A few words before I begin. Okay a lot of words but there's a process behind this. Part one is going to be a doctor who thing. Then if people don't look at me like i'm crazy there will be a seperate fic of the same timeline under Torchwood.
Okay, this fic is part of a massive anime/manga/scifi crossover that I've been working on for about 3 years privately. The series was a collaborative effort between myself and my online friends ZP and Lucas. Mainly we did it as RP's. So I'm sticking my neckout putting it up here. And I feel really, really bad that an already long fanfic needs a guide, but here it goes.
Gatekeepers is something along the lines of an anime/scifi Kingdom Hearts. When it was in its infancy I used 'little' universes, shows like Ben 10 or Avatar that were fun, but lacked intensity and drama and really mostly children watch. As it developed I decided to stick mainly to anime and sci fi, and haven't gone back to the 'kiddy' set since.
My pathetic attempts at a prologue/preface follows.
Ages and ages and ages ago, about the time of the last ice age, Earth wasn't just inhabited by humans, it was inhabited by Gods. These gods thrived, maintaining both the balence of peace and the balence of reality. And they were teaching and guiding humanity through its early development. The gods were unique. In a manner similar to the Timelords regenration they were constantly being reincarnated as babies when they died, but maintained all their memories of prior lives. A part of their soul called a power core made this possible.
Unfortunately one day, a long long time ago, the Gods and Goddesses began to die. Nobody was sure why, but the sickness caused their power core to degrade. If something wasn't done, then reality would collapse because its guardians were not present to maintain its balence. Something had to save the gods or the whole of creation would die.
It was a goddess of music, not some impressive and charismatic god of medicine or goddess of death. No, it was Benten of Japanese myth that discovered the solution. Death.
If there were no more Gods or Goddesses to pass on their genetic material, the powercores would simply enter the most compatible mortal host and become mortals. Humans. The race would die, but their power would not. But before an entire race committed harikiri steps had to be done. They needed a skeleton crew of gods and goddesses to monitor the transfer, and they needed people able to watch over the transfer once the last of the gods were gone.
Four races were created almost entirely from scratch, bioengineered for only one purpose, take over for the gods until the gatekeepers rose to power. Each given power over a single fucntion of creation. Death, space, mind and Time. Yes, the Timelords were one of these. Originally meant to be servents and slaves of the gods, the first Timelords were lead by Omega, and began to care for the new generation of peoples and monitor the transfer from god to gatekeeper.
But before Benten and her remaining crew began their transfer a problem arose, without certain gods and goddesses around, the fabric of reality would collapse faster than the transfer could be made. They realized their mistake after trying to transfer the Four Sacred Beasts. A dragon with control over water, a tiger with control over air, a phoenix with power over fire and a turtle with power over earth. These four made the laws of physics work, and the mistake nearly cost the lives of both Benten's skeleton crew and the members of the Four Races working with them, indeed the world.
The immediate reaction was to plant their power cores in a mortal immediately. No reincarnation in between. Each of the four races sacrificed one member to the Sacred Beasts, the Timelords sent Rassilon, one of their youngest and most promising minds, to sacrifice to Seiryuu, the dragon of wisdom with complete control over water. The relationship between beast spirit and timelord was a symbiotic one, and the Gatekeepers worked out a system for future "Celestial Dragons" as the hosts of these beasts came to be called. The spirits would change hosts every 100 years, with no preference shown for species. And each absorbed the knowledge and experiences of those who came before.
There is nothing more potent than a Timelord with an idea. And Rassilon was not content to be a servent of the gatekeepers forever. He made a bargain with Benten, if he could find a way to protect the Gods and Goddesses and the gatekeepers themselves, without the First Races around, the Timelords and the other three races would have their freedom. Decades and finally Shield Station arose, the first stationary base and the last line of defense against an enemy invasion. Clever as every legend told him to be, Rassilon set Shield Station in a Pocket Dimension, and scattered other pocket dimensions for the gods and goddesses to inhabit. A wormhole lead into the pocket dimension where shield station was located, and a second wormhole lead from the space station into the realm of the gods and goddesses. At random increments of time, the location of the entry wormhole would change at random to a new universe. But unpredictability was not the only defense. On shield station most forms of telepathy were dampened, the shields were heavily strengthened, the outer hull plated with the heaviest armor that could be found. Rather than excessively add weapons stations, the gods and goddesses themselves could attack or defend the station as they wished. And certain gatekeepers with a talent for telepathic control of machines could take control of the weapons systems and defend the station with a flick of the hand and a special harness. The ancient technician focusing more on endurance than offensive power, decided that wisely placed resources, endurance and unpredictability would set the tone of tactics used by subsequent generations of the burgeoning ranks of gatekeepers. Seiryuu absorbed all the knowledge he could from the most powerful of Timelords before he changed hands, the wealth of information making him ringleader and most powerful of the other four spirits.
