Chapter One
Players in War

Not a day goes by without the constant humming of engines echoing throughout the entire Earth; energy pulsing through metallic veins that ran through the deepest of underwater trenches and the roughest terrains. Electricity running from every corner of the planet, fuelled by the Earth itself, generating energy towards one single point in the middle of the ocean, stretching out into space in the form of the International Space Bridge, a system built in the last waning years of the Orbital War between the United States and Oriental Trade Organization controlled Russia, China and North Korea for the sole purpose to wage war above the clouds. A commissioned structure by the United States' president, it was created with the funding by over thirty New Allied countries to combat the OTO. In the end, the United States won, demolishing the Oriental Trade Organization quickly with the use of the International Space Bridge.

Yet the victory was short lived. The president soon turned the Allied countries against each other. War broke out as soon as the last one had ended. Country after country marched onto war against each other, with the United States' core value of manifest destiny driving them towards domination of the western world and beyond. Using the Space Bridge, the United States took to orbit and started amassing a global arsenal of weapons; machines that were capable of wiping out entire cities. Countless lives were taken as the wars raged on. And it soon came to pass that Armageddon had truly fallen upon the world. In 2017, humanity had gone over the edge.

Afghanistan. Or what was left of it. Craters and bits of ripped and burnt metal littered the landscape. The cracked earth lay parched underneath smog clouded sun. The ruins of a city lay across a sand covered road. The desert was starting to take over the land once more. The Sahara to the west of the country and the Gobi to the north were growing, their golden tendrils reaching into what was once lush greenery and civilization. Within the ruins of that dusty city, war still raged on.

The Royal Army of Britain was deployed here in hopes of gaining a strategic area in the war. Of course the country did not go down without a fight. The Taliban still posed a threat towards anyone who dared invade their home, and the United States also had troops stationed there. The French Army and the revived German Reich also sought the country as they already claimed the resource rich countries that surrounded Afghanistan and proceeded to squeeze out the other invaders and take the land for their own. Of course, this city was the prize in the war within this area. Underneath a specific building lay an important energy line connecting to the United States' Space Bridge. If any of the United States' adversaries cut into the line, they would immediately gain an upper hand. Of course that was just about impossible. Along the lines were automated defence systems, programmed to target anything and anyone that strayed too close in their vicinity, even those in the US Army. And to add, even high above, the Space Bridge itself defends its power lines with orbiting mechanized satellites. An overkill defence system for a country driven to the ground by power.

Nearby, shots were being fired. Round after round being flung through silent air. The raggedy hum of tank engines being moved rang through dusty skies. Buildings were torn down as soon as soldiers gathered within to take refuge. Of course there were fights within as well.

Sergeant John Lance Everett of the Royal Army ducked a bladed punch as his opponent stumbled in the dark. He was under the ground within a cellar, what little sun wafting in through floorboards like dusty beams from heaven every time a shell struck the ground. The ragged British man smirked as his adversary came in to strike another punch, only to miss and hit solid concrete. To the man's surprise, the punch itself dented the wall. He looked at the other man in amazement. Colonel Damien Höllenfeuer of the Reich Afghani-Panzerinfanterie only looked back with a cold, shining blue eye, his left being covered by a metallic eyepiece. He held a bowie knife tightly in his hand as he launched himself headfirst into the Sergeant, knocking the two down off of a pile of rubble.

The Colonel opens his eyes as the dust settled, taking in his new surroundings. The cellar was in fact an old boiler room for some long forgotten factory. He smirks to himself as he finds the man whom he was fighting knocked unconscious to the ground underneath him. Damien bites his lip, wondering what to do. He had lost his knife somewhere in the fall. His shining blue eyes gazed over his knocked out opponent, looking at the details in his worn out camouflage uniform then to his young face. He runs a leather gloved hand through his blonde locks, fixing them then moving over to inspect the other man closer. He looks over and sees the man's tags and finds that they are of the same young age. He rolls his eyes. Taking John's face, Damien looks at him at a better angle. The man had a small amount of stubble and a rather teenage looking haircut and face, one that had not seen the true horrors of war.

