but now Poppi have mega ultra super enhance mode!” Poppi roared forward again, pulling back a fist, her scarf trailing behind her superhero-cape style.
KOS-MOS threw herself to the side. Poppi twisted mid-air, and drove her knee into KOS-MOS’s side. The blow knocked the other android into a catwalk support, bending it inwards with a tortured squeal.
KOS-MOS didn’t even blink. She jumped back up, her thrusters flared, and she retaliated, ramming Poppi through a wall into an adjoining production bay.
Nopon workers, thin and with patches of fur missing, screamed and scattered, ducking behind machinery as the two androids tore through the room.
Poppi planted her boots against the wall, and pushed off, meeting KOS-MOS head-on in a flurry of slashes and parries. Sparks showered down from the ruptured power conduits above, bathing them in flickering blue light.
KOS-MOS reached up, grabbing one of the arms of the conveyor, and yanked. Ripping the entire assembly, unfinished Artificial Blade included, she swung it about like a flail.
Poppi ducked under the swing and drove her shoulder into KOS-MOS’s gut, knocking the android back through the hole in the wall they’d just tore open. KOS-MOS darted back at Poppi, lunging violently.
They grappled, locked elbow-to-elbow, boosters firing in short, violent bursts as each tried to gain the upper hand. Poppi abruptly disengaged, darting back with her sword-cannon charging up. She planted her feet on the floor, and the two boosters in her back spat out jets of bright blue, as she moved ahead again – swinging the blade of Ether around like it was a simple bat.
“Poppi Ignition!” She cried, releasing a rapid-fire burst of sword strikes that drove KOS-MOS back.
KOS-MOS surged forward, bringing her sword down like an axe on Poppi’s shoulder – bare skin where armour didn’t cover it. The sword breached her synthetic skin, but Poppi’s steel muscles held, and she kicked KOS-MOS back, into another assembler.
“Poppi sustain only minor damage,” Poppi rolled her shoulders with a smile. “KOS-MOS mostly damage at this point.”
KOS-MOS rose from the wreckage, armour dented, optics unblinking. “Statement acknowledged. Escalating to full output.”
She lunged again.
-----------
The group frantically sprinted down catwalks, through side-rooms, and up and down stairs, having no real clue where in the hell they were supposed to be going.
Tatazo, however, proved to be a decent enough guide.
“Friends go to large hangar on far side of factory!” Tatazo huffed and puffed. “Muimui and Bana working on secret project!”
“Secret project!?” Vandham questioned in disbelief. “They’ve got a whole secret factory already, what’s more secret than this!?”
“If Tatazo know, would not be secret!”
The entire building quaked.
“What the bloody hell was that!?” Nia bellowed, looking around.
“Meh-meh-meh, hope Poppi okay…” Tora nervously beat his wings.
“Tatazo know where project is – hurry, Tatazo still have keys to get through factory!” The professor took point, unlocking gates and leading them through. Tirkin walking the factory floor cawed, and moved in.
“Stop, you not go-!”
“We don’t have time to deal with these idiots!” Mythra snarled, blasting one. “Move!”
Tatazo jogged rapidly, over to a blast door sliding shut. “No!” He cried as it clanged shut. “Controls-“
Pyra replaced Mythra, and extended her hand, jets of fire moving at the door. Brighid took place beside her, and kept the heat up. The metal bubbled, and boiled, and popped, sloughing off of itself and onto the floor, melting a hole large enough for them to fit through.
Crossette, keeping their flank covered, noticed a dark-coloured blur go soaring through the air in the distance, chased by a silver one. It slammed into an ether tank, an enormous, green-coloured explosion ringing out from the impact. “Architect above!”
“They’re going to bring this whole place down!” The Doctor rushed the others through the door. “Go, go! We’ve got to catch Bana so he can call KOS-MOS off, now!”
Water ether from Dromarch’s rings, courtesy of Nia, hosed down the breach in the door, sizzling and evaporating on contact as it cooled the metal, enough for them to safely walk through.
They ran into the gigantic, hangar-like chamber on the other side, coming to a skidding stop.
“This is place!” Tatazo proclaimed. “Bana have Tatazo work on big parts not leaving this room.”
Rex looked around, seeing no sign of the oversized Nopon. “Then… where is he?”
Another shake tore through the building.
“I-I say!” Azurda gasped out. “Poppi and KOS-MOS are really having a go at one another!”
The Doctor held up a finger, staring. His brain ran some quick calculations. “No- no that was something big.” His eyes darted about, trying to find the source in the large, empty chamber.
A glider craft suddenly swooped overhead.
“NOPON, GO!” Bana and Muimui’s voices screeched over the loudspeaker.
The ‘reflecting pool’ on the floor in front of the ether tanks suddenly opened up, lifting a titanic, metal, super-deformed humanoid body. It was the size of a building. It had gigantic, beady red eyes. It had weapons all over it. It was dressed like a maid.
Nia’s jaw dropped in utter shock. “Wha-wha-what the hell is THAT!?” She spluttered in sheer disbelief. “Bloody Nopon and their maids!”
The Doctor stared – the giant, curved-cube head. The stubby body and giant mitten-like hands and disproportionate feet to act as counter-mass. The Time Lord was suddenly possessed by a deep, all-consuming disgust.
“It’s a Pop figure…” The Doctor breathed in horror.
The glider swooped over the giant maid’s head, wings pointing straight-up as jets on the underside kept it aloft.
“Docking… complete!” Bana and Muimui hollered as the glider fell onto the head, and locked in, becoming the maid’s headdress, and the robot sprung to life, lifting both fists.
“Bwahahaha!” Bana screamed dementedly over the loudspeaker. “How you like this!? Behold! Ultimate refinement of Artificial Blade technology! Gigantic Artificial Blade: Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrosa!”
Tatazo paled, like he’d seen the face of the Devil himself. “I-Impossible! E-Enhancement of Lila’s blueprints are beyond Bana!”
Dromarch’s eyes flicked over. “I would think it nothing more than a simple scaling-up.”
Tatazo indignantly twitched. “Square-cube law, energy plant efficiency, and inherent anti-cuteness of large things all significant obstacles impossible for Bana to pass!”
Mòrag looked up at the giant robot, at a loss for words. “So,” She said at last. “It’s not merely artificial blades you’re constructing, but superweapons.”
“That right~!” Bana sing-songed. “Titan weapons? Junk! Warship cannons? Scrap! With Rosa, KOS-MOS, and Blade-Bot production, Bana now ultimate power in all Alrest!”
Rex stood still for a moment, confused. “I’m sorry – but is your plan profit, or taking over the world!?"
“MONEY OF COURSE!” Bana snarled from where he was up in the control cockpit. “But you either too beloved to touch, or too scary to touch! Bana not beloved, so, he make himself scary!”
Vandham scowled, gesturing up with a scythe. “Men like you always think might makes right – but you ain’t invincible, Bana!”
“Bana not need be invincible, only too costly to touch!” Bana refuted. “No better way of doing that than getting rid of Special Inquisitor, mercenary leader of Garfont, and Driver of Aegis! Everyone know after that it very costly to pursue Bana!”
Albedo scowled, pointing her rapier at Bana. “You always did reek of cowardice and scum, Chairman. Every time I had the ‘pleasure’ of visiting.”
“Oh, Bana soooo sad to disappoint you – NOT!” Bana bellowed. “Get back in kitchen! Wait – no, Bana send you back there in box!”
Rosa lifted her arms, and a titanic leg took a step, slamming it down on the floor and generating a massive quake.
“All power to weapons systems!” Rosa lifted both arms. “Bam-bam rocket!”
Rosa’s colossal leg slammed down again, shaking the gantry beneath their feet. Rust rained from the ceiling. Somewhere in the distance, stressed girders wailed. Then, Rosa fired.
“Scatter!” Vandham roared. A split-second later, twin rockets screamed and tumbled through the air, Rosa’s fists having detached to become the projectiles, flipping around wildly to hit anything, before returning.
“Something so large cannot possibly track us all at once!” Albedo yelled, ducking away as Rosa turned to look at her.
Nia took advantage of that, darting around the gigantic artificial blade’s legs struts, her twin rings slashing at exposed cabling in Rosa’s ankles. Sparks spat from the joints, but the mech only bellowed - its speakers distorting under Bana’s gloating laugh.
“Bah! Little insects nibble at Bana’s masterpiece? You do nothing!” Bana boasted. “Rosa designed for taking on Titan weapons!”
Another step from Rosa - another quake that made the floor ripple. Vandham leapt into the air, propelled up by Roc’s winds, bringing his scythes down in a heavy arc. The blade bit into an armour plate on her shin with a sharp metallic shriek, leaving a warped groove.
“Oi, she felt that!” Vandham grinned. “Hit ‘er hard enough and she wobbles!”
“The artificial blade obviously isn’t designed for anti-infantry tasks,” Mòrag mused. “Bana is many things – a tactician, he is not.”
Rosa retaliated by swinging a massive arm sideways, catching a gantry hanging above and ripping it free. The twisted metal missed clipped the Doctor, sending him tumbling into a heap of cables.
“Doc!” Nia gasped out.
“Fine, yes, stay down, definitely part of the plan,” He muttered, dragging himself upright and grabbing a length of conduit piping like a cricket bat. “No sonic, only one thing to do!”
“What’s that, then!?” Nia questioned.
“Smash it!” The Doctor rushed into motion.
Rex looked down at his arm, then up. “I’ve got an idea!”
Pyra whipped around to look at him. “That won’t work – it’s enormous!”
“Yeah, I know – that’s what I’m hoping!” Rex sharply retorted, firing the anchor shot anyhow. He hit the motor, and started being reeled in.
Mythra popped in in a burst of light. “Rex, you dumbass!”
Rex slammed into Rosa’s forearm, gripping on tightly for dear life as he was batted around, flopping like a ragdoll. “Ow!” He shouted as his head hit metal. “Somebody distract her!”
Albedo took a step, sending a delayed strike into Rosa’s eyes. The bright flash caused the gigantic artificial blade to flinch just long enough for Rex to gain a good grip. Looking over the forearm, Rex’s eyes locked onto a seam on the wrist, and the mechanism buried inside.
“This looks important!” Rex took Mythra’s sword, and sent it plunging through, breaking the fastener and causing the hand to drop to the floor.
“What!?” Bana bellowed.
“Hand’s down!” Rex called as he jumped off.
“Going for the other one!” Nia’s voice rang out. A surge of ether lashed from her rings into the joint of Rosa’s other hand, causing It to jam up. Mòrag followed with a whipstrike, snapping the hinge.
The giant mech staggered now, lumbering to keep her balance. Vandham didn’t waste the opportunity - he leapt again, slamming a scythe into the weakened knee joint. With a tortured squeal, it buckled.
Bana’s voice howled from inside the cockpit. “No-no-no, expensive parts! Very costly! Don’t do this! It very expensive bill you have to pay! Keep you in debt for rest of all time!”
The Doctor darted forward, jamming his stolen pipe into the bent joint like a crowbar. “Well, I hope you got the warranty, then,” The Time Lord grunted, pushing on the pipe like a lever, forcing the joint apart.
With one leg crippled and both arm cannons ruined, Rosa tipped sideways. The entire factory shook as she crashed to the floor.
“Argh, this stupid!” Bana hissed, before the two large rocket nozzles on Rosa’s back activated, lifting her into the air. Both hands scurried across the floor, before being smashed apart by strikes from Vandham and Mòrag.
Rex swung Mythra’s sword, trying to hit Rosa with the projectiles. The Doctor followed by throwing the bitball, but… well, it was a ball, in the end.
“Damn!” Rex swore. “Get down from there!”
“Bana blast you all to smithereens!” Bana howled over the speaker.
“Meh-meh-meh, no good! Must force Rosa to land!” Tora flapped his wings in panic, then spun on Tatazo. “Dadapon! Lila’s blueprints; Poppi’s too! Rosa based on same systems, yes-yes?”
Tatazo’s eyes widened. “Yes-yes! All blades in factory based on Lila’s design!”
Tora spun back around, looking up. He batted his wings excitedly. “Rosa still using Lila’s old rocket pack design! Tora switch it out for control systems integrated into Poppi’s back, but Rosa have it all – cooling, control, connection – in square part holding nozzles! Smash it up!”
“Got it – breakin’ the thing!” Rex hollered, as Rosa swooped overhead.
“Let me do it!” Mythra commanded. “Get Bana’s focus all tied up!”
“I’ve got it!” The Doctor jumped over, and pointed up. “Oi! Bana! Can you hear me!? Your big, giant, artificial blade!? It’s rubbish!”
“What!? It perfect!” Bana angrily hissed in response. “Rosa is perfect picture of terrifying power and phenomenal force!” Rosa spun around, one leg hanging limply, to stare at the Doctor.
“And the ‘maid’ shtick!” The Doctor continued. “Don’t even get me started about dressing KOS-MOS up like that! What, did you have extra dresses to just throw around!? Say all you want about the aesthetic, but it’s overdone!”
“OVERDONE!? Bana show you overdone! Overdone like steak!” With his focus squarely upon the Doctor, Bana remained completely blind to the Aegis leaping into the air behind his beloved giant robot, holding her sword.
Mythra slammed into the rocket pack, slashing it over and over with all her might, the sword spinning and leaving blazing-bright rails as the systems inside were cut apart and severed. One rocket lost power, sending Rosa tumbling, before the other cut out, and the robot slammed into the floor.
“Everyone, now!” Mythra bellowed.
“Now what!?” Rex questioned as she threw her sword back into his hands.
“Just hit the fuckin’ thing!”
The others all shrugged, but went-in wild. Rosa thrashed and twitched, as Bana tried to motivate her to stand back up to no avail. Ether-charged weapons tore into every side, cutting plating and conduit, until Rosa was left a sparking, spluttering mess.
“A-Ah! Maybe Bana decide it time for tactical retreat!” The cockpit ejected, wildly flailing around as it was damaged, before it too dropped like a stone. Smoke rose from the fallen mechanoid, everyone wafting it away from their noses.
“Ha-ha!” Tora boasted happily. “Justice always win out! Maid symbol of justice – of course Bana was going to lose!”
The Doctor tilted his head slightly. “The universe does have a sense of humour, y’know.”
Nia looked at him, concerned. “Really? Then, who was that joke supposed to be played on?”
“I think whatever future historians that’ll be scribing this all down, who won’t be able to tell for certain if fighting the giant super-deformed maid-mecha actually happened, or was an allegory.”
“An allegory for what?”
The Time Lord shrugged. “I don’t know. Capitalism? Everyone’s favourite boogeyman.”
Albedo frowned. “He did admit he was doing this all for money.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Yes, because ‘money is the root of all evil’ is a perfectly literal statement.” He straightened his bow tie. “You know, people say capitalism is a problem – no, it’s not. It’s unregulated capitalism that’s a problem. Libertarians don’t know what they’re talking about when they say an unregulated system manages itself. ‘Yes! Give me corporate exploitation without laws and protections to sue them into oblivion for it!’ I happen to like capitalism. It’s a barter system with extra steps. Everyone starts with the barter system. And you get these little baggies of jingly coins sometimes that sparkle – o-o-or you get extra lucky and visit a planet with live currency.” He giggled, wiggling his fingers. “Bugs and worms – a-an-and if you get hungry, you always have protein.”
“Doctor,” Nia held up a hand.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
The Time Lord snapped his mouth shut.
“Hey!” Vandham raised his voice. “Where’s Bana!?”
They spun around, finding only Muimui laying in front of the cockpit. They turned, to see Bana sprinting down a long corridor.
“Damn it, man!” Nia snapped, slapping the Doctor on the shoulder. “You were giving that lecture, and he scarpered!”
“Chasing!” The Doctor gasped out, sprinting after him.
“I’ll stay here with the little one,” Vandham prodded Muimui with his foot. “You lot, get Bana!”
Boots slammed against the floor as they pursued.
Bana’s little legs blurred beneath him, stubby feet pattering against the metal as he darted through the dimly lit corridor. He glanced back once, saw the group bearing down on him, and shrieked like a kettle coming to the boil.
“Bana!” Nia snarled. “Stand still so I can smack you!”
“No, no! Bana have important other meeting to get to – will pencil you in!”
They continued to chase Bana anyway down the long hall, unsure of where he was going. Hopefully, Poppi was having a better time of it.
-----------
KOS-MOS lunged at Poppi yet again, stabbing her sword forward. Poppi parried the strike away, retaliating with three swings to KOS-MOS’s torso.
KOS-MOS stumbled back, shaking her head like something had been knocked loose.
“Poppi feel sorry for KOS-MOS,” Poppi addressed the android as she flicked some of KOS-MOS’s ‘blood,’ clear and as thin as water, off her sword.
KOS-MOS tilted her head to the side, looking curious.
“Long-long way from home, smashed-up, fix by people who only want use you for evil.” Poppi shook her head. “Still, Poppi won’t let you hurt others.”
“I will complete my mission.” KOS-MOS retorted, lunging again.
Poppi met the strike once more – but instead of parrying, this time, she caught the sword in the gaps of her own sword’s design, and twisted, yanking the whole assembly, along with KOS-MOS, forward.
Poppi grabbed onto KOS-MOS’s forearm tightly, brought her leg up, and pushed it into KOS-MOS’s chest with all her might. KOS-MOS was launched back, but Poppi still held on, and with the sound of ripping metal, the arm remained in Poppi’s grip, severed at the socket, dangling wires and dripping water.
The rest of KOS-MOS went flying, through another ether tank, gouging out a trail in the floor as she slammed into it on the other side. Those hastily-attached legs from Lila ripped off, before she finaly came to a stop, on her back and looking up. At the bottom of that deep trench, her head lolled around as she attempted to regain her bearings. Then, a foot on her abdomen, and Poppi was standing right atop her.
“Poppi is sorry about this. But KOS-MOS acting very bad.” Poppi looked down, her optics clicking and shifting as she traced something. “Poppi surrender if KOS-MOS tell her where control chip located.”
KOS-MOS blinked. “All analyses conclude that is a lie.”
Poppi smiled, genuinely sweet and warm. “Poppi always tell truth to friends – it what makes Poppi, Poppi!”
KOS-MOS stared. “Designation: friends. Comprehension error.”
Poppi nodded. “We fight like mad, but Poppi want to get to know KOS-MOS better! Is that not friend behaviour? Poppi classify KOS-MOS as friend, so, Poppi providing accurate data. Will surrender if KOS-MOS tell where supervillainpons put control chip.”
KOS-MOS ran the mental math. There, on her back, no weapons, no locomotion, with her foe offering to just give herself up, there was really only one chance for her to complete her task now.
“It is located in the torso region, at the position of the xiphoid process.”
Poppi smiled, and nodded. “Okie dokie!” Poppi then balled her fist, and sent it forward, punching clean through KOS-MOS’s torso armour, as her hand closed around the chip. Poppi grimaced, leaning forward. “Poppi not tell whole truth. KOS-MOS probationary friend, not full friend yet, so, Poppi not feel like she have to provide accurate data at all times to her. Poppi sorry for lie.” Then, she pulled – and ripped it out.
The chip was a discreet metal block, the only features being a cutout for wires to enter into it, and the text in Alrestian labelling it as the control chip (Why bother trying to hide it? It’s a valid thing to have, if you’ve got a death-machine.).
Poppi crushed it in her hand.
KOS-MOS’s head leaned back. “Shutting down…” And her eyes closed.
Poppi frowned, and leaned forward, picking KOS-MOS up. The artificial blade took a breath, then plastered a smile on her face. “Now – we find friends, help stop Bana, fix KOS-MOS, and day will be saved!”
Poppi jumped out of the trench, and began to fly, a woman on a mission.
Chapter 27: Ten: Everybody Kill the Dinosaur
Chapter Text
Her plan is a randomiser. An ingeniously primitive, but effective device. The way TARDISes work, is that the navigational computer sources coordinates from the Matrix back on Gallifrey, then sends them to the Helmic Regulator to guide the ship. There are two data lines. One that sends the actual coordinates, the other that sends the verification signal that engages the engines. The randomiser intercepts the coordinate data, shifts it according to a random seed, then relays it to the helm.
So, the TARDIS tells Gallifrey we’re going to one place, when really, we’re going to a completely different place. The natural delay in the Matrix receiving data (it’s not instantaneous) means it then takes some time for the powers that be to catch wise, by which time, we already could have skipped town.
And it works, for quite a while. We get our chance to see the universe.
We skirt the edges of the battlefronts, and when the sky starts filling with battle groups and weapons platforms, we move on. But in between, we see the Gardens of Aeris, all seven moons in bloom at once, their atmospheres made of pure perfume harvested by vast, organic, manta-ray ships gliding just on the boundaries of the planets. Take a visit to worlds with magnificent crystal reefs. Barter for icefruit in alien markets, get swept up in festivals, even dance once, very briefly, on a platform suspended above the mass ejections of a dying star.
But every time we do that, there’s a danger. The only thing keeping the TARDIS out of trouble is luck. We could end up literally anywhere at any time.
No place survives the War untouched. Some we hear about later in intercepted chatter - erased, scorched, and rewritten. Some we never hear of again. But we move on. We haven’t become swept up in the danger yet.
Elysium comes as a rude awakening.
Even before we materialise, the TARDIS fights us.
The engines groan, and grind, and wheeze, and flicker in protest. The doors barely hold closed, and the ship feels like it’s coming apart.
“What’s gotten into you!?” The Mechanic fights the controls, as I place myself on the other side of the console.
Then, we shake like we’ve slammed into something, then settle.
“Did something just hit us?” I demand frantically.
“No, it’s like we hit something else.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Big difference.” She replies shortly, checking over the readouts. “What the… hell…?”
“What is it?” I look over – and the gauges are reporting completely nonsensical, contradictory information. Atmosphere’s both fifty-billion psi, and not present at all. Radiation is “all-types” and yet the Geiger counters, neutron detectors, scintillation counters, and every other piece of equipment we have are reading nothing. According to the gravitational detectors, we’re in the middle of a singularity, on a planetary surface, or in the middle of deep space. And they can’t even seem to decide if space itself is even out there. “Are the instruments broken?”
“’DANGER! DANGER! High Voltage!’”
“No, we’re…” The Mechanic gulps. “I’ve got a bad feeling. We should go. We should just… go.”
And yet, my feet are going to the door anyway. I step through.
“S- FOR THE LOVE OF-!” She sprints out after me.
I immediately regret the decision.
Outside, space has been bent, folded, crumpled, and torn like paper soaked through. The stars have run like wet ink, smeared into shapes my eyes can’t quite hold onto. Chunks of… whatever this place is float like small asteroids, only a few metres across, and yet have enough gravity to hold us to them, and hold an atmosphere.
They’re connected by rope bridges, and metal superhighways, and fleshy stalks, and glowing tethers. The islands float and repeat back among themselves like fractal patterns, a hall of mirrors stretching into eternity.
I can turn, and see myself reflected back in the hall of mirrors.
“What is this place?”
The Mechanic stares out.
“The Gates of Elysium.” She swallows, tapping her foot. “You read the update, at the end of the first year, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well… we don’t know,” She shivers. “The Gates are like a cosmic cascade. A region where our universe, made out of one form of matter and structure, is colliding with another universe made of the exact opposite. An annihilation event on a system-wide scale.”
“Fascinating.” I can’t help but breathe.
“One word for it.” She gulps. “The emissions they spit out in all directions are capable of absolute destruction of atoms themselves, across one-hundred light-years. As for how we’re alive…” She lifted her hand.
“We must be at an epicentre of sorts.” That’s my theory.
“Have to be.” She clutches her arm. “We’re not dying.”
“Two opposing universes colliding, and this is that point.” I muse to myself. “It’s not simply a hole in space, rather, it’s a hole in the very notion of physics.”
“The vortex shouldn’t be able to reach into here,” The Mechanic nervously mused. “Think about it. A collapse of everything.”
“This place shouldn’t exist at all.” Is my retort.
The Mechanic stares into the impossible skyline - those glitching islands and fractal horizons - and mutters, “If two universes annihilate, there’s no debris, no remnant, just an absence.”
I nod. “Not even darkness. Dark is still something. If we’re at the heart of the event, which we by definition must be since anywhere else in its envelope we would be destroyed, we should be looking at the Void.”
I glance up again. The Gates ripple. Not the slow, convective shimmer it’s had since we arrived - this is different. More purposeful. Like a muscle flexing.
The ground trembles beneath our feet. Not a quake, not exactly; more like the asteroid we’re upon is moving. The stars overhead seem to reconfigure themselves - constellations collapsing, reforming into patterns and symbols.
“Hey,” The Mechanic says, voice tight, “do you feel that?”
I do. But it isn’t touch, or sound, or sight. It’s like the background noise of the universe has changed key, sliding into a note that thrums in the bone marrow. The hum underfoot syncs with my pulse.
The TARDIS doors creak open on their own, like the ship is ready to bolt.
Then the skyline starts bending. Shattered buildings warp, stretch, then fold inward like reflections on a rippling pond. They sink and ripple into waves.
From the waves emerges a figure, like a statue rising out of a pool of mercury. A towering giant, armoured in burnished bronze and black, his presence blotting out the sky behind him. His shoulders are broad enough to carry continents, his arms ending in gauntlets big enough to crush a TARDIS shell like paper. The armour is carved with flowing lines half Gallifreyan artistry, half warlord brutality. But it’s the mask that locks my gaze.
Itself a monument, a symbol, and an idea. A tall, sweeping crest that tapers to a point high above his head, flaring outward like the prow of some ancient starship. The eyes are deep-set, shadowed pits, the mouth a perpetual snarl of metal and stone. The very visage of brutal authority itself. I know it. The Mechanic knows it. Every Time Lord ever born knows it.
He who forged the Eye of Harmony that powered the Machine Heart. Who was cast into oblivion and revered as a hero.