Rassilon's work done, the Timelords withdrew to Galifrey and over subesquent generations of their species, knowledge of their former slavery to the gods was lost. As well, the humans and gatekeepers didn't need the Timelords directly interfering in their affairs.
Civilization began to develop as it should, all over the multiverse. Many earths, many worlds, many lives and generations passed until the year 2000. A team of four gatekeepers began to gather strength. Nicknamed the Suicide Squad for the difficulty of their missions and the burial of their former identities, Delphine Sterns, ZP, Feralae Wildeye, and Lucas Fullmoon gathered strength.
But their strength waned when Feralae disappeared and Delphine was named to the rank of Guardians who stood at the Gates of Time, never leaving, meant to guard the timestream wherever there was an opening. The timelords were preoccupied with the Dahleks, and none of them had guarded the Gateway for centuries. ZP had loved Feralae with all her heart, and with her koibito presumed dead, she fell into her laboratory to experiment and into great grief and depression. With his comrades gone, Lucas, being a kitsune spirit, faded away into the wilds of undiscovered lands.
Feralae's death had been faked, as she was chosen for the gatekeeper's highest office, one that required Feralae Wildeye to die, permanently. Pulling the strings from the shadows, she guided a new generation of gatekeepers as they entered basic training late in the year 2004. Katry was an Inu tai-yokai of a species known as Hellhounds. Kailai was a seventeen year old daughter of two gatekeepers, one Texan, one native to her home city of Atlanta, and who was almost too old to be considered for apprenticeship. Jazra was a puerto rican bombshell from New England with an aggression problem and a massive extended family.
Gwen Waverider was the fourth, a schoolfriend of Jazra's and a very sickly girl at the start, her left arm was so weak that she could barely lift a sword. The brace meant to stabilize her arm fed painkillers directly into her body and used a specially formulated anesthetic directly into the nerve. Both functions done by nanites.
But the brace was a very very frail thing, frought with programming errors and shoddy workmanship. And very much like Jazra, Gwen had issues with aggression. Delphine had gone MIA to try and escape her duties, and Gwen and her sensei were sent to find her. Her first battle, the person she was fighting had been approached by Delphine for help, and had mocked her and Gwen's concern in Delphine's welfare. Because of the mockery, Gwen flew into a rage and was hit with a lightning technique at point blank. Her hair was permanently singed black, her eyes faded from vivid green to pale jade with the pupils almost invisible. Her brace was fused to her arm, and her nervous system.
Creative by nature, Gwen discovered something interesting, the newly fused brace could control, break, or scan computer systems, just by thinking what she wanted it to do. The ability was limited, but deserved more training. And her powers were growing, indeed they skyrocketed when she became the new Host for Seiryuu.
Several months later and more confident in her abilities, Gwen picked a fight with a bigger cybernetic fish. The nanites in the brace were corrupted, crystalizing her arm into living metal. She should have, and would have died then if ZP had not been called, along with Major Motoko Kusanagi of Section 9, to fix the problem. Her left arm was fully cybernetic, and ZP was placed in charge of her training. Major Kusanagi accidentally uncovered an interesting piece of information. Gwen's father Takato had been one of the first members of section 9, and adopted son of Daisuke Aramaki, its leader. Now deceased, Gwen wanted desperately to trace her lineage.
Over the next couple of years, Gwen pursued the missing Delphine and underwent basic training with her fellow Celestial Dragons, Jazra to Byakko the jade tiger, Katry to Suzaku the black phoenix, and Kailai to Genbu the stone turtle. Her control over computers was effortless, childsplay, instinct. She controlled water as naturally as she breathed, able to slay an opponent by the snap of a finger and exploding their bodies from the inside. Her spiritual energy skyrocketed and her control over it became effortless.