"It is a shame, really," Damien whispers to the unconscious body of John, his mouth close to the others' ear. "I don't want to kill you. You're an awfully great man, my equal, perhaps. Plus, I like a man who can fight. You would have made a fine soldier under my ranks. Too bad you work for the bastards across the strait."

The German Colonel laughs giddily, and draws a knife he had found upon John's uniform. He slowly brings it up towards the man's throat and smirks.

"I'm terribly sorry you couldn't have any last words."

Bang.

Damien's eyes water, blood starting to trickle down his parted lips. He drops the knife, John pushing him off, the latter groaning heavily as he feels blood gushing from underneath his uniform. He rolls onto his back with a thud, the British man now groggily getting up. He chuckles.

"Here's a few," he mutters, pointing a pistol directly at the neo-Nazi's forehead. "God save the Queen."

John dusts himself off as he exited the torn down factory; the deep yellow of the sun overhead casting a shadow underneath him. He wipes a speck of blood from his cheek and grunts, hitching up what was left of his equipment and running off into another part of the desolated city. He was once a common man, recruited by force by the Queen herself to defend her country and to take what was left of the great wars beforehand. He sighs to himself as he ducked into a corner and his pocket rings. It was a message from home base. He quickly puts on an earpiece and talks quietly.

"Beta Seven, do you copy?" the electronic voice murmurs into the man's ear.

"Loud and clear," John nonchalantly says, peeking from behind a wall and spotting a French tank being blown into oblivion by US gunners. "Kinda in a tough spot right now."

"We have your location. You are only three miles away from the centre of the city. That's where the power line is."

"Then what do I do?" John grits his teeth as German troops soon get into the fray in front of him. "I have at least thirty men and two tanks in front of me, maybe more behind and to my sides."

"Hang on, we have a map of an underground network of sewers; probably dried up by now. We're sending you a map now. They lead all the way underneath the power line and I think there's an entrance near you…You're going to need to go back where you came, Beta Seven."

"Understood; hopefully the Krauts haven't found their leader yet. Over and out."

"Wait. Do you need any other troops to aid in your mission, Beta Seven? You're basically the only one left in your platoon."

John thinks about this proposition. He thinks about the inexperienced soldiers that he would have to bring into battle, only to be killed. The amount of blood upon his hands would be too much if he were to accept. He had already lost so many people because of his name and because of the decisions that he had made.

"No."

"Understood. Good luck, Beta Seven. Over and out."

The Sergeant takes off his earpiece and puts it back in his chest pocket and sighs as he starts to retrace his steps. Ducking behind the remains of an old jeep, he continues to watch the fray all around him: bullets whizzing in the distance, the roar of tanks and fire exploding and overhead the sound of a helicopter preparing its Gatling gun. John quickly runs towards the building he just came from as the machine chases after him. He looks back at its markings. The United States. He rolls his eyes and runs faster, taking the time to reach into a pocket and pull out a grenade. He activates it and throws it high above him, the entrance to the forgotten factory drawing nearer and nearer. He screams as the grenade explodes and he jumps right into the darkness of the building. But not before catching something in his eye.

A pale figure standing in the doorway with no movement whatsoever.

As soon as the fire and shrapnel stopped behind him, John weakly gets up, his eyes stinging from the dirt and dust. He groans and clenches his fists, pulling out a pistol to defend himself. But against what? He gets up and points his pistol around nervously, as if he had forgotten why he did so in the first place. He grumbles at the thought as he keeps it on his side, moving down towards the boiler room at the bottom of the pile of rubble he had fallen down once before. Upon reaching ground zero he inspects it, finding a gruesome sight.

Colonel Damien Höllenfeuer was torn apart. Literally. His entrails lined the corners of the room, stomach and intestines wrapped around his neck and hung from a hook at the top of a bar. The macabre scene also was rotten, the metallic stench of blood now everywhere. Flies, being the opportunists that they are, already congregated upon the dead man's body. John puked at the sight. Who would have done this? Who could have done this?