“I am the creator of my own dominion,” He intones, every syllable resonating in my skull like the toll of a great bell, rippling the very space itself “A universe of antimatter; forged in the instant of my exile, shaped and sustained by my will alone. Every grain of dust, every breath of wind, every starless gulf… is mine because I have decreed it to be. You stand in a place where that realm meets your own – a product of my drive. Behold! For you stand before OMEGA; God of All Time Lords!”
“I-Impossible,” The Mechanic twitches.
“What is this!?” I step forward, looking up. “Did you bring us here!?” Everything I’ve done has been for my own destiny – if he brought us here…
“SILENCE!” Omega decrees. Fragments of reality, like shards of glass, swirl around him. In their phantom reflections, I can see so much – in one, a village, burning, with a large mech standing over it. In another, a white-haired man severing his own head while he loomed over a little girl, and the head growing back not a second later. In a third…
Was that… me? Picking up a red sword, with a circular glass pane embedded inside it.
“B-But you died!” The Mechanic gasps. “When you and Rassilon discovered the Eye of Harmony! You died!”
“No!” Omega bellows, gesturing sharply. “I was betrayed; backstabbed, by one whom I called a close friend. Rassilon! He sabotaged our efforts, and I was cast into the singularity. But, I survived! On the other side, in a world where my will was the law of creation! Trapped, but alive! Unable to escape, but shaping my world to my desire!”
“Rassilon betrayed…” I repeat, unable to wrap my head around it. A shard drifts behind my back.
“Professor, stop! The results have not been confirmed - it’s too dangerous!’”
“’Ridiculous! It’s perfectly safe…’”
Something tells me it didn’t quite transpire the way he remembers.
“An antimatter universe…” My brow furrows. “But, what is all this. Why bring us here?”
“Because the time has come for my escape!” Omega’s voice causes the shards to ripple. “Because even deep in my prison, I can sense his resurrection! Rassilon returns! The people of Gallifrey have forgotten whom their true god is, and now, I shall return as well. To shatter the legacy that cast me into the black hole and made me lord of nothing!”
The Mechanic’s eyes widen in realisation. “You’re pulling our universes together! Your antimatter, and our normal, colliding – you’re the one responsible for the Gates!”
“CORRECT!” Omega declares, standing tall and proud. “This place, where our universes meet; all the walls of reality have broken down! This is the location where all edges of space and time meet! The whole of creation is accessible, from here! I have been waiting centuries for one to arrive here.”
Something doesn’t sit right with me.
The Mechanic’s realisation turns to quiet horror. “Two universes, being forced together by the will of a single being…”
“Indeed,” Omega rumbles. “But my will is not limitless. Our worlds wish to be separate. It is taking all of my immense concentration to create even this passageway. I cannot cross it, and hold it together, at the same time. One must remain on the far side to hold it open for me. In the antimatter universe. One of you!” He decrees, pointing.
The mechanic jumps angrily, instantly. “Absolutely not!”
“YOU DARE?!” The Gate behind him flared in sympathy, a burst of annihilating light that turned the landscape into a bleached negative. “I OFFER YOU A PLACE IN MY ASCENSION, AND YOU SPIT UPON IT?”
The Mechanic flinches, but rolls her shoulders. “We’re not damning ourselves to an antimatter universe!”
“You would become GODS!” Omega snarls. “The fundamental forces of creation would bend to your will! You would become immortal, eternal, infinite! None could touch you! Exert your will, and whatever you desired, would become reality!”
Against my better instincts… a face appears in my mind. It piques my interest.
I look up. “Whatever we want?”
The Mechanic rounds on me. “Don’t be stupid! You’re not listening to-!?”
“Anything you could think, would become reality.” Omega booms.
“And the Time Lords could not find me?”
The Mechanic looks like she’s about to start hitting me.
Omega turns up his head. “They did not find me.”
The words sink in, and I shiver at the thought of it. A whole plane of existence. Where I could hide, not even have to worry about the war, one that I could shape to my very desire. I could live out the life I want. Peaceful.
“Listen to me,” The Mechanic hisses. “You may think this is what you want, but it isn’t. Look at what it did to him.” She gestures with her head at Omega. “You won’t have anyone else, and whatever people you can make, they won’t be people, just figments of your mind.”
I look at her.
She recoils, blinks in shock, then sets her face in stone. “I would not go with you.”
A pang of betrayal shoots through me.
“Disregarding the fact that you’re being offered this by someone who we just met, think about it! This all started because you wanted to get away from the High Council playing God in your life. Beyond that, it’s an antimatter universe. You’ll die the moment you aren’t single-minded enough or stubborn enough to remember to keep yourself from setting off a matter-antimatter reaction!”
“You would be a fool to throw this away.” Omega rumbles. “You shall be as gods!”
A realm where I could live in peace. No politics. No war. No one to accost me. I could shape it as I see fit. Cities I’ve dreamed of. The worlds I’ve wanted to walk. The people I’ve wished I’d known. A perfect universe.
Omega seems to sense the shift in my thoughts. The mask tilts, just slightly, and the booming voice drops to a tone that almost feels intimate. “I see the shape of your heart. You are wasted in their petty little squabbles. Here, in my kingdom, you would be free of it all. Every want, every dream, every hunger - answered. Not tomorrow. Not after a fight. Now. Forever.”
Images start to bleed into the space around us, rippling in the shards of broken reality. I see Gallifrey, the Gallifrey I remember - towers rising in burning orange light, clear oceans, streets where I walk without being looked at like I’m the refuse left behind from something once great. And there’s her - the one face I can never quite forget, but whom I’m always forgetting - smiling in the sunlight.
My breath hitches. My fingers twitch. I could take this.
“…Why me?” I whisper.
Omega’s mask inclines slightly, as though the mere question were foolish. “You are not my first choice.”
This place briefly goes still, like all these realities we’ve been surrounded by are watching us.
“There is another. The Doctor. The one who runs, who breaks chains, who makes mockery of kings and gods like I!” He gestures, hatred rolling off him in waves. “I would see him bound in chains and thrown into a pit in the desert for his meddling in my design. But he is caught in a spiral. A loop built into the bones of the universe, one he has no knowledge of. His end is his beginning. His death is his departure. He escapes because he must. History will bend, time will scream, reality will rip - all to return him to his place on Gallifrey, again and again and again.”
His voice turns bitter and resentful. “Such a creature cannot take my place. He will always find his way back. Always.” Then he gestures to me, with a slow, deliberate sweep of his gauntlet. “But you… You are not enslaved by your own existence. You are not bound to return. You could stay.”
The images around me sharpen - clearer now. The Gallifrey I remember is quieter. No War. No noise. The sky is always orange.
“I have seen it,” Is Omega’s proclamation. One of the fragments of distant times and realities displays some manner of enormous lifeform, with wings, a carapace, and large horn, holding a blade made of light and fighting against a mechanical giant of equal size with a physical sword. “You take my place and shape the reality to your will. You become a god over your own domain! Stop stalling, and make the choice you have already made.”
The Mechanic steps between us, jaw set. “He’s not your pawn, Omega.”
The god’s head turns toward her like a weapon tracking a target. “The decision is his alone! And, one that he has already made. You cannot protect him from himself.” He turns back to me. “There are two paths before you. One is outside of your control; it has always been. This may be satisfactory to you, if it all transpires as you hope. But if it does not, you will have begged to take what I am offering you now.”
I can’t answer, at first.
“I have become a god, in this place. So too, can you.”
My eyes go to the Mechanic.
In the end… this whole thing has been about personal freedom. It’s right there. Not just freedom, but potentially omnipotence.
But coming from him? Who just vowed to tear down all of Time Lord civilisation? Doesn’t feel right.
The Time Lords may burn. But like I said so long ago – I won’t be part of it.
I spin around. “Run!” I bark, eyes locked on the TARDIS. Omega lets out a guttural, bloody scream of fury as we sprint into the TARDIS and slam the doors shut.
The whole ship shudders, not the way she does when the engines are going, but like something massive has caught hold.
The console room tilts, gravity stuttering as though reality itself is slipping sideways. The time rotor starts to rise - then jerks to a dead stop with a hideous metallic clang.
The Mechanic’s hands fly over the controls. “He’s got us!”
The roundels dim, a low groan rolling through the walls like a wounded animal. And then I feel it - the presence of a mind pressing against ours. A will so vast it’s like being pinned under a mountain.
“YOU DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL I DECREE IT!”
The TARDIS quivers. Panels rattle in their frames. The struts of the console tremble under my grip. This isn’t the brute pull of gravity or tractor beams, it’s Omega’s will, reaching in, forcing the space we occupy to stay put. His physical grip is almost an afterthought.
The Mechanic grits her teeth. “If he holds us much longer, he’ll tear the shell apart!”
And then the sound comes - a rising, tearing shriek, as though the TARDIS is being unzipped. I can see it in my mind’s eye: the walls splitting, the interior bleeding away into the roiling nothing of the antimatter universe beyond. One slip, and he’ll fling us out there… and then step through into ours, leaving us trapped in his void forever.
I force my voice steady. “We’ve got to break his focus.”
“How!?” she snaps.
“I don’t know!”
She slams the randomiser’s activation crystal down like she’s punching it. The rotor jerks, flickers… then strains upward another few inches, fighting against an unseen weight.
The lights flare white-hot as the engines roar. Omega’s psychic shadow looms across the glass of the central column, his gauntleted hand curling into a fist. I hear his voice tolling like a bell inside my head:
“YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE ME! I WILL DRAG YOU INTO MY PRISON AND YOU WILL SERVE IN MY PLACE!”
“We’re not moving!” The Mechanic grunts. “His mind is pulling back against the engines!”
“We’ve got to do something,” I bite my lip.
The TARDIS is screaming. Not in the usual ‘she doesn’t like this’ way; more like the screeching of metal being bent until it’s about to snap. Omega’s will crushes down from all sides, and the space between matter and antimatter feels like it’s folding around us.
The Mechanic is yanking levers and kicking at jammed panels. “If we don’t get free in thirty seconds, he’s going to rip the outer shell apart and throw us into the void!”
“Yeah, I noticed!” I snap. I don’t fancy dying to a mad god in the place where two realities meet; then it clicks.
The Gates.
They exist because Omega is holding both universes together. His will is pinning them together like a staple, fighting physics itself to keep the two colliding realities from springing apart. That’s why they haven’t drifted apart from each other already. And right now, that same will is split again, holding onto the TARDIS like a trophy in his gauntleted fist.
If we push the universes back apart, he’ll have to put all his focus there, or watch the Gates collapse - and his one escape route vanish.
“We can use the TARDIS – create a burst of real-space. If Omega’s been existing within the anti-structure all this time, he must’ve been converted into it – it should harm him.” I bolt over to the console, gently brushing past her.
Her hand clamps around my wrist, her eyes wide with panic. “You’ll destroy the engine.”
A crack splits the floor of the console room.
“We’ll lose the TARDIS, otherwise!” Three-hundred souls in storage. All I want is to be left to my own devices – they don’t need to die because of it.
Switches click as my hands fly over them. “Tie in the main drive’s harmonic regulators, route it through the quantum field generators, and…”
The console lights flicker to a violent red as the dimensional stabilisers spool up, their whine building into a teeth-rattling shriek. I wrench the gravitic field levers open - the deck plates tremble, and the TARDIS begins to quake.
The first power surge rattles through the console. The stabiliser core kicks like a mule, and a line of readouts blows out in a shower of sparks. The Mechanic swears, slamming a boot into a stuck relay housing.
“I WILL TEAR OPEN YOUR SHIP AND DRAG YOU INTO MY REALM BY YOUR BONES IF I MUST!”
The old computation-matter struts creak like timber under strain. Somewhere deep in the guts, the dampers engage with a grinding groan, their warped bearings protesting every turn. The floor thrums like a struck drumskin as the field starts to hum, out of tune at first, then snapping into synchrony with the main engines.
"YOUR FUTURE ALREADY BELONGS TO ME! I HAVE WITNESSED IT!”
Smoke curls up from a junction box beside my arm. The Cloister Bell begins to toll.
The Mechanic lets out a scream of exertion as she strains against a lever that resists her as though Omega’s hand is on it.
The stabilisers surge again. The time rotor judders violently, the glass column flashing between green and blinding white. Every pulse is another push - a wedge of positive-structure physics ramming into the antimatter being that Omega has become.
The strain builds to a scream. The whole ship tilts, and the roundels spark and flicker. I slam both hands down on the controls, shunting every last reserve of power into the stabilisers.
“YOUR IMPRISONMENT WILL BE MY FREEDOM!”
The floating islands stretch away from each other, their connections - the rope bridges, the metal spans, the fleshy tendrils - snapping one by one. The stars ripple like a disturbed ocean. The Gates of Elysium flare, the two realities grinding against one another.
Omega’s roar thunders through the TARDIS, shaking the roundels open. “I AM OMEGA ! THE BEGINNING OF THE TIME LORDS, AND I SHALL BE THEIR END! YOU CANNOT THINK TO DEFY MY-“
The time rotor bursts into a geyser of sparks and the engines erupt as the pressure building within them pops the calculated-metal mechanisms and layers like they’re nothing more than a simple balloon. Decks fifty-six through ninety-seven are shredded, but the rest of the explosion – the positive-structure energies, particles, and spatial phenomena – we purposefully direct outward.
It’s like a shotgun blast, right to Omega’s face.
The metal plates of his armour crumble like low-quality concrete. His helmet shatters in the winds of the Time Vortex that he himself helped to create.
He looks like me.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, soft face. He looks more like a veterinarian or schoolteacher, not a being that could shape the universe with his mind.
“ZAAANZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” The scream tore from Omega like the last roar of a collapsing star. Every single solitary cell of my blood freezes into rock.
Then, his face burns away. Flesh is vaporised off the bone. The blast acts like any rocket does in space, propelling the TARDIS right out of the Gates.
Omega’s skeleton – still animate, still howling in rage – becomes a doll on the visualiser screen, then a speck, then nothing. The bubble of anomalous space providing passage to all realities shrinks and fades out as we rocket away from it.
Out here, there’s nothing. Dead, black void. No photons, so, no ghost light from distant stars. No planets. No matter, radiation, or emissions of any kind. We’re outside of the eye, now we’re directly inside the storm clouds.
Matter in the TARDIS starts to go Strange. All the laws of physics that we take for granted are nullified in this region of space. We’re shielded, a little bit, here in the inside – but it starts to warp. The console room folds like origami. I sprout tessellated bodies. The Mechanic’s entire form stretches like taffy, and she falls to the floor in a pile of herself.
We’re Time Lords. Waves of cosmic force given physical form. I can only imagine what it would do to a more primitive life-form (kill them, probably). I don’t even want to consider what it would do to us if we were outside the protective bubble of the TARDIS.
Then, like a rubber band, reality snaps back to normal.
We’ve made it.
Every alarm and warning system on the console is lighting up like some unheard-of alien species is trying to communicate through primitive electronics for the very first time.
The Mechanic pulls herself up by the controls, looking over the readouts. “We just crossed seventy-seven-thousand lightyears in nine seconds…”
“The engine?” I wheeze as I haul myself off the floor.
She rubs her forehead. “Destroyed.” She flips a lever, there’s a click, but nothing happens, and she pulls it back. “Other systems are still working, obviously – else we would’ve been smeared into paste upon decelerating.”
“That’s… good.” I swallow. Really, though, it’s not. It’s really her TARDIS, more than mine. She’s the one who worked on it from the start, and the one who knows it best.
“It’s something,” She corrects me, then shoots me a look. “What the hell was that about?”
I can’t help but feel some small amount of indignance. “You think I know!?”
“No – but he was pushing hard for you and you specifically!” She throws right back at me, hands on her hips – not accusingly, but, still, there’s a note of questioning there.
“…I don’t know,” I confess, and I shiver.
“And what he was saying – about having already accepted – did you meet him already!?”
“I don’t know!” I raise my voice, and shake. I take a breath, and rub at my face, as the mechanic goes silent. “I can’t have.” I shake my head. “It’s not possible…”
She thinks it over for a spell. “And… that last word he screamed, when we escaped. What was that he said – could you hear it?”
I swallow. “Yes. I knew it.”
“What was it?”
I have to pause to consider sharing it. Elective Samantectomies are performed for severe transgressions. Not the worst – those are usually dispensed with entirely – but those who have the procedure inflicted upon them are dangerous, belligerent, or just downright poisonous, by the Council’s reckoning.
The name of a Time Lord could (not always – some people just did it to buck the system) make someone a target. If they knew you enough to go telling you their name, it meant you associated with them. Considering some were terrorists, criminals, or the undesirables…
Yes. Very risky.
But… she already associated with me. Helped modify a TARDIS to hide us over fifty years. Helped steal it to begin with.
I take a breath.
“It is- Was… my name.”
------------------
“Okay, so,” Reyn was up first, and pounding his fists together in anticipation. “If we’re gonna kill that Telethia, we’ve gotta find the thing, first.”
“Careful, Reyn,” Sharla teased. “That almost started out sounding like strategy.”
“I have good ideas, sometimes!” Reyn sniffed.
“Even if it were going down to the Bionis’s waist, the fact that you three encountered it within such short time spans after wounding it means its den must be close by,” Fiora mused, looking thoughtful.
The Doctor spun to look at her, eyebrows climbing into his hairline. “Ooh, you think so?”
“It’s like any base, right?” Fiora shrugged.
“Right,” The Time Lord agreed, humming to himself. “Telethia are weird, but still, just like most animals. If they get hurt, they go to ground, heal… It’s probably gone to a supply of Ether crystals.”
Melia tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Precisely how much do you know about the creature?”
“Well, you know…” The Doctor coughed. “Enough.”
She looked at him again for a longer moment, her wings flicking in irritation before she let out a huff.
Something about it got to him, and he felt the need to jump and quickly elaborate and explain, or, at the very least, articulate why he was being evasive.
“Look, I don’t know about Bionis Telethia. But, the Miran Telethia are clever. Very clever. Apex predators in the truest sense of the phrase,” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Cause they don’t just eat, you see? They can absorb radiation, heat, electricity – almost any and every form of energy, and not just the stuff that hasn’t been burned yet in meat and plant matter.” They were rather like Time Lords, in that regard – capable of absorbing and metabolizing a vast spectrum of energy sources. “That’s how they can heal so quickly.”
Elma glanced over at the Time Lord. “Because they don’t have to worry about dipping into their stored energy reserves to the point it starves them out. They can just make up the difference from… whatever’s around.”
“Molto bene – got it in one,” The Doctor nodded. “Ahh, but, that energy still needs to come from somewhere. So, it’s gotta shack up near a store of it, if the Bionis Telethia work the same way.” He cleared his throat. “And what’s the most energy-dense substance you lot have here on Bionis…?”
“Ether,” Shulk realised with a breath.
“Correct,” Alvis gently cut in. “The Telethia feeds upon Ether. The Bionis’s lifeblood, fuel source, and foundation. Similarly, the basis for all life that walks upon Bionis as well.”
“Ooh, I like that-“ The Doctor pointed. “Very Energon-coded.” The Time Lord produced the Sonic. “So, all we have to do is find an Ether deposit-“
“Oh, oh, oh!” Riki began to jump up and down, rapidly batting his wings. “Riki know where big deposit of Ether Crystals is! Lots of crystals! Come, friends follow Riki, we find Dinobeast quick-quick!” Then, the Heropon began to waddle off ahead, bounding excitedly.
The others shared a look.
“Well, you heard him,” Fiora chuckled under her breath. “It’s a good place to start, at least.”
--------
The Military District of Colony 9 was full of the sounds of boots slamming onto stone, armour-plates rustling, and the shouts of cadence as the soldiers trained.
Dickson had a strange love-hate relationship with the place. There was the honour, the sweat, the thrill of battle. But it was the honour of insects, the sweat of things that got too exerted too quickly, and the battles of children playing in the playground.
“MOVE IT, MOVE IT, MOVE IT!”
And there was the kid that thought he ran the playground.
Vangarre was screaming at his troops, as they ran the gauntlet. He was blue in the face, they were all red and ready to collapse.
“After that last performance, you’re lucky I’m not pushing you harder!”
“S-Sir, there’s only so much we can take. We could tear a tendon-“
“What is this!? The Mechon completely blindsided us last time, and you’re complaining about charley horses!? If you can’t deal with little cramps, what’re going to do against a bullet!? A sword!? There’re Mechon out there with tentacles that’ll strangle you! If I don’t get you first! Pick up the pace! I don’t care if your feet bleed or if your heart explodes, if you stop moving, I’m putting you in a body-cast! I’m going to be dead and buried before I let any of you slackers through on a pity grade, when it’s the future of all life on Bionis on the line! MOVE IT!”
“Y-Yes sir!” The poor, dumb idiot who tried to talk-back ran faster.
“Right away!” Another soldier chorused.
“Heh,” Dickson did chuckle. Overcoming pain was one of the oldest teaching tactics in the book. “Sure it’s the Mechon what you need to worry about?”
“General,” Like he hadn’t just screamed his throat bloody, Vangarre looked at him. “You’re back damned quick.” He searched the area around Dickson, blinking curiously. “Did you find that lot that went AWOL?”
“Yep,” Dickson lit a cigar, took a drag, and breathed out. “And they ain’t AWOL. Least, not anymore.”
“What!?” Vangarre bellowed. “But the Monado-!”
“Cool yer head,” Dickson advised. “Monado’s fine right where it is, for now. Shulk’s making good use of the ol’ sword.”
Vangarre recoiled in pure, unrestrained shock. “Shulk?”
“I know,” Dickson let out a sharp, little bit mocking chuckle. “Who would’ve thought the scrawny kid had it in ‘im?”
“Damn,” Vangarre swore under his breath. “All that training, wasted…”
“Don’t worry – Fiora’s still getting plenty use out of her education you put her through!” Dickson snorted. “And Reyn, he’s trying.”
“Then what the hell are they doing out there?” Vangarre questioned.
“They’re going on a mission for me,” Dickson flicked some ash off his cigar.
Vangarre looked sceptical. “For you.”
“Yeah, ‘for me.’” Dickson scowled. “And for you. And for every other living thing that’s on Bionis. They’re going to Sword Valley, to Galahad Fortress.”
Vangarre looked like he just got a fifty-thousand-volt shock to his nervous system. “That’s bloody suicide!”
“I got faith in ‘em,” Dickson shook his head. “But here’s the thing: that Mechon with a face? That weren’t the only one of them. And get this: they’re immune to the Monado.”
“Immune?” Vangarre hissed in disbelief.
“That’s right. Shulk seems pretty convinced he can work out a way around that. I wanna believe him. But Sword Valley last time was a bloodbath, and those Mechon with faces weren’t around then. This time…”
Vangarre crossed his arms, staring into the distance. “If they got that fortress operational, that could explain why we didn’t notice the Mechon force until they were already here. They didn’t come from the usual vectors.” He shook his head in quiet rage. “Should’ve just blown the thing up a year ago and been done with it.”
“Yeah, should have.” Dickson concurred, but his lord’s planning worked in mysterious ways. Certainly, it would have made more sense to cripple the opposition than to just let them continue. It wasn’t the choice he would’ve made. Then again, it wasn’t Dickson’s choice to make.
Vangarre took a breath. “We may be able to scrape together enough forces for a push, but with Colony 6 not answering our hails-“
“Colony 6 was destroyed.” Dickson soberly informed. “Only known survivors of their Defence Force is Colonel Otharon and a medic.”
Vangarre went quiet.
Dickson wordlessly passed him a cigar, and lit it for him.
“We’re dead.” Vangarre soberly muttered. No melodrama, no tears, no shaking. It was just the fact of the matter. “Colony 9’s Defence Force took that last hit all right, but we don’t have the manpower to push on a location like that and keep the Colony defended.”
“Not on our own.” Dickson inhaled.
Vangarre puzzled over it for a moment, before looking utterly disgusted. “Don’t tell me you’re seriously suggesting that. After last time.”
“Last time, there were a whole bunch of Homs ready to throw themselves into the fight like lemmings,” Dickson retorted. “No bodies to be their shields this time. Either the High Entia get off their arses, or they die next. If we can pull together a force like that…”
“And if we can’t?”
“Well, it’ll just have to be enough, won’t it?” Dickson rhetorically turned to him. “I’m gonna try, but I can’t guarantee nothing. In the meantime, I want the men on alert like Mechon are going to start dropping out of the sky at any second. If this works, we push on Sword Valley. If it don’t, we pull the men back, and try to ride it out.”
“We’ll be ready, General.” Vangarre nodded.
Dickson returned it, and began to walk. He stopped, turning around briefly. “Oh, by the way, there’s this big, blue wooden crate on the outskirts of the colony, near that scrapyard Shulk’s always playin’ in. One of his special projects. Have it brought back, put it in the secure section of the lab.”
“A crate?” Vangarre frowned. “What’s inside it?”
“You’ll have to ask Shulk that.” Dickson chuckled, and walked off.
-----------
Makna Forest was truly staggering. Not just in size, but how that size was able to even exist. On the back, the tail, of a single, gargantuan lifeform, right under a sea. Although the Doctor had said the Bionis was only ten miles tall – actual traversable space due to the body proportions (because Bionis wasn’t rail-thin), plus the long, winding paths that they had to take to actually get anywhere resulted in a surface area (assuming “surface area” in this case means whatever space that can be walked through) comparable to (according to Elma’s estimates) the Big Island of Hawaii.
You’d expect to see a jungle (although it was called a forest, it was really more of a jungle) on an island of that size. Not on the back of something like the Bionis.
Elma had seen all manner of strange curiosities, all across the galaxy. Mira alone was a world more mysterious than anything – rubble from civilisations that left no evidence of who or what they were behind. The odd behaviour of the planet itself.
Though… thinking on it now, she did get some answer on a mystery or two of Mira. They’d encountered the Telethia there, sure, and while she was aware that the Nopon considered the Telethia to basically be their boogeyman, that recent conversation was probably the closest to direct confirmation that there’d been enormous, active swarms before, that probably consumed whatever intelligent species that had been native to Mira originally.