Delphine returned, just in time to help with the creation of a new Gatekeeper Base located in the Grand Canyon. The Earth of the dimension they were in repeatedly experienced incidents of both the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. A few extra phenomena would not be noticed. But Gwen got her heart broken. She'd fallen in love with Delphine. Seiryuu was a passionate creature to have in your soul, and as Celestial Dragons typically do, he created a telepathic bond between Gwen and Delphine. Further, celestial dragons could breed with anything, even normally incompatible species, even the same gender, hellfire, the person's body didn't even have to be organic as long as their original spiritual pressure was intact. Gwen concieved a child with Delphine on the same eve that Delphine was sent on a mission, the artifact she was sent to retrieve caused a split. There was an evil Delphine, named Dexelphine or Dex looked identical to Del. Delphine was reduced to a sickly and underfed child, and would die in a few years if she was not reunited with her darkside.
Unaware of the change, Gwen was unable to tell the difference between Del and Dex. Dex posed as Delphine, and at just the right moment she raped Gwen. The attack was violent, and resulted in Gwen losing the baby. Even after they were reunited, Delphine was unable to look Gwen in the eye. She had absorbed the memory of what Dex did along with the rest of her darkside. It was the end of any hope the two might have had of a relationship. Gwen covered her scars in tattoos to try and protect herself and Delphine from the pain.
And Gwen was about to meet destiny. At long last she was allowed to meet her grandfather, Daisuke Aramaki, and fight alongside Section 9 just the way her father had. But something went wrong, and an evil AI locked away by Aramaki ages before broke free of its seal inside the Net. Known as the Shadow Hacker, it planned to spread a computer virus through the minds of all the technopaths serving the gatekeepers. If this happened, the art of technopathy would become extinct. True technopaths were rare, a delicate and valuable comodity for an organization accustomed to swords, magic and other relics of a bygone era. In the struggle Gwen activated a long dormant Gatekeeper ability that allowed her to change to a species that she'd been in a former reincarnation. There were many that could have been pulled from the depths of death, including the Crusnik of Trinity Vatican, the Timelords of legend, and other species long extinct, but it was the power of shinigami that she drew. She had become a Shiketsu, a pureblood shinigami of the species known and made famous in the anime Bleach.
She grabbed the attention of commander general Yamamoto Genryuusai, and when her talent became clear he began to plan for how to bring Gwen into the ranks of the Gotei 13 captains. Gwen's search for her father's origins lead her to Aizen, and the horrible experiment that Aizen was running turned the souls of deceased children into Arrancar. The shinigami were outraged, and the Gatekeeper's reaction was swift. Aizen was one of their numbers and experimenting on children incurred violent consequences.
Aizen was "world shackled," restrained. He lost the ability to travel between worlds and in the three day siege that followed soon after most of his empire crumbled. Yamamoto set a trap for Gwen. Sending 200 members each of the 3rd, 9th and 5th divisions into the battle, he hoped to procure a new captain by rite of blood, an honor taken only by 11th captain Kenpachi Zaraki. The Celestial dragon did far better than Yamamoto had hoped, slaying 9th Espada Aeroneiro Arleri, fighting 6th Espada Grimmjow Jaegerjaques to a draw and finally entering into battle with Kaneme Tousen, former captain of the 9th division. Gwen was the reincarnation of Tousen's older sister, who had willed Suzumushi to him upon her death. Because of this, she was able to break Tousen's bankai. A victim of her own strength, Gwen mortally wounded Tousen. It took two weeks for the former captain to die, during which time Yamamoto temporarily reinstated his rank, giving the dying captain voting power as to a successor. Gwen was named 9th division captain in waiting, without her knowledge, but could only become a captain when she died and became a full fledged shinigami.
And Gwen fell in love again, marrying both ZP and Motoko and telepathically bonding with them both. She soon had a daughter and a son. Her wish for a family was granted, and her attachment to ZP and Major became deep.