"Taliban?" John murmured to himself as he cleaned off his face, his feet shuffling to avoid blood.

Yet the soldier notices another intriguing aspect of the scene. Upon the walls behind the dead soldier, words were etched upon concrete with his blood; words in English, effectively ruling out the extremists.

"We shall never fall," John mutters to himself, his eyes scanning the wall.

He quickly turns around, the hair upon his neck standing up. A chill runs down his spine. A soft hissing sound echoes through the dimly sunlit room, accompanied by the monotonous dripping of blood and other liquids. Turning, the soldier only stares into a dark corner of the room, completely hidden and shadowed. He raises an eyebrow, swiftly turning as he hears yet another hiss echoes through the room, though this time it is much closer. He furrows his brow and grits his teeth, firing a warning shot into nothingness. After a pause, he scoffs and turns once more, opening a GPS device. The screen showed various lines and points, one shining red dot representing himself of course, and a deep blue polyline leading out of the screen showing the way to the man's destination. Simple and easy.

He moves towards a dead boiler, the red dot moving along with him as he tries to align it with the deep blue line. He succeeds, coming face to face with the oversized boiler itself. Investigating it, the soldier finds a bolted hatch leading deep into the ground. He shoots away the cheap lock securing it, opens it, and finds a ladder leading all the way into darkness; a darkness that may as well conceal anything. Enemy soldiers. Weapons of destruction. Of course the man had seen almost anything in this blasted war for nothing. He looks down into the darkness, peering into what was an empty void, then at his glowing GPS. Then at the US soldiers at the top of the pile of rubble behind him. They shoot at the Sergeant, hitting the boiler and the concrete walls in front and beside him until the man himself disappears down the hole, closing the hatch to the outside world.

"He went down this way!" a soldier shouts, footsteps coming dangerously closer to the hatch.

Light pours into the narrow tube. Gunshots litter the space. A soldier screams.

"Fuck he's not here!" the same man curses.

"Whatever, man. He's just a sicko who got away. I mean just look at what he's done here. Hanging this kid by his own guts? Absolutely disgusting."

The hatch closes and down below, John hides behind a worn down pillar. Or something of the sort. Everything was pitch black within the abandoned sewers, save for the soldier's GPS and a headlight. Nothing of course remained of the stench and the water except dust and small bits of debris that coated the stone ground and brick walls that had various wires and cables running along its length. Even deep below the earth in this dark abyss the sounds of war above are still heard. Tanks shooting and exploding and the screams of bullets as they whizz through the air drill deep into John's head. Even the screaming. The torturous screaming of soldiers as they are hurt or wounded. The blood everywhere. The blood on his hands. The blood on everyone's hands. The dripping agony of it all haunted the young soldier and if it weren't for the one goal of keeping his own land back home safe, he would have gone mad. But even then, he wished deep in his conscience that things would be silent. The sound of it all echoed down in these cavernous depths and to John, it was hell. He showed himself a ledge on which he could sit upon, on the verge of tears.

"Silence…is it what you seek?" a deep, hissing voice echoes in the darkness.

John quickly puts up his gun, pointing it outwards into darkness, save for the little spotlight which is created by his headlight. He starts to look around nervously, then at his GPS. He still had three miles to go.

"Is it calling to you?"

He turns once more, his breathing becoming faster, his body sweating profusely. He screams, firing shots into the dark.

"Is it drawing you closer?"

He shoots more rounds into the darkness, now running away from the source of the voice.

"Does it give you hope?"

Turning a right, the soldier fights the voice, his inner emotions starting to break down. It was playing with him.

"Let it give you hope. Let it draw you in. Join it. Join us."