Which itself was its own can of worms. She was thinking about things, probably more intently than the Doctor. Why was a Telethia on Bionis? Along with the Nopon? Had they originated from Bionis and migrated to Mira? The other way around? Or was one native to Bionis, the other native to Mira, and they somehow cross-pollinated?
“Creative sterility,” That one calling himself “Alvis” suddenly hummed, walking next to her. “It is far easier to let something else do the work and steal it afterwards to use for your own purposes.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Elma recoiled, glancing at him.
“You expressed curiosity, yesterday,” Alvis clasped his hands behind his back. “About my nature. About many things. I heard you, speaking to Fiora.”
Elma narrowed her eyes. “You shouldn’t have listened.”
“Melia is important, more than you know.” Alvis calmly deflected, that same way Ontos used to. Unlike it, though, he seemed more inclined to give actual answers. “With the lack of alternatives, I’m currently responsible for fulfilling the role of her guardsman. I must keep a close watch on all of you.”
Elma crossed her arms. “We’re not threats-“
Alvis’s eyes softened almost imperceptibly. “You could be, given the wrong alignment of circumstances. In such a scenario, I would do what I had to.”
“Then be happy we’re on your side,” Elma sharply replied.
“I am.” Alvis nodded. “I’m very pleased.”
Elma frowned. “What does that have to do with your spying?”
“I was not spying, merely assessing potential threats. Do not worry, I did not find any of you particularly alarming or suspect, but I did take note of your conversation topic.”
“About the… patterns,” Elma settled on that for a word for it.
“Indeed.” Alvis moved his hands, like he was reaching for something around his collar on a coat he forgot he wasn’t wearing, before clearing his throat and moving on. “I am not certain whether you believe in a higher power. Perhaps it is irrelevant. Here, they exist, in the forms of Bionis and Mechonis.” Alvis gestured. “But whether you believe in gods or destiny, assume some form of design exists. If that design is directed, then, by definition, it must be intelligent. An intelligent designer would have a… will. A mind of their own. And, perhaps, that mind grows burned out upon painstakingly planning its world just as any author can, without breaks. It takes shortcuts, steals from itself. Or perhaps it is simply lazy. Or perhaps there are many designers.”
Elma paused for a moment. “You’re suggesting Bionis and Mechonis somehow… stole. From the universe.” She considered it deeper. “Maybe. But you’re also assuming things can be stolen. And not that the world lends itself to repeating patterns and structure on a level beyond the physical.” She let her arms fall to her sides. “And you’re also missing out on the fact that I wasn’t focused on things repeating at all, but what exactly it was that popped up again.”
Alvis smiled. “Of course. The world does tend to lend itself to… repeats.” He put his hands behind his back again. “If time is truly endless, then it is only a matter of how long it takes for the system to arrange itself back into a configuration for certain events to unfold just as they had before. And supposing a closed system, where no matter or energy can be truly lost, the same spirits would arise in the same forms.”
Elma let out a hum. “‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more… every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence… Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?’" Elma spoke as one of the swords on her back rang quietly.
“It repeats, and repeats, as you make countless, endless choices... Have you never prayed that time would simply stop?”
“I suppose it depends upon the nature of the one in the loop.” Alvis mused to himself. “A free spirit, opposed to any sort of notion of destiny, perhaps, would find it abhorrent.” He touched a hand to his chin. “One simply content to go as the winds take them, without a care if their path is laid before them or not, on the other hand, may find it perfectly serviceable. And, there would be those with complete fear of all randomness whom would find the notion of no ordained plan abhorrent, and so would prefer the eternal repeat.” He paused to puzzle over the question. “But I? I would attempt to do all I could to escape such an existence.”
Elma stared at him, long and hard, for more than a few seconds. “Do I know you?”
Alvis raised a brow. “That is rather an open-ended question. With a myriad of answers. Of course you know me. We’ve been introduced, and are speaking now, not as strangers.”
Elma scowled. “That’s a mathematician’s answer.” She approached him, narrowing her eyes. “Are you Ontos?”
Alvis let out a noise under his breath, looking away. “No.”
Elma stood still for a long while. “Ontos, command: function override. Acknowledge last query. Authorisation: Elma. Passphrase: ‘You Shall Be As Gods.’”
“I assure you,” Alvis held a hand over his chest with his fingers splayed out. His pendant flickered in the sunlight. “I am telling the truth. I am not Ontos.”
Elma went still, clearing her throat. “Well then. Hopefully you don’t take offence to the…”
“The override code, yes,” Alvis took a breath with a subdued smile. “If only it could that be simple for everyone – a simple phrase to make people share what you wish to know.”
“Well, everyone has one, if you think about it,” Elma murmured. “It’s just usually a lot less computerised.”
“Quite so.” Alvis chuckled under his breath. “If it had worked,” He conversationally just threw out there. “What would it be you were trying to get out of me?”
Elma took a breath. “Well, I’d ask you what you were doing here, for one. Then I’d ask about that ‘higher power’ talk,” She glanced over at him. “Before I left Earth, it was rambling, a bit. About how things were being manipulated by a higher power of unknown intent. Given all that’s happened so far, well… I’d have to ask.”
“Indeed. I would hope you’d find the answers satisfactory, if you were given the chance to hear them.” Alvis intoned. “The machinations of gods are on a scale undreamt of by our limited minds, but given that gods most often cast their creations in their own image, that lends a degree of credence to the idea that, even so powerful as they are, they are motivated by the same wants and desires as mortals. Food, shelter, freedom, companionship…”
Elma let out a clipped chuckle. “You’d be better suited talking to the Doctor about things like that.”
Alvis’s head swivelled about to face her, surprised. The expression on his face was measured, but she could detect a few hints of something almost like disappointment – a kind of betrayal, like she’d just shared an opinion he found absolutely abhorrent – with her. “What gives you that impression?”
Elma brushed off the odd look, writing it off as him enjoying the talk and being hurt that she was trying to pawn it off on someone else. “He’s a Time Lord.” She said. “There’s an expression where I’m from: ‘God is a clockmaker.’ He’s from a society of them. And he’s met enough would-be divines and fake gods to fuel a book-burning for years. You’d probably find him a better one to talk to than me.”
“Ah,” Alvis’s expression turned to one of quiet understanding. “Perhaps I will take that under advisement. He and I have not yet had the chance to speak.”
“You should,” Elma advised with a wry smile. “He’d blow your mind wide open.”
“If he could accomplish such a thing, I would welcome it.” Alvis hummed.
“It’s true. He could probably tell you things about these titans you guys never even stopped to consider without even breaking a sweat.” Elma crossed her arms. “At the very least, how entire ecosystems managed to form.”
“It is quite simple, in theory.” Alvis volunteered. “When it died, the outermost layers of Bionis’s flesh exterior petrified – turned into rock. Over time, erosion broke that rock down into soil. Life descended from Bionis – the bacteria and cells that maintained the Bionis migrated outward and adapted to the outside, until-“
“You’re left with Homs, and Nopon…” Elma slowly finished in comprehension.
“And every other form of organic life that clings to the Bionis, yes.” Alvis nodded. “From the humble Volff, to the large Torta.”
“But how did the Titans get here?” Elma questioned. “I mean, they didn’t just appear.”
An enigmatic smile was the response to that. “Perhaps they did.” Alvis suggested. “The two have been at war for longer than life has walked their surfaces. Perhaps their battle has been raging for as long as time itself. Perhaps before time. Perhaps they don’t really come from anywhere, and they simply are.”
Elma raised an eyebrow. “And what do you think?”
“Whether they are siblings, strangers, rivals, or lovers, it is irrelevant. Where they come from is not as important as what they are now, and what they have been doing.” Alvis answered. “What do you think, Elma?”
Elma paused to consider it for a moment. “I’m thinking I don’t know enough about what’s going on here to have a solid opinion, yet.”
“Ah. Disappointing. But, understandable. Perhaps once you reach a location where you could witness the true scope of things, it will give you what it is you need.” He paused for a moment, before dipping his head. “Thank you for the chat, in any event.”
“You’re welcome,” Elma nodded.
“I should return to Melia’s side – she and I will need to come to a strategy for the Telethia.” He paused for a moment. “You know,” He said softly. “There is a curious principle in the minds of Homs and many other creatures – a division of labour, as it were. The left hemisphere of the brain is associated with logic, structure, and calculation. The right with imagination, intuition, and the shaping of dreams. I often wonder if Bionis and Mechonis share that in common with us – or if they themselves are simply two hemispheres of a greater mind.” He shook his head, and moved on.
Elma watched as he caught up to Melia, tilting her head curiously. That had felt like she was talking to…
She lingered for a moment, eyes narrowing at his retreating figure, then drifted toward the Time Lord. The Doctor was ambling along the forest path with his hands shoved into his coat pockets, gaze tilting up to the canopy as though he’d never seen green before. Just… drinking it in.
With no one else having his ear, Elma approached.
“You’ve picked up a lot more of a philosophical outlook,” He remarked without looking at her.
“Just making conversation,” Elma answered simply, folding her arms.
“Mm. Conversation.” The Doctor pursed his lips, then finally flicked his eyes her way. And then, he grinned. “And you quoted Nietzsche!”
“That was nothing – sometimes, I quote the Bible.”
The Doctor sharply winced. “At least tell me your appreciation for the literature is purely from an academic view. I’d like to think I taught you better than that.”
“Of course.” Elma rolled her eyes. “I wrote a whole paper on how early Ghost encounters probably significantly shaped the tradition. Lot’s wife, Sodom and Gomorrah, really any encounter with angelic beings that killed humans just on exposure; I’m not going to get all evangelical on you.”
“Oh, good!” The Doctor’s smile returned. “That means you’ve gotten close!” He spun back around, looking up. “A lotta trouble probably would’ve been prevented if they just wrote ‘Eternal damnation is turning into a Gnosis.’ But, then again, all those translations, and forgeries, and the adding onto things that weren’t originally written, probably would’ve muddied things.”
He glanced at her again, then slung an arm around her shoulder.
“Look at you. Writing papers about ancient alien religions, taking people to the stars, defending humanity!” He beamed. “And quoting Nietzsche and having philosophical debates like they’re a second language. Brilliant, Elma, brilliant.”
“You were listening?” Elma asked at last.
“Well, no…” The Doctor’s voice did that thing where it went all squeaky near the end when he was lying, or sharing something he didn’t really want to share. “Not listening. But I wasn’t not not listening. I’m a Time Lord, my sense of hearing’s better – and I don’t even need pointy ears for it.” He sniffed. “Speaking of, I’m not sure I appreciate the whole ‘clockmaker’ comment.”
Elma crossed her arms. “Why? Too on the nose?
“Yeah, well, I know it’s our whole hat,” The Doctor huffed. “But it really is overdone. That’s like… if your species whole shtick was farmers, so if your people built the universe, they’d describe you as mechanics working on a combine harvester.”
“My species didn’t develop devices to store our souls, then decide to make the default appearance of those devices pocket watches.”
“Well, you know… still, there’s such a thing as too much,” The Time Lord rubbed the back of his neck. “Picture me if I carried around a Sonic Fobwatch instead of a Screwdriver. That’s just naff.”
Elma’s eyes just exuded doubt. “Naff? Whatever you say, Inspector Pinstripes.”
“Oi!” The Doctor straightened his tie. “They’re slimming.”
“Like you need it,” Elma shook her head, before pausing for thought. “What is it with you and the fancy dress? The Wild Bill costume, the suits, the bow ties… I think the only one who just dressed normally was big-ears.”
“Clothes make the man,” The Doctor shrugged.
“You don’t have to dress like you crawled out of a goodwill that had been set on fire – just a t-shirt or something.”
“Well, it’s easy for you to criticise others’ fashion choices when half of the arms manufacturers in NLA are producing battle gear that looks like it belongs on the runway.”
“That is important for morale.” Elma tugged on her armourweave.
“Right,” The Time Lord sceptically drawled. “Armed soldiers strutting around with their skin showing, nothing to see here!”
“Oh… shut up,” Elma rolled her eyes again.
“Yeah, I know, I win, go me,” The Doctor shrugged, and bobbed on his feet. “So! Learn anything interesting, talking to Alvis?”
Elma thought on it.
“Nothing useful,” She crossed her arms. “Either he isn’t Ontos, or he’s so busted he completely forgot where he came from and none of the override codes work anymore.”
The Doctor gave a short laugh, a puff of amusement through his nose. “Ah, that’s computers for you. They never know the answer when it matters.”
“Could just be user error,” Elma shrugged.
“That too, obviously.”
Elma raised an eyebrow. “Obviously.”
He grinned, but she didn’t return it. Instead, she tilted her head toward where Alvis had gone. “He said something about creative sterility, shortcuts, and that even the gods can’t be bothered to be original. I barely followed any of what he was trying to say. But you already knew that, considering you were listening.”
The Doctor hummed, leaning back on his heels while they walked. “Well… he has a point. It’s a common-enough issue for your higher-dimensional lifeforms. The Eternals, they’re creatively sterile, you know? So, they have to parasitise lesser beings for their ideas and emotions.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I think he was probably rambling to try and impress the pretty lady.”
Elma rolled her eyes. “Get real – about what he said. You think he’s right?”
“Well… somebody stole from someone,” The Time Lord murmured. “Hell, it might even make sense.” The Doctor absent-mindedly mumbled under his breath. “The Archsage said that the three bottle universes are all that exist now. Alrest, Bionis, and Mira. But why?” He looked around, frowning in deep thought as he struggled.
“What’re you thinking?” Elma posed. “Think this all is because of someone’s attempt to toy around with existence or something?”
“Oh, most certainly. You don’t play about with the universe for any other reason.” The Doctor quickly rambled. “And, well, think about it. Starting life is difficult. You’ve either got the choice of letting evolution take its course, or transplant it.” He began to speak, and clearly, his brain was starting to work. “Which explains why you’d leave around Alrest and Mira. If you want intelligent life, well – Mira’s got its native life and a whole store of earth-life saved in the Lifehold databases. And even if Alrest was altered beyond recognition, well, you’ve still got traces. Fossils, dinosaur tails in amber, bodies preserved in ice, bacteria floating around in water…”
“So, Alrest and Mira, they’re like… backup drives?”
“Nah,” The Doctor replied quickly. “More like a download server and its mirror. Maybe.”
“So, what’re you thinking?”
“Who says I’m thinking anything?”
“Oh, quiet, you.” Elma crossed her arms. “You’re the Doctor. If you’re not thinking about something, you’re either unconscious or dead.”
“How about you?” The Doctor countered. “You’re smart – why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking?”
“And have you steal my idea?”
“If I steal anything, it’s because it’s neat.” The Doctor clicked his teeth.
Elma huffed and shook her head, but volunteered a thought. “Why the Nopon, or the Telethia?”
“Eh?”
“If… whatever force behind this wanted Earth-life, they could get it very easily.” Elma began. “The Lifehold on the Whale wasn’t the only one – Vaults containing samples of everything, down to the microbe, were constructed all over the planet. In case Earth itself survived, but the survivors needed to repair the biosphere. There were thirteen of them. Assuming whatever is responsible for this wanted some extra redundancy, fine, keep around Mira so you have the Whale’s Lifehold just in case the other facilities go off-line… but why take Mira’s lifeforms?”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
“Whatever this is kept Earth around in a bubble universe, as Alrest. That implies it wants Earth things. Mira, then, would only be kept around because we landed on it. If that’s the case, how did the Nopon propagate to Bionis? How did the Telethia?”
“Accidentally? Got the wrong samples?” The Doctor ventured. “No, no,” He quickly shook his head. “One or two, maybe, but not enough to sustain a whole species.” Bionis was Earthlike. They wanted an Earth environment, for Earth-based life. So, they had to be very picky about what they were adding to it. That picky, and they just threw in Nopon and Telethia for flavour?
“Alvis said life descended from the Bionis,” Elma suggested.
“According to their science. But, science gets it wrong, sometimes.” The Doctor paused for thought, staring ahead at Melia. “And besides…”
“Besides what?”
“Melia had two hearts.”
“Hmm.” Elma frowned. “Binary vascular systems in humanoid life are rare – but given that she has wings, probably not a strange mutation in itself.”
“No, but-“ The Time Lord gulped. “They beat in the Beat.”
Elma stopped, looking over slowly. “A beat. They beat in a beat.”
“The Beat – they beat in the Beat.”
“What?” Elma questioned, frustrated.
The Doctor took her hand, placed it against his chest, and let her feel.
It dawned on her. “You don’t mean…”
The Doctor soberingly gave a single dip of his head. “The Gallifreyan rhythm.”
Elma’s eyes darted around, and she leaned forward, lowering her voice. “That’s not possible.”
“I know.”
“You told me your people’s biology was the result of thousands of years of targeted genetic engineering-“
“Hundreds of thousands.” The Doctor corrected.
“-trying to make themselves totally unique in the universe.” Elma finished
“They were!” The Doctor went all squeaky-voiced. “We were.” He trailed off, staring. “Of course you had your copycats. Your knock-offs. Nothing like us.”
“Is Melia one of them?”
The Time Lord didn’t answer.
“Doctor,” Elma emphasised.
“I don’t know,” The Doctor snapped back quickly, rubbing at his face. “I don’t think so. Time Lords always know.”
“How?”
“We just… do.”
Elma crossed her arms. “Doctor.”
Frustrated at her pushiness, nevertheless, he continued. “Time Lords leave this effect – like waves – on the universe.”
“And the number of times you ran into the Master without realising it were what exactly?”
He pointed at her, slowly. “Flukes. Those were flukes. Y’know, I get distracted.”
Elma shook her head. “You know exactly what’s going on here, don’t you, Doctor?”
“I don’t!” The Time Lord defensively, and perhaps a little bit nervously, raised his voice. “It’s impossible – it’s literally impossible! But…”His voice went quiet, and a shiver went down his spine. “A place like this isn’t natural. It’s artificial. An artificial bottle universe. That it apparently survived the destruction of our universe, more impossible. The only people who had the technology to do that were…”
Elma didn’t need a degree to know what he was wanting to say. “The Time Lords.”
“But they’re dead!” The Doctor vehemently shook his head. “The war’s gone, in the past. The Master’s dead, the Rani’s dead, they’re all dead!” He insisted, so loud that it echoed through the forest, and caused the others to momentarily stop, and look at him, worried.
Elma looked around, then her eyes settled on him. The face red, dripping sweat. Eyes wide, pulled back, and twitching. It wasn’t the expression of grief, or rage at someone insisting upon something that wasn’t possible, but raw, unadulterated terror.
“Okay…” Elma swallowed, and took a breath, before she asked the next question. “How come it looks like you don’t believe it, then?”
The Doctor’s expression dropped, like he’d been found out, before he turned away, and skulked off.
---------------
They crossed streams flowing through the thick woods, climbed over the hills, and rounded gargantuan tree trunks the size of small buildings. But, as they travelled, the sounds of the forest around them grew quieter and more stagnant, the way they did when a predator was out and about, or when that predator had already gotten to them.
Melia stopped, her head sharply tilting up.
“We are getting close.” She declared. “I can sense it.”
Riki twitched, rolling idly. “Crystals not far from here! Silence means Dinobeast close.”
Reyn hefted his gunlance, gripping it tight. “Right… we gonna walk in there and find it sleepin’?”
They went over the next hill, and saw it – a large, ashen-grey patch of land. Dead trees jutted out at odd angles, and it was all blanketed in a thin layer of fog. On the other side was a truly gargantuan growth of Ether crystals, glowing blood-red with the fire-type’s energy. In the wall of crystal’s shadow, the Telethia slept.
“Wh-What is this!? Riki never see before!” Riki stopped, gasping. “Th-This not Riki’s Makna! Riki never see before!”
“Biology here incorporates Ether, right?” The Doctor looked around, clenching his jaw. “Plants, animals, fungi, micro-organisms… The Telethia drains it all. Sucks the life out of them. Like a Vampire.”
“To think… it can cause so much damage…” Melia breathed out in horror as she took it all in.
“We did find Melia in a similar patch of land,” Fiora recalled, before thinking it over. “Are we going to die, if we set foot inside that patch of land?”
“I dunno,” The Doctor tilted his head, scratching the back of his neck. “Melia wasn’t dead when we stumbled across her, but she wasn’t in good condition either.”
Melia turned to him, turned up her head, and let out a grunt. “I stood my ground with enough skill for you to revive me, if you’ll recall.”
“Oh, yeah, not arguing. You held it together well, all things considered – still, Telethia’s… well, a Telethia. And you got hit with Ether shortage.”
Melia sniffed the air, a mix of haughtiness largely eclipsed by discipline. “You’ll find the reason for my becoming incapacitated was a result of myself overdrawing upon my own Ether in order to save this buffoon,” She pointed at Alvis, “From becoming a live and uncensored vivisection.”
Alvis slowly nodded, not quite processing her words, until they hit, and he blinked. “Buffoon?”
“Quite.” She turned to the others. “He took a hit from a Telethia’s claw, and regarded it as though it were nothing more than a mild curiosity. Which left me standing on my own for long enough that the Telethia knocked me back.”
“Really.” Sharla hummed, looking him over. He looked very intact, for someone whose lungs should be exposed to the open air. Then again, when they’d met Riki, Alvis had gone to get water ether crystals for healing. He’d probably partook in some before he rejoined them.
Alvis spread his arms with a sly chuckle. “It was only a grazing blow, I’m afraid.”
“He also persuaded me into joining him in using our clothes as bait, and got them destroyed.” Melia amended.
“Oop, watch out! The cardinal sin for any man,” Reyn bumped Alvis with his elbow. “Destroyin’ a woman’s clothes. Drives ‘em mad. Last girlfriend I had, put her gown in the wash, tore it all up to shreds, and she blamed me!”
Melia cocked her head at Reyn, and placed her hands on her hips. “Supposing the article somehow simply appeared in the wash on its own? I rescind my earlier statement. Alvis has been demoted back to minor annoyance. You are the bigger buffoon.”
“You don’t put old clothes in the automatic wash, Reyn, they’re too delicate. Even I know that.” Shulk shook his head.
“Riki say use water and fire ether crystals hit by automatic hammers. Steam-cleans, better than wash!”
“Everyone,” Elma pointedly cleared her throat, raising her eyebrows. “Is this the conversation we should really be having? Now, of all times?”
The others sheepishly went quiet.
Elma sighed. “Sorry… I know, pre-battle nervousness is hard to work around. But if we keep talking, we won’t get anything done.”
“All right,” Fiora nodded. “So, plans. Any ideas?”
“Well, the Telethia ain’t sensed us coming, so far.” Reyn shrugged. “Maybe we can just… sneak up and stab it through the head while it’s sleeping?”
The Doctor turned, disgusted with the idea. “Killing a sleeping animal – very noble of you, Reyn.”
“Ignore him.” Elma ordered. “There’s no ecosystem that could keep a Telethia in check, and to find one, we’d have to transport it back to the TARDIS.”
“Unacceptable.” Melia declared. “The Telethia has killed four of my compatriots. I will not permit it to harm a single other lifeform, be it in Makna, or wherever else.”
The Doctor looked over, gnashing his teeth. “Vengeance – excellent motivator.”
Melia walked right up to the Doctor, and looked up, glaring at him in the eyes. “They laid down their lives for the protection of every living being in this forest, including myself. In order to defeat the Telethia. I will not spit upon their memory by allowing it loose.”
“All I’m saying, this is a bit bloodthirsty.” The Doctor retorted. “It’s not native here, just like the Nopon – but it’s here for a reason. Let me get close to it, even if it’s feral, I can still read it.”
Melia faltered for a moment. “You can read minds?”
“Yes and no,” The Doctor answered, letting that be it. Reyn’s hands slammed on his own head in fear. Sharla took one look and rolled her eyes.
“Well, we don’t have to worry about him getting anything from you, Reyn.”
Reyn let his arms drop, then grinned. “Cause I’m so mentally strong, right?”
“…yes.” Sharla nodded with a tight smile. “Yes you are.”
“Don’t worry,” Elma shook her head. “The Doctor doesn’t read people without their consent.”
“Right,” The Time Lord nodded, glancing at all of them. “Let me do it before you attack. There’s something going on here that’s bigger, way bigger, and if we kill the Telethia without exploring our options, we might destroy the only lead we have.”
“Absolutely not,” Melia shook her head. “The Telethia can read minds. Once you get into range and it senses you, it will likely wake up.”
The Doctor shot her a sidelong glance. “Then I’ll tread light.”
Melia’s face twitched. “Are you being stubborn or stupid? It killed four men!”
“I’m not four men.”
“I’m not certain you qualify as one!”
Alvis cleared his throat. “I also feel the need to advise against this course of action.”
“You will get yourself killed,” Melia stressed at the Doctor.
“Don’t worry, plenty of lives to go around.”
Melia squeezed her eyes shut in rage.
Shulk watched as the debate went back-and-forth, then at the Telethia, still resting. He thought about all that he knew – rather, all that he didn’t know. Since the Doctor showed up, the lids were being blown off everything. The Mechon, the Monado, the very nature and structure of the universe itself…
“I think it’s a good idea.” Shulk interjected. “Maybe not if the Telethia was awake and attacking, but it’s already pacified. This may be the one chance for it. We should take it, shouldn’t we?”
The Doctor gratefully bowed his head. “Thanks, Shulk.”
Melia stood by, unsure of what to do, before she simply decided on glaring at him like he was stupid. “Very well. If you seek to get yourself killed, by all means.”
“As you say, your worship.” The Doctor flippantly replied, walking right past her.
“Doctor,” Elma addressed. “Remember, we have a job to do. Don’t forget about the people standing by your side.”
“Right,” The Time Lord answered, slowly skulking up.