At the same time, signs of a traitor among the gatekeepers began to rise. The evidence piled up but with no one to interpret it. Benten desperately wanted Ryuuzaki, the greatest detective ever to live and made famous by the anime Deathnote to join their side. But with Kira on the rampage, and out for Ryuuzaki's blood, the gatekeepers would have to fake Ryuuzaki's death in order to save him. Removing L, Watari and Rem was Gwen's job, and she was given the rank of 13th division lieutenant, a rank she held for the remainder of her mortal life. Complicating the proceedure, Light and Misa both, Arrancar and Espada of centuries future, were thrown back in time. Arrancar Light wanted nothing more than to undo what he'd done and live a happy life with Ryuuzaki. But the damage he had done as Kira was so severe that the "Kira Years" had become a fixed event in time. He could do nothing.
A wise timelord would tell you that there's a difference between historical destiny and personal destiny. Arrancar Light took his personal destiny in hand, and as one of that rare 3 percent of male arrancar who could bear children, he purposefully got pregnant from Ryuuzaki and then relocated to Konohagakure and Tsunade's medical care and political asylum. It was there that his and Ryuuzaki's descendants eventually became a ninja clan of their own. And when Gwen saved and returned Ryuuzaki to his beloved Light Yagami, she became aware of a problem of her own.
ZP was ailing. Several times in her life she had become dangerously ill and after a near fatal wound sustained in a civil war on her world, ZP was both blind, lame and worse, declining in health. Major's missions were getting more and more dangerous. As a young woman pregnant with her first child, newly minted over a year ago as a shinigami, forced into confinement as her preganncy neared its end, she had dreamed of everything she was and would be, from birth to death. No human can handle that kind of burden, and most shinigami cannot either. As it was the events forseen had been reduced to symbols, flashes of light and sound, voice and a headlong plunge through her Zanpakuto's inner world. The doctor would later refer to the vision as a curse passed through the generations of Celestial dragons from Seiryuu's time bonded to Rassilon, indeed divining spells always came easily to the shinigami. In that same dream she had dreamed of her loss of ZP and Major.
The enemy, Ivan, showed his face and war broke out. Gwen had many children with ZP and Major, looked after by her father's spirit, the lost bloodrelative now also a shinigami. Aizen's empire fell and shortly after ZP was forced to sacrifice herself for her people. Major was slain in the line of duty leaving Gwen both depressed and suicidal. These were not a good combination, especially when combined with Gwen's hairtrigger temper. Ivan, the enemy and traitor, was captured and executed. His bases were in ruins, his followers scattered. Gwen had little else to live for now, her job was done, she could fall into the monotony of peace time and grow old and die. Her sense of duty did not permit her to commit suicide, and she was terrified of taking her destined place among the shinigami captains.
One last evil of Aizen's reign returned, previously incapacitated and in a coma for years, Szayel awoke to discover Aizen's empire gone. Instead he sought to ressurect the dead shinigami to rise again. He was certain that Ivan's ruined facilities held the answer. When word reached Gwen of Szayel's attempts to return Aizan to life, she chased him down with a serious case of what Policemen refer to as 'tunnel vision.' While she slew Szayel, Gwen sacrificed her life to do so. Her dead spirit returned to Soul Society and disappeared.
An abridged and heavily edited version of Gwen's adventures, minus the gatekeeper parts, had made its way into the archives of the Timelords vast store of knowledge. And 500 years later Gwen was bored and grieved. She returned to her birth name of Sakura, embraced her role of captain of the gotei 13, and out of despair she had been the cause of so much change in the Soul Society that she and her descendants had risen to the status of nobility. her friends had all passed into the soul society with her, and were restless in their retirement.
Delphine was immortal, and growing bored at her vigil over the Gates of Time. There was only one gate guardian left besides her, and they both had loved ones in the mortal realm waiting for them. Sakura's loyalty to Delphine had remained unwavering since her childhood, and so one night Delphine used her gift of foresight to tell Sakura a secret. "You are in no way obligated to take a task normally handled by your subordinates, but if you take the evening patrol you will discover somebody very important. Bring him to your compound as a guest of your clan."
The world Sakura had grown up in was the same as ours, with the ordinary television series about the Doctor and his companions, about Torchwood and their charismatic leader Jack Harkness. The sound of the Tardis' appearance took her a few minutes to recognize, as it came back cutting through centuries and centuries of irritation and despair and misery. The excited reception of the Doctor in Soul Society raised a great stir, and Sakura carefully blessed and sealed a space in the family shrine for Doctor to park the Tardis in.