He shoots right in front of him, to be rewarded by an ear piercing shriek. Its unearthly screech drilled all the way into John's brain. It was all too much. He illuminates the object that he just shot to be greeted by a horrible sight. Its deep set eyes stared directly back at John, searing themselves into his mind. It screams, its unseen mouth bearing right at the soldier along with elongated, bony fingers. Fingers covered in blood. John looked at the creature closely. Its mouth, or where it's supposed to be, was also covered in blood. It had ragged clothing, torn in some places though you can clearly make out that it still was a pinstripe suit. The thing grimaced as John shone more light upon it, snarling like feral animal.

"We offered you hope," the creature growled. "We offered you sanctuary from this war."

"What the hell are you?!" John screamed.

"We gave you life, John Lance Everett."

"How do you know me?!"

"We guided you. We nurtured you. As we did so with others."

"What are you?! How?! WHAT?!"

"We control you. We feed on you."

The creature raises its left arm, John's own suddenly doing the exact same thing. He screams as if his own bones have been broken. He drops his gun, screaming out in agony. Tears rolled down his eyes as the creature angrily screeched.

"And we need you to end this war to benefit both our species. It is only reason. You shall continue to fight for us, to lead this world back out of the Apocalypse and into peace…"

"GAH! W-W…What are you?!"

"The very thing that you seek. Silence."

It drops John from its control and grasps him with elongated fingers. The young soldier starts to choke as the creature's grip tightens. It hisses, its cold touch burning the young man's skin.

"End this war, if you seek what is rightfully yours. It is what you were made to do. Quicken your pace, human. The others are coming."

Throwing the man into the darkness, the creature screeches once more. John,, although shaken, quickly stands and aims his weapon into the darkness, only to forget why he had done so in the first place. He puts a hand upon his neck, finding bruises and minor electrical burns. He flinches as he touches the new wounds, wondering why they had appeared there. He sighs to himself as another shell from up above is fired. He sighs to himself as he journeys on into the darkness, hissing and growling in his wake, his GPS being his only guide.

Upon the surface and hundreds of miles away from the desolated city, the city of New York stands eerily quiet in the night. No people walked its streets. The city that never sleeps was forever asleep. They all lay dead where they once stood. A gas bomb had gone off within the Empire State Building, its invisible tendrils taking life after life until the entire city had been wiped clean of any moving organic being. Of course, the United States government ordered an immediate investigation, but their strategies and movements proved useless. The city itself was under new management.

From the banks of the Hudson River, it arose from the toxic waters. Its bulky, pristine white armour glistened in the shining street lights, an unblinking eye staring at the poisoned sky that now enveloped New York. Internal mechanisms gently levitated its body above the water and into the skies, moving itself across the cityscape in a matter of minutes until it finally reaches ground zero: the Empire State Building. Noxious gas still pours out from its base, chemicals rising up into the atmosphere. It looks upon what it had done as more of its kid, inferior to its rank, starts to descend from the heavens above.

"Look now at what our predecessors have created!" it booms, its mighty voice echoing through empty concrete canyons. "Witness as this land now belongs to us! Victory to the Daleks!"

Soon the screeches of thousands of Daleks fill the city. From the dark, clouded, rainy sky, the rays of light that what can only be a Dalek Command Ship strikes the city. The massive bronze craft parts the clouds as it moves onto the city, blocking its view of the rest of the universe. More and more Daleks fly out of the craft in formation. One hundred Daleks under the leadership of one Strategist and twenty Elite Drones circle the air as they slowly descend upon the dark city, all being led by the Supreme upon its high throne. It gazed upon what its race had done as behind it, a Strategist accompanied by the Scientist and Eternal Daleks hover cautiously.

"How was this possible?" the Dalek Scientist croaked, watching as the Daleks commenced in destroying the city. "Xenohydroxic acid storage units have been depleted during our last encounter with the Karou Empire…"

"It was in part of the weaponry stowed away underneath the human monument designated as the Empire State Building!" the Strategist replied. "The Cult of Skaro never intended to use such devices upon the humans!"