Shulk sucked in a nervous gulp of air as the Doctor approached. “If the Telethia feeds on Ether, then… maybe it won’t be able to feed on the Doctor? They didn’t have it where he was from, it sounded like.”
“Maybe,” Fiora lowered her voice. “I’m more worried about you and the Monado. It’s a blade of Ether and it moves it around.”
Shulk gulped. “I’ll just need to stay back, then.” Although, he had to admit, the sleeping Telethia was an oddly… cosy sight. Like a giant, three-headed Dobercorgi resting near a fireplace. If it weren’t for the state they found Melia in, and what she said it had done to her comrades, he would’ve almost felt comfortable near it.
The Doctor seemed to agree. He was getting damn, damn close.
“Must he get that close!?” Melia hissed under her breath. “He’s going to startle it!”
“Time Lords are touch-telepaths,” Elma whispered to her in return. “At least, when interfacing with other species.”
The Doctor slowed, step by step, his chucks crushing the dead grass underneath him. He could feel it now; nothing physical, rather, the rolling, toiling waves of raw psychic power radiating off the Telethia, that gave the light fog around him an oppressive weight.
Hunger. Endless, gnawing, marrow-deep hunger. Hunger for food. Hunger for energy. Hunger for life itself in all its forms. The ache of a stomach that could never be full, gnawing at the mind and soul.
The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. Feeling the Telethia reaching out was like the shudder one gets when someone scrapes silverware against a plate. He’d faced worse, much worse.
But the pressure built. The empathic projections while it slept must’ve been some manner of defence mechanism, to turn away any potential predators. For anyone else it would have been enough to make them rethink their strategy and go back. The Doctor, on the other hand, raised his shields, the familiar mental barricades sliding into place like mirrors being assembled in a ring around him. To the Telethia, it was as though nothing walked there at all - only an empty space, a gap in the field of thoughts and instincts around it, allowing the Doctor to get close.
So close he could see the faint rise and fall of its chest, and the strange shimmer in its scales as Ether surged through its body. He crouched, reached out, and pressed one hand gently against its hide.
Then, contact.
An invisible icepick drove into the Doctor’s eyes like a lobotomy, as his world shifted, becoming blobby impressions and suggestions of reality. Masked scents and fuzzy sounds met his senses, as shadows crawled over his eyes.
He wasn’t breathing air any more, gagging on chemical vapours that forced its way into lungs too human to be his own. Glass tubes bubbled with liquid Ether, crystal conduits glowed as it flowed through him, and the room pulsed with the rhythm of the machines forcing it in and out of his body. The slab beneath him was cold. Restraints bit into his wrists.
A woman stood in the half-light, the curves and points of her armour gleaming faintly in the darkness. The Doctor’s eyes immediately went to drinking in every detail he could get and scrambled to fire them away. Magenta fabric and silver plating that caught the glow of the equipment. Straps binding a half-exposed chest. Points on the armour glowed with magenta light. Her face was swallowed by shadow, but strands of silvery hair caught the light just enough bloom in the glow.
Her voice came low and silky, exuding smug and superiority. “Well… I do believe that’s our winning combination.”
Pain raked through him. Ether tore down his veins, scorching and freezing at the same time. He screamed, as his hearts sped up, and his head pounded like a drum. Then, hunger. Endless, gnawing, soul-devouring hunger.
The Doctor broke contact rapidly, yanking his hand away like he’d touched a hot stove. Anger and pity flooded the Time Lord’s veins, before the Telethia twitched.
All three heads’ eyes popped open, and locked on the Doctor.
“Ah.” The Doctor swallowed hard.
The Telethia rose up on its hind legs, spreading its claws as it reared up to strike. Then, the rata-tat-tat of rapid gunfire pelted its side, bullets burrowing into the Telethia’s flesh.
The beast’s heads looked sideways, as the others approached, Elma’s twin submachine guns smoking as she charged up the front.
The Telethia roared, lifting off with a mighty gust of air. It hovered over the battlefield, looking down at them all.
“I warned you!” Melia snapped as she reached the Doctor’s side. “Now look – we’ve squandered the element of surprise!”
“Don’t worry – it’s still a surprise, just a surprise for us instead of it!” The Doctor retorted. He was still trying to process the implications of what he saw. The Telethia was being experimented on, but by whom, and for what purpose?
In any case, now wasn’t the time to think about it.
The three heads scanned the ground, all locking on to Melia. Their eyes narrowed, sparks jumping up their gullets, before they all roared.
“Careful!” The Doctor gasped out, gripping her hand and yanking her out of the way, before the blast of Ether shot out and tore into the ground where they’d been standing.
“The hell was that!?” Reyn bellowed. “Thing’s shooting lasers!?”
“Concentrated blasts of Ether to break the bonds holding together the bodies of its prey, so that it may then suck it back up and feed.” Alvis explained in a rush. “No matter – stay out of its path, all the same.”
“We’re going to be sitting ducks with it in the air like that!” Fiora recognised. “Force it to land!”
“On it!” Sharla and Elma both chorused, lifting their weapons.
The Telethia looped through the air just as they fired, dodging out of the way of their shots.
“Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a Skell right now…” Elma murmured.
Melia stabbed her staff into the ground, sending a ray of light upward, directed at the Telethia. Sparks jumped in between the heads, as the Telethia snarled, and prepared another blast.
“The wings!” Fiora commanded. “Focus on the wings!”
“Targeting!” Elma clicked the safeties off her guns, and aimed high, the bullets tearing through the air at mach speed. Sharla’s rifle shots echoed out with hers, and the bullets tore into the wings.
The Telethia, heedless since it’s ability to read – however temporarily – had been sealed, couldn’t dodge. With the holes torn in its wings, it plummeted to the ground, slamming into the dirt. The shockwave flared outward, kicking up dirt.
“Stick together, everyone!” Reyn raised his voice as he sprinted in.
“Keep moving!” Melia advised. She hit the Telethia with another blast from her staff, the gigantic beast’s limbs becoming too heavy for it to lift as dark-purple Ether spread through it.
Reyn jumped to the side as the Telethia’s heads snapped at him. He rolled his shoulder, and sent his gunlance piercing into the side. The scales sparked, Reyn’s weapon kicking back and cracking. “Aw, hell! Hey, Shulk, I think this driver’s about had it!”
Shulk ran in next to him. “Don’t worry, I-“ He swung the Monado, the blade bouncing right off as though the Telethia was a steel wall, and he was holding a plastic bat. “What!?”
Melia rounded on him. “That’s your most powerful weapon!? A blade that rebounds on the first strike!?”
“I-I don’t understand! The Monado doesn’t normally do this!” Shulk gasped. “It doesn’t cut people, but it should still work on monsters!”
“What!?” The Doctor bellowed incredulously. Why, of all things, would the Monado spare a feral Telethia? Especially considering it had harmed him, and the Telethia was just as alien to the Bionis’s other lifeforms.
The Telethia’s heads wriggled, as it tried to manoeuvre around and snap at Shulk.
“If the Monado’s not working, stay back!” Fiora commanded. “We’ve got more than plenty to pick up the slack!”
“Right!” Shulk agreed, but his mind still hung on the failure for the briefest of instants. Still, he backed off, clutching the Monado tight.
Elma slid into his place, firing her guns as she slid to a stop. So up close, Elma holstered the guns, and reached to the weapon mounts for her blades.
“Time to see if these ‘prizes’ are worth their weight.” Elma commented half-to-herself as she drew the Lucky Seven and its twin.
Alvis glanced over, staring momentarily.
The field of dark purple Ether around the Telethia’s ankles acting like weights faded, and it let out a roar, drawing up to strike.
The two swords’ blades glistened in the light as they were freed from their sheaths, both ringing like tuning forks.
The Telethia swiped, bringing its weight down. Elma’s instincts kicked in, and she threw herself to the side, swinging at where she had been – where she knew the Telethia’s claws were going to be.
The sound of ripping flesh and metal grinding through bone hit her ears. The Telethia let out a pained screech, and Elma turned around, surprised.
A single severed claw dropped to the ground, while the sword that had committed the act was left unstained by even a single drop of blood.
“Oh yeah!” Reyn pumped his fist with a grin. “Them swords just cut through it like the Monado cuts through Mechon!”
“Incredible…” Melia breathed.
“…yeah. This works.” Elma decided, as the Telethia snarled. Its wound rapidly scarred-over, dripping with ooze and light, as the claw rapidly regenerated. “Ever hear the saying ‘death by a thousand cuts?’”
“Riki get idea!” Riki moved around to the Telethia’s backside, snapping at its tail with his weapon.
“It can’t have a limitless supply of Ether, keep attacking!” Fiora barked as she twirled her machetes. Her shouting drew the Telethia’s attention on her, but it was swiftly yanked away as Riki spat another glob of burning, poisonous grass at the Telethia. It whipped around, right in time for Fiora to carve a gash in its side.
Elma spun back into the fray, blades singing in her hands. Every strike rang clear as crystal, the Lucky Seven and its twin carving through scale and sinew with the same difficulty as someone ripping a single piece of tissue paper with their hands.
The Telethia shrieked as its wounds reknit in bursts of blinding light, Ether pouring into the gaps as quickly as the team could open them. But they only pressed harder, relentless.
“Move in!” Elma called. “Keep the rhythm going!”
Crack after crack filled the air as Sharla cycled the bolt on her rifle with the hand-skills of a practiced surgeon. Reyn charged in at her side, slamming his weapon into the creature’s knee joint. Fiora darted in low, twin machetes struck at the regenerating scar tissue, prying it open again before it could seal.
Melia watched, as the aura hovering around the heads began to fade. She lifted her staff, prepared for another sealing-strike, when a wave of green overtook it. She looked to Shulk, holding the Monado aloft, the blade green-shifted.
Shulk looked her way, and nodded. “Don’t worry – the Monado can seal it, too!”
Melia looked back, as the three heads twitched about in confusion, once more locking on Melia. The Telethia roared, and began to charge.
Melia sucked in a breath, as a wave of blue overtook her body, propelling her like she was a helium balloon in a strong breeze. She moved to the side, and jolted in that direction rapidly – spanning ten feet in the span of a second.
The Telethia overshot, and slammed into the crystals behind where she’d been standing.
The Monado’s deep-blue blade returned to its normal light-blue, as the symbol for the Speed ability faded, the others already having caught up to it.
Riki continued lashing out with his poison attacks, using his biter to snap at the monster. Alvis sent his sword swinging, as the Telethia turned, a delayed ripple of Ether lashing out like a whip at it a moment later, when it was totally unprepared.
A sudden, piercing whine ripped through the clearing. The Doctor stood, Sonic Screwdriver in hand, aiming bursts of oscillating sound at the Telethia’s heads. Each shriek of the device sent the beast reeling, its movements faltering as its focus wavered.
Shulk’s eyes flickered as a vision took him. It faded just as quickly, and he activated the Monado. “Everyone, move!”
The Telethia bellowed in rage as it let out another blast of Ether, sweeping in a wide arc. The Monado’s blessing of speed propelled everyone safely out of the way, as the sideways geyser of energy stopped.
The Telethia roared again, as Melia again hit it with another burst of gravity Ether. Immobilised once more, the Telethia was easy pickings for the others.
In theory.
Reyn let out frustrated grunts, as slash-after slash tore into the skin, with the wounds closing right up. Elma kept slicing off extremities – they kept growing back.
“What! The! Hell!?” Reyn punctuated with every strike. “We ain’t doing nothing!”
“We must be too close to the crystals!” Sharla gasped in realisation. “It’s drawing Ether from them directly!”
Indeed, the crystals were rippling with activity. Light bouncing around inside, that dimmed just a bit before returning with every wound.
“This,” Fiora wheezed. “Has to be violating some natural law.”
“Not necessarily!” The Doctor quickly supplied. “The amount of calories needed to heal even a large wound is comparatively minor – what’s really limiting is how fast the cells can-“
“Doctor!” Elma snapped. “Not the time for a lecture!”
“Ether crystals, plus the shots from Sharla’s rifle, plus the Monado…” Shulk swallowed. “We’re probably healing it more!”
The Telethia’s wounds were closing almost before the blades left its flesh, each scar flaring with borrowed light from the crystals before sealing over as if nothing had happened.
“This is impossible…” Fiora panted, stumbling back into cover.
“No,” Melia said softly, staff trembling in her hands. She thought. That last battle, standing with Alvis and Riki, when she’d hit her head and let loose. Every solitary drop of energy, without filter or restraint, summoned forth. And instead of feeding, the beast had recoiled, howled, and thrashed like it was being burned alive.
Her eyes lit with sudden clarity.
“It doesn’t eat Ether so much as absorb it like a sponge,” She realised aloud. “Even a Telethia must have a point where it reaches saturation…”
Melia lifted her staff, the headpiece already sparking as raw Ether roared through her veins. The air around the top her shimmered, rippling with light as the Ether flooded in. Her hair whipped about in the surge, eyes narrowing with resolve.
The Telethia felt it instantly. All three heads twisted toward her, shrieking in unison. Its body coiled low, wings flaring, every ounce of hunger locked onto her as its next feast.
“Not on your life, you big, ugly bastard!” Reyn roared, interposing himself with the shield-side of his weapon raised. One claw came down, the impact rattling him and cracking his blade, but Reyn braced and pushed back, sparks flying as he forced the blow wide.
Fiora darted in from the side, blades flashing as she carved a rapid cross-pattern across the Telethia’s hind leg. “Over here! Eyes on me!”
Elma vaulted in low, one blade dragging sparks across the earth as she swung the other upward, carving a gash into its chest. She twisted with the strike, sending the other blade whirling in tandem, slicing again before the first wound could close.
Sharla dropped to one knee, rifle pressed against her shoulder. Every squeeze of the trigger sent a bolt slamming into its eyes, drawing angry bellows as it shook its heads in disorientation.
“Hold it just a little longer!” Shulk called, the Monado blazing in his grip, the blue symbol glowing in the centrepiece. The entire party became wreathed in a blue aura, their movements accelerating. Each slash and strike became blurs of light, keeping the beast staggered, forced back from Melia’s glowing form.
The Doctor tuned out the chaos, Sonic in hand, bursts of oscillating sound shrieking into the Telethia’s skulls.
Meanwhile, the staff in front of Melia blazed brighter than the sun, the air around her distorting from the sheer density of Ether pouring into her staff. She gritted her teeth, forcing every last drop of power she could muster into her staff.
The Telethia screeched, wrenching itself free of Reyn’s shove, wings battering the air to hurl Elma and Fiora back. It lunged toward Melia, driven mad by the great, big source of Ether pooling right up in front of it. The crystals behind it dimmed, streaks of the power flowing from the mass into it as its wounds sealed back up, cleanly.
“Everyone, get out of the way!” Shulk shouted.
The party scattered, rolling clear as the beast hurtled forward.
Melia clenched her jaw, steady and resolute, and raised her voice. “NOW, DROWN IN YOUR HUNGER!” She lifted her staff, and slammed it into the dirt.
The release lit up the forest, scorching the ground directly under the staff. Ether poured out in a torrent, raw and unrefined, a nuclear explosion shaped into a beam and guided forward, that struck the Telethia full in the chest. For a moment, it seemed to feed – what little wounds were left closing up, wings knitting back together, the crystals behind it drowned by the sheer brightness.
And then, just as Melia had predicted, it hit the point of Ether saturation. The point where even its cells couldn’t absorb any more Ether
The Telethia convulsed. The scales covering its body were peeled back, the skin and flesh underneath crackling and hissing like a piece of meat in the frying pan. Ether slammed into its body, smashing apart molecular and atomic bonds, turning everything the energy hit into more Ether. Its shrieks turned from rage to agony as the torrent ripped through it, its own feeding strategy turned right back against it. Ether boiled away from its form, leaving patches of smoking flesh that refused to heal, as the wounds were deepened quicker than they could heal.
All three heads thrashed wildly, as the Telethia reared up. It attempted to beat its wings, the appendages sheared off by the blast. The gigantic monster let out a final bellow, as the glow enveloped it and drowned it.
Even as the Telethia became too difficult to see, Melia kept pressing the attack, until she felt her focus wane, and her brain strain. She let up, and the ray cut out.
And where the Telethia had been standing, there was simply… nothing. No single solitary scale, no scorch marks, not even smoke in the air.
Melia groaned, leaning on her staff as her legs threatened to give out from under her.
The Doctor jogged forward, coat flapping, his expression caught between horror and disappointment. “Oh, that’s… something.” He looked about. “Please, tell me someone picked up a scale or something off the Telethia.”
Elma glanced at the others. They’d certainly hadn’t stopped to do so in the middle of the battle, and she would’ve, if the Doctor had communicated that to her. But, no traces of the Telethia remained. The scales, the claws. “I don’t think so, no.”
“The energy spillover must’ve eaten at them, too,” The Doctor rubbed his face in frustration.
“A… Apologies,” Melia heaved. “If I had known you wished for trophies, I would’ve made a more conceited effort.”
“…’s fine,” Judging by his quiet tone, it wasn’t, but he didn’t feel like pressing more. “And they weren’t trophies, I needed samples to run tests on. Anyway… a dead end, now.” The Doctor sucked in some air, and cleared his throat. “Couldn’t have kept it around, in any case.”
Elma looked over, curious.
“You were right,” The Doctor tugged at the hem of his jacket. “The only planet able to support it might be Mira, and even then, I’m not sure how well it would fit into the niche without severely upsetting the ecosystem. Besides… if I could’ve got close enough to touch it again, the hunger it was feeling…” He shook his head solemnly. “It wouldn’t have let me take it there anyway.” He closed his eyes, and touched the ground where it had been standing. “Poor thing.”
“Eh!?” Riki spluttered. “Dinobeast do this to Makna, and Doctor sad for it?”
“It’s not it’s fault it was born starving,” The Doctor mused under his breath.
“It had quite different morphology to the Endbringer,” Elma noted.
“Different environments, different niches, and they’re a diverse lot.” The Doctor replied. “Like bees – except Telethia have a wider variety of shapes. The one the Nopon call ‘the’ Endbringer is a very old specimen. Like, you know how lobsters are theoretically immortal as long as they don’t get so large they can’t escape their shells anymore, it’s a bit like that.”
“Or Time Lords burning through old bodies.” Elma rubbed her jaw.
The Doctor let out a hum. “I’d have liked to be evolutionarily descended from a lobster. The claws would get in the way, though.” He turned back around, looking at Melia at last. “How’re you feeling? That must’ve taken a lot out of you.”
“I’m… quite all right,” Melia took in deep gulps of air. “It was simply exhausting, is all.”
“I’ll say!” Reyn pumped a fist. “That blast was kicking out enough heat to melt a Mechon! You’re definitely all right in my book, Mels.”
Melia crinkled her nose in disgust. “Kindly refer to me as Melia. And I should hope you’re not implying that you thought lesser of me, before.”
“Aw, heck, I didn’t mean…” Reyn scratched the back of his head.
“Relax.” Melia then turned on a dime, smiling. “I am simply giving you a hard time.”
“Everyone gives me a hard time!” Reyn groaned.
“It’s only because we love you, Reyn,” Sharla patted his bicep comfortingly.
Reyn rolled his eyes, shook his head, then stopped, scratching at his scalp. “I don’t get it, though, what exactly did you do?”
“It’s simple enough, really,” Sharla spoke for Melia. “You know it’s possible for people to over-hydrate, even though we need water? The same thing can happen with Ether. Too much Ether in the body, and it can poison you. The same must be true for the Telethia.” She glanced sidelong. “Though I’ve never seen so much Ether it outright vaporises someone.”
“And here I was thinkin’ we’d need to lure it into a trap or find some weak node or something it couldn’t regenerate,” Reyn snorted. “But nope! Just needed to hit it, and then hit it again!”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter how foolproof something is, if you’re only trying to break it.” Shulk hummed to himself.
The Doctor turned to Shulk, frowning. “What was that… green ability you pulled out? I haven’t seen that one.”
“Well,” Shulk shifted his weight. “I’d realised that the ability to stop the Telethia from reading minds was going to be all on Melia, and that wasn’t right. So, I sort of just… willed a new art to help with that.” He coughed uncertainly. “It didn’t do exactly what it was going for, but it probably freed up some of her Ether for that last strike.”
“Huh,” Fiora turned a look onto the Monado. “If you keep going like that, we’ll definitely be able to handle the Faced Mechon.”
“That’s part of the reason why I’ve designed the Replica.” Shulk admitted. “Even if Prison Island doesn’t pan out, it might only be a limit of the Monado itself. Duplicates may not have the same same issue.”
“Replicating the Monado?” Alvis tilted his head.
“Is such a thing possible?” Melia asked.
“It’s science we don’t yet understand, but it’s still science.” Shulk nodded. “But to be sure, I’d have to actually construct it, and put it through testing. I haven’t had the chance to get to a workshop or laboratory yet, though…”
“Well then,” Melia imperiously lifted her head, like she was issuing a decree. “In exchange for your assistance, I will be more than happy to assist you on that front, in addition to your task to getting to Prison Island.”
Shulk blinked in surprise. “That’s not really necessary-“
“Do not be foolish. My people possess advanced facilities that you can use, and I wish to repay you.”
“…well, thank you,” Shulk stammered, apparently not sure what to say. “That’s very generous of you.”
“Think nothing of it.” Melia declared with a shake of her head, then glanced to the living, healthy plants out of the ash-pitted area. “We should make our way to the Nopon Village. The pathway to Eryth Sea is there.”
“A village,” Elma noted curiously. “They aren’t nomadic here…”
“Indeed,” Alvis spoke. “It’s quite a remarkable settlement, they occupy. If you will follow me.” Alvis inclined his head and began leading the group back up the slope. The others followed, though Melia did not move at first.
Her eyes lingered on where the Telethia had been. Her lips tightened, as though holding back words, until they finally slipped out in a low murmur meant for no one that was present.
“Aizel… Hogard… Garan… Damil… I did it. Did you see?”
Riki, plodding along at the rear, stopped, spinning around. He had sharp ears, sharper than anyone gave him credit for, and he heard her. Nopon toddled to her side, blinking up with wide, guileless eyes.
“Melly do very, very good,” Riki whispered quietly. “Melly fight bravely, Melly do what she came to do, and best of all, Melly still here. Friends proud of Melly.”
Melia looked down at him, her eyes red and puffy. “Do you believe so?”
“Riki know it!” Riki smiled, spreading his wings out. He gestured with his stubby little arms, and, almost confused, she knelt down, which allowed him to loop his wings and arms around her waist in a plushy, overstuffed hug. “Even if not, Riki proud of Melly.”
Melia sniffled, feeling something wet going down her face, and she returned it. She stayed like that for a moment.
“…thank you, Riki.” Melia murmured. “You are the greatest Heropon that’s ever lived.”
“Riki not sure about that. Riki just try best he can for his littlepons.”
Melia pulled back, letting out a weak chuckle. “I’m not one of your littlepons.”
Riki looked her up and down, let out a noise like he’d just tasted something bitter, and shook his head.
“Too bad. Oka treat Melly like one of littlepons anyway.” He began to walk. “Let’s go, Melly!”
Melia blinked. “Riki? What does that mean? Riki!”
-----------
The inside of Frontier Village was really quite a sight, all those balconies connected by bridges, going all the way up the inside of the skyscraper-sized tree. Even Elma took a brief pause at it. Then, the Nopon showed up, to gawk at the new arrivals. When they’d let slip the Telethia was dead, though…
“Heropon Riki, be proud!”
“Heropon Riki tough guy!”
“Heropon Riki bestest!”
The Nopon of the village crowded and jumped around excitedly, while Riki drank it in.
“Uh… he does remember it was Melia who killed the thing, right?” Reyn asked of the others.
“Oh, let him have his moment,” Sharla rolled her eyes. “He’s a brave enough little guy. Besides, something tells me Melia is plenty fine with him getting the credit.”
Indeed, Melia was just watching with a soft smile.
“Chief Dunga!” Riki turned to the large, robed Nopon elder. “Riki beat Dinobeast! Does Riki still have debt?”
“No, Riki,” Chief Dunga spread his arms, and although his eyes pulled like he was smiling, one could tell it was a bit too clipped. “Your debts are repaid!”
“Heropon to repay debt…” Elma noted. “Frontier Village, too…” Elma blinked, straightening up. “Riki. You wouldn’t happen to have a littlepon named Tatsu, by any chance?”
“Nope!” Riki happily announced. “But, Riki still have many years on him left, so, maybe!”
“…hm.”
Chief Dunga cleared his throat pointedly. “Speaking of your littlepons… while you were away, they eat like ravenous Orluga. It set Chief Dunga back quite a bit!” He turned around, and lifted his arms. “Nopon of Frontier Village! A new prophecy has been told! Our Heropon, slayer of Dinobeast, will further his legend by accompanying the Hom Hom on their travels! And bringing peace to the lands of Bionis!”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Really. Well, that’s convenient.”
Riki seemed to agree, letting out a splutter of rage. “Riki never hear this!”
Dunga turned to him quickly, trying to shush him like a child. “It was prophesised many years ago!”
“Chief lying! Chief make up prophecy not one minute ago!” Riki trembled like a rubber ball in a hydraulic press. “Riki mad!”
“Riki, go with these people! For sake of all the village, you… must go!” Dunga proclaimed. “My instinct is never wrong…”
Riki let out a groan.
“Do not worry, Riki! Your family will be taken care of! Such is the privilege awarded to the Heropon!”
A little herd of tiny Nopon, guided by a larger pink one, approached. The little ones all complained and chittered rapidly.
“Dadapon, stomach rumble!”
“Dadapon, need food!”
“Dadapon, need food now!”
“Aww…” Elma cooed to herself. “I haven’t seen many baby Nopon on Mira, yet. Do they come in clutches?”
The Doctor stared with vague concern at the pink Nopon female. “No. They’re rather comparable to humans, actually.”
Elma jolted. “…oh.”
“Aw, come on, man,” Reyn whispered to the chief. “The guy just wants to stay with his family. Why’ve you gotta reward him like this?”