For the next several days Doctor followed Sakura around her duties as a shinigami captain. Then Delphine requested his assistance, and would the Doctor take turns guarding the timestream with herself and her relief guard, Setsuna. Just as Sakura had so many years ago Doctor valued his freedom. Why should he stand guard over the flow of time for all eternity? He had worlds to see, companions to travel with, even recovering his grief over losing Donna he refused to give up his freedom.
Sakura made a proposal, "How are your companions doing these days Doctor? I heard Rose was getting restless over being trapped. Martha has become a soldier and siezed her own destiny. Jack is glued to his team, but they're /torchwood/ for crying out loud! Sarah Jane is getting old. And Donna, well, how's she doing? I'll make a bargain with you Doctor. If you will help Delphine, then I will travel with you for a year. I am not so easily trapped, coerced, or injured, and I am 400 years younger than you. Age is no difficulty. I am very strong, after my year is up I will be proud and honored to become bodyguard to you and your beloved companions. What do you say Doctor? I'm getting /bored/ in retirement."
Doctor accepted Sakura's proposal, though for what reasons the shinigami was never sure, and began to familiarize himself with the Soul Society and its inhabitants. It was, maybe 48 hours later that the shuttle crashed through the dimensional barrier, leaving Jenny with a broken spaceship, concussion and several broken bones, the mark of the God of Time, Chronos, meant that she was the new gatekeeper savant, the proxy for the greek god of time in the mortal realm. It was an important duty, and an honorable position.
Jenny was taken immediately to the 4th division for emergency treatment, and Sakura celebrated the reunion between Timelords. But one more duty remained for the day. New graduates from the shinigami academy were now deciding what division to enter. Among them the restless souls of one Rose Tyler and one Martha Jones.
The tradition was for shinigami captains and their lieutenants to give a speech and a display of their abilities. Sakura had taken Ichigo Kurosaki as her lieutenant, and between them a fireworks display wowed the crowd. Normally a speech about honor and duty and hard work would have sufficed. But the Doctor planted a spark in her that day and something Sakura said caught the attention of one blonde ex companion in the crowd, her speech being about the will to defend, and the love of home, of world and of loved ones that becomes the true strength of a shinigami in battle.
Then too, the Doctor was watching from the edge of the stage, /almost/ hidden. Not enough for Rose though! When the display concluded the former companion tried desperately to reach Doctor. But crowds have a funny way of seperating people. But her mind was made up, Rose choose the 9th division as hers.
The next day they were planning a welcome party for the new members of 9th division. Ichigo and Karin were finished preparing the courtyard for the bash. Sakura was running late, she'd stayed up most of the night drinking with Kyouraku and Doctor and did not have the same alcohol tolerance as the older captain or timelord, who were much much older than her. And then Grimmjow had come to visit and they'd had such a lovely time back in the shinigami captain's suite, and the combination of alcohol and sex ensured that the 9th Captain was late! Late! She was hosting the party for crying out loud!
But one more figment from Doctor's past had a bone to pick. Sakura had a standing tradition that if a new graduate could beat her in a shikai only sparring match, they could have one thing that was in Sakura's power to give. Martha intended on making use of that tradition. Hungover and still hyped up on hormones from an all nighter with Grimmjow Sakura was mortified, amused and excited when the former Companion named her prize, a kiss from the legendary 9th Captain Sakura Ryuunami.
Due to the hangover the former companion not only won, but turned a kiss into a makeout session in broad daylight before tailing Sakura (who by now was only thinking of her escape,) to the party. Doctor, Rose and Martha were reunited. Martha was in the 4th division, named to the 5th position. Sakura decided that a companion in her division had already proven her strength and was proud to name Rose her 4th seat.
that takes me about to the start of the fic. Please, please, please do not crucify me for crossing so many shows with the awesomeness of Doctor Who. ;.; I can't help it, my imagination is way, way way, too overactive! And i have to give credit for ZP and Delphine to Delphine. Lucas doesn't appear in this fic, but he helped with creating gatekeepers as well. (bows) Please do not crucify. XD after this is the fic.