Off in the distance, however, the roar of thunder boomed in the atmosphere. The three subordinates turned their domes, examining its cause. Three other roars. The Supreme itself stayed stoic as the Scientist started to investigate, staring deep into the night as polluted rain started to drip down from the poisoned clouds. Its inner processors and instruments tingled, minute mechanisms moving into place as it started to comprehend the noise.

"Scans detect artificial sonic devices!" the Scientist screeched. "This city is under attack by humans!"

The Supreme finally turns its head towards the distance, scanning the dark horizon itself, picking up the signals of three aircraft, striker jets moving towards its new city. Its organic eye narrows, the other three now looking up towards it, waiting for orders.

"Dalek Strategists," the Supreme booms, turning towards its blue subordinate. "You will guide your forces towards the inner perimeter of this city. From there you shall defend and attack at will. Focus your weapons towards the eastern seaboard."

"Explain!" the Strategist chimes.

"I know what the human brain is thinking…they plan to launch nuclear missiles from multiple offshore points. Their attacks shall be coordinated with the coming of this strike. Now prepare!"

"We obey!"

The Daleks move towards their positions as fast as possible by the Supreme's command. It oversaw its race's actions as it had done so many times before ever since its birth years ago. Even then it had seen many great wars and many losses of life. It was deemed fit, of course. To further the Dalek race, every genetically inferior creature must be destroyed. Exterminated. To many it would be a horrendous concept but to the Daleks, it is the way of life.

The Supreme hovered slowly as the Daleks finally settled into place, the Eternal and Scientist at its side. It looked at the horizon once more, sensing the thermal signals coming off of the three fighter jets. It turns, moving towards the Atlantic Ocean, scanning the waters and immediately finding three nuclear submarines and four battleships. It scans every single one of the weapons the humans have pitted against it and turns once more towards its troops.

"Subwave network established…" the Eternal Dalek screeches.

"Commence failure of all non-Dalek machinery." The Supreme booms, turning and slowly leading its subordinates back upon its massive ship. "The human race shall taste the true law of the Daleks."

The Royal reception within Buckingham Palace. Even amidst the catastrophes of war, the upperclassmen and women of Britain still take time to enjoy life. Of course for safety's sake they were underground within bunkers. They laughed and smiled as outside, helicopters and tanks patrolled the air and streets, keeping the residents safe from any, if any, bomb threats and such. They all had no worry in the world, even if the world was burning in flames. They all thought it was safe deep underground within the bunkers with their drinks and music.

Then the lights turned off.

A scream.

Then on.

The guests within the lavishly decorated bunker looked around, their skins clammy and sweaty. They were mortified as to what had happened. And then they screamed all together as upon a throne sat a still living but ever so scared woman, her neck and head being in the grasp of something not even the people in the bunker can stop.

Ode to Joy played in the background softly at first as the Cyberman's cold grip upon the girl's neck drew tighter. Its shining blue core slowly closed as it turned, its emotionless face staring right at the girl. The music starts to grow louder. And louder. Until the chorus starts to sing and the creature snaps the girl's neck. The crowds scream as it arises from its throne, moving towards the crowds with metallic steps. Cybermats now scavenged the organic parts of the girl, starting to convert her, even in death. The Cyberman stops, striking a running pose before disappearing from view and reappearing in the same direction as the crowd was running towards. They scream as other metallic men burst through the walls of the Bunker, revealing it to be an old abandoned tomb for the Cyberiad. The alien creatures look at the men and women with unblinking eyes, their numbers growing shortly as they encircled the crowd. Inner mechanisms within their mechanical brains scanned the old, decrepit beings in front of them, even as one tried to retaliate with a concealed knife, only for it to be slashed across his torso and jabbed into his throat.

"You are all deemed incompatible for the upgrading process…" one of the Cybermen croaks, opening its shining blue inner core. "Upgrade is not necessary. Prepare for termination."

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Okay this time I'm actually going to try and finish a multi-chapter Doctor Who story! Haha! Please read and review! Cheers!