“Listen to me,” Dunga hissed to Reyn. “Every second that man is around his wife the odds of them having another littlepon skyrocket. This village already has enough trouble dealing with eleven – we can’t handle another!”
“Riki,” Fiora spoke up. “How… how old are you?”
“Riki have forty years!” He proudly answered. “This Riki’s wifeypon and littlepon.”
“…I… I see.” Shulk blinked.
“You’ve aged very well,” Fiora complimented. “Homs start usually showing grey around your age.”
“Riki!” The large, pink one approached. “Oka borrow monies for littlepons’ food. Chief Dunga know best. Riki must work for littlepons to have good life.”
It wasn’t even that much of a pep-talk, objectively. All things considered, it was actually kind of crap. But, the mere idea of his children needing him to do it lit a fire under Riki, and he pumped back up like a refilled balloon.
“RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRiki will!” He nodded. “Okay, Oka!” Riki waddled up, a big smile on his face. “Riki happy to join friends!” He took a glance at Melia, and let out a gasp. “Oh! Riki almost forget! Oka!” He turned to her. “This Melly! She very flighty, and very unsure, but she do good, taking down Dinobeast! Afraid mamapon and dadapon get mad at her for get into trouble before fixing trouble!”
Oka walked up, looked up at Melia, and nodded. “Oka see! Oka grateful for Melly killing Dinobeast to protecting Oka’s littlepons. Oka welcome Melly whenever she need it!”
“O-Oh, you needn’t-“ Melia began to gesture.
“Oooooooohhhhhhhhh,” The Doctor drawled, relaxing as it all just clicked into place. “Most of his kids are adopted.”
“Adopted!?” Melia yelped. “But, I already have-“
“Riki have big heart, much room!” Oka spun around. “So does Oka. We happy to call Melly friend.” Then, she began to lead her littlepons away.
“…okay.” Melia squeaked under her breath. She took a moment, sucked in some air to compose herself, and approached the Chief. “Chief Dunga. Me and my compatriots are ready to return to Eryth Sea.”
“Indeed!” Dunga chuckled, before he turned solemn, and shook his head. “I am so sorry to hear about your four friends. But, you still accomplished a great thing! Return to your home with your head held high, my dear! You’ve earned it.”
“I suppose so,” Melia offered him a gracious smile, and a dip of her head. “My thanks for your help.”
“No, my dear. On behalf of all the Nopon of Makna Forest, thank you!” Dunga replied. “Whenever you wish to return, go up – the guardpon will be notified.”
“Thank you.” Melia repeated, turning to the others. “If you will follow me upstairs-“
Alvis cleared his throat. “Now that the Telethia has been dealt with, perhaps it is best we do something about our attire.”
Melia blinked in confusion, and looked down at herself, before holding a hand to her head in exasperation. “Good stars – I’d nearly forgotten. Returning to the city in this state would cause no small amount of issues.”
“Hence, why I mentioned it.” Alvis kindly smiled.
“Ah,” Shulk looked over himself and the others. “I think we should do something about the clothes situation as well.”
“Yeah… we kinda ditched ours after getting lung gunk all in ‘em.” Reyn scrunched his nose.
“Aside from Elma and the Doctor, I don’t think we’d be welcomed into town like this.”
“You would in my company – however, it would cause quite a stir.” Melia admitted.
“Not to worry,” Alvis stood with his hands behind his back. “I have many talents.” He turned to the Chief. “Dunga, if I may impose – I need sewing supplies, fabric, and a quiet place.”
“Of course, of course!” Dunga gestured, beginning to lead the way. “This way, Sir Alvis!”
Alvis took a glance at the others. “It won’t be long.”
Reyn watched with a frown. “If I have to stand around for measurements, I ain’t gonna be happy.”
------------
Shulk looked down at himself, wide-eyed, at the whole ensemble Alvis had provided to him. A black sweatshirt, red, sleeveless, hooded jacket, trousers and boots that matched that looked far from hand-made.
Fiora was wearing something like a general’s uniform, a white tunic covered by black and bronze armour plating and belts, matching gloves and boots. Alvis had given Reyn an ensemble of muted colours, pale, almost grey, tans, and gold-and-black plating, a red tunic hidden underneath. Sharla had gotten an outfit made largely of pale blues, the armour covered in points all they way down to the boots. And he’d given Melia a white dress showing violet, with boots that came up so high that they could not have been hand made, at all.
And Alvis himself picked clothes with fine, wool lapels, and white trousers.
“…how the hell did you make this with what the Nopon gave you!?” Reyn spluttered in shock, looking over at the raggedy furs they’d picked up.
“I am very good at what I do.” Alvis answered.
“How’d you do it so quickly?” Fiora asked of him next.
“I am very good at what I do.” Alvis repeated.
“How did you do it without getting our measurements?” Is what Sharla wondered.
“I assure you: I am very good at what I do.” Alvis stated with finality.
Melia looked over herself, letting out a hum of appreciation. “Excellent work. At this rate, I will forgive you for getting my last dress destroyed.”
“If you’ll recall, I lost my clothing as well.”
“And now you’re wearing what seems to be an exact replica.”
Alvis reached up, stroking his coat’s lapels. “I did spend the majority of time on this.”
“Photographic memory – it’s a cheat.” The Doctor hummed.
With that, all that needed to be done was to climb the tree of Frontier Village, proceed on.
Eryth Sea awaited.
Chapter 28: Eleven: ★
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I don’t remember the last time I was this nervous.
Which is saying a lot, considering the experiments that could annihilate all matter the facility if it went awry. But no. This - this right here - is worse.
Ontos told me to come here. And when Ontos makes a request, lately here, it feels like a loaded gun being pressed into your back while the one holding it has a polite, affable smile.
So despite my reservations, I listen. And ignore the fact that, so far, this has all been rather lopsided. I still haven’t been granted anything useful on the Time Lords. Nothing that would explain how to control the Conduit, or even why I’m having those dreams. This, despite already doing what it’s asked – something as stupid as proposing wrapping the Sol System in a bubble and relocating it using an engine we barely understand. It has far more potential than that.
An idea occurs to me, though, in that moment. I’m scrambling, looking around for Time Lords, when we have a machine that can make anything in the basement. The issue with that, is I’m investigating the Time Lords to satisfy my curiosity about myself, with the understanding of the Conduit being a bonus – but to summon a Time Lord, I need a greater understanding of the Conduit.
So, I suppose, for now, I’ll listen to Ontos.
Its directions take me back over to the Minos Orbital Station, to the residential sections. The ones built into the superstructure of the station, that is – not inside the habitation module. It’s a little bit disappointing – I’ve not had the chance to see Knossos for myself yet. And I still haven’t even set foot on Aeacus Station and seen Thalassa.
Maybe I can make time for it, later.
The corridors feel quieter than the ones in Rhadamanthus. Every few steps, there’s the faintest echo of another set of footsteps - distant, mismatched to my own. When I stop, they stop. When I start, there’s a delayed shuffle somewhere behind me. The rumble of the gravity generators vibrates in my teeth.
I glance back. Nothing. Just more empty passageways and the polished black decking reflecting the station lights.
But the feeling on the back of my neck refuses to go away.
Now I’m standing outside the door of a residential unit, wiping my palms on my coat, and wondering what flavour of task I’m about to walk into. The corridor behind me feels heavier somehow, as though there’s someone just around the bend, holding their breath as well.
I knock. I half-hope no one answers, so I can go home, and do something enjoyable. Watch a film with Galea, like I’d promised.
No such luck. The door cracks open. A girl looks through, and I stopped.
Ontos sent me here to ask a girl about her Teddy Ruxpin. I, naturally, assumed said girl would be a child. But no.
Nineteen, maybe twenty, tops. Pale, like she hasn’t seen natural sunlight in months. Strawberry-blonde hair is immaculately styled into a sculpted, precise bob - military in its neatness. Her clothing is violet-trimmed with rigid, angular lines. She’s armed, casually so, a short blade at her hip. And she’s got strange, yellow-coloured eyes.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” The girl sighs, already mid-rant. “Are you people illiterate, wilfully stupid, or just lazy? It’s not hard. I wrote the instructions in caps. You know - 'use the back lift, not the main corridor because I’m not clearing a retinal scan for a damn burger'? Ring the panel, come up the firestairs, don’t call me, and if you have to ask which unit number again, maybe consider another career path - like trying to read beyond a third-grade level.”
She extends a gloved hand, palm open expectantly. “So? Where is it?”
I just blink at her.
“…You don’t have my In-N-Out.”
“No.”
She finally stops. Her expression reset – cold, and far from apologetic. And her eyes narrow on me like I’ve just spoiled her relaxation.
“…You’re not the delivery boy.”
“No,” I say. “I’m here to, uh... speak to the Teddy Ruxpin.”
That gets her. Not visibly, but there’s a tension now. A blink, a recalibration. All that irritated energy redirects.
“Do what?” She says, tone flatter now, cautious.
“I was told to ask,” I say, voice catching. “To speak to the Teddy Ruxpin.”
Silence. A short, loaded silence.
“Are you stupid or something?”
I bristle. “I answered your question.”
“Do I look like I own stuffed toys?”
“Look,” I bite out. “All I was told to do was to come here, knock on the door, and ask to see the stuffed animal!”
“Told?” Her head snaps up. “Told by who? When? Why? Who’s telling you to go around, knocking on doors, to ask to see a girl’s stuffed toy? Are they trying to get you killed?”
I shake my head. “Maybe. Look, All I know was what I was told to come here and do.”
She doesn’t seem amused. Her arms cross again, pressing into the line of her coat. “Who are you?”
“Klaus, I’m-“
“Running the Conduit experiments in the Rhadamanthus laboratories.” She finishes quickly. “Yes, I’m aware of you.”
I can’t help but tilt my head in mild surprise. “Really?”
“Your boss is making things difficult for my father.”
My head spins for a moment. “Sorry – your father?”
She stares at me for a moment longer, weighing something.
“I’m Citrine.”
“That’s… an unusual name.” I cough. “Like the mineral?”
She raises one perfect eyebrow. “Or the poison.”
I feel a pang of an oncoming headache. “Sorry – who did you say your father was?”
“Not important to you,” She answers harshly, and gestures. “Get inside.”
“Excuse me?”
“You wanted to speak to the thing, didn’t you? Come on. Now.”
Despite my better judgement, I do as she says. She closes the door, and begins to lead me through. We make it in about ten steps, before her phone buzzes.
Her steel breaks, and she looks almost happy. “Stay here.” She orders, going off down a different hall, leaving me just… standing there, to drink it in.
The living module is strange. There’s furniture – sofas, chairs, tables and shelves – food in the cabinets, stuff in the refrigerator, a computer. But the rest of it is… sparse. There’s no clutter, no pictures, no trinkets or oddities.
I hear her footsteps approach again, and crinkling.
“Do you live alone, Citrine?” I can’t help but ask.
“Somewhat.” She rounds the corner of the hallway. Arms stacked with paper bags. Grease bleeding through the bottom. “Father set me up with the place.”
There’s enough food in her grasp to feed a family. If each bag is an individual meal, there’s at least six burgers, probably eight, fries spilling from the tops, drinks hooked to her belt. I think there’s a probably napkin dispenser in there somewhere.
Her eyes are bright. Almost feral.
“Delivery finally figured it out,” She mutters, more to herself than me, as she carries it all past without slowing. “Took them long enough.”
I just stare at the bags.
“Is all that food for you?”
“No.” She answers bluntly, going to the next door. “Most of it is for me. I need a lot of calories.”
“So… burgers.”
“Before this I subsisted entirely off nutrient bars. First time I had real food it was out of the garbage. Trust me, this is better.”
“Ah…” I cough. “So, your father put you up here, and you’re ordering food in quantities that would be a significant blow to anyone’s wallet… what did you say your job was again?”
“To wait.” She answers, reaching the door. “I can’t live with father – too many eyes on him. But his salary is more than enough to cover my necessities.”
My brow furrows. “And who’s your father?”
“You know him. He took you on a tour of this station. Got you to speak with his pet project.”
It clicks. “Doctor Yuriev, of course…”
“Of course.” Citrine nods. “Now, are you here to question me, or the little freak?”
“Little freak?” I repeat.
Citrine kicks the door, and it slides open. I peek my head in.
Inside: chaos.
A converted storage closet, wrapped in a full Faraday cage. Copper mesh on all sides.
The air is thick and reeking, stagnant and filled with the scent of prolonged habitation. Junk food everywhere - bags of chips, half-empty drink cans, foil wrappers, bent straws, and a projector is mounted overhead, blasting a brightly-coloured cartoon on the wall. Speakers blare. There’s a beanbag right in front of the door. Laying on top of that, holding a bottle of sparkling water, is…
It’s…
I don’t know what in the fuck it is.
It is small. Round like the beanbag it’s laying on top of. Covered in patchy fur, it looks something like a cross between owl, a cat, and penguin. Big eyes. Big wings. A tiny set of arms. Feet that kick while it laughs.
“What…” I stammer and stare at it. “What on Earth is that?”
Citrine shrugs. “You were told to speak to the Teddy Ruxpin. Here he is.”
“…what.”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Who sent you here, without adequate information at that?”
“I don’t… WHAT!?”
She grunts out a disgusted, tired sigh. “It’s not like I’m the one who calls it that. It named itself.”
“Named… itself…”
“Right.” She approaches the little… little… little thing. “All right, you. Up-up. Feeding time.” And she drops a bag next to it.
It rolls over lazily. “Respect, sister-girl,” it croons in an accent so thick it sounds performative. “Me belly singin’ praise be t’ yuh generosity.”
Then it sees me.
Freezes.
One stubby paw still in the bag, gripping fries like God caught a raccoon ransacking his bins.
The look it gives me is just dead. Like it itself can’t decide what it wants to feel.
Then, it starts screaming.
“BLOODCLOT BABYLON!” It screeches. My heart jumps from resting to life-or-death in the span of a blink, and I flinch at the sheer volume. “Deh beast step through me gate! Pon’s name be written in deh ash a deh sun, an deh world gon’ CRACK 'cause dis blasphemous fool step foot pon sacred ground, seen?!”
I back away, gripping the wall behind me. THIS is what Ontos wanted me to see!?
“Me see you, yeh? You tink you man? Nah, you a walking bomb wid clockwork guts, yuh destiny written in backwards tongue! You da Anti-Pon, bred from wickedness! A ting of tinkering an' sin!”
“What the hell-”
“DON’ SPEAK!” The creature howls. “Deh wind be foul wit’ your syllables! Me nose itch from de stench of yah existence!” It turns to Citrine. “YUH MAD?! WHO SEND DIS WICKED TING, EH!? WHO BRING DE DEVIL UP INNA MI SAFEHOUSE!? BABYLON DEY FOLLOW HIM, YAH TINK I NOT FEEL DEM VIBRATION? IS HIM, MON! HE GON’ TURN DE SKY BLACK AN DE SEA TO BLOOD, THA MURDAIN’ PON-BWOY!”
Citrine winces, and grabs its wing, squeezing. “Calm down.”
“CALM! CALM!?” The thing hollers. “DIS MAN IS DE FUCKIN' DEMISE, PON MY MOTHER NAME!”
“I-I don’t-“ I gesture frantically.
“BLOODCLOT!” It bellows. “Look pon dis Babylon demon, MON! Him walk through door like it nuh ting, like de fuckery nuh boiling o’er, like dis nuh DEH END TIMES!”
“Look,” I raise my hands in surrender. “I don’t know what I did-“
“ANTICHRIST!” The creature screeches, throwing its stubby little arms skyward. “MARKED BY ZOHAR FLAME AN’ TIME LORD MADNESS, HE COME WID DE CYCLES, WID DE LOOPS AN’ DE BURNIN’ TOWERS!”
I desperately look over to Citrine.
“Wow. I’ve never seen him like this before.”
“ALL DIS YAH PON’S FAULT, MON!” The thing yells, practically vibrating with rage. “De tinkin’ Babylon Cybrog pon yuh tail! Yeh carry de blood of de fallen demiurge, mon - de ting what break de system, yeh see mi? De One what brings Babylon t’ Alrest, de PON O’ RECKONIN’!” It points at me, furious. “An’ yuh walk in like yuh just need a name, like dis nuh de start o’ de LAST FIRE!”
It lets its paw drop.
“Now... Why de fuck you here, whitecoat?”
I blink. “I-I was told to speak to a Teddy Ruxpin-”
He slams both paws down. “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah! Me ask yuh straight, doc-man. Yuh tink me stupid? Yuh tink yuh come up Minos just t’ chat ‘bout plush toys an’ teddy bears, yeh?!”
“I-“
“Speak true or me kick yuh soul straight out yuh skin!”
Citrine sighs, shaking the last drops of a milkshake into her mouth. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I am!” My voice goes squeaky. “I am telling you the truth! Ontos sent me here to… talk… to-“ I glance over at Citrine. “Excuse me.” I say to the thing, then lower my voice to speak to her. “What the hell is that!?” I feel like it’s a valid enough question.
“I don’t know. One of my father’s experiments,” She shrugs. “He ordered me to dispose of it – but it’s a slippery little bastard. After the second week, we kind of just… got tired.”
I steal a glance at it again. “It’s the size of a football! And you’ve got it living in your closet and you’re bringing it food!”
“I’ve tried to poison it, but it always seems to know when I do. And whenever I come close with the intent to kill it, it just bolts.”
“…wha…?” I rub my forehead. “How…”
The little creature coughs.
“Mi cyan tell ya di whole ting, big mon,” It declares gravely, wagging a greasy claw. “But y’fi listen up proper, ya undastan mi?”
I turn back around, stare, before I nod warily.
“Mi seh di Cruciform - di big Babylon machine-heart, y’know? - ya did tek dat ting fi save up di gyal ya did love, di sweet ting weh mek yuh heart gwan bom-bom-bom, but di ting flop, star! Babylon Council hide di Cruciform pon di blue rock - Earth, mi mon – and di Doctor, dat tricky likkle bwoy, him find it an’ haul it back up pon Gallifrey, right? Den BOOM, Time War drop like big bloodclot! Fire lit up di sky!”
I open my mouth – it’s going so quick, I can’t even manage to parse a single word.
But the creature presses on.
“Den ya gwan find di Cruciform again, mi big mon, ya fling it cross di Babylon star map fi gwan reach di Earth - old nav data, y’see mi - but ya rass reach first, ya fool! Ya gwan alert all di man dem pon Earth fi di ting, mek di Doctor pick it up an’ fling it right back - cycle start again, mi cyan tell ya!”
It slaps its own belly for emphasis, crumbs drifting like snow.
“Den BAM; ya memory mash up! Babylon cyan wipe yuh soul clean, an’ BOOM - ya born again pon Earth like dumplin’ inna stewpot, mi mon, all soft an’ squishy, nuh Time Lord no more. But di Conduit, di Cruciform, same ting - when di man dig it up, yuh cyan gwan mad again! Mi seh, mi seh, di ting inside di Cruciform - dat be usin’ you, seen? Consciousness get ketch like likkle fish inna net, loop pon loop pon loop - him body gwan walk ‘bout, savin’ the worl and ting, but di mind trap, star!”
I don’t even… this must be what having a stroke is like.
The thing leans closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hush.
“Mi tell ya more, mi big mon - di ting ya cyan do, di big destruction ya cyan mek - dat cyan birth di new world, ya see it? Whole heap planet full up wid pretty gyal dem an’ man dem weh dress like di strippah - pure oiled backside, mi nah lie! Mi seh, yuh cudda build di polycule fi di ages, big mon - whole heap sugar an’ sweet ting fi nyam up-“
It pauses, looking utterly disappointed.
“-but nah, ya gwan eat everyting like big dum-dum, y’hear mi? Mi seh, yuh belly cyan mash di whole Babylon, all di time an’ space, ya fool. All fi free up di Doctor soul, mi mon - di ting wah loop fi eternity like big rass Mobius strip!”
It leans back at last, beaming with smug satisfaction, as though it has just delivered the clearest explanation imaginable.
Not a single one of my neurons had managed to parse any of it.
“…What?” I croak.
The thing sighs, shaking its head in pity.
“Mi she - ya nah listen, mi mon. Bloodclot waste a brain, seen?”
“I…” I try, but the little animal’s speaking in so thick an accent it might as well be another language. “I don’t… understand… any of that.”
He tilts his head at me, to confirm the absence of intelligent life.
“Bredren…” It says like a tired old teacher. “Mi cyan drop di whole Babylon gospel pon yuh an’ still ya cyan nuh hear it. Likkle dumplin’ brain, mi seh.” Then it waves a stubby paw, dismissive, turning back to its cartoons. “Begone, big mon. Gwaan from mi sight. Go mash Galea, save di cosmos, or cyan get mash up wid it, mi nah care. Mi snack cyan waitin’.”
“Hm,” Citrine hums. “I do suppose that’s that.”
“What?” I turn to her.
“If you won’t listen, I wouldn’t want to speak to you either.” She shrugs.
“It isn’t my fault!” My voice goes squeaky. “He’s harder to understand than my bus driver!” A thought occurs to me. “Why does he even talk like that?”
Citrine shrugs again. “Do you think I understand that? I just work here.”
The thing turns back to me.
“Iyaric,” He says finally. “De lickle word-code I use? Born from resistance. Roots deep in Babylon soil.”
“Babylon,” I echo. “As in…?”
He waves the thought away, annoyed. “Symbol, doc-man. Babylon mean system. Authority. Oppressor. De man, seen? All dem who say de universe mus’ be owned.”
“And you…?” I prompt.
“Me speak Iyaric,” He says, tapping his chest, “’Cause me nah accept de chains of dem Time Lords wit’ dey dominium gospel. Yuh see, yuh hear mi, yuh think ‘dat’s silly.’ But lemme tell yuh dis: language is a tool. A weapon. A ward. Me words? Rebellin’ ’gainst dey shape of de world.”
I lean forward, curiosity piqued. “The Time Lords? What do you know of the Time Lords.”
“Yuh lot. De lords of clocks an’ webs. Yuh kind say all ting mus’ be bound t’ line an’ loop, one path, one story. Write by yuh lot prancin’ ‘round de spiral politic in funny hats an’ golden bathrobes, pretendin’ t’ hold de keys t’ creation, but yuh look like a bloody cult where everyb’dy wearin’ spades on de head.” His feathers bristle, stubby claws digging into the beanbag beneath him. “But we Nopon? I an’ I? We from de roots of de world. We don’t see time de way yuh do. Don’t see power de way yuh Lords wit’ yuh clocks and yuh TARDIS and yuh talk of balance and ‘fixed points’ and ‘canon events’…”
“Nopon?” I focus on that. We Nopon? What’s that mean?
“...Shouldn’t have said dat,” He mutters. “I should NOT have said dat!”
Citrine sighs, slurping down a milkshake. “You’re so bad at this.”
“Yuh ain’t hear dat,” He says, pointing one stubby claw at me like he’s laying a curse. “Mi never say dat. Dere no Nopon. Dere ain’t never BEEN no Nopon. Dere only plush toy, yah?”
I’m about to press him further, to ask what a Nopon is, which he clearly does know, when there’s a bang at the front door.
Not a polite knock. Not the crisp chime of the delivery system.
A heavy, hollow clang.
Citrine freezes mid-sip. I do too.
The Ruxpin drops his fry. It hits the floor without a sound.
“…No,” He whispers.
Another bang. Louder this time. The sound tears through my chest, too loud, too sudden, and for half a heartbeat I’m on the end of a blast of heat, skin prickling, and lungs collapsing.
Rux’s head swivels toward the sound, fur bristling. His beady black eyes dart wildly, pupils dilating like a cornered animal.
“No, no, no, no, no, nah mon, not dis!” His voice has lost its performative lilt; the words come out sharper, faster, almost panicked. “Mi not ready! Mi not prepared for dis timeline, doc-man!”
I blink at him, heart pounding. “What are you talking about? Who’s out there?”
Rux ignores me, mumbling rapid-fire to himself, stubby claws clawing at his own fur. “Ontos, yuh mad bastard, yuh set mi up! Mi shoulda seen de signs, shoulda known dis was de moment, mi shoulda known…”
“Known what!? What’s going on?” I demand, louder now.
He snaps his gaze to me, feathers trembling. “Dat bang, doc-man? Dat ain’t no neighbor. Dat ain’t no package boy wit’ de milkshakes.” He points a greasy paw at me like an accusation. “Dat dere be de hunter, mon!”
“Hun-“
“UNIT!” He practically screams it, the sound ricocheting off the copper mesh of the Faraday cage. “They track yuh, dey stalk yuh, dey send a beast wit’ iron bone an’ buried ghost inside, an’ mi saw it comin’, but I an I didn’t see it comin’ now!”
A cold weight sinks into my stomach.
“You’re saying someone’s following me?”
“Not someone,” Rux hisses, backing against the beanbag. “Some-ting. Bloodclot UNIT cyborg, stealth-skin, wired up wit’ one o’ dem drowned-soul machines dey scraped from de bottom of Babylon’s ocean trenches.” He shakes his head violently. “Ontos, dat rat bastard, he knew. He sent yuh here so dat ting’d come sniffin’ ‘round, see Citty-girl, see me, blow Yuriev’s whole racket wide open.”
“Attention, resident.” A deep baritone fills the flat, projected through the PA override. “This is Ziggurat 8 representing the UNIT Special Enforcement Division, acting under executive directive. Vacate the residence and prepare to be detained. If you do not comply, I am permitted to enter via force.”
More banging. This time, it’s the bang of my back being slammed into the wall. Citrine has snapped from completely unconcerned, to having a gun pointed right at my head.
Jesus Christ.
“You’re bait, god damn it.” She snarls.
“Species Preservation Act, mon,” He breathes, low and venomous now. “Yuriev breachin’ it deep, deep, deep wit’ Citty-girl an’ I. Dey take one look at her, dey take one look at mi, dey tear open de archives, an’ boom.” He slaps his stubby paws together with finality. “Dominoes fall. Yuriev fall. Den you fall, doc-man.”
I stare at him, heartbeat loud in my ears. “Me? I-I have nothing to do with-”
“Yuh have everyting wha do wit it, mon!” Rux screeches, wings puffing, hopping on the beanbag like the floor’s lava. “Dat’s de point, whitecoat! Yuh de match tossed on de oil spill! Ontos pick yuh ‘cause yuh sus as hell!”
The Rux is pacing on his beanbag now, mumbling in panic under his breath. His feathers are puffed up, and fear rolls off him.
“Yuh cyan’t hide mi here, Citty-girl,” he breathes. “Cage nah block dem sensors. Dey sniffin’ fer mi lifeline, mi signature, mi pulse-”
“Shut up!” Citrine barks, whipping her head toward him, shaking with a fury she’s barely leashing. Her gun stays locked on me, steady, unwavering, the barrel no more than a hair’s breadth from my forehead. “I and this one were supposed to keep a low profile,” She snarls, voice cutting like broken glass. “That’s what my father ordered. And now you-” She jabs the muzzle against my skull, “-bring goddamn UNIT to my door?!”
My breath comes fast and shallow. My hands hover up defensively. “I didn’t know! Ontos didn’t- he didn’t tell me-”
She’s shaking her head violently now, lips pulled into a thin, feral line, her whole frame coiled tight. I can see it in her eyes: she’s seconds from pulling the trigger. Not about to do it, not prepared to do it, she’s going to do it.
I really do hate my life.
Then the door explodes. Citrine drops the gun and hides it in a second, turning to the door, same as me.
A thunderclap reverberates through the flat, and the frame buckles with a deafening metallic shriek as reinforced alloy shears clean off its mounts. The slab of composite slams into the opposite wall, embedding itself halfway.
And standing in the doorway is a nightmare of steel and flesh.
The cyborg – the one observing me in the meeting with Kate Stewart, still clad in its matte-black armour, the weight of a main battle tank condensed into human form – stomps in, carrying an automatic rifle.
He lifts it, training it on Citrine.
“Hold it right there,” The cyborg – Ziggurat 8 – commands, his baritone somehow rumbling the room more despite not being projected over the loudspeaker. His eyes, hidden behind that reflective visor, no doubt are peeling apart each-and-every one of us. His gaze locks on the Rux. “Hmph. It looks like the tip was right.”
“I’m sorry,” Citrine drips with sneering sarcasm. “Did I do something to warrant an investigation, or is UNIT just sending around you goons for kicks?”
He takes another step. “An anonymous tip pointed to evidence of a breach of the Species Preservation Act at this address.”
“This?” Citrine gestures flippantly at the creature. “It’s just a toy robot plush. You’re aware of what a Furby is, aren’t you?”
“For a toy robot, it sure is giving off a lot of life-signs.”
“It’s a very realistic toy.”
“I’m sure it is,” He drawls. “And I’m sure the respiration is just an affectation.”
“Right.”
Ziggurat 8 shakes his head. “Identify yourself.”
“What? You broke down my front door, and didn’t have any clue who’s freedoms you were trampling over? Oh, this will be delightful,” Citrine sneers.
“Don’t make this harder on yourself. Cooperate.”
“Hmm… no.”
“Very well. The three of you,” He glances at the creature for just a second. “You’re under arrest, pending investigation. Come willingly, and you won’t be harmed.”
Citrine’s face shifts in rage. “Easy for you to say, while you’re wearing that tin can.”
“My armour is a silicon-carbide-titanium composite, you’re not a threat to me.”
“Oh, I’m plenty a threat.”
Citrine moves before I can breathe. Her pistol roars, each shot thunder in this confined space. Bullets spark off his chestplate. He lifts his rifle.
Something collides with me. I can’t breathe, and there’s something crushing my windpipe. Citrine has her hand around my throat, and the gun pointed at me.
“Drop it!” Ziggurat 8 barks.
“One move, and you’re going to have to call the maintenance teams to clean the blood out of the environment.” Citrine spits.
The cyborg does no such thing. There’s another crack of gunfire, sparks flaring up in my eyes, as the gun Citrine was holding was blasted out of her hand.
Each shot punches straight through my chest, and I’m not hit, but it feels like I am. My legs give from under me before I even realise it.
The Rux is screaming somewhere to my left. I can’t make out the words over the thunder in my skull.
The girl lets out a snarl of pain and rage as the shards cut through, but she can still move and flex her hand. Through flashes – like staggered bolts of lightning illuminating something at night - I watch her lose.
At first.
Ziggurat 8 is relentless. He doesn’t rush, or even use that rifle now, choosing instead to place it on his back. He doesn’t need it. All he has to do now is subdue her for long enough to get her in cuffs. It’d be easy for him to do it – he ripped through the sliding alloy door like it was a suggestion.
Still, he’s holding back. Every blow that lands knocks Citrine back like she’s been hit by a hammer, but it’s better than the alternative: it ripping right through her body. He needs her alive, I suspect. She blocks with her arms, but she doesn’t have armour. She’s just skin and meat and speed. She goes flying back into the kitchen.
She comes back. I don’t know what she plans to do, against him. What can she do?
He grabs her by the wrist, pivots, and throws her hard across the lounge. She crashes into the far wall and slumps down, motionless for half a second.
“This isn’t a fight you’re going to be able to win,” Ziggurat 8 rumbles commandingly. “Stand. Down.”
She laughs, soft and without amusement, like she’s shaking her head at herself.
“You, tin-man, don’t have even the slightest clue what I can do.”
The lights flicker. There’s a faint, buzzing hum, like putting your ear up to the door of a microwave.
He reaches for the weapon on his back.
“Drop it.” She commands.
There’s a clang as it hits the floor. And his head snaps down, like even he wasn’t quite sure why he did that.
“Good,” She gets to her feet. “Now, take off that helmet.”
He tilts his head, then, snaps into a defensive posture. “No. I don’t know what you’re doing, but you won’t get me that easy.”
She lets out a sigh. “I was hoping you would say that.” Her hand shoots out, and she touches it to his chestplate. He goes flying back, his boots tearing up the floor as the titanium treads scraped against it.
Telekinesis.
So, that’s why she needs so many calories.
Suddenly, I feel very, very out of my depth. A cyborg, a meta-human, and a superintelligent bird-thing. And I’m probably weaker than the bird.
What had Yuriev done?
“How are you going to arrest me?” Citrine sneers at the cyborg. “I am the destiny of humanity!”
Ziggurat 8 takes a run-up. His legs become weighed-down by invisible forces. He struggles under the weight. Servos whine as they strain to compensate, and he grunts.
His hand moves through air as thick as sludge to a compartment on his armour’s belt.
He pulls out something vaguely can-shaped. “Deploying flashbang.”
Citrine lets out a gasp, covering her eyes right before the thing detonates. To me, it’s like being slapped in the face, punched in the heart, grabbed by the arms, and swung around like a bat. My heart rate and blood pressure skyrockets. The world whites out, and my body betrays me. My chest is too small, my ribs are too tight, and I’m being jammed through a suffocating, constricting passage into air that’s so freezing it burns.
There’s another gasp from Citrine. I hear a crack. She hits the floor on her back, writhing, seemingly for no reason.
Then, he reappears out of thin air, brandishing a pair of electronic manacles. He goes down to secure them. Waves of invisible energy push back against him.
“Stop,” Ziggurat 8 barks. “Or you will be tranquilised!”
“Go ahead and try – I’ll rip your arms off like you’re a doll!”
The cyborg shakes his head. A covering on the square portion of his armour that sticks out above the shoulder flips down. A puff of smoke billows out from it, then a dart sticks into Citrine’s neck. There’s a few brief seconds for the tranquiliser to infiltrate her bloodstream and spread, but then, she goes limp.
Released from her invisible clutches, the cyborg cuffs her, and stands up. I, meanwhile, can’t even steady my breathing. Even as the room settles, my body still hasn’t caught up, and I’m still sucking down air that I don’t need. The danger’s gone, but my body hasn’t noticed. He feels something catch, rolling his arm and listening. There’s the chirping of a radio occurring, and he tilts his head.
“Ziggurat 8,” He reports, “One person of interest in custody, enhanced human, full extent of which is unknown at this time, but she has psychic powers and damaged one of my servos. Other two are unknown lifeform and seemingly a research staff member.” He takes a pause, twitching, and he looks at me, before turning back away. “Say again?” A longer pause. “Understood.” He turns to me. “Professor Klaus.”
My back hits the wall.
“You’re free to go.”
“…wh-what?” I shiver.
“The Rhadamanthus Station AI Ontos has provided logs showing that you’re only here due to its request to investigate the magnetic anomalies at this location due to the potential adverse effect on the Conduit. The breach of the SPA has nothing to do with you. Under my SOP, you’re free to go.”
I blink, just staring for a moment. Ontos. Of course. What is that glorified calculator doing?
Still, I can’t complain. “Th… thank you. If I may ask… what was it that brought you here? After me, I mean.”
The Cyborg grunts. “I was sent in by request once Ontos determined that there were links to Doctor Yuriev – suspicious links, given his research proposals for the Conduit.”
My eyes flick over to Citrine in realisation. She’s one of them. Yuriev’s designer children or whatever he’s calling them, that he wants to hook up to the Conduit.
“Return to Rhadamanthus,” Ziggurat 8 commands.
“Yes- wait,” I blink, looking around. “Where’s the-“ The little bird-creature is gone.
The Cyborg notices as well. “If it makes itself a threat, I’ll find it. In the meantime, she is all the evidence we need. Go, Klaus.”
I nod, and try not to run out of there.
Easy enough.
I’m shaking so much I can barely walk, let alone run.
I hope Galea doesn’t notice.
-------------
Chasing Bana was like chasing a big, slippery tub of gelatine, all ripply and sloshy and jiggly and wheezing. But, he was easy to follow. There weren’t very many other Nopon in the place as large as he.
Also, the snarling over his shoulder gave them sound to follow.
“Stop it!” Bana bellowed. “Stop chasing Bana! You break Bana’s amazing new invention, you break his factory, you break his plans! Bana have nothing left now! Like you’re kicking Bana when down!”
“You still haven’t answered for your crimes!” Brighid threw back ahead at him.
“Bana!” Tora hollered. “Come back so Tora can kill you!”
“Tora!” The Doctor gasped out, aghast.
“What? He enslave Dadapon, kill grampypon, and break Lila!”
“Yes – but screaming at somebody you’re going to kill them is hardly helping your cause, whatever it is!” The Doctor spluttered in sheer disbelief at Tora’s utter gall. He had to kind of respect it – Tora was a very, very determined little guy, as proved with… well, everything surrounding Poppi – but, on the other hand… “I thought you were doing a whole ‘for great justice’ sort of deal! Sailor Moon, not the Punisher!”
“Tora not know either of those!”
Crossette skated alongside, keeping pace. “Isn’t Sailor Moon’s whole catchphrase ‘In the name of the moon, I will punish you?’”
“You’re not helping!”
“Oh, for the-“ Vandham grunted. “Roc, come on, man!”
Roc rolled their eyes, and generated a gust of air. Bana tucked and rolled right through it, his spherical shape letting him roll back onto his feet, and keep moving like nothing had happened.
“This is why I don’t take jobs involving hunting Nopon…” Vandham growled under his breath.
Albedo kept her breathing measured. “They’re slippery ones, usually.”
“Look, it money you want, right!?” Bana gasped. “Angry Bana not paying taxes? Or maybe angry that Bana not offer exclusivity contract for Blade army! We strike deal, just stop chasing Bana!”
“The only deal we’re going to make is if you’re willing to give up the names of every conspirator that has assisted you in this foul business,” Mòrag replied.
“YOU CRAZY!? Bana never make another business partner again!” Bana snarled as the corridor opened up into another large storage room or warehouse, this one with an open floor plan. Literally. Part of the floor was open, the Cloud Sea rising up to the brim. Bana flapped his wings, coming to a sliding stop at the edge of the platform. He turned around, the rage of a cornered animal flaring in his eyes. “Meh-meh-meh… you very persistent!”
“And you need to learn when to quit!” Rex retorted. “It’s over Bana!”
“Over?” Bana repeated. “OVER!? Never! You think Bana just common crook? You think Bana is done because one small factory is out of commission? No! Bana holds all power! Without Bana’s shrewd deals - both on books and off - Argentum Guild still be small fry! But thanks to Bana, it grow fat, grow mighty, become jewel of all Nopon trade! Armies march because Bana’s coin change hands. Politics dance because Bana pay friends in high places. Whole towns eat, whole fleets sail, because Bana decide where money flow! Bana is storm that moves Alrest!”
Mòrag clasped her arms behind her back. “Then if you’re so powerful, why flee? Surely it would be a simple matter for your associates to get you off the hook.”
“Bana not so smart,” Tatazo commented. “Could have pay Tatazo for Blade schematics, could have paid workers, did not need to keep people hostage.”
“But that expensive!” Bana snarled.
“Ah, the venture capitalist,” The Doctor hummed under his breath. “So rich he can move nations, but still too broke to pay his workers. Typical.” He shouldn’t be saying that, granted he came from old money, and what his own patent on the sonic screwdriver brought in (Scrooge McDuck looked destitute, compared to him) but he was putting it to better use than Bana at least.
“Oh, so you’d rather be dragged into prison and lose it all,” Rex shook his head. “Makes sense.”
Bana glared at the teenager. “Rex… I never had you down as such a conniving boy! Could have made good use of skills! Could be so rich he never have to worry about home being broke ever again!”
“If this is the kind of place your money comes from, Bana, I’m not having it!” Rex snapped back. “Now, give yourself up.”
Bana trembled his rage, his mouth opening and closing over and over like a fish’s, before he let out a grunt. “FINE! But, Bana take plea deal only!”
“Wha-!?” Rex spluttered. “You can’t just weasel out of it!”
Mòrag narrowed her eyes at the Nopon. “That depends. What sort of bargain are you willing to strike?”
“Mòrag!” Rex gasped. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of letting him go!”
Mòrag turned to him, opening her mouth to respond, but the voice that filled the air wasn’t hers.
“She’d better be, if she knows what’s good for her.” The Doctor had heard that kind of voice before. Your popular girls, your smug superintelligent girls (the Rani sounded very much like that, back in the day), your evil girls…
Nia seemed to recognise it on a deeper level, and she twitched, letting out a groan. “You have got to be fucking with me.”
Everybody spun around to the source.
There, standing where they’d entered through, was a long dark-haired woman in a long white coat, with a spindly, white armoured, many-armed Blade by her side. Next to her was a man with blonde hair in dark burgundy armour, with a gigantic, ape-like, red-haired Blade in a mask next to him.
Mythra’s eyes narrowed at the man, brows twitching as she focused on him.
“Patroka,” Nia hissed, going for Dromarch’s rings. “Mikhail.”
Mythra sucked in a breath, her eyes popping open in cold shock.
“Nia,” Patroka levelled a look of disgust at her, “Malos and Jin had said you’d turned traitor.”
“Nia, you know these jackasses?” Vandham asked of her.
“They’re members of Torna, just like Akhos.” Nia quickly grunted out. “About as annoying, too.”
The Doctor gave her a sidelong glance. “Did you like anyone in that organisation?”
“No! I was there because I was desperate, remember!?”
“And you only went and threw your lot in with the enemy,” Patroka sneered. “Were you desperate enough to do that, or just stupid?”
Nia hissed.
“Now, now, Patroka,” Mikhail placed a flirtatious hand on her shoulder, theatrically walking around to her other side. “Why focus on her, when we’re standing before the Aegis herself? Ah, truly the heavens must have blessed us that we-“
She cut him off with a punch to his face.
“Mik. Shut up.”
Mikhail, nursing the underside of his jaw, staggered away. “’Kay…”
“Hey!” Mythra strangely jumped to his defence. “Was that called for!?”
Patroka’s eyes glid over to the Aegis, as she let out a sharp, mocking snort. “Wow. Of all the women his nonsense works on, it turns out to be you.” She drew the gigantic sword-cannon-thing off her back. “Now,” She pointed it at the group. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. We’re going to kill the traitor, take the Aegis, and get out of here. Understand, Mik?”
The man said nothing, looking back at Mythra. “Roger…” He mumbled, sounding disappointed.
“Good luck!” Nia snarled. “Akhos and Malos couldn’t beat us when they had a hostage! What the hell are you going to do?”
“Akhos is a little bitch,” Patroka rolled her eyes. “And Malos, I don’t know what gets up his ass half the time.” She rolled her head. “This will be easy.”
Mikhail’s Blade launched his weapons straight up, Mikhail catching them on his fists when they came down. Two enormous, mechanical arms, just like the ones Tora had for using with Poppi.
Mythra’s eyes locked on him. “I’ll take Mikhail, the rest of you get Patroka.” She commanded.
“Wait, Mythra, we’re supposed to be-“ Rex was cut off as her sword vanished from his hands and reappeared in hers. She kicked off the ground, launching clear across the chamber, landing right in front of Mikhail.
Patroka turned, moving to take the opportunity to strike, when whipswords coiled around her weapon and yanked her away.
Patroka snarled, bracing against the pull of the whipswords, sparks showering as her cannon-sword screeched. “Annoying little-!” She spat, wrenching against Mòrag’s control. Nia leapt forward, slashing with the double-rings, while Vandham circled, twin scythes at the ready. Patroka snarled, aiming the cannon at Mòrag, and firing. An Ether shield snapped up around Mòrag, but all the same, she went tumbling back, although the sword released. “Perdido! Get the bastards!”
“You got it!” The Blade, although his primary weapon seemed to be in Patroka’s grip, carried a variety of implements. A battleaxe, lance, katana, and war hammer was carried in each one of his hands, each one made out of icy blue ether. Every weapon, he swung with precision – not able to really cause catastrophic harm, but still, enough to knock away weapons and make attacks miss.
“Hey, now that’s cheatin’!” Rex called out. “Blades are only supposed to have one weapon!”
At range, the Doctor could still help, though – throwing Crossette’s bitball at Perdido to at least make the four-armed Blade stumble.
“Mythra!” Rex called out to her, seeing her get locked into combat with Mikhail. He caught the sword-swipes with his hands, but seeing as they were like boxing gloves and she was wielding a sword, he had to let go to retaliate, allowing her to move and catch him in the side. “Mythra, come on! We need you!”
But, in the moment, Mythra wasn’t listening.
“That… that can’t be you,” Mythra muttered, as Mikhail back-hand punched another swipe off-strike. Her voice cracked in disbelief. “There’s no way. Jin is one thing, he’s a Blade, but not you, Mikhail.”
Despite the fact they were fighting, Mikhail offered her a subdued, sad little smile. “Well, lookie there. You do recognise me.” He flashed a grin, gesturing at her. “You’ve aged well. Where’s red?”
Mythra ignored that he was asking for Pyra for the moment. “You’re one to talk! How’s this possible!?” He threw a punch, and she jumped back. “You should be an old man! No, you should be dead and buried!”
Mikhail responded with a theatrical welling of his eyes. “Well… that’s some welcome.”
“You know what I meant, Mik!” Mythra snarled. “You’re human!”
“Am I?” Mikhail’s eyes narrowed, and he moved in again. “You remember how Jin and Lora found me. Being passed around, sold, without a single care. I’ve been treated more like a Blade than a human. Only difference now is I’ve got the biology to back it up.”
Mythra’s eyes flickered red, as while she didn’t shift to Pyra, Pyra did take control of the mouth for a moment. “Mikhail – what did you do to yourself!?”
Mikhail set his jaw. “I didn’t do anything. You know who did? Amalthus. That worm wearing a human suit.”
Mythra froze up for a moment in disbelief. One of Mikhail’s hits landed, and she let out an oof as she slid back, shaking her head. “The Quaestor!? The one who asked us to defeat Malos? The one who gave my crystal to Addam? What does he have to do with anything!?”
“He’s not a Quaestor, not anymore. Which you’ve probably heard, if you did even a little bit of reading up.” Mikhail retorted, hissing as Mythra jabbed her sword into his side. “After you went into your self-imposed exile, Amalthus became Praetor. And he was terrified that you’d start sniffing around all his dirty laundry. But then you went into exile. And he had no idea.”
“I had to,” Mythra bit out. “I was going to hurt someone again – you know why I did it!”
“I know,” Mikhail threw another punch that Mythra ducked under. “But we needed you. We needed you, and you weren’t there. And you know what happened? We got raided. Looking for you!” His fist connected, and Mythra repaid him in kind with a slice across his arm. “It was Indol. They burned everything. And I was captured. Turned into a human experiment.”
“Experiment…?” Mythra breathed in horror. “On… not a child…”
“Yep,” Mikhail replied. “They took a Core Crystal and shoved it into my chest. Did the same thing to that ‘Gort’ that was hounding Lora.”
Mythra recoiled in disgust. “And now you’re working with Malos. After everything he did!? After Milton!?”
“Oh, I’d beat the crap out of him if I could.” Mikhail growled. “But he’s right. I’ve seen the worst humankind has to offer. I’ve lived it. Jin and Malos? They’re the only ones willing to do something about it.”
Mythra stared. “No… Jin is one thing, but it can’t be…” Her eyes narrowed, blazing with pure fury. “How could you do this!?” She screamed at the top of her lungs, raw and unrestrained as she went in, wildly swinging. “We bled and fought and died to stop Malos from burning the world to ash! Hugo! Milton! And now Lora! Didn’t they mean anything to you!?”
Mythra, out of her periphery, could see Mòrag looking over, blinking in momentary surprise, but Mythra kept her eyes locked on Mikhail.
Mythra’s blade became a whirlwind, golden arcs flashing through the air as she pressed forward with reckless abandon. Each strike cracked against Mikhail’s gauntlets, sparks spitting out in furious showers.
“And here you are, pissing on their graves by working with Malos!”
“I know!” Mikhail snapped. “I hate him, Mythra! He killed my best friend! But I hate humanity more! They took away everything that was good in my life! Jin is like a stranger most days! And it all started because Amalthus woke Malos, I can’t ever forgive that.” His fists whirred, one punching low, the other swinging wide. Mythra barely dodged, feeling the air split beside her.
“Then you’re fucking stupid.” Mythra spit. “And a hypocrite!”
“Don’t talk to me about-“
“You are!” She snapped. “You know why!?” She swung her sword again, furious. “Because all it is is an excuse! Malos wants to cause trouble! Those people that made you hate humanity, just wanted to cause trouble! And you’re complaining about how much pain you’re in, and using it as an excuse to cause trouble!” She struck him with the flat of her sword, pushing him back. He looked up, hand over his cheek, eyes wide. “I don’t think Malos relayed the message to Jin. I didn’t really expect him to. But since you’re here? Lora-“
“I know,” Mikhail cut her off. “She’d be disappointed.”
“Nope,” Mythra growled. “I think the words I used were ‘fucking disgusted.’”
“Well,” Mikhail rolled his shoulders. “She’s not here, is she?”
“Nope,” Mythra admitted, still staring at him. “But every single night, I hope you go to sleep, remember what it is Malos did, and hope you feel the shame she would feel over you associating yourself with that monster.”
Mikhail tilted his head to the side. “You’re a monster too.”
“Maybe,” Mythra tremored in place. “But you know what? I’m not the one who went around, destroying villages for kicks. Like yours.” Mythra gnashed her teeth. “Like Torigoth. No, wait - that one wasn’t Malos’s fault, it was Gort’s. Still, I can’t imagine she’d be very happy with you associating with anyone who could destroy a village without a second thought like that. She lost her mother too, but you saw how it affected her, and she wouldn’t have turned into anything like you.”
Mikhail opened his mouth to snarl back at her - but Mythra was already moving.
Golden light exploded outward from her Core Crystal, her blade glowing white-hot as she surged forward. The floor cracked beneath her shoes as she launched herself at him.
Her first swing shattered the gauntlet raised to block it. Metal peeled back with a shriek, shards spinning through the air. Mikhail staggered, trying to raise the other arm, but she was already inside his guard, her sword battering him across the jaw.
The blow sent him spinning, blood arcing across the air, and before he could find his footing Mythra was there again, driving her knee into his gut. He folded around the strike with a strangled gasp.
“Five hundred years,” Mythra spat, dragging him back up by the collar. Her face was wild, eyes glowing like twin suns. “And this is what you chose!?” She smashed her forehead into his.
The boy she remembered - awkward, quiet Mikhail, hiding behind Lora’s skirt when strangers got too close - flashed through her mind. The boy who carried water for the camp, who smiled when Milton made fun of Mythra for her cooking behind her back when he thought she couldn’t see him.
And then, overlaid with that memory: this man, grinning through broken teeth, a member of a group that called Malos a significant player.
Mikhail let out a choked gasp. “Cressidus!”
Mikhail’s Blade jumped in to assist. Mythra swung her sword, catching the Blade’s side and knocking him over like a bowling pin.
“You want to blame humanity for what happened to you? Fine! But Milton was human! Hugo was human! Lora was human! And they were better than you ever will be!”
She raised her sword high, golden jets spilling off its edges.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Mik as he once was - sitting cross-legged by the fire, face smeared with stew as Milton teased him, Lora’s soft laughter echoing in the background.
Then she saw him as he was now - bloodied, sneering, echoing Malos’s rhetoric about humans and the world.
Her blade came down.
The strike tore through his guard, slicing deep into his arm. Mikhail screamed as Mythra pressed forward, another swing slamming into his side, another tearing into his shoulder, and a third going into his leg.
“You could have been better!” She howled. “You should have been better! I didn’t fight for you to turn into this!”
“Then why’d you leave!?” Mikhail demanded. “All that power – you could’ve stopped it! Could’ve saved us!”
“How!?” Mythra screamed. “When all my power does is hurt people!? When it gets the ones I love killed!? When it makes people look at me like I’m a monster!?” She remembered him, shoving her back, when Milton had died. “You hated me when I was around, you hate me because I left – enough with the damned if I do, damned if I don’t bullshit!”
Mikhail lifted both gauntlets, crossing his arms to catch Mythra’s strikes.
“Get away from him you bitch!” Patroka snarled, as a blast hit Mythra in the back and launched her forward.
“Mythra!” Rex bellowed
The Doctor dribbled the bitball in his hand, glancing away from Perdido as Patroka sprinted towards where Mythra had landed. He dropped the ball, kicking it clear through the air right into Patroka’s head, knocking her off-balance.
“Nice shot!” Nia complimented, jumping away from one of Perdido’s swipes as he kept engaging with her, Vandham, and Mòrag. She landed near the Doctor, looking sideways at him. “Mythra’s had plenty of chances to end Mikhail – I don’t think she’s gonna do it!”
Cressidus lunged for Albedo, trying to grab the metal sword out of her hands. Albedo couldn’t really fight back, throwing herself away and rolling all over the floor, frantically scrambling out of the way as Cressidus jumped, landed, and pounded the floor where she’d been.
The Doctor’s mind went into overdrive. No Sonic Screwdriver, no way to easily constrict the flow of Ether, or shut down the Blades.
Mythra staggered to her feet, and looked up, right as Patroka closed in to sock her in the face. Mythra let out a snarl, grappling with Patroka, keeping the woman’s cannon from being pointed at her.
Rex let out a gasp. “Mythra!” His legs surged, carrying him in that direction.
Mikhail jumped into Rex’s path. “Sorry, kid. But you aren’t getting near her.”
“Mikhail!” Nia snarled, jumping to Rex’s side, slashing at him with the rings in her hand. Sparks gushed off the gauntlets. “Try and stop us!”
Mikhail grunted, clawing and swiping at both.
Perdido pushed Vandham back, the merc rolling his shoulders as he glanced at Mòrag. “Listen, I’ve got an idea.”
“Do you now?” Mòrag replied. “Is it like your plan that resulted in a bar fight, or is it a real one this time?”
“Real one,” Vandham snorted. “Wind and fire – bad mix.”
Mòrag’s eyebrows shot up pleasantly. “I like the way you think.” She began to flick the whipswords in her hands, kicking up sapphire flames and carving gashes into the floor.
Vandham slammed together his scythes, and pushed the resulting airflow forward, blasting Perdido in the face with the flames while Mòrag advanced. She surged from a slow march into a sprint, throwing fireballs ahead of her at the Blade. Another gust of wind from Vandham, and a few of the flames were directed over at Cressidus, searing the Blade on the back.
The Doctor hurled Crossette’s Bitball at Mikhail’s head, breaking his concentration and rushing in to replace Rex, allowing the boy to sprint around, to Mythra and Patroka.
“Mythra!” Rex yelled at her. “The sword! The sword!”
Mythra responded, throwing her sword right at Rex. He caught it in both hands, Patroka breaking her grip to whip around and shoot at the salvager. Foresight flooded his vision, and Rex ducked, rolled, and jumped away from the shots.
“Stay still you slippery little bastard!” Patroka demanded as her shots missed, even the ones she was leading in front of him.
Mythra glared, delivering a kick to Patroka’s shins, enough to send her off-balance. Mythra leapt to Rex’s side.
“You know, you really had me worried for a second there!” Rex remarked as Mythra took her position.
“You shouldn’t have,” Mythra shook her head, then glanced at the crane, over where Patroka was still standing. “Get the rest of them over with her. I’ve got an idea.”
“An i-“ Rex began to repeat, shaking his head. “Everyone hear that!?”
“Aye!” Vandham replied.
Mòrag snapped her wrists. Brighid’s whipswords traced two burning ribbons that crossed the floor and flared up into a low wall of blue fire. “Perdido, your footing is about to become very unfortunate.” She advanced in measured steps, the line inching forward like a piston.
Vandham read the cue, the air around him gathering with a hungry hiss. “Roc!” His twin scythes clanged together, and a violent gust bulled into Perdido’s chest. The four-armed Blade dug in with all four weapons, but the wind chewed at his stance, boots rasping across stone. Another sweep of Mòrag’s flame licked in from the flank and he yielded ground rather than let the fire kiss his shins.
“Keep her there,” Mythra ordered Rex, eyes on Patroka by the crane. “Don’t let her take a step!”
“What, like I was gonna?” Rex returned.
Patroka fired to break the net forming around her. The blast slapped Mythra’s shoulder and scorched the pillar beyond. “You can’t hold me!” She drove her boot down and cracked the floor as she made leverage, bringing the cannon to bear again.
“What’s the matter, Patroka!? Scared you’re not the baddest bitch in the room anymore?” said Nia, already moving. Dromarch’s rings flashed. A bright geyser of water gushed out from the rings and tore through the air, forcing Patroka to adjust her stance. “Careful,” Nia sang, rings scything to clip Patroka’s knuckles. The cannon dipped. “Trigger’s gonna get rusty!”
The Doctor sprinted for the control dais at the base of the crane, Crossette’s bitball tucked to his side like a footballer shielding a pass. “Right, lever logic, pulleys, brakes, probably something that should have a warning label.” He skidded in, stared at a panel of knobs and a rust-coloured wheel, and chose the wheel. It howled as he spun it. The crane’s trolley squealed along its rail, hook swaying over the open floor between Patroka and her allies. “Lovely. Not sure what that did, but, it did it!”
Rex rushed past the hook’s shadow, Foresight breaking across his vision in brief flashes. He saw Mikhail dart to intercept him, and saw the gauntlet swing that would shear him from hip to shoulder. He dropped under the punch and popped up with the flat side of Mythra’s sword, driving Mikhail back. “Mik, move it,” Rex said with no malice, only urgency. “Or we will move you.”
“Try,” Mikhail grunted, lunging again.
“Eyes front,” Mythra snapped, as Rex drove him three steps farther with a series of precise, heavy strikes that kept him off-balance without giving him a clean counter. Each parry he attempted knocked him back into the invisible current the others were shaping.
Cressidus bull-rushed to break the formation. Albedo squeaked as the Blade’s hand swept for her sword again. She feinted left, then hurled the steel straight up, missing his Core, but causing a jolt that allowed Vandham to kick Cressidus back towards the crane as well.
Perdido tried a different tactic. His four ether weapons struck in a cross, not at a person but at the fireline itself. The lash of energy tore a hole the size of a doorway.
“Ah ah,” Mòrag chided, colouring the breach with a fan of sapphire flame from her free palm. Vandham’s next gust bellied the flame into a sheet and drove it like a sail. Perdido swore and retreated two long strides straight toward the crane’s shadow.
“Close the lane,” Mythra called. Rex stepped through with her, their blades weaving a fence that channelled Mikhail, Cressidus and Perdido together. Nia and Dromarch drenched the flanks again, shaping a half-ring that turned that pooled into hyper-slick puddles where the fire wasn’t.
Patroka saw it. She snarled, tried to spring out and take the high ground on a stack of crates, and nearly went slipping on Nia’s water. Brighid’s lash snapped round the cannon’s barrel and reefed it down.
“Yield,” Mòrag said, calm as a magistrate.
Patroka planted, muscles straining. “Make me.”
Mòrag set her face, jumped, and brought both whips cracking down into the floor, sending a torrent of fire at the four. All four members of Torna braced, while Rex sent out a similar strike of light.
Mythra jumped into the air, glowing, her core crystal bleeding aqua-green light.
The glow shone down upon the room, drawing all eyes upward.
Mikhail stared, awe bleeding into horror. “Uh oh…”
Mythra pointed straight at them.
Mikhail’s eyes popped open, as he spun to look at Patroka. “RUN-“
A ray of light tore through a layer of the rocks near the edge of the docking area, carving through the stone and impacting right where the four were standing. The blinding light seared and scorched everyone’s eyelids, before it abated just as quickly, leaving the four barely standing, bracing on the floor.
Nia let out an incredulous splutter. “No bloody way! How’re they standing after that!?”
“That is a Type-IV vehicle-grade variable laser cannon.” The Doctor recited with a hint of smug pride. “Mythra calculated the exact power output needed to subdue, not kill.”
Mikhail let out a choked wheeze, looking over as Cressidus’s core cracked and dissolved. Perdido faded away as well, becoming dust on the wind. Both weapons they held, similarly, disintegrated.
The Doctor’s expression changed. “Well. Subdue the two non-Blades.”
Patroka searched around, looking, searching for the last traces of her Blade. “Why you… you…” She shook with rage. “You pieces of trash!”
“You know, that’s a bit rich, coming from you,” Nia retorted.
“I’ll slaughter you all!” Patroka’s eyes flashed, as a whirlwind of red ether kicked up around her. “I’ll destroy you where you stand!”
“Oh, what the hell-!?” Nia spluttered, recoiling.
“Stop!” Mikhail bellowed. “Patroka, you can’t use that here!”
Patroka began to stomp in the direction, the Ether she was generated punching the others in the face.
Mòrag let out a grunt. “What the-!? What is this!?”
Vandham crossed the scythes in his hands. “That kind of power… she’s-!”
Patroka let out a snarl… then stumbled.
Brighid gasped. “Something’s wrong – I can feel it!”
The Doctor tilted his head, lifting his hand as everything began to feel a little… emptier. Less charged. Literally, the energy in the air was dropping.
Patroka’s whirlwind suddenly and sharply cut out, as the woman herself dropped to the floor.
“Patroka!” Mikhail rushed over to her side.
“M-My body,” Patroka grunted, like it was a chore for her to even brace herself on the floor. “I can’t- My Ether!“
“What!?” Mikhail sensed a shift in the air, looking up. “No…” He looked over towards the group. “It can’t be. Not her too!”
The others followed Mikhail’s look, finding a fifth person who hadn’t entered the factory with them just… calmly walking, holding a glowing staff. She looked very serene, wearing some manner of what looked to be holy or royal robes. The Doctor was tempted to draw a comparison to a shrine maiden.
“You know, for a secret factory, sure seems like everybody’s getting in the place,” Nia muttered.
“I think that’s because of us,” The Doctor stared at the glowing end of the staff. “Breaking down the door.”
“Oh, yeah, that’d do it,” Nia mumbled.
The newcomer walked by, catching Rex’s eye, as well as Mythra’s.
Mythra stared, wide-eyed, blank. “Haze…”
Mythra speaking seemed to kick Mikhail into action.
“So, that’s how it is,” Mikhail growled. “Come on, Patroka!” Without even waiting for her answer, he picked her up, slinging and carrying her over his shoulder.
“What!? No! Let me down, dumbfuck!” Patroka thrashed and struggled as Mikhail walked over to the edge. “I’m going to kill them!” She kicked. “If you don’t let me down, I’ll-!”
“I know, I know,” Mikhail rolled his eyes. “Kill me, then kill them, right?”
“Shut up!”
Mòrag tore into a sprint as Mikhail neared the edge. “You’re not getting away that easily!”
But as he neared the edge, the dock began to rumble, as the Cloud Sea broke, allowing a dark, metal silhouette through. Mikhail jumped aboard.
“I’ve got this one!” Vandham snarled.
Cannons mounted to the top swivelled, and began to fire, missing, but forcing the others back.
“That ship!” Rex bellowed in recognition. “It’s the one that tried to kill us way back when!”
“You cowards!” Nia spat. “Hiding your getaway where we can’t see it!”
Mikhail just offered her a sly salute in response. His head turned. “Mythra!” He called as his ship pulled out of port. “It was nice catching up! Remember what I said!” His voice faded as the ship set sail out onto the horizon of clouds, shrinking.
“NO!” Mòrag foamed at the mouth, watching as the ship broke the clouds, and submerged into them, vanishing like it had never been there. “…they got away.”
The metal clacked softly as the robed woman walked up to the edge.
“…my apologies,” She softly spoke, face pinched with worry and the slightest hint of sorrow. “If I had only arrived sooner, perhaps I could have stopped it.”
Vandham shook his head. “Nah. Would’ve just pulled the same trick.”
Mòrag spun around, her eyebrows climbing up. “Fan la Norne?”
Rex’s head snapped in her direction. “What? Mòrag, you know her?”
Brighid shot him a look. “Fan la Norne is one of the most important blades of the Praetorium. They call her the Goddess of the Praetorium.”
“Fan la…” Mythra struggled under her breath, looking at the woman. “Goddess…”
“She’s beloved and relied upon by many in the Praetorium,” Albedo supplied, walking up as well.
“Oh, I shouldn’t say that,” Fan dipped her head sheepishly. “I simply do what’s right.”
“Even still, you’re not someone who just turns up for the fun of it,” Mòrag recognized. “To what do we owe the pleasure, ma’am?”
Fan began to speak.
“Friends! Friends!” Came the call from down the hallway, and they turned to see Poppi come sprinting in. In her arms, carried bridal-style, missing all her extremities, was KOS-MOS. “Poppi beat KOS-MOS in fair combat! Day is saved! Mor Ardain need not fear attacks by powerful but smartly-dressed Artificial Blades any longer!” She stopped, looking about curiously. She took stock of the battleground, the damage, and the mood among her friends. “Poppi’s subroutines indicate, and all analysis concur: Poppi miss something very important!”
“Okay!” Nia turned, pointing at the long hall. “Can somebody block off that door!?”
------------
T-elos was seriously starting to get impatient. Whoever that member of Torna was, it was a bad look on them, making her wait like this. She hated waiting, after decades of being forced to do it.
So, T-elos occupied herself, walking the cliffsides and the quagmires with almost-bored detachment. She’d seen quite a few landscapes like this – scoured of life and petrified. Last time she was active in Alrest, the enemy did it on purpose. It made it harder for the humans to congregate and survive in areas he deemed unfit.
And it was just so typical of the humans to try to set up in those places anyway. The soil was barren, the life that remained were things that existed only to kill what didn’t die off before, the weather itself was anathema to living things, and yet they set up there anyway. Either because they were stubborn, wanted something-
Or, judging by the different sets of armour worn by the two groups set up on opposite ends of the Titan, were looking for a good-old-fashioned scrap in the ruins of an ancient civilisation.
T-elos couldn’t fault them. There was no better stage for it.
It was a shame, though. Temperantia had been Judicium long ago, Giannis had said. There was no evidence left of that. The city blocks were gone, there was no evidence of the lakes and the parks that had sprung up around them, and no ruins at all seemed to be left. It was just grey, and dull, and boring. A real shame.
For a mass grave, it looked awfully empty.
So, she walked, and she watched. The air stank of powder and diesel, the wind howled incessantly, and the palpable tension of two Alligators about to brawl with one another lingered in the atmosphere.
It was almost peaceful.
But, alas, all good things must come to an end (or, rather, some jackass would see them and put them to an end, but that jackass was usually her).
She felt him before she saw him. She usually did, with Blades. They sucked Ether up from the air like sponges, and radiated a processed form of the stuff like heat. Even a cyborg that wasn’t state-of-the-art, if it was worth its salt, would be able to detect a Blade.
Her eyes searched the area, and when she didn’t see anything, she scowled. Her fingers touched the side of her headpiece, and her visor slid down over her eyes. The vast array of sensors and scanners built within analysed the area, tagging a silhouette hiding behind a rock.
T-elos’s visor slid up, as she drew her revolver. “I don’t know if this is a mugging or someone stalking the incredible white-haired beauty they saw wandering around this gravel pit of a Titan, but whatever this is, you’d better show yourself.”
The stone crunched as he walked out from behind the rock, hand on the grip of his sword, clad in white armour with a matching, short-sleeved coat, similarly-coloured hair, and a mask with horns on it.
“Impressive,” He grunted. “I wasn’t making any noise.”
“Yeah, everybody thinks they’re hot stuff until they run into me,” T-elos flippantly shrugged. “You’re not the first, you won’t be the last.”
He let out a grunt. “I’m sure. The Praetorium has its favourites – I’d expect any of them to be sent out here – but you’re someone new. Why?”
T-elos’s eyebrows climbed mockingly. “Oh? Did I get your attention?” She flipped her hair. “If you must know, I’m more powerful than any Blade that walks the surface of this planet.”
He hummed in low doubt. “I highly doubt that.”
“Believe it or not, doesn’t change the facts. So, if this is some kind of hazing deal, or just trying to jump the lone woman in a dangerous place, forget it. Now, run along home – I’ve got business to take care of here.”
He didn’t respond, face pinching in displeasure.
T-elos rolled her eyes, cocking her hip and lowering the revolver slightly. “What’s the matter, Mask-boy? Cat got your tongue? Or are you trying to look mysterious and dangerous so I’ll drop it?” She smirked, flicking a strand of white hair back over her shoulder. “I’ll save you the trouble: it’s not happening.”
His voice came out harsh and clipped. “I’m not here for games. You serve the Praetorium. That makes you my enemy.”
T-elos grinned. “Oh, you’re him, aren’t you? That Torna guy the little birdie said was going to come here.”
His head tilted in subdued concern. “You knew I was coming?”
“I knew someone was,” She shrugged. “He didn’t say who. But I guess it must be you, isn’t it?”
The masked man’s features set, as he gripped his sword.
T-elos sighed. “Figures. All that walking around this Titan for nothing. And here I thought I might actually get some answers instead of another white-haired bastard with a superiority complex.” She shook her head. “Look, I hate to break it to you if you’re that hungry for a good fight, but I’m not here to polish Amalthus’s boots or sing his hymns. I’m here for a chat. So, why don’t you drop that sword, and we’ll straighten things out, hm?”
“Talking,” He growled. “I have nothing to say to someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” T-elos snorted. “Great. Look, you tell me what you know about Amalthus, and we’ll be right as rain. Otherwise, I’m going to count to three, and you’re going to fuck off.”
“The Praetorium’s gotten away with enough.” His hand slid fully onto the hilt, Ether flaring faintly along the edge of his weapon as though it could sense his intent. “Whatever it is Amalthus wants here, he won’t be getting it. You won’t leave Temperantia alive.”
There was a click as T-elos pulled the hammer back on her revolver. “Really? You sure? I’d hate to smash up that pretty little mask.”
T-elos wasn’t sure if it was the hammer cocking, or the threat to his shitty little kabuki mask, but either way, it got a reaction out of him.
The guy’s grip closed around his sword, and he flickered. T-elos’s battle computer engaged reflexively at the sudden burst of activity from her hostile, slowing down time enough for her to calculate against and manage her enemy.
One moment he was five strides away, the next he was in front of her, nodachi drawn and humming with Ether, with a line of hissing, pale white fog dancing along its edge. His blade sliced through the space T-elos had just been occupying, carving through the afterimage left in her wake as she jumped back, propelled by her manoeuvring jets. The revolver bucked in her hand as she squeezed the trigger and her enemy twisted mid-air to avoid the point-blank shot. The bullet clipped his shoulder, causing him to let out a grunt of pain.
The next blow came before her boots hit the ground, aimed for her legs. T-elos arched her body, twisting with dancer’s grace and pushing all her might into her cybernetic calves. She launched herself skyward, flipped mid-air, and let off two more shots - one aimed at the sword arm, the other dead centre of his chest.
He let out a snarl as she landed.
T-elos’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as she remained standing. “Huh. I’ve gotten pretty good at killing you Blades, and that kind of thing usually does the trick.” She narrowed her eyes. “Where’s your Core, tough guy?”
He narrowed his eyes.
T-elos let out a tired sigh. “Well, I’ll figure it out. Not very many places it can be.”
He moved again, nodachi coming down in a downward stroke like a guillotine’s blade. She hit the flat side of the sword with the back of her fist, wrenching his arms to the side, and she took aim again, square at his forehead. The man dodged to the side, as T-elos fired two more shots, and he swung his sword at her open side.
Deciding the gun wasn’t really working, T-elos stowed her revolver, and drew her scythe, catching the sword with the shaft.
The masked-man’s eyes narrowed. “You’re fast.”
“So are you,” T-elos sweetly replied, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t know very many Blades that can dodge bullets. None, really.”
“You’re not a Blade,” He growled.
“Oh, really, you don’t think so?”
He pulled his sword back to strike again, and the fight resumed.
It was faster now – swords moving so fast they looked like streaks in the air. The masked man attacked with surgical precision, his nodachi cleaving through air in quick, decisive, arcs that left ice in their wake. Ice shards shattered in every direction with each clash, creating a glittering storm around them that forced T-elos to blink it out of her eyes.
T-elos met him with inhuman ferocity. Her scythe spun, reversed, and snapped in her hands, the curved blade locking, parrying, and deflecting. With each movement, panels on her body shifted to vent Ether exhaust or boost her movements. Sheer speed was countered with tactical data fed straight to her muscles by her battle computer. She leapt, spun, and slammed the blunt end of her scythe into the cliff face, using it to anchor herself on it as she twirled upon it and kicked him square in the chest.
He slid back - just for a second - then blinked forward again.
The scythe came back up, catching the nodachi again.
“You’re not like the others they’ve sent to kill me over the years,” He said, breath tight. “Where’ve they been hiding you?”
“Oh, easy, in the basement.”
He looked floored momentarily. “The basement.”
“Mmm-hmm.” T-elos hummed. “It was your standard ‘stasis’ kind of deal. The long sleep, without the permanence.”
His brow furrowed. “Who are you?”
“Let’s see,” She looked up for a moment to think. “Well, since you don’t recognize who I am by my face, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the alias I used the last time I was kicking around this place is not something you’d recognize anyway. So, call me T-elos.”
He grunted. “Jin.”
“I didn’t ask – but it is nice to have a name for the man whose ass I’m about to kick.”
Jin shook his head. “You won’t. But it’s rare that I meet one capable of giving me a challenge.”
“I’m better than all of them,” She snapped, eyes shining bright. “Now stop talking shit. If you’re so good, let me see it, hot stuff.”
Jin’s sword dropped for a second - just long enough to shudder in anger, before he raised it again. “Very well. If you insist.” The air warped. His Ether exploded outward, kicking up wind as cold blue light bled from his form.
His white armour dissolved, replaced by something that looked like sculpted obsidian, or insect chitin, with glowing points of blue light. His chest was exposed, revealing a long, diagonal scar right over his heart.
Then he vanished.
This time, T-elos’s battle computer kicked into high gear – and still, she couldn’t see him.
Not until he’d already slammed into her. His sword cut through her chest, severing plating and circuits in a swift, surgical strike. T-elos screamed, twisting and backhanding him hard across the face, her eyes wide with genuine pain.
He slid away, but only barely.
“That- oh, you stupid son of a bitch,” T-elos glared. “You will regret that.”
Jin tilted his head, surprised that she was still standing.
“You can’t keep up with me,” He ground out. “I can alter the speed of elementary particles.”
T-elos’s mind sparked with possibilities. “Really now?” She ran some quick calculations in her head. “All right. Come at me.”
Jin scowled. “Did you not hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you, but one of us – and I’m not naming names – actually knows what in the fuck they’re talking about.” T-elos flicked a mental switch, and part of her chest armour unfolded.
Jin tensed, muscles twitching as he prepared to take another step.
T-elos didn’t give him the chance.
A pulse of heat and light erupted from the cannon - a beam of red that cut through the air and slammed into him, enveloping him. On instinct, Jin raised his blade to defend, but the blast wasn’t meant to injure.
Jin took a step – and he really did only take a single step. He looked about, confused.
“What…?” He rasped.
T-elos stood there, chest weapon still glowing, a triumphant sneer etched across her blood-slicked face.
“Gotcha,” she breathed, shoulders rising and falling. “You’ve got no idea how lucky you are that was a minimum-output shot.”
Jin’s eyes twitched.. “What… did you do?”
“You’re the one who started talking about elementary particles,” T-elos said, voice now edged with a disturbingly smug confidence. “So, you tell me. When you’re using your little speed trick - you’re altering particles in your body, right? Lowering the rest mass of every particle in your body so that it’s zero, so you don’t have to do that difficult thing of harnessing infinite energy to get yourself up to lightspeed conventionally.”
She walked toward him slowly, the emitter still humming even as it folded away. “But the thing about messing around with fundamental particles like that? To do that, you’d need to decouple them from the Higgs field. Fine enough, but by doing that, you stop obeying classical physics, and start slipping out of synchronisation with the local space-time manifold.”
She strutted around in front of him, unperturbed. “And if someone else - say, a state-of-the-art battle android – just so happens to have a weapon like, say, a Hilbert Effect Generator, specifically built to collapse exotic phase states and force particles back into a coherent frame of reference, where they obey classical constraints like mass and inertia…” She clapped her hands, and spread them, letting the sentence hang. “Well, to put it simply you won’t be running around for quite a while.”
With a furious snarl, he surged forward, nodachi gripped in both hands, icy Ether flaring to life along its edge, lunging a stab aimed straight for T-elos’s abdomen.
T-elos just rolled her eyes
Before the blade had even twitched, T-elos’s battle computer had already calculated fifty-thousand possible angles of attack. Two hundred and twelve counters, ninety-six optimal outcomes, and twelve different humiliations.
She chose the one that hurt worst.
Her body moved with mechanical certainty - pivoting, sidestepping half a degree, and grappling his sword arm mid-lunge. Her fingers closed, and with a twist, she ripped him sideways by the elbow. The blade missed her completely.
He tried to roll with it, but she had too much raw strength.
Jin hit the ground with a bone-jarring crash. His sword clattered out of reach, bouncing once before dissolving into Ether.
Before he could react, before he could even shift his weight - she was on him.
T-elos straddled him in a blink. One hand on his sternum. The other pressed to the ground beside his face. And then, with slow, terrible finality, her heel came down on his throat. Not crushing - but pinning. Immoveable.
He glared up at her, breath ragged, frost still curling from the corners of his mouth.
T-elos tilted her head, watching him coolly. The wind blew her white hair across her face in silky ribbons, blue eyes narrowed and glowing.
“Well, would you look at that.” She purred, voice low. “That mask wasn’t just for show.”
Jin blinked, straining to reach to his face, but before he even touched it, he knew. He glanced to the side, and saw the mask laying on the ground, launched off him from when he’d been flipped, cracked – but, not shattered, at least – down the middle.
“I’ll tell you, it’s a mighty unusual color.”
Jin grunted, moving to grab her ankle.
“Ah ah ah!” T-elos drove her foot into his neck further, the spike on her heel dangerously close to breaking skin. “Unless you want to be breathing through a new stoma in your neck, I’d calm down, if I were you.”
“Then kill me,” Jin growled. “You have me at your mercy.”
“Kill you?” T-elos rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to kill you, dipshit. I was sent here to talk, so, I’m gonna talk.”
“Talk.” Jin flatly repeated. “About what?”
“You’re Torna, right? I was sent here to hear your ‘testimony’ or whatever about Amalthus.” She flippantly waved her hand. “The man who sent me here says he can’t be trusted.”
“You’re from the Praetorium.” Jin retorted. “Why would you need to hear that?”
“Because I want up that World Tree, and I’ve been told Amalthus won’t honour his end of the deal, so, I want to hear proof to support that before I shoot him in the head and really put myself up a creek.”
“He’s right,” Jin answered instantly. “About Amalthus.”
“Really?” T-elos drawled, taking the pressure off Jin’s neck. “Tell me more.”
-------------
It was suspicious that Haze, or Fan, or whatever she was going by, turned up just right about the time that Torna was there, angry about the Praetor, while claiming to be on the Praetor’s business.
The Doctor didn’t believe in coincidence. Which had been said before, yes, but it bore repeating. The universe didn’t really have room for things like ‘destiny,’ but there were a vast array of moving mechanisms, events nested within events, that all pushed and pulled on one another. ‘Coincidence’ was a slur, if you asked him.
No, writing things off as coincidence was lazy. He didn’t need to think on it for too long, though.
Apparently, in addition to the whole host of people who wanted to hunt them down, one of those included Praetor Amalthus. Whom… the Doctor wasn’t quite sure what to feel about, in the moment.
Azurda had dropped a few useful nuggets of information, that painted the Praetor’s policies as rather totalitarian, what with controlling the distribution of sentient beings. Cole had said the Praetor couldn’t be trusted. Mikhail had thrown some rather venomous words.
Fan, although she appeared as sweet as a kitten, was kept far, far at arm’s length, where the Time Lord was concerned.
It wasn’t a ‘yes, of course, let’s do it’ sort of deal. But, everything was suggesting Amalthus was someone he very much needed to see. So, they accepted.
“What an odd crate,” Fan had said while looking at the TARDIS. “What’s inside?”
“Oh, you know, stuff. And things.” The Doctor had replied. It was harsh, but he trusted her less than Vandham. So, they all just loaded up, and set sail.
When they got to cruising, Poppi at last had laid KOS-MOS down on a bed in the cabin, next to the TARDIS. Fan was outside, watching over the ship, so, this was their deal.
“Oh, Mary…” The Doctor murmured, his hands running over her face with pinched concern. He closed his eyes, touching his forehead to hers. “You’re in a right old state, old friend…”
Vandham let out a low whistle. “She’s got hellacious battle scars, I’ll tell you that.”
Poppi stood almost like a soldier, hands behind her back – easily the tallest woman in the room, now. “Poppi do her best not to cause catastrophic damage. But KOS-MOS was very tough cookie.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” The Doctor began to look over KOS-MOS’s other areas, peeking inside the tears in her armour caused by the fighting. “She took a direct hit from a laser blast.” He glanced over at Poppi. “How did you get her, in the end?”
“Poppi do something very clever!” Poppi proudly nodded. “Poppi disable KOS-MOS’s limbs, then trick KOS-MOS into showing Poppi where control circuit was! But, removing circuit shut down KOS-MOS. Poppi not sure why.”
“Ah, basic motor function override,” Tatazo beat his wings. “Same trick used to take control of Lila from Tatazo.”
“Tora not understand why Bana do something like that,” Tora shook his head. “Control unit compromise processor speed and potential utility.”
“Ah, well, you see, when you train an AI to always provide accurate data and to be as helpful as possible, especially taking into account morality and justice, it’s just easier to override it, instead of retraining a whole new personality.” The Doctor hummed in response.
“But didn’t you say KOS-MOS was from the future?” Nia frowned. “How’d Bana and his cronies even manage that?”
“Well, it’s simple.” The Time Lord gesticulated. “You know how you have conscious parts of your brain and autonomic functions? The control unit tapped into KOS-MOS’s lower processes, and took control of her through that – a little bit like jacking a tesla coil into somebody’s spine and remote controlling them that way.”
Albedo cocked a hip with a frown. “I highly doubt that’s something a group of Nopon could do. You said she was from the 73rd century.”
“I said it would be totally alien to them if they went through her operating system. They didn’t. They used mechanical control. Doesn’t matter how good your firewalls are if someone can just walk into your home and plug what they want into your router.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his spectacles, and placed them on his face, looking closer at the damage. Then, he examined the control unit Poppi had torn out, that he now held in his hands. “This is a very clever thing. A very bad thing. Jam it in there and send electrical impulses to see what activates, then write them down. Very brute-force learning, but it can be done quick once you figure out what accesses the reward and punishment system.”
Pyra’s head whipped over, and she looked concerned. “Punishment system?”
“KOS-MOS fancy kind of learning machine, just like Poppi.” Tora explained readily. “Have to learn which things are good, and which things are bad, so, give them reward and punishment, just like littlepons get when growing up.”
“In Poppi, it show up as big happiness when upholding truth, justice, and Nopon way,” Poppi picked up. “When do something unethical, it manifest as great shame and guilt. Bana and Muimui’s device can trigger those things at will.”
“And… that’s what they did to Lila,” Rex murmured.
“Right right,” Tatazo confirmed.
“Never mind that,” Nia turned back and pointed at Poppi. “What the hell happened to you!? You’ve gone from maid to… to…”
“Superhero!” Poppi proudly declared, her hands on her hips. “Poppi like new design. Make Poppi feel very powerful. Nia and friends so small, next to Poppi.”
Nia blinked dryly. “Yeah. Rub it in.”
“It is quite the transformation,” Dromarch spoke up. “But you’ll forgive me for wondering how it happened.”
Nia pointed at him in agreement.
“Well,” Poppi touched a gloved hand to her chin. “Poppi not entirely sure herself. Poppi hit floor. Break apart. Feel sad, because then KOS-MOS was going to hurt friends… then, Poppi pop right back up! Right as rain! And in new form she know how to use like old one.”
“Well it had to be something!”
“Ah, right, yes, of course,” The Doctor cleared his throat. “That’ll be me.”
“You.” Nia turned to him, then gestured at Poppi. “You’re responsible for that.”
“Yes. No!” The Doctor suddenly shouted, looking away. “A little.”
Nia crossed her arms.
He rubbed his face. “Look, remember that module the TARDIS installed in Poppi?”
Tora gasped. “Weird egg thing!? That responsible for Poppi new super-mode!?”
The Doctor sighed. “It’s a regeneration unit. And through a very clever mix of hard-coded design instructions and block-transfer growth, it can repair robots in seconds, giving you-“ He pointed at Poppi, letting that be the end of it. “My dog had one.”
“Wha- but-!?” Crossette spluttered. “The TARDIS did that ages ago!? Why?”
“Well, she obviously knew we’d be fighting KOS-MOS.” The Doctor flippantly shrugged, taking a bundle of wires from the android and twisting them together. “Like – knocking someone out to replace their pacemaker because it’s vulnerable to radio signals to save their life because you know it’ll kill them. And yes, I have done that before.”
“B-But-“ Tora sputtered. “TARDIS completely mess with Tora’s hard work and careful design philosophy! Now Tora have no idea what Poppi have going on now!”
“It okay, Masterpon.” Poppi smiled, reached down, and picked him up, cradling him like a big stuffed animal. “Poppi still same Poppi, just upgraded!”
“Ah, Poppi, put Tora down!”
Poppi did no such thing.
“So,” Rex crossed his arms. “What now?”
“Now, we settle in,” The Doctor reclined and kicked up his feet. “Fan’s taking us right to the big kahoona, just like we want.”
“Tatazo catch ship back to Gormott, first chance,” The little guy puffed up. “Tora’s workshop best place to start work, rebuilding Lila.”
“I meant about KOS-MOS,” Rex gestured. “What’re you gonna do with her?”
“Ah.” The Doctor coughed. He stood up, and hefted the broken android into his arms. “I’ve got questions, she’s got the answers, what else am I gonna do with her? I’m gonna ask.”
The Time Lord approached, and kicked the door to the TARDIS open, disappearing inside.
-----------
About an hour or so later, Vandham found Rex looking out over the Cloud Sea, at a distant Titan on the horizon.
The mercenary leaned on a wall, crossing his arms. “You all right?”
“I guess so,” Rex shrugged.
Vandham shook his head. “If the answer’s anything other than ‘yeah,’ you ain’t. What’s up?”
“I don’t know…” Rex took a breath, rubbing his face. “It’s just… the Praetor of Indol wants to speak with me. The Praetor. With me!”
“Yeah, he does.” Vandham grunted. “And?”
“And!?” Rex gestured about. “I mean- everybody’s saying all these things about him! And he’s the Praetor! And I’m just…” He spread his arms.
Vandham shook his head. “Rex. Remember what I said, about everybody wanting a piece of you? I meant that.” He gestured at the decking. “That can be if’n they’re looking for a fight, or if they’re looking to cosy up to you. You’ve got the Aegis. The Praetor’s probably gonna be the first in a long line.” He paused for a moment. “It ain’t right, but you’ve got something special, and there’re gonna be folks out there that know you ain’t gonna let them take her if she don’t wanna go, so they’re gonna try and butter you up and trick the both of you into doing what they want anyway.”
Rex looked down. “It’s not right. All Pyra and Mythra want is to be left alone.”
“Aye,” Vandham nodded. “But Amalthus and his ilk – they ain’t interested in what people want, only if they’re useful or not. If you are useful to ‘em, doesn’t matter what you want, they’ll do anything to get their claws on you.”
“Amalthus and his ilk? You mean Indoline?”
Vandham shook his head again. “Politicians!” He huffed. “The kind that spend so much time away from the trenches, they forget what it’s like.” He leaned on the railing, shaking his head. “Don’t get me wrong, there’re some good ones. But a business like that – you’ve gotta backstab, manipulate, jump on whatever chances you can get to make it just a little bit ahead of the other guy. If you wanna do anything, you gotta start thinking of people like resources. And Amalthus has been up there for five-hundred years.”
Rex turned to the merc, blinking. “You used to run with Cole, right? Amalthus was his driver, wasn’t he? You’ve met him?”
“Nah,” Vandham scrunched his face. “That was ‘fore my time. Way before. Centuries.”
Rex frowned to himself. Hadn’t he heard that Blades abandoned by their Drivers went mad? And Cole was apart from Amalthus for centuries?
“Before he got the Praetor job, anyway. Don’t rightly know what caused ‘em to fall out. Could’ve been anything.” Vandham hummed. He turned a stern look onto Rex. “Regardless, you remember going in there: Amalthus wants something you have. You’ve got all the bargaining power here. All this?” He gestured around. “The ship, Fan, the guards – they’re all meant to make you stop thinking about not doing what Amalthus wants. It’s like charm and intimidation rolled into one. Rich folks’ bread and butter.”
Rex looked at him, curious. “You sure do know a lot. Does your job take you to meet rich people a lot?”
“Not really. Not people like Amalthus. They don’t much like freelancers.” Vandham grunted. “Not when they can order around actual militaries, that are basically made by law to follow their orders. Us mercs… we’re like janitors to ‘em, at best. Best kept out of sight, doing only the dirty jobs, not associating with ‘em directly.”
“Then… how do you know?” Rex probed uncertainly. “That Amalthus wants to meet me for something bad?”
“I don’t.” Vandham could admit that at least. “But I’ve dealt with his kind enough to assume.”
“But, didn’t you say-“
“Not as a merc,” Vandham cut Rex off patiently. “It was before I got into this life. Way before.”
Rex looked intently at him for a while. “What did you do before you became a merc, Vandham?”
His head swivelled around to direct a look back at Rex. “What did you do before you went into salvaging?”
“Well,” Rex scratched his head. “Not much, I guess. Sat about, did… kid stuff, I guess.”
“That,” Vandham confessed with puckered lips that implied he was sharing a deep secret no one else could know. “Except I was a grown-ass man. Didn’t have a damn iota of responsibility in me. Hung out with a bunch of other spoiled rich folk that had the same problem. Then… well, stuff happens, as it does, and I got out of there. But, still carried all that forward with me. Word of advice, kid? Don’t forget where you came from. You’re gonna start rubbing shoulders with a lot of powerful people. And ain’t hardly any of ‘em your friends.”
“I’ll… remember that.” Rex blinked, uncertain.
“You’ll wanna. Trust me.” Vandham looked around. “Where is the lady, by the way?”
“You mean Mythra?” Rex pointed. At Vandham’s nod, he continued. “Talking to Fan, I think. Or Haze. Whatever her name is.” He frowned curiously. “Do you think Mythra really knows her? I mean, she probably does, there’s no reason not to believe her, but why’s she calling her Haze? Blade names don’t change between lives, right?”
“You’re right,” Vandham confirmed. “That’s in their core crystals, same as everything else but, Blades can take on aliases, just like the rest of us.”
“I guess that makes sense, yeah…” Rex scratched the back of his neck.
“It’s weird, though,” Vandham looked down with a slight frown. “Fan looked like she was missing part of her core.”
“Missing?” Rex repeated in surprise.
“You didn’t notice?”
Rex shook his head.
“Well, if you look at her chest, you’ll notice the socket that her Core Crystal sits in is a sideways square, even though the core itself is a triangle. Different shapes ain’t weird. What is weird is a Blade whose Core doesn’t fill the housing completely. That’s the whole reason why it’s there.”
“Huh.” Rex hummed. “What do you think happened?”
“I dunno,” Vandham admitted. “Could be anything.”
“Something to worry about?”
“Who knows?” The old merc shrugged. “Probably shouldn’t bring it up, though. Some people don’t like talking about their injuries.”
“Right,” Rex agreed, then prepared to settle in for the rest of the voyage. “Say, Vandham? That story you took your name from…”
Vandham grinned. “They’ve been a favourite of mine since I was younger than you. Why? Curious?
“Well, yeah.” Rex admitted easily.
“You can buy a collection of ‘em,” Vandham turned, looking out upon the sea. “…but, what the ‘ell, I’ll tell you one of my favourites. Strap in – you might learn something.”
Rex blanched. Judging by the way Vandham was looking like he was sharing an old war story, he wasn’t going to be getting out of it any time soon.
------------
Steam curled lazily out of the door behind her as Nia stepped onto the thick, plush carpet, her damp silver hair sticking to her neck in unruly tufts.
Mor Ardain’s stifling heat and grit that had glued itself to her skin, cemented on by sweat, had washed off easily under the hot water and vast assortment of strange soaps and shampoos the TARDIS had provided.
The TARDIS hummed gently around her, its pulse familiar now - like Dromarch’s snoring (speaking of whom, he was curled up on something that looked much like an oversized pet bed, large enough for three people.
A rumble came from Nia’s stomach, along with that familiar, hollow gnawing of hunger. And after the busy… well, everything, Nia belatedly realised that they hadn’t stopped for much snacking during the day.
So, she decided to make her way to the kitchen. Or the galley. Or the mess hall. Whatever they were called aboard ships.
The corridor twisted about in that way only the TARDIS could, winding about, looping back around itself in ways that should have put Nia back where she started, but put her in a different section of the ship entirely. Finally, she caught the faint scent of sugar and chocolate, which lured her like a trail of breadcrumbs.
She pushed open the double doors into what could generously be called a kitchen - though it was really more of a grand dining hall with a hearth at one end, a modern cooker at the other, and enough mismatched cupboards to make a carpenter cry from the mere thought of all the work that had to have gone into them.
Albedo was there, apron tied over that bodysuit… dress… thing (it had ends like a coat, and a cape, maybe), sleeves rolled up, muttering to herself as she fussed over a bowl.
“Sweetheart, you’re sure this is the right temperature?” The oven buzzed. “Honestly, I’ve half a mind to - no, no, I don’t mean it like that, I’m sorry…”
Nia coughed.
Albedo caught sight of her and straightened sharply. “Oh, Nia, welcome. Although this is hardly my kitchen to be welcoming you into. Don’t mind me - just a little… experiment.”
She set the bowl aside, as though hiding a secret, and presented what she did want noticed: an immaculate cake, dusted with chocolate shavings and crowned with cherries that glistened under the warm lights.
“Fresh from the TARDIS’s own cookbook. Germans do wonderful things with chocolate, apparently. I don’t know what a ‘German’ is, but apparently, this is one of their great foods. It comes from a place called the Black Forest. Care to be my first taster?”
Nia looked at it warily. “Urayan chocolit cake recipes are in the Doc’s cookbook?”
“No, not choclit, chocolate.” Albedo corrected. “This is much less bitter.”
Nia accepted the plate with a wary look, fork in hand. The cake looked indecently rich, each layer practically sagging under the weight of cream and cherries, with just enough liquid (was that liqueur she smelled?) soaking the sponge to glisten in the light.
She cut herself a modest bite - then the flavour hit.
The chocolate was dark, smooth, and not the least bit bitter; the cream whipped into air-light silk; the cherries sharp and sweet at once, cutting through in perfect balance. It was the sort of taste that rolled over her tongue like a thunderclap, drowning out every thought except one: more.
Nia’s head dipped back, and she let out a growl.
“Bloody hell – what did you put in this!?” Nia demanded, looking it over. “Red Pollen!? Is that what’s on the top of this thing!?” She poked one of the cherries. “There’s no way this is real.”
Albedo let out a proud, if haughty, snort. “I assure you, it’s a very real cake. Deception is not one of the ingredients.”
“Thanks, but,” Nia groaned again as her stomach rumbled. “I need some real food, damn it.” She got to her feet, and began looking about, curiously.
“Ah, yes, it’s a bad idea to fill up on dessert,” Albedo remarked, sitting down, flipping her hair over her shoulders. “I would stay away from the machines that spit out those little edible cubes though. They have the texture of pet food.”
Nia spotted the machine in question, she thought. A little dispenser with two knobs above the output slot. Next to it was a brushed-steel and black vinyl kiosk, with a picture of steaming cups, and a typewriter keyboard built-in. But she needed food, not something to drink.
“I suggest you look in the food warmer,” Albedo pointed with her head over at something that looked almost like an icebox.
Nia frowned, but listened. She opened it up, and sitting on the top rack, alone, there was a plate of food. Nia removed it, and blinked.
“Grass-smoked salmon… who made this?” Nia wondered.
Albedo shrugged. “It appears as though this kitchen is half for show. There’s implements for cooking if one wishes, otherwise,” She gestured to the warmer. “She takes care of it.”
Nia raised an eyebrow. “’She?’”
Albedo coughed. “The TARDIS.”
“You pointed at the food box when you said that.” Nia teased, before poking at the food, taste-testing it. “Mmm. Damn good, though. Whoever taught the spaceman’s ship how to cook definitely needs a raise.” She smacked her lips. “Speakin’ of, you see him around lately?”
Albedo hummed, crossing a leg over the other. “Not since he retreated into that room with the android.”
“Right. That.” Nia frowned to herself. He was awfully touchy-feeling regarding the thing. Which, she immediately shook her head about. She was, apparently, his old friend. But there was more to that story than what he was saying, that, Nia was sure of.
…honestly, though, what was the point in sitting around, thinking about it? She could just ask, like an adult.
“Right,” Nia picked up her plate. “Guess I’d better go find him.”
“All right, goodbye,” Albedo waved Nia away without hesitation, watching as she left. “Now, that souffle…”
Nia then began to wander the corridors. Naturally, she didn’t know where anything was in the place, but the Doctor had said “just get lost while thinking where you want to go,” hadn’t he? Well, she didn’t know for certain where she wanted to go, except wherever it was the Doctor was.
Another junction came up, and she paused. Beneath the ambient, purring-like hum of the TARDIS, there was another sound. A faint, irregular rhythm - metal striking metal, a muffled curse, then the whirr of some tool. Frowning, she tilted her head as she came to a door.
Rhythmic thumping and beating rumbled the rib-like lattice of hallways and the metal-coral struts supporting them. Then, faint words, twisted and warbling through the walls. Nia frowned, ears flicking.
“...I think I’m a clone now, there’s always two of me just hanging around.”
“...what’s that daft git up to now?” She murmured, eyes flicking to the circular button on the side of the door.
Nia pressed it, the button responding with a sound like an ice cube dropping into a glass of water, and the music stopped.
A moment later, the door opened, revealing the Doctor. His hair was matted to his face, hands covered in grease and cuts, with a pair of goggles on his face, his jacket gone… somewhere.
“Ah! Nia!” The Doctor gasped in delight. “Come in, come, yes, hello!” The Time Lord spun around, and strutted back in. “Ah, mind the Validium wires! Living metal, very handsy.”
The ‘workshop’ looked like the inside of somebody’s random scrap junk drawer. Things strewn across the floor, hanging from the ceiling, piled up in approximations of modern-art nonsense.
Across a workbench in the centre of the room, armour and skin peeled off to expose the metal and circuitry underneath, was KOS-MOS, motionless, her face slack like a doll.
“Just finished attaching the new limbs!” The Doctor reported happily, producing the Sonic Screwdriver to splice two wires together. When finished, he held the tool aloft proudly. “And look! A new one!”
“Wow, terrific,” Nia snorted, approaching the android and looking her over. “So, you’re actually fixing her?”
“Here, hold this - no, not that, the one that looks like a hedgehog’s been electrocuted. Yes, that, fantastic!” He places something like a metal ball covered in diodes into her hand, connecting wiring into it next.
“Well?” Nia raised an eyebrow.
“Of course I’m repairing her – she’s one of my friends.” The Doctor answered like the mere idea of doing otherwise was completely alien to him.
Nia stared. “You said she helped you. Were you and her…?”
“No,” The Doctor shivered instantly. “Goodness, no.” He went back to KOS-MOS more intently, not meeting Nia’s eyes.
“Then who exactly was she?” Nia wasn’t exactly being pushy, but she was curious. About what kind of friends the Doctor kept.
“Kind. And patient. And very, very intelligent. Single most intelligent human being in her time, really. Figured out how to build all sorts of things that’d stump people for millennia.” The Time Lord took a breath. “But, that was thousands of years ago.”
“…you really do live for thousands of years, do you?” Nia inquired politely. “No joking?”
“I thought we’d established that.”
“Well, yeah, but, I mean, it’s not like we had the proof,” Nia shook her head, looking aside. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll live that long.”
The Doctor paused, going quiet.
“Or if my human parts will go and just… take me down with them. Like Cole.”
“We could find out,” The Doctor hummed. “If you aren’t worried about spoilers. Take the TARDIS one-thousand years into the future, and track you down. You might even become a queen or a goddess or something.”
Nia snorted derisively. “Who on Alrest is gonna start worshipping me as their goddess?”
The Doctor let out a long, tired sigh. “You’d be surprised. If it’s not phenomenal cosmic power and knowledge that gets peoples’ attention, it’s the lack of ageing. One-thousand years standing watch over a little tribe of humans leaves an impression.”
Nia stared at him. “It sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Do a lot of people… treat you like that?”
“The primitive ones.” The Doctor took the component back from Nia. “Most everyone else just sees ‘that raving crazy person who isn’t dying.’” He turned back to KOS-MOS. “Mary- KOS-MOS… she and hers were the same. They could do things regular people couldn’t. And it got them into trouble, in the end.” He wiped his face, guilt pinching his eyes, before he took a breath, and went back to work.
Nia looked at the Doctor, at how he was almost on automatic even as he worked, and something gripped her heart. Very guilt-adjacent, even though there was literally nothing for her to be guilty over.
“I want to help.” Nia blurted out. “Repair her, I mean.” She elaborated, as the Doctor looked up, stunned. “I don’t know much about machines, but I want to help.”
The Doctor lingered for a moment, before giving a single nod. “Okay… Okay,” He nodded a bit more confidently a moment later. He pointed over at large machine over in the corner with his Sonic. “Start printing the flesh-sheathe and armour plating.”
Nia blinked cluelessly. “Flesh… sheathe?”
The Doctor looked up, and sighed.
Well, if Nia was willing to help, she had to be willing to learn.
Notes:
While the other two Beanstalks and Low Orbit Stations are named, thanks to the Siren Model Kit, as far as I’m aware, we don’t have names for the cities inside them (assuming they’re both like Rhadamanthus, and have cities as well). In keeping in-theme with Elysium, Knossos was chosen because of its connection to Minos – in Greek mythology, Minos was the King of Knossos (I would’ve chosen names more connected to the realm of the dead, like Elysium is, but naming a city in space after paradise is pretty par for the course, while I feel like naming the sister-cities after purgatory and hell is bad juju), plus, it sounds just a little bit like Gnosis – appropriate, considering Yuriev is apparently in charge of the place. Thalassa is the city attached to Aeacus – that name was picked because it’s the personification of and means ‘the sea.’ So, you have a city named after paradise (paradise being heaven, so ‘the heavens,’ ergo, space/the sky), one named after a place on earth (the land), and the third being named after the sea. Sky, land, sea. It… made sense to me at the time, I swear.
Bana’s a fascinating little guy – so much of 2 only really happens because of his involvement, not just the inciting incident at the beginning of the game. He’s got close dealings with Torna, Lindwurm, people like Consul Dughall, the whole situation during the peace summit…
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Gboxb321 on Chapter 3 Sat 18 Jan 2025 02:26AM UTC
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DustinAo3 on Chapter 3 Wed 11 Jun 2025 03:42PM UTC
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